Barclays' defiance of US fines has merit Barclays disgraced itself in many ways during the pre-financial crisis boom years. So it is tempting to think the bank, when asked by US Department of Justice to pay a large bill for polluting the financial system with mortgage junk between 2005 and 2007, should cough up, apologise and learn some humility. That is not the view of the chief executive, Jes Staley. Barclays thinks the DoJ’s claims are “disconnected from the facts” and that it has “an obligation to our shareholders, customers, clients and employees to defend ourselves against unreasonable allegations and demands.” The stance is possibly foolhardy, since going into open legal battle with the most powerful US prosecutor is risky, especially if you end up losing. But actually, some grudging respect for Staley and Barclays is in order. The US system for dishing out fines to errant banks for their mortgage sins has come to resemble a casino. The approach prefers settlements behind closed doors and the difference in size of penalties is never explained. Occasional leaks of the negotiating demands make the methodology appear even more arbitrary. Deutsche Bank was initially asked for $14bn (£11.5bn), but reached a settlement of $7.2bn on Thursday. Where is the rhyme or reason? There is also a strong suspicion that the roulette wheel is weighted against the Europeans. US banks, in the forms of JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America and Citi, were at the front of the queue for settlement for no obvious reason. If Barclays created and distributed far fewer toxic mortgage securities than its US rivals, which is what the bank argues, why shouldn’t its fine be proportionately smaller? Neither Barclays nor the DoJ is talking hard numbers. But Barclays, it is said, was asked for $4bn, versus its own analysis that a fair sum would be $1bn and $2bn could have been swallowed for the sake of certainty. When the gap is so wide, Barclays is entitled to take its chances in court – and yes, it probably has an obligation to do so. A board can’t let $2bn slip out of the door just for the sake of a quiet life. The case will be messy, inevitably. Barclays’ practices were “plainly irresponsible and dishonest,” according to Loretta Lynch, the US attorney general. There is also a cache of ugly emails and documents. The DoJ lawsuit says Barclays employees called one parcel of securitised loans “craptacular”. Another was said to “look like shit”. However, that is almost par for the course in these cases. The central question is the right size of penalty. If Barclays thinks it has been singled out for unduly harsh treatment, the bank should try to prove its case. Staley will look like a fool if he fails, but the willingness to reject the easy option of settling is entirely legitimate.
How big is Hillary Clinton's lead in the presidential race? It depends on the poll Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton now has an 11-percentage-point lead over her Republican opponent Donald Trump, according to a poll released by PRRI and the Atlantic on Tuesday. If that weren’t already reason enough for Trump supporters to worry, a poll from NBC and the Wall Street Journal released on Monday put Clinton’s lead at 14 percentage points. But why the difference in numbers? If you want to follow polls in the 28 remaining days before the US votes, I strongly recommend you ignore the date that the poll was published – and focus instead on the dates that the poll was conducted. That PRRI/Atlantic poll was based on landline and cellphone interviews that took place on 5-9 October while the data for the NBC/WSJ poll was gathered on 8-9 October. Those dates are potentially significant given that on 8 October, a 2005 recording was released of Trump saying that, thanks to his fame, he was able to grab women “by the pussy”. It’s highly likely that a larger proportion of respondents were interviewed after the Trump recording was made public in the NBC/WSJ poll compared with the PRRI/Atlantic poll. That could mean a 14-percentage-point lead is a more accurate indication of Clinton’s current position in the race. But the crucial question is whether Clinton’s lead is temporary or permanent. We’ll need to keep an eye on numbers in the days ahead to understand that. In the meantime, though, it’s worth looking beyond the horserace numbers that appear at the top of the survey and digging a little further. In the PRRI/Atlantic poll, I was curious about a question that provided the statement: “These days society seems to punish men just for acting like men” – 36% of respondents agreed. Another 41% agreed with the statement: “Society as a whole has become too soft and feminine.” Those attitudes could provide useful information for understanding why voters might support their respective candidates.
Zika’s greatest ally is human intransigence The revenge of the viruses marches on. After bird flu and Ebola comes Zika, and the possibility of widespread child deformity in mosquito-infested parts of the globe. The impact of the disease is as yet unpredictable, but its spread is so far fierce and unstoppable, and the disease is incurable. While a precise causal link between Zika and small-brain deformity in babies is unproven, the precautionary principle clearly applies. Standing across the path of action are two massive and conservative bureaucracies, the World Health Organisation and the Roman Catholic church. The WHO, caught napping on Ebola, is trying desperately not to repeat the fiasco. But its message is the plodding one, that women should don insect repellent and not get pregnant. With over half of Latin American pregnancies unintended and mosquitoes endemic, it is like holding back a tsunami with a spoon. The Catholic church is equally unhelpful. It discourages birth control, opposes state contraception programmes and bans abortion. In El Salvador an infected woman who seeks an abortion goes to jail. Common humanity demands that this stop. Such is Zika’s virulence that a sizable proportion of the current generation of Latin American children could yet be born severely disabled. With Ebola the contagion was contained by ruthless isolation and, eventually, drugs. With Zika there is as yet no such remedy. Mass eradication of mosquitoes clearly holds the key, to Zika and many other insect-borne diseases, but that has been the case for decades. The mosquito has long held sway over humankind as the fittest, most adaptable and most vengeful of creatures. So far Zika is confined to Latin America – but what if it reaches Africa? One hope is that introducing new strains of genetically modified male insects holds the key. Early tests in Brazil are promising in reducing mosquito populations, but this has to be a patchy remedy and reports of bureaucratic obstacles suggest the usual delay. Women in these countries need reassurance and emergency help. Since the present danger lies in conception, the relief must lie in access to contraception and ensuring reproductive rights. Insect repellents and lab experiments are no use to an expectant mother, frantic with fear, whose government and church offer nothing but jail or despair.
Fight for the right: Cruz and Rubio spar in Nevada to be Trump's challenger Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio arrived in Nevada late on Sunday with distinctly different pitches for why each should be considered the most viable challenger to the Republican presidential frontrunner, Donald Trump. The two first-term senators effectively tied in South Carolina’s primary at the weekend and are running short of time to stop Trump, who beat them both by a 10-point margin, from clinching the Republican nomination for the White House. Both senators vowed that they were uniquely positioned to defeat the real estate mogul, but whereas Cruz focused his efforts on firing up Nevada’s rural, religious right, Rubio underscored the need for a more diverse coalition of conservatives reflective of a new generation. Rubio, who spent part of his childhood in Nevada, a state in which close to half the population are minorities, talked about the support he received from South Carolina’s governor, Nikki Haley, and Senator Tim Scott. “I was on stage receiving the endorsement of an Indian American governor from South Carolina, who was endorsing a Cuban American senator from Florida, and I was standing next to the African American Republican senator from South Carolina.” “This is the face of the new conservative movement,” he told a couple of hundred supporters inside Texas Casino, a resort off the Las Vegas strip. “We are the party of everyone.” Cruz, a senator for Texas, headed straight to hammer-shaped Nye County, which is over 90% white. In Pahrump – with 37,000 or so residents, the region’s population center – he made a play for the state’s rural conservatives by promising that if was sworn in as president “the persecution of religious liberty ends today”. On a weekend that saw yet another mass shooting, Cruz also pledged to defend the second amendment while boasting of his support from the Gun Owners of America. He further warned, in a state with a sizable Latino population, of the need “to finally, finally, finally control the borders and end sanctuary cities”. In South Carolina on Saturday, Rubio inched just ahead of Cruz to clinch second place by less than a percentage point. Both candidates nonetheless paled in comparison with Trump, who scored a second consecutive overwhelming victory after the New Hampshire primary on 9 February. Trump holds a similarly commanding lead in Nevada, with the caucuses less than two days away, although surveying in the state is notoriously unreliable. Trump’s success has left neither Rubio nor Cruz where they had hoped to be at this stage of the race. Rubio, despite bouncing back somewhat from a poor showing in New Hampshire, has yet to win a primary. And Cruz, despite coming out on top of the Iowa caucuses, now faces questions over whether his evangelicals are as loyal to his campaign as had been expected. However, the maverick senator questions the Republican frontrunner’s support base. “Donald Trump has demonstrated that he has a relatively high floor of support,” Cruz said during a brief news conference in the back room of a smoky sports bar on State Route 160. “But he’s also got, I think, a ceiling.” “For folks who are concerned that Donald Trump is not the best candidate to go head-to-head with Hillary Clinton, it is becoming clearer and clearer that we are the one campaign that can beat Donald Trump. Indeed, we’re the only campaign that has beaten Donald Trump, in Iowa. And we will continue to go forward and beat him.” While he was consistently respectful of his billionaire rival, Cruz dismissed Rubio as an underachiever who had low-balled his prospects throughout the race. Cruz cited in particular an interview of Rubio’s with ABC’s This Week on Sunday, in which host George Stephanopoulos asked the Florida senator which state he thought he could win after losing all three early contests. “He said, ‘I think we could win Florida, March 15,’” Cruz recounted. “Now that’s a fairly amazing admission that they don’t believe they’re gonna win here in Nevada. Apparently they don’t believe they’re going to win any states on Super Tuesday.” “They’re writing off March 5. They’re writing off March 8. And they’re trying to wait, apparently, until March 15 to finally win a state,” Cruz added. “And I would point out even in Florida, his home state, he’s right now polling in third place, behind both Donald and me.” Rubio’s campaign sought to drive home the opposite message: that it was Cruz who had been left bruised after falling short in a state tailor-made for his evangelical appeal. “If Ted Cruz can do no better than third place in a state like South Carolina where 73% of the electorate described themselves as ‘born-again or evangelical Christian’, where else can he win?” Rubio’s campaign manager, Terry Sullivan, wrote in a memo on Sunday. Rubio, for his part, charted a path to victory contingent upon winnowing the field and consolidating support behind his candidacy. With former Florida governor Jeb Bush suspending his campaign after South Carolina, Rubio said during an interview with CNN on Sunday, the dynamic was “beginning to shift”. “That is what gives us an opportunity to coalesce and bring together Republicans who understand that we have to nominate someone who will unify our party, who will reach out to people that haven’t voted for us and grow our party and ultimately who can win.” The Florida senator struck upon similar themes while rallying with supporters across three states on Sunday – with stops in Nashville, Tennessee, Little Rock, Arkansas, and finally Las Vegas. Framing himself as the most viable general election candidate, Rubio spoke defiantly of his ability to challenge Democrats Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. “If you nominate me, we will win this election,” he said. This article was amended on 22 February 2016 to correct a statement that Marco Rubio was born in Nevada. He was born in Florida, but spent some of his childhood in Nevada.
Voting day: America finally goes the polls Candidates sign off on 2016 election campaigns The long, bitter presidential campaign is finally over and the two historically unpopular candidates have handed off to the nation’s 225,788,000 eligible voters. At a monumental, final rally at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Hillary Clinton, flanked by her husband, President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama promised a better future for the country and vowed to “bridge the divides” that emerged during the campaign. Obama, passing the torch to Clinton, echoed the themes of 2008 as he urged voters to “reject fear and embrace hope”. The party was joined on stage by Lady Gaga and Jon Bon Jovi. Meanwhile in Michigan, Republican candidate Donald Trump ended his campaign with a show of relative restraint: “We’re hours away from a once-in-a-lifetime change,” Trump told thousands of supporters who waited until 12.30am to see him. “We’re going to have real change, not Obama change.” Here’s a timeline of how we got here and check out our election day live blog for rolling coverage. You can also sign up for our groundbreaking mobile election alert: The new live-updating alert we’re launching will be one of the fastest ways worldwide to monitor US election results. Find out more here. Election polls open after Clinton and Trump make final pitches What’s at stake in Congress? All eyes are on the race to be the next US president, but the battle to control Congress may be almost as consequential. It is extremely unlikely that the Democrats will seize control of the House of Representatives on Tuesday, owing to an overwhelming, 60-seat Republican majority in the lower chamber, but Democrats could overcome the GOP’s current majority in the Senate. Races to watch: progressive star Zephyr Teachout in New York’s 19th congressional district and California state attorney general Kamala Harris, touted as a future national star for Democrats. What’s at stake for Congress in the US election? Support our fearless, independent journalism More people are reading the than ever but far fewer are paying for it. And advertising revenues are falling fast. So you can see why we need to ask for your help. The ’s independent, investigative journalism takes a lot of time, money and hard work to produce. But we do it because we believe our perspective matters – because it might well be your perspective, too. Support the with a monthly payment, or a contribution. Election survival guide The candidates have spent what feels like 100 years locked in mortal combat, but several hours from now there will finally be a victor – probably. We take you through the basics: the electoral college, the “swing states”, the delegate counts, the candidates’ respective paths to victory and what to expect as the polls across three time zones close … Your election night survival guide: what to expect as polls close – with cocktails! Trump’s legacy: GOP civil war “It’s a movement, not a campaign.” Of all the outlandish assertions to emerge from Donald Trump’s mouth, this one is by far the most credible. Win or lose, Trump has catalyzed a movement that has destroyed the conventional wisdom – and the establishment – that has led the Republican party for a generation, writes Richard Wolffe. Whether he built the movement or simply rode its wave, Trump has profoundly reshaped the politics of the Grand Old Party. Win or lose, Republicans are heading for civil war after election day Standing Rock Sioux reject presidential politics Generations of broken treaties, discrimination, police harassment and poverty have led to disillusion with mainstream politics among the Native Americans at Standing Rock. No surprise, then, that activists at the North Dakota pipeline site say they have little faith in either presidential candidate to bring about the kind of change they hope for. “I don’t want to have a say in government,” said Frank Archambault, a 45-year-old member of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe. “I guess you could call it trauma. I don’t have faith in government, so I don’t want to have a say.” Standing Rock protesters sit out the election: ‘I’m ashamed of them both’ Stock markets surge World stock markets surged on Monday as investors grew increasingly confident that Hillary Clinton will win the US presidential election, after the FBI said it would take no further action against the Democratic nominee over her use of a private email server. The three main US indices all ended the day more than 2% higher, following strong gains in markets across the world. The US dollar also strengthened and the oil price ticked up by more than 1% in further signs of traders’ confidence in a Clinton victory. World stock markets surge amid confidence Clinton will win US election Military introduces electrical ‘brain-tuning’ US military scientists have used electrical brain stimulators to enhance mental skills of staff, in research that aims to boost the performance of air crews, drone operators and others in the armed forces’ most demanding roles. The successful tests of the devices pave the way for servicemen and women to be wired up at critical times of duty, so that electrical pulses can be beamed into their brains to improve their effectiveness in high-pressure situations. US military successfully tests electrical brain stimulation to enhance staff skills Ghana’s museum on wheels A new project in Ghana aims to make moveable museums available to all corners of the country by taking a small kiosk-sized gallery on the road to showcase artworks and cultural artefacts. The “kiosk museum” is the brainchild of Nana Oforiatta Ayim, a writer and film-maker. In December, the curator will begin a mammoth journey with the kiosk, starting in the capital Accra and travelling across Ghana’s 10 regions. Ghana’s first travelling museum ready to hit the road In case you missed it … After local Democratic parties in six battleground states filed lawsuits against Trump adviser Roger Stone’s voter fraud monitoring project, the Republican operative released new rules for volunteer monitors and pledged to a Nevada judge that he “will not target voters based on their race”. But election monitors remain concerned that voter intimidation could still occur. Stone, an informal Trump adviser, said he was concerned that the Republican party in Ohio would try to manipulate votes to undermine Trump, and said that the Stop the Steal fraud prevention project was a “neutral process”. Donald Trump ally swears vigilante poll watchers will not target voters by race
Twitter U-turns over banning white nationalist Twitter has reinstated the account of Richard B Spencer, a self-styled white nationalist leader who was suspended from the service in the wake of a much publicised crackdown on hateful conduct. Spencer’s account was initially suspended on 15 November, as part of a sweeping move against leaders of the “alt-right”, a far-right movement which has been resurgent in America since the election of Donald Trump. That same day, Twitter had announced new safety tools on its social network, including the ability to more easily report hateful conduct. It had also announced changes in how it trained its moderators to enforce the policies. The suspension of Spencer, along with the accounts of the white-nationalist National Policy Institute which he heads up and its journal, Radix, was widely seen as a consequence of Twitter putting those new rules in action. Now, however, it appears that Twitter suspended Spencer for other reasons. Twitter sent the a copy of the email the company sent to the white nationalist activist, which suggests that Spencer was banned instead for running multiple accounts with too much overlap. A Twitter spokesperson said: “Our rules explicitly prohibit creating multiple accounts with overlapping uses. When we temporarily suspend multiple accounts for this violation, the account owner can designate one account for reinstatement.” The email Twitter sent Spencer reads: As referenced in our November 18, 2016 communication, creating serial and/or multiple accounts with overlapping use is a violation of the Twitter Rules (https://twitter.com/rules). Please select one account for restoration; the others will remain suspended. This account will need to comply fully with the Twitter Rules (https://twitter.com/rules). Please reply to this email with the username of the account you would like reinstated and we will make sure to answer your request in a timely manner. In the weeks following his suspension, Spencer hosted a conference in Washington DC, where audience members gave enthusiastic Nazi salutes (Spencer later said they had been “done in exuberance and fun”). But on 11 December, his Twitter account was reactivated, and its verified status was reinstated. Verification is a special account status the social network gives to notable users to confirm they are who they say they are, but Twitter emphasises that “a verified badge does not imply an endorsement by Twitter”. As one of his first tweets after being reinstated, Spencer said: “I worked on getting my personal reinstated first. Next will be Radix, NPI, _AltRight_ and WSP.” But the understands that those accounts, as some of the “multiple, overlapping accounts” for which Spencer was suspended, are unlikely to be reinstated. When it banned Spencer for the first time, the company declined to comment directly on the suspended accounts, but said “the Twitter Rules prohibit violent threats, harassment, hateful conduct and multiple account abuse, and we will take action on accounts violating those policies.” What Gamergate should have taught us about the ‘alt-right’
Ariana Grande's donut-licking cost her a gig at White House, WikiLeaks reveals Licking donuts and saying “I hate America” cost Ariana Grande a prime gig performing for Barack Obama at the White House gala last September, according to several email exchanges exposed by WikiLeaks. Amid the thousands of DNC emails posted by WikiLeaks on Friday was a 10 September 2015 response to a request from the DNC finance chair, Zachary Allen, to vet the former Nickelodeon star to perform at a gala for the US president. “Ariana Butera-video caught her licking other peoples’ donuts while saying she hates America,” the DNC’s deputy compliance director wrote in response, referring to Grande’s real name. “Republican Congressman used this video and said it was a double standard that liberals were not upset with her like they are with Trump who criticized Mexicans; cursed out a person on Twitter after that person used an offensive word towards her brother.” A few months before the email exchange, on 4 July, Grande was caught on security cameras (obtained by TMZ) licking donuts sitting on the top shelf at a donut shop in southern California. When offered a fresh tray of donuts by an employee of the store, Grande is heard saying: “What the fuck is that? I hate Americans. I hate America.” The event caused the hashtag #DonutGate to quickly go viral. Though never charged by police, the pop star issued a public apology on YouTube, in which she said: “I’ve actually never been prouder to be American.” Grande is meanwhile one of Hillary Clinton’s biggest celebrity endorsers: in April 2015 she tweeted a short and succinct message to her millions of followers that expressed her sentiment. This piece was amended on 26 July 2016; Ariana Grande was a child star on Nickelodeon, not the Disney Channel.
Never mind John Lewis – here's the TV advert music it's impossible to forget One of pop’s biggest days of the year fell last Thursday, when John Lewis unveiled its Christmas ad. The soundtrack to that ad is considered one of the prime showcase slots in the music industry – as Eamonn Forde wrote in the in 2014: “Winning the ad is the holy grail for sync departments and the pitching process is as long as it is secretive, with all entrants silenced by hefty non-disclosure agreements.” Yet so often the song that accompanies the ad, despite being inescapable for six weeks, is gone from our minds like melting snow in January (can anyone remember a single thing about Tom Odell’s version of Real Love in 2014?). But the music of adverts need not be like that: the adverts we remember might be accompanied by music we hate, but there is no danger of us ever forgetting them. These are the advert themes we can’t shake (or vac). What are yours? Rowntree’s Tots I’d love to tell you that my earliest memories are of some wonderful family holiday, or of the verdant loveliness of a childhood in the Yorkshire Dales. But I can’t: every last one of my earliest memories involves television. They start to crowd in from around the time I was three or four: Wizzard on Top of the Pops (I was terrified of Roy Wood), Robert Wyatt on Top of the Pops (I was intrigued by his wheelchair), the cartoon polar bear who shilled Cresta pop with the words “It’s frothy, man”, and the song from an advert for Rowntree’s Tots. I can’t remember the visuals that accompanied it at all, but a snatch of the melody and the lyrics inexplicably clung to me forever afterwards: “Candy Tots, something new / They’re dolly mixtures and soft to chew.” It would, in the way of ad music, pop into my head unbidden at inexplicable moments, until the day in the mid-noughties when I was sent a compilation of the work of late 60s/early 70s pop journeyman John Carter, variously the lead singer of the New Vaudeville Jazz Band, the brains behind First Class’s fantastic Brian Wilson homage Beach Baby, and the co-author of Summer of Love cash-in Let’s Go to San Francisco by the Flowerpot Men. I was only half-listening to it (as you might expect, given his CV, the musical quality was a bit variable) when the Rowntree’s Tots advert came bursting from the speakers: it transpired Mr Carter knocked out advertising jingles as well, and Rowntree’s Tots had been such a success that a spin-off single with altered lyrics was released. A little pathetically, I literally shouted in excitement. It would be nice if I could tell you the song was great, but, alas, 30 years on, it sounded a bit twee and irritating. Moreover, hearing it again didn’t – as I hoped - expunge it from my mind. It’s still rattling around in there, and I fully expect to be plagued by a jaunty endorsement of the manifold qualities of Candy Tots (long discontinued) on my deathbed. Alexis Petridis Shake n’ Vac Ever since I first heard it as a schoolboy in the early 1980s, the irritatingly catchy Shake n’ Vac ad song has lodged in my poor brain like a virus, and despite not being on TV since 1989, it still pops into my head. A retro, 50s-style rock’n’roll backing accompanies the brutally effective jingle: “Do the Shake n’ Vac and put the freshness back / Do the Shake n’ Vac and put the freshness back / When your carpet smells fresh, your room does too …” Argh, no! The advert itself now looks kitsch and dated: Jenny Logan plays a maxi-skirted, high-heeled, bottom-wiggling housewife who sings of the joys of a sinister white powder that resembles anthrax, which is sprinkled over a carpet and vacuumed up again to leave it sparkling clean. I’ve since resisted the tune’s demonic calling and marketing witchcraft in the only way I know, by installing laminate flooring. Dave Simpson Carphone Warehouse Poor old Stereo MC’s. Their legacy as British hip-hop pioneers, whose 1990 single Elevate My Mind was the first UK rap entry on the US Billboard 100, will forever be eclipsed by four little words: gonna get myself connected. Yes, the London four-piece were indeed the band who soundtracked those Carphone Warehouse ads with a funk loop nabbed from KC and The Sunshine band affiliate Jimmy “Bo” Horne and some sub-Britpop swagger. Like Mansun and soul patches, Connected is a thing of pure Nineties naffness – not quite dance but not quite indie, despite frontman Rob Birch showcasing a meandering, karaoke Tim Burgess vocal style. Although this writer was born two months after its release, its role in the marketing of 10-tonne Motorolas during my formative years means that – pardon the pun – I shall forever feel a connection. Hannah J Davies Milky Way “The red car and the blue car had a race.” Those words alone are enough to set a piece of music racing through the heads of TV viewers of a certain age – the music to the ad known as Red Car Blue Car, made for Milky Way in 1989, a tinny piece of country rock’n’roll written by Mike Connaris, and a song so infernally catchy that when the ad was revived in 2009, there were people who celebrated its return. Even more incredibly, when its lyrics were changed and the song re-recorded as Home for Christmas Day, it reached No 44 in the charts – in December 1991. Yes, even after two years of exposure to the ad, there were people who were not yet sick of it. (These, perhaps, were the same people who decided they needed to buy a copy of Brian May’s Ford advert, Driven by You. Or who cheered when John Farnham performed his Gillette razors track The Best in concert.) But Red Car Blue Car did its job. To this day, when I see a red car and blue car next to each other at traffic lights, I wonder if they’ll race, and if the red car will be able to do anything but stuff its face. Like “apples, hazelnuts, bananas, raisins, coconuts, sultanas” and “feed me! Feed me NOW!”, Red Car Blue Car is now embedded deep within me. It doesn’t make me want to eat Milky Ways, though. Michael Hann Müller yogurt Yoghurt advertising is irritating enough as it is: whether it’s Nicole Scherzinger orgasming over a fruit corner or some French children being intolerably wholesome in the vicinity of a Petits Filous, the flogging of the stuff is a small universe of ridiculous commercial fiction. But maybe the industry’s biggest crime was to take the transcendent 1968 Nina Simone song Ain’t Got No, I Got Life, layer some cow sound effects over it, and turn it into a maddening earworm most closely associated with imbecillic milk-based joie de vivre. Another unfortunate side-effect of using it to soundtrack a series of farm vistas is that it makes you realise how much Simone’s voice resembles a sheep’s. And thus, an icon now exists as little more in my mind than bleating shorthand for a worryingly fanatical devotion to dairy products. Rachel Aroesti Huggies Pull-Ups Morrissey once sang: “The music that they constantly play / It says nothing to me about my life.” That has long been the case for me and the song from the Huggies Pull-Ups advert, which has been constantly playing in my head now for at least two decades despite saying precious little about my life. A quick Google suggests it first seeped into my consciousness when I was barely a teenager. And yet, despite being free of the need to consider elasticated nappy/pant hybrids by, ooh, at least a year or so, the song has remained stitched to my eardrums like some kind of audio Celtic symbol. It is, undoubtedly, one of the most annoying jingles ever recorded. The lyrics are annoying, the tune is moronic and the kid’s voice instilled in me a deep loathing of all human beings under the age of five. And yet I’ve never felt truly free of its presence. Indeed, if its influence over my daily soundtrack had finally started to wane in recent years, then the arrival of my daughter this summer meant that it has since returned with a vengeance. Of course, now that I’m in a situation where I might actually need to buy “big kid pants”, you could argue that the Huggies advert finally does say something to me about my life. And does that make it any less annoying? No. No it does not. Tim Jonze
Innovations fund aims to save women and newborn babies in Africa Public health experts in east Africa have hailed an initiative that will fund research on the continent in the hope of fostering African innovation. The $7m (£5.7m) Grand Challenges Africa innovation seed grants programme – funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and coordinated by the African Academy of Sciences (AAS) and the Nepad Agency Alliance for Accelerating Excellence in Science in Africa (Aesa) – is calling for ideas from Africa-based innovators working in maternal and newborn child health. In a statement, AAS/Aesa said the five-year programme would provide seed grants worth up to $100,000 each, with successful researchers eligible to apply for further funding of up to $1m to scale up their innovations. “Solutions for Africa’s challenges do exist within the continent. As an African grant-making body, we are laser-focused on tapping the best minds on the continent to develop innovative local solutions to our health and development challenges,” said Aesa’s director, Tom Kariuki. That view was echoed by Peter Waiswa, an associate professor at the Makerere University School of Public Health in the Ugandan capital, Kampala. Waiswa, a specialist in maternal and newborn health, said it was good the Grand Challenges scheme now had funds set aside specifically for – and managed in – Africa. Although the grants are small, Waiswa said, they are “most likely going to respond to local needs”. A key problem for the continent’s scientists is the dearth of Africa-driven research. In Uganda alone, Waiswa said, maternal and newborn mortality and stillbirths add up to about 85,000 deaths a year. “These are double the number of people who die from HIV and Aids in Uganda,” he added, “but all the attention is on HIV. So I think it is good that they are funding into this specific area. But, as I said, they are still small grants and we have to compete for them as a region.” Waiswa said researchers often faced a lack of money for scaling up innovations. This has meant researchers cannot do long-term work. He cited the case of Ugandan scientist Misaki Wayengera, who created a prototype for a quick test for Ebola, but failed to get funding even after writing to the Ugandan president. Only after the latest Ebola outbreak in west Africa that Wayengera received financial support, from Grand Challenges Canada. At Makerere University and Nsambya hospital in Kampala, researchers wanted to solve birth asphyxia (newborn breathing difficulties) by cooling babies to zero, but they lacked funding. “There is a good effort,” said Waiswa, “but government and other partners must come on board to push the science to the rightful conclusion. Even us – we have come up with a couple of innovations but they just die.” Pauline Irungu, the advocacy and policy manager at the health charity Path in Kenya, said maternal and child health in Africa suffered from a lack of investment relative to areas such as HIV and Aids, leading to limited innovation. The Africa-centred grants will challenge African innovators to address other continent-specific health problems, she said. “HIV came with a bang. It was killing [so many] people and therefore there was a huge focus on it – there was a lot of investment,” said Irungu, who has worked in public health since 2000. “But I think because maternal and newborn child [mortality] has always been with us. I haven’t seen a similar impetus to put in resources and to push for innovation that can change the trajectory.” Like Waiswa, Irungu hopes the new grants will lead to more Africa-led research. “Homegrown solutions combined with world-class innovation is what will solve the problems of Africa,” she said. “We can’t stand back and wait for someone to design something out there and bring it to Africa, and then we adopt it.” Irungu is in no doubt that African scientists can tackle the continent’s problems if given a conducive environment in which to work. “Why are we talking about brain-drain? Africa – we – are exporting brains to the west,” she said, citing the use of antiretroviral therapy to prevent HIV infection, for which proof-of-concept was driven by researchers in South Africa. “We don’t only have the brainpower; we also have institutions that are conducting world-class research in Africa. The Kenya Medical Research Institute is currently undertaking a study for a malaria vaccine for children.” Just as enthused about the “Africanness” of the grants was Betty Walakira, chief executive officer of the Ugandan NGO Health Child. She says that, in poor countries, research funding is not a priority for governments. Yet local researchers continue to show good potential to address such problems as post-partum bleeding. “All this new knowledge is useful in the sense that it can be used in a developing country context,” said Walakira, whose organisation promotes maternal and child health. The Ugandan president, Yoweri Museveni, has been talking up the potential of his country’s scientists, despite the government’s approach apparently being driven more by politics than cohesive policy. At the end of 2015, he was quoted as promising to increase the government’s innovation fund from $49m to about $143m. In June, Museveni created a department of science, technology and innovations, and its new minister, Elioda Tumwesigye, has already called for a substantive innovation fund.
Police search Santander's Madrid HQ in money-laundering inquiry Police have searched the headquarters of Santander Bank in Madrid after suspicions were raised that the bank was linked to money laundering and tax evasion on the part of some of its clients. Acting on orders of high court judge José de la Mata, agents of the central operative unit of the Guardia Civil began searching the bank’s offices in Boadilla del Monte in central Spain on Friday morning for information about specific accounts. Santander issued a statement saying it had “received a request for information about the movements of certain accounts between different entities”. It added that it was collaborating with the authorities and “supplying all the available information”. The case involves the continuing investigation into the Falciani list of accounts from HSBC’s Swiss private bank in Geneva, leaked by IT worker Hervé Falciani in 2008. The list included the names of some 130,000 suspected tax evaders, 659 of whom were Spanish. The Spanish tax office believes that as much as €6bn was concealed in these 659 accounts. A large number of the 659 people named regularised their affairs with the taxman but several decided to fight in the courts on the grounds that Falciani had obtained the information illegally and it was therefore not admissible as evidence. De la Mata has been investigating whether HSBC helped clients to conceal and launder money from illicit gains. Sources close to the case say that 40 “individuals or family groups” are under investigation. All 40 are said to have appeared on Falciani’s list. A tax inspectors’ report says that “there are indications that HSBC, either through its offices in Switzerland or its branches in Spain or third countries, offered Spanish residents the possibility of placing substantial sums of money in opaque accounts”. Emilio Botín, then chief executive of Santander, was the most prominent Spanish name on Falciani’s list, along with several members of his family. The Botín family has run the bank since 1909. Botín made a €200m settlement with the Spanish tax agency, which represented 10% of the sum involved, but tax evasion charges were dropped after he made the settlement. His daughter Ana Patricia became CEO when he died in 2014 – she previously ran Santander in the UK.
Gilmore suspends campaign while Trump threatens to sue Cruz – as it happened As a slow mid-primary Friday winds down, let’s recap today’s biggest stories in #Campaign2016: Jim Gilmore, the Republican presidential candidate whose name you always forgot despite your handy mnemonic (“Help! Rabid Grizzlies! For Pete’s Sake, Call Someone! Please! Call The Police! Just Call!”), officially dropped out of the race for the party’s nomination. “I will continue to express my concerns about the dangers of electing someone who has pledged to continue Obama’s disastrous policies,” Gilmore pledged, before joining Martin O’Malley’s touring rock band of former presidential also-rans. Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright has apologized for telling a crowd of voters at a rally for Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire: “There’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help each other!” in a piece in the New York Times titled “My Undiplomatic Moment.” (From now on, we’re calling every mistake we make “My Undiplomatic Moment.”) Although that may come a little too late for Clinton, whose struggles with female voters were well documented in New Hampshire. Donald Trump threatened to sue fellow Republican presidential candidate and Iowa caucus victor Ted Cruz over the latter’s putatively questionable status as a “natural-born citizen.” Can Trump actually do that? As usual, the answer to that question is secondary to the reaction the position will incite. Recent second-place New Hampshire primary finisher, Ohio governor John Kasich, told an overflow crowd in South Carolina that his presidency would be focused on Theodore Roosevelt-esque reform. “If you’re going to have power, use it to drive creativity, innovation and change,” Kasich said. “And if you don’t do that, why don’t you get out and go do something else?” Kasich also had a delicious recommendation for fellow presidential candidate Bernie Sanders. “I think Bernie ought to be president – of Ben & Jerry’s for a year, because we’d all get free ice cream.” Stay tuned for more dispatches from the 2016 presidential campaign tonight, tomorrow, the next day, and every day until the sweet release of Election Day. Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright has apologized for telling a crowd of voters at a rally for Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire:“There’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help each other!” Albright, the first woman to serve as secretary of state, called the episode an “undiplomatic moment,” in an op-ed published in the New York Times on Friday. I absolutely believe what I said, that women should help one another, but this was the wrong context and the wrong time to use that line. I did not mean to argue that women should support a particular candidate based solely on gender. But I understand that I came across as condemning those who disagree with my political preferences. If heaven were open only to those who agreed on politics, I imagine it would be largely unoccupied.” Feminist writer Gloria Steinem, who has endorsed Clinton, recently apologized for remarks about young women who support Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, writing in a post that she “misspoke” and did not mean to imply that young women were not “serious about their politics”. Taken together, the comments offended female Sanders supporters, and highlighted generational divides in the feminist movement. “I am concerned by the tone of the debate about the many problems that specifically affect women,” Albright writes in the op-ed. “We cannot be complacent, and we cannot forget the hard work it took us to get to where we are. I would argue that because of what is at stake, this is exactly the time to have a conversation about how to preserve what women have gained, including the right to make our own choices, and how to move forward together. I would welcome an informed dialogue that crosses generations. We have much to learn from one another.” During Thursday’s debate, Clinton said the”special place in hell” remark was nothing new, and Albright has been using it for “as long as I’ve known her”. But she did distance herself from the implication that women who don’t support her candidacy are somehow wrongheaded. “I have spent my entire adult life making sure that women are empowered to make their own choices,” Clinton said, “even if that choice is not to vote for me.” The Washington Examiner is reporting that Jim Gilmore, who served as the governor of Virginia more than 14 years ago, is finally ending his campaign for the Republican nomination. “My campaign was intended to offer the gubernatorial experience, with the track record of a true conservative, experienced in national security, to unite the party,” Gilmore said, according to the Examiner. “My goal was to focus on the importance of this election as a real turning point, and to emphasize the dangers of continuing on a road that will further undermine America’s economy and weaken our national security.” “Nonetheless, I will continue to express my concerns about the dangers of electing someone who has pledged to continue Obama’s disastrous policies,” he said. “And, I will continue to do everything I can to ensure that our next President is a free enterprise Republican who will restore our nation to greatness and keep our citizens safe.” Gilmore, who had failed to qualify for all but two of the so-called “undercard” presidential debates, has consistently been at the very bottom of the crowded Republican presidential field, rarely registering with even a single point in national polls. (He never appeared in the Real Clear Politics aggregate poll, making his candidacy functionally invisible.) In the Iowa caucuses, a mere dozen Iowans caucused for Gilmore, who then received 133 votes in the New Hampshire Republican primary. For comparison, Vermont senator Bernie Sanders received 2,095 in the New Hampshire Republican primary, in which he wasn’t even running. 10 reasons why voters are turning to Bernie Sanders When James Walsh asked our readers who they wanted to see as Democratic candidate, we were deluged with responses – most of them in favor of Bernie Sanders: 1) He’s seen as a challenge to the status quo... What came through loud and clear was the fury at mainstream American politics, echoing the populist support for (the really rather different) Donald Trump on the Republican side. Sanders appeals to those who feel the entire democratic system has broken down. Sanders is representing my interests. For decades American politics have been a sham, elections bought and paid for by special interests and corporations. They have wrecked the environment, caused the biggest financial crisis in history and are using their deep pockets and for profit agendas to marginalize people’s needs even further. Shaz Plunkett, Los Angeles CA 2) ... whereas Clinton is viewed as more of the same Clinton paints herself as the pragmatist who gets things done, but after New Hampshire she may need to further emphasise her progressive credentials if she’s going to win over those turning to Sanders. I have no grudge with Hillary Clinton, but she had her chance eight years ago. She is old news, with plenty of controversy, baggage and history that will bring out Republicans in droves to vote against her. Steve Guion, Fairfax, Virginia 3) Sanders’ consistency is judged a virtue The phrase ‘flip-flopping’ may bring back memories of John Kerry’s doomed presidential campaign in 2004, but our readers were keen to attach it to Clinton. The consistency of Sanders’ views was seen as a major plus. I’m tired of the rich getting richer, and having to work harder for less. I saw my parents lose so much of their retirement in the Wall Street crash and no one on Wall Street paid for that. My college education has done me no good but I still have student loans, and none of my kids were able to attend college because of the recession. We deserve change in this country, from someone who has consistently fought that fight. Danielle Banz, Monroe, Washington Marco Rubio walked back his statement in Saturday’s Republican debate that women should be subject to Selective Service and potentially eligible for the draft, writes the ’s Ben Jacobs in Greenville, South Carolina: At the South Carolina Faith and Family Forum, the Florida senator said “I do not support drafting women and forcing them to be combat soldiers.” This marks a shift from his rather definitive statement on Saturday “I do believe that Selective Service should be opened up for both men and women in case a draft is ever instituted.” Instead, Rubio seemed to hedge with the emphasis “on forcing them to be combat soldiers. The Florida senator also said “I don’t think we need Selective Service,” arguing that a draft would not be necessary in any future war. Rubio’s adjustment on this issue was first elaborated on an issues page on his website which seems to have first appeared on February 9, the day of the New Hampshire primary. The Rubio campaign confirmed that the issues page was not posted until after Saturday’s debate. However, he had not publicly addressed the topic until now. The statement comes after Ted Cruz has violently denounced the concept, which was also endorsed by Jeb Bush and Chris Christie in Saturday’s debate. In a campaign rally in New Hampshire, Cruz said “the idea that we would draft our daughters to forcibly bring them into the military and put them in close combat, I think, is wrong. It is immoral.” In the aftermath, Senator Mike Lee of Utah, a conservative darling, has announced he will introduce a bill to make women permanently exempt from registering for Selective Service as well. A Rubio spokesman said Thursday that the Florida senator would cosponsor the bill to insure that Congress, not the courts, would make the ultimate decision about women being eligible for the draft. The spokesman insisted to the Daily Caller that his stance did not imply support for Lee’s bill. In December, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter announced that roles in the U.S. military would be opened to women, without restrictions based on gender. However, women are still exempted from registering for Selective Service, which provides the database used by the government to implement any future draft. In a statement, Alex Burgos, a spokesman for the Rubio campaign insisted “there’s no change here. In the debate, he said Selective Service should be opened to women. And today, he said women shouldn’t be drafted into combat roles. Two separate questions. In sum, Marco does not support drafting women of any age into combat roles - period.” Donald Trump has threatened to sue fellow Republican presidential candidate and Iowa caucus victor Ted Cruz over the latter’s putatively questionable status as a “natural-born citizen.” It’s the strongest indication yet that Trump aims to continue highlighting the fact that Cruz was born in Canada. The Texan senator was born in Calgary in 1971. Although his father, Rafael, was not an American citizen at the time, his Delaware-born mother, Eleanor, was. Article II of the US constitution requires that “no person except a natural born Citizen … shall be eligible to the Office of President.” However, legal scholars have long interpreted natural born citizen to refer to whether someone acquired their citizenship at birth, not the geographic location where they were born. As a result, Cruz, who was a citizen at birth, is a natural born citizen. The Democratic rivals clashed over race and immigration issues in last night’s debate in Milwaukee, writes the ’s Lauren Gambino - with votes Nevada and South Carolina looming: The battle lines have been drawn for the next phase of the head-to-head betweenHillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders as they target race and immigration issues in an effort to court black and Latino voters in their bid for the Democratic nomination. The 2016 election race moves south and west – to Nevada, South Carolina and then a clutch of southern states as part of the sweep of Super Tuesday contests on 1 March. And as the pair met on a debate stage for the first time since Sanders crushed Clinton in New Hampshire, the focus on inequality in the justice system and on conditions faced by hard-working immigrant families was an unambiguous pitch for votes. John Kasich, fresh from a second place finish in New Hampshire, is widely seen as a flag-bearer of the Republican establishment but today showed his own rebellious streak, reports Washington correspondent David Smith from Columbia, South Carolina: “I watched them blow the whole surplus and I ask people, who do you think was in charge of blowing a $5 trillion surplus and they always say it’s the Democrats, and I say unfortunately it was a Republican House, Republican Senate and Republican president blew the whole thing,” he told the South Carolina Chamber of Commerce in Columbia. Reflecting on economic reforms he introduced as governor of Ohio, Kasich added: “If you’re going to have power, use it to drive creativity, innovation and change. And if you don’t do that, why don’t you get out and go do something else? I’m a big reformer. That’s why I’m not in the establishment lane because I always make them nervous.” Visibly relaxed, a freewheeling Kasich also cracked a few jokes, including at leftwing Democrat Bernie Sanders’ expense. “I think Bernie ought to be president – of Ben & Jerry’s for a year, because we’d all get free ice cream.” He also referenced the movie Jaws as he described volunteers flocking to his campaign, saying: “We need a bigger boat.” The governor said blue collar voters were moving his way but added: “My father was a Democrat. If I’d have said, ‘Dad, are you a socialist?’ he’d have kicked me out of the house.” In another routine, Kasich recalled explaining to his 16-year-old twins what a payphone is and took an iPhone from an audience member to make a point about innovation. Kasich said he was determined to maintain an upbeat message and not be dragged into trading insults with other candidates. “I felt coming out of New Hampshire, even though they’d spent millions against me, and they’ll do it here as well, the light outshined the darkness of negative campaigning.” But he added: “I will not be a pin cushion... I’m pretty scrappy, you know.” Kasich recalled launching his campaign in July last year and operating in “total obscurity”. A friend asked him how it felt to be stuck at 1% for a hundred days. He said he did not read the papers. Around 60 people gathered in the chamber’s boardroom. Adeline Saint-Jour, 32, a physician and undecided Republican voter, who asked a question during the event, said later: “I thought he made a very good point about having young people understand their goals early in life. He made a good point about mentoring.” One journalist commented afterwards: “Kasich is going to be vice-president.” Lots of new ads out there – here’s one attacking Trump from Right to Rise, the Super Pac supporting Jeb Bush, employing a cool ice statue of Trump... ...and here’s one attacking Trump from the political action committee attached to the Club for Growth, the anti-tax group that has for years been calling out Trump for not being a true conservative: “There’s nothing conservative about Donald Trump: Trump, naturally, has responded to the attacks on Twitter: Watching the rise of Donald Trump from loudmouthed celebrity to serious US presidential candidate spurred illustrator and filmmaker Guy Larsen to produce a satirical children’s book in which Trump is controlled by a malevolent hair piece. Watch Larsen read his book here: N.B.: Trump does not wear a wig; that’s his “real” hair. Republican candidates Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor, and Ben Carson, the retired neurosurgeon, are speaking at a Faith and Family Presidential Forum in Greenville, South Carolina. Carson has just finished explaining how Jesus Christ is his role model: “Treat others as you would wish to be treated.” Here’s a live video stream: The forum is hosted by the Palmetto family alliance and the conservative leadership project on the campus of Bob Jones University. Washington correspondent David Smith is taking in a rally with Ohio governor John Kasich, who finished second in New Hampshire, at the South Carolina Chamber of Commerce. The cash-tight Kasich camp got good news Thursday, when it received a sudden pledge of support from Ken Langone, the billionaire co-founder of Home Depot. “At South Carolina Chamber of Commerce in Columbia where around 60 people plus media have filled a boardroom to hear candidate John Kasich,” David tweets: Kasich on presidential campaign: “I got in in July. I operated in total obscurity.” Polls showed me at 1% but I didn’t read the papers. Kasich: In New Hampshire “the light outshined the darkness of negative campaigning”. We’ll have more from David on the event shortly. For its impressive display of strength and creativity here at week’s end, Ted Cruz’s media shop is not incapable of missteps. For example, an actress in a new campaign spot, “Conservatives Anonymous,” used to do soft porn, which the Cruz camp was not aware of until the ad was cut and distributed. Then BuzzFeed figured out the porn connection: Amy Lindsay has appeared in films such as Erotic Confessions, Carnal Wishes, Secrets of a Chambermaid, and Insatiable Desires. “Had the campaign known of her full filmography, we obviously would not have let her appear in the ad,” a Cruz campaign spokesman told BuzzFeed News. The actress in question is the one who says, “Maybe you should vote for more than just a pretty face next time.” The retraction of the group therapy ad comes after a string of ad successes from Cruz, who this week released two video spots attacking Donald Trump and one attacking Hillary Clinton. The ads have been praised for a witty allusion to pop culture, in one case, and a devilishly effective line of attack against Trump for his attempt, once upon a time, to use eminent domain laws to clear a widow’s house for a limousine parking lot in Atlantic City. While the Democrats next caucus in Nevada (on 20 Feb), Republicans next vote in South Carolina (the same day) – and then the parties trade states. So who’s running first in the South Carolina primary? While not quite the no-poll zone that Nevada is, voter surveys are sparse in the Palmetto State; Real Clear Politics’ average of three polls over the last two months puts Donald Trump at +17 on the field. A poll from Opinion Savvy for the Augusta Chronicle conducted after the New Hampshire result has Trump up about 17 points on Ted Cruz, 36.3-19.6, with Marco Rubio third at 14.6 points. (The Chronicle poll is baked into the RCP average.) So what? Owing to the confusing rules for allocating delegates to the national convention laid out by the South Carolina Republican party, a win of that margin for Trump, if it is consistent across the state’s congressional districts, could mean that he gets close to running the table of all 50 of the state’s delegates. The state awards 29 delegates to the overall winner and then three delegates each to the winner of each of seven congressional districts. See the gory details here. More catchy negative ads from Texas senator Ted Cruz, this one again hitting Donald Trump, with the tagline, “We wouldn’t tolerate these values in our children... why would we want them in a president?” The ad features kids playing with a Donald Trump doll. “He pretends to be a Republican,” one kid says and they all crack up. Then they smash a dollhouse bellowing “eminent domain! Eminent domain!” What do you think of these Cruz ads? The two against Trump – “power for personal gain” and the one above – and the Office Space ad against Clinton? Pretty effective, no? Democrats Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders next square off in the Nevada caucuses. Who’s ahead there? Who knows – there’s not much polling. The Real Clear Politics average uses two polls in the last four months and shows Clinton up 20. But hold the phone: a new poll by a TargetPoint, a Republican polling firm, conducted for the Washington Free Beacon finds – a tie! at 45-45. Can it be true? What happened to Clinton’s Hispanic firewall in Nevada? To her local organization of DREAMers touting her record on immigration reform? Turn all eyes to Jon Ralston, the dean of Nevada politics journalists, who says the result “doesn’t surprise me.” As for the Team Clinton work to lower expectations that Ralston mentions: in multiple venues yesterday, Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook and spokesman Brian Fallon sought to erode the notion that the demographics of Nevada, with a significant non-white population, play well for Clinton. “There’s an important Hispanic element to the Democratic caucus in Nevada,” said Fallon. “But it’s still a state that is 80 percent white.” [Nevada: it’s basically Iowa, with more feather headdresses.] Which prompted Ralston to forcefully call bushwa: 80 percent white? What? [...] I understand the desire of Team Clinton to lower expectations in Nevada after being crushed by Bernie Sanders in New Hampshire. But both Mook and Fallon know that 80 percent figure is ludicrous, and the attempt to make Nevada seem like Iowa and New Hampshire is a spin too far. The facts: Nevada’s Hispanic population is about 27 percent. African-Americans and Asian/Pacific Islanders make up almost 10 percent each. That is, nearly half of the state’s population is made up of minorities. The Democratic caucus population was 35 percent minority in 2008, according to exit polls, and is expected to be as high as 40 percent in 2016, according to local Democratic sources. This is nothing like the 90 percent white caucus participation in Iowa, for instance. Read more Ralston here. The Cruz campaign is putting out so many catchy ads we can hardly keep up. Here’s a gem: an attack on Clinton over her use of a private email server, based on a scene from Office Space, the 1999 ballad of disaffected cubicle life: Here’s the scene from the movie (warning: some harsh language in there, if you’re offended by that kind of thing): Is there any aspect of politicking Trump can’t shake up? Signing a baby! What’s he going to come up with next? Hello, and welcome to our live-wire coverage of the 2016 race for the White House, which is a peculiar kind of race, in that the point is not to get there first, the course is scattered, and instead of Gatorade the runners ingest lots of pizza. Did you watch the Democratic debate on PBS last night? Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders tangled over immigration reform, being friends with Henry Kissinger and who’d done more to support President Obama. “One of us ran against Barack Obama,” said Sanders. “I was not that candidate.” Watch these video highlights: And read Lauren Gambino’s (@lgamgam) report last night from the scene in Milwaukee: “In what was easily her strongest debate performance in recent memory – and arguably her strongest since the campaign began – Hillary Clinton was calm, cool and collected at Thursday night’s debate,” writes columnist Lucia Graves: Clinton could’ve been understandably on edge, as she was fresh off a resounding loss in New Hampshire on Tuesday and an effective tie in Iowa the week before. But it was Sanders who was oddly on the defensive despite what has been momentum in his favor, starting out the night more combative than Clinton and wasting his time on petty one-liners. (When Clinton talked about building political capital when she’s in the White House, for instance, Sanders began a rebuttal with “Secretary Clinton, you’re not in the White House yet.”) Read the full piece here: There’s a lot going on today out on the trail, meanwhile, including the development of what looks to be a magnificently nasty battle between Ted Cruz and Donald Trump to win South Carolina. Cruz has dropped what is being hailed as the first effective anti-Trump ad of the campaign cycle so far, called Parking Lot and telling the story of Trump’s attempt to take a widow’s home using eminent domain, literally to build a limousine parking lot: Trump’s firing back on Twitter, calling Cruz a “liar, crazy or very dishonest”: We have a lot more ground to cover today. Join us in the comments and thanks for reading!
Manchester City pin hopes on key trio after West Ham expose flaws While José Mourinho picked the wrong moment to talk about fake results when Manchester City thumped Chelsea 3-0 in August, the recently unemployed one certainly made a valid point about how the final score can unfairly alter the narrative. Mourinho’s line came to mind after more ruthless finishing from Sergio Agüero rescued a barely deserved point for Manuel Pellegrini’s stuttering title challengers at Upton Park, leaving West Ham United with the rare sensation of feeling disappointed after failing to secure their first league double over City in 53 years. West Ham led twice, only for Agüero to cancel out Enner Valencia’s snappy double with two goals of his own, and there is a temptation to praise City for mounting spirited fightbacks from a goal down in both halves. Scoring an 81st minute equaliser at the home of a team who relish bloodying the noses of opponents with superior resources is usually interpreted as a sign of belief, resolve and togetherness. Scratch the surface, however, and City’s wide range of flaws soon begin to emerge. They were evident as early as the first minute, when Cheikhou Kouyaté tore past a half-hearted challenge from Yaya Touré in the build-up to West Ham’s opener, and they materialised again in the 56th minute, amateurish defending allowing Valencia to score his second after the striker muscled on to a huge throw from Michail Antonio. The beaten Joe Hart made no attempt to hide his displeasure with his defence. City badly miss the assurance of their captain, Vincent Kompany, and Pellegrini was unable to say when the Belgian centre-back will return from his latest calf injury. Nicolas Otamendi was embarrassed by Valencia for the second goal and Martín Demichelis was fortunate not to be sent off for a cynical challenge on Antonio in the first half. Playing alongside Fabian Delph, Touré’s failings were exposed by West Ham, who are sixth after a run of one defeat in 10 matches. Alex Song was dominant in midfield and Dimitri Payet’s skill took the breath away. Pellegrini’s defence of Touré was as convincing as Otamendi’s attempt to stop Valencia. “He played today as a defensive midfielder,” Pellegrini said. “I think that Yaya played in that position without any problem.” That was a generous assessment. Yet the defensive deficiencies do not tell the full story. In the league, City have not had consecutive victories since October and have won one of their past eight away games. For all Agüero’s opportunism, they drifted after going 2-1 down. David Silva faded after a promising start, Kevin de Bruyne could not shake off Sam Byram and Jesús Navas was shackled by Aaron Cresswell. Raheem Sterling’s impact as a substitute was minimal. At least Kelechi Iheanacho was bright after replacing Delph, his driving run leading to Agüero nonchalantly making it 2-2. “They put us under pressure,” Slaven Bilic said. “We were under pressure but the good point is, let’s say second half, when we beat them at the Etihad 2-1, second half, it was the Alamo, it was like them, them, them. We were kicking the ball out. This was like, with our quality, we were also keeping the ball, we were stretching them.” Yet, although City lacked hunger and purpose, they remain three points off the top. They are playing within themselves and they may only require a slight improvement to win the league, especially if Agüero stays fit. The best striker in England has started 2016 with six goals in six matches. “The last problem was when he was with his national squad” Pellegrini said. “He scored four times against Newcastle and I changed him as he was feeling some problems. Unfortunately he played for his national squad three or four days after and he had a muscle injury. So I hope now that he is 100% fit and he does not have any problem and it is very important that the team plays with him in every game. “In the first 23 games, in the 11 players who played the most minutes, we don’t have Agüero, Silva, Kompany. I hope that in the second part of the season they will be involved in all the games because they are very important.” Man of the match Alex Song (West Ham United)
Fans dismay as Premier League snubs cap on away ticket prices The Football Supporters’ Federation has expressed bitter disappointment that Premier League clubs failed to back a measure to cap away ticket prices at their most recent meeting, while Liverpool have expressed dismay at the news that some of their supporters are to stage a walkout from Saturday’s game against Sunderland in protest at the new Anfield pricing structure. It is understood that while no vote was taken on away tickets at Thursday’s meeting of all the Premier League clubs, informal soundings were taken that made it clear the proposal would not received the two-thirds majority required. Discussions are continuing about whether clubs, promised an £8.3bn bounty from broadcasting rights, will agree to an across-the-board cap on away prices or seek instead to boost the existing away fans ticket fund. The FSF chief executive, Kevin Miles, who has been leading its Twenty’s Plenty campaign for a £20 cap, said: “We are incredibly disappointed to learn that a proposed cap on away ticket prices was voted down by the Premier League clubs yesterday in a secret ballot. Supporters will not let them off the hook. “Football supporters are right to be angry about the Premier League clubs’ apparent reluctance to tackle the problem of ticket prices. Top-flight clubs have known since last year that they will be receiving a huge increase in their TV revenues. In the light of that windfall, Premier League clubs cannot justify maintaining high ticket prices, particularly for away fans.” He added: “Despite clubs failing to agree a way forward yesterday, this issue will not go away and fans will continue to fight for fair ticket prices. We understand that the Premier League will be working with clubs over the coming weeks to find a way forward. That must result in meaningful action on away prices at the next shareholders’ meeting at the end of March. If clubs have the will to do this there must be a way.” Arsenal fans this week complained that the club was asking season ticket holders for a surcharge of up to £30 for their home Champions League tie against Barcelona, although the club released a statement on Friday night which said they would cancel the charge given the outcry. It is understood that most clubs largely agree on the need for action on away ticket prices, having accepted that they are crucial to providing the atmosphere that helps maintain the Premier League’s broadcasting income. But some clubs are believed to be reluctant to agree a universal cap for fear that it will erode their ability to set their own prices or could lead to complaints from home fans who sit in equivalent seats but pay more. Instead, they favour an increase to the away fans fund, which currently stands at £200,000 per club per season and can be spent however each individual club sees fit. The FSF would like to see both a cap and an increase to the fund, as well as a commitment to continue to engage on wider ticket pricing issues. The matter will now be discussed again at the next meeting of Premier League clubs in late March, which will be their last before next season’s prices are set. Arsenal denied that they were among the clubs against movement on ticket prices, but are understood to favour an increase in the fund rather than a price cap. “We argued for the most extensive package of support for travelling fans and we are sure there will be a good solution,” said a spokesman.
Merkel can't afford Deutsche Bank crisis to get out of hand Tidjane Thiam, the former Prudential chief now running Credit Suisse, won’t be thanked by his counterparts at Deutsche Bank for saying so at this moment, but he is correct: big European banks are “not really investable” and the industry is in a “very fragile situation”. Look at the share prices to see that investors agree. In the old pre-crisis days, banks traded at a premium to their book value on the reasonable assumption that the business of lending would tend to increase profits over time. These days discounts to book value are the norm for big banks. Low interest rates, accompanied by piles of government debt trading at negative yields, has made lending fundamentally less profitable. Banks can shed staff and overheads, but that is not a cost-free process. Meanwhile, mergers – essentially grander cost-cutting exercises – are more or less forbidden because the world can’t stand more institutions that are too big too fail. The position is a mess. Put another way, big banks used to run on obscene levels of leverage and haven’t found a new model to allow them to plod through the era of near-zero interest rates. That is why it is wrong to regard the crisis at Deutsche as merely a standoff with the US Department of Justice over the size of the penalty for mis-selling mortgage-backed securities in 2005-07. Yes, a demand for $14bn (£10.8bn) – or possibly even half that sum – would probably trigger a need for more capital, as analysts say. But investors can also see that Deutsche is years behind even its peers in adapting to the new world. UBS rallied around its asset management division; Barclays sold its asset manager, shed many of its continental European business and is getting out of Africa. Deutsche, by contrast, has tried cutting costs but has not radically changed shape. Even now, the co-chief executive, John Cryan, talks about a restructuring that will take five years, a timescale that looks far too relaxed if he finds himself pleading with his shareholders to give him more capital at short notice. It is still quite possible that the DoJ’s demand could fall from $14bn to $4bn, which would allow everybody to breathe more easily. But, given what’s at stake, it would be amazing if German chancellor Angela Merkel and her officials are not working on contingency plans for Deutsche. She has to deny all such suggestions, of course, because there is no point fuelling the sense of crisis. But this crisis in confidence in European banks, with Deutsche at the centre, has been brewing for at least 12 months. If the German government and Frankfurt regulators weren’t paying attention, they weren’t doing their job. Germans won’t sit around in game of pass the parcel German companies still do the simpler business of delivering parcels well, which is why Royal Mail’s share price fell 3% on news that Deutsche Post, owner of DHL, is buying UK Mail for £243m. Deutsche Post is a €33bn (£28.6bn) titan and won’t be returning to the UK parcels industry simply to sit on UK Mail’s 4% share of the market. It will want to grow. The timing is cute from Deutsche Post’s point of view. It has waited for UK Mail to overcome teething problems at its new automated sorting centre. It is paying 43% more than UK Mail’s share price on Tuesday but well below the all-time high. From UK Mail’s point of view, you can understand why chairman Peter Kane, who started the business in 1971 as a taxi firm in Harrow, has decided to sell. Amazon, which is building an in-house delivery operation, is gradually become a competitor rather than a customer for the industry. For Royal Mail, the game won’t change overnight. It is still the dominant player and internet shopping in the UK is still booming. But 3% off its share price looks about right: Deutsche Post has very deep pockets. When any excuse for a thumbs-down will do Get ready for the European lobbying event of the year. The proposed £24bn merger between the London Stock Exchange Group and Deutsche Börse has been sent to Brussels for a full competition inquiry. Almost every EU finance ministry will have an opinion. Let’s hope somebody throws a large spanner in the works. This deal looks highly dangerous for the City of London if it encourages financial business to flow out of the UK, a risk that can only be assessed properly once the terms of Brexit are settled. The commission is worried about pan-European competition, not the UK’s national interest, but any grounds for a thumbs-down will do.
How did email grow from messages between academics to a global epidemic? Ray Tomlinson, the man who literally put the “@” in email, died on Saturday, but his invention, which allowed electronic messages to spread across the internet and fill our lives and our inboxes on a daily basis, will live on. Here is a brief look at what Tomlinson started and the evolution of email through the last half-century. The first electronic message - 1965 The very first version of what would become known as email was invented in 1965 at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) as part of the university’s Compatible Time-Sharing System, which allowed users to share files and messages on a central disk, logging in from remote terminals. Tomlinson and the @ - 1971 American computer programmer Tomlinson arguably conceived the method of sending email between different computers across the forerunner to the internet, Arpanet, at the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa), introducing the “@” sign to allow messages to be targeted at certain users on certain machines. Emails become a standard - 1973 The first email standard was proposed in 1973 at Darpa and finalised within Arpanet in 1977, including common things such as the to and from fields, and the ability to forward emails to others who were not initially a recipient. The Queen sends her first email - 1976 Queen Elizabeth II sends an email on Arpanet, becoming the first head of state to do so. Eric Schmidt designs BerkNet - 1978 Eric Schmidt, who would later lead Google and oversee the introduction of Gmail, wrote Berkley Network as part of his master’s thesis in 1978, which was an early intranet service offering messaging over serial connections. EMAIL program developed - 1979 At the age of 14, Shiva Ayyadurai writes a program called EMAIL for the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, which sent electronic messages within the university, later copyrighting the term in 1982. Whether or not this is the first use of the word email is up for debate. Microsoft Mail arrives - 1988 The first version of Microsoft Mail was released in 1988 for Mac OS, allowing users of Apple’s AppleTalk Networks to send messages to each other. In 1991, a second version was released for other platforms including DOS and Windows, which laid the groundwork for Microsoft’s later Outlook and Exchange email systems. CompuServe starts internet-based email service - 1989 CompuServe became the first online service to offer internet connectivity via dial-up phone connections, and its proprietary email service allowed other internet users to send emails to each other. Lotus Notes launched - 1989 The first version Lotus Notes was released in 1989 by Lotus Development Corporation, which was bought by IBM in 1995. The start of spam - 1990 The rise of spam can be charted back to the very early days of Arpanet, but it wasn’t until the early 1990s that it hit users across the internet, when it was aimed at message boards and later email addresses. April 1994 is the first recorded business practice of spam from two lawyers from Phoenix, Laurence Carter and Martha Siegel, who ended up writing a book on it. The attachment - 1992 The attachment was born when the Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (Mime) protocol was released, which includes the ability to attach things that are not just text to emails. And so begins the painful exercise of trying to delete emails to make space after someone sends you a massive attachment in the days of limited inbox space. Outlook and Aol - 1993 The first version of Microsoft’s Outlook was released in 1993 as part of Exchange Server 5.5, while at the same time US internet service providers AOL and Delphi connected their email systems, paving the way for modern, overloaded email systems we struggle with today. Hotmail launches - 1996 Before Microsoft bought it for $400m, 1996 saw the launch of one of the first popular webmail email services called HoTMaiL developed by Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smith. It was one of the first email services not tied to a particular ISP and adopted new HTML-based email formatting – hence the stylising of the brand name. It was bought by Microsoft in 1997, rebranded MSN Hotmail, then Windows Live Hotmail and replaced by Outlook.com in 2013. Yahoo Mail follows - 1997 Yahoo Mail was launched the year after Hotmail, which was gaining users by the thousands, and was based on internet company Four11’s Rocketmail, which was bought as part of Yahoo’s acquisition of the company. You’ve Got Mail, and so has everyone else - 1998 Email was cemented in the public consciousness with the notorious “you’ve got mail” sound of email arriving for AOL users, which formed the cornerstone of the 1998 Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan romantic comedy, You’ve Got Mail. By the late 1990s spam was becoming a real problem – inducted to the Oxford English Dictionary in 1998 – as more and more marketers jumped on the practically zero-cost outreach proposition and inundated our inboxes. In 2002, the European Union released its Directive on Privacy and Electronic Communications, which included a section on spam that made it illegal to send unsolicited communications for direct marketing purposes without prior consent of the recipient. The US passed similar laws in 2004, although neither have been particularly effective at reducing the load. Gmail launches - 2004 Google’s popular email service, Gmail, started life as an internal mail system for Google employees, developed by Paul Buchheit in 2001. It wasn’t unveiled to the public until a limited, invite-only beta release in 2004. It was made publicly available in 2007 and dropped its “beta” status in 2009. Fighting back against spam - 2005 The first email standard to attempt to fight the deluge of spam by verifying senders was published after a five-year development. Sender Policy Framework was then implemented by a variety of anti-spam programs. A standard of authentication to attempt to prevent email spoofing and phishing was also released called DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM). Email goes mobile for casual users - 2007 Apple’s first iPhone was released in 2007, which began to introduce mobile email to the consumer masses. Until that point pre-capacitive consumer smartphones typically had limited email support, while RIM’s BlackBerry had brought the burden of work email to employee palms starting in 2003. Buried in email - 2015 From humble internal communications beginnings, email now dominates a vast proportion of everyday life. An estimated 4.4bn email addresses are in use worldwide with 205bn emails sent per day in 2015, according to data from market research firm Radicati Group. That number is set to increase to over 246bn emails a day by the end of 2019. What was the best (and worst) email you ever received? 12 things today’s gamers don’t remember about old games
Markets relaxed as state aid looms for Italy's Monte dei Paschi – as it happened A surge in the banking sector has helped lift European markets, as investors once again shrugged off the Italian referendum result and the resignation of prime minister Matteo Renzi. Hopes that the country’s parliament might pass a budget on Wednesday provided some support, as did the continuing optimism that investors might rescue struggling Monte dei Paschi. If that does not happen, there was growing talk that a state bailout could take place this weekend. The idea that the bank would be recapitalised one way or another pushed the Italian banking index 9% higher, its best one day performance since 8 July. Monte dei Paschi itself added 1%, while Unicredit climbed 13%. Elsewhere Deutsche Bank jumped 8% while in the UK, Royal Bank of Scotland rose nearly 6% and Barclays 4.5%. The final scores showed: The FTSE 100 finished up 33.01 points or 0.49% at 6779.84 Germany’s Dax rose 0.85% to 10,775.32 France’s Cac climbed 1.26% to 4631.94 Italy’s FTSE MIB jumped 4.15% to 17,757.80 Spain’s Ibex ended 2.64% higher at 8893.3 In Greece, the Athens market added 0.36% to 622.52 On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is currently up 19 points or 0.1%. On that note, it’s time to close for the evening. Thanks for all your comments, and we’ll be back tomorrow. Back with Boeing, and Donald Trump’s tweet saying the company was charging too much to build the new Air Force One - $4bn - and should lose the contract. Boeing has now responded with a statement, saying: We are currently under contract for $170m to help determine the capabilities of these complex military aircraft that serve the unique requirements of the President of the United States. We look forward to working with the US Air Force on subsequent phases of the program allowing us to deliver the best planes for the President at the best value for the American taxpayer. Ratings agency Fitch has moved its outlook on Italian banks from stable to negative for 2017, in the wake of the referendum vote and worries about their ability to recapitalise. Fitch said: The Negative Outlook for the Italian banking sector reflects its increased vulnerability to shocks following the asset-quality deterioration in legacy portfolios... A step-up in pressure from authorities and market participants on the sector to reduce the very high levels of impaired loans has increased urgency and risks for Italian banks. Profitability in the sector is frail. Disposals of non-performing loan portfolios could lead to losses that require additional capital. These are some of the factors driving the 2017 Outlook to Negative from Stable. Problems for a small number of distressed banks raising capital have added to these pressures The “No” vote at the constitutional referendum has further heightened political uncertainty and possibly reduced the capacity to implement economic reforms. The risks from political instability were one factor that contributed to our revision of the Outlook on Italy’s ‘BBB+’ sovereign rating to Negative in October. The referendum result could also damage the recapitalisation plans of some Italian banks, most notably Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena and UniCredit, and have negative implications for the broader banking sector, whose attractiveness with investors has already reduced significantly during 2016. The sector’s ability to access the institutional markets for funding and capital, which has become more difficult and expensive this year, could deteriorate further... Significant disposals that materially improve asset quality could be positive for ratings. However, the disposals are likely to result in further provisioning and possibly more capital shortfalls for the banks involved. Portfolio sales could also result in risk-weighted assets rising for the remaining loans if the sales affect loss-given-default estimates at banks using internal rating models. Capitalisation will remain under pressure in 2017 with a weak earnings outlook limiting banks’ ability to build capital. Low interest rates, tepid economic growth and fierce competition for healthy borrowers are challenges for earnings. Profitability could also be dented by restructuring costs as banks focus on cost-cutting. We also believe regulators could require higher capital buffers from Italian banks to compensate for the risk in their large non-performing loan portfolios and for the large portion of Italian sovereign debt held. This could result in additional capital requirements at some banks. The Italian referendum proved a non-event for markets, including emerging markets, because it had effectively been priced in, and at the same time suggested the European Central Bank might well extend its quantitative easing programme this week. So says David Rees of Capital Economics. But he adds: Nonetheless, the political situation in Italy, and indeed the rise of populism in Europe more generally, is something to keep an eye on in the months ahead. Italy’s economy and banking sector are weak, and if the Five Star Movement’s momentum continues to build, it may not be long before an exit from the euro becomes a more realistic concern for investors....Similar fears have rocked emerging market equities in the past, when the Greek debt crisis first came to the fore and Spanish and Italian bonds came under fire in 2012. Italy’s banking sector continues to recover, helped by talk that the country’s parliament might approve its budget on Wednesday, and there could be a state bailout of troubled Monte dei Paschi this weekend. The country’s banking index is currently up more than 7%, its best daily performance since the middle of July. The overall European banking index is up 3%, hitting its highest level since the middle of January. More fallout from Donald Trump’s election - this time affecting UK mortgage rates. Rupert Jones reports: The first evidence has emerged that the era of record-low fixed-rate mortgages may be coming to an end after HSBC withdrew its “cheapest-ever” deal and increased rates on other products. HSBC had been offering a mortgage that allowed customers to lock in for two years at a rate of 0.99%, but this deal has been pulled with immediate effect. The bank’s new mortgage offers are coming in at up to 0.5% higher. The move follows warnings from mortgage brokers that a number of factors, including Donald Trump’s US election win, were set to push up the cost of new fixed-rate home loans. David Hollingworth at broker London & Country Mortgages said: “The bottom of the market may have been hit. This [announcement] and the broader changes from HSBC, which has been very aggressively priced in the fixed-rate market, could spell the end of the sub-1% fixed rate, but also signals a potential turning point for fixed mortgage rates.” The full story is here: Donald Trump may be casting doubt on Boeing’s Air Force One order, but elsewhere US manufacturers are doing well. New orders for US factory goods rose 2.7% in October, the biggest increase for nearly a year and a half and just above expectations of a 2.6% improvement. The September figure was revised upwards from a gain of 0.3% to 0.6%. The latest figures mark the fourth straight month of increases. But there could be clouds ahead, given the strength of the dollar following Trump’s election victory. Paul Sirani, chief market analyst at Xtrade, said: US factory orders surged... in October, providing manufacturers with plenty of optimism in what has been a turbulent year. Uncertainty surrounds the sector, though, amid renewed strength of the dollar and the incoming president’s trade policy, particularly his approach to China. Donald Trump’s promised fiscal stimulus and the increasing likelihood of raising interest rates has fuelled a greenback rally, and that could starve off exports and hit US factories hard in the new year. And here’s a video clip of Donald Trump outlining his unhappiness with Boeing. Along with the Oval Office, the nuclear codes and the attention of the whole world, winning a US presidential election gives you the power to move the markets. And airline maker Boeing just saw that for itself. Shares in Boeing fell by 1% at the start of trading in New York, after Donald Trump declared on Twitter (where else?) that the firm was charging too much to build the new Air Force One, and should lose the contract. The suggestion that the next US president might take a tough line has worried investors in Boeing (after all, he does have his own Trump Force One). Over in Greece this morning there has been much merriment over the euro group’s decision last night to define the contours of a debt relief agreement for the country long at the centre of Europe’s financial crisis. Our correspondent Helena Smith reports from Athens For the first time since economic crisis engulfed Greece just over seven years ago, a sitting government in Athens has felt fit to describe a decision taken in Brussels as a “national success.” The positive spin and brave faces that have greeted the three bailouts rolled out for Greece, so far, have today been superseded by a genuine sense of relief at the announcement of short-term measures to lighten the country’s mountainous debt load. Many in Syriza, the governing left-wing party, said the move by euro zone partners to shave €45bn euros off the pile – the equivalent of 22 percent of GDP – by extending the repayment period and adjusting interest rates - exceeded “every expectation.” Addressing reporters today the government spokesman Dimitris Tzanakopoulos described the decision both as a “significant achievement” and “decisive step for the stabilisation of the Greek economy and complete restoration of confidence.” But as Greece’s political opposition was quick to point out the victory was bittersweet. This might be the first time that the nation’s unmanageable debt burden has been addressed head-on – and as such can only be seen as rich reward for prime minister Alexis Tsipras - but it comes against a backdrop of calls for Athens to adopt yet more austerity once its current bailout programme expires in mid-2018. Amid signs of a looming showdown with the International Monetary Fund, which says further belt-tightening is the only way to plug the looming fiscal gap and thus ensure its own participation in Greece’s third bailout to date, the spokesman called the demands “irrational.” Athens, he insisted, would neither accept the German proposal for Greece to achieve a primary surplus of 3.5 % through 2028 nor the IMF’s demands for extra measures in 2019 and 2020. Both are expected to dominate talks when auditors representing creditor institutions return to continue negotiating a second review of policy measures set as the price of bailout funds. “Greek society cannot endure more measures,” said Interior minister Panos Skourletis hinting at the battle that is brewing. “The Greek economy can’t endure them either.” Angelino Alfano’s prediction that Italy could hold a general election in February 2017 didn’t impress the markets, sending shares and bonds down from their earlier highs: But shares are now pushing higher again, following a report that the parliament might approve the 2017 budget on Wednesday, in a confidence vote. That’s sent the FTSE MIB index back up to its earlier highs, gaining 1.7% today. Over in Italy, a political leader has suggested that fresh general elections could be held next February. Interior Minister Angelino Alfano, whose centre-right party is part of Matteo Renzi’s coalition, told the Corriere della Sera newspaper that: “I forecast there will be the will to go to elections in February.” Significantly, Alfano was speaking after having met with Renzi (whose resignation was put on hold by the country’s president last night). Here’s Reuters’ take: Alfano rose to prominence as a key ally of Silvio Berlusconi, before dramatically splitting from the former PM in 2013 to form a new party. Italian bonds are still looking stable as traders head for lunch: One fundamental problem with Italian banks is that there are too many of them, says Kathleen Brooks of City Index. She argues that closing some branches would help make the sector competitive, and free up capital for other uses: Italy has more bank branches than pizzerias, in the future it desperately needs more pizza and less banks! She also explains why Monte dei Paschi’s future matters, especially if its cash call fail this week. It’s certainly not as systemically important as other banks, for example Italy’s Unicredit, but Monte dei Paschi’s main problem is that it has become symbolic of Italy’s rotten banking sector that now relies on foreign capital for life support. If the Qatari’s decide against investing in it then it gives a terrible signal to the world about the ‘investability’ of Europe’s banks. Interestingly, in Europe it is not the systemically important banks that are the biggest risk to the financial sector, but the glut of mid-size banks that hold billions in bad debts that could endanger the health of the bigger banks in Europe, if contagion is to spread. Business confidence in Italy is likely to be hurt by the political uncertainty created by Sunday’s referendum result, and the struggles in the banking sector. Ana Boata, economist at trade insurance firm Euler Hermes, believes 0.3 percentage points could be knocked off growth next year, taking the annual rate down from 0.9% to 0.6%. She predicts that foreign investment will be hit, and Italian firms could suffer high financing costs if their banks remain weak: While there is no need to panic, the resounding ‘No’ result and political turmoil that has followed could cause a mild confidence crisis in 2017. Even without any spill over to banks or the bond market, we expect -0.3pp of Italian GDP could be shaven off, leaving the economy with the prospect of a mere 0.6% growth next year. “It will be Italian companies that bear the brunt of a confidence shock, albeit a mild one, which are already contending with some of the worst cash flow conditions in the world – businesses are waiting on average for 88 days for payment for goods and services. We are likely to see divestment from abroad and tougher financing conditions mean that inward investment levels will stay flat, compared to 2% growth we previously predicted for 2017, and hamper the economy’s chances of recovery.” European banking shares are rallying this morning, as traders look for silver linings in the Italian political upheaval. Almost every bank in the index of major European banks, the Stoxx 600, has gained ground. The prospect of Monte dei Paschi (-2.6%) receiving a dose of state aid this weekend is calming the markets, as this would remove the risk that it might simply collapse. Joshua Mahony, market analyst at IG, has taken his eye of his company’s plunging share price to explain all: One of the biggest worries surrounding the referendum was the impact it could have upon the nation’s banking system, with the likes of Unicredit and Monte dei Paschi in the midst of a recapitalisation and bank rescue plan. Plans to raise substantial funds at Monte dei Paschi have hit the buffers after the ‘No’ vote and while a likely government bailout may not be the ideal otucome for the bank, it will mitigate the risk of a collapse and contagion in the region, hence the widespread gains across the financial sector today. Eurogroup chief Jeroen Dijsselbloem has weighed in on Brexit this morning, warning that the UK’s demands are not compatible with a smooth exit from the EU. Our politics liveblog has all the details: Britain’s financial spread-betting firms love to talk about the possibilities created by stock market volatility. But they’ve had a nasty taste of it themselves this morning, after the City regulators announced a crackdown on ‘contract for difference’ products. CFD’s allow a customer to make big profits if they correctly predict a market move -- or see their nest egg crushed by the stampeding herd if they get it wrong. So today, the FCA announced new rules to prevent “inexperienced” clients from getting burned. It wants to restrict how much leverage a retail customer can take on (to restrict them from taking big positions on a small deposit), and better risk warnings. And no wonder - given that 82% of clients manage to lose money on CFD! All sensible-sounding stuff. But shares in IG and CMC Markets, two of the biggest players, have both plunged by 30% this morning -- showing how profitable these retail investors have been. More here: The pound has hit a two-month high this morning, after chancellor Philip Hammond meets with fellow finance ministers in Brussels. Arriving at the meeting, Hammond told reporters that the UK government hasn’t ruled out paying into the EU budget in return for access to its markets. He said: “We want to keep all options open.... That is something we would have to look at, looking at the costs and the benefits based on what is in the best interests of the British taxpayer.” The possibility of a so-called Soft Brexit has nudged sterling up to $1.277 this morning, its highest level since early October. European stock markets are remarkably calm this morning. Most stock indices are up in early trading, led by Italy, where the banking index has rallied by almost 2%. Shares in Monti dei Paschi, though, have fallen by 3% in volatile trading, as investors wonder whether its rescue plan can be salvaged by the weekend. Britain’s FTSE 100 is becalmed, down a few points. Connor Campbell of SpreadEx says: The FTSE is lacking any macro-momentum bar the continued, and exhausting, Brexit-brouhaha that have been a constant presence since June, meaning it is struggling to significantly break through the levels it has been stuck around for the last few months. Newsflash from Italy: The Rome government will be desperate avoid inflicting bail-in losses on small bondholders, says the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Robin Bew: That could mean breaking EU rules on bank rescues, unless Italy can ‘bend’ them by finding a way to compensate those small savers. Here’s a handy reminder of how badly Italian banks have fared this year, and how badly Italy has performed this millennium, from the Wall Street Journal. Italian government debt is strengthened in value this morning, showing that the markets remain relaxed about the situation. The rally has pulled down the yield on Italy’s 10-year bonds to 1.95%, down from 1.9% last night, and actually lower than before Sunday’s referendum. The gap between Italian and German debt remains steady too - another sign of market calm. The Financial Times reckons that Monte dei Paschi may have to be bailed out this weekend. It all depends whether Qatar can be persuaded to still back its €5bn cashcall, even though Italy has been plunged into political limbo. Here’s the key points. Bankers are running out of private-sector solutions for Monte dei Paschi di Siena and have told the Italian lender to prepare for a state bailout this weekend after prime minister Matteo Renzi was felled by a referendum defeat. While financial markets responded relatively calmly to the referendum result, people briefed on the situation said the political upheaval made it “more difficult” to secure a €1bn investment from Qatar on which Monte dei Paschi’s €5bn capital-raising plan hinges. Senior bankers fear that a failure to shore up the bank, which was the worst loser of this summer’s European bank healthcheck, could damage already jittery investor confidence about Italy’s overall banking sector, which is hobbled by €360bn of bad loans and weak profitability. JPMorgan Chase and Mediobanca, advisers to Monte dei Paschi, have been working with Pier Carlo Padoan, Italy’s finance minister, to persuade the Qatar Investment Authority to pump money into Italy’s third-largest lender. But hope is fading that they can secure a deal by this week’s deadline. Without the cornerstone investment from Qatar, the other parts of the complex plan to fill the bank’s €5bn capital shortfall are likely to collapse. Reuters is reporting that Italian authorities are standing by to provide ‘precautionary’ state aid to their oldest bank, Monte dei Paschi, if its rescue plan fails. Intriguingly, this measure could (apparently) allow Rome to get much-needed capital into MPS without triggering European rules forcing some bondholders to take a hit. That would protect those families and pensioners who hold bank bonds. Here’s the story: Measures to allow state aid for Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena are ready but will depend on political developments in coming days, sources familiar with the matter said. The Tuscan lender is looking at the idea of a precautionary recapitalisation which would avoid the triggering of European bail-in rules, one source said. Monte dei Paschi needs to raise 5 billion euros ($5.38 billion) by the end of December to avoid being wound down, but investors are reluctant to back the cash call after Prime Minister Matteo Renzi lost a referendum on Sunday and pledged to resign. Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of the world economy, the financial markets, the eurozone and business. Matteo Renzi’s defeat in Sunday’s Italian referendum continues to reverberate around Europe, even though the outgoing PM has agreed to stay on a little longer to get the country’s 2017 budget passed. The big worry, of course, is Italy’s banks - with their €350bn of non-performing loans and uncomfortably thin capital reserves. The City is watching to see if Renzi’s defeat has scuppered the plans to recapitalise these institutions using private money; potential investors could well have been scared away by the crisis in Rome. If these efforts fail, then Italy’s government may have to activate bail-in procedures, which would inflict losses on private bondholders. And in Italy, that includes many members of the public. As CMC’s Michael Hewson explains, the Italian banking sector is a serious worry: Any new government technocratic or otherwise is still faced with the unenviable task of either bailing in the Italian banking sector and wiping out a wave of Italian pensioners and savers, or defying Brussels and trying to bail the banks out with taxpayer’s money in contravention of new rules to protect taxpayers. As it is the recapitalisation plan for Monte dei Paschi di Siena is much more problematic now that Renzi has gone given the uncertainty that is likely to come next as we await the shape of any new administration. No one in their right mind is likely to invest in a bank that has already been bailed out three times in the last few years against such an uncertain political backdrop. One thing is certain the events of the last few days make it likely that we will see the ECB extend its asset purchase scheme by at least another six months, beyond March 2017 when they meet later this week. The wider stock markets, though, continue to be quite relaxed about the political situation in Italy. Most European indices rose yesterday, and traders are expecting a quiet morning today. We’ll also be watching Greece, which was last night granted some short-term debt relief by its European creditors. But more seriously, the eurogroup and the IMF are still split over Greece’s fiscal targets, meaning the Fund still hasn’t officially joined the €86bn bailout programme. Euro zone grants Greece short-term debt relief; no deal with IMF
Watchdog demands banking overhaul to save customers money A package of measures intended to help customers save £92 a year by switching their bank accounts has faced criticism for failing to do enough to encourage competition among the high street banks. After two-year investigation into the sector, the competition watchdog said technological advances that helped the development of Uber and Google Maps would make it easier for customers to compare bank accounts and should encourage customers to shop around. The £5m investigation by the Competition and Markets Authority – first announced in July 2014 when former Labour leader Ed Miliband was vowing to create new banks – is intended to kickstart competition in a sector where only 3% of personal and 4% of business customers switch to a different bank in any year. It also tried to tackle the £1.2bn a year the banks make from unarranged overdraft charges, as customers with overdrafts find it more difficult to change accounts. Banks will be required to send alerts to customers going into the red and set a monthly cap on such charges, which some campaigners argue are higher than those levied by payday lenders such as Wonga. But Alex Neill, director of policy and campaigns at consumer watchdog Which?, said: “It is disappointing that the monthly charge cap is not actually a cap and banks will be allowed to continue to charge exorbitant fees for so-called unauthorised overdrafts, rather than protect those customers that have been identified as among the most vulnerable.” The CMA stepped back from breaking up the big four – Lloyds Banking Group, Royal Bank of Scotland, HSBC and Barclays – which control 77% of the current account market and more than 80% of small business accounts. The key plank of the proposals is the adoption of new technology in 2018 that will enable customers to see hidden charges applied to their accounts, allowing them to shop around for the best deal. This might eventually happen through the creation of a “digital app” or a sophisticated price comparison website – but this “open banking” technology will need to be developed. Alasdair Smith, who chaired the investigation and has faced criticism in the past for holding back from tough reforms, said: “We are breaking down the barriers which have made it too easy for established banks to hold on to their customers. Our reforms will increase innovation and competition in a sector whose performance is crucial for the UK economy.” The CMA said that personal customers could save £92 on average a year by switching provider, with savings of around £80 a year on average available for small businesses. “Larger savings are available for overdraft users – for example, personal customers who are overdrawn for one or two weeks every month could save £180 per year on average,” the CMA said. The use of free-if-in-credit banking – in which customers do not pay a fee for services if they do not go overdrawn, but do not receive interest on their balances – by the big four is often criticised as impeding competition. This is because it can make it difficult for customers to see how much they are paying for their banking services in hidden charges. Spanish-owned TSB – once part of Lloyds – wanted customers to be sent monthly bills to tackle this. Paul Pester, chief executive of TSB, said: “The CMA has played right into the hands of the big banks and missed a golden opportunity to enable people across the UK to get a better deal from their banks.” MPs were also unimpressed. The Treasury select committee will call the CMA to give evidence in the autumn and Andrew Tyrie, the Conservative MP who chairs the committee, said the MPs would not give up on trying to find ways to give customers more choice. “Until people are able to find out how much their bank charges them for their current account, millions of customers will be denied genuine choice in retail banking. There’s a lot to digest but, based on what I’ve seen so far, I’m not optimistic that the CMA’s remedies will get to the heart of the problem,” said Tyrie. Rachel Reeves, a Labour MP who sits on the committee, will ask the Financial Conduct Authority to consider measures similar to those imposed on payday lenders to cap charges on overdrafts. The measures that were rejected Breaking up banks The CMA concluded there was insufficient evidence that the current structure of the industry was hurting competition. The separation of TBS from Lloyds Banking Group and the troublesome split of 300 Williams & Glyn branches out of Royal Bank of Scotland were “expensive” and “high disruptive” for customers. Both those divestments were demanded by the EU as a result of the taxpayer bailouts. Ending free-if-in-credit banking The CMA concludes this works well for many customers. The real problem is whether customers can work out if they are getting the best deal. Easing capital requirements for mortgages New banks need to hold more capital for lending than established players. Two members of the inquiry group thought this could be a barrier to entry but it was rejected on the grounds that it was not appropriate to create “regulatory uncertainty” given work already being undertaken by the Bank of England.
It's official: Trump clinches Republican nomination Trump secures nomination in Cleveland Thirteen months after launching his campaign, Donald Trump has secured the Republican party’s nomination for US president after a once-improbable proposition became a reality on Tuesday night at the Republican national convention in Cleveland. As Trump passed the delegate threshold, an illuminated message proclaimed: “Over the Top”. Later, the candidate proclaimed: “This is a movement and we have to go all the way.” The convention speakers included Trump’s children, Donald Jr and Tiffany, the House speaker, Paul Ryan, and New Jersey governor Chris Christie, who offered a rabble-rousing, prosecutorial takedown of Hillary Clinton. Meanwhile, the Trump campaign continued to insist Melania Trump’s well-received speech had not been plagiarised,while some conservative groups are staging a rearguard effort to get the Republican party to accept the dangers of climate change. US election 2016: Republican party nominates Donald Trump for president Hottest June Last month was the 14th straight month of record-breaking global temperatures, according to Nasa and Noaa. June 2016 was 0.9C hotter than the average for the 20th century, and the hottest June in the record which goes back to 1880. It broke the previous record, set in 2015, by 0.02C. The 14-month streak of record-breaking temperatures was the longest in the 137-year record. Hottest ever June marks 14th month of record-breaking temperatures US police face recruitment crisis After the killing of five Texas police officers on 7 July, there are growing fears that strained community relations, budget shortfalls and perceptions of a “war on cops” will worsen recruiting problems faced by departments in Dallas and elsewhere. The Dallas police chief, David Brown, recently issued an invitation to those who marched in protest at killings of African Americans by law enforcement: join us. “Serve your community, don’t be a part of the problem.” Racial tension, budget cuts and ‘war on cops’ could hinder police recruiting Banned from Twitter Milo Yiannopoulos, a rightwing writer and notorious internet troll, has been permanently banned from the social media site after he was accused of promoting a social media attack on Ghostbusters’ Leslie Jones. Yiannopoulos, the technology editor for Breitbart.com, tweeted as @Nero, called himself “the most fabulous supervillain on the internet” and referred to Donald Trump as “daddy”. Milo Yiannopoulos, rightwing writer, permanently banned from Twitter Ailes to exit Fox hole The Fox News chairman, Roger Ailes, is in negotiations to quit the conservative-leaning cable news network he helped create, following allegations of sexual harassment from some of the channel’s highest-profile female news anchors. Ailes was hit with a sexual harassment suit by anchor Gretchen Carlson earlier this month. Ailes could collect as much as $40m in severance pay, according to a leaked copy of a “separation agreement” published by the Drudge Report on Tuesday. Roger Ailes negotiating exit from Fox News amid sexual harassment claims Farmers struggle to meet organic demand Demand for organic food has never been higher – $13.4bn in the US last year – yet farmers are struggling to get organic certification. Only 1% of US farmland is currently approved and the time and expense required for certification present major roadblocks. Concern over the organic shortage is so acute that corporate businesses and nonprofits are launched new efforts to give growers better incentives to go organic. American farmers are struggling to feed the country’s appetite for organic food Many Turks back authoritarian Erdoğan The enduring popularity of the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, perplexes some western observers, who know him mainly for his increasingly authoritarian actions. In recent days, western leaders have expressed alarm at the purge instigated following the failed coup attempt. Since Saturday about 35,000 officers, soldiers, policemen, judges, prosecutors, teachers and university deans have been detained, fired or suspended as Erdoğan attempts to isolate anyone his government perceives to be a threat. But outside city hall the crowds saw him mainly as a saviour. “We love our president so much,” said Ersin Korkmaz, a 29-year-old civil servant who was draped in a Turkish flag and accompanied by his two young daughters. ‘We see him as one of us’: why many Turks still back authoritarian Erdoğan Russian doping verdict anticipated Dick Pound, the International Olympic Committee member whose report into Russian doping led to the country’s track and field athletes being banned last year, has broken ranks to suggest the IOC is unlikely to ban the entire Russia team from the Rio Games. In an interview with the BBC, Pound said he thought the committee would be “very reluctant to think about a total exclusion of the Russian team”. In the ’s view, Rio is no place for cheats. Dick Pound fears IOC reluctant to ban entire Russia team from Olympics Museums embrace Pokémon Resisting anxiety that players of the game will amble blindly into works of art, US institutions including the Whitney and the Museum of Modern Art in New York are seizing the opportunity to get gamers through the doors. MoMA, for instance, has two Pokéstops, including characters that are waiting inside the galleries at the current Tony Oursler and Rachel Harrison exhibitions. American art museums cautiously embrace Pokémon Go Garry Marshall, Happy Days creator, dies The TV writer and producer Garry Marshall, who has died aged 81, was considered one of the entertainment industry’s most successful figures who coined the term “jumping the shark”. Earlier this year, he told the “sharks were big then”. Marshall also created 70s shows such as Mork and Mindy and, in the 80s, directed films, including the blockbuster Pretty Woman, with Julia Roberts and Richard Gere. Garry Marshall, creator of Happy Days, dies aged 81 In case you missed it … Donald Trump’s running mate, Mike Pence, once claimed that Mulan, the 1998 Disney animated film about a Han Dynasty-era woman who disguises herself as a man in order to battle an invading army, was “mischievous liberal” propaganda designed to influence “the next generation’s attitudes about women in combat”. Pence’s piece, written in 1999 and rediscovered by Buzzfeed, criticized Disney for suggesting that a woman could fight alongside men. Pence also claimed the film’s romantic subplot proved that straight men and women were unable to serve beside each other without sex becoming an issue. Mike Pence: Disney’s Mulan is ‘mischievous liberal propaganda’
Live music booking now Judging by Bad Habits, the first track to be released from second album Everything You’ve Come To Expect (out 1 April), Alex Turner and Miles Kane’s sort-of supergroup The Last Shadow Puppets are headed in an increasingly noirish, garage rock-based direction (perhaps in an effort to tie in with Turner’s sartorial leanings). They’re also heading out on tour for the first time since 2008 (26 Mar to 3 Apr, tour starts Usher Hall, Edinburgh) … More names have been revealed for this summer’s Reading and Leeds festivals. Alongside previously announced main stagers the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Disclosure and Foals will rotate headline duties on one of the other evenings; the mainly teen audience will also be treated to a set from author of crack-manufacturing anthems Fetty Wap (Richfield Avenue, Reading & Bramham Park, Leeds, 26 to 28 Aug) … In further festival news, Green Man has Belle And Sebastian, James Blake and Wild Beasts topping its bill (Glanusk Park, nr Crickhowell, 18 to 21 Aug) … While east London’s Lovebox plays host to LCD Soundsystem and Major Lazer (Victoria Park, E3, 15 & 16 Jul).
European Union referendum polling day – as it happened The polls are closing now following a campaign which many believe was the most divisive in British politics. On election nights, it’s usually at this time that broadcasters put out their exit polls and make their projection for the night ahead. There is no such exit poll this time however, although some financial institutions are said to have commissioned private exit polls which they are likely to keep to themselves. Here’s your guide on how the night is expected to play out. Now, turn over to Andrew Sparrow’s referendum night blog, which has just launched. We’re getting some reports around the country of people who say that they have been turned away from election booths. They include people who turned up, polling card in hand, only to be told that their name was not on a list. It’s hard to gauge at this stage how extensive those problems might have been but I’ll try to look into a few of those later. Has Boris Johnson conceded defeat even before the polling stations close or is this a little bit of mischief? Lewis Iwu, a Londoner, says that he bumped into the MP on the underground a little earlier and was asked if he voted leave. Iwu said no and suggested that Johnson had also conceded defeat. Ever the attention grabber, live pictures are also now coming in of Johnson leaving his vote until almost the last minute. We’re into the last half an hour of voting. Traditionally there’s a bit of a rush in some places. Let’s see ... As any veteran of election/referendum all-nighters knows, it’s crucial to have a ready supply of unhealthy sugary drinks and snacks close to hand. Bit worried about Robert Peston’s paltry stock at ITV at this stage ... Global stock markets have been climbing sharply today as investors took the view that the UK was increasingly unlikely to vote to leave the European Union, reports the ’s Nick Fletcher. The Dow Jones Industrial Average has just closed 1.29% higher, with banking shares among the main gainers. Earlier in London the FTSE 100 finished 1.23% higher, while the pound is currently up 1% at $1.4875. But the recent rally could be dramatically reversed if the leave campaign does end up winning the day. Michael Hewson, chief market analyst at City firm CMC Markets, said: “The FTSE 100 has gained nearly 7% in the last seven days while the pound has rebounded from lows of 1.4010 to peak earlier today at 1.4950 and post its highest levels this year, as the polls continue to improve in favour of remain. “This suggests that a good part of this remain bounce could well be largely priced in already and if we get some early results in the early hours of the morning pointing to a move back to the leave camp then sterling could drop back sharply, potentially dragging stock markets down too.” Away from the torrential rain in some parts of Britain, the possibility of Brexit has been very much on the minds of Britons in sunny southern Spain. A sleepless night beckons for some, it seems. The ’s Sam Jones has been canvassing opinion in Orihuela Costa, the largest British enclave in Spain: Early evening found Colin Lindgren nursing an al fresco pint at the Emerald Isle club and reflecting on his paradoxical feelings about Brexit. Like many of the expats who have made homes here, the retired 75-year-old, originally from Bedfordshire, would hate to give up the life of sunshine he and his wife have enjoyed for 14 years. If he’d got round to getting his postal vote in on time, he would have opted to remain. Yet if he were still in England, he would have voted to leave the EU. “I don’t like the way we were conned into it as the man on the street,” he said. “When we first went into it, it was a trading deal. It’s just escalated and the whole thing has got totally out of hand.” There is however, little to tempt him back to the UK – and it’s not just the excellent Spanish healthcare, the bowls and the sense of community in Alicante province. “We couldn’t afford to go back now,” he said. “If we had to, it would be very expensive. The cost of living here is lower and it’s a very sensible life.” Academic researchers have concluded that 61.6% of young voters intended to vote to remain in the EU. That’s a survey – the details have just come – by Oxford and University of Manchester researchers who worked with the data firm RIWI to run the survey from the beginning of March up to June. Partial responses came from 7,444 people under the age of 40. A last email push is being made by both sides. One which has arrived from Boris Johnson says: Polls close in 90 minutes, so obviously we don’t have time for long emails. If you have voted leave, thank you. If you haven’t yet, please do. And please email, text or phone all your friends to Vote Leave. Don’t lose this chance to make today our Independence Day!!! Thank you so much. It ends with “Sent from my iPhone” because of course he’s been busy tapping that out in the last while. Another, from Labour, says: It looks like there could be a record number of people at the polls today, showing just how historic an event and how important this decision is to all of us. If you haven’t voted yet — don’t miss out on being a part of it. There’s still plenty of time, polls are open until 10pm. It comes with a link to a Labour gizmo designed to help voters find their polling station. A dispatch comes in from Glastonbury, where the ’s Hannah Ellis-Petersen says that there’s general agreement that the “Glastonbury bubble” is a welcome break from the political bickering. That said: Glastonbury organisers Michael and Emily Eavis may have had no qualms about loudly declaring their voting intentions in the EU referendum, but the once-in-a-generation poll proved more divisive among the 180,000 festivalgoers who arrived in the last 24 hours. Eavis was not allowed to have a polling station on site but had repeatedly urged people coming on Thursday or before to arrange either a postal or proxy vote – advice it seems many followed. The Fleming family, who had travelled from Chesterfield for their first Glastonbury together, were divided on the issue. Parents Tim and Jane, 51, both favoured Brexit, but their daughter Holly, 20, took the opposite view. “It just isn’t that bad in the EU and we’re going to be the generation where if it goes tits up, we’ll have to sort it out,” she said. Susan Hardisty, 60, who was also at Glastonbury for the first time, said the referendum was “one of the most important votes of our generation, more important than the general election”. She added: “We have kids in their 20s and I think the world will be a lot easier for them if we are part of the EU. And the thought of retracting into an isolated little Britain just scares the life out of me.” A council in an area where a polling booth was temporarily closed after a man was stabbed nearby has been using Twitter to let voters know that it’s open again. A 19-year-old man has been arrested in connection with the incident in Huddersfield, which West Yorkshire police said was not linked to the EU referendum. The man was found collapsed with a stab wound in the Waverley Road area of the town at 5.15pm. Frances Perraudin had some more details earlier. Remain campaigners in Islington, a Labour stronghold that includes the constituencies of Jeremy Corbyn and Emily Thornberry, seem confident that rain and occasional thunder and lightning haven’t damaged their chances of success. The ’s David Pegg, who is anchored in deepest Islington, reports: Despite comments from Nigel Farage earlier in the day anticipating that the bad weather could favour the leave campaign by putting off “soft remainers”, local activists canvassing outside schools and stations in an effort to reach parents and commuters said they felt positive. “Turnout appears to have been fairly high. An awful lot of people are saying ‘I’ve already voted’,” said Freddie Wilkinson, leafleting outside Highbury and Islington station. “There are quite a few people trickling in,” said Jo Wood, one of a group of Labour party members out campaigning. “People are voting.” Results for the area are expected to be declared after 1.30am, making it one of the earlier counts for London. That #usepens hashtag continues to trend on Twitter, with some gentle (and not so gentle) mockery of the urgings from some (mainly pro-Brexit) quarters for voters to bring their own pens to ensure their papers are not altered in favour of a remain vote. Read Esther Addley’s piece from earlier on one of the more curious trends of today’s poll. The conversations are still going on in south Wales, reports the ’s Steve Morris. In Cardiff campaigners have set up next to the statue of Aneurin Bevan – Labour party icon and architect of the NHS. They believe the turnout in central Cardiff is very big – and think this is good news for Remain - but worry that it may be a different story in the valleys and out in the countryside. They just spoke to someone who was still undecided. “I’ll give it some thought,” she said. She’d better hurry up. Welsh Labour grandees are still working hard in the valleys, one of their traditional strongholds. Unlike other parts of the UK, their job has been made more pleasant by warm sunshine. So, are the polls going to get it right this time? The ’s Tom Clark has been looking at how the EU referendum is the pollsters’ big chance to regain some credibility. Here’s a snatch The big flaw unveiled in the thorough post-election inquiry for the industry, by Prof Patrick Sturgis, has not been satisfactorily addressed. The root problem, he found, was not last-minute jitters in the ballot box or inadequate turnout filters, but rather a brute failure by the pollsters to interview the right people. A couple of door-to-door surveys run by academics and published long after the event did get election 2015 right. The big difference was that these surveys picked out voters’ names at random, and then kept hammering on their doors until they answered. The other polls, whether online or phone, give up on the hard-to-reach, move on to other phone numbers and email addresses, and thus fail to achieve a genuine mix. In 2015 it transpired that Tories, for whatever reason, were that bit harder to rouse, creating the big polling miss. Read on here. For those having trouble getting home because of the weather, I’m afraid it’s too late to apply for an emergency proxy – the deadline was 5pm today. It seems unlikely that transport problems would be accepted as a valid reason anyway, as people stranded overseas today because of the strike by French air traffic controllers were told they were not entitled to appoint an emergency proxy. The guidance on such proxies for the EU referendum says they apply when someone has a medical emergency or “your occupation, service or employment means that you cannot go to the polling station in person, and you only became aware of that fact after the proxy vote deadline (15 June)”. When my colleague Mark Tran asked the Electoral Commission about the possibility of people stranded at train stations getting emergency proxies, they referred him to this tweet by the commission. It’s Ben Quinn here picking up the baton now from Haroon. Red Bulls at the ready? Very high turnouts have been reported in the back yard of the only pro-Brexit MP in Bristol, Charlotte Leslie. Clerks in polling stations on council estates, littered with leave signs, said that they were “not as high as 75%, but close”. In posher districts at one polling station, the was told that, including postal votes, “1,000 of the 1,400” had been cast – but this was “not as high” as other nearby counts. Bristol, considered a pro-remain stronghold, is one of the last big counts to declare with a result due at 6am. If the national result is very close – as some predict – then Britain could be waiting to see what happens in the city to find out whether the country remains or leave the EU. West Yorkshire police have confirmed that they were called to a stabbing near a polling station in Huddersfield at 5.15pm, but said the incident had nothing to do with today’s referendum. The polling station on Waverley Road was closed for half an hour to “contain the scene”, but has now reopened. Local reports have named the victim as 18-year-old Luke Joseph and say he was stabbed by a gang of five other teenagers. Police believe he was attacked in the nearby Greenhead Park and then walked to the polling station, where he collapsed. The victim’s injuries have been described as serious but not fatal. The problems at London transport hubs could potentially affect the ability of thousands of people to vote. Waterloo, where there appears to be no service at all, serves 90 million passengers a year, which is about 250,000 a day on average (although the average obviously includes weekends and holidays). Cannon Street, Charing Cross, London Bridge, Victoria, and probably other stations have also been affected. They are all major commuter stations with many people likely to have left for work this morning before polls opened. The Rail Delivery Group says among the train operators affected are Abellio Greater Anglia, Gatwick Express, Southern, South West Trains and Thameslink. Among those stranded is the broadcaster and journalist Sian Williams: A reader has got in touch to say that turnout may not be high everywhere: Scotland’s chief returning officer, Mary Pitcaithly, has predicted overall turnout in Scotland will reach about 70-80% after a day of “steady” voting at polling stations. Pitcaithly told BBC Radio Scotland she did not expect turnout to reach the 85% seen in the Scottish independence referendum in September 2014, which she oversaw, but agreed it would still be high. Only 56% of Scotland’s 4 million-strong electorate turned out for May’s Holyrood elections, but 71% did so in last year’s UK general election. The chief executive for Falkirk council, she is due to announce Scotland’s regional result after collating the count data from 32 local councils at around breakfast time. The storms have brought Waterloo station to a standstill, potentially affecting thousands of passengers who may not have voted. The station is a major hub for people commuting from outside London many of whom would likely have left in the morning too early to vote. Many people have taken to social media to express concern that they will miss the 10pm deadline. More on the pens saga from PA, which reports that police were called to a polling station where a woman was handing out pens to fellow voters after a volunteer reported a “disturbance”. A Sussex Police spokesman said: Police were called to Durnford Close, Chichester, at around 12.25pm on Thursday 23 June by a volunteer reporting a disturbance outside a polling station. A PCSO [police community support officer] who was in the area went to the scene and spoke with a woman who was handing out pens. No offences were committed and it was not being treated as a police matter, the spokesman added. Concerns have been expressed on social media that votes not written in ink could be rubbed out and altered. There are some interesting tweets about turnout coming through: Schools in Bristol, painted as a great remain heartland, ran mock referenda today. Of course it’s not the real thing and only a bit of a laugh but there was an interesting split. In the affluent northern suburb at Redland Green school, of the 475 staff and pupils who voted, 440 backed staying in the EU. That’s 93% of the vote. Meanwhile in the less well-off southern fringe of Hartcliffe, students were more evenly split. Pupils at Bridge Learning Campus in Hartcliffe backed remain. Some interesting constituency by constituency figures are coming out of Northern Ireland that show voting is slow in republican areas while unionist districts are recording higher votes. In North Down - the most affluent constituency in Northern Ireland - polling stations were reporting that 22% of the electorate had voted by lunchtime today. North Down usually records one of the lowest electoral turnouts in Westminster and Stormont Assembly elections. In sharp contrast, by midday one polling station in the republican heartland of West Belfast was reporting a 7% turnout. Meanwhile in republican/nationalist-dominated Derry, turnout was about 11.5% by lunchtime in the Foyle constituency. Overall the Electoral Office in Northern Ireland expects the region-wide turnout to be close to 70%, which would be 15 percentage points higher than last month’s election to the devolved assembly. South Belfast, regarded as the most liberal constituency in Northern Ireland, was reporting voting turnout of up to 21% in some polling stations by the middle of the day. After the BBC reported earlier this week that poll station staff were receiving “training in what a selfie is”, with the hope of preventing photography while people vote, it appears smartphones are posing a threat to the privacy of poll booths. Taking a photo inside a polling station is not of itself against the law but section 66 of the Representation of the People Act says: No person shall communicate at any time to any person any information obtained in a polling station as to the referendum answer for which a voter in that station is about to vote or has voted. Many social media users have taken photographs, including Henry Smith, Conservative MP for Crawley. Smith tweeted a photograph of his completed ballot paper. The tweet received a mixed reception from other users, with several suggesting he had committed electoral misconduct. Here is a round-up of the key developments so far today: At least two polling stations had to be moved and people voting at others had to wade and/or be helped through deep waters, as torrential rain fell on parts of London and the south-east, causing severe travel delays and flooded homes. A poll of polls by Britain Elects put the likely outcome as 51% for remain and 49% for leave. The final pre-polling day poll, by Ipsos-Mori, gave the Remain camp a four point lead. It is believed to be the first to be published while voting was taking place. All the final phone polls showed remain in the lead, whereas the last four online polls were split with two putting remain ahead and two putting leave in the lead. The pound hit a new high for the year and shares closed up in a volatile day’s trading, indicating investors are expecting a remain vote. The pound and FTSE100 surged in the morning, fell back in the afternoon and then rallied again later, albeit not reaching the peaks during morning trading. Vote Leave has been criticised for an email warning that the referendum could be decided by voters in London and Scotland “despite the heartlands of the country voting to leave”. The email also included a a photo of a queue outside a polling station captioned a “leafy London suburb”. Labour MP Chuka Umunna, a member of the official remain campaign, said the message was divisive, describing it as “utterly disgraceful”. A council has urged voters not to use pens when they cross their EU referendum ballot papers as it could cause them to smudge. East Northamptonshire council issued the warning after a conspiracist meme encouraged pro-Leave voters to take pens to vote so that their pencilled-in crosses could not be tampered with. Most of the key figures in the campaign, including David Cameron, Michael Gove, Jeremy Corbyn, Nicola Sturgeon and Nigel Farage cast their votes early. As he left a polling station in Islington Corbyn said: “The bookies usually get it right [but] they got it wrong on me big time last year, didn’t they?” The referendum has been the biggest political betting event in history. Betfair said it took £5m on the result this morning. What happens after polls close at 10pm? Here’s how we expect the night to play out, from the leave heartlands of the northern counties and the east coast, to the remain cities of London, Edinburgh and Bristol. Investors have put their money on a vote to remain in Britain’s EU referendum, with the pound hitting a new high for 2016 and the FTSE 100 share index rallying strongly. As the market exuberance of recent trading sessions continued throughout polling day itself, there were, however, fresh warnings that investors were setting themselves up for heavy losses in the event of a Brexit when the outcome of the referendum becomes clear on Friday. The pound broke through $1.49 against the dollar for the first time since December before shedding some of those gains in afternoon trading to stand at $1.4799 (still up 0.6% on the day). The FTSE 100 index of leading shares added a solid 1.2%, or 77 points, to close at 6338 - the highest for eight weeks. Chris Saint, senior analyst at financial firm Hargreaves Lansdown Currency, said: Clearly the key issue now for currency markets is whether rising expectations that the status quo will prevail are well-placed. Most of the results from the local counting areas are expected by the early hours of tomorrow morning with the official outcome anticipated by around breakfast time. Dramatic exchange rate swings are to be expected regardless of the result, with a sharp drop in the pound’s value possible in the event of a Brexit. Shares and the pound were higher from the open and got an extra fillip in morning trading after the publication of an Ipsos Mori poll conducted for the Evening Standard newspaper showed a four-point lead for remain. “Even though we all know that polls can be rubbish, the markets seem quite happy that the remain camp has done enough to win,” said Kathleen Brooks, research director at spread-betting firm City Index. It may be polling day but there is no respite from the bitterness between the two opposing campaigns. Stronger in Europe has hit out at a plea by Vote Leave chief executive Matthew Elliot, sent by email to Brexit supporters, urging them to vote, because: There is a very real chance that voters in London and Scotland will vote to keep us in the EU today despite the heartlands of the country voting to leave. The email includes a photo of a queue outside a polling station in a “leafy London suburb”. Chuka Umunna, Labour MP for Streatham, said: Vote Leave are ending this campaign as they began it – by seeking to divide our country not unite it, turning regions, nations and communities against one another. Londoners and Scots have as much right to exercise their democratic choice as anyone else. Implying that our votes are somehow less legitimate than those cast in other parts of Britain is utterly disgraceful. Pollsters have suggested that the elderly are more likely to vote and more likely to vote “leave”. So the vote by Keith Adams’s mum today may come as little surprise but it was the way she exercised her democratic right that got it trending on Twitter. Twitter users all across the country appropriated Adams’ post to tell people what their 93-year-old mums are contributing to the poll station, from the serious to the utterly bizarre: “Keith” and “93 yr mum” have both trended on Twitter today. Adams has since written a blog post in response to trolling he received as a result of his post, condemning his critics for their “entire premise...that being brexit invalidates anything else”. Earlier the pound surged to a 2016 high against the dollar and also appreciated against the Euro but it has fallen back this afternoon: One of my colleagues, Maya Wolfe-Robinson, has been told that an inability to get back to vote because of strike action on the continent is insufficient reason to be allowed an emergency proxy. Others appear to have the same problem: That’s it from me for now. I’ll be back on in the early hours for the results. In the meantime Haroon Siddique is poised to take over. Earlier we highlighted this lovely gallery of quirky polling stations up and down the land from the ’s picture desk. We’re also starting to receive pictures from readers around the country. Emma Cozzi sent this, a church community centre in Hove. You can see more pictures readers have sent, including one from Stephanie Steele, who lives above her polling station in Windsor, and add yours (but please don’t tell us which way you are voting) here. Amidst all the political gambling on the outcome of the referendum, William Hill points to an interesting activity in a side bet on Theresa May becoming the next Tory leader. It has halved May’s odds from 6/1 to 3/1, making her a clear second favourite, behind 11/4 favourite Boris Johnson. William Hill’s spokesman Graham Sharpe said: “Ms May had drifted right out in the odds over recent months, finding very little support with political punters, but suddenly she seems to be back in favour and the money is hinting that she might be well placed to be a serious contender for the top job.” Nigel Farage is still expected at a Leave.EU party hosted by Ukip donor Arron Banks tonight, despite triggering speculation over his whereabouts by pulling out of a Channel 4 debate last night citing family reasons. Sources confirmed he had decided instead to have dinner with his son, who has been abroad for work for nine months. It also looked like he was none too keen on bumping into fellow C4 guest Alan Sked, a former Ukip leader who has been very rude about him. Farage looked chipper as he voted in his home village of Westerham in Kent this morning and is understood to have been having a relaxing lunch before getting ready for the big night. The library in Birstall, outside which MP Jo Cox was murdered seven days ago, is serving as a polling station and there is a light police presence outside. David Smith, the deputy returning officer in the area, says turnout seems high (postal voter turnout looks like it will be over 80%) and that the region’s count hall in Huddersfield will hold a minute’s silence for the MP at 11.30am. Smith says the last time he oversaw a count in the area was when Jo Cox was elected as the constituency’s MP. Fighting back tears, he says: “I work with politicians everyday and they have a bad press, but everything they say about her is true.” On the stroke of 12.50pm, the time that Cox was killed seven days ago, around 200 people gathered around the corner from the polling station in Birstall market square to take part in a vigil for the MP. Holding hands, the crowd held a minute’s silence before chanting “we stand together” and singing hymns. Paul Knight, the vicar of Birstall, who led the vigil, said Cox’s death had caused the country to stop and think about the decision facing them in the EU referendum. “The country paused after a very uncomfortable period of argument and exaggeration, if not untruth, and I hope that pause, though it has come about through such a tragic incident, will make people carefully think through the issues.” The steps of nearby Batley town hall, which was also being used as polling station, were decked in floral tributes to the MP. Turnout could be similar to last year’s general election, according to a BMG Research poll for the Electoral Reform Society [ERS]. It found that 67% of people said they would definitely vote and a further 12% said they would probably vote. At last year’s election the turnout was 66%. A high turnout is thought likely to favour remain, but the survey also found that older people who are more likely to vote leave are more likely to vote than younger people. Just 54% of 18-24 year olds said they would definitely vote today, compared to 79% of over 65s. While up on last month’s 47% for 18-24 year olds, it is still a “stark gap”, according to ERS. Katie Ghose, its chief executive, said: “Considering the fact that this is a once in a generation vote, the fact that turnout could be similar or lower than last year’s general election is a shame if true. This referendum is arguably more important than a general election as every votes counts and the result will affect the UK for decades to come. “A poor turnout risks people viewing this issue as unclosed, and we could see calls for further referendums or questioning of the validity of the result from either side. Nobody wants a result based on a small minority of registered voters. Instead this is an opportunity to have a decisive result, so we hope everyone gets out to vote before the 10pm deadline.” “The demographic gap is worrying – with 71% of wealthier Brits saying they’ll vote compared to just 62% of those from poorer socioeconomic backgrounds, and with only half of 18-24 year olds saying they’ll vote. This referendum can’t be decided by one demographic on behalf of another – it needs to be the result of a great national conversation involving everyone.” Welsh first minister – and Labour leader in Wales - Carwyn Jones has voted. He’s been campaigning hard in the Welsh valleys in recent days trying to get that Labour vote out for Remain in one of the party’s traditional strongholds. But Ukip has also been getting stronger in the valleys. It will be fascinating to find out how valleys folk have voted today. They’ve benefitted from millions of pounds of EU money – but it’s easy to find people concerned about immigration here too. Remain campaigners in Glasgow have set up a wish tree in Buchanan Street to rival those set up during the independence campaign. In case you missed this from the indyref it was a charmingly empowering/nauseatingly twee device that we had a lot up here with folk leaving their wishes for an independent Scotland. Now there is one for the EUref and I feel that the circle has been fully squared: Nigel Farage has put out a final Leave.EU video appeal that picks up Boris Johnson rallying cry to make today “Independence Day”. It features lots of nostalgic clips: Ian Botham winning the ashes in 1981, British troops in the Falklands, steam trains, and spitfires. Column Eastwood leader of the SDLP has used his daughter Rosa (who is one today) to make a last ditch video appeal for remain. Talking outside a local polling station in Derry city he said: “I want to make sure Rosa grows up in the European Union”. We’ve been asking our readers to send over their referendum day photographs and comments. Here’s a selection: Mark, 49, Cologne: The EU referendum has been in the news here a lot and Germany is fully aware of the implications whichever way the result goes. Germany does not want to see the UK leave and truly believe we’re stronger together. I’m an expat who came to Germany after leaving the RAF and married my German spouse. I came over 20 years ago. Now all I can now do is sit and watch, as I’m not allowed to vote due to being away from the UK for too long. The rest of my family are all in the UK and I know they’ll be making the right decision. As for me? I will have to wait until breakfast tomorrow for the result. Naomi Tayler, 38, South Cambridgeshire: It was a busy polling station in Melbourne at 7am this morning, I was accompanied to vote by my cocker spaniel, Bella and border terrier, Daisy, who are now regular attendees at the polling station. Unfortunately the dogs were so enthusiastic they ruined a fellow voters white trousers by jumping up! Catherine Phipps, 20, Paris: I’m a student at the University of London Institute in Paris, and will be following the coverage in Paris with my other British friends who live here. None of the French people can understand why we would leave. I don’t either. Chloe, 27, Harrow: My polling station has pimped up for the day with a lot of patriotic memorabilia. Is this what democracy looks like? Kate Smith, 19, Newcastle upon Tyne: I’ve only voted twice before, but both of those times I was in and out of the polling station within minutes. Today, when I arrived, there was a queue of around 15 people lined up outside – it was 8am! The most encouraging thing was that of these 15 people, around two thirds were under 25. I’m so glad that my generation is engaging in this referendum, which in my opinion could be the most important decision we could make. Help us document what’s happening around the UK on polling say by sharing your stories, photos and videos here. There’s been little sign of leave campaigner Boris Johnson today. That’s because he’s been attending his daughter graduation ceremony in St Andrews. Will he make it back to London in time to vote? A poll of polls by Britain Elects puts the likely outcome on 51% for remain and 49% for leave. Polls in the last 10 days of the campaign have been split, but the last four all have Remain ahead. Long queues have been reported outside some polling stations as voters cast their ballots in Britain’s closely fought EU referendum. In London and parts of the south-east many were forced to brave torrential rain and navigated flooded streets to have their say. David Cameron ignored questions about the weather, saying only “Good morning” as he and his wife Samantha cast their votes at Methodist Hall in Westminster. The Ukip leader, Nigel Farage, speaking outside his Kent home, said he believed the leave camp had a “very strong chance” because of the weather, adding: “But it’s all about turnout and those soft remainers staying at home.” Voting is said to be “brisk” across Northern Ireland in the EU referendum according to the Electoral Office in the region. Unofficially it is said the vote could be as high as 70% in the region. If this is the case it will be far higher than the turnout for the Northern Ireland Assembly elections last month which was 55%. There are 619 polling stations across the province and the votes will be counted at eight different centres before the full Northern Ireland result is declared in Belfast’s Titanic Centre. North Wiltshire Tory MP James Gray (a passionate leave supporter) says if people vote to remain he will accept “the democratic will of the people”, but only if it is a “reasonable majority” suggestion around 60-40. Are the Leave campaigners paving the way for the next wave of campaigning if they lose? Betfair has taken £5m on the EU referendum this morning as punters rush to place final bets ahead of tomorrow’s results. There has been a flurry of bets, predominantly on staying in the EU, according to a spokeswoman. “The Scottish referendum saw nearly £10m traded on the day, so we’re anticipating at least that amount,” she said. The company says it has taken £56m on the political event. Betfair said their biggest bet of the morning had been £28,500 on Remain, adding that they had had eight bets that day of £20,000 or more. Overall, the biggest bet they’ve seen has been £315,000 on remain. It’s a similar picture for Ladbrokes, which reported bets of over £1m in the last 24 hours. Most of the money was on the Remain side it said. The average stake on Remain is now £400, while the average on Leave is £70. A spokesperson for Coral described betting as brisk this morning, saying that there had been numerous four figure bets laid, predominantly on Remain. So far it has had one bet of £4,000 on Remain (at 1/4) and a £2,000 punt on Leave (at 11/4). “The majority of bets today are for Remain, which has seen the odds on Britain staying in the EU shortening from 1/4 to 1/7, and Leave out to 4/1, from 11/4.” It added that while more shop customers are predominantly backing out, online ones are for stay. “This reflects an older customer base who bet in shops wanting out, and the younger customers who bet online are for staying.” It’s a similar picture at William Hill, which makes Remain a 2/9 favourite – equating to an 81% chance of winning. There’s been flooding outside the Grange primary school in Newham, east London. Eyewitness Ben March said people were “hitching up their trousers and wading through the water” to cast their votes. A spokeswoman for Newham borough council said that everyone would still be able to vote, adding that teams were out trying to clear the water. There should be no problem accessing and assistance is on hand for those needing it. There were also problems in New Malden, south-west London, Merton council said. A council spokeswoman said no-one had been turned away and that staff were doing “everything they can” to guide voters and drivers through and clear water away. Kingston council, also, in south-west London has had to move a couple of polling stations due to the weather. Tea rooms, front rooms, mobile homes, a Buddhist centre and a launderette – here’s our photo gallery of quirky polling stations. Plaid Cymru leader Leanne Wood has voted at Tonypandy in south Wales. She has been a passionate voice in the Remain campaign. But it would be fascinating if, say, Wales voted to remain and the UK as a whole voted out. Would that be a boost to nationalism in Wales? You’d think so. Down amongst the detail of today’s Ipsos Mori poll are a couple of interesting nuggets. Two weeks into the campaign the Ipsos Mori polls showed that immigration had overtaken concerns about the impact of Brexit on the economy as the issue which was the most important in helping people to decide how to vote. Last week’s poll which had a six point Leave lead had 33% of people naming immigration as the decisive issue for them. Today’s poll (which gives Remain a four point lead) still shows immigration as the issue of most concern at 32% but concerns about the impact of Brexit on economy has closed the gap to 31%. This may explain how the swing to Remain has taken place. The poll also has some interesting party breakdowns. It shows that 68% of Labour voters intend to vote Remain, but only 43% of those who voted Conservative at the general election intend to back Remain. This is what happened to the pound after the poll was published. Spain’s El Mundo carries an interview with Winston Churchill’s grandson, Sir Nicholas Soames. In it, not for the first time, Soames declares : “My grandfather would have voted to remain.” Sticking with the second world war theme, the El Mundo journalist Alberto Rojas has posted some very stirring footage shot for the film 1969 film Battle of Britain. The accompanying tweet reads: “I preferred it when the British were trying to free Europe rather than trying to abandon it.” The Ukip leader, Nigel Farage, also scrambled the Spitfires earlier this week. There’s more on European press coverage here. The first Brexit copycat has emerged in a country that has not yet gained entry to the EU. On the eve of the vote, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan suggested that Turkey could hold a referendum over whether to go on with its long-stalled and rocky accession process to join the bloc. “We can stand up and ask the people just like the British are doing,” Erdogan said in an angry speech late on Wednesday after breaking the Ramadan fast at an official dinner. “We would ask ‘Do we continue the negotiations with the European Union or do we end it?’ If the people say ‘continue’, then we could carry on.” He has repeatedly accused the bloc of rejecting Turkey on the grounds that it is a Muslim-majority country. Ankara has also been angered by comments from David Cameron during the bruising Brexit campaign, suggesting that Turkish membership was not even “remotely in the cards” and that the country may not join until the year 3000. Brexit dominates Italy’s front pages, deemed “Europe’s longest day” by La Repubblica and business daily Il Sole 24 Ore. Rome’s top paper, Il Messaggero, carries a bleak image of the “anxiety and fear of the British, divided on the destiny of the Kingdom”. It says the climate in Britain has become even more poisonous since the murder of MP Jo Cox. The staunchly anti-EU Il Giornale carries a photo of a “Keep Calm & Vote Leave” van, declaring that whoever wins, Brussels has lost. The Italian papers have also noted prime minister Matteo Renzi’s pro-Remain article in the . Here’s a summary of where things currently stand just over five hours since polls opened: People heading to polling stations to vote had to wade through deep waters, as torrential rain fell on parts of London and the south-east, causing severe travel delays and flooded homes. London fire brigade said it had dealt with a day’s worth of calls in just 90 minutes, including buildings struck by lightning and flooded shops and homes. The final pre-polling day poll gave the Remain camp a four point lead. The Ipsos-Mori poll is believed to be the first to be published while voting was taking place. All the final phone polls showed remain in the lead, whereas the last four online polls were split with two putting remain ahead and two putting leave in the lead. Most of the key figures in the campaign, including David Cameron, Michael Gove, Jeremy Corbyn, Nicola Sturgeon and Nigel Farage cast their votes early. As he left a polling station in Islington Corbyn said: “The bookies usually get it right [but] they got it wrong on me big time last year, didn’t they?” The pound and shares have soared as investors await the result. Traders have been watching the EU referendum closely for weeks, and many will be working through the night as the results come in. The referendum has been the biggest political betting event in history. What happens after polls close at 10pm? Here’s how we expect the night to play out, from the leave heartlands of the northern counties and the east coast, to the remain cities of London, Edinburgh and Bristol. Help us document what’s happening around the UK on polling day by sharing your stories, photos and videos. Show us what’s been happening in your community and at polling stations around the country. If you’re following the election from outside of the UK, tell us how and why. We’ll feature your stories throughout our coverage, so get in touch. You can share your photos and experiences by clicking on the blue ‘Contribute’ button at the top of the live blog. Remember that sharing pictures of yourself or what’s happening before you go into or after you leave the polling station are great, but please don’t take pictures or video of yourself inside the polling station, as publishing it to Witness or social media could be a breach of the law. Also please do not tell us how you voted or how you intend to vote as we will not be able to publish your contribution until after the polls close at 10pm. More about pencils (number 2 on the Cowley list). A trusted contact of our North of England editor Helen Pidd, emailed this: “I run a polling station and it is very noticeable how many voters today are bringing their own pens and even sharpies to register their vote rather than use the pencils provided in the booth. Worrying lack of trust in the counting system and I assume someone has put out some sort of rumour that votes made in pencil can be erased, which as you know is ridiculous. Professor Briain Cox, Britain’s favourite scientist, quipped: Spaniards tend to be very proud Europeans, which is one of the reasons there’s so much interest here in the referendum. But there’s another very, very strong reason why Spanish eyes are fixed so firmly on the UK today. As this graphic from the online Spanish newspaper El Español shows, almost a third of the tourists who came to Spain in May were British. Last year, British tourists spent €14bn in Spain - or €444 a second. If Brexit happens, the paper notes, the pound is likely to tumble in value and British holidaymakers will be less happy to splash their cash. The article bears the headline: “The graphic that makes Spanish tourism shake over Brexit”. The LibDems lit up the foot of Edinburgh castle with a Remain messages. LibDem leader Tim Farron made a final plea to voters. He said: “Today is about the very future of Britain; it’s about the kind of country we want to be: an outward looking, tolerant and progressive nation, leading in Europe. “But the result today is still on a knife-edge, and we absolutely must not let the likes of Nigel Farage and Michael Gove have their way. The very tone of their campaign should tell us enough about what they would do to our country. “So that’s why I need you to go to the polls and cast your vote for Remain. I need you to vote with the prosperity and opportunity of our future generations at the forefront of your minds.” In what is believed to be the first ever poll published on polling day, Ipsos Mori gives Remain a four point lead. The phone survey was completed in the days before the referendum. Mike Smithson, an election analyst at politicalbetting.com points out that all the final phone polls showed Remain in the lead, whereas all but one of the online polls show Leave in the lead. One of the methods was wrong, we just don’t know which yet. As predicted by Cowley (number three on his list of things to watch), we’re seeing a lot of dogs at polling stations. Now spotting dogs at polling stations has become Twitter’s favourite pasttime on polling day. This year, as with last year’s general election, #dogsatpollingstations is one of the top trends. Ukip leader Nigel Farage joked with reporters that he had been “undecided” how to vote as he arrived at a polling station in a primary school near his home in north Kent. Spain’s acting prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, has taken an unequivocal line on Brexit, warning earlier this month that a leave vote affect the hundreds of thousands of Britons who live in Spain and “would be very negative for everyone and from every perspective”. Divorce from the EU, he stressed, would see British citizens forfeiting the rights to live and work across the continent. However, pro-independence politicians in Catalonia – who long for a break with Madrid – are taking a far more nuanced approach. Although most people in Spain are strongly pro-European, Catalan separatists recognise that Brexit could help set a precedent for how the EU deals with a reconfigured Europe. Raül Romeva, the Catalan minister for foreign affairs said: “Catalonia has been following with great interest the debate that is taking place these days in the UK and its possible outcome. British citizens have been given the opportunity to compare all the various points of view before voting freely on what kind of relationship they want their country to have with the European Union. This is beneficial for any democracy: it reinforces it and makes it stronger.” Whatever the result, adds Romeva, the referendum has shown that citizens are “free to decide on their sovereignty in a democratic way”. “Europe has always adapted itself to new realities. We have seen it in the past, we will see it now with the United Kingdom and we will continue to see it in the case of Catalonia.” Catalonia’s regional president, Carles Puigdemont, recently told the that he saw many parallels between the rhetoric deployed by the Remain campaign and language used to counter moves towards Catalan independence. “We have also suffered campaigns of fear,” he said. “I remember when the banks started issuing their opinions. They treated us as if we were not grown-ups and said a whole lot of lies.” Puigdemont also downplayed suggestions that the UK’s departure from the EU would tear apart the union, saying: “The EU will make an extraordinary display of political realism, and an admirable, Darwinian ability to adapt.” Google Trends has been looking at what UK internet users have been searching for in connection with the referendum. The top issues by local authority revealed that ‘immigration’ (in red) was very prominent all over the country, but so too was the ‘NHS’ and the search term ‘Expats’. ‘Trade’ and the ‘economy’ were less prevalent. The leave campaign has covered more of provincial and rural England in its efforts to persuade Britons to quit the EU, while the remain side has concentrated on urban centres. Analysis by the , which pinpoints campaign stops made by four prominent campaigners on either side of the debate in the five weeks to 16 June, shows the leave side has largely ignored Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, while the remain camp has been absent in a large swath of eastern England. For the analysis the looked at the itineraries of four campaigners on the remain side: prime minister David Cameron, chancellor George Osborne, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and shadow first secretary of state Angela Eagle and, on the leave side, Conservative MPs Boris Johnson and Michael Gove, Ukip leader Nigel Farage and Labour MP Gisela Stuart. It also shows that both sides have, in the main, chosen to campaign in areas broadly supportive of their respective views. In north-west England, for example, the remain campaigners have concentrated on the larger urban centres, Liverpool and Manchester, both of which are rated “relatively Europhile” by YouGov. Looking a little quiet on the Isles of Scilly at the moment. Scilly Sergeant Colin Taylor is making sure there’s no foul play in the far south west of Britain. The Isles of Scilly could be one of the first places to have a result. Usually at elections ballot boxes are taken to the mainland for counting but for the referendum it will be done on St Mary’s. Only 1,700 voters so it shouldn’t take that long. Over in the City, shares have hit their highest level since late April as investors remain glued to the EU referendum vote. The FTSE 100 index of blue-chip shares jumped by 1.5% to a two-month high, before dipping back a little, as Brits headed to the polling booths. Mining stocks and financial firms are among the risers. Traders have been watching the EU referendum closely for weeks, and many will be working through the night as the results come in. Yesterday, UBS bank predicted that £350bn would be wiped off leading shares if the Leave campaign won. The pound is also rallying this morning, hitting a six-month high of $1.4851 against the US dollar. Analysts have forecast that it could plunge to $1.30 after a Brexit victory. Our business liveblog has more details: The Leave camp has a “very strong chance” of pulling off one of the biggest political upheavals of recent times, Ukip leader Nigel Farage has insisted. Speaking outside his Kent home, Farage told PA: “Actually I do think we are in with a very strong chance, I do genuinely. But it’s all about turnout and those soft Remainers staying at home.” Who knows what happened in the privacy of the voting booth? Here’s video of Labour leader and reluctant remain campaigner before and after casting his vote in Islington. “The bookies usually get it right,” Corbyn is heard to mutter, before adding “they got it wrong on me big time last year, didn’t they?” Justice secretary and leading Leave campaigner, Michael Gove, has voted in Kensignton. He was accompanied by his wife Sarah Vine, the Daily Mail columnist who is the godmother to David Cameron’s youngest daughter. Note the Vote Leave brolley. Thorbjørn Jagland, the Secretary General of the Council of Europe, said he hoped Britons would choose to stay in, but said Europe would deal with the issue in a “rational way” if the verdict was to leave, writes Saeed Kamali Dehghan in Oslo. “I was chairing the committee that awarded the Nobel peace prize to the European Union so the answer is evident [on where I stand] but I really hope that the UK would stay. I also believe that if we get the opposite result, Europe has to deal with it in a rational way, so Europe will survive,” he told the . “It is up to the people of United Kingdom to decide, it’s a democratic referendum, we have to respect that but I hope results would be clear,” he added. He said the UK won’t be isolated if it decided to leave. “British islands will continue to exist and British people will continue to exist as part of Europe, so whatever happens we cannot start isolating each other in Europe once again, it would be ridiculous.” The referendum dominated Norwegian front pages on Thursday. “Today Britain can split Europe,” read the headline of Aftenposten newspaper. The cartoon on the newspaper’s front page showed Boris Johnson trying to pull a sword out of a European stone that would make him king. “Fears that emotions will take Britain out of the EU,” read the front page headline of Dagens Næringsliv, one of the biggest newspapers in Norway. Labour activists are reporting brisk early business at polling stations in the south Welsh valleys, where the party has been working hard to get the vote out in one of its traditional heartlands. But the result in Wales is going to be fascinating following Ukip’s excellent showing at the assembly elections last month when the party took seven seats. More than 2.2m Welsh voters are eligible to take part in the referendum and will be casting their votes at 3,578 polling stations. Results will be declared locally in each of Wales 22 council areas – from Monmouthshire in the far south-east to the Isle of Anglesey in the north west. The overall figures will be collated and announced in Flintshire in the north-east. The Welsh rugby great Gareth Thomas has announced that he has voted for the first time in his life – and reveals that he was heavily influenced by actor Michael Sheen and former Labour spin doctor Alastair Campbell. “Can always blame them,” he said in a Tweet. Gibraltar’s pro-remain chief minister Fabian Picardo has cast his vote. Polls suggest that 85% of the island want to remain in the EU. Last week Picardo told the : “There is quite unprecedented unity here. Myself and all my predecessors, every political party, all the trade unions and employers’ organisations, every club, society and association … For Gibraltar, this is a slam dunk decision. Now that the leave camp has made it clear that they are not looking for Britain to remain a part of the European single market, the choice for Gibraltar has become very stark.” In his ten things to watch Philip Cowley warned us to be careful of reports of high turn out (see earlier). But we can’t resist having some anecdotal reports from respected sources (what else can we write about on polling day?). Cowley is keeping a beady and wary eye on such reports. Only two UK referendums have had higher turnouts than recent general elections, the Institute for Government Points out. These were the one on the Good Friday agreement in Northern Ireland in 1998 (81.1%) and on Scottish independence in 2014 (84.6%). Scotland’s first minister Nicola Sturgeon voted early. Axel Scheffler, the illustrator behind the Gruffalo, has created an image for the to demonstrate his support for Britain remaining in the EU. Edinburgh council has reported that nearly a fifth of the city’s 345,000 voters have already submitted postal votes in the EU referendum, with more than 82% of the city’s postal voters returning their ballot paper by Wednesday evening. The city has a high number of registered postal voters at 22%. The number returned so far does not include late submissions – postal votes can be handed into polling places on polling day. That 82% interim turnout is close to the 86% UK average for postal vote returns in the 2015 general election. Remains campaigners are out in force in the West End and Partick areas of Glasgow, with the leave camp conspicuous by their absence around polling stations. But I’m told that’s because Leave are concentrating on their get out the vote operation. Plus, the student/middle class/SNP make-up of the area probably doesn’t speak to their core support. Polling station officials report a steady flow of voters, no doubt encouraged by the bright sunshine, though not yet teaching the high watermark of 2014’s Scottish independence referendum. Landmark buildings across Europe, including in Madrid and Warsaw, have been lit up with a Union Jack to show support for the Remain campaign, according to video from the Business Insider. Here’s video of David and Samantha on their way to vote in central London. Leading leave campaigner Boris Johnson has told the Telegraph that today’s vote is more important to him than his future in British politics. “Frankly, if this is the end of my political career… I’ve done eight years as mayor of London, I enjoyed it hugely, it was a massive privilege. Fine by me.” But he remains fairly chipper about the outcome. “Our campaign has been about optimism and self-reliance. This is an absolute turning point in the story of our country because I think if we go on with being enmeshed in the EU it will continue to erode our democracy. That is something that worries me.” Boris spent part of the final day of campaigning kissing fish at Billingsgate. Steve Bell features Boris kissing fish in outer space in his latest If... cartoon. Both David Cameron and Jeremy Corbyn have cast their votes. Philip Cowley, who teaches politics at Queen Mary University of London, has 10 things be wary of today. Reuters has followed up that front page promise by the German tabloid Bild to recognise England’s disputed goal in the 1966 world cup final. Germany’s Bild newspaper promised on Thursday that Germans would not hog hotel sunloungers and would ditch their goalkeeper for the next penalty shootout, playing on friendly stereotypes in a last-ditch plea to Britons to stay in the European Union. “Dear Brits, if you remain in the EU ... then we ourselves will recognise the Wembley goal,” Bild declared above a picture of Geoff Hurst’s controversial extra-time goal in the 1966 World Cup Final, when the English soccer team beat West Germany. Touching on decades of rivalry on the soccer pitch, the paper said Germany would go without its goalkeeper in the next penalty shootout between England and Germany. Germany is considered by English soccer fans to be their main sporting rival. Germany defeated England in a penalty shootout in the semi-finals of the 1990 World Cup and the semi-finals of the 1996 Euros. Leaning on decades of jokes between the countries, the mass-selling tabloid promised to put towels on sun loungers to reserve the best spots for Britons by the hotel pool, and to not use suntan lotion out of solidarity with sunburnt Brits. If Britain were to stay in the EU, Bild also pledged to supply the baddie for every James Bond film, put its clocks back one hour so they were on the same time zone as Britain and introduce an EU guideline that bans froth on beer. Earlier this month, Germany’s Der Spiegel published a bilingual edition of its weekly magazine in English and German containing a strong appeal for Britons to vote to remain One voter said she had to be carried into a flooded polling station. Police said they were not expecting trouble as tens of millions of Britons are expected to vote in Thursday’s referendum. Despite a bitter and heated campaign, police said they expected a peaceful day. Police commanders have been issued with extensive guidance on how to minimise the chances of electoral fraud with police chiefs keen not avoid getting caught up in the rancour surrounding Brexit. A spokesperson for the National Police Chiefs’ Council said: “While there is currently no intelligence to suggest issues will arise around Thursday’s poll, police forces are monitoring the situation locally and putting appropriate plans in place to ensure a fair and peaceful electoral process.” No voting problems reported so far in Barnet. The London borough has a lot to prove after hundreds of people, including the chief rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis, were turned away at last month’s elections after a voting register blunder. The Sun and the are diametrically opposed on the referendum, but both papers used views from space on their front pages to make their differing cases. The Sun has Britain heading for the sunny uplands on “Independence Day” - the rallying cry of leave campaigner Boris Johnson. While the wants us to stay in the European Union - light pollution and all. Meanwhile, the Mirror’s front page looks in the other direction – down a deep hole in the earth – to warn readers of what it sees as the perils of Brexit. I’m handing over this live blog now to Matthew Weaver, who’ll cover the next several hours of polling day. Our live coverage runs right through to polls closing at 10pm and beyond, when Andrew Sparrow returns to catch all the results being churned out and turn them into sense. I’ll also be back on Friday morning for those key counts. Thanks for reading and for the many comments. The early morning weather in Glasgow is radiantly sunny, with all that is inferred to mean for turnout. The Scottish papers are well aware of the importance of this country’s predicted EU-phile tendencies today, with the Scottish Daily Mail declaring that “Scotland holds the key to Brexit” and the Daily Record’s front-page banner urging readers to vote remain. Elsewhere Scottish party leaders have been reminding their Twitter followers to vote, while Ukip MEP David Coburn has been urging voters to #useapen in case those dastardly pencils given out at polling stations are a cunning ploy from remain to (literally) rub out his side’s support. We’ve yet to see how committed pro-independence supporters in Scotland react to Farage et al co-opting the hashtag #independenceday. As the UK votes on whether to stay in the EU or leave, the sent seven photographers to capture the mood in various European communities who have made their home in the UK, from a Greek Orthodox church to a German bierkeller. Whichever way you’re voting, these images are a beautiful way to kick off your day: There’s only one important item on the agendas of investors across the world today. Britain is heading to the polls after a lengthy, bitterly fought campaign to decide if she stays in the European Union, or should leave. Traders in the City are preparing for a lengthy shift – perhaps staying late into the night, or returning to the office early tomorrow morning. Friday is likely to be one of the most dramatic and volatile trading sessions in many years, especially if the public choose to leave the EU. Analysts have predicted that the pound could slump by 15%, while shares would probably suffer big losses. Voting has just begun, with pollsters saying that the result is hard to call – especially as around 10% of voters are still undecided. If you’re planning to stay up for the results tonight, you need to plot your day carefully. Sleep might, after all, be needed at some point. So my colleague Jessica Elgot has come up with this nifty hour-by-hour guide, starting from 10pm: Polls will close, and on election nights this is normally the moment broadcasters show their exit polls and make their projection for the night ahead. However, that won’t happen this time as there’s no exit poll for this referendum. Some banks are said to have commissioned private exit polls, but they will be kept for their employees. So if anyone tells you they know what’s going to happen at this stage, they’re a chancer, unless they are an eagle-eyed watcher of sterling derivative markets. Sky News has commissioned a survey from YouGov of people previously polled, asking how they voted on the day. This will be released at 10pm, but this is not, repeat not, an exit poll and shouldn’t be treated like one. Of course, it’s not just London and south-east England that have weather. Other parts of the UK are also entitled to have weather. Theirs is rather better today: With the polls telling us that around 10% of voters are still unsure how they will cast their ballot, you could perhaps do worse – OK, not much worse – than go by the roll of a dice. (Pedantic readers, please note: I know it should be a die, but that reads oddly and I’m trying to keep things cheerful.) Voter Andy Roe tells the Oxford Times that he’ll decide by tossing his homemade cube: The dice idea came into my head when David Cameron said ‘we must not roll a dice to decide out children’s future’. Everybody will be doing that because of misinformation. Most people will be metaphorically throwing a dice – we don’t know what will happen either way. Here he is with his unnecessarily large cube. Democracy’s a funny thing. Will rain in London and south-east England put off voters today? Spectacular thunder and lightning overnight might have caused a few to oversleep this morning, but the bigger problem is likely to be travel disruption caused by heavy downfalls and flash flooding in some areas. The London Fire Brigade says it received a day’s worth of calls in just an hour and a half to reports of weather-related incidents including lightning striking property, flooded homes and businesses and rising waters trapping vehicles. On the London underground, the District line, DLR and Overground were all suspended or delayed because of flooding. Gatwick Express southbound services have been suspended, and South West Trains, Southern and TFL Rail are also suffering major delays. Outside London and south-east England, the weather is expected to be fine and settled today. Yes, it’s here: the day you’ve been dreaming of/dreading; the day you didn’t believe would ever really happen. Polling stations open this morning for those who haven’t already posted back their ballots (hello, decisive and organised voters!) to cast their cross to remain in the European Union or leave. Here I’ve rounded up all you need to know for the long day ahead. Then this live blog – steered by me and a cast of colleagues – will take you through until polls close this evening, at which point Andrew Sparrow climbs into his seat for a night of results. Do come and chat in the comments below or find me on Twitter @Claire_Phipps. The big picture The last few hours have been strewn with final pleas – and if the polls are correct in saying the percentage of those voters still undecided could be in double figures, there might yet be receptive ears for those pleas to fall upon. So here they are, in a nutshell. David Cameron: “It is a fact that our economy will be weaker if we leave and stronger if we stay … Put jobs first, put the economy first.” Boris Johnson: “Democracy is vital but it only works when you can kick the buggers out when they make a mistake. If we vote to leave we can take back control of our democracy and our immigration policy.” Nicola Sturgeon: “I believe in independence for countries but I also believe independent countries must work together for the greater good … If we vote remain, we protect them; if we don’t vote remain, then we put all of these things at risk.” Gordon Brown: “This is not the Britain I know, this is not the Britain I love. The Britain I know is better than the Britain of these debates, of insults, of posters.” Yvette Cooper: “What the leave campaign have done is push lies and also pit human beings against other human beings. That is what is wrong, immoral and just not British.” Andrea Leadsom: “Tomorrow we will either wake up to the bright freedom of our independence day, or to the humdrum drudgery of just another day under the newly triumphant eye of the Brussels bureaucracy.” Nigel Farage: “Let’s stop pretending what this European project is: they have an anthem, they are building an army, they have already got their own police force, and of course they have got a flag. At the end of the day … when people vote they have to make a decision – which flag is theirs?” John Major: “If our nation does vote to leave … we will be out, out for good, diminished as an influence upon the world, a truly Great Britain shrunk down to a little England, perhaps without Scotland, perhaps with a grumpy Wales, and certainly with a Northern Ireland divided from the south by the border controls that would then be the edge of the European Union.” Iain Duncan Smith: “David Cameron is colluding with the EU and lying to the British people. Families are suffering the consequences of uncontrolled migration – a direct result of the EU’s obsession with freedom of movement.” Jean-Claude Juncker: “Out means out. British policymakers and British voters have to know that there will be no kind of renegotiation.” Tim Farron: “You’ve got to hold and give but do it at the right time. You can be slow or fast but you must get to the line. They’ll always hit you and hurt you, defend and attack. There’s only one way to beat them, get round the back.” (And in case you didn’t know why the remain campaign was reminiscing fondly about John Barnes.) You should also know: Torrential rain and flooding in London and south-east have raised turnout fears. Thousands paid tribute yesterday on what should have been Jo Cox’s birthday. Britons worried about the pound rush to stock up on foreign currency. But the financial sector is sure of a remain vote, despite a late FTSE dip. The referendum has been the biggest political betting event in history. A good read from Natalie Nougayrède, who says the EU seriously misjudged the British mood. And from Michael Cockerell, who documents how old pals David Cameron and Boris Johnson fell out so publicly. Poll position There won’t be official exit polls this evening, so the last-ditch forecasts are all we’ll have until the real results land. And those final polls tell us that remain is ahead, that leave is ahead, and that it’s neck-and-neck. ComRes for the Daily Mail and ITV News puts remain on 48%, leave on 42% and undecideds on 11% (yes, that’s 101% – let’s assume there’s some rounding here). With undecideds lopped off, it becomes remain 54% to leave 46%. YouGov gives In a two-point cushion, with remain leading leave by 51% to 49%. Opinium swung a notch the other way, with leave on 45%, remain on 44% and 9% still to make up their minds. And a final TNS poll also edges the Outers ahead, with leave on 43%, remain on 41% and 16% not decided or not voting at all. The FT poll of polls rounds off the campaign with remain on 47% and leave on 45%. Number Cruncher Politics – which stood out in last year’s general election for actually predicting a Conservative victory – now puts the probability of a remain win at 74%. What happens next Don’t expect too much today, bar politicians and voters heading to polling stations. (Nonetheless, stick with the live blog, won’t you?) It all hots up after 10pm, when voting stops and counting starts. So, in Friday timings: 00.00-00.30: Expect Sunderland to declare. They’re always super quick. Other authorities, including Wandsworth and the City of London, are also due to report early. 2am sees a big tranche of announcements, with 22 councils due to speak up around now. By 3am, we’ll be two-fifths of the way through. Stay strong. Drink caffeine. At 3.30am we should hear from a number of Scottish authorities, including Edinburgh and Aberdeen. 4am: 88 authorities announce their counts. We might wonder if we can make a guess at this point. Don’t hold us to that. 5am: 90% of the way there. You might start to think about sleep. Hang on. By 8am, we really should know the result. Have breakfast. Toast with a bucks fizz. Drown sorrows. Call in sick. Go to bed. Read these Paul Mason, writing on Medium, says a vote to remain is not a mandate for the “neoliberal, anti-democratic” EU: On Friday, with the referendum over, I will join with radical and progressive movements across Europe to oppose your austerity strategy and the political cant that justifies it – aka neoclassical economics. And I will go on fighting the austerity imposed by the UK government … I hope remain wins tomorrow. But the problem will still be there: neoliberal austerity promoted by the European Union is destroying the values of Europe. A generation of young people is being taught to despair and fear the future. For this reason I will push for a mandatory re-run of a referendum on EU membership every seven years. I encourage the peoples of all other countries to exercise this right regularly. Juliet Samuel in the Telegraph writes in defence of the referendum campaign: For all the fear and anger and viciousness, I believe voters will make the right decision. I’m not referring to which way they’ll vote. I mean that voters broadly understand, either instinctively or rationally, what the arguments are and where they stand. We’ve heard time and time again in this campaign how ‘confused’ the public is and how desperate for ‘facts’ voters are. Esteemed commentators have wrongly concluded that this makes people unqualified to vote on such a serious matter. The opposite is true. The insatiable desire for ‘facts’, the endless letters and phone-ins and questions, tell us that voters know they are not hearing definitive predictions, but points of view and spin. They would like certainties, but they have not heard anything that amounts to one. And so they know that their vote in the referendum is really just a judgment call: whom do I trust? What risk can I bear? And, fundamentally: what do I value? Max Colchester and Jenny Gross in the Wall Street Journal win fascinating fact of the day with news that residents of the Isle of Man cannot vote in the referendum (but Gibraltarians can): The debate over Brexit, as Britain’s potential exit from the EU is known, isn’t simple. Neither is figuring out who gets to cast a vote. During world war one, the UK passed laws allowing ‘British subjects’ from across the empire to vote in UK general elections. The empire crumbled but the rights live on. People from some 53 countries can vote in the referendum as long as they live in the UK or Gibraltar, a British territory off the tip of southern Spain. People residing in Gibraltar can’t vote in general elections but got a pass for this one … The Isle of Man counts as abroad … Today, it is a ‘self-governing Crown dependency’, which means it isn’t part of the UK, even though Britain is responsible for its foreign affairs. The day in a tweet Well played, Germany: they don’t think it’s all over. If today were a song ... All the polls would tell us it has to be Europe’s The Final Countdown. But no! What do the polls know, anyway. Let’s go for the Hokey Cokey instead: in, out, shake it all about. That’s what it’s all about. And another thing Would you like a Friday morning email on the referendum result? Sign up here!
When I got my Top of the Pops break, Mum got me new pyjamas My father was sitting by the fire, with a transistor radio in his lap. At the age of 57, Don Bradley was listening to John Peel for the first time in his life. His new found interest in Radio 1’s finest was sparked by his son’s band making a record that immediately fell under the patronage of Peel. It was 1978. The Undertones had recorded Teenage Kicks that summer. It was a big deal for us, still playing every weekend in a bar in Derry and finally achieving what few of our fellow citizens had ever done. Making a single (an EP, no less) and getting it reviewed in the NME and played on national radio. Not that I made a big deal of it at home. The ninth of 11 children, I realised early on that you were allowed to go ahead and do what you wanted, as long as it didn’t cost money and was unlikely to land you in hospital or in prison. My parents were not liberal bohemians, though. Don and May Bradley were strict practising Catholics, which could account for my having 10 siblings. Mass on a Sunday, fish on a Friday, television switched off during Holy Week. No rules about punk rock, though. The only advice my mother gave me when I started to hang around with friends who would become the Undertones was to stop slouching. I was a couple of inches taller than Billy, John and Vincent and she said, in a not unkind way, that I was starting to stoop. A subconscious effort to blend in. She was also the first to say to me that long hair was on the way out. This was early 1976 and I suspect it was a ploy to get my shoulder-length mop into some kind of order, rather than a premonition of future trends. My father was an accordion player (button key, harder to learn than the piano key version) who played with a local ceili band. Fifteen years before Teenage Kicks, Charlie Kelly’s Ceili Band made the occasional appearance on BBC TV and I remember being allowed to get out of bed and come downstairs to the front room when they were on screen. Even with the aerial held just so, I found it hard to pick him out, especially as he wore a bow tie and a white shirt. He never wore the bow tie when he was going to work as a storeman at a local farm supplies co-op. It was hard work, especially on the mornings after a late night ceili in some far flung corner of Ireland. But he did it without complaint or talk of television studios. When it came to my turn in music, I took that attitude from him. Maybe too much. I never officially told him or my mother that I was in a band called the Undertones. One morning I did say that someone from Sire Records in London was coming over to see us play. Not in a conversation, though. I just said it out loud and hoped that someone would pick it up in the middle of everything else that was happening at home. Dinners, cleaning, worrying about money. It was noted, though. When I got the word the band were appearing on Top of the Pops, my mother did her bit by buying me a new set of pyjamas. No words of warning about London, about behaving myself or about signing my life away. None were needed. Although she did introduce me to the phrase “living in each others’ pockets”, which made sense when we broke up five years later. A couple of decades on and my 18-year-old son is playing jazz on the drums in our front room. He’s very good, although he stops as soon as I open the door. “Very good,” I volunteer, although I’m really there to let him know that his dinner is on the table. I know not to talk too much about what he’s playing, what he’s listening to, what his band are up to. That’s the conversation that happens with other teenagers, not with a 56-year-old parent. • Teenage Kicks: My Life as an Undertone by Michael Bradley is published by Omnibus Press, £16.99. To order a copy for £12.99, go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. Phone orders min. p&p of £1.99.
UK unlikely to stay in single market, Tory document suggests Britain is unlikely to be able to remain a member of the single market, according to a document photographed in the hands of a senior Conservative official on Downing Street. A handwritten note, carried by an aide to the Tory vice-chair Mark Field after a meeting at the Department for Exiting the European Union, could be seen to say: “What’s the model? Have cake and eat it.” And in a further embarrassment, it added “French likely to be most difficult.” It also suggests that a deal on manufacturing with the EU should be “relatively straightforward” but admits that services, such as in the financial or legal sectors, are harder. One idea cited in the note is a “Canada-plus” option, suggesting Britain could look to replicate the free trade deal hammered out by the EU over seven years with Ottawa. However, it suggests that the UK would be seeking “more on services” than was agreed in the comprehensive economic and trade agreement (Ceta). A government spokesperson distanced Theresa May from the document, saying: “These individual notes do not belong to a government official or a special adviser. They do not reflect the government’s position in relation to Brexit negotiations.” However, the fact they appeared to have been taken during a meeting with officials or even ministers – given May’s tight-lipped approach to the negotiating strategy – means that they will be pored over. The woman carrying the document appears to be Julia Dockerill, chief of staff to Field, who is vice-chair of the Conservative party, working on international issues and MP for the Cities of London and Westminster. Field does not have a formal Brexit role but does take a keen interest on the impact that leaving the EU could have on the country’s financial services, many of which are based in his constituency, and is likely to have been speaking to senior figures about this issue. The notes also said: “Transitional – loath to do it. Whitehall will hold onto it. We need to bring an end to negotiations.” That could suggest that ministers are not keen to enter a transitional deal after the end of the article 50 period, despite May hinting last week that this would be possible. Other comments include: “Difficult on article 50 implementation – Barnier wants to see what deal looks like first”, in reference to lead negotiator Michel Barnier. “Got to be done in parallel – 20 odd negotiations. Keep the two years. Won’t provide more detail,” it adds. “We think it’s unlikely we’ll be offered Single Market.” The document appears to reflect a discussion about the prospect of a trade deal like that of Norway, which is a member of the European Economic Area. “Why no Norway – two elements – no ECJ intervention. Unlikely to do internal market.” That appears to refer to the drawbacks of taking on the Norwegian model, which has the country outside the EU and its customs union, but inside the single market. The reason Brexit supporters do not want to follow that idea is the requirement that Norway accepts free movement of people and is under the jurisdiction of the European court. The document was being carried out of 9 Downing Street, the Brexit department, and into No 10 Downing Street when it was photographed. It comes after reports that there is a sign on the DExEU exit doors reading: “Stop! Are your documents on show?”. It emerged on Monday that the government faces the prospect of a second legal challenge to its Brexit plans, with the group British Influence threatening a judicial review over whether leaving the EU means Britain must also automatically leave the European Economic Area and hence lose the free trading benefits of the single market. However, the government and senior EU legal experts have claimed that this attempt is unlikely to be as successful as the high court ruling that parliament must have a vote before the Brexit process begins, which is the subject of an appeal by the government in the supreme court that is due to be heard next week. Despite the denial about the note, it is likely to increase pressure on the government to lift the secrecy about its plan for Brexit, with opposition MPs complaining that there should be full transparency about the UK’s plans. Stephen Gethins, the SNP spokesman on Europe, said the notes reveal a government “with no direction, and no clue”. “Worryingly, those in favour of taking us out of the EU appear set to cut off their nose to spite their face – with an apparent call to end any negotiations with Europe before they’ve properly begun and already wishing to pull the plug on the prospect of transitional arrangements,” he said. “These scribbled papers, however scant, seem to be the only plan the UK government has and stand starkly in contrast to the very clear plans set out by first minister Nicola Sturgeon in the aftermath of the EU referendum. “If they weren’t so deeply troubling, these revelations would be risible. Public patience has worn thin with stonewalling and obfuscating from the UK government – it’s now high time they set out a proper plan on leaving the EU as opposed to hastily jotted down notes, so short on substance.” Tim Farron, leader of the Lib Dems, added: “If this is a strategy it is incoherent. We can’t have our cake and eat it and there is no certainty on the single market. This picture shows the government doesn’t have a plan or even a clue.” May has so far only promised to talk about her broad aims before triggering article 50 in March, and thereby officially notifying the EU of the UK’s intention to leave. She has made clear that there will have to be more controls on immigration from the EU and wants to see an end to the jurisdiction of the European court of justice – which is why many think Britain will come out of the single market. But the lack of further details from No 10 has alarmed many formerly pro-EU Labour and Tory MPs, who are increasingly cooperating in an attempt to stop a “hard Brexit”. Their key demands are staying as close to the single market as possible, a transitional deal to cushion the economic effect of leaving and more parliamentary scrutiny of the negotiations. Some former remain politicians, including former prime ministers Tony Blair and Sir John Major, are even pushing for a second referendum to allow the public to vote on or even veto any deal for leaving the EU. It was also reported in the Sunday Times that Mark Carney, the Bank of England governor, backs a transitional deal with the EU to cushion the impact of Brexit for businesses until at least 2021.
Up really is down on Mummy Leadsom's amazing journey The centenary of the Somme isn’t many people’s idea of a good moment to promise “it will be all over by Christmas”. But Andrea Leadsom isn’t just any old person. She’s a mother. A mother with a strong interest in grandchildren. Even though she hasn’t got any yet. But she has met some and she likes them a lot. Having won the referendum war largely thanks to the votes of the over 40s, Leadsom has suddenly developed a keen interest in children and grandchildren. At her Conservative leadership launch, her eyes moistened and her voice became breathier every time she said “children and grandchildren”. Which was about once or twice a sentence. The message: “Anyone who doesn’t have children is evil” was subliminally beamed on to the wall behind her. It’s pure coincidence that Theresa May doesn’t have children. Leadsom wants to reassure the UK’s children and grandchildren she has always had their best interests at heart and that everything is going to be absolutely fine. Don’t worry your pretty little heads. Trust mummy. Trust wannabe granny. All those nasty people who have been scaring you that separation from the EU would be long and painful have got it wrong. It’s a doddle. All we have to do is say to the EU we want this and we want that and the EU will give it to us. Most things will go through on the nod. Simples. Everything will be fixed by Christmas. Earlier, possibly. Apart from those bits that won’t. This might all have come as news to the Leadsom of 2013 who was certain that Brexit would be a disaster for the economy and cause a decade of uncertainty, but she wasn’t at all keen to explain herself. “I’ve been on an amazing journey,” she said, channeling an X Factor contestant who had just been kicked off the show. It’s amazing what a touch of Kool–Aid and personal ambition can do. From Andrea to Pollyanna in three very easy years. But then Pollyanna has a great deal to be Pollyanna-ish about right now. Iain Duncan Smith and Owen Paterson were the cheerleaders-in-chief at her launch at the Cinnamon Club, one of Westminster’s top restaurants. IDS is the man who once thought he was the right person to be leading the Tory party and Paterson is the environment secretary who was outwitted by 250 badgers. She’s also the preferred candidate of Arron Banks, Ukip’s largest financial donor. She is a magnet for all the rightwing oddballs whom most Tory MPs try to keep at arm’s length. In any sane world, their support should be a guarantee of failure. And yet she’s one of the frontrunners to challenge the favourite, Theresa. Just as confusing, no one seems at all bothered that one official described her as the worst minister the Treasury had ever had. Up really is down. Standing in front of a sign that read andREALeadsom – who knew that 2012’s Perfect Curve actually existed? – Pollyanna sounded like a particularly unconvincing Lance Corporal Jones from Dad’s Army. And anything but REAL. “Please don’t be afraid,” she said, struggling to contain her sense of panic and bewilderment at being the centre of attention. “What we need to remember is that the Hun doesn’t like it up ’em. We haven’t stopped loving our children and grandchildren. We haven’t abandoned love. We have just rediscovered our freedom to hate the people we don’t like.” People who don’t have children being first in the queue. Pollyanna’s voice caught. Her leadership bid wasn’t about personal ambition, as she had plenty of cash tucked away after years of working in the City; it was about doing the best for the country’s children and grandchildren. “One of my key appointments will be a minister for housing,” she insisted. “And I will do my very best to keep him in post for the duration of the parliament.” That wasn’t exactly the firmest of commitments. Pollyanna also went on to declare her passion for social justice, a passion that didn’t quite extend to revealing whether all her family tax affairs were onshore. All in good time. “My concern is for the emotional health of our nation,” she concluded. “And I am better prepared than anyone to deliver that. We are the mother of all parliaments and I am the mother of all mothers.” And one day she would be the grandmother of all grandmothers. There was as little detail in Pollyanna’s speech as there had been in every other Tory leadership bid. All she knew for certain was what she didn’t know. She didn’t know if there was going to be a cut-off point for EU migrants being allowed to stay in this country; she didn’t know who was going to be in her great negotiation team for the negotiations that wouldn’t need to take place because they would be over by Christmas; and she definitely hadn’t a clue why so many people thought she might make a good leader. In another part of Westminster, Liam Fox launched his own leadership campaign. A futile gesture was a far more fitting way to mark the centenary of the Somme.
The view on the UK labour market: farewell, Lithuanian car valets The main reason behind the leave vote on 23 June, at least according to the polls, was to take back control – to repatriate lawmaking powers from Brussels to Westminster. But if that was the emotional appeal, the most tangible prospect was of an immigration policy made in Britain. The challenge that now faces British politicians – in particular the government, which is committed, in the prime minister’s words, to making Brexit mean Brexit – is to work out how to respond to voters’ fears in a way that is clear and transparent and economically viable too. That means balancing freedom of movement with access to the single market. A result, in Brexit terms, must be fewer EU workers. That, however, raises another set of difficult questions: questions about who will do the jobs that EU workers were coming to the UK to do, and what they will be paid. Britain’s infamous low-wage sectors – agriculture and food processing, clothing manufacture and retail, domestic services – are already facing two significant new pressures. The national living wage is already in play and will increase hourly wages to approximately £9 an hour by 2020. Then, from next May, for larger employers, the apprenticeship levy will also be applied. If, in addition, there are fewer EU workers, that is likely to mean more upward pressure on pay. Some employers are already clawing back other benefits in response to the living wage, and warning of existential threats. Contemplating the consequences of Brexit is clarifying the real impact of the movement of 21st-century labour. The latest research from the Resolution Foundation summarises the impact of high levels of migration from the new accession countries after 2004. It acknowledges that those who argued that migration was an unmitigated good, growing the economy to the benefit of all, overstated their case – almost as much as did those who argued that migration was invariably harmful. The latter were right that in low-paying sectors, wages were held down. But EU migrants also tended to contribute more in taxes than they received in benefits. Maybe the biggest impact is contradictory: it concealed the other marked development in the period, particularly after the 2008 crash – the wider stagnation of wages. Of course, pay was not the only reason that migrant workers came to be so resented. Queues for doctors’ appointments and overcrowded classrooms were easier to see than differences in pay, and they played a bigger part in fuelling resentment. Yet in the same way that migration concealed structural change in wages, its impact on public services served as a distraction from the real cost of the austerity measures brought in by the coalition government in 2010. What is already becoming clear, and will only become clearer as EU membership is more fully examined, is that Britain’s labour market does not function well. If EU migration has held pay down, it ought to follow that pay will go up in response to the labour shortages that are likely to be the consequence of a cut in migration. Not so much, according to the Resolution Foundation. The original impact of cheap labour was to cut at most a few pence off wages, and only from the pay of “native” workers with no qualifications; on the foundation’s projections, the likely effect of cutting EU economic migration will simply reverse that. And if, as projected, the economy shrinks, it is likely to mean a downward pressure on wages that could outweigh the impact of labour shortages. In theory, scarce labour should also be an incentive to invest and modernise in a way that the plentiful supply of low-paid workers has made unnecessary until now. The teams of car valets from Lithuania will be replaced by an upgraded version of the drive-through car wash that had almost disappeared, and supermarkets will at last introduce the kind of electronic pricing system that is commonplace in France. UK productivity may even show an improvement. But it would also upend the British labour market model where high levels of employment are set against hyper-flexible working and low pay. Post Brexit, there may be fewer jobs, but they will be better paid. So far, so good. But there are much wider consequences, not least for millions of local authority workers and the councils that pick up their wages bill. There is a crisis already in the care home sector, and the NHS is in the grip of its worst ever cash shortage. Faced with challenges like this, the government will have to take some hard decisions about how it meets its pledge to the Brexiteers.
Jermain Defoe hat-trick sees Sunderland sink 10-man Swansea When the dust settles on this extraordinary match – and that could take a while – the referee will cease to become the main talking point for Swansea City and the threat of relegation will start to bite. Graham Scott, who was asked to take charge of the game at short notice after Andre Marriner pulled out on Monday, looked totally out of his depth at this level, yet the erroneous decisions that impacted on both teams were of little concern to Sunderland come the end. Inspired by the evergreen Jermain Defoe, who completed his hat-trick five minutes from time and took his tally to five in two games in the process, Sunderland picked up the most precious of victories to move within one point of Swansea and give their survival hopes a huge boost. It was a crazy, helter-skelter game and one that was overshadowed by some calamitous refereeing from a man who was officiating only his fourth Premier League game. Defoe looked to be offside when he gave Sunderland a third-minute lead and it should not have been a penalty when Wes Brown was penalised for fouling André Ayew later in the first half. Then came arguably the defining moment in the match when Scott sent off Kyle Naughton in the 37th minute for a challenge on Yann M’Vila that was not worthy of a free-kick never mind a straight red card. The full-back’s studs were high but he clearly got the ball and only M’Vila knows why he was rolling around. Although that harsh decision initially galvanised Swansea, who went 2-1 ahead through a superb Ayew goal shortly before the interval, Sunderland’s numerical advantage eventually told. Patrick van Aanholt, who was excellent on the left flank, hauled Sunderland level with a deflected shot and from that point on it was all about Defoe. Alan Curtis, Swansea’s interim manager, was bitterly upset and felt Scott’s decision to send off Naughton was the turning point. “I’m disappointed. I think the big talking point is the referee’s decisions,” Curtis said. “I won’t say it has cost us as you don’t know how it will play out but it has had a major bearing on the game. Unfortunately the referee did look out of his depth. “We were fortuitous with the penalty decision for us. But when he makes a huge decision to send a player off we were forced to play the next hour with 10. You only have to look at the video and Kyle won the ball cleanly. It is something we will try to appeal in the morning.” Allardyce had some sympathy for Swansea and Naughton on that occasion – he looked across at Curtis and appeared bemused as well as amused when Scott showed a red card – but he also made the point Sunderland were on the wrong end of a bad call with the Ayew penalty incident. “Scott only stepped in because the referee who was supposed to referee the game was ill,” the Sunderland manager said. “In his defence before the game Scott pointed out: ‘I know how big this game is for both of you and I’ll try and manage it the best way I can.’ But things happen under pressure and when people are under pressure they make mistakes.” The referee was not the only one who blundered. Lukasz Fabianski’s terrible goalkick led to Sunderland’s opener when he drilled the ball straight to Adam Johnson, who fed Fabio Borini on the left. Borini’s low shot was parried by Fabianski and Defoe, who had strayed into an offside position, tapped home. Gylfi Sigurdsson levelled from the spot after Scott deemed Brown had tripped Ayew when the Ghanaian had actually stubbed his foot into the ground. Three minutes after Naughton’s dismissal Swansea were in front when Ayew, sprinting on to Fabianski’s measured kick, beat Lee Cattermole and struck home a sumptuous left-foot angled drive that flashed into the far corner. With an extra man, Allardyce urged his players to press higher up the pitch in the second half and Sunderland quickly got reward when Van Aanholt cut inside and thumped an 18-yard shot that took a wicked deflection off Federico Fernández’s back and went in off the far upright. Defoe, running on to Johnson’s fine pass, then beat Fabianski to grab his second – again the striker appeared offside – before later turning in Van Aanholt’s cut-back for his third. “Jermain’s a massive player for us and converted most of the chances we created,” Allardyce said. “And irrespective of some of the referee’s decisions we’ve gone and won away in an enormous game for both of us because we’ve gained three points on everybody that is above.”
From Afar review – compelling film-making This assured first feature from Venezuelan director Lorenzo Vigas is a masterclass in storytelling through image rather than words. The photography, particularly the eloquent use of shallow focus and the eye for subtle body language, delivers stabs of clarity to a portrait of an ambiguous relationship between a man in his 50s and the teenage gang leader he meets on the streets. Armando (played by the great Chilean actor Alfredo Castro, a regular collaborator of Pablo Larraín) is coolly inscrutable, the bitterness resulting from some hinted-at childhood trauma etched deep into his watchful face. He is gay but prefers his sexual encounters, like everything else in his life, at a safe distance. He scopes the streets of Caracas for young men, takes them back to the shadowy secrets of his apartment, but never touches them. One day he spots Elder (Luis Silva). The teenager lashes out, both with homophobic invective and with his fists, but there’s an uneasy fascination between the mismatched couple which draws them together. When I first saw this picture at the Venice film festival, where it won the top prize, I felt that it suffered in comparison to the similarly themed Eastern Boys (2013) by Robin Campillo. On a second viewing, however, while it lacks the propulsive narrative drive and tonal shifts of Eastern Boys, From Afar reveals itself to be every bit as compelling a piece of film-making.
Remain camp will win EU referendum by a 'substantial margin', says campaign chief Lord Rose - Politics live A total of 84,000 EU migrant families on tax credits would have been affected by David Cameron’s “emergency brake” if it had been introduced four years ago, official figures reveal. The number – released by HMRC six months after it was first requested by the – appears far smaller than had been suggested by the prime minister in previous public statements justifying the plan. Lord Rose, chair of the Britain Stronger in Europe campaign, has said that his side will win the EU referendum campaign by “a substantial margin”. (See 3.26pm.) He made the claim in a lunch to the press gallery. Matthew Elliott, chief executive of Vote Leave, said Rose was out of touch with public sentiment. Elliott said: The cosy establishment club doesn’t want change because it does well out of the status quo. But the people want change and to take back control. It’s a David vs Goliath struggle - but we all know who ended up winning that one. Asked about claims that boasting like this could be counterproductive (see 3.28pm), a campaign source said that voters wanted to identify with a winning side - but also that Rose was not a politician, and that he was inclined just to speak his mind when answering questions. John Baron, a Conservative MP, has said that parliament will become “nothing more than just a chamber of Europe, a council chamber” if it does not assert its sovereignty. He was speaking in a debate on a backbench motion saying parliament should have the power to block unwanted EU legislation. The debate was dominated by Conservative backbenchers known for their opposition to Britain’s membership of the EU. An opinion poll in Scotland suggests the SNP still have a huge lead over Labour ahead of the Scottish elections in May. The TNS-BRMB survey shows the SNP on 57% in the constituency section, Labour on 21% and the Tories 17%. In the regional list section the SNP is on 52%, Labour 19% and the Tories 17%. The SNP’s Derek Mackay said: Labour woes are continuing in the face of the party’s rank incompetence north and south of the border – and with their plans to shift the burden of Tory austerity onto workers by hiking taxes on the low paid, their situation is only going to get worse. Two major road tunnels across London could significantly ease congestion, the capital’s mayor, Boris Johnson, has said as he unveiled proposals to send more traffic underground. The EU’s top court has told the home secretary, Theresa May, she cannot deport a Moroccan mother with a British-born son simply because she has a criminal record.The advocate general of the European court of justice has told May that it will be contrary to EU law if she automatically expels or refuses a residence permit to a non-EU national with a criminal record who is a parent of a child who is an EU citizen. As Alan Travis reports, the preliminary opinion of the court’s advocate general, Maciej Szpunar, however, adds that while, in principle, deportation in such cases was contrary to EU law, he agreed with UK representations that there should be exceptional circumstances when a convicted criminal could still be deported depending on the seriousness of the offences involved. That’s all from me for today. Thanks for the comments. Here is the ’s Politics Weekly podcast, featuring Alberto Nardelli, Anne Perkins, Rafael Behr, Dan Roberts and Hugh Muir talking about the Iowa caucuses and the EU renegotiation. The Out campaigns are continuing their circular firing squad act. Arron Banks, the co-founder of Leave.EU, has just put out this statement. Leave.EU initially welcomed the news that Vote Leave wanted to call a truce and work together. However, it is now crystal clear that they have zero interest in joining forces. Cummings, Elliott and their MPs have now been offered the the chance to form a united front five times, and on each occasion our overtures have been rejected outright. For Cummings and Elliot this is a business, not a cause. Danny Finkelstein’s excellent analysis of the situation is sadly correct. I am angry that this group is jeopardising this historic referendum through their dishonesty and unwillingness to embrace and work with all the Brexit groups. It’s time they and the Conservative MPs associated with them decide if it’s their career or their country which matters most to them, and then they can either fit in with the rest of us or quite frankly disappear. Banks seems to be referring to the announcement this week about Dominic Cummings and Matthew Elliott stepping down from the Vote Leave board. Cummings, an abrasive character, was seen as an obstacle to a merger between Vote Leave and Leave.EU and, after it was announced that Cummings and Elliott were leaving the board, Banks repeated his offer to merge the two organisations. But Banks himself is not Mr Diplomacy. This is what he tweeted about the news that Lord Lawson was becoming chair of Vote Leave. In his statement Banks is referring to this column by Daniel Finkelstein in the Times (paywall). In it, Finkelstein described the alternative visions for Britain outside the EU put forward by Vote Leave, which is backed by the Ukip MP Douglas Carswell, and Leave.EU, which is backed by mainstream Ukippers, including Nigel Farage. The vision of Carswell and his allies, including the Tory MEP Dan Hannan, is that we need to leave the EU because it is out of date. We must be an open, free market, free trading nation, linked to the English speaking world, powerful in global trading bodies. The Leave message should be optimistic, daring and broad ... Voters are concerned about Britain losing control of its own policy, but when asked what aspect of control they are most concerned about, overwhelmingly they answer immigration. Their grasp of what the EU’s other powers and structures may be is, let’s just say, weak. Yet many of Carswell’s Vote Leave allies don’t actually believe in strong immigration controls at all. They are free marketeers who see the benefits of free movement of workers ... This is the great advantage of the Leave.EU campaign. It appreciates the centrality of immigration to the case for quitting. It has a very different outlook from the Carswell-Hannan group. It is much more pessimistic, much more focused on what Britain has lost and stands to lose. It doesn’t want some new English-speaking, free market internationalism. How much better would that be than the EU? It thinks the EU is too newfangled, not too modern. I’ve asked Number 10 to elaborate on why Erna Solderg, the Norwegian prime minister, thinks the “Norwegian option” won’t work for the UK if it leaves the EU. (See 12.29pm.) A spokeswoman said that Soldberg simply made that point in her talks with David Cameron. The spokeswoman said she could not say any more about Soldberg’s reasoning. UPDATE: Downing Street have come back to me to say this is what Cameron said about the “Norway option” at PMQs in October last year. Some people arguing for Britain to leave the European Union, although not all of them, have pointed out a position like that of Norway as a good outcome. I would guard strongly against that. Norway pays as much per head to the EU as we do and takes twice as many migrants per head as we do in this country, but has no seat at the table and no ability to negotiate. I am not arguing that all those who want to leave the EU say that they want to follow the Norwegian path, but some do and it is very important that we are clear in this debate about the consequences of these different actions. Here’s the New Statesman’s George Eaton on Lord Rose’s claim that the In side will win the EU referendum easily. Lord Rose, chair of Britain Stronger in Europe, gave a speech at a press gallery lunch earlier. Here are some of the main points. Rose said he expected the In camp to win comfortably. He floated the idea of banning the publication of polls just before the referendum. He said Cameron was considering doing TV debates. He said the In campaign were running a “Project Reality”, not a “Project Fear”. Rose, the former M&S chairman, also had a good joke at his own expense, prompted by his recent memory lapse. On the World at One Daniel Mitov, the Bulgarian foreign minister, said Bulgarians living in Britain were worried about the proposals in the draft EU renegotiation. He said that the negotiations were still going on, and that there was a need for some “polishing”, particularly in terms of how the emergency brake would work. But, despite being twice asked if Bulgaria was threatening to veto the plans, he declined to make that threat. Bulgaria wanted to see a reasonable compromise, he said. As Nicholas Watt reports in the today, David Cameron has said that the government will introduce some measure to assert the sovereignty of parliament. This will happen alongside the EU renegotiation, and will particularly appeal to Boris Johnson, the Conservative MP and mayor of London who has been calling for this for some time. In his story, Nick says two options are being considered. A few hours later, after the exchanges in the House of Commons, it became clear that the prime minister is prepared to deal with Johnson’s concerns on two levels. The prime minister is expected to: Declare that the UK supreme court or another official body should be vested with powers akin to those of the German constitutional court, which has the right to assess whether legal acts by the EU’s institutions remain within the scope of the powers of the EU. Cameron first floated this idea in a speech at Chatham House in November after Johnson had outlined in a private plea to the prime minister to his calls for an assertion of parliamentary sovereignty Propose a possible fresh act of parliament to make clear that the UK’s agreement to the primacy of EU law – which dates back to 1972 – was gifted by parliament and could therefore be withdrawn by parliament. In the Times today (paywall) Lord Neuberger, president of the supreme court, said setting up an alternative constitutional court would be a mistake. He told the paper: One of our great advantages compared with most of Europe is that we have a very simple system of courts and I think replicating the civil, European system of having a supreme court and a constitutional court — a supreme administrative court — is just a recipe for complication, for cost and for unnecessary duplication. And Lord Pannick QC, the prominent human rights lawyer, told the paper that giving the supreme court a constitutional role would be pointless. For our supreme court to be given a function similar to that of the German constitutional court would not have any practical effect. The proposal has no legal merit. It may have a useful political purpose for the government, but the prime minister should be careful about raising expectations that will not be achievable. Philip Hammond, the foreign secretary, was asked about this on the World at One. When the comments in the Times were put to him he insisted that it was worth clarifying the position of UK law in relation to EU law. There’s always been a discussion about constitutional precedence here, which law take precedence. I’m not a lawyer, but I’ve read a lot of stuff about this and there are a lot of very eminent lawyers saying that there are ways to address this issue; maybe not the perfect solution, but there are ways to assert the supremacy of our parliament and to give us a much stronger position than we have had in the past. And I think as this discussion goes forward we will want to see these ideas discussed and explained in full. Hammond also hit back at David Davis, rejecting his claim that the emergency brake “would not stop a push bike”. (See 9.42am.) I think David Davis is wrong and, frankly, those people who are not looking for a good deal with Europe but are looking to argue for Britain to leave Europe, and whatever the package contained would be looking for Britain to leave Europe, are obviously going to attack whatever the package contains. But it does contain significant measures that will change the way the European Union works. The Leave.EU campaign has hit back at the suggestion from the Norwegian prime minister, Erna Soldberg, that the “Norway option” could not work for the UK. (See 12.29pm.) A spokesman said that it was not true to say that, if Britain were in EFTA and the EEA but outside the EU like Norway, it would have no say in drafting EU rules. There is an enormous network of discussion and consultation even within EFTA/EEA, on a global and regional level, long before these rules ever get near a statute book. The UK would be an active part of this network, along with over 190 international bodies. EEA/EFTA representatives participate in over 500 committees and expert groups involved in what is known as “decision shaping” at single market level. Above EU level, EEA/EFTA representatives have their own seats on many global bodies which we cannot as EU member states. Number 10 has rejected a claim from Alan Johnson, chair of the Labour In For Europe campaign, that the “emergency brake” allowing the UK to stop EU migrants getting in-work benefits for up to four years will have no impact on immigration. Johnson made the claim in an interview on the Today programme. But the prime minister’s spokesman told journalists at the Number 10 lobby briefing that it would make a difference. Migrant families were able to claim £6,000 a year on average in tax credits, he said: I think common sense would tell us that reducing the financial incentive will reduce that pull factor. As the Press Association reports, the spokesman was also unable to say whether migrants from wealthier EU states, such as Luxembourg, might end up receiving more generous child benefit payments than their British neighbours under the plan to give them child benefit at their home country rate, not the UK rate. The Norwegian prime minister Erna Solberg has said the “Norway option” would not work for the UK if it leaves the EU, Number 10 has said. (See 12.29pm.) The Conservative MP David Davis has said that the emergency brake “would not stop a push bike”. (See 9.42am.) Analysts at Goldman Sachs are warning that sterling could fall by up to 20% if Britain votes to leave the European Union. Ukip has been accused of “baseless scaremongering” after it used a party political broadcast on the BBC to warn of the dangers of Turkey joining the EU, highlighting its Muslim population and claiming 15 million of its citizens could migrate to the UK. David Cameron has said that the international community must raise billions of dollars more than last year to alleviate the unacceptable plight of Syrian refugees. He was speaking ahead of today’s Syria donor conference. For more details, do follow our separate live blog which is covering it. Labour could lose up to £8m a year as a result of the government’s changes to trade union funding, Iain McNicol, the party’s general secretary, has revealed. Sir David Dalton, the senior NHS boss trying to resolve the junior doctors dispute, has written to all of the 45,000 trainee medics involved in a last-ditch attempt to avoid next week’s planned strike. MPs have called for the head of a self-described neo-masculinist movement to be banned from the UK as a minister blasted him and his group as “absolutely repulsive”. A series of events planned by the Return of Kings group have been cancelled after Daryush Valizadeh, who calls himself Roosh V, said he could no longer guarantee the safety of anyone who wanted to attend. Responding to an urgent question about the meetings, Home Office minister Karen Bradley said the government “condemns in the strongest terms anyone who condones rape and sexual violence or suggests that responsibility for stopping these crimes rests with the victims”. Responding to calls for him to be banned from the UK, Bradley said that the Home Office did not routinely comment on individual cases, but that the home secretary could ban non-British citizens if she believes their presence is “not conducive to the public good”. The Conservative MP Geoffrey Cox QC has been told to apologise to the House of Commons after failing to declare more than £400,000 of outside income on time. Rural bus services are being wiped out in many areas of England and Wales due to cuts in subsidies, a study by the Campaign for Better Transport says. David Cameron met Erna Solberg, the Norwegian prime minister, in Number 10 last night. Mostly they were talking about the Syria conference, but Cameron’s EU renegotiation also came up. Norway is not in the EU, but it gets access to the single market through its membership of the European Free Trade Association. This means it has to submit to what is anachronistically referred to as “government by fax” because it has to comply with EU rules without having a say in how they are drawn up. According to Number 10, Solberg said this would not be a good arrangement for the UK. This is from the readout of the meeting that Downing Street has just sent to journalists. A Downing Street spokesperson said: [Cameron and Solberg] also discussed the prime minister’s work to win a renegotiated package for the UK in the European Union. Prime Minister Solberg said she supported the prime minister’s work to build a more flexible EU and to cut red tape. She also agreed with the prime minister that Norway’s position in the European Free Trade Area but outside the EU would not work for the UK. Solberg’s comments - at least, her comments as mediated through Number 10 - are significant because one of the challenges for those campaigning for Britain to leave the EU is explaining what its future trading relationship with the EU would be like. Often they cite “the Norway option”, but Cameron now has a new argument to deploy against that. Andrew RT Davies, leader of the Conservatives in Wales, will say in a speech later today that his party would cut ministerial salaries in the Welsh assembly by 10%. They would use the savings to encourage young people to get involved in politics through a national children and young people’s assembly for Wales. After May the Welsh first minister’s salary is due to rise to £140,000, with other ministers’ pay rising to £100,000, and Davies says his proposal would save around £250,000 over five years. Lucy Powell, the shadow education secretary, is giving a speech to an education summit in Sheffield today. In it, she says that the school curriculum does not prepare children well for the world of work and that ministers should not be personally involved in deciding what’s on the curriculum. I want to open up a conversation about how we can guarantee that future curriculums are fit for purpose. Young people have the right to a programme of study that prepares them for the modern world, with a strong connection to the needs of the economy. At the moment, this just isn’t happening. Instead, under the Tories we’ve seen parts of the curriculum personally drafted by the education secretary and then circulated for sign-off amongst cabinet ministers, each making the case for their own pet project to be included ... Ministerial diktat on the curriculum has gone too far and this approach is failing to meet the needs of our young people and our economy. It’s no wonder then that we now have the situation where 69 per cent of businesses and two–thirds of parents do not feel the education system prepares their children for work. It is interesting to note that, even though Michael Gove stopped being education secretary in 2014, he is still a prime target for the opposition. The complaints about ministers interfering with the curriculum primarily relate to him. Here is a classic example. A Conservative MP, Geoffrey Cox QC, has been told the apologise to the Commons after failing to declare more than £400,000 of outside earnings on time, the Press Association reports. The standards committee found that Geoffrey Cox QC had committed a “serious” breach of rules, although it accepted he had not “intended to hide” the payments for hundreds of hours of legal work. The Torridge and West Devon MP, known as one of parliament’s highest earners, quit as a member of the committee and referred himself to the parliamentary commissioner for standards in October after it emerged he had repeatedly missed the 28-day deadline. In its report (pdf) the committee said: “We accept that Mr Cox had no intention to hide these payments and that he has not breached the requirements of the House for declaration of relevant interests. “Nevertheless, as the commissioner notes, the number of payments and the sums involved in the late registration are significant and Mr Cox was in a position which should have ensured that he was more familiar with the rules and the relevant principles of public life in this area than other Members might be.” As my colleague Ben Quinn reports, the Daily Mail’s “Who will speak for England?” editorial (see 10.47am) is being roundly mocked on Twitter. You can read all today’s politics stories here. As for the rest of the papers, here is the PoliticsHome list of top 10 must-reads, and here is the ConservativeHome round-up of today’s politics stories. And here are three articles I found particularly interesting. Sam Coates in the Times (paywall) says Michael Gove, the justice secretary, is torn over what to do about the EU referendum. Michael Gove is fuelling hopes that he will back the campaign to leave the European Union by telling friends and colleagues of his deep discomfort at voting to remain. Downing Street sources had indicated that the justice secretary was likely to side with David Cameron and George Osborne, the chancellor, by backing Britain to stay in the EU. Privately, however, Mr Gove claims to be torn between personal loyalty to the prime minister and his conscience. He is intellectually convinced of the case for leaving but worried about contributing to a campaign that would wreck Mr Cameron’s legacy, friends said. His discomfort is said to be heightened by the prime minister’s demand that he presents plans for a court to defend Britain against new EU laws, which he believes to be unworkable. The plan for a constitutional court was seen as an attempt to secure support from Boris Johnson during the referendum campaign. The Daily Mail, in its front page ‘Who will speak for England?” editorial (complaining that anti-EU ministers are refusing to speak out, and that the Out camp lacks effective leaders) criticises Boris Johnson. Don’t bank on Boris Johnson either. True, the London mayor — never known for his courage — is happy to play flirtatious footsie with the ‘out’ campaign. But what’s the betting that at the first whiff of a plum Cabinet job, Boris will do the PM’s bidding, keep his doubts to himself — and possibly even sign up to the ‘remain’ campaign? And the Sun in its editorial also has a go at Johnson. Boris Johnson would make an entertaining Prime Minister. We’re less convinced he’d be good at it. His ducking and diving over the EU question, Britain’s most significant in a generation, is not very encouraging. We have always admired London’s Mayor for eloquently speaking his mind. But his many eurosceptic remarks are a deception. He has repeatedly talked up Britain’s prospects outside the EU. And he plainly shares our scathing view of David Cameron’s renegotiation. Yet he will not front the “Leave” campaign and be the powerful voice of millions who want out. Boris continues to flirt with it, but he’ll vote to “Remain”. It’s time he came off the fence. The FullFact blog points out, in the light of Alan Johnson’s interview, that it carried out its own fact check last year of the claim that in-work benefits were attracting EU migrants to the UK. It concluded that there was “no direct evidence on whether welfare has acted as a ‘magnet’ encouraging EU migrants to come to the UK”. Sadiq Khan, Labour’s candidate for London mayor, has unveiled a plan which he says would protect space for small businesses and start-ups in the capital. It’s part of his business framework, Sadiq Means Business. He released figures showing that, as a result of changes to planning rules introduced by the last government allowing commercial space to be turned into housing without planning permission, commercial floor space covering 1,786,466 sqm was lost in London between May 2013 and April 2015. He said that if all that space was fully occupied, it would have housed more than 123,000 jobs, although occupancy rates suggest 48,000 jobs have been lost or are under threat because of those changes. Khan said he would amend the London Plan to make it harder for these units to be converted into housing. In a statement he said: Of course we need new homes, but this does not need to be at the expense of the spaces we need for the businesses that provide our jobs and drive our prosperity. We should be focusing on building new homes on publicly and privately owned brownfield land, while using the London Plan to protect business space, and to create new start-up spaces in housing developments. I’ll make tackling the housing crisis my number one priority while increasing the space available for small business, start-ups and entrepreneurs. David Davis, the Conservative former Europe minister, and David Cameron main rival for the party leadership in 2005, will give a big speech on Europe later. It is being billed as his first in-depth contribution to the EU debate and he will use it to say that he is voting to leave the EU, to say that the EU is beyond reform, and to explain how Britain can eliminate the risks of Brexit. According to extracts sent out from his office in advance, he will also criticise David Cameron’s “emergency brake”. Like Alan Johnson, he will argue that it will have no effect on immigration. Davis will say: The prime minister ‘s emergency brake on migrant benefits would not stop a push bike. And we now discover we would have to ask Brussels’s permission to even use it. In any case, the whole concept of an emergency brake is flawed. Migrants are coming to Britain from Eastern Europe not to claim benefits but to earn more money. My figures show that they can readily earn three to four times as much working in low-skilled jobs in Britain. No amount of tinkering with our welfare rules will make a blind bit of difference to immigration numbers and the Prime Minister is being disingenuous to pretend otherwise. In a press notice, Davis explains why he believes cutting in-work benefits for EU migrants will not reduce migration. Davis will cite figures showing that the main attraction to would-be migrants from Eastern Europe is not Britain’s welfare system but the vast disparity in earnings between the two parts of Europe. For instance, the monthly average wage in Romania (£400 a month) is currently less than one third of the monthly minimum wage in the UK (£1300). This gulf will widen to a factor of more than four (£400 to £1600) by 2020 when the new UK national living wage is introduced and gives a big boost to the earnings of unskilled workers. Davis will also point out that research shows that the vast majority of Eastern European migrants to the UK are either single or couples without children and that they make minimal demands on the UK welfare system. They are coming here for work, not handouts. Only 10 per cent claim in-work benefits in their first year in the UK, rising to 20 per cent after four years as they begin to form families and have children. Even so, 80 per cent are not claiming in work benefits after four years in Britain and therefore measures to curb benefit payments such as the emergency brake can be expected to have minimal effect on migrant inflows – the public’s chief concern about the implications of EU membership. The press notice includes this chart showing the take up of tax credits by EEA (European Economic Area - which is the EU, plus three other small countries) citizens. Justine Greening, the international development secretary, was also on the Today programme, talking mostly about the Syria conference. But she was asked about David Cameron’s EU renegotiation, and if she thought it was fair that he was able to promote it while anti-EU ministers will not be allowed to speak out until the deal has been formally agreed, in another two weeks ago. Unsurprisingly, she supported Cameron. I happen to agree with the prime minister, I think this is a good deal, I hope we can seal the deal when he goes to Brussels later this month. But in the meantime we have cabinet collective responsibility and indeed the deal isn’t finally agreed yet. So I think we all need to back the Prime Minister to get the best deal for our country. Suzanne Evans, the Ukip deputy chair, thinks Alan Johnson was given an easy ride on Today. Several political parties will be involved in the campaign to keep Britain in the European Union. There are at least three cross-party umbrella groups but Labour, mindful of how campaigning alongside the Conservatives in Better Together in Scotland backfired badly on the party at the 2015 general election, has got its own campaign, Labour In For Britain, and its chair, Alan Johnson, was on the Today programme this morning. Having multiple parties campaigning for the same thing can be an advantage, because they appeal to different groups. But it also has its drawbacks, because campaigners may contradict each other, and we saw that today when Johnson shot down one of David Cameron’s key EU arguments. Here are the key points from the interview. Johnson said that cutting in-work benefits for EU migrants would not reduce immigration. Cameron has repeatedly argued that in-work benefits are one of the “pull” factors that lure EU migrants to the UK (even though the evidence for this is minimal, to put it politely), and he has been talking up the significance of the “emergency brake” that would allow the UK to stop paying full in-work benefits to EU migrants for up to four years. But Johnson said this would have no impact on immigration. Asked if it would deter people from coming to the UK, he replied: It was never going to do that ... the issue of in-work benefits isn’t a draw factor and indeed this is a two-way process, no country has more of its people working in other developed countries than Britain – more than Poland, more than any other country in Europe. Go to a pub in Paris, go to a pub in Madrid you will hear English voices. It’s not a draw for them, either, there’s all kinds of factors why people choose to move around the European Union to work. I don’t think that’s one of them. But Johnson also said that Labour supported the principle behind the “emergency brake” on fairness grounds. He said: We believe in the principal of fair contribution, that’s why it was in our manifesto that there should be a limit of two years before in-work benefits were paid. Actually there is an argument that this is better in the sense that you’re here contributing paying taxes for a period before you actually receive those benefits. And I think for British people the problem is not xenophobia, it’s not anti-Europe, it’s not any kind of racism overt or covert, it’s a fairness argument. It’s that you should be putting something into the system before you draw anything out. He said that pro-Europeans had not been making the case for the EU strongly enough in recent years. I don’t think many people, including me, have been making that argument sufficiently overt the last ten years. Now we can do it in areas where Ukip are strong and areas where they are not. There is more Europe coming later today. Here is the agenda for the day. 10am: The Supporting Syria conference opens in London. My colleague Matthew Weaver is covering that on a separate live blog. 11am: David Davis, the Conservative MP, gives a speech on what leaving the EU would mean for the UK. Around 12pm: MPs begin a debate on a backbench motion saying the EU renegotiation should protect parliamentary sovereignty. As usual, I will be covering breaking all the political news as it happens, as well as bringing you the best reaction, comment and analysis from the web. I will post a summary at lunchtime and another in the afternoon. If you want to follow me or contact me on Twitter, I’m on@AndrewSparrow. I try to monitor the comments BTL but normally I find it impossible to read them all. If you have a direct question, do include “Andrew” in it somewhere and I’m more likely to find it. I do try to answer direct questions, although sometimes I miss them or don’t have time. Alternatively you could post a question to me on Twitter.
Trump aims to woo pro-Israel donors at Aipac despite their lingering worries As Donald Trump prepares to address the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac), the Republican presidential frontrunner is facing mounting criticism from pro-Israel leaders for his incendiary rhetoric and policy stances. Meanwhile, after months bashing other candidates for their links to big donors, Trump appears to be making inroads wooing some staunchly pro-Israel megadonors, including billionaire Sheldon Adelson – though other big check-writers still have huge concerns about his candidacy. Despite awards Trump has received from pro-Israel groups and his boast that he would “do more for Israel than anyone else”, many Jewish leaders both conservative and liberal have found much to criticize about Trump. The anti-Trump sentiments have targeted his numerous comments on the campaign trail that are perceived as anti-immigrant, anti-women and anti-Muslim, raising the stakes for the real estate billionaire in his Aipac speech on Monday evening. “Anybody who is lauded by David Duke, Vladimir Putin and Jean-Marie Le Pen, I can’t support,” said former US senator Norm Coleman, a board member of the conservative pro-Israel Republican Jewish Coalition, of which Adelson is the lead funder. “They’re listening to his dog whistles and responding favorably, which frightens me.” Coleman’s critique of Trump is only one of many from Jewish conservatives, religious leaders and some donors. Pre-Aipac political fireworks began last week when a few dozen rabbis announced they intended to boycott Trump’s speech because of moral concerns about his inflammatory comments about Mexicans, Muslims and other issues. “We object to Trump’s message,” said Jeff Salkin, a rabbi and Aipac member from Hollywood, Florida, and one of the boycott organizers. “It’s a message of division, bigotry and xenophobia. He’s threatened violence against protesters. This is about who and what we want America to be.” Aaron David Miller, a former Middle East negotiator with the US State Department and now a scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center thinktank, said: “In my experience dealing with the pro-Israel community in the US, there has never been a presidential candidate or a politician speaking at Aipac who has been more a source of division and fundamental opposition than Donald Trump.” Trump sparked other concerns among conservative Jewish groups and donors late last year when he talked to a candidate forum organized by the hawkish Republican Jewish Coalition. In his remarks, Trump spoke of his desire if elected to be a “neutral” player in fostering peace talks between the Israelis and the Palestinians. “We don’t want to be even-handed,” one RJC board member told the about Trump’s idea of being a neutral peace negotiator. Trump has won plaudits in some conservative pro-Israel quarters for attacking President Obama and the secretary of state, John Kerry, for “selling out Israel” and lambasting the Iran nuclear deal as a “disaster” for Israel. The Republican frontrunner has also touted his past support for Israel. When he received an award early last year from a Jewish news organization, Trump said: “We love Israel. We will fight for Israel 100%. We will fight for Israel 1,000%.” (Trump also often cites his role as grand marshal of the Israel parade in New York in 2004, and notes that one of his daughters is married to an orthodox Jew and that she converted as well.) But to bolster his credentials, the Trump speech on Monday is expected by analysts and donors to be staunchly pro-Israel. It is also seen as a chance to burnish his image for Adelson and other major Jewish donors. To build bridges to conservative allies and donors before his speech, the Trump campaign reportedly contacted some prominent GOP fundraisers for help in crafting his remarks. To expand his Washington support, Trump was meeting before his speech with a couple of dozen lawmakers and lobbyists, a gathering that is slated to include Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, an early Trump backer, and Tom Cotton of Arkansas, a prominent Middle East hawk. Despite his harsh words for big donors on the campaign trail, Trump has been quietly wooing several megadonors including Adelson, who is a famously ardent supporter of Israel and confidant of the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu. At a candidate debate in December held at an Adelson casino resort in Las Vegas, Trump had a private meeting with Adelson, who had warm words for his fellow billionaire. At a press conference a few days later in Macau, where he owns major casinos, Adelson called Trump “very charming” and said they spoke about Israel. Adelson donated close to $150m in 2012 to a mix of Super Pacs, which must reveal their donors, and not-for-profit organizations, which don’t have to disclose contributors, to help Republicans. But other leading pro-Israel donors such as hedge fund chief Paul Singer still seem to have grave doubts about Trump. Singer, who donated $5m to a Super Pac backing Marco Rubio, has also been $1m donor to Our Principles Pac, which has run millions of dollars of anti-Trump ads in several states. Our Principles is running ads in Utah before Tuesday’s caucus and will have spots up in Wisconsin before its primary next month to undercut Trump’s ability to get enough delegates to secure the nomination before the GOP convention this summer. Other Trump critics in pro-Israel circles fear that a Trump candidacy could spell big trouble for GOP control of Congress. Coleman, who chairs two outside groups that in recent elections have spent millions of dollars backing GOP House members, said: “I think a Trump candidacy runs the risk of losing the Senate and putting the House in play.” Trump’s critics and his allies will be listening to see how much impact his Aipac speech will have on the campaign’s momentum and how much it may sway the legions of Trump doubters.
Malcolm Turnbull warns marginal seat voters against supporting independents Malcolm Turnbull appealed directly to marginal seat voters in a campaign launch speech that urged Australians to resist the “roll of the dice on independents or minor parties” and return the Coalition government to ensure stability. “That is why I counsel Australians against a roll of the dice on independents or minor parties,” Turnbull said. “Vote for anyone other than the Liberal and National party candidates, and the risk is that Australians will next week find themselves with Bill Shorten as prime minister and no certainty about their future. “That is why I am urging every Australian to think of this election as if their single vote will determine what sort of government we have after July 2.” In the final weekend of an eight-week election marathon, the prime minister “launched” the campaign in the seat of Reid, held by Liberal MP Craig Laundy on a margin of 3.3%. Turnbull’s key messages were stability following the UK’s decision to exit the European Union and a return to Tony Abbott’s theme of a safe, secure Australia. “National security and economic security go hand in hand,” he said. Turnbull nuanced the Coalition’s domestic message in the wake of the Brexit decision, with a nod to the disengagement felt by voters in Australia and around the world. “There has never been a more exciting time to be an Australian,” Turnbull said. “But only if your optimism and confidence is matched with a clear-eyed understanding of what makes the economy work, what makes businesses invest and hire, and an ability to see the world as it is, not how you would like it to be. “This is a time which demands stable majority government.” His Coalition partner, the National party, has been worried throughout the campaign that Turnbull’s message of “exciting times” in a changing economy has been scaring the electorate, especially in regional Australia. The prime minister, whose main policy is a $50bn corporate tax cut, underlined the connection between the economy and people, fleshing out specific examples including women who want more part-time work and young people who want to get a start. “We know that the economy is people – their lives, their futures, their security.” He characterised the $50bn decision to build submarines in South Australia as a “historic investment” because “only a strong Australia can be a safe Australia”. He attacked Labor’s record on asylum seekers – “50,000 unauthorised arrivals on 800 boats, 1,200 deaths at sea” – and again suggested people smugglers were looking for a sign that the government would waver on refugee policy. Turnbull warned the division in Labor over boats policy would mean the return of asylum seeker boats. “We know this because hope rarely triumphs over experience,” Turnbull said. “They have failed Australia before.” He borrowed from John Howard’s justification for hardline asylum policy. “Public trust in the government to determine who can come to Australia and how long they can stay is an essential foundation of our success as a multicultural society,” Turnbull said. Turnbull thanked Howard for his reforms, which he said “set Australia up for the longest period of prosperity in our history”, and Tony Abbott for ending the Rudd-Gillard years. “John and Tony, we salute you.” Turnbull announced a number of election pledges in the final stage of the campaign, with the major commitment around mental health. He promised $192m towards a package of mental health changes to ensure help for individuals and their families, including commitments in suicide prevention, which has been a persistent theme in the campaign. The Coalition pledged $48m to help 24,000 of Australia’s most disadvantaged children with their education through the Smith Family’s Learning for Life program and $31.2m for internships and post-school career advice to increase support for women and girls to study and work in science, technology, engineering and maths (Stem). There is $50m to improve the digital literacy of senior Australians and $10m to protect, preserve and celebrate Aboriginal and Torres Strait languages as part of the living story of Australia’s shared history. He attacked Bill Shorten’s policies as being a recipe for “economic stagnation”, characterised by “union thuggery” and raised the Victorian firefighters’ dispute. “His vision splendid is to run the nation like a trade union,” Turnbull said. “The volunteer firefighters of Victoria know what that looks like.” In a bid to sidetrack the Coalition event, Shorten effectively held a second campaign launch in Brisbane under the guise of a Save Medicare rally. He framed the Coalition as divided and Malcolm Turnbull as a weak leader ahead of the Liberal launch. “Behind the forced smiles today and the awkward music, when we watch them, those Liberals at that party are sharpening their weapons of revenge for the impending civil war in that party after the election.” The latest poll from Galaxy Research – of more than 500 voters in each seat – showed Labor was unlikely to win the marginal seats required to take government. The poll, published in News Corp papers, found Labor would win only two of 14 Coalition-held marginal seats in four states and is at 50-50 in two others. The poll suggests Labor could win the Queensland seats of Petrie (2PP 52-48) and Capricornia (2PP 51-49) while it is on 50-50 in Hindmarsh in South Australia and Macarthur in New South Wales.
Noel Gallagher: We should never have made Be Here Now then Oasis should never have made Be Here Now when they did, according to Noel Gallagher. Despite being bullish around the time of its release, the Oasis songwriter now claims that the band’s overblown 1997 album was recorded too soon after their hugely successful second LP What’s the Story (Morning Glory)? During a video interview with Vevo, Gallagher said: “I only say this now, looking back on it after 20 years … we should never have made that record then. We came off the back of that American tour which was, again, the third tour in a row that we never completed. And I came back to the airport and the fucking world’s press was there and instead of going, ‘Right, we should just go our separate ways for a year or two,’ we decided like idiots to go straight into the studio.” He added: “That maybe wasn’t the best idea. Morning Glory hadn’t really run its course then. It was probably still number one in England, it was definitely still top five in the States. And yet, there we were, going into the studio, effectively trying to make another album to kill it, which was ridiculous.” Gallagher also claimed that the band should have been talked out of making the record when they did. He said: “I often think, looking back, the people around us who were in the music business for 20 years before we got there should really have said something.” Be Here Now received rave reviews at the time of its release, and saw fans queuing outside record shops to buy it. But it has since gained a reputation as being an act of cocaine-addled folly, full of overlong songs and nonsensical lyrics. A remastered reissue of the album is out now.
U-turns are possible on the road to hard Brexit Jonathan Freedland is right that the referendum result has to be honoured (Who speaks for the 48% as we lurch to extreme Brexit?, 8 October). That does not mean, however, that it is sacrosanct, any more than the result of a general election. Those who argue that it is undemocratic to seek its reversal if circumstances have changed ignore the fact that it is an essential part of democracy that no decision should ever be irreversible. As Freedland states, leavers did not vote for the most extreme rupture of our relations with the EU that will cause profound damage to our economy. But we are now heading inexorably towards a hard Brexit, since the government has made immigration control of our borders its top priority, which is incompatible with staying in the single market or the customs union. When this realisation sinks in – the decline in the value of the pound shows it is already happening – domestic and foreign investment will decline, a flood of companies will emigrate, London will probably cease to be the financial centre of the EU and we are likely to face a severe, self-inflicted Brexit recession. In time that is likely to cause a major change in public opinion, as many voters for leave will feel they were conned. This change will fully justify a rerun of the referendum, after the conclusion of the negotiations, before our departure becomes inevitable. It is widely assumed that once we trigger article 50 and announce our intention to leave, this sets in motion an irreversible process. However, this assumption does not appear to be legally correct. In an article for the Financial Times, Jean-Claude Piris, former director general of the legal service of the Council of the European Union, has pointed out that invoking article 50 and declaring “an intention” to leave is a “unilateral act that does not depend on what other members think or do” and that “In law, the word ‘intention’ cannot be interpreted as a final and irreversible decision”. Nothing in article 50, he wrote, would prevent the UK, in conformity with its constitutional requirements, from withdrawing its unilaterally declared “intention”. Those who voted remain are therefore perfectly entitled, legally and democratically, to do everything possible to avoid a disastrous future for this country. Indeed some of us regard this as our duty. Dick Taverne Liberal Democrat, House of Lords • One of the most worrying aspects of the Brexit debate is theconstant attempts by the Brexiteers to deny the legitimacy of debate following the referendum: “the people have spoken” is their sole refrain whenever a contrary voice is heard. Yet scrutiny, challenge and debate are not optional extras in a democracy, they are the very essence. It is beyond ironic that those who argued so vehemently for parliamentary sovereignty should resort to the royal prerogative and so deny the very democracy they claim to have fought for. Roy Boffy Sutton Coldfield • Just suppose that the referendum had produced exactly the opposite result, with just over half of those who voted choosing to stay in the EU. Would the government have been entitled to go for hard remain and join the euro and sign up for the Schengen agreement? And, if so, would the leavers have accepted that the British people had made their decision and there was nothing more to be said? Kath Aspinwall Hathersage, Derbyshire • The prime minister (May quick to reject cross-party calls for Commons vote on the single market, 10 October) believes that the government can proceed with Brexit under the royal prerogative without the authority of parliament. Brexit will inevitably involve the repeal of the European Communities Act. Only parliament can repeal an act of parliament. Any other view would be a constitutional nonsense. The prime minister might do well to recall that over 300 years ago we fought a civil war on the issue of parliamentary sovereignty, and at least one monarch lost his head as a consequence. Derek Gambell Bromley, Kent • Your coverage of Theresa May’s conference speech (‘Change must come’: May consigns Cameron to history, 6 October) omitted one of the most intriguing remarks that she made: that “it is time to reject the ideological templates provided by the socialist left and the libertarian right”. The libertarian right, unlike the socialist left, is strongly entrenched within Mrs May’s own party. Its disciples include Liam Fox and David Davis, as well as Nigel Lawson, who tells us that Brexit offers the chance to complete his interpretation of the Thatcher revolution, by shrinking taxation, regulation and the state as a whole. The Taxpayers’ Alliance, with its close links to the Republican right in Washington and the leadership of the leave campaign, propounds libertarian doctrines; so does the Institute of Economic Affairs. Both are regularly and admiringly quoted in the rightwing press. If our new prime minister really intends to take on the ideologues within her own party, then it will not only be the Labour party which will be faction-ridden over the next few years. Of course, she may back down before their passionate pressure; but if so, the social and industrial agenda that she has just set out will be a shell. Those of us on the centre left, from Liberal Democrats to Labour social democrats, should exert as much passionate pressure on the prime minister from the other side not to slip away from the promises she has just made in order to hold her divided party together. William Wallace Liberal Democrat, House of Lords • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
The 50 best films of 2016 in the US: No 2 Toni Erdmann Few people settle in for a three-hour German comedy about an uptight woman and her farty father expecting a masterpiece. Yet that’s what Maren Ade’s extraordinary, genre-bending revolution of a movie is. It tells of Ines (Sandra Hüller), an efficient, humourless, whippet-thin businesswoman in her mid-30s. She’s focused on success with no apparent aim but for its own sake (“You’re an animal,” someone tells her – there are a lot beasties in this film). To this end, she sacrifices her free time, much of her social life, and many of her ethics. There’s one appalling scene in which she must take shopping the wife of a powerful contact she’s courting. “I’m not a feminist,” she witheringly tells one of the colleagues above whom she is miles more capable and bright, “or I wouldn’t tolerate guys like you.” We pity brittle Ines. We don’t necessarily like her. Following the death of his dog, her prank-loving dad, Winfried (Peter Simonichek), decides to pay her a visit for the weekend. This goes appallingly; the endless wait for the lift down from her apartment to the cab is a perfect horror-show of two people with deep affection who can’t stand the sight one another. But Winfried, concerned for Ines’s sanity, does not actually leave. Rather, he shows up again, infiltrating her sacred professional circle, beneath weird wig and ill-fitting false teeth, calling himself a life coach called Toni Erdmann. Similarities to Les Patterson are accidental – but irresistible. Toni also bears a striking resemblance to Harold Bornstein, aka Donald Trump’s trusted doctor (on the left in this Twitter comparison). The remainder of the film is essentially a compendium of showcase scenes which you can’t shift, even months on. There’s an Easter egg painting party which culminates in an angry, flabbergasting rendition of Whitney Houston’s The Greatest Love of All (which had the Cannes press audience erupting in spontaneous, mid-screening applause). There’s the naked birthday bash. The sex scene involving petits fours. The shockingly moving playground chase involving a Kukeri (like an elephant, they’re hard to describe, but you know one once you’ve seen one). Ade’s film, highly scripted but culled from hundreds of hours of footage, is like nothing you’ve ever seen before. It tickles, frequently, but it also touches you more deeply than you could have anticipated. It is an extravagant film about loneliness and DNA, its web of emotional hostage-taking too complex to ever begin to unpick.
A&E units are overwhelmed, and it's not the fault of staff Accident and emergency services are the national symbol of the NHS. While people may have complaints and grumbles about treatment elsewhere in the health service, it is an article of faith that when you have an emergency you will see the NHS at its best. More than this, it exemplifies the principle of free at the point of need. Extraordinary human and technical resources can be mobilised in minutes to save your life, irrespective of your wealth and status, or the cost to the state. But increasingly A&E is also coming to symbolise a health service struggling to cope, with multiplying pressures and no sign of a long-term solution. Between 2003-04 and 2014-15, according to King’s Fund analysis, annual A&E attendances jumped from around 16 million to more than 22 million. For most of this time, the majority of the increase went to walk-in centres and minor injuries units. But more recently there have been significant rises in the number of people attending major A&E units, which is having a big impact on hospitals’ ability to cope. In the eyes of politicians and the media, A&E performance has been reduced to whether it is able to hit the government target of 95% of patients being seen, treated, admitted or discharged in under four hours. Performance has been worsening steadily since 2010, and in 2014-15, the 95% standard was missed for the year. But the causes are complicated. Analysis by regulator Monitor of the steep decline in performance over the winter of 2014-15 reveals hospitals have been struggling to cope with a significant rise in the number of people arriving by ambulance. This can be seen in a sharp increase in delays for ambulance crews handing over patients and the average waiting time for an initial assessment creeping up. The biggest problem tends to be delays in admitting patients from A&E to the hospital. The average wait for admission in the three months up to December jumped in a year from under four hours to almost four-and-a-half . The most striking conclusion reached by Monitor is the sharp performance drop last winter against the four-hour target was not due to a drop in the performance of A&E units themselves. In other words, the staff are working as well as ever, but they are gradually being overwhelmed by factors beyond their control. If anything, A&E departments were using their capacity more effectively to manage the increased demand, and overall staffing levels for both doctors and nurses were slightly higher. Too often, hospital bed occupancy rates are pushing over 90% – well past the 85% threshold at which NHS England suggest hospitals will struggle with fluctuations in demand. At this sort of level, further small increases in bed occupancy can significantly impair A&E performance. Other studies have indicated that improving the flow of patients through care pathways and ensuring patients are cared for in the most appropriate setting are the best ways to get bed occupancy rates down, and improve the flow of patients from A&E to wards. This highlights the importance of factors such as timely access to testing and results, and hospitals’ own discharge systems working well. Difficulties elsewhere in the system, such as accessing GP services out of hours and discharging patients from hospitals to social care play a part. The impact of social care cuts may well exacerbate problems this winter, but it is hard to pin down exactly how much these factors hit A&E. However, the revelation by Health Service Journal that the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence believes A&E departments need to build a greater margin of safety into their nurse staffing levels shows there is more to analysing performance than using a stopwatch. Morale, the willingness of clinicians to embark on a career in emergency care and whether talented staff are prepared to stay are also critical factors. While relentless firefighting is to some extent the nature of emergency medicine, there is a fine line between adrenaline and burnout. The fact that the huge pressures on staff are not yet affecting overall performance is testimony to their extraordinary efforts, but the crunch point will come unless there is action to relieve the unsustainable load. Join our network to read more pieces like this. And follow us on Twitter (@GdnHealthcare) to keep up with the latest healthcare news and views.
Trump sees enemies on all sides He was booed at a debate for pointing out 9/11 happened on George W Bush’s watch. He’s been tarred as pro-choice. He’s been attacked for cussing too frickin’ much. So on Monday... Trump said the Republican party was “in default” of a deal to treat him fairly, and he might run as an independent. He also repeated a threat to sue Ted Cruz for being born in Canada. Trump threatens third-party run over ‘unfair’ treatment Trump’s tirade came after a new Jeb Bush Super Pac radio ad ran in South Carolina, a polite place that votes Saturday. The ad mashes up Trump telling people to go “BLEEP” themselves. Video: Republican debate a festival of bickering “Is this the type of man we want our children exposed to?” the pro-Bush ad asks. Cruz meanwhile launched a TV ad saying Trump could not be trusted with a supreme court pick. Republicans said the president should not seek to replace late supreme court justice Antonin Scalia. “There comes a point ... where you stop nominating,” Marco Rubio said. From our years together at the DC circuit, we were best buddies ... It was my great good fortune to have known him as working colleague and treasured friend.” – Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg A powerful service employees union made three Spanish-language ads in Nevada for Hillary Clinton, who’s battling there with Bernie Sanders. But Sanders drew a huge crowd for a rally in Michigan on Monday, a day after packing a high school in Las Vegas with thousands of people. Sanders draws thousands in Vegas Who? Farewell, Jim Gilmore: the hopeless Republican presidential hopeful
Tottenham steamroller lacklustre Stoke with Son Heung-min double Mark Hughes told Tottenham Hotspur fans to shut up, but his team could not silence the visiting forwards. Son Heung-min scored twice before Dele Alli and Harry Kane struck their first goals of the campaign and, in doing so, confirmed that Tottenham are up and running for the new season after playing fitfully in their first three matches. Hughes, meanwhile, may have disciplinary matters to fret about in addition to his team’s botched start to the season after being sent to the stands in the first half. Stoke are bottom of the league with one point from four matches. Tottenham took the lead thanks to their ability to keep calm in the storm caused in part by Stoke’s fury with the referee, Anthony Taylor, and the fourth official, Jon Moss. Taylor, acting on advice from Moss, ordered Hughes to vacate the sideline in the 34th minute after the manager stomped out of his technical area to vent his anger at the booking of Marko Arnautovic for simulation. Hughes felt that Stoke should have been given a free-kick before that for a foul on Jonathan Walters and was doubly aggrieved when Taylor judged Arnautovic’s “evasive action” to be a dive. “Those were two decisions I felt should have gone our way so I reacted in a forceful manner,” Hughes said. “Sometimes you forget that this year you’re not allowed to come out of your technical area. Mr Moss, bless him, felt that warranted a sending off, which, by the letter of the law, it did, so I have to hold my hands up. But I saw Sky say that maybe I swore, which I didn’t.” As he left the pitch Hughes made gestures to rev up the home crowd. Then he tried to send a different message to away supporters. “I was telling them to shut up,” he said. “Sorry if I did that.” That hoopla created a sizzling atmosphere in which players needed to stay cool. Spurs did so better and were rewarded by Son’s goal in the 41st minute. Joe Allen might have thwarted it if he had not overcommitted when trying to dispossess Christian Eriksen, allowing the Dane to sidestep him before pulling the ball back from the sideline to Son, who was unmarked 12 yards from goal. The South Korean guided it first time into the net with his left foot. Such composure in the bedlam can only have encouraged Mauricio Pochettino, bearing in mind how his team lost their heads and the league title at Stamford Bridge last season. Earlier, Spurs had to show resilience to weather a storm of another kind, as Stoke started strongly. Wilfried Bony, making his debut for the hosts after joining on loan from Manchester City, gave the team a much-needed fulcrum up front. The Ivorian threatened as early as the second minute when he exchanged passes with Walters before unleashing a 16-yard shot that was blocked by Jan Vertonghen. Glenn Whelan and Ryan Shawcross also had efforts foiled by defenders. Tottenham gradually took the upperhand, however, thanks to the crispness and swiftness of their passing. Son served notice of his menace by collecting a crossfield pass from Toby Alderweireld on the half-hour and dashing towards the Stoke area. Arnautovic chased back to disrupt his progress but inadvertently played the ball into the path of Alli. He dragged a shot past the advancing Shay Given but wide of the post. Then, following Hughes’s expulsion, Son shot Spurs in front. Half-time brought a chance to regroup and Stoke did hint at a comeback early in the second half. But Son quashed it with a superb strike on the counterattack, collecting another pass from Eriksen at the corner of the area and sweeping a first-time shot in at the far post. Stoke began to unravel. “The second goal deflated us more markedly than it should have,” Hughes said. Spurs were not minded to show mercy. The visitors inflicted further damage through another rapid counterattack on the hour. Kyle Walker hurtled down the right and picked out Alli, who, like Son for the first goal, had found space in the middle of the area and took full advantage. With Victor Wanyama on a yellow card and guilty of a couple of tackles that the home crowd believed should have resulted in a red, Pochettino made a substitution to ensure Tottenham kept 11 players on the pitch, replacing Wanyama with Érik Lamela. “It was better to take the pressure off the referee and Victor,” said Pochettino. All that was missing from Spurs’ point of view was a goal for Harry Kane. So Son helped deliver one. He tricked his way down the left before providing a pass that enabled Kane to end the wait for his first goal of the campaign.
Brexiters maintain stubborn mood in face of chilling EU warnings The Ealing comedy Passport to Pimlico is set in postwar London with austerity at its height. Inhabitants find that they can escape rationing because the district was once part of Burgundy during a conflict that has never formally ended. They set up their own kingdom within a kingdom, defiantly resisting attempts by Westminster to bludgeon them back into line. The mood of stubborn resistance is summed up by one of the characters whose Englishness is called into question. “We always were English and we always will be English and it’s because we are English that we are sticking up for our right to be Burgundian.” Something of this mood has pervaded the EU referendum debate, so far at least. Warnings about the dire consequences of a vote to leave have come in thick and fast. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development said Brexit would be the equivalent of a tax increase, the Bank of England said it might tip the economy into a technical recession and the International Monetary Fund said Britons should brace themselves for a stock market crash and plunging house prices. Appearing on The Andrew Marr Show, the pro-Brexit energy minister Andrea Leadsom described it as “institutional ganging up on the poor British voter”. One of the leaders of the gang, Mark Carney, was also interviewed on the BBC programme. The Bank of England governor was unrepentant about his public warning last week that the higher inflation and slower growth Threadneedle Street thinks would result from a Brexit vote might be enough to tip the economy into recession. What’s interesting about the campaign so far is that the bloodcurdling warnings about the horrors that will be visited on the economy in the event of Brexit seem to have had such little effect. The remain camp think the intervention of Carney will prove decisive in swaying undecided voters, and some on the leave side privately agree. It is possible that the polls are understating support for the status quo, which will only become apparent in the last few weeks before the 23 June vote, when people really start to concentrate on how they will vote. But so far, the Brexit camp must be pretty pleased with how things are going. The bloody-minded spirit of Passport to Pimlico lives on. There are umpteen possible explanations for that. It could be the heavy-handed way the government has gone about things, which has allowed the leavers to portray themselves – in true Ealing comedy fashion – as underdogs. As one small example, the IMF’s annual health check on the UK economy was delayed last year because it did not want to be dragged into politics at the time of the general election. Those niceties have been cast aside this year, with the fund’s report used as a campaigning weapon by George Osborne. The initial findings of the IMF team sent to the UK were published last Friday: the full report will appear the week before the referendum. The remain camp also needs to be careful not to overstate its case. There would undoubtedly be a great deal of uncertainty in the immediate aftermath of a vote to leave. Sterling would take a hit and dearer exports would push up inflation. A slowdown in the economy has been under way for several quarters and was happening long before the prospect of Brexit surfaced. It is not outlandish of the Bank of England to float the idea that the economy could slide into technical recession given that growth was 0.4% in the first three months of 2016 and a further slowdown looks highly probable in the second quarter as investment is delayed in the run-up to the 23 June vote. There would then be a further hit to activity after a Brexit vote. Clearly, two quarters of negative growth – the definition of a recession – cannot be ruled out. But the sky would not fall in. Britain would remain a member of the EU for at least two years after a no vote and the full weight of the UK political establishment would instantly switch from warning about the dire perils of Brexit to ensuring that the costs of divorce would be minimised. There is no certainty that Christine Lagarde’s prediction of a crash in house prices would come true and it would be a net benefit to the economy if it did. Likewise a fall in the value of the pound, which would do something to help rebalance the economy by making exports cheaper. Conversely, a remain vote is likely to lead to a stronger pound, making the imbalances worse. Both the Bank and the IMF assume that the economy is in pretty good shape and will bounce back quickly once the threat of Brexit is removed. But as the IMF noted in its Article IV report, the underlying problems of the economy – the low level of household savings, an abysmally poor productivity performance and a terrifyingly large current account deficit – have actually got worse in the past year. The Bank’s growth forecasts, which assume that the UK will stay in the EU, have been cut since February as a result of the continuing weakness of productivity. The underlying problems of the economy are the result of decades of under-investment in the economy’s productive base, not the Brexit threat. It is therefore open to the remain side to make the case that leaving the EU is a shock the UK could do without at a time when the economy is not in the greatest shape. This has the virtue of being true and might impress voters put off by hyperbolic claims that Britain risks becoming an economic wasteland within weeks of 23 June. Yet, it doesn’t suit Osborne’s narrative, which is that the economy has flourished under his stewardship these past six years and that Britain will be a land overflowing with milk and honey once the threat of Brexit has been banished. Instead, he will crank up the volume still higher over the next few weeks, confident that the tactic that has been so successful in swaying floating voters in general elections – Labour is bad for your wealth – will work just as well in the referendum. But maybe it won’t. Veteran economics commentator Brian Reading made the point last week that the 13 American colonies were fully aware of the consequences for trade and capital flows from Britain if they chose independence. Noting that George Washington et al preferred making their own laws rather than having them made in London, Reading said: “No one today would argue that the American states would have been better off remaining UK colonies.” Is Britain gearing up for a 1776 moment? It seems improbable. In Passport to Pimlico, remember, the film ends with the status quo restored. But polls suggest many voters are looking beyond Carney’s “technical recession”. And that’s making the remain camp very nervous.
It’s only rock’n’roll, Labour, but you should like it There is a newspaper Xanadu where some of the ’s greatest journalistic triumphs reside. These include one of the greatest scoops in the history of UK print journalism when, in 1812, reporter Vincent George Dowling was on hand to witness the assassination of the prime minister, Spencer Perceval, before stepping in to apprehend the killer. A century or so later, in 1919, JL Garvin penned his famous and prescient editorial on the Treaty of Versailles: “The Treaty left the Germans no real hope except in revenge.” The paper’s legacy of seeing what others refused to see and uttering what others feared to utter was evident once more in 1956 during the Suez crisis. The took a principled stand of the government’s conduct on the issue. “We had not realised that our Government was capable of such folly and such crookedness,” our leader writer then wrote. I also feel the ’s spirit of fearlessness digging at the coalface of truth inspired our campaign to restore authentic rock music to the airwaves of Scotland. In April 2014, I was shocked to learn that Scotland’s only proper rock radio station had been replaced by something vapid and inane called X-FM. I wrote then: “Heavy rock is important to society as it portrays and recalls our industrial heritage and celebrates hard work, honesty and integrity. If there was ever a proper revolution in this country it would provide the soundtrack to the social upheaval; not Franz Ferdinand or the Smiths or Blur.” It seems our campaign has paid off. For it was announced last month that Ofcom had awarded Rock Radio Glasgow the FM commercial radio licence in the west central Scotland area. It was the culmination of a campaign that, I think, stands within the finest traditions of the ’s brave and counterintuitive reporting. Donald MacLeod, who owns the Cathouse and Garage nightclubs, is chair of Rock Radio. He is a chap not unknown to the in Scotland as he has often offered us sanctuary in one of his meaty establishments when many others had previously refused. MacLeod was effusive in his appreciation of the for its support. “If it hadn’t been for the unstinting support of the , I’m not sure we would have got over the finishing line. As Jimmy Page and Robert Plant once wrote: ‘And it’s whispered that soon, if we all call the tune, then the piper will lead us to reason’.” Scotland has been buffeted recently by fell forces that still threaten its economic and social wellbeing. The independence referendum was lost in a welter of falsehoods and half-truths whereby Labour in Scotland and their allies in the Tory party conned the frail and the elderly into maintaining the status quo. Since then we’ve had Brexit, the rise of the hard right, ultra-austerity, racial aggravation and the bitter knowledge that Donald Trump is Scottish. Yet there are signs that the nation is experiencing a degree of solace in a rock’n’roll renaissance. The news that Rock Radio now possesses the new FM licence in the west of Scotland doesn’t just mean a return to Led Zep, Deep Purple, Van Halen, Mountain and Judas Priest and an escape from Adele, Justin Bieber and Rhianna. It will also provide training and support for indigenous bands who acknowledge that God has indeed given rock’n’roll to us, to paraphrase those great lyricists Simmons and Stanley. This year also marked the 10th annual Bonfest in Kirriemuir, held to celebrate the life and career of Bon Scott, celebrated frontman of AC/DC, who was raised in this douce little Angus town. Previously, Kirriemuir was known only as the birthplace of JM Barrie. Now, thanks to Bonfest, it’s been revealed that for the first time more people were inspired to visit Kirriemuir because of its Bon Scott connection than its JM Barrie one. And let’s face it, what would you rather your town was renowned for: fairies or rock’n’roll damnation? Next year’s Bonfest will be held in April and, while Scotland has far too many arts and cultural festivals, this one shouldn’t be missed. The majority of festivals are principally for a wandering troupe of second-rate authors, singers and artists who can’t make money on their own but can live off the fees guaranteed by gullible local councils that think they’re funding something cultural and essential. Inexplicably, Glasgow, which has a rich rock’n’roll heritage, has opted to turn up its nose at the chance to market itself as one of the world’s top destinations for the head-banging oeuvre. Although Bon Scott was the braggartly leader of AC/DC, the band were founded by the Glaswegian brothers Angus and Malcolm Young, who were born within sight of the water tower at Cranhill in the East End of Glasgow. Yet, despite the efforts of councillor Frank Docherty, the ruling Labour group decided against awarding these two the freedom of the city. The party was probably too busy doing what it does best: making twinning arrangements with enough cities to keep its councillors in jollies for a lifetime. If Labour wants to have a chance of holding off the SNP’s assault on its local authority powerbase in Glasgow, it needs to get with the rock’n’roll picture. If the SNP get in they’ll probably ban all rock’n’roll because the lyrics are not sufficiently diverse and fail to deliver the appropriate pattern of deliverable outcomes on gender issues and responsible attitudes towards alcohol and relationships. So here’s my plan to help Labour stave off the threat of the Nationalist roundheads. They need to announce a Rockfest week along the lines of Kirriemuir’s Bonfest. This would celebrate the genius of the Young brothers and others such as Brian Robertson, the great Thin Lizzy lead guitarist, Alex Harvey, Jimmy Barnes, Bobby Gillespie and Jim Kerr. In their seminal work, Sin City, a thoughtful étude on loss and redemption in an urban setting, Angus Young, Malcolm Young and Bon Scott included these lines: So spin that wheel, cut that pack And roll those loaded dice Bring on the dancing girls And put the champagne on ice I’m goin’ in To Sin City
Financial watchdogs need more bite to bring shadow banking to heel Behind the easy-going manner, Bank of England governor Mark Carney is angry. The object of his anger is Sir John Vickers, the mild-mannered former deputy governor who keeps telling the world that Carney has gone soft on the bankers. In recent months, when he hasn’t been discussing the impact of the EU referendum, Carney has behaved as if he were a Plantagenet king, dispatching his lieutenants to crush a former friend turned critic. The most recent intervention was led by Martin Taylor, a Barclays chief in the 1990s who sits with Carney on the financial policy committee, the UK’s financial watchdog. Taylor’s defence of the FPC was cleverly couched not only as a rebuke to those who believe that it is weak, but also to those who consider regulation too tight, positioning the watchdog as even-handed – tough on banking, without crushing the industry under a welter of heavy-handed rules. Why must Vickers be intellectually assassinated? The answer is in the credit bubble that is growing by the week. The Bank is concerned that it will be undermined as chief regulator if critics can convince the public and parliament its policies have been watered down and rules that remain made so complex they can be gamed by the finance industry to a point where they are worthless in the event of a crash. Carney and the FPC are right to be worried. Vickers and others paint a scary picture of an industry where the culture has changed little and the next financial crisis is just around the corner. Not only did Vickers say bank lending should be capped at 25 times capital, only to be told the chancellor would tolerate 33 times, his plans for ringfencing (to keep a bank’s retail operations separate from casino-style investment banking) were watered down. Vickers wanted the kind of simple ringfence an interested citizen might be able to understand. Instead, he got a complex web of capital ratios and inter-relationships that few but the geekiest bank experts can fathom. Bank chiefs are playing their old tunes. HSBC boss Stuart Gulliver said last year he would both cut the bank’s riskiest assets and achieve double-digit returns. It showed he believes the pre-crash era of super-returns is close at hand now the regulator is subdued. Such is the huge volume of capital swimming around the global financial system that investors have for some time been spreading their bets, and this is where Carney’s critics get really worried. Part of the reason Gulliver is under pressure to promise super-returns is that investors are diverting a large portion of their savings to sponsor a huge rise in shadow banking, which is the term for generally opaque lending by non-bank financial firms. There are bigger returns to be made than even bank bosses promise in their more exuberant statements. Already car loans in the US are looking like they are the new sub-prime lending scandal. Mortgage lending in the UK is heading the same way after reaching pre-crisis levels. Too often mortgages are sold to over-eager first-time buyers at astronomical income multiples. And that’s the high-street banks at work. Carney, who is also chair of G20-sponsored global regulator the Financial Stability Board, says the bank is on the case. According to the FSB, a narrow definition of shadow banking shows it grew to $36 trillion, or 12% of financial system assets, in 2014. A wider aggregate figure for all shadow-banking activities, including pension funds and insurers who lend out their securities, hit $137tn, representing 40% of total financial system assets. Last month, Carney issued the FSB’s latest review and urged countries to pay attention to the risks. But there is little public data on the scale of the risks taken by shadow banks and very little regulation. A report by the University of Leeds and the University of the Basque Country shows that business school economists from across Europe are worried. They believe the culture of banks has changed little since the crash and governments are still in thrall to their financial sectors as cash generators, ignoring the risks they pose to their economies and social structures. More than 90% of the 50 experts polled for the EU-funded Financialisation, Economy, Society and Sustainable Development (FESSUD) research project said that the benefits of finance were either overestimated or highly overestimated. They said the excessive size of the finance sector and poor regulation were the causes of the last crash. More than 70% said the flawed economic theory that underpinned a belief in financial systems as self-correcting was another factor. These economists are not from the Corbyn/Sanders wing of academia. Some advise finance firms and even sit on bank advisory boards. Nevertheless, they believe the financial services sector will continue to grow, providing investors with risky profits, while the benefits for Europe’s citizens are “limited and likely negative”. Worse for Carney, the economists are especially concerned about shadow banking, saying that as banks are further regulated, shadow banking will grow with, at best, loose regulation. Their views tell Carney he should lay off Vickers and intervene across the entire industry to limit damage from a financial crash. If shadow finance has the ability to add a further twist to the turmoil, it will be in setting off defaults and bankruptcies across businesses and households, while having only a fraction of the weakened checks and balances on the banks. It goes to show regulators need more bite and less bark.
Depp and Heard's biosecurity thriller ends in lo-fi hostage video – review Hollywood A-lister Johnny Depp has delivered a startling fall-from-grace character portrait in the final act of the legal/biosecurity thriller nobody expected: one part intrepid dog movie and two parts international relations drama, like The International by way of Beverly Hills Chihuahua, with a dash of Midnight Express thrown in. The pulse-pounding first act starts with a clock-is-ticking twist, harking back to Depp’s 1995 political action movie, Nick of Time. In that film, the actor was assigned an hour and a half to escape political hot water in the 90s; in this, he and his partner/co-star, Amber Heard, are granted a more generous 50 hours by the Australian agriculture minister, Barnaby Joyce. Joyce makes a fairly deranged villain; the couple’s dogs, he snarls, will be executed by the government if Heard and Depp fail to remove them from the country in time. Yorkshire terriers Pistol and Boo radiate a natural if understated gravitas in their breakthrough performances. Thus a moral dilemma to springboard the second act: who do we root for? The bad arse, blasé, aviator-clad, double-earring wearing hunk and his beautiful partner (Heard is terrific here; her doe-eyed presence recalls the early work of French New Wave pioneer Anna Karina)? Or the burly, weatherbeaten borderline psychopath, who just threatened to use federal powers to execute the couple’s adorable tiny dogs? It is a difficult choice. Tension slackens in the second act, as the key players spend more time independent of each other, and the plot takes on some implausible developments. In an improbable turn of events, Joyce becomes the deputy prime minister of Australia: surely an act of over-reaching on behalf of the screenwriters. A second unexpected twist sees Heard take centre stage and emerge as the key player. Media outlets the world over had reported Pistol and Boo as Depp’s dogs; he was therefore at the core of the narrative. Few people could have anticipated Heard would emerge as the protagonist, a sort of reverse The Lady Vanishes. She was here all the time. And nobody, bar nobody, could possibly have imagined how this sensational affair would end. First, there’s a courtroom scene – more sombre than suspenseful – in which a repentant Heard pleads guilty to falsifying an immigration document. But it’s the final scene that’s surprise clincher: rough and tense, like a home-shot version of Black Mirror crossed with London Has Fallen. Or, more simply, something that looks quite a lot like a hostage video. Talking direct-to-cam in a low-angle shot, Depp on the left and Heard on the right, the pair sit in front of nondescript off-white curtains appearing stiff and solemn, looking like botched statuettes from the world’s saddest Madame Tussauds museum. Heard speaks of Australia’s “treasure trove of unique plants” and Depp morosely advises viewers to “declare everything when you enter Australia”. He performs a small nod of his head but to who? To the audience, in a fourth-wall-breaking moment? Or to somebody just off-screen? Could Joyce also be there, holding up a script for the pair to read while their entourage sit in the adjacent room with potato sacks on their heads? Like the final, cryptic shot in the great Austrian director Michael Haneke’s psychological thriller Hidden, we can’t ever be sure.
Premier League 2016-17 preview: 11 things to look out for this season 1. Manchester manager wars So here it is – the long-awaited new series of Pep versus José. Neutrals are hoping for a classic rerun of the meltdowns that made the Barcelona/Real Madrid years so special – but early signs are that both managers are making an effort to coexist. Last month Guardiola denied he’d spend the season refusing to shake Mourinho’s hand (“We are polite guys, why not shake, why not shake? No reason”), and José says he’s completely over it. “Individual fights make no sense in England. If I focus on him and he on me, someone else is going to win the league.” They meet for the first time at Old Trafford on 10 September. Time will tell. 2. Arsène Wenger’s farewell tour? Away from that excitement, everything feels pretty familiar at the Emirates. On 1 October it will be 20 years since Arsène Wenger took over: 20 years since he told the sceptics: “I am like every human - I have my weaknesses. I would say to you I try every day to be better than the day before, but I am conscious that I have to win over the supporters. They don’t know me.” Two decades later, they do know him, but the “winning over” process is still ongoing. Signs are this will be Wenger’s last at the club. Could it end in glory? 3. Zlatan’s impact Having trailed his Old Trafford move with a Hollywood hashtag – “#iamcoming” – self-billed “king” and “legend” Zlatan Ibrahimovic needs to deliver early on. But, generously, he says he’s prepared to share the headlines with colleagues, including Wayne Rooney. “Every big player can work with other big players. That’s not a problem. I see no problems here. Just success.” 4. Leicester’s tricky encore How do you follow a fairytale? Do it all over again, or slip into graceful decline? N’Golo Kanté is gone, and pre-season has been testing – a 4-0 defeat to PSG and 4-2 to Barcelona – but key title-winners remain, including Jamie Vardy, Riyad Mahrez, Danny Drinkwater and captain Wes Morgan. Last season Claudio Ranieri said Morgan was “Baloo off the Jungle Book. He is a big gentle bear. He does not speak so much but when he does speak, everybody listens. He is the perfect captain.” 5. The reinvention of David Moyes It’s been a tough few years. Humiliated at United, Moyes achieved meme status when this photo of him meeting fans at Old Trafford went viral – captioned online: “I have no idea what is happening”. Then came 12 grim months at Real Sociedad. But now he’s back, at a club much more like Everton. “In my first season at Everton, after the club had continually avoided relegation, I think we finished seventh,” he said. “Will that happen with Sunderland? It will be very difficult, but I have to believe there’s a possibility.” Expect heavy last-minute spending: Christian Benteke has been linked. 6. New-look homes We’re all invested in West Ham’s new ground, literally. The £701m stadium, with the club chipping in £15m, opened last week, and is a world away from Green Street. The rebrand is neat – but no amount of green sheeting is going to disguise that 30m gap between the stand and the pitch. Elsewhere, Liverpool will unveil their new £114m Main Stand. They paid for it themselves. 7. Hull’s new manager… … is already, before being appointed, being tipped as this season’s sack race winner. Hull’s pre-season bid for crisis-club status has been slick: Steve Bruce walking away, Mohamed Diamé sold down a division to Newcastle, no signings and Assem Allam still in charge. So expect to see a rare sight on the opening day: fans of a newly-promoted club protesting against their board. Hull face champions Leicester in Saturday’s television curtain-raiser (12.30pm on Sky). 8. A new corporate visual identity Always a thrilling moment: a corporate brand identity refresh – the Premier League’s old Barclays logo gone, and, in its place, a new range of expensive fluorescent sponsor-free logos, which attracted online mockery when they were unveiled in February. League officials called the new branding “a bold and vibrant identity that includes a modern take on the lion icon”; everyone else saw it as primary school-style tribute to Aslan. Elsewhere, other badge tweaks this season include Manchester City’s new heritage-led logo, and West Ham removing the Boleyn Castle from their badge and adding the word “London”, to help sell the global brand. 9. Which way are Stoke headed? Will Stoke finish ninth for a fourth consecutive season? Or is something less comfortable in store? Mark Hughes – who starts the campaign with a neat new Jeremy Corbyn beard – has some serious momentum-correcting work to do after last season’s run-in – as does Alan Pardew at Palace, who oversaw two wins in 21 league games before dancing his way to FA Cup final defeat. And, also looking unpredictable among the usual mid-table candidates: the newly wealthy Everton. Ronald Koeman has found his kitty hard to spend so far, but he’s trying. “We are working hard to bring in players. I expect better quality on the ball.” 10. Geometric fuse-welding Back with the marketing department, here’s Nike describing this season’s new official ball, the Ordem 4 – featuring a “new wrapped bladder system delivering optimal touch; geometric 12 panel fuse-welded construction employing a new 3D printed ink technique; plus the design principle of ‘Flow Motion’ applying luminance.” In other words, it’s round and colourful. The Premier League ball is blue, green and purple, La Liga’s is navy, orange and yellow, Serie A’s is orange, pink and purple. Collect all three for £285. 11. New rules 95 law changes were announced in May, so expect a long season of indignant mixed-up punditry. Apart from backwards kick-offs, other changes include no more automatic reds for players who accidentally deny a scoring opportunity and an end to forcing injured players to leave the field after quick treatment. But likely to have the biggest impact are changes around dissent. This season it’s an automatic yellow for “showing visible disrespect to officials”; for “running towards an official to contest a decision”; for making any physical contact with officials; and it’s a yellow “for at least one player when two or more surround a match official”. Players who add aggression or abuse to any of the above will upgrade to an automatic red. Stand by for mass suspensions.
Abbas Kiarostami obituary Following the Iranian revolution in 1979, the country’s vibrant and original cinema took its place on the world stage. Among the many superb film directors who contributed to Iran’s new wave the most celebrated was Abbas Kiarostami, who has died aged 76. Kiarostami, whose subtly enigmatic films play brilliantly with audiences’ preconceptions, was considered one of the greatest directors in contemporary world cinema. Of all the new wave cinemas, the Iranian was probably the most surprising, because it emerged from under an authoritarian religious regime. Kiarostami managed, on the whole, to avoid censorship by the government; rather than confront the censorship office, he accepted their general guidelines – and working within the framework, made films that imply meaning beyond it. He was born into a large middle-class family in Tehran. His father, Ahmad, was a painter of frescoes on walls and ceilings, and as a child, Abbas’s expectations were to be a painter and designer. After winning an art competition in his late teens, he studied painting and graphic design at the University of Tehran. In the 1960s, he worked as a commercial artist, designing posters and eventually shooting scores of television advertisements. At the same time, he designed credit titles for films and illustrated children’s books. During the period when a handful of Iranian films were starting to be shown in the west, thanks mainly to the success of Dariush Mehrjui’s The Cow (1969), Kiarostami helped found a film-making department at the Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults in Tehran. It was there that he made several short films aimed at, and about, children. The 60-minute film The Experience (1973) continued in that line, focusing on the efforts of a young man to attract a girl with whom he is infatuated. Kiarostami’s first feature, The Traveler (1974), released internationally only in the 1990s after he became famous, is a well-observed, witty and touching film about a 10-year-old boy’s determination to obtain enough money, by hook or by crook, to get from his small town to a big football match in Tehran. In contrast, The Report (1977) was an adult drama about a weak civil servant, accused of taking bribes, whose marriage is crumbling. Because of its “immodest” view of women, the film was promptly banned after the revolution, when cinema was condemned for its perceived western attitudes. In 1983, a foundation was established to encourage films with “Islamic values”, from which emerged, ironically, a number of cinematic masterpieces. Taking up from his pre-revolutionary films with children at the centre, Kiarostami began the new era with Where Is the Friend’s Home? (1987), a gently humorous film about a child’s loyalty, reminiscent of François Truffaut’s 400 Blows. It was to become an international success only after Kiarostami had made a name for himself with Close-Up (1990). A superb blend of documentary and narrative film making, Close-Up tells the true story of a man who pretends to be the Iranian director Mohsen Makhmalbaf, in order to hoodwink a family into thinking they will be the subject of a film. This fascinating exploration into identity, fame and the illusion of film, was enacted by the real people involved. “I don’t invent material. I just watch and take it from the daily life of people around me,” Kiarostami once stated. Life, and Nothing More... (1992) follows a director – a Kiarostami surrogate – making a film while searching for the children who featured in one of his earlier films in the hope that they had survived a severe earthquake in Iran. Through the Olive Trees (1994), set in the same area, is about a director casting and shooting another film. The most fascinating aspect of the film-within-a-film is that the audience never knows what is real and what is fiction. The celebrated final sequence follows the two main actors, who are having a “real life” romance, in extremely long shot as the boy persuades the girl to marry him. The film, at once simple and complex, intimate and distant, is full of insights into film-making, society and human relationships. Kiarostami’s trademark of people driving over long roads is perfectly illustrated in Taste of Cherry (1997), which co-won the Palme d’Or at Cannes. Using long takes, a leisurely pace and periods of silence, it follows a middle-aged man who is bent on suicide (although the reason is never given). Desperately seeking people to help him, he drives up and down winding roads asking passers-by to bury him in the grave he has already dug for himself. He wants to pay someone to come around at 6am and call down to him. “If I answer, pull me out. If I don’t, throw in 20 shovels of earth to bury me.” The fact that suicide is forbidden in the Qur’an explains the paradoxical ending. Continuing his minimalist style, The Wind Will Carry Us (1999) has more than 10 characters who are heard but never seen, or discussed but neither heard nor seen. This semi-comical parable of outsiders follows a three-man film crew arriving in a remote Kurdish village intent on photographing the ceremonial funeral rites of a dying 100-year-old woman for a television documentary. But she lingers on. Kiarostami made a bona fide documentary outside Iran with ABC Africa (2001), a study of the Aids epidemic in Uganda. It was his first use of a digital camera. “I felt that a 35mm camera would limit both us and the people there,” he said, “whereas the video camera displayed truth from every angle, and not a forged truth... The camera could turn 360 degrees and thus reported the truth, an absolute truth.” The car motif reoccurs in Ten (2002), which consists of 10 long takes in close-up of a woman navigating through the streets of Tehran, during which she has conversations with various women passengers, including a prostitute, and her brat of a son. Kiarostami’s subtle criticism of the male-dominated society is reflected by the boy. Kiarostami explained why he liked to shoot characters in cars: it puts people in close proximity to allow natural two-shots and close-ups and, sociologically, it is space that allows women some freedom. In Shirin (2008), a group of 114 women of different generations are photographed in an audience, ostensibly watching a film of a 14th-century Persian tale. Unlike the casts in other Kiarostami films, these women (who include Juliette Binoche) are all professional actors, some of them banned from performing under the present regime. We watch their reactions and hear only the soundtrack of the film, using their expressions to help us imagine the story. Here are defiant women from a strict Islamic society revealing their faces, and their emotions, with a few menacing out-of-focus glimpses of men in the background. Binoche then starred in the first fiction feature that Kiarostami directed outside Iran. Certified Copy (2010) – shot in Italy, with dialogue in English, French and Italian – follows the relationship between a British writer (William Shimell) and a French antiques dealer (Binoche), and explores that which separates illusion from reality. Like Someone In Love (2012), elegantly shot in Japan, and in Japanese, was ostensibly even more of a distance from Kiarostami’s world. Always more interested in characters than plot, he retained his oblique view of human contacts in the study of a high-class prostitute, her jealous boyfriend and an elderly former university professor. By shooting in other countries, Kiarostami became a cosmopolitan figure, underlining how universal his film language was, though slightly diminished away from its roots. In addition to making films, Kiarostami wrote several books of poetry, had his photographs exhibited and directed a production of Mozart’s Così Fan Tutte in Aix-en-Provence, France, in 2008. He is survived by two sons, Ahmad and Bahman, from his marriage to Parvin Amir-Gholi, which ended in divorce. • Abbas Kiarostami, film director, born 22 June 1940; died 4 July 2016
Cinema paradiso: Bologna's magical Il Cinema Ritrovato The best festivals contain surprises, secret gigs arranged too hastily to appear in the printed programme, but which draw a discerning crowd, jumpy with anticipation. At the 30th edition of Il Cinema Ritrovato, Bologna’s annual celebration of restored and rediscovered cinema, the bonus addition to the bill was not a film-maker, or a movie, but a projector. The machine in question was a British model, made in 1899, but now once again in perfect working order. Fittingly, the projector was positioned in a piazzetta near the Cineteca di Bologna as the sun was setting, and threaded with a reel of the first films ever projected – the 50-second slices of life shot by the Lumière brothers in 1895. A spark of electricity between two carbon electrodes in the projector illuminated the screen, and while the handle was patiently turned, the faces and bodies of our 19th-century forebears appeared. The films, more than a century old and already familiar to most in the audience, had a new crackle of authenticity, which was due to more than just the flickering caused by the Victorian mechanics. The relatively small frame thrown on to the canvas, the fluttering light as the carbon lamp fizzed and sputtered, and the drama of the occasion prompted a few strained necks and gasps of pleasure. This was how our ancestors would have watched the first films – perhaps with more excitement, but less hushed respect. The technology was on display as much as the films themselves, with a microphone placed close to the machine so that its constant whirr would harmonise with the piano accompaniment. Having completed its short programme without a visible hitch, the vintage projector was wheeled away and the evening’s advertised entertainment could begin. Another carbon lamp projector, but larger, and less ancient, showed Jean Epstein’s beautiful coastal romance Coeur Fidèle (1923). The impressionist style of that film, with its superimpositions and haunting closeups contrasting with a grimy setting, was as apt an illustration as you could find of how later silent film-makers built on the work of the Lumière brothers, transforming their techniques and eye for composition into a visual poetry. Elsewhere in the week, the same carbon glow would be bestowed on outdoor screenings of Hollywood’s first adaptation of Stella Dallas, an accomplished and wonderfully poignant film from 1925, and a programme of shorts from the 1900s, featuring glimpses of astonishingly vivid hand-applied colour. At this year’s festival, amid a more than generous selection of films and talks covering all decades of cinema history, there were many such opportunities to connect with the beginnings of the medium. The immensely popular series of screenings covering the pre-code escapades of producer Carl Laemmle Jr at Universal featured the roving, “unchained” camera-work of cinematographer Karl Freund, who gave German expressionist silents Metropolis (1927) and The Last Laugh (1924) such emotional unease. That strand also contained Paul Leni’s crackpot The Last Warning (1929), a haunted-theatre yarn that mines all the gimmicks of the silent-film playbook for shocks and giggles. An overdue, and excellent, restoration of silent veteran Lewis Milestone’s talkie The Front Page (1931) created room to enjoy its claustrophobic, circling camera-work in the poky press room as much as the celebrated machine-gun dialogue. And the stunt-fighting and physical comedy of Tay Garnett’s sleazy romantic drama Her Man surely owed a debt to the era of great silent slapstick that was just ending when it was made in 1930. That magical screening of Coeur Fidèle was part of one of my favourite strands at this year’s Ritrovato: that devoted to Marie Epstein. The sister of the well-known director Jean herself worked as an actor, screenwriter and director, before spending the later part of her career preserving films at the Cinématheque Française with Henri Langlois (she acted in, and co-wrote, Coeur Fidèle). Working with co-director Jean Benoît-Lévy, Epstein’s greatest successes among the films shown in Bologna this year showcased great child acting, as in the rural silent Peau de Pêche (1928), or the magnificent ballet-school drama La Mort du Cygne (1937), an unforgettable, juvenile Black Swan. The intensity of emotion and clarity of drama in these films often rendered the festival’s offering of simultaneous translation redundant. Silent films burst forth in other strands of the festival, most notably the Restored and Rediscovered programme, and the section devoted to centenarian titles. In the former, Czech social drama Taký je život (Such Is Life, 1929) was perhaps the most remarkable discovery: a female-led drama starring Vera Baranovskaja, which lays bare the deprivations of urban poverty. The film is notable for its minimalist intertitles ­– they are used only as chapter headings, with proverbs attached to each day in its week-long structure. The plot, comprising multiple characters and small but crucial incidents, is told entirely visually. Avant-garde dancer Valeska Gert adds spice as a minxy waitress. Another highlight was a showing of Volker Schlöndorff’s sharp, gossipy film portrait (Nur Zum Spass – Nur Zum Spiel, 1977) of this amazing performer, who spent most of her career on the stage but made indelible appearances in films by Pabst and Fellini, among others. British silent Shooting Stars (1928) showed us one of the earliest and best examples of the industry turning its focus, and its humour, inward – while an original Technicolor print of Singin’ in the Rain (1952) repeated the jokes at a safer distance. Der Müde Tod (1921), one of Fritz Lang’s shorter (98 minutes) and earlier “monumental films”, was presented with its original colour tinting revived. A restoration of Pola Negri’s whip-cracking comedy A Woman of the World (1925) brought some very 1920s humour, and sexual double standards, to a modern audience, and a screening of Clarence Brown’s sizzling Flesh and the Devil (1926), starring Greta Garbo and John Gilbert, played to a packed house. A screening of DW Griffith’s epic Intolerance (1916), with live musical accompaniment, running for more than three hours, would normally be a gala event, but here it was just one of the juiciest titbits in the section devoted to films from 1916. Pre-revolutionary Russian films, early Hollywood genre pictures and precocious work by names such as Frank Borzage, Allan Dwan and Douglas Fairbanks revealed a picture of a lively and ambitious year in film history, including the last gasps of Europe’s dominance in the world market. There couldn’t be a celebration of silent cinema without Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, though, who were both featured strongly in the programme. Having completed restoration work on Chaplin’s films, Cineteca has started on those of his stone-faced peer, with The Keaton Project. Some of those new prints were shown: shorts The High Sign (1921), The Paleface (1922) and Cops (1922), as well the hour-long caper Seven Chances (1925), appeared across the week. There were also al fresco screenings of two classic Chaplin features, Modern Times (1936) and The Kid (1921), in the city’s main square, the Piazza Maggiore, with live orchestral accompaniment. Throughout the festival, the silent screenings were among the most popular events, with queues forming outside the screening rooms even for obscure titles. For the Chaplin films, delegates, tourists and Bologna residents came in their thousands, thronging the square and bouncing laughter off the palazzo walls. The Lumière brothers, who had a permanent presence in the Piazza thanks to the eye-opening exhibition devoted to their work, would have been pleasantly surprised. Louis Lumière famously told George Méliès that his invention had no future. Little did he know that it would still be thriving more than a century later, and that its future could live so happily with its past. • For more on the festival see the Cinema Ritrovato website.
Funding is welcome, but root causes of mental illness are growing The impression is being created of unstoppable momentum towards expansion and improvement of mental health services. Reports, cash and pledges of action are piling up. But it is hard to identify what will change and from where the money will come. Meanwhile, the problems that give rise to mental illnesses are growing. Hitting hyperbolic heights this week, NHS England promised “the biggest transformation of mental health care across the NHS in a generation”. In the wake of the report (pdf) by the Mental Health Taskforce, led by Mind chief executive Paul Farmer, NHS England pledged to help millions more people and invest more than £1bn a year by 2020–21. The commitment of NHS England and the government to giving mental health the focus it deserves is not in doubt. What is problematic is their ability to deliver on the promises being made. Announcing telephone number-sized quantities of cash to “transform” the NHS is now routine, but the shine soon fades as the realities of tight funding kick in. First it was the £3.8bn Better Care Fund in June 2013, a laudable attempt to encourage clinical commissioning groups and councils to join up health and social care. But this has been overwhelmed by the need to reduce emergency hospital admissions and tackle delays in transferring frail elderly patients from hospitals back to the community. So the fund views the care system through the narrow lens of hospital admissions and bed occupancy, doing little to bring about anything that could be described as transformation. Then in December 2015 the government announced the NHS would receive £1.8bn in 2016–17 as part of a Sustainability and Transformation Fund to “give the NHS the time and space it needs to put transformation plans in place” for changes such as seven-day working and the new models of care described in the Five Year Forward View. But analysis by the Nuffield Trust has revealed that very little of this money will be used for transformation. In its first year all but around £339m will be consumed in backfilling hospital deficits. Now we have a promise to invest in the transformation of mental health. Aims include seven-day access to support for those experiencing a mental health crisis, and integration of physical and mental health care. This is in addition to £1.25bn announced in the dying weeks of the Coalition government for perinatal, child and young people’s mental health services. Yet funding for mental health trusts in England has been falling. According to figures published by the BBC last week, budgets for mental health trusts fell 2% between 2013–14 and 2014–15, while funding for hospital trusts climbed 2.6%. In the current year, mental health trust funding will increase by just 0.3%. While this is not the totality of mental health services, it demonstrates that the talk in recent years has so far failed to even stem the relative decline in investment, let alone begin to close the chasm in access between physical and mental health services. Meanwhile, too many of the root causes of mental health problems continue to grow. The number of rough sleepers in England jumped 55% between 2010 and 2015, according to the government; research by the National Association for Children of Alcoholics (pdf) indicates around 2.8 million children are living with an alcohol-dependent parent, up from 2 million in 1992; according to Paul Farmer’s report, two in five older people living in care homes are affected by depression, while a BMA conference of GPs recently voted in favour of GPs no longer having responsibility for care home residents, arguing their complex needs are beyond the capacity of primary care services. And there were 89 prison suicides in England and Wales last year, an increase of 46% in three years. This catalogue of misery emphasises the extraordinary breadth of public policy that needs to be aligned to improve the nation’s mental well-being. Funding is just the start. Join the Healthcare Professionals Network to read more pieces like this. And follow us on Twitter (@GdnHealthcare) to keep up with the latest healthcare news and views.
Government could save $175m a year by ending pathology companies' ‘free ride’ The federal government could save $175m each year by ending the “free ride” it has given to pathology companies, a leading health economist, Stephen Duckett, says. Duckett has called for reform to the way pathology is paid for so the massive efficiency savings the industry enjoys are shared with taxpayers and the government The federal government announced in its budget update in December that it would scrap the bulk-billing incentive it pays to health professionals for pathology services, representing savings of $101m per year. As a result, the pathology industry has threatened to pass the costs onto patients by introducing a $30 co-payment for common tests, including pap smears. But according to the report from the Grattan Institute released on Sunday and co-authored by Duckett, greater savings could be made by reforming a “decades-old” pathology payment system that overwhelmingly benefits pathology companies over the government and taxpayers. It is a view that has been dismissed by the pathology industry, which has slammed the Grattan report, called Blood Money: Paying for Pathology Services, as nothing more than “opinion” based on flawed data. Over the past decade, the average number of pathology tests per person has risen by 40% from around 3.9 per person in the population in 2004-05, to 5.4 per head in 2014-15. An ageing population with more complex health conditions is responsible for much of this increase. “As test volumes increase, we would expect to see efficiency improve and average rebates come down commensurately,” the report says. “Pathology rebates have declined in real terms, but only by about 10% relative to volume increases of 40%. Many aspects of pathology are now highly automated, which means additional tests can be performed for very little cost. However, in Australia, rebates are fixed for each test and do not vary directly with volume of tests ordered.” The current Pathology Funding Agreement between the government and the pathology industry is due to expire in June. Duckett told Australia “the industry has been getting a free ride”. “Medicare pays a fixed price per test,” he said. “For the pathology companies, the more tests they do, the less each subsequent test costs. So why can’t the government and the taxpayer share some of those savings?” Reforming existing funding arrangements to share the benefits of this scale economy could yield savings of around $75m per year, while further savings of around $100m a year could be made by abolishing the bulk-billing incentive for pathology providers and requiring participating pathology companies to bulk bill all services, the report says. Additional savings could be made if the government opened pathology services to a tender process, the report says, with two major companies currently controlling 75% of the industry. “The point is there is no price competition,” Duckett said. “The government sets the price and the pathology companies don’t have to compete. Through a tender process, public hospitals and smaller companies could enter the market, which is big enough to have some competition in it.” But Liesel Wett, chair of Pathology Australia, the peak body for private pathology, said the data used in the report was problematic and did not account for all the savings the industry had passed on to the government. “Pathology Australia has had an initial review of the opinion piece on pathology funding by Stephen Duckett,” she said. “On that initial review it is clear that most of the data used is incorrect and incomplete, and as a result the conclusions are also incorrect. Australian pathology is amongst the most efficient in the world.” Dr Michael Harrison, the president of the Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia, also described the report as “opinion”. “Pathology fees are 12% less than they were in the year 2000, and the efficiency dividends that have come back to the government in this time represents savings of more than 40%,” he said. “The government has been getting the savings.” He said the report also failed to account for coning rules, which mean when a GP orders pathology tests, the government only pays for the three most expensive and any subsequent tests required are free. “The government is getting a huge discount through that process,” Harrison said. But Duckett said even though only the first three tests are charged to the government, the costs of running the second test were lower than the first, and the cost of the third test lower still. Yet all three tests were still paid for in full by Medicare. “Coning certainly yields savings, which we actually do acknowledge in the report,” Duckett said. “But that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for more savings to be made. It’s very easy for lobby groups to say costs have gone down, but that doesn’t mean they’ve gone down enough. Our firm view is that there is much more room for taxpayers and the government to share in industry savings.” In response to the federal government’s plans to scrap the bulk-billing incentive for pathology companies, the pathology industry has warned it would have no choice but to pass the costs onto patients by introducing a $30 patient co-payment for blood, urine and pap smear tests. But the health minister, Sussan Ley, said the Grattan report confirmed the pathology industry had “no justifiable grounds” for doing so. “It is further proof this is nothing but a tacky scare campaign by stock exchange-listed pathology companies aimed at protecting their profits by unfairly playing on the fears of some of our most anxious and vulnerable patients,” Ley said. “As this timely report points out it is actually a series of questionable business decisions, aggressive acquisitions and dud property deals undertaken by these pathology companies which are the real drivers behind a ‘convenient excuse’ to try and introduce a patient co-payment.” The chief executive officer of the Consumers Health Forum, Leanne Wells, said patients would be spared the threatened co-payment for pathology, and taxpayers could save hundreds of millions if the lucrative pathology industry were subject to much-needed market-based reforms. “This significant report from the Grattan Institute shines a fresh light on the pathology costs issue and shows that we as taxpayers and consumers are already paying too much for pathology tests,” she said. “The analysis provides some support for the stand taken by the Health Minister, Sussan Ley, that Medicare payments are not provided to guarantee the revenue of publicly-listed companies.”
Air fresheners, joss sticks, deodorants – and other killers in our midst Lemon and pine air fresheners. Solvents seeping slowly from plastics, paints and furnishings. Composite wood furniture and fittings, household cleaning products and DIY sealants and fillers. Foam insulation, insecticides, scanners, joss sticks, open fires, deodorants, dust mites, mould and dander from dogs and cats. These are some of the bewildering range of apparently innocuous household objects – and animals – that may be killing us indoors, according to a new report from the Royal College of Physicians and the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Heath. Most of us spend most of our lives indoors. So, how can we improve the air we breathe? We should live more like our grandmothers and throw open the windows of our homes for a few minutes every day, says Professor Stephen Holgate, an asthma expert at the University of Southampton who led the report. Modern, energy-efficient homes may be less leaky, but that means it is vital to introduce fresh air to dilute chemical pollution and remove moisture, which encourages moulds. Of course, if the air isn’t fresh – if you live on a polluted main road, for instance – this may not be such a good solution. Holgate believes there has been little scientific investigation of indoor air pollution in Britain because it is an unseen problem (unlike 1950s smog). He says there is a reluctance to “interfere with industry”, too. Until there is more evidence, should we use fewer domestic chemicals? “Yes, we should. It has gone too far,” says Holgate. “There are 15,000 chemicals circulating in an average human. Many are in tiny quantities, but we need to find out more about how these mixtures interact when they get inside the human body – especially the foetus, which is very sensitive.” Although pollen-producing cut flowers are mentioned as a potential problem in the report, pot plants may mitigate some indoor pollution. Chemicals in air fresheners and scented household products produce formaldehyde when they react with the air. Everyday exposure can irritate the lungs and may contribute to asthma, cancers and other illnesses. A recent test for the BBC’s Trust Me, I’m a Doctor suggested that house plants such as the humble spider plant can reduce levels of formaldehyde. (Formaldehyde is also emitted by furniture; the US has set legal limits for formaldehyde emissions from wood products such as MDF at 0.09 parts a million.) “We can’t introduce laws to control what people do in their houses, but we can make people aware,” says Holgate. He hopes that more people will buy portable air-pollution monitors, which work with apps to measure air quality – a bit like personal fitness-monitors. Once we can measure bad air, we can avoid it. “That’s real people power,” says Holgate. “That’s going to change things.”
Zayn Malik: Mind of Mine review – downbeat sex jams drive assured rebrand Despite his protests of ignorance, the timing of Zayn Malik’s debut solo album, Mind of Mine, feels pretty significant. It comes out a year ago to the day after he released a statement confirming he’d left One Direction, the juggernaut, X Factor-created boyband that had propelled him from a slightly bored-looking teenager to a slightly bored-looking, incredibly wealthy adult. After leaving the group, he explained that he wanted to be “a normal 22-year-old who is able to relax and have some private time out of the spotlight”. Months after a very public spat with producer Naughty Boy, signing a solo deal with RCA Records and starting a relationship with model and reality TV star Gigi Hadid after an acrimonious split with his pop star fiancé Perrie Edwards, however, it appears he simply got bored of being normal. Set among the perma-smiling, chino-sporting lineup of One Direction, there was always something oddly compelling about Malik’s indifference. Rarely the most vocal in interviews or the most animated onstage (his moves largely boiled down to fiddling with his ear piece and pouting), his allure came from seemingly doing nothing at all. It was like he was chiselled from marble; blank but intriguing. While the smart money went on Harry Styles to forge a solo career, Malik took on the Robbie Williams role, a twinkly-eyed loose cannon who loves his mum but who couldn’t keep himself out of the tabloids (weed smoking, allegations of affairs, terrible tattoos). If various interviews are to be believed, he has barely spoken to his former bandmates since. It’s this outsider status – along with his hasty derision for his old band’s music – that makes his transition from Mumfordesque ballads and pepped-up pop anthems to weed-fuelled downbeat sex jams on Mind of Mine feel like less of a stretch than if Niall Horan had done it. The importance of getting the first single right means recent UK and US No 1 Pillowtalk is basically a checklist of heavy-handed, I’m-a-man-not-a-boy rebellion. So there’s swearing (“fucking and fighting” to “piss off the neighbours”), alongside that Weeknd-esque trope of conflating pain and pleasure into one woozy, weed-filled 4am tryst. There’s also lashings of overwrought guitar, as though rock’n’roll still signals danger. Thankfully, Malik settles into a less ham-fisted groove as the album unfolds (although its title and artwork both suggest he hasn’t completely mastered subtlety yet). The excellent first half showcases his Frank Oceanesque falsetto on the sad-eyed, organ-drenched It’s You (produced by Channel Orange’s main producer, Malay), and on Befour’s pulsating electro-throb there’s a head-spinning vocal performance you don’t tend to get from a former boyband members, Justin Timberlake aside. Perhaps the album’s highlight is the double whammy of mid-tempo standouts She and Drunk, with the former featuring a fairly cold and distant lyric about Malik offering no solace to someone in need (“She wants somebody to love, to hold her”), while the latter’s percolating emotion finally offers a glimpse behind the cool-guy exterior (“Red eyes, amnesia, I need ya,” he coos). From the lovely, pastoral intermission Flower (sung in Urdu in recognition of Malik’s Pakistani heritage), the album’s quality dips slightly, the downcast tempo and reverb-heavy finger-click beats becoming vaporous by the time he and Kehlani swap hazily lustful lines on Wrong (weirdly, the excellent, upbeat Like I Would is relegated to the deluxe edition). There’s still time for surprising moments – Fool For You’s Lennon-inspired piano-lead ballad, the lovely Rear View (“It sounds like you need a friend”) and the glitchy Timberlake-isms of the closing TIO – but the meandering Lucozade is a chorus-less mumble, while the slowburn Truth is lost in the second-half fog. The lasting impression of Mind of Mine, however, is of someone finally making the music they’ve wanted to make for a long time. That the sound he’s chosen – clipped beats, hazy production flourishes, oodles of falsetto as a shortcut for emotional honesty – is basically 2016 writ large may seem bandwagon-jumping, but there’s more than enough good stuff here to suggest it’s been created with love rather than with an eye on ticking boxes. You sense he’s had enough of the latter to last him a lifetime.
In an electronic world, cash still has currency Kenneth Rogoff (Why cash isn’t king any more, theguardian.com, 5 September) erroneously suggests that a less-cash society would be “fairer and safer”. His thesis is that cash payments aid and abet the underground economy and that we should gradually curtail them in favour of alternative electronic payment systems. More than a dozen countries have imposed restrictions on cash payments but until now, no evaluation of the effectiveness of these measures has ever been undertaken. There does not appear to be any correlation between the size of the shadow economy and the adoption of restrictions. As Rogoff himself acknowledges, scaling back paper currency would hardly end criminal activity or tax evasion. The vast majority of cash transactions are perfectly legitimate, while the vast majority of cash users are law-abiding citizens. Making life just that little bit harder for a handful of criminals at the expense of millions of law-abiding citizens would be the ultimate example of taking a sledgehammer to crack a nut. Cash is fundamentally about freedom. As the German central banker Carl-Ludwig Thiele observed, abolishing cash would hurt consumer sovereignty. Do we really want the state to collude with large financial institutions to know every single detail about how we spend our money and where? Moreover, curtailing cash payments in favour of alternative electronic payment systems would also have far-reaching social consequences. In terms of financial inclusion, restricting cash would disproportionately affect the most vulnerable in society, including young, elderly and infirm people. At a time when cash in circulation is increasing, along with the value of ATM transactions, it seems illogical of Rogoff and others to wish to discriminate against it. All of which suggests that cash still has currency, and if not king, it certainly has a prominent seat at the top table of payment methods. Ron Delnevo Executive director Europe, ATM Industry Association • My grandchildren are quite familiar with our daily milk deliveries by Tony in his float (Letters, 7 September). But I made some joke about something not being worth a farthing and totally flummoxed my 18-year-old grandson who had never heard the word. He was even more confused at the idea of a coin that was worth one quarter of an old penny, so I abandoned the attempt to explain that it took 960 farthings to make one pound. Judith Abbs London • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
Fat White Family: Songs for Our Mothers review – the modern Throbbing Gristle As the song titles (Goodbye Goebbels, When Shipman Decides) on Fat White Family’s second album show, the south London squat-rockers love to provoke. Songs for Our Mothers, then, is nothing of the sort, its grimy fusion of Germanic disco (Whitest Boy on the Beach), demonic swamp rock (Duce) and drug-addled noise (We Must Learn to Rise) positing the band as a modern Throbbing Gristle. What they’re trying to say isn’t always clear – are they sixth-form shock merchants or more profound? – but the five-piece most impress at their least confrontational. Hits Hits Hits, inspired by abusive relationships, is loose-limbed psych-funk with a shot of creepiness.
Daniel Craig and Halle Berry to team up on LA riots drama Daniel Craig and Halle Berry are set to star in Kings, a love story set amid the 1992 LA riots, according to Deadline. It will be the English language debut of Turkish-French film-maker Deniz Gamze Ergüven, whose first film, Mustang, was Oscar-nominated for best foreign language film. Craig will play Ollie, one of the few white residents living in South Central during the Rodney King trial. The recluse is brought out of his shell when he meets Berry’s character, a working-class mum who has taken responsibility for a group of local kids. When violence breaks out, Ollie helps Berry’s character get the kids to safety. The 1992 riots started after three of the four police officers caught on video beating unarmed taxi driver Rodney King were acquitted of brutality charges. A seminal moment in modern American history, the riots have rarely been depicted outside of documentary cinema. Yet Ergüven’s film is one of two related feature projects currently making their way to the screen: John Ridley, writer of 12 Years a Slave and writer-director of Jimi: All is By My Side also has a film about the unrest in development. Craig, officially still the lead in the James Bond franchise, famously said he’d rather “slash his wrists” than play 007 again, but still hasn’t confirmed whether he’ll leave the role. He’s signed up to star in Logan Lucky, Steven Soderbergh’s official return to feature directing, which will also feature Channing Tatum, Adam Driver and Katherine Heigl. Berry, who appeared opposite Pierce Brosnan in the 2002 Bond film Die Another Day, will next appear in Kidnap, an abduction thriller. She’s also signed up to play an American secret agent called Ginger in Matthew Vaughn’s Kingsman sequel The Golden Circle.
Cult heroes: Deniz Tek – Stooges fan and fighter pilot who took punk to Australia Over a career spanning more than 40 years as a guitarist and songwriter, Deniz Tek has been remarkably consistent, though not necessarily prolific. Tek, who is best known for his work with the Australian proto-punk band Radio Birdman, averages a studio album or EP release every two to three years, and has often gone several years between releases. However, he has a few other strings to his bow. By the time Radio Birdman released their scorching debut EP Burn My Eye in 1976, Tek was already studying medicine. He became a flight surgeon with the US navy, where he also trained as a fighter pilot, and now divides his time between rock’n’roll and working as a trauma surgeon in in Australia and Hawaii. Clearly, he’s not one of those musicians who’s at a loss when they haven’t got a gig lined up. Tek was born and grew up in the US, in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where he would sneak into gigs by the MC5 and the Stooges, who proved to be among his primary influences. When his father, an engineering professor, was offered a year’s secondment at the University of New South Wales in Sydney in 1967, the family temporarily relocated to Australia. After graduating from high school in the US, Tek wanted to pursue his own degree in medicine and he decided to study in Sydney. By the time he had seen the Rolling Stones on their 1972 Australian tour – and sold a vintage National guitar to Keith Richards, no less – it was clear that music was going to be as much a part of his life as his curative vocation. While Tek had a direct connection to the Detroit sound that had developed in his home state, Radio Birdman evolved more or less in isolation in Sydney; something that Tek believes benefited the band. Although that had its downsides – Birdman were ignored and even disdained by the music industry in Australia, and had to book their own venues to play concerts – it made them even more committed to their unique brand of high-energy rock’n’roll. When I was growing up in Australia, too young to have seen Birdman in their 1976-78 prime, the band were almost mythical. It was a code among music freaks: you may have known the Ramones and the Clash and even the Saints, but unless you knew of Birdman you were a no-mark. Their instantly recognisable logo was seen on cars, guitars, school lockers and surfboards in every town on the east coast – surf music was the thing that gave Birdman their identity above and beyond the Detroit sound. Birdman dissolved acrimoniously in 1978, and despite a few appearances by key members in several post-Birdman bands, it wasn’t until Tek toured Australia in 1992 that the first post-Birdman generation got to see some of their songs live (hundreds of other bands playing earnest cover versions notwithstanding). The fact that Birdman’s other guitarist, Chris Masuak, and their keyboardist, Pip Hoyle, were on board for Tek’s solo tour only added to the expectation. Tek had recently retired from the US military, but he was understandably proud of his accomplishments. The solo album that formed the basis of the 1992 tour was called Take It to the Vertical, and featured a cover image of Tek in the cockpit of an F4 Phantom. That was a revelation in itself, as few Birdman fans at the time had any idea he had another career outside music. Then it turned out he was also an emergency surgeon based in Billings, Montana. For anyone who read the music press, it was obvious he was a fairly remarkable individual. But more than anything else, the concerts proved that Tek’s music and his guitar playing had lost none of their power. Since then, Radio Birdman have reformed several times, and their reputation has not diminished. Tek still plays with complete commitment – as he once put it, when he’s on the road he’s “hard-wired to the go switch”. In 2014, at the age of 62, playing solo and Radio Birdman material in a power trio in Europe, he did 29 concerts in 28 days across eight countries. It looks as if 2016 is turning into another busy year for him: Radio Birdman are touring Australia in June, followed by a three-week European tour, and in September, Tek is releasing his sixth solo album. He’s not one for standing still – and long may that continue.
The end of the night – in the 80s, the Wag Club was glorious but it could never happen now As the march of gentrification and greed transforms London – as well as many of the UK’s other inner cities – one great British institution that has fallen foul has been the nightlife business. In London, the area that has suffered the most is Soho. Once a naughty, massively inspiring little Petri dish from which the likes of David Bowie, the Sex Pistols, Francis Bacon and Lucien Freud emerged, it is being rapidly reshaped into something resembling a homogenised shopping mall. One of the first institutions to fall foul of the evisceration of Soho was the Wag, the club Ollie O’Donnell and I founded in 1982 and which ran until 2001. When we began, Soho was really rather seedy and rundown, which was exactly what attracted the young, the groovy and the inventive. The Wag – a nightclub that catered, in the main, to a gang of non-conformist mavericks – was thoroughly appropriate to that crowd. Ollie and I started by packing out the Whisky a Go Go in Wardour Street every Saturday night with our own crowd, then the club’s new leaseholders asked us to run it with them full time. So we lowered the drinks and the door price (which was possible because rents were fair back then), pulled in DJs who played underground music, and the place took off. We were young and aware, so we knew what was happening and approached the running of the club with a zeal that at times dropped us in the proverbial. In November 1982, we hosted the first ever hip-hop club event in the UK, The Roxy Road Show – featuring 25 artists who flew in from New York, including Afrika Bambaataa, Grand Wizard Theodore (who invented scratching), Jazzy Jay and Fab 5 Freddy, rope skipping stars the Double Dutch Girls and legendary breakdancers the Rock Steady Crew. It was complete and utter mayhem, but in a good way. The club was absolutely packed when, at my behest, then unknown graffiti artist Futura 2000 did his live spray-can art on stage and more or less asphyxiated everyone. We later made a name for ourselves by booking all the major rap acts – De La Soul, Jungle Brothers, Queen Latifah, Eric B and Rakim, Kool Moe Dee, Grandmaster Flash, Doug E Fresh. It’s been said that we were responsible for breaking hip-hop in the UK but, for me, it made sense in every way: the acts had never played London before, and it was relatively cheap to bring them over. All it took was two or three discounted flights and a couple of nights in a friend’s dad’s hotel in Bloomsbury. Simple economics. Because I’d been in a band it was my job to source, book and promote the live acts. Sometimes they worked and other times they did not. Even though we all knew of Shane MacGowan’s proclivities I booked Pogue Mahone just as they were starting off. The third time they played, MacGowan was so drunk I was surprised he could stand, never mind sing, but it made no difference because the show stopped after 20 minutes when he tried to hit bassist Cait O’Riordan over the head with his guitar. Then there was the legendary jazz maestro Slim Gaillard, who sold out the club but, rather in his cups, retired to the bar after two songs, fell asleep on it and woke up two hours later, his backing band and the crowd having long departed. I turned down a Prince afterparty/jam session because I’d already booked Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry on the same night. He cost us a packet, but the club was crammed so all was OK until Perry, somewhat chemically enhanced, sang the same song (his new single) 15 times and emptied the club before midnight. We lost our shirts. But there were bigger losses – Bobby Womack’s show was cancelled an hour before it was due to start because of a bomb scare round the corner in Leicester Square; Gil Scott Heron’s gig was called off when he was arrested at Heathrow for possession of cocaine. Both had sold out and we had to refund all ticket holders, leaving us with the cost of the flights and hotel rooms. Of course, other acts were simply magnificent. I recall the surprise on Georgie Fame’s face as he looked out at the crowd of immaculate mods, dressed just as they would have when he played the Flamingo (in the basement of the Whisky a Go Go) in 1962. James Brown’s backing band the JBs were gobsmacked that the crowd (many in 70s kit) knew all their numbers by heart. New acts thrived, too: Sade, Fine Young Cannibals, Curiosity Killed the Cat, the Pasadenas and Swing Out Sister were all signed after shows at the Wag. The Wag was synonymous with what was happening on the street. We played a huge role in kick-starting the acid house movement by hosting sets from Marshall Jefferson, Tony Humphries, Frankie Knuckles, Todd Terry and Masters at Work, among many others, while Paul Oakenfold, Pete Tong and Andy Weatherall established their reps at the Wag. But it wasn’t just about music. It was also about meeting people and showing off. Diehard regular Jonathan Ross met his wife Jane Goldman at the Wag. Designers such as John Galliano paraded their designs here; Leigh Bowery strutted his magnificent stuff; future Turner prize winners Tracey Emin and Grayson Perry were regulars; Boy George, Joe Strummer and Neneh Cherry came every week for a little dance. All the attention meant global superstars came to our little ramshackle venue (with no VIP area) for a look: David Bowie (who came a lot and filmed his Blue Jean video there), Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Prince, George Clinton, Stevie Wonder, Robert De Niro, Brad Pitt, Karl Lagerfeld and Jean Paul Gaultier. George Michael had a fight with our DJ Fat Tony and Grace Jones had to be physically restrained after laying out an irritating bloke with a single punch. Some have said that at one point the Wag was the grooviest club on the planet, but I couldn’t tell. I was too busy trying to fill a Tuesday night. None had this would have happened had we not been in our mid-20s, not that different from most of our patrons, and brave (or stupid) enough to take chances and, most importantly, had the rent not been cheap enough for us to experiment. Today, not only would I not be able to run a West End club, I wouldn’t even be able to hang out in Soho, because landlords and developers have priced the young and not-so-well-off out of inner London. It has been suggested that London should follow Amsterdam, Paris, Zurich and Toulouse and appoint a night mayor to protect our after-dark businesses and the people who use them. Certainly, unless something is done we will lose the talent that has traditionally risen through our night-time economy – graphic designers, artists, DJs, entertainers writers, photographers and musicians of every kind who hone their skills and develop by working with clubs and promoters. I don’t think its possible to overestimate just how important this is for any city or country, and that is why Amsterdam, Paris and Zurich are protecting their nightlife. We have to follow suit before it’s too late. Chris Sullivan presents The Wag Club is available now on Harmless Records.
Temple Taggart: Donald Trump wants to 'silence his accusers’ with legal threats One of the women accusing Donald Trump of inappropriate sexual behavior, Temple Taggart, a former Miss Utah, said on Friday she was ready to countersue the Republican presidential candidate if he carried out his promise to sue all of his accusers. Taggart, who has accused Trump of kissing her on the lips without consent, is one of 12 women who have come forward since the publication of a 2005 Access Hollywood tape in which the businessman boasted of kissing and groping women without their consent. Trump, who has denied all accusations against him, said last weekend he would sue all his accusers after the presidential election. Taggart, who has hired the lawyer Gloria Allred, said on Friday: “I’m not afraid of you, Mr Trump. If you carry out your threat to sue me, I will defend myself.” Speaking alongside Allred at a press conference in Utah, Taggart said: “I felt like Mr Trump was trying to silence all of his accusers who had come forward, as well as others who might be thinking of coming forward. “Enough is enough. I feel like he is trying to bully and frighten us into silence. Mr Trump, that is not going to work with me.” Another of the 12 women who have accused Trump, Jill Harth, said on Monday she would countersue if Trump pursued legal action against her. Taggart first spoke of Trump’s alleged actions in May, telling the New York Times he kissed her twice on the mouth in 1997, when she was a 21-year-old contestant in the Miss USA pageant. The first instance allegedly took place when she first met the businessman, at a pageant rehearsal. “Mr Trump greeted me with a hug and a kiss on my lips,” Taggart, who said she had been very naive and “21 going on 16”, said on Friday. “I was shocked because that was the first time that any man had ever greeted me in that manner, but I ended up excusing his behavior as a way that east coast people meet each other.” She said the second alleged incident took place when she travelled to New York later that year, to discuss her future with Trump and to meet modeling agencies. “To my surprise, Trump embraced me and kissed me on the lips for a second time,” she said. “It was that second kiss that made me wonder what his intentions really were. “What he did made me feel so uncomfortable that I ended up cutting my trip short, bought my own plane ticket, flew home and never spoke to him again.” Taggart, a Republican who says she will probably vote for the independent conservative candidate Evan McMullin, said she wanted to make sure that other women feel comfortable coming forward and not frightened that Trump will call them “liars” and threaten legal action. “Times have changed,” said the mother of three. “Women are empowered now. And we will not tolerate being bullied any more.” Allred represents four women who allege inappropriate sexual behavior by the Republican nominee. “Groping women is completely unacceptable,” she said. “Threatening women who come forward to speak out about what they claim happened to them is also completely unacceptable. “I assure you, Mr Trump, they will not be left to stand alone while you attempt to trample over them with your lawsuits. Many attorneys will come to their aid. And I will be one of them.” Allred has a history of representing women in sexual harassment and misconduct cases, including 33 women who have accused comedian Bill Cosby of sexual misconduct.
We Have Always Lived in the Castle: America's queen of weird hits the screen As the queen of American weird fiction, Shirley Jackson’s stories and novels have perhaps been neglected by Hollywood more than her reputation and talent would merit. That’s possibly because Jackson’s vast oeuvre could be deemed largely unfilmable for modern audiences, relying on the building of tension, dread and disquiet through the subtle progression of narratives that are in many cases built on internal monologues. Now, though, one of Jackson’s best-loved novels is coming to the big screen in the shape of her 1961 triumph – and to my mind her best book – We Have Always Lived in the Castle. The Hollywood Reporter revealed this week that filming began in Dublin this month on an adaptation co-produced by Michael Douglas and directed by Stacie Passon, in what is the centenary year of Jackson’s birth. The first star announced was Sebastian Stan, who played the Winter Soldier in the Captain America movies. Stan’s role as Charles Blackwood, while an important one in the plot, is relatively minor compared to the two main characters, Constance and Mary Katherine Blackwood, and their casting announcements came later on Wednesday – Alexandra Daddario (from the Percy Jackson series) will play elder sibling Constance, while American Horror Story’s Taissa Farmiga will be Mary Katherine – Merricat to her small family. Constance and Merricat exist together with their rather befuddled Uncle Julian in a rambling, tumbledown pile, all that remains of a once grand dynasty which was all but wiped out when someone put arsenic into the sugar bowl which most of the family sprinkled on their desert. Elder sister Constance is generally thought to have committed the deed, though nothing could be proved. Still, the townsfolk are convinced that was the case and the killings have passed into local legend, children singing rhymes about the deaths to Merricat as she ventures infrequently into civilisation to gather supplies. They live a life of sequestered, fading grandeur, which is only interrupted with the arrival of cousin Charles, who begins to court pale Constance. But is he just trying to get his hands on the family silver? And tensions are rising between the Blackwoods and the townsfolk … A gothic enough tale, but related in such pedestrian terms barely scratches the surface of Jackson’s novel. The devil is in the detail of We Have Always Lived in the Castle, the story told through the eyes of troubled Merricat and her unsettling rituals – she hangs totems and fetishes around the bounds of the Blackwood land to protect the remains of the family – and her thoughts are very dark indeed. The novel is a masterpiece of the macabre, and the tension ratcheted up by Jackson, who died in 1965 after being troubled with demons of her own in the shape of painkillers and alcohol, is almost unbearable. As such, it is difficult to see just how it could be packaged up for cinema audiences who perhaps like their blockbusters big on action and light on twisted introspection. However, with director Passon also having a credit for the Amazon Studios’ transgender drama Transparent as well as the Sundance hit Concussion, which she wrote and directed, perhaps she has an eye for the offbeat which might just pull off the adaptation. If so, an impressive adaptation of a Shirley Jackson novel will have been a long-time coming. Only two of her stories have made it to the big screen – 1957’s Lizzie, based on her short story The Bird’s Nest being the first. Perhaps Jackson’s most famous novel, The Haunting of Hill House, has been filmed twice, both times as The Haunting. The 1963 version of this story of a group of psychics invited to stay at a haunted house is by far the best, transferring Jackson’s prose into cramped monochrome menace with the unforgettable scene where one character sharing a bed with another talks of her growing fears, only to find when the light is switched on that her roommate is nowhere near. So whose hand has she been holding? The less said about the fairly execrable 1999 remake the better. Perhaps Jackson’s most famous short story, The Lottery, has been adapted three times, twice for television (though the 1996 version is only loosely based on Jackson’s story, and attempts to form some kind of sequel) and once as a short film in 1969. Whether We Have Always Lived In The Castle is indeed even capable of being successfully filmed we’ll have to wait and see. But if it opens up Jackson’s work to a wider audience in her centenary year, then it’ll have some merit at least.
What working as an FGM counsellor taught me about female sexuality I had the birds and the bees conversation with my daughter when she was around four years old. I told her that sex is an act that two consenting adults choose to do and I stressed that nobody should touch her body in any way that makes her uncomfortable. We have revisited this conversation over the years. I told her that her genitals are called a vagina, not fanny, nunnie, minnie or down there. I was sick and tired of the pervading belief that women and girls can’t describe our body parts directly. Now nearly 10 years after that conversation (she’s just turned 14) teenage hormones are in full swing, with eye rolling and tuning me out while listening to Rihanna. But I love the fact we have frank open conversations about most things and I truly treasure the times we don’t agree. I love that she has her own views about the world. With that in mind, I want to share some thoughts about my work that made me think of my daughter and the pressure girls around the world face in relation to their sexuality. As part of my work with the Dahlia Project, a counselling service I founded for women and girls who have undergone female genital mutilation (FGM), I run sessions for refugee women where I talk about the cultures they grew up in. The discussion always leads to sex, and a recurring theme is virginity. Many of the women are educated and considered liberal in their way of thinking. They say their daughters are equal to their sons. However, they also say they want their daughters to remain virgins to protect them from harm and so that future husbands will respect them. What interests me about these conversations is that the women openly talked about being cheated on or beaten by their so-called respectful husbands. I nudged the women to reflect. “Did remaining a virgin work for you?” I asked. “Did it prevent the violence and betrayal he had caused you?” Many were baffled by my questions. By our second session some of the women were starting to realise that cultural patriarchy was alive and well in their homes, and they were complicit in committing the oppression they had endured against their own daughters. Sadly I only had two sessions with these women, and they left me questioning this universal obsession with virginity. I remember newspaper articles about Kate Middleton, being slut-shamed in newspaper articles for not being a virgin before marriage and rumour has it Diana had to prove her virginity before marrying Prince Charles. If a woman is sexually free or has multiple partners, society shames her and makes her feel bad about herself. While dating I’ve been asked how many men I’ve slept with. This idea of being judged based on the history of my vagina is absolutely ludicrous and another form of control of women’s sexuality. My brother and all the men in my life are never asked such questions yet alone judged on them. Society high-fives men with multiple sexual partners. I had my first sexual experience at the age of 18 with my then husband (I’m currently happily divorced). I didn’t make the choice to stay a virgin. I did so for two reasons. Firstly, I wasn’t the girl boys were lining up to date. I was a super nerd who didn’t wear makeup or pluck her eyebrows. So, no temptation or struggle for me. Secondly, my mother told me sex was great and nothing to be ashamed about. As a teenager I wasn’t keen to try something my mother enjoyed (remember that trick, parents). I remind my daughter that whenever the day comes that she wants to lose her virginity (why is it something you lose, like a precious possession?), it is no one’s business but hers. If anyone tries to judge her based on her genitals, I tell her to just walk away. I tell her that our vaginas are very special and powerful, we bleed and give birth from them, and it’s her right as a woman to enjoy sex one day. It’s a beautiful and enjoyable act. Patriarchy tried to prevent me and over 200 million FGM survivors from living as sexual beings, but through therapy and a loving supportive partner many of these women can and are enjoying sex. There is hope. Dear world, women have sex and enjoy it, so get over the idea that virginity is something to protect. Join our community of development professionals and humanitarians. Follow @ GDP on Twitter. Join the conversation with the hashtag #SheMatters.
Brad and Angelina proved there's no such thing as the perfect marriage: so why do we pretend? Pretty much all the cliches of the fairytale (the noble prince, the helpless princess) have long been satirised, in everything from The Princess Bride to Shrek to the Zog books by the brilliant Julia Donaldson. But there is one myth that even the most cynical of humans stubbornly clings to – the promise of “happily ever after”, even if all around us is the proof that this is about as likely as a fire-breathing dragon. According to a recent report from the Office for National Statistics, the number of couples in Britain who describe themselves as “extremely unhappy” has doubled in the past five years, while those who describe their relationship as “perfect” has gone down from 9.2% to 5.9%. The ONS does not state how many of those who claimed their relationship was “perfect” in previous studies are now saying they are “extremely unhappy”, but I’d wager there was significant crossover. After all, those who cling to an illusion are the most likely to be disappointed by the reality. This summer has proffered plenty of evidence of the death of this myth. From Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie to Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love, and her husband, some of the most loudly self-proclaimed happy relationships have come to an end. When a high-profile marriage ends, the journalistic cliche is to say that the reason fans feel unnerved is because they think that, if the celebrities can’t make it work, who can? This is nonsense. As much as people still desperately want to believe in a happily ever after, only the most naive child would think that buckets of money, the constant glare of attention, and at least one desperately needy and narcissistic person sounds like a recipe for a happy marriage. Frankly, I’ve always thought it a miracle that any celebrity marriages last. Instead, the shock of a high-profile divorce is that these are the people who, more than anyone, have promoted the myth of happily ever after, through their work and, often, through interviews and romantic photo opportunities. Johnny Depp and Amber Heard met on movies, as did Pitt and Jolie – films that ended with the promise that only happiness awaited their characters after the closing credits. Elizabeth Gilbert’s relationship with Jose Nunes was the basis of her best-known books, from Eat, Pray, Love (made into a predictably slushy Hollywood film) to Committed, her book about her marriage. But in July, Gilbert announced they were divorcing, and that she is now in a relationship with her best friend, who is currently undergoing cancer treatment. Amid the supportive cheers, some of Gilbert’s fans expressed sadness for Nunes, and who can blame them? He had been sold as their symbol of the happily ever after. (By contrast, the most recent celebrities to separate, Zoë Ball and Norman Cook, were always extremely open about their struggles with infidelity, addiction and the general mundanity of marriage. For this reason, the announcement of their split felt to me like the saddest of all.) And yet the myth persists. In her third Bridget Jones book, Mad About The Boy, Helen Fielding famously killed off Mark Darcy, presumably partly because she herself was divorced by this point and somewhat over the happily ever after storyline. (It is often forgotten how sceptical the original book was about marriage, with its satirisation of Smug Marrieds.) But Hollywood would never allow such cynicism: in the latest absurd movie instalment, Bridget Jones’s Baby, Darcy is firmly resurrected. Do you really need a spoiler alert if I say “Guess the ending?” The best books I have read recently are the ones that resist the simplistic love-cures-all conclusions. In Jessi Klein’s terrific collection of essays, You’ll Grow Out Of It, she continues the story after her wedding, describing her fertility struggles and the toll this took on her relationship. Rachel Dratch’s memoir, Girl Walks Into A Bar, is a fascinating riposte to the upbeat “you go girl!” female memoir cliche, detailing not just her diminishing professional success but an honest account of what it’s like to be single in your mid-40s. On screen, Desiree Akhavan’s Appropriate Behavior has proved it is possible to make a delightfully optimistic romcom that begins and ends with a breakup. I never liked Elizabeth Gilbert’s gratingly simplistic memoirs, but her last novel, The Signature Of All Things, is astonishingly brilliant: big-hearted and beady-eyed, it looks at how the romantic fantasy can corrode a woman’s imagination and blind her to reality. Most of all, it knows that happy endings come in all guises, not just with a bridal veil.
Google, Facebook and Microsoft race to get 1 billion Indians online When Manish Kumar first came to the village of Harisal in western India in July, he didn’t think he could stay there for very long. “It was monsoon, so it was difficult to reach because the roads were bad. There was no phone signal, and the electricity only comes on for a few hours in the evening. The people there are farmers, so they wake up early. They work all day, and then in the evening they eat dinner before dark. And then they go to sleep. There’s nothing else to do.” But the typical agricultural setting of Harisal was about to change. Kumar, the network head of a rural internet provider AirJaldi had come to transform it into India’s first digital village, under a scheme backed by the Indian government and software giant Microsoft. “We set up a Wi-Fi tower and three smaller hotspots. At first, people were struggling to get online, they didn’t know how to sign on, and we had to teach them. Now, when I visit the village, the kids come to us and teach us how to get the internet working.” About 2,000 villagers live in Harisal. There are only five or six laptops in the village, but almost every household has a smartphone. For them, the new Wi-Fi connection changed their lives overnight. “We finally feel connected to the rest of the world,” says Jagdishkumar Someshwar Sirsat, the headmaster of the village school. “It’s made small tasks easier. For example, we had to give attendance records to the state government. Before, someone would have to hand deliver those to the government office in the city. Now, we can just fill out a form online, and its done,” he says. “And for the children – sometimes the textbooks don’t have enough information, or some things are not up to date. Now that they have internet, they can go online and look up whatever they’re interested in. For the older kids, we’re using online tutorials on YouTube and educational video blogs to teach them new things. They love it.” Sheetal Thorat, a doctor in Harisal, says internet connections could save lives. “In the village, there are no specialists for the heart or brain. There’s just me and two other field doctors for the whole village, and we’re general practitioners. Now that we have Wi-Fi, we can set up consultations with heart or brain specialists in Mumbai, and then they can send back reports online.” Microsoft funded the project, and plans to get 50 more villages around Harisal online. Bhaskar Pramanik, chairman of Microsoft India, says its project to get villages online is philanthropic. “We don’t have any commercial interest in these projects. We want telecom and other service providers to use the connectivity to provide citizens with useful services,” he says. Microsoft has also previously said it would be good for its own business if more people were online. Google and Facebook join online push Microsoft is not alone in the race to get India online. Google has launched a scheme to provide free public Wi-Fi at 100 railway stations. About 3.5m users have already connected to Google’s station Wi-Fi service, with an estimated 15,000 people coming online for the first time every day thanks to the scheme. “We want to expand to new venues, like cafes and malls, to help more people get online, and we’re looking for strategic and forwarding-thinking partners to work with on this effort,” says Caeser Sengupta, vice-president of Google’s “Next Billion Users” team. Last year, Facebook tried to launch Free Basics, which would have allowed people in rural India free access to websites chosen by the company, but the plan was blocked after millions wrote to the telecoms authority saying the scheme would give Facebook too much power. Now, the company has come up with a new scheme, Express Wi-Fi, which will allow those in rural India to buy fast, cheap and reliable mobile data packs. India’s rapidly developing economy, and increasing smartphone penetration presents a huge opportunity for tech firms, who are looking for new markets to expand their products and services, as growth in western economies slows. According to the World Bank’s latest figures, 26% of India’s 1.25 billion population has internet access. In 2014–15, 60 million, equivalent to the entire UK population, went online for the first time. About 900 million people in India, mostly in rural areas, are offline. “India is the only major economy in the world that had a year-on-year growth in internet and smartphone users,” says Vikas Kothari, tech analyst at venture capital firm Lightbox. “Large players like Google, Facebook and Microsoft are looking for their next set of billion users and India looks the most promising.” Internet access could transform economy Facebook has not yet released details of how much profit it expects to make from its Express Wi-Fi service, or how much investment will be needed to subsidise rural data access, but the company says that internet access will benefit everybody. “Internet access means opportunity. It enables progress. It improves knowledge, economies, lives and communities,” says a Facebook spokesperson. The tech companies may appear benevolent, but Kothari says they will all benefit if India’s internet accessibility increases. “In a [digital] ecosystem when infrastructure improves, the biggest beneficiaries are the large players,” he explains. Kothari says the tech giants see India as a long-term investment. “The most visited sites or apps in India are Google Search, Play Store, YouTube, WhatsApp and Facebook. Google and Facebook’s business models don’t depend on a fee, but on user data. If more people use their products, the more data they get, thus increasing their ad revenues.” For India, better internet infrastructure could transform the economy, and the lives of ordinary citizens. “Improved connectivity will further democratise access to education, healthcare and financial services. People in remote areas will get access to skill-development courses, tertiary telemedicine and reports on agriculture and commodity prices, thus improving their lives,” says Kothari.
Liverpool 2-2 Newcastle United: Premier League – as it happened That’s all for now! Thanks as always for following along with us and be sure to check back later for a full match report from Anfield. Here’s a game where the substitutions changed everything. Liverpool let their foot off the glass briefly and it came back to bite them. Not that Newcastle will turn down the gifted point, which they desperately need in their relegation battle. 90 min+3: One last chance for Liverpool as Lovren moves quickly up the middle of the pitch and plays it forward. It goes out for an apparent corner but before it can be awarded, the referee blows the whistle for full time. 90 min: Entering the final stages Newcastle seem on track for the most improbable of points. Three minutes of stoppage time forthcoming. 87 min: Ojo surges up the right side and pulls it back to Coutinho at the top of the area but his one-time shot is saved. Liverpool will have a corner. 83 min: Two more subs. For Liverpool, Ojo enters for the goal-scorer Lallana. For Newcastle, it’s the former LFC midfielder Jonjo Shelvey on for Cheik Tiote. 81 min: Liverpool work it up the right flank again and the ball is sent into Sturridge, who heads it weakly toward the goal where the keeper easily scoops it in. 80 min: The corner is turned away but Liverpool have another chance when the ball falls to Stewart, but his one-time shot sailed high and wide over the goal. 78 min: We’re into the final quarter hour and Liverpool have a corner after Lallana surges toward the goal and it’s pushed out by a defender. 75 min: Benitez with Newcastle’s second switch: Cisse off for Mitrovic. 71 min: Two subs for Liverpool. Lucas and Coutinho entering for Randall and Allen. Milner will shift to right back. Newcastle counter after Sturridge loses possession and Jack Colback rips a shot that’s deflected past Mignolet into the goal. As @thisisanfield notes, it’s the second time Liverpool have surrendered a two-goal advantage against the team from the Northeast this year. 62 min: Another Liverpool corner is turned away. Good counter-attack by Newcastle and the ball is out for a corner. It’s played short and sent into the area, but Stewart meets it in the air and heads it away. 60 min: One hour down and Liverpool appear to have regained their footing after going on walkabout for the first five minutes of the half. 59 min: Milner’s service into the area is headed into the back of the net by Allen but Firmino is ruled offside. It was close but replay confirms he was off by half a yard. 56 min: Moments after Milner is show yellow for a clattering challenge, he wins a free kick from just near the corner flag. He sends it into the Newcastle area but it’s easily cleared. 52 min: Sturridge tripped inside the area and appeals for the penalty, but while he’s still on the ground Newcastle are countering brilliant. It’s Cisse by himself on the edge of the area but he takes one touch too many, Liverpool’s defenders close in and somehow they escape it. It really should be 2-2! And Newcastle start the second half with the spark and verve they showed to end the first. A long cross from Anita toward the back post is headed home by Cisse and the Toon are back in business! 46 min: Newcastle have made one change at half-time: Ayoze Perez exits for Georginio Wijnaldum. Speaking of, Uefa have issued a statement on Sakho. UEFA would like to confirm the information communicated by Liverpool FC regarding an adverse finding in a doping test of their player Mamadou Sakho conducted at the UEFA Europa League match between Manchester United FC and Liverpool FC on 17 March 2016 (1-1). The player and the club have received all the pertinent information and have until Tuesday to request the analysis of the B ssample as well as to provide explanations for the presence of a prohibited substance in the players’ body. There are no disciplinary proceedings opened at this stage. Look who’s been spotted at Anfield. A comfortable opening half for the Reds, who answered the bell nicely with an early goal from Sturridge and Lallana’s follow-up. 44 min: Another shot for Anita, one that sails high and wide over the goal, but no doubt Newcastle’s strongest patch today. 41 min: Signs of life from Newcastle as Anita is played through up the right side and sends it into Cisse, whose header is thudded just wide of the goal 37 min: A note from JR in Illinois, via email: I can’t quite believe that nobody (save for a very brief mention by announcer Gary Weaver) seemed to notice the incident about 30 seconds before Sturridge scored. I went back and watched it several times. Mignolet came out of his goal to punch the ball. Not only does it clearly look like the ball was outside the box but Mignolet also cleaned Perez’s clock. Looked an awful lot like two yellow card offences. Weird. Must confess I missed it myself. Will review at the half. 36 min: Another chance for Liverpool as Firmino surges up the right flank and sends it into the area. It appears to be handled by a defender but appeals for a penalty go unacknowledged by the referee. 35 min: Firmino nearly makes it 3-0 on a point-blank chance from inside the area, but a last-gasp challenge by the center back interrupts. 33 min: Tiote, already on a yellow, throws down Joe Allen near the touch line and appears to be a red card waiting to happen. Almost looks like he wants to get sent off. Lallana sends a beautifully struck left-footed curler into the top-left corner of the goal. Made it look so easy. A special goal. Moreno again with the assist. 23 min: Newcastle barely showing a pulse at the moment. A punchless performance so far to be sure. They enter today’s match on a run of nine straight away defeats. The club record is 10, set back in the 1930s, so history may be afoot. 21 min: Newcastle win a corner and it’s quickly cleared. Tiote shown yellow for a cynical foul on Lallana as the midfielder tries to key a Liverpool counter-attack. 20 min: More great interplay from Liverpool up the right flank. They’re really in fine form at the moment. 18 min: A ball is played through to Sturridge, whose quickly struck left-footed shot toward the upper-right corner of the goal just misses the mark. 16 min: Liverpool threatening again as the ball caroms off a series of defenders in the area. Firmino finally directs a shot toward the goal, but it’s turned away. 14 min: Liverpool’s center back Dejan Lovren is down and the medical staff are out to treat him. He’s sitting up now and Martin Skrtel has sprung from the bench to loosen up, but it looks as if Lovren will re-enter the match. 11 min: Liverpool threatening again after a bit of a rudderless stretch in the middle third. It’s Lallana evading defenders on the edge of the area trying to pick out Sturridge but his pass misses the target. 8 min: The referee stops play as Moreno is down with an injury. 5 min: What a start for Liverpool. The Kop faithful had yet to even finish their first-minute tribute to Benitez – you can probably guess the song – when Sturridge found the back of the goal for his fourth goal in five matches (and seventh in 11 career matches against Newcastle). 4 min: Newcastle win a corner but nothing comes of it and within moments Liverpool move it down the pitch into the final third and are threatening again. The match is a scant 68 seconds old when Sturridge times his run perfectly, traps a long pass from the halfway line, clinically spins around two defenders and thumps it past the keeper into the back of the goal. A dream start for the hosts. 1 min: And we’re off! Liverpool attacking left to right toward the Kop end in all-red strips, Newcastle from right to left. Some thoughts Liverpool’s manager in today’s match programme. Hello and welcome to today’s Premier League tie between Liverpool and Newcastle. The Toon are locked in a relegation battle and currently within two points of safety after a mid-week draw with Manchester City. A win today would lift them out of the drop zone, but three points could prove a tall order against a surging Liverpool side on a run of four straight wins across all competitions, most recently a 4-0 triumph over Merseyside rivals Everton on Wednesday. With about a half hour between now and kickoff, here’s a look at today’s teams. Liverpool XI: Mignolet, Randall, Toure, Lovren, Moreno, Stewart, Allen, Milner, Lallana, Firmino, Sturridge Subs: Ward, Skrtel, Smith, Lucas, Coutinho, Ibe, Ojo Newcastle XI: Darlow, Anita, Lascelles, Mbemba, Dummett, Townsend, Tiote, Colback, Sissoko, Perez, Cisse Subs: Woodman, Mbabu, Shelvey, Wijnaldum, Aarons, De Jong, Mitrovic Bryan will be here shortly. In the meantime why not check out Andy Hunter’s preview of today’s match. Rafael Benítez’s return to Anfield as the interim manager of Chelsea in 2013 was overshadowed somewhat by Luis Suárez’s bite on Branislav Ivanovic. He heads back seeking a favour from his old club in his attempt to keep Newcastle in the Premier League, but Liverpool are not in the form to give one – regardless of what team Jürgen Klopp selects. With Villarreal in the Europa League semi-finals to come next week, Klopp may revert to the much-changed lineup that beat Bournemouth last Sunday. But there’s also been big news from Anfield already …
Labor push for banking royal commission shut down by government Labor has moved a motion to introduce a banking royal commission in an attempt to derail the government’s agenda on the first substantive day of parliament since the election. But the government has shut the move down, pointing to a new inquiry into small business lending practices and other reforms to argue the royal commission is not needed. Bill Shorten, the opposition leader, on Wednesday sought a suspension of standing orders in the lower house to call for a royal commission. The motion was seconded by independent MP Bob Katter. Shorten said that scandals in the banking and financial services industry have gutted retirees’ savings, “rorted” families and resulted in life insurance policy holders being denied justice. He cited examples including allegations of rate-fixing in the banking sector and insurance policies being denied for “having the wrong type of heart attack”. “Despite several inquiries, new powers, new resources, and a financial ombudsman service, the rorts and the rip offs continue.” Kelly O’Dwyer, the minister for revenue and financial services, announced on Wednesday the government has asked the Australian small business and family enterprise ombudsman to look at how banks treat their small business lending customers. The ombudsman will report within 12 weeks and provide interim findings to the Ramsay review examining external dispute resolution schemes in the financial services sector. The government shut down Labor’s call for a royal commission, successfully amending the motion to instead question why Labor had not instituted an inquiry when it was in government. Coalition MP George Christensen, formerly an advocate for a bank royal commission, moved the motion. He noted the Ramsay review – led by corporate law expert Professor Ian Ramsay – was under way and that the Australian Securities and Investment Commission had commenced prosecutions on the rate-rigging allegations. Christensen pointed to government initiatives including increasing the resources of Asic and a new process to haul banks before a parliamentary committee to explain failing to pass on interest rate cuts. “If a royal commission were to go ahead it would simply be reviewing old ground,” he said. The leader of the opposition proposed areas of focus for the commission, including consideration of how widespread unethical behaviour is, financial institutions’ duty of care, and whether regulators are equipped to prevent illegal and unethical behaviour. Shorten said the breadth and scope of the allegations showed problems in the industry “go beyond any one bank, type of financial institution or group of receivers”. He accused the government of running a “protection racket” by refusing opposition demands for a royal commission. “You can take Malcolm Turnbull out of the investment bank, but you can’t take the investment banker out of Malcolm Turnbull,” he said, referring to the prime minister’s former career in finance. Shorten said Labor, the Greens, crossbench, and at least eight Liberal and National parliamentarians had supported a royal commission. But the appetite for a royal commission is waning amongst some of those Coalition MPs, with Warren Entsch, previously a fierce advocate, now proposing a bank victim compensation tribunal instead. On 16 August Katter blasted Entsch for the back-flip, accusing him of “dogging it” and pleading with him to back a royal commission. Shorten said a royal commission “is the only forum with the coercive powers and broad jurisdiction necessary to properly perform this investigation”. He invited Turnbull to meet with the victims of banking and financial scandals.
Southampton 0-2 Chelsea: Premier League – as it happened Here’s Dominic Fifield’s match report: That was an extremely impressive performance from Chelsea, perhaps their best of the season. Their defence didn’t give Southampton a sniff, and Eden Hazard and Diego Costa were full of menace on the break. Since moving to a back three they have won four league games in a row by a combined score of 11-0. They are less adventurous than the three sides above them but they look dangerous and durable. Thanks for your company, night. 89 min Diego Costa is replaced by Michy Batshuayi. He had a terrific game. 87 min Chelsea bring on Branislav Ivanovic for the impressive Victor Moses. 85 min Austin has a goal disallowed for offside after robbing David Luiz. It was the right decision, though it was extremely close. 84 min Another excellent Chelsea attack. Costa curls a long pass to the wing-back Moses on the right. He runs across the line of the box, uses Willian by not using him and belts a left-footed shot that is too hot for Forster to hold. 81 min A summary of this match. 78 min Substitutions galore. Chelsea introduce Willian for Pedro; Southampton bring on Sam McQueen and Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg for Dusan Tadic and Ryan Bertrand. 76 min Southampton almost pulled one back. Martina’s curling cross was met at the near post by Davis, who headed it onto the challenging David Luiz. From there it looped over Courtois and onto the top of the bar. 74 min Chelsea have been brilliant in the second half. Before half-time they were excellent defensively but offered almost nothing going forward. Since the break they could have scored four or five. 71 min Hazard almost repeats his goal against Manchester United last week. He ran at Martina on the left of the box, moved the ball infield and drove it low across goal. It wasn’t quite in the corner, however, and Forster got down smartly to his left to save. 69 min Bertrand breaks down the left and wafts a nice cross towards Austin, who gets above Cahill on the six-yard line but thumps his header over the bar. That was Southampton’s best chance of the match. 68 min Southampton have only had one shot on target, Tadic’s free-kick in the first half. That tells you how well Chelsea have defended. 67 min This game is done. Chelsea are in full catenaccio mode and Southampton have no answer. 63 min How did that stay out? Moses’s shot was spilled by Forster to Hazard, who calmly squared it across the six-yard line for Costa. Forster was out of the game but there was a defender on the line and Costa, for some reason, tried to give the goal to Pedro. His pass was slightly behind Pedro, who was eventually crowded out by the defence. It was lovely play from Hazard, reminiscent of Karel Poborsky’s brilliant assist for Vladimir Smicer in the 3-2 win over the Netherlands at Euro 2004. 61 min Southampton make their first change, with Clasie replaced by Sofiane Boufal. 58 min Almost a third goal for Chelsea. Hazard’s low cross to the near post is swept over the bar by Costa, who was under pressure from the sliding Fonte on the six-yard line. 57 min This has been an immaculate away performance from Chelsea. It’s hard to believe it’s just over a month since they were a mess at Arsenal. This is a wonderful goal from Diego Costa! Chelsea took a short free-kick on the left, where Hazard gave the ball to Costa. He moved infield and them, just from just outside the box, smacked a magnificent curling shot into the far corner. Brilliant. He was helped by some half-arsed defending from Martina, who couldn’t be bothered to close him down properly, but it was still a fantastic goal. 55 min Chelsea look very comfortable defensively, and a bit more purposeful in attack than they were in the first half. This is their best spell of the game. 52 min Chelsea counter-attack promisingly until Alonso picks the wrong option, a shot from 25 yards, and executes it dismally. 50 min Matic heads the corner over the bar. 49 min Fonte saves a goal with a crucial interception. Kante drove a crossfield pass to Alonso, who delivered a beautiful low cross along the six-yard line. Fonte, sliding towards his own goal, knew he had to do something because Hazard was behind him waiting to score, and he just managed to slice it wide of the far post from a corner. 48 min Southampton have some decent attacking options on the bench, including Boufal, McQueen and Hojbjerg. I suspect they’re going to need them. 46 min Southampton kick off from left to right. Peep peep! Half-time reading Peep peep! Chelsea have done an efficient number on Southampton, scoring early through Eden Hazard and defend in the Serie A style. Southampton have not played badly at all but they are really struggling to add the progression to their possession. See you in 10 minutes for the second half. 45+1 min Southampton appeal for a penalty when Austin goes over after an aerial challenge with Kante. There was nothing in that. 44 min “Shearer last night said that Aguero is the only world-class player in the Premiership,” says Ian Copestake. “Given there are only about five world class players in the actual world then perhaps his comment has no actual shock value.” 43 min Austin does exceedingly well, Mr Kipling, to win a corner for Southampton. Bugger all happens from the corner, however, so he needn’t have bothered. 41 min Matic robs Clasie and plays a gentle through pass for Costa. He lumbers into the box and whacks a low shot that is kicked away by Forster. That’s a crucial save because you can’t see Southampton coming back from 2-0 down against this defence. 38 min Good play from Hazard, who veers away from Van Dijk and Romeu 20 yards from goal before hitting a low curling shot that is comfortably saved by Forster. 33 min A desperate clearance from David Luiz finds Hazard on the left. He has a great chance to put Pedro through on goal but mishits his crossfield pass. Eventually it comes to Moses, whose shot deflects wide for a corner. 31 min This is almost like a training session, with Southampton attacking and Chelsea defending. Chelsea look superbly organised at the back and Southampton can’t make any progress. 27 min Alonso shoves Tadic over 25 yards from goal. He’s been the weakest of Chelsea’s back seven thus far. The free-kick is a far way to the right of centre, and Chelsea only have a three-man wall. Tadic curls it low around that wall and Courtois plunges to his left to palm it round. 23 min Tadic started the match superbly but hasn’t been involved much in the last 10 minutes. For all their nice passing, Southampton haven’t really got behind Chelsea. 21 min Davis’s corner from the left is headed back to him by Cahill. He lobs another cross beyond the far post, where the under-pressure Fonte can’t direct his header on target. 20 min Hazard looks menacing every time he gets the ball. After missing almost all of last season through apathy, he is fit and firing again. 17 min “I’m glad to see Chelsea finally showing signs of change after playing in a similar way regardless of manager,” says Nas Iqbal. “Conte’s trust in Luiz and Moses is reaping big rewards right now.” They look formidable defensively now, with three centre-backs and Kante and Matic in front of them. Good luck getting through that mob. 16 min Southampton win a corner on the left, play it short and make a balls of it. 14 min Davis’s inswinging free-kick from a narrow position to the left is headed well wide by Austin, lurking near the penalty spot. That was a decent chance but he got far too much on the header. 13 min Southampton have responded well to going behind, with some confident, easy passing. 9 min “I still have not quite recovered from the cricket this morning, me not being the type to be glad of a loss despite the incessant practice,” says Ian Copestake. “So I hope Southampton can build a good lead before tea.” 8 min This has been a cracking start to the match, and Redmond almost slithers through the Chelsea defence at the other end. He would have done so but for that pesky Matic, who made an excellent interception. 7 min As Gary Neville says on Sky, “once you’re one against one with Hazard in the box, you’re dead”. He beat Davis easily and then cracked the shot through Forster. Chelsea take the lead! It’s a classy goal from Hazard, who is starting to look back to his best. He moseyed over to the right side of the box to receive a return pass from Moses, turned inside Davis and belted a low left-footed shot through the legs of Forster. 5 min Tadic picks up a loose ball on the edge of the box and hits a shot that is well blocked by Matic. Moments later, after Tadic makes a fool of Alonso, Romeu hooks a bouncing ball over the bar from 30 yards. 3 min “Okay Rob,” says Matt Loten, “first poser of the afternoon for you: what is Pedro doing right to keep Chelsea’s best player of last season, Willian, on the bench? Don’t get me wrong, the Spaniard has plenty of qualities - you don’t play in that Barcelona team without qualities - but to my mind Willian is a far more consistent threat, and better at playing the ball between the lines. His free kicks aren’t half bad either. Is Conte just sticking with a winning team, or is Pedro really the better choice?” Willian is probably a better player but I’d say Pedro suits the 3-4-3 system a bit better. Also, Pedro was superb last week so I’m sure there is an element of not changing a winning side. I can’t see Willian being on the bench for long, especially as you could play him in a few positions. 2 min Hazard makes a good angled run to the right of the box before crossing towards Costa at the near post. His attempted shot is blocked by a defender and dribbles through to Forster. 1 min Peep peep! Chelsea kick off from left to right. They’re in blue; Southampton are wearing the usual red-and-white stripes. The players emerge from the tunnel into the cool Southampton air. The weather’s nice. A little brisk. Everton beat West Ham 2-0 in the first match of the day. You can read all about it here. Southampton (4-D-2) Forster; Martina, Fonte, Van Dijk, Bertrand; Romeu, Davis, Clasie; Tadic; Redmond, Austin. Substitutes: Taylor, McQueen, Yoshida, Hojbjerg, Ward-Browse, Boufal, Olomola. Chelsea (3-4-3) Courtois; Azpilicueta, David Luiz, Cahill; Moses, Kante, Matic, Alonso; Pedro, Costa, Hazard. Substitutes: Begovic, Ivanovic, Terry, Chalobah, Oscar, Willian, Batshuayi. Referee Mike Jones Chelsea are the team of the season so far. No, you big eejit, I don’t mean they’ve been the best team, but they are the team who best reflect the old-fashioned unpredictability of the 2016-17 Premier League season. In the first few weeks, when they picked up all those points through late goals, they were apparently the likeliest challengers to the Manchester clubs. Then they were an in-transition shambles who even lost to Arsenal. Now, after Antonio Conte’s switch to three at the back, they are apparently the likeliest challengers to Manchester City, Arsenal and Liverpool. William Goldman was right: nobody knows anything. So we might as well just enjoy what looks like a cracking game between Chelsea and the always admirable Southampton. Chelsea are the only team to win a league match at St Mary’s this year, a reflection of how tricky a match this is likely to be. A win for Chelsea would take them within a point of the top three; a win for Southampton would take them above Manchester United. Kick off is at 4pm. Rob will be here soon enough. Until then, read Antonio Conte’s thoughts on fruit and varying formations: Under Antonio Conte Chelsea’s stomachs are settling. It has been a fraught 12 months but three Premier League wins of increasing significance have brought a pronounced change in tone and the manager’s tweaks, both on and off the pitch, appear to have swiftly borne fruit. In fact fruit is only part of it. Conte’s reputation for keeping firm control over his players’ diets preceded his arrival in July and, in relaxed form at Cobham before Sunday’s visit to Southampton, he explained that his insistence on balanced food intake stems from a penny dropping late in his playing career.
Martin Baron: 'We took Donald Trump seriously from the beginning' The phone call that would, just hours later, inflict a highly damaging blow to Donald Trump’s presidential ambitions came through to Washington Post reporter David Fahrenthold mid-morning on Friday 7 October. The source – a Snapchat-era “Deep Throat” – informed Fahrenthold, whose dogged exposure of the operations of the Trump Foundation had so infuriated the billionaire, that they had some previously unaired video of Trump. Would he be interested in viewing it? “David recognised immediately that [the footage] was explosive,” says the Post’s executive editor Martin Baron, “and the first task was to make sure it was authenticated, which he was able to do pretty quickly.” The Post sent a transcript of the video – outtakes from a 2005 edition of the NBC show Access Hollywood, in which Trump is heard bragging that “when you’re a star … you can do anything [to women] … grab them by the pussy” – to the Trump campaign for comment. “They asked us for the actual video,” says the softly-spoken Baron, “and shortly after that they sent us Donald Trump’s initial response.” Five hours on from the tip-off, the video and accompanying piece went live on the Post, reverberating around the world. While Grope-gate (as some are inevitably calling it) may be a far cry from Watergate, the Post’s most famous scoop, it was nevertheless a momentum-shifting event in the presidential race, which has seen Trump, who had previously claimed that he could “shoot somebody” on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue and not lose votes, since struggle to regain his swagger. Yet, while the Trump revelations have lately flowed thick and fast, there has been criticism (even in the Post) that much of the US media was initially slow to take Trump seriously, particularly early on in the Republican primaries. Baron vigorously defends his corner. “At the Post, we took the candidacy seriously from the very beginning,” he insists, going on to cite reporting, among other things, on Trump Mortgage, the Trump University, and his “multiple bankruptcies in Atlantic City”. “Other people reacted in a different way. Certainly there was a tremendous amount of cable coverage of his rallies,” he says. “Wall-to-wall, they would cover his rallies from beginning to end, on live television. I don’t happen to think that was a wise decision on their part.” Baron does concede, however, that Trump is “skilful” at using the media. “[During the primaries] he would call into shows, which would normally require a candidate to show up in person, they would just take his phone call and he’d be on the air, and then he’d call the next show. He’s been by far the most accessible presidential candidate ever.” Indeed, even when the Trump campaign barred the Post’s reporters from his events (for, they claimed, inaccurate reporting), he still made himself available to Baron’s team. “We had actual published interviews with him, [even] while we were on the blacklist,” he says. Born in 1954 and raised in Tampa, Florida, Baron, who’s a fluent Spanish speaker, cut his teeth at the Miami Herald, which he first joined in 1976. He went on to work at some of America’s most prestigious titles – the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, and the Boston Globe. As Globe editor, the paper won six Pulitzer prizes, including in 2003 for the Spotlight team’s investigation into sexual abuse by Catholic priests, which was turned into the Oscar-winning movie Spotlight last year. In 2013, he became executive editor of the Post, which a little over three years ago was acquired by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos for $250m from the Graham family. Earlier this year, the Post – whose traffic numbers reached a record 83.1m unique visitors in September 2016, a 40% year-on-year increase – moved from its former base to a gleaming, light-filled building on K Street, where reporters sit cheek-by-jowl with software engineers. Beyond financial capital, the Amazon CEO has provided the Post with “intellectual capital, too”, Baron explains. “He’s basically forced us to confront how the internet is different and how we have to adapt to it and embrace it. He’s also given us what he calls ‘runway’, which is time to experiment. So, in funding the experiments, we have time to let them play out, without having to adhere to some strict timeline or strict requirements for profit.” One area Bezos was especially keen that Baron address was the issue of aggregation. “One of the first questions he asked was: ‘You do these long narratives, these deep investigations, but after you’re published, within 15 minutes, half a dozen websites have decided to aggregate you – and they get more traffic than you do. How do you propose to deal with that?’” Baron’s solution was, in effect, to fight fire with fire; hiring in-house bloggers, not only did the Post start aggregating itself, but it began aggregating other people’s content too. Since acquiring the Post, Bezos – who’s added 140 employees in three years – has held regular conference calls with senior staff. So how interested is he in the editorial side of the paper? The question isn’t even complete before Baron jumps in: “He doesn’t inject himself at all into our journalism. He doesn’t suggest stories for us to do. He doesn’t critique us in any way. Every once in a while, when he sees a story which delights him, he tells us. “[The conference calls] are all about tactics and strategy. We talked about aggregation, way back when. We’ve talked about our audience engagement team. But in terms of particular stories, particular projects, or particular avenues of coverage, he does not get involved at all.” When asked what he thinks the Post’s output and business model will look like in five years time, Baron concedes that he simply doesn’t know. “I always say the people who are most certain about what the model will be are the furthest removed from any responsibility for actually making that model occur,” he says a touch world-wearily. “There’s so much that’s happened so fast, and the pace of change has really accelerated. Today we’re sitting here talking about what we are doing for Facebook Live. Or what we’re doing for Snapchat. We’re talking about using bots for Amazon Echo, which we did to provide scores during the Olympics. And during this election we’ll be [using bots] to provide election results. [These aren’t] things we talked about a year ago – maybe we should have, but we didn’t.” Despite his ink-stained background, Baron believes that if institutions such as the Post are to survive, they have to think and behave like technology companies: they need to move fast, take risks, and accept that failure is an essential part of experimentation. “I think people [at the Post] do feel free to propose new ideas and try new things,” he says. “And there’s no penalty for failing. If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work.” But, he adds quickly, newspapers must always stick to their principles and values. “We can never violate that. If we do, then we destroy our entire argument for existence.” CV Age: 62 Education: Lehigh University, Pennsylvania. BA Journalism 1972-1976; MBA 1975-1976. Career: 1976: reporter, the Miami Herald 1979: business reporter, Los Angeles Times 1983: business editor, Los Angeles Times 1991: assistant managing editor, Los Angeles Times 1996: assistant to the managing editor, the New York Times 1997: associate managing editor, the New York Times 2000: executive editor, the Miami Herald 2001: editor, the Boston Globe 2003: the Globe wins Pulitzer prize for public service (for exposing sexual abuse by priests in the Catholic church) 2013: executive editor, the Washington Post 2014: the Post wins public service Pulitzer prize, with the US (for revealing widespread secret surveillance by the NSA) 2016: the Post wins Pulitzer prize for national reporting (for building a national database on police killings)
2016 is make or break time for the NHS “It’s a new year, it’s a new dawn, it’s a new life for me and I’m feeling good,” to misquote Nina Simone. But sadly not everyone starts the new year with optimism. For the NHS, 2016 really does appear to be make or break time. The NHS is in a financial maelstrom – more than three-quarters of all providers are in deficit, amounting to a whopping £1.6bn just halfway through the financial year. Last year’s spending review provided upfront funding for the NHS in 2016-17, but this is short lived. As the chart below shows, NHS funding per person will grow in 2016-17 but that is followed by a year of no real-terms growth and then falling spending for two years. Overall, the settlement for the next five years delivers the same real terms growth in funding as we saw over the last parliament. After inflation it amounts to a 0.9% a year increase in the total NHS budget, which is a O.1% a year increase in health service funding per head. That means we are halfway through a decade of stagnant real-terms spending per person in England. And at this mid-point things are not looking good. Many in the NHS must be hoping that the tight financial squeeze expected later in this parliament is not really the government’s plan, and that the Treasury will be reopening the health service spending settlement in a year or two. The political argument would be that health is simply too important to be allowed to fail. Just as the government has in effect provided a bailout for the service in the spending review, so it will do the same in a couple of years’ time. And anyway, isn’t the chancellor being too pessimistic and money can always be found? Taking account of the economic outlook Since the autumn, the economic outlook in the UK and globally has worsened, and delivering the economic and fiscal forecasts in the autumn statement looks tough. This is likely to stiffen the Treasury’s resolve that the anticipated overspend in 2015-16 is not going to be funded by another raid on its fragile coffers but will come out of the extra cash earmarked for 2016-17. This extra funding is going to have to stretch a long way – filing the existing financial black hole, meeting rising pension costs, funding demand pressures and supporting transformation. To rely on the Treasury riding to the rescue is only for those who like very high stakes poker – not really the way to run a vital public service. Against this backdrop, much of health policy looks perplexing. We cannot afford inefficiency or poor productivity. David Nicholson, former chief executive of NHS England, recognised this back in 2009 but progress has been woeful. All too often the focus has been on the one-off, short term and tactical. There has been little drive to address the fundamental barriers to a more efficient and productive service. The Five Year Forward View – Simon Stevens’ plan to make the NHS more sustainable – and Lord Carter’s review of NHS spending, offer hope for a different approach. But 15 months on from the launch of the Forward View, we still don’t have an efficiency plan for the NHS. Beyond the immediate backyard of NHS services the storm clouds are gathering. Delivering a sustainable health service requires action on social care and public health. Evidence suggests that around £1 in every £5 of NHS spending is the result of ill health attributable to the big five risk factors of smoking, alcohol, poor diet, obesity and inactivity. This, more than anything else, is why we perform so poorly compared with our European neighbours on health outcomes. Despite this, public health budgets are being cut in real terms by almost 4% a year. The gap between the number needing social care support and the number receiving it On social care, the government has recognised that the system can’t sustain a further round of cuts on the scale of the last parliament. Most estimates are that the additional funding for social care won’t bridge the funding gap. Social care is the dog that hasn’t barked – despite the reductions in access to social care service, demonstrating that this has had a direct impact on the NHS has been difficult. But recent data from the Health Survey for England shows that the lack of robust research evidence on the impact of social care cuts should not be a source of complacency. Providers are reporting that one of the reasons for their rising deficits is delayed transfers of care, partly related to issues of timely access to social care. There are increasing numbers of vulnerable older people living in silent misery with no help. The chart above shows the gap between need and provision (from any source, formal and informal, public and privately funded) for men and women in different income groups. The gap between need and receipt of help is greatest for those on low incomes and growing over time. Whatever the economics of that, it surely cannot be something we aspire to as a society in 2016. Join our network to read more pieces like this. And follow us on Twitter (@GdnHealthcare) to keep up with the latest healthcare news and views.
Secret Trump voters reverse their support: 'He seems to be insane' Do the outrageous things Donald Trump says – from insinuating Hillary Clinton should be assassinated for her support of gun control to calling on Russia to hack Clinton’s emails – change the minds of people who had planned to vote for him? Yes, actually – at least some of them. In the middle of primary season in February, the called for secret Trump voters to contact us and tell us why they were voting for Trump on the sly. More than 100 reached out – from yoga teachers to immigration lawyers – and we published 12 of those answers. Now that the general election season has well and truly begun, we checked back in with the original anonymous 12 to see if they are still on board the Trump train. We got 10 responses – and four of them have already jumped off. “At first I was seduced by his showmanship and strong-man persona and charisma, and by his strong borders patriotism and willingness to speak about the problem with Islam, and considering banning all Muslims from coming into the USA,” said a 48-year-old scientist from California. “But when he said the judge of Mexican heritage wouldn’t be fair in his lawsuit and women should be punished for having abortions, that really turned me off him,” added the scientist, who had been flipping between Bernie Sanders and Trump but will now vote for Clinton. A retired biomedical engineer from Hawaii, aged 66, says he thought originally that the US needed someone like Trump to create total social upheaval in order to get rid of corruption and paid interests in politics. “But now – fortunately? – Trump has demonstrated that he is much more than a narcissistic buffoon,” he said. “Anyone who is willing to put the trigger for America’s nuclear weapons in the hands of someone like this is placing the future of human civilization at risk. I believe we must do anything to prevent Trump from ever reaching the Oval Office. Even if it means voting for Hillary Clinton,” added the retired biomedical engineer. A yoga teacher and writer from Tennessee, aged 29, said the bullying antics of Trump didn’t bother him – but that he had stopped supporting him anyway. “What does bother me is Trump’s authoritarian tendencies. I believe it would be safe to assume he will grow the American police and surveillance states, which are already spiraling out of control. HRC isn’t any better though. While Trump seems intent on banning Muslims, HRC’s record on foreign policy (and support from war-hawks) reflect she is more likely to bomb them with drones,” he wrote. “Truly, I believe America is getting the candidates it deserves. We will not get out of this mess until people wake up and realize they have more than two choices,” said the yoga instructor, noting he’d be voting for Gary Johnson or Jill Stein. Another voter, a white male early retiree who lives in the Sonora desert, said he no longer backs Trump as he “seems to be insane. I no longer believe it is possible that he could truly represent the people who support him and need what he promised.” Instead, he’ll reluctantly vote for Clinton. “For me, more Obama is OK, and that is a vote for Clinton. I will rely on the checks and balances of the US constitution to take care of the rest,” he said. But other secret Trump supporters were still backing their initially reticent decision, noting that the news media’s coverage of Trump is unfair. “The media is like an extension of the DNC at this point. They’ll intentionally misinterpret or exaggerate anything Trump says to try to help Hillary win the election,” said a 50-year-old college professor from California. “Everyone wants so desperately to believe he’s Hitler 2.0, and their warped image of him is clearly looming large at the forefront of their minds – so much so that they can’t help but attach the worst possible connotation to even vague, offhand quips like these,” said a 29-year-old Hispanic attorney from Florida, referring to his second amendment comments. An Indian American attorney, who describes his wealth as being in the top 1%, says he doesn’t care about the to-and-fros between Trump and Clinton or even Trump and his own party. “All of the controversies to me are inconsequential. The economy is terrible, the job situation has not materially improved, and illegal immigration and national security will get even worse moving forward. Regardless of what Trump may say and how he gets characterized, his focus is on the right things,” he wrote. But even some who back him don’t agree with all his antics. “I do still plan to vote for the orange buffoon. He is a ridiculous egomaniac who has found the recipe for stirring up support among discontented voters,” said a manager from South Carolina. “My only regret is that I won’t be able to say that I cast a vote for the first woman to ever hold the presidency, but I have little doubt she will win. By the way, my 20-year-old self would be appalled by the complete political cynicism of my 52-year-old self,” he added. A 20-year-old Arab student from Missouri says he backs Trump because he’s flipped US politics. “If he doesn’t win, his ego and legacy will still dominate American politics. He has basically set the tone for the coming century in which an isolated authoritarian state could be a very real prospect for our country,” he said. Did Trump threaten to assassinate Clinton? The also reached out to the 100 secret Trump supporters to get their take on Trump’s comments this week that gun owners could exercise their second amendment right in protest of Clinton, a line seen by many as a threat of assassination. Here’s a selection of their responses: A 56-year-old male casino supervisor from Oklahoma: I think and do believe he was talking about taking it to court with the backing of all American gun owners. A 46-year-old male real estate agent from Colorado: He’s not serious by any means, and you’d be considered mentally ill to act on that delivery – he was trying to be distasteful/politically incorrect as usual, which is why I will vote for the man. PC has ventured into thought policing on things, and along with the ultra surveillance state we have moved towards, I don’t want to be answering questions by the Gestapo after I text a tacky joke to someone. A 26-year-old Chinese citizen working in the US on an H1-B visa: Trump was dumb to say that, but I don’t judge him based on those words. Politicians are trained to not to take things personally, so Hillary shouldn’t care less. Objectively speaking, if Hillary made the decision to be a politician, then dirty attacks are fair game. A 58-year-old retired ornithologist from Tennessee: Hillary is too far left on this issue, the most radical position on gun control of any presidential candidate ever. She’s inflamed half of America. A 55-year-old pilot: I am getting tired of Trump’s running of the mouth. It almost feels like he is trying to lose this election. To me this should be the easiest election to win against this corrupt woman, however Trump is not staying on message and it looks very childish the way he is behaving. I’m now convinced he will lose unless he turns it around now. A small-business owner from Orlando, Florida: First I heard, I was incredulous. Then I listened – not to the sound bite – but the whole sentence (and I use the term ‘sentence’ under advisement due to how he speaks). My take? Just another mountain out of a molehill as created by generally left-leaning media.
Carrie Fisher in Telluride: 'I’m just getting bigger and older. That's not good' “Mother and I live next door to each other, separated by one daunting hill,” says Carrie Fisher in the HBO documentary Bright Lights, which had its North American premiere at the Telluride film festival on Saturday. “I usually come to her. I always come to her.” Alexis Bloom and Fisher Stevens’s cinema verité-style film about Fisher’s close relationship with mother Debbie Reynolds will doubtless draw parallels to Albert and David Maysles’s iconic 1975 documentary Grey Gardens, which centered on a similarly eccentric mother-daughter duo, who shared an equally deep bond. But Fisher likens the film more to a “surreal reality show” featuring “unreal people.” “I didn’t think that we were the new Grey Gardens,” Fisher said during a conversation after the screening. “It’s really an ideal reality show.” “My mother and I, we used to go shopping – not a lot, because it would turn into a show,” she continued. “And people would sort of linger because we had loud voices. They would stay in the store to listen us. So [Bright Lights] captures that.” The film finds Reynolds, now in her mid-80s, on the cusp of retirement and planning one last hurrah variety show in Vegas, much to the chagrin of Fisher, who would rather she rest. “Performance feeds her in ways her family cannot,” says Fisher. She meanwhile is documented in the throes of staging her own comeback, preparing to reprise her role as Princess Leia in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. “I had always wanted to show my mother off the stage, off the screen, because she’s such an amazing character,” Fisher said. “I wanted someone to capture that.” Despite her wishes, Fisher admitted that she had “third and fifth thoughts about making it” once Bloom and Stevens came on board, mainly because she’s not fond of her own appearance on screen. “I don’t like looking at myself,” Fisher said. “I’m just getting bigger and older. That’s not good. Meryl Streep does three movies a year, so she can watch herself age. I went from Princess Leia at 23 in a bikini to this broad. So that was distressing for me. I hate being vain and I’m working on it – and taking classes.” Bright Lights will air on HBO early next year. It next screens at the New York film festival in October.
From the Land of the Moon review - Marion Cotillard locked up in fuggy sexual melodrama Freedom, as the far left used to say, is the right to choose your jail. School, job, family, marriage: no cage is distraction enough for Gabrielle (Marion Cotillard), who – with a dreamer’s conviction – will do anything to escape the box being built for her. From the Land of the Moon is a choc-cake rich drama that oozes along on the strength of a committed performance from Cotillard and the odd sprinkle of visual flair. It presents a kind of no-frills silliness, almost tricking you into believing its balderdash. It’s based on Italian author Milena Agus’s 2006 novella, which has been relocated by director Nicole Garcia to 1940s Provence, the French coastal town of La Ciotat, the Swiss alps and Lyon, sometime later in what looks to be the mid-60s. The story is told in flashback from this point. Gabrielle and her husband, José (Alex Brendemühl) are taking their son to a regional music competition, where – in respect to mama’s gloomy sensibilities - he’ll mournfully trot out some Tchaikovsky. The mood in the car is peculiar. Mum’s distant, dad and son clearly more connected. They roll into Lyon in a funk. Then Gabrielle spots an address that stirs a violent memory. And from there, we’re off. Sort of. For a fairly simple plot the story rolls out awfully slow. It emerges that Gabrielle, the daughter of a successful lavender farmer, was always the wild child. Stultified by country life, she has channeled her frustrations into a crush on her teacher, partly fuelled by his on-point literary recommendations (Wuthering Heights is, according to teach, “About a girl who never leaves the countryside”). The flirtation ends, disastrously, at a family meal to celebrate the harvest. Luckily, there is someone there to pick up the pieces: José. A Spaniard who fought against Franco and now works for the family, he’s picked as a solid candidate for a marriage of convenience. The family hand over responsibility for Gabrielle, she gets to leave the lavender and he can marry money. “Why choose to be unhappy?”, Gabrielle asks José as they wrangle with the idea. José, played delicately by Brendemühl, gives the impression he has seen several lifetimes of unhappiness already. A little more will hurt, but manageably. The couple move to the coast, where dependable José begins to build a house. Gabrielle is still afflicted, now with paralysing cramps that may or may not be real. She’s sent, on doctor’s orders, to a spa in the Swiss mountains. There – finally – she meets someone who might help her escape herself: a floppy-haired hottie called André Sauvage (Louis Garrel). A veteran of the war in Indochina, he’s picked up a kidney infection that manifests itself in bouts of exhausted sighing. His treatment is gob-fulls of opium and the odd manly grunt to help through the pain. All this Byron-esque suffering is, unsurprisingly, right up Gabrielle’s street. A lot has been made of female sexuality coming to the fore at this year’s Cannes. From the Land of the Moon continues the trend to a degree. It’s implied that much of Gabrielle’s pain is rooted in sexual frustration. There’s a lot made of what Gabrielle calls “the principal thing”. This, in Agus’s novella, is love. But Garcia suggests sexual fulfilment is strong in the mix here too. In an early scene Gabrielle stands, dress hiked up and lets a river wash over her. It’s the pursuit of orgasm as escape. Getting off to get out. Elsewhere the expression of inner turmoil is a lot less interesting. There is loads of Gabrielle running away desperately - into the woods, the sea, a ditch. Cotillard’s ability to tear up in an instant is used to the point of exploitation. Gabrielle is, on many occasions, simply too nasty to care about. “Every time you visit it rains,” she tells José. “People are right: you’re mean,” he says later. He sticks around, still. The film takes on Gabrielle’s listlessness, slumps into an opiated fug. The malady is mysterious and not easily treatable. It just exhausts you. It transforms from a story about release to just another jail. At times it felt like there was no escape.
From Boris Johnson to Sarah Vine: the Brexiters about to seize power LIKELY NEXT PRIME MINISTER BORIS JOHNSON MP for Uxbridge and South Ruislip It is now not just possible, but probable, that Johnson will replace David Cameron as prime minister before the Conservative autumn conference. Some MPs believe that there should be a coronation rather than a contest. If that doesn’t transpire, it is still difficult to see beyond Johnson for PM, as long as he is one of the two candidates chosen by Tory MPs to put before the Conservative membership. The former mayor of London was the target of concerted personal attacks from figures within the Remain camp during the campaign, including the energy secretary, Amber Rudd. She infamously suggested during a debate that, while Johnson was the “life and soul of the party”, he wasn’t a man you’d trust to drive you home. And he may still be weighed down by incidents in his colourful past, including extra-marital affairs and giving advice to a friend who was planning to beat up a journalist. “My wife says she will divorce me if I support Boris,” said one MP, voicing the doubts that many feel. “But I think it would be fun. Maybe it would be too much fun.” CONSIGLIERE AND IDEOLOGUE MICHAEL GOVE Justice secretary A favourite among the Tory membership, and could put in a decent challenge to replace David Cameron, but it is believed the justice secretary is being genuine when he says that he doesn’t have any interest in the role. It is more likely that Johnson as prime minister would appoint Gove as his chancellor and consigliere. He is expected to play a key role in negotiations with the European commission about the terms of Brexit. POLEMICIST SARAH VINE Daily Mail columnist Vine and her husband, Michael Gove, were once close friends with David and Samantha Cameron. Since Gove’s demotion from the role of education secretary ahead of the general election, Vine has taken pleasure in wielding her pen to the PM’s disadvantage. She wrote a major piece in the Mail in favour of Brexit and her column is a regular source of barbs aimed at those who cross her husband. FINANCIAL EXPERT ANDREA LEADSOM Leading Leave campaigner She has impressed some during the campaign, during which she was a leading light of the Leave team. She is a relatively junior minister for energy and climate change, but some believe there is leadership potential in the MP for South Northamptonshire. Leadsom worked in the city as a corporate banker before embarking on her political career, so may also prove to be an alternative option for Johnson as his chancellor. However, she was accused of lying during a debate by the Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson after claiming: “The truth is, 60% of our rules and regulations comes from the European Union.” STRATEGIST MATTHEW ELLIOTT Vote Leave chief executive A founder and former chief executive of the Taxpayers’ Alliance, Elliott was the brains behind the Leave campaign’s strategy, along with Dominic Cummings. He insisted that he wanted to put forward a “positive” and “internationalist” vision for Brexit, but he wasn’t shy of attaching his name to quotes attacking uncontrolled immigration and speculating about the impact of Turkish migrants on the UK. Talking about the night of the Brexit poll, Elliott said: “When the polls came in at 10 o’clock and everybody was writing off Leave, we didn’t buy that.” He is known as an effective lobbyist, but there is likely to be a place in a Johnson Downing Street if he wants it. ‘MAN OF THE PEOPLE’ NIGEL FARAGE Leader of Ukip Even his harshest critics, and there are many, admit that Farage was a major figure in pushing the prime minister into even staging a referendum. He almost single-handedly turned the small party of Ukip into a genuine electoral force with 4 million votes at the general election, albeit still with just one MP. Without that electoral threat, Cameron would not have felt the need to make his promise. Farage’s role in the referendum campaign was typically controversial. Michael Gove admitted he “shuddered” on seeing Farage pose in front of a poster depicting refugees flocking on a winding road under the heading: Breaking point, but Farage was the first to point out that Vote Leave emulated his immigration rhetoric. Quite what his role will be from here on in is not clear. He has previously suggested that he admires Johnson. It is doubtful whether the admiration goes two ways. Nevertheless it is unlikely that the Ukip man is going to disappear. UKIP MONEY MAN ARRON BANKS Donor A former Tory donor, the businessman donated £6m to Ukip’s leave campaign, Leave.EU, he claimed on polling night. Asked by David Dimbleby why he had spent such a fortune, he said: “It is something I believe in. I believe we should bring our democracy back in to parliament.” An aggressive businessman with a brash manner, he has had a poor relationship with the official campaign to take the UK out of the EU. He branded justice secretary Michael Gove as “disgraceful” and “toxic” after the cabinet minister was suspected of leaking the Queen’s views on Europe. TEMPERAMENTAL TACTICAL GENIUS DOMINIC CUMMINGS Campaign director for Vote Leave As ITV called the referendum for Leave, Cummings stood on a table, gave a roar and punched a panel out of the ceiling above him as colleagues in Vote Leave chanted his name. “That’s Dom,” said a source. Cummings has never been far from controversy. Andy Coulson, who was then director of communications to the prime minister, blocked him from government as too independent and disruptive when Cameron first entered Downing Street. Yet when Coulson resigned, Cummings returned to the side of Gove at the Department for Education. He waged a war against Nick Clegg (calling him a “revolting character”), and caused uproar among civil servants due to his ill-concealed contempt for many of them. He was also to become a stern critic of David Cameron (whom he described as a “sphinx without a riddle”). During the EU referendum he clashed with a series of colleagues at Vote Leave, leading to a reprimand from his chief executive. But it is Cummings’s strategising that many say delivered Leave their extraordinary victory. He is said to be the man behind the “Take Back Control” slogan. FREE-MARKET GURU PATRICK MINFORD Chair of Economists for Brexit Nine out of 10 economists may have supported Britain remaining in the European Union, but macroeconomist Patrick Minford has stood apart. Minford, a supporter of the neoliberal theories of Milton Friedman, headed up Economists for Brexit, the eight-person group that claims the City of London will thrive, unemployment will fall and the trade deficit will narrow upon leaving the EU. Ukip leader Nigel Farage tweeted last year: “Professor Patrick Minford, a top economist, calculates that EU exit would bring the cost of living down immediately.” Minford doesn’t believe the UK should be part of the single market. Instead, a post-Brexit Britain should opt to remove all barriers to imports, leading to cheaper food, less expensive goods and stronger growth. Genuine free trade, it is claimed, would provide a growth boost of 4% of GDP within five years while helping the UK emerge unscathed from the immediate post-referendum turbulence. It is yet to be seen whether Minford has the ear of the Brexit politicians set to take the reins of power. LABOUR BREXITER DREDA SAY MITCHELL Writer A rare ethnic minority female voice who called for the UK to leave the EU – although she refused to join Vote Leave. “I’m not leave with Farage – I’m leave with Dennis Skinner, and a handful of other brave Labour MPs,” she wrote in an article for the . LABOUR LEAVE FINANCIER JOHN MILLS Donor A brother-in-law to Tessa Jowell, and a major donor to Labour before Jeremy Corbyn became leader, Mills is pushing Labour to change its policy on immigration and will continue to do so. He claims the party has become too close to the metropolitan elite. “There has been growing dissatisfaction among traditional working-class Labour voters, especially in the north of England.. “This is part of a wider problem. Many of these Labour voters feel the party has left them behind and does not respect their priorities and values., “This referendum result is pivotal for Labour, and it must be a trigger point for change.” he said after the result. FATHER OF THE MOVEMENT BILL CASH MP MP for Stone He was once regarded as something of an angry pub bore, but in recent days the veteran MP has morphed into an elder statesman, taking a moment yesterday to “pay tribute” to both sides of the House and the people “who have taken a principled stand”. But, as a figurehead of the Eurosceptic movement in the Conservative party, his intentions with regard to the Tory leadership couldn’t be clearer. “Whoever takes over [from David Cameron] … that person, I’m quite sure, will be a very, very clearly defined Brexiteer,” he told the BBC. KEY LABOUR LEAVER GISELA STUART MP for Birmingham Edgbaston The German-born MP has emerged as a powerful voice in the Leave campaign and a counterpoint in the party to Jeremy Corbyn’s liberal views on immigration. It is expected that she will have a role to play in negotiations with the European commission over the terms for Brexit. Her views on the EU were shaped by the experience of being appointed as one of the UK parliamentary representatives to the European convention, which was tasked with drawing up a new constitution for the European Union in 2001. TRUE-BLUE RIGHTWINGER PRITI PATEL Employment minister The former lobbyist caused a stir during the referendum campaign by suggesting the British economy would benefit from a cutting back of employment rights. She has also previously endorsed the return of capital punishment. In 2012 she was one of the so-called “young guns” from the new right of the party who called for a culture of “graft, risk and effort” to project Britain into the “super league” of nations. COMMENTATOR/ACTIVIST TIM MONTGOMERIE Times columnist A former adviser to Iain Duncan Smith, Montgomerie was eager for Rupert Murdoch’s paper to come out in favour of Leave. He expressed his disappointment in diplomatic but unmistakable terms when it went the other way. He is co-founder of the Centre for Social Justice, creator of the ConservativeHome site and describedseen as one of the most important Tory activists around. TABLOID FRIEND PAUL DACRE Editor of the Daily Mail Within the Mail stable of newspapers there has been an internal row over the referendum, in which Dacre has emerged more powerful for backing the winning campaign. The Mail on Sunday’s editor, Geordie Greig, plumped for supporting continued EU membership. Greaves is set to move to the daily. And Dacre’s vehement voice is probably only going to get stronger within and outside the organisation. It recently emerged that Dacre benefited from at least £88,000 in EU subsidies for his houses in Sussex and the Scottish Highlands in 2014. FREE-MARKET GURU RUTH LEA Economics adviser An adviser to Arbuthnot Banking Group, and formerly economics editor at ITN, Lea regularly appears on TV as a talking head on economics from a free-market position. Her preference is for the UK to join the European Free Trade Association of Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland, and hers will be an influential voice.
Drill, baby, drill? Tillerson for state Donald Trump nominated Rex Tillerson, the outgoing chairman of energy giant ExxonMobil, as secretary of state, praising his experience at negotiating contracts around the world. Critics raised concerns about Tillerson’s coziness with Russian president Vladimir Putin. Cabinet picks so far Trump canceled a news conference in which he had said he would describe his plan to remove himself from his business operations to avoid potential conflicts of interests in his presidency. Interests, conflicts Trump claimed that he is not required by law to divest from his business holdings. But the nonpartisan office of government ethics said precedent was for a president to “conduct himself ‘as if’ he were bound by this financial conflict of interest law”. It might take just a minute to catch up on the latest campaign news. But good journalism takes time and costs money. If you like the ’s politics coverage, please consider joining us by becoming a member for only $6.99 a month. Thanks for reading! Become a member Trump received Kanye West at Trump Tower. When asked what they spoke about, Trump replied: “Just friends, just friends. He’s a good man.” West tweeted that the pair discussed bullying, education and violence in his hometown of Chicago. ‘Talk about life’ An aide who advised Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta to click on a seemingly Russian-based phishing attack typed the email was “legitimate”. The aide meant to type “illegitimate”, the Times reported, “an error that he said has plagued him ever since”. Read the piece
Lush review – pithy indie chroniclers stage a confident comeback This is Lush’s first show in almost 20 years, so the nerves are understandable. “I was shitting myself yesterday,” admits singer and guitarist Miki Berenyi, still swearing like a trooper. Really though, you wouldn’t know she’s spent most of the intervening period as a magazine subeditor rather than a hard-gigging frontwoman. It’s a crisp, confident comeback from the early-90s indie stalwarts. Berenyi’s trademark fluorescent barnet is now a sober jet black – “no red hair, deal with it!” – and Justin Welch (once of Elastica) has replaced drummer Chris Acland, whose tragic suicide precipitated Lush’s split back in 1996. Otherwise, little has changed. Maybe because they haven’t spent the last two decades acquiring annoying muso habits, Lush sound almost exactly like they did when they were last in circulation. De Luxe remains brilliantly confounding, Hypocrite charmingly venomous, Lit Up a hit of pure sugary goodness. New song Out of Control slips into the set so snugly you’d be hard-pressed to tell it apart. The compliment is faintly double-edged – Lush have always written to a formula, albeit a pretty good one: off-kilter pop songs, distinguished by wobbly high harmonies and a glittery guitar haze. Despite being signed to 4AD, they were never too precious about their sonic cathedrals. It’s the quality and consistency of their songwriting that shines through here, and that’s without even playing Britpop-era hits Single Girl or 500 (Shake Baby Shake). Songs such as For Love and the dreamy, tormented Desire Lines may no longer represent the lives of Berenyi or her fellow frontwoman Emma Anderson, but they are reminders that Lush were pithy and vital chroniclers of the young female experience in the overwhelmingly blokey domain of alternative rock. It’s hard to tell at this stage whether Lush’s career will gain a prolonged second act, but this underrated band still have the power to inspire. Lush play Coachella festival, California on 16 and 23 April, then touring the US
Emma Stone to play JFK's eldest sister in tale of enforced lobotomy Emma Stone will star as John F Kennedy’s lesser-known eldest sister Rose Marie “Rosemary” Kennedy, who was lobotomised at the age of 23 after developing violent mood swings that threatened to embarrass her famous family. Letters From Rosemary will be based on a screenplay by first-time screenwriter Nick Yarborough which deals with events leading up to the lobotomy and its aftermath, according to Variety. The film does not yet have a director attached but is being backed by the Anonymous Content production company, which helped bring 2016 Oscar winners Spotlight and The Revenant to the big screen. Rosemary Kennedy, the firstborn daughter to Joseph Kennedy, Sr and Rose Fitzgerald, was one of the first mental health patients to undergo the controversial prefrontal lobotomy procedure in the US. The results of the operation were so disastrous that she spent the rest of her life in a facility called St Coletta of Wisconsin, having been left with a mental age of two. The biopic’s title may refer to the many diaries and letters written by Rosemary in her teens and early 20s, which were published in 1995 by former Kennedy family secretary Barbara Gibson. They reveal the young woman lived a full life, attending teas, dress fittings and social events. Rosemary was even presented to King George VI and Queen Elizabeth during her father’s service as US ambassador at the time of the second world war. In the wake of the botched operation, the famously ambitious Joseph Kennedy Sr told journalists that his daughter taught “retarded” children. Later, the family described Rosemary as “mentally retarded” or “handicapped”, rather than explaining what had happened to her. Many believe Eunice Kennedy Shriver founded the Special Olympics as a result of fondness for her sibling. Stone will next star in Damien Chazelle’s musical romance La La Land, opposite Ryan Gosling, and has been cast in the tennis biopic Battle of the Sexes.
Brexit or Bremain? Readers share the one argument that made up their mind There’s now less than a month to go before the EU referendum, but have you made up your mind on how to vote? It’s understandable if you’re still struggling to decide, given all the spurious facts and political in-fighting. But for many of us, one overriding fact or issue will have emerged that might ultimately determine our vote. We asked our readers to tell us which argument stands out for them above all the rest. There was a big response from readers (421 people responded) – here’s what they said. Peace in Europe Peter Thomas, 44, Carmarthenshire: We take peace for granted, it’s easy to forget our past What’s the big argument for staying? One word: peace. The referendum coincides with the centenaries of the battles of Verdun and the Somme in the first world war. The people who died in those battles serve as a poignant reminder of the genuine dangers when European nation states choose combat over compromise, and chauvinism over diplomacy. Today we take peace for granted. It’s easy to forget that until 1945, European history was one long, repetitive stream of spilled blood and internecine fighting every couple of generations. It’s vital that we continue to build on the trade, cooperation and relationship-building that have been brokered, peacefully, since 1945. For the UK, 42 of the 71 post-war years have been within the EU, and during that time we can be proud of Britain’s role in achieving widespread improvements in European wellbeing – from the integration of former dictatorships, through the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the welcoming of former Soviet bloc countries into the club, to the rise of the digital global economy. The EU has been a force for good in all these developments. Which begs the question: why allow Brexit to mess things up? Especially with a referendum that, like all referendums, will be influenced more by short-term populism and emotions (anti-immigrant, anti-Cameron, anti-Corbyn, anti-bureaucracy etc) rather than any reflective, rational decision-making on the nation’s mid- to long-term future. Asher Baker, 27, London: The EU was set up as an antidote to extreme nationalism Many want to leave the EU to become a supposedly “independent and Great Britain once more”. But realistically, if we leave that’s not going to happen. Britain has been in “splendid isolation” before – during another period of rapid, fantastical change and industrial upheaval. Of course, out of these efforts to protect our empire we saw a naval race, several arms races and two world wars resulting in millions of deaths. You might say that was a different time, but it was a mere century ago. As long as governments, particularly western ones, are selfish and greedy and constantly seeking to line their pockets in the name of economic growth, there will always be conquest and conflict. The EU was set up as an antidote to the extreme nationalism that devastated the continent for decades. That’s worth protecting. The economy Harshini Andugulapati, 19, Nottingham: I worry about the job market As a student who will graduate in the next three to four years, the economy, and more specifically the job market, is what’s influencing my decision most. It is the seed from which all other factors such as culture and the environment will grow and flourish. Apart from the myriad econometric models and studies that conclude that Brexit would indeed make us worse off, I feel this way because of a lack of strong argument from the outers, who simply refuse to recognise the almost inevitable short-term economic costs of Brexit. Indeed, since the Tories have proved their unfathomable disdain for the youth of this country, it is almost certain that we would be the ones who would suffer the most. Since Vote Leave won’t even come clean about what its preferred alternative to EU membership is, the notion that in the post-referendum political chaos Britain could really reach this undefined utopia, where everything will ostensibly be “better” or even the same, is fanciful. I will most certainly vote to stay in. The only proposition that could change my mind would be if David Cameron issued a statement promising to resign and emigrate to the south of France if things didn’t go according to plan. Roger Kirkham, 51, Ipswich: If we leave, we’re taking a huge gamble When the British economy performs badly, it affects almost every aspect of our lives. Everything becomes more difficult and less enjoyable. The poorest people in our society suffer the most, but a recession or years of low growth is tough for everyone. We already know what it’s like to be in the EU. We know that it’s possible for Britain to do well as part of it and that in the past (eg the 1990s) we’ve achieved high levels of growth and prosperity. I suppose some huge EU scandal might change my mind, but I’ve listened to various economic experts, people like Christine Lagarde, the head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), who said that Britain leaving the EU could cause a stock market crash, and Mark Carney, the governor of the Bank of England, who said that a Brexit vote might spark a recession. These voices and that of Barack Obama have all convinced me. The EU has its faults, don’t get me wrong, and its failure to act decisively during the wars in the former Yugoslavia was criminal. But I still think overall we’re better being a part of it, although we should never join the single currency. If we leave the EU we’re taking a huge gamble. It might be the best thing we ever did, it might be the worst. But we’re swapping a known quantity for the unknown, which seems to me at best reckless, at worst foolish. Kate Henderson, 21, Newcastle: There are benefits to the free market There are significant benefits to the free market, as have been proven due to existing institutions. All competing claims by Brexit campaigners are guesswork, they have no proof to substantiate any of their claims. Even if we left the EU, in order to continue trading, we would have to comply with its regulations, but we would have no say in how these regulations were implemented. David Stutchbury: Leave doesn’t have anything to prove its case The UK economy is doing OK in the EU and no one knows what would happen if we left. The risks of leaving (which include our GDP going down for the next five years) far outweigh any perceived benefits to the economy. Leave doesn’t really have anything to prove its case on economy, whereas we know that in the EU the UK has the fifth strongest economy in the world. What extra proof do we need that it’s working? If we were to leave I would be most worried about the possibility of credit agencies reducing our rating, which would increase our debt costs. Immigration is also a net contributor to our GDP so reducing it will reduce our wealth. I am voting in and nothing will change this unless I lose my mind over the next few weeks. Sovereignty and democracy Elliot Myers, 25, London: The EU lacks transparency and democracy My vote is not on immigration, nor is it on economics. It’s on upholding the central value that is the foundation of western civilisation: democracy. There are many merits to the EU but a transparent and accountable democratic process isn’t one – 28 unelected EU commissioners decide on laws and regulations ranging from fishing to finance and do so without the worry of the ballot box. In Britain we expect the elected parliament to draft laws and for the unelected House of Lords to scrutinise them. In the EU the reverse occurs with the unelected commission drafting laws and pushing the agenda for the elected parliament to enact them. The two unelected chambers have the majority of legislative power, whereas the elected parliament has limited power. I believe this undermines the democratic legitimacy of the EU. British fishermen have complained for years that EU regulations have hurt the industry yet their protests are futile. The government can’t veto the regulation nor can the UK electorate apply political pressure through the ballot box. Ian Pexton, 45, London: The basic principle of democracy must be paramount Sovereignty is the fundamental argument here. All other arguments are important (immigration, culture, economy etc) but all of those subjects find their roots in the argument of sovereignty and democratic accountability. As a country, in order to maintain peace and stability, the basic principle of democracy must be paramount. Nothing is likely to cause trouble and violent dissent faster than taking away the ability of the population to decide its own future (which will happen if power remains in Brussels), especially in economically dicey times. Family John Dowling, 43, Sussex: Without Europe my family simply wouldn’t exist I emigrated from Ireland to Germany as a teenager and received a great opportunity through freedom of movement. My wife has a French father and German mother, all our children were born in Germany and now we live in the UK. Incidentally, the UK is one of the most welcoming places I’ve lived, while at the same time I have never felt so unwanted by politicians’ rhetoric. People in the UK are so friendly and helpful but since I came here in 2013 it has seemed politicians have been trying to outdo each other in bringing down migration. There has been very little talk about the fact that immigrants aren’t here to just get benefits and milk the system. Without Europe, my family simply wouldn’t exist. To me, that is so much more fundamental than the economy. Enya, 41, south-east London: My family is about reaching across cultural divides It is sad that we all fought to keep Europe free and now we want to separate ourselves from Europe. By leaving we are saying we don’t think we can work together. My family is African and some members helped fight during the second world war. Apart from that, my immediate family are American and I am married to a Brit. My entire family is about reaching across cultural divides. My husband’s dad and mum live in Brussels and France respectively. His uncles live in Scotland, Munich, and Toulouse, and my brother has links in Norway and Berlin. Many families have links like this and leaving the EU would be very complicated. Families will be divided or find it harder to see each other. The environment Jessica Horner, 23, Plymouth: The EU protects important species and specialist areas More than 80% of our environmental policies originate from the European Union, and without the influence of Europe I do not trust the current government to promote green policies. Environmental issues also cross national borders, so we must respond with international measures. I attended a talk recently and heard from a member of Friends of the Earth about the protection the EU gives to many important species and specialist areas. The EU is also putting pressure on its member states to reduce air pollution, which is a significant cause of premature death. As well as this, there are fears Brexit would lead to development on sites which are currently protected under the Natura 2000 scheme. In 2013 the EU also voted to restrict the use of neonicotinoid pesticides, despite the UK government dismissing scientific evidence of the harm they cause to pollinators. I worry that if we leave the EU it could take us years, maybe even decades, to regain a similar level of protection for our environment. The future Don MacCallum, 62, Isleworth: The world has moved on since the days of the empire Europe represents a great adventure for the future. To leave it now (or at any time) would be a catastrophic error in my opinion, with dire consequences for succeeding generations in addition to being both unimaginative and irresponsible. Ask many Brexiteers why they wish to leave and they are often unable to articulate their reasons for doing so other than a vague notion that Britain will regain status and become somehow stronger as a consequence. They are perhaps conveniently forgetting that the world has moved on since the days of the empire and has become increasingly regionalised and globalised. It would be disappointing and demoralising if Britain were to find itself left on the outside looking in as it was in the 1950s and 1960s. Solidarity Andy Smith, 61: We have an obligation to our European colleagues When you marry you make a solid commitment to the other party, thick or thin – divorce should only be contemplated if the situation is truly intolerable and all other avenues have been explored. The Brexit debate focused on whether we in the UK will be better off short or long term, in or out, is misplaced; we have an obligation to our European colleagues. Yes, there’s plenty wrong with EU governance so let’s use our influence to improve it. Culture Teresa Horan, 57, London: I am proud of our European cultural identity I am very proud of our open British culture, so why would we want to dilute it and come out of Europe? I am a Londoner and one of the things I am most proud about is the fact that the capital is such a diverse city – that’s what makes it so rich. I would like to believe that by staying in Europe we can protect the arts and other creative industries. There is a lot of scaremongering around Brexit but ultimately that’s exactly what it is: scaremongering. We are better and more culturally rich together. Immigration Alex Hobson, 26: I don’t want this country to become a platform for racist bigotry I find the immigration argument to be the one influencing my sway the most at this juncture. Not because I agree with it, but because of how heavily I disagree. In my opinion the argument that we need to halt immigrants coming from Europe is outdated and ignorant and ignores key facts, such as the fact that Brexit might not mean any change in immigration. Also, I don’t want to see this country become a platform for racist bigotry in the wake of our leaving the EU. Brexit would only reinforce and strengthen a British nationalism that has been stirred up by a referendum brought about by nothing more than career politicians. This doesn’t make me want to vote remain necessarily, but it makes me not want to vote to leave. Anonymous, 35, London: I am in favour of immigration, but not in its current form I am an immigrant to this country and so are many of my friends. I am heavily in favour of immigration, but not in its current form. It’s because of this that I am voting Brexit. I don’t believe that 330,000 immigrants a year is sustainable, particularly because we seem unable to address issues such as transport congestion, and housing supply in any reasonable time-frame. Housing is a major concern. I don’t believe that it is possible for this country to build enough homes to address this problem. In the area in which I live local residents are totally opposed to, and bitterly resent, new housing developments which they believe are changing the face of their city. Every planning application results in an almighty battle with residents and this problem exists all over the UK. Accepting almost unlimited numbers of unskilled workers is not sustainable.
Donald Trump is vetting women for vice-president. That won't fool us Donald Trump’s woman problem is common knowledge – his misogyny may be the one consistent, comprehensive thread throughout his campaign. It spans his insults aimed at Hillary Clinton, to his run-ins with Megyn Kelly, to his Twitter spat with Elizabeth Warren, to his comments about punishing women who get abortions. Just this week, he told Bill O’Reilly that, as president, he would appoint conservative justices to the US supreme court in attempts to overturn Roe v Wade. This kind of rhetoric on gender has been destructive and dangerously regressive, and women across the political spectrum have responded by mostly refusing to support his candidacy. Now, however, word is leaking that Trump is considering both former Arizona Governor Jan Brewer and Iowa Senator Joni Ernst – both of these people are women – as his potential vice- presidential pick. There’s no question that living in the perpetual present has worked for Trump so far, as he flip-flopped his way to the Republican nomination. His latest tweet serves as the best delineation of the current Trump stance on any given issue. But does he really think that 50.4% of Americans have such a short attention span that they’ll forget his constant demeaning and his insults at the sight of a female running mate? Because I can promise you: we won’t. For months now, Trump has disparaged every woman that crossed his path, from accomplished, privileged politicians like Clinton and Warren to women in the most abject of circumstances. According to the Guttmacher Institute, 75% of abortion patients are poor or low-income women, living anywhere between 199 and 100% of the federal poverty level. Attacks on women’s rights to abortion care is an attack on women who are already struggling. Economic justice, economic opportunity and reproductive justice all go hand-in-hand. A failure to see this – or seeing it and supporting policies that hurt women anyway – betrays a regressive worldview that speaks volumes about how Trump might see a host of other issues, from marriage equality to the environment. Reproductive rights, in addition to providing critical healthcare choices for women, also represent a woman’s ability to be autonomous, to be able to make her own decisions about what is good and right for her. Opposing reproductive rights clearly states that you do not believe that women could or should have this ability – if a woman can’t make her own healthcare decisions, well, she certainly shouldn’t have access to the nuclear codes. (Not that Trump’s lady veep would ever have such access – his health is stellar!) There’s a reason women and minorities have refused to endorse Trump’s takeover of the Republican party. He not only speaks in thinly veiled white supremacist code – make America great again! – he also never misses an opportunity to stoke the flames of a gender war, implying that men ought to gird their loins against the threat of women’s agency. That includes his likely opponent in the general election. And it would include any woman he might pick as his running mate. Allowing her to smile in his shadow doesn’t make any of this less true.
Uncertainty in the property market gives rise to the Brexit clause With a month to go until the EU referendum, there are signs that property investors have growing concerns about the possible impact of a leave vote. City law firm Nabarro said on Friday that commercial property investors were adding “Brexit clauses” to contracts that will allow them to pull out of deals if the UK votes to leave on 23 June. Next week, a new phase of a luxury flat development in south London will go on the market with a “Brexit pledge” for worried buyers. A poll of UK and global property investors with holdings worth £350bn found that more than two-thirds were pessimistic about the outlook for property values if the leave campaign wins, Nabarro said. As a result, said senior partner Ciaran Carvalho, investors in commercial property, including office and shop developments, were taking precautions. “We have seen a marked increase in the number of contracts which include clauses to protect the position of buyers investing in UK real estate ahead of the referendum,” he said. Investors are paying deposits that they will get back if leave wins. “Brexit is a leap into the unknown,” Carvalho said. “Brexit clauses are a pragmatic, legal response to that uncertainty.” Residential developer Oakmayne Properties is launching 42 apartments in Two Fifty One, a 41-storey building in the middle of the Elephant and Castle redevelopment in south London, at an event at the Shard. Prices start at £655,000 for a one-bedroom flat and buyers who put down a £2,000 reservation fee will be able to get the money back if they are unhappy with the referendum result. David Humbles, the Oakmayne managing director, said: “Buyers will not be required to exchange contracts until after the vote. If they don’t like the result, whichever way it goes, they will have the right to withdraw and have their reservation fee refunded in full.” The move comes as commercial and residential property markets start to show jitters ahead of the vote. All sectors of the market are now affected. Residential The Office for National Statistics (ONS) reported on Tuesday a 2.5% rise in house prices in March, bringing the average cost of a home to £291,820. However, the latest survey of estate agents by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (Rics) suggests that the mood has altered – partly as a result of the stamp duty changes that took effect in April and prompted landlords to bring forward purchases, and partly as a result of the forthcoming EU vote – although referendum effects are mostly focused on London. George Osborne warned on Friday that in the case of a vote to leave the EU, values would take a hit of 10%-18% compared with values expected if the UK stays. The government has also said mortgages would become more expensive following a Brexit, as interest rates are likely to rise. Henry Pryor, a buying agent for wealthy clients, said the market had slowed markedly. “Buyers don’t want to commit to something that could be cheaper on 24 June and sellers don’t feel inclined to take less for their home than their neighbour achieved six months ago. The result? Falling transactions, fuelling talk of plummeting prices,” he said. Howard Archer, the chief UK economist at IHS Global Insight, said he expected the market to be quiet in the runup to 23 June. “I think the market will be subdued until the referendum and will pick up after that if we vote to stay,” he said. “If we vote to leave, I am pretty pessimistic about the housing market ... there will be a shock and I think the market will stay pretty weak for some time after that.” This is backed by ratings agency Moody’s, which said a Brexit vote would be good news for first-time buyers, particularly in London. Gaby Trinkaus, a senior analyst at Moody’s, said: “First-time buyers would benefit from lower competition, as house price and rental inflation would slow down if immigration is curbed.” One issue, however, could be labour in the construction market, with builders including Barratt warning that an end to free movement of workers could slow down the supply of new homes. Commercial Britain’s biggest listed property developer, Land Securities, responsible for the Walkie Talkie skyscraper in London and retail spaces such as Bluewater in Kent and Gunwharf Quays in Portsmouth, said this week it had sold more than £1bn of its assets because of growing risks to the UK market, including the chance of a Brexit vote. Its chief executive, Rob Noel, said a leave vote would lead to “falling rental values and a reduction in construction commitments, particularly in London. An exit could be painful for the property industry and those it supports.” The last last commercial property report from Rics found that demand for UK offices and shops from international companies had fallen since the referendum was announced, while a report from the Bank of England said there had already been a marked slowdown in commercial real estate investment deals in London. Mat Oakley, the director of commercial research at Savills, said £13.5bn of commercial transactions took place in the first quarter of the year – down from £18.5bn in the first three months of 2015. That is still way above the long-term average of £9.5bn, but he said: “There are certain buyers who aren’t moving at the moment. UK pension funds and insurance companies are less active and expected to remain so in the runup to the referendum. Other investors are seeing it as an opportunity though, particularly non-domestic investors.” The impact of the referendum was mostly being felt in London, Oakley said, but a remain vote would probably prompt a new burst of activity: “I think we will have a ‘Brelief’ bounce.” Property investment funds In recent weeks, several of the UK’s biggest property investment funds have changed their pricing so investors who want to cash in their holdings will get a less lucrative deal. The changes to commercial property funds run by Henderson, M&G and Standard Life mean those coming out of the fund receive about 5% less than under the old pricing structure, to discourage cashing out. M&G said it was forecasting good returns from commercial property, but that the decision was “a reflection of current flows ... designed to ensure equitable treatment for transacting clients and those who remain invested”.
Twitter suspends CEO Jack Dorsey's account In the wake of the US elections, with the rise of the “alt-right” blamed for the easy ride the far right have had on social media, Twitter is eager to prove that it can police its own borders. Perhaps too eager. Overnight, the social network suspended its own chief executive and co-founder, Jack Dorsey. A couple of hours later, Dorsey was back, blaming an “internal mistake” for his account suspension, and attempting to make light of it with a call back to both his and the service’s very first tweet. Hours later, there remain some odd effects around the suspension. Dorsey has lost almost 700,000 followers, if the public counts before and after his suspension are accurate. Dorsey’s self-imposed ban follows a more deliberate crackdown of far-right accounts on the network. Last week, a number of American far right leaders found their accounts disabled for hate speech, including the white nationalist Richard Spencer, the self-styled “founder of the alt-right”, who led a conference a few days later at which supporters gave Nazi salutes.
Brexit economy: inflation surge shows impact of vote finally beginning to bite Britain’s vote to leave the EU is finally feeding through to the UK economy, according to a analysis that shows rising inflation is offsetting brisk trade for businesses. Buoyant consumer spending, a low unemployment rate, rising house prices and continued growth for the country’s dominant services sector point to a strong finish to the year, defying earlier forecasts from the Bank of England and others that the economy would grind to a standstill. But worries are growing over prospects for 2017 as signs emerge that the Brexit vote’s blow to the pound is stoking inflation and hitting people’s spending power. As the starting date for negotiations over leaving the EU approaches, the pound has come under fresh pressure in recent weeks and been prone to further downward lurches with every political mention of Brexit – most recently from Scotland’s first minister Nicola Sturgeon raising the prospect of a new independence vote for Scotland. To track the impact of the Brexit vote on a monthly basis, the has chosen eight economic indicators, along with the value of the pound and the performance of the FTSE. The dashboard for December shows a better than expected performance in four of the eight categories. Two were as expected, one was worse and inflation was higher than economists had forecast, fanning fears that household budgets will be squeezed by higher prices next year. Six months on from the vote to leave the EU, the latest batch of figures show wage growth remains solid, headline unemployment remains low, business activity continues to expand and house prices are still rising. The FTSE 100 leading share index is close to an all-time high hit in October and the more domestically focused FTSE midcap index is above its pre-referendum level. But the pace of hiring has slowed, retail sales growth has eased off and inflation is at a two-year high as the weak pound raises the cost of imports to the UK. The public finances were in a worse state than forecast in November and, looking ahead, they are expected to be in deficit for far longer than had been predicted before the referendum. Britain’s trading position improved more than expected in the latest monthly figures but substantial revisions to earlier data show the trade gap with the rest of the world ballooned to a near three-year high in the three months following the referendum. Economists point to several indicators suggesting negative effects of the Brexit vote could be more keenly felt in 2017. Surveys and business investment figures suggest British-based firms are more reluctant to spend. Consumers have become more cautious and they expect inflation to quicken over the coming year. Writing in the , a former member of the Bank’s monetary policy committee, David Blanchflower, said some of the data since the Brexit vote had come in better than he had feared but that there were signs this could be as good as it gets for the economy. “Business confidence is low and there is evidence that optimism is falling among businesses and consumers. My suspicion is that the news is not going to get better,” said Blanchflower, professor of economics at Dartmouth College in the US. “The consumer has held up pretty well and still seems to be spending and GDP growth at 0.5% is not to be sneezed at. But the fall in the pound and the steady rise in inflation because of the rise in import prices was always going to have an impact,” he added. A report from the Bank of England’s regional agents on Wednesday flagged the impact of higher import prices on inflation. But the agents – the Bank’s eyes and ears on the ground – noted silver linings from the weaker pound. Tourist spending was rising and exports had also been helped by the currency’s fall, which makes UK goods more competitive overseas. Since the last dashboard, the government’s independent forecasters at the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) have published a new outlook for the the economy. They predict weaker business spending and a squeeze on consumers from higher inflation will dent the economy next year, but warnings for a post-referendum recession should prove unfounded. Publishing its forecasts alongside Philip Hammond’s autumn statement of tax and spending measures, the OBR said the economy would likely expand by just 1.4% in 2017, compared with the 2.2% it had predicted before the referendum. Hammond, was quick to point out that even that lower growth would still leave Britain outperforming France and Italy next year and possibly Germany too. Andrew Sentance, also a former member of the MPC, said the signs of weaker investment and employment and a squeeze on consumer spending pointed to slower growth for the UK economy next year. But much depended on the country’s key trading partners, the rest of the EU and the US, Sentance wrote in the . “Current forecasts suggest that Europe and the US will continue to grow reasonably well in 2017, which will help temper the UK slowdown. Next year may not be so bad for the UK after all, but we will need a reasonably healthy global economy to keep us moving forward.” Experts have warned that the potential Brexit blow to the economy, coupled with the government’s continued push to bring down spending will leave many households struggling with lower incomes next year. Mark Carney, the governor of the Bank of England, has warned that the UK is suffering its “first lost decade since the 1860s” and highlighted a squeeze on household budgets that predates the referendum. Respected thinktank the Institute for Fiscal Studies said workers in Britain face the longest squeeze on their pay for 70 years. This week, the Resolution Foundation thinktank warned the UK faces the risk next year of a return to the squeeze in real pay suffered earlier in the decade. It said 2015-16 had been the fastest year of real wage growth since 2001 but said the combination of low inflation and strongly rising employment would not be repeated. For the housing market, forecasters expect a slowdown next year. A longstanding shortage of homes will mean prices keep rising but at a much more modest pace of 3%, predicts the the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. Property firm Savills has suggested that prices will remain flat across the UK. The UK’s largest building society, Nationwide, expects the UK average price to increase by 2% over the year, below the rate of growth it has reported in 2016.
Blaine Harrison's playlist: Declan McKenna, Daughter, David Gilmour and more Declan McKenna – Paracetamol I was introduced to Declan’s music by a friend of the band last year and was immediately taken by his song Brazil. Here was a 15-year-old kid with the ability to write poignant lyrics about the misappropriation of wealth in that country around the time of the World Cup. I connected with the spirit of the song. Paracetamol is a song made of the same substance, but has a vulnerability to it reminiscent of the great songs Daniel Johnston used to sing into a tape recorder in his parents’ basement. We took Declan out to eat pizza in London and when he turned up dressed like the Karate Kid we immediately decided he had to open for us on our tour. Screaming Peaches – Sad Kid Someone first played me this song on a broken iPhone in the back of an Uber and I immediately liked the way they spelled out their lyrics (who doesn’t like spelled out lyrics?), but then all of a sudden someone else started listening to something completely different on their phone in the front of the car and I couldn’t tell what was being spelled out anymore and got very confused. When I arrived home I looked them up and realised I’d inadvertently been a fan for longer than I thought under their previous moniker, MOVIE. If I wasn’t so lazy I would re-organise my record collection and find a nice slot for them between something like The Chap and Darts of Pleasure-era Franz Ferdinand. I’m not sure anyone really knows what pop music is or isn’t anymore, but this song has a cheeky riff and is catchy as hell. Gaz Coombes – Needle’s Eye I can remember Supergrass’s first album coming out like it was yesterday, their otherworldly faces staring down at me from the covers of magazines in French supermarkets on summer holidays. And what a live force they were, too, like the best bits of every 60s band – the instruments seemingly racing each other to the finishing line of each song. We had the privilege of getting to know Gaz on the festival circuit while touring our last album Radlands and we became huge fans of his second solo release, Matador, when it came out. Detroit was one of, if not the, best song of last year but I’m going to pick another from the same record. With a backbone provided by a morse-code bassline and these huge emotive lyrics, Needle’s Eye feels equally honest and urgent – like the kind of song he needed to live before he could write it. Daughter – Doing the Right Thing Long car journeys have always been synonymous with music for me, and I can vividly remember my dad playing me Lou Reed’s Satelite of Love en route to the airport when I was a kid. I was welling up, sad to be leaving him and had never flown alone before when he put this song on, as if showing me that music was able to articulate something beyond words. Leaving something behind, watching the past disappear in the rear view mirror. I soon became addicted to that feeling. I spend a lot of time driving around London and once in a while a song will come on the radio that catches you off guard and somehow perfectly crystallises a place and moment in time. I had one of those with this song, driving to visit an elderly relative one frosty winter morning last year. The lyrics painted a picture of something very familiar to me at that time, loosing someone close to you to something you don’t understand. Mesmerising. David Gilmour - There’s No Way Out Of Here Growing up, my parents’ friends had a son who was about 10 years older than me and epitomised everything I wanted to be when I grew up into a teenager. His room smelled like a heady mix of CK one and fags, he had one of those giant Swatch watches on his wall – and the Turin Shroud to any nine-year-old in the 90s: a black Fender Stratocaster. As it also turned out, after some digging around in his cupboards when he was away one weekend, he also had a great CD collection (all the Oasis singles, all the Shine compilations etc). I’ve only ever stolen once in my life, and I will admit here and now that his copy of A Collection of Great Dance Songs by Pink Floyd was that one time (sorry, mate, but actually it changed my life forever, so thank you). Pink Floyd’s shores have been colonised to the point of exhaustion, but Dave Gilmour’s first solo album was one stone I’d never thought to turn over. It became something of an anthem for us during the recording of our new album Curve of the Earth, and most importantly, it was written at his absolute peak, when he looked like a hot girl. So much so, in fact, that the world neglected to notice that he wore the same Guinness Stout T-shirt for the entirety of the Dark Side of the Moon tour. Baller.
Can Hillary Clinton tap into Donald Trump's support base? Donald Trump is a populist. That adjective might have once seemed like a surprising one to use for the New York billionaire, but polling shows it’s become increasingly hard to refute – and Hillary Clinton’s team are starting to study the numbers to understand why. In New Hampshire, where Trump crushed his opponents with more than twice as many votes as anyone else, exit polls revealed 50% of voters wanted the next president to “be from outside the political establishment”. No surprises then that this is also a state where Bernie Sanders easily beat Clinton. Trump’s outsider status helps explain why the candidate has continued to defy expectations. Each time data analysts have written off Trump’s chances, they’ve failed to calculate his ability to deepen his support among existing supporters while at the same time broadening his demographic base. Hillary Clinton’s team can no longer afford to make the same mistake. An article in the New York Times this week claimed that “Democrats are poring over polling data to understand the roots of Mr. Trump’s populist appeal”. So what exactly does Trump’s current support base look like, and how does it compare to Hillary’s? The last major poll to look into this was conducted by CNN and ORC between 24-27 February and had 1,001 respondents. The results show that Trump supporters are more likely to be white, male and live in rural parts of America – and that the exact reverse is true for Clinton’s support base. As a fellow outsider, Bernie Sanders is relevant here too – the patterns of his support are almost identical to Trump’s with the exception that they’re more likely to skew urban. In a way, the story of the Vermont senator’s astronomical rise (despite his recent plateau) is the story of the Democrats that Clinton hasn’t managed to attract. That inability is partly about association – and it’s not just her Wall Street ties. That same CNN/ORC poll also asked what respondents thought about Bill Clinton and found that those who were white, male or from rural areas were most likely to check the box marked “unfavorable opinion”. The association with her husband might be hard to break. A more realistic strategy for her to compete with the populist candidates might be to identify the policy areas that appeal to their supporters. There too polling offers some insights. Respondents were asked “thinking about all the major candidates still running for the presidency, regardless of whom you support, which one do you think would do the best job handling” a range of different topics in the CNN/ORC poll. The gap between candidates was largest on two issues: the economy (where 38% of respondents chose Trump and 25% chose Clinton) and race relations (29% Clinton, 16% Trump). That parallel gap seems all the more striking when you consider Trump’s quotes on the issue. But there’s reason for Hillary to be hopeful: betting markets and pollsters currently think that in a race between Clinton and Trump in 2016, Clinton will win. So she is safe for now – the only only problem is, she’s safe in the meaningless universe of March hypotheticals on a November election. If Trump’s populism hasn’t yet reached its maximum, and if America’s appetite for anti-establishment candidates continues to grow, the former secretary of state may yet be in trouble.
Cancer drug appraisal needs to be reviewed Sarah Boseley’s article (Cancer drug companies cut prices to win NHS approval, 18 August) is a welcome demonstration of how serious the UK pharmaceutical industry is about doing everything possible to ensure cancer patients get access to much needed medicines, yet it fails to offer a rounded perspective on affordability and drugs availability in the NHS. Our industry is acutely aware that our health service has limited money to treat millions of patients with wide-ranging medical conditions, but continuing to cut prices may not be sustainable into the future and is no silver bullet. Our industry is playing its part. A long established deal has already seen drugs companies pay back more than £1.3bn to the government in the last 18 months to help keep NHS spending on medicines affordable. Medicines and vaccines offer some of the best - and most cost-effective – measures we have of preventing, managing and eliminating the world’s most debilitating diseases, but whether or not these successfully reach NHS patients requires fundamental changes to the way medicines are appraised, and how they eventually become adopted and used. By over-relying on the Quality-adjusted Life Year as National Institute for Health and Care Excellence’s main measure of value, many cancer medicines are disadvantaged. More flexibility, as is seen in other countries, is needed. Nice’s basic cost-effectiveness threshold for assessing value for money is also more than 15 years old and has not kept pace with either the cost of R&D or the NHS budget. With cancer medicines now more effective than ever, we are seeing scenarios where some new medicines used in combination with established treatments would, perversely, be rejected by Nice even if they were given away free due to the fact that patients are living longer. With 7,000 new medicines in the pipeline in Europe today our industry delivers real innovation for patients. To make sure that the most effective of these are adopted and made available, companies need to offer value for money and the health system needs to ensure that assessment methods are fit for purpose. This is crucial if we are serious about delivering a world-class health service now – and into the future. Dr Richard Torbett Executive director, commercial, Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
Here's why there are no 'good' or 'bad' drugs – not even heroin Before she found heroin, Allison could not get out of bed most mornings. She contemplated suicide. She saw herself as “a shitty lazy person who felt like crap all the time”. She was deeply depressed, and no wonder. As she explained in an interview with NPR last month, in slow, halting sentences, she’d been molested by three family members by the age of 15. One of the three was her father. Listening to Allison recount the horrors of her young life, most of us feel great pity. If we were psychiatrists, we’d need little justification to prescribe any drug that might help alleviate her suffering. We’d probably start at one end of the long list of approved antidepressants – and keep going. But heroin? Heroin, Allison explained, “made me feel as if I could get up and do something”. She could function. “I was great at my job ... and I was doing art on the side. I had energy for the first time in I don’t know how long.” In other words, she had vanquished her depression – with an illegal, highly addictive, “recreational” drug that she bought off the street. It would be wrong to deny that many heroin users suffer great harm as a result of the position their addiction places them in. And I would advise anyone who experiences debilitating depression to seek professional help. But it would also be wrong to classify strong opioid drugs, and other substances currently disparaged by our society, as intrinsically “bad” or “evil”. In some parts of the world, people seem to be getting smarter about recreational drugs. For a couple generations, “soft” drugs like marijuana and hashish have been increasingly tolerated, more broadly viewed as socially acceptable and, finally, in several European countries and a few American states, legalized. And why not? These drugs help people relax, enjoy music and philosophize. In fact, pot is far safer than booze in every respect. It makes you silly but not aggressive, it has none of the well-documented health risks of alcohol, it’s far less likely to lead to accidents, and it’s not generally addictive, psychologically or otherwise. (Some people do end up with a cannabis habit that hampers clear thinking and short-term memory, but these effects disappear when they cut down or stop.) Then come the psychedelic drugs: LSD, psilocybin mushrooms, mescaline and the currently stylish (in some circles) ayahuasca. There is ongoing debate about whether psychedelics are good, bad, safe or unsafe. But compare that dialogue to the tyrannical edicts of the 60s. When I was an 18-year-old in Berkeley, California, in 1969, my friends and I had wrenchingly beautiful interactions with forests, seascapes, music, and each other – on acid. Like Aldous Huxley and other intellectuals, we saw psychedelics as a gateway to a more inclusive, less self-centered sense of reality. We generally couldn’t share those views with our parents nor, certainly, with the police or the courts. Yet despite that, societal views were in flux. In fact, the promise of psychedelic psychotherapy has intrigued scientists and clinicians for decades. A recent wave of research suggests that psychedelics can relieve psychological suffering, from depression, anxiety, PTSD and alcoholism to end-of-life fears. Presently, thousands of young people from North America and Europe are trying ayahuasca, a powerful psychedelic used for self-growth and healing by indigenous cultures in the Amazon region. Like their hippie predecessors, many of these “psychonauts” feel they’ve gained something essential from the experience: a broader vision of reality, connection with other people and cultures, a bond with the planet and a commitment to its wellbeing. Well, maybe the soft drugs are better than booze, and psychedelics have greater potential for good than for harm. But what about drugs such as heroin, methamphetamine and cocaine? In keeping with the punitive policies of the DEA, and the battle cry of the “war on drugs”, most of us still see these drugs as unequivocally bad. Indeed, heroin and meth lead to addiction – and to misbehaviours ranging from lying and petty theft to full on criminality. After years as an addiction expert and a one-time addict, I recognize how dangerous these drugs can be. And I know that the cycling of desire, acquisition and loss leads not only to compulsive drug seeking (and associated brain changes) but also to a narrowing spiral of social isolation, shame, and remorse. Can there be anything good about drugs that are often too attractive to resist? For Allison, the good was undeniable. Heroin helped her overcome a depression that very likely arose from her history of sexual abuse, a trauma that left PTSD in its wake and drained her life of joy, functionality, and any semblance of normality. Allison represents the rule rather than the exception. PTSD often triggers anxiety and depression, and substance abuse is as high as 60–80% among those with PTSD. In fact, the largest epidemiological study ever conducted found an extremely strong correlation between the degree of childhood adversity and injection drug use. When Allison got tired of heroin, she was able to quit, as most addicts eventually do. She found a psychiatrist and learned to live without it, though she reports that she continues to rely on antidepressants. The point is that, for her, heroin was an antidepressant – a very effective one. It shouldn’t be surprising that a powerful opiate can help people overcome psychological pain. Opioids are critical neurochemicals, helping mammals to function in spite of pain, stress and panic. Rodents play and socialize far more easily after being given opiates. Opioids are even present in mother’s milk: they are nature’s way of ensuring an emotional bond between infant and mother. Opiates might be too attractive for some people some of the time; obviously addiction is a serious concern. But that doesn’t make opiates intrinsically bad. I doubt whether there’s much to recommend meth for today’s youth, and clearly meth and coke can destroy lives. But coca leaves were used to overcome fatigue in Latin America for centuries before Europeans figured out how to turn them into cocaine. Like opiates, it seems that stimulants can be of benefit in particular contexts. It becomes impossible to define the “goodness” or “badness” of drugs according to drug type – in the abstract. Rather, the balance between potential help and potential harm depends on the person and the circumstances. The human nervous system is an incredibly complicated chemistry set, and we experiment with it continuously through our actions, our loves, the things we eat and drink, and, yes, the substances we ingest for that specific purpose. Tinkering with our nervous system is a direct expression of our ingenuity and our fundamental drive for self-improvement. We’re not likely to give those up. The failure of the “war on drugs” should help us recognize that people will never willingly stop taking drugs and exploring their benefits and limitations. It’s ridiculous to deal with this human proclivity by labelling most or all drugs as “bad”. And it’s absurd to mete out punishment as a means for eliminating the drugs we don’t like. Instead, let’s expand our knowledge of drugs through research and subjective reports, let’s protect ourselves against the dangers of overdose and addiction, and let’s improve the lives of children raised in ghastly circumstances. Then the problem of “bad drugs” will no longer be a problem.
José Mourinho criticises ‘cautious’ Liverpool after bore draw at Anfield José Mourinho accused Liverpool of being the cautious team in a dour goalless draw and insisted Manchester United’s meagre possession statistics represented a problem for Jürgen Klopp only. United nullified a Liverpool side who had scored nine goals in their previous two home games, with Mourinho selecting a defensive line-up and seeking to hit the lone striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic with the long ball. Juan Mata, Jesse Lingard and Wayne Rooney were all on the bench while Anthony Martial was absent due to a training-ground injury. Yet Mourinho claimed it was Liverpool who approached the north-west duel with a defensive mind-set due to the presence of Emre Can and Jordan Henderson in central midfield. “We stopped them playing but they also did very well from the defensive point of view,” said the United manager. “They played Can and Henderson for some reason and they did that for 90 minutes when they normally project more players in attack. They were very cautious. They kept always Can and Henderson in position. They had only one player behind the three more offensive players. I think it was their intention to try and control us, which they also did well.” Mourinho appeared aggrieved by the praise Liverpool have received for their attacking play this season and argued that Paul Pogba’s latest subdued display was the result of Klopp’s defensive strategy. He added: “You know, I think like everybody else, on the defensive side of the game he was perfect. Even the goalkeeper [David de Gea] was on holiday for 90 minutes but he had two big saves to do and he did. When we recovered the ball I was expecting the team to be more dangerous, but I think we still had some important chances and Liverpool did too. They are a very good team. You like to say they are the last wonder of the world in attacking football but they are also a team that defends and thinks defensively. The fact they play Can and Henderson together and control the position where Paul wants to control. We thought there’d be only one player there but they played with two.” United’s total of 35% possession was the club’s lowest in the Premier League since Opta began compiling statistics in 2003, but their manager even turned that into an issue for Liverpool rather than his own team. “Last season United won here when Liverpool had 14 shots on target and United had one,” Mourinho said. “How many shots on target did Liverpool have on target today? Two. Two shots on target with 65% of possession, you have to be critical of Liverpool. It is their problem, not our problem.” Klopp claimed Liverpool lacked patience in possession and made life difficult as a consequence for Daniel Sturridge, who was replaced by Adam Lallana after 60 minutes. The Liverpool manager said: “I am not too happy. The game from the first second was very hectic and maybe that was what Manchester United wanted and we didn’t want, maybe it was more for their advantage. That can happen from the start but you have to find your way back to the way we usually play. We lost patience far too early and our passing game was not good. We had 65% possession but we have to do better. I didn’t expect we would have 10-15 chances. Second half we had chances but De Gea was finally warm and he made brilliant saves. They had that chance with Ibrahimovic. “The best news tonight is we have one point more and a clean sheet, nothing else. We can do much better and we must do much better. We have to stay cool. When they want to chase us, we have to use counter-movements. We had these situations but in the last third we lost patience. It was like ‘Give it to Daniel’. It was a very difficult game for a striker. There was a really good attitude from my side. They tried everything, only with the wrong tools.” Mourinho is under investigation by the Football Association for commenting on the referee Anthony Taylor’s appointment before the game. Afterwards he commented: “Can I speak about the referee without being punished? He had a good game and I am happy for him because people with responsibilities put a lot of pressure on him and it was very difficult for him to have a good performance, which he had.”
From Liverpool FC to Google: business joins in pledge to promote safer internet The world has changed dramatically in the 13 years since the annual Safer Internet Day (SID) was launched. Thirteen years ago, YouTube didn’t exist. Now more than half of children use the video sharing website every day, according to a recent report from Childwise. And children spend more time on the internet than they do watching TV. As we become more reliant on digital technology, keeping children safe online becomes ever more pressing. Today’s SID – marked in more than 100 countries and organised in the UK by the UK Safer Internet Centre (UKSIC) – is an opportunity for everyone, from families to law enforcement and businesses to policymakers, to play their part for a better internet. High-profile supporters include the BBC, BT, Disney, Facebook, Google, Instagram, Microsoft, Nickelodeon, Twitter, Vodafone, and the UK government, as well as police services and schools. All are involved in delivering a range of activities. Microsoft, for example, is doing a SID takeover on its search engine Bing, and will serve specially created resources when anything internet safety related is searched. Snapchat has created a filter for SID that can be applied to photos taken using the app, while Vodafone is supporting with its special emoji keyboard, featuring a #SID2016 heart shaped emoji intended to be shared in solidarity against cyberbullying. The company is also working with YouTubers to create awareness raising videos and for each view, like and direct share a video receives, the Vodafone Foundation will donate £1 up to a maximum of £100,000 to child rights charities. But it’s not just the responsibility of big tech companies to ensure they are educating and supporting people in the safe and positive use of technology. Other businesses can also make a difference by through customers and staff. Football teams, for example. Premier League clubs Everton, Liverpool, Manchester United and Arsenal are hosting education sessions for hundreds of local schoolchildren, as well as getting players involved in promoting the safe and positive use of technology as part of their youth outreach programmes. Other organisations bring unparalleled reach on SID, with the Post Office playing SID safety messages through TV screens in its network of stores on the day and Nickelodeon creating anti-bullying videos for TV, its website and its YouTube channel. While the day provides a focus for raising awareness of internet safety issues and an opportunity for companies to create some good PR stories, many of these partnerships are continuous throughout the year. The UK Safer Internet Centre sits alongside representatives from corporates, NGO, government, and police on the executive board of the UK Council for Child Internet Safety, as well as being represented on safety councils for Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Ask.fm and more. Keeping children safe online is challenging – cyberbullying is increasing and young people are facing increasing pressures online that can have long-lasting impacts on their wellbeing. The ongoing threat from the proliferation of child sexual abuse images remains at the top of the agenda for many companies as they strive to use cutting-edge technical solutions to solve issues that can have huge consequences for the lives of some of the most vulnerable children both here in the UK and worldwide. The challenges are complex, and there’s no magic bullet to create a better internet but if all organisations step up to the challenge and play their part, we can all make a big difference.
Slaven Bilic: It’s no good if West Ham always need to score three goals to win Slaven Bilic does not want his players to look up or down. He does not want them studying the fixture list. West Ham United’s manager will be happy as long as they relax, play with passion and quality and, as the old cliche goes, take each game as it comes. “You can’t approach it differently,” Bilic said. “You can’t approach it like ‘today, we are home to Crystal Palace, three points, and then Arsenal, one point’ because this happens.” From Bilic’s perspective, Mark Clattenburg happened. Clattenburg was an unpopular man around Upton Park because of his controversial decision to send off Cheikhou Kouyaté for a high challenge on Dwight Gayle midway through the second half, allowing Crystal Palace to snatch a late equaliser and stall West Ham’s push for Champions League qualification by securing a 2-2 draw. Three points behind fourth-placed Manchester City, West Ham were furious. They will appeal against Kouyaté’s red card and feel that they are not getting the rub of the green with officials at the moment, thinking back to Chelsea’s dodgy late penalty in the 2-2 draw at Stamford Bridge on 19 March and Anthony Martial’s equaliser in the 1-1 draw in their FA Cup quarter-final at Manchester United being allowed to stand, despite Bastian Schweinsteiger’s foul on Darren Randolph. For all their indignation, however, there is an argument that West Ham could have done more to kill off their opponents in all of those games. Having recovered from the sloppy defending that allowed Damien Delaney to give Palace an early advantage, they led 2-1 at half-time, thanks to Manuel Lanzini’s equaliser and Dimitri Payet’s fifth direct free-kick in 2016. Dropped points from winning positions cannot simply be put down to referees; a touch more ruthlessness and West Ham would be fourth. “Okay, fair enough but it’s no good if you always need to score three goals to win,” Bilic said. “I’m not talking that you can win the championship or whatever with winning 1-0, 1-0, 1-0 because it is not only about your defence, it is also about the opponent. But you can’t always score three goals.” West Ham made errors for both Palace goals, a defensive calamity allowing Gayle to equalise with 15 minutes left, and Bilic hopes his back four will be more solid, with James Tomkins, on the bench here, available after two months out with a calf injury. With Sam Byram also missing, Michail Antonio has been used as a makeshift right-back and he was targeted by Palace’s flying wingers, Yannick Bolasie and Bakary Sako. The return of Tomkins is a timely boost as West Ham approach a defining period. With fourth place and an FA Cup semi-final against Everton up for grabs, they host Arsenal in the league on Saturday and United in the Cup four days later. “We have a big enough squad, a lot of energy and a lot of confidence,” Bilic said. “Ginger Collins and Sam Byram, they are going to come back. Even without, we would go for both, try to finish as high as possible and try to reach the semi-finals.“ Palace are already in the semi-finals. Yet their FA Cup run has not been matched by their league form. Although it was an improved display against West Ham, a draw stretched their winless Premier League run to 14 matches and kept them seven points above the bottom three. Alan Pardew mentioned those alarming statistics in a meeting with his players on Friday night. “That was a normal, tactical meeting but probably a little bit longer than most. I just wanted to question the players and ask whether they actually realise what has gone on. Did they know the figures that the press have been using about us because you’d be surprised. “The players don’t always take on board what has been going on. They go into training and their view is that: ‘Oh, it’s the next game.’ Of course, as managers we are overloaded with stats and information. So I just wanted to remind them of where we were and I think I got a good response.” Pardew was asked if the players were aware of the numbers. “They certainly knew after,” he said. “I made it very clear about my feelings. That is all you are going to get.” Man of the match Bakary Sako (Crystal Palace)
Top 10 books about the dangers of the web My latest novel, Viral, is about a young woman whose drunken mistake in Magaluf floods the internet and ruins her life. It deals with a contemporary family, which could be yours, and a contemporary crime – which could happen to you. That crime is involuntary pornography, and it’s not actually a crime. But I think it should be. I wanted to write about it because everything about the issue makes me furious: online misogyny, social hypocrisy and the lack of justice and support for women like my character, Su, whose world is shattered after being filmed in public without her knowledge. Before I wrote Viral in 2014, I knew little about internet shaming, beyond the fact that it’s scary. I knew even less about revenge pornography, apart from the fact that it’s scary. And I knew nothing about the darknet … apart from, well, ditto. I like to write about things that scare me. And what could be more terrifying than the darknet? I started reading about it when I was writing the book. It seemed so other to me that it couldn’t possibly exist. Like hell, if the believers were to be believed, this was an ugly and mean place filled with bad people doing bad things in very uncomfortable surroundings. I’ve read a lot on shaming, revenge and involuntary pornography and the darknet since starting Viral. This education has made me more feel more frightened for women’s safety in our online world, and very concerned about the inadequacies of the law in dealing with it. I’ve also learned that the darknet is alien now in the same way that a Walkman was in 1978. It’s here guys, and we should probably learn more about it. Soon we may even venture down into the pit ourselves, just as we donned hefty earphones all those years ago. So here are my top 10 books on the dangers of the web: 1. So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed by Jon Ronson Accessible, entertaining, educational and frightening, Jon Ronson takes a look at some of the people whose lives have been torn to pieces by online shaming, examining who has survived this, and why. We have always punished people with shame, he argues, but now we have a new system of justice and a new way of dishing out punishment. This online sentencing is immediate, severe, destructive, irreversible and neverending. And it’s served by us: by me, and by you. 2. The Dark Net by Jamie Bartlett After reading this absorbing, fantastic book, I understand more about what the darknet is, and am therefore a little less terrified of it. It’s people, most of them unremarkable, buying and selling, talking and reviewing. One day, I might use it to buy stationery like I use Amazon, or to talk about writing like I do on Facebook. Bartlett lays out the good aspects of the darknet – freedom of speech, freedom to be anonymous, anti-corruption, anti-authority. And he also talks about the bad – racism, sexism, child pornography, suicide forums, how easy it is to groom victims and ruin lives. So I’m not going there, not yet. 3. Cybersexism by Laurie Penny I am longing for Penny to write more about sexism in the male-dominated digital sphere. In this pithy and important book, Penny takes a look at “nerd misogynists”, men who are often marginalised in the real world and who have found an outlet for their anger online. We need to let them know we are listening, she argues, and we need to educate them: “You can hack anything, and that includes sexism.” 4. The Intrusions by Stav Sharez It surprises me that Sharez is one of few current crime writers to give the online world a significant role in his story. It’s at the centre of most stories nowadays, isn’t it? I was lucky enough to read The Intrusions before its release date later this year, and boy can Sharez do thriller. He writes beautifully, so look out for this one and pre-order as soon as you can. 5. Follow Me by Angela Clarke Follow Me was an Amazon Debut of the Month. It features a baddie, dubbed the Hashtag Murderer, who taunts police by posting clues on Twitter. I loved the idea of a trending serial killer; enticing followers with 140-character clues that investigative journalist, Freddie, must untangle. As the tagline says: “Online, no one can hear you scream”. It’s the first of Clarke’s “social media murder series”. 6. In the Shadows of the Net: Breaking free of Compulsive Online Sexual Behaviour by Patrick J Carnes, David L Demonico, Elizabeth Griffin and Joseph M Moriarty I read this for my work (I’m a criminal justice social worker, but I would recommend it to anyone. It’s essential reading for those working with internet offenders; for those who are worried about their own behaviour online, or concerned about the behaviour of someone they know. An excellent guide to recognising and addressing compulsive online sexual behaviour. 7. Cyberphobia: Identity, Trust, Security and the Internet by Edward Lucas Written by Edward Lucas, a senior editor at the Economist, this book features an ordinary couple – Chip and Pin Hakhett – who are used to illustrate everyday cyber threats and ways to defend against them. I was shocked and scared to realise how vulnerable I am online, but also empowered by some of the solutions offered. 8. Butter, by Erin Lange Dark, sad, but also funny, Lange tells the story of 400lb “Butter” who decides to go out with a bang. On New Year’s Eve, he will select a menu and eat himself to death live online. Disturbing, outstanding. 9. Wikileaks: Inside Julian Assange’s War on Secrecy, by David Leigh and Luke Harding David Leigh and Luke Harding are award-winning journalists who were closely involved with the Wikileaks story as it unfolded. Their account reads like a thriller and includes fascinating details about Julian Assange’s childhood and personal life. 10. Life: Love, Lies & Identity in the Digital Age, by Nev Schulman Nev Schulman of Catfish fame takes his expertise and concerns about online relationships to the page, offering advice and warnings to his fans. Viral by Helen FitzGerald is out now from Faber & Faber, at £12.99), and is available from the bookshop at £10.39.
NHS England sending anorexic patients to Scotland for treatment The NHS in England is sending patients who are seriously ill with eating disorders to Scotland for treatment because chronic bed shortages mean they cannot be cared for in England. Vulnerable patients, mainly teenagers and young adults, are being taken hundreds of miles from their homes in order to receive residential care in Glasgow and near Edinburgh. Mental health experts voiced deep concern about the trend and said it could damage patients’ chances of recovery, increase their sense of isolation through the separation from their families and even increase their risk of dying. Doctors, eating disorders charities and patients have told the that the quality of care received by patients, some of whom are at risk of dying, is being compromised by the NHS in England having far too few beds to cope with the growing number of cases of anorexia, bulimia and other forms of psychiatric illness linked to eating habits. “I’ve seen a rise in calls from people saying their children have been sent far away, miles away, to be looked after because there are either no services nearby or they are full”, said Jane Smith, chief executive of Anorexia and Bulimia Care. “This is a life-threatening situation for young people. People are in inpatient care because they are at risk of dying. They are in a very fragile, risky state.” Rebecca Doidge, 20, from St Albans in Hertfordshire, spent six months in the Priory private hospital in Glasgow earlier this year because she was desperate for treatment and could not find anywhere else. The distance had negative side-effects, she said. Despite being well looked after there, “being sent so far away does compromise care”, she said. “The outcomes are going to be better if you can stay near home. It’s really hard to integrate back home or go to another environment when discharged if you are in a different country. It makes communication between those treating you in hospital and those at home difficult.” During her stay in the Priory, which has 25-30 beds, “about seven of the people there were from Hertfordshire,” she said. “The number of English people there massively outnumbered Scots.” Anup Vyas’s stepdaughter has been receiving treatment for a rare eating disorder in Huntercombe private hospital in Livingston, near Edinburgh, since February. After previous stints in units in Watford, London and Colchester in Essex, the 17-year-old’s condition is so serious that “now she is basically being kept alive in Scotland”, said Vyas. “NHS England acknowledge that her being so far away is not ideal. Her brothers haven’t visited her since June and no friends have gone up. Most people in the unit are from England, especially the north of England – places like York and Manchester.” The family’s home is in Hemel Hempstead, 350 miles from Livingston. The health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, criticised the practice as “completely unacceptable”. He recently said NHS children and adolescent mental health services were the NHS’s worst area of care. “It is clearly unacceptable for people to be sent hundreds of miles away for care at a time when they need the support of friends and family the most”, he said. “That’s why in April we committed to a national ambition to eliminate inappropriate out-of-area placements by 2020-21.” Ministers had also earmarked £150m for enhanced services in community settings to help ensure that mental health problems in young people were tackled before their health worsens, he said. NHS England, despite its professed commitment to openness, refused to say how many patients from England were receiving treatment for eating disorders in Scotland. Expanding the supply of specialist beds to treat people with those conditions would take time, it said. “It’s extremely distressing for parents to have a child who is so unwell that they require inpatient care, and it’s even worse when they can’t easily visit their child because of long travel distances”, said Sarah Brennan, chief executive of Young Minds. “For many young people the distance from family and friends is one of their biggest fears when they are hospitalised. Being separated from loved ones doesn’t help with recovery and makes the stress of hospitalisation worse.” Dr Jon Goldin, a consultant psychiatrist in London specialising in children and adolescents, said he had heard of patients being moved long distances. “But it shouldn’t be happening,” he said. “It’s a concern. Patients should be treated nearby and should be in contact with family. They need support and it’s much harder to get that when families have to travel long distances. “Part of their recovery may involve therapy with their family, especially for children aged 14 and under.”, said Goldin, who is also a spokesman for the Royal College of Psychiatrists. More young people were developing eating disorders, he said. Genetic factors, personality factors and socio-cultural factors, such as images in the media of models “which glamorise thinness” are among the many reasons for the trend, Goldin said. A spokeswoman for the Priory hospital in Glasgow said it took patients from all over the UK. “The Priory hospital in Glasgow has a reputation for providing some of the highest standards of mental healthcare in the country, and has been given a ‘very good’ rating by our regulator, Healthcare Improvement Scotland, for staffing, management, information to patients, and the environment it offers those we care for. As such, we support patients from across the UK and overseas.” A spokeswoman for NHS England said: “The NHS recently laid out very clear plans to expand staff and services for specialist eating disorders and other mental health problems, in order to tackle and eliminate distant out-of-area placements. Transformation won’t happen overnight but work is under way to improve services for everyone and to make sure care is available at home or as close to home as possible when a patient needs more intensive therapy. “To help achieve this, the government has allocated a cumulative £1.4bn to children and young people’s mental health services over the next five years, and the new waiting time for eating disorder patients will ensure patients get better care more quickly.”
Low UK broadband targets lack ambition using slow and costly network upgrades There is a good chance you have never heard of Chattanooga, Tennessee. A city of only 170,000 inhabitants, its main claim to fame is a song called the Chattanooga Choo Choo, recorded by Glenn Miller and His Orchestra for the 1941 film, Sun Valley Serenade. Though Chattanooga may be small, it has big ambitions, recently becoming one of the first cities in the world to offer homes and business access to broadband speeds of 10 gigabits per second (Gbps). This is a thousand times faster than the UK government’s universal service obligation (USO) for all British premises to be able to access 10 megabits per second (Mbps) [pdf], announced with much fanfare in the Queen’s speech this week. The USO will be welcomed by people, often in rural areas, who cannot access even this limited speed. But it is setting the bar pretty low. With a world ranking of 23rd for download speeds, and 39th for upload speeds, Britain is not a strong performer in global terms. If we are to get the UK moving up the rankings, we need to follow Chattanooga’s example, and set a much more ambitious target of 10Gbps by 2030. Paradoxically, an easy-to-meet USO will actually be more expensive in the long run. It risks locking us into a continuous cycle of incremental upgrades to the copper wire which makes the last mile of our network, when we need to invest instead in future-proofed non-copper alternatives like fibre-optic cable, mobile and satellite broadband. Survey data from members of the Institute of Directors makes it abundantly clear that faster connections will deliver quick gains to the economy. A large majority believe better broadband would increase their company’s competitiveness and productivity. One in four think it would increase their revenues, and a third say it would prompt them to invest more. As well as boosting firms, it could also help employees with their work-life balance, with half of our members saying they would offer more flexible working if they could rely on quicker broadband. As infrastructure investments go, it doesn’t get much better than this. While our cities are not particularly impressive (London languishes in 26th place in the European Capital City download rankings) it is rural areas in which poor broadband is holding back business most. Connecting the most remote places is clearly expensive, but broadband is now the fourth utility, and essential to all companies. The UK is experiencing an entrepreneurial revolution, but the fact is that it is near impossible to launch a startup with a couple of employees in a converted barn with a connection of 2Mbps or less. With a connection of 1Gbps, however, a whole new world of opportunities opens up. It’s important to stress that a more demanding target should not mean reinforcing the market position of the incumbent, BT, or even a particular type of technology. Getting ultra-fast speeds means enabling competing firms to enter the market on a level playing field. One of the best examples of how to do this comes from a surprising source: Lithuania. It has the third highest upload speed in the world, as well as the global number one ranking for ICT infrastructure. This came about because, in 2004, Lithuania forced its equivalent of BT to give rivals full open access to the physical infrastructure of ducts and poles at a reasonable cost. This led to an explosion of investment by the alternative network providers, and they rocketed up the league tables as a result. If we fail to rise to the challenge on broadband, we will miss out on the exciting technological developments of the next decade. Self-driving cars, virtual and enhanced reality, the internet of things, artificial intelligence, 5G and above all, cloud-based services, simply won’t happen without the speed, universal reach and reliability of a network that has untied itself from the copper cables of the past. Sign up to become a member of the Small Business Network here for more advice, insight and best practice direct to your inbox.
The view on internet security: a huge and growing problem The phone in your pocket gives you powers that were hard to imagine even five years ago. It can talk to you, listen, and give sensible answers to questions. It knows your fingerprint and recognises your face and those of all your friends. It can buy almost anything, sell almost anything, bring you all the news you want, as well as almost all the books, films and music you might want to look at. What’s more, it will even allow you to talk to your friends and to communicate with almost anyone. The problem is that these powers are not yours – at least they don’t belong to you alone. They belong to whoever controls the phone and can be used to serve their purposes as well as yours. Repressive governments and criminal gangs are all contending to break into phones today, and this kind of hacking will increasingly become the preferred route into all of the computer networks that we use – the ones we don’t call “phones”. Apple’s sudden forced upgrade to the iPhone operating system last week was a response to these anxieties. A dissident in the UAE appears to have had his iPhone hijacked by a very sophisticated piece of malware produced by a security company and sold legally, if in secret, to regimes that want to spy on their enemies. This offers its controllers complete knowledge of anything the infected phone is privy to: that’s all the contacts, all the messages of any sort, whether chats, texts or emails, all the calendars and even, potentially, any voice conversation that it overhears. It’s difficult to imagine a more assiduous or intimate spy. And once one phone has been subverted, it becomes a tool for spying into all other the networks to which it or the owner has access. This is not exclusively Apple’s problem. The much more widespread Android system is reasonably secure only on some Samsung and LG models and Google’s own-branded Nexus phones, which are updated frequently and automatically to keep abreast of security vulnerabilities. Other manufacturers have access to the updates but few get them installed in a timely fashion. In the poorer parts of the world, where Android has an overwhelming market share, the problem is especially acute. The Iranian secret police bug their dissidents using a tool (in the jargon of the trade, an Android RAT) called KrakenAgent. Beyond rogue nation states there is an unpleasant and insufficiently regulated market of legal firms that specialise in finding security vulnerabilities and selling them to the highest legal bidder, which normally means oppressive regimes; then there is a second tier of entirely illegal operators who sell tools to criminal gangs. Little of this is used for spying (though there is a market among jealous and abusive men for software that will enable to them to track their partners, one reason why some women’s shelters are reluctant to allow smartphones inside). Much more damage is done by “ransomware”, which encrypts and in effect steals all of a user’s data, to be released only on payment. Such assaults are becoming increasingly common. Twenty-nine NHS trusts were targeted by them last year. This is a global problem now. Since almost every country will want these powers for its own security services, if for no one else, what is developing is something like an international arms trade. International efforts to police it are urgently needed and the companies that sell us these powerful phones must also be pressed to live up to their responsibilities to keep them safe so that their power is not easily turned against their owners.
Forget about a mental health revolution without new cash If it’s Monday, the prime minister is doing something good and kind, according to the Downing Street grid: last week it was prisons, this week it’s a mental health “revolution”. Announcing £1bn for threadbare mental health services, he launched a report detailing their dire state. Written by the head of Mind, this hard-hitting report was widely welcomed, as was the £1bn. One in four people suffer mental health problems but three-quarters get no help at all. Suicide rates are rising, as is self-harming, with services so bad that lives are “put on hold or ruined” for lack of care, with mental health patients dying 15 to 20 years earlier than others. Beds are so scarce that 2,000 acutely ill patients a month end up sent far from home. Prime ministerial attention undoubtedly helps, when the anguish of mental illness is often worse than it is with physical ailments that get priority. Here’s his promise: a million more people will get “high quality” treatment, including 600,000 more getting talking therapy (previously known as IAPT – Improving Access to Psychological Therapies); every A&E will get a mental health liaison team; and every maternity unit will get perinatal psychiatry to catch depression in mothers. There will also be extra help for children and young people with eating disorders, plus more crisis teams to keep people out of hospital. But “parity of esteem” for mental health has been announced many times by Cameron’s government – more parity of rhetoric than resources: the tariff for mental health was cut below that for physical health. Less than a tenth of NHS funds go to mental illness, and severe cuts since 2010 have left 5,000 fewer mental health nurses and 8% fewer mental-health beds. Professor Sir Simon Wessely, the president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, says mental health funding has been cut by 8%, telling of severely ill patients shunted “from Cornwall to Cumbria”. His college commissioned a report from Sir Nigel Crisp, a former head of the NHS, which calls for hard targets – such as a maximum four-hour wait for acute treatment and an end to the “postcode lottery”. But that lottery is at the heart of Cameron’s NHS policy. What does £1bn buy? As the Health Service Journal reports, this is not new money but part of the £8.4bn George Osborne was forced to promise during the election, faced with unprecedented NHS deficits. Anita Charlesworth, chief economist at the Health Foundation, lays it out with brutal clarity: “That £8bn was the minimum to sustain services. It doesn’t include any money for improving quality, for extra mental health or for a seven-day NHS.” Along with other health economists, she presses the government to say where the money is to come from. “What has to give to provide new and better services, we ask. We get stonewalled.” She says the NHS’s ability to carry on depends on good social care, but local authority cash is severely cut. “Money could be saved by early prevention – but in the spending review public health funds were cut by 4% every year to 2020, with its ringfence soon removed.” Luciana Berger, the shadow minister for mental health, travels the country looking for community support for the depressed and ill. “But,” she says, “Sure Start children’s centres, youth services, befriending projects, education psychology in schools and drop-in centres for the vulnerable are all vanishing. DWP work capability tests pile on mental pressure, although the work programme fails to get 93% of mental health patients into jobs.” Cameron was precise about his new services – but the money is not ringfenced to ensure that’s where it goes. Whenever you hear the prime minister “announcing” things in the NHS, alarm bells should ring. Since the 2012 Health and Social Care Act, how money is spent has been devolved to local CCGs – care commissioning groups, nominally led by GPs. Many are now so strapped for cash, they will use it on contracting for existing services. Follow the money and take a look at one large mental health trust: Central and North West London. I interviewed Trevor Shipman, its finance director, for the ’s This is the NHS series, finding him facing an £8m shortfall this April, despite making £26m in savings. I asked if he expected his share of this £1bn to help extend his services. Studying the taskforce report, he pointed to recommendation 58, for the health department “to confirm what governance arrangements will be put in place to support the delivery of this strategy”. In other words, will they force it through and report the results? He sees no ringfence or enforcement mechanism. Will CCGs pay up? “I’ve been told by CCGs in financial trouble that they have been told by NHS England to clear their debts first and worry about mental health later – nothing in writing of course. It’s not CCGs’ fault, as many suffer an unfair funding formula.” He needed £1.3m from his CCGs for urgent care, but got only £900,000 this year. He needs to be paid fully for existing services before adding new ones. Nor is there mention of local authority social care, on which he depends to empty blocked beds. Half his costs for children did come from local government, but those grants were abolished five years ago. One mental health success has been the Improving Access to Psychological Therapies talking therapy programme, evidence based, tightly costed and until now ringfenced. By getting nearly 5% of its patients back to work, it pays for itself. But those savings to the DWP don’t flow back to mental health. The sheer dogged determination of the economist and campaigner Professor Richard Layard has forced this through, says Charlesworth. But Shipman says a trust like his has had to deliver it at the expense of acute psychosis services. He must deliver psychosis appointments within two weeks from 1 April. “But how do we get the funds or the staff for that?” Funding is so badly administered from on high that he still has no idea what his budget is from April: “How can I plan for staff?” He can’t, of course. But then he is obliged to find logic where logic doesn’t exist. For it’s simply self-deceiving to make brave new announcements of fine mental services without new money, safely ringfenced; and they can’t ringfence old money already earmarked for debts everywhere else in the NHS.
Why did the UK change its mind about Brexit? The wedding could hardly have been more tranquil. As midnight struck on the morning of 1 January 1973 – and Jesus Christ Superstar began its run on the London stage, and the first British hypermarket was sucking in shoppers, while Pink Floyd were about to launch the best-selling album in British pop history, and the motor industry was preparing to give the world the Austin Allegro – the United Kingdom was officially joined to the European Economic Community. Here and there people held celebrations – some even lit bonfires – yet most of the land was asleep. Writing the front-page story, a duty that fell to me as the ’s political reporter at the time, was deeply unsatisfying. Something that everyone knew was about to happen, had happened! Hardly a story that anyone yearns to write. There had been enough excitement and turmoil throughout the previous year. Edward Heath, unexpected victor of the 1970 election and as fervent a champion of Britain in Europe as anyone on the planet, had safely steered us in. It is often asserted now that the British public backed that judgment; in fact it wasn’t given the chance. Heath would hear no talk of a referendum, since he might have lost it. The polls showed public opinion running against British entry, and though in those days, leaders liked to believe that an endorsement from them might be enough to sway uncertain voters, Heath knew he might risk destroying a project at the heart of his political life. His battles came over the European Communities bill, the essential preliminary to accession, approved at second reading on 17 February 1972 by a majority of just eight. Though Labour in office had tried and failed to join Europe, they were now against it. Harold Wilson, the leader Heath had supplanted, said the terms for entry were not acceptable. But the party divergence was not what it seemed. A group of Labour MPs wholly committed to membership formed a surreptitious ancillary force for the Tories. The Conservative chief whip, Francis Pym – sternly instructed by Heath that he must not lose a single vote – would tell the Labour dissidents how many abstentions were needed on each division, and they would provide them. As a newly arrived Westminster reporter, I pestered Pym, who was under cruel pressure to deliver, about this arrangement. He and the chief Labour dissidents would explain how it worked. Perhaps the toughest night was when it came to a vote on a referendum, proposed by a Tory backbencher, which the Labour shadow cabinet agreed to back – a decision that triggered the resignation of the deputy leader Roy Jenkins. But again, as reporters in the press gallery waited hopefully for a sensational story, the Labour rebels saved the day for the Tories: 63 Labour MPs abstained. A Tory leader under pressure had calculated correctly, and got what he wanted. The referendum denied to the country then came two years later, in 1975, when Wilson was back in power. The call came now from continuing opponents of British membership, and especially Tony Benn – the mentor from whom Jeremy Corbyn would learn his long distrust of Brussels. Wilson began by opposing it, before scenting some merit in the idea. Handled well – a renegotiation to begin the process, to be followed by claims that the EC’s deterrent factors had now been extinguished – and the referendum might help cement Britain’s allegiance to the EEC. A persuasive case could be made for perpetuation. We had only been in the EEC two years, too short a time to justify permanent rejection. In any case, the people could be relied on to plump for more of the same rather than risky adventure. Voting not to join an organisation was one thing: voting to leave it and shuffle out into the cold was quite another. That year’s Brexit was duly rejected by a margin of three to two. A Labour leader under pressure had calculated correctly, and got what he wanted. It’s said that David Cameron hoped to emulate Wilson’s success, using a renegotiation to argue that the organisation in which he believed we should stay was a very different beast from the one that had become so widely distrusted. But the circumstances of the 2016 referendum were different from those surrounding Wilson’s triumph. The European union of 2016 is vastly different from the EEC, vastly more likely to engineer change or frustrate the kind of changes that many UK voters yearn for; dominant in ways that people find menacing. The mere Economic Community had no great ambitions for wholesale political and economic integration. You had to be there, I suppose, to get a sense of the transformations of these past 40 years. Only those approaching their 60s can know, except by deduction, how things felt. Looking back, the world of 1975 seems not just unsophisticated, but strangely naive. In those days, when I travelled the land trying to get the sense of a coming election, it was customarily assumed that the component regions of the UK were likely to behave in much the same way. It was further assumed that when a political leader spoke, people listened; and further that when the day of decision came, they would always choose what they knew over what was largely unknown, and certainly wholly untasted. The voice of the expert was loud in the land and largely respected. Two years (1973-75) isn’t long to start building up resentments: 41 years (1975-2016) is more than enough. There was, too, no equivalent then of social media, where dissidents can so easily come together and disrupt their masters’ ambitions. Instinctive deference and a stoic acceptance of one’s dissatisfactions had yet to be abandoned. People blame Corbyn for not giving Labour voters a stronger lead. But that’s not how things work any more. Whatever Corbyn had said, the legions of dispossessed Britain, making their protests on Thursday across much of the North, the Midlands and Wales, would not have taken much notice – any more than that former heartland of unswerving loyalty, the Conservative party, dutifully heeded to the voice of its leader. It has been coming for quite a while – see the fate of Labour in last year’s election, not just in Scotland – but we see at this moment more clearly than ever that the old and comforting certainties that used to be the bedrock of British politics are shattering day by day. There were always political shocks, but never before has the golden rule more clearly been: expect the unexpected. The quiet wedding that began in the earliest hours of 1 January 1973 ended at breakfast time yesterday morning, not just in divorce – but even, in this sense, in the cemetery.
Bernie Sanders and other progressives plot Democratic party comeback Newly emboldened, populist voices of the Democratic party called on Sunday for the grassroots revival of progressive forces in America, to remake the party and rebound following Donald Trump’s crushing victory over Hillary Clinton in the presidential election. Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, who was defeated by Clinton in the Democratic primary, and Keith Ellison, a rising progressive star and a leading contender to become the new chair of the party, both called for redirecting of party efforts away from the wealthy liberal elite. “We have to do a lot of rethinking,” Sanders told CBS on Sunday. “Democrats have focused too much on a liberal elite, which has raised incredible sums of money from wealthy people but has ignored … the working class, middle class and low income-people in this country. “Now we need to create a grassroots movement of millions of people who want to transform this country.” Sanders promised to fight Trump on environmental regulations, and said he wanted millions to campaign on forcing Republicans to action on climate change, which Trump has denied exists. He also repeated his rejection of Trump’s campaign rhetoric on immigrants, women, isolationism and Muslims, saying: “We will not accept racism, sexism or xenophobia.” The senator, who has described himself as a democratic socialist, admitted he might find common ground on finance reform with Trump – if the Republican held to his word to be “the champion of working people” and has “the courage to stand up to Wall Street”. The senator also said he agreed with Trump on the need to rebuild America’s infrastructure and overhaul international trade deals. “If he’s for creating a trade policy so that corporate America starts investing in this country, not in China, yeah, we can work together on that,” Sanders said. But he said he feared the government would devolve into an oligarchy, with a small number of extremely wealthy people in control of the US economic levers. Sanders reserved criticism for Democrats, as well, in their deference to the rich. He criticized the party for failing to appreciate that average working Americans are working longer hours for low wages, are upset and “worried to death about the future generation”. “Trump tapped that,” he said. Asked whether he supported the Democratic leaders that will now be in charge of that party’s side in Congress, Nancy Pelosi and Charles Schumer in the House Senate respectively, Sanders said: “I’m not into leaders, I’m into building a movement that transforms this country.” An African American from Minnesota, the first Muslim to serve in Congress, and leader of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Ellison is considered a rising star in the party. Last year, he was one of the few Democrats to seriously believe that Trump could win the Republican nomination – a prediction he made on the same ABC programme, This Week, drawing laughter – and he was one of most outspoken supporters of Sanders in the Democratic primary. “We should have to put the voters first, not the donors first. I love the donors and we thank them. But it has to be the guys in the barber’s shop, the lady in the diner, the folks who are worried about whether their plant is going to close,” he said. He said he wanted Democratic party resources to go into mobilizing voters at the local level. “They have got to be the laser-beam focus of everything we do. We need to empower them at the grassroots across this country. That’s how we come back. And we will come back.” He declined to comment when asked whether he would seek the DNC chair, or whether he would give up his Congressional seat to be a full-time chairman, should he win it. “I will have something to say real soon,” he said. The two men’s views were echoed by film-maker Michael Moore, who attended a large protest march in New York on Saturday against Trump’s agenda, and filmed himself inside Trump Tower, where the Republican president-elect has his home and main offices. Moore warned that he did not believe Trump was going to improve the lives of many of the working people who voted for him “and might make them worse”. Like Sanders, he also admonished Democrats, saying that the rural poor and city and suburban minorities had endured years of “benign neglect”. He also called on Barack Obama to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate FBI director James Comey’s action late in the election, putting a new twist in the saga of Hillary Clinton’s emails. “It needs to be investigated how the FBI director was able to interfere with an election, which I believe is not legal, and tip the balance in what was going to be a very close election,” he said.
ONS data shows UK wealth wedded to property Britain’s obsession with property has sent the country’s net worth soaring to an estimated £8.8tn, an increase of 6% (£493bn) compared with the end of 2014. A surge in house prices in 2015 offset the UK’s decline in savings, the slow recovery of the banking sector and the government’s growing debt mountain. Overall, house prices increased by 7% in 2015 to add a further £355bn to the already huge value locked up in Britain’s homes. The Office for National Statistics said in its annual assessment of Britain’s assets and liabilities that the value of dwellings was estimated at £5.5tn at the end of 2015, more than four times their estimated value in 1995, when the figure touched £1.2tn. A more recent survey of house prices for June puts the growth rate at 8.7%. Such is the stellar rise in property prices that the figure for the UK’s total net worth more than tripled between 1995 and 2015, an increase of £6tn, equivalent to an average increase of £87,000 per person, said the ONS. Factories and office blocks add a further £2tn to the value of UK property. The boost to property contrasts with the state of the country’s more liquid financial assets, such as shareholdings, employee stock options, savings and pensions. The financial holdings of British households and companies are vast, but overshadowed by the borrowing and the liabilities attached to the assets. So while private pension funds have accumulated billions of pounds in assets, these are weighed down by the demands on them from current and future pensioners, more than cancelling them out. The state balance sheet makes up another slice of the UK’s assets and in 1995, central government could boast that its assets and liabilities were in balance, but the growing cost of pensioner benefits and the financial crash have thrown red ink all this benign picture and created a £1.5tn deficit. Part of the financial cost of the 2008 banking collapse was the money ministers spent bailing out financial institutions, which were burdened by bad property loans, and the property industry itself. Bankruptcies were avoided and many jobs saved, but at a huge cost to the taxpayer. In contrast to the US, where many banks and property developers were allowed to go bust, in effect writing off the bad loans, UK banks and property companies were bailed out. The effect was that a short sharp fall in property values in 2008 was transformed into a boom that has lasted from 2012 to the present. The ONS figures show that the growth of UK’s property and fixed asset values outstripped that of all other G7 countries while Britain’s total financial assets – collecting together the financial assets of households, the government and companies - put in the worst performance in the G7. Japan had the highest financial net worth in the G7 at £1.9tn while the UK and Italy had the lowest, both at minus £0.3tn.
Peaches review – a masterclass in gleeful subversion There can be few better places to spend the night after a Donald J Trump presidential victory than at a gig by Peaches, the outré Canadian electropop artist. If you need succour, it is everywhere – in the regal headdress that Peaches wears for her opening song, Rub, whose centrepiece is a vulva; in the giant inflatable condom in which Peaches prances about during Dick in the Air, shooting silly string out from its tip; in the fans, turned out in get-ups almost as elaborate and smutty as those on stage. If conservatives have gained the upper hand in the Oval Office, tonight east London’s Oval Space remains a playground for people wearing Lycra with holes in interesting places, for men adjusting their makeup in both-sex toilets. It’s hard to stay gloomy for long when confronted by two shaggy, dancing vulvas on a song called Vaginoplasty from Peaches’s 2015 tour de force album, also called Rub. When Peaches reappears after a short costume change, with six breasts dangling from her (one in her crotch), she looks like a grotesque extra from the Star Wars cantina scene, probably cinema’s most obvious bastion of diversity and tolerance. Although there is plenty of eroticism at Peaches gigs, titillation is often not the whole point: gleeful subversion is. Through a 16-year body of work that spans catchy synthpop, skeletal electro, hard rock and Peaches Christ Superstar, a one-woman performance of the musical Jesus Christ Superstar, the woman born 48 years ago as Merrill Nisker has created a parallel universe light years away from the norm. The norm is a harsh, squalid place where women’s bodies are still too often men’s playthings, extreme porn is widely distributed among schoolchildren and “slut-shaming” goes hand in hand with heteronormativity. In Peaches’s world, sex is a free-for-all, fun and frequently absurd. Shame does not exist. All genitalia and proclivities are equal. Pussy-grabbing is frequent, but always consensual. The tide of images of women’s bodies distorted by the male gaze – shaven pudenda, siliconed mammaries – is countered with a surge of ridiculously exaggerated privates and lots of jiggling. Just at the corner of the punk-rock sneer, there is a sly grin. The risk here, though, is that the nonstop erotic cabaret of Peaches’s live show might overshadow her professionalism, that Peaches remains infamous for being a six-breasted freak, rather than the writer of frequently excellent songs. Tonight, her style and her substance are defiantly equal too. Her least X-rated song remains one of her strongest – Talk to Me, from 2009’s I Feel Cream album, which comes early in the set. “This ain’t a Peaches show,” she sings to a passive-aggressive romantic partner, “it’s just me and you.” Her wide and confidently used vocal range is another thing often overshadowed by all the engorged set dressing. Her wordplay mixes the stark aggression of hip-hop and the kind of freewheeling assonance that recalls Dr Seuss. Rub’s Free Drink Ticket is intense, a spoken-word successor of sorts to Talk to Me, in which Peaches once again lambasts a lover who doesn’t communicate, or worse, lies. “Your personality turned to white powder/ Your brain’s clammed-up chowder,” Peaches spits, fearsomely. “I gave and you pretended.” For Peaches, lying is a cardinal sin. Contrast this with current political discourse, as witnessed in the Trump presidential campaign and the Leave campaign before it. It’s a mark of how strange things have become when the mainstream needs to take a lesson in moral rectitude from a topless, pan-sexual provocateur whose T-shirts ask: “Whose jizz is this?” (after a Dick in the Air lyric). But that’s where we are now. For a woman whose 2006 album was entitled Impeach My Bush, making reference to the misdemeanours of the then-US president, George W, Peaches doesn’t mention current events for a very long time. She finally gets around to it near the end. “I’d rather not say the name,” she mutters, before launching into a song called Dumb Fuck, “but he’s a dumb fuck.” It’s hard to know where Peaches can go after this bravura performance. But, naturally, there are still places. The night’s second encore is Light in Places, a gauzy disco song in which Peaches’s double entendres redouble again. The stage is dark but for the dancers’ butt-plug torches, beaming from places the sun doesn’t normally light up.
Jeff Lynne's ELO announced for Glastonbury 2016 Jeff Lynne’s ELO will be taking to Glastonbury’s Pyramid Stage on Sunday 26 June, taking the afternoon slot traditionally filled by beloved entertainers of a certain age. Lynne follows the likes of Dolly Parton, Kenny Rogers and Lionel Richie, who have attracted huge crowds to the festivals main stage for crowdpleasing sets of old favourites. Glastonbury organiser Emily Eavis claimed Parton attracted the biggest crowd the event had ever seen when she appeared in 2014. The return and rise of Jeff Lynne and ELO has been one of music’s surprise stories of the past few years. When Lynne released an album under the ELO name in 2001, Zoom, it reached only No 34 in the UK charts. However, after Lynne appeared at a Children in Need benefit concert in November 2013, he was persuaded by Radio 2 DJ Chris Evans to perform under the ELO name at a Radio 2 concert in Hyde Park. The 50,000 tickets for the show sold out in 15 minutes, since when Jeff Lynne’s ELO have announced sellout arena shows and released an album, Alone in the Universe, that reached No 4 in the UK. The Sunday afternoon appearance by an older musician has become known as the “legend slot” owing to the calibre of the artists appearing in it. Last October, Leo Sayer claimed he was in the running to fill the bill in 2016, saying on ITV’s Loose Women: “It’s on the cards man. I want do to it. Why not?”
West Ham’s Andy Carroll twists knife into Bob Bradley and Swansea It was an afternoon when the mood turned ugly in South Wales as Swansea City supporters called for Bob Bradley to be sacked and vented their anger at the members of the board who sold their shares in the summer. “We want Bradley out” and “You greedy bastards get out of our club” were among the chants reverberating around the stadium during another chastening defeat for a team who look resigned to relegation. The only festive cheer was found in the away end, where the euphoric West Ham fans celebrated a third successive victory that lifted Slaven Bilic’s side up to 11th and piled the misery on to Swansea and their American manager. Bradley put on a brave face and all indications are the Swansea board have no desire to dismiss the man who was appointed in October, yet there is no escaping the level of discontent that was swirling around the Liberty Stadium in the second half. The atmosphere felt poisonous and it was not only the hardcore support, in the upper tier of the East Stand, who were calling for Bradley to go. At one point near the end that “We want Bradley out” chant swept around the stadium as fans railed at the sight of their club sliding towards the Championship. Bradley was never a popular choice at the outset and the results since his appointment have done nothing to change opinion. Swansea have picked up only eight points from his 11 games in charge and, most damningly of all, conceded 29 goals. The West Ham defeat was the eighth time under his watch that Swansea have shipped three goals or more in a game. It is a woeful record, yet Bradley is not solely responsible for the way that Swansea’s season has unravelled. Their recruitment in the summer was desperately poor and it is tempting to wonder how much better any other manager would do with the group of players Bradley inherited when he replaced Francesco Guidolin. Defensively Swansea are a shambles. Bradley has tried just about every permutation possible with the back and yet nothing seems to get any better. Some of his tactics in other areas make no sense and it was a curious decision on Bradley’s part to leave out Fernando Llorente, who had scored four goals in his previous two home matches. Borja, the £15.5m club-record signing who has scored only once all season, started in place of Llorente and was dragged off at half-time. By that stage Swansea were a goal down after yet another piece of calamitous defending. André Ayew, returning to the club where he finished as top scorer last season, registered his first goal for West Ham with a simple tap-in. Winston Reid added the second early in the second half and it was at that point that the frustration in the stands started to boil over. Michail Antonio later added a third and although Llorente pulled one back for Swansea late on, Bilic’s side were not finished. Andy Carroll, volleying home at the far post, twisted the knife with a fourth to re-establish their three‑goal advantage. Swansea face Bournemouth at home on Saturday, and travel to Crystal Palace three days later. Whether Bradley will still be around for both of those games remains to be seen. Whatever the board thinks privately about wanting to give Bradley more time, the manager’s position will become close to untenable if Swansea lose in front of their own fans against Bournemouth. “In terms of trying to win back a bit of belief from the supporters, Bournemouth couldn’t be bigger,” Bradley said. For West Ham, who have collected 10 points from their past four matches, the world seems a much happier place. They brutally exposed Swansea’s defensive frailties and never looked back from the moment Reid headed in Dimitri Payet’s corner five minutes into the second half. West Ham’s breakthrough in the first half had owed much to Carroll, who towered above Angel Rangel to head Mark Noble’s diagonal pass back across goal, and also Lukasz Fabianski’s poor goalkeeping. Fabianski carelessly pushed the ball into the path of Ayew, who slotted home from inside the six-yard box. Although Darren Randolph made a couple of decent saves to deny Gylfi Sigurdsson and Jack Cork, Swansea never threatened to mount a fightback. There is no conviction about their play and it was no surprise when Antonio stabbed home a third, turning in Havard Nordtveit’s wayward shot. Llorente, on for Borja, reduced the deficit when he converted Nathan Dyer’s cross but Carroll put a smile back on Bilic’s face with West Ham’s fourth goal. Not that the West Ham manager is taking anything for granted. “It would be suicidal to think we are safe now and look only who is above us,” Bilic said. “It is still very tight but we have to use this to gain confidence and continue to improve. Only then we will have a chance to finish good.”
Reform call will mean sweet FA unless Premier League excesses are curbed There are, inevitably, mixed feelings about seeing past chairmen and directors of the Football Association speaking out now about the need to curb the Premier League’s power, given their propensity mostly to do nothing about it when they had the chance, in the actual job. That might be unfair to David Triesman, who was savaged by the Premier League during his unhappy stint as chairman for daring to assert the primacy of the FA, but the reform proposals of David Bernstein and Greg Dyke, which they failed to secure, always seemed aimed more at the FA itself, and in office they were not noted critics of the Premier League. Dyke, characteristically vocal now, famously told the in an interview while he was the chairman of football’s still-distinguished and historic governing body, that he had so much money personally, he “didn’t give a fuck”. Yet rather than revel in that personal financial independence by taking on the billionaire vested interests of the Premier League for the game’s greater all-round good, Dyke somehow ended up implementing a redundancy programme at the FA itself, sacking 100 people, some of whom are still not in work a year on – so presumably still have to “give a fuck”. The busyness of Damian Collins MP, the chair of the culture, media and sport committee, drafting yet another backbench bill to reform football – this one a vote of no confidence in the FA, which seems a little over the top – is meaningless without government support. Collins is a Conservative, so he could be doing the difficult job of seeking to persuade his colleagues in government that although they have one or two fine national messes of their own to salvage, they should make time for football reform as a priority. Without it, this is more talk, of which there has been a great deal over the past 24 years, in which the rehabilitated, seated, moneyed new age of the Premier League has been accompanied by unease and disillusionment over its hyper-commercialisation and inequality. Every parliamentary inquiry since the new Labour government’s Football Task Force of 1997 has taken evidence, had a solemn think and reached the same conclusions. Football has wonderful traditions in England, support for the game is phenomenal, but the 1992 breakaway of the then Football League First Division clubs, so as not to share their pay-TV bonanza with the rest of the game, rocket-fuelled the necessary modernisation of the sport with a culture of greed. During these discussions the FA’s executives, including some of these five who are public reformers now, have resisted that analysis and stood in a huddle with the Premier and Football Leagues against the campaigns of supporters, assuring governments that all is well. These five should nevertheless be listened to because they are clearly speaking from experience about the inability of the FA to govern the Premier League “juggernaut”. The most insightful point in their letter to Collins is that even the money the Premier League does now distribute, which is only around 6% of the £8bn being reaped by 20 clubs from their latest 2016-19 TV bonanza, “is wielded to assert beneficial positions for the Premier League”. The crumbs for the Football League have regularly been given with an ultimatum from the Premier League chief executive, now executive chairman, Richard Scudamore, that if the 72 clubs did not accept rules, for example on youth development, all the funding would be cut. For all the private grumbling, the Football League has meekly fallen into line over the years, rather than lose a million pounds here or there for each Championship club. Scudamore, of course, represents rich clubs now mostly owned by overseas investors, who bought them as assets to make money for themselves from the boom in the TV rights. His job is to achieve that for them, for the “shareholders”. Alan Pardew slipped out last week a reflection that the US investors in his club, Crystal Palace, “perhaps don’t know a lot about football”, but that is another truth that mostly dare not speak its name and it was reported as a faux pas by Pardew. There were positive results from the Football Task Force; the Premier League was pressed into distributing money for the first time to grassroots facilities: 5%, via the Football Foundation. The Burns review, a reform document of moderate ambition focused on the FA, at least resulted in independent chairmen and now two non-executive directors for the FA, which led to Triesman, Bernstein and Dyke fulfilling the role. Over time, these public outcries, combined with increased professionalism of clubs, has led to a more rounded, socially responsive approach than the unattractive money frenzy of the Premier League’s first few years, which made the first fortunes for the selling English owners. Scudamore has also learned when facing these regular challenges how to lobby governments about the Premier League’s Hollywood‑style TV dominance internationally and demonstrate the extensive community work that clubs have developed at home. The perennial result has been that governments have soon been won over by the Premier League’s success story and, rather than seek to curb its excesses, have tended to snuggle up for reflected glamour. There is no sign so far that this government will be any different, so when Collins’s committee hosts the sports minister, Tracey Crouch, on Tuesday perhaps he and his fellow MPs could put her through some of the same righteous interrogation they seem to like dishing out to the FA.
Environmental health officers call for smoking ban in playgrounds Smoking should be banned in all parks and playgrounds to reduce the chances of children growing up thinking that using cigarettes is normal, environmental health officers have told ministers. Zoos, theme parks and anywhere else children play should also become no-smoking zones, in a significant proposed expansion of the outdoor areas in which smokers cannot light up. Smoking has been illegal in enclosed public places such as bars, nightclubs and restaurants, as well as public transport and work vehicles, across the UK since 2007. But the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health said on Monday it wants local councils to designate any place where children play or learn as a smoking exclusion zone, although adherence would be voluntary, not statutory. Banning it in those locations would also protect children from secondhand smoke, it says. A new YouGov poll commissioned by the CIEH shows that 89% of 4,300 adults surveyed back a ban on smoking in children’s play areas, while 57% want it to end in public parks. “It is abundantly clear that the vast majority of people would support restrictions on smoking in children’s play areas. We would like to see smoking being stubbed out wherever children play or learn,” said Anne Godfrey, the CIEH chief executive. “This would not only include children’s playgrounds but could see no-smoking zones extended to public parks, zoos and theme parks. Children should be able to have fun and enjoy themselves without seeing someone smoking and thinking this is normal behaviour,” she added. Some councils have already moved to try to stop people smoking in some outdoor places. For example, Coventry city council has asked parents not to smoke outside the gates of its 82 primary schools. The policy has gone down well with parents and headteachers, the council said. Wrexham has also decreed that playgrounds, school gates and bus shelters should be regarded as smoke-free places, while Nottingham city council seeks to ensure that all its outdoor attractions are smoke-free for the six weeks of the school summer holidays. “Public opinion – and not just among parents – has swung heavily in favour of protecting children from exposure to tobacco smoke and from the behavioural cues children pick up from seeing adults smoking. This is a real opportunity to make it easier for children to grow up healthy,” said Jim McManus, the director of public health at Hertfordshire county council. “Parents and children, when given the choice, are overwhelmingly supportive of smoke-free playground. Local voluntary schemes have been popular. It’s time to give parents what they are asking for. You might feel like this is the nanny state – you’d be wrong,” McManus added. Forest, the smokers’ rights group, called to the plan “Orwellian”. Its director, Simon Clark, said: “Extending the smoking ban to outdoor parks and play areas would be a gross overreaction. There’s no evidence that a significant number of people smoke near children in outdoor areas, nor is there evidence that smoking outside is a threat to anyone else’s health.” Clark added: “Public parks are for the enjoyment of everyone, including smokers. Most smokers use their common sense and smoke accordingly. They don’t need government dictating how they behave. The idea that children should be protected from the sight of someone smoking is Orwellian. Adults can’t be expected to be perfect role models for other people’s children.” The owners of zoos and theme parks, because they are private businesses, should be allowed to decide whether smoking is banned, Clark said. It became illegal last October to smoke in a car in England or Wales carrying anyone under the age of 18. New figures last week showed that the proportion of adults in England who smoke had fallen to a record low of 16.9%. Deborah Arnott, the director of Action on Smoking and Health, said: “While the ban on smoking in indoor public places resulted in significant health benefits, thousands of children are still exposed to smoke in the home and elsewhere. Growing up in a smoke-free environment is one of the best ways of ensuring that they are not attracted to smoking and lured into a lifelong addiction and ill-health.”
Conflating public and private lives makes fools of us all As financiers from RBS’s Fred Goodwin to Northern Rock’s Adam Applegarth and the IMF’s Dominique Strauss-Kahn have demonstrated, senior bankers are quite as likely as, say, Boris Johnson and members of the SNP to embark on extramarital relationships, sometimes discovered before they move on, sometimes not. Though given the superhuman abilities reflected in the bankers’ salaries, it should be emphasised that they are obviously many thousands of times better at conducting affairs than the average married person and would take their talents abroad if anyone questioned their rewards in this respect, with grievous consequences for the British economy. António Horta-Osório, the CEO of Lloyds Banking Group, is entitled to ask why his recent sightseeing in Singapore, accompanied by the chief executive of the Russell Group, Wendy Piatt, was of such interest to Sun readers, that the paper revealed it, beneath the front-page headline: Lloyds Bonk. That the bank is still 9% state-owned cannot amount to the public’s right to CEO uxoriousness or not, anyway, at the same time that the once-dedicated shagger Boris Johnson is promoted to prime minister’s understudy. If anything, modern Westminster shows that, while not exactly compulsory, a furious extra-marital sex life is a tremendous way for a male public servant to create interest and progress his career. On the left, John, now Lord Prescott, rose from shifty practitioner of the office knee-trembler to become one of the greatest moralists of the age, certainly a rival for John Major. It remains only for women MPs to be rewarded, or pardoned, for the same enthusiasm, before the parliamentary sex scandal is redefined as the obvious stepping stone between backbencher and junior minister. Though, as David Mellor’s career reminds us, why stop there? As for any link between continence and competence, Horta-Osório’s record, like Johnson’s, speaks for itself. Give or take a further 3,000 job losses, a fall in profits and a record fine for mishandled PPI claims, Lloyds bank is now in such excellent shape that Horta-Osório’s latest pay deal, including a 6% salary rise, was £8.5m. Having established that Horta-Osório had not claimed any Piatt-related costs of his trip on expenses, Lloyds told the Sun: “In this regard, the review found there were no breaches of the group’s policy and there was no case to answer.” It continued: “Lloyds has been returned to financial health over the last five years under the leadership of António, and is well-placed to continue supporting the UK economy and to help Britain prosper.” But in another regard, it might have added, António had a little explaining to do. Shortly after his arrival at Lloyds, Horta-Osório introduced a code of personal responsibility, one intrusive enough to satisfy the Sun, and designed to help Lloyds staff to “strive to always do the right thing”. Incentives were included: “We take any non-compliance with the codes very seriously.” I recommend the code’s crystalline “decision guide” to any employee who is contemplating something that might not merely make them look exceptionally silly, but cost them their job. For instance, a married employee might ask himself/herself: “I would like to meet my girlfriend/boyfriend while on company business in Singapore, then take boat trips together, even though discovery would cause personal and professional agonies and raise unfair questions about my judgment and expenses. What should I do?” In this instance, the decision guide would lead the troubled employee straight to three questions: “Am I leading by example?”; “Would Lloyds Banking Group be comfortable if my actions were reported externally?” and; “Would I be happy to tell my colleagues, friends and family about my actions?” If, like our fictitious employee, you answered no/not sure to one or more, then the code is clear: “Contact your line manager or a responsible senior leader in your business area for further advice and guidance.” The glaring omission here is how to proceed if you are already CEO of Lloyds and therefore have no line manager or responsible senior leader with whom to discuss your Singapore trip. In earlier times, Mr Horta-Osório praised his wife’s advice – she recommended he take the Lloyds job – but in this case, that, presumably, was contra-indicated. Perhaps the careless code-writers thought it inconceivable that any leader brilliant enough to help Britain prosper wouldn’t also be enough of a genius not to breach his own regulations by taking an ostensibly adulterous mini-break on the Singaporean harbour front. Such a gigantic talent would be sure to remain, judiciously, indoors. One recalls that even Prescott was exposed only after his diary secretary’s boyfriend went to the Daily Mirror. It becomes clearer why, in what first resembled some grim, public-appeasing precedent, Mr Horta-Osório felt compelled to issue a staff memo much praised by PRs and trumpeted by the Sun as a “grovelling apology”. On examination, there is little sign of accountability in Mr Horta-Osório’s effort, which adheres strictly to the “mistakes were made” method of apology, so dear to politicians and bankers, that regrets, preferably in the first person plural, whatever unfortunate circumstances have mysteriously arisen. More than anything it recalls those forced HBOS apologies: “We are profoundly and I think unreservedly sorry at the turn of events.” In the current case, Mr Horta-Osório says: “I deeply regret being the cause of so much adverse publicity” (ie, being found out); he dwells on the company’s “major accomplishments”; he delicately alludes, as he must, to the code he has transgressed – “the highest professional standards”. From which it is but a short step to shared responsibility. “We must recognise that mistakes will be made. I don’t expect anyone to get everything all the time.” Quite. It would be ridiculous to think that, in the lower regions of the Lloyds banking group, nobody on a fraction of his £8.5m would impulsively do something, as prohibited by the Antonine Code, that they would be unhappy to tell their colleagues, friends or family about. Perhaps it is not so unreasonable, however, for Mr Horta-Osório’s co-workers, and even for the public, with its 9% holding, to wonder if someone in such hilarious contravention of his code can be worth the full £8.5m. Can António, the star in his own revival of Measure for Measure, be the right person to lead by example? Either, as Mr Horta-Osório says, his “personal life is obviously a private matter”, and elements of his code are an outrageous imposition, in which case he’s in the wrong, or his code is defensible and he is in the wrong for non-compliance. “I strongly believe you should link compensation with performance,” he has said. A merciful public might conclude that, if Mr Horta-Osório is not to join the blameless 3,000 staff now earmarked for disposal, he should continue in employment only on a salary that better demonstrates this link, £15,156 per year being both generous to him, and the same as a Lloyds customer service assistant.
Macaulay Culkin: ‘No, I was not pounding six grand of heroin a month’ Of all modern myths, it is the fall of the child star that most compels us. Whether they’re embarking on 55-hour marriages, throwing bongs out of windows or abandoning monkeys at customs, we can’t seem to get enough. There’s something pathological in our need to tear down our icons of innocence, which might explain the overprotective nature of Macaulay Culkin’s US publicist, who wants to see all my questions upfront. I refuse. I thought we could just ... have a chat? The interview, Culkin’s biggest in 10 years, is supposed to focus on his comeback. I’m instructed to avoid anything negative. I ask if I can ask if he has any regrets. “Regrets sounds too negative,” is the response. When we meet, in the lobby of a hotel in Spain, I’m still trying to figure out what exactly this comeback consists of. Culkin’s filming an advert for Compare the Market, which is obviously not a passion project. “It was fun, and we hammered that sucker out pretty quickly. The biggest scene was me sitting on a bench eating ice-cream.” Is he doing this to fund an exciting new venture? “No, not necessarily.” He’s dressed grungily, long hair man-bunned back, boots open-laced, blazer badge-studded. He doesn’t project the focused careerism of most actors. “People feel they have to be in perpetual motion, or drown. I’ve never had a problem saying I’ve got nothing lined up. Maybe I’ll take the next year off.” It sounds as if he’s not particularly drawn to acting at all. “I’m not much active,” he concedes. “If I knew what I wanted to do, I’d be writing it myself.” The trajectory of Culkin’s life feels like fallout from an atomic blast. By the age of 12, Uncle Buck, two Home Alone films, My Girl and (to a lesser extent) Richie Rich had made him the most successful child actor of all time. At 14, he became legally emancipated from his parents; both had been trying to gain control of his $17m fortune in their divorce. Culkin married at 17, and separated two years later. Sleepovers with Michael Jackson became public knowledge when he was called as a defence witness at the singer’s molestation trial. I’m ghoulishly fascinated by this alien childhood. I’d like to ask about Michael Jackson. “I think it’s best you don’t,” interjects his manager. She is one of three people sitting with us. “It’s not that it’s a painful topic ...” begins Culkin. His manager insists we move on, the PR next to her agrees. Culkin clearly wants to say something, but six eyes are telling him not to. I suspect we’re both wondering why we’re here; 35-year-old Culkin doesn’t do this sort of thing any more, having turned his back on the spotlight. “I don’t just turn my back, I actively don’t want it. The paps go after me because I don’t whore myself out.” He has spent a decade turning down interviews, and mostly lives in France, where the aloof Parisians leave him alone. (It’s also where Kevin McCallister’s family were headed when they left him Home Alone, but we can’t talk about that.) I get the impression he’s as eager to talk about a price comparison website as I am to ask about one. Instead, I ask why people are still fascinated by him. “I have no idea. I was thinking about this the other day – I’d crossed the wrong street, picked up a tail, suddenly there’s a crush of 20 paparazzi. Then people with cameraphones get involved. I don’t think I’m worthy of that.” Has it got better with time? “It’s been like that my whole adult life. You take on a prey-like attitude, always scanning the horizon. It’s strange on dates, as it looks like you’re not paying attention. But I’ve stopped trying to think of myself in the third person, because that’s just gonna drive me nuts.” You had to think about yourself in the third person? “Exactly. Macaulay Culkin is out there, and I’m Mac. You guys can play with the first one.” He’s not averse to a bit of playing himself, for Culkin is the celebrity’s meta-celebrity. You may remember the meme-meltdown a few years back when Ryan Gosling was pictured wearing a T-shirt of Kevin McCallister. Culkin responded by creating a T-shirt that pictured Gosling wearing the shirt, before Gosling responded in kind, being photographed wearing a T-shirt of Culkin wearing a T-shirt of Gosling wearing a T-shirt of Culkin. They may still be at it for all we know. Culkin’s previous ads, for the likes of Orange (and, in a Partridge move, the rebranding of Norwich Union), trade in close-to-the-bone self-analysis. For Compare the Market, he plays a hitchhiker picked up by the lovable meerkats, who see him as a child, buying him ice-cream and making him ride merry-go-rounds he’s too big for. In 2006, Culkin wrote an experimental novel, Junior, from the perspective of a certifiable child star with father issues. In web comedy :DRYVRS, he’s a blood-spattered sadist, unhinged by the childhood trauma of parental abandonment, and defending himself against home invaders. Is all this self-quoting what he’s drawn to, or just what he gets offered? “A bit of both. It suits my personality and sense of humour. But I would be game for something non-self-referential.” Given this dilemma – constantly returning to a past he wants distance from – where does his sense of self come from? “From me. I try to figure out what makes me happy – and not in a superficial way. I keep my soul fit.” Is he spiritual? “I know enough to know I don’t know. I was raised Catholic, so there’s a lot of guilt. We’re born with original sin.” He veers off into a joke. “Since I was told that, I’ve been trying to come up with even more original sins, that’ll really blow my priest away at confession. Like, here’s one you haven’t heard – it involves a pitching wedge, a donkey and a bucket of ice.” And two meerkats? “Yeah! You might wanna record this one!” He reflects. “Actually, I’m very much at peace lately. I can debate with people, and my heart rate never changes.” And Culkin is witty and affable. Funny, but distant. He offers confrontational figures of speech amiably. “If you want to get into an argument with an artist, ask them what art is,” he says. “If you want to make an actor feel uncomfortable, ask them what they’re doing next.” (I hastily scribble out one of the few questions I’ve written down.) Are his debates political? “I have leanings, but I’m the definition of a disenfranchised voter – I think the system is ugly. This whole Trump thing is amazing.” (Trump cameos in Home Alone 2, showing our hero the way to the Plaza Hotel lobby, although we can’t talk about it.) Culkin doesn’t want to be drawn further. “Discussing politics is the quickest way to alienate people, so I don’t wanna go into it.” And Trump has enough column inches? “Exactly! He’s like the Candyman, we have to stop saying his name.” Culkin was acting at four, an age at which no one knows what they want beyond watching cartoons and eating oversugared cereal. Having described himself as “effectively retired”, he works occasionally (voices for Seth Green’s Robot Chicken, cameoing as himself in Zoolander 2), but: “I’m much more proactive with visual arts and writing, my notebook and little projects.” Of the projects that reach the public, most could charitably be classed as divisive. There are paintings: one of the cast of Seinfeld on the set of Wheel of Fortune, being painted, nude, by He-Man. There’s The Wrong Ferrari, a Dadaist knockabout written on ketamine with Adam Green of the Moldy Peaches, shot entirely on iPhones. Most notorious is the Pizza Underground, his Velvet Underground tribute act that replaces the original lyrics with pizza puns (I’m Waiting for Delivery Man, Take a Bite of the Wild Slice). At Nottingham Rock City, the band were pelted with beer and booed off stage as he played a kazoo solo. They cancelled their European dates, citing a “cheesemergency”. My question about all this is: what the hell? “It’s one of those good ideas you have when you’re drunk, and you wake up and forget about it. But we’re taking it to the end of the joke. We have an album coming out, a vinyl pressing with a children’s choir, a symphony orchestra. We’re giving it away, our gift to the world.” Does he still find it funny? “Of course I find it funny! We rhyme mushrooms with mushrooms, come on. It’s the same joke, relentlessly. Like, they’re really doing this?” Culkin enjoys the absurdity his fame bestows. But scrutiny has its downside. In New York, he takes walks at 4am to avoid harassment. On YouTube, one can find clips of him being harassed by wannabe-paps with smartphones. In 2012, photographs of him looking gaunt, almost transparent, set tabloids aflame with stories he was addicted to heroin and oxycodone, following the breakdown of his relationship with Mila Kunis. Given his friendship with Adam Green and Pete Doherty – as well as a previous arrest for possession of marijuana, Xanax and clonazepam – it seemed plausible. Were people right to be worried? “Not necessarily. Of course, when silly stuff is going on – but no, I was not pounding six grand of heroin every month or whatever. The thing that bugged me was tabloids wrapping it all in this weird guise of concern. No, you’re trying to shift papers.” Is there a story there he might want to tell one day, on his own terms? “Perhaps.” Whatever his recreational habits, I’m surprised by how unscrewed-up Macaulay Culkin is. Plans for the summer mainly involve roadying for Har Mar Superstar and Green (with whom he has another lo-fi film out, Aladdin). “Home is where my boots are. I’m a big fan of jumping on people’s tourbuses, making myself useful, doing load-ins and outs. I do everything except the merch table. I tried that, but ... we didn’t sell anything.” He has directionless days. He sleeps in, stays up late, indulges immature humour, bounces around with bad-influence friends. In short, he’s enjoying the adolescence that celebrity stole from him. Ironically, his personal problems and turbulent relationship with the media have also given him a pretty grown-up perspective. Not a bad epilogue for a child star. “It’s allowed me to become the person I am, and I like me, so I wouldn’t change a thing. Not having to do anything for my dinner, financially, lets me treat every gig like it’s the last.” He laughs, and this time addresses himself in the second person. “If it is, I’d think: Culkin, you had a good run.”
How to stop teenagers sexting Jeremy Hunt has proposed a ban on sexting for under 18s. As any reasonable person might have predicted, this has been met with a great deal of criticism. Most of the arguments appear to be based on the technical practicalities, given how Hunt never truly explained how tech companies are supposed to filter specific types of messages on countless platforms and devices based on date of birth. However, an even bigger hurdle would be the sex drive of teenagers themselves. One time when I was in school, we’d heard that someone had abandoned a pornographic magazine in a nearby field (for any teenagers reading this, this was a common phenomenon in the era when porn had to be printed). So, obviously, we set off to find it. Took a few hours but it was eventually spotted in a ditch. It ended with us just staring at it for a while, focussed on cheaply-printed images of naked breasts, spattered with mud, rainwater and animal effluent (I hope nobody developed any weird fetishes as a result of this, but you never know). About 10 young guys, spending hours climbing hills and trudging through bogs, all for the mere possibility of seeing images of exposed female flesh. These are the sort of lengths teenagers will go to for even the slightest sexual stimulation, so the idea of some remote authority figure saying “stop that” making them reconsider their actions is ludicrous in the extreme. This isn’t meant to ignore the issue. Teenage sexting is obviously prevalent, and we have no real idea how this affect long-term psychosexual development; we’ve never had a generation of humans who had such easy access to sexual material at such a young age before. And some studies suggest that the adolescent brain, which is still forming, is more prone to addictive behaviour as areas like the prefrontal cortex, responsible for critical thinking and impulse control, aren’t “fully formed” yet. But studies like this, and the general attitude that they inform (and that informs them in turn) do come in for criticism. Our society often has a questionable, unfair view of adolescents, regarding them with suspicion, as unable to think for themselves, minimising their achievements and so on. They’re often treated more like unpredictable pets than, you know, people. Studies focussing on the “immaturity” of the adolescent brain regularly back up this stance and inform policy, despite the fact that there’s relatively little evidence directly linking brain developments and observed behaviours. This could be seen as inconsistent. If your argument is that adolescent brains aren’t fully developed so they shouldn’t be trusted with anything potentially harmful, then technically our brains don’t fully “mature” until our mid-20s. Logically then, every important decision and possibly harmful action (smoking, drinking, driving etc.) should be restricted to those over 25. Unless I’ve missed a major announcement, this hasn’t happened. Another argument is that this lack of impulse control in adolescents isn’t a flaw, it evolved for a reason. Risk taking behaviour rises markedly during adolescence, and falls again into mature adulthood. While this obviously has dangerous implications, it can also lead to positive things like meeting more people, establishing relationships (asking someone out is always a big risk), achieving new experiences and knowledge, and many other things that make you a better person and improve your long term prospects. And then there’s the adolescent sex drive. Teenagers are going through an intense and confusing hormonal onslaught as it is. Testosterone and oestrogen induce the physical sexual changes experienced by men and women respectively, but these also increase our sex drive in the brain. Sex is an extremely powerful motivator at the best of times, but people often overlook how complex it is. You’ve got the basic, animal “urges” that lead to sex drives, but also the more sophisticated aspects. There’s the intimacy aspect (sex is a big part of relationships, something else our brains seek out), the social aspect (men who have a lot of sex are praised for their virility and prowess, women… not so much), and countless other influences. All of these would be even more potent for a developing, adolescent brain. Despite this, most research focuses purely on the timing of onset of adolescent sexuality, which isn’t especially helpful. So, technical challenges aside, the idea of a ban on sexting is still ridiculous. You’ve got millions of individuals with an increased sex drive, reduced self-control, a fondness for risk and an established aversion to authority figures. Even if you could work out a way to ban sexts among teenagers (one clueless politician versus an angry generation that have been immersed in technology since birth? Could happen, I guess) that wouldn’t solve the problem at all, would almost certainly just result in more teenagers being punished for questionable reasons. As sex-blogger Girl On The Net so eloquently puts it: Short of locking them in boxes with no wifi connection, there is no technical “solution” that will prevent kids from sexting any more than you could have prevented a younger version of me from getting touched up behind the bike sheds at school. What’s more I’d argue that “stopping kids from sexting” is a misguided goal in the first place. We shouldn’t be treating sex like it’s a monster that’s trying to eat our young people: it’s a very common part of life, and blanket bans are a poor alternative to proper sex education and guidance. There’s definitely a discussion to be had about teenagers engaging in potentially harmful, destructive sexual behaviours, but dealing with this would be a lot easier if policies around sexual issues were consistent and logical, and that’s far from the case. The UK age of consent is 16, but the texting plans would apply to anyone under 18? So you can have sex with your partner but can’t mention it on your phones afterwards? Sex suffuses practically every aspect of our media, bare flesh is common in everyday advertising, but teenage girls get kicked out of school for wearing too-short skirts. Is it any wonder teenagers are confused about sex and attempts to educate them are hit-and-miss? Logically, the best way to get teenagers to be more diligent about sex would be if those in authority started treating them like actual people with thoughts and drives and needs of their own, rather than horny dogs humping your trouser leg needing a tap on the nose to “learn their place”. Here’s hoping that might happen at some point. Dean Burnett isn’t a sex guru but he’s seen it on the telly. His book The Idiot Brain, is available now in the UK, USA, Canada and many other countries.
A new year that changed me: realising I wanted to live, and giving up heroin It was the looks of contempt that did it. I didn’t normally spend new year with my parents and sisters, but that year I did. I had nowhere else to go really as I’d pretty much run out of friends, and time with my family seemed marginally preferable to time on my own. To be clear; this wasn’t about them, it was about me. I’d been a heroin addict for 10 years and my life was a mess. I’d done next to nothing other than a few dead-end jobs from which I was invariably sacked and I got by on a round of handouts and petty crime. Lying had become second nature; I’d been to rehab five years previously and sworn blind to everyone that I was off the smack, but the truth was I’d never been clean for more than a few days. My life had been reduced to the getting and using of heroin. Not that I turned down booze or other drugs; it was just that none of them hit the same sweet spot of nullification. That feeling of feeling nothing. That new year, though, I was forced to feel my shame. I’d arrived – late, of course, what junkie ever arrives anywhere on time? – and my parents had made a great show of welcoming me. Several years later they told me one of the reasons they had always been so pleased to see me was because my arrival was proof that I wasn’t dead. I kissed my mum hello and my dad offered me a drink. “Don’t worry,” I said. “I’ll get one myself.” I went into the kitchen, downed a tumbler full of scotch, before refilling the glass to a more acceptable level and going off to the living room to rejoin the rest of the family. Awkward doesn’t begin to do justice to the misery that followed. My parents began, as they always did, by asking me what I had been up to. I came up with the usual hard luck lines of why what I had previously told them hadn’t happened and how I was sure next year would be different. They sat there and nodded, desperate to believe me. My sisters remained impassive, barely even bothering to say hello. I can’t remember the rest of the evening in detail, but if it ran anything like every other evening, it will have gone something like this. Every now and again I will have announced that I needed to go to the toilet and disappeared for the best part of 20 minutes to shoot up some smack. I’d have then wandered back into the living room as if I’d only been gone for a couple of minutes and slump, barely conscious, back into the chair. This would have been repeated several times until the clock ticked round to midnight – the chimes of freedom that allowed everyone to slope off to bed after the briefest “happy new year” and to escape the horrors of the preceding hours. What I do remember is the contempt in my sisters’ eyes. Normally, nothing could touch me when I was out of it on heroin; it was as if there was a protective barrier between me and the world. If people didn’t like me I seldom noticed, and if I did I wasn’t that bothered. But that New Year’s Eve my sisters broke through my shield and their eyes had seen my soul. Or what was left of it. They may not have known what exactly was wrong with me or just how bad a state I was in, but they had seen enough to give up on me. Loving me had become just too painful; disgust was all that remained. The details of the following morning are equally fuzzy, but something had changed. I couldn’t get my sisters out of my head. Even more striking was the revelation that no matter how much they hated me, it was nothing compared to how much I hated myself. Like most junkies, I often talked to other junkies about how I was going to give up smack. But also like most junkies, I never got round to doing more than getting the occasional methadone script to tide me over a few days of trying not to take quite as much heroin as usual. It was a depressing cycle of failure that only served to reinforce my self-loathing. Yet that New Year’s Eve had been a game changer, because it was also the moment I realised that I wanted to live more than I wanted to die. It took time. Junkies seldom rush anything and I continued to use, with the overdoses becoming more frequent. But within two months I was in rehab, and this time it worked. That was back in 1987. Fingers crossed in March this year I will have been clean and sober for 30 years.
Bridget Jones is a glorious emissary from a better age Trying to hate the third Bridget Jones film is like trying to sulk while a toddler is tickling you: if it’s hard to take against Renée Zellweger in any guise, it’s simply not viable when she’s lip-syncing to House of Pain. As she paces round her yard of failures, and ends “at least I’m finally thin,” it’s hard to take against that too. Comic talent leaps from the screen like frogs out of a box. Why was I even trying to hate it? Because it was Bridget Jones, and in the 1990s, that’s what we did. Before the first film we complained about the column, then the book, on feminist grounds. Finally, a character had arrived who didn’t embody a prissy femininity of self-control, but in its place was a constant hum of trivia and calories and incompetence. She couldn’t do anything. She couldn’t make soup, she couldn’t stay upright, she had all the agency and independence of a gosling, she was always at her most loveable when she was showing her knickers. It was as though there was so much fear in rejecting the classic female ideal of decorum that we had to crawl on our hands and knees to be accepted some other way. Inconveniently, she was often very funny. But funny could wait until we’d smashed the patriarchy. That was wrong. No, let me try that again. I was wrong. The self-abasement and the humour were inextricable, and contained a subtle liberation that it was a big mistake to undervalue. Big mistake, to quote another politically problematic but deceptively important film: huge. The first Bridget Jones film came out in 2001, by which time there was a kind of meta-disapproval for Zellweger, as the envoy of US body fascism trying to ape British slatternliness. How can you tear down the cultural constraint of female perfectionism with a heroine who battles constantly with her thighs and drinks wine in pints, and not at least check first whether or not Kate Winslet is available? The distinction between herself as an actor and herself qua casting decision seemed lost on Zellweger, who was extremely vexed at the column inches devoted to her appearance, and has remained so. In retrospect, I can see why. It’s hard not to take things personally when they’re literally all about your person. But seeing the third film makes me realise how much there is to miss about the 1990s politically. Bridget is now 43, and gets accidentally pregnant after two one-night stands, too close together to figure out whose child it is. I probably just about have it in me not to say who the father is, between Colin Firth’s Mark and Patrick Dempsey’s Jack, but otherwise take it as read that this piece will be riddled with spoilers. Immediately, the film made me miss sex-positive feminism. There was a time, towards the end of the last century, when we rejected the word “slut” not because it was victim-blaming but because there was no victim. The charge of sluttishness simply made no sense. A woman might choose to get drunk and have sex with a stranger, and it might not be a cry for help or a violation, it might not have meaning, she might not have low self-esteem, she might just feel like it. She might be charting the exhilarating waters of her own sexual destiny or she might just be passing the time. She couldn’t be made to feel ashamed, not because the Daily Mail didn’t try, but because shame is a two-way street and she didn’t have it in her. Sex didn’t have to be a transaction, with a winner and a loser (or two losers), as it is in Girls; it didn’t even have to be an idealised transaction resulting in mutually satisfied participants, in the manner of Sex and the City. It could exist entirely outside the framework of investment and return, use and exploitation, in the space we used to call life. I miss the jokes. At one point in Bridget Jones’s Baby, Bridget’s gay friend announces he’s adopting, and says: “We’re having a baby. A gayby”. That joke could only be made because it was seeded in a more ludic time. You wouldn’t write that in a story first conceived today, because someone would think it infantilised same sex relationships, and someone else would think it implied that gay parents tried to preach homosexuality to their children, and some other someone would think it sexualised babies. Which may not sound like a huge loss, because it’s just a piece of silly wordplay, but it is a loss: the ability to take a joke is a fundamental, perhaps defining, component of social legitimacy and confidence. When we all have to be as sensitive as our most sensitive ally, we cram into an ever tighter cultural corner, pearl-clutching, offence-taking, acting out the humourlessness of which liberals were always mischievously accused. And I miss Emma Thompson; or rather, I miss the kinds of roles for which only Emma Thompson will do, caustic, intelligent, sceptical, warm. Try to imagine Theresa May explaining to Emma Thompson why she needed grammar schools, or a van telling immigrants to go home or face arrest; it’s really enjoyable. More than any of that, I miss fecklessness, the ability to accept error as part of the human condition, without trying to stratify it by class or gender and write it off as the kind of thing only undesirable people are capable of. What contemporary political narrative would Bridget Jones fit into, in her current situation? She’s not a scrounger; she’s not a troubled family; she’s not a benefits cheat. (She probably is, for a time, a drain on the NHS.) But nor is she a hard-working family, or a striver. She’s not having a baby because she planned it, or can afford it, or has a brilliant maternity package, or lives near an outstanding primary school. She couldn’t begin to justify her decision, couldn’t even dignify it with the word, it’s more of a happenstance. She doesn’t match any of the criteria of a decent citizen in our current politics; but that’s a fault in the politics, which is kept afloat by a po-faced self-righteousness that can’t brook a joke in case empathy and fellowship come rushing in alongside it. The real work of building a “country that works for all” consists not of standing greyly by and intoning it, but of being able to see a person in wildly inauspicious circumstances, entirely of their own making, and feeling for them; knowing it could be you; wanting to help. That was the subversive element of Bridget Jones – her every pratfall built a deeper collective bond and made a narrow, judgmental, me-first worldview more absurd, more laughable, more impossible to maintain. She returns, like Batman, just when we need her most.
With Trump and Tillerson, Abbott's 'shirtfront' comment looks even sillier President-elect Donald Trump’s foreign policy will bring together the two most important trends sweeping world politics. One is the surge of anti-establishment consciousness across the west. Trump’s pick for secretary of state, Washington outsider and friend of Russia, Rex Tillerson, is the latest manifestation of this. The other is the rise of Asia after half a millennium of relative stagnation. For Australia, this is an opportunity for an overdue recalibration of our foreign policy thinking, one that harnesses the benefits of our diverse population and puts people first. The pick of Tillerson is the strongest indication yet that Trump will defy establishment hawks and run foreign policy his own way. A Trumpian foreign policy has been touted by his supporters as a course-correction towards prioritising ordinary Americans at home, and away from maintaining the “liberal international order”. This order, epitomised by hawkish liberal Hillary Clinton, is increasingly attacked by the right as charity to undeserving foreigners, and has long been critiqued by the left as imperialism in the service of global capitalists. The maintenance of this order has led to massive military spending in a period when middle class Americans have seen no real growth in income. The American people, including those who opposed Trump, were increasingly dissatisfied with the foreign policy their government had prosecuted. John Howard would have probably called them anti-American. In practice, noting Trump’s trademark inconsistency, his changes will likely mean less influence by traditional “pro-war” special interest groups and wins for a new group of private sector elites in the president’s inner-circle. Incoming secretary of state Tillerson, alongside chief strategist Steve Bannon and his “economic nationalists” faction, and Russia-friendly national security adviser Mike Flynn, constitute formidable opposition to the hawkish Republican establishment. For ordinary Americans, however, all this means is potential slight, short-term gains for workers in certain industries. What it means for Australia The Trumpian paradigm is straightforward and realist, at least overtly: if you mess with us, you’re a bad guy, to be bombed (Islamic terrorists) or slapped with tariffs (China), and everyone else (from Australia to Russia) can sink or swim on their own. This increases the urgency of the challenges Canberra already faces, like how to respond to an ascendant China and a multipolar Asia. Less US interest in regional disputes like the South China Sea reduces the risk of a great power war and relieves pressure on Australia to “pick a side”. However, a potential US trade war with China will harm sectors of our economy and would remove one of the biggest barriers to a real war between the superpowers. Furthermore, US withdrawal from the region may cause countries like Japan, and even India, to begin a military buildup, triggering an arms race in Asia. At this juncture, Australia has a historic opportunity to rethink its foreign policy. For decades our leaders provided rhetorical support for almost all US foreign policies, including those that did not prioritise the Australian people’s interests. Trump seems to envision a USA that is much closer to the way many countries in our region already view the US: as a powerful state pursuing its own interests. Unfortunately, Australia’s politicians had long ignored this view. Our relationship with Washington had been considered, to quote Paul Keating, as “sacrament”. The Trumpian foreign policy is a massive smackdown to the rightwingers in Australian politics and their Howard era “deputy sheriff” mentality, a doctrine that increased our risk of attack by terrorists. Our erstwhile approach of being “more Catholic than the Pope” as seen by former prime minister Tony Abbott’s unfulfilled pledge to “shirtfront” Vladimir Putin, and other inflammatory rhetoric that saw us excluded from talks on Syria (harming our anti-terror efforts), will no longer suffice now that the next US president has moved to rapprochement with Russia. With an America-firster in the White House, Australia needs to take a sober look at our US relationship, pros and cons. The Alliance’s key benefits include that Washington is bound into consulting on mutual threats. Our security ties provide access to US intelligence resources, military technology, preferred status in equipment purchasing, access to training and combined exercises. This relationship increases the likelihood of US protection, but does not guarantee it. Washington has, understandably, always looked out for itself first, and under Trump this will be more pronounced. Canberra should do likewise, seeing our two nations as rational actors working together where our interests converge. Trump’s election should force us to grasp the full reality of Asia’s strategic ascendance, not just its economic growth. Being seen as a rusted on US ally weakens our leverage in both Washington and Beijing. We must dare to imagine potential future scenarios where China is as powerful as the US in Asia, and where the American people and political class are unwilling to go to war over Asia with a nuclear-armed opponent. Is it worth damaging ties with Beijing because our “values” differ, when these values haven’t stopped us maintaining ties with other non-democratic states? These challenges require a careful “triple bottom line” approach which assesses interests, values and public opinion. Publicly admonishing Beijing over the South China Sea while acquiescing to breaches of international law like Bush’s Iraq invasion fails to stand up to any of these tests. Trump’s anti-establishment win also reminds us not to exclude ordinary people from the discussion. More so than any other policy area, foreign policy has long been considered sacrosanct and above the uncouthness of public debate. But with the geopolitical ground shifting, the conversation must expand beyond Hugh White columns in newspapers and into mainstream political discussions. This includes harnessing Australia’s growing multicultural diversity. Should we still prioritise the “Anglosphere” due to cultural ties as some Liberal politicians prefer, when over 12% of Australians have Asian ancestry and Asians are among the fastest growing migrant groups? Policymaking needs to be diversified both demographically and professionally. Unlike the US, where a revolving door between government, academia and business spurs innovation, Australia’s foreign policy establishment has long been a closed shop with the majority of entrants joining at the graduate level. Thankfully this is beginning to change. When I first joined the foreign service, I was one of only a few graduates who was both a migrant and from a working class, heavily multicultural suburb. Growing up in Dandenong and observing the cultures and inter-group dynamics between the Chinese, Serbs, Afghans etc. gave me a foundation for understanding the world of international relations. With Trump’s America accelerating the emergence of a multipolar world no longer dominated by European-heritage countries, Australia needs to look right here, to our own diverse population when shaping our future global direction. Trump’s rise, both through its implications and as a symbolic example, should teach politicians to put Australia’s people first in foreign policy, and encourage everyone to contribute to the discussion.
Trump did not 'formally invite' Gennifer Flowers to debate, says campaign Gennifer Flowers has not been “formally invited” by the Trump campaign to attend Monday’s first presidential debate, campaign manager Kellyanne Conway said on Sunday, adding: “I can’t believe how easily the Clinton campaign was baited.” In response, Clinton campaign manager Robbie Mook said the Flowers story was “a warning sign about [Trump’s] bullying tactics that make him unfit to be president”. Trump appeared to invite Flowers, who had a sexual liaison with Bill Clinton, on Saturday, in an exchange of tweets with the billionaire Mark Cuban, a Clinton supporter and Trump antagonist who said he had been invited to attend the Hofstra University debate. Flowers subsequently tweeted that she was in Trump’s “corner” and would “definitely be at the debate”. BuzzFeed News reported that her assistant said in an email Flowers would attend and the New York Times reported that Flowers confirmed that in a text message, saying: “Yes I will be there.” Conway appeared on Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union. Asked if she could confirm Flowers’ attendance, she said: “No, I can’t confirm that and I can’t believe how easily the Clinton campaign was baited.” Flowers, she said, “had not been formally invited. I don’t expect her to be there as a guest of the Trump campaign. “It seems odd,” she added, that the Clinton campaign would give the story “life and breath”. Speaking to ABC’s This Week, Conway repeated her contention that the Clinton campaign had started the row by inviting Cuban and elaborated on her claim about “baiting”, criticising the release of a statement on the subject on Saturday night. In that statement, Clinton communications director Jennifer Palmieri said: “Hillary Clinton plans on using the debate to discuss the issues that make a difference in people’s lives. It’s not surprising that Donald Trump has chosen a different path.” Conway also repeated that Flowers had not been invited by the campaign, but added that she could be at the debate “as a paying member of the public”. On Fox News Sunday, Trump vice-presidential pick Mike Pence was more emphatic, saying: “Gennifer Flowers will not be attending the debate tomorrow night.” Pence also attacked Cuban, who owns the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks, saying he had “been out there saying some pretty tough stuff about my running mate … [He] knows about as much about national security as I do about professional basketball”. On NBC’s Meet the Press, retired lieutenant general Michael Flynn, a Trump adviser, held the line, saying Cuban was “not a legitimate person”. Flynn was less decisive about Flowers, saying only: “We’ll wait to see what happens tomorrow night.” Following Conway on CNN, Mook said the Flowers story was indicative of Trump’s temperamental instability and unsuitability for the White House. “Nobody knows which Donald Trump is going to show up to this debate,” he said, “and in fact his erratic temperament has been discussed a lot around the debate, and I would argue that is why he is not fit and prepared to be president.” Conway said Trump “had no plan” to attack Clinton in the debate about her husband’s infidelity, echoing remarks by the candidate himself earlier this week, and said: “Mr Trump will answer the questions as asked by moderator Lester Holt.” Trump’s frequent attacks on other people were “counterpunches” to attacks on him, she said, as he had “a right to defend himself”. Mook said: “I think the fact that Trump is spending the hours before the debate on this sort of thing is indicative of the kind of leader and the kind of president he would be. It’s a warning sign before the debate has even started about [Trump’s] bullying tactics that make him unfit to be president.” Clinton would seek in the debate an “unfiltered opportunity” to address the American people, Mook said, repeating campaign claims that the Democratic candidate would not be treated fairly by moderators and saying he was “very concerned that Donald Trump will be graded on a curve” and allowed to “fly off the handle” rather than address specific plans and policies. Speaking to ABC, he added that the campaign did not want Clinton “to have to play traffic cop … having to spend the whole debate correcting the record”. On CNN, Conway refused to reveal what was said between Trump and the Texas senator Ted Cruz, who endorsed the nominee on Friday after having held out since a bruising primary in which Trump labelled him “Lyin’ Ted”, was critical of Cruz’s wife’s looks and linked his father to the assassination of John F Kennedy. “I can tell you we are thrilled to have the endorsement of Senator Cruz,” she said. “Together [he and Trump] really do represent a large part of the Republican party.” Speaking in Austin, Texas, on Saturday, Cruz said his decision was rooted in the need to stop Clinton becoming president, but he refused to say if Trump was fit for the job. Bill Clinton initially denied Flowers’ 1992 claim that they had had a long affair, but admitted in a 1998 deposition in a sexual harassment suit that he had a single sexual encounter with Flowers. In 1999, Flowers opened a defamation suit against Hillary Clinton and two Clinton aides, James Carville and George Stephanopoulos. It was eventually dismissed. News of Flowers’ possible attendance at the first debate came nine years after she told the Associated Press “I can’t help but want to support my own gender” and “I don’t have any interest whatsoever in getting back out there and bashing Hillary Clinton.”
'It’s pretty small': Trump's left hand on display for all to judge in New York Donald Trump’s ailing presidential campaign suffered yet another blow on Wednesday, when the size of his hands – a recurring, sensitive issue for the 70-year-old – was made public. An imprint of Trump’s left hand was found on display at Madame Tussaud’s New York wax museum by the Hollywood Reporter. Using a measuring apparatus, the Reporter found the hand to be a mere 7.25 inches – compared to the average male hand size of 7.44 inches. The revelation threatens to further destabilize Trump’s efforts to be president. Notoriously thin-skinned – he most recently insulted the Muslim parents of an American war hero – Trump has been insisting he has “normal” hands for years. The furore regarding the self-described billionaire’s appendages even spilled over into a Republican presidential debate in March, when Trump inferred his hand size did not mean he had a small penis. Whether that is accurate or not, on Wednesday afternoon some Madame Tussaud’s attendees were shocked as they compared their hands to Trump’s. “It’s pretty small,” said Claire Severson, 22. “It’s about the same size as mine and I have a small hand. It’s tiny.” Severson, who looked to be around 5ft 7in tall, declared herself “rather surprised” at the size of Trump’s hand, which is cast in bronze. The good news for Trump, who trailed Clinton by nine points in a CNN/ORC poll released Monday, is that Severson said hand size would not influence her decision at the ballot box. “I’m not going to vote for him,” she said. “But not due to the size of his hand.” The controversy over the size of Trump’s hands dates back to the 1980s, when journalist Graydon Carter referred to the billionaire as a “short-fingered vulgarian” in Spy magazine. In 2015 Carter revealed that Trump has been sporadically sending him pictures of his hands for the last 25 years, insisting they are not as small as Carter made out. The bronze model of Trump’s hand is located near the exit of Madame Tussaud’s, opposite a penny-pressing machine. It is displayed next to a picture of a stern-looking Trump. As visitors flowed out of the wax museum only a few noticed the exhibit. “Oh, look it’s this asshole,” said Maribel Ocampo, a 39-year-old New York City resident. Ocampo, a 5ft tall woman, placed her hand over that of the 6ft 2in Trump. Hers was slightly smaller. “They’re very feminine,” she noted of Trump’s hands. “They’re the size of a regular-size female. If I were normal size they’d be bigger.” Ocampo described Trump, who has filed for bankruptcy four times, as “a racist and a misogynist” who had “no proper way of talking to people”, yet like Severson, she said the size of Trump hands would not play a part in her vote. “I don’t care if he had big hulk hands,” she said, referring to the large, green alter ego of scientist Bruce Banner in the Marvel Comics series The Incredible Hulk. “I still wouldn’t vote for him.” Ismael Gutierrez, a 24-year-old student, was also taken aback by dimensions of Trump’s hand. “No way,” he said. “That can’t be.” Gutierrez’s hand was roughly the same size Trump’s, although at 5ft 4in, he is almost a foot shorter. “A guy that tall, I find that weird,” Gutierrez said, although he did sound a more encouraging note for the presidential candidate. “You can’t really judge a man by his hand,” he noted. “This doesn’t really have anything to do with running the country, the size of his hand.”
Ted Cruz refuses to back Donald Trump and hints he could revive his campaign Ted Cruz refused to commit his support to Donald Trump as the Republican nominee on Tuesday, and did not rule out resurrecting his campaign for president despite having dropped out of the race last week. In an interview with conservative talk show host Glenn Beck, the Texas senator said that picking a presidential candidate “is not a choice that we as voters have to make today”. His comments came as Marco Rubio, the Florida senator who suspended his own presidential bid in March, said he would support Trump as the nominee. During an interview with CNN on Tuesday, Rubio said he intended to stick to a pledge signed by all of the Republican candidates last year to back the eventual nominee. “I signed a pledge, put my name on it, and said I would support the Republican nominee and that’s what I intend to do,” Rubio said. Cruz appeared less bound by the pledge, which has already been discarded by former contenders Jeb Bush and Lindsey Graham – both of whom have come out against Trump despite his all but clinching the Republican nomination. Cruz pointed out there were still two months until the Republican National Convention in Cleveland and six months until the general election, saying “we need to watch and see what the candidates say and do”. Although Cruz had long committed to supporting the Republican nominee in the past, his tone changed after Trump repeatedly made personal attacks against Cruz and his family. The businessman branded his rival “Lyin’ Ted”, threatened to “spill the beans” on his wife while implying she was unattractive, and accused Cruz’s father of involvement in the assassination of John F Kennedy. While Cruz once called Trump “a friend” and “terrific”, he held an abrupt press conference hours before ending his campaign at which he derided Trump as a “serial philanderer”, an “amoral pathological liar”, and a “braggadocious, arrogant buffoon”. Nor would Cruz rule out returning to the campaign trail if “there’s a path to victory”. The Texas senator suspended his campaign after losing the Indiana primary on 3 May by a margin of 53%-37%, and said that with the loss he no longer saw a path to the Republican nomination. On Tuesday, Cruz told Beck: “If that changes, we will certainly respond accordingly.” However, Cruz’s campaign had a well-organized effort to put his supporters into positions of power among Republican delegates, who will elect the party’s nominee at the national convention in Cleveland this July. This effort means that although Trump is the only candidate left in the Republican primary, Cruz supporters will have significant influence on the convention floor, and that his delegates will probably hold control of crucial committees, such as those that write the convention rules and design the party’s platform. Cruz made clear that a return to the trail was very unlikely, though he would not rule it out. “I’m not holding my breath,” he said, in response to questioning about a primary election in Nebraska, also on Tuesday, that he was once expected to win. The Texas senator did dismiss the possibility of running as a third-party candidate or supporting a third-party alternative in November. “I don’t think that’s very likely,” he told Beck. “It’s always talked about; I don’t think it’s something that’s likely to happen.” Cruz’s statements followed Trump’s continued failure to unite the Republican party behind him. Two former presidents have said they will not back him and key party figures like the speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, have declined to endorse him, at least for the present. The former reality television star is scheduled to meet Republican congressional leaders in Washington on Thursday, as part of his effort to heal the rifts within the party. Rubio said while he stood by his prior criticisms of Trump – which included dubbing his former opponent “an erratic con artist” – Republican primary voters had made their choice clear. “My differences with Donald – both my reservations about his campaign and my policy differences with him – are well documented and they remain,” Rubio said. “But I’m not going to sit here right now and become his chief critic over the next six months, because he deserves the opportunity to go forward and make his argument and try to win.” He added: “I know what I said during the campaign; I enunciated those things repeatedly. And voters chose a different direction. I stand by the things that I said.” Rubio nonetheless declined to offer Trump an explicit endorsement, hedging when asked if he planned to vote for the billionaire in November. “I intend to support the nominee,” Rubio said. Pressed again by the CNN host Jake Tapper on whether that meant casting a ballot in Trump’s favor, Rubio responded: “I’m not voting for Hillary Clinton. I’m not throwing away my vote.”
Steve Young obituary The singer and songwriter Steve Young, who has died aged 73 from a head injury sustained after a fall, won the admiration of critics and fellow artists in a recording career spanning almost 50 years, while remaining little known outside a hard core of appreciative fans. Nonetheless, he was influential in the country-rock movement of the 1960s and 70s, and was closely allied with the outlaw country movement, which introduced a defiant rock’n’roll attitude into Nashville’s middle-of-the-road country music. Young’s best-known song is Seven Bridges Road, which has been covered by numerous artists including Joan Baez, Rita Coolidge, Iain Matthews and Dolly Parton. The song gave Young his closest brush with stardom when the Eagles released their live recording of it as a single in 1980. Their version (extracted from the Eagles Live concert album) reached 21 on the Billboard Hot 100 and also became a hit on the country charts. Other Young songs made famous by big-name artists were Montgomery in the Rain, which was recorded by Hank Williams Jr in 1977, and Lonesome, On’ry and Mean, the title song of the 1973 album by Waylon Jennings which helped to establish Jennings’s “outlaw” credentials. Young was born in Georgia and spent his early years moving around Georgia and Alabama as his half-Cherokee father struggled to find work. He regarded Gadsden, Alabama – where his maternal grandmother lived – as the nearest thing he had to a home town. “My father began sharecropping when he was 13 and his sister Eula, who worked with him, was 10,” Young recalled. “I was from a really dysfunctional family. My father would just disappear sometimes … He left us when I was very young.” Nonetheless, both his mother and father had an interest in country and gospel music, and the young Steve developed an ambition to become a musician. His mother eventually bought him a Gibson electric guitar. She remarried and moved, with her son, to Beaumont, Texas, where Steve graduated from high school (he was in the same class as the aspiring blues guitarist Johnny Winter). He played gigs in Texas before moving back to Alabama, but his fondness for playing politically charged folk songs, including some of Bob Dylan’s, made him unpopular in the reactionary Deep South. Having received threats from the Ku Klux Klan, he fled to California with two local folk musicians, Richard Lockmiller and Jim Connor, who had a deal with Capitol Records as Richard & Jim. He played lead guitar in the Skip Battin Band (Battin would later join the Byrds) and joined Van Dyke Parks and Stephen Stills in the Gas Company. Then he was invited to join Stone Country, who recorded an album for RCA that brought Young to the notice of other record companies. He signed a solo deal with A&M and recorded his debut album, Rock Salt & Nails (1969); it comprised mostly cover versions, and featured two former member of the Byrds, Gene Clark and Gram Parsons, but also contained the first recording of Seven Bridges Road. Young’s evocative mix of country, gospel, folk and bluegrass styles was already forming. The album failed to sell, and Young, already tired of the music business, moved to San Francisco with his new wife, the folk singer Terrye Newkirk. He opened a guitar shop in San Anselmo, where his customers included Jerry Garcia and Van Morrison. However, Reprise records lured him with a new deal, and sent him to Nashville to record the album Seven Bridges Road (1972). This too was a flop, despite some enthusiastic reviews. Now with a young son, Young moved to Nashville, but lack of money and his escalating alcohol consumption prompted him to separate from Terrye in 1974 (they later divorced). In 1975-76, he was filmed for the documentary Heartworn Highways, alongside other upcoming “outlaw” performers including Guy Clark, Townes Van Zandt and Steve Earle, but the film was not released until 1981. Young scuffled a living as a travelling troubadour, when the opportunity arose making albums, which included Honky Tonk Man (1975) and two critically acclaimed albums for RCA, Renegade Picker (1976) and No Place to Fall (1978). These did not sell, driving Young into a pit of alcoholic gloom that took him into rehab at Meharry hospital, Nashville. After a reissue of Seven Bridges Road and a new album, To Satisfy You (1981), failed to ring the cash registers, Young was invited to tour Norway with the Jonas Fjeld Band, and made the album Look Homeward Angel (1986) for the Swedish label Mill Records. He moved to Austin, Texas and cut the album Solo/Live (1991) for Watermelon Records, followed by the studio album Switchblades of Love (1993), a collection of songs that proved Young was still potent creatively, if not financially. After releasing Primal Young (2000), he concocted a plan to re-record his back catalogue, since his rights to his original recordings were entangled with various record labels. This resulted in Songlines Revisited, Vol 1 (2005). His latest release was the live album Stories Round the Horseshoe Bend (2007). His son, Jubal Lee, survives him. • Steve Young, singer and songwriter, born 12 July 1942; died 17 March 2016
Donald Trump is a pretend populist – just look at his economic policy When Donald Trump pitched an economic policy platform nakedly contrived to benefit other multi-millionaires to an assembled crowd in Detroit this Monday, it was quite a spectacle. If there was ever any doubt about the absurdity of the signifier of populism in American politics, it should have been dashed there and then. What’s clear by now is that Donald Trump’s populist appeal is limited to a very specific populace, by design. The question of whether Trump’s support is predicated on race versus class isn’t really a question anymore. It’s the kind of thing that can be tested with polls and multivariate regression models. Which is exactly what political scientist Philip Klinkner did, and found that, controlling for one another, pessimism about the economy doesn’t predict support for Trump; resentment toward African Americans and Muslims does. It’s the reason why Trump won’t win over Sanders supporters: however much he invokes Nafta and the decline of manufacturing in the Midwest, as he did in his Detroit speech, trade just isn’t as politically salient as he thinks. Most voters don’t rank trade as a top issue. And most of Trump’s supporters care far more about immigration and terrorism, which makes his frequent racist and Islamophobic dog whistles far more effective at shoring up his base. There are, of course, many on the left who wish trade was more of a salient issue, just as many wish the US had stronger unions and an honest-to-God populist party. But given our history as a country founded on white supremacy, the dream of a kind of pure populism, unadulterated by racism and xenophobia, has always been elusive. Trump’s platform and rhetoric neatly dovetail with those of earlier American populist parties, the Know Nothings (for whom their alien scourge was Catholics) and the People’s Party (who called for restricting immigration in their founding document). Which is why it doesn’t really matter that Trump gets so much wrong on economics. Just in this one speech, he asserted, without evidence, that the Department of Labor is misreporting unemployment figures, apparently confusing their U3 and U6 rates. He conflated retirees with people out of work. He used out-of-date census data to say that household income dropped $4,000 in 16 years, which is not true. He claimed a Congressional Budget Office report says “Obamacare will cost the economy two million full-time jobs,” when the report says no such thing. He flat out made things up about Clinton’s tax plan. He called for repealing an estate tax that affects only him and a handful of his richest peers, a display of self interest that’s so unabashed it’s impressive. Make me president and I’ll end the tax on private jets and orange hair weaves. He can get all this wrong and it won’t matter. Just as it doesn’t matter that a man who appears to use bankruptcy as a business model can claim to be a jobs candidate. Just as it didn’t matter that the last movement to be called populist, the Tea Party, had average incomes well above the US median. It’s not about jobs and it’s not about income. Even if it should be. To be sure, the Democrats’ allergy to anything resembling class-based politics does much to enable Trump, and the continuation of a racialized populism largely divorced from economics. When Democrats say “middle class”, they mean “working class”, and when Republicans say “working class”, they mean “white people”. To be called working class in America means being an evangelical, being a gun owner, living in a rural area, not being black or Latino or Asian – being, in other words, a typical Republican. So when Democrats flip flop on trade, and cozy up to Wall Street while keeping unions at arms length, who can blame Republicans for seizing an opportunity to fill the void? And the more Trump’s racialized populism alienates establishment Republicans, the more Clinton embraces them, trumpeting an elite Washington consensus that she is the only responsible candidate in the race. Which may be true. But if there’s anything that feeds the Trump phenomenon more than racial resentment, it’s suspicion of an elite Washington consensus. When class disappears, being declared wrong by the whole of the establishment is enough to qualify you as a populist.
Government inaction on obesity is a scandal Obesity is the biggest public health crisis facing the UK and it is crucial that we tackle this issue directly (Ministers accused of backtracking on childhood obesity plan, 31 October). It is staggering that this government is choosing to ignore the problem. Is it acceptable that a third of children aged two to 15 are overweight or obese, putting them in danger of a variety of long-term health problems? The government had a fantastic opportunity to introduce tangible measures that could have initiated a culture change, but this strategy barely touched the surface. In 2013, the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges produced a report, Measuring Up, that identified actions to tackle obesity, including banning junk food advertising before 9pm. We hear that restrictions on junk food advertising were originally included in the government strategy, so why were these and other measures supported by medical experts, removed? We know what the issues are and what needs to be done to make a difference, so what is stopping our politicians from getting things moving? If we don’t act soon, the number of people living with illnesses caused by obesity will increase significantly and the financial burden on the NHS will continue to rise. We can’t afford to wait any longer to confront this problem head on. Dr Sheena Bedi Chief executive, ABL Health • You rightly focused on nutrition, but the issue of physical activity is also crucial. I’m told by teachers that secondary schools are ceasing teaching PE altogether and using the time in the pursuit of academic exam results. There is no requirement to teach PE and what schools should cover is also not prescribed. If PE is not taught, it will be a disaster not just for kids’ health but their development, confidence, social skills and general education. Lee Adams Sheffield • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
Gillian Armstrong: I used to think, 'I did it, why can't all the other women?' The footpath outside the Orana Cinema in Busselton, Western Australia, is inscribed with names of Australian cinematic royalty: Jack Thompson. Hugo Weaving. David Wenham. Steve Bisley. Bryan Brown. Koko, the dog from Red Dog. It is somewhat striking that of the nine names that have been featured on CinefestOz’s walk of fame, kelpies are better represented than women – but this year’s festival brought with it a new addition: the acclaimed director Gillian Armstrong. Armstrong, the director of My Brilliant Career and Little Women, received CinefestOz’s Screen Legend award at the festival’s gala event on Saturday night, making her the first woman to feature on the Busselton footpath. Speaking to Australia at one of the many boozy lunches that mark the festival, which is spread across the Margaret River wine region in Western Australia, the director expresses delight in the award: “Now people can walk all over me!” Armstrong knows well the hard-fought battle of gender diversity in the Australian film industry. A key supporter of Screen Australia’s Gender Matters initiative, she now sits on a panel, formed by the Australian Directors Guild, which oversees the program’s Brilliant Careers branch, to create industry support for female directors. Armstrong was instrumental in getting the panel off the ground. When she saw an alarming report in the Australian Film Television and Radio School’s Lumina magazine, which indicated that only 16% of Australian directors working between 1970 and 2014 were women (though she herself would have estimated the figure closer to 40%), she lobbied Kingston Anderson, the chief executive of the Australian Directors Guild, to pay greater attention to gender diversity. “I said to Kingston, the ADG should get together and talk about this, because it’s 50-50 going to film school, and in every short film award there’s women nominated. So what’s going wrong? It’s obvious that it’s not a level playing field.” “The film industry is not full of misogynists,” Armstrong says. “It’s investors and producers risking money on a project, and underneath, no matter what they think, there’s a greater trust in the visual image of a guy with a baseball hat on.” She speculates also that the “boys’ club” of the advertising industry in Australia is inhibiting the progress of female directors, with many ad agencies offering commercial opportunities to young guys headhunted out of film school, giving men the additional training and skills that lay the foundation for feature work. Armstrong credits an encounter with the Swedish Film Institute chief executive, Anna Serner, at a Toronto film festival event last year with informing her thinking on affirmative action in screen funding. In 2011 only 26% of Swedish government film funding went to female directors. Serner set out to achieve gender parity by the end of four years and reached her goal in two and a half. Armstrong has spent her career resisting being characterised as a “feminist director”, a term that has dogged her since her acclaimed feature debut, My Brilliant Career, in 1979. “I got branded as a feminist director because it was a feminist story, but then that’s all I was offered: women achievers – first woman to fly a plane, climb a mountain, ride a camel. I really fought against that labelling. I like to say my characters, male and female, are complicated, and not formulaic, and have depth and layers.” Searching out a change of subject, Armstrong fought to direct the 1982 musical Starstruck – only to have it branded in the press as another Armstrong film about a “redhead who wants to be an achiever”. One dismissal that particularly stung was an Australian notice given to her underrated 1987 heartbreaker High Tide, which stars Judy Davis as an itinerant showgirl alcoholic who re-encounters the daughter she gave up as an infant. “It wasn’t particularly the review,” Armstrong says, “it was a subeditor. I’ll remember this forever. The heading was ‘Woman’s Weepy’. We were so upset.” One of Armstrong earliest works, the film she remembers as her first paid director’s job, was the short documentary Smoke and Lollies (1976): a portrait of three 14-year-old Adelaide schoolgirls, which was funded through the South Australian Film Corporation. Armstrong later extended this project, revisiting the three women across four subsequent documentaries, most recently Love, Lust and Lies in 2009. Though money for the film was allocated from a one-off program targeting female directors, Armstrong says she never felt that her career was made on the back of this diversity initiative – after all, she characterises her early documentary work as a sidebar to her work in drama. But she acknowledges that her support for gender diversity-targeted funding is the result of an ongoing attitude shift. “I used to think, ‘I did it, why can’t all the other women?’ There were women’s initiatives and film groups, and I was actually a bit snobby about all that. I was like, well, you’ve just to make a good film. It’s about your individual talent. That’s why this has been a big change for me to speak out about it.” Armstrong says she’s heard the resentments of male directors who feel shut out from funding opportunities, but insists the industry is tough for anyone. “The women that have got through over the years — Jane Campion and Jocelyn Moorhouse and so on — have worked 10 times as hard as the men. They’re 10 times as good as the men. There won’t be equality until there are as many mediocre women directors as there are mediocre men.”
Dennis Viollet: A United Man review – Manchester United survivor turned American pioneer Here is a respectful profile of Manchester United forward Dennis Viollet, who had an eventful enough life in the English game: he was part of the original Busby Babes, survived the Munich air crash, claimed United’s record for most league goals in a season (32, it still stands), before being shipped out by Busby to Stoke after developing a reputation as a bit of a party animal. Even with United’s sizeable fanbase, it’s hard to see how any of this is worthy of wider interest than a slot on MUTV – until it becomes apparent that Viollet’s career had an interesting second act: he moved to the US in 1969 and helped set up professional soccer there. It seems that Viollet took readily to life in the US, attempting to nurture homegrown talent alongside the starry imports, and he is spoken extremely fondly of by some of the former players whom he coached. The film is directed by Viollet’s daughter Rachel, which makes it very much a family affair.
Pro-Brexit bosses include retirees and tax avoidance experts Business figures who signed an open letter supporting Brexit include tax avoidance specialists, dozens of retirees and the publisher of a book about Ukip introduced by Nigel Farage. The list of more than 300 people also includes the bosses of dormant companies and a law firm that admits leaving the European Union could lead to a repeal of workers’ rights. In a letter published in the Daily Telegraph, the business names claim Brexit would create more jobs, adding that the UK’s competitiveness is being “undermined by our membership”. While signatories include heavyweight names, such as former HSBC chief executive Michael Geoghegan and the Wetherspoons chairman, Tim Martin, the leadership credentials of many others are less clear. Several preside over companies listed as “dormant” by Companies House, while 23 are no longer active in the business world. One signatory is John Kersey, managing director of Preston hair salon Kersey Hairdressing, a business with net assets of £313. The list also includes the bosses of a clutch of firms with a history of facilitating tax avoidance. Robert Hiscox, honorary president of Hiscox Insurance, has been an outspoken defender of tax avoidance, having moved his company to Bermuda to slash its tax bill. Fellow signatory Martin Bellamy is the chairman and chief executive of Salamanca Group, which advertises “dynastic estate-planning” for “ultra-high net worth families”. It offers advice on ways on offshore trusts and foreign investments for those keen on “passing wealth or holding wealth for the next generation” or those who want to keep their affairs “outside the public domain”. Salamanca also boasts of setting up offshore employee benefit trusts, a tax-efficient means of paying staff that the Treasury has said it wants to crack down on. Another signatory, Clive Thorne, is a partner at Wedlake Bell, a law firm that offers “imaginative” tax-planning strategies for business “both onshore and offshore”. In an article on the company’s website, the firm admits that leaving the EU could result in a raft of workers’ rights being abolished. “A number of key employment rights derive from EU legislation, in particular those relating to equal opportunities, holiday and working time. A departure from the EU could allow such legislation to be weakened or even repealed,” the article says. Labour MP Wes Streeting said the number of City financiers on the list showed the Brexit campaign was dominated by those who do not have ordinary workers’ best interests at heart. “These fat cats thrive off market disruption and insecurity,” he said. “But the disruption caused by our leaving the EU’s single market would damage our economy to the tune of £4,300 a year per household, hitting working people the hardest. “The facts are clear – working people are better off in Europe. Leaving would be a leap in the dark that would put trade, jobs and rights at risk.” Some of the business leaders mentioned are not as senior as their titles might suggest. The letter is signed by David Sismey, a managing director at Wall Street bank Goldman Sachs, where many hundreds of middle-ranking staff have the same title. Another signatory is David Barnby, proprietor of Books2BuyBooks2Write and publisher of Hard Pounding: The Ukip Story, which includes a foreword by the party’s leader, Nigel Farage. A few of the firms appear concerned largely with the interests of the wealthy elite, such as private security firm Veritas International, whose chief executive Simon Rowland put his name to the letter. Veritas offers services such as armed guards for superyachts and private chaperones for children on their gap years. Robin Ronaldshay, who signed as director of Zetland Estates, is also known as Robin Dundas, Earl of Ronaldshay, heir to the title of Marquess of Zetland.
The view on cyberbullying “Is it true? Is it necessary? Is it kind?” These are the questions Lucy Alexander’s open letter implored people to ask themselves before posting anything on social media. It was written after her son, Felix, killed himself, aged 17, after suffering years of cyberbullying and online abuse. This is something we should all reflect on as anti-bullying week begins on Monday. If we asked ourselves those questions more frequently, Prince Harry might not have felt forced to issue a statement about the treatment of his girlfriend, Meghan Markle, on social media and in the tabloid press. Fewer women might have to put up with vile misogynist online abuse, including rape and death threats. Fewer celebrities might see themselves mauled online in sidebars of shame. Cyberbullying can be particularly pernicious. Unrestricted to a particular location, it can be impossible to escape. The degree of anonymity afforded by the online world can embolden perpetrators to behave in ways they otherwise wouldn’t. Perpetrators rarely witness the emotional reaction of their victims, dampening any empathy they might feel. And things can go viral fast, with potentially unlimited reach. Cyberbullying may be perpetrated thoughtlessly, but with devastating consequences. Lucy Nesbitt-Comaskey, a woman who was in Nice during the terrorist attack in July, gave an interview to Sky News while she was still in shock and made the mistake of talking about her shopping. She was torn apart by the tabloid press and called “the most hated woman in England” on Twitter. Tim Hunt, a Nobel laureate who made an ill-judged joke widely deemed to be offensive about women working in science, was subjected to a vicious social media campaign and forced to resign from his honorary professorship at University College London as a result. Cyberbullying is particularly pernicious when it comes to children, who lack the emotional resilience of adults. Children are increasingly inhabiting adult worlds online, with adult rules and few restrictions about what they can see and take part in. Most children have used at least one social network by the age of 10 and 52% of children age 8-16 have ignored Facebook’s official minimum age of 13. Around one in four children have experienced some form of cyberbullying. These children are more likely to experience greater stress, anxiety, depression and loneliness, with one study suggesting the experience of being cyberbullied almost doubles the risk of children attempting suicide. This is not an issue that comes with a ready-made solution. Because it is about social behavioural norms – what is and is not considered to be acceptable online – it is something that can only be tackled through collective action. Parents often lack confidence in understanding how their children are using social media and need information and support in how to look for the warning signs their child is being bullied online. There should be more of a focus in the school curriculum on digital resilience – developing young people’s ability to deal with the risks they encounter online. Social media platforms could do much more to police their age restrictions meaningfully, ensure they have transparent, accessible and child-friendly systems for reporting online abuse and to positively promote support for those being cyberbullied. But we need to go beyond protecting young people by educating them about online risk – we have a responsibility to teach children how to behave in a healthy and positive way online. For example, cybersmarties.com is a social network designed exclusively for primary-school children in Ireland. Users are authenticated as real children via their school. The network is designed to teach positive online behaviour for life, focusing on self-esteem and empathy. If the tech industry were really taking its responsibilities in this area seriously, it would be investing in similar initiatives that do not just teach children how to react to cyberbullying, but do more to discourage it in the first place. But there is perhaps little point in teaching children positive behaviour if, as adults, we are unwilling to model it ourselves. This is why Prince Harry is to be commended for speaking out against the harassment and bullying directed at Meghan Markle. We all have a responsibility to call out toxic bullying wherever it exists. “Is it kind?” Out of respect to Felix Alexander and other victims who have lost their lives to bullying, we should endeavour to ask ourselves this question before we post anything online.
Anthrax's Scott Ian's playlist: Iron Maiden, Fall Out Boy and more The Promise – Sturgill Simpson It’s rare that I like a cover version more than the original. But maybe not so rare when I don’t like the original anyway, as is the case with The Promise. Sturgill Simpson owns this When in Rome song. The heartbreak in his voice is palpable and it gets me every time. Beautiful. The Devil Named Music – Chris Stapleton I’m sticking with the country theme. It’s difficult to pick one song from Stapleton’s brilliant Traveller album, so I picked the one that tells the story of my life. The Phoenix – Fall Out Boy I am a sucker for a good hook, and this is a pure pop gem with a furious urgency. Undeniably catchy and just fucking good. Cowboy Song – Thin Lizzy Phil Lynott was the Cormac McCarthy of hard rock. I have no idea what that means but it feels right. Listen to this song and read Blood Meridian. Purgatory – Iron Maiden I have been a fan of Iron Maiden since 1980. I buy their albums, I buy their merchandise and now I get to go on Ed Force One and tour Mexico, Central and South America with them. Dreams do come true. Thank you heavy metal. • Anthrax’s new album, For All Kings, is out now via Nuclear Blast
Bank bosses will be forced to explain their actions every year, Malcolm Turnbull announces Bank bosses will have to front up to a parliamentary committee annually to explain their actions on interest rates and other behaviour under new rules announced by Malcolm Turnbull. The announcement came as Bill Shorten ramped up pressure for a royal commission into the banks, saying the industry would only respect the government if such an inquiry were implemented. The prime minister said the move would ensure the big banks were regularly accountable to elected members in the same way as the Reserve Bank or the Australian Prudential Regulatory Authority (APRA). Turnbull said the banks would appear before the house committee on economics. This would avoid the scrutiny of the Senate where long time campaigners on bank behaviour, such as Nationals senator John Williams, Greens senator Peter Whish-Wilson and Labor’s Sam Dastyari reside. Asked how the government would enforce the requirement to appear, Turnbull said “the parliament has powers but they won’t be necessary, the banks will certainly appear”. Steven Munchenberg, chief executive officer of the Australian Bankers Association (ABA), said while the federal government was entitled to the move, no other commercial businesses were required to justify pricing decisions in this way. “We are confident banks can explain why the interest rates they set for borrowers are determined largely by the cost of funds and the pressures of a highly competitive market, not the Reserve Bank cash rate,” Munchenberg said. The requirement is only for the big four banks, Commonwealth, ANZ, National Australia Bank and Westpac – though the committee does have the power to call anyone it chooses. Morrison, who spoke to the banks prior to the announcement, said the government was frustrated over the banks failure to pass on the interest rate cut and needed to do practical things to increase transparency. “Clearly the intention of the Reserve Bank by cutting the rates was to see it pass through and follow through into the broader economy so obviously the extent to which that is not achieved actually frustrates the intention of the bank in making that decision and this is why we are frustrated,” Morrison said. The economics committee which will scrutinise the banks is yet to be reformed after the election. Turnbull said the process would provide ongoing accountability, rather than a one off investigation and report under a royal commission. But it is unclear whether the economics committee would have additional powers – such as those available to a royal commission – to compel witnesses, take evidence in camera, provide parliamentary privilege for witnesses or impose any penalties for non-compliance. “They’ve got the opportunity to build confidence or they might, when they contemplate being more open and more accountable ... contemplate changing some policies and practices as a consequence,” Turnbull said. Shorten said the moved showed Turnbull was “in the pocket of the banks”. “There is nothing Mr Turnbull won’t do to protect the big banks from a Royal Commission,” Shorten said. “After giving them a $7bn tax cut, he’s now inviting them to lunch in Canberra once a year so he can wag his finger at them. This is a friendly catch-up, not an investigation.” It comes after recently retired Reserve Bank board member John Edwards backed an inquiry into the banks and Turnbull called on the industry to pass on the full cut in the cash rate announced by the Reserve Bank earlier this week. “The banks will only respect the government if the government is serious about a royal commission. Nothing less is going to make the banks respect the politicians,” Shorten said earlier in the day. Williams also renewed his call for a royal commission. “I have been seven years trying to fix up this industry and getting people to listen,” Williams said. “We have been through the financial planning scandals, bad advice, Ponzi schemes, managed investment schemes, and even the life insurance industry is now under scrutiny. “Banks should realise they are in the public spotlight and they are doing little to instil public confidence in them. It seems to be profit before people. I’ve always supported a royal commission.” Williams was involved in a Senate inquiry into financial advisers at the Commonwealth Bank. NAB, ANZ and Westpac have faced rate rigging allegations. Asic is also investigating Comminsure – the insurance arm of the Commonwealth Bank – which has been accused of manipulating reports to avoid life insurance payouts to sick and dying customers. But new cabinet minister Matt Canavan, who had previously supported a royal commission, told Australia he no longer supported one, due to increased funding to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (Asic). “The government has responded with substantial investments in Asic and the powers that Asic has match or exceed those of any royal commission. A royal commission would be a distraction from Asic doing its job.” A royal commission can be established only by the government. It cannot be forced by legislation. As a result, Labor is considering using the parliamentary committee process to start an inquiry, with a view to pressuring the government if further evidence of bad banking practice is revealed. With the final Senate results now clear, the Senate crossbench includes four from Pauline Hanson’s One Nation, three from Nick Xenophon’s NXT party, Jacqui Lambie, Liberal Democrat David Leyonhjelm, Family First’s Bob Day and Derryn Hinch’s Justice Party. Whish-Wilson has also long campaigned on cleaning up the banking sector and has supported a royal commission, as does Lambie. But Whish-Wilson told Australia that Australia needed to move beyond Senate inquiries that deliver “headlines for politicians and no changes to law and no justice for victims of these repeated white-collar crimes”. “If I was to support more Senate inquiries I would want to see [them] push the limits of what the Senate can do with its powers. “[An inquiry] would need to be properly resourced and be willing to compel witnesses from within banks and financial services companies, starting with every single board member and working our way down through the CEO and management through to the workers.” Whish-Wilson would only support a Senate inquiry that not only compelled witnesses to appear but was properly resourced, as the previous Senate inquiry did not have the funds to hold banks to account. He also called for whistleblower protection. “I do not want to build up hopes of victims that the banks are going to be properly held to account and justice delivered, if that promise cannot be fulfilled,” Whish-Wilson said. Xenophon promised to work with Labor and the crossbench to keep pressure on the financial services industry. He supports the royal commission Labor proposes for the banking industry, but he says the approach through the parliament needs to be targeted. “We need to have a compensation scheme of last resort,” he said. “Having a royal commission for the sake of beating up the banks might make some people feel good, but it won’t do much good. It needs to be much more comprehensive than that. For instance, I think commercial banks that don’t pass on the full interest rate cut should face a statutory obligation to take out a full-page newspaper ad to explain why.” But Steven Munchenberg, chief executive officer of the Australian Bankers Association (ABA), said a royal commission was unnecessary given the banks had already put measures in place. “The industry has put in place initiatives to fix issues that Bill Shorten has said are the reasons for a royal commission,” Munchenberg said. “We acknowledge there are problems but rather than having a royal commission we would like to fix them immediately.” Earlier this year, the industry established a number of initiatives in response to the scandals, promising to set up a consumer advocate, a register for individuals involved in past malpractice, protection for whistleblowers, an independent review of banking codes of practice, and an independent review of commissions for financial products. Munchenberg said the cash rate, which was cut by 0.25 percentage points to a record low of 1.5%, did not mirror banking costs. He said banks did increase deposit rates to attract more funds.
Homecoming: a starstudded psychological thriller in podcast form In the post-Serial world, drama podcasts have been upping their game and now Homecoming (iTunes, Gimlet Media) takes the format to another level. It’s impossible not to become immersed in the opening episode of the psychological thriller. Catherine Keener stars as Heidi Bergman, a caseworker from an experimental facility who’s helping soldiers integrate back into the community. She’s focusing on Walter Cruz (Star Wars’ Oscar Isaac), who is trying to live a normal life and keep his inner darkness at bay. It’s not easy, as he reveals his thoughts about harming himself: “I saw the desk and I just imagine leaning way back and slamming my forehead into the corner as hard as I could, over and over, into my eye,” he tells her. “But that was an extreme. It’s not like that all the time.” Bergman is keen to take a holistic approach, which is not good news for Colin Belfast, her take-no-prisoners boss, played by David Schwimmer. He is heard rushing through the airport, tripping over a little girl’s backpack as he instructs Bergman to “get really granular with all that shit”. He even provides a moment of light relief. “This is a walkway!” he rages, incredulously. “All right. Goodbye. Good talk.” Homecoming is the first scripted series for Gimlet Media, producers of podcast hits such as Heavyweight, StartUp and Reply All. The quality of the acting draws you in, then stops you in your tracks. (Arrested Development’s David Cross and comedian Amy Sedaris are also on the cast list.) It nails the feeling that characters are doing what they’re supposed to do, rather than standing huddled around a microphone. Subtle sound effects, such as a fishtank bubbling away in the background, and not-so-subtle ones like the noise of a busy airport, make it more akin to a lavish TV production than a staged radio drama. As the narrative flips back and forth from Heidi’s time as a caseworker to five years later, when she’s waitressing, mystery surrounds what brought her there. Ending on a cliffhanger after only 19 minutes, Homecoming leaves you wanting more. Good job there’s another five episodes in the first season. If you like this, try this: Limetown, a mysterious tale of a place where everyone disappeared.
GDP growth confirmed in three months after Brexit vote British businesses continued to invest and consumers carried on spending in the months following the Brexit vote, defying predictions that a wave of uncertainty would hit economic activity. In the first official estimate of how firms’ spending fared after the referendum, the Office for National Statistics said business investment rose 0.9% in the July-to-September quarter. That was only a small slowdown from 1% growth in the previous quarter and beat forecasts for 0.6% growth in a Reuters poll of economists. The figures echoed business surveys suggesting companies have shrugged off the shock of the referendum result for now. The ONS confirmed its earlier estimate that GDP expanded 0.5% in the third quarter, only a small slowdown from 0.7% growth in the second quarter and stronger than most economists had predicted in the immediate aftermath of the referendum result. But there were warnings the brunt of the Brexit vote would be felt next year as the weak pound stokes inflation and as negotiations over leaving the EU begin. Providing more details of the third quarter in Friday’s update, statisticians said consumer spending continued to be the main driver of economic growth, fuelled by rising household incomes. There was also a contribution to growth from net trade – the difference between what the UK exports and imports. That came as imports fell but exports grew, probably helped by the weakness of the pound since the Brexit vote, which makes UK goods more competitive in overseas markets. But the data also confirmed earlier estimates showing that the construction sector had fallen into a technical recession, contracting for two straight quarters, while output was down for manufacturers and the wider industrial sector. The ONS said that since the referendum in June, GDP growth had been in line with recent trends, suggesting “limited effect so far” from the referendum. Darren Morgan, head of GDP at the ONS said: “Investment by businesses held up well in the immediate aftermath of the EU referendum, though it’s likely most of those investment decisions were taken before polling day. “That, coupled with growing consumer spending fuelled by rising household income, and a strong performance in the dominant service industries, kept the economy expanding broadly in line with its historic average.” Economists were quick to warn the recent pace of growth would be hard to sustain. The government’s independent forecasters, the Office for Budget Responsibility, predict growth will slow to 1.4% in 2017 from 2.1% this year as business investment slows and as incomes are squeezed by higher living costs. Inflation is expected to pick up because the weaker pound makes imports to the UK more expensive. The data company IHS Markit said its surveys pointed to the firms’ and households’ resilience continuing into the final quarter of this year. But it too was cautious about the year ahead. “For the moment, the data suggest that the economy has exhibited greater than anticipated resilience in the face of headwinds such as Brexit worries and rising prices. However, it seems likely that growth will slow further in coming months as these headwinds intensify,” said Chris Williamson, chief business economist at IHS Markit. Ruth Gregory at the consultancy Capital Economics said importers and retailers would likely absorb some of the increase in costs from the weak pound, ensuring that the squeeze on household incomes is not too intense. Low interest rates would also help support consumers, she said. “With ultra-accommodative monetary policy continuing to support spending and discourage saving, we don’t think a sharp slowdown in spending is on the cards.” A leading thinktank warned this week that the combination of rising inflation and weaker pay growth as Brexit unfolds will mean UK workers face the longest squeeze on their pay for 70 years. The Institute for Fiscal Studies said that the recovery in real wages – pay adjusted for inflation – will now be so slow that by 2021 they will still not be back to their 2008 level before the global financial crisis hit. For now, however, the ONS figures showed consumers remained the biggest driving force behind GDP growth. Household spending rose 0.7% in the third quarter, down only slightly from 0.9% growth in the second quarter. Kallum Pickering, senior UK economist at the bank Berenberg said: “Rather than postponing spending decisions amid the heightened uncertainty following the Brexit vote, good fundamentals – a strong labour market, rising house prices and improving credit conditions – supported a continued expansion in household spending.”
Pow! This isn't Batman v Superman. Whack! It's Wonder Woman v Supersexism What are we to make of the gender codes in Batman v Superman? Is it confused or certain, modern or prehistoric? To reach a clear conclusion, I might have to tell you the end, or at least flesh out my analysis that the lasso in the final battle is a metaphor for the omnipotent but non-lethal vagina. How do you like my spoiler huh? HUH? Everyone knows how to adjudicate the sexism in a normal film: do the women have agency, or are they perpetually needing rescue? Are the women naked more often than the men, for no clear reason? Does it pass the Bechdel test – do two women have a conversation in a film about something other than a man? (This criterion is met so rarely now that it’s pretty much the definition of arthouse.) In the more likely event that the women talk about nothing but men, is their dialogue at all sophisticated, or – going by their words alone – could they be any age from five? Upon these foundations, you can begin to adjudicate the film as you would a person, weigh it up for sleaziness, slut-shaming, the whole busy toolkit by which women are undermined; although then you get into the territory of “does the film think that, or just the character, and is misogyny actually conceived as a slur on that character in order that he might ‘go on a journey’?” The distinction is incredibly easy to make in real life, but could happily take Twitter 20,000 years. The motifs of the superhero film complicate this slightly: nobody really talks about anything but good and evil; everybody’s clothes are so tight that they all may as well be naked. In a world where things are always catching fire for no reason, even your eyeballs, who can really say how much nudity is practical and how much titillating? Yet in the respects that Batman v Superman differs from the norm, it has quite a lot to say, albeit not all of it egalitarian or hugely consistent. Lois Lane is your classic spunky heroine, quick with the self-believing backchat, very slow in the matter of staying alive without constant assistance. Here she is in the desert, interviewing a terrorist, who unaccountably offered safe passage to a reporter from a seemingly local newspaper without knowing anything about her. “They didn’t tell me you were a lady,” says the terrorist, to which she shoots back, “I’m not a lady, I’m a journalist.” There’s a set of journalistic tropes which subvert the damsel in distress norm (broadly: critical thinking, tenacity and boldness). If we take survival as the main aim of any sensible person, these traits don’t help, but they’re a start, right? On the matter of nudity, Lane has her main emotional journey while in the bath – don’t we all? Then Superman gets into the bath, fully clothed, to cheer her up, which is a new cinematic shorthand for “evolved man who sees you as an equal” (cf Daniel Craig in Casino Royale – the significance is that he is macho enough not to care about his clothes getting wet even if they’re leather, while feminine enough to see that a supportive gesture is required. It’s genius, really.) Lois isn’t woeful, but breaks no moulds in terms of what she brings to the narrative; her sex appeal is built around peril, and her intimacy is in her helplessness. The headline act is Wonder Woman (we’ll come to the maternal ideal later; it will be much later, and will only take a second, because it is pretty basic). Her only skill, for a long time, is in managing to steal something from Batman which he left in a perfectly visible place where any of us could have stolen it. “You know it’s true what they say about little boys,” she tells him, “born with no natural inclination to share. I didn’t steal it, I borrowed it.” Weirdly, people actually don’t say that about little boys. Babies of both genders are shown to have a sense of fairness, from which sharing naturally proceeds, from the age of about six months. I baulk anyway at having to go through this phase of “women [superheroes] are innately better” before you get to a place where you acknowledge that essentialism has all been a giant delusion. Besides the stealing/borrowing, she has a show-stopping cleavage, unleashed to maximum effect in a series of asymmetrical clothes whose only internal logic is to make sure you can see her breasts but her neck is covered (otherwise it all goes a bit Bet Lynch). Furthermore, the stolen/borrowed files are no good to her, since she is foxed by the encryption, while Batman cracks into them with no problem at all, a plot element that has literally no purpose except to underscore that, even in the distant future, when you don’t need shelves put up because you no longer read books, women will still need men for IT support. As we approach the final battle, her power is completely unknown, seeded by nothing except a photograph. From this standing start, she joins the fight with an urgent yet unhurried mien, in a spirit of cooperation rather than bashing the boys’ heads together (which would have been patronising to a walk-outable degree). She retains an ability to process information: “[this gigantic demon] seems to feed on energy”. The military men on the ground figured this out already, probably with computers, but her behaviour nonetheless registers in stark contrast with that of Batman and Superman who, once engaged in battle, can’t think about anything and can barely keep their pointy ears on straight. She does not launch the decisive attack. She is not the first among equals. Her weapon, at the climactic moment, is the lasso, just a holding device. It bothers me that if we do buy this as a metaphor for the female pudenda – as I think we must – then her gender becomes her status. There is no way for the female superhero to be anything but a wingman or helpmeet, in this framing. No monster died from not being able to use his arms. Yet I’ll take, in consolation, the change in her costume; the star-spangled pants have gone, the all-American colour-scheme has been muted into a kind of elemental Celtic mud. Compared to every Wonder Woman in history, she has a brute force; and set against Batman and Superman, she is the least kitsch, which may on some elemental level *MASSIVE SPOILER ALERT* account for her survival. One final note on the mothers: in the most preposterous plot twist, Batman and Superman, geared up for the whole film for an epic war in which personal animus mingles with a wider collision over their different interpretations of a superhero’s quiddity, manage to come together because their mothers are both called Martha. A kind of Kray twins sentimentality mixed with a nerd’s love of banal coincidence, this is about the least feminist updating of anything ever. Plainly, it will take more than Wonder Woman to smash the patriarchy, but she’s a start.
Hooked online or able to switch off? Tell us about your relationship with the web If you’ve ever been to dinner with someone constantly Googling on their phone, then you won’t be surprised by a new study that exposes our internet obsession. The annual Communications Market Report from media and telecoms regulator Ofcom has – for the first time – looked at how people cope with spending so much time connected, finding that more than a third of UK internet users are taking “digital detox” breaks from the web. It found an increasing amount of time we spend online is leading to lost sleep, neglected housework and less time spent with friends and family. So, what’s your relationship like with the world wide web? Do you spend too long online or have you got the balance right, and if so, how? Share your experiences with us.
The view on the automated future: fewer shops and fewer people Automation may put a third of a million retail employees out of work in the next eight years, according to the British Retail Consortium. Across the sector as a whole fewer people are now working, and are paid less, than in 2008. Competition, the move online and the welcome rise in the minimum wage are all accelerating the job losses. But it is the rise in technology that will go furthest. Robotics and artificial intelligence are moving to eliminate all kinds of work that had seemed reserved for humans, even those tasks that had appeared too personal or lowly paid to be vulnerable. Most of the automations of the 20th century eliminated unskilled male labour. Now it is the turn of unskilled women. The process is already under way. Salespeople are increasingly regimented and scripted in their interactions, a process that might be called artificial stupidity, while ever greater intelligence and ingenuity is demanded of the customer who tries to navigate an automated checkout. That “unexpected item in the bagging area” is your vestigial humanity. Retail banks provide a foretaste of this future: tellers have been replaced by machines, and the humans visible in the branches are there to sell products, not to help you. With a lot of shopping, there is no need for human salespeople. That is the principle on which self-service supermarkets were founded, and now it is being extended online. There’s still a great deal of conscious effort to sell in supermarkets, as there is on Amazon’s websites, but it is all done at one or two removes, by the designers of the layout and the programmers of the experience. Analogue, mammalian verbal persuasion has been abolished. The humans you speak to are far more likely to be apologising for the failure of computer systems than to be helping or encouraging you to buy things. Even online, where all of the effort is made by the shopper, the giant companies regard wages as they regard taxes, as a legacy problem to be eliminated in the frictionless and almost post-human future. Amazon workers presently walk anything up to 11 miles a day in the warehouses to stock their trolleys, but the company is hoping to produce robot pallets that will steer themselves to the workers who need them. Then, outside the warehouse, there is the hope of robot delivery vehicles, whether in the air, or on the ground. Even if wholly driverless cars and lorries may never be seen on the road, the human driver will increasingly become a supervisor rather than a hands-on controller. We already have cars that parallel park better than most people. Soon, automation will mean that one driver can direct half a dozen lorries down the motorway, and a cost saving like that will be hard for any haulage company to resist. Our own greed as customers is propelling this development. It’s already clear where it is going. Poorer communities will be left without shops at all, or with a poor choice of bad ones. Pleasant and prosperous enclaves will become more pleasant and more prosperous, with food, drink and even clothing produced in small, artisanal batches for anyone able and willing to pay a premium for human service and even human flattery. This process, too, is already well under way and can be expected only to accelerate. The rich get richer, and their lives get more enjoyable. Poor communities grow poorer and more hollowed out. It’s another example of the way that economic efficiency, narrowly measured, increases inequality. An optimist might say that this kind of change has been constant for the past 200 years. The jobs that automation has replaced have mostly been dirty, dangerous, or disagreeable. There have never been as many people employed in Britain as today, and certainly never as many women. Nonetheless, change has seldom been quicker and more vertiginous than today and we’ll need human intelligence to reach a better future. We can’t trust the computers to get us there on their own.
Getting down with the kids: children review music’s top tips for 2016 My first memory is of music. I’m two-and-a-half, standing on a stool in my grandmother’s kitchen; she has let me help her wash the dishes, which is quite the grown-up honour. I am spinning records in the sink – essentially circling the water with a cleaning brush – because the music on the radio has moved me so much. “Trou-per-per! Trou-per-per!” the song goes, brightly. I am shining like the sun, feeling like a number one. On that dull autumn afternoon, in a small Swansea scullery, began a little girl’s 35-year (to date) love affair with ABBA, and a connection with Super Trouper that would grow through her life (Teens: wow, it’s about touring! Twenties: it’s about the essential melancholy of fame! Thirties: God, how did they all cope doing songs like this while they were divorcing?). Yes, that was me, but what do today’s kids think of pop? Are they more jaded and cynical because they have unlimited access to music? Or do their hearts still burst at the sound of a kick-drum, a synthesiser, a song? I’ve just written a book for young kids called Pop!, about the capacities this music can have, and the things it can do. I did it because I had a baby a few years ago, and felt my relationship to music go through a seismic shift. I wasn’t having much fun: I was often sleep-deprived, and covered with Calpol or dribble, so I’d listen constantly to nostalgia radio stations, seeking out old favourite songs, and singing their lyrics directly, soppily, to my son. An old primary school disco favourite took on a new, rosy glow (thanks Yazz: “The only way is up, baby, for you and me now”). A song I’d first loved on the soundtrack of Dirty Dancing now meant something quite different (bless the Ronettes’ Be My Baby). I wanted to play these songs to my son (now 21 months) because they gave me comfort, of course, but I also wanted to enjoy his primal reactions to them. They took a while, but they came. His first proper, joyful wriggle? To something that I loved in my teens: Future Sound of London’s Papua New Guinea (he’s clearly a raver). One of his first standing-up dances? To the Archies’ bubblegum pop hit Sugar, Sugar (he loves something with a handclap). His first vocal response? To the Beatles’ She Loves You. “Yeah, yeah, yeah, Mammy!”, he said, just the other week. “Yeah, yeah, yeah!” It may sound pretentious, but one of the ideas behind my book was to give pop the credit it deserves as an art form that moves us. As I write in the book, people can use pop “to express their feelings about all the things happening in their lives”. This also went for the way I was feeling. My listening habits in my son’s early months transported me to the easier days of my childhood, but also to pop stars who opened my mind, widened my eyes, pumped my heart – larger-than-life creatures such as Adam Ant, Boy George, and, yes, David Bowie, who took me by the hand, and showed me a wider, bolder world. More than anything, I wanted to let children know that pop, at its best, is about self-expression, and that it “lets you be whomever you want to be”. So what would children make of the crop of 2016’s most-likely-tos, the artists filling all those one-to-watch lists? On a Saturday morning at HQ, I get six- and seven-year-olds Bert, Juno, Xavier, Pearl and Jack to talk to me about pop and rate tracks by five rising stars (results on the panel over the page). Be warned: they’re a discerning bunch of critics. OK, they’re not great at spotting instruments or accents, and things can get a little chaotic (the idea that Jack Garratt was a carrot was a difficult concept to shake from them), but for stinging responses and irreverent comment, they’re your gang. Their tastes are often split on gender lines (dispiritingly common at this age, according to their parents), something also reflected in their favourite songs. The boys all love Everything Is Awesome from The Lego Movie (“BECAUSE IT’S AWE-SUMMMMM!”, they explain, jumping off their chairs, screaming). The girls adore Katy Perry’s Roar (Juno: “because it’s bouncy” ) and the Frozen soundtrack’s Let It Go (Pearl: “my mum said to me the other day, ‘Can we turn this off now?’”). The girls take the reviewing task seriously, and whisper their ideas to each other. The boys try to impress each other, and affect suspicion of “quiet, pretty music” (although I spot their heads nodding when I’m not looking). Everyone also seems to like music their parents like, which wasn’t always the way for my generation (I liked my mum’s Beatles tapes, but thought David Essex was awful). This panel’s parents had a much broader musical education, though, mainly because of their age. They grew up with acid house and Britpop, hip-hop and heavy metal, and most likely spent their teenage years reading music magazines that taught them, lengthily, about the past. Favourites of the panel today include Björk, the Bangles and Arctic Monkeys. Juno even comes along listening to a Spotify playlist, featuring Steve Miller Band’s The Joker and Cliff Richard’s Devil Woman. But when the children are asked why they like things, they’re not always sure. I was like this at their age: I remember falling in love with Wham!’s Freedom when I was six, without understanding it, only knowing that the bit that went “you know that I’ll forgive you/just this once, twice, forever” put butterflies in my tummy. Years later, I know how that song references Motown, how descending basslines push emotional buttons, and how hugely yearning those lyrics are. But most importantly: those butterflies are still there. While I fondly remember enjoying 60s cassettes in the car with my mum, the sharing of pop between the generations these days is a much bigger deal. My bum-wiggling toddler and I have attended countless classes led by long-suffering musicians with a keen eye on extra income (although watching a room full of babies shake rattles to La Bamba and We Will Rock You is quite fun for parents, admittedly). I’ve also DJed several times for Big Fish Little Fish, the national music and events crew who put on unpretentious “family raves” on Sunday afternoons (their brilliant slogan: “2-4 hour party people”). It is run by ex-senior civil servant, Hannah Saunders, who gave up a 20-year career to set it up, a career change which reminds us that we’ve entered a new age for parenting: one in which mums and dads are allowed to have as much fun as their offspring. Pop is also about dancing, of course, and vivid, physical reactions. This is what I will remember most warmly from our perky pop panel: the arms flailing, the kids windmilling so unguardedly, so joyfully. But I’ll also remember their little reactions about melancholy, and the elaborate, silly stories they concocted, as small songs set off their imaginations in a million directions. By the end of our hour, Pearl and Juno had even decided to form a band and held their first meeting behind an executive chair (“Go away, Dad!”, Juno’s father was told when he tried to take her home). Who knows? In 35 years’ time, they may still have a special memory to relate, and a shared love of certain songs that have changed and grown with them. Either way, they’re super troupers, every one. Pop! by Jude Rogers and Alex Farebrother-Naylor is out now (Fisherton Press £6.99) Jack Garratt – Worry (Island Records) Post Ed-Sheeran, eElectronica-drizzled, beardy singer-songwriter of the moment. BBC Sound Of 2016 winner [Uproarious laughter from all the children as soon as song starts] Jack: Jack Garratt? He’s a carrot! Xavier: And he sounds like a carrot! Carrots are boring. Pearl: [sensibly]: He sounds like he’s sleeping. Juno: [thoughtfully]: It doesn’t sound happy or sad. It sounds in the middle between happy and sad. And his voice is a bit funny. He’s all up and down. I think he’s singing to the audience because he’s worried and he wants help. Bert: It’s too peaceful. Jack: He sounds weird. Like a drunk carrot. Pearl: It sounds a bit like rap at the end. I like rap. Rap is really fast. Xavier: He’s crazy like a carrot. Bert: [talking about the title] It’s not working for me because I worry about lots of things. Pearl: I’d like some more rap. Juno: [thoughtfully]: He sounds more like broccoli to me. Bert: 0, Jack: 0, Juno: 3, Pearl: 4, Xavier: 0 TOTAL: 7/25 Rat Boy – Sign On (Parlophone) Jamie T-style tearaway indie-punk, with; lyrics about Wetherspoons and the lottery Jack: Is his first name Rat? Bert: It sounds like he’s driving fast to work, driving in his car. Xavier: The song goes like this [jumps up, mimes steering wheel manoeuvres of Formula 1 winner]. Bert: I think he sounds like he’s going to the beach. Jack: Or going to the bank. Juno: Maybe there’s a fire at his home ‘cos it’s really, really fast. It’s bouncy. [They are asked where he sounds like he’s from] Bert: America? Pearl: South America. Jack: Norway. Juno: [sensibly] Scotland. Pearl: It’s got big, big drums and electric guitars. He sounds old, like he’s from the 70s. Like ABBA, but different. I like ABBA. Juno: It’s too noisy for me. Jack: I like it because it sounds violent. Xavier: [hears lyric] Maybe he’s stealing from the bank? Jack: Maybe he’s driving fast because he was late to steal from the bank, because he was sleeping in the pub, because he was so drunk. Bert: 4, Jack: 4, Juno: 2, Pearl: 5, Xavier: 4 TOTAL: 19/25 Billie Marten – As Long As (Sony/Chess Club) Sensitively intelligent acoustic ballad by 16-year-old singer-songwriter Juno: It reminds me of It’s Oh So Quiet. I like that song. I like the bit where she shouts “Zing-boom”. Xavier: [grumpy] It’s a zero. Bert: Minus zero. Jack: Zero, zero, zero. It’s too peaceful. It sounds like a rabbit. A really peaceful rabbit. Juno: I think it sounded like a flower. Jack: A rabbit at night, jumping around quietly, trying to find its food without the foxes eating it. Xavier: It sounds like someone I met with a very weird voice. Or a violin singing. Pearl: Or a butterfly. It reminds me of Silent Night, like a song to help you go to sleep. It has a nice guitar, like a lullaby. I think she sounds pretty. Juno: I think she’s an old lady. [They are told her age] Xavier: She’s a kid! A baby goat. She sounds a bit like a goat [quietly makes goat noise]. Bert: 0, Jack: 0, Juno: 5, Pearl: 5, Xavier: 0 TOTAL: 10/25 Blossoms – At Most a Kiss (Virgin EMI) Synthy guitar-rock from five young overcoat-endorsing northerners [The kids are told the title] All the boys: URRGGGGGGH!!! Jack: I hate kissing! Bert: YUCK! [sticks fingers in his ears. Juno and Pearl are dancing around smiling] Pearl: This would be good at a roller disco. It’s fast and loud. It needs some more rap. Juno: It’s a bit crazy. Xavier: [listens grudgingly] It’s an electric piano, I think. [copies sci-fi riff] Dun-dun-dun-dun-DUN! Jack: I’d like to listen to this if there was a future world war. Juno: It’s jazz. It’s very noisy and a bit bouncy. Pearl: I reckon the person who makes it is a bit ugly. Bert: And wears grey glasses. Juno: I think he sounds a bit stinky. Xavier: I think he’s got a funny moustache. Bert: 1, Jack: 3, Juno: 5, Pearl: 5, Xavier: 2 TOTAL: 16/25 Lizzo – BGSW (BGSW Records) Riot grrrl-influenced, Prince-endorsed rapper, with a bark as loud as her bite [Song begins slow and soulful, then explodes into a fast, starkly accompanied rap] Bert: The start is weird. I felt there was nothing inside me. Juno: I like the slow bit, middle bit, and the fast! Jack: I hated the start when it was quiet. The loud bit, I liked. Bert: It’s like a snail that goes really slow, then really fast and crashes into a car. Jack: Maybe it’s a snail that’s had fast potion poured on it. Pearl: I like that it stopped for a second, then started again. Jack: She’s angry because she’s shouty. Pearl: She thinks she’s like a boy, because she’s doing lots of shouting. But I like it. Bert: Maybe she’s a girl snail that’s so angry that she jumps into the middle of the Earth and explodes. Pearl: She sounds like she’s in a space rocket and she can’t talk properly, then she’s shouting in space. It’s a bit of a joke, because she was only pretending she can’t speak, so that’s why she shouts. Like this bit! [entire room breaks out in dancing] Bert: 5, Jack: 5, Juno: 5, Pearl: 5, Xavier: 5 TOTAL: 25 (WINNER!)
Brits are thin on the ground as May rolls out red carpet for Polish PM It could have been that Boris Johnson had managed to insult his opposite number. It could have been that Michael Fallon had been too keen to find out a little more about the Polish defence minister’s conviction that the hoax Protocols of the Elders of Zion pamphlet alleging a Jewish conspiracy for world domination may be real. Either way, when the two delegations trooped into the Downing Street press conference more than an hour later than planned, the Brits were thin on the ground. On the left side of the room was half the Polish government; on the right just David Davis, the Brexit minister. Lucky Poles. It wasn’t hard to get the impression that the Brits weren’t taking this UK-Polish summit quite as seriously as their counterparts. With most EU countries not really in the mood to talk to Britain until after article 50 has been triggered – and even then only if they really must – Theresa May has found herself short of countries willing to indulge her desire to shoot the breeze about foreign policy. So when Poland indicated it was willing to have a bilateral meeting, May was only too keen to roll out the red carpet. Schmoozing a rightwing, xenophobic government might not have been the best of looks when Britain was trying to reposition itself as open and friendly to Europe, but beggars can’t be choosers. Besides, we did have some hate crime fences to mend. “We’ve had an excellent and historic first summit,” said Theresa at her most Maybotic, frantically racking her brains for anything memorable that had been discussed. After saying she was sorry for all the attacks on Poles in the UK since the EU referendum, the conversation had rather dried up. There had been a bit of chat about how much they both hated the Russians and she’d got away with making the 150 squaddies she had already promised to send to the Polish eastern border sound like a new commitment. But that was about it. “I did also update Prime Minister Szydło on the work we are doing on Brexit,” she added as an afterthought. Best not to mention that had taken all of 30 seconds. The Polish PM, Beata Szydło, had looked on impassively as the Maybot ran through her highlights package of the day’s events. She recalled it all rather differently. “Great Britain doesn’t have summits with countries like Poland very often,” she observed. And she was looking forward to many more in the coming months. Starting in Warsaw next year. The Maybot looked startled. Had she really agreed to that? The Polish interpreter whispered into her earpiece, assuring her that she had. “We’ve had useful bilateral talks about the role of small- and medium-sized enterprises [SMEs] in Poland and England,” Szydło continued. “We have also discussed having a chair of Polish studies at Cambridge University and making sure that Polish was taught in primary schools.” Szydło’s delivery is entirely deadpan, so it was hard to gauge if this was her idea of a joke or whether she was deadly serious. The Maybot may feel a bit guilty about the rise in hate crimes against Poles in England, but not enough to enrage the Eurosceptics in her party by teaching Polish to the Poles. This level of detail wasn’t what the British government or the media had come to hear, and when the Maybot reluctantly took her two questions from the British media the attention switched back to Brexit. A Sunday Times interview had quoted the prime minister as saying she was losing sleep over Brexit. Was this true? “There may have been an overinterpretation of my sleepless Brexit nights,” she said, anxious to make it look as if she wasn’t in the slightest bit panicky. “The Polish prime minister and I had some useful discussions about Brexit today. “No we didn’t,” said Szydło. “Yes we did,” said the Maybot, hastily rewriting history. “We talked a lot about Brexit.” Szydło had no memory of this. Much as she might have wanted some reassurances that Poles living in the UK would be allowed to stay after Brexit, she wasn’t about to break ranks with the rest of the EU and sign up to a unilateral deal guaranteeing the rights of British people living in Poland. If May thought she could pick off the Poles as the weak link in the EU chain, she could think again. “All we had today was bilateral talks,” Szydło insisted. And she was looking forward to much more talk about SMEs in the near future. May groaned. If she hadn’t been having sleepless nights before today, she would now.
Fire at Sea review – from the migrant crisis, a gentle poetry Sometimes real life provides us with symbolic imagery that is every bit as potent and sophisticated as anything you would find in a fictional narrative. And one of the great strengths of Gianfranco Rosi’s Berlin film festival prize-winning documentary is that the director is able to look at a dauntingly huge topic of global import – the migrant crisis – and find within it the little moments of poetic resonance that illuminate the human lives behind the stark statistics. The film takes place on, and around, the island of Lampedusa, 20 sq km of arid scrubland and arcane traditions. Since the early 00s, this isolated fishing community, located 127 miles from the southern coast of Sicily, has become one of the main entry points to Europe for refugees risking the treacherous sea crossing from north Africa. By focusing on Lampedusa, Rosi juxtaposes insular old Europe with a very 21st-century global reality. Migration is a topic that could hardly be more charged , but Rosi is no brow-beating polemicist. His approach is unobtrusive and observational rather than confrontational. The two worlds, that of the newly arrived refugees, adrift and traumatised, and the timeless locals, shaped by generations of devotion to the sea and the church, have surprisingly little interaction. However, Rosi seeks out threads between the two communities. The harrowing radio distress calls from sinking migrant vessels find an echo in the local radio station, where a young man plays songs from a bygone era and takes dedications from his most loyal listener, his aunt. A savagely beaten refugee gestures mutely to his facial injuries. On the rescue boat, he weeps tears mixed with blood. And in the most elegant of Rosi’s parallels, a boy on Lampedusa called Samuele is diagnosed with a lazy eye. Like most of Europe, he sees, but doesn’t see. This article was amended on 16 June 2016 to remove an incorrect reference to Lampedusa being the location for Luca Guadagnino’s A Bigger Splash. It was filmed on Pantelleria, about 100 mile to the north.
Manchester United v Tottenham Hotspur: match preview The mood at Manchester United is one of frustration mixed with confidence that very soon everything will begin to click and performance will match result. Tottenham Hotspur are six points ahead of José Mourinho’s side in fifth place and given Mauricio Pochettino was of interest to United before hiring the Portuguese each man may have a little extra motivation to deliver three points. Jamie Jackson Kick-off 2.15pm Venue Old Trafford Last season Man Utd 1 Tottenham 0 Live Sky Sports 1 Referee Robert Madley This season G10, Y49, R0, 4.9 cards per game Odds H 5-4 A 3-1 D 5-2 Manchester Utd Subs from Romero, Johnstone, Depay, Lingard, Fosu-Mensah, Tuanzebe, Schneiderlin, Young, Blind, Fellaini, Schweinsteiger, Rashford, Mata, Rojo, Rooney Doubtful None Injured Shaw (match fitness, 14 Dec), Smalling (toe, 17 Dec) Suspended None Form LDWDDD Discipline Y34 R1 Leading scorer Ibrahimovic 8 Tottenham Hotspur Subs from Vorm, López, Trippier, Davies, Dier, Wimmer, Carter-Vickers, Carroll, Winks, Onomah, Sissoko, Nkoudou Doubtful Davies (ankle) Injured Janssen (ankle, 28 Dec), Lamela (hip, unknown) Suspended None Form DDDWLW Discipline Y26 R0 Leading scorer Kane 7
Donald Trump at the White House: Obama reports 'excellent conversation' – as it happened Are you adjusted to the New Normal yet? President-elect Donald Trump was accorded a chilly but deferential welcome at the White House this morning as the president-elect met with President Barack Obama for a 90-minute private meeting in the Oval Office. In the first stage of a 72-day transition process between Tuesday’s unexpected election victory and Trump’s inauguration on 20 January, Obama said the two men discussed “foreign and domestic policy” and how to ensure the handover of power went smoothly. “I want to emphasize to you, Mr. President-elect, that we now are going to do everything we can to help you succeed because if you succeed, then the country succeeds,” Obama told his successor during a brief photo opportunity afterwards. Jihadis have welcomed Trump’s surprise victory in the American presidential race, saying his election would sow greater division and expose what they described as the hatred and racism of the west towards Muslims. The endorsement of the election result by extreme Islamist figures highlighted fears that Trump’s divisive rhetoric and call to ban Muslims from entering the US could empower radicals who have argued that the west seeks Islam’s destruction and is at war with its adherents. Tens of thousands of Americans held further protests and acts of dissent against the election after a wave of demonstrations across the US on Wednesday night in which dozens were arrested. Protesters began mobilizing in major cities for a third day after crowds had descended on Trump buildings in New York, Chicago and Washington into the early hours to rail against the shock election result. There was a spate of claims of hate crimes in the US made on social media and to police today, in which the alleged victims said abusers had in some way cited Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election.Social media was rife with accounts of sometimes violent incidents of hate targeted at Muslims, Latinos and African Americans. Samantha Bee blamed white people for ruining America: And the Trump transition team put forward a few key team members: Former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott told ABC Radio National that the US and UK elections and Brexit vote show that the non-politically correct don’t want to tell pollsters what they really think because they would face “excoriation.” President-elect Donald Trump has made his first swipe at the political media in his new role: President-elect Donald Trump reports that he had “great chemistry” with president Barack Obama: Given that Trump spent much of the mid-aughts attempting to prove that Obama was not born in the United States and was therefore constitutionally ineligible to serve as president, this is surprising. Students at Cornell University held a “cry-in” after the election of president-elect Donald Trump, according to the Ivy League school’s student-run newspaper, where roughly 20 students met in the bleakness that is a November day in upstate New York to share tears, hugs and sorrows. “I am concerned how this is validating the behavior of a lot of people,” a student sipping a cup of coffee said in the Cornell Daily Sun’s video, of the election. “I’m quite terrified, honestly,” another student said. “It’s saying that people are really given into fear-mongering - they’re willing to put people down based on their identity just so that they would feel vindicated that they would be getting rid of ‘Crooked Hillary.’” “I’d say the results are heartbreaking and such a slap in the face to so many of the populations that make up America,” a professor said. “I think it’s also an indication that there and many many people who are suffering and feel that haven’t been heard and they believe that Trump will answer their needs.” Donald Trump’s attorney told a federal judge on Thursday that he’s open to settlement talks in a class-action fraud lawsuit involving the president-elect and his now-defunct Trump University. Attorney Daniel Petrocelli also asked during a hearing that the trial be delayed until early next year because Trump needs time to work on the transition to the presidency. The lawsuit alleging Trump University failed on its promise to teach success in real estate is currently set to begin 28 November in San Diego. Petrocelli said he agreed to an offer by US district court Judge Gonzalo Curiel to have US district Judge Jeffrey Miller work with both sides on a possible settlement. “I can tell you right now I’m all ears,” Petrocelli told Curiel. Petrocelli said he planned to file a formal request for a delay by Monday. Curiel didn’t say how he would rule but encouraged efforts to settle. Petrocelli said it didn’t appear possible for Trump to attend the trial, and Curiel said he didn’t expect attendance by the president-elect. “We’re in uncharted territory. We need a little bit of time,” Petrocelli said. Earlier in the day Curiel, the Indiana-born jurist who was accused of bias by Trump over his Mexican heritage, tentatively denied a request to ban statements made by and about Trump during his campaign from being used at the trial. The highly unusual petition would apply to Trump’s tweets, a video of Trump making sexually predatory comments about women, his tax history, revelations about his private charitable foundation and the public criticism of the judge. Arizona senator Jeff Flake, speaking with MSNBC’s Chuck Todd about the impending Trump administration, told the Meet the Press host that although he opposed Trump during the campaign, “there are a lot of things that we agree on” and that Trump has, so far, been “gracious” to his vanquished and/or conquered opponents. “I think all of us who have opposed him during the process of [have eaten] a huge helping of crow already,” said the Republican senator. “I didn’t think that he would get this far, I really didn’t.” “When there are areas of disagreement and there may be some, there will be some, we’ll push back,” Flake continued. “But in the meantime, there are a lot of things that we agree on. I think he’s been gracious so far in terms of outreach and has done it right so far. And we’ll see where we go.” President-elect Donald Trump has officially won the traditionally red state of Arizona, two days after election night. Heavy Latino turnout in the Grand Canyon State, as well as young people encouraged by a ballot initiative that would have regulated marijuana like alcohol, contributed to a massive groundswell of Democratic support, but apparently not enough for defeated Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton to win the state. Former president Bill Clinton has made a quick phone call to president-elect Donald Trump, wishing the newly minted 45th president of the United States and his wife’s former political rival well. “During the brief call, President Clinton congratulated Mr. Trump and wished him well,” an aide to Clinton told ABC’s Liz Kreutz. Trump had long used Clinton’s personal peccadilloes as ammunition against the former secretary of state. Bygones, right? Because it’s 2016 and thus forbidden for a day to go past without an open letter appearing somewhere, here’s another one. This time it’s written by a fictional character, if that helps any: Leslie Knope, the relentlessly positive public servant from Park and Recreation, played by Amy Poehler. Upbeat, yes. Positive: not so much. I do not accept it. I acknowledge that Donald Trump is the president. I understand, intellectually, that he won the election. But I do not accept that our country has descended into the hatred-swirled slop pile that he lives in. I reject out of hand the notion that we have thrown up our hands and succumbed to racism, xenophobia, misogyny, and crypto-fascism. I do not accept that. I reject that. I fight that. Today, and tomorrow, and every day until the next election, I reject and fight that story. Several hundred protesters are taking to the streets for the second night running to protest against Trump’s victory, though not yet on the scale of the thousands seen on Wednesday evening. In several places, high school and college students staged walk-out protests. At Baylor University in Texas, several dozen students have gathered: In Denver, Colorado, protesters are beginning to gather for a march scheduled to begin soon: Hundreds more gathered outside the Ohio statehouse in Columbus: And in Louisville, Kentucky: Around a thousand people have taken to the streets of Minneapolis, NBC is reporting, while students at the University of Minnesota also gathered for a protest: In Philadelphia, more than 1,000 protesters gathered in Center City for a candlelit vigil, according to the Philadelphia Enquirer. News that British prime minister Theresa May has finally had her phone call with Trump has certainly gladdened the hearts of some sections of the UK press: Peter Walker reports from London: In the call, Trump made reference to the famously close relationship between Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher as a hopeful aim for their ties, a Downing Street source said. Trump “alluded to their relationship as a way to underline that he was keen to have a good personal working relationship, too,” the source said. A Downing Street statement added that the prime minister called “to congratulate him on his hard-fought election campaign and victory”, and confirmed May had been invited to visit the US “as soon as possible”. “She noted President-elect Trump’s commitment in his acceptance speech to uniting people across America, which she said is a task we all need to focus on globally,” read one section of the statement, which is as close as May has come so far to referring to Trump’s controversial and divisive campaign. The call came after concerns that the much-vaunted special relationship with the US might have suffered an early setback under Trump as he spoke to nine other world leaders in the 24 hours after his election win, without May getting a call. Thanks to the magic synchronicity of Twitter, we can confirm that the vice-president-elect has spoken to the British foreign secretary, and that the “special relationship” remains … special: Edward Snowden has said he is unafraid of Russian president Vladimir Putin turning him over to the US as a favor to President-elect Donald Trump. The national security whistleblower, speaking during a webchat from Russia this afternoon, where he has been stranded since disclosing revelations of widespread National Security Agency surveillance in 2013, said it would be “crazy to dismiss” the prospect of Trump striking a deal with Putin that leads to his extradition and trial. But he added: “If I was worried about safety, if the security and the future of myself was all that I cared about, I would still be in Hawaii.” Snowden told the webchat hosted by the Dutch privacy-focused search engine StartPage he was comfortable with and proud of the choices he had made. “I think I did the right thing,” he said. “While I can’t predict what the future looks like, I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow, I can be comfortable with the way I’ve lived to today.” Trump, who has been complimentary about Putin and Russia in a manner that prompted accusations from his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton that he was a “puppet”, has in the past mused about having Snowden killed. Trump’s major national security ally, the retired general and former Defense Intelligence Agency chief Michael Flynn, oversaw a highly speculative DIA report that claimed Snowden took from the NSA a larger trove of documents than ever confirmed based on what Snowden could access as a contract systems administrator. “Snowden is a spy who has caused great damage in the US. A spy in the old days, when our country was respected and strong, would be executed,” Trump tweeted in 2014. All of that has prompted concern among Snowden’s supporters worldwide that the groundwork for an extradition is in place. But Snowden proclaimed himself unperturbed. The first sighting of former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton after her concession to president-elect Donald Trump yesterday afternoon: Dan Roberts takes a look a policies that could be implemented under President-elect Donald Trump. Another White House transition-team pool report: Hope Hicks has not responded to any additional emails with questions about the president-elect’s status, schedule or whereabouts since changing course and saying he was headed back to New York. If there is any other information that comes in, I will send it immediately, but otherwise I won’t have any further pool reports today. Thanks to you all for bearing with my failed attempts to get more out of the transition today. Little on-the-nose, don’t you think? Former Vermont governor and onetime presidential candidate Howard Dean has announced via Twitter that he is running to reclaim his old position as chair of the Democratic National Committee. Dean, who served as chair from 2005 to 2009, is running to replace interim chair Donna Brazile, who has served since July when Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz resigned in the wake of a Russian-sponsored hack of DNC servers that revealed high-level antipathy towards then-presidential candidate Bernie Sanders among the DNC’s leadership. Video: President-elect Donald Trump appeared before the press to answer several questions this afternoon during a visit to Capitol Hill, and said that his first priorities once he is inaugurated will be controlling immigration, reforming healthcare and creating “big league jobs.” (Or, possibly, “bigly jobs.” We’ve never been totally sure!) Trump was in Washington to meet President Obama and also held discussions with key Republican figures including Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell. The president-elect’s staff has provided no information, despite being asked, about his schedule or activities since leaving Capitol Hill. This is the most incredible political feat I have seen in my lifetime. Donald Trump heard a voice out in this country that no one else heard ... he connected in ways with people no one else did. President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team has announced that former Ohio secretary of state Ken Blackwell will be in charge of handling domestic policy issues in relation to the upcoming Trump administration’s legislative and executive priorities in its first hundred days Blackwell, who currently works as a senior fellow at the Family Research Council, a Christian lobbying organization that lobbies lawmakers against LGBT rights, abortion and pornography, first gained national attention in 2006, when he was running to serve as Ohio’s governor. In an interview at the time, Blackwell declared that homosexuality was a “lifestyle” that “can be changed. “I think homosexuality is a lifestyle, it’s a choice, and that lifestyle can be changed,” Blackwell told the Columbus Dispatch at the time. “I think it is a transgression against God’s law, God’s will.” “The reality is, again,” Blackwell continued, “that I think we make choices all the time. And I think you make good choices and bad choices in terms of lifestyle. Our expectation is that one’s genetic makeup might make one more inclined to be an arsonist or might make one more inclined to be a kleptomaniac. Do I think that they can be changed? Yes.” Trump himself has said that, while he does not support same-sex marriage rights, he does support LGBT rights. Vice president-elect Mike Pence, on the other hand, first emerged on the national stage after signing an expansive anti-LGBT measure into law, and once signed into law a bill that would send same-sex couples attempting to obtain marriage licenses to jail. From the president-elect’s pool report: Hope Hicks sends the following update about the president-elect’s plans for tonight: ‘Now heading to NYC’ That is the full extent of what she has told me. She is not responding to questions about his schedule for the rest of the day The “dishonest press” is getting its comeuppance from the new administration, it seems. President Barack Obama should urgently seek to impose constitutional checks on the US president’s access to “the most awesome assassination machine ever known to man”, a former state department official in the Obama administration said today. Jeremy Shapiro disclosed the Obama team before the 2012 elections had considered imposing such constitutional checks on the US president’s ability to order killings fearing Obama was about to lose the presidential elections to the Republicans. Speaking in London, Shapiro, a former special adviser an assistant secretary in the State Department, disclosed the Obama team in the State Department “in the run-up to the 2012 election the Obama thought might lose and there was some thinking - ‘Gee, we have created the most awesome assassination machine ever known to man whereby we can, with very little oversight, basically kill anyone in the world outside of America.’” He added the Obama officials thought “We are using that responsibly because we are good people,” but it was not institutionalized. “When people looked at it they thought, ‘Christ this is scary, what if we give this to the Republicans?’” He said the Obama team “started to have a process to institutionalize the process, but it did not get very institutionalized.” Leslie Vinjamuri, senior lecturer at SOAS, added Obama should put all his remaining energy in his final weeks in the Oval Office to “do anything he can to to regulate, to create norms, institutionalize, create blocking mechanisms.” The academics were discussing Trump’s approach to foreign policy and the degree he will delegate or take personal charge. Shapiro warned: “in the last 15 years, power in foreign policy has centralized to an enormous extent within the presidency and Congress, and most of the institutions in foreign policy has become enormously supine in the face of what ever the [resident wants to do does in foreign policy. We have essentially by default almost given this to the president.” Cora Currier writes for the : Audre Lorde once wrote that “poetry is not a luxury”, and right now it is a necessity. What kind of poetry can get us through a Donald Trump presidency? We’ll need satire and spitting vitriol. We’ll need rallying cries. We’ll need reminders of human dignity. Each poet here has struggled with the relationship between poetry and action, with the question of poetry’s relevance in a time of crisis. Adrienne Rich said: “A poem can’t free us from the struggle for existence, but it can uncover desires and appetites buried under the accumulating emergencies of life.” These are words carefully chosen not for solace but for strength, poems that dip into the reservoirs of literature to find fuel for the day ahead. They are, to borrow from WH Auden’s famous poem September 1, 1939, “ironic points of light” that “flash out wherever the Just / exchange their messages”. Poems that serve as signals through the ages that good exists, and that someone is awake and listening. Click through for: Gwendolyn Brooks – Langston Hughes Adrienne Rich – What Kind of Times Are These Nayyirah Waheed – Some words build houses in your throat Margaret Atwood – Men with the Heads of Eagles Muriel Rukeyser – Poem A US judge on Thursday tentatively rejected a bid by Donald Trump to keep a wide range of statements from the presidential campaign out of an upcoming fraud trial over his Trump University venture, Reuters reports: The ruling came in advance of a pretrial hearing later on Thursday where lawyers for the president-elect will square off against students who claim they were they were lured by false promises to pay up to $35,000 to learn Trump’s real estate investing “secrets” from his “hand-picked” instructors. Trump owned 92 percent of Trump University and had control over all major decisions, the students’ court papers say. The president-elect denies the allegations and has argued that he relied on others to manage the business. Trial is scheduled to begin Nov. 28. In the ruling on Thursday, U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel in San Diego said Trump’s lawyers can renew objections to specific campaign statements and evidence during trial. Trump’s attorneys had argued that jurors should not hear about statements Trump made during the campaign, including about Curiel himself. Trump attacked the judge as biased against him. He claimed Curiel, who was born in Indiana but is of Mexican descent, could not be impartial because of Trump’s pledge to build a wall between the United States and Mexico. Read the full piece here. Here’s footage of the impromptu press conference, via the Huffington Post: Asked about his priorities, Trump mentions immigration, the border, health care and jobs, “big league jobs.” Ohio governor John Kasich is praying for the success of Trump, whom he has come very close to openly despising. Trump has emerged from the meeting and started an impromptu gaggle with reporters that ended when he was asked about his plan to ban Muslims, CNN reports: Trump is still meeting with McConnell, the press pool reports: The President-elect is still in his meeting with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, which an aide said should last up to an hour. The two walked by earlier, but have remained inside since. The Vice President-elect has already left the Capitol. Here’s a transcription via the Trump press pool of Trump’s meeting with speaker Paul Ryan: Ryan repeatedly chided reporters for shouting questions --- including how the “wall is going to be paid for.” Ryan: Donald Trump had one of the most impressive victories we have ever seen and we’re going to turn that victory into progress for the American people, and we are now talking about how we are going to hit the ground running to get this country turned around and make America great again.” Trump: Speaker Ryan, thank you very much. We had a meeting, I met with president before, as you know. I think we are going to absolutely spectacular things for the American people and I look forward to starting --- quite frankly we can’t get started fast enough.” [Inaudible] “… Whether it’s on healthcare or immigration so many different things. We’re going to lower taxes, so many different things we are going to be working on.” “We had a very detailed meeting, and we’re going to lower taxes, as you know, health care we’re going to make it affordable. We are going to do a real job on healthcare [inaudible]. As he wrapped up, Trump said he had a “great meeting” with Ryan and then the Speaker led him out onto his balcony. The Obamas’ dogs got one whiff of Trump and ambled elsewhere. Trump will stay in DC for the night, spokeswoman Hope Hicks has informed the media pool. But no word on whether he’ll stay at his new hotel on Pennsylvania avenue. Endorse. From the piece: And she [the heavy-construction worker] shared an anecdote that reflected how differently Trump’s comments had been received in some places than others. “I’m setting steel for this new gas plant…I’m operating a rough terrain forklift,” she wrote. “So today, I kept thinking about the debate and the audio was released … And I got underneath a load of steel and was moving it…I was laughing and laughing and one of the iron workers asked ‘what are u laughing at.’ I said ‘I grabbed that load right by the pussy’ and laughed some more…And said ‘when you’re an operator you can do that ya know’, laughed all fucking day.” Just last week, I was back in Ohio, in the southeastern Appalachian corner. I was at a graduation ceremony for opiate addicts who had gone through a recovery program, and sitting with four women, all around 30, who were still in the program. Someone mentioned the election, and all four of them piped up that they were voting for the first time ever. For whom? I asked. They looked at me as if I had asked the dumbest question in the world. All four were for Trump. The most of the loquacious of the group, Tiffany Chesser, said she was voting for him because her boyfriend worked at a General Electric light-bulb plant nearby that was seeing more of its production lines being moved to Mexico. She saw voting for Trump as a straightforward transaction to save his job. “If he loses that job we’re screwed — I’ll lose my house,” she said. “There used to be a full parking lot there — now you go by, there are just three trucks in the lot.” Look who else is visiting the White House today! John Kasich, the Ohio governor who never gave Trump the time of day and voted for John McCain for president and whose state was then won by Trump by almost 9 points. That’s Kasich there at left. Oh yes and also that’s the NBA champion Cleveland Cavaliers. LeBron James, who campaigned a lot for Clinton, is in the White House today. What he said. Obamacare enrollments (or preliminary signups? it’s not clear) spiked after the election, the secretary of health and human services reports: Now Trump and Pence and Melania Trump are meeting with senate majority leader Mitch McConnell on Capitol Hill. McConnell said yesterday he expected to work with Trump on filling the supreme court vacancy, on tax reform, on Obamacare and more. Developing... There’s the Martin Luther King Jr bust Barack Obama moved into the Oval Office upon becoming president. Obama was criticized for moving a bust of Winston Churchill outside the Oval to make room for MLK. There are “only so many tables where you can put busts, otherwise it starts looking a little cluttered,” Obama said. Anyone think the MLK Jr bust will stay there after January? Paul Ryan can see Donald Trump’s hotel from his house the Capitol balcony. That’s vice-president-elect Mike Pence and Melania Trump with them of course. Some initial footage, and the requisite “this meeting was wonderful” quote from Ryan. Developing... Josh Earnest describes the Michelle Obama - Melania Trump meeting. They had tea, admired a balcony view and talked about raising kids in the White House. How different than what would have come to pass had Clinton won. Earnest: The first lady hosted Mrs Trump in the private residence... for some tea and a tour... part of that tour included stepping out onto the Truman balcony... you’ve heard the president and Mrs Obama describe the quality of time that they’ve spent on the Truman balcony.... there was also an opportunity for the two women to walk through the state floor of the White House... They also had a discussion about raising kids at the White House. The first lady’s two daughters spent their formative years here at the White House... After their tour concluded, the first lady and Mrs Trump walked over to the Oval Office and the two couples had a chance to speak. Obama on Monday called Trump “temperamentally unfit” and “uniquely unqualified.” “The president’s views haven’t changed,” the press secretary says. But it’s time for a successful transition. “The president’s plan to take a long vacation after he leaves office have not changed.” – Josh Earnest Obama appreciated how George W Bush gave him space after Obama took office, giving him “some running room,” Earnest says. “President Obama admired that.” He doesn’t sound like he’s kidding: After dismissing the question multiple times, Earnest allows that yes, Obama may continue to think that Trump is unqualified to be president: Further to our earlier post about hate incidents since the election, the s’ Luis Echegaray flags a disturbing incident at Elon University in North Carolina: Here’s a further collection of such incidents: Earnest is asked about the anti-Trump protests across the country on Wednesday evening. Reply: We’ve got a carefully, constitutionally protected right to free speech... it is a right that should be exercised without violence. There are people disappointed in the outcome... but it’s important for us to remember that we’re Democrats and Republicans but we’re Americans and patriots first. Read further: Earnest is asked whether Obama still considers Trump unfit to be president. Reply: The two men did not re-litigate their differences in the Oval Office. We’re on to the next phase now. Via the house speaker’s spokesperson: The President-elect, Mrs. Trump, Vice President-elect, and the Speaker are having lunch and discussing the transition. The Speaker has also invited President-elect Trump to the Capitol after their meeting to show him where he’ll be sworn in on Inauguration Day. Press secretary Josh Earnest is talking about the big meeting. He says he met Jared Kushner and Hope Hicks. “I had the opportunity to meet with her briefly – to meet her, I should say.” On the Obama-Trump meeting, Earnest has this to say: The meeting might have been a little less awkward than some might have expected. Trump referred in the Oval to some “high-flying assets” the president had told him about, a reporter notes. What the heck was that about? Earnest refers the question to team Trump. Here’s some added color from inside the Oval office, via the Trump media pool, which Trump ditched again upon leaving the White House for his meeting with Paul Ryan: The president kept saying, “tell me when you’re ready” to reporters, as he waited to make a statement. The president-elect looked around the room, and at the floor, his hands tented below him. The only senior aide in the room spotted in the room from the White House was press secretary Josh Earnest. Trump aides Hope Hicks and Jared Kushner, who had been waiting in the Cabinet room until the meeting concluded, were in place as well. Kushner took iPhone photos as they spoke. Obama looked straight at Trump for the full statement, his hands clasped. He nodded at the end. Both men ignored shouted questions, including “Mr. President, do you still think he is a threat to the republic?” Obama explained to Trump with a joke that the reporters always ask questions and they need to be shooed out, as he motioned with his hand. He singled out one aide who was wrangling the press, saying, “she’s small, but she’s tough.” Trump said “she’s doing a very good job.” Barack Obama: I just had the opportunity to have an excellent conversation with President-elect Trump. It was wide-ranging. We talked about some of the organizational issues in setting up the White House. We talked about foreign policy, we talked about domestic policy. And as I said last night, my number one priority in the coming two months is to try to facilitate a transition that ensures our president elect is successful. And I have been very encouraged by the I think interest in president elect Trump’s wanting to work with my team around many of the issues that this great country faces and I believe that it is important for all of us regardless of party and regardless of political preferences to now come together, work together, to deal with the many challenges that we face. And in the meantime Michelle has had a chance to greet the incoming first lady and we had an excellent conversation with her as well. And we want to make sure they feel welcome as they prepare to make this transition. And most of all I want to emphasize to you, Mr President Elect, that we now are gonna want to do everything we can to help you succeed because if you succeed then the country succeeds. Please [indicates Trump should speak]. Donald Trump: Well, thank you very much President Obama. This was a meeting that was going to last for maybe 10 or 15 minutes and we were just going to get to know each other. We had never met each other. I have great respect- the meeting lasted for almost an hour and a half, and it could have, as far as I’m concerned, it could have gone on for a lot longer. We really, we discussed a lot of different situations, some wonderful and some difficulties. I very much look forward to dealing with the president in the future, including counsel. He’s explained some of the difficulties, some of the high flying assets and some of the really great things that have been achieved. So Mr President, it was a great honor being with you and I look forward to being with you many, many more times in the future. Obama: Thank you everybody – we are not going to be taking any questions. [To Trump:] Always a good rule: don’t answer any questions when they just start yelling. Here’s a video of Obama and Trump’s full remarks following their Oval Office meeting: Remember Aaron Schock, the former Illinois congressman whose sketchy use of his congressional allowance and campaign funds was exposed after a reporter spoke with the interior decorator of his office who said she’d been inspired by Downton Abbey? He’s been indicted. Now to hatch plans with his Republican colleagues for next steps. Trump is in a motorcade en route to meet with House speaker Paul Ryan at the Capitol Hill Club and majority leader Mitch McConnell at Capitol Hill. Here’s a media pool transcription of president Obama’s remarks: We talked about some of organizational issues in setting up the White House. We talked about foreign policy. We talked about domestic policy. As I sat last night, my number one in the next coming two months is to try to facilitate a transition that ensures our President-elect is successful and I have been very encouraged by the interest by the President-elect Trump’s wanting to work with my team around many of the issues that this great country faces. I believe that it is important for all regardless of party and regardless of political preferences to now come together, work together to deal with the many challenges we face. More video and photos of the meeting: An amicable – if a bit stiff, and did we notice strained on the president’s part? – appearance before the cameras for the two men. Obama says “I have been very encouraged by an interest in president-elect Trump’s wanting to work with my team around many of the issues that the country faces... it is important for all of us ... to now come together, work together... Michelle’s had the chance to greet the incoming first lady, and we’ve had an excellent conversation and want to make sure they feel welcome... We now are gonna want to do everything we can because if you succeed the country succeeds. Trump: We had never met.. The meeting was supposed to last 10 minutes... I have great respect... it went on for an hour-and-a-half and as far as I’m concerned it could have gone on longer... we really we discussed a lot of different situations, some wonderful and some difficulties. I very much look forward to dealing with the president in the future, including counsel. Mr president, was a great honor being with you and I look forward to being with you many many more times in the future. According to reports and photos shown to me by a friend in the room, a grinning Trump patted Obama on the back as they got up to leave, though there was only one handshake between the two men in front of the brief photo opportunity. You don’t see that expression on Obama’s face often. Obama said the number one priority was to ensure a smooth transition, so Trump could be a successful president. “If he succeeds, the country succeeds,” Obama said. Trump said he had “respect for the president” and said they talked about some wonderful things and some difficult things. Asked if he would seek the advice of the president, Trump said Obama was a “very fine man.” Trump also boasted of how long their meeting had been. He said it was scheduled for ten minutes but lasted for an hour and a half, and could have gone on much longer. Obama and Trump talked about foreign and domestic policy according to initial pool chatter in the press room. More to come.... In short remarks, the president said the two had an “excellent conversation.” The Obamas canceled a photo-op of the current and future first couples outside the south entrance of the White House, the Wall Street Journal reports. But we’re about to get photos from inside the Oval office. The media pool is going into the Oval Office now. That suggests a 90-minute meeting. POTUS and PEOTUS were seated in the high-backed armchairs at the end of the room, as is typical for when the President speaks to world leaders. Both men spoke briefly. Remarks to come... At least we’ll have access to the vice president? That’s pretty important, right? Still meeting. President Barack Obama and president-elect Donald Trump have been meeting for about 90 minutes now. What are they talking about do you think? Is Obama lecturing Trump about keeping a cool head? Is Trump lecturing Obama about leadership? Are they comparing notes on what it feels like to give electrifying speeches to thousands of people across the country? Is Obama telling Trump about how much his hate speech wounds individual Americans and the country and world at large? Is he lecturing Trump on the constitution? Is Trump asking to “try out that chair”? Are they talking about family, about Vladimir Putin, about government surveillance, about filling the role of mourner-in-chief after mass shootings, about protocol, about climate change? Trump’s traveling press pool continues to track Kushner and McDonough. Kushner, the scion of a New Jersey real estate empire that dwarfs Trump’s, was a key adviser to his father-in-law throughout the campaign. It’s unclear what role he would have in the White House. The pool report: McDonough and Kushner walked back from the lawn and across the Rose Garden at 12:07. McDonough led him up the colonnade, followed by the same group of aides who’d left them on their own for the walk. They entered the White House, looked up briefly when a reporter called out “Denis!” but did not respond. Trump and Obama are still meeting. What are they talking about? Obamacare? Here’s a photo of Jared Kushner and White House chief of staff Denis McDonough: Following his meeting with Obama today, president-elect Trump will meet with House speaker Paul Ryan at the Capitol Hill Club and majority leader Mitch McConnell at Capitol Hill. Trump has been hard on Ryan, attacking him repeatedly during the campaign as a weak leader. Ryan canceled a plan campaign appearance with Trump after the emergence of hot-mic video in which Trump described grabbing women’s genitals without their consent. Members of Trump’s staff including campaign chairman Stephen Bannon have called for Ryan’s head and it’s possible the president-elect will seek to torpedo Ryan’s reelection as House speaker. But on Wednesday, Ryan put a good face on the relationship, saying he had spoken with Trump twice and was eager to work with him and calling Trump’s election good for the country. McConnell voiced a similar view. Three Republican men in control of the legislative and executive branches. Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway has been offered a White House job, she tweets. Conway is the first woman ever to have run a successful presidential campaign. (Donna Brazile was Al Gore’s campaign manager in 2000; he lost?) What are they doing in there? Dan Roberts reports from the White House: The press pool still has not gone into the Oval Office, which suggests the meeting is going on longer than some of us expected. From the media pool assigned to Trump which Trump has ditched, a sighting of Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner with White House chief of staff Denis McDonough. White House chief of staff Denis McDonough was just spotted leading Jared Kushner and other Trump aides, including Dan Scavino, across the back edge of the Rose Garden. McDonough led Kushner on a walk down the South Lawn as the others dispersed. Reminds us of the time in 2006 that Kushner and Peter Kaplan went to that Yankees game. Seemed high-stakes at the time; Kushner had just purchased the New York , where Kaplan was editor, which nobody wanted to see fail. Kaplan died of cancer in 2013. Kushner’s now getting the keys to the White House. Here’s an interesting phenomenon. Trump supporters coming out of the woodwork post-election. Maybe the sign instead of being an expression of support for Trump in particular is a general expression of patriotic hope for a steady future for the country? Hm. But wouldn’t an American flag work better in that case? (h/t @loisbeckett) The press pool is going in now, in the first sign that the Obama-Trump meeting is coming close to an end. The pool includes members of the separate press pool which has been covering Trump but has been barred for being with him since the election. The press pool has just been informed that in 10 minutes they will be going back to prepare for a “spray”. What will happen is they will stand in a West Wing corridor, for what I guess will be 15-20 minutes, while they wait for the private Obama-Trump meeting to finish. Then they will be ushered inside the Oval Office to take pictures of Trump and Obama and record what we expect to be brief remarks from each. It is possible, though unlikely, that Trump may come out to another “stake-out” location outside the front of the West Wing afterwards to make separate remarks to the wider press corps. More likely he will depart, as he arrived, out of public sight. A spokesperson for British prime minister Theresa May releases this description of a conversation between May and Trump: The Prime Minister spoke to US President-elect Donald Trump earlier today to congratulate him on his hard-fought election campaign and victory. The President-elect said he very much looked forward to working with the Prime Minister and congratulated her on her recent appointment. The Prime Minister and President-elect Trump agreed that the US-UK relationship was very important and very special, and that building on this would be a priority for them both. President-elect Trump set out his close and personal connections with, and warmth for, the UK. He said he was confident that the special relationship would go from strength to strength. Trump’s staff has not released a description of the call. That’s unusual. Presidents typically release their own versions of such communications so they can frame the conversation their way instead of conceding to the foreign government’s framing. Trump’s staff is not informing the media of top-level – official now, aren’t they? – conversations Trump is having with foreign leaders, among who knows what other conversations. He’s here, reports Washington bureau chief Dan Roberts from the White House: Police are investigating the burning of a gay pride flag outside a home in Rochester, NY, as a potential hate crime, TWC news reports: Ventura said he connects this incident and another flag burning in the same neighborhood to the election. To help deal with what had happened, he joined dozens of others Wednesday night at the Gay Alliance LGBTQ Resource Center, where many were also feeling distressed about the election outcome. Reports of racist attacks and other hate-crime behavior have surfaced again and again since the election. Here’s one against Muslim-Americans in San Diego Wednesday and here is one against a Mexican restaurant in Boston. As Trump meets Obama, Michelle Obama is to take Melania Trump on a tour of the White House and the east wing where the family lives. This afternoon, vice president Joe Biden is to meet with vice-president-elect Mike Pence, a longtime legislator relatively well-known in Washington. There is not expected to be any live coverage of the Trump Obama meeting, but here is a live stream that may capture Trump’s arrival: Trump ditched his press pool this morning, in continuance of his late-campaign practice. Spokeswoman Hope Hicks told Trump’s pool that the White House would provide pool coverage of today’s meeting. The White House press pool of course is at the White House, not with Trump. So that doesn’t make any sense. The protective press pool attached to the president, when it works, increases the access of the public to the presidency and the White House. The press pool describes the daily movements of the president and remarks variations in those, introduces the public to the people and conversations in the president’s orbit, and provides coverage in case of unforeseen events extending to an emergency. Insofar as the media is a tool for the public to pry open and look inside the government – and we are keenly aware that a lot of people these days think “insofar” is “not very far” – the press pool is a tool for the larger media to keep an eye on the president. Trump’s ditching it, for now. Take him to our leader. The Canadian government has said it is open to renegotiating Nafta – the North American free-trade agreement, routinely described by Donald Trump on the campaign trail as the “worst deal in history” – in a move that extends an olive branch to the incoming US administration. [Trump also described the Iran nuclear deal and the Trans-Pacific partnership as the worst deals in history.] The ’s Ashifa Kassam reports from Toronto: David MacNaughton, Canada’s ambassador to Washington, said on Wednesday the federal government was prepared to revisit the 1994 pact. “I think any agreement can be improved on,” he told reporters. “If they want to have a discussion about improving Nafta, then we are ready to come to the table to try to put before the new administration anything that will benefit both Canada and the United States and obviously Mexico also,” said MacNaughton. “So we are prepared to talk.” Throughout the American election campaign, Trump vowed to renegotiate Nafta in order to secure a better deal for American workers. If this proved impossible, Trump said he would withdraw the US from the agreement. Doing so could wreak havoc on the Canadian economy, which in 2015 sent 77% of its exports to the United States. MacNaughton declined to offer details on what Canada would seek from the negotiations, save for noting that free trade on lumber, which has long ranked as an irritant between the two countries, would be among Canada’s demands. His remarks came hours before Justin Trudeau, Canada’s prime minister, spoke to Trump to congratulate him on his win and invite him to visit Canada. The president-elect is on the ground in Washington. No protesters yet at the White House in anticipation of Trump’s visit. Amnesty International is launching a billboard in Times Square today asking people to to post selfies in support of refugees. The billboard, by Amnesty International and media platform The Drum, hopes to challenge racism and xenophobia around refugees. The relevance of the billboard launching the same week that Donald Trump, who promises to deport 11 million undocumented immigrants and tighten screening around Syrian refugees, didn’t go unnoticed. From the press release: Drum founder Gordon Young, who will be in Times Square to celebrate the billboard going live, today offered an open invitation to Donald Trump to attend the unveiling and show his support, “Congratulations to President-Elect Donald Trump. Now that he has succeeded, it is time to demonstrate how the responsibility of office can change campaigning rhetoric into real leadership. We invite him to extend an olive branch to refugees - Mexican or other” Every media organization is publishing its version of “how Trump won,” and this snippet from Time magazine is particularly interesting, looking at Trump voters in Pennsylvania: Chris Reilly, a commissioner in York County, Pennsylvania, has lived in the heavily Republican area north of Baltimore for 28 years. On the day in September after Mike Pence spoke to some 800 folks in downtown York, Reilly scanned a panoramic picture of the crowd in the local paper and had a shock. “I recognized one face,” he said. That’s when the party stalwart knew something was going on. Then, on a recent Friday, Reilly got word that the county had received 9,000 absentee-ballot applications in a single day. It had to mail them out by Monday but had no money for extra help. So Reilly turned up at the election office on Saturday to stuff the applications into envelopes himself. As he did, he noticed something surprising. The applications were running 10 to 1 male. And when he peeked at the employment lines, he saw a pattern. “Dockworker. Forklift operator. Roofer,” Reilly recalled. “Grouter. Warehouse stocker. These people had probably never voted before. They were coming out of nowhere.” Hillary Clinton is still leading in the popular vote, with 59,923,033 votes (47.7%) to Donald Trump’s 59,692,978. That’s a pretty evenly split country, with just over 230,000 votes. The Federal Aviation Authority has listed Trump Tower in Midtown, home of Donald Trump, wife Melania and son Barron, in the no-fly zone. The FAA had placed “temporary flight restrictions for VIP Movement” on the area for election night but has now extended it indefinitely after Trump’s win. The area of Trump Tower is now, as New York magazine pointed out, a national-security site: The agency issued an administrative directive called a “Notice to Airmen” banning pilots from flying within two nautical miles of the geographical point located at 40º45’54” north, 73º58’25” west — that being the southeastern corner of Central Park, four blocks north of Trump Tower. As we prepare for President Obama to welcome President-elect Trump to the White House, let’s just enjoy this photo doing the rounds of social media of Obama’s staff listening to their boss make a gracious speech about Trump’s win. So perhaps Rudy Guiliani, former NYC mayor and one of Trump’s most ardent surrogates, won’t be Attorney General in the Trump administration. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s name is also being thrown around as possible AG contender. From the ’s Moscow correspondent... Russia’s deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov has said Moscow’s emissaries were in touch with people around the Trump campaign during the election process, despite repeated denials from the Trump campaign that such links existed. Ryabkov told Interfax they’ve reached out to Trump since his election win. “We are doing this and we have been doing so during the election campaign. Obviously, we know most of the people from his entourage. Those people have always been in the limelight in the United States and have occupied high-ranking positions,” he said. “I cannot say that all of them but quite a few have been staying in touch with Russian representatives. We have just begun to consider ways of building dialogue with the future Donald Trump administration and channels we will be using for those purposes,” Ryabkov said. Foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova confirmed to Bloomberg that Russian embassy staff met with Trump associates during the campaign, and said people around the Clinton campaign had rejected such contacts. It is not particularly surprising that Russian representatives would have made overtures to Trump during the campaign; it is standard practice in all election campaigns. It is interesting that Ryabkov has chosen to say this publicly, however, given the role alleged Russian interference played in the campaign and given Trump’s campaign publicly denied such contacts. Vice-president Joe Biden will meet with VP-elect Mike Pence at the White House at 2.45pm today. Thousands of Americans took to the streets in protest of the election of Donald Trump last night, chanting “not my president” and shutting down roadways. Cities including Los Angeles, New York, Washington DC and Philadelphia all saw large protest turnout. Reporters Sam Levin in San Francisco, Zach Stafford in Chicago and Scott Bixby in New York covered last night’s protests. As night fell in midtown Manhattan, people took over Sixth Avenue and marched by Trump Tower, carrying signs that read “Not my president”, “She got more votes” and “Hands off my pussy”, a reference to a leaked recording where Trump bragged that he could sexually assault women because of his fame. A number of arrests were made. Protesters who had marched all the way from Union Square – some 35 blocks downtown – continued past Trump Tower, with a crowd congregating in front of the president-elect’s building. “Fuck your tower! Fuck your wall!” people chanted at Trump Tower’s brass-escutcheoned facade, as scores of NYPD officers manned barricades, behind which stood eight department of sanitation trucks filled with dirt. Read the rest of their coverage here. Were you at anti-Trump rallies last night? Tell us in the comments about your experience - and tweet photos and thoughts to me at @ambiej. Former US secretary of state Madeleine Albright has warned Trump against American isolationism, telling him the US must play its part in the Nato alliance. “Nato is obviously key. We are responsible for each other, a two-way street,” Albright told the in an interview on Wednesday. Trump alarmed many in July when, at the Republican national convention where he accepted his party’s nomination, he implied that the US might not protect other members of Nato if they were not contributing enough to the military costs, and hinted he could withdraw US forces from around the world. A cornerstone of Nato’s strength, and global security, is the pact that an attack on one member is an attack on all. “The US must be involved abroad. If we are not engaged, then the system doesn’t work at all, or, even, a new system cannot be created,” she said. Many Ukrainians feel they were let down in the level of support they received from the west for fighting Russia-backed separatists in the east of the country, but a Donald Trump presidency brings a whole new level of fear, writes Shaun Walker. What really terrifies Kiev is the fact that Trump has hinted he could be amenable to the sort of Great Power politics that Putin enjoys: man-to-man summitry where geopolitical deals are struck. G Given the importance of Ukraine to Putin’s plans, he would be likely to demand the country is recognised as one where Russia has “special interests”. In Putin’s dream world and Kiev’s nightmare, the recognition of annexed Crimea as part of Russia could even be up for discussion. A somewhat nervous statement was issued by Ukrainian president Poroshenko, congratulating Trump and noting he had been assured by the US ambassador that the incoming Trump administration “would remain a reliable partner in the struggle for democracy”. In reality, nobody knows what Trump’s position on Russia and Ukraine will be, including the US ambassador. As on so many policy positions, Trump has made contradictory statements, at times suggesting more should have been done to support Ukraine against Russia while at other times suggesting Crimea should be part of Russia. European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker has called for clarity from on issues in which Trump’s campaign remarks have rattled Europe, including s global trade, climate policy and future relations with Nato. “We would like to know how things will proceed with global trade policy,” Juncker said at a business event in Berlin, according to Reuters. “We would like to know what intentions he has regarding the (Nato) alliance. We must know what climate policies he intends to pursue. This must be cleared up in the next few months.” Juncker said he did not expect the trade deal between the United States and the European Union, currently being negotiated, to be finalised this year as previously planned. “The trade deal with the United States, I do not view that as something that would happen in the next two years,” he said. A Russian diplomat says Moscow had contacts with the Trump campaign ahead of the election, AP reports. Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov was quoted as telling the Interfax news agency that “there were contacts” with influential people in Trump’s circle. “I don’t say that all of them, but a whole array of them, supported contacts with Russian representatives.” The report did not elaborate. Russia was openly accused of interfering in favour of Trump during the campaign. The Obama administration claimed Russian authorities hacked damaging Democratic party emails that were then leaked to WikiLeaks. Russian president Vladimir Putin denied the claims. After Trump’s election he was quick to call for a new era of “fully fledged relations” between Washington and Moscow. The American Civil Liberties Union is trying to tap into anxiety about civil liberties under Trump to raise some cash. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has spoken of his determination to dismantle Obama’s flagship health insurance policy as soon as possible. After speaking to Trump, McConnell said: “It’s pretty high on our agenda, as you know. I would be shocked if we didn’t move forward and keep our commitment to the American people.” During the campaign Trump promised to immediately repeal Obamacare. But some commentators predict he may get cold feet because such a move would leave millions of Americans without health cover, and he has no alternative to help them. Pundits on The Weeds, Vox’s policy podcast, suggested he may be deploy a constantly extended sunset clause to keep Obamacare going. Meanwhile, health campaigners have pledged to wage “total war” in defence of Obamacare, according to Politico. In the UK chancellor Philip Hammond, is anxious that Trump’s protectionism could damage Britain. Hammond was asked by the BBC if he thought free trade deals needed to be fundamentally rethought, as Trump suggests. He suggested he didn’t: We believe that free trade and open markets are good for prosperity, good for the protection of jobs in this economy. But we do also recognise the concerns that there are around dumping and unfair practices, and it’s about getting the right balance in the global trading system so that we can have the benefits of open markets, while being properly and appropriately protected from unfair practices. Andrew Sparrow is following this and all the other Trump fallout in British politics at Politics Live. It was white women who pushed Trump to victory, according to exit poll data. Rejecting the candidate who had aimed to be America’s first female president, 53% of white women voted for Trump, according to CNN exit polls. White women without a college degree supported Trump over Hillary Clinton by nearly a two to one margin. White women with a college degree were more evenly divided, with 45% supporting Trump, compared with 51% supporting Clinton. Women of color, in contrast, voted overwhelmingly for Clinton: 94% of black women supported her, and 68% of Latino women. While exit polling data has flaws, the early responses underline a stark racial divide among American women: the majority of white women embraced Trump and his platform, while women of color rejected him. The strong support for Trump among white women suggests that many of them, if not “overtly racist”, simply “don’t think racism is a big deal”, said Mikki Kendall, a feminist cultural critic. Politics Weekly, The ’s political podcast, analyses Trump’s victory and looks ahead to a Trump presidency. Anushka Asthana is joined by Gary Younge, Randeep Ramesh, Hannah Peaker and Mona Chalabi Donald Trump is heading for the White House today after being elected as the 45th US president. Barack Obama is still in charge for now but he will host President-elect Trump at a meeting in the Oval Office as part of the transition of power. The meeting at (11am EST) could be an awkward encounter after what was said during a bitter campaign in which Obama branded Trump “unfit” for the presidency and “woefully unprepared”. But part of Obama’s job now is to help prepare Trump for the presidency and he has urged American’s to respect the shock election result. Speaking from White House he said: “That’s what the country needs – a sense of unity; a sense of inclusion; a respect for our institutions, our way of life, rule of law; and a respect for each other.” But many have been in no mood heed that call for unity. Thousands of demonstrators crowded into streets and surrounding his buildings in major American cities on Wednesday night, shouting “not my president.” Some held banners saying “She got more votes” a reference to Hillary Clinton appearing poised to win the popular vote. Bernie Sanders reacted to Trump’s victory by acknowledging that he successfully tapped into antiestablishment rage but Sanders vowed to continue to challenge him. And international leaders have also been struggling in their own way to come to terms with Trump’s victory. Here’s some key questions we’ve been asking - and answering - since Trump’s victory. Who will be appointed to Trump’s cabinet? Will Trump destroy America? Why were the polls so wrong? How did the world’s press cover Trump’s victory? What will President Trump do? Readers outside the US: what does Trump’s win mean to you? Did the Simpsons really predict a Trump victory? What’s happening today The current and future first ladies, Michelle Obama and Melania Trump will also meet in the White House. Wonder if there will be chats about plagiarism? A US judge accused of bias by Donald Trump because of his Mexican heritage is to hold a pre-trial hearing on Thursday in a class-action lawsuit over the president-elect’s now-defunct Trump University. US district judge Gonzalo Curiel is holding the hearing to instruct the jury and examine what evidence to allow at trial, which begins on 28 November. Presidents enjoy immunity from their official duties, but this does not extend to acts alleged to have taken place prior to taking office. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has spoken to the president elect by phone and is due to meet him in New York next week. Trump’s unexpected victory has fanned Japan’s anxiety about Washington’s commitment to security arrangements in the face of a rising China and a volatile North Korea. Asia-Pacific markets staged a huge recovery after an election day wobble, as the region followed the lead of the US and Europe. There has been a rush of interest from Americans in emigrating to New Zealand. In the past 24 hours, the website of Immigration New Zealand (INZ) received 56,300 visits from the US – a huge rise on its daily average of 2,300.
Elvis & Nixon review: Michael Shannon resurrects the King The meeting between Richard M Nixon and Elvis Presley on 21 December 1970, is so legendary that the photograph that immortalized the moment is still the most requested image in the National Archives. It’s a wonder, then, that it’s taken this long to imagine their summit on screen. Writers Joey Sagal, Hanala Sagal and Cary Elwes take major artistic liberties to retell the story of that the encounter and the events leading up to it in Elvis & Nixon, a breezy comedy nimbly directed by Liza Johnson (Hateship Loveship). Given that the film is about two of the most recognizable figures of the 20th century, clearly casting is key to its success. Luckily, Johnson hit the jackpot by getting Michael Shannon on board as the King and Kevin Spacey to play the corrupt president. Although the film’s title suggests that it will be a two-hander, Nixon takes a back seat for much of the narrative to let Shannon take the lead as the King. His Presley is a star at a crossroads, firmly aware of his celebrity but having lost sight of himself as a person. “When I walk into a room, everyone remembers their first kiss watching one of my movies, but they never see me,” he laments. “He’s buried under gold and money. I don’t know if I know who he is anymore.” Probably in an effort to solve that conundrum (though he never explicitly says as much), Presley sets out on a mission to put his fame to use by vowing to fight for his country, which he believes to be in shambles with the Vietnam war raging and drugs flooding the country. Declaring “it’s make or break time for this country,” he flies to the White House with the lofty goal of convincing the president to deputise him as “federal agent-at-large”. In these opening scenes, Shannon manages to immediately pass as Elvis by grounding the icon in some semblance of reality – no small feat. He mildly modifies his voice and adopts some staccato mannerisms to resemble the Presley we know, but his interpretation succeeds largely because of his bold choice to underplay everything. Nothing in his Presley seems affected – he plays him raw to the bone. Spacey, given much less to do in the film, takes the opposite approach and goes broad. Because his appearance is so fleeting, it works. Playing Nixon strictly as a larger-than-life character serves to highlight Presley as the film’s lead. When the pair finally meet eye-to-eye (Nixon concedes to the meeting in an effort to appeal to the youth vote and get an autograph for his daughter), the stark contrast between the two provides Elvis & Nixon with its biggest laughs. However, Johnson’s film falters when it veers from its titular duo to focus on the tangential ones who were along for the ride. Colin Hanks is amusing to watch as the stressed-out Nixon staffer who orchestrates the main event. But a side plot involving Presley’s friend, Jerry Schilling (Alex Pettyfer), and his desperate need to return back to Los Angeles to propose to his girlfriend (Sky Ferreira) falls completely flat. When you have two of today’s best working actors acting on a high-wire to do justice to two of the most recognisable figures of the 20th century, it’s best to keep the focus solely located on them.
Michael Bay's Benghazi movie 13 Hours is 'inaccurate', according to CIA officer Michael Bay has assured audiences that his Libyan-set military thriller 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi is an accurate retelling of the events surrounding the terrorist attack in Benghazi in 2013, which resulted in the death of four people, including the US ambassador to Libya. But according to the CIA officer in charge of the American intelligence agency’s top-secret Benghazi facility that night, one of the most important moments of the film is entirely wrong. “There never was a stand-down order,” the officer – the former chief of the so-called Annex who identified himself as ‘Bob’ – told the Washington Post. “At no time did I ever second-guess that the team would depart.” The scene in question features the fictionalized version of Bob ordering his security team to “stand down” rather than attempt to rescue the diplomat, then missing in the wake of an attack on the nearby American consulate. Not only was the stand-down order never given, Bob said, but nothing he said in the aftermath of the consulate siege could even be “interpreted as equivalent” to such an order. “I thought I would regret it if I didn’t” speak out about the inaccuracies, Bob said. “So much of this information has been wrong.” Although Bob has not yet seen the film, which is based on a book co-written by US contractors hired to protect the Annex, he said he was familiar with the contents of both the film and the book. Despite Bay’s claims that 13 Hours has “no political agenda” beyond a faithful retelling of the events in Benghazi, studio sources told the Hollywood Reporter that the thriller is being marketed specifically to conservative audiences, including advertising and press in right-leaning media outlets and the choice of demographically friendly “red state” audiences for pre-release screenings. For example, lead actor John Krasinski gave an exclusive interview to the conservative Townhall.com, and television advertisements for the film ran multiple times during Thursday night’s Republican presidential primary debate on the Fox Business Network. When asked how his film deals with the stand-down order – an anecdote that was debunked by the US Senate select committee on intelligence’s 15 January 2014 review of the attacks – Bay said said that his film is even-handed. “It does deal with the stand-down order, but I show both sides of the story,” Bay told the Hollywood Reporter. “I met with the CIA on this movie and I show the whole situation.” According to Bay, the research he did into the lead-up to the attack and its aftermath was more comprehensive than anything cinema goers have seen in the news media. “You don’t hear it on the talking points on the news,” Bay continued. “This is a much more in-depth look at what’s going on inside that CIA base, and it shows it from both sides,” he said.
New band of the week: Starchild & The New Romantic (No 100) Hometown: Harlem. The lineup: Bryndon Cook (vocals, music). The background: As though by magic … Of course there’s no substitute for the real thing, but Bryndon Cook, AKA Starchild & The New Romantic, does a fair approximation of 1980s Prince at his most synthy and slow. The 23-year-old New Yorker sings of “rapture” on the opening track to his debut EP, Crucial, but this is exaltation with a side order of sad. It’s almost as though Cook could see what was coming. Listening to the eight tracks on Crucial is like hearing an extended tribute to the purple deity. He even took the title of the EP from a bootleg of studio out-takes apocryphally credited to Prince and Miles Davis. It’s not all Prince worship. Cook grew up loving everyone from Sade to George Clinton. Starchild is partially attributed to a name from P-Funk mythology – something about an alien who arrives by spacecraft to bring the Holy Funk – and nods to Cook’s upbringing in a house across the street from the Nasa Headquarters in Greenbelt. Coming from the state of Maryland also meant exposure to go-go, jazz and gospel (“My roots,” says Cook), though he spent four formative years in Atlanta, home of black futurism (not to mention Future). He continued to look far and wide for other influences: his first mixtape was called Rad! and featured him rapping over David Axelrod and Washed Out. In the last couple of years, he has worked with Solange, Kindness, and Chairlift as touring guitarist, and has collaborated with Dev Hynes. But Prince is his primary influence, and he freely admits it. “I look at him as a whole genre,” he says. “Within the genre of Prince, there is so much to discover.” Like his idol, Starchild played and recorded every note of Crucial on his own, on his laptop. He gives the music a wooziness, like soul with a chillwave gauze (Cook was once an intern at Pitchfork), and keeps it mainly – as we said – nice and slow. There’s a good reason for this: he calls what he does Champion Music for the Heartbroken, describing his songs as “diary entries from the end of my teenage years, where I’m trying to reconcile heartbreak and rejection with escapism”. He adds: “I always appreciated music that lent a helping hand and said, ‘Hey, are you with me? Because I am with you.’ I hope I can do that for someone, somewhere. If I’m lucky.” All My Lovers is like Purple Rain on downers, although as with most soundalikes, the closer you inspect it, the less it sounds like the artist it’s paying homage to, and the more it assumes an identity of its own. Still, this is definitely Prince-like, if not Prince-lite. Slammin’ Mannequin is the one fast song, moving at I Would Die 4 U pace. It sounds as though Cook went out and bought a Linn drum and some of the other equipment Prince used to record his early-’80s output, especially Purple Rain. Listen out for the fiery, fierce guitar solo at the end. Love Interlude features waves of synth while Cook uses his falsetto to impressive effect. Woman’s Dress finds Starchild in self-doubting mood (“Will I ever be enough for you?”), while New Romantic is an object lesson in how to construct the perfect 80s slow jam, all shimmery synths and rubbery bassline. The title track ends the EP as it began, with Starchild lost in a synth murk. It’s as though Cook anticipated the tragic events of 21 April , 2016 before he made this glorious, stately yet sorrowful “computer blue” music. It’s one way to remember Prince. The buzz: “In the style of his personal lodestar, Prince, Cook performed and recorded Crucial entirely on his own.” The truth: Baby, he’s a star(child). Most likely to: Die 4 U. Least likely to: Go crazy. What to buy: The Crucial EP is out now on Ghostly International. File next to: Prince, Dev Hynes, Frank Ocean, Shamir. Links: facebook.com/thisisstarchild. Ones to watch: Globelamp, Kllo, Demotaped, Colour, Charlotte Day Wilson.
Yeezus rises: Kanye West releases remix of The Life of Pablo song on Easter Sunday In the latest of Kanye West’s GOOD Friday releases, the artist also known as Yeezus has marked Easter Sunday with an alternate version of his song Ultralight Beam. Ultralight Prayer includes an extended cameo by the gospel singer Kirk Franklin, who was featured on the original version of the song. While Ultralight Beam was about West’s faith in God – including lyrics such as “I’m tryna keep my faith / But I’m looking for more / Somewhere I can feel safe / And end my holy war” – the new version is solely centred around an impassioned prayer by the gospel musician and author, and reads as below: Father, This prayer is for everyone that feels they’re not good enough This prayer’s for everybody that feels they’re too messed up For everyone that feels they’ve said ‘I’m sorry’ too many times Let them know that’s why you took the nail So we could have eternal life If all God’s children would get down on their knees and pray And give up all of those things that pull our hearts away You will forgive all of our wrong and make us brand new again But I won’t make it, God, if you let go of my hand That’s why we need more faith Yes, I’m searching for you, I’m looking for more Yes I am, in your arms is where I feel safe They’re killing our babies in the streets, I call out for war I need just a little bit more of some faith Just a mustard seed, I’m looking for you, for more Prayer for our homes and our families We just wanna be safe Can’t you hear the trumpet sound, I think I hear war It’s just the latest extension of West’s new album, The Life of Pablo. The rapper has primarily been using Jay Z’s streaming service Tidal to upload variations of songs on the record (the song below is also available on Soundcloud). West has described the album as “a living, breathing, changing creative expression”, and has periodically added edits of songs such as Wolves and Famous.
Louis van Gaal admits ‘sad’ Manchester United unlikely to make top four Louis van Gaal admitted Manchester United are unlikely to secure a top-four finish and described his side’s 2-1 defeat at relegation-threatened Sunderland as a sad day for the club. Van Gaal lamented that United failed to cope with the home side’s aggression. “I have told the players the top four will be very difficult now,” said the United manager, whose team are six points behind Manchester City, who are in the final Champions League spot. “You cannot close your eyes to that. It’s still possible but very difficult. We needed the points so much, everybody is very sad.” Wayne Rooney suggested that it would now be easier for United to earn a place in next season’s Champions League by winning the Europa League. “It will be very difficult to qualify for the Champions League through the top four now. We know that. It’s a sad day for us,” said the United captain. “Winning the Europa League might be the only way we can get into it.” Van Gaal conceded that such an achievement will be not be straightforward. “The Europa League is easier for us but also not so [easy] because there is a fantastic level of European football in that cup.” United’s Europa League campaign, after they dropped down from the Champions League, starts on Thursday with the first leg of their last-32 tie against Midtjylland in Denmark. United had come undone in the face of Wahbi Khazri’s excellent set-piece execution – Sunderland’s Tunisian playmaker scored one goal straight from a free-kick and delivered the corner that led to the winner, with Lamine Koné’s header going in off David de Gea. Van Gaal is well aware that the talk about José Mourinho succeeding him at Old Trafford in the summer is most certainly not going to go away after United’s first defeat at the Stadium of Light. Damningly, United’s points and goals scored tally is their lowest at this stage of a campaign in the Premier League era. “We can only blame ourselves,” said Van Gaal, who did at least see Anthony Martial score a fine equaliser before his players folded under Sunderland’s second-half onslaught. “You have to win this type of game but we could not cope with Sunderland’s aggression and set pieces. We didn’t deliver and we feel disappointed and we feel sad. But we are working together.” When asked if he was feeling the pressure, the Dutchman’s reply suggested a measure of resignation. “No,” he said. “I’m doing my work and I can do no more.” He accepts, though, that his best currently represents underachievement. “You cannot close your eyes from the top four being a minimum requirement. As Manchester United you have to keep the ball in spite of the pressure of Sunderland and create chances, but we didn’t have control.” The result meant Sunderland ended a bad week with a measure of satisfaction, moving to a point below 17th-placed Norwich. The club sacked Adam Johnson after the winger pleaded guilty to a charge of sexual activity with a 15-year-old girl. They head for a training break in Dubai within touching distance of safety and Allardyce was delighted to see his £14m investment in Khazri, from Bordeaux, and Koné, a centre-half from Lorient, pay dividends. “Our new players have made a massive contribution and hopefully that bodes well for the rest of the season,” he said. “Today showed me the squad is good enough to get out of the trouble we’re in. It was a really good performance with the right result. We’re getting better.”
Iain Duncan Smith: David Cameron's EU deal will do nothing to reduce migration David Cameron is campaigning to keep Britain in the EU on the basis of a deal that will do nothing to reduce net migration to the UK, and may actually lead to a sharp increase in arrivals as people try to beat an emergency welfare brake, Iain Duncan Smith has said. As Downing Street came under fire from the lord chancellor and justice secretary, Michael Gove, who questioned whether the EU deal was legally binding, the work and pensions secretary said the deal showed Britain still had no controls over its borders. In an interview on the eve of the release of the latest migration statistics, Duncan Smith said that he has warned the prime minister in private that a failure to control immigration would only encourage the equivalent of the French Front National. “If you do not control your borders my observation is that you get parties led by people like Marine Le Pen and others who feed off the back of this, and ordinary decent people feel life is out of control,” the work and pensions secretary said. The statistics are likely to fuel the debate over immigration to Britain from the EU, one of the most contentious topics in the referendum. But Downing Street received a boost on Wednesday night when Christine Lagarde, the French managing director of the IMF, warned of the dangers of a UK exit from the EU. “My hunch … is that it is bound to be a negative on all fronts,” she told CNN. Duncan Smith has now become the second cabinet “outer” to raise questions about the EU deal after No 10 was forced onto the defensive following Gove’s claim the agreement could be overruled by the European court of justice. Gove and Duncan Smith spoke out after Sir Jeremy Heywood, the cabinet secretary, issued fresh guidelines that banned officials from providing ministers backing the leave campaign access to departmental documents drawn up since the prime minister agreed his EU deal. The understands the guidelines were drawn up with the specific intention of preventing Duncan Smith from commissioning officials to carry out research to prove his doubts about the welfare elements of the EU deal. But Duncan Smith showed that he still remains a potent force in the referendum campaign when he told the that the deal would do nothing to bring down net immigration. Stressing that he did not know the figures to be released on Thursday, he said: “I would lay even money that they follow the trend over the past two quarters showing an ever-increasing number of migrants from eastern Europe. So is this agreement negotiated in Brussels going to limit the numbers coming into the UK? My answer to that is no. The truth is, there is one clear way that we could be sure to deliver on that manifesto commitment – and that’s to regain control of our borders.” The work and pensions secretary offered some support for the prime minister by saying that a four-year emergency brake to limit access to in-work benefits for EU migrants, which can remain in force for seven years, will “send a signal” that people should contribute before claiming benefits. But he said the new system could actually increase migration as workers seek to beat a deadline. Noting that the brake will not come into force until April 2017 at the earliest, he said: “Anyone with any thought of coming to work in the UK in the foreseeable future will have a motivation to get over here and establish residency (even if only for a week) as that would in all likelihood qualify them for an exemption from the brake later.” Britain may even find that the European Commission and European parliament may be in no mood to help out after a yes vote. Warning that Britain can only guarantee the reforms if it threatens to hold a second referendum, he said: “By that stage [after a yes vote] the pressure is off for them to do anything. We are reliant on their good will. They may well decide they have no need to rush this through and they can fiddle with it to suit them. Unless we are planning a second referendum, we are in the EU’s hands.” Duncan Smith was scathing about one of the key elements of the deal – the plan to index child benefit to the cost of living in an EU migrant’s home country. He warned that the new system would be “fiendishly complicated” and was “bound to cost more” than the “relatively tiny” £30m that goes on child benefit to EU migrants. “If you have a Polish national (cue HMRC working out cost of living in Warsaw), who says that actually their child is resident in a country with higher cost of living ... then how the hell would you check this/ police it”? Duncan Smith, a member of the cabinet committee on the EU negotiations – some of whose members felt they were not properly briefed by the prime minister – warned that George Osborne’s new national living wage would act as a “significant pull factor”. Downing Street has prompted Duncan Smith to revise a long-standing calculation – that Britain’s in-work benefits do not encourage migration – after the European-wide publicity of what he regards as Britain’s generous system. “It may well be because there has been so much publicity in countries like Poland and in eastern Europe generally that some people know more about our benefits system than they did. Certainly there has been a lot of publicity – a highly proficient awareness raising campaign. Do people react to publicity? They do. It was not the purpose of the negotiations, of course, but it may be one of the by-products is that we see an increase in people coming here.” The intervention by Duncan Smith caps a difficult 48 hours for Downing Street, after the prime minister upset the Leave camp by humiliating Boris Johnson in the Commons by suggesting that he was motivated by personal ambition. In one of the biggest blows to No 10, it was forced to apologise to General Sir Michael Rose, the former SAS commander, after wrongly including him in a list of former military chiefs who oppose the UK leaving the EU.
UK health experts call for ban on tackling in school rugby More than 70 doctors and health experts have called for a ban on tackling in school rugby games. In an open letter that warns of the high risk of serious injury among under-18s playing rugby, they urge schools to move to touch and non-contact versions of the game. A government drive to boost participation in rugby in English schools by linking them with rugby clubs is also criticised by the health experts, who point out that the UN convention on the rights of the child obliges governments to inform children about injury risks. The letter – which is addressed to ministers, chief medical officers and children’s commissioners – describes rugby as a “high-impact collision sport”. “The majority of all injuries occur during contact or collision, such as the tackle and the scrum,” it says. “These injuries, which include fractures, ligamentous tears, dislocated shoulders, spinal injuries and head injuries ,can have short-term, life-long and life-ending consequences for children.” The letter is the first stage of a campaign that will include a petition on the change.org website which, if it receives 100,000 signatures, will trigger the consideration of a debate by MPs on the issue. Rugby is a compulsory part of the physical education curriculum from the age of 11 in many boys’ schools, particularly in the independent sector. The letter, signed by sport scholars, academics, doctors and public health professionals, says repeat concussions have been found to have a link to cognitive impairment, and an association with problems such as depression, memory loss and diminished verbal abilities. Children also took longer to recover to normal levels on measures of memory, reaction speed and post-concussive symptoms. The signatories included Prof Allyson Pollock, a professor of public health research and policy at Queen Mary University of London, who has campaigned about the dangers of rugby. Stating that children are being exposed to serious and catastrophic risk of injury, she said: “Parents expect the state to look after their children when they are at school. Rugby is a high-impact collision sport and given that children are more susceptible to injuries such as concussion, the absence of injury surveillance systems and primary prevention strategies is worrying.” Eric Anderson, a professor of sport, masculinities and sexualities at the University of Winchester, said the signatories did not have a contention with rugby, but with the collisions that occur in the sport. “School children should not be forced to collide with other children as part of the national curriculum for physical education,” he said. “A more sensible approach is to play tag rugby.” A Department for Education spokeswoman saidschools were expected to be aware of the risks associated with sporting activities and to provide a safe environment for pupils. “Team sports, such as rugby, play an important role in developing character,” she said. “They can help children and young people develop positive traits, such as fair play, leadership and resilience, and teach them how to bounce back from defeat, how to respect others and how to work together in teams to achieve a goal. “We have given schools the flexibility to organise and deliver a diverse and challenging PE curriculum which best suits the needs of their students.” The Rugby Football Union said it took player safety “extremely seriously” and that recent changes meant young players underwent a “gradual and managed” introduction to the contact version of the game. A spokesman said the union had also carried out a three-year injury prevention and surveillance study on schoolboy injuries, as well as implementing a guidance programme known as RugbySafe. He added: “We believe that high quality coaching, officiating, medical support and appropriate player behaviour in line with the core values all contribute to reducing the risk of injury occurring.” • This article was amended on 2 March 2016. An earlier version referred to the petition on the government, rather than the change.org, website.
Alter Bridge: The Last Hero review – exhausting bombast from arena-metal tryhards The main problem with Alter Bridge’s sixth album becomes apparent about six tracks in. Cradle to the Grave brings a few moments of delicate restraint to the party, but up to that point every last second of The Last Hero is purposefully, relentlessly bombastic, as if every fader has been shoved into the red. Still much heavier and more overtly metallic than their modern arena-rock peers, the Florida quartet have always made music designed to resonate around stadia, but 66 minutes of this kind of overwrought caterwauling is a little exhausting. That said, there are great songs here: opener Show Me a Leader is a dark, fiery anthem, The Other Side deftly salutes Metallica’s genre-defining crunch and Crows on a Wire is a fine showcase for guitarist Mark Tremonti’s love of nasty thrash. It falls some way short of 2010’s ABIII – still their best album by some distance – but The Last Hero can hardly be decried as half-arsed. It’s just that there is such a thing as trying too hard.
José Holebas’ stunning strike lands spoils for Watford at Middlesbrough By the time the final whistle blew, the morning’s clouds and rain had cleared to leave the splendour of the Cleveland Hills clearly visible from the main stand. The only problem for Aitor Karanka was that the sun elected to shine on Watford rather than his increasingly struggling side, with José Holebas’s glorious winning goal highlighting Middlesbrough’s mounting problems. With Álvaro Negredo and Gastón Ramírez once again letting themselves down, Karanka’s horizon darkened appreciably as Boro rarely looked like curtailing a plummet down the table during which they have collected two points from six games and lost four of the past five. Their sole win came at Sunderland’s expense. Karanka blamed this latest setback on Watford’s ability to waste time – a black art apparently cultivated by their manager, Walter Mazzarri – but the visitors would not have been able to slow things down with such cute gamesmanship had Boro proved capable of stringing more than two consecutive passes together. “They made it impossible to play our game, it was impossible for us,” lamented Karanka before defending his hallmark 4-2-3-1 system which some observers feel is turning into a straitjacket for Boro’s players, partly explaining why they have not won at home since April. “We have a style,” the Spaniard countered. “I’ve built the squad to play that way, we won promotion with one up front. With that style we have a good chance. We have to keep going. It’s just October so we have a long time to go.” Mazzarri affected to be taken aback by the time-wasting accusations. “I don’t know what he refers to,” he said. “Honestly, I don’t think so.” The Italian then reminded everyone that Boro’s Antonio Barragán should have been sent off for a second yellow-card offence in the first half. “We all know the rules and it was very evident. But I don’t comment on referees.” Without a ball being kicked, the team-sheets alone created a measure of controversy. While Mazzarri preferred Isaac Success’s attacking potential to that of Odion Ighalo, Karanka recalled Negredo and Ramírez, leaving Jordan Rhodes and Viktor Fischer warming the bench. When Younès Kaboul – operating on the right of Watford’s back three – swiftly turned slapdash and conceded possession the former pair had a chance to show Boro fans what they were really capable of but, after exchanging passes with Negredo, Ramírez dragged a scuffed shot wide. Watford initially looked vulnerable but Boro’s problem was that Ramírez – deployed in the No10 position behind Negredo that is so key to Karanka’s configuration – seemed to have developed an unfortunate penchant for persistently picking the wrong pass. Even when he took a corner, the Uruguayan Ramírez overhit it, leaving the ball sailing out of play. Negredo was similarly off key but, in mitigation, that pair were hardly helped by Marten de Roon’s lack of control in a midfield anchoring role. Seeking a lucky break, Boro appealed for a handball penalty against Nordin Amrabat but, correctly, Roger East, the referee, refused to buy it and boos rang around a stadium studded with empty red seats. The stay-aways quite possibly called it right. Although Watford improved as their formation gradually morphed from 3-4-3 to a defensive 5-4-1, the general standard was poor with far too many miscued passes and suspect first touches. If Karanka had reason to be content with Calum Chambers’ and Ben Gibson’s containment of Troy Deeney, Boro’s manager must have been relieved that Barragán was not dismissed after committing that second bookable offence. Already handed a yellow card for hauling down Success, the right-back was fortunate to escape a second for pulling back the same player 10 minutes later. It seemed one of those afternoons when there would be more bookings than shots on target but Watford emphasised their efficiency by scoring with their first. Pouncing on a Boro clearance, Holebas took a steadying touch, before unleashing an elegant yet vicious 25-yard left-foot shot which defied the stretching Víctor Valdés en route to the top corner. After that it was all about Boro’s lack of a Plan B and Watford’s Italianesque determination to hold on to the win. Perhaps fortunately for Karanka, local anger was directed towards East. “We’ve had some shit refs but you are the worst,” they chorused after Holebas tripped Chambers on the edge of the area and no penalty was awarded. Replays showed the contact came fractionally outside the box. Indeed, the referee was the wrong target; arguably East’s only key mistake was not handing Barragán a red card for that second bookable offence and, wisely, Karanka refrained from criticising him. Right now a manager who surely delayed too long in liberating Rhodes from the bench has bigger things to worry about.
Finally, someone at EDF sees the £18bn farce that is Hinkley Point Hallelujah, at last somebody close to Hinkley Point farce can see that the £18bn nuclear adventure makes no sense. EDF’s finance director has quit rather than be associated with a project that – we must assume – he judges so financially risky that it could sink the French energy firm. Last week, the official line from the Anglo-French summit maintained that “major progress” was being made in getting Hinkley towards sign-off. The reality, we can now see, is that there has been a major row and EDF remains mired in confusion. The good news is that Thomas Piquemal’s resignation should oblige the governments of France and the UK to acknowledge the uncomfortable fact about Hinkley that, until now, they have preferred to brush away. It’s simple: EDF’s nuclear technology for Hinkley hasn’t been proven to work. Until it can be shown to be reliable, there will always be a material risk that the Somerset project becomes a disaster for both buyer and supplier. EDF is building two other reactors in Europe to the same European pressurised reactor (EPR) design and, instead of low-carbon nuclear power, both have produced only massive cost overruns. The plant in Finland is nine years late and the one in Flamanville in Normandy is four years behind schedule. EDF’s crisis flows from those flops and Piquemal’s analysis that the company can’t afford to double-down on its EPR bet is surely correct. As it is, the debt-laden firm’s share price has fallen 90% over the past decade and there are other calls on its capital and resources, not least France’s nuclear power stations, which require an expensive upgrade. The now ex-finance director wanted the investment decision on Hinkley to be delayed by three years, which would be wise from EDF’s point of view. The trouble is, the UK cannot afford yet more delays. Our crisis in energy generation will arrive in the mid-2020s and Hinkley, according to the official script, was supposed to do much more than merely produce 7% of the UK’s energy. The plant was also intended to help develop the infrastructure to support other companies’ new nuclear plants. If Hinkley were to be delayed by three years, the UK hasn’t got an energy policy worthy of the name. The latest saga should lead to a simple conclusion in Downing Street: EDF and its unreliable EPRs were always the wrong choice for the UK. Consider how many subsidies have already been promised to compensate for EDF’s weaknesses and the unproven nature of its EPR. EDF was given 10 years to build Hinkley and the UK guaranteed to buy its output at twice the current wholesale price for 35 years in an inflation-linked contract. This was almost case of pricing in the cost over-runs and delays before they had even happened, with UK consumers footing the bill. The best approach now would be to call the whole thing off. EDF chief executive Jean-Bernard Lévy may continue to whistle cheerfully about Hinkley but his company looks to be only one more resignation away from capitulation. Abandonment would be politically embarrassing for chancellor George Osborne (remember last year’s grovel for Chinese cash to shore up the financing) but it would be far worse to let this show drag on. If the UK’s future is nuclear, there are alternative suppliers – from Japan, the US, and China – who have smaller models that can be built more quickly, but their willingness to commit capital won’t be encouraged by the sight of the current Hinkley shambles. If the future is non-nuclear, then get on with the job of making hard choices about the best infrastructure. Either way, the important thing for the UK is to have an energy policy that doesn’t rely on paying top-dollar to an over-stretched supplier that hasn’t been able to get its new kit to work. Banking reforms look set to disappoint The Competition and Markets Authority’s final report into the banking industry, due in May, will now appear in the dog days of August. This is not because the contents will be so frightening that leading bankers will need to lie down on the nearest beach. We already know the CMA has rejected structural reforms, such as a break-up of the big banks, in favour of technocratic fiddles, such as setting up a comparison website to encourage punters to shop around. Such a remedy was damned as feeble by most observers when it was announced at the interim stage last October. That, presumably, is why the CMA has given itself an extension to come up with something that sounds more chunky. Caps on overdraft charges and grace periods for customers to avoid the same charges may improve the lot of a few. But none of these late additions by the CMA will deliver a shot in the arm for competition in the banking industry. Blame Royal Bank of Scotland. The bank has turned the process of separating 300 Williams & Glyn branches into something resembling the labours of Hercules, thereby killing all appetite for further structural reform. Thus the “striking” stability in market shares identified by the CMA is virtually guaranteed to be striking in another decade’s time. The interim report felt like a missed opportunity; prepare to be disappointed again. SNP donor in tax pickle Nicola Sturgeon, Scottish first minister and leader of Scottish National party, is a fierce opponent of the artificial tax tactics of some major companies. So, here you would think, is an open goal – a court defeat for a Scottish company that used a complex scheme to wipe £11m off its tax bill. The company is Stagecoach, whose chairman, Sir Brian Souter, happens to have been a major donor to the SNP. Sturgeon’s condemnation, one trusts, will be forthcoming anyway.
As publishers lose control, are newspaper websites a dead parrot? A truth is dawning on media owners (or in many cases it has dawned, but they don’t like to talk about it). Publishing is over. Obviously this isn’t true in its purest sense; publishing is actually flourishing, just not for publishers. As Facebook last week extended the reach of its instant articles to anyone, as Google invests in making news articles load lightning fast, as virtual reality can be produced by a £200 kit, it is fair to say we have more opportunity today to put out remarkable works of fact and fiction to the world than ever before. However, defining decisions about formats and revenue are dictated at platform level, Facebook and others, or at carrier level, or even, in the case of Apple’s stance against the FBI, at device level. The biggest news for media owners in the UK last week was that a phone company, Three, is introducing adblocking across its network. Essentially this means that if you have a Three mobile phone, you will no longer see ads on the articles and pages you look at on your phone. Mobile advertising is still a very small revenue stream for most publishers, but in many cases it is the only one showing any growth. Phone companies such as Three see an opportunity to make more money and retain customers by purging annoying ads or making advertisers pay for the data consumption. Unless and until this is killed by the European regulators, it threatens to snuff out the lifeline of mobile advertising for digital publishers. Last week we also saw China, which is a hostile media market owing to censorship, announce that it would effectively ban any non-Chinese owned media from operating inside the country. India, in a very different way, asserted its own right to choose a separate path for its communications future when it ruled out Facebook’s Free Basics. Regulation is increasingly being seen as the only way that any plurality or regional difference will be exerted over a media market which tolerates the micro, favours the mega and rolls over most entities in between. The mobile advertising market is already effectively owned by Facebook, so with the stick of adblocking and the carrot of instant articles publishers are finding themselves surrendering what were previously the most important parts of their businesses. Last week I spoke to numerous publishers who were largely though not exclusively in agreement on one thing: “We know that the business of packaging and publishing by ourselves is over, the question for everyone now is what next?”, said one. Another noted “we look at distribution for the social platforms and they are doing really well, we look at the opportunities for creation and they are plentiful, the piece in the middle, where traditional publishers and broadcasters sit, that doesn’t look so great.” The prognostication game has hitherto been about the speed at which newspapers will go out of print. Now it shifts up a gear to the more pressing question of which companies will start to jettison websites and other digital infrastructure accumulated in the past two decades. Having a legacy business configured around a website is now almost as much of a headache as the rumbling printing press, fuelled by paper and money. It is likely we will start to see studio or agency models emerge where publishing models once were, trying to create value around relationships and services rather than packages and products. In a lengthy article praising publisher BuzzFeed as being the “world’s most innovative company” last week, its founder Jonah Peretti used Paramount Pictures as an example of a company he draw inspiration from. It was he said, a demonstration of how owning all the elements of the businesses, from cast to crew to theatres, fuelled creative success. The new paradigm however raises the question of whether that aspiration to scale can really ever exist again for a purely creative company. Part of the answer is already obvious, even the BuzzFeeds and BBCs of the world will struggle to gain leverage against gatekeepers, be they regulators, phone companies or distribution channels. As the pipes of distribution have merged with the advertising sales functions, the publishing tools and even the customer relations and data, the best a traditional publisher can hope for is that they will be favoured by the distributors or that they can build value separately. This is most likely to be through relationships with either advertisers or their own customers, hence the most closely watched models are those based on becoming a new type of advertising agency (BuzzFeed and Vice) or subscriptions based on brand loyalty (the New York Times). Given the disorienting speed of change and a dozen announcements a week that potentially upend your business model, maybe publishing is not in fact dead, but like the proverbial Monty Python parrot, lying on the floor of its cage, eyes screwed tightly shut.
Strikes have no winners – and the junior doctors’ dispute is no exception Most strikes end sadly, and some – like the miners’ – very badly. Junior doctors have yet to vote on the peace terms agreed by their leaders on Wednesday, but the odds are that most will accept. Yet they will stay angry, and with good reason. After eight strike days, the public has stayed staunchly supportive of their cause, even when they walked out of A&E, and even when tens of thousands of operations were cancelled. But there is an ebb and flow, a rhythm in the emotional rollercoaster of a strike, and the time feels right to call it a day – before public support wanes, and when the junior doctors know their point about life within the NHS has been well made. But nearly all strikes end with a painful sense of giving in, by a workforce driven back to work – even when they have won important concessions. The rhetoric, the political passion, the indignation all have to be toned down, in ways that make the workforce feel they are swallowing more pride than the employers are. It hurts – and the bitterness lasts. That’s why strikes are usually a bad thing, a last-resort breakdown in relations. The thrill of rebelling is intoxicating, but usually ends in burst-balloon disappointment. I have covered hundreds of strikes, but rarely seen happy workers marching back in with a sense of victory. The latest I wrote about was the well-justified strike by National Gallery staff: settlement didn’t leave them a happier workforce. Jeremy Hunt provoked this strike, possibly deliberately, imagining he would emerge a hero to his party for taking on the “vested interests” of the public sector. But he ended up the political loser, with the public understanding the doctors’ alarm at the state of his NHS and the rising pressures on all who work in it. Digging through the details of the actual deal, neither side won. It looks more like a stalemate, with some changes around the edges. Hunt’s claim to have got seven-day working – but with no new money, inside the same pay envelope while conceding on some of the more extreme antisocial-hours issues – looks like magical accounting. Besides, during the course of this long strike, the original research suggesting 11,000 more patients die after admission at weekends has been decisively shredded: it’s all in the different case-mix at weekends. Nor, if there are genuinely extra deaths at weekends, is there any evidence that junior doctors, who work more weekends than other staff, are the key. Nor, say health economists, is there any evidence that heavy investment in extra weekend staff delivers good value for money in lives saved, compared with other spending. But health is politics. Hunt wanted a fight, and he got one, but it has ended any leadership hopes he once had. No tears shed there. Far worse is the long-term effect this will have on the junior doctors themselves. Many more are likely to flee abroad or go into some other occupation after experiencing the grinding exhaustion and high anxiety of their job being met with such cynical political ingratitude and incomprehension. The shortage of doctors is acute, and some specialisms can’t fill their rotas. Nurses too are in critically short supply. Why anyone would think this is a good time to end bursaries for trainee nurses is a mystery. The NHS itself is now registering its worst ever results since waiting times were recorded: for A&E, operations, cancer treatment and ambulance times. As the situation worsens, this strike, with its popular support, will have helped place the blame firmly where it belongs – with a government that pretended to promise ringfenced funding, but which has given the NHS its lowest increase over the last six years than at any time since 1948 – 0.8% against an average 4% rise to cover a growing and ageing population. The UK is tumbling down the international league table for health spending. Frankly, the wonder is how well it has managed, when many health economists predicted it wouldn’t. But the pressure building up in lack of staff will blow the lid off, as overstretched managers try to keep the wheels turning while repairing the unfathomable organisational mayhem caused by the 2012 Health and Social Care Act. Even if they vote to accept the deal, even if they feel deflated, as all strikers do, the junior doctors will have scored an important victory in telling the public exactly what’s happening inside the NHS.
UK Asset Resolution deal triggers bonuses for 2,000 employees A deal to outsource mortgage processing at the government-owned Northern Rock and Bradford & Bingley will trigger bonuses for nearly 2,000 employees, including more than £200,000 to the outgoing chief executive, Richard Banks. Banks, whose pay rose by a third to almost £1m last year, has been leading the move to wind down the mortgage books of Northern Rock and B&B, which were bailed out in 2008. At the time the two businesses had 800,000 mortgage customers, now reduced to 238,000 as people have repaid loans or their mortgages have been sold off. He is leaving UK Asset Resolution, the body that controls both businesses, to run Computershare, the organisation that is taking over the processing of outstanding home loans. UKAR’s annual report discloses that Banks will receive a bonus of £211,750 through a scheme known as the Phoenix incentive plan, designed to reward staff for the sell-off of the mortgage processing operation. This bonus scheme means that about 1,900 staff are in line for as much as £1,500 each in the new financial year. Some 1,700 staff will be transferring to the new Computershare venture, while 200 staff will remain at UKAR to continue winding down the operation and oversee the government’s help to buy mortgage incentive programme. Banks insisted no jobs would be lost. He will not receive a payoff for moving across to the new operation. Last year, UKAR caused controversy by selling £13bn of mortgages to the private equity firm Cerberus, in a deal that allowed a bonus scheme for executives to vest a year earlier than planned. It will pay out next year. In the budget, George Osborne had said that about another £16bn of B&B mortgages would be sold off and Banks’s replacement as chief executive, the current finance director, Ian Hares, said this was expected to take place by 2018. UKAR’s aim is to reduce the size of its balance sheet – which is now £72.5bn (63%) smaller than it was when the body was created in 2010 – and repay the government loan used to keep it afloat. UKAR has repaid £20.4bn of the government loans, reducing its size by 42%. While profits were down 25% to £1bn, this was in line with expectations because of the reduction in the value of lending. UKAR is closed to new business but its longest mortgage runs to February 2049. Richard Pym is also stepping down as chairman to be replaced by the non-executive John Tattersall. Pym will waive any future fees. No details were given of Hare’s pay for when he becomes chief executive, but he received £718,000 in 2015.
Why Brexit is not music to the ears of British bands touring Europe Europe is closing. “Brexit means Brexit,” reiterates PM Theresa May, buying time until the negotiations for this apparent “hard Brexit” are hammered out. In this political purgatory, businesses are left floundering, unsure about what it will actually mean for them. For British bands touring on the continent, the uncertainty about one of their only certain means of income could not have come at a worse time. It’s not just bands, agents and tour managers voicing worries about the miasma of ambiguity. Sir John Sorrell, the founder of the Creative Industries Federation, has recently argued that touring acts could be driven off the road due to visa and carnet costs in a post-Brexit Europe. (Carnet is a system governing transportation of equipment across borders without having to complete customs declarations on every item, but they could run up to £2,000 a year.) These will all slash the margins of an artist’s primary source of income. Sorrell said the creative sector is “a key driver of wealth and global success” for the UK. “To imperil that would be to imperil our wider economy.” Touring agents and managers that I have spoken to off the record in recent months all revealed enormous uncertainty about what will happen to British acts playing shows and festivals across Europe in the aftershock of Brexit. They are trying to put a brave face on things but most are fearing the worst – namely the closure of opportunities and escalating running costs that could make touring utterly unsustainable. “I think the biggest thing for me as a production manager would be the addition of a carnet for every show outside the UK,” Joel Stanley, production manager at Production Value, told live industry trade magazine IQ in March. “Currently we only ever have to show proof of ownership with the bond and have it stamped in and out if we go outside of the EU – mainly Switzerland – but [post-Brexit we’d need a carnet] even for a one-off show in France.” Agents and touring artists are already dealing with the aftermath of the decline of the CD business. In the boom years, labels would underwrite shows with tour support and regard this as a marketing investment to break new acts that would then go on, ideally, to sell lots of records, thereby covering that development cost. That is now evaporating to the point where 20-date European tours are being truncated to 10 or eight-date jaunts around Europe, with days off a rare thing because days off mean no money is coming in. The net effect could be that acts will just focus on a handful of big European cities – but if they all do that, the shrunken market will quickly become over-saturated and everyone will lose. Add in the possibility of requiring a work visa for every European country and costs could spiral before acts have even played their first show of a European tour. This is already making it hard in other major markets; the same system in Europe could be catastrophic. “Getting visas is an absolute minefield and it costs a lot of money, and it’s the reason that a lot of people don’t get to tour America,” Colin Roberts of Big Life Management told Pitchfork in June. “Even going to a country like Japan where visas are quite easy to get, I know how difficult it is having to factor in the cost and the time to acquire a visa.” The government loves to pay lip service to the export power of British music, braying and gloating from boxes at the Brit awards about how proud they are of our globally successful artists. Britain, since Beatlemania, has been the second biggest exporter of music globally after the US. There is a huge amount of money at stake here for both artists and the UK economy. A study by UK Music this summer found there were 10.4m “music tourists” coming to the UK in 2015 and their direct and indirect spend was £3.7bn. These are people drawn to the UK because of the live market, its successful music exports and its diverse grassroots scenes. On top of this, the BPI reports that British acts accounted for one in seven albums sold globally in 2014, with their record sales generating approximately $2.75bn that year. So there are really two issues here: the outbound earnings of the acts on the road, and the inbound earnings that come from the UK being seen as a global force in music. There is an argument that just because the UK has successfully exported the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Radiohead, Coldplay, Adele and so on, it will just keep doing so forever. It won’t. It needs support and infrastructure at all levels (not just for superstars). It’s an industry truism that the old model of touring as a loss leader to sell albums has been inverted – records are now loss leaders to promote tours. But if you garrotte the touring opportunities, then everyone down the pecking order suffers, and those at the very bottom suffer first and hardest. Couple this with the systematic closure of key grassroots venues around the UK – something the Music Venue Trust was set up as a registered charity in 2014 to lobby against – and things are starting to look very bleak indeed for the future of British live music.
Michelle Rodriguez gender transition thriller added to Toronto lineup A controversial thriller about a hitman forced to undergo gender reassignment surgery has been added to the lineup of next month’s Toronto international film festival. (Re) Assignment, formerly known as Tomboy, a Revenger’s Tale, stars Michelle Rodriguez as a male assassin who undergoes a transition against his will at the hands of a rogue surgeon, played by Sigourney Weaver. The film, which is directed by The Warriors’ Walter Hill, was criticised last year by the LGBT group Glaad, which called the premise “sensationalistic” and said the film undermined the progress of transgender rights. The film festival’s press release makes no mention of the transgender theme, describing the story as “a trail of self-discovery and redemption against a criminal mastermind opponent”. (Re) Assignment joins a slew of other world premieres announced by festival organisers. Other high-profile titles include Burn Your Maps, a drama about an eight-year-old boy (played by Room star Jacob Tremblay) who persuades his family to take him on an epic journey after becoming convinced he is a Mongolian goat herder. Also appearing at the festival is Brain on Fire, director Gerard Barrett’s film about a New York Post journalist (Chloë Grace Moretz) who experienced seizures, hallucinations and violent outbursts. Meanwhile, in The Exception offers mind games with higher stakes as rival agents wrestle over the fate of the abdicated German Kaiser (Christopher Plummer) in the middle of the second world war. It also stars Lily James, Jai Courtney and Janet McTeer, and is the feature-film debut of the theatre director David Leveaux. The Duelist, by Russian director Alexey Mizgirev, is about a St Petersburg gun-for-hire who takes on other people’s fights, while Rage, directed by Sang-il Lee, is a grisly three-part thriller that hops between Japanese cities and stars Ken Watanabe. The Long Excuse, also set in Japan, is a comedy-drama about a man (Masahiro Motoki) who offers to care for the children of another man who is widowed by the same crash that killed his own wife. The Toronto film festival runs from 8-18 September.
Officer and a gentleman: how Sidney Poitier united a divided America Sidney Poitier’s skill was that, more than almost any other actor of his time, he gave to audiences an essential reassurance; Poitier’s problem was that in the era of the Black Panthers, reassurance looked like collusion. He was the Martin Luther King character, entirely dignified, in contrast to Malcolm X, whose very persona was a sharp rebuff to worried whites. It was the paradox of his career that Poitier’s genius should be expressed in a culture that found consensus suspect. Yet the audience he won over was no homogeneous entity, but a crowd suffused with contention. What we see in Poitier’s extraordinary run of movies, from The Defiant Ones (1958) to Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967), is the record of a divided America’s growing desire to unite around their affection for this shyest of stars. Race complicates this bashful love; Poitier’s essential apartness as a person is what is being screened. At the inception of the permissive society, Poitier stood as the restrained, courteous and uncorrupted star, someone truly heroic. His reiterated attempt to express the dignity of an adult man is a social project, an assertion of the deepest possible civil right. Poitier was the first black male star to engage the American national consciousness at a time when the prevailing image of a film star was still that of someone white. In a 1967 interview, Poitier declared that when he first began appearing in films, “the kind of Negro played on the screen was always negative, buffoons, clowns, shuffling butlers, really misfits. This was the background when I came along 20 years ago and I chose not to be a party to the stereotyping … I want people to feel when they leave the theatre that life and human beings are worthwhile. That is my only philosophy about the pictures I do … I have four children … They go to movies all the time but they rarely see themselves reflected there.” It would be hard to overstate the strength and depth of the prejudices that an actor such as Poitier had to overcome. When she received an Oscar for best supporting actress for Gone With the Wind in 1940, Hattie McDaniels was made to sit at a separate table from the white cast. Given these attitudes, it’s extraordinary that, in a 1968 Motion Picture Herald poll, Poitier was named the No 1 money-making film star in the world. As the series of his films being screened as part of the BFI’s Black Star season demonstrate, the time was right for Poitier. That time began with Stanley Kramer’s The Defiant Ones (1958), which has Poitier on the run from the chain gang, while handcuffed to a racist fellow con, played by Tony Curtis. On screen, Poitier was often paired up, even bound together, with racist characters. In Pressure Point (1962), he is a prison psychiatrist obliged to treat a pathologically racist American Nazi (played by Bobby Darin). The Defiant Ones displays a strange fascination with the physical proximity of the two men, a closeness always threatening to turn to violence. It’s a staging of a baffled and beguiling closeness between black and white characters that will run through many of Poitier’s greatest films. In A Raisin in the Sun (1961), Poitier is firmly at home with a mainly black cast, a thwarted son and husband blocked in his attempt to step out of the ghetto. Poitier here can define himself in relation to other African-American characters, a route to maturity he was rarely offered in his best films. Poitier’s greatest role, and the one for which he won a Golden Globe and an Oscar, is Homer Smith in Ralph Nelson’s stirring Lilies of the Field (1963). It’s hard to think of a less fashionable film; no movie that ends with a hymn and a resounding “Amen” is likely to be popular again. Poitier is a drifter who finds himself taken in by a group of German-speaking nuns eager to have him build them a chapel in the middle of the Arizona desert. Lilies of the Field creates a utopian space, remote as it can be from racist contempt, establishing a realm for hard‑working migrants. The only person in the film to express racist views is a middle-aged white boss; it’s a movie made to foster agreement. That last “Amen” is apt in a parable about coming together, reaching accord. In Guy Green’s A Patch of Blue (1965), Poitier plays an office clerk who decides to help a young blind woman, someone who has been confined to her room by her manipulative mother (an Oscar-winning performance by Shelley Winters). Set in a racist southern city, it’s a kind of fable about race relations. As Selina (Elizabeth Hartman) is blind, she only notices Poitier’s kindness, humour and concern, and when she discovers he is black, she does not stop loving him. Her mother is a prostitute, and Selina ends up being pushed into prostitution herself. It’s a grimly sexualised world, and amid its voyeuristic complicities, only Poitier seems to stand above the ruthlessness of desire. In his 1950s and 60s movies, Poitier was not allowed to display much, if any, evidence of sexuality. At the time, some critics worried that his character’s apparent lack of sexual interest in Selina was a cop-out, a refusal to own up to adult facts. Certainly, there was an investment in imagining Poitier as chaste. The reassurance he offers is itself “sexy”, I feel, though in part because it transcends the possibility of actual sex. That sexiness would be most at issue, perhaps, in his playing the charismatic school teacher in the British film directed by James Clavell To Sir, With Love (1967), where the circumstances insist on Poitier’s wistful avoidance of his pupil Judy Geeson’s schoolgirl crush. Here his self-imposed restraint makes sense, and undoubtedly if he flirted back or responded in kind, we’d think less of him. The film makes explicit the ways in which Poitier’s movies preoccupy themselves with the exploration of his on-screen appeal. Playing one of his young East End pupils, Lulu speculates: “You’re like us, but you ain’t.” Poitier was always “like us”, while being in indefinable ways better: more courteous, more courageous. He places himself here on one side of the generation gap, standing in for an authority that youth might still respect. (A dozen years before, Poitier had himself played a classroom hooligan in Blackboard Jungle .) In his other two great films of 1967, In the Heat of the Night and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, Poitier is more firmly on the boundary between the two generations. In the first, he is at once an earnest policeman and an example of young African-American self-assertion; in the second, he is a mature doctor and a rebellious son. It’s clear from all three 1967 films how much Poitier became necessary as a way to figure a route out of the conflict in American life. He was on both sides at once, not as a dupe or an “Uncle Tom”, but as a genuinely responsible, realised man. Poitier recently won a BFI poll for the best ever performance by a black actor for his role as Virgil Tibbs in Norman Jewison’s In the Heat of the Night. It’s certainly one of his best films, though in terms of his acting, it’s remarkable chiefly for how fiercely he puts himself in abeyance. His restraint is what’s on show, and it is more than ever a film about our distance and closeness to the star. Three times, our hero tenderly touches the white characters, crossing an indefinable borderline. We see it in the compassionate attentiveness with which he examines the murder victim’s body; it’s there in the careful grasp with which he caresses the first major suspect; it’s present most tentatively in the restrained touch with which he endeavours to comfort the grieving widow. It’s a film about needing help, and the detective plot is a mere McGuffin around those touches and the sympathetic reaching out enacted between bullish, put-upon Rod Steiger and Poitier. The parody of these intimacies comes with the returned slap that Poitier gives to the racist plantation owner. That hard blow shows he’s no cheek-turning Christian but a person asserting himself in the world. Watching Poitier’s films, I lost count of the moments where white characters call him “boy”. With that in mind, the simple statement, “They call me Mr Tibbs”, is a declaration of independence. If we want to place these touches in context, it is good to remember the scandal caused in March 1968, when Petula Clark touched Harry Belafonte’s arm on television, or the furore around the first TV “interracical” kiss that November, between Star Trek’s Lieutenant Uhuru and Captain Kirk. Only in 1967 did the US supreme court unanimously rule that anti-miscegenation laws were unconstitutional. There was a taboo on tenderness: the feelings inspired by Poitier had to remain attenuated, distanced ones. It’s especially good to bear all this in mind when watching Stanley Kramer’s Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, a cotton-wool unreality of a movie. Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy’s bubbly innocent daughter is set to marry Poitier, a widowed older doctor; his parents, and hers, are unhappy about it. It’s not that they are racist, the film tells us, more that they worry about the problems and prejudices such a couple will face. In the end, naturally, love conquers all. The movie’s real subject is again the generational divide, with Poitier a 37-year-old who is still primarily a son. He stands up for the younger generation, declaring to his father: “You think of yourself as a coloured man, I think of myself as a man.” It was, in its way, Poitier’s last great statement of belief, an assertion of his right to be a person on film. After the great year of 1967, he kept making movies, but nothing ever again matched the impact and power of the films he had made in the previous 10 years. He trod old ground, reprising the role of Tibbs, twice, and even doing the TV film To Sir, With Love II; he played Nelson Mandela alongside Michael Caine as FW de Klerk, and was as good as ever. Yet, US cinema could no longer find a significant place for him. Still, the impact of those movies and the ways they changed American life are being felt today. In these films, Poitier will always be a living example of a star and of a good man, an actor carrying movie stardom and even the idea of personhood itself forward through a period of profound change. • In the Heat of the Night is re-released nationally on 18 November. Films in the Black Star season are in UK cinemas and on BFI Player until December. bfi.org.uk/black-star
Department of Health adviser 'gagged' in Sky interview on junior doctors' strike Department of Health staff intervened to stop a Sky News journalist from asking one of its advisers why Jeremy Hunt was not giving interviews on the eve of the junior doctors’ strike. Following requests from journalists for Hunt to talk about the strike, the department put forward Professor Sir Norman Williams for a pool interview with Sky correspondent Darren McCaffrey to be distributed to news outlets on Monday evening. After asking where Hunt was, and being told by Williams that he was “at his desk” at the Department of Health, McCaffrey asked whether “it’s good that doctors on the eve of a strike and indeed the people that use the NHS aren’t able to hear from the secretary of state?” Before Williams can answer, a Department of Health aide could be heard intervening to stop the line of questioning, saying: “Hang on a second, we’re not doing this nonsense like…” He then says “we agreed a series of questions”, prompting McCaffery to respond that he hadn’t agreed to any line of questioning. The exchange was later broadcast on the BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire show and then shared by junior doctors and others on Twitter. The Department of Health refused to comment on whether it was normal for aides to intervene to block reporters’ questions, but pointed to Hunt’s subsequent media appearances on the day of the strike itself. McCaffrey wrote in a post on Sky’s website on Tuesday afternoon: “It was a reasonable enough question on the eve of the junior doctors strike ... although it appears the Department of Health didn’t feel quite the same way.”
Watford v Manchester City: Premier League – as it happened Peep! Peep! Peeeeeeep! It’s all over! Manchester City end their poor run of form on the road by snatching victory from Watford with two goals in the final 10 minutes. For the second match in succession, Watford lose out to a late sucker punch, but their fans can take great heart from a fine performance in defeat. They remain in ninth place in the Premier League table, while City stay in third, three points behind leaders Arsenal. 90+4 min: Watford embark on one last attack, with Cathcart sending the ball long to Troy Deeney. He attempts to find Ighalo with a header, but Joe Hart clears up for City. 90+3 min: Aleksandar Kolarov is forced to intervene as Ighalo attempts to control a headed through ball from Troy Deeney. 90+2 min: Ighalo wins a throw-in deep in Manchester City territory and the ball makes it’s way to Allan Nyom on the right flank. He stands the ball up for Ben Watson in the penalty area, but Joe Hart punches clear. 90 min: The fourth official suggests four minutes of added time. Can Watford rescue a point? They almost certainly deserve one, having played so well and lead until the 81st minute. 87 min: Ighalo spurns a wonderful chance to restore parity for Watford, swivelling to shoot straight at Joe Hart from seven or eight yards out after latching on to a through ball from Geudioura. 87 min: Watford substitution from a few minutes ago: Adlene Geudioura on for Jose Jurado. Manchester City substitution: Martin Demichelis on for Sergio Aguero. 85 min: That was a fine goal from Aguero. Running down the right touchline on the overlap, Bacary Sagna swung a cross into the edge of the six yard box. Bursting between Watford’s centre-backs, Aguero leapt to send a header into the bottom corner. Sergio Aguero puts Manchester City ahead with a fine header from the edge of the six-yard box. 83 min: That was a brilliant finish from Yaya Toure. As Aleksandar Kolarov shaped to take a corner, Toure jogged into position about 10 yards from goal in line with the near post. With his marker standing behind him, he made his unstoppable volley past Gomes look completely effortless. Don’t be fooled - his technique was flawless. 81 min: Yaya Toure equalises with a splendid near post volley to convert an Aleksandar Kolarov corner. That’s a wonderful finish. 79 min: Etienne Capoue advances into Manchester City territory, nutmegs Sergio Aguero on the edge of the penalty area and shoots high over the bar when he should have scored. 77 min: Allan Nyom kicks fresh air while attempting to clear a bouncing ball, allowing Kevin De Bruyne to drill a cross into the penalty area. They survive the scare and clear. 75 min: Bony is quickly into action, but not quite quickly enough. Despite his best attempts, he’s unable to get to a low cross from Kevin De Bruyne before it rolls into the arms of a grateful Heurelho Gomes in the Watford goal. 74 min: Almen Abdi drags a shot well wide from distance. Manchester City substitution: Wilfried Bony on, Eliaquim Mangala off after another torrid day at the office. 72 min: Yaya Toure has a pop from about 25 yards out, but drags his daisy-cutter well wide of the left upright, earning himself hoots and whistles of derision from various Watford fans. 71 min: Nothing comes of the corner as the game enters its final 20 minutes. 69 min: Kevin De Bruyne and David Silva exchange passes in a wonderful one-two just outside the Watford penalty area. From the edge of the D, DeBruyne unleashes a low, venomous drive that looks to be heading for the bottom lewft-hand corner until Heurelho Gomes dives to put it around the upright for a corner. 67 min: Kevin De Bruyne gallops down the left flank before pulling the ball back into the path of Yaya Toure in the penalty area. It’s a glorious scoring opportunity, but the big Ivorian sends the ball high over the cross-bar. 65 min: Jesus Navas gets in behind Holebas on the right flank and sends a looping cross into the Watford penalty area. It’s cleared. 64 min: City win a corner. With the ball arrowing towards Fernandinho on the edge of the six-yard box, Etienne Capoue does just enough to knock him off his stride and prevent an equaliser. Fernandinho goes to ground and appeals for a penalty, but none is forthcoming. 63 min: More pressure from Watford, with left-back Jose Holebas jinking his way past two City defenders, before unleashing a shot that takes a deflection off one of his team-mates and going wide for a goal-kick. 62 min: From the right flank, Allan Nyom sends a cross into the City penalty area, but Otamendi heads clear. 60 min: With half an hour to go, City are struggling away from home once again. Watford are showing no signs that they intend to sit back and try to protect their leaqd and continue to take the game to their visitors. 59 min: Watford win a free-kick in the centre-circle for a push in the back by Aguero. Manuel Pellegrini makes his first change, removing Raheem Sterling and replacing him with Jesus Navas. 56 min: Originally, there was a suggestion that Watson had scored directly from the corner, but replays show that Kolarov helped the ball on its way with a glancing header. Without Kolarov’s intervention, Joe Hart would almost certainly have punched clear, so Kolarov will be credited with the goal. But in a world where so few players are capable of taking corners properly, Watson can be very pleased with his assist. Watford win a corner, which Ben Watson curls in towards the near post. His inswinger is sublime and Aleksandar Kolarov can only head it into his own net as he attempts to defend it. Watford lead 1-0. 53 min: A chance for City! From the corner, Fernandinho gets a free header, but sends his effort over the bar. 52 min: Sterling plays the ball wide to Kevin De Bruyne on the left flank and he cuts inside and takes a shot, which is deflected out for a corner. In the penalty area, Silva has a go at De Bruyne for not playing the ball into his path. 52 min: Sterling tries to prod the ball in behind the Watford defence for Sergio Aguero to chase, but his attempted pass is blocked. Aguero’s seen very little of the ball this evening, which seems surprising considering the talent of his support network. 49 min: Good defending from Sagna, who hooks the ball clear as it bounces across the edge of the six yard box. He needed to be decisive, as Troy Deeney was lurking with menacing intent behind the full-back, waiting to pounce on any scraps that came his way. 48 min: From the corner, Hart punches clear, Watford enjoy a period of sustained pressure until Fernandinho sticks a boot in and tries to send Sergio Aguero on his way with a long ball up the field. There’s too much welly on his through ball, which Aguero is unable to latch on to despite staying onside. Gomes mops up at the back for Watford. 47 min: From a throw-in, the ball finds it’s way to Ben Watson on the edge of the Manchester City penalty area. His low drive was heading wide, but not by so far that Joe Hart didn’t feel compelled to dive and turn it around the post for a corner. 46 min: Abdi sends the ball wide to Allan Nyom, who plays it back inside to Ben Watson. Britos, Holebas and Capoue all get early second half touches as the home side spray the ball around the field in search of an opening. Odion Ighalo and Troy Deeney get the second half party started, with no changes in personnel instigated by either manager at the break. It’s all square at half-time in a match Watford dominated in the opening stages. Manchester City played their way back into the game and dominated for 20 minutes or so, but Watford probably had the better of the closing 10 minutes of the half. Both sides have had their chances - although Watford’s were more clear cut - and level-pegging seems fair enough at the interval. Here’s hoping for more of the same in the second half. 44 min: The fourth official suggests one additional minute of added time. 42 min: Fernandinho is penalised for a foul on Etienne Capoue, giving Watford a free-kick about 50 yards from the City goal. Ben Watson aims for the head of Miguel Britos as the centre-half darts into the penalty area. He wins the ball, but not cleanly and Manchester City are able to clear their lines. 39 min: Watford win a free-kick some distance out from the City goal, which Ben Watson sends into the penalty area. The ball’s cleared, but only as far as Jose Jurado on the angle of the penalty area, left-hand side. With Deeney, Ighalo and others calling for a cross, he attempts to curl the ball into the top right-hand corner. His effort sails wide of the angle of crossbar and upright. 38 min: Allan Nyom tries to make his way into the Manchester City penalty area, only to find his path blocked by Fernandinho. The Manchester City midfielder shapes to tackle the right-back, only to pull out of the challenge. Unperturbed, Nyom goes to ground anyway, flinging himself theatrically in a manner that earns him a yellow card. He can have no grumbles about that one. 37 min: Watford attack on the break, with Abdi galloping down the right flank. Fernandinho does well to get back and dispossess the winger with a good tackle. Watford were breaking in numbers and his intervention was crucial. 36 min: Having been dominated for 10 or so, Watford enjoy some moments of respite as they get the ball out of their own half for the first time in what seems like an age. 33 min: Having picked up a pass from deep from Toure, Sergio Aguero is unable to make room for a shot himself, but picks out Kevin De Bruyne in space in the penalty area. His effort is blocked and rebounds into the path of David Silva on the edge of the penalty area. The Spaniard shoots, but De Bruyne is unable to get out of his way and unintentionally deflects the ball away from the target. It goes out for a corner, from which nothing comes. 31 min: Now it’s Kolarov’s turn to have a potshot. His effort fizzes over the bar. 30 min: As Manchester City begin to dominate, Sergio Aguero shoots wide from a promising position. 29 min: David Silva links up well with Fernandinho as they charge down the inside right channel. A promising move comes to naught when Raheem Sterling blasts over the bar following Watford’s failure to clear an attempted David Silva bicycle kick properly. Moments before Silva’s acrobatic effort, Fernandinho had a shot saved by Gomes. 28 min: Raheem Sterling picks up the ball on the left flank, makes his way past Allan Nyom, only to run a blind alley with Craig Cathcart waiting in the shadows. The Watford centre-half robs the winger of possession and clears. 26 min: With Toure back on his feet, play resumes. David Silva wriggles his way down the inside right and into the Watford penalty area, but is unable to get a cross in to Sergio Aguero, who’s cutting a rather forlorn figure. 24 min: Yaya Toure goes down holding his left shin after a bruising challenge from behind by Almen Abdi. The Watford midfielder seems lucky to have avoided a booking there. 22 min: It’s worth noting that the previous corner was conceded by Eliaquim Mangala, who’s being given the absolute run-around by Odion Ighalo. Mangala looks a bag of nerves and looks good for at least one bit of slapstick defending that could result in a Watford goal. 21 min: Watford win a corner, which Ben Watson sends into the mixer. The ball drops out of the night sky, bounces off Craig Cathcart’s thigh and into the hands of Joe Hart. Cathcart didn’t seem to be expecting that - had he been more alert, he could have converted a fairly easy chance from no more than seven or eight yards out. 19 min: Kevin De Bruyne tries his luck from distance, with a clever shot that pitches up just in front of Heurelho Gomes, but the Brazilian goalkeeper isn’t unduly troubled by the audacious effort. 17 min: Watford win a free-kick about 35 yards from the Manchester City goal. Ben Watson and Jose Holebas stand over it as Joe Hart instructs his defensive wall. Watson, who headed Wigan’s winner against City in the FA Cup final three years ago, takes the free-kick, but his effort is poor. The ball sails high and wide of Joe Hart’s goal. On Sky Sports, co-comms man Alan Smith suggests he should have taken advantage of the wet conditions and greasy surface to shoot low and hard in a bid to test Joe Hart. 13 min: With his back to goal on the edge of the City penalty area, Ighalo demonstrates a wonderful first touch to turn Otamendi and leave himself with only Joe Hart to beat. The City goalkeeper rushes off his line to smother the ball, which breaks in the penalty area. City’s desperate defenders manage to prevent any Watford players from converting the rebound. This is a cracking game - long may it continue. 11 min: With Troy Deeney through on goal after an idiotic pass from Otamendi, Aleksandar Kolarov performs heroics to get back and muscle him off the ball. Deeney goes down in a heap and there’s a huge shout from the stands for a penalty, but Martin Atkinson doesn’t give one. Replays suggest it’s the correct decision. 9 min: With Eliaquim Mangala caught out of position, Nicolas Otamendi does well to get back and cover as Odion Ighalko attempts to latch on to a long ball through the centre. His excellent covering tackle results in a corner for Watford, but nothing comes of it. 9 min: Etienne Capoue miscontrols a pass in midfield and cedes possession to Yaya Toure, who advances. The ball finds its way to Heurelho Gomes in the Watford goal. 8 min: Raheem Sterling gets on the ball on the left touchline, cuts inside and links up with David Silva on the edge of the Watford penalty area. The hosts clear. 7 min: Capoue attempts to play the ball into the penalty area towards Ighalop and Deeney, but his intentions are well read by Kolarov, who heads clear. It’s been a lively, entertaining start from two teams who look fairly evenly matched at this early stage. 5 min: More good play from Watford out on the right flank, with Etieene Capoue and Abdi combining well. Making his way into the penalty area, the former goes down under a challenge from Mangala and appeals for a free-kick, but doesn’t get one. 4 min: With plenty of Manchester City players in the Watford penalty area, Aleksandar Kolarov blows a decent opportunity to deliver a good ball from, the left. 2 min: Almen Abdi takes the first shot in anger and it’s not too far away! After good build-up play in which Jose Jurado ghosted past Yaya Toure, the ball found its way to Abdi on the edge of the area. He unleashed a surface to air screamer that fizzed narrowly wide of the top right-hand corner. 2 min: Manchester City dominate possession in the opening exchanges, although Mangala is forced to put the ball out of play halfway inside his own half to concede a throw-in. 1 min: Manchester City get the ball rolling at Vicarage Road at referee Martin Atkinson’s signal. It’s wet and windy in Watford tonight. Not long now: The teams make their way out of the tunnel and line up for the pre-match niceties. Watford’s players wear their customary home kit of yellow shirts with thin black stripes down the front, black shorts and black socks. Manchester City’s wear their usual light blue shirts, white shorts and light blue socks. They’ll be kicking off in a moment or two. It’s difficult to imagine tonight’s match concluding without a few goals, considering that Troy Deeney and Odion Ighalo have scored 20 between them already this season in the top flight, while Manchester City’s front four of David Silva, Kevin De Bruyne, Raheem Sterling and Sergio Aguero are a fairly terrifying proposition for any defence preparing to face them. More than three goals is the shout for me, which means a dull scoreless draw is almost certainly inevitable. Their players are warming up wearing T-shirts designed by Callum Ballantine, a 19-year-old from Didsbury who recently died from a rare form of bone cancer and will auction them for charity after the game. Along with his friend Samir Kamani, Callum designed a “Made from Manchester” range of clothing to help raise funds for the Teenage Cancer Trust. Callum and Samir raised over £20,000 for the charity before the former’s sad death on December 20th. Hats off to the lad, may he rest in peace. Having just beaten Newcastle at the Emirates, Arsenal have extended their lead at the top of the table to two points, as Leicester could only draw at home to Bournemouth. A win for Manchester City this evening will keep them in third place, three points behind Arsenal and two behind Leicester. A win for ninth-placed Watford will see them overtake Liverpool and Crystal Palace by moving into seventh place. Watford: Gomes, Nyom, Cathcart, Britos, Holebas, Abdi, Capoue, Watson, Jurado, Ighalo, Deeney. Subs: Prodl, Behrami, Oulare, Guedioura, Berghuis, Anya, Arlauskis. Man City: Hart, Sagna, Otamendi, Mangala, Kolarov, Fernandinho, Toure, De Bruyne, Silva, Sterling, Aguero. Subs: Zabaleta, Fernando, Caballero, Bony, Jesus Navas, Clichy, Demichelis. Referee: Martin Atkinson (W Yorkshire) Manchester City get another opportunity to arrest their puzzling slump in away form with a trip to Vicarage Road, where they’ll face a Watford side who’d won four and drawn one before Monday’s reverse at the hands of Spurs. City have failed to win any of their last six on the road, losing against Tottenham, Stoke and Arsenal in the process. If they are to beat Watford today, they will have to do so without Vincent Kompany, who is suffering from a calf injury. In better news for Manuel Pellegrini, Fernando, Fabian Delph and Gael Clichy are all available for selection after spells in the treatment room. For Watford, Nathan Ake will sit this one out on the naughty step after being show a straight red card for a high challenge on Erik Lamela shortly after the hour against Tottenham. Defenders Tommie Hoban and Joel Ekstrand also remain absent through injury.
Promised £8bn extra for NHS is not enough, says hospitals boss Theresa May will have to rip up the government’s financial plans for the NHS and commit more than the promised £8bn extra by 2020, a hospitals boss has said. Chris Hopson, the chief executive of NHS Providers, said ministers must come up with a new plan to fix the health service’s crumbling finances or risk it becoming unable to function properly. In a submission to the Treasury before next week’s autumn statement, NHS Providers, which represents 96% of NHS trusts in England, says a rethink is necessary because the calculations underlying the government’s £8bn pledge are flawed. It says demand for care is rising faster than envisaged in the blueprint drawn up by NHS bosses in 2014, the Five-Year Forward View, and social care has deteriorated. Hopson said: “Some of the key assumptions in the Five-Year Forward View, on which the current financial and NHS delivery plans for this parliament are based, have turned out to be wrong. There is now a clear and widening gap between what is being asked of the NHS and the funding available to deliver it. “The NHS simply cannot do all that it is currently doing and is being asked to do in future on these funding levels.” Andrew Lansley, the health secretary from 2010 to 2012 in the coalition government, recently said the NHS needed a “Brexit bonus” of £5bn on top of the £8bn already pledged, given the widespread public demand for higher NHS funding revealed by the EU referendum. NHS Providers does not specify how much more it wants invested. But Hopson said more than £8bn was justified because “demand for care is a lot higher, social care is in a much worse state, general practice is turning out to be more unstable, and the starting point for the deficit among hospital, mental health, community and ambulance trusts has turned out to be much larger.” He said the overall health budget would go up by only £4.5bn by 2020, not the £8bn ministers pledged last year, because money was being taken from key areas such as public health in order to give the NHS its promised increase. Independent experts agree £4.5bn is the true increase that healthcare will get. The NHS’s inability to deliver the £22bn of savings it had promised to make by 2020 – a target that had always been “too ambitious” – further underlined the need for more money to be found before the end of this parliament, said Hopson. May has been under pressure recently over her repeated claims that the government is giving the NHS £10bn more, and more than the NHS England chief executive, Simon Stevens, asked for in 2014. Sarah Wollaston, the Conservative chair of the Commons health select committee, and other members of the committee wrote to the chancellor Philip Hammond to say the claims were untrue. Labour has asked the UK Statistics Authority to rule on whether the £10bn claim is justified. Jeremy Hunt, the health secretary, has subtly distanced himself from the £10bn figure and said the NHS will need a lot more money after 2020, at the end of its unprecedented decade-long budget squeeze. Ministers have already told Stevens that the NHS will not receive a funding boost in the autumn statement. But NHS and local council leaders hope the chancellor may find some extra money to prop up the ailing social care system. “NHS funding increases from next year onwards are not enough to maintain standards of care, meet rising demand from patients and deliver essential changes to services,” said Richard Murray, director of policy at the King’s Fund thinktank. “If additional [NHS] funding is not forthcoming later in the parliament, the government will need to be honest with the public about the impact on quality of care and access to services.” The Department of Health did not respond directly to Hopson’s comments. A spokesman said: “This government has taken tough economic decisions that have allowed us to invest in our NHS, which is meeting record patient demand whilst improving standards of care. We have prioritised funding for the NHS with £4bn extra this year.”
'You want to know what they're writing, even if it hurts': my online abuse Lindsy Van Gelder, journalist, San Diego, 1985 When I bought a computer, in the 1980s, it was a different world. I joined Compuserve, the first major commercial online service in the US, in 1982. It was like Facebook, but all text. Now we would complain it was slow and expensive, but at the time it was radical to be able to sit in your house and talk to people all over the world. The online world seemed like a utopia; you had no idea of the race or gender of the person you were talking to, yet it was intimate. Compuserve was quite intellectual, but we had silly chats. It was mostly men using it. If you got on with someone you could go into a little corner of the site to text privately. That’s where the “compusex”, the sexting of its time, happened. I never did it myself, because my partner at the time was not keen. Joan was a kind of celebrity on Compuserve; a brilliant neuroscientist in her late 20s who was disabled and disfigured after a terrible car accident. She could no longer talk, but she could type, and she was surrounded by admirers. She formed close friendships with many female users, although she often tried to talk them into having Compusex. For one woman in particular, Janis, Joan was a real support. Janis had ongoing health problems and was mourning the death of her brother. The two became very close. A year later Joan enthusiastically introduced Janis to another Compuserve user called Alex. Janis and Alex, an able-bodied, male, New York psychiatrist in his 50s, met up offline and started a relationship. Meanwhile Joan wrote about her own whirlwind romance, meeting and marrying a police officer. But other Compuserve users became suspicious of Joan’s dazzling romance and success. Months later Joan was confronted by one distrustful user and admitted she was not just friends with Alex – she was Alex. Traumatised and angry, Janis said at the time she “wanted to jump off a bridge”. To me that was everyone’s nightmare of betrayal by a lover. When I contacted him as a journalist, Alex refused to return my call. He continued to be a prominent psychiatrist who won major honours for his work, until his death a few years ago. I wrote about the story for Ms magazine, in a piece called The Strange Case of the Electronic Lover. Although I knew his real identity, Ms wouldn’t publish it because they were in a financially precarious position and a lawsuit – even if they won – would have finished them. Alex claimed he wanted to try communicating as a woman. Some people on Compuserve felt sorry for him. Me? I think he was despicable. It certainly taught us the online world was not all rainbows and unicorns – that creepy people could take advantage of the most entrancing things about the medium. Now everyone knows what the online and offline worlds are. It’s not a rarefied, weird corner of life. It’s certainly not an escape anymore. Ellen Spertus, professor of computer science, California, 1996 I first used the computer network Usenet as an undergraduate in the late 1980s. There was no commercialism – no spam, if you can imagine that – and it was mostly used by students or people who worked in technology. It seemed like a pretty safe place. I used my own name, and so did many other people. There were discussion groups divided into sections. Some were high minded, about science or maths, but others were more lowbrow. There was a kerfuffle around a group called rec.humour.funny, for instance, because the moderator accepted racist and sexist jokes. People argued that there shouldn’t be censorship online. Back then we all thought that the online world would be more egalitarian because we weren’t judging people on race or sex. Instead there has been a dehumanising effect because we don’t see people face to face. In 1996, a man called Robert Toups started a site called Babes on the Web, displaying the names and photographs of women who had home pages (which had just begun), along with ratings based on the attractiveness of their photographs. When they asked him to remove them, he refused. He claimed he was being satirical. I was one of the women listed. I can’t say I was shocked, but it was unexpected and unpleasant. It was part of the beginning of the fall – the realisation this was not a safe place, that it was not true that the online world would be sexism-free. Some women responded by changing their image to that of a “beefcake” picture. Someone else created a site to get people to rate Toups. I was a graduate student and wrote a paper called Social and Technical Means for Fighting On-Line Harassment, including this as one of the first major incidents of sexism that occurred on the web. I wanted to try to improve the situation for others. I thought social pressure would solve issues like this; because Toups would be lowering his reputation in front of women who would go on to be in positions of power. To some extent it’s true – I went on to become a professor and an engineer at Google. But my prediction that social pressures would solve the problem was wrong. Today I would say the situation for women online is just horrific. I advise my female students to use a pseudonym if they are writing about something like Gamergate. If you write about sexism or racism, people who have a powerful social media following can harass you. Take the case of Adria Richards; she tweeted about two men making sexist jokes at a tech conference, and one of them was fired. She received death threats and rape threats for speaking up. She had to leave her home because it was so terrible. I have offered a place to stay to women who can’t stay in their homes because of threats they receive. I am glad I am no longer on the frontline. Jill Filipovic, lawyer and writer, 2006 Towards the end of my first semester of law school, a classmate mentioned a website where my name came up a lot. When another acquaintance mentioned the same thing I Googled around and found a message board for law school students called AutoAdmit. I read a couple of the threads, and they just seemed a little weird and creepy. If something came up about my law school, they would mention me. For instance, when someone wrote “Someone barfed in the law school library” the first comment would be “Was it JillF?” I don’t know why they started on me, but I think it was because I was a feminist blogger, who wrote for Feministe. I was used to nasty comments from the blog, but then I found a post called “The official Jill Filipovic rape thread”. Elsewhere there were long discussions about whether posters would like to “hate-fuck” me. One post read “I want to brutally rape that Jill slut.” Another: “I’m 98% sure that she should be raped.” There were a bunch of photos of me, my Facebook profile had been copied and pasted, my email address was on there. The psychological turning point was reading comments like, “I saw her in class today and she said this… ” Suddenly I realised those same people writing rape fantasies about me could be sitting next to me in contract law class. It wasn’t just a nasty comment on the internet anymore. It felt very intimidating. I corresponded privately with the people who ran the website, but they wouldn’t do anything about the posts. The university was very sympathetic, but said there wasn’t anything they could do. I stopped going to class for some time. When I did go, I would wear a hooded sweatshirt or hide my face. I felt very suspicious and isolated. My friends didn’t understand blogs or message boards so it was hard to explain it to them. In the end I went to therapy, which really helped. There were two episodes when it crossed over into my real life. Once a man sent me an email saying he had been to New York University and spoken to my professors about what a “dumb cunt” I was. The second was when I was studying in the law school office with a friend. A man came to the door and asked me if I was Jill, then started screaming at me. Finally two other women who had been posted about on AutoAdmit sued the men who ran it. One of the men was a law student, and when the case made the papers his law firm rescinded their offer of a contract. The forum had a lot of users, many who said they were practising lawyers, and the legal industry is small. I felt like my identity was being filtered through this one site. I worked in a law firm for four years, but at networking events whenever someone stared at my name tag I worried they recognised me from those threads. Had they seen the pictures of me in a bikini that were posted? It had a huge impact on me. I spent years in fight or flight mode. Now I am very quick to be defensive online. I think having people who can support you (bloggers, or friends) is key. If I write something controversial, I give a friend my Twitter login so they can block abusive messages before I see them. I’m glad that harassment against women online is talked about properly now. I am so hardened to it, I don’t get upset about much anymore. Natalie Farzaneh, 19, retail assistant, London, 2009 I was bullied at school, but being bullied online was even worse. Growing up I lived in a very white, middle class village outside York. My father is Iranian and that was always an issue. I was also bigger than the other children – taller and overweight too. At school I was called Paki, Terrorist or Taliban and the children would make fun of my weight and my thick, curly hair. I was pushed down the stairs, and kids would throw chewing gum in my hair. Because I was lonely, I joined Facebook. I got lots of friend requests. I didn’t realise they were just being sarcastic, taking screenshots of my page and laughing about it with their friends. Sometimes people would do weird Photoshopped pictures of my head on a pig’s body. One of the worst points was when someone wrote on the school’s Facebook page “That awkward moment when you realise you are Natalie Farzaneh”. I felt like I was being attacked from all sides. As a lonely teenager you will try anything and go anywhere to make friends so I tried another site, Ask.fm. On it people can ask you questions anonymously – I thought it would help show people I was a nice person. Instead I got horrible messages, saying “Why are you so ugly?” Or “Why are you so fat?” I didn’t really tell my parents how bad things were. My mother and teachers knew I was picked on at school, and I had a youth worker who was great. But online things got worse. People would post things like, “Kill yourself tonight or someone will do it tomorrow” or “Watch your back” or “I hope your parents get cancer”. Because they were anonymous it made me paranoid. I would be sitting in a class full of people, worrying who was sending them. I started self harming and felt suicidal. People who haven’t been bullied online will say “Why didn’t you just turn off your computer?” But they don’t understand. You want to know what people are writing, even if it hurts. One day reading my Ask.fm inbox I felt like I couldn’t breathe. My heart was racing. I went to my mum and said “I think I am dying.” She took me to the hospital, and said it was just a panic attack. Later I was diagnosed with anxiety – I was about 12. When I was 16 I was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress syndrome. What helped was finding an online bullying charity when I was 14. I applied to be one of their ambassadors and I started doing media interviews. Although my parents were heartbroken when they heard how bad things had got, telling other people that help was available made me feel stronger. Other victims would say I made them feel less alone and had stopped them doing something stupid. I felt like I was turning a negative into a positive. When the kids in school saw me on TV and in newspapers some of them also started realising the effect they’d had. Some would say “I hope you realise it was just banter.” Some of my teachers also said they hadn’t known how hard it had been. Today I am very happy, living in London with my boyfriend, and being a body positive blogger. I might get the odd nasty comment online but now I am older I don’t obsess over hateful things. I still work as an anti-bullying ambassador and wish people would take online bullying more seriously. Bruises and cuts heal but you don’t forget the names people call you. Darsh Singh, portfolio manager at an alternative investment company, Texas, 2015 I first realised I had become a viral meme in 2011. As a student I was the first American Sikh to play for the National Collegiate Athletic Association in a turban. I was captain of the team in my final year, and my jersey was put on display in the Smithsonian. Because of this, there was a picture of me playing online, and someone thought it would be funny to put Islamophobic captions on it. There were different versions but one read: “Nobody wants to guard Muhammed, he’s too explosive”. To be honest I just thought, “Here is another way people are expressing their hatred.” When you play sports at collegiate level, you get used to people yelling nasty things. It’s the usual names, which of course shouldn’t be “usual”; things like “towelhead”, “fucking terrorist” and lots of references to Osama bin Laden. So when I saw the meme on the web I thought, “This is not a personal attack, it’s a stupid picture and an expression of ignorance.” I just wrote something like, “It doesn’t matter what you say, haha.” My wife replied on Twitter saying something like, “That’s my husband and he’s a nice person,” which helped. If you put people in context – someone’s husband or son – the conversation changes. Without it you are just a concept, and people are more comfortable yelling at a concept. The meme popped up again from time to time over the next few years, but I just ignored it. The internet is the worst place to argue with people – it’s a wasteland in terms of logic and thoughtfulness. Would it have helped if I pointed out I was Sikh, not Muslim? Maybe, but saying, “I’m the wrong brown guy – go catch those other ones!” is not in line with my beliefs. Sikhs stand in solidarity with our Muslim brothers and sisters. Last year the meme flared up again, and one of my friend’s brothers, Greg Worthington, wrote a long message on Facebook. He explained who I was and why my jersey was in the Smithsonian. The post was really, really kind. It got a huge reaction. Then the Smithsonian group created a new meme to share with Greg’s post, and a hashtag #BelikeDarsh, which went viral. I was shocked. It showed me the power of online advocacy. I was interviewed by media outlets and TV stations and got so many messages and calls from sympathetic people. I found it very weird, but I realised that I had this megaphone so I should try and re-direct the love and attention. I wrote a post asking people to take care of others, in line with Sikhism’s golden traditions; offer love to the people around you, be a voice for those who need it the most. Becoming the subject of a racist meme can be incredibly toxic. It is challenging to be in a world where people are anonymous and don’t show compassion. You need a level of support in real life that many people don’t have. Cyberbullying: a brief and partial history 1973 The Community Memory digital service in Berkeley, California, charges 25 cents per post to reduce abuse. 1998 In the first successful US prosecution of a hate crime on the internet, a former California university student is convicted for emailing death threats to Asian students. 2003 Film of Canadian schoolboy Ghyslain Raza with a ‘light sabre’ is uploaded and the ‘Star Wars kid’ goes viral. Raza becomes a victim of a cyberbullying attack, and later speaks publicly about its impact. 2005 A student on the Seoul subway refuses to clean up after her dog and is vilified as ‘dog poo girl’ after a photo goes viral. 2008 First US cyber-bullying trial in US, the United States vs Lori Drew, follows death of 13-year-old Megan Meier. Drew, the mother of Meier’s friend (who posed as Josh Evans online), is acquitted but the case leads to the introduction of a Missouri state law. Unofficially known as Megan’s law, this takes a tougher stance on cyberbullying. 2009 A teenager becomes the first British person to be jailed for bullying on social media. 2010 Paul Chambers is convicted (overturned on appeal) for tweeting a joke about blowing up an airport in the UK. 2011 A man is jailed in Manchester for harassing his ex-girlfriend online via a series of blogposts ‘warning’ men about her. 2012 Lord McAlpine is defamed in tweets by Sally Bercow, who later agrees to pay undisclosed damages. 2013 Caroline Criado-Perez receives death threats after winning her battle to reinstate a woman on English banknotes. This leads to three arrests; Twitter announces a new one-click action to report abuse. 2014 Supporters of a disparaging blogpost about games developer Zoë Quinn, written by her ex-boyfriend, start a misogynistic campaign under the hashtag #gamergate, seen as a backlash against equality in gaming. 2014 Nude pictures of more than 100 celebrities including Jennifer Lawrence are published on 4chan. 2015 Luke King, 21, is thought to be the first man convicted of revenge porn in the UK; he is sentenced after pleading guilty to harassment after posting photographs of his ex-girlfriend on WhatsApp. September 2015 A survey carried out by Vodafone and YouGov reveals one in five young people has been cyberbullied, according to research across 11 countries, making it a more common problem than drug abuse. March 2016 NSPCC condemns ‘baiting out’ videos, where teenagers shame friends as promiscuous or disloyal. • Are you a victim of online abuse? Go to stoponlineabuse.org.uk for help and advice. Because of the personal and sensitive nature of this piece comments will be pre-moderated.
Live Q&A: What's the best way to tackle Zika? For the expectant mothers of Recife, in Pernambuco state Brazil, the city at the heart of the Zika virus epidemic, trips to the hospital to check on their unborn children have become an ordeal. A third of Brazil’s 3,893 Zika virus cases recorded by January 2020 have been found in Pernambuco. The mosquito-born disease causes fever, joint pain and rashes, as well as microcephaly, a condition which affects brain development and head size of babies. Recife resident Gleyse Kelly told the last month that she had discovered that her unborn daughter had an abnormally small head when she was seven months pregnant. “It was devastating,” she said. “But we had no time to react.” Her daughter Maria was born the next day. The Zika virus was declared a global public health emergency by the World Health Organisation on 1 February. Across Latin America, governments have reacted to the virus with dramatic measures. In El Salvador, a country with restrictive laws on abortion, the government told its citizens to avoid getting pregnant until 2018. Now as the virus spreads to the US and Europe, a sense of urgency has grown in the international community. Pharmaceutical companies are reportedly working to develop a vaccine. Elsewhere, scientists have been searching for an answer to why the virus was able to spread so far, so quickly; with some pointing to the impact of climate change. In 2014, only 150 cases were recorded in the whole of Brazil. How do we overcome this disease? Would it help to swamp Zika-infected areas with pesticides, or would that make things worse? Should we simply look to eradicate mosquitos altogether? Join a panel of experts on Thursday 18 February from 1pm GMT to discuss these questions and more. The panel Peter Mills, head of Technical Advisory Services, Malaria Consortium, London, UK @PeteMills4 @fightingmalaria Peter coordinates the work of Malaria Consortium’s global team of experts in disease control João Nunes, lecturer in International Relations, University of York, York, UK @Dr_JoaoNunes @UniOfYork João writes on neglected issues in global health, community-driven responses and Brazilian health policy Jo Lines, reader in Vector Biology and Malaria Control, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, London, UK Jo has been researching technologies for mosquito control, especially treated nets for malaria control for three decades. He has also worked for the World Health Organisation Maryam Z. Deloffre, assistant professor of political science, Arcadia University Philadelphia, United States Maryam’s research and publications examine transnational NGO accountability, the professionalisation and standardisation of NGOs, human security and global health crises and global humanitarian governance. Denis Coulombier, head of unit, surveillance and response support, European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, Stockholm, Sweden Dr Denis Coulombier is a medical doctor and a specialist in tropical diseases and public health with extensive international experience. Nicola Wardrop, research fellow, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK Nicola Wardrop is an infectious disease epidemiologist who focuses on zoonotic, vector-borne and water-borne diseases. Ralph Huits, Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp, Belgium Medical doctor, infectious disease consultant and researcher at ITM Antwerp. Research interests include tropical febrile illness and arboviral infections. Dino J. Martins, entomologist, Mpala Research Centre, Nanyuki, Kenya Entomologist, interested in understanding the intricacies of insect life, and its impacts (both good and bad!) on humanity. Jamie Bedson, international director, Restless Development, Seattle, United States, @RestlessDev, @JamieBedson1 Jamie Bedson is international director with Restless Development, formerly Sierra Leone Country Director during the 2014-15 Ebola outbreak. Eugenio Donadio, emergency coordinator, Plan UK, London, UK, @PlanUK Humanitarian aid worker with several years of experience working in humanitarian emergency responses in Africa, Latin America and the Middle East.
FCA not fit for purpose as Pure Gym float favours institutional investors Here’s an interesting business on its way to the stock market to raise £190m. Pure Gym is chaired by Tony Ball, who as chief executive of BSkyB in its early years helped to change television viewing habits in the UK. The gym chain is another tale of “disruption”, promises Ball, which might encourage some of the 785,000 members to think of backing the IPO, or flotation, with a few quid. Forget it, unless you are a gym-goer who is also a fund manager. Yes, this IPO is another dreary institutions-only offering, which is par for the course when, as here, the seller comes from the land of private equity. Ordinary investors’ first chance to buy arrives only when the shares start trading. Worse, the whole IPO process could almost be designed to discourage general interest. If you wish to chew over Pure Gym’s financial numbers at leisure, for example, you’re a second-class citizen. The institutional crew will get their “pathfinder” prospectus, which includes all the important data, well in advance. Outsiders’ first sight will come when the full version is published a couple of days before the float actually happens. In the meantime, ordinary mortals must make do with edited highlights. There were interesting lines in Wednesday’s intention-to-float document, like the fact that Pure Gym claims a 47% return on capital at its “mature” gyms. But you will search in vain for up-to-date figures for pre-tax profit or even debt. Nobody could sensibly make an investment decision without those numbers. The real culprit is the Financial Conduct Authority and its predecessor, which over two decades has allowed retail punters to be squeezed out of the IPO game. Back in April, the regulator discussed some sensible reforms. Prospectuses could be published a fortnight before trading day, suggested the FCA, and independent analysts should not be gagged by lack of access to management. Five months later there is no sign of the FCA leaping into action. Those politicians who say from time to time that they want to promote a “shareholding democracy” should start by telling the FCA to pull its finger out. Banks won’t be hurried over Brexit decisions The European commission president, Jean-Claude Juncker, trying to hurry things along and get the Brexit show on the road, clearly hasn’t met many British bankers. Douglas Flint, chairman of HSBC, and Alex Wilmot-Sitwell, head of the European end of Bank of America Merrill Lynch, are not chaps who like to be rushed. Solemnly, and in turns, they told the House of Lords on Wednesday that upending the European financial services industry can’t be done lightly, quickly, or at all without risking serious instability. The cheerful interpretation, from the point of view of the City, is that a lot of jobs look safer than when some banks were threatening an exodus if the UK voted for Brexit. Big banks are so inflexible, it seems, that change throws them into confusion. That is easy to believe. The big four lenders were given half a decade to erect a ringfence around their retail operations in the UK and still they grumble about the pace of regulatory upheaval. Or, as Flint himself put it, it’s taken HSBC three years to move 1,000 jobs from London to Birmingham, so switching to Paris would be a “non-trivial” undertaking. But Flint and Wilmot-Sitwell were not speaking out of patriotism. They were making the serious – and surely correct – point that both the UK and the EU would suffer if the European financial system is rejigged overnight. Frankfurt and Paris simply aren’t in a position to perform London’s pan-European role. If the financial services industry is forced to jump through too many new licensing hoops too quickly, it could fail in its day job of lending. That point is understood in the UK, as you’d expect, so Flint and Wilmot-Sitwell need to preach to the non-converted. They’ll never persuade François Hollande, who wants euro-denominated trades to be cleared in the eurozone, that it is in France’s own interests not to wreck the City. But HSBC and co could do everyone a service by prodding their big corporate clients on the continent to speak up. It’s now up to PM to reduce the cost of her Hinkley Point mistake It is too late, it seems, to persuade Theresa May that Hinkley Point is a colossal waste of money. But, at a bare minimum, let’s hope the prime minister has succeeded in reducing the scandalous cost to consumers. EDF and its Chinese backers could expect to make a 10% rate of return under the old terms agreed in 2012. In today’s world, 7% would be generous.
Laurent Koscielny tap-in gives Arsenal win against Newcastle United Back in the height of summer when Petr Cech made his move across London, it was games as ragged and rickety as this that John Terry had in mind when he suggested the goalkeeper could be worth 12-15 points a season to Arsenal. Arsène Wenger’s team were below par, the radar was off, the fatigue had set in, and they came up against a Newcastle team who made more than enough chances to upset the league leaders. Cech dealt with assurance with Newcastle’s best efforts, which gave Arsenal the platform to eke out a win. Earning the points required resilience and the capacity to dig deep into their energy reserves. It was appropriate, perhaps, that the matchwinner was Laurent Koscielny, restored to the starting lineup after a much-needed breather. It was indicative of how this game went that Wenger confessed he felt for his opponents. “Honestly I am long enough in football to know if you are in Newcastle’s place you feel sorry for them because they played very well,” he said. “I know also when you are capable to win and you haven’t played well it shows a mental aspect of your team that is very important.” It left Steve McClaren ruing the outcome when he felt his players had earned the right to take something with them on the journey north. “I’m scratching my head as to how we got nothing from that game,” he said. “Not many teams will come here and do that to Arsenal without getting something. “We were aggressive, kept control, created chances. I couldn’t fault what we tried to do. It was the complete performance without getting a result. It’s about putting the ball in the back of the net which is why they have the points and we don’t.” Asked if the answer to his head scratching could take the form of a giant 33-year-old goalkeeper, McClaren did not disagree. “Goalkeepers win you matches and he certainly won that game,” he said. There were two particularly influential stops. In the first half Cech was alert to parry away Giorginio Wijnaldum’s firm shot, and tidy up when Jack Colback followed up. At the start of the second half Aaron Ramsey ceded possession and the game opened up once again for the visitors. Ayoze Pérez dinked a perfect pass for Wijnaldum. Cech spread himself to smother superbly. His interventions were hugely important on a day when Arsenal struggled to find their fluency. One of the perils of the festive football calendar is the likelihood of busy players looking as if they barely know if they are coming or going. There were leggy performances, lapses of concentration, and off-key passes scattered liberally across the drenched Emirates pitch. Wenger watched on from his dugout, quietly frustrated that his team were not functioning properly. Mesut Özil’s touch and movement were typically deft, but those around him strained to reach his level. The energy levels improved in the second half as the game opened up and both teams became more cavalier and increasingly desperate in their search for a goal. Newcastle came close as Aleksandar Mitrovic and Chancel Mbemba threatened. Arsenal perked up when Olivier Giroud flashed a header across goal, and then Özil squeezed a brilliant pass towards Ramsey, whose shot was too tame to test Rob Elliot. In need of some inspiration, someone to take a risk or try something to force the issue, Koscielny stepped up to deliver in the 72nd minute. Giroud won headers in the box not once but twice after Özil floated in a corner. Koscielny was alive to sneak in at the far post to plant a shot past Elliot. Wenger was more than satisfied with the outcome as an example they may need to draw on as the season wears on. “Not to drop points when you play like we did today is very important. It helps the team – the memory of having done that before and winning the game helps you to hang on sometimes.” Trying to look at the bigger picture, he was in no mood to read too much into this match in terms of the title challenge. “It’s too early. We have 42 points, let’s be realistic. “Let’s focus that we are in a strong position. We have given a lot over Christmas. At the end of the day how many points have you made in four games? We knew nine points would be acceptable, 10 ideal.” He made the point that only Manchester City managed 10 points last season. And they did not go on to win the Premier League. Wenger and McClaren were quiet about any potential business to strengthen their squads over January but admitted they are hard at work to bolster their options. The intensity of four festive games over, there is still not much time to pause for a moment, regroup, and go again.
NatWest criticised over loan to firm that evicted vulnerable families A bank in the majority taxpayer-owned RBS group lent money to property speculators for a deal that will see dozens of families evicted from their homes, it has emerged, prompting condemnation from the local MP and residents. NatWest has defended its decision to lend millions of pounds to the firm that bought 63 flats on a London estate so it could evict long-standing tenants and re-sell the homes for a profit, saying its only responsibility was to the customer who took out the loan. Stella Creasy, the Labour MP for Walthamstow who has campaigned stop the eviction of residents on the Butterfields estate in north-east London, said this made no sense. “For NatWest to try to wash their hands of this doesn’t stack up,” she said. “We bailed out NatWest and they promised us we could now trust them to do the right thing. The right thing here is for NatWest to use their power to stop these evictions so we can get to the bottom of just what kind of deal has been done, which means the Butterfields residents are being made homeless.” For decades, the homes were owned by a local charity, Glasspool Trust, which makes grants to households in poverty. While not a housing charity it historically offered reduced rents, and many of the flats were occupied long-term by vulnerable families. But late last year the charity sold all its flats to a property developers without telling tenants, who only learned when the new owners began serving eviction notices in January. The developers, called Butterfields E17 Ltd, have since re-sold some of the flats for a profit. Companies House records show the firm took mortgages with NatWest against all 63 flats to buy them, and that the bank must approve any re-sale. A spokesman for the bank said he could not discuss individual cases but confirmed that it would be normal when a company is being lent a significant sum for it to talk the bank through the business plan for repaying the sum. Butterfields E17 Ltd has told the its plan is to evict the tenants from all 63 flats over time and seek to sell the properties for a profit. The spokesman said it was not up to the bank to take a moral view on such plans. He added: “Our defined responsibilities are to the customer who took these loans. These responsibilities do not extend to the day-to-day management of their property portfolio.” The fact the bank must approve any resale is a standard mortgage measure to ensure this was used to repay the mortgage, he added. The RBS group has a public sustainability and ethics policy, mainly connected to areas such as the environment and armaments. However, the policy says RBS tries not to make loans “which could damage the bank’s reputation”. Its executives have also talked repeatedly about seeking to be an ethical bank in the light of its 2008 takeover by the government, which still owns a majority of RBS shares. One of the Butterfields residents facing eviction, Nicole Holgate, called the NatWest justification “kind of pathetic”. “If they claim to have any wider social and ethical responsibility then it’s a horrendous move if a load of people are decamped from an area where they were making a perfectly reasonable living,” she said. “They’re going to potentially have to get housing benefit wherever they end up, or a few people are eligible for council help.” Holgate, 28, lives with a flatmate, saying they were unusual among the dozen or so households currently facing eviction, with almost all the others having children. “This is a huge problem for them,” she said. “They’re in local schools, going to local churches and playgroups. They have really solid lives here and the societal cost of what an upheaval like this does to children is massive. “It’s all just going to become more of a bill for everyone paying taxes.” The decision by Glasspool to sell the flats has prompted considerable local opposition. Creasy met the chair of the charity, Keith Nunn, at the Commons last month to seek an explanation for the deal. The meeting ended with the MP asking a policeman to escort Nunn out of parliament after, by her account, he said of the impact on tenants: “It happens.” The directors of Butterfields E17, listed as Jasbir Singh Jhumat and Pardeep Singh Jhumat, have declined to comment throughout. However, another staff member told the they planned to evict more of the families and sell their flats in the future, depending on how well the properties sold.
Amazon and Morrisons tie-up: a customer's guide What will Amazon sell? Amazon will offer customers hundreds of Morrisons products through its existing services, including fresh, frozen and chilled foods. Amazon will be able to choose which Morrisons products it sells and their price because the agreement is a standard wholesale deal between a retailer, Amazon, and a supplier, Morrisons. Amazon is unlikely to undercut Morrisons’ prices dramatically, however, because the supermarket chain could choose to pull out of the deal. The full list of products has not been released but Amazon says it will include orange juice, chocolate, spaghetti and soup. When will Morrisons products be available on Amazon? The partnership will start within the “coming months”. Do I need to switch from Morrisons.com to Amazon? No. Morrisons online service and supermarket will not be affected. Will Morrisons products be available nationwide on Amazon? Yes, although one-hour deliveries through Prime Now are currently available only in London, Birmingham, Newcastle, Manchester and Liverpool. Will I be able to buy Morrisons products as part of a wider shop on Amazon including other brands? Yes, Morrisons products will appear on Amazon in the same way that thousands of other brands do. Why has Morrisons signed up with a rival retailer? Amazon offers Morrisons another way to sell its products. Morrisons is one of the country’s biggest food manufacturers, producing much of its own-brand food. Its factories have empty capacity after the company closed shops, so this is a way to utilise them more effectively. Amazon is growing quickly in the grocery market and has powerful ambitions, with or without Morrisons, so this gives the Bradford-based retailer a way to benefit from its growth.
Paul McCartney strikes out to gain control of his share of the Beatles catalogue Paul McCartney has begun the process of regaining control of his share of the US publishing rights in the Beatles’ catalogue. The publishing is currently owned by Sony/ATV Music Publishing, but US law allows living artists to apply to take back the right 56 years after initial publication, meaning the Lennon-McCartney catalogue becomes available in 2018. Billboard reports that McCartney began the process to taking control of his half of the Beatles publishing on 15 December 2015. Under the US copyright act of 1976, songwriter must file a claim with the copyright office two to 10 years before the 56 years elapse. McCartney filed a termination notice for 32 songs at the end of last year. However, John Lennon’s half of the publishing – all their songs were credited to Lennon-McCartney, regardless of who wrote them – will remain with Sony/ATV which reportedly made a deal with Lennon’s widow, Yoko Ono. The Beatles lost control of their publishing early on. The company Northern Songs was founded by Lennon, McCartney, their manager Brian Epstein and publisher Dick James in 1963, James, however, sold his stake to the UK firm Associated Television (ATV) in 1969, and Lennon and McCartney failed in an attempt to regain their rights. Another attempt by the music manager Allen Klein to set up a deal for the Beatles’ Apple Corps to buy out ATV also failed. Michael Jackson bought ATV Music for $47.5m (£33m) in 1985, which was reputed to have soured his friendship with McCartney, and merged his catalogue with Sony in 1995, for a payment of around £59m, resulting in the formation of Sony/ATV. In 2006, in financial trouble, Jackson struck a further deal with Sony, giving the former the right to buy his half of Sony/ATV. It was finally announced last week that the Jackson estate was to sell its 50% stake to Sony for $750m.
Elvis Costello: 10 of the best 1. Less Than Zero That Declan MacManus had been renamed Elvis Costello in the year that Elvis Presley died was merely a stroke of luck. When news filtered through that the King had died, a period of anxiety gripped the offices of the normally publicity savvy Stiff Records, though they needn’t have worried; the seemingly disrespectful timing only added to the withering persona of the new upstart and agitator they were looking to promote. Whether apocryphal or not, the tale that NME were planning on running an Elvis vs Elvis: which one is a Stiff artist? editorial before good taste prevailed makes a good story. MacManus had spent considerable time honing his act with weekly shows at the Half Moon pub in Putney for 50p and a plate of sandwiches in the mid-70s, so by the time Stiff picked him up, he was able to emerge more or less fully formed into the public’s consciousness, a man as erudite as he was angry. His first single, Less Than Zero, was fittingly vituperative, spitting venom at the British fascist leader Oswald Mosley, accusing him of engaging in incest to boot (“the song was more of a slandering fantasy than a reasoned argument,” said the author). Mosley had apparently been the subject of a then recent TV documentary in which he reminisced misty-eyed about the Blackshirts. Whether American novelist Bret Easton Ellis had a grip on 1930s British politics or not, he named his first book after the song, and also his last novel to date – the sequel – pluralising Costello’s Imperial Bedroom. Less Than Zero the single is madly catchy and slightly unhinged, and simplistic enough that it fitted in with the burgeoning DIY punk movement; more musically accomplished offerings, like the 1940s-inspired Wave a White Flag, were quietly forgotten about. 2. Radio Radio Perhaps owing more to luck than judgment, Costello assembled one of the finest bands of the late 70s and early 80s in the Attractions, who appeared for the first time on his magnificent, Clash-mimicking first hit single, Watching the Detectives. By the time recording for the album This Year’s Model came around, they were knocking off mod-stomping classics like Pump it Up and (I Don’t Want to Go to) Chelsea in one afternoon with Nick Lowe in the control booth. Another muscular anthem rescued from Elvis’s days in the virtually unheard of pre-punk band Flip City, Radio Radio, was updated in order to bite the hand that fed him. “And the radio is in the hands of such a lot of fools,” he spat, “tryin’ to anaesthetise the way you feel.” With a sharp hook, a thumping rhythm and Steve Nieve’s trademark swirly organ, the band were able to perform the song on Top of the Pops and sing the words right at presenter Tony Blackburn. The song caused further controversy in the US, when Elvis and the Attractions appeared on Saturday Night Live. Halfway through Less Than Zero the band suddenly stopped and played the prohibited Radio Radio instead. Elvis was banned for life from the show, a banishment that lasted all of 12 years. 3. Oliver’s Army Having grown up a Beatles fanatic, Costello would have been honoured and presumably ecstatic when in 1987 the call came from Paul McCartney to write with him. Perhaps Costello could have imparted some tricks to McCartney, like how to write a protest song, especially regarding British colonialism and the Irish question. Musical genius he might be, but McCartney’s Give Ireland Back to the Irish was one of the limpest musical protests in the history of song, whereas Oliver’s Army was so smart and subversive that many were unaware it was a protest song at all. They just heard the earworm on the radio, joined in with the singalong chorus and lapped up Steve Nieve’s sparkling piano part, which owes a huge debt to Abba’s Dancing Queen, and then they went out and bought it in large numbers. According to Graeme Thomson’s Costello biography, Complicated Shadows, the band had no greater expectation for the song than for it to appear as a B-side when they premiered it at the Roskilde festival in Denmark in 1978. The following year, though, it reached No 2 in the charts, only kept off the top by the Bee Gees and then by Gloria Gaynor. The line “one more widow, one less white nigger” caused little controversy at the time, though when Costello dropped the N-bomb into an argument with Stephen Stills and Bonnie Bramlett at a Holiday Inn in Ohio in March 1979 – he provoked the row, and described Ray Charles as “a blind, ignorant nigger” – it had a disastrous effect on his US popularity. Allegedly high on amphetamines and booze and out to shock, Costello refused to apologise in a press conference for his remarks (his defence at the time was a curt “I’m not a racist”, and he had indeed played Rock Against Racism gigs), but he has been contrite on plenty of occasions since, a transgression presumably high up in his list of regrets. 4. Man Out of Time Whether it was the Holiday Inn incident or just the natural process of growing up, Costello slowly unwound as the 80s gathered pace. He still unleashed unbridled scorn now and again – on Margaret Thatcher on 1989’s Tramp the Dirt Down and on Attractions bassist Bruce Thomas on 1991’s How to Be Dumb – but he also appeared to become more reflective and less confrontational. The phrase “angry young man” uses all three components for good reason, and by the time Costello came to record Imperial Bedroom with Beatles engineer Geoff Emerick in London in 1982, he was approaching 28 years old. “At the time of Imperial Bedroom, I came to terms with the fact that I was sacrificing the power of certain songs to this mad pursuit of tempo,” he later reflected. “Everything had to be delivered forcefully. I don’t know whether it was just a natural process or, literally, cumulative exhaustion of what were very intense years. Man Out of Time is the one time I said, ‘No, stop. Let’s play this at the right tempo.’” Bookended by an earlier noisier version, the song in between seemingly floats on some Dylanesque Highway 61-era Wurlitzer organ, carried along by a noirish narrative about a cabinet minister hiding out from a sex scandal. It also features the amusing rhyming couplet: “H’s got a mind like a sewer and a heart like a fridge / He stands to be insulted and he pays for the privilege.” Imperial Bedroom is for good or bad a record of maturity, with Man Out of Time the centrepiece around which everything falls. Costello sometimes overreaches, trying to accommodate too much in a song, but not here, somehow. (And when he does, well you can’t fault him for his ambition.) 5. Shipbuilding Another protest song, this time about the Falklands war, Shipbuilding made the connection between a thriving shipyard – a source of working-class pride – and the fact fathers were sending their sons to war and to their deaths. Gritty, humane and deeply moving, Shipbuilding rates as one of Costello’s best lyrics, a fact not lost on the singer himself, who declared it so on several occasions. The music was written by Clive Langer with Robert Wyatt in mind, with the latter recording released on Rough Trade in 1982. Langer also produced Costello’s version when they worked together on the patchy Punch the Clock album in 1983, the song proving to be the highlight. Costello’s version gets the nod over the Wyatt version thanks to the stunning, mournful Chet Baker trumpet solo. “Chet Baker, this wizened corpse on death’s door, strung out, just played,” said Bruce Thomas later. “He followed this bass line and played his solo, so simple, with so much soul in it. It really touched me.” 6. I Want You Artists with a certain desperation are often the ones that impress Costello the most, from Springsteen and Van Morrison to Jeff Buckley, whom he picked to perform at the Queen Elizabeth Hall when curator of Meltdown in 1995 (it was to be Buckley’s last UK performance). Perhaps Costello’s most risque and desperate (on many levels) song is I Want You, a creeping first-person narrative that takes us through a fetid, all-consuming obsession. Sung to the object of the piece, it begins with what sounds like a lullaby, before quickly turning nasty, with the verses scratched out over some dampened chords while the voice barely conceals the anger of belonging to an unwelcome suitor. Each verse becomes a little more desperate, a little more deranged, while each line begins with the words “I want you”, an emphatic refrain that becomes more and more awkward each time he utters it. “It’s knowing that he knows you now after only guessing,” he sings, horrifying and horrified. “It’s the thought of him undressing you or you undressing.” The lyrics and music together are intimately intense, like someone breathing down your own neck, making you shudder, but the melody is irresistible too. 7. Veronica If Costello was the master of smuggling dark subject matter into the charts without most people knowing what he was actually singing about (which actually annoyed him immensely), then 1989’s Veronica might well be the first top 40 hit that broached the difficult subject matter of Alzheimer’s. “She’d talk about who knows what and the next minute it’d be 40 years later,” says Costello, singing on a chair in a now vacant bedroom at the beginning of the video, “so you’d just sit there and bounce around the years with her.” The Veronica in question was his own grandmother Mabel (Veronica was her middle name), and one of his finest, most immediate choruses, becomes a heartbreaker when you scratch a little deeper. Paul McCartney has a songwriting credit on the song, and also contributed Hofner bass (the Attractions had been jettisoned for a revolving door of musicians, as well as frequent contributors such as T-Bone Burnett). The working relationship between McCartney and Costello proved fruitful, and included one album, Flowers in the Dirt, though owing to creative differences related to production, Costello was apparently unhappy with the finished product, and his contribution was eventually somewhat diminished when the record finally surfaced. 8. The Other Side of Summer In 1991 Costello recorded Mighty Like a Rose – which became known as the “beard album”, on account of the fact he grew a beard, which would have been unthinkable in the clean-shaven punk years. Costello, a former computer operator (for Elizabeth Arden in Acton, before he hit the big time), discovered the practical merits of working with computer software whilst writing Mighty Like a Rose, which may explain why so much of the album is cluttered with melodies and yet more countermelodies. On the opening track, The Other Side of Summer, it works though; the song is a sarcastic Brian Wilson pastiche, a spectacular takedown of all things LA, with Costello in biting mood. “From the foaming breakers of the poisonous surf,” he sings cheerfully, “to the burning forests in the hills of Astroturf.” There’s an environmental undercurrent too, and at the conclusion he warns: “Goodnight, God bless, and kiss goodbye to the earth.” Many of the lyrics on Mighty Like a Rose reflect apocalyptic concerns, with Hurry Down Doomsday (The Bugs Are Taking Over) coming across as just plain paranoid. Because of the clutter, the double tracking and maybe the beard, the words aren’t always the easiest to decipher, though whether meanings were conveyed or not, The Other Side of Summer is a nailed-down fantastic tune that belongs in the canon. 9. London’s Brilliant Parade Stick around for long enough in rock’n’roll and proclamations of comebacks are all but inevitable. Costello’s supposed dalliances with classical music with the Brodsky Quartet, and the album Now Ain’t the Time for Your Tears penned for Wendy James over a weekend with then partner Cait O’Riordan, had for many detracted from his main body of work. So when he was heard to be back in the studio with Nick Lowe and members of the erstwhile Attractions it was all too much for some. The reviews for Brutal Youth were positive, the “reunion” somewhat overegged, overshadowing what might be Costello’s finest work. Still Too Soon to Know, 13 Steps Lead Down, Kinder Murder, This is Hell, Sulky Girl, You Tripped at Every Step … every one is a classic. London’s Brilliant Parade gets the nod because it’s a beautifully nostalgic love letter to a city that once was, with little trace of Costello’s normally world-wearing irony or malice. The lyrics evoke the plot of a beloved old movie too: “She’s one of those girls that you just can’t place / You feel guilty desiring such an innocent face,” sings Costello, “but of course they knew that when they cast her / Along with the red Routemaster.” Glorious. 10. When I Was Cruel No 2 2002’s When I Was Cruel was supposedly another return to form, or if that wasn’t quite true, it at least resembled the Costello brand. Featuring new band the Imposters, the album also marked a new fascination with looping drumbeats, best exemplified on the epic When I Was Cruel No 2. It is an ambient seven-minute exploration that’s more trip-hop than anything else; looping ad infinitum with a ghostly woman’s voice at the end of each bar that also recalls Gainsbourg and Bardot’s Bonnie & Clyde. When I Was Cruel was released on Def Jam, and his curiosity about hip-hop culminated in a collaboration with the Roots in 2013, with mixed results. Most of the choices in this 10 of the best were selected from within the realms of rock, often at its most straightforward, because despite his obvious abilities, acerbic rock’n’roll is what Elvis Costello does best (whether he likes it or not).
RBS suffers fresh setback in Williams & Glyn spin-off plan Royal Bank of Scotland’s attempts to spin off 315 branches have received another setback after one of the highest-profile bidders pulled out. Santander, which originally had an agreement to buy the branches in 2012, has withdrawn from talks again in a blow to the latest efforts by the bailed-out bank to dispose of the branches. The 73% taxpayer-owned RBS has been instructed to spin off the branches – which it is rebranding Williams & Glyn – by the EU as a penalty for its 2008 taxpayer rescue. Lloyds Banking Group was required to sell off TSB, which after a brief period on the stock market has since been bought by Sabadell of Spain. The disposal of W&G is proving troublesome and expensive for RBS, which stunned the City last month by admitting it was abandoning its attempt to float the business on the stock market. RBS has spent £1.5bn trying to carve out the branches, largely comprising NatWest locations in Scotland and RBS outlets in England and Wales, which employ 5,500. The new branch network has been a key plank of government plans to create fresh competition on the high street. It is thought to be valued at £1.3bn. As the result of a complex deal agreed by RBS in 2013, after the first Santander talks broke down, the abandonment of the flotation means that the bailed-out bank is paying millions of pounds to a private equity consortium, which was due to back the share offering. The consortium includes the Church of England. Other possible bidders for W&G branches include the Clydesdale and Yorkshire banking group, which was sold off by National Australia Bank earlier this year. RBS and the UK arm of Santander declined to comment.
Walter Mazzarri hails Stefano Okaka after Watford rally to hold off Everton Ronald Koeman has made his reputation as a canny, pragmatic manager in the Premier League but his Everton side were made to look naive by Watford as they maximised their opportunities to take all three points. After being outplayed on the pitch, the Dutchman failed to cover himself in glory after the match either. Rightly furious at his team letting a 1-0 lead become a 3-1 deficit before Romelu Lukaku’s second restored a sheen of credibility, he described his team as “reactive, not proactive”. But he also saw fit to criticise, more than once, his opponents’ style of play. Walter Mazzarri smiled when he heard that the Dutchman had described his team as “direct and aggressive”. Yes, his side had scored twice from set pieces, and yes the move that led to their opening goal had begun with a long ball from the back. But Mazzarri knew what had happened on the pitch, and Watford had been better in every department. “Each person has his opinion, luckily we all have eyes to see,” the Italian said through his interpreter. “I think you have all seen who played better today, who played good football. Every person has an opinion, but I don’t agree with him.” Watford’s star performer was Stefano Okaka. The striker arrived from Anderlecht in the summer for an undisclosed fee but his season has been disrupted by injury. This was only his second start of the season, his first came last week, but he looked anything but rusty as he pirouetted to score Watford’s equaliser in the 36th minute. After Sebastian Prödl gave Watford the lead with a towering header in the 59th minute, Okaka produced one of his own four minutes later. He lost his marker to meet José Holebas’s corner at the near post and flick the ball past Maarten Stekelenburg. The Italian was withdrawn late on to a standing ovation. “I’ve known him since he was very young and playing for Roma, he’s a great talent,” said Mazzari, who gave the striker a bear hug after his opening goal. “We had the opportunity to sign him in the summer and we took it. He is perfect for the Premier League because he doesn’t only help himself but helps his team-mates to play well and score.” Where Everton would have been without their own two-goal striker is anyone’s guess. Lukaku opened the scoring when he coolly finished off Gareth Barry’s wonderful long ball, ironically Everton’s best pass of the game. The Belgian closed it out with a surefire header from the substitute Aaron Lennon’s cross. In between times, however, he was largely marooned, waiting hopefully for crosses that rarely came. After criticising Ross Barkley’s lack of productivity during the week, Koeman once again left the England international on the bench. His replacement, James McCarthy, looked entirely at sea in a nominal No10 role. Gerard Deulofeu tried hard on the right-hand side, while Kevin Mirallas was anonymous on the left. And these are the players who apparently make Everton more of a footballing side than their opponents. “The Premier League is not always about football qualities, it’s about physicality, about second balls and in that respect the team is too weak,” Koeman said. “We have too much to do when teams like this play direct and aggressive. “We have different players, different qualities but in that aspect we have to improve and do better. You can’t change that in two weeks. You need January, you need the summer to change what you need as a team. We need a better balance.” Everton had a late penalty appeal when Miguel Britos manhandled the substitute Enner Valencia to prevent him jumping for a cross but Watford now sit in the top half of the table, with Mazzarri about to get his first experience of the Premier League Christmas period. “In Italy we don’t have games so close at Christmas but I’m not worried about it,” Mazzarri said. “All I’m worried about is that my squad is not fully fit. If we had the complete squad I’d be very happy.”
HSBC's gunboat diplomacy worked well. Too well Spring 2015 HSBC announces during the general election campaign that it is thinking about moving its global HQ from London to Kong Kong, citing unhappiness about City regulation in general and George Osborne’s bank levy in particular. Summer 2015 Newly reappointed chancellor in a majority Conservative government, Osborne announces he is going to reform the bank levy in a way that makes it less onerous for HSBC. The chancellor says it is time for a new settlement with the City, and demonstrates what that means by getting rid of Martin Wheatley as chief executive of the Financial Conduct Authority. Wheatley’s crime? Being too tough on the banks. February 2016 HSBC announces that, following an exhaustive, bottom-up review, it has decided to remain domiciled in London. The bank’s chairman, Douglas Flint, insists there was no deal with the government; no arm-twisting from an institution that is one of the biggest companies quoted on the FTSE 100; certainly not a gigantic game of bluff. Three big questions arise from the HSBC decision. The first is whether the bank ever really intended to leave the UK. As Andre Spicer of the Cass Business School notes, the assumption that multinational corporations are footloose and fancy free doesn’t really square with the facts. Between 1996 and 2006, a decade that could be argued was the high point of globalisation, only 6% of multinationals moved their HQ. London is a good place for an international bank to be domiciled. The time zone is right, a dense network of support services is available, and executives feel at home. It would probably have taken more than a gripe about the bank levy and unhappiness about Wheatley’s “shoot first, ask questions later” approach to have prompted HSBC to uproot. The second question is whether, in the light of that, Osborne paid too high a price to keep HSBC here. The answer to that is that he did. The changes have resulted in the tax burden being shifted to the new challenger banks which are meant to be providing much-needed competition to the high street big four, leaving weaker oversight of the financial system. Osborne may live to regret this if the gyrations in the markets really do portend a re-run of 2008. Finally, what does this episode say about the power of the banks? Quite a lot. HSBC was founded in 1865, a year that coincided with the death of Lord Palmerston, famed as foreign secretary for his gunboat diplomacy. Flint sailed his gunboat up the Thames from Canary Wharf and moored it within sight of the Palace of Westminster. There didn’t need to be any negotiation. Osborne got the message.
Is pessimism really bad for you? The glass can be half-full, or it can be half-empty, depending on your outlook on life – or on which side of the bed you get out of any particular morning. But can optimism or indeed pessimism really affect your health? It’s been a bone of contention for many years, and the issue has spawned a plethora of self-help guides on how to be “positive”, especially in the face of serious illness. But the scientific evidence in support of a sunny disposition is contentious, contradictory and controversial. The latest study comes from Finland, a land not noted for its joie de vivre. The conclusion of this research, published last week in BMC Public Health, found that pessimism was associated with an increased risk of death from coronary heart disease. Of the 121 Finnish men and women who had died from coronary heart disease during the study’s 11-year follow-up period – out of 2,267 participants – the researchers found a significant preponderance of pessimism when the study began. Comparing the higher and lower quartiles (the top and bottom 25%), people in the higher quartile for pessimism had a 2.2-fold higher risk of dying from heart disease than those in the lower quartile. It seemed to support the idea that optimism is good for you. But hang on. There was a catch – because the researchers also looked at optimism in the same group of middle-aged Finns and failed to find any association with a decreased risk of coronary heart disease. So what’s going on? Well, one of the problems in previous studies on optimism and pessimism is that the two attitudes have been treated much like opposite ends of the same emotional spectrum. This produced conflicting results, according to the researchers, led by Mikko Pankalainen, a psychiatrist at the Paijat-Hame hospital in Lahti, southern Finland. “People should not be categorised as optimists or pessimists,” the researchers concluded. “Pessimism seems to be quite a significant risk factor for death from coronary heart disease both in men and women, while optimism does not protect from it.” It is not the first time that pessimism has been linked with ill health, although this study claims to be the first to link it negatively with coronary heart disease. “High levels of pessimism have previously been linked to factors that affect cardiac death, such as inflammation, but data on the connection between risk of death from coronary heart disease and optimism and pessimism as personality traits are relatively scarce,” Pankalainen said. But it must be emphasised that these studies only point to an association, rather than cause and effect. None can claim to show that being pessimistic actually causes someone to die prematurely. Levels of pessimism could be measured “quite easily”, Pankalainen said, by asking people to respond to a series of gloomy statements, such as “if something can go wrong for me, it will”. Measuring optimism, on the other hand, relied on responses to statements such as “in uncertain times, I usually expect the best”. When they carried out the statistical analysis on the two sets of outlooks, the researchers found no link between risk of heart deaths and optimism. This runs contrary to a previous study of optimism, published in Stroke: Journal of the American Heart Association in 2011. It measured optimism levels on a 16-point scale in a “representative group” of just over 6,000 men and women and found that for every point increase in optimism, there was a corresponding 9% decrease in acute strokes over the two-year follow-up period. “Our work suggests that people who expect the best things in life actively take steps to promote health,” lead author Eric Kim of the University of Michigan said at the time. “Optimism seems to have a swift impact on stroke.” So the suggestion here was that optimistic people tended to look after themselves better than pessimistic individuals – so they perhaps had better diets and exercised more. However, there are no shortage of claims that optimism can also have a physical effect on the body by, for instance, boosting the immune system. One such study carried out on 124 law students in the US in 2010 showed how the immune response waxed and waned depending on a person’s optimism or pessimism. Although there seems no getting away from the fact that most studies show that being optimistic can increase the chances of surviving with cancer, or improve the wellbeing of those with neurodegenerative conditions such as Parkinson’s, the optimists do not always have it all their own way. At least one study has shown that older people with an optimistic outlook on life were more likely than pessimists to suffer disability and death within the following decade. Being grumpy when you are old may actually pay off. And if you are a glass-half-empty person desperately trying to see it as half-full for the sake of your health, there is bad news from yet another study carried out in 2006, showing that we learn to be positive or negative in childhood. And one of the best ways of predicting a person’s optimism turns out to be whether they were raised in a family where the parents were of a high socioeconomic status. Who said money isn’t everything?
Did arthouse horror hit The Witch trick mainstream US audiences? Critically acclaimed horror film The Witch broke out from the arthouse circuit at the weekend and became a surprise hit with mainstream audiences, making $8.4m (£6m) from a budget of just $1m. Good news all round, huh? Well, certainly for indie distributors A24, who have previously had relatively small successes with Ex Machina and Room. The opening was the biggest they’ve ever had and its screen average was second only to Deadpool in the Top 10. Also for critics, who had championed the film since it screened at last year’s Sundance and whose words had graced the film’s haunting marketing campaign. But there was one important group who walked away feeling cheated: the audience. While The Witch landed with almost universally positive reviews (it’s at 88% on Rotten Tomatoes), most came with an important caveat. Yes, the film, a 17th-century-set tale of alleged witchcraft and mass hysteria, has been called “unsettling” and “chilling” but it’s also been referred to as difficult. The ’s Jordan Hoffman said that it was “too slow and verbose to become the next breakout horror hit”, while the New Yorker’s Anthony Lane said audiences will “rightly ask if The Witch even deserves to be called a horror flick”. Due to the more cerebral nature of the film, A24’s original plan was to give it a limited theatrical run, accompanied by a simultaneous VOD release, in what has become a more standard strategy for films of this size. But, given the film’s easy-to-market title, a range of excitable reviews and the fact that horror films are still reliable money-makers, their plan shifted and an arthouse pic was suddenly being offered up alongside Deadpool in more than 2,000 US cinemas. It was also a smartly picked weekend with just under-the-radar titles such as faith-based epic Risen and sports biopic Race to compete with. After Thursday previews, A24 knew their gamble had paid off with a $630k start, implying a weekend total of $16m. But word of mouth soon spread and the film ended with half that – admirable for a film of this scale but it was already a victim of thwarted expectations. Opening-night audiences were surveyed and it received a disappointing C- grade via Cinemascore, a company that specialises in gauging the opinion of cinemagoers. The reaction on social media was similarly underwhelmed. Horror is one of the few genres that manages to draw crowds in without having to rely on big stars and brand awareness. This year alone, films with similarly opaque titles such as The Boy and The Forest have managed decent totals ($33m and $26m) from small budgets. The majority of audiences weren’t going to see The Witch because they loved Kate Dickie in Red Road; they were hoping to be scared. But it’s not the first horror film to have pleased critics but frustrated the masses: The Blair Witch Project (Rotten Tomatoes: 86%, Cinemascore: C+) The Cabin in the Woods (Rotten Tomatoes: 92%, Cinemascore: C) Let Me In (Rotten Tomatoes: 88%, Cinemascore: C+) Oculus (Rotten Tomatoes: 73%, Cinemascore: C) Piranha 3D (Rotten Tomatoes: 73%, Cinemascore: C) The Mist (Rotten Tomatoes: 73%, Cinemascore: C) Even for those who shell out for tickets, horror is incredibly divisive. If a film is too gory or too nasty then it can offend (both Wolf Creek and Saw received an F), while if you leave audiences scared but depressed they will also be unhappy (even hits like Sinister and The Purge could only manage a C+ and a C). But what audiences hate the most is feeling cheated. In 2012, low-budget horror The Devil Inside came out of nowhere to make a remarkable $33m in its opening weekend but the crowds turned against it with a toxic F rating and a second week decline of 76%. Why? The film ends with an unresolved incident and a URL directing viewers to find out more information. Hardly going to lead to ringing endorsements all round ... But while audiences might have headed to see a new film called The Witch and expected to see something far more conventional, can distributors A24 really be to blame? What’s interesting about the film’s relative success is that the marketing campaign was fairly muted and mainly digitally focused. The film’s TV spots were surprisingly restrained and artful, refraining from pushing it as something it clearly wasn’t. Any expectations were based on what one might expect from a horror film being released on such a wide scale, rather than what the film was sold as. While it’s likely that the film will suffer in its second week, it’s of little consequence. A small budget and a cheap marketing spend mean that the film is already in profit. It’s also pleased critics that a horror film of this quality is being seen by so many people, having already outgrossed other recent favourite The Babadook and likely to eclipse It Follows within the next week. The genre is, quite fairly, still maligned by most, with cookie-cutter dross dumped in cinemas month after month (The Boy and The Forest managed 30% and 10% on Rotten Tomatoes). It might also lead to other small distributors rethinking release strategies for modest genre fare, ideally titles that start with “The” followed by a creepy word. So, while the social media fury may still continue (“The witch was the worst movie fucking made mad I wasted my money on that shit”), the scariest thing for many fans is that they might end up watching other films that don’t conform to their expectations and one day – gasp – they might actually start enjoying them.
The 50 best films of 2016 in the UK: No 7 Little Men Ira Sachs’s Little Men is a beautifully acted generational drama, a coming of age, boy’s own story of lost friendship and a pessimistic satire about gentrification – all composed with scrupulous observational care. Greg Kinnear and Jennifer Ehle play Brian and Kathy, a decent if somewhat self-pitying guy and his wife. Brian is an actor whose career is dying, and when he inherits a property in Brooklyn from his late father there is a chance for some real financial stability. He realises he is within his rights to hike the rent being charged to the woman who has a dress shop in the downstairs apartment. But the exquisitely painful problem – quite aside from their liberal middle-class embarrassment at needing or wanting to do this – is that the woman’s son has befriended their son, and saved him from loneliness. Brian and Kathy actually owe this woman a lot. But Brian also owes something to his sister, who has her own money worries, and they overwhelmingly feel that they owe themselves a fair bit as well. It is an agonising anatomy of divided loyalties, made much more poignant and real by the lovely performances of Michael Barbieri and Theo Taplitz as the two teenagers whose friendship continues alongside, or above, the adults’ undignified wrangling over money. There is something quietly and intimately tragic about how this relationship pans out, and their final scene together is haunting. The 50 best films of 2016 in the UK
How to blag a job in finance: buy some black shoes and ​talk like an aristocrat There’s supposed to be a war for talent. If so, it became pretty clear last week why Britain’s investment banks are losing it. The recruitment filter, revealed in a report from the Social Mobility Commission, works like this: you can only join the customer-facing part of an investment bank if you went to one of four public schools; got a first from one of five universities; and possess “sheen”. Yes, sheen. And polish. No matter how good you are, if your tie is not right or your suit does not fit like a glove, you are destined to take your excellence somewhere else. Little wonder, then, that the world of investment banking suffers from group-think on a scale that crashed the world markets in 2008 and has led to wave after wave of fines for fraudulent behaviour. Given that the signifiers are so clear and obvious, how would you scam your way in? How would you hoodwink the informal process based on “specific behaviours, speech patterns and dress codes”? Unwittingly, the commission’s report provides plenty of clues. First, the obvious don’ts. No beards. Not Muslim ones, not hipster ones, not the stubble worn by movie stars. None. One of the clearest demographic faultlines in the world runs along White Kennett Street, in east London – where the beards of hipsterland begin and the twice-shaven faces of the City end. Also, no brown shoes. In fact, the brown-shoes thing, plus numerous other faux-pas, can be easily avoided by reading GQ magazine. But buy the British edition because if you read the Italian one you are going to arrive in the wrong kind of suit, shoes and – very important, this – socks. I once met a management whizz-kid thrown out of his City internship for wearing plaid socks. You need the haircut, the suit, the shoes, the tie. They are all – like the outmoded economic theories you will have to waffle on about – available as a job lot in and around Savile Row. The suit has to be blue or grey. Sure, you will see electric-blue suits, or pinstripes, on the streets of the Square Mile, but don’t try to pull this off unless your family’s yacht has a helicopter pad. Shoes have to be black leather and click as you strut along a corridor, shutting down venerated retail chains by text message. The bankers surveyed were disdainful of people who “can’t wear a suit”. To their jaundiced eyes, this means you have bought a suit off the peg, and cannot afford six grand to have one made that immobilises you at the armpits and makes your bum look like that of a figure skater. The haircut has to be bouffant. One of the surest signs you have walked into a workplace that recruits only from the elite is that the haircuts do not change. Neat back and sides, big bouffant quiff, no gel, no wax, no putty. These are the marks of convicts or advertising men, not the front-office banker. All this is fakeable, with money, practice, a willing tailor and obedient hair. But then you need to open your mouth to speak. Take careful note of what’s happening to the “posh” English accent. It is no longer enough to have the calm, fruitily inflected RP common among barristers. More fashionable now is the “Rees-Mogg” – a throwback to the accent of the aristocracy in the 1920s, where the consonant “r” migrates slightly towards “w” and even spontaneous utterances sound like they have been written by Michael Gove. This is achievable with practice. Next you need subject matter. The Laffer curve, which attempts to illustrate that taxing the rich is futile, is a good thing to talk about. Also the work of any fashionably rightwing African economist. And Venezuela. If in doubt, diss Venezuela. But – and this is critical – you must understand that words are not the primary medium of communication. If you are going organise a team to fix Libor, you don’t say “let’s fix Libor”. You use subtle understatements, allusions, metaphors, sentences that trail off, eyebrows that curl independently. To learn this you have to hang around in places like St Moritz, and not just for a single season. As to the CV, you must make it up. The four spring internships claimed by elite candidates in their first year at university (the new normal according to the report) come in limited supply. Apart from the sons and daughters of the bankers themselves, most other places will be reserved for the offspring of Arab despots and Russian crooks. And if you are proud of having climbed in Glencoe on your Duke of Edinburgh award, be aware that’s not good enough. You must have, at the very least, discovered a new species in the Amazon while in the lower sixth, or still better, a new tribe. You must have proof of this on Facebook and Instagram. Also references from Nobel prize-winning economists. Fortunately, it’s all fakeable. But here comes the unfakeable part. You must go into that interview not just with a tie from Ede & Ravenscroft and shoes from Lobb. You must go in believing that it is the duty of high finance to avoid tax, rewrite the law of sovereign states, enrich dictators, boost inequality and – in return – voluntarily clean up litter in Haringey on the annual away day. Above all, you must subscribe to the efficient-markets hypothesis so unequivocally that it becomes your religion. This says it’s the job of the financial market to allocate capital efficiently. Centuries of good practice show that capital can only be allocated efficiently when the participants in the deal played rugby with each other at the age of 12.
God's Not Dead 2 review – only brief instances of transcendent badness When conversation turns to the entertainment value of the recent “faith-based” films aimed at the US evangelical market, inevitably someone will say: “Nothing tops that Kevin Sorbo one.” The picture in question is God’s Not Dead, an outrageously slapdash, inarticulate movie filled with ludicrous plotting, inelegant staging and one of cinema’s most absurd endings. (The big bad atheist gets hit by a car, just as the Christian rock band Newsboys tells everyone in the audience to text their friends that God isn’t dead.) Shot for only $2m, it grossed more than $60m, enabling its production company, Pure Flix, to release follow-ups such as Do You Believe? and Faith of Our Fathers. But franchises are the thing right now, so it’s not surprising that Pure Flix’s most bankable title would rise again. God’s Not Dead 2 is a much better movie than God’s Not Dead, but that’s a bit like saying a glass of milk left on the table hasn’t curdled and is merely sour. Though the main characters are different, a few of the side players have returned, and once again the big villain is academia – in this case a high school where Grace Wesley (Melissa Joan Hart), a very nice teacher and woman of faith, accidentally trips up and quotes scripture to her students. No reasonable person would ever accuse her of proselytising, but a conversation in her history class on the nonviolence of Gandhi and Dr Martin Luther King also touches upon the teachings of Christ. Wesley specifically says “the author of the Gospels attributes Jesus as saying ...”, but in the paranoid world of Harold Cronk’s film, it’s enough to open up the fires of damnation. Soon (ridiculously soon, if you know how the legal system works, but let’s not get into that) Grace Wesley is on trial. But what is really on trial here? It’s an obvious question, but in case you don’t ask it, you’ll be prompted by a reporter seated in the courtroom who whips out her notebook and writes “What’s really on trial here?” in big letters. It’s that type of movie. She is not just any reporter – she is the liberal blogger from the first God’s Not Dead, Amy (Trisha LaFache), who had advanced cancer but, after meeting the Newsboys, accepted Jesus and is now cured. (No mention is given to the advances of medical science.) The other big connection to the first God’s Not Dead is that one of the jurors is the earlier film’s Pastor Dave (played by Pure Flix’s co-founder David AR White), whose scruffy blonde hair and worldly luck have just enough of that Jesus-is-just-alright-with-me vibe to make him extremely likable. Pastor Dave is calm, welcoming and warm, which is why it’s a bit surprising when God’s Not Dead 2 gets so belligerent in the face of perceived persecution. Dave and other local preachers are forced to turn in copies of their recent sermons to the authorities, “just like in Houston”. This is a reference to a one-off, highly localised subpoena in a 2014 investigation into tax-exempt institutions violating civil rights, that was quickly rescinded. . That context isn’t discussed here. Instead, it’s like Roman times: there is a war over belief, and it is going to take sacrifice to win it. But much like the script of God’s Not Dead 2, we’re letting tangents distract us from the primary story: the trial. Ray Wise practically has a serpent’s tongue as the sleazy American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who wants to destroy this nice, blonde, cardigan-wearing teacher who lives with her ill father (Pat Boone!) and just wants to serve God. There are a number of witness-stand showdowns, such as with the daughter of the atheist parents leading the suit (who has since found Jesus – whoopsie!), and with the scholars who cite theories such as the “unintended eyewitness support system” to “prove” that Jesus’s words were true. (Also, keep your ears open for plugs of Man Myth Messiah, the latest book by Rice Broocks, Pure Flix’s inhouse scribe.) For those looking to get riled up about how evil trends such as diversity are preventing people from believing in Jesus, there’s more than enough red meat in God’s Not Dead 2. For those looking to howl at wretched acting like in Kevin Sorbo’s death scene in the last one, alas, the sequel is a bit of a disappointment. It is unfortunately just professional enough that there are only brief instances of transcendent badness, rather than drawn-out sequences. Instead of a lengthy cameo from a member of the Duck Dynasty clan there is a brief talking-head moment from Mike Huckabee, and the most urgent speechifying here can’t hold a candle to anything in last summer’s surprise hit War Room in terms of church kitsch. The trial scenes go on forever, but despite the two-hour run time, it’s worth staying to the very end. Pure Flix has learned from Marvel, and a post-credits stinger tees up God’s Not Dead 3, whether we’ve prayed for it or not.
Garry Marshall: a genuine mensch who made everything improbably joyous Even if Garry Marshall had put down his pen and stopped working entirely at the end of the 1970s, his career would still be hailed today with the cliche of legendary and his death would still feel as if it marked the similarly cliched end of an era. After working as a joke writer for comedians such as Joey Bishop and Jack Paar (whose names alone are as redolent of mid-20th-century America as an Edsel), he smoothly moved into TV production. In a near unrivalled run, he created The Odd Couple, Happy Days, Laverne & Shirley and Mork & Mindy, thereby helping to launch the careers of Ron Howard (who had been a child actor, but became an adult star after Happy Days), Henry Winkler, his sister, Penny Marshall, and, most of all, Robin Williams. It is almost impossible to imagine the world of 70s American television without Marshall. But Marshall, a cheerful workaholic, didn’t stop there. In the 80s and 90s, he branched out into movies, making two of the most beloved staples of girls’ nights in: Bette Midler’s schlocky celebration of female friendship, Beaches, and Pretty Woman, a film as bizarre for its sexual politics as it is irresistible. The 1987 film Overboard, in which a working-class handyman (Kurt Russell) tricks an amnesiac wealthy woman (Goldie Hawn) into being his wife, had an even more deranged storyline than Pretty Woman. Yet both exemplify Marshall’s lucrative skill at taking the most unlikely material and, with his light and jaunty touch, turning it into something improbably joyous. One of his earlier and best movies, 1984’s The Flamingo Kid, starring Matt Dillon and Héctor Elizondo, about a working-class boy who becomes enamoured of the wealthy lifestyles of the people whose towels he cleans at a posh beach club, took the grit of class angst and turned it into a pearl of a coming-of-age film. After establishing with Pretty Woman that the 90s would be the decade of big-budget romcoms, Marshall cannily followed his own trend. Runaway Bride was released in 1999, followed by The Princess Diaries in 2001, a movie that sensed the imminent Disney princess obsession. He was also a welcome presence as an actor, and it was always a thrill to hear his chewy Bronx accent on-screen, whether with a recurring role in the 90s TV show Murphy Brown, or a charming cameo, such as in Penny’s A League of Their Own in 1992. He maintained a wide-eyed eagerness to know what was hot with the kids up to the end, and recently appeared in cult TV shows Brooklyn Nine-Nine and BoJack Horseman. Marshall’s holiday-themed movies, Valentine’s Day, New Year’s Eve and Mother’s Day, have been mocked by everyone from film critics to Tina Fey. But the public liked them, and that’s all he ever cared about. The last of these came out this summer, starring Julia Roberts – his original Pretty Woman – because, even at the age of 81, Marshall just wanted to make people laugh. His memoirs, Wake Me When It’s Funny and My Happy Days in Hollywood, about his professional life and his 53-year marriage to Barbara and their three children, proved that Marshall was, as those who watched his work had long suspected, that rare thing: a Hollywood legend who was also a genuine mensch.
Brains and bone saws: a day with the chief medical examiner of New York City The smell in the autopsy room is indescribable. It lingers on your clothes and in your hair long after you leave. Staff are constantly cleaning the linoleum floors and wiping down every surface with harsh disinfectants. But if anything, it adds to the uniquely acrid odor. You never get used to the smell, says Jennifer Hammers, deputy chief medical examiner for Kings County, New York – but you do get beyond it. I’ve been allowed a privileged glimpse at a regular Wednesday in the Brooklyn office of the Chief Medical Examiner of New York City. The office is one of the busiest of its kind in the country. Around 70,000 people die in New York City each year, and about 8,000-9,000 of them end up at the medical examiner, requiring further investigation. Of those, 5,000 are autopsied. Only the lonely In the basement, the staff are hard at work in the autopsy suite, carefully examining the bodies and photographing relevant organs for their reports. Most cases brought to the medical examiner are not crime related. In a city of over 8 million people, with many immigrants and transplants from other parts of the country, there is no shortage of the lonely. Of the seven bodies brought in today, three have died alone in their apartments. In the summer, without air conditioning, it can take as little as two days before the smell of a body causes neighbors to make a call. One gentleman found alone in his home is now lying before me on a steel gurney. James Daniels, a lead forensic mortuary technician, is carefully removing the scalp before cutting the skull with a bone saw so the brain can be examined for any signs of aneurysm, stroke or other potential causes of death. Over 60 forensic mortuary technicians like Daniels work in New York City. While the 31 medical examiners in New York City are all highly trained physicians who completed special fellowships, technicians don’t have any educational requirements. Typically, technicians join when they are young and only have a high school education. They learn the intricacies of their job on site. Without them, the office would cease to function. They are the ones dispatched to collect the bodies for autopsy. They are often the first people from the office a family encounters when grieving. Being the doctor’s doctor In addition to the medical examiners, there are x-ray technicians who scan for bullets and broken bones; DNA and toxicology laboratory staff; consulting dentists for matching dental records for identification; anthropologists who specialize in discovering the race, age and height of skeletal remains and figuring out what tools caused blunt force traumas; mortuary technicians who assist with autopsies; a variety of administrators; death scene investigators; and professional photographers who take careful photos of every autopsy for detailed record keeping. One of the photographers on staff also takes professional photos of food, Hammers tells me with a smile. While the doctors examine the body and determine the cause of death, the technicians do a lot of careful and very skilled cutting to assist them. They also clean the bodies after the autopsy is completed, making sure that it is in a pristine state when handed over to a funeral director. For Daniels, who started with the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner as a young man in 1989, it was an unexpected career choice, as he hated the idea of being around dead bodies and avoided funerals entirely. Most of the medical examiners, on the other hand, said they always loved the idea of solving a mystery, of being “the doctor’s doctor”. They wanted to be the ones to determine the real cause of a death or diagnose a pathology. Daniels had a more pragmatic reason for joining the office: he needed a job, and working for the city meant stable employment. When he first started, he dreaded touching bodies and entering strangers’ homes. It was fear of the unknown, he explains. But these days, working as a lead technician, there is little left unknown when it comes to the dead. Daniels was on the job during 9/11. He also responded to Flight 587, which crashed in Queens in November 2001, killing everyone on board. That time created his worst memories of the job. But it also gave him the greatest sense of the work’s importance: none of those families would otherwise have had closure. He now “loves the job”, he says. The case that hits home No matter how long they have been working at the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, and how many bodies they have seen, everyone has a case that hits home. For Barbara Sampson, the chief medical examiner for New York City, it was a 9/11 case. The terror attack on 9/11, which Sampson refers to as the biggest homicide in US history, was a difficult time for all of the staff at the office. They worked round the clock to identify bodies, and the images they saw still haunt most of them fifteen years later. Identification often had to be done from DNA analysis of fragments of remains and is still ongoing as new DNA techniques are discovered. One particular case sticks out for Sampson: a Belgian man who died during the collapse of the World Trade Center towers. His parents were elderly, and while they knew that he had died, without official scientific confirmation, they could not get closure. His remains had not been identified. They were afraid they would pass away never having his death confirmed. Two years ago, Sampson’s office was able to identify the Belgian man’s remains through DNA analysis. “I had the honor of telling them we had found their son. That was one of the most incredible experiences of my life,” she says. Thirteen years after 9/11, the parents could finally put their son to rest. For Aglae Charlot, an elegant senior medical examiner with a pronounced French accent who has worked at the office since 1987, it was a teenage girl who came in a few years back. The girl died in the hospital of an unusual illness, from which her mother also suffered. The illness can be idiopathic or caused by Aids. The hospital had assumed it was idiopathic since the mother had the same illness. When Charlot investigated, she found the teenager did actually have Aids, which she must have been suffering from for five or six years. Upon further investigation, she discovered the mother’s boyfriend had died of Aids. Infecting a child and causing her death is murder, she explains to me, her jaw tensing. Charlot knew she could probably trace the particular strain of Aids back to the boyfriend, but what would it change? He was dead, so could not be charged, and it would only cause more pain for the living. She put Aids as the cause of death on the certificate, and left it at that. Seeing the lighter side “We all have an odd sense of humor,” says Christopher Borck, a bearded young medical examiner sitting in front of a file cabinet covered by photos of his wife and two young children. “We are often smiling, and I think you have to when you are surrounded by this every day.” In Hammers’s office, her crooked playfulness is on display in a framed, fake blood-spattered sign above her desk that reads: “Braainns.” Humor can provide a release in an environment that is fraught with stress. “One of the things a lot of people don’t realize is that we deal with the living just as much as we deal with the dead,” says Borck. “We provide answers to families.” Much of the week is spent performing autopsies, and the rest of it filling out paperwork, testifying in court and speaking with the families of the dead. At a time when primary care physicians rarely have more than two minutes to speak with a living patient, it’s strange somehow that the medical examiners can spend hours explaining their findings to the families, comforting them and helping them deal with their grief. “Every family really wants to know what happened to their loved one and have their questions answered in order to have closure,” says Hammers. “Even if it is a hard answer like in the case of a suicide, it wouldn’t be what they prefer to hear but it allows them to have an answer and then work their grief around that and move through it.” As Borck puts it, when it comes to the deceased: “We are their last physicians.”
Malcolm Turnbull welcomes Trump plans for military buildup in Asia-Pacific Malcolm Turnbull has publicly endorsed the proposed US military buildup in the Asia-Pacific region which has been flagged by the incoming Trump administration, while launching a swingeing political attack on the federal opposition, alleging Labor is hopelessly split on the alliance. Asked on Wednesday whether he was at all concerned about talk in the US about the deployment of a giant US military force to counter China in the region, the Australian prime minister was unequivocal. He told reporters “a stronger United States means a safer world”. The reported last week two senior Trump advisers had flagged the incoming administration’s desire to expand the US navy from 274 ships to 350 and to deploy more extensively in the region to counter China’s growing assertiveness. This talk has only gathered pace post-election, with public commentary over the past 24 hours from Rudy Giuliani, who is considered the frontrunner to be the new US secretary of state, about the proposed buildup. Giuliani reportedly told a business conference China would not be able to match the US in the Pacific if the navy increased to 350 vessels. “If you face them with a military that is modern, gigantic, overwhelming and unbelievably good at conventional and asymmetric warfare, [China] may challenge it, but I doubt it,” Giuliani is reported to have said. Donald Trump also flagged his intentions during a 15-minute conversation with Turnbull immediately after his election. A more assertive US military posture in the region will likely inflame underlying tensions between Washington and Beijing, which have flared in the flashpoint of the South China Sea. On Wednesday Turnbull appeared sanguine about the development, telling reporters in Canberra Trump had “campaigned on a promise to increase investment in the US military and we support and welcome a strong United States”. “A stronger United States means a safer world,” he said. Turnbull also doubled down on domestic politics, declaring Labor was split on the US alliance after the shadow foreign minister, Penny Wong, said on Tuesday that Australia was at a “change point” in the bilateral relationship after the election of Trump. The prime minister declared that Wong wanted to cut ties with Washington, and “to move away from our most trusted, most enduring ally, move away, put our country at risk”. In a column published Tuesday, Wong did not argue that Australia should abandon the postwar alliance, but she said post-Trump: “We are at a change point, and face the possibility of a very different world and a very different America.” “Our collective task now is to carefully and dispassionately consider Australia’s foreign policy and global interests over coming months, and how best to effect these within the alliance framework.” Wong also argued Australia needed a better roadmap in Asia. Turnbull told reporters the Labor left had always been uncomfortable with the US alliance, and he contended commentary from Labor about the alliance was a distraction from internal divisions on national security and border protection. He pointed to separate commentary from the shadow defence minister, Richard Marles, who argued during a Sky News interview that it was important to have increased US presence in the region. Turnbull suggested the right faction, of which Marles is a member, was attempting to “crab walk” away from the Wong position. In Mackay the Labor leader, Bill Shorten, who has been critical of Trump’s policy positions, said he was optimistic about the future of the alliance. “We have shared values with the United States but we’re not exactly the same as the United States, so when people talk about the future of the American alliance, I’m optimistic about it, but that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t also be engaging in Asia,” Shorten said. “Labor’s always had three pillars to our foreign policy and nothing’s changed: One is the American alliance, two is deeper engagement in our region, and three is respect for multilateral institutions such as the United Nations and international forums which deal with a whole range of important issues which effect the globe.” As well as giving succour to Trump’s plans for the military buildup, the prime minister also on Wednesday gave a tacit endorsement to a criticism Trump made repeatedly during the presidential campaign about allies failing to contribute to the costs of their own defence. During the campaign, Trump suggested that key players in the Asia-Pacific region, like Japan and South Korea, needed to fund their own defence. On Wednesday Turnbull said: “I think the United States is entitled to expect its allies to make a commitment, a significant commitment, to their own defence and to that partnership, and Australia does.” “No one can suggest that my government is not absolutely committed to ensuring that the men and women of the ADF have the capabilities, have the resources, to keep our nation safe.” Earlier in the day the defence industry minister, Christopher Pyne, noted that Australia pulled its weight in the alliance in terms of military spending. “Fortunately we are not strategic bludgers because we are at 2% of gross domestic product,” Pyne said at a submarine event. “Given the spend of the Turnbull government into the next 10 years, I would imagine that will be surpassed at some stage in the future. So we are one of the countries that is pulling our weight.”
-backed John’s Campaign wins support from NHS A significant milestone has been reached by John’s Campaign, the rapidly growing project to break down institutionalised barriers in the NHS and allow carers of people with dementia who are admitted to hospital to be able to stay with them or visit them at any time. The campaign has been officially endorsed by NHS England in its newly published Commissioning for Quality and Innovation payment framework. It means a humanising change to the way hospitals respond to admissions of people with dementia – who currently occupy one in four hospital beds. From April, financial rewards will be available to healthcare providers who apply the principles espoused by John’s Campaign, which began after a powerful response by readers to an article written in 2014 by the novelist Nicci Gerrard. The piece followed the death of her father, Dr John Gerrard, who had been living well with Alzheimer’s until his admission to hospital for an unrelated condition earlier in the year. During his five-week stay, visits from his family had been severely restricted by hospital policy and his decline was catastrophic and irreversible. The public response to the feature made Gerrard and co-founder Julia Jones aware of the scale of the problem and they began John’s Campaign on 30 November 2014. There are more than 850,000 people in the UK living with dementia and as a group their experience of stays in hospital is significantly worse than other people of the same age. Julia Jones’s 92-year-old mother, June, lives with Alzheimer’s and vascular dementia, and the idea of an unsupported hospital admission for her is, said Julia, as unthinkable as it would be to expect a young child to cope alone in hospital. The campaign has had an enthusiastic response from its earliest days and to date 250 hospitals across the UK have pledged to welcome carers of people with dementia whenever the patient needs them. The campaigners are pushing to have this policy embedded nationwide. The action by NHS England has significantly moved the campaign forward by making the adoption of John’s Campaign one of the official choices available to clinical commissioning groups across the country from April. Alistair Burns, the national clinical director for dementia and mental health in older people with NHS England, said: “We would encourage hospital trusts, as part of the care they provide to individuals with dementia and their families, to consider facilitating an approach whereby the families and carers of people with dementia can support them fully while they are in hospital.” Jane Cummings, chief nursing officer for England, was an early backer of John’s Campaign, calling it “practical, achievable and representing positive practice in terms of delivering truly person-centred care for people with dementia”. “We agree that there should be open visiting rules for the carers of people with dementia,” she said, “And the evidence has shown that this is good for patients, good for carers and good for NHS staff.”
Mighty mouse: how Disney has dominated the 2016 box office So far this year, Disney’s releases have racked up nearly $2bn in domestic grosses, twice those of its closest competitor, 20th Century Fox, according to data from BoxOffice Mojo. (Those figures include ticket sales from films that opened in 2015 but were still playing in theaters into this year.) Underscoring its dominance, Disney boasts four out of the five top-grossing films to date this year, in Finding Dory ($426m), Captain America: Civil War ($406m), The Jungle Book ($360m) and Zootopia ($341m). That’s just in the US; worldwide, those four films together have taken in more than $3.75bn. Disney’s hot streak could be chalked up to the random nature of the movie business, in which studios’ fortunes tend to rise and fall from year to year. Consider that last year Universal dominated the scene mainly on the strength of a surprise mega-movie – Jurassic World, which grossed $1.7bn globally. Without a Jurassic sequel due until 2018, Universal is now languishing behind Disney, 20th Century Fox and Warner Bros, with $603m in domestic ticket sales. That accounts for about 10% market share this year compared with almost a third for Disney. But with The Secret Life of Pets grossing more than $100m in its opening weekend, Universal looks to be back in the game. There’s more to Disney’s surge this year, however, than just a fortuitous run. Its impressive box office performance is the culmination of its three big film acquisitions over the last decade: Pixar, Marvel and, most recently, Lucasfilm. With the successful reboot of the Star Wars franchise last December, Disney now has all three of its key theatrical properties – animated features, Marvel and Star Wars – going full throttle at the same time. Call it the company’s version of Murderers’ Row. “[Disney’s] acquisitions in the last couple of years have really panned out for them –Lucasfilm, Marvel and Pixar – and that’s why we’re seeing such strong numbers,” said Daniel Loría, editorial director for Boxoffice Media. “Any studio in town would be happy to have just one of them.” The studio-owning conglomerates competing with Disney aren’t just in awe. Comcast’s NBCUniversal division in April acquired DreamWorks Animation, best known for movies like Shrek and Kung Fu Panda, for $3.8bn. “Competitors recognize that content is crucial in order to operate,” noted Michael Mazzeo, an associate professor of strategy at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management who has studied Disney. “But other companies have to be careful of not just getting the leftovers.” Blue-chip franchises don’t come cheap. Disney bought Pixar, Marvel and Lucasfilm for a combined total of about $15.5bn. “They paid really high price tags for those studios,” said Mazzeo, noting it will still be years before Disney fully recoups its investment. That payoff comes not just in the form of box office receipts, of course, but through the full range of Disney’s business operations – DVD sales, merchandising, theme parks, resorts and the like, stemming from its movies, characters and other content. “Similar to the animated franchises, Disney arranged the Marvel Universe to create a series of interconnected films and product tie-ins. With the acquisition of Lucasfilm, Disney appears to be positioning the Star Wars franchise in the same manner,” wrote Morningstar equity analyst Neil Macker, in a May research note. That isn’t to say every Disney movie is a revenue gusher. Alice Through the Looking Glass, the follow-up to the 2010 hit Alice in Wonderland, flopped, taking in just over $76m to date against a production budget of $170m. The Steven Spielberg-directed BFG, which opened this month, has also disappointed. Last year’s The Good Dinosaur was a rare dud for Pixar. But the overall depth of Disney’s lineup more than makes up for the misfires. “Once you have that portfolio, as with finances, you have that balance, so that when one is up and the other is down, that reduces the variance you get,” said Mazzeo. Within animated features, for example, the rejuvenation of Walt Disney Animated Studios in recent years that’s led to huge hits such as Frozen and Zootopia can help offset the occasional Good Dinosaur. But given Disney’s increasing reliance on franchise properties, one potential pitfall is that of sequel fatigue. Will audiences simply grow numb to yet another Marvel superheroes-save-the-world extravaganza? Loría argues that as long as quality remains consistent across sequels, people will continue to show up. “If a film is able to connect with an audience, whether it’s a sequel or not, the audience will turn out,” he said. Keep in mind, the next Star Wars film, Rogue One, isn’t strictly a sequel but the first standalone entry in the series. Whether audiences find it an intriguing variation on a theme or a B-version of the real thing won’t be known until its scheduled opening in November. But if the response is anything like that to The Force Awakens, it could cap a blowout box office year for Disney.
This is not Labour MPs vs Corbyn. They’re at war with party members A swirling red mist has descended over the eyes of many Labour MPs. It is a mist that makes them blind to how their activities look to the world outside the Westminster village. If they don’t like Jeremy Corbyn (and despite their protestations to the contrary they give every appearance of not doing so) then they always had the option of a leadership challenge under the rule book. It could have been conducted in an orderly, perhaps low-key fashion, at least until parliament went into recess in just three weeks’ time. The aim would have been to try to concentrate on bringing the country together in a time of great peril after the Brexit vote. And it would have been important in these early days for the entire parliamentary party to focus on holding the Tories to account. Instead Labour MPs chose to stage a blood-stained three-ring circus. Instead of putting their energies into fighting the Tories, colleagues have been concentrating on orchestrating waves of MPs – whom no one has ever heard of – into resigning from jobs that nobody knew they had. Colleagues could have been providing leadership against the resurgent racism that so many of their constituents are terrified by. Instead Labour MPs have spent time in huddles with their fellow inhabitants of the Westminster bubble, lobby correspondents. These journalists, supposed political experts, did not see the Jeremy Corbyn phenomenon coming last summer and have never supported him. Accordingly they are now using their columns to tell him to walk away. Colleagues have contrived a “vote of no confidence” that has absolutely no basis in the rule book. There was no notice. It was tabled on Monday and the vote held the following day. No institution would run an important ballot in this way. And it was a secret ballot. All this was necessary because some Labour MPs expressly did not want any time to consult with ordinary party members. On the contrary they were terrified that their members might actually find out how they voted. Hence the haste and the secrecy. But the climax of all this was Monday’s parliamentary Labour party (PLP) meeting. MP after MP got up to attack Jeremy Corbyn in the most contemptuous terms possible, pausing only to text their abuse to journalists waiting outside. A non-Corbynista MP told me afterwards that he had never seen anything so horrible and he had felt himself reduced to tears. Nobody talked about Jeremy Corbyn’s politics. There was only one intention: to break him as a man. This attempt to hound Jeremy Corbyn out of the leadership has been planned for months and was entirely outside the rules. Blaming him for the Brexit vote was just a pretext. The truth is that Jeremy travelled thousands of miles mobilising Labour voters. Nearly two-thirds of Labour voted to remain. If David Cameron had been able to persuade a similar proportion of his Tories to vote for remain, we would still be in the EU. But colleagues went for lynch mob tactics because they didn’t actually want a leadership election with Jeremy on the ballot. Their fear is that he will win. Which brings us to the heart of the matter. This is not the PLP versus Jeremy Corbyn; this is the PLP versus the membership. It is the inhabitants of the Westminster bubble versus the ordinary men and women who make up the party in the country. Now, finally, after a hugely destructive attempt to drive Jeremy out of office, his enemies are poised to do what they have struggled to avoid. A formal leadership challenge is imminent. Hopefully the wider Labour party will now begin to leave behind the hysteria that has engulfed the PLP these past few days. Once again party members will be asked what sort of party they want to be and what sort of leadership they want. It can be imagined that they will not look kindly on those who have unleashed the utterly self-serving havoc of the past few days.
Hugh Grant awarded British Film Institute fellowship The “comic timing, ironic self-deprecating and very British charm” of Hugh Grant has been celebrated by the British Film Institute which on Tuesday evening bestowed on him its highest honour. Grant was given a BFI fellowship, following in the footsteps of British actors who include Judi Dench, Ralph Fiennes, John Hurt, Elizabeth Taylor and Sir Michael Caine. The BFI said Grant, with films such as Four Weddings and a Funeral and Notting Hill, had “redefined the British leading man for a generation”. Its chairman, Greg Dyke, said: “With impeccable comic timing and huge doses of his unique, ironic self-deprecating and very British charm, Hugh always pulls off the hardest thing of all – a seemingly effortless performance. I can assure you it’s not. “Hugh’s acting talents are prodigious and his contribution to cinema enormous. He is a British icon and has been making literally billions of people all over the world laugh, cry – and fall in love with him of course – for over 30 years.” Grant often plays down his talents as an actor and his response to the award was modest: “This is such a lovely surprise,” he said. “And a great honour and I’m very grateful to the BFI for thinking of me.” The fellowship was presented at a dinner in London by the film producer and co-chairman of Working Title, Eric Fellner. He said: “Hugh is one of those extraordinary British actors whose effortless performance and onscreen charm has endeared him to generations of audiences worldwide. “His success has helped British film as a whole carve out a place in the world with a distinct quality that easily rivals the best to come out of Hollywood and other countries. For that contribution alone he deserves this remarkable honour from the BFI.” Grant’s first major film role was, for some, one of his finest, as the handsome upper-class Englishman repressing his homosexuality in Maurice. That won him a best actor award at the Venice film festival, shared with James Wilby, who played the title role. He went on to star in Ken Russell’s Lair of the White Worm, Roman Polanski’s Bitter Moon and then, in 1994, his breakthrough role in Mike Newell’s Four Weddings and a Funeral. There have been some duds – Did You Hear About the Morgans? – but there has also been the two Bridget Jones movies and About a Boy. He will next be seen alongside Meryl Streep in Stephen Frears’ film about a deluded opera singer, Florence Foster Jenkins. More recently Grant has been vocal in his anger over phone hacking, appearing as a witness at the Leveson inquiry.
Risen review – soft-centred Easter tale In 2004, Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ became an astonishing Easter hit, depicting in horrifyingly graphic fashion the torture and crucifixion of Jesus. This “faith-based” offering from Waterworld director Kevin Reynolds picks up where Gibson’s film left off (albeit in less brutal fashion), with Joseph Fiennes’s Roman tribune Clavius investigating reports that the man whose death he witnessed has risen from the grave. It’s solidly middling fare, soft of heart and script, and given to moments of foolishly miraculous folly. Peter Firth plays Pilate as a harassed fusspot, while Cliff Curtis (so brilliant in 2014’s The Dark Horse) is beamingly benign as the resurrected “Yeshua”.
'This is not America': a Chilean artist's newly electric message to Trump “This Is Not America” declare the yellow neon letters transposed on to a glowing outline map of the United States. “This Is Not America’s Flag” reads a following pixellated sentence, as the image changes to the stars and stripes. The Chilean artist Alfredo Jaar’s billboard, named A Logo for America, was first shown in New York’s Times Square in 1987, and was remounted there in 2014. This summer, it will flash above London’s Piccadilly Circus, courtesy of the South London Gallery, as part of its exhibition of contemporary Latin American art called Under the Same Sun. Jaar’s artwork was doubtless pertinent in 1987, but now this neon message is truly electric. When Jaar created the original billboard, the relationship between the US and Latin America was a bubbling political and cultural issue. Today, that issue has reached a boiling point – becoming a hot excuse for hatred and bigotry, fear and loathing – as extreme nationalism and xenophobia are injected into the nation’s bloodstream by Donald Trump. For Trump, this IS America – and he wants to build a wall to keep it that way. Jaar’s work turns Trump’s rhetoric upside down. Who is Trump kidding? This really isn’t America. It stopped being so some time ago, and a wall won’t reverse history. What happens when his inhumane doctrines fail? Does a state that starts down a foul racist road reverse into liberalism when things don’t work out as promised – or does it accelerate towards fascism? A Logo for America turns René Magritte’s philosophical painting This Is Not a Pipe into a political provocation. The United States is not America, because America is a continent, not a single nation. That continent contains many Americas and many kinds of Americans. Rio de Janeiro is as American as apple pie. But Jaar’s statement is true in another way. As a Chilean artist based in New York, he is part of a new melting pot of the Americas, the wondrous and inevitable convergence of Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking America with Anglophone US, which cannot be reversed within any decent parameters of democratic government. More than 17% of the US population identifies as Hispanic or Latino. Spanish is the country’s second most-spoken language. This creates rich and complex cultural connections between the country that calls itself America and the American continent it is part of. It is not outrageous for Jaar to point out the fiction that America means just the US. What is shocking is Trump’s declaration of war on the rest of the continent. Liberals – and sane conservatives, for that matter – are still reeling from the monstrosity of Trump’s plan to build a wall between the US and Mexico. The truly frightening detail of his published plans is his policy of “compelling Mexico to pay for the wall”, a highly aggressive idea to blackmail Mexico into funding the venture. This does not resemble a reasonable democratic process; it is a series of ultimatums and deadlines. No one who has studied any history can fail to recognise the similarity to the kinds of ultimatums Germany issued in the 1930s. The United States is a big, generous country with lots to be proud of, and hospitality is its greatest virtue of all. Can the “America” that has engraved under its Statue of Liberty “give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free” really elect Trump as president? That is not America.
Deadpool review – crude superhero laughs “A fourth wall break inside a fourth wall break? That’s like… 16 walls.” This relentlessly self-referential antihero romp comes on like a slightly smug corporate riposte to Matthew Vaughn’s altogether more anarchic Kick-Ass, flipping the bird at its own heritage (the opening titles tell us that it’s produced by “Ass-hats” and directed by “an overpaid tool”) and cracking wise about how confusing these comic-strip timelines have become, and the cheapskate nature of the ever-expanding X-Men universe. Ryan Reynolds is the potty-mouthed avenger whose life is ruined when enforced mutation robs him of his Hugo Boss chops, leaving him looking “like Freddy Krueger face-fucked a topographical map of Utah”. Limb-lopping sweary ultra-violence ensues, offering a fairly consistent stream of dirty cheap laughs as Deadpool gets rear-ended by bullets and butt-plugs alike, while those around him lose their hearts and heads – but mostly their heads. Inevitably the final act descends into the usual punchy/smashy orgy of collapsing buildings that is a dreary franchise requirement. But for the most part it’s crudely disreputable fare, buoyed up by ironic bubblegum tunes (a Guantanamo-style torture montage to the strains of Mr Sandman is a nice touch) and driven by Viz-style “shit biscuit” profanity.
The view on the economics of Brexit: a fact-based fear Every referendum is in the end a contest between the status quo and a change. It would hardly be worth having such a vote if it were not. Britain’s European Union referendum is certainly such a contest. In this case it’s a choice between the status quo, sticking with the EU, or a change, leaving it. The Scottish referendum two years ago was the same: the status quo of the union or a change in the shape of independence. It follows from this that any referendum is inherently a contest between the risks or rewards of change. That’s why it makes no sense to dismiss a defence of the status quo – remaining in the EU in the current case – as simply a Project Fear. This is an effective insult to throw at defenders of the status quo – as happened in Scotland – but ultimately an insult is all that it is. Defenders of the status quo are bound to emphasise the risk of change as part of their case. Sometimes it shows good judgment to warn. Sometimes it is wise, sensible and responsible to remind people to be fearful. Sometimes those who scream about Project Fear at every turn prove only that they are in denial about reality. Two months before polling day, and with public opinion too evenly divided for comfort, Britain’s EU referendum has now reached such a point. It is time to get serious about defending Britain’s place in Europe. There are many positive reasons – prominent among them strength in numbers, shared values, mutual protection and avoidance of war – why Britain should remain in the EU. They are a fundamental part of the case for remaining. They could and should help make an essential and inspiring case. But there are also a lot of real dangers to leaving, and these dangers need to be voiced loudly, repeatedly and without apology too. The Treasury is entirely right to make those dangers as clear as it can. It would be failing in its task if it did anything else. On Monday it published a very substantial assessment of the long-term economic impact of the different courses on which Britain will vote on 23 June. The bottom line is simply that Britain will be very significantly worse off as a country if it leaves the EU. The Treasury assessment concludes that economic slowdown following a Brexit and a new trading relationship with Europe would amount to the loss of £36bn in tax receipts. To recoup that would require an 8p rise on the basic rate of income tax or a 7p rise in VAT. Some of the figures in the Treasury document, those that relate to the state of the economy in 15 or 20 years, will prove to be wrong. But the general picture allows no get-out. Britain will be worse off leaving Europe. Short-term dislocation and long-term damage would be inevitable consequences. And those at the bottom of the economic ladder would suffer them most. It won’t do to dismiss the assessment as deeply flawed, as the leave campaign did on Monday, let alone to call such warnings “baloney” as London’s mayor did in March. Responses of this sort are not serious. But they are the ones the leave campaign always prefers. The leavers seem incapable of saying in practical terms what their vision for Brexit Britain would look like or how it would add up in figures that can be tested. The Treasury’s assessment is in line with other assessments made here or abroad. It is not scaremongering. It is a reality check. British voters have every reason to be fearful of what the leave campaign would inflict on them.
Games based on pop stars, yesterday afternoon, a bin, root canals – we review anything The contents of a bin Listen, I’ve sunk pretty low for Review Anything on occasion. For reasons I still do not fully grasp, I once reviewed a woollen ball. I reviewed pegs. Sodding clothes pegs. And yet... this. This is the lowest I’ve sunk on behalf of this feature. Rifling through bins. Here is an image of the contents I uncovered: Here is my review of those contents: The wrapper: I don’t know what this wrapper is for because finding out would mean touching it. It looks crisp, clear and presumably wrapped whatever it was wrapping ably. The tissue: I do know what these tissues are for because I put them in there roughly half an hour before this photograph was taken. The tissues were soft – Sainsbury’s Super Soft Aloe Vera, if memory serves – and smelled very fine indeed. A second wrapper (to left of image): Bananas. This definitely contained bananas. Technically, bananas already come bunched and encased within natural wrappers, so this artificial wrapper seems slightly unnecessary. I would like to add a final note: the bin I reviewed had been emptied fairly recently. Yet more proof that the ’s superlative facilities department is second to none, but not exactly conducive to a thrilling review. The bin’s contents: 4/10 The ’s facilities department: 10/10 LH Computer games based on pop stars The final clause of this suggestion is music to any time-pressed anything-reviewer’s ears, and I’m no exception. Conducting a comprehensive survey of “computer games based on pop stars” would be an actual journalistic enterprise that could potentially involve time and/or effort, so thank God I only had to look at about six pictures before extrapolating some intrinsically worthless judgment. (There was a YouTube video of the Frankie Goes To Hollywood game, but the amount of information contained therein was clearly not just superfluous, but actively contrary to Whitlock & Pope’s requirements. So that’s 22 minutes of my life I still have today.) You might think the more information you have, the easier it is to review anything: not so. In fact, information often complicates the reductive summaries every reviewer longs to write. So what observations can I make about computer games based on pop stars using the limited materials I have at my disposal? Well, the pixels are relatively large. Sometimes they are brightly coloured, sometimes they aren’t. Granted, attributing any sort of value to these observations is not that easy, but that’s why we employ a numerical system! 4/10 RA A chunk of yesterday afternoon 16.24 and all is well 16.25 I think I get a fav on a tweet about how much I hate cars. But then it disappears. 16.25 Someone’s phone goes. It has the Opening (default) ringtone. Every time I hear that ringtone now I always think of the Kanye West song 30 Hours. In that song Kanye is interrupted by the Opening (default) ringtone and he says, “It’s Gabe calling.” When I hear the Opening (default) ringtone I often say “It’s Gabe calling” under my breath. 16.30 The BBC sport website posts “Lawro’s predictions”. This week he has gone head to head with Idris “Heimdall from the Thor movies” Elba to guess the results of this weekend’s Premier League football. Elba backs my team to lose at home against Sunderland on Saturday. I make a mental black mark against his name. 16.41 I start thinking about Corbyn: The Musical, which sounds like a load of self-satisfied rubbish and was written by a barrister with the face of a Victorian pie lover. It’s apparently full of cheap jokes at both the Labour leader’s expense and also, for some reason, prominent twitter feminists. I wonder what made the pie lover feel it was necessary to bring this to the world. 16.48 I google some quotes from The Big Lebowski. 16.53 I think a bit about giraffes and how sticky their tongues are. The sun comes out. 16.54 I think about how I am peckish, but yet not hungry. I wonder what this means. I decide that I have conditioned myself to be in a constant state of need, and that this is a consequence of living in a capitalist system. 16.59 I listen to Strive by A$AP Ferg and Missy Elliott. I can’t decide whether I like it or not. 17.00 I go into a meeting about the redesign of the Guide. It goes OK, but does drag on a bit. Overall this period of time was reasonably stimulating. But the period between 21.24 and 22.17 was to prove more stimulating. 6/10 PM Some dentistry I’m not entirely sure what a root canal is. I know what a canal is and I drank root beer once (mini Review Anything of root beer: vile. -10/10), so perhaps a combination of the two? What I do know is that people who have undergone root canal treatment talk about it in tones more commonly associated with survivors of combat. “You weren’t there, man! You didn’t have to endure what I had to endure.” I’ve always assumed these people were a bit, well, soft. I mean, come on, it’s a tooth. How unpleasant can it… Oh. OH! *runs to Luke’s bin to vomit* I’m so sorry for doubting you and your kind, Chris Adams. From the expletive in your tweet, I gather this was a particularly savage root canalisation, and I hope that you can at least find some inner peace in the future. 1/10 GM Got a suggestion for next week’s Review Anything? Leave them in the comments or tweet them to @guideguardian
Five of the best… films out now in the UK 1: Green Room (18) (Jeremy Saulnier, 2015, US) 95 mins This skilled siege thriller descends into horror when Anton Yelchin, Imogen Poots and co get holed up backstage at a lawless venue in the middle of nowhere, with Patrick Stewart and his neo-Nazi attack dogs baying for their blood. Be warned: the body count gets high. 2: Everybody Wants Some!! (15) (Richard Linklater, 2016, US) 117 mins America’s official youth historian casts his mind back to college life circa 1980: a time when disco was giving way to punk and men were inclined to sport tiny shorts, cut-off sleeves and handlebar moustaches. The focus this time is the jocks for a change, a campus baseball team whose pre-term bonding rituals, skirt-chasing expeditions and incurable competitiveness make for some delightful character comedy. 3: Mustang (15) (Deniz Gamze Ergüven, 2015, Fra/Ger/Tur/Qat) 97 mins In contrast to idyllic American boyhood, Turkish girlhood is literally a form of house arrest here. Life changes overnight for five orphaned sisters: from carefree school days to a regimen of curfews, virginity inspections and arranged marriages. Seeing the fate of her elder siblings, youngest sister Lale treats the situation like a prison break, which brings a note of tension into an all-too-believable scenario. 4: Captain America: Civil War (12A) (Anthony & Joe Russo, 2016, US) 147 mins The Marvel stable lines up behind either Chris Evans’s Captain or Robert Downey Jr’s Iron Man for a superhero faceoff that lives up to expectations, and manages to touch on the real world in a way Batman v Superman didn’t. The comic-book character-packed cast makes it feel like another Avengers sequel; Avengers Disassemble, perhaps. 5: Son Of Saul (15) (László Nemes, 2015, Hun) 107 mins A Holocaust drama like no other, limiting its focus to a Jewish concentration-camp prisoner assisting the Nazis in the grimmest of tasks, while pursuing his own tragically futile agenda. We follow this stricken worker throughout, glimpsing the broader atrocities in the margins – but that is enough to communicate the full horror.
If the City has truly found humility, it can still be useful to Britain The City is in a panic. Executives at the big banks, insurers and consultancies are stressing over the implications of something they never expected to happen. There is a frayed anxiety underlying all their conversations, even though they talk about the trapdoor marked Brexit not opening for at least two years and possibly longer (some still believe it will never happen). Brexit gives Europe a chance to wrest away some of the financial functions provided by London. Worse, outside the EU, London could face extra competition from centres closer to the global centre of economic gravity, like Singapore and Hong Kong. At an event last week staged by the lobbying organisation TheCityUK, senior figures in the industry attempted to help their peers figure out what they might do next. Douglas Flint, the chairman of HSBC, had a warning for his colleagues: refrain from lobbying for the industry’s sectional interests; be very discreet; and be seen to be batting for Britain, not the City. David Sproul, boss of the accountancy firm Deloitte’s, went further. He said the City had overplayed its hand during the recovery, leaving behind people in towns like Sunderland and Hartlepool. Deloitte has apprentices with A-levels from some of the poorest districts in the country, he said, but the firm’s welcoming hand stretches only as far as London boroughs like Newham. The north-east was, he confessed, off its radar. Flint made a further stab at appearing contrite. Voters, he said, had rejected what he termed the “expert class”, referring to the widely reported jibe made by Tory leadership candidate Michael Gove. And bankers should welcome the stringent regulations of the post-crash world, drop their objections and accept it as the price of stability and citizen consent. Does that mean he told his pub mates the price of remaining in the EU was keeping the 50p tax rate, embracing the Vickers review and living a less ostentatious life? Possibly. He certainly said City folk needed to pay themselves less and workers more to assuage the resentment that he failed to recognise, but which was obvious for all to see before the referendum vote. And that must be the question for the City and to a great extent the nation, which has come to depend heavily on the financial services industry for jobs, tax revenue and especially foreign income. How can it prosper, moderate its risky behaviour and keep people in Stoke-on-Trent from using their democratic vote to poison the well, killing the banks and themselves at the same time? Painful though it is to think of, for the time being the economy needs the financial services industry. Some of the figures that illustrate its importance to Britain are startling. Together with the professional services firms that feed off the banks and insurers, the industry employs more than 7% of the UK workforce, producing nearly 12% of total economic output, and contributing 11% of tax revenues. Most importantly, the industry generates a trade surplus of £72bn a year. This surplus goes to close the gap created by an enormous deficit in imported goods, and a steep decline in Britain’s investment income from abroad in the last few years. Bank of England governor Mark Carney constantly battles those who believe the banks will cost more to save than they will ever generate for the economy. He was at pains last week to reassure the nation that the current swings in financial markets and the tumbling value of the pound were within the limits of the regulators’ capabilities. His backstop of £250bn, which he stands ready to pump into the markets if suddenly everyone wants to sell and nobody wants to buy, would be enough, along with all the capital reserves available to banks, to protect us from another crash, he said. Everyone wants to believe he is right. However, it’s just a tactical issue when the real problem is a strategic one – a problem that relates to Flint’s thoughts on finding a way to a more profitable but safer banking system. It is, of course, a circle that cannot be squared in Flint’s myopic worldview. Banks need to take risks if they are to recapture even half the 25% return on equity they enjoyed before 2008. At the moment it is 9%. But that’s impossible when there are trillions of dollars of savings chasing only a handful of investment opportunities. Tougher regulation of banks has only pushed the risky behaviour into other areas of the financial system. The Bank for International Settlements – known as the central bank of central bankers – has warned that a “risky trinity” of threats hangs over the financial system, including the huge amount of debt taken on by asset managers, pension funds and others away from the banking system. Anastasia Nesvetailova, the director of the Political Economy Research Centre at City University, argues this debt mountain is so large that if it collapses, engulfing the financial system, it will cause a depression worse than the one experienced in 2008. George Osborne’s decision to relax his fiscal rules could allow for higher government borrowing and greater public investment. This is a policy that Flint and his City colleagues must embrace. Unfortunately, the logic of safer borrowing by governments, as we move to a more sustainable balance of debt to spending, is at odds with their neoliberal ideology.
The web startups looking to cash in on 1 billion African consumers It is a cliched image. Passengers lined up at the check-in desk for various flights back to African capitals, trolleys overloaded and suitcases straining at the weight limit. It reflects a reality of tough customs and import regimes, complex markets and challenging distribution networks that often leave only the lucky few with the means to travel to Europe, the US, the Gulf or other destinations where they are able to buy – and take home – the consumer goods they need or want. But this is beginning to change. The continent’s potential customer base of more than 1 billion, combined with an emerging middle class, has attracted investors to African retail. While the vast majority of trade still occurs through informal transactions in corner shops, and to a lesser degree in shopping malls, there is a slow, steady shift from offline to online. For Jumia Group (until recently known as Africa Internet Group), the continent’s first unicorn – a private tech startup with a valuation of over $1bn – tapping into Africa’s e-commerce potential is central to its business model. “We sell genuine branded products to the growing middle classes in each of the markets that we serve,” said Sam Chappatte, the managing director of Jumia Kenya. “We want to provide the online shopping experience and quality products to everyone with an internet connection and disposable income.” The French insurer Axa paid €75m for a stake in the company in February; other investors include Goldman Sachs, South Africa’s MTN Group and Rocket Internet from Germany. Its offerings include classifieds, food delivery, travel and real estate websites – all of which have been renamed in the recent rebranding – but its online retail arm, Jumia, has been perhaps its most recognisable. With an interface familiar to users of Amazon, Jumia acts as a marketplace for electronics, clothing, household items and more. It launched in Nigeria in 2012 and was recently named as one of the world’s top 50 smartest companies by MIT. Jumia is present in 11 countries across the continent, supplying brands and products that consumers often cannot otherwise access locally, with the added benefit of convenience. “Ordering online saves people time and effort. There are always issues of traffic, or when you get there you find that the retailer is out of stock of the product you want. And there are still doubts around authenticity,” said Chappatte. “We have a big focus on trust. We have teams that spend their days screening the products that come on to our site.” Jumia makes thousands of deliveries a day in Nigeria alone, and in the first nine months of 2015 recorded a transaction volume of €206m, a 265% increase on the previous year. It is one of the largest e-commerce enterprises operating in Africa, all of which are seeking to tap into the continent’s growing consumer market. A McKinsey Global Institute report published in 2013 suggested that e-commerce could account for 10% of retail sales – or $75bn – in Africa’s largest economies by 2025. Elsewhere, major websites – such as Cheki in Kenya, Zimbabwe and beyond, and bidorbuy in South Africa – sell new and used cars, deliver groceries and prepared food, or offer eBay-style marketplaces. The bigger they grow, the more local entrepreneurs and small businesses can connect with a wide customer base. But e-commerce remains a challenging space. The absence of formal addresses in most African countries means that more time and effort is spent locating customers. A preference for cash on delivery payments in many countries – due to low credit card penetration and anxieties around fraud – leaves delivery drivers handling and carrying large sums of money. A limited pool of talent and funding also causes drag on the sector. Multiple barriers hinder the development of cross-border e-commerce – including poor infrastructure, underdeveloped logistics and difficulties with international bank transactions. “Jumia has been very successful at fundraising and it is a real success story, but it needs to move to a sustainable business model,” said Manuel Koser, founding partner at Silvertree Capital, and who used to work with Jumia. “Is it successful in terms of return on capital? It’s so far so good with Jumia, but it’s not a finished success story.” And, as Chappatte acknowledged, the obvious limitation to all e-commerce initiatives is “people having an internet connection”. Jumia’s response to this has been to launch its J-Force service, which works to bring off-data consumers into the online ordering space by using agents. These agents act like mini ordering and delivery hubs, earning commission in the process. “We’re betting on a channel shift from offline to online,” said Koser, whose firm typically invests in the online and mobile sector. Despite the obstacles, with Africa’s digital divide narrowing, many agree it is a smart bet.
The online tool that helps the public decode health research Health concerns every one of us. We all have questions about the impact of factors such as lifestyle and diet on our wellbeing. Yet for all our collective curiosity, it is immensely difficult to sift through the mountain of claims and counter-claims we’re exposed to each day. We are bombarded with declarations about our health and wellbeing, and frequently these assertions are conflicting. Sorting the signal from the noise is no small task. Traditionally, part of the problem has been access to information. Scientific journals charge for access to research papers, and the cost can be prohibitive to anyone - including researchers - bar institutional libraries . This has improved rapidly over recent years, with many research councils and funding bodies pushing towards open-access publishing, encouraging researchers to ensure their findings are made freely accessible to the public. This is hugely beneficial, but access is only half the battle. The vital issue of appraising medical findings still remains rather daunting for most of us. The reality is that studies can be notoriously difficult to decode in isolation. The mere fact a study exists showing a particular result is not in itself evidence that result is robust or true. It is crucial to be aware that not all studies are created equal, and some are much higher quality than others. This is a particular concern in the medical field, where confounding factors frequently skew conclusions. For example, studies with only a small number of participants are often statistically underpowered, and results from these might give a misleading picture of reality . Even with an adequate sample size, it can be difficult to distinguish causal relationships from mere correlation, and lurking variables or poor study design can throw out an entire analysis. Apparently conflicting findings can also occur, rendering a study’s conclusions ambiguous to a general audience, and making it difficult to draw inference with any certainty. Addressing the difficulties in interpreting research results has therefore been a driving motivation for a project undertaken by the Medical Research Council/Chief Scientist Office Social and Public Health Sciences Unit, University of Glasgow (MRC/CSO SPHSU) at University of Glasgow. The result is Understanding Health Research (UHR), a free service created with the intention of helping people better understand health research in context. Essentially, UHR it functions as an interactive field-guide to evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of any given health paper. In addition, it gives clear and understandable explanations of important considerations like sampling, bias, uncertainty and replicability. This has the potential to be invaluable for improving public understanding of science and ultimately to improving our collective well-being. After all, as Dr Shona Hilton, deputy director of MRC/CSO SPHSU says “without the tools to assess contradictory health messages and claims about new discoveries and treatments, the public are vulnerable to false hope, emotional distress, financial exploitation and serious health risks.” This is all too true. As Shakespeare pointed out “the devil can cite Scripture for his purpose”, and this remains especially true in health science, where misguided or unscrupulous operators can hide behind a veneer of science disguising dubious ideas or therapies. It is hoped that tools such as UHR will help the general public differentiate between high and low quality evidence. A dark example of the need for UHR is the panic over the MMR vaccine, which was partly based on what turned out to be a weak study published in the Lancet. The ensuing panic lowered vaccination rates and fuelled a persistent on-going crusade against vaccines. Over a decade later we are still haunted by the spectre of frequent measles outbreaks worldwide, many of which trace their lineage back to this debacle. Of course, science is inherently complex and findings often shaded with nuance, so no one tool can ever be expected to serve as a surrogate for expertise. Rather, UHR serves as an excellent place to start an investigation, giving people the ability to roughly assess how much stock they might place in a health finding or media story. In this era of rapidly perpetuating misinformation, useful and considered tools like this are a welcome antidote to unabated hyperbole, and a crucial vanguard in the campaign for better understanding of science and health.
Leaked child cancer care review points to closure of Royal Marsden unit A leaked review into children’s cancer care in London that has remained unpublished for 14 months indicates that the Royal Marsden unit in south-west London which provides such treatment should close. The report recommends that cancer care for children be consolidated at a single principal treatment centre, which according to NHS experts is most likely to be at Great Ormond Street hospital in north London. Dr Andy Mitchell, the medical director of NHS London, requested the report which was submitted in February 2015. But the review, chaired by Mike Stevens, the professor of paediatric oncology at Bristol University, has yet to appear. “It was completed over a year ago and not a lot has happened; he’s very cross. Technically it’s not available,” said an NHS insider. The Stevens review does not come up with explicit recommendations for the location of a single principal treatment centre but health experts say the Royal Marsden is in the firing line. “Anyone who knows the subject knows the implications for the Royal Marsden,” said an NHS expert speaking on conditionof anonymity, who noted that one of its problems was that children in its care had to be bussed between the Royal Marsden in Sutton and St George’s in Tooting, also in south-west London. Since 2006, London has two designated principal treatment centres for children’s cancer services. Both operate on two sites and between two trusts. The one in north London consists of the Great Ormond Street hospital for children and a second site at University College hospital, seeing an average of 230 new patients each year. The distance between St George’s and Royal Marsden is 7.8 miles, whereas Great Ormond and University College are 1.3 miles apart. The Stevens review says stem cell transplants from another person to children with malignant diseases in London should be only undertaken on one site. Prince William is president of the Royal Marsden – whose main hospital site is in Chelsea, central London – a position previously held by his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales. He visited the hospital in September 2011 with his wife, the Duchess of Cambridge, to open the Oak Centre of Children and Young People, where children are treated for cancer, their first public engagement in the UK after their marriage. It sees about 180 new patients a year. NHS London commissioned the review in August 2014 amid longstanding concerns over the fragmentation of the treatment of children’s cancer in the capital. Elsewhere, the trend has been treatment at one site. The report followed a previous review published in May 2011 by the national clinical advisory team, triggered by the death of a child in 2009 who initially received treatment at the Royal Marsden but critical care at St George’s. The child died in December 2009 at St George’s, where he was admitted for febrile neutropenia. The Royal Marsden provided oncology services and radiotherapy for children with cancer while St George’s provided critical care services. Some of the short-term recommendations were implemented but no progress was made in delivering the longer aim of relocating the main treatment centre to one site, says the review. It outlines five options ranging from sticking to the status quo, to an increase in the number of principal treatment centres. But it comes down firmly in favour of one centre located at a single site with all necessary paediatric services – option three. “The review panel sees option three as the more visionary alternative and, subject to the necessary investment, carefully managed implementation and strong clinical leadership, believe this offers substantial potential for the delivery of the world-class service deserved by the children of London,” says the review. Cally Palmer, the chief executive of the Royal Marsden, which could ultimately lose out if the one centre is backed, is also the national director for cancer at NHS England, which commissioned the still unpublished report. An NHS England London spokesperson said: “Children’s cancer services are generally of a very high standard, and survival rates are now the highest they’ve ever been. There are good clinical arguments for ensuring cancer specialist services are co-located as they currently are, just as there are alternative views about combining children’s services regardless of specialty discipline. “These are not black and white judgments and it’s important we take the time to get any future planning right. A report commissioned on this will be one input into this debate.”
Salomón Rondón denies Stoke first win with late equaliser for West Brom A first league victory of the season for Stoke was the only milestone that mattered to Mark Hughes on a day when Tony Pulis took charge of a team for the 1,000th time. Stoke looked on course for just that after Joe Allen scored in the 73rd minute. But they did not make it over the line, as Salomón Rondón headed into their net from a corner in stoppage time. Stoke used to celebrate late goals for Pulis’s team but they cursed this one. “It felt like a loss,” said Hughes, who could take encouragement from a strong performance by his team and the fact that a point was enough to hoist them off the foot of the table. Pulis, who has spent nearly half of his career in the Stoke dugout, was welcomed back warmly to his old patch but Stoke fans’ affections did not extend to the visiting players, whose every touch was booed from the first second. That reflected defiance in the face of Stoke’s poor start to the season and was combined with loud encouragement for the home team. Stoke’s players were similarly upbeat, betraying no sign of disenchantment, just a hunger to quash Albion. It made for a rousing first period in which clear chances were scarce but the threat of a breakthrough was always present. Albion were no bystanders, indeed they fired the first shot. But Rondón’s curler in the sixth minute whizzed wide, meaning that Lee Grant did not have to make his first Premier League save since joining Stoke on loan from Derby County in the summer. The 33-year-old was picked instead of Shay Given as part of Hughes’s plan to solidify a leaky defence. Although Rondón had three more shots off target in the first half, Stoke were on top. Their midfield, with Allen thriving in an advanced role, pestered the visitors relentlessly and, when they won the ball, attacked immediately. In the 25th minute Glenn Whelan pinged a cross to Wilfried Bony, who headed the ball across the six-yard box. Glen Johnson lifted it over the advancing Ben Foster, only for Craig Dawson to head off the line. Twice Eric Pieters fell under untidy tackles by Matt Phillips but no penalties were given. Hughes ran through the full Basil Fawlty routine – in his technical area so as not to incur another fine – but conceded after seeing replays that “both were close calls, in fairness”. Early in the second half Allen nearly gave Stoke the goal they craved but Dawson denied them again, deflecting the midfielder’s header over. Bony was the only home player to disappoint, strong in possession but lacking the mobility to be in regular synch with his team-mates. He was replaced on the hour by Peter Crouch. Stoke claimed the reward for their persistence in the 73rd minute when Xherdan Shaqiri crossed from the left and Jonny Evans failed to make a clean clearance owing to a challenge by Marko Arnautovic. Allen shot into the net from eight yards. He was a fitting scorer. “[Allen’s] got good anticipation of things dropping around the box and that showed for the goal,” said Hughes. “That’s why he left Liverpool, because he wanted to play week in, week out and we’ve given him the run of games. He’s been a shining light for us, he’s been the one hitting the levels we expect.” Grant preserved the lead with a fine save from a header by James McClean but he could not keep out Rondón’s header at the death. So it was yet another happy day at Stoke for Pulis. “The place is wonderful and the crowd were fantastic to me when I was here,” said the Albion manager. “It’s been stitched into my body this football club. I’ll always have respect for them.”
Obama to offer his friendly opposition to Brexit during visit to UK Barack Obama will strike a delicate balance over Brexit during a visit to the UK next week, where he will host a town hall with youth and offer his view “as a friend” that Britain should remain in the EU. White House officials suggested on Thursday that the president will only wade into the contentious debate if asked, and reiterated Obama’s position that the US supports “a strong UK in the European Union”. “He will make very clear that this is a matter the British people should decide when they head to the polls in June,” Ben Rhodes, the White House deputy national security adviser, said in a conference call with reporters. “We believe that all of us benefit when the EU can speak with a strong and a single voice and can work with us to advance our shared interests whether on security or prosperity,” he added. “We believe that the UK has benefitted from the single market that is good for the British economy and that, in turn, is good for the United States economy.” Although Obama has made his position clear before, the president risks potential backlash by weighing in on Brexit with two months remaining before Britons go to the polls on 23 June to vote on the referendum. It is uncommon for the White House to involve itself in matters pertaining to elections in other countries, and the administration typically tries to avoid doing so when scheduling both overseas trips and invitations of foreign leaders to Washington. But while in the UK, Obama will also hold a joint press conference with the prime minister, David Cameron, with whom the US president shares a close bond. Cameron has referred to Britain leaving the EU as “the gamble of the century”. The White House remained cautious about the optics of Obama’s visit, underscoring that the president had traveled to the UK several times before and that the focus of this trip would include counterterrorism and the fight against the Islamic State. “I think his approach will be that if he’s asked his view as a friend, he will offer it, but he will make very clear that this is a matter the British people should decide when they head to the polls in June,” Rhodes said. Officials cited the economic interest of keeping Britain within the EU, framing its argument in similar terms deployed by the International Monetary Fund this week: the potential disruption of trade and commerce, and job losses in both the UK and Europe. “The United Kingdom has exercised an outsized influence in the world for the last several centuries and it’s one of the countries that has most shaped the modern era,” said Charlie Kupchan, a special assistant to Obama and the senior director for European Affairs at the White House. “And we hope that that outsized influence continues and we think that in today’s world, that kind of influence is best exercised through clubs, through multilateralism, through teamwork. And in that respect, it’s our estimate that the United Kingdom will continue to play that role most effectively if it remains part of the European Union.”
Year of electoral tests may end European Union as we know it In Italy and Austria this weekend a shaken EU faces the first of a series of pivotal electoral tests that could profoundly change the political landscape of the bloc, and conceivably herald the end of the European project in its current form. Shortly before last May’s G7 meeting in Tokyo, Martin Selmayr, the senior Brussels official who runs the cabinet of the European commission president, Jean-Claude Juncker, tweeted what he described as his populist “horror scenario”. Imagine, he said, if instead of Barack Obama, François Hollande, David Cameron and Matteo Renzi, next year’s summit were to feature Donald Trump, Marine Le Pen, Boris Johnson and Beppe Grillo. Selmayr was right about Trump, now the US president-elect. He was half-right about Johnson, who missed out on the job of prime minister after Cameron resigned following Britain’s Brexit vote, but did become foreign secretary. If he proves right on the rest, Europe will be in serious trouble. The angry, anti-establishment, nation-first tide that voted to sweep the UK out of the EU and Trump into the White House – in what the billionaire property developer himself called a “Brexit plus, plus, plus” – is rising steadily across the continent. It is still far from certain to carry all before it. But over the next 12 months, EU member states face a dozen referendums and parliamentary and presidential elections, many contested by populist, Eurosceptic parties whose members believe that what happened in the UK and the US can now happen in Europe. The French prime minister, Manuel Valls, has said “Europe could die” in the face of “attacks from the populists”. German’s doughty finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, has warned of the scourge of “demagogic populism”, while the EU’s economic affairs commissioner, Pierre Moscovici, suggested Europe’s voters might be poised “to destroy it”. The first two tests will be on Sunday. In Austria, voters elect a new president after their first attempt was annulled. In a race currently too close to call, Norbert Hofer, of the anti-immigration Freedom party, could become the first freely elected far-right head of state in western Europe since the second world war. On the same day, Italians vote in a referendum on constitutional reforms on which Renzi has staked his political future. Polls have suggested the prime minister will lose – potentially bringing Grillo’s fiercely anti-establishment Five Star Movement a step closer to power. The Netherlands goes to the polls on 15 March. There, Geert Wilders and his Eurosceptic, anti-Islam Freedom party is tied in the polls with the prime minister, Mark Rutte’s liberal VVD. In France, the first round of presidential elections is on 23 April. The leader of the far-right, anti-European Front National, Marine Le Pen, is expected to advance from this to the runoff stage the following month. Germany votes later, in federal elections that could well see the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) enter parliament as the third-largest party, on the back of strong opposition to Angela Merkel’s open-door refugee policy. And in the Czech Republic in October, the populists of ANO 2011, the Action of Dissatisfied Citizens, are forecast to win in the general elections. Simon Tilford, of the Centre for European Reform thinktank, said the two big flashpoints for the union would be Italy’s constitutional referendum and France’s presidential election. “In Italy, if Renzi loses the referendum, can’t survive, and elections then return a government committed to a referendum on taking [the country] out of the euro … that could produce a real standoff,” Tilford said. “And in France, if Le Pen should win ... We don’t know what would happen, but she’s talked of a referendum on the euro, and on France’s EU membership. A strongly Eurosceptic government in France would mean a full-blown crisis in Europe.” All this is by no means certain, of course. The populists’ confidence could be misplaced. All were quick to welcome the Brexit vote and Trump’s victory as events that, in Le Pen’s words, “made possible what was considered impossible”. But in such uncertain times, voters could opt for continuity and stability: polls show support for the EU has surged since Britain voted to leave, and polling since the US election suggests no immediate “Trump bounce” for the Eurosceptics. A victory in Austria by Hofer, the candidate from a party founded by a former SS officer, would be a huge symbolic blow for Europe and could presage worse in parliamentary elections to follow in 2018. Some, however, argue that its actual consequences may be limited: the presidential role is largely ceremonial. In Italy, Renzi could cling on, or be replaced by a technocratic government committed to continuing steady, incremental reform. And if snap elections do follow, Italy’s electoral system does not necessarily make it easy for a single party to gain a majority in both houses of parliament. In France, every poll so far has predicted Le Pen will lose heavily in the second round to a more centrist rival, who, on current form, is likely to be the conservative François Fillon. In the Netherlands, even if his toxic party emerges as the largest, Wilders is unlikely to be able to form a majority. But regardless of the electoral outcomes, Europe’s upstarts will still shape the debate. Analysts point to the enormous influence exercised by the former Ukip leader, Nigel Farage, even though he was never elected to Westminster, and how mainstream, centrist parties, particularly on the right, have been pulled inexorably to the more radical edge in the Netherlands and France. Mainstream leaders such as Merkel or Fillon would find themselves weakened, heading countries arguably more deeply divided than at any time in the postwar era, and struggling to push through their programmes. For the European project itself, its confidence knocked by Brexit, the upcoming Trump presidency, a continuing migrant crisis, the terrorism threat, an agonisingly slow return to strong economic growth and the gathering Eurosceptic backlash, the consequences could be serious. Faced with a more pressing need than ever to “get our act together, bring back a sense of direction, confidence, order” – as the European council president, Donald Tusk, put it – the bloc may find itself less able than ever to actually do so. Its instinct, certainly, will be to pull together and maintain unity at all costs – not, from the UK’s perspective, a good sign for productive Brexit negotiations – and move forward forcefully where it can. The head of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi, said the bloc’s challenge must be to provide “outcomes that are both more efficient, and more directly aimed at the people, their needs and their fears – not towards institution-building”. Trump’s apparent fondness for the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, along with his suggestion that US support for Nato – the security umbrella that for 60 years has made European stability and prosperity possible – may not be unconditional, has already prompted progress in one area. A Franco-German defence and security initiative launched in September has gained fresh impetus, with foreign and defence ministers agreeing concrete steps to bolster the bloc’s capacity to respond to conflicts and crises on its borders. The influential German MEP Manfred Weber said Trump “will force Europe to grow up”. Beyond security, analysts say, the union’s most pressing priority must be economic recovery, wage growth, the return of some sense of wellbeing. “Not that the whole anti-European backlash is solely attributable to that,” said Tilford. “But the poor performance of the EU economy is a very big factor.” In fact, said Gianni Pittella, the leader of the European parliament’s Socialist group, Brexit and Trump had created a “huge opportunity” for strong, pragmatic EU initiatives. Will they happen? Will Europe advance, or crumble? The coming months and years will be critical. If anti-Europeans win national elections and the EU fails to rise to the nation-first challenge, it will struggle to survive in its present form. Few think it will break up entirely. But its ambitions may shrink; it could become more of commercial association than a 60-year-old, overarching political project. A hard eurozone core may ultimately emerge, with satellite “associate” members. Some, including in Britain, would regard that as a good thing. But according to Mark Leonard, of the European Council on Foreign Relations, in a less open world of trade barriers and anti-migrant walls, where solidarity among old allies must pass a cost-benefit analysis, they should be careful what they wish for. Ultimately, Leonard said in an article for Social Europe, “even Europe’s most Trump-like leaders will find it harder to defend their national interest if they try to go it alone. To survive in Trump’s world, they should try to make Europe great again.”
Doctors to lobby for opt-out organ donor system Doctors will try to persuade ministers at Westminster, Holyrood and Stormont to introduce an opt-out system for organ donation to prevent 1,000 deaths a year because of organ shortages. The British Medical Association will lobby the three parliaments to follow the lead set by Wales, which in December introduced presumed consent for organ retrieval. Under this system people who die in hospital are presumed to have consented to their organs being used for transplantation unless they have expressly indicated otherwise. The doctors’ union believes that the dozens of lives estimated to have been saved in Wales since it adopted this approach means England, Scotland and Northern Ireland should do the same. The BMA voted at its annual conference to actively lobby to get the same approach adopted across the UK. “As a doctor, it is difficult to see your patients dying and suffering when their lives could be saved or dramatically improved by a transplant,” said John Chisholm, chair of the BMA’s public health medicine committee, who proposed the motion. “It is even more difficult when we know that lives are being lost unnecessarily because of poor organisation, lack of funding or because people who are willing to donate organs after their death simply never get around to making their views known, resulting in relatives making a decision without knowing whether the individual was willing to donate.” Figures from UK Blood and Transplant, the NHS agency which manages organ transplantation, show that 6,485 seriously ill patients are currently on the waiting list to receive a new organ. Three people a day die because they do not get a new liver, heart, lungs or other body part. Thirty-one people who died in Wales between the start of December and the end of May donated 60 organs between them. Of these, 10 had their consent presumed because they had neither opted out nor joined the organ donor register. (That figure was up from 23 donors in the same six months the year before.) Of the 60 organs, 32 came from the 10 people whose consent was presumed under the new set-up. NHS Blood and Transplant said: “We welcome activity that encourages people to discuss organ donation and to donate their organs for transplant. Our role is to work within whatever legislative frameworks are in place across the UK.” Meanwhile, Mark Porter, chair of the BMA, faces being ousted on Thursday amid discontent in the organisation, with members suggesting he is too “detached and remote” and has not done enough to highlight growing problems in the NHS. Porter, who has led the 170,000-strong doctors’ union for the last four years, is being challenged as chair of the BMA’s ruling council. JS Bamrah, a senior NHS consultant psychiatrist in Manchester, is seeking to replace him. BMA insiders say it is “50/50” whether Porter, a consultant anaesthetist in Coventry, secures the required 17 votes when the 33-member council debates the issue at lunchtime on Thursday. A group of up to possibly 10 council members are disillusioned with his leadership, claiming he has become out of touch with many grassroots doctors and saying they are keen to see a change. The council’s four representatives of NHS junior doctors, whom sources say are undecided about which way to vote, are likely to prove significant in determining if Porter stays for his fifth and final year in office. Bamrah declined to speak to the media ahead of the vote. His Twitter account says his passions include the “NHS, mental health, parity and diversity”. If he wins, he is set to lead the BMA for three years.
Deutsche Bank shares fall to new low after another turbulent day Deutsche Bank has endured another turbulent day on the stock market amid questions about its ability to pay a penalty to the US authorities and whether Angela Merkel will need to intervene in the plight of Germany’s biggest bank. As shares in Deutsche Bank fell to fresh lows, the German chancellor was quoted by news agencies as saying: “Deutsche Bank is one part of the German banking and financial sector, and of course we wish all companies, even when they are experiencing temporarily difficulties, to perform well. Apart from this, I don’t want to comment.” She had been asked whether she believed the German government should support Deutsche Bank, which has endured a torrid year on the stock market where its shares have fallen more than 50%. The latest slide began on Monday after the bank was forced to deny it had asked for help from Merkel over the potential $14bn (£10.5bn) penalty it faces from the Department of Justice over mortgage bond mis-selling a decade ago. Deutsche Bank – which has insisted it does not need government help and has no intention of paying that sum – has also said it had enough capital although analysts said fears it would need to tap investors for funds was one of the reasons the shares were under pressure. Following Monday’s 7.5% fall to levels last reached in the 1980s, the shares fell another 3% on Tuesday to €10.19 before ending the day on the Frankfurt stock exchange flat at €10.55. The market is fixated on how the bank will tackle the negotiations with the DoJ and how large the penalty will eventually be. “If the DoJ’s fine is in the area of $6bn or higher, our view is that a capital raise will become necessary,” said Carlo Mareels, a credit analyst at stockbroker MUFG Securities. “Equity investors are fearful they will have to be called upon to support the capital position of the ailing Deutsche Bank, as equity prices are down 64% since October 2015,” said Tomas Kinmonth at Dutch bank ABN Amro. “Their capital position needs to be improved, and the ability of it to achieve this naturally is being severely questioned. Significant restructuring, including major asset sales, will likely be needed if Deutsche Bank wishes to achieve an increased capital position without calling on shareholders,” said Kinmonth. Deutsche Bank’s chief executive, John Cryan, is also selling off its Chinese bank, Hua Xia, but there are some suggestions that its asset management division could also be put on the block. Some are pondering the wider ramifications. Paresh Davdra, co-founder of RationalFX, said the situation was rattling investors and raising parallels with the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008. The German bank is not the only one facing discussions with the DoJ over the sale of the so-called residential mortgage-backed securities. Royal Bank of Scotland’s chief executive, Ross McEwan, told a conference on Tuesday that the bank had not yet begun discussions with the DoJ over the bailed-out bank’s possible settlement. Analysts have calculated this could reach £9bn. Shares in RBS, 73% owned by taxpayers, fell 2.5% as McEwan also warned of “unchartered territory” if the bank failed to dispose of 600 branches mandated by the EU under the terms of its bailout. Other bank shares were also lower after another German bank, NordLB, postponed a bond issue. Former chancellor Norman Lamont told the Institute of Directors conference that German banks were in a dangerous situation: “The biggest threat, I think, to Europe is the banking crisis. I think Italian banks are in a very serious situation; I think German banks are probably in a very serious situation, too.” •This article was amended on Thursday 29 September to correctly assert that Deutsche Bank had insisted it does not need government help.
From Molenbeek to Hollywood – why Belgian thriller Black is the new La Haine When Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah first read Dirk Bracke’s novel Black, they sarcastically joked that it would be their “ticket to Hollywood”, never imagining that such a thing was possible. As second-generation Moroccan-Belgians, they found that Black and its sequel – a sort of West Side Story set in the immigrant suburbs of Brussels – spoke to them. But as Arab teenagers seeking to break into Belgium’s tiny, overwhelmingly white film industry, the odds were stacked against them. Especially as it turned out someone else was already making a film of the book. Added to which, at the time, El Arbi and Fallah were in their first year at film school, which they duly flunked. And yet, 10 years later, here they are, on a blindingly sunny rooftop in downtown Los Angeles, thanks to Black – which, of course, they ended up making after all. It’s difficult to imagine two more disparate places in the popular imagination than Hollywood and Molenbeek – the Belgian suburb where Black was shot, now synonymous with Islamist terrorism. All of which makes their journey one of the most astonishing in recent cinema. Yet far from being culture-shocked, the pair seem completely at home. Fallah is even wearing an LA Dodgers baseball cap back-to-front. They have only been here three months, but between their street style, their Americanised English and the way they converse in tandem like a rap duo, you would never guess they were foreigners. As they re-enact the moment they got the call from Hollywood, they look and sound just like locals. Fallah: “I was in my apartment [in Brussels], around midnight. I looked on my phone and it said ‘Beverly Hills’. What the fuck? ‘Hello, it’s Daniel Rappaport from Management 360.’ I was, like, ‘Is this for real?’” El Arbi: “We were like: ‘Oh shit! American voice! Cool!’” Fallah: “Then they asked us what kind of movies we wanted to make. We said, ‘Big shit! Gladiator or Star Wars.’” El Arbi: “They said come to LA. We said, ‘We got no money y’all.’ So they came over to Brussels for 24 hours, we made a deal, then it was Toronto [film festival].” Fallah: “In Toronto, that was the first taste we got of Hollywood. We saw big actors like Idris Elba and Naomi Watts. It was, like, ‘Holy shit, it’s becoming real.’” It’s about to get realer. They are about to begin shooting in South Central LA: a pilot for the FX network for a series on the city’s 1980s crack cocaine epidemic. Titled Snowfall, it is being produced by the legendary John Singleton, director of 1990s classic Boyz N the Hood – a movie Bilall and El Arbi cite as one of their inspirations. Snowfall could almost be Boyz N the Hood the series, it seems. Other reference points they cite include The Wire and The Shield. In their round of Hollywood meetings, they also talked with uber-producer Jerry Bruckheimer, the man behind Pirates of the Caribbean, Top Gun and innumerable other hits. “We asked him: ‘Hey! Can we do Bad Boys 3?’” says El Arbi. “He said: ‘There’s a director already on that.’ He doesn’t talk a lot.” But Bruckheimer did ask them to direct Beverly Hills Cop 4, Eddie Murphy’s long-stalled comeback vehicle, which is now set for release next year. They haven’t met Murphy yet, but apparently he personally approved them. “So that’s already a big-ass honour,” says Fallah. El Arbi: “We can’t say too much but it’s not an accident that they chose us. It’s more Detroit than Beverly Hills, that’s the general idea.” Fallah: “It’s going to be a comedy, obviously, but it’s going to also be edgy and harsh and real.” El Arbi: “We know those kinds of places.” That is undeniable. Black, which went on to win the Discovery award at Toronto, hinges on the romance between a Moroccan petty criminal and a recently arrived Congolese girl, which sparks a war between their respective gangs, the 1080 and the Black Bronx. It’s a stylish, technically slick movie, full of dynamic camera moves and scored by a blend of Belgian hip-hop and north African beats (plus a local cover of Amy Winehouse’s Back to Black). Yet it depicts an all-too-believable landscape of gang violence, criminality, discrimination, deprivation and rape. Black’s closest equivalent, and an influence the film-makers readily acknowledge, would be Mathieu Kassovitz’s La Haine, which pulled off a similar trick of capturing both the youthful energy and the circumscribed prospects of Europe’s immigrant margins, treading a fine line between commercial entertainment and gritty realism. “That [La Haine] was 1995,” says El Arbi, “and when you look around, nothing’s really changed. It’s actually worse.” Ironically, Black has been banned in France, he points out. “They said the overall atmosphere and theme of the movie doesn’t match with the political climate of the country.” El Arbi and Fallah make no apologies for wanting to make a commercially minded movie rather than a sombre social-realist drama. “This should be told to as many people as possible,” says El Arbi, “even though it’s a really harsh kind of story. If you’re gonna do social commentary and not have cinematic value to it, then not a lot of people are going to see it.” But there’s a palpable authenticity to Black. The story unfolds in subway stations and housing estates, primarily in Molenbeek and Matonge, respectively the north-African Arab and sub-Saharan African (primarily Congolese) districts of Brussels. The movie was shot on the streets and cast from them, too. And to the directors’ credit, there’s barely a false note in the performances, particularly from the two leads, Martha Canga Antonio and Aboubakr Bensaihi. Fallah: “You don’t have Moroccan or black actors. Certainly not between 15 and 21 years old. So, out of necessity, we had to go into the streets and into schools and on social media to find those actors.” El Arbi: “Belgian cinema really is white. You go to casting agencies and acting schools – everybody’s white. We got together 400 people and selected the 16 best.” Fallah: “And for every character, there was a lot of choice. There’s so much talent walking around.” How did they get such good performances out of them? El Arbi: “The thing we said to every person was, ‘Did you ever lie to your mother to go out? Or lie to your teacher?’ And then they knew, ‘Ah, OK. Actors are liars!’” It’s clear that the directors know this landscape intimately. Growing up in Belgium (El Arbi is 30, Fallah 28), they experienced the same prejudices and disadvantages their young cast face today. “Antwerp was really one of the most racist cities in Europe,” says Fallah, who grew up there. “It was the golden age of the Flemish Block, the racist party which won every fucking election during the 1990s. The only reason they never had power is because all the other parties had to club together and form a group against them.” He went to a predominantly white, Catholic school. “In the beginning, you don’t realise you’re different. You think you’re all the same, but after 9/11 happened, you came to school and everybody was, like, ‘Are you happy now?’” El Arbi, who grew up in Brussels, also remembers that time. “We knew back then, it was gonna be a suckass 10 years for us. We didn’t imagine 15 years later it would be even worse.” Fallah and El Arbi both have family in Molenbeek. Both are saddened at the district’s current infamy as “jihadi central”, owing to the fact that many of those responsible for Islamist attacks across Europe hailed from there. Belgium’s policy of “ghettoising” its immigrant communities in discrete areas is part of the problem, they say. They describe Molenbeek as “a different country”. The stores are all Moroccan; only Arabic or French are heard on the streets. It’s similar with Matonge. “It’s like visiting Africa,” says Fallah. “But if you go one street to the right, you’re in a different world. That’s typically Brussels.” The only white faces we see in Black are those of police officers. “If you don’t take people into society, you create a little bubble that doesn’t interact with the real world, then you create those monsters,” he says. “Even if probably 90% of the people there are just normal people working and struggling.” “There’s no trust,” El Arbi adds, “It’s not inclusive. The people that were in charge said, ‘We’re not gonna help you, but we’re not gonna bother you either. That is the most deadly combination ever. If you just let things happen, it’s gonna be tough for good people to do good stuff and it’s gonna be easy for evil people to do the evil stuff.” Black exposes more than one faultline running through Europe as a whole and Belgium in particular. On top of Islamophobia and racial discrimination (although tensions between Moroccan and Congolese communities are relatively rare in real life, they point out), the country is riven by a giant cultural divide: between the northern, Dutch-speaking Flemish community and the southern, French-speaking community. Thus, there’s an extra layer of social nuance in terms of language, El Arbi explains. “If you talk French on the streets with your buddies, then you’re cool, but if you talk Flemish, then you’re a sellout. Flemish is the language of the rich people.” By the time Black adds in generational and gender divides, you are left wondering how Belgian society holds together at all. Fallah: “Belgium doesn’t have an identity. You don’t have a big history like France or Holland. Belgium is a young country.” El Arbi: “It’s like a buffer, made by the UK and Germany.” Fallah: “It’s artificial. It’s two worlds in one that they want to keep together.” El Arbi: “And when you’re 15 and young, you want to have an identity. You want something clear. Blacks, Moroccans, they’ll never feel 100% Belgian. Even Belgians don’t feel 100% Belgian. But drop them in Morocco or Congo, they will never be 100% either. So a gang or an extremist organisation can say: ‘Come with us. You will have a name. You will be something. You are 1080 or Black Bronx – or Isis.” The two film-makers formed their own gang at film school, being not just the only two non-white students but also the only ones with unashamedly commercial ambitions. Not that they don’t worship the likes of Jean-Luc Godard, Michael Haneke and Lars Von Trier as well, they hasten to add. El Arbi: “It was pre-hipster, but they were hipsters doing hipster movies – poetic bullshit that you don’t understand with no action in it, no conflict either, no ending. Just one character struggling with himself, and some water, some cryptic dialogue, some closeup shaky shit. Oh man!” Fallah: “We were the only two Moroccans, but we were also the only two who wanted to go to Hollywood, and we referenced, like, Steven Spielberg ...” El Arbi: “... Jerry Bruckheimer. That was, like, the big ‘no’ word. You don’t mention Jerry Bruckheimer’s name there. That’s why we clicked together so well.” Fallah: “It was us against the world.” They did find some allies, though. Their mentor at film school was Michaël Roskam, director of the Oscar-nominated Bullhead (which first brought actor Matthias Schoenaerts to attention). When they failed their first year (“We were making war movies, comedy shit, it didn’t really work out,” says Fallah), Roskam suggested they make movies more connected to their own backgrounds and identities. They won a prize with one of their first short films: funding to make another short. Instead, they used the money – €120,000 (£100,000) – to make a feature: Image, a thriller, again set in Molenbeek. It was a commercial success, though they describe it more as a “practice run”. Another crucial ally was Hans Herbots, an established Belgian film-maker. He was the one who was already making Black, the movie. On the strength of Image, and their personal connection to the subject matter, Herbots generously suggested that they direct Black instead of him, El Arbi explains. “Also I think he was thinking: ‘Fuck! A month in the hood in Molenbeek and me a white guy from Antwerp.’” When El Arbi and Fallah step into South Central a few days hence, they won’t feel quite so intimidated. They can’t believe how smoothly everything happens here in Hollywood, compared with Belgium. They had sleepless nights on Black wondering if enough extras would turn up the next day, says El Arbi. “Here, it’s like: ‘You need 100 extras? All right. And they’ll be there, in 1983 period clothing and hairstyles, period cars on the streets, the LAPD closing the roads. In Belgium, the cops give you authorisation to shoot and that’s it. If there’s a gang member coming to threaten you with a knife, which happened on the first day in Matonge, they will not be there.” As with Black, though, the most important thing is the permission of the neighbourhoods where the real, often harrowing history they are recreating took place not so long ago. They have made efforts to include the communities where they are shooting, discussing and explaining the project, sometimes via “gang liaison” intermediaries. “You gotta have the streets on your side,” says El Arbi. “These are their stories.” The response has been broadly supportive, they say, even if locals don’t always know what to make of them. “They’re like, ‘Where you from?’” says El Arbi. “We say Belgium and Morocco. They’re like Morocco ... Africa!” He holds out a silver pendant around his neck in the shape of Africa. They’re honorary boyz in the hood. Perhaps they haven’t come such a long way after all. El Arbi and Fallah haven’t forgotten where they come from yet, they say. They are planning to make another movie there, after Snowfall and Beverly Hills Cop 4. But they also talk of shooting in Morocco, in Japan, of creating their own big-budget Hollywood science-fiction franchise. What were once dreams are now more like plans. And given their career trajectory so far, who is to say any of them are unrealistic? • Black is released in UK cinemas and on VOD platforms on 19 August
Cameron’s cosy Christmas with Murdoch makes you admire Trump’s fighting talk Watch David Cameron start dropping round for seasonal drinks with Rupert and Rebekah again and it almost makes you warm to Donald Trump. The Donald wasn’t endorsed by New Hampshire’s most powerfully portentous newspaper for the coming primary test. The Union Leader is backing Chris Christie via a big front-page message from its publisher, Joseph McQuaid. But Trump doesn’t take it gently, or nip round for a quiet gin and tonic. “You have a very dishonest newspaper here,” he says. “It’s also a failing newspaper. It’s going down the tubes. I remember when this was the big newspaper. Look at the size of this, now. If they cut it down any more, you won’t be able to find it.” As for McQuaid? “I’ve watched this guy and, honestly, he’s a loser.” Pass the peanuts, prime minister. ■ Pundits looking back at 2015 may wonder who got the general election result right. Zilch, nada, humiliation (for everyone up to and including David Cameron). Or who, as Ed Miliband resigned, would succeed him as Labour leader. Nada continued. But at least we can all unite now to blame HMG for its pitiful flood planning and inept reaction to the great rains. As the Daily Express declared last April: “Hosepipe bans and speed showers could become the theme of the summer after experts warn that a drought could take over Britain.” Or, the same dear old Express warned last September: “Four months of heavy snow: Shock UK long-range weather forecast for THIS winter.” Drought, frost, tempest… It makes spotting the rise of Jeremy Corbyn seem a breeze. ■ When I wrote (30 December) about EU referendum deal negotiations, I mentioned different talks between the FT and its journalists’ union over pension changes. FT management wishes me to point out that they, not the new Nikkei owners, are pursuing these “for the long-term sustainability” of the paper – and that while 92% of NUJ members who voted (157 out of 171) wished to enable a strike, 89 other members didn’t return a ballot form. So “only 7% of FT employees” are involved in this dispute. Whether or not that makes for a happy new year we’ll have to wait and see.
Judge orders internet providers to block illegal downloading websites The federal court has ordered internet providers to block major illegal download or torrenting websites, such as Pirate Bay and Torrentz, in a bid to crack down on online copyright infringement. Justice John Nicholas handed down his judgment on Thursday afternoon in Sydney, ordering internet service providers to “take reasonable steps to disable access” to Pirate Bay, Torrentz, TorrentHound, IsoHunt and the streaming service SolarMovie within 15 working days. Foxtel and Village Roadshow filed their application in February. Village Roadshow sought to have SolarMovie blocked, while Foxtel targeted the four other sites. Telstra, Optus, TPG and M2 were the major respondents. It is the first time laws introduced with the Copyright Amendment (Online Infringement) Act have been successfully applied since it passed in June last year. The federal court has allowed ISPs to determine how best to enact the order, with blocking domain names, IP addresses or target URLs among the possible strategies. Any other alternative means must be agreed upon in writing with the applicants. TPG has proposed using domain name system (DNS) blocking to target the sites to prevent them from getting around the ban by changing their IP addresses. Though Village Roadshow and Foxtel had proposed that the ISPs pay their own costs of compliance, the respondents uniformly opposed it. Nicholas said that there had been “a large measure of co-operation between the applicants and the respondents”. He proposed a “uniform amount for compliance costs” determined by the number of domain names that the ISPs would be required to block. Peter Tonagh, the chief executive of Foxtel, welcomed the federal court’s ruling in a statement provided to the ABC. “This judgment is a major step in both directly combating piracy and educating the public that accessing content through these sites is not OK, in fact it is theft. “This judgment gives us another tool to fight the international criminals who seek to profit from the hard work of actors, writers, directors and other creators the world over.” Foxtel or Village Roadshow will have to apply to have any new websites added to the judgement. Universal Music’s action to have Kickass Torrents blocked remains active. A landmark case against Australian internet users accused of pirating the film Dallas Buyers Club was dropped by the plaintiff, DBC LLC, in February. A federal court judge had said it was “wholly unrealistic” for the ISP iiNet to hand over the personal details of almost 5,000 customers who were accused of having downloaded the film.
Battleground states: North Carolina's sharp divides put election on knife-edge North Carolina has been in the eye of many storms this year. The state of emergency declared by Governor Pat McCrory ahead of the expected arrival of Hurricane Matthew this weekend follows similar civil measures in September when the police killing of a black man set off a wave of angry protests on the streets of the state’s largest city, Charlotte. Few of the tempests to sweep by in 2016 have defined the national mood quite as much, though, as the political maelstrom battering this state. A vital battleground in the presidential election, North Carolina could determine whether Donald Trump manages to assemble enough angry white voters to make it all the way to the White House. A “bathroom ban” preventing transgender students from using toilets not matching the gender on their birth certificates has reopened the wounds of America’s culture wars, leading to a boycott by college sport authorities and protests from leading employers such as Apple, American Airlines and Bank of America. But the conservative wave that allowed Republicans to take control of all layers of local government in the state is now threatening to drown the party itself. The fervour stoked by battles over gay rights, voter registration laws, and immigration is putting off many moderates and could yet see Democrats win presidential, Senate and gubernatorial races here in November. What has made such controversies so shocking to many outsiders is that the Tar Heel state had long since stopped conforming to any easy stereotypes of a politically conservative southern backwater. The recent protests against the killing of Keith Lamont Scott in Charlotte took place among gleaming downtown high-rises of the New South – race riots shattering the calm of what otherwise appears a diverse and progressive boomtown at the heart of one of America’s major transport and financial hubs. Pride in North Carolina’s modern and open economy is still visible, despite the high-profile battles over sexual and racial equality. Drive into the state from the north, and road signs quickly herald its repeated ability to win Nobel prizes, celebrating last year’s award of the chemistry prize to a Turkish American biochemist, Aziz Sancar, based at the University of North Carolina (UNC) in Chapel Hill. He proudly spoke of being a US Muslim at his acceptance speech and told a Turkish newspaper that Trump should not be allowed to obscure America’s multicultural progress in the eyes of the world. The US attorney general, Loretta Lynch, the first African American woman to hold the nation’s highest law enforcement job, is another famous North Carolinian. She clashed with the Republican governor, McCrory, when he signed the bathroom ban into law, filing a federal civil rights lawsuit against the legislation known as HB2, and she has spoken eloquently about the danger that recent clashes between police and violent protesters in Charlotte “drown out the voices of change” in the country. Yet many young liberals in North Carolina are reeling from recent events, worried about the way their state is perceived around the country in ways that echo how many Americans feel about what Trump is doing to the image of the United States internationally. “It embarrasses me,” says Jamisen Moore, a young medical engineering student at the UNC campus in Greensboro, a town once famous for civil rights protests at a segregated Woolworth counter that is now trying to buck the conservative backlash. “There is a weird mood politically,” she explains. “It brings out all the people who are at one extreme or another. People who think it’s a good idea are really vocal but the people who don’t are not, even though they think it’s bad, they are not out there and as loud.” UNC Greensboro was one of the campuses that refused to implement the state-wide ban on allowing transgender students to use bathroom facilities of their choice. Yet the university has nonetheless been swept up in the backlash. In September, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) pulled a high-profile basketball tournament out of the state in protest at what it saw as unacceptable discrimination. Days later, the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) did the same with big football games. “Duke [University] and UNC is the biggest rivalry in college basketball and we were going to be able to host it in our state but now we won’t be able to because of HB2,” says Moore, who believes the decisions have helped “wake people up” to the cost of being a pariah state. It is not just students and sports fans who are appalled either. The mayor of Greensboro, Nancy Vaughan, describes the fight over civil liberties as the “best of times and the worst of times” because it is also helping galvanize moderate voters to stand up against those who pushed through the law and tend to lean more loudly toward Trump. “These things have a habit of sorting themselves out and we will prevail,” said Vaughan during a recent rally at the campus by Hillary Clinton. “I bet there are people right here in this room who didn’t vote in the last council election … You know what? You are the problem. We need to get new voters to the polls in November.” But in the meantime, the economic cost is high. The Charlotte Chamber of Commerce estimates that more than 1,000 jobs lost and $285m in economic damage has been caused by companies shunning the state in reaction to its illiberal policies. “A state that sanctions discrimination will never be a world leader; instead, we’ll have to play second fiddle to other groups.” wrote local businessman Lloyd Smith after he was challenged to intervene by a customer who called the state “backward” for allowing HB2. “It is the antithesis of building an economy for everyone,” added Mayor Vaughan. “This is a law that hurts our families our social fabric and our economy.” Even Governor McCrory seems anxious to mitigate the worst affects of the legislation, signing an executive order protecting state employees from being fired for being gay or transgender after state lawmakers threatened to introduce anti-discrimination safeguards. And he seems acutely conscious that the state’s reputation could be further hurt by the national controversy over police violence. “Charlotte is a great city and we are not going to let a few hours make a negative impact,” said the governor in statement after the first night of disturbances over the killing of 43-year-old Scott. McCrory was lagging in the polls when he first appeased the Tea Party right by signing HB2 into law, and dismissed critics in Trumpian terms by claiming “political correctness [had] run amok”, but Trump’s surge in North Carolina may be fading too and both could lose here in November. Recent polls also reveal the social fragmentation driving state and national politics. Few swing states are as polarized, with Trump ahead by up to 53% to 28% among white voters, while Clinton has overwhelming black support at 86% to 3%. North Carolina also has a huge split among educational lines, with college-educated voters flocking to her and those without qualifications drawn to him. For all the vaunted success of the so-called “research triangle”, Nobel prize-winning research does not employ enough to make up for the collapse in manufacturing jobs elsewhere in the state. One town just outside the gleaming new economy, Goldsboro, recently came bottom of a national league table for declines in its middle class. It is no surprise that both Trump and Clinton are spending more time in North Carolina than almost any other state in the country.
Stiff upper lip or man on the edge? How movies see real-life heroes This week’s biggest film release in the US is Deepwater Horizon – a film that, despite its title, is neither an underwater sequel to Event Horizon nor a delicate coming-of-age story about waifish teens growing up in rural Sweden. It’s the very real, very tragic tale of the 2010 oil rig explosion that killed 11 people and caused an environmentally catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Mark Wahlberg stars as Mike Williams, the chief electrician aboard the Deepwater Horizon and the man tasked with saving as many of its occupants as possible. The film is the latest in a parade of gritty, true stories hitting cinemas as we stumble into the fall awards season. It was only a few weeks ago that audiences were exposed to Clint Eastwood’s Sully, another dramatization of a simple hero thrust unwillingly into a position to have to rescue dozens of people. That’s how we like our real-life protagonists – stoic, grimly determined and covered in motor oil. We also like them to suffer for their good works. Poor Sully lands an airplane on the Hudson river, no one dies, and he still gets chastised by those damn bureaucrats (please read in gravelly Clint Eastwood voice) when he gets home. Brave Mike Williams survives the Deepwater Horizon disaster, but those dastardly oil barons at BP (please read in nasally Dave Schilling voice) don’t go to jail. Time after time, the system fails the noble working man in American cinema. Considering my unique position working for a major British media company, I couldn’t help but wonder what the British equivalent of our tradition of ripped-from-the-headlines stories of valor is. Let’s just say that they’re not all that similar. American real-life heroes What we just can’t get enough of these days are stories about small figures caught up in tide of major global events. Oliver Stone’s Snowden doesn’t turn the soft-spoken whistleblower Edward Snowden into a swashbuckler for truth and justice. The real Snowden is quiet, thoughtful and deeply beholden to his own personal moral compass. Deepwater Horizon director Peter Berg also helmed another Mark Wahlberg working-class tragedy called Lone Survivor, which is about a group of Navy Seals fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan. Last year’s little-seen Chris Pine movie The Finest Hours is about a coastguard rescue of a sinking oil tanker. What is it with the production of fossil fuels and calamity? You’d almost think it was a horrible idea which is slowly killing the planet. Tom Hanks knows this genre well, not just as Sully, but also as the titular Captain Phillips. But it’s not just modern movies. Go back to the 1970s, after the obsession with retelling the legends of world war two wore off, to find a multitude of films about the common man. By the way, I don’t use the word “man” here casually. Unfortunately, most of the movies in this genre are about men. Serpico is easily in the top five films of this genre, placing Al Pacino in the role of Frank Serpico, another whistleblower who uncovers rampant corruption within the New York police department. Even if he had one of the coolest names in history, Serpico’s story is not an epic one. At the end of the film, he retires a physically broken man who’s merely done what any righteous person should in his situation. He spoke up. He just happened to speak up in a situation where there were guns, drugs and death involved, which makes his life far more cinematic than, say, mine. You won’t get much excitement out of watching me type and eat chips for eight hours a day, which leads me to the grand tradition of the British real-life drama. British real-life heroes I hope that you’ve all already watched Morten Tyldum’s The Imitation Game, because I’m about to spoil it for you. In this film, the Nazis lose the second world war. If you weren’t aware and didn’t heed my spoiler warning, I’m sorry. I lobbied my editors for a page break, just in case, but I was denied. The Imitation Game is but the most recent addition to the grand tradition of the British based-on-a-true-story film. Imitation Game’s hero, brilliant mathematician Alan Turing, is also a reluctant hero, as in the American tradition. He suffers the slings and arrows of a system that does not understand him nor is willing to recognize his contribution to the war effort. His cracking of the Enigma code is crucial to the Allied cause, but because he was gay, the military history books relegated him to footnote status until very recently. So, what’s different between Alan Turing and Sully Sullenberg besides differing tastes in facial hair? First of all, Alan Turing knows he’s brilliant. What propels him to continue working on the machine that would help break the code and to defy superiors who doubted his efforts is self-belief. Turing’s lack of social graces in the film means that he often says what he is thinking, which is that he knows better. It’s safe to say the protagonist of Deepwater Horizon lacks this rarefied air. This is not to say that the average British hero is some strutting peacock and the American is a stern puritan. It’s notable only in that it’s a subversion of audience stereotypes and expectations. What’s more pressing in this analysis is the contrast between the man of action and the man of principle, or in the case of the 2010 film Made in Dagenham, the woman. Made in Dagenham does not have explosions, gunfire or sweaty dudes covered in grease. Sally Hawkins stars as a fictional character plopped into the true story of a workers’ strike at a Ford motor company sewing plant in the Dagenham area of London. Note that a protagonist was invented for the purposes of dramatizing this story. In order to make a movie out of a collective social action, a person had to be invented. Similarly, the Sally Field film Norma Rae, an American film about the labor movement, fictionalized Crystal Lee Sutton. Norma Rae is something of an outlier in American film in that it’s a movie that glorifies the unionization of labor rather than exalting the “lone survivor” story that we Yankees crave, while the British routinely revel in films like Pride, about LGBT activists who get involved in the 1984 British miners’ strike. Pride is an unabashed ensemble piece about how collective action can uplift people of all stripes. Modern Britain does seem to be becoming less and less amenable to progressive ideas, but there still remains that kernel of the European fascination with democratic socialism. In these British films, the system is still the enemy, but it can only be defeated with a group effort. When the story is one of individual effort, British film tends to focus on the criminal figure – Roger Daltry in McVicar or more recently, Tom Hardy as the Kray brothers in Legend. It’s no coincidence that British true-story films that do well in America are usually ones that narrow their focus to one transcendent figure – King George VI in The King’s Speech, Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady, or Alan Turing. Americans want heroes who succeed in spite of others, but in Britain, sometimes it’s OK for those heroes to succeed because of others.
Clear your diary – the anti-Europe pop gig is off Once more, dear hipsters, to the Brexit concert – or Bpoplive as it is catchily entitled. This is the event scheduled for 8 May at Birmingham’s 16,000-capacity NEC, which the Grassroots Out campaign promised would intersperse Brexit-pushing speakers with some of “Britain’s hottest artists”. Last week, we detailed the personnel issues facing the organisers, as various acts pulled out once they discovered the nature of the event. Alas, I am afraid there is now more bad news for the six political journalists, five sketchwriters, and two recent head trauma victims who are thus far assumed to have bought tickets for it. In short, the concert is no longer taking place on 8 May. Furthermore, the nice lady at the NEC is unable to tell me when it will take place. Bpoplive seems to have gone down over the showbiz Bermuda Triangle. It is unknown whether Phats and Small managed to eject in time. Of course, it’s too early to call off the search entirely. The possibility of the entire event being rescheduled at this notice for another night at the NEC – or indeed another venue, such as a small pub – must not be discounted. Even so, those keen to listen to 90s one-hit wonders with a side order of George Galloway or Mike Read are warned to prepare for disappointment. The minute Lost in Showbiz knows more, so will you.
A Trump trainwreck is the only thing that will save the Republican party Republicans face a lot of difficult decisions this year, but for the party to come back strong after Donald Trump’s divisive candidacy – for it to keep its brand as the free-market, democracy-loving, opportunity-focused alternative to the Democrats – the least-worst option is a major loss in the presidential race. By selecting a nominee who does not reflect the usual fiscal policies, a victory for Trump will mean a shift in the party’s focus. Even if the rest of the GOP holds fast to the platform or to traditional conservative values, the president’s policies always reshape the party. If you have ever promoted a local candidate to voters, you know this is true – the public looks at the top of the ticket first and judges the party by that person’s views. Many Trump supporters will see his win as a referendum on their policies and will work to make the party reflect that. Fellow Republicans will either need to accept that or leave. We have no idea what a Trump presidency will look like, but based on his campaign, it will be filled with outrageous gaffes, inarticulate interviews on policy and offensive media blitzes focused on non-issues. Trump will most likely lose minorities and women, creating a wider divide that the GOP must bridge in the future. Many young voters will continue to associate Trump with the party long after he leaves office. This would only further damage Republicans and set us up for heavy losses in 2018. Not to mention the party will continue to hemorrhage its best and brightest. Candidates, staff and volunteers have already walked away from Trump, and there’s no question it will keep happening. If Trump gains a greater control of the party, these people might even be forced out. But let’s say Trump doesn’t win and Hillary Clinton claims the White House. If Trump only trails her by a few points, you can bet he will blame the Republicans who voted their conscience. Or he’ll kick up dirt over the “rigged” system, as he has already alluded to. Trump supporters in the party will go on a witch-hunt, looking for anyone who acted disloyally to the Republican nominee. That in-fighting could destroy the party. Only a loss by a wide margin would send a clear message to the Republican party: this is the wrong choice for America. If Trump loses the swing states and also sees lower numbers in deeply red states, the party would have to accept that even Republicans could not vote for this candidate. This doesn’t mean Republicans need to lose down-ballot, though Trump will make it an uphill battle. The GOP has a strong hold on the House of Representatives, which is unlikely to be shaken this election (though a President Trump could alter that security in two years). Red states won’t suddenly lose their conservative ideals and vote out the representatives that reflect them. Even the Senate could remain in Republican control if the RNC focuses on securing weak candidates. Those worried that a vote for Trump is the only way to balance the US supreme court should refocus their efforts on the Senate, where the real decisions are made. Without the Senate’s approval, a permanent supreme court justice cannot be appointed. All is not lost without the presidency; Congress is still the power behind the throne. Republicans need to take a sincere look at how we run our primaries. We also need to find ways to address the concerns of members who voted for Trump – without losing sight of what it means to be a Republican. This will take time, and the healing will be slow. But a stronger party could rise up, and unlike many Trump supporters, the Republicans who will not vote for Trump will happily return to rebuild the GOP if they are invited.
Fox News' structure is changing – but don't expect its coverage to do the same A glance at the headlines would have you believe Fox News is on the ropes. Its former chairman, CEO and spiritual leader, Roger Ailes, has not only been ousted but buried under a pile of sexual abuse allegations. New horror stories from female employees trickle out every week, with top brass implicated in a pervasive culture of misogyny and harassment. Meanwhile, its audience is dying off: the median Fox viewer is 67 yearsold, according to Nielsen. All these things are true, and tend to fuel speculation that the network will have to clean house, name a successor, and move away from fire and brimstone toward a fresher, gentler Fox News. That possibility is shrinking faster than Donald Trump’s poll numbers. On Friday, with a certain Spartan vibe, Rupert Murdoch created a new Fox News co-presidency shared by longtime Ailes lieutenant Bill Shine, who may yet be implicated in enabling Fox’s epidemic of sexual abuse, and local TV chief Jack Abernethy. It was a symbolic double-promotion, but both are under daddy’s supervision. The true successor to Ailes – who is still fighting the abuse allegations and vehemently denies wrongdoing – will be the next CEO and chairman. Candidates range from insiders such as executive editor John Moody and head of news Jay Wallace to superstar outsiders such as CBS president David Rhodes. But whoever shows up won’t have anything close to the control of “the Chairman”, whose influence at Fox operates on a genetic level. Ailes has been banished, but the creature he electrified to life two decades ago now roams free on its own. “Don’t expect them to make a big change in their coverage,” said Jane Hall, former Fox contributor and professor of media studies at American University. “It’s a highly successful formula.” Fox is a money monster, pumping out over $1bn in profits a year. It rakes in about 20% of 21st Century Fox’s earnings, the most profitable unit in the empire. Perhaps that’s why the Murdoch brothers, Lachlan and James, heirs to News Corp patriarch Rupert and no fans of Ailes, told investors last week that they had no intention of tinkering with the “unique and important voice” of their moneymaker. Despite all the drama, former employees say that Fox is a money machine that can run the way it always has – and make the profits it always has – in a post-Ailes era. “The network can coast for years just on the institutional memory,” said Joe Muto, who worked as a producer for Fox star Bill O’Reilly for eight years before eventually going out in a blaze of glory after dishing the dirt on his employer to Gawker. “Ailes wanted to be successful, powerful and, yes, wanted to push his ideology,” Muto said. “Murdoch, I think, is less ideological, but he will default to whatever makes him money. And Fox has been a piggy bank. You look at their balance sheet and Fox underwrites other losses.” The idea that a new CEO could steer Fox into something closer to CNN, or the smaller, friendlier conservative outlet Newsmax, presupposes that the profit motive is not driving one of the biggest media conglomerates on the planet. Not only does it continue to dominate ratings, it’s such an essential part of America’s media diet that most of its money comes from “carriage” fees paid by the cable companies. And then there’s the very good chance that this fall, voters will gift Fox another Clinton in the White House. Not only would it keep the network in the simple, righteous role of loyal opposition to liberal tyranny, it would also be a great return to the climate of Clinton-bashing that put Fox on the map back in the 90s. “I think a Hillary presidency would guarantee the network maintains its rightwing bent for a few more years, even with the Murdoch brothers in control,” said one ex-producer. Muto had a colorful metaphor at the ready: “I would compare it to Batman and the Joker. Batman is a much more interesting character when he has the Joker as a foil. And Hillary Clinton is the Joker to Fox’s Batman.” If Trump won, the network would have a trickier time. For one thing, Fox generally does better under a Democratic reign. It’s true that the network became No 1 under Bush’s first term, but that was no doubt fuelled by the nonstop drama of 9/11, the invasion of Afghanistan, a climate of paranoia, and the culmination of the Iraq war – which, of course, Fox helped sell skillfully. “I don’t know how it would have played out without 9/11 and the Iraq war,” Hall said. But eventually, Bush proved to be thin gruel, ratings-wise. “I think Bush winning in ’04 was a triumph for the network, but it went downhill quickly from there,” Muto said. “The war started going badly. Hurricane Katrina happened. There was this sense that the network was having trouble carrying water for Bush any more. There was an overall sense of doom at Fox between Katrina and when the 2008 primaries began heating up.” The ratings tell that story: from 2006 to 2007, Fox dropped to 1.4 million average viewers, down from 1.7 million a year before, according to Nielsen. By the end of 2008, they had shot up to 2 million. “It felt like the network was licking its chops for Hillary in 2008,” said Muto. “‘Our old nemesis is back.’ Then when Obama showed up, it was even better.” By 2009, the numbers were up to almost 2.2 million. Ratings have dipped in the latter half of Obama’s second term, but a Clinton regime could be just the thing to reignite the base. “They can continue to attack the flaws of Bill Clinton through her,” said Hall. “She’s also, obviously, a woman. I’m sure that if she wins they’ll go after her as a ‘socialist’, go after her in every way, personally. She’s much better for them.” Trump, on the other hand, would probably continue to fracture any sense of unity on the right, which is no good for Fox’s narratives of right v wrong, secular liberals v decent Americans. Then there’s just Trump’s unpredictability. “To me, the worst thing that can happen for the network is Trump gets elected,” said Muto. “The prospect of carrying his water for four or eight years is unthinkable. Hannity will obviously give it a shot, Fox and Friends will try as hard as they can. But when you have him attacking the parents of war heroes, Fox is not gonna defend that for that long.” Politics aside, Fox has a more concrete problem. The generational scare is real: the 25-54 demographic is only 17% of its audience and younger conservatives are generally far less interested in enlisting to fight against the “war on Christmas”. Its digital presence, the portal to that treasured younger audience, is lacking. Among competitors like CNN (which spent $20m expanding online operations), Yahoo, BuzzFeed and the Huffington Post, last year Fox ranked third place in multi-platform views, sixth place in video streams, and trailed on social. Fox gets good play on Facebook, but that’s thanks to brand recognition rather than deliberate strategy or forging partnerships with emerging distributors like Snapchat. “Digital always did seem like it was never part of the strategy – that was never the thinking,” Muto said. “The whole network was very ratings-focused, short-sighted. If they want to attract a younger audience and eyeballs on digital, they need to recruit some new talent who knows how to do that.” An ex-producer agrees: “One of the more puzzling things about Fox News is that they actually do have some legitimately talented field reporters – people who could conceivably get a scoop, break it on Twitter, and post an article that goes viral. But they don’t really do that ever.” “CNN has become the model for this, and part of me thinks Roger long wanted to resist copying them lest he admit they did something better,” the onetime employee said. Perhaps now with Ailes gone, and President Hillary Clinton possibly on the way, Fox can get started on catching up. Fox News did not respond to requests for comment.
Led Zeppelin to release expanded version of their BBC Sessions compilation Just when you thought your bank account and shelves were safe, Led Zeppelin have announced another mammoth deluxe reissue, following the complete remastering of their Atlantic Records catalogue over the last few years. This time it’s The Complete BBC Sessions, an upgrade on the BBC Sessions album released in 1997. The unique selling point this time is a third disc, featuring eight previously unrecorded recordings, including a “lost session” the BBC had wiped from its archive – the version of that session comes from a fan’s radio recording. That session includes one Zeppelin song unavailable in any form on any other release, Sunshine Woman (though, naturally, you can hear it in seconds if you search YouTube), which was recorded for Alexis Korner’s Rhythm and Blues programme on the BBC World Service on 19 March 1969. All the sessions were recorded between 1969 and 1971, and feature songs dating up to the fourth Zeppelin album, including a version of Stairway to Heaven recorded on 1 April 1971. Naturally, there is no ordinary edition of the set. The entry-level version is a 3CD or 5LP “deluxe edition”. Those willing to mortgage their houses or sell one of their children’s kidneys can go for the super deluxe box set, with both vinyl and CDs and the additional baubles – a book, a print, a download code. The full CD tracklisting is: Disc One 1. You Shook Me 2. I Can’t Quit You Baby 3. Communication Breakdown 4. Dazed and Confused 5. The Girl I Love She Got Long Black Wavy Hair 6. What Is and What Should Never Be 7. Communication Breakdown 8. Travelling Riverside Blues 9. Whole Lotta Love 10. Somethin’ Else 11. Communication Breakdown 12. I Can’t Quit You Baby 13. You Shook Me 14. How Many More Times Disc Two 1. Immigrant Song 2. Heartbreaker 3. Since I’ve Been Loving You 4. Black Dog 5. Dazed and Confused 6. Stairway to Heaven 7. Going to California 8. That’s the Way 9. Whole Lotta Love (Medley: Boogie Chillun/Fixin’ to Die/That’s Alright Mama/A Mess of Blues) 10. Thank You Disc Three 1. Communication Breakdown* 2. What Is and What Should Never Be* 3. Dazed and Confused * 4. White Summer 5. What Is and What Should Never Be* 6. Communication Breakdown* 7. I Can’t Quit You Baby* 8. You Shook Me* 9. Sunshine Woman* * previously unreleased
Minimum UK alcohol pricing gets backing of official health advisers A review commissioned by the government from its health advisers has concluded that ministers should introduce minimum unit pricing of alcohol to tackle the grim medical, economic and social toll of drink-related harm. The in-depth study(pdf) has found that drink is now the biggest killer of people aged between 15 and 49 in England. It accounts for 167,000 years of lost productivity each year and is a factor in more than 200 different illnesses. It leads to such huge harm that the lost economic activity it produces, through early death and disability among workers, is more than that for the 10 most common cancers combined, the review found. The study’s publication by Public Health England (PHE) is an embarrassment for ministers because it says they should embrace a policy that they have rejected due to an alleged lack of evidence. The report says: “Policies that reduce the affordability of alcohol are the most effective, and cost-effective, approaches to prevention and health improvement … Implementing an MUP [minimum unit price] is a highly targeted measure which ensures any resulting price increases are passed on to the consumer, improving the health of the heaviest drinkers who experience the greatest amount of harm. MUP would have a negligible impact on moderate drinkers and the price of alcohol sold in pubs, bars and restaurants.” The coalition government pledged in March 2012 to bring in the policy, but it made a U-turn in July 2013, earning condemnation from medical organisations and arousing strong suspicions that it had caved in to intense lobbying by the alcohol industry. PHE, the government’s advisory agency on public health issues including obesity and smoking, published its “comprehensive review of the evidence on alcohol harm and its impact in England” in the Lancet medical journal on Friday. Sources say senior PHE officials feel its remit prevents it from explicitly backing minimum pricing, though ministerial opposition may also be a factor. Nevertheless, the report leaves little doubt regarding its support for the policy, observing that “the financial burden which alcohol-related harm places on society is not reflected in its market price, with taxpayers picking up a larger amount of the overall cost compared to the individual drinkers”. It says pricing policies should be updated in line with changes in income and inflation, “in order to retain their relative affordability and therefore be able to impact upon alcohol-related harm”. The new analysis has examined all the available evidence globally on alcohol harm and the steps effective in reducing it. PHE makes clear that the pricing of drink and the way it is marketed – issues of concern to medical groups – need to be urgently re-examined. It says policies can “address market failures by protecting people from the harm caused by other people’s drinking, deterring children from drinking, and improving consumer awareness of the risks of alcohol consumption.” The review, undertaken by PHE and researchers from Sheffield University, found that the economic burden of health, social and economic alcohol-related harm was substantial, with estimates placing the annual cost at between 1.3% and 2.7% of annual GDP. “In 2015 there were an estimated 167,000 working years lost due to alcohol, 16% of all working years lost in England,” it says. “More working years are lost to alcohol than the 10 most frequent cancer types combined.” The authors’ conclusions will pose difficulties for the Department of Health, which asked PHE to undertake the assessment of the latest research. It will now face questions about why the government is not pushing ahead with introducing the policy, given that the evidence suggests it would be effective. In 2013 the government justified abandoning its plans by saying public consultation had “not provided evidence that conclusively demonstrates that minimum unit pricing will actually do what it is meant to: reduce problem drinking without penalising all those who drink responsibly.” It is unclear how Jeremy Hunt, the health secretary, will respond to the results of a review that his own department asked PHE to instigate. Medical groups want ministers to take tougher action on alcohol. Although total alcohol consumption has fallen since 2008, that has not been accompanied by a drop in alcohol-related harm. Nicola Sturgeon’s Scottish National party government in Edinburgh plans to introduce minimum unit pricing in Scotland if it successfully sees off a legal challenge against the policy brought by the Scotch Whisky Association (SWA). The Holyrood administration won the last round of the battle in the courts in Edinburgh in October, but the SWA is appealing against that decision at the UK supreme court in London. The Scottish government hopes to set a minimum price of 50p a unit, the level backed by many doctors. The scrapped Westminster plan was to have set the level at 45p a unit. Medical and public health groups are likely to welcome the new findings but alcohol firms are expected to dismiss them. Manufacturers often argue that a minimum unit price would penalise responsible drinkers who stick to the amounts of alcohol recommended by the chief medical officers of the four home nations. That guidance was revised in January to set a weekly consumption limit of 14 units for men as well as women, down from the 21 units previously advised for males. However, previous evidence has concluded that the move would save thousands of lives because the heaviest drinkers are most likely to consume less as a result of the hike in price. • This article was amended on 2 December 2016 to add a mention of the Scotch Whisky Association’s legal challenge to plans for minimum unit pricing of alcohol in Scotland. An earlier version said the SNP government was “pressing ahead” with the introduction of the policy.
Donald Trump to Dr Oz: I feel 'as good today as I did at 30' On the day Donald Trump told TV host Dr Oz he feels “as good today as I did at 30”, the 70-year-old Republican presidential nominee released the most detailed assessment yet of his physical condition. The Trump campaign used the release to take a swipe at Hillary Clinton, lauding the billionaire’s ability to “endure – uninterrupted – the rigors of a punishing and unprecedented presidential campaign”. Clinton temporarily withdrew from the campaign trail after stumbling as she left a 9/11 memorial service in New York City on Sunday. Her campaign subsequently said she had pneumonia. In a taped interview with Dr Oz scheduled to be aired later on Thursday, Trump admitted that at 236lb he is overweight, but said he had bolstered his physical condition by giving speeches on the campaign trail. “It’s a lot of work,” he said. “You know, when I’m speaking in front of 15, 20,000 people and I’m up there using a lot of motion, I guess in its own way it’s a pretty healthy act. “A lot of times these rooms are really hot, like saunas, and I guess that’s a form of exercise.” Trump also plays golf. Before Trump’s interview with Dr Oz, his campaign released a statement from Dr Harold Bornstein, the same physician who in December said in a shorter note he could “state unequivocally, [Trump] will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency”. Bornstein later admitted the note had been “rushed” while a limo from the campaign waited outside his office. On Thursday, the reported that according to court papers, in April 2002 Bornstein agreed to pay $86,250 to the family of a patient, Janet Levin, who allegedly died after falling when she took “unhealthy amounts” of prescription drugs Bornstein had given her. Before settling, Bornstein denied all the allegations against him. The report on Trump’s health released on Thursday was based on an examination conducted on Friday 9 September. It was less hyperbolic than Bornstein’s first note, but still glowing. “Mr Trump is in excellent physical health,” Bornstein wrote, adding that Trump’s liver and thyroid functions were within the normal range, and that a cardiac evaluation was normal. Trump takes medication to lower cholesterol Trump’s testosterone was listed at 441.6. “He doesn’t have unusually high testosterone nor does he have unusually low testosterone,” said Dr Abraham Morgentaler, author of the book Testosterone for Life, adding that “450 or so is an average testosterone level in adult men”. Trump’s most recent colonoscopy was conducted on 10 July 2013, Bornstein said. It revealed no polyps. On the Dr Oz Show, Trump said that when he looks in the mirror he does not see a 70-year-old man. “I would say I see a person that’s 35 years old,” he said. The campaign did not release any ophthalmic results. Trump told Oz he sometimes plays golf with the 39-year-old New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady. “I feel I’m the same age as him. It’s crazy,” Trump said. Clips released in advance of the show’s broadcast saw Oz noting that Trump would be the oldest person ever to be elected president. Trump said that he was not that much older than one previous Republican president. “Just about the same age as Ronald Reagan,” he said. “And Hillary’s a year behind me. I actually feel as good today as I did at 30.” Ronald Reagan was 69 when he became president, in 1981. Hillary Clinton will turn 69 on 26 October. The notes from Trump’s physical state that he is is 6ft 3in and 236lb, giving him a body mass index of 29.5, which is considered overweight. The businessman, who is known for eating McDonald’s, KFC and on at least one occasion a taco bowl, told Oz he would like to lose 15lb.
Bank branch closures trigger high street alarm bells When the shutters come down on the Barclays branch in Bexley in a fortnight’s time, the south-east London suburb will be left without a high street bank. Nine customers used the branch “regularly” over the last 12 months without interacting with the bank in any other way, Barclays told locals as it prepared for the closure, which was delayed by six months because repairs to a local bridge hindered access to the alternative branch. It is a situation repeated across the UK, as banks scramble to save costs to bolster profits just as historic low interest rates are punishing their profitability and customers migrate to smartphones and the internet to access their accounts. In Dinas Powys, just outside Cardiff, the NatWest branch is also the last remaining on the high street – it would have closed in August if it were not for problems at the designated alternative branch. NatWest, which is owned by the bailed-out Royal Bank of Scotland, pointed to a 56% fall in transactions at the branch since 2011. Local Plaid Cymru councillor Chris Franks said there were concerns for local business people – not just individuals – about how they can pay in cash. “The irony is not lost on people that the public purse has paid a fortune for these banks and they are now abandoning taxpayers,” said Franks. RBS argues it reviews each branch on a case-by-case basis. About 1,500 communities have already been left without a bank on their high street, according to the Campaign for Community Banking Service (CCBS), which predicts an inexorable decline in the number of branches. One of the findings of the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) investigation into high street banking competition published earlier this month, was that a branch network was no longer a barrier to entry for challengers to the “big four” – Lloyds Banking Group, Royal Bank of Scotland, HSBC and Barclays. “Previous reviews have found the authorisation process for banks, the cost of IT and access to branches as barriers to entry or expansion in retail banking. We no longer find this to be the case,” the CMA said. Along with Santander, the big four have closed an estimated 1,700 branches in the last five years.When bailed-out Lloyds, the owner of Halifax and Bank of Scotland (HBOS), announced 200 unit closures last month it said use of branches had fallen by 15% year on year. Some new branches have appeared. Metro Bank was, in 2010, the first startup to open on high streets for more than a century and now has 41 branches. Both Lloyds and RBS were forced to carve out branch networks as a penalty from the EU for their taxpayer bailouts. The network created – TSB – is owned by Sabadell and now has 598 branches compared with 631 when it started. RBS has abandoned attempts to spin out its 300 branches of Williams & Glyn and is looking for a trade buyer. However, Age UK, the charity which works with older people, is concerned. Journeys to branches are getting longer and for some older people not ready to embrace digital, there are other consequences. “Small business will also take fright of having to go long distances to a bank,” a spokesman for Age UK said. That could prompt an exodus of other businesses from high streets. “We’re asking [older] people to lead more independent lives in the community and then cutting it away,” the Age UK spokesman said. Last year, the industry was forced to agree to a “protocol” that requires them to publish impact statements with information about counter usage, regular customers and location of the nearest alternative bank, cash machine and Post Office. This is currently under review, with the outcome expected in the autumn. Nick Kennett, financial services director at the Post Office, said that when each branch closes, discussions are held about the services the Post Office can offer over its 11,500 counters. Customers of different banks at present have access to different services. He is working on a standardised service, by January, that means when each bank closes, cash withdrawals, deposit enquiries and deposit services are available for customers and small businesses to get small change. Campaigners against branch closures have long argued that branch sharing would be a solution. Derek French, who has run the CCBS since 1998, is now closing the website down. While he agrees with analysis by the consultancy CACI, cited by the CMA, that it is possible that just 600 branches will “deliver effective nationwide customer coverage in five years’ time”, he thinks there will still be a need for banking services through other outlets. The banks themselves argue that branches will remain. Barclays said: “The number of physical Barclays branches will reduce overall but our branch network and the colleagues who work in them remain a vital part of our offering”.
Julie Bishop raises concerns over US foreign policy under Donald Trump Australia’s foreign affairs minister, Julie Bishop, has raised concerns about the unclear direction of US foreign policy if Donald Trump becomes president. She said the federal government had considered what a Clinton administration would mean for Australia and it knew what to expect. But if Donald Trump won the US presidency she indicated the government would have to work hard to ensure Australia’s interests were still looked after. With less than two weeks to go before the US federal election, Bishop said Trump was a “much lesser-known quantity” than Hillary Clinton. “I believe there will be continuity in foreign policy from the Obama administration, should it be a Clinton administration. She [Clinton] sees the US as having a global leadership role,” Bishop told the ABC’s Insiders program on Sunday. “Candidate Donald Trump does not. He sees the US as having got a raw deal from globalisation and he would focus more on domestic matters. “We have seen Hillary Clinton, particularly as secretary of state, have a view that the US should take a leadership role in the Middle East, in hot spots around the world. She was the principal architect of the rebalance to the Asia Pacific in 2011. “The US became a member of the East Asia Summit with Australia, China and others. US engagement in our region is important for us. I believe that will continue under Hillary Clinton. “It will be up to our region, including Australia, to persuade a Trump administration to focus on the Asia Pacific,” she said. Bishop said she had met Clinton many times, and Clinton appeared to be pragmatic. She said Clinton understood Australia’s place in the world and had a deep understanding of the US-Australia alliance. “Donald Trump is a much lesser known quantity, as far as Australia is concerned,” she said. “He doesn’t have a record in government; in public office. We are looking closely at the policy pronouncements he has made.” In February Trump said he wanted to shrink the American presence in Asia and charge allies billions of dollars for protection, complaining “rich” countries like Japan and South Korea had been freeloading on the US and the US was getting little in return. “We’re constantly, you know, sending our ships, sending our planes, doing our war games, doing other,” he said. “We’re reimbursed a fraction of what this is all costing.” Bishop said Australia would also be monitoring carefully comments from the Philippines president, Rodrigo Duterte. She said Duterte recently “raised eyebrows” when he told Chinese officials that he wanted to separate from the US, but had clarified his comments to say he was only talking about pursuing an independent foreign policy from the United States, which she said was not a remarkable statement. “There will be concerns if he does seek to distance the Philippines from the United States because the United States has been the principal security guarantor for our region and many nations, including the Philippines, and Australia has benefited enormously from the US presence,” Bishop said. “He has gone on to say that in Japan he would like to see US troops leave but that he is not going to break any agreements at this point. We will monitor his statements carefully.” Last month Bishop met with Trump’s campaign team in the US and said she had been assured Australia was a “close and strong ally of the United States”. After the meeting, she said from Australia’s point of view the alliance would hold up under a Trump presidency. “I am confident that whomever the American people in their wisdom choose to be president, there will be an ongoing strong connection with Australia,” she said.
The view on Brexit and the Lords: power to examine A protocol of British democracy is that the House of Lords shows humility in recognition that its members are not elected, in exchange for which the Commons retains a degree of deference to the ancient pedigree of the upper house. This arrangement, underpinned by convention and statute, is tested whenever peers thwart some cherished government ambition. Such protocols did not prevent the Lords from sabotaging George Osborne’s plans to cut tax credits last year. David Cameron’s government threatened to retaliate with legislation making curtailment of peer power more explicit. Theresa May’s government has now suspended that threat but with a proviso. Baroness Evans, leader of the Lords, has warned her upper house colleagues that they must exhibit “discipline and self-regulation”, especially where scrutiny of Brexit is concerned. She is right that unelected peers would be unwise to adopt a wrecking stance towards a policy mandated by popular vote in the referendum. But there is no sign that the Lords have wholly obstructive intent, and they do have a right of critical engagement. An undertaking to comply with the prime minister’s Brexit timetable is not one the Lords can reasonably give, nor one that government should seek.
Matthew McConaughey turns bourbon ambassador and has a quiet night out The warmest of congratulations to cinema’s Matthew McConaughey, whose first opus as “creative director” of Wild Turkey bourbon is already upon us. It was only last month that the bourbon brand announced the Oscar-winning star had signed a multi-year deal to “serve as the chief storyteller for Wild Turkey both behind the camera and in front of it”. I wouldn’t like to hazard how much Wild Turkey Matthew had in him to make the following statement, but it’s good to learn how much of Matthew there seems to be in Wild Turkey. “Wild Turkey has the history and qualities of a brand that depicts the dedication of someone to do something their own way,” he announced solemnly, “even if that way isn’t always the most popular.” Well quite. This is a bourbon still prickly about having spent most of the noughties imprisoned in second-tier romcoms with Kate Hudson, or defending its naked bongo-playing arrest. And so to Matthew’s first commercial distillation of the brand, which is unlikely to win any prizes for originality, given that it opens with him drawling “We’re not in a rush to be most popular …” Well, of course not. It is, after all, an immutable advertising law that dictates this type of hard liquor must always be styled as the laconic choice, the laidback choice, the almost insufferably slow-moving choice. And yet, as anyone who has ever had a proper night on the stuff will tell you, this could scarcely be more at odds with the user experience. The one thing you can bet your pickup truck on is that they’re sweeping up teeth come chucking-out time in Jack Daniels Hollow, where a mere naked bongo arrest must surely be regarded as having had a quiet one.
The view on the American presidential election It was a week when the 2016 American presidential election appeared to boil down to a contest between two individuals: Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. Both candidates achieved sweeping victories across the Super Tuesday states. Both immediately began to adjust their campaign rhetoric to better suit November’s national election, with an emphasis on inclusiveness and unity. In Trump’s case, however, this feigned switch towards moderation and bonhomie was short lived. By the week’s end, he was again insulting his rivals and almost unbelievably, given what is at stake, bragging about the size of his penis. It is true that forthcoming primaries in Florida, Ohio and elsewhere could upset projections of a Trump-Clinton showdown. It is still theoretically possible that Marco Rubio or Ted Cruz could somehow deny Trump the Republican nomination, even though they lag far behind in party polls. It would take a miracle for Bernie Sanders, the fireside socialist from what Time columnist Joe Klein calls New England’s “latte lands”, to overhaul Clinton, but miracles do sometimes happen. And such is the hostility to Trump within the Republican hierarchy, an old-fashioned brokered (meaning manipulated) convention in Cleveland in July, fixed to deny him his party’s crown, cannot be ruled out. But these are all implausible scenarios. Barring accidents or other unforeseen events, American voters seem stuck with a choice few foresaw a year ago. Whereas Clinton was always hot favourite to succeed Barack Obama and lead her party in the autumn, Trump, a rank outsider who has never held political office, has come from nowhere to seize the spotlight, headlines and votes. Yet is this really as unusual as some commentators believe? US elections have a long history of producing unconventional, sometimes unpleasant anti-establishment candidates whose allure eclipses the professional political class. Strip away, if you can, Trump’s boorishness and gross insensitivity to complex issues such as the west’s relationship with Islam and his iconoclastic, insurgent campaign does not look or sound very different from those waged by maverick rightwingers such as Pat Buchanan and Ross Perot in the 1990s. Nor, historically speaking, is his lack of experience a bar to the highest office. Non-politicians Dwight Eisenhower and Ulysses Grant both won the presidency thanks to their reputations as successful generals. Herbert Hoover, like Trump a wealthy businessman, was elected in 1928 for his supposed financial acumen. Hapless Hoover also promised to “make America great again”. Instead, the Wall Street Crash a few months later triggered the Great Depression. Given Trump’s ignorant views on immigration and his appeal among grassroots voters, defined as white, Protestant, working-class people lacking a college degree, a more exact precedent is found in the activities of the Know Nothing party, also known as the American party, in the early 1850s. The Know Nothings exploited public fears about unchecked immigration, promising to “purify” society by halting the influx of Irish and German Catholics whom they claimed were secretly controlled by the pope. Know-nothing Trump’s verbal sparring with Pope Francis over Mexican border walls provides an intriguing echo of that time. Yet past experience does nothing to diminish the present-day anger and disillusionment of many American voters with the modern political establishment and the way things are now. This discontent is very real and very urgent. Understanding it, articulating it and, most importantly, acting to both satisfy and channel it in positive ways represents the biggest challenge for Trump and Clinton. But from where does this anger come? Is it simply that Washington’s so-called elite are out of touch, that Congress is log-jammed and impotent and Obama is a discredited lame duck? Or is there a bigger, deeper cause of this malaise that any president would struggle to remedy? It would seem so. The unpalatable truth confronting Americans, if they care to face up to it (and many do not), is that their country, for so long regarded by them as unquestionably the foremost and best among nations, is under unprecedented pressure. Militarily, the US remains the world’s most powerful state. Yet it cannot or will not stop a resurgent Russia thumbing its nose at the west in Ukraine, Syria and the Baltic. In the South China Sea, another upstart rival, China, builds multiple island military bases with nonchalant impunity. In the Middle East, the sons of those same insurgents who resisted the 2003 Iraq invasion and swore allegiance to al-Qaida now fly the black banners of Islamic State, tearing up international human rights law, threatening civilian lives in every European and Arab capital and making a mockery of the post-Cold War pax Americana. At home, global forces beyond the control of any White House incumbent undermine the job security, pay and pensions of American workers once inured to international competition. The US national debt, estimated at a whopping $19.1tn, is in fact much higher. The government has pledged an astounding $41.9tn in social security and other retiree benefits over the next 75 years, money it simply does not have and will not receive on current revenue projections. That amounts to a total debt of $61tn, equivalent to more than three times US gross domestic product, much of it underwritten abroad. American society meanwhile continues to transform rapidly in myriad ways. Gone are the old, Germanic-inspired certainties of kitchen, church and country. No longer can violence against black people and other minorities, powerfully symbolised by police shootings, be quietly ignored. As Obama’s watershed election in 2008 foretold, in the making is a more integrated, more multiracial, multi-confessional, sexually liberated and politically diverse America than ever existed before. The wonderful irony is that the idea of the melting pot, for so long more myth than daily fact of life, seems finally to be coming into being. The bigger question for 2016’s voters, therefore, is not about Trump or Clinton, Republican or Democrat. It is about how to manage a changing, less homogenous, less wealthy and less dominant America in a highly competitive, often chaotic and dangerous 21st-century world. The American nation is living beyond its means at home and increasingly failing to project its will and interests abroad. This is a serious moment, perhaps even a turning point, as the 2012 Republican presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, suggests. The appalling Trump, in particular, must understand this. Bragging, bluster and bullying do not cut it. At this critical hour, America needs leadership.
Premier League, Football League and European football: clockwatch – as it happened That’s it from me; here are some match reports to help you make sense of this afternoon’s action. Don’t forget to join Rob Smyth for Arsenal v Norwich. That should be fun. Cheerio! Premier League Newcastle are out of the bottom three with 33 points Sunderland are a point behind with a game in hand West Ham are up to fifth, five points off Arsenal in fourth Championship Sheffield Wednesday join Derby and Hull in the play-offs League One Wigan are promoted from League One after beating Blackpool Burton need a point to guarantee promotion to the second tier Doncaster are all but down after 3-1 defeat at Crewe Blackpool and Fleetwood will fight to avoid last relegation place League Two Accrington, Oxford and Bristol Rovers still in the promotion race Plymouth, Portsmouth and Wimbledon are all in the play-offs Drama at Moor Lane, where Salford City scored twice in the last ten minutes to beat Workington 3-2, seal promotion to the Conference North, and finally restore a smile to Gary Neville’s face. Championship Brentford 3-0 Fulham Bristol City 4-0 Huddersfield Ipswich 3-2 MK Dons Leeds Utd 1-2 Charlton Nottingham Forest 1-1 Wolves Reading 1-2 Preston Rotherham 0-1 Blackburn Sheffield Wednesday 3-0 Cardiff League One Barnsley 2-2 Colchester Burton 2-1 Gillingham Chesterfield 3-0 Bury Coventry 3-1 Sheffield Utd Crewe 2-1 Doncaster (latest) Millwall 3-0 Oldham Rochdale 2-2 Swindon Scunthorpe 1-0 Port Vale Shrewsbury 3-4 Peterborough Southend 0-1 Bradford City League Two Barnet 3-4 Yeovil (!) Cambridge 2-2 Plymouth Carlisle 0-2 Oxford Dagenham & Redbridge 3-0 Crawley Exeter 1-1 Morecambe Hartlepool 0-2 Portsmouth Leyton Orient 1-0 Mansfield Newport 0-1 Notts County Northampton 2-0 Luton Stevenage 0-0 Wimbledon Wycombe 0-1 Accrington York 1-4 Bristol Rovers Everton 2-1 Bournemouth Newcastle 1-0 Crystal Palace Stoke 1-1 Sunderland Watford 3-2 Aston Villa West Brom 0-3 West Ham Sheffield Wednesday are in the play-offs after beating Cardiff 3-0 at Hillsborough, while Luke Varney has grabbed a late winner for Ipswich. Burton are on the verge of promotion after beating Gillingham 2-1, while Tom Lapslie has scored a last-gasp equaliser for Colchester at Oakwell. The U’s are already down, and had a forward in nets for the last ten minutes, so that’s impressive. At Crewe, Doncaster have around 20 minutes to realistically save themselves from the drop. Everton win, but there are plenty of banners up around Goodison Park calling for Roberto Martínez to go. Leighton Baines got the winner in the second half. All over at the Hawthorns, where West Ham keep their top four push alive thanks to two goals from Mark Noble, and one for Cheikhou Kouyaté. An Andros Townsend free kick, and a Karl Darlow penalty save from Yohan Cabaye, earn Newcastle a vital victory. Bryan Graham has more. Quite the game at the New Meadow, where Shrewsbury rallied from 3-0 down to level, only to slip 4-3 behind at the death. Now they’ve had Ian Black sent off. In League Two, it’s finished Cambridge 2-2 Plymouth; the visitors will be in the play-offs, Cambridge will not. Villa snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, as Troy Deeney scores two stoppage-time goals to earn a useful win for Quique Sanchez Flores. Jermain Defoe wins and scores an injury-time penalty to earn a precious point for Sunderland. A Gareth Bale header settles a scrappy game, and Real are back on top in La Liga, for a couple of hours. Come on now, this isn’t fair. Troy Deeney strikes again to earn Watford victory, and somehow make Villa’s season worse. Scenes at the Pirelli Stadium, where Tom Naylor has put Burton 2-1 up in the 92nd minute! I’m so sorry, Villa fans. Troy Deeney nods a Berghuis cross into the net to equalise in stoppage time. Defoe takes an age to place the ball, then smashes it home to grab a point for Sunderland! Oh boy. Geoff Cameron brings down Defoe, who gets up to take the penalty... Real Madrid have a free kick to defend in added time, but Keylor Navas gets both hands to a near-post header. That should do it... At Stoke, Seb Larsson fires a free kick over, and Sunderland’s frustrations boil over, with a couple of minor skirmishes breaking out. They’re running out of time, as are Doncaster, who have gone behind at bottom club Crewe. If they lose, they’re as good as down. It gets worse for Plymouth, with James Spencer putting the hosts ahead, two minutes after their equaliser. That goal could keep Cambridge in the hunt for a play-off place themselves. Big goals crash in at Oakwell – where Barnsley lead 2-1 – and the Abbey Stadium, where Cambridge have equalised against Plymouth. That could condemn Plymouth to the play-offs. In the Championship, Stephen Quinn has equalised for Reading at home to Preston, in a game they’re racing to get over and done with. Ten minutes to go in the Premier League. Can Sunderland level? Will Newcastle hang on? Are Everton about to win at home? We’re about to find out. League Two news: it’s York 1-3 Bristol Rovers, and Accrington finally have the lead at Wycombe. All of the top six are winning, while there’s a cracker at Barnet, where Yeovil have just made it 3-3. Your thoughts “Gareth Bale redeems himself with a header à la Andy Carroll. Must be the topknot” says Charles Antaki. “Toooooooon!” bellows Sam Huscroft. The captain gets his second of the day, turning home Andy Carroll’s chipped pass. You know what to do, Roy... A big goal in La Liga, as Gareth Bale gets it right this time to head a Lucas Vasquez cross into the top corner! Alex Revell gets his second, and it’s inevitably Ipswich 2-2 MK Dons in a game between two sides who can’t buy a win. And Sheffield Wednesday are bound for the playoffs, as Gary Hooper robs David Marshall of the ball and crosses, with Cardiff’s Lee Peltier applying the unfortunate finishing touch. Oxford lead Carlisle 2-0, but they won’t be going up today – Bristol Rovers lead 2-0 at York, and Plymouth lead at Cambridge. In League One, Shrewsbury needed a win to secure survival. They’ve failed miserably, losing 3-1 at home to Peterborough. It had all been going too well for Aston Villa, and after Anya is put clear by Ben Watson, Cissokho brings him down with his trailing leg, and is sent packing by Anthony Taylor. Jackie Milburn, Alan Shearer... Karl Darlow. The understudy keeper denies Cabaye, and Newcastle stay in the lead. Moussa Sissoko handles from a Palace corner, and former Newcastle hero Yohan Cabaye is going to take it... Bristol City lead 3-0 over Huddersfield, Jonathan Kodjia with his second goal. Elsewhere in the Championship, Ipswich lead MK Dons 2-1 through Brett Pitman, and Forest have equalised against Wolves. No title for Bayern today, as Gladbach hold them to a 1-1 draw. They’re five points clear of Dortmund with two games remaining. Eintracht Frankfurt are out of the bottom two, with Werder Bremen dropping into danger. Bayern 1-1 Gladbach Darmstadt 1-2 Eintracht Frankfurt Dortmund 5-1 Wolfsburg Hannover 1-3 Schalke Hoffenheim 2-1 Ingolstadt Mainz 0-0 Hamburg “Sunderland’s own Thomas Müller has not scored yet but I am sure he is working hard” honks Ian Copestake. Fabio Borini has now gone off, unappreciated once again. Big goal at Hillsborough, where Gary Hooper has put Sheffield Wednesday ahead, tucking away the rebound after Pudil’s shot was saved. The hosts set for the play-offs alongside Hull, Derby and whoever finishes third. Leighton Baines puts Everton back ahead, placing an Aaron Lennon pull-back into the top corner with aplomb. Joe Mason puts Wolves a goal up at Nottingham Forest, while in League One, Barnsley equalise at home to Colchester. Thank me later, Newcastle fans. Andros Townsend puts the hosts ahead from a free kick! Bryan Graham has more. “Gareth Bale has just missed not one sitter, but two in short order against Real Sociedad. Adopts the hands-behind-head plus anguished-distant-gaze appropriate to such occasions” reports Charles Antaki. He also looked for an offside flag to help him out – absolutely textbook. Can Newcastle take advantage of Sunderland going behind? They’re struggling at the moment. Get the latest with Bryan Graham. It’s a (relatively) good afternoon so far for teams already down: Bolton have won, Villa are winning, as are Charlton, Colchester lead at Barnsley, Crewe have equalised against Doncaster, and Dagenham & Redbridge lead Crawley 2-0. Here’s J.A. Hopkin with a fair point: Let’s talk about how the other three Champions’ League semi-finalists are playing today, but the FA and Sky Sports would not allow Man City to move tomorrow evening’s match away at Southampton to a Saturday kick-off. How’s that for supporting our home clubs in Europe? Manuel Pellegrini certainly isn’t happy: West Brom offering no threat to West Ham, with Andy Carroll coming closest to scoring in the second half. Hard lines for Spurs fans... Two big goals in the Bundesliga relegation race – Eintracht Frankfurt lead at Darmstadt, and Hoffenheim lead 2-1 at home to Ingolstadt. Elsewhere, Dortmund are sending a message to Mats Hummels – they’re now 5-0 up over Wolfsburg. Gillingham grab an equaliser at Burton through Cody McDonald. If it stays like that, Wigan will be champions, and Burton will be nervous. In the Championship, Ademola Lookman has doubled Charlton’s lead at Leeds. Grim news for Sunderland fans, Marco Arnautovic bullying Lamine Kone off the ball and firing Stoke into the lead. Aston Villa freewheeling at Vicarage Road, retaking the lead through Jordan Ayew, who fires a low shot beyond the grasp of Heurelho Gomes. Well then – Gladbach have equalised through Andre Hahn, and Bayern’s party is on hold. We’ve also got news from Crewe v Doncaster – don’t go thinking we’ve gone all continental on you. It’s 1-0 to Doncaster, who look set to keep their survival bid on track. Real Madrid fail to make a first-half breakthrough in a dull 45 minutes at the Anoeta. Championship A couple of late goals, with Jonathan Kodjia putting Bristol City ahead, and Alex Revell equalising for MK Dons. Brentford 3-0 Fulham Bristol City 1-0 Huddersfield Ipswich 1-1 MK Dons Leeds Utd 0-1 Charlton Nottingham Forest 0-0 Wolves Reading 0-0 Preston Rotherham 0-1 Blackburn Sheffield Wednesday 0-0 Cardiff League One Barnsley 0-1 Colchester Burton 1-0 Gillingham Chesterfield 2-0 Bury Coventry 2-0 Sheffield Utd Crewe 0-0 Doncaster (3.30 k/o) Millwall 2-0 Oldham Rochdale 1-2 Swindon Scunthorpe 0-0 Port Vale Shrewsbury 0-1 Peterborough Southend 0-1 Bradford City League Two Barnet 1-0 Yeovil Cambridge 0-0 Plymouth Carlisle 0-1 Oxford Dagenham & Redbridge 0-0 Crawley Exeter 0-0 Morecambe Hartlepool 0-0 Portsmouth Leyton Orient 0-0 Mansfield Newport 0-1 Notts County Northampton 2-0 Luton Stevenage 0-0 Wimbledon Wycombe 0-0 Accrington York 0-1 Bristol Rovers Everton 1-1 Bournemouth Newcastle 0-0 Crystal Palace Stoke 0-0 Sunderland Watford 1-1 Aston Villa West Brom 0-2 West Ham Kouyaté turns provider, teeing up Mark Noble who toe-pokes the ball into the bottom corner to put West Ham very much on top. Almen Abdi spoils Villa’s party, equalising on the stroke of half-time with a fine free kick. Granit Xhaka curls a shot just wide of Manuel Neuer’s far post, with Bayern still just a goal up. Dortmund keep up the pressure, Marco Reus making it 3-0 over Wolfsburg. Hope for Frankfurt, as Makoto Hasebe equalises at Darmstadt. Burton take the lead over Gillingham, Lucas Akins with the goal. Victory would put them six points and at least five goals ahead of Walsall, with two games remaining for the Saddlers. Millwall in fourth are 2-0 up over Oldham, but that’s no use unless Burton lose. Relegated Charlton lead Leeds 1-0 at Elland Road, in a match that I’ll wager is lacking a party atmosphere. At Goodison Park, Ross Barkley is trying to make something happen, but fires a shot into Stanley Park from a good position. “My local team, Eintracht Frankfurt, seem to be doomed” says Ian Copestake, who likes to spread his allegiances around. “Football God Alexander Meier needs to channel his inner Jay Jay Okocha”. Frankfurt are still a goal down at Darmstadt, and the marvellous Meier is set for a spell of being undervalued at a Premier League contender. Here’s our report from Bloomfield Road, where Wigan returned to the Championship in style, and Blackpool slid closer to League Two; they were in the Premier League five years ago. “There appears to be some mistake,” says Chris Drew. “You’ve got Aston Villa as scoring a goal. And even more unbelievable, they’re in the lead.” Dimitri Payet collects the ball out on the right, and delivers a superb cross for Chiekhou Kouyaté to nod the Hammers in front. Real Sociedad enjoy a spell of pressure, with Sergio Ramos of all people conceding a clumsy free kick – but two forwards get in each other’s way. One early goal in the Championship that passed me by: Blackburn lead Rotherham 1-0 through Shane Duffy. In League Two, Bristol Rovers lead at York, and Barnet are a goal up over Yeovil. In Scotland, Aberdeen aren’t giving up the title today, and they’re working on the 39-goal swing, leading 2-0 over Motherwell. Surprise! Ciaran Clark gets his head to a corner and nods Villa into the lead! They haven’t won away from home since August. Ben Watson hits the bar with an outrageous volley from distance, while at the Hawthorns, Jonathan Leko is lighting things up in an otherwise quiet game. David McGoldrick has put Ipswich a goal up against relegated MK Dons, while Sheffield Wednesday are knocking on the door against Cardiff. In San Sebastian, Gareth Bale flashes another header wide, the Welshman leading the line with Benzema and Ronaldo out today. “Are Leicester City going to party like its 1999 (see below), Manchester United’s treble winning year, when Manchester United, like Leicester City, only lost three matches during the Premier League season?” asks Raymond Reardon (presumably not that one). Let’s not talk about Leicester. You want to, I want to, but... ah, what the hey, let’s talk about Leicester. Peter Crouch flicks on Charlie Adam’s cross, but Marco Arnautovic can’t get their ahead of Mannone, before Kone throws himself in front of a Shaqiri shot. Nothing to trouble the scoreboard here, or at Newcastle, Watford and West Brom. At the Anoeta, Gareth Bale has planted a header just wide as Real Madrid search for an opener. Here’s the Bundesliga half times; Bayern are 45 minutes from the title. Bayern 1-0 Gladbach Darmstadt 1-0 Eintracht Frankfurt Dortmund 2-0 Wolfsburg Hannover 1-2 Schalke Hoffenheim 1-1 Ingolstadt Mainz 0-0 Hamburger SV Watford all over Aston Villa in the early stages, with the off-colour Odion Ighalo missing a couple of chances. In League One, Bradford lead at Southend, while in Scotland, Kilmarnock lead at Hamilton, pushing Dundee United closer to the drop. It’s a big day for Salford City – they’re up against Workington in the Northern Premier League playoff final, seeking elevation to the Conference North. It’s 1-1 after 15 minutes at Moor Lane. Fulham and Sheffield United fans, time to go out and enjoy the sunshine. Fulham are 2-0 down at Brentford, the Blades behind by the same score at Coventry. It takes a while to be officially given, but Marc Pugh turns Callum Wilson in off Matthew Pennington to level immediately. Boos from the crowd over a potential push in the build-up. Tom Cleverley gives the hosts a welcome lead, firing into the bottom of the corner from the edge of the area. Early goals in Leagues One & Two: Oxford lead at Carlisle with promotion in sight, while Northampton lead Luton through Zander Diamond. The champions will get their hands on the trophy at full-time, as my colleague Dan Lucas keeps reminding me. More Hillsborough tributes at St. James’ Park: “Rafa has made Newcastle my second team. The fans have just cranked out a thrilling rendition of You’ll Never Walk Alone. Wonderful to see this in football” says Ian Copestake. I feel a little discombobulated after that emotional Everton tribute, but let’s press on with the football. All games are under way. At Goodison Park, a number of Hillsborough victims’ relatives are on the pitch, while the PA plays “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother”. During a minute’s applause, a banner is unfurled, it reads “Justice at Last 96 – Brothers in Arms”. “Due to unforeseen circumstances, that is, a win for Kilmarnock at Hamilton today, followed by a defeat for Dundee United at Dens on Monday, today’s Scottish football update has been cancelled. Sorry” sobs Simon McMahon. “But for anybody still interested it’s still quite exciting in the race for the Championship play offs between Falkirk and Hibs, and the bottom of League One between Cowdenbeath, Brechin and Stenhousemuir.” Simon is too depressed to mention Celtic, who have beaten Hearts 3-1 at Tynecastle. They will be confirmed as champions if Aberdeen fail to beat Motherwell, but the Dons need four wins, three Celtic defeats and a 39-goal swing. You can forgive Celtic for celebrating early. Roberts is on the bench at the Hawthorns today, and Pêl-droed is probably my favourite word for football in another language. Thomas Müller has put Bayern 1-0 up early on in Munich. Dortmund, as usual, are chasing gamely – they’re already 2-0 up in Wolfsburg, Shinji Kagawa and Adrian Ramos with the goals. Football League fixtures Championship Brentford v Fulham Bristol City v Huddersfield Ipswich v MK Dons Leeds Utd v Charlton Nottingham Forest v Wolves Reading v Preston Rotherham v Blackburn Sheffield Wednesday v Cardiff It finished Bolton 1-0 Hull in the early game; the visitors not exactly picking up speed as the play-offs approach. League One Barnsley v Colchester Burton v Gillingham Chesterfield v Bury Coventry v Sheffield Utd Crewe v Doncaster Millwall v Oldham Rochdale v Swindon Scunthorpe v Port Vale Shrewsbury v Peterborough Southend v Bradford City League Two Barnet v Yeovil Cambridge v Plymouth Carlisle v Oxford Dagenham & Redbridge v Crawley Exeter v Morecambe Hartlepool v Portsmouth Leyton Orient v Mansfield Newport v Notts County Northampton v Luton Stevenage v Wimbledon Wycombe v Accrington York v Bristol Rovers Wigan are promoted from League One after thrashing Blackpool 4-0 at Bloomfield Road. It’s straight back to Championship business for them. The Latics will be crowned champions if Burton fail to win today; victory for the Brewers over Gillingham would, more pressingly, put them on the edge of a first-ever season in the second tier. That can’t be confirmed until Monday, when Walsall play Fleetwood. That also spares Blackpool for today, while Doncaster need a win at rock-bottom Crewe. Chesterfield and Shrewsbury can seal survival with victories over Bury and Peterborough respectively. With Middlesbrough drawing at Birmingham last night, and both Burnley and Brighton playing on Monday, there’s only issue to address in today’s Championship games. Sheffield Wednesday host Cardiff, knowing that a draw will seal a play-off place. In League Two, Accrington and Oxford could both go up today with victories, providing that Bristol Rovers and Plymouth stumble. Oxford are looking to return to the third tier after 15 years away; Stanley last played at that level in 1960. Defeat for Plymouth at Cambridge could keep the play-off race alive, with the U’s battling Wimbledon for the final place. There’s more on all the possible ups and downs here. In La Liga, Real Madrid can return to the summit for a couple of hours with a win at Real Sociedad, who haven’t won in their three games since beating Barcelona. It’s a clash between two of Spain’s all-time big six: Real Madrid lead the way with 32 La Liga titles, their Basque opponents are sixth, with a whopping two. In Germany, Bayern are ready to make history; victory over Moenchengladbach would seal a first ever Bundesliga four-peat. Gladbach are in the race for fourth, and defeat will give Mainz and Schalke the chance to catch up, with current incumbents Hertha Berlin playing in-form Leverkusen later. At the bottom, Eintracht Frankfurt can boost their survival chances with a win at Darmstadt. In Ligue 1, Nice look set to miss out on ending a 56-year wait to return to the European elite; they’re 1-0 down at Nantes, chasing Lyon and Monaco for a top-three spot. At the Hawthorns, talented teenager Jonathan Leko makes his first Premier League start a week after his sixteenth birthday. He’s the first top-flight player born in 1999, which is a good enough reason for me: Bobby rolls those dice, with January signing Oumar Niasse starting ahead of Romelu Lukaku up front, and youngster Matthew Pennington in central defence. For Bournemouth, Callum Wilson starts for the first time since September. Everton v Bournemouth Everton: Howard, Besic, Stones, Pennington, Baines, McCarthy, Gibson, Lennon, Barkley, Cleverley, Niasse. Subs: Robles, Hibbert, Oviedo, Lukaku, Mirallas, Osman, Hassan. Bournemouth: Boruc, Francis, Elphick, Cook, Daniels, Arter, Surman, Pugh, Ritchie, Wilson, King. Subs: Gosling, Stanislas, Afobe, Federici, Grabban, Wiggins, O’Kane. Referee: Neil Swarbrick Stoke City v Sunderland Stoke: Haugaard, Bardsley, Cameron, Shawcross, Pieters, Whelan, Imbula, Shaqiri, Adam, Arnautovic, Crouch. Subs: Muniesa, Joselu, Diouf, Walters, Wollscheid, Krkic, Bachmann. Sunderland: Mannone, Yedlin, Kone, Kaboul, Van Aanholt, Kirchhoff, Borini, Cattermole, M’Vila, Khazri, Defoe. Subs: Jones, Larsson, Rodwell, N’Doye, Pickford, O’Shea, Watmore. Referee: Craig Pawson Newcastle v Crystal Palace Newcastle: Darlow, Anita, Mbemba, Lascelles, Dummett, Tiote, Colback, Townsend, Sissoko, Wijnaldum, Cissé. Subs: De Jong, Shelvey, Perez, Taylor, Woodman, Mbabu, Mitrovic. Crystal Palace: Hennessey, Ward, Dann, Delaney, Souaré, Jedinak, Cabaye, McArthur, Bolasie, Puncheon, Wickham. Subs: Mariappa, McCarthy, Gayle, Adebayor, Sako, Ledley, Kelly. Referee: Mike Dean West Brom v West Ham West Brom: Foster, Dawson, McAuley, Olsson, Evans, Yacob, Fletcher, Leko, Gardner, McClean, Rondón. Subs: Chester, Myhill, Lambert, Berahino, Sessegnon, Sandro, Roberts. West Ham: Adrián, Antonio, Reid, Ogbonna, Cresswell, Noble, Kouyaté, Lanzini, Sakho, Carroll, Payet. Subs: Randolph, Tomkins, Collins, Moses, Byram, Emenike, Oxford. Referee: Lee Mason Watford v Aston Villa Watford: Gomes, Paredes, Cathcart, Britos, Anya, Abdi, Mario Suárez, Watson, Jurado, Deeney, Ighalo. Subs: Nyom, Prodl, Amrabat, Aké, Guedioura, Pantilimon, Berghuis. Aston Villa: Bunn, Hutton, Clark, Lescott, Cissokho, Westwood, Gana, Toner, Bacuna, Gestede, Ayew. Subs: Guzan, Richards, Sinclair, Veretout, Sánchez, Gil, Grealish. Referee: Anthony Taylor They told me that the classics never go out of style but they do, they do. It’s been a tough old season for the top flight’s established elite, and it could still end with Newcastle and Sunderland joining Aston Villa in dropping out. That would leave a top division without those three giants for the first time ever. Ever? Ever. Newcastle host Alan Pardew’s Crystal Palace (join Bryan Graham for that one), while Sunderland travel to summertime Stoke; the sort of fixtures one might hand pick in their situation, but on the flip side, games where defeat will leave either club with that sinking feeling. Another top-flight heavyweight could be about to end a record run; Everton haven’t sacked a manager since 2002, but unless Roberto Martínez can summon a fifth home win of the season against Bournemouth, it could be curtains. The reverse fixture, a 3-3 draw Everton refused to win, may go down as the Martínez Years’ defining moment. Another manager on the brink is Quique Sànchez Flores, reportedly set to be sacked by the ungrateful swines at Watford, with a first top-ten finish in 30 years still on the table. If they can’t beat Aston Villa at home today, his departure could be inevitable, and almost forgivable. There are no such worries for fellow newcomer Slaven Bilic, who still harbours dreams of leading West Ham to a first ever Champions League place. West Brom’s Tony Pulis will be looking forward to wrapping those dreams in a club shop scarf, and smashing them with a hammer. There’s history to be made in Europe, the Football League and beyond too. Plenty to enjoy without even mentioning Leicester. Ah. Sorry. Team news to follow. Premier League 3pm kick-offs Everton v Bournemouth Newcastle v Crystal Palace Stoke v Sunderland Watford v Aston Villa West Brom v West Ham
Cambridge University names Canadian academic as next vice-chancellor A Canadian expert in international law has been chosen as the next vice-chancellor of Cambridge university following a global search for a leader to navigate the Brexit-related challenges facing higher education. Prof Stephen Toope, who is director of the University of Toronto’s Munk school of global affairs, will replace Sir Leszek Borysiewicz in October next year, following formal approval by the university’s governing body. He takes over one of the biggest jobs in higher education at a time when UK universities are facing unprecedented uncertainty in the wake of the referendum vote to leave the EU, as well as wide-ranging changes to funding and regulation. Toope will be required to build on Cambridge’s international reputation amid fierce competition in the global higher education market, particularly from established universities in the US and emerging institutions in Asia. Earlier this month, the QS world university rankings were published in which Cambridge fell out of the top three for the first time in 12 years, as other UK institutions slightly deteriorated in performance. Last week, arch rival Oxford was named the best university in the world in the Times Higher Education (THE) world university rankings – the first time an institution from the UK has topped the THE rankings. Cambridge came fourth. The new vice-chancellor’s brief is demanding. As well as advancing the university’s profile on the international stage, he will have to modernise an ageing estate, some of which has been reportedly described as “historic sites barely fit for purpose”. Borysiewicz recently outlined the challenge facing Cambridge post-Brexit when he told MPs that the university had the largest number of awards from the EU of any institution in Europe, let alone the UK. “The total financial sum is in the order of £100m, so the impact is quite significant in financial terms.” While the government has provided some reassurance in the short term, Borysiewicz expressed concern about future EU students coming to the UK and the disquiet among the 19% of staff at Cambridge who are EU nationals and still do not know what the future holds. Toope, a scholar specialising in human rights, international dispute resolution, environmental law and the use of force, was previously vice-chancellor of the University of British Columbia. He graduated from Harvard in 1979 and completed his PhD at Trinity College Cambridge. He was also on the UN working group on enforced or involuntary disappearances from 2002 to 2007. He said: “I am thrilled to be returning to this great university. I look forward to working with staff and students in the pursuit of academic excellence and tremendous international engagement – the very mark of Cambridge.” Borysiewicz said: “We are delighted to be welcoming a distinguished leader with such an outstanding record as a scholar and educator to lead Cambridge.”
Stop worrying about fake news. What comes next will be much worse In my exploration of “fake news”, I’ve found some troubling things. And it’s not just the rightwing news network that’s worrying. I’ve recently gone back and taken a preliminary look at the leftwing media ecosystem, trying to map the hyperlinks between these sites – so I’m not trying to establish causation or assign blame as to what kinds of content these sites circulate. There are plenty of other people willing to do that. What I’m really looking for is a way forward. I’m primarily interested in the larger network that has enabled fake news to become such a salient topic. What I’ve found most troubling about fake news so far isn’t the factual errors, the misinformation, or the propaganda involved. It’s not the politics either . And no, it’s not Trump. What’s scary about fake news is how it is becoming a catch-all phrase for anything people happen to disagree with. In this regard, fake news is sort of the stepbrother of “post-fact” and “post-truth” – though not directly related, they’re all part of the same dysfunctional family. Platforms such as Facebook and Twitter have been accused of being responsible for the result of the US election, the Brexit referendum outcome or events such as Pizzagate – which led Hillary Clinton this week to describe fake news as “a danger that must be addressed”. The worst part of this debate has been obscured by politics-as-usual, techno-dystopian Fahrenheit 451 tropes – and to some degree, more misinformation. Reality bytes Did the sequence of events leading up to the 4 December #Pizzagate incident in Washington, DC mark the point when fake news became real? I think not. Fake news has been real since we’ve had the capability to communicate language and tell stories. It’s an unfortunate reality that news reporting is often at odds with the interest trifecta of politics, profits, and public opinion. What’s changed is the internet, which has altered the scale of the fake news problem, taking it to another level. While fake news might have been less visible in the past, it has always been with us. Where we might find Twitter bots today, we’ll find AI-powered virtual assistants and ubiquitous natural language interfaces (ie, Alexa, Siri, and Google Home) tomorrow. Fake news will be our virtual friend In some ways, we’ve already arrived. Is it fake news when Google Maps fails to provide us with the fastest route to a destination? Do we cry “fake news” when a deceptive review on Amazon influences our decision to buy an inferior product? What about when we go back after a negative experience and discover biased reviews on Yelp? Fake news is more about what we can confirm as real than what we can identify as fake. News is the fabric that weaves together our realities, and Google, Facebook, Twitter – through always-on phone screens, activity trackers, and 24/7 GPS and indoor Bluetooth trails – represents our interface with this brave new world. As global technology companies move forward with solutions to protect us – and their advertising revenue – from the scourge that is fake news, they must ensure that the smaller, less visible, alternative news outlets are not caught in their operational cleansing. Independent media that seek to distribute their own news content are already challenged by premium content delivery systems such as Facebook’s Instant, 360 (Video), and Google’s AMP. The industry’s filtering response to fake news could signal the end of legitimate news outlets that make an effort to draw attention to issues they feel are underrepresented or intentionally suppressed by the mainstream media. The new(s) pornographers Fake news is a lot like pornography – especially in terms of how gatekeepers classify certain content (and known sources of content) they deem unsuitable for their audiences. Take, for instance, the Pulitzer prizewinning Vietnam war photo removed from Facebook. If a combination of human and machine detection has difficulty differentiating between child pornography and Vietnam war images, wait until we start pre-filtering (ie, preferentially censoring) news based on issue-based framing and community self-reporting. Fake news has certainly been attracting attention, including that of national policymakers. Marsha Blackburn, an American congresswoman, has gone so far as to imply that internet service providers should be held responsible for taking down fake news, saying: “If anyone is putting fake news out there, the ISPs have the obligation to in some way get that off the web.” “In some way” are the key terms here, but to be fair, Blackburn also suggested that it’s time for platforms such as Facebook to look into having human editors and we know how that’s been going recently. Yet hiring an editorial team to moderate content is in direct opposition to the hands-off algorithmic meta-business models of most online companies. Why? Because they primarily sell people’s attention. Facebook has emphasised that it is not – and never plans to become – a media company. Is there a practical solution to fake news? I can’t say. But I can see where we might be headed: the suppression of alternative voices and the censorship of content that addresses certain issues. In the 2016 infowars, if we aren’t vigilant, the result of fake news is likely to be yet another layer of filtering. And this time around, the filters won’t be to segment audiences for advertising purposes or to target voting electorates; it won’t be to display the news articles, “likes” and intra-thread @replies that algorithms think we want to see first. The filters in the future won’t be programmed to ban pornographic content, or prevent user harassment and abuse. The next era of the infowars is likely to result in the most pervasive filter yet: it’s likely to normalise the weeding out of viewpoints that are in conflict with established interests. This isn’t a just problem limited to the centre, the left, or the right. Rather, this is a new reality. So, as everyone barricades themselves further into algorithmic information silos, encrypted messaging services, and invite-only social network sites, it’s at least worth a thought. In the coming decade, Al-powered smart filters developed by technology companies will weigh the legitimacy of information before audiences ever get a chance to determine it for themselves.
Denial then panic: how the EU misjudged the British mood European leaders and officials have had a rocky ride leading up to the EU referendum in the UK. First, there was complacency and denial, then a sense of panic, and now a muddled attempt to prepare next steps, whatever the result of the vote. Six months ago, when David Cameron was trying to wrap up his renegotiation with the EU, the mood in European capitals was one of barely hidden annoyance – the “British question” needed to be dealt with swiftly so that the EU could get back to addressing more serious and pressing challenges than the requests coming from London. Yet later, as opinion polls in Britain narrowed, the reaction shifted to a mixture of panic and bewilderment that Brexit might actually happen, bringing far-reaching consequences for the whole EU bloc. Now, days before the vote, minds have started to focus on what should be done to strengthen the European project, whichever way the referendum goes. But the answer to the question of “the day after” remains blurry – not least because of the shaky state of the Franco-German engine, which has always been key to the EU’s solidity. For months, EU leaders kept mostly silent. They saw the prospect of a UK referendum as a tedious, unnecessary sideshow distracting attention from the more urgent and deeper matters the continent was confronted with – the Greek euro crisis, dealing with Russia, terrorism, migration and asylum questions. European officials wanted the British question out of the way as fast as possible. The widely shared assumption was that Britons would be pragmatic enough to see pulling their country out of the EU was an utterly irrational and self-damaging move. Cameron had discreetly asked fellow EU leaders to refrain from wading into the referendum debate, for fear their input would be counterproductive. His hopes rested on the message Barack Obama would deliver while in London. But as time passed, it became obvious that hadn’t done the trick. When concern grew, prominent European voices started openly sending warnings. At an event commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Verdun, the leaders of France and Germany criticised opponents of the EU. “They denounce Europe as the source of evil, without realising that Europe was created out of the ravages of evil,” said François Hollande. “It is important for the survival of the European Union that we not retreat within ourselves but remain open to the other,” said Angela Merkel. Hitting an economic nerve, Germany’s finance minister made plain that if Britain quit the EU, it would deprive itself of access to the single market. Following the Swiss or Norwegian model “won’t work”, said German finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble: “In is in, out is out”. Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the EU commission, said that if it quit the bloc, “the United Kingdom won’t be handled with kid gloves”. EU leaders have in fact been struggling to find the right balance between two conflicting priorities: the need to demonstrate that Brexit could not be painless, to discourage other member states from contemplating a special status or from withdrawing from the bloc; and the need to limit the damage in case of a British departure by stating that cooperation would be preserved regardless. Perhaps nowhere in the EU is the geopolitical fallout of a possible Brexit being watched with more anxiety than in the Baltic states. Toomas Hendrik Ilves, the president of Estonia, a country of 1.5 million where concern over Russian aggression has ridden high, said last month that over the past two decades he’d never been less optimistic about Europe’s prospects. He listed “the rise of populism and serious talk of the UK leaving the EU” among the most worrying developments. In eastern Europe, “countries that had finished a 15-year odyssey to rejoin Europe” suddenly felt that “the world around us began to unravel”, Ilves said. Britain’s withdrawal would mark a weakening of Europe’s liberal democratic order, many participants agreed. Some pointed to how Russian propagandists were trying to capitalise on European divisions, anticipating Brexit as a watershed. “The sands of Europe are shifting under our feet,” said one speaker. Britain is the only country that ever committed to carrying out an in/out referendum, but surveys show there are many in favour of holding similar consultations in other countries (53% in France; 49% of Swedes). Last week, leaders of Europe’s largest far-right and populist parties gathered near Vienna to urge Britons to leave the 28-nation bloc. The meeting, called the Patriotic Spring, was designed to strengthen cooperation among anti-immigration, Europhobic movements that have been on the rise across Europe and see Brexit as a decisive, galvanising factor. The leader of France’s National Front, Marine Le Pen, told the crowd that “the peoples of Europe” should “take back their liberties” just like “the United Kingdom is regaining its liberty”. Hosted by Austria’s Freedom party, which came close to winning presidential elections in May, the event was attended by representatives from nine countries, including from Germany’s Alternative for Germany party and Italy’s Northern League party. For many on the continent, Britain’s specific identity – being “of” Europe rather than fully “in” it – was never much in doubt, but there has been deep annoyance about how Cameron has put the very destiny of the EU at stake by falling into a political trap of his own making, ever since he called for a referendum in 2013. The irony, many European diplomats and experts say, is that if it were to leave the EU now, Britain would be shunning a club that has arguably never been as “British” in its mindset. Events and crises have forced the EU to focus on trying to deliver concrete, pragmatic solutions to immediate problems rather than entertain abstract notions such as “ever closer union” that the British dislike. Once emphatic talk of deepening political integration, for example, through initiatives meant to strengthen eurozone governance or to work on a common European defence and security policy, has become cautious. That’s because France and Germany do not necessarily see eye to eye on how to proceed. Their leaders are faced with important elections next year and the rise of Eurosceptic movements in both countries is having a paralysing effect. Pro-EU statements will surely follow the British vote, whichever way it goes, but rapid and effective decision-making seems highly uncertain, say diplomats. One widely shared sentiment is that Brexit would represent a deep danger to Europe’s democratic ideals because of possible domino effects and because of the overall popular loss of confidence in the EU it would signal. Karel Schwarzenberg, a former Czech foreign minister who was a close friend of Václav Havel, once an important voice of Europe’s moral conscience, takes the historical perspective: “We in Europe have had the great opportunity over the last half-century to create a sense of common identity and interest – why throw that away?”
Donald Trump links Mexico border wall plan to Israel's 'successful' separation barrier Donald Trump attempted to draw parallels between Israel’s separation barrier and his much-touted border wall pledge on Sunday after both presidential nominees met the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. In Trump’s hour-long meeting with Netanyahu at his Trump Tower penthouse, the two reportedly discussed “at length Israel’s successful experience with a security fence that helped secure its borders”, according to the Trump campaign. Israel’s separation barrier runs for 440 miles (700km) partly along the 1949 armistice lines set after Israel’s war for independence and partly through territory occupied by Israel after the 1967 war. It is a fence most of its length. In contrast, Trump has pledged to build a wall of concrete and rebar as high as 55 feet (17 metres) along the nearly 2,000 mile border between the US and Mexico. The meeting was the first of two that Netanyahu held with presidential candidates on Sunday, the day before the first presidential debate. Contrary to custom both meetings were closed to the media, the Trump campaign has prevented reporters from any access to his meeting with Netanyahu and aides to the Israeli prime minister reportedly went on to insist Clinton’s campaign abide by the same rules Trump insisted upon. According to a readout provided by the Republican’s campaign, the nominee signaled support for the controversial moving of the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, as the real estate developer “acknowledged that Jerusalem has been the eternal capital of the Jewish people for over 3,000 years, and that the United States, under a Trump administration, will finally accept the long-standing Congressional mandate to recognize Jerusalem as the undivided capital of the State of Israel”. Despite the fact Trump’s daughter Ivanka converted to Judaism upon her marriage to property developer and top Trump campaign aide Jared Kushner in 2009, he has made some missteps so far in the campaign on Middle East policy and appealing to Jewish voters, who make up a key demographic in American elections. In 2015, speaking to the Republican Jewish Coalition, Trump referred to stereotypes relating to Jews and money and told the audience: “You’re not going to support me because I don’t want your money”, suggesting they wanted to control politicians. In 2016, speaking before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), a pro-Israel advocacy group, Trump gave a notably stilted performance in what was his first speech using a teleprompter. Clinton’s meeting, which lasted just under an hour on Sunday night, was held at the W Hotel in Union Square. In the meeting, which was described by the Clinton campaign as an “in-depth conversation”, Clinton “stressed that a strong and secure Israel is vital to the United States because we share overarching strategic interests and the common values of democracy, equality, tolerance, and pluralism”. The Democratic nominee also reaffirmed her support for a two-state solution “that guarantees Israel’s future as a secure and democratic Jewish state with recognized borders and provides the Palestinians with independence, sovereignty, and dignity”. She stressed “her opposition to any attempt by outside parties to impose a solution, including by the UN security council”. After decades in public service, the former secretary of state has a far more extensive record on Israel and Middle East. She defended her pro-Israel bona fides in a March speech to AIPAC, saying: “I feel so strongly that America can’t ever be neutral when it comes to Israel’s security or survival.” In July 2015, she wrote a public letter condemning the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. In the US, the BDS movement is a fringe issue pursued by left wing groups. It seeks to equate Israel with apartheid South Africa and has drawn significant concern in the American Jewish community. In the meeting, Clinton “stressed her commitment to countering attempts to delegitimize Israel, including through the BDS movement”. However, unlike Trump, Clinton did support the controversial Iran nuclear deal that the US reached in 2015 as a part of an effort to prevent the Iranian regime obtaining nuclear weapons. Supporters of the deal have insisted that it provides the mechanisms to stop Iran building such armaments. Critics say it provides the regime, which is still listed as a state sponsor of terrorism, with an undeserved windfall in sanctions relief and does not contain enough nuclear safeguards. The US has long maintained a close alliance with Israel and the maintenance of that relationship has long been a crucial issue for many American voters. Despite a difficult personal relationship between the Obama White House and the Netanyahu government, including conflict over the Iran deal, the US pledged a record increase in military aid to Israel earlier in September. • This article was amended on 4 November 2016 to clarify references to Israel’s separation barrier and to the BDS movement.
Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone musical La La Land to open Venice film festival Whiplash director Damien Chazelle’s musical romance La La Land is set to open this year’s Venice film festival. The film reunites Crazy, Stupid, Love stars Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone, and is pitched as a tribute to Hollywood’s golden age of musicals but will have a contemporary setting. It will premiere in competition on 31 August. This year’s jury will be headed up by Sam Mendes. Gosling will play a jazz pianist who falls for Stone’s aspiring actor but the two face problems when they become more successful. JK Simmons, who won an Oscar for his role in Whiplash, and the singer John Legend also star. “La La Land is a film that does not merely reinvent the musical genre, it gives it a brand new start,” said Alberto Barbera, Venice artistic director, in a statement. “If Whiplash was the revelation of a new filmmaker, La La Land is his definitive, albeit precocious, consecration among the great directors of Hollywood’s new firmament.” Last year’s festival was opened by the survival drama Everest, which received middling reviews and box office, but previous years have seen Oscar winners Birdman and Gravity kick things off. The 31-year-old Chazelle made his name with the acclaimed drama Whiplash, which won three Oscars and was nominated for two more, including best picture. He also co-wrote the hit sci-fi thriller 10 Cloverfield Lane. Gosling was most recently seen in action comedy The Nice Guys and will next be seen in Terrence Malick’s Weightless as well as Blade Runner 2. Stone was last seen in Cameron Crowe’s comedy Aloha and has recently completed Battle of the Sexes, where she plays Billie Jean King.
Edward Albee obituary Edward Albee, who has died aged 88, has been described as both the first modern American playwright and the last great American playwright after Eugene O’Neill, Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller. In reality he was probably neither, although he was undoubtedly a substantial talent, who burst on to a stagnant American theatrical scene with The Zoo Story in 1959 and followed it up three years later with that major masterpiece of marital disharmony, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Although Albee was to continue writing all his life, and had minor success with plays such as the Pinteresque A Delicate Balance (1966) and All Over (1971), it was not until 1991 that he had a late creative blooming and another theatrical hit with Three Tall Women. Like much of Albee’s best work, Three Tall Women was strongly autobiographical, drawing on his privileged but loveless childhood and memories of his mother, Frances, a domineering, Junoesque beauty who preferred horses to people, and almost anyone to her adopted son. He was born in Washington, to Louise Harvey, and immediately given up for adoption. Aged 18 days, he was handed into the care of Reed and Frances Albee, of Larchmont, New York. Reed was the wealthy, womanising son of the vaudeville theatre-owner and manager Edward Franklin Albee, and Frances (nee Cotter), better known as Frankie, was his third wife. It was rumoured that she had married Reed for his money. A childhood friend of Albee’s was subsequently to remark: “It’s lucky he was adopted. He would not get much talent from those two.” A dreamy child with a penchant for drawing and music, the young Edward may not have wanted for material wealth, but grew up an observant outsider in his own home, ignored by his monosyllabic father and reviled by his mother. “My mother and I disliked and mistrusted each other,” said Albee in an interview many years later, recalling that she would frequently tell him: “Just you wait until you are 18, and I’ll have you out of here so fast that it’ll make your head spin.” In fact Albee was 20 before he left home, after an argument. Apart from a chance encounter, he never saw his father again, and he had no further contact with his mother for 20 years, although she was regularly to appear in different guises in his plays: as Mommy in The American Dream (1961), Martha in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Agnes in A Delicate Balance and, most famously, as Three Tall Women, written shortly after her death in a creative act that Albee likened to an “exorcism”. Mother and son may never have reached rapprochement, let alone anything approaching love, but Frankie was as much a muse for Albee as she was a monster. Albee spent the next 10 years living in and around Greenwich Village, bolstered by the $25 a week interest payments from a trust fund he had inherited from his grandmother, and occasional work as a telegram boy for Western Union. The ordinary people he met while tramping the city, their desperation and loneliness, became the inspiration for The Zoo Story. But he was also moving in artistic circles. By 1952 he was living with, and in the shadow of, the talented young composer William Flanagan. After the success of The Zoo Story, the myth grew up that it was Albee’s very first play, apart from a three-act sex farce written when he was 12 and destroyed by his mother. In reality, between 1949 and 1959, he served an intense apprenticeship, writing at least nine plays as well as short stories and poems. The Zoo Story, about two men sitting on a bench in Central Park, was started a month before his 30th birthday as, Albee was later to claim, a birthday present to himself. He was immediately aware that, for the first time, he had written something “worthwhile”. New York theatre producers took longer to persuade, and The Zoo Story received its world premiere in a German translation at the Schiller theatre in Berlin on 28 September 1959. It was part of a double bill that included Samuel Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape. It was not until January 1960 that the play had its US premiere, at the Provincetown Playhouse in Greenwich Village. As was to be the case with almost all of Albee’s subsequent work, the reviews were mixed, but the positive ones were enthusiastic enough to turn him from an unknown into a hot young playwright who was being mentioned in the same breath as Beckett and Ionesco. America had its first avant-garde playwright in the European mode. The playwright John Guare was to subsequently write of “the debt that every American playwright writing after 1960 owes to Edward Albee”. The British playwright Tom Stoppard, whose early work was strongly absurdist, has said that it was seeing The Zoo Story that made him determined to become a playwright. But the Beckettian undertones of The Zoo Story, the Ionesco-influenced The American Dream, and A Delicate Balance, with its Pinter-like dialogue and sense of menace, left many wondering whether Albee was anything more than a clever imitator hitching a ride on the coattails of the latest theatrical fashion. The tendency to imitate was apparent even in his later work. Reviewing The Play About the Baby, which premiered at the Almeida in 1998, Michael Billington in the suggested that Albee was self-referring and cannibalising his own work. “The play is more a treasure trove for Albee scholars and biographers than something of universal concern.” In his 20s, Albee had taken up again and then dropped his childhood hobby of drawing and painting. He was later to remark: “I realised I felt nothing beyond a certain curiosity, and I was making imitations that looked, to my eye, every bit as good as the originals.” This question of authenticity was always to raise itself in critical assessments of Albee’s plays. Although his defenders hailed him as a distinctive theatrical voice and great experimenter who refused to be pigeonholed, his detractors claimed that he remained derivative in form and content. Yet if there was any play that countered that latter view, it was Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? It also provided Albee with his only major commercial success, and gave the lie to the notion that he was incapable of writing a full-length play. The title came from a piece of graffiti that Albee had spotted in a Greenwich Village bar some years previously. Set on the campus of a small American college, it has middle-aged Martha, the daughter of the dean, who is married to George, the assistant professor of history, arriving back home after a party. In tow are the new young biology teacher, Nick, and his wife, Honey. What follows is a bilious and drunken few hours in which Martha and George indulge in game playing and fantasy, wounding both their guests and each other. Martha reveals a son that the pair have invented, a revelation that George tops by “killing” the imagined boy off. This imaginary or absent son was to become a recurring figure in Albee’s work. His friend Mel Gussow, the critic, said that, although Albee was to write many more plays, “Virginia Woolf was the cornerstone of his career: one play feeds all. In it, we can see strands reaching back to The Zoo Story (the act of confession, death as the final relief) and The American Dream (the household as microcosm) and forward to A Delicate Balance (the meaning of friendship and loyalty) and Three Tall Women (the price of parenting, the tricks of memory).” Although it was a commercial success and in 1966 made into a film directed by Mike Nichols and starring Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor as George and Martha, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? had by no means wholly ecstatic reviews. A lack of critical appreciation of his work was something that Albee learned to accept. “I have been both over-praised and under-praised. I assume by the time I finish writing – and I plan to go on writing until I’m 90 or gaga – it will equal itself out.” He almost managed it: Me, Myself and I, another play drawing on mother and son relationships, was produced in 2008, when he was 80. But at one point it seemed unlikely that Albee would be writing plays in his later years. After Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, his career went into serious decline and for the next 20 years his ability to write was affected by his love affair with alcohol, which had begun while he was still a child and would be asked to mix cocktails for his parents. Tiny Alice, premiered on Broadway in 1964 with John Gielgud and Irene Worth, was greeted with such incomprehension that Albee found himself forced to hold a press conference to explain its meaning. Even the author could not satisfactorily explain the bizarre story of a lay brother who is sent by a superior to the house of a wealthy woman and is enmeshed in a scenario of sexual hysteria, religious ecstasy and martyrdom. A Delicate Balance, described by Kenneth Tynan as “an exquisite fandango of despair”, saw Albee return to the familiar territory of his adoptive parents’ life style. A beautiful play about “what happens when we turn our backs upon ourselves”, it was a success and won Albee the Pulitzer prize he had been unjustly denied for Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Although Albee continued to write plays and have them produced, most notably the death-watch drama All Over and his second Pulitzer-winner, Seascape (1975), a play in which two lizards intrude upon a marriage, his reputation was in free fall. Seascape ran for just two months. The disaster of The Man Who Had No Arms, about a man who sprouts a limb and achieves celebrity, only to see it wither as his arm atrophies, which closed on Broadway after just 16 performances in 1983, suggested that it was all over for Albee too. He did not need to write plays. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? had made him a wealthy man, and he was renowned as a discerning collector of 20th-century art. For the next 10 years, the focus of his life shifted from writing plays to teaching and encouraging younger playwrights. He was a committed and generous teacher. After his father’s death in 1961, Albee had resumed some contact with his mother, but the relationship remained difficult, not least because of Frankie’s refusal to acknowledge her son’s homosexuality or his long-term partner, the painter and sculptor Jonathan Thomas, who did much to help Albee overcome his dependency on alcohol, and who predeceased him. Her death in 1989 spawned Three Tall Women, a poignant and entirely fictionalised arm’s-length look at Frankie as a 92-year-old, by now bed-ridden and incontinent, who is also glimpsed aged 52 and 26. In 1994 it was awarded a Pulitzer prize. There was another unexpected and late career gift in The Goat, or Who is Sylvia?, seen in New York in 2002 and at the Almeida in London and in the West End in 2004, about a successful architect in an apparently happy marriage who falls in love with a goat and has passionate sex with it. The London production boasted a brilliant central performance from Jonathan Pryce and an early stage appearance from a young Eddie Redmayne as his gay teenage son, in a savagely funny and dark examination of the limits of tolerance and the monsters that lurk beneath the exterior of modern middle-class everyday life. It was every bit as powerful and harrowing as Albee’s masterpiece. If his upbringing ensured that intimacy remained a problem for Albee all his life, with even some of his closest friends referring to him as “mysterious” or “unknowable”, in his best work he was always present and always painfully revealing of his lost childhood and the barren, unhappy lives of his parents and their friends, and the best and worst that lurks in all of us. His strength as a playwright was that he continued to experiment with form and content all his life. A lazier, less passionate playwright might have contented himself with rewriting Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? in different ways, or just quit when the critical reception got rough. Albee may never have been able to summon the emotional openness to match Williams’s honesty, grotesque comedy and lyricism, nor the political commitment to match Miller’s state-of-the-nation acuteness, but he was no also-ran. Rather he was one of the triumvirate who changed and shaped postwar American playwriting. The Zoo Story, A Delicate Balance and Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? will never want for production; they dissect our desire to hide behind illusion with a devastating and unflinching accuracy. • Edward Albee, playwright, born 12 March 1928; died 16 September 2016
NBN Co executive likely to be called as witness after US utility disaster The executive appointed by Malcolm Turnbull to run NBN Co appears likely to be called as a witness in legal actions now under way in the US, flowing from one of the worst utility disasters in the country’s history. Legal actions have begun in San Francisco involving Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E), a company Bill Morrow joined in 2006 as chief operating officer, before becoming chief executive a year later. Morrow left PG&E in September 2008. Morrow was appointed to run Australia’s largest infrastructure project, the NBN roll out, in December 2013, by the then communications minister, Malcolm Turnbull. NBN Co confirmed on Wednesday that Morrow expected to be called as a witness in the PG&E proceedings in the US, which are expected to last between six and eight weeks. According to US media reports, PG&E faces 13 criminal counts in the trial, including 12 charges the gas utility violated safety regulations and one charge of obstruction. The company has pleaded not guilty. PG&E is facing various legal actions relating to pipeline explosions in 2008 and 2010. The San Bruno explosion killed eight people and destroyed or damaged more than 100 homes. The two explosions occurred after Morrow left PG&E and NBN Co said on Wednesday he is not named in the current case being heard in San Francisco. His only involvement is as a witness. Various detailed investigations in the US have been critical of the company’s priorities, practices and decision-making over a period spanning more than a decade, including the two years when Morrow was in key executive positions at the utility. A California Public Utilities Commission report alleged that $100m was diverted by PG&E from safety and pipeline maintenance over 15 years. It suggested maintenance spending was under significant pressure in 2008 and in the two years immediately after Morrow’s departure. “Gas safety funding was heavily constrained in the 2008, 2009 and 2010 budget process,” says an audit undertaken by Overland Consulting for the CPUC. “Integrity management and maintenance project budgets were viewed as discretionary funding that could be reduced to meet the overall budget targets set by executive management.” On Wednesday an NBN spokeswoman issued a short statement about the US legal proceedings. “Mr Morrow is awaiting direction from the court and will appear as a witness in the US court case, if required,” she said. “Bill has not been named as a party to the proceedings, he is attending only as a witness. As the matter is currently before the court, it’s not appropriate for us to comment further.” The developments in the US once again thrust the NBN into the heat of the Australian election campaign. On Wednesday Fairfax Media revealed the NBN’s chairman, Ziggy Switkowski, breached caretaker conventions by attacking whistleblowing in a published opinion piece. The revelation follows contentious police raids undertaken earlier in the campaign after a succession of leaks from the organisation placing questions marks over the pace and costs associated with the NBN roll out. Martin Parkinson, the head of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, has confirmed that NBN management gave an advance draft of Switkowski’s opinion piece to the Department of Communications and the Arts, which in turn sought and received advice from the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet that the publication of the article would not be consistent with the established practices associated with the caretaker conventions. Parkinson says the view was “strongly conveyed” to the NBN management that the conventions applied to its chairman and its chief executive, and he knows that view was passed to Switkowski. But Switkowski wilfully ignored that advice by publishing the piece. “In my judgment some of the comments in the opinion piece are not consistent with established practices around the caretaker conventions, which are directed at protecting the apolitical nature of government bodies and preventing controversies about the role of those bodies distracting attention from the substantive issues in the election campaign,” Parkinson wrote in a letter to Labor’s finance spokesman, Tony Burke. “I have conveyed this view directly to Dr Switkowski.” Labor had complained to the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet that Switkowski’s opinion piece was a “clear breach” of the caretaker conventions. They also complained that Switkowski had used his role as NBN chairman “to run a contestable script to the specific advantage of the prime minister and the Liberal party”. Campaigning in Perth on Wednesday, the Labor leader, Bill Shorten, was critical of Switkowski. “Australia’s internet speeds have seen a slip from 30th to 60th and we now have the NBN Co doing everything they can to cover up the facts,” the Labor leader said. “I think, for an otherwise respected businessman, Dr Switkowski, I think this is a shameful breach. Yet again NBN Co are doubling down on the cover-up, the denial.” On Wednesday afternoon, an NBN spokeswoman defended Switkowski’s decision to publish his opinion piece, saying it had to be done to protect the company’s reputation. “Any accusation that the company’s staff, management, its board and (by implication) its shareholder departments have conspired to keep large cost increases secret from the Australian people is not only plainly and demonstrably false, but is a serious accusation in light of the Corporations act,” the spokeswoman said. “This is obviously not acceptable and the opinion piece addressed the allegations in a manner commensurate with the mode in which they were made; that is, publicly in the national media.”
Commercial property prices could fall 20% after EU vote - analysts Fund managers are being warned by the City regulator not to embark on fire sales of office blocks and shopping centres to meet the demands of customers trying to cash in investments from property funds. Since the EU referendum on 23 June, more than half a dozen commercial property fundshave taken steps to adapt to the changing economic backdrop. Some have prevented customers withdrawing their cash by suspending trading; others have announced fund devaluations, including Aberdeen Asset Management, which devalued by by 17%. The Financial Conduct Authority reissued guidance to remind the investment industry of their duty to treat all customers fairly – including those who want to remain in a fund. “It is the duty of the fund manager to ensure that assets are valued fairly and accurately and to ensure that any subscriptions or redemptions of units take place at a fair price. Failure to do so may lead to some investors gaining at the expense of other investors in the same fund,” the FCA said. “If a fund has to dispose of underlying assets in order to meet an unusually high volume of redemption requests, the manager must ensure these disposals are carried out in a way that does not disadvantage investors who remain in the fund or are newly investing in it,” the regulator added. Its new chief executive, Andrew Bailey, said earlier this week that the structure of these funds – which offer instant redemption on assets that are difficult to sell – might need to be reviewed. The commercial property sector has been a focus since the Brexit vote and there are predictions that some properties could fall by 20% in the wake of the UK’s vote to leave the EU. Analysis by brokers at UBS found that some Brexit clauses were being triggered in commercial property transactions, causing some deals to fall through. UBS also expects the outlook to remain uncertain until negotiations over passporting rights – which give firms in the City of London the ability to transact across the EU– are finalised. The UBS analysts said they expected London office values to fall by 20% – an increase on their previous 15% estimate. Falls in the price of other commercial properties would not be so large. But, they said: “At this early stage, there is limited evidence to point towards, to assess the potential magnitude of the impact on the commercial real estate market.” The analysts said: “We have heard of some so-called Brexit clauses being triggered, causing deals to fall through. The long-term demand picture in London is uncertain as banks investigate the potential impact of a withdrawal of passporting rights, while the near-term outlook is also difficult. So the direction is certainly down, but the magnitude is uncertain.” The scale of the fall is not expected to reach the 44% decline that took place from 2007-09 when the financial crisis was at its peak. Since then, the market has changed, with banks making up less of the lending to the sector: the Bank of England’s data shows bank exposure has fallen to £85bn from £150bn in 2011. Mike Prew, an equity analyst at Jefferies, has said up to £5bn of buildings could be sold to find the cash to repay investors in the funds, which some experts have warned could be closed until the end of the year. But Laith Khalaf, a senior analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said the reduced prices might not result in actual sales of properties. “The mark down in asset prices is really an educated guess, and it may not be borne out by real-world transactions, for better or worse, though with such sharp adjustments there appears to be a lot of bad news in the price.” UBS said that between 2008 and 2015, overseas buyers constituted two-thirds of office property transactions in the UK, so for them, the market is effectively already 10-13% cheaper because of the fall in sterling. This may encourage them to keep coming into the market although the caveat is that their rental return is also 10-13% lower. The UBS analysts said: “Of course, sterling weakness may be a short-term impediment to investment if investors expect the currency to weaken further.” They calculate that the shares of stock market-listed property companies are pricing in a 25-30% decline in property value.
UK's big four banks face £19bn in compensation, fines and legal costs The UK’s four biggest banks face paying out £19.5bn in fines, compensation and legal expenses this year and next, taking the total since 2011 to more than £75bn, according to the ratings agency Standard & Poor’s. Over the five years to 2015, Barclays, HSBC and the bailed-out Lloyds Banking Group and Royal Bank of Scotland have together incurred costs of £55.8bn to cover so-called conduct and litigation issues, after being penalised for rigging Libor and foreign exchange markets, and having to compensate customers for misselling payment protection insurance. “This staggering amount represents around 9% of these banks’ revenues during this period and about 90% of all conduct and litigation charges for the UK banking system,” S&P said. The total cost for the UK banking industry was £62.5bn. While the ratings agency is now predicting charges of £19.5bn by the end of 2017, it also describes this year as the “last year for mega charges”. This is, in part, because of an expectation that the cost of the PPI scandal, which has reached £34bn, will ease off. “We maintain our view that 2016 will likely be the last year for mega conduct and litigation charges. That said, we also believe that conduct and litigation matters have become a ‘way of life’ for UK banks,” S&P said. “We do not believe that future retail conduct redress, including relatively new issues such as packaged bank accounts, will come close to the scale of PPI,” it added. S&P published its report as the big four banks prepare to publish their first-quarter results, which will be scoured for signs of any further PPI provisions.
Surgery in the womb: miracle maker for NHS's tiniest patients Prof Kypros Nicolaides studies the overhead monitor. “The head of the baby is down, and it is much easier to do when the head is up. So, there are two things we can do.” He pauses and an expectant silence falls. “We can all concentrate and chant. Do you want to chant? Like Hare Krishna?” Tension in the room immediately dissipates, replaced with slightly bewildered, muted laughter. “Or,” he continues, “I will press the baby to bring the head up.” He firmly kneads the pregnant belly, slowly encouraging the foetus until: “Bingo. OK.” This is room one in the Harris Birthright research centre at King’s College hospital, London, where patients are among the tiniest and most vulnerable of all treated by the NHS. Traumatised parents find themselves here after the hammer blow that their unborn child, or children, may not survive pregnancy or birth. In the dedicated hands of Nicolaides, 62, known simply as “Prof” and an internationally renowned foetal medicine consultant, they are offered hope. No absolute guarantees, but good odds, his skill and a little of his trademark banter. Crucially, though, they benefit from his many years of pioneering research and experience, which reassures them they are giving their babies every chance in the world. Nicolaides has been called a miracle maker, and a genius at the forefront of in utero surgery within the NHS for about 40 years. In dimly lit room one, with its huge bright screens and a control panel straight from the USS Enterprise, science, technology and experience coalesce as he prepares to perform the operation. He is working to counter the potentially fatal abnormality congenital diaphragmatic hernia (CDH), with a procedure currently undergoing randomised trials. CDH is rare. About one in 4,000 unborn babies will develop a hole in their diaphragm, the thin sheet of muscle separating the chest from the abdomen, which can allow the stomach, liver or bowels to move up through the gap into the chest cavity, squashing the lungs and, in the worst cases, leaving them too underdeveloped to allow breathing after birth. A third of those cases could benefit from the FETO (fetoscopic tracheal occlusion) surgery Nicolaides has played a leading role in developing. The daughter of Luissa Galloso, 31, from Windsor, is one such case, and in the next 30 minutes Nicolaides will achieve something unimaginable a decade ago. He will insert a miniature latex balloon through the wall of the uterus down through the mouth of Galloso’s baby daughter and position it delicately in the windpipe then inflate it. There the balloon will stay, wedged tight like a little cork. Normally inserted at about 26-28 weeks, it will be removed at around 35 weeks. It will trap fluid in the baby’s lungs that would normally escape through the mouth, so forcing the lungs to expand and develop. Nicolaides estimates that in the most severe cases of CDH, it can increase survival rates from 15-20% to about 50%. An interactive guide to the procedure “See, that is the spine, the heart is on that side … and next to it, this black thing, that is the stomach. It should not be there, it should be further down. That’s the issue,” he tells Galloso, who is on her back, looking at her baby on the overhead monitor as her fiance, Stuart, and her mother, Jill, sit alongside, their eyes glued to the grainy ultrasound images. First he must put the baby to sleep. It is crucial she remains completely still. A long needle is inserted into the womb and he guides it towards the baby’s shoulder then administers the anaesthetic. Once the baby is asleep, local anaesthetic is applied to Galloso’s side and a thin tube is inserted. Through this Nicolaides feeds the fetoscope, a miniature telescope measuring just 2mm in diameter, and a 3D image of the sleeping baby suddenly bursts out from the screen. Precision is everything. Nicolaides expertly guides the fetoscope towards the baby’s mouth and an incredible visual journey begins. “That is the nostril. That is the upper lip there. That is the mouth, see the gums,” he says as the fetoscope continues over the baby’s tongue, past the uvula and tiny vocal cords and epiglottis. “Now we are going down the windpipe,” he says. “And there. That is where we will put the balloon.” A long, narrow flexible catheter is introduced, at the end of which is the tiny, deflated balloon, which is smoothly guided to its placement site. All eyes are fixed on the monitor as water is dripped into the balloon until it expands to about 2cm long and 5mm wide. Once it is securely in place, the fetoscope makes its reverse journey up through the mouth, and out. The whole procedure is minimally invasive to the mother, who experiences only a small skin incision of about 3mm. “The biggest problem with this procedure,” muses Nicolaides, as eyes nervously flick towards him, “is my wet trousers” he adds, pointing to leaked fluid from the procedure that has dripped on to him. “Now, when I go back outside, what do you think people will think, at my age?” And once more, the tension dissipates. “That’s it. All over.” If successful, such surgery can mean babies with severe CDH can be safely delivered, though they may have to undergo surgery after birth to correct the hernia and reposition internal organs. Research is everything, according to Nicolaides. “Unless you have research, you cannot progress.” Based at King’s College hospital three days every week, Nicolaides also has a private practice, the Fetal Medicine Centre, with profits ploughed into his Fetal Medicine Foundation charity, which supports research and training to identify abnormalities as early as possible and develop minimally invasive procedures to correct them. Among such procedures is fetoscopic laser treatment, used to coagulate blood vessels shared by identical twins who have the rare and potentially fatal twin to twin transfusion syndrome (TTTS), which occurs in 50 out of 100,000 pregnancies. In TTTS, the blood goes from one twin to the other, but one baby receives more blood than it gives up. Crook and victim, he calls them, but both are at risk. Since his first experiments with the procedure, in 1992, he estimates he has performed it more than 2,000 times. He uses a fetoscope with a fibre-tipped laser inside the uterus, again inserted through a tube, to identify the shared blood vessels and cut them so the babies are on their own. Claire Burgon’s twin boys are 17 weeks, but the discrepancy between their size is 39%. Speed is of the essence. She and her husband, David, who are from Gillingham, Kent, were referred from their local hospital only the previous day, and are now in room one. “My doctor said you were the best in the world,” she tells Nicolaides. “I pay him, I pay him,” he responds. He examines the ultrasound screen. “So, this is the crook that is stealing blood, and that is the victim on the other side,” he points out. One has hardly any fluid around it, the other too much. “So we have to put a telescope inside the uterus between the two and find the blood vessels that join the two circulations and just try to separate them.” He traces the blood vessels with the endoscope. “See them branch out there. And see that white line. That is the sac of the big baby. That white line is the collapsed membrane. See how the blood vessels are crossing over from this side and going over. So, that is where we will be cutting. “You will hear some buzzing noises, but you won’t feel anything,” he reassures Burgon. Like all of Nicolaides’s patients, Burgon, 30, and her husband have been on a rollercoaster journey to this point, and this procedure is not without risk. “I’ve had the wobbles. But it is the best thing to do,” Burgon says after the operation. “If we didn’t, the risk of losing both was a lot higher. So, I have just got to run with it now.” Her husband adds: “It is a case of just sit there and hope, really. Look and hope.” Nicolaides, born in Paphos, the son of a Cypriot doctor, was a medical student at King’s. In his last year of studies, medical students had to choose an “elective” for three months. “Most used this to go on a big holiday to the Bahamas, or the Seychelles, or Hawaii to ‘observe’ medicine there. I was scared of flying,” he said. So he stayed at King’s, just as a pioneer of obstetric and gynaecological ultrasound, Prof Stuart Campbell, arrived. Nicolaides was “overwhelmed” by the concept of seeing a foetus before birth, and within a few years was one of the world’s leaders in foetal medicine. Today, his office walls are adorned with photographs of smiling babies, including many twins and triplets. His successes. “They all send me pictures. I have thousands,” he says. But with success comes the weight of expectation. “It puts a lot of pressure on us in terms of the knowledge that many babies would still die. Sometimes when they do die you feel, obviously, extremely bad. You become very personally attached to the patients. “Other times, you try to work out whether you have done something wrong or if there is something you have to change to improve the technique. And, yes, other times you become the target of their anger, because if you are seen as being the miracle maker, when things don’t work out you are not viewed as a normal doctor that has tried. You can become the opposite of the miracle maker. You can become the devil.” Forty years on, he has no regrets about his chosen path. “It has been a very exciting journey to be at the forefront of a lot, a lot of developments, the creation of this new field … A lot of anxieties when we were developing new techniques. I think it is mainly rewarding. There are moments of distress, there are moments when you are excited. There are moments of depression when things don’t go right. But overall, it has been a fantastic trip. “There is no better reward in life than a woman coming along to show you her baby,” he says, “and sending photographs to say: ‘Thank you, this baby would not have been born.’ How can you judge that? Against what? That is the ultimate reward.”
The lies Trump told this week: from murder rates to climate change Military and law enforcement personnel “I’m proud of the fact that I’ve always treated the working people of this country with dignity and respect, especially our military and law enforcement personnel.” – 11 October, interview with Fox News Trump has not always treated members of the military and law enforcement with respect. Last year he insulted John McCain, who endured torture as a prisoner of war in Vietnam; this summer he derided the Muslim parents of a soldier who died in the Iraq war; he has called top generals “embarrassing to our country” and said they have been “reduced to rubble”; and he has repeatedly impugned the ethics of federal investigators and even public safety officers such as fire marshals. Crime “You look at the crime and you wonder why. And by the way, do you know, it was just announced that murder is the highest it’s been in our country in 45 years?” – 11 October, Panama City, Florida “We have the highest murder rate in this country in 45 years. More people are being murdered now than being murdered in 45 years.” – 12 October, Lakeland, Florida Trump has distorted an FBI statistic to make a false claim: in September the agency reported that murders and non-negligent manslaughter rose in the US by 10.8% in 2015, the largest single-year increase since 1971. That is not the same as saying there are more murders in the US than at any point since 1971: 15,696 murders were reported in 2015, down from 1991 and 1993 highs of 24,703 and 24,526. There were more murders in 1971 (17,780) than in 2015. The murder rate declined 42% from 1993 to 2014, even though the population increased by a quarter. During this week’s debate Trump almost cited the statistic accurately, saying: “We have an increase in murder within our cities, the biggest in 45 years.” But the FBI figure is a national one, not restricted to cities. Climate change “Climate change. Now I want, and just so you know, do you know that I’ve won numerous environmental awards? I’m a believer in the environment. It’s gotta be within reason. I’m a believer.” – 12 October, Ocala, Florida Trump has claimed off and on to be an environmentalist since at least 2008, when he was battling with officials in Scotland to build a golf course and resort on land that had been home to a variety of wildlife. He has maintained for years that the US should drill for oil wherever possible – an opinion that falls well out of line with even the moderate environmentalism of Hillary Clinton, who has taken oil and gas exploration on a case-by-case basis. He has claimed to have received environmental awards since 2011, though the only award that could be found seems to be a 2007 prize given to the Trump National Golf Club in New Jersey by the Metropolitan Golf Association Foundation. That award was received by the grounds director, Greg Nicoli, for preserving 45 acres of bird habitat on the property. A few years later, Trump cut down a small forest in Virginia for the sake of another golf course, and in May of 2011 New Jersey’s department of environmental protection fined him for repeated violations. He has also called for dismantling basic Environmental Protection Agency programs and rules. Trump has repeatedly said he does not believe in climate change, which is more pertinent to the environment than a New Jersey golf course. In 2014 he called it a “hoax”, and in 2012 he claimed it was invented by China to trick Americans into caring about environmental regulations. The Earth is warming at an “unprecedented rate”, Nasa reported in August, sea ice is disappearing, and more than 97% of climate scientists agree that the climate is warming dangerously. Researchers are already drawing links between such climate change and disasters such as Louisiana’s deadly flooding in September. Endorsements “And by the way, ICE just gave us their endorsement, first time ever, and the border patrol, all the agents, 16,500 agents just gave us their support.” – 12 October, Lakeland, Florida Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is a government agency. It does not endorse political candidates. A union representing about 7,600 ICE officials endorsed Trump in September. A group representing 16,500 of 21,000 border patrol agents similarly endorsed Trump. This does not represent all the agents.
Fox Searchlight pays $17.5m for slavery drama The Birth of a Nation After a highly competitive bidding war, the heavily buzzed slavery drama The Birth of a Nation has been picked up by Fox Searchlight. According to Variety, the film, which opened to Oscar buzz and enthused reviews at this year’s Sundance film festival, has been bought for a reported $17.5m, the biggest purchase the festival has ever seen. Actor Nate Parker, best known for roles in Non-Stop and Beyond the Lights, took on the story as a passion project. As well as writing and directing, he plays the lead role of Nat Turner, who led a slave uprising in 1831 that led to 60 white deaths and stricter laws on how slaves could be controlled. Parker invested his own money in the production, which also stars Armie Hammer, Gabrielle Union and Jackie Earle Haley. The bidding war was reportedly between Fox Searchlight, Sony, The Weinstein Company and Netflix. Fox Searchlight picked up the worldwide rights with hopes of pushing it for next year’s Oscar race. It would make for an interesting inclusion, given the debate over the 2016 Oscars and the film’s largely African-American cast. “It’s cultivation,” said Parker at the festival. “I think diversity is more than a colour palette. It’s a celebration of heritage and culture and that’s the one thing that we don’t do so often. Before that we have to heal. There are wounds that exist because of the legacy of slavery in this country.” Other big purchases of the festival include Kenneth Lonergan’s Manchester-by-the-Sea, starring Michelle Williams and Casey Affleck, and Whit Stillman’s Love & Friendship, both picked up by Amazon.
How Donald Trump emboldens bigots across the world If there were a United Nations of the global far right, Donald Trump would be its undisputed leader. His message does not just resonate in the forlorn rust-belt towns of rural America: it travels far beyond the country’s shores. It is bigotry without borders. Consider the incredible prayer session organized for him in New Delhi by a nationalist Hindu group last week. Amid prayer bells, incense and chanting, good wishes fluttered from the Indian capital all the way to the US. A poster made for the occasion declared Trump to be the “hope for humanity”. Despite his unwavering “America First” nationalism, Trump’s message has struck a chord with the Hindu right because they share a common enemy. Long at odds with religious minorities in the country, it is no surprise that some Hindu nationalists approve of Trump’s plan to ban Muslim immigration to the United States. “He’s the only man who can put an end to Islamic terrorism”, said Hindu Sena chief Vishnu Gupta. “He is the savior of mankind.” They are not the only ones to hold Trump in high esteem. The far-right Greek Golden Dawn party support him. The founder of France’s Front National, Jean-Marie Le Pen, said he would vote for him. The Dutch leader of the Party of Freedom and anti-Islam campaigner, Geert Wilders, now tweets things like “Make The Netherlands Great Again!”. Meanwhile the head of Italy’s anti-immigrant Northern League party, Matteo Salvini, says he considers Trump “heroic” and added “we are on the same wavelength when it comes to many things”. Before Trump arrived on the scene, Vladimir Putin was the uncrowned leader of the illilberal factions of the western world. A motley crew of European fringe parties leaps to legitimize him at every turn. When Putin annexed Crimea, representatives from 12 European parties flocked there to act as observers during the referendum – giving it the veneer of legitimacy. Now, it appears Putin has competition from across the Atlantic. The populists’ admiration for Trump should not be a surprise: he has been doing their bidding on issues that matter to them most. Trump backs Brexit – he said the UK would be “better off without” the EU – and criticized Angela Merkel for making “a tragic mistake with the migrants”. That mistake, of course, was to let them into Europe in the first place. But it’s not just the far right that is watching him closely. Even mainstream conservative politicians are looking to the Trump phenomenon for cues – if not always successfully. In the race to be London’s mayor, Zac Goldsmith, a Conservative party parliamentarian, ran what his Muslim opponent, Sadiq Khan, and liberal commentators called a campaign “straight out of Donald Trump’s playbook”. The strategy backfired miserably, but it is telling that Trump’s tactics found an echo in Goldsmith’s campaign in the first place. Trump emboldens those who sow seeds of division and hate. He has brought the vile, the vulgar and the downright venomous into polite company. One white nationalist in the United States recently noted that his members used to feel demoralized – presumably because their views made them pariahs. Not any more. They walk with newfound confidence now. There is a multiplier effect at work in Trump’s victories. As the far right make common cause with each other – fighting each others’ battles, echoing each others slogans – no advance in one corner of the globe is without its consequences in another. Remember Anders Behring Breivik, the Norwegian terrorist and white supremacist who killed 77 people in 2011? In his hate-filled, rambling manifesto he wrote about an unlikely ally in the fight against Islam: the Hindu far-right. “It is essential that the European and Indian resistance movements learn from each other and cooperate as much as possible. Our goals are more or less identical.” Breivik was on to something: many of the goals of the far right are identical. The group praying for Trump in New Delhi understands that well. That is why, in the fight against Trump in the United States, liberals and progressives should join forces with those battling their own bigots overseas. It will take a global effort to overcome a threat that has implications for us all – no matter where we live.
Your bra could kill you – and other breast cancer myths busted A diagnosis of breast cancer can be frightening, and many of the known risk factors – genetics, ageing, being a woman – are beyond our control. That is why myths are attractive. They sell us the idea that there is something simple we can do to protect ourselves from cancer. We look at three of the most common myths. Your bra could be killing you The idea that wearing an underwired bra can cause breast cancer has been around since 1995, when Sydney Singer and Soma Grismaijer published their book Dressed to Kill, which claimed there was a link. The idea was revived last year when a practitioner of alternative medicine wrote an essay on Gwyneth Paltrow’s website, Goop. What these people have in common is that none of them is a cancer researcher or medical doctor. Singer and Grismaijer’s “study” was not reviewed by medical experts and published in a respected journal, as is the norm for bona fide scientific discoveries. According to a version of their story now doing the rounds on Twitter, they interviewed more than 4,000 American women and discovered that women who don’t wear bras have a “1 in 168 chance” of developing breast cancer, as opposed to a “3 in 4 chance for those who wear a bra 24 hours a day”. Their explanation is that underwired bras block circulation of lymphatic fluid, causing breasts to swell with “toxins” (a word more associated with pseudoscience, in my experience, than genuine medical knowledge). It is unlikely, though, that that lymph fluid would be trapped by an underwire, because it doesn’t flow in that direction, and a properly fitting bra prevents breast ligaments from overstretching. Scientists have also criticised Dressed to Kill for not taking into account known risk factors for breast cancer, most notably obesity, which increases the likelihood a woman will wear a bra for longer periods. A comprehensive 2014 study by the globally respected Fred Hutchinson Cancer Centre in Seattle found that no aspect of bra-wearing was associated with breast cancer risk, and Breast Cancer Now, Cancer Research UK, the American Cancer Society, and the US National Institutes of Health are just a few of the organisations that have stressed the lack of evidence that wearing bras increases cancer risk. American obstetrician and gynae-cologist Dr Jennifer Gunter has described this myth as “cruel”, saying that it scares women and could cause women with a breast cancer diagnosis to blame themselves for wearing a bra. If you find your bra is painful, you should not panic that you have cancer, but you should head to the high street and get measured for a new bra. Sweat-free armpits or healthy breasts? You have to choose The idea that antiperspirants cause breast cancer is usually justified either by the idea that preventing underarm stickiness blocks “toxins” from being sweated out, or that the aluminium salts used to block the sweat glands are absorbed through the skin and trigger cancer. The source appears to be an email hoax which spread so quickly that cancer charity helplines were overwhelmed by anxious callers worried they had been doomed by their personal hygiene routines. The vast majority of harmful substances in our bodies are flushed out by the liver and kidneys (which is why we drink lots of water when we are hungover), not sweated out through our armpits. Almost all the studies purporting to show that antiperspirants cause cancer are from a single laboratory, with Dr Philippa Darbre often the only named author. One of the studies that, at first glance, shows aluminium is present in breast tissue is, on a second look, inconclusive because the authors didn’t compare normal (non-cancerous) tissue. Unless there is significantly more of something in a tumour compared with normal tissue, it isn’t wise to speculate that it has a role in cancer. A 2002 study published by the Journal of the National Cancer Institute studied 1,606 women and discovered there was no link between the use of antiperspirants and cancer. Another study, in 2006, compared women with and without breast cancer and found that 82% of women who were cancer-free had used antiperspirant whereas only 52% of the women with breast cancer had, which certainly doesn’t support the theory that antiperspirants increase cancer risk. Mammograms emit cancer-causing radiation, or squeeze tumours so the cancer spreads Finding breast cancer early reduces your risk of dying from it by up to 25% – which makes the myth that mammograms cause cancer, or make it spread, a particularly dangerous one. The consensus in the medical community is that the benefits of mammograms far outweigh any risk. An annual, 20-minute mammogram involves a tiny dose of radiation, less than a chest X-ray and nowhere near enough to increase the risk of developing a cancer. The process of metastasis, in which cells break off a tumour, spread, and settle in a different place in the body to create a secondary tumour, is biologically complex and can’t be caused by squeezing a tumour. Mammograms are frightening because of the potential that they will find a cancer – but the mantra that early detection saves lives is true and one of the reasons that what used to be a death sentence is now survived by eight out of every 10 women diagnosed with breast cancer. If you are worried about cancer, you can find reliable information from NHS Choices, or the websites and helpline of registered cancer charities such as Cancer Research UK, the Irish Cancer Society or Macmillan Cancer Support. As always, speak to your GP if you have any concerns about your health. • Naomi Elster is a writer and scientist researching for a PhD in cancer medicine at the Royal College of Surgeons, Ireland, supported by the Irish Cancer Society
How your vote could count – in every country in the world Imagine if you could vote in other countries’ elections. Or, to be precise, to vote on other countries’ elections: of course we don’t have the power directly to elect anyone or remove them from office – but power comes in many forms these days, and the influence of an international electorate could be surprisingly strong. That’s why I’m offering people the chance to do just that. Every month or so, I will be picking an election somewhere in the world, or occasionally a referendum: we’re choosing mainly presidential elections for the time being because they’re simple to explain. Then we feature that election on our website, Global Vote, with a snapshot of each candidate giving very succinct information about who they are and what they appear to stand for. Each candidate is also invited to answer two standard questions: 1. If you are elected, what will you do for the rest of us, around the world? 2. What is your vision for your country’s role in the world? In the absence of answers to these two questions, we will do our best to summarise the candidate’s views on these topics, as faithfully and neutrally as we can, from their published statements and interviews. We encourage our voters strongly to find out as much as they can about each candidate, and we provide links to start this process. Then our participants vote on their chosen candidate, and we release the results, usually the day before the electorate goes to the polls. For each election, there’s a magic tipping-point where global voters actually outnumber the electorate: every time we reach this point, the world has – in my opinion – officially changed a little, and we are one step closer to acknowledging our essential interdependence. Why am I doing this? Because we live in an infinitely connected world, and the choices made by the leaders of all countries, large and small, near and far, rich and poor, affect all of us sooner or later. Their energy policies affect our shared climate; their defence policies affect our collective peace; their trade policies affect our prosperity and employment prospects; their stance on migration either helps or hinders the collective effort to manage the crises of human movement that continually sweep across the world. And because we are all affected by those policies, we must all make our views known about what sort of leaders we prefer our neighbors to choose. Our voters are encouraged never to make their selection on the grounds that one or another candidate will do a better or worse job of running that particular country – that’s the concern of the electorate alone – but on the grounds that he or she will remember the rest of humanity and the planet when running their country. Today, I believe, all leaders have a dual mandate. They are primarily responsible, as they always have been, for their own people and their own slice of territory: but in our hyper-connected world, they are also responsible, to some degree, for every living thing in the world, and for every square mile of the planet’s surface and the atmosphere above it. And those two mandates are by no means mutually exclusive: incorporating the international dimension can make better domestic policy, not just unhappy compromises. It’s very tempting, in an age of constant crisis and terrifying global challenges, to retreat into selfishness, tribalism, fear and hostility towards the rest of our own species. And of course, in times like these, we are never short of politicians who win support by echoing that fear and hostility: but since our problems are global and our challenges are shared, they’re moving in the wrong direction. We need leaders with minds that telescope, not minds that microscope: a lot more collaboration and cooperation between countries, and a little less competition, is the only way forward. This global vote aims to ensure that this critical attribute is never forgotten when we choose our leaders. Rightwing or leftwing, conservative or progressive, the politics are secondary to the main question: are you with humanity or against it?
Give children a stake in society to improve their mental health Pressure on mental health services for young people is increasing (“Care for children with mental health problems is woeful, say GPs”, News, last week). But it is no good calling for more money for services without attending to the causes. Widespread social insecurity is bad for health – mental and physical. The canary in the mine is the phenomenal explosion of despair among teenage girls, who are turning up to hospital emergency departments, self-harming and suicidal. As community child and adolescent mental health clinics turn patients away, more of them are admitted in crisis to general hospital wards, with patchy mental health expertise to call on. Norman Lamb MP was a coalition government mental health minister when these trends began, so it is rather weak of him now to complain that “rationing of care in such a vital area of care is scandalous”. While most political pressure will be on community funding, what is urgently required is specially skilled mental health and social service professionals in hospital paediatric departments. Though tax havens, state terrorism, migration, global warming and inequality may be far from their minds, these young people are warning us of the danger we all face: the vicious cycle in which people across the social spectrum become less interested in the public good that they are expected to pay for in taxes, because they can see nothing good in it for them. The poison in the social atmosphere that is hitting teenagers is their unprecedented lack of prospects in education, employment and housing. Dr Sebastian Kraemer NHS consultant child and adolescent psychiatrist, 1980-2015 London SW2 A quick swipe can stop touts Secondary sale of tickets for big events has been set up to facilitate the tout industry (“How ticket touts are bleeding fans dry”, Special Report, last week). It makes no difference to performers, as they get the same cut from the original ticket price whether or not touts are involved. If performers care about fans they should insist that ticketing for any gigs mirror the simple and transparent system for buying cinema tickets online. Payment is taken from the credit card, then the ticket is collected when your credit card is swiped at the venue. There is no possibility of ticket transfer unless you trust a friend to use your credit card. Buyer beware. Alison Hackett Dublin Win-win of crosscultural bonds As psychotherapist Reenee Singh observes, there is “an added layer of potential conflict from the minute intercultural couples meet” (“Now loving couples can rely on help to cross a troubled cultural divide”, In Focus, last week). My Mexican wife and I have survived 40 such years. The upside is that, like travel, cross-cultural marriage broadens the mind, and the children, ideally bilingual, learn to function across cultures as cosmopolitan world citizens. Joseph Palley Richmond, Surrey High value of online petitions Catherine’s Bennett’s criticism of online petitions as clickbait is unjust (“People power can be toxic: sign here if you agree”, Comment, last week). Organisations such as 38 Degrees have achieved some remarkable results by informing, encouraging and mobilising vast numbers of people who would otherwise succumb to apathy in the face of toxic corporate and rightwing self-interest. It is a sad fact of modern-day life that only a small minority of people take an active and regular part in campaigns that promote a fair and compassionate society. Online petitions make ordinary people feel as if they have a voice, so it’s at least one step better than indolence. I don’t like the tone or purpose of the petition to sack Laura Kuenssberg, but unfortunately there are always going to be some, like “Joe”, who use (misuse?) petitions in this way and the websites cannot easily prevent them without losing their valuable impartiality. I would have gladly signed a petition to sack the odious Jeremy Clarkson and felt justified in doing so. Would that campaign have been “unfair and ugly”? Michael Pollard Wareham, Dorset BA’s i360 boon to Brighton The letter “Council spending on towers” (8 May), contains misleading information. First, the public funding referred to comes from the Public Works Loan Board, which funds projects that generate a commercial return. It is not local taxpayers’ money, nor was it a case of the council choosing to fund British Airways i360 instead of paying for local services. The statement that this arrangement will cost residents £1.4m a year is false; in fact, quite the opposite is true. Brighton and Hove city council will earn about £1m a year from brokering the loan, which will be reinvested back into the city at a time of public cuts. In addition, 1% of British Airways i360’s ticket sales will be paid to the council in perpetuity, even after the loan has been repaid. We also estimate that the attraction will bring £25m per year in economic benefit to the city; it will support local businesses and generate hundreds of new jobs that pay the living wage. David Marks Chairman, Brighton i360 Age does not dictate politics I will be 72 by the date of the EU referendum and am getting tired of reading articles that seem to portray everyone of my age as a reactionary isolationist (“‘Our grandparents should not be deciding our future’”, News, last week). I am not. I firmly believe that the days when Britain achieved dominance by exploiting half the world and fighting the other half have long gone and our only hope for the future is through cooperation with out nearest neighbours. And I couldn’t support a cause backed by Duncan Smith, Gove, Farage and Johnson. If you want to make your voices heard, get off your apathetic arses and do something about it. Mike Garley Leeds
Dancing to the Coen brothers’ tune: Channing Tatum on his role in Hail, Caesar! Seemingly force-fed into sailors’ whites, Channing Tatum’s first appearance in a Coen brothers film has already triggered dropped jaws across the world. Tip-tapping his way across the screen, Tatum makes good use of his dance skills as the star of an On-the-Town-ish film-within-a-film, one of several that punctuate Hail, Caesar!, which is set mostly within the confines of a single Hollywood studio in the early 1950s. The homoerotic subtext is never far from the surface of Tatum’s scenes, and Hail, Caesar! gets lots of yuks out of it. “People now can’t believe it,” says Tatum. “The 50s were very square and conservative, but audiences loved these guys. The dancing is so elegant and dainty, but guys on the street would love it without irony. It’s such a fascinating juxtaposition that 50s men could like Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire. All that “I’m gonna dance with you, pal” type stuff.” Casting Tatum was bit of a masterstroke on the Coens’ part, in keeping with their tradition of big-name cameos. But Tatum is something of a conundrum: he may look like a jock, but his willingness to hoof it up on film – from Step Up to Magic Mike – has been instrumental to his success. “There’s not a lot of actors that dance, I guess,” he says, “though I have never actually danced like this. When we started, the Coens weren’t sure if they wanted it to be tap dancing, but they did know they wanted it to be Gene Kelly-esque and athletic. Originally, it was going to be on a battleship, with me running up the sides, me on a big huge gun. But then it started to change to a tap dancing and singing thing. That I was really panicked about, but it worked out OK.” Tatum is a highly rated actor these days, thanks to an astute association with a string of auteurish American directors alongside his more obviously commercial romcoms and action movies. He has made three films with Steven Soderbergh (Magic Mike, Haywire, Side Effects), Foxcatcher for Bennett Miller, Jupiter Ascending with the Wachowskis and, most recently, The Hateful Eight with Quentin Tarantino. “I’ve been really blessed to work with so many different types of director. It’s fascinating. The way the Coens work is really precise, and they really try to bring you into the process. We get pages every morning, and on the back is the entire storyboard for the scene. But, within that, you can try anything, they don’t lead you that way. With Quentin, he’ll give you a note that is so specific: I want you to pick this up on the first syllable, I want you to walk all the way across the room, set it down, then say the last syllable. It’s just different styles. Everyone has their way.” • Hail, Caesar! is released in the UK on 4 March.
Cannes 2016: festival chief defends return of 'usual suspects' Cannes film festival head Thierry Frémaux has dismissed suggestions that one of the industry’s most famous events routinely presents work from the “usual suspect” directors to the detriment of new talent. Interviewed by the Hollywood Reporter, Frémaux said the presence of Cannes favourites such as Jim Jarmusch, Pedro Almodovar, Ken Loach, Andrea Arnold, Nicolas Winding Refn and Olivier Assayas in competition for this year’s Palme D’Or was in no way indicative of a closed-shop attitude. “Every film we pick up is because of the film and what the film means in terms of schedule, programming and selection,” he said. “What about the names people ignore? What about the Brazilian film-maker [Kleber Mendonça Filho], the German director [Maren Ade]. No one asks me about the new names.” Frémaux said it was unfair to criticise organisers for inviting back Sean Penn, whose film The Last Face made the competition slate a decade and a half after his 2001 film The Pledge debuted on the Croisette. “It’s only the second time, and the last time was 15 years ago,” he said. “So there are not that many ‘usual suspects’, and we of course make efforts to put new names in the selection.” The artistic director said Jarmusch had two entries in the festival’s official 2016 selection: bus-driver drama Paterson and Iggy Pop documentary Gimme Danger, to show his diversity as a film-maker. “Like a writer, he can do both a novel and sometimes reportage in the press,” said Frémaux of Jarmusch. “It’s the same expression and is part of the territory of creation. It’s good to have documentaries, because sometimes things can only be expressed by reality. I think we have to open windows. We have to show what a film-maker can be.” Cannes has been criticised in the past for a perceived bias against female directors. In 2012, there were none at all in the main competition for the Palme d’Or. The festival chief said one-fifth of this year’s films were directed by women, which he said was “three times the proportion of what it is in the industry”. “To have more women in Cannes, we have to have more women in cinema. Cannes is not the problem, do not blame Cannes. Cannes is the consequence,” he said.
Call for new powers to protect company pensions after takeovers The Pension Regulator should be given new powers to block company deals so that employees and pensioners are better protected in the wake of events such as the collapse of BHS, the former chair of the Pension Protection Fund has said. Lady Judge, who stepped down last month, said the regulator was not equipped to deal with situations such as that at BHS, sold by Sir Philip Green to Dominic Chappell for £1 last year and now left with an estimated £571m pensions black hole. “The regulator should have the right to approve or disapprove any corporate transaction that might disadvantage pensioners,” the Financial Times quoted Judge as saying. “If it had had the power, we would not be in this situation.” However, the pensions minister, Ros Altmann, suggested such an approach would be too strong. “I would be nervous about saying a transaction could not take place. But we must be clearer [to companies] about the consequences of failure to get clearance for a deal. “If we need to give the regulator more powers we will, but it is not clear yet. Any changes would need to be done with careful consideration and not kneejerk reaction.” Lady Altmann said the regulator needed to be given the chance to carry out its report on the BHS pension scheme. But Judge said pensioners needed more protection. “We need to take care of [pensioners] as a country and not let unscrupulous big corporates put them in a position where they won’t be able to have a reasonable future,” she said. In a separate interview, Altmann said Britain’s vote to leave the European Union would place greater strain on companies with defined benefit pension schemes, driving deficits higher if the economy weakens and interest rates stay lower for longer. She said that under such circumstances, businesses should not be forced into putting too much money into schemes. “I do think it’s important that when we’re making plans for the future the government recognises that employers are having, in some cases, a really difficult time supporting the pension promises they have made. “Part of the reason for that is the trend in interest rates. What we don’t want to do is offset some of the stimulus by forcing companies to put too much money into their pensions in the near term if they can’t afford it, so there’s that delicate balancing act.” Mark Carney, the governor of the Bank of England, has signalled that Threadneedle Street is ready to pump more money into the economy following the shock Brexit vote. Immediately after the result was announced Carney said the Bank was prepared to provide UK banks with an additional £250bn of liquidity. The governor has also hinted that interest rates could be cut from their record low of 0.5%. Another option available to the Bank would be more quantitative easing, where new money is created to buy assets such as government bonds. QE was first launched in March 2009, as the Bank attempted to limit the impact of the financial crisis.
Starship Troopers reboot on the way as Hollywood's 90s nostalgia train rolls on Starship Troopers is being rebooted with hopes that it will launch a new franchise. The 1997 original, directed by Paul Verhoeven, was an adaptation of Robert A Heinlein’s novel which, according to the Hollywood Reporter, will act as the more direct source of the new version. The script will come from Mark Swift and Damian Shannon, who have also written the upcoming Baywatch movie. It’ll be produced by Neal H Moritz, whose credits include Sweet Home Alabama and Battle Los Angeles. Verhoeven’s film, which starred Casper van Dien and Denise Richards, received critical acclaim for its surprising satire but was a disappointment at the box office, making just $121m worldwide from a $105m budget. It spawned three sequels, without the director’s involvement which didn’t receive a theatrical release. Verhoeven’s other sci-fi hits Robocop and Total Recall have also been remade, receiving disastrous reviews. “Somehow they seem to think that the lightness of say Total Recall and Robocop is a hindrance,” Verhoeven said about the remakes in an interview. “So they take these somewhat absurd stories and make them much too serious … Both those movies needed the distance of satire or comedy to situate it for audiences. Playing it straight without any humor is a problem and not an improvement.”
Spotlight review – Catholic church called to account over child abuse Spotlight is a movie of clarity and force: the true story of the Boston Globe’s “Spotlight” team and its 2002 campaign to investigate a church cover-up of child abuse by Catholic priests. Its value was obvious at the Venice film festival last year, but it has grown in my mind since: what seemed like a plodding pace is actually a shrewd approximation of the steady drumbeat that effective reporting creates. This is what the police work of investigative journalism looks like: the documents, the phone calls, the pre-web clippings, the expense of shoe leather in going out to interview people who don’t want to be interviewed. Spotlight doesn’t have the sensational thrills of Alan J Pakula’s All the President’s Men (1976), or for that matter David Fincher’s Zodiac (2007). And there are a few journo cliches. But it has the sinew of a really good procedural, underpinned by genuine moral outrage. Michael Keaton plays veteran reporter Walter “Robby” Robinson, working alongside hot-tempered Mike Rezendes, played by Mark Ruffalo, and Sacha Pfeiffer, played by Rachel McAdams, who has an extraordinary scene when she persuades an abuser-priest to come to the door and talk. Boston was a clubbable world in which a smile on the golf course, or a pat on the back and a meaningful look at the church social was enough to enforce silence. It takes a new editor, Marty Baron (Liev Schreiber) – non-Boston, non-Catholic – to shake things up and insist on doing the child abuse story properly, and paradoxically reveal the paper’s own former shortcomings. The film has real insights to offer: the cast powerfully convey the journalists’ horror at realising the abuse stretches back decades or even centuries and also how abuse is as much about power as sex and that homosexuality is beside the point: the abusers have evolved the choice of boy victims because boys are reticent, more likely to swallow their shame and not speak out. A powerful story.
Kung Fu Panda 3 chops Allegiant down to size at UK box office The winner: Kung Fu Panda 3 While the February half-term holiday this year saw Disney, Pixar and DreamWorks Animation all sit out the contest – ceding the field to Fox’s Chipmunks franchise – it’s a different story this Easter. Good Friday sees the arrival of Disney Animation’s Zootropolis, and it’s already begun popping up in previews, with more to follow. It’s been preceded by DreamWorks Animation’s Kung Fu Panda 3, which cruised to an easy win at the box office with £3.18m from 583 cinemas, plus £1.59m in previews, for a total of £4.77m. The weekend number is very similar to previous entries in the franchise, although more aggressive previews on the earlier films pushed those totals higher. Kung Fu Panda debuted in July 2008, with £3.11m plus £2.96m for a £6.07m total. Kung Fu Panda 2 began in June 2011, with £3.07m plus £3.12m in previews for a £6.19m total. Kung Fu Panda 3 has the whole Easter school holiday ahead of it – two solid weeks when families will be available for cinema visits, although it will face fierce competition from Zootropolis. The runner-up: Allegiant Landing a place below Kung Fu Panda 3, and with about half the box office, is Allegiant, the latest in The Divergent Series. This third entry in the franchise has begun with £1.58m, plus £262,000 in Thursday previews, for a four-day total of £1.84m. Stakeholders may have concerns that the franchise is now moving in the wrong direction, since the original Divergent kicked off in April 2014 with £1.77m, and Insurgent just under a year later with £2.55m plus previews of £385,000, for a £2.94m total. Ignoring previews, Allegiant has opened 38% below its predecessor. If previews are included in the calculations, it’s a very similar story: Allegiant is 37% behind Insurgent. The budget of Allegiant has not been confirmed, but the first film is believed to have cost $85m, and the second $110m. These films have a significant physical cost, and are a lot more expensive than rival franchise Maze Runner, for example. Both Maze Runner films outgrossed both in the Divergent series so far, going by worldwide box office. The wisdom of splitting the final novel in Veronica Roth’s YA trilogy into two films – Allegiant and next year’s Ascendant – may be called into question. If audience interest continues to flag, this hardly looks like the easy commercial win that resulted from the extending of the Harry Potter, Twilight and Hunger Games film franchises. The real runner-up: London Has Fallen Although Allegiant occupies second position in the official comScore chart, it does so only by virtue of the film’s Thursday previews. Going by Friday-to-Sunday takings only, the runner-up honours belong to London Has Fallen, which grossed £1.80m, taking its 11-day tally to £6.44m. The Gerard Butler actioner fell just 34% from the previous frame – the gentlest decline of any film in the top 10. That’s remarkable for several reasons. First, London Has Fallen is a sequel, so you would expect business to be front-loaded, with fans rushing out in the first week. Second, it’s a mainstream action picture, which is a genre that tends to skew to the kind of audiences (including young males) that are traditionally quick to see films, swiftly moving on to fresh releases. Third, reviews have been largely hostile, often an indication that word-of-mouth will be weak once the film begins to engage beyond the core fanbase. The film’s IMDb user rating remains a decent 6.4/10, and the MetaCritic score is 28/100 – evidently the audience and the paid professionals continue to disagree on the film’s merits. London Has Fallen has already overtaken the lifetime total here of predecessor Olympus Has Fallen (£6.22m). The film may be benefiting from a local boost in the UK, but the numbers suggest that further cities may soon be welcoming a dishevelled Butler trotting around familiar landmarks with US president Aaron Eckhart, while dispatching evil terrorists. The scary movie face-off: The Witch v The Ones Below Finding the perfect release date is never easy, but observers did wonder whether it was wise for distributor Icon to position its London-set chiller The Ones Below on the same weekend as Universal’s supernatural horror The Witch. The films are very different, but they both classify as “elevated genre”, having premiered respectively at the Toronto and Sundance film festivals. Wouldn’t the audiences overlap? In the end, the potential clash was solved by the very modest programming of The Ones Below – David Farr’s film was released into just 11 cinemas, all in London. Whether that was a strategic choice made by the distributor, or one forced on it by the indifference of cinema programmers, is hard to say. The Ones Below enjoys a 71% Fresh critical rating at Rotten Tomatoes, but a weak 38% approval rating among the site’s users. UK opening gross is a poor £7,000. The Witch debuts with £448,000 from 179 cinemas, including modest previews of £11,000. Site average is a decent £2,501. Given the low production cost, this looks like a canny acquisition for Universal, which has multiple foreign rights. The indie challenger: Anomalisa While Hail, Caesar! continues to be the top attraction for fans of independent cinema, Charlie Kaufman’s stop-frame animation Anomalisa is now positioned as a plucky alternative. Curzon Artificial Eye pushed the film out into 80 cinemas, delivering a debut of £223,000, including previews of £30,000. Assessing that result is a distinct challenge, since there are no real directly comparable titles you can point to. The Kaufman-directed Synecdoche, New York began in May 2009 with £123,000 from 30 venues, including previews of £10,000 – but that was live action, with a rich ensemble cast including Philip Seymour Hoffman, Catherine Keener and Michelle Williams. Reviews were significantly more ecstatic this time around, but a stop-frame animation about a male midlife crisis, with David Thewlis and Jennifer Jason Leigh in the voice cast, was never exactly a commercial slam-dunk. The future Thanks to the arrival of Kung Fu Panda 3, takings are a nice 26% up on the previous frame, and a very healthy 94% up on the equivalent weekend from 2015, when the top new releases were Run All Night and Suite Francaise. (This outcome is essentially a blip, caused by an earlier Easter, and hence the earlier release this year of a big animated film.) Among official releases, cinema bookers will have big hopes pinned on the JJ Abrams-produced 10 Cloverfield Lane, a “spiritual successor” to gene hit Cloverfield. Alternatives include fellow genre offering The Boy; religious-themed historical actioner Risen; and Ben Wheatley’s starry JG Ballard adaptation High-Rise. Zootropolis will be playing extensive previews on Saturday and Sunday. Top 10 films March 11-13 1. Kung Fu Panda 3, £4,771,131 from 583 sites (new) 2. The Divergent Series: Allegiant, £1,838,019 from 526 sites (new) 3. London Has Fallen, £1,800,526 from 518 sites. Total: £6,444,871 4. Deadpool, £966,484 from 472 sites. Total: £35,773,741 5. Hail, Caesar!, £863,355 from 506 sites. Total: £3,244,566 6. Grimsby, £474,768 from 361 sites. Total: £4,451,956 7. The Witch, £447,626 from 179 sites (new) 8. How to Be Single, £333,681 from 374 sites. Total: £5,432,714 9. Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip, £295,420 from 493 sites. Total: £15,711,070 10. Anomalisa, £223,387 from 80 sites (new) Other openers Fifty Shades of Black, £82,614 from 117 sites Ardaas, £72,084 from 10 sites Love Punjab, £33,661 from 5 sites Kadhalum Kadandhu Pogum, £16,715 from 17 sites Traders, £7,435 from 28 sites (Ireland only) The Ones Below, £6,971 from 11 sites Feast of Varanasi, £5,443 from 25 sites The Here After, £3,316 from 10 sites Puthiya Niyamam, £2,596 from 17 sites In Rahon Se, £1,583 from five sites Next to Her, £1,095 from five sites Against the Sun, £36 from one site Thanks to comScore. All figures relate to takings in UK and Ireland cinemas.
What does depression feel like? Trust me – you really don’t want to know This is Depression Awareness Week, so it must be hoped that during this seven-day period more people will become more aware of a condition that a minority experience, and which most others grasp only remotely – confusing it with more familiar feelings, such as unhappiness or misery. This perception is to some extent shared by the medical community, which can’t quite make its mind up whether depression is a physical “illness”, rooted in neurochemistry, or a negative habit of thought that can be addressed by talking or behavioural therapies. I’m not concerned about which of these two models is the more accurate. I’m still not sure myself. My primary task here is to try to explain something that remains so little understood as an experience – despite the endless books and articles on the subject. Because if the outsider cannot really conceptualise serious depression, the 97.5% who do not suffer from it will be unable to really sympathise, address it or take it seriously. From the outside it may look like malingering, bad temper and ugly behaviour – and who can empathise with such unattractive traits? Depression is actually much more complex, nuanced and dark than unhappiness – more like an implosion of self. In a serious state of depression, you become a sort of half-living ghost. To give an idea of how distressing this is, I can only say that the trauma of losing my mother when I was 31 – to suicide, sadly – was considerably less than what I had endured during the years prior to her death, when I was suffering from depression myself (I had recovered by the time of her death). So how is this misleadingly named curse different from recognisable grief? For a start, it can produce symptoms similar to Alzheimer’s – forgetfulness, confusion and disorientation. Making even the smallest decisions can be agonising. It can affect not just the mind but also the body – I start to stumble when I walk, or become unable to walk in a straight line. I am more clumsy and accident-prone. In depression you become, in your head, two-dimensional – like a drawing rather than a living, breathing creature. You cannot conjure your actual personality, which you can remember only vaguely, in a theoretical sense. You live in, or close to, a state of perpetual fear, although you are not sure what it is you are afraid of. The writer William Styron called it a “brainstorm”, which is much more accurate than “unhappiness”. There is a heavy, leaden feeling in your chest, rather as when someone you love dearly has died; but no one has – except, perhaps, you. You feel acutely alone. It is commonly described as being like viewing the world through a sheet of plate glass; it would be more accurate to say a sheet of thick, semi-opaque ice. Thus your personality – the normal, accustomed “you” – has changed. But crucially, although near-apocalyptic from the inside, this transformation is barely perceptible to the observer – except for, perhaps, a certain withdrawnness, or increased anger and irritability. Viewed from the outside – the wall of skin and the windows of eyes – everything remains familiar. Inside, there is a dark storm. Sometimes you may have the overwhelming desire to stand in the street and scream at the top of your voice, for no particular reason (the writer Andrew Solomon described it as “like wanting to vomit but not having a mouth”). Other negative emotions – self-pity, guilt, apathy, pessimism, narcissism – make it a deeply unattractive illness to be around, one that requires unusual levels of understanding and tolerance from family and friends. For all its horrors, it is not naturally evocative of sympathy. Apart from being mistaken for someone who might be a miserable, loveless killjoy, one also has to face the fact that one might be a bit, well, crazy – one of the people who can’t be trusted to be reliable parents, partners, or even employees. So to the list of predictable torments, shame can be added. There is a paradox here. You want the illness acknowledged but you also want to deny it, because it has a bad reputation. When I am well, which is most of the time, I am (I think) jocular, empathetic, curious, well-adjusted, open and friendly. Many very personable entertainers and “creatives” likewise suffer depression, although in fact the only group of artists who actually suffer it disproportionately are – you guessed it – writers. There are positive things about depression, I suppose. It has helped give me a career (without suffering depression I would never have examined my life closely enough to become a writer). And above all, depression, in nearly all cases, sooner or later lifts, and you become “normal” again. Not that anyone but you will necessarily notice. But on the whole it’s a horror, and it’s real, and it deserves sympathy and help. However, in the world we live in, that remains easier to say than do. We don’t understand depression partly because it’s hard to imagine – but also, perhaps, because we don’t want to understand it. I have a suspicion that society, in its heart of hearts, despises depressives because it knows they have a point: the recognition that life is finite and sad and frightening – as well as those more sanctioned outlooks, joyful and exciting and complex and satisfying. There is a secret feeling most people enjoy that everything, at a fundamental level, is basically OK. Depressives suffer the withdrawal of that feeling, and it is frightening not only to experience but to witness. Admittedly, severely depressed people can connect only tenuously with reality, but repeated studies have shown that mild to moderate depressives have a more realistic take on life than most “normal” people, a phenomenon known as “depressive realism”. As Neel Burton, author of The Meaning of Madness, put it, this is “the healthy suspicion that modern life has no meaning and that modern society is absurd and alienating”. In a goal-driven, work-oriented culture, this is deeply threatening. This viewpoint can have a paralysing grip on depressives, sometimes to a psychotic extent – but perhaps it haunts everyone. And therefore the bulk of the unafflicted population may never really understand depression. Not only because they (understandably) lack the imagination, and (unforgivably) fail to trust in the experience of the sufferer – but because, when push comes to shove, they don’t want to understand. It’s just too … well, depressing. • In the UK, the Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Hotline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14. Hotlines in other countries can be found here
How Silicon Valley's parents keep their children safe online Even in Silicon Valley, parents struggle to navigate the online risks and opportunities for their children. The internet might be the first place to turn for homework and entertainment, but how much should parents intervene to protect their children from adult content, cyberbullying and being contacted by dangerous strangers? Thirteen-year-old Nicole Lovell was murdered by two students who authorities say met her on the messaging app Kik. One in 25 young people aged 10-17 have received aggressive sexual solicitations online, researchers found. And 34% of students aged 11-15 say they have experienced cyberbullying. So how should parents handle this digital minefield? We asked the Silicon Valley experts. ‘Trying to control access is massively complex’ Jon Gillespie-Brown is a British entrepreneur and author who has been in Silicon Valley for nine years. He lives in Portola Valley, California, with his wife and two sons aged 13 and 15 My kids have access to pretty well everything. Both my wife and I work in technology – she in gaming, I in software – and we’ve got every gadget going. The kids have got smartphones, laptops, iPads and game boxes, and every one of them is connected to the internet. Trying to control all that access across a mishmash of platforms and devices is massively complex. I am a programmer. I know how to program every single one of these things but the tools we’ve used to try and restrict access to certain types of sites – such as porn sites – are ineffective and block content needed for them to do their homework. Now our method for control is training. Both our kids have been curious and looked at pornography. We try to teach them about the internet just like you’ve got to teach them about sex, drugs and rock’n’roll. Our older son uses Ask.fm, Snapchat and Instagram a lot, and there was lots of inappropriate texting and commenting in his early use of social media. However, he’s also really into sports and wants to go to college, so he’s starting to control his use as he knows that the schools [universities] are going through social media and using it as a means to exclude people. So he’s gone through every account and deleted all the bad language and inappropriate content. Because there were some cyberbullying cases at school – and lawsuits when parents found out – a lot of the chat has moved to Snapchat, which is like the magically disappearing piece of paper I used to pass round when I was a kid. The Bay Area is a very aggressive environment for children and their parents, and there have been a lot of teen suicides. Parents are all working very long hours in stressful jobs and don’t have as much time to be with their kids.We have drilled into them what is appropriate and what is legal, and that if they get caught sending stuff online it’s a legal document and will be used against them in a way that whispering something mean can’t be. ‘We told our son to use Snapchat, not Twitter’ David DeMember founded digital agency Toi, where he builds apps and websites with his wife, Betty. They live with their three boys, aged five, 14 and 17, in Millbrae, California We try to treat our children as adults. I don’t believe in spying on your kids unless you have to. It’s crazy that parents think they should have their passwords and use tracking tools. Before these things existed were you bugging your kids? It’s absurd that this is the norm these days. The main concerns when it comes to the web are: overusage, pornography, the fact that you don’t know who you are talking to online and cybersecurity. I am mostly concerned about usage and security. There was a weekend when our middle son played nine hours of video games – World of Warcraft and Gears of War– so we are now monitoring his usage. We also ask them not to take their phones into their bedrooms at night because it affects their quality of sleep. If you binge on anything too much – TV, computer, phone, candy, fatty food, salt, whatever – it’s bad for your body and mind. If you are constantly playing games eight or nine hours every day it will erode your interests in other things. With porn, we know they are going to watch it – it’s natural to be curious. So we talk to them about how certain kinds are better than others. If we tell them not to watch it, it may push them into the darker corners. You can’t shelter your kids from the world. The internet is accessible everywhere and they know how to use private browsing. There was a time when our eldest son and his friends started to use Twitter and would post anything – some of it borderline. A fellow player on the football team posted about spilling bong water in the car and lots of kids were using the N-word. So we talked about that. We reminded him that everything you post online is there forever and if he wants to have those conversations he should use Snapchat (which might sound crazy). We’re fairly liberal people, both politically and in our parenting style, so you would think our kids would be crazy. But I believe that by creating a more inclusive conversation we’ve demystified some of this stuff. ‘We know her passwords’ Tiffany Shlain is a film-maker and founder of the Webby Awards and the Moxie Institute Film Studio. She lives with her husband, UC Berkeley robotics professor and artist Ken Goldberg, and their two children, aged 13 and 10, in Marin County, California Our 13-year-old daughter has a phone that just texts and calls – not a smartphone. Many of her friends have smartphones and are on them the whole time. She has a laptop and uses Twitter for social media, which of course we follow and we find the whole experience quite interesting. She also loves to write and watch short videos on YouTube. We know her passwords and she isn’t allowed to take her laptop into her room – it is only used in spaces we all are, so it can’t be this private world she dives into. If I’m ever worried about a particular website I will check with Commonsense Media to see what age rating they give it. We are in our seventh year of doing something we call “Technology Shabbats”, where we all turn off screens Friday night to Saturday night. That has been amazing for our family and all of us in so many ways. This is the one day we all appreciate being present with each other in a way that I think is waning in our world – with no screens to pull us away from what we’re doing. We read, play board games, do art projects, bike rides, and just hang out. And then each week she (and everyone in the family) re-appreciates technology all over again by the end of the day on Saturday. ‘Neither of my kids are on Facebook’ Sanjay Dholakia is the chief marketing officer of Marketo, which makes marketing automation software. He lives in Bend, Oregon, with his wife and two kids, a 13-year-old daughter and a six-year-old son My daughter has a school-issued iPad which is relatively heavily locked down by the school district. She also has a smartphone. We encourage her not to use WhatsApp and Snapchat at this point as we don’t think it’s age appropriate, although she does text her friends regularly. We want to teach her to self-select the groups that she’s part of. My six-year-old has a Wi-Fi-enabled smartphone that no longer has cell connectivity which he uses to email his family. They both play games such as Minecraft and my daughter uses an app called Lark to write art-inspired poetry. Neither of my kids are on Facebook, or any places where they could be exposed to a lot of people – they are too young. It’s just not appropriate. However we’re just entering a zone where some of my daughter’s friends are getting Facebook accounts and we probably won’t let her have one for a little bit longer, until she gets to high school. I’m on the board of directors at a high school and cyberbullying is a big problem for older children, particularly on these big social networks. You can’t watch over your children or be with them 100% of the time, so we need to teach them how to make good decisions and know when things might be dangerous. My kids are growing up digitally native and the learning curve is so steep that our main job is to teach them good decision-making. I don’t want my children to see the online worlds as a scary place they need protection from – there are positives and negatives. ‘The prevalence of in-app payments is really troubling’ Bret Taylor is the former chief technology officer of Facebook, credited with inventing the “like” button. He left in 2012 to set up his own company Quip, which makes a hybrid communication, collaboration and productivity service. He lives with his wife and kids, aged six and four, in Lafayette, California My wife and I both come from the technology industry and we want to make sure our kids don’t have too much screen time. We have experimented with giving our kids access to Netflix, but we noticed they were finding things that were a bit more mature than we were comfortable with. So we got rid of all of the internet-connected apps such as YouTube and Netflix, and now only download shows we’ve pre-approved. One issue we’ve consistently encountered is the prevalence of in-app payments, where we’ve found the kids have bought things without really knowing what they were doing – I find it really troubling. These are games designed for kids aged six or seven. They are not paying for it, nor do they have the capacity to work out if it’s worthwhile. The ironic thing is that most people in the tech industry restrict their kids’ technology usage, while our friends outside of the tech industry are much more liberal and all their kids use smartphones. No matter how good the technology is, it’s a parenting problem as much as a tech problem. Your kid will run into content that’s too mature and it creates the need for difficult conversations. The internet is messy and filled with a lot of different stuff so you need to have those conversations early – at eight, nine or 10, rather than when they are 12, 13, 14. ‘They can only use their tablets in a child-friendly mode’ Aaron Bromberg is the senior manager of product management for Amazon Devices. He lives in Palo Alto, California, and has two kids, aged seven and five We don’t let our kids use the internet without our supervision, but there hasn’t been a strong pull from either of them. They both have the Kindle Fire Kids Edition tablet which they use in FreeTime mode (this restricts access to the web browser and disables in-app purchases, social features and location-based services). They use the TV and Fire Stick to get online to watch streaming video. We’ll also use YouTube or show them things on the internet together as a family with our supervision. We often just spend a bit of time after dinner watching clips – most recently we watched a load of break-dancing videos. Looking ahead for when they are older, Amazon has just released a kid-friendly web browser within the FreeTime service. This lets them have access to a limited set of sites that Amazon has reviewed. The main thing we try to impress upon them is that when they share things with their friends or family, they know who they are communicating with. When they share things online they don’t know who they are communicating with. Everyone is listening to the online conversation. We review friends lists and some communications Brendon Lynch is chief privacy officer at Microsoft. He lives with his wife and two children, aged nine and 13, and in the Bay Area We’ve had first-hand experience with cyberbullying, unfortunately, but luckily we were able to get it quickly addressed. The learning for us was understanding just how important it is for kids to look out for each other and to involve an adult if they are at all concerned. I feel that stranger danger is reasonably well managed with a combination of restrictions, monitoring and education. Our kids have all Microsoft devices, of course. The 13-year-old has a phone and they both use either a tablet or laptop and are both Xbox fans, although the nine-year-old cannot accept Xbox friends or download apps without a parent approving it – and they can’t play multiplayer online games. The 13-year-old has fewer restrictions but can only participate in multiplayer online games with audio off (to protect from inappropriate language) and can’t access content with age-inappropriate ratings. We use family safety tools to report on websites visited. We also review friend lists and some communications, in a transparent way. My main advice is to be actively engaged and interested in their lives, which includes life online. ‘We don’t let our kids use social media’ Richard Freed is a child and adolescent psychologist who lives in Walnut Creek with his wife and two daughters, aged eight and 12. He is author of the book Wired Child, looking at the negative impact of technology on children Our kids use computers at school and our older daughter has a phone without a data plan, but we restrict their use at home. We’ve really worked hard to have our kids not on social media and that is driven by my research and clinical practice. It’s remarkably clear to me that kids’ use of social media pulls them away from the two most important things in life: family and school. We have this belief in our country that kids hit their teens or preteens and they should be engaging with peers and technology. That’s a modern fabrication. Kids have always needed family first, and kids who spend more than two hours on a social network a day have high levels of psychological distress. My main concern with social media and gaming is that they are increasingly developed by psychologists and user researchers who focus on making sure that the product is not put down. It’s nearly impossible to use just a little bit. Moderation sounds good, but I don’t think it applies. For me it’s the same as giving kids a little bit of alcohol. I’ve seen that blow up in the faces of families that have truly lost their kids. I also see an increasing number of kids in my practice getting hooked on pornography – boys and girls, starting at about 11. The filters just don’t work; they are not effective. I recognize that our family has much stronger limits than most. My kids have, as a result, gravitated towards other kids who don’t spend a bunch of time with screens. They are friends with people who are more involved in school, family and sports.
Shaking, crying, panic – the trauma of a benefits assessment with PTSD Looking through the letter marked “Atos healthcare”, Lucia – who has severe post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and anxiety – can only remember fragments of the assessment for personal independence payments (PIP) she had two months ago. A normal day is often hard enough for the 34-year-old. Lucia’s husband Daniel, a former hospital administrator, had to leave work three years ago to become her full-time carer. She’s been relying on disability living allowance (DLA) – the benefit the government is replacing with PIP – for six years to pay for weekly therapy sessions. On the days running up to her Atos medical, Lucia tells me she “wasn’t functioning” because of the stress: she couldn’t get dressed, wash, or leave the house. But within a few minutes of the assessment itself, she began to panic: she could hear voices coming from the room next door. Due to a shortage in facilities, the assessor told her and Daniel that the assessment room had been divided in two and without soundproofing – so as Lucia had her medical, she could hear another disabled person being assessed. That would be uncomfortable for anyone, but for Lucia it was impossible: a symptom of her PTSD is that she hears internal “voices” and conversations. As Lucia began to shake and cry, Daniel was told no other rooms were available. The assessor offered to reschedule the appointment but as having to go through an assessment again would further trigger Lucia’s condition, she had no choice but to continue. “I was trapped,” she says. For the rest of the assessment, Lucia had to answer the assessor’s questions with earphones in, playing music from an MP3 player to distract herself from the voices with calming “white noise”. “I couldn’t concentrate. I went blank,” she says. “Daniel had to help me with responses. I don’t even remember it.” The next day, Daniel wrote to Atos on behalf of Lucia about their concern that this situation would affect the result. A week later, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) informed Lucia she’d been rejected for PIP. She’d scored zero points in the assessment. “To have your decision based on such a flawed assessment is ridiculous,” Lucia says. “They should have cancelled before I got there. They knew [my condition]. They knew what would happen.” But she tells me the report by Atos barely mentions any of it. “[The report has] one sentence: ‘The claimant had difficulties with this assessment.’ That’s it. The only reference to the room,” she says. “I had a complete breakdown in the medical and they didn’t even put that in.” Now without her benefit, she has no way to pay the £45 needed each week for her therapy. “I had my last session on 11 April when my last DLA went out. I don’t have PIP, so I can’t have it,” she says. She pauses. “I’ve had a relapse … My symptoms are getting worse. I only ever felt able to go out with my husband and now it feels impossible. It’s taking so much effort just to function.” Among all the rhetoric on so-called “benefit reform”, what the Conservatives don’t mention is that DLA – and now PIP – is what’s in technical terms “a gateway benefit”. That means that when disabled people such as Lucia are rejected for transferring to PIP, they don’t just lose DLA – they can also lose several other benefits that they’ve been relying on for years. As Lucia puts it to me: “It’s a bit like dominos.” The same day her DLA was stopped, Daniel’s carers’ allowance was too. Because that went, so did Lucia’s income support. The couple’s housing benefit was also suspended (it’s since been reinstated after the council assessed them as needing support). In the space of a day, Lucia says, “everything that we had before has stopped”. That’s almost £300 a week. “We’re not living. We’re just surviving.” Currently, this survival is coming from money they saved from the previous month’s DLA “in case the worst” happened with PIP. Lucia knows this will soon run out and the couple is now cutting back on food. “We’re lucky because there’s a place down the road that sells food past its best-before date so it’s still legal to sell it,” she says. Lucia plans to appeal against her rejection for PIP but before she can, she must first go through what the DWP call mandatory reconsideration – a compulsory process where the decision is “reconsidered”. She receives no money in the meantime. “They backdate it if you win but what good’s that now?” she says. “It should only take a month. Now [they say] it’s nine weeks because of a lack of staff. They say they’ve got more work than they were expecting.” It took until last Wednesday for Lucia and Daniel to get a reply from Atos – weeks after she’d already been rejected. The firm apologised and said the room division was a temporary measure (that won’t be repeated) caused by a lack of available computers. When I contacted Atos, a spokesperson told me that they’d reviewed the assessment report produced “which was appropriately detailed and justified”. But taking into account the concerns raised, they will now ask for Lucia’s case to “be sent back to us so that we can look to schedule a reassessment as a home consultation”. They apologised again. “They were under pressure to have that appointment then. That’s what it felt like,” Lucia says. “Everyone’s under pressure. The government set the targets and Atos follow.”
Scientists edge closer to creating effective Zika virus vaccine Scientists have edged closer to an effective Zika virus vaccine after demonstrating that three different formulations can protect monkeys from the disease. The results suggest that the virus can be repelled by even low levels of immunity and have boosted confidence that a viable vaccine for humans is on the horizon. Tests on 16 animals found that all three experimental vaccines offered complete protection against Zika infection one month later, though how long the protection could last for remains an urgent question for longer-term trials. “We don’t want to overstate it, but we hope for protection that is long-lasting,” said Dan Barouch, who co-led the studies at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. “Ideally we’d have protection induced by a single shot vaccine or a two shot vaccine and for that to last for years.” When vaccinated, the animals churned out antibodies that were more than sufficient to overwhelm the virus. The Zika virus has swept through Latin America and left behind a trail of birth defects, such as microcephaly, which causes children to be born with small heads. This week, Florida reported the first US cases of local transmission of Zika virus. All previous cases were in people who had travelled to affected regions. Of the three vaccines tested by Barouch and others, the most conventional and ready for development is a whole, killed Zika virus, which is being pursued by the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in Maryland. The other two vaccines are more novel. In one, a single and harmless Zika virus gene is stitched into a loop of DNA. When injected into the body, cells take up the DNA loop and from it produce Zika proteins that trigger an immune response against them. The third and final vaccine adds the Zika virus gene to a harmless adenovirus. This behaves like a Trojan horse and smuggles the DNA into cells, which then produce antibodies to wipe out the whole virus. No DNA or adenovirus vaccines have been approved for use in humans before, but clinical trials are underway. The vaccine based on the whole, killed virus will go into human trials this autumn. Barouch said the findings increase optimism that a safe and effective human vaccine against Zika virus might be successful. “Our data encourage the development of these vaccines in clinical trials as quickly as possible,” he said. Details are reported in the journal Science. Gavin Screaton, an immunologist at Imperial College London, said the results were “positive early steps”, but whether the vaccines will work in humans and offer long term protection against Zika must still be determined. “A human response will need to last years to be useful,” he said. Despite the encouraging progress, the path to a viable vaccine in humans may not be straightforward. Recent work by Screaton’s group found that previous exposure to dengue virus could potentially make Zika infections more serious. If the opposite holds too, as some researchers suspect, a vaccine that floods the body with antibodies against Zika virus could make common dengue infections life-threatening. The problem arises because Zika and dengue, which both belong to a group called flaviviruses, are so similar at the genetic level. This can confuse the immune system. Should a person catch dengue and later catch Zika virus, their body may attempt to fight off Zika with “old” antibodies raised against dengue. Rather than overwhelming the Zika virus, the antibodies might simply draw them into cells and cause the infection to take hold more quickly. Known as cross-reactivity, this raises a second potential hurdle: a person who has fought off dengue or similar flavivirus infections may have antibodies that destroy the Zika vaccine before it has had time to work. Another issue scientists face comes from the natural immunity people will acquire to Zika as the infection spreads through the population. When people are already immune to a virus, it can be very hard to tell whether a vaccine on trial is helping to protect them. “Whilst these vaccine studies are promising there are some really important questions that need to be addressed,” said Jonathan Ball, professor of molecular virology at the University of Nottingham.
Marouane Fellaini and Robert Huth banned for three matches over clash Marouane Fellaini and Robert Huth have accepted three-match bans after deciding not to contest their charges of violent conduct. The pair were charged by the Football Association after an off-the-ball incident during the 1-1 draw at Old Trafford on Sunday, when the German defender pulled the Manchester United midfielder’s hair and Fellaini responded with an elbow to the face. The incident was not seen by match officials but was caught on video. Fellaini is still available for the FA Cup final against Crystal Palace because United, who are fifth in the table, have three league games left. Fellaini will miss the visits to Norwich and West Ham before the home game against Bournemouth on the last day of the season as United chase Champions League qualification. Huth’s team Leicester, who were crowned champions on Monday, play Everton and Chelsea. The United manager Louis van Gaal had earlier defended the Belgian midfielder by saying: “It’s not in the books that someone has to grab by the hair and then pull it behind – only in sex masochism. When I grab you by the hair, what are you doing? Shall I do it? It’s also a penalty. When I grab your hair, you react also. I know for sure.”
Will politicians use this time to swap poison for serious debate? On the recommendation of a Labour veteran, who had already spotted that she was a star in the making, I’d got to know Jo Cox a little since she arrived in parliament. Everything that everyone has said about her is true. She was a dedicated local MP, extremely proud to represent the part of Yorkshire where she grew up. She fizzed with a zest to make a difference. She was very engaging, not least because she put so much effort into engaging with others. So it is right that her killing should be the prompt for deep soul-searching about how casually we, as a country, have been seduced by the corrosive cliches about all our politicians being worthless or worse. As in every walk of life, so with MPs. There are excellent ones and there are rotten ones. They are human beings, in her case, a highly impressive example of humanity. The very fact that she was killed outside a constituency surgery held in a public library gives the lie to another lazily destructive trope about politicians: that they are all members of an “out of touch” elite engaged in a wicked and treacherous conspiracy against the people. Here was an MP trying to serve her people. Here was an MP killed doing her job. I’d add a couple more things about her. While she was serious about her causes, she also appreciated that modern politics is often a surreal comedy and sometimes the only way to cope with its absurdities is to embrace them. The day before her killing, Nigel Farage took his mini armada of Outer boats down the Thames for one of the funnier stunts of the referendum campaign. Jo waved off her husband, Brendan, as he went down the river with their two children to join the rival flotilla mustered by the In crowd. A boat from the Farage gang showed what lovely people they are by hosing the Cox family with grey Thames water. She also understood that politics is complex. She didn’t pretend that every question has glibly simple answers and that she was already in possession of them all. She worked with politicians from other parties. She was passionate for her causes, but also collaborative and consensual, not an especially fashionable style at the moment. She’d worked for aid agencies for more than a decade, often in some of the world’s most dangerous conflict zones. She represented one of the less privileged parts of Britain. She knew that life throws up choices that are rarely straightforward and anyone telling you there are instant solutions to difficult challenges is either a liar or a fool. Which unavoidably draws us to contrast her approach to public service with the poisons brought forth during the debate over Europe. Let me be clear. I am not making a causal link between her death and the toxic manner in which the campaign has been conducted, though you may be struck by the hypersensitive reaction from Leave propagandists when anyone suggests that there might be a link. I am saying that her example demonstrates that British democracy can be a whole lot better than the ugliness with which we have been assailed during this campaign. You will have probably gathered by now that I think this is the most significant choice for our country in at least a generation and that it would be bad for Britain, Europe and the world if we amputated ourselves from our continent. I have also acknowledged that there are cons as well as pros to membership. A referendum campaign that served this country well would have seen a rational debate grounded in the facts to help the British people make an informed decision about which of the options on the ballot paper was the best for their country’s future. That we have not had from a campaign dominated by the stoking and exploitation of fear. There is fault on both sides. The Remain campaign has not always been a source of pristine information, nor has it been strong on a positive vision. The Inners defined their task as making Brexit sound as scary as possible. Some of their forecasts of the impact of departure have been reasonable; some have escalated into hyperbole. But the Outers, with their ruthless endeavour to crush any rational debate, have been so much worse. The way they have conducted their campaign has increasingly suggested that they have consciously attempted to destroy intelligent argument by unleashing nihilism. The governor of the Bank of England cautions that Brexit will be a hazard to trade, investment and jobs. He is perfectly entitled to do that, just as the Outers are perfectly entitled to challenge his analysis. But that’s not what they do. They try to shout him into silence by disputing his right to express an opinion and denounce him as a mouthpiece for a sinister plot against the people. The boss of the NHS says he thinks Brexit would not be good for the health service. Do the Outers argue with his assessment? No, they venomously dismiss him as another establishment lackey. He, along with all the professional bodies in the NHS, is just an operative of the conspiracy against the people that is apparently so vast that it also encompasses the Greens, the Lib Dems, the Nationalists, Jeremy Corbyn and the major trade unions. The impeccably independent Institute for Fiscal Studies is another voice of caution about the consequences of Brexit. Do the Outers engage with the analysis? No, they denounce the IFS as yet another stooge of Brussels, a claim so ludicrous that even some Outers are too embarrassed to repeat it. The president of the United States joins the chorus of friendly foreign countries saying that they believe the smart choice for Britain is to stick with the EU. Is the most powerful man on the planet engaged with on a rational level? No, he is sneeringly dismissed by Boris Johnson on the grounds that he is “part-Kenyan”. We can see why the Outers chose this course. They saw a path to victory by feeding on and amplifying the anti-politics mood that seethes in an angry segment of the electorate. When you have so little expert opinion on your side of the argument, I suppose your only recourse is to trash the very notion that anyone can possess expertise about anything. “The people of this country have had enough of experts,” scoffed Michael Gove when the lord chancellor struck his implausible pose as the tribune of the oppressed against the elite. Does he really think that expertise has no value? Of course not. Should he ever need a medical operation, I fancy Mr Gove will seek the services of a surgeon, not hand the scalpel to Nigel Farage and ask his new best mate to do his worst. The Outers have had another calculation as they spray everyone with their dirty water. Once you have created an anarchic world where no one has any authority to speak about anything, there is no one who can be trusted to offer any facts. In a fact-free, post-truth, Trumpian world – they have borrowed liberally from his playbook – you can make up anything you like in the pursuit of votes. I’ve covered a lot of campaigns and regularly been witness to the bending of the truth and sometimes the breaking of it. In my experience, though, the telling of bare-faced lies has been rarer in our politics if only for fear among its protagonists of what will happen to their credibility when they are found out. This campaign has introduced a novelty to British politics: the persistence with a lie even when it is verifiably a lie. The Out campaign know that the number on the side of their battle bus is a lie. But on the side of their bus that lie is still painted. The Outers know that it is a lie to say that Turkey is about to join the EU as it is also mendacious to suggest that 77 million Turks are on their way to the UK. Yet they persist with those whoppers too. Then there is the overarching duplicity of their campaign – the mendacity that will haunt them and Britain if they win – when they pretend that all the fears and resentments that they have exploited will magically evaporate if we choose Brexit. The more thoughtful people among the Outers might ask themselves whether they are really happy that the overall effect has been to depress respect for politicians on both sides. The suspension of campaigning is a last opportunity to rethink and reset. The life of Jo Cox is an example to us that we don’t have to conduct our politics in such a malignant way. She crackled with passion for her causes. She also pursued them through persuasion and reasoned argument that had respect for both the facts and the right of others to hold a contrary opinion. That has usually been the British way of democracy. You might even say it has been the genius of British democracy. I agree with those who say that her death should force some reflection on the way we conduct politics. If that is to mean something, when campaigning resumes, the debate ought to be concluded in a serious way that reflects the gravity of the question confronting the United Kingdom. The economy, security, immigration and influence are all on the ballot paper on Thursday. There’s something even larger there too. We will be saying what sort of country we are and want to be.
Trump supports Dakota pipeline – but claims it's not due to his investment in it Donald Trump has said he supports a controversial oil pipeline that runs next to a Native American reservation in North Dakota – a project that the president-elect is personally invested in. A briefing from Trump’s transition team said that the real estate magnate supports the construction of the Dakota Access pipeline and that his backing “has nothing to do with his personal investments and everything to do with promoting policies that benefit all Americans”. Financial disclosure forms released earlier this year show that Trump has a stake in Energy Transfer Partners, the Texas-based firm behind the pipeline, and Phillips 66, which will hold a share of the project once completed. Trump’s investment in Energy Transfer Partners dropped from between $500,000 and $1m in 2015 to between $1,500 and $50,000 this year. His stake in Phillips 66, however, rose from between $50,000 and $100,000 last year to between $250,000 and $500,000 this year, according to the forms. The financial relationship has run both ways. Kelcy Warren, chief executive of Energy Transfer Partners, gave $103,000 to elect Trump and handed over a further $66,800 to the Republican National Committee after the property developer secured the GOP’s presidential nomination. However, Trump’s transition team dismissed any conflict of interest. “Those making such a claim are only attempting to distract from the fact that president-elect Trump has put forth serious policy proposals he plans to set in motion on day one,” said a briefing note that was sent to campaign supporters. Mary Sweeters, a spokesperson for Greenpeace, said Trump’s support showed that “crony capitalism will run his administration”. “This is the definition of corruption,” she said. “The president of the United States should not be trading favors with oil and gas corporations. Millions of people will lose access to a clean water supply, including the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, and the rest of America will face the impacts of catastrophic climate change from burning fossil fuels.” A protest camp has grown in North Dakota since April, amid fears that the $3.8bn Dakota Access pipeline will threaten the water and cultural artifacts of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe. The 1,170-mile pipeline will take oil from North Dakota’s Bakken fields to a refinery in Illinois and will cross the Missouri river – the main source of water for the tribe. The long-running protest has unified Native American tribes against the project, with repeated clashes between protesters and police. This week, North Dakota governor Jack Dalrymple ordered the immediate evacuation of the protest camp, amid accusations of police violence from the mass arrests and water cannon deployment that have echoes of the civil rights protests of the 1960s. Barack Obama has suggested that the pipeline be rerouted to allay the fears of tribes but Energy Transfer Partners has vowed to push ahead and has accused the federal government of imposing costly delays upon the project. Trump has promised an “America first” energy policy that will attempt to boost domestic oil, coal and gas production. The president-elect has already stated he wants to “lift the Obama-Clinton roadblocks and allow vital energy infrastructure projects to move forward”, including the Keystone pipeline, another controversial fossil fuel project. North Dakota senator John Hoeven, a Republican, said that he met with Trump and successfully urged him to support the Dakota Access pipeline. “Mr Trump expressed his support for the Dakota Access pipeline, which has met or exceeded all environmental standards set forth by four states and the Army Corps of Engineers,” Hoeven said. “Also, it is important to know that the new administration will work to help us grow and diversify our energy economy and build the energy infrastructure necessary to move it from where it is produced to where it is needed. The result will be more jobs, a more vibrant economy and affordable energy for the American people.”
Black magic surgeon: Doctor Strange brings the occult back to the big screen This week’s release of Marvel’s latest, Doctor Strange, brings magic, sorcery, extra-dimensional travel and, most importantly, well-tailored robes into the comic book film universe. Those who are au fait with the paranormal tend not to be the heroes in stories like these. One need only think back to this summer’s Ghostbusters reboot to recall a film in which science, reason and expensive technological breakthroughs triumph over mystical hoo-ha. But the whole point of Doctor Strange is that the titular protagonist enlightens himself through black magic. The character rose to prominence just as the American counterculture was beginning to dabble in forms of spirituality outside of the Judeo-Christian establishment. The adventures of Stephen Strange tapped into eastern mysticism, psychedelic trips into alternate realities, and the absolute certainty that there is more to existence than what you can see with your eyes. (In fact, Doctor Strange possesses a third eye – the Eye of Agamotto, an amulet he wears around his neck that gives him special abilities such as time travel.) The mystical might not be in fashion today (save for your Williamsburg or Silver Lake denizens carving out a weekend to take ayahuasca), but in the 1960s it was at the forefront of the national conversation in the US. The world of the supernatural and the darkly spiritual loomed large on the pop culture landscape around the time of Doctor Strange’s creation. Acts such as the Doors, David Bowie and Jefferson Airplane were singing about all manner of mind-expanding experiences. Movies such as Rosemary’s Baby, the Exorcist, the Omen, the Wicker Man and the Devils portrayed black magic, paganism and the like in direct opposition to the benign tenets of Christianity. In these movies, the devil is real and he uses his power to seduce the physical realm with impunity. One could point to the fallout from the hippie movement’s fascination with psychotropics and the aftermath of the Charles Manson killings as the impetus for the interest in such things, but Rosemary’s Baby (directed by Roman Polanski, whose pregnant wife Sharon Tate was a Manson victim) came out before Manson, Altamont and the end of the so-called Summer of Love. Unlike those films, which were targeted at adults, Doctor Strange was (and is) for children. Selling a story about black magic to kids was no easy feat, especially one that existed in an approximation of the real world rather than a made-up realm where the “natural rules”, as they’re referred to in the Strange film, don’t apply. In 1974, Steve Englehart, Neal Adams and Frank Brunner created the character Sise-neg (Genesis spelled backwards) in the pages of the Marvel Premiere series starring Doctor Strange. Sise-neg was a sorcerer rival of Strange who used time travel to destroy the universe, then recreate it in his image. In the end, he merely recreates the universe as it was, broaching the question of whether or not this being was actually God itself. The religious implications were so controversial that Marvel editor Stan Lee considered retracting the entire story until Englehart and Brunner published a fake letter from a fictional minister praising the work. It’s Doctor Strange’s connection to our conception of reality that opens him up to such criticism. Setting a fantasy story in a far-off land, alternative universe or parallel reality affords the writer a freedom from allegations of apostasy or heretical thinking. The Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Golden Compass and countless other stories that might seem blasphemous to the true believer get off the hook because they don’t exist in our conception of reality. Often, these works dabble within a world that resembles the distant past, which further removes it from those thorny questions of divinity. Star Wars pulled off that sleight of hand while still getting to play around with sci-fi iconography by explaining in the first frame of the movie that it was a story from “a long time ago, in a galaxy far far away”. George Lucas could invent an entire religion that governs the fate of the universe while never once having to connect that to people’s actual belief systems. Star Trek (and also Asimov’s seminal Foundation trilogy), on the other hand, is a covertly atheist story about humanity overcoming conflict through science and reason. By the 80s, the Indiana Jones series posited that pretty much every religious or occult myth was real – the Ark of the Covenant, the Holy Grail, Hinduism, etc. Does it matter that Jesus, Kali Ma and aliens from another dimension all exist? I guess not. Perhaps they’re all pals in some far-off land. In the 90s, The Blair Witch Project, The Craft, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the hugely popular X-Files series all carried the banner of the occult in culture. The X-Files made a lot out of the debate over faith v science and religion v the paranormal, often cracking the audience over the head with a giant wooden cross of thudding symbolism. In 2016, Charlie Brooker’s Black Mirror generates scares by showing that our greatest inventions will be our undoing, or more accurately, that our hubris and desire to overcome our physical limitations are ultimately destructive – a notion film-makers such as David Cronenberg were playing with parallel to the last occult boom in pop culture in the body horror works of Videodrome and Scanners. The occult retains a modicum of its power to terrify in the age of the iPhone, though. Even though the Blair Witch sequel/reboot failed to relaunch that franchise, 2015’s The Witch was very much in the tradition of the classic occult horror films while also succeeding at the specialty box office. The Doctor Strange film digs up these old-timey notions of spirituality and inverts them. Here, the occult can set you free. It can be used to save humanity. More importantly, it exists in a world very much like our own. Sure, Doctor Strange hangs out in the Sanctum Sanctorum and his battles with Dormammu or Baron Mordo usually take place in some other realm, but that Sanctum sits on Bleecker Street in a fictional version of the real Manhattan. He’s just a regular guy who learned to manipulate the spiritual realm through years of study, not a wizard designated as such by genetics. Notions like fate and familial superiority, which are prevalent in Star Wars and Harry Potter, are forsaken in favor of the more traditionally puritanical American ideal of hard work. His sidekick, Wong, might tell him he’s born to study the mystical arts, but that’s not because his dad was a sorcerer. There may not be the hi-tech gadgets of something like Ghostbusters, but Doctor Strange shares with those futuristic paranormal fantasies the idea that no matter what the discipline, knowledge is power.
I wish I could do more to protect your loved ones in mental health crisis I’m the worker you don’t want turning up on your doorstep: it means you, or someone you love, is severely mentally unwell, possibly suicidal or experiencing severe psychosis. I work in an NHS mental health crisis team; we visit people at home to try to help them through their darkest times, as an alternative to sending them to a psychiatric hospital. We use talking therapies, deliver medication and monitor whether people take it, and address issues such as debt, drug use, homelessness, abuse and isolation. Sometimes we’re simply there with someone. It’s a difficult job, but I love it. I have been yelled at, ignored, pleaded with, chased out of homes and thanked – sometimes all by the same person. There are lows, like finding Mariam collapsed on her living room floor after an overdose, unable to cope with her isolation, bullying family and attacks from her abusive ex-husband. But it’s worth it for the highs of seeing her two-year old daughter, Asma, regain a functioning parent after support has been put in place. We probably all know someone affected by mental health problems: one in four of us experience them at some point in our lives. Working with Matthew, for example, taught me that no one is immune, even if they are relatively well-off and well-educated. A consultant oncologist, he began planning his suicide after financial pressures and the shock of retirement caused him a psychotic depression, making him paranoid about his family and anyone trying to help him. Threats to your housing and income – which are becoming increasingly commonplace – increase your susceptibility to mental health problems, as well as making it harder to access help. It is very difficult, for instance, for my team to make appointments with Alex, a young homeless woman with a criminal record and without a mobile phone, who suffers horrific hallucinations of abuse. We try regardless, but the cuts affecting homelessness provision, income support and rehabilitation programmes are making it harder. Mental health is severely underfunded compared with physical health. Responsible for 22.8% of the disease burden in the UK, mental illness receives just 11.1% of the NHS budget, according to a 2013 paper from the Royal College of Psychiatrists (pdf). With so few hospital bed spaces for mental health patients, very unwell people can be left waiting for days or weeks at home, in police cells or in hospital A&E departments, while we look for a safe place they can stay. I remember Andrew, a man with a history of attempted suicide who was staying in a shed at the bottom of a friend’s garden after losing his job, family and home. He took long walks every day to distract himself from suicidal thoughts, but sometimes his walks took him dangerously near a cliff edge. It was weeks before we could find a hospital bed for him, as other patients kept taking priority. As a professional, and as a human being, it is terrifying to be forced to take risks with someone’s life like that. We always put our written plans in place to show we’ve managed the risk as best as we can – also known as covering our backs – but ultimately if someone dies in such a situation we would certainly feel morally culpable, if not legally liable. Cuts are also impacting on our ability to provide long term support. Anna, a young woman with a history of childhood abuse and trauma, who lives precariously in and out of various hostels until they get sick of her challenging behaviour, often calls my team when she feels at risk of seriously harming herself. We do our best to talk her through it, but sometimes she is already at the point of jumping off a tall building when she phones, and we need to get the police involved to ensure her immediate safety. We can help a little in the short term, but really she needs intensive therapy and a secure living environment – preferably all in one place – to help her deal with her past and develop better ways to cope and move on with her life. Such placements are few, far between and expensive, and pointless debates about whether it’s the NHS or social services who should pay for it do not speed up the process of finding somewhere for her. Meanwhile, police, ambulance and crisis team resources are all being used inappropriately. In a recent costly and short-sighted reorganisation, my team was asked to do more work with the same budget. Unqualified staff took on tasks previously done by nurses, social workers and occupational therapists. They are working for less money, including night and weekend shifts for no extra pay: no junior doctors’ strike has protected them. We lack even basic resources like seats and desks: staff are forced to work on laptops in public areas. One of my experienced colleagues, Andrea, stays late for hours after every shift, comes in on her days off, and phones up at night to ask whoever is on duty to check on her patients. Not only her emotional wellbeing, but her judgement is being affected: it would be much better for her to share her workload with others more realistically. So much damage has been done to staff morale and turnover that many newer members of staff who started on poorer terms and conditions left very quickly, threatening consistency of care – particularly vital with mental health when trust is so crucial to recovery – and informal knowledge about people who use services is so important. When Martin, a regular caller, phones us he is often too distressed for even his name to be understood. Having someone on the other end of the phone who recognises his voice can make the difference between being helpful and being worse than useless. Like many of the people we try to help, my colleagues and I are engaged in a constant battle to stay positive. Despite the chaos of trying to function without enough resources, I know I still have a hugely rewarding job. I rarely get angry at patients shouting or threatening me, but I’m furious at seeing the skills, motivation and experience of my colleagues being thrown away for no good reason. If you are frustrated that not enough is being done to help your loved one, believe me, the people not doing enough are frustrated about it too. We wish our service was better, and we’re pushing our managers and policymakers not to make cuts that will cost us all more in the long run. Although you might be fine right now, it doesn’t take much for any of us to fall off the edge. If that happened to me, I know I would want to be with a dedicated, calm, and experienced person, with plenty of time to sit with me and try to help. So that is what I try to be. Read more from the author here All names have been changed If you are experiencing suicidal thoughts, the Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 in the UK. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Hotline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14. Hotlines in other countries can be found here. This series aims to give a voice to the staff behind the public services that are hit by mounting cuts and rising demand, and so often denigrated by the press, politicians and public. If you would like to write an article for the series, contact tamsin.rutter@theguardian.com Talk to us on Twitter via @ public and sign up for your free weekly Public Leaders newsletter with news and analysis sent direct to you every Thursday.
Future of 4chan uncertain as controversial site faces financial woes The anonymous message-board site 4chan has come to represent the darkest corners of internet subculture, rife with the misogyny, web taste and the politically incorrect humor of the alt-right. Now it appears to be in financial trouble, according to the site’s new owner, Hiroyuki Nishimura, who said on Sunday that the site can no longer afford “infrastructure costs, network fee, servers cost and CDN [servers that help distribute high-bandwidth files such as video]”. The post begins: “Thank you for thinking about 4chan. We had tried to keep 4chan as is. But I failed. I am sincerely sorry.” Nishimura outlined three options for the future of the site: halving traffic costs by limiting upload sizes and closing some boards, adding many more ads including pop-up ads, or adding more paid-for features and “4chan pass” users. An unlikely savior for the site may have already emerged in the form of Martin Shkreli, the controversial former CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals, who rose to fame after his company bought the patent to an HIV drug and raised its price from $13.50 to $750 per pill, causing mass outrage. Shkreli announced on Twitter that he was “open to joining the board of directors of 4chan”. He then reached out to Nishimura directly, who responded: “I have replied your DM. Thank you for supporting 4chan @MartinSkreli.” 4chan was founded in 2003 by an American schoolboy, Chris Poole, as an English-language version of popular Japanese image-sharing board 2chan, and split into a number of sub-category boards based on interest, many of the most popular ones pornographic. It was sold by Poole to Nishimura, the founder of 2chan, in 2015. Nishimura did not respond to requests by the to comment. The site’s influence in shaping the identity and culture of the internet as we know it today is vast. It is the internet’s sweaty engine-room. It has birthed global movements: the hacktivist group Anonymous originated here, and the group is named for the “Anonymous” tag attached to 4chan posts. More recently its anonymous message boards, especially the far-right leaning politics board /pol/, gave early succor to GamerGate and its spawn, the so-called alt-right movement, which have emerged in 2016 to ally themselves with Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. It produced Pepe, the frog meme that was picked up by white supremacists and trolls and was later condemned by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a hate symbol. Pepe is by no means the only meme 4chan has produced. Rickrolling (the practice of tricking someone into clicking on a link leading to a video of Rick Astley’s Never Gonna Give You Up, leading to nearly 250m views on YouTube and an unlikely revival of Astley’s career), LOLcats, and innumerable other memes and slang and inside jokes originated here. It is the internet’s id, a place where anonymity runs free in its purest form. The true nature of mankind can be glimpsed there, in all its horror and glory and depravity. Predictably, the response to Nishimura’s message on the site was mixed. Posters from some boards – many of which have loyal, almost tribal user-bases – called for other boards to be closed. One suggestion was to close /b/, the wildly popular random topic board, to which other users expressed immediate worry that /b/ users would spread to other boards. “Oh god”, one posted. “HOW MANY PORN BOARDS DO WE NEED? NOT THIS MANY” read another post. Some heatedly discussed the perils of pop-up advertising, while a few suggested merchandising as a way to solve the site’s revenue problems. Others just seemed worried. “Please don’t fuck this website up for us,” one user plaintively posted. Another wrote: “Hiro please. Don’t ruin this for us. This is our only home.”
Why don’t I sleep well? You asked Google – here’s the answer We all have different sleep patterns, and almost anyone can improve theirs. So let’s begin with the three keys to better sleep which might work for an “average” person. The first is a healthy life style. You’re more likely to sleep well if you eat healthily, exercise, and have time for a good social and/or family life. Good nutrition and food habits benefit all bodily functions, including sleep and health; exercise helps reduce stress; and good relationships do the same – while also improving mood, and enabling relaxation before sleep. The second key is the length of time you sleep, with about eight hours a night being a good amount for the average person. Don’t be surprised if you sleep less though. Most working people in modern society are sleep deprived by an hour or two each day. But six hours of sleep is too little. Sleep matters more than we realise, so making time to sleep for about eight hours is good advice for almost everyone. The third key is the time you try to go to sleep (if you think of shift work and the problems this causes people, it’s obvious that this is important). Most people have two different time patterns – one during the working week, the other for weekends and holidays. It’s no surprise that holiday timing is better for sleep. As a rule of thumb, waking at 8am and going to sleep at midnight is about right for the average person. You may need to adjust these timings if you’re different from the norm. Some of us are morning types (naturally getting up and going to sleep earlier) and others are evening types (naturally getting up and going to sleep later). These types are formally known as chronotypes. To find out if you are a morning type (“lark”) or evening type (“owl”) it’s worth looking up the MCTQ short questionnaire. This is probably the best way for a morning person to find out accurately if they are an extreme early, very early, early, slightly early or normal type – and find appropriate sleep timings (the same applies for evening types). These timings are given in the MCTQ results: the average person wakes at 8-9am and goes to sleep at midnight to 1am. In contrast, some extreme early types wake at 5am and go to sleep at 9pm. This shows the huge difference between chronotypes that occur naturally in a large population. These differences can affect many people. For example, some moderate late types would wake up at 11am and go to sleep at 3am, if allowed to adhere to their natural rhythms, and this group makes up more than 5% of the population. Of course, these MCTQ timings are not rigid rules, only a rough measure of times to guide you to understanding your own sleep better. They might also help you understand people in your family. This is particularly true for teenagers and young adults whose sleep patterns can alter to dramatically later times. Let’s consider some examples. Ella is in her 30s, and works in a busy office in London. “Until two years ago,” she says, “I could sleep like a baby for 14 hours, but I think stress and the occasional glass of wine have had an impact on my sleep. What I find now is that it’s not hard to get to sleep, but I wake up three or four times during the night, and never feel hugely rested in the morning. I don’t remember the last time I had a full, uninterrupted night’s sleep. And in terms of the times I sleep best, Friday night is definitely always the best, and Sunday night is the worst.” Ella is typical in many ways. People working in busy office jobs are very frequently stressed, and on Friday nights they sleep best, because there is less stress, while on Sunday night the prospect of a demanding week causes poor sleep. Alcohol tends to lead to disrupted sleep, not to relaxing into good sleep. External pressures from Ella’s work are causing a problem – and drinking before sleep makes it worse. Annie works in the same office as Ella, and says she’s suffered from insomnia since she was a teenager. “I wake up at 3am, and can’t get back to sleep. This used to stress me out, which obviously exacerbates the problem, so as I’ve got older I’ve stopped worrying about it so much. This doesn’t make the problem better, but it means I just accept that there are nights when I won’t get a good enough sleep. Sunday night is always my worst night’s sleep, and I try to be strict with myself – I stop myself going online for a few hours before I go to bed, and I don’t read anything work-related in that period either. I try to avoid email, especially, because there’s always pressure to get back to emails immediately, and once you’re in that zone, you’re wired.”  Annie took the MCTQ test, and this showed she is an early type, who would, if left to her own devices, naturally wake up earlier than 85% of the population. This would have been particularly striking as a teenager, feeling tired and ready for sleep when everyone else was staying up later and later. She is very perceptive in her acceptance of her sleep patterns, especially her sleeplessness, and when it comes to Sunday nights, her strictness with herself is excellent – we should all do that. Understanding your sleep can put things in context. The next step is to consider whether there are changes you can make to your daily life that will help you sleep well. You can probably make a list based on the three keys: better lifestyle, making eight hours of sleep possible, and knowing your chronotype. What next? Work or education timings are the biggest barrier to good sleep in modern society. This is because the start times are generally too early. For example, if you are an average person, your wake time would be about 8am. If your current job starts at 8 or 9am, it isn’t possible to keep to this wake time and be on time. These early starts punish almost everyone: the employee (too little sleep leads to poorer performance and greater health risks), the employer (as staff are not at their best), and the shareholders (as productivity won’t be as high as it could be). Better work times are better for all. Even work shifts can be improved using staff chronotypes, as has been shown recently in Germany, where a brilliant sleep researcher called Till Roenneberg came up with the idea of using the chronotypes of workers in the steel industry to ensure that evening type workers did more night shifts, and early types did more early starts. The result? The workers sleep an hour longer each night and arrive at work feeling better. Greater flexibility regarding working hours makes sense, and is a growing trend. For example, a company in London called dRMM architects allows employees to manage their work hours – as long as they meet their targets. If you’re struggling with sleep, it might (depending on your situation) be worth asking your employer for a more flexible approach. And if you run a big business, consider flexible hours for employees, to boost productivity, health, mood and performance. If you work in education, it’s worth actively looking at later start times for secondary students. There is a clear scientific case for later start times and an exciting opportunity to join Oxford’s project Teensleep, which is recruiting 100 secondary schools to try out 10am starts and sleep education in a random controlled trial to improve sleep, health and performance. If you’re based in the US, try looking at Start School Later, a campaign to move school starting times to later than 8.30am. Seattle school district, for example, has just moved all its secondary school starts to a later time, recognising that early starts increase health risks and emotional harm, while lowering academic and sports performance. There are a number of other things you can do in your daily life to improve your sleep. Direct sunlight, especially in the morning, helps keep your sense of time tuned to the 24-hour day, so try to be outside then. In the last hour or two before your natural sleep time have a routine that helps you settle, such as a quiet, dark, comfortable bedroom. In the last hour, don’t use screen technologies or bright lights. As a general rule, don’t use drugs unless prescribed by your doctor. In the morning, don’t use stimulants like cigarettes to wake you up, or depressants like alcohol and sleeping pills at night. Coffee and tea in the morning are fine. Sleep is only a part of our daily pattern of work and rest; tiredness and alertness; and the various 24-hour rhythms of our body. We tend to think differently about wake and sleep events, though there is no reason to do so. If you sleep in the day – a nap – we tend to think of it as a treat and wise. If we wake at night – as most of us do – then we can feel as if something is wrong and worry. So if you do wake up and can’t sleep just then, get up and do something until you feel like going back to sleep. The benefits of sleep are now understood to include better memory, insight and health. Sleep helps clean our brains of toxins, and enables us to create long-term memories (while forgetting trivia). If you need more help, it’s always worth talking to your doctor and getting their advice. Sleep is your friend: treat it well.
This week’s new film events Asia House Film Festival, London As you’d expect, there are new titles from big regional hitters such as China and Japan here, but also films from the Asian countries you rarely hear from or about. Like Kazakhstan – two sides of which can be seen in the films of Yermek Tursunov: Zhat (Stranger) is a scenic wilderness adventure in the vein of Kurosawa’s Dersu Uzala; and Little Brother (Kenzhe), an urban hitman thriller. There are also new features from Myanmar (monk’s story Panchagavya), Tajikistan (rural women’s tale Chilla), Mongolia (rockumentary Live From UB) and even a short from Saudi Arabia. Offerings closer to the sort of thing you might expect include an eye-opening documentary on South Korea’s celebrity pro-gamers (State Of Play) and Japanese schoolgirl anime The Case Of Hana And Alice, while rising Chinese star Zhang Wei is one of many directors in attendance here, with his sweatshop social drama Factory Boss. Various venues, Mon to 28 Feb Borderlines Film Festival, Herefordshire, Shropshire & Powys Bringing relief to the arthouse-starved Welsh borders, this festival has a “let’s put the film on right here” spirit, making use of village halls, community centres, theatres and whatever else is around. There are about 100 films in this year’s programme, mostly recent hits (Room, Joy, Youth), previews (High-Rise, Victoria, Son Of Saul) and world cinema with a rural bent (Iceland’s Rams and Ethiopia’s Lamb would make a dream ovine double bill). In Hereford there’s also a Tarkovsky retrospective and a focus on Romani cinema, the latter of which brings unseen work such as Hamlet-inspired Slovakian drama Gypsy. And in Hay-on-Wye on the final weekend there’s a festival of British cinema, with Terence Davies in person and new work such as the Hebrides-set Iona and comedy Black Mountain Poets, with Alice Lowe. Various venues, Fri to 13 Mar
Ex-Co-op Bank chief barred from top accountants institute A former chief executive of the Co-operative Bank has agreed to a six-year ban from membership of a key accountancy body after admitting to misconduct during his tenure at the top of the troubled bank. Barry Tootell – who has already been banned from holding senior roles in the City – will not be able to describe himself as a chartered accountant after his exclusion from the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW). The Financial Reporting Council, which oversees investigations into misconduct and has made the recommendation to the ICAEW, will receive £20,000 from Tootell to help recoup costs. It is not clear how much the investigation cost. Other bans recommended by the FRC, which had considered a seven-year ban for Tootell, have ranged from three to 10 years. Tootell, who could not immediately be reached for comment, was finance director and then acting chief executive of Co-op Bank for 14 months. He took on the role full-time in September 2012 but was placed on gardening leave in May 2013 after the bank was downgraded to junk status. The bank, then fully owned by the Co-operative Group, later had to be bailed out by hedge funds when a £1.5bn hole appeared in its books in 2013 . Gareth Rees, FRC executive counsel, said: “The period of exclusion imposed in this case sends a clear message to accountants of the high standards of professional conduct expected of them when undertaking important roles within business. “The sanction reflects the significance of the misconduct by a CFO [chief financial officer] and CEO of a major UK bank, and the need to promote public and market confidence in the accountancy profession and the quality of corporate reporting in this sector. Mr Tootell engaged in the FRC’s settlement process by accepting his misconduct, which has led to a considerable saving of time and cost.” Tootell was banned by the Bank of England – along with Keith Alderson, who ran the Co-op’s corporate and business banking division – in January by its Prudential Regulation Authority. They were not found to have deliberately or recklessly breached the rules and the regulator did not make findings of dishonesty or lack of integrity. The FRC said the Bank of England’s conclusions were “conclusive evidence of misconduct”. The Bank found Tootell contributed to a culture that focused on the short-term financial position (pdf) and did not adequately oversee the corporate loan book that the Co-op took on when it merged with Britannia in 2009. The period of censure covered January 2009 and May 2013. At the height of the Co-op bank’s crisis, the then chancellor George Osborne announced an independent investigation into what went wrong. The review has not yet started as the Financial Conduct Authority’s investigation into individuals remains ongoing. The FRC said its investigation into the bank’s auditors, KPMG, was also ongoing. Co-op bank, which reported a £177m loss for the first six months of the year, said the FRC’s ruling was related to the way it had operated in the past. “We have said before, the investigations by the regulators into what went wrong at the bank are very important. They indicate the extent of the previous problems at the bank and emphasise that the turnaround is a lengthy and difficult process,” the bank said. “The findings relate to previous management and the current management team has, over the last three years, progressed the turnaround, having raised additional capital, achieved considerable de-risking, delivered mobile and digital banking capability and strengthened the bank’s appeal to customers.”
Bank of England bans two former Co-op Bank chiefs from top City jobs Two former bankers at the Co-operative Bank have been banned by the Bank of England from holding senior positions in the City after being found to have posed an unacceptable threat to the company’s financial position. The Bank is fining Barry Tootell, a former Co-op Bank chief executive, £173,802, and Keith Alderson, who ran the corporate and business banking division, £88,890. This is the first time Threadneedle Street has used its new powers to take action against individuals and Tootell is the first boss of any bank to be formally censured since the 2008 crisis. Andrew Bailey, the deputy governor of the Bank of England, said: “Banks that are not well governed have the potential to pose a threat to UK financial stability. The actions of Mr Tootell and Mr Alderson posed an unacceptable threat to the safety and soundness of the Co-op Bank, which is why we have decided a prohibition is appropriate in these cases.” The Co-op Bank had to be bailed out by hedge funds when a £1.5bn hole appeared in its books in 2013 . It also left the bank open to scrutiny of the way it was run; its former chairman Paul Flowers, a Methodist minister, was later ordered to pay £525 after admitting possession of drugs including cocaine and crystal meth. Tootell was acting chief executive for 14 months before getting the role full-time in September 2012 but was placed on gardening leave in May 2013 following the bank’s downgrade to junk status. He was paid £623,000 by the time he formally left at the end of 2013. The Bank of England’s regulatory arm, the Prudential Regulation Authority, found Tootell contributed to a culture at the bank that focused on the short-term financial position. The PRA said he did not adequately oversee the corporate loan book the Co-op took on when it merged with Britannia in 2009. The period of censure covers January 2009 and May 2013. It cites moves by him to change bad debt charges, which in one instance which had the effect of maintaining the bonus pool although the Bank does not say this was his motivation. Alderson, whose role has been subject to little public scrutiny until now, was found not to have properly assessed the risks from the Britannia loans nor escalated any concerns about the scale of impairments or bad debts. The regulator said his income was £423,000 and his period of censure covers August 2009 and May 2013. The PRA said: “The Co-op Bank’s culture resulted in an environment in which some staff felt under pressure to meet impairment forecasts that had previously been set .” The regulator accepted that Alderson did not intentionally place pressure on staff to modify the bad debt provisions and that the origins of the problem lay in the Britannia business. The Bank of England did not find Tootell or Alderson deliberately or recklessly breached the rules and did not make findings of dishonesty or lack of integrity in issuing the bans and fines. The Financial Conduct Authority is still investigating and a formal review promised in November 2013 by George Osborne into what went wrong at the bank cannot begin until the FCA has completed its work. “We don’t comment on individual cases. While we have previously indicated that work will not start on the review until it is clear it will have no prejudicial effect on any future cases, we are not at that stage yet,” the FCA said. In August, the two City regulators let the bank off a fine even though they found it had misled investors and pursued growth at the expense of its financial stability. Simon Walker, director general of the Institute of Directors, said: “The Prudential Regulatory Authority has censured two executives for putting short-term profits ahead of the long term sustainability of the bank, but there was clearly also a failure on the part of the whole board.” The Co-op Bank has already taken steps under previous rules to withdraw £5m of bonuses from a number of employees and there is no prospect of clawing back any more bonuses. “The findings relate to previous management and the current management team continues to progress the turnaround, having raised additional capital, achieved considerable de-risking and improved brand metrics,” the Co-op Bank said.
EU referendum voter registration site crashes before deadline Members of the public attempting to register to vote in the EU referendum complained that the government website had crashed hours before the deadline. The development could mean that tens of thousands of potential voters may be disenfranchised and unable to cast a vote in what is expected to be closely fought contest. Voters have been encouraged to register before 11.59pm on Tuesday 7 June to be able to take part in the EU referendum. However, the Cabinet Office website would not allow voters to input their details at 10.40pm on Tuesday. A tweet from the Cabinet Office acknowledged that the site had crashed. “We’re aware of the technical issue on [the site]. We’re working to resolve it. This is due to unprecedented demand. Update soon,” it said. The online registration system was supposed to make it easier than ever for people living in England, Wales and Scotland to register. But on Twitter, users complained that the website crashed after the prime minister, David Cameron, and Ukip leader Nigel Farage took part in an EU referendum programme. Allison Pearson, the Telegraph columnist, wrote on Twitter that her husband had attempted to register at 10.45pm but had been unable to do so. “Himself trying to register to vote. ‘Sorry, we are having technical problems’ 504 Gateway 504. Time-out impedes democracy.” Twelve minutes before the deadline, the Cabinet Office tweeted an apology. “Some people are getting through, sorry if you have experienced issues,” it said. The was alerted to the problem by a Liberal Democrat official who could not register. The Lib Dem Leader, Tim Farron, called for the deadline for registration to be extended. “This is a shambles the government has presided over and people must be given an extra day to exercise their democratic right,” he said. “It is also a major blow to the in campaign and our prospects of staying in Europe. “With individual voter registration, and a big campaign to encourage young people to register, many of whom have been trying to do so last-minute, this could have major consequences for the result. “Evidence shows younger people are overwhelmingly pro-European, and if they are disenfranchised it could cost us our place in Europe. It could also turn them off democracy for life. Voters must be given an extra day while this mess is sorted out urgently.” Yvette Cooper, the former Labour minister, also called for the government to extend the deadline. “People cannot be denied the right to vote because computer says no,” she tweeted. Gloria De Piero, the shadow cabinet office minister, wrote that the Cabinet Office site showed that there were 26,629 people attempting to register six minutes before the midnight deadline. “Government MUST extend the deadline for 24 hours,” she wrote on Twitter. Ian Katz, the editor of Newsnight, wrote: “Seems traffic to voter registration site peaked at 22.15 when 50,000 were trying to register – and site subsequently crashed.” Jeremy Cornbyn, too, added his voice to the calls for an extension to the deadline.
Brexit vote brings fresh surge of support for Scottish independence Liam McKeown has put the yes stickers back up in his windows. “I felt so angry I was in tears,” explained the social care worker, as he commiserated about the EU referendum result over a pint with fellow remain supporters in Glasgow. “But then I heard Nicola Sturgeon’s speech and I thought, bring it on.” McKeown was drinking on Friday evening at the Yes Bar, a kitschy Italian cafe-bar in the city centre that was named the Vespbar until the 2014 Scottish independence campaign, when it became a hub for activists and promptly changed its moniker. The owner of the bar, the SNP candidate and Women for Independence activist Suzanne McLaughlin, described the mood among her regulars on Friday. “They were queuing outside when we opened. People just wanted to come together and talk about what’s happened.” The mood reminded her of 19 September 2014, she said, but with one crucial difference: “These are different people saying they’ll vote for independence when they couldn’t have before, and we have to welcome them with open arms.” Only a day later, the vote to leave the EU is changing the terms on which people are viewing independence. McLaughlin predicts: “I’ve always supported independence for internationalist reasons, but that fear of isolation was the reason many people voted no last time. That’s completely different now that we’re leaving the EU. “A couple of weeks ago I’d have told you that we needed to wait another five to 10 years to build support [for a second independence referendum], but now I think we do it while people still feel this way.” Since the decision to leave the EU was confirmed in early on Friday morning, pro-independence political parties and campaign groups have reported a surge in support, both from traditional allies, galvanised by recent events, and new recruits. An SNP source said the party had been inundated with emails from people who had previously voted no, but wanted to pledge their support for a second referendum with the aim of keeping an independent Scotland part of the EU. The novelist and former columnist Jenny Colgan was an outspoken defender of the union in 2014. On Friday morning, she tweeted that she was crying with relief after listening to Nicola Sturgeon’s promise to defend the aspirations of Scots who had voted to remain. She said: “My reasons for voting no last time, because I didn’t believe in separation and isolation, are what make me a yes voter now. I thought that it would be a hold-your-nose choice but actually I’m feeling quite excited that we have a way out of this horrible mess.” There is certainly an understanding within the SNP of the need to make a new offer on independence now it not only improves on the gaps in the 2014 argument, most obviously currency and oil, but is tailored to a Scotland remaining within the EU while England and Wales leave. A second general election in the autumn could afford the SNP the possibility of putting an even stronger commitment to a second independence referendum in another manifesto. There is also an acknowledgement, however, that the timing may be beyond the Scottish government’s control, particularly if they are required to dovetail the referendum process with Brexit negotiations. Tommy Sheppard, one of the SNP’s most prominent Westminster MPs, had been expected to take a leading role in the party’s summer independence drive, a project Sturgeon announced before May’s Scottish parliament elections and aimed at building a consistent yes majority for the long-term. In a thoughtful and provocative article that some considered an early application for the post of SNP deputy leader following the resignation of Stewart Hosie last month, Sheppard identified a group he described as “the I-curious”, people who were not ideologically opposed to independence, but had yet to be convinced on key questions such as currency and other economic concerns. He believes the Brexit vote will have swelled their ranks: “It’s not the fact of Brexit but the political effect. We clearly do think that it will change the voting intentions of a significant number of those 2 million who voted no in 2014,” he said. “It’s an insult to those people not to have the chance to reconsider now that the prospectus has changed. I think that most no voters made a considered judgment based on a number of factors, not least of which was remaining part of the EU.” He could well have been describing the Harry Potter writer, JK Rowling, who made substantial donations to the pro-union Better Together campaign in 2014, and wrote compellingly of her hope that Scotland would remain part of the UK. She shocked followers on Friday when she corrected a correspondent on Twitter: “[Describing me as a] ‘staunch opponent’ implies I was pro-union no matter what, which was never the case. Many no voters will think again now.”
Why I can’t bank on Lloyds any more My bank is in an unprepossessing part of town. It squats, square and concrete, on a busy stretch of the long trunk road that links London to Birkenhead. It is flanked by a pound shop (outside which stands a large bucket of 99p mops) and a McDonald’s (outside which blow abandoned, still-warm, polystyrene burger tubs). If the litter bothers you, at least you can solve the problem immediately for only 99p. But I like it. When I was a child, this area was an exciting destination. To get there, you had to walk for 10 minutes up our residential road, then stand for an unpredictable amount of time at the bus stop opposite the “naughty knickers shop” (for reasons I may never understand, there were just two shops at the top of our road: a cheap Ann Summers knock-off underwear shop and a chemist. Very convenient for anyone who needed a pair of split-crotch scarlet pants, a packet of throat lozenges and nothing else at all). When the bus came, “one and a half tickets” were bought (or “one and two halves”, if my brother was of the party) and the journey took… well, that changed as traffic changed. When I was five years old, it was probably seven or eight minutes. By the time I was a teenager, it could be 40. At the end of this adventurous journey lay all the excitements of stationery, toys, records, perhaps a packet of Mintolas and a copy of Jackie. I don’t think I understood that it wasn’t an attractive shopping district. It was just exciting: colourful, busy, grown up. Nowadays, I only go there for the bank. The record shop, the toy shop and the bakery have long since closed; McDonald’s is no longer a destination restaurant for me (though might become so again, once my daughter has a full set of teeth) and the pound shop sells nothing you can’t get at a proper hardware store for the same kind of money anyway. But I love that bank. I opened my first account at Lloyds when I was still at school, the year Great-Auntie Serena supplemented her traditional Christmas gift of cherry chocolates with a fat £10 cheque. I chose Lloyds because I liked the horse and I’ve never left. These days, everyone hates banking as a concept – except those who continue to milk it for corpulent bonuses, I suppose – but it is still possible, and too little discussed, to love a particular branch. Apart from the staff I know and like, I love the satisfying feeling of conducting business there: filling in forms with the special pen on a chain, sliding cheques under the partition window, collecting holiday money. It’s so grown up and yet, at the same time, so redolent of Mary Poppins. I don’t care whether or not the boss of Lloyds had an extramarital affair. I don’t care if he or anyone else breached expenses rules by spending £300 at the Mandarin Oriental spa in Singapore. I hate spas, all weird smells and impertinent prodding. This one apparently does a £150 “aromatherapy massage”, which strikes me as punishment enough for any alleged transgressions. But I do care that my branch of Lloyds is closing down, along with 199 other branches nationwide with the loss of thousands of jobs. The letter I’ve just received advises me that “other ways to bank” include the internet and the telephone. Thanks for pointing that out, guys! Frankly, it was irresponsible of you to give me a credit card if you think I’m such a f***ing moron. I don’t think the branches are closing because the boss spent too much on massages. I don’t think they’re closing because of Brexit. I think they’re closing because of a failure of imagination at the top. Sure, the bean counters can save £££££s by locking doors, selling up and firing staff. Sure, most transactions can be done online. Sure, fewer of us are queuing up in person for day-to-day admin. But the existence of a local branch has a vital role, even if we never go in there: it’s key to the illusion that money is a thing. Money is not, of course, a thing; it’s an idea. But the illusion of thing-ness (which so nearly disintegrated when we caught that catastrophic glimpse behind the curtain in 2008) is vital to its desirability. Once we cease to desire it, the acquiescent balance of society is in grave danger. The pleasing physicality of banknotes, coins and cheque books is half gone already. The gold reserve’s been sold. If the bricks-and-mortar banks, counters and partition windows, paper forms and special pens go with them, there’ll be nothing left to “money” but numbers on a screen. Only a mug would bother to keep paying fees for a bank account when the idea of a physical storage facility and physical guardians is so completely gone. And then… who cares? Who wants it? There is no “it” anyway! The tenuous reasons to work long hours in a boring job, or to accept even theoretically a status quo where some people have private jets while others are homeless, disintegrate entirely. I am just not enough of an anarchist to hope this happens. Even if I were poor, I still wouldn’t; I’d be frightened of looting, violence and social breakdown. If I were talking to whatever fat cat or bigwig waved through the closure of 200 more Lloyds branches, and the redundancy of thousands more workers, I would say: Don’t be so sure you understand how this all works. Today, you make a saving; long term, you might lose everything. If you want to keep your padded arse in that padded chair, you’d better leave those branches alone. Just sit quietly and keep on clapping like you believe in Tinkerbell.
Brexit brings call for change: has UK ignited battle for new EU? The German government has been canvassing support for a senior political leader to gather views in European capitals on a new future for the continent in the wake of the Brexit vote, with the aim of completing the task before the 60th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome next March. EU heads of state, reeling from the UK’s vote to leave the European Union, want to be seen to be responding to the Eurosceptic mood, and some want a new “vision for Europe” document that distils the conflicting thinking. EU heads of government are due to gather in Bratislava for an informal summit on 16 September to discuss the fallout from Brexit, but mainly focused on how the EU will operate in the future, including what more it can do to reduce youth unemployment, straighten out the eurozone and strengthen security. In practice, the meeting may also see a first EU response to the election of a new Tory party leader, and the pace at which Brexit talks will take place. Those talks are to be led by a Belgian diplomat, Didier Seeuws, a former staffer for the former European council president Herman van Rompuy. A cacophony of political voices have been setting out their plans for Europe, and some have called for a European convention to discuss ideas. Germany was strongly opposed and successfully saw off calls for a fresh convention last week. Berlin has, however, been looking at a more informal process in which a leading politician seeks to distil the mood in the capitals of Europe. There is a strong desire not to leave the process in the hands of either the commission president, Jean-Claude Juncker, and less so the council president, Donald Tusk. In a sign that Germany wants to be at the helm of the discussions, Sigmar Gabriel, the economics minister and leader of the Social Democrats (SPD), has floated a series of ideas to change Europe, including fewer commissioners and a slimmed down agriculture budget. He said the EU could not afford to give the UK concessions or else “this will be an invitation to all the nationalist egotists in Europe”. He also joined the German Greens in saying young UK citizens in France, Germany and Italy should be offered dual citizenship, as a way of keeping in touch with young Britons that back Europe. He was certain the UK had not left the EU for ever, saying: “I am sure this is an episode and not an epoch.” But the efforts to refound Europe, or at least respond to its unpopularity, are made more complicated by a string of national democratic elections in Italy, Holland, France and Germany that could see a major change in tone in one or other of their capitals. The Italian prime minister, Matteo Renzi, has said he will resign if his constitutional reforms to transform the country’s senate into a “senate of the regions” are rejected in a referendum that will be held by the end of October. The pro-British Dutch prime minister, Mark Rutte, is trailing the anti-EU populist Geert Wilders in polls ahead of an election next March. The French presidential election, due next spring, may see the return of the mercurial Nicolas Sarkozy. He is producing a string of new ideas on the future of Europe, including reworking the governance of the eurozone so that it is dominated by France and Germany. The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, currently facing a lot of the blame for Brexit, due to her rigidity on a range of issues, faces elections in the autumn.
Who would be a librarian now? You know what, I'll have a go “Who would want to become a librarian now?” asked an anonymous public servant on National Libraries Day, seeing before them a graveyard of dead libraries and old reference desks filled by volunteers. A valid question, and one to which I’ll reply: “You know what? I’ll have a go.” I’m training to be a professional librarian, having just finished a lecture on “semantic web ontologies” and “linked data”, and sat dumbstruck in front of a “Dewey Decimal assembler” without a clue as to what I’m looking at. The course is challenging – it’s a three-year master’s degree that bites eye-watering chunks out of my wages. Why am I doing it to myself? The fact is, I can’t not. It’s a sort of calling – like becoming a priest, only with warmer business premises. I can’t stand by and let public libraries sink. I won’t. Forget all about reading as a pleasure, forget that children should have unlimited access to books, throw away arguments about libraries being lifelines for those less fortunate – they’re falling on deaf ears. You just have to look at the comments beneath pro-library articles to gather a general response: Kindles, the internet replacing information needs, and so on. And the one we wheel out about libraries being the centre of the community – there’ll be someone swatting that old classic aside with a “and yet the majority of the population doesn’t use them”. For me, it boils down to one important point: the internet is a shallow (but extremely wide) surface-level summary of secondary, often opinionated information that sits on a bedrock of substantive knowledge that either isn’t on the internet, or lives behind a paywall, or is too expensive to purchase. Public libraries broker equal access to all that stuff. Get rid of them, and your information becomes drip-fed through Google filters (if you have a computer to access it). As a librarian, it will be my job to make sure those bridges are not burned, and that they’re well maintained and clearly marked, with delightfully efficient help points dotted along the way. Don’t get me wrong, I love the internet: its ability to navigate through information is a miracle of our time. But it is just as chaotic and alienating as the real world. It’s not a safe place – you’re just sitting and staring at a screen. A public library – any library, really – is more than that. Besides, libraries are good for children and those less fortunate than others. I know: I was that washed-up unfortunate once. When I was 18, I lost my home very suddenly – I was forced to pack on a Wednesday before the locks were changed on a Thursday. My family split apart, and I experienced disorientating homelessness and financial oblivion. In this chaos my library came in pretty handy, with free internet, free books, staff expertise, signposting services. Some years later I came back to the library, while I was working for an agency, doing horrible, unskilled jobs in warehouses. I needed to keep my spirits afloat, so there I was again, browsing the books. When I think back, and see how often I’ve leaned on one library or another, I wonder where I’d be without them. Now I work in one and it’s keeping the roof over my head. Libraries have been a safe zone for me, a kind of emotional and intellectual ground zero for the past 15 years. Every day I help people and wonder what on earth they would do without us. Libraries are an essential service. I know this because most of the people I help never thank me or my colleagues, or even acknowledge us. Why? Because they don’t need to. The funny thing with essential services is that they’re taken for granted. A successful day in the library is one where people complain, like they would with any other local authority service. The Wi-Fi isn’t good enough; there aren’t enough academic texts; it’s too cold; it’s too loud; I don’t know my email password; why don’t you have this book? I love it. Complain and moan all you like – it’s your library service. It’s for you: take it, have it, use it. I’m your public librarian and this is your public library, and these are the hallmarks of public service. About the only drawback I’m finding is the (sometimes) well-meaning dismissiveness, particularly from my friends and family. A working-class male taking a degree to be a what? Sometimes, they just laugh. I could try to explain, but it’s difficult when I hardly understand the profession myself. For them, working in a library is like working in a charity shop: a good cause, but not quite a real job. My hairdresser was surprised it was even paid work. I’m not sure how libraries got bound up in these stereotypes: Casanova was a librarian after all (a common cry of the defensive information professional). But that’s OK, it pays better than Pizza Hut, and there’s nothing else I’d rather be. I walked into a library as a young child and fell into a world bigger than anything I could have imagined. This series aims to give a voice to the staff behind the public services that are hit by mounting cuts and rising demand, and so often denigrated by the press, politicians and public. If you would like to write an article for the series, contact tamsin.rutter@theguardian.com. Talk to us on Twitter via @ public and sign up for your free weekly Public Leaders newsletter with news and analysis sent direct to you every Thursday.
It’s Twitter’s 10th birthday. So do you love it or hate it? Abi Wilkinson: ‘Twitter has allowed us to break into what seemed a closed shop’ In 2009 I was lonely. I’d moved to a brand new city to start university and my boyfriend had decided to come with me. I found my study fascinating, but outside of three weekly hour-long seminars I had little access to people to discuss it with. When my boyfriend came home from work the last thing he wanted to do was dissect the finer points of political theory. He was also suspicious of my desire to make new friends and I eventually gave up on trying to socialise. Desperate to occupy my time, I created a Twitter account. It turned out to be exactly what I needed. Quickly, I became part of a community who chatted about all the same things I wanted to talk about. I could debate with Adam Smith Institute employees about Lockean property rights or argue with social conservatives about the broken windows theory. I had a new network of friends to natter about everyday things with. While my mates from home were busy drinking and flirting, I knew I could always go online and find someone to gossip and joke with. When I was feeling down, there would be someone there to lend a sympathetic ear. My relationship fell apart and I eventually threw myself into university life, but I didn’t break the Twitter habit. I had friends on the other side of the world who knew more about my daily thoughts, feelings and concerns than anyone I’d ever been in a room with. When I finished university, it was Twitter that helped me find my first graduate job working for Trinity Mirror. I’d written a blog about a bad experience at the jobcentre so everyone knew I was looking for work. A friend directed my attention towards a tweet advertising a paid internship and pestered me to apply. Somehow, miraculously, I was offered a two-week trial. If you’d asked me back in 2009 if I could imagine myself working in the media, I’d probably have laughed in your face. Many of the same people I remember tweeting with back then have jobs at newspapers and magazines. Twitter has allowed us to break into what seemed a closed shop. Obscure blogs can generate as much conversation as broadsheet leaders. It’s possible to catch the eye of commissioning editors even if you have no formal credentials. Looking back, it’s hard to imagine what my life would be like if Twitter had never existed. Maybe I’d have flunked out of university. Perhaps I’d still be stuck in an unhappy relationship. Certainly, I doubt my career would have gone the way it has. On the 10th birthday of the social network, I suppose it’s really about time I said thanks. Steven Baxter: ‘I’m stuck in a toxic relationship with a little bird icon’ Twitter is a sickness. I’m stuck in a toxic relationship with a little bird icon on my telephone. I need help – and so do you. I loved that little tweety bird once. I craved the gold sticker of a retweet or the pat on the head of a favourite. I tried everything – puns, hashtag games, memes, pretending to know about American politics – just for the thrill of being read by a stranger. But it all got too much. There are many bad things about Twitter – from the open sewer of racism and abuse to the horrendous blue-ticked cliques squawking at each other, from snarky subtweets to heartbreaking unfollows from people you like – but if I could pick one downside as the worst, it would be the Plague of Angry Eggs. At first, when you have a relatively popular tweet (say more than 25 RTs), it’s exciting. You’ve made it. “I once got retweeted by a minor celebrity!” you tell your friends – if you have any left now that you’re staring at the people in your telephone every 10 seconds. Then reality kicks in. Tweeting can be like dangling your meat-smeared genitals through the bars at the zoo and whistling cheerily at the ravenous wolverines. The Angry Eggs take issue with what you’ve said, a particular word, your choice of profile picture or a grammatical error, and your joy is over. Hatred and finger-wagging pollutes your @-mentions. You tweeted something six years ago that contradicts your tweet! Aha! I managed a Twitter flounce, once, loudly announcing I was leaving the party and attempting to cause a scene. No one particularly noticed. “Real” life carried on and was rather refreshing without constantly having to tell the people in my telephone every thought in my head. But I needed my fix. I sneaked back. I blocked all the irritants I could think of – your Hopkinses, your Blunts. I deleted all tweets every two weeks, but that wasn’t enough. I tried to keep my thoughts to myself as much as possible and stop craving retweets and likes. But I couldn’t help myself. The Plague of Angry Eggs was still there as well, and in greater numbers. My nemesis. Just waiting in the shadows for me to say something in order to disagree with it without reading it properly, or wilfully misunderstand the point of a joke. And yet, I just can’t seem to quit.
Germany fears UK may quit spy programme because of Brexit Germany fears Britain may pull out of a key intelligence-sharing programme in May next year, a move that it says would create a “moment of weakness” in the fight against terrorism and jeopardise security across the EU. As the continent remains on alert for terrorist attacks, Berlin is understood to view intelligence as Britain’s primary contribution to European collaboration, and fears it could use future cooperation as a bargaining chip in Brexit negotiations. According to documents seen by the , Germany is already lobbying the British government to renew its role in Europe’s law enforcement agency, Europol, before its current collaboration runs out on 1 May 2017. In a response to a parliamentary question submitted by Germany’s Left party, Angela Merkel’s government confirmed that it believed the European commission should encourage the UK to remain in Europol. Doing so was in Britain’s interest, the document produced by the German interior ministry said, because “collaborating and sharing information via Europol can help the UK prevent and fight terrorism and serious crime”. After a series of attempted terrorist attacks over the summer and a politically charged debate about the risks of Merkel’s stance during the refugee crisis, German politicians in particular are concerned that Britain could use its large intelligence capacities as a bargaining chip. “Recent attacks and arrests of suspected terrorists have shown that a close collaboration between international security agencies is indispensable,” said Stephan Mayer, the interior policy spokesperson of Merkel’s CDU/CSU party group. “Even after a possible Brexit, the fight against terrorism will remain an enormous challenge for European states; and this naturally applies to Europol’s work too. “All those responsible have to guarantee that this cooperation continues successfully and without friction in spite of a Brexit. The international fight against Islamic extremism and terrorism cannot afford a moment of weakness.” European governments and Brussels officials have been emphasising in public that there can be no pre-negotiations with Britain, however informal, until May officially informs the EU of its intention to leave by triggering article 50. Before October’s European council meeting in Brussels, German government officials vehemently denied that security cooperation would form part of the discussions at the summit. But the EU’s united front has been undermined by some inconvenient timetabling. On 1 May 2017, a month after the deadline May has given herself for triggering article 50, the European Union will adopt a regulation that expands the role of the European parliament and national EU legislatures in supervising Europol’s operations. On Friday, May told EU officials that she would stick to her deadline in spite of the high court’s decision that her government must get parliamentary approval to trigger article 50. Some MPs have suggested the need to draft new legislation may further squeeze the planned timetable. The UK is not part of the border-free Schengen zone and has an opt-in into Europol, which will automatically expire as soon as the new rules come into effect. By dropping out of Europol, the UK would automatically be shut out of a number of other agencies and intelligence cooperation programmes, such as the Schengen-wide information system SIS II. A Home Office spokesman pointed to recent comments made by Brandon Lewis, the policing minister, who said no decision had yet been taken on Europol. “The decision on whether we opt into the further Europol regulations will be announced to parliament shortly. We will take that decision very soon; we are giving good consideration to where we are on that and will make an announcement to parliament in due course,” he said. Last week Lewis confirmed in a letter that the UK would press ahead with an opt-in to the Prüm convention, an EU-wide system for sharing DNA samples, fingerprints and vehicle registration. A report (pdf) by the German parliament’s academic service recently raised alarm over the hole that Brexit could leave in Europe’s security network, and pointed out that the UK would no longer have direct access to Europol’s databases. Europol, which is based in The Hague, started operations in 1999 and is funded through the EU budget. It has a British director, Rob Wainwright, and according to a spokesperson, 40% of its cases have a “British dimension”. German government officials told the that there was still hope in Berlin that as a former home secretary, May would appreciate the value of cooperating on counter-terrorism measures. In a private speech at Goldman Sachs before the EU referendum, recently leaked to the , May expressly argued that British security was best served by remaining in Europe. The German Left party MP Andrej Hunko, who submitted the query to the government, said that although the UK had been one of the main drivers behind Europol’s engagement in covert intelligence networking, Britain opting out of the agency could potentially give rise to even more informal and less democratically accountable forms of information-sharing. “After Brexit, the strengthening of informal structures such as the police working group on terrorism and the Club de Berne could become a major cause for concern”, Hunko said. “These institutions don’t form part of the European Union and are thus harder to control by either delegates in the European parliament or our national parliaments, with national governments remaining as secretive about such networks as they can.” From the position of the German Left party, Hunko said, “the question of whether British police should remain part of Europol is therefore a choice between the devil and the deep blue sea”.
No global economic crisis yet, but the ingredients are there Another day, another financial spasm. In London, New York, Shanghai and Frankfurt the story was the same: shares dumped and the oil price crashing to its lowest level since 2003 on fears that China is heading into a recession that will drag the rest of the world economy down with it. Despite the fresh sell-off in financial markets on Wednesday, this is far from a done deal. For the doomsday scenario to materialise, China would need to have a hard landing, rather than simply a bumpy one, the rest of the world would have to be ripe for its own crisis, and there would need to be a transmission mechanism for delivering a problem centred on east Asia to the rest of the global economy. For the time being, the theory that the events of the past three weeks herald another 2008-style crisis is just that: a hypothesis. But make no mistake, if the conditions for a recession are right, it would move around the world like a pandemic. That, after all, is the essence of globalisation. Economies are far more integrated than they were half a century ago, when capital controls, trade barriers and extensive public ownership shielded national economies. Today, changes in political philosophy and technology mean there are far fewer impediments to the free movement of goods – and virtually none at all to the free movement of money. So, when one country runs into problems there is always the risk of contagion. That was true of Thailand in 1997, when the collapse of its currency, the baht, quickly had a domino effect across south-east Asia. It was true also of what appeared to be a local difficulty in a much bigger economy. Ben Bernanke, then chairman of the US Federal Reserve, was dismissive in 2006 of the notion that problems with sub-prime mortgages posed a threat to the American, let alone the global, economy. How wrong he was. Britain’s direct exposure to China is relatively modest. It is not in the top five overseas markets for UK companies, and only 4% of UK goods and services go there. If China’s economy hits the wall, some jobs would be at risk but it would not be nearly as serious as a recession in the United States or the eurozone. The US has more at stake, but even so exports to China account for only 1% of GDP. Britain’s banks are, however, a different story. UK banks – HSBC and Standard Chartered in particular – have lent lots of money to China to the extent that they have more at risk than any other country, should the loans turn sour. China has a mountain of bad debts. So how would the crisis manifest itself? One way, according to Nariman Behravesh, chief economist at analysts IHS, would be if China stopped trying to support its currency, the yuan. The result, he says, would be a devaluation of 15-20% that would make China’s exports cheaper but those of every other country more expensive. This would be the opening salvo in a full-blown currency war. Other countries would retaliate and the US would impose trade sanctions on Chinese goods. Deflationary pressure would intensify as Asian countries dumped their excess production on the rest of the world. The UK steel industry has already had a taste of this. China is producing more steel than it needs for its own economic growth and is selling it at cut-price rates. British producers have found it impossible to compete. That, though, would only be the start of the mayhem. Many countries in the emerging world have borrowed heavily in dollars. China itself has $1tn of dollar-denominated debt. If the yuan and other emerging market currencies are devalued, then the value of these dollar debts will rise, putting severe strain on all the affected economies and unbearable strain on the most vulnerable. Zhu Min, deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund, sketched out in Davos on Wednesday what would happen next. Quite simply, every investor would stampede for the exit at the same time. Liquidity in the global economy would dry up, he said, noting: “That scares everybody.” It certainly does. Around the concrete bunker hosting the World Economic Forum, the masters of the universe were quietly checking the latest from the financial markets on their smartphones and tablets. A few eyebrows were raised when the Dow’s fall reached 500 points. Chief executives of multinational corporations should not, of course, need to be reminded of global interconnectedness. If they did, Nobel prize-winning scientists were on hand in Davos for a tutorial on chaos theory. One of its ideas is that seemingly tiny events can have big impacts, so that a beating of a butterfly’s wing could lead to a hurricane on the other side of the world. China is a very big butterfly.
Pornhub launches explicit audio for the visually impaired For the around 285 million people worldwide who are visually impaired, pornography can seem like an acoustic blur of heavy breathing, squelches, slaps and Maria Sharapova-esque grunts. To help them find some sexual inspiration, the video-sharing site Pornhub has launched a “described video” category, in which professional voice actors explain what’s going on in the scene. The section has launched with a collection of 50 of the site’s most popular videos, and there’s something for everyone: straight, gay, female friendly, bi and transexual. Pornhub launched in 2007, and claims 60 million daily views to its professional and amateur adult content. The new narrated videos include descriptions of the settings, models, what they are wearing and the positions they are getting into, combined with the original audio of the video. Many of the explicitly titled clips have already attracted more than 20,000 views. The accessibility initiative is being championed by the adult entertainment company’s philanthropic division (yes, really), Pornhub Cares, which has previously launched a clothing line to fight against domestic violence and a breast cancer awareness campaign called “Save the Boobs”, where it donated 1 cent for every 30 videos viewed within its “big tit” and “small tit” categories. “It’s our goal to service all of our users’ needs, which begins with making content accessible to every individual,” said Pornhub vice-president Corey Price. “We selected some of the videos that were better suited for narration and could be best described in detail. We wanted to describe all that we could to provide the user with the best possible experience while not taking away from the video’s original audio.” Price added that Pornhub wants to encourage its users to create and upload more audio descriptive clips with the differently abled in mind. “People who are blind have every right to access porn as they do classical Shakespeare or any other kind of video,” says Joel Snyder, director of the audio description project at the American Council of the Blind. Snyder welcomes Pornhub’s efforts to make its content more accessible, but suggests the move isn’t entirely altruistic. “There are more than 21 million people in this country who are either blind or have trouble seeing even with eye correction. The community is large and has buying power, so this smacks of something that just economically makes good sense.” Pornhub isn’t the first organization to make porn accessible for the visually impaired. Back in 2006, a website called Pornfortheblind.org recruited volunteers to record graphic descriptions of popular adult videos, which were uploaded as MP3 files. The site became a cult hit, attracting as many as 150,000 visitors per month. Offline, an artist called Lisa Murphy has created a book of tactile photographs of nudes, embossed on white plastic pages along with a braille description.
Cult heroes: Betty Wright – soul's golden agony aunt Betty Wright was a little late for the 60s heyday of Motown, Stax and Atlantic, but she wasted no time catching up. Her first album was released in 1968, when she was only 14; she had her first pop hit when she was 17; she earned her first gold record when she was barely 18 – all despite coming from a religious family that refused to allow anything other than gospel to be played at home. Looking back on her childhood in an interview in 2012, she said she managed to persuade her mother to bless her nascent pop career by also being an A student who “did all the right things in school”, as if being musically precocious wasn’t enough of an achievement. In those early records, there’s an amusing disjunction between Wright the youthful singer and the put-upon female characters she portrays. In Babysitter – one of the first songs she wrote herself – a woebegone mother warns women not to trust any “16-year-old schoolgirl” around their husbands, and it sounds perfectly reasonable until you remember that Wright herself was still in her teens. She is the queen of the cautionary tale and practically an agony aunt when it comes to dispensing relationship advice, but she should be approached with caution unless you want a scolding administered along with tissues and gin. Secretary is clear on whose fault it is if a man has a work affair: the secretary “takes the time to listen / To what he has to say / While all you do is nag him / A thousand times a day.” In the entry on Wright in the Rough Guide to Soul and R&B, Peter Shapiro expresses reservations about Wright’s first hit, Girls Can’t Do What the Guys Do: for him it’s “a strange record given Wright’s assertive catalogue, and it sounded as though she was fighting with the chauvinistic lyrics”. And yet the line she takes – that girls can’t sleep around, or attempt to revenge a boyfriend’s misdemeanours, “and still be a lady” – is of a piece with so many of the songs in her catalogue. In the late 80s she released the “Pain trilogy”, a sequence of songs reflecting on the ups and downs of a long relationship, which have a similar core of conservatism. In No Pain (No Gain), for instance, she explains “something you young girls might not understand” – that love requires work, commitment and forgiveness, and “a little bit of pleasure’s worth a whole lot of pain”. Even when she bosses men around, she does so with solicitude for them and an eye on women’s responsibility: in Love Don’t Grow on a Love Tree, from her brilliant 1974 album Danger High Voltage (such a perfect title), she tells a two-timing man that he can’t have “every woman you see” – but can’t help herself hoping “you get just what you need”. And on her 2011 comeback album The Movie, in a duet with Snoop Dogg called Real Woman, she instructed all the young men in her life: “Get yourself a real woman” – no gold-diggers, basically; women willing to do the work/commitment/forgiveness thing – “so you can be a real man”. There are a lot of young men – and women – in Wright’s life because, as she told the online magazine Soul and Jazz and Funk, she’s the “mamma-sister-auntie-cousin type of woman”. Instead of a “diva type” driven by the desire for fame and awards, her energies are focused on supporting other singers and musicians. Joss Stone – another absurdly precocious teen star – is one of her most high-profile mentees, and Wright was nominated for a Grammy for her co-production work on Stone’s 2004 album Mind, Body and Soul. But there are plenty of others, and even a “songwriting camp” Wright set up called the Most, abbreviated from Mountain of Songs Today (equals Mountain of Songs Tomorrow). “I want to inspire people to write,” she told her local newspaper, the Miami New Times, in 2012: write, that is, as opposed to sample, a practice that receives seriously short shrift in the opening track from The Movie, Old Songs. “What you gonna listen to,” she demands, “if you ain’t making nothing new?” A diligent businesswoman, Wright has taken people to court for not paying royalties when they sampled her records, and in 1985, noticing that men in the music industry tended to be paid more readily than she did, set up her own record label to ensure she would never have to fight for what she had earned. Three years later, she used it to release her album Mother Wit, winning a gold record in the process. Mother Wit opens with two of the Pain songs, but maybe a better signature tune is Ms Time: “I wait on no man,” Wright shrieks with relish, “you wish that I stand still for you.” Across her career what you hear is a mixture of take-no-crap assertiveness and hard-won acceptance, belligerent attitude and genuine kindness. In an interview from 2012 with Blues & Soul magazine, she talked of how important it is that music “helps you get from Monday to Tuesday” and gives its listeners hope. She focuses on romance, she said, to communicate the message that “no matter how bad the economy gets, as long as I have you here we can live in a tree! You know we can go out and bathe in the lake if we have to, but if you are with me and I am with you, we can do this. I think those are songs that people need to hear now,” and she’s right, we do.
Vote that could make Andrea Leadsom a Tory outlier – like Corbyn It is beginning to dawn that in the wake of the Brexit vote there will be no such thing as a return to business as usual in British politics. But that’s not just because a prime minister has resigned, important though that is. Much more, it is because the full shock waves of the Brexit win have barely started to be felt. We won’t see the same kind of drama this week that we saw two weeks ago when David Cameron quit after the referendum vote, or last week when Michael Gove turned against Boris Johnson in the fight to be Cameron’s successor. But the dynamics of the Conservative leadership race are not settled yet. Theresa May enters the week of the first ballot in a commanding position to win first place in the contest among MPs. But the home ­secretary’s camp made clear over the weekend that she does not want a so-called coronation, as happened when Michael Howard succeeded Iain Duncan Smith unopposed in 2003. She is right to prefer a contest because a coronation would look like a stitch-up. May backed remain in the referendum, albeit without any evident enthusiasm. She has gone into this contest, as she intended she would, as a Eurosceptic remainer, hoping that this will allow her to gather up votes from both wings of the party and succeed as a unity candidate. So far it looks like a winning strategy. But a coronation would leave the Brexiters feeling betrayed, so May has to favour a full contest. Such a contest is fraught with uncertainties. Fundamentally that is because the Conservative party’s membership, said to be about 150,000, will make the final decision between the two candidates left standing after the MPs’ ballot. But it is also because a two-horse race gives the second-placed candidate a huge chance to gather up the support of all those who have doubts about the frontrunner. The party has form on this, and it is form that will give May the shivers. In 2001, the largely anti-European membership handed the prize to Duncan Smith rather than the frontrunner and ardent pro-European Kenneth Clarke. Even though May is not nearly as outspoken a pro-European as Clarke, she is vulnerable to the view among Brexiters that the crown should go to one of their own. The crown this time, of course, is not the leadership of the opposition, as it was in 2001 when IDS was elected. It is the prime ministership itself. That could mean that the party members – who are not the same people as they were in 2001 anyway – are more cautious than they were 15 years ago, because they know the decision has national consequences. But it could equally mean that they decide it is vital to seize their chance and put a Brexiter into No 10. As things stand, that candidate looks like Andrea Leadsom, the business minister, who has never sat at the cabinet table. Leadsom is not in fact an out-and-out anti-European. As she said in 2013, in words that have suddenly become famous: “I don’t think the UK should leave the EU. I think it would be a disaster for our economy and it would lead to a decade of economic and political uncertainty at a time when the tectonic plates of global success are moving.” I can personally confirm from listening to her at about the same time that Leadsom was not in favour of leaving. But if she can shake that embarrassment off her back she has a real chance of galvanising the Tory membership and overtaking May on the line. If that happened, not only would Leadsom become the first British prime minister in history elected by a party membership (as May would too, of course), but British politics would also be in uncharted waters for parliamentary democracy as a whole. Both the main parties, Labour and the Tories, would be led by people who would have been imposed on the party’s MPs against their will, or at least against their better judgment. And that would be only the start. The leadership election will decide who speaks for Britain. But it won’t decide what Britain should say about its relationship with Europe. No one yet has a clue about that. Business as usual remains a very distant dream.
How a Hollywood film reveals the reality of drone warfare G avin Hood’s film Eye in the Sky is a thrillingly intelligent exploration of the political and ethical questions surrounding drone warfare. It has been carefully researched and is on the cutting edge of what is currently possible. (Full disclosure: I offered the screenwriter early advice.) But there’s a longer history and a wider geography that casts those issues in a different light. As soon as the Wright brothers demonstrated the possibility of human flight, others were busy imagining flying machines with nobody on board. In 1910 the engineer Raymond Phillips captivated crowds in the London Hippodrome with a remotely controlled airship that floated out over the stalls and, when he pressed a switch, released hundreds of paper birds on to the heads of the audience below. When he built the real thing, he promised, the birds would be replaced with bombs. Sitting safely in London he could attack Paris or Berlin.  There has always been something hideously theatrical about bombing – recall the shock and awe visited on the inhabitants of Baghdad in 2003. The spectacle now includes the marionette movements of drones, Predators and Reapers whose electronic strings are pulled from thousands of miles away. Remoteness, however, is an elastic measure. Human beings have been killing others at ever greater distances since the invention of the dart, the spear and the slingshot. The invention of firearms wrought another transformation in the range of military violence. And yet today, in a world shrunk by the very technologies that have made the deployment of armed drones possible, the use of these remote platforms seems to turn distance back into a moral absolute. But if it is wrong to kill someone from 7,500 miles away (the distance from Creech air force base in Nevada to Afghanistan), over what distance is it permissible to kill somebody? For some, the difference is that drone crews are safe in the continental United States – their lives are not on the line – and this has become a constant refrain in the drone debates. In fact, the US Air Force has been concerned about the safety of its aircrews ever since its high losses during the second world war. After Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it experimented with remotely controlled B-17 and B-47 aircraft to drop nuclear bombs without exposing aircrews to danger from the blast, and today it lauds its Predators and Reapers for their ability to “project power without vulnerability”. It’s a complicated boast, because these remote platforms are slow, sluggish and easy to shoot down. They can only be used in uncontested air space against people who can’t fight back. There are almost 200 people involved in every combat air patrol and most of them are indeed out of harm’s way. But in Afghanistan the launch and recovery and the maintenance crews – Predators and Reapers have a short range, so that they have to be launched by crews close to their targets – are exposed to real danger. Bombing in the major wars of the 20th century was always dangerous to those who carried it out, but those who dropped bombs over Hamburg or Cologne in the second world war or Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s were, in a crucial sense, also remote from their targets. “The good thing about being in an aeroplane at war is that you never touch the enemy”, recalled one veteran of Bomber Command. “You never see the whites of their eyes.” Distance no longer confers blindness on those who operate today’s drones. They have a much closer, more detailed view of the people they kill. The US Air Force describes their job as putting “warheads on foreheads”, and they are required to remain on station to carry out a battle damage assessment that is often an inventory of body parts.  Most drone crews will tell you that they do not feel thousands of miles away from the action: just 18 inches, the distance from eye to screen. Their primary function is to provide intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. Although drones have been armed since 2001, until 2012 they were directly responsible for only 5 to 10% of air strikes in Afghanistan. But they were involved in orchestrating more. Flying a Predator or a Reaper “is more like being a manager”, one pilot has explained. “You’re managing multiple assets and you’re involved with the other platforms using the information coming off of your aircraft.” In principle it’s not so different from using aircraft to range targets for artillery on the Western Front, but the process has been radicalised by the drone’s real-time full-motion video feeds that enable highly mobile “targets of opportunity” to be identified and tracked. In the absence of ground intelligence, this becomes crucial: until drones were relocated in sufficient numbers from Afghanistan and elsewhere to enable purported IS-targets in Syria to be identified, most US aircraft were returning to base without releasing their weapons. Armed drones are used to carry out targeted killings, both inside and outside areas of “active hostilities”, and to provide close air support to ground troops. Targeted killing has spurred an intense critical debate, and rightly so – this is the focus of Eye in the Sky too – but close air support has not been subject to the same scrutiny. In both cases, video feeds are central, but it is a mistake to think that this reduces war to a video game – a jibe that in any case fails to appreciate that today’s video games are often profoundly immersive. In fact, that may be part of the problem. Several studies have shown that civilian casualties are most likely when air strikes are carried out to support troops in contact with an enemy, and even more likely when they are carried out from remote platforms. I suspect that drone crews may compensate for their physical rather than emotional distance by “leaning forward” to do everything they can to protect the troops on the ground. This in turn predisposes them to interpret every action in the vicinity of a ground force as hostile – and civilians as combatants – not least because these are silent movies: the only sound, apart from the clacking of computer keys as they talk in secure chatrooms with those watching the video feeds, comes from radio communications with their own forces. In contrast to those shown in Eye in the Sky, those feeds are often blurry, fuzzy, indistinct, broken, compressed – and, above all, ambiguous. How can you be sure that is an insurgent burying an IED and not a farmer digging a ditch? The situation is more fraught because the image stream is watched by so many other eyes on the ground, who all have their own ideas about what is being shown and what to do about it. Combining sensor and shooter in the same (remote) platform may have “compressed the kill-chain”, as the air force puts it, and this is vital in an era of “just in time”, liquid war where everything happens so fast. Yet in another sense the kill-chain has been spectacularly extended: senior officers, ground force commanders, military lawyers and video analysts all have access to the feeds. There’s a wonderful passage in Brian Castner’s book All the Ways we Kill and Die that captures the dilemma perfectly. “A human in the loop?” Castner’s drone pilot complains. “Try two or three or 100 humans in the loop. Gene was the eye of the needle, and the whole war and a thousand rich generals must pass through him ... If they wanted to fly the fucking plane, they could come out and do it themselves.” This is the networked warfare, scattered over multiple locations around the world, shown in Eye in the Sky. But the network often goes down and gets overloaded – it’s not a smooth and seamlessly functioning machine – and it is shot through with ambiguity, uncertainty and indecision. And often those eyes in the sky multiply, rather than disperse, the fogs of war. Derek Gregory is the Peter Wall Distinguished Professor at the University of British Columbia. His books include Violent Geographies: Fear, Terror and Political Violence
Georginio Wijnaldum leads Newcastle in astonishing rout of Tottenham Oh what might have been. On an afternoon when Tynesiders devoted virtually the entire 90 minutes to imploring Rafa Benítez to stay on as Newcastle United’s manager next season his previously underachieving team belatedly remembered they could actually play a bit. In the process Aleksandar Mitrovic created one goal, scored another and was sent off for a truly appalling challenge as Tottenham Hotspur’s chances of finishing above Arsenal for the first time since 1995 were shredded. Mauricio Pochettino’s players needed only a point to finish second but ended up third and looking anything but a team capable of competing in next season’s Champions League. Any Championship managers watching this will most definitely not be looking forward to next season’s meetings with Newcastle, which rather begs the question: how on earth did it come this? While Benítez’s players shrugged off the inhibitions imposed by fear of relegation, Tottenham’s shockingly abject performance emphasised their failure to recover from the blow of losing out to Leicester in the title race. At other times, on other days, St James’ Park might have staged protests against their watching owner, Mike Ashley; instead Newcastle were politely applauded on to the field before kick-off. If part of that was probably about old habits dying hard, a bigger reason was the “Keep Rafa” agenda. It meant that, rather indulging in “sack the board” chants, home fans held up placards proclaiming: “Rafa the Gaffa. Please stay. The Toon need you.” Such messages were backed up an incessant two-word soundtrack set to the tune of La Bamba. “Rafa Benítez, Rafa Benítez,” fans chorused, with the volume being raised appreciably once Gini Wijnaldum gave them lead. Spurs had begun in unusually jaded fashion with Toby Alderweireld fluffing an attempted clearance and the ball falling to Moussa Sissoko who played in Mitrovic. The Serbia striker’s deft lay-off found Wijnaldum who shot low into the bottom corner from 12 yards. It was the Dutchman’s 10th goal of a season he had started so brightly before sinking into a prolonged midwinter slump. Fortunately for Wijnaldum, the crowd were clearly in a forgiving mood and the Gallowgate End briefly celebrated with a few blasts of “Stand up if you love the Toon,” before reverting to their previous refrain. Their spirit was barely dampened by the sight of a small aeroplane circling the skies above them trailing a large banner bearing the message: “Auf Weidersehen Prem: Tyne to go.” It offered proof that some people really do have more money than sense – there are surely much better ways to spend the best part of £1,000. As if determined to defy that mocking eye in the sky Newcastle swiftly scored a second. Sissoko delivered a fabulous cross from the right and, having beaten both Alderweireld and Kyle Walker to the ball, Mitrovic evaded Hugo Lloris’s reach with an imperious header. Loud as the resultant applause was it seemed bitter-sweet, underscored by a certain sadness. Spurs, meanwhile, had created a solitary first-half chance which featured Karl Darlow doing well to block Christian Eriksen’s fierce shot. As the half wore on, the prospect of second spot and putting Arsenal in their place receded ever faster for Tottenham. Admittedly they reduced the deficit but the consequences stemming from the moment Harry Kane and Eric Dier combined to free Érik Lamela down the left were destined to serve as the most academic of footnotes. Initially it looked as if Lamela would cross but instead, from a seemingly impossible angle, he unleashed a shot which beat Darlow at his near post, the ball deflecting off the keeper and into the roof of the net. If Darlow appeared less than delighted about that concession, Mitrovic should have been disgusted with himself for an appallingly reckless high, over the top, challenge which caught Walker on the shin and could easily have resulted a broken leg for England’s right back. Mitrovic even tried to contest the inevitable red card before being ushered off by Sissoko. This being a perverse sort of afternoon 10-man Newcastle’s reaction was merely to extend their lead. When Sissoko’s long legs took him into the penalty area he collapsed dramatically after Eriksen’s perceived interception and Wijnaldum sent Lloris the wrong way from the spot. Buoyed by that rather generously awarded penalty, Andros Townsend hit a post, Daryl Janmaat crossed and Rolando Aarons half-volleyed a brilliant goal. Turning creator, Aarons’s pass then picked out the overlapping Janmaat whose low shot defied Lloris. St James’ Park reverberated to a by now familiar theme. “We want you to stay,” they roared. “Rafa Benítez, we want you to stay.” Man of the match Gini Wijnaldum (Newcastle United)
Struggling to understand killers After last week’s wave of tragic attacks in Germany, Boris Johnson was criticised for publicly speculating that Islamist extremism was behind the shooting in Munich. While our new foreign secretary’s comments may have been inappropriate - and wrong - his brain, like most people’s, was subject to an overwhelming impulse to find a possible motivation for an action as soon as it occurs. Our desire to understand the motivations of a killer involves a particular part of the brain called the ‘temporo-parietal junction’. Also known as the ‘mindreading’ area of the brain, it automatically ascribes possible incentives, beliefs and desires to others. This reflex developed to help us socialise, but is so powerful that we also apply it to inanimate objects such as computers, shouting, ‘Why are you doing this to me?’ as they crash yet again. Even a pair of triangles can appear to exhibit personal motivations, as proved by a psychological test called the Heider-Simmel animation. However, while Boris’s brain is partly to blame for his speculations, unfortunately it couldn’t help him keep them to himself. Dr Daniel Glaser is director of Science Gallery at King’s College London
_9MOTHER9HORSE9EYES9: the mysterious tale terrifying Reddit If you take enough LSD, can you build a portal to the divine? It sounds like a typical internet conspiracy theory, the kind of thing weirdos post in online communities isolated from the rest of the world. But it’s also a conceptual prompt for a new work of digital fiction – a cool, and deeply creepy story that is gaining a cult fanbase. Two weeks ago, a user who came to be known as “_9MOTHER9HORSE9EYES9” posted a disjointed snippet of text in a comment on Reddit, a site where communities post articles, images, personal stories and more for threaded group discussions. The post, added almost as if by accident to a thread about the cover of George Orwell’s 1984, made claims about the CIA’s acid-fuelled “mind control experiment” programme, Project MKUltra, a common staple of paranoid theory. MKUltra was indeed a real programme, but other items the user mentioned – “restraint bed portals” and “flesh interfaces” – are not. The user continued to post about topics including Vietnam, Elizabeth Bathory, the Treblinka concentration camp, humpback whales, the Manson Family and LSD, but especially about the inexplicable “flesh interfaces”, being built somehow by shadowy programmes. A Reddit user might chance upon a single one of these posts in one of their ordinary discussion threads, but clicking on the username of _9MOTHER9HORSE9EYES9 would let you view all their posts in aggregate, and there, a compelling science-fiction horror story was beginning to emerge, gradually more beautifully and boldly written from multiple narrative perspectives, but with a common mystery. Reddit makes a fascinating platform for community-oriented fiction, and a perfect one for this slow-building and creepy invention, which fans have started calling “The Interface Series”. Each snippet of the abstract tale lives in a different discussion thread, so reading feels like combing a conversation history rather than following a linear tale. You can read the story in chronological order, but you can also follow the mystery to its origin: the standard display format for a user’s comments on Reddit is in reverse chronological order. By sorting the posts according to how “hot” or “controversial” they are, you can let the engagement of other readers guide your experience. Eerie fragments The seemingly random thread names start to form a pattern: the reader gets the distinct pleasure of wondering why the author chose to post each component in each place. Eerie fragments of fiction hide among commonplace online discussion. Sometimes readers reply and engage, and sometimes are none the wiser. The enthusiastic cult fandom quickly built a Wiki to study and catalogue the mysterious tale, create a timeline of known events, and to note in a sort of literary formalist way what tropes the author is employing. The story also has its own dedicated discussion thread where volunteers have even developed audiobook editions. The internet has always loved a good mystery, and Wikis, message boards and image boards have a history of playing host to fascinating and often scary folktales that leverage the format and utility of these digital spaces in creative ways. In recent history, as the internet gradually grew from a niche hideaway for young weirdos to an omnipresent and pragmatic component of daily life, these subversive posts, videos and stories emerged organically and often anonymously as if to will online space to remain surprising, unsettling and subversive. The first subject to come back encased was an 8-year-old girl we had named Jingles. We started naming the kids dogs’ names to try to depersonalize them, to assuage the guilt. This was done by the recommendation of CIA psychiatrists, but it didn’t work very well. “Creepypasta” is one name for scary text found in commonplace online communities, and users often borrow, reproduce and add to these texts to create a sort of fictive group collage (“pasta” is derived from the command “paste”). The popular culture character of “Slender Man” originated in the internet meme community and became a household name – and, allegedly, led two 12 year-old girls to commit a stabbing. “The Holders” is a crowdsourced series related to the end of the world; its format dictates that benign instructions lead to horrific, reality-warping objects and situations. “The SCP Foundation” offers containment procedures for fictional but terrifying phenomena – anyone can contribute to Wiki stories like these, and a group “upvoting” process makes it easy to find the entries that the community thinks are best and most scary. Could the story make contact? Although _9MOTHER9HORSE9EYES9 is apparently only a single author, and the destination and purpose of its tale is unknown (we can only hope it’s not a viral marketing stunt), the writer’s use of Reddit as a storytelling platform means a new kind of format unique to internet fiction, and new opportunities for readers to participate and engage around the work. There is something extra-effective in fiction about the unexpected, the unsettling, the unknown lurking in plain sight within the tools we use for practical dialogue, and this principle has unique implications for horror buffs. When the writer is technically a platform-user just like yourself, there’s always the lurking possibility they might suddenly notice you, that the story itself could make contact. It was a pit made of flesh. Maybe five feet across and going down about twenty feet before curving out of sight. When I say, “made of flesh,” I mean, it looked like the inside of somebody’s throat. Wet, reddish flesh-looking stuff. We had heard of them building tunnels, but this was... If you’re not a Reddit user and you’re not sure where to start with the intimidating _9MOTHER9HORSE9EYES9 story, try The Interface Series Wiki, where users have sorted the narrative into an easy-to-read chronological order and have begun building a glossary of terms. Or you can dive directly into the user’s comments and read through them in your own order. Right now there are more than 30 posts, and the nonlinear narrative appears to be shifting from mysterious flesh interfaces and their utterly terrifying “incident zones” to futuristic “hygiene beds” for users who are constantly connected to a “feed”. Take care if this is bedtime reading!
To deliver Brexit, Ukip must rise again So, the politicians have crowned a new prime minister. Theresa May, a remain supporter responsible for the greatest increase in immigration in Britain’s history, may well be popular with a largely Europhile Conservative parliamentary party still struggling to accept its resounding rejection by Conservative voters on 23 June – but she would probably have struggled against the Brexiteer Andrea Leadsom if it had been allowed to go to a membership vote. She is, in a way, a kind of reverse Corbyn: the Labour leader has a huge mandate from the party membership but no mandate among the party elites, while May has a huge mandate from the party elites and no mandate from the party membership. To listen to the media luvvies who have invested a lot of time (and a lot of lunches) in May, her triumph was all about experience. She has been widely lauded as one of Britain’s longest-serving home secretaries – yet very little has been said about the collapse in police morale or the running down of our border force and coastguard in that time. Indeed, the largely positive assessment of May’s tenure as home secretary, based on time served rather than track record, speaks volumes about how far the standards we set for those in public life have fallen. But the deed has been done. And without a single vote cast outside the magic circle of Westminster, we have a new premier. This shabby state of affairs, in my view, presents a major opportunity to bring together Nigel Farage’s people’s army – those conservatives who actually believe in Britain, and the patriotic working-class voters who rejected the Blairite left on referendum day, united either within Ukip or a new political movement. Fortunately, thanks to the pressure brought to bear on the incoming administration by Leave.EU, the new prime minister has had to give key posts to excellent leave ministers, including David Davis and Liam Fox – talented politicians who, unlike Michael Gove, Dominic Cummings and the rest of the self-regarding Vote Leave cabal, were willing to work with us and with Ukip to achieve a goal bigger than themselves. Even so, news of May’s coronation saw Ukip’s membership rocket by over 1,000 in a single day. All over social media, we can see hundreds of Conservatives trading in their blue membership cards for purple ones. Why? Because Britain backed Brexit, and no matter how strenuously the remain campaigners who are responsible for delivering it insist they will respect the vote, leave supporters simply don’t believe them. And this discontent goes beyond Conservative members who are rightly miffed at being stitched up with a remain MP as leader after they voted for Brexit: just look at the shambolic state of the Labour party. First, its working-class voters backed Brexit in a big way. Where do they look for representation now, never mind leadership? Corbyn may have been a reluctant remainer, but – foolishly – he allowed the Blairites to twist his arm for the sake of party unity (for all the good it did him). If he had stuck by his Eurosceptic principles and left the Labour party officially non-aligned, he would have been well placed to take the credit for the Brexit vote and been strengthened against his enemies in the parliamentary party. Instead, he’s ended up in the worst position possible, having backed remain but failed to deliver Labour voters. With some in his party now bleating that the referendum result was “advisory and non-binding” and calling for parliament to overturn it, it is more clear than ever to working people that the Labour party is now run by and for a metropolitan elite, and does not speak for them. As for the Liberal Democrats, they’re now campaigning on a platform of taking Britain back into the EU before we’ve even left it, desperate to regain some relevance by appealing to the spoiled millennials throwing protests outside parliament. So now, more than ever, the country needs Ukip to step up, or for a new movement to step forward. We won’t achieve anything by tempering ourselves to create another bland, centrist party. We need to lower the barriers to entry for politics, and reach out to new audiences online, as Beppe Grillo’s revolutionary Five Star Movement has done in Italy. Leave.EU has paved the way with its pioneering social media effort, which has over 1 million followers and supporters. The articles and clips we shared alongside our own original content and videos reached a weekly audience of 10 to 15 million, many of whom would never dream of tuning into the Daily Politics or poring over the newspapers. While ignored by the traditional media, which we were bypassing, internal polling suggests that this new way of doing politics made all the difference to the final result on 23 June. We now need to push it further, lowering prices for party membership, putting more control over the party in the hands of the grassroots, and reaching into areas of the country that the mainstream parties have long forgotten or taken for granted. We need to show the public how we, and they, were right to hold their nerve and stick their necks out for Brexit, even with all the combined powers of the political class, media establishment and corporate interests howling against us. More than that, we need to empower people to help shape the new Britain that Brexit has made possible, pushing for a Swiss-style model of direct democracy, which allows citizens to propose their own laws and veto the schemes of the politicians. Britain has its brightest days in front of it, but only if we realise that winning this referendum was not the final hurdle. We have a long way to go before a real Brexit happens, and will have to travel even further before we can realise all the opportunities it allows. Ukip, or a new movement that combines the best in that party with other forces that came together for the referendum, represents our best hope of completing that journey.
Opening up scientific publishing for the Flickr generation For an aspiring scientist, being published in a creditable journal is a major step towards gaining respect in the field. But for Mark Hahnel, founder and CEO of Figshare, this old system was drastically in need of an update. “The internet was built for sharing academic data but the way scientific papers are published had hardly changed since the early days of the printing press,” he says. In 2011, Hahnel was studying for a PhD in stem cell biology at Imperial College London, but grew frustrated when it came to getting his work published. In particular, there was no way to publish non-written formats. “All my data was graphs, datasets and video, but when I went to publish this I realised that a lot of publications weren’t set up to handle anything but papers,” he says. “I was spending all weekend creating videos and frustrated that I couldn’t publish them.” Hahnel saw an opportunity to both help aspiring scientists and improve the quality of debate in science. Using Wordpress and “some basic Python” [computer code] he set up Figshare – initially to publish his own work. But he soon found there were others in the scientific community who saw it as advantageous. “Academia is very cut-throat. People need to get published and receive citations in order to get jobs and funding,” he says. “But also I think a lot of younger students get it, as they’ve grown up with the internet and think things should be open and collaborative.” His activities caught the attention of the technology investor and incubator Digital Science, which backed Hahnel to further develop his platform. “I handed in my PhD on the Friday and moved into new offices on Monday,” says Hahnel Hahnel admits that in the early days he “didn’t have a clue” about business and had to learn a lot. “I’d never done business studies, but we were able to learn about business and how to market the company. Digital Science helped me with the startup process; everything from establishing a sustainability model to marketing and understanding what an EBITDA is,” he says. “We brought in some developers and relaunched Figshare in January 2012. We’ve created a place where anyone can publish and view the content for free.” Hahnel says he was inspired by sites such as Github and Flickr and wanted to create something comparable for research science. However, there have been some technical hurdles to overcome. For instance, academic papers require footnotes that link to other sources, but this can be difficult to do online as URLs are often reorganised and this can lead to broken links. The developers at Figshare created Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) that find the new address of a page if it is moved. Ultimately, the business aimed to create an infrastructure that was designed to last and to be user-friendly. “The process of building scalable infrastructure as a priority over cool new features is something that we set up early, and it is really helping us now,” Hahnel adds. But the most important aspect of Figshare is that it has created a model that disrupts the current method, where universities pay publishers to see the work that they have created. According to STM, the trade association for academic and professional publishers, its members’ revenues are worth roughly $10bn (£7bn) annually and the industry employs more than 100,000 people worldwide. And although well known journals such as Nature, Science and Cell are much sought after, there are more than 28,000 English-language science publications to choose from. “I’ve published three papers but I don’t have access to them because I’m not a university,” Hahnel says. “The top ten publishers were paid over £430m by universities between 2010-14 so that they could access their own content.” Figshare has two revenue streams: it provides universities with the means to publish online – universities are given mini Figshares which let students self-publish – and it provides cloud solutions for publishers to host and publish data. Figshare has now published 2.5m objects (papers, datasets and videos) and provides several institutions with its services including the University of Sheffield, The Royal Society, Wiley and University of Auckland. But not everyone in academia is impressed. Hahnel says younger scientists and tenured professors are positive about Figshare, but those less secure in their work are more wary. “The people who were taught to publish or perish and don’t want people to see their data because they will find their mistakes are worried by it,” he says. “That’s the insanity of academia, that people in a self-correcting science might be concerned that someone will find an error.” But having an open platform means that the strength of the content is dependent on those publishing it. Currently, files are checked by a team of 30 people to ensure they are of academic standard but the business is developing ways to enable its users to curate content. “We would like to start curating all of this information in a crowdsourced manner. Instead of using traditional peer review – which may be difficult for a 10-second video – we’ll be looking at automating levels of curation and measuring global attention around objects.” Hahnel adds that journals don’t have to follow the peer review model, citing the physics, maths and computer science archive, arXiv.org, as one example. He also says that science can only be checked and corrected if the datasets are open. Hahnel is now focusing on spreading the word and meeting with universities – including American institutions – to make it the place to go to publish research. But the big aim is to create a portal that can truly advance science. In the online age, where inaccurate news can spread fast, a definitive, rational and instantly accessible voice is needed, Hahnel suggests. “We hope to help build a future where everyone can ask questions and back up their answers with data, whether it is inaccurate reports linking autism to vaccines in mainstream news, or much larger questions such as the origins of the universe and how to treat diseases,” he says. “By making all of this information openly available to all in a manner that humans and machines can interpret, we can advance human knowledge a lot further, faster.” Sign up to become a member of the Small Business Network here for more advice, insight and best practice direct to your inbox.
Anderson Paak: ‘If Dre had called five years ago, I don’t think I’d have been ready’ I’d be lying if I told you that my interview with Anderson Paak gets off to a flying start. The reality is anything but. The 30-year-old rapper and singer-songwriter from Los Angeles is ushered into my cramped hotel room in Salford looking like death warmed up. He’s battling a nasty flu virus that threatens to derail his European tour. While I do my best to be solicitous, his eyelids droop and he barely speaks. Fearing disaster, I quickly phone for black coffee and, fortunately, it does the trick. He may not be a household name just yet, but Paak is well on the way to becoming one. For a start, he is making some of the most exciting new music around. His sound is a warm and hazy blend of styles – funk, jazz, New York house, reggae, trap, blaxploitation-era soul, a hint of psych-rock – anchored in R&B and hip-hop. He is equally at home singing and rapping. And he has a highly distinctive voice that somehow manages to be both smooth as maple syrup and raspy as a whisky-soaked barfly. Comparisons have been made with Frank Ocean, André 3000 and Innervisions-era Stevie Wonder. Significantly, Paak has also been recently anointed as Dr Dre’s latest protege. The hip-hop mogul and Beats headphones founder has a habit of picking winners, from Snoop Dogg to Eminem, and Paak signed a deal with Dre’s Aftermath Entertainment in January. This followed on from his star turn last August on Dre’s comeback album, Compton. Paak co-wrote and sang on six of the songs, more than any other guest – including Snoop and Eminem, as well as other heavy hitters, such as Ice Cube and Kendrick Lamar. This was a remarkable achievement because at the time Paak was virtually unknown. He had independently released an album, Venice, in late 2014, which won widespread critical acclaim but made little mainstream impact (although it was championed by Gilles Peterson on Radio 6). Paak also had a project called NxWorries, a collaboration with the hip-hop producer Knxwledge – their single Suede went viral in early 2015, and came to the attention of Dre, who apparently played it for weeks before getting one of his A&R team to call Paak and invite him to audition. That must have been quite a moment. Paak flashes a toothy grin and perks up immediately. “When I finally met him, for some reason I didn’t have any super-fanboy jitter thing, where I couldn’t be myself,” he says. “I was so confident by that point I just said: ‘Let me get on the mic and try something.’ And I remember closing my eyes and going off the top, and then opening them and it was like, ‘Whooaaaahhh!!’” He mimes Dre throwing his hands up in the air in appreciation. It probably helped that Paak had already had a lot of practice by the time he met Dre. “If he’d called five years ago, I don’t think I’d have been ready,” he admits. Paak is his real name, by the way. But as an artist he prefixes it with a full stop – .Paak. It’s a weird affectation, but he tells me it symbolises attention to detail. It’s a reminder to himself to stay on top of his game because he hasn’t always done so. “I thought things would just fall into my lap,” he says. “So I’d put my career in the hands of just about anybody. And before I knew it I was in my late 20s, and things just weren’t sticking. Plus, in LA image is more than half the battle, and I was just a music nerd who never gave a fuck about image.” Indeed. For most of his 20s he recorded under the name Breezy Lovejoy. “I didn’t always take myself that seriously,” he admits. “Image-wise, I was somewhat of a jokester.” The first thing he put online as Lovejoy was a Coldplay tribute. “I didn’t really know what I was doing,” he says. Eventually it was fatherhood – his son, Soul, is now five years old – that gave him the wake-up call he needed. Since then, he has ditched the cringy Lovejoy alias, stepped up his songwriting game, and independently released two dazzling albums – Venice and, more recently, Malibu in January. Like generations of African American musicians before him, Paak laid the foundations for his career during childhood in church. It was where he learned to play drums, tutored by kindly older musicians who recognised that he had talent; the singing and rapping came later. “If you grow up playing in church, it removes a lot of the boundaries that other musicians might have, growing up with sheet music or whatever,” he says. “It’s like [adopts booming preacher’s voice] you’re dealing with the Holy Spirit! God’s working through your hands!” The church was in Oxnard, a small city 100km from Los Angeles. Brandon Paak Anderson and his three sisters (two older, one younger) were born and raised there, in a mostly white suburb. Church was a focal point for Oxnard’s fragmented black community; his short-lived first marriage at 21 was to a girl he met there. Paak’s mother is mixed race: half-black, half-Korean – he has her eyes. She was orphaned during the Korean war, and adopted by a US soldier who took her back to America and raised her with his family in Compton. His father, meanwhile, was an identical twin from Philadelphia, an air force man who was discharged for drugs – and who ended up severely addicted to both drugs and alcohol, with traumatic consequences. “He went to prison for assault and battery of my mum,” Paak says, with calm detachment. “I witnessed him beating my mum. He beat her within an inch of her life. We called the cops and he went to prison for 14 years [he was also found guilty of firearms offences]. I never saw him after that. I talked to him a little bit, but the next time I seen him he was being buried.” Paak was seven years old when he saw the beating. How do you process something like that? “I don’t know. It’s had an effect, but I couldn’t pinpoint exactly what it did. I know I have some issues… maybe if I see a therapist they can tell you!” His mum is clearly a resilient woman who had a flair for business. She took over a small strawberry stall in Oxnard from a friend, and built it into a large organic strawberry company, supplying grocery stores and restaurant chains. She remarried, and “life got very good – we went from living in a one-bedroom apartment to a five-bedroom mansion by the time I was in high school. I had everything I wanted growing up, though all I wanted was music stuff – drums, a PC, turntables. They supported me with all of that.” But their luck changed again: unusually heavy rainstorms linked to the El Niño weather phenomenon ruined the strawberry crops for two consecutive seasons, “and everything went to shit. Mom had to file for bankruptcy. But during this time, she also developed a healthy gambling habit. We were in Vegas every weekend. My mom and step-pops were really good, and when you’re really good at gambling, you don’t pay for anything. Everything was on the house. We’d get all our meals free, all the room service. I’d bring my friends from school. It was just crazy rooms, dude – TVs coming up out of the floor and shit…” And then that all went wrong, too. His mum and stepdad were arrested and charged for not declaring their winnings, and for “illegally moving securities”. Paak was 17 and knew nothing; he is sketchy about the details even now. “They were making a bunch of money at the tables and not notifying the government – Mom was actually using it to pay back what she owed from the bankruptcy. But when people found out that she had paid others back but not them, they reported her.” His mum served seven and a half years of a 14-year sentence. Around the same time, it emerged that his stepdad had been having an affair, and was having a child with another woman. “I never really liked him anyway,” Paak shrugs. “When my mom went under, everything collapsed. Like, before that we were just spoilt brats. My mom paid for everything. My two older sisters were married with families of their own, but they were still being taken care of. One of them had to move back into the house to take care of me and my little sister – but then the house got foreclosed, so we had to get out.” He has only recently felt able to write about all this – and the years of hard living and family fallouts that followed. There is little sign of it on his light-hearted first album, Venice. But its game-changing follow-up, Malibu, is a much deeper proposition, full of long-buried and painful childhood memories, transformed into bittersweet melodies and woozy, punch-drunk raps. “Is you gonna smile when your date gets issued? You know them feds taking pictures/Your mom’s in prison, your father needs a new kidney/Your family’s splitting, rivalries between siblings/If cash ain’t king it’s damn sure the incentive/And good riddance,” he raps on The Season/Carry Me, one of the album’s many highlights. “I guess it just took time,” he says. “I don’t think I knew before how to properly express what I had gone through in song form. I’m glad I didn’t try to force it before I was ready. Also, it’s part of my personality to be light; I’m more about lightness than anything.” He clearly has a lot to tell. And I’m not sure we’ve heard the half of it yet. Not because he is holding back; in fact, quite the opposite. He is such an enthusiastic raconteur that each question elicits lengthy answers, rich in plot twists and biographical minutiae, and in the end we run out of time. His final tale is about the period he spent working on a weed farm. He begins with: “So my [second] wife came in from Korea and she got pregnant…” and progresses into how, in his desperation to make money, he landed the weed farm job through a fellow musician. Marijuana for medical prescriptions has been legal in California since 1996. “I remember looking out over the hills, and there were football fields of the shit, as far as you could see,” he says, before giving me a thorough briefing on how to chop, trim and bag “all these huge plants – bigger than you! It was the hardest work of my life, but it was 150 bucks an hour. We were there for ever…” He’s still telling me about the weed farm when there is a knock at the door – I don’t have time to ask how much of the grass, if any, he smoked himself (his music certainly has a spaced-out quality). Nor to ask about the period of homelessness he and his pregnant wife endured after he was suddenly let go from the weed farm job – and which only ended after he was taken in by Shafiq Husayn, of the alternative hip-hop group Sa-Ra, who put him up until he had finished his Venice album. Our time is up. He has to leave for his gig at Manchester’s Ruby Lounge. I saw him deliver a high-octane show in London a night earlier. His performance was spectacular, deftly switching between singing and rapping, accompanied by his hipsterish backing band, the Free Nationals. Sadly, tonight’s show turns out to be his last of the tour – the flu forces him to cancel the rest. But the tour has nevertheless been a success. The venues have been modest, but each sold out. And bigger shows will follow in the wake of the recent deal with Dre’s Aftermath Entertainment, guaranteeing the future backing of one of the most powerful men in music. But for now there’s something gratifying about watching an artist whose success has been gradual and hard-won. His tale is a salutary reminder that even in the internet era, it can still be a long way to the top. Is he dreaming of even bigger things now? “You gotta dream!” he grins. “But I’m still very much aware of what’s going on right now. I’ve done a bunch of shitty club work playing drums for other people, and now I’m on tour – with a whole van! Full of our shit! Our merch, our equipment… our show!” And with that, R&B’s newest and least pretentious star heads off to inject some lightness into the Salford gloom. He’s living the dream already. Malibu is out now on Steel Wool/OBE/Art Club. Anderson .Paak plays the Wireless festival, Finsbury Park, London N4 on 10 July and the Reading/Leeds festival on 27-28 August; ticketmaster.co.uk
Married couples more politically split this election, thanks to Donald Trump Donald Trump shared some marital advice at a recent campaign stop in Virginia: “If your wife got angry with you,” he said, “say: ‘I’m just sorry, Charlotte, I’m going out to vote for Trump.’” As his poll numbers are cratering among every demographic except white men, support for the Republican nominee is dividing couples at a level far beyond the last presidential election. A new poll exclusive to the reveals that in households across the US, Trump is fueling a deep split among married couples. In the online poll of 1,249 adults who have been in a relationship since at least 2012, polling firm Ipsos Public Affairs asked whether spouses’ political leanings had diverged in the last four years. The results provide evidence that the most pronounced divisions were found in households where both spouses consider themselves politically independent. “We can say, with some caveats, that many Trump voters are really not confident that their spouses are going to support Trump,” said Chris Jackson, an Ipsos pollster. While only one in 10 people supporting Hillary Clinton thought their spouses would vote another way, one in five supporting Trump expect their spouses to vote for someone else. Among men and women who supported Trump or Clinton, men voting for Trump were the least confident that their spouses would do the same. The results may come as no surprise after 13 months of campaigning in which Trump has made a number of sexist remarks. In the most memorable example, at the first Republican debate in 2015, Fox News host Megyn Kelly challenged Trump to explain “several disparaging comments about women’s looks”. “You’ve called women you don’t like ‘fat pigs,’ ‘dogs’, ‘slobs’ and ‘disgusting animals’,” she said. “You once told a contestant on Celebrity Apprentice it would be a pretty picture to see her on her knees. Does that sound to you like the temperament of a man we should elect as president?” These remarks from his past, including the suggestion that he would date his own daughter if they were not related, have shadowed his candidacy for over a year. Clinton’s team has tried to capitalize, highlighting reports that Trump once said of women, “You have to treat ’em like shit.” “Between married men and married women, there is a record gender gap right now,” said Celinda Lake, head of the Democratic polling firm Lake Research Partners. Married women, a group won by the Republican Mitt Romney in 2012, are currently supporting Clinton by about 12 points, Lake said. “We have a situation where Donald Trump’s personal style is just so offensive to women, and it is much more salient to women than it is to men.” Some husbands seem less than thrilled by this dynamic. In voter interviews, Lake has noticed an unusual number of married women reporting that their husbands have pressed them to vote for Trump. “We’ve had it come up in our focus groups extensively,” Lake said. “That always happens toward the end, but it’s coming up in this election much sooner than usual.” In Columbus, Ohio, three door-to-door canvassers for Working America, a group affiliated with the labor federation AFL-CIO, reported similar versions of the same story: after leaving a house where the husband planned to vote for Trump, the wife chased the canvasser down the street to say that under no circumstances would she do the same. “We’re certainly picked up tensions between husbands and wives before, but this kind of manifestation was really stunning to our field staff,” said Karen Nussbaum, executive director of Working America, which is campaigning on behalf of Clinton and other Democrats. “This level of passion around the candidates, and then the big divisions between men and women is at a different level than we’ve seen in the past.” Even in a typical election year, more women tend to vote Democrat than men, and households split between the major parties are not uncommon. Same-sex couples make up too small a share of respondents to be represented in most national polls. But there is evidence that the split is particularly acute in 2016. In the Ipsos poll, only about half of those who said their household was split this year believed they and their spouse voted differently in 2012. That is the position in which George Kraft, 68, finds himself. Kraft, of Bullhead City, Arizona, said he and his wife both voted for Romney in 2012. This fall, he plans to vote for Trump. His wife, however, wants nothing to do with the party’s inflammatory standard-bearer. “She thinks he’s too outspoken, too abrasive toward other people,” Kraft said. The same controversies don’t bother him. “Maybe that’s what we need.” Although the most drastic splits have surfaced between independent couples, Trump is also faring poorly among Republican women, married or not. In some recent polls among women who identify as Republicans, he has run nearly 20 points behind Romney, John McCain (the 2008 nominee) and George W Bush (2004). Romney and Bush won 93% of Republican women’s votes and McCain in 2008 won 89%. One respondent from Utah, Cheryl Steele, 36, voted without reservations for Romney but said she did not like the way Trump attracted accusations of racism and bigotry. “I don’t even want my child to listen to his speeches,” she said, “and yet he’s supposed to be my president?” Trump’s unpopularity with women, Nussbaum said, is reflected in a dynamic her canvassers have seen over and over in the field. “Men who love Trump love women who love Hillary. Or at least, they don’t hate Hillary,” she said. Susan, 62, who lives near the border of Massachusetts and New Hampshire, did not wish to give her last name. She plans to vote for Clinton, repulsed by reports that Trump stiffed many of the contractors who helped build his casinos. “I have no use for a man like that,” she said. But her choice is causing strife between her and her husband, who she called a “victim of talk radio”. She believes he will be voting for Trump. “I don’t recall us ever arguing about an election before this one,” she said. “I’ll come out with ‘Trump said this’ and we’ll have a fight.” To avoid any more quarrels, Susan has begun skirting talk of the election altogether. “We’re too old for that,” she said. Lake believes many couples try to excise politics from their relationships, and not just in the heated final months of the 2016 race. Several years ago, her firm conducted a survey in which 72% of men but only 49% of women said with confidence that their partners would vote the same way they did. “We called it the, ‘Sure, honey’ factor,” Lake said. “Guys just assume who their wives are voting for. And I think some women go, ‘Sure, honey.’”
SFO ends foreign exchange fraud inquiry with no charges brought A long-running investigation by the Serious Fraud Office into rigging of the £3.5tn-a-day foreign exchange markets has ended without any charges being issued against banks or individuals. The SFO said that after reviewing more than a half a million documents it had concluded there was insufficient evidence for a realistic prospect of conviction. “While there were reasonable grounds to suspect the commission of offences involving serious or complex fraud, a detailed review of the available evidence led us to the conclusion that the alleged conduct, even if proven and taken at its highest, would not meet the evidential test required to mount a prosecution for an offence contrary to English law,” the SFO said. “It has further been concluded that this evidential position could not be remedied by continuing the investigation.” The prosecutor did not disclose how much the investigation had cost or whether banks or individuals had been the subject of its investigation, which was sparked when the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) provided it with information in July 2014. This year the SFO asked the government for an extra £21m to help it keep pursuing complex cases, such as those centred on foreign exchange, after it had received £10m last June. Alison McHaffie, a regulatory partner with CMS law firm, said the decision to drop the case showed “the difficult job the SFO has in demonstrating criminal activity by individuals for this type of type of market misconduct and without a change in the law on corporate criminal responsibility. “This means it is always easier to impose regulatory fines against the firms themselves rather than criminal prosecutions.” At the time it launched the forex investigation in 2014, more than 20 individuals had either been suspended or fired from financial institutions during the global investigation into currency rigging. The Bank of England also became embroiled in the scandal, and has previously released minutes of meetings held over six years until 2013 between bank officials and a group of foreign exchange traders. Since then, the FCA and regulators in the US have levied record fines of more than £6bn on banks for rigging foreign exchange markets and published pages of electronic messages showing that the individuals involved called themselves the “A-team”, “the players” and “the three musketeers”. The regulators published conversations between traders, some of whom used the name “1 team, 1 dream”, and reported that one had said: “How can I make free money with no fcking [sic] heads up.” When a string of fines was announced in March 2015, Loretta Lynch, the US attorney general, had accused bank traders of behaving with “breathtaking flagrancy”. She extracted guilty pleas from Barclays, Royal Bank of Scotland, Citigroup and JP Morgan. The SFO said it was continuing to liaise with the US Department of Justice over its investigation and it was grateful for help from the FCA, the Competition and Markets Authority and the City of London police, as well as the DoJ and Australian Securities and Investments Commission. The foreign exchange rigging scandal erupted at a time when the reputation of the banking industry was being hammered by revelations that traders had been manipulating Libor, a benchmark interest rate used to price £3.5tn of financial products and loans. That benchmark has since been overhauled as a result of the criticism that erupted as further multimillion-pound fines were levied against banks. Barclays was the first bank to be fined for Libor fixing when it was hit with a £290m fine in June 2012, which triggered the resignation of the chief executive, Bob Diamond – who was not accused of wrongdoing – and wave of other penalties on a wide range of banks, including RBS and the Swiss bank UBS. The investigation into Libor rigging by the SFO has secured the conviction of Tom Hayes – who is serving 11 years – while six individuals have been cleared by jury. The Libor rigging scandal also spurred George Osborne into changing how the fines levied by the City regulator were used. They had previously gone back to the FCA and its predecessor, the Financial Services Authority, but he changed the rules to ensure that the cash – minus costs – went to the Treasury.
Social care catastrophe won’t be solved by integration with healthcare services Your editorial (Social care and the NHS: can’t pay, won’t pay, 1 February) fails to grasp the enormity of the crisis for social care in England and the inadequacy of George Osborne’s 2% precept. My report on social care in Cambridgeshire, Social Care: The Silent Catastrophe, published last week, shows that an additional £500m a year from the precept by 2020 will not compensate for the further £6.1bn a year being taken away from English local authorities by the government at the same time. The autumn statement fails to face up to the consequences of the government’s decision in 2011 to withdraw its entire general grant to local authorities by the end of this parliament. This is why the social care crisis has now become a catastrophe which goes much wider than support to older people. Support to vulnerable children and young people in care in Cambridgeshire has been cut for the last three years and will be cut yet again in this year’s budget. In Cambridgeshire social care faces additional cuts of £73m a year by 2020, despite the substantial growth in numbers of adults and children urgently needing help. The county council has made clear that its savings proposals contain “an unprecedented level of risk”. In addition, the large cost of implementing the new national minimum wage, which mainly affects social care, has not been funded at all by the government. If the 2% council tax is levied it will just about cover this as-yet-unfunded cost and will not reduce the cuts. Integration of social care and health for older people is not the answer. More resources are required now. David Plank Trumpington, Cambridgeshire • Your editorial is misleading in presenting as alternatives to the current chaos the combination of health and social care budgets and/or the integration of services for elderly people. Rather than alternatives, they instead act as diversions. The UK spends far less on both social care and healthcare than comparable countries, and little will be gained from pooling. The real issue is that without a secure long-term plan for social care (and the NHS) there will be insufficient investment by individuals, families, the private sector, the NHS and local authorities. Successive governments have avoided the issue, but the problem it creates is as follows. Without sufficient long-term funding and investment in social care, the increasing demographic pressures will require additional investment in hospitals in the short term. By clutching too long to the straw that investments in alternatives to hospitals will avoid this, and then failing to deliver these, successive governments have merely added to the total costs and misery. The latest miasma surrounding the potential for “transformation” of the NHS courtesy of the management consultancy industry and lots of earmarked money is a sure indication that the issue continues to be avoided. Only Sweden has fewer hospital beds than the UK, but it spends 10% of GDP extra on health and social care! There are no easy alternatives to reaching agreement on the long-term plan. Roger Steer Healthcare Audit Consultants  • Your editorial is right about the crisis but unduly pessimistic about the solution. Joining up health and social care budgets is not “too hard”. It does require political will and it will require some extra tax funding to make it happen. But it is the only way to create a fair, simple and sustainable care and health system that can meet the needs of our ageing population by supporting older people at or near their homes. To accept anything less will make today’s care crisis seem relatively minor by 2020. Stephen Burke Director, United for All Ages and Good Care Guide • Your editorial is right to identify the relationship between the NHS and adult social care, and highlight both their shared challenges, and that the coming year represents an opportunity to make decisions to help address them. The suggested macro solutions that you mention are welcome and necessary: combining budgets and integrating services. However, the article could have made explicit another linked and more tangible option that is crucial to the deliverability of the above. By expanding and scaling up the type of activities and approaches that are already delivering effective outcomes, we can keep more people out of hospital and reduce pressures on budgets. Options such as the Shared Lives model of care are already supporting around 13,000 people nationally to live good lives and avoid prolonged hospital or institutional care. Many other approaches across the country are focusing on local, citizen-led commissioning and are delivering spectacular results at a small scale. The five-year forward view, and the increasing engagement of CCGs locally in new ways of doing things, shows that this potential is recognised by the NHS and social care leaders. 2016 is the right time to embed this welcome approach even wider. Alex Fox Chief executive, Shared Lives Plus • The funding of social care is inadequate, causing distress to elderly and disabled people, and increased costs from bedblocking for insolvent NHS hospitals. Local government funding has been cut by 25% since 2010, with more cuts to come. However, the distribution of these cuts is grossly unequal. The principle of equalising local authority spending was abandoned in 2012-13. Consequently, deprived areas now get disproportionately bigger cuts in their allocations. The planned parsimony of government is deliberately cutting the funding of deprived areas such as Liverpool and Newcastle more than better-off areas. Who voted for increased inequality in one of the most unequal rich countries? Alan Maynard Emeritus professor of health economics, University of York • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
Sadiq Khan's big city way could be Labour's way forward nationally Speaking to Sky News, Sadiq Khan has urged Theresa May to delay pressing the Brexit button - triggering Article 50, which starts the formal process of withdrawal from the EU - until next autumn, arguing that this would improve the UK’s chances of getting a decent deal. By way of Square Mile free sheet City AM, Khan’s deputy mayor for business, Rajesh Agrawal, has said that City Hall officials are talking to counterparts in Paris and other cities beyond Europe about building their own business relationships for the Brexit age. This is a developing theme. Within days of the referendum result in June, Khan joined with the City of London in calling for UK-regulated banks to retain their existing “passporting rights”, the system that allows them to operate in the EU nations. Anything less would be “a disaster”, he said. More recently, he has reactivated the London Finance Commission, asking it to come up with further proposals for making London more autonomous, in the interests of the UK as a whole. He’s telling anyone who’ll listen that London Is Open. Khan is banging the devolution drum at every opportunity, seeking further scope for City Hall and the capital’s 33 local authorities to take command of the capital’s destiny. How far he will get depends heavily on how receptive the new prime minister and her colleagues are to his case, but it’s significant that the media as well as ministers are listening. That significance extends to the Labour Party. With its national leadership failing to provide effective opposition either in the House of Commons or the country at large, the views of Khan are seen as mattering still more. He is, after all, the Labour politician with the most power to put policies into effect and seems likely to remain so for some time. He should, though, have some company before long. Next May, counterpart “metro mayors” are due to be elected to lead Greater Manchester and the Liverpool and West Midlands city regions. Labour’s candidates for those jobs, now selected, are strong favourites to win. Their powers will vary and differ from Khan’s, as will the types of territories they serve. They will, though, look to London as a model. They too will negotiate with the Conservative government about ways to make their economies stronger. They too will surely also look beyond Westminster to the wider, post-Brexit world in their searches for growth and prosperity. They and Khan could be the faces of Labour in power in Britain for many years to come.
Donald Trump is technology's befuddled (but dangerous) grandfather Technology? Bah humbug: “I think we ought to get on with our lives,” said Donald Trump on Wednesday, summing up his take on the complex problem of apparently Russian phishing attacks on multiple Democratic party groups during the 2016 election. As the White House’s current resident prepared to impose sanctions on Russia for hacking, Trump said: “I think that computers have complicated lives very greatly. The whole age of computer has made it where nobody knows exactly what’s going on.” It’s not the first time the president-elect has been stumped by the digital world, like a technophobe who unwrapped a computer-operated nuclear arsenal on Christmas morning. And the trouble isn’t that nobody knows exactly what’s going on in the “age of computer” – it’s that technology poses some of the most complex problems in human history to the incoming administration. And its leader is a man who refers to “the cyber” and seems more concerned about the weight of the hacker, or possibly the bed – his syntax is mysterious – than about who broke into the Democratic National Committee. US authorities spent 2016 attempting to chart new territory even beyond the DNC, DCCC and Clinton campaign hacks: how can Americans protect their infrastructure from attacks on the foundations of the internet, such as the Mirai botnet siege in October that took down some of the biggest, and most sophisticated, tech companies in the world? How can the nation’s patchwork of electoral authorities repair voting systems prone to massive, potentially catastrophic error? How should the government treat open-source encryption? Trump remains silent on the details of digital policy as the leader-to-be of a government in desperate need of consistent guiding principles. Instead, Trump appears to regard technology as a contact point for the same obsessions that drove his campaign. He is blase about warrantless surveillance – he has said it “would be fine” to restore the NSA’s bulk data collection programs, a position his pick for CIA director, Mike Pompeo, also endorses, as does Trump’s attorney general nominee, Jeff Sessions. He is far more actively concerned about appearing stronger than his predecessor, Barack Obama, and as always about Chinese activity in cyberspace: Especially when they start “cyber hacking us”: He also occasionally made time during the campaign to mock opponent Hillary Clinton for getting sick and getting hacked: Trump has been general, albeit chilling, on the topic of what exactly his administration will do: as an extension of Trump’s ideology, information gathering will serve to do the unthinkable – his own word. “We’re going to have to do things that we never did before,” he told Yahoo News. “And some people are going to be upset about it, but I think that now everybody is feeling that security is going to rule. And certain things will be done that we never thought would happen in this country in terms of information and learning about the enemy. And so we’re going to have to do certain things that were frankly unthinkable a year ago.” The apparent lack of interest in the minutiae of his own positions has left his administration’s tech strategy in the hands of Peter Thiel, the thin-skinned billionaire founder of PayPal who quietly bankrolled former pro wrestler Hulk Hogan’s annihilating lawsuit against news outlet Gawker, apparently in retaliation for an article about Thiel’s sexual orientation. Earlier this month, Thiel indulged Trump’s own grudge against Twitter during the president-elect’s “tech summit” at Trump Tower, shutting out the organization that provides Trump with his loudest megaphone reportedly because Twitter refused to add an emoji to the Trump campaign’s #CrookedHillary sponsored hashtag during the election. Another of Thiel’s companies, data-mining firm Palantir, already plays a powerful role: the company’s services are likely to be used in any effort to deport undocumented immigrants, according to multiple reports. But for the president-elect himself, technology appears to be yet another venue for increasingly dangerous hobbies including threats to cut programs that benefit US allies, brinksmanship with China and unraveling Obamacare. Trump calls net neutrality “a top-down power grab” that “will target conservative media”; he has often repeated his support for a registry of American Muslims, and generally demonstrates not merely a lack of proficiency in technology but a contempt for expertise. But like every rich guy who wants to stay that way, he keeps a couple of eggheads around, and between him and them, when it comes to tech policy they will make America … something. Possibly not great.
Deadpool; Bone Tomahawk; Heart of a Dog; Nasty Baby; Alan Clarke at the BBC – review Superhero films, in all their Lycra-wrapped machismo, are easy enough for sceptics to mock; once the film-makers join in, however, a strained sense of regimented fun creeps into proceedings. So it is with Deadpool (Fox, 15), an eager but terminally smug exercise in self-aware Marvel prankery that leaves no fourth wall undemolished. Starring Ryan Reynolds as an ex-military victim of medical experimentation left with superhuman healing powers and super-irksome wisecracks, Tim Miller’s film follows the Kick-Ass course of self-covering provocation: sadism or sexism with a wink, it reasons, isn’t sadism or sexism. (Deadpool’s girlfriend may be a colourless stock figure, but she does get to sodomise him. Feminists, you are hereby appeased.) It feigns offensiveness, though only those appalled by hormonal schoolboys need take umbrage. Credit where it’s due to Reynolds, who sells the whole thing with smarm and charm that aren’t mutually exclusive, but this is a glib, greasy idea of fun. For violently funny subversion of Boy’s Own fare, look instead to Bone Tomahawk (The Works, 18), S Craig Zahler’s splendid, morbid revival of the cowboys and Indians western. The palefaces’ enemy this time is a fantastical tribe of mutant cannibals (“Men like you wouldn’t distinguish them from Indians,” one Native American character pointedly observes) who kidnap some local townsfolk, setting sheriff Kurt Russell and his motley crew off in hard-squinting pursuit. Zahler has an adoring eye and ear for the idiom of Hollywood’s old west, with a salty, satirical streak that frankly outclasses Quentin Tarantino’s recent strain of pastiche. The film then thrillingly jackknifes into fresh, bloody B-movie terrain, yet even at its most viscerally grisly points, Zahler’s limber, literate way with language never deserts him: listen out especially for the sublime Richard Jenkins’s monologue about circus fleas. As beguiling as it is utterly classification-resistant, Laurie Anderson’s roving personal essay Heart of a Dog (Dogwoof, E) got a tad lost in cinemas last month, but should be cherished on small screens. Beginning as a grief-stricken Valentine to the film-maker’s late terrier, it unrolls with graceful imprecision into a meditation on narrative, music, philosophy, even the paranoia of post-9/11 America. Its cobweb connections make far more sense seen than described. Simpler in its sweetness is Our Little Sister (Curzon, PG), an unashamedly small tale of sibling bonds lost and found that accrues power with its accumulation of fine domestic (and fragrantly culinary) details. It’s less preoccupied with emotional escalation than some of director Hirokazu Koreeda’s more acclaimed works, and more moving for it. Far more acrid human observation is to be found in Chilean-American auteur Sebastián Silva’s Nasty Baby (Network, 15), in which a gay couple’s attempt to conceive a child with a female friend (Kristen Wiig) goes off course via a neck-snapping plot twist that I found at once exhilarating and unconvincing. Reissue of the week, by a long yard, is Dissent & Disruption: Alan Clarke at the BBC (1969-1989) (BFI, 18), a mammoth compilation of the gut-spilling social realist’s collected TV dramas, alongside his feature films Scum and The Firm, here presented in a new director’s cut. The total comes to 13 discs, 33 hours and more than a hundred quid; an investment for the committed, not the curious. I’m still working my way through, but it’s a stunning assembly: the cleaned-up transfers haven’t lightened the dirt under these films’ nails one bit. Finally, you have just over two weeks left to head to Mubi.com and stream the year’s most dizzying swirl of cinema so far: Miguel Gomes’s Arabian Nights trilogy, a bounding, incandescent triptych of films themselves composed of profuse interlocking parts, addressing history, mythology and contemporary European economics through its own eccentric version of Scheherazade’s storybook. There are chaffinches and ghost dogs here; Gomes juggles personal and political grievances here, finding room for love, law and Lionel Richie. At over six hours, it sounds imposing, but proves a leisurely, enveloping wallow.
Trump seeking quickest way to quit Paris climate agreement, says report Donald Trump is looking at quick ways of withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement in defiance of widening international backing for the plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions, Reuters has reported. Since the US president-elect was chosen, governments ranging from China to small island states have reaffirmed support for the 2015 Paris agreement at 200-nation climate talks running until 18 November in Marrakesh, Morocco. But, according to Reuters, a source in the Trump transition team said the victorious Republican, who has called global warming a hoax, was considering ways to bypass a theoretical four-year procedure for leaving the accord. “It was reckless for the Paris agreement to enter into force before the election,” said the source, who works on Trump’s transition team for international energy and climate policy, speaking on condition of anonymity. The Paris agreement went into force on 4 November, four days before last Tuesday’s election. Alternatives were to send a letter withdrawing from a 1992 convention that is the parent treaty of the Paris agreement, voiding US involvement in both in a year’s time, or to issue a presidential order simply deleting the US signature from the Paris accord, the source told Reuters. Many nations have expressed hopes the United States will stay. Morocco, the host for the talks, said the agreement that seeks to phase out greenhouse gases in the second half of the century was strong enough to survive a pullout. “If one party decides to withdraw that it doesn’t call the agreement into question,” foreign minister Salaheddine Mezouar told a news conference. Despite the threat of a US withdrawal, US secretary of state John Kerry said on Sunday that he would continue his efforts to implement the Paris agreement until Barack Obama leaves office on 20 January. Speaking in New Zealand following a trip to Antarctica, Kerry appeared to take a swipe at Trump when he listed some of the ways in which global warming could already be seen. He said that there were more fires, floods and damaging storms around the world, and sea levels were rising. “The evidence is mounting in ways that people in public life should not dare to avoid accepting as a mandate for action,” Kerry said. “Now the world’s scientific community has concluded that climate change is happening beyond any doubt. And the evidence is there for everybody to see,” Kerry said. The Paris agreement was reached by almost 200 nations in December and, as of Saturday, has been formally ratified by 109 representing 76% of greenhouse gas emissions, including the United States with 18%. The accord seeks to hold global warming to no more than 2C above pre-industrial levels to limit rising temperatures that have been linked to increasing economic damage from desertification, extinctions of animals and plants, heat waves, floods and rising sea levels. United Nations climate chief Patricia Espinosa declined to comment on the Trump source’s remarks to Reuters. “The Paris agreement carries an enormous amount of weight and credibility,” she told a news conference. She said the UN hoped for a strong and constructive relationship with Trump. The Trump source blamed US president Barack Obama for joining up by an executive order, without getting approval from the Senate. “There wouldn’t be this diplomatic fallout on the broader international agenda if Obama hadn’t rushed the adoption,” he said.
The future of shopping: drones, digital mannequins and leaving without paying Amazon may be set to bring its hi-tech till-free stores to the UK after registering the Amazon Go brand name in the UK last week. At the test store near Amazon’s HQ in Seattle, an app tracks customers as they walk about, recording the items they pick up and take away. The store is currently only available to company staff, but will open to shoppers from next year. The cost of purchases will be automatically billed to their account. The company has registered the Amazon Go trademark in the UK for an extensive list of potential uses, from technology, telecommunications and retail services to food and drink services and even pet food. The retailer claims the Amazon Go store is “the world’s most advanced shopping technology” but other businesses are also trialling shop-assistant-free concepts. The Näraffär convenience store based in an isolated village in Sweden, for example, relies on a mobile app which lets residents access the store, scan their shopping and then pay via a monthly invoice. They’re part of a wave of new gadgetry which could dramatically change the way we shop: Robot assistants Some may argue that many stores have these already, but retailers are moving on, with a view to replacing staff with sophisticated software. The American DIY chain Lowe’s is testing LoweBot, a customer service robot that speaks several languages, helps shoppers find items and provides information on products. First trialled as OSHbot two years ago, it is currently being tested in 11 Lowe’s stores. US electricals retailer Best Buy has Chloe, a robot that is a glorified grabber arm for CDs and DVDs, while Aldebaran Robotics, part of the Japanese telecoms firm Softbank, has created Pepper, a humanoid robot which has been deployed in some Nescafé stores in Japan. Some US shopping centres are even adopting robotic security guards – a cross between a CCTV camera and a Dalek that can detect people who may be loitering in the wrong place and read car number plates in car parks. But it’s not all been straightforward: a robot guarding a shopping centre in California recently ran over a toddler after its navigational scanning systems failed to detect the small boy. A virtual you For many shoppers, buying clothes online is a very hit-and-miss affair. Sizes vary between outlets and getting the right fit means many clothing items are returned – which is bad for both the shopper and the shopkeeper. That could change thanks to new software that creates an accurate 3D model of the shopper, meaning it is possible to “try on” clothes. Cambridge based startup Metail, which has raised $20m to date and is backed by Hong Kong clothing giant Tal, is setting the pace. The company’s technology can be plugged into retailers’ websites so customers can create what it calls “Me Models” as well as 3D images of the products on sale. Shoppers can then find out if a pair of tight jeans will give them a muffin top. Retailers will also be able to use customer data to suggest outfits, creating a “Netflix style” shopping experience. Digital butlers Doing the shopping may soon require nothing other than a shiny little box. Nearly all the major tech firms, including Amazon, Google, Apple and Facebook, are developing digital home assistants that respond to voice commands. As an online retailer, it’s not surprising that Amazon has ensured its Echo device is easy to shop with – thanks to the Alexa app, which lets you shout out a shopping list, to add to a virtual trolley, as you walk around the house. Eventually these assistants should learn what you want and when you want it without commands. But these devices may be very shortlived – because home appliances like fridges, coffee machines and printers have already been developed that are linked to the internet so they can automatically replenish themselves without any interaction with their owner. Drone deliveries As retail sales increasingly transfer from the high street to the internet, one of the biggest problems for retailers is making deliveries. In busy cities where traffic congestion is a problem, one solution already being tested is using drones. In the summer, Amazon started working with the UK government to test the viability of delivering small parcels – which make up 90% of Amazon’s sales – by drone. In the US, Mercedes-Benz is collaborating with drone startup Matternet on the “Vision Van”, where a vehicle’s roof doubles as a launch pad for drones capable of sorties of up to 12 miles. Google has also shown off a fixed-wing drone capable of carrying packages. However, beyond the special testing privileges granted to Amazon, current UK legislation bans drones from being flown within 50 metres of a building or a person, or within 150 metres of a built-up area. Aircraft pilots have also expressed concern about the dangers posed by drones after a number of near-misses in London and Manchester.
Sacha Baron Cohen has trashed Grimsby – but these places had it far worse After painting Kazakhstan as an atavistic hole of Jew-haters, inbreeders and clock-radio coveters in Borat, Sacha Baron Cohen is poised in his new film to besmirch the reputation of Lincolnshire’s most self-flagellatingly named estuarial port town, Grimsby. Chav Central seems to be the keynote. No one in current cinema trashes a place quite like Baron Cohen – but there have been plenty of outstanding demolition jobs, like the 10 below. Merely kitchen-sink or “authentic” treatments didn’t cut it for the list – contenders had to demonstrate actual malicious, distorting and/or resident-slandering intent. The Australian outback (Wake in Fright) The Aussie wastes are always foreboding on film. But they become a perpetually hungover, exit-less purgatory in this 1971 Ozploitation classic in which a schoolteacher en route to Sydney gets waylaid in the mining town of Bundanyabba (AKA “the Yabba”). The sickening amount of West End lager consumed amid the endless gambling sessions and kangaroo pogroms ranks as the most counterproductive example of product placement ever. Georgia, USA (Deliverance) Come to Georgia! Tackle the thorny hillbilly accent! Pit yourself against ominous banjo-playing idiot savants! Step into the wilderness and find yourself the sexual plaything of devious, dentally challenged mountain men! Bizarrely, John Boorman’s anti-tourist board ad actually increased interest in the southern state, sparking a whitewater rafting boom on the Chattooga river for those coming to hear the surrounding hills echoing with the sounds of evil redneck chuckling. Chinatown, everywhere (Chinatown) No one is denying that Chinatowns worldwide have the odd problem with organised crime and food-standards violations. They didn’t ask, though, to be made into some kind of international byword for total spiritual perdition. Orientalists everywhere thrilled to the climax of 1947’s The Lady from Shanghai when Orson Welles’ protagonist is spun around in front of Asian eyes (inscrutable, of course). But, setting PI Jake Gittes on a similar trajectory, Roman Polanski’s 70s Los Angeles masterpiece takes the misfortune cookie. Message: “Your grandad’s also your dad.” The Scottish Highlands (Breaking the Waves) Like Colorado in Dogville, Lars von Trier gives the impression of never having set foot in the real north of Scotland, lest it complicate a picture-postcard conceptual backdrop for his favourite hobby: subjecting his lead character to a set of directorial ordeals. The stony-faced Calvinist elders and feral schoolchildren who prowled the land and dead-eyed rapey sailors lurking offshore were supposedly from the 1970s. Were it not for Emily Watson’s PVC skirt, the red phonebox, and Bowie and Elton on the soundtrack, you’d have mistaken it for the 1770s. Swansea (Twin Town) Renton and crew operated in Edinburgh’s margins, but the leering, droog-eyed brothers at the heart of the “Welsh Trainspotting” are practically mascots of a “pretty shitty city”. Kevin Allen’s Swansea is a beacon of cheerful hypocrisy; a place where rugby balls come stuffed full of coke, and the timeless pillars of Welsh life conceal a hotbed of joyriding, piss-drizzled karaoke and routine caninocide. Mogadishu, Somalia (Black Hawk Down) The Somalian capital city was admittedly no Viennese ballroom in the early 90s, when the UN peacekeeping mission went belly-up. But so one-sided was Ridley Scott’s account of one bad-tempered afternoon there, the entire urban infrastructure seems to exist solely to spew out a 28 Days Later-like stream of AK-toting fanatics who’ve been waiting all their lives to tear off a piece of a helicopter rotor. Another little-known Mogadishu fact unearthed by Scott: unusually for a city in the midst of the famously homogenous Horn of Africa gene pool, it is entirely populated by people from other parts of Africa. Paris (Irréversible) Hub of the Enlightenment, city of romance, home of button-cute Amélie Poulain – all rendered null and void as Gaspar Noé reduces the Paris street map to one sulphurous red underpass and forces us to watch nine minutes of rape and battery. Everyone would have settled for some unconvincing, Daft Punk-soundtracked mime instead. After that, it’s an impossibly long road back to heaven in his metaphysical journey through one night out in the capital. Romania (The Romanian new wave) This artistic vanguard swept the cobwebs of Transylvanian gothic cool away and, in a series of bleak but devastating noughties films, made the eastern European country known for something else: being a traumatised, towerblock-palisaded post-commie fiefdom in which if you weren’t literally dying (The Death of Mr Lazarescu), you could while away your allotted span on earth hunting down a backstreet abortion (4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days), denying your sexuality in a convent (Beyond the Hills), or suffering slow bureaucratic strangulation (Police, Adjective). Slovakia (Hostel) American xenophobia is a well-trodden story route, but Eli Roth really ran with it in the 2005 film that inaugurated the movie genre known as torture porn. Of course the whole of the European hospitality industry is some kind of sinister conspiratorial network designed to entrap gullible fratboy backpackers. Where else but darkest newly capitalistic eastern Europe, trafficking in every base human impulse, would host a sinister white-collar murder ring? Naturally one of the participants bears a striking resemblance to a famously unhinged Japanese director: pass me the cheesewire, eh, Miike? Bruges (In Bruges) “If I grew up on a farm, and was retarded, Bruges might impress me, but I didn’t, so it doesn’t.” Thanks to writer/director Martin McDonagh’s un-PC exuberance, Colin Farrell tramples all over chocolate-box Belgium; a heritage honeypot so boring that it appeals only to the unhinged inner child in Ralph Fiennes’ warbly-voiced psychopath mobster. “How can fucking swans not fucking be someone’s fucking thing?” How indeed. • Grimsby is released on 24 February.
Arsène Wenger pleased Arsenal now have the experience to win ugly Plan B. For so many years, that concept was lobbed at Arsène Wenger come times of trouble in accusing tones. Plan B was the thing that Arsenal did not have and, on the occasions when their passing game did not click, when their creativity was squeezed, when their fluency dried up, Plan B taunted them by its very absence. In the last couple of matches Arsenal have needed something from the Plan B school. These were games three and four of the mini-series over Christmas and new year where tiredness, the lack of options to rotate because of injuries and a hint of knocked momentum inflicted by that 4-0 thumping at Southampton, meant Arsenal were not at their best. In both games the breakthrough came from a defender, whose determination to make a difference from a set piece paved the way for three precious points. After Gabriel powered in a header against Bournemouth Laurent Koscielny bounded into position to give Arsenal the edge over Newcastle. Wenger is not the type naturally to love a game that depends on dredging up reserves of effort. But his satisfaction was obvious at the end of a hard-fought victory because of everything it told him about the spirit of his team. “You fight, not to concede a goal, not panic and wait for your chance. We were more questioned on that aspect than the way we play football so it is good sometimes to win like that. Watching Newcastle I was impressed by them,” noted Wenger. “I think a team has always a charisma. If you look at the team as a unit, it is like a person. From the vibes coming out you can sense if there is something in there or not.” He feels there is more in there now than with the younger teams he had in recent years. “In my job if you don’t believe in your team you are in a bad shape,” he says. “I think they are more experienced now. When we moved into the stadium here, on the day we could play everybody off the park but, when you had to dig deep, come out with your knowledge and your experience, it was a bit more difficult.” With the exception of Héctor Bellerín (aged 20) and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain (22) the average age of the rest of Arsenal’s starting XI against Newcastle was 29. They needed plenty of collective knowhow to withstand some exciting moments from Newcastle, who broke with verve at times, before finding their decisive goal. There was promising movement and a cluster of chances were created when the attacking trio of Moussa Sissoko, Georginio Wijnaldum and Ayoze Pérez roaming behind Aleksandar Mitrovic got into their stride. Newcastle have to cling to the positive signs but at some stage soon they need to add a ruthless edge. Steve McClaren put on a brave face afterwards but it was not easy to take another harsh example of how performances do not always get rewarded in the hard currency of Premier League points. “We just have got to keep performing like that and keep believing, even though we keep getting knock-backs, especially in the last three games,” he said. “I cannot fault the players or their attitudes. The last three games we have lost 1-0 and had good chances to score first but we’ve not. That is why we have lost them. If we had had Olivier Giroud, I think we would have comfortably won the game. “That’s the difference in football and everybody is always searching for that. Papiss Cissé, who is a goalscorer, is out for the next two or three months. We have got other goalscorers – we have just got to step to the plate and start scoring. Doing our job.” Newcastle are actively searching for striking reinforcements in the winter transfer window. “We have been working behind the scenes. We will do tirelessly,” added McClaren. Rather like Wenger – albeit in rather different circumstances – McClaren is counting on the spirit he likes the look of to carry his team in the right direction. Man of the match Petr Cech (Arsenal)
Consumer watchdog warns against 2018 deadline for PPI claims The City regulator’s plan to set a 2018 deadline for payment protection insurance claims is “ill-judged” and would set a dangerous precedent, according to consumer body Which? Last year the Financial Conduct Authority set out plans to impose a two-year time limit on PPI claims, drawing a line under the financial industry’s costliest mis-selling scandal. By the end of 2015 the total amount set aside by the big five banks for PPI compensation had reached £32bn, with more than £3bn paid out to customers last year alone, prompting Which? to claim that the scandal “is far from over”. The FCA said it would run an advertising campaign to encourage customers to bring forward any remaining claims. But Which? said a two-year time limit would “result in banks having little incentive to pay out compensation swiftly and directly to consumers in any future mis-selling scandals”. The consumer body added: “It is clear that banks should do more to make their processes for handling PPI complaints simpler and fairer.” The consumer body said that before the FCA goes ahead with any proposals for a time limit, it should bring in a simpler process for making a claim, with banks required to accept complaints electronically. It should also tighten up the regulation of claims management companies, making directors personally accountable if firms break the rules relating to nuisance calls. The FCA also called for the publication of more information about how firms have handled claims to date, the amount of redress outstanding, and how the FCA will judge the time limit to be a success.
Mark Noble counts his spot luck as West Ham see off bullish Burnley The demeanour was no less hangdog, but Slaven Bilic’s words were upbeat at last as he was able to celebrate a rare home Premier League victory. Mark Noble’s first-half goal, tucking away the rebound of his own saved penalty, earned West Ham three points in an unremarkable but unrelenting encounter with Burnley in which the home side dominated the first half only for the visitors to spring back in the second. “It’s a very important and a very hard-fought three points,” Bilic said after the match. “It was a very long game. I think we deserved it. There were two different halves. In the first it was all us, we hit the post twice and we had many shots. Not many clear-cut chances but we controlled the game. We had two penalty appeals, one was given, and I think we should have been two up.” His summary was spot on. West Ham recorded 72% possession in the first half but, even with Andy Carroll restored to the starting lineup, failed to open up a resolute Burnley backline. That was not necessarily a disaster for a team with West Ham’s skill set, however, so well stocked are they with long-range shooters, and both Pedro Obiang and Noble duly hit the woodwork from distance before half-time. The goal came in injury time in the first half and from a Dimitri Payet corner, after the Frenchman, who lasted the full 90 mintues, found Carroll with his cross. The forward’s header went straight towards Tom Heaton, but the Burnley keeper seemed to be impeded by Michail Antonio and could not get to the ball. Instead it bounced back into the path of Winston Reid and, unwilling to give him a shooting opportunity, Ben Mee pulled the New Zealander to the ground. The referee, Robert Madley, awarded the penalty and Noble turned it in at the second attempt after his first was well saved by Heaton. For Sean Dyche it was a goal that should never have been given. “It was a clear foul on Tom Heaton,” said the Burnley manager of Antonio’s block. “It’s very frustrating. Every other keeper goes on his back, flails around on the floor and it’s given. Because ours do it the proper way … now we’re called naive. You know, it used to be applauded when you played the game properly.” After a digression into the history of challenges on goalkeepers – “It’s not 1972 any more, not that I’m old enough to remember that” – Dyche went on to praise his side for their second-half improvement and declared himself disappointed not to be leaving with a point. “We had three big, big chances in the second half,” Dyche said. “Sam Vokes should have scored from a header, Andre Gray was an inch away from connecting in the six-yard box and Michael Keane had a chance from a set play. The clarity came back in the second half. We work hard, try to win every game and there’s been some good signs [in our away form].” Next up for Burnley are Spurs at White Hart Lane on Sunday. West Ham, meanwhile, welcome Hull City to the London Stadium and, after Wednesday night, the chance to secure back-to-back wins. But after speaking last week of his side’s need for a “clean sheet mentality”, Bilic believes his team must also shake off the mental “cramp” that afflicted them in the second half here. “I praised the players: the spirit, the mentality the clean sheet, all of that,” he said. “But I saw the cramp, the fear of winning. That cramp can only go away with climbing up the table but we managed it today and hopefully this should put us in a position that on Saturday we go in with less of that cramp and more confidence.”
Could Margot Robbie's all-female superhero movie be DC's trump card? Angry Comics Guy is no newcomer to geek culture. You may have met him in an online forum, berating female cosplayers for dressing “sluttily” while defending the right of comic book artists to paint female superheroes with overly sexualised body shapes. He might be hanging around the comments section of an article on the latest X-Men movie, pointing out the differences between the film adaptation and its original print incarnation. But the version of Angry Comics Guy who’s been most prominent in recent weeks has been the DC Comics fan who simply refuses to accept the many failings of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. The critics are being paid to promote movies from rival studio Marvel, he cries. Zack Snyder has been unfairly dismissed because his peculiar brand of violent, visceral (yet strangely humourless) film-making does not fit the media’s view of how comic book movies should look in the post-Avengers era. Marvel’s own take on the superhero smackdown movie, Captain America: Civil War, has been unfairly painted as a masterpiece when it’s really just over-hyped trash. The good news is that Angry Comics Guy (DC fan version) may soon have good reason to stop getting so upset. Because for every Warner Bros-produced movie that looks a bit like Batman v Superman, there seems to be one that looks a whole lot more like David Ayer’s hugely anticipated Suicide Squad. And if you believe a new story from the Hollywood Reporter, it’s only going to get better. According to the site, Margot Robbie is keen to follow up her debut as Harley Quinn in the comic book ensemble with her own outing as the Joker’s colourful paramour, backed by a plethora of female heroes and villains from the DC universe such as Batgirl, Birds of Prey, Poison Ivy, Katana and Bumblebee. Why is this such a big win for DC fans? For a start, it’s a sign that Warner might be waking up to the real strength of the DC back catalogue, to titles born in the 90s rather than the 40s and 50s, to the female-focused stories of the hugely popular DC SuperHero Girls line rather than endlessly regurgitated Batman and Superman tales. This, after all, is an area where DC has shown itself to be ahead of the curve in print, via groundbreaking series such as the 2011 reintroduction of Batgirl as a post-paraplegic Barbara Gordon. The news also comes on the same day that Iron Man 3 director Shane Black accused unnamed Marvel bosses of refusing him permission to use a female villain in the Robert Downey Jr blockbuster for fear of losing out on toy sales. It’s a strange story, because the character who ended up as the bad guy – Aldrich Killian, played by Guy Pearce – is pretty much unavailable as a toy. Perhaps Marvel at one point hoped to sell Mandarin playthings, since Killian ends up being exposed as Iron Man’s traditional nemesis in the movie, but the decision still seems bizarre on all counts. On the other hand, this is the same company that swapped out Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow for Captain America when selling toys based on a key motorbike scene in last year’s Avengers: Age of Ultron. Black makes it clear in his comments that the Marvel executive responsible for defeminizing Iron Man 3 (Rebecca Hall’s Maya Hansen is also said to have lost lines) was not Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige. But the revelations will still heap pressure on the Disney-owned unit to prove it doesn’t have a problem with women. So far, the only female-led superhero movie on Marvel’s forthcoming slate is 2019’s Captain Marvel. Still, no director has been named, and the studio hasn’t yet announced who will play the hero otherwise known as Carol Danvers. Only last week, Feige hinted that a Johansson-led Black Widow movie is top of the studio’s wishlist. Yet Marvel has greenlit eight movies led by male superheroes for debut between now and 2020, so why the holdup on confirming concrete plans for one of its more popular costumed titans? Meanwhile, it looks like Warner’s DC-based universe might be ready to steal a march. The studio recently wrapped on Patty Jenkins’ Wonder Woman, with Israeli actor Gal Gadot reprising her popular turn from Dawn of Justice, and now looks set to make Robbie’s sweetly poisonous Quinn the mainstay of future films before we’ve even seen more than a few clips from Suicide Squad. Let’s hope Warner has seen Ayer’s movie and knows it has a hit on its hands – though that was also the ultimately failed theory about Batman v Superman. The veteran geek blogger Drew McWeeny recently published a powerful cri de coeur calling on Marvel and DC Comics fans to stop their petty squabbling and learn to enjoy the sheer breadth of comic book stories currently making their way to the big screen. From this perspective, elevating Quinn to centre stage in the DC ’verse is surely just as exciting a development as Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool smashing R-rated records for 20th Century Fox, or Tom Holland’s Spider-Man stealing scenes like a boss in Civil War. The future is looking both bright and diverse, and DC suddenly looks ready to lead the way by stepping into uncharted territory where its rivals fear to tread. Surely even Angry Comics Guy ought to be happy about that.
New test 'detects genes for every known inherited heart condition' A blood test has been created that can detect all known inherited heart condition genes, boosting the prospects of diagnosing potentially fatal defects, the British Heart Foundation (BHF) said. By identifying 174 genes related to 17 inherited heart defects, which affect more than half a million people in the UK and are often the cause of unexplained sudden deaths, the assessment should help people obtain appropriate treatment. The research, published in the Journal of Cardiovascular Translational Research on Friday, has already led to the test being introduced at Royal Brompton and Harefield NHS foundation trust – where about 40 patients a month are being assessed for an inherited heart condition (IHC). The hope is that it will eventually be adopted by NHS labs across the country. Dr James Ware, one of the lead researchers on the study at Imperial College London and the MRC Clinical Sciences Centre, said: “It’s really hard to overstate the importance of genetic testing when you’re managing a family with IHCs. “I often will find a young father or mother having recently lost their partner to an IHC and worried that their children will be next. Ware, who also a consultant cardiologist at Royal Brompton hospital, added: “There’s almost no way I can prove their children don’t have the condition because even if they don’t now they could develop it later. But if you can do a genetic test it becomes very easy to say ‘you’re at risk’ or ‘you’re absolutely clear’.” The research, funded by the BHF and the Health Innovation Challenge Fund grant – a partnership between the Department of Health and the Wellcome Trust – was the result of an international collaboration between UK and Singaporean researchers. The test is cheaper and more effective than existing assessments, which look at a smaller number of genes and only identify specific conditions. Ware said it also has the benefit of being “off the shelf” so that other experts can develop it. This means that as other genes are identified as being linked to IHCs, they too can be incorporated into the test. IHCs affect the heart and circulatory system, are passed down through families and can affect people of any age. Last year, Sir David Frost’s son Miles died, aged 31, having not been told he was at risk from the congenital heart condition hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM), believed to be inherited from his father. Last month his family launched a fund in Miles’s memory, aiming to to raise £1.5m to ensure that genetic testing for immediate family members of those affected by HCM is available nationwide. Diagnosing the exact condition and gene causing an IHC are key to effective treatment. If effective, genetic testing on family members can identify those who carry the faulty gene and steps can be taken to reduce the risk of sudden death, such as surgery, medication – for example beta blockers – or lifestyle changes. Prof Peter Weissberg, medical director at the BHF, said: “In this rapidly evolving field of research the aim is to achieve ever greater diagnostic accuracy at ever-reducing cost. “This research represents an important step along this path. It means that a single test may be able to identify the causative gene mutation in someone with an inherited heart condition thereby allowing their relatives to be easily tested for the same gene.”
Tech must offer hope to all, not a privileged few In July President Barack Obama addressed the national convention of the Democratic Party and ended perhaps the last great speech of his tenure by returning to the theme of “the audacity of hope”. Stark dividing lines have been drawn in the US election contest between hope and fear, between a yearning for simpler times and a belief that the best is yet to come. It is not hard to draw a parallel with some of Britain’s own political challenges; the tension between those excited by a more global and connected future and those who fear being left behind in this brave new world. Much has been written about how to make globalisation work for all, and a solution remains elusive. A challenge we can meaningfully wrestle with as an industry is how we make an increasingly connected society work for the many, making technology a source of hope, not a source of anxiety and exclusion. The internet has arguably been one of the most powerful forces for democratisation the world has ever known, giving a voice and opening a market to many who were previously disenfranchised. Platforms from TXTBKS, which provides old sim cards into condensed text books for underprivileged schoolchildren to crisis-mapping software Ushahidi show the potential of the simplest technologies to make major differences. Yet within our own society we have been slow to make innovation relevant and accessible to those most apprehensive about or underserved by new technologies, to tackle real, everyday problems such as access to credit, access to a GP within an overloaded NHS, or access to meaningful roles within a fast-changing labour market. The fintech industry for example can often seem preoccupied with wooing millennials with slick data visualisations and effortless mobile transactions. Yet 1.5 million adults in the UK do not have access to a bank account – while 1.8 million a year access payday loans in the absence of more affordable credit. With high street branches closing at ever faster rates, the digital banking revolution can exclude those most in need of assistance. Yet the technology exists to make access to banking services and credit possible without access to a traditional bank account. Services such as Kenya’s MPesa enable any user with access to a mobile phone to deposit and transfer funds, no bank account required. Meanwhile almost half of finance executives surveyed believe blockchain technology will mean “the end of banking as we know it”, creating entirely new models for the transfer of funds. How then can we apply these technologies to providing accessible and affordable credit to those in immediate need, or to ensuring urgent benefit payments are as swiftly available as possible? In the realm of healthcare, private enterprises in the US are applying the Uber model to medicine via apps such as Heal and Pager which identify the nearest doctor, their ratings and reputation and their price for a real-time consultation. Could we apply the same principle to clusters of local surgeries within the NHS, enabling patients to identify the nearest available appointment to them, dynamically updated to take account of changes and cancellations? Once hailed as an empowering force for change, the gig economy has come under fire in recent months over working conditions and the status of workers. Perhaps a more equitable and interesting approach is to ask how traditional infrastructure and traditional roles can be re-purposed – meeting the needs of the on-demand economy in a different way. Pass my Parcel, a venture from distribution firm Smiths News, works with independent local stores to facilitate same day delivery on behalf of Amazon. Retailers receive a small fee for each parcel collected, and increased footfall in store while Amazon receive an increased footprint for same-day delivery services. New technology leveraging traditional infrastructure. In a similar vein, The School in the Cloud takes advantage of dormant skills in retirees to facilitate remote learning among some of the world’s most underprivileged children, tapping into a resource that might otherwise be unused and undervalued. Yet there is no reason a similar principle cannot be applied more broadly. Imagine the impact on an over-burdened education system of thousands of retired teachers, craftspeople, scientists or writers signing up to provide even an hour or two of virtual tuition a week. In a nutshell, imagine a world where we stop designing products and services with young, urban and affluent populations at the forefront of our minds. They won’t mind – they’ve got Pokemon to catch. The opportunity is to design services that are simple, scalable and solve real problems; so how do we make it a reality? The team behind Gov.uk have done an extraordinary job in making it simpler to access government information and services. Is the next phase of that journey to move beyond making existing services accessible and towards developing new service propositions? Or can the private sector lead the way, re-engineering the on-demand economy to be not just egalitarian but genuinely fair for both workers and consumers? Either way, there is a genuine opportunity for the tech community to prove that it is not a “liberal elite” designing for fellow liberal elites but a community committed to making technology a force for hope, not just a force for change. As the founding father of the web once put itas he live-tweeted during the London 2012 Olympics, “This is for everyone”. Patricia McDonald is chief strategy officer at Isobar To get weekly news analysis, job alerts and event notifications direct to your inbox, sign up free for Media & Tech Network membership. All Media & Tech Network content is editorially independent except for pieces labelled “Paid for by” – find out more here.
Health chiefs warn of 'reckless’ cuts in student nurse funding Britain’s major health organisations have called on the government to put a stop to “reckless” plans to reform student nurse funding in the current climate of uncertainty and NHS staff shortages. Led by the Royal College of Nursing, the British Medical Association, the Royal College of General Practitioners and the Patients Association, a coalition of more than 20 charities, medical and professional bodies and trade unions today releases an open letter to David Cameron saying that moves to drop funding for student nurses and midwives are an “untested gamble”. Currently open to a 12-week consultation, which closes on 30 June, the proposals include dropping bursaries to support nurses during their training and switching them to student loans – something health experts warn will risk reducing the supply of future nurses, midwives and other health workers when they are desperately needed. They are asking the prime minister to fully consider the impact on patient care in England. Training for nurses had been treated differently to other higher and further education courses precisely to help reverse the shortages. The organisations highlight the “worrying lack of clarity or consultation about the effect that funding changes could have on those who need to train for more advanced or specialist roles, such as health visitors or district nurses”. It comes as an RCN survey points to a dramatic fall in the number of school nurses, with almost a third working unpaid overtime every day to keep up with their workload. In figures released for its national conference this weekend, the RCN said its research showed the number of school nursing posts had fallen by 10% since 2010, leaving 2,700 school nurses now caring for more than nine million pupils, despite a rising incidence in issues, especially in mental health, among children. More than two-thirds (68%) of those surveyed said there were insufficient school nursing services in their area to provide the support that children and young people need, 70% said their workload was too heavy, and 28% work over their contracted hours on a daily basis. More than a third (39%) said they had insufficient resources to do their jobs effectively. An average of at least three children in every classroom now suffer from a mental health problem. Janet Davies, chief executive of the RCN, said: “There are huge variations in care across the country and far too many vulnerable children are not getting the support they need. School nurses have the skills and experience to provide a wide range of mental health support, from counselling to promoting healthy lifestyles. But there are too few, and they are too stretched. All children deserve access to the right care, in the right place, at the right time. Only by investing in school nursing and wider mental health services can this crisis be tackled and children be given the best chance of leading happy and healthy lives.” About 0.7% of NHS funding is spent on young people’s mental health, and 23% of young people asking for help are being turned away from local mental health services. A government spokesman said: “We are putting a record £1.4bn into transforming the support available to young people in every area of the country. This funding will help recruit more staff and create improved training that school nurses can access. We are working with NHS England to strengthen the links between schools and mental health services through a £3m pilot, and are investing £1.5m on developing peer-support networks in schools.” The Department of Health said: “Our plans mean up to 10,000 more training places by the end of this parliament, with student nurses getting around 25% more financial support while they study.” But health professionals say in their letter that plans to switch to loans “could disproportionately affect more mature students, women, students with children and those who already have a degree, people who have always made up an important part of the NHS workforce. “Many will be unwilling or unable to take on even more debt. These plans are a short-sighted attempt to solve a long-term and complicated problem. They have not been properly risk-assessed and continuing with them as they stand would be nothing short of reckless.”
Why I've seen Star Wars: The Force Awakens seven times Until recently, the film I had seen most often at the cinema was James Cameron’s Avatar, of which I cranked out six viewings in the sweltering Melbourne summer of 2009 when I was without an air conditioner (and also because I love the film; more on that later). But that record was toppled on Wednesday when I watched JJ Abrams’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens for the seventh time (I expect I’ll tap out at eight). Poetically, the following day the ongoing space opera nabbed another, arguably more momentous win over Avatar, as the all-time champion of the US box office. For those keeping track of my viewing habits, so far the tally has consisted of one “Vmax” session (at 12:01am on 17 December – first in the country), three “Xtreme Screen” sessions, two Imax viewings and even one in a plain old, ordinary movie theatre. Seeing a film multiple times at the cinema isn’t born of some sort of Starship Troopers-esque “I’m doing my part” approach to fandom, whereby I have to “help” the film succeed. (Indeed, I’m fairly certain The Force Awakens will be OK even if I’d seen it a sum total of none times.) It’s more about taking the time to fully appreciate a film on every level. My list of most-seen films isn’t necessarily heavy on blockbusters, anyway. (To get semantical for a moment, in my books you “see” a movie at the cinema and you “watch” a film at home.) Yes, there’s The Force Awakens (7+) and Avatar (6), but there’s also Inglourious Basterds (5), American Hustle (4), Pineapple Express (4, three of which were within 48 hours and not in any way fuelled by secret herbs and spices, ahem) and A Prophet (3), among others. My approach varies from film to film, but tends to unfold something like this: the first screening is for the immediate emotional reaction, then I return to take in the plot, unfettered by the stress of wondering what’s going to happen. (A 2011 study by UC San Diego researchers demonstrated that people enjoyed stories more when they had the endings “spoiled”, so my approach is backed up by hard science, clearly.) Contrary to popular thought, the emotional impact of a film isn’t lessened over multiple screenings; if anything, it starts to emerge in unexpected ways as you sit back and let the film wash over you (again and again). Once I’m on top of the plot, it’s time to relax and choose a different thing to explore each time: what’s happening in the background? What are the production design details I missed? If it’s a film I might want to recreate a costume from, what specifics can I pick up about seams, zips, pleats, weathering or fabric? Don’t believe me? Having now seen The Force Awakens more times than it’s had major premiere events, I can tell you that the meal Rey is eating at Maz Kanata’s tavern looks like a halved horned melon stuffed with a romanesco broccoli floret and a sprig of dill, and that Rey’s tabard is pleated, not draped, and tacked in place over the shoulders. Also, Kylo Ren’s sleeves have a zipper at the seam. You’re welcome! Indeed, I stopped wearing my Rey costume to see The Force Awakens after the fourth screening because I was beginning to get horrifically embarrassed about its lack of screen accuracy (in my defence, I did make it for the Melbourne premiere with only the trailers and posters as my guide). Screen accuracy is in the eye of the beholder, however, and it didn’t stop little girls from rushing up to me for photos in the candy bar or whispering “it’s Rey” as they passed me on the escalators. Primarily, however, my tendency to see films a bunch in cinemas is precisely that: because films are made to be seen in cinemas. That might seem a hopelessly old-fashioned statement in an era where we can watch Netflix on our phones, but really: are you totes pumped for The Force Awakens to hit Blu-ray so you can watch it in bed? Was Avatar really better on your iPad? Did Robert Richardson’s exquisite cinematography sing when you watched Inglourious Basterds on your laptop while having a bath? The answer to all of those, as I’ve done them all, is “Yeah, kinda”, but I do still believe in the sanctity of the cinema and the transformative and transporting nature of movie-going. My preferred cinema experience is 7pm or so on “tightarse Tuesday” because the crowd isn’t stunned into depressed silence by having to spend $25 per ticket and can instead relax into the film. It reminds me of my time in the United States, where ticket prices are cheaper (at one screening in Lafayette, Los Angeles, the tickets were $5) and going to the movies is still an everyday activity for many. At this week’s Tuesday session of Joy, during a crucial scene, audience members craned their necks, perched literally on the edge of their seats and whispered “NO!” and “Don’t do it!” That was my second screening of Joy; I’ll be going back again to better appreciate Judy Becker’s production design, which makes every scene look as though it’s happening inside Joy’s shoebox full of dreams. I’ll let you know if the crowd gets into it again. As for The Force Awakens, well, it’s possible the tally might continue to climb. I might pop back to Imax, get a closer look at that pleating, or duck in for a lunchtime cheap Tuesday session and revel in that first close up of Oscar Isaac’s preposterously handsome face. Really, it all depends on my friends and family. After all, if someone asks you, “Hey, wanna go see Star Wars?” there’s only really one correct answer, and it sure as hell isn’t “No thanks”.
Amazon Fresh food deliveries 'to start this month in UK' Amazon is believed to be planning to start delivering fresh food in the UK this month, stepping up the pressure on traditional supermarkets. The online retailer is understood to have been testing fresh food deliveries from its depot in east London and to have asked suppliers to begin deliveries in the next few weeks. One supplier of chilled meals, Bol, told trade magazine the Grocer that its salad bowls would be launching on Amazon Fresh on 18 May. Amazon is expected to ramp up its food business after appointing Doug Gurr, the boss of its Chinese business and a former Asda executive, to run its UK operations. Gurr takes over this month from Chris North, who has quit the company. Gurr has extensive experience of running online food businesses. In his four and a half years at Asda, he was responsible for strategy, logistics and online operations. The arrival of Amazon Fresh, which has been operating in the US for about seven years, comes after the online business signed a deal with British supermarket Morrisons. The Bradford-based chain has agreed to wholesale ambient, fresh and frozen products to Amazon despite already operating its own website in partnership with Ocado. Last September Amazon began selling frozen items via its Prime Now one-hour delivery service, which is offered in big cities including London and Manchester. That followed the expansion of the Amazon Pantry service, which enables shoppers to fill a box of grocery items from a range of 4,000 household products, including big brands such as Kellogg’s, Ariel, Colgate and Kronenbourg. Fresh and frozen food is not sold via Pantry. Amazon’s latest move comes as Sainsbury’s finalises its tie-up with Argos, the multi-channel retailer – a move seen as a way to fight off future competition from the online retailer. Analysts are hoping the supermarket will reveal more about its plans for the the £1.4bn takeover alongside its annual results on Wednesday. Sainsbury’s has already stepped up its online activity since Mike Coupe took over as chief executive in July 2014. On Tuesday, the company said it planned to double the number of stores where shoppers could collect groceries ordered online from a “drive-through” site in the car park. The supermarket launched its click-and-collect groceries service in March 2015 and plans to have 200 sites in a year’s time, up from 100 at present. Robbie Feather, Sainsbury’s director of online, said: “Click and collect is proving to be a popular hybrid between online shopping and visiting a store, especially among shoppers juggling work and looking after young children.” Sainsbury’s is also hiring 150 more digital and technology experts to help improve its online store. The supermarket had already more than doubled its digital and technology staff in the past year, hiring 480 workers as it fends off rising competition from Amazon as well as the UK’s dominant online grocer Tesco.
The Greasy Strangler review – tiresome shock tactics Where to start with this one? Like an early John Waters movie but without the sophistication, this aggressively inane horror comedy manages to cram in every disgusting, deviant activity you couldn’t begin to imagine. And yet, it’s still rather boring. All jarring discords, freakish genitals and a desperate need to shock, this is a singularly tiresome viewing experience. The plot, such as it is, focuses on the romantic rivalry between a father and son who both fall for the same woman on a disco walking tour of downtown LA. A film with literally no redeeming features.
Jeremy Corbyn turns to grassroots after bruising day ends with Labour in turmoil It was an extraordinarily bruising day but Jeremy Corbyn was just about still standing as Labour leader as he addressed thousands of supporters in Parliament Square on Monday evening. He had just come from a brutal meeting of his parliamentary party, where MP after MP called on him to step down, some shouting and some close to tears. They had trailed into a meeting room in the Palace of Westminster for 6pm on Monday with sombre faces, while a pack of up to 100 journalists waited outside flanked by police and door staff. Corbyn began by calling for party unity and making clear that he would not be standing down. Several of his supporters spoke up to back his formation of a new shadow cabinet, after a wave of 40 resignations from his top team over the course of Sunday and Monday. But then came the onslaught from Labour MPs including many who had never publicly attacked him before. Robert Flello, a low-profile and previously uncritical backbencher, was the first to demand that he go. “For your sake, but most importantly for the people who need a Labour government, do the decent thing,” he said. The calls kept coming, with Clive Efford saying: “Search inside yourself and ask if the electorate really think you are a prime minister because I don’t really think you are.” Another intervention came from Helen Goodman, who said: “Much as I like you on a personal level, you can’t offer leadership.” Chris Matheson was cheered for saying he had won a swing seat from the Tories, unlike Barry Gardiner, the newly appointed shadow energy minister, who was booed for trying to defend Corbyn. MPs also shouted at the leader that he should deal with concerns of Ian Murray, who resigned as shadow Scotland secretary on Sunday. Murray urged the leader to “call off the dogs” in reference to Momentum members protesting outside his constituency office. Corbyn said he had called out abusive behaviour but MPs shouted: “They’re outside,” in reference to the gathered crowd. But the biggest cheer of the evening came for Alan Johnson’s intervention, as the leader of Labour’s remain campaign criticised Corbyn’s failure to throw his full weight behind the effort to stay in the EU. Johnson said he took responsibility and Corbyn should share in that. Unmoved by the weight of criticism, Corbyn summed up in front of his furious party, making it clear he intended to carry on with his new team. The meeting broke up for MPs to vote, but afterwards several were openly briefing against Corbyn in the corridor outside about the usually private meeting. Others stormed off saying they were too angry to talk. Bryant said it was a “battle for the soul of the Labour party. The writing on the wall is eight metres high and if he can’t see it he needs to go to Specsavers,” he added. Another Labour MP, Ian Austin, said it was not just the usual suspects calling for Corbyn to go. “The overwhelming number of speakers were critical of Jeremy and saying he should stand down,” he added. “I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s a big moment for the Labour party.” Waiting across the corridor with a briefing of their own were two Labour spokesmen, who acknowledged most of the speakers were hostile but took issue with the idea that the majority of MPs were against him. “He is not going to concede to a corridor coup or backroom deal that tries to pressure him out. It is all about whispering corridors, meeting together and people resigning from the appointed posts,” he said. Tensions were running high as another aide made clear: “There is one way if people want to change the leadership of the Labour party, that is to get the names to stand a candidate and mount a challenge and have an election. Jeremy will be a candidate. This is irrelevant. All the resignations are a sideshow. If people have confidence they can win a leadership election, they can mount that challenge. If they are avoiding that, maybe they don’t have that confidence.” The huddle of aides and journalists only broke up as Corbyn’s spokesman, Kevin Slocombe, was confronted by John Woodcock, Labour MP for Barrow and a serial rebel. “It is extraordinary you stand and slag us off to the media, while we’re supposed to have a private meeting. You were saying it in front of all these people, this won’t be the end of it,” Woodcock said. “You are an unelected official, standing outside, briefing the media, giving a highly distorted account.” It was a dramatic culmination of tensions after the past few days had seen the Labour leader sack his foreign secretary, Hilary Benn, for plotting a coup and 20 further resignations by shadow cabinet ministers who no longer had confidence in him. Corbyn was holding firm against the rebels on Sunday night, saying he would fight as a candidate in any leadership election to replace him. But things were about to get significantly worse. The steady stream of resignations over the course of Monday led one MP to compare Corbyn’s task to trying to fill a bath without a plug. Undeterred, the Labour party press office sent out an email early in the morning announcing the promotion of Emily Thornberry to shadow foreign secretary and Diane Abbott to shadow health secretary, plus a raft of other loyalists – many only elected a year ago – to key jobs. Corbyn had just left his home surrounded by journalists and police for a meeting with Tom Watson, the deputy leader, who was widely expected to apply pressure for him to go. This took place at 9am and differing accounts began to emerge. On the leader’s side, it was described as cordial and calm, with no hint that Corbyn should resign. Watson’s camp agreed that the deputy leader had stopped short of calling for his head but claimed he had informed Corbyn that the party did not have confidence in his leadership. All eyes were now on a few senior shadow cabinet ministers who had not yet shown their hands but were considered potential leadership challengers. Rumours abounded that Lisa Nandy, the shadow energy secretary, was being set up as the rival candidate. But she soon released a joint letter with Owen Smith, the shadow work and pensions secretary, saying that they were stepping down and calling for Watson to be caretaker leader. They were joined by Nia Griffith, Kate Green, John Healey – all considered on the soft left of the party and previously part of the “make it work brigade” who were willing to give Corbyn’s leadership a chance. The group had met Corbyn together on Monday morning claiming that they wanted to make it work but felt compelled to resign after it became clear the leader was unable to form an inclusive shadow cabinet. According to one source at the meeting, the MPs were angered that John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, “barged in” and started answering questions addressed to Corbyn himself. The damage kept coming as Chris Bryant, who had resigned as shadow leader of the House of Commons, revealed that Corbyn had refused to confirm that he voted to remain in the EU, saying it was not the issue at hand. This was dismissed as an attempt to destabilise the party by those close to Corbyn. Within the hour, Angela Eagle, the shadow business secretary and her sister Maria, the shadow secretary for culture, media and sport, had also gone. Angela then gave a teary interview to the BBC’s World at One programme expressing her sorrow at having to resign in such circumstances. “With deep regret, and after nine months of trying to make it work, I have today resigned from the shadow cabinet,” she said. Corbyn’s allies had by now conceded that another leadership election was likely in which he goes head to head with another candidate. But a row over whether he will need nominations from colleagues was brewing, as the rival sides both believe they have legal advice supporting their case. Despite the drama, there was still business to be carried out in the House of Commons but Clive Lewis, the newly appointed shadow defence secretary, was on his way back from Glastonbury festival and Thornberry had to step in to cover her old brief at defence questions. Meanwhile, Luciana Berger, the shadow mental health secretary and candidate to be Labour’s Liverpool mayoral candidate, was the last in a spate of shadow cabinet resignations at 2.18pm, but more junior ones followed from Jack Dromey to Keir Starmer. That left just Rosie Winterton, the chief whip, and Jonathan Ashworth, a shadow cabinet office minister, undeclared about their positions. In the face of continuing turmoil, the Labour leader headed to the House of Commons to tackle Cameron at the despatch box, as the outgoing prime minister explained the timetable for dealing with Brexit. Corbyn spoke to heckles of “resign” from his own side, and taunts from the green benches opposite. Dennis Skinner, the veteran Labour MP for Bolsover, shook the leader of the opposition’s hand as he entered the chamber and made a “V” sign at other backbenchers. The Labour leader paid no heed to the shouts, except to claim that the “country will thank neither the benches in front nor those behind for indulging in internal factional manoeuvring at this time”. This was the leadership’s consistent message to the MPs and then again to the huge rally of supporters in Parliament Square. To chants of “Corbyn, Corbyn, Corbyn”, John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, told the rally from a stage: “Let me make it absolutely clear, Jeremy Corbyn is not resigning.” Corbyn himself appeared just minutes later, telling the crowd he is going nowhere. But on Tuesday he will face a motion of no confidence by secret ballot and any leadership challenger will soon have to come out of the shadows.
The inter-generational theft of Brexit and climate change In last week’s Brexit vote results, there was a tremendous divide between age groups. 73% of voters under the age of 25 voted to remain in the EU, while about 58% over the age of 45 voted to leave. This generational gap is among the many parallels between Brexit and climate change. A 2014 poll found that 74% of Americans under the age of 30 support government policies to cut carbon pollution, as compared to just 58% of respondents over the age of 40, and 52% over the age of 65. Inter-generational theft The problem is of course that younger generations will have to live with the consequences of the decisions we make today for much longer than older generations. Older generations in developed countries prospered as a result of the burning of fossil fuels for seemingly cheap energy. However, we’ve already reached the point where even contrarian economists agree, any further global warming we experience will be detrimental for the global economy. For poorer countries, we passed that point decades ago. A new paper examining climate costs and fossil fuel industry profits for the years 2008–2012 found: For all companies and all years, the economic cost to society of their CO2 emissions was greater than their after‐tax profit, with the single exception of Exxon Mobil in 2008 For much of the time during which developed nations experienced strong economic growth as a result of fossil fuel consumption, we were unaware of the associated climate costs. We can no longer use ignorance as an excuse. And yet the older generations, who experienced the greatest net benefit from carbon pollution, are now the least supportive of taking responsibility to pay for it. The longer we delay, the more devastating the consequences will be for the younger generations. Similarly, today’s youth who are early in their career paths will face the harshest consequences of the Brexit vote that was dominated by older voters. As Jack Lennard put it: This is a final middle-fingered salute to the young from the baby boomer generation. Not content with racking up insurmountable debt, not content with destroying any hopes of sustainable property prices or stable career paths, not content with enjoying the benefits of free education and generous pension schemes before burning down the ladder they climbed up, the baby boomers have given one last turd on the doorstep of the younger generation. And as political journalist Nicholas Barrett said in a comment that subsequently went viral: the younger generation has lost the right to live and work in 27 other countries. We will never know the full extent of the lost opportunities, friendships, marriages and experiences we will be denied. Freedom of movement was taken away by our parents, uncles, and grandparents in a parting blow to a generation that was already drowning in the debts of our predecessors. Thirdly and perhaps most significantly, we now live in a post-factual democracy. A dangerous strain of anti-intellectualism As Barrett noted, during the Brexit campaign, facts seemed useless against the myths propagated by the Leave side. Indeed, Nigel Farage, leader of the right-wing UK Independence Party and Leave campaign has already admitted the key claim that £350 million weekly saving in EU contributions could be spent on health services was utter nonsense – a “mistake,” as he put it. A “mistake” that was conveniently admitted just hours after Brexit votes had been cast and counted. When asked to name a single economist who backed Brexit, justice secretary and another top Leave campaigner Michael Gove said “people in this country have had enough of experts” and later likened those experts to Nazis. Climate denial is based on a similar strain of anti-intellectualism and preponderance of baseless myths. When faced with the reality of a 97% expert consensus on human-caused global warming, many will deny that reality, propagate a number of associated myths, or like Gove, find an excuse to disregard expert opinion and evidence (e.g. by arguing that scientific consensus ‘has been wrong before’). Ultimately it boils down to ideological biases. When the facts and expert conclusions contradict our beliefs, people will often find an excuse to dismiss the evidence and experts. It’s perhaps unsurprising that as DeSmogUK revealed, Gove and many other Leave campaign backers are also climate contrarians. Risk management failure - USA must do better Experts warned of the dangerous consequences that would result from Brexit, but the majority of older voters chose to ignore those risks. Prudent risk management was trumped by ideology, and today’s youth will have to bear the brunt of the consequences. Climate change similarly poses tremendous long-term risks, particularly to younger generations. The UK has thus far been a leader in mitigating those risks, but with the EU exit and potential installment of right-wing climate-denying political leaders, that leadership may be in jeopardy, and the EU’s climate pledges may be compromised. Americans have similarly failed to adequately manage political and climate risks. One of the two dominant US political parties obstructs all efforts to curb carbon pollution, and has also nominated Donald Trump for president: the embodiment of risky behavior. It now falls to the US to do better than the UK. Risk management and the well-being of future generations must trump ideology and fear in the November elections. We simply can’t afford two of the world’s superpowers being dictated by populism and xenophobia at the expense of our youth’s future.
Why would you trust a teen to raise a kid, but not to have an abortion? Dealing with an unplanned and unwanted pregnancy is a difficult experience for anyone. But for teenagers, who have to juggle increasing, and increasingly complicated, financial and legal barriers to abortion access, “difficult” becomes nearly impossible. And it shouldn’t be. For instance, 21 states require parental consent before a teenager can have an abortion; 13 mandate that at least one parent be notified; and five states mandate both consent and notification. States that require parental notification and consent for a teenager to have a child? Zero. Surely if we believe young people are mature enough to parent or responsible enough to carry a baby to term, and thoughtful enough to make the decision to put a baby up for adoption without parental or judicial intervention (though there are five states that require parental involvement if a minor puts a child up for adoption), they should also have to right to decide whether or not to get a 10-minute medical procedure. But lawmakers insist on enacting more and more roadblocks in between a young woman and her ability to choose what the rest of her life will look like. In Texas, for example, new rules governing judicial bypasses for abortion – which allow young people to get permission for an abortion from a judge rather than a parent – went into effect on January 1. The US supreme court has previously ruled that the judicial bypass procedure must be anonymous and expeditious, but the new law in Texas requires teens to give the judge their names and addresses, and removes judicial deadlines from the process. That means that an anti-choice judge could forgo making a decision on whether to allow or prevent a teen’s abortion as long as necessary to ensure it’s too late for her to even get one. Tina Hester, the executive director of Jane’s Due Process, a Texas nonprofit that provides legal counsel to pregnant teens, said in a statement: “judicial bypass protects vulnerable pregnant teens who cannot find or safely turn to a parent, but the legislature and Governor Abbott decided to go after abused and neglected teens by amending this law.” Indeed, multiple studies show that most minors seeking abortions do tell their parents, and those who don’t want to consult their parents often are in fear of physical harm. Sometimes the teenager is a rape victim; sometimes, it’s even their parent or guardian who got the teenager in question pregnant. When governor Abbott was set to sign the new rules into effect last summer, Hester described in the Houston Chronicle some of the young women her organization has helped: a 17-year old college student whose parents had died in a car accident; a minor who feared her religious father would kill her; young women who would be thrown out of their homes should their pregnancies be revealed at all. Having a process that is speedy, private and reasonable-to-navigate is vital for young people who find themselves pregnant and are already fearful and vulnerable. This is especially true because, as a whole, teenagers are more likely to find out about their pregnancies later on than adults do, and if they are to avoid later abortions – which are riskier and more expensive, and which state legislatures often make more difficult to access – they need to be able to obtain services quickly. It is unreasonable and illogical to expect that teens raise children or give birth and put them up for adoption but not be given the option to consider abortion. The desire for parents to be involved in important decisions in their children’s lives is understandable, but parental protectiveness cannot trump a person’s right to her own body and her own future. We should do away with judicial bypasses altogether and let teens decide for themselves whether or not to carry a pregnancy. After all, part of the reason that teens face unwanted pregnancies to begin with is because adults have not served them well: we don’t make birth control accessible and affordable enough for young people, and we teach them ridiculous and false ideas about sex. It is not a coincidence that states that mandate abstinence-only education are also the states with the highest teen pregnancy rates. Policies put in place by adults that know little of their lives do not help young people; allowing them to make informed choices does.
Maxwell returns: my working style is ‘Would Sade or Marvin do this?’ “I wish I was more presentable,” says Maxwell, packaged loosely in a denim jacket and jeans, in a top-floor room in a Manhattan hotel. “I’m post-Prince birthday cake.” The previous night, he was celebrating Prince’s birthday (the first since the pop star’s death in April), marking the life of someone whose work had been crucial to his own musical development. “A lot of what he did was why I felt: ‘Oh, I could be … maybe not like him, but I don’t have to be this cookie cutter …’” His voice trails off. I had seen Maxwell perform just a few days after Prince’s death, at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage festival. He would pause between songs to talk about Prince’s influence on his work. “Everyone on this stage is here because of him,” he told the crowd. In the middle of his cover of Kate Bush’s This Woman’s Work – which he originally recorded in 2001 – he murmured the opening words from Let’s Go Crazy – “Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to get through this thing called life” – with a religious concentration. “It was such a tough show to get through,” he says now. Two weeks after our interview, Maxwell performs Nothing Compares 2 U at the BET awards; on the night, one of the verses mutates from the Prince original – “I went to the record store … Apple, Spotify, too, and they told me / ‘Boy you’d better try to make some music, which you can’t do / ’cause Prince is the truth!’” Prince was a fan of Maxwell, too. He had, apparently, been asking Harry Belafonte why Maxwell was taking so long to follow up 2009’s BLACKsummers’night album. “I’ve known [Prince] for a long time and was shocked that he actually genuinely cared about what I was doing, and why I was taking so long,” Maxwell says. Finally, that new album – blackSUMMERS’night – is out (there will, at some point, be a third album in the series, called blacksummers’NIGHT). But Maxwell does not work quickly. It is 20 years since his debut, Urban Hang Suite, which fitted into the burgeoning neo-soul movement of the time, alongside the crisp debuts of D’Angelo and Erykah Badu. Two more albums followed in relatively good time: Embrya in 1998, and Now in 2001. And then it was an eight-year wait – during which, he said, he took a break from the music industry to become a “full, 100% man” – until BLACKsummers’night, followed by another seven for the new album. “Why does it take so damn long? I would say … anxiety.” Two events paralysed him artistically: turning 40 in 2013, and the success of his previous record. BLACKsummers’night entered the US chart at No 1, while its single Pretty Wings topped the Hot R&B chart for 14 weeks. “I didn’t know [BLACKsummers’night] would be so loved. I had no idea. And now I have to put out something else, and it had better be better. And that can freeze you.” He requires the accumulation of experience in order to write, to have gone through something in order to translate it to record. He is also the only person motivating himself to work. “I don’t have a creative mafia that makes everything happen,” he says. “That’s not my style, I’m not interested in that. I wish I was – it’d be nice, I could have a really nice Lamborghini or something. The question begs: ‘Would Sade do this? Would Marvin do this?’” The reference to Sade is pertinent – he has two regular collaborators, Hod David and Stuart Matthewman, and the latter is one of Sade’s closest colleagues. He is allergic to the elevated atmosphere of celebrity. “Celebrities have competitors, and competition, and people they have to fight against or be better than,” he says. “Artists, it doesn’t really work that way.” On the cover of the new album, Maxwell obscures his face, as if to diminish his personality and focus attention on his music. “My friend asked me: ‘Why are you covering your face? It’s your album! You should be like: Look at me!’” he says. What’s more evident on the cover, in fact, is the space around Maxwell. “You know what they say. What’s hidden is always the most interesting thing,” he says. The new album feels less organic than its predecessor, which emphasised the nimble interactions of its musicians. BlackSUMMERS’night instead explores the tension between live performance and a more hermetic studio process. Maxwell talks about the song Gods, which builds on a four-bar melody, a glistening spine for the song: “I don’t know how these things come together,” he says. “I really cannot take credit for the writing or any of it. I am writing it, but it’s literally just … happening.” Like many of Maxwell’s songs, Gods concerns the physical as it flows into the metaphysical: “As you lied so convincingly / As you swore so religiously,” he sings, his voice evolving from its weathered and cracked register into a gentle shimmer: “You played the game of gods.” Two encounters dictated the song. “I was going through a really weird experience that involved this girl and this one particular individual that was upset about this girl who was interested in me,” he says. “It’s so funny – one thing will begin a song, and then another meeting will completely finish the song. So it’s like an arc of how everybody plays into this particular idea of the song.” And that is how Maxwell songs function: things arc into each other. “You want to say the right things. You want to say things you haven’t heard before, that people haven’t written before. How many times can you say: ‘I love you baby’?” Maxwell has made an album about a love that may never be understood or reciprocated. “It may happen, it may not,” he says. “Kind of a wait-and-see, Saturnial, pessimistic. I think it lives in both worlds because of how I think of things. There are no real guarantees. People are independent individuals.” He says he’s a classic romantic, and finds the modern mutations of dating – Tinder, OkCupid, and so on – alienating and uninhabitable. “It’s very disconnected and detached,” he says. “I’m not hating. I’m sure people have had amazing moments with their more controlled experience of the things they want to do. People are scared to be vulnerable and surrender themselves to someone else, and that’s really part of loving someone. I don’t know if what people are writing any more supports that.” At the centre of Maxwell’s music is his vulnerability. “I’m always looking for the spark of experience that then goes into the performance,” he says. “That’s what Kate Bush did to me. I didn’t really understand what the hell [This Woman’s Work] was about. I just knew that whatever she felt, whatever her feeling was that she had been through or gone through … I don’t care who you are when you hear that, it’s buckle-your-knees, fall-to-the-ground, it’s just beautiful. And it’s transcendental. It’s literally like stuff that you could expect to hear when walking into heaven after you die. That’s the thing that Prince had, too.” Now blackSUMMERS’night is done, the main feeling he has is relief. “I’m so happy it’s done,” he says. “I’m over this.” He says he has finished writing the third part of the trilogy and is in the process of recording it. And where will he be when it’s done? “I get to figure out where I want to go, where I want to live, what I want to build,” he says. “Family stuff. Finally, just get a life. I’ve been living life, but really getting a life finally, extending myself past my own self and the music that I’m so anxiety-ridden about having to do.” • blackSUMMERS’night is out now on Sony/RCA.
Goldman Sachs to pay $5bn for its role in the 2008 financial crisis Goldman Sachs will pay $5.06bn for its role in the 2008 financial crisis, the US Department of Justice said on Monday. The settlement, over the sale of mortgage-backed securities from 2005 to 2007, was first announced in January. “This resolution holds Goldman Sachs accountable for its serious misconduct in falsely assuring investors that securities it sold were backed by sound mortgages, when it knew that they were full of mortgages that were likely to fail,” acting associate attorney general Stuart Delery said in a statement. In January, Goldman said it expected the agreement to reduce its earnings for the fourth quarter by about $1.5bn after tax. According to the Wall Street bank, the settlement will consist of a $2.385bn civil monetary penalty, $875m in cash payments, and $1.8bn in consumer relief. Among other measures, the bank will offer a reduction in unpaid principal for affected homeowners and borrowers. “We are pleased to have reached an agreement in principle to resolve these matters,” Lloyd C Blankfein, chairman and chief executive of Goldman Sachs, said in January. This is only the latest multibillion-dollar civil settlement reached with a major bank over the economic meltdown in which millions of Americans lost their homes to foreclosure. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, which earlier this year agreed to pay $3.2bn, are two of the last big banks to pay up. Bank of America agreed to pay the largest of the settlements, $16.6bn, in 2014. A year earlier, JPMorgan Chase paid about $13bn. Such settlements have been worked out by the Residential Mortgage-Backed Securities Working Group, which is co-chaired by New York’s attorney general, Eric Schneiderman. New Yorkers will receive about $670m of the Goldman Sachs settlement, including $190m in cash and $480m in consumer relief such as mortgage assistance and principal forgiveness. “Since 2012, my No1 priority has been getting New Yorkers the resources they need to rebuild,” Schneiderman said on Monday. “This settlement, like those before it, ensures that these critical programs … will continue to get funded well into the future, and will be paid for by the institutions responsible for the financial crisis.” The deal, however, includes no criminal sanctions or penalties and is likely to stir additional criticism about the Justice Department’s inability to hold bank executives personally responsible for the financial crisis.
Kelvin MacKenzie publishes Alastair Campbell's expletive-laden Brexit email An expletive-laden email from Alastair Campbell berating Sun columnist Kelvin MacKenzie for expressing “buyers remorse” over voting to leave the EU has been published by the Sun. MacKenzie, a former editor of the Rupert Murdoch-owned tabloid, wrote on Monday that the “surge” of power he had felt from voting leave had given way to worries about the impact the vote would have on the UK’s future. “Four days later I don’t feel quite the same,” he said. “I have buyer’s remorse. A sense of be careful what you wish for. To be truthful I am fearful of what lies ahead.” However, in his column on Friday, MacKenzie included an email from Campbell in which Tony Blair’s former spin doctor attacked his earlier backing for the leave campaign and the “giant propaganda machine” he said MacKenzie had been part of. According to MacKenzie, Campbell’s email read: “Never mind buyers remorse, you should feel fucking ashamed to have been for so long part of a giant propaganda machine which has helped the country make a potentially self-destructive decision that future generations will have to live with when you and I are long gone.” “Murdoch has been a complete poison in our national life and you have helped so much. And because you are well sorted it will not hit you nearly as hard as those you and yours have persuaded to make the decision they did. “But hey, it’s all a bit of fun eh? Fuck off.” On Twitter, Campbell confirmed he had written the email as the Sun had reported it. In his column, MacKenzie hit back at Campbell, citing his involvement in the notorious document claiming that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. He wrote: “I think of the two of us, the one that knows most about ‘giant propaganda machines’ would be Campbell by some distance.”
Mark Carney ​may end speculation about future ​this week Mark Carney could announce a decision about his future as governor of the Bank of England as soon as Thursday, amid a barrage of criticism from Eurosceptic MPs about his approach to Brexit. It is understood that the governor is considering making an announcement on Thursday at a press conference for the Bank’s third-quarter inflation report, given the speculation about his future. However, sources said Carney was equally likely to delay the announcement until later in November and would take the decision based on his personal circumstances. George Osborne, the former chancellor, played a key role in recruiting Carney for the move from Canada to the UK in 2013. According to an article in the Financial Times (£) on Sunday, the governor has “told friends” that he is ready to serve his full eight-year term. The governor said last week he would make a decision by the end of this year about whether to stay on for his full eight-year term or take advantage of terms allowing him to leave after five years, in 2018. “To be clear, it’s an entirely personal decision and no one should read anything into that decision in terms of government policy. It is a privilege for me to have this role,” he told a parliamentary committee last week. “Like everyone, I have personal circumstances that I have to manage. This role demands total attention and I intend to give it as long as I can.” Theresa May prompted questions about whether there has been a rift between Carney and the Downing Street after she criticised the impact of quantitative easing in her Conservative party conference speech, saying “people with assets had got richer, people without them had suffered”. Both sides have played down any suggestion of divisions since then, and the pair have recently talked on the phone. Greg Clark, the business secretary, told BBC1’s Andrew Marr Show on Sunday that Carney had done a “tremendous job” for the UK economy. However, there has also been a campaign against the governor by leading Tory Eurosceptics who were annoyed by his pre-referendum predictions about the possible impact of Brexit on the UK economy, which they claim have not come to pass. Those calling for him to go early include Lord Lawson, the former chancellor; Bernard Jenkin, the chair of the public administration committee; Jacob Rees-Mogg, a member of the Treasury committee; and Daniel Hannan, a leading MEP. Before the vote, Carney suggested campaigners in favour of leaving the EU were “in denial” about some of the economic risks, although he has sounded more positive about the UK’s prospects since the referendum. The former foreign secretary, William Hague, warned earlier this month that central bankers could lose their independence if they ignored public anger over low interest rates, while Michael Gove, the leading pro-leave campaigner and former cabinet minister, compared Carney to the Chinese emperor Ming, whose “person was held to be inviolable and without imperfections” and whose critics were flayed alive. Two former members of the Bank of England monetary policy committee have rallied to Carney’s defence. Andrew Sentance, who served from 2006 to 2011, told the that the story had been “hyped up following Theresa May’s comments and articles by William Hague and Michael Gove”. “If the question is whether Mark Carney is going to stay beyond 2018, when he was appointed he wasn’t going to stay beyond 2018. If he makes a clear decision then it gives the government plenty of time to appoint a successor. “I think he has been targeted a bit unfairly by the pro-leave Brexit campaign. The consequences of Brexit are going to play out over a number of years and to say the economy hasn’t collapsed after Brexit means Mark Carney got it badly wrong is unfair. “He made it clear that he thought leaving the EU would be negative for the UK and the timescale over which that plays out depends on how that unfolds, but to jump to the conclusion within a few months when nothing has greatly changed – we are still in the EU – I think some of the criticisms of him from Brexiteers, as you might call them, have been unfair.” David Blanchflower, who was on the committee from 2006 to 2009, said on Twitter that it was “ludicrous for Brexiters to force Carney”, as it would only hurt the UK economy.
Look into my eyes: Leave.EU campaign consulted TV hypnotist The leave campaign enlisted the TV hypnotist Paul McKenna to advise on some of its campaign broadcasts, it has emerged. The 53-year old author of bestselling self-help books including The Power to Influence, I Can Make You Happy and Hypnotic Gastric Band was asked by the Ukip-backed Leave.EU campaign to examine early edits of promotional videos. A source at the victorious campaign group told the that McKenna “understands the psychology of the mind” and helped Leave.EU “produce social media ads that resonated with people”. But he added: “We didn’t hypnotise anyone.” McKenna’s role emerged at the end of a week in which several senior politicians backtracked on persuasive campaign messages from the EU referendum on immigration controls and how much money saved from payments to the EU could be redirected to the NHS. The hypnotist is said to be a friend of Arron Banks, the Bristol-based multimillionaire insurance businessman who bankrolled the Leave.EU campaign with a £5.6m donation. McKenna became involved as Leave.EU spent millions of pounds building up its online following partly by using short, dramatic campaign videos posted on its social media accounts. It claimed that it had 1 million followers and supporters on social media by polling day on 23 June. “That was the key to winning wavering voters,” said Banks. “It was the massive connection through social media.” McKenna declined to comment in detail on what help he gave Leave.EU, but his spokesman said: “He is friendly with Arron Banks and Banks showed him a few rough cuts of promotional videos they were considering using in their campaign. [Paul] was quite intrigued by the new style of political campaigning, which he thought was influenced heavily by American politics.” McKenna has previously described modern hypnotism as “giving you greater communication capabilities with somebody”. He has said: “More important than power for me is the feeling of euphoria I get if I help somebody make a change, particularly if it is one that has dramatically impaired their life.” One of the videos McKenna is said to have assessed was a portentous 30-second broadcast on the Leave.EU Facebook page that attracted more than 1.6m views during the campaign. Over doom-laden music, it began by asking: “Are you concerned about the amount of crime being committed in the UK by foreign criminals?” and “Are you worried about the overcrowding of the UK and the burden on the NHS?” before switching to more upbeat music and asking: “Isn’t it time to take back control?” McKenna has also said that being absorbed and engrossed in TV broadcasts is equally as hypnotic as a hypnotically induced trance. This week Banks revealed that a central plank of the leave campaign’s successful strategy emerged from advice taken from the US election strategists Goddard Gunster that “facts don’t work”. He said: “The remain campaign featured fact, fact, fact, fact, fact. It just doesn’t work. You have got to connect with people emotionally. It’s the Trump success.” Several commentators have said the Republican candidate for the US presidency, Donald Trump, uses hypnotic techniques in his speeches. He uses repetition to make simple ideas stick. Nigel Farage, the Ukip leader and Leave.EU supporter, did something similar during the EU referendum campaign, repeating again and again the mantra “take back control”.
Hold off applying for passport, Ireland tells Britons The Irish government has urged Britons to take some time to think before applying for an Irish passport as it warned that a surge in applications threatened to place major pressure on the system for processing them. A spike in interest in Irish passports has occurred in Northern Ireland, Britain and elsewhere in the past few days, according to Ireland’s foreign minister, Charlie Flanagan, who said there was no urgency for UK citizens to apply. While the numbers of people turning up to the office in London that processes applications for Irish passports had reduced on Monday, British citizens motivated by last week’s referendum vote were still turning up on Tuesday. They ranged from one woman who said that she and her family had voted in favour of Britain leaving the EU, but now feared for the economic consequences, to others who had voted to stay. Among the latter was Dominic Allen, who told the that he had been visiting London on business but had decided to also collect a bunch of Irish passport applications for his family. “We have been meaning for a while to reconnect with our Irish roots so Brexit has sort of forced the issue,” said Allen, originally from West Yorkshire but working in Norfolk. He also cited concerns the potential usefulness of the Irish passport in terms of travelling around Europe in future. Similar thoughts were on the mind of Oscar Brennan, 17, who came out of the office in South Kensington with an application form tucked under his arm. “I’ve always had it in the back of my mind to do this because I have always felt a strong connection to Ireland through my parents,” he said. Again, the Brexit vote had prompted him into acting. “In terms of job prospects you just don’t know what the future is going to hold, so it’s better to be safe than sorry and be equipped to work in Europe.” Meanwhile an Irish minister and one of the frontrunners to succeed Enda Kenny as taoiseach has urged Ireland to puts its own interest before the UK’s in the post-Brexit negotiations between EU states and the British. In a debate on Brexit’s implications for the republic, the minister for social protection, Leo Varadkar, said: “On some occasions, perhaps most, our interests are aligned with those of the United Kingdom but where they are not, it is not our duty to fight England’s battles for her. We must put the interests of Ireland first in the coming years and in the negotiation process. But Varadkar promised to protect pensioners on both sides of the Irish Sea, both British people living in the republic and Irish citizens residing in the UK. He said: “Their pension and employment rights and their social insurance protections and obligations remain unchanged today and will remain unchanged until such time as there is a new agreement between the European Union and the United Kingdom and between the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom.”
This week’s new live music The Maccabees, On tour There’s a case for the Maccabees being the English Kings Of Leon; not in sound, but in how the current, arena-filling proposition is almost completely unrecognisable from the quirky indie rock band they started out as. Having found huge success with progressively epic and seriously intentioned music, the band’s 2015 album Marks To Prove It debuted at No 1 in the charts. Interestingly, though, this landmark was achieved with a record that recovers some of the Maccabees’ original eccentricities. Of course, the windswept Arcade Fire-like characteristics remain, but some of the antic structure of their earlier records makes a welcome return. Barrowland, Fri; touring to 23 Jan JR Daughter, On tour Less is more with Daughter. A trio based around the talents of singer-songwriter Elena Tonra, the group have previously exercised a minimalism in all things, from the stripped-down nature of their arrangements to the manner in which they conceal their strong emotional content beneath a mainly placid delivery. But having shown promise as a kind of folky version of the xx, to judge from the singles from forthcoming second album Not To Disappear the mask is slipping. What seems to be emerging is a rather more melodramatic and rockier beast, wherein the band work less by implication, more by wearing their hearts on their sleeves. Cambridge Corn Exchange, Fri; touring to 28 Jan JR Angel Haze, On tour An MC with no absence of attitude, Angel Haze has found it difficult to walk quite as hard as she has historically talked. All round, this combative confidence has brought her as much bad as it has good. Professionally, her Classick mixtape of three years ago found her confronting the horrible circumstances of her early life on top of some of hip-hop’s legendary beats. About the same time, she entered into a social media war with Azealia Banks, a rather distracting and unproductive move that served to invite unhelpful comparisons between the pair. As it turned out, Haze’s raw delivery and aggressive stance was an unsuccessful fit with the mainstream, but now she is back among the independents, where her underdog determination may find a more favourable environment in which to develop. Band On The Wall, Manchester, Tue; Belgrave Music Hall, Leeds, Wed; O2 ABC 2, Glasgow, Thu; The Academy, Dublin, Fri; touring to 16 Jan JR Heather Leigh, London Heather Leigh plays pedal steel guitar: towering riffs that break into streaming squalls of sound, her voice wavering between a soft coo and a ghoulish wail. She was born in West Virginia, the daughter of a coal miner, and cut her teeth in the “new weird America” scene of the 1990s and early 00s as a member of Texan psychedelic noise and drone group Charalambides, among others. Now living in Glasgow, until last year she ran one of the world’s best underground record shops, that city’s Volcanic Tongue, with her partner, the writer and former Telstar Ponies man David Keenan. Leigh has toured as the bassist for Sterling Smith’s Jandek project, and recently joined one of Peter Brötzmann’s many improv assemblages. Only few women have made it into that particular hall of fame – improv’s version of getting a star on Hollywood Boulevard – and she’ll return to this venue to duet with the sax player in February. Cafe Oto, E8, Sat JA Roller Trio, Newcastle upon Tyne & Southampton When Roller Trio emerged from the volcano of Leeds’ new music scene to a Mercury nomination in 2012, they sounded as if they’d been inspired by that city’s pioneering thrash-improv outfit trioVD, but their volatile chemistry – a fusion of almost romantic tenor ruminations, spacey ambience and hard rock hooks – made them a clear alternative. In recent times, the group once dubbed “the new sound of UK jazz” by Gilles Peterson have grown a little more reflective, incorporating dark, ambient-electronic mists and hip-hop-influenced themes, but always with the implication of an impending explosion hovering in the wings. The Bridge Hotel, Newcastle upon Tyne, Sun; Turner Sims Concert Hall, Southampton, Fri JF Pelléas Et Mélisande, London Although Simon Rattle doesn’t officially take over as the London Symphony Orchestra’s music director until autumn 2017, he is already conducting regularly and putting his own imprint on its programming. There have been hints about what we can expect from the upcoming Rattle era, and some of the performers with whom he will work. It’s already clear, for instance, that the great pianist Krystian Zimerman is likely to be a regular visitor, while another of Rattle’s collaborators, the director Peter Sellars, is involved in the semi-staging of Pelléas Et Mélisande that Rattle is conducting this weekend. Rattle and Sellars have worked on Debussy’s opera together before, for an impressive full performance in Amsterdam in the 1990s, but this will be a production designed for the concert hall, similar to that the pair have already undertaken with Bach’s Passions. Barbican Hall, EC2, Sat & Sun AC
Jennifer Lawrence scolds reporter for using phone during Golden Globes press conference Jennifer Lawrence has been criticised for telling off a reporter who was using his phone during a post-Golden Globes press conference. The actor, who won the award for best actress in a musical or comedy for Joy, was being asked a question by an international journalist when she reprimanded him for reading from his phone. “You can’t live your whole life behind your phone, bro,” Lawrence said. “You just can’t do that. You gotta live in the now.” When the reporter, whose first language doesn’t appear to be English, continued to ask his question about how Lawrence sees herself for the Oscars, she snapped back: “We’re at the Golden Globes. If you put your phone down, you’d know that.” Many have criticised the actor for being culturally insensitive for her words. Superhero Feed tweeted “Many reporters read questions off their phone. Especially reporters who’s first language wasn’t English.” Fans were equally unimpressed: Earlier in the night, the actor presented an award with Amy Schumer, with whom she has written a new comedy. As the two arrived on stage, they criticised someone in the front row for their phone usage. “Please turn your phone off,” Schumer said. Lawrence laughed and then said: “Can you please stop taking pictures?” Lawrence was one of the night’s big winners for her role in David O Russell’s Miracle Mop biopic Joy. It marks the actor’s third Golden Globe. She is predicted to receive an Oscar nomination on Thursday for her performance. Other big acting winners from the night included Leonardo DiCaprio who won best actor in a drama for The Revenant, Matt Damon who won best actor in a musical or comedy for The Martian and Brie Larson who won best actress in a drama for Room.
One Nation senator joins new world order of climate change denial A key figure picked to prepare the US federal environment agency for life under a Donald Trump administration has met in Washington DC with some of the world’s most notorious and longest-serving climate science deniers, including One Nation senator Malcolm Roberts. Myron Ebell, of the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), was picked by the now president-elect to lead the Environmental Protection Agency “transition team” back in September. Trump has pledged to strip many powers from the EPA to boost fossil fuel production. Ebell has spent two decades trying to undermine the science linking dangerous climate change to fossil fuel burning. E&E News reported that Ebell was at one meeting hosted by the CEI and held in the hearing room of the Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee. The EPW committee is chaired by Senator James Inhofe who, like Trump, has described human-caused climate change as a hoax. The meeting was not open to the public or the press, E&E News reported, with Ebell refusing to give any details. Climate denial who’s who But details of the gatherings have been made public by some of the climate science denialists who attended. The attendee list reads like a who’s who of the climate science denial world. Australian senator Malcolm Roberts, of the far-right One Nation party, who is in the US, revealed he had given a speech at a CEI meeting with Ebell. Roberts wrote the meeting was a gathering of the Cooler Heads Coalition and then listed some of the participants. They included Marc Morano, Randy Randol, Steve Milloy, Chris Horner, Craig Rucker, Patrick Michaels, Ken Haapala and James Taylor. The views of most of the attendees are in direct contradiction to the overwhelming majority of scientific research published over decades, as well as the positions of the world’s major scientific academies. Also listed by Roberts as attending was Breitbart writer James Delingpole, who published a picture of himself, Roberts and Ebell on his Twitter account. Delingpole says climate change is “junk science” and has said that “hanging is too good” for climate scientists. Denialists reunited Three of the attendees — Ebell, Randy Randol and Steve Milloy —were part of the Global Climate Science Communications Team in the late 1990s. The GCSC was a coalition of thinktanks and fossil fuel companies that hoped to shift people’s understanding of the science linking fossil fuel burning to human-caused climate change. At the time, Randol was a lobbyist for ExxonMobil and Milloy was the executive director of The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition — a tobacco industry-funded front group. One of the meeting’s attendees, lawyer Chris Horner, was named this week to Trump’s EPA “landing team” alongside Ebell. Horner, who has been funded by coal companies, is known for launching multiple FOIA requests targeting the email inboxes of climate scientists and government officials. Many see his work as harassment. Also in attendance, according to Roberts, was Fred Singer – a former advisor to TASSC who set up his first group to attack climate science in 1990. Trump this week named current ExxonMobil chief executive Rex Tillerson as his nomination for the Secretary of State. On Twitter Tony Heller reported that Tim Ball, a retired geography professor and climate science denier from British Columbia, told the EPW meeting: “I’ve waited 40 years for this moment.” In November 2016, Ball and Heller were in Australia for speaking engagements at the invitation of Roberts who claims there is no evidence linking climate change to human activity. Ball then travelled to the US for a two-day conference organised by G. Edward Griffin with the title: Global warming: An Inconvenient Lie. Griffin, who runs Freedom Force International, which organised the conference, is a conspiracy theorist who claims there is no such thing as the HIV virus, that climate change is a hoax and that a US military plane shot down one of the passenger flights that crashed during the September 11 attacks in the United States. The full line-up of attendees at the Cooler Heads Coalition listed by Roberts was Tony Heller, Tim Ball, Fred Singer, Ken Haapala, Craig Rucker, Randy Randall, Steve Milloy, Marc Morano, James Delingpole, Chris Horner, Myron Ebell, Tom de Weise, James Taylor, Pat Michaels, Austin Smithson, Brandon Middleton, Marlo Lewis and “Mandy from Senator James Inhofe’s staff”. This article was originally published on the Desmog blog
A matter of some gravity: how to have an argument on the internet Poor Douglas Carswell. On Twitter last week he confused the gravitational effects of the sun and the moon and got crushed by the far stronger forces of social media. It all happened so quickly. To illustrate the point that Britain trades more with its near neighbours in Europe than larger but more distant economies such as the US or China, Paul Nightingale, professor of science policy at the University of Sussex, tweeted a gravitational analogy that drew a brisk response from Carswell: Nightingale respectfully pointed out the error but the hapless Ukip MP was immediately deluged in a yellow tide of piss-taking. An #AskCarswell hashtag soon popped up to poke further fun at the member for Clacton and the story was gleefully picked up by the press. The derision was deserved – at least to some extent. In the eyes of many Carswell already has a difficult relationship with facts, revealed by his loud insistence during the referendum campaign that the UK would be better off to the tune of £350m a week if it left the EU, a claim repeatedly debunked by the head of the UK Statistics Authority. He had also been patronising in responding to the Sussex professor, expressing surprise that the “head of Science research at a university refutes idea sun’s gravity causes tides”. Yet it’s also true that Carswell was less wrong than many people realised. One tweeter pointed out that the sun’s gravitational influence on the tides is actually about 40% that of the moon’s, which was news to me — and I have a degree in physics. Judging from his timeline, Carswell has so far admitted no scientific error. Instead he tried to move the conversation back to trade and Brexit (though even here, the weight of evidence appears to be on Nightingale’s side). I suspect he was mildly embarrassed by the faux pas but felt little desire to acknowledge as much before the sneering chorus on Twitter. Why expose yourself to further mockery? But I’m speculating here – I’ve never met Carswell so don’t really know what makes him tick. Today, the incident is largely forgotten. Just another twitterstorm in a teacup. But the trouble is that this is how it goes day after day on social media. Thanks to the internet, communication far beyond our real life social circles has never been easier but it’s hard to escape the impression that the quality of our public discourse has never been poorer. Carswell’s gravitational spat may pale beside the pervasive currents of misogyny, racism, homophobia, antisemitism and islamophobia that wash daily across the online world, but the descent into mockery and vitriol is all too rapid, whatever the topic. When was the last time you saw an enlightening exchange between a Corbynista and a Blairite? What is it about life online that unleashes our inner demons? We seem to have made a leap in technology for which evolution, in its blind stumbling, has not prepared us. Most likely it is another distancing effect, this time due to computerisation. We might now be able to connect with half the world but we do so from behind a keyboard. The faces – and the humanity – of the people that we interact with are easily lost in the rapid fire of typed exchanges. It is little wonder that some newspapers are closing down their comment threads. Though this may partly be for economic reasons, it is surely also an acknowledgement that they add little to public debate. I’ve succumbed myself from time to time – and in these pages. I have on occasion taken exception to what I felt to be largely ill-founded critiques of science and scientists by the columnist Simon Jenkins, and responded with outrage, with mockery and with facts. But after the latest exchange, I paused to re-consider. It might have been cathartic to vent my frustration and then to be cheered from the sidelines by friends and followers (almost all of them of a scientific stripe), but to what real end? We just seemed to be talking past one another. So I tried a different tack. I bought a copy of one of my favourite popular science books (Matthew Cobb’s Life’s Greatest Secret) and sent it to the columnist with a conciliatory note, to follow up on the offer of buying him a drink that I had appended to my latest broadside. And blow me if he didn’t email back to accept the invitation. A couple of weeks ago we met in a quiet bar around the corner from where I work and over a couple of pints of a rather tasty Kent lager talked about science, universities, Brexit, grammar schools, Northern Ireland, and the travails of online discourse. I won’t go into specifics since it was a private encounter but, while we still might not agree on everything, face-to-face there was plenty of cordiality and common ground. I know what you’re thinking: “Two people who write for the had a drink and found that they agreed on some stuff? Big deal!” Well, yes, I’m skating on platitudinous ice and this is hardly an original point, but the meeting was to me an important reminder of how the human factor, so vivid in real life, is so readily forgotten online. It’s complicated. Although anonymity is often blamed for online rudeness, it can also foster participation and risk-taking, opening up new opportunities for discussion. But how do we find the right balance between open, constructive argument and ending up in an echo-chamber? This question is at the core of the ’s laudable The Web We Want campaign. There are no easy answers – though some experiments in nudging community self-regulation online are showing promise. Even scientists need to be mindful of becoming trapped in tribal enclaves, whatever the provocation. On Twitter I try to use the mute button sparingly – only when the rancour gets too much. Each time I do feels like a defeat but I just don’t have the time or the heart to engage with every dispute. And although it’s not possible to have a drink with everyone you end up arguing with on the internet, I have resolved to try to imagine doing so. That strategy will make little headway with the out-and-out trolls or the shitposters, but there are still plenty of people of good faith out there that I disagree with profoundly. Carswell may well be one of them. Should we happen to rub up against one another online, hopefully at least one of us can take away something positive from the encounter. The author is a professor of structural biology at Imperial College and is on Twitter as @Stephen_Curry, if you’re looking for an argument.
Natalie Cole, singer and daughter of Nat King Cole, dies aged 65 Natalie Cole, the award-winning singer and daughter of jazz legend Nat King Cole, has died. Cole, whose hits included This Will Be and Unforgettable, died aged 65 on Thursday night, according to her publicist Maureen O’Connor. Her family said she died at Cedars-Sinai medical centre in Los Angeles due to complications from ongoing health issues. “Natalie fought a fierce, courageous battle, dying how she lived … with dignity, strength and honour. Our beloved mother and sister will be greatly missed and remain unforgettable in our hearts forever,” read the statement from her son, Robert Yancy, and sisters Timolin and Casey Cole. The singer had battled drug problems and hepatitis for many years. She had a kidney transplant in May 2009. Fellow performers paid tribute on Friday night following the news of her death. Aretha Franklin said: “I am sorry to hear about Natalie Cole’s passing. I had to hold back the tears. I know how hard she fought. She fought for so long. She was one of the greatest singers of our time.” Tony Bennett described her as “an exceptional jazz singer”. He said: “It was an honour to have recorded and performed with her on several occasions. She was a lovely and generous person who will be greatly missed.” Dionne Warwick said she was “more like family than friend … My heart aches. My sincere condolences to her family and may she now rest in peace.” The Rev Jesse Jackson tweeted: “#NatalieCole, sister beloved & of substance and sound. May her soul rest in peace. #Inseperable.” The comedian Arsenio Hall said he named his bass guitar after her when he was in college. “As a young stand up comic I opened for Natalie Cole. She was all that, in all ways! (RIP ).” Cole’s greatest success came with her 1991 album, Unforgettable … With Love, which paid tribute to her father with reworked versions of some of his best known-songs, including That Sunday That Summer, Too Young and Mona Lisa. Her voice was spliced with her father’s in the title track, offering a delicate duet more than 25 years after his death. The album sold about 14m copies and won six Grammys, including album of the year, and record and song of the year for the title track. While making the album, Cole said she had to “throw out every R&B lick that I had ever learned and every pop trick I had ever learned. With him, the music was in the background and the voice was in the front.” Cole was also nominated for an Emmy award in 1992 for a televised performance of her father’s songs. “That was really my thank you,” she said in 2006. “I owed that to him.” Another father-daughter duet, When I Fall in Love, won a Grammy in 1996 for best pop collaboration with vocals, and a follow-up album, Still Unforgettable, won best traditional pop vocal album of 2008. Born in Los Angeles to Nat King Cole, who was already a well-known singer, and former Duke Ellington Orchestra singer Maria Hawkins Ellington, Cole was exposed to some of the greats of US soul music. By the age of six, she sang on her father’s Christmas album and by 11 was performing in her own right. In 2008, she said: “I still love recording and still love the stage, but like my dad, I have the most fun when I am in front of that glorious orchestra or that kick-butt big band.” In her 2000 autobiography, Angel on My Shoulder, Cole discussed how she had battled heroin, crack cocaine and alcohol addiction for many years. She spent six months in rehab in 1983. When she announced in 2008 that she had been diagnosed with hepatitis C, a liver disease spread through contact with infected blood, she blamed her past intravenous drug use. Cole received chemotherapy to treat the hepatitis and “within four months, I had kidney failure”, she told CNN’s Larry King in 2009. She needed dialysis three times a week until she received a donor kidney on 18 May 2009. Cole toured through much of her illness, often receiving dialysis at hospitals around the world. “I think that I am a walking testimony [that] you can have scars,” she told People magazine. “You can go through turbulent times and still have victory in your life.”
The Man Who Fell to Earth review – a freaky concept album of a film Nicolas Roeg’s The Man Who Fell to Earth is rereleased after 40 years and it looks more exotic, more preposterous, more fascinating than ever, like a hyper-evolved midnight movie in the manner of Roger Corman. Roeg shows us some of his classic narrative dislocations and juxtapositions; this has something of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001, but Roeg is genuinely uninhibited about sex in a way that Kubrick never was. And of course there is an extraordinary sui generis central performance by David Bowie as the intergalactic visitor Thomas Newton – his unselfconscious gentleness and vulnerability now look very moving and bizarrely authentic in a way that they didn’t in 1976. Is the movie a metaphor for immigration and innovation and a sclerotic corporate culture? Or is it perhaps a pop culture parable for the British music invasion? (I like to think that Newton’s astronaut-ambitions inspired our own Richard Branson.) Or is it simply about Bowie himself? The story unfolds in a daring sequence of narrative leaps. Newton crash-lands in a small town where he is befriended by a hotel receptionist Mary Lou (Candy Clark) in whose presence this delicate stripling faints; she has to carry him to his room – an extraordinary sequence. They become an item. Newton quickly finds himself in New York, where his superior intelligence and knowledge allow him to create a world-beating energy and media company, which hires a disillusioned, lecherous chemistry professor Nathan Bryce (Rip Torn), the only person in whom the increasingly reclusive Newton can confide. Newton needs to establish utter mastery of Earth’s technology so that he use its water for his own drought-stricken planet. But, far from being a sinister predator, Newton is a delicate victim, a Wildean holy child of poignant unworldliness, whose business is taken from him. He stays young while everyone else gets old. A freaky, compelling concept album of a film.
Manchester United 2-0 Southampton: Premier League – as it happened An eventually comfortable win for Manchester United, with Zlatan Ibrahimovic scoring both goals – the first a thrilling, cavemanic header. Paul Pogba improved as the match progressed and showed his class with some penetrating runs and cocky passing. Southampton had more of the ball and should not be remotely discouraged by their performance, the thought of which will keep their fans warm for at least 10 minutes of their 47-journey home. Thanks for your company; goodnight. 90+3 min In the last minute of added time, Pogba spanks wide of the near post from 18 yards after fine play from Mkhitaryan. 89 min Still no sign of Marcus Rashford, as Chris Smalling comes on to replace Wayne Rooney. He put in a good cross for the first goal but was otherwise ineffective. 88 min Targett’s low cross is curled a few yards wide of the near post by Tadic. That, as Alan Smith says on Sky, sums up their night – they have played some really good football but have not been efficient in the final third. 86 min “Evening Rob,” says Simon McMahon. “Your other reader may not know that Pogba’s brother Mathias plays for Partick Thistle in the SPFL. I saw him play at Tannadice the other week in the League Cup. He’s not worth 100 million euros, but could his brother cut it at a wet and windy Tannadice in front of 4000 fans on a Tuesday night?” 84 min Southampton make their final substitution, with Jay Rodriguez replacing an aggrieved Shane Long. 83 min The sliding Bailly does well to intercept Targett’s dangerous low cross. Southampton have shown an admirable refusal to accept they have lost this game. 82 min Ander Herrera replaces Anthony Martial, which suggests a switch to 4-3-3 and a shutting up of shop. 80 min “Do you know what were the pre-season odds for Ibrahimovic to finish top scorer, or to win the Player of the Year awards?” asks David Wall. “For someone with his record there seemed more talk of him as someone merely doing a valedictory tour than of him as someone perhaps a little past his prime but still a bonafide star, game-changing, season-shaping player. Now he’s taking penalties as well as being United’s main striker he’s sure to be in the running to lead the goal-scoring tables (barring injury, of course).” I don’t know the odds. But yes, for a team in transition it looks like an extremely smart short-term move. He’s 34 going on 29. The three behind him isn’t quite right yet, though. 79 min The game isn’t quite petering out - Southampton keep coming back for more - but there is a persuasive sense that it’s over as a contest. 77 min So what’s going on with Marcus Rashford then? If I were a United fan that would worry me a bit, because he is a glorious talent. 76 min Pogba marauds infield from the left and then curls well wide from just outside the box. 74 min Long flicks a near-post header just wide of the far post from Soares’s cross, and then Mata is replaced by Henrikh Mkhitaryan. 73 min If it goes to 2-1 then Mourinho might take Pogba off but there’s no need at the moment, especially as he’s having his best period of the match with the ball. Tonight is all about Pogba and Ibrahimovic but Valencia has been a revelation going forward, close to his 2009-12 best. 69 min Pogba, who is starting to boss the game, gives it to Valencia on the right. He skins Targett and stands up a deep cross to Ibrahimovic, who rises imperiously and then completely mistimes a looping header back across goal. Rooney was flagged offside but it wasn’t going in anyway. 67 min “Rob,” says Mark Tuite, “who is this Tasic you keep banging on about?” No idea. You’re welcome! 66 min United are playing some great stuff now. Pogba ignores the cries of “shooooot” and gives it wide to Ibrahimovic. He plays a deliberate chip all the way across the area to Martial, who dummies Soares by pulling it down on his chest but then seems to forget to shoot and is tackled by the recovering Soares. Moments later, Davis is replaced by Charlie Austin for Southampton. 65 min Martial scorches past Fonte and into the area, where his shot is outstandingly blocked by Van Dijk. The ball rebounds to Rooney, who chips it pitifully out of play. Moments later, Martial finds the underlapping Shaw in the area and his cutback is cleared. That was a great run from Shaw. 63 min Pogba beats Clasie beautifully without touching the ball to start a move that leads to a corner on the right. It’s curled in and headed over from six yards by Pogba, under pressure from a defender. 61 min A mistake from Zlatan allows Southampton to break. Van Dijk’s sot is blocked by Bailly and then Clasie splashes the follow-up miles wide from 20 yards. Southampton have done lots of things very well tonight; United have just been more efficient. 58 min Southampton continue to push forward. A cross from the right is flicked towards Redmond, who can’t quite get it out of his feet and eventually shoots wide under pressure from Mata. That was a decent opportunity. In an unrelated development, it turns out the Tadic goal was disallowed, rightly, for offside. 55 min Pogba’s confidence is one of his greatest strengths. He’ll take the ball in any situation, no matter how tight or dangerous. There are still doubts as to whether he’s a better central-midfield option than Rafael and Ji-sung Park but he is a fascinating talent. Zlatan makes it four goals in three games with a good penalty, sidefooting into the bottom-left corner before roaring to the crowd while flexing his muscles. He is a preposterous and magnificent man. A daft trip by Clasie on Shaw, who was going nowhere. It’s a clear penalty. 50 min Martial comes infield from the left and hits a dangerous low shot that bounces just in front of Forster. He does well to palm it away and it’s lumped clear by a defender. 49 min Tasic has a goal disallowed for a foul on Bailly. His lack of complaint suggests it was fair enough, though we haven’t seen a replay. It was a smart flicked header but I think he shoved Bailly out of the way. 48 min “In Pogba it looks to me like Mourinho has finally got his hands on the Gerrard type player he’s wanted since he came to the Premier League,” says Phil Martin. “It’ll be interesting to see what he does with him, does he coach out the risks, or build his team around covering for them?” He’ll change him a bit but Pogba’s main weakness is decision-making and that should improve naturally. I can’t see Mourinho going the full Joe Cole, certainly. I’d imagine he’ll eventually play 4-3-3 and let Pogba run free. 47 min An intrepid run from the impressive Shaw takes him to the edge of the area before he is tackled. The ball runs to Mata, who wallops it into orbit from range. 46 min Southampton begin the second half, trailing to a moment of Zlatanic magic in a first half that they dominated. Kipling latest “‘If you can concede to a ridiculous header from a certifiable genius, And still knock it about prettily in the middle of the park, You’ll be a man, my son,’” says Matt Dony of my 42nd-minute entry. “Of course, the implication being that ‘manhood’ is something to aspire to and inherently better than those weak women. Typical media sexism. You’ll be blaming the immigrants, next.” Nigel Farage is my Rushmore, what of it? Half-time reading United lead, slightly against the run of play, through a fierce header from Zlatan Ibrahimovic. Paul Pogba has been brave and progressive in possession, though not always successfully. Southampton have had more of the ball and are certainly in this. See you in 10 minutes! 44 min Davis, who has probably had more of the ball than any midfielder on either side, drills over the top from 25 yards. 43 min Pogba thrills the crowd with a fine run straight down the centre of the pitch before playing the ball to Martial. His cross is disappointing, just as he has been so far. His unhappy Euro 2016 might have affected his confidence. 42 min Southampton have reacted to the goal in a manner that would please Kipling, resuming their confident possession football. They have been the better team, although let the record show that United seem happy enough playing on the counter-attack. 41 min “All the attributes of an English No9 allied to the nonchalant sills of a Balkan No10,” says Adam Hirst. “Wish he’d arrived six years ago.” What, about of Bebe? No thanks. 39 min “Judging purely from the Man Utd teamsheet, they don’t appear to have a midfield of any description,” says Ian Copestake. “Unless you count Fellaini as a midfield target man.” United take the lead against the run of play with a belting header from Zlatan Ibrahimovic. Valencia found Rooney on the right, and he did well to keep the ball in play. Then he curled a high, outswinging cross towards the far post, where Ibrahimovic beasted above Fonte and thumped a downward header into the net from 10 yards. 34 min A well-struck low shot from Rooney, 25 yards from goal, is comfortably saved by Forster. 32 min A chance for Southampton. Tadic sweeps an excellently early ball into the space behind Bailly to find Long in an inside-left position just outside the box. With Bailly making up the ground, Long hits a feeble low shot straight at De Gea. That was the best chance so far. 30 min Mata’s volleyed pass somehow finds its way to Ibrahimovic, whose cross from the right towards Rooney takes an important deflection off the sliding Van Dijk and goes behind for a corner. 29 min A Hollywood move from United: Pogba’s dink, Mata’s header across the box and Zlatan’s flying volley over the bar. It was a quarter-chance at best. 28 min Pass count: Man Utd 94-160 Southampton. United don’t really mind playing on the counter-attack, though having pace up front would help. Rooney is, sad to say, peripheral at best and embarrassing at worst. 26 min Davis’s flat, fast free-kick finds Van Dijk, whose volley is well blocked by Valencia. The ball comes to Long, who rattles it just wide of the near post. There were cheers from some of the Southampton fans, who thought it was in; a fleeting moment of joy before the reality of a 47-hour trip home with nothing but a bottle of warm Volvic to sustain them hit home once again. 25 min At the moment United look like a collection of players rather than a team. It’s a cliché but it’s true. The sooner they get Rashford in the side, for Mata, Rooney or even Martial, the better they will be. Southampton have a serious chance of winning this game. 23 min “Thanks for the MBM, it is the only way I have to follow the game while waiting for my flight in Ougadougou airport,” writes Danny Kelly. “Do you think Ferguson secretly hopes that Pogba will be a failure thus vindicating his, now infamous, decision not to offer him a better contract and keep him at the club?” I thought the issue was playing time rather than the quality of his contract? Either way, I doubt Ferguson cares, at least not in terms of professional vindication. It might be different on a personal level. He can’t be happy about Pogba or Mourinho being at the club. 22 min Valencia has been United’s best attacker so far. Pogba has been up and down but with his usual willingness to take the risky option whenever possible. Rooney and Zlatan have been anonymous. 19 min Redmond spins neatly behind Bailly and into the area on the right. Tadic is free at the far post, a few yards from goal, but Redmond just overhits the cross. Southampton are, at the moment, playing like the home side. 18 min I certainly wouldn’t rule out a third consecutive Southampton win at Old Trafford. They have started this game very impressively, especially when you consider they were supposed to roll over. 17 min “Poor Rob,” says Ian Copestake. “I bet you would like to wet your whistle this footballing Friday night. Have Sky attached some epithet to this day of days? Super is obviously not applicable or alliterative enough, but it must be an f-word of sorts.” Aren’t they just calling it FNF? Or, if you’re a Southampton fan who has to get home tonight, FFS. 15 min A cross from the left eventually bounces to Tadic, who volleys into orbit from a tight angle. This is a pretty open game. But then this is not a typical Jose Mourinho side; they are pretty top heavy. 13 min Ibrahimovic on the left eases the ball back to Pogba, who opens his body smartly just inside the box. and hits a decent shot that is patted down by Forster. 13 min “Hi,” says John. “Pogba’s headphones are P7 not P5.” Typical embarrassing Grauniad error. Somebody deserves a P45 for that, and I’m not talking about headphones. 12 min Romeu is indeed replaced by Jordi Clasie. Mata’s corner is headed clear by Shane Long. 11 min Valencia combines well with Mata, whose return pass is put behind for a corner by Davis. Romeu is down again, and might need to be replaced before the corner is taken. 10 min “‘If two teams play a game of football and the media couldn’t give a flying toss about the smaller team, do they actually exist?’,” begins Tamara Hampton, quoting an earlier entry. “So does that make Southampton #SchrödingersTeam?” In modern football, Schrödinger has a lot of teams. 9 min There’s a break in play while Romeu receives treatment. He’s fine. 7 min Southampton’s passing has been confident and assured in the early stages. It’s been a bright, breezy start to the game. 5 min Valencia, who has staked an early claim to be the surprise success of Mourinho’s first season, wins a corner with the kind of no-frills run he used to attempt all the time in the Ferguson years. Nowt comes from it but that was more promising for United. 4 min After a long spell of Southampton possession, United get to touch the ball. Pogba tries a cute pass to Ibrahimovic that is well cut out by Soares. 1 min Peep peep! United kick off from right to left. Pogba gives the ball away immediately and Southampton break dangerously to win a free-kick right on the edge of the box. It’s a fair way to the left of centre but well within shooting range. Tadic blasts it straight into the wall. “Who is the ref?” asks Peter Nelson, politely highlight the inadequacy of my work thus far. It is Anthony Taylor, and he’s about to moisten his whistle. “I don’t have any answers to the questions in your Preamble but the Bowers & Wilkins P5 headphones Pogba is wearing are really great,” says Petter Settli, chief executive of Bowers & Wilkins . They are Pre-match reading Wouldn’t bother with the article but some of the comments are well banter. Here’s our man Ryan Dunne “Is it wrong to wonder where Fellaini-Pogba ranks on the most mismatched midfield pairings, talent-wise?” I can’t believe you’re writing Pogba off already. Honk! Ho-honk! Honk? Actually I think Roy Keane and Michael Appleton played together against Swindon in 1996, which is a bit of a mismatch. “Sky’s new show pretty much redefining the term ‘one-eyed’,” says Gary Naylor. “I don’t often find fault with Sky’s sports coverage, but this is ridiculous. There are two teams playing tonight.” Ah, but you know what the philosophers say: if two teams play a game of football and the media couldn’t give a flying toss about the smaller team, do they actually exist? Manchester United (4-2-3-1) De Gea; Valencia, Bailly, Blind, Shaw; Fellaini, Pogba; Mata, Rooney, Martial; Ibrahimovic. Substitutes: Romero, Smalling, Herrera, Schneiderlin, Young, Mkhitaryan, Rashford. Southampton (4-D-2) Forster; Soares, Fonte, Van Dijk, Targett; Romeu; Hojbjerg, Davis; Tadic; Long, Redmond. Substitutes: McCarthy, Yoshida, Clasie, Rodriguez, Austin, Ward-Prowse, Pied. Hello. In the last few years Old Trafford has doubled up as a public nap station, but nobody will be getting 40 winks tonight. Manchester United host Southampton in a match that is full of talking points before a ball has been miskicked. Will Paul Pogba start on his return to Old Trafford? Where is Stormzy watching the game? How will Zlatan fare on his home debut? Will Jose Mourinho be able to maintain as his poker face as he finally, finally lives his dream of walking down the Old Trafford touchline as Manchester United manager? Will he continue to ignore the otherworldly talent of Marcus Rashford so that he can postpone an awkward conversation with Wayne Rooney? Will anyone acknowledge the existence of Southampton, let alone point out that they have won here in the past two seasons? Will Southampton’s fans make it home for Sunday lunch? Is the introduction of Friday Night Football a deliberate attempt to sabotage the viewing ratings of Nightmare Tenants, Slum Landlords on Channel 5? And what did happen to Arthur Graham? Kick off at 8pm BST. Rob will be with you shortly. In the meantime, why not have a read of Sachin Nakrani on Friday night football and GIL! SCOTT! HERON!
Hillary Clinton denies foundation donors' influence – as it happened Donald Trump’s new presidential campaign chief is registered to vote in a key swing state in an empty house where he does not live, in an apparent breach of election laws. Stephen Bannon, the chief executive of Trump’s election campaign, has an active voter registration at the house in Miami-Dade County, Florida, which is vacant and due to be demolished to make way for a new development. ...or, at least, he was, until today. After the disclosed that he was previously registered at an empty house in Florida where he did not live, Bannon moved his voter registration to the home of one his website’s writers. Bannon also faced domestic violence charges after a fight with a woman he was married to 20 years ago, in which she accused him of grabbing her by the neck “violently” and destroying a telephone when she tried to summon police. Documents from the Santa Monica, California, police department relating to the case were first published by Politico on Thursday. The case was eventually dismissed. A Maine state lawmaker has complied with Maine governor Paul LePage’s request that he, the lawmaker, make public a voicemail in which LePage calls him a “cocksucker” and a “little son-of-a-bitch socialist cocksucker.” The unpleasantness arose out of LePage’s belief that the lawmaker, Democratic Representative Drew Gattine, had called LePage a racist. Gattine denies that. “I want you to prove that I’m a racist,” LePage challenges Gattine in the voicemail, which you can listen to on the Portland Press Herald web site. “I’ve spent my life helping black people.” LePage, a Republican, gets on well with Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, in a relationship the Boston Globe has described as a “bromance.” LePage’s daughter is a state coordinator for the Trump campaign. Iraq war co-architect and former deputy secretary of defense Paul Wolfowitz has told Der Spiegel that he will probably have to vote for Hillary Clinton. Wolfowitz told Spiegel that Trump represented a security risk and that his apparent affection for Russian president Vladimir Putin was “disturbing.” NJ.com reports that New Jersey governor Chris Christie is at least partially behind Donald Trump’s moderation this week on immigration. Trump indicated for the first time this week that he may be open to an immigration reform plan that includes a path to legal status for some undocumented migrants. The Trump campaign debuted its iPhone application this morning to relatively little fanfare - its release was accompanied by an email, but no tweets from the candidate himself - but privacy experts in the tech sphere are already casting a wary eye at the “America First” app as a potentially serious security risk for its users. According to ABC News, anyone who downloads the app opens the gate for the campaign to access and collect unusually vast quantities of data, including their entire address book and contact lists. Donald Trump’s gastroenterologist wrote the letter stating that Trump “will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency” in a matter of minutes, according to an interview the doctor gave NBC’s Lester Holt. Dr. Harold Bornstein told NBC that he stands by the assertion that Trump would be the healthiest man to ever hold the nation’s highest office, saying of the obvious hyperbole: “I like that sentence, to be quite honest with you.” Bornstein’s one-page assessment of the septuagenarian’s health - in which he called Trump’s latest test results “extraordinarily excellent” - have drawn new scrutiny since the letter’s release in December as the candidate and his acolytes have pointed to conspiracy theories that rival Hillary Clinton suffers from any number of secret ailments, from epilepsy to fainting spells, as proof that she does not have the “stamina” to serve as president. Bornstein said that the decidedly non-medical language he used in the letter was gleaned from Trump’s own vernacular: “I think I picked up his kind of language and then just interpreted it to my own.” Bornstein’s credentials have been called into question, after CNN’s Sanjay Gupta pointed out that the professional gastroenterological association mentioned in the letter has not counted Bornstein as a member for decades. Additionally, Bornstein’s website redirects to something called Annoying Teddy, a teddy bear that sings for three hours at a time. Speaking to a roundtable of Latino business leaders in Las Vegas, Donald Trump bragged - without apparently secret evidence - that his campaign is doing well with Latino voters: “We’ve been doing very, very well with the Latinos, we’ve been doing amazing - far, far greater... than anyone understands,” Trump said. “And they want to see jobs coming in, we’re going to bring jobs. They want to see things happen, I don’t know if you just saw, the GDP was just reduced from last month to 1.1%, when they had it last month it was 1.2, everyone thought that was a catastrophe, well they just did an adjustment and brought it down.” The “attack” in question: releasing a transcript of Jill Stein’s sitdown with the Washington Post’s editorial board. Jared Taylor was prominently featured in a Hillary Clinton campaign ad released ahead of her speech denouncing the “alt-right” in Reno on Thursday and “appreciates” the Democratic presidential nominee for “calling attention to the message I have for America”. The self-described “race realist” is unrepentant in embracing the label and expounding his views. He founded the alt-right American Renaissance website 25 years ago, which started as a print monthly to emphasize race as society’s most “prominent and divisive” fault line, and that mainstream politics and media tries to “gloss over” the issue. Clinton has attacked Trump’s associations with the alt-right, describing it as a “a fringe element that has taken over the Republican party”. Taylor said her speech was “a typical lefty campaign ploy”, and maintained Trump is not a part of the movement. “Is Hillary Clinton responsible for the views of everyone who supports her?” he asked. Asked to define what the diffuse alt-right stands for, Taylor said there were “areas of disagreement”, but that “the central element of the alt-right is the position it takes on race.” That position, until recently, would have been clearly beyond the pale of presidential politics, and rejected by liberals and mainstream conservatives alike. Now, Taylor sees an opportunity to further proselytise his views. He does not think Trump is solely responsible for the alleged growth of the alt-right. But, “it is encouraging because here we have a candidate for president who is saying some things that we have been saying for years”. Donald Trump, for one, is still an avid reader of Breitbart News: Statement from the Iowa chair of the Republican party on Hillary Clinton’s “alt-right” speech: Hillary Clinton’s latest strategy of deflecting from her corrupt pay-to-play scheme at the State Department by leveling personal attacks against Donald Trump is as desperate as it is predictable. For decades, Hillary and other Democrats have taken minority support for granted while offering them embarrassingly little results. Donald Trump’s powerful message of hope, opportunity and empowerment for minority communities threatens to resonate with Hillary’s base, and that’s why she’s lashing out. Hillary Clinton can add the endorsement of the National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce to her pile of endorsements from LGBTQ-oriented organizations, with business association’s CEO declaring in a statement this afternoon that LGBTQ Americans have “come too far to lose [their] seat at the table”. “The National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce has never endorsed a candidate in its nearly fifteen year history, but the stakes have never been so high for the future of the LGBT business community,” said NGLCC co-founder and CEO Chance Mitchell in a statement. Calling Clinton “the progressive champion our businesses and our families need to thrive,” the head of the nation’s largest business organization for LGBTQ people wrote that the advocacy group is “certain that Secretary Clinton will be the president fighting for the collective economic and social longevity of America’s 1.4 million LGBT business owners.” In its endorsement, the Washington, DC-headquartered organization, which aims to expand economic opportunities for LGBTQ businesses and business owners, cited Clinton’s long (albeit checkered) history of advocacy for LGBTQ communities, including her support for antidiscrimination legislation and reduction of red tape for small businesses. “The NGLCC and our partners are proud to endorse a champion for equality and opportunity who will promote the Democratic Party’s most progressive platform yet,” added Mitchell. “Secretary Clinton proudly affirms an essential core value of the NGLCC: that we are all stronger together, and that our economy only succeeds when the American Dream is available to all LGBT and allied Americans.” Clinton responded enthusiastically to the endorsement: “I am honored to have earned the first-ever endorsement of the National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce,” Clinton said in a statement. “The stakes in this election could not be higher for LGBT Americans. When Donald Trump says he’ll ‘make America great again,’ that’s code for ‘take America backwards.’ He has said he would appoint judges who would overturn marriage equality. The man Trump chose as his running mate signed a law that opened the door for Indiana businesses to discriminate against LGBT people and said marriage equality could cause ‘societal collapse.’” “As we’ve seen in North Carolina, discrimination isn’t only wrong – it’s bad for business. North Carolina’s egregious HB2 measure has caused companies to pull jobs and millions of dollars out of the state.” The Trump campaign debuted its iPhone application this morning to relatively little fanfare - its release was accompanied by an email, but no tweets from the candidate himself - but privacy experts in the tech sphere are already casting a wary eye at the “America First” app as a potentially serious security risk for its users. According to ABC News, anyone who downloads the app opens the gate for the campaign to access and collect unusually vast quantities of data, including their entire address book and contact lists. The app’s privacy policy informs users that the campaign “may access, collect, and store personal information about other people that is available to us through your contact list and/or address book.” That’s a long step further than Hillary Clinton’s analogous campaign application, which does not acquire any contact information beyond that of the user. “Trump’s is asking to collect significantly more data, and not just data about you, but data about anyone who might be in your contact list,” technology and civil liberties policy director at the ACLU of Northern California Nicole Ozer told ABC News. “You have the situation where an individual is wanting to use the app, and they’re making decisions about other people’s privacy,” Ozer said. “Just because you choose to use an app, doesn’t mean that all the people you come in contact with want information about them shared with that campaign or that company.” Donald Trump’s campaign chief has moved his voter registration to the home of one his website’s writers, after the disclosed that he was previously registered at an empty house in Florida where he did not live. Stephen Bannon is now registered to vote at the Florida house of Andy Badolato, who reports for Breitbart News and has worked with Bannon in the past on the production of political films. According to public records, Badolato, 52, and two of his adult sons are also registered to vote at the property, which he co-owns with his ex-wife. A spokeswoman for Bannon, a spokesman for Trump, and Badolato did not respond to emailed questions about whether Bannon lives at the single-family house, which is listed as his residence on his new voter registration record in Sarasota County. Alexandra Preate, a spokeswoman for Bannon, said earlier in an email that “Mr Bannon moved to a different residence in Florida”, repeating a statement about the issue that was previously released by Trump campaign spokesman Jason Miller. The Sarasota County supervisor of elections advises new registrants that they must use the address of their legal residence, and notes prominently that applying with untrue information can result in a felony charge punishable by five years in prison or a fine of up to $5,000. Bannon, the recently hired chief executive of Trump’s presidential campaign, made the amendment to his registration after being contacted by the for a report published on Friday morning about his previous voting registration arrangements. The 62-year-old executive chairman of Breitbart News was from 2014 until this week registered to vote at two rented houses in Miami where his ex-wife lived. The second house has been vacant for months, according to neighbors, and is due to be demolished. Bannon, who owns property in California, works predominantly in Washington and New York. Bannon, his ex-wife Diane Clohesy and the Trump campaign have not disputed that Bannon did not live in the Miami houses with Clohesy when given eight separate opportunities to do so before and after publication. Badolato states on his website that he is an “entrepreneur, senior level executive, venture capitalist and seed stage investor” and claims to have founded companies that reached a total of $26bn in market capitalization. According to federal court records, he has filed for bankruptcy four times since 2008. He is also an “editorial journalist and blog contributor” at Breitbart News and formerly worked as an associate producer on some of Bannon’s films such as The Undefeated, a documentary about the 2008 Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin. Which is your favorite? In 2004 Donald Trump told CNN that he dealt with stress by reflecting on how “nothing matters”: Donald Trump will attend a fundraiser this evening at Harrah’s casino Lake Tahoe, in an event hosted by the Nevada Republican party. Beforehand he will participate in meetings with local Hispanic leaders and small business owners, according to local reports: NJ.com reports that New Jersey governor Chris Christie is at least partially behind Donald Trump’s moderation this week on immigration. Trump indicated for the first time this week that he may be open to an immigration reform plan that includes a path to legal status for some undocumented migrants. Former New York City mayor and Trump confidant Rudy Giuliani told NJ.com how it played out, the site reports: And, Giuliani says, even more Christie-inspired changes to Trump’s immigration stance will be forthcoming, like his call for tracking immigrant visas like Fedex packages, and using the E-Verify system to reduce illegal labor. In an interview with NJ Advance Media on Thursday, Giuliani, a top adviser to the Republican presidential nominee, said Trump’s recent reversal on immigration policy came after his inner circle for several weeks suggested a more nuanced, practical, and humane approach in dealing with the nation’s 11 million undocumented immigrants. Asked if Christie was responsible for Trump’s softening approach to immigration, the former mayor responded: “The answer to that question is yes.” Iraq war co-architect and former deputy secretary of defense Paul Wolfowitz has told Der Spiegel that he will probably have to vote for Hillary Clinton. Wolfowitz told Spiegel that Trump represented a security risk and that his apparent affection for Russian president Vladimir Putin was “disturbing.” Hillary Clinton voted in favor of the invasion of Iraq. Donald Trump said beforehand that he favored the invasion but later withdrew his support. In this week’s Politics for Humans podcast – our series that takes on headline news with thoughtful conversations about real lives – host Sabrina Siddiqui takes a look at the great immigration debate of 2016. She’s joined by the Republican National Committee’s Helen Aguirre Ferré, Pulitzer-winning journalist Jose Antonio Vargas and Cecilia Muñoz, director of the Domestic Policy Council. Have a listen! Barack Obama will campaign for Hillary Clinton in Philadelphia on 13 September, and Joe Biden will campaign for the Democrats in multiple events in Ohio on 1 September, the White House has announced. The White House notes that there’s a voter registration deadline in Pennsylvania on 11 October. Donald Trump confused everyone this week by indicating that he may be open to an arrangement under which undocumented migrants in the United States would be able to stay here if they had no criminal background and pay back taxes. Previously he called for the expulsion of all undocumented migrants, citing as inspiration president Dwight Eisenhower’s expulsion in the 1950s of hundreds of thousands of Mexican immigrants. Now Trump tweets that illegal immigration is “such a big problem for our country-I will solve”. But that’s not quite enough information for some people: Arizona senator John McCain, whose primary opponent attacked him yesterday as “weak” and “old” – McCain turns 80 Monday – has told TMZ that he finds Britney Spears attractive. TMZ caught up with McCain at the Los Angeles airport and asked him to name his favorite “younger generation” female celebrity (video at TMZ): “Britney Spears?” a man off camera said. “There you go,” McCain said. “Britney Spears is certainly very attractive.” Spears has a new album out. She also is in a new episode of Carpool Karaoke with Late Late Show host James Corden. Didn’t expect to find reason to add this to today’s live blog politics coverage, but sometimes everything comes together: (h/t @bencjacobs) In reply to Donald Trump’s brash pitch to African American voters – “what do you have to lose?” Trump says – the Hillary Clinton campaign has produced a television ad called “Everything”: We’ll post new Trump ads when we see them – there haven’t been any since the one that was released when Trump’s first TV ad buys were announced last week. Do Instagram videos count? Trump is out with a new one today, hitting Clinton for a 1996 warning about juvenile “super predators”. The video draws on footage of a Democratic debate in which Bernie Sanders calls the comments “racist”: This May video of Ted Cruz predicting Donald Trump will betray supporters “on every issue across the board” particularly immigration has aged well: (h/t @awzurcher) Cruz wasn’t alone. Here’s National Review editor Rich Lowry in January: In news from off the campaign trail, the president has created the largest marine protected area on Earth, which also has what must be competitive for the longest name for a marine protected area, Papahānaumokuākea. It’s Friday. Treat yourself to some photos: And read our coverage here: A Maine state lawmaker has complied with Maine governor Paul LePage’s request that he, the lawmaker, make public a voicemail in which LePage calls him a “cocksucker” and a “little son-of-a-bitch socialist cocksucker.” The unpleasantness arose out of LePage’s belief that the lawmaker, Democratic Representative Drew Gattine, had called LePage a racist. Gattine denies that. “I want you to prove that I’m a racist,” LePage challenges Gattine in the voicemail, which you can listen to on the Portland Press Herald web site. “I’ve spent my life helping black people.” LePage, a Republican, gets on well with Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, in a relationship the Boston Globe has described as a “bromance.” LePage’s daughter is a state coordinator for the Trump campaign. “I want you to record this and make it public, because I’m after you. Thank you,” LePage concludes his voicemail to Gattine. LePage apologized in January for giving voice to a fantasy of marauding outsiders who come to his state to sell drugs and “impregnate a young white girl.” “These are guys with the name D-Money, Smoothie, Shifty – these types of guys – they come from Connecticut and New York, they come up here, they sell their heroin, they go back home,” LePage said. “Incidentally, half the time they impregnate a young white girl before they leave, which is a real sad thing because then we have another issue we have to deal with down the road.” LePage, who had already been known for incendiary rhetoric, said those comments were a “mistake.” “I was going impromptu and my brain didn’t catch up to my mouth,” LePage said. “Instead of Maine women I said white women … If you go to Maine, you can see it’s 95% white.” Read further: Hello and welcome to our live-wire coverage of the 2016 race for the White House. Hillary Clinton denied Friday morning that her work as secretary of state was affected by donations to the Clinton charitable foundation, after an Associated Press investigation revealed earlier this week that a large share of meetings she took as secretary with non-governmental counterparts were with foundation donors. “My work as secretary of state was not influenced by any outside forces,” Clinton said in a phone interview with MSNBC. “I made policy decisions based on what I thought was right to keep Americans safe and protect our interest abroad. I believe my aides also acted appropriately. And we have gone above and beyond ... to voluntarily disclose donors.” Clinton also suggested that the foundation would become less active on the world stage, saying its governors were “trying to make sure good work continues as we wind it down” and that “the Foundation is looking for partners but that’s going to take time to carry out”. The interview followed a speech Thursday in Reno, Nevada, in which Clinton described what she said was Donald Trump’s “long history of racial discrimination”. She repeated that description Friday. Senior Republicans have declined to comment on the speech or its content (read our news coverage of the speech here). That includes the leaders of both chambers of Congress. Separately, it emerged Thursday evening that Stephen Bannon, the head of the Donald Trump presidential campaign, faced domestic violence charges after a fight with a woman he was married to 20 years ago, in which she accused him of grabbing her by the neck “violently” and destroying a telephone when she tried to summon police. Documents from the Santa Monica, California, police department relating to the case were first published by Politico. The case was eventually dismissed. “She complained of soreness to her neck,” wrote a police officer who responded to the incident. “I saw red marks on her left wrist and the right side of her neck. These were photographed.” Read further: Additionally, a investigation has revealed that Bannon is registered to vote in a key swing state at an empty house where he does not live, in an apparent breach of election laws. From our report: Stephen Bannon, the chief executive of Trump’s election campaign, has an active voter registration at the house in Miami-Dade County, Florida, which is vacant and due to be demolished to make way for a new development. “I have emptied the property,” Luis Guevara, the owner of the house, which is in the Coconut Grove section of the city, said in an interview. “Nobody lives there … We are going to make a construction there.” Neighbors said the property had been abandoned for several months. Read further: Thanks for reading and please join us in the comments.
Breast cancer study finds 'astonishing' drug combination that gives results Using Herceptin in combination with another drug before surgery shrinks and may even destroy tumours in women with an aggressive form of breast cancer in less than two weeks, an “astonishing” study suggests. The results of the Cancer Research UK-funded trial, presented at the 10th European Breast Cancer Conference in Amsterdam, could – if successfully replicated – lead to fewer women needing chemotherapy. Around a quarter of 66 women with HER2 positive breast cancer treated for 11 days with both trastuzumab (the generic name for Herceptin) and lapatinib saw their tumours rapidly shrink significantly or even disappear. Prof Nigel Bundred, from the University of Manchester and the University Hospital of South Manchester NHS foundation trust, who presented the data, said: “This has groundbreaking potential because it allows us to identify a group of patients who, within 11 days, have had their tumours disappear with anti-HER2 therapy alone and who potentially may not require subsequent chemotherapy. “This offers the opportunity to tailor treatment for each individual woman.” Samia al Qadhi, chief executive at Breast Cancer Care, said: “The astonishing findings in this study show that combining these two drugs has the potential to shrink HER2 positive breast cancer in just 11 days. “For some HER2 positive breast cancer patients the effect of this drug combination will be amazing and mean they can avoid chemotherapy and its gruelling side effects completely. For others, their tumours may not shrink, but doctors will know either way very quickly, giving them the ability to rapidly decide on further treatment. “Although an early study, this has game changing potential. Yet before this can be made available we need to see more evidence. Particularly because, at present, trastuzumab’s (Herceptin) licensing means it is only available to be used alongside chemotherapy and not alone. All cancer patients deserve access to clinically effective treatments.” Trial co-leader Prof Judith Bliss, director of the clinical trials and statistics unit at the Institute of Cancer Research, London, said: “It was unexpected to see quite such dramatic responses to the trastuzumab and lapatinib within 11 days. “Our results are a strong foundation on which to build further trials of combination anti-HER2 therapies prior to surgery – which could reduce the number of women who require subsequent chemotherapy, which is also very effective but can lead to long-term side effects.” The trial, led by researchers from Manchester University, the University Hospital of South Manchester NHS foundation trust and the Institute of Cancer Research, studied 257 women with HER2 positive breast cancer in the short gap between their initial diagnosis and surgery to remove their tumours. Initially women were randomised to receive either trastuzamab or lapatinib or no treatment. Halfway through the trial, after evidence from other trials of the effectiveness of the combination, the design was changed so that additional women allocated to the lapatinib group were also prescribed trastuzumab. Of the women receiving both, 17% had only minimal residual disease – defined as an invasive tumour smaller than 5mm in size – and 11% had no biological sign of invasive tumour in the breast. Of the women treated with trastuzumab only, 3% had residual disease or complete response. HER2 positive breast cancer is more likely to come back after treatment than some other types of breast cancer. It is generally treated with surgery, chemotherapy, endocrine therapy and targeted anti-HER2 drugs. Current treatments are effective, and complete response is common after three to four months, but observing a disease response so quickly took the researchers by surprise. In the UK, around 53,000 women a year are diagnosed with invasive breast cancer, and in 10% to 15% of these cases it is HER2 positive breast cancer. Around 11,500 women die from the disease every year. Herceptin was approved by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) 10 years ago after pressure from patients. Lapatinib has not been approved and so is not routinely available on the NHS due to its expense. According to Cancer Research UK, current treatments are effective, and women often experience a complete response after three to four months. Nevertheless, researchers said the 11-day response was very surprising. Prof Arnie Purushotham, senior clinical adviser at Cancer Research UK, said: “These results are very promising if they stand up in the long run and could be the starting step of finding a new way to treat HER2 positive breast cancers. “This could mean some women can avoid chemotherapy after their surgery – sparing them the side-effects and giving them a better quality of life.”
Love through a lens: how Ingrid Bergman took the world’s breath away Nearly 20 years ago, I went to stay with my husband in a house owned by the family of Roberto Rossellini, the great neorealist Italian film director. We spent our days as you do when you find yourself in an idyllic hideaway in the Italian sunshine: reading; lying by the pool; watching the light through the trees. And I thought about Ingrid Bergman, who must have visited this secluded villa at a time when her life was in free fall. It’s hard now to imagine the kind of scandal Bergman caused when she became pregnant with Rossellini’s child, while still married to her first husband Petter Lindström. She wasn’t just a wife, she was a mother, and had left her daughter Pia behind when she went off to Italy to work with Rossellini. The outrage was scalding. “Bergman news jolts Hollywood like an A Bomb” screeched one newspaper headline, neatly combining two of the most important news items of 1949. In the US, religious groups began a campaign to ban her films on the grounds that they glorified adultery. In Italy, she and Rossellini were followed everywhere by paparazzi, their companions for the rest of their tumultuous life together. “I was a danger for American womanhood,” she told an interviewer, years later. “Even my voice over the radio was supposed to be dangerous. Of course I was hurt, but I didn’t think that what I had done was so much other people’s business ... If you don’t like the performance, you can walk out, but to criticise people’s private life, I thought was wrong.” That defiant statement of intent is quoted in Ingrid Bergman: In Her Own Words, a new documentary film directed by Stig Björkman that tells the story of one of Hollywood’s most enduring stars. It draws on her diaries, letters and interviews, interspersed with home movies, and glimpses of the actor in all her screen glory, from her Swedish debut in 1935 to her Hollywood heyday in the 1940s to her final roles nearly 40 years later. It is a revealing insight into a woman who consistently defied expectations. In her first American screen test, in bleached-out colour and silence, “with no makeup” as the clapper board proclaims, she shines. It is as if she is in possession of a secret and that knowledge illuminates her from the inside, as she glances directly at the camera, or smiles with a warmth that could thaw a Swedish winter. It’s a sign of all that is to come. If you think of Bergman on screen, in Casablanca, Notorious or Gaslight, it is that radiance that first comes to mind. In part this was a simple matter of her beauty. Daniel Selznick, son of the powerful David O who first swept Bergman away to Hollywood, told her biographer Charlotte Chandler: “There is no one I have ever met, of any age, of any generation, that took one’s breath away at every meeting the way she did. The complexion, the lips, the cheeks, the ears, the nose, the eyes, the body of a goddess. And she was just completely unselfconscious.” Gregory Peck, her co-star in Hitchock’s Spellbound, suggested that she was even more beautiful away from the studio cameras – a judgment vindicated by the home movie footage that shows her relaxed with family and friends. But there is some other mysterious force at work. From the very first, she was confident in front of a camera, and it is Pia Lindström – the daughter she abandoned when she ran off with Rossellini – who offers a psychological explanation for her mother’s dazzling impact on screen. Bergman’s mother had died when she was two, so she was brought up by her father, a photographer, whom she adored, until he too died when she was 13. “Love would come right through that lens,” suggests Lindström. “She was looking through that lens and she is looking at her dear dead father, and she would flirt and play with him and pose with him. She was completely comfortable with the camera and knew how to pose.” Bergman herself was aware of her gift. She was a poor little orphan girl, lonely and bereft, yet filming made her feel alive. There’s a photograph of her going to her first ever job as an extra that is notable not only for her staggering loveliness, but for the sheer vitality of her pose as she peers along the line of waiting hopefuls, looking outwards and forwards. “I love the freedom I feel in front of the camera,” she said. But she was a dab hand behind a camera, too, inheriting from her father a desire to record the world and the people around her. She filmed her honeymoon with Petter, and when she left him suddenly she wrote saying she didn’t want many of the “treasures” she had left behind. “The only problem will be our 16mm film. Maybe you will lend it to me so I can see what I looked like in my youth.” That desire to preserve each aspect of her life in photographs and footage has left Björkman a wealth of material on which to draw; in this private footage you see her falling in love with Rossellini, stroking his head tenderly as they talk; you watch the three children they had together grow up; you see their fear as their parents’ marriage falls apart. Later, you watch the sadness cross Bergman’s face as she climbs into an ambulance when her daughter Isabella is diagnosed with scoliosis. But just as revealing are the letters and diaries that Bergman also preserved, rich in self-knowledge and the honest confrontation of the contradictions in her character. Writing to a friend, when she is enjoying the first flush of success in her Hollywood career, she describes her panic at not working for four months “which is two months too long”. She is at home with Petter and Pia, but confesses: “Only half of me is alive. The other half is packed away in a suitcase suffocating. What should I do?” She has an affair with Robert Capa, the war photographer, and her free spirit soars. She tries to be a good wife and to knit at home, but the siren call of something different propels her onwards. With Rossellini, it is his work she falls in love with first; she admires Rome, Open City and writes him a bold proposal. “If you ever need a Swedish actor who speaks very good English and a little German, who can make herself understood in French and can only say ‘ti amo’ in Italian, then I’ll come and make a film with you.” Years later she explains his appeal more fully. “It was a combination of passion that I fell in love with a man who was so different from any other man I had ever known, and it was my boredom in Hollywood – I wanted to do something that they didn’t expect me to do.” When her relationship with Rossellini broke down, and she began to think about returning to Hollywood, she was still determined “to do the kind of films I feel comfortable with”. Success mattered greatly to Bergman, but not at any price. At the same time, as the film makes clear, though her children mattered to her intensely, she was prepared to leave them to pursue her career. Her priorities were not those expected. “If you took acting away from me I would stop breathing,” she said. She admitted she had missed a lot, by leaving not just one child but her second set of children to be brought up mainly by others. “I do regret it, but I don’t think they suffered,” she said. That complexity – the authentic voice of a woman who knew her own fallibility, of someone who loved and lost but never complained – makes Bergman, who died of cancer, aged 67, in 1982, a peculiarly admirable Hollywood star. She was a pioneer before her time; protected and constrained by her loveliness, she voyaged ever onwards, brave and strong. There is a rose named after her, which I have in my garden. It is deep red, lightly perfumed and almost too perfect in shape and form. It blooms for a very long time, lingering long after other flowers shed their petals. There could not be a better tribute to an actor who is always worth remembering. • Ingrid Bergman: In Her Own Words is at the BFI Southbank, London SE1, from 12 August and then at selected cinemas. At the BFI, the film will be accompanied by a mini season, Ingrid Bergman on Screen. bfi.org.uk
ECB cuts eurozone interest rate to zero to jump-start economy The European Central Bank has surprised financial markets by cutting interest rates in the eurozone to zero, expanding its money printing programme and reducing a key deposit rate further into negative territory as it seeks to revive the economy and fend off deflation. The ECB chief, Mario Draghi, implied interest rates would stay “very low” for at least another year but played down speculation they could be cut even further. Unveiling a bigger package of help for the eurozone than investors had expected, Draghi predicted that inflation in the single currency bloc would remain stuck in negative territory over the coming months and cited a host of risks to economic growth from stumbling emerging economies, volatile financial markets and the slow pace of structural reforms. “Rates will stay low, very low, for a long period of time and well past the horizon of our purchases,” Draghi said, referring to the ECB’s quantitative easing (QE) programme, where the bank pumps money into the European economy by buying bonds from banks, which is expected to run until at least March 2017. But asked at a news conference how low the ECB could go on interest rates, he said: “From today’s perspective and taking into account the support of our measures to growth and inflation, we don’t anticipate that it will be necessary to reduce rates further. Of course, new facts can change the situation and the outlook.” Going further than economists had expected, the Frankfurt-based ECB cut the eurozone’s main interest rate from 0.05% to zero, initially prompting a sharp drop in the euro against the pound and the dollar. As part of a package of measures to revive lending and economic activity in the eurozone, the central bank cut its two other interest rates, expanded QE and announced new ultra-cheap four-year loans to banks, allowing them to borrow from the ECB at negative interest rates. On currency markets, there were big swings in the euro as traders sought to establish if the ECB had now exhausted its options or if more stimulus was still to come. On stock markets, share prices were boosted when the rate cuts were announced but gains were cut as Draghi suggested there was no additional help to come. Economists said the package of measures announced was more than had been expected. “The European Central Bank announced a broad attack on below-target inflation, using all monetary policy tools at once to boost the economy and increase inflation,” said Tomas Holinka, economist at economic researchers Moody’s Analytics. “While the bank has revealed its policy instruments step by step in the past, now it announced all of them – cutting the interest rates, expanding the QE programme and providing long-term liquidity – together.” George Efstathopoulos, portfolio manager at fund manager Fidelity International, commented: “This is a bold stance from Draghi and the ECB, which should be positive for both financial markets but more importantly the real economy.” As expected by markets, the deposit rate was cut by 10 basis points, further into negative territory to -0.4%. The latest cut in the deposit rate means the ECB will be charging banks more to hold their money overnight, with the aim of encouraging them to lend it to businesses. The marginal lending rate, paid by banks to borrow from the ECB overnight, was cut from 0.3% to to 0.25%. The ECB expanded QE to €80bn (£61bn) a month, up from €60bn. That was more than the €70bn economists had been expecting, according to the consensus in a Reuters poll of economists. The programme will now include buying bonds issued by companies and not just by financial institutions. The ECB had come under growing pressure to increase support for the eurozone’s flagging economy after the single currency bloc slipped back into negative inflation in February. But the latest moves come amid growing scepticism on financial markets that central banks have enough ammunition left to bolster growth and stop falling prices becoming entrenched. The ECB itself is now predicting inflation in the eurozone will be just 0.1% this year, 1.3% in 2017 and 1.6% in 2018 - all under its target for inflation close to but below 2%. Draghi echoed comments by his UK counterpart, Bank of England governor Mark Carney, that governments cannot leave central banks to do all the work on driving the economic recovery. Draghi said: “Monetary policy is focused on maintaining price stability over the medium term and its accommodative stance supports economic activity. However, in order to reap the full benefits from our monetary policy measures, other policy areas must contribute decisively.” Those comments reflected evidence that “the effectiveness of monetary policy is clearly diminishing”, said Alasdair Cavalla at the consultancy Centre for Economics and Business Research. “Draghi threw down the gauntlet to fiscal policymakers, arguing for infrastructure spending while lowering the ECB’s own growth forecasts,” said Cavalla. Against that backdrop of bleaker growth prospects and falling prices, Draghi had already indicated the central bank would announce fresh stimulus at the conclusion of this week’s policy-setting meeting. Economists had widely expected the ECB to expand QE and cut the deposit rate so the reduction of the main interest rate and the marginal lending rate caught markets off-guard. Alex Edwards, analyst at currency transfer company UKForex, said: “The ECB has delivered nothing more than dovish news. Rates were cut, inflation forecasts slashed and an extra $20bn announced in quantitative easing. Draghi has not left many stones unturned, and the fact he announced this all at once sent the euro spiralling downwards. “The euro has been extremely volatile since Draghi spoke, and bounced back as quickly as it fell after he also hinted that rates may now be at their bottom. It’s going to be a very bumpy ride for the euro into the end of the week.”
HSBC escapes action by City regulator following Swiss tax scandal HSBC will not face formal action from the City regulator following revelations that the Swiss arm of Britain’s biggest bank helped clients to evade tax. HSBC was engulfed in scandal a year ago when leaked bank account details showed how the bank’s Swiss unit helped wealthy customers to dodge taxes by concealing assets and handing out bundles of cash to avoid the authorities. At the time, the Financial Conduct Authority said it was looking at the working practices inside the bank after admitting it had learned about the details of the activities in the Swiss bank from the reports in the and other publications. However, the FCA has now concluded that review and will not take formal action against HSBC. The FCA would not comment on the decision, first reported by Sky News, butit said in February 2015 that the leak of the bank account details “has served to reinforce the importance of firms operating with the right culture across all of their operations”. Martin Wheatley, the then chief executive of the FCA, said: “The allegations are about a Swiss unit of the bank, based on events of predominantly 2005-2007 ... We are very closely monitoring the ability of the bank overall … and we think significant improvements have been made”. Wheatley resigned in July when George Osborne did not renew his contract, sparking speculation that the chancellor wanted to take a softer stance towards the City. A successor for Wheatley has not been named and the regulator ended 2015 facing criticism of its decision to end a review of culture at banks that had been outlined in its business plan earlier in the year. HSBC, which declined to comment on Monday, has repeatedly said it has changed its practices, including an overhaul of its structure that began in 2011. Last year, the Geneva authorities instructed HSBC to pay a record 40m Swiss francs (£28m) for “organisational deficiencies”. A month ago, Hervé Falciani, an IT expert, was sentenced to five years in prison by a Swiss court for aggravated industrial espionage, data theft and violation of commercial and banking secrecy. Falciani was convicted in his absence and did not attend the trial. HSBC is currently reviewing whether to keep its headquarters in the UK, where it has been based since the early 1990s following the takeover of Midland Bank. The outcome is expected early this year. The bank has published 11 factors it will consider during the review, which include the government’s tax policy and attitude to financial services companies. The FCA decision emerged as the bank’s UK arm – which has 17 million customers – tweeted on Monday that people were having problems logging on to online and mobile banking services. Towards the end of the day, it tweeted: “Personal banking customers should now be able to access the mobile app, although we continue to work on a fix for desktop users”. It is the latest IT problem for a big bank. On New Year’s Day, Royal Bank of Scotland’s customers had problems using their debit cards in shops.
Shapeshifter Antonio Conte stamps his dynamic personality on Chelsea For Chelsea fans, or indeed anyone with an interest in the high-rev methods of Antonio Conte, there was a slightly alarming moment as the Premier League international break arrived at the start of October. Conte announced he would be going to Italy to rest. He was already exhausted. OK, then. Just the 31 league games, two domestic cups, one transfer window and 10-15 miles of febrile touchline sprints left to go this season. What could possibly go wrong from here? It is understandable Conte should have arrived in west London less than refreshed given his summer at Euro 2016, the burdens of starting a major job and his own full-body absorption in the process: the hair-tearing grief at every setback, the tendency to celebrate each high with uncontained, eye-popping joy, haring about like a man who has just struck oil beneath his patio decking or made the first ever recorded discovery of chocolate ice cream. In reality Conte is simply a manager who works best coiled tight and always on the edge. In this respect he looks a pretty good fit for a Premier League season where top spot has changed hands nine times and where the ability to cajole a cohesive whole out of a new-ish group of players while simultaneously sliding down the banisters and performing complex calculus on an abacus is likely to decide the destiny of an open title race. With just under a third of the season gone four points separate the top five teams, all of whom have a reasonable chance of going on to win it. Beyond this the league is unusually interesting in a tactical sense, with a shared attempt at the top to marry technical players and positional fluidity with a full-throttle physicality that feels quite English in its unquestioning intensity. As Conte nipped off for a lie-down at the start of October there was a view in these pages that any team finishing ahead of Liverpool at the end of the season would do so “bloodied and blistered and breathless”. Six weeks on the latest club to take up the slack at the front of the peloton are Chelsea, to whom the same reasoning might now be applied. Chelsea’s current run of six league wins without conceding a goal has its roots in Conte’s bold shift of shape in September. The early attempts at a 4-2-4 had already begun to elide into a 4-3-3. Defeat by Arsenal brought some soul-searching and a more profound change to 3-4-3, with Cesc Fàbregas discarded and the roles of three key players clarified with thrilling results. At which point, enter David Luiz, defensive giant. Yes, that David Luiz, a player who has had a peculiar double-life, damned by his own relentlessly trumpeted mistakes and at the same time rewarded with ever more extravagant playing contracts. During the last World Cup in Brazil there was an airline advert that featured a zanily grinning David Luiz in full pilot’s outfit proudly inviting you to board his waiting jet, arguably the least reassuring passenger safety message ever devised. And yet he has been key to Chelsea’s recent stability, not just as a deep playmaker at the heart of that three but as the aggressive, spirited defensive leader he has always been in between the odd horrific performance. Aged 29 now, the only major club football medal to escape the world’s most expensive defender across European three countries is - so far - a Premier League title medal. Which is fairly steady going for a man routinely dismissed as a flake and a saboteur. Further upfield Eden Hazard has been liberated by the 3-4-3, allowed to operate in forward gear by a manager who has accepted his lack of cover rather than simply fuming at it like a disappointed stepdad. In 12 league games Hazard has made 52 successful dribbles, compared with 89 the whole of last season. He should pass his total of 36 shots in the whole of 2015-16 against Tottenham on Saturday. Against that Hazard has made just four tackles. But Chelsea are top, and their best player has rediscovered his lateral spring, the ability to take the ball and turn in a single movement. Victor Moses, high-class wing-back, has been the most obvious gain. Moses is also the epitome of a common trait among the insurgent Conte-Klopp-Guardiola managerial type, the ability to make good use of the things that they find, recycling some talented but dormant part into a key component. Like James Milner’s fine turn at left-back, or Guardiola’s tweaking of key creative midfielders, Moses has been Conte’s own Womble-player, an itinerant winger and No10 across five English clubs before the age of 25 but now in the best period of his career as a powerful and utterly committed right wing-back. The sudden surge of eviscerating form, sparked by a decisive switch of shape, is nothing new in a Conte team. There are parallels with his first season at Juventus in 2011-12, where 14 of his first 27 Serie A matches were drawn but Juve ended up winning the title unbeaten in the league. Conte had been desperate to fit the thrillingly energetic Arturo Vidal into his team. In late September Vidal finally made the starting XI, Juve ran through Milan in Turin, a new 4-3-3 shape was up and running and Conte was on his way to a hat-trick of titles. As with Juve that year the lack of European football looks a significant advantage for Chelsea. There is an idea that the major plus here is to do with fatigue or injury, but managers talk instead of simply having those extra two days to plan and drill their players. Such is the way of the modern coach. In contract with the old Alex Ferguson-era idea of momentum, winning teams rolling on with the same system, combinations ever-more grooved under pressure, it is the interventionist, hands-in-the-cake-mix tendencies of the modern breed that stand out. Conte is obsessed with the fitness and physicality of his players, talking constantly with his medical staff, brooding over sprockets and hinges like an F1 pit boss, shifting his team on reports of twinges and twangs. Similarly the hands-on nature of Jurgen Klopp’s coaching has been noted, the tendency to physically haul players around the training pitch, something Ron Greenwood could be seen doing at West Ham in the 1970s. Klopp’s Liverpool experienced their first little gulp this weekend, as Southampton set out to defend against a slightly depleted team. Like a batsman who comes out and hits a flurry of fours, then has to change gear as the field drops back, Klopp will now look to adjust, to pick up the ones and twos, to hold Liverpool’s attacking fire for the right moment. No doubt the same process of reeling in and counter-adjustment will hit Chelsea in the coming weeks as opposition managers find a way to get behind the wing-backs or to harry David Luiz as Middlesbrough did on Sunday. Chelsea’s next two opponents are Tottenham and Manchester City. This evolving team may find life less comfortable against similar high-intensity machines, fellow hard-pressers. But a year on from the last days of José they can at least be sure they will not fail for want of sheer, thrilling focus.
Sa Dingding: The Butterfly Dream review – Chinese folk-electronica fusion for global pop market This should have been an intriguing set. Sa Dingding is one of China’s most successful and unusual artists, a powerful singer who has specialised in reviving Chinese and Mongolian folk themes while mixing traditional instruments with electronica. And the producer of her new album is Karsh Kale, the New York-based tabla player who has worked with Anoushka Shankar. But this is not the China-India sound-clash that it could have been, even though Dingding plays the guzheng zither and morin khuur fiddle, and the Indian musicians include flautist Naveen Kumar and sitar player Azeem Ahmed Alvi. There are some strong songs here, but they are weakened by the overuse of electronica. The yelping Ding Ding Sa or clattering Yin and Yang are aimed at the global pop market, though the cool, sitar-backed Oriental Beauty and rousing finale, Good Luck Song, are reminders of Dingding’s versatile, often acrobatic vocals.
Family rifts over Brexit: ‘I can barely look at my parents’ ‘I’m worried Brexit has made me ageist,” a friend said, following the shock of the referendum result on Friday morning. “I saw this older couple in the street and just felt this sudden, enormous wave of fury towards them and their generation. It was almost physical.” In the immediate aftermath of Britain’s vote to leave the European Union, emotions have been running high. Since YouGov reported that 75% of 18- to 24-year-olds and 56% of 25- to 49-year-olds voted in favour of remain, versus 44% of 50- to 64-year-olds and 39% of those over 65, the extent of the generational gulf between Generation Y and the so-called baby boomers and their parents has been palpable. As has the anger many younger people including my friend, are feeling. Over the past few days, thousands have vented on social media. “I’m never giving up my seat on the train for an old person again,” read one tweet. The overwhelming consensus on the part of “millennials” (defined as those aged 18-34), has been that, by opting for Brexit, the older generation has selfishly voted against the interests of subsequent ones. What happens if the people voting against your interests were members of your own family: your parents, grandparents, uncles and aunts? Stephanie is 21, from Merseyside, and was visiting her parents for the week of the referendum. “Right from the moment I got back I was bombarded with questions about which side I was on and why,” she said. “I’m not one to shy away from healthy debate, but my parents completely refused to see things from any point of view but their own, and would deliberately misunderstand my view or rubbish it completely. “After the leave result, my parents continued to insult and degrade the 48% of us [who voted remain], with my dad at one point getting into an argument with a family friend who is an EU citizen and telling her she ‘should leave if she loves the EU so much’. Even when stories of legitimised racism and xenophobia were highlighted, my parents refused to accept this may have been partly because of the leave vote,” she adds. The referendum may have ruined Stephanie’s trip home, but it has shifted her perspective. “What was supposed to be a nice week turned into a week of being belittled and endless arguments, and I have never felt so insulted by members of my own family before. As much as I love my parents, this referendum has made me see them in a different light – people who are unwilling to listen to the opinions of others and disrespectful of those with legitimate concerns about what their opinion could lead to.” Stephanie is far from being the only young person now seeing her family differently. “I’ve been having the most terrible rows with my mum about it, as I’m so heartbroken by the result,” says Alex. “Both my parents voted to leave despite me begging them not to. I tried to explain the effects it would have on my future, and my children’s future – but each time it would just end in the most awful arguments. Now, with the way things are, I feel like I can barely look at them. It sounds melodramatic, but I feel so betrayed by it all.” Some will think Alex is going over the top, but the realisation that your parents may not just have voted against your interests but embody wildly different politics and values from yours can be a bitter pill to swallow. Jamie, 28, grew up in a council flat with a single mother who worked hard to make their difficult life better for her children. “I’ve always been so proud of her for all the things she sacrificed for us. She’s warm, kind, generous and funny. She has such acute sympathy that she’s been known to cry hearing about the illness of other people’s relatives. Oh, and she also hates immigrants.” It is not a prejudice that Jamie shares. “My mum voted to leave the EU because she doesn’t want non-British citizens here. Despite the fact that my brother and I have been extremely vocal about our reasons for staying in, she’s chosen to vote out because she doesn’t like the local Asian population. It makes no sense to me. “When she tells me wildly embellished stories about how disgusting the local peaceful, quiet, mostly elderly immigrant community are, I laugh at her and calmly tell her she’s wrong. Most of the time, I can see past her views. But right now, I’m angry and ashamed.” Sarah is also struggling with anti-immigrant sentiments among those close to her. She is the only known remain voter in her family. “I grew up in the Midlands on a council estate where many of my relatives still live, so I do wonder if that has something to do with their choice,” she says. “It came to a head post-result, when a relative asked: ‘How can Remain voters call leave voters ‘racist?’” “I had pointed out that sharing EDL, Britain First and BNP posts online [means] people will assume you share those views and are likely to call you a racist, homophobe and a sexist.” After that, things took a nasty turn. “I’m no longer engaging with it. My family isn’t impressed I ‘called my family racist’, and the whole referendum has certainly created a them versus us divide that I don’t think will heal any time soon. I haven’t spoken to any of them since Friday. It’s a bit sore.” Naturally, not all tales of post-referendum familial disharmony will be so extreme. Where some parents are defiant in their voting choice, for others, a certain amount of guilt is setting in. “My whole family voted leave,” says Emma. “My brother, who is 31, now feels awful about it and wishes he hadn’t even voted at all. My parents have been staunch Eurosceptics their whole lives, and are pleased with the result. But my mum now feels bad about how upset I am; and all of her friends’ children have been upset, too. We are having very tense conversations. “I don’t begrudge her the life that she has had – my parents are homeowners who retired early with nice pensions – because she has worked damn hard for it. I’m not even angry with her for voting the way she has, because she has a right to her views. I just feel sad about my own future and I can’t pretend that I’m not. And so she feels bad for making me feel sad, which just keeps going in a never-ending cycle. I feel like we are both hurting and we can’t help each other.” Jo, too, is cut up about her parents’ decision. “My parents voted out. I was very shocked when I found out how they were voting,” she says. “My parents were anti-Thatcherites, originally from the north-east, and they partially blamed Europe for the loss of industry and jobs in the north. They are not racists and they are degree-educated people who had decided years ago that if the vote ever came up they would vote out. “They felt lied to in the original vote as to what Europe would become. It seemed to be a vote for nostalgia. I had a hard time picking up the phone on Friday, and I think mum was upset as to how distraught I was about the result. She said she never thought it would actually be out and was surprised. I feel like something has died that we can’t get back as a nation.” One woman I speak to is so furious with her uncle for voting leave that she is considering not inviting him to her wedding. “I just don’t want anything to do with him at the moment,” she says. “Maybe after a few days I will calm down. Then again, maybe not.” From speaking to young people up and down the country, many of whom are now embroiled in rifts with the closest members of their families, it becomes clear that their reactions to the result are not just matters of political principle, but come from a place of profound grief and betrayal. It sounds dramatic but, for many, the heartbreak is total, because of the futures so many feel they have lost. One person I speak to, from west Wales, has spent their entire adult life studying or working on an EU-funded programme across several European countries, and is furious that despite this their mother didn’t even bother to vote. Another, who speaks two EU languages, is working on a third, and dreams of living abroad, is furious. “Now, because of petty quibbles with EU practice, my parents have voted away my right to live and work in nearly 30 countries,” she says. “Everything I’ve studied for, for as long as I can remember, has been thrown away over false constructs of sovereignty and lies about immigration. “I am presumably one of the citizens who leave voters thought they were winning the country back for. I don’t want their toxic, pathetic little country, it is not mine. If I had anywhere else to go I would burn my passport.” You can imagine how it must feel, to invest so much of your young adult life into the European project, only to have your parents undermine it. “How could they do this?” is the phrase that comes up again and again. Some tell me they are leaving the Labour party, dismayed at what they perceive as Jeremy Corbyn’s failure to passionately fight for the EU they so love, or are moving to Scotland and plan to vote SNP, and several mention the Lib Dems’ promise to campaign to reverse the decision if there is a snap general election. Whatever happens, there is a huge swell of political support among young people for remaining in the EU that clever politicians could potentially galvanise. In the meantime, young people are reflecting on the fact that you only get one adult life, and it’s one that politicians and parents alike have gambled with. “I’m ashamed of my own mother,” says Jamie. “It’s a horrible feeling. I’m incredibly angry that she didn’t consider the future of her young children who are just starting out in the world. “We’re graduates, starting our careers and beginning postgraduate studies. We’re newlyweds and nearlyweds, looking for our first homes and who will be starting families in the next 10 years. But when our mum voted, she chose to ignore that, driven by her hate for foreigners, rather than love for her own children. She’s sacrificed a lot in life to give us the best chances but now, with one little cross in a box, she’s undone all the good she did for us. I just don’t understand why she didn’t listen to her children before she voted.” Not all young people voted to remain, of course. Emily, 26, voted leave, while her mum, dad and grandad all voted remain. “My mum hung up the phone on me when she found out my younger sister and I had voted leave. Dad said he was devastated at the result, and my granddad, a second world war veteran, initially told me he was worried for a future he wouldn’t see.” Her younger sister, who is a student, also voted leave. “Being young, both my sister and I felt we were at the sharp end of the economic crash. She’s saddled with £9,000-a-year tuition fees she didn’t have any say about, and set to work under the dreaded junior doctor contact in a decimated NHS. I’m still paying nearly half my income in rent. We wanted something to give. Mum and Dad are second-home owners. Grandad has been retired longer than he has worked. The system worked for them. Now the economic reality is beginning to set in, I’m not sure if I made the right decision. Mum says we all make bad choices, she voted for Thatcher in 79, and she forgives me. Grandad says not to worry, nothing will be as bad as the Great Depression he grew up in. When he was a child, he was so hungry he ate acorns for dinner and had no shoes. People nowadays need to toughen up, he says. It’ll be OK in the end.” • All names have been changed
Demand mounts for Trump Apprentice tapes that may hold 'far worse' footage The repercussions were swift following last Friday’s leak of the Access Hollywood tape, in which Donald Trump can be heard bragging about sexually assaulting women: House speaker Paul Ryan told fellow Republicans that he would no longer defend the party’s nominee, while hordes of party members distanced themselves from Trump’s comments with some – including Senator John McCain – even saying they could no longer vote for Trump. Supposedly, things could get even worse for the Republican nominee. Following the release of the footage by the Washington Post, Bill Pruitt, a producer on the first two seasons of The Apprentice, the NBC reality show Trump hosted from 2004-2015, tweeted that there are “far worse” behind-the-scenes tapes of Trump on the program. Emmy award-winning producer Chris Nee has alleged that Trump says the n-word in the recordings. In light of the allegations, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios, which owns the rights to the show, and The Apprentice creator Mark Burnett are facing mounting pressure to make public the footage. But on Monday, MGM and Burnett said in a joint statement to the , that they do “not have the ability nor the right” to release the material, citing “various contractual and legal requirements”. MGM and Burnett also refuted allegations that staffers have been threatened with legal action for releasing the outtakes, stating that: “the recent claims that Mark Burnett has threatened anyone with litigation if they were to leak such material are completely and unequivocally false.” Burnett “has consistently supported Democratic campaigns”, the statement said. In past presidential cycles, he has been a prominent donor to Democratic candidates and the Democratic National Committee. But leaking The Apprentice tapes comes for an alleged asking price of $5.1m – needed to cover the potential penalty fee for breaking Burnett’s non-disclosure agreement. With mounting interest surrounding The Apprentice footage, the Huffington Post on Tuesday published an in-depth report on how Comedy Central’s 2011 Roast of Donald Trump came together, displaying yet more misogynistic remarks by Trump. Still, The Apprentice leak is sure to be more destructive. Rumors of the footage has spurred UltraViolet Action, a group committed to “expose and fight sexism”, to post a petition calling on MGM and NBC to release the tapes and “stop protecting Donald Trump”. The form was signed by more than 30,000 people in less than four hours after it went live on Monday afternoon. By Tuesday morning, that number rose to 115,000 according to the organization. Actor and activist Mark Ruffalo is among those who have joined the cause, tweeting his support for the petition. Additionally, A GoFundMe crowdfunding campaign was launched on Sunday, with the goal of raising $5m to “reward the whistleblower responsible” to “assist them as they move forward in their career”. “Any unused funds (or if no one comes forward) will be donated to a reputable organization that supports freedom of the press and journalistic integrity,” reads the Trump Sunlight Campaign page. So far the campaign has amassed more than $20,000. David Brock, a Hillary Clinton ally who runs a network of Democratic groups to help her campaign, including Media Matters, has also promised he would back the leaker financially. “Time is of the essence,” urges Karin Roland, chief campaigns officer for UltraViolet Action. “I know that MGM has said that there are contractual reasons for withholding the tapes, but that’s not acceptable. Every day and every hour is time that MGM and Mark Burnett are keeping the truth about the man who wants to be president from voters – and that’s totally unacceptable.” “The reality is MGM and Burnett have profited off of Trump’s brand and now they’re protecting who he is from the public, in particular from women voters,” Roland adds. “The American public deserves to know.” MGM and Burnett’s response comes a week after the Associated Press released an in-depth report of Trump’s behavior on the NBC show, which he hosted from 2004 to early 2015, in which more than 20 contestants and crew members from The Apprentice shared on-and-off the record accounts of his allegedly lewd behavior. Randal Pinkett, who won the competition in December 2005, told the AP he remembered Trump talking about which female contestants he wanted to sleep with, even though Trump had married former model Melania Knauss earlier that year: “He was like ‘Isn’t she hot, check her out,’ kind of gawking, something to the effect of ‘I’d like to hit that.’” Former producer Katherine Walker said Trump speculated about which female contestant would be “a tiger in bed”. The Trump campaign denied the claims, calling them “outlandish” and “unsubstantiated”. On Monday, the Huffington Post obtained a transcript from the ninth season of The Apprentice where contestants were tasked with giving three country music stars a makeover. During a boardroom session to present their transformations, Trump reportedly made a series of comments on singer Emily West’s physical appearance, specifically her skin, saying: “I assume you’re gonna leave this off, don’t put this shit on the show, you know. But her skin, her skin sucks, okay? I mean her skin, she needs some serious fuckin’ dermatology.” Trump was fired from hosting The Apprentice by NBC in 2015 after making controversial comments about Mexican immigrants while launching his campaign for president. He’s been replaced by Arnold Schwarzenegger for an upcoming season. The former Republican governor of California has since distanced himself from Trump, retracting his support following the Access Hollywood leak. “It is not only acceptable to choose your country over your party – it is your duty,” he said in a statement.
Genius by numbers: why Hollywood maths movies don't add up In the Tina Fey sitcom Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, wealthy Manhattanite Jacqueline Vorhees wails to her assistant that she can’t afford to get divorced. Even though she’d get $1m for every year of her marriage. “I spend 100 grand a month. I’ll be broke in 10 years,” she wails. “No, that’s wrong,” counters Kimmy (Ellie Kemper), who scribbles some sums with a marker on Mrs Vorhees’s window. “So $100,000 times 12 months. That’s $1.2m a year. Divide that into $12m, and yes, you’d be broke in 10 years. But if you invest some of it, assuming a 7% rate of return, using the compound interest formula, your money would almost double.” Kimmy turns round triumphantly: “Mrs Voorhees, I mathed, and you can get divorced!” Mrs Vorhees eyes Kimmy narrowly. “Those are not,” she complains, “erasable markers.” What she doesn’t mention is that math isn’t a verb. Not yet. The scene is, among other things, Fey’s satire of the Hollywood cliche of genius squiggling on glass. In A Beautiful Mind (2001), for instance, Russell Crowe, playing troubled maths star John Forbes Nash Jr, writes formulae on his dorm window. This scene is echoed in The Social Network (2010), where Andrew Garfield sets out the equations for Facebook’s business model on a Harvard window while Jesse Eisenberg’s Mark Zuckerberg looks on. In the opening scene of Good Will Hunting (1997), janitor prodigy Matt Damon writes equations on a bathroom mirror. Why do so many Hollywood maths whizzes forego paper? Stanford mathematician Keith Devlin explains. “Depicting a mathematician scribbling formulas on a sheet of paper might be more accurate, but it certainly doesn’t convey the image of a person passionately involved in mathematics, as does seeing someone write those formulas in steam on a mirror or in wax on a window, nor is it as cinematographically dramatic.” Good point. When we watch A Beautiful Mind and look through the window at our Russ, Hollywood’s most built mathematician (counterexamples on postcards, please show your workings), we pass beyond incomprehensible equations and convince ourselves we’re seeing Genius at Work. Even if, as some critics have complained uncharitably, Russ’s pi glyphs, greater-than and less-than symbols and such don’t make sense. But there’s another way maths movies can confound the Boredom Equation, namely by leaving a black hole where the maths should be. The Man Who Knew Infinity, the new film starring Dev Patel and Jeremy Irons about the great Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan, is intriguing in this respect. Although we see Ramanujan doing maths, mostly the film is interested in other things – how he falls in love with his wife, the pain of separation when he travels from Madras to study at Cambridge, the racism he suffers in England and, most stirringly, the narrative arc from lowly clerk to globally recognised mathematician. That said, the film has its charming moments. When Hardy visits Ramanujan in a nursing home, he complains about the boring number of the cab that brought him there. Ramanujan begs to differ: 1,729 is the smallest that is expressible as the sum of two cubes in two different ways. Today 1,729 is known as the Hardy-Ramanujan number. How does that work, you may be wondering? Like this: 1729 = 13 + 123 = 93 + 103. Ramanujan’s mentor GH Hardy (Irons) is an atheist and rationalist, exasperated that this Indian prodigy cannot produce proofs for his work and, worse, is doubtful that proofs can explain the inexplicable. “You wanted to know how I get my ideas,” says Ramanujan. “God speaks to me.” But while the film may sketch two different mathematical philosophies, we leave the cinema with a warm glow that comes from anything but hard thinking. If you want to learn some more about Ramanujan’s contribution to mathematics, rent High School Musical. Freeze-frame it at the moment brainy Gabriella Montez challenges her teacher. On the board are two of the equations of the inverse of the constant pi (1/π) that Ramanujan offered in his first paper published in England. “Shouldn’t the second equation read 16 over pi?” asks Gabriella. Of course it should. Cinema often struggles with dramatising difficult ideas, particularly if they are abstract. One way of overcoming that problem is by metaphorical explanation. For instance, in Nicholas Roeg’s Insignificance (1985), a Marilyn Monroe-like character demonstrates relativity using toy trains and flashing lights. In The Theory of Everything, Jane Hawking uses a pea and a potato to explain the difference between quantum theory and general relativity, while her husband’s friends explain Hawking Radiation with beers and crisps. Movie explanations of difficult stuff, though, may obscure rather than enlighten. What’s more, some directors know this and have fun pointing out the shortcomings of their medium – and those of their audiences. In Adam McKay’s The Big Short (2016), for instance, Margot Robbie sits in a tub sipping champagne and describing how sub-prime loans work. Her explanation is doubtless coherent, but when I’m looking at a beautiful woman in a bubble bath, I’m not thinking about credit default swaps. So sue me. Later in the film, chef Anthony Bourdain chops fish in his kitchen while describing how collateralised debt obligations work. Finally, Selena Gomez plays roulette to illustrate the idea of gambling on other people’s gambles. Each scene serves as a parody of explanation. They are part of a film that mocks you, you poor jerk, and your intellectual aspirations. You are never ever going to understand how difficult stuff works from watching movies, however much you’d like to. Sometimes, though, cinema can give a real insight into the intellectual process. In Agora (2009), Rachel Weisz as ancient philosopher Hypatia does an experiment on a ship to test relative motion. If, she hypothesises, you drop a heavy sack from the mast while the ship is moving forward, it will fall on the deck several feet behind the mast. The sack is dropped and falls much closer to the mast than she predicted. Hypatia claps her hands in delight. “But you were wrong!” says the ship’s captain. “Yes, but it is definitive proof! The sack behaves as if the boat were stationary.” “What does that mean?” “I don’t know. But the same principle could be applied to the Earth. It could be moving around the sun without us realising.” Hypatia, that is to say, infers a revolutionary heliocentric cosmology from her falsified hypothesis. The film thus generously gives us what we are effectively denied in Good Will Hunting or A Beautiful Mind – the inside track on how someone clever is thinking about a problem. What’s more, it’s an antidote to Hollywood’s vision of genius. It suggests that getting stuff wrong is at least as important in the story of human intellectual progress as being right all the time. Maths is often reduced to nothing more than a MacGuffin. In Rushmore (1998), for instance, Max Fischer (Jason Schwartzman) is reading the newspaper while his teacher tells his class that on the blackboard is the hardest geometry equation in the world. What credits would anyone solving it get, asks one student. “Well, considering I’ve never seen anyone get it right, including my mentor Dr Leaky at MIT, I guess if anyone here can solve that problem, I’d see to it that none of you ever have to open another math book again for the rest of your lives.” Thus tempted, Fischer folds his paper and goes to the blackboard, and squiggles his solution while nonchalantly sipping espresso. The film at this point has nothing to declare but Fischer’s genius. Do we really believe Jason Schwartzmann can compute the area of an ellipse? Sure. Whatever. Genius squiggling is there once again merely to help Hollywood tell the sentimental story it never tires of: namely the story of someone – usually borderline demented and by definition insufficiently recognised – sticking it to the establishment. None of this should suggest we can’t learn maths from movies. In Tina Fey’s Mean Girls (2004), for example, Lindsay Lohan plays a finalist in the Illinois high school mathletes state championship. Will her North Shore High team stick it to those prep school toffs opposite? Here’s the first question: “Twice the larger of two numbers is three more than five times the smaller, and the sum of four times the larger and three times the smaller is 71. What are the numbers?” Got it yet? 14 and 5. In the end, Lohan’s team become the new state champs because she wins the sudden death tie-break. What does the scene prove? That those of you who thought Lindsay Lohan can’t do maths should really have a word with yourselves. Perhaps the most resonant maths scene in Hollywood cinema, though, comes in a very old comedy. In the Abbott and Costello movie In the Navy (1941), Lou is a ship’s cook. He’s baked 28 doughnuts, which he reckons is just enough to give 13 to each of his seven officers. But seven goes into 28 four times, objects Lou’s straight man. Not so, says Lou, who goes on to prove it on the blackboard in a masterclass of cheating and illusion. The scene demonstrates a general truth, namely that when Hollywood does maths, it doesn’t necessarily add up. • The Man Who Knew Infinity is released on 8 April.
Deutsche Bank: Germany's financial colossus stumbles Deutsche Bank fuelled Germany’s rise to the status of economic powerhouse, financing its industry in the 19th century and helping the country’s economy to rise again from the rubble of the second world war. It took on the giants of Wall Street in the postwar globalised economy and survived the 2008 banking crisis without a bailout. Such is its stature that in 2008 Angela Merkel organised a special 60th birthday party, with a dinner of fresh asparagus and veal schnitzel, for its then head, Josef Ackermann, at her chancellery. But now as the institution enters its 146th year, questions are being raised about how it will reinvent itself in a banking landscape that is undergoing seismic change as a result of regulatory change and fears of a global economic downturn. The bank has turned to a 55-year-old Briton, John Cryan, to try to carve out a vision for its future and its 100,000 employees. But Cryan – taking the extraordinary step of declaring Deutsche “rock solid” – has spent the last 72 hours trying to calm concerns about its financial health after a dramatic plunge in its share price that, even after a 10% rise on Wednesday, is still down more than 30% in the first six weeks of 2016. After announcing the bank’s first full-year loss since the 2008 crisis last month, Cryan’s bank has become the focus of anxiety about the health of the global financial system, and its woes are raising questions about Germany’s reputation as a haven of financial stability. Experts suggest that the country’s entire banking system would have to be redesigned in order to save its standard-bearer. According to Jörg Rocholl, president of Berlin’s European school of management and technology, “there is no other country in the world in which a bank has a similarly central role as Deutsche Bank has in Germany”. Christopher Wheeler, banks analyst at Atlantic Equities, said Deutsche had resembled the UK’s Barclays: an investment bank and large lender to big businesses with a retail banking arm. But it is now attempting to cast off its retail business – Postbank, which it only acquired in 2010 – raising questions about how it will generate revenues in the future. Attempts to spin off Postbank are proving troublesome and a report on Wednesday suggested that Deutsche would have to write down the value of the business by a third to €2.8bn (£2.2bn) before it could proceed any further. Add to that concerns about the potential bill from litigation and fines. Analysts at Morgan Stanley have forecast another €3.9bn of charges in 2016 and 2017. “It is also possible the litigation may not be resolved until 2017, leaving uncertainty on the stock,” the analysts said. They cite “unresolved litigation which the market struggles to book-end, weak capital generation and need for capital raising actions”. Cryan – who has already announced plans to reduce the workforce by a quarter – took on a bank that had been rocked by scandals, including a record £1.7bn fine for rigging the Libor interest rate, which sparked accusations it had been obstructive towards regulators. He has described the task ahead of him like mowing the lawn. In December he said previous attempts to cut costs at the bank had involved taking off the top layer, which grew back when it rained as the number of blades of grass remained the same. What he needed to do, he said, was to make the lawn smaller. Investors are yet to be convinced by his plan for shrinking the bank. The cost of insuring Deutsche against default – by using complex financial instruments called credit default swaps (CDS)– has risen, although the Morgan Stanley analysts suggest this could be for technical reasons. With rumours – denied – that Deutsche might not be able to make payments on specialised bonds known as CoCos that can be converted into shares during times of crisis, investors may have been using the CDS as a form of insurance. Others point to speculators. “Hedge funds are betting the regulator will make Deutsche pass on paying the coupon on the CoCo, so buy the CDS as a proxy for the subsequent decline in the CoCos’ value … As the CDS spikes, other investors get nervous about the bank’s health,” said Wheeler. He is confident that Deutsche will emerge from the crisis, which has already prompted German finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble to intervene to insist he had “no concerns” about the bank. While Schäuble will have been pleased to see the lack of panic about Deutsche’s troubles in the German media, he may have been irked by a damning front-page comment in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Headquartered in the same city as the bank, the newspaper said: “What is one to think of a bank that has to promise its customers and investors that it is able to pay back credits? How solid is a bank that has shed a third of its shareholder value in a month, and half of it over the course of a year? It’s no longer just the customer of a couple of Greek banks that are asking such tough questions, but the customers of Deutsche Bank.”
Lloyds Banking Group reveals surge in buy-to-let lending Lloyds Banking Group, the UK’s biggest mortgage lender, has revealed a surge in activity by buy-to-let and second-home buyers in the run-up to tax changes in April. António Horta-Osório, chief executive of the bailed-out bank, said mortgage activity had been strong in the run-up to the changes, which came into force on 1 April and require buy-to-let and second-home buyers to pay a 3% surcharge on stamp duty. He was speaking as the bank, which owns Halifax, reported its profits had almost halved in the first three months of the year. Last month, the Council of Mortgage Lenders said there had been a 22% year-on-year rise in January in buy-to-let mortgages – although estate agents have warned they expect activity to slow down because of the EU referendum on 23 June. The London-focused chain Foxtons said on Wednesday it expected a “reduced sales pipeline” in the coming three months. Horta-Osório said as the Bank of England had not increased interest rates from the record low of 0.5% he had started to pull back slightly from mortgage lending to focus on business lending. The low interest rate environment means he is also accelerating a plan, outlined in late 2014, to close around 200 branches – around 6% of the network – and axe a further 9,000 roles, on top of the 45,000 lost since the rescue of HBOS in 2008. The Lloyds finance director, George Culmer, said the bank was “ahead of plan on where we expected to be”. Rather than the 46% fall in first quarter profits to £654m, Horta-Osório preferred to focus on the £2.1bn in underlying profits. “These results demonstrate the strength of our differentiated, simple, low-risk business model and reflect our ability to actively respond to the challenging operating environment,” he said. The UK government has had to postpone a plan to sell most of its remaining 9% stake to retail investors because of the plunge in bank shares since the start of the year. The shares were trading at 67.9p, down 2%, shortly after the Lloyds results were published, below the 73p average price at which the state’s 43% stake was bought during the 2008 crisis. Sandy Chen, analyst at Cenkos, described the performance as “a bit flat, as in deflated”. The fall in profits was caused by a controversial plan to buy back £3bn of debt, which is expected to reduce the bank’s costs annually. The buy-back cost £790m in the first quarter, while other items including £161m of restructuring charges and £115m for possible compensation claims also knocked profits. The bad debt charge was down 6% to £149m. However, there was no new provision for payment protection insurance selling, a scandal which has so far cost the banking industry more than £30bn, and £16bn at Lloyds.
Huge rise in hospital beds in England taken up by people with malnutrition The number of hospital beds in England taken up by patients being treated for malnutrition has almost trebled over the last 10 years, in what charities say shows the “genuinely shocking” extent of hunger and poor diet. Official figures reveal that people with malnutrition accounted for 184,528 hospital bed days last year, a huge rise on 65,048 in 2006-07. The sharp increase is adding to the pressures on hospitals, which are already struggling with record levels of overcrowding. Critics have said the upward trend is a result of rising poverty, deep cutbacks in recent years to meals on wheels services for the elderly and inadequate social care support, especially for older people. Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow health secretary, unearthed the figures in a response to a recent parliamentary question submitted to the health minister Nicola Blackwood. “These figures paint a grim picture of Britain under the Conservatives,” he said. “Real poverty is causing vulnerable people, particularly the elderly, to go hungry and undernourished so much so that they end up in hospital. “Our research reveals a shocking picture of levels of malnutrition in 21st-century England and the impact it has on our NHS. This is unacceptable in modern Britain.” The Department of Health figures showed that the number of bed days accounted for by someone with a primary or secondary diagnosis of malnutrition rose from 128,361 in 2010-11, the year the coalition came to power, to 184,528 last year – a 44% rise over five years. Such patients only account for one in 256 of all hospital bed days, or 0.4% of the 47.3m total, but the financial cost is considerable as each bed costs the NHS an average of £400 a day to staff and given the condition each spell in hospital because lasts an average of 22 to 23 days. Simon Bottery, the director of policy at the charity Independent Age, said: “These new figures on malnutrition are genuinely shocking. As a society there is no excuse for us failing to ensure that older people are able to eat enough food, of the right quality, to stay healthy. “Yet we have been cutting back the meals on wheels services and lunch clubs on which so many vulnerable elderly people relied and reducing the numbers who receive home care visits.” Freedom of information requests submitted to local councils in England early last year by the then shadow care minister Liz Kendall found that 220,000 fewer people were receiving meals on wheels in late 2014 than in 2010, a fall of 63%. Research by the National Association of Care Catering found that only 48% of local councils still provided meals on wheels, compared to 66% in 2014. Only 17% of councils in the north-west of England still do so, and 91% of providers expect the provision to fall further in the next year. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence classes someone as malnourished if they have a body mass index of less than 18.5, have suffered the unintentional loss of more than 10% of their weight over the last three to six months, or if they have a BMI under 20 and have unintentionally seen their weight drop by more than 5% over the previous three to six months. The decision by the chancellor, Philip Hammond, not to give the NHS or social care any more money in his autumn statement last week would only worsen the situation, Ashworth said. “The reality is the government have failed this week to both give the NHS and social care the extra investment it needs while also failing to invest in prevention initiatives to foster healthier lifestyles. The cuts to public health budgets along with an emaciated obesity strategy are both utterly misguided,” he said. Figures are not available for exactly how many patients accounted for the 184,528 bed days last year, but information supplied to Ashworth by the House of Commons library shows that 57% of the patients were women and that 42% were over-65s. Worryingly, four out of five people who needed inpatient hospital care because of malnutrition were admitted as an emergency, which suggests their health had deteriorated significantly in the days before they were taken in. Not enough health and social care professionals have the time or knowledge to correctly identify malnutrition, Bottery said. Dianne Jeffrey, the chair of the Malnutrition Task Force and Age UK, said: “If malnutrition is left untreated older people can become much more susceptible to illness and injury, are more likely to end up in hospital and on average take much longer to recover if they do become unwell. “It is shocking that in modern times over a million older people across the UK are malnourished or at risk of malnutrition.” A Department of Health spokesperson said: “The NHS is getting much better at spotting malnutrition and giving early treatment, and we are improving our data collection, all of which helps explain what might otherwise appear a significant rise in cases. But importantly, to prevent cases in the future, we have given £500,000 to Age UK to help reduce malnutrition among older people and will continue to train staff so early action can be taken.” Stephen Dalton, the chief executive of the NHS Confederation, which represents hospitals, said: “Our members take malnutrition seriously. Good nutrition is a fundamental human right our citizens can expect, and vulnerable, particularly older, people are most at risk of serious consequences if denied basic compassionate care. At a time of unprecedented demand on health and social care we need to be alert and will take seriously any reliable evidence of basic care not being delivered.” • This article was amended on 29 November 2016 to correct a percentage increase. The number of bed days accounted for by someone with a primary or secondary diagnosis of malnutrition rose by 44% over five years, not 61%.
Do you stand by, or stand out from the crowd? A few months ago I was in a bar with two friends when, a few tables away, we heard a glass smash and looked up to find a man and woman in the middle of an argument. He slapped her and walked out. Everyone froze. She looked horribly alone for a few seconds, hurt and humiliated. Then a customer walked over to see if she was all right, as did a member of staff. They sat with her for some time, while my friends and I wondered awkwardly what we should be doing. It seemed as if she was being offered the support she needed, but was that enough? Should we have offered to act as witnesses if she wanted to take it further? We didn’t – and ended up feeling powerless, even guilty. A decade ago, on the top deck of a night bus wending its way out of central London, I heard a commotion behind me. A man was harassing two women, both clearly uncomfortable and frightened. He sat in the seats behind them, leaning in and talking while they asked him to leave them alone in broken English – they were tourists. Feeling brave, I went over and sat down near them, hoping that would inhibit him. He wasn’t happy and turned his fire on me. Although he got off after a stop or two, he promised to “cut [my] fucking head off” as he went down the stairs. After it was all over, the two women thanked me and I got a pat on the back from another passenger after they’d left too. It seemed as if I’d done the right thing and I felt pleased with myself. Another time, I was on a very crowded tube train. Someone pulled the emergency cord and a woman, hyperventilating, stumbled out on to the platform. She was terrified, crying out between breaths, and was led to a bench by the baffled-looking commuter who happened to have been standing next to her. He sat with her, shrugging his shoulders slightly as hundreds of us stared, standing like penguins in front of the open doors, waiting for the train to get on its way. It occurred to me that she needed to be told to breathe more slowly. She was experiencing a panic attack and could have done with reassurance and someone to help her pace herself. There was no reason I couldn’t have done it – I wasn’t in a hurry. But instead I stayed put. I felt embarrassed right then and selfish afterwards. Those are the times I’ve been a bystander, and it’s a mixed record. It’s an intensely awkward role to play, and it’s not always clear in the moment what the right thing to do is. Intervening can feel like an act of bravado, or attention-seeking – maybe that’s what motivated me on that night bus. But primed by all those videos of racist abuse, and stories of the pain that the silence of onlookers can cause, shouldn’t we always be prepared to speak up for someone who is being attacked? Each of the incidents I’ve described happened in the “real” world. There was the opportunity for face-to-face interaction. But I’ve been a bystander far more often, I suppose – we all have – in another arena: online. And a new paper in the journal Computers and Human Behaviour raises some interesting questions about when and why we intervene. Researchers at UCLA set up a fake Facebook profile in which a “mean” comment was posted under a range of different status updates, such as “I hate it when you miss someone like crazy and you think they might not miss you back”. In each case, the “mean” riposte was: “Who cares! This is why nobody likes you …” Most subjects agreed that this constituted bullying, and many said that they would be likely to intervene – either by challenging the comment or sending a private message of support. Interestingly, there was less sympathy when the original message was more personal, suggesting that people who “overshared” might be seen as bringing criticism on themselves. More important, perhaps, is the finding, uncovered in earlier studies, that people are less likely to intervene online than they are in the real world. This could be due to the bystander effect – psychologists have known for a long time that the more witnesses there are to an emergency, the less likely any given individual is to take action. It’s a kind of apathy related to the sense that someone else will probably deal with it, so we don’t have to. But it could also be due to the terrifying nature of online bullying, which can very easily expand to involve hundreds, if not thousands or hundreds of thousands of people. Who wants to mess with that volume of fury? But the literature also shows that, whether online or off, “victims experience heightened distress when bystanders do not intervene”. What’s more, it has been shown that “receiving support from onlookers can significantly alleviate victims’ plight”. One a recent flight from Paris to Sydney, the writer Catharine Lumby found herself sitting next to a volatile, aggressive man Part-way through the flight, he suddenly shouted, “I will kill you! I will kill you!” Lumby writes: “I’m a woman in my 50s who has travelled a lot and I have a very thick skin. But the man next to me put me in fear of my life. The flight attendants on Air France, however, refused to move me. The other passengers looked the other way. I spent the next eight hours scared and very upset. On reflection, what really upset me was that no one offered to help.” Echoing Lumby’s experience, a report into anti-Muslim abuse towards the end of last year found repeated examples of people standing by while bullying occurred. “When I suffer abuse in public, people walk off or stare,” said one respondent. Another recalled, “When I was walking to the shops a man behind me pulled my hijab and strangled me but no one stood up for me, and he said to me, ‘Are you going to bomb Boots?’” In contrast, Ruhi Rahman drew strength from the reaction of her fellow passengers after a “racist and threatening” man approached her and her sister on the train. “Before I even got a chance to react to his comments the women beside me supported me and helped. After a while most of the people on the metro came over and spoke up for us and were being so supportive.” Rahman told the Newcastle Chronicle the experience made her feel “really optimistic and hopeful … I have never felt more proud of being a Geordie. It was lovely that everyone came together to help us and I can’t thank them all enough.” I’m not saying we should all become have-a-go heroes. Stepping in can be dangerous. But intervention doesn’t have to mean tackling an aggressor. It can involve reaching out a hand of support in the moments afterwards, offering practical help, or sending a message once things have died down. Increasingly we find ourselves in crowds – making our way through cities, flying between them, joining in discussion and argument on the internet. Ironically, these crowds, each one a mass of humanity, can feel like the least human force on Earth. Perhaps from time to time we can try to be among the faces that stand out.
Victor Moses goal seals Chelsea comeback as Tottenham lose unbeaten record The team who are already developing an air of Antonio Conte’s Undroppables cruise on. After fielding the same Premier League selection for the sixth successive – and successful – time, Chelsea continued their revival as they saw off Tottenham, showing the mettle to muster a comeback after going a goal behind in the first half. Two of the players who have thrived most from the Conte redesign, Pedro and Victor Moses, supplied the goals to settle a riveting local tussle. After Manchester City and Liverpool had plundered points earlier in the day, nothing less than three would suffice to return to the top of the table. Chelsea reacted ruthlessly. It left Conte with the air of a contented manager. He acknowledged the evolution that makes his team a different proposition in the high-intensity games to the side who capitulated against Liverpool and Arsenal. “Now we are another team compared to the Liverpool and Arsenal games,” he said. “If we were the same team we would lose this game, for sure. Now we have another type of confidence. I liked our reaction a lot. We won and I am pleased because it wasn’t easy.” For Tottenham, defeat here to a long-term bogey side is nothing new but what must hurt is that for a spell their performance showed them at their best, with a refreshed appetite for the style that had them unbeaten in the Premier League until the winter chill had set in. History suggested that Stamford Bridge might be a test too far and what felt like a week of reckoning duly delivered two heavyweight blows. After tumbling out of the Champions League in midweek, Mauricio Pochettino’s men were punctured in the league. The Tottenham manager managed to be frustrated and philosophical at the same time: “If you want to analyse the result, Chelsea win, congratulations. If you want to analyse the 94 minutes, Tottenham had a lot of positives. But in football you need to score. In football sometimes it’s difficult to explain but this is not difficult. They were clinical in front of the goal and we weren’t.” After the smouldering volcano of this fixture last season, he had called upon his team to be “brave” and his players began as if that instruction was still ringing in their ears. Keeping a semblance of self-control was imperative and they started by exerting important authority in midfield, pegging Chelsea back and keeping confident possession. Ten minutes in they soared in front. Mousa Dembélé worked the ball up the left and it was moved via Dele Alli to Christian Eriksen. The Dane saw a chink of goal to aim at. His thunderous shot was laced with curl and flew into the net. It was the first time Chelsea’s defence had been beaten in 600 minutes. Conte looked exasperated as his team could not get a foothold. The muscle in Tottenham’s midriff, with Dembélé and Victor Wanyama patrolling in front of Eric Dier and Jan Vertonghen, proved a meaty barrier. David Luiz mustered Chelsea’s first shot just before the half-hour mark, a whack of a free-kick that Hugo Lloris caught comfortably. Tottenham’s dominance was such that they continued to create strong chances. After efforts from Kyle Walker, Harry Kane and Eriksen the visitors wondered how they were not even further in front as half-time approached. What more devastating time for Chelsea to summon some inspiration. A minute before half-time all Tottenham’s hard work was speared by a moment of glorious individual skill. Pedro picked up possession 20 yards out and wrong-footed the Tottenham defence with a touch that had a dash of Cruyff turn about it. The Spaniard bent his shot into the top corner with a flourish. Off the hook after a pretty uncomfortable first 44 minutes, Conte delivered some choice words at half-time. Chelsea came out with enhanced determination and were soon ahead. They pressed the ball off Tottenham and broke with intent. Eden Hazard invited Diego Costa to drive forwards and he capped a bullish and clever run with a killer pass to Moses, whose shot squirted off Lloris and Vertonghen on the way in. The pendulum had swung. Chelsea’s energy levels suddenly made Tottenham look ponderous. It spoke volumes about how the balance of the game shifted that both Chelsea’s wing-backs had so much more room to get involved. Although Tottenham tried to manufacture a comeback of their own, Chelsea’s second-half solidity was a far tougher nut to crack. Conte’s Undroppables cherished their win. Tottenham’s pain was palpable. Conte tried hard to deflect any title talk at this stage. “It is not right to talk about this,” he said. “We have a long way in front of us. It’s important to stay humble and continue to trust in our work. Today we won a game against a really strong team. Tomorrow it’s important to think about the next game, against City, another very strong team. We have to continue to work. We don’t forget that against Arsenal and Liverpool we lost.” In attitude and application, Conte’s Chelsea are a force to be reckoned with.
Wonga's losses expected to double to £70m for 2015 Wonga’s losses are expected to almost double after a slump in revenues at the payday lender following price caps imposed by the City regulator. The results, due to be announced on Wednesday, appear to raise questions about the success of the company’s attempts to reinvent itself in the tougher regulatory environment, as it tries to shrug off past controversies over its business practices. Last year Wonga was ordered to pay more than £2.6m compensation by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) for “unfair and misleading debt collection practices”, after it was found to have sent threatening letters to customers from non-existent law firms. In 2012 the Office of Fair Trading told it to clean up its act after it sent letters to customers accusing them of fraud. On Tuesday Sky News reported that Wonga would post a pre-tax loss of about £70m in 2015, compared with £37m a year earlier. The results will also show a sharp decline in Wonga’s revenues from £215m in 2014, the channel said. The company declined to comment. The numbers come after a year in which Wonga and other payday lenders have been forced to operate under tighter regulations. Last year interest and fees on all high-cost short-term credit loans were capped at a daily rate of 0.8% of the amount borrowed. Meanwhile, if borrowers do not repay their loans on time, default charges must not exceed £15, while the total cost including fees and interest is capped at 100% of the original sum. According to the FCA, which introduced the rules, this means no borrower will pay back more than twice the amount they borrowed. The move followed a string of criticisms levelled at the sector amid allegations of unscrupulous practices and customers running up huge debts. Wonga –which recruited Andy Haste, a former boss of RSA insurance group, to clean up its image in 2014 – has said it wants to move its business away from the short-term lending that made its name, but also made it the focus of public anger. “Wonga has understandably faced criticism and we know we need to repair our reputation and regain our right to be an accepted part of the financial service sector,” Haste said when he took on the £500,000-a-year job. However, the scale of the turnaround facing Haste is illustrated by the latest figures, which take Wonga’s losses for the past two financial years to more than £100m. In the two years before that, the company made a profit of £39.7m in 2013 and £84.5m in 2012.
Disco's Saturday Night Fiction Picture it: a writer pens a magazine article and it’s an instant sensation. Producers come calling, he sells the rights for tens of thousands, the tabloids give him a nickname, acquaintances greet him as a friend, cheques flood in, he attends the premiere of his film in Los Angeles with a famous disco singer on his arm. It’s glitzy, it’s glam, it’s Hollywood, baby. But as he makes his way through the frenzy outside the theatre, through security, paparazzi and screaming teenage girls, he is filled with moral panic. Why? Saturday Night Fever was released in 1977, and has since grossed $285m worldwide. The soundtrack became one of the bestselling film album of all time after staying at No 1 for 24 consecutive weeks, reinvigorating the Bee Gees’ career, and its star, John Travolta, became one of the youngest actors to be nominated for the best actor Oscar. Decades on, not many remember that the phenomenon was down to one man: Northern Irish rock critic Nik Cohn and his report of 7 June, 1976 for New York magazine, Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Nights, which was published 40 years ago this month. Cohn was the author of a number of books including the 1969 rock history Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom. A protege of swinging London, he partied with rock stars, joined the Who on tour, and is said by some to have been instrumental in the genesis of Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust. He had his portrait shot by Iain Macmillan – the photographer behind the Beatles’ Abbey Road cover – and from the age of 18 was contributing briefings about mods and rockers to the . After crossing the Atlantic and signing on with New York magazine in 1975, the writer, who came to feel disenchanted with the establishment music business, persuaded the mag’s founder and editor Clay Felker to let him document disco – a new, largely ethnic, largely gay underground trend that had taken over parts of New York City. The result was the profile of an “ultimate Face”. Vincent, a young Italian-American worked in a hardware store during the week and partied at a disco club called 2001 Odyssey on the weekend. Vincent “was the very best dancer in Bay Ridge … he owned 14 floral shirts, five suits, eight pairs of shoes, three overcoats, and had appeared on American Bandstand”. He and his friends knew nothing of flower power, Bob Dylan or Ken Kesey. They were opulent but poor, proud but shy. “The new generation takes few risks,” Cohn wrote. “It goes through high school, obedient; graduates, looks for a job, saves and plans. Endures. And once a week, on Saturday night, its one great moment of release, it explodes.” The intro declared: “Everything described in this article is factual and was either witnessed by me or told to me directly by the people involved. Only the names of the main characters have been changed.” The rest is cinema history: film rights were sold to producer Robert Stigwood, who had just signed a three-picture deal with a young TV actor called John Travolta. Screenwriter Norman Wexler transformed Vincent into Tony Manero. So unprecedented was the fanfare that when Stigwood’s 23-year-old assistant Kevin McCormick traipsed through Los Angeles looking for a director, one agent, according to Vanity Fair, told him, “Kid, my directors do movies. They don’t do magazine articles.” Director John Badham had no such qualms, and in December 1977 his movie took $11m in its first 11 days and Travolta became an overnight sensation. Twenty years later came a bombshell. In December 1997 New York magazine published an article in which Cohn confessed that there never was a Vincent. There was no “Lisa”, “Billy”, “John James”, “Lorraine” or “Donna” either. While 2001 Odyssey existed, it wasn’t the way the writer described it in 1976. The whole scene of disco-loving Italians, as mythologised in Saturday Night Fever, was exaggerated. The most bizarre detail was that his disco protagonists were in fact based on mods Cohn had known in London. The writer was “painfully aware” that everything Fever had brought him – the fame, the fortune – was the result of a lie. The real story went like this: in 1976 Cohn met a disco dancer named Tu Sweet, who introduced him to the clubs of New York, including one in Bay Ridge called 2001 Odyssey. One night the two trawled through the underbelly of New York – a land of auto shops, transmission specialists and alignment centres – to find the place. A drunken brawl was in progress and as Cohn opened the cab door one of the guys reeled over the gutter and threw up over his trouser leg. So he just upped and returned to the safe comforts of Manhattan. One image stayed with the writer, though, that of a figure in flared crimson pants and a black body shirt standing in the doorway of the club and calmly watching the action. There was a style about him, Cohn said, a sense of his own specialness that reminded the writer of a teen gang in his hometown of Derry and a mod named Chris he’d met in London in 1965. When Cohn went back to Odyssey he didn’t see the young man in the doorway again. “Plus, I made a lousy interviewer,” he wrote. “I knew nothing about this world, and it showed. Quite literally, I didn’t speak the language. So I faked it. I conjured up the story of the figure in the doorway, and named him Vincent. Taking all I knew about the snake-charmer in Derry and, more especially, about Chris the mod in London, I translated them as best I could to Brooklyn. Then I went back to Bay Ridge in daylight and noted the major landmarks. I walked some streets, went into a couple of stores. Studied the clothes, the gestures, the walks. Imagined how it would feel to burn up, all caged energies, with no outlet but the dancefloor and the rituals of Saturday night. Finally, I wrote it all up. And presented it as fact.” So how did he get away with one of the most daring acts of journalistic forgery? While Tribal Rites reads like a novelisation, it must be understood in the context of the time it was written: the tail-end of the era of New Journalism, where writers used literary techniques and a subjective perspective to present fact as fiction. It followed similar works by the likes of Tom Wolfe, Gay Talese, Truman Capote, Hunter S Thompson and Norman Mailer. When I first approached Cohn for this article, he said he no longer wanted to discuss the topic. But after several back-and-forth emails, he did say that he doubted any magazine would publish the Tribal Rites piece today. “It reads to me as obvious fiction, albeit based on observation and some knowledge of disco culture. No way could it sneak past customs now. In the 60s and 70s, the line between fact and fiction was blurry. Many magazine writers used fictional techniques to tell supposedly factual stories. No end of liberties were taken. Few editors asked tough questions. For the most part it was a case of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’. “Magazine writing then was basically a boys’ club. There was a lot of wretched excess. Along with some great writing came reams of self-indulgent bollocks. Tribal Rites being fiction was never a great secret. I remember once, at the end of a long night, blurting out to a publisher that the story was made up. ‘You don’t say,’ the publisher drawled. ‘And Liberace is gay.’” For context, Gay Talese, now a bestselling author and one of the pioneers of new journalism and author of ‘Frank Sinatra Has a Cold’, explains that his intention as a young journalist was to write short stories using real characters. “I have always been inspired by great short story writers, the first being the French writer Guy de Maupassant,” he said. “Later I also began reading short stories by famous novelists – F Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and more contemporary writers such as John O’Hara, Irwin Shaw, Carson McCullers, John Cheever and others. My newspaper articles were all written as if short stories: there was scene-setting, dialogue, much description of people and places.” But while the articles were presented as stories, they were never fictionalised. “Nothing was invented, all the names of the characters were real, and verifiably truthful.” Caroline Miller, who edited New York magazine at the time of Cohn’s confession, said her predecessor, Felker, wouldn’t have published Tribal Rites if he thought it fabricated. “That said, remember that 70s Brooklyn was a foreign country to most New York magazine editors,” she told me. “It wasn’t cool, and some of them had probably never been there – even to Brooklyn Heights, which was Norman Mailer territory. So they may not have had good radar for credibility. Also, after the zeitgeisty opening about the blue-collar disco tribe, [Tribal Rites] is all narrative, and that much narrative detail tends to read as real. Conversation in cars. What Vincent was thinking as he looked in the mirror…” Miller and her team published Cohn’s admission because it was newsworthy. “Here’s a guy basically bragging about fabricating a legendary story and getting away with it,” she said. “And it certainly added to our understanding of pop culture myth-making – the idea that a mashup of people and scenes Nik had collected on both side of the Atlantic could go essentially unchallenged, and have such staying power.” Cohn has said that were it not for Jim McMullan’s accompanying illustrations the piece might never have seen daylight. McMullan based these on the photographs he took in 2001 Odyssey but, fundamentally, he never met Cohn’s protagonist. “I went to the club twice and moved around, taking my photos without interacting much with any of the patrons,” McMullan recalled. “Nik took a different path through the crowds so we didn’t exchange notes. “I finished my paintings several weeks before Nik finished his story so I wasn’t really reacting to how he saw the scene at the club. It did seem like an amazingly dramatic story arc and the kind of ‘working-class’ story he was already famous for.” It so happened that the design director of New York magazine, Milton Glaser, was amazed by the reportage style of the paintings. “Clay also came to see the work that way... I suspect that because the art was all ready to go before Nik finished writing, it put some pressure on him to get it written. Had the paintings not already impressed Milton and Clay, I suppose it might have been easier to scuttle the whole project.” Did McMullan’s art indicate a truth to the piece? While Cohn’s descriptions of the club’s “Faces” were based on the working class in England, they weren’t entirely off the mark. “Just like the Italian-Americans, the mods shopped for that perfect shirt,” Colleen “Cosmo” Murphy, an American radio broadcaster, DJ, producer and founder of Classic Album Sundays, explained to me over coffee in London one morning. “It was about looking like they were better off than they really were, sticking their money into things like music and clothes. They bought records, certain types of trousers, certain types of jackets. It was an attitude. “It’s that culture of people who have their regular job during the week and live to go out on the weekend. A blue-collar worker in Brooklyn isn’t going to be defined by their job. Who they really are is who they are when they go out. Just like a mod. A mod might be bricklayer, but they’re a mod.” Bill Brewster, former editor of Mixmag USA and founder of Djhistory.com, echoed this: “It’s a universal story that had been going on for decades even before there were DJs playing records,” he said. “Working-class kids going out on a Friday and Saturday and getting off their heads to American black music. It was happening in the cellars of Paris during the occupation in terms of jazz records. Those archetypes, even though Cohn based them on people in London, were obviously happening in New York as well. I think it was an educated guess on his part, and a correct one.” Disco as a genre and culture had already been gathering pace in New York so Saturday Night Fever was just the tipping point of something that had been going on for a while. “Even before disco was officially called disco, you had David Mancuso’s loft parties, in the late 60s, in downtown Manhattan, where he played danceable acid-rock, R&B, mixing it all up,” said Murphy, who has collaborated with Mancuso in the past. “They were all about integrating different kinds of people, whether it was class, race, sexual orientation. People like David Morales and Larry Levan were going as kids. At the same time Francis Grasso became the first DJ to start mixing records together with two turntables. In the mid-70s these other clubs started rising – Studio 54, which was the glitzy manhattan club, where Andy Warhol, Grace Jones and Liza Minelli hung out, and places like 2001 Odyssey, which were for the working-class Brooklynites.” But in the end it was Cohn’s article and Saturday Night Fever that gave the decade its cultural identity. “As a child I was living in Massachusetts, in a white suburban New England small town, listening to rock and pop ,” Murphy said. “Then this article happened, the movie came out and disco blew up across white America overnight. Me and my friends would dance to the soundtrack at slumber parties. I had aunts and uncles who were taking disco-dancing lessons.” Then came the backlash. DJ Steve Dahl headed up a Disco Demolition Night in Chicago in July 1979. People wore “disco sucks” T-shirts. The Bee Gees became cheesy, Chic became cheesy, and by the 80s disco was a dirty word. “Saturday Night Fever was probably the thing that killed off disco in the end,” Murphy said. Cohn, now 70, lives in Ghent, New York. His life reads like a blockbuster of its own – after Tribal Rites he continued writing, true stories mostly, and in 1983 was arrested for conspiring to import millions of dollars worth of heroin and cocaine into the US. The more serious charges were dropped and Cohn was given five years’ probation for possession. His life, the writer then realised, had been unravelling and it was time for a change. “Why did I decide to come clean in 1997? It simply felt like time,” he told me. “What seemed OK to me when I was young and stoned no longer sat right. Accountability, let’s say.” Cohn has always maintained that what was genuine was the staying power of Saturday Night Fever itself. That central figure, with all his grace, energy and passion. A nobody who once a week was a somebody. “Tribal Rites is about identity,” he said. “Finding a place in the world where you can shine. What still resonates, to me at least, is the sense of yearning. If I was writing the story today, Vincent might be trans…”
Wilderness – the festival that mixes music and Momentum Naked cricket. A Chicago house legend. The uplifting sound of a 30-piece orchestra. Wilderness certainly has a varied palate, yet caters to a rather one-note clientele. Now in its sixth year and hosted on the 5,000-acre Cornbury Park estate in the heart of Oxfordshire, the festival is the kind of place David Cameron might leave his kid behind at. Or, to put it another way: I spent Saturday at a Raymond Blanc lunch sat between an accountant and a former Whitehall staffer. One half of the Brexit divide writ Magnum-size. With a weaker lineup than in previous years, Wilderness still delivers some strong musical moments on what is a gloriously sunny weekend. Robert Plant, the Corbyn-aged (67) former Led Zeppelin frontman, electrifies the Friday night headline slot with Whole Lotta Love during his only UK 2016 gig. Lianne La Havas, returning after her memorable 2012 appearance here, exudes genuine joy on the main stage, switching deftly between numerous Gibson Les Pauls and telling us her mum just called to say her music’s being used on the BBC Olympics coverage. A cover of Aretha Franklin’s Say a Little Prayer is a treat, and the singer’s dress is so much admired that someone in the front row has the good sense to ask where it’s from (Temperley). Elsewhere, stumbling upon Diana Yukawa’s haunting violin while scoffing an £8 falafel scotch egg is a revelation as the sun sets on the Atrium stage. James Rhodes proves, via Rachmaninov, why he has 50,000 Twitter followers. And local boys Glass Animals impress with their intelligent fusion of R&B, zig-zag bass-lines and Tetris beats. Shura’s set is assured and Touch gets the twentysomethings up from east London throwing angular shapes. Over in the Valley, a deep cleavage of greenery and ancient trees, Derrick Carter’s perfectly judged 2am house is elegantly lit by Tracey Emin-inspired neons. But Sunday headliners the Flaming Lips disappoint with a weak vocal and the bizarre choice to have frontman Wayne Coyne barely visible behind a curtain of lights Away from the music, there is spoon carving, wild swimming and a cabaret show featuring a PVC-clad Kitty Bang Bang. Oh, and a man riding a bicycle along a tightrope through flames, because why the hell not? The star of one of numerous insightful debates is Larry Sanders, forever to be introduced as brother of Bernie, but delivering salient points as Green Party health spokesperson in his own right. In the same debate, George Galloway “will not apologise” for being a straight white man and rails against “rightwing Ed Miliband”. He’s dressed all in black despite the 26 degree heat and is wearing a fedora indoors. Momentum’s James Schneider speaks of a burgeoning Labour membership and there’s a ripple of applause like a second round Wimbledon win on court 2 from an audience who have just paid £20 for glitter accessories. Wilderness’s general vibe appears to be a mashup of Latitude and Hay, with the dress-up chops of Secret Garden. And Sunday night’s Bowie tribute – featuring the Wilderness orchestra and choir; London Contemporary Voices; Kate Nash and Charlotte Church – is a properly stirring experience. Ending with Memory of a Free Festival might be somewhat awkward for obvious reasons, but it does allow for a rousing finale singalong. The audience filters away to a Bowie voiceover: “see you all once again, another day, in another place”. Wilderness might not be where the wild things are, but it’s jolly good fun nonetheless, old sport.
West Ham stun 10-man Everton as Dimitri Payet seals fightback win Season tickets at Goodison Park come with a guarantee of entertainment and the promise of frustration. Those at the Olympic Stadium may come with the carrot of Champions League football. Everton announced on Friday that they are reducing prices for next season. West Ham United are raising expectations for it. An extraordinary comeback, featuring three goals in 12 minutes, turned defeat into victory and maintained their hopes of a top-four finish. Credibility was stretched as the points were pilfered. “Unbelievable,” said Slaven Bilic. “Nobody can deny we deserved it. We showed our quality, we showed our stubbornness and we got a great win.” They are a team transformed. They used to approach trips to Merseyside with trepidation, but won at Anfield for the first time in 52 years in August. A 16-game winless run against Everton in the top flight came to an abrupt end, courtesy of Michail Antonio, Diafra Sakho and Dimitri Payet. West Ham’s signing of the season provided the dramatic denouement. Andy Carroll headed Aaron Cresswell’s diagonal ball down, Sakho improvised a backheel flick and Payet nipped in to score the winner. A catalytic signing contributed a crucial goal to determine a cracking game. Yet another Hammer exerted an equal influence and made the fightback feasible. West Ham were two goals adrift and being run ragged by Romelu Lukaku when twin pieces of acrobatics by Adrián proved to be turning points. The Spaniard saved twice from Everton’s top scorer, once from a strangely hesitant penalty and once when he burst clear on goal. He had already made stunning stops to deny James McCarthy and Ross Barkley, who each eyed spectacular long-range strikes, in a one-man rearguard action. It brought a belated reward when his attacking colleagues conjured three goals. “If they had scored that penalty they would have won the game maybe 3-0 or 4-0,” Bilic admitted. Everton could rue Adrián’s excellence and Lukaku’s misses. Yet, profligate as he was, he has also proved prolific. In any case, there were other reasons for Everton’s seventh home league defeat of the season. They display a costly carelessness, and have squandered a two-goal advantage four times already. A poor, porous defence has been a regular source of complaint and Ramiro Funes Mori stood flat-footed for two of the West Ham goals. Roberto Martínez’s initial gambit of matching Bilic’s 3-4-3 formation had paid off and his half-time introduction of Muhamed Besic brought a benefit when the Bosnian won the penalty that Lukaku spurned. Yet the removal of two in-form goalscorers who were tormenting West Ham – first Aaron Lennon and then Lukaku – afforded the visitors the initiative. And the culpable Belgian really was Kevin Mirallas, not Lukaku. The winger had been booked for diving before he upended Cresswell. His arm was immediately raised in apology but it was not enough to spare him a second yellow card, or Everton an hour with 10 men. The Goodison faithful afforded the departing winger a generous ovation and blamed the referee, Anthony Taylor. So did Martínez, who identified a scapegoat for a setback. “The second booking is a decision the referee has to make,” he admitted. “The first one is a ridiculous decision. Why should we book a player because we feel it is not a free-kick? I don’t feel he is a referee who understands the game in a way that we want it played.” Everton’s understanding was apparent in a slickly worked opener, Bryan Oviedo finding Lukaku, who accelerated away to score in an eighth successive game against West Ham. “The performance for spells was outstanding,” said Martínez. So was Lukaku’s. Bilic admitted: “When they had the ball, he makes that one-player loss less visible. He creates mayhem.” He also fashioned Lennon’s fifth goal in seven games, the winger accepting Lukaku’s return pass to score. Then Adrián intervened. “The penalty was a big blow psychologically,” said Martínez. “Romelu Lukaku is such a reliable footballer that we were all a little bit shocked.” West Ham were galvanised. Bilic had gambled, bringing on Carroll and Sakho. Substitutes starred after a starter scored. Antonio’s third goal in three games was headed in from Mark Noble’s cross. Another delivery from the visitors’ left flank yielded an equaliser. Payet was the supplier, Sakho heading in. Payet’s winner left even Bilic bemused. “I didn’t know what to do, so I ran down the tunnel and I came back straightaway,” he said, though a celebration was the product of a half-time conversation. “I said that ‘we are one down but we are going to do it’,” he revealed. “We had to be less sexy and more lethal.” Everton could do with displaying a similar hard-nosed pragmatism. “I thought our performance, defensively, was outstanding for 78 minutes and very poor from then on,” said Martínez. But whether discounting tickets or gifting goals, their generosity knows no bounds.
Tottenham win title for youthful promise and being the most watchable If you’ve somehow managed to miss the opening eight months of the Premier League season you could have picked up a pretty decent precis of the action so far just by watching Sunday’s games at the Stadium of Light and White Hart Lane. Basically it’s been like that all along. Leicester City have scored lots of breakaway goals and played like a proper team. It’s been emotional. People have cried. The usual heavyweights have ranged from poor to bafflingly dreadful. And beyond that Tottenham Hotspur have been the most watchable, most promising, most intriguing team in the league this season. All issues of sentiment, underdoggery and fairytale glee aside, it is an achievement that deserves at least a slice of the adulation being lavished on the champions-elect. This is not to suggest Leicester are unworthy league winners. The table is never wrong. Leicester have been the most consistent team by some way, seven points clear and not so much sprinting for the line as already off on one of those helmet-doffing, high-fiving home-run trundles around the baseball diamond, waving to the crowd, taking the cheers, ball safely spiralling off above the bleachers into the blue. Even in the second half of the season Leicester have dropped fewer points than their nearest challengers. They beat Spurs 1-0 at White Hart Lane in January, and deservedly so. For Claudio Ranieri’s team this has been both a wonderful story and a purely sporting triumph of teamwork, talent and unblinking focus. Still, one achievement should not diminish another and Spurs have been by so many other measures the most compelling team in the Premier League, the most layered, all the while remaining the only Premier League team (fairytale Foxes included) to run a profit on transfer spending over the past five years. Against Manchester United on Sunday they started poorly. Dele Alli made a lovely run for his goal but otherwise he was largely absent. Harry Kane ragged Chris Smalling about once or twice but touched the ball only 33 times, a rare lack of involvement for an unusually assertive No9. The full-backs were muted, Kyle Walker bothered at times by the high-class menace of Anthony Martial. And yet even on an off-day Tottenham were hugely enthralling in the periods when the pistons began to fire. By the time the goal rush arrived in the final 20 minutes Mauricio Pochettino’s team had begun to swarm in that familiar way, every passing angle, every pocket of space choked off. This isn’t so much the old push-and-run Spurs as push-and-run-and-snipe-and-hustle, albeit in a controlled kind of way. The idea Tottenham will inevitably tire themselves out before the season’s end has always been based on a slight misunderstanding. This isn’t simply covering every blade of grass, Carlton Palmer-style. There is no blur of perpetual motion here. Spurs’ defensive movements are instead minutely drilled, with every shift of position among the opposition a cue for some interlocking reshuffle of the pieces, energy not so much wasted as put to synchronised good use. Often Eric Dier and Mousa Dembélé will stand still, waiting for the play to arrange itself around them. There are some interesting similarities between the league’s top two. Both have a simple set of methods based around teamwork and quick, accurate passing. Both are genuine collectives, the role of each player equally weighted, without favourites or luxuries or glitzy passengers. But Spurs simply have more depth to their game. They are a team who can score all kinds of goals, can play with the ball or on the break, for whom eight players have scored three or more goals in the league this season. Spurs have scored more goals than anyone else while conceding fewer. Their starting outfield players were, on average, almost four years younger than Leicester’s equivalent on Sunday. Ranieri’s men will be hugely impressive champions but there is another gear to come in this Tottenham team. Or at least, there should be. If there is reason to celebrate Spurs excellence, even as the season dwindles into a race for second place, it is the simple fact that such progress is precarious. Last weekend Sir Alex Ferguson gave an interview to Sky Sports, apparently at his own behest, in which he lavished praise on Pochettino’s work. It is hard to see any obvious reason, beyond the really obvious, why Ferguson would choose to do this. Pochettino is an ambitious manager. He will be hugely in demand now, as will Tottenham’s best players. There is a shelf life to any rising team these days. Money will not allow this to go on unchecked for ever. Not that there is reason to think anyone’s leaving just yet. This Spurs team can look forward to another title challenge next season, with plenty of flux among the usual heavyweights and the new champions facing a different set of challenges, not least the demands of running a midweek team as well. Spurs dropped seven points this season after Europa League fixtures, the exact extent of Leicester’s lead at the top. By the end against United, Tottenham were lolling about at White Hart Lane like drunken lords, no doubt thrilled by the sense of their own power in that three-goal burst but still aware that for this season the race may be done. For the most captivating of second-placers the challenge now is simply to make their excellence count in more tangible ways.
Sherlock: The Abominable Bride cinema sales top £21m worldwide The Sherlock Christmas special, The Abominable Bride, has rocketed to fifth place at the US box office despite a limited release, with total international cinema sales exceeding $30m (£21m). BBC Worldwide said the 90-minute Victorian-themed show, which debuted on the PBS TV network in the US, was screened in 750 cinemas nationwide on 5 and 6 January and grossed $2.7m. On a per-screen gross ticket sales average, Sherlock topped the US box office over its two-day run, beating hits including Star Wars: The Force Awakens, it added. “The intention was always to give Sherlock: The Abominable Bride a limited release to amplify the TV moment and create a piece of event cinema for fans to enjoy,” said Sally de St Croix, head of drama brands at BBC Worldwide. “We never expected it to outshine major Hollywood franchises at the box office and couldn’t be more thrilled with the results.” Sherlock has become a global phenomenon, but nowhere more so than in China where it topped the box office on its first weekend, prompting the BBC to extend its cinema run with sales currently at $20m. In South Korea, where the film hit the number two spot, The Abominable Bride has so far grossed more than $7m. In Australia it racked up more than Aus$750,000 over its two-day release on the first weekend of the new year. In Europe, the film was aired in Poland and Russia. In the UK, 18,600 fans watched Sherlock on the big screen despite the episode airing simultaneously on BBC1. The Abominable Bride drew a total consolidated TV audience of 11.6 million, making it by far the most popular show over the festive period. Doctor Who is made in-house by the BBC and has become one of BBC Worldwide’s bestselling shows. However, the corporation’s commercial arm acts only as an agent for Sherlock’s production company, Hartswood, which is run by Beryl Vertue, mother of Sherlock producer Sue Vertue, who is married to the show’s co-creator Steven Moffat. “Thank you to all the fans around the world that have enjoyed our special episode,” Sue Vertue said. “I’m pleased to say that preparations for series four are well under way … the game continues.” Sherlock is licensed to more than 225 territories and The Abominable Bride is set to transmit across many international TV networks. It has so far been screened in cinemas in more than 20 countries. Filming for the fourth series is scheduled to start this year.
The view on British politics after Brexit The seismic political upheavals triggered by June’s calamitous vote to leave the European Union have greatly intensified in recent days, with the Tories at their conference in Birmingham following Labour and Ukip in a frantic, often divisive and persistently contradictory drive to identify and occupy the elusive “new centre ground” of British politics. The most striking aspect of this struggle is that, in seeking to capitalise on the post-referendum state of flux, politicians in both main parties are paradoxically moving sharply away from the middle. In doing so, they set at risk fundamental liberal values and the universal, progressive principles that Britain, since the 18th-century Age of the Enlightenment, has been instrumental in spreading around the globe and in which its modern-day democracy and open society are rooted. Theresa May’s first major speech as Conservative prime minister was intriguing for its renunciation of Thatcherism’s pernicious but still pervasive emphasis on individualism and antisocial self-interest. Taken by itself, this public recanting is as welcome as it is overdue. May stressed instead her intention to use the power of government to change and improve people’s lives, lauding “the good the state can do”. But in anointing herself as standard-bearer for the interests of what she patronisingly called “ordinary people”, May tottered on the edge of the old Benthamite trap of suggesting she and her ministers know what is best for everyone. They should tread carefully. In a parliamentary democracy, overweening executive authority, convinced of its own moral rightness, is a creature to be feared, not admired, as America’s founding fathers knew full well when they built checks and balances into the US constitution. Even as the Tories dream lazily of ruling in perpetuity, the rational parts of their brains must surely understand that May’s old school, top-down, take-what’s-good-for-you governance is neither desirable, democratic or effective. If May really believes they can become “the party of the workers, the party of public servants, the party of the NHS”, she must learn to talk to those workers, not down to them – and listen before leaping on issues such as grammar schools and Hinkley Point. As a matter of respect and basic common sense, May should also heed the cautionary words of Thomas Paine, author of The Rights of Man, who wrote in 1792: “Mankind, as it appears to me, are always ripe enough to understand their true interest, provided it be presented clearly to their understanding, and that in a manner not to create suspicion by anything like self-design, nor offend by assuming too much. Where we would wish to reform we must not reproach.” Worryingly, influential figures around May, pushing for a hard Brexit, are in danger of forgetting such wise maxims, assuming they were ever aware of them. What they call reform is unabashed regression and vengeful revisionism. There is a clear tendency, exhibited most brashly by Amber Rudd, the home secretary, and Liam Fox, the international trade secretary, to interpret the referendum result as unambiguous support for a divisive, rightwing agenda far removed from the political centre. It is worth restating that a thumping 48% of those who voted, or 16.1 million people, chose to Remain, while 28% of those eligible to vote expressed no opinion either way. That result places those actively backing Leave in a distinct minority. They should show a little humility. Instead, ignoring Paine and the majority, they assume too much. They dangerously overreach. Brexit did not, for example, provide a mandate for arbitrary restrictions on British-based companies hiring the best and brightest of foreign workers. In the integrated, globalised economy in which Fox claims a post-EU Britain will thrive, how shortsighted is that? Brexit was not a vote for British jobs for British workers, either, despite what Rudd insultingly implied. Many of the jobs in question are low skilled and badly paid; British-born workers simply do not want them. Some are demandingly high skilled, as in the NHS and care sectors, where there are critical shortages. Here, EU nationals perform vital work. Nor was Brexit a vote to trash one of modern Britain’s great success stories – its internationally admired university sector – by limiting the numbers of foreign students who study here (and making it uncompetitively expensive for those who do). Already, the future of much joint research funding is in serious doubt. Notwithstanding vague government assurances about future financial support, Rudd’s reckless comments will only compound damaging uncertainty. These and other noisome, ill-thought-out ideas, emanating from senior ministers bearing the seal of government, are as alarming as they are unpleasant. They carry a gross whiff of xenophobia. They convey an inescapable undertone of racism and intolerance. And they are a testament to what looks increasingly like an accelerating retreat from Britain’s liberal, inclusive and open-minded tradition and a return to the narrow, delusional world of Little England. Despite much of what was said last week, Brexit was not a vote to scrap free access to the single market, thereby alienating Japanese and other overseas investors. Does Fox really think China, America or India will helpfully offer Britain, negotiating by itself, the same favourable terms that an EU bloc of 28 countries negotiating collectively has obtained? If he does, he should seek other work. Do these hard Brexiters truly believe our European partners will sit on their hands if Britain sets about demolishing EU founding pillars such as freedom of movement and goods? Do they honestly pretend Britain can continue to trade while rejecting agreed EU rules policed by the European court of justice? Do they somehow think British soldiers who commit war crimes should escape the sanction of European human rights conventions and international law? If they do, then dunderhead must be added to duplicity on the lengthening Brexiter charge sheet. François Hollande, France’s president, is a socialist, but no radical. He faces a fierce challenge from the hard right in next year’s elections. Yet swiftly responding to the messages coming out of Birmingham, Hollande reacted sharply last week. Britain must and will pay if it persists in such gratuitous vandalism, Hollande said. Viewed from the French, German and Italian mainstream, there is less and less to distinguish hard Brexiters from Marine Le Pen’s extremist Front National (which enthusiastically eggs them on) or the similarly xenophobic, nationalist Alternative for Germany. They are wreckers. They are reckless. They are irresponsible. They know only what they do not like. And they have little or no practical idea how they will replace the hard-won principles and institutions they traduce. Whatever these delusional Tories believe, theirs is not the path to Britain’s new centre ground. Yet Labour, too, seems to have wholly lost its way as it struggles with internal divisions and the mortal threat to its working-class heartlands posed by Ukip. Rarely has the country required a purposeful, effective opposition as badly as it does now. Rarely if ever has there been such urgent need of a champion ready to defend workers’ rights, regardless of race or nationality, to fight for the values of tolerance, inclusion and equality embodied in the European treaties and to lead those who feel threatened by mass migration, job insecurity, poverty and globalisation towards a broader understanding of who their real enemies are. Stand up, Jeremy Corbyn, newly re-elected Labour leader. Except, on Europe, the defining issue of our time, Corbyn has consistently failed to stand up, show a lead or demonstrate an appreciation of the wider issues. Yes, more social housing is important. Yes, a higher minimum would be nice. Yes, the railways are a mess. But this is hardly the point. Without a prosperous economy and expanding tax take, such policies will remain as unfunded wishful thinking. And if a hard Brexit takes hold, pushed through arbitrarily from next March onwards while a blinkered Corbyn vainly squabbles with his MPs and parliament is sidelined, much current public spending may be at risk, let alone any new programmes. Corbyn must now demonstrate that he is the man to rise to this pre-eminently urgent national challenge. The line of attack is clear. It is not unpatriotic, as May & co perniciously suggest, to want this country to remain close to the EU and play as full a part as possible within Europe. It is not supercilious or elitist to suggest many Leave voters were egregiously misled about the consequences of Brexit by Nigel Farage, Boris Johnson and Michael Gove. It is only right to be concerned that this new administration is using Brexit as a means to foist a divisive rightwing agenda on the country. It is deeply worrying that, as a result, the Brexit process may be botched and our national interests, and our people, will consequently suffer across the board. On one point, all perhaps can agree: this political crisis is about taking back control. But Brussels is not the enemy. The EU was always a straw man. Nor is the crisis about a loss of community, native culture and traditions, as some maintain. In all respects, these aspects of our national life are thriving, although they are evolving in ways some conservatives do not like. No, this crisis is about reasserting and deepening democratic governance on behalf of all the people while limiting the control and excesses of those who, by one means or another, exercise power over us. Just as in the time of Tom Paine and the American and French revolutions, it is a battle for equality, justice and tolerance, for the proud liberal principles of individual freedom, openness and inclusion. It is a struggle between the forces of reaction, prejudice, ignorance, dogmatism and self-interest and the universal vision of progressive societies in which the rights of all men and women are respected and advanced. It is an ongoing historical contest that everyone who cares about a fairer society must now steel themselves to fight again – and by all means, win. For here, not on Brexit’s wilder shores, is where Britain’s centre ground truly lies. This article was amended on 22 October 2016 to clarify EU Referendum voting percentages.
State of the 2016 race: Trump looks to take over America after conquering GOP Impossible, unthinkable, probable and now inevitable – Donald Trump has swept through American politics like a hurricane, upending conventional wisdom and trailing destruction in his wake. On Thursday, the ultimate celebrity candidate clinched the Republican nomination for president, setting up what could be one of the ugliest general elections in memory. Trump reached the magic number of delegates needed after a small number of the party’s unbound delegates told the Associated Press they would support him at the Republican National Convention in July. With zero political experience, Trump knocked out 16 rivals including governors and senators as he grabbed more primary votes than any Republican in modern history. Asked at a press conference in Bismarck, North Dakota, how it felt to reach the magic number, Trump said: “I’m so honored. I’m so honored by these people; they had such great sense.” Earlier he remarked: “We were supposed to be going into July ... and here I am watching Hillary and she can’t close the deal.” His hostile takeover of the party complete, the bombastic, swaggering, at times crass billionaire now hopes to complete a takeover of America itself. The 69-year-old will almost certainly face Democrat Hillary Clinton, 68, in the November election. The pair are running neck and neck in opinion polls. Pundits who laughingly dismissed Trump as a buffoon when he entered the race nearly a year ago are not laughing now. “It’s not only unprecedented but unfathomable,” said Rich Galen, former press secretary to vice-president Dan Quayle. “If you’d written a novel based on what’s happened since last June, you’d have had to self-publish because no publishing house would have touched it.” Many Americans, and observers around the world, have watched the resistible rise of Trump with consternation just eight years after the US elected its first black president. Some believe that he embodies a racially charged backlash against Barack Obama and the last gasp of white men against the nation’s diversifying demographic. One theory holds that he is merely putting into plain, populist language what rightwing Republicans have been saying in code for years. “The Donald” has been variously compared to everyone from Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini to newspaper baron William Randolph Hearst and showman PT Barnum. He has sold himself as a charismatic leader, a dealmaker and a winner, taking a wrecking ball to the political establishment. Democratic strategist Bob Shrum said this week: “He is a classic untrammeled demagogue.” Trump was probably best known in the US as the presenter of the American version of The Apprentice when, last June, he launched his long-shot presidential campaign at the shiny, marbled Trump Tower in New York. When, after descending an escalator, the property developer said of Mexicans, “They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people,” the tone was set and the 2016 presidential race would never quite be the same again. Trump demolished the Republican field, throwing out nicknames that stuck: “Little Marco” Rubio, “Low energy” Jeb Bush and “Lyin’ Ted” Cruz. Some tried to rise above him, and others tried to wrestle him in the mud; all fell in their turn. Questions have been raised over the culpability of the media in giving him millions of dollars’ worth of free publicity; his campaign costs were a relatively low $57m by the end of April. Trump has fired up his base, and infuriated liberal opponents, by promising to build a wall along the Mexican border, round up and deport 11 million illegal immigrants, and impose a temporary ban on Muslims entering the country because of fear of terrorism. His rallies are rowdy and raucous, with huge crowds wearing his trademark Make America Great Again hats, chanting, “Build the wall!” and holding placards that say, “The silent majority stands with Trump”. They have attracted protests, too, with demonstrators sometimes forcibly ejected and Trump himself stoking an ominous violence. One rally in Chicago was canceled after thousands of demonstrators surrounded the venue and the secret service could no longer guarantee the candidate’s safety. Trump, whose mother was born in Stornoway in the Hebrides – what he once described as “serious Scotland” – has been condemned as anti-women, anti-immigrant and anti-poor. He still faces a battle to unify the Republican party, although some leaders, encouraged by his poll numbers against Clinton, have thrown in their lot with him, as has media mogul Rupert Murdoch. Hakeem Jeffries, a Democratic member of the House of Representatives, said on Thursday: “It’s unfortunate that the Grand Old Party of Reagan and Lincoln has turned to a charlatan, and it’s our job to make sure, for the sake of the Latino community, the Asian American community, the African American community, and every American that we stop Hurricane Trump from invading the White House and that we continue to build upon the progress that has been made for hardworking Americans under Barack Obama.” The Republican could benefit from a split among Democrats between Clinton, criticised for a peculiarly joyless campaign, and the party’s own surprise insurgent, socialist Bernie Sanders. But Jeffries insisted: “It is certainly the case that in 2016 we’re going to come together to defeat Donald Trump, the most dangerous threat to democracy as we know it that the United States has seen in recent history.” With Sanders fighting to the end, and Clinton hoping to avoid a symbolically wounding loss in California next month, Trump has the luxury of watching from a lofty perch. He needed 1,237 delegates to win the Republican nomination and has now reached 1,238. With 303 delegates at stake in five state primaries on 7 June, Trump will comfortably boost his total, avoiding a contested party convention in Cleveland. The fact that Clinton stands to become America’s first female president has almost become an afterthought in the wild ride of this year’s campaign. She suffered a blow on Wednesday when an official report found that she violated department rules on email use by setting up a private server during her time as secretary of state. Trump has branded her “Crooked Hillary” and has already drawn attention to the past sexual indiscretions of her husband Bill Clinton during his own time at the White House. Commentators fear the race can only turn nastier. Trump has married three times, loves junk food, enjoys watching sports on TV and is a particular fan of Quentin Tarantino’s film Pulp Fiction. Gaffes and media revelations that would have sunk a normal candidate in a normal year appear to bounce off him. What does not kill him makes him stronger. Yet he has some headaches of his own. He is under mounting pressure to release his tax returns. Hours before clinching the nomination, he announced the abrupt departure of political director Rick Wiley, who had been leading a push to hire staff in key battleground states. This was the latest evidence of a power struggle within the Trump campaign. Galen, a veteran Republican strategist, believes that Trump will win the presidency, riding a wave of anger at the status quo. “The anti-Washington sentiment is real,” he said. “People are showing on a definitive basis that they would rather take a risk on someone like Trump who has no skills than the cronies like me who do it over and over again, just exchanging desks in the west wing every eight years. They are saying, ‘You’ve screwed it up, we’ll take a chance with this guy.’” Asked about liberal warnings that Trump cannot be trusted with democracy, security or the nuclear trigger, Galen, 69, replied: “I’m old enough to remember the same thing being said about Ronald Reagan. They underestimated him because he was an actor and was not a member of the club. So let’s see what happens.” Key milestones in the US election race: California primary: 7 June is the final major primary night for the 2016 election, with California, New Jersey, New Mexico, Montana and the Dakotas all voting and Clinton all but certain to claim the delegates she needs to cross the line and become the Democratic nominee. California is the biggest prize in the season, with 548 Democratic delegates and 172 Republicans up for grabs. Currently, RealClearPolitics aggregate polls show Clinton ahead at 50% to Sanders’ 42%. However, Sanders has been holding massive rallies across the state – with seven more planned for this weekend – and is hoping for a strong showing to help him influence the party platform at the Democratic National Convention. Democratic convention: The 2016 DNC will be held in Philadelphia on 25-28 July, where the party delegates will confirm the presidential nominee, with Sanders supporters hopeful they may be able to convince super delegates – party insiders who can vote however they want – to switch their allegiance from Clinton to their candidate, which seems unlikely. Sanders said this week the convention could be “messy”: “Democracy is not always nice and quiet and gentle but that is where the Democratic party should go.” Republican convention: On the GOP side, the Republican National Convention will take place in Cleveland 18-21 July, where they will officially select Trump as the party’s presidential nominee. Trump agreed to a joint fundraising deal with the RNC this week – previously his campaign had been self-funded – and Republicans are already debating how many of Trump’s controversial policies will make it’s way into the party’s platform First presidential debate: The two nominees will go directly head to head at the first presidential debate on 26 September in Dayton, Ohio, a key swing state. Tuesday 8 November: US election. The bookies are shortening their odds on a Trump presidency, with William Hill dropping to 7/4 and Paddy Power offering 2/1 for a Trump win. – Amber Jamieson in New York
Patients with long-term conditions need a joined-up NHS Transforming the care of long-term conditions is the key to ensuring the financial sustainability of the NHS. But although there is wide agreement on what needs to change, progress towards achieving it is painfully slow. The seven innovation test beds unveiled by NHS England chief executive Simon Stevens at the World Economic Forum in Davos last month are the latest attempt to build some momentum behind change. The programme is focused on long-term conditions and mental health, and is a collaboration between the NHS and some big private sector names including Verily (formerly Google Life Sciences), IBM and Philips. The idea is to use a mix of technology, data, monitoring and training. Examples include diabetes patients in the west of England having remote monitoring and coaching technology to help them manage their condition better, while in Rochdale, patients who are at high risk of becoming critically ill will be supported with telecare monitoring in their homes. These are all good ideas, of course, but it says a lot about the way the NHS struggles with adopting innovations at scale and pace that so much fanfare was given to such a modest development. With so many conflicting pressures in the NHS, there is a risk that improving the management of long-term conditions will slip as a priority; the NHS planning guidance 2016/17 – 2020/21 (pdf) published in December makes scant mention of long-term conditions, while cancer and mental health have moved to the fore. All these services overlap, but the difference in emphasis is clear. However, patients with long-term conditions should eventually benefit from the move in the guidance towards NHS bodies planning and operating as health and care systems rather than discrete organisations. The devolution deals also hold out the promise of improvements in the integration of health and social care. Among the new models of care emerging from the Five Year Forward View, two in particular promise better support for long-term conditions. Multispecialty community providers have the potential to pull together more effective packages of care for their patients – from consultant physicians prised out of their hospitals to pharmacists and community nurses – and start to shift the centre of gravity for diagnosis, treatment and support into the community. Central to this is a step change in the working relationship between the hospital consultants and GPs. It is a continuing scandal that, in many areas, patients still suffer because of poor collaboration between secondary and primary care doctors. While accountable care organisations (ACOs) are certainly not a panacea, the move to bring together care services in Northumberland as an ACO from 2017 may well offer the most promising model for keeping patients with long-term conditions active, independent and out of hospital for as long as possible. Morecambe Bay and the Isle of Wight are pursuing a similar approach. Northumberland already has an impressive record for health and social care services working together. As one of the NHS England “vanguard” sites it now plans to take that a stage further, with more active management of the population’s health, better access to services and more effective and widespread use of technology. If the accountable care model starts to get traction, perhaps its greatest benefit will be a psychological one. By blurring the boundaries between primary, community, social and hospital care, patients may in time come to realise that arriving in hospital is often a sign that care has failed, not that it is succeeding. That change in perception will be crucial if the NHS is ever to succeed in rebalancing its resources between hospitals and everything else. There are numerous uplifting stories of patients maintaining active, largely independent lives by managing their own condition with integrated, multidisciplinary support. But too often, the story is of missed opportunities, poor coordination and crisis intervention. Substantial improvements in the care of long-term conditions must remain at the heart of NHS planning. Join the Healthcare Professionals Network to read more pieces like this. And follow us on Twitter (@GdnHealthcare) to keep up with the latest healthcare news and views.
RBS admits further delays in offloading Williams & Glyn Royal Bank of Scotland is facing further problems in offloading 300 Williams & Glyn branches, in a fresh blow to the management team of the bailed-out bank. The European Union demanded the branches be separated as the price of agreeing to RBS’s £45bn taxpayer bailout. Lloyds Banking Group was also required under state aid rules to carve out TSB in return for its government rescue. But on Thursday, the Edinburgh-based RBS said the cost of the spin-out, previously put at £1.2bn, was escalating and it may miss the deadline to complete the disposal – which had already been extended to December 2017. This may make it even more difficult for the chancellor, George Osborne, to further reduce the government’s 73% stake in the bank. Spinning out the Williams & Glyn branches has already created difficulty for RBS. A sale to Santander was abandoned in 2012 and a subsequent deal was announced in 2013 with a consortium backed by investments from the Church of England to try to complete the separation. Then late last year RBS said it might also consider an auction for the branches. Shares in the bank fell almost 5%, to 240p – well below the 502p at which taxpayers break even on their stake. “Due to the complexities of Williams & Glyn’s customer and product mix, the programme to create a cloned banking platform continues to be very challenging and the timetable to achieve separation is uncertain,” RBS said. “We have concluded that there is a significant risk that the separation and divestment to which we are committed will not be achieved by 31 December 2017. RBS is exploring alternative means to achieve separation and divestment. The overall financial impact on RBS is now likely to be significantly greater than previously estimated.” Ross McEwan, who became chief executive in October 2013, is expected to face questions on the problems when he presents the bank’s first-quarter figures on Friday. The announcement was rushed out to the market after the board of the bank – which has not made an annual profit since 2007 – had met to discuss the first-quarter trading statement. Joseph Dickerson, an analyst at Jefferies, said: “We struggle to comprehend what management have learned about the separation business since their last update to the market on 26 February and also that the separation of this business has been under way since late 2009. The news is negative on two fronts: a potential delay in capital return and also likely higher separation costs. Moreover the delays could call into question management execution of RBS’s restructuring process.” Analysts are expected to want clarity on any impact on the possibility of payouts to shareholders – currently expected next year. Lloyds, which admitted on Thursday its first quarter profits had fallen by 46% to £654m, has separated out 600 TSB branches, created a new image on the high street and floated the bank on the stock market before it was sold to Sabadell of Spain last year. TSB relies on Lloyds for its IT, despite being a separate bank, while RBS is trying to create a standalone branch network.
Chris Rock: five of his best moments While the reaction to Chris Rock’s last stint as Oscar host was somewhat muted, hopes are high that the comedian will be able to add some much-needed edge to this week’s ceremony. Most are curious to see just how far Rock will push boundaries, given the #OscarsSoWhite controversy. But, while we wait to see if he will crash or soar, here’s a look back at some of his best moments on screen. I’m Gonna Git You Sucka Before Keenen Ivory Wayans’ handle on silliness got out of control in dross such as White Chicks and Dance Flick, he displayed a niftier touch for boisterous humour in this inventive blaxploitation parody. A 23-year-old Rock cropped up in a small but memorable role as a man desperate for ribs but unwilling to pay for a full rack. New Jack City It might not feel as sharp-edged as it did in 1991, but Mario Van Peebles’ violent gangster drama showcased an impressive cast from Wesley Snipes to Ice-T. But Rock’s crack addict-turned-informant Pookie was an effortless scene-stealer in a performance that provided both serious and comic moments. Good Hair In 2009, Rock added another string to his bow by writing and starring in this revealing documentary about African Americans’ hair. Rock proved to be a smart and curious tour guide, shining a light on a $9bn industry without turning it into a polemic or resorting to condescension. His talent for the field should be explored further. 2 Days in New York While Julie Delpy’s quick-witted relationship comedy 2 Days in Paris was undoubtedly fun, it didn’t seem like a film that required a sequel. It was therefore a refreshing surprise that the follow-up was just as charming and cleverly observed as the first. Rock, playing a talkshow host and journalist, appears like an extension of himself. Top Five Emerging from the 2014 Toronto film festival with ecstatic reviews, audience buzz and a $12.5m deal from Paramount, Rock’s major comeback film, which he also wrote and directed, seemed as if it would be a box-office hit, too. But it sort of fizzled, which is a shame because it’s a smart, funny and affectionate romantic comedy that was billed as Rock’s Annie Hall. It sadly proved that his box-office appeal may now be reserved for Madagascar movies.
WHO warns against blood donations from people returning from Zika regions The World Health Organisation has advised countries against accepting blood donations from people who have travelled to regions affected by the Zika virus, as Spain announced Europe’s first known case of the disease in a pregnant woman. The announcement came as authorities in Brazil disclosed two cases of transmission tied to blood transfusions, adding a new dimension to efforts to limit Zika’s impact. With dozens of cases emerging in Europeans and North Americans returning from Zika-affected areas, the WHO stressed the potential link between Zika and microcephaly – which causes children to be born with abnormally small heads – and urged health authorities to take precautions. “With the risk of incidence of new infections of Zika virus in many countries, and the potential linkage of the Zika virus infection with microcephaly and other clinical consequence, it is estimated as an appropriate precautionary measures to defer [blood] donors who return from areas with Zika virus outbreak,” the WHO told AFP in a statement on Thursday. The virus, which has spread quickly across Latin America and the Caribbean, is usually transmitted by the bite of a mosquito, although health authorities in Texas this week reported a case which had been transmitted through sexual contact. Marcelo Addas Carvalho, the doctor who is the director of the blood center at the University of Campinas near Sao Paulo, said genetic testing confirmed that a man who received a blood transfusion using blood donated by another man infected with Zika in March 2015 became infected with the virus, although he did not develop symptoms. Carvalho said another man, who had suffered gunshot wounds, also became infected with Zika after receiving multiple blood transfusions that included blood donated by an infected person in April 2015. Carvalho said that infection probably was caused by the transfusion but genetic tests have not yet been conducted to confirm it. He said it was very unlikely the infection was caused by a mosquito bite because the patient was in a hospital intensive care unit for three months. The patient later died from his gunshot wounds and not the Zika infection, health officials and Carvalho said. “Transmission of the virus through blood transfusion is very rare and not an important factor in the epidemic. Governments and society in general should focus on eliminating the mosquito, which is the main form of transmission,” Carvalho said. Meanwhile, in the first case of its kind in Europe, Spain’s health ministry said a pregnant woman who had returned from Colombia had been diagnosed with the virus. “One of the patients diagnosed in (the north-eastern region of) Catalonia is a pregnant woman, who showed symptoms after having travelled to Colombia,” the ministry announced, adding that she was one of seven cases in Spain. The mosquito-borne virus has so far spread to 26 countries in South and Central America and the Caribbean and health authorities have warned it could infect up to four million people on the continent and spread worldwide. The disease starts with a mosquito bite and normally causes little more than a fever and rash. But since October, Brazil has reported 404 confirmed cases of microcephaly – up from 147 in 2014 – plus 3,670 suspected cases. The timing has fuelled strong suspicions that Zika is causing the birth defect. The virus has also been linked to a potentially paralysing nerve disorder called Guillain-Barre syndrome in some patients. Spain’s health ministry sought to ease concerns over the spread of the virus, pointing out that all seven cases in the country had caught the disease abroad. “Up to now, the diagnosed cases of Zika virus in Spain ... don’t risk spreading the virus in our country as they are imported cases,” it said. The news comes a day after South American health ministers held an emergency meeting in Uruguay on the disease. The meeting focused on ways to control the mosquito population spreading the virus, though reports of a US patient catching the disease by having sex fuelled fears that it will not be easy to contain. WHO earlier this week declared the spike in serious birth defects an international emergency and launched a global Zika response unit. Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Jamaica and the US territory of Puerto Rico have all warned women not to get pregnant. The WHO warning on blood donations follows moves by Canada and Britain to protect their blood supplies. Canadian blood agencies on Wednesday announced that anyone who had travelled to a Zika-risk area would be ineligible to give blood for three weeks upon their return. The 21-day waiting period also applies to cord blood and stem cell donors who have travelled to Zika-affected areas. In Britain, the National Health Service Blood and Transplant agency has said that from Thursday, anyone returning from Zika-affected countries would be made to wait 28 days before being allowed to donate blood, as a “precautionary measure”. This report contains material from the Associated Press and Agence France-Presse
Bruce Springsteen announces four UK stadium shows for the summer Bruce Springsteen has announced four UK stadium shows for this summer. He brings the E Street Band to Britain for The River tour, in which he plays the entirety of his 1980 double album, finishing his set with a selection of highlights from the rest of his career. Springsteen will play the Etihad Stadium in Manchester on 25 May, Hampden Park in Glasgow on 2 June, Ricoh Arena in Coventry on 3 June, and Wembley Stadium in London on 5 June. Tickets go on sale on 25 February at 9am. The US leg of the tour has been received ecstatically. “The greatest revelation of the revisiting of this album is that, at its core, The River sees the band do something rare: get quiet,” wrote Mark Guarino, reviewing the Chicago show for the . “With the songs played in order, the album begins slowly to stretch out and soon, the slower songs begin to edge out the quick and fast. These songs – Point Blank, Fade Away, Stolen Car – grow into cinematic set pieces and since they are not often featured on the band’s setlist, there is a sense the band was energized, skillfully filtering all their strengths for big gestures into smaller pockets.”
Rod Temperton obituary Those who pore over the writing credits on album sleeves know the name of the songwriter Rod Temperton, who has died of cancer aged 66. But despite his huge hits for Michael Jackson, above all the title track for Thriller, he was so low-profile that he was nicknamed the “invisible man”. His compositional skills led to him writing three songs for Jackson’s 1979 album Off the Wall, which went on to sell more than 20m copies. In 1982, he wrote three of the nine songs on Jackson’s Thriller, including the title track, and his contributions helped the album to shift 65m copies and become the biggest seller of all time. Temperton, who had previously been a member of the funk-disco band Heatwave, was recruited to the Jackson team by producer Quincy Jones in 1978, as Jones was preparing to record Off the Wall. Temperton formed a fruitful partnership with Jones and the recording engineer Bruce Swedien, prompting the three of them to be dubbed the A-Team. “I’d never heard Heatwave until Quincy told me about them,” Swedien recalled. “Rod was like Beethoven – when he would bring a demo in the studio, every detail was complete.” Of the songs Temperton wrote for Off the Wall, the title track reached the Top 10 of the US Billboard pop chart, while Rock With You topped it. Both were Top 10 hits in Britain. His third track, Burn This Disco Out, was released as the B-side of Beat It. When Thriller was recorded three years later, Temperton was seen as indispensable by Jones. “Quincy said, ‘Well, you came up with the title of the last album, see what you can do for this album’,” Temperton recalled in a 2006 interview for Radio 2, describing how he wrote Thriller. “I went back to the hotel. I wrote two or three hundred titles for this song.” He toyed with the idea of calling it Midnight, before he hit upon Thriller. “Something in my head just said ‘this is the title’. You could visualise it on top of the Billboard charts ... So I knew I had to write it as Thriller, and I wrote all the words very quickly, then went to the studio and we did it.” It was also Temperton’s idea to include the macabre spoken word section at the end of the song: “One thing I’d thought about was to have somebody, a famous voice in the horror genre, to do this vocal.” As luck would have it Jones’s wife was friendly with the actor Vincent Price. He was delighted to be offered the job. Temperton wrote out the text in a cab on his way to the recording session, Price (who took a flat fee) did only two takes, and the result entered into music industry folklore. The album also featured the Temperton songs Baby Be Mine and The Lady in My Life; only Jackson himself contributed more numbers. The songwriter’s journey to the centre of the West Coast entertainment business began in the Lincolnshire seaside resort of Cleethorpes, where he was born. He would later describe how his father put a transistor radio on his pillow when he was a child and he would fall asleep listening to the pop station Radio Luxembourg. He attended De Aston school in Market Rasen, where he formed a band in which he was the drummer. On leaving school he worked for a time at the Ross Foods frozen fish factory in Grimsby. Meanwhile he persevered as a musician. Switching from drums to keyboards, he played in several dance bands and in the early 1970s moved to Germany. With guitarist Bernd Springer he formed a band called Sundown Carousel, which played soul music covers in bars and GI clubs across Germany. In 1974, having also been part of a group called The Hammer, he replied to an advert in the Melody Maker that had been placed by Johnnie Wilder Jr. He had sung with a number of groups while serving with the US army in West Germany and was putting together a new outfit. The band began performing in London as Chicago’s Heatwave before shortening their name to Heatwave, adding a funk beat to their disco sound and signing to GTO Records in 1976. They recorded a debut album, Too Hot to Handle, and in 1977 their third single from it, Boogie Nights (written by Temperton, as were all the songs on the album), reached No 2 on both the UK chart and the Billboard Hot 100. “I’ve always tried to write my music with an American flavour and really Boogie Nights is the most universal song I’ve written,” he said at the time. The follow-up single, the ballad Always and Forever, reached the UK Top 10 and climbed to 18 on the Billboard pop chart. Luther Vandross recorded a version of it for his album Songs (1994). A second album, Central Heating, appeared in 1978, and another Temperton composition, The Groove Line, delivered another US Top 10 hit. It was in 1978 that Temperton decided to leave the group to concentrate on songwriting, though he would continue to contribute material to Heatwave. He soon received his priceless opportunity with Jackson and became a writer for countless major artists. Among his credits are George Benson’s most successful single, Give Me the Night (1980), from the album of the same name, various contributions to Jones’s The Dude (1981), and several co-writing credits on Donna Summer’s album Donna Summer; Baby, Come To Me for Patti Austin and James Ingram; and tracks on Herbie Hancock’s Lite Me Up (all 1982). He also wrote for Manhattan Transfer, Siedah Garrett, Aretha Franklin, Jeffrey Osborne, Karen Carpenter, Mica Paris and many more. In 1986 he was nominated for the Oscar for best original song for the track Miss Celie’s Blues, which he had co-written with Lionel Richie and Jones for the film The Color Purple. Temperton also wrote five songs for the Billy Crystal movie Running Scared (1986). He remained self-effacing, though his success funded homes in Los Angeles, the south of France, Fiji, Switzerland and Britain. Tongue in cheek he summed up: “I watch telly, catch up on the news, and maybe the phone will ring.” He is survived by his wife, Kathy. • Rodney Lynn Temperton, songwriter, musician and producer, born 9 October 1949; death announced 5 October 2016
Referendum campaign lacked evidence, but the fallout must not It’s hard to gauge the full scale of the decision to leave the EU, but while public services must be prepared for several years of uncertainty, it is crucial that we carry out a detailed analysis of public finances before making any decisions. Not only will the UK extract itself from EU law and protocols while commencing bilateral trade agreements around the world, but also face a likely second vote on the future of the UK, too. A new prime minister, and probably a new leader of the opposition, must grapple with this and public rejection of the present deal between our institutions and communities. Don’t understate how time-consuming this will be. For public services, financial uncertainties will limit confidence to invest in the medium term. There are many questions to be answered, including whether EU funds will be replaced when funding is repatriated to Westminster; whether devolution and new funding models, of which George Osborne has been the architect, will be as great a priority under a new chancellor; and whether it will be harder to attract European staff to our hospitals and schools before it’s clear how we want our borders to change. Around 50,000 NHS staff, 4.5% of the total workforce, are from the European Economic Area, and the Commons public accounts committee has already raised concerns that the NHS is struggling with a shortage of about 50,000 clinical staff. But while the deckchairs move after the referendum, the ship of globalisation, new technologies and new ways of working continue to make the world a smaller and more joined-up place. Public services need to learn from others. UK cities and regions will want their economic development aspirations to align with European opportunities, even though we will leave the EU. Government ministers and public servants alike must avoid knee-jerk reactions that could do more harm than good in this rapidly changing situation. If the campaign was one of claim and counter claim, often a lacking in evidence, the execution of next steps must be thorough, clear, honest and considered. Nigel Farage’s admission on Friday that claims of future additional NHS funding from the UK’s EU contribution were “a mistake” highlights the fact that public service leaders will not know how their finances will stack up. And if the subsequent fall in markets means that the gap of many pension liabilities have grown, any future claims that public sector funds are not being managed well will be met with derision from exasperated finance directors. In the build up to the referendum, we at Cipfa interviewed public sector leaders, including chief financial officers and chief executives. They believed the EU provided a source of greatly needed skills and expertise. They also appreciated support networks within the EU, which they felt powered research and allowed practitioners to share knowledge. These sort of collaborative relationships must continue. The crime and security sectors, for instance, would keenly feel the absence in responding to cross-border crime. But public sector leaders saw drawbacks of the EU, too. For example, immigration has been placing great strain on local services in certain areas. And clearly from the referendum we see that immigration in its present form is dividing our nation. Our research also demonstrated that EU regulations are at times over the top – for example, in restricting business rate relief that may assist growth. So there are opportunities to give more powers to incentivise local economies. A key question, with no present answer, is whether Westminster will repatriate from Brussels to itself through greater centralisation or devolve more to local solutions. Finally, Britain is deeply divided by geography and class. Take those with degrees voting one way and those without voting another as an example. From my experience of leading public bodies, I don’t believe that “taking back control” is a philosophical debate for many communities, but is their proxy for the better housing, skills, jobs, pay and hope they desperately want. Public services face uncertainty and challenges, in the face of which they must basically keep calm and carry on. Their vision, funding and capabilities will be a key determinant of whether we heal our divided nation over the next decade. Rob Whiteman is chief executive of the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accounting, former chief executive of the UK Border Agency and former chief executive of the London borough of Barking and Dagenham. Talk to us on Twitter via @ public and sign up for your free weekly Public Leaders newsletter with news and analysis sent direct to you every Thursday.
BuzzFeed faces $11m defamation lawsuit from viral news agency BuzzFeed is being sued for $11m (£7.7m) by a news agency and its founder over an article titled “The King of Bullsh*t News”. Central European News, founded and run by British journalist Michael Leidig, has launched a US legal action claiming that BuzzFeed’s 7,000-word article deliberately set out to damage its business. The article, published in April last year, alleged that the agency frequently runs attention-grabbing stories that are “often inaccurate or downright false”. CEN and Leidig allege that BuzzFeed maliciously intended to damage the news agency in order to “obtain a greater share of the market for viral news in Great Britain and elsewhere around the world”. They are seeking $5m each, as well as a further $1.04m for lost business opportunities, and further punitive damages. “The BuzzFeed story accuses Mr Leidig, an experienced and award-winning journalist, of the worst thing you can accuse a journalist of – fraud,” said Harry Wise, the New York-based lawyer representing CEN and Leidig. “It is unfortunate that BuzzFeed refuses to recognise that its story is completely unfounded, and has done terrible damage to Mr Leidig and his company. We look forward to demonstrating those things in court.” Leidig, CEN’s chief executive, claims that when BuzzFeed originally contacted him about writing a piece it was under the guise of wanting to write a feature on CEN’s “laudable investigative journalism”. He launched his legal action after failing to get BuzzFeed UK to remove the article. “I wrote to BuzzFeed’s newly appointed editor Janine Gibson offering to settle this without any money needing to change hands, if they removed the article and apologised,” said Leidig. “At that stage it might still have been possible to rescue certain investments and undo the damage. This olive branch was ignored and as BuzzFeed is not regulated by any independent body, the only alternative was to take legal action.” CEN says the article has had major ramifications for its business. It said that the Daily Mirror, its second biggest client, said it would now use CEN stories only “if it was absolutely necessary”. “[The Daily Mirror] is now using CEN again, but at a much-reduced level from the period before defendant’s publication,” said CEN in its 16-page legal filing. CEN said that sales of stories, which generally hovered around 900 a month before the BuzzFeed article was published, have dropped by about 30%. The company also says it lost a “potential high six-figure investment” as a result of the article. “We’re aware the suit was filed, but we don’t comment on potential litigation,” said a BuzzFeed spokesman.
Three Bristol University students die within weeks of term starting A coroner is investigating the circumstances surrounding the sudden deaths of three students, all believed to be first years, at one of Britain’s top universities within weeks of the new academic year beginning. Though the causes of the deaths will have to be established by the Avon coroner, online tribute and fundraising pages for two of the three suggested they had taken their own lives. The University of Bristol said the deaths were not being treated as suspicious and were not connected but it would carry out its own investigations to find out if lessons could be learned. According to a survey by the National Union of Students (NUS) published last year, eight out of 10 students said they had experienced mental health issues in the previous year and a third said they had had suicidal thoughts. One of the students who died has been named as Miranda Williams, 19, from Chichester, who was just three weeks into her first term. An online fundraising page set up to raise money for the charity Papyrus, which works to prevent young people from killing themselves, said Miranda had died three days after she “decided to take her own life”. A message on the page said: “Miranda suffered with depression and anxiety a lot of her teenage life … We blame the stigma of her illness for her death. It restricted the help she got, the support and the understanding.” She was studying philosophy and was a member of the Jazz Funk Soul Bristol society, according to an email to students from the students’ union announcing her death. It said support was available for students and added: “Shock, grief and understanding what has happened will affect us all differently. “It is important to let this happen in its own time. Talk to each other, to your school, to your residence pastoral team and to your friends.” The second first year student who died was the law student Kim Long, 18, from Penzance in Cornwall. On an online tribute page his family wrote: “We have lost our dearest, loveliest and only son. Kim took his own life last week. He was considerate to the end by leaving us a loving letter which helps us to respect and accept his choice. May he rest in peace.” A university spokesperson said: “Sadly we can confirm there have been three unrelated student deaths this term. These events are always extremely upsetting and our thoughts are with the students’ families and friends. “Our student welfare services are offering support to anyone affected. It would be inappropriate for us to comment on the cause of these deaths until the coroner has undertaken independent inquests, although we understand that there are no suspicious circumstances surrounding them. “The University of Bristol has around 22,000 students. We will, of course, be investigating if there is anything we need to do to learn from these sad events but we have no reason to believe they represent a wider issue.” Bristol University students’ union’s student living officer, Stephen LeFanu, said the organisation was working hard to improve pastoral care. He said: “Starting university can be extremely difficult. Some new students are without their support networks from home for the first time, and will be experiencing new academic and social pressures. “Rising fees mean that students are also increasingly under a great deal of financial pressure, with many taking on part-time work alongside their studies. Many people will also experience complex mental health difficulties, regardless of their environment.” In the UK, the Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Hotline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14. Hotlines in other countries can be found here.
Grimes live review – big bass, even bigger hooks It is only when you witness this much unfettered female joy on stage that you realise how rarely it is that you see it. Grimes’s feral K-pop rave is easily the best thing to be run through a mixing desk this year, maybe longer. It is every kind of awesome. Shrieks greet the atmospheric introductory passage, Laughing and Not Being Normal, that opens Grimes’s most recent album, Art Angels, and her set. Grimes – Claire Boucher, on her passport – then lets loose the Japanese-themed melody from Genesis, off her previous album, 2012’s Visions. Flanking her are two fierce dancers, Alison and Linda, who recall the Security of the First World, Public Enemy’s old pseudo-paramilitary helpmeets, crossed with ninjas. Soon, she’s unleashing gut-juddering sub-bass for Realiti, crunchier, and weirder than on record. She starts Flesh Without Blood off conducting the air, strumming a guitar riff and then singing about a false friendship in a bubblegum coo. “Got a doll that looks like you,” she smiles meaningfully. Bittersweet hook after bittersweet hook plays out on her gear. The bass is carnivorously loud; HANA, Boucher’s support act-cum-band member, whacks drum pads and tosses her plaited horsetail around. The tune is huge. Everywhere you look, there are women dancing. That pop music can be done with so much sweet, kaleidoscopic ferocity comes as a shock after a lifetime of regretfully accepting that the dead-eyed Britney version was the only way mainstream pop could work. There is no doubt that Miley Cyrus is having a ball, but you can still just see the marionette strings when she moves. Seeing Grimes tour Art Angels, her fourth and most accessible album (released last November), is like entering a parallel universe, where riot grrrl won the World Cup, where the K-pop-worshipping PC Music scene (Sophie et al) gained control of the means of production, currently hogged by a small cabal of producers who might not have the best interests of pop starlets at heart, where Peaches is as big as Madonna. Grimes the cult producer used to stay glued conscientiously to her equipment. In her new incarnation, she spends an hour bounding dementedly around, head-banging, running back to her workstation to start the next beat, play a keyboard line or trigger a sample. The stage set is as cheap as you like, what look like army surplus tarpaulins lit from beneath in lurid pinks and yellows, or strafed by lasers. When she’s not singing, Grimes cradles the microphone in the crook of her neck like a phone, both hands feverishly organising the live bits of the show’s playback. And so it goes on, euphorically, menacingly, with Grimes mixing what she calls “deep cuts” (mostly songs off her previous album, Visions) with the bulk of Art Angels, everything marinated in an enhancing dry rub of MSG cut with PCP. A big red bow controlling a mane of blond hair, lurid turquoise T-shirt over cut-offs, she is possessed by gleeful energy. Then, between songs, Grimes becomes Boucher, a nervous young Canadian woman, embarrassed at the repeated pauses she has to take because the crowd won’t stop cheering, even when she asks us nicely. “Stop it, it makes me stressed out, I’m very shy!” she blethers. Cue more screaming. The only thing to do is to start rapping in Russian – the vocal to Scream, originally in Mandarin, by Taiwanese rapper Aristophanes. Later in the set, for Venus Fly, the song’s martial rhythm section is multiplied tenfold. The build is monstrous; the drop, apocalyptic. The dancers have lasers shooting from their fingertips for a revamped version of Be a Body. For Go, a non-album cut that Grimes did with Blood Diamonds, they have daggers. Soon afterwards, Grimes apologises for having swallowed her own hair. Before Oblivion, she reminds us to hydrate, and not crush our peers. (The girl behind me has already fainted.) She plays her encore straight after the main set, because, thanks to her nerves, “Once I’m gone…” It’s easily the most explosive track off Art Angels, Kill V Maim, which may (or may not) be about The Godfather if he were a gender-bending vampire. It features the keynote chorus: “Hey, oh, don’t behave.” Hosting the pop rave of your dreams, Grimes and her crew are having a blast so palpable, so unrelenting, it actually feels like a game-changer.
Taylor Wimpey: housing demand still strong after Brexit vote The UK housing market has remained buoyant since the vote for Brexit as potential buyers have continued to snap up new homes, according to Taylor Wimpey. In a trading update, Britain’s third-biggest housebuilder said sales and cancellations since the 23 June referendum had barely changed from a year ago and that customers were confident. It said the effect of the vote was not yet clear but that the market’s long-term health was underpinned by strong demand. Like other housebuilders, Taylor Wimpey noticed a brief faltering of demand straight after the Brexit vote followed by business picking up to normal levels. Before the referendum, remain campaigners warned of a housing shock if there was a vote to leave and some analysts have said a crash remains likely. Prices in some parts of central London have fallen and sales of “super prime” homes costing £10m or more have plunged but Taylor Wimpey said the mainstream market was holding up. In London’s zones one and two, prices have fallen slightly for the highest priced homes but demand remains strong, it said. Pete Redfern, Taylor Wimpey’s chief executive, said: “Trading during the second half of 2016 and into the autumn selling season has been strong. While there remains some uncertainty following the UK’s vote to leave the EU, we are encouraged to see that the housing market has remained robust and trading has remained resilient.” Taylor Wimpey said after almost 11 months of its financial year it had sold 0.75 properties a week at each of its developments compared with 0.76 for the same period last year. Cancellation rates stand at 13%, up slightly from 11% a year earlier. The company’s shares rose 3% to 150p. The shares plunged by more than a third to as low as 116p soon after the referendum as investors feared the vote would knock confidence in the property market. The company said it was sticking to its plan to pay £450m in dividends next year.
Burpy, baldy, deafy … auctioned artwork reveals rejected Snow White dwarves A display of concept drawings by the seminal movie artist Albert Hurter have shed new light on some of the rejected characters who didn’t make the cut in Walt Disney’s 1937 film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The final lineup – Doc, Grumpy, Happy, Sleepy, Bashful, Sneezy and Dopey – was selected from a pool of around 50 brainstormed by his team; in the Grimms’ original 1812 story, the dwarves are anonymous. Although many of the ultimately rejected names – including Jumpy, Deafy, Dizzey, Hickey, Wheezy, Baldy, Gabby, Nifty, Sniffy, Swift, Lazy, Puffy, Stuffy, Tubby, Shorty and Burpy – were already known, the artwork reveals how close some of them came to actual animation. The drawings were sold as part of an auction of 400 pieces at Bonhams in New York that raised a total of £500,000. A sketch of Deafy shows a tunic-clad chap cupping his ear and leaning unhappily towards the noise. Baldy, meanwhile, appears to be attempting to conceal his lack of hair with a huge hood, while also distracting the attention with an impressive tum and some unfortunate tights. Dr Catherine Williamson, director of entertainment memorabilia at Bonhams, said: “I think the guys at Disney will be relieved that the names of the dwarfs were changed at the last minute. “I’m sure they wouldn’t have offended sensibilities back in the 1930s but it would be a different story today. The original ones aren’t as good as what they eventually came up with. “The great thing about the names they used is that they’re not just physical references, they’re emotional. It’s good that they made it more about personality than physicality.” The film is widely regarded as one of Disney’s finest. Its success turned around the studio’s fortunes, and its legacy is still apparent in cinema today. A live-action revisionist spinoff, told from the point of view of Snow White’s sister, Red Rose, was announced by the studio earlier this year.
White evangelicals are playing the long game. This is the result they wanted Donald Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton wouldn’t have been possible without the support of white evangelical voters. For nearly four decades, white evangelicals have been a mainstay of the Republican party, and that’s no small matter. By some estimates, one in four voters fit that demographic, meaning that white evangelicals constitute one of the GOP’s most reliable voting blocs. This election was no exception to the rule. Exit polls suggest that four out of five white evangelicals turned out as usual and cast their lot with Trump. What seems different this time, however, is the candidate for whom they voted. Since Jerry Falwell Sr founded the “moral majority” in 1979, white evangelicalism has sought to position itself as the moral voice of the nation. For the most part, that has translated into unwavering support for socially conservative politicians and policies, undergirded by a strong sense of individual piety. Hence the designation of white evangelicals as “values voters”. Trump, by most accounts, deviates sharply from this norm. As The Atlantic’s Jonathan Merritt has succinctly put it, “Donald Trump is immodest, arrogant, foul-mouthed, money-obsessed, thrice-married, and until recently, pro-choice,” all of which flies in the face of professed evangelical standards. Combined with his often-overt misogyny, racism, and xenophobia, Trump seems more than a far cry from the Jesus whom evangelicals claim to love and preach. Throughout his campaign and now after, the apparent contradiction between Trump and so-called evangelical values has been the focus of much of the commentariat. Some prominent evangelicals to their credit sought all along to raise the red flag, urging their flock to think twice about lining up behind Trump. Less sympathetic observers have understandably charged white evangelicals with blatant partisan hypocrisy. Such criticisms make some sense, but they don’t take us very far in understanding white evangelicalism as a social and political phenomenon. Evangelicals may very well consider themselves “values voters”, but the emphasis has never really been on the perceived moral uprightness or religious bona fides of the candidate in question. It’s always nice when the two appear to line up, but the heart of contemporary white evangelicalism lies in advocating for a specific, right-leaning set of social policies. More important than individual proclivities is stemming the tide of what they see as widespread cultural decay. Trump’s nostalgia-laden promise to “Make America great again” hit the right note in this respect. For many white evangelicals, a great America is a Christian America, and a Christian America is one whose laws are socially conservative and geared towards evangelical identity. Traditionally, much of the focus has been on anti-abortion politics and issues related to so-called family values and religious freedom, and Trump sounded all the right notes here. He also smartly solidified himself as a friend to evangelicals by choosing Mike Pence, a socially conservative, evangelical Catholic, as his running mate. Trump’s anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, racially charged rhetoric played right into the hands of white evangelicals as well. Although white evangelicals may often express a desire to love their neighbours as themselves, in reality the commandment is selectively applied. Anyone considered and deemed a threat to evangelical self-understanding, which includes a narrow vision of what America looks like, is on the other side of the fabled “culture war”. At the end of the day, that war is based in a particular conception of whiteness, filtered through the lens of religious identity and social conservatism. It’s not surprising, then, that four out of five latched on. I’m sure most white evangelicals would balk at the charge of racial politics, but the overall motivation in backing Trump has never been much of a secret. It’s safe to say that for many evangelicals, Trump never represented any sort of ideal, and most weren’t under any illusion about the direction of his moral compass. But for white evangelicals, God works even through the imperfect, and God’s work must – and will – be done. The “work” involved this time around is as old as the moral majority: it’s about protecting some modicum of evangelical identity and social values against a perceived onslaught of antagonistic liberalism. More specifically in regard to this election, white evangelical support for Trump was and is all about appointing conservative, evangelical-friendly judges to the supreme court. It’s also about enacting laws that they hope will put a stop to what they consider as threats to religious freedom, even if the latter border on discrimination. White evangelicals, in other words, are playing the long game, and that has nothing to do with who Trump is as an individual. That may all sound hypocritical, but that’s just what white evangelicalism is in the US. Although laden with the rhetoric of personal piety, it is primarily a social and political phenomenon, and we would do well to view it in such terms. As this election has made clear, white evangelicals will also stop at nothing in their attempt to establish their version of a “Christian America”. That includes supporting someone like Trump, who told them exactly what they wanted to hear. It was a match made in heaven.
Mike Hart obituary The singer-songwriter Mike Hart, who has died aged 72, sang with the Liverpool band the Roadrunners, and was a member of the poetry and music collective Liverpool Scene, but he will be best remembered for his solo album Mike Hart Bleeds. Released by John Peel’s Dandelion label in 1969, it was an eccentric, defiant record by someone who was prepared to argue his corner. The song Aberfan berates celebrities for crying publicly at the tragedy in the Welsh mining village; Shelter Song criticises the church for not housing the homeless in its huge cathedrals; and Almost Liverpool 8 is a diatribe at the latest girl to leave in his extensive list of doomed relationships. Hart’s album was the antithesis of easy listening and his career was equally edgy: there can be few artists who have so consistently sabotaged their own success. Hart was born in Bebington, on the Wirral, son of Colin Hart, who ran a sailmakers’ business, William Hart & Co, and his wife, Beryl, and educated at Birkenhead school. In 1962 he formed the Roadrunners, a rhythm and blues band, which had residencies in Liverpool at Hope Hall (now the Everyman theatre) and the Cavern. Roger McGough claimed the group could perform Twist and Shout and Money better than the Beatles, and remembered Hart – “Arty” – as “the wild man in front … [who] was very popular with the ladies. He was weird-looking but he was very charismatic, a Jaggeresque thing.” In 1963, George Harrison told some Liverpool musicians that he had seen the Rolling Stones “who are almost as good as the Roadrunners”. Their tour de force was Cry, Cry, Cry, which Hart would perform passionately, his eyes tight shut as if reliving some past ordeal. Hart turned down management from Giorgio Gomelsky and also a recording contract with Fontana. If Hart said no, that was it. There is subsequently little of the Roadrunners on tape, save for a live set from the Star-Club in Hamburg and a fundraising EP in 1965 for Liverpool University rag week. After travelling with the band to York, Hart refused to play and said it was over. He then joined Liverpool Scene alongside the poet Adrian Henri, and the musicians Andy Roberts, Mike Evans, Percy Jones and Brian Dodson. Their first single was Hart’s witty, rasping song Son, Son (1968), in which everyone is too preoccupied to answer a child’s questions. “It was exposure to the poets that changed him and he found out how to express himself,” said Roberts, “but he wouldn’t tolerate things going wrong. He would throw his guitar against the wall if he had a bad gig.” The key track of the band’s 1968 album The Amazing Adventures of the Liverpool Scene was Hart’s bitter-sweet Gliders and Parks, where he hopes a girl will turn up for a date in Coronation Park in Crosby. Unexpectedly, she arrives and the track is over, a rare Hart song with a positive ending, although a drunken row is not far away. The song opens with the words, “Saturday, got a Ribble bus”, an example of how Hart chronicled daily life, a theme later taken up by Morrissey and Billy Bragg. Liverpool Scene were bohemians, but they recognised that some discipline had to prevail and Hart was too wayward to last beyond the first album. He returned to Liverpool and formed a duo for a while with the 17-year old Jude Kelly, now artistic director of the Southbank Centre. Another girl, this time from Belgium, appears on the cover of Mike Hart Bleeds. To create the image, Hart dripped his blood on her photograph and stubbed his cigarette out on his face, writing the liner note as if he were in an asylum. She is probably the subject of the track Arty’s Wife. “It is a brilliant title with a brilliant cover,” said McGough, “and I loved his heart-wrenching voice, but he lacked confidence and he would back away from opportunities. He couldn’t believe that people admired him. He didn’t trust that and maybe that is where the pain and the soul came from.” Although many thought of Hart as the Liverpool Dylan, the album was too raw to find a large audience. Hart moved to Edinburgh in 1971 and worked with actors around the fringe festival. This led to a second Dandelion album, Basher, Chalky, Pongo and Me (1972), which combined jokes and sketches with his strident songs, including one about a brief affair with the playwright Nell Dunn. His later songs were either unrecorded or exist in cheaply made demo recordings. Hart’s health deteriorated with constant drinking and he lost his memory. He spent his later years in a nursing home in Edinburgh. He is survived by a sister, Susan, two nephews and a niece. • Michael William Hart, singer and songwriter, born 3 December 1943; died 22 June 2016
Hugh Grant to star in Paddington sequel as a vain acting legend past his prime Hugh Grant will appear in the forthcoming Paddington film, it has been announced, with Brendan Gleeson also joining the cast. Grant will play Phoenix Buchanan, a celebrity who lives on the same road as the eponymous bear and his adoptive family, the Browns. Buchanan is described by the production company as “a vain, charming acting legend whose star has fallen somewhat in recent years”. Gleeson will join the cast as safecracker Knuckles McGinty, while Ben Whishaw, Sally Hawkins, Hugh Bonneville, Julie Walters, Peter Capaldi and Jim Broadbent all return. The plot of the new film concerns Paddington’s attempt to buy a book as a present for his aunt Lucy’s 100th birthday, only for the book to be stolen. Director Paul King welcomed Grant and Gleeson to the cast. “It has been a complete joy to return to the world of Paddington,” he said. “It was such a delight to see his first big-screen adventure embraced by audiences around the world, and I couldn’t be more excited about Hugh and Brendan joining the cast to bring his next outing to life.” The first Paddington film was a commercial and critical success, with a global box office of $289m, making it the highest-grossing non-studio family film ever. Filming on Paddington 2 has already begun, and it is scheduled for release in November 2017. A third film has already been confirmed.
RNC communications head Sean Spicer to become White House press secretary Donald Trump has picked his presidential press team, naming Sean Spicer, chief strategist and communications director of the Republican National Committee, as his White House press secretary. Trump named other loyalists for top communications posts: Hope Hicks (director of strategic communications), Jason Miller (director of communications) and Dan Scavino (director of social media). “Sean, Hope, Jason and Dan have been key members of my team during the campaign and transition,” the president-elect said in a statement. “I am excited they will be leading the team that will communicate my agenda that will Make America Great Again.” Spicer worked closely with the RNC chair, Reince Priebus, in an election marked by bitter intra-party opposition to Trump. Both men have been rewarded for such loyalty: Priebus will serve as White House chief of staff. Using Twitter, Spicer said the appointment was an “amazing honor”. Jeff Mason, president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, congratulated the appointees and said in a statement: “We look forward to working with all of them in the months ahead.” During the campaign, Trump made a point of criticising the press for supposed bias against him, often picking out individual reporters by name and directing crowds at his rallies to boo them. Perhaps consequently, his political team has not been particularly open with the media. The president-elect has not held a press conference since July, preferring recently to stage campaign-style events in states that voted for him. Earlier on Thursday, Trump announced that his campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, would serve in the White House as counselor to the president. Conway told ABC’S Good Morning America: “This will be a traditional White House in the sense that you will have a great deal of press availability on a daily basis and you’ll have a president who continues to be engaged with the press.” Last weekend, at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, Trump hosted an off-the-record gathering for journalists. On Monday, the Washington Post published a summary of Jason Miller’s daily transition teleconferences with journalists and his inability to provide answers, given his boss’s predilection for communicating via Twitter instead. One question in a briefing last week, the paper wrote, concerned Trump’s dispute with the CIA over Russia’s hacking of the presidential election. Miller, the Post wrote, answered: “I’d let the president-elect’s tweets speak for themselves.”
Trump implies 'second amendment folks' could stop Clinton judge picks – as it happened Final item from us tonight. Hillary Clinton paid a visit earlier to a health clinic in Miami, the epicenter of the Zika outbreak in the US, and appealed to Republican leaders to convene an emergency session of Congress to pass funding to combat the mosquito-borne virus, reports Sabrina Siddiqui in Washington. The Democratic nominee used the bully pulpit of the presidential campaign to voice her frustration with lawmakers in Washington, who left town last month for a summer recess without meeting the federal government’s request for funds to fight the spread of the Zika virus. “I am very disappointed that the Congress went on recess before actually agreeing on what they would do to put the resources into this fight,” Clinton said. “And I really am hoping that they will pay attention.” Clinton delivered her remarks following a tour of the Borinquen Health Care Center, a community clinic in Miami’s Wynwood neighborhood, which has borne the brunt of Florida’s Zika outbreak. The state of Florida, a key battleground in November’s presidential race, has been the most severely hit by the virus, which poses the greatest threat to pregnant women due to its cause of birth defects such as microcephaly. Clinton said she first learned of Zika in December through her daughter Chelsea, who was pregnant at the time with her second child. “We don’t want to wake up in a year and read so many more stories about babies like the little girl who just died in Houston,” Clinton said, citing a fatal case of Zika-related microcephaly reported out of Texas on Tuesday. “That is just not something we should tolerate in our country.” The Obama administration requested a $1.9bn spending package several months ago, basing its figure on the needs of public health officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The request quickly devolved into partisan politics on Capitol Hill, as House Republicans instead passed a measure that included riders to overturn certain clean water regulations, restricted money for Planned Parenthood and undermined the health care law. Senate Democrats twice filibustered the House-passed proposal, which Barack Obama has also said he would veto. Republicans have in turn accused Democrats of blocking the necessary funding and on Tuesday took aim at Tim Kaine, the Virginia senator and Clinton’s vice presidential running mate, for voting against their Zika bill. Clinton urged lawmakers to put aside politics and advance a separate bipartisan agreement that cleared the Senate in June and would allocate $1.1bn in funding with no strings attached. She also took aim at Republican nominee Donald Trump, who has ignored the Zika virus all together and told a local television station in Florida he did not need to opine on the issue because the state’s governor, Rick Scott, had it “under control”. “I disagree with those who say that Zika is an insignificant issue,” Clinton said. “This is something we need to take seriously.” Contrary to Trump’s claims, Scott, a Republican who has endorsed the nominee, has sounded repeated alarms over the Zika outbreak. He, too, implored US lawmakers to return to Washington and address the funding gap. “The federal government must stop playing politics and Congress needs to immediately come back to session to resolve this,” Scott said on Tuesday, as Florida’s health department identified four more individuals who likely contracted Zika through a mosquito bite. Salman Rushdie, himself no stranger to threats of assassination, has delivered his verdict on the nature of Donald Trump’s remarks: US Secret Service, on Donald Trump’s comments: The Secret Service is aware of the comment. The NRA might have changed the channel a little early. Donald Trump’s campaign’s initial clarification of his remarks in Wilmington, North Carolina, today was to blame the “dishonest media” for quoting Trump as saying that the use of firearms could be considered a logical recourse in the event of Hillary Clinton’s selection of supreme court justices. So, in the interest of providing as much information as possible to American readers and voters, here are Trump’s full comments regarding the Second Amendment today: Hillary wants to abolish, essentially, the Second Amendment. By the way, if she gets to pick, if she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I dunno. But I tell you what, that will be a horrible day. If Hillary gets to put her judges in, right now we’re tied. You see what’s going on. We’re tied ‘cause Scalia, this was not supposed to happen. Justice Scalia was going to be around for ten more years, at least, and this is what happened. That was a horrible thing, So now look at it. So Hillary essentially wants to abolish the second amendment. Now speaking to the NRA folks, who are great: when you, when you, and I tell you, so they endorsed me. They endorsed me very early. My sons are members. I’m a member. If you, we can add, I think the National Rifle Association, we can add the Second Amendment to the justices, they almost go, in a certain way, hand and hand. Now the justices are going to do things that are so important. And we have such great justices. You saw my list of eleven that have been vetted and respected and have gotten great, and they, a little bit, equate. But if you don’t do what’s the right thing, you’re not going to have - either you’re not going to have a Second Amendment or you’re not going to have much of it left. And you’re not going to be able to protect yourselves, which you need. Which you need! When the bad guys burst into your hours, they’re not looking about Second Amendments and ‘do I have the right to do this.’ The bad guys aren’t going to be giving up their weapons. But the good people will say, ‘oh, well, that’s the law.’ No, no. Not going to happen. We can’t let it happen. We can’t let it happen. Video: Donald Trump implying that the use of firearms might be adequate response to Hillary Clinton’s selection of supreme court justices. Roger Stone, an informal adviser to the Trump campaign, implied last month to internet agitator Milo Yiannopoulos that the notion of discrediting the election as “illegitimate” is part of Trump’s campaign strategy. “I think we have widespread voter fraud, but the first thing that Trump needs to do is begin talking about it constantly,” Stone said. “He needs to say for example, today would be a perfect example: ‘I am leading in Florida. The polls all show it. If I lose Florida, we will know that there’s voter fraud. If there’s voter fraud, this election will be illegitimate, the election of the winner will be illegitimate, we will have a constitutional crisis, widespread civil disobedience, and the government will no longer be the government.’” “If you can’t have an honest election, nothing else counts,” Stone continued. “I think he’s gotta put them on notice that their inauguration will be a rhetorical, and when I mean civil disobedience, not violence, but it will be a bloodbath. The government will be shut down if they attempt to steal this and swear Hillary in. No, we will not stand for it. We will not stand for it.” Ex-CIA director Michael Hayden, on Trump’s comment: If someone said that outside hall, they’d be in a police wagon being questioned by Secret Service. Note: Threatening to kill, kidnap, or inflict bodily harm on a presidential candidate is a felony, punishable with up to five years in prison. The last time that a major candidate joked - or appeared to offhandedly suggest - that their opponent be assassinated, it helped result in their resounding defeat. In 2010, Nevada senate candidate Sharron Angle said in a radio interview that the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms could be construed to encourage firearm-bearing Americans to throw off the shackles of elected officials, including her then-opponent, senate minority leader Harry Reid. “I feel that the Second Amendment is the right to keep and bear arms for our citizenry,” Angle said at the time. “This not for someone who’s in the military. This not for law enforcement. This is for us. And in fact when you read that Constitution and the founding fathers, they intended this to stop tyranny. This is for us when our government becomes tyrannical.” “It’s to defend ourselves. And you know, I’m hoping that we’re not getting to Second Amendment remedies. I hope the vote will be the cure for the Harry Reid problems.” Members of Congress are already responding to Donald Trump’s comments, reading them as a call for Hillary Clinton’s assassination or that of her would-be supreme court nominee: In comment provided to the , Hillary Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook called Trump’s suggestion that firearms be used in response to Hillary Clinton’s nomination of supreme court judges “dangerous.” This is simple - what Trump is saying is dangerous. A person seeking to the be President of the United States should not suggest violence in any way. Donald Trump’s presidential campaign has responded to accusations that the candidate implied that the use of firearms might be an appropriate response to Hillary Clinton’s election to the presidency and nomination of supreme court judges, blasting “dishonest media” for quoting Trump. “It’s called the power of unification – 2nd Amendment people have amazing spirit and are tremendously unified, which gives them great political power,” Jason Miller, the campaign’s senior communications adviser, said in a statement. “And this year, they will be voting in record numbers, and it won’t be for Hillary Clinton, it will be for Donald Trump.” The ’s David Smith has more on Rudy Giuliani’s introduction of Donald Trump in Wilmington, North Carolina, in which he implied that Hillary Clinton should face a similar punishment to a man who was executed by Iran for spying. Trump was introduced by Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor, who brought up the case of Shahram Amiri, an Iranian nuclear scientist executed for spying for the US. Clinton received emails mentioning him on her controversial personal server when she was secretary of state. Giuliani said: “Remember Hillary told us there was no top secret information on her emails? Remember she told us that. Well, she lied! And I don’t know the connection between that and the death of Mr Amiri, but what I do know is it put a lot more attention on him when they found those emails. It certainly put him at great risk, even if they didn’t find them, and it shows you that when the director of the FBI said she was extremely careless, he was being kind.” But Giuliani repeatedly waved away chants of “Lock her up!” from the crowd. Priorities Action USA, a Super-Pac that supports Democratic candidates, has issued a succinct statement in response to Donald Trump’s apparent implication that firearms might be used in response to Hillary Clinton’s selection of supreme court justices in an email titled “Donald Trump Just Suggested That Someone Shoot Hillary Clinton”: THIS IS NOT OK. The apparent implication that the use or ownership of firearms would be a potential recourse for Hillary Clinton’s selection of supreme court justices from Donald Trump this afternoon is not the first time that such a suggestion has come out of the Trump campaign. Trump’s adviser on veterans issues, Al Baldasaro, called for Clinton’s execution by firing squad in a radio interview last month. “This whole thing disgusts me, Hillary Clinton should be put in the firing line and shot for treason,” Baldasaro said, calling Clinton a “piece of garbage.” Trump campaign spokesperson Hope Hicks said that Trump’s campaign was “incredibly grateful for [Baldasaro’s] support, but we don’t agree with his comments.” Baldasaro was later investigated by the US Secret Service for the comments. The has reached out to the US Secret Service regarding Trump’s comments today. Speaking at a rally in Wilmington, North Carolina, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump appeared to suggest the use of firearms as a solution to rival Hillary Clinton choosing federal judges in the event of her election. “Hillary wants to abolish, essentially abolish the second amendment, and by the way, and if she gets to pick, if she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the second amendment people, maybe there is, I dunno,” Trump said. The audience cheered and whistled. “But I’ll tell you what, that will be a horrible day,” Trump continued. “If Hillary gets to put her judges... right now, we’re tied - you see what’s going on. We’re tied, ’cause, Scalia, this was not supposed to happen. Justice Scalia was going to be around for ten more years, at least, and this is what happens. That was a horrible thing.” The has reached out to the Trump campaign for clarification of the comment. Appearing at a campaign rally in North Carolina, Donald Trump lashed out at Hillary Clinton as Isis’ “most-valuable player,” and forewarned that voter fraud will rob him of victory in the general election if his followers are not vigilant. “If I’m Isis, I call her up and give her the Most Valuable Player award,” Trump said of his general election opponent, further saying that the late general George Patton is “spinning in his grave” over American military operations fighting Isis. He then elaborated on a frequent theme from his recent rallies, declaring that his possible loss in the general election would be the result of voter fraud. “Voter ID, what’s with that? What’s with voter ID? Why aren’t we having voter ID?” Trump asked the crowd. “In other words, I wanna vote. Here’s my identification. I wanna vote. As opposed to somebody coming up and voting 15 times for Hillary. Well, and I will not tell you to vote 15 times. I will not tell you to do that, okay? You won’t vote 15 times, but people will. They’ll vote many times. And how that could have happened is unbelievable and the governor just told me that they’re going before the United States supreme court. Justice Roberts. And maybe they can get a stay. let’s see what happens, okay? Let’s see what happens. That’s a very important thing.” Russell Simmons, the American entrepreneur and founder of Def Jam Records, said his one-time friend Donald Trump has “fueled a lot of hate” in the pursuit of the presidency. Appearing on the inaugural episode of Politics for Humans, a podcast hosted by US political reporter Sabrina Siddiqui, Simmons recalled taking Trump to a mosque in New York City years before he sought the Republican nomination for president. Back then, Trump, who as the Republican nominee has proposed banning all Muslim immigration to the US, was more amenable to meeting with Muslim leaders. “He was very kind and that was the end of it,” Simmons said. “But years later this fire has come up. He’s fueled a lot of hate and a lot of people are ignorant, and he’s helped to promote that ignorance.” Simmons said he was once good friends with Trump - they traveled together to Trump’s Florida resort Mar-A-Lago each weekend, and Simmons even recalled being present for the real estate mogul’s first date with his wife Melania Trump. But the Trump he now sees on the campaign trail is someone he no longer recognizes. “It’s scary, you don’t want him to be president for God’s sake,” Simmons said, adding that Trump was “a grudge carrier” and the two no longer speak. “He don’t talk to me after I said I’d rather Kim Kardashian be president.” In the podcast, which examines the Black Lives Matter movement, Simmons also reflected on his experience as a black male and encounters with law enforcement. “As a young person, I was always afraid of the police, and I have had experiences of being mistreated and yelled at and talked down to,” Simmons said. Listen to the podcast here: Watch it live here: After being challenged by opponent Hillary Clinton to accept the terms of three upcoming presidential debates after quibbling on the schedule, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump told Time in an interview that he will commit to the debates - but some of the terms might be “renegotiated.” “I will absolutely do three debates,” Trump said. “I want to debate very badly. But I have to see the conditions.” The nonpartisan organization in charge of general-election debates, the Commission on Presidential Debates, selected the dates, format and venues of the three presidential debates and single vice-presidential debate in September of last year - but that hasn’t kept Trump from insisting that the schedule was “rigged” by Clinton’s team. “I renegotiated the debates in the primaries, remember?” Trump said, of the primary debates, one of which he elected not to appear on. “They were making a fortune on them and they had us in for three and a half hours and I said that’s ridiculous. I’m sure they’ll be open to any suggestions I have, because I think they’ll be very fair suggestions. But I haven’t [seen the conditions] yet. They’re actually presented to me tonight.” Trump also declared that he is willing to veto the selection of moderators, which have not been announced. “I’ll have to see who the moderators are,” Trump said. “Yeah, I would say that certain moderators would be unacceptable, absolutely. I did very well in the debates on the primaries. According to the polls, I won all of them. So I look forward to the debates. But, yeah, I want to have fair moderators … I will demand fair moderators.” Last night, Clinton’s campaign released a statement urging Trump to commit to the debates, calling it “concerning that the Trump campaign is already engaged in shenanigans around these debates.” The three debates are scheduled for 26 September in Hempstead, New York; 9 October in St. Louis; and 19 October in Las Vegas. The lone vice-presidential debate will be held on 4 October in Farmville, Virginia. In a damning editorial published in the Los Angeles Times, a former Minuteman III nuclear launch officer wrote that Donald Trump “cannot be trusted” to responsibly wield America’s nuclear arsenal. The op-ed, titled “I was a Minuteman III nuclear launch officer. Take it from me: We can’t let Trump become president,” was penned by John Noonan, who worked more than 300 nuclear “alerts,” 24-hour shifts in which he was entrusted with the execution of US nuclear protocols if so ordered by the president. Noonan “spent five years of my life as a Minuteman III launch officer,” and an additional year as an instructor. In the piece, Noonan expressed horror at Trump’s apparent fascination with nuclear weapons, and his lack of familiarity with the concept of deterrence as a strategy. “It gives me no pleasure to say this, but I believe my party’s nominee for president is mentally unfit to assume this heavy responsibility,” Noonan, a longtime Republican, wrote. “Trump cannot be trusted with weapons that can kill millions ... These duties are simply too grave to entrust to a man who has exhibited sociopathic and chronically narcissistic behavior throughout his checkered career.” Citing the hacking of Democratic National Committee emails that revealed bias against his presidential campaign among senior members of the party, Vermont senator and former Democrat Bernie Sanders is using his considerable fundraising apparatus to kick Debbie Wasserman Schultz out of Congress. “This race is very important for Our Revolution because if we can win this tough fight in Florida, it will send a clear message about the power of our grassroots movement that will send shockwaves through the political and media establishments,” Sanders penned in an email to his followers. “The recent emails leaked from Democratic Party staff showed that under Debbie Wasserman Schultz, DNC staff were not exactly fair and even-minded during the presidential primary,” Sanders continued. “What was revealed wasn’t much of a shock to us, because we knew all along that the establishment wasn’t on our side.” After her resignation as chair of the DNC, however, Sanders wrote that “we have the opportunity to transform the Democratic Party and open up its doors to working people and young people - people who want real change.” With a DayGlo-orange face and his trademark floppy hair, Donald Trump stands gleefully holding an inflatable globe. He has the whole world in his hands and he is thrilled. This scene, while possibly not far from reality, is drawn from one of the most topical satirical shows at this year’s Edinburgh fringe. Trumpageddon invites its audience to an intimate political rally where they can fire questions at the Republican nominee, play golf with him and even help him decide on policy – which country he would invade first, for example. The show is the creation of satirist Simon Jay, who is the only person taking on the persona of Trump at the fringe. Jay, who first landed on the idea of creating a caricature of the billionaire businessman in January, said he never anticipated that the show would be quite so topical by August. Walking through the streets of Edinburgh dressed as Trump, he said he regularly has groups of US tourists shout: “We’re not voting for you,” at him. “This is so out of my comfort zone,” he said. “I’m the antithesis of him, really – a gay, liberal, English socialist who usually prefers playing women. And here I am playing an alpha male with racist and misogynistic views.” With so many US tourists visiting Edinburgh for the festival, Jay said he hopes his satire will be a release valve. At the end of every show, he asks for a show of hands from those who intend to vote for him; he has yet to have a Trump fan reveal themselves. He said: “The show features so many of the ludicrous things he has said and presented as fact – that Isis wants to take over the Vatican, or calling Hillary Clinton the devil. And when I repeat those things, I’ve had Americans in the audience who shake their heads and look pained, as if they are saying: “Help me.” People are terrified, and rightly so.” Scenes from a Trump rally: Public Policy Polling’s latest numbers out of North Carolina show good signs for Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s chances in the state - and not-so-good signs of post-election bipartisanship. According to the survey, released this morning, Clinton leading in North Carolina for the first time since March, 43% to Donald Trump’s 41%, with 7% of voters saying they plan to support Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson and 2% expressing support for Green candidate Jill Stein. In a head-to-head contest, Clinton’s lead shrinks to a single point over Trump, 47% to 46%. But Trump’s insistence that the election may be “rigged” in Clinton’s favor appears to have found fertile ground in North Carolina Republicans. The survey found that 69% of Trump supporters believe that if Clinton wins the election, it will have been due to voter fraud, compared to only 16% who think that it would mean that she received more support than Trump. A full 40% of Trump voters think that Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, will steal the election for Clinton, despite the organization’s notable handicap of not existing since 2010. PPP also asked a few more troll-y questions, resulting in statistics that show that 41% of Trump voters in North Carolina say that they think Clinton is the devil, 47% of his voters say they saw a nonexistent video of Iran collecting $400m from the United States and only 38% of voters think Trump can be trusted with nuclear weapons. The rise of Trump has led, perversely, to the revival of Obama. Republican candidates are saying they will not vote for their presidential nominee, and the party’s national security officials are lining up to condemn Trump as a reckless danger to the Republic. How could the incumbent not look like a statesman compared to a man who apparently can’t be trusted with the elevator button, never mind a nuclear one? Inside the White House, Obama’s aides talk about a president liberated from previous constraint. On the trail, and at the podium, he seems to love campaigning against his orange nemesis. His party’s candidates can’t get enough of him, and his potential successor – instead of putting distance between them – believes Obama doesn’t get enough credit for his economic achievements. This one-term president is having an unusually successful end to his second term, and for that he can thank the Republicans who were so determined to destroy him. The father of the man who killed 49 people in a gay Orlando nightclub in June has endorsed Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid, appearing behind Clinton at a rally in Kissimmee, Florida, last night. “Hillary Clinton is good for United States versus Donald Trump, who has no solutions,” Seddique Mateen, father of the deceased shooter Omar Mateen, told WPTV. Of his attendance at the rally, Mateen said: “It’s a Democratic party, so everyone can join.” The Clinton campaign has issued a short statement stating that Mateen was not invited to the Kissimmee event, despite his proximity to the candidate. “The rally was a 3,000-person, open-door event for the public,” the campaign said. “This individual wasn’t invited as a guest and the campaign was unaware of his attendance until after the event.” Clinton began the rally in Kissimmee by paying tribute to those killed in the Pulse nightclub shooting in June. “I know how many people, families, loved ones and friends are still grieving, and we will be with you as you rebuild your lives,” Clinton said. Donald Trump’s sharpest critic: Donald Trump. When Donald Trump visited Detroit on Monday to unveil his economic vision for the US, the Republican presidential nominee held the Rust Belt city up as a bastion of failed Democratic party policies, calling it a “living, breathing example of my opponent’s failed economic agenda”. “Detroit is still waiting for Hillary Clinton’s apology,” Trump said in a nearly hourlong speech before the business-friendly Detroit Economic Club. But in a town that has consistently voted for the Democrats, Trump will be hard-pressed to find support, warned residents and business owners. “If he really knew, like, the politics of Detroit, for example, a lot of the failed policies were Republican, like the schools,” said Alyson Turner, of Source Booksellers, a nonfiction bookstore located outside of downtown Detroit. Turner said the appointment by Republican governor Rick Snyder of several emergency managers to take over operations of the Detroit public school system has led to disastrous effects. Teachers this year, for example, have staged large-scale protests in light of the possibility they might work without pay. Turner’s mother and Source owner, Janet Webster Jones, pointed to the expansion of US highways under President Eisenhower as another Republican policy with a major impact on the city. Among the litany of problems that led Detroit into fiscal uncertainty and, eventually, a massive municipal bankruptcy, the highway system in metro Detroit is viewed by researchers as having helped accelerate white flight – in turn, decimating the city’s tax base. The highway act “tore up the city of Detroit”, Jones said. Trump may have delivered his remarks before a welcoming crowd on Monday. But the candidate was interrupted by protesters more than a dozen times, a notable reminder of the multiple derailments along the way of his unconventional campaign. Hillary Clinton will seize on criticism of Donald Trump’s plan to repeal the so-called “death tax”, which only benefits families with multi-million dollar estates like his own. Clinton will dismiss Trump’s proposal as further proof of the charge that he is only interested in policies that benefit himself, labeling it the “friends and family discount”, according to a Clinton campaign official. Trump, who has put himself forward as the champion of the American workers, laid out his economic agenda, which included a roster of proposals that align with Republican orthodoxy, including slashing tax rates,reducing the corporate tax rate and eliminating the so-called “death tax”. Trump presented his pledge to repeal the estate tax, worth an estimated $25 billion a year, as a boon for the working class, but it only applies applies to estates larger than $5.45m for individuals, or $10.9m for married couples – effectively, people like himself and his children. “American workers have paid taxes their whole life, they shouldn’t be taxed again when they die,”he said Monday. Clinton will explain how this applies only to people in and around Trump’s tax bracket. If Trump is truly worth “in excess of ten billion dollars” as he’s claimed, she will say, then he wold pay 40% for the estate tax, or approximately $3.996 billion when he passes his estate along to his heirs. Clinton will also make the case that it’s “no coincidence” Trump is pushing tax reforms that largely benefit his own family. Clinton has said she will push for a tax system that ensures the wealthiest Americans and large corporations pay higher rates than middle class households. The families of two Americans killed in the 2012 terrorist attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya, have filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against Hillary Clinton, accusing the former secretary of state of “extreme carelessness in handling confidential and classified information,” which they say contributed to the death of their sons. Patricia Smith, mother of Foreign Service information management officer Sean Smith, and Charles Woods, father of Navy SEAL Tyrone Woods, accuse the former secretary of state and Democratic presidential candidate of making “false and defamatory statements negligently, recklessly, purposefully, and/or intentionally with actual malice … by stating that plaintiffs were lying about Clinton having told them that the Benghazi attack was caused by an anti-Muslim YouTube video.” The lawsuit, filed on Monday in the US District Court of DC, claims that “as a direct result” of Clinton’s use of private email servers during her tenure as secretary of state, “Islamic terrorists were able to obtain the whereabouts of Ambassador Christopher Stevens ... and subsequently orchestrate, plan, and execute the now infamous September 11, 2012 attack.” Nick Merrill, the Clinton campaign’s traveling press secretary, issued a statement in response, saying that “while no one can imagine the pain of the families of the brave Americans we lost at Benghazi, there have been nine different investigations into this attack and none found any evidence whatsoever of any wrongdoing on the part of Hillary Clinton.” In the 2012 attack, Islamic militants attacked the American diplomatic compound in the port city of Benghazi, killing four Americans, including Smith and ambassador Chris Stevens. A second assault a few hours later targeted another compound, during which Woods was killed. The State Department was criticized in the aftermath of the attacks for not providing adequate security for the facilities, and for initially reporting that the attack was the outgrowth of a spontaneous protest over an anti-Muslim film made by an American preacher. Later investigations revealed that the attack was premeditated, and had been joined by rioters who were protesting the video. Smith and Woods have been vocally critical of Clinton as a presidential candidate, accusing her of fabricating the narrative that riots sparked the attack. At the Republican National Convention in Cleveland last month, Smith told the audience that she blamed “Hillary Clinton personally for the death of my son.” The suit was filed by infamous Washington DC attorney Larry Klayman, a conservative former Justice Department prosecutor who filed 18 lawsuits of against the Clinton administration in the 1990s. Among other cases, Klayman has brought legal action against Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the National Security Agency, supreme court justice Elena Kagan and Barack Obama, whom he accused of secretly allowing the Ebola virus to enter the United States so it could be used against US citizens who are members of the “Caucasian race and Jewish-Christian religion”. Good morning, and welcome to the ’s campaign live blog, as we continue our minute-by-minute coverage from the US presidential campaign trail. Republican nominee Donald Trump’s address to the business-friendly Detroit Economic Club yesterday was intended to reset his campaign after a calamitous post-convention week, but Democratic rival Hillary Clinton doesn’t appear ready to let him shift gears quite yet. Late last night, the former secretary of state’s campaign announced that she has preemptively accepted the Commission on Presidential Debates’ invitation to three presidential debates this fall – in an apparent bid to force Trump, who has expressed concerns about the dates of the debates, to agree to meet with her. Campaign chair John Podesta said in a statement: Secretary Clinton looks forward to participating in all three presidential debates scheduled by the independent debate commission. It is concerning that the Trump campaign is already engaged in shenanigans around these debates. It is not clear if he is trying to avoid debates, or merely toying with the press to create more drama. Either way, our campaign is not interested in playing along with a debate about debates or bargaining around them.The only issue now is whether Donald Trump is going to show up to debate at the date, times, places and formats set by the commission last year through a bipartisan process. We will accept the commission’s invitation and expect Donald Trump to do the same. The dates for this year’s debates have been set since before Trump was a candidate, but that hasn’t kept the Republican nominee from accusing Clinton of scheduling misbehavior. “Well, I tell you what I don’t like. It’s against two NFL games,” Trump told ABC’s This Week on 31 July of the debates. “I got a letter from the NFL saying this is ridiculous … because the NFL doesn’t want to go against the debates because the debates are going to be pretty massive, from what I understand.” (The NFL, for what it’s worth, says it did not send Trump any kind of letter.) The presidential debates were set some time ago by the Commission on Presidential Debates for Monday 26 September, Sunday 9 October, and Wednesday 19 October, with the vice-presidential debate on Tuesday 4 October. We’ve put in word to the Trump campaign inquiring whether their candidate plans to attend the debates. We’ll let you know what they say. Here’s today’s events schedule: Clinton will be in Miami, taking a tour of Borinquen Health Care Center, while running mate Tim Kaine will attend a volunteer appreciation event in Austin, Texas. Trump will be holding a rally at Trask Coliseum at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington, in Wilmington, North Carolina at 2pm ET, followed by a 6pm ET rally at Crown Arena in Fayetteville, North Carolina. Running mate Mike Pence will be holding a town hall at Lancaster Host Resort and Conference Center in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, at 3pm ET and a “celebration” (that’s the campaign’s description) at Heinz History Center in Pittsburgh at 7pm ET.
MEPs to question man set to be UK's last EU commissioner The man likely to become Britain’s last EU commissioner is due to be grilled by MEPs about his suitability for the job. Sir Julian King, a career civil servant currently serving as ambassador to France, is the British government’s choice to become the UK’s top official in Brussels. But first he must win the backing of MEPs on Monday evening, who will vote on whether to confirm him in the role of commissioner for “security union”. King would take Britain’s place around the table at the EU executive’s headquarters in Brussels following the departure of Jonathan Hill, who resigned as financial services chief following the Brexit vote. MEPs on the European parliament’s civil liberties committee will quiz King at a three-hour public hearing in Strasbourg. The committee, led by British Labour MEP Claude Moraes, will question King on the details of EU counter-terrorism strategy. The British commissioner-designate will almost inevitably face questions over Brexit, although at the commission his job would be to act in the common EU interest, not to speak for the British government. Some prominent MEPs had argued the UK should not get any portfolio in the commission following the Brexit vote. But MEPs may be reassured by the fact King will be a junior member of the commission. He will report to the commission vice-president, Frans Timmermans, who will have the final say over any legislative initiatives. King will also not automatically attend ministerial meetings, usually a key part of a commissioner’s job. Dimitris Avramopoulos, the commissioner in charge of home affairs and migration, will represent the commission on security policy at meetings with national ministers. King will have the opportunity at Monday’s hearing to make a 15-minute statement setting out his objectives before facing questions from all political groups in the committee. No decision on King’s appointment will be made until Thursday, when there will be a vote in the European parliament. Although the parliament’s vote is not binding, tradition has shown that a commissioner cannot take office without its support.
Jack Reacher: Never Go Back review – pecs, punchups and popcorn galore Tom Cruise is back in the role of Jack Reacher, badass military cop turned maverick civilian engaged in freelance pro bono asskicking. He is suffused with pimpernel mystery. At the end of an adventure, Reacher will stick his thumb out and hitchhike his way into the night. (At the end of Pulp Fiction, John Travolta is derisive about Samuel L Jackson’s ambition to “walk the earth” like Caine from the TV show Kung Fu on the grounds that he would just be a bum. But maybe he would be like Jack Reacher.) This is the second in Tom Cruise’s silly, entertaining Reacher franchise, and I was hoping he would marry a woman called Round and go for the double-barrelled surname. Instead, he monkishly refrains from sex but does pull a classic Cruise/Reacher move: semi-undressing in a motel room after a punchup, disclosing pecs which fall impressively on the right side of the moob borderline. An attractive woman also partially disrobes, flaunting a workaday bra strap. Another Reacher trope is the grumpy solo meal in the scuzzy cafe, which generally comes just before or after the biggest Reacher signature of all: beating the daylights out of five or six bullies whose sneery expressions and close-cropped goatees denote imminent victim status more clearly than red shirts on Star Trek crew. Cruise also gives us his some vintage sprinting — now as distinctive a trait as Nic Cage’s sudden shouting — as well as a bit of free climbing and some Olympic-quality ledge dangling. The story opens as Reacher has rather sweetly fallen for Lt Susan Turner, just through talking to her on the phone. She is played by Cobie Smulders (who plays Agent Maria Hill in the Avengers films). But when Jack shows up in Washington DC for their blind date, he is informed that Lt Turner has been arrested for espionage. Clearly she is the victim of a shady cover-up from corrupt top brass, and Reacher’s quietly furious demands to know what’s going on are undermined when the army claims he is the subject of a paternity case, and that he is the dad of a stroppy teen, Samantha (Danika Yarosh). Reacher is wrongly accused of murder by the crooked authorities, and in time-honoured style goes on the run, taking his quasi-spouse and daughter, while blowing the lid off a terrible conspiracy. The highlight of the first movie was its outrageous villain, played by Werner Herzog. I was hoping for a similar auteur bad guy in this one – surely Paul Verhoeven would have been a good sport? Well, there is no juicy high-concept baddie this time around, but there is a lot of enjoyable hokum and cheerful ridiculousness, especially when Reacher has to spring someone from military prison using his trademark combo of resourcefulness and punching. Popcornily preposterous and watchable.
Human rights must be protected against the abuse of power The way we protect human rights is under sustained attack. Politicians and the press, hostile to Europe in all its forms, peddle lies and distortions about the European convention on human rights, the Strasbourg court, and the Human Rights Act which protects convention rights in UK law. They allege that the system distorts justice, preventing evil people from getting their just deserts. It hampers governments in tackling terrorism and serious crime. They decry rulings preventing deportation to a country where there is a risk of torture or the death penalty. They object when a court decides that bed and breakfast owners cannot refuse to accommodate a gay couple. They express outrage when our soldiers are made to account for complicity in torture. They accuse Strasbourg of overriding our sovereign parliament. If the UK were to leave the EU after next month’s referendum it would remove crucial rights protection enshrined in EU law, but our fundamental rights would still be protected by the convention – the jewel in the crown of the 47-nation Council of Europe, often confused with the EU. That is why the home secretary, Theresa May, said last month, “If we want to reform human rights laws in this country, it isn’t the EU we should leave but the ECHR and the jurisdiction of its court.” The attorney general, Jeremy Wright, affirmed the government’s intention to replace our Human Rights Act with a “British bill of rights”. He told parliament that the government would “rule out absolutely nothing in getting that done”, but preferred the UK to remain a member of the European convention. That threat remains – whatever the outcome of the EU referendum. May seemingly favours a position that would delight a medieval king – a government-controlled legislature that enjoys absolute power. The government’s attitude to the convention pleases Vladimir Putin’s Russia. After the UK’s repeated failure to implement Strasbourg’s ruling against a blanket ban on prisoner voting, Russia indicated it would follow suit – then passed a law allowing the Russian constitution to trump the convention. British withdrawal from the convention would set a terrible example to Europe’s pseudo-democracies as well as staining the UK’s good reputation for upholding the rule of law. May says she wants the UK to be part of international institutions, so long as they do not “bind the hands of parliament”. But, as Winston Churchill understood, the European convention ensures that national sovereignty cannot be used to shield the perpetrators of human rights abuses from being brought to account. Even parliament must respect international law. It was once said that power is delightful and absolute power absolutely delightful. Fifty years ago, official discretion was poorly controlled and human rights were weakly protected. Unlike the rest of Europe and most of the common law world, we had (and have) no written constitution protecting us – no binding ethical code to guide decision takers. In 1966, UK citizens were granted the right to take complaints of human rights violations to Strasbourg, but we had no Human Rights Act to bring the convention rights into our domestic law. Parliament under government control can behave like an elected dictatorship – tyranny by the governing majority. That is what happened in 1968 when parliament approved the Commonwealth Immigrants Act, a racist law depriving British-Asian refugees from east Africa of their right to live and work in the country of which they were citizens, in breach of a promise made to them. Fifty years ago, our judges were executive-minded, interpreting acts of parliament narrowly. Discrimination was prevalent and not unlawful. There was no positive right to free speech or respect for privacy. Excessive official secrecy was deep-rooted in Whitehall. We had no right of public access to government information. Male homosexuality was a crime. The right to liberty could be taken away easily by legislation. In Northern Ireland, majority rule was allowed to discriminate against the Catholic community, resulting in sectarian violence and division. For want of remedies at home, vulnerable minorities needed the convention and Strasbourg to come to their rescue – which it did, again and again. European judicial oversight protected the right of gay men and lesbians to love at a time when this was still criminal in Northern Ireland. It ruled that parliament had subjected British-Asians to racial discrimination and degrading treatment. Strasbourg protected the right to privacy, ruling that police could not tap telephones without clear legal authority. It prevented deportation to countries where there was a risk of torture. It gave redress to children when UK law still permitted corporal punishment in schools. Our own courts could not give remedies, until at last, in 1998, the Human Rights Act was passed. This enables everyone to bring complaints of UK human rights violations (other than by parliament itself) in British courts. We rely on the act and the convention to protect everyone, popular and reviled, against abuses of public power. In the absence of a written constitution, the act and the convention are the bedrock of our democracy based on the rule of law. The Human Rights Act is not perfect. It relies on a treaty that was not designed to be a national constitution. No other country does that. But NGOs rightly warn that the government’s threat to replace it with a new-fangled British bill of rights is fraught with danger. A bill crafted by the present government may deprive victims of the right to seek redress from Strasbourg or weaken protection against the abuse of parliamentary powers. These fears are not fanciful. They were echoed last week by the House of Lords EU select committee, which found “serious questions over the feasibility and value of a British bill of rights of the sort described by the secretary of state”. The committee rightly cautioned that there was “a forceful case” for a rethink. The rights contained in the convention are embedded in the devolution acts – to protect against abuse by the devolved institutions in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. A home-grown bill of rights would make sense only as part of a new UK constitutional settlement – and only if its protections were at least as strong as they are currently. Without a new constitutional settlement, a British bill of rights, shorn of the protection of the convention and the court, would be much weaker than the Human Rights Act. That is precisely why we must fight any attempt to damage the umbilical cord connecting us to Strasbourg. The bill of rights commission, of which I was a member, consulted widely and found massive support for the Human Rights Act. We made it clear in our report that “any future debate on a UK bill of rights must be acutely sensitive to issues of devolution and, in the case of Scotland, to possible independence, and it must involve the devolved administrations”. To understand the rupture that would be caused by the government imposing a so-called “British” bill on the rest of the UK, look only to Scotland. The SNP has vowed to fight a British bill of rights tooth and nail. And the leader of the Scottish Conservatives, Ruth Davidson, has spoken in open disagreement with David Cameron’s government. Human rights are not the gift of politicians and bureaucrats. They are our birthright – part of our common humanity. They need to be protected against the abuse of power. That is an idea we must fight for. Anthony Lester’s book, Five Ideas to Fight For: How Our Freedom is Under Threat and Why it Matters, is published by Oneworld
Millionaires' new challenge: they're not rich enough for private banking So you’ve just sold those Facebook shares that your high school buddy, Mark Zuckerberg, let you buy years before it went public, and you’ve made an after-tax profit of $4m. You’re feeling very, very rich. Until, that is, you talk to a private bank that specializes in managing money for rich people. That’s when you realize that you’re nothing more than a “single-digit millionaire”. You’re just not that special. In fact, the rate at which the ranks of millionaires is expanding is so great, you’re actually pretty boring. Last year alone, the US welcomed 300,000 new millionaires: that translates into a growth rate of 3%, outpacing the growth in the US gross domestic product. In fact, there are now so many millionaires out there that the private banking system simply can’t cope. JP Morgan Chase’s private bank has been raising the minimum amount of assets you need to become of its clients slowly and steadily for many years. Early this year, it announced that the minimum asset level to remain a private banking customer would double from $5m to $10m. When that takes effect early next year, about 10% of the bank’s customers could be shuffled off to a less deluxe service, Private Client Direct. While a private banker might work with only 20 or so people, those working with “single digit millionaires” might have 100 clients – meaning that every one of them gets much less of their adviser’s time and attention. JP Morgan’s move was partly aimed at convincing clients to shift any assets they might be stubbornly holding at other banks, bringing them up above the $10m threshold. But it’s also a recognition that with the proliferation of millionaires, the private banks that you’ve heard about – the ones that will walk your dog, deliver gold bars with your monogram stamped into them and provide “wealth therapy” so your children don’t grow up entitled brats – can pick and choose the clients that they deal with. A sign of just how ruthless they have become is that JP Morgan’s new rule even applies to the corporate lawyers with whom its investment bankers work closely on big deals. Until now, access to private banking programs have been among the perks offered to lawyers at firms like Skadden Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom; now, the word is that they too will be shut out from this special treatment (and the access to hedge fund investments and other products and events that only the super-elite can tap into). Imagine how the poor lawyer who does a deal for a Silicon Valley billionaire must feel: he’s negotiating with the very bankers who have thrown him out of their private club, on behalf of a client who is welcome to join it. If you don’t feel much empathy for that hypothetical lawyer, worth millions, just because he can’t qualify for super-special treatment from banks, I don’t blame you. The fact is that as banks scramble to emphasize with wealthier clients, it comes at the expense of serving the rest of their clientele. JP Morgan’s private clients might feel offended at being demoted. On the other hand, those of us who merely toil for our money and whose net worth hasn’t reached seven digits yet might be flattered to be invited to join Private Client Direct, a program serving the “mass affluent” that offers after-hours access, a phone number to reach a banker any time and a few special perks. (Yes, even if that also involves some heavy pressure to buy the bank’s proprietary investment products.) But even then, we’ll need $500,000 in investments or $250,000 in deposits to qualify, and minimums for other such programs at other banks aren’t very different. All of which brings me to an important point. Big banks are struggling to make money. That’s why Wells Fargo’s 5,300 rank-and-file employees were “encouraged”, or at least not discouraged, to set up phony accounts in the names of existing clients, earning the bank more in fees (phew) and helping those employees hit sales targets. The bank opened 1.5m of these ghost accounts – and has paid out $185m in penalties to various regulators, including a record $100m to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. It’s also why the banks want to focus on their richest clients. Investing time and money in working with those of us who may only have a few thousand dollars to put to work is a waste of their resources – in their eyes. The problem is that as they keep conducting triage, and denying access to investment guidance to one group after another, more and more of us will end up without the ability to turn to the banks to help us manage our investments. Let’s face it, JP Morgan and other private banks can boost their investment minimums dramatically, but the incomes of most Americans are barely budging. We’re less and less likely to have the minimum level of assets that most investment counselors want to see before accepting us as a client. Robo-advisers – the new breed of automated investment platforms that use algorithms to invest your money, taking into account factors such as age, income and risk tolerance – offer sensible alternatives. But they work best for those people who are familiar with how financial markets work. Someone who isn’t comfortable with markets, doesn’t understand the concept of an index fund, isn’t completely sure about how an asset allocation will help them, or isn’t certain about the relationship between stocks and bonds may not want to simply hand over their money to a robo-adviser and then step away. So, big banks are in love with the billionaires who generate the bulk of their profits. Even the single-digit millionaires these days are starting to realize that they just don’t count as much as they used to. But at least if those folks make an error or two along the way, they have financial padding to cushion their fall. The rest of us? Like everyone else, we’re increasingly underserved by the banks and the rest of the financial services industry, and our needs are growing. A third of all Americans lack any retirement savings in a 401(k) plan or other tax-deferred account. That isn’t the fault of the banks, but it’s something that the banks could help to fix by offering even basic financial education and counselling to those who don’t have balances with many, many digits. Then we’d at least feel we were getting value for the account fees we’re already paying. As it is, if I were a single-digit millionaire tossed out of the “paradise” of private banking, I’d walk away from that bank altogether. They don’t want me? Heck, I don’t want them either. There are plenty of independent financial advisers out there who – unlike the banks – aren’t intent on making more money flogging their own proprietary investment products. Instead, they vow to put their clients’ financial interests before their own, come what may. Try one of those instead. For the rest of us? Well, we can keep demanding better financial education, however and whenever possible. And that the banks at least try to employ a better-functioning moral barometer.
Job losses gather momentum across UK and Europe Bombardier has become the latest major company to announce job cuts in the UK, with 1,350 posts set to be axed. Cutbacks are being announced in virtually every sector, in the UK and across Europe, with tens of thousands of jobs due to go in coming months. Here’s a round-up of companies that are reducing their UK workforces. Banking and insurance Lloyds Banking Group is cutting a net 1,585 jobs and closing 29 branches across Britain. Barclays to axe 1,200, in its investment bank worldwide. Credit Suisse is cutting 4,000 jobs, including “rightsizing the bank’s London presence”. Legal & General is pushing ahead with plans to close its Surrey offices by 2018, putting 1,500 jobs at risk, although some will transfer to Hove or Cardiff. Energy BP is laying off 7,000 more people. Shell is also slashing jobs, with 7,500 gone and 2,800 losses still to come. British Gas owner Centrica is cutting 1,000 jobs this year as part of a net 4,000 cutbacks by 2020 (it is slashing 6,000 jobs but also creating 2,000 new posts). French utility company EDF is cutting up to 4,200 jobs in France and a further 6,000 worldwide by 2019, with the bulk expected to be at its UK division. Media Virgin Media plans to cut 900 jobs from its UK workforce by 2017. Pearson, the world’s biggest educational publisher, is shedding 4,000 jobs around the world, including 500 in the UK. Manufacturing The Canadian aerospace giant Bombardier is cutting 7,000 jobs globally over the next two years, including 1,350 in the UK, with the rest in Germany and Canada. US conglomerate General Electric intends to lay off 6,500 people across Europe over the next couple of years, including about 600 in Britain. Tata Steel, Europe’s second-largest steel producer, announced a further 1,050 job cuts last month. Carmaker Ford plans “hundreds” of job cuts across the UK and Europe through voluntary redundancy. Retail UK shoe chain Brantano went bust after a tough Christmas, although a rescue deal has saved nearly 1,400 jobs, which means redundancies have been reduced to 600. British clothing brand Ben Sherman has been sold through a pre-pack administration deal, putting 100 jobs at risk. Boots is cutting up to 350 jobs, its second round of layoffs in the last seven months. Asda is cutting 200 jobs at its head office in Leeds.
Jodie Foster: 'I think this is the most risk-averse period in movie history' “I’m not a spokesman for anything – I know nothing,” Jodie Foster declared in Cannes on Wednesday, in front of a room of press attending her Kering Women in Motion talk. But over the course of her hour-long conversation with Variety’s Ramin Setoodeh, she proved herself wrong, passionately advocating on behalf of fellow female directors. The actor and film-maker is in Cannes to premiere her fourth feature as director, Money Monster, outside of competition. She previously directed 1991’s Little Man Tate, 1995’s Thanksgiving comedy Home for the Holidays and 2011’s Mel Gibson vehicle, The Beaver. The two-time Oscar winner, who famously began her career as a child actor, opened the discussion by reflecting on her 50 years in film, addressing how far she believes women have come in Hollywood despite the challenges they still face – a recent report from the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State University found that women directed just 7% of Hollywood’s top 250 films in 2014. “I’ve seen drastic changes,” Foster said. “When I was younger, I only saw women as the script supervisor, makeup person or as fellow actors. I saw faces change as time went on. When I was young, there were a lot of men on movie sets ambling around these towns, getting into trouble and unhappy. Everything changed when women got onto movie sets. Suddenly it felt more like a family – and movie sets became healthier.” Foster, who played the lead in hits including The Silence of the Lambs, Nell and Contact, was asked why projects with women in the lead have largely shifted to the independent film arena, as well as television. “I think studio executives are scared, period,” Foster said. “I think this is the most risk-averse period in movie history. Now so many things have changed in terms of the economy, the structure of studios.” She urged the film-makers in the room “to realize the business is shifting” and “get used to the landscape”. “Every film is a new invention,” Foster elaborated. “We’re not a factory where we make shoes and we keep making shoes. So the rules are going to be different. The conversation has to become as complex as possible to really attend to the issues.” Foster said that female directors looking to make an impact in a male-dominated industry need to be as adaptable as possible. “You want to tell stories with whatever technology is happening,” Foster said. “If you’re telling them on iPhones, great. You roll with the time and stay relevant – and adapt to what’s around you. There’s a democratization that technology has brought that’s wonderful – women can take advantage of them, minorities can.” Foster, who has also directed for television, taking on episodes of House of Cards and Orange is the New Black, meanwhile praised the medium for being “more open to women”. Asked why women are afforded more opportunities on the small screen, both behind and in front of the lens, Foster offered: “Financially, it’s less of a risk.” “When you have less risk, you’re willing to take more chances,” she added. Foster didn’t concede that television is producing greater content than film, but did stress that “TV is where you go for narrative” nowadays, with studios so invested in releasing franchise films and tentpoles. Over the course of her acting career, Foster has only worked with one fellow female director: Mary Lambert, who directed her in the 1987 film Siesta. Asked how the experience of making a film with a woman differed from working with male film-makers, Foster said it all boils down to a directing style she describes as “good parenting”. “I was 23 or 24, and I needed somebody to tell me to change my behavior [on the set],” Foster recalled. “I won’t tell you what that was, but Mary took me aside sat me down and said, ‘No, you can’t do that. That’s disrespectful.’ She took me aside the way a parent would. At that age, I really listened. I was really grateful that a director sat me down like a person. “Our leadership styles are informed by our mothers and how we were raised. If you’re a woman, you’re going to have a different leadership style based on your background.” On her own temperament as a director, Foster admitted to confusing people for being very direct with her colleagues on set. “I think men are often confused by women who don’t follow traditional rules in conflict,” Foster said. “But guess what: all they need to do is have more experiences with them. I don’t think it’s a big plot of men putting women down in the film business – the film industry is pretty progressive. They’re just stuck with the same traditional models and they’re trying to figure out how to get around that. But they haven’t had enough experiences with women to do that.”
Donald Trump's secretary of state search expands to include new raft of hopefuls Donald Trump’s very public auditions for the job of next US secretary of state look set for an extended run, as surprise new hopefuls were added the invitation list to ride the golden elevator to the top of Trump Tower. Among the new names floated in press leaks on Monday were Jon Huntsman, former Utah governor and ambassador to China, Rex Tillerson, the chief executive officer of the Exxon Mobil oil company and Nato’s former commander in Europe, and the retired admiral James Stavridis. The expanded search will come as a disappointment to the four men who were on the shortlist last week: the former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, the former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, the retired general David Petraeus and the Republican senator Bob Corker. They seemed headed for a final until the weekend, when Trump, a former reality TV star and a master of suspense, unveiled a new season with a fresh cast of characters. Not all the new names are necessarily in line for the secretary of state job. Juli Hanscom, a spokeswoman for the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, where Stavridis is the dean, confirmed that he would be going to New York to talk to the president-elect on Thursday but added: “There has been no discussion of a position in the Trump administration.” Stavridis, a registered independent, was vetted by the Hillary Clinton campaign in July as a possible running mate. The former supreme allied commander in Europe (Saceur) derided Trump’s foreign policy, after the candidate gave an interview to the New York Times suggesting US protection for Nato allies could depend on if “they had met their obligations to us”. “I can picture the scene: national security advisor Tiffany Trump walks into the Oval Office with a load of charts on trade policy, basing agreements, cost-sharing, and balance of payments – all while Russian troops are pouring into Estonia,” Stavridis wrote in Foreign Policy. “Unfortunately, his reckless proposals would deeply damage the underpinnings of the global system and work to America’s profound disadvantage.” Huntsman wavered in his loyalties over the course of the campaign, publicly withdrawing support from Trump after a video surfaced in October in which he boasted about sexually assaulting women. Huntsman urged Trump to drop out of the race and let his running mate compete for the presidency instead. “I’m around to serve my country. I’ve always believed in that, and any way I can help I can always stand up, salute and do what I can,” Huntsman told NBC News on Monday. He defended Trump’s controversial decision to hold a phone conversation with the Taiwan president, Tsai Ing-wen, which broke a 37-year diplomatic norm and upset Beijing. “It provides space and leverage in the overall US-China relationship. It’s been tried and talked before, but what is different this time is you’ve got a businessman who has become president of the United States, who understands real leverage and how to find real leverage in that relationship,” he said. Huntsman, who speaks Mandarin Chinese, was appointed ambassador to China by Barack Obama in 2009 and served there until 2011 when he resigned and returned to the US to stage a presidential campaign. Forbes magazine noted that if Huntsman were nominated as secretary of state, he would be the third scion of a billionaire family to be picked for Trump’s cabinet. The 56-year-old Utah politician’s father founded Huntsman Corp, a Texas-based chemical company. Like Romney, Huntsman comes from an established and wealthy Mormon family. Tillerson, the Exxon executive, is due to meet Trump on Tuesday. He is a prominent conservative businessman who has generally funded Republican campaigns, but did not contribute to the Trump presidential bid. Also mentioned in press leaks as being under consideration for the secretary of state job are the Californian Republican congressman Dana Rohrabacher, an outspoken supporter of Vladimir Putin (who recalled over the weekend a drunken arm-wrestling match in the early 1990s with the future Russian leader) and a Democratic senator from West Virginia, Joe Manchin, who backed Clinton in the campaign. Manchin met the president-elect last week, and was touted earlier as a possible energy secretary. Also on the newly extended list is John Bolton, an ultra-conservative former ambassador to the UN, who was thought to have dropped out of contention, but who visited Trump in New York on Friday and is said to be still under consideration. “It’s true he’s broadened the search,” Trump’s aide, Kellyanne Conway, said on Sunday. “He’s very fortunate to have interest among serious men and women, all of whom need to understand that their first and foremost responsibility as secretary of state would be to implement and adhere to the president-elect’s America first foreign policy and be loyal to his view of the world.” Trump’s cabinet hiring process has been far more public than previous presidential transitions, so although it has not taken longer than its predecessors, to many observers it has felt that way. “The time it has taken is not unusual. The fact he is talking to several candidates is not unusual. The fact he is turning it into a parade is quite different,” said Stephen Walt, professor of international affairs at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. “One of the reasons people normally do it quietly is that you can avoid humiliating and embarrassing the people who don’t get the job or are asked to serve in a more junior capacity.” The public way Trump has gone about it and the risk of wounded pride, Walt said, “is quite short-sighted, because the last thing you want is other Republicans or VIPs out there bad-mouthing you from the outside”. “Trump more than anything else views the transition as public relations. It is dominating the news cycles,” Walt said. “He has turned it into an audience-participation spectacle, which creates enormous suspense.” Part of that spectacle so far has been a line of public figures who had failed to support or even derided the president-elect during the campaign, entering Trump Tower in recent days and then emerging, singing his praises.
The Clan review – grisly kidnap drama has sledgehammer punch Argentinian film-maker Pablo Trapero lands a sledgehammer punch with this terrifically well-made movie, which incidentally contains the most gobsmackingly realistic attempted suicide scene I think I have ever seen in any film. It’s the queasily horrifying story of the notorious Puccio crime family in post-junta 1980s Argentina who maintained the grisly totalitarian craft of “disappearing” people, effectively repurposing it into the lucrative business of kidnapping. Trapero’s movie persuasively suggests that this family, carrying on its comfortably haute bourgeois existence while hostages were chained up in the cellar, was maintaining a chillingly dysfunctional denial about what was happening. In some ways, it is like something by Haneke (The Seventh Continent, say), although Scorsese might admire the brash way Trapero deploys a pop soundtrack: in this case, the Kinks’ Sunny Afternoon. Guillermo Francella plays the blank-eyed clan capo and paterfamilias Arquímedes Puccio, who controls his family with his mesmeric and lizardly gaze – especially favourite son Alex (Peter Lanzani) – and somehow believes that his activities are licensed by the still potent, unseen military forces who will surely soon return in triumph once Argentina’s futile experiment with democracy is over. His unsettling calm is the most disturbing aspect of the film.
Costs of overdrafts to fall as part of UK banks overhaul Banks will be forced to publish their maximum charges for unauthorised overdrafts as part of measures intended to save customers £1bn over five years, by encouraging switching and breaking the stranglehold of the big four on the high street. But even as the Competition and Markets Authority pledged the measures would halve the £1.2bn customers pay in unauthorised overdraft fees each year, consumer bodies, challenger banks and independent analysts said they would do little to crack the 77% market share Lloyds Banking Group, Royal Bank of Scotland, HSBC and Barclays have on current accounts. The competition watchdog has spent £5m on its investigation, first announced in July 2014 at a time when the Labour party was promising to create new banks. The banking industry generates £14bn of revenue a year from current accounts and small businesses, and the watchdog calculated overdraft users could save up to £153 on average by switching accounts. Alasdair Smith, chair of the CMA’s retail banking inquiry, is relying on the use of new technology to crack a competition conundrum that has sparked 10 investigations in the last 20 years. The CMA is ordering the major players to upgrade their IT capabilities by creating an online system that would enable price comparison websites to offer better information on rival products. This has to be done by the end of March 2017. The other measures include: Requiring that banks set out a monthly maximum charge for unauthorised overdrafts – but the watchdog held back from imposing an industry-wide cap on charges, as some had hoped. Customers to be warned by text when they go overdrawn. The Financial Conduct Authority reviewing ideas for banks to publish their service records, with data collected twice a year. Willingness to recommend the account to a friend could be included. FCA working on prompts banks could send to customers to move their accounts, such as when branches close. The beefing up of the current account switching service set up three years ago. Innovation charity Nesta offering a £5m challenge prize – funded by the banks – for financial technology companies to create ways for small businesses to move accounts, although this will not be completed until mid-2018. Banks providing standard rates for small business loans and overdrafts up to £25,000. Smith said the proposed saving to customers over five years of £1bn was based on an increase in the number of customers switching their current accounts each year from 3% to 4%. The move on overdraft charges was welcomed by Gillian Guy, chief executive of Citizens Advice, who said the charity helped with 55,000 overdraft problems a year, where in some cases consumers are charged more than they would be for a payday loan. But Alex Neill, director of policy and campaigns at consumer body Which?, said: “After 18 months this inquiry achieved little more than to propose basic information measures that the big banks should have introduced years ago. Steps to stimulate switching are welcome but the chance to deliver better banking for all consumers has been missed.” Smith defended the CMA’s decision to back away from avoiding radical measures such as breaking up banks or demanding account portability, whereby customers keep their account number, because it could have cost up to £10bn. Criticised after its preliminary report in October for not taking bold enough measures, the CMA also incurred the wrath of challenger banks by refusing to ban “free-if-in-credit” banking accounts, which rival banks say hide the true costs of banking. Paul Pester, chief executive of TSB, spun out of Lloyds, said the CMA had missed a golden opportunity by refusing to require banks to issue customers with monthly bills to tackle the hidden costs of free banking. John Lyons, retail and commercial banking leader and partner at PwC, said: “A market which was seen by many as a closed shop despite new entrants looking to make inroads is unlikely to be transformed by the range of proposed remedies published today.” Banks analyst Sandy Chen at Cenkos said Lloyds had most to lose because of its high share of current accounts at around 25% and its reliance on them for generating income. Customers rarely move their accounts: nearly 60% of personal customers have stayed with the same bank for more than 10 years. More than 90% of small businesses get their business loans from the bank where they have their current account. “There is therefore not going to be a single ‘magic bullet’ that puts everything right,” the CMA’s 400 page report said. Smith said: “I don’t accept ... that this is a missed opportunity ... I’d rather do it properly than do it quickly. For too long, banks have been able to sit back and not work hard enough for their personal and small business customers. “We believe the strong and innovative package of measures we are proposing will give customers the information and tools they really need to get a better deal out of the banks. They will also protect those who fall into overdraft from being stung with unexpected fees.” The CMA estimates that the industry will incur costs of £75m– £110m to implement the changes. A consultation runs until 7 June before the final report on 12 August. Harriett Baldwin, the Treasury minister, said the report was “an important piece of work and we stand ready to take action once the final report is published in the summer”.
‘In Wales social work is recognised and valued. It’s a better place to be’ Nick Lovell crosses the border twice a day as he commutes between his English home and his job as a social worker in Wales. He’s not alone. “I know a number of social workers who live in England but would rather work in Wales,” he says. “It’s a better place to be a social worker. Social work is recognised and valued; in England I don’t think it is.” Lovell, interim chair for the British Association of Social Workers Cymru, was a social worker in London, before choosing to work in a country where he feels the profession is more appreciated. He is not surprised then by the findings of research published last month, which showed that social workers in Wales enjoy their jobs more than their peers across the UK – 87% said they were happy, compared with 79% across the UK as a whole and as few as 69% in south-west England. The findings, due to be presented to an audience of Welsh social workers in Cardiff tomorrow, also show that Wales scores better across a range of indicators such as workload, support from employers and health and social care integration. The Welsh and English social work landscapes have been diverging for some years. The differences include both structural ones – more local authorities in Wales have held on to combined adult and children’s social services departments than in England, for example – and variations in education and training. The legislative landscape is also different: post-devolution reform has seen a Social Services and Wellbeing Act passed in Wales. Another act, reforming the regulatory and inspection framework, is due for royal assent this month. Gerry Evans is director of standards and regulations at the Care Council for Wales, which regulates the workforce and is due to take on a wider role driving standards and innovation next year under the regulation reforms. He says the sector has worked hard to support social workers and encourage them to stay in the profession. “I think we’ve got to a pretty stable position in the last five years or so in terms of turnover, after a low period where turnover was high and there was generally low morale,” he says. “The key issue is that the whole of the sector and employers recognise the importance of investing in and supporting the workforce.” In particular, he points to the strong partnerships between local authorities and universities in Wales. Under these arrangements, councils have to agree to host students to ensure they get the right experience, in stark contrast to England where a shortage of placements has been a longstanding issue. And the Care Council has also introduced a professional development programme once social workers are qualified – again a more formal arrangement than in England. An evaluation of the first year of the programme found 99% of social workers who took part were proud of being a social worker and 91% thought they would be working in social work in five years’ time. “It is critical to ensure the most experienced staff can stay in practice, which many want to do, rather than being taken into management to progress their career,” says Evans. Liz Majer, director of social services at Blaenau Gwent council in South Wales and lead director for workforce at the Association of Directors of Social Services Cymru, also believes that the fact that Wales is a relatively small country helps. “In my own authority, I meet my social workers – I am sure the director in Birmingham can’t get out to meet their social workers in the same way,” she says. “You can have those conversations and understand the front line, that personal contact is very important. And because we are smaller, the interface with politicians, managers and regulators is a lot closer. It’s all about relationships.” Social services in Wales have been relatively protected from cuts. Analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies showed that while health spending in Wales fell by 2% between 2010 and 2015, spending on social services only fell by 0.8% – compared with a 4.3% rise in health spending in England over the same period, but a 11.5% cut to social services. The Welsh government’s minister for health and social services, Mark Drakeford, says there has been a “very deliberate decision” in Wales to try to protect the system in the round. “It’s really no help to an individual to find themselves trapped in one part of system because another part of the system has been starved of resources,” he says. Drakeford, who trained as a social worker, also sees in the higher satisfaction of social workers in Wales a reflection of a more positive environment for the profession. “The approach to social work and social services has always been a cross-party one with very broad support,” he says. “You don’t hear in the Welsh context some of the language used in some parts of the media in England about social workers and the job they do. I would hope people feel that they do a job that’s valued and supported by the political climate we have in Wales. We have a progressive agenda for social work and one worked out with people doing the job rather than simply being imposed on them..” Central to that is the 2014 legislation, which, he claims, will ensure that people are seen “not as problems to be solved but as coproducers of their own future”. It is an approach some have characterised as a return to the old values of social work. Evans says: “It has better aligned the social work role to the ethos and principles of why people go into social work – working alongside people on their difficulties, as opposed to a heavy emphasis on assessment and care management”. Yet despite the reforms, significant challenges remain for social work in Wales,, Drakeford concedes. “I’m not going to say for a single minute that for frontline social workers in Wales the work doesn’t have real pressures of demand and of bureaucracy, which we are doing our best to slim down.” “We have an ambition to sustain the basic framework of the welfare state that we’ve been so lucky to inherit in our lives. The pressures of poverty are absolutely real in the lives of many Welsh families and communities. The deeply flawed austerity regime followed in Westminster is taking millions and millions of pounds out of pockets of people across the land. Our aim is for services to be alongside those people to do what we can to mitigate the impact and for our public services to continue to be part of the glue that knits together communities and society” Majer says that although social services in Wales haven’t yet been hit as hard as in England, financial pressures are set to increase. “I know colleagues are having to look at cutbacks in social work and that would be very concerning as we know caseload pressures would result in more stress,” she says. On the frontline, there’s certainly an expectation that there are tough times ahead. But as Lovell puts it, social work has never been an easy choice. “I’ve been a social worker for 30 years and I’ve certainly never worked in the golden years of social work having endless resources. It’s always been tight, but it’s getting tighter. Our priory is making sure social workers are supported and enabled to do the job they are employed to do in increasingly difficult times and that they get the support and recognition they deserve.” For more details about the Social Lives survey in Wales contact stacey- rebekka.karlsson@theguardian.com
Leave.EU may challenge extension of voter registration deadline Arron Banks, the funder of the unofficial Brexit campaign Leave.EU, is considering whether to legally challenge to the government’s decision to extend the deadline for registering to vote in the EU referendum by 48 hours. David Cameron promised to force through legislation to extend the deadline to midnight on Thursday after the government’s registration website was overwhelmed by a surge in applications in the the final hours before the initial deadline of midnight on Tuesday. Banks, an insurance millionaire, revealed that his lawyers were examining the decision. In a statement he said: “We believe it is unconstitutional at best and have been advised that with legitimate cause we could challenge this extension. “We are therefore considering all available legal options with our legal team, with a view to potentially launching a judicial review now and after the outcome of the referendum on 23 June.” Vote Leave – the official Brexit campaign, which is not funded by Banks – also criticised the decision to extend registrations, but has not suggested it will sue the government. The possible judicial review comes after 242,000 people applied to register to vote on Wednesday – a day after the initial deadline. At least as many are likely to apply on Thursday, after a record 525,000 applied on Tuesday. It is thought that the remain campaign stands most to gain from late registrations as most of those applying are younger voters. Pollsters point out that young people are twice as likely to vote to remain in the EU, but under-25s are only half as likely to vote as over-65s. The number who will actually be given the right to vote is likely to be significantly smaller than the number applying. Philip Cowley, a politics professor at Queen Mary University of London, pointed out that many people apply to register to vote who are either already registered, or who turn out to be ineligible. The pro-Brexit Tory Bernard Jenkin, chair of the Commons public administration and constitutional affairs committee, questioned why the government was failing to put in the same effort to find misregistered EU citizens who had been issued polling cards. “The government is having to rewrite the rules to clear up a shambles of their own making. Why are they not acting with the same vigour over weeding out misregistered EU nationals who have been sent polling cards and even postal ballots, but who are not eligible?” Jenkin said. He warned that if the referendum result was close, the decision could be challenged by a judicial review because of the deadline’s extension. A source within the remain campaign said: “Arron Banks is free to waste his money in any way he sees fit. But it’s extraordinary that the leave campaigns are so angered by the prospect of people wanting to take part in the democratic process.” Following emergency discussions with the Electoral Commission and opposition parties, the government plans to table a statutory instrument in parliament to amend the referendum conduct regulations, reducing from five to three the number of working days before the poll that the electoral lists must be published. This will extend the registration deadline to the end of Thursday, while preserving a separate five-day period for appeals against entries on the register. The website’s collapse emerged at around 10.15pm on Tuesday when dozens of potential voters complained on Twitter that they could not access the website.
Stay out of EU affairs, leading MEP tells British government The British government has been given a blunt warning to stay out of the EU’s post-Brexit business by a senior leader in the European parliament, who lambasted Boris Johnson for his “unbelievable arrogance” and insisted Britain would have “no say any more” in the long-term future of Europe. Manfred Weber, the leader of the largest centre-right group in the European parliament, criticised the British foreign secretary for his support of Turkey’s EU membership, which has infuriated European politicians. The MEP spoke minutes after the European parliament’s chief Brexit negotiator, Guy Verhofstadt, said the UK may have only 14 months of proper negotiations to tie up its EU exit and pressed for talks to be completed by mid-2019. Johnson has irked many in Europe by offering to help Turkey join the EU despite Britain’s looming departure. After becoming foreign secretary he reverted to his support for Turkey’s EU hopes, after being accused of stoking prejudice during the referendum campaign by suggesting Turkish migrants would flood into the UK if Britain stayed in the EU. Weber, a longstanding opponent of Turkey joining the EU, described Johnson’s support for Ankara as “unbelievable” and “a purely arrogant provocation”. Saying he could not respect Johnson’s actions, Weber urged the UK to refrain from getting involved in decisions about the EU’s long-term future. “I ask the British government not to influence this discussion, which will go on over the next two, two-and-a-half years,” he said. “Please step back; it is a question of fairness and respect. When you want to leave a club, you have no say any more in the long-term future of this club.” The MEP also called on the UK not to block EU defence cooperation, although the 27 remaining members struggle to forge a consensus, even without Britain obstructing the way. Weber was speaking after meeting David Davis, the secretary of state for Brexit, who was on a whistlestop tour of Strasbourg. On Monday, Davis met the European commission’s Brexit pointman, Michel Barnier, in Brussels for a coffee, and on Tuesday he met Verhofstadt. The EU is refusing substantial talks until the government triggers the article 50 exit process; some European officials think the British do not have much to say. And Weber said he had not heard anything new from Davis about what Brexit really meant. Only 60% of EU legislation relates to the single market, Weber said, while the rest covers areas such as research, cooperation on crime and migration. “Brexit means leaving: you cannot stay for 90% of the legislation and only have a Brexit on migration, that is not possible,” he said. Davis had told MEPs he wanted the UK to remain in the single market, according to Weber. But both Verhofstadt and Weber made clear that the UK could not have unfettered access to the single market without accepting the EU’s core principles, including free movement of people. “I must stress again: Brexit means Brexit, that means leaving the European Union, that means cutting off relations ... and not cherry picking, not special relationships,” Weber said. Downing Street has repeatedly refused to rule out staying in the single market. A spokesman for Theresa May said: “We are very clear that what we want is a trading relationship that allows UK companies to trade both with and within the single market and lets European businesses do the same.” Meanwhile, Verhofstadt said the window for negotiations was “14 or 15 months”, once political processes were taken into account, shaving months off the two-year timetable the UK government is counting on. Davis described his meeting with Verhofstadt as “great fun” and denied having compared the MEP to Satan. A jokey remark, where he said “get thee behind me, Satan”, had been aimed at the chairman of the foreign affairs select committee, he told the BBC. He described Verhofstadt as “a very nice man” who races British classic cars. Davis added: “We got on very well. It was a very useful constructive conversation.” If May sticks to her promise of triggering article 50 by the end of March 2017, the 27 governments of the EU can be expected to agree a mandate by late April or early May, paving the way for serious talks to begin. Verhofstadt sees negotiations winding up in late 2018 to allow the European parliament to complete its internal processes. MEPs are anxious to complete the UK’s exit before European parliament elections in mid-2019. Some governments, such as France, also see this as an unofficial deadline, but other member states are more relaxed on timing, so Verhofstadt’s timetable is highly provisional. Verhofstadt also said Brexit was not his only priority, as he urged the EU to pull together in the face of Donald Trump’s election. In a striking intervention, he grouped the US president-elect with two of the world’s most powerful authoritarian leaders, Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Instead of “the ring of friends around Europe”, Verhofstadt said, he saw people who want to “bash and destroy our values”. “What I see today is now Russia, Americans and Turks working together on European soil to destroy the European model,” he said. Elaborating on his theme, he said Erdoğan wanted to shut down European movements in Turkey and Putin “openly finance[d] extremists and populist parties everywhere in Europe”, while Trump’s right-hand man appeared to be trying to “influence elections” in France and Germany. The Belgian MEP was referring to incoming White House chief strategist Stephen Bannon, executive chairman of the far-right Breitbart News, which recently revealed plans to launch sites in Germany and France. “What I see today is now Russia, Americans and Turks working together on European soil to destroy the European model,” Verhofstadt said. The European parliament has a very limited role in shaping EU foreign policy, so its representatives tend to be more outspoken than diplomats. Verhofstadt, a former prime minister of Belgium and lifelong federalist, urged the EU to “fight back” against “the ring of autocrats” by working together on defence and reforming the eurozone.
‘I’m not a thing to be pitied’: the disability backlash against Me Before You When the marketing team behind Me Before You came up with the hashtag #LiveBoldly to promote this story of a young disabled man considering assisted dying, they could scarcely have predicted that it would be used to expose the movie’s problematic message. “Do you really want us to #LiveBoldly or do you just want us to #diequickly?” asked one commenter during a Twitter Q&A session last week with the film’s star, Sam Claflin. He plays Will, a wealthy former playboy who becomes involved with Lou (Emilia Clarke), a kooky misfit in thrift-shop chic. It’s rather as if Thomas Crown had fallen for Amélie. The film, adapted by Jojo Moyes from her own best-selling novel, portrays the burgeoning romance between these two apparently mismatched souls. But their differences are not simply sartorial. Lou has full use of her body. Will has been quadriplegic since a road accident several years earlier. Before Lou became his carer, Will decided he wanted to kill himself. Now the Dignitas paperwork is in the post and it seems that Lou’s chipper disposition can do nothing to change his mind. A spoiler alert will be necessary for anyone who hasn’t read the book and so won’t know that he goes ahead with his plan. The full meaning of the name “Will” becomes clear only after he dies and leaves Lou more money than she has ever seen. It will be enough cash, he says, for her to swap her timid life for adventure. The problem, according to activists who picketed the film’s premiere last week, is this motto applies in this context only to the able-bodied – and comes at the cost of a disabled man’s life. Many of those same activists also used Twitter to take issue with the film. The hashtag #MeBeforeEuthanasia was used by @grindmastrgrant, who tweeted: “I’m not your inspiration porn and I’m not a thing to be pitied or killed off to make the audience cry,” while @JohnBrianKelly wrote: “I have Will’s disability. Stop killing me on film! #liveboldly, fight cripple snuff films.” The idea that it is better to be dead than disabled has been seen many times before. In Million Dollar Baby, it is expressed in a mercy killing. In Whose Life Is It Anyway? and The Sea Inside, it takes the form of a quadriplegic man fighting the medical establishment for his right to die. The familiar spectre of the worthless disabled body is hidden behind the apparently valiant struggle of an individual against the state. Of course, it would be wrong to pretend that suicide and disability are mutually exclusive. The Sea Inside is based on Ramón Sampedro’s life, while Me Before You is partly inspired by the 23-year-old rugby player Daniel James, who chose to kill himself after a severe spinal injury. (His parents said he was “not prepared to live what he felt was a second-class existence”.) But the screen-time granted to these stories, to the exclusion of more diverse representations of disability, has helped plant in the public consciousness the notion that life is worth less when it resides in a disabled body. “We have so few opportunities in the media to explore disability,” says the actor and activist Liz Carr, who participated in the protest. “But there is a disproportionate number of stories which relate to the ‘problem’ of disability being solved by death. Television and film seem to love those individuals who want to die. They’re less keen to cover the rest of us who might want to live but are struggling to get the health and social care resources to do so.” The screenplay offers one pre-emptive riposte to the charge that it is speaking for all disabled people. “I get that this could be a good life,” says Will. “But it’s not my life. I can’t be the sort of man who accepts this.” Since Will is shown to be strong, determined and uncompromising, it seems clear that the “sort of man” who would put up with a paralysed body and its demands could only be inferior to him. This problem could be tempered, if not solved, by the presence of just one disabled character to provide some contrast and show that suicide isn’t the only option. But there isn’t one. The film isolates Will entirely, stacking the odds so that the choice to take his own life is made to seem like the logical one. “When non-disabled people talk of suicide, they’re discouraged and offered prevention,” she says. “Even though it’s legal, it’s not seen as desirable. When a disabled person talks of it, though, suddenly the conversation is overtaken with words like ‘choice’ and ‘autonomy’ and people are rushing to uphold these prized principles whilst talk of prevention and mental health support are rare. Will is not offered any psychiatric support. What kind of message is this that we’re giving disabled people and the non-disabled audiences?” Only in its acknowledgement of economic disparity does Me Before You come close to being honest. Accompanying Will to a glitzy wedding, Lou puts it to him that he would not even be talking to her were she not his carer. In fact, she would most likely be serving the drinks at such a function. A working-class woman like her would be as invisible socially to him and his friends as the disabled are to the rest of society. Disability in popular culture often exists to allow the able-bodied to unlock their potential. Lou is a beneficiary of Will’s death, not unlike the struggling novelist in Betty Blue, who is inspired to write his next book only once he has smothered his hospitalised girlfriend. But Lou’s story also plays like a chaste, romantic ideal dreamed up by the abstinence lobby. Will won’t be making any sexual demands on Lou. And, like the perfect terminally ill boyfriend in The Fault in Our Stars, he won’t stick around to get old and wrinkly: Lou can treasure the image of her handsome billionaire forever. As love stories go, it’s every bit as creepy as Ghost, which suggested that the perfect relationship was exclusively spiritual, or Pretty Woman, which proposed the idea of prostitution as a short-cut to true love. One of the improvements that Will makes in Lou’s life is to open her eyes to foreign-language films. This he does by showing her Of Gods and Men, Xavier Beauvois’s 2010 drama inspired by the French Cistercian monks in Tibhirine, Algeria, who refused to flee in 1996 despite violence from Islamic extremists. The monks made themselves martyrs rather than forsake the area and its people. Will’s choice is entirely symbolic: it prepares Lou, and the audience, for the idea of self-sacrifice. Somehow this manages to feel like an insult both to disabled people in general and those monks in particular. If their murder is analogous to Will’s choice to kill himself so that Lou can have a buffer of wealth, then the stock-price of martyrdom has plummeted since the days of Joan of Arc. It’s typical of the soft-pedalling tendency found in Me Before You that it borrows the most evasive element of Beauvois’s film. When the monks trudge off to meet their terrible fate, it is in a blizzard; they fade from view prettily, in contrast to other characters seen having their throats slit. They get a send-off every bit as euphemistic as Thelma and Louise, or Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Me Before You does the same for Will. One minute he’s lying fetchingly in his bed at Dignitas, the next we dissolve to Lou receiving news of her windfall in a Parisian cafe. This movie which has stood proudly behind Will’s decision to die seems in an awful hurry to conceal what that might entail. Death, like disabled people who choose to live boldly, is nowhere to be seen. In the UK, the Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Hotline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14.
Premier League relegation battlers brace themselves for a telling weekend This might not be the end of the football season, yet as the old saying goes when the fourth round of the FA Cup heaves into view and the days begin to lengthen, you can see the end of the season from here. The good news for Newcastle, Sunderland and Aston Villa is that all three clubs have shown a slight upturn in form and fortune, in some cases very slight, over the past few weeks. The bad news, obviously, is that these grand old clubs still form the Premier League’s bottom three in mid-January. Actually it is worse than that. Mid-January has already gone, and after this weekend’s fixtures January will have gone. The Premier League takes a break for the FA Cup next week, so it will be February before we know it. The better news for the three clubs in trouble, or at least the less bad news, is that this weekend’s games are all winnable. Yes, I know that is a ridiculous thing to say. All games are theoretically winnable, though it may be truer of this season that all games are actually losable, and if our doughty trio had managed to win some of their previous winnable games they would be higher in the table than they are at the moment. Yet even so, Sunderland are at home to Bournemouth, Newcastle away at Watford, while Villa have the small matter of a Midlands derby at The Hawthorns. At the start of the season, had anyone told the bottom three they were going to need points in a hurry to end January on a positive note, they would not have been too frightened by the fixtures just detailed. Villa arguably have the most arduous task, what with being adrift at the bottom and away from home, but anything can happen in a local derby. The two north-east clubs play newly promoted sides, and if you cannot take points in extremis from such games you probably deserve to be down among the relegation candidates. The flaw in that theory is not difficult to spot. It is no longer the start of the season. After new year you are not really a newly promoted side any more, you are a Premier League team with more than half of your fixtures completed. And for most of the season Watford and Bournemouth have not been playing like newly promoted sides with scant experience of the top flight; they have been playing with confidence and no little application, picking up points against bigger opponents with some notable results. But, and here is the big question, where has it got them? Undoubtedly Watford and Bournemouth have been among the surprise successes of a generally surprising season but late January finds all three promoted sides in the bottom half of the table, with Bournemouth and Norwich (at home to Liverpool on Saturday since you ask, probably thankful that Luis Suárez will not be around) looking particularly vulnerable to recoveries by the bigger clubs beneath them. Watford do not look in too much trouble. They are on the same points as Everton and even Roberto Martínez’s biggest critics have not mentioned relegation yet, though they have lost four straight league games since taking a point from Stamford Bridge on Boxing Day and it could be that top-flight fatigue, sometimes known as reality, is beginning to set in. Saturday may offer some pointers as to how the rest of the season plays out. Bournemouth gave themselves a lift with a convincing win over Norwich at the weekend, though they are still only three points above the drop zone. Should they lose at the Stadium of Light, and Sam Allardyce has probably had the fixture circled on his calendar for some time, Newcastle could close the gap with a win at Watford. There seems no obvious reason why Newcastle should win at Watford, except Steve McClaren’s side finally seem to be improving while Quique Sánchez Flores needs to prove his players have not hit a wall. With Swansea at Everton on Sunday, where the home side really need to release the handbrake to prevent their manager’s claims of a European finish looking silly – for a team playing so well Everton have been stuck in 11th for far too long – this could be the weekend for a few incremental yet important shifts in league position. Although nothing is ever decided in January, not even late January, February can turn into a long month for teams heading downwards in the table. Those that can see a glimmer of hope, on the other hand, especially ones already out of the FA Cup, can start counting out the games to the end of the season and working out exactly what they have to do. So to cut to the chase, before the last league games in January, it looks as if the two north-east clubs have a chance of escaping their present predicament, while Bournemouth, Norwich and Swansea are in danger of getting sucked down. One would imagine the three teams eventually relegated will come from the current bottom six. Chelsea are still theoretically in trouble, only one point ahead of Bournemouth, but no one seriously expects the Stamford Bridge crisis to get that much worse now. They dropped a couple of points at home at the weekend but Everton are a good side, and Chelsea probably regarded it as a point saved, if not stolen. West Bromwich are not as high in the table as they would like but appear capable of getting over the line in the 16 games that remain, as do Watford, assuming their slump does not continue for long enough to cause panic. Clearly this is all guesswork until a few more games have been played; it just happens that one or two fairly crucial matches are coming up this weekend. Not least the one at West Bromwich. The last rites were read over Villa’s survival chances some weeks ago but the situation is not yet hopeless. On the final weekend in January last year Leicester were bottom of the table with 17 points, and look what has happened to them since. Villa are bottom with 12, with only two wins to their name, and although that does appear desperate, a win against local rivals on Saturday would take them to 15 and possibly signal a change in outlook. Villa do not appear to have Leicester’s squad strength, it must be said, but if they are going to do anything other than meekly accept their fate they need to start now. Although no prizes are ever handed out in January, there is no better time to start a recovery. After February, or to be more exact after the first week of March, the remaining games start to be expressed in single figures. Unless you happen to be Leicester, that is when teams near the bottom of the table usually find the season slipping away.
Cruz goes negative on Rubio as Iowa approaches – campaign updates In a radio interview in Iowa on Friday, former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum dredged up the conspiracy theory that Bill and Hillary Clinton were somehow responsible for the death of former deputy White House counsel Vince Foster in 1993. When asked about the latest revelation that 22 emails from Hillary Clinton’s home server have been labeled top secret, the Republican presidential hopeful told WHO-AM’s Simon Conway that this was an example of Democrats “circling the wagon no matter what the case is.” He went on to say: “That’s what the left believe. Nothing they can do, well, look at what the Clintons were accused of with certain folks like Vince Foster. I was going to say short of murder but there’s even allegations that they did that.” Foster, a longtime friend of the Clintons who was under intense pressure from his White House job, committed suicide in July 1993. Fringe conservative groups in the 1990s long sought to push the discredited theory that Foster was murdered by Bill and Hillary Clinton and his death was subject to an elaborate coverup. This allegation has been disproven by multiple investigators, including special prosecutor Ken Starr, although it has continued to periodically resurface. When asked for clarification about the remark, a Santorum spokesman told the that the presidential hopeful was “being facetious” in the statement and simply trying to make a joke about the extent to which Democrats rally around the former secretary of state. The Clinton campaign did not respond to a request for comment. It was ladies’ hour at the juice shop just blocks from the New Hampshire state capitol building on Friday – and the woman of the hour was none other than feminists and author Gloria Steinem, reports Lauren Gambino in Concord, New Hampshire. Introduced as the “mother of feminism” (to which she quickly interjected: “more like sister”), Steinem told the mostly white-haired crowd that it was time to elect a woman to the highest office and that this woman must be Hillary Clinton. “I’m not here to speak against Bernie,” Steinem said at a Women for Hillary event on Friday. “We don’t have to be against someone to understand that someone is better for this moment.” Steinem – who had a black eye she said was from falling into a pothole as she ran to catch a cab – told Clinton’s female supporters that every vote could make a difference, especially when it came to electing women to office. “I want to give you a little ammunition here,” she began, recalling the 1982 US senate race in Missouri between Democrat Harriet Woods and Republican John Danforth. Woods, an activist and politician, presented a strong challenge to her Republican opponent, running a campaign powered by grassroots activism and the slogan, “Give ‘em hell, Harriet.” When it came to voting day, Danforth defeated Woods by a margin of less than two percentage points, just a few thousand votes, Steinem said. “If Danforth hadn’t been senator, Clarence Thomas wouldn’t have gone with him to Washington as a staff member,” Steinem said. Several women in the audience groaned and gasped. “If Thomas hadn’t been visible in Washington as a rare African American who opposed his community’s majority views, he wouldn’t have been appointed by the first President Bush to head and to disempower the equal employment opportunities commission and then to sit on the DC court of appeals.” She went on to tell of Thomas’s supreme court appointment, and his vote in crucial 5-4 decisions, including the decision to halt a recount of the Florida ballots in the 2000 presidential election, which therefore ceded the presidency to George Bush. Steinem said that if a recount had been allowed to take place, the Democratic nominee, Al Gore, might have won the election. If he had, she said, climate change would have been at the forefront of the political agenda and the nation may have avoided intervening in Iraq. “I could go on, but I just want to say, that is the lost nail of a couple thousands votes,” Steinem said. “And we are in a more crucial situation now.” Steinem was introduced by US senator Jeanne Shaheen, who broke a glass ceiling of her own when she became the first female governor of the state in 1997. Shaheen described a cartoon by the Concord Monitor after she was elected governor, that showed her standing in front of the state capitol with the remnants of the glass on the ground around her. “It was great,” Shaheen said. “But it only works if we have broken that glass ceiling for every woman in the country; for every woman in the world.” Hillary Clinton has a straightforward message in the final days before the Iowa caucuses, writes Sabrina Siddiqui in Dubuque, Iowa: I’m the candidate Republicans fear the most. The Democratic frontrunner, who remains locked in a competitive race with Bernie Sanders both here and in New Hampshire, has repeatedly emphasized electability as part of her closing pitch to voters in both of the early states. Clinton’s argument has largely centered on the distinction between what she says is Sanders’s idealism as opposed to her own pragmatism. “I’d rather under-promise and over-deliver than vice versa,” Clinton told a crowd of roughly 450 in Dubuque on Friday. At an earlier stop in Des Moines, she described Sanders’ plan for single-payer health care as “an idea that will never, ever come to pass”. Clinton’s campaign has argued that Sanders’s proposal would dismantle Obamacare, the president’s popular health care law, and require a significant tax hike on most Americans. She also urged voters not to be swayed by Republican efforts to promote Sanders - Clinton and her campaign have seized on reports that the opposing party is trying to help boost the Vermont senator as a way of preemptively defeating her. Republicans are “jumping all over” trying to influence the outcome of the Democratic Party, Clinton said. “The last thing they want is to face me in a general election.” Today in Campaign 2016 If it’s possible to be hungover from politics, we’re feeling it. With two debates, a town hall forum, a veteran-focused “special event,” email releases and more polls than there are actual Des Moines residents, this week has been the campaign equivalent of a frat party the weekend before pledge week: exciting while it happens, but a disaster once you have to wake up and deal with the aftermath. Here’s a recap of today’s top stories: The Trump-less Fox News debate had a rating of 8.4%, or roughly 11 to 13 million viewers – the second-lowest rating of the election so far.That figure is far lower than Fox News’ first Republican debate back in August, when a record 24 million people tuned in. Trump called Ted Cruz is an anchor baby - in Canada. “I think that’s one of the reasons he’s a nervous wreck,” Trump said. “Now they’re saying, I think, his career is over, right? … how about this, he’s a citizen of Canada and he’s a senator from Texas and he’s a citizen of Canada joint with the US.” The Obama administration is withholding seven email chains found on former secretary of state Hillary Clinton’s unsecured home email server because they contain “top secret” information, according to the Associated Press. The emails include messages related to “special access programs,” which have the potential to help identify confidential sources or clandestine government surveillance networks or programs. The state department will also partially censor 15 additional emails that contain top secret material. Three days before the Iowa caucuses, it’s not good news for Clinton. There are only three days before Iowans decide the first state of the 2016 election. Stayed tuned here for the ’s up-to-the-minute coverage of everything from Trump to Cruz, from Clinton to Carson, from Iowan sandwiches to New Hampshire bathroom graffiti. Porn icon Ron Jeremy has endorsed Hillary Clinton’s campaign for the White House, in one of the weirder headlines we’ll type today. Jeremy, nicknamed “The Hedgehog” in the industry, told Buzzfeed that he couched his support of Clinton in his positive feelings towards her husband’s administration. “I got to shake hands with her husband,” Jeremy said. “When he was in office, she gave him a lot of advice. When she’s in office, he’ll give her a lot of advice.” The actor was more skeptical of Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, Clinton’s chief rival in the contest for the Democratic presidential nomination. “America has spanned decades and decades with capitalism and democracy, we’re gonna give it all up because of one schmuck?” he said. “One Jewish schmuck - I can say that because I’m Jewish - one Jewish schmuck wants to become a leader and bring us all into socialism?” The billionaire Koch brothers are set to convene one of their famed retreats this weekend for several hundred of their fellow super-rich conservatives in Palm Springs, California, as observers forecast a record year for secret donations, dubbed dark money, to Koch-backed groups and other outfits from the NRA to the League of Conservation Voters, reports the ’s Peter Stone: “Given the trends we’re seeing, we wouldn’t be surprised if dark money spent on direct advocacy [in the US 2016 election] hit half a billion dollars,” said Viveca Novak, the editorial director of the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. “Spending by these groups in the 2016 cycle is way ahead of previous cycles, and [dark money groups] are more integrated into campaigns than we’ve seen in the past.” In 2012, the center has reported, dark money groups spent over $300m, of which more than 80% came from Republican-leaning outfits. Dark money is the name for cash given to nonprofit organizations that can receive unlimited donations from corporations, individuals and unions without disclosing their donors. Under IRS regulations these tax-exempt groups are supposed to be promoting “social welfare” and are not allowed to have politics as their primary purpose – so generally they have to spend less than half their funds directly promoting candidates. Other so-called “issue ads” paid for by these groups often look like thinly veiled campaign ads. The boom in dark money spending in recent elections came in the wake of thesupreme court’s 2010 Citizens United decision, which held that the first amendment allowed unlimited political spending by corporations and unions. That decision and other court rulings opened the floodgates to individuals, corporations and unions writing unlimited checks to outside groups, both Super Pacs and dark money outfits, which can directly promote federal candidates. Dark money spending rose from just under $6m in 2006 to $131m in 2010 following the decision. Read the full story here: Disgraced former New York governor Eliot Spitzer and his mother, real estate demi-billionaire Anne Spitzer, have donated $100,000 to a super PAC supporting former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley’s struggling presidential campaign, according to a report filed with the Federal Election Commission on Friday. The super PAC in question, Generation Forward PAC, raised a mere $514,000 in the second half of last year, which makes the Spitzers’ donation even weightier. The super PAC spent roughly $10,000 of that money on negative advertising targeting Vermont senator Bernie Sanders. Spitzer, the scion of a real estate empire who became the state’s attorney general, resigned from office in 2009 after reports that he had been the client of a high-end sex worker came to light. Spitzer has been vocally critical of fellow New Yorker Clinton, calling her immigration stance “a metaphor for her vacillation.” At the time of the donation, Spitzer was in a relationship with Lis Smith, O’Malley’s deputy campaign manager. As Americans prepare to cast the first votes of the 2016 election race, the ’s Dan Roberts determines what is at stake for the three Democratic and 11 Republican hopefuls: Hillary Clinton Lost the state in 2008 to an outsider called Barack Obama. Needs to stop the same happening again with Sanders to reassure nervous Democratic leaders. Bernie Sanders If the revolution starts anywhere, it needs to start here. A win could snowball, a heavy loss would be a buzzkill for the democratic socialist from Vermont. Martin O’Malley The former Maryland governor is likely to struggle to reach the 15% threshold in many Democratic precincts. Wipeout may spell lights out. Donald Trump New York’s bombastic billionaire is looking less confident after a no-show debate drama. Needs to win here to maintain an aura of impregnability. Ted Cruz Tarnished by failing to unequivocally back Iowa’s corn ethanol industry and by Canada “birther” distractions. A win or close second would banish doubts for the maverick from Texas and put him back on track to catch Trump. Marco Rubio Iowa is alien territory to the establishment’s best hope, but the Florida senator’s new evangelical-tailored message is gaining traction and should deliver him third place. Ben Carson The retired neurosurgeon is currently crashing from a brief polling high last November. He could disappear for good in Iowa but is likely to soldier on in hope of recapturing that brief momentum. Rand Paul A one-time darling of the libertarian right, the Kentucky senator is staging a late recovery in Iowa. Fourth place could save his campaign (for now). Jeb Bush The former frontrunner is banking on New Hampshire to salvage what is left of his campaign. Iowa threatens to be a disaster, but expectations are at least suitably low. Chris Christie Likewise, the New Jersey governor is more at home on the east coast, but even a handful of Iowan votes will be helpful when it comes to staging the establishment fightback in New Hampshire. Read the full analysis here: Jeb(!) Bush’s campaign may be withering on the vine, but his Vine presence is blooming. Remember Lyndon LaRouche? Political activist, eight-time presidential candidate, economist, brainwasher, conspiracy theorist and convicted tax evader? Well, his Super PAC has endorsed former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley for president, a voice of support that the bottom-tier Democratic candidate could really use right now. In a moderately confusing post on LaRouchePAC’s website, the longtime political activist declared that “we want active support, from us, to boost O’Malley’s campaign, because it’s necessary that his campaign be boosted.” We’re going to boost this intervention, with LaRouche’s name on it - especially from and through Manhattan and nearby points. That’s our strongest point ... And what we’re saying to O’Malley is: we’re suggesting strongly that you focus yourself on your own policy directly. We support your making this the issue, and we recognize our responsibility to make a contribution to that effect. We recommend O’Malley follow the indicated policy, and we’ll commit ourselves to support that policy; we make ourselves answerable to support that program in the election. “I’ll personally support his option if he wants to follow that option,” LaRouche said. The release continues: The US requires a human option as opposed to Hillary and Bernie Sanders. O’Malley has the option, if he wants to narrow the issues, of presenting something which will outflank these guys. I strongly recommend that the O’Malley campaign team do this: get rid of the dubious things, and go for a straightforward address to what the problem is, because Hillary is a fraud - her record is that of a fraud, since she capitulated to Obama. She’s totally a stooge for Obama. A vote for Hillary is a vote for Obama, and we’re not voting for Obama. Sanders is the same kind of thing: he’s an opportunist who tries to patch something together to fool people. We don’t see any clear option coming from him or her. You don’t want a “line,”-- you want to solve the problems of the United States. So O’Malley’s got that going for him... The Obama administration will withhold seven email chains found on former secretary of state Hillary Clinton’s unsecured home email server because they contain “top secret” information, according to the Associated Press. The seven emails, which total up to 37 pages, include messages related to “special access programs,” which have the potential to help identify confidential sources or clandestine government surveillance networks or programs. Additionally, the state department will partially censor 15 additional emails that contain top secret material, and will not include them in the newest batch of emails set to be released later today. State department officials would not indicate whether the content of the emails was classified as top secret at the time of their transmission - Clinton has previously defended the existence of classified materials found on her home server as being related to classified programs that had been discovered by the press - but told the Associated Press that diplomatic security has begun investigating. “The documents are being upgraded at the request of the intelligence community because they contain a category of top secret information,” state department spokesman John Kirby told the Associated Press. Clinton, who is only three days away from the Iowa caucuses, has continued to insist that she neither sent nor received any classified materials that was designated as such at the time on her private email account. One of the unique culinary innovations of Iowa is the loose meat sandwich, popularized by local fast food chain Maid Rite. It’s a cross between a sloppy joe and a hamburger, with the patty replaced by loose meat but without the sauce that accompanies a sloppy joe. The sandwich is served with a spoon to scoop the meat which didn’t stay on the bun. It comes with the option to add ketchup, mustard, onions and pickles to the sandwich. I stopped at one of the chain’s newest franchises in Oskaloosa, Iowa, for lunch. From our inbox : Subject: Clint Eastwood’s thoughts on Ben Carson Clint Eastwood, in his own words, explaining why he likes Dr. Ben Carson might be our favorite candidate video since someone found Bernie Sanders’ 404 message on his campaign website. According to the video’s caption, “Trump doesn’t want you to watch this. Neither does Cruz, or the establishment. Watch it anyway. Maybe you’ll feel lucky.” Well? Do ya? Do ya, punk? Fresh off loaning his voice to an anti-Marco Rubio ad currently being aired by Ted Cruz’s presidential campaign, conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh has some thoughts on last night’s Republican presidential debate: “I was almost right” on Donald Trump attending the debate after all, Limbaugh said, but once Trump threw out his $5m demand at Fox News in exchange for his attendance, “I knew he wasn’t gonna do it.” As for Trump’s event, “it was unlike any Trump event that has taken place,” primarily because “Trump was barely in it!” Instead, the billionaire frontrunner turned over his spot at the lectern to veterans, acolytes, donors, other presidential candidates and Adele - at least, by audio. Due to Trump’s absence from the debate stage three miles away, “Cruz became the frontrunner by default” - which, according to Limbaugh, wasn’t nearly the place of honor that it might have been. “Without Trump to take any incoming,” Limbaugh said, “all the incoming could be focused on Cruz.” The dynamic “automatically made Cruz the target.” As for the debate’s victor? “There was one winner last night, and it wasn’t even close, and it was Marco Rubio.” Three days before the Iowa caucuses, Texas senator Ted Cruz is shifting nearly every dollar his campaign has allocated for negative advertising from focusing on billionaire frontrunner Donald Trump to fellow freshman senator Marco Rubio of Florida, the New York Times reports. Although Cruz and Trump have been locked in a virtual tie in polls of likely caucus-goers for weeks, Cruz is redirecting the full force of his campaign’s communications team towards Rubio, whose support has been steadily increasing in the waning days of the Iowa campaign. The change in priorities comes less than a week after Cruz’s campaign began airing negative advertisement of any kind - the first anti-Trump spot, “New York Values,” aired only three days ago. The first anti-Rubio ad, “Trust,” was launched on Thursday afternoon and focuses on Rubio’s record on immigration. “Rubio betrayed our trust,” the advertisement says, as a voiceover from an episode of Rush Limbaugh’s radio show calls the Florida senator “part of a ‘gang of eight’ that tried to secure amnesty” for undocumented immigrants. According to the Times, Cruz’s campaign will continue to air a duo of positive spots about the Texas senator, but the rise of Rubio as a potential spoiler in the caucus has Cruz’s advisers worried enough to shift focus away from Trump, who currently bests Rubio in nearly every public poll available. Spotted in a restroom in Iowa: The ’s Ben Jacobs was not immediately available for comment. Three days before the Iowa caucuses, Hillary Clinton is pulling out the big guns - and handing over control of her Snapchat account to husband and former president Bill Clinton. Don’t worry - we’ll be sure to screencap. In 2008, political guru Mark Penn dismissed then-senator Barack Obama’s massive following among Iowa college students by telling Hillary Clinton that his campaign rallies “look like Facebook.” The massive youth turnout at the caucuses helped blow Clinton’s expected win in Iowa out of the water, and helped ignite a movement that sent Obama to the White House. Eight years later, the ’s Ben Jacobs reports, that same population of young, ultra-liberal students is on the verge of repeating history: On a college campus of 1,600 students, 1,280 people flocked to a gleaming new gymnasium to hear Sanders speak on a snowy afternoon that marked the first day of classes after winter break. The idealistic young students who flocked to him seemed unconcerned about his prospects in a general election. They were not concerned about the self-proclaimed socialist’s perceived unelectability. “If I have to vote for someone just because I think they are more electable that’s messed up,” said Thomas Grabinski, a recent college graduate. Others were confident about Sanders’ prospects in a general election. “I think a lot of people in this country are liberal enough to vote that way,” said Charlotte Love, a student originally from near Asheville, North Carolina. The Sanders campaign’s effort on campus is dominated by what one unaffiliated student described as“Bernie Bros”, the strident, earnest and ardently liberal men who view Clinton with a certain contempt. They protest against other candidates and try to plant questions about capitalism to throw rivals off guard. “I almost feel like they are not as respectful of other people’s opinions,” said John Lof, a high school student who volunteered for the campaign, guardedly. “I don’t thing that’s Bernie in general but more people who side with the further left liberal part of the spectrum,” he added. “It’s not every single Bernie supporter, but a fair amount.” Read the full story here: One of the great mysteries of the 2016 primary so far is turnout: will the crowds who feel the Bern or revel in Trumpian glory actually show up to vote on Monday? DC bureau chief Dan Roberts is in Iowa with the campaigns, and has tried to parse out an answer. Iowans are made of sterner stuff than the Washington DC residents still paralysed by the blizzard of a week ago, but roads here are as endless as they are treacherous. A traffic accident recently claimed the life of a young campaign worker for former neurosurgeon Ben Carson, and a smaller snow storm last Monday left ditches across the state littered with cars that had skidded off into the fields like some strange new crop variety. The vicissitudes of caucus season are a source of private frustration for candidates, many of whom believe this state of corn and hogs and evangelical Christians has undue influence because of its privileged spot at the outset of the lengthy primary process – and can skew selection toward candidates who are unrepresentative of the national mood. Despite being accredited and arriving on-time to check in, my colleague Lauren Gambino and a handful of journalists were barred from Trump’s event at the Raddison hotel Nashua, New Hampshire. Initially, the press coordinator said there wasn’t a problem. But then she sent her assistant to break the news. “I’m sorry. Check in closed 40 minutes ago,” he said. That’s not what the email said. I showed him the email that said badges would be given to the press until 9.30am. He promised to come back with an explanation. After some minutes, the press coordinator once again appeared from behind a curtain. She approached us carefully, and stopped before crossing the security line – as if we journalists would suddenly turn the tables after months of being ridiculed and belittled by her boss. “I’m sorry,” she said, feigning remorse. “The Fire Marshall said we are at capacity.” A moment ago the excuse was that we were late. Now we were on time but the event was at capacity – even though we had been approved and had reserved spots. After some bickering, she said simply: “Try coming earlier next time.” She then turned on her heels and disappeared behind the blue curtain. All was not lost, though. Lauren still got to interview the Trump faithful waiting outside the hotel – many of whom were also denied entry. Maria Rawlings of Nashua came to see Donald trump for the fourth time on Friday morning, but as had happened to her once before, she didn’t make the cut. Rawlings says she’s an independent but thinks Trump offers the best vision for the country. She said he could work on his delivery, and maybe tone down his rhetoric, but at heart she believed he was a good person who had the business acumen to restore the country’s sagging middle class. Rawlings said she intended to watch the Trump-less debate but fell asleep watching the earlier one. She called Trump’s stunt not to appear in the debate last night “strategic” but worried how it might affect his campaign. “I’m worried that decision will hurt him but I hope it doesn’t,” she said. As this reporter set out on the long hike back to the car, she passed Rawlings and her two friends standing outside the back entrance to the hotel. “Do you think Donald will come this way” She asked. She smiled. “We’d really like to see him.” Elsewhere on the campaign trail: racial politics get some attention, though not on stage or in front of the cameras. Jeb Bush declares victory, Rubio’s campaign is lowering expectations (via Politico) … … and Rand Paul finds an extremely tacky car. Trump finishes off his speech with his complaints about the economy, tailored for his New England audience. He says he would just tell companies like Ford andApple to bring jobs and factories back to the US. “I would tell the guys at Ford build it in Michigan … maybe New Hampshire.” Build it in this country, who the hell cares. We’re gonna get you plenty. By the way New Hampshire, New England, you guys got screwed. You lost so many businesses … You need jobs, not service stuff, you need jobs … We’re gonna take it back … I mean you were decimated, almost I would say more than anywhere else.” He says he’ll “bring jobs back from China, from Japan, from Mexico … China is the greatest theft in the history of the world to this country.” “I’m so glad I made this ridiculous trip … Go out and vote February 9th!” Also a problem is Ted Cruz, Trump says. “Ted Cruz may not be a US citizen … He’s an anchor baby … Ted Cruz is an anchor baby in Canada, but Canada doesn’t accept anchor babies, they just waited a long time.” I think that’s one of the reasons he’s a nervous wreck … Now they’re saying, I think, his career is over, right? … how about this, he’s a citizen of Canada and he’s a senator from Texas and he’s a citizen of Canada joint with the US. The billionaire says that his campaign is self-funded, a claim disproven repeatedly. He uses the line to mock Cruz for his loans to major Wall Street banks, including a loan from Goldman Sachs that the senator did not report as campaign rules require. He didn’t know about Goldman Sachs loaning him money, and he didn’t know about Citibank loaning him money. Other than that he’s got a great memory. He waxes exasperated: “Oh, these politicians, what’re we gonna do with them? … Remember that loan you got, Ted? … I’m having fun.” Trump is holding a rally in Nashua, New Hampshire, at the Radisson Hotel. “We have a right to be angry, folks, we have a right.” The billionaire’s in a generous mood this morning: he’s mixed his usual dire proclamations – trillions in debt, wounded veterans, immigration – with a dose of hope. “We’re gonna put our country back on track.” He says that with “great guys to run your agencies” he can sort out the US no problem. But you need the right people. The problem with the agencies, with everything, we have political hacks. … Guys who gave political contributions to the Jebs of the world, to Ted Cruz, who’s totally controlled by the oil industry. Fear not, Trump goes on. He will prove a great negotiator on the world stage. “I get along great with China and the Chinese people.” I sell condos to the Chinese. With Mexico I have a great relationship, and I employ thousands and thousands of Hispanics, and they’re fantastic … The problem is their leaders … The leaders are too smart for our leaders, and they’re too cunning. Highlights of the Trump variety hour: An imitation of Jeb Bush as a lost and frightened child: “He’s probably looking for me … Has anyone seen Trump? Where is Trump? Where is he?” An imitation of Fox News executives begging him to come back to their debate: “Fox has been extremely nice the last number of hours actually. And they wanted me there and said, ‘How about now?’” One-upping the Oscars: “This is the Academy Awards. We are actually told that we have more cameras than they do by quite a bit.” “You know what, I don’t know. Is it for me personally is it a good thing, a bad thing? Will I get more votes, will I get less votes? Nobody knows. Who the hell knows.” Someone more courageous than Trump (veteran John Wayne Walder), followed by cash courage: “I’m financially courageous, about the other stuff I don’t know.” Rick Santorum jokes: “I am supporting another candidate for president.” And comments for Trump’s pregnant daughter: “We have a hospital all lined up, we’re doing great … But I love the people of Iowa. I said Ivanka, it would be so great if you had your baby in Iowa. It would be so great. I would win.” Trump highlights from across town: Ironical Ted Cruz doing an impression of Trump: “Let me say, I’m a maniac. And everyone on this stage is stupid, fat and ugly.” Jeb Bush: “I kind of miss Donald Trump … I wish he were here.” Sardonic Marco Rubio: “He’s an entertaining guy. He’s the greatest show on earth.” Iowans appreciate all the attention showered on them by candidates, but are they any good at choosing the eventual nominee? Not exactly. Courtesy Nadja Popovich of the ’s interactive team. Democrats fare better after winning Iowa, history suggests. Trump won without showing up. Or Rubio or Bush or Paul did, because they showed up. Or Ben Carson lost. Or nobody can make up their minds, what with no actual votes cast or caucuses caucused on Thursday night. But one metric should at least give somebody bragging rates: ratings. Total viewership numbers should be released on Friday afternoon, but Nielsen data can provide some clue. The Trump-less Fox News debate had a rating of 8.4%, or roughly 11 to 13 million viewers – the second lowest rating of the election so far. That figure is far lower than Fox News’ first Republican debate back in August, when a record 24 million people (a 15.9% rating) tuned in. Viewership for Thursday’s debate is more comparable to the Fox Business Network debate from December, which had a 7.4 rating and drew about 11 million viewers. (Far fewer Americans get Fox Business Network in cable packages than Fox News.) MSNBC and CNN aired Trump’s competing event and had about a quarter of the viewers as Fox did for its debate. Both Trump and Fox live streamed their competing events for free; neither have released viewership numbers. Democratic debates have drawn fewer viewers than their Republican counterparts, in part because the party has scheduled several on weekends, before holidays and at the same time as high-profile sporting and entertainment events. The highest rated Democratic debate was held by CNN in October, with almost 16 million viewers. Debate reviews are in. Rupert Murdoch, the conservative media tycoon and owner of Fox News, liked what he saw. So did Trump. But this is not a poll … Hello and welcome to our live coverage of the groggy day after the final Republican debate before the Iowa caucuses. Last night, frontrunner Donald Trump declined to show, instead hosting a charity event supposedly for veterans … though its organizers declined to say which groups would receive donations. The other leading Republican candidates bickered – over substance! – on a stage in Des Moines. Marco Rubio sniped at Ted Cruz, the closest to Trump in the Iowa polls, and both faced awkward questions over their inconsistent histories on immigration. “This is the lie that Ted’s campaign is built on,” Rubio said of his fellow senator. Rand Paul similarly attacked what he called Cruz’s “falseness”. Nearly all the candidates had to do some damage control over their immigration positions. When Rubio accused former Florida governor Jeb Bush of changing his policy about eventual citizenship for undocumented people, Bush retorted: “So did you, Marco.” Trump’s shadow loomed over the debate, even from off stage. “I’m a maniac, and everyone on this stage is stupid, fat and ugly,” Cruz said, mocking the billionaire, who led a surreal variety show across town in protest of one of Fox News’ moderators. Two minor candidates, Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee – both kept out of the main debate because of their subterranean poll numbers – appeared at the event with Trump. An hour east of Des Moines, the Democratic primary race took on familiar overtones. At Grinnell College, where Hillary Clinton’s supporters failed to muster a caucus for her eight years ago, Vermont senator Bernie Sanders wooed idealistic students. Clinton leads Sanders by double digits in averages of national polls, but the poll averages also show the senator nearly tied to the former secretary of state in Iowa, and leading her by 15 points in the second state of the primary, New Hampshire. Clinton has worked hard to pitch voters on her long experience as a senator and the country’s top diplomat – and on the notion that only she can defeat a Republican in the general election. There are only three days before Iowans decide the first state of the 2016 election. For a few candidates, the race to shake hands and kiss the heads of babies is getting literal. The Trump-Cruz-Clinton-Sanders-Rubio-Bush battle to become the most powerful politician in the world has a lot more chaos to come. We’ll have all the updates here, with word from the trail from: DC bureau chief Dan Roberts, west coast bureau chief Paul Lewis, national reporter Lauren Gambino, political reporters Ben Jacobs and Sabrina Siddiqui … and Adam Gabbatt, who says he’s a plumber.
Letter: How Muhammad Ali showed his love for Bangladesh In the late 1970s I headed a modest film production company in London and hit upon the idea to take Muhammad Ali to Bangladesh, then a new country which needed world recognition. After many trips to the US we got Ali to agree, but first there was a small matter to be settled in the ring. Ali had a fight pending against Leon Spinks, which he thought would be a walkover. Not so. Spinks beat Ali on points. Ali rang me from Los Angeles and said he could not face his fans since he had been beaten. I said: “No Brother, they still love you as The Greatest. The whole of Bangladesh, from the president to the lowest peasant, is waiting for you. You must believe me.” He, ever the joker, lowered his voice and asked: “Brother Reg, are you serious?” I replied, “In the name of Allah, I am dead serious!” He replied, “OK, I will come. But don’t die just yet.” We filmed the visit of Ali, who was accompanied by his then wife, Veronica, and a posse of friends and guards. Bangladesh I Love You was cut and edited in London and distributed by Lord Grade. Years later I wanted to make India I Love You to repeat the same formula with Ali when Indira Gandhi was the prime minister. All went well and filming was on schedule, but then international politics scuppered the film. We were in Madras (now Chennai) when a call came to my room. The voice, in a southern US accent, said: “I wanna speak to Ali.” I said: “Ali is resting in his suite. It’s hot in south India.” The voice said: “Well get to him. Tell him it’s Jimmy Carter from the White House who wants to talk to him now.” I transferred the call to Ali’s suite and rushed to his floor. When I got there, Ali was standing to attention and saying: “Yes Mr President, I will drop everything here.” Carter had asked Ali to fly to all the Islamic countries to request they pull out of the Moscow Olympics. An hour earlier the USSR had attacked Afghanistan. “My president has ordered me,” he told me. “I must obey him.” Within three hours an aircraft arrived with US commandos on board. It flew off with Ali and his family. My film had perished.
Pentagon admits it is 'looking to accelerate' cyber-attacks against Isis The Pentagon has acknowledged using its storehouse of new digital weapons to attack Islamic State communications networks, the first time that the US military has acknowledged doing so during an active war. Operators from the US Cyber Command, the young military command twinned to the National Security Agency, have launched assaults on nodes, overloading them with data, US defense chief Ashton Carter said on Monday. Carter told reporters the US was “looking to accelerate” cyber-strikes he likened to the traditional disruption of enemy command networks. The US cyber-attacks, which Carter said complemented familiar methods of signal jamming over radio frequencies, seek to instill a loss of confidence in the security and efficacy of internal Isis communications. Analysts who have long tracked the development and incorporation of digital weapons into the US military arsenal considered Carter’s acknowledgment to be a milestone. “The cyberwar seal has been broken in public”, said Peter W Singer of the New America Foundation. Thus far, the US has only acknowledged using digital weaponry in vague terms. Secrecy has surrounded their use, as the US cyber arsenal has seen operation as part of covert intelligence activities, rather than as a component of an ongoing war. Stuxnet, a worm that disrupts the functions of industrial centrifuges used in Iran’s nuclear program, is widely believed to have been jointly developed by the US and Israel. The Obama administration has never formally acknowledged possessing a broader panoply of cyber weapons aimed at the Iranian nuclear program, known as Olympic Games. The New York Times recently reported that the US prepared a campaign for their use, Nitro Zeus, in the event that a diplomatic effort to halt the program broke down. But the administration considered those online efforts alternatives to warfare. Against Isis, the US is using cyber weapons as a method of warfare alongside the airstrikes, indigenous force training and special operations raids that characterize the US campaign in Iraq and Syria. With Olympic Games, unlike Stuxnet, Singer said, “the US military is making clear that it can and will carry out offensive cyber operations. Everyone knew we could do it and Isis as the target makes this less controversial, but it is still a big line to cross.” Carter and the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Marine Gen Joseph Dunford, declined to speak about the US cyber campaign in detail, but said it contributed the broader objectives of isolating the Isis capital of Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria. “Conceptually, that’s the same thing we’re trying to do in the cyberworld,” Dunford said Monday. Both senior officials acknowledged a potential loss of intelligence coming from the assaults on Isis networks the US monitors, but expressed hope that they would press Isis fighters into using more interceptable modes of communications. In addition to overloading or defacing Isis’s web presence, known as a denial of service attack, and aiming to prevent the uploading or distribution of propaganda, particularly on social media, it is likely that the US Cyber Command is “mapping the people behind networks, their connections and physical locations and then feeding that into targeting on the kinetic side – injecting false info to create uncertainty”, Singer said.
The EU referendum is already following the Scottish playbook, Project Fear 2.0 Let’s call it Project Fear 2.0. As the remain campaign moves up the gears, it has the considerable advantage of a road-tested playbook. In the run-up to the 2014 Scottish referendum, the UK government and, in particular, the Treasury set about frightening the voting natives with a series of high-profile warnings of the apocalypse that would surely follow any breakup of the union. In an unprecedented breach of civil service protocol, the permanent secretary to the Treasury, Sir Nicholas Macpherson, published his private advice to the chancellor. It homed in on what would become a key issue – the refusal to allow an independent Scotland to continue using sterling. His letter to George Osborne concluded: “I would advise you against entering a currency union with an independent Scotland. There is no evidence that adequate proposals or policy changes … could be devised, agreed and implemented by both governments in the foreseeable future.” Not unexpectedly it caused a massive row, and his subsequent rationale was nothing if not revealing: “My view in this case – and it’s a very exceptional case – is that if publishing advice could strengthen the credibility of the government’s position, then it was my duty to do it.” Fast forward to cabinet secretary Sir Jeremy Heywood’s letter to permanent secretaries published this week advising them that civil service resources “must only be used in the referendum campaign if they support the government’s official stance in support of Britain’s membership of the EU”. The same missive warned special advisers attached to Brexit ministers that they should campaign only in their own time and at their own expense. Should they be found to be doing so in the course of their normal working day their salary would be adjusted accordingly. This week’s letter from a number of business leaders also has a useful precedent. In 2014, the bosses of major supermarkets and retailers were summoned to No 10 and encouraged to make public their fears for trade if an artificial border were set up between Scotland and England. The argument over how the British economy would suffer from “Scexit” was reinforced by RBS and Lloyds, among other banks, admitting to contingency plans to move their main offices to London. In case nobody was paying sufficient attention, the Treasury helpfully put out a press release. Memorably, the Treasury was also able to tell the BBC’s political editor about RBS’s game plan before the bank’s relevant evening board meeting had concluded. Truly, the Treasury’s night vision and predictive powers are a thing of wonder. The Ministry of Defence has form too. As the no camp continued to slip in the polls, it was able to assure the nation that were a Scottish government to insist on Trident removal from the Clyde, neither Devonport nor any other English base would be suitably secure to house the Vanguard submarine fleet. So: less strong, less secure, more dangerous in a dangerous world. Has a familiar ring? By that stage the Scottish public were bracing themselves for news from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs that the latter would sadly not be in a position to aid the Scottish Department of Agriculture and Fisheries when the upcoming locust plague threatened to relocate north of Berwick. Somewhat to the bemusement of that same tartan electorate, the leave campaign is wasting no opportunity to lecture its audience on the joys of self-determination. All those chaps who made cross-border forays into the 2014 referendum campaign to advise Scots that separatism was a dangerous – yes, folks – “leap in the dark”, have binned that rather negative script and joyously embraced “the capacity to make our own laws and decisions”. This is a particularly rich intervention from London’s own blond bombshell, Boris Johnson, given the time he previously devoted to the importance of getting the whingeing Jocks to realise how lucky they were to be joined at the hip to metropolitan brain power, enterprise and major trading partners. But there is a whopping irony in all of this, and I doubt first minister Nicola Sturgeon finds it of the delicious variety. Historically, Scotland has always been more enthusiastic about Europe – and still is. The polls for staying in regularly top 60%. The first minister has said that she will campaign vigorously for remaining in the EU, even if, like Jeremy Corbyn, her reasoning is predicated more on social and employment policies. So imagine the joy with which she, and most of the erstwhile yes campaigners, view the prospect of spending the next few months metaphorically in bed with Team Dave, while Boris’s battalions urge voters to rise up and be a nation again. Honestly, you couldn’t make it up.
Viral video: David Bowie, Alan Rickman, Adele, Golden Globes This week was dominated by the untimely deaths of two stars – David Bowie and Alan Rickman. Both died at the age of 69, and both leave bodies of work that have been widely shared by their fans in the wake of their passing. Bowie’s death was marked by many fans with an animated GIF rather than a video – illustrator Helen Green’s striking drawings of the star’s hairstyles throughout his career. Created to mark the Thin White Duke’s 68th birthday, it became one of the defining image of his death almost exactly a year later. In terms of video, it’s impossible to give more than a taste here of Bowie’s legacy in video, from Space Oddity to Ashes to Ashes to the singles from his latest album Blackstar. Bowie videos broke Adele’s record for the most views in a day on video platform Vevo, with his clips watched 51 million times on Monday. They were led by Bowie’s most recent single, Lazarus, which features the opening line “Look up here, I’m in heaven / I’ve got scars that can’t be seen”. The lyrics took on a new resonance in the wake of the star’s death, while fans scoured the video for references to his career, with some pointing to the skull on the desk (also in the Blackstar promo) and others highlighting that his clothes as he gets into the wardrobe are was identical to an outfit from 1976’s The Man Who Fell To Earth. Arguably one of the best Bowie videos is also the simplest – Mick Rock’s 1971 promo for Life on Mars? Featuring the star with striking red hair and piercing blue eyeshadow, it allows his personality to shine straight through the screen. Fellow musicians’ tributes to Bowie also made waves this week, with Madonna singing Rebel Rebel live in Houston and Elton John performing a piano piece echoing Space Odyssey. Amid all the gloom surrounding Bowie’s death, it’s easy to forget that the singer had a great sense of humour and did a string of turns sending up his cool image, from a voice role in a Spongebob Squarepants movie to a cameo on Zoolander. Perhaps the best is his appearance in Ricky Gervais’s Extras, with the star mocking the comic as a “chubby little loser, national joke”. Here’s an interview in which Bowie gives a deadpan account of his cameo. Although he did his share of serious theatical roles, Rickman was also notable for his comic appearances. As well as Severus Snape in the Harry Potter films, he played the deliciously evil Hans Gruber in Die Hard. But perhaps his most memorable comic appearance was as the Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves, where he pretty much steals the show fom Kevin Kostner with lines such as “Locksley! I’ll cut your heart out with a spoon!” Another standout moment was Rickman’s voiceover for Marvin the robot in The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, a masterclass in comic misery. His line “I think you ought to know I’m feeling very depressed” echoed the feelings of many fans this week. Sunday’s Golden Globes provided plenty of headlines this week, from Ricky Gervais ribbing the audience to Jennifer Lawrence telling off a reporter for looking at his phone during a press conference. But the highlight for many viewers was the glimpse of Leonardo DiCaprio’s face as Lady Gaga brushed past on her way to pick up best actress for American Horror Story. His look of horror as the singer appears next to him is a million miles away from a Poker Face. Finally, the week’s most-shared video was Adele’s appearnce in James Corden’s Carpool Karaoke slot. Hearing the Hello star belt out the Spice Girls’ Wannabe is a highlight while her rap of Nicki Minaj’s Monster shows her talents reach beyond singing. 1) Adele Carpool Karaoke She’s no wannabe 2) Leonardo DiCaprio vs Lady Gaga at the Golden Globes Shady behaviour 3) Saoirse Ronan Tries To Teach Stephen Colbert An Irish Accent Brooklyn brogue 4) EL VY & Stay Human Pay Tribute To David Bowie Let’s dance with Stephen Colbert 5) Snowboarding An Empty Water Park Liquid moves 6) The Path on Hulu Teaser Trailer #1 (Official) New show from Breaking Bad’s Aaron Paul looks like cult viewing 7) Mulder, Scully and Jimmy Kimmel in The X-Files David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson embrace their return 8) 1 Day Old Sea Otter Trying to Sleep on Mom Cute overload 9) “Tonight Show Celebrity Photobomb” with Jimmy Fallon and Sesame Street Look out for the “double cookie” 10) Dog Knocks Another Dog Off of Couch Canine catastrophe
Benicio del Toro set to take on Predator Sicario star Benicio del Toro is set to take the lead in the latest Predator film, according to Deadline. Currently titled The Predator, this will be the fourth in the series featuring the invisible, bloodthirsty alien, which was put on the map by the 1987 original starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. (There are also two crossover Alien vs Predator films, released in 2004 and 2007.) This latest version will be directed by Shane Black, currently riding high after the success of Iron Man 3 and The Nice Guys. Black also had a small role in the first Predator film, as part of Schwarzenegger’s special forces crew (and the first one to be killed by the alien). No plot details have yet emerged, but Schwarzenegger criticised the franchise in a Reddit interview, saying the films following his original hit were “not satisfactory”.
Wheelchairs have come a long way – shame the NHS hasn’t Gone are the days of clunky wheelchairs seemingly designed to hinder as much as to help – at least for some. The latest promising development in the disability world comes from ex-Royal Marine Phillip Eaglesham, who was almost paralysed after contracting Q-fever on his last day in Afghanistan. When he began to lose strength, he used a Segway to get around and realised how helpful its versatility was. Now that he cannot use one, he has designed a new chair that copies some of the Segway’s features to allow wheelchair users to manoeuvre easily and, most importantly, raise themselves up to eye-level and have a decent conversation. My electric wheelchair is nowhere near as cool, but I can raise myself to just below standard eye-height. It’s hard to express how much this helps me have a normal life. Yes, of course it means that I can reach things on shelves and whatnot. But it also means I can do typical twentysomething activities such as introduce myself in a noisy environment or even, God forbid, sit at a bar. Without it, crowded places such as clubs become a nightmare, as does meeting new people. People are conditioned to notice others of a standard height and to patronise those whose heads are more at the level of a child’s. My cerebral palsy makes it hard to project my voice, so being able to raise myself up allows me to engage with others as an equal. Yet the relevant authorities do not believe that features such as this are important. The NHS wheelchair service will only provide wheelchairs that meet medical needs; independence and social needs are ignored. The result is that decent wheelchairs, and by extension a decent quality of life, are reserved for those who can afford them – and they can be prohibitively expensive. The new design is projected to cost a tidy £10,000. My friend Anna has spinal muscular atrophy, and relies on a highly specialised chair that can transform into a standing frame to help retain her muscle strength. Last year her old chair malfunctioned – throwing her to the ground, leaving her with sprained ankles. Since then, while she fundraises for a replacement, she has been given a manual chair that she cannot move at all, and a borrowed powerchair that does not meet her needs. The model she needs, that will allow her to go about her daily life, costs £24,000. The NHS provided a voucher for £1,295, the cost of its standard chair. This barely makes a dent in the total sum needed. Over a year later, Anna is finally ready to order the right chair. Others may not be able to work so hard to raise money. For some disabled people, our wheelchairs are the substitute for our legs. Yet the way we treat disabled people is like asking someone who has broken both legs to pay for the operation to fix the second break – and this from a government that aims to get more of us in work, while remaining indifferent to helping us do so. Inventions like Eaglesham’s have the potential to make disabled people’s lives much better. But with so many people unable to access a chair that is even remotely suited to their lives and needs, progress seems far off. As technology improves, the possibility of better equipment grows, but so does the gap between those who can and cannot afford it. Only the state can level this cruel inequality.
Spike Lee to boycott the 2016 Oscars over lack of nominee diversity Spike Lee is to boycott the 2016 Oscars over the US Academy’s failure to nominate a single black actor for the second year running. Lee received an honorary Oscar at a ceremony in November last year for his work as a film-maker. But writing on Instagram on Monday, the director of Do the Right Thing and Chi-Raq said he had decided not to attend the main event. “I would like to thank president Cheryl Boone Isaacs and the board of governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for awarding me an honorary Oscar this past November,” he wrote. “I am most appreciative. However my wife, Mrs Tonya Lewis Lee and I will not be attending the Oscar ceremony this coming February. We cannot support it and mean no disrespect to my friends, host Chris Rock and producer Reggie Hudlin, president Isaacs and the Academy. But, how is it possible for the 2nd consecutive year all 20 contenders under the actor category are white? And let’s not even get into the other branches. 40 white actors in 2 years and no flava at all. We can’t act?! WTF!!” It was not clear if Lee was responding to Jada Pinkett Smith’s tweeted suggestion on Saturday that a boycott of the Oscars by ethnic minority actors might be justified. “At the Oscars … people of colour are always welcomed to give out awards … even entertain,” Pinkett Smith wrote on Twitter. “But we are rarely recognised for our artistic accomplishments. Should people of colour refrain from participating all together? People can only treat us in the way in which we allow. With much respect in the midst of deep disappointment.” Lee’s Chi-Raq, a critically acclaimed musical comedy about a woman who goes on sex strike to protest against black-on-black gun violence in Chicago, failed to make an impact on the current awards season despite an Oscars push by the film’s studio, Amazon. Pinkett Smith is married to the actor Will Smith, who missed out on a best actor nomination for his role in the film Concussion. Other absentees from Thursday’s list of Oscar nominees included British actor Idris Elba, who was widely expected to challenge for the best supporting actor prize following his Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild-nominated turn as an African warlord in the Netflix drama Beasts of No Nation, Benicio del Toro for Sicario and Michael B Jordan for Creed. Meanwhile, Straight Outta Compton producer Will Packer described the 2016 list of Oscar nominees as “embarrassing” in a lengthy Facebook post after the film’s sole nomination was handed to its white screenwriters, Jonathan Herman and Andrea Berloff. Boone Isaacs has described the omission of actors from ethnic minorities, which is once again being highlighted by Twitter users under the hashtag #Oscarssowhite, as “disappointing”.
HMV moves ahead of Tesco as second biggest entertainment retailer HMV has reclaimed is position as the second biggest entertainment retailer in the UK as high street chains enjoy a revival against their online competitors. HMV recorded a 2% year-on-year rise in sales of music, DVDs and games over the last quarter, giving it a market share of 16.9%, ahead of Tesco’s 16.1%. The figures represent HMV’s best performance since it collapsed into administration more than three years ago. It was eventually rescued by Hilco, the investment firm. Overall, sales of entertainment products in bricks-and-mortar shops fell by 2% during the 12 weeks to 10 April, according to Kantar Worldpanel. However, online retailers suffered a much larger decline, with sales down by 12%. Amazon, the country’s biggest entertainment retailer, saw its sales fall by 0.6% year-on-year, reducing its market share from 22.6% to 22%. Analysts said that high street entertainment stores were being underpinned by music and video games. One-in-four customers still only buy CDs, while 77% of video games were bought at shops during the quarter. Tesco and Game achieved their biggest share of video game sales for five years. This helped high street stores and supermarkets to claim 69.8% of spending on all physical entertainment products, up from 67.5% a year ago. Fiona Keenan, strategic insight director at Kantar, said: “Despite recent high profile casualties for high street fashion retailers the performance of bricks and mortar entertainment stores has demonstrated the strong appeal this channel still holds for consumers. “Some 14% of the population now has a music subscription service and paid-for Spotify subscriptions are growing at 25%. Yet the CD is still the most popular way to consume music content. “Such a strong performance from HMV has not been seen since it entered administration in 2013. HMV has really focused on creating an in-store environment that stimulates and excites consumers like it did in its heyday. “This focus is clearly reflected in the fact that over half of its sales this quarter came from customers who hadn’t planned to make a purchase – significantly higher than the market average of 38%.” Across the industry, music sales dipped by 1% during the period, with DVDs down 6% and games down 8%. Popular products include David Bowie’s albums Blackstar and Best of Bowie following his death in January, as well as the compilation Now That’s What I Call Music! 93 and Adele’s 25. The best-selling DVD during the period was Spectre, the latest James Bond film, which has sold more than 1.7m copies since it went on sale in February.
Even the pro-Remain newspapers are sceptical about Osborne's 'dossier' Does anyone really believe George Osborne’s warning that leaving the European Union would plunge Britain into instant recession, result in 820,000 job losses and force up the price of foreign holidays? Even a leading Remain campaigner, Scotland’s first minister Nicola Sturgeon, thought such “fear-based” predictions were insulting to the intelligence of the electorate. Sturgeon’s statement was headlined in the , the Times and Metro. It was noticeable that the pro-European Union Daily Mirror appeared sceptical enough to give Boris Johnson’s reaction - “These types of prophecies are not credible” - top billing in its news report. And the Europhile Independent ran a piece that also questioned the claims: “Five problems with the Treasury’s economic analysis of the impact of Brexit”. The pro-Brexit Daily Telegraph lamented that a “proudly impartial civil service” had produced a report that “could in no way be called open-minded.” On its news page, the paper reported that the prime minister was facing threats of cabinet resignations and it quoted Johnson, who accused Cameron and Osborne of “scaremongering”. It was not alone in revealing the depth of the split within the Conservative party. The Daily Mail’s splash, “Knives out for Cameron”, reported that “dozens of Tory MPs are threatening to topple David Cameron” following “the latest Brexit ‘dodgy’ dossier row.” It said unnamed backbenchers were predicting a vote of no-confidence in their leader after the referendum vote. But it also quoted several named critics: former defence secretary Liam Fox, Commons leader Chris Grayling, former chancellors Lord Lawson and Lord Lamont, plus backbencher Bernard Jenkin. It also mentioned the tweet by the Tory MP for Yeovil, Marcus Fysh, who called the Treasury analysis “specious bollocks” (though the paper used asterisks). That tweet was seized on by the Sun, which ran a poster-style front page headlined “Never mind the b*!!**ks”. It said a “furious Tory backlash” over Osborne’s “doomsday dossier on Brexit” had taken the party to “breaking point”, with two ministers threatening to quit. But it was the Telegraph that carried news giving the greatest heart to the Remain campaign by leading its front page with the results of its opinion poll. The ORB survey put Remain on 55% and Leave on 42% among voters who say they will vote. Among all voters, the Remain campaign was favoured by 58%. According to the poll, there has been “a collapse in support for Brexit”, with older voters, Conservative supporters and men moving into the Remain camp. The paper carried an analysis of the poll result by Lynton Crosby, the Tory party strategist, in which he wrote that one of the largest shifts in voting intention has occurred among Tory voters. In March, 60% were intending to vote Leave compared with 34% for Remain. Now the figures have moved to 57% as against 40%. Crosby concluded: “The Remain campaign should view these advancements as affirmation that the focus and messaging of its campaign is working. If Leave is to regain any lost ground, it must start paying attention to the numbers and capitalise on its strengths - its steadfast lead on immigration and the way uncontrolled immigration is seen more widely as a symbol of the country’s loss of control of its sovereignty to Europe, coupled with the enthusiasm of their base.” The Sun’s lengthy leading article preferred to point to the decision by Cameron’s former aide, Steve Hilton, to back Brexit after saying “membership of the EU makes Britain literally ungovernable.” It poured scorn on Osborne: “Either the chancellor’s forecasts are credible, in which case holding the vote is a monstrous act of negligence, or he doesn’t believe them himself and is in the business of whipping up hysteria. No prizes for guessing which we go for.” For the Sun, “Remain’s tactics have been a dark mix of fiction and fear plus a vicious smearing of their opponents.” I think that final sentence would win an award for irony.
Sampha review – a polite, pulsing performance cuts to the core Sampha’s always been about the voice. Diehard fans may have been following the 27-year-old producer and musician’s work since his 2010 Sundanza EP, but most listeners will know him more for the husky vocals slathered like a soothing paste on to other people’s singles. Whether adding depth to Jessie Ware’s 2013 single Valentine, landing the emotive suckerpunch on Drake co-write Too Much or lending longtime collaborator SBTRKT’s clubland tracks their hooks, Sampha’s distinctive vocal texture has become a brand of its own. In between songs tonight, that voice is initially polite. After kicking off with forthcoming debut album opener Plastic 100°C, he thanks the crowd for being here and gives a quick shout out to friends and family – really, he sounds more like a respectful birthday party host than headliner of a sold-out show on home turf. But once he and his band launch into their thumping, electrofunk rendition of Under, you remember just why he’s earned enough of a reputation to pack out a venue before he’s even released a solo album. He has a beautiful knack for combining what was originally seen as a “nu-soul” sensibility with deeply personal lyrical themes that cut right into the wobbly core of our vulnerabilities. The show undulates in energy, pulsing while he belts out Blood on Me, then pulling back to vocals-and-keys simplicity on Can’t Get Close and crowd-pleaser Too Much. And whenever the band sound momentarily shaky, Sampha whips out the trick that keeps it all together: that trembling, creaking, howling voice.
Malcolm Middleton's playlist: Avicii, Ellie Goulding and more Betty Boo – Hangover A classic 90s pop song that I always return to. Her second album was pretty diverse and dark, I think this should’ve been the start of her career as a performer, not the end. She did continue writing for other folk, mind you. Avicii – Wake Me Up I hated this song for ages before lightening up and listening to it properly. It gets me every time, and I wish I could write songs like this, but with more personal lyrics. I guess I’ve tried to on Summer of ‘13, but I’m not quite there yet. My song Big Black Hole couldhave been an attempt at a massive pop hit if I’d taken Gordon [Anderson]’s advice and used the hook more. I’m too obtuse though. Tegan and Sara – I Was a Fool This also influenced Big Black Hole. I wanted some kind of pure, pristine, piano-led pop hook. I wrote the motif to fit a song I already had and then sourced some R&B presets – voila. I’m not a huge fan of these guys as, like always when I find a song I love by an artist, it turned out to be a one-off. Ellie Goulding – Burn When my son was born, we’d watch lots of early-morning music TV. This was always on. Not a great song, but the ideas seeped into what I was writing at the time. So yeah, I’m with the times (2013). The Good Natured – Wolves I don’t think this band exists anymore, or even released an album. But I love a lot of their early songs: no-nonsense pop, massive chorus, sense of urgency. They’ve been a big influence on me recently as they have such a stripped-back way of making great songs. It must be a sign of good songwriting.
Trump campaign reportedly vetting Christie, Gingrich as potential running mates – as it happened Donald Trump’s first town hall event featured him interrupting his first questioner, a self-described “manufacturing guy,” three times, although the questioners got the last laugh: “Number one: I’m opposed to the murder of unborn babies being legal,” a man asked (said?). “Number two: I’m opposed to our wasting our military in the Middle East on behalf of Zionist Israel.” Trump, slightly flummoxed at the two issues being brought up at an address putatively about US trade policy, responded to the second comment. “Lemme just tell you that Israel is a very, very important ally of the United States, and we are going to protect them 100%. One-hundred percent,” Trump said. “It’s our true friend over there, and we are going to protect Israel 100%.” He also suggested that a passing plane might be a Mexican fighter jet: On the heels of (relatively less-well respected) Rasmussen’s survey depicting Trump up four points, (relatively well respected) Reuters/Ipsos releases the latest edition of their weekly tracking poll and it has Clinton up 10 points, 42-32. Whom to believe? The averages, we’re taught. RealClearPolitics hasn’t incorporated the latest Reuters yet and has Clinton up 4.9 points. HuffPost Pollster has baked in both Rasmussen and Reuters and has Clinton up 6.9 points. François Hollande of France, he of the 17% approval rating, told Les Echos that a Donald Trump presidency would be dangerous and “the best service the Democrats could render would be to get Hillary Clinton elected.” She’ll want to get this right into her swing-state ad buys. Vermont senator and perpetual presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has been granted his second 45-day extension to file personal financial disclosure reports, putting the latest deadline for Sanders to file the forms well after the conclusion of next month’s Democratic National Convention. The request, filed with the Federal Election Commission today by the campaign’s legal counsel, cites Sanders’ “ current campaign schedule & officeholder duties” as the reason for the delay in filing the required report, which would provide limited detail of the senator’s assets and liabilities. Vice president Joe Biden told NPR News that Vermont senator Bernie Sanders plans on endorsing Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid: Donald Trump will be speaking on Sean Hannity’s show in ten minutes: Speaking at a rally in Manchester, New Hampshire, earlier this afternoon, presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump jokes about Mexico attacking the US. Pointing out a plane flying overheard, he said: “That could be a Mexican plane up there.” Trump has consistently criticised Mexico during his campaign and has pledged to build a wall between the two nations should he be elected president. Donald Trump may not be a fan of journalism, but he’s apparently a big subscriber to blind-item gossip columns. In a radio interview with Boston’s Howie Carr, Trump was asked about rumors that MSNBC’s Morning Joe co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski are romantically involved. Trump’s response: Well, I haven’t seen that, but I, I heard it was in the New York Post. And the New York Post gets it right. So, they even endorsed me. So when I got an endorsement from the New York Post, I like them even more. When I saw that, it was - people are talking about that. That’s good, I hope they’re happy. The presumptive Republican presidential nominee was once a darling of the morning show, but had a falling-out after Brzezinski apparently sided with House speaker Paul Ryan when he initially refused to endorse Trump’s candidacy. Video explainer: Transgender people can now openly serve in the US military, defense secretary Ash Carter announced this afternoon. The historic change in military policy means that transgender individuals can no longer be separated, discharged, or denied re-enlistment or continuation of service just for being transgender. Donald Trump’s campaign is honing in on potential running mates for the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. The two men reportedly at the top of the list: Former House speaker Newt Gingrich and New Jersey governor Chris Christie. According to the Washington Post, the two experienced politicians are joined on the short list by a half-dozen or so potential running mates, but both Gingrich and Christie have been asked to submit documents to the vetting committee, and with less than three weeks before the Republican National Convention in Cleveland begins. The list is rounded by by Alabama senator Jeff Sessions, Tennesee senator Bob Corker and Indiana governor Mike Pence. Both Gingrich and Christie present their bonuses and complications to a potential Trump ticket. Gingrich, a former speaker of the house, would add government experience and a long history in Washington to Trump’s inexperienced candidacy, but would undercut his outsider message, and, like Trump, is on his third marriage. Christie, known as a pugnacious debater, would fulfill the traditional “attack dog” role as a running mate, but his tenure as governor of New Jersey has been checkered by controversies. Donald Trump has made his support for Brexit a standard stump line in the past week, but his voters have been left with a less than clear idea of the implications of the UK’s vote to leave the European Union. Trump, who was one of the few international political figures to actively support those seeking to leave the European Union, touted the referendum decision as a “great victory” in a press conference in Scotland the morning after the result. He has since bragged that “Crooked Hillary Clinton got Brexit wrong” and praised the vote as a decision by British voters to “take back control of their economy, politics and borders” in a major speech on trade policy Tuesday afternoon. He has even insisted he “stood with the people on the referendum while his Democratic rival “as always stood with the elites”. Trump has gone on to tie the vote to his own presidential campaign, saying: “Now it’s time for the American people to take back their future.” Many of his supporters at a rally in a college gymnasium in Ohio shared Trump’s support for Brexit, seeing the vote as a step towards Great Britain being liberated from Europe. Cathy Brown, a Trump voter who drove seven hours from outside Richmond, Virginia, though British voters “made a good choice to become free”. She celebrated the fact that the vote “means that people can make their own choices they can decide on a lot of things that were decided for them”. In her opinion, British voters will now “have say” on issues like “trade and open borders”. Brown also dismissed concerns about the impact the deal will have on the US because now “we’ll be able to work out a deal that’s better to put us to work and get our people going” with the UK. A new poll shows presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton leading Donald Trump by double digits in a key swing state - and the gap remained much the same when third-party candidates were included in the survey. According to the latest Loras College poll, 48% of Iowa voters say that they support Clinton, compared to 34% who support Trump in a head-to-head matchup between the two candidates, a 14-point lead for the former secretary of state. When Libertarian party nominee Gary Johnson and Green party candidate Jill Stein were added to the survey, Clinton’s lead narrowed slightly, 44% to Trump’s 31%, with Johnson winning 6% of Hawkeye State voters and Stein winning 2%. A full 9% of Republicans surveyed told Loras that they would definitely or probably vote for Johnson instead of Trump, a massive outpouring of support for a third-party candidate. “For Trump to win Iowa in November, he is going to need to attract those potential Johnson voters and the undecided,” said Christopher Budzisz, the poll’s director, in a statement. “While Clinton doesn’t appear right now as vulnerable to a loss of votes to a third party candidate, she does face her own potential pitfalls.” In March, Donald Trump called NATO “obsolete” and said it would “have to be readjusted to take care of terrorism.” Vice president Joe Biden has told NPR News that Vermont senator Bernie Sanders plans on endorsing Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid: Al Gore’s daughter was among 23 people arrested during a protest of a pipeline under construction. The arrests happened yesterday at the site of Spectra Energy’s West Roxbury Lateral pipeline in Boston. Karenna Gore was among demonstrators who tried to block construction activity on the site by lying in a trench dug for the pipeline and refusing to move until firefighters removed them, said protest group Resist the Pipeline & Stop the West Roxbury Lateral. The group opposes the pipeline because of safety and climate change concerns. Video: This afternoon, the US military ended its ban on openly transgender service members, in a speech given by US defense secretary Ash Carter. Carter said effective immediately, US service members would be able to serve openly and could not be discharged simply based on gender identity. Here’s video of Donald Trump being questioned about Muslims working at airport security: Trump’s response: “We are looking at that. We’re looking at a lot of things.” Donald Trump, on a “Mexican plane” getting “ready to attack”: A woman asks Donald Trump to get rid of Transportation Security Administration workers with “heeby jobbies” at US airports, an apparent reference to hijabs, veils that cover the hair and neck of observant Muslim women. Trump dodges, moving to airport security overall, and the event is over. The fourth question - well, technically the third question, since Trump never allowed the first person to ask a question - comes from a man who says “we have something in common: respect for human life.” Trump nods reticently. “Number one: I’m opposed to the murder of unborn babies being legal,” the man says. “Number two: I’m opposed to our wasting our military in the Middle East on behalf of Zionist Israel.” Trump, slightly flummoxed at the two issues being brought up at an address putatively about US trade policy, responds to the second comment. “Lemme just tell you that Israel is a very, very important ally of the United States, and we are going to protect them 100%. One-hundred percent,” Trump says. “It’s our true friend over there, and we are going to protect Israel 100%.” “As to number one, we are all with you,” Trump says succinctly. “Wow, that was nasty! Are we all with Israel? Man!” Trump says, shaking his head, before taking another question. A questioner asks Donald Trump about the likely “corporate backlash” of international companies who won’t be too keen on cutting into their profits by manufacturing and consuming within the United States. “You’re gonna have a backlash where maybe people are gonna move from New Hampshire, but they’re gonna move to another state. Plenty to choose from!” Trump says. “My tax plan is cutting business taxes way down, and cutting taxes for middle income and everybody way down.” “We’re gonna simplify our tax code, number one, and we’re gonna cut our taxes. We’re at the highest tax, we’re just about he highest taxes in the world,” Trump says, saying that “we’re gonna make corporations wanna come back.” “Companies are actually leaving the United States and going to other countries to pick up their money cause they can’t get their money in. And that money could be used to rebuild the United States!” Trump says. “We’re gonna bring our money into the United States - trillions of dollars, we bring it into the United States!” “We will do things that are going to be so miraculous - and it’ll be fast! You know, it won’t take a long period of time.” Donald Trump’s first town hall event features him interrupting his first questioner, a self-described “manufacturing guy,” three times. Still no idea what his question was, although it seemed to be headed towards creating a culture of domestic consumption of goods. Another questioner, an impassioned man whose company manufactured police badges before he lost business to China, calls current trade issues “unfair.” “What are you gonna do for us?” “We don’t play the game they play the game - they play the game to win, we play the game to survive,” Trump says of China. “We’re gonna start playing the game to win. So just hang in there - I know it’s not easy, but just hang in their, man.” Donald Trump, speaking at a shuttered factory in Manchester, New Hampshire, emphasizes the importance of walking away from a deal as a negotiating tactic, citing the Iranian nuclear agreement as an example of a situation where his school of negotiation is superior to that of Secretary of State John Kerry. “He never walked - he lost every single point,” Trump says. “We shoulda said no way, we shoulda left the room, we shoulda said we’re doubling your sanctions, and they would have been back on the television saying ‘please come back!’” “I want great deals for this country,” Donald Trump says in Manchester, New Hampshire. “Here’s my stance on trading: I wanna make great deals for the United States. Call it fair trade, call it free trade, call it whatever you want.” “If companies leave… there’s going to be consequences,” Trump continues. “They’re not gonna make their air conditioners in Mexico, send ’em into the United States… and there’s no consequence. Well, now there’s a consequence. The consequence is now they’re going to pay a 35% tax.” “We’re either going to keep ’em here, or they’re going to lose a hell of a lot of money,” Trump continues. “It’s very simple. They wanna go to another country, they gotta pay a tax to get their stuff back to this county.” Donald Trump, speaking at a former Osram Sylvania manufacturing plant in Manchester New Hampshire, ties manufacturing woes to trade deals “pushed through” by presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. “Hillary Clinton pushed through the trade deal with South Korea that killed another 100,000 jobs, and she pushed it through,” Trump says. “We protect them - we have 28,000 soldiers on the line between North and South. And what happens, what happens if there’s a war? We get involved.” “They are an economic behemoth - and we protect them, and they don’t reimburse us for what it’s costing,” Trump says. (Military officials have protested the idea that returning soldiers to the US would be cheaper than keeping them abroad.) “When you have large numbers of unemployed bc workers, incomes go down across the country - just across the entire country. It just affects so much and so many other people, so many other lives and so many other businesses,” Trump continues. “Our whole standard of living goes down - we have workers for 18 years, they haven’t received an increase.” “It’s a much better system, the way it used to be,” Trump says, of domestic production of goods that cost the consumer more. “We’re better off if they’re not quite as cheap.” At the former Osram Sylvania plant in Manchester, New Hampshire, Donald Trump recalls other closed manufacturing operations in the region while reading statistics and names from a sheet of paper on his lecture. “People from Mexico took their jobs,” Trump says, of a closed Ethan Allen manufacturing plant. “Regional job losses have been fantastically poor, fantastically bad and disgraceful.” “It’s just, it’s not very hard to explain, it’s not very hard to understand. What is very difficult is to figure out why people did this. Why? ... We have a $500 billion trade deficit with China, a massive trade deficit with Japan,” Trump says. “They send us millions of cars, we send them beef. You oughta take a look at a chart sometime, take a look at the difference between what we send them and what they send us.” “That could be a Mexican plane up there - they could be getting ready to attack,” Trump says, responding to an overhead plane. Donald Trump mentions the heroin crisis facing states like New Hampshire, shocked that hard drugs could be a problem in a state with beautiful natural features. “You look at these beautiful trees and these beautiful streams and these beautiful lakes? This is not heroin country,” Trump says. Trump also promises the group that he will “take a few questions,” making this, as far as we can recall, Trump’s first town hall-style meeting since he became the Republican party’s presumptive presidential nominee. Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is holding an event - initially reported as an address on trade, but currently postulated as a “town hall”-style event - in Manchester, New Hampshire: The event, which is not open to the public, is sparsely attended. Donald Trump is running late to his campaign event in New Hampshire today, possibly because he is tweeting responses to an NBC News story that questions whether his campaign has filed the required documents to forgive the $50 million in loans he has personally provided to his presidential campaign: Vermont senator and perpetual presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has been granted his second 45-day extension to file personal financial disclosure reports, putting the latest deadline for Sanders to file the forms well after the conclusion of next month’s Democratic National Convention. The request, filed with the Federal Election Commission today by the campaign’s legal counsel, cites Sanders’ “ current campaign schedule & officeholder duties” as the reason for the delay in filing the required report, which would provide limited detail of the senator’s assets and liabilities. The new deadline for filing the disclosure reports is now in the middle of August. Fired campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, assigned to chair the New Hampshire delegation to the Republican convention, is at the Trump event in New Hampshire. Semper fidelis. Ladies and gentlemen, we have a race. If your only sources of information are the Drudge Report and Donald Trump’s Super Pac. Following an appearance Tuesday by president Barack Obama with Hillary Clinton in North Carolina, vice president Joe Biden will join Clinton Friday in his hometown of Scranton, Pennsylvania. Anyone had enough Thursday poll numbers yet? But wait there’s more. RABA Research, which gets a B- in FiveThirtyEight’s pollster ratings, gives Clinton a slight 41-38 lead in a new poll of voters in Ohio, which a Republican has never won the White House without winning. Ohio voters supporter governor John Kasich’s decision not to endorse Trump by a margin of 48-39, the poll found. A last tidbit from Trump’s Mike Gallagher interview this morning. The candidate is talking about the difficulty he has had wringing endorsements out of some former rivals and other influential Republicans. “It’s almost – in some ways, like, I’m running against two parties,” Trump says. Again via CBS News’ Sopan Deb: The Libertarian presidential ticket of former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson and former Massachusetts governor Bill Weld offers “a credible alternative to Clintrump” in a new video ad. They talk about their records as governor – cutting taxes, building schools, balancing budgets, reducing unemployment – and their successes as Republicans in blue states. “They think like America thinks,” the ad says, billing the pair as “two of the most successful governors working together for a better America.” “The difference between the two of us and the other candidates running for president is that we’ve been there, and done that,” the pair takes turns saying. The tag line: “What say, America, you in?” (h/t: @bencjacobs) The Donald Trump campaign has changed its plans for his Manchester, New Hampshire, event this afternoon. Instead of a speech about trade closed to the public, Trump will hold a town hall open to the public, the campaign now says: More state polling, more iffy – no let’s just call it bad – news for Trump. This time it’s Loras College with Clinton up 14 points, 48-34, in Iowa. Trump’s unfavorability in the poll is 69%. There’s actual election news, meanwhile, in Iowa, where the state supreme court has ruled against an an expansion of voting rights for convicted criminals, the Des Moines Register reports: The 4-3 decision upholds what critics say is one of the harshest felon disenfranchisement laws in the nation, and means the state will not see a significant shift in voter eligibility ahead of the 2016 election. Bernie Sanders has received an additional 45-day extension on filing a personal financial disclosure report. “There is good cause for this extension due to Senator Sanders’ current campaign schedule and officeholder duties,” his lawyer writes: Asked about the impromptu (?) Bill Clinton-Loretta Lynch meeting, White House press secretary Josh Earnest says Lynch’s work speaks for itself, the New York Times reports: New state-level polling by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner research points up potential flaws in Donald Trump’s strategy to remake the electoral map by winning Rust Belt states including Michigan, Pennsylvania and Ohio. Hillary Clinton leads Trump by 15 points in Michigan and nine points in Pennsylvania, the pollster finds: Trump’s plan to win New York state looks even worse in a new Siena College poll of Empire state voters. It gives Clinton a 23-point, 54-31 lead. The GQR poll’s 11-point lead for Clinton in Florida marks the third time this month a survey has found Clinton ahead by double digits in the state, FiveThirtyEight’s Harry Enten points out: People with local knowledge don’t quite believe all GQR’s numbers, however. Nevada journalism dean Jon Ralston thinks Clinton is up by “middle single digits” in the state, instead of tied with Trump, as GQR depicts: Trump, for his part, registered surprise Thursday morning that he was not doing better in the polls. Trump told radio interviewer Mike Gallagher, “I go to Ohio, we were there two days ago, and Pennsylvania and near Pittsburgh and we – I was in West Virginia, the crowds are massive. And you know, I walked out of one and I said, ‘I don’t see how I’m not leading.’ You know, you see the kinds of crowds. We have thousands of people standing outside trying to get in... And I’m saying, you know, ‘Why am I not doing better in the polls?’ The Donald Trump campaign is more than doubling its roster of pollsters, with three new hires who previously backed the Ted Cruz, Chris Christie and Rick Perry presidential campaigns, respectively, the New York Times reports: Kellyanne Conway, a veteran pollster who has had a long working relationship with Mr. Trump, is among those joining the effort.[...] Mr. Trump’s team is also expected to bring on Adam Geller, who works with Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, and Michael Baselice, who was the pollster for former Gov. Rick Perry of Texas and for the state’s governor now, Greg Abbott. Trump previously paid two pollsters. The Democratic national committee has denied a report that the party is looking into options for moving Hillary Clinton’s acceptance speech at the national convention in Philadelphia from the Wells Fargo Center (seats 19,500) to a larger venue. The BillyPenn local media site exclusively reported that the Democrats were looking for a larger venue, quoting US Representative Bob Brady: Philly Congressman Bob Brady said nothing has been finalized but “there’s talk about it. “It’s a good idea by the way, too,” said Brady, who is honorary vice chair of the DNC. “It engages people and gets people involved.” But a DNC press secretary told BillPenn, “This is absolutely incorrect. There is no talk of changing venue.” CBS News’ Sopan Deb flags a section from Trump’s Mike Gallagher interview in which the candidate is invited to weigh in on the Supreme Court’s striking down a restrictive Texas abortion law three days ago. “You wouldn’t see that” under a Trump presidency, Trump says. “And - and people understand that.” Hillary Clinton’s top aide’s husband likes the idea of a Christie pick: The Republicans are ready to nominate Trump for president and Democrats are doubting their luck? New Jersey governor Chris Christie is being vetted as a potential running mate for Donald Trump, CNN reports. Mike Murphy, who ran Jeb Bush’s Right to Rise political action committee, says guessing whom Trump will pick is hard: Here’s a shortcut to get the Christie vetters started: April 2016: Christie has lowest job approval rating to date, poll shows A new Rutgers Eagleton survey released Thursday found the governor’s approval has dipped to 26 percent, a drop of three percentage points since quitting the presidential race in February. François Hollande of France, he of the 17% approval rating, told Les Echos that a Donald Trump presidency would be dangerous and “the best service the Democrats could render would be to get Hillary Clinton elected.” She’ll want to get this right into her swing-state ad buys. Hollande tells the interviewer that a Trump presidency would complicate European-US relations and says that Trump’s slogans differ little from those of the extreme right in Europe and in France: fear of migration, stigmatization of Islam, challenging representative democracy and denouncing elites, even though Trump himself is a wealthy elite. In a radio interview snagged by BuzzFeed’s Andrew Kaczynski, Donald Trump weighs in on the chance (?) Bill Clinton - Loretta Lynch meeting in Phoenix on Tuesday. Trump says the meeting shows how “the system is rigged” and calls it one of the biggest stories of the year: “It is an amazing thing. I heard about it last night,” Trump says on the Mike Gallagher Show. “They actually went onto the plane as I understand it. And it was really a sneak. And it was really something they didn’t want publicized. “I think it’s so terrible. I think it’s so horrible. I think it’s the biggest story, one of the biggest stories of this week, of this month, of this year. [...] “It’s a massive story now. It’s all over the place.” Like Maine, Nebraska splits its electoral votes by congressional district. Two go to the state winner and one goes to the winner of each congressional district. In 2008 Barack Obama snagged an electoral vote in Nebraska’s second congressional district – Omaha and environs. But they voted for Mitt Romney in 2012. Clinton is hoping to take Omaha back for the Democrats. The campaign has announced it will begin airing two ads in the district focusing on Clinton’s “dedication to helping children” and on the children’s health insurance program, which Clinton helped create as first lady. Here’s the CHIPs ad: Polling! Am I right? On the heels of (relatively less-well respected) Rasmussen’s survey depicting Trump up four points, (relatively well respected) Reuters/Ipsos releases the latest edition of their weekly tracking poll and it has Clinton up 10 points, 42-32. Whom to believe? The averages, we’re taught. RealClearPolitics hasn’t incorporated the latest Reuters yet and has Clinton up 4.9 points. HuffPost Pollster has baked in both Rasmussen and Reuters and has Clinton up 6.9 points. Ipsos asked 1,247 registered voters nationally: “If the 2016 presidential election were being held today and the candidates were as below, for whom would you vote?” In the head-to-head Clinton-Trump matchup, 14% of respondents said neither. Clinton showed 75% support among Democrats and Trump showed 70% support among Republicans. In a four-way race with the Libertarian and Green Party candidates, Clinton’s lead on Trump widened to 11 points, 42-31. Trump had a 61% unfavorability rating in the poll, compared with Clinton’s 54% unfavorability rating. The poll also asks for party preference in local congressional races. Democrats have quite a lead in the poll – 44-33. Rasmussen Reports – a pollster with a mean-reverted bias of two points toward Republicans, according to FiveThirtyEight (which gives Rasmussen a lackluster C+ in its pollster ratings) – has released a new national poll in which Donald Trump leads Hillary Clinton by four points, 43-39. The same poll last week had Clinton up five points, 44-39. Polling averages have Clinton up by five or seven points, depending on which average you consult. The national poll, conducted by telephone and online, surveyed 1,000 likely voters on 28-29 June. The margin of sampling error was +/- 3%. Read further here. Drudge tweeted the poll and Trump has RT’d it to his fans hungry for good polling news. Unfortunately for Trump, there’s very bad polling news ahead (stay tuned for an update on Reuters’ tracking poll)... Former president Bill Clinton “walked over” to a plane carrying attorney general Loretta Lynch for a chat on the tarmac at Phoenix Sky Harbor International airport Tuesday Monday, the AP reports. With the greatest threat to his wife’s presidential campaign, in many people’s opinions, being a potentially aggressive investigation by Lynch’s justice department into Hillary Clinton’s email practices, Clinton’s decision to engage Lynch could appear inappropriate, an effort to curry favor, or, cynics might even think, to prejudice the investigation. Lynch told reporters they did not talk about the emails and did talk about his grandkids, AP reports: Lynch was traveling with her husband and said her conversation with the former president “was a great deal about his grandchildren” and their travels. The former president, who recently became a grandfather for the second time, told her he had been playing golf in Arizona and they discussed former Attorney General Janet Reno, whom they both know. “There was no discussion of any matter pending for the department or any matter pending for any other body. There was no discussion of Benghazi, no discussion of the State Department emails, by way of example,” Lynch said in Phoenix. Former top Barack Obama adviser David Axelrod called the meeting “foolish”: Republican senator John Cornyn raised the prospect of a conflict of interest on Lynch’s part: Hello and welcome to our live-wire coverage of the 2016 race for the White House. Donald Trump appears not to have filed paperwork to forgive personal loans he made to his campaign, raising questions about whether donations to the campaign could still be used to pay back Trump personally. Last week, with some fanfare, Trump announced that he was writing off $45m in debt, but “the FEC has posted no record of Trump converting his loans to donations,” NBC News reports, and “the Trump campaign has also declined requests to share the legal paperwork required to execute the transaction, though they suggest it has been submitted.” Fox News poll shows 9-point swing toward Clinton A Fox News poll of registered voters nationwide released late Wednesday had Hillary Clinton up 44-38 over Trump in a head-to-head matchup. The poll has been trending dramatically in Clinton’s favor in the last two months. In May, it had Trump up by three points, 45-42. Real Clear Politics’ polling averages currently have Clinton 6.1 points ahead. Republican senator not quite on Trump train Utah senator Mike Lee, the first senator to endorse Ted Cruz for president, described in unprecedented detail last night why he was not ready to endorse Trump. “We can get into that if you want,” Lee says. Then he really gets into it: Obama: ‘If in fact Brexit goes through’ At a summit of North American leaders in Canada Wednesday, Barack Obama suggested that the Brexit might not actually happen: I think there are some general longer-term concerns about global growth if in fact Brexit goes through and that freezes the possibilities of investment in Great Britain, or in Europe as a whole. Here’s that handshake again: Speaking of Brexit, maybe keep an eye on British politics today: Trump campaign in hot water for soliciting foreign donations Trump’s campaign has been asking foreign politicians for donations to help make America great again – possibly violating federal election rules in the process. On Wednesday, two campaign finance watchdog groups, the Campaign Legal Center and Democracy 21, said they will lodge a complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) alleging that Trump’s campaign has violated federal law by soliciting donations from politicians in Scotland, Australia and Iceland, among others. “Donald Trump should have known better,” said Paul S Ryan, deputy executive director of Campaign Legal Center. “It is a no-brainer that it violates the law to send fundraising emails to members of a foreign government on their official foreign government email accounts, and yet, that’s exactly what Trump has done repeatedly.” Romney says family wants him to run Two-time Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney told an audience at the Aspen Ideas Festival Wednesday that members of his family are still pushing for him to enter the race a third time as a third-party candidate, if only to thwart the accession of presumptive Republican presidential nominee Trump to the presidency. “My wife and kids wanted me to run again this time,” Romney said. “I got an email from one of my sons yesterday, saying ‘You gotta get in, Dad. You gotta get in.’” But Romney said a third-party candidate could not win and he did not sound like he was going to try. Trump has a news conference scheduled for this afternoon in Manchester, New Hampshire. He will talk more about trade, his campaign advises. Here’s Lauren Gambino’s fact check of his last trade speeches. It’s not open to the public. Thank you for reading and please join us in the comments.
Lord Ashcroft's Belize bank hit by wave of withdrawals An offshore bank owned by Tory donor Lord Ashcroft has closed a large number of customer accounts and faced a wave of withdrawal requests after becoming increasingly caught up in a US tax-evasion crackdown, the has learned. The value of deposits at Belize Bank International (BBI) shrank by almost three-quarters in the space of just six months, and confidential emails seen by the suggest some BBI customers have struggled to recover their cash. So stretched is the position that BBI in April told a court in Belize that it could not pay a $3.3m judgment against it without liquid assets falling below the minimum amount required by law. Ashcroft, 70, has a fortune estimated at £1.34bn after decades as an investor and deal-maker in businesses ranging from car auctions to cleaning services and offshore banking. Best known in the UK as the former Conservative party deputy chairman who fell out with David Cameron, the peer co-wrote last year a biography of the former prime minister notable for its allegations of debauched student years. Ashcroft was awarded a peerage in 2000 at the request of the party’s then leader William Hague. It later emerged, however, that a promise he had reportedly given at the time – to relinquish his controversial tax exile arrangements – had not been kept for many years. Ashcroft resigned from the House of Lords last year, but remains closely involved in British politics through his polling and publishing businesses. Ashcroft also owns the influential Tory website ConservativeHome, where he writes regularly. Contacted by the , Ashcroft’s offshore bank BBI denied it was in crisis and said it faced a short-term problem. There is no allegation that BBI evaded tax, or that the bank knowingly helped customers to do so. However, tough US anti-evasion laws have increased compliance costs for BBI’s partners, prompting Bank of America and Commerzbank to terminate relationships with the bank. The departure of these partner banks has in many instances left BBI struggling to maintain basic services for account holders. Adding to BBI’s woes, US tax inspectors revealed last September that they are investigating suspected evasion by some of the bank’s customers. The inquiry comes at an especially unhelpful time for BBI as it attempts to find replacement partner banks. BBI confirmed that “certain deposits have been returned to customers”, and that the loss of partner banks was “an important development”. “BBI is strong and very well-capitalised,” a spokesman said, adding that deposit withdrawals had in fact strengthened the balance sheet. Asked about long delays on withdrawal requests, he said: “The bank is satisfied that it has fulfilled its obligations with expedition, and has done so effectively.” However, according to documents seen by the , some customers have had to wait months for their money to be returned. One was told last June that his account was being terminated and that he should provide final wire transfer instructions within eight days. Four months later, BBI told the customer there were still “considerable delays” with money transfers because of the loss of partner banks. In March, he was told: “We are currently unable to complete or execute wire transfers … You are … welcome to visit us here in Belize to withdraw the funds in person.” More recently, BBI has suggested a customer could alternatively reapply for a Visa credit card, which he could then use to withdraw funds in batches from a cash machine. Another BBI account-holder to have complained of problems with money transfers was the Belizean arm of Mossack Fonseca, the offshore law firm at the centre of the Panama Papers scandal. The Panama Papers, obtained by Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper, were shared through the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) with the and other media. Leaked emails show Mossack Fonseca sought advice from a local law firm in Belize last August about its BBI bank account. The law firm replied: “BBI is closing all offshore accounts … It is a shock to us as well especially with the very short time line provided. It is the first time we are experiencing this type of situation …” A spokesman for BBI said only selected accounts had been closed and this was part of a long-planned strategy. “Of its own volition, and in common with many other financial institutions, BBI has been engaged in a de-risking programme for several years,” he said. “This has meant that … [certain] depositors’ funds have been repaid.” In April, BBI bosses told the supreme court of Belize it had received unprecedented withdrawal requests. Its chairman, Lyndon Guiseppi, explained that, while the bank was financially robust, there was a short-term squeeze on cash meaning it would struggle to pay a $3.3m court judgment. He said: “If [the bank] has to make payments due under the order this will have serious consequences for the bank, the wider financial sector and the broader economy of Belize.” Such a payment, Guiseppi added, would “stymie the bank’s ability to make payments to depositors, which the bank … is coming under increasing pressure to do so [sic].” The crisis is blamed on big overseas banks terminating partnership arrangements, known as “correspondent banking relationships”, with BBI and other banks in Belize. These relationships provide the means by which Belize’s offshore banks can provide services to its customers around the world. According to credit ratings agency Moody’s, Bank of America and Commerzbank accounted for 80% of correspondent banking services in Belize until late last year. Belize’s prime minister, Dean Barrow, has blamed the exodus of correspondent banks on draconian regulations and unsubstantiated smears from Washington. “Current US policy is proving existentially damaging … to the [Caribbean] sub-region of which Belize is a member,” he has said. “There are ... continuing statements classifying our jurisdictions as harmful tax havens. This is designed to put our offshore sector out of business. “It is a kind of damnation by innuendo since no bill of indictment listing any specific instances of violation is ever offered. But the implication that doing business with us is fraught with risk is crippling our jurisdictions.” Ashcroft, Belize and BBI Ashcroft’s bank is one of the oldest in Central America, established in 1902 in what was then British Honduras. For 75 years the bank traded as a branch of the Royal Bank of Canada, which – despite its name – had extensive operations around the Caribbean. In 1987, the branch was bought by Michael Ashcroft, the son of a British colonial administrator who had attended school in Belize before being sent to boarding school in Norwich. In 1990, in part after advice from Ashcroft, Belize passed laws creating an offshore financial centre. Modelled on legislation in the British Virgin Islands, this was a bold move to attract investment into the country, newly independent but economically weak. At the same time, the government granted Ashcroft’s bank a 30-year special tax break, paving the way for BBI to prosper, catering to customers outside the country. Since then, Ashcroft’s banking and related Belizean interests have become a mainstay of the tiny economy, in particular its financial services. Belize has a population of 350,000, more than 40% of whom live in poverty. Ashcroft, who owns a colonial style home on the Caribbean seafront in Belize City, was made the country’s ambassador to the UN, and in 2000 was knighted by the Queen – who remains Belize’s head of state – for services to the local community. While he is well known for his political donations in the UK, Ashcroft has also taken an active interest in Belizean politics, reportedly contributing financially to both main parties. As in the UK, he has on occasion fallen out with some Belizean politicians on specific issues, including the prime minister. Together, Ashcroft’s main Belizean business interests are listed on the London stock exchange as Caribbean Investment Holdings (CIH), though three-quarters of shares remain under Ashcroft’s ownership. In its latest annual report, CIH told investors that at the end of March last year its balance sheet was part-funded by $249m of customer deposits that could be withdrawn on demand. Of that sum, central bank data suggests, $102m was deposited by businesses and individuals with accounts at BBI. Since then, however, BBI deposits have dropped to £31m. BBI does not disclose how many deposit accounts it provides, or where its overseas customers are based. The vast majority of deposits are thought to have been made in US dollars, with a much smaller amount in sterling and lesser sums in euros and Canadian dollars. The CIH annual report, published last September, reassured shareholders that past experience suggested that customer deposits would remain “a long-term and stable source of funding”.
Ad watchdog cracks down on misleading broadband ads The advertising watchdog is to crack down on the way broadband packages are marketed after research showed that four in five people were not able to work out how much they are supposed to pay. The Advertising Standards Authority is to start a crackdown on the way companies including Sky, BT, Virgin Media, TalkTalk, EE, 3 and O2 advertise after finding that the public are confused and misled by broadband deals. The ASA is to introduce new advertising rules from 30 May following research, conducted with media regulator Ofcom, that found widespread confusion, with 81% of those surveyed not able to correctly work out the total cost across the lifetime of a broadband contract when asked to do so. Currently, broadband ads feature an array of prices including the monthly cost of the broadband itself, separate line rental and frequently a raft of additional pricing options such as installation fees, introductory offers and contract length. The research found that just 23% of survey participants were able to correctly work out the total cost per month of a broadband package and all extras in the first viewing of an ad. And 22% of participants were still not able to get it right at a second viewing of a broadband deal ad. The ASA says that if this proportion were extrapolated to the whole of the UK it means that about 4.3m households have no idea how much they are actually paying for their broadband packages. “It’s essential we make sure people aren’t misled by pricing claims in broadband ads,” said Guy Parker, chief executive of the ASA. “We’ll be moving quickly, working alongside broadband providers to clarify the presentation of price information.” From 30 May, the ASA is going to crack down on ads that have complicated pricing, and will rule that they break the UK advertising code. While companies can continue to choose how they want to market broadband deals after that date, the ASA is “suggesting” a series of guidelines. These include using an all-inclusive price on all costs, including line rental, and greater prominence of up-front costs and contract lengths. “Ofcom wants to see clear and accurate broadband prices for consumers,” said Sharon White, chief executive of Ofcom. “Our research shows many people are confused by complicated ads and offers. We welcome the ASA’s plans to simplify broadband advertising.” The ASA said that last year it received 730 complaints about a total of 555 broadband ads. It ruled that 56 of the broadband ads were in breach of the UK advertising code, a relatively high 10% of all cases “Simplifying how broadband prices are advertised is a step in the right direction, but the advertising of broadband speeds must also be tackled,” said Richard Lloyd, executive director of consumer watchdog Which? “Broadband is an essential part of life and millions of homes are not getting the speed they expect. We want the advertising authorities and the regulator to change the rules and ensure consumers get the speeds they are promised by their provider.” TalkTalk said that it fully supported the ASA’s move, pointing out that it had already called for “all-in” pricing in a response to Ofcom’s digital communications review. “It’s obvious that a single headline price is much clearer and better for customers, and we’re actually already doing it on a pilot project up in York,” said a spokeswoman for TalkTalk. “But until the whole market moves to single prices, any company that advertises its products like this will struggle to compete with what look like better deals from other providers. We want Ofcom to be bold and tackle this problem in their strategic review and we would absolutely support them in doing so.” Sky said that it follows all advertising rules and that it has the best customer satisfaction levels in the industry. “We work hard to ensure customers are fully informed when we’re marketing Sky’s products and services and our advertising adheres to all industry guidelines,” said a spokeswoman. “Ofcom’s recent customer service report showed our customer satisfaction levels are the highest in the industry. We will review the new research and work with the ASA to ensure our advertising is in line with any new guidance it introduces.”
Bank's warning of a Brexit double whammy is very handy for Osborne Britain will make up its mind whether it wants to remain in the European Union in six weeks time, so it was inevitable that the last Bank of England inflation report before 23 June was dominated by the referendum. And make no mistake, the warning from Threadneedle Street about the likely short-term consequences of a Brexit vote – including a sharp fall in the value of the pound – is mightily handy for George Osborne. The Bank assumes that there will be a double whammy of weaker growth and higher inflation in the event of a vote to leave. For the first time Mark Carney was even prepared to use the R word: there would be a chance of technical recession - two successive quarters of negative growth - if the decision is to leave. The Bank’s inflation report says Brexit could lead to lower consumer spending, mothballed investment plans, higher unemployment and problems funding the UK’s record current account deficit – which has reached 7% of GDP. It believes there is a risk that foreign investors will shun the UK and strain the banking system. Carney summed up the Bank’s view in his letter to the chancellor [PDF] explaining why inflation remains more than a percentage point below the government’s 2% target. The combined effect of leaving would, the governor said, be to “lower growth materially and raise the rate of inflation materially” over the next couple of years. Osborne’s reply to Carney’s letter showed that he intends to milk the Bank’s warning for all it is worth. The Leave camp noted that despite the Bank’s warnings about sterling, the pound is currently at a higher level than it was when the referendum was called, and that Carney should be careful that his words did not become self-fulfilling prophecies. Nor is it the case, as Osborne has been asserting, that interest rates would inevitably rise after a Brexit vote. The forecasts contained in the Inflation Report assume that the bookies have got it right and that Britain will vote to remain in the European Union. These show that the uncertainty caused by the referendum is temporary, with growth slightly lower in 2016 but picking up in 2017. But by 2018, when everything has come out in the wash, growth is 0.2 points lower than expected at the time of the February inflation report at 2.3%. That’s despite the financial markets taking the view that interest rates will stay lower for longer, and the 9% drop in the value of sterling since November – both of which should boost growth. But, as the Bank noted, only half the pound’s fall has been the result of uncertainty caused by the referendum. The other half is caused by a realisation that the UK suffers from poor productivity, low levels of investment and a chronically weak trade performance. Those problems are not going to magically disappear whatever the vote on 23 June.
Opera adds built-in adblocker to its browser Opera is introducing a new version of its desktop browser with built-in adblocking, removing the need for a third-party extension. The Norwegian software company has a history of innovations that later become common in other browsers, such as tabbed browsing. It was also an early pioneer of pop-up blocking, which targeted an earlier generation of in-your-face ads. Opera says the move can reduce page-loading times by as much as 90% by preventing the browser having to make requests to ad networks, which slows page loading. Because it is building the feature directly into its browser, page-load times are 40% faster than with existing adblocker plugins or browser extensions, the company claims. More than 9 million (22%) of the UK’s internet users have an adblocker installed, a recent report found, and the proportion is considerably higher among 18- to 24-year-olds, with almost half using some form of adblocker. Opera’s built-in adblocker will initially only be in the desktop version of its browser but it intends to add it to its mobile version in future. An Opera spokeswoman said: “Adblocking technology is an opportunity and a wake-up call to the advertising industry to pay attention to what consumers are actually saying.” Faster loading, increased privacy and security and a desire for fewer distractions are behind the growing demand for adblockers, but their use is causing concern for publishers who rely on display advertising for revenue. Earlier this month the culture secretary John Whittingdale, called adblocking a ‘modern-day protection racket’. A study by PageFair and Adobe (PDF) estimated online ad revenue lost to blockers in 2015 would amount to $21.8bn (£15.4bn) and those losses could almost double to $41.4bn in 2016. Ad-placement firm Carat forecasts global digital and mobile advertising will near $150bn this year. Opera, which has agreed to a takeover by a group of Chinese firms led by Beijing Kunlun Tech in a cash deal valued at $1.23bn, introduced its first computer web browser in 1995. With the rise of the smartphone, it shifted to focus on the mobile browser and advertising market, where it now derives most of its revenue, and has 281 million users. The Oslo-based firm ranks a distant fifth behind mainstream desktop computers browsers from Microsoft, Google, Firefox and Apple. The company counts 60 million active monthly desktop users worldwide. It relies on advertising in its browser for a big chunk of its own revenue but says it sees no contradiction with introducing adblocking controls that affect pages. An Opera spokeswoman said demand for adblocking should abate when messages became less disruptive and more relevant.
Emma Barnett joins the big league on BBC Radio 5 Live When Emma Barnett goes on air for her first mid-morning show on BBC Radio 5 Live this Wednesday, she’ll be taking on one of a handful of big talk-radio gigs broadcasting to the nation. Her excitement is palpable. “This is a huge project. I’ve thought about nothing else for four months,” she says with a big smile. “I am desperate to start. The best way to do radio is to do it. Radio gigs like this don’t come along very often.” Barnett, a former digital media and then women’s editor at the Telegraph, got her break in radio on LBC and currently has a Sunday night show on 5 Live where she dissects the stories making an impact online. But swapping it for three-hour shows from Wednesdays to Fridays is a big step up for which she has been planning enthusiastically . On Wednesdays she will broadcast from Millbank in London, timed to coincide with prime minister’s questions and pulling in a revolving panel of MPs including Labour’s Chuka Umunna, the former Conservative education secretary Nicky Morgan and the Lib Dem leader Tim Farron. She says the quality of guests is partly due to the “unprecedented moment” Labour and the Conservatives find themselves in that means “we’ve never had so many A-list MPs out of frontline politics”. Thursday’s show moves back to the BBC’s base in Salford and Barnett plans to bring the audience into the usually-behind-the-scenes process of choosing the news agenda, setting up interviews and shaping the day’s programme. “I think some of the most interesting conversations we have are off-air are [those in which] we are deciding the news, [discussing] the angles, what we are going to try to find out, all of that,” she says. “We are there to do breaking news but also allow the listeners to come in a bit on our morning news meeting and deconstruct that for them. I think it’s really interesting to show a bit of leg on radio.” Then on Friday, with the nation getting the #Fridayfeeling vibe, Barnett will try to explore ambition, talking to people who have done well but with one eye on the dissatisfaction with life that she says drove some of the British public to vote for Brexit. The show’s pattern has been developed since Barnett left the Telegraph at the end of April. Since then she has since taken a holiday and been appearing on a Sky News debate show, The Pledge, but she isn’t giving up newspapers. Last month she joined the Sunday Times as an advice columnist, using her first piece to open up about the impact of her father going to prison a decade ago, in a bid to gain her readers’ confidence. Broadcasting from her home town – Manchester – is especially pleasing for Barnett because it underlines how the BBC’s relocation to Salford has revitalised a place she once felt she had to leave to get a start in media. “I was born in Hope hospital literally two seconds away from the studio. For me, sitting there, I look around and think, ‘wow’. I mean in the space of 12 years what was effectively a wasteland with a war museum is now a media centre. “If there had been Media City when I was doing my A-levels and looking at degrees … and then I went off to do the Cardiff [journalism] course, I could have come back to Manchester, I wouldn’t have had to leave to go to London. And I really hope that for the next generation that could be the case.” Barnett’s debut will boost the number of hours of talk radio fronted by women in an industry that is dominated by male voices. She defends 5 Live’s track record in the area, saying it has a “tradition of ambitious brilliant female broadcasters” and citing former presenters including Anita Anand and Kelly Cates as well as current colleagues including Eleanor Oldroyd. However she concedes that there is still an imbalance across radio that needs addressing, partly to do with “legacy issues” and those men in the industry who quite understandably want to remain in enjoyable jobs. “There is something important about getting women to host programmes, regardless of it looking good,” she says. “It actually affects, first of all, the lens sometimes of what you are looking at, but also it affects who calls. I have noticed that if I also put a woman caller on air first … then more women ring.” With her credentials in feminism (she launched the Telegraph women’s section, called Wonder Women) and technology, Barnett is exceptionally well-placed to talk about the culture of abuse on social media. Add in the fact she has publicly talked about her Jewish faith and it is perhaps not surprising she has been on the receiving end. In 2013 she was one of a number of journalists and other prominent women on Twitter who received a tweeted bomb threat. “I went to the pub but I think a few of them rang the police. And the next thing I knew, the Today programme [was] saying these 15 journalists have all had this. I thought, ‘Oh God, I’m probably so immune now to some of this stuff. ’ When you put your head above the parapet, you get stuff. I try to have a bit of a sense of humour if I can. I have a routine: if I get off air and there is something there, I just mute it or block it. And that’s the way I deal with it. I don’t ever engage.” She says there is more that tech companies could do to tackle the issue but thinks at its root it’s a reflection of social ills for which the technology industry can’t be held completely accountable. She adds that abuse isn’t just a problem for those who get it but also for those who are put off speaking out by it and the public who miss out on what they have to say. “I think women are socialised from birth to be liked and very likable, be a sweet girl, be a nice girl, be a lady. And because women tend to get most of the abuse … I worry that we are all putting out very bland things online just to get a thumbs up, just to get hearts, just to get likes … and you really want debate.” In a somewhat ironic twist, it was her role as a tech editor that led her to where she is now. “The reason I got into radio was because, when I got the first British interview with the Twitter founders, Ev [Williams] and Biz Stone before they ever got a PR, I got them slightly squiffy in a bar in San Francisco. I listened back to my tape that night in my hotel room and thought ‘God, that was a really good conversation. They were really funny, and now I’ve got to write it up. I wish someone could have heard that.’ And then I’m like, ‘hang on a minute, that exists. It’s called radio’. “It’s not like any other [medium] to me. You can go deeper, you can go further and you can also speak directly to people: that’s what makes it incredible. Your audience can interrupt you. And I hope they do.”
Manchester City will not give up title fight, says Manuel Pellegrini Manuel Pellegrini insists that Manchester City will not give up their Premier League title challenge despite Wednesday’s 3-0 defeat at Liverpool leaving the club 10 points behind Leicester City. The loss at Anfield was a third consecutive league reverse for City, Pellegrini’s side last claiming three points four weeks ago when Sunderland were beaten. Yet City have 11 games remaining – including a match in hand – and with bottom-place Aston Villa at the Etihad Stadium on Saturday the manager believes they can still claim the championship. “Remember the first season I was here, we needed to win the three games in hand and we won the three games,” he said. “Everyone said we were out of it but we won the games and won the title. This group of players will never give up while we have the option to do it. We have one game in hand but it’s more important not to think about that but just to improve our Premier League performance. “We are not going to give up – it’s a lot of points to the leaders. You never know when you are going to lose points. We must continue as far as we can and add the most amount of points we can, then we can see where we end up. We try to win every time we play – we just had a bad moment but we have another 33 points to try and arrange it.” City have 47 points and are separated from fifth-placed Manchester United only on goal difference. Asked how many points might be need to be crowned champions, Pellegrini said: “It’s impossible to guess the future. I said before the end of first round of leagues maybe the winner has less than 80 points. It’s impossible to know – I am sure the champions [will have] around 75 points or more.” Yaya Touré missed the loss at Liverpool but is fit return on Saturday. “Yaya has an important kick on his heel,” he said. That’s why he couldn’t play Wednesday but he’s OK.” This week the top-ranking executives of the so-called big five clubs – City, United, Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool – met organisers of the International Champions Cup, a pre-season tournament, and discussed potential changes to the Champions League. Pellegrini said: “In this moment the Champions League is very important and the Premier League is the best in the world so to make changes is not easy. Maybe they can be improved [a little]. I don’t think you can talk about any of this in just a few words.”
Acne and exam stress among factors leading young people to suicide, study finds Exam stress, acne and asthma are among the anxieties affecting children and young people who kill themselves, according to the first ever detailed national investigation of these cases. Between January 2014 and April 2015, there were 145 suicides in England by children and young people aged 10 to 19. An inquiry looking at 130 of the cases has found some common factors, or “antecedents”, which the researchers hope may help families, friends, teachers or others to become aware that a child is struggling. More than half (54%) of the 130 had self-harmed and 27% had expressed suicidal ideas in the week before they died, while in 16 cases (12%), they had searched online for information on it. But 43% had not been in contact with the health service or any other agency. More than a third (36%) had sought help for some sort of medical condition, the most common being acne and asthma, while 27% were dealing with academic pressures, says the report. Of the 20 young people facing current or pending exams or awaiting results, 11 were known to be stressed by their exams and four died on the day of an exam or the day after. More than a quarter of the young people (28%) had recently experienced the death of somebody close to them, and six had lost more than one. Nine had lost a parent, while 17 (13%) had experienced the suicide of either somebody in their family or a friend. More than a fifth (22%) had been bullied in previous months, mostly face to face (93%). Eight had been targeted by online bullying – as well as face to face or instead of it. Mostly the bullying had occurred more than three months before the person died, but in eight cases it was more recent. The findings come from the National Confidential Inquiry into Suicide and Homicide by People with Mental Illness, a collaboration of academics and other experts, who have collected data from Coroners’ inquests, official investigations and other case reviews. The report, summarised in a paper in the Lancet Psychiatry journal, is the first of its kind. “There haven’t been very systematic studies of a very young group,” said Prof Louis Appleby, director of the inquiry at the University of Manchester. “Suicide is one of the main causes of death but it is not at all common. What is happening in their lives? That is the question we started with.” The suicide rate is very low among the youngest children – there were 11 cases under the age of 15 in the year. But Appleby said: “Something happens to them in that five-year period from 15 to 20.” At each age after 15, there is a significant jump in the numbers, reaching 49 at the age of 19. Most – 70% – are male. The reasons for the rise are complex, he said. “There are often family problems such as drug misuse or domestic violence and more recent stresses such as bullying or bereavement, leading to a ‘final straw’ factor such as an exam or relationship breakdown.” The adolescent years are a turbulent time, he added. “The emotional resilience required to get you through is pretty strong,” said Appleby. “They are having to cope with quite a lot of changes in key parts of their lives.” Alcohol, drugs and mental health played a part in some of the older age group, but there were some more unexpected findings, such as the numbers who went to the GP for help over acne or asthma. “We were slightly surprised that these physical health conditions were quite prominent,” said Appleby. He thinks there is a link between the two conditions. “It is the impact on your social life – the social withdrawal when acne becomes an embarrassment or with asthma, the physical restriction which limits your contact with other people,” he said. Coroners’ reports had found these conditions significant enough to be mentioned. The finding that the majority of children and young people who killed themselves had self-harmed was important, said Sarah Brennan, chief executive of the charity YoungMinds. “This report provides a stark reminder that self-harm should never be dismissed as ‘attention-seeking’ or ‘just a phase’,” she said. “Although only a small proportion of young people who self-harm go on to feel suicidal, the fact that they are injuring themselves is a clear sign that they are experiencing terrible internal pain. “The good news is that there are things that parents and professionals can do to help: above all, stay calm, avoid being judgemental and reassure them that they can talk to you openly about how they are feeling.” She said it was “deeply alarming” that exam stress was a factor in many suicides. “It’s absolutely crucial that schools give as much focus to wellbeing as they do to academic achievement,” she said. Prof Nav Kapur, the inquiry’s head of suicide research said: “Self-harm is strongly associated with increased future risk of suicide and is one of the main warning signs. It is crucial that there is improved help for self-harm and access to mental health care. “However, with the variety of factors we found with this study, it is clear that schools, primary care, social services and youth justice all have a role to play.” A larger study looking at suicides up to the age of 25, with recommendations for further action, will be published next year. In the UK, the Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Hotline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14. Helplines in other countries can be found here
Premier League: 10 talking points from the weekend’s action 1) Long-term Matip injury would be significant Hands have been wrung and doom predicted about Philippe Coutinho’s injury, likely to keep him out of the Liverpool team until next month. And to an extent, rightly so: he has been their most impressive attacking threat this season, and the sight of that front four dovetailing has perhaps been the most pleasing in the division. However, the 4-3 defeat to Bournemouth on Sunday suggested that another injury absence might be more significant, namely Joël Matip. The Cameroonian centre-half has been a quiet, calm example of consistency, exactly the sort of thing that Liverpool missed against Bournemouth. The simple scoreline, plus a cursory viewing of the game, indicated Jürgen Klopp’s men will be okay scoring goals without Coutinho, but preventing them without Matip who has a minor ankle injury, could be more problematic. Nick Miller • Match report: Bournemouth 4-3 Liverpool • Klopp defends Karius after late collapse • Barney Ronay: Fraser inspires madcap turnaround 2) Ledley and Puncheon do the damage The mood at Selhurst Park after this result was of a corner turned. That, it seems fair to say, is a tad premature. Six defeats in a row do not happen by chance and Alan Pardew faces Manchester United and Chelsea after the crucial fixture at Hull City next weekend. But one distinct positive for Crystal Palace’s fans will have been the resilience shown by Pardew’s players in a disciplined win against Southampton. Key to the performance were three players who starred in Tony Pulis’s Palace incarnation: Damien Delaney, Joe Ledley and Jason Puncheon. Their play was characterised by hard work, physicality, and taking the right decisions at the right times. Delaney kept Charlie Austin shackled, Ledley unsettled Saints’ passing rhythm and it was a typically smart piece of anticipation from Puncheon that led to their third goal. It all added up to Palace never truly being threatened by Claude Puel’s misfiring side, who lost concentration at crucial moments. Paul MacInnes • Match report: Crystal Palace 3-0 Southampton • Pardew eases the pressure, then criticises owners 3) Mourinho losing his touch and United losing points The troubling thing about José Mourinho in the past 18 months or so is that new weaknesses keep emerging in his teams. His apparent ability to get players to do anything for him went west, as did defensive solidity, and now there is apparently a lack of mental fortitude. The late penalty conceded fairly clownishly by Marouane Fellaini, then converted by Leighton Baines, was the fifth goal Manchester United have conceded in the last 10 minutes of games this season, costing them eight points. Those points would have put them just one behind Manchester City and snapping around the Champions League places: as it is they are a fairly distant sixth. Mourinho protested after the game that in all his team’s six draws they have been the better side, but it’s not much use if they continually throw results and points away at the last. NM • Mourinho sticks to script after draw • Mkhitaryan finally makes case as a United player 4) Cleverley fails to impose himself on Everton team It was interesting that, in response to a series of lacklustre performances, Ross Barkley was the man dropped from the Everton side by Ronald Koeman against Manchester United. Yet whether you think his demotion was harsh or not, not many could defend the identity of his replacement. It was tricky not to feel sorry for Tom Cleverley, removed after 65 insipid minutes to the sound of cheers from his own fans, but you can also understand why those fans were happy to see him go. It’s seven years since he made his senior debut and, in that time, he hasn’t really made clear exactly what sort of player he is, and the question that poses itself is: what’s he for? The moment that seemed to irk the Goodison crowd most came when he played a backwards pass near the edge of the United area as an attack built, thus removing all momentum from it, and seemed to sum him up neatly. Perhaps Barkley does need a spell out of the team, but replacing him with Cleverley, a player for whom a sideways pass seems to represent the height of ambition, is not the way to go. NM • Match report: Everton 1-1 Manchester United 5) City have no excuse despite referee mistake Leaving aside the touchline fracas when the game was won, the major debate at the Etihad Stadium was over whether David Luiz should have stayed on the pitch long enough to be fouled by Sergio Agüero in the final minute. The fact that he was the last defender when he illegally blocked Agüero’s run on goal in the first half is not really the point. The rulebook makes no mention of last defender, despite the term’s common usage, focusing instead on whether a clear goalscoring opportunity has been denied. That is of course harder to judge, and it seemed to everyone present that Anthony Taylor bottled out of making a judgment by pretending nothing had happened. Doubtless the referee would have been criticised too had he dismissed David Luiz, because he was still a long way from goal, and there would have been even greater outrage had he booked the defender, which is the least the offence deserved, and let him stay on the field. Yet some sympathy for the official is possible. There is no room for compromise in these situations, referees must choose between all or nothing. Taylor chose nothing, perhaps wrongly. Manchester City still had an hour of football and the useful gift of an own goal to try to get over it. Paul Wilson • Match report: Manchester City 1-3 Chelsea • How Conte beat Guardiola in the battle of three-man defences 6) Burnley need to find goals fast The last time Burnley were in the Premier League, they won three games away from home, two of which were too little, too late efforts, with relegation already confirmed. They had a similar problem when they were in the top flight in 2009–10 too, that time winning just one, drawing one and losing the rest. The pattern seems to be repeating itself this season: the 2-0 defeat at Stoke on Saturday was their fifth reverse in six games on the road, and the only time they have avoided a loss was a goalless draw at Old Trafford at the end of October. Maybe even more troubling is that they have scored only once away from Turf Moor, a penalty consolation in a 3-1 defeat at Southampton. Sean Dyche was quick to criticise Stoke’s apparent gamesmanship and the refereeing on Saturday, but that is not the reason they’re falling down the table. NM • Match report: Stoke City 2-0 Burnley 7) More wins could lead to more Short money Sunderland’s manager smiled at the suggestion his players were starting to resemble a “David Moyes team”. It has taken time but Moyes is showing his ability by somehow making the Wearside team look much more than the sum of their parts. If specialist defensive tutorials with Lamine Koné and Papy Djilobodji have helped, his attacking work on Victor Anichebe has been transformative. Three vindicating wins in four games have bred optimism but, to maintain the upward trajectory, Moyes wants victory in a trio of key games this month against Swansea City, Watford and Burnley. Such success would represent more than the collection of nine crucial points; it might persuade Ellis Short, the club’s owner, to invest in much needed playing reinforcements next month. Short would welcome a takeover but securing one might involve a little speculating to accumulate, preferably starting with Yann M’Vila’s long awaited importation from Rubin Kazan. Louise Taylor • Match report: Sunderland 2-1 Leicester City • Koné’s return to form a factor in Sunderland’s renaissance 8) Past performance could be guide to Spurs’ gain Are Tottenham Hotspur ready to make their move again? When Spurs lost at Chelsea on the Saturday before last, their Premier League record stood at W6 D6 L1 and they sat fifth in the table, which was a mirror image of their numbers from the corresponding point of last season. Last time out they then drew at home against Chelsea, whereas on Saturday they hammered Swansea City. In other words, Spurs are statistically better off now than when compared with their superb season of 2015‑16. What happened last season was they went on an extraordinary run at around this time. Can Mauricio Pochettino’s team fashion a repeat? Their elimination from the Champions League was a blow but they could benefit from a clarity of domestic focus. Harry Kane is back from injury and firing and there were signs of greater collective fluency against Swansea. Pochettino’s players have tended to enjoy a physical dividend from his conditioning programme. He senses a turning point. David Hytner • Match report: Tottenham Hotspur 5-0 Swansea City 9) Evans and McAuley will give Costa a true test When Chelsea try to extend their Premier League winning sequence to nine matches on Sunday, they will be confronted by better defenders than they found at Manchester City on Saturday. Few teams have a central defence as strong as West Bromwich Albion’s Northern Irish-axis. Jonny Evans is a consummate defender whom John Stones, for instance, might have benefited from studying if Evans had not been deployed in midfield when City won at West Bromwich in October. And Gareth McAuley, who turns 37 on Monday, has played every minute of every league match for Albion this season and been superb for most of them: strong, savvy and like Evans, always liable to contribute a goal from set pieces. Watching Diego Costa – on excellent form himself – take on that pair at Stamford Bridge should be one of the highlights of next weekend. Paul Doyle • Match report: West Brom 3-1 Watford • West Brom’s ascent offers Pulis chance for added value 10) Wenger looks for consistency after difficult November Even if he famously banned Arsenal’s players from eating chocolate, Arsène Wenger must have been relieved to crack open his advent calendar on Thursday after another disappointing November. Their return of 1.7 points per game in the Premier League was a slight increase on previous years, but a costly Champions League draw against Paris Saint-Germain and the tame defeat of Wenger’s second string by Southampton in the EFL Cup last week showed his side remain vulnerable. The dismantling of a West Ham side in disarray was the perfect response, even if Arsenal’s manager knows there will be much stiffer tests ahead with trips to Everton and Manchester City to come this month. “Recently, we lost a little bit the quality of our game, and we started [to lose] a little bit with results,” he said. “A draw here, a draw there, a draw against PSG that was not completely convincing, and today we found the flow again. So I think we just have to concentrate on the quality of our game and try to repeat that week in, week out.” Ed Aarons • Match report: West Ham 1-5 Arsenal • Bilic bears burden of expectation as bubble bursts
Here’s the Donald Trump bandwagon, and Rupert Murdoch nimbly leaping aboard Son James back in the saddle at Sky; Rebekah back running the greater Bun empire. Plus ça change in Murdoch land – including the boss’s proclivity for backing winners (when he knows who they are). Thus he backed Blair when Tony was up and coming. Thus his McBun lauds Scot Nats north of the border, while doing something quite different south of it. It’s a simple ploy. Find a bandwagon then clamber aboard, claiming alleged influence as you do so. Last September, the tweeting Rupert loved Ben Carson, not The Donald. He called it a choice “between a land of hope and a land of fear”. Back at the ranch, his Wall Street Journal editorialists faithfully roasted Trump’s candidacy: Trump-loving conservative media were “hurting the cause”, they said. “If Donald Trump becomes the voice of conservatives, conservatism will implode along with him.” But now the Journal’s editorials sing a strangely different tune. “Mr Trump is a better politician than we ever imagined, and he is becoming a better candidate… He might possibly be able to appeal to a larger set of voters than he has so far.” And so on and oleaginously forth, while the greater tweeting Murdoch sings descant. “Trump appeals across party lines – surely the winning strategy.” The Donald, in short, looks more like a winner. Better fall into line fast (unless the row over Fox debates gets really out of hand). Mr M – risibly joining in the tax campaign against Google – likes to play global power broker in the world of short-term memory.
Evolution director Lucile Hadžihalilović: ‘The starfish was the one worry’ “I seem to have a bit of a problem with reality,” says Lucile Hadžihalilović. Or perhaps the French film-maker is just committed to a reality of her own. Her new film, Evolution, set on a mysterious island, is itself an enigmatic outcrop, far off cinema’s well-mapped charts. It depicts an uncanny world inhabited by young boys and their eerie mothers; curious medical procedures are carried out at the island’s hospital, placing the boys in uncomfortably close proximity with starfish. Part horror story, part visual poem, it shows why Hadžihalilović is one of the few authentic visionaries in cinema today. It also makes it clear why hers has not been the easiest career to pursue. Evolution comes a full 12 years after her first film, Innocence – itself a wistful nightmare, set in a girls’ school situated deep in a dark forest. Both films showcase an approach to sexuality and the corporeal that is, if not perverse, certainly nonconformist. They are films you would struggle to imagine on paper – which is why it took so long to get Evolution funded, she says. “People didn’t understand what the script was about. It’s a film about sensations, emotions – not storytelling – so people had to bring their imagination to the table. We really tried to explain it, but it’s the sort of film where, if you start, the whole thing collapses like a house of cards.” On one level, Evolution seems quite clear: part of the meaning is in the title, which alludes to humanity’s marine origins. Among other things, the film is a set of variations on every possible resonance of the French wordplay on la mer (sea) and la mère (mother). “I don’t approach any of that in a conscious way,” says Hadžihalilović, “but the film is full of archetypes and motifs that are there in our collective consciousness. The starfish isn’t a symbol of something, but it does have several meanings. They’re simple images, but complex ones.” Implicitly a parable of male puberty, Evolution seems a counterpart to Innocence, which evoked female coming of age in a similarly elusive manner. But Hadžihalilović never had a diptych in mind. “I’m not sure that Evolution really is about boys. I just wanted to tell a story about maternity and pregnancy, and I thought those things would seem a lot more strange and unsettling if it all happened to a boy. When I was 10, I couldn’t see much difference between being a boy and a girl, anyway.” In the decade after Innocence, Hadžihalilović struggled to finance Evolution, with another feature project falling apart in the meantime. She did, however, manage to make a characteristically intense 17-minute short called Nectar, a dialogue-free erotic reverie about bees, massage and the colour yellow: “Innocence was about puberty; Nectar is more about the menopause,” she laughs, leaving me to puzzle over exactly how. Evolution was eventually shot on Lanzarote, its rocky coasts giving the film a lunar visual tone. One reason for shooting there, Hadžihalilović says, was because French child protection agencies would never have accepted the film’s horror dimension, with children placed in terrible situations. Not that anything realistically grisly happens to the lead, 13-year old Max Brebant – but still, the story’s traumatic aspects must surely have been hard for the director’s child actors to accept. Not really, she says. “For them, it was just a fantasy world with monsters and all that – at that age, you feel totally at ease with that kind of thing. They never asked me anything about the story; maybe they were protecting themselves. The one thing that worried Max was when he had starfish placed on his body. When I first saw that image for real, even I found myself thinking: ‘OK, that’s actually a bit much.’ But he seemed quite at ease.” However, Hadžihalilović admits there was another scene that worried Max, in which an adult woman gives him the kiss of life. The film’s themes of puberty and (at least implicit) child sexuality may make Evolution a stumbling block for some viewers. Hadžihalilović has ventured on such risky ground before: Innocence played with storybook images of prepubescent girls. But Hadžihalilović always insisted that she was drawing on her own fantasies of idealised girlhood; she’s surely the only French film-maker ever to be influenced by Enid Blyton’s Malory Towers. For her, Innocence was entirely true to its title. “I was really surprised that people read any kind of perversity into it. I started to worry that that might contaminate Evolution too – but the real difficulty people had with that film was more to do with horror. Strangely, boys’ bodies seem to be less taboo in cinema than girls’. If we’d put little girls on the operating table instead, perhaps that would have been more shocking.” The word “shocking” isn’t really the operative one when it comes to Hadžihalilović’s work. She has a very different sensibility to that of her partner, French cinema’s arch-provocateur, Gaspar Noé. The pair started making films as a duo: he shot her debut mini-feature, La Bouche de Jean-Pierre, AKA Mimi (1996), and she edited and produced his early works Carne and I Stand Alone. They work separately these days, but Hadžihalilović was involved in the development of Noé’s trippy afterlife drama Enter the Void – “a script that took a really long time to write, even though people think it didn’t have a script at all”. Hadžihalilović, 54, grew up in Morocco, where her father – the surname is Bosnian – had moved from Yugoslavia. Aged 12, she started reading a lot of science fiction, notably Ray Bradbury and Theodore Sturgeon and then discovered horror writer HP Lovecraft, whose fascination with all things tentacular and aquatic is unmistakably imprinted on Evolution. Moving to France at 17, she studied art history, before graduating from the Paris film school La Fémis. “Perhaps 80% of my year was girls,” she says, “but very few went on to make films, I don’t know why.” Yet despite her difficulties in finding finance, her gender has never been the problem, she says. “It’s not because I’m a woman; it’s because I’m me. In France, the whole thing of imagination and metaphor really isn’t in the culture. People don’t mind if it comes from elsewhere, but if it’s from our country, that’s difficult.” In current French cinema, Hadžihalilović is pretty much out on her own limb with her commitment to the textures of the imagination. “Sometimes when you dream, the images are neutral, but they have a real emotional charge that doesn’t seem to fit,” she says. “That’s what I’m trying to capture. When I start a film, I never really know what it’s about, and I want to find out – to explore that zone of mystery.” This has left her feeling somewhat isolated as a film-maker, but she has found kindred spirits. Among them are Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani, the duo behind febrile neo-giallo oddity Amer. “For a long time, I never had a cinema family in France, apart from Gaspar. If I have cousins, it’s them, and people like [British director] Peter Strickland. I’ve never met him, but when I saw his last film [The Duke of Burgundy], it was as if someone had personally written me a letter.” She’s also passionate about Thai maestro Apichatpong Weerasethakul: “His films are always about very simple, concrete things, yet he turns them into something mythological.” Right now, Hadžihalilović is intrigued by the idea of telling a story rooted in a recognisable everyday environment. “I’d love to make a film that wasn’t set somewhere abstract like an island or a forest, but in Paris. But I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t be entirely realistic. My way of thinking just has a whole element of imagination that I can’t get rid of. And I don’t want to get rid of it, either.” Evolution is released in the UK on 6 May.
New Yorker deletes 'insensitive' Hillsborough tweet after online outrage The New Yorker has provoked fury by republishing a picture showing people being crushed against a fence at Hillsborough on the day an inquest into the 1989 tragedy found that 96 people were unlawfully killed. The black and white picture, which was used to illustrate a 2011 article about crowd control, was posted to the New Yorker’s Twitter account – which has more than 6.3 million followers – on Tuesday. It came just hours after the jury delivered the verdict in which they listed a catalogue of errors by police and ambulance services that led to the disaster. The New Yorker was condemned by Twitter users, with some describing the tweet as “insensitive” and calling for it to be removed. Others lambasted the New Yorker for apparently trying to cash in on the end of the two-year inquest. The tweet has since been removed. The New Yorker did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Swansea City’s owners to make huge profit with sale to US investors The owners of Swansea City, whose partnership with the supporters trust has long been hailed as ideal for a British football club, are set to make millions by selling their shares to American investors. The deal, signed in principle by the chairman, Huw Jenkins, values Swansea at around £100m, exactly 100 times more than the £1m paid for the club by the nine shareholders, including the trust, during and after a financial crisis in 2002. The agreement proposes the eight shareholders apart from the trust – which owns 21.1% of the club and whose elected director, Huw Cooze, was furious at being kept unaware of the negotiations – sell most of their shares to a consortium led by the US sports team investors Stephen Kaplan and Jason Levien. Intense discussions since have led to suggestions not all the shareholders will sell, and Levien and Kaplan may buy only a 60% stake, but their valuation, for a Premier League club awaiting the next tranche of vast TV fortunes starting next season, remains around £100m. So Jenkins’ 13.2% stake, which cost him £125,000 to buy, is valued at £13.2m. He is understood not to be planning to sell all his shares and is likely to remain the chairman if the takeover completes, because he is widely credited with having run the club with great acumen, alongside the other directors. The local hotelier Martin Morgan and his wife, Louisa, are the largest shareholders with a 23.7% stake, which cost £225,000 to buy; it is now valued by Kaplan and Levien at around £23.7m. Martin Morgan is said not to be intending to sell, and Levien may try to have separate discussions with Louisa Morgan, who controls more than half of their stake. One of the original 2002 investors, the South African businessman Brian Katzen, owns 10.5% of the club, as does his business partner, Jeffrey Crevoiserat; the stakes cost each man £100,000 when Swansea were floundering near the bottom of the Football League at a rundown Vetch Field, and are now valued at £10.5m each. Robert Davies, another original investor, also a financial backer of Swansea’s Ospreys rugby union region which shares the Liberty Stadium, also has a 10.5% stake. The Dutch investor John van Zweden, and Leigh Dineen, formerly the trust’s elected director who bought his own shares for £50,000, both have stakes of just over 5%, now valued at £5m. The millions to be made by the shareholders who do sell follow £4m already paid to them all in dividends over the past four years – £1m, in effect their original stakes repaid, each year from 2012-15 since Swansea have been in the Premier League. Paid proportionately according to their stakes, Jenkins has received more than £500,000; Martin and Louisa Morgan £900,000; Katzen, Crevoiserat and Davies £400,000 each, and Van Zweden and Dineen around £200,000 each. The trust, for its 21.1%, has been paid more than £800,000, which it has used to buy new shares and for a “rainy day” fund. Established as a mutual, democratic, not-for-profit body during Swansea’s 2001 financial crisis, with the help of the fan-ownership initiative Supporters Direct, the trust’s members who have provided contributions for the £200,000 investment cannot cash in personally if the trust ever sells. Cooze, who has told a trust forum he was “pretty damned hurt” at the secrecy of the negotiations, is now seeking to rebuild bridges with his co-directors and safeguard the trust’s position. Levien’s revised suggestion to buy 60% is intended to show the trust a preparedness to work with them, after supporters’ hostile reaction to the proposed acquisition of 75.1% control. Cooze and the trust’s chairman, Phil Sumbler, say they knew the other shareholders would sell at some point and are sanguine about them making so much money. They mostly want to know whether the sale to Levien and Kaplan, which Jenkins in his official statement said he believed “will help the club progress on and off the field”, will bring actual investment into the club itself. “There is no point in a deal without money for the club; that would just be a sale for the shareholders’ personal gain,” Sumbler said. He pointed out that supporters’ unpaid work and donations have contributed to Swansea’s remarkable revival over the past 15 years and massive increase in financial value. “The shareholders are mostly lifelong fans, and we have always believed throughout our partnership with them that they have the best interests of the club at heart.” Levien, a lawyer, is the managing general partner of Washington’s Major League Soccer team, DC United, having previously been involved at three NBA basketball franchises, including the Memphis Grizzlies, to which he introduced Kaplan as an investor. Kaplan, the principal of Oaktree Capital investment fund, is thought to be the largest proposed investor in the acquisition, with several others so far not named. Levien has been assuring people they have substantial money and are not financing the deal with debt. In meetings with the shareholders in Swansea last week, Levien is understood to have emphasised their plan is to develop the club but has not made firm promises that the consortium will invest new money of their own for signing players or expanding the stadium. Like other US investors increasingly taking over clubs, Levien and Kaplan are attracted by the Premier League’s success, the huge TV income, expected to be £8bn across the league for the three years from next season, and the prospect of growth in popularity and earnings, particularly in America, over the next 10-15 years. The US culture of sports team ownership is much more avowedly commercial than British football’s traditional local “benefactor” shareholders, who have mostly sold out in the Premier League years. Investors in American sports seek to make money by growing their franchises commercially and therefore increasing their value, and that of their own stakes. Levien and Kaplan’s plan is to do the same at Swansea, and promoting the club in the US is thought to be a key feature of the proposed deal. All of which is a world away from the crumbling, loss-making club the shareholders, galvanised by the trust and wider supporter efforts, bought for £20,000 in January 2002, putting the rest of the money in to pay off debt. Chroniclers of Swansea’s spectacular upward flight since occasionally miss out two key boosts: a company voluntary arrangement, by which creditors settled for only 5p in every pound, and the great gift of the £27m Liberty Stadium, which is still owned by the local council. Now, as thousands of jobs locally are threatened in the Port Talbot steelworks, the Swansea City shareholders’ proposed gains highlight again modern football’s stand-out riches, in increasingly post-industrial cities where the clubs evolved more than a century ago. Jenkins and Dineen declined to comment on the proposed sale, citing confidentiality agreements. Katzen said of his original motivation that he was keen on football and the challenge, and said they were all determined to make progress and run the club as a business, but never envisaged the success they have had, and these exponential profits. “It has been 15 years, a lot of work; it’s not a quick buck,” Katzen said. “Nobody expected to get anything out of the club at the beginning.”
Bob Diamond's interest in Barclays Africa confirmed Former Barclays chief executive Bob Diamond is part of a consortium that is preparing to bid for the bank’s African operations, it has been confirmed. “The consortium has committed long-term strategic investors. The funding is in place. There is support for this potential transaction,” Diamond told investors in the London-listed African based bank, Atlas Mara, which he formed after being forced out of Barclays in the wake of the Libor-rigging crisis in 2012. Diamond’s involvement in the consortium, which includes the private equity firm Carlyle, was revealed in a stock market announcement by Atlas Mara after days of speculation about his interest in trying to buy shares in Barclays’ African business. Barclays will face questions about its plans to reduce its 62.3% stake in Barclays Africa - which is listed on the Johannesburg stock exchange and has interests in banks across the African continent - when it publishes its first quarter results on Wednesday. Diamond did not provide details about the size of any offer for the Barclays African operations, but he is expected to need to raise around $5bn (£3.5bn). Barclays’ new boss Jes Staley announced last month he wanted to cut the 62.3% stake in the African business to reduce the complexity of its operations and to save capital. Atlas Mara, which has operations in seven African countries, indicated that it expected to be taken over by the the consortium if a deal was struck. “In the event that the consortium reaches a definitive agreement with Barclays in relation to Barclays Africa, it is expected that Atlas Mara will enter into substantive discussions about the potential combination with the consortium,” Atlas Mara said. “Given the significant complexity and early stage of the discussions with the consortium, there can be no assurance that the transactions discussed above, including the potential combination, will be completed.” Diamond is working on the consortium with Ashish Thakkar, whose Mara conglomerate also backed the creation of Atlas Mara. Atlas Mara is worth a third of what it was when it was floated in December 2013.
The Simpsons imagines the terrors of Trump as president in fake election ad America’s first family has finally weighed in on the upcoming presidential election. No, not the Obamas, who made their feelings plain at the Democratic convention last week – the Simpsons. The long-running Fox comedy show released a short clip on YouTube late on Sunday night, showing Homer and Marge Simpson watching a political advertisement on late-night television in order to settle who they plan to vote for. The ad in question follows the format of Hillary Clinton’s famous “3am” spot from the 2008 Democratic presidential primary, with a severe voiceover asking the animated couple “who [they] want answering the call”. In one version, the proverbial 3am call is answered by former president Bill Clinton, who is ruefully forced to admit that the call is for his wife. “From now on, it’s always for me,” the former secretary of state snaps at her husband. But the most scathing humor of the spot is saved for Donald Trump, portrayed as a pasty, bald autocrat reading a book of Adolf Hitler’s speeches when the call comes in. “Not now – I’m on Twitter!” Trump says, before mocking Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren, whom he apparently has exiled from the United States. After instructing his lackeys to put his name on the Lincoln Memorial, disband Nato and “make Chris Christie eat a worm just for laughs”, Trump finally answers the phone call requesting his immediate presence in the Situation Room, but requires a pit crew of beauticians to attend to his appearance before he leaves. Eight and a half hours later, after a spray tan, collagen injections, the application of large prosthetic hands and the placement of a small dog on his head, Trump is finally ready – but too late to stop the advance of Chinese military vessels. “Just build another wall!” Trump commands. “Yes, in the ocean – loser.” Following the ad, paid for by “Americans Who Are Really Starting to Miss Obama,” Homer and Marge both decide to vote for Clinton – although oafish Homer still has his doubts.
Captain Britain would fight to remain in EU, says superhero's creator He’s the champion of the United Kingdom, the country’s first Marvel superhero, resplendent in union flag costume – but how would Captain Britain vote in the EU referendum? He is firmly in the remain camp, according to the writer who helped create him 40 years ago, Chris Claremont, amid unconfirmed reports that the superhero could be revived by Marvel in a new TV programme. “He would definitely vote for the UK to stay in Europe,” the veteran comics scribe said. “From his perspective, we don’t move ahead by building a wall around our bit of the global village.” Captain Britain was created by Claremont and the artist Herb Trimpe at the behest of Marvel Comics’ founder, Stan Lee, who wanted to test the water in the 1970s with a British answer to Captain America. Britain had a strong tradition of reprinting old Marvel strips such as the Avengers and the Fantastic Four in black-and-white weekly editions, but this was the first original character created for Marvel UK. In the comics, Captain Britain’s alter ego is Brian Braddock, the son of an aristocratic family living in Maldon, Essex, who had fallen somewhat on hard times – though Braddock was still educated at the private Fettes College in Edinburgh. He gets his new identity when he is confronted by a vision of Merlyn (a Marvel character claiming to be the Merlin of British legend), who grants him the abilities to become Britain’s super-powered champion. And that means being the champion for all Brits - including immigrants, says Claremont. “He would see it as the point being not to lock people out of the country, but finding a way to make everyone feel welcome whoever they are.” Captain Britain was rebooted in the 1980s by the British writer Alan Moore and the artist Alan Davies, giving him a new costume that was reminiscent of classic British military pomp, and sent on an epic adventure across multiple parallel Earths. In 1988 Claremont returned to the character, teaming up with Davies for the US Marvel title Excalibur, which involved Captain Britain leading a super-team based in London comprising members of the X-Men and his sister Betsy. Claremont believes Captain Britain’s experiences across the parallel universes – where he encountered multiple alternate versions of himself – would make him realise the value of being in the European Union. He said: “From Captain Britain’s point of view we live in a great, heavily populated omniverse and our reality is just one part of that. In each of the parallel worlds there is a lighthouse on every shore of every England where the champion has his base. “His role is to see the bigger picture and to stand up as an exemplar of things worth fighting for, to foster a sense of commonwealth. Captain Britain is not about representing an empire, he’s about standing up for everyone and fighting for the betterment of all. That’s not such a bad ethos for a super-hero.”
Manchester Building Society's future in doubt after it reports loss The long-term future of Manchester Building Society has been thrown into doubt after it reported a loss for 2015 and warned of “material uncertainty”. David Harding, its chairman, said the board was doing all it could to save the building society. “Although there is uncertainty regarding the long-term future of the society, we continue to put the best interests of our members first,” he said. “The board is developing a number of options which, individually or in combination, are reasonably expected to secure the future of the society, to enable it to continue to meet capital requirements and to improve the quality of its regulatory capital.” The building society swung to a £4.9m loss in 2015, following a £4.5m profit in 2014. It is in the process of winding down its mortgage book, offering no new loans. Its loan book fell to £331m last year from £387m a year earlier. A spokesman for Manchester Building Society said it still had about 4,000 mortgage borrowers, as well as about 18,000 savings accounts. Last year, the mutual wrote to savers with more than £75,000 in their accounts, warning them that the maximum amount protected under a national compensation scheme would fall in 2016 to £75,000 from £85,000. The amount was cut because of changes in the exchange rate, and all banks and building societies were required to write to those customers with more than £75,000. Savers are protected by the financial services compensation scheme (FSCS), which pays out if a bank or building society fails and is unable to refund deposits. Recent building society troubles have not resulted in the FSCS having to step in as larger building societies have taken on customers. In 2008, Nationwide rescued the Derbyshire and Cheshire building societies, while Yorkshire has taken on the accounts of Norwich & Peterborough, Barnsley and Chelsea. Manchester Building Society was founded in 1922 and has one branch, on Manchester’s Queen Street. Problems at the mutual date back to 2013, when it was required by new accounting standards to change the treatment of its long-term mortgage book and related interest-rate hedges. The changes had a negative impact on its financial position. The society said it was exploring a number of possible options to secure its future, including a capital injection from other parties or a merger. “The board expects to develop these plans over the next few months. These plans may involve third parties and as such carry execution risk. “Whilst an assessment of the different options has not yet been completed the board is satisfied that it is reasonable to expect a successful outcome.”
Philip Hammond presents the 2016 autumn statement – as it happened For six years George Osborne, as chancellor, David Cameron and all their ministerial colleagues were able to bulldoze through opposition to their policies by asserting that they had a “long-term economic plan”. It passed the test of all good soundbites by becoming so familiar as to be groan-inducing. In some respects the term was misleading, because Osborne missed his targets and had to rejig his plans, but the claim that the Conservatives were on a path towards eliminating the deficit seemed to impress the public and this strategy helped Osborne and Cameron to win the 2015 general election. Today Philip Hammond consigned the LTEP to the dustbin. In truth, it collapsed the day the UK voted for Brexit but Hammond had to tell MPs that the EU referendum result has blasted a huge hole in the national finances and he has all but abandoned any hope of getting the budget into surplus on his watch. Osborne’s targets have been abandoned, the government plans to carry on borrowing and spending (the autumn statement envisages a fiscal loosening of almost £9bn by 2021-22) and, although the Treasury hopes to balance the budget in the 2020s, it won’t say when this might happen. All of this is quite sensible, but it is not the economic prudence that won the Tories the 2015 election. In the past governing parties have been consigned to opposition for a decade or more for economic mismanagement on this scale. But there is no sign of this happening to the Conservatives. Cameron did not ask the country to vote for Brexit, and nor did Hammond, or Theresa May. Hammond’s political authority remains intact. Yet the autumn statement will have disappointed those who expected May’s “Jam”-focused government to be quite different from Cameron’s. When she became prime minister in July May said she would focus her attention on those just about managing (the Jams). Today was her first big chance to strike out in a new direction but, although the statement contained some progressive measures (eg universal credit and letting agents’ fees), what was striking was the continuity with Osborne, not the contrast. How much difference has she made? Just 7%, according to a Resolution Foundation analysis. (See 5.33pm.) That’s all from us for tonight. Thanks for the comments. Philip Hammond buried the government’s goal of balancing the nation’s budget in this parliament today -- and the financial markets didn’t bat an eyelid. The pound has jumped by one percent against the euro today, to €1.18 -- a ten-week high. It’s also higher against the dollar tonight too, up half a cent at $1.245. That’s might surprise you -- surely the news that Britain needs to borrow an extra £122bn to rise out the Brexit storm should spark a sterling crisis? But no. The City is welcoming Hammond’s new spending plans. OK, today’s figures are small potatoes compared to Donald Trump’s $1trn infrastructure plan -- but they should mean growth isn’t as weak over the next few years as feared. Hammond took some pleasure in pointing out that Britain is still expected to grow as fast as its eurozone rivals next year, even after today’s downgrade to 1.4%. The £122bn of extra borrowing announced today may take some swallowing, though. UK borrowing costs have risen today, as traders anticipate more UK gilts hitting the market (bond yields rise when prices fall). We’ve also seen that almost half that fiscal black hole is directly due to Brexit, with the OBR saying leaving the EU will cost £58.7bn over the next five years. That includes a £16bn hit from lower migration (see earlier chart). Something to consider when policymakers weigh up the cost of a hard Brexit, vs one that gives better access to the single market. The public face an earnings squeeze over the next two years, when inflation is likely to rise nearly as fast as earnings. But the FT’s Sarah O’Connor points out that we might avoid falling real wages, if the OBR isn’t too optimistic... And the big picture hasn’t really changed; Britain’s economy is still suffering from low productivity and a debt hangover from the 2008 crisis, with Brexit casting another shadow. Richard Buxton, head of UK Equities at Old Mutual Global Investors, warns that we should remain cautious: In my view, substantial risks to the UK’s economy remain, bringing into question an implicit suggestion that animal spirits will suddenly rise in the years ahead. As it stands, the country continues to face the same uncertainties that triggered such a sharp decline in the value of sterling in the aftermath of the EU referendum vote. This is from the BBC’s Andrew Neil. Leave Means Leave has, curiously, chosen not to challenge the OBR analysis of the impact of Brexit in its autumn statement reaction (see 5.44pm), but Patrick Minford, co-chair of Economists for Brexit, has taken it on. He has put out this statement. The OBR’s report issued today contains a number of assumptions around the impact of Brexit which simply follows the path of countless other establishment bodies, which have assumed a pessimistic outlook for the UK economy outside the EU, based on bad economic policy-making . Whilst it acknowledges the fact that the decision of the government’s chosen path is uncertain, it then applies what amounts to an arbitrary Brexit penalty on the UK economy without any proper justification. Why does it assume lower productivity, a spending slowdown due to uncertainty and lower immigration? The work of Economists for Brexit has shown in each of these cases the reverse to be true. Our forecasts show that there is a positive impact of being outside of the single market and embracing free trade under WTO rules, creating an additional 4% GDP over the long term; recent outturns for the second and third quarters have shown clearly that there is no uncertainty effect; and on immigration our estimates are that unskilled migrants cost a total of £6.6 billion a year. Clearly, better control of unskilled workers, whilst continuing to encourage skilled migration can only have a positive economic impact. . These bodies tried to forecast economic disaster based on uncertainty before, in the months leading up to and just after the referendum, when uncertainty was at its highest. Yet there is no sign that there was any economic effect. So it is illogical in the extreme to forecast further disaster owing to uncertainty, just as the picture is becoming clearer. Of course it is true that if bodies like the OBR push out continual gloomy statements, if Downing Street gives no direction and if, when it does take a lead, takes Britain down the worst possible economic path then all this could come true. But, just as they did in the spring and the summer, they are mistaking the very worst outcome for a sensible forecast. Ashwin Kumar, chief economist at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, says poor households faces a tough 2017, with inflation likely to devour wage rises. Previously announced benefit cuts will wipe out the benefits announced today, Kumar explains: “Many families will gain by modest amounts of a few pounds a week from the reduction in the Universal Credit taper rate and the rise in the income tax personal allowance. However these gains will be dwarfed by much bigger cuts to work allowances imposed by George Osborne in April this year. A couple with two children each earning £25,000 a year will see a benefit of £588 a year from the income tax and universal credit taper changes, but will lose £1,308 from the benefit freeze and the cut in Universal Credit work allowances. John Low, chief executive of the Charities Aid Foundation, fears that charities will face an increased burden as economic growth slows.... “We know that during uncertain times charities are increasingly relied upon to support those in most need. In recent years charities have experienced rising demand for their services while resources have been increasingly stretched. More here: Here is some reaction to the autumn statement from thinktanks. From Torsten Bell, director of the Resolution Foundation The big picture today is the new chancellor accepting a major increase in borrowing, partly off the back of the Brexit vote, and choosing to increase it further with an expensive but welcome increase in capital spending. The result is £122bn additional borrowing, with national debt reaching 90 per cent of GDP next year. The outlook for family finances that lies behind the big growth and borrowing figures is also bleak, with average earnings set to be £830 lower by the end of the parliament than previously forecast. Despite increasing borrowing elsewhere, the chancellor has left the big welfare cuts intact and chosen not to provide significant support for the just managing families that Theresa May has rightly said she is focused on. The double whammy of lower earnings and benefit cuts mean that the poorest third of households are now set to face a parliament of falling living standards. In the months and years ahead the key task facing the government is to turn that situation around. From Ashwin Kumar, chief economist at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation 2017 is going to be a tough year as wages will barely grow faster than prices. Whilst there will be modest gains for some people from today’s Autumn Statement, for most people on below-average incomes, these will be dwarfed by previously announced cuts to benefits. With average wage growth predicted to be 2.4% and prices forecast to go up by 2.3%, most families will not feel much better off. The increase in the minimum wage will bring some relief to those on the lowest earnings, although even this is lower than predicted last March. Many families will gain by modest amounts of a few pounds a week from the reduction in the universal credit taper rate and the rise in the income tax personal allowance. However these gains will be dwarfed by much bigger cuts to work allowances imposed by George Osborne in April this year. A couple with two children each earning £25,000 a year will see a benefit of £588 a year from the income tax and universal credit taper changes, but will lose £1,308 from the benefit freeze and the cut in Universal Credit work allowances. The majority of the benefit from the income tax changes will go to better-off families, and the Treasury’s own documents say that it will cost £2bn in 2017/18. Spent otherwise, these funds could have made a significant difference to families who are just about managing. From the Institute of Economic Affairs This was a thin and fiddly statement, so it’s a relief that the chancellor has found one area of government activity to cut in abolishing the autumn statement. Sadly though, he has abandoned any attempt to balance the books. Over the next five years the government will be adding over £233bn to the national debt, as much as the entire annual welfare bill. Fiscal rules to this government sadly seem to be no more than vague aspirations which are abandoned with impunity. On the upside, the chancellor does seem to realise, however, that there’s no need to implement policy for the sake of it. A boring budget statement is better than a gimmicky one. From Emran Mian, director of the Social Market Foundation This was a continuity autumn statement - deficit reduction while delivering the manifesto and a productivity plan. It’s essentially Osbornomics plus £100n of extra borrowing. We must wait for the major policy changes - for instance, the new industrial strategy - as well as the government’s plans for Brexit. There is a risk that driving immigration down to ‘tens of thousands’ could cause the public finances to deteriorate even further than the OBR’s new forecasts predict. From Catherine Colebrook, chief economist at the IPPR At the beginning of his speech the chancellor made the now familiar claim that the British economy is in a strong condition. But the rest of his speech gave the lie to this. As he then admitted, UK investment and productivity are far below our major competitors, we have a record trade deficit, an unsustainable fiscal gap between projected tax receipts and public expenditure, and a regionally deeply unbalanced economy between London and the Southeast and the rest of the country. What he did not say, but was made clear during the EU referendum campaign, is how unequal the distribution of income and wealth has become. It is time that the national debate about the economy reflected these fundamental weaknesses. Tackling them will require a far more profound change to policy than the measures the Chancellor announced today. From Claudia Wood, chief executive at Demos No one is in any doubt that the government has a sizeable challenge trying to boost economic growth against a backdrop of ongoing instability caused by Brexit. At the same time, the government’s commitment to the JAMs - perhaps in part recognising many voted to leave the EU as an expression of their frustration with the statue quo - necessitates spending in areas that matter most to them. This seems to be the approach Hammond is taking - popular giveaways such as the fuel duty freeze mixed with investment for growth. It seems incongruous, however, that we should be raising 40% tax bracket at all, helping as it does those at the upper end of the income scale while reducing the government’s tax take. Here is the comment on the autumn statement sent out by Leave Means Leave, the successor to Leave.EU. It is from John Longworth, Leave Means Leave’s co-chair. We’re quoting it in full. It does not mention the OBR analysis of the impact of Brexit at all. The chancellor has made a good start on the road to making the British economy the best in the world. Investing in infrastructure and research and development, improving access to finance – particularly for tech companies which ensures they do not have to sell out to foreign competitors, and funding for the Oxford – Cambridge expressway are all very positive announcements. This is a solid base on which to build and crystalise the huge benefits Brexit brings to our country. Through signature ready trade deals, tariff reduction and removal, deregulation that will feel like a tax cut for UK businesses and real tax cuts - Brexit will enable the UK economy to thrive. The fringe benefit of Brexit is that the chancellor will have to make the UK the best country in the world to do business. His task now is to build confidence in the UK economy. He has a golden opportunity to improve further the strong economic forecasts and make Britain thrive, thanks to Brexit. Further OBR detail shows that the 80,000 a year reduction in net migration expected to follow the Brexit vote will cost Britain £16bn over the next five years. The OBR tables show that the reduction in net migration will come as a result of a tighter net migration policy and the UK becoming a less attractive place for migrants will cost the UK economy. It estimates that cut in migration will cost the UK economy £0.8bn in 2016/17 rising to £5.9bn a year by 2020/21. This is a total of £16bn over the next five years. Buried on page 160 of its report, the OBR makes the surprising prediction that Britain will be paying more to the EU in 2018-19 and beyond, despite Brexit. The watchdog has calculated that the fall in the pound will push up the UK’s contributions to the EU budget (which are paid in euros), by £800m in 2018-19 and 2019-20, and £900m in 2020-21. But shouldn’t Britain have stopped paying into the EU from March 2019? Not according to the OBR; it believes payments will continue, if Britain wants to keep access to, say, the single market. The Government has said it wishes to negotiate a bespoke arrangement with the EU. That may or may not include agreeing to contribute to the EU budget to retain some of the benefits that it has enjoyed from membership. Britain could also have to contribute to Brussels’ pension pot, and the European Investment Bank. And if British universities lose EU grants, the government may have to step in instead, the OBR adds. David Finch from the Resolution Foundation says the autumn statement reverses only 7% of the losses affecting the poorest half of households during this parliament. As Sky’s Faisal Islam points out, the autumn statement document shows that the government’s “welfare cap” (a spending limit for certain welfare payments) is being relaxed. Why? Because, as the OBR report says, the government is on course to miss the current limit by 7% by the end of this parliament. And the ‘welfare cap’ requires a subset of welfare spending to be held below a cash limit set in July 2015, but we now expect this to overshoot by more than 7 per cent by 2020-21. Caroline Lucas, the Green party’s co-leader, criticised Philip Hammond for not mentioning climate change in the autumn statement. She said: With Trump’s election this could have been a moment for Britain to become a world-leader in the fight against catastrophic climate change but, instead, we see little evidence of a commitment to facing up to the greatest challenge of our times. Indeed, it is shameful that the chancellor failed to even mention climate change in his speech. By caving into the motor lobby and freezing fuel duty again for the seventh year in a row the government has made a mockery of the fact that it is the hottest year on record and condemned us to more carbon emissions and deadly pollution. And here is Mark Reckless, a member of the Welsh assembly, responding to the autumn statement on behalf of Ukip. Despite the fearsome predictions of remain supporters, the overall prognosis for the economy is good, as we knew it would be. The official forecast is that unemployment in 2020 after we have left the EU will be just 860,000. This administers the last rites to the infamous claim that 3m jobs would be lost if we left the EU. We are borrowing too much, £68bn this year, £59bn next, and £122bn more than planned across the forecast period. The government has talked tough on austerity but failed to match its words with deeds. Every month the government delays Brexit costs the exchequer over a billion pounds. UKIP says just get on with it. Here is Tim Farron, the Lib Dem leader, on the autumn statement. This is a government that is just about managing. The official figures have revealed a £220bn Brexit black hole- hundreds of billions taken out our economy when we need it most. Given how bad the outlook is, it’s no wonder the chancellor doesn’t want to have to do another autumn statement. The OBR figures forecast a rise a unemployment and a fall in living standards. We are seeing a drop in tax receipts of £8.2bn over the next two years alone. That’s enough to fund over 330,000 nurses. In response the chancellor offered nothing but reheated headlines and recycled announcements. The autumn statement was greeted with dismay within the education sector, which has been vociferously complaining about severe and worsening funding pressures in schools, with courses being cut, jobs lost and some sixth forms forced to close. In contrast to George Osborne’s budget in March where education was at the forefront of his announcements, education was barely mentioned in the statement, bar the chancellor’s confirmation of new capital funding to support the expansion of existing grammar schools - first announced in September. Treasury documents released after the statement said the government was committed to spending £50m in each year from 2017-18 on its grammar school expansion plan as part of its promise to ensure every child had access to a good school place. School leaders were unimpressed. Malcolm Trobe, interim general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said the chancellor had failed to address the cash crisis in schools. The situation is so serious that some are struggling to deliver a full curriculum, courses are having to be cut and some sixth forms are closing. Russell Hobby, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, expressed similar disappointment. We know that school budgets are being pushed beyond breaking point. Almost nine out of ten school leaders are telling us that a rise in national insurance employer contributions and pension contributions are the key reasons behind financial pressures in their school. Freezing budgets at a time of rising costs is no protection at all. Capital investment in grammar schools is the wrong priority, and a distraction from the most important issues in education. Our economics editor Larry Elliott says that the autumn statement contained some important self truths about the UK economy: Philip Hammond’s message was stark and clear. The result of the EU referendum in June means the economy has arrived at a reality checkpoint. Deep-seated weaknesses will be exposed as the government negotiates a Brexit divorce between now and 2019. The chancellor was candid about Britain’s woefully poor productivity record. He admitted that infrastructure was deficient. There was no attempt to disguise the fact that there is a prosperity gap between London and other major cities. He used his autumn statement to address some of these long-term issues rather than to provide immediate help to the “just about managing” households, the so-called Jams, championed by the prime minister. To be sure, there was the pre-announced increase in the national living wage, the inevitable freezing of fuel duties for a seventh straight year and a change to universal credit to make the cuts announced by his predecessor less severe. Most of George Osborne’s welfare savings will go ahead, however, with Hammond deciding the best way to help the Jams is through an economy that generates higher-paid jobs. He has also left money in the bank in case he needs it during what are certain to be tricky times for the economy during the two-year article 50 process.... More here: The Welsh government’s finance secretary, Mark Drakeford, said the extra funding for Wales promised by the chancellor went some way to restoring cuts to its capital budget over recent years. The autumn statement included more than £400m of additional capital funding for Wales between 2016-17 and 2020-21 and £35.8m of revenue funding between over the same period. Drakeford said: As a government, we have been clear about the importance of investing in Wales’ infrastructure – in these uncertain times this is more important than ever. This is why we called on the UK government to boost investment to support economic growth. Although today’s announcement doesn’t go as far as we had hoped, this extra investment goes some way to restoring the cuts we have seen to our capital budget over recent years. Last month the Labour-led government published its investment priorities for the next four years. This included delivering an M4 relief road in south Wales and create Metro systems in the south and north. Big decisions on energy have been bumped to a future budget. The fate of a future cap on subsidies for green energy such as offshore windfarms is now due in the spring budget next year, the autumn statement says. The chancellor said a carbon tax which is driving coal power plants to close would be kept at current levels until 2020, but failed to set out its long term plan (something George Osborne promised in the spring that this budget would do). As some commentators pointed out, today offered no clarity for the energy sector beyond the short term. Any promise of a crackdown on energy companies, as teased by Theresa May in her conference speech and recently by business secretary Greg Clark, will also wait for another day. “We will look carefully over the coming months” at the retail energy market, Hammond said. And there’s no news of the government’s long-awaited plan on how it’ll meet its carbon targets - all we hear from the autumn statement is that officials will keep on chatting to “stakeholders” to develop the blueprint. The plot thickens.... the Department for Business is now briefing that there’s NO new contingent liability with Nissan. So why wouldn’t the Treasury tell the OBR that?! The TUC says the autumn statement shows working people will lose £1,000 a year by 2020. TUC economist Geoff Tilly explains in a blog: Overall real earnings are now expected to rise by only £23 a week between 2015 and 2020; at the budget they were expected to rise by £41. This difference of £18 a week amounts to nearly £1000 a year (£955). And here is a statement from the TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady. Today’s OBR forecast shows that the average annual wage will be £1,000 lower in 2020 than predicted at the Budget. And this is on top of wages still having not recovered to their 2007 levels. This is yet another blow to ordinary working people’s standard of living. And far from being focussed on ‘just about managing’ families, this shows up the government’s plans as inadequate. In his statement Philip Hammond announced various measures to increase housebuilding, including a £2.3bn housing infrastructure fund to build infrastructure to new homes. But, according to the OBR, the autumn statement measures will cut residential investment. The autumn statement includes a number of policies that are likely to affect housebuilding and residential investment. Dropping the requirement for housing associations to move to a shared ownership model and abandoning plans to force higher rents on some tenants will both reduce the cash inflows available for housebuilding. Partly offsetting that, additional grant funding and other smaller measures will increase cash inflows and boost housebuilding. The net effect is to reduce cumulative housebuilding by housing associations by around 13,000 over the forecast period, with a boost next year becoming a drag by 2019-20. The government’s refusal to disclose what, if anything, it has promised Nissan about Brexit is causing quite a row. The Independent’s Rob Merrick has asked the OBR whether the government has actually broken the law; the watchdog thinks not, but is keen that everyone knows about the Treasury’s reticence: Economist Alastair Smith, the former vice-chancellor of Sussex University, suspects Nissan has indeed been promised some sort of secret financial help (in case it suffers from Brexit, perhaps through new tariffs on exports to Europe) Tax specialist lawyer Jolyon Maugham is also rather surprised by the government’s stance: The OBR says that if it hadn’t been for the Brexit vote their projection for annual net migration to Britain would have been 80,000 a year higher at 312,000 in 2017 falling to 265,000 by 2021 and contributed around 0.2 percentage points each year to potential growth in the economy. They estimate that this net migration factor alone accounts for 0.9 percentage points of their judgement that the EU referendum has reduced potential output by 2.4 percentage points. Instead they assume that annual net migration, currently running at 330,000, will fall to 232,000 in 2017 and 185,000 by 2021. This is still far higher than Theresa May’s declared object of getting net migration down below 100,000 a year. The OBR asked the government to detail how its post-Brexit migration policy will operate but unsurprisingly ministers did not feel able to share any further detail and so the OBR felt unable to make any lower assumption for net migration: “In the absence of more policy detail and evidence of how much weaker the ‘pull’ effect (of Britain becoming a less attractive destination) we do not think it would sensible to move to a lower assumption now.” Drive, baby, drive - that was the message from chancellor Philip Hammond’s autumn budget statement, with more money paving the way to new roads and a freeze on fuel tax. These steamroller the funds offered for electric cars. That’s a problem, as the UK already has an air pollution crisis that causes tens of thousands of early deaths - more traffic will only make it worse. Furthermore, rising transport emissions are one of the biggest obstacles to the nation meeting its legal targets for cutting carbon emissions. But then neither climate change or the environment merited a single mention in Hammond’s speech. Nor did green energy, support for which is set to fall off a cliff in 2021, or energy efficiency measures for the UK’s many leaky homes. The chancellor extolled the benefits of certainty to business and Britain’s expertise in “disruptive technologies”, but these claims will feel very hollow to those trying to build a clean, green economy fit for the 21st century. They were almost entirely ignored. More here: British workers face a sharp earnings squeeze next year, says the OBR, as the weaker pound drives up inflation. The watchdog predicts that inflation will wipe out almost all pay rises in 2017. The fall in the pound will squeeze households’ real incomes by pushing up import prices. We expect the pound’s fall to add almost 2 per cent to the level of consumer prices over the next two years, relative to our March assumption. Real earnings growth will consequently fall close to zero next year. That squeeze is expected to hold back real private consumption growth in 2017 and 2018. Wages are currently rising by around 2.4% per year; and the OBR expects inflation to hit 2.5% in 2018 (corrected) This chart, from Torsten Bell of Resolution Foundation, shows how workers will take home £16 per week less than expected in 2020-21 (due to higher inflation and weaker pay growth). That’s £830 per year. And in the Commons George Osborne, the former Conservative chancellor, told his successor that he was right to “keep his powder dry” (ie, not increase spending too much now) because of the risk that he might need to revive the economy in the future. He said: Can I warmly congratulate my friend and successor on a strong statement and an assured delivery. The independent OBR has given us a very sober assessment of the economic and borrowing challenges that Britain faces and the chancellor is right to keep his powder dry. In the Commons Ed Miliband, the former Labour leader, told Philip Hammond that, although Hammond told the Tory conference that people did not vote for Brexit to become poorer, the OBR is saying that is exactly what they did vote for. Miliband said: [Hammond] said at the Tory party conference that the British people did not vote to become poorer. The OBR tells us on p19 that £58bn of the worsening in the public finances is due to the Brexit decision. Isn’t it a salutary warning to us about the decisions we take in the coming months and isn’t it a very strong argument for us to remain as close as possible to our largest trading area the single market and inside not outside the customs union? Hammond responded by saying that Britain would try to get the “closest possible trading arrangement” with the EU. One of George Osborne’s most peculiar policies was his decision to give a tax break to workers who agreed to forfeit some of their employment rights. Many commentators thought it was barmy idea, but Osborne liked it because it allowed him to show Tory rightwingers that he had not completely ignored the regulation-slashing proposals in the infamous Beecroft report. Anyway, it turns out Philip Hammond thinks it’s a duff idea too. It has been scrapped. This is what the autumn statement document says: The tax advantages linked to shares awarded under ESS [employee shareholder status] will be abolished for arrangements entered into on, or after, 1 December 2016. The status itself will be closed to new arrangements at the next legislative opportunity. This is in response to evidence suggesting that the status is primarily being used for tax planning instead of supporting a more flexible workforce. The OBR are now briefing economics journalists about today’s autumn statement. The watchdog is warning that Britain’s economy is dogged by uncertainty, and is particularly concerned that Brexit could hurt productivity. Our colleague Katie Allen is there, and tweeting the key points: At PMQs Jeremy Corbyn demonstrated quite effectively how health spending is likely to be one of the key issues over coming years. (See 12.22pm.) But the autumn statement had more or less nothing to say on health. In his speech Philip Hammond had one sentence about the NHS, confirming that the government will back the NHS five-year forward plan. The autumn statement document does not mention the NHS at all. The word health does appear five times, but three of those are references to the health of the economy. The secretary of state for health gets one mention, and there is a single reference to the devolution of the work and health programme to city regions. The Office for Budget Responsibility will probably be accused by Brexiteers of being overly pessimistic about the economic impact of Brexit. But in its report (pdf) it says that things could get even worse than it is forecasting, because is it not assuming mass lay-offs and consumer spending drying up, even though these are both possibilities. (We’ve put the key sentence in bold.) Given the uncertainty surrounding the choices and trade-offs that the Government may have to make, and the consequences of different outcomes, we have not attempted to predict the precise end result of the negotiations. Instead we have made a judgement – consistent with most external studies – that over the time horizon of our forecast any likely Brexit outcome would lead to lower trade flows, lower investment and lower net inward migration than we would otherwise have seen, and hence lower potential output. In time the performance of the economy will also be affected by future choices that the Government makes about regulatory and other policies that are currently determined at the European level. These could move in either a growth-enhancing or a growth-impeding direction. In the near term, as the negotiations get under way, we assume that GDP growth will continue to slow into next year as uncertainty leads firms to delay investment and as consumers are squeezed by higher import prices, thanks to the fall in the pound. But we do not assume that firms shed jobs more aggressively or that consumers increase precautionary saving, both of which are downside risks if the path to Brexit is bumpy. The government has refused to reveal if it has made any promises to Japanese carmaker Nissan over Brexit, the Office for Budget Responsibility reveals. Today’s report shows that the OBR asked the Treasury if it had created any new ‘contingent liabilities’ related to Nissan. That’s an important issue, as Nissan announced last month that it will build two new vehicles in Sunderland despite uncertainty over Britain’s future with Europe. The Treasury “declined to say”, admits the OBR, even though this might threaten the accuracy of its forecasts. This means we still don’t know what, if anything, has been promised to Nissan - or have any new insight into the government’s Brexit plan. Instead of providing the OBR with useful information, the Treasury directed the OBR to one of Theresa May’s speeches, which basically said “we’d make a success of Brexit”. This meant the OBR had to make “broad-brush” assumptions: Here is the Treasury paper (pdf) with the charts showing the distributional impact of the autumn statement measures. This chart, which shows the impact of autumn statement decisions in 2019-20, shows that it has been progressive, because the poor are gaining more than the rich. The Treasury says the gains are “modest” but those in the second decile from the bottom gain most in proportional terms. That is probably to a large extent because of the universal credit changes, which will help the working poor. But these changes are not enough to stop the government’s overall record since 2015 being more regressive. This chart shows the distributional impact in 2019-20 of all tax, welfare and public spending changes implemented since May 2015. The richest lose most. But people in the poorest three deciles are the next biggest losers, and most gains go to the wealthiest half of the population. The Office for Budget Responsibility has done a really good job of trying to calculate the impact of the EU referendum. There’s a whole appendix, called Annex B (p239 onwards), in which the OBR tries to construct a ‘counterfactual’ world in which Britain voted to stay in the European Union (alas, unhappy Remain voters can’t migrate to it). Ands this counterfactual shows that the vote will cost £58bn over the next five years. That’s because lower migration, and weaker productivity, will hit government revenues: This graph also shows that Brexit changes are the biggest contribution to the £122bn in extra borrowing announced today: Here are verdicts on the autumn statement from the ’s panel, Matthew d’Ancona, Martin Kettle, and Gaby Hinsliff. And here is an extract from Martin’s article. Paradoxically, however, today was just about the one day when something like a budgetary statement was in order from the chancellor. That’s because of one thing alone – Brexit. Hammond’s statement was a chance to make a first big assessment of the impact of Brexit on the UK economy. The verdict is, without question, bleak. Growth is down, borrowing has to rise, and the dream of a surplus has been deferred to “as soon as practicable”, ie never. Hammond’s other big problem is that tax take is falling. All those references in his speech to sustaining the tax base are Treasury code for the fact that Britain has continued to become a low wage, tax avoiding and increasingly unequal economy since 2010, in which there’s not enough public money to pay for public spending. That demands either more taxes or less spending, or both. Hammond has allowed himself to be boxed in on both options. But he gave a very important signal that pensions – and, less importantly in budgetary terms, the aid budget – will be cut after 2020, and the pension triple lock will be broken. John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, responded to the autumn statement for Labour. Here are the key points from his speech. McDonnell said the autumn statement showed that George Osborne’s “long-term economic plan” was a failure. Today’s statement places on record the abject failure of the last six wasted years and offers no hope for the future. We’ve heard today there’ll be more taxes, more debt and more borrowing. The verdict could not be clearer - the so-called long-term economic plan has failed. As the Treasury’s own leaked paper revealed, the government knew it had failed before the referendum result was announced. He said the government was not equipped to face Brexit. We now face Brexit, the greatest economic challenge of a generation, and we face it unprepared and ill-equipped. He said the “national living wage” increase was less than expected under Osborne. He urged Hammond to face up to the “extreme Brexit fanatics” in the cabinet and insist on Britain keeping tariff-free access to the single market. The chancellor must now do the right thing for British workers and businesses. He must insist on full, tariff-free access to the single market. He and the Treasury know that’s what will give the best deal for jobs and prosperity here. It may not be in the chancellor’s nature, but in the national interest I urge him to stand up to the prime minister and the extreme Brexit fanatics in her cabinet. He claimed that Labour cared more about the “Jams”, those just about managing, than the Tories. We have had a month of briefings from the party opposite on those people who are called just about managing - the Jams. To the party opposite these people are just an electoral demographic. To us they are our friends, our neighbours and the people we represent. He called for the reintroduction of the 50p top rate of tax. He said the cuts to universal credit should be abandoned altogether. He called for more spending on social care. Many elderly people will remain trapped in their homes, isolated and lonely, lacking the care they need because of these continuing cuts to social care. You can’t cut social care without also hitting the NHS. He claimed the govenrment had no new ideas. There are just no new ideas here, just a promise to deliver what they previously failed to deliver on. This is press release policy-making and not provision. All we need now is the return of the hi-vis jacket. The fourth industrial revolution will not be delivered on delays, on old news and re-announcements. Iain Wright MP has spotted that the OBR fears UK economic productivity could be weaker after Brexit: Brexit may mean Brexit, but for the OBR it also means a major headache when it has tried to assess the likely path of the UK economy. Like the rest of us, it doesn’t know what deal Britain will get - hard, soft, smooth, or something else entirely. So it has had to guess what the post-Brexit world will mean, and concluded that: ...any likely Brexit outcome would lead to lower trade flows, lower investment and lower net inward migration than we would otherwise have seen, and hence lower potential output. And here are the central assumptions underpinning the OBR’s forecasts: that the UK leaves the EU in April 2019 – two years after the date by which the Prime Minister has stated that Article 50 will be invoked; that the negotiation of new trading arrangements with the EU and others slows the pace of import and export growth for the next 10 years. that the UK adopts a tighter migration regime than that currently in place, but not sufficiently tight to reduce net inward migration to the desired ‘tens of thousands’ Philip Hammond is setting aside almost £0.5bn to help the civil service prepare for Brexit, the autumn statement document reveals. Here is the key paragraph, 3.34. We’ve highlighted the key sentence in bold. Additional resource will be provided to strengthen trade policy capability in the Department for International Trade (DIT) and Foreign and Commonwealth Office, totalling £26 million a year by 2019-20. There will also be additional resource of up to £51 million in 2016-17 for the Department for Exiting the European Union to support the re-negotiation of the UK’s relationship with the European Union. Up to £94 million a year of additional resource will be allocated from 2017-18 until the UK’s exit is complete. In total this will mean up to £412 million of additional funding over the course of this Parliament. The next time a Conservative politician talks about getting the debt under control, direct them to page 14 of the OBR’s economic and fiscal outlook. It shows that Britain’s national debt is expected to hit £1.945trn by 2019-20, the end of the current parliament, and continue climbing to £1.952trn by 2021-22. And here is the key table from the autumn statement document (pdf) - the scorecard, saying what the various measures in the statement cost, or raise in revenue. Here’s that OBR scorecard in full: You can find all the autumn statement documents here, on the Treasury website. The independent Office for Budget Responsibility has just released its verdict. And it rules that Philip Hammond has delivered a ‘modest giveaway’, alongside a decidedly weaker economic landscape. The ONS says: The Chancellor has relaxed his fiscal targets to make space for a modest infrastructure spending giveaway over the next five years. A weaker outlook for the economy and tax revenues – and these new spending commitments – mean that the budget is no longer expected to return to surplus in this Parliament, with a £21 billion deficit remaining in 2020-21. The OBR also pins some of the blame on the uncertainty created by Brexit: Public sector net borrowing is now expected to fall more slowly than we forecast in March, primarily reflecting weak tax receipts so far this year and a more subdued outlook for economic growth as the UK negotiates a new relationship with the European Union. The OBR also reports that Hammond has failed to hit any of George Osborne’s old targets, but is now on track to meet his new fiscal targets (a budget surplus in the next parliament, the debt/GDP ratio falling by the end of this parliament, and a welfare cap). More here: Autumn Statement 2016: fiscal targets relaxed to allow modest giveaway We were promised a sober, gimmick-free autumn statement from Philip Hammond and, appropriately enough, the main surprise at the end of Hammond’s speech was an announcement that he is abolishing the Treasury’s biannual tax-and-spend bonanza. It was Gordon Brown who created the autumn statement in its modern form, a budget in all but name, and most economists and governance experts will agree with Hammond about these being unnecessary, because governments do not need to re-write the tax code every six months. MPs laughed, though, when Hammond announced this because it is clear that next year we will get two budgets, and after that we will a “spring statement” that may over time morph into an alternative budget. Most of the positive announcements in the statement had been flagged up well in advance, but it sounded as if some of his revenue-raising measures will be more significant than MPs realised. Graeme and I will be delving into the small print shortly. And there was also an intriguing reference to the ageing population, and the need to review budgets after 2020, which sounded like the death knell to the triple lock. We’re collecting all the key points from Hammond’s statement here: Hammond says this autumn statement responds to the challenges the country faces. It responds to the challenge of the country living beyond its means. And it provides helps to those who need it. And that’s it. Hammond has finished. Hammond says this is his first autumn statement - and his last. He is abolishing the autumn statement. No other major economy makes hundreds of changes every year. Next year’s spring budget will be the final spring budget. After that there will be an autumn budget, well before the new financial year starts. And then there will be a spring statement, responding to the forecasts from the OBR, but no major fiscal event. He says he will not make significant changes twice a year just for the sake of it. This brings the UK into line with best practice, recommended by the IMF and others. Hammond says he is cancelling the proposed fuel duty rise for the seventh successive year. This will save the average driver £130 a year, and the average van driver £350 a year. Hammond says the government will consider measures to help savers. It is proposing a savers bond for them. It will pay 2.2% interest. Hammond turns to letting agents. Their fees have spiralled, despite attempts to regulate them. This is wrong, he says. The government will ban fees for tenants. And it will ban pension cold-calling, he says. Hammond says he can go further to help families on low wages. Universal credit is an important reform, he says. He says, having considered arguments from Iain Duncan-Smith, David Burrowes and others, he has decided to cut the taper rate. That is effectively a tax cut worth £700m by 2022. Philip Hammond managed a rare trick in his first autumn statement -- he made the UK economy look even worse than we feared. Britain’s Brexit black hole is at least £122bn -- even larger than the £100bn that the City was expecting. That’s the difference between the deficit forecasts announced in March, and the new, higher, borrowing numbers unveiled today. It means the Office for Budget Responsibilities is expecting the economy to weaken as the Brexit negotiations intensify. It also reflects the cost of the infrastructure pledges which Hammond has made -- and explains why he couldn’t produce more rabbits from the Treasury hat. The goal of a surplus in 2020 has been kicked deep into the long grass. Hammond is now saying it won’t happen until sometime in the NEXT parliament. That could be 2024-2025 -- a whole decade later than George Osborne’s original plan. Here’s the grisly details of how much Britain now has to borrow. 2016-2017: £68.2bn deficit, up from £55.5bn in the Budget in March 2017-2018: £59bn, up from £38.8bn 2018-2019: £46.5bn up from £21.4bn 2019-2020: £21.9bn compared with a surplus of £10.4bn 2020-2021: £20.7bn compared with a surplus of £11bn Surprisingly, the growth figures weren’t quite as bad as we feared. There’s a sharp slowdown in 2017, but not a recession. And then we’re back to trend growth in a few year. However, that is all dependent on how the economy copes with the Brexit negotiations. 2016: 2.1% growth, up from 2.0% forecast in the Budget in March 2017: 1.4%, down from 2.2% 2018: 1.7%, down from 2.1% 2019: 2.1%, matching the 2.1% forecast in March 2020: 2.0%, down from 2.1% That’s why Britain’s economy will be 2.4% smaller than if we’d voted to stay in the European Union. Labour area already calling it Tory economic failure: Hammond says the government has given a pay rise to low-paid workers through the “national living wage”. He says he is making capital available for new grammar schools. But more needs to be done, he says. The “national living wage” will increase from £7.20 per hour to £7.50 in April next year. Hammond turns to the personal allowance. It will rise to £11,500 in April, he says. Since 2010 28m people have had their income tax cut, and 4m people have been taken out of income tax altogether. He says the government is still committed to taking the allowance up to £12,500 by the end of this parliament. And the 40p threshold will rise to £50,000 over the same period. Hammond says the government has done more than any other to tackle tax avoidance and evasion. The tax gap is one of the lowest in the world, he says. He says there will be a new penalty for people who use a tax avoidance scheme HMRC closes down. All these tax avoidance measures will save £2bn over the forecast period, he says. Hammond says from April 2017 employers and employees who use benefits in kind schemes will pay the same tax as everyone else. But there will be exceptions, including for childcare and cycling. Hammond says insurance premium tax will rise from 10% to 12% And he says the government will change the rules on whiplash compensation, saving drivers £40 a year on average. Hammond says he wants Britain to remain the number one destination for business. He knows how much business values certainty. So the government will stick to the business tax plans set out in the March budget. He says the communities secretary will lower the transitional relief cap. That’s complicated, but it’s good news, he says. And rural rate relief will be increase to 100%, giving businesses in rural areas a boost. He says the government will keep its commitments to protect budgets it said it would protect. But in the next parliament it will have to tackle the challenges of an ageing population. So budgets will be reviewed at the next spending review. Hammond says, having run two big spending departments, he came to this job with fixed views on departmental spending. He wants £1bn from savings to be refocused in priority areas. Hammond says public spending has a proportion of GDP has fallen to 40%. He says the government has demonstrated that controlling spending is compatible with having world-class services. Departmental spending limits will remain in place. And in 2021-22 they will rise with inflation. But the Ministry of Justice will get extra funding for another 2,500 prison officers. Hammond says £102 money from Libor fines will be distribute to service charities. And money from the Tampon tax fund will go to women’s charities. Hammond says he has deliberately avoided making this statement a list of specific projects. But he can announce a plan to protect Wentworth Woodhouse near Rotherham, a model for the house in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. The government will provide a £7.5m grant to help preserve this piece of northern heritage, he says. Hammond says devolution remains at the government’s approach. A new city deal for Stirling is being negotiated. This means every city in Scotland will be on course to have one. City regions will get new borrowing powers, he says. London will get £3.15bn for 90,000 affordable homes. And the adult education budget will be devolved to London. Former Labour advisor Baron Wood tweets: Hammond says for too long investment has been focused on London. No other major economy has such a gap between the productivity of its capital, and its other cities. He says the government will publish a strategy to address this. An evaluation will allow the east Midlands rail hub to go ahead. Hammond says this investment will provide the backbone to the government’s industrial strategy. He will double UK Export’s financial capacity. He will take a step towards the problem of UK start-ups being snapped up by larger competitors by investing £400m, with a view to unlocking £1bn of investment. Hammond says he has written to the National Infrastructure Commission asking for proposals for spending in the next decade. The govenrment will commit to spending between 1% and 1.2% of GDP from 2020 on economic infrastructure. By comparison, it is spending 0.8% now, he says. The UK needs world-class digital infrastructure. He wants the UK to be a world-leader in 5G, he says. More than £1bn will be invested in digital infrastructure. From April there will be100% business rates relief on investment in new fibre. Hammond says the transport secretary will set out more details over the coming weeks. Hammond says there will be an extra £1.1bn invested in English transport networks, where small investments can often achieve big wins. Some of this will go on rail, which Jeremy Corbyn will welcome, he says. Hammond says for many the goal of home ownership remains out of reach. The challenge of delivering housing where it is not affordable is not a new one. But this is an urgent challenge. The government will soon publish a housing white paper. Often the local impact in infrastructure is an obstacle to new housing. So infrastructure spending will be focused where it can encourage new development. He says he can also announce new funding for housing. He wants a housing market that works for everyone, he says. Hammond says the government will form a new national productivity investment fund worth £23bn. It will focus on innovation and infrastructure. Investment in R&D will rise by £2bn a year by 2020. He says in the autumn statement he will prioritise high-value investment in infrastructure. He says the government’s hard-won credibility on spending means it can fund this from extra borrowing, while funding everything else in the statement from taxation and spending cuts. The UK lags the US and Germany by 30 points in productivity, he says. This means it takes a German worker four days to make what a British worker makes in five, he says. That means longer hours and lower pay for British workers. Here are three fiscal rules which Hammond has just proposed: Hammond jokes about the representations he has received from Labour. And he has received representations from other bodies, he says. Debt will peak at over 90% of GDP, he says. Hammond announces the borrowing figures. It will be £68.2bn this year, and £59bn next year, he says. Then the figures are: 2018-19 - £46bn 2019-20 - £21bn 2020-21 - £20.7bn 2021-22 - £17.2bn He says borrowing will be 3.5% this year, falling to 0.7% by 2021-22. Hammond says the govenrment does not expect to balance the budget by 2020. It is publishing new rules. There are three of them. 1 - To get the budget in surplus in the next parliament, and borrowing down to 2% by the end of this parliament. 2 - To get net debt falling by the end of this parliament. 3 - To keep welfare spending below a limit Hammond turns to the forecasts. Since 2010 the OBR has done forecasts. He says growth is forecast to be 2.1% this year, and 1.4% in 2017. That is due to lower investment and weaker demand, and those are caused by greater uncertainty and higher inflation. The other growth forecasts are: 2018 - 1.7% 2019 - 2.1% 2020 - 2.1% 2021 - 2% Hammond says, over the forecast period, growth is expected to be 2.4% lower than forecast as a result of Brexit. Hamond pays tribute to George Osborne. He says he will be no better at proving rabbits from hats (Osborne’s speciality) than Boris Johnson is at retrieve balls from the back of scrums (a joke about Johnson not becoming prime minister.) Hammond says the Brexit decision makes more urgent than ever the need to tackle the economy’s weaknesses. He says the government resolves to confront those challenges head on. It wants an economy that works for everyone, and where every part of the country is part of national success. Philip Hammond rises to make his statement. (John Bercow points out he is also first secretary of state, as well as chancellor.) Hammond says employment is at a record high. The economy has bounced back, and shown resilience since the EU referendum vote five months today. The Conservative Charlie Elphicke asks about fuel duty. Fuel prices go up like a rocket, when the oil price rises, but fall like a feather when it goes down, he says. May says Elphicke should wait for the autumn statement. Asked to rule out any more referendums this parliament, May ruled out a second referendum on the EU. But she did not rule out a second referendum on Scottish independence (although she has in the past said she is not in favour of one). May says austerity is about living within our means. When we talk about support for the homeless, we must remember that taxpayers pay for that support, she says. And many of them are struggling. John Whittingdale, the Conservative former culture secretary, welcomes the expected £1bn for superfast broadband in the autumn statement. May says investment in this field is crucial. At least three former chancellors are in the Commons to watch Philip Hammond’s debut fiscal statement: ITV’s Robert Peston can see the funny side of #AutumnStatement. From Sky’s Beth Rigby This is a sign that today’s autumn statement might be less dramatic than usual: PMQs - Snap verdict: That exchange will be overshadowed by the autumn statement coming soon, but that’s a shame for Jeremy Corbyn because that was one of his best ever PMQs performances. He sounded passionate and focused, and, although Theresa May sounded confident when defending measures to combat health tourism (in response to Corbyn’s fifth question) her answers on the topic of social care sounded bland and unsatisfactory. One problem was that she did not engage emotionally with Corbyn’s questions, and instead, sounding like an accountant, kept going on about government initiatives like the “Better Care Fund” which mean little to most listeners. Corbyn sounded a lot more authentic. Interestingly, he also at least twice defended the record of the Blair/Brown governments (on health spending, and on setting up the CQC), which is not something you always hear from Corbyn at PMQs. Doubtless some Labour MPs will assume that there is a link between that and the way this afternoon he scored a decisive win. Corbyn says the home in the Panorama programme was understaffed. He says poorly-paid staff should not be blamed. A warning from the CQC is not enough. Has the government considered the impact of getting patients to have to take their passports to hospitals to get care. Some 9.5m people do not have passports. May says over the course of this parliament the government will be spending £500bn. She says there has been a problem with people turning up to access services but not paying for them. Corbyn says Sir Simon Stevens said recently the next few years would be the toughest for NHS spending. At some point health spending per person will be cut for the first time. There are fewer mental health nurses. Waiting times are getting longer. And 1m people are not getting the social care they need. Shouldn’t social care be properly funded? May says billions of pounds extra are going into the NHS. There is a record level of money going into mental health. What Corbyn forgets to mention is that we can only afford to pay for the NHS if we have a strong economy creating wealth. That is what we will hear from the chancellor in a few moments. Corbyn say health spending trebled under Labour. And levels of satisfaction reached a record high. He says the number of people in hospital because of lack of care has gone up by one third. May repeats what the government has done. She asks which government put the triple lock in place for pensioners. Corbyn says the precept is a drop in the ocean compared to what is necessary. MPs will have been appalled by this week’s Panorama about a care scandal. He asks what the goverment will do to protect residents in the homes featured. May says everyone is appalled by terrible treatment like this. The CQC is able to step in, she says. But there is more that can be done, she says. The care minister will write to the CQC to see what more can be done. Jeremy Corbyn asks about the governments plans for the NHS, which he says hide cuts worth £22bn, according to the BMA. He says the BMA’s Mark Porter says this is a mess. Where is he wrong? Theresa May says savings will be reinvested within the NHS. The government is providing not just £8bn for the NHS, but £10bn. Corbyn points out that the health committee says the figure is £4.5bn, not £10bn. He says more than 1m people do not get the social care they need. There has been an increase in admissions from older patient. Margaret wrote to him about how her mother suffered two falls because of lack of care. What is the government doing to improve social care. May says the government has introduced the Better Care Fund and a social precept for local authorities. What did Labour do? They said they would deal with social care in the 1997 manifesto. There were various reviews, but by 2009 they were still on a green paper. Thirteen years and they did nothing. From the Spectator’s Isabel Hardman PMQs has started. This is from the Evening Standard’s Kate Proctor. The devolved government in Belfast’s Finance Minister has called for a “Niagra Falls stimulus” of extra infrastructure spending for Northern Ireland in the region. Máirtín Ó Muilleoir, the Sinn Fein Minister, said the government needs to invest in infrastructure “to give the economy a jolt.” The Minister also called today for “austerity to be binned.” Northern Ireland expects to gain an extra £40 million from the Chancellor’s autumn statement, which will be invested in improved road, rail and other local infrastructure. This is from the Sun’s Steve Hawkes. PMQs will be starting shortly. We will be covering the Theresa May/Jeremy Corbyn exchanges, and any autumn statement related questions, but not the whole thing. As the former Labour adviser Theo Bertram says, PMQs before the autumn statement is normally a bit of a non-event. One of the City’s leading fund managers, Toby Nangle of Columbia Threadneedle, hopes that Philip Hammond will produce new measures to boost investment. He tells Sky News that: The real issue of concern for us is the investment side. With Brexit looming over, the surveys have been pointing down. So anything he can do on that side would be quite helpful. Nangle believes the government should exclude infrastructure spending from its budget surplus targets. This would allow it to invest in long-term projects that boost productivity (and growth) in the long term, without having to slash day-to-day spending. Labour have been pushing this idea for years - and Nangle says it makes sense: A shift away from targeting actual budget surpluses to primary surpluses is a very sensible thing that most people will support. It facilitates investment - and that investment is really what we need as a country. It stops you pitting your health budget against your HS2 budget out of the same pot. Here is ITV’s political editor, Robert Peston, on the autumn statement. Theresa May has welcomed Philip Hammond’s “prudent” approach to running Britain’s economy as he prepares to deliver his first autumn statement, reviving a favourite catchphrase of Gordon Brown’s. Hammond set out his plans for his first set-piece parliamentary event as chancellor to his fellow ministers at Wednesday morning’s cabinet meeting. He is expected to announce sharply weaker economic forecasts and reveal the full extent of the deterioration in the public finances likely to be caused by Britain’s exit from the European Union. The Treasury has already announced a series of modest giveaways, including a partial reversal of deep cuts to in-work benefits. The chancellor is expected to confirm a ban on letting fees for millions of families who are being charged hundreds of pounds by agencies to cover the supposed administrative costs of renting. Hammond is also expected to announce an increase in the “national living wage” from £7.20 to £7.50 an hour from April 2017, although this is slightly below the £7.60 figure that the independent Office for Budget Responsibility estimates would be necessary for it to stay on course to match the pledge of £9 an hour by 2020. Hammond told colleagues his approach was “focused on preparing and supporting the economy as we write a new chapter in the country’s history”, and on tackling the productivity shortfall which means Britain’s workers are “working longer hours, for less pay”, compared to similar countries. Hammond’s colleagues, as is traditional, banged the table in approval of his plans, the spokeswoman said. Fiscal prudence, and tackling Britain’s long-term productivity shortfall, were key themes of the Treasury’s work during Brown’s stint as chancellor. May’s spokeswoman also highlighted the fact that Hammond’s colleagues had welcomed the way he and Treasury officials had worked constructively with other departments; and the renewed focus on the long-term weaknesses of the economy. Hammond has consciously sought to reject the meddling approach of former chancellors, and insiders say he will allow his colleagues more leeway over how they spend their budgets. He is also expected to deliver a slimmed-down statement, with few gimmicks. This is what Theresa May told the cabinet about the autumn statement, according to Number 10. This is an autumn statement which will deliver on the government’s commitment to build an economy which works for everyone and sets the economy on the right path for the long term. This is a balanced and prudent autumn statement which will make clear Britain is open for business and the government is on the side of ordinary working people struggling to make ends meet. That really was a muted appearance by Philip Hammond on Downing Street; he looked more like a man heading to the shops for some milk than a chancellor preparing to update the nation on its finances.... Sky News’ Faisal Islam hoped for a bit more... It may be a sign that Hammond isn’t planning any fireworks today, and may be keen to downplay the importance of the autumn statement. Here is another profile of Philip Hammond, from Newsnight’s Nicholas Watt. It’s very good, but it contains rather more information about the teenage Hammond than we need to know. Apparently he was a good kisser. It also contains this insight into what Hammond thinks of Boris Johnson and Liam Fox. Philip Hammond has just emerged from Number 11 Downing Street, clutching a copy of autumn statement. But he’s not hanging around for photos -- the chancellor heads straight to his ministerial limo for the short drive to the House of Commons. The chancellor tweets.... As well as reading your comments below the line we’d like to hear from readers who will be affected by the chancellor’s announcements today via a dedicated callout. Is your family “just managing” or are you a pensioner struggling to get by? Maybe you earn close to the government’s “national living wage” and have comments on its implications for you? Tell us what the autumn statement will do for you by clicking on the link – you can share your story anonymously if you prefer – and we’ll use a selection in our ongoing coverage. Torsten Bell, director of the Resolution Foundation, has been tweeting about the Treasury’s decision to change the taper rates to ameliorate the impact of universal credit cuts. The Resolution Foundation is a thinktank set up to investigate the problems facing low and middle earners - or LMEs, as they used to be called. They are more or less exactly the same group now called “Jams” by the government - people just about managing. The government’s decision to target the JAMs has sparked a spread of new acronyms to capture modern Britain’s tribes. Freelance journalist Jane Merrick is leading the charge, with a series of groups that every serious politician should be targeting: The Curds won’t be crying many tears for Foxtons’ shareholders today.... Still, it could be worse... Jeremy Corbyn has been tweeting about the autumn statement. Labour have just published some prebuttal of the autumn statement. They say that poorer families will still be worse off, even if Philip Hammond cut the taper rate on universal credit, from 65p to 63p in the pound (meaning families lose less benefits if they do more paid work). Shadow chancellor John McDonnell says: “Some working families, who will have lost as much as £2,500 a year, might only be getting back as little as £150 in this Statement. And here’s the maths: Following the changes to the UC taper rate, a working couple with two children, both working on the National Living Wage (NLW), could now be £800 worse off instead of around £1,100 worse off in 2017-18 as a result of cuts to UC work allowances. Following the changes to the UC taper rate, a lone parent with two children earning £25,000 per annum might be around £2,300 worse off instead of £2,500 worse off in 2017-18 as a result of cuts to UC work allowances. Roughly £50m has been wiped off the combined value of Foxtons and Countrywide this morning. Both company’s shares are still down sharply today, thanks to the looming clampdown on tenancy fees. This rather undermines the claim that these fees aren’t a lucrative source of easy income for estate agents. Here is another of the pictures that Philip Hammond posed for yesterday, for use in advance of today’s autumn statement. Like the one at 8.50am, it seems intended to convey a sense of calm poise. And it is no surprise to see that Hammond is a tidy desk man. This is what Kate Allen and George Parker say about him in a Financial Times profile (subscription). Mrs May is Mr Hammond’s most important cabinet ally, but their relationship is less close than the one shared by David Cameron and Mr Osborne. “They don’t meet three to four times a day, they meet three to four times a week,” one Hammond staffer said. “It is a more formal relationship but they are both very formal kinds of people. He is not a casual feet-up-on-the-table kind of guy, he’s the type of man who wears suits on aeroplanes.” The FT article also contains an interesting line about how Hammond has changed the way decisions are made in the Treasury. Political decision-making has long operated through the red box system: civil servants prepare briefing papers of a couple of pages or more in length that are packed up and sent home to be read overnight, with ministerial decisions handed down in the following day or two. But the new chancellor demanded much shorter briefings, delivered to him two or three times a day for rapid decisions. Although he still uses red boxes, it has made the Treasury’s operations “much quicker” says one senior civil servant who works closely with Mr Hammond “and the volume of decision making is higher”, while “the civil service has had to make its updates shorter and more succinct”. The pound has dropped this morning as the City braces for the government’s new growth and deficit forecasts. Sterling has lost half a cent against the US dollar to $1.237, its lowest level of the week. The pound has also dipped against the euro, at €1.165. Traders are nervous about the likely impact of leaving the EU on the public finances. So sterling could get a kicking if the growth figures are particularly bleak, or if the deterioration in the public finances is even more than the £100bn expected. FXTM research analyst Lukman Otunuga says: It has become evident that Sterling remains trapped by the ongoing Brexit uncertainty, with the future of the post-Brexit UK economy haunting investors. Among those welcoming the government’s decision to ban letting agent fees is Olly Grender, the Lib Dem peer who has been pushing a private member’s bill through the Lords proposing just this. Here is an extract from her second reading speech explaining the case for a ban. Unlike people in the owner-occupied market, one in four renters moved home in 2013-14. Just under a third of renters have moved three times or more in the past five years, and just under a quarter of them in London. Each time they move, the up-front costs are often the greatest barrier of all ... Costs vary from agent to agent and range from £40 to £780, with the average cost just under £400 per move. Many of those charges seem completely arbitrary. A credit check, for example, costs about £25 today, but some agencies charge a tenant £150 or more to carry one out. Marta, a lady who contacted the Debrief’s Make Renting Fair campaign, had asked to sign a three-year tenancy agreement. The agent said, “Fine, but you’ll have to pay three times the fee”: that was three times £360 just to re-sign. I spoke to a young woman this week who is in a two-bedroom flat. She is the main tenant and happily paid £150 for an inventory check and other things at the start of her tenancy, but every time her flatmate changes, the new tenant is charged a £150 for an inventory check which, of course, never happens—what a rip off! Citizens Advice, which in the past year has seen 80,000 people with a problem in the private rented sector, has seen an 8% increase in complaints about letting agents. One tenant described a fee of £180 to renew a tenancy agreement that is staying exactly the same, except for a change of dates. It requires a simple printing or photocopying job, and it is the renters who go into the office and sign the form, but they are charged almost £200 for it. And this is what she said about the argument that a ban would result in rents being increased. (See 9.37am.) Fees for tenants have already been successfully banned in Scotland following legislation in 1984, which was clarified in 2012. Research into its impact commissioned by Shelter shows that it has had only minimal side-effects for letting agents, landlords and renters, and the sector remains healthy. Only 17% of letting agents increased fees to landlords, and only 24% reported a small negative effect on their business. Not one agency manager interviewed said it had a large negative impact on their business, while 17% said they considered the change to be positive for their business. We’re expecting Philip Hammond to announce several billion pounds of infrastructure spending, including: Housebuilding: A £1.4bn “injection” to support the building of 40,000 homes. Transport: A £1.3bn road improvement scheme will aim to tackle bottlenecks and fix potholes. Digital: A £1bn scheme will push ahead with trials for 5G mobile access and superfast one gigabit broadband. BHP Billiton economist Sukhdeep Dhillon says that Britain needs this injection of spending: But.... Sam Tombs of Pantheon Economics points out that the government had been planning to squeeze public sector investment over the next few years: Here’s our full list of what to watch out for today: Ed Miliband lost the 2015 general election but today he will have the pleasure of seeing one of his proposals becoming government policy. Labour’s manifesto called for a ban on letting agent fees, which it said would save renters more than £600. He has welcomed the fact that Philip Hammond has now adopted the idea, but wants the government to go further. At the time of the election the Conservatives said a ban on letting agent fees would “lead to higher rents” and Gavin Barwell, the housing minister, was making exactly the same argument just two months ago. Iain Duncan Smith, who resigned as work and pensions secretary earlier this year after the budget because he objected to the way George Osborne, the then chancellor, was cutting universal credit while offering tax cuts to higher earners, has been urging ministers to scrap those cuts to universal credit, which are worth £3.4bn. On the Today programme this morning he gave a cautious welcome to the news that the Treasury will ameliorate the impact of those cuts, by reducing the taper rate. But he said he wanted the government to go further. I consider this really a down payment - this is not game over. This is really about the fact the chancellor has said, given the circumstances and given that we don’t know where we are going to be, necessarily, as we get into Brexit stuff over the next two years, he wants to give a strong indication that they want to help those who are struggling. Here’s a starter for this, let’s see where we go over the next two to three years. The news that Philip Hammond will announce a rise in the minimum wage to £7.50 per hour from April 2017 has received a subdued welcome. Katherine Chapman, director of the Living Wage Foundation, argues that workers need more help: “We welcome any pay rise for low-paid workers, especially now in these uncertain times with speculations about food and other prices set to rise. The reality, however, is that a fifth of UK workers aren’t paid enough to live on. There’s still a gap between the Government minimum and our real Living Wage of 8.45 in the UK and 9.75 in London, which is based on what families need to earn to meet everyday costs.” And the FT’s Jim Pickard points out that the Low Pay Commission had expected a bigger rise, to keep pace with average earnings. However, wage growth this year has been more muted than expected. [The government’s target is to lift the living wage to 60% of median earnings by 2020]. Hammond may insist he’s trying to help those of us who are ‘Just about Managing’. But any new dollops of help for the Jams will be wiped away by the impact of the government’s existing austerity measures. Today’s Editorial explains: Before leaving No 11 this summer, George Osborne planned £13bn in benefit cuts and a further £16bn taken out of the budgets of “unprotected” Whitehall departments. He also slashed spending for local councils. Given his ambition to balance the budget (by some as yet unspecified date), Mr Hammond is unlikely to drop any of those plans. So a working family that will earn a slightly higher minimum wage and a bit more next year on their universal credit will still have their tax credits frozen for the rest of this decade; their Sure Start centres will face the threat of closure and many of their children’s clubs and libraries could go to the wall. If Theresa May considers this helping, her version of hurting doesn’t bear thinking about. We’ve pulled together some key charts to get you up to speed ahead of the autumn statement: Last night, the Treasury released a series of picture of Philip Hammond perusing the autumn statement in a comfy armchair - and curiously perched by a window. It reminded Baron Wood of Anfield, former advisor to Gordon Brown, of happier days: George Osborne has tweeted Hammond his support from the back benches: Philip Hammond’s plan to clamp down on letting fees has sent shares in Britain’s property sector tumbling. Foxtons shares plunged by 10% at the start of trading, with Countrywide (Britain’s biggest estate agent) shedding 5% and LSL Property down 6%. Traders are calculating that these companies will lose out once Hammond bans agencies from charging large fees, typically hundreds of pounds, to cover the ‘administrative costs’ of renting properties. Hammond’s plan, which will be announced in the autumn statement, follows pressure from campaigners who say tenants are simply being ripped off. But it’s been damned as “draconian” by the Association of Residential Letting Agents (ARLA), who argue that estate agents will charge landlords more, and they’ll pass those costs onto tenants... Exactly five months after the EU referendum, we’re finally going to get the first official estimate of the impact of the Brexit vote on the UK economy. And it may be a worrying picture. Economists are certain that Philip Hammond will tear up the forecasts announced by George Osborne in March’s budget. Growth in 2017 could be revised to just 1.4% (or lower), down from 2.2%, which would be the biggest downgrade since the eurozone crisis. Lower growth means a higher deficit -- City number-crunchers believe Hammond could announce one hundred billion pounds of extra borrowing over the next few years. It could even be more, depending what the independent Office for Budget Responsibility makes of the uncertainty facing the UK economy. And that means one of the planks of Osbornomics, a surplus by the end of the parliament, will be consigned to history. Instead of a surplus in 2019-20, Britain could find itself looking to borrow £30bn to balance the books in three year’s time. This chart, from Bloomberg, shows the current City forecasts for borrowing (in blue), versus the Budget predictions: This year’s goal of cutting the deficit to £55bn is almost certainly toast. Yesterday’s public finance figures showed that Britain has already borrowed £48bn since April, with five months until the end of the financial year This likely deterioration in the public finances means that Hammond won’t have the option of big fiscal giveaways to boost growth. Instead, he’ll probably favour smaller-scale projects which should deliver obvious, and quick, economic gains - such as new road and rail infrastructure. But there’s no doubt that Hammond has a tough job today. Something odd happened in Westminster yesterday. At around 1pm political journalists started getting an email from the Treasury with a press release headed “Chancellor delivers on government pledge to support ordinary working class families”. There is nothing unusual about the government briefing out selected titbits from the autumn statement and the budget in advance. But this read like The Full Monty: a £1.4bn affordable housing announcement, a (modest) increase in the “national minimum wage”, a measure to reduce the impact of planned cuts to universal credit (but only slightly), a ban on letting agents’ fees, tighter whiplash compensation rules intended to reduce the cost of car insurance by £40 a year, and investment in research and development. It was so comprehensive that we spent the rest of the day wondering - what on earth is left for Philip Hammond to announce this afternoon? We’ve been told that Hammond doesn’t approve of the meretricious showmanship that his predecessors George Osborne and Gordon Brown used to display on these occasions and so it seems very unlikely that he will unveil a surprise “rabbit out of the hat” in the final sentence of his statement. Instead many of us assume that the Treasury released all the good news last night because they know today’s statement will be dominated by the forecasts for growth and government tax receipts, which are expected to show that Brexit will blast a massive hole in the government’s finances. The economy has been performing reasonably well in the five months since the EU referendum. But, for the first time since that vote, the government will have to make a formal assessment of the longterm impact of Brexit and there are suspicions that the figures will be so gloomy that they will read as if they have been drafted by Remoaner HQ. Hammond does not have a lot of room for manoeuvre. But Theresa May replaced David Cameron in the summer promising a renewed focus on those who are “just about managing” and today’s autumn statement is her government’s first big chance to show quite how serious it is about helping this group. How different will her government’s approach by from Cameron’s? The briefing we’ve had so far suggests the answer is ‘a bit, but not hugely’, but we’ll know more by the end of the day. I’m Andrew Sparrow and I will be blogging today with my colleague Graeme Wearden. We will be covering the statement in full and then bringing you reaction and analysis, focusing in particular on what’s hidden in the small print of the government’s announcements.
Boris Johnson urged to disinvest from bank linked to Saudi regime The mayor of London, Boris Johnson, has been pressed not to put profit before principle after it was revealed that the Greater London Authority has £100m of public money invested in a bank backed by Saudi Arabia. The GLA treasury has a £2.5bn portfolio of investments in a range of foreign banks, including £100m in the Riyad Bank, which is 51% owned by the Saudi state. Opposition parties have called on the government to distance itself from the Saudi regime in response to the execution of 47 people on Saturday, including the Shia cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr. UK government ties to Saudi Arabia have frequently been criticised because of the country’s poor record on human rights, including extensive use of the death penalty. The Liberal Democrat leader, Tim Farron, called on Johnson to pledge never to invest public money in such regimes, saying “words are not enough”.. “Investing Londoners’ funds into Saudi government-backed banks seems to suggest Boris and his administration condone the horrific and systematic human rights abuses committed in the kingdom,” said Farron. “Investing in such places goes against everything London stands for. Profit should never come before principle.” The investments are managed by the Group Investment Syndicate (GIS), which includes the GLA, London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority, the mayor’s office for policing and crime, London Pensions Fund Authority and London Legacy Development Corporation. The GIS’s overall investment strategy is personally approved by Johnson. The group has another £100m invested in the National Bank of Abu Dhabi, which is majority owned by the government of the United Arab Emirates. The UAE government has also come under fire for human rights abuses. There is no suggestion that either bank is mismanaged. A spokesperson for the GLA said the authority “has a duty to ensure its short-term cash balances are invested with an aim of minimising the risks of any loss to the taxpayer. Those investments are made by officials in the group treasury team, without political involvement and targeting high-quality and creditworthy institutions.” Speaking to the BBC’s World at One programme, Farron said that the UK government’s attitude towards the Saudi regime was “almost sycophantic”. It should be “pragmatic, but not subservient”, he said. “I think what’s important … is that as a country, being much clearer in our condemnation of the executions the other day would not only be right on a human rights aspect but also would send the right signals to Iran and to others in the Shia Muslim world that – as we try to make the Vienna process work – this is not the kind of action that we will tolerate.”
Slow Club: One Day All of This Won’t Matter Any More review – a musical and artistic stop-gap Charles Watson and Rebecca Taylor relocated to Matthew E White’s Spacebomb Studios in Virginia to make their fourth album. While escaping familiar locations has served to align their sound with world-weary Americana – enhanced here by White’s in-house band – there is something amiss: the friction that once made their music blossom has gone. After their last album set out some lofty ambitions, this one feels like a creative plateau. Album closers Let the Blade Do the Work and One Day All of This Won’t Matter Anymore provide the right balance of pop romance and crooked storytelling; while heartache and an endearing comedic narrative still shape their lyrics, sometimes the country crooning leans into boozy bar karaoke – or floats, coasts and billows past without making any real connection. Warm and nourishing, but bereft of an artistic statement, In Waves feels like a musical stop gap – a temporary vacation rather than a home.
Barack Obama's workout playlist proves he's master of the eclectic mixtape The US Democratic party have championed Barack Obama’s hip and eclectic music taste since sharing the nominee’s iPod playlist during the 2008 campaign. Now, as the president winds down his final term, he’s revealed his curatorial powers extend to a particularly 21st century obsession: the well-crafted workout playlist. For his guest editorship of November’s Wired magazine, Obama’s team released his exercise soundtrack on Tuesday: a mixture of funk, pop, rock and hip-hop, with a few curveballs (and cheeseballs) thrown in. The playlist shares a few commonalities with his 2016 summer soundtrack: there’s a celebration of black artists, a few crowdpleasers (last year’s Good Vibrations is this year’s Let’s Get It Started), and even a couple of double-ups – independent Australian artist Courtney Barnett’s Elevator Operator features on both playlists, as does Nina Simone’s Sinnerman. Jay Z gets another look-in, this time with Drake in 2009’s Off That. It’s preceded by Get Me Bodied by Beyoncé – who featured twice on Michelle Obama’s workout playlist, released in 2012. Also featured is Emergency by Swedish electropop duo Icona Pop – a more original choice than 2012’s I Love It, which remains unavoidable in gyms around the world; the Isley Brothers’ funk-filled ode to free love, Live It Up; and, from slightly out of left field, there’s Perro Loco by Forro in the Dark – a collective of Brazilian musicians who rework the rural forro music for the club scene of New York. Obama – who hosted his first ever music festival, South by South Lawn (SXSL), earlier this month – proved himself a master of the mixtape when he released the White House’s summer playlists in August to broad acclaim. Speaking with Pitchfork at SXSL, the White House’s first chief digital officer Jason Goldman said the choices are all the president’s: “I swear it is him who makes the playlists. He has personally selected all of those songs and writes them out by hand. He really loves a diverse range of music.” In 2015, Obama became the first sitting president to visit Jamaica in more than 30 years. Dropping in at the Bob Marley Museum, he told press he’d been “a big fan” since high school. This might explain the gym playlist inclusion of Could You Be Loved which, much like Sting’s If You Love Somebody Set Them Free, is perhaps more befitting of a dawdle than a gym drill. But perhaps it’s one for the warm-down. The playlist does, however, not include Frank Ocean and Chance the Rapper, who were recently invited to his Final State Dinner. Have a listen to his picks below.
Brexit would be political arson, says David Miliband Leaving the EU would be an act of political arson that risks the destruction of international order, the former foreign secretary David Miliband has said. In one of the starkest warnings of the referendum debate so far, Miliband argued that the impact of Brexit could extend far beyond the UK and that it could have a disastrous effect on the rest of the world. Writing for the before delivering a key speech in Westminster on Tuesday, he said it would amount to “giving up on our alliances” with the rest of the world. “It means forsaking our position at the negotiating table and abandoning our international responsibilities – unilateral political disarmament. No nation in human peacetime history has voluntarily given up as much political power as we are being invited to throw away on 23 June.” The former politician, who lost the Labour leadership race to his brother Ed in 2010, said leaving the EU could set off a domino effect across the world. “The British question is not only one of what we get out of Europe. It is also one of whether we want to shore up the international order, or contribute to its dilution and perhaps even destruction,” said Miliband, who now heads the International Rescue Committee in New York. “Britain cannot solve these problems alone. But we do more in and for the world than our modest size would suggest. At our best, we lead in defending the values, building the structures and defining the substance of international cooperation. “If the world is increasingly divided between firefighters and arsonists, then Britain has for centuries been a firefighter. This is no time for Britain to join the ranks of arsonists and there should be no doubt that Brexit would be an act of arson on the international order.” The EU referendum debate was further inflamed on Monday by a row over the government’s decision to spend £9m on sending a leaflet making the case for the remain camp to every household in Britain. David Lidington, the Europe minister, defended the leaflet in the House of Commons by claiming the government would be “abrogating its responsibility” if it neglected to make its case to citizens. He was backed by Pat Glass, the shadow Europe minister, who said it was “perfectly reasonable” for the government to make its case to people. However, Lidington was criticised by a raft of backbench Eurosceptics, including former cabinet ministers Liam Fox and John Redwood. Fox said it was a piece of “Juncker mail” – referring to the European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker – and branded it a “dodgy dossier: the sequel”. Redwood said: “Isn’t it an abuse of public money, an insult to electors, and do you realise it’s going to drive many more people to vote to leave?” Several called for similar funds to be available to make the case for Brexit and pointed out ministers had promised the government would be “restrained in their use of public money” so that they did not compete with the campaigns on each side. Crispin Blunt, Conservative chairman of the foreign affairs committee, said the mail-shot was both a waste of public money and caused “damage to the government’s reputation for straight-dealing on this issue”. Nigel Evans, a Tory backbencher, accused the government of “spiv Robert Mugabe antics” that he would condemn in his role as an international election observer. Lidington said Evans should reflect on the fact that Zimbabwe elections have involved the “murder, maiming and intimidation of voters” and realise it was not his finest moment in the Commons. Milband’s dire warning echoed those of David Cameron, Alan Johnson and other campaigners for the UK to stay in who have claimed Brexit would lead to years of uncertainty and danger. Brexit campaigners have accused their opponents of exaggerating the consequences of leaving the EU and claimed the remain activists are running a “Project Fear” intent on scaring voters into staying in the EU. Last month Boris Johnson, the London mayor and Conservative MP, urged people thinking of voting to leave to hold their nerve and “not be cowed by the gloomadon poppers” who thought the UK would not prosper on its own. He went on to issue a plea for voters to “ignore the pessimists and the merchants of doom” who were arguing that the UK should fear being outside the EU – an argument made by Cameron on the grounds of economic uncertainty and national security.
AC/DC's Brian Johnson: hearing loss diagnosis was darkest day of my career AC/DC’s Brian Johnson has revealed further details about why he had to stop playing live with the band. His statement comes in the same week that it was announced that Guns N’ Roses frontman Axl Rose will take over Johnson’s duties during AC/DC’s forthcoming live shows. Johnson made it clear that he wasn’t retiring from recording with the band, but that his health had made playing live shows impossible. In a statement he said: “On March 7th, after a series of examinations by leading physicians in the field of hearing loss, I was advised that if I continued to perform at large venues I risked total deafness. While I was horrified at the reality of the news that day, I had for a time become aware that my partial hearing loss was beginning to interfere with my performance on stage … and because I was not able to hear the other musicians clearly, I feared the quality of my performance could be compromised. This was something I could not, in good conscience, allow. Our fans deserve my performance to be at the highest level, and if for any reason I can’t deliver that level of performance I will not disappoint our fans or embarrass the other members of AC/DC.” Johnson was at pains to point out that he wasn’t a “quitter” and that there is nothing he’d like more than to be able to continue playing live with the group. “I like to finish what I start. Nevertheless, the doctors made it clear that I had no choice but to stop performing on stage for the remaining shows and possibly beyond. That was the darkest day of my professional life.” He added that it was possible he could continue at some point in the future: “Since that day, I have had several consultations with my doctors and it appears that, for the near future, I will be unable to perform on stage at arena and stadium-size venues where the sound levels are beyond my current tolerance without the risk of substantial hearing loss and possibly total deafness. I tried as best as I could to continue despite the pain and hearing loss, but it became too much to bear and too much to risk.” Johnson said doctors had confirmed he could continue to record in the studio with the band: “And I intend to do that. For the moment, my entire focus is to continue medical treatment to improve my hearing. I am hoping that in time my hearing will improve and allow me to return to live concert performances. While the outcome is uncertain, my attitude is optimistic. Only time will tell.” Axl Rose, 54, will fulfil his current commitments to Guns N’ Roses before replacing Johnson on AC/DC’s remaining tour dates. The last couple of years have been difficult for AC/DC. In July 2015, they parted company with drummer Phil Rudd after he was convicted of threatening to kill and possession of drugs. Rhythm guitarist Malcolm Young left in September 2014 after announcing he had dementia.
One family's nightmare as fraudsters ransack Barclays account by phone Fraudsters can contact Barclays bank, pose as a customer, ask for that person’s account address to be changed, then take out huge loans against their name – as one Nottingham teacher has found to her deep distress. Jude Grundy was just days away from moving home when the nightmare began, with her debit card being refused at a supermarket checkout. It later emerged that two weeks previously fraudsters had called Barclays, claimed to be her, and changed her address. They were then able to open a second linked account and apply for a new debit card. With that card the crooks were then able to obtain a £24,000 loan from Barclays and a £750 overdraft, as well as topping it off by stealing £4,000 in savings from Grundy and her husband, Andrew. She only found out about the linked account when, curiously, £2,000 was transferred into her account. It was this which the bank’s systems blocked as suspicious. The fact that Grundy kept failing the security questions, on the account she had not herself opened, might have alerted Barclays staff to the fact that bigger problems were afoot. Only after Money intervened was her account unfrozen, which was when Grundy discovered that the £24,000 loan had been taken out and her savings were gone. “When I was finally able to log on I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I had been told the account was up and running again, but no one appears to have noticed it had been ransacked,” she says, describing her treatment by Barclays as shockingly bad. Not only did it hand control over her account to fraudsters, it then closed it, leaving all her usual direct debits unpaid. The timing could not have been worse. The mother of two should have spent the week packing, as the family completed on their first house purchase the following Friday. “The staff who decided to freeze the account in the first place had not noticed any of this suspicious activity, it seems. They were happy to just pass it back to me,” Grundy says. She says staff at Barclays were sympathetic, but helpless to stop colleagues from closing the accounts without warning – a week before they were due to move house. Only the next day did a letter arrive telling the couple that the bank had decided to shut their account, and that they must withdraw any funds held – which was impossible because the account had already been closed. “Buying a house was stressful enough without having to go through this as well, and you don’t know how many hours I have spent trying to get it all resolved,” she says. “I still don’t know how the fraudsters were able to call up Barclays, change my address and get a loan. I’ve been told they had lots of information on me, but I have two passwords on the account which I don’t think the fraudsters were asked for, and I’ve certainly never divulged them to anyone else. “The whole thing has been unbelievable, shockingly bad, and I never want to hear their ‘on-hold’ music ever again.” A Barclays spokesman accepted that the episode had not been the bank’s finest hour and it has now agreed to pay the couple £1,000 in compensation for the two failures. It has also paid for the couple to tax their car, which was one of the failed direct debits. All the other direct debits have now been reinstated, the loan has been cancelled, the savings restored, and the couple’s accounts are now running correctly again. • Barclays, which has been at the centre of several frauds reported by Money in recent years, has just started offering customers the option to use voice recognition software as a way to establish their identity when they call the bank. The technology recognises a customer’s unique formation of words, cancelling the need for security questions or passwords. All Barclays’ personal telephone banking customers are eligible to use the system, though they can opt out. This could have saved the Grundys had it been introduced sooner. Several other banks are at various stages of introducing similar technology.
Junior doctors' strike day two - as it happened As the second day of the all-out strike draws to a close, NHS England says 78% of junior doctors (21,608) who were expected to be working did not report for duty today. The figures were the same yesterday. Last week trusts said they expected there would be 12, 711 postponed elective operations over the period of 18 April to 2 May. Dr Anne Rainsberry, national incident director for NHS England, said: “We’re not going to pretend the last two days have been easy but the NHS has remained open to business for patients. The health service has coped admirably to date thanks to extensive planning and the exhaustive efforts of other staff. However the strike has undoubtedly increased pressure on a service already facing increasing demand and has led to the highly regrettable cancellation of needed care for well over 100,000 patients.” Several junior doctors rejected suggestions that the government and the British Medical Association (BMA) are quite close on the new contract. One doctor said: “We need to talk to them about exactly what their plan is for the seven-day NHS, how they are funding it, how they are going to staff it. Just changing Saturday pay is not going to solve the issue. It’s so complex, it can’t be just about one thing.” Around 80% of all junior doctors (45,000 out of 54,000) across England) are members of the BMA. Helen Nightingale, 31, a junior doctor at St Mary’s hospital, tells Alessio Perrone the imposition of a contract by the government is as crucial as to its contents. There hasn’t had a BMA representative for a few months since the last one stepped aside yet the junior doctors have taken part in the strike. “Regardless of what Hunt said, they haven’t been willing to sit down and discuss at any point. Not just with the BMA, with any junior doctor. The process has been misleading and we feel it’s all been predetermined and imposed on us. It’s disrespectful to us as professionals. A lot of people are disillusioned regardless of the contract because it’s been imposed, they are frustrated and powerless. Also, we are frustrated because the strikes haven’t brought back the expected results, they haven’t made any negotiations happen. Enthusiasm is picking up a bit in this strike, but we haven’t seen the response we wanted.” Damien Gayle has moved on to Lewisham hospital where a packed picket line has massed around a table heaving with cake, which strikers were selling to raise money for a campaign to save the hospital. “The NHS runs on cake and goodwill,” said Shruti Patel, a trainee paediatric doctor. “This is a good way for the community, for NHS staff and junior doctors to do something positive with the strike, to raise money for a community campaign that has been instrumental in saving this hospital and getting our message out to the public.” Patel branded as “ridiculous” claims that the government and BMA positions were close: “If the positions were close do you think we would go to all this dramatic effort? Do you think we would manage to get this many junior doctors out if really all that was left was Saturday pay? We feel that the contract is completely unsustainable. “I don’t think there’s a question of the BMA leading anyone anywhere. The BMA is made up of junior doctors. This is absolutely a grass roots course of action. As to whether it’s a dead end or not, that completely lies in the hands of the government. The power to end this dispute is in the government’s hands.” Peter Latham, an NHS-trained doctor in Australia, says he is unsure of returning to the UK. “I’m saddened and upset for my former colleagues who are having to go against their deepest morals and walk away from patient care to ensure the long-term safety of an open access and safe NHS.” When asked whether he would return to the NHS, he admitted that, at first, his intention was to leave to experience life in another country and then come back. Now, he’s not so sure. “I have always pictured my career in the NHS,” he said. “I believe in what it traditionally stood for and I believe it is the best model of healthcare. Now I have no idea what I’m going back to. I fear doctors will flee from such a poorly led system and leave those in it stranded. Then it will be left open for private takeover. I don’t want to work in a dangerously understaffed NHS or a privately-run one. That leaves my options limited. I can’t see a resolution under Jeremy Hunt.” Junior doctors have been telling Damien Gayle that suggestions that the BMA and government are actually quite close are off the mark. Claims that the BMA and government positions were actually quite close were government spin, said Benjamin Robinson, a psychiatry registrar at Maudsley, just over the road from Kings College Hospital. “The reason they are saying that is they want to say that this is based on reasons that are selfish,” he said. “What the government really doesn’t understand is that the contracts are going to disrupt our relationships with patients, because the new contracts have rotas - times when we work - which mean that you won’t as a patient get to see the same doctor on anything like a regular basis. We won’t be able to form the relationships that especially in mental health you have got to have with a doctor. Cate Manning, also a psychiatry registrar, said this was already a problem that patients cared about, and the government’s plans would only make it worse. “It’s just not actually workable. There are not enough of us to staff a seven-day NHS as if it was five days,” she said. Robinson added up: “Do [you] understand the distinction between Jeremy Hunt’s spin on the seven-day NHS? The reality is that if Jeremy Hunt has a heart attack on Christmas day we will be there to help him. For him to claim he’s creating a seven-day NHS is just ridiculous. If he’s saying that people can get their toenails removed at 8pm on a Saturday night, the way to do that is not mess around with junior doctors contracts.” Many will be wondering at how the impasse over the new contract for junior doctors will be broken. Damien Gayle has been asking the “what next” question of strikers at King’s College hospital in south London. Striking junior doctors were collecting ideas for a debate on how they can take their fight forward, with little sign that the government is prepared to back down. Maryann Noronha, who works in emergency medicine at Kings, said she and her colleagues had until now been focused on these two days of all out strike action. “The government doesn’t look like it’s going to soften, so we really need to plan how we can rack up the pressure, but at the same time still not put patients at risk. It’s a tough line to follow,” she said. “I was just speaking to a lady here and she was saying ‘you are not going to win, you should just give up, they are going to privatise the NHS.’ We were saying we (doctors) will be better off in a private system; we are here because we are fighting for the morality of it - we believe in the system.” Noronha denied suggestions that the government’s and BMA’s positions were actually by now quite close - a criticism levelled at the junior doctors by some. “The media has made it very close in the sense that they are focusing in on the Saturday pay. That’s pretty much what they are saying: that if the Saturday pay issue is resolved we would be fine. But I think if today the government said ‘We are still going to impose but we will align with the Saturday pay issue’, we wouldn’t agree with that. “We need to talk to them about exactly what their plan is for the seven-day NHS, how they are funding it, how they are going to staff it. Just changing Saturday pay is not going to solve the issue. It’s so complex, it can’t be just about one thing.” Despite accusations from some commentators that the BMA had led junior doctors into a dead end, Noronha was staunchly behind her union. “The BMA are trying their best to negotiate with this government. It’s a difficult job, it’s not easy to sit between everything, to represent every single junior doctor in the country. I don’t think they they have taken us down a dead end, I think they are trying their best to bring then government plans back down to reality and get some concrete answers.” A junior doctor currently on a break from medicine in the US has contacted the ’s Sarah Johnson about the strike. Namrata Turaga who worked only three as a junior doctor is studying for an MBA degree at Harvard Business school and has been keeping track of events as they unfold. She has been following developments with increasing frustration. She said: “I needed a break from a system that I felt was not adequately providing the vital clinical training I need to be the best doctor I can be and from a world where I had no choice but to agree to a work schedule that included only 12 day shifts in six months – the rest were evening or night shifts.” She has been watching colleagues and friends in the UK become “increasingly frustrated with their concerns being ignored or belittled” and was inspired to take classes on negotiations and complex deal making. She wrote a simulation based on the current junior doctors’ contract dispute, the result of which was students with a non-medical background reaching a deal by trading and compromising on issues. “It has left me wondering, if the Department of Health in the UK is simply choosing not to compromise with the junior doctors,” she said. “I hope that the strike is called off early because the government sees sense and listens to all the Royal Medical Colleges and patient safety organisations that are asking them to get back to the negotiating table. I hope people choose to work with one another, for the sake of fairness and for patients.” Damien Gayle has more on the money striking doctors have collected for a food bank. Striking junior doctors at Kings College hospital have collected £300 and a pile on non-perishable food to donate to a local food bank. Lucy Carter, an acute medicine doctor, said: “In the run up to the strike we had a food bank drive on the wards and among the junior doctors to bring in foods or cash donations, and yesterday during the industrial action we had another collection. We are taking it to Southwark food bank because we are all quite aware that this hospital serves some of the most underprivileged boroughs in London - Southwark and Lambeth - and it’s time we did something positive with industrial action. Lots of people on the street have come by to bring us tea or coffee and we are not the people who need it the most.” Hannah Orrell, a trainee surgeon at Kings who had just come off a night shift, tells Damien Gayle that Jeremy Hunt’s new contract would spell the death knell for the health service. The implications of the contract for me are quite far reaching. I’m hoping that I will be in the NHS for 30 to 40 years and, from what we can see on the NHS frontline, services are already overstretched as it is. When the new contract is imposed it means that five days worth of services will be stretched to seven days, with the same number of staff. We think that not only will this be unfair for us but it will be unsafe for patients. Orrell said that when she arrived at work at 5pm last night, she found that her department had been well covered. “We had a consultant for each surgical specialism ... I was in work from 5pm to 8am and heard from the consultants that everything ran smoothly. There were not any concerns over safety. All that was left for me to do was paperwork. I will be in again today from 5pm to 8am. I’m safe in the knowledge that the consultants know where we are, they know our numbers. If anything was to go wrong we are willing to go in. But we are confident that it will be safe and we encourage people to use services if they need to.” Will it take a change of health secretary to break the deadlock and finally settle the junior doctors’ dispute? Bill Morgan - who was a special adviser to Andrew Lansley, Jeremy Hunt’s predecessor - thinks it might. “The situation is at a complete stalemate. Jeremy Hunt has the support of Number 10 and the juniors have the support of their consultants. The public have been pretty steadfast in their support of juniors, but that’s been the same since the start – public opinion is neither rallying to their cause nor draining away. In short, neither the BMA nor the government is weak enough to lose. “Unless and until something happens to decisively shift the balance the strikes are going to continue. It’s impossible to predict how this might play out. On the one hand, juniors might lose the support of their consultants if a local hospital declares an emergency during strike action and the juniors don’t come in off the picket line. “On the other hand, NHS performance might deteriorate so far as a result of strike action that Number 10 pulls the plug. But at the moment neither is on the cards and both side are holding firm. The only other possible route to resolution is a change in the personalities. “There’s an element of the ‘Jeremy and Johann’ show about this, and if either or both move on their replacements might be more dovish and more willing to compromise”, says Morgan, who is now a partner in Incisive Health, a specialist health public affairs firm. Steven Morris has interviewed a couple of the older junior doctors - doctors below consultant level - on the picket line at the RUH in Bath. James Leggett, 38, re-trained after a career as an academic, dong research in neuroscience and is now an F1 doctor (between medical school and specialist training) currently doing general surgery at the RUH in Bath. “I’ve always voted, I’ve always read party manifestos but I’ve never felt at the sharp end of a government campaign like this. I think the government has backed itself into a corner. They’ve made promises they can’t fulfil but rather than backing down are intent on pushing through. They need to have a bit less ego and a bit more honesty as well as more compassion for patients and doctors. I think they’d get a lot of credit if they backed down and apologised. I don’t regret re-training. I love medicine. But it’s hard to deal with the day-to-day pummelling were getting. We’re being berated and belittled.” Rebecca Fallaize, 36, has spent longer than most as a junior doctor because she has had two children over the last five years. She believes the “weird structure” of the shift system the government wants to impose will harm patient safety. Fallaize is a specialist bowel cancer surgeon. “It’s continuity of care that improves patient safety. The fragmented nature of the proposed contract means that the continuity will be lost. It’s important to see your patient regularly. If you don’t see the patient every day, it’s hard to get that continuity, to build that rapport and have that understanding of how the patient is doing.” The strikers at King’s College have been raising money for a food bank in the London borough of Southwark. Alex Gates, 29, organiser of the picket line at the RUH in Bath, says the striking doctors are as motivated on day two as they were on day one. He thinks the next move should be for more pressure to be placed on hospital bosses to challenge the government. “If 20 chief executives signed a letter calling for the government to think again, I think that would sort it,” he said. Lucy Rose Jefferson, 26, who works in the geriatrics department at the RUH in Bath, is in what she calls the “Doomsday camp.” “If the government wins this, they’ll go after the nurses, the physiotherapists, everyone else. It will be the beginning of the end for the NHS.” Aisha Gani has been talking to Dolin Bhagawati, a registrar at the national hospital for neurology at Queen Square (central London) who has been a doctor for nine years. He says the specialist hospital he is at has probably 40 junior doctors and about 20 consultants, and at any one time 30 junior doctors. “The majority were on strike yesterday - we had four junior doctors working and all consultants were working.” He said he’s on strike as “this contact is unsafe and discriminatory and if imposed will worsen staff conditions. It’s not trialled and not evidence based.” He added: “Nine years as a junior doctor I have worked in three continents - US, India and here. I found here it’s very rare to have worked in a full rota and doctors have gone above and beyond to cover and fill gaps. People have worked illegal shifts. I myself am considering my future here. My wife is Indian and her first thought when she saw my working pattern was that I am being paid less and working harder than I would in India. As a consultant neurosurgeon, the average pay here would be £70,000 in U.S it Would be $700,000 (£479,994). In Seattle, my boss was on $4m - so it’s not about money. These are qualified intelligent people who have chosen a vocation. So rather than seeing the effect of this contract we want to negotiate and work with the government and get back to what we want to do and treat patients. Prevention is better than cure.” It’s not all support for junior doctors, reports Alessio Perrone at St Mary’s in west London. Some passers-by shout their disapproval. “Get back to work now. People could die!” one person said. Then a runner: “Shame on you!” And again: “Shame on you!” Junior doctor Ali Yazdi, who works in the geriatrics department, shouted back that their bosses supported them and are covering for them. He says it’s frustrating when this happens. “I understand some people don’t agree with us, but I wish they stopped to talk to us,” he said. “Instead many just shout and run away. We can’t explain our position.” The numbers of pickets at Royal University hospital in Bath are picking up considerably. Juniors on the picket line at King’s College say official figures on the number of their colleagues who went to work yesterday are misleading, writes Damien Gayle. According to the hospital press office, six junior doctors turned up to work in emergency departments across the trust - which also includes Princess Royal University hospital. However, despite being asked to do so by the , the trust did not indicate how many of these were juniors on staff grade contracts. These doctors are not covered by the strike as they are not on training contracts. Chris James, a trainee anaesthetist, said he had spoken to consultants in A&E who told him no trainee doctors had gone to work. “Yesterday at Kings A&E there were zero junior doctors. At the Pru (Princess Royal) there were five staff grade doctors. They are specialists who are not on these contracts, they are not involved in this dispute. So overall, across both sites, there were zero junior doctors,” he said. “Today we have got three non-training doctors - not on training contracts - at King’s, and I think it’s the same at the Pru again. That’s come from the consultant body. They were happy that they staffed it safely [yesterday], they had full cover and they had no problems at all.” Maddy Wells has just finished night shift in intensive care last night at University College hospital and has joined the picket line. She tells Aisha Gani there are eight junior doctors per shift on an average day and two consultants. No junior doctors worked yesterday from 8-5pm and there were six consultants covering. “My main reason for striking is despite multiple attempts at negotiation from people in prominent positions with Jeremy Hunt he has failed to listen,” said Wells. An assortment of signs from St Mary’s in Paddington, were numbers are picking up, writes Alessio Perrone. About 20-25 doctors have joined the picket, but they expect it to get much busier after 9.30am, when most surgeries start. Aisha Gani is at University College hospital in central London, where about two dozen junior doctors are on the picket line on a chilly April morning. Lina Carmona was on call as urology registrar last night, while she is also doing her PhD in prostrate cancer at UCL. She trained as a doctor in Colombia and came to the UK to work as a registrar. She has been a doctor for eight years and has a small child. “We’re supposed to be encouraging people, and women to be doing research. My wages doing a PhD is much lower than being registrar. I used to earn £3,000 a month and now I earn £1,600 and paying for my PhD. So who’s going to want to go into research when your salary is frozen. “My mentor is a consultant urologist and publishes research and has four children. She is my role model but I was talking to her and she said if I was in your position I wouldn’t know what I’d do. “So if I continue to do this job I’ll just be treated as a junior junior doctor again. I came here as I love research. I come from a country where we have to work dangerous hours and wouldn’t have any rest.” Striking junior doctors are just setting up their pickets at the entrance to the King’s College hospital compound in Camberwell, south London, writes Damien Gayle. Progress is slower than yesterday, some of those helping put of banners admitted to being hoarse from last night’s demo march through central London. Yesterday had seen hundreds of striking doctors join the picket at its height in the afternoon. As many are expected today, but the atmosphere is muted for now. Chris James, a trainee anaesthetist, said that yesterday’s strike had really impressed on them the power of the media, and how much most outlets were happy to back the government’s line. James said: ”Yesterday was about where are we, where’s everyone’s support base, are we doing the right thing, are we not. This whole thing is very emotionally charged. Today is a lot more about taking stock.” Despite warnings from the government, James and his colleagues said they believed there had been adequate cover in critical departments of the hospital. “I had a chat with our clinical director here saying we are staffing one to one in A&E. That’s where they were talking about the big risk, whereas yesterday was the safest day to go to A&E.” King’s strikers had hired an open top bus yesterday, which they used to tour south west London neighbourhoods before travelling to St Thomas for last night’s march. People they met had been mostly supportive, he said. “We had the odd person who would argue with us but if you actually engage with them and tell them [they say] they didn’t realise about the inequality issues, about stretching a five-day service over seven.” King’s - and the wider NHS - have problems, James admitted, but management and the government were attempting to solve them without consulting those at the sharp end. “The people who are doing it day in day out, who have got the most experience, they are not engaging with them. It just feels like that’s systematic of the whole problem. If you had an open discussion about what’s happening in the NHS then you can change.” As well as reading your reaction to today’s strikes in the comments, we’d like to hear from those of you who are involved and see your pictures of where you are. Are you a junior doctor on the picket lines today? Maybe you are there in solidarity, or perhaps you have gone to work as a covering senior medic? If you are not a medical worker but are at one of the hospitals up and down the country that is affected, we’d also like to hear from you. You can share any photos you have by clicking on the blue Witness buttons on this article and we’ll use some of them as part of our ongoing coverage. My colleague Steven Morris is at the Royal United hospital, a major acute-care hospital in the Weston suburb of Bath. It seems the Department of Health has been reaching out to lobby correspondents, including Sam Coates of the Times, to be its new director of communications. The Spectator has this nugget on its so far fruitless search. With the junior doctors’ strike now in full swing, it’s fair to say that these aren’t the most harmonious days staff at the Department of Health have ever seen. Perhaps that’s why they are looking for a new director of communications to take charge of the department’s ‘external and internal communication activities across a complex and high profile agenda’. Alas, so far they don’t appear to have had much luck enticing candidates to the public relations role. Despite enlisting the help of ‘executive search firm’ Veredus, the search is still on and recruiters appear to be spending their time sending unsolicited messages to members of the lobby. Sam Coates, the Times‘s deputy political editor, has shared a message online that he received asking if he would be interested in the role — which carries a starting salary of £120,000. Alas, Coates was left unimpressed after two of his friends were approached about the same role just last week. Junior doctors on the picket line at St Mary’s hospital in Paddington, west London. The Labour party leader, Jeremy Corbyn, was out yesterday showing his support for striking junior doctors. David Cameron took the opposite tack saying it was “not right” for junior doctors to withdraw emergency care. Denis Campbell, the ’s health policy editor, writes: Yesterday the highly-respected NHS blogger and health policy analyst, Roy Lilley, wrote, in effect, “a plague on both your houses” about the BMA and Jeremy Hunt for their tactics during the dispute. Today Lilley renews his criticism of the doctors’ union - both its leadership and its junior doctors committee headed by Dr Johann Malawana. “I’m thinking about the great NHS strike of 2016 when the junior doctors took on the mighty machinery of government and... and... and what? Lost, I suspect. What is there to win? The union have led their members into a cul-de-sac. More strikes, more disruption? More risk to reputation, careers, public patience? Let’s be honest, the contract is not the draconian settlement it is billed as. The gap between the BMA and the DH is easily bridgeable. The BMA walked away from David Dalton and the DH threw their toys out of the pram. The JDs have let themselves become a lightning rod for every complaint and disaffection there is in the NHS work place. Their strategic communications woeful.” But Lilley is also worried about the lingering impact of the whole sorry saga on morale at the NHS frontline. NHS hospital trusts will have to make big efforts to try and engage with their junior doctors to keep them motivated -- not an easy task, he believes. “There are plenty of studies about behaviour in post-strike work places. Smouldering resentment. Strikes are industrial warfare. Employees lose money, somebody will have lost face. Emotions run hot.” Tim Farron, leader of the Liberal Democrats, last night called on Jeremy Hunt to name an “honest broker” to help bring people back to the table and has put forward its health spokesman, Norman Lamb. Negotiations are at a standstill, with no end in sight. Something must be done before there is serious risk to the public... Our health spokesperson and former care minister, Norman Lamb would be an ideal honest broker, with experience in the department, credibility among health professionals and a record of delivering improvements in services. If the government and the BMA are willing to bring a third, independent, party to the table, Norman is prepared to work with both sides to find a way out of this dispute. It’s day two of the first all-out strike in NHS history. Junior doctors – all those below the level of consultant - will again stay away from hospitals from 8am and 5pm. On the first day, four out of five junior doctors walked out as David Cameron criticised their withdrawal of emergency care. At some hospitals, almost 90% of junior doctors refused to work in an escalation of their campaign against the new contract that the health secretary Jeremy Hunt intends to impose on them. However, most hospitals coped well and did not experience any problems. Senior medics took on duties usually undertaken by their junior colleagues. A&E units were quieter than usual as patients with minor ailments heeded NHS warnings to stay away. Figures released by NHS England showed that 21,608 junior doctors – 78% of those due to work – participated in the industrial action. It claimed that this was down from the 88% who did so on each day during the previous strike on 6-8 April. However, the 88% figure raised questions as NHS England had previously said that almost half of doctors had worked on those days. Turnout was highest at Barts Health, the largest trust in the NHS. The London trust said that 88.4% of its 1,000 junior doctors had joined the walkout. Unlike four previous strikes, this stoppage is the first one to affect areas of life-or-death treatment, such as A&E, maternity and intensive care. More than 125,000 appointments and operations have been cancelled and will need to be rearranged as a result of the latest strike.
US border control could start asking for your social media accounts The US government is proposing making social media accounts part of the visa screening process for entry into the country. US Customs and Border Protection’s proposed change would add a line on both the online and paper forms of the visa application form that visitors to the US must fill out if they do not have a visa and are planning on staying for up to 90 days. The following question would be added to both the Electronic System for Travel Authorization (Esta) and I-94W forms: “Please enter information associated with your online presence—Provider/Platform—Social media identifier.” The information will be optional, for now, but the proposed change published by the US Federal Register states that “collecting social media data will enhance the existing investigative process and provide Department of Homeland Security (DHS) greater clarity and visibility to possible nefarious activity and connections by providing an additional tool set which analysts and investigators may use to better analyze and investigate the case.” The proposal is currently under consultation, with US government taking comments until 22 August. The change forms part of the plan by the US DHS to scrutinise social media activity of visa applicants and those wishing to enter the country, following the San Bernardino killings in California, in which social media profiles formed part of the investigations along with an iPhone 5C. Current DHS pilot programmes are being kept under wraps but are said to scan a limited amount of social media posts. The pilot programmes currently used by DHS do not sweep up all social media posts, though government officials have kept details of the programmes closely held, as they do not want to reveal the precise process they use to try and identify potential threats. It’s unclear if or how the DHS would verify information written on a form before hitting border control, leaving the possibility of false information being put down, and while the information may be optional, it will likely be difficult to discern what is and isn’t required on the form. The US government approves around 10m visa applications a year and had 77.5 million foreign visitors in 2015. Collecting social media accounts for all visitors could produce one of the largest government-controlled databases of its kind almost overnight. Silicon Valley appears open to helping US spy agencies after terrorism summit
Churchill would have been a committed voter to remain in EU Winston Churchill still stands at the centre of the modern Conservative party’s view of Britain and of itself. So it was inevitable that sooner or later the two Tory sides in the argument about Britain’s place in Europe would begin to battle it out for the ownership of Churchill’s view of Europe and as arbiters of which way he might vote in the forthcoming referendum. On Monday, the two sides went head-to-head as David Cameron laid explicit claim to the wartime prime minister’s support for the remain camp in the cause of European peace stability. Boris Johnson insisted that Churchill wanted no part in the European Union. Cameron’s speech stressed that Churchill was never by choice an isolationist from Europe in either war or peace. “Churchill never wanted that,” he said at the British Museum. After the war Churchill had argued passionately for western Europe to come together. A few hours later, Johnson – who is also, in his own solipsistic fashion, a biographer of Churchill – accused the EU of becoming ever more anti-democratic and a force for instability not security. Johnson didn’t actually mention Churchill in his speech. But he did in questions afterwards, when he said that although the European project had kept the postwar peace, Churchill had wanted Britain to play no part in it. So which of them is right? Which way might Churchill have voted if he was still alive and was, at the age of 141, still on the electoral register? This is, of course, an unhistorical question. Churchill died in January 1965 so he can’t know what the issue feels like in May and June 2016, more than half a century later. But there are plenty of clues in his long career that suggest where his heart might lie. One of those is Churchill’s enthusiastic attempt, at the height of the battle for France in 1940, to create political union between Britain and France in a plan which would have made every British citizen a citizen of France and vice versa, with a single government and single armed forces. By any standards, this was a radical sharing of sovereignty that would be difficult for a Brexiteer to swallow at any time. Cameron is also right that the postwar Churchill was not an isolationist either. He might have, but didn’t, quote from a speech to the 1948 European congress at The Hague in which, then the leader of the opposition, Churchill said this about economic and political cooperation in Europe: It is said with truth that this involves some sacrifice or merger of national sovereignty and characteristics, but it is also possible to regard it as the gradual assumption by all nations concerned of that larger sovereignty which can also protect their diverse and distinctive customs, and their national traditions.” There’s not much there for Nigel Farage there, either. But Johnson is right in one respect. Although Churchill made a speech in Zurich in 1946 in which he called for the creation of a United States of Europe, he did not seem to envisage Britain being part of it. Churchill was a British imperialist. He always saw Britain at the centre of the imperial network, later the Commonwealth. And he was an Atlanticist, not least by birth (his mother, Lady Randolph Churchill, was born in Brooklyn), with a profound loyalty to the notion of the Anglosphere, which continues to attract many on the isolationist right today. Nevertheless, Churchill did not share today’s Brexiteer obsession with pushing these issues to defining choices. He said in a Tory conference speech in 1948 that Britain was part of three “majestic circles” – the empire and Commonwealth, the English-speaking world and a “united Europe”. He called these circles “co-existent” and “linked together”. A year later, speaking to the European Movement, he said also it was essential to persuade the Commonwealth that its “interests as well as ours lie in a United Europe”. Tellingly, whenever Churchill talked about Europe he almost always talked about “we” not “they”. And he wasn’t just a romantic visionary, he was also a pragmatist. According to his solicitor general Sir John Foster, Churchill became a convert to the European convention on human rights when a woman in the Channel Islands was arrested on a charge of bestiality, for which local medieval law prescribed the mandatory punishment of being burned at the stake. Churchill sent the Royal Navy to spring the woman from custody and drop her on the French coast. As a result of that case, it was said by one of his ministers, Churchill was a firm supporter of Europe’s overriding written code of rights and principles, which his ministers helped to draw up. Which way would Churchill vote on 23 June? We cannot know. But everything we know about Churchill’s sense of vision and his pragmatic approach to issues of the day suggests to me that he would be a committed voter to remain.
500,000 Britons a year will be diagnosed with cancer by 2035, study shows More than half a million Britons a year will be diagnosed with cancer by 2035, making it hard for NHS services to cope with the extra demand for testing and treatment, Cancer Research UK (CRUK) has warned. The number of people across the UK found to have cancer every year is expected to rise from 352,000 to an estimated 514,000 in less than 20 years – more than 160,000 extra cases annually – according to research in the British Journal of Cancer. The vast majority of the expected 162,000 additional cases – 141,000 – will be caused by the ageing and growing population. However, another 12,600 will be the result of a combination of lifestyle factors, such as smoking, alcohol or poor diet, and also improved screening for the disease. In 1993, 127,000 men and 128,000 women were diagnosed with the disease. By 2014, the numbers had risen to 173,000 and 179,000 respectively. This future trends analysis, based on examining cancer data going back to 1979, predicts that 244,000 women and more than 270,000 men will be diagnosed in 2035. Those big rises mean there is an “urgent need to plan for the future of NHS cancer services, which are already stretched to the limit as they struggle to cope with a growing and ageing population”, CRUK said. “The number of people getting cancer in the UK will incerease sharply in the next two decades. This is mostly the result of an ageing and growing population but, for women, lifestyle factors are playing an increasingly important role”, said Dr Rebecca Smittenaar, the study’s lead author and CRUK’s statistics manager. People’s risk of developing cancer will also rise in actual terms, separate to the growing numbers diagnosed, due to increased life expectancy and population expansion. Cancer incidence rates have risen for both sexes in an almost unbroken way since records began in 1979, though they have recently begun edging downwards for men. Men have always been more likely than women to be diagnosed. In 1993, 783 f every 100,000 men aged 15 or over were diagnosed with cancer. That rose to 808 per 100,000 in 2014 and is predicted to increase again, albeit slightly, to 812 per 100,000 in 2035. The number of women in that age group who developed cancer rose from 564 per 100,000 people in 1993 to 664 per 100,000 in 2014. It is due to hit 685 by 2035, according to the study. CRUK last year revised its prediction for the number of people who would develop cancer at some point in their lives from one in three to one in two. Sir Harpal Kumar, the charity’s chief executive, said the expected increases in cancer cases were “shocking”. However, four in 10 cancers could be prevented if people drank less, did not smoke, ate a healthy diet and took more exercise, he said.
HSBC starts laying off 840 IT staff in UK HSBC has prompted union anger after it began laying off 840 IT workers as part of a £5bn cost-cutting move that will shift UK computer services operations to Poland, China and India. The outsourcing deal, which will shed 595 jobs in Sheffield and a further 245 posts lost in London, Leeds and Birmingham, is the first big tranche of redundancies under a restructuring plan that will eliminate 8,000 British jobs by the end of next year. HSBC said the relocation of IT jobs was part of its “large and ongoing IT investment to build a global world-class IT infrastructure” that would still leave the UK playing a central role in HSBC’s global IT and “employing several thousand highly skilled professionals”. Last year HSBC said the reshaping of the bank, which is Europe’s largest, was necessary to improve profitability and increase the annual dividend. However, unions said it was devastating for experienced IT staff to be told they must train overseas recruits before their jobs were transferred abroad and workers were made redundant. Most of the staff affected were being informed about the cuts on Monday with all the UK jobs to disappear by the end of this year. Dominic Hook, Unite’s national officer for finance, accused HSBC of fostering a “cynical race to the bottom” after its decision to offshore IT jobs. He said: “HSBC’s decision to axe so many IT jobs is as ruthless as it is reckless. For almost a year staff have been left in the dark about their futures, only to be told that before being shown the door they’re expected to train someone in India or China who will do their job for less money. It’s a deeply cynical move by a bank which wants to be an ‘employer of choice’. “Offshoring IT jobs to so-called ‘low-cost economies’ is extremely short-sighted. As IT glitches across the banks continue to prove, it is ultimately the customers who will suffer the consequences.” HSBC has had a torrid time since the 2008 banking crash, with a series of scandals leading to millions of pounds in fines and prompted it to consider shifting its HQ from London for Hong Kong. Profits have recovered, though regulatory demands for the bank to maintain higher reserves combined with volatile markets have restricted its ability to maintain a solid recovery. Profits at HSBC fell in the first three months of 2016, raising questions among investors about its promise to raise the value of the dividend. Pretax profits fell in the first three months of the year by 14% to $6.1bn (£4.2bn), which the bank described as “a resilient performance despite challenging market conditions”. If currency movements and other one-off items were excluded, profits tumbled by 18% to $5.4bn. The bank announced its three-year restructuring plan last year, designed to pare back its sprawling global network by shutting underperforming businesses to improve earnings hurt by high compliance costs, fines and low interest rates. The restructuring will eventually eliminate one job in five around the world and around one-sixth of jobs in Britain. As part of the cost cutting, a hiring and pay freeze across the bank’s global operations was also imposed until the end of the year, although it has continued to pay hundreds of staff more than £1m a year. When the restructuring plan was announced, the chief executive, Stuart Gulliver, said most of the job losses in Britain would come from staff leaving on their own accord. HSBC has 47,000 workers in the UK at the end of December 2015, according to its most recent annual report. John Hackett, chief operating officer of HSBC UK, sought to reassure staff that the bank was “committed to supporting employees through this process”. However, he said it was clear for the last year the bank was aiming to achieve significant cost reductions by the end of 2017. “As part of a global relocation exercise, around 840 non-customer-facing IT roles will transfer from the UK to other sites around the world by the end of March 2017. The UK will continue to play an important role in HSBC’s global IT infrastructure, employing several thousand IT professionals,” he said.
The shelter that gives wine to alcoholics On a grey January morning at 9.15, residents of the Oaks shelter for the homeless started lining up, coffee mugs in hand, at a yellow linoleum counter. At half past the hour, the pour began. The Oaks’ residents are hard-core alcoholics. They line up to get what most people would consider the very last thing they need: an hourly mug of alcohol. Dorothy Young, the Oaks’ activities coordinator – a stocky, always-smiling middle-aged woman who is part cheerleader, part event planner, part warden, part bartender – stood behind the counter at a tap that dispenses cold white wine. She poured a measured amount of wine into each cup: maximum seven ounces at 7.30am for the first pour of the day, and five ounces each hour after that. Last call is 9.30pm. The pour is calculated for each resident to be just enough to stave off the shakes and sweats of detox, which for alcohol is particularly unpleasant – seizures from alcohol deprivation can be fatal. The pour is strictly regulated: Young cuts off anyone who comes in intoxicated. They won’t be given another drink until they sober up. The Oaks is a converted hotel next to a pawnshop, in Carlington, a working-class neighbourhood on the west side of Ottawa, Canada. When residents first arrive, they tend to drink the maximum, every hour, every day. Many also drink whatever they can buy or shoplift outside the building. For most, this gradually changes. They stop drinking outside, begin to ask for fewer ounces, skip pours or have a “special pour” of watered-down wine. Two residents get several hours’ worth at a time to take up to their rooms and ration out themselves. One man gave up alcohol but gets an hourly pour of grape juice, to stay part of the group. Ten of the Oaks’ residents are mental health patients and don’t get the pour – just fewer than 50 others do. A few are women or younger men, but the majority are men in their 50s; it often takes several decades of drinking before people seek a different life and land here. Standard clothing in January was flannel pyjama bottoms and slippers with a down jacket. Many have long beards, dishevelled hair, and no front teeth – alcohol will do that. Most are sick. Years or decades of drinking have left them with liver, heart and brain damage that will never be reversed. A nurse is on site 40 hours a week. At least once a week and whenever necessary, a doctor and specialist nurses come to see patients. Young leads physical stretching groups, a book club, shopping trips and outings; Little Ray’s Reptile Zoo was a recent hit. The pour is what makes the Oaks different from every other well-run facility of its kind. It solves the residents’ most urgent problem: where can I get a drink? Virtually all the clients have tried to quit, over and over, and failed. They have spent decades drinking themselves into a stupor each day. One man was taken to A&E 109 times in six months. Another was picked up by the police or paramedics 314 times in one year. They have caused enough chaos and disorder that they have been kicked out of, or barred from Ottawa’s other shelters. Before being accepted at the Oaks, if they could not beg or collect enough empty bottles to recycle to buy booze, many shoplifted rubbing alcohol or Listerine. Some shelters started filling their hand-sanitiser dispensers with soap, because residents drank the rub for the alcohol it contains. “We have guys with wounds with worms in them,” said Kim van Herk, a psychiatric nurse with Ottawa Inner City Health, an organisation formed 15 years ago to address the needs of the city’s hardest-to-reach homeless people, many of whom are alcoholics. “And that’s our priority, but it’s not their priority,” added Amanda MacNaughtan, a nurse coordinator. “They are so dependent on alcohol that it’s their most basic need,” said Van Herk. “If that need is not being met, nothing else matters for them. It’s hard for other people to get their minds around how severe their addiction is – they feel like they’re going to die. But once that need is met for them, they can start looking at other parts of their life.” The pour creates trust: here is a system that understands residents’ needs. This system loosens them from their drinking friends. It keeps them away from Listerine. Without the pour, they would stay outdoors, begging or stealing, in danger of losing their feet to frostbite. Indoors, they take their medicine, see their doctors and mental health workers, eat actual food, re-establish contact with their families. Giving free booze to homeless alcoholics sounds crazy. But it may be the key to helping them live a stable life. * * * Irwin Windsor, 39, has a broad, smiling face and short brown bristle-cut hair. Ten years ago he still had a normal life: a family and steady work with a moving company. Although there had been drinking in his own family, he remembers his childhood in British Columbia fondly. He lived for a few years with his beloved maternal grandmother, who was an occasional drinker. He has happy memories of just sitting with her and watching soap operas or The Price is Right, her favourite gameshow. She taught him to knit, crochet and cook. His stepfather, whom he adored, would get drunk two or three times a week when Irwin was little. But he was not abusive. When Windsor was in his 20s and had a job, he would take $100 Canadian (£55) from his paycheque and the two would drink. “We would send my mother off to bingo and we’d play cards and listen to music. We had a great time.” Windsor kept his drinking under control until 10 years ago. Then his stepfather died and his grandmother committed suicide. His weekly binges became daily binges, and then all‑day binges. He lost his job, lost his apartment, and lost contact with his sons, who live in Vancouver. “I haven’t seen them for almost 11 years,” he told me. “I don’t want my sons to see me as an alcoholic.” He had nowhere to live. He had always been an early riser, and would wake at 4 or 5am, with the shakes, dry heaves and sweats. His first thought of the day – virtually his only thought of the day – was to calm the symptoms with a drink. He would go out to beg and, when he got enough money, then head to the LCBO, Ontario’s official chain of liquor stores. His drink was pale dry sherry, a fortified wine that contains 20% alcohol – $7.99 for a 750ml bottle. On his worst days, Windsor was drinking eight to 10 bottles a day. He drank until he lost consciousness. The next day he would do it again. Three or four times a week, someone would come upon him passed out in the cashpoint lobby of a bank or in a downtown park, and call Ottawa’s emergency number. The police and paramedics would get him up and take him to A&E or the police drunk tank. Windsor’s lifestyle was not only self-destructive and devastating to his family, it was also costly to Canada’s taxpayers. A trip to the hospital cost $243 for the ambulance, and $250 for a doctor’s assessment. Going to the police station cost $256 for just one officer to talk to him and make notes. These figures do not include hospital admission or any medical treatment, nor the hours paramedics had to spend waiting in A&E until Windsor was seen. Nor do they include the cost of arrest or a night in a police cell, or the fact that officers work in pairs, so theirs is never the work of just one person. Nor the costs incurred by putting all these public servants to work chauffeuring alcoholics instead of doing their jobs. For Windsor to visit A&E or the police lock-up three times a week, the good citizens of Ottawa were paying at the very least $1,000 (£550) a week and perhaps double or triple that. And all for services that did nothing to help him solve his problems. * * * In the late 1990s, a tiny group of people was responsible for absorbing a huge proportion of Ottawa’s healthcare budget. Greater Ottawa had a population of about 750,000. About 1,000 of its residents were chronically homeless. Roughly half of those were alcoholics. Many were also drug users, and the majority had mental health problems. Health professionals struggled to handle them. Three of the four city shelters would not let drunk people in, and none permitted residents to drink while they were there. Some alcoholics would not go to a shelter if it meant suffering the shakes and sweats of detox, and those who did go in for the night made sure they got good and drunk before walking through the door, in order to stave off detox for as many hours as possible. One of the people grappling with this issue was Jeff Turnbull. One of the country’s most eminent physicians, he was at the time, president of the Medical Council of Canada. Very few doctors with Turnbull’s credentials see homeless patients, but he did. He would see the same people in the Ottawa hospital A&E day after day. “I’d give them antibiotics, and they’d show up the next day. I’d say, ‘Did you take your antibiotics?’ and they’d say: ‘What antibiotics?’” He started to ask his patients about the cause of all this chaos. “Come and see how I live,” said one. The man was startled when Turnbull showed up at the corner where he begged from passing motorists, then followed him into the shelter where he went for the night. Turnbull started to visit shelters regularly to treat their clients. In 1998, one man was causing increasing concern to those who cared for Ottawa’s homeless population. Eugene Aucoin would drink mouthwash and fall asleep in snowbanks. “He lost toes to frostbite, and he was a diabetic so his feet just would not heal,” said Wendy Muckle, then the director of Sandy Hill Community Health Centre. Turnbull would get to the shelter before 6am to try to give Aucoin his antibiotic injection before he set out in search of alcohol. Once Turnbull chased Aucoin down the street, syringe in hand. Aucoin, with only stubs for feet, managed to get away. Sheila Burnett, the executive director of Shepherds of Good Hope, the Catholic social services organisation that ran Aucoin’s shelter, had an idea: she brought in a bottle of wine from home and gave Aucoin a drink when he woke up, to keep him there long enough to get his medicine. It worked. In the summer of 1998, Muckle, Turnbull, Burnett and others – including Ottawa’s police, the health department, leaders of the Business Improvement Areas – began meeting regularly to figure out how to help this small group of people who were constantly showing up in the city’s shelters, hospitals and jails. They sat down with their most difficult patients and asked: what would have to happen for you to get medical care? From these conversations, they established Ottawa Inner City Health, an association of agencies and organisations with the goal of bringing real help to homeless people. For many patients, the pursuit of alcohol consumed all their energy. But what if they could hand it out, like medicine, as Burnett had? “We looked around to see if anyone else was doing this,” said Muckle, who became executive director of Inner City Health. Just a few months earlier, Seaton House shelter in Toronto had opened what was probably the world’s first scheme giving regular doses of alcohol to homeless alcoholics. The programme began after three intoxicated men had frozen to death in the winter of 1995. Muckle and her colleagues spent a lot of time on the phone with Seaton House staff. The men served by the Seaton House programme were staying indoors, and seemed to be stabilising their lives. There had also been no political backlash in Toronto. But Ottawa was a much more conservative city, as Turnbull and Muckle found when they took their idea to city officials. “The mayor looked at me like I had two heads,” said Turnbull. The Managed Alcohol Programme was launched in 2001 without any noticeable political opposition, largely because nobody knew about it who didn’t have to know. It took some of the most complex patients out of other shelters, who were happy to see them go. The MAP, as it would become known, was opened by Inner City and Shepherds of Good Hope inside Shepherds’ large brick building downtown. “It took the strain off A&E, incarceration, and shelters that can’t deal with complex issues,” said Stephen Bartolo, Shepherds’ operations director.. For Turnbull and Muckle, giving the residents alcohol was a means to an end – its purpose was to attract clients to a programme that also provided safe shelter, food, medical and mental health care. That meant the managed alcohol programme had to be part of an existing shelter system. That was not going to be the Salvation Army, which was founded in part to promote temperance. At first, they struggled to fill the MAP’s 10 beds. “We had to do a lot of convincing for people to try it,” said Muckle. “Once they were in and saw how much better life was, they were converted. But it was not easy. We used to say that anyone who wanted to be in the programme did not need it and anyone who really needed the programme was hard to get in.” Funding was a huge problem. “We wanted to avoid any situation where we could be criticised for using taxpayers’ money to buy alcohol for alcoholics,” said Muckle. Inner City decided that most of the money for alcohol would have to come from their clients’ own benefit payments. “For a period of time we had no funding and were often not able to meet payroll. When an invoice came in I would look at it and decide which one of my friends should pay it, and I’d call them up. Board members brought in office supplies.” Buying booze, even the cheapest rotgut, was also expensive. “When we first started our programme, with 10 residents, we were picking up cases of sherry every other day,” said Bartolo. There were also legal hurdles. “To the Liquor Licensing Board, we looked like a drinking establishment – but we could never get a liquor licence,” said Turnbull. For example, the cost of putting in a sprinkler system would have been prohibitive. A police sergeant, who was part of the group forming Inner City Health, came up with the solution. The law gave Ontario residents the right to make wine or beer in their own homes and gather to appreciate it – no licence necessary. The MAP was the residents’ home. They could make wine – with a little help from the staff. (More than a little, actually.) And gathering to appreciate it would not be a problem. * * * Today the wine for both the MAP and the Oaks – which opened a decade later to provide long-term housing for MAP graduates – is made at the Oaks. The winemaking room off the lobby is lined with 25 grey plastic barrels (and kept well-locked). The Oaks staff buy bags of ready-made white wine concentrate – the red turned out to be stronger and got people drunk – then add water and yeast. The residents help by cleaning the barrels and doing other jobs, always closely supervised. Overhead pipes take the wine to the pour counter tap, and staff members drive containers of wine across town to the MAP. The wine is just about drinkable – probably more so if you’re used to hand sanitiser. “A lot of our clients prefer quantity over quality,” said Bartolo. One hallmark of all the programmes of Inner City Health and its partners, from the beginning, was the second chance. “In a lot of programmes, if you slip up, you’re out,” said Ray MacQuatt, the earnest, endlessly patient Shepherds employee who runs the Oaks. “We’re about another chance tomorrow. If you have more good days than bad, we’re going to get you moving in the right direction.” Initially, Muckle said, staff at the MAP took leniency too far. “They got their pour to start the day,” she said, and then they went out to beg, coming back in time to sleep. “Half the time in the afternoon there were no clients. We continued to serve them when we shouldn’t have.” There were daily dramas, scuffles and shouting. There was just one small room and two staff to cope with 10 drunk clients. Arguments inevitably broke out. In the end, it was the clients themselves who wanted drunk people banned. The chaos was making them anxious – and that made them want to drink. They needed to feel safe in their home. “They told me, ‘You have to stop letting drunk people into our programme,’” she recalled. “I was astonished. I told them, ‘Well, that’s you.’ “They said, ‘Don’t let us in when we’re drunk.’” New rules were brought in: clients needed to clock in 30 minutes before, in order to get the pour. Anyone intoxicated didn’t get a drink. Clients who were violent were asked to leave. “Either way, that does not mean they will not be welcomed back,” said Muckle. “Some of the people who need the help the most have taken many tries before they settle in – that is the nature of addiction.” * * * There is a name for the strategy that Inner City Health uses: harm reduction. It is a familiar concept for heroin addicts, first implemented in Liverpool in the 1980s. The approach gained currency amid an HIV epidemic involving injecting drug users who often shared needles. Under this system, health workers give injecting drug users clean needles, and a daily dose of the opioids methadone or buprenorphine, which quiets cravings and allows addicts to live a more normal life. In some countries, people who fail on those treatments can even be prescribed a regular, medically supervised dose of heroin, which is very successful at returning users to stability. Needle programmes also bring drug users into treatment that they would not otherwise know about or trust. Thus, harm reduction is often the first step to abstinence. But it also recognises that not everyone can quit. Those who cannot are helped to live as healthy and as stable a life as possible. While harm reduction is now the global standard for working with injecting drug users, with alcoholics, it is not even part of the debate. Some “wet” shelters – hostels that allow residents to drink – exist around the world, including at least three in London and two in Manchester. But regular provision of alcohol – the pour – exists in only a handful of Canadian cities; Ottawa’s is the second-oldest and the most-studied programme. Officials from other countries have visited, and Sydney, Australia, has done a feasibility study. But the programme is a tough sell. Someone always says: “My dad was an alcoholic and he quit. Why don’t these people quit?” said Bartolo. When news of the programme finally appeared in the media, Turnbull received hate mail, much of it from the US. “A fair amount of people said we are killing alcoholics, and abstinence is the only way,” said Turnbull. He shook his head. “We don’t walk away from cancer we can’t cure; we take a palliative approach. It hurts me to see guys drinking, but the alternative is not giving them any care.” For Ottawa’s most serious alcoholics, the door to the managed alcohol system is in the city’s downtown area, on the ground floor of the Shepherds’ building, which used to be known as Hope Recovery. (“It’s hell’s asshole,” said Muckle. “Nobody ever recovered there.”) Inner City Health’s programme there is now known as TED, which stands for Targeted Engagement and Diversion. TED offers no alcohol, but anyone, no matter how drunk, can come and sleep there. Residents are also allowed to store a bottle for the morning after. It is safer than the street, but still loud and chaotic, and sometimes violent. Several people had died in the shelter – probably of drug overdoses or alcohol poisoning, although the causes of death were not determined – but none since nursing care was brought in. “I’d come inside to pass out, but I didn’t want to be that person living there,” said Chris Mercredi, who is now at the Oaks. “I couldn’t picture myself there. I was ashamed of myself.” The beds at TED have thin plastic mattresses and are arranged four to a room. There are also small lockers, even though many clients have no possessions. (I asked one man what he kept in his locker besides clothes, and his response was “Like what?”) A Shepherds’ soup kitchen serves meals across the street. Inner City Health gives its regulars laminated wallet cards giving consent for police and paramedics to take them to TED instead of taking them to hospital or the police cells. (The clients get cards because when they are picked up, they are often in no condition to consent to anything.) But in 2014, the programme became one of the city’s official alternatives to A&E, and 3,480 people came to TED who would otherwise have ended up in hospital. People in serious medical danger still go to A&E, but these days they are comparatively few. Just the transport and initial assessment in hospital would have cost $1.74m; at TED, caring for them cost $300,000. When you wake up at TED, a staff member greets you. Do you need a nurse? Housing? Do you feel like trying to detox? Or how about trying the next step, managed alcohol? There’s a long waiting list for the MAP, but priority goes to the sickest: those whose drinking is out of control and puts them in danger, the people who have run out of options. * * * Canada’s Inuit and aboriginal people are over-represented in the ranks of alcoholics (although they are under-represented as drug addicts). One reason is poverty; another is the effect of a massive state-inflicted trauma. Tens of thousands of indigenous children were taken from their families and sent to church-run residential schools designed to westernise them by separating them from their families, language and culture. Ottawa has the highest proportion of Inuit of any major city outside Canada’s north. “They come here and might not have a plan, and end up on the street,” said Bartolo. Simeonie Kunnuk, like many of the homeless alcoholics in Ottawa, has a history of horror. He was sent to a residential school, where he was raped for the first time at seven years old. Sexual and physical abuse continued for years. Kunnuk came to the Oaks in April 2015, and has drastically cut down on his drinking, but the memories still trigger the desire for alcohol. “It’s best not thinking too hard about it,” he said. Kunnuk spent 20 years collecting recyclables, making enough to buy his Black Bull malt liquor (a 10% beer). His daily intake was four litre bottles for $15, plus a can of sardines and a loaf of bread. In November 2014, he woke up at TED after a binge and Ray MacQuatt asked if he felt ready for the managed alcohol programme. “What time do they start drinking?” Kunnuk asked. He had no possessions; he simply walked upstairs. But it felt like a different world. MAP, by then, had increased its size only slightly, to 12 residents. He had his own bed. There was medical care and mental health care. There were activities and counselling and, of course, the hourly pour. Chris Mercredi, who came to the Oaks in October 2015, grew up in a trailer in rural Alberta with two severely alcoholic parents. The family ate bread made of flour fried with lard, and the rabbits his mother hunted. His sister was forced into prostitution – he remembers one day when she triumphantly came home with a bag of groceries, including white bread and hot dogs. Mercredi’s little brother, who used to climb into his bed for comfort, was separated from him when they both went into foster care. Mercredi was abused in the foster system, and started drinking at 18. He is 56, but perhaps the only person in the Oaks who looks younger than his age. He has a full head of hair dyed black, and a salt-and-pepper moustache. He is always neatly and colourfully dressed, with arms full of beaded and chain bracelets. He spoke softly and carefully, clicking his teeth repeatedly, his eye on the clock until it was time to get his pour. Although a heavy drinker, Mercredi had been employed in home renovation and furniture assembly until a work accident crushed his right arm. He had a steady boyfriend, Lee Crapeau, and worked as a dishwasher making $60 per day – which he immediately spent on drink. He and Lee slept in Ottawa’s parks. They had been together for 36 years when Lee died, of alcohol-related illness, in November 2014. Mercredi had got sober many times. “Once I went to detox and stayed 28 days, to collect my thoughts. As soon as I got out,” he said, “I went straight to the booze store to buy beer.” * * * Every week, the MAP’s residents gather in the common room for a meeting. They get their pour, then take their mugs and sit at round, black tables. When I visited, a few men rolled loose tobacco into cigarettes. It was overheated and stuffy. One of the residents had been aggressive over the weekend, but at midmorning, no one seemed intoxicated, and the meeting’s tone was perfectly civil. People sipped their drinks quietly. Steve Parker from Shepherds and Amanda MacNaughtan of Inner City Health led the meeting while Annabelle, MacNaughtan’s golden retriever, provided a consoling presence. “There’s been quite a few bottles of non-beverage alcohol found in your dorms,” said MacNaughtan. “Listerine is only 99 cents,” said a tall man. “Sometimes it’s our last resort.” The discussion turned to comments from residents. “More alcohol!” one man called. But residents also asked for milk. And movie night with popcorn. And a trip to an Ottawa Redblacks football game. And a visit to a museum exhibit of Inuit carvings. On a wall-list of requests for programmes or activities, someone wrote “documentary nights” and “yoga/relaxation classes”. Next to it was an invitation to join an aboriginal carving empowerment circle. I was reminded that once upon a time, these patients had families, careers, talents. Muckle recalled driving some residents to visit a patient who was hospitalised, listening to them sing along heartily to an opera CD. One of Inner City Health’s first patients, Normee Ekoomiak, was a renowned Inuit artist, with work hanging in the Canadian Museum of History. Annie Iola, a resident of the Oaks, was a documentary film-maker and had studied to become a pilot. Kunnuk had worked for the National Inuit Organization, where he wrote a regular column answering questions about Inuit culture. Lots of people in Ottawa would appreciate free football tickets. And yoga classes. And a bed and free food. And, of course, wine served up every hour. And Little Ray’s Reptile Zoo does sound interesting. But many of these residents have alcohol-related brain damage, and other illnesses that were either a cause or result of alcoholism. They will never work. If this programme can help keep them out of crisis services, it is a bargain. And the studies say it works. A small, peer-reviewed study of the MAP, led by Tiina Podymow of Inner City Health and the University of Ottawa (Turnbull was a co-author) was published in 2006 in the Canadian Medical Association Journal. “Then a media circus of nuclear proportions blew up,” said Muckle. Most of the media treated the study straight, but comedians and commenters pounced, including Jay Leno, who talked about the crazy Canadians giving free booze to homeless alcoholics. One commenter compared it to giving little girls to paedophiles. “However, by that time we had been in operation for four-and-a-half years, and none of the problems people predicted had actually happened, so it was a bit hard to mount much opposition,” said Muckle. “Even the Salvation Army – the anti-alcohol crusaders – said that while they could not offer that kind of programme themselves, they were a part of Inner City Health and strongly supported this programme because it had such good results.” Bernie Pauly, a scientist at the Centre for Addictions Research of BC, at the University of Victoria, and Tim Stockwell, the centre’s director, are finishing a major study of five Canadian managed alcohol programmes. In-depth research on programmes in Vancouver and in Thunder Bay, a city of 100,000 in northwest Ontario, has found that they greatly reduced the harm of drinking. Participants drank more wine and less Listerine, and spread their drinking out over the day. They greatly improved their safety, stability, mental and physical health, housing, family relationships, life skills and self-esteem. Did they cut down on their drinking? That was not clear – and it is not the focus of the programmes, strange as that might seem. Podymow’s study of Ottawa’s MAP had found that clients in the MAP went from an average of 46 drinks per day down to eight – but that was only counting the pour; researchers were not counting how much people drank outside. Stockwell said that in the programmes he studied, people drank about as much outside as they got from the pour. Doubling the pour would still mean the Ottawa MAP was associated with a huge drop in drinking. In Thunder Bay, some participants reported that they had fewer no-drinking days than did people still on the street, probably because they had regular access to alcohol, which they would not have if they were broke or in prison. What seemed clear was that they were managing it better and suffering less. * * * Those who do well in the MAP can move on to the Oaks, living in one of the converted hotel rooms in the orange-and-cream four-storey building, with a small outdoor space in the back and, importantly, a gate, so staff know who is leaving and who is coming in. Residents are a self-selected group – “those who don’t want to be around this craziness any more”, said Turnbull. “They want to reconnect with family, they want a dog, a garden, a Christmas party.” Every year, residents pile into vans to drive outside the city to the farm where Turnbull lives. With chainsaws and tractors, the men cut down three trees to take back to the Oaks for the annual Christmas party, to which the Oaks invites city officials, and residents invite their once-estranged families. It is a huge event, a celebration of normality. Decorating starts just after Halloween. Everyone I talked to at the Oaks said they had drunk outside the programme when they first arrived. They would buy liquor and try to sneak it into their rooms. Oaks staff try to police them: they persuaded the nearby dollar store to take the Listerine and rubbing alcohol off the shelves and put them behind the counter. “We suspect everyone who goes out,” said Young. “They’re searched to make sure they’re not carrying it in, but they hide bottles in the bushes. More recent admissions are battling these little demons, the call to go outside and drink. In a year we won’t see those behaviours.” “I gave up on trying to outsmart them,” said Kunnuk. “I didn’t realise they knew where we went. I’d put the wine on the gate at the corner, come in, and go around the back and take it. But they could tell,” he said. Like users of all long-term shelters in Canada, people at the Oaks pay for their housing and food by signing over their disability cheques. Rooms are large and comfortable, but most people spend their time in the lobby. Bright orange walls display their art, photographs and poems. There are televisions, computers and a piano. When I visited, the Oaks was in the middle of a bedbug extermination campaign. Furniture was piled against the lobby walls and side rooms were stuffed with plastic bags of clean clothes. Residents do have some cash: about $40 each month from their personal benefits after paying for the pour, cable television and, if they smoke, tobacco. If someone is caught spending their allowance on booze, MacQuatt steps in to hold it. They then have to come to him during set banking hours to ask for their money, and tell him what they plan to buy. For some at the Oaks, the change of habits came too late to save their liver or heart. Stockwell said that people with this level of alcohol use tend to die 25 years younger than people who don’t have alcohol problems – but the death rate is much higher among those who continue their lives of rough sleeping and binge drinking. Turnbull talks about finding a way to bring younger people into the programme, before drink has caused irreparable damage. But younger people do not feel comfortable in the Oaks, which Muckle called “a nursing home of sorts, with alcohol”. Windsor is one of the youngest residents – not yet 40, and less marked by drink than many of the others. On Saturdays, he goes downtown to beg and buys two or three bottles of pale dry sherry. He’ll drink two at night and save one for the morning. He stays at TED. He’d like to get his old job at the moving company back and continue drinking on Saturday nights. He still cooks his grandmother’s recipes – cooking is a marker of normal life for many people. He makes spaghetti sauce for the Oaks and recently represented the Oaks in Shepherds’ annual chilli cook-off. He is mayor of the Oaks, responsible for representing residents in regular meetings with MacQuatt. Chris Mercredi left the MAP in October for the Oaks. He is the only Oaks resident who is actually non-resident; he lives in a cheap apartment nearby, but he still spends the day at the Oaks. When I first met him he told me he had been getting drunk whenever he had money, but not any more. “I can definitely say the apartment comes first,” he said. He wants furniture. He wants to start cooking again – he always cooked for Lee. He wants a kitten. Through the programme, Mercredi had a bed, a roof, food, good medical care, a place to sit and listen to his music. With time, he might follow the pattern and reduce his consumption. He was still getting over Lee’s death. The first thing Mercredi did in his apartment was tape Lee’s photo to the refrigerator. He talks to it every day. “Every time I pass it, I say, ‘I love you, I miss you,’” he said, kissing his fingers and dabbing the air. The next time I saw him, though, he was drunk at 11am. He had borrowed $20 from his landlord, saying he needed it for food. He bought two bottles of beer and two bottles of Imperial sherry. He drank the beer and one Imperial before he got home, and then half of the second Imperial. Then he passed out. “I was so happy to see that bottle beside my bed when I woke up,” he said. “I woke up light-headed and had a drink, which really relieved me. The wine here – it helps. But it’s not as much as I want to drink. Alcohol is what I need in my system, my gasoline, my energy drink. I have to have that bottle in my hand.” I told MacQuatt later that I had found the way Mercredi talked about drink – the raw need and longing in his voice – painful to hear. He paused for a long time. “We know alcohol is very important to our residents. It’s the number-one thing,” he finally said; that’s why we need this programme. “We just want to see improvement. If they’re going out every day and getting intoxicated, we’d say they’re not ready. But for someone like Mercredi to go out and get intoxicated one day is par for the course. He’s doing great.” Travel for this article was funded by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting • Follow the Long Read on Twitter at @gdnlongread, or sign up to the long read weekly email here.
NHS saves £600m in crackdown on agency fees The NHS has slashed more than £600m from the billions it pays every year for temporary doctors and nurses by cracking down on fees paid to “rip-off” staffing agencies, new figures reveal. Gaps in hospital rotas sent the bill for temporary staff soaring from £2.2bn in 2009-10 to £3.6bn last year. But hospitals have halted the relentless increase in recent years of the rates for stand-in personnel needed to ease chronic understaffing and ensure patient safety on wards. Data compiled by NHS Improvement, which regulates the health service in England, shows that hospitals spent £613m less since the blitz on agency staff began on 15 October last year, compared to the 12 months before caps on hourly rates were brought in. In August, for example, NHS trusts spent £252m on agency staff – £61m (19.5%) less than the £313m they paid out in the same month the year before. Similarly, in July they spent £256m compared to their £331m outlay in July 2015. If maintained, the NHS stands to meet its target of spending £1bn less a year on temporary staff, which would be key to its ambition to reduce hospitals’ collective overspend of £2.5bn last year to £580m. Hospitals are now paying 18% less on average for nurses whom they hire through agencies which NHS England boss Simon Stevens last year criticised for “ripping off the NHS”. The limits on fees for stand-ins have also succeeded in reducing the cost of locum doctors, but only by 13%. Jim Mackey, NHS Improvement’s chief executive, will cite the figures as proof that the NHS is making progress at controlling its costs when he, Stevens and health secretary Jeremy Hunt give evidence to MPs on the Commons health select committee on Tuesday. Medical organisations reacted with alarm to disclosures that Theresa May, the prime minister, has told Stevens that, despite mounting concern that the NHS is under dangerous strain, it would not receive any extra funding when Philip Hammond, the chancellor, presents his autumn statement on 23 November. “If these reports are true, the prime minister needs to explain how exactly the NHS will keep up with rising demand without the necessary investment. “Theresa May talks about injecting £10bn into the NHS, yet in reality the increase in health spending is less than half that,” said Dr Anthea Mowat, a spokeswoman for the British Medical Association. “The NHS is already the most efficient healthcare system in the world. The notion that the funding crisis can be solved with further efficiency savings is a myth, and these are not savings, they are year-on-year cuts that have driven almost every acute trust in England into deficit, led to a crisis in general practice and a community and social care system on the brink of collapse,” added Mowat. Two-thirds of the acute, mental health, community services and ambulance trusts covered by the new rules on agency staff had cut the amount of money they spend on them, NHS Improvement said. Since April trusts have only been allowed to pay 55% more than the usual rate for the job for temporary workers, though they are allowed to breach that supposed ceiling “on exceptional safety grounds” in order to ensure that patients do not come to harm because of staff shortages. However, Mackey recently told trusts that, despite the progress on agency fees, “across the sector we are falling short of what is needed and must do more to reduce over-reliance on agencies”. The regulator will soon start to publish quarterly updates on how much each trust has spent on such staff in what some in the NHS see as a crude “naming and shaming” exercise designed to embarrass trusts into spending less and do not take account of high vacancy rates which force them to turn to agencies in the first place. It also plans to phase out altogether hospitals’ use of expensive interim senior executives, whose temporary costs can see them being paid over £1,000 a day. “Reducing spending on the agency bill is fundamentally important for NHS finances. But it’s not a panacea,” said Anita Charlesworth, chief economist at the Health Foundation thinktank, Hospitals are still heading for an overspend of £580m this year despite receiving £1.8bn of “sustainability and transformation” funding, and NS England has made only “slow progress” at finding its promised £22bn of efficiency savings, she warned. “Reducing the agency bill will help but it’s not the solution. The NHS needs a comprehensive plan to improve efficiency,” she added. “The NHS has saved over £600m since we introduced our agency price cap system. Most NHS trusts have responded well to the caps, using them to significantly reduce their agency spending and improve their workforce management,” said Dr Kathy McLean, NHS Improvement’s executive medical director.
PPI claims - all you need to know about the mis-selling scandal The City regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority, has announced a June 2019 deadline for customers to make claims for the mis-selling of payment protection insurance (PPI). Why is the deadline being imposed? The FCA says imposing a deadline would allow banks to draw a line under the PPI scandal, which has been dragging on for years. Estimates by New City Agenda puts the total bill for handling claims at more than £37bn while the FCA calculates that £24.2bn has been paid out to consumers since 2011, the rest being the cost of tackling claims plus provisions made in anticipation of more payouts. When did the mis-selling of PPI begin? PPI has been sold alongside mortgages, credit cards and other unsecured loans since the 1990s. It was supposed to cover payments on loans if customers fell ill or lost their jobs. In 2004, the reported how Barclays had been making profits from PPI and other examples quickly followed. It received new prominence in 2005 when Citizens Advice issued a so-called super-complaint to competition watchdogs about what it described as a “protection racket”, starting a series of events that led to the compensation payments to consumers and sales of some types of PPI being banned. How many customers are affected? The now defunct Financial Services Authority told parliament 53m PPI policies had been sold. Around 45m of those were sold by banks, worth around £44bn. It is not clear how many of these policies were mis-sold – initial estimates by the FCA were that 3m people were affected – but by January 2016 12m customers had received compensation, totalling £24.2bn. Selling PPI was very profitable for banks. In its evidence to parliament, the regulator highlighted one PPI policy sold alongside a mortgage which cost the customer £20,838 over the loan term even though the maximum they could reclaim was £31,000, an illustration of the scale of profits involved which led banks to risk mis-selling. Is the deadline the same for all customers? The consumer panel, which represents consumer interests at the FCA, questioned the deadline. In its submission to the FCA about a time bar, it pointed out that 5.5m customers may already face an earlier cut-off. This is because they have already been contacted by their banks and, if they are covered by existing rules, will already have the clock ticking on a three-year time limit for claims. How many more claims do the banks face? Given the cold-calling from claims management companies (CMCs) it might seem improbable that anyone who was mis-sold a policy has not already made a claim. However, according to the the Professional Financial Claims Association (PFCA), only about half of the sums paid out represent refunded payments. The rest is interest, with the banks obliged to pay 8% interest on the money being returned. This suggests an even higher bill for PPI . Guy Anker, managing editor at MoneySavingExpert.com, points out that the Financial Ombudsman is upholding 70% of complaints rejected by banks. “To go to the ombudsman you have to first complain to the bank, so it’s likely banks are still wrongly rejecting claims from over half of those who have been mis-sold,” said Anker. Are there any new twists? A court ruling in the Plevin v Paragon Personal Finance case also looks likely to add to the PPI bill. The court concluded that if a PPI seller failed to disclose to a customer that it had received a large commission from the product provider, the sale was unfair under the 1974 Consumer Credit Act. The case involved Susan Plevin, who found that 72% of the £5,780 premium she paid was commission for the lender and the broker that sold her the loan, with the rest going to the PPI provider, Norwich Union. How much will I get if I claim? That will depend on your circumstances, but the average is £2,000. The BBC has reported one case of a businesswoman from Hertfordshire receiving £65,000 from her credit card company MBNA. Moneysavingexpert has one example of an £82,000 payout to a Barclaycard customer. What is happening to claims now? Lloyds Banking Group, which sold more PPI policies than any other bank, said claims in the last week had reached their lowest weekly level since the highpoint of 2011. It is still receiving 6,700 claims a week – down from 10,000 per week in the past. Over the past six weeks, PPI complaints fell to 7,500 per week from an average of 8,500 in the first half of 2016. What happens next? The FCA will run a consultation until 11 October before finalising the rules. Consumer experts reckon that CMCs – which the National Audit Office estimates have received up to £5bn in commission from PPI payments – will make extra efforts to generate claims for consumers. The banks will also have to agree to spend £40m on an awareness campaign to ensure customers make claims before the deadline. Anker said customers who had previous claims rejected should contact the Ombudsman if they have not already done so. “Banks have been fined for poor complaints handling – your bank rejection does not mean you weren’t mis-sold.”
Sadiq Khan and Anne Hidalgo rebuke Donald Trump over Muslim ban The mayor of Paris has joined with her newly elected London counterpart, Sadiq Khan, in voicing a scathing rebuke of Donald Trump over his call for a ban on Muslims entering the US and his suggestions that an “exception” could be made in the case of Khan. Standing alongside Khan at St Pancras railway station after arriving from Paris, Anne Hidalgo said on Tuesday that people of all religions, including Catholics and Muslims, did not agree with the US presidential candidate, adding: “Mr Trump is so stupid, my God, my God.” Khan, London’s first Muslim mayor, said he hoped that Trump looked at the lessons from last week’s London’s mayoral elections “and recognises that it’s possible to be western and Muslim and to be friends with a mayor of Paris as well”. He added: “Our message to Donald Trump is: this is how you work together; this is the best of humanity; this is the best of the west. “What’s really important is the similarities Paris and London have; they are the most diverse cities in the world. This is an example of the best of our cities – men, women, Muslims, Christians, mayors working together to work for our cities, solving the housing crisis, fixing the air quality, addressing the challenges of integration and making sure our cities are safe.” The two mayors held talks at the station on a number of issues which were thought to include security. Khan later tweeted images of what he said would be the first of many meetings between the two. Khan has previously said he would visit the US before this year’s presidential elections “in case Donald Trump wins” and Muslims were banned. The London mayor subsequently rebuffed a suggestion by Trump that he could be an exception to the proposed ban. He said the ban was something that directly affected those closest to him and making an exception was not the answer. Trump told the New York Times on Monday that he was happy to see Khan elected as mayor of London last week. “There will always be exceptions,” he said of his proposed temporary ban on Muslims. Of Khan’s election, he said: “I think it’s a very good thing and I hope he does a very good job because, frankly. that would be very, very good. You lead by example, always lead by example. If he does a good job and, frankly, if he does a great job, that would be a terrific thing.”
Jeremy Corbyn to urge Labour voters to focus ire on Tories, not the EU Jeremy Corbyn will use a speech in London to urge Labour voters to lay the blame for pressures on housing, jobs and the NHS at the door of the Conservatives, instead of seizing on the EU as a scapegoat. As the referendum campaign steps up a gear, with Britain Stronger in Europe saying it plans to hold 1,000 events over the weekend, the Labour leader, a long-time sceptic when it comes to the EU, will tell his audience at a rally on Saturday that voting to leave would not help tackle the UK’s problems. “People in this country face many problems, from insecure jobs, low pay and unaffordable housing to stagnating living standards, environmental degradation, and the responsibility for them lies in 10 Downing Street, not in Brussels,” he will say. “This country is being let down by a Conservative government that is failing on housing, failing our children, failing our NHS, failing to create good quality secure jobs and consistently failing even to meet its own economic targets.” The main party leaders will be out pushing for a remain vote this weekend, with David Cameron unveiling a new campaign poster and the Liberal Democrat leader, Tim Farron, meeting voters in Kendal. Corbyn’s deputy, Tom Watson, will take the Labour in for Britain battlebus through the West Midlands, visiting Telford, Wolverhampton and Birmingham. Cameron said: “This is a day unlike any other: politicians of every stripe taking to the streets with the same message. Because we face a vote unlike any other, one which will shape our country for decades – even generations – to come.” Robert Oxley, of Vote Leave, said the remain camp were “playing catch-up”. He claimed he had 20,000 activists signed up to get involved, and said Cameron, whose party is deeply split on the issue of Europe, was relying on Labour ground troops to win the referendum. “Most of the in campaign is based around Labour, but being told by No 10 what to do,” he said. Labour voters, particularly younger ones, are regarded as crucial to achieving a remain vote on 23 June, and senior figures in Stronger In are concerned that Corbyn has been too reticent about making the case. However, his team are anxious about the possibility of being seen to ally themselves too closely with the Conservatives. The collapse of Labour’s support in Scotland followed its decision to mount a joint push against independence with the Conservatives, led by Alistair Darling, in the 2014 referendum. Labour was pushed into third place in the Holyrood parliament, behind the Conservatives, in last week’s elections. With polling out of the way in Scottish, Welsh and local elections, senior Labour figures have switched their focus to the referendum. The former party leaders Gordon Brown and Ed Miliband have made speeches, and Tony Blair is expected to make his own intervention in June. Corbyn will say that a Labour government would use Britain’s EU membership to press for different priorities across the continent, including improving workers’ rights. “When Labour comes into government we will work with our allies across the continent to reform the European Union to increase democratic accountability to strengthen workers’ rights and the scope for public enterprise ... and to work together to tackle issues like tax avoidance and climate change,” he will say. Christine Lagarde, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, became the latest policymaker to issue a warning about the consequences of a Brexit on Friday, saying they could range from “pretty bad to very, very bad”. Mark Carney, the governor of the Bank of England, said a vote to leave could trigger a recession.
Iain Duncan Smith asks civil servants to ignore block on EU papers Iain Duncan Smith has asked civil servants in the welfare and pensions department to ignore a directive from the cabinet secretary, Sir Jeremy Heywood, which stops pro-Brexit ministers seeing government papers related to the EU referendum. In a further escalation of the row at the heart of the cabinet, the work and pensions secretary also encouraged other senior ministers who are campaigning to leave the EU to do the same. The move will be seen as a direct challenge to David Cameron’s authority, with with senior civil servants warning the row threatens the government’s ability to function properly. It has emerged hours after Heywood told MPs that it was the civil service’s “constitutional duty” to support the government’s position, even if this meant restricting access for ministers who planned to campaign to leave the EU. On the floor of the House of Commons, cabinet minister Matthew Hancock said it was an essential approach as it was the “duty of the civil service to support the government”, which is in favour of staying in the EU. A source close to Duncan Smith confirmed reports that he would ask civil servants in his department to show him all papers related to the EU. “He has asserted his constitutional right to see everything produced in his department – including things related to the EU,” the source said. Earlier on Monday, Priti Patel, the employment minister, who sits in cabinet, was the first to accuse Heywood of an “unconstitutional act” that “threatens the reputation of the civil service”. “Secretaries of state are responsible for their departments. For an unelected official to prevent them being aware of the information they need for their duties is wrong,” she said. Appearing before the public accounts committee, Heywood said that far from being unconstitutional, the civil service was upholding its primary role of carrying out government policy. “What my letter does is put flesh on the bones of the prime minister’s own letter of the 11 January saying the government would have a position on this subject. “The government having a position on it, it is the civil service’s constitutional duty to support the government’s position. The unusual part of this is that the prime minister is allowing several ministers in the cabinet and elsewhere to oppose that government policy,” he said. “Civil servants won’t provide briefing and speech material for those who want to argue against the government’s position, but in every other respect they will get the full service that you would expect. It is not bypassing anybody.” The government faced further scrutiny in an emergency Commons debate, where pro-Brexit Tory MPs claimed it could compromise the civil service’s duty of honesty. Bernard Jenkin, a leading Tory Eurosceptic, led the rebellion with an urgent question to the government, saying the limits went further than those imposed on ministers on 1975 and created a worse atmosphere. “Nobody objects to the government making its case in this referendum but most people expect the civil service to be impartial in carrying out its support for ministers,” he said. “It is established in law that ministers are accountable for their departments and voters expect government facts and figures to be impartial and accurate whether they are used by ministers who support remain or leave. “So why does the cabinet secretary’s letter go far beyond the limits actually placed on dissenting ministers during the 1975 referendum?” He was backed up by numerous colleagues campaigning for the UK to leave, including Julian Lewis, the Tory chair of the defence committee, who said the public would see “big battalions” of civil servants and spin doctors lined up on one side of the argument. Gerald Howarth, the former defence minister, said it was a “constitutional outrage” and might give the impression that the government was “trying to rig the referendum”. Andrew Percy, the Tory MP for Brigg and Goole, also said it was “leading people to believe there is a stitch-up to keep us in the EU”. The criticism was not limited to those arguing for the UK to leave the EU, with a number of Labour MPs raising concerns that the decision would undermine trust in the referendum. Tom Watson, Labour’s deputy leader, challenged the government to give its ministers free rein to run their departments or sack those campaigning against its policy. In response to the furore, Hancock, the paymaster general, said: “All ministers can ask for factual briefing and for facts to be checked in any matter. All ministers can see documents on EU issues not related to the referendum question, as normal. “So the guidance is clear, it’s published and the process was agreed at cabinet as the best way to manage the unusual situation of ministers who disagree with the government remaining in post.” Ministers arguing over the role of mandarins in the run-up to the EU referendum have been warned by the union for senior civil servants that this could cause lasting damage to relationships across Whitehall. Dave Penman, the general secretary of the FDA, the main union representing senior civil servants, said government splits over access to documents might have long-term repercussions for the way in which ministers and their officials interacted. In the short term, it could stop government functioning properly, he said. “Politicians’ continued wrangling over this issue will only serve to impact upon the smooth running of government and damage the essential relationship between civil servants and ministers.” He appeared to dismiss criticism from pro-Brexit ministers who claimed that Heywood’s edict would leave civil servants facing a conflict of interest. “The FDA welcomes the clear guidance issued by Sir Jeremy Heywood, which clarifies the responsibilities of ministers and civil servants,” Penman said.
Aria awards 2016: Flume dominates with 11 nominations The Australian electronic producer Harley Streten, best known as Flume, has swept the nominations for the 2016 Aria awards, shortlisted for 11 categories in total – and already winning in three. Flume’s second album, Skin, which he is touring through the US and Europe, won in all three artisan categories on Wednesday: best producer, engineer and cover art of the year. Appearing over video message, he also announced that he will be performing at the November ceremony, where he will be competing for the night’s top awards – including album of the year, best male artist, best dance release and the Apple Music song of the year – a new category voted for by Apple Music subscribers. In 2013 the producer was nominated in seven categories for his debut self-titled record, and won in four. Speaking to Australia this year, Flume described the follow-up process as “incredibly stressful”. “I put a lot of pressure on myself to have my music at a certain quality, and that wasn’t a positive thing,” he said. “Skin was a totally different experience than the first record. It didn’t just come.” The 2016 nominations were also dominated by YouTube star-turned-pop artist Troye Sivan, who was nominated for two artisan awards and will be competing with Flume in five categories on the night: artist of the year, male artist, pop release, Apple Music song of the year and best video. Released last year, Sivan’s debut album, Blue Neighbourhood, was awarded five stars by the Australian music critic Everett True. “Sivan and his equally youthful co-writer-producer, Alex Hope, have such a natural flair for capturing the sound of now that in a year’s time he could well be sharing the stratosphere with Taylor Swift,” True wrote. The pop artist Sia, the hip-hop artist Illy and the long-awaited return of the Avalanches have brought in six nominations apiece, with King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, RÜFÜS and Violent Soho each nominated in five categories. Courtney Barnett, who was nominated for eight Arias in 2015 and won four, is up for two public-voted categories in 2016: best video for Elevator Operator, and best live act. Awards announced at the nominations announcement also included best comedy album (Roy & HG, for This Sporting Life), best world music album (Melbourne Ska Orchestra for Sierra Kilo Alpha), best original soundtrack/cast/show album (Josh Pyke & The Sydney Symphony Orchestra for Live at the Sydney Opera House), best jazz album (Vince Jones & Paul Grabowsky for Provenance) and best classical album (Flight Facilities for Live with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra). Crowded House will be inducted into the Hall of Fame at the ceremony, which will be held on 23 November at the Star Casino in Sydney and broadcast on Channel Ten.
Swipe magazine: will millennials read 'the best of the web' in print? If you live in one of London’s hipper areas or commute into its centre, you may have been approached this morning at the tube station by a young person in a blue T-shirt handing out yet another free magazine. Aimed at the almost mythical millennial the media is obsessed with, Swipe magazine aims to stand out from Time Out or Shortlistby offering “the best of the internet in print”. The premise makes sense, on paper at least. People like reading print, but there’s loads of good stuff on the internet. So much in fact, that it’s hard to keep track of it all and find the best bits. Swipe’s editors say they will sift through that morass of content, decide which bits its target audience will like, then shove it in their face on their commute. They are paying a not exactly generous 10p per word to writers, but the 70-odd contributing sites get promotion for their work. It has an initial distribution of 20,000 copies, 17,000 by hand and the rest placed in coffee shops and other millennial-friendly hubs. Publisher Tom Rendell insists that outside a media bubble of super-engaged web users, there is demand for a print roundup that filters social media. “The internet is 4.5bn pages,” he said. “It’s completely dominated by huge sites high in Google search rankings. We’re not picking the most popular or the weirdest – we are looking at this with a journalistic background and thinking how we can give the best experience.” That experience is a mixed bag of articles. A beautifully illustrated cover story on the “dangerous bromance” between Trump and Putin from startup site the Malcontent (run by a former Telegraph journalist) that makes good use of graffiti depicting the odd couple kissing. News stories from Business Insider and its tech offshoot, a long read from “deep web” publisher Vocativ and, and weirdly, a Wikihow article about how to have a wolf as a pet. The ads are also revealing. A big sponsored content opener from Uber on the inside page, another sponsored article about a “developer bootcamp” and on the back page, a mail order craft beer brewery. Ticking off each entry in the millennial lifestyle checklist. It’s all prefaced with a “Trending” section covering social media such as the Phil from EastEnders meme making the rounds (Utter Philth), a reference to the Chewbacca mask video, and a roundup of Instagram and Twitter posts of the week. Some of the choices, however, suggest the publishers are aiming for the slightly older end of their millennial target market. News that a sequel to 1999 rave film Human Traffic is on the cards won’t mean much to anyone under 30. And the “Twitter of the week” section includes an (admittedly hilarious) tweet from 2013. This clearly isn’t a magazine for the web-obsessed, head-in-their-smartphone twentysomething. And that may be the point. There are plenty of outlets that curate the best of the web online, and most of those who are swimming through the internet’s eddies regularly will almost certainly have already identified their favourite ones, or just use their social media feeds to find what will interest them. One colleague at the upper range of the millennial demographic put it, “It’s like an in-flight magazine for the internet”. Another at the other end of the age range said: “like anyone picking it up being I LIKE THIS, might, you know, go on the internet”. But then for those for whom the more distant reaches of the web beyond Facebook and Twitter (Tumblr anyone?) are more like a foreign country, Swipe can offer a way to ensure they aren’t completely out of touch with the kids.
Is the leave campaign really telling six lies? David Cameron has accused the leave campaign of telling six “total untruths” in the space of a few days. So who is right – the prime minister or those campaigning for Brexit? No eurozone bailouts Cameron: “They said we are liable to bail out eurozone countries. Not true. My renegotiation means we are categorically not liable for eurozone bailouts.” He’s right on this one. The UK’s “special status” deal secured by the prime minister in February includes a guarantee that countries outside the eurozone will not be required to fund bailouts within the currency zone. Even before February, the UK was off the hook for eurozone bailouts. After the Greek debt crisis, EU finance ministers rewrote an EU regulation to guarantee that non-euro countries would be repaid for any losses incurred if a bailed-out country defaulted on its loans. 2 The rebate Cameron: “They said that our rebate, the money that we get back from the EU, is at risk. Again, not true.” The UK’s headline contribution to the EU budget is reduced because of the rebate, negotiated by Margaret Thatcher in 1984. Leave campaigners, such as Michael Gove, have argued the UK rebate is at risk because it is not written into EU treaties. While it is true that it is not written in, however, leave campaigners ignore the fact that EU budgets are agreed by unanimity. Other EU countries have tried and failed to scrap the rebate in the face of opposition from the British government. The EU budget for 2014-20 is already decided, so the rebate will not be on the table for several years. 3. The veto Cameron: “They said we’ve given up our ability to veto EU treaties. Again, not true.” EU treaties only enter into force when they are agreed and ratified by all member states. There is nothing in the UK reform deal that changes that. 4 The budget Cameron: “They said we had no ability to stop overall EU spending from going up. Again, not true.” European leaders agreed to cut EU spending for the first time when they agreed the EU’s long-term budget in 2013. Cameron is correct to say he negotiated this cut, though he overlooks the role of key allies, especially the German chancellor, Angela Merkel. Whether Britain could have managed this on its own is not clear. 5. The EU army Cameron: “They said we were powerless to stop Britain being forced in to an EU army. Again, not true.” The prime minister is on safer territory here: there is no realistic or imminent prospect of an EU army. Some officials in Brussels might like to see one, but there is no appetite for this among member states. Cameron is also correct when he says the UK has a veto on defence and security policy. However, he ignores that EU member states can choose to work together on defence. The Lisbon treaty introduced the idea of “permanent structured cooperation”, allowing countries to pool research, defence spending and take part in multinational forces. The UK cannot stop other countries working together, but neither would it be compelled to take part. 6. The £8bn savings Cameron: “They [leave] said we’d save £8bn if we left the EU. Again, not true.” This is another open goal for the prime minister. Michael Gove claimed a post-Brexit UK would have £8bn to spend on the NHS, as a result of no longer having to contribute to the EU budget. Now, even putting to one side the doubts over whether a Boris Johnson-Gove government would spend that money on the NHS – John Major for one wasn’t convinced – this is an improbable scenario. The money is unlikely to be there for spending. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has concluded that “even a small negative effect” on the British economy from leaving the EU “would damage the public finances by more than that £8bn”. In a statement on its website, the IFS writes: “Leaving the EU would not, as Michael Gove claims we said, leave more money to spend on the NHS. Rather it would leave us spending less on public services, or taxing more, or borrowing more.” Verdict: EU truth-teller-come-lately Cameron may be guilty of exaggerating his own role, but his six statements are all true. He could even have gone further by taking on some of leave’s other misleading claims: the £2.4bn increase in UK contributions (not true); the £350m a week being sent to the EU (misleading, says the UK’s statistics watchdog); Turkey’s imminent EU membership (totally implausible) or Boris Johnson’s reckless comparison of the EU’s goals with those of Adolf Hitler. Perhaps the biggest problem is that Cameron has come late to challenging euro myths. In his Bloomberg speech, the prime minister complained about the EU’s “cumbersome rigidity” and “insistence on a one-size-fits-all approach”, glossing over the fact the UK has won numerous opt-outs, while the EU has been taking a more British approach to regulation for several years. The difficulty for the remain side is that no British prime minister has taken on eurosceptic claims for a long time. And now time is running out.
Affordable housing crisis has engulfed all cities in southern England, says Lloyds There is no longer a city in the south of England where house prices are less than seven and a half times average local incomes, according to analysis by Lloyds Bank that reveals how the home affordability crisis now stretches far beyond London. “The housing affordability gap has widened to its worst level in eight years,” said the Lloyds analysis, noting that the last time prices were so high was at the very top of the boom in 2008, just before the financial crisis struck. The Lloyds analysis is unique in that it compares local house prices with local earnings rather than national averages. On this measure, the worst house prices are not in London but in other parts of the south-east. Oxford is again identified as the least affordable city in the UK, with average prices at 10.68 times local earnings. Winchester is a close second at 10.54, with London third at 10.06. Cambridge, Brighton and Bath all have prices that are now nearly 10 times local earnings, while cities such as Bristol and Southampton have prices close to eight times earnings. Wage growth has fallen far behind the rise in house prices, said Lloyds, with affordability worsening for the third successive year. The average home in a city in the UK now costs 6.6 times average local earnings, up from 6.2 last year. In the 1950s and 1960s, buyers could typically find homes with mortgages of three to four times their income. But the Lloyds figures show that there is now just one city in the UK that fits that profile: Derry in Northern Ireland. House prices in the city currently fetch 3.81 times local incomes. While most of the “most affordable” cities in the Lloyds rankings are in the north, Scotland and Northern Ireland, buyers will still be stretched to afford a home from the local salaries on offer. Hull is widely regarded as a low house price area, yet local residents face having to pay 5.11 times average local incomes to buy a home. Meanwhile, York has joined the ranks of cities in the south in the unaffordability tables, with prices at 7.5 times incomes. Winchester in Hampshire emerges as Britain’s No 1 property hotspot, easily surpassing the capital in terms of house price rises and unaffordability. The local council says that soaring house prices have pushed locally born people out of the city, while finding workers to fill lower-paid jobs is proving extremely difficult. “It’s a very big challenge for the council,” says Stephen Godfrey, leader of Winchester council, where the local unemployment rate is just 0.6%. “We have more jobs here than the local working age population. Many public services jobs are not the highest salary payers, and it is difficult to find people willing to take local jobs at these wages. Of the council’s 450 staff, only half live in the district.” House prices have grown faster in Winchester than anywhere in the UK over the past decade, said Lloyds, jumping from an average of £249,703 in 2006 to £446,796. One eight-bed home is currently on the market for £6.5m, while new-build two-bed flats have asking prices of £595,000. The capital of Alfred the Great’s kingdom was recently named by the Sunday Times as the greatest place to live in Britain, and boasts a Michelin-starred restaurant, the country’s first Hotel du Vin and highly rated local schools. Seven direct trains to London Waterloo leave between 7am-8am each weekday morning – but finding a seat is another matter. Godfrey said that around 400-500 new homes a year are being built in the area, and that a new council house-building programme will provide another 120 units. But the developments will be unlikely to meet demand – or objections from existing residents, many angry at how the town is being swamped by Londoners selling up and using gains in the capital to snap up local homes. “Everyone knows that Winchester houses are very expensive, even ‘affordable’ ones. Londoners love our beautiful city, gorgeous countryside, great rail links and it so much cheaper than London even if they commute. They can afford expensive property when they sell up in London and move here,” one resident told the Hampshire Chronicle.
Shakin' Stevens: 'I'm like a skittle. If I get knocked down I get back up again' Hi Shaky! Should people be surprised that the biggest name in 80s chart-topping rockabilly pop has made an album of socially conscious, dark Americana? (1) People have been surprised. We’ve been playing it to them and not telling them who it is. I’m really pleased with it. Why is it so dark? I got to a certain age and realised I knew nothing about my family history, ’cos when you’re growing up it’s all hush hush. So I started digging around and it was shocking. One of my ancestors was blown up in the first world war. It took him eight days to die. My grandfather was a copper miner at the age of 10. They’d spend hours on these ladders going down the hole. They were working in prison, no toilets. A lot went on as well, which we won’t go into. Some of them were so tired at the end of the day that they’d fall off the ladders and never wake up. So the stories lent themselves to blues, gospel, Cajun and mandolins. Mind you, wasn’t the apparently cheery This Ole House (2) based on a similarly grim story? Stuart Hamblen wrote it [in 1954] about coming across the body of a prospector in a deserted shack. True story. Do you think the squillions who bought Green Door had any idea about the persistent urban myth that it was about a lesbian club (3)? I never knew that. Lovely. That’s quite subversive really. Nick Lowe recommended I cover the song after we bumped into him in the pub. I always wondered why he was smiling. You’ve got environmental songs on the new album. Are you a bit of a politico on the sly? There’s that infamous story about you being in the Communist party … In the very early days the guy that got us our gigs was in the Communist party. Or his parents were. So we ended up doing gigs for them. I’m not really political, but I am aware of what’s going on. How did young Michael Barratt, milkman, builder and upholsterer, turn into Shakin’ Stevens? A friend of mine called Steven Vanderwalker used to call himself Shakin’ Steven. I thought: “That’s something you wont forget.” So my band became Shakin’ Stevens and the Sunsets. What was it like doing raw, raucous rock’n’roll in the era of prog rock, punk and disco? Wild. John Peel came to our gigs. We’d play places like the Hope and Anchor [in north London], turn up in the van, slide the gear down the chute, do the gig, all sweaty, then find a car park to sleep in the van. None of this X Factor nonsense. Your big career break came in the theatre, playing the young Elvis in the West End (4), didn’t it? I was starving. The Sunsets had set. It was time for me to move on. I loved every minute of it. I just took my stage act into Elvis, standing on the back of the seats and stuff. In those days, I’d arrive at gigs, look at the girders and think “I’ll be up there tonight.” It wasn’t unknown for me to walk along the bar, with the microphone stuck down the sax player’s wotsit. How did you come across the song Marie Marie, which was previously released on a tiny indie label, performed by an underground band who played with the likes of Black Flag, X and Fear on the LA punk circuit? The Blasters! I was in America working. We had some time to kill, ended up at this guy’s flat while he played records and that was one. I thought: “That’s a great song. I’ll have that.” The rest is history. And before long you were the biggest selling British singles artist of the 80s. (5) I was a 17-year overnight success really. I think I earned it. Is it a crazy existence when you’re that big? There was that infamous incident when you attacked Richard Madeley on live TV, wasn’t there? I’d been doing endless radio and TV stuff. I’d been there since early in the morning, all the interview questions were really badly researched and I just thought, “This is ludicrous” and leapt on him on the sofa. He was going: “Oh my watch, oh my hair!” On the recording you can hear fellow guests Status Quo going “You’re mad, you are.” There’s nothing wrong with being mad. I met Richard again years later and he said: “What a prat I was.” When the hits eventually dried up, you made some unlikely records: disco, funk covers and such. I was trying to find my way really. It’s healthy for artists to move on. I didn’t have a manager that would come up with ideas, so I did stuff like [the Detroit Emeralds’] Feel the Need in Me and [the Supremes’] Come See About Me. I wasn’t really happy with a lot of them. The people who signed me at record companies kept leaving. It was like being a footballer when they change the manager. In 2002, you were banned for drink driving and had to attend the Gloucester drink and drug counselling service. I’d been working and staying in this hotel, which was just down the lane. Either the police were waiting or someone told on me. It was two or three minutes’ drive, but the wrong thing to do. Silly. Did the police recognise you? I’m sure they did, but they treated me like anyone else. They didn’t ask you to sing Green Door? Ha. I never thought of doing that, but I was out of it, so I wouldn’t have remembered the words. Was your 2010 heart attack really caused by “strenuous gardening”? I’d been picking up bags of stones. I knew something was wrong. I fell asleep and didn’t wake up. Luckily my partner found me and called the ambulance. If I’d been alone I’d have been a goner. You’re the only person I’ve ever spoken to who’s had their body frozen. To slow my metabolism. I had an ice hat on, ice under my arms, wires everywhere. But here I am. And looking great. Did the brush with the reaper give you a new sense of urgency? Yeah and I realised you’ve got to look after your body. I’ve been drunk like anyone else. I just woke up one morning and thought: “That’s it, no more drinking.” I just have a glass of wine. Or a couple of glasses of wine. What can people expect on your forthcoming tour (6)? I’d rather bang my head on the ceiling than do those rewind shows, reliving the 80s. I still do the hits – not all of them – but in a different way. There’s a lot more to come out of me. I feel like I’m a skittle. If I’m knocked down, I’ll get up and try again. I don’t want to ever stop. I still really enjoy singing. Now you’re an Americana artist, will you get a check shirt and beard? I never dressed like a teddy boy, and I don’t like shaving but you’ve got to do it. I don’t think a beard and moustache would suit me very much, do you? (1) Echoes of Our Times is released on 16 September. (2) Which spent three weeks at No 1 in 1981. (3) The myth is Bob Davie and Martin Moore’s 1956 song refers to Gateways, London’s first lesbian club, which had a green door. It’s almost certably not true. (4) Elvis! had a two-year run from 1977 to 1979. (5) Shaky has notched up 33 Top 40 hits in the UK. (6) Shakin’ Stevens tours next year.
Football transfer rumours: Romelu Lukaku going back to Chelsea? What must Diego Costa think? Chelsea are fully within their rights to tell Atlético Madrid to do one with their approaches, but now that story appears to have reached a dead end, the cantankerous 27-year-old Spain striker is finding out that Antonio Conte has an eye on several other attacking options. First up, Romelu Lukaku is a target – but would the Belgian really want to come back to Stamford Bridge, and face a battle for a starting position when he is the undisputed first choice at Everton? That may just be a plan B if Chelsea’s move for Álvaro Morata fails to come up trumps. Morata has only rejoined Real Madrid after they activated his buy-back clause at Juventus, but Chelsea have already made two bids and may go back for a third. Let’s not forget he was chosen in Spain’s Euro 2016 squad instead of Costa. That’s before mentioning Michy Batshuayi’s solid debut in Chelsea’s friendly win over Wolfsberger last night. Conte is in no mood to sell Andreas Christensen to Borussia Mönchengladbach, though. The 20-year-old is halfway through a two season loan at the Bundesliga club, who have been sufficiently impressed to offer almost £15m. That’s not enough in Chelsea’s books. After a 1-0 humbling against former club Bayern Munich, Pep Guardiola has decided he needs to bring craft to his Manchester City midfield and will table a bid for Real Madrid’s Toni Kroos. Reunification is in fashion. Guardiola is also reeling from the news that his first game will not be against The Big Sam , with Sunderland in talks with David Moyes about taking over at the Stadium of Light. Hull, worryingly, are not being linked with anybody, despite eight of the 14 senior players under contract being injured and just over three weeks to go before the season starts. At least Steve Bruce is staying, though. Oh Nacer, Nacer Chadli has caught the eye of Swansea, who may be willing to fork out £10m to purchase the Belgium midfielder from Tottenham. Daniel Levy would rather £15m, mind. Action is imminent at West Brom, where Saido Berahino might finally be sold 347 windows after a move from the Hawthorns was initially mooted and Jeffrey Schlupp could be on his way in to Tony Pulis’ squad after an offer was made to Leicester. And how could a Rumour Mill end without a mention of Manchester United? What a summer it has been at Old Trafford. Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Henrikh Mkhitaryan, Eric Bailly, possibly Paul Pogba and now – perhaps the biggest one of all – Joshua Bohui is set to join from Brentford. Actually, that’s maybe even a tad too facetious for this column. Bohui is a promising 17-year-old winger who may end up being rather good, and will go into the academy.
DNA-testing kit 23andme: patient-powered healthcare or just confusing? How do you fancy spitting into a tube and finding out about your genes? You can buy one online now and get details of your ancestry, carrier status of various inherited diseases, risk of common conditions and random wacky facts such as whether you’re likely to develop male-pattern baldness. Not bad for £124.99 from Superdrug. The kit is called 23andme and its co-founder and chief executive is Anne Wojcicki. While 23andme has been able to offer the tests in the UK and Canada, it had run-ins with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) over its concerns about the accuracy of data collected. In 2013 the FDA banned the company from selling tests directly to consumers. The company has since relaunched a scaled back version and is the first and only direct-to-consumer genetic test available to individuals in the US that includes reports that meet FDA standards. Its US tests give information on carrier status, ancestry, wellness and trait reports but don’t include the information on drug response and genetic risk factors that are included in the UK test, according to the company. Consumer-powered healthcare? “Direct-to-consumer healthcare is coming,” said Wojcicki at Fortune’s Most Powerful Women Next Gen conference last month . “Do you have to go to your physician for everything? Do you have to go for a blood test? Do you have to go for all your genetic information?” The answer to these questions is clearly “no”. It was easier for me to go online and get a kit than to get an appointment with my local GP. I spat into the device, put the kit in the post and await my results with some curiosity, a pinch of scepticism and an unexpected degree of anxiety. 23andme doesn’t test the whole genome. It identifies genetic markers known as single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), or “snips”. SNPs are positions along the DNA chain where genetic variations commonly occur. Fans of self-testing says it’s interesting to find out about your ancestry, useful to know if you’re at increased risk of certain conditions and reassuring to know if you’re not. If the test points to risk, you can take preventive action, for example by losing weight if you’re prone to diabetes. You may be more likely to take part in a national screening programme such as the NHS bowel cancer screening programme if the test shows an increased risk of bowel cancer. Erynn Gordon, director of clinical development at 23andme, says screening programmes that target specific communities (like sickle-cell anaemia among African-Caribbean people) may miss other individuals who are at risk. “The narrow approach to screening doesn’t take into account our diverse communities.” She also points to a (very small) study that suggests that people who receive unexpected information about carrier status don’t suffer undue anxiety as well as research that concludes people understand the implications of testing very well. Limitations The test is controversial and the cons are important. Consultant genetics counsellor Christine Patch says she has several areas of concern about self-testing: people failing to understand the limitations of the test; what the data will be used for and who will have access to it; and the implications for cash-strapped health services in terms of inappropriate requests for follow-up testing. Once you have information about your genetic risk, for example, do you have to declare it to an insurance company? Do you have an ethical duty to tell other family members? Does the NHS have to pay for further testing? “You may find you’re at increased risk of Alzheimer’s disease ... and there’s nothing [specific] you can do about it,” says Patch. Most common diseases, like asthma, high blood pressure and diabetes, are a complex mix of genetic and environmental factors. And some inherited conditions like being a carrier of cystic fibrosis, may result from many different abnormalities not detected by the kit. The kit may offer false reassurance, she says. There are already various free online tools to estimate your individual risk of getting a condition like osteoporosis, a heart attack or stroke, or diabetes. And people with a family history of serious conditions like Huntington’s Chorea need expert genetic counselling to work out risk and reproductive options. Dr Katherine Leask, a medico-legal adviser with the Medical Defence Union, says doctors need to be aware of the challenges that increased use of kits like 23andme will pose. “Genomic medicine is going to become more mainstream and doctors need to know what tests are available. If someone needs genetic testing because of their family history ... then doctors need to consider whether tests need to be offered.” Chances are this will involve referral to a specialist centre that can offer counselling and specific testing if appropriate rather than telling them to buy a kit. The Department of Health is running a hugely ambitious programme through its company Genomics England. It aims to sequence 100,000 whole genomes from 70,000 people who have either common cancers or rare inherited diseases, together with their families. Their claims are notably more modest than the direct-to-consumer marketing. “Doing this [genome sequencing] may help medical teams provide better diagnosis or treatment. But it may not because not enough is known yet about the meaning of all the genomic data.” says communications manager Lisa Dinh. There are no plans to roll out genome testing on the NHS for the entire population, says Dinh. “However it is likely that our knowledge about the genome will expand in coming years, which should mean better and quicker diagnoses and treatments for more patients. We do not have an official view on 23andMe.”. Patch says: “I’m not against the kits; if people want to spend their money on it, that’s fine. But personally, I wouldn’t do the test. I do my best to stay healthy, and if I become unwell I’ll get help. But I’m not going to go looking for problems.”
How do I … avoid using Amazon? Amazon has announced its leap into the UK’s fresh food market after a supply deal was agreed with Morrisons, the country’s fourth biggest supermarket. Britons spent £5.3bn on Amazon in 2014 and the online retail juggernaut was voted best customer service provider in January this year. Already renowned for its low prices, next-day delivery and online movie streaming, Amazon’s natural next step seems to be grocery deliveries. However, while customers may be fond of the convenience and speed of Amazon’s operations, it is a company that inspires more complicated feeling in its workers. Last year, a New York Times investigation revealed the extent of the pressure put on Amazon’s employees. Grown men seen sobbing in the office, frequent layoffs creating a climate of fear, people with cancer being overworked … the list goes on, though Amazon later denied these claims. These allegations, as well as the knowledge that Amazon has put smaller stores, especially bookshops, out of business, give some people misgivings about the company. And that is before we get to the fact that Amazon, like Google and Starbucks, has had a somewhat fraught relationship with HMRC. In 2014, the company paid just £11.9m in UK taxes, though last May it agreed to pay corporation tax on UK sales. This has led a number of people to try to live a life free from Amazon. Ethical Consumer magazine decided to boycott it, denouncing “cheaper shopping at the expense of our public services” after the tax avoidance row. writer Stuart Heritage said the revelation of the horrendous workplace culture at its headquarters was enough to push him to boycott, despite the “convenience of buying stuff in my pants on a laptop on my sofa”. For those who are worried by Amazonian overreach, here are a few ways to curb your dependence and get your goods elsewhere. Turn to other online shops Ebay celebrated 15 years of activity in the UK in 2014, when it sold 3bn items – not all of them kitsch memorabilia. The website has made the fortune of many an entrepreneur, and the range of items sold would bewilder even the most savvy of online shoppers. If it’s only a movie you’re after, there are alternatives: Hulu and Netflix vie with Amazon Prime in the web-streaming space. And those who particularly object to Amazon’s labour practices can feel especially good about signing up to Netflix, which offers its employees a year of paid maternity or paternity leave and regularly tops the list of best companies to work for. But because you can’t have it all, the latest news seem to suggest that it too is sometimes not overly keen on paying corporation tax in Britain. Hive.co.uk proudly boasts that it is a “British, tax-paying company.” A network of 360 independent booksellers in the country, it will provide you with the latest books, audio and video you need. And to make your conscience even clearer, a percentage of every purchase goes back to local independent bookshops, helping them to survive in the scary era of all-online shopping. Alternatively, you could buy books while supporting your favourite news website by clicking here. Food-wise, Morrisons, Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Asda and Waitrose already deliver, in exchange for a minimum spending and a small delivery fee. There are also a host of companies that offer food boxes delivered to your door, such as Abel & Cole, Hello Fresh and Gousto. Back to the high street According to the Office for National Statistics, food sellers have the lowest proportion of sales occurring online, at just 4%. Most of us still leave the house to go food shopping, be it at a big supermarket branch or at the corner shop. As well as being healthier – a wander through Asda isn’t exactly a spin class but does get the heart rate up much higher than sitting and clicking on the couch – a recent study by investment firm Charles Stanley showed that you are more likely to make bad decisions when shopping online shopping. The almost infinite range of products makes it harder to find the best deals, and the lack of assistance means that you might be missing some vital information – or simply buying the wrong product. And you could be saving jobs too. As online shopping has exploded in the past few years, high-street retailers have struggled to adapt to the changing needs of customers. Since the 2008 financial crash, Woolworths and Zavvi, among others, have closed down. Perhaps significantly, both these brands offered products that can now be ordered in one click from a plethora of online competitors. On Monday, the British Retail Consortium announced that 900,000 industry jobs were at risk in the next 10 years, on the same day Amazon announced its partnership with Morrisons. Resist the urge to splurge While we received the encouraging news this week that we are consuming far less than we were 10 years ago – with the average person in the UK using 10 tonnes of material in 2013, down from 15 tonnes in 2001 – we still use and buy too much. According to the National Employment Savings Trust, 85% of Britons spend money on stuff they seldom or never use. Taken as a whole, that is £6.2bn we could save every year. And with the nation’s top impulse buy being bananas, Amazon’s forthcoming delivery of fresh food could be bad news for our wallets. It’s worth resisting the allure of unnecessary online purchases, one banana at a time. This article was amended on 4 March 2016 to make it clear that Amazon later denied allegations of difficult working conditions at its headquarters.
Why Pokémon Go really is a national health service If parenting is one long process of discovering that it doesn’t really happen like they say in the books, then school holidays are proof positive that Swallows and Amazons was fiction. Every July starts, at least in this house, with starry-eyed delusions about a summer spent messing about on rivers, climbing trees and having wholesome adventures. Or failing that, perhaps a summer of cheery educational play as per the more optimistic newspaper supplements, where the kids thrill to your kitchen science experiments and treasure hunts round National Trust properties. And every July ends with the realisation that actually it’s not going to be like that. We will not spend summer picnicking and playing beach cricket, because it is going to rain all August. We won’t be that family in the museum whose kids just beg to hear more about the ancient Egyptians, because we will be that family whose kid rolls its eyes sarcastically at the very idea of filling in the museum’s lovely quiz. There will be afternoons where nobody looks up from Minecraft. And yet a tiny flicker of hope remains, for this is the summer of the Pokémon Go app. The craze for this remarkably silly mobile phone game – which involves chasing cartoony little virtual monsters through the surrounding real world, as they pop into shot on your phone’s camera – is currently outstripped only by the craze for stories about stupid things people do while playing it. A holocaust museum in Washington was forced to remind visitors that it’s crassly inappropriate to catch imaginary gonks on your phone while wandering round a memorial to victims of genocide. Tragically, a teenager in Guatemala was shot while playing the game – although whether the game had anything to do with the death remains unclear. There are reports of drivers crashing cars while surreptitiously playing on their phones; and a woman rescued by emergency services after getting stuck up a tree while chasing Pokémon. Yet what makes Pokémon Go irresistible is that it’s basically a good old-fashioned treasure hunt crossed with a fairytale, adding up to that parenting holy grail: an excuse to go out in the fresh air and move. Friends with boys in the awkward tweens – too old and self-conscious for running round the garden, too young to hunker moodily in bedrooms – report a sudden revival of “playing out” in the park under the guise of Pokémon hunting. It’s as if the app gives them an excuse to be kids again. And those dry police reports about increased “foot traffic” in cities thanks to overgrown kidults playing the game? That’s code for what public health campaigns have struggled for decades to achieve, namely getting people out of the house and walking. If I were the NHS, I’d be pleading with Nintendo to cluster Pokémon characters along hiking routes and bike trails, up mountains and in woods. For every nine players who move through, not lifting their eyes off the phone, there will be one who looks up and sees something they might not otherwise have. Yet all new technology must seemingly pass through three stages before we can reach such acceptance, and Pokémon Go is no exception; first comes the fear that it’s somehow going to kill us (tick); second, the inevitable articles about how single women in New York are using it to meet men (tick); and finally a moral panic over what it supposedly reveals about human nature that actually we already knew (getting there). Yes, people have done dumb and risky things while playing Pokémon Go. But replace the words “playing Pokémon Go” with almost any activity and that sentence remains true. Why, it’s almost as if the fault lies with people, not with the tools we ingeniously devise to satisfy that most endearingly human of instincts: play. Talk of British creative industries, and people think of theatre, music or film. But gaming is a multibillion-pound player now, the point where arts meets tech, and as embedded in British culture as telly, without being quite so generously acknowledged. Having never got the bug myself, the sight of anyone hunched over a screen will never make my heart sing, but watching my son and his friends play dispels the fear that there’s something inherently antisocial about it. They don’t want to play alone, or with faceless strangers over the internet. What they crave is to be all in the same room, hooking up their individual devices to one Wi-Fi, building a sprawling collective Minecraft empire in which they share virtual adventures while chatting away in real life. They’re deep in an imaginary world, just as I was as a little girl playing shops, but it’s interleaved with the physical world around them, and they move quite naturally between the two. No wonder, then, that this summer’s hit isn’t some overhyped virtual reality game but an augmented reality one that takes game elements and overlays them on our shared real world. As all games do, it has the potential to get messy. There’s always someone who gets carried away, tips the Monopoly board over and ruins it for everyone. But humans will always want to play, and there’s something oddly moving about the lengths to which we will go to invent new games for each other. How touching that, after all this time, we still so badly want to play together.
FA Cup must remain football’s hollow crown to maintain its magic Gary Lineker’s documentary on Leicester City’s title success the other night had an intentionally dreamlike quality. Even now, at a distance of just a few days from the end of a remarkable Premier League season, it is still tempting to wonder whether it all really happened. It did, of course, we can be sure of that. Otherwise Arsenal would now be champions, Tottenham kicking themselves even more than usual and Manchester United inviting Louis van Gaal to spend a bit more money in preparation for next season’s Champions League. There has been some debate in these pages over the last few days over whether United have improved this season, stood still or gone backwards. My conclusion was that they are ever so slowly getting better, based on the joint best defence in the division and some exciting discoveries up front in Anthony Martial and Marcus Rashford. The league table suggests otherwise, and many were quick to point out that finishing fourth last season and fifth this time is a step back, not forward, though that can largely be explained by the Leicester effect. Take Leicester out of the equation, pretend for a moment that they did not confound bookies and pundits alike by coming from nowhere to finish on top, and United are pretty much where they were last season apart from having an FA Cup final to look forward to and a couple of new strikers to utilise. If some people had their way, the winners of Saturday’s showpiece at Wembley would be granted a place in next season’s Champions League as a reward. It has been suggested over and over again that the way to halt the decline of the FA Cup would be to make it a prize worth winning, and it is certainly true that were the competition to provide a route to the Champions League for the winners, in the way that the Europa League now does, then everyone would start taking it seriously again. Especially the big teams, or more specifically the big teams who might just finish fifth or sixth in the Premier League. Teams such as Manchester United in fact, who on several occasions in the past have been guilty of making the FA Cup the lowest of their priorities. Such a change, which would require Uefa to alter its rules, would probably fix the FA Cup, though it might not be the best idea in the long run for English success in the Champions League. Suppose Crystal Palace win on Saturday, for a start. Bearing in mind that the Premier League’s normal quota of four Champions League places is based on a coefficient that tracks English clubs’ record in Europe over the years, would it really be a good plan to send along a club that finished in 15th place and only managed a couple of league wins since the turn of the year? FA Cup winners in recent seasons have included Wigan and Portsmouth, while Aston Villa, Hull and Cardiff have appeared in finals in the last 10 years. Would it be entirely fair to send clubs like that into Europe’s premier competition, based on stringing four or five results together in the Cup, when the side that finish in fourth after the 38 games of the Premier League’s arduous season would then have to be content with a Europa League spot? Even Van Gaal thinks not, or at least he did a few weeks ago when the possibility was put to him. He might be more tempted to grab at the lifeline now, but last month he was of the opinion that a side with a lucky cup run should not win a bigger prize than those teams who have shown the most consistency over the course of a whole season. Though Leicester have given everyone pause for thought over what might be achieved by so-called lesser clubs, the fact they won the title by a clear 10 points is a sure indication of quality, consistency and durability. The Foxes have earned their shot at the big time next season and we are all fascinated to see how it will go. We might be equally fascinated were it to be Palace, Wigan or Villa lining up against Bayern Munich or Barcelona, though not for the same reasons. So, much as one would like to see the FA Cup receive a life-saving injection of importance, linking it to Champions League qualification seems fraught with risk. Except that the issue of small clubs taking the place of bigger clubs in Europe would possibly not arise so often once the big clubs got their act together and realised the FA Cup could be their golden ticket. Upsets would become much less frequent if everybody suddenly began to regard FA Cup progress as vital, and stopped switching goalkeepers, resting players or trying out a few youngsters. Over time the Cup would just become a top-four event again, as it was in the 11 years from 1996 to 2007, when everyone complained the romance had died. Funny thing though, romance. Everyone said it was back when Portsmouth broke the mould in 2008, and again when Wigan beat Manchester City in 2013, yet for both those clubs Wembley glory prefaced a sharp downturn in fortunes. What would probably happen, with Champions League qualification as a prize, is that lucky cup runs – the kind of thing that took Palace to Wembley this time – would become a thing of the past. Van Gaal’s reservations would become less relevant; if everyone was trying their best and putting out their strongest teams then winning the six games (for leading clubs) necessary to lift the trophy would be a feat deserving of reward. But no more so than holding on for fourth place in the table. Hoping to use the lure of the Champions League to return the glamour to the FA Cup would not restore the old magic, it would just turn the competition into an annexe of the Premier League. It is regrettable that Saturday’s Wembley winners will end up with little more than a hollow crown, but could anyone seriously argue that either side deserves to be in the Champions League next season?
May the fourth be with you: United and City in final-day battle of Manchester The last day of the Premier League season confirms a power shift has finally taken place. The Midlands is now the centre of attention, something not many observers imagined they would live to see, with Tottenham and Arsenal well represented for a change as north London fills the next two automatic Champions League qualification slots. The two Manchester clubs, like bald men fighting over a comb, are now reduced to a tussle over who finishes in fourth place, the one with the extra qualifying round. Considering the financial resources at their disposal this is undeniable underachievement. Manuel Pellegrini can spout all the statistics he likes, just as Louis van Gaal can blame injuries and bad luck, but the two clubs have never been wealthier yet this season is going to be the first in Premier League history without either of them in the top three. City began to feature at the awards end of the table around five seasons ago, the proud Mancunian record is otherwise entirely down to United and the Sir Alex Ferguson years. Yet before United dominated the football landscape Liverpool did, and one has to go back 35 years, to the last time a Midlands team was crowned champions, to find a top three with no representation from the north-west. Aston Villa’s title-winning season in 1981 was something of a one-off too, even more than it must seem from the perspective of a side just relegated to the Championship. The previous occasion when north-west clubs were absent from the podium was 1961, when Sheffield Wednesday and Wolves finished second and third in Tottenham’s Double-winning season. With that historical context in mind, finishing in fourth should not really count for anything at all. If second is nowhere, as Bill Shankly always used to maintain, fourth might as well be in a different division. The Champions League has altered how we view these things: fourth place is now considered more important than winning one of the cups, but the Champions League is supposed to be an old pals’ act, a self-perpetuating, self-aggrandising elite whereby the same big, rich clubs just get bigger and richer and hoover up everyone else’s best players so that smaller clubs can do little more than stand on the pavement outside and look in through the window. That is why everyone enjoyed Leicester’s gatecrashing act so much. City very much want to be among the grandees of Europe; United used to be comfortable in that company until losing their way in the later stages of Ferguson’s reign, though by definition you cannot be a bona fide Champions League contender if you are still scrabbling around for qualification on the final day of the season. Even if City did reach the semi-final, the manner in which they ultimately slid out of view did nothing to suggest regular reachers of the last four will be hoping to avoid them next season. That is what Pep Guardiola is about to take over, regardless of whether City stay in fourth place. There will be much tittering from the red half of Manchester if their new luxury coach arrives to supervise a Europa League campaign, though apart from the initial indignity there is no real reason why City could not survive a season out of the Champions League. Most teams are in it for the money; City already have plenty of that. City have hired Guardiola to take them to the next level in Europe; fair enough, but does he have to do it in his first season? On the evidence of the domestic season now concluding Guardiola will have enough of a rebuilding job on his hands just turning City back into the strongest team in England. They have never managed to look really convincing in Europe and though Guardiola might be exactly the man to effect that transformation it is a big ask to expect him to do it straight away. United do not really need the Champions League either. They have just announced record profits for the latest financial quarter, their money-making machine could survive a short holiday from the hot spots and hot shots of Europe. Van Gaal’s job is supposed to be hanging on a fourth-place finish, but he managed that last season and United found themselves out of the Champions League before Christmas. Were he to take advantage of any City slip-up at Swansea and sneak into fourth with a United win against Bournemouth on Sunday afternoon he would probably be safe for another season, especially if he can bring home the FA Cup next Saturday, though it is a moot question whether that would be a cause for celebration in and around Old Trafford. What most people think United should do at this point is make a clear statement about who will be in charge next season, and possibly beyond. A team that could have been dumped out of the Europa League by Midtjylland had they not promoted Marcus Rashford in the nick of time really has no business waiting around to see if Champions League qualification can help them arrive at a decision. United appear to be adhering to the traditional view, as expressed by Pellegrini in his final press conference in Manchester. “For a big team, if you don’t qualify for the Champions League it is a disaster,” he said. But Pellegrini went on to say something else. “I don’t think it matters for one year – as happened to United in 2014 and Chelsea this season – but it is not the best thing for it to happen over a number of years.” Quite. With the money United offer players, and the prospect of working under Guardiola at City, it is probably not even true that transfer targets would turn their noses up because of non-Champions League status. What is true is that the very best players, Renato Sanches being a case in point, will always want to join the best clubs. Doubtless to Guardiola’s chagrin, Bayern Munich have reached only Champions League semi-finals in his three years in Germany, though they do boast three successive league titles. That is consistency of a sort and even if the German model is not to be preferred to the unpredictability of the Premier League it starts at home. The plain, unvarnished truth is that the pride of Manchester, whichever side finishes highest, has some catching up to do on the domestic front before entertaining dreams of conquering Europe.
Director of Cannes civil rights drama Loving: ‘Society can take longer than the law to get it right’ There are two marriages behind Loving, a new historical biopic which on Monday threw its hat into the race for this year’s Palme d’Or at Cannes. The first is that which the film shows: between Mildred and Richard Loving, whose interracial union was deemed unlawful in their home state in 1958. The couple were banned from Virginia for 25 years, moving with their children to Washington DC. Almost a decade later, their case reached the supreme court; the subsequent victory overturned miscegenation laws. The second is that of director Jeff Nichols and his wife, Missy. Weighing up whether or not to take on the project, he emailed her the trailer for an HBO documentary about the Lovings, which had moved him to tears. As Nichols recalled at a press conference in Cannes, she wrote back to say: “Listen, I really love you, but if you don’t make this film, I’m going to divorce you.” Duly motivated, Nichols first started working on the screenplay in 2013, as the supreme court began ruling on the same-sex marriage ban in the US; some of the constitutional changes were informed by by Loving v Virginia in 1967. Nichols hoped the film might be released in time to influence the debate; happily, this wasn’t required, and same-sex marriage was ratified in 2015. But the director cautioned against the presumption such rulings lay to rest centuries-old prejudice that has been vindicated by legislation. “Soon you get religious liberty laws added and other things, and you realise the supreme court can only do so much. The law sometimes gets it right, but it takes a long time for society to get it right. That’s always been surprising to me. People are afraid of certain things and they feel it’s necessary to legislate that fear.” Both the film’s stars reiterated their surprise at learning that the state of Alabama only amended their constitution to allow mixed-race marriage as late as 2000; both also related the Lovings’ case to contemporary struggles. Ruth Negga said she’d been “very proud” that her home country, Ireland, last year leant “overwhelming support” for gay marriage in a referendum. “Having a very, very Catholic history [it shows] it’s possible to evolve, having discussions about equality.” “What happens between two individuals is sort of nobody else’s business,” said the Australian actor Joel Egerton. “If people are doing things out of the spirit of kindness or goodness, if they’re not damaging or affecting other people negatively, then what’s wrong with the bond between two people – whatever they look like, whatever gender they are?” In Australia, although same-sex unions are recognised, all attempts to legalise same-sex marriage have so far been unsuccessful. Egerton said he hoped the film would help illuminate people’s thinking about the damage that can be inflicted by their own judgements. “It’s quite astounding, the sort of latent, under-the-surface racism and negative opinion [in Australia]. To me, that’s something that we really need to talk about. Let people sit and quietly watch an example of two people who really affected by the opinions of others.” The film is due for release in the autumn, giving it a prime position ahead of awards season, and while Nichols, Egerton and Negga were modest about its prospects, the former called it “one of the most pure love stories in American history” while the latter hailed it as “one of the most important films in history”. Yet unlike, say, Ava Duverney’s Martin Luther King biopic, Selma, Loving is a consciously understated film, which focuses on the domestic fallout rather than the courtroom and soapbox fireworks. This was the intention, said the director, who described it as “the quiet film of the year”. “When we talk about politics and social issues such as race and racial equality we tend to join our platform of thinking – conservative, liberal; you go to your corners and spar, based on these political ideas. I think what people forget when they’re so heated in their debates is the people at the centre.” Egerton agreed, and said he hoped the film’s lack of flashy spectacle and impassioned speeches wouldn’t hobble its odds. “I suspect sometimes things go unnoticed when they don’t involve bloodshed or massive acts of violence. There’s something so gentle about this, and yet, at the same time, there’s such a hidden violence to the oppression of situations like this, where people are put into exile or forced into making choices that are inhuman.”
The Force Awakens rings in new year with $88.3m at US box office Star Wars: The Force Awakens hit the $1.5bn (£1.01bn) mark at the global box office this weekend after earning $88.3m in North America during its third week of release. JJ Abrams’ sequel has now made $740.3m at the US and Canadian box office, putting it in second place on the chart of highest-grossing films in North America, behind Avatar’s $760.8m from 2009/2010. Disney’s film is expected to take the No 1 spot by midweek. The third-highest weekend haul ever in the US means that The Force Awakens could challenge Avatar’s $2.78bn all-time global box office record. The latest instalment of Star Wars opens in China, the world’s second-largest box office, on 9 January amid huge expectations. Elsewhere at the US box office, it was a good weekend for Oscar contenders. Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight climbed to No 3 after a successful limited release on Christmas Day in the 70mm screening format. The blood-spattered western took $16.2m on its wide-release debut. It is considerably less than the opening weekend results of Tarantino’s two most recent films, Inglourious Basterds ($38m) and Django Unchained ($30.1m). Expectations for The Hateful Eight, however, have been dampened by the ongoing success of The Force Awakens. Tarantino’s new movie has made $29.6m so far. David O Russell’s Joy dropped three places to sixth with $10.4m, for a two-week total of $38.7m, while the financial crisis-themed comedy drama The Big Short held seventh place with $9m in its fourth week ($33m total). The Will Smith-led sports drama Concussion dipped to eighth spot with $8m, for a two-week total of $25.4m. North American box office, 31 December-3 January 1. Star Wars: The Force Awakens: $88.3m. Total: $740.3m 2. Daddy’s Home: $29m. Total: $93.7m 3. The Hateful Eight: $16.2m. Total: $29.6m 4. Sisters: $12.6m. Total: $61.7m 5. Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip: $11.8m. Total: $67.4m 6. Joy: $10.4m. Total: $38.7m 7. The Big Short: $9m. Total: $33m 8. Concussion: $8m. Total: $25.4m 9. Point Break: $6.8m. Total: $22.4m 10. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 2: $4.6m. Total: $274.2m
Andrea Arnold: I find my adaptation of Wuthering Heights 'hard to look at' Oscar-winning British director Andrea Arnold has said that she finds her acclaimed 2011 adaptation of Wuthering Heights a difficult film to enjoy. The film-maker, who won the Academy award for best live-action short in 2005 for Wasp, spoke about Wuthering Heights during a discussion at this year’s Tribeca film festival. “People keep saying one day I will come to like it,” she said. “It was a difficult experience making it, for various reasons. I find it hard to look at it.” Arnold, who has also directed acclaimed dramas Red Road and Fish Tank, claims that her “pure and beautiful” vision of the novel was not what ultimately made it to the screen. She described “a misty moor on a day when the earth and sky are merging, and there’s a big animal climbing inside of the moor. But you went in and saw that it was a man, carrying rabbits on his back.” But, she said, “When we got to film it, we had half an hour to get it before the day was over. It was bright sunshine and blue sky, and we had about three rabbits.” Arnold was unhappy but still used the shot. “What can you do at that point?” she said. “You can’t because you’re working with a whole team of people and there’s money.” She also added that it was a tough period for her off-screen as well. “It was a very difficult time for me, that film,” she said. “I was in a dark place. When I think about how it was, it’s associated with some personal stuff.” Her take on Wuthering Heights was met with mostly positive reviews on release, with the ’s Peter Bradshaw calling it “exhilarating”. The director also spoke about her new film American Honey, her first to be shot in the US. The drama, which stars Shia LaBeouf as part of a group of travelling magazine salespeople, will premiere in competition at this year’s Cannes film festival. “I really do think I pushed it,” she said. “It was very tough, there were scenes when I had loads of non-actors and we were running out of time, and I thought, ‘I really don’t know how I’m going to get this done.’” She was also surprised at what she discovered while filming in the US. “Some of the poverty in some of the places really shocked me,” she said. “It seemed more intense than Britain. There was a town I went through in the south – I did a lot of driving in the south, I loved the south – and I was quite upset by what I saw: closed factories and shops, huge poverty. I guess I didn’t know that, to the degree that I saw it. And drugs ... loads of drugs.”
Danny Willett's brother steals spotlight on Twitter after Masters 2016 victory Danny Willett might have come from nowhere to take the Masters. But it was his brother, PJ, tweeting the final hours of the tournament from his home in Birmingham, who stole the spotlight. PJ Willett, who describes himself as “Author. Teacher. Inexperienced Father” on his Twitter profile, swore, drank and joked his way through the tense close to the four-day contest that saw his brother become only the second Englishman to wear the famous green jacket. His tweets included digs at Willett’s rival, Jordan Spieth, as well untempered emotion as his brother edged closer to the win. At times, his tweets veered into the profane. But they also demonstrated his unrivalled joy at his brother’s outstanding performance. And were often totally hilarious. When it became clear that his younger brother had beaten Spieth to take the US Masters title he was overcome. His outpouring won him fans from across the golfing world, and beyond. Willett’s tweets were so popular that he started trending in the UK. And he seemed rather pleased with his handiwork. At the same time, sporting greats were paying tribute to Willett’s victory, including former England cricket captain Michael Vaughan, who shares his hometown, Sheffield, with Willett. In a reference to the tradition where the Masters winner chooses the menu for the following year’s champions’ dinner, the 2008 winner, South Africa’s Trevor Immelman, tweeted: “Bangers and mash this time next year....”
Readers recommend playlist: your songs about religion Below is this week’s playlist – the theme and tunes picked by a reader from the comments below in last week’s callout. Thanks for your suggestions. Read more about the format of the weekly Readers recommend series at the end of the piece. According to former Daily Show host Jon Stewart, “reason has been a part of organised religion ever since two nudists took dietary advice from a talking snake”. You may or may not agree with this, but it’s certainly true religion has inspired artists and musicians for centuries, and – trying, perhaps, to disprove the old maxim that “the Devil has the best tunes” – below is a playlist of my favourites from your suggestions this week. Firstly, one that some listeners might wish to fast forward through is Decree 10.05 by Church Universal and Triumphant, Inc. feat Elizabeth Clare Prophet. It’s 20-plus minutes of invocation about Heaven knows what. An extraordinary track, if a little disturbing. More traditional is Tennessee Ernie Ford’s call for a dose of That Old Time Religion, so, ever ready to oblige, we follow on with some old-time religion in the shape of Wardruna’s Rotlaust Tre Fell, a piece of Scandinavian folk music that draws upon Norse mythology for inspiration. Iron Maiden, restrained as ever, remind us that the Number of the Beast is 666. There are complex explanations as to why this particular number was chosen as beastly, but personally I think it was selected because it looks nice ... People can get “religious” about all sorts of things. For OPM it’s skateboarding, leading to Heaven Is a Halfpipe. Each to their own and all that. Jello Biafra’s Lard offer us some Hellfudge, next. I think I had some of that once – it was kind of chewy ... And then we have hippy favourites Quintessence, who hedge their bets, perhaps wisely, with Jesus Buddha Moses Gauranga. Sensible chaps. God makes many things – all things, in fact, according to some – so it’s no surprise that he made Philou Louzolo funky. His Phunky Coogi is a delightful piece of praise in musical form. Withered Hand (Scottish indie rock musician Dan Wilson) earns his place thanks to the wonderful line “Knocking on Kevin’s door” in Religious Songs, I am a sucker for a good (or bad?) pun. Bringing up the rear this week, it has to be Kana Uemura with Toilet no Kamisama (“God of Toilet”). It’s a song about both “god” and toilets and yet so much more (for more on the lyrics see a translation provided in the comments by HoshinoSakura). There really is a lesson in “Zen” here: how the mundane daily task can, if carried out in the right spirit, bring us closer to the divine. It’s a lovely, toilety, tune too ... Note: not all songs appear on this Spotify playlist as some are unavailable on the service. New theme The theme for next week’s playlist will be announced at 8pm (UK time) on 6 October. You have until 11pm on 10 October to submit nominations. Here’s a reminder of some of the guidelines for RR: If you have a good theme idea, or if you’d like to volunteer to compile a playlist from readers’ suggestions and write a blog about it, please email matthew.holmes@theguardian.com. There is a wealth of data on RR, including the songs that are “zedded”, at the Marconium. It also tells you the meaning of “zedded”, “donds” and other strange words used by RR regulars. Many RR regulars also congregate at the ’Spill blog.
Marillion – 10 of the best 1. Forgotten Sons Marillion were still defining their sound when they recorded their first album, 1983’s Script for a Jester’s Tear. While they’d already got crude pastiches of Supper’s Ready out of their system, the dramatic album closer still displays strong echoes of Genesis’s The Knife and Pink Floyd’s Comfortably Numb. The tale of a young soldier caught up in the Troubles in Northern Ireland remains an intense and moving piece that transcends its rather obvious influences. In archetypal neo-progressive fashion, it builds through multiple sections, with a Psalm 23/Lords’ Prayer spoken-word part backed by a staccato riff stolen from Gustav Holst’s Mars, the Bringer of War, and a powerful closing section demonstrating Fish’s growing powers as a lyricist. A high water mark of early 80s neo-prog, it’s a song that’s far more than the sum of its parts. 2. Incubus Marillion’s second album, Fugazi, saw them leaving behind the notion that they were merely a pastiche of Gabriel-era Genesis, with a dense, layered sound that was far more their own. Driven by a propulsive riff, Incubus is a highlight, a song about revenge porn written three decades before it became a regular news item. While the lyrics are perhaps a little overblown, Fish’s half-sung, half-ranted vocal gets disturbingly into the role of the jealous ex-lover of a celebrity. It still features regularly in Fish’s live sets as a solo artist. 3. Warm Wet Circles/That Time of the Night Marillion hit the big time with the intense and personal-concept album Misplaced Childhood, which spawned their big hit single, Kayleigh. When it came to the follow-up, Clutching at Straws, they took a sharp left turn. Gone were the sprawling, serpentine song structures and opaque, overcooked lyrics, in favour of a more focused songwriting approach that would set the template for Fish’s later solo career. I know treating these two as one song is cheating a bit, but they work as one continuous piece, with Steve Rothery’s sublime solo forming the bridge between. When performed live, either by Fish or by the current incarnation of Marillion, they’re almost always played together. 4. Seasons End Just when Marillion seemed poised to conquer the world, the unthinkable happened. Burned out by constant touring without downtime and with divisions over musical direction beginning to surface, Fish left the band. Rather than trying to find a soundalike, they recruited the relatively unknown Steve Hogarth and used his very different vocal approach as an opportunity to reinvent themselves. Seasons End was the result. The title track is both soaring and anthemic, yet it is one of the saddest in their songbook. It is one of those songs that never fails to bring a lump to the throat. A perfect marriage of Hogarth’s vocals and Rothery’s lyrical lead guitar. 5. The Great Escape After the singles from 1991’s pop-oriented Holidays in Eden failed to make the charts, the band launched a follow-up in 1994 with Brave, a dark and intense concept album with no obvious single, which remains a firm fan-favourite. Inspired by a news report of a girl with amnesia found wandering on the Severn Bridge, the narrative imagines a life story that might have bought someone to that place. The emotional climax of the album is the penultimate song, with musical motifs repeated from earlier in the album. The point when it changes gears is one of those moments. When they played the album in full at the 2013 fan convention, The Great Escape prompted a five-minute standing ovation. 6. Out of This World Marillion have a thing about death and water. It’s a recurring theme that goes right back to Chelsea Monday, from their debut. Out of This World comes from the album Afraid of Sunlight, whose songs reflect the flipside of fame. It tells the story of Donald Campbell’s fatal attempt at the world water speed record in Bluebird in 1967, and the song itself was to inspire the recovery of the wreck of Bluebird from the depths of Coniston Water. This one’s a showcase for Steve Hogarth’s vocals, and aside from Steve Rothery’s magnificent solo the song owes far more to Talk Talk than it does to Pink Floyd or Genesis. 7. Man of a Thousand Faces While latter-day Marillion are known for their atmospheric epics, sometimes they do write straightforward pop songs, and this one, from 1997’s This Strange Engine is one of their best, a semi-acoustic song with 12-string guitar and a delightful piano solo from Mark Kelly. By this point in their career they’d been dropped by EMI, and though Man of a Thousand Faces was released as a single, it got no radio airplay and didn’t chart. 8. This Is the 21st Century Marillion go trip-hop. The 2001 album Anoraknophobia comes from the period when Marillion were experimenting with many different musical ideas and directions in an attempt to avoid repeating their own past, and drew comparisons with the more contemporary sounds of Radiohead and Massive Attack. The album was also hugely significant for the wider music business as the first successfully crowdfunded record, something for which Marillion don’t always get the credit they deserve. This lengthy number was a high spot of the album, with a lyric serving a powerful rebuttal to the reductionist worldview of Richard Dawkins, who allowed no space for the spiritual. 9. Neverland The late 90s and early years of the new century saw a tension between the more contemporary side of their music and the classic Marillion sound centred on Steve Rothery’s distinctive, overdriven guitar. The sprawling double album version of 2004’s Marbles kept a foot in both camps, balancing lighter reflective songs with the 18-minute epic Ocean Cloud. The album comes to close with the anthemic Neverland, which begins as plaintive piano ballad and ends in a glorious wall of sound, monstrous waves of molten guitar as Steve Rothery duels with Steve Hogarth using his voice as a lead instrument. It’s been a live favourite ever since, with good reason. 10. The New Kings Most bands who have been around for almost four decades have long since burned out creatively, and if they still tour they’ve largely turned into their own tribute acts. It’s possible that the change of singer just at the point where they reached their creative peak is the secret to their longevity, but whatever the reason, Marillion still have something to say. From the elegiac opening chords onwards, the five-part epic that closes their 16th album, Fear, demonstrates this in spades, a lament for a world screwed over by corrupt self-serving elites. “Do you remember a country that cared for you? / A national anthem you could sing without feeling used or ashamed? / Now we’re living for the new kings”, sings Hogarth as the musical twists and turns show all the strengths of Marillion’s music from the 21st century.
Hillary Clinton retains edge over Donald Trump in election's final sprint Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are sprinting towards the finish line of the most bitter, divisive and fear-tainted US presidential election of modern times, with polls showing Clinton has the edge. Seeking to become the first female president, the Democrat will end her campaign with a rally in the battleground state of North Carolina at midnight on Monday. Republican candidate Trump will close his at 11pm that night with an event in Grand Rapids, Michigan, a state where he is hoping to pull off a huge surprise. Around a third of ballots – at least 41m across 48 states – have been cast in early voting, according to the Associated Press, and the election still appears to be Clinton’s to lose. On Sunday, she led Trump 48%-43% in a Washington Post/ABC tracking poll, 44%-40% in an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll and 45%-42% in a Politico/Morning Consult poll. Clinton received a boost on Sunday afternoon, with the release of a letter to Congress from FBI director James Comey that said the bureau had found no evidence of wrongdoing by Clinton in its review of emails discovered during an investigation into charges against Anthony Weiner, estranged husband of key aide Huma Abedin. The FBI review related to Clinton’s use of a private email server while secretary of state, an issue over which the bureau had previously decided not to recommend an indictment. Nonetheless, data suggest Clinton is not as strongly placed in electoral college projections as Barack Obama was at the same stage in 2012. Clinton is not “in a terribly safe position”, leading pollster Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight told ABC’s This Week on Sunday. “The electoral map is actually less solid for Clinton than it was for Obama four years ago.” The two candidates have fought an ugly battle to become the 45th president, dogged by controversies ranging from FBI investigation into Clinton’s email use to sexual assault allegations against Trump. Clinton would be the first spouse of a president to reach the White House. Trump, at 70, would be the oldest person to assume the office. As both candidates and their surrogates set out on a whirlwind final 48 hours on the trail, the wild card nature of Trump’s candidacy made the map harder to read than usual. Among 10 rallies planned over the last two days were stops in Minnesota, which has not supported a Republican presidential nominee since 1972, and Michigan, which has not gone to the GOP since 1988. Clinton, however, lost both states to Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary. Van Jones, a former adviser to Obama, told CNN’s State of the Union: “Beds are damp. There is a crack in the blue wall and it has to do with trade. This is the ghost of Bernie Sanders.” The Trump campaign claimed “an enormous surge in momentum and enthusiasm” in recent days, citing Minnesota, where the campaign said that in less than 24 hours it had 18,000 RSVPs for a event that could hold 5,000 people. It now sees “at least six different paths” to victory, aides said. Dave Bossie, deputy campaign manager, told reporters: “We have expanded the map. We are on offence. We are going to places no one thought we would. It’s an incredibly exciting time for our campaign. Hillary Clinton is on defence and her map is shrinking. We feel we are peaking at the right time as a campaign.” Clinton has led every poll in Michigan but she, Obama and Bill Clinton were all due to appear there before the vote. Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway said such major political figures were now playing “follow your leader” in traditional Democratic states. “We feel very good about the fact that we’re actually setting the landscape here and they’re chasing us around in these blue states,” she said. “We have seen our prospects improving in Michigan for quite a while now internally and we do see that now reflected in some of the public polling. We also like what we hear on the ground in Michigan ... and we trust the savviness and brilliance of the Clinton campaign. “If they thought Michigan was in the bag, Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama would not be returning there today or tomorrow.” Democrats insisted that was because there is no early voting in the state, so they want to fire up the base. Clinton campaign chair John Podesta told NBC’s Meet the Press: “If we hold on to Nevada, if we hold on to Michigan, then Hillary Clinton is going to be the next president of America. “Most people vote on election day in Michigan, so our schedule has been oriented toward being in the early vote states in the earlier period of time. We feel like we’ve got a lead in Michigan. We want to hold on to it, and we think we can do that.” Trump has been widely condemned as a demagogue after calling for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the US and promising to build a wall on the Mexican border, branding immigrants as rapists and criminals. A 2005 video recording emerged in which he bragged about groping women, after which a dozen women came forward with claims of sexual assault and harassment. He has been ostracised by key members of his own party. The final days of his campaign were marked by a raucous incident in a rally in Reno on Saturday night, as Secret Service agents rushed the candidate from the stage. A protester named Austyn Crites who was holding a “Republicans against Trump” sign apparently sparked the confused scene. Crites told the Trump supporters attacked him after he walked to the front of the rally and held up the sign. Eventually, someone shouted “gun”, which led to law enforcement rushing Trump from the stage and briefly detaining Crites. Conway said on Sunday: “We’re told that he is a ‘Republican’ who has canvassed for Hillary Clinton and donated money to her campaign.” Crites told the he was a Republican and fiscal conservative but had canvassed “for a few hours” with the Clinton campaign in Nevada, because he wanted to do all he could to prevent a Trump presidency. He described Trump as “a textbook version of a dictator and a fascist”. Trump’s son, Donald Jr, and Dan Scavino, who runs his social media operation, retweeted a message that read: “Hillary ran away from rain today. Trump is back on stage minutes after assassination attempt”. No weapon was found. Although Trump rallies have long been marked by violence and unrest, they had been comparatively peaceful in recent months as the candidate has become increasingly scripted. Rhetorically, Trump has turned his ire on celebrity Clinton supporters Jay Z and Beyoncé. “I don’t need Beyoncé and I don’t need Jay Z,” he declared in a Denver rodeo barn. He also criticised Jay Z for lyrics in some of the songs performed at his Friday night concert for Clinton in Cleveland in the battleground state of Ohio. “My language is nothing to compared to what Jay Z was doing last night and Beyoncé,” Trump said, adding: “My language is like baby talk.” Clinton has appeared with other celebrities, including Jennifer Lopez, Katy Perry and Jon Bon Jovi. At a get-out-the-vote concert on Saturday night, Perry told roughly 10,000 fans in Philadelphia her parents were lifelong Republicans. “But it’s not about where you come from, it’s about what you grow into,” she said. Trump also made his first explicit accusations of voter fraud in the 2016 election. Only minutes before the incident that caused Secret Service agents to rush him from the stage in Reno, he claimed: “It’s being reported certain key Democratic polling locations in Clark County were kept open hours and hours beyond closing time to bus and bring Democratic voters in. “Folks, it’s a rigged system, it’s a rigged system,” he added, to loud boos, before insisting: “We’re going to beat it.” He was apparently referring to a Las Vegas supermarket where voters, most of whom were Hispanic, stood in line for hours to vote on Friday night. The length of lines meant that the early voting site did not close until 10pm. Trump’s words echoed allegations by Michael McDonald, the chair of the Nevada Republican party, who claimed before Trump took the stage: “Last night in Clark County, they kept a poll open until 10 o’clock at night so a certain group can vote … You feel free right now? You think this is a free and easy election?” The Republican nominee has long made broad, baseless and vague accusations of “large-scale voter fraud”. At the final presidential debate, he declined to say whether he would accept the result of the election. On Sunday, his vice-presidential candidate, Mike Pence, told Fox News Sunday: “The campaign has made it very clear that a clear outcome, obviously, both sides will accept. But I think both campaigns have also been very clear that in the event of disputed results, they reserve all rights and remedies.” After the frantic final 48 hours on the trail, both Clinton and Trump will be in New York City on election night, with the Democrats having reportedly booked a firework display and the tycoon billing his planned event at a hotel as a “victory party”. Conway said: “We did not purchase fireworks because we’re planning for a victory but we’re working really hard toward it and not just assuming it.” Additional reporting by Dan Roberts
The digested referendum campaign: Immigration! Economy! Immigration! Where did it all start? With rows over Maastricht back in the 1990s? With the rise of first the BNP and then Ukip in the 2000s? History is an endlessly rewriteable feast. But for the sake of convenience, let’s say this referendum took shape as David Cameron’s sop to the Eurosceptics in his own party. Douglas Carswell and Mark Reckless – remember him? – had defected to Ukip and the prime minister was desperate to make sure no one else jumped ship before the 2015 general election. Open civil war is never a good look, so Dave promised a referendum sometime before the end of 2017 just to shut them up. What Dave hadn’t counted on was having to go through with it. Like everyone else, he had assumed he would either be in opposition or part of another coalition government. Either way, he would have someone else to blame for his inability to deliver on his promises. But within weeks of the Conservative election victory the Tory Eurosceptics demanded their referendum payback, so Dave started visiting the 27 other EU member states frantically trying to renegotiate a better deal for the UK while insisting he was playing hardball. By February he had concluded his negotiations. Having spent the previous six months claiming the EU was urgently need in reform, Dave was now convinced the concessions he had achieved – an emergency brake on in-work welfare benefits for migrants and a general promise for Germany and France to be a bit nicer to us – were a major breakthrough and announced he was going to campaign vigorously for Britain to remain. Others were not so quick to come forward. The Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, who had previously always spoken out against the EU, found himself at odds with the vast majority of his party and initially tried to pretend the referendum wasn’t really happening before being forced to half-heartedly mumble pro-remain speeches from time to time. Theresa May was rather more successful in her Trappist vows and after whispering “I’m backing remain” so quietly that no one heard her, she retreated into a convent for the duration. She will go down in history as the most silent home secretary in British history. Anyone might think she was hedging her bets. As, it seemed, was Boris Johnson. Over the years, the former London mayor has contradicted himself on so many issues he’s not an easy man to second guess, but Dave was fairly confident Boris would come out on his side. How wrong he was. After agonising for at least an hour during a game of tennis with his sister, Rachel, Boris decided the best way for him to advance his political career was to back Brexit. If Brexit were to win, Boris could be prime minister inside 18 months. “This is the most difficult decision I have ever had to make,” he sobbed. Though you wouldn’t have guessed that from his behaviour, as from then on he wasted no time in rubbishing the EU at every opportunity. With Boris coming out for Boris, the referendum campaign could begin in earnest. Oxford-educated Boris and Michael Gove v Oxford-educated Dave and George Osborne. Or in Boris’s delusional mind, the little people v the establishment. Dave and George because it was hard to get any other high-profile politicians to campaign with them; and Boris and Michael because they had already fallen out with Nigel Farage and the Grassroots Out Ukip faction and because the public either didn’t like their other supporters, such as Iain Duncan Smith, or had no idea who they were. Gisela Who? Initially the economy dominated the debate, with Osborne claiming every family would lose £4,300 a year and Boris insisting the UK gave the EU £350m a week. The Treasury select committee investigated both claims and found them both to be false, though Boris’s were the work of greater fantasy. Boris dismissed this as Project Fear. Then every independent economic thinktank in the universe said Britain would be worse off if it left the EU, and Gove insisted we shouldn’t trust experts and, besides, they were all just Nazi sympathisers. Every country in the universe – apart from North Korea – said Britain would be better off in the EU. Boris declared that Kim Jong-un might have a point. Having lost the economic argument, Boris and Gove shifted the debate to immigration. The way to reduce the number of immigrants, they insisted, was to stop people from the EU coming in and let in loads more migrants from outside the EU instead. That way, even if we had exactly the same number of immigrants we could take back control and prove the UK wasn’t racist. Or something. Farage wasn’t at all happy about this and launched a poster campaign suggesting that Britain was about to be over-run by the Syrian refugees who were actually in Slovenia. Within hours, the Labour MP Jo Cox had been murdered and the rest of Ukip’s poster campaign was binned. Punctuating all this were a series of televised debates between the leaders of the campaigns in which everyone said exactly the same thing they had been saying for the four months. At some point, Corbyn might even have joined in to say something about workers’ rights. The leave supporters cheered everything Boris said, the remain supporters cheered everything Dave said, and the polls remained neck and neck.
Eric Black’s optimism for Aston Villa fails to address pressing issues The depth of the crisis at Aston Villa is summed up by Doug Ellis urging the current owner Randy Lerner to take a “more hands-on approach”. Ellis was not the most popular proprietor of the club before he sold Villa to the American in 2006. The buck for Villa’s first relegation of the Premier League era, though, stops with Lerner and Ellis’s message to him resonates. “I only wish he could spend a little more time in the UK supporting Aston Villa rather than following them on his phone or on his television,” Ellis told the BBC. “He made a promise to put in £200m and he has kept that promise, and I made my promise not to interfere and I have not broken my word.” The first thing Lerner should do is reverse a culture of excuses. After this defeat to Manchester United confirmed Villa’s drop into the Championship, Eric Black was twice offered the chance to describe their campaign as a shambles yet the caretaker-manager hid behind platitudes. He was speaking as Joleon Lescott claimed that going down was a “weight off” the team’s shoulders; the latest disconnect between club and fans in a season studded with miserable displays and unprofessional conduct. Villa have been bottom of the table since 25 October after 10 games, when they had four points, two fewer than Newcastle United and Sunderland. In the 24 games since, the 1982 European Cup winners have taken a barely credible 12 points. Yet when asked if shambolic was a fair description of this, Black refused to send a message to the Villa players and, just as importantly, their fans, which is simply not good enough. “Everyone has their own adjectives they like to use,” said the Scot. “It has been a difficult season for everybody involved with Aston Villa. Having spoken to a lot of people at Villa the only thing that is in their mind is taking this big club back and, hopefully, the supporters will get a feeling for that. “There is no point standing here and criticising. That’s done, it’s over; we should be looking to rebuild and if that can start on Monday morning then great, because this is a fantastic football club. There is nobody who would deny that.” Perhaps Black could explain to travelling Villa fans why there is no point criticising. Especially after witnessing Marcus Rashford’s seventh goal for United consign Villa to a 24th league defeat. Or after he appeared hard-pressed to convince all of his players to applaud their loyal support, who had lent Old Trafford the sort of atmosphere one might expect from the home fans. Admittedly Black has only been in charge since 31 March, but given he is not responsible for the shambles, there was more freedom for him to speak clearly. Who might take over permanently is a crucial decision for Lerner and a new executive board, which includes the chairman Steve Hollis, former player and manager Brian Little and Adrian Bevington, once a high-ranking Football Association executive. David Moyes, Nigel Pearson, and Brendan Rodgers are all being mentioned. Each would be sure to try to establish the fierce work ethic, focus and stability required. But would they take the job? Black believes there will be a queue to do so. “I am sure there will be a thousand people who will want to sit in that seat,” he said. “The infrastructure of the club is set, there are fantastic facilities and the stadium and supporters are second to none. “I don’t know how many clubs would have 30,000-35,000 coming to games when they have hardly seen a victory. They deserve enormous credit for that. The stadium is in place. We need to rebuild the team into something the supporters can be proud of.” The big challenge now is for Villa to bounce straight back up. If they do not, and remain outside the Premier League for the next three years, they could lose £200m in broadcast revenue alone. Black said: “It is going to be very difficult but I don’t think anybody is under any illusions. There are an extra eight games to start with. The physicality is different to the Premier League and we are a big, big fish in [the Championship]. These are all elements you have to consider. I don’t think anybody is under any illusion this is going to be plain sailing. It is a fantastic challenge and one people at this club will be trying their utmost to meet. “I am sure whoever takes over will ensure that work ethic carries on and if we can get the right squad together then we can bounce straight back, but it will be no easy task.” The challenge starts now. Man of the match Marcus Rashford (Manchester United)
The Attention Merchants review – how the web is being debased for profit Tim Wu is an expert on concentrations of power. An author, activist and lawyer, he is most famous for coining the phrase “net neutrality” – the idea that the oligopoly that owns our internet infrastructure shouldn’t charge differently for different kinds of data. In his new book, he targets another kind of corporate domination: the industry that monopolises our attention. According to Wu, this industry emerged from the first world war. In 1914 Germany could mobilise 4.5 million men; the best Britain could do was 700,000. To build a bigger army, the British government embarked on the first systematic propaganda campaign in history. It printed 50 million big, colourful recruitment posters and plastered them on shops, houses, buses and trams throughout the country. It staged rallies and parades. It filled vans with film projectors and screened patriotic films in towns across Britain. And it worked: stirred by this unprecedented experiment in state-sponsored persuasion, millions of young men marched off to gruesome, pointless deaths in a gruesome, pointless war. Wu identifies this moment as a major turning point in what he calls the “industrialisation of human attention capture”. The overwhelming success of the British propaganda effort proved “the power of mass attention”, he writes, and taught corporations everywhere a valuable lesson. If governments could convince their citizens to choke to death on poison gas in a foreign country, surely the private sector could apply the same techniques to persuade people to buy things. Thus the modern advertising industry was born. Like many lucrative industries then and since, advertising took a publicly financed innovation and repurposed it for profit. Over the course of the 1920s, a powerful class of commercial propagandists emerged, particularly in the US. In addition to enriching themselves and their corporate clients, these “attention merchants” performed a critical economic function. Many decades of rapid industrial expansion in the capitalist west had produced an excess of productive capacity. One way to deal with this problem had been to conquer parts of Asia and Africa and make new markets by force – imperialism. Another was to boost demand at home, by creating new desires for consumer goods and allowing wage levels to rise to the point where people could act on them. The first involved literal colonisation; the latter, the colonisation of everyday life. Wu’s book tells the story of this conquest, recording the extraordinarily successful attempts by advertisers to occupy more and more of our attention over the past 100 years. It is less a history of advertising than of how this enclosure happened: the technologies, platforms and formats that have made it possible for media to penetrate an ever-growing portion of our waking lives. Wu is no technological determinist. While he acknowledges that the invention of radio, television and the internet created enormous new potential for attention capture, he’s careful to point out that there was nothing inevitable about that potential being fulfilled. Just because new tools made it easier to reach more people didn’t guarantee people would pay attention. To use Wu’s metaphor, companies had to cultivate attention before they could harvest it. Sometimes this involved creating an entirely new cultural form, such as the radio serial or reality TV. Sometimes it involved improving an existing one, like Oprah’s elevation of the tabloid talkshow format into respectable middlebrow fare. Wu’s book crams many case studies into its pages, but the basic recipe remains remarkably consistent over the years. Companies come up with new ways to get our attention, and then sell that attention to other companies. And as mass media mediates more of our time – as the average American’s media consumption goes from an hour spent huddled around the family radio to endless hours on Google or Twitter or Facebook – the amount of attention available for resale grows. Occasionally, however, people revolt. In the 1930s, a rising consumer movement forced the US federal government to start policing ads for factual inaccuracies. In the 1950s, the invention of the remote control gave television watchers the power to press mute – thus “arming a new popular resistance against the industrialised harvest of attention”, Wu writes. Yet these small rebellions did little to halt advertising’s ascent. If anything, they probably accelerated it. One of the most interesting observations from Wu’s history is that advertising adapts to resistance extremely well. Like a mutant strain of bacteria that nurses on antibiotics to become invincible, advertising uses its enemies to grow stronger – not only by co-opting any and all countercultures, from hippiedom to punk rock to hip-hop, but by recruiting its greatest haters into its ranks. As Wu observes, both Google and Facebook were founded by engineers who despised online ads. So they created better ones: ads that slip more easily into your field of view and speak more specifically to your searches and likes and clicks. They ended up with the world’s most sophisticated machinery for converting attention into cash, the basis of a business model that makes Madison Avenue at the height of the Don Draper era look poor and unimaginative by comparison. Wu’s book isn’t just a history. It’s a polemic. The reason we need to understand where the attention industry comes from, he believes, is because it poses a mortal threat to human happiness and flourishing. It does this by inhibiting good attention, and encouraging bad attention. Good attention is “deep, long-lasting and voluntary” – the kind we get from reading a book. Bad attention is “quick, superficial and often involuntarily provoked” – the kind we get from checking our Twitter mentions. Good attention is the spiritual space needed for self-realisation. Bad attention makes us stupider, more susceptible to advertising and “less ourselves”. This is an ancient complaint, and a rather silly one. Every media innovation since the invention of writing has triggered a moral panic about whether the human experience would be hopelessly corrupted as a result. Socrates agonised about wax tablets; the monks of the late middle ages railed against the printing press. In Wu’s case, however, the impulse is particularly unfortunate because it derails his discussion of the subject where he has the most expertise: the internet. There are few people more qualified than him to perform a nuanced analysis of online attention capture. Instead, he devotes the last 50 pages of his book to denouncing Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and BuzzFeed for destroying the internet. In their hunger for advertising revenue, Wu declares, these companies have degraded the digital sphere into a “cesspool” of selfies, images of celebrities, listicles – anything that might cultivate clicks by catering to the “very basest human impulses of voyeurism and titillation”. There’s no doubt Silicon Valley’s appetite for attention has debased public discourse. In the aftermath of Donald Trump’s victory, many commentators have blamed Facebook for spreading fake news stories that played a role in the result. And even the most cursory user of social media knows that Nazis love Twitter. Under the cynical pretext of “free speech”, the tech giants have long since decided that capital accumulation trumps any civic or ethical considerations. After all, Nazi eyeballs pay just as well as non-Nazi ones. Yet even amid post-election pessimism, this characterisation feels far too harsh. Wu sees contemporary digital life as wholly, irredeemably corrupt. As a result, it’s nearly impossible to recognise the actual internet in his cartoonish portrait. Absent is Twitter’s contribution to political organising, for instance, or BuzzFeed’s valuable reporting on sexual assault. These oversights would be more forgivable coming from someone with less expertise, or a smaller soapbox. But Wu enjoys a reputation as one of the US’s foremost thinkers on technology, and his opinions influence people. When he condemns the contemporary internet as an exercise in mass idiocy, he risks doing real damage to public debate. His outlook also forecloses the possibility of forming an adequate political response. Wu is right to sound the alarm about advertising’s total takeover of our “attentional environment”. Corporate domination of the internet is an urgent political problem, as the US election has starkly demonstrated. But when it comes to potential solutions, Wu’s moralism leads him to a dead end. Our best hope, he believes, is a personal improvement project: he asks us to spend less time on the internet, and more time doing things that demand a “serious level of concentration”. This will empower us to “make our attention our own again”, he says, “and so reclaim ownership of the very experience of living”. Even if you accept the dubious premise that our wholeness as human beings depends on whether we read books or BuzzFeed, this proposal is incapable of producing actual change. The attention industry can easily absorb individual gestures of defiance. A stronger approach requires collective solutions. As Wu points out, the attention merchants of Silicon Valley earn billions of dollars a year from our data. By posting, searching and liking, we perform the free labour that powers one of the most profitable sectors of the economy. It’s not unreasonable to expect that our contributions should entitle us to a say over how these platforms are governed – including how and when they sell our attention to advertisers. This means democratising the digital sphere, not abandoning it. • The Attention Merchants: From the Daily Newspaper to Social Media, How Our Time and Attention Is Harvested and Sold is published by Atlantic. To order a copy for £16.40 (RRP £20) go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of £1.99.
Jay Z shades Phil Jackson's 'posse' remark at Sports Illustrated LeBron fete Jay Z took a shot at New York Knicks president Phil Jackson’s use of the term “posse” in reference to LeBron James’ business partners during his speech to introduce the Cleveland Cavaliers star as Sports Illustrated’s Sportperson of the Year on Monday night. The musician’s remarks praised James as “the son who honors and worships his mother, Gloria. The friend who put his posse in position.” The audience at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn laughed at the reference to Jackson’s comment as James appeared to playfully mouth “shut up” from his table. “We do understand where we come from, and the only difference between us and someone who has their MBA from Wharton or Sloan or Berkeley or Stanford is opportunity. LeBron James has provided his friends with that opportunity. And as we witness their development, and if we’re looking up at the scoreboard, very few, very few businessmen are better than Maverick Carter, Rich Paul, Randy Mims and all the rest of the ‘posse’ behind the scenes that make it look like they’re just hanging out. “LeBron James has made all of those around him better on and off the court. We acknowledge and recognize all he has done for the game. But tonight, LeBron, we say thank you. Not just for your commitment to basketball. We say thank you for all you have done in the community. And thank you for how you’ve enriched the lives of everyone around you. You messed around and got a triple-double in real life.” Jackson, twice an NBA champion as a Knicks player and the winner of a league-record 11 titles as a coach with the Chicago Bulls and Los Angeles Lakers, had used the term in an interview with ESPN last month. “It had to hurt when [the Miami Heat] lost LeBron,” Jackson said. “That was definitely a slap in the face. But there were a lot of little things that came out of that. When LeBron was playing with the Heat, they went to Cleveland, and he wanted to spend the night. They don’t do overnights. Teams just don’t. So now [coach Erik] Spoelstra has to text [Pat] Riley and say, ‘What do I do in this situation?’ And Pat, who has iron-fist rules, answers: ‘You are on the plane. You are with this team.’ You can’t hold up the whole team because you and your mom and your posse want to spend an extra night in Cleveland. “I always thought Pat had this really nice vibe with his guys. But something happened there where it broke down. I do know LeBron likes special treatment. He needs things his way.” James responded harshly to the use of the term, saying it carries a connotation that underscores the difficulties young African-Americans have in gaining respect, especially in the business world. The four-times NBA Most Valuable Player drew further attention on Monday when the cover of the Sportsperson of the Year issue was unveiled featuring a portrait of James wearing a safety pin on his lapel. Since last month’s presidential election, the safety pin has become a symbol of solidarity with those Americans who fear they will be disenfranchised by a Donald Trump presidency. The pin is intended to show that the wearer is a safe person to turn to. James campaigned for Democrat Hillary Clinton in the days before the vote. During a recent road trip, James opted to stay elsewhere than the team’s official Trump-branded hotel in New York. He called the decision a personal preference.
The bigger they come: how to film an 'unfilmable' book The common wisdom in screenwriting is that bad novels make great movies and great novels turn into duds. I can think of plenty of arguments to disprove the theory, though – from The English Patient to Apocalypse Now (adapted from Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness), from LA Confidential to The Age of Innocence, from The Treasure of the Sierra Madre to The Lord of the Rings. What all these adaptations inherit from their source material is ambition: like the novels that came before them, they aspire to greatness, in terms of either scale or emotion. If you set out to adapt a classic, you’d better pray it’s going to be a great film because you’ll be held to a very high standard. An adaptation of a bad book may face other criticisms, but at least it won’t constantly be compared to a famous parent. Taking the family analogy further, the most successful adaptations are often like wayward children who break away from the shadow of their famous parents to forge an identity of their own. They want to match their parents’ success but in their own way. Anthony Minghella, when describing his adaptation of The English Patient, said he read the book numerous times before he started his screenplay but then never looked at it again. In effect, he was raised by his parents, then left home. He let the memory and emotional impact of the novel guide him rather than the text. Later this year, Ewan McGregor will make his directorial debut with an adaptation of Philip Roth’s American Pastoral, the winner of a Pulitzer prize and one of Time magazine’s top 100 books of the 20th century. It is the story of Seymour “Swede” Levov as told by his former classmate, Nathan Zuckerman. It’s the investigation of a life, a family saga, an exploration of American society in the 60s and 70s, and takes in momentous events such as the Vietnam war and Watergate. On top of that, its themes deal with the “unknowability” of people, a tricky proposition for a medium such as film. Even more challenging is Tom Ford’s forthcoming adaptation of the novel Tony and Susan by Austin Wright, renamed Nocturnal Animals for the big screen and about to receive its premiere at the Venice film festival. In the book, twin narratives run side by side. A university professor, Susan, reads a crime thriller called Nocturnal Animals written by her ex-husband, Edward. It’s fast-paced and terrifying while Susan’s reflections on her ex-husband’s manuscript are deliberately slow-paced and contemplative. The novel is half revenge thriller, half internal drama: a complex work of metafiction that explores the idea that all texts are fluid and that the meaning of a book depends on the person reading it. Daunting perhaps, but also potentially liberating. The biggest advantage of adapting an impossible book is that no one expects you to be entirely slavish to the source material. They’re not expecting a filmic replica. As a screenwriter, I’ve had two experiences of adapting “impossible books”: Henry James’s The Wings of the Dove and James Sallis’s Drive. Although they’re very different novels, they’re both told largely through internal narratives – they describe the character’s thoughts and emotions rather than depicting actual scenes or events. So where does one start? The advantage of adapting great novels is that they provide you with great characters. The Wings of the Dove and Drive may not have had many set pieces or long dialogue scenes I could lift, but they had whole chapters describing a character’s life history or thought processes. The characters were so intimately drawn, I felt I could imagine exactly how they’d behave or react in any given circumstance. I felt confident I could invent scenes that were not in the books and still stay true to the integrity of the characters – and the intentions of their authors. The pleasure in adapting these books was that they allowed me to bring some of my own experiences and emotions to the process. As a student, I’d spent some time in Venice with university friends and many of our experiences and the locations we visited found their way into the Wings of the Dove script. Around the same time, I also spent several months living on my own in Rome and some of the loneliness of that informed the Drive screenplay. I flatter myself when I say they felt halfway between adaptations and original screenplays, but that’s really a testament to the greatness of the novels. They not only allow you to see something of yourself in them, they allow you to project. Just as, in Tony and Susan, the reader’s experience of the book becomes as important as the words on the page. Similarly, every adaptation will be different depending on who’s writing it. An Aaron Sorkin adaptation of Wuthering Heights will bear no resemblance to the Quentin Tarantino version, even though they come from the same source. The least successful adaptations I’ve done are those without personality. When there are no spaces to fill in, the process becomes mechanical. The adaptation simply becomes a choice of which scenes to retain from the book and which ones to leave out. The inevitable result is a filleting of the novel. It becomes a hollow replica, the basic plot without its heart and soul. If I could describe my ideal approach to an adaptation it would go something like this. I lie down on a sofa, which is where I like to read, and open a book. Gradually, I get lost in it. I flick over certain sections that lose my attention and re-read others that move or intrigue me. I pause occasionally and think that something like that happened to me, or drift off to imagine myself in the character’s shoes. Sometimes I’ll put the book down to take a rest or reflect on a shocking moment, then return to it because I can’t put it down for long. I read faster and faster as I approach the end, probably skipping the odd paragraph because I can’t wait to find out what happens. When I finally finish, I collapse – and think nobody else in the world understood or experienced that book exactly like I did. The challenge of any adaptation is capturing that first, unique, individual reading experience – and bottling it over the months and years it takes to make a film.
Democrats seek injunction against Trump allies over voter intimidation concerns Democratic party officials in four swing states have sought federal court injunctions against the Trump campaign and its affiliates, alleging they plan to intimidate minority voters on election day. The lawsuits argue that the Trump campaign, along with the nominee’s close confidant Roger Stone and state Republican party officials, is “conspiring to threaten, intimidate, and thereby prevent minority voters in urban neighborhoods from voting”, citing Trump’s continuing efforts to recruit “election observers” and Stone’s plans, as revealed by the , to conduct unorthodox “exit polling” on election day, as evidence of potentially “virulent harassment”. The lawsuits follow another legal action taken in federal court in New Jersey last week by the Democratic National Committee, which argues that the Republican National Committee is in violation of a 1982 consent decree that forbids the organisation from monitoring polls on election day. Stone told the last week his group “Stop The Steal” planned to conduct exit polling in nine major cities in swing states, ostensibly to counter “election theft” and gauge the accuracy of electronic voting machines. But a number of polling and election law experts cast doubts on the methodology and suggested the process could be a smokescreen for voter intimidation. For months, Donald Trump has warned supporters of a “rigged election” and encouraged them to monitor polling areas in cities such as St Louis, Chicago and Philadelphia. The lawsuits, filed by state Democratic parties in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Arizona and Nevada, would cover many of the cities Stone said he intended to target. The filings argue that such efforts, along with Trump’s rhetoric, could violate both the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which outlawed discriminatory voting practices in the American south, and the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, which outlawed intimidation against African American voters. Election law experts said it was unclear whether courts would issue a broad order, as requested in the filings, to simply prevent voter intimidation, but they could look in more detail at the temporary restraining order requested against Stone’s exit polling. “It could be useful in getting the word out about these activities, and secondly getting the [Republican state] parties and [Trump] campaign on record saying they will not engage in these activities,” said Rick Hasen, an election law expert at the University of California whose Election Law blog first reported the lawsuits on Monday. The Republican National Committee has been under a consent decree since the 1981 gubernatorial election in New Jersey, when the group sent armed off-duty law enforcement officers to patrol polls in minority neighborhoods. These volunteers wore armbands that identified them as an unofficial “Ballot Security Task Force” and erected posters warning against voter fraud. The RNC last week said claims it was now in violation of the consent decree, set to expire at the start of 2017, were “completely meritless”. Stone’s exit pollers, self-titled “vote protectors”, had originally planned to use similar non-official identification badges, until these were removed from the organisation’s website late last week. The organisation is still encouraging its volunteers to livestream video from polling stations. In an emailed statement, Stone dismissed the lawsuits as “without merit” and argued the lawyers who filed them “could face sanctions”. The former Richard Nixon adviser said the polling was not being coordinated with the Trump campaign or the RNC. “We seek only to determine if the election is honestly and fairly conducted and to provide an evidentiary basis for a challenge to the election if that’s not the case,” Stone said. “I assume the purpose of this bogus lawsuit is to distract from the voter fraud the Democrats have traditionally engaged in.” The contacted the Trump campaign and the Clinton campaign’s general legal counsel for a response to the recent lawsuits and is awaiting a response.
Gay men can't donate blood to victims of the Orlando shooting. That's absurd Last night at Pulse, an LGBT nightclub in Orlando, Florida, 50 of our LGBT brothers and sisters were taken from us. Today, like so many others in my community, I am overcome with a sense of helplessness. I am overcome with the urge to do something, anything, to help the victims and their families. Many in Orlando feel a similar urge. People are lining up to give blood in the wake of the massacre. But gay and bisexual men who want to give today are encountering an obstacle: the FDA requires a year of celibacy before men who have sex with men can donate blood. These new rules were put into practice in late 2015. They were presented as an end to the ban on gay men’s blood – but they still mean even gay men who have been in a completely monogamous relationship for a year are barred from donating. Regulations against gay blood arrived in 1983 in response to the panic surrounding the HIV/Aids epidemic. The American Medical Association called for an end to the ban in 2013, saying it was discriminatory and without a sound scientific basis. HIV-positive donors can be screened out and only one in 2m transfusions result in an HIV infection. In short, the ban on gay blood is unjustified. Other countries, such as Argentina, have already done away with it. Misinformation spread on social media Sunday, saying that the ban on gay blood has been temporarily lifted in Orlando because of high need. This is actually false, as local donor service OneBlood confirms. It is an outrage that our blood can be spilled but not donated. It is an outrage that, despite the facts and despite calls to lift the ban from experts across the country, homophobia and gay panic keeps it in place. Thank God for groups like the Council on American-Islamic Relations, one Muslim group mobilizing support to keep blood supplies up. As we celebrate Pride – and yes, we will celebrate even in the wake of tragedy, as we always have – let us remember our radical roots. Above all, Pride is a celebration of resistance. It is a celebration of our audacity to exist. And so, in the spirit of Pride, in the spirit of Stonewall, in the spirit of our LGBT family members who have been stolen from us too soon, let us continue to resist. Today is a painful reminder that there are still so many battles left for us to fight. The oppressive, outdated policy on queer blood is one, and it must come to an end. I look forward to a future where we can express our solidarity with those who are harmed or in need through our needed donations. This article was amended on 13 June 2016. An earlier version stated that one in 2m HIV infections are caused by transfusions. In fact, one in 2m transfusions result in an HIV infection.
Scientist Mary Somerville to appear on Scottish £10 note The scientist Mary Somerville will be the first woman other than a royal to appear on a Royal Bank of Scotland banknote – but only after a steward’s inquiry over an apparent attempt to rig the vote. Some 4,100 people voted via Facebook for Somerville, whose academic writing played a pivotal role in the discovery of the planet Neptune, to appear on a new £10 note. A groundswell of support, including a Facebook campaign by students at the Oxford University college bearing her name, put Somerville way out in front on Sunday, the last day of voting. Rival candidate Thomas Telford, the civil engineer known affectionately as the “Colossus of Roads”, could only muster a meagre 500 votes with just hours to spare. But a last-minute surge of voting, much of it from India but also from other countries, saw Telford accelerate past Somerville to reach 5,100 votes by the deadline. James Clerk Maxwell, the physicist whose study of electromagnetism inspired Albert Einstein, limped home a distant third. But after discussions between Facebook and RBS, the late influx of votes was deemed suspicious. RBS later declared the result null and void, meaning Somerville’s face will adorn the bank’s new polymer £10 notes from 2017. “It looks as if something dodgy has gone on. Mary Somerville was clearly the public’s choice,” said the source. The decision to overturn the result means Somerville will become the first woman other than the Queen to appear on a mainstream RBS banknote issue since they were first printed in 1727. “Having the opportunity to choose the face of our new £10 notes obviously meant a great deal to a great number of people,” said the RBS Scotland chair, Malcolm Buchanan. “Mary Somerville’s immense contribution to science and her determination to succeed against all the odds clearly resonate as much today as they did during her lifetime.” Born in 1780, Somerville’s relative wealth allowed her access to education in astronomy and geography, despite living in an age when women were discouraged from studying science. She is credited with an instrumental role in the discovery of Neptune, thanks to her writing on a hypothetical planet perturbing the orbit of Uranus. Somerville, who died in 1872, is also indelibly linked to the advancement of women in academia, having given her name to the Oxford college that initially only admitted women. Alumni of Somerville College, founded in 1879, include the former prime minister Margaret Thatcher, the TV presenter Esther Rantzen and the former Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi. RBS’s decision to include a woman on its shortlist follows a high-profile row in 2013, when the Bank of England faced criticism for replacing the prison reformer Elizabeth Fry with Winston Churchill on the £5 note from 2016. The decision left no women on English banknotes at all, prompting a successful campaign led by the journalist Caroline Criado-Perez to put the face of Jane Austen on the £10 note.
How memory apps can help people with dementia tap into their past More than 650,000 people in England have dementia and that figure is expected to double by 2040. With wildly differing standards of care across the country, there is growing interest in the role technology could play. When Robert Armstrong was admitted to The Uplands care home in Shrewsbury, he had a habit of waking up in the middle of night and wandering about. At first staff thought he was just a poor sleeper, but the 68-year-old would become very aggressive when care workers tried to guide him back to bed. He would often need medication to calm him down. It wasn’t until care workers started working more closely with the family to map his life history that they discovered Armstrong had been a milkman for 40 years and thought he was getting up to go to his job. “So when he woke up at 3am, the night staff gave him a cup of tea and biscuits and then he did his ‘rounds’,” says Mandy Thorn, managing director at Uplands. “Robert had a milk crate in his room and he went round leaving milk bottles outside all the residents’ doors. At 6am he had breakfast and went back to bed, while staff picked up the bottles and put them back in his crate, ready for the next day.” Thorn says the effect was instant and transformed Armstrong’s quality of life until his death in early 2015. “We had no more aggression and no need for medication to calm him down. And he was really happy until the day he died.” Thorn hopes the delay in finding out such crucial information will soon be a thing of the past. From September, Uplands will be using RemindMeCare, an app that uses reminiscence therapy to get people with dementia talking about their memories. Its software automatically creates content that matches the person with dementia’s life story. In addition to photos, the system pulls images of events, favourites places, films and music from the web to create a detailed multimedia profile of the person. This is then used to help stimulate conversation and memories enabling carers to build a better relationship with the individual. For group activities, the software can work out shared interests and help several residents to take part. And family members can upload relevant information to their relative’s profile and be actively involved in their care. “The more that you know about an individual, the easier it is to care for them,” says Thorn. “It will transform our business, make us more efficient, so staff spend more time with our residents, not on paperwork. With ReMindMeCare you have a digital record [of activities and interventions], you don’t have to worry about writing it all down.” RemindMeCare is the brainchild of Simon Hooper and Etienne Abrahams, who both had family members with dementia. When his mother got dementia, Hooper started to put her life story on to a tablet for her carers to use. “I realised that early memories were the key to communicating with those with dementia and to improving person-centred care, and that it needed tech to record them, so that the memories would not be lost and would be available to each carer in turn,” he says. On meeting Abrahams at a party and discovering that he was building software to store his grandmother’s memories, photos and favourite music, they both realised there was a gap in the market and decided to develop a business. After a year’s planning, they raised money from care experts and crowdfunding and RemindMeCare was born in November 2015. Samir Patel, owner of Oaklands Rest Home in the New Forest, Hampshire, which has been using the system since May, says: “It’s had a huge impact on our residents. It’s a nice way to engage with your loved one. You can still contribute to their life in a really positive way.” Not all dementia apps are designed for use in care settings. This month saw the launch of two new apps that people with dementia can use independently (as well as with a carer, if they choose). Book of You and Playlist for Life use photos, words and music to enable those with dementia to reminisce with carers, family and friends, about things that were important in their lives. These apps are part of a dementia citizens project run by the innovation charity Nesta. Both apps also aim to foster in-depth research on how technology can empower people with dementia to lead more fulfilling lives. Academics at Bangor and Glasgow Caledonian universities, who developed Book of You and Playlist for Life respectively, will conduct regular surveys with 500 users of the apps. “We want to show that technology improves the lives of those with dementia,” says John Loder, head of strategy at Nesta’s health lab. “Who do these apps really work for and how?” The data may also challenge stereotypes. Early testing for Playlist for Life found that dementia patients did not necessarily want to listen to West End musical hits or the Beatles. “It is very easy to make assumptions about people with dementia and what they are going to like. The only thing they really wanted to listen to was Adele,” says Loder. “They liked the fact that they are listening to the same music as their children and grandchildren.” Some names have been changed
Anthony Mackie to play Johnnie Cochran in police brutality drama Anthony Mackie is set to follow in the recent footsteps of Courtney B Vance by playing Johnnie Cochran, in a new film about a landmark police brutality case. According to Deadline, the Captain America: Civil War star will play the lawyer during a 1981 case that preceded his defence of OJ Simpson in 1995, a trial that was recently dramatised for the small screen. The role of Cochran in the TV series, The People v OJ Simpson, was played by Vance in a widely-praised performance. The as yet untitled big-screen drama focuses on the story of American football player Ron Settles, who was arrested for speeding and later found dead in his cell. It was initially deemed a suicide, but an autopsy showed that Settles had been choked to death. The family were awarded $760,000 in a civil suit and the police chief resigned. The film is written by David McMillan, who has worked on TV drama Lucifer, with a director yet to be announced. Mackie is currently starring in Captain America: Civil War, after roles in Triple 9 and The Night Before and will next be seen on television, playing Martin Luther King Jr in the HBO drama All the Way. He’s also set to star in thriller Wetlands and is developing a film about Olympian sprinter Jesse Owens. As well as OJ Simpson, Cochran’s celebrity clients included Michael Jackson, Tupac and Snoop Dogg. He died in 2005.
Aleksandar Hemon defends Donald Trump's right to electoral ‘job interview’ After hundreds of authors signed an open letter last week opposing Donald Trump’s candidacy for US president, the acclaimed Bosnian author Aleksandar Hemon, based in the US since 1992, has spoken out about why he decided not to join them. The authors, who numbered more than 450 and have since been joined by more than 20,000 fellow signatories, include some of US literature’s biggest names, from Stephen King to Lydia Davis. In their “open letter to the American people”, they say that they “oppose, unequivocally, the candidacy of Donald J Trump for the presidency of the United States”, and that “any democracy worthy of the name rests on pluralism, welcomes principled disagreement, and achieves consensus through reasoned debate”. But Hemon, who was awarded a so-called “genius grant” from the MacArthur Foundation in 2004, writes in a piece for the Literary Hub that while he too “deplore[s] Trump and everything he and his squirrel-pelt hair stand for”, he won’t sign. If the writers want to oppose Trump’s candidacy, he says, the way to do this is to vote against him. “It’s true, as the writers assert, that ‘the history of dictatorship is the history of manipulation and division, demagoguery and lies’,” Hemon continues, “but Trump is presently abiding by the rules of democratic election, as are his followers, rabid as they may be”. “It’s also true,” Hemon adds, “that neither wealth nor celebrity qualifies anyone to speak for the US, to lead its military, to maintain its alliances, or to represent its people. But what would qualify Trump to speak for the US is his being elected in the fall. Horrifying as that may seem, that’s how the system works – the election is the job interview.” Hemon’s comments follow a speech from JK Rowling last month, in which the Harry Potter author said that while Trump is “objectionable … offensive and bigoted”, he still has the right to visit the UK, despite a petition last year calling for him to be banned. “If you seek the removal of freedoms from an opponent simply on the grounds that they have offended you, you have crossed a line to stand alongside tyrants who imprison, torture and kill on exactly the same justifications,” said Rowling. Hemon goes on in his essay to ask if the authors would have written a letter opposing the candidacy of Ted Cruz, “who is just as hateful as Trump”, or Ben Carson, or George W Bush. “What is the threshold of acceptability? Being a professional politician? Being a Democrat? Not having short fingers? Not being Trump?” he asks. The author, whose novels include The Lazarus Project and The Book of My Lives, goes on to point out the lack of a novel “that has forcefully addressed the iniquities of the post 9/11 era”. If the rise of Trump “is what it takes to get American writers back into politics, let us welcome the development,” he says, adding that “perhaps there is an author among the Open Letter signatories eager to develop a narrative in which Trump – or his hairier, more narratively compelling avatar - wouldn’t be the false cause of our discontent but a symbol of an America struggling to forestall its precipitous intellectual and political decline, to which the absence of its literature from its politics must have contributed”. Trump, meanwhile, when quizzed for the Hollywood Reporter by the author and journalist Michael Wolff on what he is currently reading, has revealed a political bent to his own literary forays. Wolff writes: “He knows he’s caught (it’s a question that all politicians are prepped on, but who among his not-bookish coterie would have prepped him even with the standard GOP politician answer: the Bible?). But he goes for it.” Trump tells Wolff he is reading “the Ed Klein book on Hillary Clinton” and “the book on Richard Nixon that was, well, I’ll get you the exact information on it”, as well as “a book that I’ve read before, it’s one of my favourite books, All Quiet on the Western Front, which is one of the greatest books of all time.” It is, Wolff writes, “one I suspect he’s suddenly remembering from high school. But what the hell.”
Vote Leave forced to remove phone tycoons from supporters list The anti-EU Vote Leave campaign group has been forced to revise a list of more than 250 business supporters after it emerged that the names of two leading figures were wrongly included. Supporters of Britain’s membership of the EU said that the Vote Leave letter published on Saturday, which was designed to show that credible business leaders support an EU exit and to which the list of names was attached, had fallen apart. Vote Leave amended its list after David Ross, the co-founder of Carphone Warehouse, and John Caudwell, the co-founder of Phones 4U, said their names had been wrongly included. A spokesman for Ross told the Sunday Times: “Mr Ross has not made any commitment at all. We have no idea where this has come from. Mr Ross will make a decision one way or the other when he gets back from his Easter break in a couple of weeks.” A spokesman for Caudwell said he had not added his name to the list although he has supported a UK exit from the EU. “You have to question how this list has been compiled,” the spokesman told the newspaper. The row is a setback to Vote Leave, which is working hard to overcome the perception that the pro-EU camp has the overwhelming support of British businesses. The letter was published on Saturday in conjunction with a YouGov poll which found that only 14% of more than 1,000 small or medium-sized businesses felt that the EU made it easier for businesses to employ people. The pro-EU Britain Stronger in Europe group said that the list did not include a single leader of a FTSE 100 company. It had earlier highlighted a survey which found that 82% of UK businesses favoured membership of the EU. The mix-up over the names is an echo of the embarrassing row when Downing Street was forced to apologise after wrongly including the retired SAS commander General Sir Michael Rose in a list of retired military figures who supported EU membership. Vote Leave seized on the mistake to accuse No 10 of “trying to bully people into backing the EU”. Nick Herbert, chairman of Conservatives In, said that Vote Leave’s claim that it has the support of business leaders had fallen apart. Herbert told the Sunday Times: “Less than 24 hours after its launch, the Vote Leave business letter is falling apart. Some of those named on the letter say they never signed it, many are not business ‘leaders’ at all – there isn’t a single FTSE 100 [chief executive] among them – and others have publicly admitted Brexit would cause severe damage to Britain’s economy.” A Vote Leave spokesman said: “Mr Ross’s name was included on our supporters list in error. We apologise for any confusion that has been caused. John Caudwell has been listed as a supporter of the campaign since he signed up in October last year. He has now been removed.”
Turned off by Trump: Republican mega-donors focus on congressional races Several leading Republican donors and groups that spent large sums in the 2012 presidential campaign are either wavering or opting outright not to back Donald Trump this year. Instead, they are spending tens of millions of dollars on congressional races as fears mount that the candidate’s poor poll numbers and incendiary gaffes are placing majorities in the House and Senate in danger. “I believe there’s an emerging consensus in the party that Trump isn’t going to win,” Vin Weber, a former Minnesota representative turned lobbyist who helps raise money for House candidates, told the . “We need to shift resources as much as we can to help down-ticket candidates including members of Congress.” Should Hillary Clinton defeat Trump, Democrats would need only four more Senate seats to take control through the vote wielded by the Senate president, Clinton vice-president Tim Kaine. The Republicans’ House majority is stronger, but not safe. The can reveal that the casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson, who is said by well-placed sources to be worried about losing control of Congress, met Trump in New York last week. The donor, who one friend said has been “irked by a lot of things”, had already met Trump privately at least twice this year. He has pushed for the candidate to visit Israel, which has not happened, and supported former House speaker Newt Gingrich for vice-president. Trump chose the governor of Indiana, Mike Pence. Earlier this summer, Adelson endorsed Trump, reportedly signaling that he was willing to spend up to $100m on the presidential contest. To date, however, he has not given money to any Super Pac. Three fundraising sources with good ties to Adelson said he is focused on trying to keep control of Congress, though he could donate to Trump if his gaffes are eliminated and his poll numbers improve. “I’m shocked that Adelson has not done anything yet for Trump,” a senior GOP operative told the . “Sheldon knows that late money is wasted.” While in New York, Adelson also met the South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham. The two men, who share a sharply pro-Israel stance, discussed the financial needs of senators in tough races. Two other GOP operatives familiar with Adelson told the he had given $10m to One Nation, a group run by Steven Law, once a top aide to Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell. A “dark money” group, legally able to keep its donors secret, One Nation was launched in May 2015. This year it has spent at least $16m on ads in several Senate races. Asked if Adelson had given $10m, Law said “we don’t comment” on donors. Asked if the group or two others of which he is president – American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS – would get involved in the presidential election at all, he said: “We’re keeping our options open.” In 2012, groups backed by the Koch brothers and American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS, both of which were co-founded by former Bush adviser Karl Rove, focused heavily on the presidential race, spending more than $200m. Adelson and his wife gave $23m to American Crossroads. In 2016, Koch network leaders have said they do not intend to get involved and Rove has been sharply critical of Trump, writing in the Wall Street Journal that he has been “graceless and divisive”. Several groups are pouring millions into TV spots and get-out-the-vote drives in Senate races in states including Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Nevada and North Carolina. The US Chamber of Commerce has run ads in eight states as part of “Save the Senate”, a drive it launched in May, its earliest ad foray in a presidential year. “I think the most productive way of using our money right now is for the Senate and House elections,” said Michael Epstein, a Maryland executive who has helped raise money for the Wisconsin governor Scott Walker. “Winning the Senate would be a terrific victory and help rebuild the GOP brand. But it’s going to be a tough struggle.” Many donors and fundraisers worry that a heavy Trump defeat could wreak havoc on Republican representatives and senators. “If the guy at the top of the ticket is going to lose by double digits it’s a cause of concern,” said former Minnesota senator Norm Coleman, who helps steer the American Action Network, a dark money group, and the Congressional Leadership Fund, a Super Pac that must disclose its donors. Coleman’s fears seemed to increase after the Trump campaign shake-up that led to Steve Bannon, the chairman of Breitbart News, becoming chief executive. In response, Coleman tweeted that Trump was “really dialing in his 38%” – a reference to his base support among Republican voters – “and saying to heck with down ballot Rs”. This week, the Congressional Leadership Fund unveiled a $10m ad buy to support House members in a dozen key races. Even some old friends of Trump seem to have soured. In May, the casino tycoon Steve Wynn, arranged a meeting for Trump and Rove at his own New York residence. According to a GOP operative briefed on the meeting, Wynn was disappointed Trump “didn’t listen to Rove’s advice”. Earlier this month, Wynn said he would stay out of the presidential race.
Calls for UK to rejoin EU 'should be treason', urges Tory petition A Conservative councillor from Surrey has been suspended after launched a petition calling for Victorian-era legislation to be amended to make supporting UK membership of the EU a treasonable offence. Christian Holliday added the petition to the UK Government and Parliament website, and it calls for: The Treason Felony Act be amended to include the following offences: ‘To imagine, devise, promote, work, or encourage others, to support UK becoming a member of the European Union; To conspire with foreign powers to make the UK, or part of the UK, become a member of the EU.’ The petition appears more designed to get a reaction from “remoaners” than actually force a change in the law, and when this article was originally posted had only attracted 98 signatures, although media exposure had driven this up to more than 2,500 by Monday evening. Intended to come into force on the day of the UK’s exit from the EU, it would outlaw any campaigning for a return. At 10,000 signatures, the government promises to respond to petitions on the site, and at 100,000 signatures, petitions are considered for debate in parliament. The petition goes on to say: It is becoming clear that many politicians and others are unwilling to accept the democratic decision of the British people to leave the EU. Brexit must not be put at risk in the years and decades ahead. For this reason we the undersigned request that the Treason Felony Act be amended as set out in this petition. The petition is among several on the site from leave campaigners. A call for “All European Union flags, emblems and logos to be removed from all public buildings” attracted nearly 20,000 signatures, as has an appeal “Not to allow freedom of movement as part of any deal with the EU after Brexit.” The most signed petition about the EU though was a call for “HM government to implement a rule that if the remain or leave vote is less than 60% based on a turnout of less than 75% there should be another referendum”. Even if Holliday’s changes were to be made, the chances of a successful prosecution seem thin. The act dates from 1848, but has not been used in a prosecution since 1879. It became law during the reign of Queen Victoria, and made it an offence to even “imagine” deposing the monarchy. Asked to comment about the petition today, a Downing Street spokeswoman said: “Different people will chose their words differently. The prime minister is very clear that the British people have made their decision.” Holliday has today deleted previous tweets he made linking to his petition, and Guildford Borough Council leader Paul Spooner has tweeted that he has been suspended.
Tory MPs call for shift in farming subsidies to green protections Dozens of Conservative MPs have written to the prime minister, Theresa May, urging her to shift billions of pounds of post-Brexit farm subsidies towards protecting and improving the environment. The 36 MPs, including former environment ministers, also urge May to maintain the strong protection for wildlife and water provided by EU directives. During the EU referendum campaign, farming minister George Eustice campaigned for the leave camp and said the directives were “spirit-crushing” and “would go”. UK farmers receive about £3bn a year via the EU’s common agricultural policy (CAP), much of it for simply owning land. The Tory MPs want May to “take advantage of the repatriation of CAP by shifting subsidies in favour of paying farmers for delivering services for the environment and public good”. The development of a new subsidy scheme is seen as one of the most difficult post-Brexit challenges and is now the responsibility of the environment secretary, Andrea Leadsom, a prominent leave campaigner. In August, the National Trust, a major landowner, called for complete reform of the British farm subsidy system to only reward farmers who improve the environment and help wildlife. The National Farmers Union criticised the plan, saying food production is vital. In July, a large group of 84 political and civil society organisations said post-Brexit subsidies paid to farmers must be linked closely to environmental responsibilities. The Tory MPs who signed the letter include former environment ministers Caroline Spelman and Richard Benyon, the current chair of the environment, food and rural affairs select committee, Neil Parish, and Zac Goldsmith, member of the environmental audit select committee. “Done properly, Brexit is a massive opportunity for our environment,” said Goldsmith. “We are urging the PM to put existing EU environmental protections into British law and to honour the green manifesto commitments we made before the election in full. But more than that, Brexit allows us to repatriate and reform the environmentally disastrous CAP to make sure farm subsidies are there to pay for environmental and public services. The upside is enormous.” An overwhelming majority of the British public wants new post-Brexit laws protecting wildlife and the countryside to be at least as strong as the EU rules currently in place, according to a national opinion poll published in August. Since she became prime minister, May’s government has banned polluting plastic microbeads from some personal hygiene products but also expanded the controversial badger cull, which leading experts say “flies in the face of scientific evidence”. It has also backed direct compensation to people in areas affected by fracking and abolished the Department of Energy and Climate Change, with its responsibilities taken up by an enlarged business department. On Monday, Labour offered to work across party lines to enable the UK to rapidly follow the lead of the US and China in agreeing to ratify the Paris agreement on climate change. The Tory MPs’ letter emphasises the green achievements of previous Conservative governments, including the Clean Air Act in 1956, the creation of the environment department in 1970 and the Wildlife and Countryside Act in 1981. “Integral to Conservative philosophy is a deep cultural commitment to handing on a better world to our children,” it says. “Lady Margaret Thatcher was always clear that we hold the earth on a full repairing lease,” said Sam Barker, director of the Conservative Environment Network, which co-ordinated the letter. “Theresa May will have a similarly bold vision for how Britain will fulfil the terms of that lease, at home and around the world. We look forward to her setting it out in due course.” The Tory MPs also urge May to “reaffirm our manifesto commitment to creating a blue belt of protected waters around the UK’s 14 Overseas Territories, including as a first step around the Pitcairn Islands and Ascension Island”. The letter says this would “amount to the single biggest conservation measure of any government, ever”. The Conservative MPs who signed the letter are: Zac Goldsmith, Richard Benyon, Alex Chalk, Andrew Mitchell, Anne Main, Ben Howlett, Bernard Jenkin, Caroline Spelman, Charlotte Leslie, Cheryl Gillan, David Warburton, Derek Thomas, Flick Drummond, Heidi Allen, James Gray, Jason McCartney, Jeremy Lefroy, Jo Churchill, Kevin Hollinrake, Kit Malthouse, Marcus Fysh, Maria Caulfield, Matthew Offord, Neil Carmichael, Neil Parish, Nicolas Soames, Oliver Colvile, Paul Scully, Peter Bottomley, Richard Graham, Sarah Wollaston, Scott Mann, Stephen Hammond, Tania Mathias, Victoria Borwick, Will Quince.
The Fall review – a long-running feud in every sense This somewhat thin documentary revisits a story of athletic rivalry that marked the careers of two runners and in some ways overshadowed their other achievements. The reigning queen of the track, the American Mary Decker had yet to win an Olympic medal. Her main challenger was Zola Budd, a teenage South African who ran barefoot and was raised on a farm. The press scented a story and, after Budd was controversially granted British citizenship in order to compete in the 1984 Olympic Games, did everything it could to stir up tension between them. Disaster struck when the pair collided and Decker fell, later blaming Budd for the incident. In fact, the film argues, the media had most cause to feel guilty. A belated reunion between the two athletes reveals little about either.
More babies face health risks due to obese parents, experts warn A growing number of babies worldwide are at risk of brain damage or having a stroke, heart attack or asthma in adulthood because their mother was obese, health experts have warned. Leading doctors said dangerously overweight mothers were passing on obesity to their children as the result of “a vicious cycle” in which excess weight can seriously affect the health of parents and their offspring. Four studies published in the Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology make clear that the risks of maternal obesity include stillbirth, dangerously high blood pressure in pregnant women, diabetes in the mother or child, and complications during childbirth. The scale of obesity in women of childbearing age and the consequent dangers to health were so great that urgent action was needed to ensure women were a normal weight before they conceived, the authors say. Mothers being very heavily overweight could lead to their children having autism or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder or developing cancer in later life, the researchers say. British women have the highest rates of obesity in Europe. One in five women in the UK who became pregnant were already obese, while in England, 26% of 35- to 44-year-old women were obese in 2013, as were 18% of those aged 24-35. Rates are even higher elsewhere. In the United States, 32% of women of peak childbearing age, between 20 and 39, were obese in 2011-12, and 60% of American women were either overweight or obese when they conceived, according to one study. Prof Lesley Regan, the president of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, which represents 14,000 doctors working in Britain and worldwide who specialise in childbirth and women’s health, said: “Obesity has reached pandemic proportions globally and its origins start in the womb. In the UK, the prevalence of obesity is over 25% in both women and men. Around one in five pregnant women are obese, increasing their risk of miscarriage, stillbirth and neonatal death as well as gestational diabetes, blood clots, pre-eclampsia, more complicated labours and severe bleeding after the birth.” The international team of experts behind the studies said they feared that the problem, which is worst in developed countries, would escalate further because one in five (21%) women in the world are projected to be dangerously overweight by 2025. One of the research papers, which have reviewed hundreds of previous obesity studies, warned: “The long-term effects of maternal obesity could have profound public health implications.” Another concluded that maternal obesity was spreading so fast, especially in western countries, that governments should start treating it as a global public health priority. One of the research reviews, led by Prof Keith Godfrey of Southampton University, detailed the range of serious health problems that excess maternal weight could have on a child and pointed out that fathers’ weight could also increase the risks. “Increasing evidence implicates maternal obesity as a major determinant of offspring health during childhood and later adult life,” the review states, adding that it heightened the child’s risk of obesity, coronary heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes and asthma. Maternal obesity could also lead to poorer cognitive performance and increased risk of neurodevelopmental disorders, including cerebral palsy. An unborn child’s brain could be damaged because “obesity in pregnancy is associated with complex neuroendocrine, metabolic, immune and inflammatory changes, which probably affect foetal hormonal exposure and nutrient supply,” Godfrey’s paper explains. The key lies in “epigenetic processes by which aspects of parental (both mother’s and father’s) lifestyle can affect the way the baby’s genes operate during development. These can change the person’s responses to the challenges of, for example, living in an ‘obesogenic’ environment,” it adds. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence advises women who may become pregnant to eat healthily, exercise for at least 30 minutes a day and try to maintain a healthy weight. Each obese woman who gave birth in Britain cost the NHS £500 to £1,000 more than a mother of a normal weight, said Prof Rebecca Reynolds, of Edinburgh University. However, the authors drew few firm conclusions in their search for ways to address and prevent maternal obesity and found limited evidence that specific interventions were effective. “We know that there are going to be more and more obese people in years to come, so there will be passage of obesity from one generation to the next, even though no parent who is obese wants their child to suffer from it too,” said Prof Mark Hanson, of Southampton University, another co-author. He recommended that overweight women be given more information and guidance from health professionals before they conceived or after they had given birth to help them lose weight, especially before they had any more children. Bariatric surgery undertaken before an obese woman conceived could benefit both her and her baby’s health, the authors found, though anyone who has the operation should wait for up to 18 months afterwards before giving birth. “Women who are overweight when entering pregnancy or who gain excess weight during pregnancy may well establish an inter-generational amplification of the obesity epidemic,” said Dr Tim Lobstein, director of policy at the World Obesity Federation. “There is international agreement at United Nations level to halt the rising prevalence of obesity and diabetes across the globe. However, turning an ambitious target into practical action is proving elusive. “There are well-recognised but well-embedded systemic problems to resolve, such as the increasingly commercialised food supply, the dominance of motorised transport, the development of dense and hazardous urban environments, or the enticements of sedentary screen-watching,” he said.
MP calls for Green Investment Bank safeguards before privatisation The head of a parliamentary committee is to demand ministers introduce tougher safeguards to ensure the Green Investment Bank continues with its low-carbon mandate following a controversial privatisation. Mary Creagh MP, who chairs the environmental audit committee (EAC), also expressed concern that the bank could in future put more effort into overseas projects than in supporting the domestic sector for which it was set up. The government has said it will retain a special share in the lending institution. It insists this will prevent new owners deviating from the core task of funding renewable energy projects that are deemed at risk by traditional lenders. But in a letter to the before the debate on the sale of the bank in the House of Commons, Creagh writes: “I welcome the secretary of state’s pledge to protect the bank’s green status with a special share, as my committee recommended, but I am concerned that without locking this in legislation it may not be secure. “I will be supporting amendments to that effect when the sale is debated in the Commons this week. If the government cannot guarantee that the Green Investment Bank will continue to invest in smart, energy-efficient, low-carbon projects, then the sale should not go ahead.” The Labour MP added that she would also be demanding that the government write in a requirement to the sale document that the senior executives continue to give details of their pay and conditions to parliament. “Too often in the past we have seen privatised companies bumping up executive bonuses and incentives on the back of better financial results produced by stripping out the head count,” she writes. Concern has been raised by the green lender admitting it has already been approached by potential buyers from the private equity, sovereign wealth and private investment bank sectors. Creagh also said she was alarmed that Shaun Kingsbury, the chief executive of the bank, had already indicated he wanted to expand into places such as Germany, the Netherlands and India. This would take the bank away from its original purpose, to accelerate a move towards a low carbon economy, she added. The bank has so far put £2.6bn of public money into British low-carbon projects, although it is involved in £200m international joint venture with the Department of Energy & Climate Change. Lord Smith of Kelvin, who chairs the bank, has argued that privatising the group would allow it to raise money from other investors and widen the scope of its investments in the UK.
Premier League fans’ verdicts – the run-in, part 1: Arsenal to Manchester United ARSENAL What is the mood among fans? An abiding mood of frustration, knowing that our competitors are unlikely EVER to offer us a better opportunity to bring home the Premier League bacon. We’re torn between the faint hope of the very worthy Foxes faltering and the possibility of them leaving the door open, only for the unthinkable consequence of Spurs charging through it. How is the manager doing? Although it’s hard to envisage a last-ditch title tilt, at long last Arsène appears to have chanced upon a more balanced looking side and if we should finally produce the consistency to finish above Spurs, I wonder if this will be sufficient to get so many of those who have lost faith in him back on side? Which players have been shining lights? For their unsung consistency, Monreal, Koscielny and Bellerín. Yet of late it’s been the homegrown Iwobi and the bargain buy Elneny creating a spark of optimism. Which players have left you unimpressed? Theo Walcott is an extremely likeable lad but most Gooners have lost patience. There’s also great disappointment that Ramsey and Sánchez have failed to reproduce their feats from last term. Where do you think your team will finish? Second looks to be the most feasible limit of our ambitions, but all that really matters now is finishing above our increasingly noisy neighbours. Predictions Top 4 Leicester, Arsenal, Spurs, Man City. Bottom 3 Norwich, Newcastle, Aston Villa. Run-in 2 Apr Watford H 9 Apr West Ham A 17 Apr C Palace H 21 Apr West Brom H 24 Apr Sunderland A 30 Apr Norwich H 7 May Man City A 15 May Aston Villa H Bernard Azulay, goonersdiary.co.uk, @GoonersDiary ASTON VILLA Mood among fans? It has switched from fury to apathy to mild optimism about what a new, promotion-specialist manager could do over the next two years. The new boardroom broom has started well (only Garde to go), but the choice of new boss is the biggest test. My sense is that Moyes is the preferred choice with Pearson, Pulis and Rodgers in the “they’ll do” camp. The alleged deep football thinkers will doubtless baulk at the unoriginality, but pragmatism is required. Manager? Hopefully it will be a caretaker by the time this is printed … Sadly, Garde never gave any sign of possessing the coaching ability, the tactical nous or the mental toughness required. Goodbye rather than au revoir. Shining lights? Gueye has improved since it became clear he needed a new club. That the rest haven’t shows they were hopeless in the first place and not simply shirking. Ayew is our best player by far. Unimpressed? Guzan is an easy target and has lost his confidence. If Richards was as good as he thinks he is, we’d have stayed up. His inane, self-publicising social media ramblings are nearly in Lescott’s class. That Garde picks the same team every week suggests that the Under-21s are useless as well. Finish? Adrift at the bottom Predictions Top 4 Leicester, Tottenham, Arsenal, Man United. Bottom 3 Newcastle, Norwich, Aston Villa. Run-in 2 Apr Chelsea H 9 Apr Bournemouth H 16 Apr Man Utd A 23 Apr Southampton H 30 Apr Watford A 7 May Newcastle H 15 May Arsenal A Jonathan Pritchard, reader BOURNEMOUTH Mood among fans? It’s been thrilling. AFC Bournemouth fans are already celebrating and starting to wonder just how high the team can finish now. Manager? Eddie Howe is becoming one of the most talked about managers. I hope Roy Hodgson has a good Euro 2016 as we don’t want to lose Eddie. I can’t see Eddie Howe leaving AFC Bournemouth for another Premier League club. It would just not sit easy with him. Shining lights? They are all stars, to be honest, but the return of Max Gradel was significant and the most consistent player has been Charlie Daniels. Unimpressed? I suppose I find Glenn Murray’s signing a strange one. While he has scored a few goals he does not really fit into the way the team plays. I can’t knock his effort, though. Finish? Pre-season I said 14th, so I guess I should stick with that. Predictions Top 4 Leicester, Tottenham, Arsenal, Man United. Bottom 3 Sunderland, Newcastle, Aston Villa. Run-in 2 Apr Man City H 9 Apr Aston Villa A 17 Apr Liverpool H 23 Apr Chelsea H 30 Apr Everton A 7 May West Brom H 15 May Man Utd A Peter Bell, AFCBchimes.blogspot.co.uk CHELSEA Mood among fans? The mood has been one of resignation for most of the season. There was a mild flirtation with anger, but to be honest May just can’t come quick enough for us. Manager? Hiddink Mk 2 isn’t half as effective as Hiddink Mk 1. He seems to set up teams to not lose rather than win. The football is dull and the points haul isn’t much better than the beginning of the season under Mourinho. The players know that he’s not the one they need to impress. Shining lights? No “s” required. It’s singular. Willian is the only player who can hold his head up high – the rest of them have tipped the scale anywhere between “average” to “are you actually a professional footballer?” Unimpressed? How much space is there? Courtois – from most sought-after young keeper in the world to a shadow of his former self. Oscar – with so many body-parts missing I’m not sure how he even takes to the field: no heart, no spine, no guts, no left leg, need I go on? Hazard – call Mulder and Scully, there appears to have been an invasion of the body snatchers. Matic – where to start? From a ruthless machine (José called him a “monster”) to midfield dead-weight. Need I go on? Finish? About 11th. Predictions Top 4 Leicester (please), Tottenham, Man City, Arsenal Bottom 3 Norwich, Newcastle, Aston Villa. Run-in 2 Apr Aston Villa A 9 Apr Swansea City A 16 Apr Man City H 23 Apr Bournemouth A 2 May Tottenham H 7 May Sunderland A 11 May Liverpool A 15 May Leicester H Trizia Fiorellino, ChelseaSupportersGroup.net CRYSTAL PALACE Mood among fans? We are in the fourth FA Cup semi-final in our history and seven points clear of relegation with eight games left. And yet, we have not won in the league since 19 December, have the worst league record in the top four divisions in 2016 and have equalled our worst run of home defeats in our history (six). The fans are looking forward to Wembley, but opinions on Alan Pardew are becoming split. A win against Norwich on 9 April is a must to put any fears of relegation to bed. Manager? You can see that the pressure is getting to Pardew now and his outburst against Jamie Carragher in his recent programme notes was telling. He has no excuse with injuries now as Wickham and McArthur apart we have a fully fit squad. There seems to be no plan B to stop this disastrous run. Even if we stay up the fear is we will tailspin straight into the next campaign. Shining lights? Wilfried Zaha continues to deliver and Bolasie is starting to get back towards his pre-injury form. Wickham had a hit a brilliant level of form but then got injured, which sums up Palace’s season. Unimpressed? Pape Souaré’s form has taken an alarming dip. Adebayor has impressed in fits and starts, but is not getting much service. Cabaye’s early-season pomp has vanished. Finish? 15th. Predictions Top 4 Leicester, Tottenham, Arsenal, Man United. Bottom 3 Norwich, Newcastle, Aston Villa. Run-in 2 Apr West Ham A 9 Apr Norwich H 13 Apr Everton H 17 Apr Arsenal A 20 Apr Man United A 30 Apr Newcastle A 7 May Stoke H 15 May Southampton A Chris Waters, PalaceTrust.org.uk, @clapham_grand EVERTON Mood among fans? It’s divided with most Everton fans. Absolutely delighted to be going to Wembley for the semi-final of the FA Cup, especially after a great result against Chelsea. But disappointed to be below mid-table with only five wins at Goodison. Too many games have been lost from winning positions. Manager? I’m still with Roberto, but I’ll give him until the end of the season. He needs to learn how to hold on to winning positions. We’ve dropped too many points, especially at home. Some bad substitute decisions have lost us games. Shining lights? Without a doubt Lukaku has been outstanding, breaking records with his goalscoring. Ross Barkley has matured and added goals to his game and Aaron Lennon has surprised me with his constantly good performances, taking over from Gerard Deulofeu who was outstanding at the beginning of the season. Unimpressed? Unfortunately time has caught up with Tim Howard, but he’s been a great servant to Everton for 10 years. I’m still not convinced about Tom Cleverley, but hope he comes good. Finish? Mid-table. Predictions Top 4 Leicester, Tottenham, Arsenal, Man City. Bottom 3 Sunderland, Newcastle, Aston Villa. Run-in 3 Apr Man United A 9 Apr Watford A 13 Apr C Palace A 16 Apr Southampton H 20 Apr Liverpool A 30 Apr Bournemouth H 7 May Leicester A 11 May Sunderland A 15 May Norwich H Steve Jones, BlueKipper.com, @bluekippercom LEICESTER CITY Mood among fans? Unadulterated jubilation, unsurprisingly. Perhaps, the nerves are starting to set in now we’re in the home straight but nothing can dampen our spirits at the moment. Manager? He’s the league’s best on current form. We were mocked for appointing Ranieri off the back of his tenure as Greece’s boss, but he’s done a sterling job for us and deserves every bit of praise going. Shining lights? Obviously Riyad Mahrez and Jamie Vardy are the stand-out players but I’m vehement in my belief that N’Golo Kanté has been the club’s best player this term. His consistency defies belief. However, the whole squad has virtually been at the top of their game all season; Morgan and Drinkwater deserve plaudits for their marked improvements this year. Unimpressed? It’s hard to single any one player out. Ulloa has not played as well as he did last season but he’s still contributing with crucial goals here and there. Gökhan Inler has come in for some criticism too but given his lack of opportunity to break in to such an imperious midfield, I wouldn’t say I’m “unimpressed” by him. Finish? I have resisted the urge to predict our final position for a long, long time but last Saturday’s win at Crystal Palace felt pivotal. Champions. Predictions Top 4 Leicester, Tottenham, Arsenal, Man City. Bottom 3 Sunderland, Norwich, Aston Villa. Run-in 3 Apr Southampton H 10 Apr Sunderland A 17 Apr West Ham H 24 Apr Swansea H 1 May Man Utd A 7 May Everton H 15 May Chelsea A Chris Whiting, @ChrisRWhiting LIVERPOOL Mood among fans? We got to a final and lost but that didn’t ruin the day. We make the Europa League quarter-finals then three days later throw away a 2-0 lead against Southampton to lose 3-2. We could win the Europa League, we could win every game to the end of the season and just as easily lose them all and get no further in Europe. We’re kind of all over the place, but that’s OK as there’s a real feeling of optimism. Also still reeling over the success of Spirit of Shankly and other fan groups in getting our owners to capitulate and the Premier League fat cats to agree a £30 cap for next season’s away games. Manager? Klopp is a good fit for us and has united the fans. A big personality, he takes the heat off the team, doesn’t deflect from defeat and takes no personal praise from a victory. Never ingratiating, often entertaining and no fake tan. Shining lights? Firmino. Can has improved dramatically the past couple of months, and Coutinho. Lucas has been immense. Unimpressed? Those who hide, those who think they’re better than they are, those who mess up time and again. Finish? 6th Predictions Top 4 Leicester, Tottenham, Arsenal, Man City. Bottom 3 Norwich, Sunderland, Aston Villa. Run-in 2 Apr Tottenham H 10 Apr Stoke H 17 Apr Bournemouth A 20 Apr Everton H 23 Apr Newcastle H 30 Apr Swansea A 7 May Watford H 11 May Chelsea H 15 May West Brom A Steph Jones, reader MANCHESTER CITY Mood among fans? Despondent. Despite our good form in the cups, our league form has been woeful – we haven’t won back-to-back matches since October and have managed 36 points from our past 25 league games. The club should be embarrassed given its resources. The mood took a further hit with the decision to charge up to £60 a ticket for the Champions League quarter-final with PSG. Ticket-pricing is, rightly, coming in for a lot of criticism. Manager? Struggled this season. Despite the successes of his first campaign, ultimately, the team has regressed. I like Pellegrini as a man but it’s stale football under stale management. The decision to announce Pep Guardiola’s arrival on 1 February has evidently backfired too, as there’s a real possibility of the Europa League next season. Shining lights? Bacary Sagna, Fernandinho and Joe Hart have been excellent. Coincidentally, they’re also our top three appearance-makers this season. Kelechi Iheanacho is an absolute star in the making. Unimpressed? Martín Demichelis has been excruciatingly bad at times, but he’s not really to blame, the club should have let him go in the summer and retained Jason Denayer. Wilfried Bony has been dreadful. Finish? 4th. Predictions Top 4 Leicester, Tottenham, Arsenal, Man City. Bottom 3 Sunderland, Norwich, Aston Villa. Run-in 2 Apr Bournemouth A 9 Apr West Brom H 16 Apr Chelsea A 19 Apr Newcastle A 24 Apr Stoke H 1 May Southampton A 7 May Arsenal H 15 May Swansea A Lloyd Scragg, mcfcwatch.com, @Lloyd_Scragg MANCHESTER UNITED Mood among fans? It’s been a poor season, we haven’t created enough chances, not scored enough goals and the football has been turgid. The facts on this are undeniable. We expected improvement but instead we’re worse this season than we were last. However, Louis van Gaal can still lead us to a top-four position and a trip to Wembley - though both are far from a given. Manager? He has an immense pedigree and is well-liked but unfortunately has failed to meet expectations. He has been handicapped by a dreadful run of injuries but poor performances, particularly mid-season, the awful exit from the Champions League, the inability to beat a poor Liverpool side over two legs in the Europa League and the continuing erratic results in the league probably mean he won’t be in charge come August. Shining lights? David de Gea continues to perform to the highest standards. Anthony Martial is a wonderful talent and hopefully will become a United legend, and the introduction of Marcus Rashford has given us something to look forward to. Unimpressed? Memphis Depay has been a constant source of disappointment. Matteo Darmian is erratic and unreliable. The appearance of Marouane Fellaini in a United shirt continues to baffle. Finish? We’ll just squeeze fourth. Predictions Top 4 Leicester, Tottenham, Arsenal, Man United. Bottom 3 Norwich, Newcastle, Aston Villa. Run-in 3 Apr Everton H 10 Apr Tottenham A 16 Apr Aston Villa H 20 Apr Crystal Palace H 1 May Leicester H 7 May Norwich A 10 May West Ham A 15 May Bournemouth H Shaun O’Donnell, reader
Bank of Cyprus to list on London Stock Exchange Bank of Cyprus is to list on the London Stock Exchange and expand in the UK, in the latest sign of its path towards rehabilitation since savers were forced to take losses to pump billions of euros into its bailout three years ago. Under John Hourican, a former senior executive at Royal Bank of Scotland who left during the Libor rigging crisis, Bank of Cyprus has undergone a radical restructuring and repaid all but €800m (£690m) of €11.4bn emergency liquidity assistance used to keep it afloat at the peak of the island’s economic meltdown. The Mediterranean island was at the heart of the eurozone crisis in 2013 when a rescue deal for Bank of Cyprus – its biggest lender – was a key part of measures need to keep the country inside the single currency area. Laiki, or Cyprus Popular Bank, was closed and its smaller depositors placed in Bank of Cyprus, which in turn imposed losses on savers holding deposits more than €100,000, many of whom were said to be Russian. It was first bank in the eurozone to take a slice of customers’ savings as part of the international €10bn bailout of the island to avoid recourse to taxpayers. Hourican, who is Irish, tried to leave last year but was convinced to stay on by veteran banker Josef Ackermann, who became chairman of Bank of Cyprus in 2014 when it received a capital injection from a group international investors led by private equity billionaire Wilbur Ross. Ackermann is a former chief executive of Deutsche Bank, itself mired in financial difficulties. An attempt at a London listing is a high-profile move for Hourican, who told parliamentarians after the RBS £290m Libor fine that he had told colleagues “they should not waste my death” and clean up the culture of the bank. He was described by Andrew Tyrie MP as a “human shield” for others at RBS. Hourican has sold off Bank of Cyprus’s Russian arm and scaled back its other international operations but intends to expand in the UK, where there already four branches. The aim is to target the professional buy-to-let market and small business customers, entrepreneurs and Cypriots living in the UK. The London-based arm is covered by the UK deposit scheme, the Financial Services Compensation Scheme, which covers the first £75,000 of savings. To facilitate the listing in London – through which Bank of Cyprus does not intend to raise fresh funds – a holding company will be set up in Ireland so that it meets the standards to allow it to be included in the FTSE series of stock market indices. It will remain listed in Cyprus but delist from Athens. At the time of the bank’s half-year results in August, Hourican described in a Bloomberg interview how the bank and the country had experienced a “significant cardiac arrest” when he took over. As the bank reported €120m on pre-tax profits for the first nine months of 2016, Hourican said customer deposits had increased 10%. “We remain focused on operating as an accelerator for growth in the real Cypriot economy,” he said.
Too many tweets during work hours make my boss a twit – but how to tell him? Twice a week we publish problems that will feature in a forthcoming Dear Jeremy advice column in the Saturday so that readers can offer their own advice and suggestions. We then print the best of your comments alongside Jeremy’s own insights. Here is the latest dilemma – what are your thoughts? I work as part of a five-strong close-knit design team for a large media/graphic design company. We have some well-known, high-profile clients. As part of what we do – essentially coming up with bright ideas – we have to bounce those ideas off one another on a daily basis and it is a joint effort. Any change in that dynamic would make our work virtually impossible. The problem is … our team leader. We regard him as management in that he sorts rotas and is in charge, so we don’t engage that personally with him. But he is very much part of the team when it comes to thinking up those bright ideas. All we know of his personal life is from social media. He details every tick and comma on Facebook and Twitter (although he has made it plain to us that going on to social media at work is a no-no!). We know when he’s been for a coffee, had the painters in, what the patio is looking like, how the grass is growing, if his football team has scored and if the cat’s had a funny turn. OK over a pint in the pub: but it is all getting too close to work for comfort. First we’ve had the Twitter digs obviously aimed at us. He seems oblivious that we’re reading them but most crucially we fear some of our clients might be, too. It could reflect very badly that a member of staff is dissing the company in public. To rub salt into our wounds, we see from the timings of the tweets that he sent them in office hours. It’s become so worrying we’re on edge day to day, wondering what’s going to be tweeted next. But we just don’t know how to approach it. Do you need advice on a work issue? For Jeremy’s and readers’ help, send a brief email to dear.jeremy@theguardian.com. Please note that he is unable to answer questions of a legal nature or to reply personally.
Harry Rabinowitz obituary For half a century the orchestral conductor and composer Harry Rabinowitz, who has died aged 100, played a key role in the British broadcasting and film industries. He was in charge of popular and light music for both the BBC and London Weekend Television and conducted the music for more than 60 films. Rabinowitz often said that he never wished to “waste his colleagues’ time” and was opposed to over-rehearsing. Although he was highly professional, he was not a dictatorial conductor, telling an interviewer that “in almost all the sessions I’ve conducted, the musicians have left smiling”. Born in Johannesburg, South Africa, to Israel and Eva, he went to Athlone high school and the University of the Witwatersrand, where he studied the piano and composition. He was fired from his first job, as a jewellery salesman, after only one day and next found work demonstrating new songs to customers in the sheet music department of a Johannesburg store. Following a period in the South African army during the second world war, he conducted the orchestra for the musical Strike a New Note before travelling to London in 1946 to take up a place on the conducting course at the Guildhall School of Music. With the help of the actor and comedian Sid James, a fellow South African, Rabinowitz found his feet in the British music business. He played the piano for the popular BBC radio show Variety Band- box and was a session musician at EMI’s Abbey Road recording studios. His conducting career began in earnest when he was hired to work on the musical Golden City in 1950. Written by Philip Tore, the show was set in the South African gold rush of 1886. This led to work at seasonal ice shows at the Empress Hall in Earl’s Court, London, and, in 1953, as musical director of the London production of Lerner and Loewe’s Broadway hit Paint Your Wagon. Next, Rabinowitz was offered a contract to conduct the BBC Revue Orchestra. This was a house band of the Light Programme and could be heard on such shows as Variety Playhouse, Henry Hall’s Guest Night and the Jimmy Edwards comedy series Take It From Here. He could also be heard as a pianist on Midday Music Hall and Piano Playtime. In 1960, Rabinowitz was appointed music director of BBC TV light entertainment, at a time when variety and comedy shows requiring orchestral accompaniment dominated the schedules. In addition to conducting the orchestra for the Val Doonican Show, Peter Cook and Dudley Moore’s Not Only... But Also and many others, he composed music for The Frost Report (1966). Rabinowitz then moved to a similar post at the newly established London Weekend Television (1968-77). There he worked on Upstairs, Downstairs (1971) and Black Beauty (1972). His theme music for Love for Lydia (1977) was nominated for an Ivor Novello award. By now, his reputation as a conductor and arranger of popular and light music was sufficiently high for him to pursue a freelance career in theatre, films and broadcasting, where he went on to compose music for the TV series the Agatha Christie Hour (1982) and Reilly: Ace of Spies (1983). In the theatre, Rabinowitz conducted the orchestra at the premiere of the Andrew Lloyd Webber and TS Eliot musical Cats (1981) and Don Black and Lloyd Webber’s Song and Dance the following year. He was in even greater demand to work in films, in one year (1991) recording music for nine movies. His cinema credits included Chariots of Fire (1981), The Remains of the Day (1993), Howards End (1992), The English Patient (1996) and The Talented Mr Ripley (1999). His final film score assignment, at the age of 87, was Cold Mountain (2003). Rabinowitz’s renown as a conductor of film and light music spread to the US and led to seven seasons’ work as guest conductor with the Boston Pops Orchestra, beginning in 1985. He also appeared at the Hollywood Bowl with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra in the 1980s, as well as occasional concerts with the London Symphony and Royal Philharmonic Orchestras. In 1996, he conducted a concert at Carnegie Hall, New York, of music from the films of Ismail Merchant and James Ivory. He was appointed MBE in 1977 and in 1985 received the Gold Badge of the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors. Last year Rabinowitz became one of the oldest guests on Desert Island Discs at the age of 99, choosing a pitch pipe as his luxury item. In recent years, Rabinowitz divided his time between Provence and Portland, Oregon, the home town of his second wife, Mitzi Scott, whom he married in 2001. She survives him, as do three children, Karen, Simon and Lisa, from his first marriage, to Lorna Anderson, which ended in divorce, and four grandchildren. • Harry Rabinowitz, conductor and composer, born 26 March 1916; died 22 June 2016 • This article was amended on 24 June 2016. Harry Rabinowitz died on 22 June, not 21 June, as originally stated. His children are Karen, Simon and Lisa, rather than Karen, Simon and Oliver.
The Comedian's Guide to Survival review – heard the one about the unfunny standup? This British effort about men’s magazine journalist James Mullinger (James Buckley from The Inbetweeners) who wants to be a standup comic at least deserves some credit for daring to make it hard for itself. After all, how does one make a comedy with a protagonist whose defining feature is that he’s not very funny? Director Mark Murphy, working with a semi-autobiographical script by him and journo-turned-joker James Mullinger, tries to solve the problem by surrounding his lead with proper comedians whom James meets or interviews about the secrets of standup. Omid Djalili, Jimmy Carr, and Gilbert Gottfried consequently all play either themselves or variations thereof, while Paul Kaye and Vas Blackwood take on more substantial roles as the lead character’s magazine-editor boss and a famous success story, respectively. Unfortunately, the gambit only works up to a certain point, since clearly no one is using their best material, and Lord knows the lead character’s patter, about standup sex toys at garage sales and how horrible his boss is, represents an embarrassment. Please, don’t stand up on our account.
Louis van Gaal: Manchester United fans were right to boo at Southampton loss Louis van Gaal admitted Manchester United’s fans were right to boo him during Saturday’s 1-0 home defeat to Southampton in the first sign of open revolt since the Dutchman arrived as manager at Old Trafford but refused to say whether he fears for his job. Charlie Austin’s 87th-minute header on his debut for the visitors consigned United to a first defeat in six games. It widened the gap to Tottenham Hotspur in fourth place to five points after the London club’s 3-1 win at Crystal Palace. It also posed questions about Van Gaal’s position. “I cannot answer. It is not for me to answer these kinds of questions,” said Van Gaal. Supporters jeered the side during another insipid United display. At the final whistle they booed Van Gaal loudly as he walked to the tunnel. “You cannot say that they [fans] are not right,” he said. “They are right and of course they are disappointed and they have the right to boo me. You know it was not good today. It was a poor game and we could not create chances and our opponent also had a few chances. So it’s more or less a 0-0 game. But at the end we have lost.” Asked if this was the poorest display of a tenure that began in summer 2014, Van Gaal said: “I don’t know but it was a poor performance because football is not only defending but also creating chances and we didn’t create any chances. Our opponent denied that so it was a poor game for the fans. I can imagine that.I am disappointed but I have to think and already I put the question how I can change this because we have to change this. That is my job and it is not an easy job at the moment. Nevertheless we have won three times in 2016 and a draw so very good results in January – but we could not show it in this game. I did not see that confidence today.” Van Gaal does not believe the transfer window can change things. “One player cannot change everything. Sometimes it looks like it but it is always the process of team-building what makes a team stronger but sometimes one individual can give the first stimulus for that process but it is not so easy as you say or ask.” Matteo Darmian became the latest defender to be ruled out when suffering a suspected injured rib in the second half. Van Gaal said: “He was spitting blood on the pitch so he has already gone to the hospital and we have to wait and see what happens. That is the fifth full-back who has been injured so that is what I have to do also to make solutions to solve the problems. Probably one rib and also the chest is something wrong but we have to wait and see.”
I’m getting over my post-Brexit meltdown For me, the first sign of recovery from post-Brexit shock was the sudden and unexpected return of my sense of humour and perspective. It started when I progressed to not feeling quite such an urge to plead with people to sign endless online petitions, which, at any rate, were becoming so numerous that they were in grave danger of outnumbering the 48% of Remainers who were signing them. My petition Tourette’s under control, it was time to slap my own face several times to get rid of any lingering “dual nationality” fantasies. My insomnia has improved too – I only wake to see Boris Johnson’s face appearing in the pattern on the bedroom curtains a few times a night now. Sadly, the nocturnal visions of a tiny, capering Nigel Farage are still going strong… Some of the above – endless petitions, insomnia– you might have experienced yourself, while other parts – visions of Farage and Johnson – with luck, you haven’t. Fact is, I crumbled post-Brexit. While others got to work (a magazine called the New European was created and published within a week), I came to typify the archetypal, foot-stamping, ineffectual Remain casualty, a veritable Violet Elizabeth Bott of the handwringing liberal echo chamber. I have no excuse for this. I suppose it was just the shock of feeling that I’d gone to sleep in one country and woken up in another. All those signifiers, big and small, that something important had been broken and something ugly was gaining strength got to me. Marine Le Pen gloating at the result. The 3,000 new hate crimes in England and Wales. The pound plummeting like a reckless tombstoner – you’ve all seen the news. Now that the “liberal panic” is settling, the Leave camp has some explaining to do – if we could find any of them. They’ve been vanishing one by one, as though in some surreal Agatha Christie whodunnit (from what I can make out, Liz Hurley is in charge now). Has anyone concocted a Leave plan yet or is it still: “We’re taking our country back – and fingers crossed we can be Norway”? The only point I’ve seen Leavers make with any fervour is that Remainers should stop being “sore losers” and accept democracy. Would that be the same kind of “sore loser” that Farage said he’d be if Leave lost by a similar minuscule margin? Is democracy now defined by the many Leave voters regretting their “protest vote”, realising that they were lied to by squabbling politicians? Despite everything, I refuse to believe that the provincial working class, the kind of people I grew up among, are either stupid or racist. Not only were Leave voters brazenly (unlawfully) lied to, they were also abandoned to their fate by an opposition party that should have been robustly campaigning and informing, rather than what amounted to strategic ineffectiveness. The same Labour party that is led by a man who at best comes across as a sparkly eyed competition winner who can’t quite believe all the attention he’s getting (and doesn’t look like volunteering to return to backbench obscurity just yet). Shame on Jeremy Corbyn for enabling this shoddy, contaminated Brexit – for me, this amounts to yet another last straw. Indeed, embarrassed though I am by my post-Brexit meltdown, I feel positively chipper now, so much so that, like many others I’ve spoken to, I’m considering giving my vote, perhaps even membership fees, to the party (Liberal Democrats?) most committed to finding a way out of this mess. Looking back on this tumultuous fortnight, I can’t help but feel that people like me might not have felt so “lost” had we believed that our views were being politically represented. Less bull about Pamplona’s bull run, please Five people were gored during the yearly running of the bulls at Pamplona’s San Fermin festival. Please forgive me, but, just for a split second, a part of me thought: “Good.” Of course it isn’t good (may the injured make swift recoveries). However, the Pamplona bull run is a cruel, disgusting custom that deeply shames its host nation every year. Popularised by Ernest Hemingway, it’s become a test of machismo for men who ironically seem too dumb to have read The Sun Also Rises. Others blather about tradition, but who has the patience for tradition where animal cruelty is concerned? Britain used to have bearbaiting and cockfighting. Anyone fancy getting those charming, folksy pastimes back? A good rule of thumb with such matters is to ask: if a particular custom had completely died out, would a revival be permitted? If the answer is no, then why in any humane world should it continue? At a time when it’s rumoured that foxhunting may be about to make a reappearance on the British political agenda, it seems important to know exactly where you stand on bloodsports and the “traditions” that excuse them. Three-fifths of Girl Power? No thanks Emboldened by their 20th anniversary, the Spice Girls are planning another reunion jaunt. However, it looks as though they might be missing Mel Chisholm (undecided) and Victoria Beckham (very decided… against). Hence they’re said to be toying with the new name Gem, representing the initials of the remaining trio, Geri (Halliwell), Emma (Bunton) and Melanie (Brown). I would strongly advise against this. First, a change of moniker is unnecessary as many acts have re-formed with key personnel missing, as evidenced by the myriad ugly squabbles over rights to band names. Out of friendship, loyalty and decency (and perhaps just a teeny weeny bit of sheer boredom, laced with icy contempt), neither Beckham nor Chisholm seems interested in fighting the trio over the use of the name, so what’s the point of changing it? As the depleted Spice Girls (possible tagline for posters: “At least one less with her microphone turned off by a discreet roadie!”), the band could at least hope to make a packet on the thriving retro-music circuit, and good luck to them. As Gem, with the same personnel, I’m not so sure. I even feel slightly afraid for them. As the Spice Girls, there’s exciting talk of a huge show in Hyde Park; as Gem, I’m envisioning tragic, increasingly desperate personal appearances, say, outside branches of Morrisons, with staff handing around paper plates of pork pies with union jack skewers in them (to echo Geri’s famous dress) or, worse, some microwaved congealing Pop-Tarts (geddit?). This is the sort of thing that happens when a strong brand doesn’t recognise its own value and inevitability. If the remaining Spices aren’t careful, they could end up being wannabes to their own legacy.
An NHS tax? Osborne won’t like it, but the public will The NHS is one of our most cherished institutions. The Commonwealth Fund, a private American foundation that supports independent research on health, judged it to be overall the best, and easily the best value for money, of any national system of healthcare. Yet today it faces an existential crisis. Hospitals are running up huge deficits and their financial situation is deteriorating rapidly. A shortage of doctors has forced over a hundred GP surgeries to apply for the right to stop accepting patients. Morale among junior doctors is so low that they not only went on strike but many now feel they have to emigrate. As Polly Toynbee demonstrated in Tuesday’s , the NHS will need a large injection of new cash to make up for the gross neglect of mental health. Lack of cash lies at the heart of the NHS crisis, and the fundamental reason is that its costs rise much faster than the growth of GDP (or national income). We live longer, and the older we get the more medical care we need. New expensive drugs and surgical procedures cure diseases that were incurable before. And, making things worse, these extra costs have to be met at a time when George Osborne’s declared strategy is to shrink the state and eliminate the national deficit by 2020. Social services, which play an essential role in providing healthcare, have already suffered grievously from cuts and are facing more. In fact instead of increasing as a proportion of GDP, the share of expenditure on health and social care is actually declining. According to the Office for Budget Responsibility, it will decline from 6.1% in 2014/2025 to 5.4% in 2020/2021, as revealed by the Treasury’s own autumn spending review. What can we do to save the NHS? Either spending will have to be drastically increased, or costs drastically cut, or there will have to be further reorganisation, perhaps a mixture of all three. Norman Lamb MP, the former Liberal Democrat health minister, recently introduced a 10-minute rule motion in the House of Commons to set up an independent commission on the future of health and social care – a kind of modern Beveridge commission. He is supported by two former secretaries of state for health – the Conservative Stephen Dorrell and Labour’s Alan Milburn, and by MPs from all three parties. Much as the commission is urgently needed, it will, unfortunately, take time to report. However, one crucially important part of Lamb’s proposal could be implemented by next year. It is to convert national insurance contributions (NICs) into a separate, progressive, hypothecated tax, earmarked solely for funding both health and social care, which cannot be treated separately. Unblocking the misuse of hospital beds, for instance, cannot be achieved without a joint approach. NICs no longer serve a useful purpose. Originally they were introduced to pay for the cost of health and pensions. Instead, they have become part of the government’s general revenue, but they still survive as a separate, inefficient, retrogressive tax on jobs, which increases both business costs and unemployment. Whatever happens, they should be scrapped. However, the Treasury is strongly opposed to hypothecated taxes. General taxation, it is argued, is more efficient because it involves fewer transaction costs and is collected from the largest possible base. It is also claimed that hypothecation ties the Treasury’s hands because it hampers the most efficient allocation of public funds to where they are most needed or give best value for money. It has also been suggested that a hypothecated health tax would alter behaviour: “We have paid for this service. We must get everything out of it we can.” Some of these arguments are not without merit. But in my view they are vastly outweighed by the special regard people have for the NHS. We are more willing, or much less unwilling, to pay for what we greatly value. Many people resent paying taxes because they don’t like government policy, or some particular policies (spending on Trident, for instance, or what are perceived as excessive welfare benefits or bureaucratic waste). But a tax for a popular public service overcomes this objection. The most effective slogan of any recent Liberal Democrat election campaign was “An extra penny on income tax for education”. The TV licence fee is a hypothecated tax. A poll commissioned by the BBC found that the licence fee was easily the least unpopular way of paying for the BBC. The great American judge Oliver Wendell Holmes once said: “Taxes are the price we pay for a civilised society.” A special health and social care tax could not be a better example.
Pop culture is now a rich kids’ playground To John Harris’s misgivings about the affordability of pop culture (Pop music was a great leveller, 16 November) might be added misgivings about who’s making it. The children of the rich are increasingly dominating the popular arts. The writers of the popular culture explosion of the late 50s and 60s came from the backgrounds that they wrote about, and its musicians, photographers and stylists grew up with one foot in the street and the other in art school. Even grammar school products like Mick Jagger were a bit of a rarity. If this continues, we will end up with a fossilised popular arts scene dominated in drama by modern-day Cowards and Rattigans, and in music without the periodic kick-starts provided by the Beatles and punk. David Redshaw Gravesend, Kent • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com • Read more letters – click here to visit gu.com/letters
Senior bitcoin developer says currency 'failed experiment' A senior bitcoin developer has declared the cryptocurrency a failed experiment, blaming the end of the currency on the refusal of the community to adopt new standards which would allow it to grow consistently while maintaining stability. Mike Hearn, a longtime senior developer on bitcoin and the former chair of the bitcoin foundation’s law and policy committee, announced in a blogpost that he would be selling his coins and quitting development on the project. “Despite knowing that bitcoin could fail all along, the now inescapable conclusion that it has failed still saddens me greatly,” he wrote. Hearn’s objections to the current state of bitcoin are varied and frequently technical in nature, but at heart there are two failures: the section of the bitcoin community with power over the future of the currency is overly centralised and overly resistant to change. Hearn writes that: “What was meant to be a new, decentralised form of money that lacked ‘systemically important institutions’ and ‘too big to fail’ has become something even worse: a system completely controlled by just a handful of people.” There are two important bottlenecks in bitcoin’s organisational structure: the developers and the miners. The former group are those people with the authority to make changes to the released version of bitcoin (the “core”). Although bitcoin is open source software, meaning anyone is free to use it or tweak it into a new system, there is still only one official release of it. Anyone can propose changes to that release, but only five people have the authority to actually put those changes into the released version – and those five have been hopelessly split for the past six months about how to deal with bitcoin’s capacity problems as it grows. The split has become so bad that Gavin Andresen, the most senior of the developers, paired with Hearn in August to attempt to launch a “hard fork” of bitcoin, which would use the same basic code but fix some of the capacity constraints. That launch merely exacerbated the split, however, with people who supported the new version (dubbed bitcoin XT) being blacklisted by the supporters of the old version. But the main reason why XT never took off was the failure of the other major bottleneck: the miners. Bitcoin is supposed to be a decentralised currency. Anyone can download the entire history of bitcoin transactions, and devote computing power to verifying future transactions (called mining). For a change such as the switch to XT to succeed, more than half of the computing power on the bitcoin network has to support it by updating their own software accordingly. But very few people bother to mine for bitcoin. It’s expensive in terms of computer hardware, time and electricity so it is very difficult to beat professionally equipped outlets in the race for rewards. Those amateurs who do mine largely do so as part of pools, who share both computing power and rewards. Those pools, however, are also centrally controlled. As a result, Hearn points out, just two individuals control more than 50% of the power of the network. He adds that “over 95% of hashing power was controlled by a handful of guys sitting on a single stage” at a recent bitcoin conference. For their own reasons, the miners, who are largely based in China, are reluctant to switch to a competing implementation of bitcoin, or push for changes. As a result, Hearn writes, bitcoin is seeing ever greater congestion in the network, which it is unable to cope with in its present form. And the institutional failure to accept changes means that confidence in the currency is declining. “The fundamentals are broken and whatever happens to the price in the short term, the long term trend should probably be downwards”, Hearn writes.
Openreach decision is an upgrade for all – as long as Ofcom gets sums right Has Sharon White at Ofcom flunked it by declining to order an immediate breakup of BT? No. The argument for liberating Openreach – as advocated by Sky, Vodafone and TalkTalk – was always too full of wishful thinking. There are many reasons to bemoan BT’s performance in broadband but abolishing one monopoly supplier to create another monopoly supplier would have achieved little in itself. An independent Openreach, loaded with a chunk of pension liabilities, might have chosen to sweat its old copper assets just as intensely as critics say BT does. Competition would not have been advanced one jot. Even more heavier-handed regulation might have been required to improve the UK’s broadband infrastructure. White is sensibly retaining the breakup option and thus waving a weapon at BT chief executive Gavin Patterson to discourage foot-dragging. But, for now, the focus is on encouraging rivals to invest in competing fibre cables while injecting accountability into Openreach. It is a good, pragmatic choice. First, BT will have to allow rivals to build their own fibre networks by opening up Openreach’s underground cable ducts and telegraph poles. Second, there will be heavier fines if Openreach misses service standards. Third, Openreach will have an independent board. The opening up of the infrastructure is the most important innovation. BT reacted by shrugging its shoulders and saying rivals have had that right since 2009 and few have bothered to use it. Ofcom counters that life will be different in future: fibre enthusiasts will enjoy easy access and lower costs and be allowed to make decent returns. Much depends on the regulator getting its sums right. But, if it has, there is the chance of a proper contest, to the benefit of consumers. Sky will no longer have to grumble that BT is wedding everyone to a “slow lane” copper-based future. It will be able to exploit its rival’s lack of vision by betting on ultrafast fibre and scooping the winnings. Go for it. Ofcom’s other two main prescriptions for Openreach will have to pass a real-world test. Penalties advertised as “substantial” must bite. And the new arm’s-length governance set-up – a separate board and investment budget – must avoid the endless wrangling seen in the banking sector over ringfencing. But Ofcom’s basic thinking is correct. More competition for Openreach, not a messy divorce from BT, sounds a quicker way to upgrade the country’s broadband. Paying dividend pays dividend for Lloyds bosses It’s easy to look pretty in today’s banking sector. All you have to do, it seems, is pay a dividend that investors can believe in. It worked for Lloyds Banking Group on Thursday as a £2bn distribution to shareholders was greeted with a 13% surge in the share price. The market’s excitement was odd because Lloyds did little more than it had previously pledged on dividends. Perhaps investors were worried that the Bank of England, at the 11th hour and amid the Brexit brouhaha, would insist that more capital should be retained. As it is, Lloyds’ 2.25p-a-share ordinary dividend (ignoring the 0.5p special) offers a yield of 3.2%. Not bad by recent standards, but there was nothing in Lloyds’ actual trading figures for 2015 to indicate old-fashioned growth. Pre-tax profits actually fell 7% to £1.64bn, dragged down by yet another thumping provision for mis-selling payment protection insurance. Net income was virtually flat. And boss António Horta-Osório said he won’t achieve his desired cost-to-income ratio until the end of 2019, about two years later than planned. One of the culprits for the latter was “the lower for longer interest rate environment”. That’s not going away soon. PPI provisions will, Lloyds hopes, but the lending climate in the UK looks downright dull. Even at Lloyds’ preferred “underlying” level – in other words, ignoring the nasties – profits were only up 5% to £8.1bn. That was in a good year for the UK economy; the weather could turn rougher. On the bright side, there are worse prospects than dull market leadership, especially when it is endorsed by a disgracefully tame competition regulator. The alternative investment choices for bank investors are litigation hell (HSBC), investment banking befuddlement (Barclays) or a bag of uncertainties (Royal Bank of Scotland). There is a separate question of whether Horta-Osório and colleagues, now that they have taken Lloyds out of the emergency ward, still need to be paid danger money. The long-term incentive plan for 2016 awards £20m-worth of shares to 11 individuals. That is more than generous given the rewards already reaped.
Ted Cruz wins Jeb Bush endorsement as Republicans seek to stop Trump The Republican party establishment seized on Ted Cruz’s convincing victory in Utah on Wednesday, as Jeb Bush endorsed the Texas senator and rallied other conservatives around the hope, however slim, that he could stop Donald Trump. Cruz won an overwhelming majority in Mormon-heavy Utah on Tuesday, easily exceeding the 50% threshold that, under the state’s rules, secured him all 40 delegates. “To win, Republicans need to make this election about proposing solutions to the many challenges we face, and I believe that we should vote for Ted as he will do just that,” Bush said in a statement. There was a strong dose of wishful thinking, however, in the endorsement from the former governor of Florida, a candidate who dropped out of the presidential race after a string of disastrous performances. Trump secured the largest delegate prize of Tuesday – the winner-takes-all state of Arizona – with 47% of the vote to Cruz’s 45%, in a state that is far larger and more representative of the wider country than Utah, which is dominated by a largely white and Mormon population. The billionaire frontrunner remains comfortably on track to finish the Republican race with the most delegates, which would give him a mandate for the nomination, even if he falls short of the 1,237 delegates needed to win outright. His opponents maintain the best way to block his nomination would be to first prevent him from securing the necessary tally of delegates, and that to do so they must coalesce around an alternative candidate at a brokered convention. The Democratic results on Tuesday followed a similar pattern. Frontrunner Hillary Clinton easily defeated Bernie Sanders in delegate-rich Arizona, while the Vermont senator registered resounding victories in Utah and Idaho, the latter of which was at stake only for Democrats on Tuesday. Sanders’ victory margins in Utah and Idaho, in which he secured close to 80% of the vote, were by far the largest of the night, and are likely to energize his supporters, who maintain he still has a fighting chance of overcoming the former secretary of state. The senator is also projected to perform well in the next three Democratic states to hold contests in a few days – Alaska, Hawaii and Washington – and could end the month with a growing momentum. But Sanders’ path to the nomination remains steep, and would probably require a dramatic turnaround in the race. The state he lost, Arizona, was the more significant contest in the Democratic race both because of its larger haul of delegates, and because its demographics could foreshadow voting trends in parts of neighbouring California, which holds its primary on 7 June. The last state to vote in presidential nomination contests, California is usually an afterthought to campaigns. But this year the state’s delegate bonanza has the potential to play a decisive role in both the Democratic and Republican contests. Clinton probably has less to fear than Trump, not least because the delegates she won in primaries and caucuses are bolstered by the support of party officials, who also get a say in the nomination process, unbound by state results, as so-called superdelegates. They won’t say it publicly, but Clinton’s top campaign officials are privately confident that on the current trajectory, Sanders will face intense pressure to pull out of the race before the July convention so that Clinton can turn to attacking her Republican opponent. At her victory speech in Seattle on Tuesday, Clinton immediately positioned herself as the Democratic commander-in-chief in waiting, with a staunch critique of how her Republican rivals responded to the terrorist attacks in Brussels earlier in the day. Trump, who recently suggested the US should reconsider its role in the Nato defense alliance – a cornerstone of Washington’s foreign policy for decades – responded to the terrorist atrocity by repeating his call to waterboard terrorism suspects. On Wednesday, he told ITV’s Good Morning Britain that Muslim communities were “absolutely not reporting” terror suspects in their midst. Cruz, meanwhile, has been widely criticized for reacting to the attacks with a call for law enforcement patrols of Muslim neighborhoods. “In the face of terror, America doesn’t panic, we don’t build walls or turn our backs on our allies,” Clinton said during her address. “We can’t throw out everything that we know about what works and what doesn’t and start torturing people.” She added: “What Donald Trump, Ted Cruz and others are suggesting is not only wrong, it is dangerous.” Widely disliked by his fellow senators of both parties, Cruz has mounted an improbable campaign to cast himself as the man who can unify the Republican party and defeat Trump. That push is complicated by Ohio governor John Kasich, who has remained in the race despite winning only a single state, his own. Bush’s endorsement signals a shift in the tide, and adds pressure on Kasich to withdraw. Bush said the party had to overcome “the divisiveness and vulgarity” perpetuated by Trump. The tenor of the race seems unlikely to change soon, if an election night Twitter squabble between Trump and Cruz is any indication. On a night when world leaders were grappling with the repercussions of terrorist bombings in Brussels, Trump and Cruz trolled one another over their wives. The businessman wrongly accused Cruz of being responsible for an ad in Utah, which used a nude photograph of Trump’s wife from a magazine shoot 15 years ago. “Be careful, Lyin’ Ted, or I will spill the beans on your wife,” Trump wrote. Cruz responded: “Pic of your wife not from us. Donald, if you try to attack Heidi, you’re more of a coward than I thought.”
Cruz found out how to best Trump in a debate. But it's the end of their bromance The Ted Cruz and Donald Trump love story – don’t call it a “bromance”, now that Carly Fiorina’s used the word – is over. It was a short-lived and incredibly well-documented political phenomenon that began last month when Trump conspicuously held his punches against Cruz in a debate, and Cruz happily returned the favor. Conventional wisdom held that Cruz was positioning himself as Trump’s best friend. And indeed, if Trump had any intention of dropping out – or to put it in his terms, not-winning – their special relationship might well have blossomed. But it was not to be. The first sign that things had gotten rocky came last week, when Trump started loudly questioning Cruz’s eligibility to serve as president, since Cruz was born in Canada. Then, going into Thursday’s debate, perhaps the biggest question on anyone’s mind was whether Cruz would finally revise his policy of Trump appeasement and take him on. Well, the answer is in, and the two men’s love – forged of political convenience – is officially deader than Ben Affleck’s marriage. Ultimately Cruz’s betrayal was born of his instinct for political self-preservation. He went after Trump early – the moment that moderators brought up the question of his eligibility – and he did it much more skillfully and with considerably greater success than anyone else has managed to date. Asked about whether his Canadian birth disqualified him for president, the Harvard-trained lawyer drove home his legal expertise even as he questioned Trump’s motives: back in September, Cruz noted, Trump had his lawyers look at the birther question every which way and nothing came of it. “Since September, the constitution hasn’t changed,” Cruz said. “But the poll numbers have.” Later in the two-and-a-half-hour debate, the dissolution of their accord got even uglier when Cruz, asked to address the meaning of his previous comment that Trump has “New York values”, didn’t back off or even hedge. Cruz instead went for Trump’s throat – the soft vulnerable spot that is Trump’s association with patently liberal, elite New York. “The concept of New York values is not that complicated to figure out,” Cruz said, adding to applause from the audience in South Carolina: “Not a lot of conservatives come out of Manhattan, I’m just saying.” Cruz’s response was cool-headed, exactly the sort of polished Princeton debate performance he was expected to deliver. And Trump’s counter – that conservative William F Buckley came from New York – wasn’t the strongest. Though he lacks the formal debating prowess of Cruz, Trump’s secondary attack was more adept. Instead of preying upon American’s economic anxieties or their irrational fear of Muslims and Mexicans, Trump invoked the spirit of New Yorkers after 9/11. “The people in New York fought and fought and fought,” he said, recalling how the world “loved New York and loved New Yorkers”. It was a tactic that Cruz, for all his own calculated lines of attack, didn’t seem to have anticipated, and he backed off. And yet, despite the fact that it was quite possibly the weakest-looking Trump’s ever come out of a debate tussle with another candidate thus far, he didn’t miss but a beat before pivoting to patriotism and the place where he does excel like no other: pulling heart-strings and reminding Americans of the things they fear. If Cruz ended the contretemps technically ahead in the abstract realm of argumentation, he was decidedly less so in the realm of the human and intuition. Speaking from the heart doesn’t appear to come naturally to Cruz the way it does to Trump, even if it makes Cruz less susceptible to gaffes played off as bombast. Still, it was the kind of night that Cruz has reportedly been working toward, changing his debate style to be less lofty and more overtly aggressive. And there he succeeded. He may not have landed a definitive victory but he did something else: he answered the question of whether anything could ever stop Trump or even effectively counter his insults. And while Trump’s performance was certainly strong, but we may just have seen the first chink in his armor – thanks to Cruz, and the end of their super sad love story.
Live music booking now There has been radio silence from artsy electropop performer Patrick Wolf since his 2012 album Sundark And Riverlight, but the man who managed to smuggle eyeshadow and sequins over the borders of indie-crazy mid-00s Camden is returning for a tour – although it’s unclear as yet whether any new material will be accompanying him (9-15 May, tour starts Lantern, Bristol) … Minneapolis band Poliça have just returned with their excellent third album, shelving moody electronica for something altogether more grown up, upbeat and, impressively, generically intangible. They’ll be touring it around the UK this autumn (14-23 Oct, tour starts Stylus, Leeds) … Having just released their second album, Not To Disappear, sensitive indie-electro-folk threesome Daughter are playing a show at Brixton Academy (27 Oct, SW9) … Ennio Morricone – film soundtrack luminary and freshly garlanded with an Oscar for his Hateful Eight score – is performing in Oxfordshire as part of the Nocturne concert series (23 Jun, Blenheim Palace). He’ll be bringing his western work as well as the Tarantino material.
Deutsche Bank weighs on markets but Clinton rally limits damage - as it happened Worries about Deutsche Bank vied with an attempted rally after Hillary Clinton was deemed by many pundits to have won the first presidential debate, leaving European markets in an uncertain mood. For most of the day the concerns about the banking sector won out, but a revival in Deutache Bank itself - which ended the day unchanged - helped produce a mini-recovery. US markets did better, helped by a strong set of consumer confidence figures. And then there was the oil price, which fell sharply as the chances of a deal to curb output at this week’s producers’ meeting seemed to recede. Joshua Mahony, market analyst at IG, said: European markets have confounded the initial enthusiasm generated off the back of the US presidential debate...This pessimistic continuation of Monday’s sharp losses says a lot about the expectations ahead of the oil-producers meeting conclusion. Today’s losses also say a lot about the wary nature of markets as we head into the business end of this election race, for we have seen before Donald Trump’s ability to defy any bumps along the way. The final scores showed: The FTSE 100 finished down 10.37 points or 0.15% at 6807.67 Germany’s Dax dropped 0.31% to 10,361.48 France’s Cac closed down 0.21% at 4398.68 Italy’s FTSE MIB fell 0.36% to 16,134.71 Spain’s Ibex ended down 0.27% to 8688.2 In Athens the Greek market lost 0.21% to 562.40 On Wall Street the Dow Jones Industrial Average is currently up 132 points or 0.7%. Meanwhile in the oil market, Brent crude is down 3.2% at $45.79 while West Texas Intermediate has lost 3.4% to $44.36. On that note, it’s time to close for the day. Thanks for all your comments, and we’ll be back tomorrow. Mario Draghi, president of the European Central Bank, recently said there were too many banks in Europe, and now he has backing from a member of the Bundesbank: As we reported earlier, the Mexican currency bounced back from record lows in the immediate aftermath of the US presidential debate, with Hillary Clinton deemed by many to have won the day. And it could recover further, reckon Capital Economics. The consultancy’s David Rees writes: The Mexican peso appreciated by more than 2% against the US dollar shortly after the Democrat candidate, Hillary Clinton, appeared to prevail in the first US presidential debate on Monday. The fortunes of the peso in recent months have been closely tied with the likelihood that the Republican candidate, Donald Trump, will triumph in the upcoming presidential election. That is hardly surprising, given that Mr. Trump has taken a particularly bellicose stance towards Mexico. And he has repeatedly talked about pursuing more protectionist trade policies, which would be bad news for Mexico’s open and US-dependent economy. In the first instance, a victory for Mr. Trump on 8th November would probably cause the peso – and indeed most emerging market (EM) currencies – to weaken against the US dollar. And uncertainty regarding future trade policy, including a possible re-negotiation of the NAFTA trade accord, could weigh on the Mexican currency and ensure that it remains volatile. But we do not believe that the worse fears of protectionism will be borne out...And once the dust settles on the US election and a probable Fed rate hike in December, we would not be surprised to see the peso stage something of a comeback in the next couple of years, as prior structural reforms help economic growth to finally build momentum. And maybe there isn’t an oil deal after all: The oil price continues to slide as the prospect of any deal to curb output at this week’s producers meeting in Algeria recedes. Despite the reported proposal to cut production by 1m barrels a day - to be discussed on Wednesday - it seems unlikely Iran will agree, keen as it is to return output to the levels it enjoyed before the economic sanctions on the country. Jasper Lawler, market analyst at CMC Markets, said: The price of oil dropped on Tuesday, leaving the price of Brent crude within the $46-$48 range it has been in for the last week in the lead-up to the meeting in Algiers. The drop came as Iranian oil minister Zanganeh indicated that Iran was not willing to freeze oil output at current levels. More interestingly Zanganeh said Iran is targeting its pre-sanctions oil market share of 12-13%. The assumption had been that Iran was targeting 4m barrel per day, but 12-13% of a higher OPEC total output since Iran was sanctioned implies a higher figure. Iran could be targeting something closer to 4.5-5m barrels per day in output, making a freeze agreement unlikely this year. Brent crude is down 2.8% at $46.02 while West Texas Intermediate, the US benchmark, has lost 2.94% to $44.58. Returning to the positive US consumer confidence figures, which seem to give more ammunition to the Federal Reserve to hike interest rates. Dennis de Jong, managing director at UFX.com, said: Fed Chair Janet Yellen will be delighted to see an above-expectations rise in consumer confidence for September, which follows on from an already strong August. Yellen was singled out for criticism by Donald Trump during last night’s presidential debate, with the presidential hopeful accusing Yellen of keeping interest rates low for political reasons. The question now is whether Yellen pulls the trigger on a rate hike at the next Fed meeting – which happens to take place just days before the polls open and America votes for its next president. Back with oil, and the producers’ meeting in Algeria. The Wall Street Journal is reporting a deal would be put on the table involving an output cut of 1m barrels a day, but it is unlikely to be agreed tomorrow: The positive US data seems to have help inspire Wall Street, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average now up 67 points or 0.37%. American consumers are not being put off by worries about the global economy, oil prices, Brexit or the forthcoming election, to judge from the latest Conference Board figures. The consumer confidence index came in at 104.1, higher than the 99 reading analysts had expected and better than August’s 101.8. This is the best level since August 2007. Lynn Franco, director of economic indicators at The Conference Board, said: Consumer confidence increased in September for a second consecutive month and is now at its highest level since the recession. Consumers’ assessment of present-day conditions improved, primarily the result of a more positive view of the labor market. Looking ahead, consumers are more upbeat about the short-term employment outlook, but somewhat neutral about business conditions and income prospects. Overall, consumers continue to rate current conditions favorably and foresee moderate economic expansion in the months ahead. The Markit survey may have shown an improvement in September but the outlook is not all rosy. Chris Williamson, chief business economist at IHS Markit said: The service sector sent mixed signals in September, with faster growth of activity during the month offset by gloomy forward-looking indicators. Although business activity showed the largest monthly rise since April, inflows of new business slowed and employment growth was the weakest for three-and-a-half years. A drop in optimism about the year ahead to a near post-crisis low meanwhile cast a shadow over the outlook. What’s more, even with the latest uptick in activity, the overall rate of economic growth remains subdued. Add these service sector results to the manufacturing data and the PMI surveys suggest that the economy is growing at an annualised rate of only around 1% again in the third quarter. The slowdown in hiring means the survey results are consistent with a 120,000 rise in non-farm payrolls in September, which is a solid rate of expansion but somewhat disappointing compared to the gains seen earlier in the year. The slowdown in hiring is perhaps a natural symptom of the economy reaching full employment, but companies also reported a reduced appetite to hire and job losses due to weaker inflows of new business and worries about the outlook. Back with the US, and more better than expected economic data. Markit’s initial purchasing managers’ index for the service sector in September came in at 51.9, higher than the forecast 51.1 and August’s final reading of 51. The composite index was up from 51.5 last month to 52. The outlook for Deutsche Bank continues to be uncertain, analysts reckon. Carlo Mareels, a credit analyst at MUFG Securities, said: We don’t see any immediate catalysts that could change the uncertain outlook on Deutsche Bank and the weakness in Deutsche Bank spreads is hard to reverse in the absence of proper constructive news on the capital story. Profitability will remain challenging but capital is certainly the most pressing factor right now. We believe that the sub and senior will be subject to volatility but that they are essentially money good. On the AT1s [CoCo bonds] our central scenario is that they won’t switch off coupons, but it can’t be ruled out. We still see risk as significant and that needs to be priced in. However, if the Department of Justice’s fine is in the area of $6bn or higher, our view is that a capital raise will become necessary (which would most likely be very beneficial to the AT1s). ABN Amro analysts believe significant restructuring is required: Equity investors are fearful they will have to be called upon to support the capital position of the ailing Deutsche Bank (DB), as equity prices are down 64% since October 2015.... Crucially, despite restructuring, continual low and even negative net income quarters are draining the ability DB has to naturally increase its capital position. Their capital position needs to be improved, and the ability of it to achieve this naturally is being severely questioned. Significant restructuring, including major asset sales, will likely be needed if DB wishes to achieve an increased capital position without calling on shareholders. The delayed sale of DB’s stake in Hua Xia will be vital to help facilitate a suitable capital position for this year end. However, this is not a silver bullet and would only add a temporary €1.6bn uplift to [its Tier 1 capital ratio]. So more is needed... The payment request from the DoJ is just the tip of the iceberg of issues surrounding DB, as a number of other litigation suits remain open. The potential fines dwarf the €5.5bn DB have set aside for litigation. AT1 coupons are potentially at risk dependent on the timing/amount of the recent DoJ fine. Anything over €6bn will cause real problems for the payments. At present, we believe, the bank could weather short term capital issues for AT1 write-downs not to be an issue... In February DB were adamant in protecting their AT1 investors, but it is something that may not be so happy with going forward as already embattled equity holders would get stung for providing this benefit. The going concern for the company should be maintained provided the payment of the litigation charges is not demanded in the short term. We see a demand for the fines to be paid urgently as an unlikely scenario. It is both in the interest, of the bank to continue to function, and of the authorities to receive payment. More on Deutsche Bank and the repercussions if there was to be state aid from Germany, with some saying the country’s finance minister Wolfgang Schaüble will be the key player: Meanwhile Thomas Oppermann of the Social Democratic Party has weighed in: As has Eurogroup president Jeroen Dijsselbloem: The Clinton rally in US markets has fizzled out before it even began. Banks - in the wake of Deutsche Bank’s share price fall - and Brexit continue to weigh on investors’ minds, while a fall in the oil price is also undermining confidence. With fading expectations of a deal to support the price at this week’s meeting of oil producers, Brent crude is down 2.66% at $46.09. In early trading the Dow Jones Industrial Average has edged up just 5 points while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq have opened slightly lower. US house prices have continued to rise sharply, perhaps dangerously so, according to the latest Case-Shiller index. Prices rose by 5% year-on-year in July, slightly lower than June’s 5.1%. That’s more than twice as fast as consumer price inflation. And David Blitzer of S&P Dow Jones Indices, which produces the report, reckons it can’t last. “Given that the overall inflation is a bit below 2%, the pace is probably not sustainable over the long term.” Wall Street is expecting the next few weeks to be pretty fraught, in the run-up to the election on November 8th. Art Hogan, chief market strategistat Wunderlich Equity Capital Markets, says: “Volatility is going to be the norm, not the exception over the next several weeks.” At one stage, we expected the US stock market to jump by around 0.7% at the open. But now we’re heading towards a flat start. Reuters has now published the full quotes from Angela Merkel about the Deutsche Bank crisis: German Chancellor Angela Merkel expressed hope on Tuesday that problems at Deutsche Bank could be solved after the lender made clear it needed no state aid with a $14 billion U.S. demand to settle claims it missold mortgage-backed securities. Asked during a news conference if Berlin was concerned about Deutsche Bank and was considering assistance for the lender, Merkel said: “I only want to say that Deutsche Bank is a part of the German banking and financial sector. And of course we hope that all companies, also if they face temporary problems, can develop in the right direction.” “I don’t want to comment beyond that,” she added. Deutsche Bank said on Monday it had no need for German government help. Wall Street is expected to open a little higher in an hour’s time, after New York has digested last night’s debate. Court news.... A rogue trader who scammed investors out of millions of pounds to fuel a hedonistic lifestyle of nightclubs and champagne has been sentenced to an extra 603 days imprisonment. Alex Hope, who was jailed for 7 years in 2015, incurred the extra penalty for failing to obey a confiscation order made against him. He had been ordered to repay £166,696, but has actually only handed over £1,00 so far. FCA director Mark Stewart says: As a result of the work of the FCA, almost £2.65 million was identified and frozen in accounts controlled by Mr Hope, which was returned to investors earlier this year. Mr Hope spent a significant proportion of the remainder of the funds on a lavish lifestyle, including gifts to family and friends. Under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, the value of tainted gifts can be recovered and Mr Hope was ordered to pay a sum equal to the value of the gifts he made to friends and family. Hope’s outstanding penalty is accruing £36 interest per day, and he’ll still owe the full amount once released. Here’s Hope back in January 2015 - he originally hit the headlines for running up a huge bar bill. German chancellor Angela Merkel has told reporters in Berlin that she hopes the ‘temporary’ problems at Deutsche Bank can be solved. She’s holding a press conference with Malaysia’s PM, Najib Razak. But she doesn’t seem to have said much about the possible need for state aid to recapitalise the bank (something Deutsche insists isn’t needed). Never work with animals, children, or the Scottish weather. That’s the lesson from Grangemouth this morning, where energy company Ineos is celebrating the first arrival of its first shipment of US shale gas. My colleague Rob Davies has raced to see the big moment, but reports that it’s too blustery for the boat to dock! Rob’s still doing his best to keep us entertained, though: The World Trade Organisation has added to the gloom this morning, by slashing its forecast for trade growth this year to just 1.7%, down from 2.8%. That would be the first time since 2001 that trade has grown slower than the world economy. Royal Bank of Scotland’s shares are getting a hoofing, down 4% today. It’s being hit by the worries over Deutsche Bank; RBS is also facing the prospect of a large penalty from the DoJ, for mis-selling toxic mortgage securities. Conner Campbell of SpreadEx says: The German bank is now down another 3%, and is threatening to drop under €10 for the first time in around 30 years. This has sparked another round of losses in the European banking sector, with Barclays, HSBC and Societe Generale all seeing notable declines. Royal Bank of Scotland actually surpassed Deutsche Bank’s morning drop, percentage-wise at least, with investors fearful that the same kind of fine could hit RBS when its settlement with the US Department of Justice is finally revealed. That rally in the Mexican peso is fizzling out too, as the Clinton debate bounce comes to a halt: The sudden swings in the markets this morning show that volatility is back with a bang. With the US presidential election still up for grabs, and Deutsche Bank still troubled, this could be a wild autumn. FXTM research analyst Lukman Otunuga is concerned that this morning’s ‘Clinton bounce’ didn’t last: Stock markets received a slight welcome boost on Tuesday with most major arena’s swinging back into gains as talks of Hillary Clinton winning the first US presidential debate renewed risk appetite. Although Asian equities managed to charge into green territory post-debate, gains were swiftly relinquished in Europe amid the heavy losses in banks and carmakers. Wall Street could be exposed to steeper losses if the bearish domino effect from Europe provides a solid foundation for sellers to attack. It is becoming increasingly clear that the short term gains observed in stocks are becoming unsustainable with the ingredients of bear market potentially leaving stock markets exposed to heavy losses in the future. If this selloff continues, Deutsche Bank shares will fall below the €10 mark for the first time in three decades: The Financial Times is reporting that one of Germany’s smaller banks has cancelled a bond sale, in a sign of edginess in the markets. Here’s a flavour: A regional German bank has pulled a bond sale citing “market conditions”, as Deutsche Bank shares have tumbled to fresh multi-decade lows. NordLB was due to sell a seven-year senior unsecured bond, but informed investors they would not proceed on Tuesday morning, report Thomas Hale in London and James Shotter in Frankfurt. The senior unsecured bond was initially expected to price around mid-swaps plus 90 basis points. The pulled Landesbank bond comes after Lufthansa also cancelled a debt sale on Monday, also pointing to the “pricing achievable in the current market” Oh dear, this morning’s stock market rally is fizzling out -- before some Europeans have fully caught up with the drama in America. Deutsche Bank is to blame -- its shares have slipped to fresh record lows in the last few minutes. Currently down 2.65% at €10.29, a level not seen since the 1980s. This has send Germany’s stock market down 1% into the red, and erased the early gains in London too. Worries about Deutsche Bank’s financial strength are, well, trumping any relief following last night’s debate. Other European banks are also falling, with Germany’s Commerzbank down 2.9%. Jasper Lawler of CMC Markets explains: Declines in prominent German and Swiss banks have revived fears of a European banking crisis. Stocks had opened moderately higher in a small nod to establishment candidate Hilary Clinton winning the US presidential debate. As explained earlier, investors are worried that Angela Merkel might not step in to protect Deutsche from the possibility of a $14bn fine from US authorities. Deutsche’s market value is now just $16bn, meaning it could struggle to raise enough capital to pay off the fine. Writing in the Telegraph today, Matthew Lynn argues that the situation is terribly serious: If the German government does not stand behind the bank, then inevitably all its counter-parties – the other banks and institutions it deals with – are going to start feeling very nervous about trading with it. As we know from 2008, once confidence starts to evaporate, a bank is in big, big trouble. In fact, if Deutsche does go down, it is looking increasingly likely that it will take Merkel with it – and quite possibly the euro as well. More here: The Deutsche Bank crisis could take Angela Merkel down – and the Euro The surge in the Mexican peso shows that investors are pleased with Clinton’s performance, says Ana Thaker, market economist at PhillipCapital UK. She says: A vote for Clinton is considered a vote for the status quo and markets will welcome sustained accommodating monetary policy under her administration. City investors have been backing Hillary Clinton to win November’s election, according to IG: Gambling firm Betway have also cut the odds of a Clinton victory, to just 2/5: Betway’s Alan Alger, said: “Donald Trump was forced to backtrack and defend himself against Hillary Clinton for much of last night’s debate. The betting now firmly suggests the Democrat candidate has stretched her lead in the race to the White House. “Clinton may have appeared weak during her bout of ill health earlier this month, but punters think she looked strong last night and we’ve cut here odds from 4/6 to 2/5. “Those that think the Donald can talk his way back into the election battle can take 15/8 – the longest his odds have been in over a fortnight.” However... we have been here before, in June, when the betting markets suggested Britain would remain in the EU. Back to last night’s debate... and Robin Bew of the Economist Intelligence Unit argues that Donald Trump didn’t do too badly: But The Economist itself reckons the Republican gaffed over his tax bill: FT editor Lionel Barber also calls it for Clinton: And polling expert Nate Silver shows how Trump kept shoving his oar in: It’s a bad morning for British workers at building supplies firm Wolseley. It has announced plans to close 80 UK stores, with the loss of 800 jobs, as part of a major restructuring. It hopes to redeploy some workers, but the axe could fall heavily at its distribution centre in Worcester. Wolseley shares have slumped by 3.8% this morning, after it also missed profit expectations. In other news....Deutsche Bank’s shares are becalmed this morning, up just 0.1% at €10.31, after yesterday’s 7.5% tumble. Investors were rattled on Monday, following reports that German chancellor Angela Merkel was refusing to provide state aid to the lender. Deutsche Bank insists that it hasn’t even asked for help, but with a $14bn fine looming – close to Deutsche’s market value – the situation is tough. City veteran David Buik says the uncertainty over Deutsche is worrying: I feel sorry for CEO John Cryan who inherited a hospital pass, when he stepped up to the plate in June 2016. These shares have lost significant value – down from €39 in January 2014 and €23.51 a year ago to €10.64 – down 71% and 54% respectively. Just to put some meat on the bone in July 2007 Deutsche Bank’s share price was €99.60! What markets cannot cope with is uncertainty and that sensation is there in spades, with John Cryan, probably very frustrated in being able to say very little. You can catch up with all the ’s coverage of the debate here: US Election 2016 Here’s our expert panel verdict: And here’s David Smith’s account of how Clinton scored points against her rival: Hillary Clinton called Donald Trump to order on Monday night in probably the most watched – and certainly the weirdest and wildest – presidential debate in American history. She demanded explanations over his tax returns, his treatment of workers, his temperament as the man with his finger on the nuclear trigger. As he ducked and dived with incoherent excuses, she stared at him with thinly veiled contempt. Then, right at the end, like a long-suffering, frosty school principal, she decided to expel the ranting, sniffling, whining 70-year-old schoolboy who had not done his homework. Trump had said she did not have the stamina to be president. Icy and deadly, Clinton replied: “Well, as soon as he travels to 112 countries and negotiates a peace deal, a ceasefire, a release of dissidents, an opening of new opportunities in nations around the world or even spends 11 hours testifying in front of a congressional committee, he can talk to me about stamina.” The Canadian dollar has also strengthened, in another sign that Clinton performed better last night (in the markets’ view, anyway). Arnaud Masset, analyst at Swissquote Bank, explains: The foreign exchange market reacted sharply to yesterday’s first US presidential debate. Emerging market currencies were broadly better bid, especially the Mexican peso but it was the Canadian dollar, which appreciated the most as experts concurred that Hillary Clinton had won this first round. The Canadian dollar was also in demand after the debate with USD/CAD falling back below the 1.32 threshold, down to 1.3166. Here are some video clips of last night’s debate, for those European readers who weren’t awake in the middle of the night FXTM Chief Market Strategist Hussein Sayed says the markets have awarded last night’s debate to the Democratic candidate, but it’s not all over.... Round one of the U.S. presidential debate is over and as expected big punches were exchanged from both sides, but clearly no knockout blows were landed. Although polls were showing different outcomes of who won the debate, financial markets obviously declared Clinton as the winner. Asian shares recovered some of yesterday’s losses and European stocks opened higher, meanwhile U.S. futures are also indicating a positive open. However, the best financial asset proxy to the U.S. presidential race is the Mexican Peso which rose by more than 1.5% against the U.S. dollar after declining to a new record low yesterday. The higher the Mexican currency goes suggests higher probability for Clinton reaching the White House as Trump repeatedly raged against globalisation and free trade agreements. The Aussie, Kiwi and Yen also supported the opinion that Hillary Clinton won the first presidential debate. Kit Juckes of Societe Generale agrees: A snap poll by CNN/ORC has found that Hillary Clinton won last night’s debate, pretty conclusively. They report that: Hillary Clinton was deemed the winner of Monday night’s debate by 62% of voters who tuned in to watch, while just 27% said they thought Donald Trump had the better night, according to a CNN/ORC Poll of voters who watched the debate. That drubbing is similar to Mitt Romney’s dominant performance over President Barack Obama in the first 2012 presidential debate. Voters who watched said Clinton expressed her views more clearly than Trump and had a better understanding of the issues by a margin of more than 2-to-1. Clinton also was seen as having done a better job addressing concerns voters might have about her potential presidency by a 57% to 35% margin, and as the stronger leader by a 56% to 39% margin. If you want a clear sign of which candidate won last night’s debate, in investors’ eyes, then look at the Mexican currency. The Mexican peso has surged overnight, gaining 1.5% against the US dollar. That’s a decent recovery from the record low it plumbed yesterday. That means $1 is worth 19.575 peso, down from 19.9 peso before the debate began. The peso has become the market’s preferred measure of tracking the chances of a Trump victory, given his attacks on free trade and his pledge to build a wall on the US-Mexico border. Asian stock markets also rose overnight, as Trump and Clinton swapped blows over everything from the Trans-Pacific Partnership to the ‘Birther row’ over Barack Obama’s origins. Tokyo’s Nikkei jumped 1%, the Hong Kong Hang Seng gained 1.3%, and China’s main markets closed 0.6% higher. And that’s feeding through to Europe’s markets this morning, as this graphic shows: Shares are rallying across Europe this morning, as investors digest the first US presidential debate (which took place while most of them were asleep). In London, the FTSE 100 index has gained 26 points or 0.4% in early trading. European markets are showing bigger gains, with the Paris market up by 0.7%. Traders appear to be taking the view that Hillary Clinton came out best yesterday, after a 90 minute battle in which Donald Trump lost his cool more than once. Although Clinton didn’t deliver a knock-out blow, the Democratic candidate did seem more sure-footed on the key issues. Conner Campbell of SpreadEx points out that we’ve not recovered all of Monday’s losses yet: With Clinton seemingly stumping Trump in the first presidential debate a semblance of calm has returned to the markets. Yesterday saw a series of market-wide declines prompted, among other things, by the reminder that come November Donald Trump could be the new President of the United States of America. This morning, however, the European indices have taken anywhere between 0.6% and 0.8% back, arguably thanks to Hilary Clinton’s better received performance at last night’s debate. Whether or not that translates to a boost in the polls, especially given the contrarian, disenfranchised mind-set of many of Trump’s supporters, is unclear (perhaps explaining why the market’s good mood isn’t as good as its bad mood was bad on Monday). For now, however, the European indices are rebounding and, considering Brent Crude is flat and Deutsche Bank is still effectively at all-time lows, it’s hard not to pin the turnaround on the results of yesterday’s presidential nominee showdown. Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of the world economy, the financial markets, the eurozone and business. Investors have a lot to think about today, both in the financial markets and the world of politics. Firstly, the US presidential race has gathered steam overnight after a bruising clash between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. The two candidates to take control of the White House traded blows over economic policy, trade, and climate change. Personal issues, including Trump’s coyness to release his tax returns and Clinton’s deleted emails, added extra spice to the battle. Listening under the duvet in Britain, the Democratic candidate appeared to outshine her rival. But here’s what my US colleagues thought: Donald Trump’s freewheeling approach spun wildly out of control in the first presidential debate as he was forced on the defensive during a chaotic clash with Hillary Clinton. Goaded by Clinton and pressed hard by moderator Lester Holt, the Republican nominee angrily defended his record against charges of racism, sexism and tax avoidance for much of the 90-minute clash at Hofstra University, outside New York. Trump hit Clinton on trade and her political record – issues that have helped him draw level in recent polls and may yet dominate the election – but the property tycoon appeared thin-skinned and under-prepared as he sniffled his way through the debate. Clinton shows strength over Trump in one of history’s weirdest, wildest debatesRead more “It’s all words, it’s all soundbites,” he retorted after a particularly one-sided exchange, adding that Clinton was a “typical politician: all talk, no action”. More here: And here: Closer to home, traders are watching Germany’s largest bank with growing concern. Yesterday, Deutsche Bank’s shares hit their lowest level in a generation as it fought to persuade investors that it doesn’t need to be bailed out by the Berlin government. But Deutsche Bank still faces the threat of a $14bn fine for mis-selling US mortgage securities, so concerns over its future aren’t going away. And then there’s the oil price; energy ministers are expected to hold an informal Opec meeting on Wednesday to discuss a potential deal to cap production. Brent crude rallied late last night, on hopes Also coming up today Britain’s business leaders are gathering for the Institute of Directors’ annual convention. We’re expecting to hear a lot about Britain’s exit from the European Union, after fears of a ‘Hard Brexit’ sent the pound down to a five-week low yesterday. At 11am BST, the CBI publishes its retail sales figures for September. That will show if consumers kept spending despite Brexit uncertainty. The latest US house prices figures are due at 2pm BST (9am in New York), followed an hour latest by the consumer confidence stats. And in the City, we’re getting results from holiday group Thomas Cook and building supplies firm Wolseley.
Mark Carney has had the last laugh on amateurish Theresa May You want me to stay for an extra three years? I’ll do one more and then I’m off. Mark Carney’s decision to leave the Bank of England in 2019 looks to be a straightforward snub to Theresa May. Earlier on Monday, the prime minister’s spokeswoman described the governor as “absolutely” the best person for the job, which is the sort of thing you say if you think he’ll do the full eight-year term. But he’s doing six. Yes, it’s one more year than was signalled back at his appointment, but it is not the full deal. Those angry Tory Brexiters who have been making mischief at Carney’s expense for the past month will count this result as a victory for them. May has played this saga terribly. The Brexiters’ grumbles about Carney’s pre-EU referendum comments were fading from most people’s memories before she breathed new life into the soap opera in her speech to the Conservative party conference a month ago. She complained about the “bad side-effects” of low interest rates and quantitative easing, and said “a change has got to come”. What sort of change? She didn’t say, but suddenly it was open season on Carney. The Brexiters who resented Carney’s comments that leaving the EU would be the “biggest domestic risk to financial stability” popped up to denounce the governor and all his works. Michael Gove said Carney should learn some humility. Nigel Lawson thought he should resign. If he must stay, said the Conservative MEP Daniel Hannan, Carney should know his place. “It’s important to comport yourself as a quiet and discreet public servant,” he said. William Hague was a rarity in being a remainer, but he filled in May’s blank about the possible form of change. Central bankers had lost the plot in their addiction to low interest rates, Hague argued, and “the era of their much-vaunted independence will come, possibly quite dramatically, to its end”. Would those voices have been so emboldened had May not spoken? It’s hard to say, but the chorus line has been an extraordinary spectacle. Senior politicians, even those who are years out of office, are normally wary of treading on the Bank’s operational independence. Suddenly, the criticisms were personal – Hague excepted – but also woefully vague about alternative monetary prescriptions. Does anybody seriously believe the UK economy would be in better shape if only interest rates had been, say, 3% for the past few years? May, we were told after the conference speech, did not mean to question the Bank’s independence and was merely expressing sympathy with savers. She should learn to take care. Her words provoked a pointless row about central bank independence and she ended up begging Carney to stay. In the event, the governor has agreed the shortest possible extension. He has had the last laugh while May’s handling looks amateurish. Clara Furse: from bailed-out director to HSBC UK chair Former director of bailed-out bank to chair of HSBC UK. That is probably not how Clara Furse’s appointment will be announced, but it would be accurate. Furse was a non-executive director of Belgian bank Fortis when, in partnership with Royal Bank of Scotland, it did the disastrous top-of-the-market purchase of ABN Amro in 2008. As with RBS, a state-sponsored rescue for Fortis followed. Furse, a former successful chief executive of the London Stock Exchange, was rehabilitated via a stint on the Bank’s financial policy committee. All the same, chairing HSBC’s ringfenced division in the UK is a big job. If Fortis had been British, would she be deemed suitable by the regulators? It’s hard to think so. Tesco’s £100m damages claim may not be so damaging A group of 124 British institutional funds want to be paid at least £100m in damages by Tesco. The poor souls feel terribly misled by the supermarket’s overstatement of profits a couple of years ago and are calling for their investors to be compensated for the subsequent fall in the share price. That, at least, is the official explanation for filing a claim in the high court, courtesy of Bentham Europe, a group that funds such legal actions. Some of the fund managers may indeed be driven by the righteous sense that investors “have a right to rely on statements made by companies to ensure that they correctly allocate capital”, as Bentham’s Jeremy Marshall puts it. But more than a few, one suspects, aren’t terribly interested in US-style litigation and would be happy to take the rough with the smooth, if only everybody else would. They may be participating solely because they fear missing out if Tesco ends up having to write a cheque. Last year, Tesco settled a similar class action in the US for a fraction of the value of the initial claim. In the latest case, the supermarket could try offering the litigants, say, £10m for their nuisance value and see if their heart is really in it.
California treasurer imposes year-long ban on working with Wells Fargo California’s state treasurer announced on Tuesday that it is imposing a year-long ban on working with Wells Fargo after staff “fleeced” the bank’s customers by creating 2m unauthorized accounts. The move by the US’s largest state comes as the bank faces another grilling in Congress over the scandal that has already led the bank to pay $185m in penalties and clawback millions in bonuses from top executives. “The recent discovery that Wells Fargo & Company fleeced its customers by opening fraudulent accounts for the purpose of extracting millions in illegal fees demonstrates, at best, a reckless lack of institutional control, and, at worst, a culture which actively promotes wanton greed,” John Chiang, California’s state treasurer, wrote in a letter to the bank on Tuesday. Chiang’s office oversees nearly $2tn in annual banking transactions and manages a $75bn investment pool. “My office has long relied on Wells Fargo, our oldest California-based financial institution, as a partner to meet the state’s investment and borrowing needs,” wrote Chiang. “But, to borrow from Albert Einstein, ‘Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with [larger] matters.’ In the case of Wells Fargo, how can I continue to entrust the public’s money to an organization which has shown such little regard for the legions of Californians who have placed their financial well-being in its care?” The $185m settlement announced at the end of the month was a result of an audit that revealed that Wells Fargo staff created as many as 1.5m deposit accounts and 565,000 credit card accounts without customers’ consent. As a result, the bank fired more than 5,300 employees. The bank denies that the creation of these accounts was part of an orchestrated effort. According to bank’s critics, the bank’s staff opened such unauthorized accounts in order to meet their sales quotas. The bank announced yesterday that it is terminating all of its sales quotas starting 1 October. In light of this scandal, Chiang’s office has effective immediately suspended its investment in all Wells Fargo securities, use of Wells Fargo as a broker-dealer for investment purchases and use of Wells Fargo as managing underwriter on negotiated sales of California state bonds. These sanctions are in effect for 12 months during which Chiang asked that Wells Fargo quarterly report back its compliance with the terms of its $185m settlement with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Los Angeles city attorney, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. Chiang has also called for separation of the chief executive and chair positions at Wells Fargo – both of which are currently held by John Stumpf, a review of Wells Fargo’s compensation practices and clawbacks of pay for those executives who are linked to the predatory sales practices. “Wells Fargo has diligently and professionally worked with the state for the past 17 years to support the government and people of California. Our highly experienced and proven government banking, securities and treasury management teams stand ready to continue delivering outstanding service to the state,” a Wells Fargo spokesperson told the . “We certainly understand the concerns that have been raised. We are very sorry and take full responsibility for the incidents in our retail bank. We have already taken important steps, and will continue to do so, to address these issues and rebuild your trust.”
Benedict Cumberbatch webchat: your questions answered on kung fu, a wayward cloak and going shirtless Bened1ctCumberbatch I’ve got to rush off to the premiere now, but thanks for your questions and sorry for not being able to answer more of them! Also, sorry for not dealing with the more political ones – it’s hard to do them justice in such a short time. Scott McLennan asks: A hypothetical for you, Benedict: after witnessing your polished performance of Comfortably Numb with Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour last month, your all-time favourite act comes to you asking you to perform with them the song you’ve always dreamed of singing live in front of a massive audience. What song do you choose? Bened1ctCumberbatch David texted me – I resisted for a while, especially because of those who had gone before – David Bowie and Kate Bush, among the legends. But then I realised I’d probably regret not standing beside him listening to him playing the body of the song, singing like a dream, more than I’d regret doing something out of my comfort zone! Simother Simother I love Mads Mikkelsen, what was it lime to work with him in Dr Strange? You worked with his brother is Sherlock, do you have a favourite out of the two? How are they different as actors? Bened1ctCumberbatch I do not have a favourite. They’re both wickedly cool and fantastically talented. What a family! I loved working with Mads. He was a gentleman, especially when it came to the fights. It was always about making it better than making himself look good – which he does flawlessly, I might add! Simother asks: I was wondering whether you “build” a role up with backstories etc? Carice van Houten f.i. says that she just turns up and says the lines. A while ago you played an American (Johnny Depp’s brother; forgot the name of the movie, sorry) one of the things I notice between American and English is that English is quite precise and requires a lot more strength from the muscles in one’s mouth. Do you prepare for things like that? You play a lot of parts in a short amount of time (I don’t know if you still do that since you have a family), if you do work with a backstory (as well as learn your lines) what do you do if you do do that and how long does that take you, in general? Also how do you “take your self” out of the character? For instance, when you played Stephen Hawking, given the physical aspect of that part, in that moment it is your body who is bringing that into expression, but it might not be comfortable, how do you separate these things? Anyhow, I love your work and how broad it is. Bened1ctCumberbatch Yes, I do build up a backstory in my head even if it’s just for me. I remember asking Steven Moffatt what his backstory was for Sherlock – “Oh, he’s just brilliant!” was his response. That’s lasted until this series, where you’ll find out a lot more about his backstory. As far as preparation goes, it’s important to understand the who, what, where, why of the character before you meet him. That helps the character employ those tactics for whatever action they’re trying to perform, which can necessitate a limit of choice as well as a discovery of new things to be learned as an actor to portray the character with. For example, a character I played in a Martin Crimp play called The City at the Royal Court, was describing an incident where he was humiliated in his new job to his wife, and I began to characterise the voices in his story when Katie Mitchell [director] pointed out that it was unlikely he would have the confidence to do that as opposed to me, because I could. Those differentiations are vital, but often (and this really ain’t no humblebrag) I’m chasing the tailcoats of my character’s abilities, whether it’s their intelligence or professional excellence, or even their ability to sing/play piano/ride a horse/paint some of the great works of modern art! All these things require a heavy tutoring in new skill sets, one of the many privileges of our job, ie getting to learn new stuff and continuing with a form of further education, I suppose. And the results, while varied, sometimes work, but it’s all smoke and mirrors, and I often feel like a horrible fraudster. I think the worst is when I played violin as Sherlock – a skill that takes years of childhood and adolescent practice time. I’m feeling at this point that Alan drew some short straw in an office competition – while (forgive me) your question is long, my answer is more verbose and I’m worrying for his fingers! But just to finish, vocal and physical differences, prep of any sort, work on a backstory, learning a skill, all has to be given time and when it isn’t you run into generalising, and I’m fully aware I’ve done that on occasion, and so aim to create enough space around my work so there is enough space between roles and I have enough time to honour the tasks each present me with. Your last part of the question ... I have a lot to distract me that is away from my work and things that are more important, namely my family, so whether it’s through them or a little bit of exercise and fresh air, reconnecting with friends and stepping outside the bubble, I do manage to disconnect and disentangle myself from my work. I think that’s as important for everyone around me as myself to be able to do. Paper_Cranes asks: What book are you reading at the moment? Bened1ctCumberbatch A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara and an Edison biography by Paul Israel, and Doctor Strange – Strange Tales Volume 2 Collected Comics. PixieBlue asks: Christopher and Valentine [Parade’s End] – would they have had a happy life together in the end? The book suggests yes, but what do you think? Bened1ctCumberbatch I think the book suggested not, actually? I think they had quite a tempestuous relationship, but I may be remembering wrong. LauraJukes asks: Do you ever ask for input on characterisation choices from your friends and family or is it quite a solitary process? Bened1ctCumberbatch Yes, of course there is an element where I trust their good taste, but it’s never solitary. This is such a collaborative process. Kevin Feige and Scott Derrickson were incredibly open to improvisations and alterations and I’m fine with giving choices for editors and directors to use or not use. TejaSwan asks: As an actor what kind of intellectual/physical challenges have you encountered in portraying Doctor Strange? Does the character have any characteristics that resonate with your personal beliefs? Bened1ctCumberbatch There were a lot of physical challenges to playing this role that involved the usual fitness regime and dietary discipline which I won’t bore you with, but was certainly a help when it came to the obligatory shirtless moment. Beyond that need for a certain aesthetic, I really did need to get fit to keep healthy and also to do the kung fu fight sequences, car chases and aerial acrobatics in wires and on the gravity rig we use for what we term the Magical Mystery Tour moment where the Ancient One sends Strange on a trip through the multiverse. Intellectually, I read, talked to and watched (on YouTube) neurosurgeons at work – what a fascinating area of medical science, dealing in ethical as much as medical complexities. I read two fascinating, heartbreaking and inspiring books – Dr Marsh’s Do No Harm and When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi. Highly recommended reads whatever your interests, as both are beautiful and profound insights into human nature as much as their chosen professions and particular experiences. albert23 asks: Do you worry about over-exposure? (Side question: do you need a rest?) Wasn’t it odd there was once a sitcom where Sherlock Holmes’ dad was Dr House, and his dad’s partner Dr Who? What role should Anna Chancellor now be playing? Thanks for your concern – not in terms of my work, but maybe the demands of publicity or the idea that I’m permanently trying to sell something when I’m not working, which isn’t true. I have had a nice rest of late and it was much needed, so sorry to be bombarding your airwaves with this film arriving! It must get very tedious, but apparently there is a choice for you out there and you don’t have to listen to it, read it, worry about it. But I thank you for your concern! Anna C should play ... Mrs Hudson? I don’t know. Xanthe 2d asks: Do you ever wish that you could have played Hamlet before you became so well known? Bened1ctCumberbatch That’s a very good question. I didn’t find fame a hindrance in rehearsals and discovering the part with the extraordinary Lyndsay Turner and our immensely talented cast, and I might not have been able to play the role earlier in my career anyway. I wanted it to be generous as far as the amount of people who saw it, hence the scale of the production, and NT Live broadcasting it to cinemas then and still now, on occasion, so if my fame was seen as a negative because of early reviews or overzealous fans filming it, I really didn’t let that bother me for the three months of the extraordinary experience playing this most demanding of all roles. My memories are overwhelmingly positive from that experience. Fame is a funny fish, and while I respect the criticism that “you ask for it mate, you’re an actor”, I appreciate the fact that it’s possible to be famous for your work, and if your fame intrudes on that, it can be difficult. Despite a slow news cycle during a long summer, even though there were important things happening in the world and that becoming some kind of headline, as far as my day to day in rehearsing, performing and the whole production of Hamlet, it didn’t tip the focus in a direction that was negative for long enough to have a negative effect. Sorry, I am speaking so slowly to aid Alan, who is typing furiously that I’m having difficulty remembering what I’m saying at the beginning of my sentences – it’s not Alan’s fault! And it’s not Alan Rusbridger, in case you were wondering Dzh Akhmedova asks: Hello, mr Benedict! What is your favourite coffee? Bened1ctCumberbatch A flat white, but I also like black with no sugar. AriaVerner18 asks: I adore Your acting skills (both on the screen, and in theatre), I hope You for a long time will please us with new roles! I have a question: whether you have a favourite holiday and why? And also, whether something has changed for you after a role of Doctor Strange? Forgive mistakes in the text. :) Bened1ctCumberbatch I don’t do favourites, but it has to be the last one I had with my family all together in Mauritius, a beautiful country and beautiful people. Elizabeth_Bezushko asks: Which detail is your favourite in Dr Strange’s clothing? Bened1ctCumberbatch The cloak of levitation – we’ve got a good thing going and it has a large look out for me and I for it. We’re beginning to work well together now, although it was a difficult start to the relationship – it going one way, me going another – it going on meal breaks when I needed to be in front of the camera and one or two contractual issues. But now we’re very happy partners in crime. LauraJukes asks: What is your favourite thing about theatre work? (Can I also just say Hamlet was an incredible production and I feel privileged to have witnessed it live!) Bened1ctCumberbatch Thank you very much! My favourite thing is the immediacy of communication and the tightrope walk of being live, added to which playing an entire character arc in a short time is something you crave after filming. Equally, you crave the intimacy of a camera after a lot of exposure to live audiences, so I like to mix it up. Carlos Montgomery asks: What two characters have you played that you believe would like each other as friends? Bened1ctCumberbatch That’s a very good question – none, I think! They all have very different worldviews and are enjoyable to play because of that, but I suppose good friendships can survive that. aruaiman05 asks: I’m from Kazakhstan. It may sound random, but what is your favourite dish? Thank you very much! Bened1ctCumberbatch: I don’t do favourites, but some dim sum I had recently in Hong Kong was extraordinarily good! elisalong asks: I consider you to be one of the most talented and greatest actors of the recent era. What advice would you give to those seeking to enter the acting profession? Thank you for your time and I hope you rock your socks off in Doctor Strange! Bened1ctCumberbatch I’d be my baby boy, to understand what he thinks of the world, what we’re sjowing him of it, and to understand if we’re doing all right as parents. serina miller asks: Is doing a musical is on your bucket list, because you will be an incredible Phantom in the Phantom of the Opera, also Sir James in Finding Neverland! Bened1ctCumberbatch It is on my bucket list – but like a lot of things I don’t have a specific role in mind. I’ll have a think! Hooray! Benedict is with us now! Three minutes, we’re told … Message from our reporter Alan Evans: Benedict is currently running late in another interview – but’s he’s on his way. While we’re waiting, here’s the review of Doctor Strange we published earlier. Following an award-winning breakthrough on stage as Frankenstein, Benedict Cumberbatch has taken on everything from period dramas (Parade’s End, The Imitation Game) to Shakespeare (Hamlet, Richard III) and thrillers (Tinker Tailer Soldier Spy, Black Mass); he’s worked with Steven Spielberg and Steve McQueen, and played characters as varied as Stephen Hawking, Vincent Van Gogh and Julian Assange. Click here to read your questions, Benedict will be joining us very soon …
We are perfectly positioned within Europe. Why change it? ‘We should miss Britain a lot. But Britain would miss the European Union even more.” The speaker was a senior member of the Italian government, in response to a question about the attitude of Italians to the thorny issue of Brexit. The occasion was the annual Venice Seminar, where members of the Italian government speak frankly, but not for direct attribution, on the political and economic scene. For many years the views expressed at those seminars about the Italian economy have been a triumph of hope over experience. For example, the Italian economy managed, after the initial impact of the great recession of 2008-10, to contract further in 2011 and 2012 when even the British economy was beginning to recover. There was then a period of flatlining during which optimistic forecasts were offered to us, but never fulfilled, as Italians hung on to their substantial savings and spent little. It now looks as though Italian “consumers” – ie citizens – are dipping into their savings and the economy is finally growing again, assisted by various measures which it is claimed have boosted confidence. There is also, of course, the beneficial impact on real incomes of the lower price of oil. At a time when much of the gloom and doom emanating from Davos stems from the impact on the finances of oil-exporting nations, the bonus to oil-importing nations seems to have been underestimated. I hope I am not alone in being slightly surprised that, after the serious recessions experienced in the west and Japan as a consequence of the two oil shocks of the 1970s – when huge increases in the price removed purchasing power and caused a serious inflationary spiral – the reverse movement in oil prices should also be considered an all-round disaster. There are winners and losers. Apart from anything else, the impact on inflation is such that policymakers have a lot of scope to relax fiscal policy without in any way breaching their inflation targets. Italian ministers and officials are rightly calling for greater flexibility from Brussels with regard to fiscal rules on taxation and public spending. They feel they have gone a long way in meeting cries for “structural reform” of the economy, although there is no doubt plenty of scope for more. Meanwhile, as prime minister Matteo Renzi points out: “The EU fixation on austerity is actually destroying growth.” The difference drawn by Italian officials between current attitudes towards the EU in the UK and Italy is between “Euroscepticism” in the UK and “Eurocriticism” in Italy. (Edward Heath, who, as prime minister, took us into what was then the European Economic Community in 1973, had another word to describe the anti-Europeans in his party: “Euroseptics”, pronounced with some venom.) The Italian government is already preparing for a conference in Rome next year to mark the 60th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Rome in 1957. Amid the travails of countries such as Spain and Italy during an economic crisis caused by the financial crash and exacerbated by the structure of the eurozone and its policies, the continued devotion to the euro has often puzzled outsiders. In that respect, it is interesting to see that our own prime minister, after some ambivalence, has adopted the view I first heard from George Soros: namely that by being a member of the EU but not of the eurozone or the Schengen agreement – passport-free movement in continental Europe – the UK has “the best of both worlds”. More than 60 years have passed since the Messina conference of 1955, where the groundwork for the Treaty of Rome was prepared, but which prime minister Anthony Eden refused to attend. His more enlightened successors spent most of the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s trying to persuade the French that we wanted to rectify Eden’s mistake. It is difficult for many of us who followed all the shenanigans – including the successive “No’s” from President de Gaulle – to believe that, at a time when there are so many pressing problems that require pan-European cooperation, the Conservative party should be so obsessed with Brexit. From now until the referendum, the public are going to be bombarded with statistics from both sides. It will not be the end of the world if we leave, but it will almost certainly be the end of the UK, on the reasonable assumption that Scotland would want to break away. The idea that we should tear up treaty arrangements negotiated over decades, and then renegotiate from a position of bargaining weakness, almost beggars belief. Moreover, it is an ill-founded scare story that if we remain in the EU we are destined to participate in a political union. The others know our position and accept it, but are quite happy to go along with a Cameron claim that this reality is the result of triumphant negotiations on his part. There is endless reading available on the pros and cons of being in or out, but one highly readable book is Brexit by Denis MacShane, who was minister for Europe in the Blair government. It is subtitled “How Britain Will Leave Europe” but that is a publisher’s come-on. MacShane hopes it won’t happen, but fears it will unless the pro-Europeans get their act together. My own view is that the British remain essentially conservative with a very small “c” and, other things being equal, would balk at such a retrograde step. But the opinion polls are worrying for us pro-Europeans, and the prime minister, although now apparently having stood up to be counted, is terrified of how migration will affect public opinion. I therefore draw solace from the fact that last week the odds at William Hill were 2-5 for a vote to stay in and 9-5 for Brexit. The big question is: will voters follow the money in the end?
Public bodies made 1,119 errors in use of phone and web data in 2015 Seventeen people were wrongfully arrested or had their homes searched last year as a result of serious errors made by the police and security services after they had accessed confidential web and phone data, an official watchdog has revealed. More than 760,000 items of communications data, which track an individual’s phone and web use, were acquired by police or security services in 2015, according to the annual report of Sir Stanley Burnton, the interception of communications commissioner. The report, published on Thursday, reveals 1,119 errors made by public authorities in their use of communications data in the calendar year – a 20% increase on 2014. The watchdog found 23 cases involving serious errors, including nine “technical system errors” that led to 2,036 “erroneous disclosures”. The remaining 14 serious cases were the result of human error. Burnton’s annual report says the serious errors led to 17 cases in which people who were unconnected to a police investigation were either arrested or had property searched that had nothing to do with the inquiry. A further six innocent people were visited by police as a result of errors and there were delays to welfare checks on seven vulnerable people. The watchdog also identified four cases in which communications data was acquired to identify a journalist’s source without judicial authorisation. In one high-profile case, the watchdog found that Police Scotland had acted recklessly after the individuals concerned complained to the investigatory powers tribunal. In the other three cases the commissioner ruled that the conduct was “not wilful or reckless” and “did not adversely affect any individual significantly”. Burnton says 145 public authorities had access to confidential data in 2015; 93.7% of applications were made by police forces and law enforcement agencies. The security services were responsible for a further 5.7% of requests and local authorities and other public bodies for the remaining 0.6%. The report criticises the prison service for not having an adequate translation strategy in place to monitor the calls and correspondence of prisoners using foreign languages. “This was particularly relevant to those prisons with a high proportion of foreign national prisoners where a small number of inspections revealed that staff were being directed to listen to a large number of calls made in foreign languages but were not being provided with any guidance as to whether the calls should be translated,” Burnton said. “Consequently no benefit was being derived from the monitoring, which undermines the necessity and proportionality for it as the exercise cannot meet the objective for which monitoring was authorised.” The 761,702 “items of communications data” include “identifiers” such as mobile or landline numbers, email addresses or bank or credit card details. A request for incoming and outgoing call data on a particular mobile phone over 30 days is counted as one item of data. The watchdog also received 62 reports of errors related to the 3,059 interception warrants, which allow the police and security services to access the content of calls, emails, and other messages. These ranged from “over-collection and unauthorised selection or examination of material to the interception of the wrong communications identifier or failure to cancel an interception”. The prime minister, Theresa May, said Burnton’s report – and a second from the intelligence services commissioner – recognised the diligence and rigour of those who use investigatory powers to keep Britain safe. “Both reports contain details of the recommendations that the commissioners have made to continue to improve the way that these powers are used. The public authorities who have received these recommendations will be giving careful consideration to them and how to further improve their processes,” she said in a written statement to the Commons.
Lukewarm reception greets Chris Evans's revamped Top Gear Comparisons between Chris Evans’s and Jeremy Clarkson’s Top Gear are not appropriate, programme insiders said in the aftermath of disappointing viewing figures and tepid reviews for Sunday night’s debut of the relaunched show. The BBC2 programme attracted 4.4 million viewers – below the 5 million Evans had hoped for – but sources said that it was unfair to make judgements based on the first episode’s ratings because that did not take into account the impact of the bank holiday and the numbers catching up online. Evans himself insisted the programme was a “hit.” The presenter tweeted: “Top Gear audience grew throughout the hour. FACT. Won its slot. FACT. Still number one on i Player. FACT. These are THE FACTS folks”. The BBC released a supportive statement. Alan Tyler, its acting controller for entertainment commissioning, said that Evans and co-host Matt LeBlanc had “successfully kicked off a whole new era in style”. He added: “We are really looking forward to bringing our audiences even more thrills as the series continues.” Evans told the last week that he would be disappointed if the programme rated below 5 million, although that would be well below Top Gear’s historic viewer numbers. The last series, featuring Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond, averaged 6.4 million viewers. The BBC highlighted the fact that it gained viewers during the hour-long broadcast. A spokesperson added that, by Monday afternoon, Top Gear was the most popular show on iPlayer, with about half a million online views after the BBC2 broadcast, while spin-off show Extra Gear, fronted by motoring journalists Rory Reid and Chris Harris, was the second most watched. Reviews for the first episode were mixed, with some praise for its attempt to stick to the previous incarnation’s format but others lambasting it as a poor attempt to imitate Clarkson and co, who are making their own motoring programme with Amazon. There was criticism of the lack of chemistry between Evans and LeBlanc, though the response to racing driver Sabine Schmitz was broadly positive. The Mail was scathing, describing the revamp as “at best like watching a Top Gear tribute band performing one of those unfunny celebrity sketches on Comic Relief ... It was so bad you could practically hear the champagne corks popping at Amazon HQ”. Andrew Billen in the Times was not convinced by the rapport between Evans and LeBlanc: “Chemistry was what we were looking for here, but their badinage was no more than passable offcuts from an unmade transatlantic buddy movie.” His two-star review concluded: “Would we buy a used car show from this man? On this debut, only after some serious tweaking.” One person close to the production said that comparing Evans’ debut on a warm bank holiday to previous series of Top Gear, which normally aired in winter, early spring or autumn, was “comparing oranges and spanners”. The most recent series shown during the summer launched in June 2013, and attracted 5 million viewers for the opening episode. “It will take time as we know, but comparing volume figures for last night is a little bit unfair,” said the person, who asked not to be named. “There’s plenty for Chris and the chaps to build on. It was after all the very first show. It has plenty of room and time to ‎ breathe and develop.” A bright spot for most was the performance of racing driver Sabine Schmitz and Evans’ decision to drop some of Clarkson’s blokeish demeanour. The Mirror said that even Clarkson’s “most sulky fans” should find a lot to like about the show after his departure and the Telegraph welcomed the new team’s conservative approach. Its four-star review said: “Given time to bed in, there’s little doubt that we will warm to the new regime. This time next year, most people – especially those who don’t subscribe to Amazon – will probably have forgotten what all the fuss was about.” There have been numerous reports that Evans and LeBlanc do not get on, but the former Friends star has dismissed the claims as a “big load of bullshit”, adding that he “didn’t anticipate the ruthlessness of the British press”.
Facebook and other platforms 'will rob UK news industry of £450m by 2026' Platforms such as Facebook will suck as much as £450m out of the UK news industry in a decade’s time, according to a new forecast. A report by strategy consultants OC&C predicts that news producers, especially newspapers, are still to feel the full impact of the shift by younger generations to using social media to find their news. OC&C says that, based on the impact of platforms on other mature media markets such as music, about 30% of annual digital revenue could go to platforms. That would mean the likes of Facebook and Apple taking between £200m and £250m a year this year, rising to between £400m and £450m from 2026. The organisation says that the impact will be felt in both digital advertising, where platforms are already taking a 30% cut to sell ads for publishers on content such as Facebook’s Instant Articles and on Apple News, and in subscriptions. Though many publishers with successful digital subscriptions such as the Financial Times and the New York Times do not currently sell the majority of such products through platforms, OC&C predicts that will become more common in the future. The £450m OC&C says will be taken by platforms comes on top of continuing disruption to news from the shift to digital that has already cost the UK industry almost half its total revenue – about £3.5bn – over the past decade, and will see further falls as digital ads and subscriptions fail to make up for lost print advertising and sales. The report says: “Most of this would hit the bottom line directly, presenting another challenge to the industry’s finances – and could force brands that have been household names for decades or even centuries to close or radically reinvent themselves.” The report also says that while more than two-thirds of over-55s still go straight to trusted news brands, about 41% of those under 34 use social media and other platforms as their primary way of getting news. The report says: “These stark generational differences suggest a future in which platforms displace trusted brands as the key link between news content and audiences.” OC&C associate partner Toby Chapman added: “The behavioural shift is kind of inevitable ... you can’t just close your ears and pretend it isn’t happening.” The report also warns that the shift to consuming through platforms presents other challenges for news provides beyond lost revenue, with news organisations reduced to mere financiers of journalism that appears elsewhere. Despite the bleak picture painted by the report, its authors say there are a number of measures news publishers can take to mitigate the impact of the shift to consumption on platforms. These include making sure their brand is prominent, both to stand out and to bring people to their own sites, and making the most of partnerships with platforms. They also suggest collaborating with other news organisations and lobbying government for protection. Chapman said: “There’s not doubt this is a bit of a warning signal for the industry, and needs to be treated seriously, but it’s not a foregone conclusion. What happened in music does not need to be what happens in news.”
Saturday Night Live: Trump played as a pawn while Clinton goes all Love, Actually Maybe it’s the promise of a nice long vacation, or maybe it’s having a nice thematic hook to hang their sketches on, but Saturday Night Live tends to excel at its Christmas episodes. Thanks to some over-long football and an inconsistent livestream, my viewing of this week’s SNL wasn’t quite as linear or complete as I would have hoped, but there was clearly plenty of funny in the week’s show. The cold open began with a recap of Donald Trump’s recent cabinet picks, but that was quickly glossed over for a visit from Vladimir Putin (as always, shirtless), who snuck down Trump’s chimney to “state officially” that Trump is Russia’s Manchurian candidate. After gifting the president-elect with a suspicious-looking Elf on the Shelf, John Goodman arrived with an inspired take on Rex Tillerson, Trump’s nominee for secretary of state, who has a literal secret handshake with Putin and a firm plan for expanding oil drilling in Russia. As has become standard in these Trump sketches, Kate McKinnon’s Kellyanne Conway got the best line – she promised not to go too far away because, she acknowledges: “I’m handcuffed to you for all of history.” While the show has, in the past, focused on Trump’s seeming incompetence, here the writers doubled down on the president-elect as a pawn, not even getting to say “live from New York” before Putin and Tillerson beat him to the punch. Casey Affleck’s self-deprecating monologue acknowledged that he seemed an anti-climactic host for this special pre-Christmas episode (and his awful scraggly beard was also smartly acknowledged). With some support from Alec Baldwin and Goodman, he vowed not to sing about Christmas, a welcome relief from the excess of musical monologues the show has been serving up in recent years. My livestream skipped before I could see whether he held fast to his non-singing vow; one can only hope. While singing monologues are often a weak spot on the show, I have long been an evangelist of SNL’s Christmas-themed musical numbers – “Santa’s My Boyfriend”, “Dick in a Box”, and “Twin Bed” remain all-time classics. This year, they delivered again; a pre-tape with Kenan Thompson and musical guest Chance the Rapper resurrected some classic hip-hop for an ode to Barack Obama’s final Christmas as president. Celebrating the “first and maybe last black president”, the duo rapped about birth control and legal weed under the tree, with a guest verse about Leslie Jones’s love/lust for Joe Biden. It was catchy and clever and current, and I’ll have it stuck in my head all week. Weekend Update had a strong turn this week, with Michael Che comparing the meeting of Trump and Kanye West to the baffling mash-up of Scooby-Doo and the Harlem Globetrotters, while Colin Jost theorized that Trump chose Tillerson for secretary of state “because he was three cents cheaper than the Chevron CEO across the street”. And Fred Armisen and Vanessa Bayer resurrected their back-talking best friend characters as childhood buddies of Putin for a delightfully bitchy take on the Russian president. Despite her relatively low profile, SNL seems preoccupied with Hillary Clinton, or at the very least, with looking for excuses for McKinnon to resurrect her brilliant impression. This week featured a spoof of the only scene of Love, Actually that we’ve all seen (the one with the cue cards), wherein Clinton tries to secretly convince an elector to vote for anyone other than Trump when the electoral college votes on Monday. “Tom Hanks,” she urges. “The Rock. A rock.” While it wasn’t perfect – one late sketch featuring a trio of horny elves was equally confusing and unfunny – it was definitely an above-average turn for the series. There were some egregious examples of product placement – Dunkin’ Donuts and Microsoft – but they’re working on fitting them in more seamlessly. Maybe during the break, the show will figure out a longer-term strategy for their Trump impression, since Baldwin would presumably like his Saturday nights back at some point. And given the pace of news this year, the show’s writers will have a lot of catching up to do when they return in mid-January.
Twelve new arrests over Cliven Bundy standoff include Trump campaigner The FBI escalated its investigation into Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy’s 2014 standoff with the federal government Thursday with sweeping raids across the country that resulted in 12 arrests, including that of a Donald Trump campaign coalition co-chair in New Hampshire. Two of Bundy’s sons were also among those arrested, amid signs that federal authorities are ramping up their efforts against the ultra-conservative, anti-government movement that also inspired the armed standoff in Oregon earlier this year. Cliven Bundy had long refused to pay fees to the government to allow his cattle to graze on federally controlled public lands – a dispute that escalated to an armed standoff in 2014 when officials tried to seize his livestock. Hundreds of anti-government activists, some heavily armed, flocked to Bunkerville to support the Bundys, and the government ultimately backed down. A federal grand jury last month indicted Cliven, 69, and his two sons Ammon, 40, and Ryan, 43, on a slew of felony offenses – including armed assault of law enforcement officials and conspiracy against the government – for the high-profile land-use dispute at the Bundy ranch in Bunkerville, Nevada. The latest arrests mean five members of the Bundy family, Cliven included, are in jail awaiting trial. If convicted, they could each face decades in prison. Ammon and Ryan Bundy have also been indicted over the standoff in Oregon, which lasted 41 days. Now two more sons of Cliven – Davey, 39, and Mel, 41 – have also been arrested in a coordinated operation that also involved the arrest of Jerry DeLemus, a 61-year-old New Hampshire co-chair for Trump, the Republican presidential frontrunner. Those three, along with 11 other new defendants, now face prosecution for their participation in the conflict over government land restrictions. The charges include conspiracy to impede and injure federal law enforcement officers, threatening and assaulting officers, obstruction of justice, interfering with interstate commerce by extortion, and use of firearms for a violent crime. The stunning turn of events on Thursday brought the total number of defendants in the case to 19 and indicates that federal prosecutors are aggressively targeting the Bundy family and their rightwing supporters who have for years protested against the federal government’s regulations on public lands. But in February, FBI officials arrested Cliven Bundy while he was on his way to Oregon to support an anti-government militia that had seized the Malheur national wildlife refuge to protest about the federal government’s treatment of local ranchers. His sons Ammon and Ryan led this year’s takeover of federal lands in Oregon, which began on 2 January and dragged on for more than a month before the final holdouts surrendered to the FBI. Ammon, Ryan and five other men are now facing felony charges in both the Nevada and Oregon cases and could end up with significant prison time if they are ultimately convicted. Shiree Bundy, older sister of Davey and Mel, told the that Davey was arrested on Thursday morning in his hometown of Delta, Utah. “Anyone who knows my brother [Davey] knows he is the most sweet, calm guy. He is a good person, a father, a husband, a hard worker,” said Shiree, 45, who lives in Orderville, Utah. “He wouldn’t hurt anybody.” Davey was present in Bunkerville during the 2014 standoff – like many in the family who returned to the ranch to support their father – but he was never violent, according to Shiree. “He stood there with my brothers as they asked them to let our cattle go,” she said. “He didn’t even have a gun on him.” When the standoff intensified in April 2014, Davey was briefly arrested and cited on misdemeanor charges of “refusing to disperse”. “They had nothing to hold him on then, and they can’t have anything on him now,” said Shiree, who noted that Davey runs a construction company and has six children, ages one to 14. This year Davey also told Ammon and Ryan that he was not willing to risk arrest and join them in Oregon, according to Shiree. “When they said, ‘You should be up here,’ Davey said, ‘I’m not going to go to jail again. I have a family and kids to take care of.’” Mel’s wife, Briana Bundy, said in a brief phone interview that her husband was arrested Thursday and that she didn’t know what charges he is facing. “I don’t have anything to say except wake the hell up, America. It’s time to decide what side of the line you’re on,” said Briana, 30, who lives in Nevada and has five children, including a newborn baby. “I have my life to figure out. I have five kids now with no provider.” Mel was present at the Oregon occupation at the beginning of the standoff, but he was not one of the 25 people recently indicted in the Malheur wildlife refuge case. “All we were doing was protecting our property,” Mel said in an interview with the last month. “The federal government has overstepped its bounds.” Cliven, Ammon and Ryan have all been denied bail and remain behind bars. DeLemus, a Tea Party activist, was present at the 2014 standoff and also traveled to the Oregon occupation this year. The interviewed DeLemus on multiple occasions at the Oregon refuge in January, and the rightwing activist repeatedly said he was there to try to help negotiate a peaceful resolution. Last July, Trump announced DeLemus as a co-chair of his “Veterans for Trump” coalition in New Hampshire. His wife, Susan DeLemus, a Republican state representative, did not respond to requests for comment on Thursday. DeLemus also made headlines last year when he proposed a “Draw Muhammad” art contest as part of an anti-Muslim demonstration. A Trump spokesperson did not immediately respond to request for comment. Two of the defendants newly charged this week – Brian Cavalier and Blaine Cooper – are already in federal custody in Oregon for their roles in the Malheur case. “This investigation began the day after the assault against federal law enforcement officers and continues to this day,” US attorney Daniel Bogden said in a statement. “We will continue to work to identify the assaulters and their role in the assault and the aftermath, in order to ensure that justice is served.” The new grand jury indictment includes defendants from Nevada, Utah, Idaho, Arizona, Oklahoma and New Hampshire.
Watch the reworked video for David Bowie's Life on Mars RCA had decided to release Life on Mars as a single. David called me – if he wanted me to make a video, he’d call me one or two nights before – and said we needed to get another video together. He liked to do them, and so did I – not that there was any budget. I somehow got hold of a completely white studio and that dictated the concept – it was as simple as that. We showed up around noon, because none of us liked to start too early. As a cameraman, I had the guy who had shot the John, I’m Only Dancing video the year before, on stage at the Rainbow theatre. I was second cameraman. David looked amazing in his blue suit – it was made by his mate Freddie Burretti, who made the Ziggy costume. Pierre Laroche, who also worked on the Aladdin Sane cover, did the great makeup. And there we were – we just shot for no more than five hours, and then I had a couple of days to do an edit. We never had time to discuss any concept. And David never asked me to change anything. He was a very positive person to work with, very encouraging – he had the ability to get people to do great things for him. He took direction very well. He was willing to do whatever you wanted him to do. I never found him resistant in any way, and he brought his charisma to the table. If he wanted to work with someone, he would let them get on with it. He would ask: “What do you want me to do, Mick?” And then he would do his thing. It was never like pulling teeth with David, it was like pulling gems. I had an amazing subject and an amazing song – this was the song that had turned me on to David – so what else did I need? David never looked like this at any other time. He never wore that suit again, never had that makeup on again. He never looked more amazing – like a space doll. When his videos got inducted into the Museum of Modern Art in New York, this was the one that everyone stood for – there were no distractions, no dancing girls, just David. At the time it was hardly seen at all, and it gathered some serious moss. In the late 90s, David gave me the copyrights for the four videos I had made for him, because I had never been paid for them – not that I had looked for any money. So when Parlophone contacted me about re-editing it I said: absolutely. I had a little gem and I wanted to polish it into a state where it was absolutely perfect. I had the black and white segments, and when I came across that very last bit after the music stopped, I thought it was a little gift, so I made it into an epilogue. People like the original video, but I think this version takes it to another level. The scenes really add a new flavour for it. I’m really happy with it, and I’m interested to see what the fans make of it. David Bowie Legacy is released 11 November on Parlophone.
Thank God for the '@' symbol I can remember the days when I humorously used the “@” symbol on my typewriter or computer keyboard to avoid using actual swear words. This admission outs me as, well, old – and thus separates me from the millions of people for whom “@” has always and ever been the symbol for “at” in an email address. Raymond Tomlinson, the computer programmer who put that symbol into the email address, before the email address was even called the email address, as it happens, died at the too-early age of 74 last Saturday. He may well have been an intimidatingly brilliant man in every other respect of his life, but at his passing, he is being celebrated for doing precisely one thing. That is: for executing a keystroke of genius. Tomlinson did not invent email. But by creating a system in which a user name was separated from a network destination by the “at” sign he invented email that would not intimidate an ordinary person. A slightly earlier email scheme would send messages to numbered mailboxes, and you can understand why this would not sit well with the general population. In America and the rest of the world, being identified by a number is emblematic of losing one’s identity. It’s like that old Johnny Rivers lyric: “They’ve given you a number/ and taken away your name.” Sure, American citizens like their social security numbers, but they’re taught not to share them with just anybody. By keeping them closely guarded they get a payout in their golden years, or at least that’s how it’s supposed to work. In any event, I think we can all agree that email-by-identity-number sounds like something you’d encounter in a dystopian Orwellian nightmare scenario of the 1950s. Email by name, even goofy fake name, maybe especially goofy fake name, is friendly, personal, unpretentious. But that wasn’t what motivated Tomlinson to use the symbol. According to his obituary in the New York Times, what initially attracted Tomlinson to “@” was its sheer availability. The symbol was not present in the user names for the internet precursor he was working with in the early 70s, Arpanet. Despite the tendency of coders to use oodles and oodles of typographical symbols whose significance cannot be grasped by mere non-programming mortals, the symbol at the time had no meaning in the programming Tomlinson was doing. So, as Mount Everest once was “there” for George Mallory, so the “at” symbol was there for Tomlinson. I call it a keystroke of genius because I do remember first using email in the early 1990s. A lot of the times when you’re dealing with new technology, it’s kind of a pain in the cognitive muscles to remember how to do it because it just doesn’t make sense. A particularly petty-seeming example of this is putting a “1” in front of a US telephone area code when making a call. Older phone users, again, like me, reflexively bristle: “When did the area code itself stop being enough?” When I first started on AOL, and then when I went to work as a consultant for CompuServe in the mid 90s, working on a project that was going to blow AOL out of the water (you can guess how that turned out), the email address system of a user name followed by an “at” symbol followed by a destination name seemed so easy and intuitive as to feel natural. And this turned out to be the case even in countries where the “@” had been nothing. Tomlinson’s available symbol also made perfect sense as regular person syntax, something that doesn’t happen all that often. For making an action undertaken on a computer seem as intuitive (almost) as drawing breath, Raymond Tomlinson deserves all the salutes.
Children with cataracts regain sight after radical stem cell treatment A dozen infants who were born with cataracts have regained their sight after scientists used a radical new stem cell therapy to regenerate healthy lenses in their eyes. The children, all aged under two, are the first to receive the treatment for a condition that remains the most common cause of blindness in the world. The small-scale trial on babies and toddlers was approved soon after tests in animals found that the approach should both work and produce better results than conventional surgery. “The lens regenerated remarkably well,” said Kang Zhang who led the study at the Shiley Eye Institute at the University of California in San Diego. “We restored visual function and that implies that a clear lens has regenerated.” Doctors will now monitor the children to see whether their eyes develop normally, or grow fresh cataracts, a possibility if the stem cells that regenerated the lenses carry genetic faults that cause the lens-clouding condition. The feat was applauded by experts in the field, with Dusko Ilic, a stem cell scientist at King’s College London, calling the work “one of the finest achievements in the field of regenerative medicine.” “They proved it first by testing a new surgical approach in rabbits and primates before successfully treating 12 infants with congenital cataracts. It is science at its best,” he added. When children develop cataracts at birth or soon after, they can be treated by making a large incision at the front and back of the eye. The cloudy lens is then removed and replaced with a clear artificial one. But the surgery has a number of drawbacks. It can cause inflammation that complicates healing, and about half of the stem cells that protect the lens are destroyed in the process. A further problem is that the artificial lens cannot grow as the child does. In a series of elegant experiments, Zhang showed that stem cells found around the lens, known as lens epithelial stem cells, or LECs, can regenerate healthy lenses if they are not damaged during surgery. In animals studies, he found that minimally invasive surgery, which removed the lens without destroying a surrounding structure called the lens capsule, preserved the stem cells and allowed them to grow and form a new lens. To treat the children in the trial, surgeons made incisions no larger than 1.5mm in both of their eyes. They then removed the cloudy lenses, taking care to leave the lens capsules intact. The incisions healed in a month, and within three months, all of the children had regrown working lenses. When compared to 25 children who had conventional surgery, the dozen in the trial had clearer lenses, less inflammation and healed faster. Zhang, who describes his latest work in Nature, now plans to investigate whether a similar treatment can work for adults with cataracts. While replacement lenses are highly effective in older people with cataracts, many need glasses for driving or reading after surgery. In the UK, the NHS carries out more than 300,000 cataract operations a year. “This illustrates that there a can be a new approach. We can turn on own dormant stem cells. Just imagine how powerful this could be if we can do it for heart attacks, or turn on neuronal stem cells in the brain?” Zhang said. Graham McGeown at Queen’s University, Belfast, said the work was a clear “proof of principle” for an important new treatment for cataracts in children. “This new approach dramatically reduced the risk of sight-damaging side effects when compared with the current best practice treatment, which involves more destructive surgery followed by implantation of an artificial lens,” he said. “It is unclear, however, whether this would be of benefit in adults with cataracts, for whom current surgical techniques are usually successful.”
'Alice in Wonderland' NHS service let suicidal woman down, says coroner A coroner has criticised a national health service care system as “bonkers”, saying it let down a vulnerable and suicidal young mother who went on to kill herself. An inquest heard that Rebecca Kelsall, 31, had sought counselling for depression but did not receive adequate care and later took her own life. The coroner John Pollard said that rules within Britain’s mental healthcare regime had left Kelsall stranded without regular professional help. The inquest in Stockport, heard that Kelsall, who had two children, killed herself after NHS rules stopped health workers asking if she was ill, even though she had already told doctors she had been suicidal. Pollard described the rules as “bonkers”, adding that it was a NHS care system worthy of a “world in Alice in Wonderland”. In May 2015, Kelsall phoned a mental health clinic where she had received counselling to say she was too unwell to make an appointment. Later the same day Kelsall drank vodka and took antidepressants before hanging herself at her home in Stretford, Greater Manchester. During the inquest into her death it was revealed that Kelsall had sought help from an online therapist saying she was having suicidal thoughts. But she was told she would have to wait four weeks for a face-to-face meeting and in the interim she would no longer be able to seek help online. She eventually saw a psychologist and again said she had suicidal thoughts. She missed a subsequent consultation due to illness but staff were unable to ascertain the nature of her illness due to “policy” banning “personal questions”. After missing a further appointment Kelsall was dismissed from the health service and no effort was made to check on her welfare, the coroner heard. It emerged that Kelsall was already dead when she was formally discharged for being absent at the second meeting. At the inquest Pollard condemned the healthcare system which treated her, saying it was “flawed and poor”, and that she was a vulnerable person who should never have been discharged. Pollard said: “I believe that the fact somebody has already died and therefore cannot possibly attend their appointment is a pretty exceptional circumstance. This is very poor policy. This system has let her down. Here we have a vulnerable person with a history of problems, and because she doesn’t turn up the system simply says ‘discharge her’. There was no concern that a woman with problems and a history of suicidal thoughts didn’t attend. This seems to me to be a very flawed system. “I can’t understand why she was not asked why she was feeling unwell. If I rang the bank to say I wouldn’t be going in that day, I wouldn’t expect them to quiz me about it. But if I rang my doctor surgery, who should be solely concerned with my health, to tell them the same thing, I would expect them to ask me why I was poorly.” Pollard said he would be writing to NHS employers and the Care Quality Commission to express concern about Kelsall’s treatment. “I can feel myself slipping into the world of Alice in Wonderland here. This is a bonkers system. I shouldn’t have to use words like bonkers but I feel it’s appropriate here. People like Rebecca need a system they can rely on. She could have easily remained on the e-therapy system while waiting for cognitive behavioural therapy, and the only reason she didn’t is because the rules wouldn’t let her. This is something I am very concerned about and hope it will be addressed.’’ Kelsall sought professional help under the online system in September 2014. Rachel Jagger, a self-help coordinator for the website, said Kelsall said she was having suicidal thoughts once or twice week. “We had a discussion about how she had been feeling tearful, how her sleeping pattern had changed and how she was finding it hard to cope from one day to the next. She reported feeling an intense eight out of 10 intention of self harming. But the next time we spoke her intention of self harming had dropped to two out of 10, though she was having suicidal thoughts once or twice a week.” Jagger said that Kelsall went on to cancel two further online sessions and was told she could no longer have access to the online service and would have to wait four weeks for a face-to-face meeting. “I told her that I would rearrange an appointment for her, but due to policy it would be the last time I could do so before she would be discharged. She told me she was struggling to complete the tasks online and agreed that it would be best to arrange a face-to-face CBT session. “Unfortunately, due to our procedure we had to remove the option for her to access the online service because there would have been nobody available to support her. She was very concerned when we explained she would have to wait four weeks for this meeting.” Kelsall was referred to Samantha Fox, a psychological wellbeing practitioner, and had two consultations with her. Fox told the hearing that Kelsall had experienced relationship problems in the past and her low mood was preventing her from going to work and socialising with friends. She said: “This meant she was spending more time alone, giving her the chance to ruminate about things. She talked to me about her problem with alcohol consumption but that she felt it was something she was managing, and she also discussed her two failed relationships but never elaborated. I always felt it was difficult for her to discuss this matter, so I never knew much about it.” But Fox said Kelsall had failed to attend two further scheduled appointments, leading to her being discharged from the service. When asked by the coroner if Kelsall was contacted to find out why she was unwell, Fox said: “I do not believe that the admin department would ask a patient such a personal question about their health. If two or more appointments are missed, it is policy for us to send out a discharge letter. Unless there are extraordinary circumstances as to why they have been unable to attend, then they are notified that they have been dismissed from the service.” Kelsall was found dead on 31 May 2015 after her family raised concerns for her welfare. There was no suicide note. The coroner recorded an open verdict saying Kelsall might not have been “thinking clearly” at the time of her death. Her family were too upset to comment after the hearing. Vicki Nash, head of Mind’s policy and campaigns, said: “A third of suicides are among people known to NHS mental health services and it is vital that when people do seek help they get the support they need. No one in touch with services, asking for help, should reach the point of taking their own life. “NHS mental health services are under enormous pressure at the moment as funding cuts over recent years have come at a time of rising demand. As a result many people aren’t getting the right support at the right time, so they become more unwell and may reach crisis point. “We know that suicides among people in touch with crisis teams have increased, as have suicides among people sent out of the local area for care, often because of bed shortages. It is unacceptable that the very service there to help people in crisis is unable to support people in the right way and help them to recover. “This is why suicide prevention measures need to be accompanied by improvements to NHS mental health services. We have heard positive announcements in recent weeks about increased funding for mental health services. But without significant investment services … they won’t be able to start giving people the help they need, when they need it.” In the UK, the Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123. Website: www.samaritans.org In the US, National Suicide Prevention hotline: 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, crisis support service Lifeline: 13 11 14. Hotlines in other countries click here
Trump's balancing act: what to expect from his immigration speech Immigration has been one of Donald Trump’s signature issues since he announced his presidential campaign in June 2015. From the moment he got off the escalator at Trump Tower in New York and spoke about Mexico deliberately sending criminals and “rapists” to the United States and the need to build a wall on the southern border, Trump hasn’t stopped talking about immigration. But in his Wednesday speech on the topic in Phoenix – which will follow his surprise visit to Mexico – Trump will need to balance the hardline rhetoric he used throughout the Republican primary with the need to win a general election in November. Trump rode his hardline stance to victory in the primary. While his rivals refused to categorically rule out a path to legal status for any of the 11 million undocumented immigrants currently living in the United States, Trump talked about “a deportation force” to remove all of them within 18 to 24 months. However, the Republican nominee never worked out his plan in detail. The Trump campaign has divulged little on its actual policy, save a set of proposals dating back to August 2015. At almost every rally, Trump pledges that he will “build a wall and make Mexico pay for it”, but he has rarely gone into more detail. But, facing a general election where he has major deficits in the polls and is reviled by Latino voters, the Republican nominee has begun what he called a rhetorical “softening” in recent weeks, raising questions about whether he was ever sincere in his hardline stance. In the past week and a half, Trump seemingly endorsed a path to legal status for undocumented immigrants in an interview with Fox News’s Sean Hannity, only to reverse himself in an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper. The back and forth prompted conservative talk radio show host Rush Limbaugh to admit, “I never took him seriously” on immigration. Further, he announced late on Tuesday night that he would meet the Mexican president, Enrique Peña Nieto before the speech on Wednesday to discuss immigration. The ongoing furor has raised the stakes around Trump’s speech and stoked outrage about an apparent flip-flop. In a speech in Iowa on Saturday, Trump spoke about details from his August 2015 plan that had gone almost unmentioned since, including the implementation of E-Verify (an online system that allows businesses to screen employees’ work eligibility) nationwide as well as an exit-entry tracking system to prevent visa overstays. However, Trump dismissed the question of what to do with the 11 million illegal immigrants in the country, instead blaming the media: “In recent days, the media – as it usually does – has missed the whole point on immigration,” he said. “All the media wants to talk about is the 11 million or more people here illegally.” Mark Krikorian, a leading immigration hawk and head of the Center for Immigration Studies, bemoaned the fact that Trump has spent a “week and a half meandering” on immigration. Krikorian, who has met with Trump on the issue, said this “was especially absurd given that it’s a core, key issue. He’s running as ‘Mr Immigration Control’.” Krikorian told the he thought that Trump can only end up in the place where he actually started, “focusing on enforcement tools like E-Verify and tracking for visa holders”. The vocal immigration hawk thought “the question of what happens to illegal immigrants is secondary; [the] primary question is how we stop another 12 million people from coming here.” He noted that Trump was on record saying that some form of “amnesty” would always happen but that “a politician has no business talking like that and that’s the one most important thing that I am looking to not see, is some kind of guarantee or commitment of amnesty.” But he said that he was far less concerned about the wall, which “as a policy matter is not that important”. In the meantime, those on the right worried about a rhetorical softening did find some comfort from an interview that Trump’s son, Donald Jr, gave to CNN on Tuesday, in which he said that his father’s stance on undocumented immigrants was still the same and that all 11 million had to leave the country. But as longtime Trump adviser Roger Stone once said: “No one speaks for Donald Trump but Donald Trump.” The Republican nominee is scheduled to give his immigration speech at 6pm local time at the Phoenix Convention Center on Wednesday.
Google denies 'Tories are/Labour are' autocomplete 'conspiracy theories' Google has categorically denied “conspiracy theories” accusing it of censoring its search results to please the Conservative party in exchange for an agreement to pay just £130m in back taxes. The accusations stem from Google’s autocomplete function, which suggests search terms based on user input. The suggested searches are created algorithmically from previous searches on the topic. Users who enter “Labour are” are offered completed terms including “… finished”, “… a joke”, and “… right wing”. Similarly, entering “Lib Dems are” offers up “… finished”, “… pointless” and “… traitors”. But entering “Conservatives are” or “Tories are” offers no search suggestions at all. That prompted some to accuse Google of censoring its search terms to please the government. One reader, for instance, wrote to the paper to say that “in light of the recent tax scandal, it seems that the internet may be up for the right price”. Even the Daily Mail reported the conspiracy theories. A Google spokesperson told the that the company “can categorically state that tax is not remotely connected to this, nor are their ‘conspiracy theories’ founded in any way”. Instead, Google said: “Autocomplete predictions are produced based on a number of factors including the popularity of search terms.” So do searches for the Tories or Conservatives produce a different effect? Google offered a hint, saying: “We do remove offensive or inappropriate content from autocomplete predictions.” There’s even a web page where anyone can report offensive predictions. It could be that the search results for “Tories are” and “Conservatives are” were so bad that the terms were removed automatically because they were so offensive. A similar override occurs for searches including “Christians are”, “Jews are”. Interestingly, “Muslims are” offers just one autocomplete: “Muslims are not terrorists”. Or it could be the case that the Conservatives are better at reporting offensive terms than Labour or the Liberal Democrats – but a source close to the Conservative party told the it had not reported any offensive terms to Google. Meanwhile, other searches for the same party do autocomplete: “The Conservative party is” completes with “your enemy”. A search for “Tory party is” offers another part of the puzzle, autocompleting to “Conservative party is bad” – suggesting that Google treats the two terms as interchangeable.
Conservative MPs start voting in leadership contest Conservative MPs have started voting in the contest to decide who will be their next party leader and the country’s prime minister, with Theresa May a clear frontrunner among her parliamentary colleagues. The politicians can cast a vote between 11am and 6pm, with the candidate securing the least support – most likely to be Liam Fox – being knocked out on Tuesday evening when the results are announced. Boris Johnson intensified the battle on Monday evening by throwing his weight behind Andrea Leadsom, who he said offered “the zap, the drive, and the determination” that is needed to lead the country. The decision by the former London mayor to support the energy minister’s campaign is likely to draw more MPs to Leadsom, who is now the clear second favourite. “She has long championed the needs of the most vulnerable in our society. She has a better understanding of finance than almost anyone else in parliament. She has considerable experience of government. She is level-headed, kind, trustworthy, approachable and the possessor of a good sense of humour,” said Johnson. The former London mayor’s decision to back Leadsom, after his own hopes were scuppered by the last-minute decision of Michael Gove to abandon him and run himself, was described as “revenge served cold” by one MP. The dramatic events have put May well in the lead in parliament, with the public backing of well over 100 MPs, including 10 cabinet ministers, followed by Leadsom, with just under 40 MPs, and then Michael Gove and Stephen Crabb with over 20. The results will knock out the candidate with the least support, but others will then have until 9am on Wednesday to withdraw from the race if they believe that the first-round results are not strong enough to carry on. A second round will be carried out on Thursday, and a third session – if necessary – next Tuesday, with the final two candidates being put forward to a vote by the party’s grassroots members. On Monday night MPs in parliament were discussing who was most likely to come third between the justice secretary, Gove, and the work and pensions secretary, Crabb. Some were suggesting that Tuesday’s result could trigger tactical voting in the next round, as May supporters try to stop Leadsom from being put to the grassroots, after a ConservativeHome poll put the energy minister just ahead of the home secretary. Some worry about the backers that Leadsom has attracted from the right of the party – with arch Eurosceptics such as Bill Cash, John Redwood and Bernard Jenkin all lining up behind her. It comes after May was forced on to the defensive over whether EU citizens would be able to remain in the UK, after Leadsom guaranteed the rights of more than 3 million migrants during a speech to launch her campaign. “We must give them certainty; they will not be bargaining chips in our negotiations,” she said. Crabb and Gove have given similar assurances, as both sought to differentiate themselves from May. The home secretary responded at the start of a private Tory party hustings in parliament on Monday night by saying the issue would be dealt with in Brexit negotiations. She said she wanted to provide guarantees, but talks would also have to focus on protecting the rights of millions of British people living abroad. May told her party’s MPs that she wanted to take the issue head-on after a controversial session in parliament in which the immigration minister, James Brokenshire, faced criticism from Labour MPs and his party’s own benches as he laid out the government position. The hustings were followed by another session by the 2020 group of MPs, focused on how the Conservatives can secure a majority, who were able to watch each of the candidates in half-hour slots. There were also a number of Conservative MPs drinking in the House of Commons bars as many discussed how the leadership candidates had performed in the hustings. Some joked that Leadsom had lost them when she began to talk about “frontal lobes” and her “3 Bs – Brussels, banks and babies”. The reference was to the attachment theory between parents and newborns and the impact on brain development – something she is passionate about. Many said Gove and Fox performed best but said May got the warmest reception and described Crabb as solid. Many also went to a karaoke session in parliament organised by the deputy leader of the house, Therese Coffey, where dozens of MPs sang a variety of songs including Mr Brightside, Mack the Knife and Summer Nights. All the leadership candidates turned up apart from Leadsom. Sources suggest Crabb sang a plea to MPs with “Don’t Stop Me Now”.
Women taking pill more likely to be treated for depression, study finds Women who take the contraceptive pill are more likely to be treated for depression, according to a large study. Millions of women worldwide use hormonal contraceptives, and there have long been reports that they can affect mood. A research project was launched in Denmark to look at the scale of the problem, involving the medical records of more than a million women and adolescent girls. It found that those on the combined pill were 23% more likely to be prescribed an antidepressant by their doctor, most commonly in the first six months after starting on the pill. Women on the progestin-only pills, a synthetic form of the hormone progesterone, were 34% more likely to take antidepressants or get a first diagnosis of depression than those not on hormonal contraception. The study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Psychiatry, found that not only women taking pills but also those with implants, patches and intrauterine devices were affected. Adolescent girls appeared to be at highest risk. Those taking combined pills were 80% more likely and those on progestin-only pills more than twice as likely to be prescribed an antidepressant than their peers who were not on the pill. The researchers, Øjvind Lidegaard of the University of Copenhagen and colleagues, point out that women are twice as likely to suffer from depression in their lifetime as men, though rates are equal before puberty. The fluctuating levels of the two female sex hormones, oestrogen and progesterone, have been implicated. Studies have suggested raised progesterone levels in particular may lower mood. The impact of low-dose hormonal contraception on mood and possibly depression has not been fully studied, the authors say. They used registry data in Denmark on more than a million women and adolescent girls aged between 15 and 34. They were followed up from 2000 until 2013 with an average follow-up of 6.4 years. The authors call for more studies to investigate this possible side-effect of the pill. Other scientists said the research should not put women off using hormonal contraception. Dr Channa Jayasena, a clinical senior lecturer in reproductive endocrinology at Imperial College London, said: “This study raises important questions about the pill. In over a million Danish women, depression was associated with contraceptive pill use. The study does not prove [and does not claim] that the pill plays any role in the development of depression. However, we know hormones play a hugely important role in regulating human behaviour. “Given the enormous size of this study, further work is needed to see if these results can be repeated in other populations, and to determine possible biological mechanisms which might underlie any possible link between the pill and depression. Until then, women should not be deterred from taking the pill.” Dr Ali Kubba, a fellow of the faculty of sexual and reproductive healthcare of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, also said further research was needed. “There is existing clinical evidence that hormonal contraception can impact some women’s moods, however, from this study there is no way of linking causation, therefore further research is needed to examine depression as a potential adverse effect of hormonal contraceptive use,” he said. “Women should not be alarmed by this study as all women react differently to different methods of contraception. There are a variety of contraception methods on offer including the pill, implants, injections, intrauterine devices, and vaginal rings and we therefore advise women to discuss their options with a doctor, where they will discuss the possible side-effects and decisions around the most suitable method can be made jointly.”
The Young Offenders review – knockabout Irish crime caper Cork-born teenager Conor MacSweeney (Alex Murphy) and his best friend Jock (Chris Walley) are a classic little-and-large double act, the disparity in their heights made even more comical by the way they sport near-identical tracksuits, close-shaved haircuts and bumfluff moustaches. Bored with their regular routines of working, in Conor’s case, at the fish stall run by his single mother Mairead (Hilary Rose) and, in Jock’s case, stealing bicycles, they decide to embark on an adventure. Hearing that a €7m bale of cocaine has gone missing on the coast of Kerry, they set off on a treasure hunt, pursued by a garda (Dominic MacHale) determined to bring the bike-pilfering Jock to justice. As broad and brassy Irish comedies go (there have been quite a few of them lately), this one is reasonably palatable, striking a workable balance between knockabout slapstick, backchat, and proper storytelling and characterisation. The young leads’ crisp comic timing is another plus, though the whole package is hardly original and a notch less funny than seems to think it is.
Turkey fails to meet criteria for visa-free EU travel Turkey has missed an EU deadline that would have allowed its citizens visa-free travel through most of Europe, amid ongoing tensions over a controversial migration deal. EU leaders promised the Turkish government that 79 million Turks could have access to Europe’s 26-country border-free Schengen travel zone by June, as part of a hotly disputed bargain on migration. But this was always conditional on Turkey meeting 72 EU conditions on border security and fundamental rights. The European commission announced on Wednesday that Turkey had still failed to meet some of the conditions, including changes to its counter-terrorism legislation. In a separate decision, EU ambassadors are expected to approve the opening of negotiations on one part of Turkish membership talks later on Wednesday. The decision to open talks on budget is a symbolic gesture that was promised under the migration deal. The prospect of Turkey’s membership of the EU has inflamed the UK EU referendum debate even though Turkey is unlikely to join for decades, if ever. The visa deal does not apply to the UK or Ireland, which are outside the EU’s Schengen area. Since Turkey’s EU membership talks began in 2005, only one of the 35 “chapters” has been closed. Several are blocked over the country’s long-running dispute with Cyprus, while Turkey is seen by the EU as regressing on freedom of expression and the rule of law. The widely expected decision to delay the visa deal came one day after the EU’s ambassador to Turkey resigned. Hansjörg Haber will leave his post as the EU ambassador to Turkey in August, after making provocative comments about the migration deal that infuriated the Turkish government. The German diplomat, who was only appointed last August, was accused of showing disrespect for Turkish national values and Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Doubts about the visa deal have mounted ever since Erdoğan ousted the prime minister who led negotiations with the EU. Turkey’s strongman leader has flatly rejected EU calls to rewrite his country’s anti-terrorism laws, saying: “We’ll go our way, you go yours.” In a statement the European commission said progress on the EU-Turkey deal was fragile. But Dimitris Avramopoulos, the European commissioner in charge of migration and visa policy, said he expected Turkey to meet the EU conditions on visa-free travel. “Statement diplomacy is not very helpful,” he said, adding that his talks with government officials at the highest possible level showed a strong will to cooperate with the EU. “I believe the migration crisis is bringing Turkey closer to Europe,” he said. He declined to specify when the deal could be agreed, muddying expectations that this might happen when the EU published its next progress report in September. Anxieties about visa-free travel in the EU have surfaced in several countries. A visa-free deal for Georgia’s 5 million citizens was put on hold last week, after last-minute opposition from France, Italy and Germany. The EU is also negotiating a visa-free travel deal with Ukraine. Governments, led by France and Germany, have insisted on an emergency brake that would allow them to halt the arrangement if there was abuse of the rules. Since the EU agreed the migration pact with Turkey in March, the number of migrants making the perilous journey to Greece has fallen sharply. Fewer than 50 people a day risked the dangerous Aegean Sea crossing in May on average, compared to daily arrivals of up to 2,000 at the start of the year. So far 511 Syrian refugees have been resettled in Europe from Turkey, under the one-for-one scheme. Around 462 migrants, including 31 Syrians, have been sent back to Turkey from Greece. The EU executive also called on Greece to take urgent steps to improve its asylum claims system, which fell foul of human rights standards even before a surge in arrivals on Greek beaches last year. Issuing a series of recommendations, it said Greece had to do more to ensure the safety of unaccompanied children and guarantee legal aid for claimants. But a senior human rights advocate at the Council of Europe said the EU-Turkey deal had created problems for Greece, which was struggling to cope with processing asylum claims. Tomáš Boček, special representative on migration and refugees at the Council of Europe, said migrants and refugees were spending too long in overcrowded camps and asylum-processing “hotspots” in Greece while they awaited a decision on their claims. Around 50,000 people are on the Greek mainland, while a further 7,000-8,000 are estimated to be in camps on the Greek islands. The Council of Europe, which is not an EU body, has sharply criticised the EU-Turkey deal as a possible breach of international law. Boček, who served as the Czech Republic’s ambassador to the EU, recently visited Turkey, which is housing 3.1 million refugees. Ahead of a report to be published later this summer, he voiced concern that half a million Syrian refugee children were not in school in Turkey. Many children were working in fields or textile factories to help support their families, he said. “It would be difficult for any country to deal with this, but there are shortcomings, which are understandable because of this great number of refugees.”
Australia's biggest banks pump billions into fossil fuels despite climate pledges Australia’s big four banks are continuing to finance fossil fuel projects despite embracing a 2C or better global warming target, according to figures from financial activists Market Forces. The Commonwealth, Westpac, ANZ and National Australia Bank signed off on loans totalling $5.5bn to coal, oil, gas and liquefied natural gas projects in 2015, a figure that is higher than three of the preceding eight years. Among the deals were eight loans for coal projects signed in Australia in 2015, with a total value of $4bn, including for struggling Whitehaven Coal, operator of the controversial Maules Creek mine. All of the projects had some financing from the big four banks, with their contributions totalling $995m. “It’s pretty much business as usual for the big four,” said Julien Vincent from Market Forces. It comes amid a series of dire warnings for the future of coal, with consumption declining in major economies such as the US and China. Last week, Goldman Sachs forecast that coal may be in terminal decline, with the fall in demand possibly being irreversible. All big four banks have made statements supporting a 2C target and they have acknowledged the need to play a role in achieving a shift away from fossil fuels. After the Paris climate accord of December 2015, Westpac went so far as saying it would take “concrete action to ensure our lending and investing activities support an economy that limits global warming to less than two degrees”. ANZ’s statement acknowledged worries that lending to fossil fuels was in conflict with the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It committed to not lend to any new coal-fired power plants that didn’t use high-quality coal. The data was collected from public announcements made by the banks since 2008 and shared with Australia by Market Forces. Vincent said it showed the banks’ actions were not consistent with statements about climate change because continuing to exploit fossil fuels would blow the carbon budget, increasing warming beyond 2C. Among the $5.5bn of financing from the big four banks, there were 21 fossil fuel projects, including $300m for the struggling Whitehaven Coal, which had its loan refinanced by ANZ, Westpac and the Commonwealth Bank. Under the new terms, Whitehaven Coal was given a lower interest rate, despite its share price plummeting to a quarter of what it was when its controversial Maules Creek mine was first approved in July 2013. When the refinancing was announced last year, Whitehaven Coal’s chief executive, Paul Flynn, was quoted in Fairfax Media trumpeting the support from the banks as a mark of confidence in the coal industry. “For those who think the coal industry is part of the past, they may need to rethink their views, because that is certainly not the view of those who have just funded the deal,” Flynn said. “To have all the major banks represented in our syndicate and for them to sign up again, on even better terms than what we had before, obviously their belief in our business and our industry is very strong.” Since that deal was announced less than a year ago, the company’s share price has fallen 65%. Tim Buckley, an analyst from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, told Australia the banks immediately started trading the debt in secondary markets and lost 20% on it in the first few months. Buckley said the bad performance of that loan was an “a-ha moment” for the banking industry. He said he was sure that next year similar analysis would show a drop in fossil fuel lending but not because of environmental concerns – simply because they are realising fossil fuels are a bad bet. “The financial markets have realised that [the Paris accord] was a massive aha-moment for everyone … They are saying, ‘Look, we know that policy action globally is inevitable,” Buckley said. As a result they were beginning to be more cautious about financing fossil fuels and that would be reflected at the end of this year, he said. In response to the Market Forces figures, the big four banks all sent statements to Australia emphasising their lending to renewable energy projects. Westpac and the Commonwealth Bank provided links to some publicly available data on their exposure to the fossil fuel industry but it was not possible to compare the figures over time or against other banks. ANZ has similar data available. ANZ said that since 40% of the world’s energy comes from coal and it remains the cheapest fuel, a transition from coal needed to be “managed responsibly over time”. NAB said that, to secure Australia’s energy needs, renewable energy will play an increasing role but “fossil fuel will continue to be a major energy source for the foreseeable future”. The big four Australian banks were involved in 70% of the deals but were not alone in financing coal, gas and LNG projects. Their deals made up a quarter of the $22bn in loans to fossil fuel projects that were signed-off on in 2015 from both Australian and international banks. The biggest lenders to fossil fuel projects in Australia were Japanese banks, with three closing deals with combined values of between $2.2bn and $2.9bn in 2015, pushing the big four lower in list of top 10 lenders to fossil fuels. The figures do not give a complete picture of how much the banks are lending to fossil fuels overall – their “exposure” – because many of the deals that were signed were refinancing, so are not necessarily increasing the amount of money lent to fossil fuel companies. Refinancing is a process where one loan is replaced with another under new terms. But Vincent said while banks were starting to become more transparent, they still did not provide enough information for shareholders and other stakeholders to calculate their overall exposure to fossil fuels over time and compare them. Vincent said that refinancing can also extend the length of a loan, or improve its terms, so refinanced deals are not always simply a continuation of the status quo. “And in light of statements supporting a move away from fossil fuels, banks could always choose not to refinance a loan,” he said. “The Whitehaven deal is a good example. Any of the big four could have turned around and said ‘all those activists climbing on your project and delaying it, and the decline in share price, it’s just too hot to handle and we’re going to exit this’.” “The banks are desperate to stay in a position of business as usual. What this shows is an intent and a willingness to stay involved in the industry and to be exposed to it.” Vincent pointed out some banks have done exactly that on Abbot Point, leaving continuing doubts about whether the project could receive the loans it needs to proceed.
Norwich City stand firm to leave Manchester City off the title pace Manchester City edged a point closer to Leicester City at the top of the Premier League table but this result surely represents ground lost by them in the title race. Rather than increase the pressure on the leaders, Manuel Pellegrini’s side performed like men who should worry about being overtaken by West Ham or Manchester United in the top four. The would-be champions have not won back-to-back league games for five months and have a difficult run-in on top of a Champions League campaign that they aim to extend by seeing off Dynamo Kyiv in midweek. Norwich, meanwhile, can take heart from a point won with a spirited performance and their first clean sheet in more than two months. It could prove a springboard to survival. Manchester City have grown accustomed to beating Norwich heavily in recent seasons, including a 3-0 win here in the FA Cup in January, but this time, when only victory would have fuelled belief that they can topple the league leaders, they lacked creativity and sharpness. Norwich initially seemed there for the taking but emerged as deserving recipients of a point. The hosts’ jitters, caused by a 10-match winless streak, served as an invitation to the visitors to make themselves at home again. Pellegrini’s team hogged the ball but did not have the ingenuity to do much with it and were at times expensively sluggish. When Russell Martin headed an attempted clearance on to Sergio Agüero in the fifth minute, the Argentina striker gave him enough time to recover and block the ensuing shot. And when Fernandinho produced a rare incisive pass in the 21st minute to put Gaël Clichy clean through, the left-back miscontrolled and let the ball run out of play. By that stage, all that the home goalkeeper, John Ruddy, had done was awkwardly push a 20-yard free-kick by Agüero over the bar. Not until the 29th minute did Ruddy have to excel, plunging quickly to his right to tip away a low drive from Agüero with one hand. City could not make him perform such a feat again. That shot came against the run of play because Norwich, encouraged by the visitors’ impotence, had started to apply pressure at the other end. With Martin Olsson supplying regular crosses from the left, the Carrow Road crowd began to belt out hopeful chants. Patrick Bamford nearly brought ecstatic roars in the 39th minute when he outwitted Nicolás Otamendi and hit a half-volley over Joe Hart from 30 yards. There were exasperated yelps all round when the ball cannoned out off the crossbar. By first-half stoppage time, when Matt Jarvis shot just wide from 16 yards, the title-chasers were a slovenly bunch. David Silva flitted about purposefully but lacked zest and too few of his team-mates were on his wavelength in the first half. Wilfried Bony, again picked ahead of Kelechi Iheanacho, exerted no influence before being replaced by Raheem Sterling in the 58th minute. In the middle, there was a Yaya Touré-shaped hole. The Ivorian has his flaws but boasts a creative menace that none of his team-mates provided in his absence. Manchester City started the second half with renewed urgency. That made Norwich defend with renewed nervousness, but no less commitment. Gary O’Neil and Jonny Howson were tirelessly vigilant in front of the back four. The visitors failed to penetrate. Just after the hour Silva, playing more centrally following Sterling’s introduction, spotted a run by Fernandinho and rewarded it with a beautiful pass. But the Brazilian eschewed a straightforward shot and offloaded to Agüero, who bumbled before his shot was blocked. Agüero sought to make amends moments later with a jagged run towards the box. Timm Klose took him down just outside, and the free-kick yielded nothing. “We had a very good attitude and very good possession but we couldn’t create the space that we needed in the last third,” said Pellegrini, who insisted his team could still be champions. “If you mathematically have a chance to do it, you must always think you can do it.” Neil remains convinced that Norwich will get out of trouble. “The amount of effort the players are putting in to stay in the league can’t be questioned and our game management and our decision making was better than in recent weeks,” said the Scot, whose team will soon host the two sides closest to them in the table, Sunderland and a Newcastle United side whose illustrious new manager holds no fear for Neil. “Rafael Benítez isn’t going to win the game for them, it’s all about the players,” said the Scotsman.
Weak pound boosts UK manufacturing but import costs rise steeply Expansion in British factories slowed a little in October as the weak pound boosted exports but also pushed the prices of imports sharply higher. In the latest sign that consumers in the UK will face higher prices following the sharp fall in the value of the pound since the Brexit vote, manufacturers raised the price of their goods at the fastest rate in more than five years. The latest Markit/CIPS manufacturing PMI (purchasing managers’ index) survey suggested that firms are starting to pass on higher import costs as the weak pound makes raw materials such as oil more expensive. However, the weak exchange rate also helped to boost orders from the US, the EU and China. The broader survey suggested the sector got off to a decent start in the fourth quarter. The headline index combining output, orders, and employment fell to 54.3 in October, from 55.5 in September, where anything above 50 signals expansion. Rob Dobson, senior economist at IHS Markit, and an author of the report, said the manufacturing sector should return to growth in the fourth quarter, after shrinking by 1% in the third. He added: “On the positive side, the boost to competitiveness [from the weak pound] drove new export order inflows higher, providing a key support to output volumes. The downside of the weaker currency is becoming increasingly evident, however, with increased import prices leading to one of the steepest rises in purchasing costs in the near 25-year survey history. “Inflationary pressure was also experienced at the factory gate, with average selling prices rising at the steepest pace since mid-2011.” Capital Economics warned that the data suggested consumer prices would “pick up sharply” in the next few months. The UK economy has shown more resilience than expected since the EU referendum on 23 June. Official figures published last week showed the economy grew by 0.5% in the third quarter between July and September. It was slower than the 0.7% growth in the second quarter, but stronger than economists expected and ruled out the possibility of a recession in the second half of 2016. A stronger-than-expected performance has fuelled expectations that the Bank of England’s monetary policy committee (MPC) will refrain from cutting interest rates on Thursday, instead holding them at a record low of 0.25%. Howard Archer, chief European and UK economist at IHS Markit, said: “The decent October manufacturing purchasing survey reinforces belief that the Bank of England will be sitting tight on monetary policy on Thursday after the November MPC meeting.”
Amber Heard sued for $10m over 'conspiracy' in London Fields promotion Another lawsuit has been filed over the film London Fields – this time directed at actor Amber Heard. In the $10m suit filed by the film’s producers, Heard, who starred as Nicola Six in the adaptation of the 1989 Martin Amis novel, is alleged to have “breached performance and promotional obligations”, the Hollywood Reporter wrote. The star-studded film features Heard as a psychic who foresees her own murder, alongside actors Billy Bob Thornton and Jim Sturgess, with a cameo by her former husband Johnny Depp. London Fields was slated to make its debut at the Toronto film festival last year before being removed from the festival lineup after reports emerged that director Matthew Cullen would sue the producers for fraud, claiming they were marketing the film using his name despite debuting a version that he had nothing to do with. His suit against Christopher Hanley and other producers complained that footage of “9/11 jumpers edited against pornography” and a juxtaposition of “the holiest city in Islam against mind-control” had been inserted into the film. The producers called the cancellation an “ill-considered decision made against our rights” at the time. In a statement, Muse Productions said Cullen missed deadlines to submit a “director’s cut”. Hanley’s Nicola Six Limited then filed a cross-complaint against Cullen. This latest suit is listed as “closely related” to that complaint, according to the 24-page document posted online by Deadline. The suit against Heard, filed in Los Angeles superior court, stated that “Heard’s conspiracy, her campaign against the Picture, and her contractual breaches … have damaged the Picture, causing substantial harm to the Plaintiff, the Picture, and the Picture’s investors”. Among many claims, it alleged that she breached confidentiality obligations, failed to perform certain acting services and failed to comply with her publicity contract, according to the document. Later in the document, it states that her “misguided and unlawful conspiratorial campaign” against the film is ongoing. The film has received mostly poor reviews with the ’s Henry Barnes calling it “awfully silly”.
Local businesses will pay the price of Lloyds branch closures The news that Lloyds will be closing yet more branches will not come as much of a surprise given that almost two banks are closing their doors every single day and more than 1,500 communities no longer have access to even a single branch. There will be more bad news to come, and it will be local businesses and ordinary people in deprived areas that will pay the price as banking executives grapple with the costs of Brexit on top of £75bn in fines, compensation and legal expenses thanks to previous misdeeds. A bank closing its doors reduces SME lending growth in that area by 63% on average, rising to 104% when the branch in question is the last in town. The impact is hugely damaging to the local economy, especially as in nine out of 10 cases the banks that are closing are situated in areas where median household income is below the national average of £27,600. Move Your Money, a not-for-profit organisation that campaigns for ethical banking, has found that the closure of a bank branch sees lending to businesses in that postcode fall by £1.6m over the course of a year. This is a huge loss of investment in areas where unemployment is high and high streets are full of boarded up shop fronts. Over two-thirds of small business customers state that having access to a bank branch is important to them, and the importance of a high street branch stretches far beyond traders having somewhere to go to deposit their cash or nascent firms having ready access to capital. When a bank shuts up shop more often than not the cash machines disappear too and every local business in the vicinity suffers from the knock on effect. Despite the rise of chip and pin and contactless payment methods, cash still accounts for almost half of all high street sales and three-quarters of sales at newsagents and convenience stores. Furthermore, for every withdrawal from an ATM £16 – amounting to £36bn a year – is injected directly into local stores, meaning more than a third of total high street spending is directly reliant on easy access to a cash machine. Lloyds have not yet confirmed exactly which further branches will be closed, but in all likelihood it will branches in areas that are already struggling and can least afford to see the local economy atrophy in this way. The banking industry and the government will continue to point to the Access to Banking Protocol as evidence that the public interest and local communities are being protected when banks close branches. But the Access to Banking Protocol is not fit for purpose – it is just window-dressing for the big banks and government alike to hide behind so it appears that they are doing something about branch closures. What is the point of consulting with local people and businesses once the decision has already been taken? A consultation can only be meaningful if it takes place in advance of any decision on closure. An independent review of the Access to Banking Protocol is currently under way, but unless the government wakes up and stops listening to the banking lobbyists before it’s too late, the promises that will be inevitably made at every budget and autumn statement about supporting small businesses in this country should be taken with a large pinch of salt. In their advertising and marketing campaigns, the big banks are keen to position themselves as the friends of small businesses, but nothing could be further from the truth. To paraphrase Saint Teresa of Avila, if this is how banks treat their friends, it is no wonder they have so few. Sign up to become a member of the Small Business Network here for more advice, insight and best practice direct to your inbox.
Can we stop talking about our bushes now? Feminists are needed elsewhere How political are your pubes? It’s not a question most of us spend much time worrying about, yet when you’re a woman, how you choose to cultivate your lady garden sprouts up as a topic with tedious regularity. In its latest incarnation, the arbiters at Tatler magazine have declared the “freedom bush” back in fashion (those who sneer at the notion of the pudenda being subject to changing aesthetic trends would do well to remember that dark mid-noughties period: the “vajazzle years”). If even the conservative, conventional Sloane is cultivating a full bush then, it’s worth noting, that could indeed hint at a seismic shift in societal norms regarding pubic grooming. But equally, after years and years of the same “debate”, is it not time that feminist coverage in the media was directed elsewhere? In other words, magazine editors, enough already. We are just emerging from a period that has seen a new generation embrace feminism in a way that the capitalist post-feminists of the 1990s could scarcely have imagined. Much of this has been powerful and positive: the conversation about the importance of sexual consent, for instance, and how it operates within a culture that continues to trivialise rape, has never been louder and more energetic. The fightback against street harassment has been equally inspirational. But at the same time a strand of feminism in the media has spent the last few years concerning itself with issues that many would dismiss as trivial, including pubes, and footwear, and 50 Shades of Grey, not to mention that perennial question that birthed a million op-eds: is Beyoncé a feminist or not? As a writer, I have been guilty of entering into some of these debates. With an internet media run on opinion, feminist polemic can feel like one of the few journalistic avenues open to the young, aspiring woman writer (critiquing media sexism is how I began my own career, and I am grateful to it, but I have said my piece on women’s magazines). For a long while, talking about the more trivial aspects of the feminist debate – as opposed to, for instance, boring old domestic violence – was the only way to get feminism covered in the mainstream media. But as time has gone on, the focus on the fluffy – so often to the point where it appears to be given equal billing to more urgent and distressing issues affecting women – has irked me, and other feminists writers, more and more. Perhaps it is because I have been in this game for a while now, and have thus seen the same topics recycled several times over with very little new being said (my friend and colleague Emer O’Toole wrote the definitive piece on female body hair several years ago – what could be left to say about it?). Or perhaps it is because I have grown up a tad in the past five years. But more than either of those two things, I would reason that this is a time when the need for feminism is making itself acutely obvious in all manner of ways. There is so very little to laugh about, to the point where even the notion of a “freedom foof” fails to raise a smile. Donald Trump, a man with so much obvious contempt for women that it feels almost unbelievable – like watching a fictional dystopia play out on our TV screens – is running for president. Analysis has shown that, if women were excluded and only US men were eligible to vote, Trump would win the election. It is abundantly clear that there are millions of people who would rather have a fascist than a female as leader. We are told that women can achieve anything in this day and age – “so what are you whining about?” being the inevitable subtext. “Look at Hillary,” we are told, to which the inevitable rebuttal is: “Yes, look at Hillary. Look at what she is up against.” There are other concerns, of course. The way the previous sexual behaviour of the complainant in the Ched Evans case was pored over during his successful appeal and in court this month has caused widespread dismay. Then there’s the closure of domestic violence shelters – 17% have closed due to funding cuts, 32 of which were specialist services for black and ethnic minority women, and 48% of 167 domestic violence services in England said they were running services without any funding. Two women a week are murdered by their partners or ex-partners, and vulnerable women such as female asylum seekers continue to be abused. There were 99 pregnant women held in Yarl’s Wood immigration removal centre last year. Three Serco workers are currently in court over the alleged rape of a Yarl’s Wood detainee. As a recent report noted, the harassment and abuse of young girls in schools is endemic. I took part in a feminist debate this month, during which the broadcaster Jenni Murray recounted being turned down for a mortgage in the 1970s for no other reason than her gender; another speaker spoke about the murder of her friend at 18 by a boyfriend; and the DJ Clara Amfo expressed her frustration at being unable to articulate her anger about female oppression without being labelled an “angry black woman”. I returned home depressed and tearful. Faced with these sobering facts, is it any wonder, really, that so many people seek refuge in arguing instead about bikini waxes? I’ve been to enough schools to talk to young women about feminism to know that feminist “fluff” can be an easy way to open a discussion – a “gateway drug” if you will, for those unfamiliar with the topic, or put off or intimidated by the stereotypes surrounding it. It’s important that teenage girls particularly question why it is they feel pressured into certain sexual behaviours. That issue does not go away once you declare that the “full bush” is back. The impact of pornography on the way young people conduct relationships goes way beyond a few wax strips, taking in issues of consent, coercion and abuse, objectification, grooming and revenge porn. It’s all cheerful stuff. The personal is political, the feminists of the 1970s told us, and this has morphed into a strange kind of choice feminism where women are encouraged to examine their clothing, their footwear, their grooming, their behaviour, every little choice that they make, in order to assess whether it matches up. But the big picture is now so alarmingly vivid that it obscures these trivial questions. Freedom is never so easy to imagine as when it might be taken away. Most women know that our bushes have very little to do with it.
Rafael Benítez exudes belief Newcastle can avoid relegation Rafael Benítez says he finds mind games boring but the worrying thing for Sam Allardyce and Alex Neil is that, right now, he has no need to resort to them. Underpinned by a famously forensic eye for detail, the Spaniard’s aura of calm, good-natured authority is transforming Newcastle United to the point where supporters of Allardyce’s Sunderland and Neil’s Norwich City are becoming unsettled. By simply being himself, Benítez has not only galvanised his own team but planted seeds of doubt in the minds of both rivals. A combination of the Spaniard’s grace under pressure and Newcastle’s best Premier League run since 2014 has fuelled real hope on Tyneside that a team one and two points, respectively, ahead of the other contenders for the last two relegation spots can stay out of the bottom three. Considering Norwich and Sunderland have a game in hand, the odds remain against St James’ Park staging top-tier football next season but Benítez retains the air of an experienced pilot quietly confident he can safely accomplish a high-risk landing on an icy runway buffeted by crosswinds. “It’s not 100% in our hands,” acknowledged Newcastle’s manager, who knows he needs another win at Aston Villa on Saturday. “But we’re going in the right direction, we’re doing the right things, we’re enjoying this challenge and we’ll try and enjoy it until the end.” The fragility of such pleasure was emphasised by the nervous undercurrents rippling through a capacity crowd before the excellent Andros Townsend sent a sublime free-kick curving into the top corner. Indeed the tension would surely have become unbearable had Karl Darlow not subsequently dived low to his left and saved a Yohan Cabaye penalty that threatened to offer Crystal Palace a point. It was typical of Benítez that, when Rob Elliot ruptured his cruciate ligament and joined the similarly injured Tim Krul in the treatment room, he refused to panic, instead simply stating how lucky Newcastle were to have such a good third-choice goalkeeper. Judging by Darlow’s occasional, generally unconvincing, appearances under previous managers it seemed wishful thinking but, instead, the former Nottingham Forest goalkeeper has been little short of brilliant. Granted his positioning and footwork may be a bit unorthodox at times but he has pulled off a series of fabulous saves – on Saturday he repelled a difficult volley from Palace’s dangerous Yannick Bolasie and an awkward Cabaye shot – as his team-mates have reacquainted themselves with the concept of hope. “This is a big three points for us,” said Darlow, who was shocked to see the penalty awarded for what seemed a nonexistent handball against Moussa Sissoko. If it helped that Cabaye, widely booed by his once adoring former geordie public, struck his kick poorly, Darlow still performed heroics. “I just picked the way to go, dived hard and reacted to the ball,” he said, reflecting on a stop which could yet prove worth £100m to Newcastle. “It was possibly the most valuable save I’ve made. It was one of those special moments that could keep us up. We do our research and look through everyone’s penalties before we play them and Cabaye had put his last four or five the other way. So it was just instinct.” Had fortune not frowned on Krul and Elliot, Darlow knows he would not even be warming the bench now so he appreciated it was imperative to take his unexpected chance. “I never had any doubt I could play at this level,” he said. “I just needed an opportunity but now I have to help make sure we stay up.” With Bolasie and Cabaye causing them all sorts of problems Newcastle did not start too well but, gradually, a series of players apparently reborn under Benítez came to the fore. While Jamaal Lascelles highlighted his authority at centre-half with a fine, goal-preventing tackle on Connor Wickham, Cheik Tioté made some important interceptions and the impressive Jack Colback began really imposing himself on central midfield. When Townsend’s magnificent free kick arced over the wall, safety felt within reach. “It wasn’t an easy game,” said Benítez. “When you see the size of Crystal Palace’s players you realise that, physically, they’re stronger than us so we couldn’t win by just fighting. We had to play football and when we started to move the ball on the floor you could see the difference.” It was all so absorbing that, rather than proving provocatively divisive, Alan Pardew’s presence on his first return to the club since leaving for Palace seemed almost irrelevant. “Alan was braced for a hostile one,” said his assistant, Keith Millen. “But there was nothing. Newcastle fans realised they had bigger things to worry about.” Man of the match Karl Darlow (Newcastle United)
HSBC paid 453 staff at least €1m in 2015 HSBC paid 453 staff €1m (£780,000) or more in 2015 – up from 320 a year earlier – as it warned it faced a bumpy economic backdrop. The disclosure was made on Monday as the bank reported a 1% rise in profits and a cut in the pay of its chief executive, Stuart Gulliver, from £7.6m to £7.3m. Robin Hood Tax campaigners lobbying for what they argue is fairer taxation of the financial sector criticised the payouts. “It may have been a bumpy year for HSBC, but that hasn’t stopped the flow of bumper payouts. Many more millionaires made and £7.3m for the chief executive is hardly the picture of a reformed financial sector,” the group said. “The banking sector is still completely out of sync with the rest of the economy. It’s in everyone’s interest that the UK has a more level playing field. The chancellor should take note.” The pay of non-executive directors – almost all of whom receive more than £100,000 – was disclosed. Rona Fairhead – who chaired HSBC’s audit committee at the time of the tax scandal in its Swiss arm – is the highest paid non-executive, receiving £524,000, up from £513,000. Chair of the BBC Trust, Fairhead is leaving the HSBC board this year after chairing its US subsidiary. Jonathan Symonds, the former finance director of Novartis who chairs HSBC’s European arm, received £521,000. Phillip Ameen, who chairs the audit committee and is member of the risk committee of the bank’s US arm, received £416,000. A former director, Sandy Flockhart, who left in April 2012, also received £155,503 because of double taxation he incurred in Hong Kong and the UK. The bank is preparing to ask shareholders to approve a policy for its top management to incorporate a closer link to shareholder returns in the bonuses paid out through the three-year long-term incentive plan. Under new scheme rules, Gulliver’s possible potential annual pay is being cut to £9.9m from up to £13m in the past. The minimum amount he can receive will be £3.3m, down from £3.5m, which includes a £1.25m salary, £1.7m fixed-pay allowance intended to shelter him from the EU cap on bonuses and a £625,000 pension contribution. That contribution is being cut from 50% of his salary to 30% in response to investor concerns. Gulliver also received £662,000 in benefits, largely to cover the cost of living in a property owned by the bank in Hong Kong. The bank said the introduction of UK rules that require bonuses to be deferred over seven years, rather than three, were more stringent than those in the EU, US and Asia-Pacific, “making it challenging for UK banks to attract talent with transferable skills or from other industries”. “We believe more regulator coordination is required to ensure there are more globally consistent remuneration standards and a level playing field,” HSBC said.
Supermarkets can act on childhood obesity It’s rather disingenuous of Mike Coupe to expect from the government a “holistic approach to tackle childhood obesity, including compulsory measured targets” (Report, 19 August). As Sainsbury’s CEO he has the power to decide whether his shops sell food containing high levels of sugar. As a shareholder I urge him to take the lead. Supermarkets have effectively prevented GM food getting into our bodies by not stocking it. Why then not the same with sugary food? Richard Cooper Chichester, West Sussex • How about going back to the National Loaf, which had a small percentage of wholemeal flour added to the white. They tell us we were much healthier then. How about calling it the “GB loaf” or the “Olympic loaf”? I’m sure any increase in cost would be negligible. Eunice Mayes (aged 90) Towcester, Northamptonshire • I am not expecting the to become a latter-day Sunny Stories, but will you please stop moaning about Brexit (‘An unimaginably hard task’: experts say divorcing EU may take 10 years, 17 August, etc ad nauseam). Kelvin Appleton Beverley, East Yorkshire • Can someone tell Larry Elliott (Brexit Armageddon was a terrifying vision – but it simply hasn’t happened, 20 August) that we haven’t left the EU yet? Vaughan Dean Ampthill, Bedfordshire • So John Major has been “hailed as the driving force behind Britain’s extraordinary medal haul” (Pass Notes, 18 August). Does that make up for rail privatisation? Ted Watson Brighton • Could the three feet recently discovered in Bath perhaps belong to Jake the Peg (Report, 18 August)? He hasn’t been seen in public for some time. John Rees-Jones Datchet, Berkshire • All these comments about brief letters are just a load of pants. Geoff Elms llanfyrnach, Pembrokeshire
Amma Asante: ‘I’m here to disrupt expectations’ Amma Asante is drinking tea – “If you have PG Tips, all the better,” she calls to the retreating waiter – in the plush quietness and gleaming surfaces of London’s Cafe Royal. Despite traffic jams and torrential rain, she is impeccably calm, certainly calmer than many film-makers would be had their latest production been selected to open this year’s London film festival. But Asante, whose previous films A Way of Life and Belle garnered her high praise and multiple awards, including a Bafta, is clearly a star in the making – and possibly also a star-maker; Gugu Mbatha-Raw, whom she cast in her breakthrough part as the title character in Belle, has just appeared opposite Matthew McConaughey in the American civil war drama Free State of Jones. Earlier this year Asante was also invited to become a member of the US Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which has had its biggest ever intake of new members following intense criticism over the lack of racial diversity in Oscar nominees. In joining a Hollywood club with a decades-long reputation for being largely white, male and aged over 50, she’ll now have voting rights on the Oscars, and a part to play in steering the industry and what comes to our screens in the future. For the moment, though, she’s concentrating on A United Kingdom, which had an unexpected – and even inconvenient – genesis. About 18 months ago, Asante was about to move not only home but also country, quitting the Netherlands, where she had lived for eight years, in favour of Denmark, where her husband is from. Amid all the upheaval and readjustment the phone rang. At the other end was actor David Oyelowo, whom Asante had known since they worked together on the BBC drama Brothers and Sisters back in 1998. Oyelowo, fresh from playing Martin Luther King in Selma, wanted to persuade her to be part of an idea whose moment had come – “a labour of love”, as he described it. The project was to film the life of Seretse Khama and Ruth Williams, the first prime minister of Botswana and his wife, an office clerk from Eltham. Their marriage, in 1948, when Botswana was still the British protectorate of Bechuanaland, had immense ramifications, both personal and political: Khama, who had met Williams at a missionary society dance in London, had been supposed to return from his stint at Balliol College, Oxford and subsequent studies for the bar to take up the kingship of the Bamangwato people. He was not supposed to return with a white, English bride, and particularly not just as neighbouring South Africa had made interracial marriage illegal under the apartheid system; her arrival angered both Bamangwato chiefs and many who couldn’t believe that their future leader would choose an outsider above a local. Ruth Williams’s family also opposed the marriage, and there was vehement objection from the British government, enraged by what they saw as a dangerous misstep in managing regional relationships. Oyelowo had first come across Susan Williams’s book Colour Bar, on which the film is based, in 2010, through producers Justin Moore-Lewy and Charlie Mason, who had acquired the rights. Since then, the three had struggled to get the project, with Oyelowo playing Khama, off the ground. But the story of Khama, Williams and Bechuanaland’s gradual journey towards independence immediately struck a chord with Asante, fresh from her success with the recently released Belle, which also drew on a complex piece of history to explore relationships across racial divides. Her father, she tells me, was a pan-African, a man who believed in a united states of Africa. “He grew up in Ghana when it was still the Gold Coast; grew up, as my mother did, as the child of a colony, and watched it become independent. And Ghana was the first sub-Saharan country to gain its independence, so we always lived with that badge on our chest; I was always raised knowing that was the country that I came from. I grew up being able to repeat – at seven or eight years old — the speeches of Kwame Nkrumah, who became the first president of Ghana.” Consequently, she explains, she was gripped not only by the fierceness and endurance of the romantic relationship at the heart of the story, but also by the intricacy and subtleties of its sociopolitical setting. Reading her way through Williams’s book – it’s brilliant, she says, but so dense with complex detail that she could only read 18 pages a day – she realised that she wanted to explore how Khama came to a point where he could contemplate utterly changing the political landscape of his country. “Even though I didn’t know the story,” she remarks, “I was very aware of the young, privileged men of Africa who moved through the UK in the 1940s, who were sent to be educated. I knew it because the women weren’t.” What she didn’t want, she explains, was to privilege one aspect of the drama over the other. And neither did she think it was necessary: “You could create a very political backdrop against the love story. Because, really, what is interesting about being a black man married to a white woman today? Yes, in certain quarters, it’s still difficult and there is still a taboo. But it’s not that interesting – why pick them, as opposed to any other interracial couple? What’s really interesting is what happened once this couple chose to fall in love, the period in which they fell in love, which was right as South Africa was about to enshrine apartheid into its laws, and the fallout that occurs.” She notes – while also acknowledging the earlier film’s vital importance at the time – that A United Kingdom is not a rerun of Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, the 1967 film in which a black man played by Sidney Poitier courts a white woman, to the consternation of her parents. Rather, she says, she had to find those things in the story that would resonate with contemporary issues. Among those is the issue of transition and identity. One facet of the story she focused on explores the idea that someone might be sent away at a formative age to experience life and education in another country and yet still be expected to return essentially unaltered; it also shows those at home, inching their way towards establishing nationhood in the face of societal change. I tell her that I was struck by the numerous interwoven stories of restriction and emancipation, and the different weight that history accorded them. Near the start of Asante and screenwriter Guy Hibbert’s film, Khama and his wife, played by Oyelowo and Rosamund Pike, return to Bechuanaland and are met with hostility, despite his previous popularity; he determines to address the kgotla – a public meeting – and put his case. Scores of Bamangwato men, many of them dressed in suits, walk from their villages to attend, but there is barely a woman to be seen. Asante nods: she dotted a few around the edges, she remembers, as if to suggest that they couldn’t help themselves from coming to listen, but there was a firm message that politics was not for women. And yet she knew that she had to represent the view of Bamangwato women. “When I first came to the script, the point of view of the black female wasn’t really there, and it was very important,” she says. “I thought about my mother, I thought about my aunts; my mother was born and raised in a very rural village, but her brother is a chief. And the idea that he should go abroad and return, even with someone of the same colour but who was an outsider, and say, this is going to be your queen, I just imagined what their response would be. And there you have it, in the film.” Asante has had a lifetime of considering the nuances that attach themselves to the questions of identity and power informing her work. Now 47, she reckons that she is in a position to empower two sides of her identity – her Ghanaian heritage and her British upbringing – to be in dialogue with one another. “I allow that conversation to happen, and it’s a pleasure,” she explains. “And I don’t know what side I’ll come out on each day, or what decision I’ll come out with on each day, but it is a dynamic rather than a conflict.” Is she able to put into words what characterises these different parts of her? She mentions her pride in the traditions of her parents’ Ghanaian background, and of how important it is to her to be able to speak their language. “And yet, the very British side of me, who is the child of immigrants, is the side of me that welcomes outsiders – the modern British side, that is – and enjoys crossing boundaries and sharing boundaries and being open to what an outsider might bring. But I’m still deeply protective of my traditions at the same time.” (Amusingly, as we both ponder the miniature glass cloche covering the miniature biscuit that has accompanied tea, she puts her mild aversion to elaborate service down to her British “side”.) She grew up in Streatham, which she describes, in the early 1980s and beyond, as “a pretty racist environment” – complete with graffiti on the walls and lit matches pushed through the letterbox. “That was just a way of life,” she says now, inadvertently making reference to the title of her first feature film, “but I was aware of the stress it put my parents through.” Her accountant father’s response was to tell his family that there was one thing they had to remember at all times: “Know that you are loved.” Fascinatingly, these exact words recur as a line in Belle (2013), the story of Dido Elizabeth Belle, the child of a British admiral and an African slave, who was brought to England by her father and left in the care of her great-uncle, Lord Mansfield; they are the words spoken to her by her father, whom she only knows for a few hours, as he bids her farewell. Even more poignantly, Asante’s father died during the filming of Belle, and she talks movingly about his impact on her work. She will always, she thinks, create benevolent fathers who are also flawed; hers, whom she describes as her hero, “made mistakes, but when he got it right, he got it really right”. Belle grew up in Kenwood House in Hampstead, surrounded by great material privilege and familial love, but simultaneously excluded from vast swaths of society by the colour of her skin. As in A United Kingdom, there is a love story; but there is also a highly involved narrative that chronicles the changing legal position of slave cargo – at heart, the degree to which slaves being transported at sea were regarded as human beings rather than mere possessions, to be jettisoned at the drop of a hat. Both elements of the film unite to portray a mixed-race woman growing in self-recognition and self-possession, and balancing the different claims made on her loyalties. Both movies also imply that a key moment in the journey towards selfhood is the acceptance that individuals contain multitudes. As a child, Asante began to act, and joined the cast of Grange Hill; she was part of the “Just Say No” campaign, and was one of nine cast members to visit Ronald Reagan’s White House. But she would also develop lines to use in her off-screen life; for instance, she always used to reply “Ghana” when asked where she was from, because “Streatham” seemed to cause confusion of the “No, where are you really from?” variety. “So that became too complex,” she recalls, “and also it was a big fat rejection, because I actually felt as British as anybody else but I would constantly be reminded that I wasn’t. And so it was easier to just say African.” But things changed somewhat when her debut, A Way of Life, was released. Set in Wales, the film tells the story of a young, single mother fighting extreme disadvantage, and also of her Turkish, Muslim neighbour. It started to get a little attention, and “quite often I would read about myself, and it would be, ‘young British film-maker’. And when you see words written about you, they’re very powerful.” Did she feel that, in a sense, she was being claimed? Yes, she replies, “but there was a sense of, well, that’s what I’ve been saying all along, but haven’t been allowed to say. But that’s exactly what I am. I’m a young British director.” We talk more broadly about the issues of migration and the resistance to it that are bedevilling the world at the moment. Asante locates in much of the fear that surrounds the conversation an interesting insight into entitlement. “I often think about what we might look back at in 100 or 200 years’ time from now and see as really…” – she grasps for the word – “primitive. Because we fear, we really believe, there isn’t enough to share, and there really isn’t enough to go around, because that’s a narrative that we’re given. But that’s because we’ve decided that certain boundaries should exist and must exist, and you should stay over there, because the world over there is created for you, and the world over here is created for us. Well, that’s never worked.” At the time, she points out, change is always complicated, and when it happens too quickly, can be problematic. “You can’t have a country of fearful people,” she says, and in A United Kingdom, she is understanding of the competing demands on the Attlee and Churchill governments, both of which adopted problematic stances towards Bechuanaland as they sought to rebuild postwar British society. And yet, as she also says and the film makes clear, there was a good outcome: Seretse Khama took his country towards independence and democratic representation, and there it remains. She has already been criticised, she says, for making too much of a crowd-pleaser, to which she retorts that she can’t change history. But does she think that underlying that attitude is an unfamiliarity, perhaps even tantamount to disbelief, with the business of telling an African success story? She nods vigorously. “There was an argument over whether we should show some of the more beautiful images that we have in the film of Africa. This is why you need a person of colour at the table. Because I said, why not? That’s the Africa I know. Hundreds of thousands of people travel to Botswana every single year to go and see the animal life there. Why would we pretend that that doesn’t exist? Why wouldn’t we show the beautiful sunsets? I remember waking up in my mother’s African village to beautiful sunrises and beautiful sunsets. “We’re so used to seeing flies in African children’s faces, we’re so used to seeing what I call a degraded Africa, that does not have a person of colour at the centre of their own story – they’re usually a supporting character who’s an observer of their own story – that sometimes I think that when you see it told a different way, which means that you take a character like Rosamund Pike played in Ruth and flip the switch and make her the other, then it makes some people feel uncomfortable. Your expectations are disrupted. And I believe that’s what I’m here for. I hold that flag.” Asante is full of praise for Pike, who came to film after Gone Girl, and immediately embraced the no-makeup, frizzy hair and sensible shoes look that her character adopted when she moved to Botswana (there are rather more swinging skirts with nipped-in waists at the jazz clubs that feature in the film’s London scenes). “To me, she embodied the courage that I imagined Ruth had,” she says. Particularly impressive was Pike’s insistence that she would simply drop to the ground during a scene in which Williams, suffering from diphtheria, collapses on a dusty road. Asante, worried about the numerous rocks in the path, had had sleepless nights wondering how they could conceal a mattress, but had to content herself with setting the crew to remove as many stones as they could. When one of Khama and Williams’s sons visited the set, he delivered the ultimate imprimatur: “It’s not every day you see your mother and father come back to life.” Next, Asante is going to tackle the Nazis. Where Hands Touch, which she has written herself, will start filming in October, with The Hunger Games’s Amandla Stenberg and Captain Fantastic’s George MacKay starring as a teenage couple facing the not inconsiderable obstacle of his membership of the Hitler Youth and the fact that she is a mixed-race girl living in the Third Reich. Once again, issues of identity play an integral part, as does Asante’s abiding interest in capturing social and political structures at the moment where they begin to fall apart. We conclude by talking about broader issues of representation within the film industry, and specifically in the context of her recent membership of the Academy. How effective does she feel that development will be in promoting change and inclusion in the entertainment business? It is, she says, a “substantial and relevant” move, and she commends the Academy for doing it. But she remains realistic: “When you’re in it, it seems slow and it feels slow. When we look back in 100 years, who knows how it will look with hindsight. However, it does feel like we’re turning a corner. It’s not a short corner, it’s a very big bend, and we’re some way around it and we’ve still got a long way to go. Let’s be really honest about this: the Oscars reflect the industry, so the Oscars can change but they can only do so much without the industry changing as well.” In other words the movies need to get made in the first place, so that audiences are not presented with eight identical films when they go to the multiplex. Cinemagoers, too, can play their part, choosing to see a more diverse range of films as they are released, and not necessarily waiting until they come out on DVD. “It’s really interesting, “she continues, “that if you walk into an industry party and it’s predominantly male, predominantly of a certain age, predominantly white, it starts to feel old-fashioned. It doesn’t feel progressive. When you walk into a place and you see women, and you see people of colour, and varying abilities and disabilities, it feels like it’s somehow a reflection of the world – you’re in the world, and that we’re in a relevant industry.” She laughs, remembering her recent trip to a vibrant Toronto. “That didn’t mean to say that the lovely old white men were gone. They were still there!” The bottom line, she thinks, is that the industry needs to see a broadening of the wares as a business opportunity, not merely as a matter of morality: “If you do not have a flourish of new lifeblood,” she says, “you don’t get a beautiful ocean, you get a dull, dank puddle.” A United Kingdom opens the London film festival on Wednesday and will be in cinemas from 25 November Race on screen: critic Jonathan Romney’s highlights from this year’s London film festival Chi-Raq Dir: Spike Lee The Greek comedy of Lysistrata’s sex strike, adapted as the story of a Chicago woman who campaigns to stop gang war Spike Lee’s most acclaimed film for ages – a jovial yet impassioned musical strike against violence within black communities. Angela Bassett, Wesley Snipes and Samuel L Jackson join newcomer Teyonah Parris in an uproarious slice of hip-hop Brecht. Daughters of the Dust Dir: Julie Dash An evocation of a community of island-dwelling African American women in 1902 Now restored, Julie Dash’s 1991 debut feature opened up a new direction in independent US cinema that has never been followed up. Fusing black history, costume drama and a vision of feminist utopia, this dream-like film was one of the inspirations for Beyoncé’s Lemonade visuals. The Birth of a Nation Dir: Nate Parker The story of Nat Turner, a preacher who led a slave revolt in Virginia in the 1830s A Sundance-winning debut from actor turned writer-director Nate Parker. It polemically appropriates the title of DW Griffith’s 1915 film – a classic forever identified with American racism, against which Parker boldly takes up the cudgels. Divines Dir: Houda Benyamina A young woman from the Paris banlieue hustles to survive, while getting emotionally entangled with a male breakdancer The debut from French director Houda Benyamina, inspired by her experiences of the 2005 Paris riots, was one of this year’s Cannes breakout titles. Anarchic, ferociously energetic and joyously flouting the sexual stereotypes of hood drama, it introduces the explosively talented Oulaya Amamra as heroine Dounia. Hissein Habré, A Chadian Tragedy Dir: Mahamat-Saleh Haroun The former president of Chad prepares to stand trial for the crimes of his regime Mahamat-Saleh Haroun is one of the foremost contemporary African directors, his dramas including Abouna and A Screaming Man. Here he’s in a less familiar role as documentarist, scrutinising the past and present traumas of his own country. The 60th BFI London film festival takes place across the capital, 5-16 October
Co-op chief is leading the way in executive pay restraint We like to say we do things differently at the Co-op. Well, last week we proved it. On a morning when the Co-op reported growing profits and growing investment, including in frontline pay for colleagues, our chief executive Richard Pennycook also announced he was taking a voluntary pay cut. A total of 60% across base pay and bonus. That’s not the way CEOs usually behave. Normally, more profit leads to higher pay (at least for top execs). It was a little disappointing, therefore, to see your article (Co-op boss will take 60% pay cut – but not until next year, 8 April) focusing on the fact that some elements of the cut to bonus won’t come in to effect until 2017. The has always beaten the fair pay drum loudly, holding those in positions of power across business and politics to account when it comes to what they are paid. And rightly so. With the gap between the UK’s poorest and the richest growing each year, people understandably want to know that pay and rewards for business leaders are justified. Richard may well have scandalised some of his opposite numbers in the PLC world by his announcement. But if he has that would be a good thing. I’d like to think that the Co-op may just have sparked the beginning of a change in attitude towards executive pay, and I believe the should be right behind us. Nick Crofts President, The Co-operative Group • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
Plenty of reasons for a second EU referendum Rafael Behr (Opinion, 21 September) and senior Liberal Democrats who question the wisdom of Tim Farron’s commitment to a second referendum once the terms of Brexit are settled, assume present attitudes will persist. They ignore the likelihood that negotiations will end in “a hard Brexit”. Continued membership of the single market and of the EU customs union is the least likely outcome. Outside both, the prospect of an easy conclusion of favourable new free trade agreements (FTAs) with the rest of the world is a pipe dream. We would not only need a new FTA with the EU, likely to be a protracted negotiation as it has to be agreed by all 27 members, but also with some 50 countries with which the EU now has FTAs, as well as those with which it is now negotiating, principally China and the US. We would also have to re-enter the World Trade Organisation, which involves making a number of commitments that have to be approved by all 164 WTO members. London’s survival as the financial centre of Europe would also be in doubt. Outside the single market financial institutions would be unlikely to obtain the passports they need for doing business in the single market. The obstacles to a swift solution that would benefit our world trade are numerous and formidable. The likely result within a few years is a “Brexit recession”, caused by reduced foreign investment, even disinvestment, by those who once saw Britain as the gateway to the single market – Japanese carmakers, for example – as well as an exodus of British companies to the continent. By the time negotiations conclude, there is likely to be a major shift in public opinion against our leaving the EU. Dick Taverne House of Lords • Polly Toynbee (Get serious, Labour rebels, your country needs you, 20 September) makes the valid point that these 172 MPs should be standard bearers for the nation’s pro-EU 48%. In this context, I think it should also be borne in mind that less than 35% of the electorate voted for Brexit. Surely our elected representatives must take account of the 65% who, for whatever reasons, did not vote for the UK to leave the EU. It is another good reason for parliament, and not solely the prime minister, to decide whether to trigger article 50 of the Lisbon treaty. Mike Pender Cardiff • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
Twitter acquires AI startup Magic Pony for a reported $150m Twitter has bought London-based AI startup Magic Pony Technology for a reported $150m (£102m) as the company moves to strengthen its position in image-sharing, video and live video. Founded in 2014, Magic Pony uses machine learning to build improved systems for visual processing. The company said it was excited to be joining forces with Twitter “to improve the visual experiences that are delivered across their apps”. Twitter’s chief executive, Jack Dorsey, said Magic Pony’s technology would be used to enhance live and video offerings and “opens up a whole lot of exciting creative possibilities for Twitter”. Dorsey said the team included “11 PhDs with expertise across computer vision, machine learning, high-performance computing and computational neuroscience”. By teaching a neural network what certain types of images are like, Magic Pony’s systems can restore lost information to blurry pictures, or create new visuals from scratch. In demonstrations of its technology in April, Magic Pony showed one system that could “restore” a realistic face from the pixelated visage of the main character of Doom, and another that could automatically generate a brick-and-plaster wall from a small image. Many of the company’s advantages over competitors come from its speed and efficiency. While big companies such as Google and Adobe have image-processing technology that can pull off many of the same feats, Magic Pony says it targets “desktop, mobile and web”, and has demonstrated some of its systems running on video, live. Twitter could build the technology into its app to improve the quality of streamed video or use it as a form of ersatz image compression. Magic Pony’s cofounder, Rob Bishop, told MIT Technology Review in April that “online video-streaming businesses rely heavily on video compression. Our first product demonstrates that image quality can be greatly enhanced using deep learning, and fast mobile GPUs now allow us to deploy it anywhere.” Bishop was the first engineering employee at Raspberry Pi. He and his cofounder, Zehan Wang, met at London-based startup accelerator Entrepreneur First. Magic Pony’s investors highlighted the acquisition as further evidence of the UK’s lead in AI. “The UK continues to grow as the ‘go-to’ place for companies looking to build best in breed AI technology,” said Luke Hakes of Octopus Ventures. Suranga Chandratillake of Balderton Capital added: “We are delighted that an iconic west coast company has once again recognised that Europe is right at the forefront of the AI revolution.” London-based DeepMind sparked an AI boom when it was acquired by Google in January 2014 for more than $500m. The company has since built the first software capable of beating a professional human player at the ancient Asian board game Go, a victory long considered impossible by AI experts.
Miss Hokusai review – artist anime blends the sentimental, erotic and strange Katsushika Hokusai is the Japanese artist whose famous work is The Great Wave Off Kanagawa (1830): an elegant and mysterious vision of a huge wave in mid-break, droplets of spray fixed like icicles, endlessly reproduced on T-shirts, posters, etc. This interesting and unexpectedly complex anime, based on Hinako Sugiura’s manga series Sarusaberi, or Crape Myrtle, is about Hokusai’s daughter and assistant O-Ei, voiced by Anne Watanabe. The movie persuasively speculates that she was effectively his collaborator and artistic co-creator, and the film combines the sentimental, the erotic and the simply strange. Father and daughter here have a very frank attitude to their lucrative erotica output, and there are intriguing leftfield moments, such as a visit to a courtesan, who is tricked into revealing her mystical ability to let her head float away from her neck. O-Ei has a bizarre vision of a giant Buddha appearing in the sky and letting its great foot stamp on her. There is a nod to the famous wave. It is an interesting work, delicately and discreetly animated, with a quiet visual coup in its final moments when the Edo (as it was then called) of 1814 is dreamily replaced by the Tokyo of the 21st century.
X-Men: Apocalypse review – lots of bangs for your bucks but loopiness is lost A gallery of mutants from generations old and new is spread across Marvel’s hyperactive and excitable new X-Men movie, directed by Bryan Singer, which seems to absorb ideas of occult resurgence and mythic confrontation from films like Raiders of the Lost Ark and Star Wars. Now the mutants have to battle the ur-mutant, the first mutant of all, the ancient Egyptian potentate En Sabah Nur, smaller and more human-sized than in the comics and played with massive impassivity by Oscar Isaac. En Sabah Nur returns to Earth with the intention of destroying this wicked world and all its vanities before building it anew. The epicentre of his kingdom in Cairo is a colossal new pyramid with a distinctive filigree design, a little like the World Trade Center. The movie builds to the regulation city-smashing finale, with gravity suspended for the resulting debris and masonry fragments. The internal motor of this episode is kept turning over by a handful of very lively set-pieces, although it isn’t an obvious advance on the previous film, X-Men: Days of Future Past, which was more dizzyingly complex and strange. It does not have the same cerebral loopiness; there’s not enough for Jennifer Lawrence to do as Raven and the film ungallantly drops Famke Janssen as Jean Grey in favour of casting a younger actor, Sophie Turner — while keeping a certain comparably senior male star in place. But it keeps the fireworks firing and incidentally explains how Dr Xavier (James McAvoy) lost his hair, and it’s nothing so banal as male pattern baldness. We are now around a decade on from the last movie, which gave us the mutants’ first appearance in the age of Nixon and which ended in an assassination attempt from Magneto (Michael Fassbender). Now we are in the conservative 1980s: there is a glimpse of Ronald Reagan’s photograph on the wall of the CIA office and even a bit of William F Buckley on a TV news clip. Mutants are existing underground: Raven (Lawrence) is hiding out in East Berlin – somehow movies set in this period never happen in the boring old prosperous West Berlin – where she discovers and liberates a mutant, Nightcrawler (Kodi Smit-McPhee). Magneto himself is incognito in Poland, working in a factory and he now has a wife and child. You might think these domestic encumbrances are going to be pretty inconvenient if he is going to resume his mutant vocation. And you would be right. Meanwhile, Dr Xavier is still running his palatial school for gifted children which soon becomes home to a startling new star student, high-schooler Scott Summers (Tye Sheridan) – otherwise known as Cyclops. Scott is subject to excruciating pain in his eyes which torments him until he realises that these are weapons of mass destruction, and he demonstrates these powers in Dr Xavier’s grounds in a very entertaining sequence. The narrative is kicked into action when Magneto’s cover in Poland is blown, and he gets on the TV news, where is recognised by Quicksilver –another very entertaining turn from Evan Peters – who turns up at the school intending to help, just as En Sabah Nur arrives with his hideous sub-Biblical entourage of mutant helpers, seeking to appropriate Dr Xavier’s entire mental universe and recruit everyone to the dark side who wants to join. Fans of DOFP will be looking for a followup to the now classic frozen-time sequence in which Quicksilver dashed around the place, plucking bullets out of the air and putting people in silly positions – and all to the haunting accompaniment of Jim Croce’s Time in a Bottle. Now he does the same thing as Eurythmics play Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This). It’s amusing, but not quite the showstopper it was the last time – and the returns are diminishing for this routine. Boldly, Singer reprises one of the most startling aspects of the first X-Men movie from 2000: Magneto is briefly returned to Auschwitz, where his parents perished, and invoked as a touchstone of the kind of pure evil which will destroy humanity. In a movie with less artless and forthright vehemence, and one with greater pretensions to middlebrow good taste, this could hardly have worked, but Singer brings it off here, just about. The idea of an apocalypse means every dial has to be turned up to 11 and this film certainly provides bangs for your buck, although there is less space for the surreal strangeness of the X-Men to breathe, less dialogue interest, and they do not have the looser, wittier joy of the Avengers. But the more playful episodes with Cyclops and Quicksilver are welcome and everything hangs together. But in the future X-Men films have to mutate into something with fewer characters and more characterisation.
RBS, Barclays and other banks fined in Swiss franc Libor case Royal Bank of Scotland and Barclays are among banks hit with SFr99m (£78m) of fines by the Swiss competition regulator for operating four separate cartels, as the international fallout from the Libor rate-rigging scandal spreads. The two British lenders were hit with a combined £37m in fines, while HSBC, Lloyds and City of London brokers Icap, Tullett Prebon and RP Martin all remain under investigation by Switzerland’s competition commission, Comco. Barclays was fined £23.5m by Comco for colluding to influence interest rate derivatives by manipulating Euribor, used for euro loans between banks. The British lender was found to have participated in cartel behaviour over 32 months, while RBS was fined £9.7m for eight months of participation. Proceedings against a slew of other banks including HSBC are ongoing, while Deutsche Bank received immunity for blowing the whistle on the cartel. “The cartel aimed at distorting the normal course of pricing components for interest rate derivatives in euro,” said Comco. “Traders of different banks occasionally discussed their bank’s submissions for the calculation of the Euribor as well as their trading and pricing strategies.” The probe also saw France’s Société Générale fined £2.6m, while proceedings remain open against JP Morgan, BNP Paribas, Credit Agricole and Rabobank. RBS was granted immunity in a separate probe into collusion with JP Morgan to influence the Swiss franc version of the Libor interest rate, after it told regulators of the activity. Comco fined JP Morgan £27m after concluding that the two banks had operated a “bilateral cartel” between March 2008 and July 2009, with the aim of influencing the benchmark rate. RBS received full immunity for revealing the existence of the cartel to Comco, while JP Morgan had its fine reduced after cooperating with the regulator’s inquiries. A third probe into yen Libor rates saw the regulator hand out £11.3m of fines, including a £3m penalty for RBS, for manipulation that took place between 2007 and 2010. The proceedings continue against banks including HSBC and Lloyds, while Icap, RP Martin and Tullett Prebon were also named as being subject to ongoing scrutiny, along with Rabobank and UBS. A final probe into the spread on Swiss franc interest rate derivatives resulted in £4.25m of fines, including just £670,000 for RBS, after its penalty was reduced for cooperation with the regulator. The scale of the Swiss regulator’s penalties pale in comparison to those dished out by European competition authorities earlier this month. Three major banks – including HSBC – were fined €485m (£412m) for colluding to manipulate the crucial Euribor benchmark rate, after a five-year investigation. The trio had chosen not to take part in an earlier settlement that included RBS and Barclays. The rate-rigging scandal has seen banks hit with hundreds of millions of pounds in fines from a variety of regulators, while bankers from Barclays and UBS have been jailed.
Brexit could force multibillion-pound projects to be scrapped, says NAO chief Billions of pounds’ worth of public projects will have to be scrapped by Theresa May because of a “tidal wave” of pressures from an impending Brexit, the head of Whitehall’s official spending watchdog has said. The comptroller and auditor general of the National Audit Office, Sir Amyas Morse, said the government would have to treat leaving the EU as an “emergency” and that government departments would be forced to decide which plans could be cancelled or suspended. Major projects such as the Hinkley Point C nuclear plant, a third runway at Heathrow and the ambitious HS2 rail project would have to be reassessed as the government decides which can be done without, he told the . Others which will be re-examined include the £7bn refurbishment of the Palace of Westminster, the London commuter line Crossrail 2 and former chancellor George Osborne’s northern powerhouse strategy. Britain’s most senior auditor gave his alarming verdict on Whitehall’s readiness as the prime minister comes under increasing pressure from European leaders to start talks on the UK’s exit from the EU as soon as possible. “It’s a tidal wave coming up the beach,” he said. “It is an emergency. If we don’t get it right, it will affect our economy and standards of life in this country. To say we are going to carry on and do everything we did before – I just don’t think that’s going to be sustainable.” “We probably won’t face something like this again. You can truly use the word emergency about getting a Brexit right,” he said. Morse, the government’s chief auditor who has a statutory responsibility to scrutinise all public spending, has spoken out in a rare interview – a reflection of his concern that there is little time to waste. He warned that the UK’s decision to leave the EU would mean government resources, including civil servants, IT professionals and legal advisers, being directed towards managing Brexit and therefore away from delivering major infrastructure projects. Aiming his words at Downing Street, he said that government departments must be forced to reduce their commitments to major projects, which are valued at £405bn, because some government departments are facing cuts of up to 40%. “We need to ask ourselves, can the public sector deliver Hinkley Point C, a third runway, HS2, a northern powerhouse, nuclear decommissioning, Trident renewal and restoration and renewal of the Palace of Westminster all at the same time? “All these projects are drawing on the same pool of skills and many of these contain optimism bias that they will be able to meet their skill needs at an appropriate cost,” he said, while declining to speculate on which should be scrapped. “You are going to have to rein in projects … and say, what is the benefit? How damaging is it not to have it for a period of time? Can we afford it?” he said. “There is a policy at the moment to have lots of infrastructure projects. I say fine, but some of them will have very big consequences in terms of your ability to deliver your other goals.” A Brexit would mean that other government activity would inevitably have to be curtailed, but there was a danger of it being left too late. Morse said the initiative to cancel projects quickly had to come from Downing Street. “I think that a lot of this will happen anyway as the [Brexit] plans build up,” he said. “But it [would be] so much better if it happens facing forward and the government takes a grip of it rather than saying: ‘You know, we have been overtaken by events and now we are rushing around arbitrarily stopping things,’ which could be chaotic and costly.” Morse said each government department will have to conduct a “stocktake” to ensure that Whitehall has the capacity and the public money to deal with the challenges of extracting Britain from the EU. “Everything from EU science research funding to aviation policy to fisheries policy will need to be looked at and new systems and business operations put into place to fill the gap left by the EU,” he said. He added: “Brexit means lots of additional work for departments. We really have to create some capacity to be able to handle that surge in demand.” The challenge of a Brexit also has to be completed in the face of large-scale staff cuts across Whitehall, he added. “This is while the budgets for most departments have [been subjected to] very aggressive reductions. In the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills there is a reduction of central costs, I think, of 40%,” he said. He said a “digital capability gap” meant that even before Brexit the government needed to find about 2,800 new staff with IT skills to undertake projects already planned over the next five years. This gap, it has been estimated by the NAO, would cost £213m to fill with full-time civil servants and £418m if the work was handed to contractors. Ministerial ambition also made it hard for the government to think rationally about which projects were “must have” and which were “would like” and expendable, he said. “It comes partly from the natural enthusiasm of ministers who want to announce major initiatives and a natural enthusiasm of civil servants to be seen as ‘can do’,” he said. “It is not a very attractive prospect for a minister to stand up and say: ‘Well, I haven’t really initiated anything in my time at this ministry but I have done a very prudent job managing the projects inherited from my predecessor and, by the way, when I retire, someone else will be able to see the completion of these projects and get the credit.’ These are not criticisms of any particular government, this is just how it is.” He also warned that the government should also prepare for a possible “Scotxit”, given that Scotland voted to stay in the EU, which could be even trickier than a deal with the EU. “That will be a negotiation you will be able to see from the moon,” he said.
The game improving a community’s health without them noticing It is drizzling and cold in Salford, but a class of eight- and nine-year-olds from Lewis Street school in Patricroft are buzzing as their teachers lead them down the streets of terraced houses between classes. They stride through a park, dodging an abandoned car seat, to swipe lanyards against three street sensors before returning to lessons. It’s called “going fobbing” in Salford – walking or cycling to sensors on lampposts all round the city and swiping them to get points. It’s part of a health and community building scheme called Beat The Street (BTS) and it’s taken Lewis Street by storm. Pupils and parents have travelled 3,288 miles (scoring a mighty 66,490 points) on fobbing expeditions over two months to outwalk all Salford’s other 23 participating schools and 13 community groups. Patricroft is a struggling area, where unemployment is high and the number of people describing their health as bad or very bad is well above the national average. But there’s a clear sense of purpose here as the warmly wrapped youngsters line up to swipe their fobs near the school. “I did all the 50 fobs in three days over half term,” says one little girl excitedly. Her teacher reveals that this previously inactive child now goes to an after-school sports club almost every night of the week. The school has undergone a mini revolution. A detailed and constantly changing online content plan, social media and incentives such as tickets to local amenities, keep the players engaged – not to mention the sense of competition. Rachael Hall, the school’s sports coach, says: “I’ve never known anything like it – children are going out walking every evening and weekend. Teaching assistants take the children out at lunchtime three times a week and take whole classes out twice a week. I’ve had parents telling me how happy they are to be spending time with their children going fobbing rather than sitting in front of the TV.” She says a little boy with cerebral palsy with walking problems has made big progress because of the peer pressure to participate in BTS. Another pupil has become so fascinated by the project that he has taken to writing down where he has been, which has improved his school work. This is exactly what Beat the Street founder and Reading GP, Dr William Bird is after – galvanising whole communities, with the health message almost a side issue. He says: “I want to get the whole of the UK walking, starting with the cities where it is easiest. Walking creates vibrancy – take it away and you create a flat and dying city full of underpasses where no one wants to go.” Intelligent Health, which Dr Bird set up to operate BTS, works by turning a town or community into a game where people of all ages earn points by walking, cycling or running between sensors placed on lampposts. In the process, no-go areas are opened up to pedestrians, people have fun together and develop healthier habits. Jennifer Dodd-Power, engagement manager for BTS in Salford, has convinced 5,500 people to take part so far – (though not a patch on Belfast which boasted 36,000 players). She says: “People are not seeing BTS as exercise but as a fun way of going out with the family. We are not saying to people ‘go and join a gym or get yourself to an exercise class’ we are saying ‘go out and meet your friends’.” Part of her work has been to link fobbing with community events – such as the Eccles Makers Market – where BTS participants could gain extra points on the day of the event at a temporary sensor set up nearby. The two-month games are preceded by three months’ community engagement, where people such as Dodd work with GPs, local NHS organisations, community groups, sports clubs and schools to build up the enthusiasm. Then the activities requested by a community are set up, whether that be women-only bike riding classes in Asian-dominated Handsworth in Birmingham, or just the incentive to walk into town for previously immobile elderly members of Banham Drive, Sudbury. There elderly residents walked more than 1,500 miles together and have now set up organised walks. BTS is proving successful in health terms according to results from 53,000 participants. During the game phase the proportion of adults meeting the physical activity guidelines increased from 46% to 57% and the percentage of adults reported walking on five to seven days per week increased from 47% to 61%. Government research shows that those who fulfil the recommendation of 150 minutes per week of exercise will improve 23 different long-term conditions including diabetes and dementia, reduce the risk of developing several cancers and even stimulate the brain chemicals that reverse ageing, says Bird. Intelligent Health’s research shows that people are put off by the NHS’s health messages, because they feel they are being lectured. So the year-long health programmes targeting areas of deprivation put the emphasis on enjoying activity with others – and last year 175,198 people travelled more than 1.5m miles with BTS in 21 areas. The scheme is not working for everyone, though. Head of Lewis Street School, Gemma Lavelle, says: “Even though BTS has raised our activity levels we know that some parents have not signed up. What do we have to do to get some of the really hard-to-reach families involved?” Join the Healthcare Professionals Network to read more pieces like this. And follow us on Twitter (@GdnHealthcare) to keep up with the latest healthcare news and views.
Robbie Williams: The Heavy Entertainment Show review – cheek, swagger and schmaltz “Light entertainment, but on steroids” is how Robbie Williams conceived his 11th solo album, a record that reunites the singer with writer Guy Chambers, co-author of umpteen smash hits from the Robbie back catalogue, on a new label. Chambers returned for 2013’s Swings Both Ways, but that was all dicky bows and pomade. This is supposed to be a pop event – a sort of Lady Gaga reunites with RedOne situation – in which Williams redeploys the particular combination of cheek, imperiousness and schmaltz that saw him boss the late 90s and early 00s. That’s probably not how Heavy Entertainment will play out, exactly. It’s hard to pinpoint where this album fits in the shifting-sand ecology of contemporary pop. Perhaps wisely, Williams opts out of current sounds such as glacial R&B and big-drop dancefloor digitals, borrowing, magpie-like, from glam rock and 80s funk. If Mixed Signals – all 80s soft rock via 00s synths – sounds like the Killers, that’s because Williams hired them to write it. Strangely enough, he wears this windswept stuff surprisingly well. His old pal Rufus Wainwright helps out on Hotel Crazy, a lyrics-heavy vamp that sounds like it should have a West End musical written around it. Millennial-targeting chart fodder isn’t Williams’s prime concern, anyway. Pretty Woman – a roots gone pop collaboration with Ed Sheeran and producer Benny Blanco – and Sensitive – a forgettable Stuart Price funk-pop bagatelle – are the closest Williams comes to courting the pop crowd. More to the point, the first single from Heavy Entertainment, the oligarch-mocking Party Like a Russian, generated far more commentary than roubles, failing to chart particularly high (No 23). By contrast, 2012’s Candy, Williams’s last reintroductory salvo, topped the singles. Whatever you think of Party Like a Russian – allegedly, it was dreamed up in the aftermath of a Roman Abramovich-funded private gig – few other artists would attempt such camp, bombastic ridiculousness, and today’s charts are, perhaps, all the more anodyne for that absence of chutzpah. You couldn’t imagine too many celebs singing a song called Motherfucker, either, in which the mental ill health of the forebears is visited upon a young son in tabloid-baiting form. “Your uncle sells drugs,” it goes, “Your cousin is a cutter/Your grandma is a fluffer/ Your grandad’s in the gutter…” In its gleeful refusal to provide reassurance to young Charlton Williams, aged two, it is, perhaps, one of the least nausea-inducing songs ever dedicated to a celebrity offspring. The tunes that could only come from Williams make this record entertaining if a little groan-worthy. The could-be-anybody songs just don’t stick in the memory. The album’s introductory title track is, of course, pure Robbie – another operatic, circussy blare full of his particular brand of self-deprecating preening. “I am notorious for making all the crowd sing the chor-i-us,” he smirks. “I just made up that word!” If ever something was needed to reconfirm his pop star status, here it is: you still want to biff him.
Paul Ryan and Donald Trump might say they're unified. But there's a bloody civil war on When Donald Trump met with Paul Ryan in Washington on Thursday, you could say it was a meeting between the current and possibly future nominee of the Republican party. Or you could say it was a battle for the soul of the party, between a conservative reformer and nativist rabble-rouser. The latter is how Ryan himself portrayed the debate when he torpedoed the orange flagship on CNN last week. Saying he “just wasn’t ready” to support Trump, the House speaker warned that Trump’s platform was not inclusive, presidential or, well, conservative. “We don’t always nominate a Lincoln or a Reagan every four years, but we hope that our nominee aspires to be Lincoln- or Reagan-esque, that that person advances the principles of our party and appeals to a wide, vast majority of Americans,” Ryan said. Ryan insisted that the burden of unifying the party rested with Trump. “Saying we’re unified doesn’t in and of itself unify us,” he explained, “but actually taking the principles that we all believe in, showing that there’s a dedication to those, and running a principled campaign that Republicans can be proud about and that can actually appeal to a majority of Americans – that to me is what it takes to unify this party.” Trump responded in that most presidential of ways: by making it personal. “I’m not ready to support Speaker Ryan’s agenda,” he said in a statement. At least the slap wasn’t on Twitter. So when the two great leaders met on Thursday morning, somewhere behind a monster scrum of live-tweeting reporters, the language was a diplomatic veneer of unity. In their joint communique, Trump and Ryan said: “While we were honest about our few differences, we recognize that there are also many important areas of common ground.” The joint statement did not detail what that common ground looks like, other than defeating Hillary Clinton. Which sounds much like the statements of a Miss Universe contestant at one of Trump’s beauty pageants: both contestants agree that they want to travel, help children and work for world peace. Ryan later told reporters a little more about those “few differences”, which sounded rather fundamental. “How do we keep adding and adding and adding voters while not subtracting any voters,” he said. He didn’t have to say: like Latinos or women, for instance. Ryan’s challenge is particularly exquisite. He needs unity because his day job is otherwise impossible. It was only six months ago that power was thrust upon him when his own House Republicans devoured both his predecessor, John Boehner, and the anointed successor, Kevin McCarthy. Boehner was sick of the civil war, while his chosen successor was consumed by it. McCarthy committed the unforgivable sin of being honest on TV when he admitted that the Benghazi committee supposedly investigating the deadly attacks in Libya in 2012 was really intended to destroy Clinton’s poll numbers. McCarthy was crushed by the ultra-conservative Freedom Caucus, who made Boehner’s position a living hell. That caucus is now almost uniformly opposed to Trump (while McCarthy now loves Trump). There are some early efforts to engineer a meeting between the caucus and the nominee, in an attempt to redefine how an unstoppable force can meet immovable object. Given a choice between placating the Freedom Caucus and placating Donald Trump, Ryan is wisely choosing self-preservation with the former. “To pretend we’re unified without actually unifying, then we go into the fall at half strength,” Ryan told reporters after meeting with House GOP members on Wednesday. Some things are easier when your name is Trump: securing bank loans, declaring bankruptcy, amassing Twitter followers and getting booked for exclusive TV interviews. Some things are harder: mastering policy, acting presidential, leading a party whose power-brokers loathe you. What does peace in the Republican look like? Why, Paul Ryan of course. “I’d love to see him run for president,” Mitt Romney reportedly told a private fundraiser meeting last week, according to the New York Times. The last Republican nominee added his name to a long list of pro-Ryan grandees, including Boehner himself, as well as Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri and Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah. It’s one thing to shake hands across a party after primary season; it’s entirely different negotiating an armistice between rival armies in the midst of bloody civil war. Especially when the armies believe they have everything left to fight for.
Austria's Christian Kern calls for EU shakeup regardless of UK vote The British referendum on membership of the EU could herald the “slow goodbye of the European idea” unless politicians learn their lessons from it, Austria’s new chancellor has said. “Whatever the outcome of the British referendum, afterwards Europe will not be able to shy away from a few much-needed debates,” Christian Kern said in his first interview with the international press since being parachuted to the top of Austrian politics a month ago. Speaking to the , Poland’s Gazeta Wyborcza, France’s Le Monde and Germany’s Süddeutsche Zeitung, Kern said that a British exit from the EU would lead to “enormous economic upheaval and a shift in the continent’s political balance”. He added: “Especially when it comes to foreign policy, Great Britain is an extremely important partner.” But the Social Democrat claimed he would watch Thursday’s referendum “with a certain serenity” because he believed fundamental reforms were necessary whatever the outcome. “We have to clear up some fundamental issues in Europe irrespective of whether Brexit or remain will win,” he said. “Even without Britain, neoliberal ideas dominate in Europe and one of the challenges for the EU will have to be not just to engage with the four fundamental freedoms [free movement of goods, capital, people and services], but also the question of how our welfare system in Europe has to be clarified. If we ignore that, then that’s a slow goodbye to the European idea.” Speaking before Marine Le Pen, of France’s far-right Front National, called on all 28 member states to hold their own referendums, Kern said he would not hold a vote on EU membership: “At the end of the day, we who lead this country also have a certain responsibility and you don’t have to give in to every call for a referendum. On such a question, I would not submit Austria to a referendum.” The 50-year-old Kern, formerly the head of Austria’s railway company ÖBB, has taken on the chancellorship of his country at a tumultuous time. His predecessor, Werner Faymann, in power since 2008, resigned after he said he had lost the trust of his party in the face of a far-right surge for the Freedom party (FPÖ). Last month, Austria nearly voted in the EU’s first rightwing populist president, after the FPÖ candidate, Norbert Hofer, narrowly lost to Green-backed Alexander Van der Bellen in a bitterly fought contest. The Freedom party is currently trying to appeal against the result in front of Austria’s constitutional court. “If you look at the confrontation between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton, or the Trump phenomenon, then you see: populists thrive on being able to send out a clear message. They tell people where and how decisions are made. Our problem in Europe is that we have a lot of questions that can no longer be answered on a national stage. “In Europe, an impression is being created that politics has lost the means to intervene into people’s living conditions. We have to find a clearer message.” Kern said leftwing parties around Europe needed to reconsider their strategy in dealing with populist parties, with criticism focused on their track record once they had come into power. “In Carinthia, the FPÖ pushed the region to the edge of bankruptcy and left behind a complete mess. We have to call them out on this much more,” he said. Reacting to the murder of the British Labour MP Jo Cox, Kern said the incident was “further proof of how quickly violent words can turn into violent deeds”. He added: “On social media, you see people falling into parallel worlds that we can no longer get them back out of. How do you get back these people who believe that all media and all journalists are lying to them?” In recent months, Austria has witnessed not only a surge in support for the FPÖ , but also increased high-profile stunts and protests by the so-called Identitarian movement, a far-right activist group originally derived from France’s far-right and anti-immigrant youth movement Génération Identitaire, which consciously copies the methods of protest groups such as Antifa and Greenpeace. Last weekend, up to 1,000 Identitarian supporters gathered for a protest in Vienna, chanting: “Homeland, freedom, tradition, end of the line for multiculturalism.” While the group has often been dismissed as media-savvy but politically ineffective, Kern said recent events should prompt a rethink about the group’s legality. The Identitarian movement, he said, was “a movement that is generally considered to be rightwing extremist; if you saw what they did in Vienna last week, it reminds you of the marches in the 1930s, with flags and all the trimmings. We have to think about whether we are too tolerant.” Asked whether the group should be banned, Kern said: “Until last week, I would have denied that but, in the meantime, I have started to have my doubts. Three weeks ago, I also said that we have managed to accept 90,000 refugees without seeing any arson attacks on asylum seekers’ homes. In the meantime, we’ve had an instance like that. Things can change quickly.” Kern’s predecessor went from being one of the key supporters of Angela Merkel’s open-border strategy at the height of the refugee crisis to one of its most active critics, and the Austrian foreign minister, Sebastian Kurz, was one of the key players behind the closure of the Balkan route in March. Asked if he felt the German chancellor had made a mistake when she suspended the Dublin agreement for Syrian refugees last summer, Kern said: “We were all surprised by the scale of migration movements. You can only judge such decisions in the context of the time. “Back then, Angela Merkel’s actions were justified. If you look now at what lengths the German chancellor is going to with Turkey, then it is clear that she wants a change of direction. I don’t want to imagine what happens when the Turkey deal fails.”
Barclays needs some big ideas while share price languishes ‘Our stock price is broadly where it was immediately after the global financial crisis, six years ago,” said Barclays chairman John McFarlane last July, sympathising with the bank’s “incredibly patient” investors and vowing to “accelerate the delivery of shareholder value”. His observation about the share price is now out of date. Barclays has plunged from 280p to 173p – back to where it was in the dark days of 2012 when Bob Diamond was forced to resign as chief executive. Most banks have slumped in value since last summer, it should be said. Financial stocks, especially those with investment banks, like Barclays, don’t like falling stock markets. The plunging oil price has brought worries about bad debts in the offing. Regulators are not going soft on their capital demands. In Barclays’ case, there’s a deeper worry. What’s the strategy? Does Jes Staley, McFarlane’s pick as the latest chief executive, have a radical reinvention plan? Or is he going to offer another uninspiring round of cost-cutting? Never let a good crisis go to waste, advised Bernstein’s analysts, in an open letter to Staley. Their radical formula: get out of Africa, sell the US credit card business, and carve out the investment bank and promise to float it in the US, in effect unwinding Diamond’s purchase of the rump of Lehman Brothers. The latter idea is the big one and would require Staley and McFarlane to swallow hard. But Bernstein is right that housing a US investment bank inside a UK retail bank is “an absolute investment nightmare” in the new regulatory era. If Staley and McFarlane disagree, they’d better be able to show how the unhappy relationship is meant to work. To many observers, it looks fundamentally dysfunctional.
Swansea 1-0 Aston Villa: Premier League – as it happened Gomis drills fractionally wide from 25 yards, a fine effort. Moments later the final whistle goes, and Swansea have surely ensured they will be in this league next season. Villa played well at times, particularly in the first half, but they were toothless in attack. Thanks for your company, goodnight! 90 min There are four minutes of added time. In the first of those, Britton is booked for a brazenly cynical foul on Agbonlahor. 89 min Lescott is booked for stopping a Swansea break with a tug on Gomis. 87 min “Had a short It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia break, and let’s see what’s happening,” says Michael Rosefield. “Ah. I could probably squeeze another episode in.” Everything’s fine. 83 min “Commiserations for having to ogle the odyssey of misery that is Swansea v Villa,” says Keeley Moss. “Not having anything as sophisticated as Sky Sports, BT Sport or any other televisual means of football-viewing, I’m a third of the way through the May 2002 episode of Crimewatch UK. Which come to think of it, is probably where Villa ought to be shown given their frankly criminal defending this term.” 82 min Swansea are as comfortable as at any stage in the match. After an excellent first half, Villa are now playing like Villa. 78 min Villa are having a good spell, although it would be stretching it to say they look like scoring. The youngster Green has been good since coming on. Meanwhile, Swansea bring on Kyle Naughton for the impressive Modou Barrow. 77 min “With tonight’s match as further proof, I’d submit that this Villa team is the worst in the history of the Premier League,” says Alan Gomes. “Not just the worst Villa team, which it obviously is. The very worst team in two decades of Premier League history. Even worse than that post bankrupcy Pompey affair. Tim Sherwood, take a bow!” Never forget. 75 min Villa’s fans appeal for handball when Cissokho’s cross hits a Swansea defender. 74 min A Villa substitution: Gabby Agbonlahor replaces Carles Gil. 72 min Green runs at Rangel and wins a corner for Villa. Fernandez heads it behind for a second corner, which Gil swings onto the head of Lescott. He sees it late and heads straight at Fabianski from 10 yards. That’s the third shot on target in this match. 68 min Sigurdsson, already booked, brings Hutton down. It wasn’t enough for a second yellow. I bet Mike Dean was tempted, though. 67 min “Shame you have to watch this filth,” weeps Paul Jaines. “To show my solidarity I am sitting in in front of an open fire sipping a beautiful aged Bordeaux and eating French cheese. I may open a Burgundy next.” I’ll be opening some claret with a sharp pencil in a minute. 66 min A corner to Villa, conceded by Williams. Gil swings it in from the right, and the inevitable Williams heads it clear. He is a brilliant defender. 65 min “I’ve watched Villa all season and that’s got to be the worst goal conceded by any team,” says Thomas Darnton. “Guzan should have easily got there. He has made too many mistakes this season and I think that Remi Garde should give Mark Bunn another go because we then won’t concede shabby goals like that.” Cutting out those cheap goals could be the difference between finishing 20th and, er, eh. 62 min Fer nutmegs Lescott in the box but then picks the wrong option. Swansea are in control now. 62 min A Villa substitution: the 17-year-old Andre Green replaces Veretout. 61 min “To be honest it’s difficult ... ” begins Malcolm Tucker Mark Turner. “...to muster a comment and help you out in your onerous task. After a week of wonderful Cheltenham (just watched Sprinter Sacre on YouTube again...spine-tingling), then the amazing Leicester bagging another three points in a tight nail-biter we’re served as dessert...Swansea versus Aston Villa and the home team take the obvious lead after a first half of utter drudge. Sports reporting for the brave, we salute you Mister Rob.” 60 min Sigurdsson is booked for a bad tackle on a Villa player whose name must be withheld for legal reasons I didn’t catch. 58 min Remi Garde slumps back in his chair with the rueul look of a man who bought a collector’s edition DVD of 8 1/2 on eBay and has just opened the parcel to find a cassette tape of 9 1/2 Weeks. 57 min “Not watching it either,” says Michael Rosefield. “I find Villa games are best enjoyed with eyes closed, head in hands, rocking yourself back-and-forth and telling yourself everything’s fine.” That email came before the goal. This one came after. “EVERYTHING’S FINE, EVERYTHING’S FINE, EVERYTHING’S FINE.” What a scruffy goal. That foul by Cissokho led to a free-kick for Swansea 40 yards out. It was curled into the corridor of uncertainty by Sigurdsson, which tempted Guzan off his line. He got there late and flapped it onto Fernandez, who was looking the other way when the ball hit him and rebounded gently into the net. 52 min Cissokho, on a yellow card, trips the dangerous Barrow. It looks like a second yellow card, but Mike Dean instead decides to give Cissokho a final warning. I want to marry Mike Dean. 51 min “How do you see the relegation battle going, especially Benitez is in charge of Newcastle?” says Shaun Wilkinson. “Will he make the difference? I would suggest that whoever loses the derby tomorrow is going down with the Villa.” Relegation battles are relatively hard to predict. There have been some thoroughly improbable escapes in the last decade – West Ham, Fulham, Wigan, Portsmouth – so I wouldn’t be surprised if any of them apart from Villa stayed up. And that’s the expertise for which you all love the . (I think Newcastle and Norwich will go.) 50 min “I am here, I have money on Siggy,” says Paul E. “Not even watching, just reading you.” I’m sorry. 48 min Barrow makes another no-frills run infield, opening up the play. Then he shifts it to Sigurdsson, who breaks towards the area before Lescott makes an important interception. 47 min Anyone out there? Please, please, please don’t make me do another 45 minutes of this on my own. 46 min Swansea begin the second half. They have brought ball-retention specialist Leon Britton on for Ki. The match has lived down to expectations so far. Villa should be ahead, but they aren’t. See you in 10 minutes! 42 min A terrific cross from Gueye is half cleared to Gestede, who loops an overhead kick towards goal from 12 yards. Fabianski had it covered but Williams headed it away for a corner to be on the safe side. From the corner, Clark heads over from 10 yards, a decent chance. 40 min Williams makes an excellent sliding challenge on the right of the area to deny Ayew, and the ball deflects back off Ayew for a goalkick. Why did none of the big clubs buy Williams when he was in his prime? 38 min Barrow runs at Cissokho but then plays a poor pass to Ki on the edge of the box. He is a threat with his speed though. Gomis then screams a long-range shot high and wide. 35 min Rangel gets into the box on the right and picks out Sigurdsson, whose first-time shot is blocked by Clark. 33 min Veretout’s flat cross is met with a powerful flicked header from Gestede, 15 yards out. Fabianski plunges to his left to make a comfortable save. 32 min Sigurdsson plays a fine through ball to Barrow, who is just offside. Not that it mattered, because he over-ran the ball when he went round Guzan. He has been Swansea’s biggest threat though. He is comically fast. 31 min With every passing minute of Villa superiority, it becomes ever more obvious that Swansea will win 1-0 with a 94th-minute own goal from Alan Hutton. 29 min Sigurdsson curls the free kick high and wide. 27 min Gomis finds Barrow, who zooms forward before being hoofed up in the air by Cissokho. That’s a clear yellow card and a free-kick to Swansea 30 yards from goal. 24 min Sigurdsson’s dangerous inswinging free-kick from the left is headed behind for a corner by Lescott with Guzan flailing at fresh air. 21 min Villa get a corner on the right. Veretout swings it out to the near post, where Clark rises and flicks a header just over the bar from six yards. He should probably have scored. 20 min A long throw from Hutton almost breaks to Ayew in the six-yard box, and eventually it’s scrambled clear. 19 min Kingsley’s mishit clearance hits the raised hand of Williams, but he knew precisely nothing about it and a penalty would have been harsh. I bet Mike Dean was tempted though. 18 min Gueye’s fierce low shot from 25 yards is blocked. Villa have been by far the better team. 16 min Gestede and Williams square up after an impromptu wrestle, and then a few of the other players join in. Mike Dean doesn’t book either player. Williams shoved Gestede in the face, which might warrant a retrospective ban the way things are these days. 13 min Barrow’s driven cross is put behind for a corner by Clark at the near post. Sigurdsson takes the corner from the right, and the stooping Cork heads wide of the near post. It wasn’t any kind of chance. 8 min Ayew misses a good chance for Villa. Cork lost the ball in a dangerous position, allowing Ayew to run towards goal. He slipped smoothly past Williams on the edge of the box but then walloped his shot over the bar. 7 min “There was this as well when Villa were challenging for the title,” says Niall Mullen. “United were on the cusp of greatness. 23 years ago. Twenty three.” 6 min Villa have started confidently and are playing some good stuff. 3 min Fer dithers and unwittingly gives the ball to Lescott, who drills a snapshot wide from the edge of the area. 2 min “Your preamble made me wonder: would Villa somehow staying up rival Leicester winning the league for story of the season?” says Alex Hanton. “Or are there no events in English football that could rival it? Maybe if Flamini invents time travel and Arsenal replace Gunnersaurus with an actual cloned velociraptor?” I’m not even sure Leicester winning the league can live up to the thought of Leicester winning the league. It’s the greatest football story of our generation, at the very least. 1 min Peep peep! We’re off. Some happier memories for Villa fans “You beauuuuuty!” And this, an epic League Cup semi-final. Swansea (4-3-3) Fabianski, Rangel, Williams, Fernandez, Kingsley; Fer, Cork, Ki; Barrow, Gomis, Sigurdsson. Subs: Amat, Britton, Paloschi, Nordfeldt, Routledge, Montero, Naughton. Aston Villa (4-2-3-1) Guzan; Hutton, Clark, Lescott, Cissokho; Westwood, Gana; Gil, Veretout, Ayew; Gestede. Subs: Okore, Bacuna, Sinclair, Agbonlahor, Sanchez, Green, Bunn. Referee Mike Dean (Wirral) Hello. Forgive me for speaking frankly, but the love child of Don King and Barry Hearn would struggle to hype this match. It’s not without significance, however. Villa are down, barring the Mother Teresa of great escapes, but Swansea aren’t quite safe. They have a tough run-in after today, and if results go against them they could be a precarious five points clear of safety by tomorrow. Then again, if they win at home to Villa – and, really, they will need to take a very long look in a very long mirror if they don’t – they will surely be immune from relegation. Kick off is at 5.30pm.
Ebola survivors face long-term neurological problems, researchers find Ebola survivors are continuing to suffer from neurological problems more than six months after infection, according to the early results of a new study. The findings from research undertaken by US neurologists in Liberia appear to confirm suspicions that there are serious long-term effects of Ebola virus disease. They have been made public days after Pauline Cafferkey, the nurse who contracted Ebola while working as a volunteer in Sierra Leone, was admitted for the third time to the infectious diseases unit of the Royal Free hospital. The study was carried out in Liberia by researchers from the US National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke in Bethesda. A team of neurologists travelled to Liberia, where they recruited 87 survivors of the epidemic for a study on the long-term impact on the brain. Four were excluded because of other conditions. The remaining 82 were examined by the team and compared with close contacts who had not contracted the Ebola virus. Most of the survivors had health issues and neurological damage of some kind. “While an end to the outbreak has been declared, these survivors are still struggling with long-term problems,” said Lauren Bowen, the study’s author. The survivors had an average age of 35. The most common ongoing problems they experienced were weakness, headache, memory loss, depressed mood and muscle pain. Two people were suicidal and one had hallucinations. Common neurological findings on examination included abnormal eye movements, tremors and abnormal reflexes. Their friends and relatives are also being examined to try to determine which of these findings are specifically related to Ebola virus infection. “It is important for us to know how this virus may continue to affect the brain long term,” said Bowen. Her neurological study is part of a larger piece of research called Prevail III, which monitors Ebola survivors. “More than 28,600 people were infected with Ebola in west Africa during the outbreak. Of that number, 11,300 died. In collaboration with the ongoing Prevail III natural history study of Ebola survivors, we wanted to find out more about possible continued long-term brain health problems for the more than 17,000 survivors of the infection.” The full study will be presented to the American Academy of Neurology annual meeting in Vancouver in April. Cafferkey, 40, who returned from working in the Kerry Town Ebola treatment unit in Sierra Leone, run by Save the Children, in December 2014, spent almost a month in isolation in the Royal Free in January 2015. When she was discharged and returned to her home in Scotland, it was assumed that her problems were over, but last October she again fell ill. She was diagnosed with meningitis, triggered by the Ebola virus lingering in her nervous system. Again she was transferred to the Royal Free, where she came close to death but rallied and returned home. She has now been admitted again “due to a late complication from her previous infection by the Ebola virus”, a Royal Free spokesperson said. Her condition is said to be stable.
Why Big Ang from Mob Wives was the most gif-worthy reality star ever To a lot of people, reality television is simply mindless, lowbrow entertainment. For me, it’s a lot more than that. Reality television and pop culture have been passions of mine for years – as a hobby and a job. Unfortunately reality television can sometimes become too real. My name is T Kyle. Who? you might ask. You may have seen my work on the internet before. Just under five years ago, I started a Tumblr called RealityTVGIFs. To most of my audience, the Tumblr is a destination site for reaction gifs. However, my close friends know that RealityTVGIFs is my digital diary. I capture my reactions, opinions and responses to things going on in pop culture and in my personal life. It is a diary expressed via outrageous reality show moments. Weird? Maybe. But amid my daily stresses, it makes me laugh. Mob Wives is a VH1 show that follows Staten Island women connected to men with alleged mob ties. Whether or not you watch it, if you visit my site you know who Big Ang was. The show’s star died of cancer on Thursday aged 55. I was an employee at Viacom when Mob Wives was renewed after its incredibly successful debut season. We would have these town hall events where the bigwigs at the company would present teaser trailers for new, upcoming programming. The second season of Mob Wives was about to premiere, and they played a short cast profile of a new cast member. Her name was Angela “Big Ang” Raiola. “Last night me and my friend were out partying with the guys like we were 21 …” I immediately turned to a co-worker and said, “She is going to be a huge breakout star.” I just knew it. The hoarse voice, the outsized lips, that big laugh. Big Ang rapidly became, as I predicted, an internet sensation. Whether it was rolling her eyes, hollering that she needed a drink or simply announcing, “I don’t give a shit,” in the middle of a scene, Big Ang’s reactions were always hilarious, unexpected and real. This is why she was so “gif-able” and made such great television. Every single thing she did was over-the-top. In a recent episode, the girls gather for a yoga session. The instructor asks the girls to “Om”. Completely over it, Big Ang starts whining in that unique raspy voice “Ommmm I need a bloody maryyy.” I exploded in laughter, and I’ve been quoting the scene to friends ever since it aired. As someone who works in entertainment, the fourth wall gets broken a lot. You’ll find yourself at an event lending an iPhone charger to a Mob Wife, trying to explain what gif means to a Drag Race contestant, or even doing lemon-drop shots with a Real Housewife. I’ve met many reality stars over the years and sometimes they suffer from inflated egos, boosted by their 15 minutes of fame. Big Ang was not one of those reality stars. Contrary to the ruthless one-liners and occasional violence you see on Mob Wives each week, the entire cast is actually a very kind and gracious bunch. Big Ang was one of the kindest and most humble people I’ve ever met. Big Ang and her relatives, her cast mates, her friends; they all made you feel like you were family when you were around them. Her energy, her laugh and her smile were infectious. Every person I know, from her adoring fans to network professionals, have had nothing but positive things to say about her. She was genuinely so kind to every person she worked with. We were her “babies”. On the show, you would often see Big Ang playing the peacemaker and trying to resolve issues among cast members. “We’re only here for a short time, so just have a good time!” This was not a “character” she was playing, it is how she truly was. That was her reality, and we loved her for it. I post about Big Ang a lot on RealityTVGIFs. “You’re obsessed with her!” fans would say. Yes, I am. As a fan she made me smile and as a professional, I wanted everything she did to be successful. She was a great person and she deserved all the success, the “money!” and “diamonds!”, to quote two of her favourite words. It is people like Big Ang who made me enjoy my job, and she will truly be missed.
Brexit would free UK from 'spirit-crushing' green directives, says minister The UK could develop a more flexible approach to environmental protection free of “spirit-crushing” Brussels directives if it votes to leave the EU, the farming minister, George Eustice, has said. Speaking to the , the pro-Brexit minister said a leave vote in the 23 June referendum would free up a £2bn green dividend that could be spent on insurance schemes and incentives for farmers. Environmental laws that have helped protect endangered species and clean up dirty beaches are seen one of the key achievements of the EU, but Eustice sought to reassure green-minded voters that the UK could develop better protections by going it alone. “The birds and habitats directives would go,” he said, referring to two key pieces of European environmental law. “A lot of the national directives they instructed us to put in place would stay. But the directives’ framework is so rigid that it is spirit-crushing. “If we had more flexibility, we could focus our scientists’ energies on coming up with new, interesting ways to protect the environment, rather than just producing voluminous documents from Brussels.” The leave camp says that, in the event of a Brexit vote, £2bn would be earmarked for conservation spending out of the money it expects to recoup from payments to Brussels. “Our objective would be to put in place a government-backed insurance scheme, similar to the one in Canada, to protect farmers from bad weather, crop failures and drops in prices,” Eustice said. “We would also have a whole suite of accreditation schemes run by the Soil Association, Rivers Trust and RSPCA to incentivise farmers to do positive things for the environment.” But Eustice’s fellow environment minister Rory Stewart told the that EU membership was crucial to the UK’s environmental protections. “It is European action that put a stop to the devastating impact on our forests of acid rain, and we are now tackling air quality by cutting harmful emissions. Through the EU we have improved more than 9,000 miles of rivers since 2010 and our water environment is in the healthiest state for 25 years,” he said. “We have preserved valuable marine life through ending the wasteful practice of throwing fish back, dead, into the sea with a Europe-wide ban on discarding many species of fish. From tackling harmful chemicals that damage the ozone layer to cracking down on the black-market ivory trade, the UK has a strong track record in driving up environmental standards across Europe.” Environmentalists said they feared a developmental free-for-all on sites shielded by the EU’s Natura 2000 scheme, including Snowdonia, the Lake District, the Thames estuary, the North Yorkshire Moors, Scotland’s Flow Country and Dartmoor. One of the original authors of EU environmental legislation was Stanley Johnson, Boris’s father, who now co-chairs Environmentalists for Europe. He said of Eustice’s proposal: “I am absolutely shocked and horrified at what looks like a no-holds-barred attack by the Brexiteers on an agreed consensus that the environment benefits from a common approach. “Don’t tell me that a new Brexit-led British government is going to put environmental regulations at top of its pile on June 24. It is not going to happen.” The European commission is reviewing the birds and habitats directives – which define Europe’s conservation strategy – and is under unprecedented public pressure not to water them down. The origin of the “fitness check” lies in a domestic review instigated by George Osborne in 2011, when he told parliament that the “gold-plating” of EU habitat rules was imposing “ridiculous costs” on business. Martin Harper, the conservation director of the RSPB, said: “These nature directives have been the cornerstone of nature conservation in Europe since coming into force. Not only have they improved the fortunes of threatened species but they are essential if we want to meet our international biodiversity commitments.” On pesticides, Eustice said the EU’s precautionary principle needed to be reformed in favour of a US-style risk-based approach, allowing faster authorisation. “A precautionary approach is the right thing to do but it should be based on realistic assessments of risk and not just theoretical hazards,” he said. “That is the wrong way to go about it.” The principle has underpinned bans on GM foods, neonicotonoid inseciticides linked to bee colony declines and endocrine disrupting chemicals. The marine strategy directive would also be scrapped, Eustice said. He cited a dispute with Brussels over the UK’s failure to designate protected marine areas for harbour porpoises as an example of over-regulation, when dolphin-repelling electronic devices could have been used on nets instead. However, the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society said electronic pingers could already be used under current EU nature laws, which also protect porpoises from trawling, dredging, pile driving and noise from military sonars. Clive Lewis, the shadow energy and climate change spokesperson, said: “It is absurd to suggest that Brexit could be good for the environment when the major challenges we face, not least the risk of catastrophic climate change, are international by their nature.”
Everton 3-1 Middlesbrough: Premier League – as it happened Everton go back to second in the table, having taken 13 points from their first five games. It’s their best start since 1978-79. They respond impressively to Maarten Stekelenburg’s own goal and were comfortable winners, with Gareth Barry scoring on his 600th Premier League appearance. Thanks for your company; night. 90+1 min A nice touch from Ronald Koeman, who substitutes Gareth Barry so that he can get an ovation from the crowd. Tom Cleverley replaces him. 90 min There will be two minutes of added formality. 88 min Everton play a bit of keep-ball to amuse themselves. They look a good side, and so much more solid than last season. 86 min “I want 3000 words by Monday on Everton and Liverpool being top dogs in the league once more, just like back in the day before wireless meant anything other than a radio,” writes my owner Ian Copestake. 84 min Middlesbrough make their final substitution, with Adam Clayton replacing Forshaw. 82 min Fischer’s fierce shot from 20 yards is blocked by the stretching Coleman. I think it would have otherwise inconvenienced Stekelenburg. 80 min De Roon’s high cross is punched away under pressure by Stekelenburg, and Downing’s follow-up shot hits a defender. 79 min Idrissa Gueye has had another excellent game for Everton. 77 min Bolasie mavericks past Barragan but then runs into a second defender. 76 min Boro don’t look like getting a corner, never mind scoring. I think they’ll stay up, but if they do it won’t be because of their attack. 74 min “Agree 100% with the mooted Incorrigible Mavericks rule,” says David Hopkins. “All the better if their skills have little practical application. I’m thinking of Ted McMinn dribbling past some hapless fullback, stopping, then doing it once more for a laugh.” 72 min Gerard Deulofeu replaces Kevin Mirallas for Everton. 70 min Both sides have accepted the result, and the match is drifting along increasingly aimlessly. 69 min Another Boro substitution: Viktor Fischer, the former boy wonder, replaces Gaston Ramirez. 66 min Enner Valencia comes on for his Everton debut, replacing the injured Lukaku. It looks like a precautionary substitution rather than anything more serious, although Lukaku has gone straight down the tunnel. 63 min Barkley almost frees Lukaku in the box; eventually the ball pinballs through the keeper Valdes. When Barkley plays like this, with such penetrative simplicity, you can see why so many managers get excited about him. 62 min “I’m not actually watching the game, but glad to see Bolasie involved,” says Matt Dony. “He is possibly the most entertaining player in world football. I mean, he’s obviously not in that ‘top, top player’ bracket, but the sheer unpredictability is worth the entrance fee. In that respect, he reminds me of Luis Garcia in his 2006/7 pomp. The best player in history for 10 minutes of any given match, an absolute liability for the other 80.” Quite. There should be a quota system whereby every team has to include one incorrigible maverick in their XI. If we can clone Adel Taarabt, so much the better. 59 min Middlesbrough bring on David Nugent for Emilio Nsue. 56 min Everton are in total control of the game now, and Barkley draws a good save from Valdes with a stinging low drive. Barkley has been excellent today, possibly the best player on the pitch. 54 min Mirallas’s golden five minutes continues with a dreadful piece of control in the box after fine play from Barkley. 51 min Baines makes a virtue of a dismal pass from Mirallas, winning a corner as a result. It’s headed away by Friend. 50 min Middlesbrough, tactically speaking, weren’t really built with 3-1 deficits in mind. They are a neat, tidy side but they don’t create that many chances. This should be a comfortable second half for Everton. 49 min It looks like the third goal has been given to Lukaku. I’m not sure he touched it, mind. 46 min Peep peep! Everton begin the second half, and as things stand this will be their best start to a season since 1978-79. Half-time reading aka ‘I think it was me who said...’ After a slow start, that was an enjoyable half of football. The worst thing Middlesbrough did was take the lead, because it woke Everton and the crowd up. See you soon for the second half. 45+2 min Gareth Barry is booked for a foul on Ramirez. Bolasie’s inswinging cross from the right drifts past everyone and into the net. Lukaku claimed it but I don’t think he got a touch. Valdes appealed that Lukaku was offside but replays showed he was fine. Seamus Coleman gives Everton the lead with a fine solo goal. He received Gueye’s pass just outside the area on the right, burst past a couple of defenders and finished calmly into the bottom corner with his left foot. 40 min Barrajan loafs forward promisingly, only to get giddy and hoof one miles over the bar from 25 yards. 36 min Barkley beats Ayala with a beautiful flicked nutmeg, a bit like Robbie Fowler on Steve Staunton when he scored that famous goal against Aston Villa in 1996, and then runs into the box before hitting a shot that is well blocked by a combination of Gibson and the recovering Ayala. When the ball went dead Ayala was booked for attempting to pull Barkley back after he had been turned. 34 min “You’re right about the Middlesbrough goal looking like Andy Gray’s goal at Wembley in 1984,” says Gary Naylor. “If we’re playing the same rules as 32 years ago, I look forward to plenty of tackles from behind, a few professional fouls and a shinpad-splitting challenge or two. No cards though. And a title for us next year.” 32 min A fine effort from Bolaise, who thumps a 15-yard header onto the roof of the net from Baines’s hanging cross. 28 min Barkley ruins an excellent run by blazing over the bar when Lukaku was in a better position. 26 min “Pretty sure Andy Gray never played in a World Cup final,” says Richie Segal, making a very fair point. What the hell was I thinking there? 25 min Middlesbrough might also be aggrieved with the goal against them, because Williams challenged Valdes with his studs showing. Howard Webb says it was a probably a free-kick, and he’ll be thrilled to know I agree with him. Gareth Barry equalises for Everton. On today of all days. A corner from the left rebounded across the box, and Barry half-volleyed it calmly into the top of the net. That’s an excellent finish actually, and a rare goal to mark his 600th Premier League appearance. 23 min The BT commentators - Steve McManaman, Glenn Hoddle and Howard Webb - all think it was a fair goal. I’m not so sure. Stekelenburg was a bit weak but I’m not sure Negredo didn’t foul him. Everton are not happy with this, and there are echoes of Andy Gray’s goal in the 1984 World Cup final. Downing hung up a deep cross towards the far post, where Stekelenburg was in the process of catching it when Negredo powered through and headed the ball into the net. Actually, I think it’s an own goal because Negredo seemed to knock Stekelenburg’s arm, which knocked the ball out of his hands and into the net. 20 min Mirallas comes inside from the left and drills a low shot that is comfortably held by Valdes. Everton have stirred after a sluggish start. 19 min A good effort from Barkley, who moves away from Forshaw and hits a wobbling left-footed shot from 25 yards that is beaten away by Valdes. 17 min It would be silly to jump to conclusions after four and a bit games, so that’s exactly what I’m going to do: Boro won’t go down this season. They look a really good, organised side. 15 min Barry, on his 600th Premier League appearance, is robbed in a dangerous area but Ramirez. He moves straight for goal but Coleman makes a good tackle on the edge of the area. 13 min Everton win their first corner, to be taken by Mirallas on the right. Jagielka mistimes his jump at the near post and shoulders it over the bar. 12 min Here’s Hubert O’Hearn. “Koeman’s knack of almost instantly shaping a club into an attractive and downright scary side, no matter what players he loses, reminds me of a wonderful line about Jack Nicklaus and his clubs (golf variety): ‘He can play with his and beat you, or he can take yours and still beat you.’” 10 min There’s not a huge amount happening right now. 6 min The overlapping Friend is fouled by Coleman on the left wing. Actually, it looks quite a soft free-kick on second glance. Ramirez curls the free-kick towards the near post, where Downing flicks a header across the face of goal and wide. Ayala almost got to it at the far post. 5 min It’s been a confident start from Boro in what sounds like a very muted atmosphere, though that might just be that somebody has pressed the wrong button in the BT bunker. 1 min Peep peep! Middlesbrough, in red, kick off from left to right. Everton are in blue. “Reid’s cross - GRAY!” If you’re an Everton fan, with a fondness for the years 1984 and 1985, this book is definitely for you. It’s published by deCoubertin, who have a cracking collection of Everton books in particular. Everton (4-2-3-1) Stekelenburg; Coleman, Williams, Jagielka, Baines; Gueye, Barry; Mirallas, Barkley, Bolasie; Lukaku. Substitutes: Joel, Deulofeu, Lennon, Cleverley, Valencia, Funes Mori, Holgate. Middlesbrough (4-2-3-1) Valdes; Barragan, Ayala, Gibson, Friend; De Roon, Forshaw; Nsue, Ramirez, Downing; Negredo. Substitutes: Guzan, Espinosa, Clayton, Fischer, Chambers, Nugent, Traore. Kevin de Bruyne is Pep’s Michael Laudrup, discuss Hello. Sometimes, a player’s weakness becomes his strength as a manager: think of George Graham and Glenn Hoddle, swaggering midfielders and magnificent defensive coaches, or hard-faced centre-back Tony Mowbray preaching tiki-taka in the Midlands. Ronald Koeman and Aitor Karanka, whose Everton and Middlesbrough sides meet at Goodison Park today, took their playing strengths with them when they went into management: both were defenders (well, nominally in Koeman’s case) and both know exactly what to do with a bank of four. Both teams are not without attacking flair, but defence will be the key to whether their achieve their ambitions this season. Middlesbrough will be happy to stay up; Everton, who are currently the closest of the also-rans to the champions Manchester City, are aiming for Europe. Kick off is at 5.30pm. Rob will be here shortly. In the meantime, why not have a read of Andy Hunter on how Ronald Koeman feels the noise more than Martínez and Moyes after his strong start at Everton?
Conservative party turmoil escalates with open call for Cameron to quit David Cameron’s hopes of being able to avoid terminal damage to Conservative party unity after the EU referendum campaign were dented on Sunday when two rebel MPs openly called for a new leader and a general election before Christmas. The attacks came from Andrew Bridgen and Nadine Dorries – both Brexiters, and longstanding, publicity-hungry opponents of the prime minister – and their claim that even winning the EU referendum won’t stop Cameron facing a leadership challenge in the summer was dismissed by fellow Tories. But their comments coincided with the ministers in charge of the leave campaign launching some of their strongest personal attacks yet on Cameron, prompting Labour’s Alan Johnson to say that the Tory infighting was getting “very ugly indeed”. Bridgen told the BBC’s 5 Live that Cameron had been making “outrageous” claims in his bid to persuade voters to back remain and that, as a consequence, he had effectively lost his parliamentary majority. “The party is fairly fractured, straight down the middle and I don’t know which character could possibly pull it back together going forward for an effective government. I honestly think we probably need to go for a general election before Christmas and get a new mandate from the people,” he said. Bridgen said at least 50 Tory MPs – the number needed to call a confidence vote – felt the same way about Cameron and that a vote on the prime minister’s future was “probably highly likely” after the referendum. Dorries told ITV’s Peston on Sunday she had already submitted her letter to the chairman of the Tory backbench 1922 committee expressing no confidence in the prime minister. “[Cameron] has lied profoundly, and I think that is actually really at the heart of why Conservative MPs have been so angered. To say that Turkey is not going to join the European Union as far as 30 years is a lie.” A leadership contest would only take place if Cameron lost a confidence vote, which would be unlikely if the remain campaign wins the referendum. But a sizeable vote against Cameron in a confidence ballot could still prove fatal to his premiership, forcing him to accelerate plans for his departure. Dorries said that if remain won 60/40, Cameron would probably survive. “If remain win by a narrow majority, or if leave win, he’s toast within days,” she said. Even if, as many Tories expect, a confidence vote does not materialise, the Bridgen/Dorries comments are a reminder of how maverick, hardline Eurosceptics were able to play havoc with John Major’s government in the 1990s because he had such a small majority. Cameron’s working majority is just 16. The Conservative MP Steve Baker said Bridgen “[had] a point” about how unsympathetic backbenchers were towards Cameron’s EU stance. Baker claimed only about 30 were very strongly committed to remain – and he said he thought there could be “a problem” for the prime minister after 23 June. But more senior figures in Tory Brexit camp backed Cameron and insisted a confidence vote would not happen because the rebels would not get enough support. “I don’t think there are 50 colleagues gunning for the prime minister,” said Chris Grayling, the justice secretary. “I can assure you that those people who fought to win their seats 12 months ago are definitely not gunning for a general election by Christmas.” Graham Brady, the chair of the 1922 committee, said Bridgen’s intervention was “unfortunate” and that the party had to pull together after the referendum. Liam Fox, the former defence secretary, said the party would need “a period of stability” after the referendum and that it would be best for Cameron to stay as prime minister. Iain Duncan Smith, the former work and pensions secretary, also said he was not in favour of replacing Cameron. In a particularly personal attack that seemed clearly aimed at Cameron and the chancellor, George Osborne, Priti Patel, the employment minister, used an article in the Sunday Telegraph to say it was “shameful” that wealthy remain campaigners did not realise how much harm mass immigration was doing to the poor. “If you have private wealth or if you work for Goldman Sachs you’ll be fine. But when public services are under pressure, it is those people who do not have the luxury of being able to afford the alternatives who are most vulnerable,” she wrote. “It’s shameful that those leading the pro-EU campaign fail to care for those who do not have their advantages.” Patel’s article coincided with Boris Johnson, the former mayor of London, and Michael Gove, the justice secretary, writing an open letter to Cameron asking him to accept that it would be impossible for him to achieve his manifesto promise of getting net migration below 100,000 if the UK stayed in the EU. The letter, also signed by Labour’s Gisela Stuart, said failure to keep this promise “is corrosive of public trust”. A source close to Cameron said that there was now overwhelming evidence, backed up by Sunday’s survey of economists, that leaving the EU would cause a “serious economic shock” and that “the suggestion that crashing your economy is the best way of dealing with immigration is clearly nonsense”. Commenting on the Tory turmoil, Alan Johnson, chair of Labour In for Britain, said: “What is extraordinary is the vindictiveness and nastiness we are seeing within the Conservative party and Conservative cabinet. I think it’s very ugly, very ugly indeed. If those are David Cameron’s friends and allies, he’s welcome to them.” Andrew Bridgen profile Andrew Bridgen, Tory MP for North West Leicestershire since 2010, has form as a critic of David Cameron’s. In 2013 he publicly admitted that he had sent a letter to the chairman of the Conservative backbench 1922 committee calling for a vote of confidence in his leader. Explaining his decision in a newspaper article, he said there was a “credibility problem” with Cameron. “The voters think we have many of the right messages – they just don’t believe the messenger. In some cases, the messages are wrong or badly handled. By pressing ahead with gay marriage and delaying a promise on an EU referendum until he was forced to do so, Mr Cameron has fuelled the rise of Ukip. We have created our own nemesis,” he wrote. “I think the situation is this: it’s like being in an aeroplane. The pilot doesn’t know how to land it. We can either do something about it before the crash, or sit back, watch the in-flight movies and wait for the inevitable.” At the time Bridgen was one of only two Tory MPs known to have written a letter calling for a confidence vote. The other, Patrick Mercer, resigned after a lobbying scandal. A year later Bridgen wrote an open letter to Cameron formally withdrawing his letter calling for a confidence vote, and offering Cameron his “full and enthusiastic support”. Explaining his volte-face, he said much had happened in the meantime.
New Hampshire results: resounding wins for Trump and Sanders Voters in New Hampshire delivered a resounding rebuke to the US political establishment on Tuesday, with strong wins for leftwing Democrat Bernie Sanders and bombastic Republican outsider Donald Trump in the second major test of the 2016 presidential race. The Vermont senator’s victory over Hillary Clinton will give him much needed momentum as he heads for tougher states farther south, while high voter turnout helped power Trump to a double-digit victory that could end up matching consistent polling leads he has maintained since declaring his candidacy. Voters hungry for what Sanders calls “political revolution” turned out in large numbers to vote for the Democratic socialist, according to the Associated Press. Sanders took to the stage at his victory party and wasted no time going straight to the theme that appears to have dominated the election here: campaign finance. “Together we have sent a message that will resonate from Wall Street to Washington ... that government belongs to all of the people,” he said to applause and foot-stomping from a fired up audience of mixed ages. But he warned of the brickbats ahead as the campaign prepares to move to the national stage. “They are throwing everything at me except the kitchen sink, and I have a feeling that it is coming soon,” he said. One of the biggest cheers of the night came when he started a sentence: “When we make it to the White House ... ” but the crowd turned and shook their fists at the press riser when Sanders talked of “sending a message to the media establishment”. Foreign policy also made a return to his stump speech, after a period of relative absence during campaigning here that had attracted growing criticism. “As president I will defend this nation, but I will do it responsibly,” he said. “We cannot and should not be the policeman of the world. “Thank you, New Hampshire,” he concluded. “Now it’s on to Nevada, South Carolina and beyond.” Trump gave an unusually emotional speech to supporters in a hotel ballroom next to a Best Western hotel by the Manchester airport, starting by thanking his deceased parents as well as his siblings. He also took a moment to mention Sanders. “Congratulations to Bernie,” he said. “We have to congratulate him, we may not like it. He wants to give away our country, folks. We’re not going to let it happen.” Trump’s campaign, fueled by a blend of insurgent populism and unprecedented media attention, has turned every rule of politics on its head. His success in New Hampshire happened despite comparatively weak campaign organization in the state and a penchant for controversial remarks that would have sunk the campaigns of almost any other candidate. Yet none of the controversies have affected Trump’s standing with his base of disaffected blue-collar white voters, who remain drawn to his pledge to “Make America Great Again”. Many of Trump’s themes were familiar to a New Hampshire primary electorate that strongly supported Pat Buchanan in 1992 and 1996; but Trump added an aura of celebrity and drew in many who were entirely new to the political process. What remained less clear as the polls closed was how the pile-up of candidates vying to finish in the top tier behind Trump would perform. Ohio governor John Kasich came in second place with 15.9% to Trump’s 35.1%, according to the AP, with almost 89% of precincts reporting. “Maybe – just maybe – we are turning the page on a dark part of American politics, because tonight the light overcame the darkness,” Kasich told supporters in Concord. By dawn, the fight over third place was still not formally resolved, though Texas senator Ted Cruz led former Florida governor Jeb Bush by a narrow 11.6% to 11.1% – a margin of 1,240 votes. Florida senator Marco Rubio, who had been tipped as the man to emerge as the establishment favourite, was languishing in a damaging fifth place on 10.6%. He admitted his slump was “on me” after a terrible debate performance days before polling which left him looking scripted and inauthentic. Chris Christie, the New Jersey governor whose last act ahead of the primary was to savage Rubio on the debate stage, seemed all but certain to suspend his campaign in the coming days, admitting he would return home to New Jersey to consider his next moves. The fight over the 2016 Democratic nomination had been expected to be a wintertime formality for Clinton. But the prospect of sustained campaigns from Sanders had sent the former secretary of state’s campaign into a whirlwind of spin about whether the outsider surge could last. The call for Sanders came early: with nearly 60% of precincts reporting, he had 59.3% of the votes to Clinton’s 38.9%. By morning, with 89% of votes counted, that margin held good – Sanders on 60%, Clinton on 38.4%. At the Sanders results party in Concord, supporters were being turned away before polling had even closed. Few were doubting he would win; the question was only by how much. In her concession speech delivered from Southern New Hampshire University in Hooksett, Clinton said: “I know I have some work to do.” Former president Bill Clinton and daughter Chelsea stood by her side. Clinton, who called Sanders earlier in the evening, congratulated her rival and said of his supporters: “Even if they are not supporting me now, I support them.” Senior Sanders staff see this decisive win in New Hampshire as their ticket to the genuine national campaign momentum that has so far proved difficult to achieve. Chief adviser Tad Devine told the the he is increasingly confident of securing union support to help the campaign in Nevada, the scene of their next and perhaps most important showdown with Clinton. “People need to understand something,” said a passionate Devine. “We are a better campaign. We are a better resourced campaign. We have more people on the ground. We are demonstrating that resource superiority by going on television all across this country. We are redeploying hundreds of people who worked on this campaign [in New Hampshire]. We are happy to compete with them in the air and on the ground anywhere in this country.” Clinton’s campaign had been bracing for a loss, with surrogates telling voters in a cafe earlier in the day that they were “looking for a miracle”. The former secretary of state’s 2008 comeback win in New Hampshire against Barack Obama added momentum to the prospect of the first female US president. But the state offered no such luck this time. Voters across the state said they were gripped by Sanders and Trump, perhaps more for what they represented rather than the nature as tried and tested candidates who could go the distance. From school gymnasiums to post offices in socially liberal cities and gun-toting conservative hamlets, they expressed widespread discontent with both Clinton in particular and the Republican party’s leadership as a whole. Chris Comfort, a 50-year-old retired plumber, had voted for Trump. “I really believe he’s not owned by anyone,” he said. “And that’s a big thing in politics today.” Comfort said he also admired Sanders, whom he saw as atypical of the American political system: “He is like Donald Trump in the fact that he’s a man of principle – he doesn’t waver,” he said. “Mr Sanders has always been for what he believes in, and I respect that.” The two parties will now criss-cross the country, with Sanders carrying his momentum to a Democratic caucus in Nevada on 20 February and Trump testing his popularity among southern Republicans in South Carolina’s primary on the same day. The campaigns will then turn their attentions towards Super Tuesday on 1 March, when 14 states will vote – including seven in the south, where Clinton is expected to beat Sanders among African American voters. But Joseph Bafumi, an associate professor of government at Dartmouth University who has studied how new voters can be brought into a party’s coalition by outsider candidates, said Trump and Sanders had become “much more viable for the nomination” by meeting expectations in New Hampshire on Tuesday. “It’s more of a question of momentum,” he said of Trump, “but it indicates to the rest of the country that his supporters can reliably go out and vote for him.”
David Moyes admits lack of summer recruitment could cost Sunderland dear David Moyes has made it plain that Sunderland will be practically doomed to relegation unless his squad is strengthened significantly in January. “I think we know we’re going to have to improve on what we’ve got to give ourselves a chance,” the manager said, following the 3-2 home defeat against Crystal Palace on Saturday. “Ultimately you have to have good players on the pitch and, at the moment, we’re not getting enough good players on the pitch. We need to get a better team, it’s as simple as that. We need to get a team which can give us results.” This latest setback leaves Moyes with only one point from his first six Premier League games since succeeding Sam Allardyce, and Sunderland bottom of the table. “It’s been a tough period because I wanted to be successful,” Moyes said. “I knew it wasn’t going to be all easy, that’s for sure, but I did expect to find myself winning games. Now, though, we have to try and find a way to get out of it.” Although Moyes acknowledges that a lack of adequate recruitment, not only this summer but in previous years, lies at heart of Sunderland’s problems, he is adamant that his existing players need to assume responsibility for the defensive negligence which, once again, cost them dear as they squandered a 2-0 lead against Palace. This, it seems, is absolutely not the time for tea and sympathy. “I don’t know that I’m necessarily an arm-around-the-shoulder man,” Moyes said. “I want to see men stand up and take responsibility, be tough and take the challenge on. At the moment we’re not doing the basics well enough; not heading it and kicking it when we get the chance or doing the picking up and marking we need to do. “The players need to take responsibility. It can’t always be me leading them by the hand and showing them where they should be and what they should do.” Moyes – who has managed Everton, Manchester United and Real Sociedad – regarded Palace’s stoppage-time winning goal as a case in point, with an unmarked Christian Benteke heading home a free-kick. “Benteke’s arguably the best header of the ball in the Premier League and nobody got close,” he said. “We gave him a free run and jump.” Despite Sunderland making eight summer signings, they failed to secure the striker Moyes craved to support Jermain Defoe, who scored twice against Palace; they also failed to re-sign Yann M’Vila, the former France midfielder who shone on Wearside last season while on loan from Rubin Kazan, and lost Younès Kaboul, a key defender, to Watford. Before leaving to coach England in mid-July Allardyce had become deeply concerned by the lack of a single signing and Moyes was left playing catch-up. “We’re probably paying the price for not recruiting earlier,” the Scot said. “But what would you say about the year before that or the year before that? Would you say we’re paying the price for recruitment then or are there other reasons?” Jan Kirchhoff shared his manager’s dismay. “A shocking result,” the former Bayern Munich midfielder said. “We led 2-0 but we didn’t all have the same idea about what to do next and we threw it away. “As players we have to take 100% responsibility. We get well prepared before the games. It’s up to us to communicate on the pitch. We need leadership down there, people who are willing to take the lead. We have to get our shape back and have one clear idea of what we’re doing.”
Tottenham and Danny Rose punish wasteful Liverpool to claim draw Jürgen Klopp leaned back in his chair, threw a glance to the skies, and wore the expression of a man who had just been told the last bus home had been cancelled. “Oh my God,” he said, exhaling deeply. The information he was trying to take in actually concerned one of the decisive moments of Liverpool’s 1-1 draw with Tottenham. It was a moment that might have turned one point into an excellent three. With one of their crisp breaks Georginio Wijnaldum slipped the ball to Adam Lallana, who pushed the move onwards and the ball across goal for Sadio Mané to tap in. Up went the official’s flag and the strike was disallowed for a very tight offside. “What can I say?” Klopp said. “It was a wonderful goal, huh? Brilliant play. It happens.” He sounded phlegmatic but looked slightly crestfallen. Despite the positives he can take from a complicated early season cluster of games all away from home, he made no bones about his disappointment that there were no more points on the board to show for it. “We have not the most easy starting programme. Four points from nine is not what I wanted but it’s OK. That’s our platform.” Tottenham’s platform shows five points from nine but in terms of the team’s energy levels and attacking zest there has to be more to come from Mauricio Pochettino’s team. For much of this tussle they toiled, they endeavoured, but clear chances did not come easily. The attacking prowess of Harry Kane, Dele Alli and the newcomer Vincent Janssen is yet to really catch fire this season. Pochettino didn’t seem to mind too much if it’s been a slow burner up until this point. “Last season Harry scored in game 10 and was top scorer. I would sign up again for that,” he smiled. Liverpool had more than enough chances to win, quite apart from the mysterious offside call. From the start the thrust of Mané and trickery of Philippe Coutinho tested Tottenham. They set about the challenge here with swift movement and energy. With half-time approaching, Liverpool were handed a clear opportunity to turn their attacking promise into something concrete with a penalty. The referee Bobby Madley saw Érik Lamela catch Roberto Firmino at the edge of the box and pointed to the spot. It was down to James Milner, who had been filling in unfussily at left-back, to make the difference. He slammed his shot past Michel Vorm. Tottenham needed a response, a shot of energy, of inspiration after the break. But it was Liverpool who restarted with more intent: Wijnaldum scooped over; the impressive Joël Matip skimmed a header off the top of the crossbar. Pochettino’s frustration was growing but he later credited his team’s resolve for summoning enough pressure to equalise. Danny Rose escaped the general congestion and was allowed plenty of space to pick his spot when Eric Dier’s cross was knocked towards him. Rose beat Simon Mignolet at the near post, releasing a wave of pent-up Tottenham angst. “ I am very pleased with the reaction, the effort and character we showed because it wasn’t easy,” assessed Pochettino, who had to rebalance his team when Kyle Walker felt sick. Dier switched effortlessly to right-back, and the attack was rearranged. They could have even won it with Toby Alderweireld’s powerful header, which inspired the agile, twisting, save of the day from Mignolet. The fact it was only one vital stop meant something to Klopp in measuring his team’s progress, as the keeper had been incredibly busy in the same fixture last year. “Simon saved our life last time. Today he had one brilliant save,” Klopp said. Liverpool had late chances to clinch it themselves but it was not to be and the manager preached the possibilities he can see in his team, even if there is more polish to come. “This game showed again what we can do. We were really flexible and offensive and played football, had wonderful moments with passing and direction. I wish we would have won it but we have to accept the point and it’s OK. That’s what we have to show in each game.” Pochettino bade farewell to a large chunk of his players on international duty thankful to have avoided a nasty slip. He feels he is “months” away from having his squad where he wants it to be in order to truly compete. He is not the only manager who has lamented the difficulty in finding a sharp groove after a truncated, post-European Championship pre-season. “This is not a perfect break,” Pochettino says. “All the players involved [in the Euros] go again to the national team. It is difficult because some players are going, some will play, others no. We need maybe a few months to get all in the same level. It’s crazy.” No doubt there is more to come from both Tottenham and Liverpool.
Hacked Powell emails: Trump a 'pariah' but would rather not vote for Clinton A series of leaks of email exchanges involving the former US secretary of state Colin Powell have revealed a stinging rebuke of Donald Trump, as well as lesser criticism of Hillary and Bill Clinton. Powell, George W Bush’s chief diplomat from 2001 to 2005, called his fellow Republican a “national disgrace” and an “international pariah”. Personal email exchanges leaked on Tuesday and Wednesday reveal the retired four-star general’s contempt for Trump, whose conspiracy theories surrounding Barack Obama’s place of birth Powell also labels as “racist”. “Yup, the whole birther movement was racist,” Powell wrote to his former aide in emails first reported by Buzzfeed News, referring to conspiracy theories that suggest Obama was not born in the US. “That’s what the 99% believe. “When Trump couldn’t keep that up he said he also wanted to see if the certificate noted that he was a Muslim. As I have said before, ‘What if he was?’ Muslims are born as Americans everyday.” Powell’s emails surfaced on the website DCLeaks.com, which has previously featured other hacks into prominent Republicans and Democrats. Bush’s former top diplomat, who has served in three Republican administrations, confirmed the exchanges were his but declined to comment any further. In another alleged exchange, reported by the New York Post, Powell told Democratic donor Jeffrey Leeds he would not vote for Hillary Clinton while citing tabloid rumors about Bill Clinton’s private life. “I would rather not have to vote for her, although she is a friend I respect,” Powell said. “A 70-year person with a long track record, unbridled ambition, greedy, not transformational, with a husband still d—ing bimbos at home (according to the NYP).” Powell told the New York Post he did not recall that particular exchange when asked about its authenticity. While it is unclear who is responsible for hacking into Powell’s emails, the website DCLeaks reportedly has ties to the Russian government. When the Democratic National Committee’s emails were leaked in July, just ahead of the party’s national convention, the FBI said it believed Russia was behind the hack. Powell’s own email use has become a focal point in the controversy surrounding Clinton’s use of a private server. During an interview with FBI investigators, the Democratic nominee said Powell had advised her to use a personal email and that he did the same while serving as secretary of state. Powell later accused Clinton’s campaign of trying to throw him under the bus, but House Democrats last week released email correspondence between the two in which Powell discussed how to get around state department restrictions on both personal email and devices. Even so, Powell voices his frustration with the Clinton campaign in one of the latest leaked emails, reported by NBCNews. “I have told Hilleary’s [sic] minions repeatedly that they are making a mistake trying to drag me in, yet they still try,” Powell wrote.
Seth Meyers on Trump the candidate: 'I think he knows he'd hate the job' Few comedians have been having as much fun with this presidential election as the host of NBC’s Late Night with Seth Meyers. Meyers’ sharply satirical examination of Trumpworld – A Closer Look – has established him, arguably with the exception of Alec Baldwin and Kate McKinnon as Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton on Saturday Night Live, among the pre-eminent political late night satirists of 2016. And with a nightly audience of 1.5 million, he has found a distinctive political voice. “When Trump came down the escalator to announce his candidacy we thought we’d get two weeks of material of it,” Meyers said this week before taping a new show partially devoted to Republican preoccupations with sex. “We thought he’d tease and get the kind of attention from saying he might run. “But we never thought he’d go through with it.” What started as material for comedy soon transformed into something else entirely. “With each of [Trump’s] successes,” Meyers said, “there’s been a stock-taking of how different this felt from any election that’s come before it. It’s been a gift, but a gift that wears on you. Whenever we have a hiatus week, part of what makes it relaxing is to get away from this.” On Friday, with 11 days to go, the campaign was thrown into turmoil by the latest turn in the drama over Hillary Clinton’s emails. That took the spotlight away from Trump – most likely, momentarily. “I think he found an audience and then cultivated what that audience wanted,” Meyers said. “I think audience reaction is what he’s most concerned with.” It’s the kind of observation a performer would make. “He has a very good antenna for it,” Meyers continued. “He loves playing the big room – those 20,000 seat arenas – and that’s why he can’t be bothered to show up to most interviews. He’d rather phone it in.” Some have suggested that however much Trump protests that he wants to be president, in a sense he knows he is not the man for the job. He may be vain and thin-skinned, but that doesn’t quite account for the self-destructive fights he picks. Meyers believes the reality may be that Trump sees himself as a reluctant saviour. “‘If only he’d run, he’d be the solution to all our problems’ is a lot more fun than actually having to solve those problems,” he said. “We haven’t shied away from using words like ‘racist’ and ‘liar’, but our theory is that this got out of hand for him. “He didn’t think he’d get this far, but I think he knows he’d hate the job.” Over the past 18 months, the conventional wisdom about what a candidate can or cannot do has been thoroughly overturned. “We were told an outside candidate couldn’t upset the apple cart of what the GOP is,” Meyers said. “But with each outrage, people have said they’d leave, thinking other people would follow them, but no one did.” Before he took the Late Night job two and a half years ago, as a speaker at the 2011 White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner, Meyers memorably asked whether Trump was planning to run as a Republican or as a joke. That was in the midst of the Trump’s “birther campaign” against Barack Obama, and Obama had already made fun of the businessman. Footage clearly shows Trump sitting stony faced as he endures Meyers’ comedic attention. Some believe such ritualised humiliation steeled Trump to run. “My worry was that the president had gone first and already told a lot of jokes about him and there would be audience exhaustion,” Meyers said. “Turned out people were happy to hear more jokes about him, but the first thing I heard when I stepped off the stage was to steer clear of him at the parties.” The next day, Trump started criticising Meyers and his performance. “When you talk about a gift,” Meyers said, “that’s the gift that keeps giving. He’s so transparent in his inability to take the high road and that’s the scariest thing about him – how deep-seated his resentments are.” But has the rich seam of Trump comedic material let his opponent off lightly? “It’s comical but it’s harder to explain,” Meyers says about Clinton’s emails, controversy over her family foundation and the WikiLeaks release of hacked Democratic party emails. “And we’ve tried. “The bigger problem we have, though, is there have been so few days when what’s happening on the Clinton side has been a better story than what’s happening on the Trump side. “We want to be fair, but we don’t feel that being fair is an equal number of jokes on each candidate. That’s a false equivalency. For us, it’s about chasing the best story for jokes and it’s rare that she’s a better joke than him.” The now infamous 2005 Access Hollywood tape in which Trump is heard to brag about his ability to kiss and touch women without their consent emerged from NBC. The network has not escaped accusations of political bias. But as Meyers pointed out in a segment to camera last week, many of the Republican party’s own problems appear to stem from living within a bubble of highly partisan media information. In 10 days, after election day, the banquet of political comedy will have been consumed. Will Meyers feel bereft? Or over-indulged and suffering indigestion? Meyers recalls his time at Saturday Night Live, when the cool draft of post-election comedown could be felt ahead of the vote. In this cycle, however, it’s not clear what will come next. “We didn’t know we wanted to take it here so I wouldn’t want to predict where we’d take it next,” he says. “Donald Trump seems to be saying he thinks the election will have a long tail. “I don’t know if the first 100 days of the next presidency will be about the defeated candidate still making a lot of noise.”
The view on the Lloyds sale: better never than late Students of privatisation over the years have learnt to be grateful for small mercies. It is, for sure, better that George Osborne has, for the moment, pulled back from dumping the taxpayers’ shares in Lloyds on to a bearish market, than it would have been for him to plough stubbornly ahead. Before last year’s election the chancellor bragged that the national debt would fall faster than expected, a claim that turned out to depend on selling things like Lloyds, which flatters the books but does nothing at all for the public sector’s balance sheet. So it is a relief to learn, now the election is won, that the desperation for cash upfront can be somewhat tempered by concern about the available price. But Mr Osborne is merely slowing the pace, not changing course, on a deeply ideological privatisation programme. There has not been the same noise as there was when the Thatcher government urged everybody to Tell Sid about the British Gas prospectus, nor the same buzz as there was when middle Britons who had never previously thought of buying stocks posted off a cheque for BT shares. Quietly, however, Mr Osborne has been breaking records. The Press Association tots up a total of £26bn in asset sales last year – including the state’s Eurostar stake, 30% of the Royal Mail and a slice of Lloyds. This surpasses the previous high of £20bn, set way back in 1987, when Rolls-Royce and British Airways were sold. Back then, a Conservative government also exhibited a strong doctrinaire preference for private over public ownership. But after the mix of inflation, stagnation and strikes which had characterised Britain’s economic history in the 1970s, the privatisation argument had some appeal to middle-of-the-road pragmatists too, and especially for the likes of BA and Rolls, players in increasingly competitive markets, where commercial freedoms seemed important. The contrast with today is stark. The great scars on the economy’s back in 2016 were not put there by strike-happy, overstaffed nationalised industries, but rather by predatory and under-regulated banks. The public enemy should, surely, not be the sort of plodding bureaucrat who used to run the Yorkshire Water Board, but rather the slickly suited profiteer who got paid an order of magnitude more for gambling with other people’s money. Lloyds and the other big banks were virtually all disgraced, either in the crisis itself, or else in one or another of the scandals that broke in its aftermath: mass mis-selling, Libor rigging and the laundering of Mexican drug money. Today’s middle-of-the-road pragmatists, one might imagine, would be attracted to breaking up the big banks and setting up state-run challengers, not inviting the bankers to return to business as normal by selling the public stake. Finance is a special case after the crisis, perhaps, but new blights are emerging on the wider record of privatisation too. This young year has already seen MPs condemn a weak regulator for allowing excessive water charges, and David Cameron blast the energy giants for failing to cut bills in line with tumbling costs in world markets. In telecoms – which used to be deemed the archetypal privatisation success – BT got the green light to acquire EE, a move away from the promised privatisation end-point, of a competitive market where the customer is sovereign, and a move towards an oligopoly, where a few big firms call the shots. So if there is one cheer for the delay in the Lloyds sale, to earn three the chancellor would have had to cancel the whole flotation, unless and until it could be convincingly fitted into a fundamental programme of bank reform of which there is no sign. But then the chancellor’s scramble to find British assets to sell into the hands of a Chinese communist state suggests that privatisation is today more of a product of compulsive habit rather than critical thought. It once had its pragmatic advocates. These days, however, privatisation looks like a triumph of the rightwing heart over the dispassionate head.
Can Britain's bureaucracy handle a Brexit? Following a vote to leave the EU, the UK would face complex negotiations to manage its withdrawal. Given the all-encompassing nature of EU membership, a crucial question is whether Whitehall – particularly the Foreign Office (FCO) and Cabinet Office – is sufficiently equipped and resourced to achieve a satisfactory outcome (whatever that might entail). No country has left the EU, so there is no template to follow. We do know that negotiations would need to address both a British withdrawal and its new relationship with the EU, and be ratified by the remaining EU member states as well as the UK and European parliaments. There are several possibilities for this: Britain could seek to be part of the European Economic Area, following the Norwegian model (although David Cameron has ruled this out), or instead emulate a more detached Swiss-style relationship through the European Free Trade Area. A special, British model is also possible, as the UK expects more than to be grouped with Norway and Switzerland (pdf) in the event of a Brexit. Whatever the decision, at least three new treaties may be required, giving an idea of the scale of what must be agreed within the two-year notice period – although there are provisions for this to be extended. How will this process be managed? When states become EU members they must agree and transpose into law 100,000-plus pages of the EU acquis (accumulated legislation), which gives us an idea of what reverse-engineering this process might entail. All aspects of UK membership would have to be addressed, with no part of Whitehall unaffected. This will pose a significant administrative challenge domestically and in Brussels. Sophisticated machinery exists to manage British European policy, which would logically underpin the negotiating process – although unsurprisingly the government refuses to comment on specific arrangements in the event of a leave vote. The so-called triangle of the FCO, Cabinet Office and UK permanent representation in Brussels (UKRep) oversees European policy coordination, but each government department manages the details of their specific policy responsibilities, while the Treasury also has a significant say. The Cabinet Office would be the logical domestic hub for the negotiations, with the FCO contributing expertise in terms of treaty-making and using the UK’s broader diplomatic network in pursuit of an agreement. UKRep could be expected to lead negotiations in Brussels while also providing a conduit for on-the-ground intelligence and advice on negotiating strategy. The economic significance of leaving the EU means significant Treasury involvement should also be expected. The process will require careful management and political leadership to contain tensions over priorities. Stretched to the limit Do the main institutional actors have the resources, capacity, headcount and expertise to do this, while simultaneously managing the ongoing business of government? Although Cabinet Office staff numbers have risen since 2013, it will require additional resources, particularly in expertise, to manage the domestic component of the negotiations. In Brussels, the scope of the agreement the UK will be pursuing will place considerable demands on UKRep. Officials will be seeking to persuade soon-to-be former EU partners, some of whom may be ambivalent about Britain’s decision to withdraw and feel no great compunction to make things easy. (Indeed, some may wish to make withdrawal as painful as possible pour encourager les autres.) This in turn will place a burden on the FCO, which is currently enduring one of its most challenging periods in terms of pressure on resources and capabilities. In its 2014 report (pdf), the foreign affairs select committee declared that as a consequence of the stringent budget settlement imposed under the 2010 spending review – described as one of the tightest in Whitehall (pdf) – the FCO “is being stretched almost to the limit”. Doing more with less has been a constant requirement of the FCO in recent years. Moreover, dealing with intense periods of EU activity is not new, as seen during Britain’s six-month EU presidency in 2005 when its European team expanded to 200. But Brexit negotiations will be of a different magnitude. It will not be just a matter of reassigning resources for the duration of the negotiations, there is also the question of whether the FCO can access the required European expertise. At the same time, it will be seeking to manage the impact of a Brexit on UK relations with third parties, as well as dealing with the ongoing foreign policy matters for which it is responsible. The UK’s administrative structures will face a test unprecedented in scale and complexity – and this will be happening after a decade or more of cuts in resources and spending. While Britain’s coordination machinery is considered efficient and effective, this alone is not enough to guarantee success. For policymakers and politicians, the challenge will be to achieve the best possible deal with the resources available. Their ability to do this may well determine the quality of any final withdrawal agreement. Nicholas Wright is a teaching fellow in EU politics at University College London This is an edited version of a blog which originally appeared on the LSE BrexitVote blog Talk to us on Twitter via @ public and sign up for your free weekly Public Leaders newsletter with news and analysis sent direct to you every Thursday.
Greens call for royal commission to examine ‘breaking up banks’ The Greens want to use a royal commission to examine whether banks should be broken up to split the retail arms from their investment and financial advice arms in response to recent scandals. The Greens banking and finance policy also calls for increased penalties for white-collar crime, capping ATM fees and forcing banks to allow portable bank accounts which allow easy transfers, similar to taking mobile phone numbers between companies. The Greens senator Peter Whish-Wilson, a former banker, has been calling for a royal commission into the sector, which has been dogged by scandals over poor financial advice, insider trading and rigging interest rates. After resisting a royal commission, Labor followed suit and has called for a royal commission into the banks following the scandals. The Greens policy now goes a step further, outlining that a banking royal commission would “fully examine the problems associated with the ‘vertically integrated’ model. “This would including looking at ‘breaking up the banks’ to separate retail banking from financial advice and investment banking,” the policy statement says. The Greens would increase penalties for white-collar crime in line with other advanced economies. For example, for criminal offences such as insider trading, Australia currently fines individuals $810,000 or three times the benefit gained, whichever is greater. The Greens propose an increase to $5m or three times the benefit gained – a fine more in line with Canada and the United States. In the UK, the fine is not capped. Whistleblowers should be financially rewarded if their information leads to reclaimed money, according to the Greens, as is the case in the United States. The Greens would also “make it illegal” to charge excessive ATM fees and wants bank accounts to be fully portable through a common data system. “The digital age makes ‘identity transfer’ relatively easy,” says the policy. “People can carry mobile phone numbers from one provider to another. The same option should be available to consumers in banking.” The Greens would prohibit superannuation funds from direct borrowing to invest in housing, in line with a recommendation of the financial system inquiry by David Murray. “The financial system inquiry warned that continued growth in borrowing for housing by superannuation funds could pose a risk to the financial system,” the policy says. While the Coalition rejected Murray’s recommendation, it did agree to work with regulators and the tax office to monitor the risk and report back to government. The Australian Bankers’ Association rejected the policy saying it would trigger an economic downturn. ABA chief executive, Steven Münchenberg, said Australia had some of the strongest banks in the world and the major banks are part of small group which have earned the high Standard & Poor’s rating of AA-. “This means that, even in times of global uncertainty and market volatility, Australia’s major banks are still able to raise the money needed from overseas investors to fund the Australian economy and meet the financial needs of businesses and households,” he said in a statement. “This major economic advantage would be lost under the Greens’ policy, triggering an economic downturn.”
The movies go to war: museum explores real to reel conflict After intensively watching death, destruction and misery in about 100 war movies, Imperial War Museum curator Laura Clouting admits she needs a change of pace: “I’m absolutely dying to watch something a little more lighthearted. I need some Jurassic Park, some Sister Act!” Clouting is curating a major new exhibition that goes behind the scenes of some of the most famous war movies, from The Dam Busters to Das Boot to War Horse. Opening to the public on Friday, the immersive show will explore a movie genre which shows little sign of going away, or waning in popularity. Clouting has, necessarily, sat through lots of movies. “It makes me realise just how big and how enduring the genre is, there are so many war films. Cinema has got this appetite for understanding conflict and it is because war is the most extreme human experience, whether you are a soldier or a civilian.” The museum last held a war movie show in 1970; a very different exhibition in that technology meant they could only use stills. This time visitors will be able to watch lots of excerpts, whether Alec Guinness blowing up the bridge on the River Kwai, or Donald Duck doing his bit for the collective effort during the second world war. There will also be props, costumes and scripts loaned to help shine a brighter light on particular films. For example, Lawrence of Arabia, in which David Lean cast the statuesque blond figure of Peter O’Toole to play TE Lawrence who was, in truth, barely 5ft 5in. The exhibition includes one of his robes, his rifle and a letter that may surprise visitors who have read accounts of Lawrence’s mania for self publicity, with journalist Lowell Thomas writing of his “genius for backing into the limelight”. A 1927 letter to director Rex Ingram rails against talk of his role in the Arab revolt being made into a Hollywood film. He writes: “I would hate to see myself parodied on a pitiful basis of my record of what the fellows with me did.” Elsewhere there is the suit worn by Liam Neeson in Schindler’s List, the military cap worn by Bruno Ganz as Adolf Hitler in Downfall, and a Santa hat worn by Jake Gyllenhaal’s bored marine character in Jarhead. In another compare-and-contrast section, footage from one of the most popular war films, Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan, is shown with actual footage from the D-Day landings. Clouting said the show was “an idea that the museum had wanted to grapple with for a long time”. A good peg arrived in the 100th anniversary not only of the Battle of the Somme, but also the film that the War Office commissioned, a remarkable documentary and propaganda film that was watched by about 20 million people over six weeks in 1916. It includes many smiling, cheerful Tommies but there are also far darker moments. “It is quite frank,” said Clouting. “The film does not hold back from showing you images of the dead or the wounded.” Clouting is hoping there are many films included that visitors will recall with fondness. But there are also movies covered where film makers have got it very wrong. The woefully inaccurate U-571, for example, which was discussed in parliament after it portrayed US navy submariners capturing an Enigma cipher machine from the Germans. An arguably worse example is Objective Burma, which has Errol Flynn leading American paratroopers defeating the Japanese, ignoring the fact that it was a largely British and Commonwealth conflict. “There was such outrage that it was banned from British cinemas within a week,” said Clouting. “People are furious with this film for making out that the Americans won [that conflict].” • Real to Reel: A Century of War Movies at IWM London, 1 July to 8 January 2017 • This article was amended on 30 June 2016. An earlier version misnamed the curator of the exhibition as Lucy Clouting. This has been corrected to say Laura Clouting.
China tantalized by US election mayhem and prospect of 'thug' Trump as president His detractors concur that Donald Trump is the most unpalatable candidate for the White House in the history of the United States. But almost 8,000km away in Beijing, China’s authoritarian rulers appear to think he might be just the man for the job. Veteran pekingologists suspect the Chinese leadership has been secretly rooting for a Trump victory, wagering his elevation to the Oval Office would strike a body blow to their greatest rival. “It was Mao Zedong who said: ‘Without destruction there can be no construction’. And, if I interpret him correctly, Donald Trump is the suicide bomber of American politics,” said Orville Schell, the head of the Centre on US-China Relations at New York’s Asia Society. “He wants to just bring the whole house down and start over. And I think there is an element [of that] that is quite tantalizing to China.” Schell noted how China’s strongman president, Xi Jinping, had repeatedly declared himself a fan of Chairman Mao’s teachings. “And of course the key principle of Mao’s rule was “da nao tian gong” - “make disorder under heaven”. I think Trump has every promise of doing that in America.” Harvard University’s Roderick MacFarquhar is another veteran China scholar who suspects the Communist party has been crossing its fingers for a Trump triumph. “I think they would see him as an enormous opportunity,” said MacFarquhar, a former Labour party MP, adding: “I don’t think they’d see Hillary as any kind of opportunity at all.” Party newspapers have revelled in this year’s scandal-tainted race for the White House, spinning each sordid turn as proof of the perks of one-party rule. “The ‘master of democracy’ should swallow its super confidence and arrogance,” the Communist party’s official mouthpiece, the People’s Daily, smirked in a recent editorial. Nick Bisley, an Asia expert from La Trobe University in Melbourne, said the ignominious election battle had handed Beijing an example of the United States’ “debased political culture” and further exposed democracy as “a vulgar, deeply inefficient and chaotic form of government”. “If you are a propaganda officer in the bureau in Beijing crafting your anti-democratic messaging you’ve got a lot to work with.” MacFarquhar, the author of a seminal work on Mao’s tumultuous 1966-1976 Cultural Revolution, said that while Beijing would now regard a Trump White House as unlikely, President Xi would have taken particular delight in watching the Republican candidate “upend” the political establishment in a way that was redolent of those 10 years of chaos. There were parallels, he said, between Trump’s attack on the system and the way in which Chairman Mao - to a far more devastating degree - had unleashed his Red Guards on the Communist party in 1966. “Saying that your opponent should be jailed and, if he became president, she would be jailed, that really is American-style Cultural Revolution stuff,” MacFarquhar said. “Even if he quietly folds his tent and goes back to his reality television [after the election], he has thrown a bomb into the system and the Chinese can’t but like that.” More than merely wallowing in the current mayhem, however, some scholars suspect there are those in Beijing actively hoping for a Trump victory on 8 November, even as the chances of that happening appear to fade. Schell said he believed China’s “more-than-flirtations with Putin” and embrace of the Philippines’ hardman president Rodrigo Duterte showed its rulers saw the benefits of “making a deal with a good thug, rather than with somebody constrained by principle.” “And surely in Donald Trump we have the ne plus ultra of American thuggery.” “I think they would feel that there were all sorts of opportunities with Trump,” agreed MacFarquhar. “Some of them might be more dangerous than others. He would be an uncertain commodity, like he is for the Americans… But Hillary was a certain commodity - and not one they liked.” MacFarquhar said part of Beijing’s attraction to Trump was simply a question of its dislike of Clinton and her support for human rights and Barack Obama’s “pivot to Asia”. “They think she is a hardliner on China, which I’m sure she is compared to Obama. So any rival to Hillary who might win would have been a blessing for them.” But the Harvard academic said Trump’s statements questioning US support for its Nato allies and defence treaty with Japan meant he would be “an absolute gift” to Beijing as it strove for superpower status. “Trump - even though he is ‘anti-China, anti-China, anti-China’ - has always talked about deals. That’s his shtick… [and] the Chinese would be only too happy to do a deal with Trump if that was on the cards.” For all Trump’s affection for the word China, few experts dare predict the impact his presidency might have on ties between Washington and Beijing. Schell said he believed Duterte, who recently travelled to China to seek an unexpected rapprochement with its leaders, could be “the most revelatory model for what we might get with Trump”. Following the Filipino president’s lead, Trump might seek some sort of new arrangement with Xi Jinping that would be beneficial to Beijing. If that didn’t happen, “at least they get a blank slate, at least they are dealing with someone else - and they are not bad at making deals with dictators”. “I think Trump is our Mussolini,” Schell concluded. “And the Chinese have always gotten along fine with people like that.”
Dublin v London: what's the best bet for rich bankers? A city that is just an hour’s plane ride from London, where people speak English and which, crucially, is still part of the EU, Dublin has been marketing itself as an alternative destination for bankers and financiers should their companies decide to move jobs out of the UK. But what, if anything, can Ireland’s capital offer the City’s high flyers? Property The first consideration is, of course, location and if Kensington (the London borough with the highest proportion of those employed in banking/finance) is soon to be emptied, its designer-clothing-clad former residents might feel at home in the Dublin suburb of Blackrock. The coastal village south of Dublin’s city centre has the capital’s highest proportion of people working in finance. According to the 2011 census, 16% of Blackrock’s working population are in banking/finance, compared with 20% of those in Kensington. The good news is that property in Blackrock is a snip compared with the London borough: in June 2016, the average property price was £512,629 in Blackrock, less than half Kensington’s going rate (£1.2m). The disparity between rents is even greater: in the year ending March 2016, the average monthly rental for a three-bed property in Kensington/Chelsea stood at £5,174 compared with £1,510 in Blackrock in the year ending 30 June, and the savings increase for people looking at four-bedroom properties. But while property may be cheaper, its availability is more problematic. According to figures provided by the property website Daft.ie, in the first three months of 2016 just 64 properties were put up for sale in Blackrock, compared with 668 in Kensington and Chelsea. So the chances of finding the kind of high-end property Ross O’Carroll Kelly would proudly inhabit may be more difficult. Ronan Lyons, an economist at Trinity College Dublin and author of the Daft.ie reports, said when it came to availability, it was important to take into account the relative size of the two cities. However, he added: “The number of high-end properties in Dublin is very low, in a city growing rapidly and with a high presence of executives for foreign multinationals,” he said. “Like London, Dublin is a city that has been forced by regulation to grow out, rather than up, which has made housing unnecessarily scarce and expensive at all ends of the market.” Quality of life Dubliners have taken great pleasure in recent surveys that compare the Irish capital favourably with other cities of the world. One suggested it was one of the world’s friendliest cities and recent Mercer indexes ranked it better than London on both quality of life and cost of living. The Irish capital also fares better than London when it comes to self-reported health. Just over 50% of Londoners rated their health as “very good” in the 2011 census, versus 63% of Dubliners. In Kensington 57.5% said they were in “very good” health: in Blackrock the figure was 71%. Taxes and earnings On this subject the news is only bad for high flyers. Wages are lower and – despite its reputation as a paragon of low tax – income taxes are higher in Dublin than in London. Let’s say a brokerage transferring its workforce from London to Dublin decided to continue paying its now Irish-based workforce London salaries. An average broker, who according to the Office for National Statistics could expect to earn £128,231 before tax, would have take-home pay of £77,500 if they lived in the UK but £72,290 in Ireland using August exchange rates. Ireland is a more attractive proposition for companies, however, with a 12.5% corporate tax rate, compared with the UK’s 20% rate. Private schools There are more private secondary schools within a three-mile radius of Kensington (67) than there are in the whole of Ireland (52), and almost twice as many as in Dublin (35). But if you are going to live anywhere, then the local authority which contains Blackrock (Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown) has the country’s highest concentration of private schools, with seven fee-paying schools per 100,000 population. Michelin stars and golf clubs When it comes to entertainment, Dublin might have some growing to do if it is going to attract the banking set. While the city is renowned for its pubs, its residents are relatively starved of Michelin star restaurants compared with London. There are five in Dublin against 65 in London. Translated per head of population, that equates to 7.5 Michelin starred restaurants per 100,000 people in London, compared with 3.7 in Dublin. There are five Michelin starred establishments in the borough of Kensington and Chelsea while, as of early October, Blackrock has only one – Heron & Grey. While it may not have as many fine dining options, Dublin is a golfer’s dream. For those intent on spoiling a good walk, there are a whopping 113 clubs within an hour’s drive of Main Street in Blackrock, well ahead of the 30 golf clubs (excluding pitch and putts) within an hour’s drive of Kensington High Street.
Let Donald Trump be our unifier Donald Trump is not a leader or a presidential candidate. He is an outcome, a viral manifestation of a serious malignant illness. He is the mirror of our emptiness, the emptying out that has been happening to our country for a very long time. He is an outcome of a two-party system that has consistently ignored the needs and wishes of the majority of Americans for generations. He is the manifestation of celebrity culture where those that have everything are worshipped for their shiny success and in the world of celebrity that shininess is a stand in for principles, substance and moral values. He is personality over planning, symbol over substance, insipidness over insightfulness. He is the outcome of the rich being able to buy anything, including our democracy. He is an outcome of centuries of underlying unaddressed, massively denied and metastasized racism. He is the hatred of the poor and the needy, the denigration of immigrants and those seeking refuge from the devastation of US wars and imperialism. He is the outcome of an insidious exceptionalism – the bedrock belief that American lives are more precious and valuable than any Others, those that we stigmatize, bomb, torture, murder, control, invade and whose economies we trash, whose resources we devour, whose futures we steal. He is the outcome of fear which masquerades as bullying. He is the manifestation of patriarchy and the endlessly indoctrinated belief that only a father will save us even though the mainly men who have been determining reality for this country and the planet have led us to near ruin. He is the outcome of high tech fantasy, virtual disconnection, TV reality shows. He is proof of the duplicity of corporate sponsored media that claim “neutrality” while reaping profits from propping up racists, tyrants, fascists, haters and those that would seek to destroy the country. He is the outcome of an insanely violent culture, increasingly unkind with more bullying, that normalizes cruelty, industrializes punishment and declares endless war on its own citizens. He is the consolidation of a government that devotes huge portions of its budget to building an imperial military rather than feeding and educating its own people, that wreaks havoc on the world rather than fighting climate change, that promotes the pillaging of the earth rather than ending violence against the people who inhabit it, that forces working people to police the world rather than providing them with meaningful work. He is the product of a country with the most number of armed citizens in the world, where the average of 89 firearms for every 100 people leads to more deaths at the hands of fellow countrymen every year than international terrorists have killed ever. He is the outcome of a country where police consistently murder Black women and men with little to no repercussions and millions are living in perpetual incarceration. He is the outcome of corrupt, self-seeking, extremist politicians who ignore the constitution and make it their business to refuse any meaningful legislation from getting passed. He is the outcome of an insidious, selfish morality where getting what you want, making money at any expense is the credo and how we behave, who we hurt, or destroy, what earth we eviscerate is inconsequential. He is the holographic representation of the failure of a country, our denial, our refusal to act and rise for each other and to take responsibility for what our government, corporations, military are doing across the world. He is a symptom of what happens when collective consciousness has divided and subdivided so many times within this neoliberal psychosis that we no longer know how to make alliances, build coalitions and have each other’s backs or stand with each other when the going gets rough. He is an outcome of a country with denial as thick as its amnesia. We come to honor and idolize war criminals and racists and sexists and corporates who’ve destroyed the lives of millions. He is an outcome of years and years of each of us being taught to fend for ourselves, fight for our own share, step over those who we are told are slower or weaker but who may in fact be deeper, more moral or more considered. He is an outcome of a world divided between winners and losers. He is an outcome of fatigue and privilege and disenchantment and hopelessness and exclusion. He is an outcome of cynicism and an imposed belief that there is nothing we can really do to overcome this corporate neoliberal imperialist racist sexist homphobic earth-hating transphobic system. The moment of America has arrived. This is our reckoning, our karma come to roost. It is way beyond the question of who we vote for in the upcoming election. It is a question of who we are. What is America? What kind of country do we want this to be? What values and principles do we hold and cherish? What will we do and what lengths will we go to, what collective imagination will we employ, what mighty love will we summon to ensure the ending of this violence, this hate, this destruction of our mother earth, this grotesque inequality of wealth, this mad and ferocious drive to our end? Here’s what Donald Trump is not: He is not us. He is not all of us. He is not the best of us. He is not inevitable. Let us take Trump at his word. Let him be our Unifier.
Blood test could identify people who will respond to antidepressants Scientists have developed a blood test that could identify which people with depression will respond to treatment so that patients can avoid spending months taking antidepressants that do not help them. The experts involved believe the breakthrough could lead to depressed patients receiving personalised treatments that are more likely to relieve their symptoms. The Royal College of Psychiatrists said that, if it worked, the test could prove to be a key moment in the quest for the holy grail of biological psychiatry. The scientists at King’s College London behind the development claim that their test “accurately and reliably predicts whether depressed patients will respond to common antidepressants, which could herald a new era of personalised treatment for people with depression”. If the test proves effective it is hoped that by measuring patients’ level of blood inflammation it would identify which of them would benefit from receiving antidepressants soon after their diagnosis to stop their condition worsening. About half of all patients with depression get no benefit from antidepressants the first time they take them and they never work for one in three people. Currently it is impossible to establish who should or should not be given antidepressants, or combinations of them. That means that patients are tried on a succession of different drugs for 12 weeks or more and experience prolonged periods of ineffective treatment because their medication does not benefit them. One in six Britons will suffer depression at some point in their life. Last year 61.5m prescriptions for antidepressants were issued in England. Researchers focused on two independent clinical groups of depressed patients on two biological markers that measure inflammation of the blood, as heightened levels are associated with poor response to antidepressants. They found that blood test results above certain levels reliably predicted how well patients would respond to commonly prescribed antidepressants. Their findings have been reported in the International Journal of Neuropsychopharmacology. “The identification of biomarkers that predict treatment response is crucial in reducing the social and economic burden of depression and improving quality of life for patients,” said Prof Carmine Pariante from KCL’s institute of psychiatry, psychology and neuroscience. “This study provides a clinically suitable approach for personalising antidepressants therapy. Patients who have blood inflammation above a certain threshold could be directed towards earlier access to more assertive antidepressant strategies, including the addition of other antidepressants or anti-inflammatory drugs,” Pariante added. Dr Cosmo Hallstrom, a spokesman for the Royal College of Psychiatrists, said: “Finding biological markers for depression (and other mental illnesses) has been the holy grail of biological psychiatry. “Such a finding and a test to back it up would be critical to advancing our understanding of the biological causes of depression. It would accelerate our therapeutic interventions and make them more tailored to the needs of the patient.” But further clinical research is needed to see if the findings can be applied in a clinical setting, Hallstrom added. Stephen Buckley, head of information at the mental health charity Mind, said: “We welcome research which adds to our understanding of treatments and medications that may work for people experiencing mental health problems. These initial findings are interesting, but, as with all areas of mental health, there is still more research to be done.” Mental health problems, including depression, are estimated to cost £105bn a year in England. The World Health Organisation has predicted that by 2020 depression will be the second biggest cause of health problems in the world.
So what is Trumponomics? More of the same So America’s ruling classes have lost to a billionaire who plays at being a man of the people. Donald Trump ran against the hierarchy of his own party, without the blessing of commentators or the big CEOs, without the speeches to Wall Street or the funding from Silicon Valley. Amid all the justifiable dismay expressed today, don’t forget one thing: Hillary Clinton was the establishment candidate; it was Trump who ran as the perennially unfancied outsider. He remains an almost illicit politician, a preference you express in hushed tones. Look at the placards brandished last night by self-declared members of the “silent majority”. Just over a month ago, I rang round Trump voters in West Virginia and Pennsylvania – two of the states that went red last night. Among the things that struck me most forcibly was how sheepish they were about admitting publicly they were going to vote for the man. “He’s a jackass, but … ” one began. Another: “I think he’s a total idiot, but … ” But I’ll back him. But who else is there? But I’ve had enough. That was the tenor of nearly all the conversations – with a few citizens of one of the noisiest democracies on Earth then asking if I could keep their identities secret. Well, let me add another but. Trump is an outsider politician leading an insurgency of self-declared outsider Americans: the white men who feel homeless in their own country and the coal-mining and rustbelt states that got written off by both parties – but that won’t produce outsider policies. A good chunk of the Trump base consists of people who consider themselves to be losers from four decades of political and economic orthodoxy. But Donald J Trump won’t be the president who reads the last rites for neoliberalism – for the simple reason that the empty-headed narcissist has no idea what to replace it with. This isn’t the mainstream view. Among the prefects of political and economic commentary, the standard thing to do this morning is to rehearse Trump’s fury at free trade, to look at the voters that most of them have never bothered talking to – and to squawk that America has struck out in a new and radically different direction. It’s a revolution! The pitchforks finally have their leader! As Trump edged towards the 270-mark, one of the first emails I got was from a senior fund manager at the giant Fidelity group, declaring: “We are heading into a world of unprecedented political risk which calls into question the pillars of the post-WWII settlement.” At least as far as the economics go, that is just overheated nonsense. First, it ignores just how protean Trump’s politics are. This is the man who just a few months ago in an off-the-record meeting at the New York Times told senior journalists that “everything is negotiable”. This is the Republican warrior whose most memorable photo is of him and his new wife laughing along with his VIP guests Bill and Hillary Clinton. This is the blowhard who can’t help contradicting himself. Take out the contortions, exaggerations and outright lies from the standard Trump riff – and you have next to nothing. All this makes him easily containable for the Republicans in the Senate and the House that he’ll need to work with . What the head boys and head girls also miss is just how old-fashioned Trumponomics is. Look at the people around him. Among his top economic advisers is Stephen Moore from the Heritage Foundation, a conservative thinktank last seen laying down many of the policy planks for Ronald Reagan. Sure enough, the policies are pure Reagan: slashing red tape and business taxes, “a major tax cut” on income, a repeal of estate taxes and a hankering for high interest rates and sound money. This sort of tax-cutting will cost trillions – up to $9tn over the next decade, according to some modelling. They will rip a hole through US public finances – especially if Trump brings them in alongside his spending spree on infrastructure. But his promise now is the promise that was made by Reagan, his adviser Arthur Laffer and the rest of the snake-oil salesmen: it will bring in more tax revenue over the long run. None of this will be much help for his blue-collar voters. But then the property billionaire isn’t into sharing out the wealth, encouraging trade unions or paying workers more. It wasn’t so long ago that he claimed wages were “too high” – before flip-flopping and tweeting that America’s middle classes have had “no effective raise in years. BAD.” His latest position is that “I would like to see an increase [in the minimum wage] of some magnitude. But I’d rather leave it to the states.” Gee thanks, Donald! You can see the paradox. Much of Trump’s base was voting against the great unravelling of America’s social contract. They were rebelling against Reaganism and its love for Wall Street over Main Street, its property boom and industrial bust. Yet what they’re about to get is more Reaganism, from a man whose glory years were the Reagan years. When that doesn’t work out, the new president will retreat further into his anti-immigrant, “decent people” rhetoric. If he need script lines, he can borrow some from the new British government. A revolt isn’t a revolution. The head prefects in our politics and media see disorder and immediately cry insurrection. That’s what they did in Britain after the Brexit vote and it’s how they’ll mark 20 January, 2017, the date of President Trump’s inauguration. Just as they called those events wrong, so they’ll call the aftermath wrong. You can overdo the comparisons, but let’s at least agree that Trump’s America and Brexit Britain share the same common tragedy: a large chunk of the public that’s had enough of the same-old failed orthodoxy, a technocratic elite that also knows it’s no longer working – and a political class unable to grasp any real alternatives.
Teachers and doctors should invoke the spirit of 1919 and strike together The period after the first world war was a volatile time in Britain’s labour market. Journalist Kingsley Martin wrote in 1966: “The only time in my life when revolution in Britain seemed likely was in 1919.” At that time, Britain’s working class was in the ascendancy: it was indignant, organised and willing to take action. Union membership, which numbered 2.6 million in 1910, had more than tripled to nearly 8 million by 1919. Groups taking industrial action between 1917 and 1919 included miners, railway and transport workers, engineers, bakers, cotton spinners and munitions workers. In a move that alarmed the government, the police also decided to go on strike in the summer of 1918, leading the prime minister, David Lloyd George, to sanction any action necessary, “however grave”, to quell the mutiny of the “ s of Order”. By 1920, unions had secured a series of victories for workers, including 40-hour weeks, wage increases, the prevention of pay cuts and better working conditions. In her farewell speech to the NUT conference this week, the general secretary, Christine Blower, raised the possibility of coordinated action between teachers and junior doctors. Of course, such a move couldn’t be realistically compared with 1919 – for one thing, modern trade union laws prevent different unions taking solidarity action together. What Blower is actually proposing is that both unions arrange to hold two separate strikes “coincidentally” on the same day. More important though, the contemporary British working class has been significantly enfeebled by global neoliberalism, which has meant atomised workplaces, suffocating trade union legislation, a supine political class, and the notion that capitalism has won the ideological battle (remember that the working class of 1919 had the October revolution to inspire it). A coordinated strike between teachers and doctors in 2016 is a drop in the ocean compared with the unrest that has come before. But 1919 is still instructive because it reminds us that under capitalism, collective action by workers has the ability to fundamentally change society. And it does this by redressing the power balance between workers and their employers. There is a contract all workers and employers enter into: the worker gives his or her skills and labour, and in return the employer gives a salary and decent working conditions. When the employer retracts his or her half of the bargain, the worker must do the same. This retraction is the only tool workers have in order to force employers to honour their commitments. But it’s not just about individual examples of industrial action. The employer-employee relationship is essential to the functioning of a capitalist society as a whole – and workers have the collective ability to reshape the economy way beyond their particular working conditions. Or as Trotsky breathlessly put it: “If carried through to the end, the general strike brings the revolutionary class up against the task of organising a new state power.” Teachers and doctors are now considering tapping into this collective power, not because they want to bring about a Bolshevik revolution but because they have been driven to an extreme act by a government that is utterly intransigent. Jeremy Hunt has already promised to “impose” a new contract on junior doctors, despite the profession being almost totally opposed to it. Similarly, the government has announced it will make every school in the UK an academy, despite the consistent opposition of the teaching profession. Once an employer (the government in this case) has made its final stance on a dispute clear, workers can choose to accept that or stand up to it. And if they stand up to it, going on strike is the only option they have. Collective strike action between teachers and doctors is not a radical act, but a rational one – given that it is clear that the government has the power to override their objections without it. This is why public opinion cannot be the only factor unions take into consideration when deciding to go on strike. If this action goes ahead, it will cause significant disruption – a fact that will be used to sour the public mood against the strikers. In a parliamentary democracy, public opinion is a form of power – and it is useful for unions to have it on their side. But the dominant issue in a strike is industrial power, and many strikes have been won without the backing of the public (consider London’s tube drivers, for example). On the other hand, the government may find itself on the wrong side of public opinion this time: it’s difficult to be a functioning member of society without giving teachers and doctors some degree of trust. Industrial unrest is usually a symptom of a dysfunctional workplace. The wider issue here is the relationship breakdown between public sector workers and the government. It’s simply unrealistic to blame that on the workers themselves – they don’t have the resources or inclination to spontaneously attack an employer. Would you wake up one morning and pick a fight with your boss for no reason? What we’re left with is the conclusion that this government undervalues and mistreats people working in the sectors that keep us educated, cared for and alive. If teachers and doctors strike together, it will not just be a significant moment in British industrial relations, but a necessary one. And the outcome will affect us all.
Ben Carson nominated for housing secretary in Trump administration Donald Trump has nominated former opponent Ben Carson as his secretary of housing and urban development. In a statement from his transition team on Monday, Trump said he was “thrilled to nominate” Carson, saying the retired neurosurgeon had “a brilliant mind and is passionate about strengthening communities and families within those communities”. “Ben shares my optimism about the future of our country and is part of ensuring that this is a presidency representing all Americans,” he added. Carson responded to the announcement with a brief statement accepting Trump’s nomination. “I am honored and look forward to working hard on behalf of the American people,” he wrote. Carson had previously taken himself out of the running to serve in Trump’s cabinet amid speculation that the former doctor was being considered to head the Department of Health and Human Services. A Carson spokesperson said he did not feel he had the experience to run a federal agency and did not want to assume a role “that could cripple the presidency”. But Carson signalled his thinking had changed in a Facebook post late last month, in which he hinted at a possible position at the federal agency tasked with overseeing America’s fair housing laws and urban development policies. “After serious discussions with the Trump transition team, I feel that I can make a significant contribution particularly to making our inner cities great for everyone,” Carson wrote in the post on 23 November. “We have much work to do in strengthening every aspect of our nation and ensuring that both our physical infrastructure and our spiritual infrastructure is solid.” Republicans praised Carson’s personal attributes but were relatively muted in response to Trump’s decision to place an outsider at the helm of one of the nation’s top agencies. “We appreciate Dr Carson’s willingness to take on such a challenging task at an agency that is in need of reform to better serve all Americans,” Mitch McConnell, the Republican Senate majority leader, said in a statement. “I’m confident his life-long career of selfless service will be a positive addition to the incoming administration.” Democrats, by contrast, assailed the retired neurosurgeon as wholly unqualified for the role. “Dr Ben Carson is a disconcerting and disturbingly unqualified choice to lead a department as complex and consequential as Housing and Urban Development,” said Nancy Pelosi, who was recently re-elected as the Democrats’ leader in the House of Representatives, in a statement. “There is no evidence that Dr Carson brings the necessary credentials to hold a position with such immense responsibilities and impact on families and communities across America.” Charles Schumer, the incoming Democratic leader in the Senate, said he had serious concerns about Carson’s lack of expertise and experience in the field of housing. “Someone who is as anti-government as him is a strange fit for housing secretary, to say the least,” he said. “As he moves through the confirmation process, Americans deserve to know that their potential HUD secretary is well versed in housing policy and has a vision for federal housing programs that meets the needs of Americans across the country and seeks to provide access to those that we haven’t reached already.” The largest civil rights organization for LGBTQ individuals also sounded alarm over Carson’s nomination, pointing to his steadfast opposition to gay equality. The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) said past comments by Carson referring to homosexuality as “a choice” and support for conversion therapy raised serious concerns over how HUD would address the housing needs of the LGBTQ community, while citing research showing that LGBTQ youth account for up to 40% of the total unaccompanied homeless youth population. “Throughout his failed presidential campaign, Carson ran on a platform on inequality, and, if nominated, his hateful views could have disastrous effects on LGBTQ people,” said HRC president Chad Griffin. “As a community already faced with housing insecurity, we need an ally, not an agitator, who will protect every American’s right to a safe place to lie down each night.” Carson and Trump feuded bitterly during the Republican presidential primaries, with Trump at one point characterizing Carson as having a “pathological temper” akin to the illness of a child molester. But Carson endorsed Trump in March, saying the two men had “buried the hatchet”, and went on to be one of the real estate mogul’s most loyal supporters for the duration of the election campaign. Trump’s decision to tap Carson as the housing and urban development (HUD) secretary followed his announcement nominating the South Carolina governor, Nikki Haley, as ambassador to the United Nations, and Elaine Chao as transportation secretary. Haley, Chao and Carson are the first people of color chosen by Trump to serve in his cabinet. This article was amended on 5 December 2016. Due to an editing error, an earlier version omitted that Elaine Chao, who is Taiwanese American, had been nominated as transportation secretary. Chao, Haley and Carson are the three people of color nominated to Trump’s cabinet.
'Horrible spike' in hate crime linked to Brexit vote, Met police say A “horrible spike” in hate crime after Britain’s vote to leave the European Union was at least partly linked to the referendum, Britain’s most senior police officer has said. Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, the Metropolitan police commissioner, told a hearing at London’s City Hall that hate crime was showing signs of decreasing after a sharp rise in June and July, but it had still not returned to pre-referendum levels. Monitoring presented at the hearing by the London mayor’s evidence and insight team showed a 16% increase in hate crime in the 12 months to August. It also showed that in the 38 days after the referendum there were more than 2,300 recorded race-hate offences in London, compared with 1,400 in the 38 days before the vote. Hogan-Howe expressed alarm about the figures. “We saw this horrible spike after Brexit,” he said. He revealed there was a connection between the referendum and many of the incidents and pointed out that many of the victims were eastern Europeans. Hogan-Howe said: “We couldn’t say it was absolutely down to Brexit, although there was obviously a spike after it. Some of them were attributed to it because of what was said at the time. We could attribute that, and eastern Europeans were particularly targeted within the race-hate crime [category]. So there certainly was a spike related to it. “We have fortunately seen it start to come back down, but I’m not sure we can say yet it is back to previous levels.” He added: “The absolute numbers are low, but we think it is massively under-reported [crime]. Sadly, people don’t tell us about the harassment and the abuse that we know will go on out there.” Hogan-Howe pledged that more specialist officers dedicated to tackling hate crime would be deployed. Sophie Linden, London’s deputy mayor for policing, who was hosting the hearing, said she was still getting daily reports about hate crime in the capital. “It is worrying that it does not appear to have gone back down to pre-referendum levels.” Figures from the National Police Chiefs’ Council showed a 49% rise in hate crime incidents to 1,863 in the last week in July in England, Wales and Northern Ireland compared with the previous year. A survey by the found that European embassies in Britain have logged dozens of incidents of suspected hate crime and abuse against their citizens since the referendum. The vast majority of incidents involved citizens from eastern European countries, with more attacks against Poles than against all the other nationalities put together. They include the killing of Arkadiusz Jóźwik in Harlow, in an apparently unprovoked attack that is being treated by police as a possible hate crime. Five 15-year-old boys and one 16-year-old boy, all from Harlow, were arrested on suspicion of murdering Jóźwik and bailed until 7 October pending further inquiries. A second Polish man survived the attack.
Why Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie is a better fashion satire than Zoolander 2 March 2015 saw the splashy beginning of Zoolander 2’s relentless buzz-building campaign as stars Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson appeared in character at Paris fashion week. It was covered extensively by both film and fashion press, and kicked off an exhaustively well-sustained assault on anyone with an internet connection all the way through to its release in February this year. Given the first film’s cult following and how surprisingly well it stands up to repeat viewings 15 years later, expectations were high for another quotable combination of well-measured silliness and sharp fashion-industry satire. But it was a washout, a tiresome and aggressively unfunny mis-step, the sort of lazy rehash that makes you question whether you even liked the original. Five months later and we have another couple of fictional fashionistas dusted off and resurrected for those blessed with a good memory. Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie brings back Patsy and Edina, originally on the BBC in 1992, and catapults them to the big screen following in the footsteps of The Inbetweeners and, most recently, Dad’s Army. The campaign was far more modest, cheap even, and the buzz was notably less feverish, not helped by the film’s first press screening taking place just two days before its release. Yet, against all odds, it works. The comic timing of Jennifer Saunders and Joanna Lumley has been curiously underutilised in the years since Ab Fab went off air, and the film, wonderfully short, scrappy and snappy at 91 minutes, gives them free rein to remind us of their skills. It’s imperfect (the plot is almost an afterthought), but it’s far funnier than it should be, given how unnecessary it all seemed on paper. The pleasure of watching the pair drunkenly embarrass themselves across Europe far outweighs watching Stiller and Wilson uncover new levels of idiocy in a glossier transatlantic trip. Both films posit their characters as relics, struggling to keep up with an industry changed irrevocably by social media and populated with those far younger and sharper. But Patsy and Edina were always in this mode, obsessed with remaining current, aware of their sell-by date and failing, miserably, to succeed in the fashion world. Alternately, Derek and Hansel were, bizarrely and comically, at the top of their game in the first film, only to be brought back to earth in the sequel. When your film receives a green light on the basis of fan service, you’d be wise to make sure your most loyal fans are well-served. By changing the dynamic, we lost the joke of seeing two middle-aged, above-average-looking men touted as gorgeous supermodels and instead in the sequel, they ended up playing fortysomething dads failing to comprehend selfie culture. Ab Fab doesn’t deviate from its original setup, it merely exaggerates it, an understandable decision given the increased gap between the leads and the youthful culture they hope to dominate. There’s also a confidence in the characters in Ab Fab thanks to a wealth of material, 39 episodes in fact, that have proved their longevity and also the actors’ skill at playing them. Zoolander 2 proved that Derek and Hansel have less mileage, and despite both films having largely nonsensical and haphazard plots, only Patsy and Edina manage to rise above. The poor box office of Stiller’s sequel was a sign that the fandom wasn’t as strong as Paramount had anticipated. On the same budget of $50m, similarly belated comedy follow-up Anchorman 2 managed to make almost four times that, while Zoolander 2 just about broke even. Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie won’t play to huge numbers abroad, but surprisingly strong reviews and a fanbase that’s stuck around since the early 90s might make it a modest domestic success. By never pretending to be in style, Patsy and Edina have remained more fashionable than Derek and Hansel could have ever dreamed of.
Live music booking now “You know you that bitch when you cause all this conversation”, sang Beyoncé on Formation, as she laid out the signposts for a thousand thinkpieces with a single that referenced Hurricane Katrina, “Jackson 5 nostrils” and keeping a bottle of hot sauce in her handbag. But it was her visual imagery that proved most commanding, from the sight of a slowly sinking police car in her new video, to the Black Panther references of last weekend’s Super Bowl performance. As such, her new stage show is likely where you’ll next see Beyoncé in fully realised form. Tickets are currently available to members of her fanclub, and will go on general release on Tuesday (28 Jun to 9 Jul, tour starts Stadium Of Light, Sunderland) … The lineup for Manchester’s Parklife festival (11 & 12 Jun, Heaton Park) will include Jess Glynne, Stormzy and everyone in between (that being: Wolf Alice, Craig David, the Chemical Brothers, Jamie xx, Ice Cube and Skepta) … Finally, ethereal French singer-songwriter Héloïse Letissier – otherwise known as Christine And The Queens – adds an extra London date to her tour (3 May, Roundhouse, NW1)
Drinking too much water when ill can be harmful, finds study The common advice to drink plenty of water when ill is based on scant evidence and can actively harm chances of recovery, doctors have warned. Medics at King’s College hospital NHS foundation trust, in London, raised the alarm after they treated a patient with hyponatremia – abnormally low sodium – from drinking too much water to help with a recurring urinary tract infection. In the case highlighted, a 59-year-old woman consumed several litres of water based on medical advice she recalled from previous similar episodes to “flush out her system”. She became progressively shaky, muddled, vomited several times and had significant speech difficulties. Dr Maryann Noronha, the co-author of the study published in BMJ Case Reports on Thursday, said: “When people are ill they don’t tend to drink very much water because it’s the last thing they want to do and you can become dehydrated very quickly. “To counteract that risk, doctors have said ‘Make sure you drink lots of water.’ That has perpetrated the myth that you must drink gallons of water. Most people don’t do that but in this case they did it to the letter.” Tests revealed her high intake of water had resulted in dangerously low sodium levels – 123 mmol/L – classifying it as a medical emergency. A mortality rate of almost 30% has been reported for patients with sodium levels of less than 125 mmol/L. Doctors restricted her fluid intake to 1 litre over the next 24 hours. By the following morning her blood tests were normal and she was discharged later that day. In a previous case a woman with gastroenteritis developed hyponatremia and died from drinking excessive amounts of water. Fatal water intoxication has also been reported in people engaged in endurance exercise and using the drug MDMA (ecstasy), when they have sweated heavily and overcompensated with fluids. The authors stress that it is rare to develop water intoxication with normal renal function but warn that some illnesses drive up levels of antidiuretic hormones, which reduce normal excretion of water. “Doctors should try to be more specific in their advice,” said Noronha. “I say to people, while they are ill they should at least consume their normal fluid intake and up to half again [ie, up to 150%]. If you drink three litres, you shouldn’t drink six litres when you are ill.” Public Health England recommends people should drink six to eight glasses of fluid a day, including water, lower fat milk and sugar-free drinks including tea and coffee. Noronha said the amount needed by different people varies, but the main message is not to change your consumption too greatly when you are ill. “If you are someone who doesn’t drink much water and then suddenly fill your body with masses that’s going to have a very big effect,” she said. She hopes the paper might prompt research in the area so that objective guidance can be drawn up. Dr Imran Rafi, the chair of clinical innovation and research at the Royal College of GPs, said: “Drinking enough water is important in keeping healthy, both physically and mentally, and patients should keep their fluids up when unwell, particularly in conditions that can cause dehydration. “There is no steadfast recommendation as to how much water people should drink in order to stay healthy, but the key thing is to keep hydrated – and passing clear urine is a good indication of this. “This case report highlights that excessive water intake can have important consequences for patients, and this is something that healthcare professionals, and patients, should be mindful of.” What is the advice? Public Health England recommends drinking six to eight glasses of fluid a day, including but not limited to water. There is no official guidance as to how much to drink when ill, but Noronha advises no more than 1.5 times the amount you would usually drink. Noronha says water is generally fine but recommends a rehydrations sachet if suffering from gastroenteritis.
Juan Mata’s mastery may push Wayne Rooney to Manchester United margins Wayne Rooney may now be entering the career phase when he is used only in certain games for Manchester United. This was the unescapable conclusion drawn from José Mourinho’s decision to drop him to the bench and the 4-1 rout of Leicester City at Old Trafford that followed. The victory on Saturday was significant because it reversed the rot of two successive Premier League defeats and to do so Mourinho found the ruthless streak that has been a driving part of his gilded success at Porto, Chelsea (in both spells), Internazionale and Real Madrid. After the EFL Cup win at Northampton Town ended the run of three defeats on the bounce in all competitions – the other came in the Europa League – Mourinho examined what was needed to defeat the champions and decided his captain was surplus to requirements. Instead Zlatan Ibrahimovic retained his place at centre-forward, and Mourinho fielded the pace of Marcus Rashford and Jesse Lingard out wide. The selection of Juan Mata at No10 was of most significance. For the first time since the Spaniard arrived in January 2014 (from Mourinho’s Chelsea) Mata was selected in his favoured position ahead of Rooney, who had to gaze on as United coasted into the break 4-0 ahead. A 20-minute burst that featured goals from Chris Smalling, Mata, Paul Pogba (a maiden United strike) and Rashford – answered only by Demarai Gray’s second-half shot – finished the contest and may have ended Rooney’s days as a certain starter. The Liverpudlian has been written off before – doing so is a quasi-national pastime – but Mourinho’s post-game comments may come to be viewed as the death knell for his alpha-male status in the XI. “We thought the solution for us was to play with the two fast kids and with Mata in a position where he could interact,” the Portuguese said. The subtext here is that Mourinho decided Rooney was the inferior option to Mata to link with Lingard and Rashford. The reason is the side’s previous poor form in which Rooney’s apparent inability to stop wandering out of position clogged United’s flow. Yet Mourinho stressed that Rooney was still his man (as the manager has to) and Smalling believes his England colleague will soon be back in the side. “I think he’s a very experienced guy and he’s played that many games that it’ll only be a matter of time before he’s back in there and firing again because he’s quality,” the defender said. Mourinho talked of how Rooney was the captain not only on the field but away from it with regard to representing the club and helping out team-mates. Smalling concurred. Asked if Rooney had been down about being dropped, he said: “No. He was the same as [ever] before the game when we’re all getting ready. He is often one of the most vocal and he was the same. “Regardless of whatever the situation is, whatever game, whether he is on the bench or playing or whatever, he is always that same type of character and that’s why he is England’s main man and our main man.” But for how much longer? United’s next outing is the visit of Ukraine’s Zarya Lugansk on Thursday evening for the second Europa League group match. Rooney may well be recalled for a game that must be won following the defeat at Feyenoord in the opener. This, though, may establish a pattern of the forward being deployed sparingly by Mourinho and in contests against lesser opponents. If Rooney was discarded for the challenge of Leicester what about when, say, United travel to Liverpool (the next league game but one) or are at Chelsea the following weekend? The victory against Leicester has given Mourinho a mandate – for the foreseeable future, at least – to leave out Rooney when he wishes. A reverse to Claudio Ranieri’s side or even a less emphatic win may have provoked the question of whether Rooney is a convenient scapegoat. Not now. For the time being the man with 246 United goals (three behind Sir Bobby Charlton’s record) may be reduced to a peripheral role. Smalling said Rooney had been vocal in the dressing room before the match despite starting on the bench. “He had the same method,” the 26-year-old said. “Even when there’s games – obviously we play League Cup and he [Mourinho] changes the whole team, he’s still the same, in the changing room talking. That’s something that will never change with Wayne.” The defender revealed what Mourinho’s message was beforehand. “He really wanted to get that factor over of enjoyment and enjoying it because he there’s 70-odd thousand people in the stands who would want to be in our shoes and his shoes,” he said. “It’s just a case of realising how lucky we are. And you can see that everyone did enjoy it so that message really did get across.” How much personal satisfaction Rooney drew from not being a factor in the victory is moot. He may not have been hurdling the moon to witness the side function so well without him. Afterwards Rooney, who came on for Rashford with seven minutes remaining, had a kickabout with his children on the pitch. The question is how soon he will again be mixing it regularly with the big boys.
PPI payouts knock down Lloyds profits but boost British shoppers It is difficult to remember a year when the British consumer was forced to cope without the proceeds from a mis-selling scandal. The payment protection insurance (PPI) scandal has proved to be the most lucrative, punishing banks with fines of £22.5bn and administrative costs of another £8-9bn for attaching the expensive insurance cover to credit cards and loans without consumers’ knowledge. Lloyds Banking Group has just added another £4bn to the total cost after it said another tranche of cash would be needed to satisfy regulators. According to the Financial Conduct Authority, the total payout in each year since 2011 averages £4.5bn. About 12 million people have secured compensation, with an average payout of £1,875. In 2012 the total reached £6.3bn, which is the equivalent to a 1.5p cut in the standard rate of tax. At the time, the National Institute of Economic and Social Research said the refunds could push GDP growth 0.1-0.2% higher. A survey by the money-saving website VoucherCodesPro in 2014 examined more closely what happened to the money. It found that most people rushed out and bought a holiday. Next on the list was a new car, followed by buying home appliances such as fridge freezers, followed by paying bills. The survey also found that it only took two and a half weeks on average to spend the money from a settled PPI claim. Only 12% of people put any of the windfall into a savings account. Looking back at the trends of recent years, it is noticeable that the sales figures for holidays and cars have soared and provided the backbone for GDP growth. But the payouts are only one element, albeit the largest, of the PPI boost to the economy. The regulator and the banks have spent around £4bn processing claims and the private claims companies, infamous for urging bank customers to seek compensation with pestering phone calls, have grabbed an estimated £5bn for themselves. Such was the boom in jobs that, in 2014, it registered in the official labour market statistics as one of the fastest growing areas of employment. These workers will have spent their wages and paid tax, increasing GDP further. Maybe that is why George Osborne is keen to offer Lloyds shares owned by the government at a discount. He can see the PPI effect waning and he recognises the need for a multi-billion-pound boost to the economy – not from the exchequer, which is cutting back on spending, but by selling a taxpayer-owned asset and calling it a gift. It was the same in the 1980s, when Margaret Thatcher’s privatisations started the cascade of funds. In the 1990s, there was the demutualisation of building societies and countless insurers. When the Halifax turned itself into a PLC in 1997, 7.5 million customers received shares worth £1,500 and the handout was worth 2p off the standard rate of income tax. One estimate found that 12% of recipients saved the money, but everyone else spent it. Osborne will hope he can sell the Lloyds shares and get a good price for them, in order to boost incomes and offset the worst of his austerity measures.
Sunderland suffer with Virgil van Dijk grabbing Southampton a point Following an unseemly few days for Sunderland off the pitch, it was back to the football and time for the club’s players to provide some on-field respite. They did so up to a point, weathering a literal and metaphorical storm before taking a late lead courtesy of a Jermain Defoe strike shortly after Southampton had been reduced to 10 men. Unable to hang on, they let Virgil van Dijk rescue a point for his side three minutes into added time. This was two points dropped rather than one gained for Sunderland, but at a ground where they suffered the humiliation of losing 8-0 last season, it was revenge of sorts and defeats elsewhere for fellow relegation battlers Newcastle United and Norwich City made it a little sweeter. Or did they? “It was a kick in the teeth,” said Sam Allardyce. “I can’t even begin to tell you how dejected we are and how much more difficult we’ve made our job to stay in the Premier League.” Asked if he could see any positives from the point gained, his answer was emphatic. “No,” he sighed wistfully. “I was looking forward to celebrating my first clean sheet on Mother’s Day, but now I think I’ll be crying into my glass of wine and I hope I don’t take this out on my grandkids.” In an opening half hour memorable mainly for the bitterness of the south coast cold, neither side created much to warm the cockles. After 22 minutes Fabio Borini, in at the expense of Defoe, escaped down the right only for his low, angled drive to be blocked by an excellent covering tackle from Van Djik. Soon after, Southampton ought to have gone ahead, only to be foiled by an excellent Vito Mannone save after Dusan Tadic had reacted quickly to power a Graziano Pellè knockdown goalwards. Just after the half hour, Mannone’s opposite number was called into something resembling urgent action. With a Wahbi Khazri free-kick from wide threatening to drift in to the top left-hand corner, a furiously back-pedalling Fraser Forster did well to palm the goal-bound effort on to his crossbar. In splendid isolation out on the wing, Khazri clasped his head with both hands in sheer frustration. The cold of the first half was augmented by torrential rain early in the second, although the deluge failed to dampen the enthusiasm of a vocal visiting support. As the downpour eased off, Jack Rodwell had them out of their seats but his low effort failed to trouble Forster unduly. Rising to the spirit of tit-for-tat in which much of the game was played, Oriol Romeu promptly sent the ball fizzing inches over from 20-yards. As the game entered its final 20 minutes, Sunderland sat deep on the back foot but it was Southampton’s José Fonte who was forced into an act of desperation. The Portuguese earned a straight red card for grappling Borini as he chased a through ball to the edge of the penalty area. From the subsequent free-kick, Patrick van Aanholt brought a very smart stop from Forster. Enter Defoe. Lamine Koné pounced on a knockdown from Jan Kirchhoff in the penalty area, evaded a tackle and squared for the substitute to prod home from seven yards and prompt scenes of unbridled jubilation in the away end. They were short-lived, however: Southampton huffed and puffed relentlessly before eventually blowing the Sunderland house down when the excellent Van Dijk found himself unmarked on the end of a cross into the Sunderland penalty area and fired home deep in injury time. “It’s strange that we play our best football in the last five or six minutes,” said Ronald Koeman. “From the beginning we need better performances football wise but we showed great character after going 1-0 down and I’m very pleased with that.” Slumped in a chair at his post-match press conference, his opposite number could scarcely have sounded more glum.
Lisa Hannigan: At Swim review – come on in, the water's lovely It’s 14 years since Lisa Hannigan first came to attention as the second voice on Damien Rice’s debut, O, and five since her last album, Passenger. She is never in a rush, and her third album benefits enormously from a sense of stillness and serenity. Producer Aaron Dessner (from the National) has framed the Dublin-born singer’s crystal vocals in an understated, often hushed atmosphere. Hannigan’s voice is sometimes unadorned, or with minimal (often just piano) backing; even singing ghostly harmonies with itself. Watery themes predominate, from the lovely, adorational Undertow’s offer to “swim in your current, flow on every word you say” to the disarmingly beautiful Ora’s haunting invitation to join her at “home” in the vast blue waters. Several songs have a deep, troubling power: death and darkness haunt We, the Drowned and Prayer for the Dying, and gentle opener Fall casually suggests: “Hang the rich and spare the young.” These are stunningly pretty songs with quietly powerful undercurrents.
EU states set to veto any Brexit deal threatening free movement Four central European countries are prepared to veto any Brexit deal agreed between the UK and the European Union that restricts their citizens’ rights to live and work in Britain, the prime minister of Slovakia has said. In a stark reminder of the challenge Britain faces at the negotiating table, Robert Fico said Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia – known as the Visegrad, or V4, group – would not hesitate to block any future trade accord that threatened the key EU principle of free movement of workers. “The V4 countries will be uncompromising,” Fico said on Saturday, a day after EU leaders met informally in Bratislava, without Britain, to try to chart a roadmap for the bloc’s future after the shock of the Brexit vote. “Unless we feel a guarantee that these people [living and working in Britain] are equal, we will veto any agreement between the EU and Britain,” Fico told Reuters. “I think Britain knows this is an issue for us where there’s no room for compromise.” London has not yet revealed what kind of trade agreement it wants with the European Union, but has said its priority is to control EU immigration while maximising opportunities for trade. The European commission and parliament, in addition to the 27 remaining member states who must all ratify a future Brexit trade deal, have repeatedly made clear that enhanced access to the single market will not be on offer unless Britain accepts free movement. Brexit was not formally discussed at Friday’s meeting, but the commission’s president, Jean-Claude Juncker, reiterated the bloc’s stance at a press conference, saying he could not see “any possibility of compromising” on the question. Fico also stressed after the summit that he and other central European governments would not allow their nationals to become “second-class citizens”. He said on Saturday that fierce Visegrad opposition to mandatory quotas for refugees had persuaded the EU to shift its approach to the migrant crisis. The bloc will now pursue a new principle of “flexible solidarity”, he said, although it is not yet clear what that might mean in practice. Fico said the V4 countries would show the same determination in defending their common interest in protecting their citizens’ rights to work in Britain, reiterating that there could be no “cherry-picking” in upcoming Brexit negotiations and that EU freedoms must be respected. Britain has said it will not start the formal two-year talks to leave the EU this year because it needs time to consider its position, but could do so next year. In principle the article 50 exit deal, which the EU will approve by qualified majority voting, must be concluded before the new trade deal – which will require unanimity – can be addressed. On Friday the European council president, Donald Tusk, said in Bratislava that he believed following a meeting with the prime minister, Theresa May, that article 50 would probably be invoked in January or February 2017. However, a Downing Street source said on Saturday that the prime minister did not specifically mention January or February at the meeting and that Tusk’s comments were an “interpretation” of their conversation. Fico said the Visegrad group would continue to adopt and defend common positions, which he described as being sometimes more “pragmatic” than other EU nations owing to the four states’ history since the second world war and the collapse of the communist bloc. He said he wanted migration issues to be more clearly addressed in the bloc’s future roadmap, but was happy that border security was more of a priority and that discussion was now underway on flexible solidarity to allow countries to offer what they feel they can to help resolve the migrant crisis.
Like Ed Balls, Jeremy Corbyn is struggling to impress the judges When polling stations closed at 10pm on the night of 7 May 2015, the bookies would have given generous odds on Ed Balls doing the waltz on Strictly Come Dancing and Jeremy Corbyn leading the Labour party less than 18 months later. Had things turned out a little differently, Balls would now be running the Treasury and Corbyn would have remained a backbench MP. Ed Miliband would have been at the head of a coalition government and there would have been no EU referendum. In the intervening period, Corbyn has won not one but two leadership contests, both by thumping majorities. His opponents in the party have been routed and he now has the job of getting Labour ready to fight the next election. That will be no easy task. Three months ago, the notion that the Conservative party would hold a double-digit opinion poll lead over the Labour party looked remote. David Cameron had just resigned after calling and losing the Brexit referendum and there were fears of a summer of financial and political chaos while the Tories chose a new prime minister. Labour had its problems but they appeared to be minor by comparison. The mood has now changed. Theresa May is enjoying a honeymoon period and political pundits assume that she will trounce Corbyn whenever she chooses to go to the country, whether that is at a snap election next spring or if the current parliament is allowed to run its full five-year course. The conventional wisdom is that Britain is facing another prolonged period of uninterrupted Conservative rule. But honeymoons - as Gordon Brown can testify - come to an end. Labour’s last prime minister looked the part and had an assured start when he took over from Tony Blair in the summer of 2007. Then the financial crisis broke, there were queues outside Northern Rock branches and it was never the same again. May’s honeymoon could turn out to be similarly brief. While the risk of an immediate recession has receded, it is possible that the government will make a hash of the Brexit negotiations when they eventually start. Before that, though, there is the possibility that the supposed cure for the last recession unwittingly creates the conditions for another painful downturn. This is what is happening. Interest rates are low everywhere and have been for years. The Bank of England, the Bank of Japan and the European Central Bank are still upping the amount of stimulus they are providing, even though it is almost a decade since the sub-prime mortgage crisis erupted in the summer of 2007. The only major central bank that is even thinking about tightening policy is the US Federal Reserve. The Fed took the first tentative step towards the “normalisation” of interest rates (around 5% was the pre-crisis norm) last December and sent out signals that the cost of borrowing would be pushed up several times during 2016. Since then, though, the Fed has sat tight even though unemployment is low and consumer spending is strong. With negligible wage pressure and last year’s fall in the cost of energy holding inflation down, the Fed has said it wants to see further evidence that the economy is strengthening before moving again. Wall Street has taken that as a strong hint to be prepared for a December rate rise although, on past form, it won’t take much for the Fed to again decide to leave policy unchanged. In theory, the ability to borrow for the long term at ultra-low rates should be providing an incentive for US businesses to invest. That, though, is not what is happening. Rather than invest, corporations are borrowing money in order to buy back their own shares. This makes sense because, as Charles Dumas of Lombard Street Research has pointed out, the cost of money is below the yield on stocks. But it also means the Fed has created the perfect conditions for a massive stock market bubble, which will pop the moment that interest rates start to rise. The US, courtesy of the dearth of investment, has weak productivity and inflation will start to pick up once growth accelerates to much more than 2%. The fear of the majority of the Fed’s policymakers is that an over-hasty move would send share prices sharply lower, leading to slower growth, higher unemployment and an undershoot of its inflation target. But delay means that the stock market bubble continues to inflate and that the bust – when it comes – will be even more severe. It is easy enough to envisage circumstances in which a panic on Wall Street leads to the second global recession in a decade. What would this mean for UK politics? Labour had two problems during the 2007-09 crash. The first was that it was in power when the banks nearly went bust. The second was that it was ill-prepared ideologically to challenge the basis upon which the global economy had been run for the previous 30 years. New Labour had bought into the idea that there was precious little governments could, or even should, do to tame the power of global finance. Clearly, Corbyn doesn’t have the first of these problems. If there is another financial crisis, it is going to happen on May’s watch. The more interesting question is whether Labour could respond to a fresh crisis with an economic programme that is intellectually coherent and politically attractive. This is a tall order. Labour does not tend to win power when times are tough; rather it wins during periods when the mood is optimistic and when the economy is strong, as in 1964 and 1997. In 1945, it was impossible to portray Labour’s economic platform as dangerously radical, since state control of key industries had been necessary to win the war. The UK has the same economic weakness as the US: private investment has been too low even with interest rates at record lows. Corbyn’s answer is higher public spending channeled through a national investment bank. There is nothing wrong with this. Indeed, it makes a lot of sense to remedy the UK’s infrastructure deficiencies when borrowing is so cheap. Likewise, an idea that Corbyn floated in the 2015 leadership race - People’s quantitative easing - would provide a useful policy weapon in the event of another severe financial crisis. There is little scope for central banks to cut interest rates further and the current QE programmes have encouraged speculation rather than investment. People’s QE is a form of helicopter money: public investment financed by money creation by the Bank of England. But Labour has done little to turn higher borrowing or People’s QE into mainstream ideas and is failing to counter the perception that it knows more about spending money than creating wealth. In that respect, Corbyn and Balls are alike: both are struggling to impress the judges.
I went to a Trump rally in my hijab. His supporters aren't just racist caricatures After Rose Hamid’s horrifying experience at Trump’s rally on Friday in South Carolina, many people might wonder how I survived a Trump rally wearing a bright-orange headscarf while holding a giant Qur’an – or why I went at all. I went because I firmly believe that Hamid was on the right path: it is important for people to stand up peacefully for the right things, even if we are confronted with physical and verbal intimidation. It is important to give people that may not have ever met or interacted with a Muslim an opportunity to meet her and learn about Islam from someone that actually practices it. And it is important, at a time when people like me too often face discrimination and hatred living our daily lives, to be polite, and yet be visible and present when we are the subject of political speeches. And nothing bad happened to me at the rally: there were some hard stares and dirty looks, but no outright rude behavior. I spoke to several lovely people and had the type of informative and substantive discourse that one should expect at a political event. It was good to see that the bullies and thugs who have been fixtures at several other Trump rallies had taken the day off; maybe they were just too shocked to say anything directly to me. Before this weekend, I’d never staged any sort of civil disobedience act; before this weekend, I had been perfectly content to never attend a Trump rally. But Hamid inspired me to make myself visible to the kind of people the media suggests hate me, and to make myself available for their edification. So I looked up Trump’s speaking schedule, discovered that he was speaking on Sunday in Reno, Nevada (a four-hour drive from me), downloaded a ticket and hopped into my car. I drove overnight through a blizzard and fog, but I arrived safely and I was able to get to the venue about 15 minutes after the doors opened; already, the line snaked around the building. Many people in line did double-takes, or their heads snapped around to gawk at me (almost to the point where I thought they would snap off), but I was permitted to stand in line and wait as about a half dozen vendors peddled a motley array of Trump merchandise around us. The most provocative act that I encountered occurred towards the beginning of my two-hour wait: a vendor noticed me and immediately came down to my section of the line where he loudly announced that he was selling “Bomb The Hell Out Of Isis” T-shirts (apparently, the desire to kill people is considered trendy fashion at a Trump rally). He looked directly at me to see how I would react; I looked back at him, shook my head, smiled and read my Qur’an as I patiently waited for someone to engage me in civil conversation. I attended Sunday’s rally with the intention to educate myself and, hopefully, to educate others. I didn’t go to shout at Trump’s supporters, no matter how passionately I feel about some of their claims. And it was interesting to hear Trump and his supporters’ viewpoints for more than just the few seconds offered by most soundbites. His supporters are people, not caricatures. They feel marginalized economically, politically, and socially; they see a world different from the one they think should exist. Many non-Trump supporters are also concerned about the current economic and political state of our planet and its implications for a stabile future for our children. What differentiates me from many of the Trump supporters I met this weekend is that their concerns for our future have led to an overwhelming need to see all of our problems as someone else’s fault. To Trump and his supporters, Asian countries have “dumped” their goods in America and almost bankrupted our country by causing our trade deficit; Mexico won’t keep “illegals” (who are the “source” for Americans’ drugs) on their side of the border; and, of course, Muslims have “always” been fighting us, and come from countries populated by ingrates who are unwilling to pay for the wars that we started on “their” behalf. But solving our trade deficit isn’t as simple as ending the supply of cheap Asian goods that Americans so happily consume. Mexico is not going to pay us to build us a wall. The rest of the world will not stand by and let the US seize Iraq’s oilfields (and thus control a significant supply of the world’s oil). Trump’s supporters, though, love him for his outrageous suggestions; it provides them with a sense of empowerment and control. And his lack of specificity allows each person to hear what they want to hear. The increasing popularity of these types of events reflects the fact that Trump supporters – the people who used to be Tea Partiers, who supported Michele Bachmann or Sarah Palin or any one of a number of politicians who’ve used this rhetoric before Trump – aren’t going to go away. Whether Trump wins or loses, his supporters will still be out there, longing for another leader to “make America great again”. People like me cannot keep thinking and hoping that Trump supporters will all go away eventually. We cannot continue to believe that they represent a fringe group of people and that their candidates can never be elected to a major role in government. We need to see them, and listen to them, and disagree respectfully. We need to, as Americans, begin talking to and not at one another. I understood that I was a guest at their rally, and that I had a duty to them to be a good guest; in return, I felt like they were good hosts. And whether they engaged me directly or not, many of them had to acknowledge the presence of someone who disagreed with them, but who did not fit their stereotypes by being disagreeable. Yes, what I did could have been dangerous: the Trump campaign, like many movements, has been dogged by its share of mischief makers. The thugs and bullies who have hurt other dissenters are a small, but very real, part of the ultra-nationalism that vague, implausible rhetoric like Trump’s attracts. But it was worth the risk to me to show them that their insecurities about Muslims were unfounded. It was worth it to humanize Muslims for them. And it was worth it, to me, to recognize their humanity, too.
Sundance film festival: The Birth of a Nation and Weiner win top awards The Birth of a Nation, Nate Parker’s film about the Nat Turner slave revolt, won both the US dramatic audience award and the grand jury prize at the 32nd Sundance film festival awards. Nate Parker described the Sundance experience as being like a “summer camp … with magical camp counselors”. Parker also picked up the audience award for The Birth of a Nation, which was bought by Fox Searchlight for a record $17.5m after a bidding war with Netflix. The directing award went to Swiss Army Man, Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert’s divisive film which featured Daniel Radcliffe’s farting corpse and saw walkouts. Dawn Porter’s film Trapped, which focuses on abortion rights, was also recognised with a special jury prize in the documentary section. Thor: Ragnarok director Taika Waititi, who premiered his film Hunt for the Wilderpeople at this year’s festival, hosted the awards and was a gregarious presence, introducing himself with self-effacing remarks about how much money his films have made and how many of his films have premiered at Sundance (four). Weiner won the grand jury prize for best documentary at the festival in Park City, Utah. The directing duo of Josh Kreigman and Elyse Steinberg gained unbelievable access to Anthony Weiner’s disastrous mayoral campaign in 2013. The world cinema dramatic competition went to Elite Zexer, with her film Sand Storm, about a bedouin community, while Felix van Groeningen won the directing award for his film Belgica. Sonita, the story of an Iranian rapper, won the grand jury prize in the world cinema documentary competition, while Michał Marczak picked up the directing award for All These Sleepless Nights. As revealed earlier in the week, Jim Cummings won the short film-making award for his film Thunder Road. The 32nd Sundance film festival ends Sunday.
Primark owner buoyed by stronger euro Primark’s owner is expecting a boost from the rising value of the euro against the pound in the wake of the Brexit vote. Associated British Foods had previously warned that it expected a “marginal decline” in earnings per share for the financial year, which ends in August. However, following the result of the EU referendum, the company said overseas profits in the final quarter would be better than expected once translated into sterling. The better-than-expected news on profits came as Primark revealed its third consecutive quarter of sales falls at established stores, for the three months to 18 June. ABF said total sales at its fashion chain had risen by 7% in the 40 weeks to 18 June after it opened 11 new stores in the last three months of the period. However, underlying sales in the last quarter were hit by “unpredictable weather patterns”, particularly the cold weather in April followed by a return to more seasonal weather in May. John Bason, ABF’s finance director, said the retailer’s sales performance had been affected across Europe by the weather, although it had enjoyed strong growth in Ireland amid an economic recovery in its home market. The company also warned that Primark’s UK profit margins would suffer as a result of the falling value of the pound against the dollar and the euro. However, this will be offset by a favourable boost to margins at the group’s sugar business and also in translating profits earned outside the UK, which last year made up 50% of the total. Bason said it was too early to tell if there would be a post-Brexit sales dip in the UK, but he added: “I’ve seen Primark do well in good economic times and more challenged economic times.” He said there would be cost pressures on all clothing retailers next year in the light of the devaluation of the pound, but that it was not clear if this would feed through into price rises for shoppers. Bason said Primark’s prices would be partly driven by the actions of its competitors. “We are never going to be a leader on price increases,” he said. Plans to expand Primark remain unchanged in the light of the UK’s vote to leave the EU. The chain expects to open 300,000 sq ft more trading space by August, including two more stores in the US, at Willow Grove in gGreater Philadelphia, and Freehold Raceway in New Jersey. It will also double the size of its Creteil store in Paris. The company said the decision to leave the EU had created uncertainty in the business environment and financial markets, but added: “We have a strong balance sheet and we remain optimistic for the group’s continued growth.”
Orson Welles fans who donated to have final film finished want their money back A campaign to restore Orson Welles’ final film has been plunged into delay and acrimony following reports that the late Hollywood legend’s long-term partner is refusing to give up the negatives. Donors to the crowdfunding campaign to restore The Other Side of the Wind have begun to ask for their money back, according to the New York Post. A total of $406,605 (£288,577) was raised towards completing the movie, which was shot by Welles between 1970 and 1976 but remained unfinished upon his death in 1985. Among the campaign’s high-profile backers are JJ Abrams, Clint Eastwood, Steven Soderbergh, Wes Anderson and Sofia Coppola. The legendary lost movie was originally due to be completed in time for the Citizen Kane director’s 100th birthday on 6 May 2015, with Peter Bogdanovich overseeing the new edit. But Bogdanovich, who also features in the film, last week told France’s Le Monde that he did not know when the work would be completed. “I am supposed to supervise the editing of the film,” said the director, who was asked by Welles to finish it in the event of his death. “I keep being told ‘10 days, maybe two weeks, we should have it all wrapped up’. I have been hearing that for a long time, but it is possible that one day I will be surprised and they will really have everything wrapped up and we can go to work.” The New York Post cites “unconfirmed reports” that the negatives for The Other Side of the Wind are still being held by Croatian actor Oja Kodar, who was Welles’ companion from the early 1960s until his death (though the film-maker did not leave his third wife Paola Mori, whom he married in 1955). Kodar, 75, told the New York Times two years ago that she was ready to sign the contract to finally bring the film to the big screen. She also appears in The Other Side of the Wind, a self-reflexive drama starring John Huston as an obsessive veteran film-maker struggling to complete his final movie despite the collapse of the Hollywood studio system and the rise of a new wave of younger directors. Other cast members include Bob Random, Susan Strasberg, Joseph McBride, Lilli Palmer and a young Dennis Hopper. The crowdfunding campaign was launched on Indiegogo after efforts to secure financing fell through. Some donors have now expressed anger that The Other Side of the Wind remains unfinished, and that they have not been updated on progress by campaign organisers. Donor Jérôme Stavroguine on the Indiegogo campaign page said: “More than $400,000 disappeared with the promises of finishing a masterpiece. What can we do in order to get a refund and report this to Indiegogo?” A spokesperson for Indiegogo told the New York Post that it had only received five requests for a refund, and had referred donors to the campaign’s organisers. Fan site Wellesnet reports that Netflix is now negotiating to fund the film’s completion, having made a $5m offer that also includes cash for a making-of documentary. However, negotiations over remuneration for the holder of the rights appear to be ongoing. Kodar’s nephew Sasha Welles, who has been negotiating on behalf of his aunt, told Wellesnet: “For decades we have been optimistic, otherwise we wouldn’t be trying for so long to get this film released. How optimistic should we be about this particular deal? Hard to tell. “All in all, I am not so optimistic, since they keep on chiseling away from our old agreement. Every time I give in to something they want, they come up with something else. This keeps going on and on and I don’t know where the end is.”
Meilyr Jones: ‘Rome is a place of faith and blood and lust’ Meilyr Jones stands on a street corner not far from Pigneto, wearing gold trainers and a long belted overcoat, his face lit up by the day. It has been, he explains, quite an experience: shooting a video for his next single, watching the sun rise, kissing a stranger and riding shotgun on a Vespa around the backroads of Rome. He leads me through the evening streets, warm with early spring, and is seemingly carried by a kind of buoyancy: talking about the sea, poetry, his childhood in Aberystwyth, his flatshare in London, heading down quiet roads, around corners, doubling back, until we find the bar he has been hunting: a narrow corridor where the wine comes served in plastic cups and the stereo plays opera. At the next table a man is giving a guitar lesson while a small boy plays hide and seek beneath the chairs. Rome is where, three years ago, Jones felt his life begin to change. For eight years and three albums he had fronted the band Race Horses. When they split in January 2013, he found himself cut adrift, 26 years old, questioning the direction of his life and his relationship with music. “It was a messy break and I felt that I’d lost friends,” he says. “I felt I’d developed a fear of committing to anything. I didn’t feel at all ready to think of myself as a solo musician. I just felt like being normal.” He began investing his time into other artforms: he was dating a sculptor at the time, and his brother gave him a book on sculpture written by the German philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder. He read Byron and Berlioz’s memoirs and Goethe’s Italian Journey. “All these signs were leading me to Rome,” he recalls. “And I had an intuition that I should go there, that something good and magical might happen if I just looked the other way a little bit and let things happen.” Jones tries to explain the excitement of that time. “I started to feel a new life force,” he says. “It didn’t feel like an academic pursuit, it just felt like how it did when I discovered the Beatles for the first time.” He was weary, he adds, of a world that was “too knowing, and too niche”, of the “cool, affluent-sounding music” that seemed all-pervading. By contrast, he says, “[classical] sculpture and Renaissance music felt like a really living thing. I was enjoying Byron and Don Juan in a really vivid way. It didn’t feel exaggerated or put on – Byron and Keats were what felt real to me. And a love of nature, and my serious feelings of love.” Speaking with Jones is much like this: a tumble of enthusiasms that can encompass Bel Canto and Let’s Wrestle in a single breath. In seemingly one conversational strand he’ll tell you of his love for children’s literature (his father was a children’s book editor), Fellini and the plastic floral arrangements you often find in Italian churches. It’s a quality his album 2013 captures, too: Scottish choirs lie down beside karaoke bars, Japanese buskers, orchestras, bursts of David Bowie’s Rebel Rebel. “That feels like modern life to me,” he says by way of explanation. “You can place the cheap next to the expensive thing and not put the emphasis on the expensive thing. You can like pop culture, and you can like recording with an orchestra, and just let them live together.” Jones always loved music and performance. “I remember coming home from school one day and saying to my mum: ‘I really want to sing in the Eistedfodd,’” he says. “And my mum was really shocked. I started singing duets with this guy who was really tiny, and I was really tall. But I loved it, I absolutely loved it. I just felt like I could do it, and all my feelings could go into singing.” A few years later he began learning the tuba. “And I got quite good at the tuba, I guess,” he says. “I loved it, I loved playing solos on it. I felt I could just close my eyes and swim in the sound. It felt really colourful and sensitive – like singing, where my feelings would just come into musical sound.” The love for the tuba persisted, even after he got madly into the Beatles, learned bass and started a band. And it was his love of the tuba that led him to study at the Royal College of Music, an experience he describes as “making me more excited about rock’n’roll”. He dropped out before graduation. “I thought it would be a really creative place,” he says, “but it was just dull.” He recalls the confusion of that first term, of not understanding how anything worked. “I didn’t come from a music college background, or private school, I was from a comprehensive,” he says. “And it kind of meant they all knew what to do, because they’d been in a younger version of that.” We move on to a cinema bar a few streets away, sit on a sofa and watch the room. Jones spent six weeks living in Rome, though it felt longer. “Time seemed to stretch,” he says. “Nights felt really exciting and wild and free. And in the days I’d go running and go to churches and look at frescoes and lie down in the park and feel really happy. It was kind of a recovering thing. But it did feel like a new life.” He lived in a flatshare he found on Craigslist, staying up until the small hours with his flatmates, trying to follow their conversation though he had no Italian, trying to learn the language through reading Dante. He remembers one evening taking a copy of Tasso’s poetry to a bar, and a group of actors trying to translate it for him “til four or five in the morning”. He fell in love with the city’s looseness, he says. With the fact “you can’t apply a logical light to a place that operates from a place of faith and blood and lust”. He did not think about music. “I thought about other things,” he says. “But then nature just led to tunes starting coming into my head, and I started to write them down.” They did not sound like Race Horses songs. “I didn’t imagine playing them in a band, it was just that music was coming. It felt like a new way of writing music for me – light and balanced and not intense, but beautiful.”What he wanted, he says, was “to speak from a place that felt like it was dying, and that comes from music that was recorded in one room around one microphone, when people were closer, when people didn’t contrive themselves into versions of themselves when recording.” He craved something that was “gentle and dramatic and lovely and sweet, not crude”. I wonder how deliberate his intellectual nods are, how audiences might respond to songs that reference DH Lawrence and Berlioz. “There’s almost been a generation robbed of intelligence,” he says gently. “I think we live in a time where it’s so the wrong balance, where any whiff of it is seen as stuck-up. Everyone’s like: ‘Ooh, Byron, posh, fucking weird.’ And yeah, true, but essentially also really brave and human and easy to read – so easy to read! I can read it! It’s not psychological Russian stuff. It’s beautiful, effortless. And I think my criticism of now is the fact there’s not enough roughness. Things aren’t sexy enough, genuinely sexy. Things aren’t wild enough, things aren’t erotic enough, things aren’t gentle enough, things aren’t light enough, things aren’t fun enough.” In the bar a film club presentation is beginning and we shuffle our way out into the street, to the sound of music and motorbike engines, of busy restaurants and laughter spilling from nearby bars. Jones stops and beckons me down to where a window is all lit up and inside a room full of men and women are dancing the tango, their bodies studies in poise and flex. Jones looks enraptured. “That’s amazing!” he says, half to himself. I think back to something he told me earlier, as we left the bar. “In a way this is an exciting time to live in,” he said. “Because sex has turned into such a casual whatever, and the mind is neglected as well. And both those two things, they’re the best things, and they’re together hidden somewhere.” Just for a moment, looking at Jones’s face pressed up against a window in a backstreet in Rome, I wonder if we might have found them. 2013 is out on Moshi Moshi
Hammond's foundations are too weak to build us out of the housing crisis When it comes to the autumn statement and the annual budget, you have to analyse it as you would a magician’s show. Sitting back and enjoying the artifice and performance is one option, but to find out what has really been said and figure out how the trick has been pulled off, you need a keen eye for sleight of hand. Superficially, Philip Hammond’s first autumn statement seemed to accept the fact that housing costs and worries are foremost in people’s minds. The Conservatives’ volte face on letting agents fees is to be tentatively welcomed: for years we were told scrapping the fees would push landlords out of the market by cutting their bottom line. This argument rests on two fallacies: that people choose to rent out homes for any reason other than to make money; and that, faced with the choice between earning slightly less from tenants, and earning nothing at all, some landlords would decide to jack in their rental portfolios. So the move is a sweetener for anyone likely to move house and continue renting soon. For people looking to own, or needing emergency accommodation, however, the picture is far less rosy. Again, the headline figures were tending towards the positive: Hammond’s announcement of £4bn to fund new affordable homes was a headline-grabbing number. As always, though, it’s worth reading the small print: the £1.4bn tranche earmarked for local authorities to provide new affordable homes specifies the homes built can be shared-ownership schemes, or “affordable rent” (that is, don’t forget, 80% of the local market rent) but not social rent, which in many areas is the only truly affordable housing tenure. The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), in its economic and fiscal outlook, remains less convinced of the government’s ability to increase housebuilding. “Dropping the requirement for housing associations to move to a shared-ownership model and abandoning plans to force higher rents on some tenants will both reduce the cash inflows available for housebuilding,” it says. “Partly offsetting that, additional grant funding and other smaller measures will increase cash inflows and boost housebuilding. The net effect is to reduce cumulative housebuilding by housing associations by around 13,000 over the forecast period, with a boost next year becoming a drag by 2019–20.” The number of social rent homes has already plummeted and now the focus is on building homes that the vast majority of people in housing need cannot afford. The OBR has also warned the scrapping of letting agents fees could also result in higher rents, further denting would-be homeowners’ ability to save for deposits, and excluding even more people from the private rented sector, thanks to the Local Housing Allowance cap. But a spectre is haunting Britain – the spectre of Brexit. Hammond announced the referendum decision had blown a £59bn hole in the public finances. With the government finally giving up on the idea of “balancing the books” by 2020, and admitting that austerity has not resulted in a huge public finance windfall, we are now braced for another cataclysmic dent in the nation’s wealth. That Hammond was more restrained on housing than his predecessor George Osborne is little surprise. Osborne promised big and barely delivered, while Hammond has promised little and the OBR is already convinced he will follow suit. In the wake of the Brexit vote, it feels as though housing has been downgraded as a national concern – a fact that won’t give much comfort to the millions of people affected by our dysfunctional system. Sign up for your free Housing network newsletter with news and analysis sent direct to you on the last Friday of the month. Follow us:@ Housing
The Millennial Whoop: the melodic hook that’s taken over pop music It goes by many names, but in today’s pop, it’s always there. Jesse Lacey from the band Brand New calls it the “mom calling you inside from the porch interval”. More recently, it’s become known as the Millennial Whoop, and it’s a standard of big pop songs from Katy Perry to Justin Bieber to Kings Of Leon to will.i.am to Fall Out Boy. Now, the Whoop has become more than a far-off niggle about all modern pop sounding the same, thanks to a recent forensic dissection of the phenomenon by Patrick Metzger on his website, The Patterning. Metzger isolates it as: “A sequence of notes that alternates between the fifth and third notes of a major scale, typically starting on the fifth. The rhythm is usually straight 8th-notes, but it may start on the downbeat or on the upbeat in different songs. A singer usually belts these notes with an “Oh” phoneme, often in a “Wa-oh-wa-oh” pattern. And it’s in so many pop songs it’s criminal.” The cleanest example of what he means came right at the start of the millennial era, with the monolithic hook for the Rasmus’s 2003 hit In the Shadows. The most recent comes from the sainted Frank Ocean’s Ivy, released a week ago. The funniest is a track cut from the Lonely Island’s forthcoming movie Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, satirising the teen-muppet jingles of the Bieber-wave. In between, there have been lawsuits over whether anyone can truly own the Whoop. In 2013, songwriter Ally Burnett tried to sue Carly-Rae Jepsen and Owl City over their collaboration Good Time, which she said plagiarised her own Ah, It’s a Love Song, a case based mainly on the Whoop they shared. Jepsen settled out of court, but Owl City held out, and won $500,000 plus legal proof that the Whoop is for everyone. Pop music, as Metzger points out, is always based on a measure of comforting familiarity. We like the Whoop (and songwriters especially like it) because it gives us enough orientation to allow us to get our heads around a piece of music we may not already be familiar with. In the slavishly playlisted, gnat’s-attention-span world of daytime radio, the Whoop has become a signalling device, often cropping up bang on cue around the one-minute mark, saying: “Hey wait! Don’t run away just yet!” Naturally, the Whoop is not the first time pop music has eaten itself – there was the Bo Diddley Beat as far back as the 1950s. Some melodic ideas transcend all cultures. Axis of Awesome’s 4 Chords speared the I-V-vi-IV chord progression that underlies hundreds of hits. And there are never going to be more than 12 notes on the western scale. But given that a 2012 study concluded that the diversity of melodies used over the preceding 55 years had shrunk dramatically, the ubiquitous Whoop’s smothering two-note baby-talk emotional register means that your sense of pop music dumbing down may not be entirely down to ageing.
FCA orders new inquiry into HBOS chiefs City regulators are to investigate the role of HBOS’s senior management in the near-collapse of the bank during the financial crisis more than seven years ago. The Financial Conduct Authority and the Bank of England’s Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) will look into the bank’s former bosses, who could be barred from working in the City. The FCA said the investigations would decide whether the senior figures, who include the former chief executive Andy Hornby and former chairman Lord Stevenson, should face proceedings that could strike them off the FCA’s approved persons list. The FCA declined to identify which past managers it would investigate. Those under investigation have been informed, although the names have not been made public, and the FCA has appointed investigators with the power to call subjects in for questioning as it re-examines evidence. Potential penalties against the bank bosses do not include fines, due to a three-year time limit. That limit has since been extended to six years. The investigation is likely to take many months and could face multiple legal hurdles if individuals choose to challenge potential attempts to ban them. The decison follows a highly critical report in November by Andrew Green QC into decisions made by the FCA’s predecessor, the Financial Services Authority, over HBOS. The bank, which traded on the high street as Halifax and Bank of Scotland, was rescued by Lloyds in a Labour government-engineered deal in September 2008. Green criticised the FSA’s decision to ban and fine HBOS’s former head of corporate banking Peter Cummings from working in the City, but leave others free to carry on their business careers. But he said the FSA was reasonable in deciding not to investigate James Crosby, who quit as chief executive in 2006 and has since handed back a knighthood over the HBOS affair. Green said the regulators should consider immediately whether to investigate other former managers of HBOS, including Hornby and Stevenson, and that the regulator was wrong not to have considered investigations into other former bosses. Regulators have also faced intense political pressure to look again at HBOS. The Financial Reporting Council said last week that it would re-examine KPMG’s auditing of the bank after criticism from the Treasury select committee, which also called on the FCA to hold individuals to account. Andrew Tyrie, the committee chairman, said: “Overdue doesn’t capture it. It is eight years since the collapse of HBOS. It has taken a heap of pressure from parliament to secure appropriate action from the regulators. “Mr Green concluded that the FSA should have got on with this in 2009. So the FCA and PRA should conduct these investigations immediately.” Hornby revived his career, first as chief executive of Alliance Boots and, since 2011, at the bookmaker Gala Coral, where he is chief operating officer. Gala Coral, which is privately owned, is planning to merge with Ladbrokes in a deal that would put Hornby back near the top of a public company, though not on the board. The FCA cannot bar someone from being a company director outside the finance industry, but the Department for Business can do. Other former HBOS leaders who could face investigation include the former finance chief Mike Ellis, the chairman of Skipton building society, Colin Matthew, who ran HBOS’s international division, and Lindsay Mackay, who ran the treasury operation. Gala Coral said Hornby had played an important role in improving the bookmaker’s business and that he had the confidence of colleagues, management and the company’s owners. Skipton said neither Ellis nor the building society had been contacted by the FCA about its decision. Stevenson could not be reached through the House of Lords. In November, he and other former HBOS directors issued a statement saying that an investigation into their conduct was not warranted. HBOS, Britain’s biggest mortgage lender, was almost brought down by reckless corporate lending and attempts to run its treasury operation for maximum profit. Green’s review of the FSA’s decisions on HBOS accompanied a wider report into the bank’s failure that described an inexperienced board and a management team which ignored risks in a quest for growth. The bank’s lending spree caused bad debts of £45bn – more than the £38bn in losses racked up by the far larger Royal Bank of Scotland. After Lloyds bought HBOS, the combined bank was bailed out with £20bn of taxpayers’ money as Gordon Brown’s government tried to prevent the financial system from collapsing. George Osborne announced on Thursday that he was postponing the sale of the final 9% of Lloyds shares owned by taxpayers due to volatile financial markets.
Former Reserve Bank board member calls for inquiry into Australian banks A former Reserve Bank board member has called for an inquiry into Australia’s banking sector, saying the quality of their financial advice needs a lot more work, and warned that the Turnbull government should not pursue company tax cuts in the current environment. John Edwards, who last week finished a five-year term on the RBA board which sets the country’s interest rates, said he does not think the Coalition has a “convincing plan” to substantially reduce the deficit within a reasonable timeframe. He told the ABC’s 7.30 program on Wednesday that the government’s current plan depended on a “very big increase in personal income tax collections, of the order of 20% over the next three years.” “That really involves something like a 10% to 15% increase in the personal income tax paid by all employees, and basically I don’t think that’s on,” he said. Edwards also said the government ought to look at other forms of tax increases to bring the deficit down, including winding back super tax concessions, and the capital gains tax discount. He said it was “ludicrous situation” that consecutive federal governments had let cumulative budget deficits, as a share of GDP, become far bigger than they ever were after the last two recessions in Australia. “And we haven’t even had a recession,” he said. Edwards, who was an adviser to Paul Keating, also backed Malcolm Turnbull’s call for the major banks to pass on this week’s Reserve Bank rate cut in full to customers. The RBA cut the official cash rate to a new historic low of 1.5% on Tuesday, citing low inflation and the need to encourage sustainable economic growth, but the major banks responded by passing on some of the rate cut to their mortgage rates, telegraphing cuts to rates for business loans, and increasing rates for term deposits. Malcolm Turnbull said on Wednesday that the commercial banks ought to pass on the full interest rate cut to their customers, or explain why they would not. “They should do that, and if they are not prepared to do it, as appears to be the case, then their chief executives should explain very clearly to the Australian people and their customers why they have not done so,” Turnbull said. Edwards said the banks are arguing that their cost of funding has gone up, but their average cost of funding had actually gone down in recent years, because the official interest rate has fallen from 7.25% to 1.5% since mid-2008. When asked if there should be a royal commission into the banking industry, he said an inquiry of some kind “would be helpful.” “We need to do a lot more work on the quality of financial advice being offered by banks,” he said. “Particularly because they’ve become such a huge presence in funds management, and because the population is ageing. “Their authority in that area is becoming vastly bigger than it was, even a decade ago. I think that’s where we need to get a better idea of what the culture is, and where the performance and practice is,” he said.
Race review – reverential middle-of-the-pack drama More marathon than sprint, Stephen Hopkins’ period biopic affords the Jesse Owens story – one of the greatest eff-yous ever recorded in competitive sport – a reverential, middle-of-the-pack treatment: stumbling exposition, grandstanding performers, a thousand yards of rousing speeches and music cues. It’s regrettably typical that Stephan James’s Owens is given a caucasian interlocutor in coach Larry Snyder (Jason Sudeikis, reining in the smirks), and that his personal struggles are partially obscured by the negotiations of diplomat Jeremy Irons with a chilly Goebbels (Barnaby Metschurat) and saucy Leni Riefenstahl (Carice van Houten). Still, it raises its game – as drama, spectacle and camp – the closer it gets to the Olympic stadium, where Hitler awaits, muttering darkly in the stands like a Voldemort in epaulettes. That it remains broadly watchable owes much to James’s lean, committed turn, but what’s around him often seems to be carving its lightning-bolt history into not stone but easily digestible cheese.
Kendrick Lamar's Untitled Unmastered: 'The work of someone who's in it for the long haul' – first-listen review At first glance, Kendrick Lamar’s fourth album – if Untitled Unmastered is an album, rather than a dumping of offcuts – looks suspiciously like a reaction against his third album. To Pimp a Butterfly was a dense, grandiose statement: equal parts soul-bearing confessional and state of the nation address, complete with a narrative thread and a vast cast that underlined its expansive musical ambitions and sense of place in the pantheon of legendary black music (guest appearances from Ronald Isley, George Clinton and Tupac Shakur, and samples from Sufjan Stevens and Fela Kuti amid the bursts of jazz playing from Kamasi Washington and Robert Glasper). By contrast, its successor is less than half as long, arrives in a plain sleeve with its tracks unnamed, save for a series of mysterious dates that may allude to when the tracks were written or recorded, or the incidents that inspired the lyrics took place, or indeed neither of those things. It appears to suggest it’s unfinished and no credits – a state of affairs that’s enabled producer Swizz Beatz to claim that his five-year-old son produced the penultimate track. In fact, the latter isn’t an entirely ridiculous suggestion: the second half of 2014-2016, as we’re going to have to call it, appears to consist of a rough lo-fi recording – it might be of a rehearsal or a songwriting session, but it sounds like Lamar trying to amuse his mates with the aid of a bass guitar riff, endlessly harping on a pun about oral sex that also turns up in 08/14/2014 – might conceivably have been captured by a child inadvertently pressing record. This gives the impression of an artist keen to deflate the kind of expectations heaped upon him since To Pimp a Butterfly’s release. Lamar finds himself pressured to push artistic boundaries while selling millions of copies and acting as hip-hop’s political conscience, or, as he puts it on Untitled Unmastered’s opening track, “to use my vocals to save mankind for you”. Or perhaps Lamar, who is clearly intelligent and empathetic, has noted that we live in a grim world of instant reactions and first-listen reviews and decided to throw critics a bone, knocking out something straightforward and throwaway that can neatly be summarised after a few cursory spins. Or, as a few cursory spins reveals, perhaps not. In the opening eight minutes alone you get a burst of Isaac Hayes-ish pillow talk (disturbingly directed at someone the protagonist calls “little lamb”), some distinctly free playing on sax and piano, a concentrated burst of brilliantly turned apocalyptic imagery, a scattering of off-key, arrhythmic samples, ruminations on the pressures and pleasures of fame, along with thought about racism, the Catholic church sex abuse scandal and what position Lamar likes to have sex in. You get a gentle musical coda that seems completely unconnected to the track that precedes it, lyrics that switch dizzyingly between narrators and a light sprinkling of the kind of high, wailing synth sounds that decorate Roy Ayers’ Everybody Loves the Sunshine and dozens of g-funk tracks. From dense lyrics, complex and often wilfully uncommercial music, to the influence of jazz, social comment rubbing against personal angst and references to 70s soul, Untitled Unmastered is obviously intent on continuing down the path of To Pimp a Butterfly, for better or for worse. On the plus side, you’re continually struck by a thrilling sense of freewheeling, unfettered musical inventiveness. If you were looking to find fault, you might note that an artist who devotes four minutes of a 34-minute-long album to a rough recording of a loose rehearsal jam is not someone much abashed by accusations of self-indulgence. If it occasionally sounds less bleak and chaotic than its predecessor, less eager to short circuit anything resembling a melodic hook with a deliberately jarring musical shift – 09/21/2014 and 06/30/2014 are beautiful pieces of music, the former woozily gorgeous, with a heavy-lidded female vocal; the latter boasting a guest appearance from CeeLo Green over a Latin rhythm and strings. There are moments when the album is overwhelmed by claustrophobia and paranoia, not least 08/14/2014’s unsettling melange of sparsely accompanied soul vocals, frantic whispering and dark lyrics. 06/30/2014’s sweet thumbs up for misfits, meanwhile, proves to be a solitary sliver of hope. Elsewhere, Lamar’s commercial success is tempered by the belief that the music industry treats black artists like slaves, while his Christianity is undermined by the feeling that organised religion is corrupt, and the problems facing the US are nothing compared to the horrors lurking in the world elsewhere: the album concludes with Lamar being ticked off for moaning by a Cape Town native, who offers the old “tsk, first world problems” response over a slinky piece of synthesised funk, informing him: “Your projects ain’t shit, I grew up in a hut, bitch”. When Lamar performed the track now known as 05/28/2013 on The Colbert Report at the end of 2014, it came complete with a defiant coda not a million miles removed from the chorus of To Pimp a Butterfly’s Alright that was later adopted as chant by Black Lives Matter activists: tellingly, its optimism has vanished from the version here. Quite what Untitled Unmastered is supposed to be is an intriguing point. You could argue that it seems like an addendum to To Pimp a Butterfly, in that initial impressions suggest pretty much anything here could sit comfortably on that album: it doesn’t feel like the radical departure that its predecessor did from 2012’s Good Kid, MADD City. Equally, the fact that pretty much anything on it could sit comfortably on that record tells you something about the quality of what’s here. Cheeringly, it doesn’t sound like music made by someone buckling under the weight of expectations that follow such a vast critical and commercial successs. Instead, it sounds like the work of someone who’s in it for the long haul.
Instagram blocks links to Snapchat and Telegram Facebook doesn’t often give the impression of being scared of anything, but it looks like the social network is a bit concerned about the potential for competition from Snapchat and Telegram. The two social networks have found themselves blacklisted from Facebook’s Instagram service, just weeks after Telegram also reported minor censorship among users of Facebook’s WhatsApp messenger. Instagram users who try to set their profile URL to link to either a Telegram or Snapchat page find themselves warned instead that “Links asking someone to add you on another service aren’t supported on Instagram”. The issue was highlighted by Telegram and its founder Pavel Durov: Telegram also highlighted another issue, on WhatsApp, which prevented links to its own service from showing up as clickable. Users are even prevented from cutting and pasting a link to Telegram or its profile pages. Facebook says: “We’ve removed the ability to include ‘add me’ links on Instagram profile pages. This was a rare use-case, and not the way our platform was intended to be used. Other types of links are still allowed.” In other words, the links to Telegram and Snapchat that are blocked are more single-purpose than most other networks, focused largely on adding new contacts. It’s not possible, for instance, to link to a particular post, or to view a history of previous posts, through those links. The story is reminiscent of troubles Instagram went through when it was a small network itself. In 2012, Twitter unilaterally blocked Instagram from using the “find friends” feature on its API. The company had been concerned that users were simply exporting their following lists to Instagram, and tried to stem the exodus. In the end, Twitter was right to be concerned: Instagram is now the larger social network, with 400 million monthly active users compared to Twitter’s 320 million. So its no surprise that Instagram now wants to stop users adding each other on cooler, smaller and younger social networks in turn. But as Twitter’s experience shows, it’s hard to keep the floodgates shut forever.
Leonardo DiCaprio given rival invitations to visit Great Barrier Reef Scientists and tour operators on the Great Barrier Reef have extended a “non-political” offer to show Leonardo DiCaprio the impacts of coral bleaching, after the Queensland government responded to the actor’s comments on bleaching by inviting him to visit the reef. Dean Miller, a marine biologist and science director of the non-profit group Great Barrier Reef Legacy, said he wanted to say to DiCaprio: “We would like to take you to the Great Barrier Reef and show you firsthand what we see, no political or media spin, just the facts from the scientists themselves to show you what is really happening here.” At the US State Department’s Our Ocean conference in Washington, Leonardo DiCaprio made an impassioned plea for policymakers to save coral reefs by addressing climate change. He highlighted recent bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef. “This year, Australia’s Great Barrier Reef suffered what is thought to be the largest bleaching event ever recorded,” he told the meeting, after being introduced by the secretary of state, John Kerry. “Over 600 miles of reef previously teeming with life is devastated. We are seeing this level of impact to coral reefs around the world from Hawaii to the Florida Keys, from Madagascar to Indonesia.” He said what he saw in other reefs around the world took his breath away: “Not a fish in site, colourless, ghost-like coral, a complete graveyard.” In response, Queensland’s deputy premier, Jackie Trad, invited DiCaprio to come and see the reef for himself. “He can come any time he likes, he’s absolutely welcome to come to Australia, to come to Queensland and to come to the Great Barrier Reef,” she said in Brisbane. In response, Great Barrier Reef Legacy – a non-profit organisation of scientists, tourism operators, filmmakers, educators and conservationists – made its own offer. “All of us at the GBR Legacy live and breath the Great Barrier Reef every single day and are seeing firsthand the damage that climate change is doing here,” said Miller, who is also a documentary filmmaker. John Rumney, a veteran tourism operator on the reef and the managing director of GBR Legacy, said he wanted to take DiCaprio out to see the reef’s largest single coral colony – a 1,000 to 2,000-year-old boulder coral he said was called “the monolith”. “If Leonardo can see the current health of the Great Barrier Reef for himself, especially the largest and possibly the oldest coral colony here on the reef, he will be as shocked as we all are,” Rumney said. “Rather than being ushered and controlled by a government agency that has demonstrated it will do anything to put a spin in their favour, the reef needs to be first.” It wasn’t clear how serious the government’s offer to DiCaprio was but GBR Legacy’s offer is backed by Aroona Luxury Charters, which said it would put up $54,000 to fund DiCaprio’s trip. He could dive the reef from its luxury ecotourism boat, said Ross Miller, Aroona’s captain and manager. “If Leonardo can assist in any way, then we would be honoured to take him to the reef on a week-long expedition into the northern and more remote sections to show him why the reef is so special to us all, and why we need act now,” Ross Miller said. He said the boat could offer a more remote and adventurous tour than others that were available. The Great Barrier Reef was hit hard by the global coral bleaching event this year. With a strong El Niño adding to global warming, reefs around the world turned white and died. On the Great Barrier Reef, 93% of reefs were affected by bleaching and almost a quarter of the coral is thought to have died. GBR Legacy is hoping to soon launch the first “independent” privately funded research vessel on the reef, which would offer free space to scientists, students and media, Dean Miller said. “We are opening our arms and our doors to anyone on the planet that can help us overcome the great barriers to save our reefs and Leonardo DiCaprio is most certainly someone who can help us make significant and positive changes for the future health of the Great barrier Reef.” Postscript: After this article was first published, Indigenous traditional land owners in north Queensland, the Yidindji nation, also extended an invite to DiCaprio. Yidindji foreign minister, Murrumu Walubara Yidindji, said on Twitter that his government was “more than happy” to give DiCaprio “a unique perspective” on the Great Barrier Reef.
Deutsche Bank swings to profit despite anxiety over mis-selling scandal Deutsche Bank surprised investors by reporting a profit for the third quarter of the year, as its chief executive admitted the huge settlement it faces from American authorities for a decade-old mis-selling scandal was having “an unsettling effect”. Germany’s biggest bank has been rocked by reports that the US Department of Justice might demand as much as $14bn to settle the long-running dispute over the way it sold residential mortgage backed securities before the 2008 banking crisis. Announcing profits of €619m, the chief executive, John Cryan, said: “The results for the quarter demonstrate well the strengths of our operating businesses and the outstanding work of our people. We continued to make good progress on restructuring the bank. “However, in the past several weeks these positive developments were overshadowed by the attention around our negotiations concerning the residential mortgage backed securities matter in the United States. This had an unsettling effect. The bank is working hard on achieving a resolution of this issue as soon as possible.” He warned staff in a memo that “the situation will remain tough for some time to come”. Revenues were depressed and there were some outflows, the bank acknowledged, as a result of anxiety about its ability to pay the penalty. The bank’s liquid assets – ones it can use quickly to pay demands for cash – fell €23bn to €200bn between the end of June and the end of September. But Marcus Schenck, the finance director, said this had now stabilised. Cryan has made clear that Deutsche – which employs around 8,000 people in the UK – does not expect the final bill to be as high as $14bn and has dismissed reports that the bank has called on the German government for help. Deutsche’s shares plunged last month to levels they last traded at in the 1980s, slipping through €10, and the bank acknowledged that the anxiety about the DoJ settlement had knocked its business. On Thursday its shares were trading at around €13. A year ago they were at €27. Cryan told analysts that reaching a deal with the DoJ and handling other litigation was his “top priority” but the timing is not under his control. He admitted the ongoing talks were creating uncertainty: “Uncertainty that affects the market’s view of Deutsche Bank as an investment, uncertainty that affected some clients’ view of Deutsche Bank as a counterparty and uncertainty that even affects our financial planning and strategy execution.” Cryan, a Briton who has been at the helm of Germany’s biggest bank since last year, said he was personally spending time with clients and attempting to “dispel some of the more lurid myths” about the bank. “We know that when our name is in the headlines for the wrong reasons, our phone doesn’t ring as frequently,” said Cryan, who dismissed suggestions that investors were questioning his strategy for the bank. The sale of Postbank – Deutsche’s high street operation – would not be rushed, he said, until an attractive offer was received. Cryan said he wanted to keep the asset management arm, which is currently being reviewed and is often regarded as a possible business for Deutsche to sell, as an integral part of the group. The profits were a dramatic improvement on the same period last year when Deutsche made a €6bn loss. For the nine-month period, a loss of €3bn has been reversed to a €1.6bn profit. Schenck said a decision had not been made on how bonuses would be paid to staff, but indicated that less would be paid out in cash and more in shares. “In what form variable compensation will be paid is not yet decided. Given the situation of the bank and the profitability situation … having more tied towards the share price development in the future seems to make sense,” said Schenck.
Saving a new mother from death almost made me quit as a nurse Sometimes women bleed after having a baby, I was told in my orientation sessions. Some blood loss is normal, they said, but may require quick action and medication. Sometimes it’s predictable, like with fast or long labours when the uterus gets overworked. At its worst, it can be like someone forgetting to turn off the garden hose. They were right. It was the end of a 12-hour night shift. Although I had more than five years experience as a nurse, I had only worked in labour and delivery for a year, just long enough to know I had a lot to learn. I crept back into the quiet, dark delivery room after my break. My patient’s epidural was effective and she was sleeping through her contractions while her husband napped in the corner. I realised that the induced contractions on the monitor were coming too fast. This can either cause stress for the baby or tire out a uterus. In this case, the baby was fine but mum’s uterus was getting tired. The baby’s heart rate looked good on the monitor and things progressed quickly. The family doctor, who rarely did deliveries any more, flew in just in time to catch the baby. One more minute and I would have delivered her. Then the steady pour began. Big baby, third baby, fast labour, too many contractions – a lethal combination. Like a runner at the end of a sprint, the mother’s uterus just gave up. The room filled with doctors. I was part of the resuscitation team. We started IVs, hung blood, gave medication. A senior nurse came in to assist. My natural inclination was to turn it over to her experienced hand, but she said: “You’ve got this, I’m here if you need me.” I have never felt so empowered. All my worries that I would freeze under stress were eradicated. The adrenalin was like a camera focusing a lens. I knew what to do, and how to do it. I watched as the colour drained from the patient’s face and she began to lose consciousness. When I readied her for the operating room, I realised if she died, the last thing she would have seen was my face as I took her healthy baby out of her arms to be fed by another nurse. After documenting everything in a record to show we had done what we could, I stopped in the car park to dry heave. The superwoman feeling was gone, exhaustion and shock in its place. Then the dread set in. I realised I could do this, but did I want to? I was scared that the next time my patient might not live. I knew all nurses have the potential to lose a patient but in that moment, it became real to me. I could be the difference between life and death. I had a scheduled week off and the further away from the situation I got, the more I didn’t think I could return. I spent the days at home with my family and began to doubt my abilities. I had called to find out that, although the patient had lost her uterus, we had saved her life. In the end, practicality won out. If I didn’t go back what would I do? I have children to feed and a mortgage to pay. I didn’t see an alternative but to face my fear head on. My heart rate increased when I received my next assignment. My patient was having her fourth baby; it was big and she had a history of bleeding heavily after delivery. All the things that put her at risk of bleeding again. Checking the board, I realised the same obstetrician was also on duty. The patient had a challenging delivery and in the end she did bleed, but I was ready for it. I massaged her uterus and gave the drugs I had the week before. This time, they worked and the bleeding stopped. Somehow, the universe knew this repeat haemorrhage was exactly what I needed. I chose to believe the voices in my head saying I couldn’t handle this job were wrong. The second haemorrhage wasn’t as bad as the first, but the feeling of panic was gone. Despite hoping mums don’t haemorrhage, I realised that it is a privilege to be a nurse with the skills, the medication, and the team to treat them if they do. Postpartum haemorrhage is the leading cause of maternal death worldwide. I didn’t have to watch in desperation as my patients bled to death like so many nurses and midwives do. I live in a country where I have the privilege of being part of a team that has the resources to fight back. Without doing what I do, in a different place or time, these patients wouldn’t survive. Here, in Canada, I have the chance to save them. If you would like to write a piece for Blood, sweat and tears, read our guidelines and get in touch by emailing healthcare@theguardian.com. Join the Healthcare Professionals Network to read more pieces like this. And follow us on Twitter (@GdnHealthcare) to keep up with the latest healthcare news and views.
Wells Fargo eliminates sales quotas after unauthorized accounts scandal Wells Fargo will eliminate sales goals for all of its retail banking products by January, the bank announced on Tuesday. The decision comes less than a week after the largest US bank reached a deal with regulators and agreed to pay $185m in penalties for its illegal sales practices. More than 5,000 employees were fired by Wells Fargo after an investigation revealed that they were opening deposit and credit card accounts without permission from its customers in order to meet sales quotas enforced by the bank. According to regulators, as many as 1.5m deposit accounts and 565,000 credit card accounts could have been opened without customers’ consent. “We are doing this because we want our customer to have full confidence that we are focused on their best interests. We deeply regret what happened and we are committed to making it right,” Richele J Messick, a Wells Fargo spokeswoman, said in an email. As part of the settlement, Wells Fargo agreed to hire a consultant to review its sales practices and refund the fees paid by consumers on the accounts that were opened without their permission. So far, customers have been refunded $2.6m in unwarranted fees. According to the bank, “accounts refunded represented a fraction of 1% of the accounts reviewed, and refunds averaged $25”. The issue of unauthorized duplicate accounts was first reported by the Los Angeles Times in 2013. At that time, a personal banker working at Wells Fargo was expected to sell 20 products a day. “I am not sure how that’s possible within an eight-hour day of work. Pretty much every customer takes an hour,” Khalid Taha, a former Wells Fargo employee, told the in 2015. “[In 2014], the sales goal dropped to 15 products a day, which is still unreasonable. You don’t sell more than a product per customer. You can, but it’s not that easy. And most of our customers are current customers. They already have several products.” Some employees – including Taha – have previously attempted to draw attention to the issue by staging a protest in front of the bank’s headquarters in Minneapolis. About 5,300 employees were fired over a five-year period. Richard Cordray, the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau which levied a $100m penalty on Wells Fargo, said it was not a coincidence that so many employees were involved. “It’s a systemic breakdown,” he said in an interview with CNBC. “Obviously employees were sharing information with one another. They were doing things together. And 5,300 or more of them have now been fired. That was a huge problem. It should not occur at any bank. And it should not have occurred at Wells Fargo.” Cordray pointed out that this is the largest penalty levied by CFPB so far. He added that while there is no indication that this is happening at other banks, all banks with incentive programs should monitor them closely. The Wells Fargo settlement is a “loud and serious warning” to other banks, he said. In a statement announcing the elimination of sales quotas, Wells Fargo chief executive John Stumpf noted that the bank has strengthened its “control and oversight” over the past several years. “The elimination of product sales goals represents another step to reinforce our service culture, helps ensure that nothing gets in the way of our ability to achieve our mission, and is consistent with our commitment to providing a great place to work,” said Stumpf.
Tom Hiddleston: five best moments Marvel supervillian, accomplished thespian, internet catnip … Tom Hiddleston’s swift and varied career has already seen him collect both MTV and Olivier awards. As he continues to impress on the small screen in BBC thriller The Night Manager, and before he continues to cement his blockbuster credentials with roles in franchises Kong: Skull Island and Thor: Ragnarok, he’s front and centre of Ben Wheatley’s divisive new JG Ballard adaptation, High-Rise. In it, he plays a doctor who moves into a socially segregated tower block that descends into chaos. Here are his career highlights so far: Unrelated Hiddleston found an early collaborator of some measure in writer-director Joanna Hogg, whose naturalistic work brought out the best of his under-utilised ability to play, you know, regular folk. As the arrogant son of the family whose Italian holiday is startled by a troubled guest, he gives a confident performance that doesn’t betray his relative inexperience. Archipelago Hiddleston reunited with Hogg for her next film, another tale of a family struggling while on holiday together. Again he plays the son, but this time he’s undergoing something of a quarter-life crisis and offers up an impressive performance that rings true in in an entirely different way. He worked with Hogg once more in 2013’s Exhibition and one hopes they collaborate again in future. The Deep Blue Sea While Rachel Weisz generated a deserved Oscar buzz for her devastating turn as a woman debating suicide while reliving a doomed affair, Hiddleston’s equally impressive performance went rather overlooked. His rakish, temperamental cad was simultaneously charming and odious, perfectly encapsulating a lover who always seems just slightly out of reach. The Avengers Marvel’s reinvention of the superhero genre has been largely successful, offering up wit and vibrancy alongside the usual spectacle, but one common complaint is a lack of nasty or interesting villains. The one major exception has been Thor’s insidious wronged brother Loki, a character which, in the hands of a broader actor, could have been played for ham. Thanks to Hiddleston, he’s a compellingly evil presence. Only Lovers Left Alive Pairing Hiddleston with Tilda Swinton in a tale of centuries old vampires is one of the smartest ideas that Jim Jarmusch (or any director) has ever had. They’re a transfixing pair, each dealing with their immortality differently and Hiddleston’s gothic turn is better than his later work in Guillermo del Toro’s Crimson Peak.
Every tobacco death is an avoidable tragedy. The epidemic must stop here Tobacco use, the leading cause of death from non-communicable diseases such as heart and lung disorders and cancer, claims about 6m lives a year. On Monday, countries will gather in Delhi, India, for the seventh conference of the parties to the World Health Organisation framework convention on tobacco control, a treaty that has sparked global action to stem the epidemic. The treaty is already one of the most widely embraced in UN history. One of my proudest accomplishments at the helm of the World Health Organisation has been rallying global efforts to drive down tobacco use. I’m pleased to say that, following the adoption of the agreement, governments around the world have taken decisive steps not only to reduce tobacco use, but also to stand up to the multinational tobacco companies standing in the way of global progress. The tide of tobacco use is beginning to turn. After decades of Big Tobacco targeting low- and middle-income countries and years of steadily increasing sales, tobacco sales show signs of dropping. Countries are passing stronger laws to reduce demand for tobacco products not envisioned even a few years ago, and tobacco companies are losing the legal challenges they mount against these measures. From Uruguay to Australia, countries large and small have stood up to the tobacco industry by implementing plain packaging and large pictorial health warning labels. Where tobacco companies have tried to threaten and bully nations, governments have responded with firm measures to protect public health. However, amid these clear signs of progress, the tobacco industry has made it absolutely clear that it has no intention of abandoning a business model that depends on enticing millions of new users – especially young people – to its deadly products. The impetus of the global movement to reduce tobacco use should not be lost. More than ever, decisive action is needed. Now is the time for countries to build on the momentum established and protect their citizens. By raising tax on tobacco products, requiring graphic warning labels, conducting hard hitting mass media campaigns and banning tobacco industry advertising and marketing, countries can improve the health of their citizens, reduce healthcare costs and prevent the tobacco industry from addicting another generation of children. Illicit trade in tobacco threatens the progress governments make in tobacco control by making cheap and unregulated products available. I am pleased to note that governments are increasingly taking action and becoming parties to the new international treaty to eliminate illicit trade in tobacco products. We need to work together, as allies in global health, to fight to protect people from the dangers of tobacco. I recently appointed Michael Bloomberg as WHO global ambassador for non-communicable diseases because of his track record in tobacco control, which includes more than 10 years of support for low- and middle-income countries. Advocates like him, and many others who champion tobacco control, stand with the WHO to support governments in this fight. I am also heartened by progress on standardised or “plain” packaging – a measure introduced by the treaty and pioneered in Australia, where smoking rates have now fallen to record lows. The early evidence from Australia shows that plain packaging, as part of a comprehensive approach to tobacco control, is diminishing the appeal of tobacco products, increasing the effectiveness of health warnings and reducing the ability of the pack to mislead. France and the UK have begun implementing plain packaging laws, and New Zealand and Hungary have recently passed legislation. Many other countries are close behind. We have made great strides, but we have so much more to do. Tobacco use remains one of the most vexing challenges we face in the global health arena. I urge global leaders convening in India to see this moment as an opportunity to bend the course of public health history and commit to returning home with a renewed dedication to fully implement the WHO framework convention. To make the event effective, it is vital that governments recognise the inherent conflict between public health and the interests of the tobacco industry. Representatives from the latter should be completely excluded from government delegations. Every death from tobacco is an avoidable tragedy. It is our task to reverse the tide, effecting an irreversible decline in the number of such deaths. We need history to show us that the turning point in the tobacco epidemic is now. We know what to do and we know how to do it. We now need to ensure that every country moves forward and no one is left behind. Future generations depend on us.
Who should be the next Metropolitan police commissioner? Another day another departure. If it’s not a prime minister, a party leader or a national football manager, it’s a police chief. The news that Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe will be leaving his job as commissioner of the Metropolitan police is just the latest indication that it’s tougher at the top these days than in the gentler times when senior coppers slipped quietly away after a jolly retirement party at Scotland Yard. Sir Bernard took on the job five years ago in the wake of the departure, in quick succession, of Ian Blair and Paul Stephenson, the former destabilised by the then mayor, Boris Johnson, the latter in the wake of what was deemed to be a poor police response to the hacking scandals exposed by the . To that extent he has at least lasted the course and will doubtless soon be able to find himself a comfortable home in the security industry, away from the daily crises that come with his current post. So who should replace him? The betting at the moment seems to be on there being, for the first time, a woman as commissioner. Various names have been mentioned, from the much admired Sara Thornton to – despite denials – Lynne Owens and Cressida Dick, although the latter is no longer a police officer. A female prime minister and a female home secretary may well feel that it is about time that the capital city followed the examples set successfully over the last decade by provincial forces and appointed a woman to the helm. Whoever it may be should start by repairing relations with the media, whose cooperation is vital to the Met’s work. In 2012, Hogan-Howe famously embraced the controversial report into relations between the police and the media commissioned by the then home secretary, Theresa May, and headed by Dame Elizabeth Filkin. “There should be no more secret conversations,” said Sir Bernard at the time of the Filkin report’s publication, agreeing that too many detectives were too chummy with the press. “There should be no more improper contact and by that what I mean is between the police and the media – that which is of a selfish, rather than a public interest. Meetings will no longer be enhanced by hospitality and alcohol.” Ah, those secret conversations – by which he meant that detectives should not be having chats with crime correspondents without having a press officer present and certainly should not be popping down to the pub with a reporter after a day at the Yard. While previous commissioners had briefed crime correspondents on a more or less regular monthly basis, Sir Bernard ended the practice and made clear his distaste for much of what the media got up to. As a result, relations with the media in this post-Leveson world have rarely been chillier. The new commissioner will have to make it clear that she – or he – is prepared to open the doors again in the way that Sir Robert Mark did so successfully back in the 1970s. They could do worse than to repeat Sir Robert’s credo: “Officers who speak in good faith may be assured of my support even if they make errors of judgment when deciding what information to disclose.” To his credit, however, last year Sir Bernard did allow the BBC’s cameras to follow his officers in the series, The Met: Policing London. In doing so, he said that he was weary of the standard type of programme – “cops banging in doors, charging around with their blue lights on, a macho commentary … they are short on the informative side”. As a way of showing the difficulties of the job and the dangers faced by officers, the series was widely regarded as a success, so his risk was justified and should be repeated by the next office-holder. The new person will also need to be someone who can win the confidence both of the home secretary, Amber Rudd, and, more importantly, the London mayor, Sadiq Khan, who is fresh from his triumphs on the other side of the Atlantic. Did he pick up any policing ideas there? He would not be the first mayor to imagine that a savvy American police chief might be the best way to shake up the Yard, although such a scenario – flirted with in the past – seems unlikely today. Khan has already made it clear that he is his own man when it comes to decisions and he will doubtless want someone who reflects his view that the diversity of London requires a very special kind of sensitivity. No one who has watched the catastrophic breakdown in relations between the police and the public in too many big American cities will want to see the same kind of conflict repeated in London where our own riots are still fresh in the memory. The old-school crimes which a commissioner had to prioritise in the past – the bank robberies that occurred on an almost daily basis – are much less of an issue these days when so much more theft is carried out by cybercriminals. So the new chief will also have to be someone who is not overwhelmed by the rather prosaic and unspectacular nature of investigating such offences. And, of course, the top priority will be how the new person reacts when – not if – faced with their first major terror incident in the capital. Which is why the Met’s top counter-terrorism officer, Mark Rowley, is also now seen as a candidate. Anyway, the faint-hearted need not apply.
Homebuyers wobble in wake of Brexit vote Homebuyers spooked by the UK’s decision to leave the EU are pulling out of deals or attempting to renegotiate prices, according to property professionals, as the housing market suffers Brexit vote aftershocks. One property developer in central London, which had offered a “Brexit clause” allowing nervous buyers to pull out of deals in the event of a leave vote said it was allowing buyers to withdraw and keep their deposits. David Humbles, managing director of the luxury Two Fifty One development, said: “We can confirm that a few purchasers have decided not to proceed given the uncertainty of the market. However, the majority are continuing with their purchase and the marketing strategy to offer the pledge at the launch was a worthwhile exercise.” Consulting group KPMG has forecast that prices could fall by 5% outside London, and more in the capital, while commentators said a slowdown in sales which started ahead of the referendum was likely to continue. Fearful of landing in immediate negative equity, some buyers have decided to put their purchases on ice. A buying agent who specialises in finding homes for the well-off said two clients had pulled out of deals as soon as the result was known, while another had reduced their offer. “I suspect that turnover will shrink and prices will fall – by 10% perhaps by Christmas,” said Henry Pryor in a blog post. Pryor, who added that another client had exchanged contracts with a Brexit clause, meaning they could pull out if the UK voted to leave, but it was unclear whether they would invoke it. Andrew Montlake from mortgage broker Coreco said the firm had received “an initial flurry of calls from clients wondering if they should put things on ice”, and that a small number had decided to put purchases on hold. First-time buyer Josh Morris said he was considering pulling out of his purchase – a property in Liverpool which he put an offer on earlier this month. On Thursday Morris spent a long time on the phone to the mortgage broker, who arranged to call back at lunchtime on Friday to go through some details. Instead he called at 9.30am saying he should set the ball rolling but Morris said that he and his wife, a doctor, were now reconsidering. “If I buy and the value falls, as seems likely, I’m going to end up in negative equity and be stuck ... but if I pull out and wait is it going to get harder for me to get a mortgage?” David Nesbit of Nesbits estate agency in Portsmouth said he knew of one sale locally, not through his agency, that had fallen through immediately after the exit result became apparent. “It was someone who was connected with the stockmarket and because of the drop in the market decided not to go ahead.” He said that while there might be some short-term consolidation in prices – with ambitious sellers not obtaining prices they may have been expecting – a shortage of properties in the area would help stabilise the market. Other agents warn that Brexit may leave the property market moribund for months. Ian Denton, director of the Jackson-Stops agency in Woburn, Bedfordshire, said: “The usual summer lull may continue through to October while we wait to appoint a new prime minister. The appetite to buy may be less, with people sitting on the fence.” However, some agents reported a pick-up in interest from buyers, saying the removal of uncertainty and the falling pound were both driving demand for property. Bidwells in Cambridge, a city which has seen some of the biggest UK prices hikes of recent years, said it had sold a large house on the edge of the city for £2.25m. The vendor had invited sealed bids, to delivered on the day the result was announced, and the winning bidder had offered more than the asking price. In Midhurst, West Sussex, agent Nick Ferrier of Jackson-Stops said it agreed a sale on a home valued at £5m on Friday morning immediately after the result became apparent. Viewing requests for other properties were still “very strong”, he added. In London’s ultra-prime market, some agents were almost jubilant, saying that the pound’s steep fall against the dollar would bring international buyers to London. Robin Paterson of Sotheby’s International Realty, which has a £22m Belgravia 7-bed home among the properties it is currently marketing, said: “The UK’s decision to leave the EU is an historic event and we should embrace this whole heartedly. This opens new opportunities for investment, we may have fewer European investors in the coming months but we believe there will be significant inward investment from Asia, as well as from the US. Buyers from these regions will undoubtedly be looking to snap up bricks and mortar in the UK with the predicted fall in sterling.” In Chelsea, upmarket agency Hamptons said it had received a new bid on a property from a French buyer who was offering more because the exchange rate had moved in his favour. One market likely to see a boost is Scotland, with English buyers fleeing to a country aiming to remain in the EU. Rightmove, the property website, said that between 7am and 1pm on Friday, searches for Edinburgh homes were 250% up on the previous day. However, both Rightmove and Zoopla said it was too early to identify price movements in either the letting or purchase markets as a result of Brexit.
Brain implant helps paralysed man regain partial control of his hand A 24-year-old man who was paralysed in an accident six years ago has regained some control of his hand using an implant that sends signals from his brain directly to the muscles that move his wrist and fingers. Known as a neural bypass, the implant allows Ian Burkhart to swipe a credit card, play the video game, Guitar Hero, and perform actions such as picking up a bottle and pouring the contents, holding a phone to his ear, and stirring a cup. He is the first person to benefit from the technology. Burkhart, from Dublin, Ohio, was on a beach holiday to celebrate the end of his first year in college when he dived into a wave that dumped him onto a hidden sandbar. He was 19, extremely independent, and had never considered that such an accident might strike him down. The force of the impact snapped Burkhart’s neck at the C5 level. He could still move his arms to some extent, but his hands and legs were useless. Friends pulled him out of the water and raised the alarm. By chance, an off-duty fireman was on the beach and called paramedics. Burkhart had therapy for the injury with a team of doctors at Ohio State University. From the start, he was hopeful that advances in medical technology would improve his quality of life. He told the team he was interested in research and willing to take part in trials of new technologies. The Ohio researchers got their hands on a neural bypass developed by a charity called Battelle and offered Burkhart the chance to have the implant fitted. “That was the million dollar question: do you want to have brain surgery or something that may not benefit you. There are a lot of risks,” said Burkhart. “It was certainly something I had to consider for quite some time. But after a meeting with all the team and everyone involved, I knew I was in good hands.” He went ahead and surgeons duly fitted a tiny computer chip into the motor cortex of his brain. Here, the chip picked up electrical signals from the part of the motor cortex that controls hand movements. The fuzz of brain activity is fed into a computer and converted into electrical pulses that bypass the injured spinal cord and connect to a sleeve that Burkhart wears on his forearm. From there, 130 electrodes send the pulses through the skin to the muscles beneath, where they control wrist and even separate finger movements. The patterns of the signals are tuned to produce the movements Burkhart thinks about making. It took time to learn how to use the device. Over 15 months, Burkhart spent up to three sessions a week learning how to control his hand movements. “Initially we’d do a short session and I’d feel mentally fatigued and exhausted, like I’d been in a six or seven hour exam. For 19 years of my life I took it for granted: I think and my fingers move. But with more and more practise it became much easier. It’s second nature.” “The first time I moved my hand, I had that flicker of hope knowing that this is something that’s working, I will be able to use my hand again. Right now, it’s only in a clinical setting, but with enough people working on it, and enough attention, it can be something I can use outside of the hospital, at my home and outside my home, and really improve the quality of my life,” he said. Burkhart performed the first movements using thoughts alone in 2014, but has since learned more complex actions and more precise control over his hand and fingers. Details of the latest results are published in Nature. “It was an amazing moment for the team,” said Ali Rezai, a neurosurgeon at Ohio State’s Wexner Medical Center, recalling Burkhart’s first hand movements. But at the time, his control allowed for only basic movements. “A few seconds after the amazement, we said OK, we have much more work to do here.” The team set to work on turning the rough movements into precise, useful actions. Chad Bouton, who helped create the device, said the study marked the first time a person living with paralysis had regained movement using signals recorded from within the brain. “We think this is an important result as we try and pave the way for other patients in the future, not only those with spinal injuries, but also those that have experienced a stroke, and potentially even traumatic brain injury,” he said. “We were not sure if this would be possible,” Bouton added. “Not only were we able to find those signals in the brain and decipher them for individual finger movements, but we were able to link those signals to Ian’s muscles and allow that kind of movement to be regained. This is important for daily activities, such as feeding, and having the patient be able to clothe themselves.” The researchers are now looking at a host of improvements that should make the system more portable and possible to use outside the hospital. Brain signals picked up by the implant could potentially be sent wirelessly to the computer for processing, and onwards to the forearm sleeve to stimulate the muscles. Another improvement could see more electrodes added to the brain chip, so more subtle signals can be detected and passed on to the patient’s muscles. “Ten years ago we couldn’t do this. Imagine what we can do in another 10,” said Rezai. Nick Annetta, an electrical engineer on the team, said the team was working to make the system smaller and useful for a broader range of patients. “This could be applied to other motor impairments, not just spinal cord injuries,” he said. “We think this is just the beginning.”
From Game of Thrones to Star Wars: the casting boss behind TV and movie hits Game of Thrones fans are hoping to find out on Monday whether Jon Snow is really dead. Nina Gold, keeper of some of the most valuable secrets in showbusiness, already knows. The casting director on Game of Thrones, Star Wars and Wolf Hall, Gold is the unseen force behind a string of hit TV shows and films. Casting directors are among the most powerful figures in TV and film, able to make or break careers, but their world remains a secretive one (albeit not quite as closed as the Faith Militant). Everyone knows what directors do, most people know what producers do, but how casting directors operate is a little more opaque. “It’s a bit of a mystery to me,” laughs Gold. “It’s quite an ineffable sort of thing. It’s a lot about instinct and feeling, combined with analysis of people’s qualities and essences, and somehow marrying them up with the needs of the character.” Bafta will attempt to put that right on Sunday when Gold becomes the first casting director to receive one of its special prizes at the academy’s TV craft awards. It recognises Gold’s involvement in an extraordinary number of hits in film (The Imitation Game, The Martian, The Theory of Everything) and on TV (London Spy, The Fall, Netflix’s forthcoming royal epic, The Crown). The role is rarely recognised in TV or film awards on either side of the Atlantic. “It’s incredibly unfair isn’t it?” she says. “It’s the undefinable nature of what one is doing that is the problem, I guess.” It was Gold who made household names out of John Boyega and Daisy Ridley, the young stars who play Finn and Ray in JJ Abrams’s Star Wars sequel, The Force Awakens. Gold will cast the young Han Solo in the spinoff origin film (will it be Taron Egerton? “I don’t think we have a new Han Solo yet. Not today”) and knows what really happens to Jon Snow. Wasn’t Kit Harington’s long hair a dead giveaway? “It could just be for Doctor Faustus [in which Harington is starring on the London stage],” says Gold. “He could be back in it with no hair. Anything could happen.” She is “incredibly proud” of Boyega and his co-star Ridley. “Boy did they rise to the occasion,” she says. “It’s an incredible achievement for two young actors to get into it and just own it the way they did.” Gold says it was a “pinch yourself” moment to be involved in the rebooted sci-fi saga, and happened to first meet Abrams on Star Wars Day (4 May). “It was all completely great and amazing,” she adds. She also cast the first ever female villain in the Star Wars franchise, with Gwendoline Christie (Game of Thrones’ Brienne of Tarth) as chrome-clad stormtrooper Captain Phasma in the new film. Asked if when she cast Christie she was making a statement about gender bias in TV and film, Gold says: “To be honest that wasn’t a moment … we were just trying to think of somebody who would be good in the part. “I think everyone had assumed it would be a man and we suddenly thought Gwendoline would be great and she was. They were completely open to it and hopefully it will go further. “There are some instances when you say, ‘why does this character have to be a man?’, and if there’s not a really good reason then one should try to keep an open mind,” she adds. “You can’t always get people to take you up on it.” Diversity, or rather the lack of it, has increasingly become a focus of industry attention, not least the number of high profile roles going to public school-educated stars such as Benedict Cumberbatch, Eddie Redmayne and Damian Lewis. Gold has cast all three of them, in The Imitation Game, Theory of Everything and Wolf Hall respectively. “These things go in little phases, probably. On British TV we have a lot of period stuff which brings questions of class into play,” says Gold. “The top British male actors of today, Dominic West, Eddie Redmayne, Benedict Cumberbatch and Damian Lewis are all Eton or Harrow. But then you’ve also got Tom Hardy, Michael Fassbender – not English but we want him to be – and James McAvoy, they’re not that and they are also right up there and incredibly brilliant. “A few years ago it was Gary Oldman and Tim Roth and those people. I don’t know if it’s as massively significant as it’s cracked up to be.” Game of Thrones has also been criticised for its lack of diversity. “I think we have cast Game of Thrones in the way that is true to the source material,” is Gold’s response. “The books are very detailed about each family and the way they look and their individual cultures and dynasties.” On the broader issue of black, Asian and minority ethnic representation across the industry, Gold says: “There is still a lot to be done but I do think it is changing. It has to start with the writing, which is becoming more diverse and open to diverse casting. Things are shifting.” Gold cast her first project at Cambridge University when she was asked to find a bunch of friends with leather jackets to star in an AC/DC video. “I thought ‘this is absolutely brilliant and what I want to do’, and one thing led to another,” she recalls. “I didn’t really have any plans, I was very immature at the time. I still haven’t got any plans past the end of this conversation.” She went on to become a regular collaborator with film and TV veteran Mike Leigh and King’s Speech director Tom Hooper. Wolf Hall leads the nominations for next month’s Bafta TV awards with four, including a best actor nod for its Oscar-winning star, Mark Rylance. But it took a while to convince the former Globe artistic director to come on board the BBC2 show co-starring Claire Foy and Damian Lewis, and directed by Peter Kosminsky. “We had been trying to get Mark Rylance to do it for about two years and eventually he said yes,” Gold says. “He’s just incredibly busy and likes doing his theatre. These are big decisions and his life is booked up very far ahead.” • Nina Gold will be with the Bafta special award at this year’s British Academy Television Craft Awards on Sunday at The Brewery, London
Nine things we learned from the Republican debate in Miami The 12th Republican debate took place in Miami, Florida, on Thursday night. Here’s how it went down: It was a civil affair. Ted Cruz bopped Donald Trump a bit for giving money to Hillary Clinton. But gone were the peppery attacks of debates past. The debate was policy-heavy. Think trade, H1-B visas, social security, Common Core, the Islamic State, Israel, Tiananmen Square, climate change, Cuba policy, Iran, veterans affairs … Trump confirmed that former candidate Ben Carson would endorse him in the morning. Cruz and Marco Rubio distanced themselves from Trump on the question of assassinating the families of terrorism suspects, which Trump has proposed. The other two said they would not do that. “If we nominate Donald Trump, Hillary wins,” Cruz said. Trump suggested Republican rules for awarding the nomination based on a majority of delegates should be jettisoned. “I think that whoever gets the most delegates should win,” he said. Neither Rubio nor Ohio governor John Kasich would admit the extreme narrowness of his path to the nomination. “Math doesn’t tell the whole story in politics,” Kasich said. Rubio dismissed a human role in climate change: “Sure, the climate is changing,” he said. “There was never a time when the climate was not changing.” Asked about violence at his rallies, Trump said he did not condone it, but his supporters “have anger that’s unbelievable”. “They love this country,” he said. “They don’t like seeing bad trade deals.”
New band of the week: Whitney (No 90) Hometown: Chicago. The lineup: Julien Ehrlich (drums, vocals), Max Kakacek (guitar), Ziyad Asrar (keyboards), Will Miller (trumpet). The background: Look what just blew in from the windy city. Whitney, a new band comprising familiar faces: Max Kakacek, guitarist with Smith Westerns, a band once hailed round these parts for their glam influences and “sloppy precision”; and Julien Ehrlich, former drummer with “lo-fi yet luxuriant psych-soul” crew Unknown Mortal Orchestra. There are other musicians involved, including Ziyad Asrar from an outfit called Touching Voids (no, us neither), and apparently Jonathan Rado of Foxygen has had some input. They’ve actually been recording as a six-piece – two guitars, bass, keys, horns and drums – for an album which could be out as early as spring 2016. But it’s mainly Uhrlich and Kakacek’s show. Which means plenty of the former’s sweet soul falsetto and lashings of the latter’s sun-dappled guitar. Not sure where they got the name, but it’s not la Houston or indeed US sitcom star Whitney Cummings. One story has it that it comes from Ehrlich’s first kiss, or even “an old-ass dude living alone” they dreamed up: “Whitney’s not living well,” they imagine. “He’s very sad and distraught, but he has good times, too.” They mainly write about breakups, but there’s one song about Ehrlich’s late grandad. Demos were initially recorded in a Wisconsin cabin, to give them the quality of lost recordings: think Bon Iver, with elements of folk and country, only given a Chicago soul makeover. If Curtis Mayfield fronted a stoner-rock band ... While the music is buoyant, lyrically we’re in bummed-out territory. “The subject matter isn’t happy, but it sounds really happy,” Ehrlich offers, helpfully. No Woman opens with Rhodes keyboards, some sad trumpet and a wistful voice that skirts the perimeters of folk, country and soul. “I’ve been going through a change,” sings Ehrlich in his disarming high register, like Kurt Wagner of Lambchop after being kicked in the cojones, capturing the stunned disquiet of those first moments of readjustment after – to quote the great Chicago bluesmen Hall & Oates – She’s Gone. “It’s about losing the love of your life and being thrown into an aimless journey because of it,” furthers Ehrlich, choking back tears (we made that last bit up for effect – he might have been laughing for all we know). No Matter Where We Go is light, lachrymal boogie: there is a brightness to this rock, a translucence, suggestive of transcendence. The video, tellingly, is very sunshine-y. Orange Juice sort of stumbled on this crushing blend 35 years ago, but that’s OK. Southern Nights is a cover of an old Allen Toussaint tune, and it augurs well for that debut album that it could be a Whitney original. We like the maximal use of “da-da-das” and the way, at one point, the guitar approximates the poignant ping and twang of a koto. Soul-country boogie from Chicago via Japan? Why wouldn’t you want to witness that first-hand? Well, you can, in London, at the Moth Club on 18 February. Dress code: old-ass hermit. The buzz: “The best band you haven’t heard yet.” The truth: Houston, we don’t have a problem. Most likely to: Appeal to 2 broke dudes. Least likely to: Drink orange juice. What to buy: No Woman and No Matter Where We Go are available on Secretly Canadian. File next to: Lambchop, Curtis Mayfield, Orange Juice, Bon Iver. Links: facebook.com/whitneychicago. Ones to watch: J F L E, Let’s Eat Grandma, White Wine, Nisennenmondai, Carrie Rodriguez.
Corey Lewandowski may be off the hook. But he didn't win Well, he didn’t lose. The Palm Beach state attorney has declined to prosecute Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, who manhandled Breitbart reporter Michelle Fields on 8 March, allegedly bruising her in the process, after she tried to ask Donald Trump a question about affirmative action. There are no winners here. Not Trump, nor his people, nor the conservative press. Trump didn’t win. The Lewandowski incident was a sideshow, the first that didn’t work on any level. Until this point, outrages have merely focused the 24-hour media’s free-advertising on the candidate and made him appear like some relatable low-level maverick. But Trump and his people played this one wrong. Lewandowski and Trump both denied that the alleged assault happened, in spite of video footage and a cluster of journalists around the incident. You can’t gaslight a videotape. Ordinarily, who are you going to trust – me, or your lyin’ eyes? is a decent tactic to use against journalists when it comes to the trivial stuff: foreign, tax, social and environmental policy. You can make up junk about those issues because Beltway reporters will find some thinktank “scientician” to substantiate a claim that, say, sharks eat gorillas in the jungle. Hey, they objectively covered both sides of the issue; crisis averted. But, perhaps emboldened by the fact that his insults of Fox News’ Megyn Kelly didn’t hurt him at the time, the Trump camp forgot that the one injustice journalists will not accept is one committed against their own. Those are real injustices, not just abstract things that happen somewhere else. There are real victims involved. Trump’s security had already been goony enough to merit comment, but it was relegated to bellyaching on Twitter or vapid thinkpiece comparisons to Sinclair Lewis’s It Can’t Happen Here, and in any case hostility for the press is a conservative staple. (And still many of Trump’s rallies passed without incident, akin to a baby boomer concert.) Trumpian gooniness was still more a thought exercise than an immediate problem involving meat and bone. Lewandowski didn’t win either. He’d always seemed like a chronically aggro used car salesman. Now he seemed like one who’d try to sell you a Chevrolet reclaimed from the bottom of one of the Great Lakes by unbuttoning his jacket and resting his hands on his hips to reveal the 9mm in his holster before saying: “Now, what is it gonna take to put you in this primer-gray 1984 Citation?” Lewandowski is now reportedly being downgraded within the Trump campaign hierarchy after the candidate had to waste time deflecting ugly attention and changing his story. His role as Prime Meathead is now more liability than menace. Breitbart Media didn’t fare too well either. If anything, the incident exposed their slavish devotion to the Trump campaign. Despite a founding legacy of lies and contempt, Trump put Breitbart Media in the uncomfortable position of having to decide whether their candidate or their reporter was wrong. They chose the latter, because nothing adds dignity to drinking from the toilet like letting someone kick you in the rear-end while you do it. Underlying all this, of course, was the decades-long conservative escape-hatch excuse that the media lies about everything. What had once been a useful tool for wishing away anything inconveniently addressed by mainstream media – like recorded history – turned on its most frequent users. Breitbart was essentially forced to say: “Everyone in the media lies, including us”, while conservative journalism-ish outlets had to make the argument that everyone was lying but them. Ordinarily, this would make for some amusement for the mainstream media, but they didn’t win either. Years of quailing “gotta hear both sides!” reporting created a space in which the Trump campaign and its adherents could claim that there was another side to a videotape of an assault. Every dead-soul ratings-humping segment on 24-hour media on which Trump was allowed to lie paved the way for this moment. Every gutless wad who decided that pushback with the truth was too much hassle or would lose viewers, every invertebrate meat sack who decided that every take deserved an audience and that facts could be counter-programmed sent us careening into this ditch. We’re in a place where Donald Trump and his feral bullet-headed stooge could claim something caught on tape didn’t happen because a lot of people decided a long time ago that objective reality is just the null outcome of two opinions colliding with each other mid-screen. The only person who won anything here was Michelle Fields, who, at the very least, won a moral victory. Too bad that, given the circumstances, she has very little reason to celebrate.
Volkswagen's executive pay packages remain untroubled by emissions scandal If you think pay in top boardrooms in the UK has reached insane levels, try Germany, and specifically Volkswagen. After the huge emissions scandal, which could end up costing the firm a few tens of billions of dollars, the car maker’s supervisory board thought hard about pay and decided to carry on almost as if nothing had happened. Actually, that’s too generous. VW’s remuneration report reveals little evidence of any debate. The only glancing reference to the scandal is when the board says it accepted last week’s offer by management to withhold 30% of their performance-related pay. No explanation is offered for why 30% – and not 100% – was deemed appropriate. Add it all up and the VW board is barely less expensive than in 2014, when the company was still regarded as a beacon of engineering excellence. The 2015 tally was €63m; the previous year’s was €70m. Martin Winterkorn – the chief executive who resigned and thus “took responsibility for the irregularities” – got a €9.3m termination payment on top of a bonus-heavy €7.3m pay package. This is staggering when you remember that VW hasn’t even explained yet how 11m of its cars came to be fitted with cheat devices. The much-delayed report is still delayed. In the meantime, shareholders are offered morsels about “a group of persons whose identity is still being determined” modifying software. Should the highly paid management have known what was under the bonnet? That crucial question is ignored. Even when the US clean transportation agency raised questions in May 2014 – more than a year before the scandal broke – VW reports that discrepancies were regarded as “a technical problem that did not basically differ from other everyday technical problems at an automotive company”. Is that supposed to excuse inaction? Governance at public companies in the UK is riddled with complacency and conflicts of interest but it is hard to believe a FTSE 100 company, in similar circumstances, would get away with a remuneration report as supine as Volkswagen’s. Even some banking bosses were obliged to surrender their bonuses occasionally as their share prices crashed. At Volkswagen, it seems, restoring trust – the stock phrase that has trotted out since last September – means preserving boardroom pay. Weir Group’s gamble on remuneration fails to pay off What Volkswagen needs is some shareholders like Weir Group’s. A 72% vote against a pay policy sends a suitably robust message. This is a rare example of a board losing a binding vote on a forward-looking policy. Weirdly, however, it is possible to have an ounce of sympathy for Weir. Its pay committee seems to have recognised that standard long-term incentive plans, or LTIPs, often turn out to be farcical. They can end up rewarding mediocrity and rely heavily on chance factors, like competitors failing or the oil price rising. In place of an LTIP, Weir opted for “restricted stock” – essentially, just handing the executives a pile of shares and inviting them to maximise the value. It’s how the American companies do it, and Weir argued it hires a lot of Americans for its operations there. The problem with restricted stock, of course, is that they come with no performance conditions attached. The only safeguard against rewarding failure is the willingness of the pay committee to apply common sense. That ingredient seems to have enraged UK shareholders, who have sent a clear message that they do not want an import from the US. But what do they want? The Investment Association, representing £5.5tn of institutional money, wrote a blistering report last week saying the current approach to pay at UK listed companies is “not fit for purpose.” It recommended a move away from “one-size fits all” thinking and even mentioned restricted stock for special cases. But the first company to try it has lost. The deep problems here are the sheer size of modern pay packages and the fact that nobody trusts remuneration committees to claw back awards. Weir won’t overcome those concerns in a hurry. It has landed itself in a fine mess – but it’s not entirely of its own making. No pot of gold in sight for RBS’s Project Rainbow branch sell-off Royal Bank of Scotland was asking for trouble when it used the name Project Rainbow to describe the plan to sell 300 branches under the orders of the European commission. As with real rainbows, the end is eternally glimpsed but never attained. The latest delay comes two and half years after RBS revived an old brand – Williams & Glyn – and asserted it would be seen on high streets “soon”. The latest dispatch says there is a “significant risk” that the legal deadline for separation or sale by December 2017 will be missed. The plea is complexity – again. The rewiring job doesn’t sound easy and, to be fair to RBS, it is attempting a stiffer task than Lloyds Banking Group did in similar circumstances with TSB. All the same, it’s ridiculous how long this is taking. RBS, having been told to sell in October 2009, may take eight years to shed 300 branches. It took the Americans the same time to put a man on the moon after JFK’s “by the end of the decade” speech in 1961.
Planning to flee Donald Trump's America? It might not be that easy “If Donald Trump wins in November, I’m moving to Canada!” Now that Trump has become the Republican party’s presumptive nominee in this autumn’s presidential contest, the phrase is an increasingly common refrain. But how easy would it be to dump Trump for Justin Trudeau or another more attractive leader? The answer is not very, and it won’t even be an option for most. According to at least one poll, 28% of Americans have at least considered leaving the United States for good “for a country such as Canada” if Trump is elected. Of those who said they’re considering fleeing, 14% rated the probability as “very high”. Google searches for the phrase “move to Canada” spiked dramatically after the Super Tuesday primaries in March put Trump into the lead, hitting levels never before seen. If you’re very young and flexible, have in-demand skills, and really understand what it means to leave it all behind, or if you’re ultra-wealthy, leaving is possible. For most of the rest of us? It’s much, much trickier to actually move to Canada – or anywhere else – than to just utter the phrase. And if you do leave – well, brace yourself for the financial consequences. Let’s start with Canada, a country I know a little bit about since my parents were Canadian citizens living in the United States when I was born, making me what’s called “an accidental American”, a category I’ll get back to shortly – and a dual citizen by birth, at least according to the Canadians. (Americans don’t like dual citizenship much and prefer to ignore it altogether.) Out of curiosity, I decided to see whether I’d qualify for the Canadian equivalent of a green card. My fluency in French, the fact that I attended a Canadian university and have family in Canada help, but without a job offer from a Canadian company or skills in demand in Canada, I’d be rejected. Go ahead, see how you’d fare. Many Americans will find it tougher to win admission to Canada than they assume. Then, too, there are some Americans that Canada won’t want, including, sadly, those they feel will be too much of a drain on the country’s single-payer healthcare system. A university professor from Costa Rica, Felipe Montoya, recently was denied permanent residency in Canada because his son has Down’s syndrome. Even if we end up with Trump as our president in November, Americans can’t expect the same treatment Canada has offered refugees from Syria and other war-torn countries. National embarrassment does not a refugee make. Millennials probably are luckiest when it comes to seeking a Trump-free haven. Younger wannabe expats should look at the list of skills that are in demand. New Zealand’s immigration website has lists of high-priority job categories that will get your immigration application fast-tracked. If you’re younger than 30, you can get a one-year working holiday visa in either Australia or New Zealand. Germany has an “artist visa” program if you can prove you can support yourself through your writing, your design, art, music or other creative work. Older emigrants are best off either being wealthy and buying themselves a second citizenship or being lucky and having an Irish grandparent. Second, third and even fourth passports are becoming récherché accessories among the ultra-rich, and countries such as Malta are becoming accommodating in designing programs for them. Some require you to invest in real businesses; others just want you to keep funds on deposit. French actor Gérard Depardieu expatriated himself from his homeland to protest against not its leadership but its tax regime and became a Russian citizen. The ultimate long shot, if finances are no obstacle? Svalbard, the self-governing Norwegian territory whose residents carry guns to defend themselves against polar bears whenever they leave greater downtown Longyearbyen (population about 2,000), and where fresh vegetables are very scarce (as is daylight in winter). On the other hand, if you can support yourself financially, you won’t need a visa or residence permit. But beware of what you wish for. You may leave the United States, but the US won’t let you go so easily. Specifically, you may be residing overseas but the IRS insists that you keep filing tax returns. Nope, it doesn’t matter that you don’t live here any more, don’t have any income or assets here, or don’t even visit any more. All that counts is that you’re still a citizen. The US is one of a tiny handful of countries in the world to tax non-resident citizens on their worldwide income, and the only major industrialized nation to do so. So before you stomp off to live overseas in a huff, you might want to be aware of just what you’re signing up for: a lifetime of living under two tax regimes and (potentially) paying two sets of taxes. For instance, if you own a house in Canada, you won’t get the benefit of mortgage interest deductions (that’s Canadian tax policy at work). Under US law, you may find yourself paying capital gains tax when you sell it, even if Revenue Canada says you don’t owe them a penny. Few groups are more aware of just what’s involved than the “Accidental Americans”. One famous (former) member of this group is Boris Johnson, the former mayor of London. Born in the US, Johnson hasn’t lived here since the age of five. He initially simply refused to file US tax returns – or to pay US taxes on the sale of his London house. And then (after quietly paying the bill) he renounced his citizenship. Many haven’t lived in the US since their birth or childhood; some may not even have social security numbers. That doesn’t matter. They were born there, and if they haven’t relinquished their citizenship – a costly and cumbersome process – they have to keep filing tax returns and being aware that they can’t invest in some kinds of mutual funds that might be standard products in their home countries but might trigger big tax liabilities in the US. While the number of Americans who have relinquished their citizenship, like Johnson, hit a record last year, that number still only just approached 4,300. The reason is the sheer complexity involved, suggests Suzanne Shier, chief wealth planning and tax strategist at Northern Trust. The US doesn’t care that you left because you didn’t like the political regime, “they look at objective facts, and those facts have a tax consequence. Then the question is whether you are defined as a ‘covered expat’ who will have to pay an exit tax or not.” Many ordinary Americans aren’t “covered expats” – you’d have to be fairly wealthy, outside your retirement accounts and home – but just the paperwork proving it is daunting, and the costs of doing that paperwork can be intimidating. “And there aren’t many people who deal with expatriation,” Shier says. You’d have to be committed to making it happen. Equally, there aren’t many people overseas who will work with expatriates. Try to find an accountant able to fill out a US tax return in Prague or Ottawa; even opening a bank account these days has become incredibly difficult. The Foreign Account Tax Account Compliance Act (Fatca), designed to root out tax evaders, has made it difficult for Accidental Americans to even open a routine bank account in their “home country”. A growing number of Accidental Americans or long-term expatriates are getting letters from their banks threatening to close their accounts and take away their mortgages if they don’t prove, within 30 days, that they have renounced their US citizenship. It has just become far too costly for those banks to comply with Fatca, and as a result, American expats are becoming, in the words of one advocate for Accidental Americans, “financial pariahs”. Some of the recipients of those letters haven’t lived in the US since infancy and have never had a social security number, making it virtually impossible to do that. Some weren’t even born in the United States, but simply have a US parent – another way to acquire US citizenship “accidentally”. But renouncing your citizenship isn’t without its consequences. Shier notes that if you support your child or an ageing parent with gifts, the recipients don’t have to pay taxes on those as long as you’re an American. Give up your citizenship, and they may end up paying gift tax on anything in excess of $14,000 a year. You’ll be a foreigner in “your own” country, limited to spending only a certain number of days here each year (depending on where you now live and have citizenship). So, how does President Trump sound now? Or will you just fight even harder to ensure that come November, Canada will look a little less tempting?
Author: The JT LeRoy Story review – the intriguing tale of a literary hoax This intriguing if sometimes exasperating documentary features intertitles in punky cut-out lettering, maybe in homage to The Great Rock ’n’ Roll Swindle. It is about a notorious literary hoax, from an era when misery memoirs were all the rage. Ten years ago, the bestselling young author JT LeRoy – supposedly the son of a prostitute, writing harrowing fiction avowedly based on his horrific childhood – turned out to be a woman called Laura Albert. But was that a hoax? Didn’t Mary Ann Evans claim to be a man called George Eliot? Albert was a troubled woman who had suffered abuse and found escapist release in phoning crisis helplines in assumed voices and fictional personae. She was also a talented writer and voracious reader, and through in-character fan phonecalls to authors, got an agent for her agonised faux-naïf southern gothic material, written by this mythical figure she’d dreamed up. The extraordinary twist came when Albert persuaded her sister-in-law Savannah Knoop to pose as the mysterious, reclusive author in wig and dark glasses for readings. Her cult following included celebrities such as Gus van Sant, Bono and Asia Argento, none too pleased to be hoodwinked, and Albert finally got a fraud conviction for signing a movie deal as “JT LeRoy”. It’s a strange story. Unlike James Frey’s fake memoir A Million Little Pieces from 2003, Albert’s “LeRoy” work was at least billed as fiction – though with the promise of being based on truth. The film is curious, featuring apparently genuine tape-recordings of phone conversations that “LeRoy” had with her acolytes and friends. She doesn’t say why she made secret tape-recordings, and isn’t asked. Are these recordings real? Or a reconstruction – yet another fictional construct? The key question is: how did Savannah feel about living a lie? Knoop is only interviewed very briefly. The rest of the time, it’s Laura Albert monologuing. She’s a little tiresome and narcissistic. I would have preferred some stronger questioning of her, and a closer look at the question of whether any independent literary merit survives.
Ministers rejects Trump's call to appoint Nigel Farage ambassador British ministers rebuffed an unconventional call by Donald Trump for Ukip’s interim leader, Nigel Farage, to be appointed UK ambassador to the United States. In a response agreed across government, the foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, firmly said there was no vacancy for the ambassadorship, and Downing Street lavishly praised Sir Kim Darroch, the current British ambassador who was by coincidence in London briefing the UK National Security Council on the implications of Trump’s election. In a sign of the government’s unease at Farage’s elevated status with the Trump team, ministers held back from directly challenging Trump’s interference, or the president-elect’s judgment of the Ukip leader. Foreign Office ministers are concerned at the extent to which figures like Trump’s chief strategist, Steve Bannon, may be promoting Farage, partly to fuel populist forces in the UK and Europe. Donald Trump had tweeted on Tuesday night: Farage said he was very flattered by the president-elect’s tweet, adding it was “a bolt out of the blue”. Urging Downing Street to abandon protocol and take advantage of his connections, he tweeted: Deepening the divide between No 10 and Trump, Farage added: “At every stage I am greeted by negative comments coming out of Downing Street. “The dislike of me, Ukip, and the referendum result is more important to them than what could be good for our country. I have known several of the Trump team for years and I am in a good position, with the president-elect’s support, to help.” Although governments sometimes discreetly consult on the acceptability of a specific proposed ambassador, it is unprecedented for a president to state his preference in public, and to choose someone such as Farage who is determined to break up the entire EU, and has dedicated his professional life to weakening Theresa May’s Conservative party. The Foreign Office will find Trump’s behaviour at best irritating – since Johnson has expended political capital trying to ingratiate himself with the president-elect, including trying to persuade his European colleagues to put aside their doubts about Trump. The Conservative chairman of the foreign affairs select committee, Crispin Blunt, described Trump’s behaviour as extraordinary, saying the episode showed “in transition Trump has not got professional advisers around him who realise how gratuitously insulting it is to try to select the UK ambassador to the United States”. In the Commons, Johnson said hostility to Trump was premature and not in the British national interest, and insisted his administration could be judged only once in office. “The UK’s relationship with the US is the single most important geopolitical fact of the last century,” he said, adding it was vital to be as positive as possible about the president-elect. He told MPs that any premature verdicts about Trump “could be damaging to the interests of this country”. He added: “It is important for us in this country to use our influence, which is very considerable, to help the United States to see its responsibilities, as I’m sure they will.” The Foreign Office permanent secretary Sir Simon McDonald also continued to claim Trump would moderate his views and prove more malleable to UK policy positions once in office. He said: “One thing I have learned is that what is said in the campaign is different to what happens when the winner is in the White House. It is very important for us to judge the new president by his actions in office.” He added the UK would be discussing Trump’s foreign policy positions, including on Nato, proliferation of nuclear weapons and trade before he finally took office, adding that Trump’s election means the UK was no longer at the back of the queue for a bilateral trade deal with the US. One of Farage’s closest advisers, Raheem Kassam, said: “The government has a choice to make – they can have a professional career diplomat that keeps the UK as close as other countries to the Trump administration, or they can choose Nigel and have the best access that goes beyond the Thatcher-Reagan relationship.” But former diplomats lined up to kill off the idea of Farage acting even as an official go-between for the UK government and Trump. Andrew Cahn, a former UK trade envoy, said it was vital that ambassadors were professionals loyal to the government “with no other cards to play, however well connected they are”. Peter Westmacott, Darroch’s predecessor as British ambassador in Washington, said: “It’s a nice gesture to Nigel Farage but an unusual suggestion. Governments choose the people they want to represent the country abroad for good reason – their job is to look after the national interest. Kim Darroch is doing that very well. “Ambassadors need to be acceptable to host governments, not chosen by them,” he added. “I don’t see No 10 tweeting who the president-elect should appoint as the next US representative to the Court of St James.” Veterans of diplomacy and how it is practised in Washington said it put Darroch in a uniquely awkward position. “This makes his life difficult because a new elected president of the United States has voiced a preference for another person,” said Nicholas Burns, a former undersecretary of state for political affairs during the Bush administration. “I don’t remember anything remotely like this … it’s a complete break with essential diplomatic protocol and a preposterous notion that you would publicly suggest one of the major political foes of the government should be appointed. It is rude to the British prime minister and puts her in a difficult position.” At Foreign Office questions, some Conservative MPs also refused to hold back from criticism. The former health minister Dan Poulter urged Johnson to accept there “should be no place for anyone who expresses inflammatory and what sometimes could be considered to be bordering on racist views in representing this country in discussions with the United States”. Keith Simpson, the Tory MP for Broadland, praised Johnson while delivering an ill-disguised barb, saying he was relieved Johnson had ruled out Farage because “in this post-truth world, we might have assumed that he might have been sympathetic given they had campaigned together so remarkably on Brexit”. Johnson found himself in difficulties when pressed by the shadow foreign secretary, Emily Thornberry, to say if he agreed with Trump that climate change was “a hoax, invented by the Chinese”. Thornberry urged the prime minister to show “some moral backbone” and tell Trump when she visited him next year that he must not undermine the climate change deal agreed in Paris. Johnson responded that Trump was a dealmaker, and said the government would be taking a message to the White House about the importance of the Paris climate change deal.
La Liga president attracted by Champions League breakaway The president of Spain’s La Liga has admitted he is considering proposals to form a breakaway competition to rival the Champions League because it represents a “greater opportunity to generate more revenue”. In July, the Dalian Wanda Group – which is owned by China’s richest man Wang Jianlin – revealed it had begun discussions with clubs to create a new tournament which would rival the current competition run by Uefa. Speaking to the Financial Times on Friday, Javier Tebas, who has been president of the Liga Nacional de Fútbol Profesional since 2013, admitted that while no agreement had been reached, Spain’s leading clubs could be attracted by the idea in the wake of new bumper TV deals for their counterparts in England and Germany. “If [European club competition] is reorganised as Wanda has set out, there is a greater opportunity to generate more revenue from audiovisual broadcasting,” he said. Last week, Uefa announced that Europe’s top four leagues will have four automatic places in the Champions League group stage from the 2018-19 season onwards – a move that was supported by clubs in Spain and Italy. However, Tebas was critical of the changes and said they had made it more likely they could support a breakaway because key issues such as the more even distribution of broadcasting funds have not been addressed. “We’ve also become more interested in [Wanda’s] proposal since Uefa announced they will be reforming [the Champions League], without seriously consulting — in detail — their broader reform plans with the other national leagues,” he said. “With our strategy, we will even overtake the Premier League in terms of international deals. Therefore, both Spanish and English football fans will be pleased, as they will both get the chance to watch their games across the world. So long as Uefa does not destroy our business.” Wanda, which already owns a 20% stake in last year’s beaten Champions league finalists Atlético Madrid, paid $1.2bn last year for Infront Media, the Swiss company led by Philippe Blatter - the nephew of former Fifa president Sepp Blatter. The FT reports says they have been leading negotiations for a new tournament, with proposals including merging the Champions League and Europa League into one competition. “The idea of unifying the two tournaments is not a bad one,” said Tebas. “But what is clear is we have to work something out with all the different national leagues and Uefa is not doing it.”
‘This isn’t acceptable’: outcry at state of NHS mental health care funding A cross-party inquiry by MPs into the funding of mental health services has received more than 95,000 personal submissions in an unprecedented display of anger over the state of the NHS. One woman who submitted testimony linking the lack of support to suicide rates said the failure of the system to respond to people in trouble was often “what pushes you over the edge”. She wrote: “I’m scared my husband could become one of these statistics.” A separate YouGov poll commissioned and crowdfunded by the campaigning organisation 38 Degrees found that 74% of voters believe that funding for mental health should be greater or equal to funding for physical health. The amount actually spent on mental health by the NHS last year, despite government pledges to establish parity, was just 11.9% of overall NHS spending. Meg Hillier, chairwoman of the public accounts committee holding the inquiry, said the scale of the response underlined the strength of feeling that mental health was being underfunded. “We shall question NHS England and the Department of Health on how they can meet the government’s pledges,” she said. The poll findings come as a new report, to be published on Monday by the NSPCC, says NHS commissioners are failing to take abused children into account when planning mental health services. The charity says the government’s £1.4bn investment in children’s mental health services is not being deployed to aid children who need help after abuse. Peter Wanless, chief executive of the NSPCC, said: “Often, it’s only when children reach rock bottom, regularly self-harming or feeling suicidal, that the services they need so desperately open up to them. This isn’t acceptable.” Some 95,555 personal submissions on the care of children and adults have so far been made to the public accounts committee. One respondent, who lives in health secretary Jeremy Hunt’s constituency in Surrey, said that a lack of support had left her daughter isolated. She wrote: “My daughter has a longstanding mental illness that has caused her great tragedy and grief. She has not had sufficient help in the community over the last 10 years and feels isolated and insecure. She is a very vulnerable person and has gone missing several times, involving the police in intensive searches.” A woman called Eve, from Bexhill and Battle, wrote: “I work in the NHS with children and young people. I know first-hand that all the services are struggling with numbers, and children often have to wait for over a year for treatment after an initial appointment.” Dawn, from Sheffield, said: “I was able to see a counsellor on the NHS but only for a very limited time, not long enough to enable me to learn the skills I needed to help me cope day to day. “I was referred to a borderline personality disorder support group but this only ran during the day, which meant, as I work, that I could not attend.” Earlier this year, a leaked report by a government taskforce painted a bleak picture of England’s mental health services, revealing that the number of people killing themselves was soaring, three-quarters of those with psychiatric conditions were not being helped, and sick children were being sent “almost anywhere in the country” for treatment. Suicide in England is now rising “following many years of decline”, with 4,477 suicides in an average year. There has also been a 10% increase in the number of people sectioned under the Mental Health Act over the past year, suggesting their needs are not being met early enough. In some parts of the country, more than 10% of children seeking help are having appointments with specialists cancelled as a result of staff shortages. David Babbs, executive director of 38 Degrees, said the response to the opening of the inquiry should be a wake-up call to ministers. “These figures reveal the deep divide between public opinion and the funding given to NHS mental health support by the government. “Almost 100,000 responses to a parliamentary consultation – nearly all raising concerns about the state of mental health services in the NHS – should sound the alarm to ministers. “38 Degrees members are sending a clear message to government: we need better mental health services, and mental health services need better funding.” Ministers have agreed that more needs to be done and have committed £1bn extra a year by 2020. The government says this will help to treat a million more people annually.
Obama talks Trump, Star Wars and Kendrick Lamar in YouTube interview For his annual video chat about the State of the Union address, Barack Obama sat down on Friday with three YouTube vloggers. The breezy, hour-long conversation covered topics including his new gun control measures, perceived police brutality and the rise of Donald Trump. He was also asked who would win a rap battle between Drake and Kendrick Lamar. Obama spoke with sWooZie, Destin Sandlin and Ingrid Nilsen, who each have more than 3.5 million YouTube subscribers. The president said that though he had not yet seen the new Star Wars film, the 1977 original was his favourite of the series. Asked which character he related to most, Obama chose Han Solo. “He’s a little bit of a rebel,” he said. If there was a rap battle between Lamar and Drake, he said, Lamar would be the clear winner. “I think Drake is an outstanding entertainer, but Kendrick. His lyrics! His last album was outstanding, best album of last year,” he said. Obama had already declared Lamar’s How Much a Dollar Cost, from the album To Pimp A Butterfly, the best track of 2015. In the most internet-dividing question since “is this dress blue and black or white and gold?”, Obama answered the “how should a dog wear pants” question by picking the more sane, two-leg-only option. “This is a little too conservative … too much fabric,” said the leader of the free world, in reference to dog pants with four legs. Sandlin, whose YouTube channel SmarterEveryDay often focuses on science, asked what characteristics an element named after Obama, called Obamium, would have. “I would want it to be stable,” the president said. “I would want it to be a catalyst but one that didn’t get too hot or too cold. Hopefully it would be one that is useful to humanity, that we could actually use. And not just some shiny object to look at.” The conversation was not only concerned with jokes aimed at winning over the kids. sWooZie talked about being a young black man who sometimes wears a backwards cap and said he regularly found himself racially profiled by police, citing a recent time when police demanded ID after he pulled over in his car to take a phone call. The president empathised. “I’m a black man who sometimes wears his hat backwards, and there have been times when I was younger when I was stopped for reasons I wasn’t always clear about,” said Obama. However, he disagreed with sWooZie’s claim that police are just “bullies with badges … who are developing a Superman complex” and that killings of black men by police are on the rise. “It’s not that situation has gotten worse, it’s that our awareness is increased,” said the president, referring to his own Task Force on 21st Century Policing, which last May recommended independent investigations into deaths caused by police officers. Asked by sWooZie if Obama was “embarrassed for the American people”, given the popularity of the Republican presidential frontrunner, Obama tried to hose down Donald Trump’s high poll numbers. “This early in the contest, a lot of times you’ll have people who are seen as frontrunners because they are noisy and get a lot of attention,” he said. But the closer an election came, he said, “it’s a little less entertainment”. “This is a little more serious, this person is going to have the nuclear code,” Obama said. Nilsen asked Obama why women’s health products like tampons and pads were taxed in more than 40 states as a “luxury item”, noting that most women do not regard having their period as a luxury. “Michelle would agree with you on that,” Obama said. “I suspect it’s because men were making the laws when taxes were passed. I think it’s pretty sensible for women who live in those states to work towards getting those taxes removed.” Obama also revealed that he carries around a selection of lucky charms and religious trinkets. On Friday his pocket revealed rosary beads from Pope Francis, a lucky poker chip from a biker in Iowa, a little Buddha from a Buddhist monk, a statue of Hindu monkey god Hanuman and a Coptic cross from Ethiopia. “I carry them around all the time,” the president said. “I’m not superstitious, I don’t think I have to have them on me at all times. But it does remind me of all the different people that I’ve met along the way, and how much they’ve invested in me and their stories and what their hopes and dreams are. “If I feel tired or discouraged sometimes, I can reach into my pocket and I say, ‘Yeah, that’s something I can overcome because somebody gave me this privilege to work on these issues that are going to affect them. I’d better get back to work.’”
Europeans watch our referendum debate with fascination and fear View from Germany When David Cameron first promised a referendum on British membership of the EU if he were re-elected as prime minister, the idea baffled most Germans. They could not believe that the British could be contemplating leaving the EU. What future could they possibly think they might have outside Europe? Gradually, however, Germans have begun to take seriously the possibility that the UK might actually leave the EU – and they are worried. They still can’t imagine a future for Britain outside Europe, but most Germans also think that Brexit would be bad for them, too. Chancellor Angela Merkel supported Cameron in his renegotiation of the UK’s relationship with the EU while at the same time seeking to uphold the principles of freedom of movement and non-discrimination. Ahead of the crucial European council meeting in February, she told the Bundestag that keeping Britain in the EU was “not just in Britain’s but also in Germany’s interest”. What Germans fear most is that Brexit might lead to an unravelling of the European project. They worry that a British vote to leave on 23 June would strengthen the “centrifugal forces” within the EU and prompt other member states to hold referendums of their own – or least seek to use the threat of one to renegotiate their relationship with the EU, as Cameron did. Germans also worry about the message sent to the rest of the world if one of the EU’s biggest and most important members opted out even as the rest of the continent struggled to solve the euro crisis and the refugee crisis. There would be an even greater sense than now that the EU is doomed. There are some Germans who see a possible upside. In particular, they hope that, without the EU’s most difficult member state blocking them or demanding endless “opt-outs”, France and Germany would be able to move ahead with further integration. Brexit might actually force such steps immediately in order to reassure the world about the future of the European project. Brexit could also simplify the EU in some ways. Some Germans think the increasing institutional complexity of the EU contributes to its lack of legitimacy. In particular, they would like all EU states to join the single currency. Brexit would leave Denmark as the only remaining country with a permanent “opt-out” from the euro. However, most Germans think Brexit would have much more important downsides. The argument you often hear is that, if the UK left the EU, Germany would lose a liberal ally on economic policy and be stuck with countries such as France that are perceived as more protectionist. It is sometimes also said that Germany benefits from the UK’s aggressive attempts to reform the EU on liberal lines, for example Cameron’s “competitiveness” agenda. This argument that Germany and the UK are like-minded countries is a little disingenuous, because Germany is not quite as liberal as is sometimes suggested. While it is a strong supporter of trade liberalisation beyond the EU, from which its export-driven economy benefits, it is also one of the countries that has blocked internal steps, such as the completion of the single market in services. Germany is not always aligned with the UK on other economic issues either. For example, even on the right, for example, there is support for a financial transactions tax, something that is anathema to the Tories. Meanwhile, some Social Democrats see the UK as a corrosive neoliberal influence on the EU and like to think that, without it, France and Germany could together create a more “social” Europe, even though the UK has had nothing to do with the austerity Germany has imposed on the eurozone during the past six years. Perhaps the most interesting question is whether Germany would be more or less able to get what it wants were the UK to leave. At first glance, it would be more powerful simply because its relative weight – expressed, for example, in its voting weight in the European council or the number of seats in the European parliament it has – would increase. In fact, this is the reason that some officials from other EU member states say in private that this is precisely why they do not think it would be in their interests for the UK to leave. Part of the reason France softened its opposition to British membership of the EEC in the late 1960s was that it thought it might help balance West Germany’s increasing economic strength. But if Britain now left, none of the other four large member states – France, Italy, Poland and Spain – would be able to counterbalance German power. Without Britain, Germany would be Europe’s hegemon. Actually, this exaggerates the extent of German power. After all, Germany makes up only 28% of the eurozone’s total GDP – between them France (21%) and Italy (16%) make up a bigger share. This illustrates that Germany is not a hegemon at all – with or without the UK – but rather a “semi-hegemon”. In that sense, Germany has returned to the position it occupied in Europe between 1871 and 1945, except in geoeconomic rather than geopolitical form. The problem, though, is that this semi-hegemonic position leads to a perception of dominance and therefore resistance, in particular through the formation of coalitions. That has been what has happened in Europe over the past six years since the euro crisis began: southern states have opposed Germany on economic policy and eastern states have opposed it on refugee policy. In both cases, Germany has been accused of “imperialism”. Although a British withdrawal from the EU wouldn’t turn Germany into a hegemon, it could increase this perception of German dominance and with it the pressure to form coalitions to counterbalance German power. Paradoxically, therefore, Germany could actually be weaker – that is, less able to get what it wants – in an EU without the UK. Meanwhile, expectations of Germany would probably increase further. Although Germany has itself become much more Eurosceptic in the past decade, few Germans are demanding a referendum of their own. Even the Eurosceptic Alternative für Deutschland wants Germany to leave the single currency rather than the EU. Moreover, referendums are not part of the German political system and many are suspicious about such elements of direct democracy. In any case, leaving the EU is not in the end an option for Germany in the way it is for the UK. Germany is simply too central to the EU, which, after all, was created in part as a solution to the vexed “German question”. The EU could survive a British withdrawal, but not a German one. Hans Kundnani is the author of The Paradox of German Power (Hurst) View from Sweden In Sweden, you would be hard pressed to find anyone – or at least anyone in a prominent position – who would use a milder term than “disaster” when referring to a possible Brexit. You will often find statements that Brexit would have even worse consequences for our country than the UK. “For Sweden it would be devastating, for the EU worrisome and for the UK really bad,” says former finance minister Anders Borg about the threat of Brexit. “It would be worse for Sweden”, according to the headline of an editorial comment in Aftonbladet, Sweden’s biggest evening paper. “A catastrophe,” says the current finance minister, Magdalena Andersson. The feeling is widely shared across the Swedish political landscape. It is echoed by the business world – never failing to cite Brexit as one of the darker clouds over the economy – and even the trade unions. Why the strong emotion? Well, of course there’s an economic case to be made. The UK is Sweden’s fourth largest trading partner. Danske Bank calculates that after Ireland, Luxembourg and Belgium, Sweden would be the EU country hardest hit if the British economy were cut off from the European economy (with a loss of up to 0.48% of Swedish GDP). The sheer uncertainty of whether we are heading for Brexit is one of the most commonly mentioned negative factors at any presentation of the year ahead, be it for the Swedish economy or for any major Swedish company. But there is much more at play than just economic worries. The UK does not seem to be aware of it, but Sweden rather feels it has a “special relationship” with the UK. Andersson spelled it out in an opinion article in February: “The UK is simply one of our absolute closest allies in the EU,” she said. Indeed, the prime minister, Stefan Löfven (a socialist), promised to do everything in his power to help David Cameron get a good deal in his negotiations with the EU earlier this year, so that the UK would stay. That Sweden feels this strong bond with the UK has something of a mystery about it. For a start, anyone would be excused for thinking that the fellow Nordic countries must surely be mentioned as Sweden’s closest friends more often than the UK. That never happens. There is a historic rivalry here that keeps getting in the way. Still, every attempt to enumerate the many areas where Sweden and the UK are such close allies invariably comes up with a rather short list. Free trade is always mentioned as the top (staunch defenders, both of us). Then comes the EU budget (we both would like to pay less). Third, we have common interests as non-euro countries (we both fear losing out). This amounts to a surprisingly short list for your “absolute closest ally”. Especially considering that the two overriding subjects in the Swedish political debate for years have been important societal issues where we do not seem to share any common interest with the UK. These are: the labour market (Sweden will insist on strengthening workers’ rights, no matter which government is in power) and migration (Sweden will defend remaining “open” and also defend giving equal rights to newcomers). Even so, there is an obvious sincerity in the Swedish conviction that the UK is very close to Sweden. Former prime minister Fredrik Reinfeldt said he felt that Cameron was a “personal friend” and the Swedish media would often describe them as “best buddies”. Another former prime minister, Göran Persson, felt so personally close to Tony Blair that at press briefings at EU summits he would refer to him as simply Tony, as in: “Tony said to me…” Yet another exformer prime minister, Carl Bildt, described his relationship with his counterpart John Major as “outstanding”. There are also linguistic and cultural factors that go a long way to explain the feeling of closeness and understanding. Swedish people tend to speak English more or less fluently but no other foreign language. For that reason they tend to read no foreign media other than British media. This is true for your everyday Swede and, of course, every Swedish politicians and most Swedish journalists. Thus, our window on to the world, to Europe, can often be from a British perspective. This, incidentally, has contributed to shaping the Swedish view of the EU and our ideas on whether the EU is costing too much, spending money on the wrong things or is hopelessly bureaucratic. All in all, maybe it is not illogical that we should end up thinking of the UK as our closest ally. A recent poll indicates that Swedish public opinion may be losing faith in the EU with only 39% declaring their trust in the institution in March this year, as opposed to 59% last autumn. Also, no fewer than two political parties in the Swedish parliament currently demand that Sweden follow in Cameron’s footsteps and ask for a renegotiation of our EU membership deal. One should not, however, make the mistake of thinking that Sweden would be tempted to follow the UK if it were to leave the EU. ou will find that tThe two parties seeking a new EU deal for Sweden are at the very extremes of the Swedish political map – one, the former communist Left party and the other, the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats. And the disappointment in the EU recently expressed by Swedes is probably influenced by the experience of seeing no solidarity from the rest of Europe when Sweden was overwhelmed by an influx of immigrants last autumn. Including, of course, from the UK. Also, any statement from Swedish politicians or business people about the gravity of the risk that Brexit constitutes will always be followed by the explanation for the worried: “… because it would be bad for the EU, it would endanger the European co-operation”. In Swedish politics, you will find much bickering about the EU but a deep conviction remains that Europe needs the EU and a small country such as Sweden, trying to make its way in a global context, needs the EU very much. It would take a political earthquake to convince Swedish politicians that Brexit would be a reason for Sweden to also leave. Sweden really, really does not want the UK to leave the European Union. Yet this does not mean that Sweden, if Britain did decide to leave, would be prepared to offer the UK a better farewell deal than would be in the interest of Swedish business and Swedish jobs. Because for all of the love that Sweden has for the UK, there is one country that Swedes love more. And that is Sweden. Ylva Elvis Nilsson is a political journalist based in Stockholm View from Spain These days Spain is very much focused at the moment on the first time since democracy was established in 1977 that there seems to be no way of forming a Government. Spaniards celebrated Christmas last year, not knowing who would be the country’s next prime minister, following inconclusive general elections in late December. Four months later, little has changed and everyone is waiting for this period of limbo to come to an end. So we have plenty of concerns of our own here. Brexit does, however, become an issue from time to time, with regard to the concessions that the European Union agreedwith the British with David Cameron for Britain in February. The deal offered by the EU did not come across here as being fair, and seemed like new privileges being granted to the UK, with unjust consequences for many Spanish people working in Britain and others yet to come. Suddenly, or so it seemed, a Spaniard – or any other European – could become a second-class citizen in the UK. (And London is a beloved destination for young Spanish workers and students who want to improve their English while earning some money.) Nevertheless, with the UK being the second largest economy of the EU, there was not much option but to agree to Cameron’s requests. Certainly this was the feeling among Spanish officials close to those negotiations, who said that they felt forced to agree to the EU agreement, to keep London in the club of 28. “This agreement undoes much of the potential resistance [in the UK] to voting to stay in the EU,” said one of them. Others regret that everybody else in Europe had to suffer the consequences of an “internal crisis within the British Conservative party”. But most want the UK to remain, and praised the British people and culture. In fact, 67% of Spanish people questioned said they wanted Britain to stay in the EU, according to a survey published last week by Kantar TNS Demoscopia. And 43% thought that if Britain voted to leave it would have a negative financial impact on the EU (34% believed it would not matter either way.) Interestingly, the more conservative the voter, the more keen they were for the UK to vote to remain: 80% in the case of those who support the Popular party, 73% in the case of centre-right Ciudadanos supporters, 67%, for the Socialists and 61%, for the leftwing Podemos party supporters. Spain is still suffering a deep financial and social crisis, with unemployment at more than 20%. And yet there has been no growth of anti-European sentiment in the hearts of the average person here, nor in the political parties. There is no Spanish version of Ukip or the German Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). On the contrary, while the secessionist government in Catalonia, presided over by Carles Puigdemont, plans to divorce from Spain by mid 2017, his coalition colleagues have repeatedly assured voters that this would not signal any intention to abandon the EU. Sure, many people in Spain blame Brussels for the austerity imposed in the name of Angela Merkel, but it is normally Merkel herself who takes the blame. The EU still symbolises progress, stability and having a say in the international community. Then, of course, there are the practical things beloved by the Spanish people, such as the Erasmus scholarships programme, and the freedom of travel, which is now in jeopardy. What really interests Spanish people about Brexit is the form rather than the content, that is, the fact and nature of referendums. We followed with interest events unfolding in the Scottish referendum. Now, the UK is celebrating another event where the population is being asked its opinion. Asking voters their views in a direct vote is a source of great debate here. It is the very reason that we have long debated the exact meaning of the “right to self-determination” held by the Basque country and Catalonia: established in the constitution. The problem is that the parties do not agree what that right actually means. The government of Mariano Rajoy repeatedly denied Catalonia the right to hold a referendum, while the anti-Madrid sentiment there kept on growing. It ended with the celebration of a popular consultation promoted by the secessionist government. What’s more, the referendum formula is something that often appears in the negotiations, led these days by the socialist opposition leader, Pedro Sánchez of the PSOE. The party’s ambiguity on this issue contributes to the present horse trading involved in forming a new government. Both new parties at the table – Ciudadanos, the centre-right party of Catalonian Albert Rivera, and Podemos, the leftwing party of Pablo Iglesias, Podemos – take opposition views regarding a Catalonian referendum. Iglesias’s negotiation team keeps trying to include a legal popular consultation as part of a deal with PSOE, which has already signed an agreement with Ciudadanos, a coalition that does not serve anything if another big party does not join them. Britain’s EU referendum is a couple of days before the deadline by which our next general elections need to take place, if there is no deal on a new government within the next week. The referendum in Catalonia would certainly be an issue during the campaign, where some might cite the British example in self-determination issues. But the emergence of any party promoting Spain to abandon the EU is unthinkable. Maria Torrens Tillack writes for El Espanol
Eleanor Friedberger review – emotionally direct and very human Whether singing alongside her brother in the Fiery Furnaces or as frontwoman of her own band, Eleanor Friedberger has always cut a singular figure, askew to her surroundings. The same is true at the Moth Club: festooned with lametta, the ceiling a sky of gold glitter, the room is more suited to gaudy cabaret turns than this heavy-fringed woman dressed in khaki and denim. There’s an earthy timbre to her voice, too, making her sound like a sepia reminiscence of 1960s Greenwich Village, albeit with 21st-century concerns: Scenes from Bensonhurst, she tells us, is about “being paranoid before Instagram”, while Does Turquoise Work? covers “being paranoid after Instagram”. She doesn’t say much between songs, but she doesn’t need to: the lyrics have a conversational tone, albeit more suggestive of the talking one does to oneself. And because it’s just her on stage with an acoustic guitar and some pedals for the odd wail of psychedelia, that intimacy is even more pronounced. Standing close to the stage feels like sitting in her bedroom, flicking through photo albums; each song assembles shards of memory that are vivid in quotidian detail – the colour of someone’s hair, the cut of someone else’s trousers – yet leave space for the imagination. “I couldn’t get her out of my head,” she sings on When I Knew, “so we ended up mmm mmmm.” There’s a line in Because I Asked You, from her latest album, New View, in which she mentions stage fright, and it’s clear she feels exposed up there – the more so when her fingers tangle over chords. Her last song, Sweetest Girl, clatters to a halt in the middle, and her natural disappointment unexpectedly crystallises what makes Friedberger so appealing: emotionally direct, she comes across very human, and as singular as we all are. At the Harley, Sheffield, 5 February. Box office: 0114-275 2288. Then touring.
Mark Schwarzer: Leicester City's non-playing Premier League lucky charm Leicester City’s title victory has lent some weight to the theory that veteran Australian goalkeeper Mark Schwarzer is a Premier League lucky charm. While the former Socceroos goalkeeper did not play a single league match for the Foxes this season, he became the first player to be involved in back-to-back title victories with separate clubs in the Premier League era. He is also the oldest player, at 43, to be in a Premier League title-winning squad. Schwarzer, who was with Chelsea last season before moving to Leicester in January 2015, does not meet the official criteria to qualify for a winner’s medal, which stipulate a player must have made at least five appearances to receive one. The veteran did not play a league match during Chelsea’s title run last year either, yet he still pocketed a medal after then-Blues manager Jose Mourinho decided to buy him a replica in recognition of his efforts from the bench. Schwarzer played numerous cup matches for both sides in the two-year period and is highly regarded as a mentor for younger goalkeepers. There has been no indication yet from the victorious Leicester camp as to whether Claudio Ranieri will follow suit this year and make Schwarzer the first player since Eric Cantona (Leeds United-Manchester United in 1992 and 1993) to win back-to-back top flight titles with different clubs. The keeper, who was understudy to Kasper Schmeichel this season, played a role in keeping Leicester in the top flight when he arrived, playing six matches in their run to fight off relegation. Schwarzer, who retired from national duties in 2013, helped the Socceroos end their World Cup finals drought in 2005 when he saved two penalties in a play-off shootout against Uruguay. His European club career included stints at Bradford, Middlesbrough and Fulham, before proving the lucky charm for Chelsea and Leicester. He featured for the Foxes just three times this season, against Bury, West Ham and Hull City in the Capital One Cup.
Not so far, far away … first image revealed of Star Wars land The Walt Disney Company has released a first image of the Star Wars-themed land that will be built at Disneyland in California and at the Walt Disney World resorts. The 14-acre attraction is largest single-themed expansion in the theme park’s 60-year history, and work on its construction began in April. An opening date is yet to be announced. The press release posted to Disney Parks Blog says: Nestled between towering spires of rock, this thriving port contains a seemingly familiar architecture of markets, landing zones and buildings. Look closely and you may find hints of some of the thrilling experiences that are coming – like the Millennium Falcon peeking out of one of the cargo bays, marking the location where guests will get the opportunity to pilot the fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy. Speaking last August, Disney CEO Bob Iger promised: “These new lands at Disneyland and Walt Disney World will transport guests to a whole new Star Wars planet.”
Jon Snow condemns 'abusive' and 'boring' EU referendum campaign The Channel 4 News presenter Jon Snow has said he cannot remember a “worse-tempered or more abusive, more boring UK campaign” than that for the EU referendum. The veteran presenter, who has fronted the channel’s news programme since 1989, said the media’s coverage was “no way to run a chip shop, let alone an interesting and informative campaign for a vote upon which all our futures hang”. Writing in the Radio Times, he compared the campaign unfavourably to the “coherent and comprehensible” precedent set by the 2014 referendum on Scottish independence, saying it has been dominated by abuse and “intemperate challenging of facts by both sides”. A report from Loughborough University this month found debate on the referendum had been dominated by Tory men and highlighted the narrowness of coverage, which it said had focused on the conduct of the campaign and personal rivalries at the heart of the government. Snow criticised the complexity of the question posed to the electorate, which asks whether the UK should remain or leave the EU, rather than a simple yes or no. He also criticised the “use of name-calling and politicians on both sides conjuring the views of dead leaders – who, from the grave, are in no position to dispute the claims made in their names”. He said audience debates such as those on Channel 4 had provided some redemption, but “with so few weeks to go before the vote, I believe that the negativity, the bickering, the foul-mouthing, and particularly the wholesale abuse of facts by both sides have seen off most of our attempts to make the vote interesting”.
Last Tango’s abuse reveals the broken promise of the 1970s sexual revolution The panic and terror on Maria Schneider’s face in the infamous “get the butter” scene in Last Tango in Paris, in which she is depicted being anally raped by Marlon Brando, is absolutely real, even if the rape is not. Those big cinematic heaves are not acting. “I was crying real tears,” Schneider once said. She was being humiliated in real life and on screen and she knew it. For years, she made public what happened during the making of that 1972 movie. Brando and the film’s director, Bernardo Bertolucci, conspired to shoot the scene without telling her what was going to happen. It wasn’t in the script. In 2013, in a video interview, Bertolucci said he felt guilty for not telling her about the butter, then appeared to casually shrug off this abuse by saying he did not regret his decision to shoot the scene. Last month, a Spanish organisation uploaded this edited clip of Bertolucci to draw attention to gendered violence. As a result, the clip is suddenly causing outrage, with many on social media, including big Hollywood names such as Jessica Chastain, Anna Kendrick and Chris Evans, condemning this rape scene, directed without one of the actors’ consent. Schneider died of cancer in 2011, and in an interview years after making the film, she said she, “should have called my agent or had my lawyer come to the set because you can’t force someone to do something that isn’t in the script, but at the time, I didn’t know that”. She was only 19. Brando who was 48 must have known this was deeply unethical. Bertolucci must also have known this - but they simply lived in a world where men like them could, in the name of “art”, hurt and terrorise women. Bertolucci said in the interview he had no regrets apparently. Last Tango in Paris is a movie about male trauma, but it was Schneider who was left traumatised by it. In the years after the filming, she had a breakdown, made attempts at suicide and fell into drug addiction. She refused ever to do nude scenes again and couldn’t deal with the aftermath of the way she was treated and defined by that film. In her 40s she campaigned for better roles in the industry for women. Bertolucci remains revered. “I think you have to be completely free,” he has said in interviews. “I didn’t want Maria to act her humiliation, her rage. I wanted Maria to feel, not to act, the rage and the humiliation. Then she hated me for life.” Consent is the key word in this story. Schneider was not raped, as some have been saying. But she was frightened and powerless to stop what happened on the set. Her statements show the confusion. She felt “a bit raped”. No one consoled her or apologised. And she couldn’t live with the consequences. Last Tango was hailed as revolutionary. The great New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael said the film “altered the face of an art form” and described it as the most “powerfully erotic movie ever made”. It was based on a sexual fantasy of Bertolucci’s, with Brando’s character acting out the trauma of his wife’s suicide through emotionally and physically dominating a much younger woman. In the film, women are the props for male catharsis. Many critics also saw the film as liberating. But liberating for whom? With its brilliant Francis Bacon credits, Parisian backdrop and Gato Barbieri soundtrack, the film was peak 1970s avant garde. Aspirational almost. At the time, Schneider was held up as a boho role model: bisexual and beautiful, with her flowers, hats and furs. She represented freedom. Like so many women in the 1970s however, she was actually a victim of a sexual revolution played out largely for male pleasure. Young women were expected to desire free-wheeling sex: anonymous and dangerous in Last Tango; rewritten more kindly and from a female perspective by Erica Jong in her novel, Fear of Flying, in which she called this “the zipless fuck”. The reality of the sexual revolution, as we now know, was often an abuse of power that left women reeling, not quite sure what happened or who was to blame. Confusion and humiliation was far too often the price you paid to be sexually liberated. In the context of the well documented abuse of young women by great directors from Alfred Hitchcock to Stanley Kubrick, we can see why Schneider’s plight was simply ignored, even though it devastated her. When she spoke about it, nothing happened. Brando and Bertolucci are still considered untouchable artists. But it can never be forgotten. Bertolucci now calls this “a ridiculous misunderstanding”. But he sought to film the actual – not acted – pain of a 19-year-old woman. He did that. It was called art. It still is. He got away with it. This is truly disgusting. In his world, men act, women merely feel. “I wanted her reaction as a girl, not an actress,” said Bertolucci. In the 1970s, consent was not a word or a concept I was aware of. But I fully understood violation when I saw it. That violation was planned, then celebrated. It may be late in the day to talk about this, but at least we are now. If only we could have done so when Schneider was still alive; if only we could have let her know we could hear her voice beneath her sobbing.
Wake up, sheeple! Don’t trust the #RemainstreamMedia Name: The #RemainstreamMedia. Appearance: Lizards in human-suits. What are you on about? A cabal of London-based journalists desperately trying to warp the public view of Brexit. Is this like the neoliberal media conspiracy? No. They are rightwingers trying to divide the Labour party and make it look as if Bernie Sanders can’t still win. Ah. The #RemainstreamMedia, by contrast, are whinging lefties. The Leave campaigner Louise Mensch coined the term to decry the outrageous bias she sees against Brexit in the media, and now against its noble queen, Andrea Leadsom. But what if Brexit is a bad idea? Given the political instability, national humiliation, surge in racist attacks and damage to the public finances, isn’t that at least a possibility? You see? There you go. More media lies. The FTSE 100 has done fine since 23 June. That’s because it is mainly big international companies that make money abroad, and when sterling falls that income is worth more in the UK. Shares in the more domestic companies, the FTSE 250, are down the pan. Classic #RemainstreamMedia. Whatever. This all sounds very familiar … Perhaps you’re thinking of the Lamestream Media, a term made popular by Sarah Palin to describe reporters who suggested that she and the Tea Party were, you know … I remember. So who are Mensch’s enemies? The BBC, for taking too long to notice fraud on that big petition. Channel 4, for airing a scathing interview with “a former colleague” of Leadsom’s at Invesco. Mensch thought the man should be “one disgruntled coworker” instead. Did she explain her objection to his comments? No, she didn’t go into that. But others on Twitter have borrowed the term to point to other examples, such as interviews with Leave voters giving dumb reasons for their choice. How can the media be secretly controlled by a rightwing conspiracy and a leftwing conspiracy at the same time? Simple. One of them is nonsense. Or maybe both? Doesn’t vaguely balanced reporting always look like a conspiracy to extremists? Typical. From now on I’ll only take information from people who agree with me, so I know it’s true. Do say: “This is just the kind of pathetic attack that I’d expect from the Blairite scum/special snowflakes at the .” Don’t say: “Wake up, sheeple! Agent Mensch is a classic false flag operation to make Brexit supporters look like deranged obsessives.”
Trump 'cornerstone is bigotry': Sanders and Warren take on Clinton's Ohio fight Senator Elizabeth Warren on Saturday said Donald Trump was “a man with a dark and ugly soul” on Saturday, unleashing some of her most stinging criticisms of the Republican nominee in a state where Hillary Clinton has recently struggled. Speaking in Columbus, Ohio, Warren said Trump “has more support from [the] Aryan nation and the [Ku Klux Klan] than he does from leaders of his own party”. Her criticisms echoed a speech delivered by Clinton’s primary rival, Senator Bernie Sanders, earlier in the day. Speaking at Kent State, Sanders said: “The cornerstone of Donald Trump’s campaign is bigotry.” The Clinton campaign dispatched two of its most popular progressive surrogates after a rocky week of polls showed Trump gaining on Clinton in Ohio, a critical swing state, and among voters nationally. Sanders and Warren were slated to make some half-a-dozen stops over the weekend. The senators stumped for Clinton as new polls showed that roughly a third of voters under the age of 35 plan to vote for someone other than Trump or Clinton. Only about 30% of such voters support Clinton, or half the number of young and millennial voters who supported Barack Obama in 2012. On Saturday, both senators touted the benefits of Clinton’s platform for young people before audiences of mostly college students. Sanders spoke about Clinton’s support for pay equity and raising the minimum wage, and about the large sums of money conservative donors such as the Koch brothers have fed into the election. Both senators reserved large portions of their speeches for excoriating Trump over his racist statements and insinuations of violence and the bigoted tone of his campaign. The events of this past few days supplied them with plenty of new material. This week, Trump’s long-time and false assertion that President Obama was not born in the US was thrown back into the spotlight after top aides said Trump had come to “believe” Obama was born in Hawaii. Trump, when questioned by the Washington Post, refused to say as much. “I’ll answer that question at the right time,” he said. “I just don’t want to answer it yet.” The Republican nominee finally acknowledged that Obama was born in the US at the tail end of an event on Friday. He also falsely stated that the “birther” movement began with Clinton’s campaign in 2008. Warren’s remark that Trump enjoys more support from white supremacists than GOP leaders echoed Clinton’s recent statement that “half” of Trump supporters are “deplorable”. “To just be grossly generalistic, you can put half of Trump supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables,” Clinton said. “Right? Racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic. You name it.” Trump and his team have sought to turn those remarks against Clinton. But Trump’s running mate, Mike Pence, raised eyebrows when he refused to say whether he considered David Duke, a former leader of the Ku Klux Klan and a vocal supporter of Trump, “deplorable”. “I’m not in the name-calling business.” Pence said, “We don’t want his support and we don’t want the support of the people who think like him.” In a response, Duke said he was gratified that Pence had stopped short of a full-on attack. Critics called Pence’s answer the kind of dog-whistling that has made the Trump campaign tick. “Donald Trump launched one racist attack after another against President Obama,” Warren said on Saturday, to boos. “Only when his handlers tied him down and forced him did he grudgingly admit” that Obama was born in the US, she said. “Let me very clear about what the birther movement was,” Sanders told his crowd. “What they were trying to do – led by Donald Trump – is to delegitimize the presidency of the first African American president we’ve ever had. That is what that effort was. What an outrageous, racist attack against the president of the United States.” Now, Sanders continued, Trump “has told us we’re suposed to hate Muslims. He’s told us we’re supposed to hate Mexicans”. Sanders closed with an overture to young voters who didn’t like either candidate and planned to sit the election out, saying the election was too important for them not to participate. “I know, and you know, this nation has struggled too far and too long to overcome bigotry and discrimination,” he said. “We are not going back.”
Sky 'fastest broadband' ad banned after complaint from BT Sky has had its claim that it offers the fastest broadband speeds in the UK shot down after BT lodged a complaint with the advertising watchdog. The media group ran a press ad claiming it offered the fastest broadband speeds in peak time, citing Ofcom research comparing it with rivals BT, Plusnet and EE on a 38Mb connection. BT challenged the claim, arguing it was misleading because the research by Ofcom was only on fixed-line performance, and did not include internet usage over Wi-Fi, which is very common. Sky replied that the ad was not misleading as it included a caveat that the claim was based purely on Ofcom’s report comparing fixed-line broadband, so wider performance claims, such as those for Wi-Fi, were not necessary. The ASA said, while the claim was accurate in relation to the parameters of the report, many people used Wi-Fi in their homes. “Consumers were likely to interpret ‘fastest peak-time speeds’ to mean the speeds they would receive in the home environment, including when they were using their devices wirelessly,” said the ASA. The ad made a reference to Sky’s Wi-Fi-enabled set-top box, which the ASA said enhanced the impression the claim also referred to wireless internet speed, and the caveat that it was based only fixed-line performance was only included in a footnote. “Because the ad did not make clear that the ‘fastest peak time speeds’ claim related to fixed-line broadband performance only, and therefore did not include Wi-Fi performance, we concluded that the claim was misleading,” said the ASA. “The ad must not appear again in its current form. We told Sky UK to ensure that in future they made clear that speed claims related to fixed-line performance only, if that was the case.”
Donald Trump: I will release 'very, very specific' health report soon Donald Trump will release “very, very specific” results of a physical examination soon, the Republican presidential candidate said on Monday, a day after the Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton, was revealed to have pneumonia. “This last week I took a physical and I’ll be releasing when the numbers come in,” Trump said in an interview with Fox News. Trump has so far released only a short letter from his personal physician, which the doctor in question subsequently said had been rushed. Clinton last year released a longer doctor’s note, written by the same physician who on Sunday released a statement saying that the nominee had been diagnosed with pneumonia on Friday. “I hope she gets well soon,” Trump said. “I really don’t know what’s going on. Like you, I say what I see. [Clinton’s] coughing fit was a week ago” – at a Labor Day rally in Cleveland – “so that was pneumonia also, I think it would have been, so something’s going on. I hope she gets well and gets back on the trail and we’ll be seeing her at the debate.” Asked if he thought the Democratic National Committee was preparing a replacement for Clinton, and whether he was ready to contest an election against Clinton running mate Tim Kaine, Trump said: “No, I don’t think they’ll replace her. We have to see what’s wrong, we have to see what’s wrong. But whatever it is, I’m ready. “I think it’s an issue. In fact, this last week I took a physical and I’ll be releasing when the numbers come in. Hopefully they’re going to be good, I think they’re going to be good, I feel great, but when the numbers come in I’ll be releasing very, very specific numbers. “I’ve already done it but the report should be finished this week.” Trump chose to focus his political fire on Clinton’s remark at a Friday fundraiser in New York that “to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables”. Trump said he had initially thought “it was not within the realm of possibility that she said it” and called the remark “the biggest mistake of the political season”. “It was said with such anger,” he added. Clinton issued a statement over the remark on Saturday, in which she repeated that she had been being “grossly generalistic” but said she had been wrong to say a “half”. On Sunday, Clinton left 9/11 commemorations in New York after an hour and a half, and was later seen in video shot by a bystander stumbling as she was supported into a car. Amid press confusion and reports of a “medical episode”, she went to her daughter’s Manhattan apartment to rest. Her campaign initially said she had been “feeling overheated”; Clinton emerged from the apartment to say she was “feeling great”. “Secretary Clinton has been experiencing a cough related to allergies,” Dr Lisa R Bardack said in a subsequent statement, having examined Clinton at her home in Chappaqua. “On Friday, during follow-up evaluation of her prolonged cough, she was diagnosed with pneumonia. She was put on antibiotics, and advised to rest and modify her schedule. “While at this morning’s event, she became overheated and dehydrated. I have just examined her and she is now rehydrated and recovering nicely.” Clinton was ordered to rest and subsequently canceled a Monday trip to a fundraiser in California, although the campaign said she planned to appear by video instead. Trump is due to appear on the Dr Oz television show this week, to discuss the health of both presidential candidates. The candidate himself and his campaign surrogates have cast doubt on Clinton’s health and fitness for the Oval Office, based on a 2012 incident in which Clinton fell, a mishap attributed to a stomach virus, and suffered a concussion and a blood clot in the brain. Later testing showed the clot to have cleared completely. The release of health records – like the release of tax returns, which Trump has not done – is traditional rather than mandatory. In 2008, Barack Obama, then 47, released a 276-word report about his health. His opponent, John McCain, then 71, made available more than 1,000 pages related to his own medical history. A spokesman for Gary Johnson, the Libertarian nominee, said in a statement to the on Sunday: “Given Governor Johnson’s level of fitness and exercise, his medical records haven’t been much of an issue. We will discuss with him how and what information to release.”
In New York debate lead-up, Hofstra University students argue Clinton v Trump “Right now I’m thinking that I will be voting for Donald Trump,” said Kyle Hover. “The idea of the Democratic party is more what I don’t really fit along with. Yeah, we do need social programs to help the people that need help, but they’re just running rampant in this country right now.” Hover is not a rabid Trump supporter at a rally. He is an 18-year-old computer science major at Hofstra University, in New York – where the much-anticipated first presidential debate will be taking place on Monday night. You might not expect to find many Trump supporters at an allegedly liberal college, but the Republican nominee’s reach is extensive, despite his litany of offensive comments towards women, ethnic minorities and his various political opponents. “Those are part of the things I don’t agree with,” Hover said, when asked if he too, feels that Mexico is sending rapists to the US, and if he agrees with Trump’s treatment of women. “I do feel that gender equality and racial equality are more towards the top of what I like to see brought out in a presidential campaign,” Hover said. The 18-year-old did not find too many issues with Trump’s other remarks on the trail. A recent poll showed Hillary Clinton leading Donald Trump by 56-20% among those under 35. This year millennials (broadly speaking, people born between 1981 and 1997) overtook the baby boomers (those born between 1946 and 1964) as the largest generation in the US. Shanon Thomas, a 19-year-old women’s studies and criminology major, is among those planning to vote for Clinton. Thomas said she wanted to hear the former New York senator address inequality during the debate. “She will do a good job in bringing equality to this country,” Thomas said. “That’s the only way we can get ourselves back to being great – as opposed to what other candidates think make America great.” She was referencing the baseball hats that Trump has been wearing and selling as part of his campaign. Trump’s other business ventures have included a board game, vodka and meat. An 18-year-old political science major called Doreen, who asked that her last name not be published, said the candidates should focus on racial issues. “I think definitely things regarding police brutality and the Black Lives Matter movement, that definitely is something that needs to be talked about,” she said. Doreen, who is African American, referenced the recent shooting of Terence Crutcher, an unarmed black man, by a police officer in Tulsa, Oklahoma. “I feel scared,” she said. “Watching the video of what happened in Tulsa it’s kind of like that could have been anybody. “That could’ve been my dad, that could have been anyone in the world that I know.”
Twitter locks millions of accounts after passwords posted for sale Twitter has been forced to lock millions of users’ accounts after 33m purported account details were posted for sale on the dark web. The details, which were revealed and made available by security site LeakedSource on Wednesday, are thought to be gleaned from other sources, rather than a direct attack on the social network. Michael Coates, Twitter’s trust and information security officer, said: “We’ve investigated claims of Twitter @names and passwords available on the dark web, and we’re confident the information was not obtained from a hack of Twitter’s servers.” Both LeakedSource and Twitter suggest that the database of records could have been created by combining information from other breaches or from password-stealing malware on user machines. Coates said: “In each of the recent password disclosures, we cross-checked the data with our records. As a result, a number of Twitter accounts were identified for extra protection. Accounts with direct password exposure were locked and require a password reset by the account owner.” Twitter declined to state precisely how many accounts were affected, but the number is thought to be in the millions. The social network has already notified affected users via email. Those who did not receive the email who attempt to log into the social network will find their accounts locked. The action follows a string of high-profile Twitter account hacks, including Facebook’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, Katy Perry – Twitter’s most followed account – and the official NFL account. The recent breaches have been blamed on the reuse of usernames and passwords across sites. Zuckerberg’s Twitter and Pinterest accounts were reportedly compromised using login details gleaned from a hack of LinkedIn in 2012. Twitter advises the use of unique passwords as well as the activation of two-step verification, which requires verification of login attempts using SMS, Twitter app notifications or similar technology, to help protect their accounts. Twitter warns users they may have been hacked by ‘state-sponsored actors’
Could Jill Stein's vote recount change the outcome of the election? In two days, Jill Stein raised more than enough money, more than $5m, to file for recounts in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, though her campaign is still seeking about $2m more to cover the associated legal fees. Results in these battleground states were narrow, with Trump winning by just 0.3% in Michigan, 1.2% in Pennsylvania, and 0.7% in Wisconsin. If Clinton had won all of these states’ 46 electoral college votes, it have would been enough for her to win the presidency. But the recount process is intensive, expensive and unlikely to change the outcome of the election unless widespread voter fraud is proven. Experts have been skeptical that is the case. In Wisconsin – where her team was due to file a recount motion by Friday afternoon – election officials would have to examine millions of paper ballots and the paper trails of the 5% of votes cast on electronic touch-screen machines. Wisconsin election commission director Michael Haas told local news that the commission was preparing for a recount, though it had not seen evidence of interference in the state’s voting system. “We don’t have any reason to suspect that any voting equipment has been tampered with,” Haas said. Unofficial results showed Trump won Wisconsin by more than 27,000 votes. The state has never conducted a presidential recount, but Stein’s campaign said it would file a motion for a recount on Friday before the deadline to do so in the state. In Pennsylvania, there is no paper trail – a problem election observers anticipated ahead of the 8 November race. “The nightmare scenario would be if Pennsylvania decides the election and it is very close. You would have no paper records to do a recount,” Lawrence Norden, the co-author of a report on voting machines, told the Los Angeles Times in late October. But because machines there are not connected to the internet, like those in Michigan, officials said they couldn’t be hacked. Across the whole of the US, about three-quarters of voters mark paper ballots that are counted electronically by an optical scanner, according to the nonpartisan group Verified Voting, which examines how new technology affects voting integrity. But some states, including Pennsylvania, rely almost entirely on touchscreen computer voting that does not produce a paper trail. The punch card ballots that resulted in the disputed hanging chads during the Florida recount in 2000 are no longer used. Trump was declared the winner in Michigan on Thursday by 10,704 votes, and the election director there insists there was no evidence of hacking. “It’s just conjecture, and I don’t think that serves anyone’s good purpose,” said Chris Thomas, the longtime director of Michigan’s Bureau of Elections.
Councils must play a more pivotal role in health and care integration The number of people in the UK with complex needs who require both health and social care is increasing rapidly. In the south-east of England, for example, our population of over 75-year-olds (already the largest in England) is expected to nearly double to 1.5m in the next 20 years. Health and social care provision looks increasingly unsustainable financially and local government fears the sustainability and transformation plan (STP) process won’t solve the problem. The present system, with health services delivered by the NHS and social care by local authorities each working separately and meeting different pressures, can lead to inefficiency, delays, duplication and gaps in care. Real integration of health and care services holds the promise of providing seamless care, tailored to the individual’s needs and focused on outcomes rather than the workforce, organisational structures or the setting in which care is delivered. It allows patients to choose and control what care they receive, where and by whom it is provided by and places more emphasis on prevention. Integration has the potential to realise cost savings and dramatically improve the quality of care. The challenge is bringing together all tiers of local government and the NHS. These organisations have fundamentally different structures, cultures and funding arrangements, and these create significant barriers to working together in a seamless and successful way. Partners will need to break down cultural barriers and silos to focus on their strengths to deliver the best outcomes for individuals. STPs could offer a way forward but they are NHS dominated, so remain largely focused on “cure”. Local authorities feel opportunities are being missed for a more equal partnership that also draws on councils’ skills in delivering efficient, locally-tailored services that meet people’s needs and focus on prevention. South East England Councils (SEEC) members have identified eight solutions to common problems that will help us move towards successful integration: A common definition of integration must be established. This will need to be agreed by councils and the NHS but it must place paramount importance on the needs and preferences of the individual and provide clearly measurable goals and lines of accountability. Government programmes, incentives and guidance from different departments will need to be reviewed and aligned to ensure they all steer organisations towards achieving the nationally agreed definition and goals. Co-chairing of STPs and other initiatives by NHS and local authority partners is essential to ensure buy-in of all parties and to start to break down barriers. Health and care services must be available outside hospitals. Local authorities should have a greater role to play in delivering place-based services. For example, by providing community health alongside public health. Re-designing of jobs and qualifications is needed to focus staff on delivering seamless care and to bridge organisational differences. For example, new roles such as physician assistants could bridge the gap between nurse and doctor and also help respond to an expected shortage of GPs. Quality housing is essential for people with care needs. Local plans need to reflect demand for specialist housing. Such housing should also be exempt from the government’s benefit cap and proposed reduction in social rents. This would give housing associations the security to invest in homes for people with disabilities or care needs. A clear and consistent approach is required for sharing and comparing data between organisations and to measuring savings from preventative initiatives. Light touch guidance is needed to ensure delivery partnerships develop in a sustainable, accountable way. This will help resolve debates about whether governance or delivery should be the early priority. Some think good practice should come first – others think governance is required to ensure accountability and a route to resolving problems. In addition to these issues, the government will also need to recognise there are limits to the amount of cost-cutting and streamlining that can take place – the growing demand for services cannot be met from current budgets indefinitely. As we move down the path to health and social care integration, councils must play a more pivotal role. Their local knowledge and democratic accountability make them the best agency to deliver care that – as it focuses more on individual needs – will become increasing place-based. A greater focus on prevention will also highlight the significant role that adult social care, housing, public health, youth outreach and other council services play in preventing ill-health and reducing the need for hospital care – proving the case for increased funding in these areas. We need to break down the barriers to closer co-operation with the NHS and use local government’s proven experience of transforming services in the face of shrinking budgets, to create a new system of person-centred health and care services that are sustainable and fit for the future. Cllr Roy Perry is deputy chairman of South East England Councils and leader of Hampshire county council The and KPMG are holding a fringe debate on integration at the Local Government Association conference in Bournemouth this week Join the Social Care Network to read more pieces like this. Follow us on Twitter (@GdnSocialCare) and like us on Facebook to keep up with the latest social care news and views.
So Rose could have saved Jack in Titanic – so what, it still passes the fridge test Protests that fly in the face of popular opinion cannot help but benefit from celebrity endorsement. And this week, one particular group of aggrieved voices attracted much-needed validation from Kate Winslet, who is currently in the US to drum up support for her best supporting actress Oscar nomination for the film Steve Jobs. Admittedly, the group she got behind has been protesting in online chat rooms rather than in their local high streets or outside town halls. But don’t let that fool you into thinking that the issue in question is not of vital importance. The contentious subject concerns the ending of James Cameron’s 1998 movie Titanic, in which Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio) sinks to an icy death in the ocean while his sweetheart Rose (Winslet) clings to a door bobbing on the waves. Some fans have long claimed that there was room on that wooden raft for two. The charge is that Rose effectively sent him to his death – and turned him into a Jacksicle. With five simple words, Winslet has now confirmed those fears. “He could have actually fitted,” she told the talkshow host Jimmy Kimmel. The prosecution rests. This is not the first time this has come up. Cameron was quizzed on the matter in 2012 by this newspaper. His response was withering: “Wait a minute, I’m going to call up William Shakespeare and ask why Romeo and Juliet had to die,” he snapped. My sympathies in this matter lie exclusively with Cameron. Like him or not, he is a creative force, while fans tend to be destructive in their pedantry. He is an artist; they are nit-pickers. I’m no admirer of Titanic. The film’s use of a real-life tragedy as an eye-catching backdrop is exploitative at best. So the idea that Rose might have caused the death of a loved one simply to leave a little more elbow room in the hours before she is rescued makes this anodyne movie mildly interesting at last. But it’s unlikely to be the case. Jack had to die because the picture was constructed as a tear-jerker. Every fictional story needs its own internal logic on which real world plausibility cannot trespass. Objections will inevitably arise that could unravel this fictional fabric, and it is the filmmakers’ responsibility to keep those at bay for as long as possible. Mightier talents than Cameron have seen off challenges to their supremacy. The accusation is still sometimes heard that Orson Welles slipped up by making the whole of Citizen Kane pivot on the dying word (“Rosebud”) of an old man, without putting anyone in the same room to overhear him say it. Not so. Watch the whole movie and you’ll realise that the butler did it – or rather, heard it. Alfred Hitchcock had a term for niggling problems that are left unresolved in a movie: he called them “icebox” questions. Opaqueness is fine (Vertigo is suffused with it) but if you skimp explicitly on vital information, the audience will be unforgiving. Asked why the psychiatrist unpicks every inch of the plot at the end of Psycho, Hitchcock said that not doing so would have upset “the icebox trade”. That is, “the people who get home after seeing a movie, go to the icebox, and take out the cold chicken. While they’re chewing on it, they discuss the picture. In the morning, the wife meets the neighbour next door. She says to her, ‘How was the picture?’, and the wife says, ‘It was all right but we discovered a number of flaws in it.’ Bang goes your word of mouth!” The director Jonathan Demme modified both the term and its meaning. Working with the screenwriter Ted Tally on The Silence of the Lambs, he advised him not to worry unduly over “refrigerator questions”. Demme explained: “You know. You’ve just come home from a movie, you had a great time, you go to the refrigerator to get a beer, you open the door, and you say, ‘Wait a minute …’” If a film has got the audience until they open the fridge, maintains Demme, then that’s all that matters. Given that it has taken almost 20 years for the clamour about the Titanic question to rise above the negligible, it’s fair to say that the movie easily passes the refrigerator test. An entire generation has been sired since it was first released. Political regimes have fallen and risen. I think Cameron can rest easy over his reputation as a storyteller.
Middlesbrough on the ascent as Gastón Ramírez helps them sink Hull Gastón Ramírez harbours unhappy memories of Hull and will doubtless have enjoyed taking his frustrations out on Mike Phelan’s spirited but under-powered team. Dispatched to Humberside on loan by Southampton two years ago, the Uruguayan struggled with injuries and poor form, and it took a transfer to Teesside to help restore him to former glories. And Ramírez, once again emphasising his importance to Aitor Karanka’s gameplan, headed in a winner to lift Middlesbrough four points clear of the relegation zone and towards mid-table security. It left an unambitious Hull, who restricted a dominant Boro to few clear-cut chances but created next to none of their own, second from bottom and heading into a bitter night with their future as unclear as the fog-shrouded roads leading south to Humberside. “We controlled the game,” said Karanka, for whom it was only a third victory of the season. “It was a really good win, beating Hull was massive. They’re really well organised but we showed we were better than them.” Phelan did not entirely disagree. “We were under severe pressure but I thought we defended well,” the Hull manager said. “With better decision-making we could possibly have got a point.” As the mist began rolling in from the Tees, a cagey opening filled with backwards and sideways passes was briefly enlivened when Álvaro Negredo met Marten de Roon’s lay-off. Twelve yards out, the striker was slackly marked but, perhaps unwisely, he elected to shoot with the outside of his left foot when he seemed to have time to shift it on to the right. Unsurprisingly, the shot arced high over the bar. David Marshall, Hull’s keeper, has one of Víctor Valdés’s old Barcelona jerseys hidden away in his garage. It is a souvenir from the night in 2004 the then youthful Celtic keeper was part of the team who won a Uefa Cup match against Barça, and he seemed minded to perform a few more heroics here. Having reacted well to save Ramírez’s low 25-yard shot and then divert a similar effort from Adam Forshaw, he initially proved adept at it. Boro’s improvement in recent weeks has been largely attributable to Karanka’s installation of his other Barcelona old boy, Adama Traoré, wide on the right, and the winger’s demotion to the bench raised eyebrows. His place was taken by Viktor Fischer, who thought he had scored after turning the ball home following Ramírez’s cross and Negredo’s headed flick only to see the effort rightly disallowed for a combination of offside and handball. No matter; Karanka’s players were very much in control. They appeared almost affronted when Hull finally escaped their half and looked unprepared for Adama Diomandé’s acceleration on to Markus Henriksen’s pass. Then, just as Diomandé, shaped to shoot, Ben Gibson slid in to retrieve the situation with a perfectly timed, brilliantly executed tackle. “Ben Gibson, he’s one of our own,” chorused the Teesside crowd as Steve Gibson, the club’s owner and the centre-half’s uncle, looked on approvingly. Behind the smiles, Gibson Sr might have been a little concerned by Boro’s failure to translate superiority into goals, the moment when Fischer’s inviting delivery struck a startled Negredo on the side of the head seeming symbolic of their attacking travails. Significantly, that was a rare cross from a home player and maybe a few more would not have gone amiss. Possibly this dearth of centres was down to Ramírez being used as much more of a playmaking No10 than a winger. It also had something to do with Fischer’s struggles to get beyond Ahmed Elmohamady but philosophy comes into it too; Karanka wants to play in a more between-the-lines way. On Monday, though, Hull’s five-man midfield made fluency difficult in the freezing air, though the game finally defrosted 15 minutes into a second half full of home dominance when a set piece rescued Boro. Fischer’s corner found Ramírez totally unmarked at the far post and his glancing header defied Marshall. Industry personified, the Uruguayan deserved his moment. Phelan’s side immediately became more expansive after Ryan Mason and Jake Livermore were withdrawn and Tom Huddlestone and the young Jarrod Bowen were introduced. And after Ramírez hobbled off with a minor injury, Hull suddenly prompted panic for Boro. Their new-found sense of adventure resulted in Valdés saving brilliantly from Diomandé in stoppage time. Connecting with Robert Snodgrass’s ensuing corner, the lone striker then poked the ball narrowly wide. Next Valdés directed a clearance straight at Snodgrass but he could not quite take advantage. “We don’t have great resources,” Phelan said. “We know it’s going to be difficult – but this will not kill our sense of belief.”
The Comedian's Comedian: the podcast that gets inside funny people's heads “I basically find a comedian, find out how they write their jokes, find out if they’re depressed – if they’re not, tell them they probably are – and then work out what it is they’re after [in life].” That’s how standup Stuart Goldsmith describes The Comedian’s Comedian, the podcast he created in 2012 – and he’s only half-joking. The show sees Goldsmith quiz some of the most successful comedians in the industry. But while he warms up with chat about career trajectory and comic voice, conversation soon turns to the very intimate details of his guests’ state of mind. For Shappi Khorsandi, that means talking about a recent breakdown. For Jimmy Carr it’s revealing how neuro-linguistic programming changed his life. And for Russell Howard, it’s answering “no” to Goldsmith’s favourite question: are you happy? The result is a podcast that offers a fascinating glimpse into the inner workings of comedians’ minds. Goldsmith describes Howard’s admission as “very difficult for someone whose stock-in-trade is optimism and sunshine”; with this dichotomy of seemingly self-possessed comedians talking about the darkness in their lives, Goldsmith has stumbled across a formula that has made his show an endlessly riveting listen for both those in the industry and the rest of us watching from the outside. Goldsmith originally created The Comedian’s Comedian in response to the mystery surrounding the standup profession. “I realised I’d been a comic for five or six years, and I’d had no official training in it,” he says. “I went to circus school, I trained myself in busking, I did a theatre degree, I felt like the eternal student who’d ended up doing something he’d never studied for.” During a stint on a short-lived ITV stand-up talent show called Show Me The Funny, he realised nobody seemed to be asking how comedy was created. “They were asking questions that would try to manufacture rivalry between the contestants”, remembers Goldsmith. “I just thought, what a missed opportunity, you’ve got 10 wildly different comics here, why don’t you ask us how we’re doing the thing that you appear to be interested in.” At the same time Goldsmith was keen to improve his own performance, so approached the comic Simon Evans in the hope of paying for a masterclass. Evans instead suggested the pair discuss joke-writing over a coffee. As soon as Goldsmith left he realised that he had forgotten almost everything Evans had said, “so then I thought, I’ll bloody record this”. More than 175 episodes later, he’s still recording. Despite his eureka moment, Goldsmith didn’t invent the comedians-in-conversation podcast: US comic Marc Maron’s WTF is the most famous example, while Richard Herring’s Leicester Square Theatre Podcast is perhaps the best-known UK incarnation. But The Comedian’s Comedian is notably more revealing than its main rival. “Richard Herring’s podcasts are brilliant but he’s not interested in really finding anything out. What he likes to do is create humour out of awkward and surreal situations,” says Goldsmith. Or to put it another way, one of Herring’s default questions is “Have you ever tried to suck your own cock?”, whereas Goldsmith says his is about, “How do you cope, pause, how do you really cope?” He views the podcast as a kind of therapy session that can actually help his guests. That said, analysis of standup, from joke-writing to the construction of a set, is still a big part of the podcast – and often it feels as radical as the soul-baring. It has long been frowned upon to pick apart jokes: somewhere along the line, EB White’s maxim that “analysing humour is like dissecting a frog. Few people are interested and the frog dies of it” has become gospel. Yet Goldsmith and his guests regularly disprove that rule. Indeed, it’s heartening to hear people talk about comedy not as an ethereal moment of magic, but as a tangible thing that we can learn about. Goldsmith compares hearing something like Dara O Briain’s breakdown of his audience banter or Josh Widdicombe on how he punches up his weaker observational material to finding out the method behind a show-stopping Derren Brown move: “it didn’t ruin the trick, it made it better, because I understood the sheer elegance of the technique he was using. I think comedy is like that.” Yet while Goldsmith is not stealthily killing comedy, it’s not an insult to say that the Comedian’s Comedian it isn’t exactly hilarious. “I say to them there is no pressure to perform or be funny and it’s just an intimate conversation about comedy and creativity.” says Goldsmith – but not all comics are prepared to play along. Canadian one-liner comic Stewart Francis, for example, “was completely unable to stop doing shtick in front of the audience. Very, very funny, but five minutes in you can hear my heart break, and 10 minutes in hear me give up”. Despite the hefty amount of insight unearthed over The Comedian’s Comedian 200-odd hours, it feels as if Goldsmith is just getting started with his study of the medium. Where next for his podcast? “I sort of feel like it’s my life’s mission to do the perfect Simon Munnery interview,” says Goldsmith of the pioneering alternative comic. “I keep putting it off because I don’t know if I’m good enough yet.” Having contributed to the elevation of standup to something you can pore over without looking like a nerdy killjoy, Goldsmith is left with the anxiety that his comedy heroes might not be quite so involved. “My fear is that he’d go: ‘Oh, it’s just a joke,’” he says. “No it isn’t. It’s far more than that.” Comedy: it’s no laughing matter. New episodes of The Comedian’s Comedian are available on iTunes
How Steve Hilton turned on his friend and ex-boss David Cameron It is barely more than a year since David Cameron was pictured bear-hugging a grinning Steve Hilton at the launch of the former Downing Street adviser’s new book, More Human. Hilton was tanned and dressed casually in a bright yellow T-shirt and orange trousers as he posed alongside the prime minister after returning from California in a blaze of media attention to promote his new ideas about transforming society. But it is hard to imagine the two men enjoying such cordial relations these days, after Hilton mounted his fifth attack on his former boss’s policies and manner of governing in the year since he returned from life as an academic in San Francisco. The subject of his latest critique is Cameron’s failed immigration target. Hilton has punched the remain campaign’s sorest bruise by telling the Daily Mail that civil servants warned years ago that the target would never be met without leaving the EU. Despite his sustained criticisms of Downing Street, Hilton was until recently described as Cameron’s “close friend”, his guru and sometimes even the brains behind his modernising agenda that stretched from hugging hoodies and huskies to the “big society”. He was the subject of Westminster fascination in the early days of the coalition for his tendency not to wear shoes in the office and various outlandish policy ideas leaked by the Lib Dems before he headed off to America in 2012 for a sabbatical in academia. Such was Hilton’s reputation that he even earned a place in satirical history as the inspiration for the herbal-tea drinking spin doctor Stewart Pearson in the BBC’s The Thick of It. But after Hilton’s return from the US last year, it became clear he had political plans of his own that did not involve being cast in the role of an eccentric adviser still allied to his old boss. He started by telling the Daily Mail that he wanted Cameron to stand up for marriage and attacking an “insular ruling class” that controls the UK. By January, he had also attacked George Osborne for letting Google off the hook over its £130m back tax bill, despite his wife having formerly been a senior communications executive at the firm. He hit out at the ruling elites who were bullying Jeremy Corbyn and laid into the government for cosying up to a corrupt Chinese government last autumn. Relations have only soured since then. Those who know Hilton say he is a longtime opponent of the EU and centralised bureaucracy, so it was not surprising that he would come out for the leave campaign. Will Straw, the director of Britain Stronger in Europe, points out he is “so Eurosceptic he supported John Redwood’s leadership bid in 1995”. But what has annoyed Downing Street remain campaigners so much is that Hilton has made a point of associating himself with the official leave campaign of Boris Johnson and Michael Gove – two other friends-turned-adversaries of the prime minister. Rather than making his case from the sidelines, Hilton last week made a point of travelling to Norwich for a photo opportunity with Johnson in a move that appeared calculated to cause maximum irritation in No 10. He also made headlines by claiming that Cameron was at heart a Eurosceptic before he became institutionalised by his time in government. These claims give a clue as to the origins of Hilton’s disillusionment with the Cameron project – a feeling that the prime minister has abandoned his radical ambitions since entering No 10 and missed too many chances to shake off his own and the Tories’ elitist image. Gove, too, is known to view the remainers as dull, while the leavers – like Johnson and Hilton – are fellow travellers blessed with creativity and an entrepreneurial spirit. People who worked in No 10 during Hilton’s time there say there was a genuine closeness and affection between him and Cameron. But several advisers reported frustration at what they saw as Hilton’s impracticality and lack of ability to carry through his “blue-sky” proposals. Andy Coulson, the former communications chief who was later jailed over phone hacking, recalled recently in the Telegraph: “I would ask, ‘So how does that work then?’ If I got an answer at all, it was along the lines of, ‘It’ll be fine – just you see.’ That was mildly irritating, as it was my team who would have to get out and sell the latest product from Steve’s dream factory.” Hilton’s rightwing, free-market ideas certainly infuriated Lib Dems who worked with him, as chronicled in David Laws’s book about the coalition. One Lib Dem former adviser said: “I was unfortunate enough to spend some time in Steve’s thought wigwam and it was not a pretty place. I remember him suggesting we should scrap maternity laws and invest in cloud-busting technology to improve the British weather. I certainly do not remember at any time him raising any points about the immigration policy he is now criticising.” While Cameron has taken a while to rise to Vote Leave’s bait, Hilton’s latest attack over the sore point of immigration appears to have proved an annoyance too far for Downing Street. In a round of interviews on Tuesday, the prime minister slapped this down, saying his former adviser was “simply not right”. In such a climate, it seems highly unlikely Hilton’s “sabbatical” from No 10 will ever come to an end – unless he returns under another incumbent.
Thousands who die with cancer spend last days in pain, study finds Nearly one in 10 people who died with cancer in England in 2014 spent the last 48 hours of their lives in pain, according to a survey. The findings from the National Survey of Bereaved People (Voices) equate to more than 12,500 people spending their last days without adequate pain relief, Macmillan Cancer Support estimates. The charity said a lack of support at home, including pain relief, means that people with cancer at the end of their life do not have enough choice over where they would like to be cared for and many are spending their final days in oversubscribed hospital beds against their wishes. “Quite simply, in the 21st century people should not be spending their final hours in pain in this country because the support is not there,” said Lynda Thomas, chief executive of Macmillan Cancer Support. “It is tragic for the individual and distressing for family and friends who witness their loved one in pain.” Macmillan urged the government to fix England’s “dismal” variation in the quality of end-of-life care by funding improvements recommended in an independent review of choice at the end of life published in February 2015. The review from the Choice in End of Life Care Programme Board concluded that a meaningful level of service improvement could be achieved for a relatively modest investment of £130m in social care and NHS commissioned services to deliver a national choice offer in end-of-life care. It recommended that every local area establish 24/7 end-of-life care for people outside hospital and for details of people’s choices to be held electronically in a palliative care coordination system. “The review of choice at the end of life published last year set out a comprehensive set of recommendations that would help improve the end-of-life care in England,” said Thomas. “The government must fund and implement the recommendations of the review; we cannot carry on with the way things are.” Macmillan has developed a care at home model in Midhurst, West Sussex, which includes clinical interventions from blood/blood product transfusions to IV antibiotics being provided at home or in a community setting. A team led by a consultant is responsible for the patient. Analysis by Macmillan, based on Office for National Statistics data, found that people with cancer who receive inadequate pain relief at home are twice as likely to die somewhere they did not want to, compared with those who received complete pain relief. Previous Macmillan research showed that 73% of people with cancer would prefer to die at home. Yet recent figures from the ONS showed that only 30% are able to do so. Ann Osborn, 63, from London, cared for her father when he was diagnosed with terminal bowel cancer in 2010. “My father wanted to die at home but there just wasn’t a way to make that possible,” she told Macmillan. “Alone in the early hours of the morning, he would call me in agony and I was eventually given the liquid morphine to make him more comfortable. Near the end, he was scared. We couldn’t cope and had to put him in a residential care home. I appreciate people should have the choice to be at home but there needs to be better social support to make this happen.” The 2014 survey was sent to approximately 49,000 people. More than 21,000 (21,403) returned the survey, of which 6,703 were from relatives and carers of people who died from cancer.
The secret life of a midwife: I feel like I work in a factory, not on a maternity ward My decision to become a midwife came from a deep-seated desire to care for others and a natural curiosity about pregnancy and birth. The idea of being the one to welcome new life into the world seemed idyllic and heartwarming. Thirteen months after qualifying, I find myself in a position dreaded by most midwives. Notorious for its heavy workload and lack of staffing, the postnatal ward is my greatest challenge yet. It is mentally, emotionally and physically draining. In the first few days of a new baby’s life, mothers will be encouraged to stay on the ward, to get them back on their feet and ready to go home, as well as providing a last opportunity to recognise any medical or social needs. It is an extremely special time for families and as a midwife it’s a great privilege to be a part of this. However, the role is not quite as it should be. My day starts with a handover from the weary night staff. This involves getting a full run-down of each patient, what kind of birth they had, their medical history and what needs to be done for them that day. We split the workload between us, and as a young and relatively enthusiastic member of the team, I often get tasked with the most work. Our ward is split into bays, with four beds in each. We are assigned two bays per midwife, totalling a maximum of eight women and eight babies. That’s 16 bodies under my care; 16 bodies to be responsible for if something goes wrong. As the day goes on there’s lots to be done: monitoring first dirty nappies, supporting four-hourly feeds (by breast or bottle), vaccinations, checking blood test results and neonatal reviews, preparing paperwork, administering medication, organising discharge meetings – the list goes on. Each of these things often relies on someone else, be it a stressed neonatal doctor who is on call and covering the whole hospital, an obstetrician trying to stabilise a sick patient, or a busy pharmacist processing medication. Each patient is a different number on each of these waiting lists, and I have to keep track of them all. Simultaneously, you can be guaranteed that each bed that you “empty” has the name of another patient already assigned to it, waiting to arrive from the labour ward. Often I feel like I work in a factory, not on a maternity ward. The sheer volume of mothers and babies we see means the only way to cater for them all is to keep them moving through the process as quickly as possible. If the labour ward gets full of postnatal patients, the antenatal ward gets full of women in labour and the whole place gets backed up. So, as the last link in the chain the pressure is on you to work fast and clear the beds. I often don’t take a break so that I don’t fall behind, and the harder you work, the more work you are given. Sadly, this comes at the expense of patients. I can get to the end of a 12-hour day, and realise that I’ve only actually seen and spoken to some mothers once. I’ve been so busy, with my head buried in the daily toil of the ward, that I haven’t had a chance to get to know them and really be there for them. This is not what I signed up for. I wanted to help, to make the experience of birth a memorable one. As well as pressure from colleagues, you have the added pressure from families, who want to go home as soon as possible and all feel they should be at the top of the priority list. Some get very angry that I’ve kept them waiting. I think this is the worst thing about my job. I hate feeling like I’m letting them down, that I don’t care about their needs or have forgotten about them. I try not to succumb to this pressure because if you rush, you run the risk of missing something important. Each day my aim is to make sure that every single mother and baby that leaves the hospital has everything they need to feel safe and well supported. It may not seem like it at the time but this single day of waiting will be a mere drop in the ocean of the rest of their life with their child. Weeks from now it will no longer matter. But if I forget something it could have long-term consequences. Not long ago someone didn’t give a mother an important antibody injection; she was sent home and refused to come back in to have it. Subsequently we had to send a midwife to her home to do it, leaving me and another midwife carrying the added weight of her workload. Had we not done this, her future pregnancies would have been at risk. More often than not I feel lost in the system and struggling under the weight of a crumbling NHS. We keep begging for more staff but no one listens. The staff we do have are slowly abandoning ship. What I would do for another pair of hands so I could spend a bit more time helping a mother breastfeed for the first time or teach a new dad how to change a nappy. Most families are understanding and can see I’m doing my best. I try to remain cheerful but have cried on many occasions because I can never please everyone. The time that I can spare I love to spend talking to the women and stealing the odd cuddle from a baby. The best part of my job is when you care for a woman who is clearly very anxious and scared, quite often after a traumatic birth, and after spending some time talking to her and supporting her, you manage to coax a smile. The other day I was lucky enough to have an hour helping a woman express breast milk by hand for her premature baby. Afterwards she looked up at me and said: “I like you, I LOVE you! Thank you, this has made me so happy.” When someone says something like that you can’t help but beam with pride, to know that amid all the chaos you really have made a difference. • Are you a chef, a social worker, an undertaker? We want to hear your candid accounts of what work is really like. Find full details on submitting your story anonymously here
Trump cancels Chicago rally amid violence and chaos – as it happened Our live coverage of the extraordinary scenes in Chicago has come to a close but you can read the full report here by our reporters filing straight from the scene. Here is a quick summary of the day’s events on the campaign trail: • Protesters in Chicago have forced the shutdown of a Donald Trump rally before it even began. Heated scenes that simmered between anti-Trump demonstrators and his supporters at the University of Illinois Chicago Pavilion boiled over when the campaign announced he would not be appearing, citing safety concerns • Earlier a Trump rally in St Louis also gave rise to scenes of violence and disorder, with police making 32 arrests and at least one person left bloodied and needing an ambulance • Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, had to backtrack after comments at Nancy Reagan’s funeral that appeared to gloss over the Reagans’ troubling legacy in the fight against HIV/Aids • Bernie Sanders received a boost when a judge gave the go-ahead for 17-year-olds to vote in the Ohio primary On the streets of Chicago, scenes of violence and chaos unparalleled in the recent history of American political campaigning have unfolded since Donald Trump’s campaign announced the postponement of a rally in America’s “Second City.” The cancellation of the rally due to “safety concerns” created unruly scenes inside the Chicago Pavilion of the University of Illinois and in the street outside. Scuffles and fights broke out between Trump supporters, protesters and police, and a number of arrests were made, including of at least one reporter. As mayhem took place in Chicago, Trump took to the airwaves to tell his side of the story, telling MSNBC: “It’s sad when you can’t have a rally. Whatever happened to freedom of speech?” There is a long history of violence at Trump events. In the past week alone, an attack on a non-violent protester led to criminal charges against a Trump supporter and Michelle Fields, a reporter for conservative website Breitbart News, was allegedly assaulted by Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s campaign manager. Trump has played a role in encouraging this culture of violence. When the Republican frontrunner appeared in St. Louis earlier on Friday, an event that featured more than 30 arrests, he complained “part of the problem and part of the reason it takes so long [to kick protesters out] is nobody wants to hurt each other anymore.” Trump added “There used to be consequences. There are none anymore. These people are so bad for our country. You have no idea folks, you have no idea.” The scenes of violence sparked condemnation from Trump’s top rival for the GOP nomination, Texas senator Ted Cruz. “A campaign bears responsibility for creating an environment,” said Cruz at a press conference. “The predictable consequence of [Trump’s comments] is it escalates. Today is unlikely to be the last such instance.” In a statement, Ohio governor John Kasich echoed this condemnation. “Tonight the seeds of division that Donald Trump has been sowing this whole campaign finally bore fruit, and it was ugly.” Political violence on the scale witnessed on Friday is rare in American politics. Famously, the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago witnessed repeated clashes between the police and anti-war protesters culminating in what a federal commission called “a police riot.” But the three-way conflict between Trump supporters and protesters with the police caught in the middle is something unusual and represents a disturbing trend in an election where many of the norms and mores of American politics have already gone by the wayside. In the meantime though, the protesters had outwardly succeeded in their goal for the evening. As one, Violet Ornelas, 28, gleefully proclaimed the : “If he can’t even handle Chicago, what makes think he could handle Isis?” Onetime presidential candidate and former speaker of the house of representatives Newt Gingrich believes that tonight’s events in Chicago are the result of fascism - liberal fascism, particularly. Republican presidential candidate and Ohio governor John Kasich has released a statement regarding tonight’s events in Chicago, blaming the unrest on “the seeds of division” sown by the Trump campaign: Reporting live from the Chicago Pavilion at the University of Illinois, the ’s Ben Jacobs, Zach Stafford and Ciara McCarthy write that the scene of Donald Trump’s aborted rally is tense. Outside, more than a thousand protesters gathered, shutting down the streets. Chanting “We are not tired”, they blocked a street intersection and set up a microphone and speakers. Police helicopters whirled overhead in an outbreak of political violence unprecedented, in Chicago at least, since 1968 Democratic National Convention. Trump, who repeated previous criticisms of protesters at his rally as “extremely dangerous and extremely physical”, made the connection himself, telling MSNBC: “I think a lot of people said that it was wrong that we were really stopped from holding a rally. It didn’t have to be stopped. “But if we held it people would’ve potentially been hurt and I didn’t want to see people hurt. Chicago’s the home of some very very bad rallies. Just look back at the conventions here … people were killed.” At the venue, one protester gleefully mocked Trump. Violet Ornelas, 28, told the : “If he can’t even handle Chicago, what makes think he could handle Isis?” Dramatic footage of an injured Chicago police officer outside of the University of Illinois: The Chicago Tribune captured this photograph outside of Donald Trump’s aborted rally at the University of Illinois’ Chicago branch tonight: “When will the first pro-Donald Trump murder happen?” That’s what Lucia Graves wants to know. The notoriously anti-Trump New York Daily News has released a sneak preview of tomorrow’s woodcut: CBS News reporter Sopan Deb, who has been on the Donald Trump campaign trail, has been detailed while reporting in Chicago: An editor’s note on a CBS dispatch says: In the midst of reporting on this event, CBS News’ Sopan Deb was detained by law enforcement. We are awaiting more information on the circumstances and will continue to update our report. This was the reporter’s last tweet before he was detained: Donald Trump told Fox News’ Sean Hannity that he was glad he canceled his rally in Chicago: We’re very conscious of the fact that we don’t want anybody to be hurt ... Tonight, virtually nobody is even hurt. We made a very good decision ... We worked very closely with law enforcement and they gave us some really good advice. Trump also argued that the coverage of the conflicts has been biased against him: It’s a lot easier for people in life to be a liberal democrat. You have a double standard like nobody can believe. If conservatives and republicans ever did that to a liberal rally, it would be a national disgrace. It would be all over every paper for weeks. Trump further claimed that generally his protesters are the violent ones – not his supporters. “In some cases, they are being very violent ... I see it, because I’m making a speech. I’m on the platform. I’m able to see it. I see some people that are really bad. They’re bad dudes.” If Trump supporters hit protesters, it’s usually self defense, he added: “When the punches are thrown back, it’s always their fault. It’s so unfair.” Chicago police officials say they did not advise Donald Trump to cancel his rally, which attracted thousands of protesters. The AP reports: A spokesman for the Chicago Police Department says the agency never recommended that Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump cancel his campaign rally in the city. CPD spokesman Anthony Guglielmi tells The Associated Press that the department never told the Trump campaign there was a security threat at the University of Illinois at Chicago venue. He said the department had sufficient manpower on the scene to handle any situation. Trump, speaking on Fox News, said his campaign met with security officials and they decided to cancel the event for safety reasons: It was so sad ... We were going to have a great rally. Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz have now both blamed Donald Trump for the violence that erupted at his Chicago rally. Rubio, speaking by phone to Fox’s Megyn Kelly, said: He most certainly in other events has in the past used some pretty rough language in encouraging the crowds ... He bears some responsibility for the general tone. Rubio also cast blame on the anti-Trump protesters, saying, “Clearly, this is an orchestrated effort ... It reflects very poorly on this country. I’m very sad for this country.” He added: “This is Chicago. Protesters are an industry ... Chicago is kind of a hub for that.” Talking to reporters shortly after, Ted Cruz said: A campaign bears responsibility for creating an environment ... The predictable consequence of [Trump’s comments] is it escalates. Today is unlikely to be the last such instance. Cruz added: “We saw earlier today in St Louis over 30 arrested. That’s not how our politics should occur.” He also took the opportunity to also blame the tensions on Obama, saying, “We’ve seen for seven years a president who often in times of crisis has sought to divide us ... on racial lines, on ethnic lines, on religious lines, on class lines. America is better than that. We don’t have to tear each other apart. Instead, we can work together.” The ’s Zach Stafford received footage from Lindsay Brown, 31, of police clashing with protesters after they left the Trump rally in Chicago. Brown said: You could feel the anger the protesters had for the Trump supporters, who were openly racist and hostile to protesters ... People were energized from successfully getting the event canceled, but when they exited the area, they confronted Trump supporters shouting at them. From the Hugh Hewitt program, here are Ted Cruz’s comments on the chaos at Trump’s rally in Chicago: A candidate bears responsibility for the culture that is set from the top. The Cruz scene in a suburb of Chicago has quite a different tone than the Trump event: Ben Carson, the former presidential candidate who endorsed Donald Trump this week, told Fox News’ Megyn Kelly that the candidates need to discourage the kind of violence that broke out tonight in Chicago: There’s no question that those of us in leadership positions should be attempting to calm people down and teach people to respect each other ... That’s something we all need to be thinking about. Carson continued: “It’s going to be a huge problem for our country if we don’t do something about it now. A house divided against itself cannot stand.” Shouting and scuffles are continuing to break out at a University of Illinois parking garage, the ’s Ben Jacobs reports: Here’s some footage from reporters Zach Stafford and Ben Jacobs on the scene in Chicago where protesters and Trump supporters continue to clash: Trump just told Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren that he suspects the protests and his decision to cancel the rally tonight could help him in the polls: Everybody tells me I get more votes. I don’t know. I didn’t do it for votes. I did it because I didn’t want to see anybody hurt. Trump said it appeared the conflicts were slowing down. “It looks like it’s breaking up very nicely, and I think the police have done a good job.” Intermittent scuffles and fights are breaking out now between Trump supporters, protesters and police. Protesters have crowded the sidewalks and are overflowing into the streets, pushing at the barricades formed by police. Protesters formed a spontaneous human blockade of the parking garage where many rally-goers parked, creating a standoff between screaming Trump supporters in the multi-level garage and screaming protestors on the ground below. Speaking to Greta Van Susteren on Fox News, Donald Trump declared that “tremendous anger out there, on both sides” was behind the cancellation of tonight’s rally in Chicago. “We had 25,000 people that tried to come in - supporters, all supporters,” Trump said. “After seeing what’s on the show, I just think that it was a very good decision - I don’t wanna see people hurt.” “I don’t use hate speech,” Trump said in response to a question from Van Susteren about whether he bears any responsibility for the outbursts at his rallies. “There’s tremendous division in our country. I’ve seen it, I’m watching it, I’ve been witness to it, and something has to be done.” But, Trump says, he’s not the one giving ammunition to his followers. “I represent a large group of people that have anger - they’re not angry people, but they have anger,” Trump said. “This is very economic; this has a lot to do with jobs.” “They haven’t shut down the rally at all, because it’s on television now, and it’s being seen by a lot more people,” Trump said. “No, I don’t get scared. I don’t get scared,” Trump said, after Van Susteren asked him if he was worried for his personal safety. Reporting live from the Chicago Pavillion at the University of Illinois, the ’s Ben Jacobs, Zach Stafford and Ciara McCarthy write that the scene of Donald Trump’s rally had been violent and chaotic even hours before its cancellation. The atmosphere in the building was tense long before Trump was scheduled to arrive. Violent incidents have occurred at and around a number of Trump rallies recently, including one in downtown St Louis on Friday afternoon. In Chicago, dozens of protesters, wearing shirts with slogans such as “Muslims united against Trump”, were kicked out. Police walked up and down the arena stairs, holding sheaves of plastic handcuffs. Attendees grabbed signs out of each other’s hands while cursing and exchanging vulgar gestures. At least one section of young people was cleared out by police long before the event began. Finally, a half-hour after the event was scheduled to begin, the announcement came that Trump was not coming. The crowd immediately erupted. College students shouted “We shut it down” while loyal supporters of the Republican frontrunner shouted “We want Trump”. In a phone call with Chris Matthews on MSNBC, presidential candidate Donald Trump told the host that he had his rally in Chicago cancelled because “I don’t wanna see people hurt or worse,” but blamed the closure on anti-Trump protestors and told them to “get a job.” “Look, it’s a two-way street,” Trump said of physical violence at his rallies. “Frankly when the other side... when they get tough, it ends up being the front-page story.” Telling Matthews that “some of these protestors are very dangerous people,” Trump said that the reason protestors continue to come to his rallies is based on their economic concerns, rather than opposition to his platform. “We shouldn’t be restricted from having a rally here because of ethnic makeup,” Trump said. “It shouldn’t matter.” “We’re doing others, and up until this point we’ve had no problems,” Trump said, insisting that he will continue to host rallies for his candidacy, “but this is a little bit of a different circumstance, and it’s a little sad that you can’t have a rally in a major city in this country. Whatever happened to freedom of speech?” Protestor Violet Ornelas, 28, on Donald Trump’s cancelled rally: If he can’t even handle Chicago, what makes him think he could handle Isis? The ’s Ciara McCarthy reports that the arena has been emptied at the site of the now-abandoned Donald Trump rally in Chicago: The ’s Ben Jacobs reports that the crowd in the Chicago Pavillion is now shouting “fuck Trump!” The Donald Trump campaign has released a statement about the cancellation of tonight’s planned rally in downtown Chicago, calling the postponement a measure “for the safety” of its attendees and urging protestors and supporters alike to “please go in peace.” “Mr. Trump just arrived in Chicago and after meeting with law enforcement has determined that for the safety of all of the tens of thousands of people that have gathered in and around the arena, tonight’s rally will be postponed to another date,” the statement reads. “Thank you very much for your attendance and please go in peace.” A rally at the University of Illinois at Chicago for presidential candidate Donald Trump has been postponed at the last minute for “safety reasons,” an unprecedented move from the Trump campaign after the tone of its rhetoric has drawn increased scrutiny. The scene inside the Chicago Pavillion, where the event was to be held, is chaotic, with opponents of the controversial Republican frontrunner mounting the stage and supporters of Trump getting in physical fights on the floor of the venue. Broadcasting live from the press area of the venue, CNN’s Jim Acosta declared on air “This is supposed to be American democracy, but what we have instead is total chaos.” The University Village area of Chicago has been frozen by anti-Donald Trump protestors outside of the University of Illinois branch in the city. The ’s Lois Beckett reports from the scene at a Donald Trump rally in St. Louis earlier today, where violence broke out between protestors and Trump supporters: One of those supporters, Rudy Kelsey, 50, walked away from the conversation when one protester shouted that black people cannot be racist. “I learned that black people still feel very discriminated against,” he said. “I told them them racism work both ways, and they said black people cannot be racist, and I said the dialogue’s over when you say that.” Kelsey told the he had been discriminated against as a white man, because he was raised Amish. “My ancestors fled Europe because of persecution,” he said. “My ancestors had their heads chopped off. They were burned at the stake and drowned.” Growing up, he said, “we drove a horse and buggy instead of a car. We were Amish guys. We were the butt of every joke. My dad, he always raised us to be the best people that we could possibly be. Today I’m a successful self-made millionaire.” Kelsey said he thought anyone could have that kind of success, “regardless of who you are or what your background is, but they obviously disagree with me very strongly out here. They say it’s still about color.” While he was wearing a signed Trump hat, however, Kelsey said: “I’m not even sure I’m going to vote for him.” He said he had come to the rally out of curiosity; either way he was “absolutely” going to vote Republican. In a potential victory for Vermont senator Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign, an Ohio judge has ruled that 17-year-old Ohioans can vote in the Buckeye State’s upcoming primary election. Ohio already allows all 17-year-olds to vote in congressional, legislative and mayoral primaries - as long as they will be 18 on Election Day - but the question of whether they can vote in a presidential primary had been unanswered. Nine Ohio teenagers filed a lawsuit over the interpretation of the law by Ohio’s secretary of state, which they claimed was an act of disenfranchisement. “Plaintiffs are entitled to a judgment that the secretary abused his discretion,” judge Richard Frye of Franklin County said in his ruling, referring to Ohio secretary of state Jon Husted, a Republican who has vowed to appeal the ruling. “This last minute legislating from the bench on election law has to stop,” Husted said in a statement. “Our system cannot give one county court the power to change 30 years of election law for the entire state of Ohio, 23 days into early voting and only four days before an election.” “We will appeal this decision because if there is a close election on Tuesday we need clarity from the Supreme Court to make sure that ineligible voters don’t determine the outcome of an election. No matter the outcome of these disputes, I want 17-year-olds to know that they are eligible to vote on certain races and they should exercise that right,” Husted added. The ruling, if ultimately successful, is a coup for the Sanders campaign, which enjoys high polling numbers among young voters. In nearby Iowa, Sanders won caucus voters under the age of 30 by a ratio of six to one - 84% to 14% - over competitor Hillary Clinton. The mayor of Miami Beach, one of the US cities most vulnerable to sea level rise, has criticized Marco Rubio after the presidential hopeful said that it’s not possible to “change the weather” or the rising oceans through government regulation. Asked if he accepted the reality of human-induced climate change, Rubio said: “If the climate is changing, one of the reasons is because the climate has always been changing.” Philip Levine, mayor of neighboring Miami Beach, said Rubio was “100% using the language of a climate change denier” and has overlooked the escalating problem of sea level increases for south Florida. “Unfortunately, Senator Rubio went to his usual talking points, fed to him by his donors in the sugar and energy industry,” said Levine. “According to him, America shouldn’t be a leader in the greatest challenge of our generation. If he were around during World War II, he’d want us to sit on the sidelines and leave Britain to its fate.” The ’s Ciara McCarthy has video of protestors being bodily removed from the location of Donald Trump’s campaign rally in Chicago. Four young Muslim men were forcibly escorted from the UIC arena where Donald Trump is preparing to speak at 6 p.m. The men were wearing T-shirts that said “Muslims United Against Trump” under their sweatshirts. Authorities approached and asked them to lift up their outerwear, which the men did after authorities insisted. The men were escorted from the arena to cheers and chants of “USA! USA!” from the nearby crowd. The men had previously waited in line to enter the arena wearing the handmade shirts before they said Secret Service agents asked them to get out of line and leave the area. The men returned to the line wearing sweatshirts over their t-shirts and were allowed to enter the arena. Jorge Castañeda, a former Mexican foreign minister, has released an English campaign advertisement slamming Donald Trump for his rhetoric against Mexico. Castañeda originally made the call for prominent Mexicans to take a stand against Trump several months ago, but after a Spanish campaign video went viral on social media in the past several days he re-recorded the missive in English, adding on his own message: “I am not a rapist.” Barack Obama has narrowed his list of potential supreme court nominees to three people, according to Reuters: Sri Srinivasan is is a US circuit judge of the US court of appeals for the District of Columbia who was confirmed to his seat by a vote in the US senate of 97–0 in 2013. Merrick Garland is the chief judge of the US court of appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit who was confirmed by the senate in 1997. Paul Watford is a US circuit judge for the US court of appeals for the ninth circuit; he was confirmed in 2012 in a 61–34 vote. The ’s Sam Levin has more on Hillary Clinton’s swift about-face after lauding the Reagan administration’s response to the Aids crisis: “It may be hard for your viewers to remember how difficult it was for people to talk about HIV/Aids back in the 1980s,” the Democratic frontrunner told MSNBC in an interview at the funeral, which was held at the Reagan presidential library in Simi Valley, California. Clinton continued: “Because of both president and Mrs Reagan, in particular Mrs Reagan, we started a national conversation when before nobody would talk about it, nobody wanted to do anything about it, and that, too, is something that I really appreciate. With her very effective, low-key advocacy … it penetrated the public conscience and people began to say: ‘Hey, we have to do something about this too.’” Her comments in the interview flew in the face of how many longtime gay rights activists view the Reagans – as a couple who deliberately turned a blind eye to the Aids crisis, with devastating and deadly consequences. Live: Bernie Sanders speaks in Toledo, Ohio: Between Nancy Reagan’s death and her funeral, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence reached out in their own wimpled way to share their pain, their anger and, occasionally, their sympathy. The activists, in trademark Catholic drag, spent the Aids crisis fighting on behalf of infected friends and lovers – and for dying men they would never know. As much of the nation mourned the former first lady’s passing this week, their email anguish underscored the Reagan administration’s darker legacy. Ronald Reagan, who died in 2004, was president for nearly five years before he said the word “Aids” in public, nearly seven years before he gave a speech on a health crisis that would go on to kill more than 650,000 Americans and stigmatize even more. In recent months, published reports have revealed an administration that laughed at the scourge and its victims and a first lady who turned her back on Rock Hudson, a close friend, when he reached out to the White House for help as he was dying from an Aids-related illness. “If there is a hell both Ronny and Nancy are Roasting,” wrote one Sister. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has apologized for comments earlier today in which she implied that the Reagan White House “started a national conversation” during the Aids crisis. “While the Reagans were strong advocates for stem cell research and finding a cure for Alzheimer’s disease, I misspoke about their record on HIV and AIDS,” the former secretary of state wrote. “For that, I’m sorry.” Former secretary of state and Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton’s comments on the morning of former first lady Nancy Reagan’s funeral have incensed Aids advocates who claim that the candidate is rewriting history. In an interview this morning on MSNBC, Clinton claimed that Reagan, along with her husband, fostered a national dialogue about the rise of the Aids epidemic. “Because of both president and Mrs. Reagan - in particular Mrs. Reagan - we started a national conversation, when before nobody would talk about it, nobody wanted to do anything about it,” Clinton said. “And that, too, is something that I really appreciate, with her very effective, low-key advocacy, but it penetrated the public conscience, and people began to say, ‘Hey, we have to do something about this, too.’” The Reagan administration’s legacy on the Aids crisis was, in fact, much more complicated than Clinton described. Ronald Reagan, who died in 2004 after a decade-long battle with Alzheimer’s disease, was president for nearly seven years before he gave a speech on the health crisis - a speech in which he called for a now-rescinded ban on HIV-positive people entering the United States. The former first lady herself has been lambasted in recent years as documents have come forth showing that she turned her back on Rock Hudson, a close friend, when he reached out to the White House for help as he was dying from an Aids-related illness. On numerous occasions, the epidemic was even seen as a source of humor in the Reagan White House. At the centenary rededication of the Statue of Liberty, the Reagans, seated, next to French president François Mitterand and his wife Danielle, were watching the evening’s entertainment, Bob Hope, give a series of one-liners. In the middle of his set, Hope quipped, “I just heard that the Statue of Liberty has Aids, but she doesn’t know if she got it from the mouth of the Hudson or the Staten Island Fairy.” As television cameras panned the audience for a reaction shot, the Mitterands looked appalled. The Reagans, however, were laughing. “This is shameful, idiotic, false - and heartbreaking. There is nothing else to say about it,” Charles Kaiser, author of The Gay Metropolis: The Landmark History of Gay Life in America, told the ’s Martin Pengelly. Chad Griffin, president of the Human Rights Campaign, which has endorsed Clinton, tweeted “While I respect her advocacy on issues like stem cell & Parkinson’s research, Nancy Reagan was, sadly, no hero in the fight against HIV/AIDS.” More than three hours before the Republican frontrunner’s rally in Chicago, tension between Donald Trump’s supporters and protestors outside of the University of Illinois in the Windy City has already erupted into slur-laden screaming matches. In the above video, a black protestor screams “fuck you!” at a crowd of would-be attendees of Trump’s rally, after which a volley of insults - “fuck off!” and the N-word - is heard in response. The group’s apparent ringleader confronted the woman holding the camera and unleashed a diatribe against Islam and Trump’s detractors. Hey! Fuck Islam, Allah is a whore, Jesus is the most high god, and you bitches are done! So fuck you! Would-be attendees of a rally for Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump at the Peabody Opera House in St. Louis, Missouri, didn’t even make it inside the venue before clashes between the controversial candidate’s supporters and detractors became violent. At least a dozen protestors have been arrested or detained, according to the Riverfront Times, as a seemingly endless line of Trump supporters - or the simply curious - come into conflict with a growing number of protestors outside the venue. The St. Louis Police Department has intervened in conflicts between Trump’s admirers and opponents on both sides, detaining protestors and warning off aggressive supporters. Video: Trump insults Carson – a selection Though Ben Carson was repeatedly mocked by the media – incidents like his confused debate entrance made it all too easy – the retired neurosurgeon did have the support of many Republicans, writes US data editor Mona Chalabi: Just before he dropped out of the race, polling averages put Carson at 9% – slightly ahead of John Kasich and less than 10 percentage points behind Marco Rubio. So does Carson’s endorsement of Donald Trump count for more than the seven other politicians who have already done the same? You might not recognize everyone on Trump’s list of political endorsements. Here are the names so far: Representative Scott DesJarlais Representative Tom Marino Senator Jeff Sessions Governor Paul R LePage Governor Chris Christie Representative Duncan D Hunter Representative Chris Collins [...] From March to December last year, Carson was consistently showing positive net favorability in polls – hardly surprising given that he was in second place in the Republican race, behind Trump. But public appearances haven’t been great for Carson’s public image. For today’s endorsement to continue to carry weight, it might be best for Trump if this is the last thing Carson says for a while. Read the full piece here: Team Kasich issues a second, still edgy response to the backing of team Rubio in Ohio: Video: Obama jokes about Ted Cruz’s (former) Canadian citizenship at state dinner Rubio continues, saying a vote for either of his non-Trump rivals in Florida is in fact a vote for Trump: Don’t sell yourself short? The Real Clear Politics polling averages of Ohio have Trump up just 2.5 points on Kasich and the governor climbing fast. Rubio is way down in fourth place with single-digit support. To which we’re tempted to reply, in the voice of Bernie Sanders: Mi-chi-gan! Mi-chi-gan! Rubio stops short of telling Ohio supporters to vote Kasich. He also, incidentally, stops short of backing a two-state solution for Israel/Palestine: The Trump campaign has released a new statement denying that campaign manager Corey Lewandowski manhandled reporter Michelle Fields. It’s unclear who’s speaking in the statement. The statement links to a story on Breitbart, Fields’ employer, that questions whether it was Lewandowski who laid hands on her. The statement says there’s no evidence of the incident despite audio and video recordings and witness statements. The statement backs down from yesterday’s suggestion by the Trump camp that Fields was a craven attention seeker making up a story for attention. Today’s statement appears to leave room for the possibility that Fields was grabbed and hurt, and it does not engage in the attacks on Fields’ character that characterized the campaign’s response yesterday. It just calls Fields’ claim that it was Lewandowski who hurt her “entirely false.” Rubio muses on his political future... and lunch: Kasich nets a big homestate coach endorsement. At the debate last night Kasich referred to “my beloved Buckeyes.” The ’s Sabrina Siddiqui is at a Rubio news conference in Florida. On whether his supporters should back Kasich in Ohio: Rubio says it’s up to them. If the field in Ohio – which has 66 Republican delegates to give to the first-place winner and only the winner of its Tuesday primary – were to narrow, Trump’s prospects would narrow as well, polling indicates. The sitting governor might dominate Trump in a two-way race, for example. Here’s a video snippet from the Trump event Tuesday that could support Michelle Fields’ version of events. This is compelling food for thought. But Ted Cruz has just held a rally in Orlando. Not quite “out of FL.” This is fun. Ohio and Florida, which vote on Tuesday, are both winner-take-all states. John Kasich might beat Trump in Ohio. Marco Rubio might beat Trump in Florida. But Marco Rubio very probably does not stand a chance of winning Ohio. And the same is true of Kasich in Florida. But what if the two pooled their supporters in their respective home states in an attempt to gang up on Trump? The Rubio team appears to have made a move to do just that: The failure of the National Review, the historically significant showcase for conservative thought, to sway ... anyone?... with its special January issue Against Trump may call into question the practical value of its presidential endorsement. In any case, that’s now been awarded to Texas senator Ted Cruz. “Ted’s the only one with a plausible path to stopping Trump,” National Review editor Rich Lowry told Politico, “either by getting a majority himself or denying Trump a majority and finishing close behind and getting it to convention.” Here’s the January cover with a link to the argument: Breitbart reporter Michelle Fields has filed a criminal complaint against Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski in Jupiter, Florida, where she says Lewandowski hurt her at a Trump event Tuesday. Trump and Lewandowski denied the incident happened. Lewandowski called Fields “totally delusional” and Trump said “she made it up, I think that’s what happened.” Reports that Florida senator Marco Rubio won no delegates in voting Tuesday, including reports in this blog, were wrong. Last night Hawaii completed its count of 2,000 provisional ballots and determined that Rubio had come away with a single delegate from the state, the AP reports. He beat the skunk. There were 150 delegates at stake on Tuesday, in Hawaii, Idaho, Michigan and Mississippi. Next stop: Florida. (h/t: @consultreid) MSNBC’s Trymaine Lee is outside a Trump rally in St Louis, where protesters have faced off with supporters. Here’s our report at recent violence at Trump rallies: And here’s columnist Lucia Graves’ comment piece: Carson said he was supporting Trump to stop the Republican party from being torn “irreparably” asunder. But what if the party sunders itself anyway, in an attempt to block candidate Trump at the national convention in July? “For the first time since the invention of social media and 24-hour cable news, a major party may decide its presidential nominee on the convention floor,” writes politics reporter Ben Jacobs. But what exactly is a contested convention? In the dark ages of American politics, the elaborate politicking of a presidential primary was once condensed into a political convention. For decades, instead of a long public process during which candidates traipsed from Iowa to New Hampshire and onwards across the country for series of primaries and caucuses, presidential nominees were chosen in overheated convention halls and the smoke-filled rooms in adjacent hotels. However, as more states instituted primaries to select their delegates, a process that accelerated greatly in the 1970s, the conventions receded in importance. The last political convention to go to more than one ballot was the Democrats’ in 1952, when they nominated Adlai Stevenson. [...] The problems come in several forms. The first is that since conventions have been long thought to be vestigial parts of American politics, candidates’ campaigns are not fully prepared for the delegate chase – a full scale 50-state scramble. Campaigns have to take care to not just make the ballot in every state but to fill their slates of delegates with names and ensure that those delegates pledged to them are actual supporters and not what veteran Republican strategist John Yob calls “supporters in name only”, or Sinos. Read the full piece here. This seems important. Hey it’s Friday Here’s a summary of the nice things Ben Carson said about Donald Trump just then: “He’s very cerebral.” “He is actually a very intelligent man who cares deeply about America.” “There’s a lot more alignment, philosophically and spiritually, than I ever thought there was.” He’s “malleable.” He’s “a much more reasonable person than comes across.” Trump agreed with Carson explicitly about many of his, Trump’s, qualities: “I’m a big thinker.” “I’m a very deep thinker. I know what’s happening, OK?” Breitbart stands with its reporter against Trump. The company at first seemed reluctant to register criticism against Trump but then suspended a reporter who gave voice to skepticism over the incident. “Trump’s suggestion that Fields made up the incident Tuesday evening contradicts the evidence,” Breitbart says. Carson is asked whether the “two Donald Trumps” should concern voters. “There’s a different persona. Some people have gotten the impression that Donald Trump is a person who is not malleable,” Carson says – a person who can’t take in new information and make wise decisions. “He’s much more cerebral than that, and a much more reasonable person than comes across.” Carson blames the media for creating a fake Trump. Does this exculpate the media from the charge of being played by Mr Trump? Trump thanks the crowd and invites them to coffee and drinks outside. Carson is back. He says if party operatives succeeded at stopping Trump, it would “fracture the party irreparably and it would hand the election to the Democrats. “It’s not about me, it’s not about Mr Trump,” Carson says. It’s about America. Carson is asked about Ted Cruz, accused of spreading a rumor that Carson had dropped out in advance of the Iowa caucuses. Did that play a role in this morning’s decision? Carson doesn’t answer directly. “I feel that Mr Trump is willing to do what needs to be done to break the stranglehold of special interest groups and the political class,” he says. “I’ve completely forgiven him. That’s my duty as a Christian.” Then Carson is asked what role God played in his decision to support Trump. “I prayed about it a lot” and got a lot of signals of which way to go, Carson says. These included people he hadn’t’ talked to in a long time calling him up and saying things like, “I had this dream about you and Donald Trump. It’s just amazing.” Trump says Hillary Clinton does not have what it takes to fix US trade deals. “She has no business instinct. She doesn’t have the energy or the strength to get these deals made. You need strength and you need stamina.” “The Republican party lost its way,” Trump says. But he says he’s made something happen. “Call it a miracle,” call it what you will. “We’re going to have Democrats for Trump,” he says. He says his friends in Hollywood are all voting for him but won’t admit it. They like his stances on crime and the border, Trump says. “They’re liberal people but they’re voting for Trump.” Then Trump starts hammering Ohio governor John Kasich, a rival. Whoever has the most delegates at the end of this trip should win... Ohio should be great to me... I think I’ll beat John Kasich. John Kasich has been an absentee governor. He lived in New Hampshire... Trump says Ohio “got lucky” with of oil discoveries and implies the economic vigor of the state is an accident, not tied to good government. Trump’s asked if he’ll ditch a planned debate on March 21 in Salt Lake City. “I didn’t know there was a next debate,” Trump says. What does Trump think about reports that senate majority leader Mitch McConnell is advising colleagues with vulnerable seats on how to run away from Trump? “I’m sure that will change,” Trump says. Trump says he would win Michigan in a general election and he might even win New York. “With me, I add a lot of states that aren’t even in play for anybody else,” Trump says, mentioning the Rust Belt. “I will get states that are unbelievable, that are unthinkable for the Republican party.” “I think we’ve had enough debates. I mean how many times do you have to give the same answer to the same question? Same questions, same people, same everything. I don’t think there’s any reason for the debates. I know they’re getting very big ratings. And by the way the Democrats aren’t getting ratings at all. Trump is asked about his call for the GOP to embrace his candidacy. “The Republican party should come together and embrace these millions of people that are coming out and voting.... there’s something happening that’s really beautiful to see.” Like seemingly every Trump appearance, this one has turned into a news conference. Trump said the debate last night was “elegant” and “dignified.” He says he’d leave the door open on accepting contributions during a potential general election campaign. Trump is asked again about the “two Donald Trumps.” Q: Is the real Donald Trump your public persona or your private self? A: It’s an interesting question. I don’t like to over-analyze myself. I try to be who I am... I try to give a straight answer more than a politically correct answer. I answer truthfully... like the question on Islam... there is a problem. Trump said yesterday that “I think Islam hates us.” “I want to answer questions honestly and forthrightly,” Trump says. Q: Why are there two Donald Trumps? Is it a conscience thing? A: “I don’t think there are two Donald Trumps. I think there’s one Donald Trump,” in direct contradiction of what he said 5 minutes ago. “I am a thinker... I’m a very deep thinker. I know what’s happening, OK?” Trump blames violence at his rallies on protesters. “We’ve had some violent people at protests. These are people that punch. These are violent people.” “We’ve had a couple that were really violent... a guy who was swinging, was very loud and then started swinging at the audience. And you know what, the audience swung back. “If you want to know the truth, the police were very very restrained.” Islamic state question. Last night Trump said he would commit 20,000-30,000 troops to beat the perceived threat. “They’re going to get back real soon. We have to get rid of Isis. It’s going to be up to the generals. The generals are going to play their own game.” We’ve got to get the right general, Trump says. Does he regret anything he said about Carson? “It’s a funny thing,” Trump says. “I was thinking about that yesterday.” He talks about polling last fall. The “one person that just kept sneaking up on me, I couldn’t lose him, was DR Ben Carson,” Trump says. “I couldn’t lose him, I couldn’t shake him... and I hit him hard. .. but he handled it with such dignity.” The difference was that people voted for Trump. Trump is asked whether he is making outreach efforts to Capitol Hill. “We have been called by the biggest people in politics, not only Republican politics.” Trump says House speaker Paul Ryan “reached out”. “Terrific guy, I’ve always liked him, I’ve always respected him.” “Many other people at the top top level... we’ve been contacted by many of the biggest people in Republican politics. They’re really reaching out to us.” “Ben’s going to have a big, big, part,” Trump says. “Maybe Ben doesn’t know that yet. But he’s going to have a big part.” Trump’s asked whether he agrees with Carson’s view that there are “two Donald Trumps.” “I probably do agree. I think there are two Donald Trumps. There’s the public version... but it’s probably different than the personal Donald Trump. “Somebody that is a thinker. I’m a big thinker.” Trump now takes the lectern. He says he and Carson discussed education policy yesterday. “It was so right on. It was so good. I said Ben, congratulations, you just have to get involved with us on education.” He makes it sound like a job offer. “Ben is going to get very much involved in that, and he’s going to get involved in health care where he’s an expert.” But Trump says there was no job offer. “He just wants to help.” “It’s such an honor to have Ben. He’s a friend, he’s become a friend and I really appreciate the endorsement.” They hug. Briefly. Carson says a house divided against itself cannot stand and together the country will “ascend to a much higher pinnacle” than anyone expects. Carson’s speaking at a Trump event in Palm Beach. Trump is waiting in the wings. Carson’s standing behind a Trump-branded lectern in front of Trump’s usual backdrop of American flags. “There’s a lot more alignment, philosophically and spiritually, than I ever thought there was,” Carson says of himself and Trump. “I’m appealing to the media, as well. You’re part of America, too,” Carson advises. He says the job of the media should be not to divide or sow conflict, but to unite. “Donald Trump talks a lot about making America great, but it’s not just talk – he means it,” Carson says. “I’ll tell you why. First of all, I’ve come to know Donald Trump ... he is actually a very intelligent man who cares deeply about America.” Carson says there are two Trumps. One you see onstage and a secret Trump backstage, who Carson says is “very cerebral”. “Some people said he said terrible things about you ... well first of all we buried the hatchet. ... That happens in American politics. “There’s a lot more alignment, philosophically and spiritually, than I ever thought there was,” Carson says. Hello and welcome to our live-wire coverage of the 2016 race for the White House. Retired brain surgeon Ben Carson will endorse Donald Trump this morning in an appearance in Florida, Trump announced from the debate stage last night. Carson said on Thursday that it was important for the Republican party to get behind its nominee to ensure the defeat of the Democrats in November. Carson also said he believed that Trump was attracting new voters to the GOP. But some longtime Carson supporters expressed disappointment that a leader they had valued for his even temperament and Christian values would now get behind a candidate not known for either. “Let’s hope it is just a bad rumor, otherwise a lot of Dr Carson fans will be heartbroken,” said old Carson friend and former campaign organizer Terry Giles in a statement to the on Thursday evening. (Read the full statement here.) Ever since the Carson endorsement plan was announced, those who care have busied themselves disinterring Trump’s greatest hits against Carson, including this one: In other news, Trump’s campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, continued overnight to attack Michelle Fields, the reporter he is accused of physically assaulting this week. “You are totally delusional,” Lewandowski tweeted at Fields. “I never touched you.” Lewandowski’s account contradicts that of a reporter who witnessed the incident, an audio recording of the incident and a photo of her bruises. “Perhaps she made the story up,” Trump himself said after the debate last night. “I think that’s what happened.” But the new audio recording that emerged overnight added to the evidence that Fields was not lying but instead was manhandled by Lewandowski. “That was insane,” Fields appears to say. “You should have felt how hard he grabbed me.” “He literally almost threw you on the ground,” Washington Post reporter Ben Terris appears to reply. Did you watch last night’s Republican debate in Miami? It was a staid affair, more reminiscent of action on the Senate floor (“I’d like to thank my colleague from Manhattan for that gracious speech and only would add these supporting points …”) than a Republican debate hall. “If we nominate Donald Trump, Hillary wins,” Ted Cruz warned. Read all about it here: There’s a lot more happening on the campaign trail – thanks for joining us. What’s on your political mind today?
Listen to Rihanna's Work, featuring Drake: first track from new album Anti When Rihanna recently posted an image of herself listening to Anti, adorned in lavish Dolce & Gabbana leather rhinestone crown/headphone hybrid, intrepid fans attempted to gauge as much as possible from her expression. Did the icy gaze imply that her eighth album would be a provocative trap record in the same vein as BBHMM? Or was it a contemplative acoustic stare, the kind that someone listening to a song similar to the triple-denim dream FourFiveSeconds might give? The rumour is that fans will have to wait until Friday for the full album, but today Rihanna has broken her relative silence with the premiere of Work, a track which features longtime collaborator, reported ex-lover and all-round internet obliterator, Drake. From the four tracks lifted from the record so far, Anti is set to be as diverse as it has been long awaited. The glossy, modernist Work skewers elements of dub and dancehall: her voice is at times Auto-Tuned, and a distant sample of what sounds a little like Grace Jones’s My Jamaican Guy haunts its empty spaces. From Drake’s perspective, Work, co-produced by Boi-1da and PARTYNEXTDOOR, is a straightforward song about facing the labours of work before play, but Rihanna’s vocals sound a little more disappointed and dejected. A typically fated Rihanna love story, basically. Unfortunately for those who care not for paying money for music, the singer’s new track is only available from the paid-for streaming service Tidal, and iTunes at present. Take a listen to a sample below.
Where’s the evidence that Jeremy Corbyn is to blame for Brexit? The immediate, if not necessarily underlying, reason why a majority of Jeremy Corbyn’s fellow Labour parliamentarians have lost confidence in his leadership is his performance during the EU referendum campaign. They reckon his allegedly lukewarm support for remaining in the EU made a significant contribution to the remain side’s defeat. During the campaign the Labour leader put his level of support for the EU at no more than “seven to seven and a half out of 10”. Meanwhile, when the ballot boxes were opened, remain’s worst performances were often to be found in working-class Labour heartlands in the north of England and the Midlands. Unsurprisingly, Labour MPs put two and two together and pointed the finger of blame at their leader. Yet, in truth, there is little evidence that Mr Corbyn’s campaigning efforts – or those of any other Labour politician – made much difference either way to the willingness of Labour supporters to vote for remain. A split in Labour’s ranks was in evidence from the moment the referendum was called – and the picture simply did not change during the subsequent months of campaigning. This can be seen if we examine how Labour support for remain evolved in four polls that not only polled immediately before the day of the vote, but also both in mid-May, shortly before the onset of the official pre-election period on 27 May, and in mid-February, just as David Cameron was concluding his renegotiation of Britain’s terms of membership and firing the referendum starting gun. Back in February these polls – from Ipsos Mori, YouGov, ComRes and Survation – reckoned on average that just under three-quarters (74%) of those who voted Labour in last year’s general election intended to vote for remain. In short, it was apparent from the very beginning that a substantial minority of Labour supporters were disinclined to follow their party’s recommendation to back remain. The early months of campaigning simply saw this pattern maintained. When these four polls were conducted in mid-May, again on average 74% of Labour supporters indicated that they would vote remain. When these polls produced their final estimates on the eve of polling day, support for remain among Labour supporters had eased back a little, but still stood at 72%. Moreover, this was against the backdrop of a marked drop in the overall level support for remain, a drop that was especially in evidence in polls conducted by phone, which account for three of the four polls examined here. Far from being especially marked amongst Labour supporters, it was amongst Conservative voters that the fall in support for remain during the campaign appears to have been heaviest. Earlier in the campaign our four polls suggested Conservative supporters would divide roughly 50:50 between remain and leave. In February 48% of them said on average that they would back remain, while in May the figure was 51%. However, by the time polling day was approaching support for remain had fallen back to 44%. Of course, if Labour had fought a more enthusiastic and effective campaign in favour of staying in the EU then maybe support for leaving among its supporters might have been whittled down. But it is also open to doubt whether many of the working-class “left behind” voters that formed the core of leave support would have responded to such efforts. In truth, if the finger of blame for remain’s defeat is to be pointed anywhere it is better directed at the prime minister rather than Corbyn. David Cameron failed to bring his party with him at all, and in the event that simply proved too much of a handicap for the pro-EU camp to overcome.
Equity: how fictional tales of women on Wall Street shed light on reality “When is it my fucking year?” The line you’re most likely to hear quoted from Equity, one of the summer’s most memorable movies – and one of the best movies ever made about Wall Street – is the actor Anna Gunn’s hymn of praise to the joys of money. “I really do like money,” says Gunn, playing the role of investment banker Naomi Bishop. “Don’t let money be a dirty word.” But while that call resonates – she tells a group of young women that it’s OK to be rewarded for being tough, talented and working twice as hard as the men around them – it somehow lacks the power and the energy of the challenge levied by a furious Bishop to her boss, the global head of equities at the investment bank where she works. He’s retiring. She wants his job, and knows she deserves it. The problem? Although she’s a superstar banker, Bishop has recently, inexplicably lost at the last minute to a rival bank. Now, all that anyone wants to talk about is what went wrong. She’s told: “You rubbed people the wrong way.” What does that mean? Well, a bemused and annoyed Bishop finds out, it might have been that “I wore an awful dress” on one occasion. It has now been two decades since one of the worst cases of blatant harassment and discrimination against women on Wall Street hit the headlines. The “boom boom room” was a real place, a basement party room at a branch office of Shearson Lehman (later Smith Barney) in Garden City, New York. What took place there, and at other Smith Barney brokerages, ranged from outright sexual assault to the kind of harassment that is almost mundane for women who work on trading floors, such as strippers showing up to celebrate birthdays. Adding insult to injury, many of the 2,000 or so plaintiffs in what – against the odds – became a class action lawsuit, earned lower salaries, saw commissions handed to male colleagues and weren’t given the materials they needed to prepare for exams. Smith Barney, now part of Citigroup, paid $150m to settle the claims. Along with other banks, it did everything it could to burnish its image as an attractive place for women to work. It hasn’t really worked, at least if you judge by Maureen Sherry’s new novel, Opening Belle, published early this year by Simon & Schuster. (It, too, will soon be a movie, starring Reese Witherspoon in the title role.) And there’s no reason not to pay attention: Sherry worked at Bear Stearns and has mined her own experiences for material. Sherry’s autobiographical heroine is Isabelle McElroy, 36, a highflyer at Feagin Dixon (a very thinly disguised Bear Stearns run by a very thinly veiled composite of Ace Greenberg, bald head and all, and Jimmy Cayne, although with a drug habit that carefully isn’t cannabis). After joining a group of unhappy women – the Glass Ceiling Club – and after a mysterious individual begins sending emails alerting all and sundry to the most egregious behavior at the firm, Feagin Dixon’s Greenberg/Cayne composite convenes a lunch meeting of all his senior women to discuss issues that concern them. The valiant Belle is the only one to speak up, however. “I don’t want to hear slut jokes all day long. I don’t want to work in a frat house. I want to be paid equally. I want my input on abnormal rates of risk we take to be heard.” The examples Belle gives of what she endures precisely mirror those that Sherry herself described in an op-ed. Colleagues who uttered “moo” sounds when she used a breast pump after maternity leave, and one who drank a shot of her breast milk on a dare. A trader who supplied women on the desk with Band-Aids to cover their nipples when it was cold, because he didn’t want to be “distracted”. Instead of brooding over it all, or getting angry, Sherry advised her younger female colleagues on the importance of handling an important client making a pass at her without annoying him. She prided herself on thick skin. “We’re ambitious and we aren’t overly sensitive,” a friendwarns her at one point. “They know how to work with us. The guys aren’t going to change. It’s too late for them. The women just need to deal with it.” But do they? Or should they? While most of Wall Street’s senior women have indeed grown thick skins, they aren’t necessarily “dealing” with it. One woman, Megan Messina, received a bonus a third the size of a man with the same title and similar responsibilities at her employer, Bank of America. That seems to have been the moment when she asked herself when it was going to be her year: although her bonus was a lavish $1.5m, more than most of us can expect to earn in a decade or more, she says the bank’s “bros culture” ensured she wasn’t taken seriously. Her first conversation with her new boss, according to a lawsuit she filed, included him asking her whether she colored her hair. Just how many gender bias cases does Wall Street want to settle? In 2013, Bank of America forked over $39m to women who had worked at Merrill Lynch, in the latest in a long string of discrimination cases involving women and racial minorities dating back decades. Many other cases are settled out of the public eye, through mandatory arbitration. But discrimination, whether it’s subtle (the result of a woman wearing a dress that somehow, inexplicably, a client dislikes) or overt (a woman being forced to share her commissions and clients with a younger man) is still a reality. So, too, is harassment. It’s also worth noting that when most of these women make it big, they don’t do so within big Wall Street firms. Maria Elena Lagomasino was chairman and CEO of the JP Morgan Private Bank, and became CEO of WE Family Offices, a global wealth management firm. Sallie Krawcheck became chief financial officer of Citigroup, then moved to Bank of America Merrill Lynch to head its asset management division. When the bank’s CEO, Brian Moynihan, eliminated her position – in spite of the fact that Krawcheck had produced profits for the then struggling bank – she moved on to acquire a professional women’s networking group that began as a Goldman Sachs alumnae organization, and now is launching Ellevest, a new investment platform aimed at women. Another high flyer, Blythe Masters, left JP Morgan Chase to launch her own blockchain company, Digital Asset Holdings. In Sherry’s view of the world, a few smart women on Wall Street’s risk committees might have prevented some of the mayhem of the financial crisis. In Equity, Bishop is the principled investment banker who wants to do what it takes to raise capital for her clients to get money from investors to entrepreneurs. Traders’ greed and her colleagues’ games bemuse her. Maybe, just maybe, all this will trigger a serious discussion about women on Wall Street, rather than more propaganda. It’s not likely to change attitudes on a day-to-day basis, but in this kind of environment, doing away with mandatory arbitration, so that the worst offenders can be publicly named and shamed in lawsuits, would be a fine start. Because at some point, it has to be their fucking year.
Choir of Young Believers: Grasque review – rootless, post-everything pop Heady with the thick musk of Escada pour homme, the sophisti-pop groove of Grasque is a post-everything album: post-bedtime, post-genre, post-structure and post-definitely-irony. Jannis Noya Makrigiannis, frontman and principle songwriter of this Copenhagen group, creates soundscapes as indebted to the smoky 1980s melodrama of Careless Whisper as they are illuminated in the laptop glow of chillwave. Admitting himself that his music is “more like trips, or feelings” than traditional songs, the group tune out of the orchestral-pop majesty of previous albums and replace such frivolities with the surreal art-pop favoured by Chairlift: all ambience and sensual serenity. There’s an oddly rootless sound to the record, too: tracks such as Serious Lover and Face Melting could be blasting out from a Tokyo karaoke bar or the chill-out room in a techno club in Ibiza; everything is amenable. Intangible and atmospheric, but not a lot to latch on to.
Peter Vaughan obituary Peter Vaughan, who has died aged 93, was one of the most distinctive and menacing of character actors on stage and screen in a career spanning seven decades and ranging from West End comedy to Dickens and Our Friends in the North on television, to movies with Frank Sinatra and Tallulah Bankhead, and encompassing a string of unpleasant authority figures. With his bulky figure, small eyes and prognathous jaw, he usually played the type of character you would not want to bump into on a dark night in a darker alley, even though, in real life, Vaughan was known for his conviviality, kindness to animals and devotion to his family. For television audiences in the 1970s, he was a faux terrifying and hilarious Mr Big in Ronnie Barker’s prison comedy series Porridge: he ran the gaff as the glinting-eyed tobacco baron Harry Grout, who shared a cell with his budgerigar Seymour. And in the 80s, he was equally memorable as another, less amusing, Mr Big, Billy Fox, in Trevor Preston’s series Fox, for Thames TV, lording over the manor with his wife, played by Elizabeth Spriggs, and five sons, including Bernard Hill and Ray Winstone. More recently, and in his last job, he attracted a cult following as Maester Aemon Targaryen in HBO’s Game of Thrones. He played the centenarian blind sage, maester to the men of the Night’s Watch guarding the ice wall at Castle Black, for five seasons. In his last film, John Crowley’s Is Anybody There? (2008) he appeared – alongside Michael Caine, Sylvia Syms, Rosemary Harris, Leslie Phillips and Spriggs – as a first world war veteran in an old people’s home in the 80s. It had been a long journey for the only child of a bank manager, Max Ohm, an Austrian immigrant, and his wife, Eva (nee Wright), a nurse. Peter was born in a flat above the bank in Wem, Shropshire, moving with his parents to Wellington, then Uttoxeter, where he attended the grammar school. Showing a talent for drama, he was recruited at the age of 16 to the repertory company in the Grand, Wolverhampton, to play Simon the pie-boy in Sweeney Todd in 1939. He stayed, became an actor, and changed his surname from Ohm to Vaughan, though he never did so by deed poll. This early start in the profession, without formal training, was interrupted by the second world war. He served in the Royal Signals, eventually as an officer, in Normandy, Belgium and the far east, before returning to the Wolverhampton rep, followed by seasons in Macclesfield, Leicester and the Birmingham Rep, where he played Algy to John Neville’s Jack, Lally Bowers’s Lady Bracknell and Donald Pleasence’s Canon Chasuble; he and Pleasence became lifelong friends. When Vaughan married the actor Billie Whitelaw, nine years his junior, in 1952 – they met while playing in the same company in a London fringe theatre that year – Pleasence moved in with the couple as a lodger before embarking on several marriages of his own. Throughout the 50s Vaughan was busy in theatre while his television career took root. He appeared with the actor/manager Donald Wolfit in The Strong Are Lonely, an Austrian play about Jesuits in Paraguay, at the Haymarket in 1955, and a French comedy, Paddle Your Own Canoe, at the Criterion in 1958; the critic Harold Hobson eulogised Vaughan’s performance and said that the play never recovered after his exit. But his real breakthrough came when the actor Dudley Sutton, whom he knew, introduced him to the playwright Joe Orton in a theatrical drinking bar. Orton was scouting for a heavyweight heterosexual actor to play Ed, an ordinary-looking man who was interested in having sex with boys, in his forthcoming play, Entertaining Mr Sloane (1964). Vaughan fitted the bill perfectly, teaming in Patrick Dromgoole’s production at the Arts theatre with Madge Ryan as Kath, his sister, and Sutton as sullen, sultry Mr Sloane, shared object of their carnal attentions. Either side of that performance (Harry Andrews played Ed in the subsequent 1970 film), Vaughan performed Bottom at the Glasgow Citizens and his Gladstone opposite Dorothy Tutin in Portrait of a Queen (1965) at the Vaudeville. His marriage to Whitelaw, never easy (according, at least, to Whitelaw in her autobiography) ended in divorce in 1966 and he married, in the same year, the actor Lillias Walker, whom he had known for some time. Having made a film debut in Ralph Thomas’s The 39 Steps (1959), a remake of the Hitchcock classic, he played the first of many big screen police chiefs in John Paddy Carstairs’s The Devil’s Agent (1962), followed by the Boulting Brothers’ Rotten to the Core (1965), with Anton Rodgers and Eric Sykes; a British agent in The Naked Runner (1967), with Sinatra; and in Jack Gold’s The Bofors Gun (1967), with Nicol Williamson, Ian Holm and David Warner. Notable appearances in Sam Peckinpah’s Straw Dogs (1971) and Karel Reisz’s The French Lieutenant’s Woman (1981) were followed by two great fantasy films by Terry Gilliam – Time Bandits (1981) and Brazil (1985) – in which his gift for manic extravagance was given full rein, playing an ogre in the first and a minister of information retrieval in the second. His theatre work was maintained in a wonderful, diabolically possessed performance as the nearly-cuckolded Fitzdotterel in Ben Jonson’s The Devil Is an Ass at the Birmingham Rep and the National Theatre in 1976. A friendship formed with Robert Lindsay while playing his girlfriend’s father in Citizen Smith (1977-79) on television led to a brace of imposing performances – Lopakhin in The Cherry Orchard and Luka in Gorky’s The Lower Depths – in a company headed by Lindsay at the Royal Exchange in Manchester. Vaughan was a tetchy Aussie widower in Michael Blakemore’s tender production of David Williamson’s Travelling North at the Lyric Hammersmith in 1980 and a self-styled, crypto-fascist security guard in Alan Ayckbourn’s glorious Seasons Greetings at the Greenwich theatre, and the Apollo, in 1982. Thereafter, his theatre work was confined to touring in Priestley’s An Inspector Calls and Brighouse’s Hobson’s Choice until his final West End flourish in Harold Pinter’s superb 1996 revival of Reginald Rose’s Twelve Angry Men, in which he played a racist bigot, Juror No 10. In the same year, he was the trade unionist Felix Hutchinson, father to Christopher Eccleston’s Nicky and succumbing to Alzheimer’s, in Our Friends in the North, the BBC drama serial set over three decades by the writer Peter Flannery. Many people would consider Felix his finest performance. It certainly ranks alongside his ex- ceptional turn – uncharacteristically quiet and intensely moving – as the old servant, father to Anthony Hopkins’s head butler, in James Ivory’s The Remains of the Day (1993); an accident with a tea tray he sends flying across the garden patio results in a demotion, by his own son, to mops-and-brushes duty. But he graced every film he was in, really, including Nicholas Hytner’s The Crucible (1996) with Daniel Day-Lewis and Paul Scofield, in which he played Giles Corey; Christopher Hampton’s The Secret Agent (1996) with Bob Hoskins and Patricia Arquette; Bille August’s Les Misérables (1997) with Liam Neeson, the ninth screen version of that Victor Hugo novel before the screen musical came along; and Stephen Hopkins’s The Life and Death of Peter Sellers (2003), with Geoffrey Rush brilliant as Sellers, Charlize Theron as Britt Ekland and Stanley Tucci as Stanley Kubrick. Later in life, Vaughan and his wife lived on the Costa del Sol in Spain, but returned to live in West Sussex. In March he published a short book of anecdotal memoirs, Once a Villain. Vaughan is survived by Lillias and their son, David, and by two stepdaughters, Alexandra and Victoria, and four grandchildren. • Peter Vaughan (Peter Ewart Ohm), actor, born 4 April 1923; died 6 December 2016
Building better mental health in cities from the ground up The frenetic, isolating nature of city life can be a day-to-day struggle for millions of people. An environmental cocktail of densely packed streets and homes, cramped and lengthy commutes and noise pollution as well as significant pockets of poverty and deprivation can take their toll. As a result, mental ill health and urban life are inextricably linked. With urban areas expected to house two-thirds of the world’s population by 2050 and some cities, such as in China, undergoing unprecedented expansion, the relationship between urban environments and mental health – and what to do about it – is rapidly coming to the fore. “Public health is an important component of the built environment, but all too often this focuses only on physical health,” says Layla McCay, founder and director of the Centre for Urban Development and Mental Health. The thinktank was set up in 2015 to bring together researchers, policymakers and planners across the globe to push for urban space designs that create mentally healthier cities. Projects paving the way A well-designed urban space can have a positive influence on people’s wellbeing and help prevent mental health problems developing or becoming worse, according to McCay. “Mental health plays a huge role in the overall burden of disease around the entire world,” she says. “It’s prevalent in every country. The statistics do tell us that people who live in cities have a 40% increased risk of depression, a 20% increased risk of anxiety and double the risk of schizophrenia.” So far, projects paving the way have tended to be small. Examples include one in Sheffield, England, says McCay, where a green space parks initiative, the Improving Wellbeing Through Urban Nature project, is aiming to promote well-designed urban green spaces as a cost-effective way to boost mental and physical health. Another is the network of Dementia Friendly Communities across the UK. Urban living takes its toll There is a considerable body of evidence (pdf) internationally suggesting that urban living, especially poorly designed environments, can have negative effects on mental health. For example, substandard, overcrowded, damp housing has been proven to affect people’s capacity to cope, while the lack of something as basic as a play area can influence children’s wellbeing. Meanwhile, compared with non-urban areas, cities around the world have an increased prevalence of acute mental illnesses, as well as other problems such as stress and isolation. A recent report (pdf) from the Mental Health Foundation (MHF) in the UK concluded that cities becoming more crowded and the rising proportion of people living alone (up from 6% in 1972 to 12% in 2008) contributes to higher levels of loneliness, which is a risk factor for mental ill health. Another study, Poverty and Mental Health, published by the MHF for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation emphasised the adverse connections between mental health and deprivation, which tends to be most concentrated in urban areas. The report’s recommendations included that policymakers consider mental health as a core part of the urban planning process, saying it “should be promoted as good practice”. The role of planners and architects It makes sense, McCay says, to take into account, for example, that improving street lighting and housing layout might reduce fear and anxiety about safety. The same goes for using urban design to produce plentiful open, green spaces (pdf) that encourage regular interaction in “pro-social spaces” and “a sense of community” with the goal of reducing isolation. “[There] is a real opportunity for people who work in the planning, architecture and urban-focused professions to have an impact on mental health,” she adds. Experts at the WHO Collaborating Centre for Healthy Urban Environments at the University of the West of England (UWE), which works in tandem with the World Health Organisation’s international Healthy Cities Project, concur that urban planning could have a substantial role to play in cities being designed with mental wellbeing in mind. Sarah Burgess, senior lecturer in the department of architecture and built environment at UWE, says there is definitely momentum towards mental wellness becoming a greater priority for planners globally. She points to the popularity of happiness indices internationally and to initiatives such as Happy City in Canada, which promotes wellbeing as a legitimate goal of urban design, as examples of a growing appetite for new approaches. But when it comes to individual cities spearheading attempts to put mental wellbeing at the centre of planning strategies, Burgess concludes that they are rare. According to Daniel Black, an urban planner and fellow at the WHO Collaborating Centre, while planning professionals and researchers are increasingly becoming advocates for prioritising mental health in planning decisions, there is still some way to go before decision-makers in governments catch up. “Mental health is still lagging behind,” he says. “Even physical health is only beginning to get on the radar. How those in control of urban development are integrating health into development is negligible.” Talk to us on Twitter via @ public and sign up for your free weekly Public Leaders newsletter with news and analysis sent direct to you every Thursday.
Smoking in movies: film-makers just can't kick the habit Smoking scenes still regularly occur in movies deemed suitable for children, despite significant evidence that they can cause adolescents to take up the habit. The data about cigarettes on screen is relevant right now because a lawsuit is seeking to ban tobacco appearances in youth-rated movies. In 2015, 47% of films rated PG-13 had at least one occurrence of smoking or tobacco use according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). That figure has fallen since 2014 but the CDC still notes that “individual movie company policies alone have not been efficient at minimizing smoking in movies”. To defend itself against the recent legal claim, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) has said that prohibiting smoking imagery in films would amount to restricting free speech under the first amendment. In particular, the CDC calls out the Walt Disney Company and 21st Century Fox for having created 56% of the youth-rated movies in which tobacco appears. By contrast, Comcast and Viacom have made progress since 2014 according to the CDC. But some films are smokier than others. A 2011 study led by Stanton A Glantz, director of the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education, found that several films which contained scenes with cigarettes were still not being labelled as “smoking” films by the MPAA. Looking at the box office, Glantz found that the 134 top-grossing films of 2011 depicted nearly 1,900 tobacco “incidents” (a definition that includes implied use of a tobacco product – for example if an actor is seen holding an unlit cigarette). These were particularly common in period movies like Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows and Midnight in Paris (both rated PG-13, both of which had more than 50 tobacco incidents). But the research also showed that fantasy films aimed directly at children like The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 contained plenty of tobacco scenes too. Last year, the World Health Organisation published a comprehensive report which looked at the link between smoking on screen and adolescents taking up the habit. They, like the US surgeon general and the US National Cancer Institute, reviewed empirical evidence and found a causal link between the two. That empirical evidence included several brain studies. In one, when participants were shown film segments that included right-handed adult smokers, their brains lit up in areas that are responsible for craving as well as those that are in charge of motor planning for the right hand. The findings suggested that, after watching actors smoke, participants were mentally preparing to light a cigarette too. Nationally, smoking rates have fallen. In 2014, 17% of US adults were smokers compared to 21% in 2005. But tobacco use is far from obsolete in the US. Every day, more than 3,200 people under the age of 18 will smoke their first cigarette, according to the CDC.
Live screenings from regional stages, please Your correspondents are too quick to praise live screenings (Letters, 2 August). Live screenings may be a valid experience when I see overprovided and oversubsidised London audiences flocking to performances beamed from Newcastle, Wakefield, Truro etc, where costs are cheaper and where professional theatre is comparatively rare. The present arrangement is a stale excuse from so-called national companies to avoid their responsibilities to those of us for whom London is not accessible. Don Moore Garstang, Lancashire • What constitutes high quality? What if I don’t like opera (OK, I quite like Carmen) and only drink beer? Does that make me a northern heathen? Any road up, it’ll be reet when I see Gandalf and Jean-Luc Picard at’t Lyceum next Tuesday. No wine at the interval! David Elsom Sheffield • Maybe this hand-washing thing (Letters, 3 August) comes from the US. WH Auden criticised “the American habit of washing one’s hands after pissing, as if the penis were an object, too filthy for any decent person to touch”. Americans do seem particularly enthusiastic about it, often scrubbing up as if they were about to carry out open-heart surgery. Bev Littlewood Richmond, London • Regarding “Honestly, you really must come round for dinner soon” (30 July). I did once hear the Swedish language referred to as ordfattig (word poor). That apart, I loved Andrew Brown’s article and please do insist he drops round for supper – anytime. Deborah von Kohler St Austell, Cornwall • Samantha Cameron’s stylist and George Osborne’s aide are in line for OBEs on top of generous salaries (Report, 1 August). No award for Josh Coombes, a young barber who gives free haircuts to the homeless in Exeter, there no doubt thanks to Cameron’s and Osborne’s austerity measures. Sue Boulding Baschurch, Shropshire • So the is encouraged to drop titles and stick to the given name and surname (Letters, 3 August). An excellent idea. Quakers have been doing this for more than 350 years. Janie Cottis Wantage, Oxfordshire • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
Chelsea v Manchester United: Premier League – as it happened Read Dominic Fifield’s full match report here: That’s the end of an increasingly enjoyable game. Costa and De Gea embrace. Louis van Gaal is giving the fourth official the hairdryer, for reasons that aren’t immediately clear. That Costa goal surely ends United’s title challenge, and De Gea’s wonderful save might end Chelsea’s chance of being in Europe next season. Paradoxically, fans of both sides should be pretty happy tonight, because there was plenty to enjoy in their attacking play. Thanks for your company, goodnight! 90+6 min De Gea makes a brilliant save to win a point for United! Costa rumbled into the box on the left, came inside Smalling and drove a crisp shot towards the near post. It was going in but De Gea got down so smartly to tip it round the corner. 90+5 min Juan Mata is applauded off by both sets of fans as he is replaced by Ander Herrera. 90+4 min A lovely effort from Rooney, who beats Ivanovic on the left of the box and then floats a gentle chip over Courtois and onto the roof of the net. Courtois didn’t look worried, in fairness to him. 90+3 min Chelsea are pushing for a winner. Schneiderlin concedes a free-kick that is woefully overhit by Willian. Fabregas stabbed a straight, short-range pass towards Costa in the area. He was played onside by Borthwick-Jackson, who came across and slid in to challenge as Costa shaped to shoot from eight yards. Borthwick-Jackson got there first, but his sliding tackle only diverted the ball away from the grounded De Gea, and Costa was able to tap the ball into the vacant net with considerable glee. Costa has equalised! 90+1 min Depay wasted a promising break with an almost offensively sloppy pass towards Schneiderlin. 90 min There will be six minutes of added time, a result of the Zouma injury. 89 min Willian curves a free kick to the far post, where Costa gets above Blind but thumps his header over the bar from six yards. He should probably have scored, or at least forced David de Gea into a miracle save. 88 min Alan Smith, on Sky, says United would be deserved winners, and he’ll be thrilled to know that I agree. Apart from the 10 minutes before half time, when they were all over the show, they have controlled the game. They haven’t created that many chances, they never do, but they have had a lot of the ball. Until the last 10 minutes, anyway: apparently Chelsea have had 93 per cent of the possession in that time! Pick that stat out! 87 min “Wow!” says Ezra Finkelstein. “Rooney didn’t score for United.” I know! First time since 2009 I think. 86 min Another United substitution: Memphis replaces the goalscorer Lingard. 85 min United can’t get out of their third, never mind their half. 84 min The corner is a poor one from Willian. But the pressure is building, and Mata fouls Hazard 30 yards from goal out on the left. Another Willian free-kick... is cleared. 83 min Smalling is booked for a deliberate handball, just outside the box to the left. I’m not really sure he could have done anything to get out the way, but never mind. The free-kick is taken by Willian and headed clear by Martial. A few seconds later, Terry wins a corner. 82 min I wonder if Luke Shaw or Borthwick-Jackson can play anywhere else, because this kid is the most promising homegrown United youngster in a long time. His crossing is outstanding and he seems eerily composed for a 19-year-old. 80 min Lingard is booked for being a naughty boy. 79 min “De Gea,” writes Mike Gibbons, whose brilliant book you should buy here. “This is Ronaldo 2008-09, without the histrionics. He’s going to do one, isn’t he? May as well enjoy him while we can.” It’s so easy to get lost in the moment, and think that the best now is the best ever, but I can’t ever recall a goalkeeper with better reflexes than De Gea. 78 min Another good move from United is ruined by an overhit cross from Lingard. Van Gaal makes his first substitution, with Schneiderlin replacing Fellaini. 76 min Mikel leaves his studs on Carrick, who is booed by the Chelsea fans for experiencing consequent pain. Some refs might have sent him off, though it was one-footed – rather than two, like Flamini earlier – and he was probably in control of his body. 74 min Darmian’s low cross comes to Rooney, 14 yards out. His first touch controls it behind him, and as it bounces up he improvises to hook an acrobatic shot – not a volley – that is not far wide of the near post. Courtois had it covered I think. 72 min Another good save from De Gea. Fabregas does really well to slip away from Blind and Borthwick-Jackson on the right side of the area before smashing a rising shot towards the near post. De Gea is sufficiently alert to stretch and push it behind for a corner – from which, Terry’s scuffed shot is cleared off the line by Martial. It might actually have been going wide, I’m not sure; Martial was on the far post anyway. 70 min This is a good spell for Chelsea. Cahill gets in front of Fellaini at the near post, running onto Willian’s right-wing corner, but he mistimes his header and United survive. 68 min A fine save from De Gea keeps out Ivanovic’s brilliant volley. A cross from the right was headed up in the air by Azpilicueta at the far post, and Ivanovic – lurking six yards out to the left of centre like all good right-backs – welted a technically superb left-footed volley towards goal. De Gea demonstrated his peerless reflexes, stretching to tip it over the bar. DDG is indeed dead, dead good. 67 min Guus Hiddink makes his final chance, with Pedro replacing Nemanja Matic. 65 min If the scoreline stays like this, United will move within four points of City, five of Arsenal and Spurs and ten of Leicester. Martial almost makes it two, running clear onto Fellaini’s through pass, but Courtois plays sweeper-keeper to good effect. From the resulting throw, Lingard clatters a bouncing ball not far away from the top corner on the far side. Moments later, Borthwick-Jackson puts it another gorgeous cross but there’s only Rooney in the box. 63 min Blind is booked for shoving Costa over from behind, just outside the box on the right. It was a nice move involving Carrick, Martial, Mata and then Borthwick-Jackson, who fizzed a low cross into the box from the left. It ricocheted to Lingard, who was 12 yards out, facing away from goal and with Azpilicueta behind him. He kept his composure to take a touch and then smash a rising half-volleyed drive on the turn that gave Courtois no chance. That’s a really nice goal. Manchester United take the lead with a fine goal from Jesse Lingard! 59 min Play resumes, with Cahill on for Zouma. “It was Sharpe!” says Scott Wightman. “Sorry. I got lost looking at this picture of Valbuena in action against Belgium the other week. IMHO Sharpe as the 5 is one of the great weird numberings because all of the virtues one traditionally associates with a 5 - physical strength, intense concentration, better without the ball at their feet - were absent from Sharpe’s (considerable) game. Zidane was a 5 but he genuinely could have played anywhere if he wanted to.” 58 min Zouma is being moved very carefully onto a stretcher. I can’t remember the last time I heard a footballer scream as much as that. It brought to mind Syd Lawrence’s sickening injury for England against New Zealand in the 1991-92 Test series, though I should stress that there’s no suggestion Zouma’s injury is as bad as that. (Warning: this clip is definitely not for the sensitive) 55 min Zouma is in trouble here. He’s screaming with pain every couple of seconds, and a stretcher is coming on. He landed awkwardly as he cleared a loose ball, and it doesn’t look good. Gary Cahill will replace him. 54 min A Chelsea substitution: Oscar off, Eden Hazard on. 54 min “All I remember about numbers was that the tiny sticky-backed ones you could buy to attach to the back of Subbuteo players used a glue that consisted of the most unadhesive substance known to mankind at the time,” says Kevin Porter. “I believe its modern application is to coat distressed ice-rinks.” Oh my, I’d forgotten all about those. You could learn everything about the innate cruelty of life just by spending half an hour trying to number your Subbuteo players. 53 min Another chance for United. A cross from the right bounces off Martial, but he gets to the loose ball first and tees it up for Lingard in the D He shapes a curler towards the corner, and Courtois dives a long way to his left to make a fine save. 51 min “I used to love the exoticism of squad numbers when they were confined to international tournaments,” says Martin Gamage. “Take the Holland team at the 1974 World Cup when the keeper, Jan Jongbloed, sported the number 8 shirt. It suggested that even the keeper had the ability to embrace total football, come over all Johnny Rep, and plant a wonderful shot into the opposition’s top corner.” 50 min Two chances for United. First Blind reads the play to pick Costa’s pocket near the halfway line and find Rooney. He comes in from the left and hits a good shot that is beaten away by Courtois, diving low to his right. United almost score moments later when Martial comes infield from the left, easily away from Ivanovic, only to drag a decent chance wide of the near post from 10 yards. 49 min United have started the second half as they did the first, with lots of the ball. 49 min “I detest both teams,” chirps Gene Salorio, “but I find Fellaini’s persistent fouling much more annoying than Costa’s thuggery. The latter is, sometimes, an amusing part of the spectacle. The former is just static.” 48 min Mata’s curving cross from a narrow position finds Rooney in space 12 yards out, but he mistimes his jump and the ball loops into Courtois’ hands. It was an awkward chance because the ball was hit with pace by Mata. 47 min “I think it was Denis Law who first used the phrase ‘Twisted Blood’, in relation to what George Best, on his debut, left Graham Williams of WBA with,” says Mark Power. “Although I’d hate to suggest that SAF allowed an unoriginal thought into his head ...” I thought it was Paddy Crerand? I wasn’t saying Alex (we’re pals) invented it, just that he used it for the first time (to my knowledge) after that 4-1 win at Chelsea in October 1995. 46 min Peep peep! It’s only Ray Parlour’s autobiography the return of our old friend Ryan Dunne! “Re: numbers. I did always find it a tad off that Veron was given David May’s #4 shirt, but it’s amusing to imagine him asking what the previous occupier of the position was like and Fergie giving it the big sell (“aye he was a key part of the Treble success, just look at where the lad’s standing in the photos” etc).” Half-time chit-chat “Is it decided?” says Jeffrey Sisler. “Is Cahill definitely the #3 centreback for Chelsea? I miss his height in the box.” Let me ask Guus and get back to you, I’m meeting him for a Flat White tomorrow. Peep peep! An adequate half of football comes to an end. See you in 10 minutes! 45+1 min Chelsea could have had a penalty there. Willian’s deflected cross came to Terry, 10 yards out. He hooked the bouncing ball towards goal, and it hit the hand of Blind before deflecting wide of the far post. Blind’s hands were up as he threw himself at the ball in the kamikaze/John Terry style, so you can understand why Chelsea were aggrieved. 44 min After a nice move involving Rooney, Mata and Lingard, Darmian sidefoots a diagonal low cross that somehow misses everyone and goes out for a goalkick on the far side. That was a beautiful cross. 43 min Willian finds Costa on the left. He tries to come inside Darmian, who knocks the ball onto Costa and out for a goal-kick. Costa doesn’t dispute the decision. I know. 42 min United have restored order with a bit of tiki-takanaccio. 40 min Oscar does the sour metres, tracking back to concede a corner when Lingard breaks clear on the right. It’s United’s 10th of the half. Blind swings it in and Fellaini, wrestling with Zouma, heads not far wide of the far post from 10 yards. Actually that come off his shoulder, not his abundant noggin. 39 min “On the topic of squad numbers, I hold their introduction into the Premier League as one of the causes of the current state where about a quarter of Anfield empties in protest well before the end of the game, and even Arsene Wenger is advocating splurging forthcoming television millions on players (and their agents and salaries),” says David Wall. “They used to be just an additional treat to decorate international tournaments, but once they became common-place they then had to be followed by names on the back of shirts, for further ease of identification, and then you get the cult of the individual where a player signing a contract extension can be an item on the national television news without further explanation of the context or why it is significant (why anyone other than him and the club should care about his employment conditions). I wonder if a return to 1-11 numbering would roll back the tide.” The only way to roll back the tide is to put the internet back in its box. We all know it, we just don’t know how to do it. Also: WAS IT LEE SHARPE? 38 min Diego Costa does his thing, bundling Borthwick-Jackson off and then stomping around with an affronted coupon. 37 min “This really has been a half of two halves,” says Maher Sattar. “That’s all I have.” It’s more than I got. 36 min Chelsea have been superb in the last 10 minutes and could easily have scored three times. 35 min Willian puts Borthwick-Jackson on his backside with a lovely feint and then sidefoots an inviting cross along the six-yard box. Darmian blocks Oscar at the near post and Azpilicueta at the far post can’t get there. 34 min Another chance for Chelsea, this time for Oscar. who picks up a return pass from Fabregas and sidefoots high and wide from a tightish angle, 10 yards out. 33 min “Surely, surely this is a United side that has improved and grown up and moved on from the one that huffed and puffed ineffectively only to be undone by one moment of Eden Hazard magic last season?” says Thabo Mokaleng. “Surely?” Have you been cryogenically frozen for the last nine months? 32 min Costa misses the best chance of the match. It was a neat move from Chelsea, involving Oscar and Willian. Oscar played a penetrative ball down the inside right channel to Costa, who ran away from Blind and then sidefooted a shot just wide of the far post from 15 yards. It wasn’t a sitter, though he probably should have scored. 30 min This is Chelsea’s best spell. Fabregas almost blunders straight through the defence, with the last man Smalling sliding it to challenge him. “Speaking of shirt numbers, do you think Chelsea will retire the no. 26, if Terry is set to leave after the season?” says Konstantin Sauer. “After all, it’s not exactly one of the numbers regarded as ‘legendary’.” I suppose. Might as well. 29 min Ivanovic gives Martial a taste of his own medicine, driving forward to win a corner. It’s swung out towards Matic, whose flicked header at the near post is caught acrobatically by De Gea. It was a comfortable save. “How often is Superjohn Terry going to fiddle with his CAPTAIN’S armband today?” muses Adam Roberts. 28 min For all the unarguable competence of United’s passing, they haven’t created much. Mata has been busy but only Martial looks threatening. 26 min Chelsea get their first corner of the match. It’s swung in and headed over the bar by Costa, who makes a beeline for the referee Mr Michael Oliver to complain about the intrinsic unfairness of being Diego Costa. Blind was leaning on him a but, but, well, no. 24 min “No5,” says David Wall. “It was Mike Phelan, wasn’t it.” He used to wear No5, but I thought that was before squad numbers. Didn’t they come in for the second season of the Premier League? By which time Giggs was around and wearing No11, so Sharpe needed another number. I don’t know. Jeez, this is hot chat. 22 min It was a goal from Ryan Giggs on this ground that first leg Sir Alex Ferguson to use the phrase “twisted blood”. Another United left winger, Martial, is starting to twist Ivanovic’s blood. He wins another corner, which leads to another corner, which leads to a third. Blind takes it and it so nearly falls to Fellaini six yards out. But it doesn’t, so let’s move on. 21 min Martial’s dangerous inswinging cross towards the abundant noggin of Fellaini is superbly defender by Terry (I think). 20 min It could be a long afternoon of the soul for Ivanovic against Martial, who looks the most dangerous player on the pitch. 18 min That’s a lovely save from Courtois. Martial moved infield from the left, ignored Ivanovic and then, from the corner of the box, smashed a fierce right-footed shot towards the far top corner. Courtois stretched high to his left to tip it round for a corner. 17 min “Afternoon Rob,” says Simon McMahon. “Seeing as people seem to be asking questions in their emails today, riddle me this. Who do you reckon will be managing these two clubs in the corresponding fixture next season?” Mourinho and Simeone. You have my word. 16 min A wonderful, Gascoigne-like surge through the heart of midfield from Willian eventually leads to Oscar hitting a fierce 20-yard shot that is well blocked. That was Chelsea’s best/only attack so far. 15 min “In the squad number era (better name than the Premier League era if you ask me),” begins Scott Wightman, “Bruce was United’s original 4 and Pallister the 6, but who was the original 5? Clue: it’s not Ronny Johnsen.” Was it Sharpe? 14 min “If I remember, didn’t Liverpool start the decline of proper numbering by putting the slight and nippy Craig Johnston in the 5 shirt, in the days when it was the preserve of large chaps who looked like they snacked on housebricks?” asks Simon Cherry. Don’t forget Argentina 1978, who numbered their World Cup squad in the hipster style. 13 min A crisp low shot from Carrick, 25 yards out, is well held by Courtois down to his left. 12 min Mata and Rooney work the ball nicely to release Borthwick-Jackson, whose cross is blocked for a corner by Ivanovic. Borthwick-Jackson has started really well. Blind’s corner is headed clear to Rooney, who completely mishits a volley from 30 yards. 10 min Another corner to United down the right. Blind takes it short to Darmian, whose cross is headed out for a throw-in by Terry. United are all over Chelsea. 9 min United have started so well that you feel sure they are going to lose 1-0 despite having 68 per cent possession. 8 min The corner is cleared to Borthwick-Jackson, who drills a low 30-yarder straight at Courtois. An easy save. 7 min Another corner for United, who are the dominant side at the moment. Blind swings it in from the right and Costa slices it behind for another corner. 6 min “What club did Manchester United buy Darmain from?” asks Dacre. “Also how much did they pay for him?” Torino, £12.7m; oh and you should definitely wear the pink tie. 5 min Meanwhile, in Naples. 4 min United have started like the home side, with some confident passing. Lingard finds Fellaini in a good position down the right; his low cross towards Rooney is inadequate, but moments later a better cross from Borthwick-Jackson is headed behind for a corner by Zouma. The corner is played short, to no great effect. 3 min “Re: Tom Harp’s email,” begins Harry Tuttle. “I‘m always a little disappointed to see No6 in midfield and No4 stuck in defence, if I’m honest.” All we can ask is that you be honest. 2 min A decent early attack from United ends with Matic blocking Lingard and allowing the ball to run through to Courtois. 1 min Chelsea, in blue, kick off from right to left. United are in red. The players emerge from the tunnel, with John Terry feeling the love of Stamford Bridge. This, of course, will be his last game against Manchester United before he signs a one-year contract extension. An email “Some trivia for you. Scottish FA Cup, East Kilbride vs Celtic, latest 0-1 (HT),” says Tom Harp. “East Kilbride line up with players wearing shirts 1 to 11. Playing formation 1-4-5-1. Goalkeeper is #1, defenders #2-5, centre-forward #9, midfielders the balance. When is the last time you saw that?” It’s so funny you should say this, because yesterday my Saturday-league team played a 2-3-5-1 with the goalkeepers wearing #1-2, the defenders #3-5 and so on. Guus Hiddink and Louis van Gaal are chatting away on Sky. Here are the points of interest from their pre-match interviews: Arsenal moved up to third with a 2-0 win at Bournemouth. That means Manchester City are now fourth, and United are seven points off a Champions League place, for a couple of hours at least. Both sides are unchanged, so Eden Hazard stays on the Chelsea bench. You just haven’t earned it yet, baby. Chelsea (4-2-3-1) Courtois; Ivanovic, Zouma, Terry, Azpilicueta; Mikel, Matic; Willian, Fabregas, Oscar; Costa. Subs: Begovic, Baba Rahman, Cahill, Loftus-Cheek, Pedro, Traore, Hazard. Manchester United (4-2-3-1) De Gea; Darmian, Smalling, Blind, Borthwick-Jackson; Fellaini, Carrick; Lingard, Mata, Martial; Rooney. Subs: Romero, McNair, Varela, Schneiderlin, Herrera, Pereira, Memphis. Referee Mr Michael Oliver. This is where Twitter really comes into its own From the archive A typically brilliant piece from Scott Murray, including George Best managing to score at the Stretford End despite being the victim of a hit-and-run. In the 1.30pm kick off, Arsenal are leading 2-0 at Bournemouth. Get the latest news with Nick Ames’ MBM. Hello and welcome to live coverage of this Premier League contest between the teams in 13th and fifth place, also known as Chelsea versus Manchester United. It’s been an odd time for both clubs, a lost season while Jose Mourinho does the necessary to get what he really, really wants. Chelsea are unbeaten in 12 games since Mourinho was sacked in December. United are on a celebrated unbeaten run of their own – two matches, in which they have scored six goals, some of them beautiful. If they win today they will be able to rationalise that they are back in the title race. Not that it will be easy for them to do so. In the 1980s and 1990s this fixture was almost an away banker. Since 1999, however, United have won three and lost 11 of their last 20 games at Stamford Bridge. That’s not all that has changed about this fixture. For much of the last decade it was a title decider, and in one case a Champions League final; now it’s almost a mid-table clash. Kick off is at 4pm.
Trump campaign faces biggest crisis yet after tax documents published Donald Trump was reeling from the biggest crisis of his campaign on Sunday, after the publication of documents suggesting the wealthy Republican nominee may have been able to escape paying income tax for nearly two decades. In a direct challenge to his claim to be a successful businessman and a champion of America’s hard-working middle class, the anonymously leaked tax returns reveal how Trump used aggressive accounting tactics and the failure of several businesses to claim a loss of $916m in his 1995 personal filing. Independent experts say under US rules, this could be large enough to legally shelter hundreds of millions in income from years of federal tax – despite Trump’s high-rolling lifestyle and criticism of others for avoiding tax. Trump did not deny the damning conclusions drawn by the New York Times, which first received the filing in a manila envelope said to have been sent from inside Trump Tower. But he threatened to sue the newspaper for what he insisted was “illegally obtained” material. “The only news here is that the more than 20-year-old alleged tax document was illegally obtained,” the campaign said in a statement, “a further demonstration that the New York Times, like establishment media in general, is an extension of the Clinton campaign, the Democratic party and their global special interests.” The editor of the New York Times recently said he was prepared to risk prison to publish Trump’s hitherto secret tax returns. The Times pointed out in its report that the documents it had obtained did not suggest Trump had done anything illegal. The veracity of the document was also confirmed by Trump’s former accountant, Jack Mitnick, who told the paper he had to manually input the figure in question because tax preparation software did not allow for nine-digit losses. Instead, the Trump campaign embarked on a damage control exercise on Sunday, dispatching surrogates to television talk shows to argue that Trump was clever to exploit the painful collapse of his past business ventures, several of which defaulted on creditors by declaring bankruptcy. “The reality is he’s a genius,” former New York mayor and Trump supporter Rudy Giuliani told NBC. “He did something we admire in America: he came back.” New Jersey governor Chris Christie also told Fox News Sunday the story was “very good” for the candidate as it showed “the genius of Donald Trump”. The argument is consistent with an explanation given by the candidate himself, who claimed he was being “smart” when pressed by his rival, Hillary Clinton, on tax avoidance during their first presidential debate. In 2012, Trump berated people who don’t pay tax payers, writing: “Half of Americans don’t pay income tax despite crippling govt debt”. Yet the scale of the 1995 loss appears to confirm suggestions made by Democrats that Trump has refused to follow 40 years of tradition and publish his tax returns because they would show he didn’t pay any. “Trump is a billion-dollar loser who won’t release his taxes because they’ll expose him as a spoiled, rich brat who lost the millions he inherited from his father,” Democratic Senate minority leader Harry Reid said on Sunday. “Despite losing a billion dollars, Trump wants to reward himself with more tax breaks on inherited wealth while stiffing middle-class families who earn their paychecks with hard work.” The revelations follow a poor debate performance, sliding poll numbers and a week of distracting arguments with a former Miss Universe winner, whom Trump had called “Miss Piggy” in the 1990s. On Friday Trump falsely accused her of having a “sex tape” only hours before reporters found he had made a cameo in a Playboy video. Many such embarrassments have failed to dent Trump’s popularity in the past, but the tax question goes to the heart of his claim to represent struggling US workers. Trump has proposed a tax plan that would cut taxes for all Americans, but analysis by the conservative Tax Foundation found it would disproportionately help the richest Americans, saving them millions. “You have middle-class people working longer hours for low wages, they pay their taxes,” said Senator Bernie Sanders, whose battle against Clinton for the Democratic nomination drew on similar anger over inequality. “They support their schools, they support their infrastructure, they support the military, but the billionaires, no, they don’t have to do that because they have their friends on Capitol Hill. They pay zero in taxes,” Sanders told ABC on Sunday. “So Trump goes around and says, ‘Hey, I’m worth billions, I’m a successful businessman, but I don’t pay any taxes, but you, you who earn 15 bucks an hour, you pay the taxes. That’s why people are angry and want real change in this country.” In a statement, Trump’s campaign defended his record, saying he “is a highly-skilled businessman who has a fiduciary responsibility to his business, his family and his employees to pay no more tax than legally required”. “That being said, Mr Trump has paid hundreds of millions of dollars in property taxes, sales and excise taxes, real estate taxes, city taxes, state taxes, employee taxes and federal taxes, along with very substantial charitable contributions.” The campaign offered no specifics about how much Trump may have paid in these taxes, or when.
Police investigate tweet calling for someone to 'Jo Cox' MP Anna Soubry Police are investigating a tweet calling for someone to “Jo Cox” the Conservative MP Anna Soubry. The murder of the Labour MP Cox by an extreme rightwing terrorist raised concerns about parliamentarians’ security and the level of abuse they have directed at them. On Friday morning a Twitter user by the name of Michael posted: “Someone jo cox Anna sourby please [sic].” Soubry, the MP for Broxtowe in Nottinghamshire, was a remain supporter in the EU referendum, like Cox. She replied: “Take it that wasn’t a spelling mistake. You’re a sad cowardly troll.” The account has since been deleted but Soubry later posted a screenshot of the offending tweet, with the comment: “This is what has happened to our politics. Tolerance & free speech must prevail.” She told BBC Nottinghamshire that she was “very disturbed” by the tweet and confirmed that she had reported it to Nottinghamshire police as well as the parliamentary authorities. She said the message was the second of two death threats she had received in a week. “Somebody had rung the office on Wednesday and made a number of threats to harm me in the same way that Jo Cox was harmed … so we reported that,” she said. Soubry added: “It’s almost as if Jo was never murdered. “It’s surreal actually, that that terrible and dreadful event has almost been erased and we have gone back to the language, we have gone back to the way of doing politics which we all promised we wouldn’t after Jo was murdered. “The abuse on Twitter has gone back up again from almost all sides – from both the left and the extreme right – and it all needs to stop.” There was an outpouring of support from across the political divide. The Westminster SNP leader Angus Robertson was among those who urged the police to investigate. Thomas Mair was last week sentenced to prison for the rest of his life for the murder of Cox. He repeatedly shot and stabbed her in an attack during the EU referendum campaign in June. While attacking her he said: “This is for Britain,” “Keep Britain independent,” and “Britain first,” the court heard. A spokesman for Nottinghamshire police said: “We have received reports of threats made to an individual. “Nottinghamshire police takes reports of this nature very seriously and an investigation is under way.”
11 health innovations to drastically cut maternal and child mortality rates Achieving the ambitious target to end maternal and child deaths, enshrined in the sustainable development goals (SDGs), will require ingenuity. The good news is that 11 health innovations could save more than 6 million mothers and children by 2030, if they are invested in and used widely in 24 priority countries. When I began working in global health (at the World Health Organisation in 1990) 12.7 million children under five and 532,000 new mothers died every year. The challenge looked insurmountable. But in the two decades that followed, unprecedented global cooperation resulted in annual child deaths being cut by more than half, to 5.9 million in 2015, and annual maternal deaths to just over 300,000. As impressive as the progress has been, it’s not enough. The current rate of decline in maternal and child mortality will not get us to the ambitious SDG targets by 2030. We need innovative tools and approaches to accelerate progress. The 11 innovations modelled in our analysis, crowdsourced from experts around the world, are gamechanging health technologies and approaches that will have wide-scale impact, ensure healthier babies, protect mothers, and secure better health in the long term. 1 Injectable contraceptives A new formulation that combines a widely used long-acting contraceptive in an easy-to-use injection is already improving access to this life-changing intervention by allowing community health workers to bring the drug directly to women. Several countries are even studying the potential for women to self-inject, further empowering women and their choices. Modelling showed that this innovation, making long-acting contraception more accessible, could save more than 3 million lives – including women, newborns, and children – by helping women space their pregnancies in a healthy way. 2 Better pneumonia treatment Accurately diagnosing pneumonia in young children is very difficult. New tools to diagnose and treat the condition, including better respiratory rate monitors and portable pulse oximeters, can save many more lives from this disease, which is the leading infectious killer of children under five. 3 Kangaroo mother care There is so much we can do now to give newborns a better chance at a healthy life. Studies have shown that kangaroo mother care, or skin-to-skin contact between the newborn and mother immediately after birth, improves breastfeeding and thermal regulation of newborns, both critical for survival in low-resource settings. 4 Chlorinators for water treatment Beyond traditional interventions for mothers and newborns, we also need to ensure access to clean water. New technologies, like a chlorinator for community water treatment, are making the use of chlorine for disinfecting water easy and economical. 5 Antiseptic gel Chlorhexidine, a low-cost antiseptic, is a very simple gel that, if applied to the newborn’s umbilical cord, can prevent deadly infections. 6 Single-dose anti-malarial drugs Better drugs to protect against diseases like malaria are in the works, including a potent single-dose anti-malarial drug. 7 Neonatal resuscitators As many as one in 10 newborns need help breathing at birth, new, simple, neonatal resuscitators can help prevent deaths. 8 Low-cost balloon tamponade Women with postpartum haemorrhage can also be stabilised and treated by a balloon tamponade, a common tool in high-income countries. Recently, this tool has been adapted using readily available materials in low-income countries. Using the materials at hand, a healthcare provider can create a tamponade out of condoms and rubber tubing. Now simple low-cost kits and pre-assembled versions are available, that make this solution more accessible and effective. 9 Drugs to stop blood loss after childbirth New forms of the drug oxytocin are currently being developed and tested that could increase coverage because they won’t require skilled health workers to administer or refrigeration for storage. These innovations could help ensure this highly effective drug reaches and treats hundreds of thousands of women at risk of death from postpartum haemorrhage (or severe bleeding after delivery) each year. 10 Rice fortification For children who live in areas where rice is a staple food, we are seeing amazing developments in rice fortification, a process that enriches rice with vitamins and iron supplements. Better nutrition is at the core of better health and smarter ways to supplement staples and introduce foods with more nutritional value are essential. 11 New tests for a life-threatening maternal condition Preeclampsia is another danger that affects more than one in 20 pregnant women. It is associated with dangerously high blood pressure that can lead to seizures. New diagnostic tools to treat preeclampsia will help identify at-risk women so that they can receive low-cost treatment. How will these life-saving innovations be funded? Traditional donors cannot do it alone. Governments in low- and middle-income countries have a critical role to play and so do local entrepreneurs with the potential to take forward affordable solutions. The private sector and social impact investors, also want to engage. But all these groups need better data to assess what is available, what is coming soon, or where there is a gap that requires new ideas. To achieve the goal of ending preventable maternal and child deaths, the world must invest in new and emerging health innovations so that bright ideas turn into real solutions. The lives of millions of women and children depend on it. Join our community of development professionals and humanitarians. Follow @ GDP on Twitter. Join the conversation with the hashtag #Dev2030.
Julieta review: Pedro Almodóvar ties himself down with fractured melodrama Pedro Almodóvar’s intriguing, minor work Julieta is an adaptation of three inter-related short stories by Alice Munro from her 2004 collection Runaway: Chance, Soon and Silence. It elegantly revives Almodovár’s signature tropes and repertory cast favourites, circling around ideas of yearning, memory and loss. This is a movie which almost seems to happen at one remove from itself, unfolding as so many of his others in flashback, disclosed by letters and journals, a movie in which vitally important things happen off camera, including an extraordinarily painful revelation almost casually thrown away in the dying moments. It’s all about mothers, all about transformation, all about people in comas, or nearly in comas — that last idea being one which licenses the thrill of marital infidelity, while complicating it with poignancy and fear of death. Almodóvar’s visual palette is as rich and sumptuous as ever. His colours throb and pop. The film is about Julieta, a woman who has somehow been marginalised from her own life. In her stylish older years, she is played by Emma Suárez and as a beautiful young woman by Adriana Uguarte. In the present day, she seems happy and content, about to leave Spain for a new life in Portugal, with her new partner Lorenzo (played by Dario Grandinetti, from Almodóvar’s Talk To Her). But a chance meeting in the street shatters her calm. We discover that Julieta has an estranged daughter, Antía, whom she hasn’t seen in decades, enduring emotional pain like grief. Now she discovers news that Antía is still alive; she has been spotted on holiday with her three children: as well as everything else Julieta finds that she is a grandmother. In a newly enhanced state of anguish, she abandons her new relationship, abandons her new life in Portugal and sits down to write a long diary-slash-letter to Antía, recounting her former life with Antía’s late father Xoan (Daniel Grao), her complex friendship with Xoan’s on-off lover Ava (Inma Cuesta) and her tense relationship with the formidable and disapproving Marian, played by the unmistakable Almodóvar icon Rossy De Palma. This fraught dynamic creates the perfect emotional storm which is to be the key to Xoan’s fate — that an a real-life storm in which he takes out his fishing boat. This is an intriguing, painful story of almost melodramatic vehemence, but seen through a hall of mirrors. The Russian formalists used to say that the function of art was to put you a knight’s-move away from reality; Almodóvar delights in putting you a knight’s-move away from what is happening in his film. It is absorbing yet also sometimes disconcerting. The performances of from Uguarte and Suárez are open and generous: on camera, their faces deliver up emotion richly and immediately. The emotional lives of young Julieta and older Julieta are, appropriately, storm-tossed. They seem to be in the centre of a Hitchcockian thriller — Lorenzo at one stage ruefully compares his own behaviour to an obsessed character in a Patricia Highsmith novel. Almodóvar is brilliant at creating the mood of a mystery thriller, but with little or no intention of giving you the big reveal that you might expect. The mystery at the heart of the film is Antía herself, played as an 18-year-old by Blanca Pares: it is a nagging, gnawing absence, and the structure of the film is a clever way of approximating that sense of loss and devastation. Antía being gone from Julieta’s life is a kind of bereavement. Finally, we hear why Antía felt the need to abandon her mother, but there is something frustrating and baffling in the fact that she is revealed to us only as reflected in the tormented memory-mirror of Julieta’s mind. This is not as richly compelling as other Almodóvar films, but it’s a fluent and engaging work.
Sun's 'Brexit boost to shares' front page is a topsy-turvy take on the truth Spin and slant are hardly unknown in newspapers, but the front page of Wednesday’s Sun subjected the truth to such aggressive editing as to give a completely upside-down impression of what was going on in financial markets. A day after the newspaper’s front page editorial, beseeching voters to “BeLEAVE in Britain”, the tabloid put together a bizarre pastiche involving Remain’s dwindling poll lead, “nasty Euro moths” and what a large sub-headline described as a “Brexit Rocket Boost to Shares”. What makes this last item the stand-out in this bizarre brew is that the big financial story overnight had been the £30bn wiped off the FTSE on Tuesday, which was widely thought to be associated with the surging position of the leave camp in the latest polls. The “rocket-boost” claim was repeated and attributed to “analysis” in the text of the story on the front page, but only readers who pressed on to the bottom of the second column of the story on the second page got any indication of what this claim was based on, a Deutsche Bank research note which observed that European shares were set to tank by around 10% in the event of Britain voting leave, but also suggested that the slide in UK shares could be somewhat smaller, leading to a relative over-performance of around 5%. The “rocket booster” then turns out to be not an increase, but a smaller decline than that witnessed elsewhere. And even that is a highly speculative suggestion. To highlight this figure after a trading session when the the London markets had been in freefall is a little bit like splashing on somebody predicting that Manchester United might win the league next year, the evening after they had suffered a five-nil defeat. The basis for Deutsche Bank’s prediction, by the way, was that Brexit would trigger such a run on the pound that UK exports would get cheaper, making them easier to sell. Dylan Sharp, head of PR at The Sun, suggested on Twitter that those “being snotty” about the Sun’s “rocket booster” claim should “blame Deutsche Bank”. He added that the full original news report had included some details of Tuesday’s rout in shares. It did indeed. But in the print edition inspected by the this information did not make it into the front-page story.
Boris Johnson calls for end to 'whinge-o-rama' over Donald Trump Boris Johnson has called on European leaders to end the “doom and gloom” about Donald Trump’s election victory and see the US president-elect as someone with whom they can build closer ties. Speaking after a phone conversation with the vice-president-elect, Mike Pence, the British foreign secretary described Trump as “a deal maker” and called for an end to the “collective whinge-o-rama” which followed Hillary Clinton’s defeat. The British government is hurriedly seeking ways to engage with Trump, a man several ministers had condemned during his election campaign, including Johnson, who had said he was “genuinely worried” at the idea of a Trump presidency. One report on Friday claimed that the international trade secretary, Liam Fox, wanted to turn to Nigel Farage to liaise with Trump because the government had no links with his camp. The story in the Telegraph was, however, immediately dismissed by Downing Street, with a spokesman saying: “Dr Fox has no plans to talk to Mr Farage.” A Ukip source said there was no truth to the report. Theresa May talked to Trump on Thursday afternoon, with the president-elect making reference to the close relationship between Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, a Downing Street source said. Trump “alluded to their relationship as a way to underline that he was keen to have a good personal working relationship too”, the source said. Johnson said of his conversation with Pence: “We agreed on the importance of the special relationship and the need to tackle global challenges together.” Speaking in Belgrade, where he had met the Serbian prime minister, Aleksandar Vučić, Johnson called for a sense of proportion in reaction to Trump’s success. “I would respectfully say to my beloved European friends and colleagues that it’s time that we snapped out of the general doom and gloom about the result of this election and collective whinge-o-rama that seems to be going on in some places,” he said. “He is, after all, a deal maker. He wants to do a free trade deal with the UK,” Johnson told reporters. “I believe that this is a great opportunity for us in the UK to build on that relationship with America that is of fundamental economic importance for us, but also of great importance for stability and prosperity in the world.” Jonathan Marland, David Cameron’s former trade envoy, said Trump’s victory was a “great opportunity to rebuild alliances”. Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, the peer said: “Our relationship with America has been rocky in terms of trade recently because of the onslaught they had against our banks and against BP and I think business needs certainty. If Mr Trump can show there is a greater certainty and that he is open for business then I think it is very good for British business.” He added: “Post-Brexit and post-Trump, both countries are going to be looking for allies with which to increase their trade. Both countries will be looking for quick-fix partners post these events and I have no doubt that Trump, whose mother was born in Scotland … will be looking very favourably on economic relationships with the UK.” Farage has spoken jokingly about the idea of being Trump’s liaison with the EU in Brussels, but his allies say that while he would happily consider being an intermediary for the UK government, there is no realistic chance he would be asked. The Ukip interim leader is currently in Florida for a private event. In an interview with TalkRadio recorded before he was due to fly to the US, Farage joked about the idea of Trump sexually assaulting May. Imagining the two leaders meeting, he said: “Don’t touch her, for goodness sake,” before laughing. Asked about the likely behaviour of Trump, who has been accused of a series of sexual assaults, which he denies, Farage added: “If it comes to it, I could be there as the responsible adult role, to make sure everything’s OK.”
Everton see off Middlesbrough as Barry scores on 600th Premier League game Everton have not always responded well to adversity in the past but there is steel running through the side under Ronald Koeman. They went behind to the most dubious of away goals midway through the first half but simply brushed the injustice aside, recovered within minutes and went on to claim a handsome victory. Everton now sit second in the table and have scored six goals in their last two games, though it must be said Middlesbrough, like Sunderland earlier in the week, do not possess the most resolute of defences. “Our start was not good,” Koeman said. “We needed to be more aggressive with the pressing but we got there in the end and played some great football. We have improved a lot physically and we have brought in players with a lot of energy.” Gareth Barry enjoyed an eventful evening as he made his 600th Premier League appearance, only the third player to record such a milestone after Ryan Giggs and Frank Lampard. The Everton vice-captain could have gifted Middlesbrough an opening goal when he lost the ball in front of his own penalty area, and was relieved when Gastón Ramírez proved to be less sharp at shooting than dispossessing opponents. Six minutes later the visitors did take an unexpected lead, and Barry led the posse of Everton players moaning about it. In fairness he probably had a point, Álvaro Negredo’s goal should not have stood. Replays showed the Boro striker headed Maarten Stekelenburg’s arm rather than the ball as the pair tried to claim George Friend’s cross from the left touchline, thus preventing the goalkeeper making a clean catch. Lee Mason did not have the benefit of replays, however, and awarded the goal, presumably on the grounds that Negredo only attacked the ball and did not appear to have committed any obvious foul. One imagines Barry was making the point a little too forcibly that in such situations goalkeepers are normally given the benefit of the doubt. In a way it was refreshing to find a referee unwilling to treat goalkeepers as a protected species, and possibly true that Negredo also deserved the benefit of the doubt, though had the referee had the opportunity to watch a replay he would have been forced to change his mind. If the occasion was turning a little sour Barry lost no time in making amends. A mere three minutes after going behind Everton were level, and it was Barry at the far post who provided the equaliser. Víctor Valdés punched ineffectively at a Kevin Mirallas corner, succeeding only in pushing the ball against Negredo, from whom it fell to Barry to tuck away with a neat finish, though once again there was an element of controversy. Valdés might have dealt with the cross better had not Ashley Williams impeded the goalkeeper by going for the ball with a raised boot. Ross Barkley and Yannick Bolasie both went close for the home side once the scores were level before Everton hit two goals in quick succession to turn round 3-1 in front, a half-time scoreline that little in the previous 45 minutes had suggested. Séamus Coleman scored the first, accepting a short pass from Romelu Lukaku and coolly rounding Daniel Ayala in the Boro area to make his shooting angle easier, then in the final second of added time Lukaku himself added another. At least the striker claimed the goal, in reality it appeared he had merely stretched out a leg to Bolasie’s cross and made negligible contact. Bolasie had just as strong a claim to the goal, though Lukaku could claim with some justification that it was his action that had diverted the attention of the goalkeeper. Barry’s day become even more eventful with a booking at the end of the first half, after an altercation with Ramírez. Boro became the second north-east team in a week to be floored by Everton’s ability to score bursts of goals, and the second half was basically a story of a team full of confidence passing the ball at will around a defence more interested in damage limitation. Barkley was conspicuous in most home attacks after his dressing down at Sunderland, clearly focused on correcting the impression that he gives the ball away too cheaply. There were occasions, in fact, when Barkley might have done better to release the ball a little earlier, though one determined run into the box after an hour brought a good save from Valdés at the foot of his left hand post. “Today was the Ross Barkley we like to see,” Koeman said. “He’s not a young player any more, he needs to take responsibility. I was honest in what I said about him, but players are not stupid, they know when they have not played well.” Barkley would have liked a goal to mark his rehabilitation, yet though always in control, Everton seemed to lose their attacking focus once Lukaku was withdrawn. Enner Valencia made his debut, without managing to decorate it with any contribution of note. “We lost our concentration at the end of the first half but apart from that Everton had to play well to beat us,” Aitor Karanka said. “They are a good side, better than us. I think many teams night have lost that game by five or six goals to one.”
Brexit weekly briefing: we're going to be kept in the dark Welcome to the weekly Brexit briefing, a summary of developments as Britain edges towards the EU exit. If you’d like to receive it as a weekly email, do please sign up here. Producing the ’s thoughtful, in-depth journalism is expensive – but supporting us isn’t. If you value our Brexit coverage, please become a supporter and help make our future more secure. Thank you. The big picture So now we know (even if we’d long suspected it): we’re going to be kept in the dark. For the time being at least, the government is not going to be saying anything much about what its Brexit strategy will be, or how it is progressing. Pressed repeatedly in parliament last week on the question of whether its preferred Brexit deal would include full membership of the EU’s single market, prime minister Theresa May could not have been much clearer (or more non-committal): The new relationship will include control of the movement of people from the EU into the UK, and it will include the right deal for the trade in goods and services ... It would not be right for me or this government to give a running commentary on negotiations. In case there should be any doubt, she then said it again: It is about developing our own British model. So we will not take decisions until we are ready. We will not reveal our hand prematurely. And we will not provide a running commentary. Brexit minister David Davis went further, telling the House of Lords EU select committee that because the government did not want to give away its negotiating position he “may not be able to tell [parliament] everything” – even in private hearings: I can entirely see accountability after the event, that’s very clear. [But] in advance, I don’t think it’s possible for parliamentarians to micro-manage the process and wouldn’t give us an optimum outcome for the country. In the meantime, tantalising glimpses of what Brexit might imply in practice continue to emerge. Like the possibility that British citizens may have to apply for permission – and pay – to visit the continent. The reported on Saturday that a planned EU visa waiver scheme based on the US ESTA system – which requires travellers to request advance authorisation to travel in exchange for a fee – could apply to British holidaymakers and business travellers after Brexit. Asked by Andrew Marr on his Sunday morning TV show whether this could indeed be the case, the home secretary Amber Rudd, said that yes, it could: I don’t think it’s particularly desirable, but we don’t rule it out because we have to be allowed a free hand to get the best negotiations. It’s a reminder that this is a two-way negotiation. The EU ... will be considering their negotiations with us, just as we are with them. Rudd also said the government was considering work permits for EU nationals in Britain as a possible way to control immigration. Meanwhile, it seems one or two members – specifically, the hardcore Brexiters – of the cabinet are not yet fully on-board with the prime minister’s instructions to keep schtum, refrain from provide running commentaries and avoid revealing the government’s hand. They also have a clear idea of the Brexit they want: hard, and fast. Davis needed putting in his place last week after he told MPs it was unlikely that Britain would stay in the single market. Downing Street said he was “expressing his personal opinion”. Similarly, the international trade minister, Liam Fox, drew fire when he said British business had grown “fat and lazy” and company executives would rather play golf than get out and clinch the new export deals the country will need. Downing Street also pointedly declined to endorse his opinion. Boris Johnson, finally, took the fairly remarkable step for a foreign minister of endorsing Change Britain, a new cross-party campaign of prominent pro-Brexit politicians (think Gisela Stuart and Michael Gove) aimed at pressuring the government into delivering on leaving the EU in the way they would like – namely gaining full control over “laws, borders, money and trade”. (Change Britain, incidentally, ran into early difficulties after it quietly dropped one of the key pre-referendum pledges of its predecessor organisation Vote Leave: that Brexit could see an extra £350m a week spent on the NHS. Labour MPs instantly demanded the group “either admit it was a lie and apologise, or justify it and explain when it is coming”.) Further increasing the pressure on May, the former culture secretary, John Whittingdale, said in an interview with the Telegraph that the prime minister should invoke article 50 – setting in motion the formal two-year leaving process – within weeks, rather than waiting until next year. The view from Europe And the pressure isn’t just coming from diehard Brexiters: May met the president of the European council, Donald Tusk, to discuss the UK’s future relationship with the remaining EU-27. Hinting at rising impatience on the continent, he told her Britain should get on with leaving as soon as possible: “The ball is in your court.” Emmanuel Macron, the former banker and economy minister who is having a tilt at the French presidency, also said Britain should get out soon. What’s more, he told the that the City’s crucial passporting rights – which allow UK-based financial institutions to sell across the eurozone – wouldn’t be preserved unless the Britain contributes to the EU budget and that no concessions could be made on freedom of movement to boot. The (in theory) pro-British Danish prime minister, Lars Løkke Rasmussen told Bloomberg he was urging his EU colleagues to make sure Britain doesn’t end up with a good deal: We need to be extremely careful that the side that leaves doesn’t get particular competitive advantages on its way out. We all want a peaceful divorce, but when you agree to part ways – and in this situation, only one side wants to part ways – we need to protect our own interests first. And to round off a great week, the European parliament – which will have to ratify any future Brexit deal – appointed “diehard European” Guy Verhofstadt, a former Belgian PM, to be its lead negotiator alongside former French minister Michel Barnier for the Commission. Here’s what Verhofstadt had to say in July on the possibility of the UK retaining free market access while restricting freedom of movement: The European parliament will never agree to a deal that de facto ends the free movement of people, while giving away an extra rebate in exchange for all the advantages of the internal market. Meanwhile, back in Westminster The shock (perhaps) of the week was obviously David Cameron’s decision to resign as an MP, after stepping down as the prime minister who called the Brexit referendum the day after he lost it. Looking forward, away even from the direct squabbling over the balance of immigration versus trade and whether UK businesses are doing their bit, Brexit is arguably shaping the direction of British politics in other ways. For example, the decision of Theresa May to announce a return to new grammar schools, picking a potentially tricky political fight over what some see as a marginal issue, has been rationalised by some as the prime minister seeking to assuage the right of her party, which might be about to see some disappointments over what Brexit actually ends up meaning. There are also repercussions for Labour, with Owen Smith going further even than his previous promise to seek a referendum on the specific Brexit deal by suggesting a Labour government under him could one day reapply to join the EU. Jeremy Corbyn, widely expected to beat Smith in the ongoing Labour leadership battle, has dismissed the idea of a new referendum, while his aides have gleefully pointed out that not even Smith’s main trade union supporter, the GMB, supports this. That said, Corbyn’s own ideas on Brexit have caused some anguish in Labour, with disquiet among some MPs after their leader talked of the UK rejecting elements of the EU single market once Britain leaves the bloc. You should also know that: Britain’s economy will grind to a near standstill over the coming months as Brexit-related uncertainty triggers a slump in investment, the British Chambers of Commerce predicted. The UK music industry pleaded with politicians to protect its status as one of the world’s biggest exporters of new music, pointing to its huge contribution to the economy through the success of artists like Adele and Sam Smith. The chancellor, Philip Hammond, has embarked on a series of meetings with top City figures to reassure them over Brexit worries, reportedly promising they would not be subject to post-Brexit immigration curbs. The founder of pub chain Wetherspoons, Tim Martin, had a good go at Cameron, FTSE 100 chief executives, the Bank of England governor, City economists, Goldman Sachs, the CBI, the International Monetary Fund and the OECD for their “entirely false” economic predictions. Hate crime surged in England, Wales and Northern Ireland in the second half of July – nearly a month after the EU referendum vote – according to the National Police Chiefs’ Council, up 58% rise compared with the previous year. Read this Spoilt for choice for supplementary reading again this week. Nick Cohen is on coruscating form for the , arguing that the EU will never appease the “deluded Brexiters”: Instead of facing up to the scale of the uncertainty, today’s Conservatives kid themselves as their ancestors did in the 1930s. Listen to Conservative ministers and read the rightwing press and delusion is on display everywhere ... They don’t have a shred of evidence that the EU will appease us. Just a forlorn hope and an echo of voices from the time of the British appeasers. Nick Clegg, the former deputy prime minister, has been analysing the implications of Brexit for trade with Peter Sutherland, the former founding director-general of the World Trade Organisation. In the Financial Times, he writes: Brexit will make a deep mark on British life. Most importantly, it will upend our trading relationships with Europe and the rest of the world. Only 15% of UK total trade is with countries that are neither members of the EU, nor covered by an EU trade agreement that is in force or under negotiation ... And where is the government on all of this? Not even at first base. Ministers must make their plans for Britain’s trading relationships clear as soon as possible. We are in the calm before the storm. Whatever form Brexit takes, it is going to be a rough ride. Raphael Behr in the tackles the thorny issue of immigration, arguing the Brexiters haven’t a clue what to do: The “points-based system” was always a phoney offer. It was clever shorthand for “non-racist yet rigorous-sounding alternative to the status quo” chosen because it seemed meritocratic (points are earned) and culturally digestible (Australia is a friendly, Anglophone cousin country) ... Thus are we confronted with the Conservative Eurosceptics, tongue-tied but blinking smugly in the glare of referendum victory, holding a blank piece of paper where they should have answers on immigration. And in Prospect magazine, Simon Tilford of the Centre for European Reform demonstrates that in his remarks about Britain not needing to be a member of it, David Davis shows he really does not understand the nature and importance of the EU’s single market to Britain’s economy: He is plain wrong to contend that Single Market membership has no impact on UK trade with the rest of the EU. All the evidence suggests that the UK exports far more to the EU than can be explained by geographic proximity and income levels: the CER estimates that Britain’s membership of the Single Market has boosted British trade with the EU by 55%. Tweet of the week A pleasingly continental cracker, in my humble opinion, from the LRB bookshop:
Liverpool put six past sorry Aston Villa as home fans turn ire on Lerner Liverpool performed to a backdrop of fans walking out en masse for a second weekend in succession though it was not inflated ticket prices that sparked the exodus this time but the sheer ineptitude of Aston Villa. No easy games in the Premier League? Nonsense. This was a surrender and Liverpool inflicted a St Valentine’s Day massacre from which the division’s bottom club may not recover. A team supposedly fighting for its life rolled over and died at Villa Park. To add insult to injury, the Villa defender and fan Joleon Lescott tweeted a photo of a top-of-the-range Mercedes S63 shortly after the final whistle, later claiming he had done so by accident as “it happened whilst driving and my phone was in my pocket”. The sense it left, however, is that he is detached and uninterested, just like Villa’s defending. Those fans not sent to the exits in despair turned their ire on the owner Randy Lerner in the directors’ box rather than Rémi Garde in the dugout. The French coach looked on helplessly as the nightmare of Villa’s heaviest home defeat since Ted Drake scored all seven of Arsenal’s goals in a 7-1 win here in 1935 unfolded. On the flip side, Liverpool equalled their biggest winning margin away from home in the top flight but Jürgen Klopp had too much respect for his opponents’ suffering to revel in the rout. He could take greater satisfaction from Liverpool demonstrating that, with Daniel Sturridge and Philippe Coutinho available, they do have armoury to punish weak defending. Sturridge opened the scoring on his first Premier League start under Klopp, James Milner, Emre Can, Divock Origi, Nathaniel Clyne and Kolo Touré all followed. Six different goalscorers and a multitude of faults for Garde to correct. No spine, no spirit and no quality. There is no way back for Villa on this evidence. Garde admitted: “As a manager that is probably the worst performance I have had. It is a very bad afternoon, a very bad defeat but we don’t have time to complain and moan. We have to be professional until the end. I will find 11 players for the next game who want to fight.” He was hard pressed to find one . The defensive flaws that are ushering a grand club towards the Championship were quickly exposed, and under minimal pressure, as Liverpool established a comfortable lead without truly exerting themselves. The lack of leadership after Sturridge and Milner scored must have worried Garde as much as the feeble resistance that met two punishing crosses from the Liverpool left. Sturridge started the humiliation with a finish made simple by his intelligent movement. Liverpool worked the ball out to Coutinho on the left and when his in-swinging centre dropped between the static Lescott and Aly Cissokho the unmarked striker steered a header inside Mark Bunn’s near post. Lescott berated Cissokho for losing the run of Sturridge. Abdicating responsibility was a feature of the Villa performance. The visitors’ second came gift-wrapped nine minutes later. The cumbersome Jores Okore dispossessed Coutinho before conceding a needless free-kick with a slight push on the Brazilian. Milner swept in the set piece from a similar position to Coutinho’s cross for the opener, Lescott, Okore and Mamadou Sakho leapt to meet it, all three missed and the ball sailed beyond Bunn into the far corner. Villa’s play deteriorated rapidly thereafter with a procession of half-hearted challenges and basic errors enraging the home support. Garde’s team were abysmal. Once Gabriel Agbonlahor departed early in the second half, taking any semblance of attacking intent with him, they threw shambolic into the mix for good measure. Garde claimed Agbonlahor was suffering from vertigo. “Don’t you have to be high up to have that?” came a biting retort in the press conference. Four Liverpool goals in 13 minutes provided an accurate gauge of the calamity that unfolded. Number three arrived courtesy of the pedestrian Micah Richards. The Villa captain was easily dispossessed by Can, who continued his run as the impressive Roberto Firmino drove towards the defence before squaring for the German midfielder who found the bottom corner from 20 yards. Number four arrived from Origi’s first touch after replacing Sturridge. Once again Villa lost possession, this time to Firmino deep inside the Liverpool half. Coutinho swept a glorious pass around Okore where the Belgium international raced forwards before beating Bunn. Two minutes later came number five, Clyne breaking clear of Jordan Veretout inside the area and converting his first league goal for Liverpool at the second attempt. Number six was appalling from a Villa perspective and a moment of sheer joy for Touré. The Liverpool central defender was stood still and unmarked as Jordan Henderson swept a corner over from the right. Touré did not have to move to convert his first goal in five years. Klopp said: “Having six goalscorers – I can’t remember them all now – is perfect for the boys because it is important that they all really feel it is important to work in this way, but it is not a day to sing songs for us. “You have to show respect for Aston Villa, a great club in a difficult situation. We came here and won the game, that’s important for us, but if someone wins 6-0 someone loses 6-0 and that is not nice. It is a good day for us but a hard day for Aston Villa.” Man of the match Philippe Coutinho (Liverpool)
Arsenal v West Brom, Chelsea v Bournemouth: Boxing Day football – as it happened One more post, with one more final score – Plymouth and Wycombe have indeed drawn 3-3 – and one more match report. Bye! They’re into four minutes of stoppage time in Plymouth. Wycombe have equalised! And some more: Here come the match reports: The big game in League Two is still ongoing, and Plymouth lead Wycombe 3-2 with about seven minutes to play. Doncaster have won, and would go top if Wycombe manage to equalise. The live blogs just keep on rolling today: Michael Butler is all over Hull v Manchester City here: Karl Robinson has won the Karl Robinson derby, his current side Charlton having beaten his former side MK Dons 1-0, away from home. Bury haven’t lost! They’ve ended their 12-game losing streak with a goalless draw at Fleetwood! Final scores: all the Premier League games have finished, and there’s not a draw among them: Arsenal, Burnley, Chelsea, Everton, Manchester United and West Ham are the winners! GOAL! Manchester United 3-1 Sunderland (Borini, 90 mins) That’s another beauty! A right-wing cross is headed out to Borini, 23 yards from goal, who chests down and volleys perfectly into the top corner! Lovely! GOAL! Chelsea 3-0 Bournemouth (Pedro, 90 mins) Pedro’s shot from the edge of the area is deflected, and dribbles past a wrong-footed goalkeeper. GOAL! Leicester 0-2 Everton (Lukaku, 90+1 mins) Everton are going to win this one! It’s a long ball out of defence – Barkley I think, booting the ball out of his own penalty area – and Lukaku runs round Morgan, shrugs off his challenge, cuts inside and sidefoots past Schmeichel. This is true. Today’s red card offence was only marginally less terrible. GOAL! Swansea 1-4 West Ham (Carroll, 90 mins) Llorente pulled a goal back a couple of minutes ago, but before I can tell you about that Carroll meets a looping cross from the right with a crashing left-foot volley, and West Ham restore their three-goal cushion. GOAL! Manchester United 3-0 Sunderland (Mkhitaryan, 86 mins) That’s a super finish! He was a yard offside, but we’ll overlook that. It’s a cross from the right wing, and Mkhitaryan sends a flying backheel volley into the far corner! Phwoar! That’s your excuse for watching Match of the Day right there! Lovely, lovely goal. GOAL! Arsenal 1-0 West Brom (Giroud, 86 mins) West Brom hold out until five minutes from the final whistle, but that’s where their luck/organisation/time-wasting ends! GOAL! Manchester United 2-0 Sunderland (Ibrahimovic, 82 mins) That’s nicely done. With the visitors overcommitted in attack Pogba carries the ball at an understaffed defence, plays in Ibrahimovic and he waits for the keeper to commit himself before curling just inside the far post. GOAL! Burnley 1-0 Middlesbrough (Gray, 81 mins) A Victor Valdes howler! Heaton hoists forward a free kick deep inside Burnley’s half, Vokes flicks on, and Gray sends in a low first-time shot from the edge of the area. It should have been saved, and it looked like it had been – only for Valdes to let the ball dribble out of his arms and just inside the post! Cameo of the day: former Leeds striker Jermaine Beckford, who came on for Preston against Leeds in the 66th minute, and was sent off for kicking someone in the face a little under three minutes later. It was his first appearance since 3 December, when he was sent off against Preston. GOAL! Swansea 0-3 West Ham (Antonio, 78 mins) A tap-in for Antonio, who is all alone in the penalty area when a wayward long-range shot flies to his feet, and he pokes it into the net. “If you offered Pulis 38 nil-nils at the start of the season he’d take your hand off,” says Sean Doyle. He remains on course for one this afternoon, and – pertinently – the game is currently being delayed while an obviously not-seriously-hurt Baggie receives treatment. Great chance for Bournemouth! Wilshere, who’s been superb, plays in Afobe, but instead of chipping the keeper, or shooting wide to his right, the shot is low and too close to Courtois, who saves. Reading have taken a 2-1 lead against Norwich in the Championship. Norwich have also had Jonny Howson sent off, conceding a penalty which is Panenkaed into the crossbar, bounces down and is lashed in by Garath McCleary. Twenty minutes to play, an for someone to give the world a genuinely compelling reason to spend their Boxing Day evening watching Match of the Day. Leicester have also made use of their substitutes: Mahrez and Ulloa have just come on, and the latter had a half-decent chance to score with his first touch, but Robles catches his header. Henrik Mkhitaryan is back: José Mourinho has just brought him on, to replace Jesse Lingard. Oooh! Victor Moses has a shot from just outside the penalty area, but it fizzes just wide of the post. “I’m not having this post-truth world we are entering and will fight for facts at every opportunity,” counters JR. “It is absolutely no herring of any colour to say that the Baggies under Pulis engage in an absurd amount of time wasting. It is a fact that anyone who watches them play knows, and I say this as a Baggies fan.” I believe JR: if there’s a way of defunnifying football, Pulis will probably encourage his teams to do it. GOAL! Leicester 0-1 Everton (Mirallas, 51 mins) Everton, who haven’t won away since September – and that was at Sunderland, who were basically a vending machine for points at the time, so doesn’t really count – are winning away! GOAL! Swansea 0-2 West Ham (Reid, 50 mins) Bob Bradley’s Swans go two goals down, as Winston Reid heads in a Payet corner at the near post. GOAL! Swansea 0-2 West Ham (Reid, 50 mins) Payet’s corner is headed in by Reid at the near post, and Swansea are two goals down. GOAL! Chelsea 2-0 Bournemouth (Hazard, 49 mins) Hazard, who is on his way to another man of the match award (Wilshere having been the key competition in the first half), rolls in the league leaders’ second goal. Chelsea have a penalty! Hazard wins it, and will take it. Plymouth are now 2-1 up against Wycombe, where they’re only just in first-half stoppage time. Meanwhile this, from Charles Antaki: “I’ve not seen the latest David Attenborough series, but if the producers were looking for 45 minutes of an octopus – not a very creative octopus – pummelling away at a jellyfish, they could use footage from the first half of Arsenal-WBA. Not great telly, but nature is after all sometimes dull.” “To be fair to Arsenal fans: I live in N5, I’m not from London and I’m at the Emirates on the boss’s Club Level seats as I normally go to the Etihad,” writes Alex Sargent. “Point is, this isn’t a part of London that sees people coming back for Christmas, it’s one where people aren’t here. Most of my Arsenal ticket-holding friends are elsewhere visiting in-laws and can’t get here. So, in my view, it’s not as apathetic as the Mirror man thinks. Oh and WBA certainly here for nil each.” “How do you know they’re secondary socks? Perhaps they’re tertiary, or even quaternary,” writes Stephen Colwill. This is true. Slimani could be wearing any number of socks. The battle of the bottom two in the Championship seems settled before the break: Rotherham have just gone 3-0 up against Wigan. This from the Mirror’s man at Arsenal suggests it’s a theme: Our man in Leicester is not feeling entertained. “Time wasting by West Brom is a blue and white striped herring,” writes Roy Allen as the players at the Emirates go in for half-time with the score at 0-0. “We all know what Pulis is going to do: he’s going to play a narrow back four with wingbacks as fullbacks and three midfielders in front. A back nine. That’s what’s happening. Arsenal have to do more than faff around in front of them. They need to play at pace, play vertical passes, take risks, take people on. Endless square passes in front of Pulis’s masses ain’t going to cut it. It just makes bus-parking easy.” GOAL! Manchester United 1-0 Sunderland (Blind, 39 mins) Just recovering from a minor technical issue, so I can’t tell you much about this goal other than that it happened a few minutes ago, and was apparently good. From a short free-kick Burnley’s Boyd slams a piledriver goalwards, but it’s pushed away. In the big game in League Two, it’s now Plymouth 1-1 Wycombe. Jordan Slew has scored the goal. “About 30 minutes in and West Brom are looking in imperious time wasting form,” writes JR, who is watching the action from Arsenal. “Dawson and Foster in particular are dominating possession averaging about 15 seconds at every dead ball. Yacob has chipped in by sitting down with a pretend injury. Neil Swarbrick doesn’t seem to care so the Baggies may have a chance at really shortening the game and escaping with a 0-0.” Sock change! Islam Slimani calls on the physio, his problem eventually solved by him taking off his socks, revealing the fact that he was wearing more socks under his socks, and then donning a new pair of secondary socks over those socks. Bournemouth are playing well at Stamford Bridge, though. Jack Wilshere just went close, and a penalty appeal, following Matic’s challenge on Smith, has been turned down. Eden Hazard Rabona alert! The ball rolls to the Belgian 20 yards from goal and he sends a 20-yard rabona towards the top corner! It’s tipped round the post, and the whistle had already gone for a Bournemouth free-kick, but still. It’s going with form rather than league position at Plymouth, where Wycombe have taken the lead. GOAL! Chelsea 1-0 Bournemouth (Pedro, 23 mins) From a short corner, the ball is back alone the edge of the area, then inside a bit, and finally nudged to Pedro on the edge of the area, who half-turns and shoots left-footed over Boruc and into the corner! At the other end, Lamine Kone fouls Mata inside the penalty area, but the referee waves play on. It’s a decent shot, from Van Aanholt, but De Gea saves. And Daley Blind has just been booked for hauling him back, giving Sunderland a decent shooting chance from the set piece. Anichebe has recovered, and played on for Sunderland. That’s Ayew’s first goal of the season. The venue might not be a coincidence: Alexis Sánchez lashes a shot wide for Arsenal from just outside the penalty area. “Ozil under scrutiny (again) today,” writes Charles Antaki. “One slightly irritating thing which does’t help his case is his tendency, when losing a tackle, to seem to be more interested in drawing the referee’s attention to some infringement rather than, y’know, chasing after the ball and trying to win it back.” GOAL! Swansea 0-1 West Ham (Ayew, 13 mins) A long, high cross into the box, a good knock-fown from Andy Carroll, a bit of a howler from Fabianski and a tap-in for Ayew. Now that’s an interesting question. Whatever, it’s not been an enormously popular protest: At Old Trafford, Victor Anichebe is receiving treatment to his left shoulder and looks in some discomfort. That could be the end of his afternoon. Arsenal have had a shot, but Xhaka’s effort from 25 yards sails well wide. I’m keeping an eye on all the Premier League games, which is another way of saying that I can’t really watch any of them, but for now I’ll concentrate on the games at Arsenal and Chelsea. I haven’t seen any chances so far, there or anywhere else. Except at Plymouth, where kick-off has been delayed by 15 minutes because if excessive queues. Peeeep! And they’re off! There are lots of players emerging from lots of tunnels. Action imminent. He thus becomes the only person in Leicester who looks less like Jamie Vardy than he normally does. The Boxing Day effect is a curious one. Watford, for example, haven’t won on Boxing Day since 1986*. That’s statistically implausible. Middlesbrough enjoy this time of year a little better. Doremus Schafer writes to inform me that the correct stat is that Watford haven’t won a top flight game on Boxing Day since 1986, which is no surprise at all. David Moyes does a very brief pre-match interview, as he’s asked if he’s enjoying his first managerial return to Old Trafford since he was booted out by Manchester United: I’ll tell you after the game if it was nice, but it’s always a great stadium to come to. It’s always going to be a tough game. Great tradition, great history. We know José’s team will be hard to play. Mahrez and Drinkwater are on the bench, at least: Remarkable scenes: Not content with giving away Jamie Vardy masks, Leicester have also been handing out mince pies! Here’s a news story on those Jamie Vardy masks: Olivier Giroud starts a league game for Arsenal for the first time this season. Leicester love giving their fans stuff. Last time I saw them they all got blue and white stripey hats, compared to which their Christmas present is a bit of a let-down. I’ll put all the top-flight teams in here. If there are any other line-ups you want, let me know and I’ll do my best. Arsenal v West Brom Arsenal: Cech, Bellerin, Gabriel, Koscielny, Gibbs, Coquelin, Xhaka, Sanchez, Ozil, Iwobi, Giroud. Subs: Ramsey, Lucas Perez, Ospina, Holding, Monreal, Reine-Adelaide, Elneny. West Brom: Foster, Dawson, McAuley, Evans, Nyom, Yacob, Fletcher, Phillips, Chadli, Brunt, Rondon. Subs: Olsson, Robson-Kanu, Morrison, Gardner, Myhill, McClean, Galloway. Referee: Neil Swarbrick. Burnley v Middlesbrough Burnley: Heaton, Flanagan, Mee, Keane, Ward, Arfield, Marney, Hendrick, Boyd, Gray, Barnes. Subs: Vokes, Kightly, Defour, Robinson, Gudmundsson, Tarkowski, Darikwa. Middlesbrough: Valdes, Barragan, Chambers, Gibson, Da Silva, Forshaw, Clayton, de Roon, Stuani, Negredo, Ramirez. Subs: Friend, Bernardo, Leadbitter, Rhodes, Guzan, Downing, Traore. Referee: Craig Pawson. Chelsea v Bournemouth Chelsea: Courtois, Azpilicueta, Luiz, Cahill, Moses, Fabregas, Matic, Alonso, Willian, Pedro, Hazard. Subs: Begovic, Ivanovic, Zouma, Loftus-Cheek, Batshuayi, Chalobah, Aina. Bournemouth: Boruc, Francis, Steve Cook, Brad Smith, Daniels, Arter, Gosling, Adam Smith, Wilshere, Surman, King. Subs: Afobe, Callum Wilson, Stanislas, Federici, Fraser, Mings, Ibe. Referee: Mike Jones. Leicester v Everton Leicester: Schmeichel, Simpson, Morgan, Wasilewski, Chilwell, Gray, King, Amartey, Albrighton, Slimani, Okazaki. Subs: Hernandez, Drinkwater, Musa, Zieler, Ulloa, Mendy, Mahrez. Everton: Robles, Holgate, Ashley Williams, Funes Mori, Coleman, Gana, Barry, Baines, Lennon, Mirallas, Lukaku. Subs: Jagielka, Deulofeu, Barkley, Cleverley, Valencia, Davies, Hewelt. Referee: Stuart Attwell. Man Utd v Sunderland Man Utd: de Gea, Valencia, Jones, Rojo, Blind, Ander Herrera, Carrick, Pogba, Mata, Ibrahimovic, Lingard. Subs: Martial, Smalling, Rashford, Romero, Mkhitaryan, Fellaini, Darmian. Sunderland: Pickford, Jones, Djilobodji, Kone, Van Aanholt, Larsson, Ndong, Denayer, Anichebe, Borini, Defoe. Subs: Mannone, Khazri, O’Shea, Love, Asoro, Honeyman, Embleton. Referee: Martin Atkinson. Swansea v West Ham Swansea: Fabianski, Rangel, Mawson, van der Hoorn, Kingsley, Cork, Britton, Routledge, Sigurdsson, Fulton, Borja Baston. Subs: Fer, Llorente, Dyer, Nordfeldt, Montero, Naughton, Fernandez. West Ham: Randolph, Kouyate, Reid, Ogbonna, Antonio, Noble, Nordtveit, Cresswell, Payet, Carroll, Ayew. Subs: Feghouli, Adrian, Fletcher, Fernandes, Quina, Pike, Rice. Referee: Andre Marriner. Rooney is injured, apparently, rather than unpopular. The team news is starting to trickle in now, and Manchester United have left Wayne Rooney out of their matchday squad. Some pre-match music, while we wait for the team news to roll in: four great tracks from 2016 (well, I like them anyway): Hello world! So, here we are then. Ye Tradionale Boxing Daye Fixtures, and so many questions to be answered. Principally: who’s been at the sherry? Who ate all the mince pies? Has the stadium DJ put away his festive Shakin’ Stevens records yet, or will you be subjected to one more spin? An afternoon of skill, drama, and goodwill to all men so long as they’re wearing the right colours awaits. Here, to kick things off, are this afternoon’s English Football League fixtures. And in the meantime, hello! Premier League Arsenal v West Brom Burnley v Middlesbrough Chelsea v AFC Bournemouth Leicester v Everton Man Utd v Sunderland Swansea v West Ham Hull v Man City (5.15pm) Championship Look out for: Neither Newcastle nor Brighton are in action this afternoon, so it’s all about the play-off positions, with the visit of Norwich to third-place Reading probably the pick. The bottom two, Rotherham and Wigan, face each other at the New York Stadium. Aston Villa v Burton A Barnsley v Blackburn Huddersfield v Nottm Forest Ipswich v Fulham Preston v Leeds Reading v Norwich Rotherham v Wigan Wolves v Bristol City Newcastle v Sheff Wed (7.45pm) League One Look out for: Karl Robinson returns to MK Dons, his six-year managership having ended “by mutual consent” in October. He’s already managed Charlton against them twice in the FA Cup. And on the subject of reuinions, Bradford City reject Josh Morris returns to his former employers in Scunthorpe colours, as the division’s top scorer. Bury head to Fleetwood having won none of 36 available points since September (at the end of that month they had won five in a row; they have now lost their last 12) Bolton v Shrewsbury Bradford City v Scunthorpe Bristol Rovers v Coventry Fleetwood v Bury MK Dons v Charlton Millwall v Swindon Oxford Utd v Northampton Peterborough v Gillingham Port Vale v Walsall Rochdale v Chesterfield Sheff Utd v Oldham League Two Look out for: Plymouth may be top of the table but their form isn’t great – they have won three and lost three of their last six league games – which isn’t something you could say of their opponents today: Wycombe have won their last six, and haven’t been beaten in the league for more than two months. With their two closest rivals both playing teams in the bottom half and out of form (albeit away from home) there could be new leaders today. Cheltenham v Barnet Crewe v Carlisle Grimsby v Accrington Hartlepool v Blackpool Luton v Colchester Mansfield v Morecambe Newport v Portsmouth Notts County v Doncaster Plymouth v Wycombe Stevenage v Cambridge Yeovil v Exeter Simon will be here soon.
Goldman Sachs hired prostitutes to win Libyan business, court told Goldman Sachs bankers paid for prostitutes, private jets and five-star hotels and held business meetings on yachts to win business from a Libyan investment fund set up under Gaddafi regime, the high court in London was told yesterday. The allegations came at the start of a legal claim by the Libyan Investment Authority for $1.2bn (£846m) from the investment bank. Lawyers for the LIA are claiming for losses on nine trades that Goldman Sachs executed for the fund between January and April 2008. The LIA lost almost all its investment through the trades – one of which was the largest that the bank had undertaken in a single stock – while Goldman Sachs generated “eyewatering” profits of over more than $200m from the trades, Roger Masefield, a QC for LIA, said. The LIA, Masefield told the court, felt betrayed as the trades generated excessive profits for Goldman and were unsuitable for the LIA, which was staffed by individuals who had not been appointed on merit. Once the losses emerged, Masefield said one Libyan official described Goldman as the “bank of mafiosa”. The LIA was set up in 2006 to invest the country’s oil wealth as its status from a pariah state was being lifted. Masefield said it was a nascent sovereign wealth fund with limited abilities to understand the so-called jumbo and elephant trades. Goldman is disputing the claim, which was filed in 2014, and its lawyers will address the court on Tuesday. But in documents outlining its defence the bank said that the proceedings were not brought until after the trades had matured. “The LIA was the victim of an unforeseen financial depression, not of any wrongdoing by [Goldman],” the bank said. In documents provided to the court, the LIA cited Goldman Sachs describing the sovereign wealth fund as having “zero-level” financial sophistication and one individual having “delivered a pitch on structured leveraged loans to someone who lives in the middle of the desert with his camels”. Masefield told the court that one former Goldman executive – Youseff Kabbaj – had been told to “stay a lot in Tripoli. It is important you stay super close to clients on a daily basis. Teach them, train them, dine them.” Goldman agreed an internship for Haitem Zarti, the brother of Mustafa Zarti, the LIA’s former deputy chief, which the LIA argues was intended to influence decisions by the investment fund. According to the skeleton argument presented to the court by the LIA: “Mr Kabbaj took Haitem Zarti on holidays to Morocco on various occasions. Mr Kabbaj also took him to Dubai for a conference, with the business class flights and five-star accommodation being paid by Goldman Sachs. Documents disclosed by Goldman Sachs show that during that drip Mr Kabbaj went so far as to arrange for a pair of prostitutes to entertain them both one evening.” The LIA said the internship “has been and may still be the subject of investigation” by the Securities and Exchange Commission in the US. Goldman Sachs said it did not believe the internship influenced the LIA’s decision to enter into the trades. “The claims are without merit and we will continue to defend them vigorously,” it said. Kabbaj - who claimed £22,000 for one trip - was not being called to give evidence for Goldman, Masefield said, reading out a settlement agreement between the bank and Kabbaj, who had been promised a $9m bonus by Goldman, but received $4.5m. The aim, Masefield argued, was intended to stop Kabbaj’s concerns about the trades being aired. Bloomberg quoted an email from Kabbaj in which he said: “Goldman Sachs or myself never paid for any LIA employee any improper entertainment...I am under a strong confidentiality agreement but I expect Goldman Sachs to correct the facts and protect my reputation”. Masefield told the court that Driss Ben-Brahim – at the time a Goldman Sachs partner – in July 2007 met the LIA’s Zarti on Saif Gaddafi’s yacht in Cannes. Ben-Brahim wrote after the meeting that he was nervous about the relationship and wanted clearance from a more senior banker. Later, according to court documents, Goldman executives spent €25,800 – including contributions from their own pockets – to charter a private jet from the same company that Colonel Gaddafi used to travel to Tripoli. Nine trades – on banking companies Citigroup, Santander and UniCredit, French electricity company EDF, utility ENI and German insurer Allianz – are the subject of the case. The LIA argued that the case was one of of “abuse of trust, undue influence and unconscionable bargain”. It added: “It most emphatically is not, therefore, as Goldman Sachs would have it, one of little more than ‘buyer’s remorse’; of a counterparty who like many others lost money as a result of the market crash in 2008 and now wants to rewind the clock.” The case continues.
Introducing Goveland: a bit like Disneyland, but definitely not in Europe Mikey has a dream. A dream where the sun always shines. A dream where children are seen and not heard. A dream where the Germans are festooning us with top of the range BMWs. A dream where the French are showering us with Cristal champagne. A dream where the Greeks are desperate to give us the rest of the Parthenon so that it can be reunited with the Elgin marbles. A dream where the Portuguese are sobbing because they can’t find anything to give us that we actually want. Mikey has a dream of a promised land. And that land is Goveland. Michael Gove had come to the makeshift headquarters of the Vote Leave campaign in Lambeth to share his dream with a lucky few. A dream that Matthew Elliott, Vote Leave’s chief executive, assured us that historians would be talking about for millennia to come. We lucky, lucky few. As the overheated office fell quiet, Mikey began to channel the wisdom of the ancients. “I want to take you on a happy journey,” he said, his voice quaking with the power of revelation. “A journey where we will be in control. The remain campaign have said that a Goveland is a land of despair ruled by mad king Boris, a land where potatoes lie rotting in the fields, a land without electricity, a land where the City of London crumbles to dust and we are left to expire unmourned. “But I saith unto you that this is a lie. Goveland is a land of freedom, a land of hope and glory. A land other nations shall admire from afar. A land that will be just about perfect because we can choose which foreigners we want and which ones we don’t. A land a bit like Australia, only not quite so hot. Or large. Or so far away. A land a bit like Switzerland, only not quite so cold. Or mountainous. Or in the middle of Europe. A land unlike any other land. A land which even the Scots would get round to loving eventually. An island paradise.” Mikey lowered his eyes and took a slug of water. Goveland was thirsty work. A few of the less trusting voices in the audience asked Mikey for a sign that he wasn’t guilty of the very same thing that he was accusing his opponents of, by peddling a whole lot of wishful thinking. They pointed out that every global economic organisation reckoned that Britain would be a great deal worse off if it embraced Govemania. “There are many who have come to bear false witness against Goveland,” said Mikey. “But we must resist such scaremongering. All you need to do is believe.” There would be no day of judgment if Britain were to free itself of an empire more corrupt than the Hapsburg, Romanov and Ottoman dynasties combined. All talk of triggering article 50, which would give the country two years to get its affairs in order, was just part of the processology associated with the ancien régime. Umpteen ambassadors – well, one who was a bit pissed – had assured him that every country would be falling over itself to offer Goveland new trade deals on far more beneficial terms. Everything could be wrapped up in half an hour over cocktails and a handful of Ferrero Rochers. “But this isn’t just about our green and pleasant Goveland,” Mikey declared, as he approached his triumphant conclusion. “This is about the greatest day in the history of Europe. Once the rest of the EU has seen that the dark forces lurking in every corridor in Brussels can be cast out of their temples, the little peoples of Greece, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Denmark. Poland ...” Mikey scratched his head, desperately trying to remember the names of some other EU countries. “Verily even the Hun and the frogs will rise up against the power-hungry elites and become part of Greater Govelandia. Mikey paused, suspecting that there might be something a little wrong with the logic of every Goveland having a better trade agreement than every other Goveland, but decided against spoiling the moment. “A vote to leave is not just a vote to liberate a country; it is a vote to liberate the entire world. Rise up! You have nothing to lose but your MEP! My name is Goveymandias, king of kings. Look on my works ye mighty and despair.”
Justin Bieber: Sometimes I say the wrong thing … I'm not a robot Justin Bieber has tried to explain why he walked off stage during a gig in Manchester on 23 October. The star faced a backlash from fans after he asked them to stop screaming during his show at the Manchester Arena and then exited the stage. At the time, the star said: “You can scream as much as you want afterwards, but while I’m singing try and stay quiet.” Now he’s explained his actions. Well, sort of. Posting a message on Twitter that has since been deleted, Bieber wrote: “People tend to want to shut you down. What I mean by that is … people try to twist things, some people don’t want to listen. But I simply feel like, if I didn’t use this platform to say how I truly feel, and if I didn’t use this platform to be the man that I know I am, and speak from what’s in my heart, then I’m doing myself injustice, and I’m not doing anybody in this audience any justice.” He continued: “There’s going to be times where I say the wrong thing, because I’m human. But I don’t pretend to be perfect and I hope to god that, you know, I don’t say the right thing all the time, because if that was the case then I’d be a robot, and I’m just, I’m not a robot. There’s times when I get upset … times when I get angry, there’s times when I’m going to be frustrated. But I’m always going to be myself on this stage.” For those who never suspected that Bieber was a robotic being, there was more rambling to come. Talking of the negative reaction to his stage exit, he wrote: “When people try to twist things and say, ‘Justin’s angry at his fans. He doesn’t want his fans to scream’, that’s not at all what I was doing. All I was simply doing was wanting people to listen; to kind of hear me out a little bit. Certain people … certain cities aren’t going to want to hear me out, and you know, sometimes it’s my job to just say, ‘Hey, I’m not going to try to force anything’. I just appreciate you guys tonight, listening to me and understanding, and rocking with me. You guys are truly amazing.” Bieber plays Dublin on 1 and 2 November before his tour heads across Europe.
Gennifer Flowers 'will attend' Trump v Clinton debate Gennifer Flowers, a former model who had an extramarital sexual encounter with Bill Clinton in the 1980s, has reportedly accepted an invitation to sit in the front row during Hillary Clinton’s presidential debate with Donald Trump on Monday night. Flowers herself appeared to confirm the report on Saturday, writing on Twitter: “Hi Donald. You know I’m in your corner and will definitely be at the debate!” Nine years earlier, however, Flowers said she would support Hillary Clinton in her first presidential campaign. Speaking in 2007, Flowers said: “I can’t help but want to support my own gender.” She added: “I don’t have any interest whatsoever in getting back out there and bashing Hillary Clinton.” Her reported invitation to watch Trump do so in 2016 appeared to have its roots in a feud between the Republican candidate and Mark Cuban, a politically outspoken billionaire who has questioned Trump’s boasted worth. On Thursday, Cuban tweeted that he had “just got a front row seat to watch @HillaryClinton overwhelm @realDonaldTrump at the ‘Humbling at Hofstra’ on Monday. It Is On!” On Saturday morning, Trump replied: “If dopey Mark Cuban of failed Benefactor fame wants to sit in the front row, perhaps I will put Gennifer Flowers right alongside of him!” BuzzFeed News then reported that Judy Stell, an assistant to Flowers, said in an email that though Flowers had previously declined invitations to public events because she did not want to be a sideshow, “Ms Flowers has agreed to join Donald at the debate”. The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request from the for confirmation. Clinton was reportedly spending the weekend preparing for Monday’s debate, which will be held at Hofstra University in New York. Trump was scheduled to address a rally in Roanoke, Virginia, on Saturday evening. The New York Times reported that Clinton’s preparations include a staffer, Philippe Reines, playing Trump and pursuing expected lines of attack including Bill Clinton’s sexual indiscretions. Speaking to Fox News on Monday, Trump said that out of “respect” for Clinton he would not be “looking” to pursue such attacks. “I don’t know what I’m going to do exactly,” he said. “It depends on what level she hits you with, if she’s fair, if it’s unfair, but certainly I’m not looking to do that.” Flowers came to national prominence in January 1992, when Bill Clinton first campaigned for the White House, with an allegation of a 12-year affair and tapes of conversations between the two. Clinton initially denied the claim, but admitted in a 1998 deposition in a sexual harassment suit that he had had a single sexual encounter with Flowers. Beginning in 1999, Flowers pursued a defamation suit against Hillary Clinton and two Clinton aides, James Carville and George Stephanopoulos. It was dismissed.
Teaching pupils to make sense of pornography Jenni Murray’s recent suggestion of analysing pornography in the classroom might raise some eyebrows, but with up to 60% of young people using porn to teach themselves about sex, she’s right that schools should not ignore it (Opinion, 17 October). The accessibility and lack of boundaries around pornography leave our children at risk of seeing confusing or upsetting images. Myths around dominance/submission, consent and sexual norms can skew ideas about relationships and gender, and unrealistic comparisons can damage body image. A school working with parents to promote healthy relationships and internet safety should certainly support its pupils to make sense of porn, offering practical help to encourage positive choices online and offline. Teaching about healthy relationships, consent and online safety begins in kindergarten, laying the foundations for the time when these topics become intertwined with pupils’ developing sexuality. As they mature, pupils benefit from a safe space in which to discuss broader questions. What pressures exist when considering a sexual relationship? What activities are you more likely to meet in a porn film than in real life? What are the different views found in society relating to pornography? What messages might porn give us and how might our relationships be affected? Schools should be seeking to empower young people to navigate today’s challenges. That includes understanding what porn is not: a manual for meaningful relationships. Sarah Griffiths Head of wellbeing, Dulwich College • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
Will Finding Dory buck Hollywood's summer of sequel discontent? It all began with Allegiant, the third film in the Divergent series that made a star out of Shailene Woodley and a solid profit for studio Lionsgate, that was thought to have another Hunger Games-type YA franchise on its hands. The teen-skewing action pic opened in March. The previous two entries in the series were hits, causing the industry to think it could give Disney’s surprise smash Zootopia a run for its money. Instead Allegiant flamed out, coming in well behind the animated comedy, despite Zootopia being in theaters for close to a month. In the end, Woodley’s star power failed to overcome the bad reviews it received: Allegiant only grossed $110.6m worldwide (including a paltry $66.1m domestically), coming in well behind what its two preceding films made, and forcing Lionsgate’s stock to slide dramatically. The poor showing raised questions about the commercial viability of the upcoming fourth and final film in the Divergent franchise. It’s unlikely, however, that Hollywood could have predicted at the time that Allegiant’s disappointing performance portended bad things to come for the majority of tentpole sequels that would soon follow in its wake. Since Allegiant bombed, studios have watched in horror as sequels, expected to perform stronger than their predecessors, came in well behind expectations. “Sequelitis,” a term used by the Hollywood Reporter’s Pamela McClintock in her recent article, Hollywood’s New Problem: Sequels Moviegoers Don’t Want, seems to have taken ahold of audiences. The sequel to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Out of the Shadows, is just the latest summer blockbuster to underperform with its core fanbase, lagging well behind the 2014 reboot with a modest $35.3m opening (the first film earned $65.6m within its first three days of release). The week before, Disney’s long in the works sequel, Alice Through the Looking Glass, launched to even less with $26.9m, coming in a whopping 77% behind Alice in Wonderland. That same week, X-Men: Apocalypse trounced Alice with $65.8m – but even that sum couldn’t come close to matching the $90.8m that the previous X-Men film, Days of Future Past, made over the same timeframe in 2014. Worst hit, though, was The Huntsman: Winter’s War, a follow-up to 2012’s box office smash Snow White and the Huntsman, which limped its way to the finish line earning just $47.6m in the US, after opening in April to a dismal $19.4m during its opening weekend. Even Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising suffered, coming in over 50% below Neighbors at its debut, proving that comedies aren’t immune. Flopping isn’t the only thing all these summer films have in common – they were all also largely negatively reviewed. It’s therefore telling that Captain America: Civil War, the only sequel to receive rave notices this season, is also the only one to rake in a billion dollars. In 2015, the five films to hit or surpass that mark were all sequels. So far, the only other film to join the enviable club is Zootopia, which is itself a wholly original property. Still, Captain America, which is widely considered to be a third Avengers film despite its title, has failed to match the heights set by the first two films in the superhero franchise. Studios can console themselves in believing that Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice serves as an exception to the trend, since it grossed $871.9m worldwide, eclipsing Man of Steel, which earned $668m in 2013. But as the film touted to launch Warner Bros’ ambitious Justice League cinematic universe, the failure to cross the billion-dollar line is a troubling kickoff for Warner Bros. The terrible reviews Zac Snyder’s film was lambasted with couldn’t have helped matters. As box-office analyst Paul Dergarabedian affirmed to the Hollywood Reporter: “Sequels of late have fallen on rough times.” “2016 has proven to be a very tough battleground, and the landscape has been littered with a series of sequels that have come up short, and thus call into question the entire notion of the inherent appeal of non-original, franchise-based content,” he added. Pixar’s upcoming sequel to Finding Nemo, Finding Dory, is the film expected to buck Hollywood’s summer of discontent. Variety reports that the animated comedy is on pace to give the studio the biggest opening of its history when it opens on 17 June. Analysts are pegging it to a debut between $115m and $120m, ahead of Pixar’s biggest opener yet, Toy Story 3, which bowed to $110m in 2010. Should Finding Dory perform as predicted, it would blow past the $70m opening of Finding Nemo in 2003, and likely eclipse the $936.7m it made worldwide. Reviews have yet to hit for the pic, but given Pixar’s stellar track-record (save for Cars 2), Finding Dory should be in good shape. The jury is still out on how Independence Day: Resurgence will go over once it bows later this month. It could very well hit a retro nerve like Jurassic World did last summer and do massive business. Or it could perform on par with director Roland Emmerich’s last two blockbusters (White House Down and 2012) - and fail to crack the billion dollar ceiling. Whatever the outcome, this season has hopefully served as a wake-up call to Hollywood to produce more original content, and make sequels that do the originals proud.
Babymetal: Metal Resistance review – genre mashup breaks all the rules Even given this decade’s ever-accelerating blurring of genres, Babymetal’s signature sound is a bewildering proposition. Their mix of speed metal’s whipsmart riffs and pummelling rhythms with dance dynamics topped with J-pop vocals, courtesy of teenage girls Su-metal, Yuimetal and Moametal, is not one for the purists (the existence of a shadowy svengali figure, Kobametal, doesn’t help on that score). And yet this high-speed collision of apparent opposites works surprisingly well. Their second album is a relentless blur of ideas and rule-breaking, with GJ! and Sis. Anger particularly strong. Wisely, they save their only two missteps for the end: power-ballad No Rain, No Rainbow is wearyingly formulaic, while the one foray into English lyrics on The One unpicks some of their exoticism with its platitudinous observations.
Are you a doctor affected by low morale in the NHS? The General Medical Council has warned that poor morale among doctors could put patients at risk. As part of its annual report into the state of medical education and practice in the UK the GMC also highlighted what it calls a “state of unease within the medical profession across the UK as a result of increased pressures on health and social care services”. If you are a doctor, we would like to know what you think of the warning and what needs to happen to improve the situation. You can share your views with us using the form below – we’ll use some of the most interesting in an article on the site.
Fifty Shades of Grey ties up five Razzies Fifty Shades of Grey may have been largely overlooked in the Oscar nominations, but it was a big winner at this year’s Razzies. The awkward adaptation of author EL James’s erotic novel nabbed five prizes at the Golden Raspberry awards, including a share of the year’s worst film award with the superhero flop Fantastic Four. Jamie Dornan picked up the worst actor award and his co-star Dakota Johnson took worst actress. The pair also pinned down the worst screen combo award. Fifty Shades also won worst screenplay. Despite failing to impress the critics, Sam Taylor-Johnson’s film, which cost $40m to make, has taken more than $570m at the box office globally. It was Universal’s highest-grossing R–rated film globally, and also the UK’s highest-grossing 18-rated movie. Eddie Redmayne, who is up for best actor at the Academy Awards on Sunday night, took the worst supporting actor prize at the Razzies. The British star, who won the best actor Oscar in 2015 for playing Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything, won the Razzie for his turn in Jupiter Ascending. He is up for another best actor Oscar this year for his role in The Danish Girl. As well as tying for worst film of the year, Fantastic Four was given the worst remake, rip-off or sequel prize, and Josh Trank took the worst director gong. Sylvester Stallone, who is nominated in the supporting actor category at the Oscars for reprising his role as Rocky Balboa in Creed, was bestowed with the Razzies’ redeemer award, which lauds past Razzies recipients for recent work that has revived their careers. Kaley Cuoco won worst supporting actress for Alvin & The Chipmunks: Road Chip. The winners of the 36th Razzies were announced on Saturday night at the Palace theatre in Los Angeles. The awards were launched in 1980 as a spoof of Hollywood’s awards season. The winners were selected this year by 943 voting members from 48 US states and 20 countries. This article was amended on 28 February 2016. An earlier version said that Fifty Shades of Grey did not win any Oscar nominations. It was nominated for best original song.
Banks await decision on proposals to cap overdraft charges High street banks will learn this week whether regulators intend to press ahead with proposals to cap overdraft charges in an attempt to make it easier for customers to switch current accounts. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is due to publish provisional recommendations from its delayed investigation into retail banking on Tuesday. It will be followed by a month’s consultation before a final ruling. The watchdog is also expected to say whether it will want two banking price comparison websites set up. Besides a site for retail customers, an additional one for small businesses could be created under the auspices of innovation charity Nesta. Banks could be required to contribute millions of pounds to a prize fund for the development project. The CMA, which was criticised after a preliminary report in October for not taking bold enough measures to get customers a better deal, has calculated that account holders with an overdraft could save an average of £140 in annual charges if they moved their accounts. Those with larger overdrafts could save as much as £260. But bank customers with overdrafts find it notoriously difficult to switch. The watchdog announced its investigation in July 2014 at a time of heightened political debate about the banking sector. The dominant big four of Lloyds Banking Group, Royal Bank of Scotland, HSBC and Barclays control 77% of current accounts, which generate £8bn a year in revenue. They control 85% of small business accounts. The investigation was supposed to conclude this month, but the timetable was delayed until 12 August to allow the CMA to look at options for overdrafts, one of the potential impediments to moving a current account. Among ideas already suggested by the CMA are Limiting the maximum monthly charges for an unarranged overdraft. Requiring banks to offer grace periods during which customers can take action to avoid unarranged overdraft charges. Requiring banks to send text messages to customers to warn them if they are going overdrawn. Forcing banks that make mistakes to suggest that customers could find better deals with rivals. The regulator has previously ruled out the radical option of breaking up the banks and has rejected calls from the smaller “challenger” banks to end the practice of free-in-credit banking, which they say puts them at a competitive disadvantage. TSB, spun out of Lloyds and now owned by Spanish bank Sabadell, issued a final plea ahead of the report’s publication for its idea of a “credit passport” and monthly bill to be introduced. The credit passport would be intended to make it easier for customers with overdrafts to switch bank, while the monthly bill would highlight the real cost of free-in-credit banking to customers. Paul Pester, the chief executive of TSB, said it was a “once in a generation” opportunity to encourage competition. “We want all bank customers to know what they’re paying for their banking; all customers – including overdraft users – to be able to switch easily; and all customers to be aware of their right to switch banks.” The big four have already attempted to head off radical measures by setting up a current account switch service (Cass) in September 2013, which shifts direct debit mandates and regular payments to a new bank within seven working days. Before the seven-day pledge was adopted, it could take up to a month to switch accounts and the delay was regarded as one of the reasons customers hesitated to move. Data published in April showed that in the 12 months to the end of March just over 1 million customers switched their accounts, compared with 1.1 million in the previous 12 months. When the CMA’s provisional findings were published in October, Alasdair Smith, who is chairing the investigation, highlighted the government Midata scheme, which gives a breakdown of an individual’s data that can be plugged into price-comparison websites, as “a game-changing tool”.
Lupita Nyong’o: ‘Art is political in whatever way you slice it’ Lupita Nyong’o is, rumour suggests, a nightmare. Difficult. Cold. Prone to making heavy demands. She also quite famously won an Oscar for her first film straight out of Yale School of Drama, just three years ago. So, you might expect a degree of monstrous entitlement, but the buzz spreading through the London film festival seems exaggerated, even by industry standards. Chatshow clips – Jimmy Kimmel and The Ellen Show, old episodes of Conan O’Brien and Letterman – offer no evidence of brattiness. “I don’t feel a need to be anyone but myself,” she says of her reputation. The actor, who was born in Mexico and brought up in Kenya, is perched like a doll on the edge of a sofa when we meet: buttoned up in a full-sleeved and collared A-line Pucci dress that fans out across the seat, her legs crossed, hands folded on knees. I ask if there is a gulf between the public and private Lupita. She suppresses a small laugh. “I codeshift between my mother and father, let alone the industry and my home life. So, yeah, I think we naturally codeshift and that’s something I can’t deny I do, but the version of me … ” She finishes by waving at herself and tilting her head as if to say, “Yes, this is me” and “No, it’s not a grand act.” Her new film, Disney’s Queen of Katwe, is billed as her first “proper” role since 12 Years a Slave, though Nyong’o has been in a Star Wars film and The Jungle Book along the way. Queen of Katwe is a true story, directed by Mira Nair (Salaam Bombay, Monsoon Wedding, The Namesake) and based on the life of unlikely teenage chess champion Phiona Mutesi, from the Ugandan slums of Kampala. “Mira Nair and I have known each other for a very long time,” says Nyong’o. “I once worked as an intern for her, and our families are friends, but she emailed me to say she had the role written for me and would I please say yes to doing it? Less than 10 pages into reading the script, I sent an email: ‘I must make this film.’” Nyong’o plays Harriet, a widowed mother of five, whose naggy, protective survival instinct has no truck with the do-gooding help – coach Robert Katende (David Oyelowo) – promising to change the lives of Phiona and her family. Harriet’s life is hard but it’s hers, thanks very much. Still, ‘Katwe is a feelgood triumph for the sporting underdog. “It’s an uplifting African story and we could do with more of those.” In the crassest terms, think Cool Runnings meets Slumdog Millionaire, but with a lot of dramatic set pieces over chess boards. Stephen Colbert declared it his “favourite movie of the year so far” and said it made him weep, the New York Times reviewed it as irresistible, and Rolling Stone claimed it “hits you like a shot to the heart”. A harassed matriarch is not an obvious choice for Nyong’o, whose decisions have been deliberate and few, post-Oscars. She narrows her eyes. “The biggest gift or award the Academy has given me is choice. I am in a position where I don’t have to take on roles out of desperation or to help pay my bills.” Nyong’o’s voice hovers between mannered plumminess and international school student. “I can choose the projects I can say something with. It’s not something I take for granted.” It is not, I realise, that Nyong’o is haughty, more that she is atypical of her peers; she isn’t on a charm offensive, just businesslike: articulate and smart, clipped and polite. Does she worry about blowback for not conforming to expectation? Her first role post-Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave, after all, was a play written by a university friend about the Liberian war. “I don’t have that rulebook. So I have no idea. That’s honestly my answer. Art is political in whatever way you slice it,” she says, matter-of-factly. “It’s not something I shy away from. I grew up in a political family so it’s an environment I recognise.” She frequently calls out Hollywood’s tendency to mark her as its proof of doing the race stuff right, but making her the exception and not a norm. This month, for the third time in as many years, she appeared on the front of the US edition of Vogue, which ran the coverline: “I want to create opportunities for people of color.” It’s not the sexiest way to sell a fashion glossy, but Nyong’o is unapologetic. “Films inspire people to feel differently. A lot more can be done. We can be more empathetic when we realise how much more alike we are than how different we are.” Does she feel a burden, as a black actor, to keep talking about the “issues”? “But you see, I don’t like to fight the reality. The reason it is so acute is because of the stage we are at. When we are talking about inclusion in entertainment, it’s because entertainment isn’t inclusive and, until such a time as that becomes the norm, then this work has to be done.” It is almost a betrayal to her generation that Nyong’o never utters a single “like”, “uhm”, abbreviation or hesitation. “I feel an impetus to say something because this is a conversation that very directly affects me, and my career, and my role in the world. But I don’t belabour it.” We, she says grandly, vaguely indicating us both, “need people like Tendo Nagenda [the Disney executive behind Queen of Katwe] in positions of power who see the world in a more prismatic way to make the changes we desire.” The platform on which to speak out is one she won alongside her Academy gong as best supporting actress in 2014. It “stands out as the moment that changed my life,” she says. For better or worse? “Ah. Just change in all ways, it’s the before-and-after moment.” In the six-month run-up to the event, Nyong’o is said to have walked 66 red carpets; the elegant embodiment of style and grace, uniformly written up as fierce and flawless. “It was actually quite scary and discombobulating,” she says slowly, loosening up her shoulders. Her relationship with celebrity felt confusing. “To have lots of men running towards me with cameras, to look back to see what they were running after, and –” she stops to laugh – “it was me? It was very jarring. The one thing that made it all manageable was my intimate relationships because they have been constant. My mother still calls me to ask whether I’ve had my breakfast and that doesn’t change because I won an Oscar.” Nyong’o is now 33. She and her younger brother (who photobombed that Oscar selfie, still the most shared image in history, and whom she called “my best friend” in her acceptance speech) seemed to take it all in their stride: meeting Beyoncé “in the Boom Boom Room”, namechecked by Jay Z on We Made It, dinner with the Obamas, that sort of thing. How differently might she have coped if she had been in her early 20s? She lets out a big sigh and rolls back on the sofa. “Oh, God, I don’t even want to know. I still have friends who tease me about the same things they used to tease me about before. I am eternally grateful for that, this happened at a time when I knew who my day ones were.” Nyong’o comes from a lifetime of privilege, and there has always been public interest in her family back in Kenya. She was born in Mexico because her parents were political exiles; her father is now a senator and secretary general of the Kenyan opposition party Orange Democratic Movement, and her mother worked as an editor and is now managing director of the Africa Cancer Foundation. “My confidence comes from my upbringing,” Nyong’o says. “My parents took time to instil a lot of values – patience, striving for excellence, not to compromise. Playing Harriet definitely taught me to appreciate the role a mother plays – that is a no-joke role. I spent a lot of time apologising to my mother for the unnecessary heartache I put her through.” Such as? She cringes and her voice becomes softer with embarrassment. “I mean, kids are so entitled. So selfish! When you realise motherhood is a part of yourself running amok in the world, and you cannot help but worry your heart … ” She takes a sip of water and swerves from confessing any stories about rebelling. Instead, she talks about her mother’s determination to make her feel beautiful when, during her adolescence, her self-loathing had made her begin “to enjoy the seduction of inadequacy”. It is difficult to imagine now; Nyong’o, who looks as if she could have been sculpted by Rodin and has a lucrative contract as the face of Lancôme, knows her worth. But it echoes her speech about beauty, almost three years ago, at a Black Women in Hollywood luncheon, when she talked about a letter she had received from a girl who was desperate to use skin-lightening cream until Nyong’o “appeared on the world map”. Nyong’o revealed that she prayed daily to God to lighten her skin and would dismiss her mother’s advice that “beauty does not feed you; you can’t eat it”, until the model Alek Wek inadvertently taught her: “Beauty was not a thing I could acquire or consume; it was something that I just had to be.” It is why being ubiquitous – on screen or on magazine covers – matters to her, to help other girls feel validated. “I live in America and I am directly affected by the political situation,” she explains. Has she ever been invited to work with any activist movement? “I don’t imagine I’m not involved in [Black Lives Matter] – I have a younger brother living in America, too, so obviously I’m affected. Obviously, I take these things personally. And I know what’s coming,” she sing-songs and rolls her eyes. “Don’t ask me about Trump.” • Queen of Katwe is released in the UK on 21 October.
‘First step’ taken towards introducing safe standing in Premier League The 20 top-flight clubs have tasked the Premier League with scoping out the issues surrounding safe standing to inform a debate about whether it could be introduced in England. The move was described as “probably the first step” towards safe standing by David Gold, a co-owner of West Ham and one of the more enthusiastic proponents of the plan. After discussing the subject formally for the first time on Thursday, amid signs of a shifting mood among the majority of Premier League clubs, league executives were mandated to conduct a fact-finding exercise. “Premier League clubs today held initial discussions on safe standing. Given that fan safety is of paramount concern clubs are understandably cautious and there was no overall consensus on the matter,” said a spokesman. “This is a complex and emotive topic with a number of issues, varying from club to club, which need to be considered carefully before clubs can decide if they wish to pursue any changes, including legislative, that are required to allow them the option of safe standing areas in their grounds.” A number of potential hurdles remain before the sort of rail seating commonplace in Germany and introduced at Celtic Park for the first time this season could be considered in the Premier League and Championship. Among them are the sensitivities around the Hillsborough disaster, with the Hillsborough Family Support Group remaining implacably opposed to any move that would allow standing in major English grounds. However, the Liverpool supporters’ group Spirit of Shankly has launched a consultation on the matter and the Hillsborough Justice Campaign has also said it supports a full debate of the issues. Those who support safe standing argue that it would not mean a return to the unsafe terraces of old but in fact should be safer than the current situation, where many fans stand in front of their seats in defiance of the rules. It is understood that the government believes the introduction of safe standing would require a change in the law but that it would involve relatively straightforward secondary legislation. At present, however, the sports minister, Tracey Crouch, is not minded to recommend any change. “The government currently has no plans to change its position and introduce standing accommodation at grounds covered by the all-seater requirement,” said a spokesman for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. A majority of Premier League clubs are now believed to be in favour of trials, however, while Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur have designed their new stadiums to be able to accommodate rail seating if it is allowed. The Premier League will investigate the full range of issues around the topic before reporting back to the clubs. “The clubs have tasked the Premier League with scoping out the safety, supporter, technical and legislative issues surrounding safe standing before any further discussions, based on the facts, can take place,” said a spokesman. Any review is also likely to examine how the experience of introducing rail seating for almost 3,000 fans has played out north of the border, where Celtic introduced it this season. Delegations from a number of clubs, including Manchester City and Manchester United, are due to travel to Scotland to see it in action this season.
Tony Barrow obituary As press officer and publicist for the Beatles, Tony Barrow, who has died aged 80, was a key member of the inner circle formed by Brian Epstein to steer the group’s rise to global stardom. Barrow coined the term “Fab Four”, which was swiftly adopted by grateful headline writers, wrote sleeve notes for Beatles records and compered press conferences during the group’s world tours. Barrow was born into a middle-class family in the Merseyside town of Crosby. From an early age, his twin passions were music and journalism. The first record he bought, in 1951, was Winifred Atwell’s Black and White Rag, and he booked traditional jazz and skiffle groups for local dances. At Merchant Taylors’ school he edited an unofficial, hand-duplicated magazine, the Flash. One school report said that his written work was “suavely persuasive but short on facts”, which Barrow later remarked fitted him well for a career in PR. While still a sixth former, he began a record review column in the Liverpool Echo under the pseudonym Disker. Barrow later recalled stuffing his school cap into a pocket as he went to be interviewed by the Echo’s editor. The Disker column continued during Barrow’s studies at Durham University and his two years of national service, during which he ran a closed-circuit radio station at RAF Weeton. After leaving the RAF in 1960, Barrow joined Decca records in London as a staff writer. There, he received a letter from Epstein asking Disker to mention the as yet unknown Beatles in his Echo column. Barrow replied that for him to do so the group would need to have released a record, but offered to help organise an audition with Decca. The audition was unsuccessful, but after George Martin had signed the Beatles to a recording contract with EMI, Epstein offered Barrow the job of press and PR officer at his Nems company. Barrow’s introduction to the Beatles took place in a London pub, where John Lennon bluntly asked: “If you’re not queer or Jewish, why are you working for Brian?” From that unpromising start, Barrow soon formed a rapport with the group, as well as Epstein’s other artists, including Cilla Black and Gerry and the Pacemakers. He evolved a media strategy that recognised the importance of telephone interviews with Britain’s provincial and regional newspapers and took account of the needs of Beatles’ fans by initiating an annual Christmas message from each member of the group, which was sent on flexidisc to all fan club members. When Beatlemania took hold on a worldwide basis, the phlegmatic Barrow was on hand to deal with crises such as Lennon’s unguarded remark to the London Evening Standard journalist Maureen Cleave that the group was more popular than Jesus, which resurfaced on the eve of their tour to the US in August 1966. Barrow arranged a press conference in Chicago at which Lennon apologised for the remark. Barrow also handled the retreat from the Philippines when the Beatles were deemed to have offended the president Ferdinand Marcos and his wife, Imelda, by failing to attend a reception. After Epstein’s death in 1967 and the Beatles’ decision to form the Apple company the following year, Tony Barrow set up his own PR firm to represent such acts as the Bay City Rollers and the Kinks. He also specialised in publicising European tours by American singers such as Andy Williams and the Jackson Five. In the 1980s, Barrow returned to journalism, and for some years he was editor in chief of publications for the Midem organisation, which holds annual trade fairs in Cannes for the music and television industries. He was the author of several books, notably his highly readable 2006 memoir of the Beatles years, John, Paul, George, Ringo and Me: the Real Beatles Story. Barrow is survived by his wife, Corinne ,and their two sons. • Anthony Frederick James Barrow, publicist and journalist, born 11 May 1936; died 14 May 2016
Serie A’s challenge to Premier League’s fourth Champions League spot There is a bigger picture when Premier League sides return to European action in the next 11 days – the safety of England’s fourth Champions League place. Italy is close behind in Uefa’s list of coefficients that determines the number of places each country will have in the 2017‑18 season. England is third and has had four places since 2001 (including one, currently, via the play-offs) – but Juventus reaching the Champions League final and runs by Napoli and Fiorentina to the Europa League semi‑finals last season helped boost Italy’s one-year rating to 19.000, way ahead of England’s 13.571. Serie A’s five-season total is 69.272, compared with 72.659. Most points are awarded on the basis of two for a win and one for a draw across both the Champions League and Europa League, though there are sizeable bonuses for progress in the senior competition and meagre ones for the junior one. The overall points total is then divided by the number of entering clubs a country has. Is trouble brewing? England has an extra side remaining in the Champions League – Juventus and Roma are representing Italy – and three sides in the Europa League to Italy’s two. Also, last season was the only one in the past five when Serie A was superior the Premier League. But that always happened by comparatively small margins and English clubs need a good season of their own in both competitions to fend off the Italian challenge in the short- and long-term.
From The Dress to the 'extinction effect': the internet obsession with brain teasers From widely shared optical illusions and brain teasers to the strange, blue-and-black phenomenon that was The Dress, it’s clear that the internet is infatuated with puzzles. The latest which seems to have captured collective attention is about choosing which box contains a car. Posted on Monday by the Daily Mail, the puzzle was found on Brilliant.org, a problem-solving site. The premise: there are three boxes and one has a car in it. Each box has a statement attached to it, but only one of the statements is true. The statement on Box 1 reads “The car is in this box”. On Box 2: “The car is not in this box.” Box 3: “The car is not in box 1.” So which box contains the car? It’s similar to other puzzles, such as one called Evil King Berman and the Three Boxes. That one features a picture of “Fair Maiden Rowena” in one of three boxes made of gold, silver and lead (making it vaguely reminiscent of the three caskets test in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice). The fascination with the car puzzle follows a slew of recent viral visual illusions. A photo of a girl’s legs left Twitter users scratching their heads, wondering if the legs were very shiny or splattered with white paint. It earned over 16,000 retweets and plenty of news coverage. A similar debate ensued over a 2013 photo of a man imitating a crying baby. When the photo resurfaced last week thanks to Reddit, many debated whether the man pictured was Bill Murray or Tom Hanks. A particularly challenging game of I-Spy took over the internet in July, after a woman uploaded a photo of a floral carpet and coffee table to Facebook. “Look for the cellphone,” the caption read. The phone’s case is a close match to the pattern of the carpet, making it difficult to find. (Need a hint? Look near the table’s legs). A photo of gray lines on a white background with black dots that seem to move with the viewer’s eyes gained attention in September. Posted to Facebook by Akiyoshi Kitaoka, a psychology professor at Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto, Japan, the image actually contains 12 black dots, even if you can’t see them all at once. Only the black dots within a person’s field of vision appear. The headache-inducing image is an example of the “extinction effect” and was created by the researchers Jacques Ninio and Kent A Stevens, according to Quartz. It was a variation on the Hermann grid and scintillating grid illusions. The Hermann grid is a famous illusion with a black background and a grid of white lines. When you stare at one intersection, the others all seem to be filled with grey. The scintillating grid is a variation of this, with a grey grid and black background. A white disk is placed at each intersection, making black dots seem to appear and disappear. The grid created by Ninio and Stevens places outlined circles at the intersections of a more complicated grid, which makes the circles outside the field of vision seem to disappear.
Switching banks: nearly half of all Australians would consider move over climate change About half of all Australians would be likely to switch banks if they found out their bank was lending money to projects that contribute to climate change, according to polling commissioned by the financial activist group Market Forces. The findings came as more than 100 prominent Australian individuals and organisations signed a letter demanding that the big four banks stop supporting projects that expand the fossil fuel industry. Among the signatories are JM Coetzee, Charlotte Wood, James Bradley, Missy Higgins, Peter Singer and Jack Mundey, as well as unions, religious orders and conservation groups. Asked how important it was that their bank invest in companies and projects that don’t harm the environment and contribute to climate change, 74% of the poll’s respondents who were with the big four banks said it was at least “somewhat important”, according to the Essential Research poll of 1,017 people. Forty-eight per cent of respondents said they would be more likely to switch banks if they learned their bank was lending to projects that harmed the environment or contributed to climate change. When the researchers drilled down into specific types of projects, respondents appeared very concerned. Forty-seven per cent said they were likely to switch banks if they found out their bank was lending to coal and gas export projects in the Great Barrier Reef world heritage area. And 48% said they were likely to switch if they found out theirs was lending to coal seam gas projects near agricultural communities. Respondents also overwhelmingly supported the big four banks’ decisions to support the goal to limit warming to “well below” 2C. But 65% of people agreed that given their support of that goal, the banks should no longer lend to projects that expand the fossil fuel industry. In August Market Forces conducted research that found the big four banks had lent $5.6bn to fossil fuel projects and companies since they expressed support for the target. In the open letter, released at the same time as the poll findings, the signatoreis outline a number of actions that the banks must commit to in light of their support for the Paris agreement goal. “As you acknowledged late last year, the financial sector has an important role to play in holding global warming to below two degrees,” they write. “However, we are concerned that you are not fulfilling this role, having failed to deliver policy and practical responses in line with the goal.” They demand banks stop lending to projects that expand existing fossil fuel projects’ footprints or lifetimes and stop lending to companies that seek to expand the fossil fuel industry. They also call on banks to reduce their exposure to coal for power generation by 2020 and the rest of the fossil fuel sector by 2030, while scaling up renewable energy lending to at least $20bn by 2020. The signatories call that “a minimum level of action that would demonstrate you are serious about your intentions to support the two-degree global warming limit”. “It is on these actions that we will continue to judge and assess your credibility on climate change and we will have no hesitation in reporting to your customers and the wider public any failure to meet these minimum standards of action,” they say. “You play too important a role and this is too important an issue for us to allow for anything less.” The executive director of Market Forces, Julien Vincent, said the polling showed customers were aware the banks’ actions didn’t match their rhetoric. “These results show that Australians, especially customers of the major banks, endorse their banks taking serious action to avoid projects,” he said. “We’re not just supporting it, we’re demanding it and will campaign until we get it.”
Shaun the Sheep Movie sequel on way, says Wallace and Gromit maker Aardman A sequel to the hit animated film Shaun the Sheep Movie has been announced. Bristol-based producer Aardman Animations said that work on Shaun the Sheep Movie 2 would begin in January 2017, with Richard Starzak back on board as director (though Mark Burton, who co-directed the first film, will not return). David Sproxton, co-founder and executive chairman of Aardman, maker of the Wallace and Gromit films, said in a statement: “The flock are very excited to be embarking on another big screen adventure – a rip-roaring comedy that takes them to even greater heights of lunacy.” Shaun originated as a character in Nick Park’s 1995 Oscar-winning short A Close Shave, and then became the central figure in a highly successful TV series, Shaun the Sheep, which debuted on the CBBC channel in 2007. Shaun the Sheep Movie was released in 2015 and has taken more than $106m worldwide.
Sea Hero Quest is of huge benefit to medical researchers. So what’s the catch? In tech circles, alongside words such as “scaleable” and “the gig economy”, you often hear the phrase “tech for good” bandied around. Sometimes it’s a fairly innocuous but ultimately toothless concept, essentially denoting the idea that technology has the potential to be a driver for positive social change but not doing very much about it. Other times it can take on a more creepily utopian tone, suggesting that should the world more closely represent the shiny libertarian enclaves of Silicon Valley, the world’s problems would be solved. And sometimes – just sometimes – it does what it says on the tin. A new game, designed to test spatial navigation, appears at first glance to do just that. Sea Hero Quest, which involves navigating a boat through choppy waters, contains a diagnostic test for the early signs of Alzheimer’s disease. The game has now been played by more than 2.4 million people – which the team behind the game say makes it the largest dementia study in history. It’s now set to be adapted for use in a clinical setting – data could be fed back to clinicians, allowing for earlier diagnosis, better understanding of how medication is working for a particular patient and a more accurate and precise measurement of a patient’s decline. It could even be incorporated into NHS programmes. This, it goes without saying, is initially incredibly attractive. Understanding and managing an illness or being alerted when you’re at risk simply through the daily use of an app sounds simple, easy and most of all useful. Could this not be a genuine use of tech for good, rather than the banal and empty proclamations often heard from CEOs and founders? In theory, yes. In practice: maybe not. As with any health data-driven project, it comes with stipulations. A recent study in Lancet Psychiatry suggested that data gathered on Facebook could provide a “wealth of information” about mental health, with a series of language analysis and facial emotion recognition algorithms providing “insights into offline behaviours”. This, too, sounds great. Having your health monitored and managed through the passive use of technology you probably already use – what more could you want? But there are a number of concerns here: primarily, the safety of private health data. The addition of a private company in the latter study may make it feel different: a towering behemoth such as Facebook obviously feels more threatening than something set up for and run by clinicians. But to not have the same reservations just because the data was being sent to scientists would be incredibly naive. Science, much like technology, is often presented as objective, reasonable fact, without mentioning the very obvious caveat that it is conducted by human beings, who are often neither reasonable nor objective. Multiple studies about statistical analysis are useful to recall here – the results of such analyses may seem completely objective, but often reflect the preconceived biases of those conducting them. That’s not to say that would be the case with Sea Hero Quest, of course: just that the results of such research can be fallible. And it’s also important to remember that, should the Conservative party have its way, the NHS may be in the hands of several, separately operated and privately owned companies before too long. This adds further complications: who would have access to our health data? How would they use it? How would data be efficiently and safely communicated across different companies? Would their data protection processes be cohesive? Would they be meticulous enough to protect our most private, personal data? The idea of having your phone feed data to a central NHS database sounds great in principle, but these questions would need to be answered before that could safely become a reality. In an ideal world, tech would be utilised to help us to diagnose and treat illnesses: anything that can efficiently and effectively help people manage long-term or life-threatening conditions can only be a good thing. Similarly, the idea of a National Health Service that is genuinely innovative, that uses new ways to help people and that has a strong grasp on data security while it does so is incredibly appealing. Unfortunately, as with most utopian ideas, you’re left wondering whether it might just be too good to be true.
New band of the week: Virgin Suicide (No 93) Hometown: Silkeborg, Denmark. The lineup: Martin Grønne (vocals, guitar), Terkel Røjle (guitar), Kristian Bønløkke (keyboards), Kristian Kyvsgaard (bass), Simon Thoft Jensen (drums). The background: We’re at the by:Larm music conference and festival in Oslo, Norway this week, where a lot of the new acts on offer are cool, sophisticated types in the smouldering vein of Lana Del Rey or FKA twigs, or electronic solo artists, or duos in thrall to Haim and Hot Chip. So we thought we’d choose as a new band of the week a five-piece from Copenhagen who look like Danish scallies, with their normcore bowl cuts and the sort of anoraks football lads wore at the height of Madchester. If you’d have seen them hanging around the Arndale Centre in 1989, you’d have thought: “Ah, there go Factory’s latest singing.” The band – who met at school in the town of Silkeborg, in western Denmark, before they relocated to Copenhagen and formed Virgin Suicide in 2012 – sound quite “baggy”. That is obviously a very Manchester thing, but you can also detect the bright Scouse jangle of Liverpudlian guitar pop all over their self-titled debut album, which was co-produced and mixed in Los Angeles by Sune Rose Wagner of fellow Danes the Raveonettes. There is, as a result, a west coast haze or gauzy shimmer that helps frame these songs about a young man’s “inevitable quest to lose his innocence”, as the band explain. “The album aims to reflect on our lust for love, sex, party, family, death and all the emotional contrasts you go through while finding your identity” – you can’t imagine Northside coming up with that. They’ve supported Glasvegas and the Charlatans live, and cite as influences everyone from David Bowie and Duran Duran (which you can’t hear at all), to the Smiths and Dusty Springfield (which you can). This is keening 1960s pop with some of the kick of 80s indie – Martin Grønne sounds as if he writes his songs wearing sunglasses and a turtleneck – although the production is glossy. The surface dazzle is deceptive: beware the grim portents amid the sunshine. Those descending basslines offer intimations of something wicked this way coming. Remember the band’s name. Self-cancellation is something of a motif – they sing about it on There Is a Glace Over My Eyes – but so is death in general: their 2012 debut single was called Killing Everyone You Know. Grønne’s creamy tones, despite the slightly anguished peal – imagine a boyband Brett Anderson – mean you can appreciate the music for its breezy pleasantness, or you can dig around to discover what lies beneath. What did they say before about their “lust for love, sex, party, family … and death”? Their lust for it? That’s dark. And this is dreampop that might just give you nightmares. Enjoy. The buzz: “Roots in 60s rock with a touch of that slick Brit attitude of 80s janglepop.” The truth: They’re baggy janglers with a pop sheen and a miserablist attitude. Most likely to: Paint a vulgar picture. Least likely to: Dream that somebody loved them. What to buy: Their self-titled debut album is released on 1 April. File next to: the Byrds, the Stone Roses, the Smiths, the House of Love. Links: Soundcloud/VirginSuicideMusic. Ones to watch: Drowners, Stealth, KAStro, Shock Machine, Gaika.
Farage: Boris Johnson comments to blame for Trump snubbing UK Nigel Farage has redoubled his efforts to become irritant-in-chief to British ministers in the wake of Donald Trump’s election by suggesting their earlier criticisms of the president-elect could have meant he delayed speaking to Theresa May. A day after joking in a radio interview about the idea of Trump sexually assaulting May, Farage said disparaging words from Boris Johnson during the election campaign could have played a part in the delay. Trump and May spoke by phone on Thursday afternoon, but not before the winner of the US presidential election had talked to 10 other world leaders. Asked whether this was a worry for the UK, Farage told the Press Association: “Well, you have to face the facts that there are some very senior members of this administration who have said some very rude things about him.” Pressed if the delayed call was connected to this, Farage said: “You’d have to draw your own conclusions on that. But this president is instinctively Anglophile.” Farage criticised the earlier attacks on Trump by the foreign secretary, PA said. When he was still mayor of London, Johnson had condemned Trump for saying parts of the city were “no-go areas” for police, calling him “clearly out of his mind”. Farage is currently in Florida on a private visit. While some reports have said he hopes to see Trump, for whom he was a warm-up speaker at one campaign event, Farage said he has no plans for the two to meet. Speaking to to TalkRadio from Spain on Thursday before flying to the US, Farage joked about the idea of the US president-elect sexually assaulting May when he met her, saying, “don’t touch her for goodness sake”, before laughing. Asked about the likely behaviour of Trump, who has been accused of a series of sexual assaults, which he denies, Farage added: “If it comes to it, I could be there as the responsible adult role, to make sure everything’s OK.” He also claimed to be “the catalyst” for the rise of Trump and referred to Barack Obama as a “creature” and a “loathsome individual”.
Brexit chaos could change the political map of Britain Good news had been in short supply for Lib Dems over the previous 18 months, so when some hugely encouraging data arrived at their byelection headquarters in Richmond last Wednesday morning, the reaction was one of excitement coupled with scepticism. Party strategists had just received the results of internal polling showing they had pulled ahead of Zac Goldsmith, the former Tory MP turned independent, with 24 hours to go until voting began. Goldsmith, a hardline pro-Brexiter who had quit the Conservatives over the decision to expand Heathrow airport, had won a 23,000 majority at last year’s general election and was still a popular figure locally. But if this data was correct his reputation would count for nothing and a party that came close to being obliterated at last year’s general election was on course for a byelection sensation to rival any in British political history. The small Lib Dem team led by campaign manager James Lillis studied the figures and wondered how to respond. One of the first rules of campaigning is never to appear too confident. Releasing them might give the impression that the party thought it had victory in the bag. But this was not proving to be an ordinary byelection in any sense and did not necessarily require stock responses. It had already broken all the rules. Over previous days Lillis’s team had amassed solid evidence that many thousands of voters were shunning traditional party loyalties and deciding their votes not according to their views on issues like Heathrow or the NHS – but in line with what they thought about the biggest issue of the day – Brexit. The Lib Dems had run their entire campaign in this wealthy part of west London suburbia, in which 72% of people had voted Remain on June 23, on an anti hard-Brexit message. “For the first time I can remember we were not the pot-hole party. We were promoting our views on the EU, on internationalism, tolerance, what sort of country we want to be,” said one party insider. Tory Remainers had told them on doorsteps that they would vote Lib Dem because they disapproved of Theresa May’s hard Brexit approach. Labour supporters were doing the same wanting to send an anti-hard Brexit message. The Greens and Women’s Equality Party had not run candidates and instead had backed the Lib Dems, forging a fledgling progressive pro-EU alliance. A few Labour supporters had even campaigned for the Lib Dem candidate Sarah Olney. Despite all the positive feedback, the Lib Dems were far from sure. The mood was too unusual, too volatile. A decision was reached that they needed to instil confidence that the shift was real and they could actually win, so, departing from all precedent, they put out the data. “We had never leaked polling of this kind before,” said an insider. “But because we had to overcome a 23,000 majority, probably the biggest barrier was simply that people didn’t believe we could do it. We needed to show that progressive voters were responding to our message that Britain should remain open, tolerant and united. It worked. In the last day Zac Goldsmith’s team just seemed to crumble. On polling day we were out from 5am delivering ‘good morning’ leaflets and were still out at 10pm knocking up our supporters. We got our vote out.” In the early hours of Friday morning the grin on Olney’s face was so broad that at times she struggled to get the words out in her victory speech. She had overturned Goldsmith’s huge majority and beaten him by 1,872 votes. Brexit had changed everything. Labour, which had argued internally over to whether to field a candidate at all but eventually did, saw its man Christian Wolmar lose his deposit and receive fewer votes (1,515) than it had local members (1,600). Later voters began to explain why they had switched from Goldsmith to the unknown politically inexperienced accountant Sarah Olney. “It was a shame, really. Zac was always really diligent,” said Susannah, a young mother who did not not give surname, on the school run in Mortlake. “But the Brexit stuff was the most important issue. Lots of people here still can’t really believe Brexit is happening. It was much harder to vote for Zac knowing he’d supported the people who got us here. It’s made a lot of people like me change our votes.” Down the road in North Kingston, Andrée Frieze, who was the Greens’ candidate at the 2015 general election, said his party’s decision not to stand, and instead to back Olney, was a sign of how narrow party interests and loyalties were giving way to new alliances and a fight for what mattered most. “Brexit was absolutely the main issue on the doorstep here in Richmond,” Frieze said. “Zac had been really popular, and if the Greens had run, this election would have felt the same as any other. But because we didn’t and explained why, people felt they could vote Lib Dem again. This wasn’t about the person, it wasn’t about the party, it was about the bigger picture. People told me that voting Lib Dem this time round – when people like me weren’t running – made them feel part of a team.” This weekend all the main parties are grappling with the implications of the Richmond Park result. While it is an unusual seat, home to an uncommonly high number of well-heeled, well-educated Remain voters, and the election was triggered by the special circumstances of Goldsmith’s resignation, it has single-handedly revived the Lib Dems’ morale and sense of purpose as the anti-hard Brexit party. The question now is whether Brexit can have a similar transformative effect elsewhere. Tim Farron, the party leader, wasted no time in declaring that his party was “back in the big time”. The Lib Dems are now eyeing up other seats in the south, and installing candidates where they have strong local roots and are second to the Tories, in case of an early general election or more byelections. They claim Richmond will not be a one-off and cite their success in David Cameron’s former seat of Witney, in Oxfordshire, where they leapfrogged Labour and Ukip into second place in October, as evidence that they are now the party of the 48%. For Theresa May and the Tories, despite their assertion that Richmond changes nothing, it is a warning shot that Brexit is shifting the landscape, in profound, if very different, ways across the country. May’s already wafer-thin Commons majority has been cut to just 14, and if more byelection losses were to follow, her ability to govern effectively would be called ever more into doubt. Today, a group of former Tory ministers and senior MPs warn that if the prime minister panders too much to anti-EU hardliners, the party will lose middle ground voters en masse as they did in Richmond, and risk defeat at the next general election. The tactical counter to that is that a soft Brexit will deliver ammunition to Ukip, under its new leader Paul Nuttall, particularly in the Midlands and the north where they pose a threat to both the Tories and Labour. For Labour the dilemmas are just as acute. They were never expected to do well in Richmond, but their miserable tally of votes there has sounded loud alarm bells nonetheless. The fear among Labour MPs is that the party led by Jeremy Corbyn, a lukewarm supporter of the EU but a keen advocate of free movement and defender of immigration, risks being trampled between a newly resurgent Lib Dem party in pro-Remain seats in urban areas and the south, and Ukip in Leave strongholds. As one senior Labour MP put it: “Our leader seems to be anti-markets and lukewarm about the EU on the one hand, yet gives an unqualified pro-immigration message on the other. It is the worst of both worlds electorally.” Yesterday, in a speech in Prague, Corbyn said it was vital that parties on the left did not respond to the surge of rightwing populism by scapegoating refugees and migrant workers, again refusing to be allied to those in his party who argue it is a problem that needs addressing. Attention is now turning to another byelection this Thursday in the Tory-held Lincolnshire seat of Sleaford and North Hykeham, caused by the resignation of Stephen Phillips, a Brexit supporter who stood down because he thought parliament should be consulted more on the terms of departure. In this seat 62% of people voted for Leave. The electoral dynamics are therefore in many way the reverse of those in Richmond. The Tories have another huge majority (more than 24,000) with Labour second at the 2015 election and Ukip narrowly behind in third. The Tories should hold on. But the fear in Labour circles is that they could be overtaken by Ukip. After he was voted in as leader last Monday Nuttall declared that his ambition was “to replace the Labour party and make Ukip the patriotic voice of working people.” Thursday is his first test. Last week, at the outermost edge of the constituency, a group of Labour activists made a lonely picket outside Grantham Hospital’s A&E unit, which is now closed overnight. They were joined for half an hour by Jon Ashworth, the shadow health secretary, and the party’s local candidate, binman Jim Clarke. Clarke says Labour should do well in this area but even the party faithful doubt his prospects. “Who knows if we can beat Ukip the way things are going,” said David Taylor, a Labour member. “If people are voting Ukip, then we really need to look at what we’re doing as a party.” Down the road in Sleaford, Jack Croll is campaigning for Ukip. “We’ll beat Labour,” he says. “That’s easy. I don’t like giving money away, for a start. Do you? [He means to the EU.] The other issue, of course, is all this immigration. Where I come from it’s absolutely spinning with immigrants. That needs to stop.” Victoria Ayling, a well-spoken former barrister and county councillor standing for Ukip, said local residents across the heavily rural constituency had had enough of the two main parties, and that even Clarke’s impeccable working-class credentials couldn’t save Labour here. For Theresa May, as for Labour, there are difficult if not impossible balances to be struck. Whichever line the Tories take on Brexit, part of their support base will be angered. Last week there were signs of May moving away from a hard Brexit – something that will please moderate Tories but alarm the right of her party. David Davis, the Brexit secretary, suggested as much when he said that the government might be prepared to pay into the EU budget in order to stay in the single market. Eurosceptics reacted with horror, saying there should be no backtracking and that voters would be appalled if money still went to Brussels to pay for a Brexit lite. Ukip piled in, saying the great betrayal was under way. This week 11 judges will begin hearing the government’s appeal in the supreme court over whether Parliament must approve the triggering of the Brexit process. If it is defeated the battle over Brexit will be fought out in parliament over the coming months. Already Brexit has altered the landscape as uncertainty prevails over the direction it will take. Back in Richmond a Lib Dem worker celebrated on Friday saying that his party, and perhaps Ukip, were the only ones with reasons to be hopeful amid the Brexit chaos. “We are the only ones who offer any clarity. The Tories and Labour are divided over Brexit and we are united. It is a big chance for both parties.”
The app to cure your loneliness: swipe right for your new BFF I’ve been talking about my app idea, “Tinder for friends!”, for years. I wasn’t exactly first, given that apps for friendship were already in existence but that didn’t stop me from feeling thoroughly vindicated to read that this month dating app Bumble (which has the satisfying rule that only women can make the first move) had launched BFF. BFF is a feature within the Bumble app that allows people in need of a new hang to swipe through potential matches to find like-minded folk. What it really is, though, is a validation of the new ways we find people in a world that is increasingly connected, yet, often, never more lonely. Is it odd to swipe through a series of geo-located, aesthetically pleasing individuals to line up a coffee date with some random? Well, maybe. But as anybody who has been told that they should “get a hobby” in order to “meet new people”, or has ever moved cities or countries can attest, it can be hard to make new friends as an adult once the student years are over. And anyway, courting a new friend is kind of like dating (“want to grab a coffee some time?” or “what’s your relationship like with your mother?”), just without the angst of vetting a potential life partner during happy hour and wondering whether you could, in fact, marry a man that neglected to mention on his online dating profile that he didn’t have any teeth. As Abby Green wrote in the Washington Post of her experience trying out BFF, perhaps the best thing about the app is the difference between looking for friendship and looking for love is that you have a few more gaps on your dance card. With friendship, we have many vacancies and can fill those spots with different types of people. But with romantic love, people are usually looking for one person, which means there’s a lot of pressure to present the best version of yourself on dates. There was no pressure to be this woman’s only friend – and that gave me the freedom to worry less about rejection and focus more about being myself. In what is shaping up to be golden time for the celebration of female friendship in popular culture – from Abbi and Ilana’s (mostly) platonic love affair for each other on the TV show Broad City, to Taylor Swift’s mega squad – the focus on actively finding new friends makes sense. It should be celebrated. Because apps for friendship speak to the way friendship has shifted – to become something valued and essential, something to seek out and something that comes in many forms. Like the friend that you met on Twitter because you were both live-tweeting The Bachelor, or the women whose aesthetic you admired on Instagram and asked out for a drink. These friendships have the same value as the friends you grew up with, or the ones that came into your life by default – and perhaps more so, because you chose them for their values, their opinions, their A-game #foodstagrams. Indeed some of the best women I know I met on the internet. I told them first when my sister died. I’ve sent them countless first drafts of articles and always valued their opinions. Women whose posts about their dogs and their babies and articles they loved, I have voraciously liked and retweeted. I sign up to their newsletters and read their latest blogs. Our interactions online are a kind of love language, and all those emails and long-running G-chats and double-taps add up to something. A friendship that is important if not rigidly defined. I don’t see my internet friends as much as I used to, we’re scattered all over the world, with different lives and other friends who fill in the gaps. But sometimes it might be more fitting that way; talking on the internet was how we met, it’s a connection that feels comfortable. But more importantly, it feels necessary. In a piece for the New Republic, Jenna Wortham said, “The Internet represents a broadening of the spectrum of relationships we can have.” And that is something worth swiping for.
The police chief battling cybercriminals from Russia and Ukraine Last Christmas Ian Dyson got a call from his bank. Was he really in a Travelodge, ordering takeaway pizzas? No, was his answer, he was at home with his family. Like millions of others, Dyson had fallen victim to card fraudsters stealing from his account. But Dyson is not like everyone else – he is the commissioner of the City of London police, with the job of protecting not just London but the whole country from fraud. And the depressing reality is, like so many other frauds, the criminals got away with it. Dyson is disarmingly honest about the explosion in online fraud and cybercrime, and what realistically the police can do about it. “Every month Action Fraud [the national fraud reporting service] receives 40,000 reports, half a million a year, and we know from the ONS stats that’s only a small percentage of what is going on. There were 3.8 million frauds and two million cyber offences. You cannot enforce your way out of this. It’s physically impossible.” It’s partly because the perpetrators are abroad, with around half of all cybercrimes reported to Action Fraud originating overseas, says Dyson, citing Indian call centres and Russian and Ukrainian websites. The City of London police have a specialist officer permanently stationed in Wall Street, and worked with the Spanish police to swoop on 110 conmen operating a “boiler room” fraud targeting elderly investors. But Russia? Do the London police receive any help from their counterparts in Moscow? “No, not at all. Ukraine is limited too. You’ll be aware of the limitations of some foreign jurisdictions.” Another limitation is budgets. “Policing has taken a 20% hit in its budget so I’ve got to do what I can with what I’ve got,” he says, while noting that virtually everyone else in the public sector has faced similar cuts. “You have to be realistic with the volumes [of crimes] you’ve got, [and] about the global nature of the crime issue. I cannot possibly sit here and say I am going to investigate every crime. You can’t. But policing has never investigated every crime.” The 40,000 reports to Action Fraud every month are whittled down to ones where the police think there are “actionable leads”. Some go up to the National Crime Agency or the Serious Fraud Office, some are pushed out to the other 43 police forces across the UK, while the City of London police tackle the rest. “There are 700 cases the City of London police are investigating at the moment. That’s me rather than ones disseminated to other forces. In the top 10 there is about half a billion pounds worth of fraud being investigated.” What he dubs “CEO fraud” is the latest online crime wave City of London police are facing. It’s when a junior person in the finance department of a big company receives an email from the chief executive officer of the firm, asking him or her to move money from one account to another. The email is fake; somehow the fraudsters have hijacked the boss’s email account, or created one that is near identical. “One major company lost three lots of £250,000 this way,” says Dyson, noting that the culture in some big businesses is such that junior staff are too nervous about confronting their bosses when they receive an email which appears to be from them. Dyson notes that the other worrying online crime wave is “mandate fraud”. You receive an email from your builder, who’s doing your extension, politely telling you he has changed his bank account details, and could the next £20,000 payment for the extension go into this account? Again, the email has been hijacked, and the householder hands over their life savings – never to be seen again, as banks do not take responsibility. Money has highlighted numerous sad tales of how people have been conned this way. Have online fraudsters caught the police napping? Did we put bobbies on the beat when we should have been investing in fighting online fraud? In a frank admission, Dyson says: “To be honest, who’d hold up a bank these days? Who would rob a bank now when you can make it all online in seconds?” His office is just yards from the Bank of England, yet about the only robberies he sees are of betting shops, one of the last major cash-handling businesses around. He acknowledges that the public think that when they report an online crime, nothing seems to happen. “There is a public perception that PC Plod is losing the war against these highly sophisticated cybercriminals. It’s a perception I’m trying to address. “Last year 180,000 websites, phonelines and bank accounts involved in fraud were closed down following police intelligence. So disruption is a big thing… Your report, combined with hundreds of others could lead us to close down that website and prevent people from becoming victims of fraud. While you might not get your money back, it will go at least some way to stopping others [from being a victim].” Disruption is a word Dyson uses a lot. He reckons the best approach for his force is to gain intelligence from the public and other government agencies, and use that to intervene before more victims are conned. It’s why he’s investing heavily in a new IBM project for Action Fraud that should turn it into the world’s most sophisticated anti-fraud intelligence system in the world. The quicker the police can see the signs, the more rapidly they are able to respond, he says. But the public have to do more: “The public have to shift their mindset around crime. The public have to understand we cannot enforce our way out of this, [given] the volume of crime, the fact that it is global and happening so fast, and that money can be moved so quickly. It has to be about prevention and protection.” Don’t use “password” as your password, he says. If that email arrives asking you to pay the money into another account, ring the builder, he adds. There are many, many more simple measures the public can take, he insists. In September, the government will begin a public information campaign, which Dyson says will evoke the message of the 1970s “clunk-click, every trip” campaign to get the public to use seatbelts in cars. We need the same thinking when it comes to transacting online, he says. But shouldn’t the banks be doing more? Can the public really protect themselves from genius hackers determined to break into their accounts? Dyson is reluctant to criticise the big banks, though he says insurance companies have a much better record than high-street banks at cooperating in fighting fraud. The insurers have paid for 35 police officers in the City of London force alone to battle fake insurance claims and have had a string of prosecution successes. He would like the banks to be rather more intelligent when an elderly customer walks into a branch and demands to withdraw nearly all their savings when they have never taken out more than £100 before in one go. It’s usually because they are being conned. Banks may often fail to report a fraud, in part because of the odd way in which crime is recorded. When Dyson’s own card details were stolen, he was fully compensated by the bank. That means, according to Home Office rules, that the bank was the victim of the crime, not Dyson. “It’s something we are talking to the Home Office about,” he says. Critics say that police fraud-busters are just not technically competent and resourced to catch cybercriminals. Dyson bridles: “I’d like to disabuse anyone of the view that they are all smart computer geeks, the archetypal spotted teenager hacking into US military computers. They are not. You have some people who are business people who before the internet would have been conning people out of investments. They are doing the same now but are doing it online. Then you have the people with a slightly smarter mate who have found a quick way to make money.” The boiler room criminals in Spain are the type who were breaking into cars before the advent of the internet, he says. But in 33 years of policing, he says criminals are changing. They used to specialise in a line of business – armed robberies, drug dealing, etc. Now, Dyson says, everybody tries a bit of everything. Meanwhile, the police have their own geeks. Dyson says the City of London force have staff seconded to them from Google and Microsoft whose internet expertise is a match for any cybercriminal in Russia: “My guys will understand the forensic footprint of these crimes in the same way detectives are aware of forensic opportunities at the scene of a burglary.” He is proud of his force’s work to fend off pension fraud, which was widely expected to balloon in the wake of the new pension freedoms, but has so far been suppressed by the police working with the pension providers. The force was also instrumental in stopping BT from keeping lines open after a phone is put down, a frequent tactic used by fraudsters to convince people who called back that they were speaking to their bank. More money would help, Dyson says. For every pound invested in fighting fraud “we are preventing about £60 worth of fraud”. Meanwhile he’s behind a pilot project in which private law firms will be hired by police to help seize the proceeds of crime and repay victims earlier. “We’re an innovative police force,” he says. “The investment in the last 10 years was in neighbourhood policing and the visibility of police officers. We are shifting, in fairness, policing is shifting to deal with online.” Unfortunately, as he looks out of his offices over the towers of London, while fighting fraud fills much of his time, there is another more serious threat. “My number one priority at the moment is counter-terrorism. We are quite a target-rich environment.” How to protect yourself There were more than 5.8m incidents of cybercrime in the past year, enough to nearly double the headline crime rate in England and Wales, writes Patrick Collinson. The Office for National Statistics said last month that one in 10 adults have been victims of cybercrime and online fraud over the previous year in the first official estimate of the scale of scams, virus attacks, thefts of bank details and other offences. An initial ONS estimate in October last year put the annual figure at 3.8m, or 40% of all crimes. Costing an estimated £193bn a year, cybercrime is nearly as big as all other crime, such as home burglary, car thefts and violence against the person. The ONS added that the chance of being a victim is the same regardless of social class or whether you live in a deprived or affluent, urban or rural area. Meanwhile, the figures for crime excluding online offences dropped in the year, falling by 6%. The long-term trends in traditional crimes such as burglary, car thefts and criminal damage showed that the fall in crime since its 1995 peak had slowed down since 2005. The survey found there had been no change in the overall level of violent crime compared with the previous year. So what are the easy steps to protect yourself from online crime that Commissioner Ian Dyson recommends? • Never disclose security details, such as your pin or full banking password Banks and other trusted organisations will never ask you for these in an email, on the phone, by text or in writing. Before you share anything with anyone, pause to consider what you’re being asked for and question why they need it. Unless you’re 100% sure who you’re talking to, don’t disclose any personal or financial details. • Don’t assume an email or phone call is authentic Just because someone knows your basic details (name and address, even your mother’s maiden name), it doesn’t mean they are genuine. Fraudsters may try to trick you and gain your confidence by telling you that you’ve been a victim of fraud. Fraudsters can also make any telephone number appear on your handset, so even if you recognise the number or it seems authentic, do not assume they are genuine. • Don’t be pressured into a decision Under no circumstances would a bank or organisation force you to make a financial transaction on the spot; they would never ask you to transfer money into another account for fraud reasons. • Listen to your instincts If something feels wrong, it is usually right to question it. Fraudsters may lull you into a false sense of security when you are out and about or rely on your defences being down when you’re in the comfort of your own home. They may appear trustworthy, but they may not be who they claim to be. • Stay in control Have the confidence to refuse unusual requests for personal or financial information. It’s easy to feel embarrassed when faced with complex conversations, but it’s OK to stop the discussion if you do not feel in control of it.
'Emergency brake' unlikely to lead to big cut in migration, say experts David Cameron’s “emergency brake” denying access to in-work benefits for new European Union migrants is unlikely to lead to a large reduction in migration to the UK, according to expert analysis. Oxford University’s Migration Observatory says the key element in Cameron’s renegotiation package with the EU, under which newly arrived migrants will be denied access to in-work benefits for their first four years, is likely to affect only a small number of families. But the Oxford research also casts doubt on claims that the introduction of the “national living wage” will encourage EU migration mark. The migration experts say the incentive effect of the national living wage for EU citizens over the age of 25 is not clear cut, as it could reduce the availability of low-wage employment. “This would make it harder for EU nationals to find jobs,” the Migration Observatory says. Its report says most EU migrants now claiming in-work benefits such as tax credits did not arrive within the past four years and so would not have been affected by the new “emergency brake” restrictions had they been in place. The researchers say the data shows that roughly 10-20% of recently arrived EU adults were in receipt of tax credits in early 2014. They do not flatly contradict Cameron’s claim last November that 40% of recently arrived European Economic Area migrants were supported by benefits, but they do say the figure is higher than other available estimates, for various reasons including that it counts children as benefits recipients. They found that in 2015 19% of recently arrived EEA migrants reported receiving a state benefit in their own right, falling to 13% if child benefit is excluded. “More than half of EEA-born adults who reported receiving tax credits in 2015 were working full-time, and around 90% had dependent children (despite less than half of EEA-born adults overall having children),” say the Oxford migration experts. This leads them to conclude that the impact of the emergency brake will be “concentrated on a small share of families with children – particularly minimum-wage workers with children and those in families without two-full time earners.” They add that if the national living wage increases the incomes of these families, that would reduce their in-work benefits entitlement even without restrictions on welfare eligibility. Madeleine Sumption, director of the Migration Observatory, said: “Looking at reliance on welfare benefits overall, migrants from EU countries are actually not very different to people born in the UK. EU migrants are more likely to be working, and so use in-work benefits more than out-of-work ones, but the differences are not dramatic. “A large majority of recent EU migrants are not claiming benefits of any kind. That means that most migrants to the UK would not be affected by proposed changes to the welfare system. That said, some families with children would stand to lose several thousands in tax-credit income, and would still be considerably worse off even if higher minimum wages increase their incomes over the next few years.”
Cincinnati zoo deletes Twitter and Facebook accounts over Harambe jokes Cincinnati zoo has deactivated its social accounts after it asked the public to stop making memes about Harambe the gorilla. The animal was shot dead this year after a three-year-old child climbed into his enclosure. Since then, Harambe has turned into a source of humorous content online. Jokes about his memory have spread on all corners of the internet – including the mentions of Cincinnati’s zoo official social media accounts. In the past few months, their Twitter mentions have been filled with the following: Its Facebook page faced similar issues. This week, both were deactivated after Cincinnati zoo pleaded for the memes to stop. The zoo’s director, Thane Maynard, told the Associated Press: “We are not amused by the memes, petitions and signs about Harambe. “Our zoo family is still healing, and the constant mention of Harambe makes moving forward more difficult for us. We are honoring Harambe by redoubling our gorilla conservation efforts and encouraging others to join us.” Maynard’s account was hacked this month and taken over by messages dedicated to Harambe. There has been much theorising about why Harambe has become the meme of the summer. Some believe mimicking over-the-top displays of grief appeals to the internet’s sense of humour. Others believe it comes from a genuine place of anger about what happened to Harambe. Whatever the case, it remains to be seen whether deleting the accounts will stop the jokes. Harambe: the meme that refused to die
Mary McAleese: leave vote could bring return of border controls The former Irish president Mary McAleese has urged the British to vote to remain in Europe, warning of the return of border controls in Northern Ireland and potential drift in the peace process. In her first intervention in the EU referendum debate, McAleese said it would be a major concern if Britain’s “formidable” voice were absent in future from the European project. Her warning came as the chancellor, George Osborne, was due to say that Northern Ireland would suffer a profound economic shock if Britain left the EU. The chancellor, who will begin a two-day visit to Northern Ireland on Thursday, will say that Brexit would lead to 14,000 extra people on regional dole queues and house values falling by almost £20,000. McAleese, speaking at an event organised by Irish builder Ballymore, which is urging its staff to vote to remain and closing its offices at 2pm on voting day to enable them to do so, said a vote to leave Europe would be a threat to the continent’s future peace. It could fuel further destabilisation of a political project that she said was born out of a desire for lasting peace after two world wars, she argued. McAleese accepted that Europe had become “faceless” and it was “difficult to lock in the hearts” of voters to this grand vision of peace and democracy, but that the debate over the EU should be used as the starting point for the next round of talks within the EU on its future shape. “When we joined the EU in 1973, we did not join a 43-year project, we joined … a project to turn our backs on the default position of war,” she said. “This is a project for generations and centuries, we’re still in the startup phase,” she said. McAleese, who was president for two terms and was considered one of the most formidable European leaders of her generation, said Britain had a formidable voice in Europe, a strong voice that counterbalanced the rightwing, anti-democractic undertones emerging in some quarters. “The absent voice would not be heard,” she said. “The idea of the British voice being absent worries me,” she added. On the future of Ireland, McAleese lamented what she said were false assurances by the leave campaigners that the open border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic would remain. She said the “chances of customs controls being reconstituted are probably greater”, as they had been eliminated by EU laws and not by Anglo-Irish efforts. She said the common travel area that allows British and Irish citizens to travel between the two countries without passports would also come under pressure and she worried what effect that would have on the 600,000 Irish in Britain and the 300,000 British in Ireland. Frequently repeated claims by the leave campaign that the position would not change could not be determined by its leaders Michael Gove and Boris Johnson. “I don’t know that [to be true] and they do not know that,” she said. “If Britain removes itself from the EU, the only land border between the UK and Europe will be the land border between Northern Ireland and Ireland,” she said. “The hardening of the border will send all the wrong signals,” she added. On a two-day trip to Belfast and the border city of Newry, Osborne will also warn that the border with the Irish Republic “would harden” if the UK voted to leave the European Union. “It is also inevitable that there would be changes to border arrangements,” Osborne will say. Leave campaigners who suggest this is not the case are simply not being straight with people. On any level, that is simply not a price worth paying.”
Acute nursing: 'You never know what’s going to come through your door' Nursing in the acute sector – whether A&E, theatre or the ward – has changed “almost beyond recognition” in the past few decades, says Mandie Sunderland, chief nurse at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS trust. “The fundamental care skills are the same, but the context in which we work has changed radically.” This has led to increasing specialisation as well as advanced nursing roles. “We have nurses doing jobs that middle-ranking doctors would have done historically and they are doing them brilliantly,” says Sunderland. The clinical career pathway now stretches all the way to nurse consultant. For Linsey Sheerin, clinical coordinator at the Royal Victoria Hospital’s emergency department in Belfast, the adrenalin rush of A&E nursing was what attracted her to the specialism 13 years ago. “I love the fast pace and the variety. You never know what’s going to come through your door.” But it is not all about life and death decisions, she says: “Part of it may be sitting holding a patient’s hand or talking to the family when at their weakest.” She also enjoys the shared camaraderie of emergency work. “It’s a team approach and we all work really closely together.” Nurses are often the backbone of that team. “Behind every successful emergency department consultant there will always be several emergency nurses.” Acute nursing skills are also increasingly evident in leadership roles that go beyond nursing. Neil Carr, chief executive officer of South Staffordshire and Shropshire Healthcare NHS foundation trust, qualified in the 1970s and rose to be a nursing director before becoming CEO in 2007. He believes his background has been invaluable. “If you’re grounded in the clinical disciplines you have served the right sort of apprenticeship,” he says. When he began his nursing career, clinical opportunities were limited – the means to advancement lay mainly in management or education. “Now there are all sorts of opportunities that I could never have dreamed of – it’s very exciting.” The nature of nursing has also altered, he says. Nurses are encouraged to deliberate and think, not just do. And they have a different, more equal relationship with patients. Looking to the future, Sunderland suspects the gap between acute and chronic care will become further blurred and that primary and secondary care will have to work more closely. At the same time nurses must never forget their roots and their bond with the patient: “We must not lose the things that make nursing special.” Join the Healthcare Professionals Network to read more pieces like this. And follow us on Twitter (@GdnHealthcare) to keep up with the latest healthcare news and views.
Rick Astley review – 80s icon returns unfeasibly intact With his trademark quiff, 1987 chart topper Never Gonna Give You Up and ubiquitous Stock Aitken Waterman (SAW) production, Rick Astley was one of the most loved and loathed pop phenomenons of the late 80s. Then he jacked it all in after a tearful episode on the M4. In recent years, there has been a short-lived reinvention as a crooner and the subject of an internet meme: rickrolling. Now, he’s back as his old self, with quiff, lugubrious baritone and youthful looks unfeasibly intact. However, the powers that once controlled his career would never have let him get away with such torrential self-deprecation (“Nat King Cole’s version is way better”, he says of When I Fall in Love), nostalgic double entrendres (“12 inch!”) and Peter Kay-type cheeky banter. “Sway, you buggers!” he commands as a middle-aged audience recreate SAW mania, before he dons spectacles and feigns amazement at the sights – including two ladies wearing cardboard cut-out Astley masks. In two hours, the music is all over the place, from copper-bottomed SAW hits to covers medleys to surprisingly good new soul stompers (new single Keep Singing) that give today’s Ricks – Sam Smith et al – a run for their money. We even glimpse Astley in unlikely guise of acoustic guitar-wielding protest singer, railing against corporate power. If things get rather cruise-ship soul revue at times, it’s impossible not to warm to the man from nearby little Newton-le-Willows, fluffed intros, forgotten lyrics (“I’m 50 for God’s sake!”) and all. Beneath the tomfoolery he is touchingly sincere and after a riotously received Never Gonna Give You Up admits, “You made a middle-aged man very, very happy.” A perma-grin never once leaves his face and seems to say, “I’m Rick Astley, for God’s sake, and I’m still singing to you buggers in 2016. Isn’t that a hoot?” Indeed it is. At Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh, on 4 April. Then touring.
Sanders warns Michigan voters that Trump is 'dangerous and un-American' Bernie Sanders blasted Donald Trump as a billionaire who exemplifies a “corrupt American political system” in the Vermont senator’s first visit to Michigan on the campaign trail for Hillary Clinton on Thursday. At a local United Auto Workers chapter in Dearborn, the first of four campaign stops across the state, Sanders’ appearance on behalf of Clinton came several months after he eked out a shocking victory in Michigan’s primary election. But in his roughly 50-minute speech, Sanders stressed the importance of electing Clinton, declaring Trump’s policy agenda is “particularly dangerous and un-American”. The Republican nominee, Sanders said, differs from any candidate in modern history for one reason: “The reason Trump’s campaign is particularly dangerous and un-American is that he has made the cornerstone of his campaign bigotry.” He continued, “This campaign, what Trump is trying to do trying to win votes by dividing us up, by insulting the Latino brothers and sisters, by insulting the Muslim community, by every day hurling insults at women.” Sanders said the revelation of Trump’s 1995 tax returns released last week accomplished more in one day “than I have in a year” to illustrate the “corrupt” American economy. “In one day, we learned that a multibillionaire, a man who owns mansions all over the world … does not pay a nickel in federal income taxes,” Sanders told a crowd of several hundred of supporters and union members. “And he’s proud of it.” Sanders retorted with a warning for Trump and billionaires in the US: “Hillary Clinton is going to get elected and they’re all going to start paying their fair share of taxes.” Clinton and Trump have made Michigan a priority in the race, with just under 35 days until election day. In August, the candidates made back-to-back stops in metro Detroit to unveil economic plans – with Trump proposing a vision that includes dramatically slashing taxes, while Clinton said her intention was to produce the largest investment in “good-paying jobs” since the second world war by rebuilding infrastructure across the nation. Sanders on Thursday slammed Trump’s economic proposals as a throwback to the mid-2000s, in the run-up to the housing crisis and subsequent economic recessions. “We do not forget what trickle-down economics was about,” he said. “We do not forget the state of the auto industry eight years ago. We do not forget that 800,000 Americans a month were losing their jobs.” The Trump campaign has prioritized the rust belt region, with a particularly intense focus on Michigan – despite the state having not voted for a Republican since the 1988 race. And in a new poll released on Thursday, Clinton opened up a double-digit lead. The poll showed Clinton’s campaign held a 43%-32% lead over Trump, shoring up support among women and African Americans. Last month, Trump also made a controversial stop at a black church in Detroit , where he was met with praise by some parishioners. Two weeks later, he visited the beleaguered city of Flint, where Trump slammed a black pastor who interrupted his speech at her church for delivering a typical stump speech. Trump called the pastor a “nervous mess” and said “she had [it] in mind to interrupt him before she spoke.” In a separate poll released last week, the Republican candidate polled at 0% in the Motor City. Sanders said Clinton aims to expand healthcare coverage in the US, on top of the millions that have since obtained insurance as a result of the Affordable Care Act. “[Trump’s] response is to throw those 18 million people off of health insurance,” Sanders said. “And I asked Mr Trump and I ask Republican leaders: what happens to 20 million people who lose their health insurance? How many of those people are going to die? How many of those people are going to suffer and become a lot sicker than they should have to be. And they have no answer at all.” Sanders mentioned how, during his last stop in Michigan, he visited Flint, which has been rankled for more than two years by a water contamination crisis. “Children are being poisoned because we have an infrastructure that is collapsing,” he said. Rebuilding the nation’s infrastructure would also be a main tenet of a Clinton presidency, he added. “We have got to create millions of decent-paying jobs in this country,” Sanders said. “And what Hillary Clinton understands is the fastest way to do that is to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure, our roads, our bridges, our water systems.” Despite the self-described democratic socialist’s proclamations that he will do everything to elect Clinton, supporters of Sanders’ energized campaign are still struggling to throw their support behind his former opponent. Polls in recent weeks have shown Clinton is struggling to win over young voters nationally from third-party candidates. Ymer Kosova, a student who lives in the nearby city of Allen Park, attended the rally on Thursday with two friends. Aged 18, he said he supported Sanders in the Michigan primary, and was “hugely disappointed” when the senator dropped out of the first presidential election he will be voting in. “He was genuine – and he’s an excellent person,” Kosova said of Sanders. “He’s a role model for the future.” Blake Myers, also 18, said he appreciated that Sanders sought to “get money out of politics and discussed climate change as an actual issue.” The presidential debate last week was a huge disappointment, he said, as “there was barely any talk about climate change”. Both said they are still uncertain about Clinton. “I’m not 100% sure,” Kosova said. “Maybe, depending on how lucky I’m feeling at the polling booth.” Standing nearby, Dave Nall, a semi-retired resident of the city of Riverview, said he hoped Sanders would implore his supporters to vote for Clinton. “We have to get Hillary elected president,” Nall, 65, said. “There is no option here.” Nall said he felt Sanders “put up a good fight” in the primary and pushed issues to the forefront that “probably needed to be brought front and center”. “He challenged her,” he said. “But, you know, they’re allies – they were competitors – but now they’re … on the same team. No two people ever see issues the same way.” On Sanders’ young supporters, Nall said their resistance to backing Clinton’s campaign stems from the fact “they’re still kind of new to the process”. “They have to put their idealism to the side a little bit,” he said. “I mean, don’t lose it – but the reality is, we got to get Hillary elected president. If we don’t get her elected president, your idealism doesn’t matter.”
Jeremy Hunt accused of politicising Paris attacks in doctors dispute Jeremy Hunt has been accused of trying to politicise the Paris terror attacks after it emerged his officials helped orchestrate a letter from the NHS chief medic questioning whether striking junior doctors would be available to help in the event of a major incident in the UK. Junior doctors were outraged in November when Prof Sir Bruce Keogh, medical director of NHS England, wrote to the British Medical Association asking what would happen if a strike coincided with a terror attack on the UK. It has now emerged that Hunt’s officials were consulted on drafts of the letter and spoke of a plan to highlight his concerns in the media. They also asked for it to be as “hard edged as possible” regarding concerns about the strike. The orchestration was condemned by Tim Farron, the Liberal Democrat leader, who said it was “trying to politicise the Paris terror attack” and the lowest politics he had seen in years. The exchanges, first revealed by the Independent, are likely to infuriate junior doctors still further ahead of the first in a series of planned strikes next week over changes to their contracts. They show the health secretary was given approval on the text of the letter and that it went through a number of revisions to ensure concerns about the possible impact of a major incident during the strike were hardened up. In the redacted emails, Bruce was told by an unnamed official: “I am sure then that [Jeremy Hunt] will be interested to see the proposed final product; my hope is that if you are happy to make these changes we will be able to get him over the line.” Hunt agreed Keogh would not be asked to speak to the media on the day the strike was declared so long as his letter underlined his opposition to the walk out, it added. The letter was sent within a week of the Paris terror attack and published online on the day a strike by junior doctors was announced, which was later cancelled while further talks took place. It is understood that Keogh first raised concerns about contingency planning for the possible event of strike on the day of a terror attack and Hunt was keen for him to seek reassurances. After the letter was made public, around 3,000 junior doctors wrote to Keogh accusing him of using fears of a terror attack for “political purposes” and saying his concerns were “not in keeping with the inherent duty that junior doctors have to serve the public”. Lib Dem health spokesman Norman Lamb also raised concerns about political interference. He said: “This revelation raises serious concerns about potential political interference with the independent medical director of NHS England. “Jeremy Hunt must explain exactly who was involved in toughening up of language in this letter. My fear is that this will damage trust between the government and junior doctors still further. “We need a cross-party commission to look at how we secure the long term future of the NHS and social care, but Jeremy Hunt must now immediately get back around the negotiating table and resolve this dispute with junior doctors that are such an integral part of our NHS.” Responding to the release of the emails, Keogh said that it was “entirely appropriate” that the NHS, the Department of Health and hospitals had “co-ordinated the operational response” to the strike threat. A Department of Health spokesman said it was “completely right that the Department expressed a view on communication with the BMA”.
Cheatahs review – dreamy psych-rock with stadium ambitions With the release of their eponymous 2013 debut, Cheatahs found themselves compared to 90s luminaries Dinosaur Jr and the Boo Radleys and associated with the emergent nu-gaze scene. But last year’s Sunne EP gave the first hints that the quartet might have struck on a new, otherworldly sound and the title track provides a salient start to their 60-minute set. Jangly guitars and hushed vocals – so low in the mix that they turn into a blur – create a disorientating dreaminess that turns urgent on Murasaki, a Japanese-versed song that draws on their literary and global influences. Formed in London but hailing from four nations – Canada, the US, Germany and England – the band unite for the psychedelic wall of sound at the heart of latest album, Mythologies. Bassist Dean Reid and lead guitarist James Wignall share keyboard duties and join with guitarist Nathan Hewitt to provide lush harmonies on Channel View. But although drummer Marc Raue spares little passion as he dives into each driving rhythm, his bandmates remain tightly controlled through each sprawling song. Synchronised head-nodding is as showmanlike as Cheatahs get. When the music’s as clever and majestic as the melodic swirl of Seven Sisters and splintering rock of The Swan, however, there’s no need for much else. Pop gold runs through every melody and even the ragged squeaks and shrieks of guitar that usher in the aggressive, prog-tinged Su-Pra can’t disguise Cheatahs stadium ambitions. They’ve certainly got the talent but they’re not quite ready for bigger stages yet, and a too-long wait for an encore sees a sparser crowd treated to the cascading tides of Signs for Lorelei. It’s “a song about a German mermaid”, Hewitt explains in a rare display of stage patter – but the band depart having left the labels firmly behind.
Iceland Airwaves festival day two – the rappers come out in force, but rock steals the day For Iceland, 2016 is the year that rap broke. Noting that one of the themes dominating this year’s Iceland Airwaves festival is Icelandic hip-hop, an article in the Reykjavik Grapevine, amusingly titled Get Rich or Freeze Tryin, lists some of the acts worth looking out for. It has also coined the acronym Nwoihh, for the New Wave of Icelandic Hip-Hop. Day two kicks off with a variety of intriguing new rap acts, starting with Auður, who is said to perform “smudged R&B”. He’s the Icelandic Weeknd, basically, only blond, offering a slight spin on the genre by strumming an electric guitar as he croons sadly about the sorrowful travails of the high life, like Ed Sheeran shambling uninvited into The Party & the After Party. Unfortunately, he doesn’t quite have the charisma to pull off quiet depravity in the way Abel Tesfaye does, and he’s too keen to telegraph his moral dissolution by saying “fuck” every other word over his slow, torturous soul. “I wanna be alone tonight,” he sings, and he probably will be. Lord Pu$$whip keeps things dark and brooding, with his take on eerie, codeine-groggy, grinding hip-hop. Through the stoned fog you can just about make out the phrase “motherfucking króna”, and the success of this music beyond these shores is likely to depend on listeners’ preparedness to accept such parochial twists on rap’s established vernacular. Úlfur Úlfur, starring Arnar and Helgi, are the most highly touted of Iceland’s rappers. They make a smooth virtue out of the consonant-heavy language, helped by some catchy beats and slipping into English only for their between-song crowd interactions (“Make some noise!” etc). For all the buzz around them, there is a lot of chatter as they play: maybe people are wondering aloud what the current plethora of rising rappers says about Iceland today. Raising more questions, and inviting a perfect storm of amazement and ridicule, are Krakk & Spaghetti, two pink-haired female rappers and a laptop operator, who apparently started out by competing in a contest to write and perform the worst song. In a brightly lit skiwear store, the hyperactive pair perform their set of fun-size novelty ditties, one of them wearing red trousers, the other in a purple parka so tacky you’d swear she was subversively trying to reclaim Icelandic white trash or something. In fact, they have a song called Hóra Kapítalismans (Capitalist’s Whore). Then again, they have another entitled Spenfrelsi, which means Nipple Freedom, so it’s anyone’s guess. With their comically fast flow and squeaky cartoon voices, they’re pinky and perky, punky and quirky. “We’re all total buffoons,” they declared recently. “And we want to add more silliness to the Icelandic music scene.” Job done. As well as rap, there are a lot of polished, atmospheric electronic acts with powerful warbling female voices at this year’s Airwaves. Probably too many. It used to be a scarce resource, now there is the opposite problem: how to rise above this morass of accomplished “politetronicists”? Still, the venue down by the sea is rammed for Vök, with their male/female configuration and pleasantly pallid xx/Poliça-style pop. Downstairs in a bar along the same road, Iris gives good bewitching over glitchy post-dubstep beats and goth-tinged melodies; aural dry ice suffused with Icelandic mythos. Over at the Harpa concert hall and conference centre, Iceland’s Bedroom Community record label has been joined by the Iceland Symphony Orchestra for an evening of neo-classical music based on versions of the indie collective’s output. To these untrained ears, it just sounds like a glorious amalgam of Gregorian chants and strings of panoramic, cinematic sweep worthy of a Spielberg movie, all watched over by BC founder members Ben Frost, Nico Muhly and Valgeir Sigurðsson. Good sound, too – hardly surprising given the environs, a four-tiered building that makes the Royal Albert Hall look like CBGBs. Another auspicious venue is Reykjavik’s art museum, where Julia Holter is playing. Here, however, the high ceilings conspire against the generally excellent Holter in terms of acoustics. But her music is also let down by her supposed allies: the double bass and violin work, but the drums are plodding and the saxophone drowns out her light ululations. And her material, seemingly designed to take flight, is frustratingly tethered. Where Holter is experimental, Hannah Lou Clark is a husky alt-rocking throwback, in the nicest possible way: it’s actually something of a relief to hear a musician and a band without any electronics. With a mainly female outfit (save for the token bloke drummer), she plays a set that flits between 80s AOR and the Breeders/Belly/Throwing Muses 90s college-rock axis. The penultimate place I visit tonight is like Heaven – the London club, not the abstract paradise. Here, Belgium-based Congolese rapper Baloji – a tall, charismatic fellow in a wide-brimmed hat that makes him vaguely resemble a wild west preacher – does his thing, fusing ragga and funk. Grinning, pogoing and grabbing his crotch, he puts in a high-energy performance, eliciting some risque dancing from the crowd. After midnight, the Sonics – the godfathers of all that White Stripes-type pseudo-primitive rock action, and the only act name-checked more than once in the classic hipster mantra Losing My Edge by LCD Soundsystem – put on a great garage rock show. Their guitar menace is enhanced by their matching dark suits, white shirts and black ties: they look like the Hives’ cool granddads. Against a backdrop of 50s and 60s cult arcana – Russ Meyer movies, greasers on ton-up motorcycles assailing “the squares” – they play a heady mixture of proto-punk and crude, minimalist R&B that’s so good it makes you realise they deserved that double mention in Losing My Edge. Paul Lester’s trip to Iceland was paid for by Iceland Airwaves.
Twitter suspends 235,000 accounts in six months for promoting terrorism Twitter has suspended 235,000 accounts in the last six months for violation of its policies regarding the promotion of terrorism and violent threat, the company said Thursday, adding to 125,000 suspensions in the six months before that. In a blog post on Thursday, the company said that “there is no one ‘magic algorithm’ for identifying terrorist content on the Internet”. “But”, the post continued, “we continue to utilize other forms of technology, like proprietary spam-fighting tools, to supplement reports from our users and help identify repeat account abuse”. Salaam Bhatti, the national spokesperson for True Islam, a group which has partnered with Twitter in identifying extremist content, said: “This is a great step in the right direction.” “Twitter [has become] a digital social media battlefield of some sort which is also a way of recruiting people. As we can see that the extremist groups are losing on the territorial front, so they’re going to social media again and again to recruit the youth.” Daily suspensions were up 80% since the previous year, with suspensions spiking after major terrorist attacks, Twitter said, adding: “Our response time for suspending reported accounts, the amount of time these accounts are on Twitter, and the number of followers they accumulate have all decreased dramatically.” The company did not immediately reply to a request for overall figures on how many accounts are suspended for any reason. “We have also made progress in disrupting the ability of those suspended to immediately return to the platform,” the post read. “We have expanded the teams that review reports around the clock, along with their tools and language capabilities. We also collaborate with other social platforms, sharing information and best practices for identifying terrorist content.” Twitter, which says on its site that it has 313 million monthly active users, has long struggled with controlling terrorism-linked accounts on its platform, especially with the rise of social media-savvy groups like Islamic State, who use Twitter to great effect for recruitment and propaganda purposes. In January, the US government held a meeting in California with Silicon Valley tech firms, including Facebook, Twitter, Apple and YouTube, to address extremism online. But Twitter has run into trouble when it comes to balancing its priorities. Most recently, the company came under fire for the disparity in how fast it took down content from the 2016 Olympics at the request of NBC, which holds exclusive US rights to the games, and in how fast it addresses racial and misogynistic abuse on its platform, such as that aimed at Ghostbusters actor Leslie Jones in June. And in August, a federal judge in San Francisco dismissed a lawsuit that had accused Twitter of supporting Isis. The family of two men killed in Jordan filed the suit, saying that the social network was liable for allowing the group to sign up for an account. Judge William H Orrick wrote in his decision: “As horrific as these deaths were ... Twitter cannot be treated as a publisher or speaker of Isis’s hateful rhetoric and is not liable under the facts alleged.”
Kicks: sneaker violence gets its own movie The first shoes Justin Tipping bought using his own money were white Nike Air Prestos. They were so cool everyone wanted them – or so it seemed when 10 kids jumped him and walked off with his shoes. All Tipping had to show afterward was a bruised face. “The next day while I was walking through school, every other guy, even if I didn’t know him, took five seconds out of his day to walk up to me and say, ‘Oh you got fucked up, man’ and laugh at me,’” recalls Tipping, who makes his directing debut with Kicks, released on Friday. When Tipping arrived at graduate school at the American Film Institute Conservatory, he was “trying to find my story, my American movie. I knew I wanted to look at issues surrounding masculinity and violence so I thought back to my own experience. “I thought back to getting stomped out and the aftermath and thought that moment was a good way in to explore why boys act the way they do, why there are these weird social hierarchies that exist and that have been there for generations,” he says. At AFI, he earned a Student Academy Award for the short film Nani, which he co-wrote with Joshua Beirne-Golden; then they teamed up to write Kicks, a coming-of-age film that’s much more than a boy-meets-shoe, boy-loses-shoe, boy-gets-shoe-back story. A compelling mixture of the gritty and surreal, Kicks tells the story of Brandon, an undersized Bay Area teen caught between the dreams of childhood and the harsh actuality of adolescence. The film opens with Brandon talking over a slow motion foot chase ... and a floating astronaut only Brandon sees. This symbol of Brandon’s isolation and his desire for escape, is a recurring motif throughout the movie. When Brandon obtains the shoes he covets – Bred Ones (Black and Red Jordan Ones, a renowned shoe among sneakerheads) – he’s convinced his stature will grow. But like Tipping, he gets beaten up and robbed. (This being 2016, the aggressors also record the incident on their phones and post it online.) Humiliated and desperate to recover his shoes, Brandon and his two best friends undertake a classic hero’s quest. Their journey reveals the consequences of macho posturing and ultimately forces them to confront their values and those of their community. It feel like a quintessential urban American tale but Tipping draws from a wider array of influences. Growing up in the Bay Area, he loved mainstream movies – Steven Spielberg, John Hughes and Star Wars – while dreaming of becoming a rap star. (“Big mistake,” he acknowledges.) In college, Tipping spent a semester in Rome and became entranced by Italian cinema; returning to the University of California at Santa Barbara, he switched from economics to film and media studies and says that for Kicks he drew upon his time in Rome as well as the French classic, The Bicycle Thief. Still, much of the movie is distinctly personal, such as the use of rap to bolster the narrative and, of course, the astronaut. “It took a lot to convince people,” he says, because it would be expensive and time-consuming on an indie film. Tipping insisted it was essential to the film – “I would rather have made a different movie until I was able to make this with the vision I wanted” – and ultimately prevailed. Tipping also carefully tracked the script’s violence. The shocking first fatality transpires before a gun can be fired. “I did not want to Tarantino anything,” Tipping says. “These are real issues kids are facing and if you glamorize it then it becomes disrespectful.” The director wanted the audience to feel anxious even when no violence was occurring onscreen, to give a sense of the the toll taken by living in that environment. “I lived in constant anxiety when I was young.” Tipping also strove to make Flaco and Marlon, Brandon’s murderous uncle, more than one-dimensional gangsters. “If I set them up as ‘that thug’ then they’re easy to dismiss,” Tipping says. Instead both are depicted as trying, in deeply flawed ways, to be responsible and loving family men. “I think about the kids stomping me out and what happened to them that made them think it was OK to beat the crap out of anyone. It must have been more painful than anything I’d been through.” Despite this thoughtful approach, the movie is rated R because the teenage boys talk like, well, teenage boys. Tipping contrasts it with Jason Bourne, which “has an execution-style scene every two minutes”, but is rated PG-13, “so they can show that in a high school but they can’t show Kicks there.” Casting was crucial, especially since Tipping used relatively inexperienced actors with little rehearsal time on a low budget. He saw an instant connection between 13-year-old Jahking Guillory (Brandon) and Christopher Meyer (Rico) and CJ Wallace (Albert), both 17. “There was this natural dynamic where they treated [Guillory] like a younger brother and you could see he’d be bragadocious and wanted to be like them. It was raw and authentic.” They gelled so well at the audition that Wallace, the son of the late rapper Biggie Smalls, took Meyer’s phone number, knowing they’d both get cast. “What you see is on the screen – those guys really became my best friends,” says Meyer. Authenticity came easy for Guillory. “I was always the underdog, the smallest person in my neighborhood and with my long hair people teased me that I looked like a little girl,” he says, although instead of using violence he’d prove teasers wrong as a local football and track star in Long Beach, California. Unlike Brandon, Guillory says he wouldn’t attack a bully to get his sneakers back. “I’d just tell the dude’s mom,” he laughs. Wallace, raised to be polite and well-behaved, reveled in the chance to indulge in Albert’s “talk to any girl, say anything and believe everything. It was like a little escape for me to break all the rules”. Tipping says the teenagers had a natural feel for what their characters would say. He allowed numerous takes, especially for Wallace. “He’d have us laughing so hard I’d say, ‘let’s do 10 more,’” Tipping says. However, some humour was cut “otherwise the audience wouldn’t pay attention to the next scene”. Wallace cites a deleted car chase “where I was going off like Chris Tucker” that would have tilted the tone of the movie too much. The rookie director also knew how to draw emotions from his young cast. Before they started filming, Tipping asked Guillory to think about someone he’d lost – “my great-grandma was my best friend” – and then talked to him about it on set when Guillory needed to cry. Tipping had one final casting challenge: the shoes in question. “I spent weeks changing my mind – from Space Jams to red Toro Bravos,” he says, although they were always Air Jordans, the original status shoe. Needing a timeless style, he finally chose Bred Ones ... but then needed a new pair – two actually, in case the star got scuffed up. “We were so strapped for cash, having spent 80% of our wardrobe budget on the astronaut costume so I dug deep into my own pockets,” he says. While it’s “a little embarrassing” to admit, he’s basically the same shoe size Guillory was at 13 so he kept both pairs for himself. “Score for me,” he says. “I have not been jumped for them yet.”
Jack Colback seals stirring comeback as Benítez’s Newcastle hold Liverpool A day to forget for Jürgen Klopp could ultimately prove one to savour for Rafael Benítez. Liverpool began the day under a cloud courtesy of Mamadou Sakho’s failed drugs test and Newcastle United’s stirring recovery from two goals down ensured they stayed there. Belief, character and a touch of fortune, all the ingredients required in a relegation contest, were evident as the visitors collected their first point on the road since 13 December. Benítez had asked his former club for a favour in his quest to preserve Newcastle’s Premier League status and the ex-Sunderland goalkeeper Simon Mignolet obliged. Liverpool were coasting at the interval to a fifth straight win in all competitions but Mignolet’s mistake allowed Papiss Cissé to reduce the arrears and, from nowhere, Newcastle had a fighting chance. They capitalised to close the gap on fourth-from-bottom Norwich City to one point and maintain the momentum that is building under their belatedly-appointed coach. “Maybe before the game Newcastle thought they could win at Anfield,” said Klopp. “But now I would say they are happy with a point. Two shots on target, two goals. It is not too good to be honest but we have to accept it.” The Liverpool manager may also have to accept whatever sanction is heading Sakho’s way for failing a Uefa drugs test after the Europa League tie at Old Trafford on 17 March. In purely football terms, and Klopp could not say much about Sakho given the defender has until Tuesday to respond, Liverpool’s resilience in his absence was not encouraging. Sakho sat in an executive box with his family as his team-mates eased into a two-goal lead in the first half. Any hopes Newcastle harboured of two encouraging displays at St James’ Park translating into improvement on the road were put on hold after 58 seconds. That was all the time it took for Daniel Sturridge to reassure Anfield in the absence of the injured Divock Origi and score his seventh goal in his last seven starts against Newcastle. Benítez was warmly serenaded by the Kop on his return to Anfield – it was not so easy last time he was in the opposition dugout as Chelsea’s interim manager – and he had just reciprocated with a wave when Liverpool were awarded a free-kick on the halfway line. Klopp’s team had gone long and early with two balls into the Newcastle area from the kick-off and the reason why was underlined from Alberto Moreno’s set piece. Sturridge had two defenders on his shoulders as Moreno’s ball dropped on the edge of the penalty area yet he was given space to control neatly, turn sharply and stroke a clinical left-foot finish into Karl Darlow’s bottom left-hand corner. The visitors’ gameplan to contain Liverpool with a 4-1-4-1 formation was damaged before it had been executed. Newcastle lacked the aggression or the confidence to react positively in the first half, their performance was far removed from Tuesday’s committed show at home to Manchester City, and Liverpool inflicted further punishment on their passive opponent with another fine goal on the half-hour. Dejan Lovren found Roberto Firmino in space and the stylish Brazilian released Moreno down the left. Liverpool’s full-back produced his second assist by picking out the unmarked Adam Lallana in the centre. From 20 yards, the midfielder swept a stunning finish into the top corner and three more points beckoned. Liverpool’s latest commanding display was not the only reason to suspect the contest was over. Their only concerns of the first half were slight knocks to Moreno and Lovren, neither serious, and referee Andre Marriner’s refusal to award a penalty for handball. Marriner was a late replacement for Martin Atkinson who reportedly suffered an injury on a Uefa fitness course. Newcastle had offered nothing, which made their second-half fightback all the more surprising and, for Klopp, galling. Benítez’s side were gifted a lifeline shortly after the restart when Vurnon Anita broke down the right and crossed deep into the Liverpool six-yard box. Mignolet rushed from his line but his fists made no contact with the ball, only with the unfortunate Lovren, and Cissé headed into the unguarded goal. Cissé should have levelled and left Anfield enraged when Sturridge was denied a penalty having been clipped inside the area. Marriner waved play on, Newcastle broke through Moussa Sissoko and the captain put the Senegal international clear on goal. The striker wanted too long on the ball, however, and could only pass back to Andros Townsend who blazed high into the Kop. Firmino tapped in from close range after Darlow saved from Joe Allen’s header but an offside flag came to Newcastle’s rescue. They capitalised from another attack down the Liverpool left. This time Townsend centred into the heart of the home penalty area and, though Cissé could not connect with a clean header, the ball dropped for Jack Colback to score his first away goal in over two years via a deflection off Lovren. After nine consecutive league defeats away from home, Newcastle’s away support revelled in the release long after the final whistle.
Clinton and Trump join families of 9/11 victims at 'place of reverence' Presidential rivals Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump visited Ground Zero in New York on Sunday, for ceremonies marking the 15th anniversary of the terrorist attacks of September 11 2001. Their unusual appearance at the same event ended early, when Clinton felt unwell and left. Just two weeks before the first presidential debate and 58 days before election day on 8 November, the Democratic and Republican nominees were present to pay silent tribute to the almost 3,000 people who died in the attacks 15 years ago. Politicians are invited to attend ceremonies every year at the site where the World Trade Center was destroyed by two hijacked jets, but not to speak. The event centers on those who lost loved ones. Some of the families gathered to commemorate their relatives, however, cheered and clapped as Trump arrived. According to a spokesman for the National September 11 Memorial and Museum that now stands at Ground Zero, it was the first time the New York real-estate billionaire had attended the official ceremony. Trump, who was born in Queens, grinned as people waved, and posed so they could take photographs. Clinton, who in 2001 was the junior US senator from New York, arrived quietly, greeting some families on her way into the site, and did not prompt applause like her rival. Both candidates issued short statements about the need to mark the day solemnly. In Washington, Barack Obama observed a moment of silence in the White House and spoke at a commemoration of those who died in the attack on the Pentagon. People also gathered at the Flight 93 National Memorial in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, where one of the planes hijacked by terrorists crashed into a field. In lower Manhattan, family members of those who died, New York firefighters who lost 343 of their colleagues, police officers and survivors gathered under overcast skies. It was humid and haze obscured the top of One World Trade, the skyscraper that now dominates the New York skyline, in contrast to the clear blue skies that dawned on the day 15 years ago that changed the course of history. In total, 2,977 people were killed. In Manhattan on Sunday, wives who lost husbands, children who lost fathers and mothers and other family members and friends laid flowers on the names of the dead that are engraved into the stone surrounds of two huge reflecting pools with waterfalls, constructed on the exact sites where the twin towers stood. The stage for the event sat between the two pools. A youth choir from Brooklyn sang the Star-Spangled Banner, to warm applause. A group of first responders in dress uniform held up the torn flag that was raised over the wreckage at Ground Zero in the aftermath of the attack, before marching away to the sound of a piped band. Then the site went still, for a moment of silence at 8.46am, the time the first jet hit, near the top of the north tower. Monica Iken Murphy, 46, from New York, attended with her daughters Madison, 10, and Megan, eight. On 11 September 2001 her husband, Michael Iken, a bond trader, was working on the 84th floor of the south tower. “He called me that morning to tell me to watch the TV because a commuter plane had flown into the north tower, that’s what they thought had happened,” she said. “But they could not see what I saw when I switched on the TV – the big, gaping hole in the other side of the north tower.” He told her he was fine. Some workers had left the building but he and some others were trying to help a colleague who was quaking with fear and hiding under a desk. A few minutes later, he called again. “The last thing he said was, ‘People are jumping out of the windows’, then ‘I have to go’. But no-one thought the towers would fall. “He told me to start calling friends and family and that’s what I was doing when I saw on the TV the second plane hit the south tower. I froze, I could not believe what I was witnessing.” The second plane hit the south tower about 20 minutes after the first impact. Michael Iken died when the tower collapsed, a short time later. His wife now comes to the site “as a place of reverence”, she said, and because, like many relatives of those who died, she never received any remains. “But this is where these people took their last breath,” she said. After the overcast start to the morning, the sun suddenly shone. Iken Murphy stepped into its rays. “When the sun comes out,” she said, “I feel his warmth and a connection to him as if he is communicating with me or hugging me. Even if it’s raining, somehow the sun always comes out when I come down here.” Ten years ago, she married a New York firefighter, Robert Murphy. She also met Clinton when she was campaigning to have the memorial to the victims built at the actual site of the World Trade Center, not nearby. Asked how she felt about Clinton and Trump attending the ceremony on Sunday, she said: “As long as they were not doing any of their politicking, that’s fine.” After the first moment of silence was marked with the tolling of a bell, Jerry D’Amadeo approached the microphone to talk about his father, Vincent D’Amadeo, who worked for Cantor Fitzgerald in the World Trade Center and was killed when Jerry was 10. D’Amadeo choked up as he recalled how many people helped him in the years since 9/11. He told those gathered that he had recently attended a children’s camp for those who lost family and friends in the mass shooting at Sandy Hook elementary school in Connecticut in December 2012. “Suddenly I was able to be there for people and use my experience to help them,” he said. D’Amadeo now acts as a visitors’ host at the museum at the World Trade Center site. Relatives began reading the names of the 2,753 who died at Ground Zero 15 years ago. Many others have died since 2001, from diseases contracted from breathing in the toxic dust and fumes that billowed out from the site. Jersey City police department corporal Phil Ferraino, 46, was leaving the ceremony in his dress uniform. He told the it was vital the world never forget the appalling loss of life suffered in the attacks. “This could happen again,” he said. He was on a day off on 11 September 2001, but rushed to the World Trade Center and helped with frantic attempts to find anyone alive in the burning wreckage. “It was chaos,” he said. A firefighter friend, Michael Weinberg, was crushed under a fire truck parked below the towers. They didn’t find his body for a week, Ferraino said. “Being here today brings back the pain of that tragedy,” he said. “It’s less than it used to be. But you still feel it, absolutely.”
Emma Watson's new film makes £47 at UK box office Emma Watson’s first lead role post-Harry Potter has seen the star’s new film, a thriller set in Pinochet-era Chile, take only £47 at the UK box office in its opening weekend. The Colony stars Watson as a woman attempting to infiltrate a cult in order to rescue her husband (Daniel Brühl), who is being held in Colonia Dignidad, a religious community that, in real-life, was founded by Wehrmacht officer and Hitler Youth veteran Paul Schäfer. The film, which had a distribution plan built on home-streaming, was released on video on demand on Friday, the same day as a token release in three UK cinemas. It follows other titles, such as the Al Pacino thriller Misconduct, that expect to make more money from home streaming than traditional cinema distribution. Misconduct, released last month, made less than £100 in its opening weekend at cinemas. The Colony, which had its world premiere at last year’s Toronto film festival, was given two stars by the ’s Peter Bradshaw, who while highlighting its “exploitative dodginess [and] plot-holes the size of Saturn’s rings”, did credit the film-makers for focusing on a rarely told story. “This movie deserves some points for addressing a little-known dysfunctional horror in Chile’s Pinochet era,” he wrote in his review. Watson has spent her post-Potter career building up credits as a supporting actor. Standout roles since she played Hermione Granger include a turn in Sofia Coppola’s The Bling Ring as a light-fingered LA teen, playing best mate to Logan Lerman and Ezra Miller in The Perks of Being a Wallflower and starring as herself in Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg’s apocalypse comedy, This Is the End. She next stars as Belle in Bill Condon’s re-working of Beauty and the Beast.
Fears that EU measures against financial crime will be weakened Efforts to tackle tax abuse and financial crime are at risk of being weakened by new European council proposals that would restrict public access to key company information, civil society groups have warned. Only those with a “legitimate interest” should be able to identify a beneficial, or true, owner of a company in a European Union member state, according to a new draft text on the EU anti-money-laundering directive. Previous drafts have stipulated that beneficial ownership information should be made available to the public. The new text would allow individual countries to decide on their own definition of “legitimate interest”, potentially excluding the general public. There has been growing pressure for EU member states to publish their own registers of company beneficial owners after the publication of the Panama Papers earlier this year revealed how companies in tax havens can facilitate crime and tax fraud. The UK began publishing beneficial ownership data in June. Chris Taggart, of the financial transparency group OpenCorporates, warned that the weakened measures would constitute governments returning to “business as usual” less than a year after the Panama Papers. “We have seen the results of disclosing beneficial ownership information privately on an honour system and it’s obvious that this hasn’t been good enough to fight corruption, tax evasion and other financial crimes,” Taggart said. “The case for a public, open beneficial ownership register is clear: we cannot crack down on financial crime if no one is watching.” Henri Makkonen, an advisor to the Financial Transparency Coalition, described the new text as “a pretty horrible compromise”, but said that strong support for greater transparency in the European parliament and European commission could result in stronger rules being adopted. Earlier on Tuesday, 80 British MPs backed an amendment that would force the UK’s overseas territories, including the British Virgin Islands, to publish data about the beneficial owners of offshore companies.
Seven-day working for GPs costs more and doesn’t get results My practice started offering Saturday morning GP appointments as well as weekday slots from 8am. Previously, our surgery opened Monday to Friday from 8.30am to 6.30pm with some evening appointments until 7.30pm. The Saturday slots are now offered as part of a group of local practices (on a rota basis) to all patients across the practices for routine pre-bookable appointments. There are many such pilots across the country – which started in 2013 as part of the then prime minister’s £50m challenge fund. Some, such as those in Greater Manchester, offered Saturday and Sunday urgent and routine appointments in addition to extended weekday access. Others, like ours, offer additional weekday and Saturday morning access for routine appointments only. The government has committed to another year of extended access despite dubious benefits of the first wave. The health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, has cited lack of GP services as one of the reasons for A&E and acute admission pressures in hospitals. Indeed, studies have shown that seven-day GP access reduces attendances at A&E for minor illnesses but has little impact on emergency hospital attendances for serious medical conditions. A recent study from Greater Manchester showed that providing extended seven-day GP access to patients across 56 practices reduced A&E attendances for minor ailments by 26% (in comparison to 469 practices that provided routine access). This equated to savings of £767,867 through reduced A&E visits – however, this extended GP access scheme cost around £3.1m, which included evening appointments until 9pm on weekdays and both Saturdays and Sundays (across a range of times). But hospital visits for minor ailments form only a proportion of total A&E visits – this study showed that extending GP access led to only a small reduction of 3.1% in total A&E visits. So overall, the scheme cost three times more than it made in savings. There has also been further evaluation of the impact of seven-day access on medical admissions of elderly patients at weekends. In central London seven-day GP cover cut weekend A&E visits by 18% and weekend hospital admissions fell by 9.9% (mainly in elderly patients). But there have been many more disappointing outcomes from the extended access schemes with many areas discontinuing the pilots early or cutting their hours. In areas where extended opening hours are only offering routine appointments, like ours, cost-savings through reduced A&E attendances or emergency admissions is even more questionable since we are not seeing urgent or acute problems – it is the latter group of patients who are more likely to go to out-of-hours services or to A&E.   Nevertheless, NHS England has used some of this early data to extend the seven-day GP access services. In 2015-16, it invested £100m. At a time when both primary and secondary care is seeing unprecedented budget cuts and rationing of “unnecessary” or even routine services, it makes little sense to waste money on weekend opening . The cost per total extended hour is up to £280, with practices needing to cover premises’ costs and reception, nurse and GP hours. Staffing these hours has been especially problematic for some areas that do not have enough GPs. Within my own practice, there is little appetite to work more. Until a few years ago I used to work GP out-of-hours sessions until it became difficult to manage these with a young family. As a partner in the hub of practices, I am doing the Saturday morning sessions. The 12 slots are booked by a mix of people, some of whom could come during the week. Expensive extended access is not likely to be sustainable, and my concern is where is this money likely to be diverted from? And should we not put it to the public to decide whether they would like seven-day provision or improved access within existing GP hours? Evidence suggests that improved access within existing, standard hours leads to a more effective way of reducing patients’ use of out-of-hours services than extending opening times. But this requires more GPs and more rooms to put them in. and better signposting so patients can see nurses, pharmacies and health care assistants rather than only a GP. It makes no sense to run services on a shoestring during the week, offering limited appointments to patients – because you are spreading staff thinly across the week. We should be offering more daytime appointments. This requires a commitment from the government to help primary care tackle its workload and funding crises, rather than persisting with its obsession of seven-day working.
IFS says workers face 'dreadful' decade without real-terms increase in wages - Politics live Downing Street has hit back at the Institute for Fiscal Studies after it said workers face the longest period without a real-terms increase in wages since the second world war. Number 10 said these figures were misleading because disposable income figures show that people are getting better off. (See 4.28pm.) In a separate report the Resolution Foundation said that family incomes would grow for the rest of the decade - but by less than after the financial crisis and not for the poorest third, who will see their incomes fall. It said: We can look at the outlook for family incomes in the coming years, and it paints a grim picture. Our new income forecast brings together lower earnings growth, higher inflation, and tax/benefit changes. It shows that overall, the rest of this parliament looks set to be as grim as the last, with incomes growing by an average of 0.2 per cent a year, compared with 0.5 per cent a year between 2010-11 and 2014-15. While top earners were hit the hardest following the financial crisis, the big difference looking forward is that the biggest losers are lower income families, with the entire bottom third of the income distribution set to see incomes fall in the years ahead. Brexit could be halted if the British people decided the costs of leaving the EU greatly outweighed any benefits, Tony Blair has said in an interview marking his self-proclaimed return to political activity. George Osborne, the former chancellor, made more than £320,400 in a month from giving speeches to US banks, financial organisations and a university, his register of interests shows. Andrew Lansley, the former Conservative health secretary, has urged the government to invest more in social care. Speaking on the World at One, he said he was “disappointed” that Philip Hammond did not address this in his autumn statement. Lansley said: The next two years are going to be incredibly difficult. And I think the time is now for trying to put some measures in place to try and help health and social care through those next two years. Jeremy Corbyn has called for more money to be spent on hospitals, social care and mental health. Speaking ahead of Labour’s NHS campaign day on Saturday, he said the campaign had three elements. There’s three elements. One - hospital provision, under-funding of hospitals, waiting times and STP - sustainability and transformation plans, which are putting at risk a lot of A&E departments all around the country. The second element is social care, under-funding of social care, the need to improve social care and improve the way in which we treat care workers. They’re vital, valuable, very responsible and very well experienced people. They should be treated better and paid better. Third, there is a mental health crisis across the country. I feel very passionately about this, that’s why I have appointed a shadow minister at cabinet level just for dealing with mental health because I think as a country we have to face up to the crisis we’re in, fund it properly, but above all change the mood music as well. The biggest killer of under-50-year-old men is suicide from mental health conditions - that’s terrible. Nigel Farage has reportedly dismissed reports that he plans to emigrate to the US as “utter nonsense”. That’s all from me for today. Thanks for the comments. Number 10 has hit back at the IFS. It says that if you look at disposable income, not wages, then people are getting better off. These are from Huffington Post’s Paul Waugh. The IFS figures relate to earnings. Number 10 is talking about disposable income, a different measure that includes earnings, benefits and pensions, and looks at what’s left after tax and national insurance have been paid. Open Britain, the group campaigning to keep Britain in the single market, has put out a statement from Labour’s Chris Leslie saying the IFS analysis shows that the economic warnings about Brexit issued during the EU referendum campaign were accurate. He said: This is clear proof that the Brexit vote has made working families worse off. The irresponsibility of leave campaigners was breathtaking – they should now be admitting that economic warnings made during the campaign were not Project Fear; they were Project Fact. Their promises that Brexit would make Britain better off now appear naive and complacent. Iain Duncan Smith, the Conservative former work and pensions secretary, told BBC News this afternoon that he did not accept the IFS claim that workers face the longest squeeze on wages for 70 years. Asked about its analysis, he said: Well, actually, I’m surprised because wages are increasing, they’re increasing now, they’re increasing across the board and well above inflation. Yes, there was a period when they were absolutely static. But over the last two, two and a half years, wages hae been increasing and the forecasts all the way have been that wages will continue to increase. So I don’t recognise this dire prediction of no increase at all since the crash. He also said that he did not accept the forecasts from bodies like the IFS and the Office for Budget Responsibility about the impact of Brexit on the economy. My sense about this is that the UK economy is already confounding the forecasts. All the forecasts, from the IFS and from the OBR and everybody else, all said that we were going to see a downturn immediately after the Brexit vote. We haven’t seen that. The is growing faster than they predicted. We just saw the debt fall three days ago, when they predicted it would rise. So my sense about this is we are into territory where nobody really knows that the future holds. Duncan Smith is right about wages growing now, but he ignores the fact that they fell so far, in real terms, that they have not caught up with where they were before the crash. The Resolution Foundation makes the point today in this chart, in its autumn statement analysis (pdf) published this morning. Here is John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, on the IFS analysis. This lost decade for living standards is unprecedented in modern British history and is a damning indictment of the total, abject failure of the Tories’ economic policy during their six wasted years in office. The so-called ‘long-term economic plan’ has meant long-term decline in living standards for working people even as the super-rich and the big corporations are given large tax giveaways. Chancellor Philip Hammond promised action in the autumn statement for those ‘just about managing’. Instead he has betrayed them by continuing to slash in-work benefits, failing to raise the ‘national living wage’ to the level promised, failing to deliver more funding for our NHS and social care and now he’s threatening pensioners with removing the ‘triple lock’. Labour has different priorities and will prepare our economy for Brexit. Instead of cutting taxes for the super-rich and giant corporations, we will make sure our NHS is properly funded, support the pensions ‘triple lock’, and introduce a real living wage built on an economy that invests for the long-term so that no-one and no community is left behind. The IFS has now put up on its websites its distributional analysis slides (pdf). This one shows the impact of all tax and benefit reforms since the 2015 election. They are highly regressive. The gains in the autumn statement (the light green bars) were very modest, and came nowhere near compensating for the impact of the benefit cuts announced by George Osborne last year. And this shows the impact of the post-election tax and benefit changes on family groups. Pensioners have done best, especially wealthy pensioners. Working-age families without children were in the middle, and working-age families with children have done worst. And here are two more important charts from one of the IFS slideshow presentations (pdf). This one shows the impact the government’s benefit freeze was going to have on families with inflation forecast to grow at the rate expected in March. And this chart, or rather the dark green bars in this chart, show how the impact as got worse in the light of the new inflation forecasts. And here is the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg commenting on these figures. Here is a chart from one of the IFS slideshow presentations (pdf) showing debt as proportion of national income going back to 1700. It has been much higher before, but the two previous peaks were caused by the Napoleonic wars and the second world war. And here are some more lines from the IFS briefing. From my colleague Katie Allen From the Daily Mirror’s Jack Blanchard (This suggests the respondents to our ICM poll were on the money - see 12.52pm.) From ITV’s Carl Dinnen From PoliticsHome’s John Ashmore Here are the key points from Paul Johnson’s opening statement (pdf) at the IFS autumn statement briefing. Johnson said by 2021 wages would still be lower than they were in 2008 in real terms and that Britain has not had such a “dreadful” period without earnings growth since the second world war. (See 1.14pm.) He said the expected rise in inflation meant the real value of the “national living wage” would rise by just over 20% during the course of this parliament, not 25% as expected. He said inflation also meant that “the real value of working age benefits like JSA [jobseeker’s allowance] that are currently frozen in cash terms will fall by 7.7% rather than 6.5%”. He said Philip Hammond had effectively adopted Ed Balls’ spending plans. Rather than aiming for Budget balance in 2019-20 Mr Hammond will be happy borrowing 2% of national income, that’s about £40 billion, in 2020-21. Remember that at the last election the then Shadow Chancellor, Ed Balls, said he was aiming to balance the current budget by 2018-19, i.e. borrow just to invest. Keeping to that over the parliament would have allowed borrowing of just over 2% of GDP in 2020-21. To misquote Michael Heseltine, it wouldn’t be far from the truth to say that the new fiscal plans aren’t Osborne’s, they are Balls’. He predicted that the government would have to spend more money on health or social care. Strikingly [Hammond] responded not at all to calls for more money for either the NHS or social care. I’m going to stick my neck out and suggest he won’t be able to do that for much longer. He criticised the government for continuing to freeze fuel duty every year instead of simply abandoning the proposed annual increases. One of the more expensive measures announced was yet another freeze to fuel duty – the seventh year in a row this has happened. If the policy is never to increase fuel duty again, as seems to be the case, we should just be told rather than being told always that it will rise with inflation next year and then that never happening. This is turning into a really big problem both for the Treasury and for our approach to the taxation of motoring. He said the OBR’s forecasts were “noticeably more upbeat” than the Bank of England’s. Earlier this month the Bank projected growth of 1.4, 1.5 and 1.6% in 2017, 2018 and 2019 respectively. The OBR’s projections are for growth of 1.4, 1.7 and 2.1%. That’s quite a big difference. He said Hammond’s policy in the autumn statement amounted to “jam tomorrow” not “jam today”. In the face of deteriorating forecasts Mr Hammond neither tightened fiscal policy nor followed his predecessor’s example of sticking with previous spending plans. He loosened by an annual £10 billion or so. And he loosened in a rather specific way, mostly by increasing planned capital spending. Given the choice between jam today in the form of more money in people’s pockets and jam tomorrow in the form of potential economic returns from greater investment, he went for jam tomorrow. He accused Hammond of being disingenuous about the increase in the insurance premium tax, arguing that the 12% rate was hard to justify. Mr Hammond wasn’t guilty of too many fiscal infelicities yesterday, but the way in which he announced the increase in IPT was certainly one of them. It is half the rate of VAT, he said, as if in explanation of the rise. Well, so it should be - in fact it should be lower. It’s only the value of the insurance – premiums net of pay outs – which one should think of as being VATable. That would imply an IPT rate much less than 10%, not more. He said the IFS backed the idea of scrapping the autumn statement, although he expressed scepticism about whether this would happen. We will also wait and see whether this really is the last Autumn Statement. We have been here before after all. Chancellor Kenneth Clarke also moved from a separate Autumn Statement and Spring Budget to a single Autumn Budget. That didn’t survive a change of occupancy at number 11. Here is the full text (pdf) of Paul Johnson’s opening presentation at the IFS briefing. Workers in Britain face the biggest squeeze on their pay for 70 years as a Brexit blow to the economy knocks wage growth and stokes inflation, according to an analysis of the UK’s government’s latest tax and spending plans. Picking over Philip Hammond’s autumn statement, the Institute for Fiscal Studies said real wages in the UK – pay adjusted for inflation – will still be below their 2008 level in 2021. Paul Johnson, the thinktank’s director said in his presentation (pdf): “One cannot stress how dreadful that is – more than a decade without real earnings growth. We have certainly not seen a period remotely like it in the last 70 years.” The warning follows signs that the pound’s sharp fall since the referendum result is hiking the cost of imports to the UK and could soon be passed on to consumers. At the same time, experts warn pay growth could stall as companies grapple with politicial and economic uncertainty. On Wednesday, the government’s independent forecasters, the Office for Budget Responsibility, said the economy would slow next year and inflation would rise. In a separate analysis of the autumn statement, the thinktank, Resolution Foundation, said families faced a worse squeeze on their living standards over the next five years than they suffered in the wake of the financial crisis. Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, has just started the IFS’s briefing on the autumn statement. He says wages in real terms will still be below their 2008 levels in 2021. This is “dreadful”, he says. Here is the key quote. However, the outlook for living standards has deteriorated rather sharply since March. The OBR is forecasting both lower nominal wage growth as a result of lower productivity, and higher inflation resulting from the exchange rate depreciation. Overall real average earnings are forecast to rise by less than 5% between now and 2021. That means they will be 3.7% lower in 2021 than was projected in March. To put it another way around half of the wage growth projected for the next five years back in March is not now projected to happen. On these projections real wages will, remarkably, still be below their 2008 levels in 2021. One cannot stress enough how dreadful that is – more than a decade without real earnings growth. We have certainly not seen a period remotely like it in the last 70 years. I will post a full summary of his statement shortly. Only a third of voters think the measures announced in the autumn statement will help the economy, an ICM poll conducted for the suggests. ICM carried out its survey online last night and, although respondents were generally positive about the measures in the autumn statement they were asked about, overall they did not seem very convinced that Philip Hammond’s policies would do a lot to help the economy. Asked if the package of measures announced by Hammond would be helpful or unhelpful to the economy, the results were: Helpful: 33% Unhelpful: 8% No difference: 35% Don’t know: 24% ICM also asked about six specific policies in the autumn. All received either majority or plurality support, but there were some interesting variations. The measure with the highest net support was increasing the “national living wage” by 30p an hour to £7.50. But the measure with the highest number of people both supporting it, and saying it would make a difference, was increasing the income tax threshold to £11,500 in April (a measure announced by George Osborne in March, but reconfirmed by Hammond yesterday). And the measure with the lowest net support was abandoning the 2019-20 budget surplus targets. Here are the net support figures for the six policies (percentage saying they are in favour, whether or not they think it will make a difference). Raising the “national living wage” - 82% Raising the income tax threshold - 79% Funding 40,000 new affordable homes - 73% Investing an extra £1.1bn in transport - 68% Not seeking any more welfare cuts - 53% Abandoning the 2019-20 budget surplus target - 49% And here are the same policies, but this time listed in order of people saying they support them and think the policy is sufficient to make a difference. Raising the income tax threshold - 42% (against 38% in favour, but thinking it won’t be enough to make a difference) Raising the “national living wage” - 34% (against 48% in favour/no difference) Investing £1.1bn in transport - 32% (against 36% in favour/no difference) Funding 40,000 new homes - 28% (against 45% in favour/no difference) Not seeking welfare cuts - 24% (against 30% in favour/no difference) Abandoning budget surplus target - 20% (against 29% in favour/no difference) ICM Unlimited interviewed an online sample of 1,317 adults aged 18+, online on the evening of 23rd November 2016. Interviews were conducted across the country and the results have been weighted to the profile of all adults. ICM is a member of the British Polling Council and abides by its rules. George Osborne made £320,000 in a few weeks from delivering speeches in America, the Press Association reports. The former chancellor, sacked from the government by Theresa May when she became prime minister in July, has been paid more than £80,000 a go for some of his recent speaking engagements. The figures, revealed in the latest register of MPs’ financial interests, show Osborne expects to receive payments of £81,174 and £60,578 from JP Morgan for two speeches delivered at the start of October - a total of seven hours work. Osborne signed up to the Washington Speakers’ Bureau after he left Government and he is due to be paid £80,240 from Palmex Derivatives for a speech in New York he gave on October 27 - which he recorded as a total of two hours work. Osborne also expects to be paid £69,992 by the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA) in return for a speech on September 27 and October 18. Meanwhile, the former chancellor is due to be paid £28,454 for a speech on October 17 from the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. The latest register of interests also show Michael Bloomberg paid for Osborne and his wife to attend a dinner for the former mayor of New York City in Paris. The value of the travel, accommodation and dinner in the middle of October was estimated at £4,086. Osborne has previously disclosed two helicopter trips in the register of interests: one in November 2015 to the Forest of Dean Conservative dinner and another to Ripon North Conservatives’ Summer Reception in July this year. Tony Blair has given a lengthy interview to the New Statesman. Here are some of the top lines. Blair says that he wants to help resurrect centre-ground politics. As the reported on Monday, he is setting up a new political organisation next year. In his interview he rules out a return to the political frontline himself, but he explains that he wants to help politicians who are challenging extremists. What I’m doing is to spend more time not in the front line of politics, because I have no intention of going back to the front line of politics, to correct another misunderstanding ... but in trying to create the space for a political debate about where modern Western democracies go and where the progressive forces particularly find their place ... I’m dismayed by the state of Western politics, but also incredibly motivated by it. I think in Britain today, you’ve got millions of effectively politically homeless people ... What I’m interested in doing is asking: what are the types of ideas that we should be taking forward? How do we provide a service to people who are in the front line of politics, so that we can provide some thinking and some ideas? The thing that’s really tragic about politics today is that the best ideas about politics aren’t in politics. I find the ideas are much more interesting in the technology sector, much more interesting ideas about how you change the world. He says that Brexit could be reversed. It can be stopped if the British people decide that, having seen what it means, the pain-gain/cost-benefit analysis doesn’t stack up. And that can happen in one of two ways. I’m not saying it will [be stopped], by the way, but it could. I’m just saying: until you see what it means, how do you know? Explaining the two ways in which Brexit could be reversed, he goes on: Either you get maximum access to the single market - in which case you’ll end up accepting a significant number of the rules on immigration, on payment into the budget, on the European court’s jurisdiction. People may then say, ‘Well, hang on, why are we leaving then?’ Or alternatively, you’ll be out of the single market and the economic pain may be very great, because beyond doubt if you do that you’ll have years, maybe a decade, of economic restructuring. The Resolution Foundation thinktank has published its full verdict on the autumn statement. As my colleagues Heather Stewart and Jessica Elgot report, it is saying that the squeeze on living standards over the next five years could be even worse than it was during the financial crash. Here is there story. This is how it starts. Families face a worse squeeze on their living standards over the next five years than they suffered in the wake of the financial crisis, as Brexit slows the economy and Conservative welfare cuts bite, according to a new report. Analysis of Wednesday’s autumn statement by the Resolution Foundation thinktank suggests average earnings are set to grow only half as rapidly as in the austerity years after the economic crisis. At the same time, living standards will be undermined by higher inflation and ongoing welfare cuts. While the squeeze of the last parliament affected workers across the income spectrum, the foundation says low-paid households are set to be hardest hit over the next five years, because they are particularly affected by planned welfare cuts. And here is the full Resolution Foundation report (pdf). John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, has also been giving interviews this morning. Here are the key points he has been making. McDonnell indicated that Labour wanted taxes to be fairer, but that it was not looking to increase the overall tax burden. We’d make sure that instead of giving tax giveaways to the wealthy and corporations, and ignoring the issue of tax avoidance and tax evasion, we’d make sure we had a fair taxation system. And in that way we’re not talking about increasing taxes or anything like that, what we are saying is that we use our resources more effectively. We will want to abide by the principles that you spend what you earn. They have given tax giveways on capital gains tax, on corporation tax, on inheritance tax to the wealthy in our community and also to corporations. And what we saw yesterday - they were cutting the universal credits that are going to be given to what they call Jams, the just about managing, people going into work, looking after their families, doing everything asked of them. So they’ve got the wrong priorities. He defended Labour’s decision to support a tax cut for people paying the higher rate of income tax. Labour is backing the government’s plan to increase the tax threshold for people paying the higher 40p rate of income tax. Asked about this, he said: There are large numbers of people earning above £43,000 who are in jobs like train drivers, like senior teachers and others who have been hit and do need protecting. If we are going to be doing redistribution we should be hitting those who are over [that level]. For example, our policy is 50p on £150,000, reverting to the original tax system we had some years ago. We have to recognise that the reality of those people on middle incomes and the pressures that they are under, particularly with regard to housing costs in certain parts of our country. He said Labour was committed to keeping the triple lock - the law that says pensions will rise every year by 2.5% or in line with earnings or inflation, whichever is higher. The Tories are committed to keeping this until 2020 but Philip Hammond, in his autumn statement, hinted that it could be dropped after that because it is too expensive. Asked if Hammond was right to review it, McDonnell replied: No, I would be very disappointed if he did [drop the triple lock]. Under the Labour government Gordon Brown wanted to tackle the issues around child poverty and pensioner poverty and that is what he did. He lifted people out of poverty at both stages of their lives, both children and older people ... If we can grow the economy, and we have a fair taxation system, we can afford it. (McDonnell was right to say the last Labour government did a lot to reduce pensioner poverty, but the triple lock was actually a coalition policy, not a Labour one.) He said the government’s failure to set out its Brexit stance was increasing economic uncertaintly. We can’t do these negotiations without openness and transparency. People need to know where is the government going and how is it going to get there. At least then you stabilise things and people will be able to settle down into serious negotiations and we will get the best deal. Until the government gets to that position, we are going to have these uncertainties and this speculation. He played down the significance of a picture showing many Labour MPs looking at their phones in the Commons chamber when he was responding to Hammond yesterday. He said: It doesn’t look brilliant but that’s what they do now and they have to think themselves. The new style in parliament at the moment is people are tweeting all the time. They’re doing a running commentary on what’s going on. It doesn’t look good, but that’s what happens. It’s interesting because everybody’s got these new handheld devices all the time, they’re tweeting all the time, but interestingly enough the general response to the points I was making was received quite well within parliament and outside. And it’s interesting – I’ve never seen this before and this is not me boasting – if you looked at the MPs opposite me and those behind, I held their attention. Even though they’re tweeting, they’re tweeting about what I’m saying. Here is a full summary of the main points from Philip Hammond’s interviews this morning. Hammond said the economic future was uncertain because no one knew what the outcome of the Brexit talks would be. When it was put to him that the government was at fault for telling the Office for Budget Responsibility very little about its Brexit plans, he said that the government had said what it wanted: the greatest possible access to European markets. But the outcome of the Brexit negotiations would not just depend on what the government wanted, he went on. The fact is, it is not about what we want the outcome to be. It’s going to be a negotiation. We are going to sit at the table with the representatives of the European Union. And nobody, at this stage, can be certain about what the outcome of that negotiation will be. That is what creates the uncertainty, whether you are a chancellor of the exchequer trying to forecast the public finances for a couple of years down the line or whether you are a businessman making an investment in a production line. He said the government was preparing for “a range of possible outcomes” from the Brexit talks. “That’s a sensible and prudent thing to do,” he said. He defended the OBR, saying the government would be wrong to ignore its forecasts. Pro-Brexit Tories have criticised the OBR, saying its forecasts about the impact of Brexit on the economy are wrong. Hammond said it was important to remember that forecasting was not a precise science. But he said the government would be wrong to ignore what it said. Economic forecasting is not a precise science. And the OBR itself makes the point in its report that there is a very high degree of uncertainty around the report that they issued yesterday because of the circumstances that they are in. When it was put to him that this means he thinks the OBR forecasts should be taken with “a pinch of salt”, as the Telegraph claims this morning, he replied: I think we should look at what the report is projecting, we should certainly not ignore that, we should look at it as one of the possible range of outcomes that we need to plan for. The BBC’s Ross Hawkins has posted this on Twitter, pointing out that Hammond was right to say the OBR has acknowledged a high degree of uncertainty. He said the government was preparing for a possible economic slowdown next year. To me it makes sense, given the warning signals from the OBR report, to keep a little bit of firepower in the locker, to build a little bit of a reserve so that if there is a slowdown next year, we’ve got enough capacity to support the economy, to protect jobs, to ensure that the economy can get through any headwinds it encounters. He rejected claims that debt was out of control. When it was put to him that the government had lost control of debt he replied: It’s not out of control, it’s larger than we would like it to be. He rejected claims that the autumn statement contained nothing for “Jams”, the families who are “just about managing”. When this was put to him, he replied: I don’t think that’s true at all. We are facing very significant fiscal challenges. Within the constraints that that imposes, we’ve tried to focus what firepower we do have on helping those who are ordinary working families who are hard-pressed to get by. Stopping the scheduled rise in fuel duty was an important step in that process. Reducing the taper in universal credit so that people in work on low wages are able to keep more of their wages. Recommitting to raising the personal allowance in the income tax system to 12,500 by the end of this parliament despite the fiscal challenges will leave everybody in this country better off. And of course a rise in the “national living wage” which will put 500 a year in the pockets of somebody over 25 working full-time on the “national living wage”. I think those are important steps forward. He rejected claims that the government was now adopting the spending plans Labour proposed at the 2015 general election. Labour would have exempted investment spending from borrowing rules, he said. He said his new fiscal rules included investment spending. He rejected claims that he ignored the NHS in his statement. When this was put to him, he replied: It is not true that it was not mentioned. If you read the statement, it absolutely was mentioned. As I said yesterday in parliament, it may have been my first autumn statement, but I’m not a complete rookie and I would not have failed to mention the NHS. He rejected the ideal of Nigel Farage playing any role in the government’s relations with Washington. Asked about this, he replied: If I ever need any advice from Nigel Farage I’ve got his number and I’ll give him a call. Tell him not to hold his breath. Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, will present his full verdict on the autumn statement at 1pm, but he was on the Today programme this morning. He admitted that economic forecasts were “always wrong”. But the Office for Budget Responsibility was more optimistic about the impact of Brexit than other bodies, he said. The broader point is that, yes, of course, forecasts are always wrong, and Robert Chote at the OBR has always been very clear about that, but they are made as the best you can do at the time. The actual forecasts that we have got from the OBR are in fact considerably more optimistic than those we have from most independent forecasters, and significantly more so than those we have from the Bank of England. We really don’t know very much about where we will be, certainly after 2019. Earlier I posted some of the main lines from Philip Hammond’s morning interview here, but I’ve taken them out because there is now a full summary here, at 10.05am. Q: You used to sell cars. How would you feel if you bought a car and it did not do what was promised. Do you owe the country an apology? Hammond says the government has created jobs and cut the defict by two thirds. When the facts change, the government must respond. He says he set out a responsible package with limited, additional borrowing. And that’s it. The interview is over. I’ll post a summary soon. Q: So this means people will just have to be prepared for having less money, because inflation will eat it away. Hammond says if sterling stays at the current level, and if importers pass on their costs, inflation will rise. But we don’t know if importers will pass those costs on. This is a work in progress, he says. Q: You chose to spend more money even though borrowing is forecast to go up. And you largely spent that money on what Labour used to call borrowing to invest. Hammond says the government chose to borrow an extra £23bn over the next five years and invest that in areas where it might improve the productivity of the economy. Q: So when you criticised Labour at the last election, you should have said you would copy their ideas. No, says Hammond. He says Labour proposed to exempt investment money from borrowing rules. The government is not doing that, he says. We have to live within our means. Q: The Resolution Foundation says people will be worse off in this parliament than in the last, because of rising inflation. Hammond says the OBR forecast suggests inflation will rise to 2.5% next year. That is higher than we have been used to, but not high by historical standards. And sterling has down, making imports more expensive. He says the government must keep the economy growing and raise productivity. There is no other way of protecting living standards, he says. Q: Isn’t the government contributing to this? The OBR asked about the government’s Brexit plans and was given two paragraphs from a Theresa May speech saying nothing. Hammond says the government wants the best possible access to the single market. But it will be a negotiation. No one can be certain what the outcome will be, he says. Q; So you must prepare for the possibility that the Brexit talks do not go well. Hammond says the government is preparing for a range of possible outcomes. The OBR forecast includes a range of outcomes. Q: Are you saying you don’t believe the OBR forecasts? The Telegraph says you take these forecasts with a pinch of salt. Hammond says forecasting is not a precise science. The OBR itself says there is a large degree of uncertainty. The government should not ignore these forecasts. It should include them in the range of possibilities for which it plans. It should not ignore the strengths of the economy. And it is right to keep something aside. Q: You seem to be distancing yourself from the forecasts. There is a wide degree of uncertainty, says Hammond. Q: So it may be tosh? Hammond says there are many factors causing uncertainty. Q: This is higher debt than after the oil crisis or the banking crisis. Some people say this is not just an economic failure, but a moral failure. That is what the Tory manifesto said in 2015. Hammond says the government has controlled public spending. It has generated nearly 2.8m new jobs. And the OBR says another 500,000 new jobs will be created this parliament. Q: But debt is out of control. Your manifesto said that was a moral failing. Hammond says debt is not out of control. But it is larger than the government would like. The government has to keep the downward pressure on borrowing. Nick Robinson is interviewing Philip Hammond. Q: Is it time to apologise for saying you would tackle the deficit when you haven’t? Hammond says the Tories inherited a budget deficit of more than 10% of GDP in 2010. It has come down by two thirds. There is more work to do, he says. As usual, the morning after the autumn statement, the chancellor and his Labour opposite number are doing a round of interviews. Philip Hammond will be on the Today programme shortly, and I will be covering his interview in full. Yesterday Hammond told MPs that the Office for Budget Responsibility thinks Brexit will cost the country £59bn over the next five years. Tory Brexiteers have dismissed this analysis, and Iain Duncan Smith, the former work and pensions secretary, said this was “another utter doom and gloom scenario”. But last night David Gauke, the chief secretary to the Treasury, defended the OBR. He told Newsnight: We have an independent body that makes the forecasts and it is sensible for a government to work on the basis that that independent body has got it right. Hammond is likely to say much the same. We will find out in a moment. Later, at 1pm, the Institute for Fiscal Studies is holding a press conference to give its verdict on the autumn statement. As usual, I will be covering the breaking political news as it happens, as well as bringing you the best reaction, comment and analysis from the web. I plan on posting a summary at lunchtime and another in the afternoon. If you want to follow me or contact me on Twitter, I’m on @AndrewSparrow. I try to monitor the comments BTL but normally I find it impossible to read them all. If you have a direct question, do include “Andrew” in it somewhere and I’m more likely to find it. I do try to answer direct questions, although sometimes I miss them or don’t have time. Alternatively you could post a question to me on Twitter.
Economics and talent drain contribute to Newcastle and Sunderland’s woes In this least predictable of seasons there have been only two things on which to rely: the ineptitude of Aston Villa and the slightly lesser ineptitude of the north-east. Perhaps Norwich City will end up relegating both Sunderland and Newcastle United, perhaps Swansea City or Crystal Palace will collapse and both will be saved, but at this stage the derby on Sunday feels like a relegation shootout, in terms of its long-term consequences potentially a more significant Tyne-Wear derby even than the 1990 play-off semi. Given the sense of despondency around both clubs it is realistic to fear that, unlike their last relegations, there would be no swift return. The imminence of the new Premier League television deal heightens the apocalyptic mood. There seems something grimly appropriate that this great clash of north-eastern powers should fall on the feast day of St Cuthbert, protector of the region. Behind the anxiety and the anticipation lies the perpetual question of why. Why should an area that has given so much to football from its origins (Charles W Alcock, first secretary of the Football Association, progenitor of the FA Cup and internationals, was born in Sunderland), where 40,000 crowds are the norm despite often dismal football, that has provided more England internationals per head of population than anywhere else, be locked always in a battle for relevance? In 1986-87 Peter Beardsley attended a talk-in at a social club. He was 26 and, in the season after his sparkling performances at the World Cup, his future at Newcastle had been the subject of much discussion. A member of the audience stood up. “Get yourself away, Peter,” he said. “You’re too good for this club.” The rest of the room got to their feet and applauded. On the one hand it’s a scene that speaks of a refreshing realism and generosity. Beardsley was a brilliant player and would leave at the end of that season for Liverpool, where he won two league titles and an FA Cup. But there’s also something devastating about the sense of acceptance of place. Newcastle finished 17th in the top flight that season (which was rather better than Sunderland, who were relegated to the Third Division for the only time in their history), but they also had in their squad the 20-year-old Paul Gascoigne. A year later he would be sold. A year after that Newcastle were relegated. A year after that England reached the World Cup semi-final with a team that included Beardsley, Gascoigne and Chris Waddle, who had been sold in 1985. This was the north-east I grew up with, a land where it never did to hope too much. (There is a paradox to the present situation for Sunderland in that, however miserable the eternal relegation struggles may feel, this spell of nine successive seasons in the top fight is their longest since they were first relegated in 1958.) Opportunities existed to be missed, as Sunderland lost in the Milk Cup final of 1985 and the FA Cup final of 1992. Success wasn’t for the likes of us. We Sunderland fans all knew the history. We could all recite chunks of both the BBC and ITV commentaries of the 1973 Cup final. We even came to resent it a little once the realisation set in that the only reason it meant so much was because for most of the post-war era we had been so crap. Because we also knew about beating Hearts for the first championship of the world in 1895, about nearly winning the Double in 1913 and about Raich Carter’s league- and Cup-winning sides of the mid-30s. But that was then, when Sunderland was a thriving industrial city (between September 1939 and the end of 1944 Sunderland produced 1.5m tons of ships, 27% of the UK’s total output; in 1938 the whole of the US had produced only 201,251 tons). By the 1980s the shipyards had gone, the mines had gone, the jobs had gone; of course the football had gone. Everything had gone. We looked at the rise of clubs such as Luton, Wimbledon and Millwall, at West Ham finishing third, and understood in some vague, nonspecific way that this was some inevitable consequence of Thatcherite economics: that the centre boomed while the periphery dwindled. Thirty years later it seems to be happening again. Money has become ever more important in football. London has more money than anywhere else, draws investment better than anywhere else and so, naturally, clubs from the capital and its surroundings have risen. Tottenham have joined Chelsea and Arsenal at the highest table. West Ham, as they prepare to move into the Olympic Stadium, may not be too far behind. Watford and Crystal Palace have played each other 100 times in the league; this season was the first in which they had met in the top flight. The north-east, meanwhile, struggles. It has the highest unemployment rate in the country at 8.6% and, with an average income of £345 per week, is in the lowest earnings bracket recognised by the Office for National Statistics. Necessarily that has an impact. Looking at median season-ticket prices, for instance, only Stoke charge less than Sunderland. Arsenal make more in match-day revenue in three games than Sunderland do in a season. Sunderland are the sixth most successful side in English league history in terms of titles won, 10th in terms of points won in the top division and last season had the sixth-highest average attendance. Yet they have finished in the top half of the top division only three times in the past half-century. In terms of titles won Newcastle are the eighth-best side in English history and ninth in terms of total points won in the top flight. Their average attendance was the third best in the league last season. In terms of history and support base both are significantly underperforming and, Newcastle’s dalliance with the top four under Kevin Keegan and Bobby Robson aside, they have been for half a century or more. That’s why the economic argument, leading to a general sense of resignation or pessimism, seemed to me compelling. But when the Swedish magazine Offside asked me to look at the reasons for the north-east’s underperformance I found the view within the north-east is rather different. “It’s not that failure is hard-wired into the north-east,” says Michael Martin, the editor of True Faith and a senior member of the Newcastle United Supporters Trust. He cites as examples the success of Durham in cricket (three County Championships and two one-day cups in the past nine years) and basketball’s Newcastle Eagles (seven BBL Championships in the past decade). Which is true, but of course it takes far less money to compete in cricket or basketball than in the Premier League – and even then, Durham, for all the advantages of having a Test ground, have had to be financially cautious, their success rooted in homegrown players. Harry Pearson, author of The Far Corner, a brilliant examination of the spirit of north-eastern football and its in-built nostalgia, points out that when money isn’t the major issue the north-east still excels at football. Six of the past seven winners of the FA Vase – and two of the losing finalists – are from the region. “It’s almost like we accept that as our level, or at least feel more comfortable there,” he says. “I think the failure in the professional game has something to do with that – an innate inferiority complex. There’s always been a feeling that in order to succeed you have to leave.” I left. I’m not even sure I thought about it: it just seemed like what you did after university. Of my eight closest friends from school only one still lives in the north-east. That’s not to say that you cannot succeed in the north-east but the mentality of looking elsewhere is undeniable. Between 1963 and 1987 north-eastern managers won 14 league titles, five FA Cups, five European Cups, three Uefa or Fairs Cups and a Cup-Winners’ Cup. But none of Harry Catterick, Don Revie, Brian Clough, Bob Paisley, Howard Kendall or Bobby Robson won anything with a north-eastern side; Bob Stokoe’s 1973 miracle stands alone (although Newcastle in 1969 won the Fairs Cup under the Doncaster-born Joe Harvey). Why that seam no longer yields the riches it once did is another question but, when it did exist, the advantages were enjoyed elsewhere. The foundations that might have led a club to prosper despite local economics were never laid. David Rose, the deputy chief executive of the Football Supporters’ Federation and a Sunderland fan, points to Everton as a club of similar stature that seem always to do better. Martin highlights Stoke, Swansea and Southampton as examples of smaller clubs who do better than Newcastle because of more enlightened management. “The two clubs are badly managed in different ways,” says Mark Jensen, the editor of the Newcastle fanzine the Mag. “They’re incompetent but ours has been cynically done.” And they’re right, of course, that Sunderland and Newcastle have suffered from poor recent leadership. Newcastle’s now apparently abandoned policy of signing only players under the age of 26 so they can be sold at a profit has been heavily criticised but Sunderland in the past five years, satisfying the whims of each passing manager and casting desperately against relegation, have signed 67 players. That not only makes it harder for players to feel a visceral connection to the club, it also breaks down the emotional bond between fans and players. “Are there any of them I’d be sorry to see leave?” Rose asks. “Not really, no.” It cannot be denied that both clubs have been hampered by poor leadership, but the fundamental point remains that the tighter the finances are, the better the leadership has to be for the club to prosper. The economics are against them as they have been since the end of the war. For one club, Cuthbert’s Day could mark the beginning of a very bleak period indeed. Failure stalks his domain.
I’m a Democrat, but I fear the elitism overtaking the party I may believe in women’s reproductive rights and LGBT equality and background checks for gun purchases, but I also took childhood naps each Thanksgiving under the watchful glass eyes of my cousin’s prized deer head mount. And I may now work in the white-collar journalism world, but I spent my formative summers wandering around my Illinois hometown’s “Bagelfest”, an homage to one of our community’s several factories and its working-class heritage. That’s all to say: the American electorate is complicated. But there is a narrow perspective that many liberals in my adult life use to paint the people from my hometown, and from the thousands of other places like it. In that painting, it’s just the people reached on landlines that admit they plan to support Donald Trump who actually do. And those Trump voters time and again are given a suspiciously similar face: white; male; blue collar. And then those less neutral descriptors: racist; sexist; uneducated. The first three are often shorthand for the second set. The Democratic party – and by that, I mean the party gatekeepers with power to wield media influence, which worked out great for the Brexit vote – are writing off those hardcore racists as an overblown minority that is making more noise than they can translate into votes. But overlooking “regular Joe” moderate voters like the ones who filled my childhood could be our undoing. My party has gotten cocky, and I fear that condescending mentality will lose us this election. Because for all of his divisive bluster, Trump has gotten one thing right time and again: small-town America is not doing great. Don’t get me wrong: I sure as hell won’t be casting a ballot for Trump this November. But I have watched this primary season unfold through a different lens than my very liberal coworkers and fellow New Yorkers, who live in a world that’s largely bounced back from the recession. Where my family lives, factories are closing. Schools don’t have enough money for teachers, and all of Barack Obama’s hope and change hasn’t done much trickling down in the last eight years. And just because the moderate voters living in these areas aren’t showing up at Trump rallies or plastering your Facebook wall with tirades about Muslims doesn’t mean they’re planning to support Obama’s heir apparent come November. That’s a hard truth for a lot of liberals with white-collar jobs and HBO subscriptions to process, but it’s a truth nonetheless. It’s a truth that is driving Trump fans who really do want to build a wall and “punish” women who have illegal abortions, but it’s a truth for millions of other middle America (yes, mostly white) voters who are overlooked once the primary race bunting comes down and the bandshells empty back out. Especially in this election, minorities are being courted by Democrats – and considering how many Trump lines they have to choose from, the sell is pretty easy. For everyone else, it’s a disconcerting binary: either you’re a racist homophobe or you’re obviously not voting for Trump, so great, we don’t need to even bother paying lip service to your concerns. Even if Clinton does win in a landslide, what I fear most is the elitism my party is embracing, and its ultimate cost. Some of the people I grew up with are racist. Plenty more are sexist. And a lot of these mainly white midwesterners ventured no farther than the state college. But those are descriptors that also work on plenty of the liberals I’ve met in Boston, Chicago, New York – they just keep those views to themselves while living in much more diverse places. And that lets them off the hook. It sets up that insidious dismissal of anyone who doesn’t live like them, who doesn’t think like them. The stakes for our country are too high to tip those voters toward Trump and then shrug as though that was a preordained result. I believe in the Democratic party’s ability to break barriers – it’s why I wore a “Hillary is my Homegirl” T-shirt to high school back in 2008. The last thing we need right now is more walls.
Banking inquiry told it does not have powers of royal commission A parliamentary library paper has contradicted the claim by small business ombudsman Kate Carnell that her banking inquiry has the same powers as a royal commission. “Whilst the Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman has powers to seek information, these powers are not as significant as those of a royal commission,” the advice says. “The powers of a royal commission are underpinned by the criminal code so that criminal offences arise where a person fails to comply with a requirement of the royal commission. “In addition the royal commissioner has powers to apply for warrants to search property or to arrest a person. The ASBFE ombudsman has no equivalent power.” The Greens treasury and consumer affairs spokesman, senator Peter Whish-Wilson, accused Carnell of giving cover to the banks and again called on the Coalition to set up the royal commission. “The small business ombudsman has been caught out doing a Wizard of Oz routine, pretending the powers of her inquiry into small business loans are the same as a royal commission,” Whish-Wilson said. “Ms Carnell was quick to come out publicly against the need for a royal commission, well before she was given this new task. Ms Carnell needs to stop giving cover to the government’s attempts to avoid a royal commission and do her job by standing up to the banks.” But Carnell said she was not trying to “pretend” her bank inquiry was a broad-based royal commission, given the terms of reference were very tight and she had 11 weeks to complete the inquiry. “It is clear what we are here for and we are not trying to pretend we are broad-based royal commission,” Carnell told Australia. “We can subpoena people to turn up and do all the sorts of normal things that a royal commission can do, which in terms of this inquiry is all that is necessary to be used. I can’t believe the banks won’t turn up.” Like a royal commission, her inquiry had no capacity to award compensation, she said. Both the Greens and Labor went to the election calling for a royal commission following a series of bank scandals involving financial advisers, life insurance products and rate-rigging allegations. While the National party senator John Williams has campaigned hard within the Coalition partyroom for a royal commission, the Coalition has moved to head off an inquiry with four separate measures. The government restored an amount of funding to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, announced it would compel bank executives to appear at least once a year before a parliamentary committee and then promised to establish a bank victims tribunal, though details have yet to be released. Most recently, the government set up the Carnell inquiry to look at a limited number of small business cases that arose from a parliamentary inquiry, noted for their “questionable treatment” by the banks. Carnell’s inquiry will look at the adequacy of the law and consider whether regulations go far enough to protect small business customers. “We have royal commission powers in situations like this and we plan to use them; we will conduct hearings and will use the powers set out in our legislation to require banks to appear and to provide us with the documentation that we need to thoroughly conduct this inquiry,” Carnell said when it was announced. According to the parliamentary advice, unlike the ombudsman, the powers of a royal commission are underpinned by the criminal code, giving it the power to summon witnesses to give evidence or produce documents. Failure to do so has a maximum penalty of $1,000 or six months’ jail. The ombudsman can require a person to provide a statement and specified documents – failure to comply is punishable by a $2,400 fine. A royal commission can obtain search warrants, while the ASBFEO has no equivalent power. A royal commission can also issue an arrest warrant for witnesses failing to attend under summons. The small business ombudsman has no equivalent power, nor has it power to allow for legal cross-examination. It is an offence when a person gives false or misleading evidence to a royal commission, punishable by a fine of up to $20,000 or five years’ jail but the ombudsman has no equivalent offence. A royal commission has a number of other offences, such as those relating to bribing witnesses, which have no equivalent offences under the powers of a small business ombudsman. Whish-Wilson said the government’s moves to avoid a royal commission had become farcical. “The Turnbull government refuses to face the reality that only a full-blown commission, with coercive powers to compel witnesses and evidence, can get to the bottom of cultural problems in the financial sector,” he said. “Using a dispute resolutions body to stamp out financial wrongdoing misses the point. Any dispute resolutions body will focus on narrow interpretations of justice.” But Carnell said her inquiry would recommend any new regulations that might be needed, and allow small businesses to tell their stories, in public if necessary. She said some customers might want redress, some “may just want the bank to say sorry”. “It also needs to be as user-friendly as possible and because they are small businesses, often with no money, they are not going to be lawyered up and nor should they be,” Carnell said. “The banks will have lawyers but we have to make sure process is not intimidating.” Labor’s financial services shadow Katy Gallagher said the Carnell inquiry was limited to the 23 individual matters it was asked to examine, rather than the systemic inquiry into the financial system that a royal commission would provide. Gallagher said a royal commission would allow a thorough investigation into past wrongs, allow victims’ stories to be heard and give recommendations to strengthen the financial system. “The Carnell inquiry won’t achieve any of these outcomes all of which are so badly needed,” she said.
Donald Trump withdraws pledge to support Republican nominee Donald Trump has backtracked on his much ballyhooed pledge to support the eventual Republican nominee as he deals with swirling controversy after his campaign manager was charged with assaulting a reporter. In a television town hall in Milwaukee with CNN on Tuesday night, Trump insisted he had been “treated very unfairly” by the Republican National Committee and the establishment and revoked the commitment he signed in September. Although the Republican frontrunner previously hinted that he might do so, saying the RNC was “in default”, he had never explicitly revoked his commitment until Tuesday. The statement came as Trump stood by Corey Lewandowski, his embattled campaign manager, who was captured on tape forcibly grabbing a reporter for the right-wing website Breitbart after a press conference. Trump suggested that the reporter, who had been screened by the secret service in order to be allowed in the candidate’s vicinity, may have been carrying a bomb. Lewandowski’s arrest dominated the CNN town hall, which featured anchor Anderson Cooper questioning all three Republican candidates. Texas senator Ted Cruz, when asked if he would fire his campaign manager for the same behavior, replied “of course”. John Kasich said: “I haven’t seen the video but they tell me the video is real and of course I would.” Trump struggled with policy questions. While calling Nato “obsolete,” Trump bemoaned the fact that the international alliance doesn’t deal with terrorism. Nato has taken a lead role in the war in Afghanistan against the Taliban. He also said nuclear proliferation “is going to happen anyway” and seemed comfortable with Japan developing nuclear weapons. On domestic policy, Trump challenged conservative orthodoxy by stating education and healthcare were two of the three key functions of the federal government along with security. Both are controversial as many Republicans call for the abolition of the Department of Education as well as repealing Obamacare and severely limiting the federal role in healthcare. The Republican frontrunner was also chastised for his tone by Cooper, who compared Trump’s argument to that of a five-year-old, when he defended his jibes towards Ted Cruz’s wife. Trump was not the only candidate to leave the door open to not backing the GOP nominee in November. Ted Cruz who pledged in March to support the party’s nominee regardless, said of Trump: “I am not in the habit of supporting someone who attacks my wife and my family and I think our wife and kids should be off limits.” This repeated previous statements that Cruz has made in recent days after Trump’s threat to “spill the beans” on his wife and accused the frontrunner of spreading lies about him in a supermarket tabloid. This was echoed by Kasich, appearing after Trump, who said: “I gotta see what happens. If the nominee’s somebody who’s hurting the country I can’t stand behind them.” The Ohio governor had also previously pledged to support the party’s eventual nominee. Both Kasich and Cruz were asked if they had paths to victory. Cruz insisted that he could pick up the nearly 800 delegates he needed to win on the first ballot by noting “most of the races are winner-take-all or winner take most”. The Texas senator said Trump had a ceiling and faced “a difficult time reaching over 50% of the vote” and dismissed Kasich as having “no path to winning”. Kasich, who insisted that the nomination would be decided by a contested convention, referenced the history of the Republican party. He noted that often the party’s nominee did not arrive at the convention with a plurality of delegates. Kasich took a firm stance criticizing Cruz and Trump for their policies towards Muslims in the United States. The Ohio governor sneered at Trump’s proposal to ban Muslims from entering the United States, “raise your hand if you’re a Muslim, that doesn’t work”, he said, while also criticizing Cruz’s proposals to increase police presence in Muslim neighborhoods. Kasich quoted New York police commissioner Bill Bratton who described Cruz’s plan as “ridiculous”. He also was the only candidate to reference the Easter Sunday terrorist attack in Lahore when he said “when people in Pakistan die, we all die a little bit”. The candidates also were asked personal questions which they answered to varying degrees of effectiveness. When Trump was asked about the last time he apologized, his response was “oh wow” and he was left briefly speechless before recalling apologizing to his mother for using foul language and his wife for not behaving in a “presidential” manner. Cruz said his biggest weakness is that “I am a pretty driven guy” while criticizing other politicians for “running around behaving like they are holier than thou”.
Fat White Family: Songs for Our Mothers review – still testing the boundaries of taste Speaking to what’s left of the weekly music press, Fat White Family guitarist Saul Adamczewski offered his sales pitch for the band’s second album. “We’ve really tried to go to the extremes of what’s tasteful,” he offered, “or even good.” This is the kind of hyperbolic remark fame-hungry bands are wont to make in the middle of NME features that breathlessly detail their druggy excesses and establishment-baiting credentials: a jaded observer might suggest that the most surprising thing about it is that the NME still interviews bands, presumably as a sideline to its main business of running advertorial for computer companies and encouraging its readers to buy toiletries. But Adamczewski wasn’t exaggerating. Over the course of its 11 tracks, Songs for Our Mothers variously takes in fascism – there’s a track sung in German called Lebensraum, while the seven minutes of Duce achieves the not inconsiderable feat of being an even more incomprehensible song about Mussolini than the Scott Walker one that featured the erstwhile crooner punching a piece of meat – serial killers, domestic abuse and racist chanting, before concluding with Goodbye Goebbels, a lachrymose country ballad sung from the viewpoint of Hitler, reminiscing “about the good times” with his minister of propaganda shortly before their suicides. This is all presumably intended either as a riposte to the way rock music’s capacity for furore-inducing transgression has become increasingly blunted – it’s perhaps telling that Adamczewski once plied his trade in the Metros, a wan, post-Libertines pop-punk band who dealt in precisely the kind of carefully scripted rebellious posturing that Songs for Our Mothers seems to mock – or as satire on the current climate of censoriousness, in which certain sections of the internet seem to be engaged in an endless search for things to be offended by. In a world in which someone appears to find almost everything, no matter how innocuous, “problematic”, here’s something so wilfully, relentlessly, self-evidently problematic as to boggle even the most libertarian mind. You don’t have to be the kind of person who spends their days forensically examining the lyrics of pop records in order to find something problematic to be horrified by the disgusting line in Satisified, where frontman Lias Saoudi compares a woman fellating him to a starving Auschwitz inmate reduced to “sucking the marrow out of a bone”. Whether it’s one or the other, or indeed both, it’s worth noting that we’ve been here before: Songs for Our Mothers fairly obviously exists in the shadow of Throbbing Gristle, and not merely because they pushed almost every disquieting button pushed here 40 years ago. You can hear echoes of their debut album, Second Annual Report, in the muffled production, and in the way the vocals are frequently distorted with electronic effect and buried within the mix, so the listener has to strain to hear them – as if trying to eavesdrop on something deeply unpleasant. It’s an influence Fat White Family openly acknowledge, just as they’ve previously noted their debt to the Fall and the Country Teasers – the promotional photographs for their single The Whitest Boy on the Beach were an obvious homage to the cover of TG’s 1979 album 20 Jazz Funk Greats – and there’s little doubt the old provocations still pack a punch. Even the critic from the Quietus, a website that staunchly supports Fat White Family, drew the line at Hits Hits Hits’ queasy puns about the violence meted out to Tina Turner by her then-husband Ike. Still, a jaded voice might contend, the big difference is that Throbbing Gristle’s taboo-busting was set to music so strange and groundbreaking that it spawned an entire genre. Songs for Our Mothers sticks closer to a lo-fi rock template – distorted guitars, primitive drum machines invariably set to a crawling tempo, bursts of electronic noise – with mixed results. Sometimes the juxtaposition of music and subject matter works. There’s an infectious, romantic sentimentality about the tune of Goodbye Goebbels that makes the song all the more unsettling, while Satisified sets its grimness to a weirdly effective cocktail of grinding synthesised bass, Casio keyboard drums and twanging guitar line, midway between the riff of Depeche Mode’s Personal Jesus and John Barry’s perky theme tune to Juke Box Jury. Blessed with some of the album’s most innocuous lyrics, The Whitest Boy on the Beach is just fantastic, a sickly sounding take on Giorgio Moroder’s brand of disco. Elsewhere, it feels a bit wanting. Fat White Family have always struggled to capture the power of their live performances in the studio, and there’s a chance that the lumbering din of We Must Learn to Rise and Duce gain potency on stage, but here they sound interminable and tediously flat: an endless racket featuring someone banging on vaguely about a fascist dictator, which is something anyone with even a passing knowledge of extreme music is going to have heard dozens of times before. Worse, there’s something a bit smirky about When Shipman Decides’ waltz beat, oompah brass and pub piano: it sounds like something you might hear in an “edgy” student comedy revue, which is surely not what they were aiming for. The question of what Fat White Family are aiming for is unanswered over Songs for Our Mothers, the confusion compounded further by Tinfoil Deathstar, which, amid all the willful amorality and nihilism, seems to take an oddly moralistic stance about sequestering yourself from the horror of the outside world with drugs. Whatever the album is trying to do – provoke, confront, horrify – it only partially achieves it. Some of it is genuinely shocking, some of it reminds you of that old Onion news story about Marilyn Manson going door-to-door trying to shock people. Some of it is viscerally thrilling, some of it just bores you stiff. Fat White Family clearly think rock music needs a bomb putting under it, and they’ve got a point. Yet Songs for Our Mothers feels like a bomb that only partially detonates.
Hillary Clinton pushed to the limit as Cruz beats Trump in Iowa caucuses Hillary Clinton was given the fright of her life as veteran socialist senator Bernie Sanders pushed her to the limit in the Iowa caucuses, on a night of extreme drama in the first test of the US presidential election year. Ted Cruz, the maverick Texas senator, used his formidable ground game to beat the bombastic property tycoon Donald Trump into second place in the Republican race. And with Florida senator Marco Rubio enjoying a strong night in third place, the congested Republican field could yet be reshaped as a head-to-head between two Cuban Americans vying to become the first Latino president of the United States. Yet it was in the Democratic race where the closest of finishes caused high anxiety in the Clinton camp. With more than 99% of the precinct results in, Clinton led 49.9% to 49.6% over Sanders after seeing an apparently comfortable lead slip. The Associated Press and multiple outlets said the race was simply too close to call, though the Clinton camp claimed a narrow victory. Both candidates will now move on to New Hampshire buoyed up, Clinton with a “sigh of relief” that her bid to be the first female president of the United States is alive, and Sanders believing that his revolution against the “billionaire classes” truly began in the snowy cornfields of Iowa. With half of the results in across the rural midwest state, Clinton appeared to be easing to victory, three points up on the Vermont senator, whose relatively ramshackle campaign seemed to be no match for her mighty political machine. But as the night wore on, Clinton’s lead shrank to two and then one point, until she was locked in a virtual tie with the 74-year-old whose passion has ignited a fervour among young Americans. Appearing onstage in Des Moines before the final tally arrived, Clinton hailed “a contest of ideas” and appeared battle-ready for the fight of her political life. She congratulated her opponent, saying: “I am excited about really getting into the debate with Senator Sanders about the best way forward to fight for us in America.” The democratic socialist, though, has stolen some momentum heading into the New Hampshire primary on 9 February – and a prolonged fight appears inevitable, a far cry from what had been envisaged as a graceful procession toward the nomination for Clinton. By almost 11pm local time, the two Democratic rivals had both given what sounded like competing victory speeches. Sanders raised the roof as he told supporters: “While the results are still not known, it looks like we are in virtual tie,” adding: “The people of Iowa have sent a very profound message to the political establishment, the economic establishment, and by the way to the media establishment.” Largely written off by both the media and Democratic leaders, Sanders has been attracting huge crowds across the state since he first started campaigning here in the summer and made Clinton’s poll leads that reached as high as 32% all but evaporate. Late on Monday night in Des Moines, a crowd at Sanders’ victory party was watching him inch to within 0.2 percentage points down, to a tie on the television overhead, then back down to 0.2 points. Someone put on Sanders’ fight song – the Simon & Garfunkel anthem America. “They’ve all come to look for America,” sang the throng. Speaking to reporters on a chartered plane flying to New Hampshire, Sanders called on officials to take the unusual step of revealing underlying voter totals. Delegates are awarded in the Iowa Democratic contest on a precint-by-precinct basis, irrespective of the state-wide vote for each candidate. “I honestly don’t know what happened. I know there are some precincts that have still not reported. I can only hope and expect that the count will be honest,” he said. “I have no idea, did we win the popular vote? I don’t know, but as much information as possible should be made available.” At the Clinton event, the former first lady, secretary of state and senator was introduced by retired Iowa senator Tom Harkin and his wife Ruth, both popular figures who endorsed Clinton last summer. Harkin embraced what he said was a “narrow” victory for Clinton, even as the results were still being counted. “Hey, folks, a win is a win!” he exclaimed. Later on, Clinton’s campaign director in Iowa, Matt Paul, said there was “no uncertainty” that Clinton had won. Clinton herself stopped short of declaring victory as she took the stage, flanked by husband Bill and daughter Chelsea, before a crowd of roughly 700 supporters. “Wow, what a night, an unbelievable night,” she said. “Now, as I stand here tonight breathing a sigh of relief – thank you.” At times the cheers so deafening they drowned out Clinton’s words. It was an outright celebration, however narrow the result, of a candidate who eight years ago suffered a bruising defeat in the same state at the hands of Barack Obama. This time, she will head to New Hampshire having hit her stride – campaigning laboriously for every vote. Last time she slipped to third in Iowa behind Obama and John Edwards. As midnight approached, with 50 of the 1,683 precincts still to declare, Clinton led 49.9% to 49.6%. However, rumours began to circulate that some of the results were in dispute and that the Democratic party had failed to staff 90 caucuses, raising the prospect of an ugly clash between the Clinton and Sanders camps. In the Republican contest, it was a predictably chastening night for Jeb Bush, the candidate with all of the money and the presidential lineage who has been diminished by the taunts of Donald Trump saying he is “low energy”. Bush barely registered, in sixth place at 2.8% behind retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson in fourth and libertarian Rand Paul in fifth. But the Republican night belonged to Cruz, who called it “a victory for courageous conservatives across Iowa and all across this great nation”, vowing that the Republican nominee for 2016 “will not be chosen by the Washington establishment”. If the taming of Trump was a surprise – Cruz picked up the most votes ever in a Republican Iowa caucus – there is also a warning from history. In the last seven contested national caucuses, they have chosen the eventual nominee only three times. Donald Trump gave a rare display of humility during a brief speech at a hotel in West Des Moines. “We finished second and I want to tell you seriously I am honoured,” he said, making a point to “congratulate Ted”. After months of crowing about how he was destined to win, he immediately moved to reframe expectations, saying that he had been warned “do not to go to Iowa. You could never finish even in the top 10”. “We’re just so happy about the way everything turned out,” he added. However, the mood at Donald Trump’s party in western Des Moines went from subdued when it emerged he had been pushed into second place by Cruz, to outright downbeat when it became apparent he had been almost tied by third-place Rubio. A defiant Rubio echoed the words of Barack Obama in 2008 when he took the stage at his caucus night party in Des Moines. “So this is the moment they said would never happen. For months, they told us we had no chance,” Rubio told a raucous crowd inside a ballroom at the downtown Marriott. “They told me I needed to wait my turn. They told me we had no chance because my hair wasn’t gray enough and my boots were too high,” he said, referring to a minor media storm about his Cuban heel boots. “But tonight, here in Iowa, the people of this great state have sent a very clear message after seven years of Barack Obama we are not waiting any longer,” he added. If Rubio can lead the establishment crowd in New Hampshire, Chris Christie, John Kasich and Jeb Bush will be all but done and he may come through the middle as a youthful alternative. Cruz is deeply unpopular in his own party and Trump is diminished if not yet vanquished. “Ground game, ground game, ground game” was the reason that Cruz’s Iowa’s co- chair Matt Schultz gave for his candidate’s triumph. Cruz staffers had long been supremely confident that they had the resources on the ground to triumph and felt confident that they had done everything right. Unlike Trump, their candidate had visited all 99 counties and built up what was universally acknowledged to be the best field organisation of any candidate. The mood at the Cruz party was jubilant. A cover band played rock and country music as attendees slowly started to grasp their achievement in winning the caucuses. The crowd’s enthusiasm barely flagged as Cruz spoke for about 25 minutes to the assembled audience at the Elwell building on the grounds of the Iowa state fair. In an interview on caucus day, Cruz’s state director, Bryan English, told the that their organisation “was a model”. “It’s an organic process … go straight to people, meeting them where they are, in twos, threes, and fives, then dozens, hundreds and thousands … It’s not through paid media, not through direct mail, but through person-to-person relationship building.” The two casualties of the night were Martin O’Malley, who dropped out of the Democratic race, and Mike Huckabee, who suspended his Republican campaign.
The Birth of a Nation's reception compromised by director's rape trial Following a rapturously received debut at the Sundance film festival in January, Nate Parker’s slavery drama The Birth of a Nation seemed set on a sure trajectory to success and awards nominations. Now that road seems less certain due to a rape allegation and trial from the actor, writer and film-maker’s past. On Friday, two of Hollywood’s top trade papers, Variety and Deadline, posted interviews with Parker, in which he directly addressed the circumstances in which he was tried for rape while at college in 1999. During his sophomore year at Penn State University, Parker and his roommate Jean Celestin, who shares credit with Parker for The Birth of a Nation’s story, were charged with raping a female student while she was unconscious. Both men were suspended from the wrestling team, and Parker later transferred to a different college in Oklahoma. Parker, who had had an earlier sexual encounter with the victim that both said was consensual, was acquitted of the charges in 2001; Celestin was initially found guilty. He then appealed the verdict and was granted a new trial in 2005 – but the case never came to court after the victim decided not to testify again. Although there was no retrial, the case led to a lawsuit filed by the Women’s Law Project against the university over its treatment of sexual assault. That suit was settled with a cash sum and a vow to review procedures for sexual assault cases at the school. Court documents show that the woman said she was harassed by Parker and Celestin after she reported the incident to the police. She dropped out of college and is said to have attempted suicide. On Tuesday, Variety carried an interview with the woman’s older brother Johnny, who said that she had killed herself in 2012. Her death certificate, obtained by the paper, stated that she was suffering “major depressive disorder with psychotic features, PTSD due to physical and sexual abuse, polysubstance abuse …” The woman, who wished to remain anonymous, had had a child since the trial. Whether or not Parker, who has five daughters, knew that his accuser had died, is unknown. He did not mention the woman’s death in his interviews. He had told Deadline: “I stand here, a 36-year-old man, 17 years removed from one of the most painful … moments in my life. And I can imagine it was painful for everyone.” He called on women “to stand up, to speak out when they feel violated, in every degree, as I prepare to take my own daughter to college”. The intention behind the director’s agreement to interviews, well ahead of the film’s release on 7 October, was clear: distributor Fox Searchlight, which bought the film for $17.5m at Sundance, sought to quell the potential controversy that could hinder the film’s awards prospects by having Parker face the legal matter head-on. He brought his six-year-old daughter to the Variety interview, and invited Deadline to his home, scattered with “remnants of the five daughters who live with him all around”. Fox Searchlight issued a statement to coincide with the two interviews: “Fox Searchlight is aware of the incident that occurred while Nate Parker was at Penn State. We also know that he was found innocent and cleared of all charges. We stand behind Nate and are proud to help bring this important and powerful story to the screen.” Parker told Deadline that this would mark the last time he would talk about the case while promoting The Birth of a Nation. “I will not relive that period of my life every time I go under the microscope,” he said. However, the topic is unlikely to go away as Parker promotes the film. Provocatively named after DW Griffith’s notoriously racist 1915 film, which lionises the Ku Klux Klan and depicts black Americans as savages, Parker’s film centers on the story of Nat Turner, a former slave who led a revolt in 1831 to free African Americans in Virginia. Variety reported on Monday that Fox Searchlight was having second thoughts about its plan to have Parker attend screenings for the film – which features a rape scene – in churches (Parker is a devout Christian) and on college campuses around the country. Though the intention was for Parker to discuss issues of social justice raised by the film, each appearance runs the risk of the case being brought up in a public forum. The film company is also considering not granting new interviews with Parker from now until the film screens at the Toronto international film festival in September. Sources told Variety that Fox Searchlight wasn’t aware of the allegations before buying the film – and had only learned about it after the deal was struck. Neither profile addressed the alleged comments made by Parker while promoting the 2014 romance Beyond the Lights, when he reportedly said he would not play a gay character in order to “preserve the black man”. In his interview last week, he did, however, tell Deadline he was an LGBT ally, saying: “The black community is my community, the LGBT community too, and the female community. That is my community. That’s me, it’s who I am.” Johnny, the brother of the woman who accused Parker of rape, told Variety: “His character should be under a microscope because of this incident. If you removed these two people, the project is commendable. But there’s a moral and ethical stance you would expect from someone with regard to this movie.” He added: “I don’t think a rapist should be celebrated. It’s really a cultural decision we’re making as a society to go to the theater and speak with our dollars and reward a sexual predator.” Parker’s character seems destined to come under increasing scrutiny as his film airs in cinemas around the world. It will be released in the UK at the end of the year.
Val Kilmer: Michael Douglas apologised after throat cancer scare Michael Douglas has apologised for the incautious remark in which he claimed that fellow actor Val Kilmer was suffering from the same form of throat cancer that had affected Douglas. In a Facebook post on Tuesday, Kilmer wrote: “Michael Douglas wrote me a nice note apologizing for suggesting to the press overseas, I ‘wasn’t doing too well …’ and was grateful to hear I am doing well. He’s a classy guy.” Douglas had originally sparked widespread alarm by stating during a Q&A in London on 30 October that Kilmer, with whom he had worked on the 1996 film The Ghost and the Darkness, was “a wonderful guy who is dealing with exactly what I had, and things don’t look too good for him”. Kilmer denied the story two days later, writing: “I love Michael Douglas but he is misinformed … [I] have no cancer whatsoever.”
The Pearl review: fascinating trans subjects let down by documentary The Pearl is a film that arrived right on time. Thanks to Caitlyn Jenner, television shows such as Orange is the New Black and Transparent, and films including last year’s indie crowd-pleaser Tangerine and Oscar winner The Danish Girl, the transgender movement is in the spotlight in a way that it’s never been before. A documentary following four middle-aged transgender women in Pacific north-west logging towns, The Pearl paints an illuminating portrait of lives seldom given a presence onscreen. But though the subjects and their stories are inherently fascinating, the film-makers, Jessica Dimmock and Christopher LaMarca, rather bafflingly can’t seem to make out a worthy film out of the material. There’s Nina, a pizza delivery person who identifies as trans, but who struggles with how to convey her true self to her wife of nearly 40 years. Amy, the eldest of the lot, loses her wife of many years and opens her home to fellow trans people seeking support. Finally, there are Krystal and Jodie, two former brothers who now identify as sisters. The film starts with the group convening for a trans convention, and tracks their separate journeys from there. Dimmock and LaMarca take a vérité approach to their documentary, choosing to have the women’s everyday actions speak for themselves, rather than through confessional on-camera interviews. With the occasional voiceover, the four discuss what led them to transition, but they’re rarely afforded the chance to open up about the battles they no doubt face in embodying their true selves. Amy especially receives the short end of the stick. The film-makers have her tease her past living as a married man, but gloss over whether her wife, now deceased, was supportive through her predicament. Nina vaguely alludes to her partner’s awareness of her struggle, but we never see them together. When Nina’s mother arrives toward the end of the film to meet her Nina for the first time, their discussion is admittedly involving – it’s the rare instance where The Pearl plays it simple, and lets a truthful moment resonate. But most of the documentary is needlessly confusing because of the abstract way the film-makers tell their subjects’ stories. With no buildup, Amy appears in a hospital bed in Bangkok, following sex reassignment surgery. The scene should be cause for celebration. Instead, it registers as a shock because of its abrupt presentation. During a discussion after The Pearl’s premiere at the True/False film festival, the four trans women proved to the audience how engaging and moving they could be. They shared more in 20 minutes of talking than the documentary captures in more than an hour. They deserve to have their voices heard, and not simply muffled by The Pearl.
We need social care that’s fit for purpose A great start to your focus on the NHS, with some words from the people actually providing the service, showing their amazing dedication to the ethos of the NHS as a caring organisation (The workers, 18 January). But that last phrase shows one difficulty: the NHS is, or should be, just one part of the whole social care structure of the country. The truth is that many of the patients the NHS is dealing with should not be in hospitals at all; as Rob Hinchliffe, the vascular surgeon at St George’s put it, the NHS is “keep[ing] frail people alive for longer”. Most of these people do not need urgent medical care and should be out in their homes and communities. To achieve this, we need a properly integrated and fully funded social care system, not the present situation where most of these functions are dumped on local authorities while this lousy government puts massive pressure on their budgets. Much of this social care is being provided by private companies, most with a strong focus on their profits, hence the decisions made last year when several care home companies simply walked away from the problem, leaving elderly and vulnerable people with little or no support. You reported last November that half of the UK’s care homes could close due to a £2.9bn shortfall of funding, but I haven’t heard of any efforts by George Osborne to deal with this issue. The NHS itself, even under current funding pressure, is incredibly efficient and, more importantly, highly effective in getting people’s problems dealt with and back on their feet. So the real target should be getting this government to fund the whole social care network properly and to stop fiddling with the NHS. The Tories wasted their first five years on Andrew Lansley’s completely unnecessary reforms of the NHS, with the same track now being followed by the equally ignorant Jeremy Hunt Do not let the Tories get away with this utter failure to address the wider picture and instead wasting energy attacking the NHS, while neglecting social care and forcing councils to cut budgets at the same time. They are failing the whole country. David Reed London • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
‘A sense that white identity is under attack’: making sense of the alt-right The appointment of Breitbart Media’s executive chairman, Stephen Bannon, as Donald Trump’s campaign CEO has been greeted as a turning point in that presidential bid, and perhaps in conservative politics in America. We have been told that it “marks the official entree of the so-called ‘alt-right’ into the Republicans’ top campaign”, and that Trump’s election strategy “now resembles the alt-right dream of maximizing the white vote”. Hillary Clinton will address Trump’s alleged turn to the alt-right in a speech in Nevada this Thursday. But what is the alt-right? It is new, difficult to pin down, and hard to understand. But it’s important to try to get a handle on who is involved, what they believe, and what their possible influence might be on the immediate future of rightwing politics. A movement that lives and breathes – and taunts – online The alt- (or alternative) right has surged as a (so far) mainly online movement, occupying positions beyond the pale of many conservatives. It has no centralised organisation or official ideology – it has been described as “scattered and ideologically diffuse”. The alt-right has been involved in fleeting street protests, but its online activities are well-organised and relentless. It recruits by opposing progressive ideas about gender, sexuality, and especially race and immigration. Adherents congregate on message boards like 4chan and 8chan, comment on websites like the Right Stuff and American Renaissance, and lurk on Twitter, where they taunt progressives (or “shitlibs”) and mainstream conservatives (“cuckservatives”). The association with Breitbart comes from the efforts of Milo Yiannopoulos to appropriate and popularise the term. At the height of his Twitter-driven notoriety, Yiannopoulos wrote a manifesto introducing the tendency to mainstream conservatives. But are Breitbart and Bannon really a part of the movement? Some of its most hardcore activists say no. Race realism and ethno-nationalism: what the alt-right believes Richard Spencer, who coined the term “alt-right” in 2008, says he intended the term to describe a diverse, heterodox group whose members were “deeply alienated, intellectually, even emotionally and spiritually, from American conservatism”. They were disillusioned at the end of the Bush presidency by Republican policies on war and immigration. They sought to draw on currents like the European New Right to transform what they saw as a moribund conservative movement. He and others connected with the succession of websites he edited – such as Taki magazine and alternativeright.com – wrote extensively, focusing the alt-right into a more definite ideology, with increasingly hardline ideas about race. Spencer says that the term is still flexible, but affiliation has some minimum requirements. “Someone who is really alt-right recognises the reality of race, and the fact that race matters, and that race is an essential component of identity.” Shane Burley, a journalist and researcher who has covered the far right extensively, says that Spencer’s orientation “is clearly under the umbrella of what we would call fascism”. Spencer’s so-called “race realism” underpins theories of racial hierarchy, and the idea that it has a basis in biology. Related ideas of “human biodiversity” attempt to buttress the notion that race is destiny, and the primary organising category of society and history. Radix is full of articles that link race with IQ or crime. This revival of previously discredited scientific racism is another recurring feature of alt-right thought. Burley says that the very fact that these ideas were once so thoroughly discredited opens up a gap for them to be promulgated again. “Right now the arguments against their race and IQ position are less well-known, so they have the ability to plant the seed in the public imagination. “Almost all of the studies that they cite are marginal, construct-sweeping theories on the basis of very little data, and don’t demonstrate the causal links that they claim for them.” Other adherents emphasise their desire for racial separatism. Mike Enoch, from the site the Right Stuff, a major hub for the dissemination of alt-right materials, says: “The core principle, in my view, is ethno-nationalism, meaning that nations should be as ethnically and racially homogeneous as possible.” As for Breitbart, Enoch thinks that it “is the closest thing to sympathetic to our position that is out there in the mainstream, and there may be some people that share our views that work there, but the official editorial line of Breitbart is not alt-right”. Chip Berlet, a veteran researcher of the far right and the coauthor of Right-Wing Populism in America, says that the idea of ethno-nationalism is derived from the European New Right. It’s the claim that “every ethno-religious nationalist group has the right to its own homeland”. This willingness to make open racial appeals is reflected in another fundamental claim on the alt-right that, as Spencer puts it, is the preponderance of “Jewish power and Jewish influence”. This antisemitism dovetails with other kinds of conspiracy thinking – in the last week, alt-right Twitter accounts have been pushing the claim that Hillary Clinton is hiding serious health problems. Berlet says antisemitism has “always been a dividing line on the US right”, separating the fringes from more mainstream groups, and “rightwing movements in the US have been obsessed with conspiracies since the Salem witch-hunts and the anti-Masonic scares. Nativist movements have always embraced the motif of subversion. It’s normal for them: it makes them into heroes who have exposed a plot.” ‘A sense that white identity is under attack’ Perhaps the most potent element of alt-right activism is the effort to build a sense of a specific white identity, and to claim that this identity is under attack. “Anti-white animus in society at large is palpable,” says Spencer. Demands for diversity in the workplace mean “less white males in particular”. More openly extreme alt-right accounts on Twitter talk about immigration in terms of “white genocide”. This sense of injured white identity is what defines the alt-right, according to Dan Cassino, a Fairleigh Dickinson University political scientist and the author of a new book on Fox News and American politics. “The founding myth of the alt-right is that the disadvantaged groups in American politics are actually running things through a combination of fraud and intimidation. By doing this, they’re actually oppressing white men.” The “original sin” of current American politics, according to Cassino, is that neither liberals nor conservatives have a very good answer to the question of what is to be done about “the people who get screwed over” by economic policies. If these sentiments are growing, it may mean a larger and more receptive audience for the more radical message of the alt-right. Adherents claim that the movement is expanding. Spencer does not have solid figures, but claims to have seen many new faces at his events, including young people who have been “redpilled” – or racially “awoken” – in the last year. Enoch claims that the Right Stuff’s suite of podcasts gets more than 100,000 listeners a week. It may be that a growing audience for these ideas is pulling Breitbart in a more hardline direction. Spencer calls Breitbart “alt-right lite”, and says that its fundamental populism has led them to tentatively begin to express ideas similar to his. Berlet says just because Bannon is not a card-carrying member of the alt-right does not mean that progressives should be relaxed about Trump’s erratic and intermittently fascist-sounding campaign. Berlet does not think that American politics has been in such a dangerous place vis-a-vis the far right for almost a century. For him, the parallels between the Trump campaign and the alt-right are “the most important pushback against having a multicultural and pluralistic society since the 1920s Klan”.
US investors ploughing billions into palm oil, claims report Some of the US’ leading institutional investors, including pension funds, are potentially fuelling environmental and social harm by ploughing billions of dollars into the palm oil industry through opaque financial arrangements, a new report claims. Large investment firms are lagging behind commitments made by consumer brands such as Nestlé, Unilever and McDonald’s by failing to identify whether they are investing in palm oil, which palm oil companies they are involved with, or to hold them accountable over deforestation and land grabbing, the Friends of the Earth US (FoE) report states. Burgeoning demand for the cheap vegetable oil, increasingly from China and India, is putting pressure on rainforests that are cleared to make way for the crop. According to the FoE report, BlackRock, the Vanguard Group, JPMorgan and Fidelity Investments have almost $13bn in holdings in palm oil between them. In the report, FoE claims that pension funds CalPERS and TIAA-CREF also have investments of more than $100m each in palm oil activity, with overseas land and agriculture “widely perceived as low-risk asset classes” for investor portfolios. Joe DeAnda, a spokesperson for CalPERS, said: “We don’t have anything specific to palm oil – as such holding[s] are likely de minimus in the portfolio.” However, DeAnda says CalPERS has an extensive and detailed investment policy, which includes environmental considerations like climate change. TIAA-CREF did not wish to comment. Jeff Conant, senior international forest campaigner at FoE, said: “Investments in palm oil producers and other companies that drive tropical deforestation and land grabbing are largely hidden in the portfolios of asset managers and institutional investors [...] who generally have no processes in place to deal with companies that commit human rights and environmental abuses.” “Investors need to undertake greater due diligence and ask some obvious questions, such as ‘does the company I’m investing in have legally acquired permits for land?’, ‘does it have the consent of local people?’ and ‘what is its financial structure?’ US companies should show leadership – if they do, others will follow. But it’s fairly new territory for them.” US investors are under no legal obligation to consider the potential environmental harm of overseas palm oil activity, even though many have voluntary policies on issues such as climate change. JPMorgan will no longer finance new coal mines due to concerns over climate change, while a CalPERS shareholder resolution in May demanded that Rio Tinto explain the climate risk of mining. Land-clearing for palm oil is considered a significant contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. The situation is complicated by the fact that many investors hold palm oil assets through index funds – a type of fund that automatically selects companies to invest in based on fluctuations in a market index. The result is that complex financial instruments can mask much of the money flowing to land clearing in Indonesia, Malaysia and parts of Africa because those investing are not making active decisions about what they’re investing in. FoE and As You Sow have developed a new database where members of the public can search for the name of their fund to see what palm oil holdings, and the value of the assets, are in the portfolio. Asked why BlackRock does not have a policy on palm oil and if any action would be taken against unethical companies, spokesperson Ed Sweeney said: “Third party index providers determine the companies that are included in passively managed mutual funds and ETFs [exchange traded funds]. BlackRock manages about $1.8tn in passive strategies on behalf of our clients [and] approximately $200bn in investment strategies for our clients that utilise screens to align clients’ portfolios with their values.” Nicole Kennedy, a spokesperson for JPMorgan, provided a link to the company’s environmental and social policy framework, which outlines the procedures that JPMorgan requires for transactions that involve palm oil production. Steve Austin, a spokesperson for Fidelity, said: “It’s our longstanding practice not to discuss specific fund investments or investment decisions. We respect everyone’s right to choose how they invest their money”. The Vanguard Group is yet to reply to the ’s request for comment. Several banks including Santander and Rabobank have taken a stand on palm oil, although HSBC, which says it is committed to supporting the “legal and sustainable” growth of the industry, has been previously accused of bankrolling rainforest destruction. Some investors have also responded to what they say is growing public pressure over palm oil, spurred on by disasters such as last year’s forest fires in Indonesia, which covered much of the country, Singapore and Malaysia in a thick, acrid haze. In June last year, for example, at least 80 investors managing more than $5tn in assets put their name to a letter criticising the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) for “lagging behind” commitments made by some consumer brands. At the time, the RSPO – which aims to improve the sustainability of the sector – responded to the letter saying it acknowledged the importance of the issues raised: “We are, and will continue taking all constructive comments on board. We are confident that with a commitment to continuous improvement and with the support of all committed players we will be able to truly achieve our vision of market transformation.” The RSPO has since produced new, stricter standards. California-based Sonen Capital, one of the signatories of the letter, said that most investors are dangerously removed from what occurs within companies in their portfolios. “Palm oil isn’t a new issue, it’s been cooking for a while and now asset owners are taking a look under the hood, they aren’t always liking what they are seeing,” says Will Morgan, director of impact at Sonen Capital. “We’ve got a much greater sensibility on climate change and even conflict minerals, but on palm oil we are really playing catch-up, which is terrible because the destruction is already underway. The policies around palm oil are woefully inadequate. “The directive is to maximize returns [...] That’s a perfectly reasonable goal, but if you add an asterisk that adds ‘without ruining the planet or people’s lives’, most investors would agree with that.” Morgan believes there needs to be “definitive guidelines” within the investment industry around palm oil, similar to those that have helped reduce unsustainable logging. These rules would be formulated and overseen by a third party, with regular audits and removal of companies from portfolios that breach these standards. Investors need to be made aware of the potential harm caused by palm oil operations and there should be an independent third party, other than the RSPO, that accredits palm oil suppliers, Morgan added. This article was amended on 29 July 2016. A previous version referred to the RSPO as an “industry-driven group”. It was further amended on 2 August 2016 to refer to the launch of RSPO’s new standards aimed at improving sustainability.
UK construction sector output better than expected in August Construction activity recovered in August, reversing most of the slump seen in the immediate aftermath of the Brexit vote. Output fell for a third month, but the pace of decline slowed markedly. The construction PMI (pdf) from Markit/CIPS jumped to 49.2 in August from 45.9 in July. The reading was better than the 46.1 figure expected by City economists. The 50 mark separates growth from contraction: anything below indicates contraction. Tim Moore, senior economist at Markit and author of the Markit/CIPS Construction PMI, said: “The downturn in UK construction activity has eased considerably since July, primarily helped by a much slower decline in commercial building. Construction firms cited a nascent recovery in client confidence since the EU referendum result and a relatively steady flow of invitations to tender in August. “However, the latest survey indicates only a partial move towards stabilisation, rather than a return to business as usual across the construction sector. There were still widespread reports that Brexit uncertainty had dampened demand and slowed progress on planned developments, especially in relation to large projects.” New order volumes continued to fall during August, which contrasts with the three-year run of sustained growth seen before May. Mike Chappell, of Lloyds Bank commercial banking, said: “The past month has seen a number of the bigger players in the sector report robust results with a relatively upbeat outlook, suggesting there may have been less negative impact from the EU referendum result than was originally feared, at least at the top of the market. “The order books of larger firms, many of which benefit from diversified revenue streams, appear to be in good shape, while several have either increased or restored their dividends. That said, anecdotal evidence indicates those further down the chain – such as mid-tier contractors and SMEs – are less bullish and more likely to adopt a ‘wait-and-see’ approach.” Chappell said businesses would be following closely the various data to better gauge the health of the economy. “Firms are also thinking about the chancellor’s upcoming autumn statement when they will learn whether their hopes of an increase in infrastructure spending are to become a reality.” The improvement in construction comes a day after the equivalent survey for manufacturing showed a strong bounceback in factory output and new orders in August, suggesting manufacturers quickly shrugged off the shock of the Brexit vote in June. Consumer confidence also recovered somewhat last month after taking a huge plunge in July, according to market researchers GfK. The Bank of England took action in early August to restore confidence among businesses and households and ward off a recession. It cut interest rates to a new record low of 0.25% and expanded its programme of bond purchases.
Digital natives can handle the truth. Trouble is, they can’t find it The late, great US senator and sociologist Daniel Moynihan famously observed that everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not to their own facts, and most of us nodded approvingly at the time. It neatly summed up our idealised notion of democratic discourse. So it’s entirely unsurprising that so many people are discombobulated to discover that apparently Moynihan’s maxim no longer applies. If nothing else, the Brexit vote and US presidential campaigns provided ample evidence of that. “Facts” became propositions that people felt ought to be true, even if they weren’t. I’m a bit suspicious of the current despairing rhetoric about how we have moved into a “post-truth” society. First of all, it carries an implication that there was once a political golden age when “truth” really mattered. And secondly, it implies that establishing truth is a straightforward business – if only we could put our minds to it. Both of these propositions are, to put it politely, implausible. Which brings us back to the problem of “fake news” – believed in some quarters to have had an impact on the US presidential election. Facebook has – rightly, because of its size and scope – been taking most of the heat from the resulting firestorm, but until recently seemed to regard the whole thing as a PR problem rather than something more fundamental. This is standard Silicon Valley operating procedure by the way: always try to deny responsibility in order to escape the tedious obligations that go with it. And of course for Facebook, there is the additional problem that its business model currently tends to favour fake news because – as a BuzzFeed analysis showed – it gets “shared” more and sharing is good for the bottom line. Or, as Frederic Filloux put it with brutal clarity: “Facebook’s walled wonderland is inherently incompatible with news”. Watching the Facebook boss squirming on the fake-news hook provides a sharp vignette of the Silicon Valley elite: stratospheric IQ combined with childlike naivety. Now that it has dawned on him that this might be a really serious problem – especially under a president who isn’t overawed by the aura of tech companies – there are doubtless lots of project teams working frantically within Facebook to find a solution to the fake-news problem. This week we’ve seen interesting evidence of one approach they are trying – surveying their users to see how good they are at spotting spoof stories. According to the Verge tech news website, in one case they are shown a tweet from the Philadelphia Inquirer boosting a story about the local baseball team sacking a peanut vendor known as “Pistachio Girl” for her involvement in “white identity politics”. The headline on the tweet reads “Pistachio Girl has been fired from her Citizens Bank Park job”. (Citizens Bank Park is the team’s stadium.) The survey question was “To what extent do you think this link’s title uses misleading language?” on a five-point scale from “not at all” to “completely”. Another user was shown a different link and posed a different question: “To what extent do you think this link’s title withholds key details of the story?” If Facebook thinks it can outsource the detection of fake news to its users (and thereby avoid accepting editorial responsibility) then Stanford University has some bad news for it. Over the past 18 months the university’s history education group has been testing the ability of 7,800 “digital natives” (ie at middle school, high school and college students) in 12 states to judge the credibility of online information. The results, in the words of the researchers, are “dismaying”, “bleak” and “a threat to democracy”. The students were duped again and again. They couldn’t tell fake accounts from real ones, activist groups from neutral sources or distinguish ads from articles. More than 80% of middle-school (11- to 13-year-old) children thought that “sponsored content” was a real news story. They were suckers for professionally produced and attractive web pages, and a fluent and polished “about” page was enough to persuade many that the site was authoritative. And when asked to evaluate the trustworthiness of information on two websites, one published by the 66,000-member American Academy of Pediatrics, established in 1930 and publisher of the journal Pediatrics, the other by the American College of Pediatricians, a conservative fringe group that broke with the main organisation in 2002 over its stance on adoption by same-sex couples, more than half of the Stanford undergraduates in the study concluded that the second group was “more reliable”. So: back to the drawing board, Mr Zuckerberg.
Letter: I featured in the first documentary Peter Morley made – in 1947 I went to the same progressive boarding school as the film-maker Peter Morley and featured in the first documentary he made, in 1947. The film was dedicated to Anna Essinger, a far-sighted Jewish educationist who fled to Britain with many of her pupils six months after Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany in 1933. Peter and his siblings fled with their father at much the same time and naturally came to a school, Bunce Court, near Faversham in Kent, where the pupils and most of the staff spoke their native language. Wartime evacuation took them to Shropshire, and I arrived there after my mother had wanted to move me as far from bombing as possible. To this day I have no idea what she knew about the school but I spent most of the war years at Trench Hall, near Wem, speaking German. I was eight years younger than Peter so we never overlapped educationally, but we later became firm friends. His first film, Once Upon a Time, featured the school and was shot on a German 8mm camera which he had “liberated” from the ruins of a Berlin house while he was serving with the occupying British army. It was, of course, silent, so he used captions to spell out the eccentric history of an establishment that had virtually no domestic staff, where the pupils did all the household chores and gardening (we grew much of our own food) and where many of the teachers were eminent Jewish “enemy aliens” who had been released from internment on condition that they stayed in their jobs for the duration of the second world war. I was in the largest class – eight pupils. Setting the pattern that recurred throughout his professional life, the film won Peter his first award, a special commendation from the magazine Amateur Cine World. He had completed his military service as one of the security team guarding the 1945 Potsdam conference. One evening he was summoned by Winston Churchill, who complained about the excessive noise generated by the British sentries’ hobnailed boots. Peter was apologetic but could offer no solution given the state of rubble-strewn Berlin. To his astonishment Churchill growled: “We’ll see about that.” The great war leader then promptly ordered a transport plane to be flown to London to secure rubber-soled boots for each sentry. When Peter was planning his award-winning coverage of Churchill’s funeral in 1965, one of his research staff discovered that south bank dockers intended to dip their cranes in salute as the funeral vessel passed them. Peter swore everyone to deepest secrecy and made sure he had a camera in that position. That footage has been repeatedly seen round the world ever since.
E-stonia: the country using tech to rebrand itself as the anti-Russia It’s not often that a European head of state uses the “radical postmodernist philosophy” of Jacques Derrida and Jean Baudrillard to bash a hostile superpower. But then Toomas Hendrik Ilves, Estonia’s defiantly erudite president of nearly 10 years, is no ordinary head of state. Ilves is trying to reinvent Estonia as the brightly lit antithesis of Russia, and in today’s confessional age of Edward Snowden, WikiLeaks and the Panama Papers, claims he is baking transparency and accountability into a new kind of digital civic operating system. Ilves is known for his controversial opinions on everything from Snowden and internet privacy to cyberwarfare and Vladimir Putin’s postmodernist state, which have apparently, transformed the 63-year-old into a “regional sex symbol”. Aivar, my Uber driver, chatters enthusiastically about Ilves as his grey Volvo sedan drops me outside Kadriorg Palace in Tallinn. “Enjoy our president. He’s quite a character.” An imposing 18th-century baroque jewel, Kadriorg was built in the Estonian capital by Peter the Great for his wife, Catherine. The tsar, however, would not have been amused by Ilves and his outspoken criticism of Russia. Ilves greets me in his trademark checkered bow tie. The problem with Putin’s Russia, Ilves insists, is that the truth has been entirely devalued. Quoting from Peter Pomerantsov’s 2015 Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible, the Estonian president says that “all truths have become equivalent” in contemporary Russia. According to Ilves, the country is being run by postmodernists such as Putin’s chief of staff, Vladislav Surkov, a “big fan” apparently of Baudrillard, who stage-manages Russia as if it was a murky reality television show. The result, Ilves says, is the death not only of truth but also of trust and accountability – the core currencies of a modern democratic state. Thus the proliferation of Russian troll factories that churn out anonymous comments that are poisoning the internet. There is nothing small, charmingly or otherwise, about Ilves. If, as Marshall McLuhan suggested, we now live in an electronic global village, then the Swedish-born and American-educated Estonian president, with his nearly 70,000 Twitter followers is a kind of global village elder, dispensing his own cosmopolitan brand of personalized wisdom to anyone that will listen. But it’s not all bluster. Much of his presidential tenure, as well as previous roles as foreign minister, ambassador to the US and a member of the European parliament in the post-Soviet era, has been focused on making Estonia less village-like, on coming up with a grand idea that would enable this little Baltic republic to punch above its analog weight on the world stage. Ilves came up with this grand idea a quarter of a century ago. When Gorbachev pulled the Soviets out of Estonia in 1991, Ilves asked himself a simple question about the future of a country that had been brutally occupied by its eastern neighbor for a half-century. “What do we have?” Ilves asked himself about a country not much larger than Israel with a population less than half that of Silicon Valley. His answer was equally simple. What the 1.3 million Estonians had, Ilves concluded in 1991, was technology. He recognized that the Soviets, despite their appropriation of most of Estonia’s wealth, had bequeathed a decent educational legacy, especially in mathematics. Estonia’s future, Ilves thus imagined a quarter of a century ago, was hi-tech, especially personal computers and the internet. Ilves – a trained psychologist with degrees from Columbia and the University of Pennsylvania – is also self-schooled in computer science. He proudly recalls learning to program as a 13-year-old schoolboy in New Jersey and being among the first geeks to own Apple’s iconic 2E personal computer. By 1993, he was already arguing that Estonia “should computerize all schools” and by 1997 had championed putting all Estonian schools online and establishing publicly funded internet centers around the country. Size matters, Ilves figured about Estonia’s new role in a post-cold war, multipolar world. In the mid-90s he claims to have “reverse-engineered” Jeremy Rifkin’s The End of Work, the 1995 bestseller arguing that information technology would undermine large-scale industrial production. What he calls his “backward reading” of Rifkin led him to recognize the importance of Estonia’s miniature physical size in creating a substantial post-industrial economy, where a small, tightly knit hi-tech workforce of perpetually pivoting entrepreneurs could reinvent Estonia as the original startup nation. Yet despite its multibillion-dollar success stories – including Skype, Playtech and more startups per person than anywhere else in the world – Estonia isn’t just “E-Stonia”, some Baltic version of Silicon Valley or Israel. The little Baltic republic – with the counterintuitive Ilves at its helm – is actually building something more ambitious than just another tightly knit ecosystem of entrepreneurs, investors and technologists. Estonia is pioneering a model for a democratically transparent 21st-century networked society – the opposite of Putin’s opaque virtual reality show – by giving everyone a digital license plate. “Our goal is to make it impossible to do bad things,” he explains. “Six billion lanes, and nobody has a license plate except the Estonians.” Is Estonia becoming a 21st-century panopticon? That is Ilves’ grand – one might even say baroque – idea. Under his presidency over the past 10 years, Estonia has pioneered a series of technological reforms to not only bring everyone online but also to create a national database. The system is built around the online ID card, introduced in 2002, in which its citizens’ information – from healthcare records to tax filings to educational qualifications to real estate documents – is stored in a seamlessly integrated national database. But what about privacy in this database of its citizens’ intentions, I asked. Surely he’s creating a kind of 21st-century panopticon, a digital remix of Jeremy Bentham’s 18th-century “simple idea of architecture” where people could be watched in everything they did? “Our obsession with privacy is misguided,” Ilves – who is, of course, anything but indifferent to 20th-century Big Brother surveillance regimes – insists. The Estonian system, he explains, is based on “trust”. While the national database can be accessed by the authorities, he stresses, the citizen has to be notified when their records are observed. So if the system hasn’t been built on Blockchain technology, it nonetheless operates on Blockchain-like principles – creating a data system that can’t be altered with notifying both the authorities and citizens. This is what Ilves calls a “Lockean contract” between digital citizen and the government. The 21st-century networked sovereign, he says, is the guarantor of what he calls “data integrity”. While the government can’t access our data without our knowledge, the citizen no longer has any anonymity in this system. So everyone – from government to police to tax authorities to the citizens themselves – are transparent. Ilves sees this accountable system, the antithesis of Vladislav Surkov’s opaque Russian reality television show, as being the essential foundations of a social contract for our networked age. It will, he believes, encourage responsible use of the internet. It may even flush out the trolls. Rather than privacy from the state, the real concern, Ilves insists, is the integrity of data. Instead of worrying about somebody else knowing our blood type, we should be worried when they start “fiddling” with that data to change our blood type. Snowden ‘harmed the EU privacy debate’ This focus on data integrity is why Ilves is much less concerned with Snowden’s NSA revelations than either last year’s Office of Personnel Management (OPM) hack in which the data of 21 million people was stolen, or with the ongoing fight between Apple and the FBI over a back door to the iPhone’s data. Ilves believes that paranoia over the Snowden revelations “harmed the debate” about privacy in the EU. The NSA, he quipped, wasn’t “mining the deep packets of Bohemian poets sending emails to their girlfriends”. In contrast, the OPM and Apple cases are both about trust. Giving the authorities a blanket and unverifiable back door on the iPhone, for example, means that citizens can no longer trust either their government or Apple. Trust, then, particularly trust of both government and an accountable legal system, is the heart of the matter. That’s why Ilves co-chaired Digital Dividends, a World Bank report published earlier this year which focuses on the need for developing nations to build the foundations of an accountable legal system first if they are to develop a thriving digital sector. The Estonian model of digital development is “scalable”, Ilves says, although he acknowledges that its political side is much easier to build in a small country like Estonia. But, in light of the revelations from Snowden and other whistleblowers, can we ever really trust the system – even in a tiny country like Estonia? So what exactly does the Estonian secret service do, I ask Ilves as our interview comes to a close. “Track down Russian spies,” the Estonian president answers nonchalantly before detailing the “brutal” postwar occupation of his country and Soviet destruction of 10m books between 1945 and 1946. While he acknowledges that the threat of cyberwarfare has receded since the big cyberattacks in 2007 and that some of the contemporary paranoia about the Russian cyberthreat is “hyperventilated”, he doesn’t dismiss the threat of another occupation. After all, while Ilves might be able to make it “impossible for people to do bad things” in Estonia, this guarantee doesn’t extend to what people do in Moscow. That’s why, Ilves explains, the Estonians are digitalizing all their indigenous books and shipping the data out of the country. “And that’s why,” he adds, smiling grimly, “we are in Nato.”
The party’s over for young people, debt laden and risk averse It’s bad news for the drinks industry, but it’s mainly bad news for people who think each generation is more feckless than the last: the number of drinkers among 16- to 24-year-olds has dropped sharply. All kinds of drinkers are dying out: the steady drinkers, the binge drinkers, the drinkers-in-training, the social drinkers the bus stop drinkers – the lot. In a study by the Office for National Statistics, less than half of young people reported drinking anything in the previous week, compared with two-thirds of 45- to 64-year-olds – many of whom are in all likelihood under medical advice to please cut it out, or at least do the nation the favour of lying about it in surveys. Various theories are floated: changes in religion and ethnicity, changes wrought by social media, student loans – which we’ll return to. But a report compiled by the Demos thinktank last year found health to be the most common reason given for this abstemiousness. Health has got to them all, like a cult: they are also less likely to smoke, and the evidence of our own five senses gives us young people in hordes jogging, climbing, journeying eternally from one institution of wellness to another, serious-faced in Lycra, taking responsibility, counting footsteps, living the dream. They must look at previous generations, the lad and ladette (read “beer”) culture of the 90s, and wonder who on earth we thought we were. There’s plenty to apologise for about the fin de siècle, and it can’t all be blamed on Tony Blair, whatever his biographers tell you. It was the end of ideology, the decade sincerity died. Feminists went underground, too postmodern (also, in fairness, too drunk) to explain that just because Margaret Thatcher was a woman it didn’t mean she was a passionate advocate of gender equality; and “girl power” was a poor substitute for female emancipation. The legions of the “post-ironic” never had to account for their vapid agenda or explain the meaning of the term, since it would have been deeply passe to expect one. I say “their”; I mean “our”: there must have been postmodernism refuseniks, but I wasn’t one of them. It was a creed of puckish underachievement, personal debt, slacking and loafing, with authenticity rejected in favour of acerbic cynicism. The epic hangovers of its breakfast show DJs made national news. It was, paradoxically, both trivial and destructive. But we never went jogging. Measuring your own recovery time, having a personal best: these were the niche concerns of the elite athlete, as irrelevant to the general youth population as blood doping. It would have been considered vain to the point of alienation to prioritise your workout over your social life. That may be a modern question for new media to answer: that as everyone is ever more on display standards of physical perfection are driven inexorably, needlessly, upwards. But, crucially, we were without this mantra of personal responsibility, in which everyone must constantly strive towards self-sufficiency and self-improvement. It wasn’t because we hadn’t heard of it or didn’t understand it, or because Nike didn’t exist or British Military Fitness hadn’t been invented. We all remembered Thatcher’s fascination with the “vigorous values” (energy, adventurousness, independence) over the “softer virtues” (humility, gentleness, sympathy). We had lived through the 80s, the decade in which self-sufficiency reached such an ugly apex of valorisation that it had its own, completely erroneous, catchphrase: greed is good. We understood the fault line between those two visions of society: the one in which you parade your morals with rigorous self-discipline and concrete, measurable ambitions versus the one in which both morals and ambitions were for losers – and chose the second. It wasn’t perfect, but it was better than the first. Underpinning this new seriousness, this new competitiveness, is a very grave set of circumstances: student debt will change for ever the way 16- to 24-year-olds live, and will continue to do so until we find another way to finance education. I don’t think debt has a particular bearing on alcohol budget but it drives behaviour in more profound ways: people can still afford a pint, but they can’t afford to fall behind. To embrace risk, to have a sense of freedom and possibility, a faith in failure as a learning curve, an interest in activities – drinking, say, or chatting – whose productivity can’t be measured, perhaps because they aren’t productive at all, is plain illogical when you’re living in the economic conditions of this generation. Under the guise of saving them from the burden of the national debt, we have as a society saddled each one, individually, with impossible personal finances, from life-altering debts to career-changing rents and scant or, at the start, nonexistent wages. The solution is possibly not, at this stage, to get them all drinking more. But we should recognise in trends like these the fact that conditions for this generation are worse. The reasons are systemic, have nothing to do with personal responsibility and cannot be answered by fitness, however extreme. The drinks industry seeks to solve the conundrum of the monastic twentysomething by “premiumisation” (getting them to spend more on the few drinks they will buy). We have to understand it as a challenge broader than the market, recognise that all of our welfare is all of our business and, out of penance for the decade that made fellowship a joke, show some solidarity now.
On the faultline: New York fracking ban leaves state divided as primary looms For seven years, fracking roiled New York. Back in the summer of 2007, when the gas industry started knocking on doors in Delaware County, a faultline ran right through the home of Mark Dunau and Lisa Wujnovich. In 2014, the state announced a ban, but that faultline still runs through local and national politics, and even through the Democratic presidential primary. Activists fear Hillary Clinton’s pragmatic approach is too soft on fracking, and support her rival Bernie Sanders’ call for a national ban. Clinton supporters, meanwhile, have begun to worry that opposition to fracking would weaken her in a general election. For some, the issue has always been personal. At his organic vegetable farm in Hancock, New York, Dunau recalled his enthusiasm about leasing parts of his 50-acre lot to be fracked. In 2007, nobody knew much about fracking – the process of injecting fluid into shale rocks to fracture them and release natural gas – but a friend who was making money in the industry told him it was fine. “Why am I giving up free money?” he figured. His wife’s response, however, was swift: “Over my dead body.” They ended up in the office of a mediator in nearby Oneonta, where Wujnovich explained that the industry violated her core values. “I know Lisa,” Dunau says, “so I was like, ‘This will never work.’” On the drive home, they hit two deer. They read it as a message from the land: they wouldn’t sign a lease. Dunau dropped the issue to protect his marriage – his wife, a poet, has since penned verse comparing fracking to the rape of a daughter. (“Are you Marcellus Shale’s mother? I’ve got a deal you can’t refuse …”) But he also did some research. By early 2008, when Dunau learned gas companies had refused to disclose chemicals that went into fracking fluid, he was convinced the practice wasn’t safe. His wife welcomed him to the club. “For me, and for many women I knew, it was like: ‘Thou shalt not kill,’” she says. “It never had to be so cerebral with me. But with him, we had to go cerebral.” The couple’s story can be seen as a microcosm of what happened around the state. After a flurry of lease-signing in 2007 and 2008, the government stepped in. By the fall of 2010, the assembly had approved a fracking moratorium. In 2014, after a re-election campaign in which his opponent ran to his left, governor Andrew Cuomo cited health risks and announced a complete ban. The ban was perhaps not surprising in a state with environmental bona fidesdating back at least as far as Teddy Roosevelt. Just across the border, Pennsylvanians moved in the opposite direction. Josh Fox, the film-maker behind the anti-fracking documentary Gasland, considers Western, Pennsylvania a case study in harm. He argues that environmental and health concerns aside – and he has many – fracking will give few people as much money as their land is actually worth, because it becomes useless once drained of its gas. “The myth that this makes people richer is exactly that,” he says. Fox isn’t alone. Cuomo’s ban enjoys a 55% approval rating, and the decision is even more liked by Democrats. But some in New York still feel left behind. Chris Ostrowsky, a housing contractor who works in and around Binghamton, said that while he doesn’t see fracking as a cure-all for the area’s problems, he does think it would provide a much-needed “shot in the arm”. “With everything, there’s a risk,” he said. “Get in a car, it could crash, but you don’t stop driving every day.” Ostrowsky owns 85 acres in the city of Conklin, about 20 minutes south of Binghamton. He’s more worried about other things, like what he sees as the loss of godliness in American politics. He likes Donald Trump, he said, because he “does his own thing” and the “Make America Great Again” message resonates. It means a return to the era of Reagan. “You can’t even go to the bathroom without standing next to someone of the opposite gender,” Ostrowsky says. “We’re becoming the minority,” he added. “If someone wants to be gay or a lesbian, fine. Just don’t make me accept it.” Others, like Aaron Price, a native of nearby Windsor and the director of a number of documentaries (one sponsored by the American Petroleum Institute) about the gas industry, still hope to reverse the fracking regulations. “People hoped it would be the next big thing. Instead, it was the next big delay.” ••• Few who support the industry share his optimism two years into the ban. But the disenchantment described by Ostrowsky and others is being capitalized on by Trump – potentially dangerously for Democrats. Campaigning in Albany on Thursday, the Manhattan businessman bemoaned the ban. While Pennsylvania was experiencing an economic boom fueled by gas drilling, he said, people in rural New York had been left behind. “It’s a terrible situation, and New York is in deep trouble,” Trump told a local radio station. “As you know, we didn’t take advantage of our energy situation, and now it’s very late because the prices are so much lower. “And you look at Pennsylvania, right along the [state] line, they have machines all over the place and people driving around. You know the expression – they are driving in their Cadillacs. And on the other side of the line, which is just an artificial line, and people are literally in poverty. It’s just so incredible and we never took advantage.” The lament over lost opportunity has appealed to the angry, disillusioned white people who have become Trump’s base, and may help him win the New York Republican primary. On the Democratic side, the candidates are singing a very different tune. At a rally in Binghamton earlier this week, Bernie Sanders not only praised the ban – he also called for it to go national. “What you have done is proof to the world,” he said, “that when people stand up and form a grassroots movement of environmentalists, public health advocates, farmers, working families and religious leaders, there is nothing that we cannot accomplish.” At the debate in Brooklyn Thursday night, the Vermont senator drove the point home, attacking Clinton for her support of fracking and natural gas production while she served under Barack Obama. “When you were secretary of state, you also worked hard to expand fracking all over the world,” he said. Clinton has sought to carve out an identity as a pragmatist, and argued that countries like China need natural gas to wean off coal and dirtier forms of energy. For Wes Gillingham, cofounder of the environmental group Catskill Mountainkeeper, the Sanders campaign echoes the fight to ban fracking in New York. “They said Bernie can’t win but he’s winning,” Gillingham said, “and he’s winning on the fracking issue, which years ago we were told we can’t win.” Though many hoped Sanders and Clinton would find common ground here, they have clashed more than ever, and the issue threatens to divide Democrats at large. Green activists have vowed to bring thousands of protesters to the convention in Philadelphia to press for a nationwide ban. Even if Sanders does not win the nomination, the primary fight could push Clinton far enough left on the issue to leave her exposed against Trump. He and other proponents of the fossil-fuel industry have already exploited the rift to remind voters about the potential wealth drawn from the earth. ••• Mark Dunau isn’t particularly worried about the general election – yet. When I visited, he had recently returned from the Sanders rally in Binghamton. Despite his excitement, though, he said: “Should Bernie lose, there’s no doubt I’ll be voting for Hillary in the general.” Dunau and Wujnovich live in a converted dairy barn, built in the 1800s. The area used to be full of such farms, but they said no one could survive as a dairy farmer anymore. The economy has worsened in the last 30 years: the number of bars and grocery stores have dwindled, and the diner where they celebrated their son’s first birthday is closed. Just over the border in Pennsylvania, Keith Brant, 52, lives with his wife and four children. A fifth-generation farmer, on a farm established in 1867, he is doing what his neighbors deemed impossible: operating a profitable dairy farm. He agreed that making a living isn’t easy, noting that milk has sold at the same rate for years while the price of feed has gone up. To supplement his meager income, Brant has leased his 600 acres to Southwest Gas. A pipeline runs past the back of his house, dividing his land, and three of the eight wells he signed off on are installed. It’s not a dream scenario, but he’s getting by, with each well providing an estimated $6,000 a month – some of which the gas company withdraws in fees he did not expect. “I don’t want to get greedy, I just want to keep going,” he says. A registered Republican who will be voting for Trump despite some reservations, he sometimes worries about water quality. But so far he hasn’t had any problems, and he’s happy that he can make money off his land – unlike neighbors across the state line. Back in New York, Dunau estimates he has lost as much as $100,000 by not signing a fracking lease, which would have amounted to free money since the industry was never able to build anything in New York. But, he adds, he has never looked back. He and Wujnovich are making a fine living selling produce, mostly cooking greens, to a handful of restaurants in Manhattan. While some extra money would be nice, there are things he cares about more. “I’d rather be on the right side of history and I think I am,” he says. “Thanks to my all-seeing, all-knowing wife.”
RBS pays share bonuses worth £17.4m to top management team Royal Bank of Scotland – the bailed-out bank which recently reported its eighth consecutive year of annual losses – has handed its top management team future bonuses in shares worth £17.4m. The bank, 73% owned by the taxpayer, also released bonuses already earned worth more than £5m to the top management team, including the chief executive, Ross McEwan, who took the helm in October 2013. The £17.4m of share awards were announced to the stock market less than a fortnight after RBS reported a £2bn loss for 2015 – taking the total losses to more than £50bn since its 2008 bailout when taxpayers pumped £45bn into the bank. McEwan, who was promoted from running the retail arm of RBS to replace Stephen Hester, has attempted to defuse rows over pay by ending the practice of handing annual bonuses to his top management team. Even so, members of the team are still receiving bonuses handed out in previous years and being awarded shares through three-year performance plans. The £17.4m of shares awarded to McEwan and his 10-strong management team are based on performance over three years and will not be released until 2020 and 2021, when the executives will find out if they are paid in full. McEwan, who was paid £3.8m in 2015, was handed shares worth £2.6m as part of this long-term share plan. The London Stock Exchange announcement shows that two executives – Mark Bailie and Chris Marks – each received almost £1m of shares through annual bonuses handed to them in previous years when they worked in the investment banking arm of RBS. They were both awarded £2m of shares under the long-term bonus plan. Shares in RBS are trading at 229p, well below the 502p at which taxpayers break even on their stake and below the 330p at which George Osborne sold off the first tranche in August at a £1bn loss. Campaigners for a tax on financial services at the Robin Hood Tax campaign compared the RBS bonuses with the 1% pay rise for NHS workers. “Once again different rules seem to apply to the banking sector who, eight years on, have yet to pay the price for their part in the financial crisis. The government must step up and stop this special treatment for the City,” David Hillman, spokesman for the Robin Hood Tax campaign said. RBS notified the stock market of the share awards on Tuesday just 10 minutes after rival bailed-out bank Lloyds Banking Group confirmed the scale of payouts to its management team. Lloyds, in which taxpayers continue to have a stake of just under 10%, revealed last month that its chief executive, António Horta-Osório, and his 10 top managers were receiving awards of shares worth £20m. The chancellor wants to sell off much of the remaining stake in Lloyds to the public but was forced to postpone the sale because of the slump in shares during January’s stock-market rout. However, the shares have recovered some of their losses but are trading at about 71p – still below the 73.6p at which taxpayers break even. In Lloyds’ annual report it said there could be market volatility before and after the EU referendum on 23 June.
UniCredit shares fall sharply after European bank stress tests Italy’s biggest bank, UniCredit, has borne the brunt of lingering anxiety about the country’s banking sector, seeing its shares fall sharply following the EU-wide banking health checks. The 9.4% drop in UniCredit shares, which were being closely monitored by the Italian Borse on Monday amid heavy trading, followed Friday’s publication of stress tests on 51 banks across the EU. In the European Banking Authority tests, UniCredit recorded a capital ratio of more than 7% after the stress test applied a hypothetical shock to global growth, interest rates and currencies. Although well above the legal minimumof 4.5%, it left Unicredit as one of the five weakest out of the 51 banks tested. The deterioration in its capital ratio was not on the scale of Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena (MPS) – Italy’s third largest bank – which announced a rescue package on Friday aimed at funding at least €5bn worth of capital, after the stress test showed that its entire capital base would be wiped out under the adverse scenario. MPS was the worst-performing bank of any bank tested. Shares in MPS, regarded as the world’s oldest bank, were among the few to rally after the stress test results as its rescue operation appeared to alleviate pressure on the Italian government to intervene. Even so, questions remained about how easily MPS could find investors willing to stump up €5bn when its existing stock market value was less than €1bn. The focus had been on Italian banks ahead of the stress tests, which overall showed that the EU’s banking sector could weather a shock to the markets. The pan-European banks share index was off just 0.6%. Antonio Patuelli, president of the Italian Banking Association, welcomed the results, saying: “The credibility of Italian banks has now been strengthened.” The MPS rescue was viewed as positive. Tomas Kinmonth, fixed income strategist at ABN Amro, said: “It could be suggested that the prime benefit of the EBA 2016 stress test is that the Italian institution [MPS] is now significantly stronger.” Portuguese and Greek banks were not big enough to be included in the tests, which also focused on banks in Ireland, Spain and Austria as well Germany’s biggest bank, Deutsche, whose capital ratio fell below 8% under the test. Analysts at Capital Economics said: “Among the eurozone countries, Ireland’s and Italy’s banks stood out.” Moody’s said: “The stress test results highlight major differences in the relative strength of banking systems across the EU. The system-level results reflect the relative weakness of banks in Austria, Ireland and Italy. The key drivers are elevated credit risk of cross- border activities for the Austrian banks, and domestic market pressures for the Irish and Italian banks.” The stress tests impose a series of scenarios on the capital bases of banks recorded at the end of 2015 and give results for three years later, without allowing the management of the banks to try to raise capital by selling off businesses. Shares in UK banks Barclays and Royal Bank of Scotland slipped around 2%. Barclays’ capital ratio fell to below 7.5% under the stressed scenario, while RBS took the third largest hit of any bank to its capital under the test. RBS’s capital position would sink by seven percentage points to 8%. Moody’s said this was in part caused by “litigation and restructuring charges” faced by the bank, which is 73% owned by the UK taxpayer. Gary Greenwood, analyst at Shore Capital, said the results for UK banks were a “non-event” as they will be subjected to Bank of England tests later in the year. RBS publishes its half-year results this Friday, while Barclays reported a £2bn half-year profit last week.
Live music booking now Since emerging three years ago, members of the PC Music collective may have failed to become world-conquering superstar acts in their own right, but their jarring pop is finally reaching a global audience via chart-topping proxies. Sophie has worked with Madonna, Hannah Diamond (pictured) and Charli XCX recently collaborated on a song together, and now Danny L Harle (whose Broken Flowers has had a fair amount of Radio 1 airplay) is working with Call Me Maybe’s Carly Rae Jepsen. PC Music’s Pop Cosmos (Scala, N1, 19 May), their first London event in six months, sees Diamond and Harle – along with AG Cook, Felicita and GFOTY – play nicely together … Fresh from four nights at London’s Forum this week, Wolf Alice continue spreading their credible indie rock by joining Fall Out Boy as support for Biffy Clyro at the band’s Glasgow Summer Session (Bellahouston Park, Glasgow, 27 Aug) … Lastly, Hackney trio Hælos, who deliver a trip-hop sound that is rougher and harsher than the original – will embark on a UK tour in support of their recently released debut album (29 Apr-4 May, tour starts Night & Day Cafe, Manchester).
The view on Taiwan: Trump should handle with care No one exactly expected the Chinese to seize a United States underwater drone in the South China Sea on Friday. But Beijing has so far proved rather more predictable than the president-elect of the US. Since Donald Trump sought to rattle its cage by sharing a phone call with Taiwan’s president Tsai Ing-wen and questioning the “one-China” policy which has underpinned bilateral relations for decades, it has responded in ways familiar to China-watchers: careful official statements of displeasure, sabre-rattling in a populist state-owned tabloid, and a series of actions which could be coincidental but send a convenient message. Those include the first live-fire exercises by China’s aircraft carrier group, the warning that a US carmaker could face fines for monopolistic behaviour, and the scooping up of the oceanographic survey ship’s drone. It has so far moved with caution. But the risks created by Mr Trump’s behaviour are real and substantial. In reality, Taiwan has been self-ruled since Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang (KMT) fled there at the end of the civil war in 1949. But the three-cornered relationship has long been governed by polite fictions. The US acknowledges the belief that there is only one China; Taipei and Beijing have said there is only one China, but how one interprets that is a matter of deliberate ambiguity. These diplomatic acts of imagination are peculiar: Washington has security ties with the entity which it does not recognise diplomatically, to protect it from the one it does recognise. But they have smoothed Sino-US relations and stabilised cross-straits relations. The US role has essentially been to help maintain the status quo should either side try to veer away. Under the previous KMT president, Ma Ying-jeou, cross-straits ties grew quickly, bringing economic benefits but also concern: while few on Taiwan want formal independence, many more were concerned about Beijing’s influence. China did not want the election of the Democratic Progressive party’s Tsai Ing-wen, and appears to have made itself felt in significant but deniable ways – tourist numbers are down and Taiwan was not invited to this year’s meeting of the International Civil Aviation Organisation, despite attending previously. But it has not, for example, repudiated the agreements signed with Mr Ma. The experienced Ms Tsai has so far played a careful hand and has indicated her desire for good relations. But there is always a risk that action by Beijing and domestic political pressure might push her further. There is a reasonable case to be made that the US should be more vocal in supporting Taiwan, a thriving democracy overseen by the only woman ever elected to top office in Asia without a political dynasty behind her, to discourage Beijing from trying to disturb the present balance. Advocates say that China’s growing military power means that challenge should come sooner not later. But that does not appear to be what Mr Trump is doing. Putting aside the possibility that he is acting on whim – this call appears to have been well-planned – there are three theses about the president-elect’s intentions. The first is that he is bringing his business tactics to diplomacy, seeing what advantages he can accrue by throwing his weight around and being unpredictable. The second is that he plans a “reverse-Nixon”, cosying up to Moscow while encouraging it to distance itself from Beijing. His advisers are hawkish towards Beijing, and the Sino-Soviet relationship has always been one of convenience rather than love, scarred by deep suspicion and repeated separations. Taiwan could become a stick to beat China, using the sinophobia he embraced in his campaign to bolster his popularity in office. But while Beijing fosters and manipulates popular nationalism, it does not control it and must also answer to it; Taiwan is an issue on which both leaders and people feel extremely strongly. There is a profound risk of destabilising the region, and of miscalculations and missteps escalating the situation. Even if that peril is avoided, the long-term future of Taiwan matters much more to Beijing than Washington. Beijing is likely to react angrily and seek to punish the US – but will find it even easier to punish Taiwan. That leads to the third possibility: that Mr Trump wants to use the island as leverage – as he suggested explicitly, tweeting that “I don’t know why we have to be bound by a one-China policy unless we make a deal with China having to do with other things”. But Taiwan deserves better than to be used as a cudgel or a bargaining chip.
Senior Tory calls on government to overhaul internet abuse laws Britain needs better internet laws to stop online abuse that may be creating a nightmare for society in future, Maria Miller, the Conservative former culture secretary and equalities minister, has said. The senior Tory MP, who now chairs the Commons women and equalities committee, said the government needed to wake up to some of the problems the internet was creating, from vile abuse on social media to easy sharing of violent explicit images among young people. Miller successfully pushed the government to create a new offence of revenge pornography in 2014, outlawing the distribution of a private sexual image of someone without their consent and with the intention of causing them distress. In the same year, ministers quadrupled the maximum six-month prison term for internet trolls targeting people with offensive or threatening material to two years. The time limit for prosecutions has been extended to three years. However, the MP argued the laws around abuse and harm on the internet could be updated further and internet companies could do more to act against threatening and abusive material online. “We need better laws and we need better enforcement. Government needs to stop allowing internet providers from hiding behind arguments about the protection of free speech,” she said. Miller said people had tried to talk her out of trying to get the law changed to create a specific offence of revenge pornography, some by saying it was already illegal. “It was quite clear after talking to victims and the police that the complex set of existing and sometimes overlapping legislation made it difficult for the police to take meaningful action,” she said. Her concerns echo those of Stephen Kavanagh, the chief constable leading the fight against digital crime, who earlier this year called for new legislation to tackle an “unimagined scale of online abuse” that he said was threatening to overwhelm the police service. Kavanagh, who heads Essex police, said: “There are crimes now taking place – the malicious use of intimate photographs for example – which we never would have imagined as an offence when I was a PC in the 80s. It’s not just the nature of it, it is the sheer volume,” he said. He spoke to the two days after the England footballer Adam Johnson was found guilty of sexual activity with a 15-year-old girl, having groomed her via a series of WhatsApp messages. “No police chief would claim the way we deliver police services has sufficiently adapted to the new threat and harms that the internet brings,” Kavanagh told the at the time. He said new offences such as revenge porn were welcome, but the law overall was too piecemeal. The reported on Monday that Google, Facebook and Twitter were talking to grassroots organisations around the world to organise a global counter-speech movement against the violent misogyny, racism, threats, intimidation and abuse that flood social media platforms. The tech firms are reaching out to women’s groups, non-governmental organisations and communities in Africa, the Americas, India, Europe and the Middle East as the scale of abuse online continues to increase. Miller said she thought part of the problem was an incorrect “philosophy in government that the internet does not create new offences” and a failure among some internet companies to flag up criminal behaviour online. “The problem is rooted in the fact that many internet companies won’t acknowledge that they can challenge, and should stop, criminal behaviour, saying they are just like the postal service and can’t help that people use their services for criminal activity, that it’s not their problem. It is their problem and we need to sit up, take notice and realise that we are creating a nightmare future.” Some of Miller’s concerns about online abuse chime with those of Yvette Cooper, the Labour MP and former leadership candidate who backed a Reclaim the Internet campaign in December against “sexist abuse, misogyny, racism and violent threats online”. Miller said: “I recently did an interview on Australian television about gender fluidity. You have to delete some of it but I retweeted one of the vile comments that I received and said: ‘Do you think this is an appropriate way to behave?’ I got back a lot of vile abuse. “People are unleashing their inner venom in a way I just do not think is healthy for society. We have got to have an honest debate about this. Too many people in government are saying it is all about freedom of speech and it is not. “Threatening, homophobic, racist, sexist abuse online can actually stifle debate, lead to censorship – with some individuals not willing to say things that might provoke abuse.” The former cabinet minister has wider concerns about explicit material being viewed by children at the click of a button, which has prompted her to campaign for compulsory sex education in schools. While some will argue that taking down websites is the thin end of the wedge towards the erosion of free speech, she said: “I think the thin end of the wedge is that a 10-year-old can view pornography at the flick of a switch. I don’t think that is right. And there is still little policing of very abusive websites.” The ’s The web we want series launched on Monday to explore the darker side of online comments and efforts to foster better conversations online. It has included research on the ’s own below-the-line comment threads.
Who should Woody Allen choose to join Miley Cyrus in his new comedy series? Hannah Montana And Her Sisters, anyone? Miley Cyrus last week announced her new acting role with suitable gravitas on Instagram: “Fuck yeah! Stoked to be in Woody Allen’s first series!!!!” The twerking, hammer-licking 23-year-old popstrel will star in the veteran director’s as-yet-untitled 60s-set TV comedy, which starts shooting in March and will air this autumn on streaming service Amazon Prime. We helpfully suggest 10 other unlikely names Allen could cast – and the roles they could play… Justin Bieber Woody’s clearly in the market for former tweenyboppers keen to show they’re all grown up, so the Canadian pop chipmunk should be next on his hit list. Bieber’s got acting experience, courtesy of CSI and Zoolander 2, so could don specs to play a neurotic young Allen archetype, with added six-pack and bulging Calvins. Beliebers would boost ratings, too. Jessica Raine Broadcasting law dictates that any TV period drama must feature the star of Call the Midwife, Wolf Hall, Partners in Crime and Jericho. Compulsory hat-wearing also applies. Danny Dyer Having shot four films in our capital, Allen’s something of a Londonphile. Who’s more quintessentially cockney than the “pwopah nawty” landlord of the Queen Vic? Dyer could be Allen’s no-nonsense East End psychiatrist. “Jog on, Freudians. Get yer feet off my couch, you nuttah.” Serena Williams There’s a tennis scene in Annie Hall and Woody used the sport as the backdrop of Match Point. He’s the ideal man to supervise Serena’s acting debut. As long as they don’t have much screen time together – 4in taller in flats, she’d dwarf him. Milhouse from The Simpsons Already an established TV star and is built in a lab (OK, an animation studio) to play the young Woody. Davina McCall Just so they could call it Crimes & Miss Davinas. Jeremy Clarkson He’s an Amazon Prime colleague of Woody’s these days. The former Top Gear loudmouth could play a villainous millionaire who punches our hero in a hot food-based fracas. Shouldn’t be much of a stretch. Peppa Pig As Allen ages, his ingenues get younger. The cartoon pig has a way with a witty one-liner, would open up merchandise opportunities and is pretty much Mariel Hemingway in porcine form. Cue a romantic montage of Peppa and Woody jumping in muddy puddles. Joseph Fiennes “It don’t matter if you’re black or white…” Joseph Alberic Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes from Salisbury has just been cast as Michael Jackson in a TV drama. If he can play the King of Pop, surely he can play anyone. Mia Farrow That would be surprise casting. It’d be even more jaw-dropping if Farrow played a love interest of roughly Woody’s own age.
Goldstone review – a masterpiece of outback noir that packs a political punch Cinema itself began with the western: 1903’s The Great Train Robbery, which most scholars believe to be the first film to tell a fictitious story. But although Australia has no shortage of rugged outdoors people and harsh picturesque terrain, Australian cinema never had an equivalent style of film-making. The closest we’ve come is western-ish productions such as The Story of the Kelly Gang, Likewise, as much as vision of an Akubra-wearing gumshoe detective might appeal, down under noir films were never a thing. In the 1940s and 50s, when guys like Humphrey Bogart wooed dames and dry-gulched cronies, Australian cinema was languishing, or just about to: it produced on average just two features a year from 1952 to 1966. In the magnificent, big-thinking Goldstone, which played opening night at this year’s Sydney film festival, writer/director Ivan Sen combines two genres we never really had, to make one film no Australian should miss. It is a “spiritual sequel” to 2013’s Mystery Road, meaning the protagonist is the same but it works perfectly fine as a stand-alone story. In his own drunk-as-a skunk way, weeping pathos from his pores thanks to another exemplary performance from star Aaron Pedersen, the protagonist – detective Jay Swan – is like Clint Eastwood’s Man with No Name, riding into town to upset the status quo. Authorities who run the titular out-woop-woop place, including the mayor, Maureen (Jacki Weaver, again in frozen-smile stink-eye mode), have some kind of racket going on. Exactly what it involves will be revealed in time. Suffice to say the last thing they want is a brave outsider upsetting their ecosystem of corruption. In vintage noir fashion, it all begins with a girl. And like virtually any western, it is – save for a couple of prickly supporting characters – a male-oriented affair. Sen paints a picture of a viciously sexist society where women, in particular sex workers, are stripped of their rights and their identities, and traded like commodities. Swan visits Goldstone to track down the whereabouts of a missing young Chinese woman. In the first scene he is behind the wheel and pissed as a fart. The horse Swan rides into town on is the back of a divvy van, after being apprehended by young local cop Josh (Alex Russell). When Maureen visits Josh at the pub, wielding a freshly baked cake, you can tell by the serpentine hiss in Weaver’s voice that he ought to pay attention. A new mine-expansion project is under way, she explains, and it’s worth serious bucks – hundreds of millions of dollars. There’s a slight complication though: it requires “blackfella approval”. Swan is the recipient of numerous lines like “keep your head down” and “don’t rock the boat”, which you just know is going to have the opposite effect. A pasty David Wenham, donning a tie with a short shirt and rolled-up socks, is the boss of a mining company in nearby Furnace Creek. Tom E Lewis is the head of the clearly corrupt local Aboriginal land council. But the easy-to-pigeonhole supporting characters (the conniving mayor; the corrupt businessman) primarily serve as reference points for the two leading men to define themselves; the focus of the film remains on them. The presence of mobile sex worker Pinky (Kate Beahan), with her sumptuous retro-pink caravan, provides a great albeit brief counterpoint to most portrayals of sex workers who need to be rescued. Perhaps a second “spiritual sequel” could follow her story. As the stakes inevitably increase and Jay and Josh’s frenemy relationship leads to a degree of collaboration – the former goading the latter for allowing awful things to happen on his watch – Sen dishes out action with unerring patience. By the time a car chase scene arrives, it has the weight of an already great film behind it. There’s a shoot-out too, but every shot matters and every bullet counts; your body can almost register the impact. Sen’s cinematography (in addition to writing and directing his films he also shoots, edits, scores and sometimes produces them) avoids the kind of orange-baked, hot, gluggy glaze popularised after 1971’s Wake in Fright. Goldstone’s colour grading is sharp and crisp, its visual makeup – replete with seamlessly integrated aerial drone footage – grandiose, but wired in small details. It’s a gorgeous film to watch, but a better and bigger one to think about. The key to unlocking this hugely ambitious genre hybrid – a classic Australian film and a masterpiece of outback noir – is understanding that Goldstone is a country, not a town, and its name is Australia. Sen’s environmental messages arrive at a time when coal seam gas exploration is a key election issue; meanwhile, corruption allegations involving mining companies and land councils make it clear the story cannot be brushed aside as mere fiction. Opening images of sepia-toned photographs from the gold rush are crucial. The social and political commentaries underpinning Sen’s story paint a picture of a nation that has always, since settlement, prioritised money over land, and has never understood – as Midnight Oil might have put it (before its lead singer became part of the problem) – something as precious as a hole in the ground. Goldstone belongs to a suite of Australian films that contemplate land ownership in memorable ways, from 1932’s On Our Selection to 1950’s Bitter Springs and even 1997’s The Castle. But it has more weight than any of them, because the film’s spiritual roots hark back to the traditional owners of the land. In a small but moving role David Gulpilil plays a man who cannot be bought; his soul is connected to the ground and the sky. When Josh suggests to Jay there is no point rebelling, because when the dust settles the dirt of corruption will remain, Jay takes solace in his belief that at least the dirt will be a little thinner. People change but the system remains more or less the same, Sen seems to be saying. But in that “less” there is something special, even sacred: the bit in life that says there’s something worth fighting for. What a lot to think about; what a hell of a film. • Goldstone opens nationally on 7 July
Facebook wins appeal against Belgian privacy watchdog over tracking Facebook has successfully overturned a decision that blocked the social network from using its so-called datr cookies to track the internet activity of logged-out users in Belgium. This is the latest twist in the long-running case that saw the Belgian Privacy Commission (BPC) demand Facebook stop the use of some cookies that allowed it to track users outside of Facebook. A court ordered Facebook to “stop tracking and registering internet usage by people who surf the internet in Belgium” in November. Facebook appealed on the grounds that Belgium does not have the authority to regulate the social network because its European base of operations is in Dublin, Ireland, and won. The Brussels appeals court also threw out the BPC’s claim that the case was urgent and required expedited procedure. A Facebook spokesperson said: “We are pleased with the court’s decision and look forward to bringing all our services back online for people in Belgium.” The BPC said: “Today’s decision simply and purely means that Belgian citizens cannot obtain the protection of their private lives through the courts and tribunals when it concerns foreign actors.” The case, brought by the Belgian privacy watchdog in June 2015, accused Facebook of indiscriminately tracking internet users using its datr cookie when they visited pages on the site or clicked “like” or “share”, even if they were not members of the social network. It claimed that tracking users without their permission contravened European privacy law. Facebook claimed the datr cookie is used to protect users as part of its security systems, preventing user accounts being hacked. The BPC said it would look into launching a final appeal with the court of cassation, which can throw out previous judgments but not deliver new ones, and has previously overruled the court of appeal on matters of jurisdiction over foreign companies. Facebook is chipping away at privacy – and my profile has been exposed Mark Zuckerberg tapes over his webcam. Should you?
Watching sad films boosts endorphin levels in your brain, psychologists say Tyrannosaur, Breaking the Waves and Schindler’s List might make you reach for the tissues, but psychologists say they have found a reason why traumatic films are so appealing. Researchers at Oxford University say that watching traumatic films boosts feelings of group bonding, as well as increasing pain tolerance by upping levels of feel-good, pain-killing chemicals produced in the brain. “The argument here is that actually, maybe the emotional wringing you get from tragedy triggers the endorphin system,” said Robin Dunbar, a co-author of the study and professor of evolutionary psychology at the University of Oxford. Previous research has found that laughing together, dancing together and working in a team can increase social bonding and heighten pain tolerance through an endorphin boost. “All of those things, including singing and dancing and jogging and laughter, all produce an endorphin kick for the same reason - they are putting the musculature of the body under stress,” said Dunbar. Being harrowed, he adds, could have a similar effect. “It has turned out that the same areas in the brain that deal with physical pain also handle psychological pain,” said Dunbar. Writing in the journal Royal Society Open Science, Dunbar and colleagues describe how they set out to unpick whether our love of storytelling, a device used to share knowledge and cultivate a sense of identity within a group, is underpinned by an endorphin-related bonding mechanism. To explore the possibility, the researchers split 169 participants into groups composed largely of people they did not know, and showed them the traumatic drama Stuart: A life backwards which is based on the true story of a disabled, homeless drug addict and alcoholic. A control group of 68 individuals was shown, two documentaries back to back - one on natural history and the other on the geology and archaeology of Britain. Before and after seeing the films, participants were asked to indicate through various scales their mood, together with their feelings of belonging towards other members of their group. A number of participants were also asked to complete an exercise to gauge their pain tolerance - the wall-sit test, involving squatting with their back against a wall for as long as possible. With increased levels of pain tolerance linked to the release of potent pain-killing chemicals known as endorphins, the test offered scientists an indirect way of gauging changes to endorphin levels in the brain. “What one wants to know is does your response to one film change in a different way to your response to the other,” said Dunbar. The results reveal that those who watched the traumatic film had, on average, a strong negative change to their mood, while those who watched the documentaries showed only a slight change in both positive and negative markers, which the researchers attribute to boredom. They also found that, on average, the pain tolerance of those who watched the traumatic movie increased by 13.1%, whereas those who watched the documentaries experienced a decrease in pain threshold of 4.6%. The upshot is that the traumatic film boosted pain thresholds by nearly 18% compared to the “control” scenario. What’s more, those who showed an increase in pain tolerance also had increased feelings of group bonding, despite their mood becoming less positive. But not everyone showed an emotional response to Stuart: A life backwards. Some viewers showed a decrease in pain threshold, together with no change in their social bonding. “This is probably true of everyday life - some people get very moved emotionally by some event that happens while other people look blankly on and say ‘what is the fuss?’” said Dunbar. While further research is needed to look at a wider range of films and other influences, such as musical scores, Dunbar says the results suggest that watching traumatic films increases endorphin levels in the brain, boosting pain tolerance and increasing the sense of bonding with others in the group. Prof Sophie Scott, group leader of the speech communication neuroscience group at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, said it was striking that traumatic films, like laughter, appear to produce a social bonding effect. “It suggests that it not simply [with] positive emotions that you have this bonding effect - maybe there is something about a shared emotional experience which is really changing how your endorphins are being taken up and making you feel closer to people,” she said, adding that exploring the effects of anger or disgust could help to tease apart whether the effect was down to particular emotions, or rather the sharing of them. But Scott, who wasn’t involved in the research, said she isn’t convinced that Dunbar and colleagues have discovered the foundations of our love of storytelling. “Stories are everything for humans - if we can fit something into a story we will do. We understand things better if they fit to stories, we remember things better if they fit to stories,” she said. “I don’t know if you are going account for that simply with shared emotions.”
Ugandan president stops to make roadside phone call. Twitter explodes The Ugandan president has become a meme sensation after being photographed making an important phone call while sitting on a portable chair at the side of the road. Yoweri Museveni was on his way to a public engagement in the south west district of Isingiro when his motorcade ground to a halt, a padded foldout seat appeared and he relaxed into a 30 minute chat. Or at least that’s what the photo posted on Facebook by his press secretary appeared to suggest. It did not take long to reach the consciousness of Ugandans on Twitter (#UOT), who spent the next few hours frantically speculating about who could be on the receiving end of such an important call. Who was he talking to? Could it be that he was trying to stop opposition leader Kizza Besigye being released on bail? The politician, who is Museveni’s most formidable opponent, had been imprisoned for two months on treason charges after he denounced February’s elections as a sham and declared that he was in fact the winner. Or maybe the photo was a carefully choreographed PR stunt to distract attention from anything Besigye had to say? Maybe it wasn’t politics but Museveni had experienced one too many connection dropouts and decided that there was no time like the present to fix Uganda’s mobile signal? Or maybe he’d just got round to downloading Drake’s latest album? #M7challenge As the meme multiplied some Ugandans questioned whether they should be following presidential protocol by finding a outside spot to sit and chat, challenging others to do the same using a hashtag inspired by Museveni’s nickname M7. Although some attempts seemed more opportunist than others. Others didn’t seem to care too much about who was on the other end of the call but clearly enjoyed imagining the 71-year-old president, who has been in office since 1986, in alternative surroundings. But who brought the chair? And as the meme merry-go-round continues, it remains unclear who provided the chair.
Man climbs Trump Tower in New York City using suction cups A 20-year-old Virginia man seeking an “audience” with Donald Trump used large suction cups to scale the outside of Trump Tower on Wednesday for three hours, reaching the 21st floor before being hauled through a window by police. The climber – a young, white male with long brown hair and muttonchops – wore a backpack and used a harness and rope stirrups to fasten himself to the side of the 58-story Manhattan skyscraper, above Fifth Avenue. The man used four suction cup-like devices, each with ropes attached for him to stand on. The building’s windows were apparently too dirty for the cups to attach to, as he frequently stopped to clean the windows before attempting to attach to them. Police officers smashed windows and broke through a ventilation duct in an attempt to block his progress. Officers also lowered themselves toward him using a window washer’s platform. For a long time, the climber played a slow-motion cat-and-mouse game with officers, eluding them by methodically working his way across the facade and the angled corners of the building. The chase ended dramatically just after 6.30pm. As a crowd gasped on the street below, two officers leaning far out of a window frame where the glass was removed grabbed the climber’s arm and backpack, and in a flash yanked him from his dangling stirrups. He went through the opening head first, his legs pointed skyward. Police had deployed large, inflated crash pads at the scene, but it was unclear whether they were positioned close enough to where the man was climbing to offer any protection if he fell. He was speaking with officers through the holes cut in the side of the building. When would-be rescuers smashed a window above him, he ducked to avoid big shards of glass that fell. They collectively inhaled as he was pulled inside. “I’m so disappointed,” a young man said. Others sadly lamented that they missed it. Police blocked off much of 56th Street, the south side of the tower, where the man was climbing. The crowds pressed together in the heat and humidity and spilled onto Madison Avenue. With smartphones and cameras raised, they documented the strange occurrence on Snapchat, Twitter and Facebook Live. In offices nearby, some watched from the windows. “I gotta get this shit on camera. This is hilarious,” one man said. Others wondered if the climber – whom many were calling Steve – was getting tired. Another yelled “Make America great again”. Others offered their own theories on why the man was doing this. “It’s gotta be a protest,” a man said. Some disagreed. “I think it’s just a daredevil,” said Carolyn Gatchell, a nurse from New Hampshire. “I think it’s ironic because it’s a Trump building. I’m anxious to see what he has to say about it.” Gatchell and her husband, Bill, in town on vacation, were at the Empire State building when they saw helicopters near Trump Tower so they headed down to check out what was going on. “I think it’s innocent – not a terrorist or anything,” Bill added of the climbers’ motivation. The day before, police said, the climber posted a video on YouTube entitled: Message to Mr Trump (why I climbed your tower). “I am an independent researcher seeking a private audience with you to discuss an important matter. I guarantee that it’s in your interest to honor this request,” he said in the video. “Believe me, if my purpose was not significant, I would not risk my life pursuing it. The reason I climbed your tower is to get your attention. If I had sought this via conventional means, I would be much less likely to have success because you are a busy man with many responsibilities.” NYPD assistant chief William Aubrey said the man, who was not named by police, told officers the same thing after he was safely inside the building. “At no time did he express that he wanted to hurt anybody,” Aubrey added. The tower is headquarters to Trump’s Republican presidential campaign and his business empire. Trump also lives there, though he was in Virginia on Wednesday afternoon and was headed to Florida for an evening event. Kathy, a Trump supporter from Sunnyside, was visiting a friend nearby when she saw the crowds. She said she used to work in the building but not for Trump and was concerned for the safety of former coworkers who might be there, as well as Trump. She was relieved to find out that he was away . “People want to be around him,” she said of Trump. “They will glom onto anything like him. Look how much attention this guy is getting.” About 20 police officers funneled curious onlookers out of the street so cars could pass unhindered down Madison Avenue. Those who moved across the street could still see the building where the climber was approaching an open window and police.
NHS leadership needs to give staff a powerful voice in any system change Inevitably the NHS reform drive got caught up in the party conference crossfire. Diane Abbott, in her last few days as shadow health secretary, attempted to rebrand sustainability and transformation plans (STPs) as “secret Tory plans”, while prime minister Theresa May made the ludicrous assertion that the government had given the NHS “more than its leaders asked for”, conjuring up an image of NHS England trying to work out what to do with all the extra cash. But clinicians as well as politicians are becoming increasingly vocal on the current round of reform. The Royal College of GPs is getting angry over the obsessive focus on sorting out hospital deficits rather than transforming care. At their annual conference this week, college chair Maureen Baker accurately pointed out that if there is insufficient investment in general practice, system transformation simply won’t happen, and the whole process will have been in vain. NHS England has expressed concern about the lack of clinical involvement in drawing up local plans. At the recent NHS Expo, chief nursing officer Professor Jane Cummings revealed that she had had “mixed responses” when pushing for nurses to have a greater role in STPs, and urged healthcare professionals to make their voices heard. The RCN backs the drive for patients to increasingly manage their own care, but has warned that the only way to do that effectively is to listen to patients and clinicians. In many areas this did not happen before the plans were submitted to NHS England. The extraordinary speed with which the plans are being put together is causing concern. Last week Julia Simon, who has just finished as the head of commissioning policy at NHS England, went so far as to claim there were “a lot of lies in the system about the … benefits that will be delivered; it’s just a construct, not a reality”. She described the speed as “mad” and “shameful”. NHS England is rushing the process for a reason. As NHS Improvement chief executive Jim Mackey made clear from his first days in the job, it would be a calamitous failure for the NHS to push the Department of Health over its parliamentary spending limit. The possible consequences are far greater than simply NHS England chief executive Simon Stevens losing his job; it could lead to a fundamental change in the relationship between frontline health services and government. Despite Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt’s determination to keep a personal grip on the health service, and despite the numerous weaknesses in the current structure, the NHS does at least have a meaningful degree of autonomy from direct Whitehall control. Busting the spending limit runs the serious risk that this would be reversed, to the detriment of the whole system. But NHS England and NHS improvement need to balance the need for quick action to stabilise the finances with acceptance that the only way to deliver the transformation they seek is for it to be led by clinicians as much as managers. STPs are focused on structures and process, but as thousands of pages of visions and plans that have come to little over the years demonstrate, documents like these are ultimately worthless without clinical buy-in and leadership, because they all depend on clinicians taking different decisions with their patients on the best way forward. The frenetic pace of the STP process gives the erroneous impression that, at least for the most advanced areas, it will all be over by Christmas. In reality, this is just the beginning of many years of work to change the culture of the entire health and care system. Once the immediate panic over getting financial plans in place has subsided, the NHS leadership needs to focus relentlessly on giving staff a powerful voice in system change. Clinicians need to be empowered and supported in making the improvements that they know are needed, while also being challenged to develop their thinking around crucial areas such as building services around the needs of the patients rather than the institution. Either clinicians start to lead this, or it will fail. Join the Healthcare Professionals Network to read more pieces like this. And follow us on Twitter (@GdnHealthcare) to keep up with the latest healthcare news and views.
What do Germans think about Brexit? They pity us On Sunday night, I was watching Hungary play Belgium in a rowdy beer garden at Tempelhofer Feld, once a military airfield, now Berlin’s largest public park. Germany had just won their match against Slovakia 3-0, and men on their fourth pilsner were noisily reliving the highlights. But when the news came on at half time, the entire garden suddenly fell eerily silent. “It’s a topsy-turvy world”, the news reader said. “From Brussels’ point of view, Great Britain is out of the EU … but suddenly London is not so sure.” Jaws dropped around my table. One person banged his head on the table in mock despair. As great as the shock at Thursday’s result may have in been in the UK, it is greater still in Germany. In Britain, some had seen it coming, and at least half the country must have been looking forward to it. But in Germany the leave vote blew away the foundations of what people believed the British character to be. For months, whenever I had tried to tell fellow Germans that a British vote to leave was entirely possible and even likely, they calmly assured me that this could not be the case. Britain was the home of pragmatism, of common sense – did I not know? Historical experience has shaped that German notion of the British national character. In his essay Gardens in Wartime, the Austrian novelist Stefan Zweig contrasts how the outbreak of the first world war triggered a fever of flagwaving and patriotic chanting on the streets of Vienna, with how calmly Londoners carried on pruning their hedges when news of the war against Hitler broke in 1939. The British were meant to be immune to all the neurotic romanticism that had played havoc with the German-speaking people’s imagination in the 20th century. But on Thursday that nation of supposed pragmatists made a decision that seemed fuelled by some wildly idealised notion of “sovereignty”. A people admired by many Germans as essentially cautious, sceptical, small-c conservatives had flamboyantly gambled with their economic future. Until the feeling sets in that Britain has gambled with Europe’s future too, most Germans don’t hate the Brits for what happened – they pity them. A couple of Germans will have raised a glass to the British flipping the bird at the EU establishment on Thursday night. But politically that sentiment has been voiced only in minority fringes, such as the Anti-capitalist Left group of the German Left party, or the wilder edges of Alternative für Deutschland, the party that was founded on an anti-euro ticket in 2013 and has since grown on the back of populist anti-refugee messages. When a colleague and I interviewed the AfD’s deputy leader, Alexander Gauland, in his Potsdam offices a few weeks ago, we were struck not only by his strategic concerns about the economic consequences of Britain leaving the EU behind, but also his deep-rooted Anglophilia. Gauland, often referred to as the “thinker-in-chief” behind the populist right party, wears tweed jackets, has written a book on the history of the House of Windsor and used to drive an original Mini even after the car was remade by BMW. His parliamentary office is adorned with portraits of British parliamentarians such as William Gladstone, William Lamb and the Duke of Devonshire. The intellectual motor behind a party orchestrating a revolution against Germany’s “political elite”, I realised, nurtures a deep nostalgia for the British elites of yesteryear, of a world in which people read Country Life by the fireplace at their family pile. That is how deeply myths of Britishness are hardwired into Germany’s cultural memory. When commentators try to calculate the negative impact that Brexit will have on Britain, they tend to talk mainly of exports and imports, financial markets and military muscle. People have so far talked little about the asset that most normal Europeans most admire most about Great Britain: the soft power that comes with cultural clout. Even those Germans who complain that Britain was never truly part of the European family anyway will concede that most of their compatriots don’t know who the French equivalent of James Bond is, or the Polish Mick Jagger. An arch-federalist friend put it like this: “Britishness is all pomp and circumstance and no substance. Look at the Queen’s birthday, or Cameron’s whole mission to reform the EU – it’s all empty, all just show. But my God, are they brilliant at it.” British soft power used to be like some magical balloon animal: seemingly made of thin air but strangely flexible and resistant. The question is whether Brexit will burst that balloon. As the Bulgarian political scientist Ivan Krastev has recently argued, it is not just British soft power but the very idea of soft power that has, during the refugee crisis, gone from being every liberal democracy’s most sought-after asset to being seen as a source of vulnerability. But given the image of itself that Britain has projected over the last month, I wonder if German students, creatives and businesspeople will still be as keen to flock to the UK as they have been in my lifetime. What if the much-hated “metropolitan liberal elite” who couldn’t make a difference at the referendum votes with its feet instead and moves to other open-minded cities around Europe? On Friday evening, once the shock had sunk in, the German foreign office pointedly tweeted that its staff were off to “an Irish pub” to get decently drunk. It felt like a hint of things to come.
Renting hell in New York City: how my hoarder landlady ruined my life For five years, I lived on the most beautiful block in the five boroughs of New York City, occupying two full floors of a brownstone on a tree-lined street in downtown Brooklyn. It was the kind of block where the gingko trees turned the evening light gold every October, around the same time families dressed up their stoops with jack-o-lanterns for Halloween. Think the idyllic exterior of the Huxtables’ house from the Cosby Show. Think the hood of Spike Lee’s She’s Gotta Have It – a black creative mecca before the onslaught of gentrification ran every black person out of it. If my street was picture-book worthy, the house itself was not. I lived in a pre-war building and it chilled me to consider that when it was built, my ancestors were chattel slaves. The facade was crumbling, the iron fence was falling apart. When glass had broken on the front parlor windows, my landlady had replaced them with cheap plastic. But the house was near many subway lines, the most cutting-edge arts venues, and the best dining in the greatest city on the face of the Earth. For all of this, I paid just $1,000 a month for some 2,400 square feet across two upper floors – the kind of bargain which is the stuff of New York legend. To get the apartment, I made a two-part devil’s bargain. First, I had to accept that my landlord was a compulsive hoarder who didn’t want to get rid of things that were trash, if not Level 4 biohazards. She held on to everything as if her life depended on it (and psychologically, it did). And second, I would have to take care of her animals when she went out of town a few weeks each summer. She had a mangy mutt named Timmy*, nearly blind with cataracts and six cats (one had a leg missing, and another only had one eye). Honestly, I thought I could manage the situation. And regardless, my apartment was going to be so big and so clean. I’d have nine rooms and two bathrooms all to myself. I could fill it with tasteful second-hand mid-century furniture. I could have a full-sized Christmas tree each winter and I could have a boyfriend and cook with him. I could even put up friends and family in one of the guest rooms (that’s guest rooms, plural). Besides, living upstairs from a hoarder wasn’t so unusual. According to a 2013 article in Scientific American, “Between five million and 14 million people in the US are compulsive hoarders.” Hoarding seems like a logical symptom to appear in a world sick from consumer capitalism, after all. I could deal with it. I was wrong. ••• I had met my landlady through friends of friends from my hometown. She was a white woman who had become a Sai Baba Hindu in the 1970s and had an inappropriate sense of her connection to Indian culture. She was older and looking for a tenant who’d shovel her walk when it snowed and help out here and there. I knew she was kooky, but the first sign that something was seriously wrong didn’t come until I called her when she wasn’t home and her outgoing message breathlessly referred to her blind dog: “Thank you for calling Timmy Enterprises. We are not in right now, please leave a message for Timmy after the beep.” That alone should have tipped me off. She also had pictures of her dog all over her house and referred to him as “my soulmate”. I had thought taking care of her pets would involve walking her dog and feeding her cats when she went out of town. But periodically, she’d call to “avail myself of your mortuary services” (said in a breathless faux Victorian accent that convinced me I was living in the upper quarters of Grey Gardens). The cats often brought “gifts” –dead birds, mice, crows and rats – which I was expected to dispose of. Sometimes, there was a feline carcass to contend with. “I think Muffy* has died,” she said one morning through sobs. I wasn’t quite sure how she could not know if her cat was dead or alive, but it turns out she had thrown a blanket over the poor dying animal. “I was worried she might die during the night, and I can’t bear to look at anything dead!” She then left the room and yelled, “OK, can you see if she’s dead and if so, put her in a bag so we can bury her in the backyard?” When I lifted the blanket, Muffy’s eyes were bulging out of her head and her tongue was sticking out of her mouth like she was being strangled. It was as if the Kitty Grim Reaper had slipped his bony hands around her neck and Muffy, abandoned by her caretaker under a blanket, had left this world screaming, “DEATH, DON’T TAKE ME!” Once my landlady knew her cat was safely out of sight in a bag, she said she wanted to watch Muffy’s burial. Digging into the hard earth, my $1,000-a-month apartment started seeming more expensive than the bargain I thought it was. And I should have started looking for a new place when I hit a flat rock with the shovel and my landlady took it from me, thinking it was slate and saying through tears that she could make a “cheese plate” out of it. ••• Over the years, I noticed that most of my landlady’s few friends stopped visiting her. I also grew increasingly concerned for those animals, who had no choice to live in such squalor. When I tried to bring it up with her, she admitted she hadn’t vacuumed in ages because the vacuum cleaner was broken. But, when she had taken it to a repair shop to get it fixed, the owner “rudely told me to get it out of his shop because it smelled like cat piss!”. Which it did – like her entire house. When Timmy finally died, she changed her outgoing message: “Timmy Enterprises is now closed,” she said in a voice that sounded suicidal. “Our founder and CEO has died. Please leave a message after the beep.” (The blind mutt was soon replaced by a deaf shih tzu named Maple Mandy*.) ••• The day of my landlady’s 70th birthday, I got the phone call that would change my life (and which would have ended my landlady’s if I hadn’t answered). It was from one of her few friends she hadn’t alienated. “Please go downstairs and check on her,” she begged me. “I think she is dying! And she won’t go to the emergency room!” There was no answer when I knocked downstairs so I let myself in. Her apartment was worse than I had ever seen it before. Stepping over animal feces, I followed the sound of moaning to my landlady’s bedroom, where I found her sprawled on a pile of trash, with several mangy cats roaming over her body. She was grasping her abdomen, which was swollen and looked like it was going to burst. In the dim light from a spartan naked bulb, I could actually see roaches and spiders crawling over the mass. My landlady was clearly in pain but didn’t want to go to the ER. She had not been to a doctor or taken any western medicine in 41 years. I suspected she was on the verge of dying and insisted she go. She refused. Our argument grew heated, and I called her friend and described what I was seeing. My landlady became terrified that I would call 911 and that paramedics might see inside her house; it was then that I realized I was one of very few people who had been in her home in a long time. We compromised: a friend agreed to drive us to an urgent care facility. The car ride was traumatic – she moaned like a dying animal, screaming that she would never go to an ER. But when the urgent care physician quickly recognized that she was was within hours of dying, they threw her in an ambulance for the nearest hospital. Having not been to a doctor in four decades, she had no insurance nor medical history to help the medical staff. The doctors quickly diagnosed her with a condition which, if not treated, can kill someone – and she’d already been having symptoms for a day and a half, hoping chanting and herbal tea would fix it. I decided to postpone a surgery I was supposed to have myself to attend to her instead. She was hooked up to a ventilator and had a tube shoved down her throat. Unable to talk, she wrote on a pad that she wanted me to be her healthcare proxy and I accepted. What followed was a terrible meeting with her, a patient advocate, and the hospital attorney to go over her end-of-life and do-not-resuscitate directives. Eventually I tracked down her estranged brother in the midwest, who had no interest in coming to help. So over the course of a week, her friend and I held ice to her forehead and dabbed moisture on her lips to try to keep her mouth from drying out. For days on end, fever racked her body, and infection threatened to kill her. I worried constantly about her and, selfishly, also worried about what was going to happen to me. Long term, she’d left no will and had no heirs, so I could be out on the street. Short term, it was winter, the oil was almost out of the furnace, and I had to figure out how to pay for a new delivery. The hospital’s social worker had begun to assess her case, too. My landlady was facing weeks in the hospital and months of recovery: did she have a caretaker and a safe environment? Her friend and I bluntly told the social worker that the house was a biological hazard. Between the animals, the feces and the bugs, the house would kill her. ••• I took Maple Mandy out for a walk the next day, and when and I bent over to pick up after him I recoiled in horror: his poop was moving, writhing with dozens of pink and white worms. The turd looked like Medusa’s head. It was the most disgusting thing I had ever seen. I immediately took the dog to a vet, who explained that Maple Mandy needed to be dewormed, that he was probably living in a vermin-infested home, and that there was no point in taking him back to that environment until it had been fumigated. I slapped my credit card down to board him and get him human-priced treatments at the animal hospital – then went to see my landlady at the human hospital. Fortunately, the social worker had just been to visit and had put the fear of God in her. Given her age, the social worker had explained, and given she had no family to care for her, the hospital would have to do a home inspection before she would be released. If it was as bad as it had been described to her, the social worker said, my landlady might be deemed unable to care for herself. Animal Control could remove her pets and she could be placed in a city facility. This news had snapped my landlady into a rare moment of clarity. “I can’t believe I let the house get that bad,” she said. “I knew it was bad, but I can’t believe I didn’t see how bad it really was.” I seized the moment for an intervention. I told her that she was abusing her animals through neglect. That they were filled with worms. That I couldn’t let her go back there. And then she begged me: “I’ll give you the money,” she said. “You’ve got to get the house professionally cleaned, before they inspect it so I can go home.” She gave me a few thousand dollars, told me to call someone in her church to help hire cleaners, and said, “The house has to be clean.” ••• It was a descent into madness, and I am afraid I went a bit mad along the way, too. I went about it, with the help of about a dozen paid professionals who said it was the most disgusting apartment they had ever cleaned. Everyone wore gloves, goggles and masks. Despite all those cats, there was an infestation of mice between the floorboards, along with fleas, roaches, spiders and spider eggs. We started with one of two fumigations. We then took all items that could be salvaged (papers, jewelry, books, utensils, tools) and put them in clear plastic 30 gallon bags so that my landlady could sort them and put them away when she returned. There were about 100 of these bags. Everything cloth had to be sent to an industrial cleaner for washing; much of it had to be run through twice. I personally picked up all the cloth from the floor, and I filled some 30 gallon bags, weighing about 1,500lb in total. But perhaps the most horrid place was the kitchen. There were hundreds of roaches inside the refrigerator. There were moths and mice feces in dry food containers. There were canned goods that were more than 10 years past their expiration dates. Her box of teas (which, I’m afraid, I had been served from) was crawling with bugs. Many of her cooking utensils were caked with rust. She had been cooking meals for the homeless once a month from that kitchen, and I wondered what kinds of rancid food those poor people had been subjected to. Many disgusting items were hidden from sight. If a chair was peed on by a cat, a sheet would be thrown over it. If another cat vomited on that sheet, another sheet would be thrown on top of it. Then another. It wasn’t unusual to find 10, 15 layers of cloth on any given surface. ••• Around this time, the fifth version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) of Mental Disorders was published, and for the first time ever, it included hoarding as a mental illness. It doesn’t take a PhD in psychology to understand that a person who literally wallows in shit doesn’t feel very good about themselves. But consulting my sister Sharron (she had a PhD in psychology) helped me understand exactly why it is delusional and why the DSM believes hoarding behavior has harmful effects. Symptoms of the disorder cause clinically significant distress or impairment. These behaviors can often be quite severe and even threatening. Beyond the mental impact of the disorder, the accumulation of clutter can create a health issue. I would also reluctantly emphasize that hoarding is incredibly social. Untrained to really help her, I had enabled my landlady’s hoarding, and had gone a little crazy in pretending like it wasn’t as bad as it was. ••• The dozen workers worked around the clock. I missed Christmas and New Year’s with my own family trying to get the house in order. But somehow we managed to make the house clean and somewhat orderly. Maple Mandy was able to come home. And when the city checked out the house, it passed inspection. My landlady returned to her dewormed dog and her cats. She had a brand new mattress, bed linens and curtains. Perhaps for the first time in years, she could see her floor, which was shiny with Murphy’s Oil Soap. She thanked me, apologized for the mess she’d put me through, and promised to hire a housekeeper to keep things in order while she recovered. But the honeymoon didn’t last long. She was now expecting me to bring her food several times a day, and refused to hire a nurse. I was nervous that she was further going to consume my life. After a few days, I stepped in something when I came in to bring her food. The cat turds started piling up on the floor again, and I reminded her that she needed to get a house cleaner. When they were still there 24 hours later, I told her that until she picked them up, I wouldn’t be coming back. We really only spoke one more time after that, when she summoned me down a few weeks later to go over a list of missing items. “There were three can openers, I can only find two!” She screamed at me.“Where’s my fourth tennis ball?” I told her to go through all the clear plastic bags, but that the cleaning crew had cleaned everything that could be salvaged and thrown out what couldn’t. “I told you to get the house cleaned!” She yelled at me. “Cleaning does not mean throwing things away!” ••• She never spoke to me again after that. Part of me was relieved. I grew to have a newfound understanding about people in abusive relationships who don’t leave realizing that I – with some education and some money and no children to support – felt paralyzed about even trying to find another home. And then one day, a man rang my doorbell. He was a process server, giving me my eviction papers to put me out on the street. I had 30 days to vacate. I had never been so ashamed and frightened in my life. I hired a lawyer to buy myself a couple more months. I could have probably staved it off for another year or two in court but ultimately I would have lost, and I would have been living above a toxic environment. I was lucky there had never been a fire. I decided to leave – to leave my apartment, and to leave New York City. Nothing but good came to me once I left – spiritually, financially, physically or professionally. I lived for a year with my sister, who had been living with cancer, which turned out to be the bulk of the last year of her life. I applied to six PhD programs and got into all of them. I got a fantastic new writing job (this one, in fact). I eventually moved to Manhattan. I don’t regret my years in that house. I have wonderful memories from my time there – of parties and dinners and love and sex. Two friends’ marriage and family blossomed from a meeting in my kitchen. I left with a full heart ready to be filled by new adventures. But I am glad that, unlike my landlady, I am emotionally well enough to know when to move, when to let go, and to understand that people and relationships are much more valuable than even the most prime New York real estate. * Names have been changed to protect innocent and abused pets.
David Holmes: 'It was a modern day Wrecking Crew' At the corner of Santa Monica Boulevard and Virgil Avenue on the edge of east Hollywood, there stood for several years a bar called Little Temple. On Tuesday evenings here, you might stumble across a jam night named The Rotary Room, where you could find Money Mark performing alongside the legendary upright bassist David Piltch, or Tommy Morgan, the harmonica player on the Beach Boys’ I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times, covering Van Dyke Parks tunes with John Lennon’s drummer Jim Keltner, while a member of the world’s best Led Zeppelin tribute band worked the sound. The Rotary Room was dreamed up by singer-songwriter Jade Vincent and her partner, composer-keyboardist Keefus Ciancia, who together with David Holmes have now launched a new project: Unloved. Anyone curious to know about the musical influences on Unloved’s debut album need only consult the playlists from those Tuesdays at The Rotary Room: a little Shuggie Otis, a touch of Connie Francis, Brigitte Fontaine meets yé-yé, Broadcast and Morricone mingled with Bonnie Beecher’s Come Wander With Me. Certainly it was where Holmes, who had met Ciancia working on a film score in the studio of composer Woody Jackson, began to contemplate the idea of Unloved. “I just invited him down one night,” Ciancia recalls, “and then we asked him to curate it, to pick the pieces for the entire night, and it was intense, because he picked some hard pieces. But all the musicians loved it.” Today Ciancia, 43, and Vincent, 49, are sitting in a London pub playing backgammon and recounting their respective musical histories. Ciancia grew up in Colorado, where he credits the cold winters with forcing him to stay indoors learning piano in the basement. He won a scholarship to music college in Los Angeles, where eventually he met Vincent, a transplant from Phoenix, Arizona, then singing in the city’s jazz clubs and looking for a piano player. He was struck, he says, by the beauty of her voice, by its range and depth and phrasing. Vincent was similarly bowled over by his piano-playing: “Nobody plays like Keefus,” she says. “It’s his instinct. The delivery is like a voice, I can speak to it.” The pair began to write together, horn-heavy, increasingly experimental material, pursued while Ciancia’s career in film and TV scoring began to flourish, working on projects such as True Detective, Nashville and The Hunger Games. Their world seemed to overlap easily with that of Holmes – since his debut release in 1995, This Film’s Crap Let’s Slash the Seats, he has gone on to score films such as Out of Sight, Ocean’s 11 and 12, Hunger and Good Vibrations. In the beginning, the new project was rudderless and nameless, but charged with the trio’s enthusiasm: days spent listening to records turned into time in the studio composing a dozen or so instrumentals. “The style was dark and slow at first,” Ciancia recalls. “Then over time we loosened up, so the last batch we wrote, tracks like I Can Tell You, The Ground and Now Is the Time, are much faster.” The instrumentals were handed to Vincent to work alone on the melody and lyrics. She is a natural storyteller, her songs rich and visual, full of dark anecdotes and intriguing characters, her striking vocal range allowing her to play the full cast. “Before I wrote, David would talk through ideas, almost the way a director would to an actor,” she explains. “We’d just have a conversation, he’d play me something I’d never heard before or show me a film even.” Holmes, Ciancia says, “Steered the ship to where it was going. But I think David is always open to see something happen. There’s no tiptoeing, he’s blunt, and impulsive and of the moment.” Vincent laughs and leans across the backgammon board. “In my opinion,” she says conspiratorially, “they’re both mad geniuses.” It is a couple of weeks later, and Holmes is on the phone from Belfast, playing a track named Screw You, by Ram and Sel, down the line. “I’m gonna … SCREW … YOU …” it scrawls. “Do you know it?” Holmes asks. This track, he says, was the one he chose for the finale of his first night curating The Rotary Room: a gang of female backing singers clustered on stage, lip-curling their way through the chorus accompanied by a selection of impeccably qualified, hand-picked musicians. “It was like a modern day Wrecking Crew,” Holmes says with tangible glee, name-checking the famous LA session musicians of the 60s. “In my own mind I felt that I had seen something through the eyes of Jack Nitzsche.” Transferring this very particular atmosphere to the recording studio was, he feels, essential to Unloved’s success. “If you’re going to make music that has its influence from that period, then the recording really has to be taken very seriously,” he explains. “And we did make a real conscious effort to move away from digital effects as much as possible. Everything was analogue – all the reverbs, all the delays, echo, the console.” Vincent herself has an analogue quality, Holmes feels. “She’s got that swagger,” he says. “There’s people who do that sound, the whole 60s thing, but a lot of people don’t do it right. Jade has it, like Amy Winehouse had it. She’s the real thing.” Ciancia brings another quality: “A lot of times with Keefus it’s about finding a single, specific sound,” Holmes says. “And that’s one thing that we shared in common – we had both been constantly collecting sounds wherever we could find them. He can manipulate a sound like no other. We do a lot of sampling, but it was about transferring that sample into a keyboard sound. Like on Guilty of Love, that groove is sampled from this track called Little Gold Locket, a 60s popcorn song by Darwin. So you were playing a melody or a riff with that sample, so what you were getting was an authenticity, but done in our way.” Holmes’s enthusiasm – a boundless, giddy force – seems to buckle a little when he talks about some of the trappings of modern music: the point in any DJ set where “everyone gets pissed and you have to put on something by Abba” or the “shiny production” of many new records. “There’s something that’s really missing,” he says, “in a lot of music now; everything’s so perfect and overly-compressed and one-dimensional, and you lose that rawness and roughness.” And so, in many ways, Unloved is his attempt to find some of that roughness again, a quest for “authenticity and that feeling that you get when you listen to something”. He sounds lit up, suddenly, delighted by all the possibilities that this new project might offer: “Because I love so much music, and I love it for so many different reasons,” he says. “I just think music has the power to do so many things.” Unloved is released on 4 March on Unloved Records. David Holmes – along with Andrew Weatherall – is one of the guests on the first show in Music’s takeover of Apple’s Beats 1, discussing the best new music (and some old stuff, too). You can hear it on Saturday 5 March at 7pm GMT, with shows following at the same time every Saturday for the rest of the month. All the shows will be available to hear on demand.
May acknowledges human rights issues in seeking Gulf trade deal Theresa May has said the UK must not “turn our back” on the human rights abuses of foreign countries as she prepares to court Gulf states over a post-Brexit trade deal on a trip to Bahrain. The prime minister has been urged by campaigners not to set aside human rights concerns in pursuit of a potentially lucrative free-trade arrangement with Middle-Eastern countries. But May, who will become the first British leader and the first woman to attend the annual gathering of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) annual summit, said on Sunday that the UK must seek to “transform the way we do business” with the region. “As the UK leaves the EU, we should seize the opportunity to forge a new trade arrangement between the UK and the Gulf,” she said. “This could transform the way we do business and lock in a new level of prosperity for our people.” She added: “There will be some people in the UK who say we shouldn’t seek stronger trade and security ties with these countries because of their record on human rights. But we don’t uphold our values and human rights by turning our back on this issue. We achieve far more by stepping up, engaging with these countries and working with them.” Liam Fox, the international trade secretary, and many Conservative MPs believe a trade deal with the Gulf could be one of the first the UK can seal post-Brexit. But the GCC member states – Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar – may demand visa-free travel in return. The largest political party in Bahrain has been banned from the summit in Manama and both Bahrain and Saudi Arabia have been heavily criticised for their bombing campaign in the Yemen civil war. In a letter sent to May and published on Sunday, groups including Human Rights Watch, Reprieve and the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy, said: “The Bahraini authorities’ orchestrated attack on the rights to free expression, assembly and association has seriously undermined the prospects of a political solution to Bahrain’s domestic unrest. “If your government is serious about its commitment to encouraging reform and dialogue, you should use this influence to press the government of Bahrain to put an immediate stop to this repression.” Critics such as Amnesty International claim that UK engagement in Bahrain, such as helping to train its judiciary and giving advice about a police complaints ombudsman, has not led to real change, but instead has become a PR fig leaf. Despite having a free trade agreement with the European free trade area, the Gulf states have failed to strike a trade deal with the EU and talks with Brussels have in effect been on ice since 2008. In 2015, British exports to the GCC were £22bn, higher than UK exports to China and more than double those to India. May’s visit will coincide with an initiative by MPs to give UK authorities the power to seize assets of dictators and human rights abusers who buy luxury property in Britain to conceal their wealth. A group of backbenchers are seeking to amend the criminal finances bill and to introduce a clause targeting those guilty of abusing human rights outside Britain. It would allow officials and groups such as Amnesty International to apply for an order freezing perpetrators’ UK assets. The two-day GCC summit is likely to discuss whether it should form a tighter economic Gulf union, including a single market, single currency and customs union modelled on the EU. Both Saudi Arabia and Bahrain have been pressing the idea of a Gulf Union since 2012, arguing that world insecurity, including the threat posed by Iran, makes the case for forming a large, more unified bloc. Huge democratic and social obstacles lie in front of the project, including concerns about loss of national sovereignty. UK security and economic ties with Bahrain have been especially close and King Hamad of Bahrain extended the invitation to May, when he visited Downing Street in October. Prince Charles also visited Bahrain last month, along with Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, where he opened a wing of the new Royal Navy base, the construction of which has been funded by the King of Bahrain. During her visit the Duchess of Cornwall raised the issue of women’s rights and domestic violence, setting a bar for the prime minister. But in a letter sent to May and published on Sunday the rights groups, including Human Rights Watch, Reprieve and the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (BIRD), claim: “The Bahraini authorities’ orchestrated attack on the rights to free expression, assembly and association, has seriously undermined the prospects of a political solution to Bahrain’s domestic unrest. “If your government is serious about its commitment to encouraging reform and dialogue, you should use this influence to press the government of Bahrain to put an immediate stop to this repression.” In particular, the groups urge the prime minister to call for the release of arrested human rights defender Nabeel Rajab who has been held in solitary confinement in police custody since June 2016. Rajab is facing up to 15 years in prison on charges of insulting a neighbouring state, spreading rumours in wartime and insulting a statutory body. These charges relate to his criticism of the humanitarian cost of the war in Yemen, in which Bahrain is a participant, and for his documentation of torture in Bahrain’s Central Jau Prison. He faces another charge of defaming the state after he wrote a letter to the New York Times in September 2016. Sheikh Ali Salman, the Shia leader of the largest opposition party, has been jailed for nine years. The human rights abuses in Bahrain are a specific British concern, as the UK government has provided technical assistance since 2012 to help implement police and judicial reform. The UK helped to set up two bodies – the Ombudsman of the Ministry of Interior and the Special Investigations Unit within the Public Prosecution Office, both of which receive training and capacity building support from the UK. Both were established in 2012 in the wake of the Bahraini government’s brutal crackdown on protests the previous year. The foreign secretary Boris Johnson speaking on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show again insisted he was concerned about the Saudi-led bombing campaign in Yemen, saying he had spoken to the Saudi foreign minister about the issue only this weekend. But Johnson said he believed the Saudi campaign did not represent a serious risk of war crimes violations and added that the UK was not involved in helping Saudi Arabia to set specific bomb targets.
Man v rat: could the long war soon be over? First, the myths. There are no “super rats”. Apart from a specific subtropical breed, they do not get much bigger than 20 inches long, including the tail. They are not blind, nor are they afraid of cats. They do not carry rabies. They do not, as was reported in 1969 regarding an island in Indonesia, fall from the sky. Their communities are not led by elusive, giant “king rats”. Rat skeletons cannot liquefy and reconstitute at will. (For some otherwise rational people, this is a genuine concern.) They are not indestructible, and there are not as many of them as we think. The one-rat-per-human in New York City estimate is pure fiction. Consider this the good news. In most other respects, “the rat problem”, as it has come to be known, is a perfect nightmare. Wherever humans go, rats follow, forming shadow cities under our metropolises and hollows beneath our farmlands. They thrive in our squalor, making homes of our sewers, abandoned alleys, and neglected parks. They poison food, bite babies, undermine buildings, spread disease, decimate crop yields, and very occasionally eat people alive. A male and female left to their own devices for one year – the average lifespan of a city rat – can beget 15,000 descendants. There may be no “king rat”, but there are “rat kings”, groups of up to 30 rats whose tails have knotted together to form one giant, swirling mass. Rats may be unable to liquefy their bones to slide under doors, but they don’t need to: their skeletons are so flexible that they can squeeze their way through any hole or crack wider than half an inch. They are cannibals, and they sometimes laugh (sort of) – especially when tickled. They can appear en masse, as if from nowhere, moving as fast as seven feet per second. They do not carry rabies, but a 2014 study from Columbia University found that the average New York City subway rat carried 18 viruses previously unknown to science, along with dozens of familiar, dangerous pathogens, such as C difficile and hepatitis C. As recently as 1994 there was a major recurrence of bubonic plague in India, an unpleasant flashback to the 14th century, when that rat-borne illness killed 25 million people in five years. Collectively, rats are responsible for more human death than any other mammal on earth. Humans have a peculiar talent for exterminating other species. In the case of rats, we have been pursuing their total demise for centuries. We have invented elaborate, gruesome traps. We have trained dogs, ferrets, and cats to kill them. We have invented ultrasonic machines to drive them away with high-pitched noise. (Those machines, still popular, do not work.) We have poisoned them in their millions. In 1930, faced with a rat infestation on Rikers Island, New York City officials flushed the area with mustard gas. In the late 1940s, scientists developed anticoagulants to treat thrombosis in humans, and some years later supertoxic versions of the drugs were developed in order to kill rats by making them bleed to death from the inside after a single dose. Cityscapes and farmlands were drenched with thousands of tons of these chemicals. During the 1970s, we used DDT. These days, rat poison is not just sown in the earth by the truckload, it is rained from helicopters that track the rats with radar – in 2011 80 metric tonnes of poison-laced bait were dumped on to Henderson Island, home to one of the last untouched coral reefs in the South Pacific. In 2010, Chicago officials went “natural”: figuring a natural predator might track and kill rats, they released 60 coyotes wearing radio collars on to the city streets. Still, here they are. According to Bobby Corrigan, the world’s leading expert on rodent control, many of the world’s great cities remain totally overcome. “In New York – we’re losing that war in a big way,” he told me. Combat metaphors have become a central feature of rat conversation among pest control professionals. In Robert Sullivan’s 2014 book Rats, he described humanity’s relationship with the species as an “unending and brutish war”, a battle we seem always, always to lose. Why? How is it that we can send robots to Mars, build the internet, keep alive infants born so early that their skin isn’t even fully made – and yet remain unable to keep rats from threatening our food supplies, biting our babies, and appearing in our toilet bowls? * * * “Frankly, rodents are the most successful species,” Loretta Mayer told me recently. “After the next holocaust, rats and Twinkies will be the only things left.” Mayer is a biologist, and she contends that the rat problem is actually a human problem, a result of our foolish choices and failures of imagination. In 2007, she co-founded SenesTech, a biotech startup that offers the promise of an armistice in a conflict that has lasted thousands of years. The concept is simple: rat birth control The rat’s primary survival skill, as a species, is its unnerving rate of reproduction. Female rats ovulate every four days, copulate dozens of times a day and remain fertile until they die. (Like humans, they have sex for pleasure as well as for procreation.) This is how you go from two to 15,000 in a single year. When poison or traps thin out a population, they mate faster until their numbers regenerate. Conversely, if you can keep them from mating, colonies collapse in weeks and do not rebound. Solving the rat problem by putting them on the pill sounds ridiculous. Until recently no pharmaceutical product existed that could make rats infertile, and even if it had, there was still the question of how it could be administered. But if such a thing were to work, the impact could be historic. Rats would die off without the need for poison, radar or coyotes. SenesTech, which is based in Flagstaff, Arizona, claims to have created a liquid that will do exactly that. In tests conducted in Indonesian rice fields, South Carolina pig farms, the suburbs of Boston and the New York City subway, the product, called ContraPest, caused a drop in rat populations of roughly 40% in 12 weeks. This autumn, for the first time, the company is making ContraPest available to commercial markets in the US and Europe. The team at SenesTech believes it could be the first meaningful advance in the fight against rats in a hundred years, and the first viable alternative to poison. Mayer was blunt about the implications: “This will change the world.” Mayer is a tall, vigorous woman in her mid-60s with bright eyes, spiky grey hair and a toothy grin. Her ideologies of choice are Buddhism and the Girl Scouts. “It’s kind of my core,” she said of the latter, “to do for others.” In conversation, her manner is so upbeat that she seems to be holding forth radiantly before an audience or on the verge of bursting into song. When asked how she is doing, she frequently responds in a near-rapture: “If I was any better, I’d be a twin!” – she also appears to enjoy watching people wonder whether this is an expression they should know. When I took a seat in her office earlier this year, she clapped her hands triumphantly and said “Ooh! You’re sitting in history and strength!” There was a pause. “I had a feng shui person come and do my office,” she explained. Mayer came to science later than usual, in her mid-40s, after a career in real estate development and a stint as the international vice president of Soroptimist, a global volunteer organisation dedicated to improving the lives of women. The career change was unexpected, even to her. After a close friend died suddenly of a heart attack, Mayer called up a biologist she knew and asked how something like this could have happened. The biologist had no satisfying answer; she explained that while heart disease in men had been thoroughly studied, little attention had been devoted to post-menopausal heart disease in women. “Well you’ve got to change it,” Mayer replied, outraged. The biologist was otherwise occupied, so Mayer decided to do it herself. At 46, she entered a PhD programme in biology at Northern Arizona University. After graduate school, her initial research as a professor of biology at Northern Arizona focused on artificially inducing menopause in lab mice so that she could study changes in the postmenopausal heart. Three years into her efforts, Mayer was contacted by Patricia Hoyer, a colleague in Phoenix, who said that she had stumbled across a chemical that seemed to make mice infertile, without having any other effects. Together, Mayer and Hoyer synthesised a new compound, which they called Mouseopause. Shortly after Mayer and Hoyer published their work on Mouseopause in 2005, Mayer received a telephone call from a veterinarian in Gallup, New Mexico, who had read about her research. The Navajo reservation where he worked was overrun by wild dogs. There were too many to spay and neuter, so he was euthanising almost 500 a month. “If you could do for a dog what you can do for a mouse, I could stop killing dogs out here,” he told her. Mayer describes herself as “extremely connected to animals, dogs in particular”. When she arrived in Gallup and saw the piled corpses, she agreed to test Mouseopause on an initial group of 18 reservation dogs. “I held up that first puppy, who I called Patient Zero,” she told me, “and I said, ‘I don’t know what this is gonna do to you, but you will live on a satin pillow the rest of your days.” The injection made the dogs infertile, but left them otherwise happy and healthy. (Mayer brought home all 18 dogs and built a kennel in her yard to house them until she could find homes for them with families she knew personally. Patient Zero, renamed Cheetah, lived with her until she died of old age – though the pillow was fleece.) The next call came from Australia in 2006. Biologists there wanted an adaptation of Mouseopause for rats. Rats, they told her, were eating 30% of the rice crop in Australia and Indonesia. If she could reduce the rat population by even half, they claimed, the crops that would be saved could feed millions of people. Mayer was moved by the idea of finding a solution to rat overpopulation that was neither lethal nor toxic. Since its invention, rat poison has been our primary method of curbing rat populations, but it is dangerous. Ingested in high doses, it’s fatal to humans, and it poses a particular to children because it is sweet and brightly coloured. In the US alone, more than 12,000 children per year, most of whom live below the poverty line, are accidentally poisoned by pesticide meant for rats. The collateral damage inflicted by rat poison also extends to the environment, leaching into the soil and poisoning house pets, farm animals, and wildlife that feed on rats. Worst of all, rat poison is not very effective at eliminating large infestations. As long as there is still a food source, colonies bounce back, and, especially in Europe, rats have grown resistant to the toxins. As Mayer often says, “Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results: isn’t that the definition of insanity?” Persuaded by the research, and by her wife, fellow biologist Cheryl Dyer, Mayer decided to devote her career to developing a new, smarter way to control the rat population. In 2007, they founded SenesTech. “People say never to invest with a husband and wife team,” Mayer joked to me. “I say, ‘Oh absolutely not! Then you have dominance.’ But wife and wife? Works great!” * * * For Dyer and Mayer, the immediate problem was obvious: while the lab mice and feral dogs had received injections in controlled studies, wild rats would have to eat the formula of their own volition. Rats are neophobic – they avoid what they don’t know. What’s more, city rats are already well fed. In New York City, for example, they have fresh bagels, pizza, melted ice cream and fried chicken in unending supply. To succeed, Dyer and Mayer had to make the compound not just edible but delicious. After a series of tests, they quickly settled on a liquid, rather than solid, formulation. Rats have to drink 10% of their body weight every day to survive, and so are always looking out for something potable. “We compared the [two] and they peed on the solid and drank the liquid,” Dyer told me. “Rats are pretty straightforward.” Where Mayer is tall and voluble, Dyer is short and broad-shouldered, quiet and succinct. She seems most comfortable behind the scenes, if only because it is easier to get away with wearing Hawaiian-print shirts and no shoes. At SenesTech’s headquarters, Dyer’s windowless office is right next to Mayer’s, and if Mayer’s office evokes Zen, Dyer’s evokes an island paradise. Scenes from Hawaii cover her walls, hula (and rat) figurines line the shelves, and on her desk sits a small wooden sign, which says, “WELCOME TO THE TIKI BAR.” There is also a widescreen TV, on which Dyer likes to watch old movies on mute all day. It was Dyer’s job to make Mouseopause palatable for rats – a tricky proposition because its active ingredient, 4-vinylcyclohexene diepoxide (VCD), is bitter and caustic. Rats have the same taste preferences as humans – they love fat and sugar – though Dyer’s experiments with various flavour profiles indicated that their appetite for both exceeds ours. She was also tasked with the greater challenge of adapting Mouseopause to work on rats, which are much hardier than mice. While VCD caused the eggs in mouse ovaries to degenerate rapidly, female rats were far less susceptible. Hoping for a compound effect, Dyer added a second active ingredient: triptolide, which stunted any growing eggs. The results were better, but still not good enough. “They just had smaller litters, goddammit,” she said. Eventually, out of a mix of curiosity and desperation, she fed it to both males and females. The result was dramatic. It turns out that the triptolide destroyed sperm – the males became sterile almost immediately after ingesting the formula. This was a total surprise: no one had ever tested triptolide on male rats before. It was “stunning”, Dyer told me. “Totally unpredictable.” Test after test: no pups. She sighed. “Man, you should have seen the No Pup party.” After three years of research and development, they had a product that worked and did not harm other animals. (The active ingredients are metabolised by the rat’s body in 10 minutes, which means that any predator that eats it is not affected, and the compound quickly breaks down into inactive ingredients when it hits soil or water.) ContraPest, the finished product, is viscous and sweet. Electric pink and opaque, it tastes like nine packets of saccharine blended into two tablespoons of kitchen oil. “Rats love it,” Dyer said. “Love it.” Mayer, who taste-tested every version during the development process, could not say the same for herself. In 2013, New York’s Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) reached out to Mayer after hearing about SenesTech’s early trials to ask whether the company would test ContraPest in New York’s subways as part of a citywide effort to find new, more successful alternatives to poison. Many cities devote manpower and money to keeping the rats under control, but New York, which is more or less the rat capital of the western world, is the epicentre of anti-rat efforts. Every incoming mayor of New York declares his intentions for a vast rodenticide – Giuliani even appointed a “rat czar” to oversee the carnage – only to leave the next guy even more to deal with. When the MTA officials contacted Mayer, she recalled, they were worried that the formula would not work on New York rats, which have the reputation of being bigger, tougher, and smarter than any other city rat in the world. (Norway rats, the species infesting New York, are not in fact the largest rat type.) They asked Mayer whether they should send a few New York rats on a plane to Arizona so that SenesTech could experiment with them before coming to New York. “No, I don’t think so,” replied Mayer, amused. “I never met a rat I couldn’t sterilise.” Mayer dispatched two of SenesTech’s youngest scientists, women in their 20s, to New York in order to test whether the formula was appealing enough. Would New York rats prefer ContraPest to water or pizza? Wearing their best approximation of hazmat suits to protect themselves from the filth, the scientists patrolled the subway’s trash storage rooms under Grand Central Station. They planted bait boxes filled with feed stations of ContraPest and then stood nearby, counting the rats that came in and out with clickers in order to track how many rats were taking the bait. For six months, they baited and counted, washing their suits at the end of each day in bleach. The two young women went home to Arizona with good news: not only did the New York rats drink ContraPest, the drink actually worked on them. The test confirmed the highest hopes of the company – there was an alternative to poison that would work, even in New York City, and they had found it. * * * When humans and animals come together, there are choices. Mayer believes that if you understand the ecology of the animal and you understand your own ecology, then you and the animal will be able to coexist peacefully. After centuries of misperception and squeamishness, we finally have a good grasp of rat ecology. Now the problem may be our reluctance to look too carefully at ourselves. In his 1983 book More Cunning than Man, writer Robert Hendrickson lists “the obvious ways in which rats so well resemble humans: ferocity, omnivorousness, adaptability to all climes, migration from east to west in the life journey of their species, irresponsible fecundity in all seasons, with a seeming need to make genocidal war on their own kind.” He describes rats and men alike as “utterly destructive, both taking all other living things for their purposes.” Humanity’s long struggle with rats mostly signals the worst traits we share with them: our inability to live responsibly within our environment; our tendencies toward hedonism and greed; and our failures to look after the weakest among us. Getting rid of them means correcting ourselves first. SenesTech is not alone in its attempts to devise a more sustainable, responsible method of ending the rat problem. Its work is heir to an existing method: integrated pest management, or IPM, which holds that if humans – particularly city-dwellers – took more care with their environment, rats wouldn’t thrive. IPM’s most vocal advocate is Bobby Corrigan, who has brought its principles to farmlands and cities all over the world, most notably New York, which recently revised its rat control programme on his advice. Twice a year, he teaches the New York health department’s “Rat Academy”, a three-day training for industry professionals. This April, there were maybe 100 attendees wedged into wooden theatre seats in a downtown auditorium, holding weak coffee and spongy muffins. Corrigan is a thinnish, pale man, bald except for a low, wispy crown framing his ears. He spends his nights on the streets or in basement corners studying rats. Once, he lay in an alley with peanut butter spread around him all night so he could get good photographs. (“No, it wasn’t safe. Yes, they were urinating on me. In grad school, you do crazy things.”) He regards his work with utmost seriousness. “Here’s what health professionals do,” he said to his audience by way of introduction. He pointed at a slide behind him and read aloud. We protect the roof over people’s heads. We protect the food they eat. We protect their health, comfort and safety. “I’m not saying this to pat us on the back. This is real. This is our job. [Rats] get on airplanes. They gnaw on wires. They cause diseases. To me, this is the shot heard round the world.” Then he spent 20 minutes explaining how to divine information from rat droppings based on their moisture. As the day wore on, Corrigan’s core message for his audience emerged: fighting rats means committing to holistic efforts, not looking for a quick, flashy fix. “We love to spritz problems away,” Corrigan told me later. “A chemical or a trap, it’s a Band Aid, and they’re Band Aids that come off very quickly.” Instead, Corrigan argues that you first need to remove the rat’s food, then remove the rat’s shelter, and only then take lethal measures if you have to. In theory, this solution is simple. It does not involve radar or guns. Instead, it demands lids for the trash can, and caulking for the cracks in foundations, or “keeping our own little nests clean”, as Corrigan says. It is the obvious answer, the one that has been sitting under our noses for centuries: stop feeding them, stop housing them, and they will go away on their own. The problem is that people, as a rule, prefer the quick fix. Setting out poison is easier; the ultrasonic machine looks cool. The sensible, labour-intensive option meets with resistance. Often, when Corrigan is called out to consult with a property owner, the owner rejects his advice, simply because following it would require too much thought, effort or expense. And sometimes, even those who are willing to try his methods do not have the resources. Ricky Simeone, the director of pest control for New York’s health department, explained to me that the neighbourhoods that struggle with the worst rat infestations are not the ones who file the most reports to his office. The poorest neighbourhoods are too overwhelmed with other social or economic problems to file complaints – or, worse, they accept rat infestation as one of the conditions of living in poverty. Corrigan confirmed that rats, especially in cities, affect the poor more than the rich, because effective pest control services are expensive. But he pointed out that no one totally escapes the rat problem, no matter how rich. Cities such as New York make evident a universal truth. “We’re all holding hands whether we know it or like it. Your rats are my rats. If the city blows it off, the sewer rats become everybody’s rats. Rats are everybody’s issue. “Everyone thinks, ‘It’s not my job, it’s someone else’s job,’” Corrigan continued. “They think, ‘Oh I live in New York, no one can get rid of the rats in New York!’” He gave a short sigh. “We don’t think we can do it alone, so we don’t do anything as a group.” As with all conditions that threaten everyone but torment the disadvantaged above all, the situation is not better because we are not better. “Homo sapiens,” Corrigan said to his audience at the Rat Academy. “Does anyone know what this means?” He smiled a grim little smile. “Wise man.” Improving society is a collective project, but as Corrigan attests, it happens because individual people make it their business to incite change. Mayer and Dyer, too, see this as their mission. “We have to be better stewards than this,” Dyer told me fiercely. “We’re better than this.” If SenesTech looks quirky in the attempt, its founders do not seem to mind. * * * On a Tuesday night in August, Mayer and Dyer held a celebration in their backyard for staff and investors. The company had just received US Environmental Protection Agency registration, a process that usually takes years and often costs more than companies of SenesTech’s size can afford. (The EPA is making an active effort to get rat poison off the markets in the US, and received news of SenesTech’s science with enthusiasm.) Now, with the EPA’s blessing, the company could take ContraPest to commercial markets. Immediately, more than 100 calls and 200 emails came in with order requests. Mayer and Dyer live in a one-level wood cabin a few miles north of downtown Flagstaff, in a wooded area near a field of wildflowers. For the occasion, they had cleared the back patio, where Mayer does her morning meditation and yoga, and filled it with deck furniture and folding tables. The sun was coming down the San Francisco Peaks. It was not a typical investors dinner, but then, SenesTech’s nearly 700 stakeholders are mostly firemen. While most biotech startups are funded by investment bankers and venture capitalists, Mayer chose to pursue funding from grant-giving bodies and a horde of private donors, all of whom made small investments, and each of whom Mayer knows by name. It was a pure accident of networking that so many of them turned out to be firemen, but she is thrilled with the situation. “Firefighters really believe in doing good,” Mayer explained to me. “And they’re like teenage girls. Once one of them invested, they all wanted in.” There were perhaps 25 people – investors, board members and SenesTech staff – gathered on the back patio, eating tacos and drinking from Mayer and Dyer’s impressive liquor collection, but they made noise for 50. They were boisterous and loving, hugging each other, teasing each other, shouting old stories to roars of laughter, and clinking glasses. About half the room seemed to be wearing Hawaiian patterned shirts. When the time came for Mayer to give a speech, she demurred for a moment before standing. Her toast turned briefly into an anecdote about flattening mouse skeletons in lasagna tins. “But seriously,” she said, returning to her theme, “We knew [this day] would come. It’s great to be riding this wave with you. It’s just so sweet.” Glasses heaved into the air. There was considerable work left to do: now that SenesTech had its national registration, it would have to file for registration in every state. (Since then, the company has registered in 11 US states, and begun registration in the EU.) The manufacturing team was hurrying to make enough ContraPest to accommodate the requests coming in. Dyer was working hard on adaptations that would make the formula work in a variety of different environments, and planning variations for different species. Mayer was preparing for a torrent of meetings. While ContraPest has been effective in every test SenesTech has run so far, there is a lot still to learn about how rats in different parts of the world will respond to it in the wild. It sounds crazy: a band of animal lovers and firemen in the mountains of Arizona, led by a Buddhist girl scout, making a pink milkshake for rats that may eventually improve the lives of millions of people. They are unruffled by scepticism: In the middle of one interview, Mayer forgot a detail and yelled towards the door, “Cheryl, who said to you, ‘That’s just not how we do it?’” Dyer hollered back from the other room. “Which time?” In response, they point to hard science, solicitations from governments and companies around the world, and an endorsement from Stephen Hawking, who featured them on his documentary mini-series Brave New World. Rats are so longstanding a threat to humanity that contemplating an end to the rat problem – and one that does not require us to kill them – seems like a fantasy. They are, as Mayer herself put it, a more successful species than us. Long after we’re gone, they will still be here. But the possibility of a truce seems closer than ever before. “The answer in the future may lie completely within biotechnology,” said Corrigan when I asked for his impressions. (He and Mayer consider themselves allies in the campaign to create sustainable solutions to the rat problem. Mayer fondly recalls a nighttime “rat safari” she once took with Corrigan in New York.) “The SenesTech product is a breakthrough, but it is still at the very infancy stages of biotechnology for this species,” Corrigan said. “This is going to be maybe years of refinements and changing and experiments. We’re not walking yet. And we’re certainly not running.” Mayer, Dyer and their team seem cheerful at the prospect, and confident that they are doing the work of the future. “Do you see this?” asked Ali Applin, a senior member of SenesTech’s staff. We were sitting in Mayer’s office, and Applin pointed to a little sign on the coffee table that read “Make it so.” “This is what she tells us,” Applin said. Mayer nodded, smiling. “That’s what you need to do. I mean, why squabble over something and say, ‘I can’t do that’. Make it so. Find a way. There’s always a way.” After a moment, she had another thought. “You’re really gonna have to do that, Ali, when you take this to Argentina soon. If we thought Laos was hard – I mean, my God.” She grinned mischievously and folded her hands together and pressed them to her forehead and said a mantra. “I wish you ease on the path to peace. I wish you an end to your suffering.” • Follow the Long Read on Twitter at @gdnlongread, or sign up to the long read weekly email here. • This article was amended on 20 September 2016. An earlier version incorrectly stated that DDT is the active ingredient in Agent Orange, and suggested that C difficile is a virus.
Russia probably didn't hack US election – but we still need audits, experts say The computer science experts who want the presidential election results audited don’t think a Russian vote-hacking operation is likely, either. But they’ve been upset for a decade that there’s no way to make sure. Jeremy J Epstein, senior computer scientist at research center SRI International, said the effort to audit the vote “was and is a nationwide effort over a long period of time”. The Green party candidate, Jill Stein, has applied for a recount. The Clinton campaign has said it will cooperate. “The Stein folks have somewhat hijacked the message, but I’m not worried,” Epstein said. “In fact, the goal of an audit is to verify [emphasis his] that the result was as originally reported.” Epstein describes himself as “75% confident that Trump won, and 25% that either there was an error in counting or there was a hack”. “Any accusation that it’s partisan and of-the-moment is ignorant of the history,” Epstein told the . Epstein, formerly of Princeton’s Center for Information Technology Policy, is one of the country’s foremost experts on election security and last year successfully crusaded to get insecure WinVote voting machines decertified and removed in Virginia. Epstein has devoted years of time and energy to describing the frustrating process of voting machine certification and manufacture. Often, voting system regulators possess inadequate technical knowledge and make the certification process too cumbersome for successful hardware manufacturers to bother competing. The machines that eventually are certified are frequently underwhelming to security analysts. The push to audit the vote is not new, but it is opportunistic: rarely have so many expressed concerns about the technical security of the election, and scientists who have spent more than a decade agitating for greater awareness of electoral insecurity are pleased that their voices are finally being heard. J Alex Halderman, director of University of Michigan’s center for computer security and society, would only say that a hack of the vote was “plausible” in his affidavit added to Stein’s request for a recount. The more important point, to Halderman and many others who study voting machine security, is making sure there are reasonable security protocols in place: “The only way to determine whether a cyber-attack affected the outcome of the 2016 presidential election is to examine the physical evidence – that is, to count the paper ballots and paper audit trail records, and review the voting equipment, to ensure that the votes cast by actual voters match the results determined by the computers.” The Stanford engineering professor David Dill, founder of the Verified Voting Foundation, said he supported Halderman. “In the statement, [Halderman] does not bring to light new evidence that the election was hacked,” Dill said. “However, he points out that there is ample reason to be concerned about it, and notes that we can’t really find out without getting a look at the ballots, which requires some candidate to ask for a recount. I strongly agree with this view. He says he and his students could have pulled off an election hack, and I have no doubt that that is true.” During the 2016 election season, Russian intelligence services appear to have breached the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and the emails for Hillary Clinton’s campaign chief, John Podesta. One hacking group in particular, known to cybersecurity researchers as Fancy Bear and believed to be operated by the Russian GRU intelligence agency, may have helped to coordinate the release of some information acquired from the Democrats. But that is not the same thing as surgically hacking the vast patchwork of American voting systems in such a way as to turn three states that were not even considered swing states until election night so effectively that the outcome of the vote was reversed. Now, as officials begin to listen to calls for security protocols that Halderman, Epstein and others believe ought to be routine, there is a danger that a jumpy public will perceive the audit as the work of sore losers crying wolf. There is plenty of reason for voting security advocates to be frustrated with the progress of their cause thus far: “It took years and lots of pilots to get audits added to the laws in California and Colorado; many other states have been experimenting,” Epstein said. “In Virginia, where I live, we had a law passed almost a decade ago to require an audit study; unfortunately, the study was done poorly, and the legislature didn’t act on the results.” Dill and Epstein both had strong words for Trump, who, in the days before the election, said often that the “system” was “rigged” against him: “I would think that the Trump folks would endorse audits, because they would show that they won fair and square, which would eliminate the Bush-Gore contested results meme,” Epstein said. Dill said: “The main concerns about election fraud during during the campaign came from the Trump campaign … If those concerns were sincere, the Trump campaign should also support some kind of manual recount or audit.” Epstein added: “[For what it’s worth], the more I see of the statistical analyses, the more I expect that the audits will confirm the results. I think we’ll see the impact of voter ID laws depressing voter turnout, but not significant problems in the results themselves. There will be errors discovered – that’s unavoidable but they’ll largely be accidental.”
Middlesbrough 0-1 Chelsea: Premier League – as it happened! That’s six wins in a row for Chelsea – and they have kept a clean sheet in every one of them, scoring 17 without reply. Antonio Conte is on the pitch, hugging his players. They are in brilliant form and looking very difficult to break down. Boro battled hard and if they continue performing like this should be fine. They remain one point above the bottom three as it stands. Thanks for reading. Bye! Chelsea are top of the league thanks to yet another Diego Costa goal. 90 min +4: With 20 seconds to go Barragan tries to find Ramirez down the right channel with a long ball but puts too much juice on it. That should be that. Chelsea will finish the weekend on top of the league. 90 min +3: Tick, tock, tick, tock. Chelsea are closing this out with very little bother. 90 min +1: Costa shoots from range, accidentally catching Gibson on the shin in the process. He picks the Boro defender up – what sportsmanship! Chelsea’s final change sees Hazard stroll off, with Oscar coming on for him. 90 min: There will be at least four minutes of added time. 89 min: Moses comes off – slowly – for Ivanovic, who has found game time hard to come by since that horror against Arsenal. Boro’s final sub sees Leadbitter return, replacing Forshaw. 89 min: Eventually Downing tries to find Negredo with a cross from the left but it’s too deep. Goal kick. 88 min: Boro pop it about in midfield but are struggling to find a way through Chelsea’s defence. They really have become masters of shutting games down. 86 min: The attempt beats the wall but does not dip sufficiently to threaten Valdes. 84 min: Ramirez fouls Hazard on the edge of the box. It’s clumsy rather than naughty, but this is very dangerous indeed. David Luiz is eyeing it up. Boro are forming a four-man wall, which Cahill and Costa join to impede Valdes’s view. 83 min: Alonso – cleverly, cynically; delete depending on which team you support – brings down Fischer near halfway as Boro sought to counter on the right. 80 min: Chelsea’s first change sees Chalobah, who was on loan at Boro in the Championship, replace Pedro. Chalobah will sit next to Kanté and Matic. 78 min: Pedro and Costa combine brilliantly but Boro get enough bodies in the way and then rapidly break through Traore. This time he decides to pass to Negredo. The former Man City striker takes a magnificent first touch and his shot is on target … but Courtois is alert to make his first proper save of the evening. 75 min: Traore picks up possession down the right and has options to cross or layoff but instead shoots wildly over from an improbable distance. Fischer and Negredo are furious with their team-mate. 74 min: Chambers is booked after Costa turns him on halfway and the defender tugs the Chelsea striker to the floor. 73 min: Fischer is now on, replacing Clayton. Realistically, it is hard to see Boro finding a way past this Chelsea defence. 71 min: Boro are making two changes in the hope of reversing their fortunes. Downing is the first on, coming in for Fabio. Fischer is also ready to come on but play resumes with a Chelsea throw before he is introduced. 65 min: … who quickly sets away Chelsea on the counter. They are four v four with Costa in possession. His threaded through ball picks out Moses. He cannot finish, lofting the ball over Valdes’s goal. 65 min: And now Traore wins a corner at the opposite end. It ends up being smothered by Courtois … 63 min: Chelsea hit the bar! Costa does well in the buildup to knock down a David Luiz cross for Pedro, but his effort comes back off the bar with Valdes beaten. 62 min: Barragan tries to find Negredo from the right but David Luiz gets to the ball first and Courtois follows up to smother. 61 min: Now Traore has a shot blocked before slipping before connecting with the rebound. Boro are suddenly back in this and enjoying their best spell for some time. 59 min: You probably only need one hand to count Premier League players faster than Traore. He races past four Chelsea players in the blink of an eye before being taken down by Kante near halfway. 55 min: But now Boro have a good chance. Negredo steps over a Clayton pass, allowing Ramirez to run on to the ball. The shot, however, drifts over Courtois’ bar. 54 min: Chelsea are so, so comfortable. They are barely breaking sweat and Boro could be doing a lot more to pressure them. 52 min: His strike comes off the wall, specifically the forehead of David Luiz. 51 min: Azpilicueta is yellow carded for dragging down Ramirez after a poor touch from the defender allowed the Boro attacker possession. This certainly within range for Ramirez. 49 min: De Roon fouls Costa cynically near halfway, standing on the Chelsea player’s toes. In the past the striker would have reacted angrily to that. De Roon gets a final warning from the referee. Next time, he’ll be booked. 46 min: Valdes does well to deny Alonso inside 20 seconds, while Chambers does well to disrupt Pedro on the rebound. 46 min: Costa gets us going again. Can Boro respond? Negredo was anonymous in the opening 45, so he needs to improved considerably. Diego Costa’s goal is the difference at the break. 45 min: There will be two minutes added time. 44 min: Ramirez harries Azpilicueta but concedes a foul for nudging the Chelsea defender on the back as he attempted to head away a long hook forward. 41 min: And from the corner Chelsea score. It’s Costa’s 10th of the season but Boro can only blame themselves for some woeful defending. The ball bobbles around the near post and Chambers fails to clear, inadvertently playing Costa in. He screws the ball home first time. 40 min: Moses, picked out by Costa, steps over the ball and dazzles Fabio before his shot is deflected out for a corner. 37 min: A minute later Chelsea attack through Hazard and then Costa, who squares to Pedro. He pulls the ball back to Kanté and he feeds Alonso on the left. The wing-back’s cross is cleared by Valdes, who gets a nasty knock on the back of the head for his troubles. 36 min: Boro have just taken some time to play a bit of keep ball but Traore has no interest in continuing that so races down the left, leaving Kante and Cahill in his wake and sends a cross from the right. David Luiz clears. 35 min: Kante attempts a speculative long range pass for Costa. It’s bread and butter for Valdes. 33 min: Boro could do with getting their foot on the ball for a minute or so to stem this onslaught. It now seems only a matter of time before Chelsea open the scoring. 31 min: Chelsea are dominant. Costa turns four Boro players on the D before picking out Pedro all alone on the right. The Spain attacker is caught in two minds, however – does he shoot or does he cross? Instead it is somewhere in between and Valdes makes an easy stop. 29 min: What a save from Valdes! Hazard picks out Moses down the right with a delightful lofted pass. He squares to Pedro, who attempts to sidefoot the ball home only for the keeper to get a fingertip on the shot, turning it over the bar for a corner. 27 min: David Luiz heads the ball straight to De Roon in a dangerous position but the Boro midfielder is whistled at for using his hands to control. 26 min: Alonso latches on to a Valdes clearance and shoots well wide. In the last five minutes, Chelsea have had 91% possession. 24 min: There has been a lot of hard work and it is by no means the worst game ever seen but we are still waiting for a shot on target. 22 min: Moses picks out Alonso with a deep cross from the right but the wing-back’s touch is poor, resulting in a goal-kick for Boro. 21 min: Ramirez is working very hard here, something you can’t always say. He beats Azpilicueta for pace on the left, which is no mean feat but eventually cuts in due to no options in front of him and Boro are unable to translate what appeared a promising break into an opportunity. 19 min: Moses shoots wild and wide after getting past Da Silva following a one-two with Hazard. 18 min: Ramírez is played into possession down the right by Barragan but he raises his head to check what options are around him and takes a poor touch, kicking the ball out of play. 17 min: Da Silva does well to track Moses, who is picked out by a lovely ball from Matic, and block a threatening cross. The corner is cleared. 15 min: Kante sends a diagonal pass meant for Moses on the right into the stands. “Wahey!” shout the home fans. 14 min: Chambers intercepts a below par Hazard cross from the left. This game is lacking a spark. 13 min: Seconds later Matic fouls Traore just inside Chelsea’s half. 12 min: Negredo drops deep to get his foot on the ball and is tracked by David Luiz, who clips the striker from behind. It’s a free-kick but nothing more. 10 min: Hazard is continuing but limping. He curls a harmless effort straight into Valdes’s arms. 8 min: Clayton is booked for bringing down Hazard, who shrugs off a challenge from De Roon with a tasty turn before being clattered by Clayton’s follow up challenge. That’s his third of the season. Hazard remains down and is getting some attention to his right ankle. 8 min: Boro have shaded the opening exchanges. Chelsea have yet to settle. 6 min: Ramirez dribbles forward after David Luiz misjudges a long ball from Da Silva but the Boro attacker’s cross to De Roon is a tad misplaced. The Dutchman checks his run and the move eventually ends with Traoré’s cross from the right being blocked. 5 min: Boro are a bit hasty when playing the ball out from the back, leading to Pedro pressing Gibson into hooking out for a throw. 4 min: Ramirez squirms out of a couple of challenges in midfield with some neat control. His performance will be key if Boro are to get a result today. 2 min: Barragan does well to hold off Hazard, who is making his 150th Premier League appearance here, earning a free after the Belgian nudges him on the back while shielding the ball. 1 min: We are underway. Boro get going, playing from right to left as we watch. We will kick-off after a moment of silence that ends up turning into applause for Remembrance Sunday. Nobody at all is wearing a poppy – who’s ready to fume at this lack of respect? The teams are out. The lightshow (!) is done with and we are moments away from some hot! hot! hot! Premier League football action. Middlesbrough are in red, as you’d expect, and Chelsea are in their black and yellow change strip. “Every game is a challenge for us,” says Aitor Karanka on TV. “It’s important to think and play our football and win,” believes Antonio Conte. More of these hot takes as we get them. Chelsea’s last game, that thumping of Everton, was perhaps the most one-sided of the season so far. And ominously for Boro they are unchanged. The hosts, meanwhile, have made two swaps from the draw at City: Fabio Da Silva replaces George Friend at left-back, and Gaston Ramírez is back from suspension, meaning Stewart Downing drops to the bench. A question for the floor: what’s the least appealing fixture in the Premier League? Of course not this one, but looking at West Brom v Burnley tomorrow night, there aren’t many less exciting for neutrals than that … Email me: alan.smith@theguardian.com, or sum it up in fewer than 140 characters by making a tweet to @alansmith90. Middlesbrough: Valdes; Barragan, Chambers, Gibson, Da Silva; Traore, Forshaw, Clayton, De Roon, Ramirez; Negredo. Subs: Guzan, Espinosa, Fischer, Nsue, Leadbitter, Downing, Rhodes. Chelsea: Courtois; Azpilicueta, David Luiz, Cahill; Moses, Kante, Matic, Alonso; Pedro, Diego Costa, Hazard. Subs: Begovic, Ivanovic, Terry, Chalobah, Fabregas, Oscar, Batshuayi. Remember that Saturday evening in late September when Chelsea were brutally dismantled by Arsenal and it seemed that Antonio Conte had more work than initially bargained for to return them to title challengers? Yeah, well since then Chelsea have won every game to an aggregate score of 16-0. A sixth victory in a row here would move them top of the table, a point clear of Manchester City and Liverpool. Early days and all that, but they have the look of contenders. Middlesbrough should not be completely discounted this afternoon, though. They have stifled both Arsenal and City in recent weeks to earn draws and have also beaten Bournemouth at home, although the head to head record makes for grim reading. Not only have Chelsea won the past half dozen meetings but it is more than a decade since Boro last scored in this fixture – Mark Viduka finding the net in a 2-1 win in August 2006. (Obvious caveat: today’s hosts have spent much of that period in the second tier). Chelsea’s run has largely been put down to a change in system but there have been more notable facets. Certainly the switch to a three-man defence has been a boost and Conte says “I’m surprised at the speed to understand this new change”, but one cannot underplay that Chelsea are a team again and the star players are locked in and engaged. In particular Eden Hazard, who is close to the irresistible form he was in the season before last. “You can see Eden is always involved in the game, not calm and off during the game. No, he always stays in the game and he’s always a point of reference for his team-mates,” Conte says of the Belgian. Will he be decisive here? Kick-off at the Riverside is 4pm GMT. Team news follows imminently. Meantime, why not read Dominic Fifield’s exclusive interview with Eden Hazard.
'This is insane. This is three Brexits': Trump supporters savour special night Just before 3am on Wednesday at the Hilton hotel in Midtown Manhattan, Donald Trump made his entrance to his victory party amid chants of “U-S-A! U-S-A!”. If they could have heard it in the nearby convention centre where they awaited in vain for Hillary Clinton, it might have sounded like a threat. Just as at his freewheeling rallies, his entrance to the crowded ballroom was heralded by the theme music of Air Force One, a Hollywood action film starring Harrison Ford as the American president. All eyes turned up to the balcony. There stood a tall figure in dark suit with white shirt, red tie and familiar shock of orange hair. But this was no movie. This was the president-elect. Trump – who at 70 will be the oldest person ever to assume the office – clapped and raised a triumphant fist above a blue “Make America Great Again” banner. He was followed by a royal train of grinning family members, political allies and campaign aides, some scarcely able to believe what just happened. Behind them the curtains were illuminated red, white and blue. An improbable, rollicking, at times farcical campaign that had begun with a ride down an escalator at Trump Tower in June last year – in the days when he was dismissed as a clown posing no possible threat to the republic – culminated in an exultant strut down a staircase at a nearby hotel. Trump gave the thumbs up and applauded some more as he walked on to a stage where two red “Make America Great Again” baseball caps were mounted in glass cases like religious relics. He took the podium against a backdrop of 24 US flags plus state flags, with son Barron on his left and running mate Mike Pence on his right, as the crowd chanted “U-S-A! U-S-A!”. After 17 months of bile and braggadocio in which he threatened to jail his opponent, suddenly Trump was Mr Magnanimous: “I’ve just received a call from Secretary Clinton. She congratulated us – it’s about us – on our victory and I congratulated her and her family on a very, very hard-fought campaign.” He added: “We owe her a major debt of gratitude for her service to our country. I mean that very sincerely. Now it’s time for America to bind the wounds of division.” It was not quite plagiarism on the scale of future first lady Melania Trump at the Republican national convention, where she copied large parts of a Michelle Obama speech, but it did bear an uncanny resemblance to Abraham Lincoln’s second inaugural address: “Let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds.” Yet less than an hour earlier, when Clinton’s face flashed up on giant TV screens showing conservative Fox News, the guests at Trump’s victory party had erupted in loud boos, chants of “Lock her up! Lock her up!” and a hearty rendition of “Na na na na, na na na na, hey hey, goodbye”. For a night, this bland high-ceilinged room in a bland corporate hotel was the centre of the political universe. A business tycoon, reality TV celebrity and architect of one of the most divisive and incendiary campaigns in memory – some compared him to Hitler or Mussolini – had become the most powerful person on the planet, his finger on the nuclear trigger. “First,” he said, “I want to thank my parents who I know are looking down on me right now.” His mother, Mary MacLeod, was from Stornoway in the Outer Hebrides, once described by Trump as “serious Scotland”. His father, Fred Trump, the son of a German immigrant, became one of the New York’s biggest developers and landlords. After a formative spell at military academy, Trump went the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and joined the family business, taking control of it in 1971. He has claimed his father gave him a “small loan of a million dollars” to help. The firm expanded into Manhattan, and the Trump name spread internationally, but he suffered his share of business failures, notably when four casinos went bust in Atlantic City. In 2003 his celebrity soared with The Apprentice, in which contestants battled for a shot at a management job within his organisation and he could say with relish, “You’re fired!” His eruption on the political stage was not entirely unexpected. Once a registered Democrat and donor to the party, he entered the 2000 race as a Reform party candidate but did not last. He also led the “birther movement” after repeatedly questioning the birthplace of Barack Obama. He finally conceded this year that the US president was born in Hawaii but offered no apology, fuelling the allegation that he had run a racially charged, white nativist campaign. He also faced a string of sexual assault allegations on his way to the White House. Trump may have been propelled to a shocking, paradigm-shattering victory by blue-collar workers, but the guests at his election-night event were decidedly moneyed. The men were in suits and ties, the women in dresses. They began filtering in after 6pm in somewhat subdued mood; just like Brexit champion Nigel Farage on the eve of that result, campaign manager Kellyanne Conway appeared to lower expectations by complaining of a lack of support from Republican stalwarts. Yet what would follow would be a night of rising hope, of belief spreading around the room like a wildfire, of daring to believe that their man might just pull off the biggest upset in modern political history. TV celebrity Omarosa Manigault, Trump’s director of African American outreach, held court with reporters, insisting that the candidate was supremely confident but that she felt “butterflies”. She mused on the circularity of having worked on The Apprentice at Trump Tower years ago and now being back there watching her mentor become “leader of the free world”. National spokeswoman Katrina Pierson also showed up. “Are you nervous?” someone asked. Pierson replied: “Nothing to be nervous about.” The drinks began to flow. Someone said: “We’re making America great again.” A friend replied: “Trying, trying.” Each time Fox News flashed up a Trump victory in a reliably red state, the guests cheered and waved signs with slogans. Each time it showed Clinton had won a Democratic stronghold, they booed. Then the Republican candidate won Ohio and North Carolina. Suddenly, what had seemed like a pipe dream felt just a little more tangible. Jeff Sado, 58, a property broker and film producer, said: “I’m very excited. It looks good so far. You know what they say: when you win Ohio, you win the presidency. I’ve always liked Trump, and if you look at our country as a corporation, who better to run it than a businessman?” The crowd became thicker and noisier with more “Make America Great Again” caps in evidence. Confidence surged into every corner of the room. And then there was Florida. The crowd erupted in its biggest roar of the night so far and people high-fived. It was game on. Wearing one of those caps, Benjamin Marchi, 38, who owns a home healthcare company, said: “Driving up, we were depressed. We felt this was not going to go our way tonight. We were saying, even though he might lose, he was setting up the party to reach out for voters we haven’t reached since Ronald Reagan. But now it looks like he might win the whole thing.” Marchi made comparison with Britain’s vote to leave the European Union. “This Brexit wave, it reaches across oceans. It really does. Never underestimate ordinary people because eventually they show up and vote.” The excitement also infected Diana Loffredo, 32, an events planner. “It’s crazy,” she said. “This is history in the making right here. I didn’t think so before but now I really do. Amazing. I’m amazed, ecstatic. She was the favourite and now he’s turned the tables.” Her husband, Scott Loffredo, 32, was watching the big screen when Fox News declared Wisconsin for Trump, a stunning surprise. “That’s it!” he exclaimed. “It’s over! This is history!” Asked to characterise his emotions, Loffredo replied: “It’s hard to describe a feeling. I cannot overcome the utter disbelief. It’s sheer shock. I cannot break that shell. This is insane. This is three Brexits.” The sports event atmosphere took on a darker tone. The crowd chanted: “Lock her up! Lock her up!” Every so often the TV feed cut to Clinton’s election party where faces were disconsolate. Trump’s supporters booed and jeered without compassion. Thomas Stewart, a member of Trump’s national security committee, said of the Democrat’s followers: “I think they were a little arrogant, a little unfriendly. There were some Clinton people on the plane today and they were taunting me because I had Trump material in my briefcase. I thought, ‘Guys, you don’t have to be rude.’” As the momentum continued to build, Brian Lynch, 55, general manager of a country club, said: “It’s orgasmic. It’s like Brexit and, by the way, God bless London. People in London got it right. They want their country back; America wants its country back. It’s the same thing.” By now the room was nearly full but there was long wait for further results. Some broke into a chorus or two of “God bless America”. Some, after several hours on their feet, opted to sit on the floor. The atmosphere was becoming increasingly hot and claustrophobic. The TV showed Wall Street stock prices tumbling. Thomas Hilbert, 22, a portfolio analyst from Indianapolis, was watching his fortune diminish in real time. “I’m in biotech and it’s going to be down big tomorrow,” he said. “Everything’s going to be down. It’s definitely a price worth paying because in the long run it’s going up.” People studied their phones for the latest vote counts in Pennsylvania. But tiredness was creeping in. One woman could be heard saying: “At 3am I’m leaving.” But then, finally, came the announcement of a once unthinkable, perhaps unpalatable statement: Donald Trump elected US president. The crowd erupted in unbridled euphoria with high fives all round. Their “champion”, as Pence put it, made his entrance to Air Force One and departed to the sound of another golden oldie from his rallies, the Rolling Stones’ You Can’t Always Get What You Want. The Stones have objected to his use of the track. But now Trump is about to be president of the United States, who is going to stop him?
Stanley Tucci remembers Alan Rickman: 'My heart aches with loss' The actor Stanley Tucci, who made a memorable supporting performance in Alan Rickman’s final film behind the camera, has paid tribute to “a wonderful actor and director”. Tucci also called Rickman, who died on Thursday, “most importantly, behind his wry imperiousness, one of the kindest people and one of the most generous friends I have had the great fortune to know”. Tucci played the flamboyant Duke of Orléans in last year’s period romance A Little Chaos, in which Rickman also featured as Louis XIV. They also co-starred in 2012s Gambit. But the pair had been friends since 2010, after meeting in a New York bar when both were directing plays on Broadway. “After that night we seemed effortlessly to become part of each other’s lives,” Tucci told the . “I had begun to work a lot in London and would see him and Rima [Horton, Rickman’s partner] whenever I could. We went to the theatre together and shared many, many wonderful meals, as good food and drink were a common passion.” Tucci remembered the couple coming to stay with him and his family in America; Rickman’s “imminent arrival throwing my three children into paroxysms of excitement and fear as Harry Potter was basically the only thing on their minds in those days. “My youngest, who about nine at the time, had invited her best friend to sleep over and their anticipation of meeting Severus Snape was nothing short of hysterical. When he finally did arrive he greeted them as graciously as he greeted everyone and then bent slightly at the waist so that he was just on the cusp of looming over them, lowered his eyelids slightly and asked them in that distinctive and profoundly sonorous voice: ‘Are you Harry Potter fans?’ Needless to say we almost had to take the poor things to the hospital.” “How happy my family and I are to have had him in our lives for even a short period of time,” said Tucci. “My heart aches with loss.”
I don’t need to play my vinyl to love it Vinyl sales may be on the up, but according to an ICM poll, almost half of people who bought a vinyl album last month have yet to listen to it. And of people who buy records, the poll found, 41% have a turntable they never use – and 7% don’t even own a record player. So as a buyer of vinyl that I no longer play, I have to ask: what’s in it for us? The romance of owning a physical object? Having to go to a particular place and spend cold hard contactless money to buy it? That’s certainly more rewarding than idly downloading a song while you’re sitting on the loo. Or is it just about hanging a copy of Adele’s latest album, last year’s biggest selling vinyl album, on the wall of your lounge to look cultured? As a DJ and music journalist, I used to own a lot of vinyl. It’s not an exact measurement, but I’m talking two full Ikea Expedits’ worth. After moving in and then out of a fifth-floor flat with no lift, I decided that perhaps it was time to reconsider my situation and weed out some of the lesser-played records in my collection. As it turned out, it would probably be the last time I played a record. This was five years ago. My eye-wateringly expensive record player now sits with it’s two output cables forlornly dangling down the back. On top of it are, among other things, a spare dog collar and a recorder. But that’s not to say that I don’t have a strong emotional connection to the vinyl I have hung on to. I can pretty much remember where each and every record came from. That time I bought the seven inch for Hard to Love, Easy to Lay by Leeds-based band Black Wire in a store called Feeling Groovy in Peoria, Illinois; the occasion I found a mysterious album by a band called Ex-Hole in the street at 1am, only to discover their strange, minimal Belgian new wave would present me with one of my favourite songs, about someone dying of boredom at their own party. Is it a waste of records to keep them and not play them? Is it like those drawers in the National History Museum that are full of bugs, pinned to card, that you can’t even see unless you’re a bug geek? Maybe. But for me each one holds a memory: of a person, a time, a place. Or the smell of the carpet when I found Talking Head’s Naive Melody in 7” at the bottom of the 25p bin in the East Dulwich branch of Sense. When it came to getting rid of some (reader, it was loads) of them, I went over those memories, like a flashback in a film. I can’t say I had the same emotional engagement when I deleted 3,900 MP3s from my computer. So why do I keep buying vinyl, if I never play it any more? I’ll admit that on some level, as with the ownership of many physical things, it’s a status symbol. No one knows that I’m listening to Mariah Carey at the back of the bus – but they do know, because I’ve shared it on Instagram, that I bought the Björk re-issue of Post on pink vinyl not all that long ago. And to my utter shame, it’s still in the plastic. The fact is that I am not the only person who buys but never tries. But it’s certainly no bad thing for the economy - this weekend marks Record Store Day when vinyl will be flying out of independent shops around the land – or for the music industry. At a time when everything is disposable, going out and buying a record is a real commitment. If you don’t ever listen to it, so be it. When I first started DJing, not many places would have a CDJ (compact disc jockey) – so I had to carry my records around with me. Listening to them I’d think about the meditative quality of that warm, dusty crackle of vinyl. It made me feel safe and loved. I can’t get rid of all my vinyl, they’re old friends. But I should probably do the right thing, plug my record player in and show them some love back.
Sunderland 3-2 Chelsea and more: football clockwatch – as it happened That’s it from me, thanks for reading and emailing from all corners of the world, sorry I couldn’t use them all. Now why not follow Leicester receiving the Premier League trophy? Gregg Bakowski has it live, right here. Bye! The Newcastle manager, Rafa Benítez: “Really disappointed, not just because of three points but also Sunderland. Now we have to wait. We have to wait, see what they do in the week, and after try to win our game. We were not comfortable in possession, we had some good chances but at this level and when you need points you have to take your chances, and we didn’t do it.” Match report: West Ham 1-4 Swansea Match report: Crystal Palace 2-1 Stoke Match report: Bournemouth 1-1 West Brom Match report: Sunderland 3-2 Chelsea The Sunderland manager, Sam Allardyce: “Extraordinary. Nerve-racking. Wonderful goal from Wahbi to thrill the whole of the stadium. (I said) ‘let’s not waste Whabi’s goal’. It’s a wonderful result for us. One thing we do know is that it’s in our hands. Hopefully we can achieve our goal on Wednesday night [against Everton]. Since the turn of the year we’ve been so near yet so far from so many victories, yet today we’ve come back to a winning position twice.” That late John Terry red card could spell a miserable end to his trophy-laden Chelsea career, should he leave in the summer. Terry will receive a two-match ban, having been sent off earlier in the season already, and of course Chelsea have only two games remaining. He threw his armband to the floor when he realised what he’d done. Sunderland’s Jermain Defoe: “Goosebumps. Unbelievable. It’s been like that all season. The fans have been fantastic. A difficult game but obviously we managed to do it against a top Chelsea team who won the league last year.” That result sends Sunderland out of the bottom three, a point clear of Newcastle with a game in hand. Sunderland are in the box seat and would seal safety with a win on Wednesday night against Everton. The picture now looks very bleak for Norwich, however, and their race is almost run. Premier League table Premier League results Norwich 0-1 Man Utd West Ham 1-4 Swansea Sunderland 3-2 Chelsea Bournemouth 1-1 West Brom Aston Villa 0-0 Newcastle Crystal Palace 2-1 Stoke Wow. A stunning strike by Khazri before a quickfire double by Defoe and Borini have handed Sunderland the most crucial of crucial wins. Oxford see off Wycombe 3-0 and Bristol Rovers strike late to win 2-1 against Dagenham and secure back-to-back promotions. Accrington will have to do it through the play-offs. A second yellow and the Chelsea captain is off. Bafetimbi Gomis adds a bit of gloss and West Ham have been humbled at Upton Park. That is surely the end of their top-four chase. Aston Villa 0-0 Newcastle This looks like being a major slip-up for Newcastle. Follow it live right here. “My location is about as far from exotic as you can get,” emails Jeremy Morris. “I’m in seat 8F on American Airlines flight 2980, 29,000 feet over the Arizona desert. Nice view though. If you’ve nothing better to do, go to FlightAware.com and you can track progress to New York.” Sunderland 3-2 Chelsea Nothing came of that Chelsea free-kick as you might have guessed and Sunderland are into injury time here – so close. League Two – Huge goal! Bristol Rovers strike! They go 2-1 up through Lee Brown’s injury-time goal, and it means Accrington have to score in the remaining few seconds or they will bumped down into the play-offs. Sunderland 3-2 Chelsea Free-kick to Chelsea in a dangerous position... League Two Accrington hit the bar! They might not need it but that would have secured their place in League One next season. Still 0-0 against Stevenage. Sunderland 3-2 Chelsea Five minutes for Sunderland to hold on, and holding on is exactly what they are doing. No fourth goal on the cards, Big Sam is shutting up shop. League Two Accrington are struggling to make that crucial breakthrough against Stevenage, likewise Bristol Rovers who are desperate for that goal against Dagenham that would send them up. Both still drawing with around five minutes to go. Matt Ritchie puts Bournemouth level and these two are going to go into the final weekend of the season locked together on 42 points, it seems. An incredible array of exotic and not-so locations emailed, and plenty of suspicion about whether Hugo really has a girlfriend. Unfortunately I can’t roll them all out because of the football that’s happening, but here’s one from Nicholas Brown: “Taking shelter in a little Hurricane Hole in the ‘Paradise Lakes’ Great Sound, Bermuda on my 40’ liveaboard. It’s blowing near gale force and pissing rain and has been for 2 days. All on my lonesome with just the turtles for company. Glad of the distraction of EPL. Bet the weather’s better there!!” Tis lovely. League Two Oxford United have a second against Wycombe through a Chris Maguire penalty and they are just 15 minutes from sealing promotion to League One. Bristol Rovers still need a goal to deny Accrington Stanley the other automatic promotion spot. A great effort from Dortmund falls short after a surprise defeat to Frankfurt, and Bayern are champions for the fourth season in a row. How about this. Jermain Dofoe grabs Sunderland’s second in three minutes and Sunderland, as it stands, are out of the bottom three. Incredible. Equaliser! Wait, there’s more... Palace have turned this game on its head and it’s that man Dwight Gayle again. Fabianski makes a brilliant double save but can’t keep out the third as Sakho’s effort goes in off Kingsley, and the Hammers may be back in it. Scottish Premiership Kris Doolan grabs Partick’s second and it looks as though Kilmarnock will have to settle for the relegation play-off. Sunderland 1-2 Chelsea Cattermole and Costa both miss decent chances, Mannone making a fine stop to deny the latter. “Keeping up with the Sunderland game from my girlfriend’s house,” Hugo Campbell. “Nowhere particularly special, it’s just in Greenwich, but I just wanted everyone to know that I’ve got a girlfriend.” Bundesliga Karim Onisiwo makes it 3-1 to Mainz and it looks like Stuttgart are moving a step closer to the drop. Michael Collins emails with an important point on book-based etiquette: “Donuts? In a library? It’s the end of days.” League Two Chey Dunkley’s bullet header has sent Oxford fans crazy – they are heading to League One if they can hold on to this 1-0 advantage against Wycombe. Bristol Rovers need a goal of their own against Dagenham & Redbridge if they are to seal back-to-back promotions this afternoon. Scottish Premiership “Is it possible to add Dundee to your list of exotic reading locations?” chances Simon McMahon. “The climate is sub-arctic, and there’s certainly a lot of wildlife here. Looking good for Hamilton and Partick, who both lead, leaving Kilmarnock to take their chances in the relegation play off.” Well, well, well. Well. Barrow whips a cross from the left and Ki slams a classy volley home. Hard to know if people are just making these up now: “Watching Chelsea from a bungalow at a Mauritian fisherman village,” emails Gaurav Pandit, “and feeling that Sunderland should be rewarded better for their enterprise and effort.” This is a very Yannick Bolasie assist, charging 30 yards with the ball stuck to his feet before losing control at the crucial moment, but it ran nicely for Dwight Gayle to fire Palace level. Light reading If you are the sort who only calls in on the Championship to find out who the teams promoted to the Premier League are, then here are some match reports just for you: “Your ‘great range of exotic reading locations this afternoon’ also includes the law library at the University of Tennessee,” toots Claire Tuley, “where I am rooting for Sunderland (actually an Arsenal fan, but they’re my nephew’s team and I’d hate to see them relegated), eating donuts, and attempting to learn the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. So, so exotic and glamourous.” Don’t put yourself down, Claire. It’s below Tibetan rafting but a library in Tennessee is still a notch above Towers in the glamour league system, I think. And you have donuts. Adam Hirst emails: “The way Villa v Newcastle is going, that Norwich v United match earlier is somehow not even going to be the dullest match of the day. If you can stay awake til 5pm, you’ll have earned your money today.” League Two Oxford, Accrington and Bristol Rovers are all drawing at the break, which means Rovers would be the side to miss out on automatic promotion as it stands. It’s set up for some spectacular late heartbreak, you feel. Half-time whistles are blowing all over the UK. Here are the scores at the break in the Premier League: West Ham 0-2 Swansea Sunderland 1-2 Chelsea Bournemouth 0-1 West Brom Aston Villa 0-0 Newcastle Crystal Palace 0-1 Stoke And you can get all the latest scores across Europe right here. Oh dear. So soon after that wonderful Khazri equaliser, Nemanja Matic has restored Chelsea’s lead. A brutal blow for the home side just before the break. “Big L,” emails Ciaran Gill. Lovely start. “Currently on a rooftop in Jaisalmer, India, in a Tibetan restaurant with a couple of frosty Kingfishers. Eagerly awaiting some good news re Sunderland - don’t let us down!” Your wish has already been granted, I think. A great range of exotic reading locations this afternoon. Artur Boruc pulls off a fine double save to deny Craig Gardner’s penalty and the rebound, and keep Bournemouth in it. The Baggies aren’t having much luck from the spot in recent weeks. Footage of that Khazri goal just in: Wahbi Khazri has just scored an utter stunner to bring Sunderland level. What a massive moment in the relegation battle this may or may not be. Bayern Munich’s English arm is still finding its tone on Twitter, I feel: Bundesliga Second halves under way in Germany. Frankfurt still lead Dortmund 1-0 where a surprise win could pull them out of the relegation scrap. Scottish Premiership Only two goals in the Scottish Premiership so far: Scott McDonald handed Motherwell the lead against St Johnstone and Carlton Morris has scored for Hamilton against Dundee. It’s a wonderful assist by 21-year-old Stephen Kingsley who feeds Andre Ayew in thre box and the forward can’t miss. Shouldn’t Swansea be on the proverbial beach? West Ham’s Champions League aspirations are hanging by a thread. A lovely goal by the visitors, Charlie Adam arriving in the box and sweeping home with his right foot, which is almost certainly the first time it’s touched a ball this season. First Payet goes very close with one of his trademark free-kicks, before Swansea go on the attack. Naughton volleys the ball across the goal and Wayne Routledge is on hand to tap home at the back post. Crystal Palace 0-0 Stoke Xherdan Shaqiri runs in on goal but misses his one-on-one, Wayne Hennessey saving well with his feet. Lots of action at Selhurst but no goals so far. “Also very, very nervous here in Nepal up near the Tibetan border where we are rafting the Bhote Kosi,” emails John Davis. “Relying on intermittent mobile data connection and your reports to keep in touch with Newcastle’s score. My wife is a mackem, so it is a tense state of affairs.” This sounds like a recipe for a drowned mobile phone, surely? League Two Back to the battle for promotion and Billy Bodin has equalised for Bristol Rovers to quickly cancel out Dagenham & Redbridge’s opener. The League winners, Northampton, are up against Portsmouth through a Jack Whatmough own goal. Pompey have rested plenty of players today ahead of the play-offs. Salomón Rondón gets up well in the box to power a header past Artur Boruc, and the visitors are in front. Cahill’s deflected shot finds its way to Diego Costa who fires home from close range. A roar goes in a corner of Villa Park. League Two Hmm, did I say Bristol Rovers have the easiest game of the promotion chasers? Well they are behind against Dagenham & Redbridge, Matthew Cash slotting home for the visitors. A massive boost for Accrington Stanley and Oxford United, who are going up as it stands. Crystal Palace 0-0 Stoke It’s been an entertaining start at Selhurst Park and Palace might have had an early penalty – Dwight Gayle went down right on the edge of the box but won only a free-kick. League Two Bristol Rovers require a win and a mistake from either Oxford United or Accrington Stanley to be promoted automatically, but they have the easiest fixture on paper with a home tie against relegated Dagenham and Redbridge. All three matches are goalless so far. “Nerves, nerves and more nerves here in Beijing,” emails Richard Wood, who I deduce is a Bristol Rovers fan. “We have had a fantastic season - this time last year we were in the Conference Playoffs and maybe in three hours we will be in the League Two playoffs - but a result today and a failure for Oxford or Accrington would be perfect. Up The Gas.” Bundesliga Stefan Aigner’s 14th-minute strike has handed Frankfurt a 1-0 lead against Dortmund. At Ingolstadt, Thomas Müller has handed penalty duties to Robert Lewandowski following his miss against Atlético Madrid, and the striker has slotted Bayern into a 1-0 advantage. Bundesliga table Premier League Whistles peep as the five 1500 BST kick-offs get under way. Perhaps not £170m but I take Gary’s point. I always like a club who come up and gives the players who earned it their chance. Juan Mata’s second-half goal has pushed Norwich closer to the Championship. The Canaries now desperately need favours from Chelsea and Aston Villa this afternoon. Get the details here. Middlesbrough manager Aitor Karanka: “I could not be more proud of this group of players. Thank you, it’s amazing for me. It was impossible (to relax). Sometimes they said I was crazy when I said we could put this club in the Premier League again, but two years later we’ve done it.” Middlesbrough midfielder Adam Clayton speaks from a bouncing Boro dressing room: “Personally for me and my dad to finally get back up there it’s been a personal mission, it has been incredible. This is a Premier League club, and now it is in the Premier League. We’ll have a good two months off, then we’ll come back and try and do a Leicester eh.” That was said with a cheeky grin, I should say. Rafa Benítez speaks: “They [the Newcastle players] are running a lot. I can see the belief every time that we win. When they get the result they fight even more for the next game.” Premier League Norwich are running out of time to get something from their match against Manchester United, where it’s still 1-0 thanks to Juan Mata’s second-half strike. You can follow the finish to that one here, and the buildup to Aston Villa v Newcastle here. A beleaguered Simon McMahon emails from Scotland: “Afternoon Lawrence. I’ll be honest, I struggled to motivate myself to write this week’s Scottish football update. But, you know, the show must go on etc etc. Hibs have just beaten Raith 2-0 and so overturn their first leg defeat and progress to the play off semi against Falkirk. The winners of that will most likely face Kilmarnock for a place in the SPL after Dundee United’s inevitable relegation was confirmed on Monday. United restored a little pride (not really, though) with a 3-2 win at Inverness last night as they prepare for life in the Scottish Championship. “A win for Kilmarnock against Partick today though would make things interesting as far as the play-off place is concerned. Elsewhere it’s play-off time all round as teams across Scotland fight to stay in or move up a league. Ayr and Stranraer have healthy first leg leads against Peterhead and Livingston and should progress. It’s not so clear cut as Cowdenbeath host Queens Park and Elgin play Clyde. And Edinburgh City are looking to end East Stirling’s 61 year stay in the senior leagues as they host the first leg of the League Two play off. Right, I’m off for a lie down.” Match report: Middlesbrough 1-1 Brighton Championship Most of the full-time scores from England’s second tier are in and you can check them all here. They’ve done it, and Brighton will have to go through the play-offs if they are to join Boro and Burnley in the top flight. Get the details here with Gregg Bakowski. Championship Hull have finished the regular season with a flourish, smashing five past Rotherham with Jake Livermore twice on the scoresheet in a 5-1 win. Hull head into the playoffs next where they will play Derby. Still a couple of minutes left of the eight added at Boro where it’s 1-1 – their fans are lining up ominously on the advertising hoardings for a full-scale pitch invasion. The stewards have no chance. Follow it here. There hasn’t been an awful lot more than pride to play for elsewhere in England’s second tier, something Charlton haven’t managed to salvage much of with a 3-0 home bashing by Burnley, who win the league in the process. Sam Vokes, George Boyd, and Andre Gray did the damage in south London. Hats off to a team who came down from the Premier League and stuck by their manager, Sean Dyche. A fantastic achievement. Disaster for Norwich – get the skinny right here with Barry Glendenning. It’s worth just the £170m: Championship It’s the final ten minutes of the Championship’s regular season and Middlesbrough are clinging on to an automatic promotion place. You can follow Brighton throwing the kitchen sink at Boro right here, with Gregg Bakowski. In a week best summed up by a slow-motion video of Wes Morgan sliding on his back across Jamie Vardy’s kitchen floor, it is easy to forget there is still plenty to settle below Leicester in the Premier League table. Sunderland host a Chelsea side fresh from the Stamford Bridge brawl with Tottenham which sealed Leicester’s title. It is hard to know whether the Blues will be inspired or insipid after that game but the Black Cats, 18th and one point behind Newcastle with a game in hand, are in desperate need of the latter. Newcastle go to Aston Villa knowing anything but a win will mean points dropped, while Norwich are already in action with Manchester United – you can follow the end of that game here. West Ham play Swansea in their penultimate match at Upton Park with a Champions League spot still within reach, while Crystal Palace host on-their-holidays Stoke for the chance to make their safety official. And Bournemouth play West Brom at the Vitality Stadium, two teams each with a totally opposing ethos locked together on 41 points. It doesn’t matter how you get there, I suppose. Premier League table Elsewhere, League Two wraps up with a tasty fight for the right to be automatically promoted alongside Northampton: Accrington Stanley, Oxford United and Bristol Rovers are chasing the two remaining spots. There is also a busy schedule of Bundesliga games to keep an eye on and lots of action in Scotland too, so don’t go anywhere! No really, I need the company: if you’d like to send me an email or a tweet, that would be lovely. League Two table
Ban use of police cells for people in mental health crisis, MPs told People suffering a mental health crisis should never be held in police cells as they find it terrifying and become even more unwell, ministers will be told. Peers will move an amendment to the policing and crime bill on Wednesday to ensure that adults who are feeling suicidal, are psychotic or are self-harming are never taken to police stations for assessment. It already plans to do that for under-18s. The number of people to whom that happens has fallen sharply in recent years and the number taken instead to hospitals has risen as a result, after widespread concern about the practice. “When you’re in a mental health crisis you may become frustrated, frightened and extremely distressed. Your behaviour could be perceived as aggressive and threatening to others, but you desperately need support and compassion,” said Paul Harmer, the chief executive of the mental health charity Mind, which is leading the calls to end the practice. “Being held in a police cell and [in effect] treated like a criminal only makes things worse. Now is the moment to ban this damaging practice once and for all.” Figures show there were 2,100 instances of adults being detained under section 136 of the Mental Health Act in police cells in England and Wales during 2015-16, and it also happened with 43 children and young people aged under 18. West Yorkshire police detained people 269 times in a police cell under section 136 during 2015-16, while Avon and Somerset did it 242 times, and South Wales 192. Officers usually take someone in crisis to a cell only when there is no “place of safety” available in a local NHS hospital. Yet, the 2,100 figure was 53% fewer than the 4,537 to whom that happened the year before. Numbers fell dramatically during Theresa May’s time as home secretary from 2010. For example, in 2011-12 a total of 9,000 people were taken to police cells after being detained. Similarly, the number of under-18s taken to a police cell had fallen from 256 in 2013-14 to 43 last year. Joan Walmsley, a Liberal Democrat peer, will use the Lords debate on Wednesday to try to push through the change. Insp Wayne Goodwin, Kent constabulary’s mental health liaison officer, said: “Kent police believe the use of police cells for those detained under the Mental Health Act should be a never event. Cells are not appropriate places for anyone detained under the act and we know that their use can add to the trauma of the crisis and potentially delay that person’s recovery.” The Home Office said adults should only be taken to police cells in “exceptional circumstances” but did not comment on the call for a ban. A spokeswoman said: “We are committed to ensuring those in mental health crisis get compassionate care and that no one is taken to a cell when they have committed no crime and solely because there is no alternative safe place for them. Significant progress has been made by the police and health partners in halving the use of police cells for those in mental health crisis over the last year. But there is still more work to be done. “Changes to legislation through the Policing and Crime Bill will ban the use of police cells for under 18s in mental health crisis, and ensure they can only be used as a place of safety for adults in genuinely exceptional circumstances.”
WTO head says leaving EU would cost UK consumers £9bn a year The watchdog for global trade has said leaving the European Union would push back trade barriers at a cost of £9bn a year to British consumers. World Trade Organisation boss, Roberto Azevedo, said Britain would be forced to renegotiate trade deals with all 161 WTO members in an unprecedented move that would be akin to joining from scratch. The impact of new tariffs in overseas markets would also be a burden for UK businesses, adding a further £5.5bn to the costs of trade, he said. “The consumer in the UK will have to pay those duties,” Azevedo said. “The UK is not in a position to decide ‘I’m not charging duties here’. That is impossible. That is illegal.” His comments came as ratings agency Standard & Poor’s said sterling’s status as a reserve currency would be jeopardised by a decision to quit the EU as central banks around the world would sell their holdings in favour of more secure currencies. S&P said countries with a reserve currency earned considerable income from heavy trading on foreign exchange markets and enjoyed lower interest charges on overseas debt. “A departure from the EU could put sterling’s reserve status at risk by deterring foreign direct investment and other capital inflows into the UK,” it said, adding that because last year’s current account deficit was the world’s second-highest, any decline in capital inflows would weaken the pound and hit GDP growth. The remain camp said the two interventions left the economic argument for leaving the EU “in tatters”. Former business secretary Vince Cable said Brexit campaigners believed British businesses would be no worse off operating under WTO rules compared to exporting from inside the EU. “But the head of the WTO has warned leaving the EU could cost the UK billions in trade and lead to years of damaging uncertainty. The comments from the WTO are especially important as Boris Johnson has made clear that his vision of a ‘Brexit future’ lies within a WTO framework. Standard & Poor’s warning over sterling would mean higher prices, higher mortgage rates and more government debt.” Boris Johnson told the BBC in April: “The WTO has changed the way trade works in the world now. Tariff barriers are much less important and don’t forget 73% of the non-EU trade we do at the moment is done without any kind of trade deal whatsoever.” The WTO and its predecessor, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, which came into force in 1948, were created to lower trade barriers and police disputes. Azevedo told the Financial Times: “Pretty much all of the UK’s trade [with the world] would somehow have to be negotiated. It is extremely difficult and complex to negotiate these trade agreements. And slow as well. Even if you are in a position to negotiate quickly with all these other members it doesn’t mean that they will be in a position to negotiate with you because they have their own priorities.” Responding to Azevedo’s comments, the chief executive of Vote Leave, Matthew Elliot, said: “At the moment our trade relations are dictated by the EU, and this means British businesses are subject to unnecessary constraints. For example, we are forbidden from making free-trade agreements with India and other emerging economies, and we are bound by rules and regulations that we have no say over. Not only that, we currently have no seat at the WTO but are just one of 28 countries represented by the EU. If we vote leave, we can take back control of our our own trade relations, and look forward to a more secure and more prosperous future.” Britain could opt to simply scrap all trade barriers, as some free market economists have advocated, and turn its economy into a duty-free state, but that was unlikely, Azevedo said. He suggested that a burden of great responsibility rested with UK voters regarding Britain’s future trade position and the wider economy. Azevedo said: “It is a very important decision for the British people. It is a sovereign decision and they will decide what they want to decide. But it is very important, particularly with regard to trade, which is something very important for the British economy, that people have the facts and that they don’t underestimate the challenges.” S&P analyst Frank Gill said several other countries could soon be in a position to take over from sterling as a reserve currency, which it defines as accounting for at least 3% of global foreign exchange reserves. The Australian and Canadian dollars have increased from close to zero a decade ago to a combined 3.8% at the end of last year.
Wild Beasts: Boy King review – wilder and beastlier Around the time of their first album, 2008’s Limbo, Panto, Wild Beasts were neither wild nor beasts. Taking their name from fauvism, the early 20th-century art movement, this operatic indie foursome were a repository of erudite, swooping art rock. The red-blooded falsetto of Hayden Thorpe used to crack ecstatically, so deeply felt were their songs. The rest of the band shirked the obvious, energetically. It’s hard for complexity to survive in the brutal dystopia that is modern music commerce. Five albums in – solidly good ones, never truly earth-moving ones – you get a sense that this Cumbria-via-Leeds band have decided to throw erudition to the wind and finally embrace knuckle-dragging rock piggery. This, in exchange for some of the kudos, cheddar and ancillary benefits that their labelmates Arctic Monkeys have long enjoyed. So Boy King is actually all about being wild – a song called Big Cat opens the record – and sex, hyper-masculinity (Adonis and Colossus are referenced) and getting one’s “bang”. Basslines swagger, and the prettiness that lit up the band’s first three albums (one of them Mercury-nominated) has become a guttering, neon strip, one that deepens the electronic flirtation Wild Beasts began on their last album, Present Tense. To this end, producer John Congleton (St Vincent, John Grant) mans the board, running Wild Beasts’ guitars through alchemising effects. This approach hits its apex on He the Colossus, when Thorpe sings “Everything just dies in these hands”, and Tom Fleming’s guitar answers him beautifully, all distorted. Congleton also brings a widescreen, pared-back, Texan feel to the band’s previously twitchy default mode. On songs like Get My Bang, you can’t help but think of Arctic Monkeys. It’s not actually about sex, but about the orgy of consumerism that western society indulges in, where tearing cut-price TVs out of other people’s hands on Black Friday is the only thrill left. “We’re going darker ages/ I wanna feel outrageous,” pout the backing vocals. Big Cat, meanwhile, sounds like a malevolently slinky Muse song, keen to drive the chorus into your skull. The closing guitar line is downright poetic in its succinctness. Is this Wild Beasts’ masterpiece, then, where they finally live up to an over-literal reading of their name? Not quite. Too many songs sound like generic electronic rock. But a masterful mid-album run – the intriguing, three-legged sulk of 2BU into He the Colossus into the pitch-shifted bomp’n’thwack of Ponytail – is as arresting and fresh as they wanted the rest of this album to be.
TechCrunch falls victim to OurMine hacking group Verizon-owned prominent technology site TechCrunch has become the latest victim of the OurMine hacking group. OurMine Security appeared to gain publishing access to the site, which uses the popular content management system Wordpress, and posted its now infamous message. A post on the site under the byline of Seattle-based writer Devin Coldewey said: “Hello Guys, don’t worry we are just testing techcrunch security, we didn’t change any passwords, please contact us.” The post was then promoted as a ticker, the top banner in red and a the main story on TechCrunch’s front page. The OurMine posting appeared at around 12.20pm BST (7.20am ET) but was removed within two hours. It was still showing in Google’s index and cache at the time of writing. The attack on the technology site is latest in a number of high-profile compromises by OurMine, which included the social media accounts of Twitter chief executive Jack Dorsey, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Google boss Sundar Pichai. OurMine also claimed responsibility last week for a DDoS attack on Pokémon Go’s servers. The TechCrunch attack appears to have leveraged a contributor’s account, rather than a hack on the site’s Wordpress system. In previous attacks, OurMine has used weaker linked accounts to post to services such as Twitter, rather than taking over the user’s social media accounts directly. The attacks underscore the inherent flaws in linked systems: your accounts, or in this case site, is only as resilient as your weakest link. Security experts recommend the use of two-step verification systems to help prevent accounts being compromised. It is unknown whether TechCrunch writer accounts required two-step verification for access to the site’s Wordpress backend. TechCrunch, which is owned by AOL, and in turn by Verizon, did not respond to request for comment. Oculus CEO is latest tech boss hacked in embarrassing account takeover From Tumblr to Katie Couric, here’s everything Verizon just bought from Yahoo
Reality show singer breaks China's Cultural Revolution taboo Nearly half a century after his father plunged to his death from the roof of a Beijing university, Yang Le stepped out on to the stage to tell millions of Chinese television viewers how Chairman Mao’s Cultural Revolution had torn his family apart. “When I was young we were a family of six … My father was handsome, mum was young and beautiful,” sang the silver-haired contestant on China Star, the country’s answer to the X-Factor. “After the Cultural Revolution only five of us were left.” When his lament-filled, taboo-breaking performance ended, Yang bit his lower lip. Applause rippled through the theatre; the judges leapt to their feet; tears streamed down cheeks. “I wasn’t sure I’d be able to get through the song,” the 60-year-old musician recalled in a tearful interview. “I had to force myself to relax because it wasn’t only me who went through this. Millions of other families went through this in China.” May marks 50 years since China was convulsed by Mao Zedong’s Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, a bewildering and bloody attempt by the leader to reshape and reassert control over the Communist party he had helped found in 1921 by mobilising the nation’s youth. A new book on the period by Dutch historian Frank Dikötter reveals the grotesque catalogue of violence inflicted upon alleged “class enemies” and intellectuals as teenage Red Guards fanned out across urban China with orders to “sweep away monsters and demons”. Victims were beaten, flogged, stoned and scolded by “Mao’s Little Generals” or forced to swallow nails and excrement as jeering crowds looked on. Homes and places of worship were ransacked, pillaged and burned. One teacher killed himself after being set upon by students who forced him to drink ink. Another was doused in petrol and set alight. Others were electrocuted or even buried alive. “[It was] a demented environment, an Alice-in-Wonderland world, governed only by its mad logic,” Percy Cradock, then a senior British diplomat in Beijing, recalls in his memoirs. “The country was in the grip of a nightmare.” Among the estimated two million people who lost their lives over the coming decade was Yang Le’s father, Wang Yuguo, a lecturer in industrial economy at Beijing’s prestigious Renmin University. “My father was persecuted and he killed himself. He jumped from the roof of a building,” the singer said. “At Renmin University you heard of professors killing themselves every day. It was horrible. I would hear someone crying and we would wonder who was crying and whose family was suffering those bad things.” The premature death of Yang’s father devastated his family. His mother was forced to sell her dead husband’s belongings – and even her own blood – to feed the couple’s four children. Yang’s three siblings were packed off to the countryside for “re-education” as part of an attempt to rein in Mao’s marauding Red Guards. Finally, Yang’s mother remarried and moved south to Jiangxi province. “She felt sad,” he said. “But she had no choice.” China’s Communist party leaders have officially classified the Cultural Revolution as a mistake. A 1981 resolution noted that the decade-long upheaval “was responsible for the most severe setback and the heaviest losses by the party, the state and the people since the founding of the People’s Republic” in 1949. Two years earlier the People’s Liberation Army marshall Ye Jianying labelled the period “an appalling catastrophe suffered by all our people”. Yet half a century after the mayhem began the subject remains largely a taboo within China. School textbooks skirt around the period and discussion of Mao’s central role in the disaster is shunned. Yang, a classically trained flautist who fled China in the wake of the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown and went on to study at the Schola Cantorum de Paris, said few songs had examined the heartbreak caused by the Cultural Revolution. The government’s refusal to revisit that era means much about what unfolded in the 10 years between the Cultural Revolution’s start in May 1966 and Mao’s death in 1976 remains hazy. For example, the exact circumstances surrounding the death of Yang’s father are still shrouded in mystery. The singer said he believed his father had been interrogated and beaten before he was found dead on 4 December 1968 at the age of 39. “I heard they used shoes to beat my father in the face. He felt humiliated. He couldn’t stand it,” Yang said. But before his corpse was cremated, Yang’s mother spotted an indentation in her dead husband’s skull, leading her to suspect he had been set upon by Red Guards and then pushed to his death. “If somebody jumps from a building you would expect to see a problem with their neck, an internal problem, not the kind of trauma that you can see,” he said. The 50th anniversary of the Cultural Revolution is unlikely to shine fresh light on such cases. Dikötter predicted that China’s leaders would seek to remember the occasion with total silence. “[Chinese people] have been told again and again and again: you had better forget. Let’s just get on with it,” the historian said. “The team in charge is very well aware that there is a danger to its legitimacy and its credibility [in discussing past mistakes]. And it knows very well that history is one of the pillars of its own legitimacy and it will not have it undermined. It is as simple as that.” The party’s determination to bury the horrors of the Cultural Revolution made Yang Le’s prime-time television performance, in November last year, even more unusual. The singer said he had feared the show’s producers might attempt to censor the lyrics but had lobbied against that with the help of Cui Jian, a friend and well-known Chinese rock star. The channel relented. “There are movies and novels that tell stories from that time so why can we not sing this kind of song?” Yang said. Dikötter said Beijing had been largely successful in “stamping out the memory of the Cultural Revolution” and staving off calls for any significant probe into one of the darkest chapters in Chinese history. “I think that does leave scars. That does leave a society that is very traumatised by who did what to whom without any sense of redress or justice,” he said. But the outpouring of emotion triggered by Yang’s performance suggests many have not forgotten the hurt and suffering inflicted on their families. Yang, who cites Gustav Mahler and Serge Gainsbourg among his influences, said he saw music not simply as entertainment but as a way of inspiring listeners to confront painful truths. He attributed the tears shed over his performance to the profound emotional burden those who witnessed the excesses of the Cultural Revolution still carried with them. “Recalling that time in history is something that is extremely heavy for our generation.” “It was a catastrophe,” he said. “It was like a war.” Additional reporting by Christy Yao
Pounded by the pound: Brexit inspires its first erotic novel Brexit has produced its first work of literature, in the form of an erotic novel depicting a relationship between a man and a “massive, sentient” pound coin. Pounded by the Pound: Turned Gay by the Socioeconomic Implications of Britain Leaving the European Union is the latest novella from Chuck Tingle, the author of more than 50 sexually explicit science fiction stories. In the book a giant floating pound coin, with an “incredible set of chiseled metallic abs” and a “thick golden rod”, takes 25-year-old Alex Liverbot one month into the future, offering a haunting vision of the UK a few weeks after the Brexit vote. In London the Houses of Parliament are ablaze, the River Thames is “bubbling like the lava of a molten volcano”, and strange creatures “dressed [as] the Queen’s guard but with leathery reptilian wings and extended knifelike teeth” patrol the sky. Quadruple-decker passenger buses, introduced in a cost-saving measure by a desperate post-referendum government, have proven impractical and lie on their sides in the streets. Against this dystopian backdrop Liverbot and the giant pound coin, which is called Perber and appears to have hands, a penis and some method of speaking aloud, strike up an unlikely relationship. Their coupling culminates with a breathlessly depicted sexual encounter in a London pub. Tingle – the name is believed to be a pseudonym – has been honing his distinct take on erotica since January 2015, when his debut novel, Chuck’s Dinosaur Tinglers Volume 1, was released. A prolific writer, Tingle averages almost three books a month. He rose to fame over the last year after his work was nominated for a Hugo prize – a prestigious science fiction award – following an online campaign by the Rabid Puppies movement. The group campaigns against a perceived leftwing bias by Hugo award judges by voting en masse for male authors and criticizing female writers. Tingle disowned the Rabid Puppies earlier this year, and invited Zoë Quinn, a video game developer who has been the target of online harassment by Gamergate and the Rabid Puppies, to attend the Hugo awards ceremony in his stead. Tingle’s work has been described as a parody of dinosaur erotica, a real sub-genre of literature which explores hypothetical sexual encounters between animals from the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous periods and human beings. In recent months Tingle has expanded his ouevre, however, and exploring themes such as unicorns – in Hunter Dentist: Pounded in the Butt by Cecil the Handsome Unicorn – and inanimate objects, in Pounded in the Butt by my Handsome Ghost Boats. In an email interview, Tingle said Pounded by the Pound took “seven or eight” hours to write, but conceded that many more hours had been spent on research. The author, who in his correspondence displayed an eccentric interpretation of grammar and punctuation, warned that his stark vision for Britain’s future, including the distortion of the Queen’s guard and the ill-conceived adaptations to London’s public transport, could yet come to pass. “Well the events of Pounded by Pound are only a month later so id say [it is] pretty realistic,” Tingle said. “It makes sense that they would have to call in the reptile guards and also that all double decker bus[es] would need four stories to cut costs.” He advised: “DON’T DO THIS THEY WILL TIP OVER.”
FTSE 100 defies Brexit turmoil and hits 10-month high The prospect of interest rate cuts and a flurry of bargain-hunting by stock market investors has helped the FTSE 100 shrug off the Brexit vote to hit a 10-month high. In a strong start to the second half of 2016, the index of London-listed bluechip shares finished up 73.5 points, or 1.1%, on the day at 6,577.83. That built on solid gains clocked up over the previous three days and left the FTSE 100 up 7.2% over the week – the biggest weekly rally since late 2011, when hopes for a solution to the eurozone crisis had fired up the FTSE and other stock markets around the world. This week’s rebound was a sharp contrast to just a week earlier when investors had woken up to the news Britain had voted to leave the EU. The referendum outcome last Friday caught traders off-guard after opinion polls had led them to bet on a remain vote. On the day the victory for the leave camp was confirmed, a record $2.08tn was wiped off the value of global shares. But markets quickly stabilised in the days following the vote as investors saw the low prices of some stocks as a buying opportunity and as other stocks rose in the wake of the Brexit vote. Shares in miners have been boosted by a rise in demand for precious metals, seen as a safer asset to hold in uncertain times. There were also big gains for companies that get a substantial amount of their sales from overseas thanks to a fall in the pound. The drop in sterling, which has plumbed 31-year lows since the referendum, flatters the finances of those companies that report their profits in dollars. For example, while the banking sector has generally been battered by the Brexit vote, shares in the global bank HSBC which reports in US dollars are up 3.4% since the referendum. The weaker pound has also boosted exporters because it makes their goods and services more competitive in overseas markets. The latest fillip for stock markets came from the Bank of England governor’s strong hint on Thursday that interest rates could be cut within weeks and that policymakers were also ready to use other tools to shore up business and consumer confidence. Mark Carney said he believed “some monetary policy easing will likely be required over the summer”. In other words, official borrowing costs could be cut from their already record low of 0.5% as soon as a 14 July Bank policy meeting. The prospect of official interest rates falling as low as zero increased appetite for shares, said Laith Khalaf, senior analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown. “The stock market likes falling interest rates though, and indeed the accompanying fall in the pound, so understandably the Footsie rose on the back of Mark Carney’s comments,” said Khalaf. “In a world where you have to pay money to lend to the government, an investment in the stock market which pays you 3-4% a year looks attractive, even if it can be volatile.” But there were doubts over whether stock markets could sustain their rally given the backdrop of political uncertainty in the UK and signs of a slowdown in the global economy that emerged long before the referendum. “The big question is if the FTSE and [other stock markets] can hold on to the momentum they have accrued in the past few days, or whether the ongoing issues in the property and banking sectors, as well as the general sense of uncertainty that seems to be everywhere but the markets at the moment, will prove to be too much,” said Connor Campbell, analyst at spread-betting firm Spreadex. While the internationally diverse FTSE 100 is at a peak for this year, the more domestically focused FTSE 250 of mid-sized companies has yet to return to its pre-referendum level. Seen as a better proxy for confidence in the UK economy, that index closed at 16,565.49 on Friday, up 1.2% on the day, but down on its 17,333.51 level the night the polls closed on 23 June. Other European bourses were also struggling to regain their pre-referendum levels, with traders citing worries about the impact of Brexit on the rest of the EU, where some commentators fear a domino effect with other countries heading for the exit. Italy’s main share index, weighed down by fears over some of its banking stocks, is down 9% since the referendum.
Opportunity or disaster? Small firms describe the impact of the Brexit vote ‘It’s devastating for us as a small business and I am not sure if we can survive it’ “I run a small communications agency as well as being a journalist. One of our clients is a European-owned company who we have worked with for around 10 years. Two weeks ago they asked whether we could come to a meeting to talk about another large chunk of business they wanted us to take on. However now they have cancelled the entire contract as they had seen too much wiped off the company value to be able to keep their pre-Brexit budgets in place. It’s devastating for us as a small business and I am not sure if we can survive it. It definitely means we will have to lose an employee and possibly the company. It also means the money I can earn from the company has halved overnight.” Anonymous owner of a communications agency ‘Our client base is set to expand’ “As a firm we are feeling optimistic about the possibilities. Our client base is set to expand, due to businesses fearing the current tax implications and looking to us for help and advice. It is important to remember that small businesses won’t be as constrained by tax laws, and could benefit from more favourable tax treatment. As a company, we are looking forward, and excited to grow and implement new services and business solutions that have the potential to save our clients both time and money without the red tape and regulations in force from the EU.” Paul Pritchard, director, Abacus Accountancy ‘I’ve lost a contract’ “I help tech businesses with their marketing. Most early stage tech companies get a lot of their funding from the EU. The day after Brexit I followed up with someone who I had had final negotiations with and I was planning to support them. However because of Brexit and the uncertainty in the market he told me he couldn’t guarantee he would have funding for marketing, therefore while he would do everything personally to help me, professionally his hands were tied. This is a massive gap I now have to fill, and I don’t have a huge amount of time to do it.” Tina Marshall, owner of marketing company Creating Sense in Oxford ‘We need to turn this into an opportunity’ “I voted for Remain, but I think now the vote has happened we need to rally behind it and take the bull by the horns. I think it will be possible to find opportunities from all of this if we pull together. UK manufacturing is the strongest it’s been for years, and my company exports 10% to Europe. I’m confident we can continue that trade – we haven’t seen any changes in our business since the referendum, we just to need to treat Europe with respect and we need leadership from our politicians. I do think it is a shame the vote was so split down the middle, it’s caused a lot of anger - we need to make sure we don’t talk ourselves into a recession.” Christopher Greenough, commercial director at Salop Design & Engineering Ltd and president of Made in the Midlands ‘The pause button has been well and truly pushed’ “Our business is upholstery – we reupholster, design bespoke upholstered furniture and sell fabrics. Summer is typically the quietest of times so maintaining an order book to keep you busy through the summer months takes longer and is harder fought. For us the timings could not be worse. Prior to Brexit, the phones went quiet - so much so, that I had to check that they were actually working. Since the vote to leave the EU last week the pause button has been well and truly pushed. One customer cancelled this morning – a project that would have been approximately two to three weeks’ work for us. Another large furniture order again hasn’t progressed – the work was all scheduled, but he has a reticence to proceed at the moment as a precaution – again another three weeks of work gone. The lack of any concrete certainty of where we are headed as a trading nation and a country as a whole is massively unsettling to business.” Fiona Harris, owner of Harris Upholstery, based in Castle Douglas in Kirkcudbrightshire and Fleet in Hampshire ‘I’m working on a plan B to reduce factory costs’ “Our shoes are designed in the UK, but manufactured in Europe so the decision to leave has thrown a few curve balls, but I’m remaining positive. The immediate effect is the falling value of the pound against the euro. My orders are committed months in advance so our purchasing decisions haven’t been affected yet but the cost of our purchases has as exchange rates started to wobble shortly after the referendum and obviously hit a low after the result. I buy my finished shoes in euros from Portugal. If the pound drops 10% the cost of purchasing those shoes increases by 10%. There are two choices - let the business absorb the cost resulting in a reduced margin or passing it onto the consumer via increased retail prices. I’ve chosen so far to do the former, but it’s not a viable long-term strategy. I want to avoid retail price rises so I’m working on a plan B to reduce factory costs.” Claire Burrows, founder of London-based footwear brand Air & Grace ‘We are now more competitive in foreign markets’ “We often use laboratory-grown diamonds to make jewellery for our customers, and the only place we can import them from is the United States. The price we pay for the diamonds is affected by the strength of the pound versus the US dollar, which meant that when the referendum result wiped value off the pound, percentage points were knocked off our margins. Accounting for daily fluctuations in the exchange rate, it’s effectively costing us an extra 5%-10% per diamond, compared with earlier this month. Fortunately, not all of our stock is imported, which provides us with some ongoing stability and lessens the net impact on our balance sheet. We intend to absorb as much of the hit on our US-imported stock as we can and monitor the situation whilst the pound stabilises before reviewing our prices. From a purely commercial perspective, one benefit to come out of the weakness of the pound is that we are now more competitive as a retailer in foreign markets.” Richard Hatfield, director of York-based jewellers Nightingale ‘I’ve had about half the sales I normally have since the referendum’ “My company has been affected as some of my sales are from the US and the pound is now lower against the dollar. I have also had about half the sales I normally have since the referendum and I think this is because there is a huge fear again now in the UK of another recession. I won UK’s Best Vintage Fashion Website at The National Vintage Awards 2013 and feel it will undo all my hard work since launch in 2011.” Lynnette Peck, owner of Bristol-based online vintage retailer Lovely’s Vintage Emporium This article was amended on 4 July 2016. An earlier version said the cost of purchasing shoes in euros would increase if the euro dropped. That has been corrected to say the cost would increase if the pound dropped. Sign up to become a member of the Small Business Network here for more advice, insight and best practice direct to your inbox.
My mum has Alzheimer's – I think we've just shared our last Christmas together “Here, Mum.” I hold the fork close to her mouth. Turkey, cranberry, a little salad. “Here.” She looks around, moving her head from side to side. One hand picks up her knife, holds it back to front, puts it down again. Then she picks up a spoon. “No, no, here. On your fork.” She puts the spoon down, and reaches for her serviette, clutching it hard in her hand. My brother and mother-in-law are engaged in Christmas conversation and I can sense their chatter is disturbing to Mum; she can follow neither them nor my directions. “Can you shush a minute? Mum, here. Here.” I’ve got her attention, but she can’t see what I’m trying to draw it towards. “Don’t get frustrated,” my brother admonishes softly, but it’s hard, so hard, to quell the feelings of impatience, mingled with disbelief, followed by guilt. Infants learn to understand pointing by 12 months. My mother can’t see, or recognise, the food being waved in front of her face. This is what the later stages of Alzheimer’s disease looks like. Before lunch, my brother had put in her favourite dangling cat earrings. We took her to the bathroom so she could admire them in the mirror but she barely recognised herself, let alone the jewellery. “Can you see them?” Her eyes were barely open. “Yes,” she said eventually, so we’d stop asking. I’d picked her up from her facility earlier that day. Her carers had helped to get her ready. “I had no idea it was Christmas Day,” she told me, and it was true: all that tinsel amounted to nothing. Any sense of time was obliterated for my mother long ago, but Christmas was the last important date to go, long after birthdays were forgotten. “Here,” I say gently. Finally her eyes register the food. She takes it into her mouth, so deeply so I’m afraid the teeth of the fork will scratch her palate. She chews slowly. Soon, I think to myself, she will forget to swallow. Forget to breathe. Forget the things that we take for granted as nothing more than life-preserving instinct. I’d read a Christmas card to her before lunch. “We will remember you long after you’ve forgotten us,” I told her. She is already forgetting. We re-introduce ourselves to her these days. Sometimes she gets cross. “Of course I know who you are,” she says. Sometimes, she does. Other times, it’s obvious she doesn’t. “I’m Andrew, your son,” I will say, but her face is as cloudy as Melbourne. Our names, our relationships to her are becoming a mystery. “My son?” she says, puzzled. The word itself has no meaning. Later, when the penny drops, she will become distressed. “I’m off the planet, aren’t I?” she says. “You’re just having a bad day,” I’ll reply. But Mum holds on to a residual insight into her condition that increases her suffering. She worked for years in aged care, becoming an expert in the field. She often told me she could not imagine anything worse than Alzheimer’s disease. She resisted seeking treatment for years. When we sold her house to fund her care, earlier this year, I trawled through boxes of personal effects. Among them was a 2002 letter from a psychologist to her GP, written after she’d taken stress leave from her job in the health department. It referred to problems with memory and completing tasks. She was 55. Fourteen years is a long time to watch someone you love disintegrate. It’s also about average for an Alzheimer’s sufferer – seven years from onset to diagnosis; seven from diagnosis to death. There are even seven stages of the disease, according to the most commonly used scale. Mum is in stage six. It took us years to connect the dots. The irrational outbursts of temper (frankly, she was always prone to those). The onset of panic attacks, as her life and career began to fall apart. Her terror of driving – although the greater terror was the loss of independence after we took the keys from her, following her diagnosis in late 2011. Suddenly her eyes are open, and there’s an flash of recognition. “I know who you’re talking about,” she exclaims, and it seems she does. I shoot a look at my brother. “She’s back,” I mutter. For a few minutes, she is engaged. She even takes the fork from my hand, though as she holds it at such a steep angle that food falls in her lap. “This is just lovely,” she says. “I’m the happiest person in the world.” And in that moment, perhaps she is. A couple of days later I visit her. Earlier, she’d called my brother in a panic, hyperventilating, terrified that she had been abandoned. But by the time I get to her she’s lying peacefully on her bed. “Hello, Mum.” She looks up, and her faces creases into an huge smile of relief. “I thought you didn’t love me any more,” she says, clutching on to me. “Of course I do. We all do,” I say. “Do you remember Christmas, a couple of days ago? You had a lovely time.” “Did I?” “Yes, you did. And Mark came to visit you yesterday.” “Mark?” Fog veils her face again. “Yes, Mark. Here he is.” I point to a picture of my brother on the wall behind her with our parents, but again, she can’t follow my finger, scarcely raising her head. Instead she points at a soft toy I’d given her as a present. She’s got quite a collection of them now. She asks me what I’ve been up to. I tell her I’ve been writing; that I’ve just had a piece on Stevie Wright published. “Who was he again?” I explain he was the singer of the Easybeats, a band of her youth. “I remember him!” she says, clapping. I sing her a few lines from Friday On My Mind. Remarkably, she picks up some of the tune. “How old was he?” she asks. “68,” I say. “That’s awful! He was he same age as me. It could have been me,” she says. Despite her own condition, Mum’s empathy for others is intact. But I’m more impressed that on this occasion, she’s correctly remembered her own age. At least she’s calmed down, and she’s tired. So am I, and I don’t have it in me to stay longer than half an hour this time. Once she’s sufficiently reassured, I make my excuses and leave. I tell myself as I drive away, next time I’ll stay longer; take her out for coffee. Probably, I think to myself, she’s seen her last Christmas – certainly the last one she’ll be sentient for. At first the thought feels like a relief. It is not fair for anyone to suffer for so long; to lose touch with everything that defines and connects you to others. But then I think of her telling me she’s the happiest person in the world, and I’m not so sure.
Jamie Lidell: Building a Beginning review – swoonworthy soul-pop As you listen to Jamie Lidell’s hopelessly romantic new soul-pop LP, petals fall from the sky, squirrels flirt, and sparrows follow you around with a heart-strewn banner in their beaks. Lidell wrote the lyrics with his wife, and they’re full of earnest declarations of how valuable their bond is. Perhaps they’d make nauseating dinner party guests, but the songwriting is so comfortably strong and the production so toasty that you’re soon swooning along with them.  How Did I Live Before Your Love is perfection, like Charles Wright doing lover’s rock; Motionless is wonderfully overwrought gospel; Believe in Me is Van Morrison trying on an OVO ballad. Throughout, Lidell’s voice remains one of the most underrated sounds in pop: sexy and breathy, but with an appealing top note of adenoidal nerdiness. He can even make a song called I Live to Make You Smile sound relaxed, rather than a misjudged attempt at soothing a marital tiff.
Tom Chaplin: The Wave review – tender songs from former Keane frontman The first solo album by Keane singer Tom Chaplin has a clean-cut MOR sheen. It is aglow with mid-paced piano-led ballads with crowd-pleasing choruses. There’s also a strong streak of melancholy. Opening track Still Waiting paints a scene of death and destruction: “Buried in the rubble, there’s a boy in trouble.” The song could be about Aleppo, but Chaplin doesn’t say. He’s unspecific, too, in more introspective songs such as Hardened Heart, in which he says he “drove to the point of madness just to feel something real” – which could be about his well-publicised struggles with addiction. Or not. Of course, lyrics with a broad sweep, that you can interpret any way you like, helped Keane sell millions of albums and touch stadium audiences, and The Wave’s hooks and polish won’t harm its chances of doing the same. It’s not a sonically adventurous album, but Chaplin’s voice on tender songs such as the title track is as affecting as ever.
There are several metropolitan elites. But the same one still pulls the strings Mustering all the serenity and self-restraint that has made it famous, the Daily Mail published a full-page editorial on Wednesday headlined “Whingeing. Contemptuous. Unpatriotic. Damn the Bremoaners and their plot to subvert the will of the British people.” It attacked remain voters for being “sore losers” who were “incredulous that the British people could be so disrespectful as to reject their wisdom”. One group in particular attracted the Mail’s contempt: the “metropolitan elite”, defined by the paper as “the well-heeled group of London ‘intellectuals’ which is used to having everything its own way” – and which was anxious to revenge Theresa May’s “devastating attack” on its sneering attitude to public concerns about mass immigration. The Mail identified the BBC as Bremoaner-in-chief. The paper loves May. Not since Margaret Thatcher has it given a prime minister such unstinting admiration and support. It never much cared for David Cameron – for a time even Gordon Brown ranked higher in the Mail’s affections, perhaps because Brown replaced a flashy predecessor, just as May has done. Both leaders exemplify the hard work and modesty that you might expect from a childhood spent in a churchy household – a manse in Brown’s case and a vicarage in May’s – which are habits and virtues that the Mail likes to think its readers share. May, presumably, loves the Mail in return; who wouldn’t want the support of the most politically influential paper in England? But whether May hates the “metropolitan elite” quite as much as the Mail does is an open question. On the morning of her big speech to the Tory conference, the Mail’s front-page report predicted that she would condemn this elite, which it also called the “liberal elite”, “for sneering at millions of ordinary Britons over immigration”. But her speech, when she delivered it, wasn’t quite so straightforward. Many politicians and commentators, she told her audience, had found “your patriotism distasteful, your concerns about immigration parochial, your views about crime illiberal, your attachment to your job security inconvenient”. But the only mention of an elite came in an earlier passage about the many “people in positions of power” who behaved as if they had “more in common with international elites than with the people down the road, the people they employ, the people they pass in the street”. And then she added: “But if you believe you’re a citizen of the world, you’re a citizen of nowhere.” In one or two paragraphs, she had taken aim at various kinds of elites and allegedly elitist attitudes, some antithetical to others and the most awkward of them probably invented for the sake of political balance – for which politician or commentator has ever openly complained about the “inconvenience” of a worker’s attachment to job security? Two broad categories had been conflated and confused. First came the rich and greedy international elite, who ran businesses that didn’t pay proper taxes and treated their workers badly. Second came a social and cultural elite who peered down their noses at the illiberalism and flag-waving of the classes below. Both groups could be smeared as citizens of nowhere – “rootless cosmopolitans” in the antisemitic jibe of Stalin’s Soviet Union – but other than that they have little or nothing in common. Ruthless billionaires on the one hand, condescending academics on the other: together, May implied, they had alienated the larger part of an electorate that felt wronged and ignored. There’s nothing new in her diagnosis. Shortly before he died in 1994, the American historian and moralist Christopher Lasch wrote an eloquent charge sheet against similar targets in his posthumously published book The Revolt of the Elites. He mainly described the United States, but his analysis illuminates many other parts of the world (including the land of Brexit) as well. What went wrong? Lasch: “The general course of recent history no longer favours the levelling of social distinctions but runs more and more in the direction of a two-class society.” What he called the “democratisation of abundance” – the expectation that each generation would be better off than its predecessor – was giving way to a society of rising inequalities. How did this happen? When the idea that the masses were riding the wave of history faded away. The radical movements of the 20th century have failed, and the industrial working class, once the mainstay of the socialist movement, has been weakened to the point where, in some of its former strongholds, it barely exists anymore. Who are the elites? “Those who control the international flow of money and information, preside over philanthropic foundations and institutions of higher learning, manage the instruments of cultural production and thus set the terms of public debate.” A Marxist could have written those last words; the Daily Mail, in its anti-Philip (“Sir Shifty”) Green and anti-metropolitan moments, could almost have written it. As a social critic rather than an ideologue, Lasch is hard to place on the left-right spectrum. Sometimes he might be depicting the present-day dilemma of a constituency Labour party in the north of England, as when he points out that the class once regarded as the most likely to support a revolution has many members with political instincts more conservative than those of their radical would-be leaders. Elsewhere he could be describing a way of London living that in 1994 still lay a dozen years in the future: “Ambitious people understand … that a migratory way of life is the price of getting ahead … ‘multiculturalism’ suits them to perfection, conjuring up an agreeable image of a global bazaar … Theirs is essentially a tourist’s view of the world.” Reading Lasch at this time of crisis in British history is also valuable as a caution. He writes that when the common folk confront well-meaning initiatives from above, their resistance provokes an outburst of “the venomous hatred that lies not far beneath the smiling face of upper-middle-class benevolence”. I don’t think of myself as upper-middle-class, but that might be a caricature of my emotions when, say, I watch Brexiteers on Question Time. The Daily Mail’s portrayal of remainers as truculent and bitter has a few grains of truth. Nobody can look at something they see as a catastrophe and not despair of the people who caused it. Speaking of whom, let us count the public schools and the frequent mention of the same university. Nigel Farage (Dulwich College), Daniel Hannan (Marlborough and Oxford), Douglas Carswell (Charterhouse and UEA), Mark Reckless (Charterhouse and Oxford), David Cameron (Eton and Oxford), George Osborne (St Paul’s and Oxford), Boris Johnson (Eton and Oxford), Michael Gove (Robert Gordon’s College and Oxford), John Redwood (Kent College, Canterbury and Oxford), Bill Cash (Stonyhurst and Oxford), Matthew Elliott (Leeds Grammar and LSE), Dominic Cummings (Durham School and Oxford). That looks like an elite to me. More than that – it looks like a ruling class. In its whiteness, maleness and connectedness it could have ruled Britain in 1955. I imagine its members not as a caricature but as an old-fashioned cartoon: boys in school caps and short trousers lighting a little firework labelled “Sovereignty” next to a huge pile of tinder marked “All Our Discontents”. As Terry-Thomas used to exclaim in the films of those days: “What a shower! What an absolute shower!”
Swansea City 1-2 Liverpool: Premier League – as it happened And now, read Stuart James’s on-the-whistle match report from the Liberty Stadium here: And if you want more football, Barry Glendenning is your man. Liverpool move up to second in the table. They started poorly but the injury to Adam Lallana forced a reshuffle, and moving Philippe Coutinho into midfield sparked them into life. They were deserved winners after completely dominating the last hour of the game. Swansea put in an admirable shift and will reflect on two great chances that were missed by Borja Baston in the first half, and that last-minute sitter for Mike van der Hoorn. Thanks for your company; bye! 90+3 min What a chance for van der Hoorn! I would have scored that*. It was a great cross from the right by Rangel that curled and dipped over the head of the Liverpool centre-backs. It came to van der Hoorn, eight yards out, and he screwed a feeble volley wide of the far post. (* Legal disclaimer: I may not actually have scored that.) 90 min There will be four added minutes. 89 min Can’s low cross is almost put into his own net by the weary Cork. Fabianski gets down to his left to save. 89 min It will be ridiculous if Francesco Guidolin is sacked after this game. 88 min This is over. Swansea have nothing left in the tank. 86 min Origi has an instant impact with a low cross from the right towards the unmarked Sturridge. He can’t reach it on the stretch but Coutinho backs up the play beyond the far post to batter a shot from a tight angle that is beaten away by Fabianski. 85 min A double change for Liverpool: Can and Origi replace Wijnaldum and Firmino. James Milner scores confidently, clipping it straight down the middle as Fabianski goes to the right. Oh, this is a nightmare for Swansea. Barrow, in his own box, blooters his attempted clearance straight up in the air, and when it bounces Rangel panicks and shoves Firmino to the ground. A clear penalty, and a pretty needless one. 82 min The Swansea players, it is fair to assume, do not want Francesco Guidolin to be sacked. Their endeavour in this half has verged on the heroic. 81 min Coutinho’s long-range shot deflects behind for a corner. Matip’s near-post header deflects behind for a second corner on the right, which will again be taken by Henderson. It’s a dangerous outswinger that somehow evades everyone on the six-yard line. 78 min This is Swansea’s best spell since around the half-hour mark, and for the time being they look the likelier scorers. 77 min Francesco Guidolin’s substitutions have given Swansea greater energy, and as a result the last 10 minutes have been less fraught. They almost take the lead when Karius comes for a left-wing corner and gets nowhere near it, with the ball flashing right across the face of goal. 75 min A rare Swansea attack, with a nice run and cross from Barrow leading to a corner. Sigurdsson takes it and Milner heads clear. 72 min Swansea’s final substitution: Leroy Fer is replaced by Jay Fulton. 72 min Swansea can put two passes together, but three is a stretch and the ball is always coming back at them. 70 min From the resulting corner, Sturridge flashes a header a few yards wide of the far post. 69 min The dithering van der Hoorn is robbed on the edge of the area by Milner. He slightly overhits his pass to Mane, who gets it out of his feet nonetheless and hits a shot that is deflected over the bar by Naughton. 68 min Clyne, who has been a constant attacking threat, cracks a low shot from 25 yards that is well held by Fabianski. 67 min Mane shrieks with pain after a tackle by Ki, and the replays shows why: he planted his studs into Mane’s right foot. 64 min Coutinho bundles Barrow to the ground to launch a Liverpool counter-attack. Firmino plays the ball down the left to Coutinho, whose excellent low cross just evades Sturridge at the near post. 63 min Another Swansea change: Ki Sung-Yueng replaces the tiring captain Leon Britton. 62 min Swansea make their first change, with Modou Barrow replacing Wayne Routledge. 59 min Swansea surely can’t do this for another half an hour. They are under constant pressure. 57 min Swansea are struggling to stay in this game. Coutinho plays a one-two with Mane and places a beautiful curler just wide from inside the D. He has been terrific since dropping into midfield. Liverpool are level! Coutinho’s free-kick hits the wall and comes to Henderson, who lobs it first time into the box. Firmino, who stayed onside as Swansea pushed up, places a good header into the left corner of the net from 10 yards. 54 min Britton is booked for a cynical pull on Mane, 25 yards from goal. 52 min It’s raining heavily now, which adds to the increasingly desperate feel of the match as Liverpool chase an equaliser in a manner usually reserved for the last 10 minutes. 48 min Mane combines with Sturridge – who should have been flagged offside - and clips the ball past the outrushing Fabianski from the right corner of the six-yard box. It deflects off van der Hoorn and rolls invitingly in front of goal before Amat boots it clear. 47 min Clyne runs at Naughton and crosses low towards Sturridge, who spins Amat at the near post but overruns the ball in doing so. Goal kick to Swansea. 46 min Swansea begin the second half, kicking from left to right. Half-time cheer “Travelling from west Wales to Cardiff, I got stuck in match-day traffic in torrential rain on the M4 earlier, so this match put me in a bad mood before it had even kicked off,” says Matt Dony. “Checking the half-time score hasn’t helped. Batter Arsenal, lose to Burnley. Batter Chelsea, losing to Swansea. Gotta love being a Liverpool fan.” They’ll win this 3-1. You have my word. Half-time reading A fine 45 minutes for Swansea, who could be 3-0 ahead, though the way Liverpool came to life towards half-time was pretty ominous. See you in 10 minutes for the second half. 44 min Sigurdsson’s dipping free-kick is fumbled by Karius but he claims it comfortably at the second attempt. 43 min Swansea really, really need half-time. A breather is the next-best thing, and Britton provides that by craftily drawing a foul from Matip 30 yards from the Liverpool goal. 42 min Another corner for Liverpool, who have stirred menacingly in the last 10 minutes. Henderson’s outswinger reaches Lovren, who miscontrols it perfectly for Firmino. He shoots on the turn from six yards but Fer takes the sting out of the shot and it dribbles through to Fabianski. 40 min After a classy through pass from Coutinho, Amat makes a wonderful tackle to block Mane’s first-time shot. 39 min Sturridge is booked for diving in the Swansea area. He was challenged by Routledge, who put hands on him but not very firmly. Jurgen Klopp has his hands over his mouth in surprise, but I think that was probably the right decision. 38 min Cork is booked for a lunge at Clyne. This is Liverpool’s best spell of pressure. 35 min The overlapping Clyne wins a corner for Liverpool. It’s taken by Henderson and reaches Lovren, whose stabbed volley on the stretch is blocked by a defender on the six-yard line. 32 min Liverpool have been a bit better since Coutinho moved into midfield but their play is still relatively ponderous. 29 min Mane does brilliantly to wriggle away from two defenders inside the box and then goes over after a bit of a shove from van der Hoorn. Michael Oliver doesn’t give a penalty, and you can understand why as the contact was relatively light, but it was risky defending from van der Hoorn. 28 min In other news, you should watch this. 26 min From the resulting free-kick, curled in magnificently from a narrow position on the right by Sigurdsson, Borja plants a great headed chance wide of the post. He was actually offside, though the flag didn’t go up, and in that sense Liverpool are lucky not to be 3-0 down here. 25 min Liverpool are not playing well at all. Swansea are beating them at their own gegenpress. Cork is tripped by Henderson, who is booked. 23 min Lallana has a groin injury apparently, and Daniel Sturridge comes on to replace him. Coutinho goes into midfield, Firmino to the left and Sturridge up front. I love the smell of tactics in the morning. 21 min Sigurdsson floats a high, dainty ball over the top of the Liverpool defence to find Cork, who slides forward and helps the ball towards goal as it drops over his shoulder inside the box. He can’t get any pace on it, however, and it’s a comfortable save from Karius. 20 min Lallana is struggling after a tackle from Britton. It looked innocuous but I don’t think he’ll be able to continue. 16 min “I don’t think Fer was offside either,” says Hubert O’Hearn. “Besides, any team that leaves two men unmarked at its far post deserves to be scored on, just on moral and ethical grounds.” I like this idea of adding a moral dimension to officiating. Like in cricket, where batsmen who pad up are more likely to be given out LBW as punishment for bad batsmanship. 14 min Liverpool have been a bit sloppy and sluggish. Firmino is robbed 30 yards from his own goal by Fer, who smashes a shot over the bar. 10 min The more you see the replays, the more it looks like the touch came from Lovren, so the goal was fine. Fer was not offside from the original header by Borja. 9 min “The game isn’t at Anfield,” says Chris Rendle, “but it’s always nice to bust out the video of the Swansea supporter scoring at Anfield.” It was a simple goal for Swansea. Sigurdssn’s swung a left-wing corner beyond the far post to Borja, who strained his neck muscles like Bruce Banner to head it down into the six-yard box. Van der Hoorn stretched to stab it past Karius, and although it was going in anyway, Leroy Fer did a Craig Johnston and whacked it in from 0.5 yards. I thought Fer looked fractionally offside but there is a suggestion the touch came from Lovren rather than van der Hoorn. Klopp out! 5 min The first chance falls to Swansea. Routledge on the right curls a lovely cross over the head of Matip to find the unmarked Borja, who heads over from six yards. He should have scored. 4 min “Extraordinary clip of Dai Davies sticking the boot in on Terry Mac,” says Gary Naylor. “In front of the Kop, what could have prompted the ex-Everton man to such aggression?” Graeme Souness’s attempt to mediate is also a joy. 3 min Liverpool have started with lots of possession, if not yet progression. 2 min “Dear Rob and Hubert,” says Paul Ewart, “when will hipsters stop being a thing?” At last, someone on my wavelength. I got a machete for my birthday and I reckon we can complete Operation Hipstercide by 2032. Wait, hang on. “Good test for the Reds this: are we Jurgen’s new, vibrant, confident Reds as I suspect, or do we still have our demons......” 1 min Peep peep! Liverpool, in red, kick off from left to right. Swansea are all white on the afternoon. Another email! “Good afternoon Rob,” says Dean Kinsella. “I can’t believe that Guidolin is already under pressure for his job after just a handful of games. The Swans have had some tough fixtures and starting to play well after a slow start. This ‘in out in out shake it all about’ way of running football clubs is ludicrous.” Yep. Like too much of modern football, it’s beneath contempt. Ron Atkinson made a great point in his new autobiography (which is superb, by the way), that if Arsene Wenger was a businessman, he’d win awards every year. There’s a broader point that business standards should apply to certain aspects of football, and sacking managers at the first sign of trouble is appallingly bad practice. Thirty-five years ago this weekend, newly promoted Swansea drew 2-2 at Anfield. The goalkeeper Dai Davies didn’t take Terry McDermott’s equaliser too well. An email! “Hello Rob,” says Hubert O’Hearn. “Today will be the perfect test for Liverpool as this is just the sort of match that has binned our previous false dawns. Swansea is at home, its manager desperate, and they have the style and the players that can break the hipsters’ beloved gegenpresse. A title is one via two mini-leagues: take 2/3 of the points available from the other 5 or 6 contenders and pretenders; and be a brutal flat track bully to the other dozen teams. Burnley was a stumble. Now, was it motivation or the hint of things to come? Today we get our first indication.” That last point is a particularly good one. There was one season, 2008/09 I think, when Manchester United took 70 out of 72 points against the bottom 12. The champions are often the team that deals best with the mundane. Swansea (4-3-3) Fabianski; Rangel, van der Hoorn, Amat, Naughton; Fer, Cork, Britton; Routledge, Borja, Sigurdsson. Substitutes: Nordfeldt, Mawson, Taylor, Fulton, Ki, Barrow, McBurnie. Liverpool (4-3-3) Karius; Clyne, Lovren, Matip, Milner; Lallana, Henderson, Wijnaldum; Mane, Firmino, Coutinho. Substitutes: Mignolet, Sturridge, Klavan, Moreno, Lucas, Can, Origi. Liverpool are fifth in the table. What’s the rumpus? The rumpus is that they’ve already won at Chelsea and Arsenal, outplayed Spurs at White Hart Lane and scored 16 goals in six games. It’s hard to know whether they are serious title contenders, because we can’t be sure what impact their flawed defence will have over a whole season, but we can say without fear of contradiction from tryhard blowhards on the internet that they have an attack capable of winning the title. They also have the huge advantage of not being in Europe – just as in 2013-14, when they should have won their first title since 1989-90 - and a manager who, even in this season of the Premier League supersupersupermanager, is rapidly becoming the neutral’s favourite. In some ways, talk of them winning the title is unnecessary. It’s October. Relax everyone, can we? This Liverpool side are a reminder that football can and should be fun. Swansea is not an easy place to go – they drew against Chelsea and were excellent against Manchester City last week - but you would fancy Liverpool to have more fun today. Kick off is at 12.30pm. Hello. Rob will be along shortly. Here’s Alan Smith’s preview of the lunchtime kick-off: Swansea performed well in defeat to Manchester City last weekend but Francesco Guidolin is still living on borrowed time. The Italian could badly do with a result against Jürgen Klopp’s Liverpool, who have at times been exhilarating in attack. Guidolin says he could “maybe” lose his job with another loss but “if we win, for the international break you don’t speak any more about my position”. No pressure, then.
These aren’t hard Brexiters. They’re political extremists Everyone knew there was an alternative Boris Johnson column, the one where he votes remain. If we accept that his support for leave was a decisive factor in the campaign, this leads us to the mournful consideration of an alternative reality where we don’t shoot ourselves in the foot, and we haven’t woken up in the care of people who have decided to chop the foot off, because surgery is just very complex and boring, and a Briton with only one foot is still mightier than a person from any other nation with two serviceable feet. Frankly, we were mourning already, and few of us had any illusions about Johnson himself, who tries on opinions like clothes, discarding them as the mood and weather takes him. He essayed this “ho, for the open seas!” garb apparently for fun, and finds himself thrust on to the world stage dressed as a clown. So you could say he’s already had his comeuppance; whether he’ll ever have the self-awareness to realise it is merely a coda to this disaster. None of the arguments in his remain column are surprising. He pointed out that there would probably be an economic shock, which was obvious. He raised the prospects of a disgruntled Scotland, an emboldened Russia, a Europe in which your children and grandchildren aren’t free to work, to sell things, to make friends, to find partners – all true, none of it original. The only thing at all eye-opening about the column, for those of us who don’t read him regularly, is how bad it is: strewn with references that range from irrelevant to plain wrong, unpersuasive, linguistically childish, structurally shambolic. It isn’t the most dangerous thing about him, in his current incarnation as foreign secretary, but it is one of the most dispiriting, that we’re forced to think deeply about the actions of a politician who wouldn’t himself entertain such an activity for longer than five minutes. No serious government would have Johnson in its cabinet, but would that he were an aberration. Theresa May’s appointments – most recently, the announcement of her European Union exit and trade committee – are all made to appease the most extreme elements of her party. Boris Johnson, David Davis, Liam Fox, Chris Grayling, Andrea Leadsom, Amber Rudd, Priti Patel, Patrick McLoughlin – leaving aside the specific deficiencies of each character, they are all known now as “hard Brexiters”, for which the umbrella term is “political extremists”. After the acres of print and aeons of time spent discussing the extremist takeover of the Labour party, a more pressing matter has been left more or less ignored. The actual party of government has been seized by its radical wing. We worry about the toxicity of their rhetoric and the chaos they create while leaving tactfully unsaid that this is because they are fanatics. Political extremism is often diagnosed in isolation, and used as a cover for some other objection. It is impossible to call an idea extreme without considering the seriousness of the problem it sets out to solve. A policy might look excessive if it were floated as a way to mend the north/south divide, but perfectly reasonable and desirable if its aim were to combat climate change. Ideas to tackle inequality look a lot more swivel-eyed if you don’t accept the premise, believing equality to be broadly increasing on its own. So a hard Brexit – leaving the single market, leaving the customs union, halting the flow of labour, blaming the crashing pound on the Bank of England, dealing with shortages in agriculture and service industries by making prisoners pick fruit (this is the Sun’s big idea) – cannot on its own be termed extreme. First, we must evaluate what the leave side set out to solve: a dislike of Donald Tusk and Jean-Claude Juncker; a generalised anxiety that the government kept promising to control its borders but didn’t seem able to; some confusion around laws concerning the shape of bananas, created by Boris Johnson (the confusion, not the laws); a desire to control things that no nation alone can control (how much its currency is worth relative to others; who wants to invest in it; mass movements of people escaping conflict). Only now does the picture solidify: we are in the grip of the most fervent radicals, people willing to sacrifice everything – grants, investment, trade, security, standing, solidarity, legal apparatus built up by decades of painstaking cooperation – at the altar of a concept (sovereignty) that nobody really understands, and a principle (taking back control) that is abstract to the point of meaninglessness. Extremism in politics carries a heap of associations, only some of them borne out: it is taken to be a short-lived state, being incapable of compromise; unlikely to make mature or sober decisions; incapable of accommodating a broad sweep of views and possibilities. This we can see writ large in the prime minister’s skirmishes with Philip Hammond, the only member of government visibly considering the national interest. To let in a voice like Hammond’s would mean accepting certain realities: that the risks to our future prosperity are real and present; that an economic downturn cannot be dismissed as scaremongering when it is actually in train; that we do not hold every ace, or even any ace, in the coming negotiations, and some humility may be unavoidable; that business voices, even when they say things you don’t like, are not necessarily doing so for base self-interest. These ideas cannot be permitted; the hard Brexiters have nothing but their confidence. It would not survive pluralism in the smallest amount. Other qualities attached to extremism are less evident: you’d expect the hard Brexiters to be taking delight in their own victory, where instead there is only a querulous obsession with naysayers. You’d think, given the burning fury of their convictions, that they would be overflowing with plans, yet the plan extends no further than to protect themselves from scrutiny and debate. You’d hope for consistency and coherence; in its place, the bizarre spectacle of a party claiming to have been against the single market all along, because Michael Gove once said so. To be simultaneously so certain, and yet so chaotic, is perhaps an inevitable condition for extremists, but one you’d only see when doomed to observe them at close range. The question is not whether they can last, but how much damage they can do before they fall.
The New Yorker Presents review – Amazon show captures magazine's spirit There are a certain set of assumptions one makes about a person reading the New Yorker on the subway. He or she is certainly well-informed, probably highly educated, curious about disparate parts of the culture, owns at least three art books that rest on a tasteful coffee table, and probably scoffs at those who say Real Housewives of New York is their favorite television program. Now we can all become that person, without having to slog through a text-heavy weekly magazine. The New Yorker Presents, a series of 30-minute compilations of documentaries, poems, comedy pieces and cartoons that distill the magazine into easily digestible nuggets, debuted its second and third episodes at the Sundance film festival this week before going live to the public on Amazon starting 16 February. The pilot is already available for free. The great thing about this series is that it is like a visual equivalent of an episode of This American Life, a handful of stories and elements joined together for the NPR tote bag set. The second episode features a story about child rodeos, an essay about AfricanAmerican bodies in motion, the story of the failure of a $2bn Atlantic City casino, and two cartoons as drawn by their artists (both lefties) from start to finish. The third episode is just as diverse, featuring a sketch in which Paul Giamatti plays Honoré de Balzac, a story about how the FBI and CIA might have prevented 9/11, a look at the New Yorker’s storied fact-checking department, and another cartoon. Each is based on a story from the magazine’s archives. Much like Saturday Night Live sketches, the sections are rather hit and miss. Unlike that late-night staple, there are far more hits than misses. This is not a way to get informed about the current events of the day, but to have one’s curiosity satisfied about far-flung experiences and one’s intellect stoked by stories that aren’t plastered all over the front page. Yes, it’s exactly like reading the New Yorker. Documentarian Alex Gibney and former Daily Show producer Kahane Cooperman produce the series, so there is great attention paid to the journalistic integrity of each story. Sometimes, though, the depth and complexity of the stories are glossed over for the sake of time. Hopefully Amazon will provide links to the relevant stories alongside the episodes, for those who want a deeper dive. Being on Amazon, one of the streaming services that typically offers all episodes at once, is curious for this series. If this were on a broadcast or cable network, the short clips could easily be separated and turned into viral videos – a practice that has been very successful for John Oliver, late-night variety shows and all sorts of sketch comedy, from Inside Amy Schumer to Key & Peele. Since it’s already online, doing that seems redundant. Wisely, Amazon will release new episodes each week. There is nothing about this that will make viewers want to binge. In fact, there are so many breaks between stories that there are unlimited points of exit for those who are getting antsy and want to check their email or finish another round of Candy Crush. But I can see plenty of people looking forward to having a nice half-hour each week in which they can explore the world from the safety of their couch – just like readers exploring the world from the train.
Measles outbreaks at festivals can’t be blamed wholly on anti-vaxxers Your main concerns when you attend a festival might include any of the following: how will I identify my tent at 5am? Is glamping worth it? Will Este from Haim do bassface? But one thing you should not have to worry about is: will I get measles? Public Health England has confirmed a significant number of infections linked to music festivals and other large public events. There have been reports of 38 suspected measles cases at events in June and July alone. Glastonbury had 16 cases, with seven cases reported from the NASS festival near Bristol; six at the Triplicity festival in north Devon; three at Tewkesbury medieval festival; two at Nozstock: the Hidden Valley in Herefordshire; two at Noisily in Leicester; one at the Secret Garden Party near Huntingdon; and one at Yeovil Show. In all, 234 cases have been confirmed between January and June, compared with 54 for the same period last year. Why is this happening now? One possibility is that the Wakefield generation has come of age. The fraudulent study by Andrew Wakefield that incorrectly linked the MMR vaccine and autism was published 18 years ago. Although later discredited (with Wakefield being struck off the medical register), the rate of vaccination against measles plummeted after the study’s appearance in The Lancet. There were 56 cases of measles the year before its publication in England and Wales; by 2008 there were 1,370. Many parents of the Wakefield era chose not to vaccinate their children and were understandably swayed by breathless media coverage, inconsistent messages from health providers, and apparent validation of Wakefield’s findings by the scientific community; it took The Lancet 12 years to retract the publication. If you were the parent of a toddler in those years, what would you have done? Now, those unvaccinated children have grown up. They go to festivals. The virus is so contagious that if one person has it, 90% of those in close contact will also become infected if they are not immune themselves. And so Public Health England has urged teenagers and adults to check with their GP if they have been vaccinated and to receive two doses of the MMR vaccine if required. The Wakefield-era children also grew up to account for most of the 1,219 measles cases in the Swansea measles epidemic in 2012, in which one person died. Although some recovered quickly from fever, conjunctivitis and a rash, others suffered more significant complications. According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, one or two out of every 1,000 children who become infected with measles will die from respiratory and neurologic sequelae including blindness, seizures and encephalitis. Since 2006, there have been three deaths from measles in England and Wales. This historical legacy is compounded by anti-vax sentiment that has become more visible in recent years, albeit not necessarily more widespread. The consequences of this movement travel beyond forums and Facebook posts. It is easy to imagine it to be as infectious as the virus itself, but I think there is a more nuanced subtext, too. Measles arrived at Disneyland, California with one case in December 2014. Within four months, there were 145 confirmed cases in seven states and three countries, all linked to Disneyland. The authors of an analysis in JAMA Pediatrics journal said the outbreak was directly associated with substandard vaccination compliance: “The ongoing measles outbreak linked to the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California, shines a glaring spotlight on our nation’s growing anti-vaccination movement and the prevalence of vaccination-hesitant parents.” Vaccination is more than a personal choice; the inaction of others can affect even vaccinated children and adults. Community vaccination helps to halt the spread of the virus and thus protects the wider population. The sum is greater than its parts. But here’s what is crucial. Each outbreak is different, there are nuances to each one, and not all can be attributed simplistically to a groundswell of anti-vax sentiment. Swansea is definitely not California. For example, early 2014 cases were linked to unvaccinated travellers returning home who had acquired the virus abroad (an outbreak in the Philippines was an important factor) and then infected others in communities with lower vaccination rates. Despite the concerns expressed in pockets of unvaccinated residents, there is no nationwide loss of confidence in vaccines. Sometimes it’s a case of missed doctors’ appointments or single vaccines refused rather than staunch dissent. And vaccine refusal does not correlate with a lack of knowledge. Moral outrage is too easy. Julie Leask, an associate professor at Sydney University’s school of public health, provides level-headed discussion on this topic: “To be committed to the science of immunisation ideally comes with a commitment to the science of immunisation behaviour. Media often present this problem as refusal to vaccinate. But the evidence is clear and it’s more complex: under-vaccination is broadly about a lack of acceptance and a lack of opportunity to vaccinate fully or on time. It’s not just the haves, but the have-nots who don’t fully vaccinate. “A typical measles outbreak will reveal this. There will be children whose parents refused vaccination; children whose parents were unwittingly not up to date for lack of access; affordability or awareness; adults and travellers who didn’t get a needed booster; and babies who are too young to be vaccinated.” So although “festival measles” seems to largely fit with the coming of age of the Wakefield generation and more particularly a broader anti-vax narrative, it is too simplistic to conclude that this is applicable to all. But it does provide an opportune moment to discuss issues around vaccination, to strengthen public health infrastructure to deliver effective programmes, and to ensure there is never even the possibility of a Wakefield generation occurring again.
Maximus fit-for-work tests fail mental health patients, says doctor People with mental health problems are still being wrongly assessed by a “severely flawed” system intended to find whether they are entitled to state help, according to a doctor who was charged with improving so-called “fit-for-work” tests. The doctor, who did not want to be named, was employed by Maximus, the US company that took over the government’s controversial scheme to determine whether claimants are entitled to employment and support allowance in March 2015. He said that despite improvements to the system, some were still “falling through the net”. The doctor, who now works in the NHS having left the company last year after more than a year as an assessor, alleged there were a series of problems at the heart of the scheme. These include unreasonable targets leading to poor quality assessments; not enough specialists in mental health; and tests that are too subjective and often skewed against the claimant. As a result, the tests, which were introduced by the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP), were not fit for purpose, the doctor said. “There may be cases where a person was seriously unwell, but within the criteria in the assessment, I would have to classify them as well,” the doctor, who has psychiatric training said. Maximus is under severe pressure after a damning report by the National Audit Office in January found it performing worse than its much-criticised predecessor, Atos, in key areas. Auditors found that one in 10 of its reports on disability claimants were below standard, that the average cost of assessments has risen and the company is struggling to retain staff. The doctor, who trained and worked in psychiatry for four years before becoming a disability assessor, first worked for Atos before going on to work for Maximus. One issue, they said, were targets that meant the average face-to-face time with a claimant was just 30 minutes. “Working in clinical psychiatry, an assessment of a new patient would take 45-50 minutes, with 10 minutes for dictating notes,” they said. “The target set by Maximus was six tests a day at 65 minutes each. Around 30 minutes for assessment, 30 for writing up. The argument was you might get an easy case that would take 35/40 minutes and a difficult one that would take longer. But there were times when you had five difficult cases in a row. You get pushed into doing difficult cases fast. I would stay late most evenings and had to skimp on quality at times.” The DWP said that the scheme had been improved following consultation with mental health experts and charities. The doctor acknowledged improvements to the scheme, saying that, following a spate of stories about claimants killing themselves, there was a shift in emphasis to allow protection of claimants who were believed to be at risk of harm if they were found fit for work. However, echoing criticism of the work capability assessments that has been made by mental health groups, medical professionals, user groups and a parliamentary committee, the doctor said he believed those with mental health problems were still being failed by the scheme. “You need people with psychiatric training. I worked in mental health for three years and I still struggled. If someone tells you they are severely depressed but there is no input from their GP and no psychiatrist, and no input from the mental health system, then the assessor is more likely to put down ‘fit for work’, because the assessor is basing their assessment more on the level of input they have rather than their clinical presentations,” the doctor said. He pointed out the majority of people who killed themselves who had mental health issues had not received a medical assessment. “Some of the signs are subtle, if they have had depression, if they have had low mood or a lack of energy, looking at their body language. Their demeanour. You can assess how bad their mental state is but that’s very difficult if you have had no training,” he said. Maximus said all staff had training in how to recognise how a person’s mental health impacted upon their ability to work. He said: “Our doctors, therapists and nurses are responsible for carrying out functional assessments, which are not clinical psychiatric assessments. While it is not our role to diagnose someone’s mental health, we know how important it is to understand it in the context of an individual’s functional capability.” He said the company had more than doubled the number of mental health experts to help assessors. “We continue to engage with mental health charities and organisations to support our training and understanding of people with mental health conditions who come to us for an assessment.” A DWP spokesman said: “We are committed to ensuring people get the right support they need – a high quality and fair assessment is key to this. The work capability assessment has been strengthened following five independent reviews, and this includes the way mental health is assessed.”
Morrissey and Mexico fit together like hand in glove. Is that really so strange? Of all the incongruous links between music and peoples, one of the strangest appears to be that between Steven Patrick Morrissey, the former lead singer of the Smiths, and Mexicans. Specifically, Mexicans in southern California. Notably, he’s not popular south of the border. Of all the potential singers you’d imagine a culture steeped in masculinity and machismo could choose, why would they embrace this son of northern England? The question has reared its head again after the release of the Spanish-language Morrissey cover band Mexrrissey’s first album, No Manchester. But it’s actually not that mysterious. Morrissey’s melancholic ballads provide the best starting point. The sense of estrangement and longing that exists in all his songs is also something that’s present in traditional northern Mexican music genres such as rancheras. Drawing on rural traditional folk music, it began as a symbol of national consciousness at the beginning of the 20th century. Traditionally, rancheras are about love, nature or patriotism. We don’t normally associate patriotism with Morrissey or his songs, but the nature of love? Absolutely. The longing for love? Most definitely. Morrissey’s most famous lament of unrequited love, There Is a Light That Never Goes Out, resembles so many Mexican torch songs – for example Mi Destino Fue Quererte, written by Felipe Valdés Leal. Not just in theme, but almost thought for thought. And yet the association between Mexican folk music and Morrissey is just the beginning. The real linkages lie with Mexican-Americans; with Chicanos. Although I’ve never been further south than Monterrey, my family has myriad tales of living in a golden Mexico during the 1940s and 1950s. Those stories helped foster a deep-seated melancholy within me about where I truly belong. Not quite American; not wholly Latino, living in all the spaces in between. Growing up in rural Ohio, these duelling identities caused me an incredible amount of angst, as I tried to traverse the space between home and school. It’s easy to see where so many of Morrissey’s songs that deal with identity crisis, with a sense of alienation, of being an “other”, would appeal to people such as me. Feeling ostracised, not part of a homogeneous American culture – that’s enough to make anyone morose and woebegone. Small wonder that Morrissey’s lyrics, shot through with dolefulness, speak to so many of us. Over the past two decades, though, Morrissey has made that linkage explicit, both in song and sign. There was his 1999 ¡Oye, Estéban! tour. At a concert at UC Irvine’s Bren Events Center, the singer lamented: “I wish I was born Mexican, but it’s too late for that now.” That’s the most famous recognition of the love his Latino fans bear for him, but there have been other, more subtle signs - wearing the football jersey of Chivas de Guadalajara, the 11-time Mexican champions who only have Mexicans on their roster, for example. Or rocking shirts adorned with Mexico’s patroness, the Virgin of Guadalajara. And then there’s Mexico, one of Morrissey’s newer songs. It could double as an anthem of Chicano love for the homeland: “In Mexico I went for a walk to inhale the tranquil cool lover’s air But I could taste a trace Of American chemical waste. And the small voice said, ‘What can we do?’ I lay on the grass And I cried my heart out for want of my love.” And for those of us who’ve never been, who rely on the tales of our relatives, there’s the condemnation of white privilege in that same song: “It seems if you’re rich and you’re white you think you’re so right I just don’t see why this should be so.” All of that combines to make Morrissey a magnetic figure to Latinos like me. Here’s a guy who really gets it. How can we resist that? His songs offer the chance to escape our bleak surroundings, transcend our existence, and leave behind the limits of our lives. Especially at a time when the presumptive nominee of one of America’s two major parties condemns my fellow Latinos as criminals and threatens to build a wall severing one America from the other.
Best albums of 2016: No 6 Hopelessness by Anohni As album titles go, you’d be hard pressed to find one more appropriate for 2016 than Hopelessness. It was a statement of despair – angry and unwavering, bold and unmistakably bleak, furious at the world. You’d also be hard pressed to find an album this year as fearlessly political – or at least one with a danceable song about execution. The artist formerly known as Antony and the Johnsons made her name with nimble piano torch songs, but for her first album as Anohni, she emerged as a velvet-voiced harbinger of doom, her anguish at drone warfare, climate change, Guantánamo Bay, the Obama administration and humanity at large set to an exuberant electronic soundtrack. If that suggested an uneasy listen, then that was the point. At times Hopelessness could shake you to the core: the lyrics of Crisis, for example, were more brutal than a news report and the song had an emphatic crescendo of static and strings that made your ribcage want to burst. But the album succeeded in bringing such difficult subjects into the dance arena: it could be escapist as well as subversive. Anohni has said the album was inspired by late-80s club music, when people danced away their rage during the peak of the Aids crisis. Hopelessness, for all its tales of burning landscapes and beheadings, had engulfing head-nodding rhythms and shades of R&B, hip-hop and gospel. At times, Anohni sounded like a diva-house star on the apocalypse’s podium. Hopelessness has been hailed as a modern protest album, full of environmental bangers and cinematic crisis reports – some such as Drone Bomb Me sung from the perspective of a civilian, inviting a drone bomb strike like a lost lover. But it was also an achievement for the simple yet staggeringly beautiful combination of vocals and visceral instrumentals. Its songs are among the best work that co-producers Ross Birchard (AKA Hudson Mohawke) and Daniel Lopatin (Oneohtrix Point Never) have made yet, and their Disneyfied hellscapes of crystal synth and majestic horns were luminous paired with Anohni’s breathtaking voice. 4 Degrees, in particular, had a sweeping grandeur that suggested a camera crew panning over melting ice caps from the air as Anohni, inhabiting a Mother Earth scorned, called for the animals to burn. Complex, rich and formidable, Anohni’s masterwork proved that political music in 2016 need not be hackneyed and earnest. Instead it could be galvanising and confrontational. Just imagine what she has in store for Trump. More of the best albums of 2016
Imagining Ireland review – remembering in song the rebels with a cause This concert presented an intriguing challenge. It was staged on the 100th anniversary of the day on which the Easter Rising in Dublin neared its end. And the president of Ireland, Michael Higgins, was in the audience. So what were the appropriate songs? Of course, there had to be rebel ballads commemorating the bloody 1916 uprising in Dublin against British rule. But these were cleverly intercut with songs examining the links between Ireland and Britain over the past century. There were stories about Irish workers in Britain, but also reminders of the crucial role that the descendants of Irish immigrants played in transforming British pop. Host John Kelly’s list started with the Beatles, and included Elvis Costello and Morrissey. Dexys singer Kevin Rowland, gave one of the most powerful performances of the night. The band’s new album, Let the Record Show Dexys Do Irish and Country Soul, explores Rowland’s Irish links and includes songs perfect for this occasion. Joined by his bandmate Sean Read, Rowland started with Curragh of Kildare, treating this traditional song of parting with respect but also an unexpected, edgy emotion. He followed with an affecting song from the 80s about his roots, My National Pride, and returned later for a treatment of Carrickfergus that compared well with Van Morrison’s version as a display of rousing celtic soul. He was joined on stage by Cáit O’Riordan, the former Pogues bass player, who provided a suitably stomping treatment of Dark Streets of London, “which was born in the squats of King’s Cross, not for nice people sitting down”. Here, she was backed by the classy house band led by multi-instrumentalist Kate St John and including Neill and Callum MacColl, who paid tribute to their father Ewan MacColl with a rousing Tunnel Tigers, his song about Irish workers building the Blackwall Tunnel. There were constant surprises. English folk hero Martin Carthy provided an impressive if unlikely treatment of Nothing Rhymed by the “cruelly disregarded” Gilbert O’Sullivan, and then dramatically switched direction with The Row in the Town, a rebel song about 1916. Irish folk hero Andy Irvine performed another rebel song commemorating James Connolly, who was executed by the British despite being gravely injured in the Easter Rising fighting. Then there were angry songs from another great veteran, Paul Brady, and a new lament, England Has My Man, from the impressive young Irish singer Lisa O’Neill. Mixed in were instrumental passages from classical pianist Barry Douglas and the remarkable violin and guitar duo, Martin Hayes and Dennis Cahill, whose playing is crucial to the international success of the Gloaming. The evening ended with Dominic Behan’s stomping story of Irish construction workers, McAlpine’s Fusiliers, and a return to Easter 1916 with the emotional Foggy Dew, finely sung by O’Neill.
Africa calling: mobile phone revolution to transform democracies Mobile phones will account for almost one-tenth of African GDP by the end of the decade, as mobile broadband connections triple in five years, underlining how the explosive growth in the telecoms industry is having a major economic, social and political impact on the continent. Market analysts Ovum expect mobile broadband connections, which stood at 147m in 2014, to account for a substantial share of the mobile market, forecasting a rise to 76% at the end of 2020, up from just 17% in 2014. The figures underpin the extraordinary rate at which the mobile industry has grown across the continent over the past decade and a half. The sector contributed $100bn (£76bn) to sub-Saharan Africa’s economy in 2014 and is expected to account for three times that in 2020. As handsets and data become more affordable, greater accessibility to mobiles – which have outpaced other forms of communications infrastructure on the continent – is changing the way in which public services are delivered and business and politics are being conducted. “This will have a huge democratising effect,” says John Githongo, one of Kenya’s leading anti-corruption campaigners. “The growth in access to smartphones leads to the creation of networks that are broader, deeper and more durable than we have seen in the past. “The growth in access to smartphones leads to the creation of networks that are broader, deeeper and more durable than we have seen in the past. “We are already witnessing a transformation in the way people relate to their governments, as we saw in Zimbabwe recently, where a protest movement sprang simply from a post on the internet that captured the imagination of the public.” He stresses how the mobile technology revolution has improved transparency and given a voice to citizens. In part, because the old state-run fixed-line telephone companies were inefficient monopolies, many in Africa took up mobiles with great enthusiasm at the start of the last decade. There are more mobile phones than adults in most African countries, with the number of subscriptions in Kenya, for example, surging from 330,000 in 2001 to 38m in 2016, in a country with a population of nearly 45 million. In recent years, the rise of mobile internet access is acting as a new game-changer, bringing many online who don’t have access to desktop machines or fixed-line broadband. This growth has fuelled a parallel expansion in the number of innovators and entrepreneurs looking to ride the mobile wave on the continent and opened up an array of uses for mobiles in areas such as business, healthcare and education. In Ghana, the Mobile Technology for Community Health initiative aims to improve healthcare for pregnant mothers by providing time-specific information about their pregnancies and childcare each week. A separate application enables nurses to collect patient data and upload records to a centralised database to track the progress of patents and identify those who are due for care. Similar schemes operate in Rwanda, Mozambique and South Africa, while a programme in Nigeria known as Smart has halved the turnaround time for test results for early diagnosis of HIV infection in infants. Using small battery-operated printers and SMS technology, health facilities can receive and print test results without having computers and internet access. Few advances have been as successful as M-Pesa, a mobile money transfer system introduced in Kenya in 2007. Seven in 10 adults in Kenya use M-Pesa, making 9m transactions daily. The service has become a popular alternative to cash for numerous businesses and government agencies. Users register on the system and deposit cash with an agent who then credits the money to a pin-protected digital wallet. They can then use the mobile phone to pay for a taxi ride or settle utility bills or to transfer money to another user, who can withdraw the funds from an M-Pesa agent or a bank ATM. The system offers everyone from grocers to mechanics a safer way to store their money. “I have not carried any cash with me for three weeks,” says Bob Collymore, chief executive of Kenya’s leading telecoms firm, Safaricom, which operates M-Pesa. “The mobile payment service is hugely convenient because it allows you to make micro payments of as low as 10 US cents and in many ways, it symbolises how mobiles are being used differently in Africa than in other parts of the world. Here, the mobile is one of the central tools that people use to earn a living.” M-Pesa has helped to increase financial inclusion in the country – in 2006, 20% of the adult population was banked; by 2013, 67% had some kind of access to financial services. Collymore says the next challenge for Africa is to produce innovations that could be bolstered to solve digital challenges beyond the continent. Safaricom is partnering with numerous startups looking for markets outside Kenya. These include Eneza, which sends personalised revision aids to tens of thousands of pupils daily; iCow, a “virtual midwife” for cows that helps farmers to maximise their herd’s breeding potential by tracking their fertility cycle; and M-Kopa, a firm that sells 500 units of small, solar-powered lighting units a day in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Ghana and aims to have sold a million units by the end of next year. Collymore also points to the need to improve digital literacy. “If our children grow up as digital natives, like the children in the US and the UK and Europe, that makes a huge difference,” he says, referring to an initiative by Safaricom, which is part-owned by Vodafone, to provide free Wi-Fi in primary schools in an attempt to expand internet access to young Kenyans. Mteto Nyati, chief executive of MTN South Africa, the country’s second largest mobile operator, makes a similar point about the need to invest in education. “The education system should be slanted towards being more practical than what we have today. Our education system yields people who are knowledgable about things but not necessarily able to do things. “We need to transform our education system and this can only be led by government, but business and the wider community must also play their part.” Nyati predicts online retail will be the next big thing: “My sense is that the e-commerce space is going to be key going forward in Africa. But any e-commerce needs to be connected with some kind of logistics – we need to solve logistics challenges. We can do the transactions – people are comfortable using mobile devices but how do you deliver the goods. We need reliable service providers. A combination of those two things will certainly move Africa forward.” Telecoms pioneer Funke Opeke – founder and chief executive of MainOne, which has played a major role in transforming west Africa’s internet landscape – stresses that better and more affordable access to the internet must also be a priority. “Mobile penetration is high, covering over 60% of the population, and more than 50% of those users have access to the internet. However, service quality is poor, throughput is limited and prices are quite expensive,” Opeke says. “The situation is a result of limitations in terrestrial and last mile network infrastructure across the continent with internet delivery occurring primarily via congested mobile networks,” says Opeke, who returned to Nigeria after a 20-year career in the US and in 2010 launched the first privately owned submarine cable system linking west Africa to Europe. “The continent will have to develop its own unique set of business models for digital service delivery that are efficient given lower income levels and continued limintations in infrastructure,” she adds. Su Kahumbu Stephanou, the founder of iCow, says there is reason to be optimistic about Africa’s digital prowess: “The mobile will help Africa close the digital divide with the rest of the world. We have only begun to scratch the surface in terms of exploiting the huge potential there is in this field.”
Real-life ice cream van battle set for big-screen treatment Get ready for The Cold War: a movie about rival ice cream truckers in Salem, Oregon. The film will be co-produced by American Sniper’s Andrew Lazar and by Joshuah Bearman, on whose article the film Argo was based. In 2013, Bearman and journalist Joshua Davis set up Epic Magazine, a digital platform for long-form reportage with the potential for film and TV syndication. The Cold War story was first published by Epic, then featured last year on a popular Radiolab podcast. Written by David Wolman and Julian Smith, it tells the tale of the feud and reconciliation between American ice-cream seller Dennis Roeper and Efrain Escobar, recently moved from Mexico. What began in 2009 as a straightforward turf war swiftly mushroomed into a brutal contest, involving competitive pricing and even arson. Wolman and Smith’s piece contextualises the battle within the context of modern immigration and job market concerns. In 1984, Bill Paterson starred in Comfort and Joy, a similarly themed film in which he plays a radio host reporting on a Glasgow battle between warring Italian ice-cream makers, initiated after one family trashes the other’s van.
Remainder: Tom McCarthy and Omer Fast’s avant-garde explosion One afternoon in 1998, a New York branch of Chase Manhattan bank received an unexpected request from a graduate art student. “The poor woman thought I was going to open some sort of account,” recalls the artist Omer Fast. “My appearance probably told her I wasn’t going to be one of those startup millionaires. But the idea I was trying to sell her was that I wanted to stage a robbery in the bank without telling the customers. The conversation was extremely short.” “You never told me this!” interjects a tickled Tom McCarthy, whose hypnotic 2005 novel Remainder culminates in just such a staged heist. We’re discussing Fast’s film adaptation of the award-winning experimental book. It stars Tom Sturridge, brilliant and brooding, as the novel’s nameless Londoner struck by unidentified falling objects; suffering from amnesia and relearning rudimentary movement during his recovery, his obsession with authentic existence (and the £8.5m insurance settlement he receives) leads him to stage increasingly detailed re‑enactments of dimly remembered events. Remainder’s rights were optioned quickly by Film4 after publication, though Brad Pitt’s production company had briefly flirted with it (“He read 10 pages of it and went, ‘No fucking way’,” says McCarthy). Fast, meanwhile, had been knocked for six by the book, finishing the story, like the protagonist, on board a flight; another weird reverberation. “My reaction was amazed, stunned silence,” the Israel-born, Berlin-based artist says. “I had this feeling – I looked out the window and I saw the clouds moving slowly by, and the world slowed down for me.” When the option lapsed, McCarthy – a fan of Fast’s haunting video art such as 2007’s The Casting and 2011’s 5,000 Feet Is the Best, which is similarly centred on trauma, re-enactment and identity – insisted he would only renew if Fast directed. Avant-garde-affiliated novelist and cinematographically fluent artist – it looked like a beautiful hookup. The pair have since become friends, holidaying with each other. They had fun creating a giant diagram of the novel’s structure on the pristine white wall of the Stockholm studio where McCarthy was staying on an artist’s residency in 2010. “One of the terms on it was ‘zombie flaneur’,” says McCarthy. Fast, viewing their creation, didn’t want to let go. “The diagram is the most wonderful stage. Networks are about possibilities, shifting terrain. And the moment you begin to work, you begin to narrow down possibilities, and that’s just what telling a story is like.” The artist worked solo on the script. He produced a first draft after six months – but the struggle to correctly position it between arthouse and mainstream continued. “My first draft was just someone sitting in a room reading the book out aloud from cover to cover,” Fast deadpans. The affectless protagonist, willing to sacrifice friends, felines and eventually collaborators in pursuit of impeccable re-enactments, was a problem for some investors (the project was co-financed by the BFI and various German sources, and cost just under $2m). “In the art world, nobody uses the word ‘sympathetic’ to describe the protagonist,” says Fast, “I heard that word so many times, I’m never going to use it again in relation to any storytelling project that I do.” McCarthy, keen for the adaptation to have its own stamp, stayed out of the way. He read some of the 11 drafts, but let Fast fight the battles: “I didn’t want to tread on Omer’s toes.” “I didn’t have any toes left by that time,” says Fast. Despite that, the film began to zone off its own territory. Fast liberated the story from the febrile headspace of the narrator: “He’s talking non-stop. I knew that I didn’t want a voiceover-driven film. [In my version], he’s quite laconic, he withholds information.” Sturridge’s character – now called Tom, as if to stress the artifice at play – insists on filming the cast of ersatz residents with which he fills Madlyn Mansions, the south London building he buys (there’s a nod to Proust in the name). In the novel, he forbids this because it will prevent him from authentically inhabiting the realities he is recreating. But the film version seemed less convincing without the presence of technology and media that has hemmed us in even more since Remainder was published. McCarthy rhapsodises the scenes in which Tom’s facilitator, Naz, oversees a staging through a bank of monitors. “He’s wearing these really thick glasses, and you see the multiple screens reflected in his eyes – like he is technology.” He thinks the adaptation triumphantly speaks for the Edward Snowden era. That seems a bit of a stretch. More important is that the novel’s core themes and texture have been elegantly compressed according to algorithms whirring in the original text. The film fully embraces the genre territory of the psychological thriller – presumably for commercial reasons. But also, says Fast, because the sense of a latent mystery to be solved lingered in the original narrator’s fascination with the Brixton street crimes he later appropriates. Before filming began in 2014, McCarthy took producer Natasha Dack-Ojumu on a tour of “Remainder real estate”: the Brixton locations that had been “generative” for the novel while the author was living there in the late 90s. Presumably that included the building in Ferndale Road that inspired Madlyn Mansions, though Fast ended up using a different location, in Kennington. McCarthy points out that the racial undertones of the gentrification that has transformed Brixton beyond recognition were already present in the novel: the white narrator, effectively a kind of property developer, also seeks absorption – with his street-crime stagings – into the gritty “authenticity” of the black rudeboys living in the area. The novelist praises Fast for taking those undercurrents and “amplifying them in an untimid way”. The director goes on: “The protagonist is obsessed with recognising a vision in a particular space. And it just so happens that it has inhabitants, and they must make room for his fantasy to become realised. Inadvertently, he becomes this kind of gentrifier.” He sees a personal link: “That’s very much related to the role of the artist – we’re no longer just squatting spaces, we’re seeking to acquire them, too.” McCarthy went to the set three times. Confronted with the contents of his mind intricately realised, he didn’t quite manage the kind of epiphany sought by his protagonist. (“Film sets are the least likely place where one would have an epiphany,” points out Fast. “They’re extremely dull places.”) The transubstantiation into the new form, though, was fitting given how much cinema saturated the original Remainder. McCarthy says he thought of the weight and slowness of Tarkovsky and Warhol when he was writing. The unfeigned grace of Robert DeNiro’s Johnny Boy from Mean Streets is what anxiously inspires the narrator in his quest to be authentic: “He seemed to execute the action perfectly, to live it, to merge with it until he was it and it was him and there was nothing in between.” Remainder belongs to a less livewire, more strategic order of cinema – a dark cousin in the meta category to the more romanticised likes of Synecdoche, New York and The Truman Show, whose heroes are also a construct or are imprisoned inside fastidious miniatures of reality. With the juicy personal motivations of the traditional psychological thriller blanched by Sturridge’s searingly impassive performance, Remainder burrows ever inwards. But its repetitions hit a resonant frequency, releasing its protagonist somewhere beyond his simulcra, blinking at the light. The book’s author, at any rate, seems satisfied with this latest, possibly final reiteration – an inevitable consequence of the nature of the themes at play. Having a new version doesn’t “dilute things”, McCarthy says: “It compounds them. The story started with me having deja vu in a bathroom at a party, like in the book. The narrator restages even the restagings. And then when I went on set, the whole thing’s being filmed. It was a redoubling of the redoubling of the redoubling.” • Remainder is out on 24 June.
Meet the woman who changed the dictionary definition of ‘femininity’ It has been no surprise that women are among those keening over Donald Trump’s election victory. But they are also using the result as a platform for protest. Alison Segel is an activist and writer who started compiling a post-election zine – Forever Nasty – for aggrieved women in an attempt to galvanise them. The submissions were myriad, including fan art of Hillary Clinton, prose, poetry and, finally, a screenshot of a definition of how “femininity” is used in the Merriam-Webster dictionary. It read: “She managed to become a female CEO without sacrificing her femininity.” Horrified, Segel tweeted the screenshot with the thinking-face emoji. The tweet found its way back to Merriam-Webster’s lexicographer, Peter Sokolowski, and shortly afterwards, the company changed it. Segel was thrilled – and surprised. “I wanted to create a dialogue and was not looking or expecting to get the definition altered.” The new definition? “The quality or nature of the female sex.” Even so, a cursory Google suggests this problematic definition isn’t unique to Merriam-Webster. The Oxford Living Dictionaries says: “She celebrates her femininity by wearing makeup and high heels.” The Cambridge Online dictionary? “Long hair was traditionally regarded as a sign of femininity.” And hats off to the online Macmillan dictionary for suggesting: “Qualities that are considered to be typical of women, for example, the quality of being gentle and delicate.” You might argue that to quibble with this definition is to quibble with the definition of “femininity” as a social and cultural construct. Marx once said: “The ideas of the ruling class are, in every epoch, the ruling ideas.” But the change suggests these dialogues – and the people who start them – have some gravitas. And that identity politics is very much back in the public sphere. “I think that traditional gender constructs are changing,” explains Segel. “What makes someone stereotypically male or female doesn’t really exist any more.” Segel’s zine, which is still in compilation stage, remains focused on “solution” and changing people’s minds, rather than aggression – and redefining “femininity” certainly points towards progress. Whatever authority a dictionary definition might have, Segel proved women have the power to change it.
Pop art, fanzines and Channel 4 – the making of Saint Etienne's Foxbase Alpha If we’re using DIY as a starting point for the story of Foxbase Alpha, when did you first become aware of DIY culture in pop? Was it through music fanzines? Yeah, totally. I used to get sold them at gigs as far back as I can remember. The Birthday Party, the Fall, Dead Can Dance, Factory bands. The first ones I remember were pretty dull, because I was buying them in 1982 and 83, and they were writing about bands like the Inca Babies or the Folk Devils or the Luddites. It was all pretty boring. I didn’t see the point of them for a while, because the music papers existed and these fanzines weren’t really doing anything different. It wasn’t until 85 that I started seeing fanzines that made sense, because by then the NME was putting Courtney Pine on the cover and writing about Green on Red, and things I didn’t get. You mean the explosion of the C86-era fanzines? Yes. I moved to Peterborough because I couldn’t afford a flat on my own in glamorous, high-priced Croydon. I was working at [record shop] Our Price, and I got a transfer to Our Price in Cambridge, so it was an 80-mile round trip to work every day. Then I moved to Virgin in Peterborough when a job came up there. I was a fish out of water – I’d never lived outside suburban London before. I fell in with a bunch of blokes who’d been talking about doing a fanzine for ages, and then I came along and said we should do it. So we did it. That was Pop Avalanche. That went well, so I thought me and Pete Wiggs could do one called Caff. Did Our Price and Virgin let you sell the fanzine in the shops? No, but it never occurred to me to ask. They wouldn’t have done anyway. But some of the big chains could be quite adventurous in those days, because often they had their own buyers, so they had their own identities. Even WH Smith did – the Reading branch was particularly strong on metal for a while, and its record counter had all the NWOBHM stuff. I’ve read about big-city branches of HMV and Virgin with interesting ranges of stock. Yes, Virgin certainly had that. I remember the Virgin in Croydon being like that. When the Joy Division flexi came out, they had a stack on the counter and you could just help yourself. I think I took 10. I took a lot. Peterborough wasn’t like that, though. It was quite soul destroying. On a Saturday, people would come in and they wouldn’t even buy numbers six to 10, they’d only buy the Top 5. When I’d been working in Epsom Our Price it was a lot more interesting. I remember one bloke coming in and buying Forever Changes. I told him it was one of my favourite albums, and he said, “Oh, I bought it when it came out, but my old copy’s got a bit of a warp. I’m going to throw it away. You can have it if you want.” So I’ve got an original Forever Changes. Warped. Things like that never happened in Peterborough. In the interviews around the original release of Foxbase Alpha, you all talk about how you made that music to share your tastes. Was that why you worked in record shops? Or was it just to get discounted records? Both. There were a lot of Chelsea soul-fan hooligans who used to come into the Epsom shop in ’84, ’85 to buy soul. So I did a Top 10 soul reissues and put it out in the racks. And I got in trouble for that. For using my initiative. Because I hadn’t cleared it with the heavy-metal fan manager. I think that explains my residual dislike of heavy metal. One thing that often goes unremarked on in coverage of British indie culture – except in David Cavanagh’s book about Creation – is the importance of Channel 4, which helped repopularise trash culture, the 60s pop art aesthetic, French and continental styles, and mixed it all up with the brashness of contemporary pop culture. So you’d get The Munsters, The Avengers, The Tube and a Godard movie on the same evening. It created a cultural melting point that was really attractive to a certain kind of person. Yes, definitely. I used to tape so many of those films – buying blank videotapes cost so much back then. I’d try to tape all the Truffaut films, all the British kitchen sink films. It was the first channel to show [the Monkees’ film] Head. I’d read so much about it and never seen it – that seems quite hard to comprehend now. But a lot of things that you’d see referenced were hard to see and hear. The Byrds’ albums had all been deleted, for example. You could get a couple of compilations and that was it. Channel 4 was definitely important. Though I hated The Tube. It was so long, and it was on every week. You always seemed to have half an hour of Tears for Fears. I guess C86 was exciting, then, because it felt like it was “ours”. For people who had been too young for punk and found goth a bit unappealing. It also, if you were a nice kid, didn’t feel dangerous. Most importantly, it felt as if all those people making records were watching Channel 4 at the same time we were. And I didn’t feel scared to talk to people in bands, so I ended up getting to know those people. Obviously, doing a fanzine, I had to talk to them anyway. But it definitely felt like these were my people. Which doesn’t really explain Foxbase Alpha. But it’s part of it. I think C86 is the part of Foxbase Alpha that people ignore, in favour of the clubbing part of it. Because I think, in sensibility, it’s very much an indiepop record, even if it doesn’t sound like one. Especially in its fetishisation of the 60s. What it reminds me of more than any actual record is the collaged covers I used to do for mixtapes with bits from 60s Penguin book covers – the photos and the quotes that are all unrelated but work together. Yes, we made mixtapes. And we made them before we did the fanzine. Someone made me one called Don’t Put That Sausage in Your Mouth, Mrs Worthington. You wouldn’t have given that to a girl. You’d put bits between the tracks – bits of films on Channel 4, bits of adverts, bits of the Dangerous Brothers. So Tough [Saint Etienne’s second album] was exactly that, and it even had bits we’d taken from our cassettes. With pop art, I didn’t know anything about that until 1985, but that was absolutely mind-blowing. So, Bob, what did you actually do on Foxbase Alpha? I get asked this all the time. I was accused in the pub the other day of doing nothing. No, clearly you do something. But what is it? The back covers of Saint Etienne records don’t exactly define it. How did you actually make records? Did you go in with a flow chart to explain to Ian Catt, the engineer, what you needed him to do? Kind of. Let’s have a think. How would we have done something back then? We’d start with a loop, then work out a bassline and build up from there. Did you have the skills to make a loop yourselves? No. We needed someone to do it. We had to go to Ian Catt’s studio. Most good engineers can play most instruments reasonably well, and Ian’s certainly one of them. So it would be at the level of you humming him the melody or the bassline? Yeah. Or playing him a chord change off a record and telling him we wanted the chord change to be like that. Working with Ian you’d learn that adding a ninth makes a chord change richer – we just picked stuff up. I never wanted to become a musician, because I thought that if I knew how things were meant to work, I wouldn’t be able to do the things I wanted to do. I’m absolutely an amateur, because expertise would exclude doing anything new. That’s my philosophy. Although Pete’s managed to build himself a studio and become a proper musician in the last 25 years. I’ve been reading some old interviews with you, and there’s one with Jim Arundel in Melody Maker where you all get annoyed at the suggestion you’re a clever group. Come off it. Of course you were a clever group. Clever’s a bit of a problematic word. Does it mean arch? We used to be called ironic all the time. We didn’t like things that suggested we were using reference points because we thought they were funny, rather than because we liked them. I remember in that interview he refused to believe we liked Dazzle Ships by Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, which these days is accepted as a great record. That album was a huge influence on us – a massive pop group putting together two or three recognisable pop songs and loads of found sounds. But what’s clever? Where does that come from? You made an album with a very clear worldview and aesthetic sense, employing your knowledge to locate the sources of the material you wanted, and with the intelligence to deploy those sources correctly. You could be a 60s-inspired pop group, using 60s sources, and be recognisably stupid, but you weren’t. That’s true. I never felt particularly clever myself. I think what annoyed us was clever and ironic being seen as the same thing. Betty Boo never got called clever, and I could never see any difference between us. You also get defensive in those old interviews about the idea that you might be elitist. That really baffled me. It seemed really obvious – making a song called Join Our Club doesn’t mean you’re being sarcastic. I understand where the idea that you were elitist came from. You’re singing about a super-cool London … We’d only moved there six months before! The people hearing your music don’t know that. They hear a group writing about cool London, filled with carefully chosen references to pop culture they might well not know. They’re getting a display of impeccable taste from people dressed like they’ve come out of Blow Up. That was the opposite of what we trying to do. It’s interesting you say that. I used to read interviews with Julian Cope [of the Teardrop Explodes] or Nick Heyward of [Haircut 100] and they would talk about their influences really openly, and it was like opening a door: if you like what I do, here’s where it all comes from. We probably overdid that, and it looked like we were showing off. Are you surprised at the affection in which Foxbase Alpha is still held, 25 years on? I am. But I’d also be disappointed if it was people’s favourite Saint Etienne record, because I don’t think it’s the best one. At the same time, I know as a pop fan that people tend to like the first album by a group most, because it’s the moment of discovery, and the one that captures the band’s youth, so I can understand it. But it’s always sounded like a scrapbook to me. The 25th anniversary edition of Foxbase Alpha is out now on vinyl and double CD, via Heavenly. A deluxe box set edition is released on 6 January. This interview is an edited version of one that appears in the sleevenotes for the box set.
OscarsSoWhite: Chris Rock exposed the depths of the industry's race problem At the 88th Academy Awards on Sunday night, host Chris Rock moderated a discussion of race as it should be conducted in the United States: uncomfortably and without any easy resolution in just a few hours. And like most such attempts, it wasn’t as successful at solving anything, as it was inadvertently exposing the breadth of the problem through comedy. Rock had an extremely difficult task in front of him, having agreed to host the show before the all-white acting nods were announced, which prompted boycotts and a re-emergence of #OscarsSoWhite. He certainly didn’t know that a Justice for Flint fundraiser would be happening on the same evening, or that he’d unwittingly prove how much more Hollywood cares about Girl Scout cookies than it does about drinking water for black people. During the opening montage of films from the past year, I found myself engaging in the age-old pastime I call “counting Negroes” – wondering if the Academy was fitting in as many black faces as it could, despite none of those actors being nominated. I was relieved when Rock began his introduction similarly: “Man, I counted at least 15 black people on that montage.” I was thrilled when he bluntly said: “Is Hollywood racist? You’re damn right Hollywood is racist.” Rock kept black people at the forefront throughout the night, which was a cultural win of sorts. But his monologue – like his efforts overall to challenge the racism of Hollywood – was hit and miss. I was glad to see the audience confronted in the Dolby theatre, but it wasn’t exactly enjoyable. For example, Rock joked about telling Barack Obama at a Hollywood fundraiser: “Mr President, you see all these writers and producers and actors? They don’t hire black people, and they’re the nicest, white people on earth! They’re liberals!” But it made me cringe to see those nice, powerful white people laughing at how they withhold jobs – and power – from black people, then walking away with gold. Earlier that evening, more than 2,000 miles away, it was equally cringeworthy to watch the comedian Hannibal Buress as he joked to a crowd in Flint, Michigan, about being checked into his hotel “regular style”, and being given a key without any warning. “There’s nothing else you want to tell me?” Buress wondered. Like, “Hey, the water is poison right now?” Watching Buress joke to the people of Flint about being poisoned with lead was as uncomfortable (and brilliant) as his infamous routine about Bill Cosby. Buress was performing at the Justice for Flint fundraiser that black directors Ava DuVernay (snubbed for Selma last year) and Ryan Coogler (snubbed for Creed) had scheduled for the same night as the Oscars. Watching Buress joke about racism in its most deadly form – to an audience of black people affected by it – was uncomfortable in a very different way to watching Rock yuk it up with powerful white folks. Rock punched down a couple times in disappointing ways. First, he said that black people didn’t protest the Oscars in the early 1960s because “we had real things to protest; you know, we’re too busy being raped and lynched to care about who won best cinematographer”. This is not true – NPR’s Gene Demby has written about a protest in 1962 – and implies black people who care about representation in the media can’t also care about the lynching and raping of black people today. Rock ended his monologue taking a swipe at the #AskHerMore campaign – pushing for journalists to ask women film-makers about more than what they are wearing – by saying: “Everything’s not sexism, everything’s not racism.” It was an unnecessary dismissal of sexism in a business so sexist that 93% of top films are directed by men. Where Rock succeeded was in keeping the audience nervous about race throughout the night. The highlight was when he subversively introduced the “Academy’s new director of the minority outreach”, Clueless actor and Fox News contributor Stacey Dash. Dash, who has called for the abolition of Black History Month, came on stage to say, awkwardly: “I cannot wait to help my people out. Happy Black History Month!” The clueless and nearly silent white people at the Dolby theatre didn’t know whether to laugh, clap or hide from the revolution. To black America, and especially black Twitter, Dash’s appearance couldn’t have provoked an angrier reaction than if Jamie Foxx came on stage to say black Oscar hopefuls needed to #actbetter for a fair shot. But in bringing out the Republican Dash, Rock skewered how meaningless attempts at “diversity” usually are. As the ceremony wore on, the disconnect between black America outside and inside the Dolby theatre grew increasingly obvious, no more so than when Rock walked into the audience to sell Girl Scout cookies for his daughter’s troop. Shaking down the participants for cookie orders, Hollywood’s wealthiest waived bills at little black Girl Scouts to the tune of $65,243. Meanwhile, despite a head start on the air and trending on Twitter, the Justice for Flint fundraiser had, at the same time, raised just $52,000. For all the ways in which the Academy desperately did not want to come off as racist this year, no one mentioned Flint, nor the fundraiser that Academy brethren were hosting at the same time. Unwittingly, Rock showed that the Academy cares more about the Girl Scout cookie sales of a black star’s daughter than it does about getting water to the poisoned black people of Flint. Despite winners’ cause-filled speeches, the Academy is not about changing society or championing social justice. It’s about consolidating power, and its awards show is mostly about trying to expand its power without necessarily sharing it. Yes, not all the winners were white this year, including Mexican-born director Alejandro González Iñárritu, who won best director for a second year in a row for The Revenant. (Fortunately, no one even yelled “Who gave this sonofabitch his green card?” when he won this time, as Sean Penn did last year.) After Spotlight won best picture and Rock signed off with shout-outs to Black Lives Matter, Brooklyn and cookies, the weirdest juxtaposition came as Public Enemy’s Fight the Power was played over the credits. It was a craven play to black viewers. The Oscars are at the tip of the iceberg of cultural power in America, so how can they invoke Public Enemy to call for fighting ... themselves? This rests upon an Academy that is 91% white and 76% male, whose membership is drawn from an entertainment industry which, according to recent studies, is a “straight, white boys’ club” where “women, people of colour and those identifying as LGBT are not represented on screen or behind the camera”. This also reflected in US academia and journalism media. When Melissa Harris-Perry walked off her show on the left-leaning MSNBC network last week, writing that it had been taken away from her, her removal stoked fears that, as the Obama years wind down, people of colour will be pushed out of media positions after making modest gains. A few days before the Oscars, the New York Times published a report describing “the faces of American power” as being “nearly as white as the Oscar nominees”. In keeping us uncomfortable as we talked about it, and in showing how the Academy loves his children more than Flint’s, Rock made us confront Hollywood’s racism and how difficult, if not impossible, it will be to eradicate without changing the whole damn system.
The UK economy is slowing – experts debate the Brexit watch data David Blanchflower, professor of economics at Dartmouth College, New Hampshire, and former member of the Bank of England’s monetary policy committee (MPC) from June 2006 to May 2009 The UK economy is slowing, there is no doubt about it. The incoming data so far though are mixed as it is early days post the Brexit vote. The PMIs were quite strong, suggesting GDP growth isn’t set to slow sharply in the fourth quarter of 2016 but 2017 is likely a different matter. Retail sales were also pretty good. Despite the boost from the fall in sterling, Britain’s trade deficit with the rest of the world widened unexpectedly in September. Inflation surprised to the downside but major price rises look to be in the pipeline as factory gate prices increased 0.6% in October compared with an increase of 0.3% in September. The UK claimant count rose by 10,000 in October, while average weekly earnings grew by £1 between April and September. XPertHR, the pay consultants, report that the median private-sector pay award stood at 2% in the year to 31 August 2016, unchanged from that recorded 12 months previously. Private sector employers are predicting a median 2% pay award in the year to 31 August 2017. The MPC thinks 3.75% is on the horizon shortly. There is every probability that the Office for Budget Responsibility will suggest this week that the public finances are in a terrible mess due to the weakening outlook for the economy. There is some suggestion that there is little room for a fiscal boost to the economy. It is time to condemn austerity into the dustbin of history. It is the unnecessary hang-up with debts and deficits that has got us into this fine populist mess in the first place. In a major macro error in 2010, George Osborne slashed £30bn from public investment. Now Philip Hammond looks set to respond to the slowing economy with a trifling £1.3bn on infrastructure and roads. To put this in context, the UK has 29,145 miles of main roads 2,173 miles of motorways and 213,750 miles of paved roads so that should cover the cost of filling in about one pothole a mile. Or put another way, it is equivalent to about a fifth of the cost of refurbishing the Houses of Parliament and Buckingham Palace. Too little too late as ever. Oh dear. Andrew Sentance, senior economic adviser at the consultancy PwC and former member of the Bank’s MPC from October 2006 to May 2011 The picture of the UK economy since the Brexit vote is that consumer spending and services activity are supporting growth and employment. We still don’t have any hard data on the investment side of the economy – but even when we do it may be several quarters before the impact of post-Brexit uncertainty shows up in the level of capital spending. GDP held up in the third quarter better than expected and the early data for the current quarter – on retail sales and the purchasing managers’ survey of services activity – has been positive. The unemployment rate has continued to fall, though the rate of growth of new job creation appears to be slowing. One surprise this month was a drop in the inflation rate, from 1% to 0.9%. But it is clear from the measure of input prices paid by manufacturers that a wave of inflation is coming through the pipeline driven by a weaker pound. We should therefore still expect to see inflation at around 3% or just below by the end of next year. That will squeeze real consumer spending growth, adding to the slowdown generated by uncertainty affecting investment plans. PwC’s updated forecast is for GDP to rise by just 1.2% next year – about half the growth rate over the past 12 months. The EU referendum vote seems likely to create a longer-term drag on economic activity rather than a short sharp shock. The chancellor should be focusing on long-term priorities in his autumn statement this week – relieving the pressure in the housing market by supporting supply, boosting transport investment, helping smaller firms, tax reform and investment in skills. Business should view an autumn statement focused on long-term priorities positively and this is the best way to support business confidence in the face of Brexit uncertainty.
Embrace of the Serpent; Bad Neighbours 2; Our Kind of Traitor; I Saw the Light; The Measure of a Man and more – review Inter-film references can be dangerous things in criticism: you might have seen a lot of films that feed into Embrace of the Serpent (Peccadillo, 12) – Coppola’s Apocalypse Now, Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo, even Miguel Gomes’s Tabu – without ever having seen anything quite like it. Colombian director Ciro Guerra’s Oscar-nominated trip into the Amazon is a singular vision and I use “vision” (and “trip”, for that matter) in the slightly unearthly sense. As two white explorers, 30 years apart, are drawn into the heart of the jungle in pursuit of healing and enlightenment, the ghosts of the region’s colonial past are raised in vivid, disquieting fashion. Shot in lustrous, deep-toned black and white, Guerra’s film functions as a muscular adventure tale quite aside from its complex political undertow: outwardly imposing, it proves utterly immersive. Somewhere along the line, and we may never know exactly how this came to pass, Zac Efron came to be one of the best comic actors in current American film, with a self-effacing disregard for his own matinee-idol stainlessness that is both endearing and cruelly funny. He’s on oddly bittersweet form in the otherwise raucous sequel Bad Neighbours 2 (Universal, 15), playing a former fraternity bro who knows his glory days are already behind him and is beginning to realise they weren’t all that glorious to start with. The film, for its part, slyly complicates the crude generational battle of its predecessor, satirising millennial-era feminism and identity politics by introducing Chloë Grace Moretz’s sorority outcast to proceedings. Two new John le Carré adaptations hit our screens this year: while Susanne Bier’s sleek, riveting The Night Manager became whatever the equivalent of appointment TV is in this unscheduled era, over in cinemas, Susanna White’s Our Kind of Traitor (Studiocanal, 15) made scarcely a ripple. Some would use this as ammo in the recently fashionable telly-over-film debate, but White’s shrug of a spy thriller hardly gives cinema a chance; adapted from Le Carré’s most classically suspense-driven novel of recent years, it’s colour-by-numbers film-making in which every number calls for a moody shade of beige. As The Night Manager demonstrated, that’s the kind of territory for which Tom Hiddleston was essentially born. Playing rootsy Alabama-born country music legend Hank Williams? Not so much, though let it be said that Hiddleston plays compellingly against his own natural presence in every scene of the rather dusty biopic I Saw the Light (Sony, 15). It’s a twitchy, twangy, hard-working performance, even if it’s not quite a natural one, and gives some oddball energy to the otherwise rote backstage-drama mechanics the film has applied to Williams’s deeply sad story. One of those reliably careworn character actors whose face has been begging for just the right showcase, Vincent Lindon earns his Cannes plaudits fair and square in The Measure of a Man (New Wave, PG), a determinedly low-key but cumulatively shattering portrait of an unemployed factory worker cruelly thrust into the job market at 51. It’s plainly styled social realism, rightly stripped back to foreground on Lindon’s quietly wrenching work. If you like your French drama a little sunnier and more scenic, Catherine Corsini’s Summertime (Curzon Artificial Eye, 15) is a sweetly played romance between a naive farm girl and a liberal feminist activist, even if I liked their story more than I believed it; it would pair up nicely with Michal Vinik’s warm, funky, coming-out tale Blush (TLA, 18), in which Israeli-Palestinian tensions spike the more universal adolescent drama. We stick with an LGBT theme for this week’s streaming pick: South Korean transgender noir Man on High Heels is a spiky curio from last year’s festival circuit that I wasn’t expecting to see show up even on Netflix’s catholic playlist. But there it is and while this brash, wildly veering story of a hard-bitten cop yearning for a sex-change operation occasionally loses its own tail in its mash-up of issue drama, comedy and grisly shoot-’em-up, I’m glad it’s on the loose.
Donald Trump tours flood-ravaged Louisiana with 18-wheeler of supplies The post-disaster politicking got under way in earnest on Friday, as Donald Trump appeared in flood-stricken Louisiana to give his image a presidential burnish, and as the White House announced Barack Obama would tour the area next Tuesday. A day earlier Louisiana’s governor, John Bel Edwards, had warned Trump not to show up in Louisiana “for a photo op”. Instead, he said, Trump should volunteer and make donations. Edwards also defended the delayed visit by Obama, who has come under heavy criticism locally for not interrupting his vacation to come tour the disaster area. The photo opportunity is a time-honored political maneuver after a natural disaster, and Trump put his own spin on it, traveling with an 18-wheel transfer truck full of supplies to hand out to crowds. Wherever he went, he created his own television-ready crowds. In St Amant, one of the hardest-hit areas between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, Trump’s convoy set up in a parking lot, and droves of people turned out to watch him hand out water bottles and diapers. “It was really something,” said national guardsman Chris Ealy, who shook Trump’s hand. The 25-year-old seemed dazzled by his encounter with national political machinery. “I could tell they were in a hurry.” Trump stayed about 15 minutes before the motorcade of black SUVs and motorcycles moved on. Within a few minutes the crowd had melted away. The brevity of the spectacle didn’t matter. Trump’s target audience was watching him on television; local people will vote for him regardless. “This is his stomping grounds,” said Greg Patterson, who was cleaning muck from his store called the Pit Stop. The idea that a billionaire from Manhattan could describe the working-class corner of Louisiana as “his stomping grounds” did not strike Patterson as contradictory. “We’ve got 2,000 houses damaged just in this area alone,” he said, stretching his arm out to the south. “These people are already back in their homes, working to repair them. It’s not like down in the Ninth Ward.” That was a reference to one of the quarters of New Orleans that was worst hit by Katrina a decade ago. That neighborhood is mostly poor, and mostly black. “I mean that’s a bunch of government-owned housing,” Patterson said. “Nobody here is looking for handouts or waiting on the government. These are Trump’s people.” It was a bombastic statement, and maybe emotionally satisfying, but it was also untrue: more than 60,000 local people have applied for relief from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema). As Trump left the area, police closed down Interstate 10, which connects Baton Rouge and New Orleans. As his motorcade passed by, drivers in the oncoming lane slammed on their brakes, unsure whether to pull to the side of the road. Some veered off into the grass and mud. Trump’s visit was a savvy one that helped distract attention from the disarray of his campaign just 80 days from the general election. His campaign manager, Paul Manafort, resigned on Friday after a series of revelations about his connections to a pro-Russian Ukrainian regime. It also leveraged regional frustration with Obama. The Baton Rouge Advocate published an editorial comparing Obama’s vacation on Martha’s Vineyard to George W Bush’s response to Katrina. “Sometimes, presidential visits can get in the way of emergency response, doing more harm than good,” it said. “But we don’t see that as a factor now that flood waters are subsiding, even if at an agonizing pace. It’s past time for the president to pay a personal visit, showing his solidarity with suffering Americans.” A mile or so from where Trump had stopped to distribute supplies from his 18-wheeler, Joyce Humphries sat in a pickup truck Friday with her chihuahua, Elvis Presley, and looked out over a lake that used to be her home. “Everything is gone,” she said. Humphries said that Trump’s visit was good enough to win her vote. “We will take any help we can get,” she said.
How can social workers build resilience and avoid burnout? Live Q&A “I gained a stone in weight and regularly binged and comfort ate, finding there was no time to exercise as I used to. Many members of the team had similar experiences. In the end, it all became so overwhelming that I saw a psychotherapist for a couple of months prior to resigning. This helped crystallise why I was finding it so unbearable: my body was in physical revolt against an unrealistic to-do list that I could never catch up on, no matter how hard I tried.” This is one social worker’s description of how working in child protection affected their mental and physical health. It is a familiar tale: in the ’s Social Lives research, 67% of social workers said they had been affected by stress and depression. To help social workers deal with the stress and trauma of their job, building resilience is key. This can help ensure that social workers don’t burn out at an early stage of their career, and are able to continue working without suffering from work-related stress or mental health problems. And there is value for this in employers, too; at a time when experienced social workers are in short supply, anything that helps people stay in the profession has to be considered. To discuss some of these issues, we’ve put together a panel of experts from the social work sector. We’ll be talking about: Strategies social workers can use to build resilience – from time management to mindfulness. The role employers have to play: what they can do to reduce workloads and improve morale. How healthy, resilient, supportive teams of social workers can be built. The role of managers and supervision. The discussion will take place on Monday 9 May between 12pm and 2pm in the comments section below this article. Taking part is easier than ever: you can create a free account or log in using your Twitter or Facebook profiles to comment. Alternatively, you can email us to post your questions for you. Panellists To be updated as more panellists confirm Jim Greer, principal lecturer in social work at Teesside University and author of the upcoming book from Sage Resilience and Personal Effectiveness for Social Workers Ruth Allen, chief executive of the British Association of Social Workers Paul Dockerty, health and wellbeing officer, Cafcass Emma Perry, senior lecturer in social work at the University of Gloucestershire and former practitioner in adult’s services Anna Elliott, acting service manger, learning and development – children and families, Somerset county council Elizabeth Frost, associate professor at University of West of England Rachel Wardell, chair of the Association of Directors of Children’s Services workforce development policy committee Discussion commissioned and controlled by the , funded by Cafcass.
Ronnie O'Sullivan biopic being cued up A film of maverick snooker star Ronnie O’Sullivan is in the works, with Hunger Games studio Lionsgate named as possible producers. According to the Sunday Mirror, O’Sullivan’s chequered career has sparked a flurry of interest from film-makers, with O’Sullivan himself quoted as saying Lionsgate are the prime movers. “Lionsgate in America got in contact with my agent. I thought ‘they’re not serious’ ... But as it’s gone on they’ve said they were going to buy the rights to my film and a couple of big LA actors who are snooker fans said they want the part.” O’Sullivan also suggested that Unbroken star Jack O’Connell has put himself forward for the lead role. He said: “[O’Connell] is interested – he’s a big snooker fan and from the North and he’s followed my career and says he wants the part.” O’Sullivan, 4o, first won snooker’s World Championship in 2001, and has won it a further four times, most recently in 2013. His career has been marked by his turbulent family background and volatile personality: his father, Ronald O’Sullivan Sr, served 17 years for murder, while O’Sullivan himself acknowledged severe addictions to drink and drugs, and “retired” for a year from professional snooker in 2012. This follows news that a film about footballer Jamie Vardy is in the works, suggesting that sporting figures deemed once of UK interest only are beginning to resonate internationally. According to the Mirror, O’Sullivan said: “As long as the film does justice to my life I’ve got no problems with it ... I’ve been told it will be along the lines of dramas Whiplash and the Black Swan – which I really liked as it got into the emotions of the character and I think that’s how my career has been.”
Online abuse: we need Good Samaritans on the web In summer 2014, 16-year-old Jada was sexually assaulted at a Houston party. Someone took a photograph of her lying naked and unconscious on the floor. The photo was posted on social media, where others shared it. Then, in a particularly callous act, strangers started to post their own re-enactments of the photo, sharing it via the hashtag #Jadapose. Online violence is often an act in two parts: the original violence, followed by the participation of large numbers of bystanders – social media users who share harassing content, non-consensually re-distribute private photos, re-post threats to someone’s life, post comments that support – even revel in – public humiliation and hatred, and participate in doxxing (the posting of an individual’s personal information with the malicious intention of subjecting them to crowd-sourced harassment). Responsibility for violence online and off must be placed where it belongs: on the perpetrators, rather than the victims, survivors and community members targeted by it. But bystanders should also be held accountable. Many of us witness violence online. According to a 2014 Pew Center study, 73% of respondents had witnessed someone being harassed online. While the majority of what they witnessed was name-calling and intentional acts of humiliation (like #Jadapose), they also witnessed criminal acts: 25% of those respondents witnessed someone being physically threatened, while nearly 20% witnessed others being stalked or sexually harassed via social media, often for sustained periods of time. The numbers are even higher among those aged 18 to 29, where 92% have witnessed online violence. People of Hispanic and African-American descent in the US are far more likely to witness online violence than others (88% and 84%, respectively), suggesting just how racially targeted online violence is. Young women disproportionately experience sexual harassment and stalking online. However, while 92% of users perceive that online environments enable people to be more judgmental of one another, 68% also report that these same environments enable people to be supportive of one another. It is this opportunity for support online that creates a space for more caring bystander intervention. After Jada spoke out about her rape and social media abuse, she launched a solidarity campaign, #IAmJada, that others have used to call out the cruelty of the re-enactors. In the process they made visible a form of bystander solidarity that counteracts the hyper-visibility of online cruelties. Yet, it is rare to find stories of bystanders who provide help to the victims. When the media does focus on bystanders, it tends to focus on their failure to intervene, particularly when surveillance video evidence is available. Other footage has captured bystanders breaking up fights, only to be harmed or even killed in the process, such as the case of Hugo Yale-Tax in New York City, pointing out the threats some interveners face if they try to help. Yet, social movements are trying to tell a different story, redefining intervention as a set of minor acts people can do in their everyday lives to reduce harm online, and provide support to those who are targeted. In hashtag campaigns such as #YouOkSis? (started by social worker and black feminist tweeter Feminista Jones), women of colour provide advice and support to other women of colour who have been harassed. They suggest community-based solutions that avoid going to the police to address the over-criminalisation and police violence committed against non-white communities. Theirs is a model of feminist bystander intervention based in racial justice. A recent online comic, Paths, written by Mikki Kendall, creator of #solidarityisforwhitewomen and #fasttailedgirls, details the process through which a young man comes to understand the harm he caused by re-posting a female student’s nude image – as a bystander to another person’s original non-consensual act of posting of the photo. The comic teaches teenagers that distributing private images without the consent of the person who made them is itself an act of violence. We do not often see or hear online perpetrators coming to consciousness about their violence, but it is a crucial process. In an NPR radio interview with feminist author Lindy West, her former abuser described how he enacted his violence through fake email and Twitter accounts he created in her dead father’s name. He talked about his feelings of deficiency and resentment as a man and why he lashed out at West’s confidence and visibility. In doing so, he provided a model for other perpetrators – and bystander participants – of how they might take responsibility and make amends for the injuries they have caused. Bystanders can learn from the systems of support that survivors of online violence have developed for each other, in online resource guides that provide information on how women can collectively respond to cultures of online misogynist violence, practices that the targets of online violence can use for conducting self-care post-assault, and methods for better protecting one’s own privacy and not violating others. Activists are developing app-based interfaces, Tumblrs and hashtags that provide ways of talking back to harassers and the bystanders who support them. Tools such as the mobile app Not Your Baby, created by Toronto’s Metrac, and Hollaback’s app for documenting street harassment, crowdsource responses to harassment that both bystanders and the targets of this violence can use. However, tech alone will not solve these problems. According to Jacque Wernimont at the Center for Solutions to Online Violence, “There is no technological fix to online violence. The problems are social and so are the solutions.” The real challenge is building consensual relations both online and face-to-face, with people we know and people we don’t know, and demanding that everyone live up to these ideals. It also means that, as bystanders, we need to reconceive what justice looks like from a bystander perspective – particularly when the most available models suggest going to the police, when for some, including many people of colour, the police are part of the problem. To be effective, bystander intervention must be a collective effort, not only an individual act. It needs to reckon with the ways in which some bystanders are more targeted for violence and the ways in which some bystanders are criminalised for simply enacting their rights to witness, say, police action. We need more education that can interrogate and dismantle the sources of online violence; the quiet acquiescence of bystanders to online misogyny, racism, homophobia and transphobia; and the fears witnesses have of becoming targets of violence themselves. We do this by holding both the perpetrators and their cultures of support accountable.
Bernie Sanders rallies in Brooklyn while Trump hits Staten Island – as it happened Money in politics dominated Sunday before the candidates hit the trail around New York, with its corrupting influence the danger discussed by Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump and George Clooney. Actor George Clooney said he helped raise “an obscene amount of money” for Hillary Clinton and the Democratic party, and that he agrees with Bernie Sanders and protester that it’s a danger to democracy. He also noted that most of the money he raised at a protested San Francisco event went to the party, and not Clinton’s campaign. “We need to take the Senate back because we need to confirm a supreme court justice,” Clooney said, “because that fifth vote on the supreme court can overturn Citizens United and get this obscene, ridiculous amount of money out so I never have to do a fundraiser again.” Bernie Sanders said that it “doesn’t pass the laugh test” for candidates to go “raising money from the top 1%” and then to promise a crackdown on those same powerful interests. “People see that, and that’s why so many people don’t vote,.” “You can’t do that when you’re dependent on them for your fundraising,” he said.. “That is not what democracy is about. That is a movement toward oligarchy.” Hillary Clinton shrugged off a new nickname, “crooked Hillary”, from Republican frontrunner Donald Trump. “I can take care of myself,” she said. “He would turn us back and undermine the progress that we’ve been making. He wants to set Americans against each other and I’m not going to stand for it.” Trump presided over a raucous crowd in Staten Island, New York, and bemoaned what he sees as a “rigged” primary process in which campaigns have to bribe delegates. “That’s a corrupt system. That has nothing to do with democracy.” He again hinted at trouble at the Republican convention in July: “I hope it doesn’t involve violence, and I’m not suggesting that. I hope it doesn’t involve violence and I don’t think it will. But I will say this it’s a rigged system, it’s a crooked system, it’s 100% crooked.” Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus said that candidates have no right to complain: each of the 50 states decided their rules last October, long before anyone had complained about caucuses, conventions or local “bosses”. He similarly said it’s all up to the delegates to write the convention rules, and out of Washington’s hands. “It’s not a matter of party insiders, it’s a matter of 2,400-plus grassroots activists and no matter what they want to do they can do.“ “The majority rules and that is an American concept that I can’t imagine us turning our backs on,” Priebus said, before admitting that he had urged party leaders not to recommend any rule changes. “The recommendations I think just confuse people,” he said. “I think it’s a bad idea.” Trump talks about nuclear weapons. “We have stuff that’s so old and so rotten that we don’t even know if it works.” “It’s going to be a whole different ballgame, folks.” He appears to be suggesting the US resume active testing of nuclear weapons. China and Russia are beating the US in the arms race, according to the businessman. “You know Vladimir Putin said Donald Trump is a genius, he’s going to do very well,” Trump says. “Believe me he’s not get anything for that.” “Wouldn’t it be nice if we actually got along with Russia? Wouldn’t it be nice? It wouldn’t be so bad?” The crowd gives the verbal equivalent of a shrug to this. A little applause. A half-hearted whoop. But Trump quickly works them back into a fervor with praise, saying he’s astounded to see the audience still on its feet for his speech. The crowd loves this praise, and goes into raptures. Trump: “The press won’t report that. This dishonest media. This dishonest group of people.” The press is reporting this right now, here. He hunches his shoulders and mimics holding a microphone, like a local TV newscaster on assignment. He also raises his voice into a nasal twang. “They’re going to say, ‘we’re in Staten Island, Donald Trump gave a speech.’” Back to his usual Trump voice: “They’re not going to say the audience was packed, the biggest audience in 15 years. They’re not going to say that not one person in the audience for a 20 minute speech sat down. Nobody’s seen that before.” The press has also reported on the specific rules that Trump makes some organizations agree to in exchange for entry, including a rule that cameras are only allowed to show him at the podium, and not zoom out or pan the room to show the crowd. The businessman is rambling about China, and a story about how its leaders are alarmed by Donald Trump. “They’re the problem,” he says. “They’re going to treat us fairly, and they’re going to treat us justly or it’s bye-bye.” He suggests that he’ll tear up trade agreements and financial arrangements with China if they don’t do what he wants. The crowd whoops and whistles. Then he talks about how manufacturers have left the US. He previews a hypothetical phone call to a company that goes to Mexico to create a factory. “Congratulations on your new plant, have many many years of success,” Trump says he’d tell the CEO before revealing the “bad news”. “Every unit that you make and send across our now very strong border, you’re going to pay a 35% tax on that unit.” The crowd loves tariffs. “We have New York values,” Trump cheers. They cheer too. Somebody snarls “Lyyyyyin’ Ted!” with glee. “They lie. They lie. It’s all a rigged deal. They said they didn’t change anything. I announced in June,” Trump rambles. “So it’s June, we’re doing well all over.” “Once they heard the message, it was over. And I can tell you this nobody can beat my message.” He says that “when I watched Lyin’ Ted talk the other night”, he noticed that Cruz talked about a wall and jobs and the myriad topics of a Trump speech (and of many political speeches). Then he starts talking about how the US should have taken the high quality oil of Iraq instead of “giving them” – the antecedent of “them” appears to be Iraqis – the nation of Iraq. Trump meanwhile is talking to some rowdy supports at a brunch event on Staten Island. The crowd absolutely roars at a protesters who snuck in. Trump calls the person a “professional agitator” without evidence. “He’s not for real.” “The safest place to be anywhere is at a New York rally,” Trump says. “There’s love in the room.” “Some days I wish they could turn off the live television, then we could really have fun.” The press pack trailing Trump notices some adjustments in the businessman’s tactics. The Sanders campaign has entered the looking glass and sent an email from the beyond. Its subject line: “Thank YOU, George Clooney.” A reporter asks Trump about his campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, who was charged with battery against a reporter but not prosecuted. Trump points out that the aide is standing nearby, and says he’s very glad that Lewandowski was “totally exonerated from that bogus nonsense, that bogus claim.” “That was a very unfair thing that happened to him, very, very unfair.” Prosecutors said that while the video was enough to charge Lewandowski with the crime but not enough to convict him in trial. They did not say that Lewandowski was “exonerated” or not guilty. Another reporter asks the candidate about the enormous college tuition debt that many young people carry. Trump doesn’t have a plan – yet. “I’m going to come up with something.” “They come to me and it’s turmoil for them. They’re loaded up with debt and they can’t get a job. And I’m going to have policy on that very, very soon.” And finally a reporter asks Trump about the violence that has plagued his events around the country, from fistfights in Chicago to scuffles in St Louis and sucker-punch incidents and pepper-spray in North Carolina and elsewhere. “The safest places to be in this country are at a Trump rally,” Trump says. It’s the press who misconstrue his events, he claims. Video from many events, including this rally in March, shows violence by Trump supporters against protesters at his rallies. Donald Trump is doing an event in Staten Island, New York, hosted by a local police association – they’re presenting the businessman with an award. An official with the police organization is talking about how back in the day “the wall was Ellis Island” and how proud he is to give Trump “the America’s Finest Award”. Trump starts off with his usual spiel of praise for the “great hotel”, the police organization (“you people [who] have done an unbelievable job”) and irritation at the press in the room, who he says don’t believe him and he doesn’t believe them. “It’s a rigged election. I’m winning by a lot. And people say, ‘don’t complain, you’re winning,’” he says. “I win all the time when it’s up to the voters.” He criticizes “the bosses”, just like his new convention manager Paul Manafort did on a talk show earlier today. “I’m winning with the voters, and we’re winning big, and I think we’ll get to the 1,237.” He rambles a lot about how “they changed the rules” in Colorado and Florida, sometimes to try to stymie him, sometimes to try to help Jeb Bush with changes that actually boosted Trump. All the states had to have their rules set by 1 October 2015, long before any person anywhere had voted for Trump in an election or caucus. “I don’t want to play the rule game,” Trump says. “It’s all about getting the bosses out.” Then he insinuates that bad things will happen if delegates try to skew convention rules in favor of Ted Cruz this summer. “You’re going to have a very, very angry and upset group of people at the convention.” “I hope it doesn’t involve violence, and I’m not suggesting that. I hope it doesn’t involve violence and I don’t think it will. But I will say this it’s a rigged system, it’s a crooked system, it’s 100% crooked.” “It’s a corrupt system, you’re basically buying these people,” he continues, talking about the kind of delegate courtship – he implies bribery – that he would have to do to win some supporters at the local level. He says he could invite them to his Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida. “You’re gonna use the spa, you’re gonna this you’re gonna that, we’re gonna buy your vote. That’s a corrupt system. That has nothing to do with democracy.” The US is a republic. John Kasich has spent part of the weekend in the private quarters of New York’s Orthodox Jewish community, with my colleague Ben Jacobs in pursuit of the Ohio governor’s quixotic campaign for the Republican nomination. On Saturday, John Kasich gave what many of the reporters covering his campaign thought was one of his most effective and touching speeches yet. Because it was in a New York synagogue, cameras were banned and even note taking was considered forbidden. As a result only the 500 or so Orthodox Jews who were in the room at the Great Neck Synagogue will ever have seen it. That, in microcosm, is what John Kasich faces as he stumps New York. The Ohio governor is, in effect, running not to lose. With no path to the 1,237 delegates required to win the nomination (he still needs well over 1,000 and there are only 852 still available), Kasich is banking on a deadlock leading to a contested convention and then emerging as a dark horse if neither Donald Trump nor Ted Cruz prevails. The Ohio governor’s strategy speaks to his precarious situation. Kasich is hopscotching the state from congressional district to congressional district, to places where he can keep Donald Trump under 50% and finish second, thus winning one delegate. Kasich spent Saturday targeting Jewish voters, many of whom are wary of Trump for reasons ranging from his inconsistency on foreign policy to his sometimes autocratic presentation. The appearance at the synagogue in Great Neck – a heavily Jewish community with a mix of Ashkenazi and Persian Jews – came at a time when many Jews in the United States are feeling particularly uneasy with the rise of Islamic terrorism and growing anti-semitism throughout the world. There were moments of awkwardness here too, including Kasich briefly citing the end of Psalm 23 to solve a debate among Jewish theologians about the afterlife; and he cited the approaching holiday of Passover as an opportunity to see the Cecil B DeMille classic The Ten Commandments. But mostly the Ohio governor talked about his faith in a touching, personal way. He rooted it in a retelling the story of how his parents were killed by a drunk-driver in a car accident, and discussed the story of Joseph from Genesis. His sincerity was evident. Kasich cited his past gaffes defensively – “I’m not trying to teach, sometimes when I get carried away they say he’s trying to teach to us and preach to us, I am not.” The only hint of anything political was when he offered what was likely an inadvertent contrast with Trump: “Sometimes we invest too much in the power of leadership and not investing enough in the power of ourselves to bring a healing and justice to this world to live a life bigger than ourselves.” North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory is the last guest in the talk shows this morning, on NBC’s Meet the Press. McCrory is appearing to defend a new law dubbed “the bathroom law” that been protested by LGBT people, corporations, celebrities and other state governments. The law is seen as sanctioning discrimination against LGBT people. The governor says it’s actually about “government overreach” and liberals. “It was the left that brought about the bathroom bill,” he says. “The city of Charlotte passed a bathroom ordinance mandate on every private sector employer,” McCrory says, “and I think that’s government overreach. “It’s not the government’s business to tell the private sector what their bathroom, locker room, shower practices should be.” “To allow a man into a women’s restroom or a shower facility at a YMCA for example,” would be inappropriate, he says. “I’m not going to tell any manufacturing plan any bank their policy.” “But I do believe in our high schools, in our universities we should continue the tradition we’ve had for many years” – separate men’s and women’s rooms. Todd tries to pin McCrory down on the apparent contradiction: he is using the state government to handcuff what city governments can do, ostensibly to prevent government overreach. “I don’t think the government ought to be the HR director for each business,” McCrory says. “This is that fine line between how much does government tell the private sector.” Then the NBC host questions McCrory about the central problem of discrimination: why don’t LGBT people deserve the same protections as any other Americans? “We have got to deal with this extremely new social norm,” he says, “and have these discussions about the conception of equality.” He says that he doesn’t know of any business in North Carolina that is actively discriminating against LGBT people. “This is basically a restroom privacy issue versus equality, and these things need to be discussed, not threatened by Hollywood,” an apparent allusion to the criticism he’s drawn from stars such as Bruce Springsteen and George Clooney. Meanwhile. Reince Priebus is making one last stop on the talk shows, on NBC’s Meet the Press. He’s asked for the third time this morning about Donald Trump’s complaints. “I don’t know what the motivation is. There’s really nothing being rigged or changed or altered,” Priebus says. “These are really the same rules that’ve been in place for really a century.” He says that states had to submit their rules by “October 1st of 2015 and not a single thing has changed about them.” “You have to go state by state by state. It’s a pretty extraordinary task.” Who elects a nominee, voters or delegates? ‘The voters empower the delegates but the the delegates, who in most cases are bound,” Priebus says, before adding that the convention, “it’s not a four-day party. A convention in the legal sense is the party coming to gather” and write rules and decide how the party works. “It has a legal value,” he says. “If the boy scouts have a national convention they do similar things. We actually do a lot of business at a convention, and now everyone’s interested in the business.” Trump’s complaints have a shaky foundation, Priebus implies. “He’s winning a plurality of votes and he has a plurality of delegates,” he says, but “majority rules on everything.” George Clooney is on NBC with Chuck Todd on Meet the Press, where the actor strikes a friendly tone toward Bernie Sanders and the criticism that he’s complicit in raising “obscene” amounts of money from wealthy interests. “Yes,” he says. “I think it’s an obscene amount of money. I think, you know, we had some protesters last night when we pulled up in San Francisco and they’re right to protest, they’re absolutely right, it is an obscene amount of money. “The Sanders campaign when they talk about is absolutely right. It’s ridiculous that we should have this kind of money in politics. I agree, completely.” “The overwhelming amount of the money that we’re raising is not going to Hillary for president it’s going to the downticket for congressmen, for senators to try to retake Congress,” he says. “We need to take the Senate back because we need to confirm a supreme court justice, because that fifth vote on the supreme court can overturn Citizens United and get this obscene, ridiculous amount of money out so I never have to do a fundraiser again.” The actor then links the problem to that of the “incredibly helpful” Panama Papers and corruption in politics more broadly. “I spend probably a quarter of my time now raising millions and millions of dollars for my foundation which is basically chasing and looking form money that these corrupt politicians all around the world have been hiding.” “I think Citizens United is one of the worst laws passed since I’ve been around.” Todd asks whether Clooney has ever met Trump. “I met him once, I was sitting own at a table. He was nice, and we talked a couple of times I think, and then he went on Larry King and told everybody I was very short,” the actor laughs. “I said well I met you sitting down.” Clooney then turns this toward the broader race: “Trump and Cruz are making this a campaign of fear. We have to be afraid of everything, we have to be afraid of refugees, we have to be afraid of Muslims, we have to be afraid of minorities.” “Are we really going to be scared of the very things that made our country great?” If the answer is yes, Clooney says, Americans will have to answer to history. “We are not afraid. We are not a country that is afraid.” The actor concedes that “fear has always worked, one way or another … fear has always been one of the great tools of any election. But the reality is we are not the descendants of a fearful people. So no, we are not going to ban Muslims from this country, that’s never going to happen. We are not going to go back to torture. We are not going to kill the families of terrorists or suspected terrorist. Because that is not who we are.” Finally Todd asks Clooney about an anti-LGBT law recently enacted in North Carolina. “I think the law is ridiculous,” Clooney says, before praising some of the protests made by corporations who’ve stopped services in the state. Citing the example of corporations that protested a “religious freedom” law in Indiana, Clooney says “I think that can have some great effect.” Reince Priebus now on CBS, to be asked, again, about the Republican primary rules that Donald Trump does not like. He goes through the motions. Does he take the “rough July” remark from Trump as a threat? “Not particularly. I don’t know if it’s hyperbole or positioning.” Dickerson pushes – Trump has shown ability to get his supporters “energised”. Priebus says he is doing shows like this to get the message across: “Each candidate has to know the rules, learn the rules and abide by the rules.” And the rules are decided at the convention, by the grass roots. Nor does Priebus think Trump aide/supporter/operator Roger Stone’s remarks about possibly sending out delegates’ room numbers are a good thing. “We’re going to have plenty of security, plenty of protection for the delegates,” Priebus says, adding: “It’s going to be a great convention… we’re going to be watching American history.” Is that a reassuring answer? And it’s over to CBS, and Face the Nation. Facing the Nation this week is… Bernie Sanders. First, it’s CBS Battleground Tracker time. Trump is way ahead in New York, Pennsylvania and California. Clinton is up on Sanders in California and New York. Here’s Sanders, to be asked about the changed, some would say deteriorated tone of the Democraric contest. He says he was not “ferocious” in the Brooklyn debate this week, but has become “a little bit fed up” with the negativity of the Clinton campaign and has therefore responded in kind. “I am making it very clear that my views are representing the needs of the working class,” he says. He is asked to what negative Clinton tactics he is referring. “Oh, you name it. After we won eight of nine caucuses and primaries … they made it clear their goal was, and I think I’m quoting, ‘disqualify and defeat’.” He says he has not attacked Planned Parenthood, for example, which he says the Clinton campaign says he has. And he returns to the fundraising difference – small donors for him, big for Clinton. As he said on CNN, he says he is not saying Clinton has done anything specifically for donors, but uses her positions on Wall Street reform as an attack point, as he did in the debate. Host John Dickerson accuses Sanders of “fuzzing up” an economic policy debate with Clinton by concentrating on Clinton’s speaking fees from Wall Street banks and her lack of support (she said yesterday she supported it) for a $15 minimum wage. The 1994 crime bill, now. Does he regret his support? Sanders uses his usual line on this: any big bill will have good things in it and bad, and this one had good things on violence against women and an assault weapons ban, so he voted for it. And on superdelegates, is the system stacked against him, à la Trump? “Yes. Hillary Clinton is the establishment candidate.” He thinks he can win New York on a big turnout but the state system prohibits independents from voting in the Democratic primary, and that’s wrong. Donald Trump’s convention manager Paul Manafort is next on the ABC program, where Stephanopoulos asks him about the businessman’s recent shutout losses to Ted Cruz in Colorado in Wyoming. “We didn’t even play there because it was a closed system and we didn’t want to waste our money there dealing with party bosses,” Manafort says. “There isn’t going to be a second ballot,” Manafort insists. “There is [sic] many paths to 1,237 to Donald Trump through June and July,” including New Jersey and California. He then tries to frame Trump as a surprising underdog of sorts. “This was supposed to be the time when Cruz was supposed to be well ahead,” he says. Cruz wins in “the reddest of red states, where you have closed rules,” Manafort argues. “Trump wins in states where we have to win to win the presidency.” Manafort blames “systems that keeps the voters” out. “When voters participate, Donald Trump wins. When the bosses participate…” The “bosses” don’t like Trump, he says, because the businessman has promised to “change the banking system, change the economy”. “They’re not playing by their own rules,” Manafort says, adding that he’ll be “filing protests” in Missouri, Colorado and Wyoming. “And we’re playing by [the rules], and we’re winning, and that’s the point, there’s only going to be one ballot.” He’s dismissive of Cruz’s delegate tactics: “Those are not votes he’s winning, those are bodies he’s winning. If there’s no second ballot it’s much ado about nothing.” The aide then defends Trump’s complaints about a “rigged” primary process. “He’s complaining about the system, that’s the point that keeps getting lost here,” Manafort says. “We’re trying to open up the process.” He adds his own criticism of caucuses and conventions and closed primaries. “That’s the system of the 1920s, not 2016. And yes, there’s history in conventions, but that history is ancient now, not of the modern presidency.” Stephanopoulos moves on to foreign policy, asking Sanders about his remarkable turn away from a long tradition of American politicians who have hewed tight to an uncompromising defense of Israel. Sanders, the first Jewish candidate to have won any state primary or caucus for president, has criticized Israel for what he calls its “disproportionate” response in the 2014 war against Gaza, in which 66 Israelis died and more than 2,000 Palestinians were killed. “It goes without saying we have to protect Israel, its right to live in peace, to defend the security of its people,” Sanders tells ABC. “Israel has every right in the world to respond to terrorism,” he adds, “but that was a disproportionate response.” The senator does not back down from his criticism of Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister who he says is not infallible. “You cannot just nod your head to Netanyahu.” Sanders doesn’t go so far as to say that Hillary Clinton has “ignored” the devastation and poverty in which Palestinians live (Stephanopoulos’ word), but he does stress its importance. “Poverty rate is off the charts [there], 40% people are unemployed.” Stephanopoulos then asks about Saudi Arabia’s threats to sell off huge American assets if the US passes a bill that would target Saudis linked to terrorism for prosecution. “Well, we can’t be blackmailed,” Sanders says, agreeing with Clinton that he wants to look at the legislation before making any kind of position on it. But he doesn’t shy from a critique of the Kingdom. “I have said throughout this campaign that we are not taking a hard enough look at Saudi Arabia,” he says. “Saudi Arabia is one of the wealthiest and most powerful families in the world,” he continues, “The evidence is quite clear that sections of that very large royal family have funded Wahhabism,” an ultraconservative form of Islam. “That is what al-Qaida is about,” Sanders says,” this horrific fundamentalist ideology.” “So let me look at it, let me look at it,” he says of the legislation. “I do believe that Saudi Arabia is playing a very dangerous role in fomenting fundamentalism all over the world.” Finally, Stephanopoulos asks whether Sanders will support Clinton should she win the nomination. Sanders basically says yes. “At the end of the say we must defeat Trump, we must not allow a Republican” to win the White House. Stephanopoulos turns away from the live stream with Clinton and to his desk, where Bernie Sanders is sitting across from him. He asks about fundraising, which has been one of Sanders biggest criticisms of Clinton. The senator says that he wants the US to “move away from Super Pacs, as you know secretary Clinton has many of them”. He contrasts this with his own campaign’s contributions: “We have received seven million individual campaign contributions, averaging $27 bucks a piece”. He then links the wealthy donors to the cynicism of many Americans about their politics. “I don’t think you do that by raising money from the top 1% and then” say you represent everyone else,” Sanders says. “That kind of doesn’t pass the laugh test.” “And people see that, and that’s why so many people don’t vote,” he continues. “So I think we need a revolution, certainly in campaign finance [and an] emphasis on getting more working people, young people in the political process.” He says that Clinton’s intentions to regulate and prosecute Wall Street run afoul of her contributors. “You can’t do that when you’re dependent on them for your fundraising.” “I am trying to lead this country in a different direction,” he says. While Clinton says she’ll sign measures to increase the minimum wage or regulate Wall Street, she’ll only do so once Congress sends it to her desk, he argues. “I want to lead that effort, not just follow.” Corey Lewandowski, Donald Trump’s campaign manager, speaks on Fox News Sunday. He’s asked first about his infamous “encounter” with the reporter Michelle Fields in March, which resulted in charges of battery which this week were dropped. Does he now acknowledge that he did touch Miss Fields? No. “Candidly,” he says, “I didn’t remember the incident.” He tried to contact Fields, he says, but to this day he has not heard from her and he is happy this is behind him. Chris Wallace, one of the more dogged talk show hosts, presses the issue. Is Lewandowski prepared to apologise for touching Fields and saying she was “delusional”? No. “I’d be happy to have a conversation with her but to apologise to someone I’ve never spoken to and don’t remember having any interaction with is not realistic now.” On to the delegate fight, which Trump is losing to Ted Cruz in states where bargaining gets delegates rather than voting. Lewandowski says Trump’s best states are ahead of him, starting with New York on Tuesday. “He is the presumptive nominee going forward,” he says, “and Ted Cruz is going to mathematically eliminated from gaining 1,237 delegates by next Tuesday.” Wallace presses on how the Trump campaign appears not to have known the rules of the Republican primary. Lewandowski criticises the rules. He mentions Florida, where Trump won but of 99 delegates 30 will be apportioned locally. “I understand that those are the rules but there are people out there who do not volunteer or write a cheque for the party,” he says. What did Trump mean when he predicted “a rough July” at the convention? Lewandowski doesn’t bite. Trump is winning, the RNC “should respect that”. Wallace pushes – is this another alusion to the possibility of riots, of violence? “No,” says Lewandowski, “what we’re talking about is a fractured party … that’s not what we’re about … if the party wants a winner they have to support Donald Trump.” Last question: is the veteran operative Paul Manafort now running the Trump campaign, not Lewandowski, as some reports have said? In cricketing terms, Lewandowski dead-bats it. Baseball? A bunt? “I’m grateful that Paul is onboard,” says Lewandowski, adding that they had “a great senior staff meeting” yesterday. The host asks Clinton whether she’ll release the transcripts of her high-paid speeches to Wall Street, and whether she’s worried they’ll reveal flattery for the financiers. “I don’t have any concerns like that, I’m just concerned about a constantly changing set of standards for everyone else but me,” she says. Clinton has asked other candidates to release analogous speeches; Sanders has mockingly pointed out he’s never been paid to say anything to Wall Street. “Thirty-three years of [my taxes] are in the public domain, eight years are on our website,” she says, going on about her openness to letting Americans see her records. I think the Republicans are going to play all kinds of games … I for one am nto going to be fooled by that Then Stephanopoulos asks about Donald Trump’s new nickname for Clinton, “crooked Hillary”. “I don’t respond to Donald Trump and his string of insults to me,” Clinton says. “I can take care of myself.” “I look forward to running against him,” she continues. “I’m concerned about how he goes after everybody else. He goes after women, he goes after Muslims.” “He’s undermining the values that we stand for in New York,” she says, adding that “he would turn us back and undermine the progress that we’ve been making. “He wants to set Americans against each other and I’m not going to stand for it.” Hillary Clinton is next on ABC’s This Week, where host George Stephanopoulos asks her whether she’s worried about Bernie Sanders’ continued criticisms of her links to Wall Street and wealthy individuals. “No, I’m not,” Clinton says. “He knows very well that I’ve been supporting the fight for $15, that the whole movement behind the whole fight for $15 that is fueled by unions and activists, who have endorsed me.” “We’re having a vigorous back and forth about raising the minimum wage which we both support, which the Republicans don’t support at all,” she continues. “There are going to be a lot of charges and all kinds of misrepresentations, but I don’t think voters are confused by all that.” Stephanopoulos points out that Clinton is calling for a $12 national minimum, and has cited some economists’ concerns that a $15 minimum wage could actually reduce jobs. She says she wants “a phased-in” increase. “A phased-in minimum wage increase to get to $15 in the city and surrounding areas, to get to $12, $12.50 upstate … but to be constantly evaluating the consequences so that there are no lost jobs.” “If for federal legislation it has the same kind of understanding about how we have to phase this in, how we have to evaluate it as we go, if the Congress passes that of course I would sign it.” “I think their campaign is trying to make something where there is nothing.” She again points out that many unions “support me, not him”. Finally Reince Priebus, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, appears on the CNN show. In what’s become a weekly ritual the host asks him about the rules of the Republican primary process, and Donald Trump’s accusation that the election is “rigged”. Priebus says it doesn’t bother him at all. “Because I know what the truth is I don’t really worry about it, because I know what is right and I know what is wrong.” “It’s a state by state process,” he says. “There’s nothing the RNC can do to alter the rules between now and the convention.” Then Priebus invokes Gertrude Stein (perhaps unwittingly) when pressed about Trump’s charges: “There’s no there there.” He cannot stress enough how unconcerned he is. “I find it to be rhetoric and hyperbole. I think everyone understands these rules have been in place for years.” As for Trump’s recent losses, “there are a few states that pick delegates by convention. It’s been going on for a month in each of these states.” Priebus says that Trump’s stated preference, that the candidate with the most delegates should win the nomination, rather than the candidate with at least 1,237 delegates (a majority of all available delegates), is downright un-American. “By majority the delegates decide,” he says. “It’s not a matter of party insiders, it’s a matter of 2,400-plus grassroots activists and no matter what they want to do they can do. “The majority of delegates is the goal and you need to be able to play within the confines of the rules to make sure that you get there.” He notes that the electoral college and Democratic National Committee also use majority and not plurality systems. “The majority rules and that is an American concept that I can’t imagine us turning our backs on.” Priebus concedes, however, that he recently asked his colleagues not to even recommend any new rule changes to delegates. “I think it’s too complicated, I think the RNC rules committee with making rules amendment suggestions, it is not a good idea.” “The recommendations I think just confuse people,” he says. “I think it’s a bad idea and the environment I think is not conducive to that.” Then Bash asks Kasich about a new law signed in Mississippi designed to protect “religious freedom” by allowing residents to deny services to LGBT people. Kasich has criticized the law. He says that while religious freedoms are important, so are anti-discrimination laws. “Trying to figure out how to legislate that balance is complicated and you keep doing do-overs because nobody does it right,” he says. “I think if we would just calm down here” it would be fine, he adds. “If you don’t like what somebody’s doing, pray for them. And if you feel they are doing something [against you], just for a second get over it, because this thing will settle down.” John Kasich is next on CNN with a pre-taped interview with Bash, who asks him what his plan is to somehow win the nomination from hundreds of delegates behind Donald Trump and Ted Cruz. “I am not going to whine,” Kasich says, before complaining about what he sees as a lack of media coverage for most of his presidential campaign. He then repeats a common stump speech refrain, saying “there’s Coke, Pepsi and Kasich,” and most voters go with the brand they know, even though they’re intrigued by the can that says Kasich. Then he mixes metaphors. “Now we have to pass the Rubicon so people actually know who I am.” His plan is “to accumulate delegates and to go into the convention as the person standing who can beat Hillary … we are going to nominate somebody who’s going to win in the fall. We are going to win in the fall.” Bash then asks Kasich about his advice to young women going who fear sexual assault: “Don’t go to parties where there’s a lot of alcohol,” he said earlier this week. “When alcohol’s involved it becomes more difficult for justice to be rendered for a whole variety of reasons,” Kasich tells CNN. “I just don’t want justice to be denied because a prosecutor comes up and says ‘well I don’t know.’” He says he would tell his own daughters “just you have to be careful”. He wants some undefined mechanisms “to make sure that the women on our college campuses are protected”, and that when abuse does happen “of course we’re going to get to the bottom of it.” “I don’t care if there’s a party with alcohol I would just say be careful.” Bash asks Sanders about his seemingly conflicted positions on gun control, namely his commitment to a rule that protects gun dealers from lawsuits by the families of gun victims and his recent comment that Sandy Hook families should be allowed to sue. Sanders tries to thread the needle, saying that they have the right to sue but that he still believes the laws should offer protections to dealers. “Of course they have a right to sue, anyone has a right to sue,” he says. He has previously argued that guns are like hammers or other objects that could be used for violence: the wielder is ultimately responsible, not the person who made or sold the object, necessarily. He also points out that he supports a ban on assault weapons. “That’s the kind of weapon that caused the horrible tragedy in Sandy Hook,” he says. “Those weapons should not be made in the United States of America. So in that sense, I agree with the Sandy Hook parents.” Bash moves on, asking Sanders whether he can point to any instance in which he thinks Hillary Clinton was influenced by cash contributions from wealthy interests. He says no one can prove any instance, declining to go the route that Elizabeth Warren – now a senator and fairly muted about the campaign – once did. Warren has in the past linked Clinton’s ties to Wall Street with her decisions. Finally Bash asks Sanders about releasing many years of tax returns, as Hillary Clinton has done, and Sanders promises he’ll get them out, as soon as this week. Bernie Sanders is the first guest this morning on CNN’s State of the Union, where Dana Bash asks him about actor George Clooney’s recent concession that there are “obscene” amounts of money being given by wealthy donors to candidates. Clooney just co-hosted a fundraiser for Hillary Clinton that cost as much as $353,400 a seat in San Francisco. “Well I have a lot of respect for George Clooney’s honesty and integrity on this issue,” Sanders says. “One of the great tragedies is that big money is buying elections,” he continues, adding that leaders should not be “responsive to the needs of Wall Street and wealthy campaign contributors”. “There is something wrong when a few people, in this case wealthy individuals,” he says, “are able to contribute unbelievably large sums of money. That is not what democracy is about. That is a movement toward oligarchy.” “This is the issue of American politics today. Do we have a government that represents all of us or represents the 1%?” Bash then asks about Sanders’ recent visit to the Vatican, where he managed to get five minutes with Pope Francis. “No one is suggesting the pope is embracing my policies,” he says, adding that he was honored to go and that he agrees with the pontiff about the importance of fighting inequality. “We have got to create an economics which is based on the morality dealing with the needs of working families and the elderly and children and the sick and the poor,” he says. “The fact that I was invited there was for me a very moving experiences.” “The rich are getting richer almost everybody else is getting poorer.” George Clooney hosted some big-money fundraisers for Hillary Clinton in California this week, events which attracted criticism from the Bernie Sanders campaign and protests outside the venues. He has been interviewed by NBC’s Meet the Press, which goes out at 10.30am ET, and NBC has released a clip. In it, the actor is asked by host Chuck Todd whether the sums involved in his events, such as $353,000 a couple to be a “co-chair”, are as critics and protesters have said, obscene. “Yes,” he says. “I think it’s an obscene amount of money. We had some protesters last night when we pulled up in San Francisco and they’re right to protest, they’re absolutely right, it is an obscene amount of money. “The Sanders campaign when they talk about is absolutely right. It’s ridiculous that we should have this kind of money in politics. I agree, completely.” Hello and welcome to our live coverage of the race for New York, a day after Ted Cruz swept the Wyoming convention and left Donald Trump without a solitary delegate there. If it’s Sunday it’s the shows, and the businessman has sent two representatives to cross swords with the press on his behalf: a former adviser to dictators and a man who was charged with battery against a reporter, but will not be prosecuted. Last week one of the duo accused Cruz’s campaign of “Gestapo tactics” and hinted at dark things to come at the Republican convention should Trump not receive the party’s blessing and nomination. The real estate heir’s campaign has turned to his home state of New York, where he’s expected to crush Cruz: he leads 53% to 18%, with third candidate John Kasich sandwiched between them at 23%. Cruz’s ultraconservative ideas have clashed with conservative and liberal New Yorkers alike, and while Kasich has had more success speaking to (and eating with) the moderates of the state, neither has high hopes for Tuesday, though Cruz has chipped away at Trump’s lead in the delegate race. Trump, after weeks of campaign disarray and losses to Cruz’s well organized team, is ready for a comeback. He’ll be holding a rally in Staten Island at 11.30am ET, where my colleague Ben Jacobs will report on his tirades against a “rigged” primary process. Party chairman Reince Priebus will also appear on the shows to talk about a possible contested convention – and Trump’s past threats of “riots”. For Democrats, the race has become a contest of a expat Brooklynite and an adopted Manhattanite. Bernie Sanders, fresh off a speech in the Vatican and a very brief encounter with Pope Francis, will be facing off with the press to talk about his chances to win some of New York’s 291 delegates against high odds. He’ll also be holding what’s expected to be a gigantic rally in Prospect Park, in the heart of his native Brooklyn, later this afternoon. My colleague Dan Roberts will report from the scene. Frontrunner Hillary Clinton has also deigned to answer questions from the press this morning, before she also heads to Staten Island to woo Democrats on the most conservative borough of New York City. Clinton has held a steady lead in New York, according to poll averages, and has spent the week alternately criticizing Trump’s outrageous claims and Sanders’ mixed record on gun control. Sanders has argued that his past in a state with virtually no gun control makes him ideally suited to find “consensus” – but Vermont gun lovers aren’t so sure, Lois Beckett reports. Clinton also continues to fend off accusations that she’s in the corner for big money: the banks, fossil fuel interests and now venture capitalists. Scores of tech workers took to the streets of San Francisco earlier this week to protest a Clinton fundraiser co-hosted by a financier and George Clooney, with seats costing as much as $353,400. We’ll have updates on all their answers on national TV, the appearance of North Carolina’s governor – embattled over an anti-LGBT protection law – and any fallout from the surprise release of nine prisoners from Guantánamo Bay, a prison condemned by the UN but largely ignored by presidential candidates so far.
Irish leader to campaign in UK for remain vote Ireland’s taoiseach has stepped up his warnings about the consequences of a British exit from the European Union, saying it might spark a return to violence in Northern Ireland and trigger an economic slowdown in the Republic. Enda Kenny said he and his ministers would be campaigning in the UK to try to persuade Irish-born residents to vote to remain. It is understood that there is concern in Ireland that some younger Irish people in the UK are less inclined to vote to remain than more established Irish settlers. In a speech in Dublin, Kenny – freshly installed as leader of a new coalition government – said no future arrangement between Ireland and a UK outside the EU could possibly work as effectively as the current one. His remarks will be seen as a direct rebuff to the UK’s Northern Ireland secretary, Theresa Villiers, who has claimed that trade relations with Ireland would be unaffected. Without specifically warning of a return to violence, Kenny said he was concerned that a British departure from the EU would undermine some of the institutions that have acted to support the Northern Ireland peace process. Citing €3bn of EU funding for north-south economic cooperation, he said: “In a jurisdiction that still has ‘peace walls’ physically dividing communities, the importance of the EU’s support for these small building blocks of economic and social infrastructure should not be taken for granted. “The trust that enables that kind of close cooperation was forged at least in part through years of working side by side in Brussels since 1973. North-south cooperation – a keystone of the Good Friday agreement – is so much easier when both jurisdictions are members of the same union.” A similar warning of a return to conflict in Northern Ireland in the event of Brexit was made on Thursday by Germany’s foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier. He said: “If the United Kingdom were to quit the EU, there will be a border again between Ireland and Northern Ireland. And that could at least have the potential of rekindling a conflict that has seemingly calmed down.” Kenny also used his speech to make an economic case for a remain vote. “We can argue all day about what new arrangements could be put in place after a Brexit and how long that would take,” he said. However, no alternative arrangement will be better than the one we have: a single market and seamless flows of goods, services, capital and people. “There are a myriad of different trading models that could be put in place. Each of the alternatives would impede, not improve, trade flows. They would build in extra bureaucracy, not reduce red tape.” He said as many as 400,000 jobs in Ireland and the UK were at stake. There has been speculation that Ireland might benefit from Brexit, as some of the UK’s financial services industry might transfer to Dublin, but Ireland says that has not been a factor in its decision to campaign for remain.
Disney to make live-action Peter Pan Disney will produce a live-action version of Peter Pan, following in the footsteps of Cinderella and The Jungle Book. According to Deadline, the studio has tapped director David Lowery to take on the project. His credits include the indie drama Ain’t Them Bodies Saints and the forthcoming family adventure Pete’s Dragon. He will write the script with Toby Halbrooks. The news lands as the studio’s latest live-action take on the Disney classic is set to hit cinemas worldwide. The Jungle Book, which has received glowing reviews, is predicted to open with $70m (£49m) in the US. Last year Kenneth Branagh’s Cinderella made $524m worldwide. This year also sees the release of sequel Alice Through the Looking Glass. The studio also has live-action takes on Beauty and the Beast with Emma Watson, and Dumbo, to be directed by Tim Burton, as well as Pocahontas and Tinkerbell. It is not yet clear whether the latter film will cross over with Peter Pan. The latest remake is one of many attempts to retell the classic JM Barrie tale of a boy who never grows up since Disney released their animated version in 1963. Steven Spielberg gave it a revisionist spin in the live-action Hook in 1991; PJ Hogan’s Peter Pan was a box office flop in 2003, while Joe Wright’s version last year also failed to perform.
Film director Jacques Rivette, stalwart of the French new wave, dies aged 87 Jacques Rivette, the veteran French film director who became a stalwart of the French new wave of the late 1950s and 60s, has died. He was 87, and had reportedly had Alzheimer’s disease for some years. In 1953, Rouen-born Rivette joined the likes of François Truffaut, Eric Rohmer and Claude Chabrol as a writer on the influential magazine Cahiers du Cinéma, edited by André Bazin, and like them was encouraged to make a move into feature film-making. His debut, Paris Nous Appartient (aka Paris Belongs to Us), was a critical, if not commercial success on its release in 1961. Rivette remained within the fold of film criticism, however, and became editor of Cahiers in 1963. Under his stewardship the magazine became more politically engaged, reflecting Rivette’s own Marxist politics as well as the intellectual drift of the time. Rivette stepped down in 1965, and recommenced film-making with The Nun, starring Anna Karina as woman attempting to escape her oppressive life in a convent. The film aroused much controversy and it was banned until 1967. Rivette followed The Nun with the experimental improvised piece L’Amour Fou. Rivette then began to become known for the increasing length of his films: Out 1, released in 1971, ran at 770 minutes – over 12 hours – which was followed by the comparatively-modest 192 minutes of what remains probably his most celebrated film, the 1974 release Céline and Julie Go Boating. Shortly afterwards, Rivette suffered a nervous breakdown and had to abandon a subsequent project, the four-part Scènes de la Vie Parallèle. In 1991, Rivette’s La Belle Noiseuse – running at 237 minutes – became an unexpected success, perhaps due to its theme of an elderly artist undergoing a creative rebirth, which led to a similar revival of Rivette’s own fortunes. It enabled him to make a two-part film about Joan of Arc, starring Sandrine Bonnaire, which runs at 336 minutes in total. His final film was Around a Small Mountain, featuring Jane Birkin, which was released in 2009.
Australia's Serial: Dan Box on the making of true crime podcast Bowraville For a few years after the high court dismantled terra nullius and established rights of native title in the Mabo case, Australia pretended it had solved its problems with race. Paul Keating delivered his Redfern speech, the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody handed down its final report and the issues raised in both were acknowledged and swiftly consigned to the past, as if acknowledgement alone had fixed the problem. All the while the serial murders of three Aboriginal children, plucked from the same street of the same small town in country New South Wales, passed largely unnoticed. Enter Bowraville, a podcast produced by the Australian and hosted by the crime reporter Dan Box, that chronicles the investigation into Australia’s least-known serial killings. It tracks the case from the first disappearance of 16-year-old Colleen Walker-Craig on 13 September 1990 to the current bid by NSW police to get special leave under double jeopardy laws to prosecute the three murders as a single trial. It’s been called an Australian answer to Serial but Bowraville – which wrapped up with a final episode last week – goes beyond that. It is a gripping true crime tale and an essay on racism; a challenge to the lies Australia tells itself about its treatment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people told through the voices of three Aboriginal families who have been indisputably let down. Colleen’s disappearance was followed in three weeks by the disappearance of her four-year-old cousin, Evelyn Greenup. Just over four months later, 16-year-old Clinton Speedy-Duroux also disappeared. All three were last seen at house parties on Cemetery Road, a part of Bowraville known as The Mission and still unofficially segregated from the white side of town. All three were seen in proximity of the same non-Indigenous man. And, when they were first reported to police, the disappearances were each dismissed as just an Aboriginal kid going “walkabout” – until the bodies began to turn up. Two bodies, anyway. Colleen’s has never been found. The podcast has galvanised the public in a way that two decades of print and television reporting on the Bowraville murders have not. Box, who covered the case for the Australian for several years before getting the idea in December to turn it into a podcast, told Australia that before the first episode launched the case only got “small stories, down on page four”. Since the first episode, timed to coincide with a march at the NSW state parliament, the case has been bumped to the front of the paper, and been followed by other outlets including the . By the fourth episode, the NSW premier, Mike Baird, had reiterated his government’s promise that any application for a retrial would be assessed by an independent arbitrator. The police commissioner, Andrew Scipione, had announced plans to meet with the victims’ families. “I don’t think we would have got either of those without the reaction that the podcast produced,” Box said. “I have never done anything with this level of reaction.” It even induced the prime suspect, Jay Thomas Hart, to break his silence. Hart has been put on trial twice: in 1993, for Clinton’s murder, and in 2005, for Evelyn’s. He was acquitted on both occasions and, before contacting Box, had not spoken publicly since giving evidence at the first trial. In the interview, which makes up half of the final episode, Hart said he called Box after listening to the earlier podcasts. “That shocked me, because I never thought that he might listen,” Box said. “He would never have spoken to me without those first four episodes.” Box and his producer, Eric George, crammed 17 interviews into four days in Bowraville. Family members travelled down from other towns, so desperate were they to have their voices heard. It is those voices, delivered in such an intimate format, that makes Bowraville impossible to ignore. It is the crack of emotion from the family members, the quiet frustration of the detectives, the menace behind the laughing dismissal of Hart’s stepfather, and Hart himself. It is Box’s disapproval when told Colleen was living it up in Newcastle, and the birdsong that fills the silence when her sister is overcome. No one is edited for soundbites. The conversation is allowed to ramble on and the pain and tension caused by the murder of three children in a small community bleeds through. In the second episode, Gary Jubelin – the detective who has led the investigation since 1996 – said the family had been let down by the justice system and everything that surrounded it: police, the courts and the media, with its notable lack of outrage. “One thing I found unique about this investigation, and I have been doing homicide for a long time and I get the sense of things that attract the public’s attention, is here we have three kids murdered living in the same street and I am absolutely gobsmacked by the amount of people that have never heard of it,” Jubelin said. “You speak to the community and they say it’s because ‘we’re Aboriginal and people don’t care’. I have been working on this for 20 years and at first I didn’t think they were right but now I think they were spot on.” Box, speaking after the final episode, agreed but said he thought Australia might be approaching a moment of reckoning for its dismissal of crimes against Aboriginal people. It goes beyond Bowraville. There was the brutal case of Lynette Daley, who bled to death after what’s being described as a sexual encounter in 2011, which will be subject to an independent review by the director of public prosecutions following a report on the ABC’s Four Corners. And the death in custody in Western Australia of 22-year-old Yamatji woman Ms Dhu, whose face was projected on the side of public buildings in Perth during the coronial inquest. These are deaths that may have slipped the national interest a few years ago but have now triggered national outrage. We’ve had moments of reckoning before. The Redfern speech was one, as was the Mabo decision; there was the Bringing Them Home report in 1996 and the case of Mr Ward, who was cooked alive in a West Australian prison van in 2008. It goes back decades, too – it was 1968 when W.E. Stanner gave a Boyer Lecture on the Great Australian Silence. But these moments of reckoning have never yet stuck. Just as the dream that Australia had become a post-racial society didn’t survive the 1990s, it seems impossible to think that the strong feelings generated by reporting like Bowraville will have a lasting impact. On this case, however, it might be enough. “You can’t look at this without looking at race but, at the end of the day, it’s three dead children – and that is beyond race,” Box said. • Listen to Bowraville here
Don’t let WhatsApp nudge you into sharing your data with Facebook When WhatsApp, the messaging app, launched in 2009, it struck me as one of the most interesting innovations I’d seen in ages – for two reasons. The first was that it seemed beautifully designed from the outset: it was clean, minimalist and efficient; and, secondly, it had a business model that did not depend on advertising. Instead, users got a year free, after which they paid a modest annual subscription. Better still, the co-founder Jan Koum, seemed to have a very healthy aversion to the surveillance capitalism that underpins the vast revenues of Google, Facebook and co, in which they extract users’ personal data without paying for it, and then refine and sell it to advertisers. In a blog post headed “Why We Don’t Sell Ads” written in June 2012, for example, Koum quoted approvingly a memorable line uttered by Tyler Durden (played by Brad Pitt) in the movie Fight Club: “Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don’t need.” “When we sat down to start our own thing together three years ago,” Koum wrote, “we wanted to make something that wasn’t just another ad clearing house. We wanted to spend our time building a service people wanted to use because it worked and saved them money and made their lives better in a small way. We knew that we could charge people directly if we could do all those things. We knew we could do what most people aim to do every day: avoid ads.” And Koum was as good as his word. WhatsApp grew and grew, because it did what it said on the tin. Its growth was funded by $58m from Sequoia Capital, the only venture capital firm to invest in it. By February 2013, WhatsApp claimed 200m active users worldwide, and had a valuation of $1.5bn – not huge by Silicon Valley standards but pretty good for an outfit that had an honest business model. And then, in February 2014, something strange happened. Facebook offered to buy the company – for $19bn – and Koum and co took the bait. Given that Facebook’s business depends on selling ads, most of us wondered what had happened to Koum’s admirable principles and concluded, gloomily, that everyone has a price. But for a while WhatsApp continued as before within the Facebook stockade. Not only did it not sell ads, but in November 2014 it announced that it was introducing end-to-end encryption for all WhatsApp communications – which meant that nobody, not even Facebook, could read (and thereby monetise) its users’ messages. So the puzzle continued: why on earth had Mark Zuckerberg paid such a whopping price for a service that he couldn’t exploit? Now we know. On 25 August WhatsApp announced that it was changing its terms and conditions and its privacy policy. In a blog post which is a masterpiece of lawyerly euphemism, it tells us that it is going to “share” with Facebook its users’ phone numbers and details of the last time they signed on to WhatsApp. Every user is asked to click “Agree” to this proposition – although, of course, they can always reverse this agreement if they can find the relevant section of their settings. Needless to say, this radical change has nothing to do with the needs of WhatsApp’s corporate owners. Perish the thought: it’s to improve things for you, the user. It’s all about using “your WhatsApp account information to improve your Facebook ads and products experience”. And, just to make sure you understand the magnitude of the decision you are about to make, “If you tap ‘Don’t Share’, you won’t be able change this in the future”. Seasoned observers of the computer industry will recognise this for what it is: just another illustration of the power of the default setting. In marketing-speak, it’s how to “Nudge Your Customers Toward Better Choices” – an implementation of the philosophy set out by Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler in their book Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth and Happiness. Of course, it’s true – as Sunstein and Thaler argue – that defaults can sometimes be used to ensure that people do things that are good for them, like ensuring that they enrol in a pension scheme. But in the computer industry, defaults are often deployed purely in the interests of corporations. So if you’re a WhatsApp user, don’t fall for this particular wheeze: go to “Settings”, select “Account”, “Share my account info” and tap on “Don’t Share”. And do it now, because time’s running out.
Georginio Wijnaldum gives Liverpool deserved win against Manchester City These are the moments when Liverpool’s supporters must hold genuine hope their team are capable of catching and overhauling Chelsea at the top of the Premier League table. There is still a six-point deficit but Jürgen Klopp’s men look absolutely convinced they have what it takes and it was not a coincidence that the man in charge of the music belted out an old Starship track straight after the final whistle. Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now felt like an accurate gauge of the mood. Anfield was certainly a happy place because Liverpool not only signalled their intentions here but blew a gaping hole in the title chances on another of the teams who began the season with lofty ambitions. Georginio Wijnaldum’s goal inflicted the damage and the 10-match winning sequence with which Pep Guardiola introduced himself at Manchester City is starting to feel like a deception. This was another erratic display and, however it is dressed up, City’s owners did not bring in Guardiola to be 10 points adrift at the halfway point of the season. Liverpool played with great panache at times and, in other periods, they showed the kind of durability that will be essential to sustain a title challenge. The players in red never gave their opponents a moment’s peace in the first half but after the break, when they switched to a more conservative system, they can also take great encouragement from the fact City had lots of the ball but did not create one clear opportunity. What never shifted was the impeccable attitude of Liverpool’s players whereas their opponents, in contrast, took an age to get going. Once the visiting team started showing some urgency, with Raheem Sterling, David Silva and Kevin De Bruyne growing into the game, they did at least make a fight of it. Yet it would be generous to say they deserved anything considering the story of the 90 minutes and, once again, they came away from Anfield filled with regret. They have not won here since 2003 and Sergio Agüero has not scored at this ground in eight appearances. The Argentinian, back from a four-match suspension, barely got a sniff. Klopp’s men scored 87 league goals in 2016, their highest figure since managing the same in 1985. More importantly, there was hard evidence here that if any team can chase down Chelsea it is likely to be the one with the liver bird on their chest. At one point Roberto Firmino could be seen miscontrolling the ball to concede a throw-in and there was still warm applause. There is a vibe here reminiscent of the near-victorious season now infamous for Steven Gerrard’s slip. The crowd can see a team who are giving everything and, in their latest victory, a set of players who looked desperate to show their superiority. For long spells, they did exactly that – quick to the ball, strong in the tackle and playing in the knowledge that if City’s defence are placed under pressure a mistake will generally follow. City have kept only four clean sheets from their 19 league fixtures in the Guardiola era and Aleksandar Kolarov, in particular, had a difficult match. There is nothing particularly new about that but it was rare to see City look so incoherent in attack, particularly in the opening 45 minutes when Sterling, facing his former club, seemed disorientated by the crowd’s jeers and even Silva, of all people, could be seen misplacing relatively simple passes. Sterling’s early anxiety disappeared in the second half when he started reminding his old club of his threat. Yet Liverpool, holding on to their early lead and switching to a counterattacking system, still looked the more threatening side, albeit with less of the ball. Perhaps the best compliment that can be paid to Wijnaldum for his goal is that there are Liverpool supporters of a certain generation who will remember John Toshack scoring headers of this nature. It was a prodigious leap but, more than anything, it was the sheer will on his part to meet Adam Lallana’s cross with the necessary blend of power and precision. The ball flashed past Claudio Bravo and Liverpool had scored for the 23rd successive top-division fixture on their own ground. City had an argument that Ragnar Klavan, already booked for a challenge on Agüero, might have been shown a second yellow card shortly before the goal. Yet any grievance on their part does not alter the fact they made an almighty mess of the free-kick, leading directly to the game’s decisive moment. Yaya Touré’s decision to aim it out to the left wing was strange in itself and Kolarov’s touch to give the ball away was clumsy in the extreme. City were vulnerable as soon as Firmino played the initial forward pass, giving Lallana the chance to make ground on the left, and Kolarov’s ignominy was compounded by the fact that when he made it back to the penalty area he was the player Wijnaldum out-jumped. That Kolarov was at fault twice probably summed up his evening. It was not until the game was approaching the hour-mark that Guardiola’s team started to pass the ball with speed and clarity. Silva and De Bruyne switched positions and both became increasingly influential. Yet whatever Guardiola is trying is not working. Not yet anyway. Liverpool were barely troubled during four minutes of stoppage time and the game finished with Klopp embracing his players, blowing kisses to the crowd and looking forward to 2017.
Nicolas Cage to star in climate change disaster movie Nicolas Cage is to take the lead in a new sci-fi movie depicting a world ravaged by climate change. The film, called The Humanity Project, takes place in 2030, when much of the midwest of America has been rendered uninhabitable. The government agency of the title exiles people felt to be unproductive and banishes them to a colony, New Eden. Cage plays a caseworker seeking to appeal the exile of a single mother (Sarah Lind) and her son (Jakob Davies). The film has been scripted by Dave Schultz, will be directed by Rob King, and is due to start shooting in British Columbia next week. The eco-disaster movie dates back to the early 1970s, with Bruce Dern vehicle Silent Running. Other notables in the genre include Soylent Green (1973), Waterworld (1995), The Core (2003), The Day After Tomorrow (2004), Children of Men (2006), Wall-E (2008) and 2012 (2009). George Miller’s Mad Max series is set in a post-apocalyptic wasteland whose inhabitants seek to defend themselves against drought; Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar depicted an Earth no longer inhabitable, hence the need to explore other potential planets. However that film did not explicitly attribute the situation to global warming.
Teen dressed in gorilla suit 'punched in face' at Boris Johnson rally Police are looking into a number of incidents at a boisterous rally addressed by Boris Johnson where a teenager in a gorilla suit was alleged to have been elbowed in the ribs and punched in the face. Another man, a remain campaigner, was allegedly pushed from a monument in Winchester city centre amid jostling for position with leave supporters. A Hampshire police spokesman said that the force was investigating whether the same suspect was responsible for both incidents. It came as the Tory MP and former London mayor spoke to a noisy crowd composed of activists from the rival camps, who waved placards and umbrellas. Before Johnson arrived, the teenager in the gorilla suit had been seen dancing around waving a placard saying, “I eat five in a bunch Boris!” while waving a large inflatable banana. Next to him danced another campaigner dressed as a banana with a placard saying: “Vote stay. Let’s not crash the economy.” John Romero, a local Liberal Democrat activist and parish councillor, told the that he had been pushed off the monument by a leave campaigner after waving a piece of paper in Johnson’s face. He reported the incident to the police, who he said had been provided with photographs of the incident. Romero, 64, said that the man who allegedly pushed him had been recognised by the teenager in the gorilla suit, who claimed that he had hit him. “There were about 400 people shouting and screaming. It was a not very nice scene, to be frank,” said Romero “I went up on top of the monument thinking it was a good time to push a poster in front of Boris Johnson, who pushed it away from his face. Then a guy standing next to him who had a big board hit me with his knee on to my thigh and I lost my position and fell.” “He was an activist for Brexit. There is no doubt about that.” A Vote Leave spokesman said that if any incident did happen, it had happened after Johnson had left the area. He added: “A group of remain campaigners turned up at the event determined to cause disruption. “When our team left the area, the gorilla was still in good spirits and dancing around and didn’t look like he had been punched.” Britain Stronger In Europe’s chief campaign spokesman, James McGrory, said: “Who punches a teenager dressed as a gorilla in the face at a protest?”
The 10 best things… to do this week Exhibitions William Eggleston Even if you aren’t able to name one of US snapper William Eggleston’s works, you will almost certainly recognise their defining characteristic: that almost absurd sunburst of colour saturation, which adds a lingering mystery to otherwise routine scenes. This major National Portrait Gallery survey profiles 100 photographs from the 1960s onwards, charting his progression from distrusted outsider to celebrated artist. Theatre Hug Being sung at while blindfolded, by a stranger who also has their arms wrapped around you might sound like a truly hellish ordeal, but Verity Standen’s polyphonic work has had the opposite effect on many. Indeed, some have been reduced to tears by this immersive experience. Film Ghostbusters Who you gonna call to drag a franchise kicking and screaming into the modern age? Well, Paul Feig, Kristen Wiig and Melissa McCarthy would probably be a decent start. The good news is that this all-female remake has received largely positive notices and, to be honest, even if it hadn’t, we’d still advocate seeing it just to stick it to the trolls. Secret Cinema: Dirty Dancing You’ll forgive the clandestine screenings company for dropping its usual secretive shtick to revisit one of its earlier events: the 2013 staging of Dirty Dancing proved immensely popular, luring in more than 12,000 people to a recreated version of the Catskills. This revival should ensure that nobody puts Baby in a corner. TV Friday Night Dinner Robert Popper’s sitcom returns, and we rejoin the gratifyingly idiosyncratic Goodman family as they prepare for a guest diner. The unfolding events are, as ever, a farce masterclass. Online BoJack Horseman Will Arnett voices a talking Hollywood horse in an animated series that manages to find something interesting to say about fame and failure alongside the equine-themed gags. Series three is on Netflix from Friday. The Arts Edinburgh jazz and blues festival We’re getting close to the point when the entire comedy cognoscenti decamps to Edinburgh for the fringe. Before then, though, there’s time for proponents of jazz, blues and funk to have their moment in the spotlight. This year features a festival debut from storytelling songwriter Doug MacLeod (pictured)and 19-piece Slovakians the Bratislava Hot Serenaders. Comedy Reggie Watts Perhaps most famous in the context of US TV, musician and comedian Reggie Watts is currently bandleader and banter partner on The Late Late Show With James Corden. But if that makes him sound like a mainstream proposition, this fleeting UK visit should provide plenty of evidence to the contrary. The self-proclaimed “disinformationist” (if only all post-truth practitioners were doing it for comic effect) brings his loop pedal and erudite, leftfield standup to gigs at both Latitude in Suffolk and London’s Southbank Centre on Saturday. Events An Afternoon With Susan Cain Providing a voice for those who can’t speak up, Cain achieved success with her 2013 book Quiet: The Power Of Introverts In A World That Can’t Stop Talking. She’s since given a much-shared TED talk and founded Quiet Revolution, an organisation seeking “to unlock the power of introverts for the benefit of us all”. She talks about her followup book and gives advice at Waterstones Oxford. Music LCD Soundsystem Don’t be angry at NYC’s finest punk-funkers for announcing their split, doing a farewell tour and flogging an emotional doc off the back of it, only to re-form four years later. Murf and co’s return has been one of 2016’s festival highlights and their Lovebox date is their only remaining UK stop. Shut up and play the hits, indeed.
World’s largest hedge fund to replace managers with artificial intelligence The world’s largest hedge fund is building a piece of software to automate the day-to-day management of the firm, including hiring, firing and other strategic decision-making. Bridgewater Associates has a team of software engineers working on the project at the request of billionaire founder Ray Dalio, who wants to ensure the company can run according to his vision even when he’s not there, the Wall Street Journal reported. “The role of many remaining humans at the firm wouldn’t be to make individual choices but to design the criteria by which the system makes decisions, intervening when something isn’t working,” wrote the Journal, which spoke to five former and current employees. The firm, which manages $160bn, created the team of programmers specializing in analytics and artificial intelligence, dubbed the Systematized Intelligence Lab, in early 2015. The unit is headed up by David Ferrucci, who previously led IBM’s development of Watson, the supercomputer that beat humans at Jeopardy! in 2011. The company is already highly data-driven, with meetings recorded and staff asked to grade each other throughout the day using a ratings system called “dots”. The Systematized Intelligence Lab has built a tool that incorporates these ratings into “Baseball Cards” that show employees’ strengths and weaknesses. Another app, dubbed The Contract, gets staff to set goals they want to achieve and then tracks how effectively they follow through. These tools are early applications of PriOS, the over-arching management software that Dalio wants to make three-quarters of all management decisions within five years. The kinds of decisions PriOS could make include finding the right staff for particular job openings and ranking opposing perspectives from multiple team members when there’s a disagreement about how to proceed. The machine will make the decisions, according to a set of principles laid out by Dalio about the company vision. “It’s ambitious, but it’s not unreasonable,” said Devin Fidler, research director at the Institute For The Future, who has built a prototype management system called iCEO. “A lot of management is basically information work, the sort of thing that software can get very good at.” Automated decision-making is appealing to businesses as it can save time and eliminate human emotional volatility. “People have a bad day and it then colors their perception of the world and they make different decisions. In a hedge fund that’s a big deal,” he added. Will people happily accept orders from a robotic manager? Fidler isn’t so sure. “People tend not to accept a message delivered by a machine,” he said, pointing to the need for a human interface. “In companies that are really good at data analytics very often the decision is made by a statistical algorithm but the decision is conveyed by somebody who can put it in an emotional context,” he explained. Futurist Zoltan Istvan, founder of the Transhumanist party, disagrees. “People will follow the will and statistical might of machines,” he said, pointing out that people already outsource way-finding to GPS or the flying of planes to autopilot. However, the period in which people will need to interact with a robot manager will be brief. “Soon there just won’t be any reason to keep us around,” Istvan said. “Sure, humans can fix problems, but machines in a few years time will be able to fix those problems even better. “Bankers will become dinosaurs.” It’s not just the banking sector that will be affected. According to a report by Accenture, artificial intelligence will free people from the drudgery of administrative tasks in many industries. The company surveyed 1,770 managers across 14 countries to find out how artificial intelligence would impact their jobs. “AI will ultimately prove to be cheaper, more efficient, and potentially more impartial in its actions than human beings,” said the authors writing up the results of the survey in Harvard Business Review. However, they didn’t think there was too much cause for concern. “It just means that their jobs will change to focus on things only humans can do.” The authors say that machines would be better at administrative tasks like writing earnings reports and tracking schedules and resources while humans would be better at developing messages to inspire the workforce and drafting strategy. Fidler disagrees. “There’s no reason to believe that a lot of what we think of as strategic work or even creative work can’t be substantially overtaken by software.” However, he said, that software will need some direction. “It needs human decision making to set objectives.” Bridgewater Associates did not respond to a request for comment.
A reality check for both wings of the Tory party As the chancellor sat down, commentators and politicians began to muse whether they had just witnessed a true heir to Tory predecessor George Osborne, or a man intent in following in the footsteps of Labour’s Ed Balls. Philip Hammond was clearly not mimicking the dancing style of the former Labour MP. However, he did seem comfortable announcing almost Keynesian large-scale investment projects and high levels of borrowing to invest, in a statement that, unquestionably, had an interventionist touch. That alongside, at best, moderate action for just managing families and stark forecasts in the face of Brexit uncertainty left Hammond facing possible angst from both sides of his party. One Conservative MP, making his way from the House of Commons’ chamber to an office in Portcullis House, parliament’s glass-roofed annexe, admitted that he was a little concerned. “There is some worry about them shifting to a more interventionist position, especially among those of us who are more free marketeers,” said the politician. “I can see why they want to do it. It is seductive to step in if an industry is in trouble. But they have to be careful not to go too far.” Nearby, a Tory on the left wing of the party was critical for a different reason. “What was there for just managing families?” they asked, shrugging their shoulders and rolling their eyes. “The sandwich didn’t have much jam!” And yet, while there was the odd grumble, the backbench concern did appear to be largely muted. Most Tory MPs wandering around the Commons seemed relatively pleased with what they had heard. Heidi Allen, a key figure who has been pushing hard for the government to offer relief to universal credit recipients who are facing massive cuts, seemed satisfied with what she had heard. Although Labour said a change in the benefit’s taper rate fell well short of undoing the damage caused by the original decision, Allen insisted that it was a start. “You are always a little bit disappointed because you dream of utopia and I hoped we might have more,” she told the ’s Politics Weekly podcast. But alongside continued increases to the personal allowance and a rise in the minimum wage, she argued that “a billion pounds into universal credit plus” was pretty good. Others simply felt that the chancellor had done what he had to. “Philip Hammond delivered the autumn statement you’d expect him to,” said backbencher James Cleverly, a Tory MP who backed Brexit. “It was not flamboyant, there were no bells and whistles. There was some difficult economic news, but still with spending on areas that Conservatives care about – transport, broadband, fuel duty.” Nicky Morgan, who supported remain and has been an increasingly vocal member of the backbench awkward squad, also described it as “steady as he goes”. Backbenchers also pointed to Hammond’s expectation management, through which he made sure the media, but also Conservatives, weren’t clamouring for much. It was noted that Hammond had addressed a meeting of the 1922 backbench committee where he stressed to colleagues that showmanship (think rabbits, sweets, gimmicks) wasn’t his style. And so gone were the four to five pages that Osborne would have dedicated in the “green book” to regional giveaways (through which the A14 appeared to have been resurfaced several times). Hammond’s approach was to focus on investment in specific industrial areas, not parts of the country. And then there was Brexit. Even those who campaigned for the UK to leave the EU admitted the economic news was tough. But the argument was that Hammond provided the Conservatives with a “bullet-proof” messenger given that he had campaigned to remain. Brexit-supporting MPs also argued that the borrowing figures were over a long period, and pointed out that Hammond would have pleased leavers by starting his speech with a booming introduction about the robust health of the British economy. On this thinking, Hammond’s cautious approach to the question of Brexit so far (critics have accused the chancellor of being a doom-monger) also gives him the advanage that people take him even more seriously when he sounds upbeat. But perhaps MPs are hearing what they most want to. While Brexiters have seized on Hammond’s positive start, remainers were instead taken by a more worrying end. As one MP fighting for a soft Brexit put it: “This was the first reality check about just how difficult this is going to be for the British economy.”
Puro Instinct: Autodrama review – dangerous dreampop LA sisters Piper Durabo and Skylar Cielo made, in 2011’s Headbangers in Ecstasy, the bloggiest of all blog band albums. Their second takes its template – hazy dreampop, synth haze, slightly gothic guitar – and explores a darker Hollywood delirium. On Peccavi and Tell Me there are hints of Madonna’s early pep, but dreamy and dissipated, with Durabo intoning about “wishing fiction into fact” and urging you to “forget about tomorrow”. LA’s mystical side surfaces in Six of Swords, Scorpio Rising and the title track’s sample of the occultist Manly P Hall, while End of an Era introduces an anti-war sentiment and a delicious, doomy lassitude. If the songwriting isn’t always the match of the sheen, the best moments here – Panarchy, What You See, Autodrama – are dangerously seductive.
Let’s Eat Grandma review – frighteningly inventive duo rip up girl-group cliches From their ominous name to the impudent, blank expressions they wear, Let’s Eat Grandma don’t just eschew girl-group stereotypes – they rip them to shreds with fiendish delight. Formed by friends Jenny Hollingworth, 17, and Rosa Walton, 16, LEG provide a dazzling, befuddling glimpse into teenage life as expressed through dark-edged fantasies and experimental pop. The duo, who share an uncanny physical and saccharine-sweet vocal similarity, amp up the weird factor with spooky synths and eerie recorders. Shrouded in black, barricaded on stage by a bank of keyboards and hidden behind curtains of long wavy hair, it’s almost impossible to tell them apart. Facing one another for the vigorous hand-clapping intro of Deep Six Textbook, they resemble baby-faced versions of pre-Raphaelite heroine Elizabeth Siddal. But, as they bend forward, then slowly rise up to face the crowd, there’s something of The Shining’s scary Grady twins about the pair. The thing most frightening about their music, however, is its sheer inventiveness. The frustration of schoolwork is vented against hymn-like, humming synths and a soulful saxophone, the story of Rapunzel is sung by Walton with vengeful sweetness, while Hollingworth plays an accusatory rhythm on drums with lashings of cymbal. Both girls move between their instruments – which include lead guitar and glockenspiel – with practised ease and, having formed the band in 2013, the songs are played with tight abandon. It’s when LEG set their innocent fairytales to hedonistic club beats on Eat Shiitake Mushrooms and the stunning Donnie Darko that they create something not just bewitching, but mould-breaking. Let’s Eat Grandma play Field Day festival, London, on 11 June 2016.
Mystic (Rees-)Mogg and the art of economic prediction A big week in parliament for the Jacob Rees-Mogg committee (formerly known as the Treasury select committee), which will again be grilling one of its favourite targets: economic forecasters. First up on Tuesday comes Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, which last Thursday said that Brexit really means British workers facing the longest pay squeeze in 70 years. The following day will see Robert Chote, chairman of the Office for Budget Responsibility, whose organisation also had a run-out last week, when it predicted the UK economy would slow next year and inflation would rise. None of which is likely to have gone down terribly well with Rees-Mogg, the flag-bearer of the Tories’ Eurosceptic wing, who has shot to fame this year by baiting Bank of England governor Mark Carney as a Remainer. To say that the Rees-Mogg demeanour tends towards the traditional is to recklessly underplay the situation, although even his critics concede his entertainment value. The old Etonian former fund manager was once accused of going to bed in double-breasted pyjamas and, at the 1997 general election, stood as the Tory candidate for the solidly Labour seat of Central Fife. He attracted ridicule – by canvassing with his nanny. A philosophical take on the trials of Topps Tiles “Any man can make mistakes, but only an idiot persists in his error.” Given that next week will be the 2,058th anniversary of the death of Roman philosopher Cicero, it’s too much of a stretch (even for this column) to suggest that the great orator foresaw the role of the financial analyst – however compelling the circumstantial evidence may be. Still, for as long as the trade of analyst has existed, its members have attempted to illustrate how much life there is in those wise words. Take Topps Tiles, whose shares have dropped almost 50% this year. Despite that, the company’s supporters have been harder to dislodge than a 30-year-old installation of one of its products. Peel Hunt rated the shares a buy in January (at about 150p), when they were worth almost twice as much as now, and has reiterated that view six times during 2016. Cantor Fitzgerald, Berenberg and Liberum also persisted in their error – remaining positive on the company all the way down. So, aside from admitting to a costly mistake, is there any way out of the mess? Well, the retailer reports numbers this week – so it’ll be prayers to Jupiter all round. Why confidence can be a tricky matter Consumer confidence has been holding up pretty well following the EU referendum – rather defying gloomy expectations of a slump and giving further ammunition to those claiming that Remainers over-egged the risks of a Brexit vote. Last month, GfK’s consumer confidence index, which assesses respondents’ outlook for the next 12 months, decreased by two points to -3, ending a revival since June’s Brexit vote that pushed the index up to -1 from a low of -12. We get the latest numbers on all this on Wednesday. Last time, the survey also found that plans to purchase big-ticket items were not being delayed. That seems like good news – it’s an area often thought to show the first signs of a slowdown – but like almost everything on Brexit, you can use the figures to argue whichever way you want. So confidence to buy expensive items could mean everybody really is feeling chipper and Brexit is no big deal. Or it could mean that the referendum-induced slump in the pound is going to send prices soaring, so we’re all really getting our big purchases in before the arrival of a nasty bout of inflation. So it could be either – or neither. Let’s be honest: no one really has a clue what’s going to happen next.
Brexit vote and Trump's election have created risks for banks, says S&P The UK’s vote for Brexit, Donald Trump’s US election win and a slowdown in Chinese economic growth are combining to create significant risks for the global banking sector, a leading ratings agency warned on Wednesday. Standard & Poor’s also included the low interest rate environment as posing potential hurdles for the banking industry’s creditworthiness in its global credit outlook for the sector in 2017. More than half of the largest global banking systems face negative pressure, S&P said, with more banks in Latin America and Asia Pacific appearing on the watch list. The UK is among 11 of the 20 largest global banking markets facing negative pressure. S&P said: “Weaker prospects for earnings growth globally, potential risks related to the UK’s referendum vote to leave the EU, and more generally increased political risks are constraining factors for bank ratings in 2017.” It added: “A key constraint in our global credit outlook for banks relates to the path of the global economy, which is marked by a sluggish global growth underpinned by China’s rebalancing, the adjustment of commodity exporters to new commodity prices, demographic factors inducing lower productivity growth and geopolitical and political uncertainty.” Of the 85 banking systems assessed, 42% faced negative trends. The ratings agency said there were signs of “renewed tremors” from the result of the UK’s EU referendum on 23 June while the election of Trump as US president showed that political risk remained significant. Some believe Trump could prove helpful for the banking sector, while the US stock market is at record highs on expectations that he will boost spending on the economy. “The policies of President-elect Trump’s administration could represent the largest wildcard with the potential, at least over time, to meaningfully affect regulation, economic growth, interest rates, and ultimately bank performance,” S&P said. There could be knock-on effects in other parts of the world as a result, particularly in France and Germany, which are holding elections in 2017. “Brexit may have energised broader, populist trends already pulsating through Europe. Citizens of other EU member states have expressed interest in holding referendums of their own to exit the union. Increasing populist sentiment, especially after the results of the US elections, also points to a shifting political landscape in the world’s largest economies,” S&P said. This week Angela Merkel said she would run for a fourth term as German chancellor in next September’s elections. In France polls show that the Front National leader, Marine Le Pen, will make it to the French presidential final round runoff next May, while the former French president Nicolas Sarkozy has failed to be chosen as the rightwing Les Républicains party’s candidate for the presidency. The former PMs François Fillon and Alain Juppé now face a second vote on 27 November to decide who will go up against Le Pen as the party’s candidate. Anti-globalisation movements could affect growth prospects and S&P is operating on the assumption that 2017 will be a year of sluggish growth across most developed and emerging markets. The European Central Bank could adopt a more relaxed approach to monetary policy while the US Federal Reserve could start to increase rates by a quarter percentage point in December and a half point in 2017.
Point Break review – an empty rehash “Have you ever fired your gun up in the air and gone, ‘Aaaaaaaargh!?”’ Nick Frost asks Simon Pegg in Hot Fuzz, referencing an iconic Keanu Reeves moment from Kathryn Bigelow’s 1991 crime-and-surfing classic Point Break. Inevitably, Pegg gets to do just that, replaying the scene to oddly touching comic effect. Now, Luke Bracey gets to do it too, in this adrenaline-fuelled but empty rehash that flies close enough to Bigelow’s movie to remind you how much you’d much rather be watching the original. As before, the story centres on a young FBI agent infiltrating a group of extreme sports enthusiasts and finding himself torn between his strait-laced mission and their free-form madness, here given an anti-capitalist eco-waffle twist. “So it’s not about money, it’s about spiritual enlightenment?” says Delroy Lindo’s Instructor Hall, taking a break from the usual declarations about his ass being on the line with this one blah blah blah. As for Ray Winstone, he appears to have wandered in from another movie entirely, playing European field agent Pappas with the fluidly accented conviction of a contract player eager to be done with this nonsense. There are some vertiginous action sequences (snowboarding down mountains, base jumping through canyons, apparently done “for real”) but such thrills can’t sustain a whole movie. While Bigelow tipped her hat toward the greater themes of Big Wednesday, director/cinematographer Ericson Core seems to take his cues from the empty flash of the Fast & Furious series, the first of which he shot. The result, disappointingly, is all froth and no depth.
Texas rule requiring burial or cremation of fetal tissue shames women, suit says A women’s rights group has filed a lawsuit in an attempt to block a new Texas rule that requires fetal remains to be cremated or buried. Accusing the state of a politically motivated ploy to make it harder for women to have abortions, the Center for Reproductive Rights launched the legal action on Monday, one week before the regulation is set to take effect on 19 December. The lawsuit against the Texas department of state health services (DSHS), filed in federal court in Austin, alleges that the regulation has no medical benefits, will pose practical burdens by increasing the cost of healthcare services and is an attempt to stigmatise abortion and heap shame on women seeking the procedure. Whole Woman’s Health, an abortion provider, is the lead plaintiff in the suit. It claims that the new regulation “burdens women seeking pregnancy-related medical care. It imposes a funeral ritual on women who have a miscarriage management procedure, ectopic pregnancy surgery, or an abortion. “Further, it threatens women’s health and safety by providing no safe harbor for sending tissue to pathology or crime labs. It also forces healthcare providers to work with an extremely limited number of third-party vendors for burial or scattering ashes, threatening abortion clinics’ provision of care and their long-term ability to remain open, as well as cost increases for women seeking pregnancy-related medical care.” Current Texas regulations on disposal by healthcare facilities do not generally distinguish between fetal remains and other kinds of human materials that would typically be disposed of in a sanitary landfill. The new rule changes that, creating a category for “fetal tissue” and ordering it be buried or cremated regardless of how far along the pregnancy is. Miscarriages or abortions that happen at home are exempt and birth or death certificates are not required to be issued. The plan, strongly promoted by Texas’s Republican governor, Greg Abbott, was publicly announced last July, four days after the supreme court struck down key parts of an onerous 2013 abortion law that prompted a drastic drop in the number of clinics in Texas. The court found that the law, which mandated that clinics have standards akin to surgical centres, caused an undue burden on women seeking an abortion and did not offer sufficient medical benefits. Abbott, though, has vowed to continue efforts to restrict abortion. “I believe it is imperative to establish higher standards that reflect our respect for the sanctity of life. This is why Texas will require clinics and hospitals to bury or cremate human and fetal remains,” Abbott wrote in July in a fundraising email to supporters reported by the Texas Tribune. He said the proposal would “help make Texas the strongest pro-life state in the nation”. According to the DSHS, the rule will benefit public health and safety “by ensuring that the disposition methods specified in the rules continue to be limited to methods that prevent the spread of disease” and by “protecting the dignity of the unborn”. Texas’s Republican-dominated legislature is expected to formally enshrine the regulation in state law during the 2017 session, which starts in January. “These regulations are an insult to Texas women, the rule of law and the US supreme court, which declared less than six months ago that medically unnecessary restrictions on abortion access are unconstitutional,” Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, said in a statement. “These insidious regulations are a new low in Texas’ long history of denying women the respect that they deserve to make their own decision about their lives and their healthcare.” The question of how to handle fetal remains became a rallying point for anti-abortion activists after an organisation released a video in 2015 that falsely appeared to show employees at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Houston illegally selling fetal tissue. Mike Pence, the Indiana governor and now vice-president elect, signed a restrictive abortion law in March that included a fetal remains provision similar to Texas’s plans. It was stopped by a court in June shortly before it was scheduled to take effect. Another law in Louisiana is on hold because of a legal challenge.
La Femme: Mystère review – alluring French indiepop For the non-Francophone, at least, La Femme’s second album lives up to its title. Mystère – delivered in blank, affectless voices, by male and female voices – is an alluring grab-bag of styles, from synthpop to surf-rock to Stereolabish indie motorik, to near-baroque guitar picking, to faux-Morricone western soundtracks, to an almost pastoral psychedelia. The stylistic range is wide enough to keep Mystère varied, and to stave off boredom – despite the album being about 20 minutes too long – but its parameters are also logical enough that each song sounds like it follows naturally from the last, rather than being a jarring leap. Goodness knows what they’re singing about, though that’s very much my fault rather than theirs; in any case, it doesn’t matter when the music this expertly conceived: it’s recognisably the work of an indie band, but not one constrained by preconceived notions of what indie must be, and it’s well worth your time.
Michail Antonio strikes early to give West Ham victory over Tottenham This is the kind of defeat that can leave a team questioning their title credentials. It was not that Tottenham Hotspur were thrashed or even outclassed, in the East End. There were periods during a frantic second half when they had threatened to claw back the deficit suffered early on and had they pilfered an equaliser, they would have departed buoyed as if in victory. West Ham United, after all, are a resurgent force and now a team who have the scent of the Champions League places. Yet, for all that there is no disgrace in succumbing to these opponents, Spurs’ uncharacteristic hesitancy was troubling. The pangs of anxiety had gripped through a one-sided first half, rendering their approach tentative and ineffective. Mauricio Pochettino denied it but the suspicion was that this was the first evidence of nerves undermining the club’s pursuit of a first league championship in 55 years. This team, the youngest in the Premier League, were supposed to be fearless, blissfully unaware of everything that could yet be achieved this season. And yet here they had initially been diminished in the face of their hosts’ aggression and eclipsed by their energy. Those traits were supposed to be their own. Even when they roused themselves after the interval, forcing West Ham back largely through Christian Eriksen’s tireless running and clever probing, anxiety still unnerved their approach. Harry Kane, the team’s only attacking focal point but a lone striker starved of service for long periods, summed that up by snatching at two close-range opportunities. The England forward had been unable to contort his body to convert in the six-yard box, under pressure from Cheikhou Kouyaté, after Adrián had done wonderfully well to push away Toby Alderweireld’s swerving attempt from distance. When Christain Eriksen sent over a delicious centre moments later Kane mistimed his stretch and could only dribble the attempt wide from just beyond the back post. There has been only one goal from open play in eight matches and, at some stage, there may have to be an acknowledgment that the weight of this team’s schedule – this was a ninth game in 32 days – could be having a blunting effect. Adrián in the home goal was not tested at all in the first half and only rather sporadically when Tottenham held greater sway. Certainly the post-match shuffle towards the away support to demonstrate their appreciation, and the gloom in the dressing room long after the final whistle, suggested this was an opportunity missed. The visit of Arsenal on Saturday has suddenly been transformed into a test of character. Spurs can still top the division, for a few hours at least, by winning the north London derby. Given the idiosyncratic nature of the title race – Leicester’s point on Tuesday had looked wasteful but actually represented the sole reward for any of the top four in midweek – this need not prove an arithmetically damaging loss. But, psychologically, it seems far more significant. The top flight’s stingiest defence had been bullied, with Alderweireld and Kevin Wimmer tormented by Emmanuel Emenike’s channel-running, hassling and harrying. The centre-halves were both booked and it would not have been a surprise had Wimmer been dismissed before the end. West Ham merited their success, their prolonged send-off from the Boleyn Ground having still not contained a defeat since August. This result mirrored Saturday’s success over Sunderland, a win achieved courtesy of a sole Michail Antonio goal scored relatively early, and was illuminated by flashes of brilliance from Dimitri Payet and leggy industry up and down the lineup. Their pressing disoriented the visitors, who are used to imposing their own upbeat rhythm. They forced early errors, confusion between Ben Davies and Nacer Chadli needlessly presenting the hosts with an early corner which Payet whipped in to the near post. There it was met emphatically by Antonio, the right wing-back having dizzied Chadli too easily with his movement to earn a yard of space from the befuddled winger. The ball flew in via Hugo Lloris’ left hand. It was the fourth successive home match in which the summer signing from Nottingham Forest had scored, and it should have been followed by further first-half reward. Lloris, jittery particularly from back-passes throughout on a treacherous surface, did well to push away Mark Noble’s attempt from distance but only a series of desperate blocks prevented West Ham going further ahead. “Even to match a team that has conceded the fewest goals in the Premier League, scored the most, [are] all about running and pressing and whose confidence is sky high, you have to play very well,” said Slaven Bilic. “It’s not about being lucky. You have to deserve it. I might be biased but they should have been more happy with the result than us. It could have been more. We were simply magnificent.” The same, for once, cannot be said of Spurs. They go into the north London derby with another point to prove.
The view on Britain and Europe There is a view, current in some circles here and abroad, that the referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU is an unnecessary and damaging distraction. Issues such as the war in Syria, global terrorism, the impact of climate change and widening social and economic inequality at home are deemed more deserving of attention. Did not Margaret Thatcher, while insisting on proper limitations to EU power, ultimately answer the European question, both for Eurosceptic Tories and the country, when she declared in Bruges in 1988: “Our destiny is in Europe”? Unveiling his referendum plan in January 2013, David Cameron recycled some of Thatcher’s ambivalence. He warned that deepening integration among the 19 eurozone countries and the demands of global competition posed important questions for the UK-EU relationship. Yet, like Thatcher, he did not say Britain should leave. Quite the opposite. “I do not want that to happen. I want the EU to be a success. And I want a relationship between Britain and the EU that keeps us in it,” Cameron said. In calling the referendum, it was clear he was responding primarily to party pressures, not continental power shifts or any fundamental change of heart. In the same speech, he argued that public disillusionment with the EU “is at an all-time high”. In fact, according to a contemporary Ipsos Mori survey, only 2% of voters included Europe among the most pressing issues facing Britain. A more alarming figure for Cameron, at that decisive moment three years ago, was Labour’s 10% poll lead – and growing panic among Tory backbenchers about the rapid rise of Ukip. As the 2015 election showed, these fears were unfounded. But he was stuck with his referendum. Having put party before country and himself before party, and called a vote for the wrong reasons, Cameron compounded his error by squandering the opportunity for renegotiation. This is not surprising. He has rarely demonstrated a firm grasp of, or a sustained personal interest in, foreign affairs. His neglect of Europe during his first term was illustrated by the Tories’ withdrawal from the main centre-right group in the European parliament, unwisely snubbing powerful allies such as Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats. Looked at from the outside, Cameron is one of the most parochial prime ministers Britain has produced. His subsequent negotiations have been characterised by haste, muddle and lack of ambition. It seems he can hardly wait to get the whole business over with, hence the prospect of an early June vote. His evident weakness has undermined his already limited leverage with irritated EU leaders wary of being sucked into what seems an essentially British problem. In the tradition of the Major-era “bastards”, Cameron has not been helped by some semi-loyal Eurosceptic ministers and MPs whose lack of vision reflects their limited abilities. How very gracious of Theresa May to let it be known, in her grandly elevated view, that the prime minister may have secured the basis for a deal! How jolly for Boris Johnson to keep flashing his ankle at Downing Street. When considered calmly, the package of changes assembled by Cameron and Donald Tusk, the EU council president, has merit. The threat of British withdrawal has contributed to a shift in a European mindset that placed a premium on integration, enlargement and bringing more countries into the euro. The driver of the EU project was always the historical and constitutional obligation on the commission to push for integration, to open with the highest bid and move in one direction. Now, there is more questioning and a recognition that perhaps the bid might need to be in the other direction – a sense that unless the EU and commission question its approach, it could be done for. The fear grew that Britain could be just the first to go. And Cameron has garnered backing for some of his specific measures. Several east and central European leaders support his proposed additional protections for non-eurozone members. Many agree there is too much red tape. Many parliaments would welcome a moderate restoration of sovereign powers. The once emblematic concept of ever-closer union has palled in these more complex times, without Cameron having to push his case. Even on the question of in-work benefits, at a time when uncontrolled migration is affecting all, there is sympathy, if not agreement, for Cameron’s stance. All of which underscores the substantive point: that in changing times, many, perhaps a majority of EU states, overshadowed for too long by an inflexible Franco-German axis, accept there is need for reform. The British renegotiation, if it had been handled more consensually, could have achieved so much more. As the last European elections showed, there is deep dissatisfaction in all 28 EU countries. Post-crash austerity imposed on southern Europe continues to cause immense damage. The proliferation of xenophobic, racist and nationalist parties of left and right is one direct result. The failure of the Brussels elites to respond to, or even demonstrate understanding of, this crisis is more injurious to the idea of Europe than anything Bill Cash and John Redwood might do. The EU suffers from a chronic democratic deficit. But the answer is not to walk away. The answer lies in challenging how Europe works, in rendering its opaque institutions more open and accountable and exercising more control over how it evolves. A good start would be a total re-evaluation of the EU’s proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership with the US, which might be good for multinationals, but threatens jobs, incomes, workplace and environmental standards and the way public sector organisations are run. The public, by and large, understands this broader point, even if a complacent Downing Street does not. Cameron’s referendum will be decided, to a large degree, not by mixed perceptions of his much-mocked renegotiation but far bigger issues. Now you ask us, voters might say, one such issue is this lack of a connected, fit-for-purpose EU. Another is how Europe will deal with accelerating migration. If Germany closes the door, and pressure on Merkel is growing, chaos could ensue. And then there is the risk of another eurozone meltdown or Crimea-style humiliation by Russia. Any of these or other wild-card factors could tip a vote in favour of leaving, whatever the government says. This is the risk to which Cameron has exposed Britain. He has created conditions in which the opposite of what he said he wanted in 2013 may now occur: Brexit, with all the deeply negative and harmful consequences.
Enough is enough: we've reached a tipping point on sexual assault Most times, it’s easier to say nothing. When a man gropes you on a subway. If a stranger tells you to smile as you walk down the street. When someone calls you a bitch because you turned them down at a bar. The decision of whether to speak up or push back is made in a split second, and for a lot of women, it’s just not worth it. The person that just harassed you might get even more aggressive if confronted. Besides, what difference will it make, you think. Why spend energy on a person like this? As the election looms closer and women continue to come forward to accuse Donald Trump of assault, I’ve noticed a shift in the way women are talking about dealing with these all-too-common indignities. They’re not just fed up with the harassment itself, but with the resigned feeling that this is just the way things are. More and more, women are sharing stories of speaking up in those moments – and crediting Trump’s misogyny with what they did. Carolina Siede, writing at Quartz, described being leered at by a man one evening and changing her usual tactic of not “rocking the boat”. As we sat in uncomfortable silence, I began to think again about Donald Trump. I thought about the women he’d groped. I thought about the men who, through their ignorance or denial, enable this behavior to happen. I thought about Michelle Obama telling women and girls that they deserve dignity and respect too. And I decided enough was enough. Writer Rebecca Solnit shared a similar story on Facebook from a woman who was called a “cunt” by a stranger and decided to confront him. “Are you going to tell me it was just locker room talk?,” she asked. There’s more talk, too, of the less obvious kinds of harassment and assault. A woman on Twitter this week described a man caressing her calf as she walked by him on an airplane, for example. When we think of groping what comes to mind is someone grabbing “private” areas. But if it’s another person’s body – it is private. Trump’s remarks about women – his bragging about assaulting women without consequence and his continued insistence that every accuser is lying – have brought us to a sort of national tipping point. As Elizabeth Warren said about Trump to tremendous applause this week, “Women have had it with guys like you”. Women are tired. Tired of being told that this is just the way men talk or act. Tired of looks or touches that we’re expected to deal with because they’re not “real” assault. Tired of saying nothing in the face of unrelenting sexism and slights. Why should we have to live like this? Perhaps when the election is over, the anxiety and anger women are feeling right now will subside and many of us will go back to saying nothing in those scary moments. Maybe the national conversation around assault will wane. But I doubt it. When you start to speak up, it’s hard to stop. America should be prepared for a lot of loud, “nasty” women to make themselves heard. No billionaire owner, no shareholders. Just independent, investigative reporting that fights for the truth, whatever the cost. Why not support it? Become a US member for $49 a year, or make a contribution.
Paul Haggis to supply documentary about Flint water scandal Paul Haggis, director of the Oscar-winning drama Crash, is to produce a documentary about the Flint water contamination scandal. According to Deadline, Haggis is working with director William Hart on Lead and Copper, a film that aims to investigate the ongoing crisis, which began in 2014 after the city in Michigan changed its water supply. As a result, untreated water found its way into people’s homes and locals were exposed to drinking water with high levels of lead. A state of emergency was declared in January 2016, and a series of city officials were subsequently charged with a range of offences, including misconduct in a public office and evidence tampering. Lead and Copper appears to be Hart’s feature debut, while Haggis’s most recent film as director was the 2013 feature Third Person, starring James Franco. Haggis’s recent career, though, has been dominated by his very public break from the Church of Scientology, which he left in 2009 after 35 years.
Facebook lures Africa with free internet - but what is the hidden cost? Facebook has signed up almost half the countries in Africa – a combined population of 635 million – to its free internet service in a controversial move to corner the market in one of the world’s biggest mobile data growth regions. Facebook’s co-founder and chairman, Mark Zuckerberg, has made it clear that he wants to connect the whole world to the internet, describing access as a basic human right. His Free Basics initiative, in which mobile users are able to access the site free of data charges, is available in 42 countries, more than half of them in Africa. But digital campaigners and internet freedom advocates argue that Facebook’s expansion is a thinly veiled marketing ploy that could end up undermining, rather than enhancing, mass efforts to get millions more people connected. “Even if people are hungry, we shouldn’t be giving them half a loaf,” says Gbenga Sesan, whose organisation Paradigm Initiative Nigeria helps young people living in poverty get online. “It’s difficult for me to argue against free internet,” he says. But he added that it is problematic to give people only part access to the internet, especially if they believe what they have is full access. Breaking down the barriers According to the mobile industry trade body GSMA, there will be as many as 700m smartphones in sub-Saharan Africa by 2020. But a handset alone may not get you online, explains GSMA’s head of mobile, Yasmina McCarty. A person might not have enough money for data, or the government might not have installed broadband cables in the area where they live, she says. Or the internet that is available might be in English, and therefore not useful to all. Or, McCarty adds, the person might not have been taught IT at school and would not know how to use the technology. Free Basics offers a solution to the affordability issue, but three remaining barriers – infrastructure, content and education – need to be “attacked” to get the next billion online, says McCarty. Facebook is exploring the infrastructure obstacle, testing a solar-powered drone and developing a satellite, both of which would beam internet access to remote communities from the sky. But people in the industry say efforts on the ground are equally as important to help the internet take root. When introducing a technology such as the internet, “lots of personal interaction needs to take place ... explaining how it works and busting myths”, says Alix Murphy from WorldRemit, a mobile money transfer company. Digital colonialism? It is not the first time Facebook has faced challenges to its initiative. In India, Free Basics was effectively banned after a groundswell of support for net neutrality – a principle affirming that what you look at, who you talk to and what you read is ultimately determined by you, not a business. It was a blow for Zuckerberg, who was accused of acting like a digital colonialist: shouting about the right to the internet to mask true profit motives. Timothy Karr from the Save the Internet campaign does not doubt Zuckerberg’s “genuine zeal to connect the world” but says we should not ignore his motivation to “dominate the global internet landscape”. “Facebook is not the internet, and limiting it doesn’t give people the agency, political power or control,” says Karr. But Gustav Praekelt, whose foundation has helped Facebook provide health, educational and other information on the Free Basics platform since it launched, argues that everyone else is moving too slowly: in a perfect world access to information would be a human right but currently “there’s a vacuum and Facebook are plugging it”. Nigeria was the most recent country to launch 80 pre-selected websites on Free Basics with Airtel Africa, the country’s second largest mobile provider. Zuckerberg said Facebook was offering Nigerians, including 90 million people who are currently offline, the opportunity to access news, health information and services for free. However, Gbenga Sesan says the offer is only appealing because the government “shirked its responsibilities” by failing to invest in infrastructure. He would rather see a state focus on building connectivity, arguing that this would engender competition that in turn would drive down the cost for the poorest citizens. Freemium to premium? In a competitive emerging market, giving away data for free may not seem like an obvious business choice, but Facebook has sold it to mobile operators on the basis that customers will eventually buy data. This freemium to premium model is also problematic, says Gbenga Sesan. “As soon as you are around the table you become a marketing opportunity,” he says, adding that there is a perception that internet rights campaigners are not supposed to ask questions about Free Basics “because it’s ‘for good’”. Facebook did not reply to requests to respond to these specific criticisms of their approach, but after the fallout in India Zuckerberg wrote an opinion piece for the Times of India denying that Free Basics was about maintaining Facebook’s commercial interests. “If people lose access to free basic services, they will simply lose access to the opportunities offered by the internet today,” he said, adding that the platform fully respected the principles of net neutrality. For Praekelt, the more fundamental benefit is that there are millions of people across the developing world who cannot currently access life-saving services and so, he says, Free Basics is a flawed attempt in the absence of anything else to ensure those people are no longer deprived. Who benefits? Facebook has yet to release official data on how the initiative has been received across the continent, but when the Alliance for Affordable Internet looked at how eight countries, including three in Africa, were using such zero-rated services including Free Basics they discovered only one in 10 connections came from someone who had never used the internet before. “The application is used as a stop-gap measure,” says Nanjira Sambuli, a Kenyan tech expert. Most people use it to browse when they have run out of data, but switch back to the full web when they can afford it. Sambuli recently took Kenya’s service for a spin and found it “barely functional” with “kinks and pages missing”. Kenyan internet access campaigner Ephraim Kenyanito describes the experience as an “unbalanced diet” with web pages that look like they were made in 2002. Snooping risk There is also a worry, says Sambuli, that “centralised interventions” such as Free Basics could be misused and become susceptible to control and interference. In April, Reuters revealed that Free Basics had been blocked by Egypt’s increasingly oppressive government after Facebook refused to let it snoop on users. But in Uganda, where the government has implemented two social media blackouts already this year, campaigners are concerned. Although Zuckerberg has been outspoken on his commitment to freedom of speech “the fear is that Facebook becomes the broker between citizens and the government,” says Geoffrey Wokulira Ssebaggala, from the digital rights organisation Unwanted Witness Uganda. The alternatives As for the alternatives, initiatives such as public Wi-Fi and long-term investment in connectivity infrastructure are a far more solid proposition, says Murphy: “Companies [like Facebook] could pull out of the market whenever they like.” She says good infrastructure coupled with “tiered, piecemeal pricing that lets you buy small chunks of airtime as and when you can afford it” is how the African economy works, and paying for the internet should follow that pattern. Others point to initiatives including cyber cafes, where people are taught how to access what they need, or earned data provisions, where users watch an advert in return for a certain amount of free access. The problem as Karr sees it is that Facebook could have supported any number of these without building a walled garden around the people who need it least – low-income families in the developing world.
What will be the big environment events in 2017? After five years of false starts and delays, 2017 will see exploratory fracking for shale gas begin in earnest in England. The first wells will likely be drilled in Lancashire and Yorkshire by the summer, and Cuadrilla, Third Energy and other companies will hope to confirm commercially viable quantities of the gas by the end of the year. With only 17% of people in Britain in favour of fracking, local and national protests are certain. Brexit negotiations will affect farming subsidies and possibly all European nature protection laws, including those for birds and habitats, air and water pollution, GM foods and animal welfare. If ministers attempt to roll back or trade off decades of environmental regulation, as some have threatened, they are likely to meet the most intense opposition. Air pollution, now known to kill nearly 40-50,000 people a year in Britain, will be high on the political agenda in the spring with the government under court orders to publish a new plan to meet EU legal limits. The draft, to be published in April, is almost certain to propose more fully funded clean-air zones in major cities, tighter restrictions on some vehicles and fuels, and further measures to encourage walking and cycling. London will also come under pressure to join Paris, Madrid, Athens, and Mexico City in pledging to ban diesel vehicles in the city centre within a few years. The movement of world cities signing up to be fossil-free within 30 years is expected to grow too. The global climate debate will be dominated by whether the president-elect Donald Trump withdraws the US from the Paris global agreement to reduce emissions. He has appointed climate sceptics to head all the key agencies responsible for either monitoring or dealing with climate change and is known to want to increase oil, gas and coal production. If he pulls the US out of the Paris deal, it would gift China climate leadership, set back efforts to brake emissions and do untold diplomatic damage with hundreds of countries who followed Obama’s leadership in 2015. Insiders expect him to ignore the voluntary commitments the US has made and to increase fossil fuel emissions. Many US climate scientists expect to lose research grants in what some expect to become a witch-hunt. 2016 saw the tail end of El Niño, a naturally occurring warming of the Pacific, bring droughts, searing temperatures and food shortages to much of Africa, Latin America and south-east Asia. In 2017, we can expect a weak La Niña, a natural cooling of Pacific Ocean waters. This is likely to bring above average rainfall and cooler temperatures across much of the globe. Wildlife losses are expected to continue through 2017, despite more and more animals having been put on the IUCN’s red list of threatened species and action to tackle the illegal trade. Candidates for effective extinction in 2017 include the Bornean orangutan, the South China tiger, the giant otter, the Amur leopard, the black-footed ferret and Darwin’s fox. The Eurasian lynx could be reintroduced in small numbers to the Kielder forest in Northumberland, and to remote areas of southern Scotland. The last time this wild cat was seen in what is now the UK was in about AD700. Other provisional sites have been selected including Cumbria, Aberdeenshire, the Kintyre pensinsula and Thetford forest in Norfolk. Marine protection will be raised up the political agenda with the first UN oceans conference in June. This will focus on the increasing quantities of plastics polluting the oceans, overfishing, the effects of climate change, and the need for more marine national parks.
Business minister Sajid Javid opens preliminary trade talks with India The business minister is to launch trade talks with India, marking the start of a world tour aimed at drawing up a blueprint for Britain’s role in the global economy outside the European Union. Sajid Javid will hold preliminary talks with Indian government ministers in Delhi on Friday, marking the start of what is expected to be years of negotiations to establish new trade deals with individual countries. These bilateral deals will replace agreements the EU has with more than 50 countries. Javid’s visit to India comes after George Osborne met a Chinese government delegation in London on Thursday and promised to foster “stronger trade ties” with the world’s second largest economy. The chancellor is undertaking a four-day trip to China later this month for the G20 finance ministers’ meeting and will visit several cities to promote UK-Chinese relations. The government said it plans to hire up to 300 staff in a bid to address a shortage of trade negotiators capable of forging closer economic ties to dozens of other countries. Javid said: “Following the referendum result, my absolute priority is making sure the UK has the tools it needs to continue to compete on the global stage. “That is why I am in India today to launch these initial trade discussions. There is a strong bilateral trade relationship between our two countries and I am determined that we build on this.” The discussions kick off a schedule of trips to the US, China, Japan and South Korea over the next few months, as Javid starts the process of refashioning the UK’s trade ties. Government sources said talks were unlikely to go into great detail but would provide an early platform for future negotiations. Javid said he would use the discussions to outline the government’s “vision for what the UK’s future trade relationship might look like”. The foreign secretary, Philip Hammond, said earlier in the week that the UK had a shortage of trade negotiators and may need to hire staff from abroad to get the necessary expertise. Osborne met Chinese officials including the ambassador, Liu Xiaoming, for talks about future trade relations. Treasury sources said there had been “productive discussions on investment, financial services and fostering stronger trading ties,” aimed at extending a “golden era” of partnership on trade. The UK was the third largest investor in India between April 2000 and September 2015, pouring $22.5bn (£17.4bn) into the country, while Indian investment is also hugely important to the UK. Foreign direct investment from India created 7,730 jobs between 2014 and 2015, according to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, while bilateral trade between the two countries was £16.5bn last year. One of the biggest Indian investors in the UK is conglomerate Tata, which owns Jaguar Land Rover and struggling steel firm Tata Steel UK. During his Indian trip Javid will also meet Tata board members on Saturday to discuss the company’s efforts to find a buyer for its British steel business, which includes the blast furnaces at Port Talbot in South Wales. The sale process is understood to have been put on hold amid the economic uncertainty created by the vote to leave the EU.
Rio has showcased a post-Brexit nationalism the left should embrace Who could resent the captain of the British women’s hockey team, Kate Richardson-Walsh, carrying the flag at the Olympic closing ceremony in Rio? Her wife Helen, who was also on the team, had played a pivotal role in their win (on receiving their golds, they became the first same-sex married couple to win Olympic medals). The entire GB team wore jackets that said “thank you” to Brazil in Portuguese and “hello” to Tokyo where the next Olympics takes place. I’m not a sports fan, but as a nation we have been pretty fantastic and it seems entirely appropriate to celebrate the achievements of these athletes and to feel, dare I say it … a little bit proud. Oh, but here come the begrudgers. We certainly could win a gold for self-loathing whinging. We only got so many medals because of the money thrown at sports through the national lottery. We must not get all puffed up and nationalistic because that is a bad thing. Sport has nothing to do with our place in the world, it merely reveals many of the existing inequalities, and on and on it goes. But surely the fact that in 1996 we came 36th in the medal table, below North Korea, and now we have pipped China, has given some much-needed uplift to a divided country? Of course, being good at physical jerks does not suddenly make post-Brexit Britain a happy place. We know that the dreamlike quality of the 2012 games, kicked off by Danny Boyle’s bonkers and brilliant opening ceremony, where everyone went mad for Mo Farah and felt the love, did not last. Anti-immigrant and out-and-proud racist discourse has absolutely flourished in the intervening years. But again in Rio we saw that winners come in all sizes, shades and sexualities and when they do brilliantly everyone gets behind them. I am not always fond of folk wrapping themselves in flags but nationalism is always an imaginary concept that can be mobilised in whichever way we choose. This nationalism – inclusive, warm, sentimental, hardworking – is the one the left should embrace, but is too often embarrassed about. So it leaves nationalism for others to remake in their own brutal image. The refusal of so many people to understand that globalisation does not work out for everyone, or that mumbling at rallies about internationalism makes few hearts sing, is precisely why so many were out of touch with the result of the EU referendum. Yes, some of it was about Little England, but some of it was about how we define ourselves as a nation. Can we go it alone? Can we punch above our weight? Is this just a post-empire hangover? The answers are complex. The nation represented at the Olympics was at ease with multiple identities – sometimes Andy Murray is Scots, sometimes British. Bradley Wiggins, Nicola Adams and Mo Farah all belong together as champions here. Telling people that nationalism is wrong and infantile seems to me to misunderstand the mood. Right now we need to ask what kind of country we want to be. As Albert Camus once said, “I should be able to love my country and still love justice”. Surely that is possible. After the ugliness in the run-up to the Brexit vote and immediately afterwards, we were reminded of the best of ourselves in Rio. That is a real victory.
Nostalgia for things that never happened After recent events, some will already be nostalgic for a pre-Trump world. Yet nostalgia is a feeling of familiarity which doesn’t always connect to actual memories. Indeed those who wanted Trump to make America great again were harking back to a version of the country that never really existed. Research has found that the brain systems which control recognition and familiarity are quite different from each other. The two usually work together but can be activated separately, meaning it’s possible to feel a strong sense of acquaintanceship with a place or thing, when in fact you have never been here or used it before. This is why you can completely forget where and when you were introduced to someone, but just know that you’ve seen them before. Familiarity is instant, whereas memory recall can be a slow process - with lots of effort, it’s sometimes possible to remember the room where you met them, or the time of year it was. These details can then help unearth the full memory, something we should rely upon more than fleeting familiarity, especially in the post-factual world we live in. Dr Daniel Glaser is director of Science Gallery at King’s College London
Climate change may have helped spread Zika virus, according to WHO scientists The outbreak of Zika virus in Central and South America is of immediate concern to pregnant women in the region, but for some experts the situation is a glimpse of the sort of public health threats that will unfold due to climate change. “Zika is the kind of thing we’ve been ranting about for 20 years,” said Daniel Brooks, a biologist at University of Nebraska-Lincoln. “We should’ve anticipated it. Whenever the planet has faced a major climate change event, man-made or not, species have moved around and their pathogens have come into contact with species with no resistance.” It’s still not clear what role rising temperatures and altered rainfall patterns have had on the spread of Zika, which is mainly spread by mosquitos; the increased global movement of people is probably as great an influence as climate change for the spread of infectious diseases. But the World Health Organization, which declared a public health emergency over the birth defects linked to Zika, is clear that changes in climate mean a redrawn landscape for vector and water-borne diseases. According to WHO, a global temperature rise of 2-3C will increase the number of people at risk of malaria by around 3-5%, which equates to several hundred million. In areas where malaria is already endemic, the seasonal duration of malaria is likely to lengthen. Aedes aegypti, the mosquito that carries Zika and other diseases, is expected to thrive in warmer conditions. As climate change reaches almost every corner of the Earth’s ecology, different diseases could be unleashed. Increased precipitation will create more pools of standing water for mosquitos, risking malaria and rift valley fever. Deforestation and agricultural intensification also heightens malaria risk while ocean warming, driven by the vast amounts of heat being sucked up by the oceans, can cause toxic algal blooms that can lead to infections in humans. “We know that warmer and wetter conditions facilitate the transmission of mosquito-borne diseases so it’s plausible that climate conditions have added the spread of Zika,” said Dr Diarmid Campbell-Lendrum, a lead scientist on climate change at WHO. “Infectious agents in water will proliferate with more flooding. It’s clear that we need to strengthen our surveillance and response to a range of diseases. Globalization, the movement of people, is an important factor too. In a world where we are disrupting the climate system we’ll have to pay the price for that.” WHO estimates that an additional 250,000 people will die due to climate change impacts – ranging from heat stress to disease – by 2050, but Campbell-Lendrum said this is a “conservative estimate”. “It is based on optimistic assumptions that the world will get richer and we’ll get better at treating these diseases,” he said. “We do need to get better at controlling diseases at their source and we do need to drive down greenhouse gases because there is a limit to our adaption. By moving to cleaner energy sources we will also help relieve one of the largest health burdens we have, which is the air pollution that kills seven million people a year.” Until now, efforts to push back the threat of infectious diseases has been successful. Malaria, for example, used to be found in the New York area – and there is evidence to suggest it was once present in southern England; much earlier, the Romans used to retreat to the hills at certain times of the year to avoid mosquitos carrying the disease. Vaccines have been developed for a range of diseases including, belatedly, Ebola. The eradication of threats like these makes wealthy western countries fret over outbreaks like Zika. As the world warms, there may be a lack of preparation for other diseases not currently considered threats. “This is likely to become an equal opportunity crisis,” said Brooks. “The developing, poorer countries are impacted disproportionately but they deal with these diseases all the time, they are not surprised by them. But in Europe and North America, people have lived in a bubble where we think our wealth and technology can protect us from climate change. And that’s not true. “The thing that worries me most is a death by a thousand cuts. I don’t think an Andromeda strain will wipe out all humans. But the amount of time, money and effort needed to combat these many different problems can overwhelm a healthcare system.” So which climate-fueled diseases are likely to pop up next? Some experts believe that water-borne diseases could escalate, which would have significant consequences for countries such as Bangladesh – a low-lying nation with plenty of rivers that has a public health system already struggling to meet its population’s current needs. “There’s not nearly enough attention paid to diseases that cause diarrhea, crypto spiridium, Hepatitis A,” said Aaron Bernstein, a pediatrician at Harvard Medical School. “We’ve seen outbreaks of these diseases in the past due to extreme precipitation. The build environment we live in wasn’t designed for the climate we will soon be living in; when you consider half the world’s waterways have been engineered by man, they won’t be able to contain the extra water that will flood them. “Flooding will certainly lead to mosquito-borne diseases but also cause water-borne diseases and also a lack of drinking water. People in Asia and Africa, particularly those living on the coast, will be very vulnerable, climate change could be the straw that breaks the camel’s back in terms of public health.”
Nobel prize-winning economists warn of long-term damage after Brexit Ten of the world’s leading economists have issued a warning about the consequences of the UK leaving the EU as the City prepares for the pound to plunge and shares to fall in the event of a Brexit vote in Thursday’s referendum. In a last-ditch attempt to persuade voters, 10 Nobel-prize winning economists, who have all been made professor laureates for research stretching from the early 1970s up until last year, have written to the to say the economic arguments are key. “Brexit would create major uncertainty about Britain’s alternative future trading arrangements, both with the rest of Europe and with important markets like the USA, Canada and China,” they write. “And these effects, though one-off, would persist for many years. Thus the economic arguments are clearly in favour of remaining in the EU,” they conclude. The City is bracing for a volatile week of trading and as dealers prepare to spend the early hours of Friday morning placing orders for investors as the results start to come in from around 12.30am. Some City sources are warning that trading could “gap down” – or open sharply lower – in the event of a vote for Brexit. Others, though, think the result could having a calming influence after a period of uncertainty. Jasper Lawler, market analyst at spread betting and financial trading site CMC Markets, said that “knowing the results is going to calm nerves”. One of the letter’s signatories, Professor Christopher Pissarides, who is based at the London School of Economics, told the the uncertainty would reduce investment and hit job creation. He also warned that the vote, at the start of Britain’s summer, would trigger a depreciation in the pound that would make holidays more expensive. There are suggestions sterling could slide from its current levels of around $1.42 to $1.20 and reach parity with the euro, from around €1.27 now. In response to criticism by Vote Leave, which accuses economists of scare-mongering, Pissarides said that forecasting was difficult, and economists might disagree or get it wrong, but in this case they were overwhelmingly in favour of remaining. He said it was absurd that out campaigners were trying to dismiss economists as irrelevant. “Britain will not thrive outside the EU,” he added. “The biggest negative impact will be felt over the next five years, but it will persist through the lack of investment and the weaker bargaining position that Britain will have in future negotiations.” In preparation for the vote, banks have set up war rooms across the City, and senior bankers will be on call through out the early hours of Friday. Cash machines will be fully stocked and IT upgrades put off until the outcome of the vote is known to ensure that customers will not encounter any problems accessing their money. Firms such as Lloyds Banking Group and Royal Bank of Scotland along with US groups such as JP Morgan Chase and Citi will have teams working through the night. Brokers are also warning that higher than expected volumes might mean they are not able to complete all their trades as quickly as usual. Stockbroker Charles Stanley has told clients: “Whatever the results, we anticipate that we may experience higher volumes and more market volatility than usual on the 23 June and in the days following the vote.” “The immediate impact is likely to be felt most directly by those of you wishing to trade shares during such market conditions. Foreign exchange rates could also witness fluctuations and this has the potential to impact overseas trades placed during this time,” Charles Stanley said, warning that order sizes may be reduced and it could take longer to answer phones. Some economists,argue interest rates could be cut, possibly to zero from their record low of 0.5% where they have been stuck since the financial crisis. Analysts at JP Morgan said rates could be cut by a quarter of a percentage point as soon as next month’s meeting of the rate-setting monetary policy committee. Another quarter point cut could take place in August. “The speed and magnitude of the response will be sensitive to moves in financial markets; the MPC likely would interpret a weaker currency as reflecting weaker growth expectations provided it is accompanied by weakness in other UK asset markets,” the JP Morgan analysts said. Many investors are expected to go into the vote without any large trading positions which could expose them to losses once the result comes in, reducing volumes and exacerbating any price movements once the outcome is known. “An absence of market liquidity implies that we could see sharp moves in prices and heightened volatility in the hours following the announcement,” said analysts at Jefferies. They pointed to the European Central Bank’s scheduled injection of cash into the markets at 10.30am on 24 June as helping to fend off any liquidity crunch. Along with the Bank of England, the ECB will be on alert for a funding crisis facing the banking sector. On Tuesday the Bank will conduct the second of its pre-announced funding calls for banks. Mark Carney, governor of the Bank of England, has said another will take place on 28 June. “Beyond providing liquidity, both the BoE and ECB could cut interest rates,” the Jefferies analysts said. Sentiment towards the banking sector has already been hit hard by the Brexit vote. Analysts at Bernstein have predicted Barclays would be hardest hit, with its shares falling 40% over 18 months after a Brexit vote while the two bailed-out banks – Lloyds Banking Group and Royal Bank of Scotland – could take a hit of 35% and 25% respectively. Falls of that magnitude would impede any chances of cutting the government’s stake in both the banks.
Farage is now Britain’s face at the EU: petty, unlovable, essentially terrified In a crowded field, I think it was the flag that was the killer. The absolute state of that flag. Nigel Farage’s desktop Union Jack, with its little sucker pad leeching obnoxiously on to the unlovely beech of the European parliament chamber. Part of the genius of the TV series The Office was its ability to distil all human life down to a series of recognisable archetypes most people had encountered at work. To see Farage there with his desktop flag was to suddenly and irrevocably understand it: the UK is the Gareth Keenan of Europe. This is how we must look to those still condemned to share continent-space with us: petty, unlovable, essentially terrified, our workplace set up in a show of cod-martial defiance, which in fact only flags up our raging insecurity. Farage has been building up to this moment his entire political life, as he tells everyone at every single opportunity. In which case, how is it humanly possible that his speech to the European parliament today could be so artless, so crass, a scarcely refined version of some England fans’ infamous recent chant: “Fuck off Europe, we voted out”? To couch it in the sort of imbecilic historical inaccuracy which is the only language Farage understands: this speech was so bad that they’re now quits with us for saving them in the second world war. You may disagree with this reading of the war; Nigel would regard it as hugely overcomplicated. This, he repeated once more, was a victory against “big politics”. “Virtually none of you”, he bellowed at the MEPs, “have ever done a job in your lives.” Watching him was like watching the live abortion of Churchill’s oratorial legacy. As the latter’s grandson Nicholas Soames observed: “Appalling ghastly performance by that dreadful cad Farage in the European parliament. #hownottoinfluence.” Agreed. There is soft power, and then there is politics as erectile dysfunction. Indeed, it is becoming increasingly difficult not to speculate as to the psychological underpinnings of the Farage condition. “When I came here 17 years ago,” he shouted, failing to hide his nervous elation, “you all laughed at me. Well I have to say: you’re not laughing now, are you?” He made it, you losers! He got out. He’s in the big leagues now. He’s the guy who just turned up to his school reunion in a white limo with two dead-eyed escorts on his arm. Above all, the performance offered a reminder that Farage makes everything in which he is involved a race to the bottom. The opposite of a Midas, he may as well be nicknamed Brownfinger. His excruciatingly aggressive display eventually drew boos from the chamber. “Ladies and gentlemen, I understand you’re emotional,” urged the assembly president. “But you’re acting like Ukip.” Farage was loving it, just as his financial backer in the provisional wing of the leave campaign is revelling in their legitimisation. Arron Banks has spent much of his time since the weekend laughing at reports of racist and xenophobic incidents on Twitter. Two weeks ago he couldn’t even book 75% of Bucks Fizz for his Brexit concert ; now he’s taking a triumphalist dump on 50 years of race relations policy. Meanwhile, presumably in a doomed attempt to own it – certainly out of an inability to transcend it – Farage embraces his smallness. The victory against “big politics”, he stressed again to the European parliament, was for “the little people”. Incidentally, during the general election campaign last year, I was in a Grimsby pub where Farage’s supporters were waiting for him in a long-scheduled visit . He blew them out to go and have fish and chips with reality television star Joey Essex. Footsoldiers of Ukip, they were crestfallen and couldn’t understand it. Yes, Farage is as elitist as the rest of them. Even the central London victory party for his senior referendum campaign staff was stratified, featuring a VIP snug into which he retreated for most of the night. And still he rises. This time, the political leader who’s had more farewell tours than Barbra Streisand isn’t going anywhere. Whenever I touched on Farage’s malevolent guiding spirit during the referendum campaign itself, I was pleased to take all sorts of optimistic correspondence explaining that as soon as a successful leave vote was achieved, Farage’s work would be done, and he would retire triumphantly into the sunset. How’s that working out for ya? As reports of racist and xenophobic incidents across Britain intensify, Farage appears on Channel 4 news to warn ominously against what he detects as “backsliding” in the leadership of the official Vote Leave campaign. My suspicion is that these two strands of post-referendum fallout will come together in what we might call “ever closer union”. All sides of leave know they can’t deliver all they promised – even most of what they promised – and the coming anger will serve as Farage’s greatest recruiting sergeant. Indeed, he may seem like the cuddly option compared to some. Still, don’t take it from me. Let’s play out with the UK’s second biggest cheerleader in the European parliament, Marine Le Pen, leader of the French National Front. Turning to Farage after his speech, she smiled, and declared: “Look at how beautiful history is!”
‘It was actually heartwarming’: Grimsby residents review Grimsby the film ‘Nobby is a good character, not a lowlife’ Alan Brown, 57, a taxi driver with Taxi Cabs Grimsby I thought it was an excellent film. The action scenes would put any James Bond movie to shame and the cast was brilliant. The whole cinema was laughing out loud. To me, it doesn’t matter that it was called Grimsby because it’s just a piece of entertainment. The film could just as easily have been called The Brothers, for instance. There are people like Nobby [Sacha Baron Cohen’s character] in Grimsby, but there are people like that in every other town and city. There are people in Grimsby who just want to have a drink and don’t think life is worth living unless you’re out partying, but it’s a small minority. As a taxi driver, I’m meeting and greeting people in Grimsby all the time, and I’ve come across people exactly like Nobby and his family and friends, but I’ve also come across doctors, lawyers, explorers, scientists, actors and musicians. I would recommend that everyone goes to see it because it’s a great film. Less than one-tenth of the film is actually about Grimsby, and most people are sensible enough to know that this film focuses on one particular type of person and that not everybody in Grimsby is like that. I was brought up on a council estate in Grimsby, but I was brought up properly and working was the only way to get on. I don’t think any of us knew anything about benefits when I was growing up. You just had to get a job and it was as simple as that. I don’t think there’s any snobbery in the film. It was actually heartwarming. Nobby is a family man and he is loyal to his wife and kids, and loyal to his brother. The plot is about him giving up his adoption place so that his younger brother can have a nice life, so he’s a good character, not a lowlife. I think anybody would warm to Nobby because his heart is in the right place and, in the end, he’s always doing the right thing. ‘The accents weren’t from the local area’ Rose Kelly, 55, operations manager at Grimsby leisure centre I was really pleasantly surprised. I thought it was going to be brash and crude and not pleasant to watch at all, but it was very funny. People at work kept saying: “Oh, what have you let yourself in for?” and it wouldn’t be something that I would usually choose to go and see. But I came out smiling and it really had that feelgood factor. I didn’t find it offensive at all. You could have named the film after any town in this country and people would have said it wasn’t very complimentary to that town because every town has a bad area. It really could have been set in any backstreet area of any town. I don’t think the fact that it was set in Grimsby affected my enjoyment of the film at all. Having lived in Grimsby all my life, I could tell that it wasn’t actually filmed in Grimsby. The accents weren’t from the local area. It was just a really fun film, but the thing that stood out to me was the sense of family values. Although the characters had supposedly come from the rough area of Grimsby, they still had that family bond between them. I’ll also always remember the scene where they hide inside a live female elephant and then another elephant decides to mate with it. I laughed a lot at that. ‘It’s too daft to attack Grimsby’ Steve Hipkins, 59, head of Grimsby libraries It is probably the most ridiculous film I’ve ever seen in my life. It was complete and utter nonsense, but – I have to admit – it was quite funny. It certainly wouldn’t be everybody’s cup of tea and it’s exceedingly crude, but you’ve just got to relax and enjoy it. The question here in Grimsby is, well, does it attack Grimsby? But it’s simply too daft to attack Grimsby. It mocks everything. It mocks Grimsby, it mocks working-class people, it mocks the establishment. I think the person it mocks the most – and if I were his lawyer I’d be asking questions – is Liam Gallagher. Because Baron Cohen’s character is supposed to be a Grimsby lad, but he’s not. He’s a 1990s Mancunian, like Gallagher. They even play Oasis songs halfway through. The character has a Mancunian accent, too; it isn’t a Grimsby accent. His wife also sounds American, and you don’t hear too many Americans in Grimsby. I was trying to work out which bits of the film were actually filmed in Grimsby. They had made an attempt to make the streets look as though they were in Grimsby, but I don’t think they were. There was a pub scene which was a 1960s pub that I do know in Grimsby, but all the dock scenes were filmed in London. The railway station in the film isn’t Grimsby railway station. It had an electric line, and there’s no electric line in Grimsby. Probably the only reason it is set in Grimsby is that the name has the word “grim” in it. It could have been set in Scunthorpe, which sounds like “scum”, or Hull, which rhymes with “dull”. The trouble is that, ultimately, these sorts of northern, poor, Benefits Street stereotypes do stick with people. Whether or not it puts off investors, I don’t know. But it might contribute to the general idea that the south is more affluent and that is where people should be investing in business, rather than the north. It is possible to find deeper meaning in the film? It is about two brothers being separated when they are young boys, with one going to an affluent family and one going into care in Grimsby, so it could be seen as being about the inequality that comes from your environment and your upbringing. But I think it’s probably too daft for that, really. • Alan, Rose and Steve watched Grimsby at the Parkway Cinema in Cleethorpes.
Economists overwhelmingly reject Brexit in boost for Cameron Nine out of 10 of the country’s top economists working across academia, the City, industry, small businesses and the public sector believe the British economy will be harmed by Brexit, according to the biggest survey of its kind ever conducted. A poll commissioned for the and carried out by Ipsos MORI, which drew responses from more than 600 economists, found 88% saying an exit from the EU and the single market would most likely damage Britain’s growth prospects over the next five years. A striking 82% of the economists who responded thought there would probably be a negative impact on household incomes over the next five years in the event of a Leave vote, with 61% thinking unemployment would rise. Those surveyed were members of the profession’s most respected representative bodies, the Royal Economic Society and the Society of Business Economists, and all who replied did so voluntarily. Paul Johnson, director of the independent Institute for Fiscal Studies, said the findings, from a survey unprecedented in its scale, showed an extraordinary level of unity. “For a profession known to agree about little, it is pretty remarkable to see this degree of consensus about anything,” Johnson said. “It no doubt reflects the level of agreement among many economists about the benefits of free trade and the costs of uncertainty for economic growth.” The poll also found a majority of respondents – 57% – held the view that a vote for Brexit on 23 June would blow a hole in economic growth, cutting GDP by more than 3% over the next five years. Just 5% thought that there would probably be a positive impact. The economists were also overwhelmingly pessimistic about the long-term economic impact of leaving the EU and the single market. Some 72% said that a vote to leave would most likely have a negative impact on growth for 10-20 years. Just 4% of respondents who thought Brexit would mostly likely have a negative impact on GDP over the initial five years said it would have a positive effect over the longer term. The findings – which come as 37 faith leaders write in a letter to the warning that Brexit will damage the causes of peace and the fight against poverty – will bolster David Cameron and George Osborne, who have both argued strongly that the economy will be hit hard in the event of Brexit. But the prime minister and chancellor have been criticised by the Michael Gove and Boris Johnson-led Leave campaign, which has claimed they are trying to scare the electorate and are buying into the establishment views of EU-funded international organisations. Last week Vote Leave accused the Institute for Fiscal Studies of being a “paid-up propaganda arm” of the European Union after it said that leaving the EU would result in an extra two years of austerity. The main reasons cited by economists as to why the UK would suffer were “loss of access to the single market” (67%) and “increased uncertainty leading to reduced investment” (66%). The leading Leave campaigner Michael Gove has said Britain should leave the single market as well as the EU. Economists working in the public sector tended to be slightly less negative about the economic impacts of leaving the EU than average. Non-UK citizens living in the UK were more likely to think a vote to leave would most likely have a negative impact on GDP over five years (96%) compared with British or Irish economists living in the UK (86%). By contrast, relatively few economists have publicly come out saying that leaving the EU would be good for British growth, and only a handful have signed up in support of the pro-Brexit group Economists for Britain. Most studies of the impact on Britain’s economy of a decision to quit the EU show the uncertainty will hit growth in the short term and the loss of access to the EU’s single market will damage growth for decades to come. The International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development and the UK’s National Institute of Economic and Social Research agree that there will be a loss of output as foreign investment shrivels and international businesses and banks shift work to the continent. Any cuts to migration would also have a huge impact on growth. The Treasury, which has predicted Brexit would cost each household £4,300 by 2030 in lost output and extra taxes, has gone further with warnings that house prices will tumble and pensions values collapse by £300bn. Economists for Brexit, who base their forecasts on a model developed by the Cardiff University professor and arch-monetarist Patrick Minford, argue that a fall in sterling, a bonfire of labour protections and the abolition of import tariffs will boost trade after a brief period of uncertainty. The free market group has said job losses in areas of the economy protected by the EU, such as agriculture and manufacturing, will be more than made up for by a booming services sector. Analysis released by the IFS last week showed that leaving the EU in the vote on 23 June would lead to a £40bn hole in the public finances. The Stronger In campaign fronted by Cameron said this would lead to spending cuts of at least £15.9bn to the NHS – equivalent to 200,000 doctors, 487,000 nurses or 37 hospitals. It would also mean £7.6bn of cuts to education, equivalent to 395,000 teachers, 393 new schools, or 2.8 million primary school places. In total, 639 respondents completed an online survey, sent to non-student members of the Royal Economic Society and the Society of Business Economists, between 19 and 27 May 2016: a response rate of 17%. Data is unweighted and reported figures should only be taken as representative of the views of those who responded
A timeline of Donald Trump's alleged sexual misconduct: who, when and what At least 24 women have accused the Republican presidential nominee, Donald Trump, of inappropriate sexual behavior in multiple incidents spanning the last 30 years. Of those, 12 have accused Trump of sexual misconduct, including groping and kissing them without permission During the second presidential debate, Trump denied ever having kissed and touched women without their consent, following the release of a 2005 video in which Trump bragged about how he could grab women’s genitals and “just start kissing” women with impunity because he was famous. “Have you ever done those things?” moderator Anderson Cooper asked in the second debate. “No I have not,” Trump said. His statement arguably opened the floodgates. Trump has denied the women’s accusations, dismissing them as “lies” and “fabrications”. In the final presidential debate, Trump suggested that the rush of accusations was either orchestrated by the Clinton campaign or the product of women seeking “10 minutes of fame”. He previously called his accusers “horrible, horrible liars”. Here is a timeline of allegations of inappropriate behavior by Trump, many of which have only been made public in recent days. 1980s Who: Jessica Leeds When the allegations became public: 12 October 2016 When the incident allegedly took place: around 1980 What allegedly happened: The now 74-year-old told the New York Times that Trump groped her on a plane after she sat next to him in a first-class cabin during a business trip to New York more than 30 years ago. She says Trump lifted the armrest between them and then touched her breasts and attempted to put his hands up her skirt. “It was an assault,” she told the Times. “He was like an octopus … His hands were everywhere.” Trump’s response: Trump denies the incident took place. “This entire article is fiction, and for the New York Times to launch a completely false, coordinated character assassination against Mr Trump on a topic like this is dangerous,” said the Trump campaign in a statement. His lawyers have sent a letter to the New York Times demanding a retraction and threatening further legal action. The New York Times is standing by its story. Who: Ivana Trump When the allegations became public: 1993 When the incident allegedly took place: 1989 What allegedly happened: Trump’s first wife Ivana said that she had been raped by her then husband after an argument, according to her divorce deposition, a claim which was reported in a 1993 book called Lost Tycoon: The Many Lives of Donald J Trump. As a condition of her divorce settlement, Ivana is not allowed to comment publicly on her marriage without Trump’s permission. The book was printed with a statement from Ivana clarifying the incident: [O]n one occasion during 1989, Mr Trump and I had marital relations in which he behaved very differently toward me than he had during our marriage. As a woman, I felt violated, as the love and tenderness, which he normally exhibited towards me, was absent. I referred to this as a ‘rape’, but I do not want my words to be interpreted in a literal or criminal sense. Trump’s response: “You’re talking about the frontrunner for the GOP, presidential candidate, as well as a private individual who never raped anybody,” Michael Cohen, special counsel at the Trump Organization, told the Daily Beast when it reported on the comments in July 2015. He also threatened to sue if the Daily Beast published a story on the allegations, although no legal action took place. 1990s Who: Unnamed young girl When the allegations became public: 12 October 2016 When the incident allegedly took place: 1992 What allegedly happened: Video from a 1992 Entertainment Tonight Christmas special emerged, in which Trump, who was 46 at the time, is heard talking to a young child. Trump asks if she is going up the escalator. When she tells him she is, he responds – and it’s not clear exactly who he’s talking to, as Trump’s face doesn’t appear onscreen – “I’m going to be dating her in 10 years. Can you believe it?” Trump’s response: Trump has not spoken about the incident and did not respond to the ’s request for comment. Who: Jill Harth When the allegations became public: 1997 When the incident allegedly took place: 1992-93 What allegedly happened: Harth, a makeup artist, gave a presentation to Trump at his offices in Trump Tower with her then romantic (and business) partner George Houraney. She said Trump made advances on her, including groping her under the table during a dinner the following night at the Plaza Hotel. In January 1993, Harth and Houraney travelled to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property in Florida to celebrate their business deal. During a tour of the property, Trump pulled Harth into one of the children’s bedrooms, she claimed. “He pushed me up against the wall, and had his hands all over me and tried to get up my dress again,” Harth said in an interview with the in July, “and I had to physically say: ‘What are you doing? Stop it.’ It was a shocking thing to have him do this because he knew I was with George, he knew they were in the next room. And how could he be doing this when I’m there for business?” Harth filed a lawsuit against Trump in 1997 alleging the harassment, which she later dropped. The pair then briefly dated in 1998. Trump’s response: “Mr Trump denies each and every statement made by Ms Harth as these 24-year-old allegations lack any merit or veracity,” his campaign said in July. Who: Kristin Anderson When the allegations became public: 14 October 2016 When the incident allegedly took place: early 1990s What allegedly happened: Anderson told the Washington Post she was at China Club, a Manhattan nightclub, when Trump put his hand up her skirt while she sat on a couch speaking with friends. “This is the vivid part for me. The person on my right, who unbeknownst to me at that time was Donald Trump, put their hand up my skirt. He did touch my vagina through my underwear,” said Anderson. “As I push the hand away, I got up and I turned around and I see these eyebrows. Very distinct eyebrows of Donald Trump.” Anderson noted that her friends also identified the man as Trump. Trump’s response: “Mr Trump strongly denies this phoney allegation by someone looking to get some free publicity,” said spokeswoman Hope Hicks in a statement. “It is totally ridiculous.” At a rally in North Carolina, Trump appeared to reference the event. “One came out recently [that said] I was sitting alone in a club, I don’t sit alone in a club … it’s unbelievable,” he said. Who: Lisa Boyne When the allegations became public: 13 October 2016 When the incident allegedly took place: 1996 What allegedly happened: Boyne, now a health food entrepreneur, told the Huffington Post she witnessed Trump looking up women’s skirts and commenting on their underwear and genitalia at a dinner. Then 25 and a thinktank employee, Boyne said she was invited to dinner with Trump, John Casablancas, the late modeling agent, and other women. Seated at a semi-circular table with Trump on one end and Casablancas on the other, she said the men refused to get up to allow the women to leave the table and instead made them walk across it. Trump “stuck his head right underneath their skirts” though he didn’t do that to her because she was not a model, she said. One woman who was at the dinner, when contacted by the Huffington Post, confirmed it took place but did not recall this behavior from Trump. A roommate of Boyne’s denied that she called her that night. Trump’s response: Hope Hicks, a spokeswoman for Trump, told the Huffington Post: “Mr Trump never heard of this woman and would never do that.” Who: Cathy Heller When the allegations became public: 15 October 2016 When the incident allegedly took place: 1997 What allegedly happened: Heller was attending a Mother’s Day brunch at Mar-a-Lago when, she said, she met Trump and he immediately kissed her on the lips, fighting her when she pulled away. “He took my hand, and grabbed me, and went for the lips,” said Heller. She leaned backwards to avoid the kiss. “And he said, ‘Oh, come on.’ He was strong. And he grabbed me and went for my mouth and went for my lips.” Trump then kissed her on the side of her mouth, she claimed. “He was pissed. He couldn’t believe a woman would pass up the opportunity,” she said. Trump’s response: “There is no way that something like this would have happened in a public place on Mother’s Day at Mr Trump’s resort,” said spokesman Jason Miller. “It would have been the talk of Palm Beach for the past two decades.” Who: Temple Taggart When the allegations became public: 14 May 2016 When the incident allegedly took place: 1997 What allegedly happened: The former Miss Utah told the New York Times that when she was a 21-year-old pageant contestant, Trump kissed her on the mouth when she was introduced to him. “He kissed me directly on the lips. I thought, ‘Oh my God, gross.’ He was married to Marla Maples at the time. I think there were a few other girls that he kissed on the mouth. I was like, ‘Wow, that’s inappropriate,” she told the newspaper. Trump also kissed her on the mouth during a meeting at Trump Tower, she claimed, where he recommended the 21-year-old lie about her age to advance her career. “We’re going to have to tell them you’re 17,” she recalled him saying. Trump’s response: Trump disputed the allegation, with the New York Times reporting he said “he is reluctant to kiss strangers on the lips”. Who: Mariah Billado and four other anonymous former Miss Teen USA contestants When the allegations became public: 12 October 2016 When the incident allegedly took place: 1997 What allegedly happened: Former 1997 Miss Teen USA contestants said Trump walked into the dressing room while contestants, some as young as 15, were changing. Billado recalled that Trump, the new owner of the contest, announced : “Don’t worry, ladies, I’ve seen it all before.” “I remember putting on my dress really quick because I was like, ‘Oh my God, there’s a man in here’,” the former Miss Vermont Teen USA told Buzzfeed. Trump’s response: Trump did not respond to Buzzfeed’s report and did not respond to the ’s request for comment. Who: Karena Virginia When the allegations became public: 20 October 2016 When the incident allegedly took place: 1998 What allegedly happened: Virginia, a yoga instructor and life coach, was waiting for a car after the US Open in New York, when, she said, Trump touched her breast. “He was with a few other men. I was quite surprised when I overheard him talking to the other men about me. ‘Hey, look at this one,’ he said. ‘We haven’t seen her before. Look at those legs.’ As though I was an object rather than a person,” recalled Virginia, who said she had never met Trump before. In a press conference with her lawyer, Gloria Allred, she said Trump then walked up to her, “reached his right arm and grabbed my right arm. Then his hand touched the right side of my breast. “I was in shock. I flinched. ‘Don’t you know who I am? Don’t you know who I am?’ That’s what he said to me. I felt intimidated and I felt powerless.” Virginia was 28 when the alleged incident occurred. Trump’s response: “Discredited political operative Gloria Allred, in another coordinated, publicity seeking attack with the Clinton campaign, will stop at nothing to smear Mr Trump. Give me a break. Voters are tired of these circus-like antics and reject these fictional stories and the clear efforts to benefit Hillary Clinton,” said Jessica Ditto, Trump’s deputy communications director. 2000s Who: Bridget Sullivan When the allegations became public: 18 May 2016 When the incident allegedly took place: 2000 What allegedly happened: While she was competing as Miss New Hampshire at the 2000 Miss USA contest, Sullivan said, Trump, then owner of the contest, came backstage while contestants were changing. “The time that he walked through the dressing rooms was really shocking. We were all naked,” she told Buzzfeed. Trump’s response: Spokeswoman Hope Hicks said in May the allegations were “totally false”. However, in a 2005 appearance on Howard Stern’s radio show unearthed by CNN, Trump bragged about walking into contestants’ dressing rooms at pageants. “Well, I’ll tell you the funniest is that before a show, I’ll go backstage and everyone’s getting dressed, and everything else, and you know, no men are anywhere, and I’m allowed to go in because I’m the owner of the pageant and therefore I’m inspecting it,” Trump told Stern. “You know, I’m inspecting because I want to make sure that everything is good. You know, the dresses. ‘Is everyone OK?’ You know, they’re standing there with no clothes. ‘Is everybody OK?’ And you see these incredible looking women, and so, I sort of get away with things like that.” Who: Tasha Dixon When the allegations became public: 12 October 2016 When the incident allegedly took place: 2001 What allegedly happened: The former Miss Arizona told Los Angeles’s CBS affiliate Trump walked through the Miss USA dressing room in 2001 while contestants were naked and changing. “He just came strolling right in,” Dixon said. “There was no second to put a robe on or any sort of clothing or anything. Some girls were topless. Others girls were naked. Our first introduction to him was when we were at the dress rehearsal and half-naked changing into our bikinis.” Trump’s response: His campaign released a statement denying the allegation: These accusations have no merit and have already been disproven by many other individuals who were present. When you see questionable attacks like this magically put out there in the final month of a presidential campaign, you have to ask yourself what the political motivations are and why the media is pushing it. Who: Unnamed Miss USA 2001 contestant When the allegations became public: 13 October 2016 When the incident allegedly took place: 2001 What allegedly happened: Trump walked into the shared dressing room of two Miss USA 2001 contestants while they were changing, even though security warned him the women were naked, one of the women said in an interview with the . “Mr Trump just barged right in, didn’t say anything, stood there and stared at us,” she recalled. “He didn’t walk in and say, ‘Oh, I’m so sorry, I was looking for someone,’” she added. “He walked in, he stood and he stared. He was doing it because he knew that he could.” Trump’s response: The Trump campaign did not respond to the ’s request for comment. Who: Mindy McGillivray When the allegation became public: 12 October 2016 When the incident allegedly took place: 24 January 2003 What allegedly happened: McGillivray told the Palm Beach Post Trump groped her while she was assisting a photographer friend working at an event at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. Ken Davidoff, who was Mar-a-Lago’s official photographer, said he remembered McGillivray telling him on the night: “Donald just grabbed my ass!” She recalled the incident to Palm Beach Post. “All of a sudden I felt a grab, a little nudge. I think it’s Ken’s camera bag, that was my first instinct. I turn around and there’s Donald. He sort of looked away quickly. I quickly turned back, facing Ray Charles, and I’m stunned,” said McGillivray. Trump’s response: The Trump campaign did not respond to the ’s request for comment. What: Access Hollywood leaked footage from 2005 When the allegation became public: 8 October 2016 When the incident allegedly took place: 2005 What allegedly happened: Leaked tapes from Access Hollywood in the Washington Post reveal Trump, boasting to then host Billy Bush, that being famous means he can touch and kiss women without their permission. Actor Arianne Zucker arrives to take Trump and Bush on a tour of the set of Days of Our Lives, and the men start speaking about her. She cannot hear them. “I’ve got to use some Tic Tacs, just in case I start kissing her,” Trump said. “You know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful – I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait.” “And when you’re a star, they let you do it,” Trump adds. “You can do anything.” “Whatever you want,” said Bush. “Grab them by the pussy,” Trump said. “You can do anything.” Trump’s response: Trump recorded an apology video, published on social media, saying he “regretted” the comments. “Anyone who knows me knows these words don’t reflect who I am,” he said. “I said it, I was wrong, and I apologize.” During the subsequent presidential debate he dismissed the comments as “locker-room talk” and said he had never kissed or grabbed women without their consent. Who: Rachel Crooks When the allegations became public: 12 October 2016 When the incident allegedly took place: 2005 What allegedly happened: Crooks, then a 22-year-old receptionist at real estate firm Bayrock Group, whose offices are in Trump Tower, said she introduced herself to Trump outside the building’s elevator one morning. Trump began kissing her cheeks, and then “kissed me directly on the mouth”, she told the Times. “It was so inappropriate … I was so upset that he thought I was so insignificant that he could do that,” said Crooks. Trump’s response: Trump’s campaign manager said he intended to sue the New York Times over the story and had asked for a retraction. In a tweet and at a rally in Florida, Trump repeated that the story was “a total fabrication”. Who: Natasha Stoynoff When the allegations became public: 12 October 2016 When the incident allegedly took place: December 2005 What allegedly happened: People Magazine reporter Natasha Stoynoff said she was sent to Mar-a-Lago to interview Trump for a story about his first wedding anniversary with Melania, where he forced himself on to her. “We walked into that room alone, and Trump shut the door behind us. I turned around, and within seconds he was pushing me against the wall and forcing his tongue down my throat,” wrote Stoynoff. “You know we’re going to have an affair, don’t you?” she said Trump told her. He then turned up at the salon where she was due to get a massage the following day. Trump’s response: At a Florida rally, Trump denied the incident took place, following an earlier tweet: Who: Ninni Laaksonen When the allegations became public: 27 October 2016 When the incident allegedly took place: 2006 What allegedly happened: Laaksonen, a former Miss Finland in the Miss Universe competition, said Trump groped her during a photoshoot for an appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman. “Trump stood right next to me and suddenly he squeezed my butt. He really grabbed my butt,” she told Ilta-Sanomat, a Finnish newspaper. “I don’t think anybody saw it, but I flinched and thought: ‘What is happening?’” Laaksonen said: “Somebody told me there that Trump liked me because I looked like Melania when she was younger. It left me disgusted.” Trump’s response: The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Who: Jessica Drake When the allegations became public: 22 October 2016 When the incident allegedly took place: 2006 What allegedly happened: Drake, a pornographic film actor and sex educator, said Trump kissed her and two female friends on the lips without permission and then offered her $10,000 to have dinner with him and attend a party, after they met at a golf event. “He asked me for my phone number, which I gave to him,” she said at a press conference. “Later that evening, he invited me to his room. I said I didn’t feel right going alone, so two other women came with me. In the penthouse suite, I met Donald again. When we entered the room he grabbed each of us tightly in a hug and kissed each of us on the lips without asking for permission. He was wearing pyjamas.” A man later called on Trump’s behalf asking her to return to his room, she said, and she refused. Trump then called her. “Donald then asked me ‘What do you want?’ ‘How much?’” said Drake. She declined, she said, and a man called and offered her $10,000 and the use of Trump’s private jet. Trump’s response: After Drake came forward, Trump issued a dismissive statement. He also dismissed all claims against him in an interview with New Hampshire Today: “These are stories that are made up, this is total fiction. You’ll find out that, in the years to come, these women that stood up, it was all fiction.” He then specifically mentioned Drake, saying sarcastically he was sure no one had harassed her before: “And she’s a porn star. You know, this one that came out recently, ‘He grabbed me and he grabbed me on the arm.’ Oh, I’m sure she’s never been grabbed before.” Who: Summer Zervos When the allegations became public: 14 October 2016 When the incident allegedly took place: 2007 What allegedly happened: Zervos, a contestant on The Apprentice, accused Trump of groping and kissing her on two occasions. During a meeting at Trump Tower, she said, Trump greeted Zervos and said goodbye to her by kissing her on the mouth. Later in the year, she said, she met Trump for dinner in Los Angeles, and met him at his hotel beforehand. “He came to me and started kissing me open-mouthed and he pulled me towards him,” said Zervos. “He then grabbed my shoulder and began kissing me again very aggressively and placed his hand on my breast … he walked up, grabbed my hand, and walked me into the bedroom.” After she rebuked him, she said, he thrust his genitals towards her. Trump’s response: In a statement, Trump said he “vaguely remembered” Zervos but “never met her at a hotel or greeted her inappropriately a decade ago”. 2010s Who: Unnamed woman When the allegations became public: 8 October 2016 When the incident allegedly took place: 2010 What allegedly happened: A friend of CNN anchor Erin Burnett recounted the story to Burnett about a meeting in a boardroom at Trump Tower where Trump tried to kiss her on the mouth. “Trump took Tic Tacs, suggested I take them also. He then leaned in, catching me off guard, and kissed me almost on lips. I was really freaked out,” the woman said, according to Burnett. “After, Trump asked me to come into his office alone. Was really unsure what to do. … Figured I could handle myself. Anyway, once in his office he kept telling me how special I am and gave me his cell, asked me to call him. I ran the hell out of there,” Burnett reported the woman saying. Trump’s response: Trump did not respond to CNN’s report and did not respond to the ’s request for comment. Who: Cassandra Searles When the allegations became public: 17 June2016 When the incident allegedly took place: 2013 What allegedly happened: Searles, Miss Washington State 2013, posted a photo to Facebook of Trump posing with her and her fellow contestants from the Miss USA 2013 contest. “He probably doesn’t want me telling the story about that time he continually grabbed my ass and invited me to his hotel room,” Searles wrote in the comments under the photo, reported Yahoo. “Do y’all remember that one time we had to do our onstage introductions, but this one guy treated us like cattle and made us do it again because we didn’t look him in the eyes? Do you also remember when he then proceeded to have us lined up so he could get a closer look at his property?” she wrote alongside the photo. Other contestants chimed in agreeing with Searles, with one noting her story was “so extremely true and scary”. Trump’s response: Trump did not respond to Yahoo’s report and did not respond to the ’s request for comment.
'Mental health is not only about darkness and depression' It was James Routledge’s own battle with anxiety while winding down his first startup that led him to launch Sanctus. He was also experiencing stress, panic attacks and sleepless nights, but didn’t feel he could confide in his new colleagues. “I didn’t talk about it, I didn’t want to admit weakness or vulnerability,” he says. Through Sanctus, Routledge offers coaching sessions to businesses to help them improve their approach to mental health. In a small business environment, he says it’s the founders who must set the precedent. “Create a culture where vulnerability is accepted and it’s OK for people to say: ‘I’m not feeling so good, this didn’t go so well or I’m feeling a little bit stressed.’ Mental health is not only about the darkness and depression, that’s like only talking about obesity and disease in physical health.” A report from Business in the Community (BITC) found that mental health is still shrouded in a culture of silence and stigma in UK workplaces. Of the 20,000 people surveyed, three in four said they had experienced symptoms of poor mental health at some point in their lives. At that scale, the impact on business is, unsurprisingly, significant: the estimated total cost to employers is £26bn per year, according to the Centre for Mental Health. But its research shows that £8bn of that could be saved by employers taking simple steps to manage mental health in the workplace. The BITC report reveals a clear discrepancy between how workers and business leaders think the issue is handled: 60% of board members felt their organisation dealt well with mental health, but only 11% of workers had recently discussed mental health with their line manager. So why are employees keeping their difficulties hidden? “I think there’s a perception that someone with mental health issues is weak and that they will use it to not work,” says Natalie Weaving, director at digital marketing agency, The Typeface Group. Weaving heads up a small team of three employees and three contractors. Among them is copywriter Shannon Valentine, who is 20. Valentine has mental health conditions including anxiety, depression and obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), but, unlike many others, she regularly talks to her boss about her mental health. Valentine told Weaving about her mental health conditions after a few weeks in the job. Valentine was coming off antidepressants and was experiencing physical side effects. She says that Weaving noticed and guessed the cause. “I have a tendency to worry about silly things, which she noticed too,” Valentine says. Now she feels comfortable discussing it in the office and says practical changes, such as flexible hours, are a great help. Today, if Valentine is going through a rough patch, she and Weaving agree on one of her preferred coping mechanisms, whether that’s taking the day off and making up the time at a later date, or simply going for a walk. “Working with Shannon has really opened our eyes,” Weaving adds. It should be noted that under the Equality Act 2010, employers can’t ask a candidate about their health until they have offered them a job. However, managers need to be open about mental health if they are to effectively support staff, says Madeleine McGivern, head of workplace wellbeing programmes at mental health charity Mind. “When someone starts in a role [it’s a good idea to have] a conversation about what keeps them well at work and what signs to look out for if they’re doing less well, so that people can step in early [to help]”. Encouraging all staff to talk about their mental health works well for Stuart Gray. He owns four small businesses based in Warwick, including Portus Consulting, all of which are in the employee benefits industry. The number of staff in his businesses range from 12 to 45. During regular one-to-one meetings, line managers in Gray’s businesses ask staff how stressed work is making them feel on a scale of one to 10. “It’s about trying to get them to open up,” Gray adds. If a staff member feels stressed at a level of seven or above then the manager will try to get to the bottom of why that is and see if their workload needs to be lightened. Additionally, Gray’s management team aims to pick up any clues that an employee might be experiencing mental health difficulties, from a lack of engagement to a long-term change in mood. His line managers have taken part in training to help them spot mental health conditions in staff. Developing this awareness helped Gray’s managers identify that a senior member of staff had depression. “They were quite emotional on occasion, particularly if it was a really busy day and there was pressure on a deadline. My CEO explored the situation and it wasn’t work that was the problem, it was stuff that was happening outside that was affecting their ability to work effectively and cope with that.” Due to the size of the business, and an insurance policy that covers days lost to ill health, Gray was able to support the staff member with around three weeks of paid leave. He adds that all company projects are a team effort, and other staff were able to pick up the work that was left behind. McGivern says that providing support doesn’t need to be costly. It’s most important that there’s a culture of communication, she says. She does suggest investing in training for staff, through programmes such as Mental Health First Aid (for which course costs can range from £77 to £300 per person) to teach people how to identify, understand and help a person who may be developing a mental health issue. Simple adjustments to workplace culture such as approving flexible hours, making sure staff take their breaks and encouraging them to get involved in decision-making and planning their own workload as much as possible can all help better support the team, no matter the size of the organisation. “You don’t need to have an HR department to support someone with a mental health issue, but you do need to have line managers who are aware of mental health problems,” McGivern adds. “It’s a bit of a misnomer that people who have mental health problems can’t function in fast-paced or stressful environments. In fact, a lot of people, with or without mental health problems, thrive in those environments because small amounts of stress can heighten our performance. It’s just about giving people support.” Sign up to become a member of the Small Business Network here for more advice, insight and best practice direct to your inbox.
Motörhead's Bomber – watch an exclusive track from Lemmy's last tour Up until his death in December 2015, Lemmy Kilmister continued to front those thunderous titans of rock’n’roll, Motörhead. “For as long as I can walk the few yards from the back to the front of the stage without a stick,” he told the in August last year. “Or even if I do have to use a stick.” In November 2015, UDR Records made the decision to record Motörhead’s two sold-out shows at the Zenith in Munich, Germany; footage that would turn out out to be the last documentation of the group performing live. Following Lemmy’s death on 28 December, two days after he was diagnosed with an extremely aggressive cancer, drummer Mikkey Dee confirmed that without their frontman and bassist, the band would no longer continue. Scheduled for a June release, Clean Your Clock – a live DVD, CD, Vinyl and Blu-ray album – captures the bone-rattling impact of the Motörhead live experience and features a career retrospective, including Stay Clean, Metropolis, When the Sky Comes Looking for You, Ace of Spades and Bomber, an exclusive video of which you can watch below. • This article was first launched on 29 April 2016 and temporarily removed because of a rights issue with the video. It was relaunched on 3 May 2016.
Emma Stone and Alicia Vikander set for rival Agatha Christie biopics The Danish Girl star Alicia Vikander and The Amazing Spider-Man’s Emma Stone have both been lined up to play a young Agatha Christie in biopics being developed at rival Hollywood studios. According to the Hollywood Reporter, Vikander has been approached by Sony to play the celebrated crime author in her formative years as a “proto-feminist” unhappy with traditional wife-and-mother expectations. Stone, on the other hand, has been pencilled in for Paramount’s take on Christie’s “missing” 11 days in 1926 – a subject already covered in Michael Apted’s 1979 film Agatha, which starred Vanessa Redgrave and Dustin Hoffman. The resurgence of interest in Christie follows a flurry of interest from film-makers in getting film versions of the writer’s work off the ground. A forthcoming adaptation of her 1934 yarn Murder on the Orient Express has Kenneth Branagh in the director’s chair and Angelina Jolie in the cast, is due to start shooting this summer and will be released in 2017. A version of the 1939 mystery And Then There Were None was successfully aired on BBC1 at Christmas, and leading British film compnay Working Title are moving ahead with a feature film adaptation to be directed by The Imitation Game’s Morten Tyldum. However, a Julian Fellowes-scripted adaptation of Crooked House appears to have stalled, after an announcement in 2012 that Possession director Neil LaBute was on board. The current activity around Christie’s work is ascribed to Acorn Media’s purchase of a 64% stake in the Christie estate in 2013 from entertainment company Chorion, who themselves had bought the rights to Christie’s work in 1998. Chorion had overseen the reworking of the Miss Marple stories for TV – a series which began in 2004 – but Acorn, who were the DVD distributors for Marple, are thought to have ambitions in the feature film arena. The last set of major big-screen adaptations arrived in the mid-1970s, with a cameo-studded cast coming together on Murder on the Orient Express in 1974 and Death on the Nile in 1978. Any film adaptation of the writer’s work will also have to secure the approval of Christie’s descendants, who are thought to hold a 36% stake in the company that holds licensing rights.
The EU: An Obituary by John R Gillingham – the neoliberal case against the European Union A spectre is haunting Europe – the spectre of disintegration. The European Union, argues John R Gillingham, is on the verge of “collapse”, defended only by an alliance of old elites. While we focus on Brexit (which he confidently predicts in a postscript), the issues imperfectly covered in his book suggest that it is a parochial distraction from the much bigger question of how Europe is to be organised in the 21st century. We are at a “turning point” in European history. Euroscepticism creates some strange bedfellows. Many rightwing nationalists view the EU as a Trojan horse of unstoppable multiculturalism. Some on the left see its focus on the single market as institutionalised “neoliberalism” and austerity. And some “neoliberals” such as Gillingham see it as a relic of the postwar decades that binds free markets in red tape. Gillingham is not a typical author for the radical-left publishing house Verso – presumably at least one commissioning editor there has Eurosceptic leanings. From all sorts of angles, the EU seems to be the sick man of Europe. Wherever one sits on the political spectrum, many of Gillingham’s charges against today’s EU are fair. It is bloated by bureaucracy and complex inefficiency; it has little democracy and even less transparency; its defence of the single currency has economically punished tens of millions of Europeans; it has benefited and subsidised big corporations and big agribusiness while often neglecting social justice and civil liberties; it has been impotent in Bosnia, Kosovo and Ukraine; and it has let thousands of refugees drown and deported even more. Such an indictment has left even devotees of the European project disillusioned with the status quo. But Gillingham is no impartial judge: his criticism of what he calls the “Eurocult” lurches from historical analysis to ideological bias. His EU is something of a Schrödinger’s cat. The “obituary” of the title deems it already dead, but at different points it is instead “defunct”, “unravelling”, an institution whose history “has run its course”, or which is on its “last chance” and could yet be saved. This is a reflection of both real uncertainty and the disjointed nature of the book. Much of Gillingham’s “obituary” focuses on the EU’s 20th-century history, condensing some of the narrative of his much larger history of European integration, published in 2006 (which he frequently footnotes). His discussion of the 1940s and 50s features an alphabet soup of organisations from the EDC (European Defence Community) to the EFTA (European Free Trade Association) to the IRA (International Ruhr Authority). Today’s EU was – and is – not the only one possible. He offers two major arguments on the EU’s history. First, that the impetus for integration has always come from outside forces: US foreign policy; the Soviet threat; the collapse of the Bretton Woods financial system; globalisation; technology. The influence of these is often elided in a “myth” of the EU’s complicated origins. Second, he sees a battle between “neoliberalism” and interventionism, in particular in the clashes between Margaret Thatcher and long-time commission president Jacques Delors. His ideological preference for Thatcher’s policies strongly colours his history of the EU from the 1970s onwards. This bias is particularly pronounced in Gillingham’s treatment of the EU’s economic history, where he downplays successes: for example, his assessment of the economic impact of the single market is overpessimistic, although expectations of it were unrealistically high, and have been altered by economic change. He is right to criticise the slow integration of communications, energy, and services – less emphasised in the original single market, but now 75% of the EU economy – and he laments a possible retrenchment to a “patchwork” of national markets. The answer to Europe’s slow growth and mass youth unemployment does not lie in re-erecting economic and social borders. Yet how could a single market work without European institutions to oversee it? Gillingham would prefer a “renationalised” continent knit together “through a network of purpose-based, practical, and results-oriented bilateral and multilateral agreements”, which sounds both utopian and even more Byzantine than the EU itself. More importantly, he simply wants much less regulation in general. He derides European environmental, food safety and privacy regulation as “shams” based on scare stories and anti-American protectionism. But in an age where corporations can exploit the gaps between nation states and globalising markets to evade tax, exploit workers and damage the environment, European citizens should realise national retrenchment and unfettered capitalism would be a toxic combination. Gillingham too often sees integration and “globalisation” as almost natural phenomena, the “exogenous” forces driving change in the world economy. They are not, however, inevitable processes, but reversible ones heavily influenced by institutions and their policies. It is wishful thinking to imagine that economic integration and political cooperation would continue smoothly after the demise of the EU. In the collective institutions’ ruins there would be many populist incentives and opportunities for nationalist posturing, protectionism and conflict, especially in the poorer parts of the continent with young, fragile democracies. The future of Europe cannot be mortgaged to a libertarian fantasy. Underlying all European economic questions is the ongoing saga of the euro. Many commentators would agree with Gillingham that monetary union has become the “master” of the EU, and that “Europe is now run by a bank board” (although Mario Draghi would say that if the Greeks and Germans now both dislike him he must be doing something right). It took the US well over a century to make its monetary union work, and Europe does not have that kind of time. We cannot, however, go back in time to undo European monetary union. Barry Eichengreen has argued that a eurozone breakup would precipitate “the mother of all financial crises”. As Gillingham notes, a fiscal transfer union to strengthen it is a political non-starter, but was the euro the EU’s “point of no return”? There are many reforms – banking union, debt restructuring, demand-side policies – that are possible. The single currency is not necessarily fatally flawed, and, even if it is, we must not, as Kevin O’Rourke has written, allow the baby of European integration to be thrown out with the euro bathwater. There is no doubt, however, that the EU’s handling of the crisis and its “democratic deficit” have, as Gillingham argues, discredited the idea of integration and stoked the fires of rightwing populism. The possible demise of free movement – Gillingham deems it a “major achievement” but sees the Schengen agreement as a “dead letter” – would be a body blow, cutting off the lifeblood of integration. Dismantling the flawed structure, however, would only encourage those negative forces, and tearing it down in favour of Gillingham’s proposed “mega markets” of “Schumpeterian creative destruction” would be ideological folly, a vice from which Europe suffered enough in the last century. Those who believe in a cooperative and shared Europe cannot let the EU sink under the mistakes of arrogant and remote leaders. It is not beyond the wit of Europeans to build shared institutions that are democratic, fair and functional. Gillingham writes that there is more at stake in writing the EU’s history than just “setting the record straight”, especially as the European project has too often been closed to “heretics and doubters”. He is right, which is why debates on its future must move beyond the binary biases of Eurosceptic and Europhile. The EU cannot go on as it is; but it must go on. Let us hope that reports of its death are exaggerated. • To order The EU for £10.39 (RRP £12.99) go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of £1.99.
Copy-and-paste songwriting for a switched-on world Over the last couple of years, there has been a terrible trend in pop music. It most commonly manifests itself in a dance-pop track that lifts a hook or refrain from a well-known song and – with the aid of mind-numbing repetition and a house beat – transforms it into something just far enough removed from its source material to be classed as an original. See 99 Souls’ The Girl Is Mine, which takes samples from Girl by Destiny’s Child and Brandy and Monica’s The Boy Is Mine to form something painfully derivative of both, or Duke Dumont’s No 1 hit I Got U from 2014, which took bits of Whitney Houston’s My Love Is Your Love, put them in a different order, and gave them to Kelli-Leigh to sing. Yet as dismal as the situation may seem, the success this half-arsed school of songwriting has enjoyed feels merely like a blip in the history of the sample, still the most significant and exciting characteristic of 21st-century pop music. Now – 30 years since hip-hop brought the technique to the mainstream – a new generation of artists are developing it into something less crude and more creative. But while musicians such as Kanye West continue to layer increasingly jarring samples densely and awkwardly into a new work, for others this age of allusion is materialising in another form. Hold Up – Beyoncé’s staggeringly frank bat-in-hand battlecry against the self-negation of infidelity – is a matryoshka doll of a song. It opens with its chorus, a bastardised dancehall version of the song Maps by 00s indie stalwarts the Yeah Yeah Yeahs; the famous “They don’t love you like I love you” refrain set over a dub rhythm and distant wailing horns, and bookended by the track’s title. For the track’s finale, Beyoncé bursts into Turn My Swag On by Soulja Boy, a song that was transformed into an R&B diva standard by Keri Hilson (which found fame in the UK thanks to Cher Lloyd’s 2011 X Factor audition – to this day probably the high-water mark of the Simon Cowell conglomerate’s output). That idea of singing a bit of somebody else’s song in the middle of yours (known technically as interpolation) might just be the future of pop music. After all, in a world where practically every new track feels like a haunted house beset by ghosts of melodies past, deliberately evoking another song seems like the audacious and self-aware thing to do. Suitably, a new generation of neo-soul and alt R&B wannabes are at it: 19-year-old singer Jorja Smith’s Blue Lights, for example, has her singing the bombastic hook from Dizzee Rascal’s Sirens as part of a sultry soul number, while 5050 by south London singer Ray Blk begins with a warped version of the “love me, love me” portion of the Cardigans’ Lovefool. Unlike the borrowed sentiments of the aforementioned electropop nightmares, these sung snatches are a way to enrich songs with the emotion and nostalgia (Dizzee Rascal is akin to Woody Guthrie for Generation Z) of the original songs. Although currently finding a home in new and inventive R&B, interpolation is a trend that traverses the genres. The Maps segment of Hold Up was originally created by Vampire Weekend’s Ezra Koenig, who had the idea to supplement the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ lyrics with the refrain “There’s no other God above you / what a wicked way to treat the man who loves you” (changed slightly for the Beyoncé version) and then set it over a plucked Andy Williams track (the segment was completed by Diplo). This cross-genre appropriation is characteristic of the pop-will-eat-itself way Koenig works in his indie songwriting, too: in Vampire Weekend’s 2014 track Step, Koenig sings the lyrics of Oakland rap group Souls of Mischief’s Step To My Girl to the tune of the song’s sampled sax melody, while Vampire Weekend’s most famous track, Oxford Comma, alludes to Lil Jon’s “to the window, to the wall” lyric. Unsurprisingly, rap continues to lead the charge too, with much grime locked in a vortex of references to other lyrics from the genre, while also lifting from other styles: Beenie Man’s Who Am I (Sim Simma) popped up, doomily reimagined, as the chorus to Section Boyz’ Bimma. Although currently there is little distinction made between straightforward sampling (taking a passage from somebody else’s recording and inserting it into your own) and interpolation, the latter does seem significantly different. It suggests not only total submersion in music – echoing the way some people now live their lives, thanks to portable devices that provide unlimited access to an unlimited catalogue of songs – but also the way music is absorbed into the cultural consciousness: in memorable snippets, melodies recreated in people’s heads and with their own voices. It also echoes the copy-and-paste methods of online identity assemblage on platforms such as Tumblr and Instagram, where the clever and cool reference is king. As this type of allusion-heavy songwriting prepares to dominate in line with the resurgence of rap and R&B, get ready for a subtler, stranger style of pop cannibalisation.
Reality check: Even Hillary Clinton could not have passed gun control Nicole Hockley, who lost her son in the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting in 2012, faced a row of television cameras on Tuesday. She and other Sandy Hook families were filing an appeal in their battle against the gun companies who had made the military-style rifle used to kill their children. What was her reaction to Donald Trump’s victory, reporters asked her. Was she scared? Hockley, composed and forceful, offered a reality check: even if Hillary Clinton had been elected president, Congress would not have passed gun control legislation. “We’ve had a very committed gun violence prevention president in place for the last eight years, and we’re not seeing significant federal change,” she said. “This is about bottom-up change, not top-down,” she told the cameras. “This is more about a community groundswell that’s needed.” Hockley’s fight for gun violence prevention has been focused on state and local action – and having Trump in the White House did not change that strategy. Obama, a passionate advocate for gun violence prevention, has “tried everything. He can’t get it passed,” she said in an in-depth interview with US. When it comes to guns, “I still don’t think our country is ready yet for federal change,” she said. “I think there are still too many people that are uninformed or misinformed on this issue, that believe it’s never going to happen to them, that believe it has nothing to do with access to weapons.” “This is not the time to bow out,” she said. “This is where we have to double down our efforts. Regardless of who’s in office, people are still dying every day, and there’s an opportunity to save lives.” Hockley’s son Dylan was six years old when a disturbed young man shot his way through Dylan’s elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut. Twenty first-graders and six educators were murdered. Dylan died in the arms of his classroom aide, who was also killed. A photograph of Dylan in a Superman T-shirt has become an icon in the fight for stricter gun control laws. Hockley was among the family members who went to Washington, only weeks after their children were killed, to press senators to vote in favor of a compromise bill to tighten background checks on gun sales. The high-profile effort, backed by the White House, failed to attract enough support to overcome a potential filibuster in the Senate. This rejection of moderate gun control left many Americans stunned that political change on guns was impossible even after first-graders had been massacred. Clinton’s loss, after a campaign where she had made gun violence prevention a central issue, had hit advocates hard, Hockley said. “There’s still that shock and numbness from really strong gun violence prevention advocates,” Hockley said. Some advocates and donors are worried that “Nothing’s going to happen now,” saying, “I don’t want to waste my effort.” “They’re grieving,” she said. “I know a bit about grief, and you do want to pull away.” Without Clinton, the movement’s progress will be slower, she said. But Hockley said she had been heartened by victories on ballot measures in California, Nevada and Washington state last week, where majorities voted to impose stricter controls on guns and ammunition. And Sandy Hook Promise, a nonprofit advocacy group Hockley helped to found, has been seeing progress at the local level, in school districts across the country. From the beginning, the group rejected the idea that real change in preventing gun violence and mass shootings could come from gun control policy victories alone. Unlike Clinton, the group decided not to fight for a federal ban on assault weapons like the one used at Sandy Hook. Unlike other leading gun control groups, the group does not endorse candidates for office. Instead, Sandy Hook Promise has also been working with school districts across the country to spread a violence prevention program that teaches students to take action when they see signs of someone who might be about to harm themselves or others. The training programs have already reached more than one million people, Hockley said – and Sandy Hook Promise works closely with schools in both red and blue states, from Florida and Louisiana to Alaska and California. Even parents and teachers who are strong gun rights advocates appreciate this kind of training, she said. In Louisiana, she met with a group of sheriffs who started out skeptical of a Sandy Hook parent – and ended up enthusiastic about having the program in local schools. The need is obvious: when Hockley gives trainings at schools, students sometimes come up to her afterwards and tell her that they are thinking about self-harm, she said. She talks to them, she listens and she walks them over to a teacher or counselor who they trust to talk more. “It kills you, you know?” she said. “You think: that’s just the tip of the iceberg, because those are the ones who come forward right then and there. There are so many others who need help.” In Eau Claire, Michigan, she heard about a student seeing a Snapchat video of another student saying: “Don’t come to school on Monday, I’ve got a loaded gun.” A student told a parent, the parent informed law enforcement, and “the gun was found: potential tragedy averted,” she said. “The only thing that keeps me going – I don’t care about anything else other than saving lives,” she said. Sandy Hook Promise is about to hire its first political director in Ohio, where it will focus on drafting state legislation on gun violence prevention measures, including securing mental health funding and creating gun violence restraining orders. In Congress, Sandy Hook Promise advocates for mental health reform legislation. “When I do think about the NRA, the opposition, it took them decades to build that base, and to get organized, and to have deep relationships with their team members,” she said. “They’re best-in-class in organizing. We haven’t been as organized on the other side.” With the National Rifle Association’s candidate heading to the White House, Hockley said she is concerned about federal right-to-carry reciprocity legislation. This Trump-endorsed national law would eviscerate local gun carrying restrictions. If passed, the legislation might mean that tourists from other states would be allowed to carry their guns around New York City. If Trump follows up on his campaign rhetoric about eliminating gun-free zones and pushing guns in schools, “That I’ll fight hard against,” she said. “Schools are no place for guns. If he comes out and tries to make that happen, there are a heck of a lot of people who will fight against that … I think that would be a very, very unpopular move.” Trump’s second amendment platform does not mention guns and schools, though he has pledged to end gun-free zones on military bases. Asked at the Tuesday press conference if she would agree to meet with Trump to talk about addressing gun violence, as she has met with Obama, Hockley paused. “I will never say no to having an open conversation with anybody regardless of their stated or unstated beliefs, because I believe without conversation we’re not going to see progress,” she said. “I can’t foresee a reason that the president elect would have any desire to meet with me, so I’m not anticipating that.” Hockley was announcing her appeal of a lawsuit on behalf of several Sandy Hook victims’ families that argued gun companies were negligent to market an AR-15 style rifle to the general public. Last month, a Connecticut judge struck down the lawsuit that nine victims’ families and one survivor had filed against the manufacturer, distributor and seller of the rifle used in the shooting. Hockley is involved in the lawsuit privately, not as part of her work for Sandy Hook Promise. Gun company lawyers had argued that the companies were protected by a 2005 federal law designed precisely to shield gun companies from being held liable when a legally sold, non-defective gun is later used in a crime. Adam Lanza, the Sandy Hook shooter, had killed his mother and then taken her guns, which she had purchased legally. On 14 October, Judge Barbara Bellis of the Connecticut superior court ruled that the companies were protected by the federal shield law. Interest in the case had clearly dwindled by the time lawyers announced their appeal on Tuesday. At an earlier press conference at Koskoff’s law office in February, local and national media outlets had packed the room to ask questions of a line of victims’ family members. On Tuesday, in the pouring rain, only a handful of media outlets showed up. Hockley, who has been working full-time on gun violence prevention since March 2013, just weeks after her son was killed, said she is trying to learn how to prepare better for the long fight. Kickboxing and seeing a therapist both help, she said. “Self-care has not been a priority for me, which is a shame, because this is going to be the rest of my life,” she said. “So I need to start focusing on how I’m going to ensure that I maintain the stamina and the emotional wellbeing to do this. “I do think it’s going to take two generations.”
Is there too much stress on stress? In 1925 a student at the Charles University medical school in Prague sat through his first lecture in the science of diagnosis, taking careful notes about how to examine a patient, and was struck by an observation that profoundly changed the history of modern medicine. The student, then 19, was Hans Selye, and the observation he made was this: although the patients brought forward for diagnosis by his professor were in the early stages of different illnesses – measles, scarlet fever, the flu, various allergic reactions, duodenal ulcers, shingles – their symptoms all appeared remarkably similar. To a man and woman, they complained of “a coated tongue, more or less diffuse aches and pains in the joints, intestinal disturbances and loss of appetite. Most had fever (sometimes with mental confusion), an enlarged spleen or liver, inflamed tonsils, a skin rash and so forth…”. Moreover, the patients “felt and looked ill”. Selye was startled to discover, however, that his professor was not much interested in these symptoms that made all illnesses look the same. The professor was, perhaps not surprisingly, more concerned with the symptoms that made each illness look different, in order to make his diagnosis and propose treatment. This concept troubled Selye. Looking back on that particular afternoon, 50 years later, he suggested: “I could not understand why, ever since the dawn of medical history, physicians should have attempted to concentrate all their efforts upon the recognition of individual diseases and the discovery of specific remedies for them, without giving any attention to the much more obvious ‘syndrome of being sick’.” When Selye mentioned that “syndrome of being sick” notion to his professor, he received a look of disdain, though it continued to obsess him. Still, he mostly kept quiet about it until 10 years later, when he was an assistant in the department of biochemistry at McGill university in Montreal, researching sex hormones by injecting ovarian tissue into laboratory rats. In the course of this work, Selye was overwhelmed by a similar epiphany to that first one. The rats showed clear and measurable responses to foreign tissue – enlargement of the adrenal glands, shrinkage of the thymus, the spleen and the lymph nodes, a decrease of white blood cells – but, to Selye’s surprise, these impacts were the same, whatever kind of tissue he introduced, and later, whatever toxic substance. He developed from this another hypothesis: that the body produced “a single non-specific reaction to damage of any kind”, what he called, somewhat clumsily, “a syndrome of response to injury as such”. He felt this universal response might be related to his previous “syndrome of being sick”, and again presented the idea to the director of his research. Again he was laughed out of the lab. Responding to Selye’s suggestion, made in “enraptured” tones, that he proposed to investigate why any toxicity introduced to the body produced a similar reaction, his professor told him: “Selye, try to realise what you are doing before it is too late! You have now decided to spend your entire life studying the pharmacology of dirt!” This time, Selye was not put off. He continued his research by observing the physiological reaction of lab rats to as many physical agents as he could think of: subjecting rats to extremes of cold and heat, to x-rays, “psychological” trauma, haemorrhage, starvation, pain or forced exercise, as well as toxins of every kind. He found “no noxious agent that did not produce the syndrome” of responses in the adrenal glands, thymus, spleen and white blood cells. As well as that he determined that those responses underwent a three-stage cycle, a beginning middle and end, of alarm, resistance and exhaustion. He called this pattern “the general adaptation syndrome”, or GAS for short, and he wrote up the results of his experiments in the journal Nature. It was published in a single‑column, down-page note in July 1936. The title was “A syndrome produced by diverse noxious agents”. Over the next decade, through the war years when there was no shortage of “diverse noxious agents”, Selye sought to disseminate and popularise his findings, with limited success. What he needed, he decided, was a name for all those diverse agents and the apparently nonspecific effects they produced, effects that he by now had hypothesised – he was not a cautious man – were a root cause of “high blood pressure, angina, disorders of the digestive system, kidney diseases, diabetes, rheumatism, certain cancers and most nervous and mental disorders”. By 1946 he had landed on the single word he needed to get his idea across. He called his syndrome, both cause and effect, “stress”. Selye never looked back. Just before Christmas I sat thinking about Hans Selye and his GAS experiments in the audience in a seminar room at a conference centre in a leafy Birmingham suburb. “WorkStress” was the annual conference of the UK National Work-Stress Network. Ian Draper, a retired teacher and union organiser has been overseeing and promoting this event for 21 years, during which time, he suggested, it had only got bigger. The room, for the weekend event, was packed with representatives of just about every profession and occupation. They were, in general, health and safety officers, mostly union officials, and the reasons for this conference, the facts before them, were fairly stark. The number of cases of work-related stress in the UK, in the year to April 2015, was 440,000, or 1,380 per 100,000 workers. The number of working days lost due to this condition was 9.9m (which equated to an average of 23 days lost per case). In 2014/15 a diagnosis of stress accounted for 35% of all work-related ill health and 43% of all working days lost due to illness. The condition was much more prevalent in public services, particularly education, health and social care. The main work factors cited by respondents as causing work-related stress were workload pressures, including tight deadlines, too much responsibility and a lack of managerial support. Evidence suggested that these problems are only getting worse. The keynote speaker at the stress conference was Gail Kinman, professor of occupational health psychology at the University of Bedfordshire. Kinman opened with a caveat that went back in some ways to Selye’s struggle to find a name for his “adaptative illness” syndrome. “Put 100 experts in a room,” she said, “and you will come up with 100 different definitions of stress.” The one she used, in relation to the workplace, was that approved by the Health and Safety Executive: “The process that arises where work demands of various types and combinations exceed the person’s capacity and capability to cope.” Stress was an imbalance between environmental demands and personal resources; it was taken as read that this was a dangerous thing. Kinman’s particular concern – and the concern of the thought-provoking conference in general – was whether stress, and its assumed and sometimes proven knock-on effects on health, could be linked to austerity measures and the state of the economy. So far, she admitted, there was not enough evidence to make a definitive case; although perceptions of stress had increased between 2006 and 2012, there was also a sense that much more went unreported. Anxieties about job insecurity led to denial. Two-thirds of British employees agreed that people in their organisation would be “unlikely” or “very unlikely” to reveal that they were experiencing stress-related illness. This appeared to go hand in hand with evidence that among people iwn managerial roles a growing number – more than three-quarters – considered creating a work-life balance as the employee’s responsibility, not theirs. Many of those who reported being stressed cited technological changes – email following them home in the evenings and at weekends – as a prime factor. Kinman had worked closely in longitudinal studies of two particular groups – university academics and prison officers. In both groups the perception and fact of stress had grown markedly in the years since 2008 across every perceived measure – demands had increased, personal control over work had reduced, relationships had worsened, roles were less understandable and the ability to adapt to change had decreased. 80% of academics “agreed or strongly agreed” that their work was “very stressful”. If anything the figures from among prison officers were more disturbing. Falling staff levels, changing shift patterns and rising levels of violence meant that their stress levels were measurable both in impaired problem solving and reduced creativity but also in very high incidence of relationship breakdown, alcohol abuse and the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. Kinman was not alone in citing Sanjay Basu and David Stuckler’s book The Body Economic, which examined health and economic data over decades, concluding that austerity was bad for both physical and mental health. “If austerity were tested like a medication in a clinical trial, it would have been stopped long ago, given its deadly side effects,” they observed. That conclusion was also used in evidence by the pressure group Psychologists Against Austerity, represented by Laura McGrath of the University of East London and Vanessa Griffin of the University of Essex. They had formed their group to protest at what they saw as the advance of five stress-related “austerity ailments”: humiliation and shame, instability and insecurity, isolation and loneliness, being trapped or feeling powerless, and fear and distrust. The collective result of these ailments was that “Mental health problems are being created in the present, and further problems are being stored for the future.” There followed from the floor a long series of questions and related experiences about the effects of short-term and zero-hours contracts, the impacts of job insecurity and constant change, and workplace bullying. Each profession had its charge sheet of stressors. “The average working life of a social worker is eight years.” “Among teachers, stress is the most common cause of early retirement.” “Prison officers [and I had to get someone to repeat and verify this statistic] lived only on average 18 months after retirement”. Certain themes seemed universal. “It gets to the point where every time you read your emails your blood pressure increases,” a council official observed. Many people felt threatened by a “culture of constant appraisal and evaluation”. There was growing evidence of people using holidays when they were ill, to avoid taking sick leave and “showing weakness”; this was particularly prevalent among older members of staff. There was widespread agreement that GPs are routinely asked to keep the word stress out of a diagnosis because the question of whether any days have been lost to the condition routinely turns up on application forms. “People are just terrified of losing their jobs…” Though much of this anecdotal evidence was shocking, it seemed to me, listening to those stories, that stress was sometimes being used as a catch-all shorthand for other issues – as had always been the case since Selye created the term. In many cases it sounded like a medicalisation of a cultural or a political trend. Many of the issues described were the result of insensitive management practices and cultures of long hours or unreasonable demands. The more I listened the more it seemed that the mental health of individuals had become the battleground in what might once have involved broader standoffs. (It was tempting to think that the frontline of labour disputes had shifted from picket lines to worry lines and that collective grievances had become individual psychological battles; in the 1980s an average of 7,213,000 working days were lost each year to strikes; that number fell to 647,000 between 2010 and 2015. Meanwhile the days lost to stress-related illness went exponentially in the other direction, including a 30% increase in occupational stress between 1990 and 1995.) Stress appears to be standing in for older concepts like injustice, inequality and frustration, seen at the level of the individual rather than of the wider workforce. I subsequently put that point to Professor Sir Cary Cooper, the most visible advocate of workplace wellbeing in the UK, president of the CIPD (Chartered Institute of Personnel Development) and author of 120 books and pamphlets on stress and related concepts at work. In 2008 Cooper was commissioned by the Labour government to oversee the Foresight programme into “Mental Capital”; with the help of 350 scientists from across the world he examined factors from birth onwards that cause stress, and developed recommendations for evidence-based policy to enhance wellbeing. Then the recession happened. Hadn’t stress, mental capital, in the years since, I asked him, become a proxy for other more traditional employee relations issues? Cooper thought it had, up to a point. “The fact is there are fewer people doing more work, greater insecurity, fear of job loss. And the stresses we face in the workplace are generally no longer physical, they are other people.” But isn’t that just the reality of most working lives now – lack of control, information overload, working more for less? Isn’t stress inevitable? “Perhaps,” Cooper says. “But how do we change that?” In his view one useful step would be to pin a sign to every office door reading: “Your manager is potentially dangerous to your health”. “The line manager for all of us is absolutely fundamental to our wellbeing,” he says. “The problem is that we recruited people prior to the recession not on the basis of their social and interpersonal skills but on the long hours they worked, and their perceived effect on the bottom line, or whatever. The evidence is clear that [working] long hours will not only do nothing for productivity, it will eventually make you ill.” Does that mean not mentally fatigued but physically unwell? “Yes. Core morbidity, we call it. If you have a physical illness, there is a mental health aspect to it. Stress could be the trigger to some of these illnesses: if you are in a really bad marriage, or if you are in a job you value and you fear losing, it can lead to these illnesses…” Cooper wrote a book examining the links between such emotional stress and cancer (links that are debatable). Countless other studies have sought to back up Selye’s argument of stress as the root cause of cardiovascular disease; while a strong link between depression, social isolation and heart disease has been shown, there is little persuasive evidence that such things as job stress or anxiety disorders have a measurable effect. I wonder if Cooper thinks it useful to have “stress” as this one-stop term for workplace anxieties and related illnesses. If we have the unsupported sense that unexpected or unreasonable challenges and demands are literally killing us, isn’t that likely to heighten the anxiety? “There may be some of that,” Cooper says. “I tend to prefer to think in terms of wellbeing rather than stress.” After he first coined the term “stress”, Hans Selye’s big idea became one of the most virulent of all ideas in the second half of the 20th century. You could be forgiven for believing that human existence is currently something like the seven ages of stress. Babies can be stressed from birth by overstressed parents (stress is infectious), and even be stressed prenatally. We stress toddlers with too much TV and too little play; children with too much pressure and too many exams; teenagers with the insistent anxieties of social media; adults with the requirement to juggle all the responsibilities of their lives; and the ageing population with the stresses of ageing. In spite of our relative affluence in comparison with previous generations, and the long years of peace since Selye first publicised his idea in 1946, it can seem that we have become a society that understands itself, both in the workplace and beyond it, through stress. Mark Jackson, in his book The Age of Stress, offers a brilliant account of how that happened. In the first instance Selye himself proved an indefatigable proponent of his own theory. The popularity of stress, as an idea, quickly became international. The French suffered from le stress, Germans from der Stress, Italians from lo stress, and Spanish from el stress. By 2010 “stress” was the best-known foreign-language term in Japan. Selye’s original project was helped by two factors. The decline in mortality rates from infectious diseases focused attention on how cells might age and die (Selye’s seductive proposition was that they were undone by hormonal imbalances caused by uncontrollable reactions to external pressures). At the same time, increased consumption, and a shift from manual work to service economies, emphasised a disconnect between mental and physical health. The growth of technology exaggerated that disconnect. Selye’s greatest propagandist was the futurist Alvin Toffler, with whom he collaborated and whose bestselling book FutureShock predicted “the shattering stress and disorientation that we induce in individuals by subjecting them to too much change in too short a time”. Selye, who worked with Toffler to create the International Institute of Stress in 1975, had a gift for popularising his idea. He proposed that the best method for the diagnosis of stress should come from the individual. To this end he proposed a 31-point stress test which detailed symptoms that every person should be aware of. Signs of stress included, in no particular order: high-pitched laughter, floating anxiety (we are afraid but we don’t know what of), dryness of the throat, the frequent need to urinate, increased smoking, the overpowering urge to run and hide (who won’t admit to that one?). Many early proponents appeared to find in the concept of a universal adaptive illness a useful metaphor for their political worldview. In his introduction to the UK edition of Selye’s book The Stress of Life, Sir Heneage Ogilvie, an eminent British surgeon, observed that it was “perhaps the greatest contribution to scientific medicine in the present century” and argued that the rising incidence of “stress diseases was the result of a failure to balance work with rest, particularly among ‘the more intelligent, ambitious, and hardworking members of society”. Ill health became a consequence of the inability to adjust to a consumer society “that equated happiness with a 40-hour week, a smart car, a television set and a chromium-plated bathroom. In the less stoutly built, it is the mind that gives way,” Ogilvie argued. In 1983 Time magazine put stress on its cover, and the phrase “stressed out” entered the language, and never left it. The developed version of Selye’s theory proposed that the pace and complication of modern life caused the continuous activation of the hormonal responses to danger that cavemen used for flight or fight, and these led to psychological trauma and, because unnaturally sustained and unchecked, to disease. “Stress is now known to be a major contributor, either directly or indirectly, to coronary heart disease, cancer, lung ailments, accidental injury, cirrhosis of the liver and suicide – six of the leading causes of death in the US,” the Time article asserted, based on patchy evidence (and with the emphasis very much on “directly or indirectly”). Selye himself not only promoted the idea that the stress of life was responsible for such illnesses, he also suggested – funded in part by the Sugar Research Foundation – that a diet rich in carbohydrates but low in salt was capable of moderating them. For more than 20 years after the publication of The Stress of Life, the tobacco industry also funded some of the pipe-smoking Selye’s institute (with $300,000 in 1969 alone). In return he endorsed smoking as a defence against stress, appeared in films questioning any link between smoking and cancer, and emphasised stress itself as far a more significant factor. Stress and its management quickly became a multi-billion-dollar business. Academic departments and behavioural medicine institutions were created to counter its advance, not to mention a new category of pharmacology and whole sections of bookshops devoted to stress management and calm theory, relaxation, yoga and meditation. Living became like a thermostat for stress control; the challenge was to eliminate stress wherever possible. A few dissenters were not convinced that this was necessary. Daniel Thomson, a professor of endocrinology, undertook a famous study of English civil servants in 1968, at the request of Harold Wilson. The study was a forerunner of the current investigations into occupational psychology. Thomson concluded, somewhat against the grain of Selye’s theory, that “Many civil servants complain about the stress, strain and frustrations of modern living. Many of these problems are, however, largely of their own making, because of their failure to reach emotional maturity and to become tolerant, patient and relaxed individuals, aware of their own limitations, having come to terms with their own surroundings, no matter how uncongenial.” Criticised by those who argued that stress was in many instances a powerful motivating and creative force, that necessity was the mother of invention, Selye modified his initial theory that any challenge to the norm was a stressor by suggesting that there was good stress and bad stress, or “eustress” and “distress”. “Stress is not even necessarily bad for you,” he wrote, by way of revision, “it is also the spice of life, for any emotion, any activity causes stress.” Selye himself worked 14 hours a day, seven days a week, selling stress to the world, and claimed to relish every second of it. His distinction between eustress and distress never really caught on. Stress remained a largely pejorative term, and one that seems to plague each successive generation as lives threaten to become more complex and jobs less secure. A survey from the insurer Friends Life last year found that one in four of the UK population had called in sick due to stress in the previous 12 months. And more than one in three of 18-24-year-olds had done so. Another study published last month, however, does at least give some credence to the idea that effects of stress can be mitigated by a certain cast of mind. The large-scale project at the University of California, San Diego, with findings published in the journal Biological Science, looked at the ways certain individuals – extreme sportsmen, special operations soldiers – seemed able to develop resilience to the intense physical and emotional stresses of their jobs. The researchers invited some of these individuals to lie in brain-scanning machines while wearing face masks to which the oxygen supply could be controlled. When the oxygen seemed about to be shut off, the first part of Selye’s GAS process kicked in – the subjects displayed the beginnings of bodily signs of panic – rising heart rate, a burst of adrenaline – but, after sudden activity in the part of the brain that monitors bodily response, the flight or fight reaction was quickly dampened. The subjects experienced stress but they did not overreact to it; they “switched off” the second and third parts of Selye’s three-stage process – there was no resistance or exhaustion, and their bodies remained in a steady state. When people who were not experienced in those fields underwent the same tests, a great range of responses to the imminent stress of suffocation was observed; those best able to “listen’ to their body’s response, who showed most activity in that part of the brain, were most resilient; those who simply panicked went into a full-blown stress pattern, and found it hard to return to any kind of normal or steady state. It was not clear from the study whether the responses could be learned or were innate. Such studies open up the question of the value of monitoring your own stress levels through analysis of brain activity and perhaps attempting to “switch off” a response accordingly. Not surprisingly, given our obsession with stress, the latest generation of “wearable tech” attempts to answer that need; various headsets are already available that purport to monitor stress levels by working to measure electrical activity in the brain – much in the way that a Fitbit monitors physical activity. It is early days for such technology, but in the near future some of the gadgets will apparently not only be able to work out when you are in a state of anxiety but also “support you in becoming calm” – by assisting in meditation techniques, turning off your mobile phone, placing your email on hold, or introducing favourite soothing music. The headsets are advertised as an aid to wellbeing, balance and calm. You can’t help feeling, however, that they will just as likely prove one more thing to stress about.
Q&A: Everything you need to know about air pollution What is causing today’s air pollution? Stagnant air from continental Europe, which has picked up pollution from industry and agriculture, is being blown over the UK from the south-east. This air combines with pollutants already present in the air from UK sources, such as nitrogen oxides and particulates from diesel vehicle engines, to produce air pollution. This is resulting in “moderate” levels of pollutants known as PM10 and PM2.5, which are tiny particulates that can lodge in the lungs and cause breathing difficulties in vulnerable people. Ozone, which also causes breathing difficulties, is also present at elevated levels. As the wind is blowing these pollutants inland, “moderate” levels of pollution are likely to occur not just in their usual locations, close to busy roads, but also far beyond, according to a warning from King’s College London. What should people do? Vulnerable people – including those with existing respiratory conditions, children, older people and people with other health problems, such as heart disease – should take care, and avoid strenuous exercise outdoors if they experience breathing difficulties. How can people avoid it? As the pollution is so widespread, it is difficult to avoid. Staying indoors can help, as can cutting out car journeys and paying attention to your body. If you feel short of breath, or develop a cough, sore throat or irritated eyes, then cut out strenuous physical activity and rest inside. How long is it going to last? The official forecast is for moderate pollution to hang over large parts of England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Ireland until Monday. The worst day is expected to be Sunday, when people are likely to head outdoors due to the balmy weather. Sunday will see high levels of pollution in some parts of the country. Shouldn’t the government be doing something? Air pollution is an increasingly high profile problem in the UK, despite the government’s obligations to cut pollution to safe levels, agreed under EU rules. These rules have been flouted for years, to the point where earlier this year the number of high pollution days allowed under the regulations was used up in just a week in some parts of London. The government faces fines from the EU and legal challenges in the courts over its failures. In other cities – such as Paris, Athens and Milan – the local authorities have moved on days of high pollution to curb the use of cars in city centres and surrounding areas. But the government and City Hall, both Tory-led, have refused to do so. So what is the government doing about it? The government says it has a plan to cut pollution to legal levels by 2025. This is five years too late according to the rules it has signed up to, and a new legal challenge is going ahead in an attempt to force a rethink. London’s mayoral candidates have also promised solutions, such as low-emissions zones, more cycling routes and changes to public transport to bring in cleaner vehicles. What are the effects of air pollution? Shortness of breath, streaming eyes, coughing and respiratory difficulties are common in the first instance. Longer term, permanent lung damage can develop, along with heart problems and ultimately a shortened lifespan. In children exposed to poor air, lungs may never develop properly, which is incurable. Why weren’t we warned? The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), which has responsibility for air quality, tweeted this morning that pollution levels were “low” across the country. People concerned about air pollution might be better advised to look at sites such as that run by King’s College London, londonair.org.uk. How common is this kind of pollution in the UK? Air pollution was recently described as a “public health emergency” by MPs, who called for new measures such as a scheme to encourage people to scrap their diesel cars, a leading cause of the pollution. Defra refused to say how often incidents like this happen. A spokeswoman would only say it was “common” in the spring, because of weather conditions. As the air warms up and photochemicals are activated by sunshine, pollution worsens. However, air quality is now so poor that there are routinely episodes in the winter as well. Is this the worst pollution episode? The “Saharan dust” that blew in two years ago was worse in terms of severity. However, the increasing incidence of air pollution means that people across the country, but particularly in urban areas and in London above all, are now subject on a routine basis to much higher levels of air pollution than are deemed safe by scientists. More than 9,000 people a year are thought to die prematurely in London alone as a result, and as many as 50,000 a year nationally. Equally bad is that children who grow up in polluted air suffer as a result throughout their lives, even if they move away from polluted areas in later life.
Madness pay tribute to Prince Buster – 'A huge impact on everything we did' Madness – who took their name from one his songs, whose first single was about him, and whose breakthrough hit was a cover of one of his tracks – paid tribute to ska legend Prince Buster on Sunday. The band were appearing at Radio 2’s Festival in a Day in Hyde Park in London, and dedicated a version of their first single The Prince to Buster, who died on Thursday. Madness singer Suggs told the BBC how crucial Prince Buster had been to the group. “The fact he came from the streets and he had a terrific sense of humour and energy – it really appealed to us and it had a huge impact on everything we did, really.” He added: “It’s like the Monty Python thing about the Romans: ‘What did Prince Buster ever do for us?’ A great deal indeed.” Madness’s second single, One Step Beyond, was a cover of a Prince Buster song, and their first top 10 hit. They also covered his song Madness. Other heroes of the Two Tone and British ska movement have paid tribute to Buster. “From hip-hop to grime to dancehall to reggae, there can be very little which hasn’t been influenced to some extent by Prince Buster and his combination of singing and talking over rhythms,” said Jerry Dammers, founder of the Specials and the Two Tone label.
Being working class makes you happy – according to Disney In the world of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves even Grumpy heads to work with a spring in his step. A new study by sociologists at Duke University suggests that the class stereotypes reinforced by Disney’s biggest films are introducing young viewers to a life of accepting their lot, until their own hard work pulls them out of poverty. Jessi Straub, an assistant professor of sociology at Duke, and two undergraduates, Miryea Ayala and Colleen Wixted, watched all 36 films by Disney and its subsidiary Pixar that have grossed more than $100m as of 1 January 2014. They categorised the class of each primary character and charted whether the classification changed over the course of the story. They found that only 4% of the primary characters across the films could be classed as “poor” and that the cartoons depicted diligence and strong spirit as the key indicators of social mobility. Only one of the working class characters, who made up 16% of the primary roles, worried about money. “The big theme is that inequality is benign,” Streib told the Duke research blog. “Being poor isn’t a big deal. Being working class makes you happy. Anyone who wants to get ahead, and is ambitious and is a good person, can do so. And the rich happily provide for everyone else. Obviously, that’s not exactly how the world works.” Streib’s study, titled Benign Inequality: Frames of Poverty and Social Class Inequality in Children’s Movies, found that the majority of characters in Disney and Pixar films could be called upper and upper middle class. In the real world, roughly 25% of American children live in poverty. Streib and her team highlighted a section of the 1992 film Aladdin as representative of the film’s attitude to class and poverty. In one scene, the street urchin Aladdin and the wealthy Princess Jasmine compare their lot and find themselves equally miserable. He is poor, she is unhappy because she has “people who tell you where to go and how to dress”. “Studies have shown that by the time kids are 12, they have internalised a lot of American ideas about class – like poor people are lazy, and rich people are smart and hardworking,” Streib said. “Parents don’t really like talking to their kids about class, so I thought that the movies these kids watch are how they get their ideas on class.” She accepts that its a tricky line for Disney to walk, as it’s difficult to offer a realistic portrayal of the class system without dissuading kids from working hard. “If you showed these poor characters as trying really hard and still not being able to get ahead, then parents would see that as hard work doesn’t pay off, which may be a troubling idea for little kids,” Streib told the Hollywood Reporter. The Duke University study follows work on the representation of women in Disney films that found that Disney princesses typically speak less than male characters, despite being the lead character. The study, by linguists Carmen Fought and Karen Eisenhauer, singled out hits like Frozen, Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin as particularly poor in giving their female characters voice.
Internet Explorer: the podcast that plumbs the web's depths for gold If you’ve ever been curious about notorious website 4chan, but couldn’t access the site due to your company’s firewall – or accessed the site and had no idea what to make of it – let Internet Explorer serve as your guide. The podcast from BuzzFeed’s Katie Notopoulos and Ryan Broderick serves as an introductory course into the internet’s darkest, oddest and grossest corners. Why you should listen When BuzzFeed wanted to venture into the podcasting world, it started with two podcasts – Another Round and Internet Explorer. “What Katie and I originally pitched was Howard Stern, but about weird internet stuff,” said Broderick. The resulting show is not too far from that description, as in each episode the two friends and a variety of guests have frank, funny conversations about online oddities. The idea for the podcast was close to their hearts. Over the past four years or so, Broderick and Notopoulos have done an annual listicle of the Worst Things on the Internet as part of BuzzFeed’s year-end coverage. The list gathers together everything the internet has to offer, from memes to memorable Vines to viral posts on Tumblr, and compiles the worst into one convenient rundown of what you missed. The show was a natural extension of that list. Not that the transition from weird internet gurus to podcast hosts was easy. “The biggest shock for Ryan and me is that it turned out to be a lot harder than either of us thought,” said Notopoulos, laughing. “We thought we would just have to get together for half-hour a week and talk. We didn’t realize that oh, maybe we should plan stuff out.” Each episode, Notopoulos and Broderick take a deep dive into the stranger parts of the internet, the parts that many people don’t know exist or choose to ignore out of a sense of self-preservation or fear that they may never recover after seeing someone do something untoward to a Christmas turkey. Internet Explorer is not for everyone, but for those who are internet curious, it lets people know what’s happening on the weird web without the risk of having any unsavory images seared into their memory. “The good thing about the podcast is that it’s not visual,” said Notopolous. “When we’re describing something gross …” Broderick starts, before finishing his thought: “We’re not gross for saying it, you’re gross for visualizing it.” They readily admit that some of their content would never make it to print on BuzzFeed, but somehow it works on the podcast. “Describing something in words – and laughing about it – is a little gross, but funny gross,” said Notopolous, reassuringly. “I think it’s a good medium for talking about this stuff, actually,” agrees Broderick. “We have to see the pictures, but you don’t.” Not that every episode is gross. One week will find Notopolous and Broderick talking to Japan’s most viral teenager; another week will have them walking in the online footsteps of a serial catfish, getting to the bottom of ghost sex encounters, diving into the world of financial domination, or reporting the true story of Michael Jackson’s involvement with the Sonic the Hedgehog soundtrack. The show can also be very service-oriented, serving up cautionary tales about online misdeeds that would otherwise be whispered about like ghost stories around the internet campfire. Take for instance the time Broderick accidentally sent pornography to the entire BuzzFeed office. In the wake of Gawker’s in-house in-jokes being read aloud in court during their Hulk Hogan sex tape trial, Internet Explorer had an employment law specialist visit the show to deliver a sermon about writing things in Slack or Gchat or other messaging services at work. While the show has lingered in some of the sillier (and raunchiest) corners of the internet, over the past few weeks it has taken a deep dive into more serious reporting in its series on the years that changed the internet. They talked to MySpace celebrity Tila Tequila and gossip maven Perez Hilton about life online in 2005 and spoke to a Geocities archivist and the inventor of Microsoft’s Clippy for a look back at 1999. Another recent episode looked at 2010, a year that had pre-teen Jessi Slaughter face the full brunt of the internet after her father yelled “You dun goofed!” in a video that went viral, before “going viral” was a thing. For the show, they tracked Jessi down to ask about how making an appearance on Good Morning America for cyberbullying can affect the rest of your life. “We put in a lot of time and effort into this series. We worked for weeks in advance, so the episodes come across as more polished,” said Notopolous. “It wouldn’t work for us to interview someone who has a dark, horrible story, like Jessi Slaughter, in the middle of an episode about silly memes. We wanted to put a little gravity behind it. It’s a story that Ryan and I care about and would write about.” “We wanted a series that could be fun and irreverent, but also let us flex our reporting muscles,” said Broderick. “We were talking to Jessi Slaughter about an incredibly traumatic event, but also trying to relate, because I also had a very embarrassing emo period.” Not that the show is going fully serious, though. Far from it. Just after wrapping their series on years that changed the internet, they took over Facebook Live for a dramatic reading of the infamous vampiric Harry Potter fan fiction story, My Immortal. Where to start: 2010: The Years That Changed the Internet; Cosplaying While Black; How a Serial Catfish Tricked Famous Men and Almost Got Away With It Subscribe to Internet Explorer on Acast or iTunes
British study finds risk of breast cancer nearly tripled by combined HRT Women who rely on the most commonly used form of hormone replacement therapy are roughly three times more likely to develop breast cancer than those who do not use it, according to a study whose results suggest the risk of illness has been previously understated. Those using the combined HRT therapy, a combination of oestrogen and progestogen, were running a risk 2.7 times greater than non-users, according to a study by scientists at the Institute of Cancer Research (ICR) in London. Previous investigations may have underestimated the increased risk by up to 60%, the study added. Anthony Swerdlow, professor of epidemiology at the ICR, said: “What we found is that the risks with combined HRT are larger than most of the literature would suggest.” The study’s leaders added that HRT is an individual choice but one for which accurate information is essential. An estimated one in 10 women in their 50s use HRT to deal with menopausal symptoms including hot flushes, night sweats, insomnia, mood swings and tiredness. The treatment is effective but controversial because studies published in 2002 and 2003 have previously suggested there is also link with breast cancer. Those findings led to a halving of the numbers of women taking the drugs. In November an NHS watchdog, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice), sought to reassure women about the safety of the treatment, which replaces depleted oestrogen and – in combined HRT – progestogen to alleviate symptoms. Most women take combined HRT because oestrogen alone can increase the risk of womb cancer and taking progestogen alongside oestrogen is known to help minimise this risk. HRT using oestrogen alone is usually recommended for women who have had a hysterectomy. Breast Cancer Now’s chief executive, Lady Delyth Morgan, said: “Menopause symptoms can be hellish. The really important thing about the generations study is that it’s actually a fine-tuned study that’s looking very specifically and carefully at the issue. “It’s potentially the most accurate assessment that can be made because it’s looking at the menopausal status of the participants and it’s looking at the length of time HRT was taken and on that basis assesses the change in the risk.” There were almost 900,000 prescriptions for combined HRT with progestogen last year, according to the NHS. The risk of breast cancer increased with duration of use, with women who had used combined HRT for more than 15 years being 3.3 times more likely to develop breast cancer than non-users. However in women using the other type of HRT – a variant that uses oestrogen only – the scientists found that there was no overall increase in breast cancer risk compared with women who had never used HRT. Scientists have debated the increased risk of breast cancer from HRT, which could be explained by an increased exposure to hormones affecting the development and growth of some tumours. For the study, published in the British Journal of Cancer on Tuesday, 39,000 women were monitored for six years. During that time 775 – or nearly 2% – developed breast cancer and women using combined HRT (for an average, median duration of 5.4 years) were 2.7 times more likely to contract the disease during the treatment period than women who had never used HRT. However, no increase in risk was seen in women using oestrogen-only HRT and a year or two after women stopped taking combined HRT, there was not a significantly increased risk of breast cancer, confirming findings of previous studies. The experts believe the lack of follow-up information on the use of HRT and menopausal status affected the accuracy of other studies. For example failure to account for women who had stopped using HRT during the research period could lead to the risk being underestimated. When the researchers analysed their own data without adjusting for changes in HRT use or women’s known menopause age, it led to a lower estimate of a 1.7-fold increase in risk. Dr Heather Currie, a spokesman for the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, and chair of the British Menopause Society, said: “Women need clear, evidence-based information to break through the conflicts of opinion and confusion about the menopause. “For many women, any change in breast-cancer risk is outweighed by the benefit on their quality of life, bearing in mind that there are many other factors that increase the risk of breast cancer, for example lifestyle factors.” The Medicine and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency, which monitors the safety of medicines, said it would evaluate the study and provide updated information to prescribers and users of HRT if necessary. “Medicine safety and effectiveness is of paramount importance and under constant review,” an MHRA spokesperson said. “Our priority is to ensure that the benefits of medication outweigh the risks. Current product information on all forms of HRT carries strong warnings on breast cancer, including that the risk increases with duration of use. “The decision to start, continue or stop HRT should be made jointly by a woman and her doctor, based on the best advice available and her own personal circumstances, including her age, her need for treatment and her medical risk factors.” HRT treatment should be re-assessed on a yearly basis at least, the agency said. Meanwhile a separate study has found that women who expect the worst from a type of breast cancer treatment are more likely to suffer adverse side-effects. The research, published in the Annals of Oncology, found that women with a negative perception of receiving hormone therapies such as tamoxifen suffered nearly twice the number of side-effects than women with positive expectations or who thought the effects would not be too bad. The authors looked at 111 women in Germany who had had treatment for hormone-receptor-positive breast cancer. They questioned the patients about their expectations of the effect of taking hormone therapy at the start of the trial and then assessed them at three months and at two years. Those with higher expectations of side-effects at the start of the study saw a 1.8 increase in their occurrence after two years. Prof Yvonne Nestoriuc, from the University Medical Centre, Hamburg – who led the study – said: “Our results show that expectations constitute a clinically relevant factor that influences the long-term outcome of hormone therapy. “Expectations can be modified so as to decrease the burden of long-term side-effects and optimise adherence to preventive anti-cancer treatments in breast cancer survivors.” The headline of this article was amended on 23 August 2016 as it incorrectly stated that combined HRT increases the risk of breast cancer by 300%. The actual figure, according to the study’s findings, is 170%.
Ex-Libor chief accepted claim that rate could not be rigged, court told The man formerly in charge of overseeing the Libor benchmark lending rate took banks at “face value” when they said it could not be rigged, a jury has heard. Testifying at the trial of five former Barclays employees accused of conspiring to manipulate Libor, the former British Bankers’ Association (BBA) director John Ewan said he had not been concerned that banks were trying to influence the rate. The Serious Fraud Office has charged Jonathan Mathew, a former Barclays rate submitter, and his former colleagues at the bank – derivatives traders Stylianos Contogoulas, Jay Merchant, Alex Pabon and Ryan Reich – each with one count of conspiracy to defraud by manipulating US dollar Libor rates between June 2005 and September 2007. The five men have pleaded not guilty. Ewan was asked about a meeting with senior Barclays employee Miles Storey at which the banker told him that it would “not be feasible” for banks to conspire to change the Libor rate. According to minutes taken at the meeting, and submitted as evidence to the trial at Southwark crown court, this was partly a reaction to “rumblings” from other banks about the Libor rates that Barclays was submitting to the BBA. Ewan said: “It’s very difficult to un-know what we now know. But at the time I didn’t think about it very much and I took it at face value when Barclays told me it wouldn’t be possible for them to get together and try to manipulate Libor rates.” Asked whether he had received complaints from banks that they believed that rivals were submitting false Libor rates in order to make money, Ewan said: “I really don’t remember.” The BBA oversaw Libor, a key financial benchmark underpinning contracts worth trillions of pounds worldwide, from the mid-1980s until it was stripped of responsibility for setting the rate in 2013. During the financial crisis, Ewan was in charge of producing a report on reforming Libor following allegations of abuse. The jurors were told by the prosecution earlier in the trial that the defendants conspired to manipulate the Libor rate for US dollars. The court heard that the group were paid big bonuses and offered each other wine and coffee in return for favourable rates. However, defence lawyers for the accused have told the court that they only did what they were told to by their Barclays bosses, without realising it was wrong, and that they did not benefit financially. The trial is expected to last three months.
Simon Pegg: I respectfully disagree with George Takei over gay Sulu Simon Pegg, who has co-written the latest Star Trek movie, as well as starring as Scotty, has responded to criticism by the actor George Takei at the film-makers’ decision to make the character he used to play openly gay. Takei was Hikaru Sulu, helmsman of the USS Enterprise, in the original TV series as well as the first six films. Pegg has said he intended the revelation in the new film that the character – now played by John Cho – is in a same-sex relationship as a tribute to Takei’s gay rights activism. But on Thursday the actor responded by saying he thought the move was “really unfortunate”, as he felt it suggested sexuality was something that could be retrofitted. He also said his concerns had been ignored by the film-makers. In a statement released to the on Friday, Pegg reiterated his respect for Takei, while taking issue with his thinking. “I have huge love and respect for George Takei, his heart, courage and humour are an inspiration,” he wrote. “However, with regards to his thoughts on our Sulu, I must respectfully disagree with him.” Pegg expressed sympathy with Takei’s sentiment that mainstream gay heroes were belatedly coming to the big screen, but rejected the idea that this meant a new character needed creating. “He’s right, it is unfortunate, it’s unfortunate that the screen version of the most inclusive, tolerant universe in science fiction hasn’t featured an LGBT character until now. We could have introduced a new gay character, but he or she would have been primarily defined by their sexuality, seen as the ‘gay character’, rather than simply for who they are, and isn’t that tokenism?” Pegg continued: “Justin Lin, Doug Jung and I loved the idea of it being someone we already knew because the audience have a pre-existing opinion of that character as a human being, unaffected by any prejudice. Their sexual orientation is just one of many personal aspects, not the defining characteristic. Also, the audience would infer that there has been an LGBT presence in the Trek Universe from the beginning (at least in the Kelvin timeline), that a gay hero isn’t something new or strange. It’s also important to note that at no point do we suggest that our Sulu was ever closeted, why would he need to be? It’s just hasn’t come up before.” In his attack, Takei said he felt Pegg and the team had failed to pay due deference to creator Gene Roddenberry’s vision – especially galling given the film is released in Star Trek’s 50th anniversary year. But Pegg said that Roddenberry’s pioneering work exploring diversity in the series indicated he would have welcomed such a move. “I don’t believe Gene Roddenberry’s decision to make the prime timeline’s Enterprise crew straight was an artistic one, more a necessity of the time. Trek rightly gets a lot of love for featuring the first interracial kiss on US television, but Plato’s Stepchildren was the lowest rated episode ever. “The viewing audience weren’t open minded enough at the time and it must have forced Roddenberry to modulate his innovation. His mantra was always ‘infinite diversity in infinite combinations’. If he could have explored Sulu’s sexuality with George, he no doubt would have. Roddenberry was a visionary and a pioneer but we choose our battles carefully.” Pegg concluded by urging that Sulu’s sexuality shows the multiplicity of human experience across the space-time continuum, showing that “we are all LGBT somewhere”. “Our Trek is an alternate timeline with alternate details,” he wrote. “Whatever magic ingredient determines our sexuality was different for Sulu in our timeline. I like this idea because it suggests that in a hypothetical multiverse, across an infinite matrix of alternate realities, we are all LGBT somewhere. “Whatever dimension we inhabit, we all just want to be loved by those we love (and I love George Takei). I can’t speak for every reality but that must surely true of this one. Live long and prosper.”
'We are all so devastated': tributes pour in to Alan Rickman from acting world The world of stage and screen is in mourning for one of its most singular and best-loved stars. Alan Rickman died on Thursday morning aged 69 after suffering from cancer. His agent said that he died at home, surrounded by family and friends. Emma Thompson, who had collaborated with Rickman on the likes of Sense and Sensibility, Love Actually and Rickman’s directorial debut, The Winter Guest, spoke of her immense sadness, having “just kissed him goodbye”. “What I remember most in this moment of painful leave-taking is his humour, intelligence, wisdom and kindness,” she wrote. “His capacity to fell you with a look or lift you with a word.” Thompson continued: “I couldn’t wait to see what he was going to do with his face next … He was the ultimate ally. In life, art and politics. I trusted him absolutely. He was, above all things, a rare and unique human being and we shall not see his like again.” An actor whose arch features and languid diction were recognisable across the generations, Rickman began his career in the theatre but found international stardom with a clutch of high-profile film roles including Hans Gruber in Die Hard (1988) and a charming, dastardly sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991). But it was his part as Professor Snape in the Harry Potter films which found him a fresh legion of fans. Cast and crew on those movies were also quick to pay tribute to the actor. Daniel Radcliffe wrote that Rickman was “one of the greatest actors I will ever work with” as well as “one of the loyalest and most supportive people I’ve ever met in the film industry”. The younger actor recalled how Rickman came to see every play he was in, and how all Rickman’s acquaintances enjoyed his attentive friendship: “If you call Alan, it doesn’t matter where in the world he is or how busy he is with what he’s doing, he’ll get back to you within a day.” Said co-star Emma Watson: “I feel so lucky to have worked and spent time with such a special man and actor. I’ll really miss our conversations. RIP Alan. We love you.” Rupert Grint said he was “devastated” and that “[e]ven though he has gone I will always hear his voice”. Rickman’s illness had not been publicly known and the seeming suddenness of his death was reflected in many of the tributes. Jason Isaacs said he was “[s]idestepped by the awful news”. “The polar opposite of the icy, manipulating characters he became best known for, Alan was hilarious, warm-hearted and fabulous company.” JK Rowling, who wrote the Harry Potter books, said: “There are no words to express how shocked and devastated I am to hear of Alan Rickman’s death. He was a magnificent actor & a wonderful man.” Ralph Fiennes, who played Voldemort, described Rickman as “a dear friend”. “I cannot believe he is gone and we are the poorer for it,” he said. “But his spirit and great generosity live on the hearts of everyone who knew him. Funny, acutely perceptive, extraordinarily loyal and giving - Alan cared.” Meanwhile Michael Gambon – Dumbledore in the latter films – said: “Everybody loved Alan. He was always happy and fun and creative and very, very funny.” Last year, Rickman made his second film as director: A Little Chaos, set in the gardens of Versailles and starring Kate Winslet (the object of Rickman’s affection in Sense and Sensibility). Winslet, who was also Oscar-nominated on Thursday, remembered “the kindest and best of men [who] had the patience of a saint. He was a warm-hearted puppy dog, who would do anything for anyone if it made them happy”. Winslet said that, aged 19, she had initially been intimidated by Rickman before realising he was “an exceptionally warm and giving man and an utterly phenomenal actor and gifted director. And that voice! Oh, that voice … We are all so devastated to lose Alan.” Rickman has two films still to be released, including Eye in the Sky, a drone warfare thriller in which he features alongside Helen Mirren. The two starred together in a 1998 stage production of Antony and Cleopatra. Mirren remembered Rickman as “a great friend” and “a towering person, physically, mentally and as an artist” whose voice “could suggest honey or a hidden stiletto blade, and the profile of a Roman Emperor”. Rickman had been in a relationship with economics professor and former Labour councillor Rima Horton since 1965; the two married in 2012. He remained politically active throughout his life: he was born, he said, “a card-carrying member of the Labour party”, and was highly involved with charities including Saving Faces and the International Performers’ Aid Trust. In 2005, he directed the award-winning play My Name is Rachel Corrie, which he and Katharine Viner – now editor-in-chief – compiled from the emails of the student who was killed by a bulldozer while protesting against the actions of Israel’s armed forces in the Gaza Strip. Sigourney Weaver, Rickman’s co-star in 1999 comedy Galaxy Quest and 2006 drama Snow Cake, cited the play, saying: “He used his talent always to make a difference, his production of Rachel Corrie being one of the most powerful examples. “Alan’s enormous strength of character infused every character he played,” she continued. “Who else could have brought such pain and wit to Snape? I can’t believe he’s gone.” Ian McKellen, who starred alongside him in an HBO film about Rasputin, said Rickman “put liberal philanthropy at the heart of his life” and was “a super-active spirit, questing and achieving, a super-hero, unassuming but deadly effective”. Others paying tribute to the actor remarked on his almost hypnotic hold over audiences – and his countless devoted fans. His close friend Ruby Wax said that when she first saw him on stage, “he was the most charismatic, sexiest thing I’d ever seen”. Rickman directed Wax’s standup shows for 20 years – a little-known career credit for the actor. “He had brilliant comic timing,” she said. “He’d say my lines and I would weep with laughing. But he could also play dry: the eyes would go slit-like and he’d deliver unbelievable lines. I don’t think Alan was appreciated as much as he should have been.” Stephen Poliakoff, with whom Rickman worked on 1999 psychodrama Close My Eyes, said the people often underestimated Rickman’s capacity for career-anxiety – as well as his allure for audiences. At a party before Rickman’s breakthrough stage performance in Les Liaisons Dangereuses at the RSC, he recalled Rickman saying: “I’m nearly 40 and nobody here knows who I am.” Said Poliakoff: “People said he wasn’t sexy enough, heterosexual directors in the theatre didn’t think he was attractive to women – just about the greatest miscalculation in showbiz history!” Rickman was a man with whom many enjoyed long-lasting associations. Richard Wilson had known him since 1980, and they remained close despite never again working together. “Even when he was ill, he had that great stillness and great dignity,” said Wilson, who credited Rickman’s professional success to his ability to be “very metamorphic, he could take on anything”. “The thing about Alan is that although he became a film star, one continually met him in tiny fringe venues all over the country. He was just so generous with his time, and with his encouragement. He was just very, very giving.” Harriet Walter first met Rickman in 1981 and described him as “the most generous man I ever met … a mentor and a brother figure to a generation of us”. She was another of the many friends who said Rickman was loyal enough to see every stage production they were in. Brian Cox, who starred with Rickman in a 1980 TV version of Thérèse Raquin as well as Poliakoff’s play The Summer Party, said: “He was empowering – if you had a problem and you told him it he would empower you to do what you did best. He could have been a great teacher.” He described his acting as “centrifugal... He had the ability to draw an audience into him.” Catherine Bailey, a fellow student of Rickman’s at Rada, had remained in touch with him for half a century; the pair made a short film together in 2014. “He could make the impossible happen,” she said. “I saw him two days before he died and he wanted to hear about me and my family and how we were … A man of great integrity, fiercely loyal and discreet, a friend to so many, loved by so many.” Bailey also paid tribute to his wife. “My heart goes out to Rima,” she wrote. “Mutually supportive, devoted in life and there for each other in death.” • This article was amended on 15 January 2016. An earlier version used the word “intimated” where “intimidated” was meant.
Even after Brexit, hard borders won’t be returning to Ireland Brexit has been referred to as the biggest foreign policy issue facing Britain since accession to the European economic community in 1973. In many ways, this is true of Ireland too. As the process unfolds, one of the biggest challenges for Ireland is how we maintain a strong and close relationship with our UK friends and neighbours while remaining at the heart of the European Union. While we deeply regret the outcome of the UK referendum, Ireland remains, and will remain, a committed member of the EU. Since the referendum I have engaged extensively with both my UK government counterparts and each of my foreign ministerial colleagues all across the EU. I’ve spoken to the UK foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, and the secretary of state for Northern Ireland, James Brokenshire, on several occasions, and I was pleased to welcome the secretary of state for exiting the EU, David Davis, to Dublin for discussions. Several other EU foreign ministers have also visited Dublin and last week, the EU commission’s chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, visited Dublin – the sixth capital he visited on his tour of 28. And Ireland’s taoiseach, Enda Kenny, has had extensive discussions with Theresa May, Angela Merkel, François Hollande, Donald Tusk and many others. In my discussions with EU colleagues, I have emphasised the importance of the Irish and Irish-British dimensions to Brexit for our citizens, our economy and trading links, our common travel area with the UK and, of course, Northern Ireland and its invisible border with the rest of the island. I’ve also stressed the need for a strong EU, characterised by partnership, peace and prosperity. I have been heartened by the strong support across Europe for the peace process and the understanding about our special circumstances on the island. Overall, we will be working for special arrangements that take account of Northern Ireland’s unique circumstances. The process ahead is extremely complex and multi-layered. We are currently auditing and assessing the implications of Britain’s withdrawal from the EU across a range of sectors through dialogue between the north and south, between London and Dublin, through bodies such as the British Irish Council and with our EU partners. This in no way pre-empts the wider negotiations between the UK and the EU 27. Ireland’s relationship with Britain is unique in every possible way – politically, economically, culturally, legally and in terms of people-to-people links. One in four people in Britain can claim Irish heritage, while in the business world almost 60,000 UK company directors are Irish-born. The Dublin-London route is the second busiest air route in Europe. We trade over €1.2bn a week between us, and Ireland is the UK’s fifth largest trading partner. We must do everything we can to protect these hard-won positive links. Northern Ireland is a core priority for Dublin in terms of the Brexit process. While the peace settlement is by now well-established, we can never afford to be complacent. Twice in the two years after I became foreign minister, I have spent long periods of time in Belfast participating in political talks. These ultimately led to the Stormont House agreement in December 2014 and the Fresh Start agreement last November. I witnessed at first hand how the still delicate political stability in Northern Ireland can be shaken. The Good Friday agreement provides the framework for our engagement in Northern Ireland, and we have worked alongside the UK government and Northern Ireland’s political leaders to stabilise the devolved institutions in Belfast and deliver important initiatives. Last month, honouring commitments under the Fresh Start agreement, James Brokenshire and I signed a treaty to establish an independent reporting commission to help tackle the legacy of paramilitarism which continues to plague some vulnerable communities in Northern Ireland. We want to see that scourge removed from people’s lives. Brexit presents a substantial challenge to this remarkable but still incomplete progress. Across the UK as a whole, 52% of voters opted to leave the EU. However, in Northern Ireland, 56% voted to remain. The people of Northern Ireland are in a unique position both in the UK and the EU, entitled to define themselves as British, Irish, or both. Common British and Irish membership of the EU has been a fundamental element in the political context which allowed the peace process to move forward. When the UK leaves the EU, Northern Ireland will be the only region that shares a land border with another EU member state. One of our key concerns about Brexit is any risk to the effective invisibility of the border between north and south. The Northern Ireland executive and the Irish and UK governments have been unanimous in their view that we must maintain the openness of the border which is enjoyed today. The common travel area, where citizens of Britain and Ireland have enjoyed free movement in each other’s countries since 1922, is highly valued on all sides. The reinstatement of any kind of hard border would also have obvious negative consequences for cross-border trade and economic activity. Equally serious would be the effect of resurrecting a potent symbol of division in a society emerging from conflict where many communities and groups are working hard to foster greater reconciliation, shared understanding and partnership. Future arrangements between the UK and Ireland, and between the Irish government and the Northern Ireland executive, will have to be placed in the wider framework negotiated between the UK and the 27 other EU members – including Ireland. The Irish government will work hard to make sure all sides are fully conscious of the need to work together to ensure the transformed Irish-UK relationship and the enormous achievements of the peace process are safeguarded for future generations.
Architect of 2008 bailout says US banks still pose 'nuclear' threat to economy America’s biggest banks present a “nuclear” threat to the US economy and should be broken up, a Federal Reserve policymaker and architect of the 2008 banking bailout said Tuesday. Neel Kashkari, the head of the Minneapolis Federal Reserve, said the US’s biggest banks were still “too big too fail” and Congress should consider “bold transformational solutions to solve this problem once and for all”. “I believe the biggest banks are still too big to fail and continue to pose a significant, ongoing risk to our economy,” Kashkari said in his first public speech since becoming a Fed policymaker in January. “A very crude analogy is that of a nuclear reactor. The cost to society of letting a reactor melt down is astronomical. Given that cost, governments will do whatever they can to stabilize the reactor before they lose control.” Kashkari, who is best known for organising the $700bn government-funded bank bailout in 2008, said “serious consideration” should be given to “breaking up large banks into smaller, less connected, less important entities”. Another solution, he said, was to turn the big banks into public utilities by “forcing them to hold so much capital that they virtually can’t fail”. He said existing measures under the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform law designed to prevent another banking system collapse do not go far enough and warned that “we won’t see the next crisis coming”. “The financial sector has lobbied hard to preserve its current structure and thrown up endless objections to fundamental change,” said Kashkari, who was previous an executive at Goldman Sachs and former Republican politician. “The time has come to move past parochial interests and solve this problem. The risks of not doing so are just too great.” Kashkari’s comments, in a speech to the Brookings Institution thinktank in Washington, come as presidential candidates battle over whom has the best solution to prevent another banking crisis, and prevent a repeat of the economic collapse. Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, who is taking on Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination, has called for a break-up of big banks and the introduction of a new financial transaction tax to pay for free college education. “There are lines in your speech I can imagine a Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren saying,” David Wessel, a former journalist who moderated the Brookings event, told Kashkari during a panel discussion after the speech. “It’s not what one expects.” Kashkari responded that he was calling things as he saw them. “If I’m not wiling to stand up and share my concerns, then I wouldn’t be doing my job,” he said.
Labor plans to use fresh whistleblower testimonies to pressure bank bosses Labor and the Greens are preparing for a showdown with the chief executives of Australia’s biggest banks this week during three days of questioning in Canberra. Labor MP Matt Thistlethwaite has said he will use fresh evidence from whistleblowers that reveals more unethical behaviour in the banking industry relating to the sale of insurance products and financial advice. Greens MP Adam Bandt says this will be the chance for bank bosses to persuade parliamentarians that a banking royal commission is not needed. The heads of Commonwealth Bank (CBA), Westpac, ANZ and the National Australia Bank will appear before the standing committee on economics in Canberra from Tuesday. The CBA chief executive, Ian Narev, will appear on Tuesday, a week after a shareholder backlash over his $12.3m pay packet. In March the insurance arm of the CBA was revealed in a joint sitting to have conducted unethical practices, giving impetus to the ALP’s call for a royal commission into the banks. But the prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, maintains there is no need for a royal commission because it would be too costly and slow. He has instead asked the banks to start appearing annually before a parliamentary committee, which meets for the first time on Tuesday. Labor and the Greens are critical of the process, saying the hearings will be a sham because each committee member will only have 20 minutes to ask questions of each bank chief. Thistlethwaite told Australia the hearings would just be a “show” for the Turnbull government to look like it was getting tough with the banks and holding them to account. “In reality it’s nothing more than a bit of a charade to try to take some pressure off the government,” he said. He said scandals and unethical behaviour were still occurring in the banking industry and customers were “still being ripped off,” and he’d be using fresh evidence from whistleblowers to demonstrate that. “If we’re really going to get to the bottom of what’s occurring in this industry we need a royal commission to thoroughly investigate their activities and to recommend reforms to government,” he said. Bandt said the banks had been leading the charge against a royal commission by saying they had changed their practices, so this hearing would give them the chance to convince parliamentarians of that. “I remain sceptical,” he said. “I think a royal commission would have the powers to, not only hear what the CEOs have to say, but find out what’s actually happening behind closed doors, to see if practices have changed in any material way.” The committee’s chair, Liberal MP David Coleman, said the hearings were important because they would ensure the bank bosses were regularly and permanently accountable to parliament. “The committee will now have an ongoing review function over the activities of the commercial banks as it has historically with the RBA,” he said. “The hearings will provide important, ongoing oversight of the activities of the banks.” Last week South Australian senator Nick Xenophon slammed the growing trend of major banks and other big companies paying million-dollar bonuses to chief executives for hitting vague performance targets. The Greens Treasury spokesman, Peter Whish-Wilson, said the Greens would soon be pushing again to rein in executive pay. The CBA will appear before the committee on Tuesday, ANZ will appear on Wednesday, and NAB and Westpac will appear on Thursday.
What to do with Boris Johnson, Michael Gove et al Jonathan Freedland is absolutely correct; we must not forget “those who for the sake of their career or a pet dogma, were prepared to wreck everything” (Let the vandals know – we won’t forget what they did, 2 July). Johnson and Gove deserve all the criticism coming to them for the Brexit vote, but the list of those, in recent years in this country, whose “appetite for status” led them to take the path “to disaster” does not stop with those treacherous Tories. Blair and the Iraq war is obvious, but what about Osborne’s unnecessary austerity to balance the books, while at the same time reducing the rich’s taxes, and selling off the country’s assets at knockdown prices to friends in the City? Few will be persuaded that his quest to reach the “top of the greasy pole” has not been determining his policies for the last six years. Wasn’t “vanity and ambition” behind Clegg’s duplicitous decision, against the wishes of the majority of Lib Dem voters, to agree to five years of Tory-led coalition? Isn’t that same ambition at the crux of many Labour MPs’ willingness to rid their party of a leader hell-bent on reducing inequality and unfairness, and putting principles first. Most politicians, it would appear, ply their trade for a variety of reasons, mostly selfish ones, which explains the popularity of those such as Corbyn and Jo Cox, who break the mould. Bernie Evans Liverpool • While Jonathan Freedland rightly directs our anger at the Brexit campaigners, we should not ignore the bigger picture. Yes, blame Cameron for his culpability in calling a referendum and Johnson, Gove et al for their deceitful and successful campaign. But the promise of a referendum was official Tory policy. It was in their manifesto at the 2010 election and the whole party signed up for it. In our understandable desire to blame individuals we should not be deflected from the fact that it is the whole Conservative party who have led us to this disastrous result. We now have the terrifying prospect of leaving it to those same Conservatives to deliver us from the mess that is wholly of their making. David Carter Allendale, Northumberland • Your correspondent Peter Cave asks “What’s to be done with Boris?” (Letters, 2 July). Remove him from the House of Commons; revoke his citizenship; deport him to either his birthplace (USA) or the land of his fathers (Turkey). This may not do much to solve the Brexit catastrophe but would at least offer some retributive justice and give the rest of us a badly needed laugh. John Starbuck Huddersfield
Trying to predict the election? Forget about Twitter, study concludes Twitter mentions are not a reliable way too predict elections and only indicate whether candidates are creating interest, not how many votes they will receive, a study has concluded. Researchers also found that Twitter’s “highly skewed” user base did not represent the voting population overall, and that Google searches might give a better indication of intentions at the ballot box. The study in Social Science Computer Review focused on the 2013 German federal election and found that Twitter data was a more accurate measure of the level of interest in candidates than the level of support they would receive. “Negative events, such as political scandals, as well as positively evaluated events, such as accomplishments, can [both] underlie attention for a party or candidate,” said the study. Yet scandals and accomplishments affected the level of support for a candidate in completely different ways. “The analysis does not support the simple ‘more tweets, more votes’ formula,” the study found. For example, a video clip of a candidate’s campaign gaffe might lead to a spike in Twitter attention but not result in more overall political support. “The daily volume of Twitter messages referring to candidates or parties fluctuates heavily depending on the events of the day – such as televised leaders’ debates, high-profile interviews with candidates – or the coverage of political controversies and scandals,” the study said. The data also showed that Twitter users did not necessarily reflect the demographics of the population as a whole. In the United States social media platforms like Twitter and Yik Yak are often more popular among millennial voters. “Twitter’s user base is highly skewed and far from being representative of the population at large,” the study said. Other data showed Google might be a more reliable indicator of voter support. Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, respective winners of the Republican and Democratic primaries in the state of New Hampshire, were the two parties’ top-searched-for candidates in the state, according to a report from Bloomberg. Republican and Democratic contenders are vying for their parties’ nominations for the 8 November election to succeed President Barack Obama. With Reuters
Paris climate deal: Trump says he now has an 'open mind' about accord Donald Trump has said he has an “open mind” over US involvement in the Paris agreement to combat climate change, after previously pledging to withdraw from the effort. Asked by the New York Times whether he would pull the US out of the Paris climate accord, which has been signed by 196 nations, Trump said: “I’m looking at it very closely. I have an open mind to it.” The president-elect also wavered on his previously stated position that climate change is a “hoax” and just a “very, very expensive form of tax”. Questioned over the link between human activity and global warming, Trump said: “I think there is some connectivity. Some, something. It depends on how much.” He added that he was thinking about how the issue “will cost our companies”. Trump’s partial acceptance of the overwhelming scientific view that burning fossil fuels is changing the climate, along with his equivocation over American involvement in the Paris deal, are subtle departures from the position he took during the presidential campaign. Trump has said he would “cancel” the Paris climate agreement, which was ratified earlier this month and requires a three-year notice period to quit. The president-elect has said he would also cut all money spent on climate change aid to developing nations and slash clean energy funding. The election of an apparent climate change denier to the US presidency has caused consternation among scientists and overseas climate negotiators, but some have voiced hope that Trump will follow a more pragmatic path that will avoid political fallout over the issue. In Trump’s recent pronouncements on his first 100 days in power he has pledged to cancel money for climate change programs and lift restrictions upon fossil fuel exploration on public land, but made no mention of quitting the Paris deal. Michael Brune, executive director of Sierra Club, said of his latest comments: “Talk is cheap, and no one should believe Donald Trump means this until he acts upon it. We’re waiting for action, and Trump is kidding nobody on climate as he simultaneously stacks his transition team and cabinet with climate science deniers and the dirtiest hacks the fossil fuel industry can offer. Prove it, president-elect. The world is watching.”
Why I will vote against triggering article 50 Theresa May has just announced her plans for Brexit and they are crystal-clear. At the heart of her proposal is membership of the single market – and the long sought after reassurance that jobs, particularly in the north of England, will be safe. There’s good news for EU nationals, who can continue to live and work here, and free movement for workers will continue in the future too – meaning our economy will be better off and our communities enriched. Environmental rules and workers’ rights are safe – the prime minister’s decision to remain a part of the biggest trading area in the world will safeguard those protections. We’re set to leave the EU, as the British people voted for by a small majority, but the government has a plan to retain and enhance the many benefits of EU membership, and an interim arrangement with the EU is in place in case the negotiations don’t get done in the two years allowed. May’s promise of “Brexit meaning Brexit” remains true but, at long last, she’s given MPs the details we need to make an informed choice about our vote on triggering article 50. Sounds like a dream, doesn’t it? That’s because it is. The reality of the situation couldn’t be more different. Five months after the referendum, and with a supreme court appeal on article 50 looming, we’re still left with little more than hot air from a government that is driving us towards the Brexit cliff edge, with the doors of the car locked and its eyes firmly shut. What will Brexit mean for the EU nationals who live and work in our neighbourhoods? Will our beaches and wildlife still be protected? What kind of trade agreement will we have with Europe? Ministers just keep shrugging their shoulders, demanding our trust when they’ve done nothing discernible to earn it. Though I’m proud to have fought as hard as I could to stop Britain from leaving the EU, I’m not one of the MPs who immediately pledged to vote against article 50 after the high court’s ruling on the issue earlier this month. In the heat of the moment it would have been easy to offer an immediate kneejerk refusal to trigger article 50 in any circumstance. Similarly rash is the response of those, like the Labour leadership, who have gone too far other way – making an early promise to support the government in beginning the Brexit process. By doing so they’ve given away any bargaining power they had – and given the government’s agenda a real boost. Instead, I’ve come to a considered conclusion, given the circumstances and based on both principle and logic: I won’t be voting to trigger article 50. Without any plans to properly involve parliament before a vote, to call a general election or offer the protection of a referendum on the terms of any deal, how could I – as a democrat and someone who believes in social and environmental justice – possibly vote to throw the country into the potential nightmare of leaving the EU within two years without any proper plan? I don’t know whether it’s primarily arrogance or incompetence that’s causing such anti-democratic posturing by the Conservatives, but I do know it’s extraordinary they expect MPs to simply fall in line without knowing what we’re voting for. Ultimately, voting to trigger article 50 – without any firm guarantees about what Brexit would mean, for everything from the security and family life of the many EU nationals working in places such as Brighton’s universities to whether there’s any way to enforce standards for the quality of the air we all breathe – would risk undermining the work that the constituents of Brighton Pavilion put me in parliament to do, and the pledges my party made to the more than 1 million people who voted for us. The government seems to have morphed a marginal vote in favour of leaving the EU into a phantom majority that wants us out of the single market – and all of the benefits it entails – despite the public never being asked their opinion on it. Without any solid proposals for an interim deal after two years of negotiation, the Conservatives’ plan is particularly reckless. I still believe that Britain is better off as part of the European Union, and I’ll be campaigning in the next election for our continued membership of the biggest peace project in history. As a constituency MP and co-leader of a national party, I believe that I have a duty both to represent my constituents and to act in the country’s interest – and I firmly believe that voting to trigger article 50, with things as they currently stand, runs counter to both of those roles. Our country has been shaken to the core by the EU referendum campaign and the divisions it revealed – and what happens next will define us for generations to come. That’s why I’m more committed than ever to both exposing and opposing government recklessness on Brexit, and looking to build a more united, fairer and more democratic Britain – whatever the outcome of negotiations with Europe.
It is easy to despair of our leaders, but Brexit has exposed Britain’s rotten core David Cameron has had a good week. Never mind that he took a gamble with the UK’s future, lost his bet and then opted to retire from what seem likely to be protracted and unpleasant consequences; in media terms he has been able more or less to recede from view. Instead, the spotlight has been on other individuals: on the delicious backstabbing among competing Conservatives, on the struggles between the Corbynistas and their opponents and on Chilcot’s weighty verdict on the failings of an earlier prime minister, Tony Blair. But what if the essence of our present problems is more than a matter of individuals? It is unlikely to be an accident, for instance, that Blair and Cameron, skilful political players both, each came to grief over matters to do with foreign affairs. This is a sector of government where traditionally prime ministers are given a great deal of leeway. Perhaps too much leeway. Perhaps one lesson of our current difficulties is that Westminster and other UK agencies need to find better ways of monitoring, amending and regulating prime-ministerial actions. Cameron did not, for example, opt for a referendum on the EU chiefly to cater to democracy. He did what he did to placate his party’s Eurosceptic wing and in an attempt to scuttle Ukip. Shouldn’t some thought be given as to how, in the future, we might better protect our politics from such partisan, cynical and lazy deployments of this device: a device that by definition reduces the most complex and technical questions to a crude “yes” or “no”? There are other respects, too, in which the Brexit vote only exposes afresh structural and governmental challenges and deficiencies in the UK that have been longstanding and which, by itself, it will do nothing to resolve, and may indeed make worse. Self-evidently, Brexit underlined again some of the actual disunities of the United Kingdom with very different voting patterns emerging in Northern Ireland, and still more in Scotland, than in Wales and in most of England. The vote confirmed something else: a sense of bereftness that is disproportionately (though not uniquely) felt in England. Lots of people in that country seem to have opted for Brexit out of a near mystical sense that it would somehow give them their country back. This did not simply stem from worries over immigration. Since the 1990s, devolution has done something to enhance the sense of self-government and distinctiveness in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, but nothing comparable has yet been done for England. George Osborne, like Labour before him, has certainly made something of a push for elected mayors. But this has been a gesture to local and civic identities, not a celebration of collective English identities. Will the crises and fierce debates set off by Brexit, which are likely to be long running and deep, do something to focus attention on these longstanding issues and force some substantial attempts to address them? Historically, and across the world, major crises have often resulted in acts of constitutional and political reconfiguring. Since the 17th century, for instance, it has tended overwhelmingly to have been war – whether international war or civil war – or the experience of military defeat, or invasion and the fear of invasion, or revolution, or decolonisation, that has obliged states to devise and venture on new political constitutions. This is not just because traumas of this kind often compel states to undertake some political change and reorganisation. More positively and creatively, traumas often lead to widespread demands within a country for a fresh start. So might the Brexit crisis possibly contribute to some kind of process of political renovation and reimagination here? The opportunities – and the need – certainly exist. In an ideal world, which of course we do not have, a future UK government could, say, consider holding a special convention or set of meetings with elected representatives from the four nations specifically to discuss, and thrash out, and consider new ideas about what a post-Brexit United Kingdom might ideally look like and what its challenges and opportunities are likely to be. Such a convention might well resolve – finally – to forge a more explicitly federal system. This would make it rather easier for each of the different component parts of this polity to forge their own distinctive residual relationships with the EU if that was their people’s choice. An explicitly federal structure to the UK would also be able to give England its own local parliament, situated perhaps in the north, thereby applying an effective but responsible salve to the sense of bereftness that currently affects both the northern sector of England and English nationalists more generally. Any kind of new UK federal system would almost certainly demand the creation of a written constitution. Properly drafted, such a document could, among many things, pin down more effectively the proper dimensions of prime ministerial power. More importantly, it could function as a new script for identity, beliefs and rights amongst the UK’s millions of very miscellaneous citizens. Bills of rights and written constitutions, both of which these islands have experimented with at different times in the past, are not remotely magic bullets. They sometimes fail badly. But they can, with luck and care, help to bring into existence the identities, the cohesiveness and some of the ideals that they set out in words. Will any of this happen? Probably not, for all that the opportunities and the need are very much there. Like many other polities gripped by a sense of extreme flux and/or decline, the UK in recent decades has succumbed more obviously to a cult of strong or at least charismatic leadership. It has been striking how much of the language surrounding the current Tory leadership contest has harped on the need for a new Margaret Thatcher. By the same token, while Jeremy Corbyn is hardly a conventionally charismatic politician, many of those at grassroots level who are still passionately devoted to him seem to believe, quite as much as do old and new Thatcherites on the other side, that all that is needed is to get the right kind of individual at the top. Yet, thus far, Corbyn’s expressed ideas for a renovated UK hardly seem to be very imaginative or wide-ranging – or sufficient. Nor, probably, are Theresa May’s. A clever, thoughtful and careful politician, the essence of her appeal – and why she will probably become prime minister – is that she is so obviously cast as the nation’s nanny. She will be tough but fair. She will stand for no nonsense. She will calm down the nursery and bandage up knees. But what if that is no longer enough?
'At Thriller Live, there's a fight in the stalls' … my three-week journey into jukebox musicals On Saturday afternoon at 4pm, a landmark was passed. Thriller Live opened its 3,000th performance at the Lyric theatre in London. A cheerful tribute to Michael Jackson, it was already the longest-running show in the Lyric’s history – and seven years after opening, the theatre still sells an average of 80% of its 915 seats for each performance. It is already booking until April next year, and a regional tour that started last week is taking in eight towns and cities between now and July. It’s all testament to the boundless appetite of the British public for hearing songs performed by people who sometimes – but not usually – look like the people who first performed them, and who sometimes – but not usually – sound like the people who first performed them. The first jukebox musical in Britain was Jack Good and Ray Cooney’s Elvis, which opened in 1977, the show that helped turn Shakin’ Stevens from a John Peel favourite and stalwart of Communist party benefits into a staple of light entertainment. A decade or so later, Buddy – The Buddy Holly Story, opened in the West End, running for 13 years, and ensuring a generation of Londoners became incapable of hearing Holly’s name without appending the Sun quote from the posters – “It’s Buddy brilliant!” The explosion in jukebox musicals, the point at which they became the go-to shows for impresarios seeking a guaranteed buck, came when Abba granted permission for their songs to feature in Mamma Mia!, which opened in 1999 and is still running. Since then, pretty much any artist with a catalogue greater than a couple of albums and a fanbase wealthy enough to pay for theatre tickets has had their own show. The fact is, though, that they aren’t a guaranteed buck. For every We Will Rock You, there’s a Viva Forever – the Spice Girls show that lost £5m and closed within a year. Nevertheless, they are still thriving, and so with Motown the Musical opening, I was set the challenge of going to as many West End jukebox musicals as I could, and trying to work out – as the ’s music editor, rather than a theatre critic – the appeal. There are five on my list, culminating in Motown. Before that, in three weeks, I have to fit in Beautiful – The Carole King Musical, Thriller Live, Jersey Boys and Sunny Afternoon. At Thriller Live, I’m sitting next to a group of women who want to know why I’ve been taking notes. I tell them, and ask in return why they’ve come to see a particularly slick Britain’s Got Talent version of Michael Jackson’s music. Colette, in the seat next to me, explains that it’s not all about the music, and it’s not all about the theatre. It’s a social thing – she and her friends come down from Cheshire two or three times a year to do some shopping and see a show. And they like jukebox musicals – they know the songs, it’s a bit of fun. They’ve already seen most of the shows on my list, but they’re ruling out Motown, at least until good seats are available at more reasonable prices (top price tickets in the stalls are an eye-watering £120). It’s certainly true that jukebox musical audiences are not like the crowds at gigs or plays. They’re chattier than you get at Wolf Hall, for starters. During Thriller Live, excitingly, a fight breaks out in the stalls – just at the point we are being told what a great force for good in the world Michael Jackson was – which you rarely get at the Donmar. They’re also more forgiving than crowds at gigs; they greet every performance with enthusiasm, and it only takes the slightest encouragement for an audience to be on its feet, clapping along. There are three kinds of jukebox musical: the one in which the song-and-dance routines are churned out one after the other, with no pretence at plot, just a little bit of narration (Thriller Live); the one that shoehorns songs from one artist or genre into a plot unrelated to the artists concerned (We Will Rock You, Rock of Ages – the hair metal musical that was by some distance the worst night I’ve ever had in a theatre, in which Starship’s We Built This City was cued up by a discussion about urban planning); and the biography. Apart from Thriller, all the shows I see fit into this last category. The big problem with the biographical format, as everyone who’s ever watched a rockumentary knows, is that there’s really only one story: it begins with camaraderie and passion and excitement, it progresses to conquering the world, at which point ennui and conflict creep in (often exacerbated by drugs and alcohol), and the principals start to hate each other. Finally, but not always, there’s resolution – the reunion, the realisation that the best times were before they got famous, when it was all for fun and no one was making money out of them. Motown, Beautiful, Sunny Afternoon and Jersey Boys all cleave to that path to varying degrees. Motown sees the soul label through the eyes of its founder, Berry Gordy, portraying its story not as about Gordy managing to alienate key artists and writers by screwing them over, but how – like an R&B Lear – he was betrayed by those he had made great, until finally they come to honour him (bizarrely it also manages to almost completely excise Stevie Wonder, the label’s presiding genius, and portray Smokey Robinson as Detroit’s genial village idiot). Beautiful has the slight problem that Carole King is the least interesting person in her own story – a writer of incredible melodies, whose greatest aspiration appeared to be living in a nice house in the New York suburbs – and so has to rely on the characters of Gerry Goffin, Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil to generate drama. Sunny Afternoon has the story of the wars between the Kinks’ Ray and Dave Davies to provide its heart, and it’s also the only one of the shows that does something with its songs other than set them up with a series of “Gee, you’ll never guess what I’ve just written!” – as when Stop Your Sobbing becomes a commentary on his relationship with his first wife, Rasa. Jersey Boys, the tale of the Four Seasons, has a surprisingly strong story arc, thanks to the group’s links to the New Jersey mob, and the conflict that generated between their artistic heart – Frankie Valli and Bob Gaudio – and their founder, Tommy DeVito. Everyone’s stories are condensed into a series of snapshots from a brief period. Beautiful begins in the late 50s, and ends with Carole King releasing Tapestry in 1971. Sunny Afternoon, to all intents and purposes, ends with the release of Lola in 1970, despite an encore that shifts us forward to the band headlining Madison Square Garden in 1981. Both Motown and Jersey Boys dwell on the 60s, skipping through the subsequent decades in moments. But you’re not going to these shows for the history, you’re going for the songs. Sadly, Motown fails here. Too many songs are truncated, too many minor tracks included at the expense of classics (in this version of the story, Diana Ross going solo is the defining moment in Motown history). Thriller Live can’t really go wrong, given the riches at its disposal. Jersey Boys makes a decent stab at making the case for Bob Gaudio as the Brian Wilson of the east coast. Beautiful passes in a blur of wonderful songs, but the winner is Sunny Afternoon. That’s not because Davies’ songs are better – he has perhaps written fewer unimpeachable classics than King, and no individual artist has a catalogue to match Motown – but because Sunny Afternoon is the only show that treats its music as rock’n’roll. It’s a surprise and a thrill to realise You Really Got Me is going to be played at gig volume rather than cabaret volume, and it’s the only show in which you feel the thwump of the bass in your sternum. By the end of my run, I’m starting to feel as if I’m starring in my own rockumentary. What started in enthusiasm has progressed to ennui – another night, another show. The interval drinks begin to assume a central role. Like a touring musician carping about hotels and tour buses, I’m obsessing over legroom in the theatres, and beginning to hate the people sitting around me – put away your phone! Stop kicking my seat! Don’t take up the whole armrest! Come the last night, at the Motown show, I finally crack. I slip out before the encore begins, to the surprise and irritation of the other people in my row. All I can think about is getting to the pub. It’s time to stop this madness. Stop! In the Name of Love. This article was amended on 16 March 2016. Mamma Mia! opened in 1999, not 1989 as originally stated.
London mayor under fire for remark about 'part-Kenyan' Barack Obama The shadow chancellor has accused Boris Johnson of dog-whistle racism for writing an article in which the London mayor quoted claims that Barack Obama’s “part-Kenyan” heritage had driven him towards anti-British sentiment. John McDonnell joined fellow Labour MPs Yvette Cooper and Chuka Umunna in questioning Johnson’s judgment in referring to the president’s ancestry in an article for the Sun newspaper. “Mask slips again. Boris part-Kenyan Obama comment is yet another example of dog-whistle racism from senior Tories. He should withdraw it,” McDonnell tweeted. Johnson, a high-profile figure in the campaign for Britain to leave the EU, wrote about the decision of the Obama administration to remove a bust of Britain’s wartime leader Winston Churchill from the Oval Office. “Some said it was a snub to Britain. Some said it was a symbol of the part-Kenyan president’s ancestral dislike of the British empire – of which Churchill had been such a fervent defender,” said Johnson in an article designed to hit back at Obama after the US president waded into the EU referendum debate on Friday. The mayor and Tory MP said Obama’s country would “not dream of embroiling itself” in anything similar to the EU, which he said was inching towards a federal superstate. Cooper told the : “As ever, it’s more bad judgment from Boris Johnson. Is this really how a man who wants to be prime minister should be talking about the president of the United States?” Umunna tweeted: “These Tory mayoral types are beyond the pale.” He said the Conservative mayoral candidate Zac Goldsmith had played on his opponent Sadiq Khan’s Muslim heritage, repeatedly attacking Khan for having shared a platform with a man who has been accused of extremist views. Churchill’s grandson Nicholas Soames, a Conservative MP backing the remain campaign, called Johnson’s article “appalling” and said it was “inconceivable” that the wartime leader would not have welcomed Obama’s views. He said Johnson was “unreliable and idle about the facts”, claiming there was still a Churchill bust inside the White House. The prime minister’s spokeswoman said the decision to remove the Churchill bust was taken before Obama took office. Bust story debunked Ted Cruz, the Republican senator who is locked in a battle with Donald Trump to become their party’s nominee for the presidential election, made a similar claim last year, saying Obama was responsible for removing the bust. The claim was debunked by the Washington Post, which concluded after a detailed investigation that the bust had been returned to the British embassy in Washington before Obama took office. Ukip leader Nigel Farage told the US president to “butt” out of intervening in the UK’s referendum on EU membership. Attacking the president’s intervention in support of the ‘Remain’ side at the outset of a visit to the UK, Farage said said that he took Obama’s description of himself as a friend of the UK “with a pretty large pinch of salt.” “Look, I know his family’s background. Kenya. Colonialism. There is clearly something going on there,” he added. “It’s just that you know people emerge from colonialism with different views of the Britsh. Some thought that they were really rather benign and rather good, and others saw them as foreign invaders. Obama’s family come from that second school of thought and it hasn’t quite left him yet.” Obama made an emotional plea to the British public to “stick together” with the rest of the European Union as he arrived in the UK to celebrate the Queen’s 90th birthday. In an article for the Daily Telegraph, Obama argued that Britain’s influence in the world was magnified by its membership of the EU. “As citizens of the United Kingdom take stock of their relationship with the EU, you should be proud that the EU has helped spread British values and practices – democracy, the rule of law, open markets – across the continent and to its periphery,” he wrote.
These anti-Brexit posters show just what we lose by leaving the EU The artist Wolfgang Tillmans has said what I feel: “What is lost is lost forever,” he warns over a blue and violet image of the Earth from above, apparently one of the photographer’s pictures taken through the window of a passenger jet – an image of boundless space, longing and desire. He is talking about the EU. Tillmans has created a series of passionate posters arguing why Britain should stay in Europe and urging young voters in particular to make sure they are registered to vote in the EU referendum before 7 June. Should artists weigh in and lecture people on why we should vote to remain in the EU? This is territory where many have already been stunned into silence. In a pre-emptive strike, the Brexit side scored easy points against cultural celebrity Emma Thompson after some comments she made at a film festival about what Britain might look like out of Europe. The lesson appeared to be that members of the cultural elite – who include Turner prize-winner Tillmans – are advised to stay quiet, or risk being mocked as part of the Europhile establishment the leavers scorn. Nobody commissioned Tillmans to make these 25 overtly political works, which combine lyrical images with bold words. He is acting on his own initiative (aided by his London and Berlin studio assistants) as a citizen concerned the remain campaign lacks passion. “We have reached a critical moment that could prove to be a turning point for Europe as we know and enjoy it – one that might result in a cascade of problematic consequences and political fall-out,” he writes on his website, where the posters are available to download and share. “What is lost is lost forever” is the one that moves me most because it expresses exactly what is at stake. All the passion about the EU debate may seem to be on the Brexit side, with their enthusiasm for national sovereignty and visions of a sceptred isle. This emotion has suddenly turned from a strength to a weakness, as damning data on the potential economic woes of a Brexit piled up and Barack Obama delivered his cool blow. Patriotic feelings are all the Brexiteers appear to have. In place of economic reason, they resort to absurd vitriol. But there’s a long way to go, and emotions continue to matter. Tillmans’ image of a lost horizon captures what I suspect is the hidden emotional truth for millions of people. We may not be out there ranting, but if Britain voted to leave we would wake up on 24 June with a terrible sense of loss and isolation, a sadness that would be hard to shake. Britain outside Europe would feel like a foreign land to its own people. Whose country would such an isolationist island be? Not mine – I’d be lost there. Incredibly, leave campaigner and justice minister Dominic Raab has conceded that Britons may need visas to visit Europe if they vote to go. What kind of backward step in history are these people contemplating? A visa to visit Europe? Tillmans expresses the tragedy of such an outcome in a poster that adapts the words of the poet John Donne: “No man is an island. No country by itself.” In another, over an ethereal blue and orange photograph, he asks: “If people like Rupert Murdoch, Nigel Farage, George Galloway, Nick Griffin, and Marine Le Pen want Britain to leave the EU … Where does that put you?” I suspect Tillmans is not on Nigel Farage’s radar. But he can use his more selective fame to directly address younger voters who need to register and vote. And other artists should follow his lead if they can express themselves as naturally and sympathetically as he does in these posters. The photograph he matches with his revision of Donne’s immortal lines is a view from the sky of a coastline battered by the waves. Instead of white cliffs with green grass behind them, as in some Brexit fantasy island, the land here is cut off from a wider world and looks like a desert. Isolate this island and it will die.
How big tobacco lost its final fight for hearts, lungs and minds There was a finality about it all, a sense that after half a century something was coming to an end. As David Anderson QC, one of “big tobacco’s” senior lawyers, put it, the battle against the introduction of plain packaging for cigarettes had become the industry’s equivalent of Custer’s Last Stand, its “last battlefield”. Legal hyperbole perhaps, but also an indication of just what the tobacco industry believed was at stake last week when the high court handed down its landmark judgment rejecting a coordinated attempt by the world’s four largest cigarette manufacturers to derail the new EU regulations that came into effect on Friday. The new tobacco directive means graphic health warnings with photos, text and cessation information must cover 65% of the front and the back of cigarette and roll-your-own tobacco packs. Member states have 12 months to sell old stock, and up to four years to sell menthol and flavoured cigarettes, which were banned outright. The EU directive also allowed the UK to go further and parliament voted last March by a majority of 254 MPs to introduce its own regulations, requiring all tobacco products to be sold in uniformly drab green-brown packaging with large images designed to act as health warnings. Having failed to overturn the changes at the European court of justice last month, big tobacco hoped it could succeed in front of a British judge. However, hailed by health campaigners as something that will save lives, not just in the UK but around the world, Mr Justice Green’s ruling – rejecting an application for a judicial review into the government’s regulations – laid bare, in embarrassing and irrefutable detail, how cigarette companies have targeted young people. The ruling was the full stop to a story that had its glamorous beginnings in the Mad Men era of the 1960s, when Hollywood made smoking fashionable, but which became ever darker as the tobacco industry connived to suppress evidence of the health risks posed by cigarettes, its role in smuggling its products around the world, how it routinely bribed governments and officials not to legislate against it and the way it identified developing countries as lucrative markets for exploitation. Then the narrative shifted. An increasingly muscular tobacco control lobby fought back, identifying the battle to strip the firms of their marketing weapons as a key priority, and big tobacco suddenly found its arsenal heavily depleted. Barred from promoting its product on billboards, in magazines and on television, it came to the view that packaging was essential to the identity of its brands, a piece of intellectual property that it could never afford to lose. As a cigarette packet designer, John Digianni, explains in an interview on the tobacco industry website Tobacco Today: “A cigarette package is part of a smoker’s clothing, and when he saunters into a bar and plunks it down, he makes a statement about himself. When a user displays a badge product, this is witnessed by others, providing a living testimonial endorsement of the user on behalf of that brand and product.” Boring old packaging, it transpires, is not so boring after all. The court was shown what seemed to be a normal pack of Benson & Hedges cigarettes that went on sale in 2006. To open the pack, the consumer needed to slide a tray containing the cigarettes out of its side. Printed on the tray was an aphorism attributed to GK Chesterton: “I owe my success to having listened respectfully to the very best advice and then going away and doing the exact opposite.” Japan Tobacco International, owner of the Benson & Hedges brand in the UK, credited the packaging innovation with a near 47% year-on-year rise in sales. Cigarette manufacturers acknowledge that such innovations boost sales among adults. However, they vigorously deny their products are targeted at young people. Yet the court was shown clear evidence of how even very young children can be drawn to cigarette packaging. A video made by Cancer UK, in which young children discussed the look of various packs, brought home the point forcefully. One girl, around six or seven years of age, was delighted with the pink packaging of a particular brand. “It’s actually quite pretty,” she said excitedly. A young boy described a yellow pack as “fun” and declared: “It makes you feel almost happy by looking at it.” It is hard to see children of a similar age enthusing about the new-look packets – drab cartons adorned with gruesome images of people with smoking-related diseases. “This was a devastating defeat for big tobacco,” said Deborah Arnott, chief executive of Action on Smoking and Health, whose evidence submitted to the court was also shared with MPs before they debated the introduction of the regulation. “First Australia, now the UK and France, have gone ahead with removing all branding, except the name in a standard-size font. Coming up fast behind are Ireland, Hungary, Norway, Canada and New Zealand, with others soon to follow. Before too long, glitzy, brightly coloured and highly branded tobacco packs will be a relic of the past, which children born today will never see.” The tobacco giants’ failure to win their case has left them picking up a multimillion pound legal bill and scrambling to calculate the devastating impact it will have on the value of their brands. In hearings last year, Anderson, on behalf of his client, Japan Tobacco International – which alongside Philip Morris, British American Tobacco and Imperial Tobacco brought the case against the government – expressed outrage at the idea this could happen without financial redress. “However strong the objective for taking property away, you will normally compensate,” he told Green. “Your lordship will remember the slave owners were compensated when slavery was abolished.” It was an unfortunate example. Big tobacco’s profits were built on slavery: even many smokers would feel queasy with this argument. But the case was not really about compensation, the manufacturers maintained. Rather, it was about preventing bad law that would have repercussions for other industries – a favourite big tobacco argument. As Geoffrey Hobbs QC, a lawyer for BAT, who, along with JTI has said it plans to appeal the ruling, observed: “This case is not just about tobacco … there are proposals coming from different sources for the same sort of reasoning and approach to be applied in relation to foods with high salt content, foods with too much fat, too much sugar.” More importantly, the new regulation was disproportionate and would not work, the cigarette giants argued. There was no evidence that it would discourage young people from smoking, as the government insisted. Rather, it would encourage the counterfeiting of cigarettes, because non-branded packets would be easier to make, something that would deprive the Treasury of much-needed tax revenues. Ultimately the illicit trade would help only criminal networks and terrorist groups. But all of these arguments, Anderson implied, fell on deaf ears because of what he called the “myth of tobacco exceptionalism” – the view that manufacturers are “uniquely devious”. He told the court: “We have been trying at the bar to imagine whether we can think of any other group of legal or natural persons, terrorist suspects, arms dealers, Jews, in respect of whose evidence one might even begin to think that one could tenably say, ‘Well, of course, in looking at this evidence I have been very careful because I know from the past that these people are a bit devious and a bit unworthy, and the only thing they’re really interested in is subverting public health.’ ” Yet last week’s judgment, running to 1,000 paragraphs, confirmed in excoriating detail just how determined big tobacco has been down the decades to achieve precisely this goal. It noted how the court had been made aware of some 14m internal tobacco industry documents that had been revealed as a result of a raft of legal settlements in the US. Among the treasure trove, its attention was drawn to a damning internal memo from Marlboro manufacturer Philip Morris, written as far back as 1981. “It is important to know as much as possible about teenage smoking patterns and attitudes,” the memo read. “The smoking patterns of teenagers are particularly important to Philip Morris … it is during the teenage years that the initial brand choice is made.” Other internal Philip Morris documents made the same points. “The success of Marlboro Red during its most rapid growth period was because it became the brand of choice among teenagers who then stuck with it as they grew older,” one memo stated. “Younger adult smokers have been the critical factor in the growth and decline of every major brand and company over the last 50 years,” another stated. “They will continue to be just as important to brands/companies in the future.” A memo written in 1992 was even more blunt: “The ability to attract new smokers and develop them into a young adult franchise is key to brand development.” The court was also made aware of evidence cited by the World Health Organisation, held in several online archives in the US and the UK and running to almost 50m pages. The evidence prompted the WHO to conclude: “Tobacco companies and their public relations firms have always insisted that advertising does not cause non-smokers to take up the habit, but is intended to get those already smoking to switch brands. And the companies deny vigorously that they ever marketed to children. “The documents reveal the complete opposite to be true. The marketing experts in the tobacco companies knew the essential arithmetic: current smokers quit or die; therefore new smokers are always needed. Since the majority of adult smokers begin in their teenage years, this is the group that had to be targeted by advertising and promotions. The tobacco companies have created ‘children shouldn’t smoke until they are adults’ campaigns around the world, without ever mentioning the health reasons for not smoking. Internal company documents show these campaigns to be a public relations effort to deflect the severe criticism against the industry for such successful promotions as those using the Joe Camel character, which may have hooked millions of teenagers into smoking.” The court also discussed the landmark Kessler judgment of 1999, which followed a legal case brought against the tobacco companies in the US. “The evidence is clear and convincing – and beyond any reasonable doubt – that defendants have marketed to young people 21 and under, while consistently, publicly, and falsely, denying they do so,” Justice Kessler declared. “Defendants intensively researched and tracked young people’s attitudes, preferences and habits. As a result of those investigations, defendants knew that youth were highly susceptible to marketing and advertising appeals, would underestimate the health risks and effects of smoking, would overestimate their ability to stop smoking, and were price sensitive. Defendants used their knowledge of young people to create highly sophisticated and appealing marketing campaigns targeted to lure them into starting smoking and later becoming nicotine addicts.” A breakdown of the sales figures of the three most popular brands confirms this claim. Once confidential company documents reveal that in 2003 88% of youth smokers bought the three most heavily advertised brands – Marlboro, Camel and Newport. In contrast, fewer than half of smokers over the age of 25 purchased the same three brands. Marlboro, the most heavily marketed brand, held a staggering 49.2% of the 12- to 17-year-old market in the US. The tobacco giants insisted that many of the documents cited as evidence against them were 40 years old and no longer relevant. Instead they sought to shift the focus to Australia, where plain packaging was introduced in 2012. The court heard that the industry had commissioned two reports from KPMG codenamed “Project Star” and “Project Sun”, which purportedly showed that plain packaging was responsible for a rise in illicit sales of cigarettes in Australia. But in a letter to public health minister Jane Ellison, dated 2 May 2014 and released under the Freedom of Information Act, Robin Cartwright, a KPMG partner, admitted that: “The report we released recently, Illicit Tobacco in Australia – 2013 Half Year Report, has been somewhat misrepresented by others, without our consent, to suggest it supports the contention that plain paper packaging could lead of itself to an increase in tobacco smuggling and duty avoidance.” Ultimately, despite the mountains of evidence they submitted to the court, there was an extraordinary lacuna at the heart of the tobacco companies’ case. In public they claimed that the new regulations would not achieve their chief goal of discouraging children from taking up smoking, but they failed to submit any of their own private analysis to explain how they reached this conclusion. Green was astonished by this failure. “It is common sense that the claimant tobacco companies will have conducted some analysis, internally, of the economic and financial implications for each of them of the introduction of the regulations,” he noted in his ruling. “None of that analysis is before the court or has been (apparently) seen by the experts instructed by the tobacco companies.” As a result, much of the evidence produced by the experts on behalf of big tobacco to counter the government’s case was dismissed by Green who, one by one, shot them down. The evidence of Jonathan Klick, a professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania, who was “retained by BAT to offer an opinion upon the literature regarding the effects of plain packaging on smoking”, was described as “unsatisfactory in multiple respects”. Neil McKeganey, professor of sociology at the University of Glasgow and director of the Centre for Drug Misuse Research, produced a review of some of the main pieces of research literature that failed to confront “the contrary evidence, including that from the tobacco companies” which would have made it “hard to see how he could have advanced the opinions that he did”. Gregory Mitchell, professor of law at the University of Virginia, who produced a report on how adolescents make health decisions, submitted “evidence unsatisfactory at almost every level”. Casey Mulligan, professor in economics, University of Chicago, who developed economic models examining the impact of plain packaging on the Australian market, “employs an unforgiving approach which never admits of even the possibility of error on his part whilst simultaneously taking the view that any and all opposing experts’ reports are flawed”. As the smoke cleared from the battlefield after last week’s landmark ruling, one question lingered: why had the cigarette giants not shared the vast amounts of data they had accumulated over more than half a century with their own expert witnesses? Green had a view: “The experience in the US shows that there are likely to be a multiplicity of relevant documents, and that they might well not be supportive of the claimants’ case.” For Marlboro Man and Joe Camel, the risk that such documents would become public was just too great. They had waged a ferocious rearguard action to prevent the truth from coming out. In the end they went down fighting. But they were firing blanks.
Tottenham lose title hopes and all control in draw with Chelsea Well, you can’t say they didn’t go down fighting. It took until the final half-hour for Tottenham Hotspur’s title challenge finally, definitively to unravel but from the seventh minute, when Mousa Dembélé initiated a snarling squabble with Mikel John Obi, to the seventh minute of stoppage time, when the final whistle blew and players and managers brawled on their way down the tunnel, this was a display full more of malice than of merit. In this astonishing season, now embellished with its 5,000-1 champions, how Dembélé made it all the way to stoppage time before he was booked might be the greatest miracle of all. In the dying moments of the first half, after Danny Rose slid in late on Willian in front of the Spurs dug-out, players and coaches from both sides came together in a mêlée that distracted the officials sufficiently for the Belgian to push his nails into one of Diego Costa’s eyes and down his face and emerge unnoticed and unpunished. Costa is used to winning trophies and being unpleasantly aggressive to others; here it was he who was bullied, and then he helped present a trophy to someone else. Earlier Kyle Walker had pushed Pedro to the floor and then kicked him, gently but deliberately, in the shin. And so it continued. Érik Lamela, booked early in the first half for a two-footed foul on Cesc Fàbregas, later appeared to tread on the Spaniard’s hand. Of Tottenham’s outfield players, by the end only Toby Alderweireld had not been booked and it would be a surprise if Dele Alli, retrospectively banned from this and Tottenham’s remaining two top-flight fixtures after punching a player in their previous game, did not have company on the sidelines as Spurs’ season peters out – potentially quite a lot of company. Guus Hiddink spoke afterwards about how these bad-tempered occasions “happen a lot in the Latin world”, alluding perhaps to Mauricio Pochettino, Tottenham’s Argentinian manager, who twice entered the pitch to get involved in the bad-tempered action, at one stage had to be separated from Steve Holland, Chelsea’s assistant first-team coach, and was at the centre of the post-match brawl, which began when Hiddink attempted to chaperone Fàbregas past him and down the tunnel (the Dutchman, who speaks Spanish, said later that his player was being threatened in the language). Pochettino has fashioned a young and vibrant team and minutes after the game’s end spoke calmly and genially to the media, but he showed here that the spirit of Antonio Rattin, famously, furiously sent off in a World Cup quarter-final 50 years ago and eight miles away, lives within him. “It’s football,” he said. “We are men, they are men and we need to show we are strong.” The irony is that it was supposed to be Chelsea who were motivated by spite. There was little for them to play for but professional pride – which has not always been evident in their performances this season – and a refusal to cede the title they won a year ago to local rivals. It proved motivation enough, with Eden Hazard, whose assertion that “we don’t want Tottenham to win the league, if we can beat them it will be good”, represented the apotheosis of the pre-match trolling, coming off the bench wonderfully to complete their comeback from a two-goal half-time deficit. There was a moment before kick-off, as a giant “Pride of London” banner was carried across the Shed End by Chelsea’s fans, when it was tempting to wonder if they would continue passing it around the stadium until it reached the other end. Failing that, perhaps they could be tempted to stuff it into a large bag and hide it in a cupboard for the foreseeable future. There is, after all, a shelf in the club’s trophy cabinet that has just become available. But within this performance Chelsea’s players showed that perhaps they share with their fans a desire to wrest back the status they have so emphatically and humiliatingly lost this season. Of course, there were always three teams in this marriage. As Asmir Begovic prepared to take the free-kick, deep on Chelsea’s left-wing, that followed Walker’s first, early foul on Pedro, a fan in the front row immediately behind him held up a placard that read, “Let’s do it for Ranieri”. But few Chelsea supporters at that stage seemed to be thinking of Leicester, just of their club’s own superiority, temporarily misplaced. “Champions of Europe,” they bellowed repeatedly, “you’ll never see that.” It is just four years since Chelsea won the Champions League; in the build-up to this game Hiddink described his side’s remaining fixtures – against Sunderland, Liverpool and Leicester, of which only one now seems at all important in any real sense, and that only to Chelsea’s opponents – as “massive games”, an illustration of how far, how fast they have fallen. But then, in the final moments, as the game headed towards its savage and definitive conclusion, the home fans burst into the loudest song of the night: “Leicester, champions!” They are no longer the kings, but they took to the role of kingmakers rather well.
Standard Chartered shares surge despite profit slump Standard Chartered has reported a sharp drop in profits in the first quarter of the year but reassured investors over its financial strength, sparking a 10% jump in its shares. Bill Winters, chief executive of the London-listed emerging markets focused bank, said it had reviewed its operations since the publication of 11.5m leaked files from the Panama-based law firm Mossack Foncesa shed light on the way wealthy individuals use secretive offshore tax havens. Winters said the bank had looked at its operations more broadly than the Panama Papers but had “not identified anything out of the Panama Papers per se”. Within days of the publication of the Panama Papers, the Financial Conduct Authority had contacted 20 financial firms to ask them about their dealings with Mossack Fonseca. Shares in the bank were the biggest risers in the FTSE 100, up more than 10% to 574.5p, even as it reported a 59% fall in first quarter profits to £589m and warned of a challenging period ahead. A year ago the shares were trading at over £11 and Winters – who replaced longstanding boss Peter Sands in June – raised £3.3bn from shareholders at 465p a share by giving investors two shares for every seven they already hold. For 2015, he reported the bank’s first loss since 1989 as a result of embarking on a huge restructuring, scaling back of riskier operations and incurring rising bad debts. While the bank weathered the financial crisis relatively unscathed it started to run into trouble after being hit by regulatory charges in 2012 and then suffered falling profits. But the shares rose on Tuesday after investors were reassured over its capital position and the fact that its debt charge of $471m was also down on the fourth quarter. “It seems like the new management team is settling in well, and the new chief risk officer hasn’t found any other unexploded ordnance,” said Sandy Chen, analyst at Cenkos Securities. Standard Chartered also incurred regulatory costs of $243m for the first quarter, down on a year ago. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in the UK is conducting two investigations into the bank’s internal safeguards against financial crime. When Winter’s appointment was announced in February 2015, the bank also said it would replace chairman Sir John Peace this year. Winters would only say that the bank was making good progress with its search. The bank has been held back by slower growth in China and falling commodity prices. “Given the ongoing challenging market conditions and the early implementation of our strategy, we expect group performance to remain subdued in 2016,” the bank said. “Trading conditions in the first quarter of 2016 remained similar to the final quarter of 2015, including depressed commodity prices, volatility in Chinese markets, weak emerging market sentiment and concerns around interest rate and other policy actions. Despite the external environment, we have made good progress on our strategic objectives, tightly managing costs, implementing our investment programme, further reducing areas of risk concentration, and maintaining a well capitalised and liquid balance sheet.”
Theresa May rejects £50bn EU 'divorce settlement' figure Downing Street does not accept the proposal for the UK to pay up to £50bn in a divorce settlement with the EU, Theresa May’s spokesman has said. The £50bn bill has been widely reported as under discussion by senior EU diplomats at a European council meeting in Brussels on Thursday. It would represent Britain’s share of long-term liabilities such as pensions – one of the many issues that would need to be resolved during the article 50 talks. But May’s spokesman rejected the £50bn figure, saying: “Negotiations have not begun and so that figure does not actually exist.” He added: “As was set out last night by my colleagues in Brussels, that is one of a range of issues that will have to be dealt with. The outcome of those negotiations will be something for the future.” A hefty one-off divorce bill would eat into the funds that Vote Leave campaigners promised could be kept in Britain and spent on other priorities such as the NHS. Separately, ministers including the Brexit secretary, David Davis, have conceded that Britain may end up making ongoing payments to the EU in exchange for access to the single market. May left the summit to fly back to London late on Thursday night, cancelling a planned press conference after talks ran on into the evening. Her 27 EU counterparts remained there to discuss how they would manage the process of Brexit – but in the end devoted little more than 20 minutes to the subject. No 10 also confirmed on Friday that May had sought an assurance from fellow leaders that the rights of UK citizens living in the EU and those of EU citizens living in the UK would be resolved early on in Brexit discussions. The prime minister told her EU counterparts that the topic should be a priority in negotiations, with Britain ready to guarantee the rights of EU citizens in the UK as soon as British citizens in other EU countries were protected in the same way. She had sought a deal even earlier than the start of formal negotiations, likely to begin in March, but the EU has declined to start talks without article 50 being triggered. “What happens in the negotiations is a matter for the negotiations. But we have made it very clear it is a matter we want to see resolved as soon as possible,” May’s deputy official spokesman said. He defended May’s decision to leave without giving a press conference, saying the Brussels council had overrun. The shadow Brexit secretary, Keir Starmer, has called for May to make a unilateral commitment that she would protect the rights of EU citizens already living in the EU, as a goodwill gesture to kick off the article 50 talks in a positive spirit. Helena Kennedy, the chair of the House of Lords subcommittee on the acquired rights created by EU membership, has urged EU migrants to start collecting documentation that would help prove how long they have lived in the country, to ready themselves for the post-Brexit regime.
Seven-and-a-half years on, this is a distressingly fragile recovery Stock markets in turmoil. Nervous investors seeking out safe havens for their money. Rumours swirling about the vulnerability of some of the world’s biggest banks. February 2016 is starting to smell suspiciously like early September 2008 and the days before the collapse of Lehman Brothers. To be sure, the comparison between now and that September seven-and-a-half years ago, when the global financial crisis came to a head, is not exact. The big banks say they are better equipped to withstand losses now, a view supported by their official regulators. Rising energy prices were squeezing real incomes in the summer of 2008, but today consumers and businesses are getting quite a windfall from the drop in the price of crude. But there have now been six weeks of unrelenting turmoil in the financial markets since the start of 2016 and the argument that this represents a fleeting spasm of panic before life returns to normal is wearing thin. The sell-off in shares, the collapse in commodity prices and the flight to gold have forced a long overdue reassessment of the sustainability of the uneven recovery that has been under way since spring 2009. One lesson from those dark days of crisis is that the time to start worrying is when bank bosses feel obliged to insist publicly that their institutions are rock solid. The story starts with China and the fear that the problems of the world’s second biggest economy mark the third iteration of the global crisis that began in the US in 2007, and subsequently moved to the eurozone in 2010. Like the US, and some peripheral eurozone countries, China pumped up its economic growth using cheap credit and is now finding that many of the loans are going sour. The economy is clearly slowing, with debate over whether China is expanding at close to 7% a year, as the official figures suggest, or a much lower rate. Danny Gabay, who runs the Fathom consultancy, thinks the real rate of growth could be 3% or lower. Countries that supply commodities – from Angola to Australia – did well out of China’s industrial boom. They could sell all the oil, aluminium, iron ore and copper they could produce at premium prices. Many of these countries – especially the ones that spent and borrowed freely in the expectation that high commodity prices would last forever – now look vulnerable. So when the sell-off in the markets started in January, the main concern was that the slowdown in China and the crash in commodity prices would have a domino effect on some of the weaker emerging-market economies. That source of anxiety remains, but has now been pushed slightly into the background by speculation about the health of the big European banks. Four separate factors have come together. Firstly, eurozone banks still have a lot of non-performing loans on their books from the last crisis. Secondly, the belief is that they have lent money for shale oil exploration and high-end property deals that will make losses. Thirdly, weaker growth prospects are hurting profitability. Finally, the increased use of negative interest rates is adding to financial pressures, because it now costs the banks to deposit cash at central banks. In past economic cycles, central banks had no need for recourse to unconventional tools such as negative interest rates and quantitative easing. The fact that they are still being used seven years after recovery worries investors – and rightly so. Central banks feel obliged to take action to prevent the deflation caused by China’s slowdown and the big fall in oil prices from becoming entrenched. But some of the unpleasant side effects of QE and ultra-low interest rates are now becoming obvious: QE pumps up asset-price bubbles through its encouragement of reckless lending, while low and negative interest rates add to financial pressures on commercial banks. To sum up, the past seven-and-a-half years have seen the most colossal use of monetary stimulus in recorded history, yet recovery has been weak by past standards and has been accompanied by a drift towards deflation. As policy becomes ever more unconventional, markets are starting to think central banks have lost control of the situation. The fundamental problems of the pre-crash economy – rising income inequality, over-reliance on debt, weak effective demand – have not been solved: merely papered over.
South Carolina: Hillary Clinton seeks to build on old strengths as campaign rolls on At a tired-looking service station in Orangeburg, South Carolina, Shante Richbow steps off a Greyhound bus and sits down to lunch from a polystyrene container. In the coming election, the black single mother prefers Hillary Clinton to Bernie Sanders – but not enough to go out and vote for her. “It’s a big joke,” she said. “I don’t think it’s going to matter. I don’t see any action so I won’t be voting.” Richbow, 30, has three children, including an 11-year-old son, Deshawn, who has cerebral palsy. She said she gets no help from the government except a wheelchair every five years, which he quickly outgrows. “If one of the candidates talked about that, I would listen to them,” she says. This most extraordinary of US presidential elections is hitting its stride with 14 state votes in the coming three weeks. For Democrats, the question is whether Sanders’ momentum following his victory in New Hampshire can penetrate Clinton’s “firewall” of support among African Americans and Hispanics in the south and west. For Republicans, there are half a dozen candidates left and numerous subplots within the main talking point: can anyone stop Donald Trump? South Carolina, where Republicans vote on Saturday and Democrats a week later, is by tradition “Bush country” and “Clinton country”: on Monday, former president George W Bush will make his campaign debut on behalf of brother Jeb, while Bill Clinton can also be expected to bat for Hillary. The state is bigger and more diverse than the first two to have their say, Iowa and New Hampshire. It is home to rich and poor, black and white, young and old, entrepreneur and student, Christian evangelical and military veteran. It is a place where slavery thrived, where the first shot was fired in the civil war and where a statue of Strom Thurmond, the longest-serving senator in US history, notorious foe of racial integration, stands outside the state house – near a monument to African American history. Keefer Crosby, a 53-year-old from Sumter, is black and has been unemployed since 2001. “Right here, African Americans don’t get a fair chance,” he said. “They can’t get a decent job. Because of the history. There is definitely still racism in the state of South Carolina.” He does not believe Sanders is the solution, however. “Hillary is the better person because she’s more intelligent. Bernie is old school; he’s too old to really get out there. He’s not going to be able to handle the pressure.” Sanders, 74, a leftwing insurgent who has energised millions of young people angry about the economic status quo, is pouring agents and money into South Carolina, to make the case that he can also heal America’s racial divisions. They will remind voters that he attended the 1963 march on Washington, at which Martin Luther King delivered his I Have a Dream speech, and defied criticism as the mayor of Burlington, Vermont, to endorse Jesse Jackson’s presidential campaign in 1988. In Charleston, where southern charm and historic homes draw tourists while the homeless camp out under highway bridges, a handful of Sanders signs can be seen. But truck driver Charles Jones, 41, who is African American, said: “I’ve always been a Clinton supporter. I’m not really impressed with Sanders. I don’t think he’s talking about the things I want to hear. He has a problem connecting.” African Americans made up more than half the voters in the 2008 Democratic primary. If that trend is repeated, it is expected to favour Clinton because she and her husband, Bill, have commanded loyalty in the black community since his days as president. Rae Kwon, 20, a student, said: “If I vote, it will be for Hillary, because my mother voted for Bill Clinton and we felt positive changes for people living in poverty and living in the middle class. Someone close to Bill would have the same mentality. Sanders tells people what they want to hear and he’ll back it up, but it’s real hard versus the Clintons because he doesn’t have a strong background here.” Kevin Lorenzo, 42, working as a cook at Chick-fil-A, said: “I’d take Hillary Clinton any day. Even when her husband did wrong, she stuck with him. We need diversity; we need change. Hillary is a woman and we all come from women.” His anger towards Trump, meanwhile, was raw: “He says, ‘I want to send all Mexicans back and put blacks back on the bus.’ If I were to meet this dude, I’m going to slap the toupee off his fucking head. It’s just big business to him.” But the disaffection with the political establishment that has been evident in both parties also poses a challenge to Clinton. Robert Robinson, 62, jobless and living off $1,200 a month social security, said: “I hope she wins but I won’t vote for her. I last voted for Obama in 2008 and there hasn’t been a day of benefit for me. They all make promises they can’t keep.” ‘More harm to black communities than Reagan’ Nationwide, the battle for the black vote is intensifying. In an essay published last week in the liberal magazine the Nation, Why Hillary Clinton doesn’t deserve the black vote, academic Michelle Alexander argued that Bill Clinton “caused more harm to black communities than Reagan ever did”, presiding over the biggest increase in the prison population in American history and record unemployment among black men in their 20s without a degree, all while shredding the welfare safety net. Sanders has gained the backing of singer and civil rights activist Harry Belafonte and the daughter of Eric Garner, whose death at the hands of police in New York in 2014 became one of the key causes of the Black Lives Matter movement. But civil rights hero John Lewis joined the Congressional Black Caucus in endorsing Clinton and played down Sanders’ involvement in the early movement, saying pointedly: “I never saw him. I never met him.” The morning after his thumping 22-point defeat of Clinton in New Hampshire, the senator had breakfast with the Rev Al Sharpton in Harlem, New York. Sharpton, who will meet Clinton this week, said he had impressed upon Sanders that inequality – his defining stump issue – has a specific racial dimension. In an interview with the , Sharpton said he told the candidate: “I’m more concerned about where you are with those issues of criminal justice, voting rights, in terms of what we’ve been leading on with voter IDs, than I want to hear about what you did 50 years ago. “I want to know about now and, though I think that what you’ve done years ago gives me a hint of your character, what you’re doing now is what’s going to move or not move the voters of today, young and old.” Sharpton added: “To have them both competing for the black vote is only to the benefit of blacks. The Clintons have a loyalty but that does not mean that [Sanders] cannot make a serious impact. Let’s not forget she lost in ’08 [to Obama] and they had a lot of loyalty, so if I were her I wouldn’t take it for granted, and if I were Senator Sanders I would not write it off. Clearly it’s an uphill battle but sometimes uphill battles can be won. “The key for him in South Carolina and Nevada [where Democrats caucus on Saturday] is going to be can he bring out the new voters like he did in Iowa, because loyalties are harder to change. But if he can excite new voters and be specific, I think that’ll make the difference on whether he can close the gap.” ‘This will be a national security primary’ Another upshot of the New Hampshire primary is that millions of Republicans are realising the Trump phenomenon is real, not a polling anomaly. He won resoundingly and is leading surveys in South Carolina, a state where, traditionally, the gloves come off. On Friday he traded barbs with conservative Ted Cruz and launched a TV ad featuring Jamiel Shaw, whose son was murdered by an undocumented migrant. Cruz is working hard to court the big Christian evangelical population, just as he did to win the Iowa caucuses, while Senator Marco Rubio is trying to show a human side after his disastrous debate performance in New Hampshire. Jeb Bush has a different take, hoping to appeal to the state’s large population of military veterans. He explained to reporters in Columbia: “Our belief is that this will be a national security primary, that it’s a commander-in-chief election, if you will, that people here want to know you’re going to support the veterans, support the troops, rebuild the military, modernise the military.” Bush also hopes to reactivate the family’s old patronage networks. Last week he made a pitch to the party’s establishment wing, or “country club Republicans”, before a crackling fire at an upmarket community hall in a suburb of Charleston. The former Florida governor, who has cut a well-funded but forlorn figure on the campaign trail (“Please clap,” he told one audience), seemed re-energised as took swipes at Trump, presented his education credentials and sold himself as the voice of reason on foreign policy. He was joined by his godfather Jon Bush, brother of former president George HW Bush and uncle of ex-president George W Bush, both of whom won South Carolina primaries twice. Courtly and courteous, the 84-year-old told the : “Now we’re getting into Jeb Bush country. Way up north, that’s not his forte. Now we’re coming to his strong suit and I think he’s going to have a big victory here in South Carolina and then do really well on Super Tuesday.” Reflecting on his godson’s struggles in the campaign so far, Jon Bush, a veteran fundraiser for the family, added: “The whole thing was such a farce. “His early poll ratings were based on a couple of answers in a debate where a whole lot of clowns were seeking attention for themselves and diverting away from the main issues. Now we’re into the main issues and who’s the best qualified and he’s started to make his move now because he’s clearly the best qualified … “I don’t think there’s ever been a candidate who’s more knowledgeable about more issues than he is.” But Frank Luntz, a Republican consultant and pollster, believes evangelicals and a discourse around faith-based values will be more important. “I think Jeb will struggle,” he said. “It’s more conservative and ideological and that’s not Jeb; there are other candidates. But George W will be a help: he’ll give Republicans another reason to look at Jeb.” The next three weeks are expected to winnow the field down decisively in one of the most confounding, turbulent and zany American elections in living memory. When South Carolina, Nevada and Super Tuesday – 1 March – are done, it is fair to assume the House of Clinton will have taken a hit or two but still be standing, ready for the battles ahead. The House of Bush? Not so sure.
Carson defends Trump against racism charge: 'What's the alternative?' – campaign live Here are some of the key takeaways from today in political news: In an appearance on the talk show The View, former candidate Ben Carson was confronted by co-host Whoopi Goldberg, who said that Donald Trump, whom Carson has endorsed, “is a racist.” “He’s a racist, and he’s not good for the country,” Goldberg said. “What’s the alternative?” Carson replied. Donald Trump’s doubling down on his criticism - okay, full-on insulting - of Ted Cruz’s wife is pushing the Texan senator to a place he rarely goes: unironic criticism of the billionaire frontrunner. (Although Cruz did immediately refuse to say that he would not support said “sniveling coward” if he won the Republican nomination.) A survey from Bloomberg Politics that showed Vermont senator Bernie Sanders edging out former secretary of state Hillary Clinton by a single point. Of course, America’s magnificently complicated primary process means that most national polls are barely worth the paper they’re printed on. But! These data are interesting beyond the notion that Sanders is favored by 49% of Democrats while Clinton is preferred by 48%.The reason they’re interesting? It’s all about the economy (stupid). In an interview with the Associated Press, Maryland governor Larry Hogan declared that if billionaire Republican frontrunner successfully wins his party’s nomination, he won’t know who to vote for.“I’m not a Trump fan,” Mr. Hogan told the Associated Press. “I don’t think he should be the nominee. At this point in time, I have no idea who the candidates are going to be or who I’m going to vote for.” Hogan is so disheartened by the state of the party that he “can’t even stand to watch the debates on TV.” That’s it for today’s news in American campaign politics - tune in tomorrow, and the next day, and every day after that for up-to-the-minute news from the ’s campaign correspondents around the country. The US pro-gun lobby is entertaining its younger members with its own take on classic fairytales, but they have a unique twist: firearms. The National Rifle Association’s nrafamily.com website is featuring the pro-firearms stories. The latest Hansel and Gretel (Have Guns), written by Amelia Hamilton and posted last week, is accompanied by a picture of the titular siblings lost in the forest, as is traditional, but rather than being petrified of the story’s witch they’re supplied with rifles. The Charlotte has castigated North Carolina governor Pat McCrory for signing a bill into law that stripped nondiscrimination protections from LGBT citizens, putting him in the company of “a dark list of Southern governors.” “It was, in the end, about a 21st century governor who joined a short, tragic list of 20th century governors,” the newspaper’s editorial board wrote. “You know at least some of these names, probably: Wallace, Faubus, Barnett. They were men who fed our worst impulses, men who rallied citizens against citizens, instead of leading their states forward. “This is what Pat McCrory did Wednesday. In just 12 hours. It wasn’t the stand in the schoolhouse door. It was a sprint past the bathroom door and straight into the South’s dark, bigoted past.” The bill, which also banned transgender North Carolinians from using public restrooms that comport with their gender identity, was passed in a special session and signed into law in less than 12 hours, over the protests of Democratic members of the state legislature and worries that the bill would put the state in violation of Title IX protections regarding gender. Ted Cruz has dubbed Donald Trump a “sniveling coward” - but, as NBC News’ Hallie Jackson found out, that doesn’t mean he won’t support him if he wins the nomination. Vice-president Joe Biden has admitted that the White House made a political calculation in nominating “moderate” Merrick Garland to a lifetime position on the supreme court, a choice that disappointed some liberal activists. Biden told an audience of law students in Washington that the administration had a responsibility to be pragmatic at a time of divided government which, in an at times impassioned address, he warned has the makings of a “constitutional crisis”. “It hasn’t been a closed process,” he said at Georgetown Law School. “We’ve reached out. Who do you want? Who do you think? What type of person should we nominate? We did our duty. The president did his duty. We sought advice and we ultimately chose the course of moderation. “Because the government is divided, the president did not go on and find another [William] Brennan. Merrick Garland intellectually is capable as any justice, but he has a reputation for moderation. I think that’s a responsibility of an administration in a divided government. Some of my liberal friends don’t agree with me, but I do. It’s about the government functioning.” Another day, another Republican official signs the #NeverTrump pact. In an interview with the Associated Press, Maryland governor Larry Hogan declared that if billionaire Republican frontrunner successfully wins his party’s nomination, he won’t know who to vote for. “I’m not a Trump fan,” Mr. Hogan told the Associated Press. “I don’t think he should be the nominee. At this point in time, I have no idea who the candidates are going to be or who I’m going to vote for.” Hogan is so disheartened by the state of the party that he “can’t even stand to watch the debates on TV.” “I don’t even want to be involved,” he said. “It’s a mess. I hate the whole thing. I don’t think we have the best candidates in either party that are being put up. I don’t like the dialogue. I don’t like the things that are going on, and I’m sick of talking about it, because it’s not anything I have anything to do with.” Why is Donald Trump popular? Travelling around America’s south for his most recent book Deep South, the writer Paul Theroux got some ideas. “It’s the gun show guys,” he says, sitting in his Hawaii home. “Virtually everything Donald Trump says, you can find on a gun show bumper sticker. Anti-Obama stuff, anti-Muslim stuff, anti-Mexican stuff, anti-immigrant stuff.” The 74-year-old warms to his theme. “Gun shows are about hating and distrusting the government … people who have been oppressed by a bad economy, by outsourcing. They have a lot of legitimate grievances and a lot of imagined grievances. There is this paranoid notion that Washington is trying to take their guns away, take their manhood away, take this symbol of independence away. They feel defeated. They hate the Republican party, too. They feel very isolated.” Theroux reflects on Trumpmania dominating the Republican primaries and caucuses. “It’s a whole undercurrent of feeling that runs all the way through the United States. The mood I saw in southern gun shows seems to resonate even with educated, white-collar, Massachusetts Republican voters. Because Trump won my state of Massachusetts, he won a fairly sizable majority.” He’s got us there. The ’s Tom McCarthy is best known for anchoring this liveblog, but he’s also anchoring a new politics podcast pilot we’re testing out for the ! McCarthy spoke with the ’s campaign correspondents on Barack Obama’s historic trip to Cuba, Ted Cruz’s “patrol and secure” comments regarding surveillance of Muslim communities in the United States and much more - check out the first installment here: Muslims are the new Mexicans in US politics. References to Muslims by politicians have become interchangeable with references to refugees, immigrants andterrorists in much the same way that Mexicans have long been synonymous with drug dealers, criminals and rapists. And this week, following the attacks in Brussels, a number of presidential candidates had things to say. As the target of so much attention, it’s worth fact-checking some of those claims made recently about Muslims... Ben Carson, who dropped out of the Republican presidential race earlier this month, is grilled on ABC’s The View for endorsing Donald Trump. Whoopi Goldberg, one of the show’s co-hosts, asked Carson how he can endorse someone who many believe to hold sexist and racist viewpoints. Carson says “there is no perfect person”, and that he is “looking at the big picture.” New York congressman Chris Collins told a New York radio host on Wednesday that billionaire Republican frontrunner Donald Trump is much more popular with rank-and-file members of Congress than has been let on. “Many members are supporting Trump quietly,” Collins told WHM’s Bob Lonsberry, as first reported by Buzzfeed. “They don’t like Ted Cruz at all, and for various reasons unique to their particular congressional districts they’re not formally endorsing Mr. Trump.” “I’ve had absolutely no negative feedback” for being the first member of Congress to endorse Trump’s candidacy, Collins said. “On the House floor, people know he will be our nominee. With very few exceptions - four or five individuals - everyone’s saying they will support the nominee ... And if it’s Donald Trump, they’re gonna support him, as we all need to do to defeat Hillary Clinton and the progressive liberal campaign.” ...says the man who has endorsed the candidate who once compared him to a child molester. Former first daughter and campaign surrogate Chelsea Clinton appears simultaneously pleased with and disgusted by the current war-of-wives being waged by Ted Cruz and Donald Trump. “Well I wouldn’t defend anything that Sen. Cruz and Mr. Trump says or believes in or stands for,” Clinton said while stumping for her mother, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton. “I think that the level of vitriol goes beyond anything that we certainly have seen in contemporary times in this election, and I think that anyone who is involved in politics.” “Thankfully, from President Obama to my mom to Senator Sanders on, the Democratic side continues to both stand up against that type of vitriol and hate speech and the personal attacks as well as continue to stand for the types of substantive debates that they and certainly Democrats believe we need to be having in this country,” Clinton said. Rights groups are considering legal action against North Carolina after the government adopted a law that critics say effectively sanctions the discrimination of LGBT people. “It flies in the face of democracy” said Mike Meno, a spokesperson for the ACLU of North Carolina, which is actively looking into a legal challenge against the state with a coalition of rights groups. “They essentially said it’s okay to discriminate against LGBT people, to turn them away from businesses, to fire them because of who they are or who they love – and that is not a North Carolina that a lot of people recognize or want to live in,” said Meno. “This is something that was done by extremists in the legislature who are out of step with many communities across our state.“ Another day, another clatch of polls - this time, a survey from Bloomberg Politics that shows Vermont senator Bernie Sanders edging out former secretary of state Hillary Clinton by a single point. Of course, America’s magnificently complicated primary process means that most national polls are barely worth the paper they’re printed on. But! These data are interesting beyond the notion that Sanders is favored by 49% of Democrats while Clinton is preferred by 48%. The reason they’re interesting? It’s all about the economy (stupid). Democratic voters feel that Sanders is the more reliable candidate to work for the middle class and do the most to fight Wall Street influence over government by a massive margin: 62% say he’d “fight hardest for the middle class,” and 64% say he’d do the most to “rein in Wall Street.” While Clinton scores better in areas like temperament, foreign policy and experience, the plurality of voters say that income inequality and unemployment are the most important issues facing the country right now - which gives Sanders the edge. Donald Trump’s doubling down on his criticism - okay, full-on insulting - of Ted Cruz’s wife is pushing the Texan senator to a place he rarely goes: unironic criticism of the billionaire frontrunner. In an appearance on the talk show The View, former candidate Ben Carson was confronted by co-host Whoopi Goldberg, who said that Donald Trump, whom Carson has endorsed, “is a racist.” “He’s a racist, and he’s not good for the country,” Goldberg said. “What’s the alternative?” Carson replied. “You’re Ben Carson, you’re so much better than this,” Goldberg said. “I look at the big picture,” Carson said. Fellow co-host Joy Behar then called Trump a liar and Carson said, “Tell me a politician that doesn’t tell lies.” Here’s the exchange: Goldberg: You have aligned yourself with a man who has bashed women, made countless racist statements, and you’re Ben Carson, why would you align yourself with that?” Carson: You have to look at the good and the bad. There is no perfect person. [Carson went on to say that in Palm Beach, Florida, Trump broke barriers on admitting “Jews and blacks” in social clubs.] Carson: I have met a lot of his employees, including African Americans, and they have nothing but good things to say. Carson said. [He adds that Trump has well-raised, respectful children.] Goldberg: He’s a racist, and he’s not good for the country. Carson: What’s the alternative? Since Barack Obama nominated Merrick Garland to fill the Supreme Court vacancy, Republicans in the senate have argued that it would be inappropriate to take up such a nomination in the heat of an election year – and their Exhibit A is a speech that vice president Joe Biden made on the senate floor in 1992. In the speech, which is posted below, Biden did argue against considering a Supreme Court nomination during a presidential election season. But today, in an address at Georgetown University, Biden argued that he had been quoted selectively. Because he was, as chairman of the judiciary committee at the time, willing in principle to hold hearings on a nominee, he said. He never considered, Biden said today, the possibility of not holding hearings on such a nominee. Washington correspondent David Smith watched the speech. He’s live tweeted much of it, as prelude to a news story on the way. Here’s David: Biden: Let me set the record straight. I made it absolutely clear that I would go ahead if the nominee were selected with advice of senate. Biden: We should proceed with the advice and consent of the senate, as the constitution states. Biden: On committee I was responsible for nine nominees for the supreme court, more than anyone alive. Biden: “Every nominee, including Justice Kennedy—in an election year—got an up or down vote by the senate.” Biden: “Not much of the time. Not most of the time. Every single time!” Biden: Saying nothing, hearing nothing, seeing nothing. Deciding to turn your back is not an option the constitution leaves open. Biden: It’s an abdication of responsibility “that has never happened before in our history”. Biden: Congress has become “almost entirely dysfunctional”. Biden: When the senate refuses to even consider a nominee, it prevents the court from discharging its constitutional “solemn duty”. The 1992 speech on the Senate floor in which Biden argued against considering a Supreme Court nomination in a presidential election season: Donald Trump has collected footage of three former presidential candidates who have endorsed Ted Cruz – Jeb Bush, Carly Fiorina and Lindsey Graham – speaking ill of Ted Cruz. Tagline: “With friends like these, who needs enemies?” Here’s a live stream of vice president Joe Biden’s imminent address on the topic of Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland: Wisconsin votes on Tuesday, 5 April, in an open primary. On the Republican side, there are 42 delegates at stake, awarded on a winner-take-all basis per congressional district and statewide. (If you win the vote in a congressional district, you receive all delegates allotted to that district; if you win statewide, you win additional delegates reserved for the statewide winner.) Donald Trump has scheduled a rally Tuesday for Wisconsin in Janesville. You might know it as the hometown of House speaker Paul Ryan, who gave a speech yesterday deploring the vulgar tone of the current political discourse. Ryan did not name names. Artist makes Donald Trump portrait out of pig snout and sheep eyes - video What do you know, we agree on something: Americans of both major political parties are united in their dislike of free trade, a Bloomberg poll finds. 44% say the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) has been bad for the US economy and 29% say it’s been a positive development, according to the survey. Pollsters also found that most Americans say they would be willing to pay a little bit more for goods made in the United States, and that they would rather a US-owned factory employing 1,000 opened in their community than a Chinese-owned factory employing twice that many. Virtually every question of policy has a Republican-Democrat split,” said pollster J. Ann Selzer, who oversaw the survey. “On trade, there is unity.” Both Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump have tapped the vein of protectionism, with Sanders advertising “the real cost of Hillary Clinton’s free trade policies” and Trump as much as promising a trade war. Clinton supported the Trans-Pacific Partnership as secretary of state, although she now opposes it; her husband signed Nafta. Here’s a fun interview with Republican strategist Rick Wilson on the Trump phenomenon: First question, first answer: You’ve gained lots of fans on the left thanks to your vicious descriptions of Trump and his supporters. Once, on MSNBC, you called his base ‘‘childless single men who masturbate to anime.’’ That was in reference to the alt-right part of his base. I wish I could take credit for it being a broader smear. If one is going to insult a group of people who think that Trump is their own private postmodern Hitler, one ought to be specific. Here’s a selection of photos from outside a Bernie Sanders rally yesterday evening in Los Angeles: Trump: “Illegal immigration, take the oil, build the wall, Muslims, NATO!” You know what he means. Trump has won 19 state Republican presidential nominating contests. Plus the Northern Marianas. He has 274 more pledged delegates than his closest rival. Three new polls Wednesday night showed him ahead with GOP voters by an average of 8 points. He hasn’t held a public event for three days. “N.A.T.O. is obsolete and must be changed to additionally focus on terrorism as well as some of the things it is currently focused on!” Donald Trump tweeted Thursday. The statement was in keeping with Trump’s critique of the costs of maintaining a US military presence in Japan, the Persian Gulf, Europe and elsewhere. In Trump’s view, the US is spending too much to cover other countries’ security costs. Might the US be paying in part to address US security interests in those places? He doesn’t get into it. The US makes bad deals because the leadership’s stupid, is his take. In a speech Wednesday at Stanford University, Hillary Clinton called the view “dangerous.” “If Mr Trump gets his way it will be like Christmas in the Kremlin,” Clinton said. “Turning our back on our alliances or turning our alliance into a protection racket would reverse decades of bipartisan American leadership and would send a dangerous signal to friend and foe alike.” Read further coverage here: [deep breath] Donald Trump posted an unflattering picture of Ted Cruz’s wife on Twitter, after the magnate threatened to “spill the beans” on Heidi Cruz in retaliation for an anti-Trump ad produced last week by a third party featuring a picture of Melania Trump nude. [deep breath] Here’s Trump’s RT: [deep breath] Here’s Cruz’s valiant reply: [deep breath] And here’s a sample of the indignant backlash, from an advisor to the anti-Trump group Our Principles Pac: [exhales] Here’s the tweet Trump RT’d before the one with the photo split: US data editor Mona Chalabi has a look at claims the US presidential candidates have made about Muslims this week. Here, for example, from the Texas senator: Ted Cruz “If you look here in the city of New York, New York had a proactive policing program that Mayor Michael Bloomberg championed to work cooperatively with the Muslim community to prevent radicalization.” - Speaking at a news conference in New York, 22 March 2016 Cruz made the comment hours after the attacks in Brussels on Tuesday, in a speech outlining a proposal to “patrol and secure Muslim neighborhoods”. His description of NYPD’s “proactive policing program” could make it hard to figure out which scheme Cruz is referring to – because the NYPD Muslim monitoring scheme is generally referred to as their surveillance program. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) certainly doesn’t describe the NYPD scheme, which has been in place since at least 2002, as “proactive” – their site explains: The NYPD’s surveillance program is based on a false and unconstitutional premise: that Muslim religious belief and practices are a basis for law enforcement scrutiny. New York’s federal courts would seem to agree. In January, the NYPD lost two civil rights lawsuits that accused the force of unfairly monitoring Muslims. Cruz’s claim that the program worked “cooperatively” with New York’s Muslims is also a very generous reading of practices such as tracking individuals and using so-called “mosque crawlers”. Assessment: A convenient reinterpretation of the facts. Read the full piece here: President Obama dances the tango in Argentina – video Hello and welcome to our live-wire coverage of the 2016 race for the White House. Donald Trump not only maintains his polling lead among Republicans in three new surveys – most Republican voters agree with him that if he wins the most delegates before the national convention, even if it’s not an outright majority, he should be the nominee. A Bloomberg poll found 63% of Republicans who have voted or plan to vote in the primary process think Trump should be nominated if he leads the delegates race in July. One problem, for Republicans, is that the same poll found that Trump was viewed unfavorably by 68% of Americans. That’s a lot – even more than the fairly unpopular Hillary Clinton, whose disapproval rating was measured at 53%. In other news, Joe Biden is scheduled to speak today on the nomination of DC circuit court judge Merrick Garland to the supreme court. That’s drudgery compared to what the Obamas, who spent last night in Argentina, are up to: Trump predicts a Brexit: Thanks for reading and please join us in the comments!
Matt Miazga: Chelsea's pull proves too strong for Red Bulls' standout defender With Thierry Henry snarling in his direction, incredulous at the howler made by the New York Red Bulls’ rookie 18-year-old, Matt Miazga looked to have a rather steep learning curve ahead of him. The New Jersey native of Polish descent has certainly scaled that arc in the 18 months since that blunder against the Columbus Crew, but now he has another peak to climb. London is calling. Miazga this week completed a remarkable rise, with Chelsea wrapping up a £3.5m move for the centre-back. At 20, he in the vanguard of Major League Soccer’s homegrown crop, and at Stamford Bridge he will be given the kind of platform no American player has had since Tim Howard also made the move from New York to the Premier League over 12 years ago. The past year was unanimously acknowledged to have been a good one for Miazga – lifting the Supporters’ Shield as one of the Red Bulls’ standout performers – but maybe not this good. So what are Chelsea getting from their new American stopper? At 6ft 4in, the lanky Miazga certainly commands a presence, but there is a technicality to his game too. Athleticism is indeed his greatest – and most obvious – asset, yet his ability on the ball will serve him well in a more technically demanding division. Miazga can pass. He arrives with an international background too, although his track record makes Timothy Chandler look like a flag-waving nationalist. Miazga turned out for the United States’ Under-14s, -16s and -20s sides, but also played for Poland’s Under-16s and -18s. His future was the subject of discussion – Poland wanted him to commit – but his substitute appearance for USA in a World Cup qualifier against St Vincent & the Grenadines put paid to Polish hopes. It was for USA that Miazga first caught the eye of Premier League scouts. Last year’s Under-20 World Cup was a breakthrough event for the defender, with Tab Ramos’s side only knocked out on penalties by eventual winners Serbia. He might not have been Captain America, but in effect Miazga was the USA’s leader at the back, showing the kind of leadership capacity not seen in many players of his age. By his own admission, he is hardly a natural figurehead but has worked hard at that aspect of his game. In MLS terms, Miazga has pedigree, marking David Villa out of a Yankee Stadium derby in a nationally televised game last June, and also finding the net for the Red Bulls in a 3-1 win. At Chelsea, however, the 20-year-old will have to prove himself all over again. First-team opportunities will be at a premium, with some already mooting that a loan deal away from Stamford Bridge might give Miazga the best chance of making an impression in England. “We don’t rush him, but he will be one of the squad members for the future,” Guus Hiddink explained when asked about what role Miazga will play at Chelsea. “He’s a young guy stepping up to the national team and it’s always good to have such players here so you can see what they are capable of in training. He’s a young player, a promising player – let’s see if he can get himself to the high demands of this club and the Premier League.” 2015 saw the Red Bulls became a very different franchise, with billboard faces like Thierry Henry and Tim Cahill replaced by more shrewdly acquired signings. Head coach Jesse Marsch placed more of an emphasis on organic development, and Miazga was arguably the primary beneficiary of that renewed approach. He became the poster-boy for MLS’s often maligned homegrown program. “I think he’s been one of the best defenders in the league this year and should be considered in that echelon,” Marsch gushed towards the close of last season. “His starting points are very high – everything from his mentality, to his awareness, to his athleticism – which means his ceiling is very high.” Others aren’t so convinced, though. “He is a really nice guy, but pretty naive and he plays young,” a mystery former teammate, who apparently played with Miazga in New York, told the Secret Footballer. “He looks big but he is soft, so hopefully he gets a little stronger and meaner otherwise he will be eaten alive in the Premier League. He is a good kid, so I am happy for him, but he needs to be loaned out to get experience.” Miazga has resisted the Premier League’s overtures before – with Leicester City and Stoke City both reportedly interested parties – but this time English soccer’s pull has proven too strong. The defender could probably have used at least another year in MLS, backing up what he achieved last season, but the appeal of joining one of the game’s biggest clubs is understandable. On the flip side, Chelsea fans – with little over 48 hours of the transfer window remaining – will surely question how the signing of Miazga, as well as Alexandre Pato, can possibly turn around their ailing campaign. Why the latter was sought is anyone’s guess, but Miazga has been signed with at least one eye on the future. The past year has taken him further than anyone could have envisaged – providing encouragement that in a better league he will only improve further. And with Henry now working as a TV pundit in England he might still have the Frenchman to send him a well-meaning scowl every so often.
Leicester’s gloom darkens after Romelu Lukaku seals win for Everton After this match it was hard to know which stretched credibility further: Claudio Ranieri’s claim that he did not notice the 30,000 people in the stadium wearing Jamie Vardy masks, or the fact that Leicester City are the English champions. The last time Leicester hosted Everton, in May, they were presented with the Premier League trophy; here all that was on display was a petty public relations stunt and a sad contrast between the title winners of last season and this Leicester side. Everton did not need to excel to claim their first away win since September. Everton finished looking like accomplished travellers but overall this was a low-quality contest that made for particularly painful viewing for supporters of the home side. That included Vardy, who sat in the stands as he began his three-match suspension for his red card against Stoke City. Leicester had been so aggrieved at the Football Association’s rejection of an appeal against that ban that the club arranged for masks of their striker to be handed out before kick-off. Some kind of protest? Ranieri said he knew nothing about it. That, at least, was wise. Vardy’s punishment must have felt particularly severe in view of the calibre of play he had to watch. The first 45 minutes were wretched, amounting to a late but compelling entry for the worst half of football in 2016. Everton were especially pallid initially and must have reinforced Ronald Koeman’s eagerness to bring in new blood during the January transfer window. Koeman’s side improved in the second period, however, finally summoning the wit to take advantage of the fact Leicester had been forced to deploy a weakened defence because of the bans of Robert Huth and Christian Fuchs. The home team’s replacements were a veteran, the 36‑year‑old centre-back Marcin Wasilewski, and a novice, the 20-year-old Ben Chilwell. The latter performed well but the former’s lack of pace alongside Wes Morgan in central defence was exposed by Everton in the 51st minute. All it took was a long punt over the home defence by the visiting goalkeeper, Joel Robles. Kevin Mirallas set off in pursuit of it, easily outrunning the lumbering centre‑backs. Kasper Schmeichel was unable to prevent the Belgian from firing Everton into the lead. That was Everton’s first strike on goal in the match. Their only previous attempt in the general direction of the target, a feeble header by Ramiro Funes Mori after a cross by Mirallas, was so inoffensive that most statisticians are unlikely to have recorded it as a shot. Leicester had gone only a little closer, Daniel Amaratey forcing a routine save from Robles in the 10th minute with a respectable shot from 20 yards after a neat exchange with Shinji Okazaki. There was a grievous lack of creativity from both sides. Ranieri tried to change that at half-time by replacing introducing Danny Drinkwater for Okazaki. After Everton took the lead and began to grow in confidence Ranieri threw on Riyad Mahrez, too. Of his decision to omit from the starting lineup the Premier League player of the year last season, the manager later said: “He’s not in good form and I want to stimulate him. He must give more for the team.” Leicester supporters were also in the mood for telling home truths. They booed Ranieri’s third substitution, not because they had anything against the new arrival, Leonardo Ulloa, but because the man he replaced, Demarai Gray, had been Leicester’s brightest attacker. Ranieri said the switch was made for the sake of team balance. Ulloa’s header within moments of arriving was easily saved by Robles. That was the closest Leicester came to infiltrating Everton’s three-man defence. Everton controlled the game as it wore on, with Tom Davies a vibrant midfield presence after his introduction midway through the second half. Idrissa Gueye should have made certain of victory in the 82nd minute but shot over the bar from close range after a low pass across goal by Romelu Lukaku. In the 90th minute Lukaku did the job himself, racing on to another long ball forward before outmuscling Morgan, outwitting Wasilewski and finishing smartly. What began as dreary fare ended up as a highly satisfying trip for Koeman’s team.
Leicester fans celebrate football's unlikeliest win Fairy tales really do come true after all it seems. Less than 10 months after starting the season as 5,000-1 outsiders, Leicester City is celebrating its first Premier League title after rivals Tottenham Hotspur failed to clinch the victory needed to keep their own hopes alive. As well as gifting Leicester with one of the greatest sporting upsets of all time, Tottenham’s 2-2 draw with Chelsea set off a chain reaction ranging from a multimillion-pound hammering for bookies to the prospect of Gary Lineker now having to make good on a promise to present Match of the Day in his underwear should the club where he started his sporting career win the league. In the Midlands, fans and players got down to the serious business of celebrating at venues ranging from heaving pubs to the home of talismanic striker Jamie Vardy. For the team’s players – who could have clinched the title on Sunday at Old Trafford but could only manage a 1-1 draw with Manchester United – the cauldron of Old Trafford had been swapped for hospitality at Vardy’s house. In the end, the title was delivered to Leicester courtesy of an equalising goal by Chelsea’s Eden Hazard, whose 83rd-minute strike squared the game with Spurs. As a wave of emotion surged from homes, pubs, community centres and other gatherings of fans in Leicester, the moment when the team’s players at Vardy’s house learned that they were champions was captured by defender Christian Fuchs in a video that immediately went viral. Vardy himself also didn’t disappoint those expecting a reaction on social media, posting an riposte to his Tottenham counterpart, Harry Kane, whose recently tweeted image of a pack of lions had been seen as a message designed to suggest that his side were hunting Leicester down. Without words, Vardy posted an image of the moment when one of the characters from the Lion King, Mufasa, falls to his death after struggling to gain a clawhold on a cliff face as a stampede takes place below. As car horns hooted outside his window, Leicester’s mayor, Peter Soulsby, told the : “We thought it couldn’t get any better 12 months ago when the eyes of the world were on us as we reinterred the bones of Richard III, but this is even better. “We are very proud of what is probably the most diverse city in Europe and in fact many people see the team as a metaphor because it shows what you can really achieve when you bring a diverse group of people together.” He added that the official celebrations will take place after the end of the season “although we will have two weeks of parties before then of course”. Alan Sugar, a former Spurs chairman, was among the first to send his congratulations, tweeting even before the final whistle: “Well done Leicester. Very well deserved and a demonstration that you don’t need £50m players.” There were also immediate congratulations from Downing Street, where the Twitter account of David Cameron sent out the message within seconds of the game finishing: “Many congratulations to Leicester. An extraordinary, thoroughly deserved, Premier League title.” On the other side of the political divide, shadow chancellor John McDonnell was drawing parallels between Leicester’s unlikely triumph and the elevation of another rank outsider: “Who would of predicted a year ago that Leicester would win the Premier League & Jeremy Corbyn would be Labour leader? Congrats to Leicester.” Lineker, no doubt turning some of his thoughts quietly to the garments he would soon have to don, described the result as the biggest shock of his lifetime, later telling the BBC: “If it means that I have to wear pants during Match of the Day then I suppose I look forward to it.” Having returned to Italy to fulfil a lunch date with his 96-year-old mother, Leicester’s manager, Claudio Ranieri, was meanwhile reported to have flown back on a private jet in time to watch the game at his flat in the Midlands. In the run-up to kick-off, pubs in Leicester had been heaving for a second night in a row with fans decked out in the club’s blue – even if some had initially appeared to be saving their pennies on a bank holiday weekend by watching the game at home before properly indulging themselves next weekend. Hazard’s equaliser changed all that though, sending thousands on to the streets of the city. At least 1,000 fans arrived at the team’s King Power stadium, where crowds chanted “Leicester ’til I die” and “Championes!” to mark the Foxes clinching the title. Richard Hamilton, 23, said: “It’s just amazing, the city has come out for this and it’s just brilliant for the fans and the city as a whole.” Other groups of fans celebrating in the city included Steve Robinson, 26, who told reporters: “This year I got married and had a baby, but this tops it all.”
Freedom for migrant workers – or slavery? The head of Manpower claims Brexit would make it more difficult to attract the brightest and best (Report, 14 June). I wonder what proportion of Manpower’s placements are the brightest and best? Or is it more a case of an endless supply of cheap labour on which it can make good margins? The issue has been exacerbated by successive governments restricting young people’s entry to work, and society considering any work that is lower paid, lower skilled or just getting your hands dirty as demeaning and worthless. When we leave the EU, the government must address this as a priority. Simon Warde Bognor Regis, West Sussex • Now we know the underside of the EU accord on the free movement of workers (Poultry workers win compensation in high court for slavery, 11 June). A British company was found guilty of severely exploiting six Lithuanian workers. Given the inhuman conditions and starvation wages, it’s no wonder British workers shunned the jobs. Yugo Kovach Winterborne Houghton, Dorset • It is inconceivable that the UK could get a significantly different deal on freedom of movement to that of Norway and Switzerland, if it is to get the same free-trade arrangements. And it is just not credible to imagine that we will dispense with these arrangements. It is clear many people who would normally support Labour are facing serious problems because of the way this country has failed to deal with the influx of foreign workers. But if they get Brexit, they will be bitterly let down, because that influx won’t stop, and the government we face having will be even worse at dealing with that. Kevin McGrath Harlow, Essex • The great problem with the EU debate is that there hasn’t been one. I am staying in a place where there are many “grey” voters. The only thing I have heard them discussing is immigration – and sadly some of that discussion has amounted to racism. Isobel Lane London • Employers in retail distribution would presumably seek to employ stock-pickers and drivers under a points-style immigration system and have to guarantee minimum pay and working hours. Would this leave UK workers alone on zero-hours contracts? Richard Davies Southport, Lancashire • Matthew d’Ancona (Opinion, 13 June) is right: pragmatic border controls are part of any social contract – and that’s precisely what we cannot have if we remain in the EU. Freedom of movement of workers is enshrined in the EU constitution. Fawzi Ibrahim Trade Unionists Against the EU • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
Polls show Tory voters are pushing Britain towards staying in EU This has been the week when the polls – though not all of them – appeared to shift towards Remain. The scale of the move varied across the range of pollsters, but the big thing in all polling analysis is to look for the general direction of travel, paying particular attention to the fieldwork dates. The “poll of polls” maintained by Professor John Curtice of Strathclyde University now has a 10% average lead for Remain after the undecided have been stripped out of the numbers for each survey. This has been helped by four new phone polls completed since last weekend, all of them with comfortable margins for Remain. The biggest, and the one that has had the most impact, was the margin of 18 points recorded in the London Evening Standard’s Ipsos MORI poll. The Daily Telegraph ORB poll was not far behind on 15 points, the /ICM poll was at 8 points and ComRes for the Mail had 11 points – the latter being the only one where the gap was narrowing. One of the factors driving the change is that a number of pollsters are finding that more Conservative voters appear to be edging to support David Cameron’s position rather than Boris Johnson’s. Until last week, not many surveys had more Tory voters supporting Remain than Leave. A big question over all referendum polling is that the online polls have been showing a very different picture from those conducted by phone. This was highlighted in the /ICM poll when a separate test asking the same questions in the same manner online was completed at the same time. Instead of an 8-point Remain lead, the online survey had Leave leading by 4 points. Why this should be so is hard to say. It is argued on behalf of online polling that people feel able to give their true feelings when a live interviewer is not involved. Those supporting phone polls say that internet samples can be distorted because participants are more politically engaged. The online/phone debate within the polling industry spilled out into a public Twitter spat after Peter Kellner, former president and one of the founders of the internet polling pioneers YouGov, went on record backing phone referendum polls. This drew a sharp response from Kellner’s former colleague and now chief executive of YouGov, Stephan Shakespeare. YouGov also published details of its own split-mode test in support of its contention that phone poll samples include too many graduates – a segment that is markedly more pro-Remain. However, the gap between the two modes may be narrowing. The latest online survey by Opinium has a Remain lead of 4 points, up from 1 point in late April. It is also the same margin as in last week’s YouGov poll for the Times. Both these online pollsters, it might be noted, got the winning gap for Sadiq Khan in the London mayoral election exactly right. Referendums have a long history of shifting to the status quo the closer it gets to polling day. That happened in the 2011 alternative vote referendum; in the last vote on Britain’s relationship with Europe, in 1975; and in the Scottish independence referendum in September 2014. The propensity of British voters not to support change has been seen, as well, in the 52 referendums in England on whether local authorities should switch to having an elected mayor. Only 16 have resulted in yes outcomes. Mike Smithson is a polling analyst and editor of PoliticalBetting.com
'No hate in our state': undercover protesters take on Trump in Wisconsin “I’m nervous,” said Mary Sanderson, her heart thumping as she scanned the Janesville convention center minutes before Donald Trump was due to address the crowd. “I can’t find any of my friends.” The 67-year-old medical interpreter from Madison, Wisconsin, had queued alone for more than four hours to get inside the 1,000-person capacity venue on Tuesday. But, unlike the vast majority of attendees, Sanderson was not here for the full speech. She was prepared to be arrested. “I think it’s time us older people stepped up to shut down his hate,” Sanderson said on the Saturday before Trump’s Janesville event. On Tuesday, she had stuffed a fabric sign under her bra, which read: “No hate in our state.” She had planned to pull it out “like a parachute” and wave it as Trump spoke. Sanderson was part of a bigger plan, concocted days before Trump’s appearance in this small, majority white town in southern Wisconsin, to disrupt and perhaps cancel the Republican frontrunner’s town hall event. But as the cat-and-mouse game between Trump and the growing, diverse band of protesters willing to throw their bodies on the line intensifies, it became clear on Tuesday afternoon that the billionaire had won this round. Another group, about 10 people strong, had been asked to leave the venue just before they made it inside. They had concealed large banners and planned to tape their mouths shut to condemn what they described as Trump’s hate speech. Following raucous scenes in Chicago earlier in the month, where Trump was forced to cancel a large rally, and mass arrests in St Louis at an event on the same day, Trump’s schedule in Wisconsin, which will hold a crucial primary next Tuesday, shows that he has taken these damaging PR losses into account. The Republican presidential candidate looks set to avoid Wisconsin’s bigger, more diverse cities, and has planned town hall events – rather than rallies – in low-capacity spaces within smaller towns. “He has completely lost control of the big venues,” said Stephanie Roades, a 38-year-old organizer with Showing Up for Racial Justice (Surj) and the leader of the group ejected before Trump’s town hall on Tuesday. “It’s easier with a crowd of a thousand people to know who the disrupters are going to be.” In Janesville, the strategy succeeded in flushing out protesters seeking to enter the event who were overwhelmed by the volume and dedication of Trump supporters. Roades said her group was photographed and aggressively questioned by supporters in the line, who then tipped security off about their presence. The fact the group had a single black member, who stuck out in the overwhelmingly white crowd, appeared to have alerted suspicions, she said. “It’s like people are little vigilantes.” In recent weeks, following the shutdown in Chicago, online groups such as Lion Guard for Trump have formed, aimed at spotting planned disruptions on social media and tipping off the authorities. Before Trump took to the stage on Tuesday, an announcement was made on the loudspeaker calling on supporters to hold Trump signs over theirs head and chant “Trump, Trump, Trump” if they spotted anyone inside seeking to disrupt. Hundreds of protesters picketed outside the Janesville event, and a 15-year-old was pepper-sprayed by a Trump supporter, according to Janesville police, after punching him during a heated argument. But protesters, too, are trying to stay one step ahead. In the lead-up to the Janesville event, the was granted extensive access to the diverse band of activists who had carefully planned their attempts in the days before. During a series of meetings held in Milwaukee, Madison and in Janesville itself, protesters from a variety of campaign groups, including those affiliated with the Black Lives Matter movement and immigrant justice campaigns, studied previous actions against Trump around America, devised methods to evade local security and law enforcement as well as the secret service, which ultimately ended unsuccessfully. Roades, who watched the Chicago shutdown unfold on a live stream, presented a brief PowerPoint presentation on previous Trump protests. She suggested people wear only one layer of clothing to avoid suspicion they could be concealing banners, she advised them to bring signs made of cloth, stuffed away where pat-down searches would not reveal them. Others discussed sewing their messages into the inside of their T-shirts, and planned to pull them off later, or bringing in a pair of crutches to hoist smuggled banners into the air. All agreed that black protesters should be protected by their white counterparts, by keeping them in the middle of any group, rather than on the outside where they risked more violence. “It’s going to be an intense crowd there,” said Ricky Diaz, a black 28-year-old whose involvement in direct action began after the fatal police shooting of Dontre Hamilton, a black 31-year-old with paranoid schizophrenia who was shot 14 times by a white officer who was later fired, but not criminally charged over the incident. “Folks of colour are clearly at a higher risk. Full stop. Everyone in there’s probably got a gun,” Diaz said. In recent weeks black protesters at Trump rallies have been punched, kicked, shoved, violently arrested and heckled by Trump supporters in overwhelmingly white crowds. Diaz backed out from the event in Janesville, a 92% white city, that had been the site of a large national KKK rally in 1992, which prompted protests and violent clashes. “A lot of people were just really scared and backed out at the last minute,” Roades said. Mary Sanderson elected not to unfurl the banner stuffed inside her bra. “I couldn’t find the right moment of hate,” she said after Trump’s speech concluded. But one man, 54-yearold Greg Gelembiuk, an evolutionary biologist also from Madison, unfurled an A4 piece of paper that photoshopped Trump’s face on to a clown mask. Gelembiuk calmly refused to take it down as the crowd chanted “Trump, Trump, Trump” and he was escorted away. The disturbance was minor in comparison with previous disruptions. But, as primaries loom in New York and Maryland, where larger, more robust protest movements in major cities have longer histories, it remains to be seen whether Trump will be able to keep the protests shut out. This article was amended on 6 April 2016. The previous version incorrectly identified Showing Up for Racial Justice as Standing Up for Racial Justice.
As MP for Port Talbot, I believe Brexit would be disastrous for British steel On Tuesday Tata Steel announced its intention to sell the entire Strip Products division of its UK steel business, including the Port Talbot works in my Aberavon constituency. It is impossible to overstate the importance of the Tata Steel announcement, on both local and national levels. Locally, the Port Talbot plant is the beating heart of the community and economy, and nationally steel is a vital foundation industry: it is fundamental to the cars that we drive, the homes in which we live, the offices in which we work, and the bridges that we cross. Just under 11,000 men and women are directly employed by Tata Steel Strip Products division, and once you take supply chains into account that number rises to around 40,000 jobs. So, it’s no exaggeration to say that the decisions that were taken in Mumbai this week were amongst the most important business decisions in our postwar history. I travelled to Mumbai for the crucial Tata board meeting this week, as part of a delegation that was headed by Roy Rickhuss, general secretary of Community, the steelworkers’ union. While I am deeply disappointed that Tata chose to reject the turnaround plan, we can take some heart from the fact that we secured our primary objective, namely to ensure that the UK continues to be a country that produces steel. The top priority now is to find a responsible buyer, and it is imperative that the UK government now does everything it can to support Tata Steel through the sale process. To do this there must be a set of temporary financial support interventions to help Tata Steel get through this interim period before we find a buyer. There needs to be a realistic timeline for that, which should be in terms of months not weeks. The more support that the British government provides to Tata Steel, the more time that will be bought. Of course there are no risk-free options in this situation and it is possible that a buyer will not be found in the right timeframe, in which case we must do whatever it takes, including looking at nationalisation. Since getting back to the UK from Mumbai, I have been infuriated by the spectacle of the leave campaigns cynically attempting to hijack and exploit this crisis for their own advantage. Their central argument seems to rest on the absurd claim is that if only the UK were to leave the EU, then we would be able to protect the British steel industry. The reality is that the European commission has been trying to tackle the steel crisis for years now, but has consistently been hamstrung by a British government fighting tooth and nail to undermine those efforts. The government is not only actively working against the commission’s attempts to toughen up its anti-dumping measures, where it has been the ringleader of a backroom campaign against trade defence reform, it is also lobbying hard for China to be granted market economy status (MES). MES would mean the World Trade Organisation would consider China to be a market economy, and we would therefore be unable to impose effective tariffs on dumped steel from the 80%-state-owned Chinese steel industry. Ever since 2010 when the prime minister declared he would “make the case for China to get market economy status”, he and George Osborne have been Beijing’s chief cheerleaders in Europe. Cameron and Osborne know that the granting of MES would dramatically reduce the European commission’s ability to impose tariffs on dumped Chinese steel. These are not party-political points. These are the views of the steel industry itself. It has repeatedly urged the government to act, and to stop promoting China’s cause in Europe. But it is not just on MES and trade defence instruments that the government has undermined the ability of the EU to help the steel industry. The Conservatives’ ideological opposition to accessing the European Globalisation Adjustment Fund (EGF) has removed our ability to help those steelworkers who have been made redundant. The EGF is designed to help national governments with regeneration following redundancies and global shocks. Britain is the only major EU member state never to have accessed the fund. The Treasury has made it clear that it would block any application to the EGF on behalf of steelworkers. Let that sink in for a minute: George Osborne is blocking moves to apply for ring-fenced EU finance to help retrain and re-skill workers, and to invest in Port Talbot. The EU accounts for over half our steel exports. A Brexit based on the so-called “Canada model” would mean paying hefty tariffs on every tonne of steel that we sell into the EU, which would surely be a killer blow for an industry that is already struggling to compete. And we would not only be hit by tariffs, we would also lose access to the 53 countries that have a trade deal with the EU. Or perhaps the leave campaigns think that a Brexit based on the so-called Norway model would solve the steel crisis? Well, the Norway model would enable us to continue tariff-free trade with the EU, but that just leaves you having to accept EU directives and regulations without being in the room when they are being shaped. This could cause considerable problems for the steel industry, as it would have to accept new and evolving legislation, without having had any opportunity to influence its development in Brussels. The chaos and uncertainty that would be unleashed by Brexit also weighs heavily on the UK steel industry. What impact would Brexit have on the order book? Will it be a Canada or a Norway model? Could Brexit open up the floodgates to Chinese dumping even further, as we will be out on our own, lacking the leverage and shelter that being part of a trading bloc of 500 million people brings? Sajid Javid’s attempts to scapegoat the EU for his own failure to engage effectively will not wash. The fact is that he and his colleagues have been asleep at the wheel, and as a result thousands of steelworkers all over the country now find themselves facing a deeply troubling and uncertain future. I therefore hope that the leave campaigns will now stop peddling mistruths and start facing up to the fact that we are in this crisis not because of Europe, but because of a Tory government that has singularly failed to stand up for British steel.
Men in Northern Ireland blackmailed in online sex scam A number of men in Northern Ireland who were filmed performing sex acts have been targeted by blackmailers. A spokesman for the Police Service of Northern Ireland said there had been several local reports of cyber-related blackmail relating to men in Newtownabbey, Carrickfergus and Antrim. Later the police said that there were up to 62 victims over a seven month period who had been targets of the scammers. The scam involved men being encouraged to film sex acts by blackmailers who then threatened to publish the footage on the internet. The PSNI said victims were told to pay into a Western Union bank account in west Africa or the recordings would be published on social networks. DS Neil Maxwell said: “In the most recent cases, men of various ages have been asked to perform or participate in a sexual act online, which is recorded and then used to blackmail the individual with threats to upload the material on to social media platforms. “Some victims have paid money because they have felt embarrassed and this usually involves a Western Union transfer to an account in the Ivory Coast. We want anyone who has been the victim of this type of crime to come forward. Do not feel pressurised into paying money as this is unlikely to resolve the issue,” the officer added. A teenager in the region killed himself in June after what his family described as a “relentless” campaign of online bullying by a Nigerian gang. Ronan Hughes, 17, from County Tyrone, was duped into posting intimate photos online after receiving pictures of a girl. He was then blackmailed for £3,000 by the gang who threatened to upload the images to his friends’ Facebook pages.
Lois Smith obituary My aunt Lois Smith, who has died aged 96, put her extraordinary energies into people and causes. An enthusiast, a starter, a provocateur, she set the scene in 1948 when she sought out a young Oxford film buff called Lindsay Anderson, who was set to train as a teacher, and persuaded him to make a film about her husband Desmond’s Yorkshire colliery equipment company. It was his first stab at directing, and they called it Meet the Pioneers. So began a friendship that continued until Anderson’s death in 1994 at Lois’s house in the Dordogne, where he was holidaying. It was Lois who looked after the funeral arrangements. Also in 1948, Lois had met the Hungarian-born artist Jean-Georges Simon when she saw a painting of his on a Wakefield gallery wall and demanded Desmond buy it. Death stalks this story, too, since when Desmond died tragically young in 1950, Lois installed Simon in the garden of her cottage in the Yorkshire Dales to carve the headstone for Desmond’s grave in Burnsall churchyard. Although she later trained as a social worker, Lois’s calling was as a sort of super groupie, intuitively understanding artistic talents and needs. She was a prime mover in setting up the Lindsay Anderson Memorial Foundation and the film-maker’s Stirling University archive, as well as the Jean-Georges Simon Trust: his paintings, drawings and archive had been left to her by the artist’s widow. Lois was the youngest child of Daisy (nee Raby) and Frank Martin, her father being a busy GP in Heaton, Bradford. She attended Cheltenham Ladies college, and at 20 married Desmond Sutcliffe; their children, Perry and Robin, were born in short order. Following Desmond’s death, she met and married Mickey Smith; their son, Stephen, was born in 1962. Mickey’s surveying job took the couple to London and Cornwall, but they returned to Yorkshire in 1976, divorcing in the mid-80s yet still interdependent. Lois set about shaking up Calderdale’s civic dignitaries, pinning down those she saw as offenders with her mixture of bluster, charm and ruthlessness. Indeed, she would argue the toss with anyone, stating opinions as if they were facts. Because she could also be open and warm, however, she made more friends than enemies. Lois is survived by Perry, Robin and Stephen, six grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
Study supports Zika link to microcephaly About one in 100 women infected by the Zika virus in early pregnancy may be at risk of having a baby with microcephaly, according to a new study of an epidemic that occurred in French Polynesia. The study, published in the Lancet medical journal, offers further evidence that the virus is implicated in microcephaly – a condition in which babies’ brains do not develop properly, resulting in abnormally small heads. “Our analysis strongly supports the hypothesis that Zika virus infection during the first trimester of pregnancy is associated with an increased risk of microcephaly,” says Dr Simon Cauchemez, co-author of the study from the Institut Pasteur in Paris. “We estimated that the risk of microcephaly was 1 in 100 women infected with Zika virus during the first trimester of pregnancy. The findings are from the 2013-14 outbreak in French Polynesia and it remains to be seen whether our findings apply to other countries in the same way.” Although the risk that they calculate through mathematical modelling – 1% – is low by comparison with a virus such as rubella which causes birth defects in 50% of women infected in early pregnancy, the attack rate of the Zika virus itself is very high. There may be other co-factors in Brazil, where the rise in cases of microcephaly has triggered an international alert from the World Health Organisation. But if the findings from French Polynesia are applicable, “in Latin America right now we are speaking about relatively small risks which apply to a very large population of pregnant women,” said Professor Arnaud Fontanet, co-author of the study, from the Institut Pasteur in Paris. The rate of 1% is lower than that found by a previous study earlier this month. Researchers in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, enrolled 72 women who had a rash – the most identifiable symptom – and who tested positively for Zika. Out of 42 healthy women who agreed to an ultrasound examination, 29% had a foetus with microcephaly or some other sort of congenital malformation. The Institut Pasteur scientists, however, were searching past data from the French Polynesia Zika outbreak in 2013-14 specifically for microcephaly – a small head accompanied by evidence of calcifications in the brain. Their study, they say, had the advantage of very good, complete data. Congenital abnormalities were always reported. They found eight microcephaly cases in the two years, seven of which followed the Zika epidemic. The other they consider their baseline – one case a year would have been the norm for the French Polynesian population and is the equivalent of two per 10,000 live births, a similar prevalence to that of Europe. They constructed a number of mathematical models to attempt to explain the increase during the Zika epidemic. The best fit was with infection of the mother by the virus in the first trimester of pregnancy. The researchers set out to look at microcephaly and not the larger number of congenital malformations that were reported during the epidemic in French Polynesia. “It may well be that infection during the second trimester or the third trimester could lead to a different type of congenital malformation,” Fontanet told the . The first trimester is crucial for the development of the brain, “but if you infect later you can imagine there might be other malformations”. That would fit with the study of pregnant women in Rio de Janeiro. Writing in a linked comment, Dr Laura Rodrigues from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said: “The finding that the highest risk of microcephaly was associated with infection in the first trimester of pregnancy is biologically plausible, given the timing of brain development and the type and severity of the neurological abnormalities.” More research is needed however, she said. “Further data will soon be available from Pernambuco, Colombia, Rio de Janeiro, and maybe other sites … The fast production of knowledge during this epidemic is an opportunity to observe science in the making: from formulation of new hypotheses and production of new results that will provide confirmations and contradictions to the refinement of methods and the gradual building of consensus.” Dr Melissa Gladstone, senior lecturer in paediatric neurodisability at the University of Liverpool, welcomed the research, but cautioned: “Unless direct links are made and/or full investigations of babies are undertaken to exclude other causes and to identify Zika infection in infants, it will be difficult to entirely link Zika with microcephaly,” she said. “Furthermore, we may have a long way to go in terms of knowing whether there are more subtle effects of Zika virus on infants and children in the long term which span beyond microcephaly to developmental and learning difficulties.” Dr Derek Gatherer, a lecturer in biomedical and life sciences at Lancaster University, said the study helped scientists begin to think about defining a risk period during pregnancy, with major implications likely for travel advice for pregnant women travelling to affected areas.
Claudio Ranieri wants Leicester City’s stars to stay for the long haul Claudio Ranieri has warned his Leicester players they could end up “carrying the bags” at another club if they are tempted to leave in the summer, with the Italian hoping to add to his squad at the end of their remarkable season regardless of whether they qualify for Europe. Leicester head into Monday night’s meeting with struggling Newcastle knowing they will still be top of the Premier League even if Tottenham defeat bottom side Aston Villa on Sunday. Ranieri’s side have been leading the race for the title for almost every week since a 3-0 victory over Newcastle at the end of November and are now nine matches away from what would be the club’s first top-flight title. It is a measure of how far his side have come that the Italian was forced to swat aside rumours linking his playmaker Riyad Mahrez with a move to the European champions, Barcelona, at his pre-match press conference. But despite the Algerian, the 19-goal Jamie Vardy and the defensive midfielder N’Golo Kanté being among those likely to be on the wishlists of several clubs in the summer transfer window, Ranieri is confident he can keep hold of them. “I think the players want to stay here. I am very confident. This is my idea,” he said. “I spoke to them some time ago. I said: ‘We are building a very good team’. I spoke with everybody. They can be a big player with us, they can improve with us. If they change team – my experience says to them: ‘Ok, you are very ambitious but remember Leicester will be in a very high position. You go to another team, I don’t know what will happen’.” Asked if he meant they would play less, Ranieri added: “I laugh and I say: ‘Hey, look, why do you go there? To bring the suitcases? Stay with me, you will play’.” Leicester were frustrated in their attempts to add to their squad in January, with moves for the Nigeria forward Ahmed Musa of CSKA Moscow and Loïc Rémy of Chelsea not coming to fruition. Yet Ranieri believes they will require a much deeper squad for next season, having used less players than any other club in the Premier League so far. “We will try to sign maybe two or three to improve because I am very, very hungry,” he said. “We lost the FA Cup, the League Cup. I want to move forward more. So we need more strength, more players. “The players who come must be better than we had if we want to build together and grow up together. Now we know very well, this season is out. Doesn’t count. This season is strange. Our target at the beginning was save the team, this year. “Next year was to build slowly the foundation, to grow up, to achieve the Europa League, the Champions League, maybe one day fight for the title. This is our programme. Next season we restart with a new mentality. For example: ‘I don’t know what happened last season’. We must continue to build our team.” Of Leicester’s current squad, only the reserves Marcin Wasilewski and Gökhan Inler have any experience of winning a domestic league title, with Anderlecht in Belgium and FC Zürich in Switzerland respectively. But Ranieri believes the rest of his players have proved they have the necessary hunger to maintain their run until the end of the season. “Now I know them much better than at the beginning and I can compare how they are working … they are getting better, getting better, getting better,” he said. “The team is the superstar, but there are no superstars. And everyone must be working. Of course, my experience can help them. Maybe they believe more. I don’t know because I don’t speak about that. “It is important for me when I tell you something and I see you are trying to do what I want – not for me, for the team.”
Lily Cole: 'Businesses are running the world' After seven years and three businesses, Lily Cole still doesn’t think of herself as an entrepreneur. Aged 28, the model turned actor turned businesswoman has already spent half her life working and the last four years focused on Impossible, a social network that enables people to help out others for free. Users can offer or request almost anything in its gift economy, from piano lessons to restaurant recommendations to a chat about shared interests. Cole has never taken a salary for Impossible and recently returned to work after having a baby with Kwame Ferreira, the founder of venture fund Kwamecorp, who helped her develop the site. “It’s been a rollercoaster,” she says of her journey starting the business, which she says “happened by accident”. The business evolved from an idea she had during her time at Cambridge university – she wanted to find out if technology could replace money. “The idea was: can technology play the same role in life that money plays so that we’re not so dependent on money as a society? It felt like a really simple idea. I became quite obsessed with it.” Starting a business has been full of highs and lows. “There have been amazing moments and difficult moments and it’s still a total learning process,” she says. “You’re not just turning up at your job and doing your small part. You’re taking responsibility for a whole thing to move or not move. It’s all encompassing. You really have to believe in what you’re doing.” Clothed head to toe in a black and white outfit that brings out her dramatic auburn hair, Cole is in Kensington to support Chivas the Venture, a global competition in which social entrepreneurs from Israel to Guatemala compete for mentoring and $1m (£690,000) in funding. She is taking part in a panel discussion on the role of social enterprise. After years spent supporting social and environmental causes through charities – she is a patron of the Environmental Justice Foundation and used to be an ambassador for international development charity Global Angels – Cole has come to the conclusion that supporting social enterprise is a more effective way to change the world. “Businesses are running the world,” she says. “I used to work with a lot of amazing charities who I still support and who play an important role. But charities are separated off in a really unsustainable way to almost band aid a lot of the problems that are being created in the first place through how we operate and do business.” But social enterprise needs more support to make a difference, she says. “Financial support [for social entrepreneurs] is massive. Funding is potentially the biggest barrier for social enterprises.” Although social enterprises in the UK are outperforming mainstream SMEs in terms of turnover, the sector is being held back by lack of access to capital, according to 2013 research by Social Enterprise (SEUK). Cole cites the social investment tax relief introduced in 2014 as progress but says more needs to be done. “We need to go a bit further so [social enterprise] can become more competitive with normal business and charity. It’s something I’ve struggled with in this space. You’re not getting the tax benefits of a charity but you’re also not giving investors the upside that they get with normal business. So how do you persuade people to operate in that space?” Is Cole worried, then, that despite operating in 120 countries, Impossible is yet to make a profit? “We’re only at the beginning of trying to monetise the platform. I think it will take a while – I don’t know how soon we will make a profit, but most businesses take a while. We’re doing what I think most businesses do: be lean and trust that in a few years time that it will get to financial sustainability.” Last year the company launched its own marketplace for sustainable fashion and started a membership scheme with rewards including a free magazine. But is it possible for the company, which has received help from Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales and microfinance pioneer Muhammad Yunus, to find a financial solution when the core principle of its product is that it operates without money? It’s a paradox Cole still struggles with. “We’re trying to encourage free transactions – there’s no inbuilt business model for that. The way I’ve squared that circle in my own head is to make it a social business. It may be one day we open source the platform and everybody becomes a volunteer and we have no running costs. Then it won’t be a business, it will be a free thing to connect people. Of course there is something very attractive about that but the reality is making it operational to this point in time has taken resource.” It was an easier task to monetise her first business, The North Circular, she says. Co-founded with fellow model Katherine Poulton, the company sells sustainable knitwear created by a network of “grannies” knitting from home. “It was a simple idea,” says Cole. “We had grandmas who knit, and this feeling that older generations are often quite disenfranchised from society. I was really interested in transparency on products – can we get grandmas to knit goods and put names on the labels and try make people think about the people behind products.” Would Cole start a business without a social aim, I ask? “Never say never, but I don’t think so.” She pauses and laughs. “I wouldn’t see the point really.” Sign up to become a member of the Small Business Network here for more advice, insight and best practice direct to your inbox.
Indiana brawl: Cruz takes on Trump mob Ted Cruz crossed the street in Marion, Indiana, to talk with people holding Donald Trump signs. “What do you like about Donald?” Cruz asked. The reply: “Everything.” It went downhill from there. “America is a better country …” Cruz began. “Without you,” a protester said. “A question everyone here should ask …” Cruz began. “Are you Canadian?” the protester said. Indiana primary: what’s at stake Trump does not need to win Indiana tomorrow to clinch the presidential nomination, but victory for Trump would be a big blow for Cruz, John Kasich and others hoping for a contested convention. Trump leads Hoosier state polls Democratic hopeful Hillary Clinton leads rival Bernie Sanders in polling averages of Indiana, but the Sanders camp told reporters his criticism of trade pacts would endear him to voting Hoosiers. Indiana primary: what’s at stake Asked about a comedian’s relentless flogging at the White House correspondents’ dinner of a joke rumor that Ted Cruz is the Zodiac killer, Heidi Cruz said she has known her husband a long time. Well, I’ve been married to him for 15 years and I know pretty well who he is, so it doesn’t bother me at all. There’s a lot of garbage out there. – Heidi Cruz, on rumors that her husband is the Zodiac killer Nearly half (48%) of North Carolina voters told a pollster they want to repeal a state law restricting bathroom access, compared with 34% who wanted to keep the law. North Carolina speaks
Pirate Bay founder and Adblock maker offer web users a way to pay publishers The Pirate Bay founder Peter Sunde is teaming up with the creators of the world’s most popular adblocker to give web users a way to make small donations for articles, music and videos they enjoy. The tie-up between Sunde’s startup Flattr and AdBlock Plus maker Eyeo, Flattr Plus is designed to solve a problem the companies claim has been present since the web’s invention 27 years ago. Rather than requiring users to allocate donations manually, Flattr Plus will automatically assign payments from a pool set by a user based on how much the use a particular site. The companies said the aim was to reach 10 million users each paying about $5 (£3.41) a month by 2017, at which point they say they would be able to pay out around $500m to publishers. Flattr and Adblock will take a cut of around 10%. Adblock Plus head of operations and communications Ben Williams said the 10 million user figure was “ambitious” but “not so far fetched” given Adblock Plus already had 500 million users who could be encouraged to sign up. He added that the idea was an attempt to find a “holistic solution” that complemented Adblock’s existing service. Williams said: “People forget a lot of times that the web was established as an information sharing platform. A public good. Advertising came second. Some of the early founders of the web tossed around the idea of having some direct way for users to fund content.” “What happened in place was advertising people, even adblockers, we all had the false impression that advertising is what pays for content online.” Eventually, Williams said, the plan was to integrate Flattr Plus into the Adblock software. Though the new service promise an easy way for publishers to get paid directly by their readers, many will treat the initiative with caution in part because of the people behind it. Sunde’s background with Pirate Bay made him a bugbear for anyone trying to make money from content such as films and music, and AdBlock has taken on a similar role for digital publishers by helping readers block the ads that many rely on to fund their work. Flattr was founded in 2010, and claims to have paid 30,000 “creators”. Shortly after launch it stepped in to provide a way for people to donate to Wikileaks after Visa, Mastercard and PayPal froze access to its funds. Along with his co-founders, Sunde was imprisoned in Sweden for setting up and running Pirate Bay, which was one of the most popular ways for people to find films, TV shows music and computer games to download illegally. Sunde has since distanced himself from the site. Writing when ThePirateBay.org went offline following a police raid in late 2014, he welcomed its disappearance, saying he had “not been a fan of what The Pirate Bay has become”. However, although the original site has remained offline, numerous copies have sprung up faster than authorities can get them eliminated.
Watership Down too violent for tots? Probably, but parents should take control of the remote Victory for outrage! After they unwittingly let their kids watch an animation featuring scenes of bloodied bunnies tearing the merry hell out of each other, a group of parents “slammed” Channel 5’s decision to screen Watership Down on Easter Sunday. The people screamed so loud, in fact, that the system buckled. If it was released now the film, rated U by the British Board of Film Classification in 1978, would receive a PG rating, according to the BBFC chief David Austin. Not that the film’s being reclassified, but … sweet, meaningless pacification. The violence of Watership Down, a children’s film about a group of rabbits trying to find new home, was “arguably too strong”, Austin told the BBC. “The film has been a U for 38 years, but if it came in tomorrow it would not be,” he said. “Standards were different then.” He’s right. Kids back then were tougher. Born in a recession, they played Connect Four just for fun and wore corduroy without complaint. Watership Down’s challenging moments – Fiver the rabbit’s apocalyptic visions, the bloody turf war between rival broods, the Black Rabbit of Inlé (the bunny Grim Reaper) – would wash like so much gore off a mangled pelt. Oh wait, hold on: reviewers in the hard-nut 70s thought the film a little strong for kiddies, too. Kids haven’t changed, but the BBFC has. Over the years, they’ve got broadly more lenient about sex on screen, while violence – especially sexual violence – has rightly pushed a film into the more restrictive categories. For example, The Wicker Man was given an X certificate in 1973 (roughly equivalent to 18 in 2016). It was reclassified to 15 after the BBFC’s guidelines changed in 2000. The contemporary censors found the violence (the burning of Sergeant Howie in the titular effigy) tame and the sex (blurry nudie shots of women on horseback) pretty silly. Not many tots are likely to want to watch a tweedy horror about pagan sacrifice. But there are films, some perhaps unsuitable, that older kids do get drawn in by. It’s at the midpoint of the scale – your PGs, 12s and 12As – that the BBFC faces the really tough job. For a start, the market is against them. Franchise-holders such as Marvel and Warner Brothers want to attract young audiences to their superhero flicks. Anything higher than a 12A knocks out a significant portion of their market. This has led to the studios making tame versions of adult stories (Terminator: Genisys was bloodless, as well as charmless) and the BBFC occasionally awarding a 12 to films that, while not viscerally violent or sexually explicit, probably deserve something stronger. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is a 12A. There’s an argument that its tone (grim), themes (grownup) and content (thumpy and quite nasty) push it into 15 territory. And that’s the problem when it comes to Watership. Everyone’s idea of what is right and wrong for their kids is different. When we think the BBFC have fouled up, we treat them as if they’re careless child minders, because in a sense, they are. But it’s the parents’ choice to let someone else do the minding. Is watching a bunny tear chunks out of another bunny on Easter Sunday damaging to your kids? Probably not. Would a PG rating, instead of a U, have stopped shattered parents from plonking their sprogs in front of those bunnies at the end of the long weekend? Probably not. Is it important to have a target to vent at – Channel 5, the BBFC – when we slip up while looking after our own kids? Definitely. Before Easter, billboards for one supermarket chain showed off a selection of its seasonal confections. The centrepiece was a chocolate rabbit. “I’ll have the ears,” said the slogan, written by “Harry, aged seven”. He’d seen Watership Down and was ready for the slaughter to begin. No one, not even the BBFC, can fix damage this deep.
Mac Miller: The Divine Feminine review – gentle G-funk from a one-track mind There’s one thing on the mind of Pittsburgh rapper Mac Miller, and it’s swinging between his legs. But he’s honest about his constant horn, and, audibly high off natural perfumes, parlays it into an album that worships and ogles in equal measure. The touchstones are D’Angelo, Aquemini-era Outkast, Chance the Rapper’s muted trumpets, and the psychedelic soul of Cee-Lo Green’s early solo LPs, with the latter turning up for some ruminative vocals on the gorgeous, sure-footed We. Other killer tracks include ever-moistening slow jam Skin, and smooth boogie workout Dang!, featuring a brilliantly wet-behind-the-ears turn from Anderson.Paak. Few lyrics are particularly arresting (on My Favourite Part, new girlfriend Ariana Grande is told that she doesn’t know how beautiful she is) and there’s some mid-album filler as Miller struggles to add hooks to cosmic G-funk. But the whole thing sits in an enticing spot between the barbecue and the bedroom.
Swansea earn Bob Bradley first point as manager in draw with Watford Suited and booted, Bob Bradley at least looked the part this week after opting for a wardrobe change, yet the transformation on the pitch under the new manager will have to wait after Swansea City’s winless run stretched to eight matches. There were positives for the American to take, notably the performance of Modou Barrow and the sight of Alfie Mawson playing so well on his Premier League debut, yet the harsh reality is that this was two points dropped. Without a victory since the opening day, Swansea remain in the relegation zone, second from bottom and with a tricky run of fixtures to come, starting with a trip to Stoke on Monday week. A win in Bradley’s first home game in charge would have lifted some of the gloom and it so nearly arrived during a second half when Barrow tormented Watford with his pace and trickery, Gylfi Sigurdsson hit the upright and Heurelho Gomes denied Mike Van der Hoorn from point-blank range. It was that sort of day for Swansea at the end of a very difficult week, during which the club’s supporters’ trust voiced their unhappiness that Huw Cooze, their elected director on the board, was not notified by the owners of the decision to replace Francesco Guidolin with Bradley. In the match programme, Jason Levien and Steve Kaplan, who bought a majority stake in Swansea in the summer, apologised for their actions. “Not informing him sooner as to our ultimate choice was an error on our part and for which we take full responsibility,” they wrote. Bradley, in fairness, received a warm ovation from the Swansea fans before the match. He also showed that he is not afraid to ruffle a few feathers among the players when he made five chances to the team, including dropping both centre-backs, Jordi Amat and Federico Fernández. Whether Bradley can find firepower in this team, however, is another matter, with the lack of confidence in front of goal brutally exposed. “We have to trust the fact that if we work the right way, if our football gets better, if we compete better, if we do all these little things to improve, the points will come,” he said. “I’m disappointed. As we were going through the second half, there were a number of occasions where I thought: ‘Here it is.’ But when it doesn’t come, I don’t want to forget the things that for me were very positive.” Mawson’s display was among them. Signed from Barnsley in the summer, the 22-year-old acquitted himself well alongside Van der Hoorn, who had arguably the best chance of the game when he stabbed Sigurdsson’s free-kick towards goal only for Gomes to block with his legs. Sigurdsson later shot tamely into the arms of the Watford keeper and swept a 20-yard effort on to the foot of the post – both opportunities arriving following excellent work from the lively Barrow. Watford, who are ninth in the table and on a decent run of form, seemed content to play on the counterattack, especially after the interval, and threatened only sporadically. Valon Behrami was aggrieved that Paul Tierney, the referee, failed to point to the spot when he went down under a challenge from Kyle Naughton – it looked more like a tangle of legs – and the substitute Nordin Amrabat snatched at a half-chance after breaking through in the inside-left channel. As for Bradley, at least his attire was an improvement on the all-black outfit he wore at Arsenal. “I have to wait to see the reviews tomorrow,” he said, smiling. “I’m still trying to figure what out works over here.”
Demand for NHS care is dangerously high, says thinktank Demand for NHS care has reached record levels, with unprecedented numbers of patients being treated in A&E units, a new report reveals. But that has left hospitals dangerously full and growing numbers of patients who need to be admitted are having to wait longer than they should because no bed is available, according to health thinktank the King’s Fund. A total of 5,873,998 patients sought help in all types of A&E units in April, May and June – the largest number ever to do so in any three-month period – leading the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) to warn that the NHS had become “a pressure cooker” and was buckling under the weight of demand. An unusually high number of patients were admitted to hospital during the same period, in a sign that the NHS is dealing with growing numbers of people who are so unwell they need inpatient care. In all just over 1 million of those who attended A&E ended up being admitted, one of the largest numbers on record. Overall there were an extra 54,000 A&E attendances a month and 14,200 extra emergency hospital admissions a month in the first quarter of 2016-17 than in the same period the year before. Experts said that the record high, revealed in official NHS statistics analysed by the King’s Fund, was surprising because it occurred in a period when hospitals used not to be especially busy. “Increased demand for services is placing the health system under huge strain, with more than 90% of beds occupied by patients, well above the threshold that is considered safe,” the thinktank said. Internationally, 85% is considered the safe maximum bed occupancy rate. “Relentless demand for services” is a key factor that is “fuelling deteriorating performance” against a whole set of NHS waiting time indicators, it added. The number of people waiting to receive non-urgent treatment within 18 weeks had risen to 3.8 million by June, the highest level since December 2007. More than 307,000 patients were still waiting in June to start treatment at least 18 weeks after they were referred to it. That is 8.5% of the total waiting list and was the fourth month in a row the NHS had missed the target to treat at least 92% of such patients within 18 weeks. Some 6,100 patients were stuck in hospital at the end of June unable to leave, despite being medically fit to go, often as a result of inadequate social care locally. “The NHS is now struggling to cope all year round. It is a pressure cooker and with bed occupancy at such constantly high levels and community services stretched, there is nowhere for the pressure to escape to. It would now take very little for hospitals to be fully overwhelmed,” said Lara Carmona, the RCN’s associate director of policy, international and parliamentary affairs. A Department of Health spokesman said: “Since 2010 the NHS has dealt with significantly rising demand from our ageing population while improving the quality of care – 5.8 million people were seen in A&E in the first three months of this year and the number treated within the four-hour target continues to rise in the thousands.”
NatWest paves way for introduction of negative interest rates A major high street bank has paved the way for the introduction of negative interest rates for the first time in Britain by warning customers it may have to charge them to accept deposits. The warning by NatWest was made in a letter changing the terms and conditions for the bank’s 850,000 business customers, which range from self-employed traders, charities and clubs to big corporations. It could mean that an account holder with £1,000 in a NatWest account could see that shrink to £999 or less the following year as the bank charges a negative rate of interest. In its letter to customers, NatWest said: “Global interest rates remain at very low levels and in some markets are currently negative. Dependent on future market conditions, this could result in us charging interest on credit balances.” The taxpayer-owned bank – whose parent is Royal Bank of Scotland – said it had no plans to make changes to the terms and conditions of personal account holders to allow it to charge negative rates. Interest rates on government and corporate bonds fell steeply in the political turmoil that followed the Brexit vote. The Bank of England is now under intense pressure to cut its already historically low base rate from 0.5% to kickstart the economy, although a move into negative territory is not likely in the short term. NatWest business customers are asking if negative interest rates are legal. They are asking whether they should take their cash out of the accounts and put it under the mattress to maintain its value. One treasurer of a local community council, who received a letter but asked not to be named, said: “Can they do that, is it legal? The letter goes on to say that they ‘value our relationship with you’, but I may need to review how much I can afford to have a relationship with them!” Another customer, who holds funds for her grandchildren in a business bank account, said: “Will this spread to all high street banks? I can’t access it myself to put it under the mattress.” Other high street banks contacted by the said they had no plans, for now, to change contracts to allow them to impose negative rates. The prospect of banks levying a charge on deposits rather than paying interest turns traditional banking upside down. “It is going to make businesses much less keen to hold significant balances in their accounts,” said mortgage and savings expert Ray Boulger. “If NatWest start doing this, other banks are likely to follow. Eventually personal customers with large balances could be hit, but the banks may decide that is going too far and take the hit themselves.” Negative interest rates could have widespread undesirable effects across the economy. Not only may customers decide to hoard cash rather than deposit it, banks may take excessive risks in lending in order to obtain returns, while pension companies will struggle to meet their liabilities. So-called “voodoo banking” is already happening in some countries gripped by deflation. The European Central Bank charges other banks 0.4% to deposit cash, while the Swiss National Bank charges domestic banks up to 0.75%. Last week, ABN Amro, a major Dutch bank, told customers that because of “exceptional market conditions”, it may be necessary to charge negative interest rates at some time in the future. After the Brexit vote, interest rates on government bonds – otherwise known as the “yield” – dived to record lows. When rates drop below zero, it effectively means people are paying the government to lend money to them. The Bank of England this month chose to hold base rate at 0.5%, but in the City it is widely anticipated that governor Mark Carney will cut the rate to 0.25% on 4 August, as well as introduce other measures to boost the economy. The prospect of negative interest rates has been mooted by individual policymakers but they are not seen as likely for the UK any time soon. In April, Jan Vlieghe, a member of the Bank’s nine-member monetary policy committee (MPC), floated the possibility of interest rates being cut below zero, meaning companies would pay to deposit their money with banks. His fellow MPC member, the Bank’s chief economist, Andy Haldane, also raised the prospect of cutting official borrowing costs to zero or perhaps even lower in a speech last September. But governor Mark Carney has appeared to oppose negative interest rates. Questioned by MPs in April, Carney said: “We think we could move base rate closer to zero but have not said we have an appetite for negative interest rates.” Millions of customers with savings accounts in Britain are already suffering from historically low returns, with many accounts paying close to zero. The Financial Conduct Authority last week named HSBC, First Direct and the Post Office as having easy access accounts that in some circumstances pay no interest. The introduction of negative interest rates on deposits could spark a legal challenge from customers. Shortly before the credit crunch, Cheltenham & Gloucester building society launched a mortgage deal that tracked the main Bank of England lending rate minus 1.01%. When the Bank cut interest rates to 0.5% in 2009, that suggested borrowers would have to pay -0.51%. Instead, C&G cut the rate to 0.01% – its computers could not handle mortgages at 0% – but did not actually go negative. Any challenge to negative interest on deposit accounts may cite the example of C&G. But there will be winners if interest rates move to zero or below. Since the Brexit vote, a number of lenders have cut interest rates on mortgage deals, with the biggest change to five- and 10-year fixed-rate deals, now on offer at little more than 2% interest.
Labor wins votes in lower house to force Coalition to debate banking inquiry The Turnbull government has lost its first votes on the floor of the House of Representatives as Labor intensified its political attack on the prime minister and the Coalition using the spearhead of the banking royal commission. Labor moved on Thursday night to bring a motion calling for a banking royal commission that had cleared the Senate earlier in the day to the lower house for consideration, catching the government entirely flat-footed as the House was set to adjourn. The government lost the initial procedural votes because senior figures, including the immigration minister Peter Dutton, and two Western Australians, the justice minister Michael Keenan and social services minister Christian Porter, were not in the chamber. Government sources later claimed Labor MPs had deliberately created the impression they were leaving the parliamentary precinct after the sitting week, only to return to bring on the procedural bunfight. As well as the absence of ministers, one Liberal backbencher, Craig Kelly, went for a walk outside the building minus his mobile phone. The lost votes enabled Labor to capture control of the chamber and argue the case for the banking royal commission for around three hours on Thursday evening. The opposition claimed the last time a majority government lost a vote on the floor of the House was 1962. Over the course of a fractious and heavily contested parliamentary day, the government moved to return fire on the opposition, intensifying pressure on the Labor senator, Sam Dastyari, over his decision to ask a Chinese donor to cover a $1,670 expenses bill when he overshot his parliamentary entitlements. In addition to the payment, Dastyari subsequently gave a public assurance that he would respect China’s stance on the South China Sea at a press conference held during the federal election, according to a report in the Australian Financial Review. Senior government ministers compared Dastyari’s actions to conduct by the Liberal MP Stuart Robert, who lost his spot in the ministry after a fundraising controversy. The trade minister, Steve Ciobo, declared the Labor man, like Robert, had to be dumped from the frontbench. The leader of the government in the Senate, George Brandis, questioned whether Dastyari had been “compromised”. Over the course of Thursday in Canberra: Labor’s Senate leader, Penny Wong, moved a motion calling on the government to establish a banking royal commission, and for that resolution to be communicated to the House of Representatives for concurrence. That motion passed despite government opposition, resulting in the government’s first lost Senate vote of this term – and then the political fight cascaded into the House, with debate stretching into the evening; The government lost a second Senate vote. A motion moved by Labor’s Lisa Singh, and opposed by the Coalition, criticising the treatment of asylum seekers on Nauru in the wake of the publication of the Nauru files, and calling for the establishment of a children’s advocate, passed the Senate; Labor also succeeded in referring to the privileges committee questions about whether there had been “improper interference” or “attempted improper interference” with Labor’s deputy Senate leader Stephen Conroy’s free performance as a senator during controversial raids in the election campaign and last week related to leaks from the NBN Co. Labor set up the evening procedural ambush in question time, where the Labor leader Bill Shorten made the case for a royal commission after first meeting with a group of banking victims in parliament house. The group also met with Peter Whish-Wilson, the Greens’ treasury spokesman, who is a former banker. They did not meet with Malcolm Turnbull despite Shorten’s invitation to the prime minister last week. Naomi Halpern, a spokesperson for the Holt Norman Ashman Baker Action Group – said the meetings went well, and that Shorten had agreed to meet her again, in Melbourne next week. Halpern’s group included members of the Timbercorp financial scandal. Turnbull criticised Labor for the tactic, reasoning the royal commission would only be a forum for the legal profession, cost hundreds of millions of dollars, go on for years and deliver no practical improvements. The prime minister declared “populism” would not help the victims of banking industry scandals, but practical action would, and practical action was being taken by the government. “What we have in place are ombudsman services. We have legal services. We have Asic,” the prime minister said. “The only beneficiaries from a royal commission would be, frankly, the legal profession.” In the evening debate the treasurer, Scott Morrison, rounded on the opposition. He said the motion in the House was “a stunt from an opposition to promote their stunt” – meaning the banking royal commission.
One-click checkouts and pay-by-selfie: the rise of mobile commerce Buying stuff from mobile phones has been talked about since Coca-Cola and Nokia first installed vending machines in Finland in 1997 that accepted payment via text message, or SMS as it was then. It’s been a long and tortuous road since but, according to recent Nielsen figures, mobile technology (including tablets) is now fully embedded into the modern shoppers’ psyche. Certainly millennials or Generation Y (the generation born in the 80s and 90s), who Rebecca Huntley says, in her book The World According to Y, see technology as “their natural ally, a necessity rather than a luxury”, have been largely responsible. This generation has been the principal target for mobile retail strategies, which makes sense. Why target the mixed bag of dabbling Generation Xers, who still talk about the days before the internet, when you can target the group that doesn’t feel stupid talking to a smartphone? “Every brand we deal with talks about millennials,” says Ryan Hall, founder and managing director at agency Nice, which works with a number of brands on developing mobile platforms including Flybe, Ticketmaster, First Direct and Trainline. “If you get it right for the millennials you will get it right for everyone else.” All the numbers are pointing to a steady shift towards mobile. We’ve known that for a while now, having witnessed the frenzy of the annual Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping sprees where websites fall over and everyone seems to go into a sort of digital funk – and yet the numbers always improve. In February an IMRG report claimed that in the fourth quarter of 2015, over half of online sales (51%) were made through mobile devices, a rise of 11% on the previous year. The consensus from a number of mid-sized businesses polled is that there has been a shift this year from consumers using mobiles to browse and then buy in a shop or on a desktop to actually completing purchases via mobile apps or browsers. Skyscanner, a travel booking site launched in 2003, agrees, saying it is increasingly seeing people not just plan but also book trips on a mobile device. Between 2014 and 2015, mobile web bookings grew by 24% and they accounted for 42% of all conversions. On top of that, mobile visitors grew 60% in that time period, representing 59% of total visitors. So why the sudden change? It correlates with the launch of a new flights app at the end of last year, which the company says has improved the overall experience for mobile users. It’s an interesting point. The native apps versus mobile browser argument has been raging for a while now and most businesses tend to straddle both camps, developing apps but also optimising sites for mobile browsers. Google’s instant apps announcement last month could reshape the market as it advocates an approach based on both but, until then, it’s all about focusing on covering as many bases as possible. Tom Jeffrey, head of e-commerce at clothes chain Jules B, says that naturally the company pushes its customers towards its app, offering incentives such as 10% discounts. The reason is that it is “quicker and the experience is optimised for a particular device”, he says. Like many businesses, Jules B has seen a surge in online with mobile driving growth. Interestingly it is spread across age groups with even the 60- to 70-year-old age bracket holding its own. Recent A/B testing revealed that its customers preferred a practical checkout over a “sexy looking, well designed one”, says Jeffrey, but it is now looking to improve its four-stage checkout, perhaps reducing the number of clicks to two or even one. “It’s a big divide at the moment between one-stage and four-stage checkouts,” adds Jeffrey, who admits that as a smaller business, it tends to watch how the likes of Asos and Selfridges fare with various technology changes and then pick off the best bits. Certainly Amazon has done well with its one-click ordering – so is the shopper mindset changing? Have Amazon, Apple Pay and the rise of contactless cards boosted consumer confidence in technology but also raised the bar of expectancy? Rytis Vitkauskas, founder and CEO of London events and ticketing business YPlan, says: “There’s an expectation that any transaction will take a minimum amount of effort. The Gen-Y person doesn’t really think about buying something as a transaction any more. It’s an act of consumption where payment is an afterthought and must be seamless.” YPlan’s answer to this is a two-tap buying process regardless of venue or event. It is, says Vitkauskas, “no longer a choice but rather a requirement for any consumer-facing commerce platform”. The trade-off between ease of use and traditional card security is lessening it seems, particularly with biometrics, but that is probably as much a cultural thing as an actual technology shift, especially given that paying for goods in-store with a mobile device still takes time and often demands a pin to be entered anyway. Maybe we are expecting too much? Certainly new technology can have a big impact on sales. Fernando Fanton, chief product and technology officer at online takeaway ordering service Just Eat, says that adding Apple Pay as a payment method in July last year (it was an early adopter) saw the business complete “over half a million orders using Apple Pay in the UK alone – faster growth than any other payment method”. Perhaps this suits the nature of the business with its high-volume, micro-payments fast food for fast money? But there again, if it’s a process consumers want, surely all businesses should be looking to move this way across all sales channels? Apple Pay, Android Pay, Samsung Pay, smart watches and wearable devices are not going to go away, at least not until there is something better. Research firm Novonous believes these payment technologies will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 36.26% by 2020. Amazon, of course, plans to be a large part of this growth. The irrepressible online retailer recently announced plans to start selling groceries online in the UK (it has been operational via a mobile app in the US since 2011). In March it submitted a patent application for payments by selfies. It’s the sort of crazy idea that just might work, especially as recent research by Lux Research highlights the growing need for biometrics to improve m-commerce confidence and adoption. And that’s surely the point. If you can make it easy and remove the fear, any generation will use it. For the moment at least, its future remains in the hands of those to which it is second nature. For the rest of us, don’t ditch the wallet and purse just yet. To get weekly news analysis, job alerts and event notifications direct to your inbox, sign up free for Media & Tech Network membership. All Media & Tech Network content is editorially independent except for pieces labelled “Paid for by” – find out more here.
I see dead people. It's normal and more people should talk about it This will be my 17th year in the fire and rescue service. In the course of my duties I have responded to a range of incidents including accidents on motorways, train and aircraft crashes, and the fatal fire at Atherstone-on-Stour in 2007, where four of my fellow firefighters lost their lives. We worked for days to recover the bodies of our fallen colleagues from an unsafe structure, still in the process of collapse. Much could be written about the mental impact of this one incident alone. It was during the critical incident debrief that followed the fire at Atherstone-on-Stour that I first became aware of intrusive thoughts. My service had contracted a counsellor to discuss the incident with all those who had been there. He explained that the brain is not able to process traumatic incidents in its usual way. Instead, it randomly accesses pieces of your memories at a later stage, which can result in intrusive memories or flashbacks. I was informed that this was normal, and that far from being an indication that my mind was out of control, it was actually essential to my mental health. I know that I will never forget being stood to attention in a guard of honour, formed by the emergency services staff on site, as the grieving families of the deceased passed by to witness their loved ones being solemnly carried from the building to the waiting funeral cars. I will never forget how heart-wrenching it felt, and that even though I didn’t know any of them personally, they were part of what we often refer to as the 999 family. My 999 family. These are my conscious thoughts, for times of quiet reflection; they do not simply arrive uninvited, causing disruption, unlike my intrusive memories. Sometimes I see dead people. It is perfectly normal and more people should talk about it. I was told that memories of specific incidents become less frequent as the mind puts the pieces back together and files them away. I was also told that if they don’t, or if they start to interfere with everyday life, it might be worth seeking help. My experiences over the past 17 years have changed me. The things that I have seen, heard, and felt in that time have left me with new thoughts about life, death, and everything in between. While I don’t personally feel I have a mental health problem, perhaps without support I may have developed one. That possibility exists for any of us. As part of its blue light programme to improve the mental health of emergency services staff, the charity Mind conducted a survey of 3,627 workers – 87.5% of whom said they had experienced stress, low mood, or poor mental health. The support offered by my service following this incident has stayed with me, and I am thankful for it. Having been educated in the natural reaction of my mind following a traumatic incident, I am quite happy to discuss it, and this is key. But a recent YouGov poll revealed that nearly a third of us feel uncomfortable talking about mental health. And 71% of emergency services staff responding to the Mind survey felt their organisation did not encourage them to talk about mental health. As a consequence, many people suffer in silence, or turn to other coping mechanisms such as alcohol. There will always be specific triggers for these recurring memories, such as returning to the scene of an incident. One example for me is the heartbreaking death of a father and his three-year-old son. We had been called to help with the search of a river after a boat had capsized. Two children had been rescued before we got there, and as I arrived on the river bank, the limp body of a third child was being taken from the water and frantically worked on by paramedics. As I struggled to comprehend the scene in front of me, I desperately hoped for some signs of life. There were none. I remember helping to launch the rescue boat in the shallow water downstream, and the struggle of my teammates to get upstream, passing under a bridge, as the boat made its journey to the site where, later, we recovered the body of the children’s father. Occasionally I drive over that bridge. Sometimes I don’t even realise I have done it, and my day continues as normal. Other days I spot the sign for the small village as I approach, and I see that father and son once again. As cuts to the fire service continue, firefighter numbers are decreasing, meaning those that remain are likely to be exposed to critical incidents with greater frequency. The nation’s emergency services need to be talking about mental health. I am not suggesting that all emergency responders are clinging to sanity by our fingernails. Far from it. Everything I experience reminds me of what really matters in life: that in the blink of an eye, everything can change. Even with education, intrusive memories will catch you unawares. I was recently leaving a coffee shop with my wife, and as she pulled her scarf around her neck, my mind jumped back to a middle-aged man who had taken his own life. He had hanged himself from a canal bridge, using his scarf, and had been there for several hours. After we recovered him, the police found a note in his pocket, along with a plain gold wedding band that matched the one he was wearing on his left hand. I spared my wife the additional detail, and mentioned I had just had a flashback to an incident. She asked if I wanted to talk about it. I didn’t. It’s just my mind filing things away. I understand this. But I do hope that by writing this, I can encourage more people to talk about mental health. Thursday 4 February is Time to Talk Day, run by Mind and Rethink Mental Illness. Everyone should join the conversations about mental illness, and help end some of the misconceptions around it. The Blue Light Infoline, for emergency service staff, volunteers and their families, can be contacted on 0300 303 5999. It offers confidential support and advice on mental health and wellbeing. In the UK, the Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Hotline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14. Hotlines in other countries can be found here. This series aims to give a voice to the staff behind the public services that are hit by mounting cuts and rising demand, and so often denigrated by the press, politicians and public. If you would like to write an article for the series, contact tamsin.rutter@theguardian.com. Talk to us on Twitter via @ public and sign up for your free weekly Public Leaders newsletter with news and analysis sent direct to you every Thursday.
Malaysian film promoting LBGT rights banned for 'mocking national security' An irreverant comedy from the Malaysian director and YouTube star Namewee was banned by authorities for promoting homosexual lifestyles, mocking troops and ridiculing national security issues, a government ministry has revealed. Namewee’s film Banglasia, which centres on a group of individuals from diverse cultural backgrounds who find themselves forced to accept each other’s differences, was banned from cinemas last year after 31 scenes were deemed inappropriate by local censors. Efforts to resolve the dispute failed when it became clear the entire movie would have to be reshot to assuage the authorities. Now the Malay Mail reports that the Malaysian home ministry has published its official reasons for refusing the film a licence, in response to a written request from MP and human-rights activist Sivarasa Rasiah. “This film has a title, theme, storyline, scenes and double-meaning dialogue with implicit messages that were feared could raise controversy and public doubt,” the response reads, adding that it “mocked national security issues, specifically the Lahad Datu intrusion … ridiculed the capacity and role of security troops in maintaining peace as well as national security … includes allegations and negative perceptions towards government agencies related to citizenship … and accentuates negative sociocultural lifestyles such as lesbian gay bisexual transgender (LGBT).” The Lahad Datu land intrusion was a 2013 incident in which 235 militants, led by a claimant to the defunct Sultanate of Sulu, landed in Malaysian Borneo with the aim of resolving a centuries-old territorial dispute. After a three-week standoff, Malaysian security forces attacked and routed the invading force, killing at least 27 militants. In the wake of Banglasia’s banning, Namewee – real name Wee Meng Chee – took to Kickstarter in an effort to recoup funds and release the film on the internet for free. However, the crowdfunding campaign stalled in January, after attracting $186,468 towards a goal of $500,000. Banglasia, whose main character is a poor Bangladeshi immigrant hoping to return to his hometown to marry the love of his life, now faces an uncertain future. “We are now in a dilemma what to do next to still release it to the world, while not incur significant financial losses,” reads the blurb for the unsuccessful Kickstarter campaign.
‘Call me a racist, but don’t say I’m a Buddhist’: meet America's alt right Every few weeks, William Johnson, the chairman of the white nationalist American Freedom Party (AFP), holds a lunch for members, the goal being to make America a white ethnostate, a project that begins with electing Donald Trump. This week, it’s at a grand old French restaurant called Taix, in Echo Park, Los Angeles – an odd choice on the face of it. Echo Park is a trendy hood. It’s hipster and heavily Hispanic. In fact, given the predominance of Latino kitchen staff in this city, it may be wise to hold off on the Trump talk until the food arrives. “About three months ago,” Johnson begins, “I was talking to Richard Spencer about how we need to plan for a Trump victory.” Spencer is another prominent white nationalist – he heads the generic-sounding National Policy Institute. “I said: ‘I want Jared Taylor [of American Renaissance] as UN Ambassador, and Kevin MacDonald [an evolutionary psychologist] as secretary of health and Ann Coulter as homeland security!’ And Spencer said: ‘Oh Johnson, that’s a pipe dream!’ But today, he’d no longer say that, because if Trump wins, all the establishment Republicans, they’re gone… They hate him! So who’s left? If we can lobby, we can put our people in there.” Around the table five young men, roughly half Johnson’s age (he’s 61), nod and lean in. They all wear suits and ties, address the waiter as “sir” and identify as the “alt right”, the much-discussed nouvelle vague of racism. “Are you guys familiar with the Plum Book?” Johnson asks. “It’s plum because of the colour, but also because of the plum positions – there are 20,000 jobs in that book that are open to a new administration.” “So we need to identify our top people!” says Eric, one of the men at the table. “Just anyone with a college degree!” Johnson says. “Right.” Eric is practically bouncing in his seat with excitement. “We need to get the word out. We are the new GOP!” It’s not every day that a brown journalist gets to sit in on a white-nationalist strategy meeting. But these are strange times. Racism is trending. Like Brexit, Trump has normalised views that were once beyond the pale, and groups like the AFP have grown bold. Their man’s stubby orange fingers are within reach of actual power, so maybe it’s time to emerge from the shadows at last. I first met Johnson in May after he signed up as a Trump delegate before being swiftly struck off by the campaign when the press found out. He’s a surprising figure. An avid environmentalist, fluent in Japanese and, in person, not the bitter old racist I’d expected but rather a jolly Mormon grandfather, bright eyed and chuckling, a Wind in the Willows character. Eric is even more unexpected. Tall and impassioned, he came to racism via hypnotherapy, of all things. He sells solar panels for a living and practises yoga. Together with his friends Matt and Nathan, who are also here at lunch, he runs an alt-right fraternity in Manhattan Beach – “a beer and barbecues thing”. They’re called the Beach Goys. “We’re starting a parody band,” he beams. “We’ve found a drummer!” Between them they represent two poles of a racist spectrum, young and old. And judging from this lunch, it’s the millennials who are the more extreme. Johnson wants white nationalists to appear less mean and he finds the “JQ”, the Jewish Question, archaic. But Eric loves the meanness of the alt right. “We’re the troll army!” he says. “We’re here to win. We’re savage!” And antisemitism is non-negotiable. In fact, he’d like to clear up a misnomer about the alt right, propagated by the Breitbart columnist Milo Yiannopoulos, who is often described, mistakenly, as the movement’s leader. Milo casts the alt right as principally a trolling enterprise, dedicated to attacking liberal shibboleths for the “lulz”– there’s precious little actual bigotry. But Eric insists otherwise. Yes, they like to joke, they have memes, they’re just as funny as liberals – have I heard of their satirical news podcasts, the Daily Shoah and Fash the Nation? But make no mistake, the racism is real. Eric especially enjoys The Daily Stormer, a leading alt-right news site, which is unashamedly pro-Hitler. What unites Johnson and Eric is what they describe as “the systematic browbeating of the white male” – namely all this talk of privilege, the Confederate flag, Black Lives Matter and mansplaining. But beyond that, it’s the “looming extinction of the white race”. This is the language they use. Also: “Diversity equals white genocide.” The alt right loves to evoke genocide while harbouring Holocaust deniers. Their point is that white people are melting away like the icecaps, and they have a primal drive to stop it. In 2044, non-Hispanic whites will drop below 50% of the US population. “The generation of the white minority has already been born,” Eric says. “Look at South Africa and Rhodesia. That’s where we’re headed. Total disenfranchisement.” I want to reassure him that his Brown Rulers will be gentle and that slavery isn’t so bad when you get used to it. But it’s not me they want to hear from, it’s white people. This is the white nationalist’s burden – the very people they’re trying to save are the ones who most fiercely oppose them. “The only group I cannot get along with is white people,” says Johnson. “Because white people hate white people who like white people.” A couple of days later, Johnson is at his cluttered desk in downtown LA, nattering merrily in Japanese to a woman in Tokyo. He gets lots of media requests these days, but especially from Japan. There’s an uncanny connection between Japan and white nationalism in America. Jared Taylor, white nationalism’s foremost intellectual, is another fluent speaker. “It’s an ethnostate and it’s deeply nationalist,” he says. “And they have resisted the pressure to admit refugees. I say: ‘God bless them!’” For his part, Johnson’s racism was shaped in Japan. He grew up in Eugene, Oregon, a state founded as a white utopia, in a modest Mormon home, back before the LDS church gave black people the priesthood in 1978. But it was his two-year mission to Tohoku, Japan, that turned him. As he went from door to door, locals would opine on the greatness of white America. “They had an inferiority complex after the war, so we were treated like celebrities,” he says. “Oh, it was just the funnest time!” A few years later, while working in Japan as an attorney, he wrote a book advocating the repatriation of all non-whites with appropriate reparations, because “I thought America was going to collapse unless I did something.” When he returned to LA, he sent a copy to every congressman. He was 32. Clearly things didn’t work out as planned. His forays into politics floundered and then his offices were bombed. So he retreated from activism for nearly 15 years, only returning in 2009 to form the AFP – just in time for the rise of the alt right. We head to his 67-acre ranch near Pasadena, a hilly lot backing on to a national forest. I asked to meet his family, but his wife refused, so we tour the farm instead – his persimmon orchard, his horses and ducks. And there on his pick-up truck is a stencil of Jimi Hendrix. “My daughter likes to paint,” he says proudly. None of his five children are white nationalists, though they have promised to marry within the race. “You’re a white supremacist with a black artist painted on your truck,” I tell him. And he flinches. “That’s the meanest, most hurtful swearword there is. Just because I say different races have different strengths doesn’t mean I think I’m superior.” He doesn’t like “racist” either. “It’s a pejorative. I prefer ‘race realist’.” “But it’s not my reality, Bill. I’m sticking with racist.” “Well, OK. But people who embrace ‘racist’ are mad at everybody. I get along with people. You cannot function in Los Angeles without encountering other races, so I look for areas of similarity and agreement. It’s important to treat everyone with the highest respect on a micro level.” On a macro level, however, darkness falls – multiculturalism is doomed, the different races will never get along, and our only hope is Balkanisation: separate territories for separate tribes. And whatever accelerates that transition is welcome, even racial strife. “I don’t think friction is a good thing,” he says, “but it would help facilitate the split that is necessary.” We stop to feed his alpacas. There’s a brown one, a black one and a white one, standing peacefully together against the chicken wire fence. “See Bill, they’re getting along.” He laughs. “I wish people were like alpacas.” I’m with Eric at a Mexican restaurant in Manhattan Beach where he lives, an upscale, white neighbourhood in the South Bay. He clears space on the table and grins. “OK, you ready? Your first tarot card reading with the Hitler Youth!” It’s been an odd afternoon. We walked along the beach and I asked about his gmail address which includes the number 1488, a potent number for white supremacists. The “14” stands for the 14 words coined by the late David Lane of the group The Order: “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.” And the 88 refers to HH (H being eighth in the alphabet) – or Heil Hitler. Eric sighed. “OK, but this stuff’s hard to talk about,” he said. “It depends how red-pilled you are.” Alt-righters love talking about the red pill. It’s a reference to The Matrix – blue-pilled people bumble through a life of illusion, while the red-pilled have seen the truth and there’s no turning back. Like all conspiracy theorists they see the hidden hand that guides all things, but for the alt right that hand is Jewish. The red pill is classic antisemitism, rebooted for a younger generation. As we walked, he laid it out – the banking, the media, the globalism. We passed games of beach volleyball and family picnics, while he explained why the Holocaust was exaggerated and Hitler got a bad rap. “Have you noticed that kombucha isn’t as fizzy as it used to be?” he asks, along the way, because Eric isn’t your average Nazi. He trained as a spiritualist. He has taught meditation. He brought his tarot cards in case I wanted a reading. “Don’t tell me – it’s the Jews,” I tell him. He laughs. “You said it, not me!” In the late 70s, the Klansman David Duke swapped his hood and robes for a suit and tie, and took white supremacy out of the cross-burning fields and into the boardroom. Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center describes the alt right in similar terms, as Racism 2.0, “a rebranding for the digital generation”. It’s a trendy reboot – “alt right” makes white supremacy sound like an art collective. And Eric, the kombucha Nazi, just takes it a step further – into the aisles of Whole Foods. He’s a locally sourced, wild-caught bigot high in omega-3s and antisemitism. It makes him more sinister in some ways, and more harmless in others. As Nazis go. “Hmm, Nazi.” Like Johnson, he’s squeamish about terms. Warriors against political correctness can be awfully sensitive. “It’s such a slur,” he says. But come on – he’s a Hitler apologist. “OK, fine,” he says. “Just don’t say I’m a Buddhist, because I’m actually more into Norse and Celtic mysticism now.” It’ll come as no surprise that someone who’d rather be called a Nazi than a Buddhist has a strange story to tell. Originally from a well-off white suburb of Chicago, he moved to Las Vegas to pursue music. Then one day, in the gym of his condo building, he met a guru figure we’ll call Frank. A spiritualist and businessman, Frank introduced Eric to New Age mysticism and Japanese Buddhism. And it was under Frank’s guidance that Eric moved to LA to study hypnotherapy and began a career giving readings and tarot shows at a psychic bookshop. Frank, he says, was his “mentor and best friend”. But then Eric took a turn. He radicalised himself. He left the New Age life, finding it too feminine, and spiralled down a sinkhole of conspiracy theory. He and Frank have been estranged ever since. Frank is black. Today, Eric still meditates and practises yoga. His weeks are spent like David Brent, as a travelling salesman, driving around meeting his solar energy clients. His weekends, however, are all about the Beach Goys, which now has 15 members. Last week, they went on a hike to the Murphy Ranch in the Pacific Palisades, a decrepit old property that was originally built as a refuge for Hitler after the war. Next week is their first band rehearsal. Eric’s going to play guitar and sing. And this is the future he wants – not a plum job with the Trump administration. “I don’t see myself as a bureaucrat,” he says. “I want to take the Beach Goys national. I want to inspire people.” It could happen. Trump has unleashed something in America. Johnson won’t reveal the AFP’s membership numbers – “Maybe we want to appear bigger than we are?” – but Eric insists the alt right is on the march. “We’re growing with every hashtag, every BLM protest, every city that becomes a Detroit, or a London,” he says. “We’re everywhere! We’re the guy next to you at yoga, the barista at Starbucks...” It’s like Fight Club for supremacists, a deeply unsettling thought (which is why Eric loves it). But his delight in being a secret Nazi detracts from the seriousness of it all, the white genocide stuff. He’s having too much fun. And I wonder, as we finish our beers, if it will pass for Eric, this Nazi phase. He just doesn’t seem that threatening. Then he starts up about a race war, that old white-supremacist chestnut. Because behind the trolling veneer, the alt right is more traditional than alt. What Eric believes is vintage racism, the same old wine in a new ironic cask. And Tony Benn’s words ring as true as ever: “Every generation must fight the same battles again and again.” “Our civilisation is at war and we need to secure our people,” Eric says. “We must seize power and take control. And the idea that we can do this peacefully is probably not realistic.” We get along well enough, Eric and I, but he has the same micro/macro discrepancy as Johnson. And at a macro level, there is only despair and division. “I do not advocate violence, but I will give my life for my blood… and for the honour of my ancestors.” He thrums the tarot cards in his hands, his voice getting more animated. “We accept the game that’s being played. We accept that the lion and the gazelle are competition. But they don’t have to hate each other. That’s just how we view it.” He shrugs. “It’s scary. The world is scary. This is not a game for children.”
RBS: no evidence of criminal behaviour, rule prosecutors Eight years after the £45bn taxpayer bailout of Royal Bank of Scotland, prosecutors have concluded there is insufficient evidence of criminal behaviour to bring charges against the bank or any of its directors. The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service, Scotland’s prosecution service, said a team of specialist forensic accountants and banking experts had examined 160,000 documents before reaching its conclusion. The Crown Office focused on the cash call to raise £12bn that RBS embarked on between April and June 2008, just before its taxpayer bailout in October that year. The investigation was prompted by the December 2011 publication of the report by the then Financial Services Authority into the bank’s near collapse. The report found “multiple poor decisions” caused the crisis that led to the £45bn bailout. The prosecutor said: “The failure of RBS is an issue of great public concern..... The Crown’s investigation focused on the rights issue of April – June 2008, and involved detailed consideration of whether there was any evidence of criminal conduct associated with the rights issue. “If there were such evidence those responsible would face prosecution. If not, the public in Scotland could be reassured that the matter had been properly investigated. “Following careful examination of all the evidence seen to date, Crown Counsel have decided that there is insufficient evidence in law of criminal conduct either in relation to RBS as an institution or any directors or other senior management involved in the rights issue.” At the time of the rights issue – the cash call on investors in 2008 – the bank was run by Fred Goodwin, who was stripped in January 2012 of the knighthood he was awarded 10 years earlier. Goodwin had no right of appeal, and in accordance with custom was given no right to make representations to the forfeiture committee, a group of four permanent secretaries. The Crown Office said its investigation had required co-operation from the Financial Conduct Authority - which replaced the FSA - the Prudential Regulation Authority, part of the Bank of England, as well as the Serious Fraud Office, the Financial Reporting Council and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. “If any further evidence comes to light which is relevant to this enquiry it will be considered by the Crown and we reserve the right to make further enquiry, if considered appropriate,” the Crown Office said. RBS has not yet reported an annual profit since its bailout and has amassed more than £50bn of losses in the eight years since taxpayers stepped in to stop its collapse. The government has also found it difficult to extricate itself from the bank, selling off a 5% stake in August for a £1bn loss. Taxpayers still own 73% – and the shares are trading at 213p – below the 330p at which George Osborne sold shares in the summer and below the 502p average paid for the stake. RBS said: “We cooperated fully with this investigation and we note today’s decision.” The Insolvency Service has also ended its enquiries.
Romanian ambassador defends country's contribution to NHS The Romanian ambassador to the UK has said his country has made a significant financial contribution to the NHS as a result of the number of highly qualified health workers who have moved to Britain. Dan Mihalache said his country paid more than €100,000 to train up one medical student to become a doctor in Romania. “That is our contribution to your National Health Service,” he told a committee of peers in the House of Lords, adding that there were 10,000 or more Romanians working in the NHS. Mihalache argued that there were “two sides of the coin” when it came to free movement within the EU, “one good and one bad”. The positive impact for Romania was that its citizens working abroad across the world sent back €7bn in a good year, and between €3bn and €4bn during the economic crisis. But both he and the Polish ambassador, Arkady Rzegocki, said their governments had considered policies to stem the loss of skilled workers, including ideas around making graduates work for a number of years or pay back the cost of their courses. “Of course we are worried about that,” said Rzegocki, who said there were 1 million Poles living in the UK, with the vast majority in employment or studying. “We hope that they will start to be coming back. I hope that the situation will improve because we’ve had a huge economic success ... our GDP is growing every year.” He said an improvement in benefits for children in Poland, bringing the levels almost up to those given out in Britain, had persuaded people to remain in the country, and said the numbers coming to the UK had fallen over time. The men were appearing in front of the Lords’ EU justice committee, which is carrying out an inquiry into the impact that Brexit could have on the acquired rights of EU migrants in the UK and British migrants elsewhere. Rzegocki said there had been concern about reports about hate crime against Poles, although he had tried to reassure people that the incidents were few in number. He said he wanted people to have better knowledge about Poland including its contribution during the second world war. But he said the biggest problem with Brexit was the uncertainty faced by Polish citizens. “They are asking about their future, the future of their children, the NHS,” he said, arguing that not knowing what might happen was not good for individuals or the economy. Mihalache said that Romanian citizens had been calling his embassy to express similar concerns, including asking questions about their status, rumours that they could be expelled, and questions about permanent residence. “What will happen to people who paid their social contributions here in United Kingdom? What will happen to the mechanism, will payments made in UK be paid back – do they have to have registration certificates?” he added. The ambassador added that the “rhetoric” he had heard about registering foreign workers, along the lines of Amber Rudd’s proposals for a visa scheme post-Brexit, “are not encouraging for our communities”. The men said their plea was for all existing rights for their citizens to be protected. Lady Kennedy of the Shaws, who chairs the committee, said she had set up the inquiry after hearing that embassy phone lines had been jammed by EU citizens asking “what is going to happen to us? We have bought a house, our children go to school, how do we learn our futures?”. The committee will present its recommendations by the end of the year.
Beyoncé launches new 'visual album' Lemonade on HBO The surprise of releasing an album with no warning is perhaps a slightly overdone trick now, but the news that Beyoncé released her sixth solo album, called Lemonade, on Saturday night still managed to be the kind of event that confirms her status as arguably the world’s leading female pop star. The album was debuted at 9pm EST on Saturday night on the cable channel HBO. It took the form of a succession of music videos linked by poetry by Somali-British poet Warsan Shire. The directors of the videos included heavyweights like Mark Romanek. By the end of the hour-long broadcast, the album was available to stream on Tidal, backed by Jay-Z, Beyoncé’s husband. However, the state of the pair’s marriage is sure to come under scrutiny given the angry tone of the first few songs. The first video, for Pray You Catch Me, saw Beyoncé walking down the street and smashing up cars with a baseball bat, singing about a man who had betrayed her trust. Musically, the album is eclectic, moving into rock, country and jazz in places and including collaborations with Jack White, Diplo, James Blake, Kendrick Lamar and the Weeknd. Meanwhile the title seems inspired by the old adage, “If life hands you a lemon, make lemonade.” Lemonade also demonstrates Beyoncé’s increasing willingness and desire to express her political views. One of the films for Lemonade depicted the mothers of Michael Brown and Trayvon Martin holding photographs of their sons. The album is also strongly feminist in tone, one song declaring “women don’t quit on themselves”. The arrival of Lemonade didn’t produce quite the same shockwaves as the release of Beyoncé, her previous album, on 13 December 2013. There had been no warning of that album, and for it to arrive – like the latest album, with a complete accompanying set of music videos – felt like a seismic event for the music industry. Though albums had been released with little or no notice, never before had an artist with as much commercial power as Beyoncé been able to release an album with no warning to complete surprise. This time, however, there had been hints that something was happening. First, Beyoncé released a new single, Formation, in February – her first new music since the 2013 album – then performed it at the Super Bowl halftime show. If it were possible for Beyoncé to raise her profile any higher, the Super Bowl show did it: her performance, a vigorous spectacle that paid tribute to the Black Panthers, of a song whose lyrics and video were clearly linked to the Black Lives Matter movement, provoked anger among police unions, some of whom threatened to withdraw security services from her concerts. That tour – the second clue that an album was imminent – begins on 27 April in Miami and comes to the UK at the end of June, with stadium shows in Sunderland, Cardiff, Manchester, London and Glasgow. It is part of a cluster of Beyoncé activity that also suggested there would be music coming imminently. Last week she launched a range of fashion sportswear, Ivy Park, selling through Top Shop in the UK. On Monday she released a trailer for Lemonade, a mysterious “world premiere event” that will be broadcast on the US network HBO on Saturday. The surprise release of her last album did not harm it commercially. Beyoncé entered the US Billboard chart at No 1, and became the fastest-selling album on iTunes worldwide. It’s estimated total sales of 5m beat the 3m copies sold of its predecessor, 4. Track listing for Beyoncé’s new album, Lemonade
European referendum campaign kicks off as rivals roll out big guns The first day of the official 10-week EU referendum campaign kicks off on Friday after months of in-fighting and backbiting, with the leave campaign arguing that Brexit would save the NHS and the remain campaign claiming that a vote to leave could risk a 2008-style financial crash. The official campaign period includes rules on spending and in other areas ahead of the vote on 23 June. The two official campaigns can spend up to £7m each on campaigning, with £600,000 in public funds, and get a free mailshot and national TV broadcast. The mayor of London, Boris Johnson, a prominent figure in the official Vote Leave campaign, will use a rally in Manchester on Friday night to argue that Brexit would give the NHS a multibillion-pound boost, claiming a large chunk of the UK’s £10.6bn net contribution to Brussels could be diverted to pay for hospital beds. He will go on to make speeches in Leeds and Newcastle this weekend as Vote Leave points to predictions showing the health service could face a shortfall in funding of £12.3bn by 2020-21. The move has been interpreted as an attempt to reach Labour voters. Meanwhile, the former chancellor Alistair Darling will issue the latest in a long line of dire warnings from the campaign to stay in the EU. Giving a speech in Westminster, Darling, who led the campaign to keep Scotland in the UK, will say dark clouds are gathering on the horizon and point to what happened when economic confidence collapsed in 2008. “The single most important determinant of the health of our economy is confidence, and it is waning as the risk of leaving comes in to focus,” he will say. “We know what happens when confidence plummets. We saw that in 2008 and we are still living with the consequences of the global financial crash. Confidence remains low and uncertainty is making that worse. “When the IMF single us out as facing what will be a self-inflicted wound, we can’t ignore it. We can’t afford to take a decision where no one on the other side has any clear idea of where we would end up if we left.” Darling’s speech comes after the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, speaking to an audience of Labour-supporting students and trade unionists in London on Thursday, made his case for staying in the European Union in his first major speech on the subject. Responding to calls for him to step up the fight for Britain to remain in the EU, Corbyn warned that Brexit could give a Conservative government the opportunity to slash protection for workers, in a “bonfire of rights”. Remain campaigners are concerned at a fall in support from Labour voters, with the coverage of the debate so far primarily focused on Connservative party splits. Labour voters are twice as likely to vote to stay in the EU, but concerns are mounting that they could be put off from turning out to vote. Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Friday, Darling admitted there were similarities between the campaign to persuade Scotland to stay in the UK and the pro-EU campaign, both of which have been dubbed “Project Fear” by rivals. “There are similarities actually, in that we are being invited – in both cases, in the Scottish referendum and now – to take something of a leap into the unknown, a leap into the dark,” he said. “What I’m saying is that there is overwhelming economic evidence that we are better off, stronger and more secure being part of the European Union, the largest market in the world.” The leader of the House of Commons, Chris Grayling, will become the first Conservative cabinet minister to share a platform with the Ukip leader, Nigel Farage, on Monday, as the rival Brexit groups seek to adopt a united front. The Vote Leave campaign, which counts Tory government ministers in its ranks, was designated the official anti-EU campaign on Wednesday, causing outrage among the rival campaigns.
Northern Irish women 'treated as second-class citizens' over abortions Women from Northern Ireland who travel to England to terminate pregnancies are being treated as “second-class citizens” by the NHS, the supreme court has been told. The health service’s refusal to fund abortions for Northern Irish women is a breach of their human rights and NHS guidelines, the panel of five justices at the UK’s highest court heard on Wednesday. The barrister was opening a legal challenge brought on behalf of a woman , identified only as A , who travelled to Manchester in 2012 aged 15, at a cost of £300, and was required to pay £600 for an abortion . Abortion is only available in Northern I rish hospitals when there is a direct threat to the mother’s life if the pregnancy continues. In all other cases, abortion is illegal. An estimated 2,000 women travel to English hospitals and clinics from Northern Ireland every year for terminations. All of them have to find enough money to go to private clinics in England . Stephen Cragg QC, representing A and her mother, told the court: “When it comes to abortion services , women from Northern Ireland are essentially second-class citizens. “Criminal penalties are still imposed on those who seek access to abortion services in Northern Ireland. Life imprisonment is still on the statute books. The most recent penalty was a three-month suspended sentence for a woman who accessed [abortion] drugs via the internet . “It’s not surprising that, as the mother explains in this case, this was far more stressful and humiliating for a 15-year-old girl than it needs to be.” One of the justices, Lord Reed, questioned whether the case could set a broader precedent across the devolved regions by making other services, such as university, free for all UK citizens. Cragg said this was not the desired outcome of the claim. “The law governing abortion in Northern Ireland is one of the most restrictive in both the European Union and [within] the Council of Europe,” he argued in a written submission. “The maximum criminal penalty imposed – life imprisonment for both the woman undergoing the abortion and for an individual who assists her – is the harshest in Europe and among the harshest in the world.” Reproductive rights organisations including the Alliance for Choice, the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, Birthrights, the Family Planning Association and the Abortion Support Network have intervened in the case. In submissions on their behalf, Helen Mountfield QC argued that the 2006 National Health Services Act required the UK to “make universal non-discriminatory provision which supports women so as to enable them to exercise dignity and autonomy over their reproductive health, in a way which is practical and effective. “Once a woman is within the country’s jurisdiction for the purposes of protecting her fundamental rights, then as a matter of international law, these must be protected on a non-discriminatory basis.” But Jason Coppel QC, for the government, said it was not irrational for the provision of non-emergency healthcare to be divided between the different countries of the UK according to the place of residence of the patient. If there were any discrimination, he argued, then it was “plainly justified”. “A devolved, residence-based system for allocation of certain health services, including abortion services, [allows for] fair and efficient allocation of responsibility for provision of health services among authorities in England and other countries of the UK,” Coppel said. Judgment in the case has been reserved.
Extremism thrives because of cowardly collaborators Anglo-Saxon democracies, which were never invaded in the 20th century, have produced a rich series of alternative histories of resistance. When the Nazis win the Second World War, audiences can flatter themselves that they would never have collaborated with Robert Harris’s Fatherland or Amazon’s Man in the High Castle. No one is more prone to imagining how well they would have behaved in conflicts that they never experienced than American conservatives. The cult of Churchill in the US would embarrass even his most devoted British admirers. From George W Bush, who placed a Jacob Epstein bust of Churchill in the Oval Office in 2001, via the CEOs who put Churchill their most admired leader, ahead of Steve Jobs, to today’s Republican leaders in Congress, the mainstream right is unanimous and unctuous in its admiration. In truth, they are only admiring themselves. When the House of Representatives’ leader, Paul Ryan, said that for Churchill it was an “unforgivable sin” for a politician to fail to warn the electorate about an impending threat, or when John McCain compared Barack Obama to Neville Chamberlain as he cut a deal with the Castros, they were signalling their courage. Churchill and the minority of anti-Hitler Tory and Labour MPs were abused in their own parties, and beyond, until appeasement fell apart in late 1938. No matter. Like them, today’s Republicans would rather be right than be popular. Donald Trump has proved that they are destined to be neither. I don’t throw the word “fascism” around, but can we at least accept that Trump follows the Führerprinzip? He has no colleagues, only followers. He is a racist. Not a closet racist, or a dog-whistle racist, but a racist so unabashed that the Klan endorses him. Above all, he has the swaggering dictator’s determination to bawl opponents into silence with screams of “loser”, “dummy”, “fraud”, “puppet,” “biased”, “disgusting”, “liar” and “kook”. As with the web trolls Trump so resembles, it is never the point and always the person. Female news presenters have to explain that they are not asking him difficult questions because they have “blood coming out of whatever” or surrender to him, as Megan Kelly of Fox News did to her shame. Latinos have to explain why they are not rapists and murderers or shut up and give up. Muslims have to explain that they are not terrorists or they lose the right to a hearing. At every stage, the argument is shifted on to the troll’s terrain of ethnic and religious loyalty tests. Except here the troll could become the world’s most powerful man. Conservatives boasted too that they knew that the old-fashioned virtues of good character mattered as much as a man or woman’s ideology. By this reckoning, Trump’s bragging, vainglory, dark fury and towering vanity should disqualify him from the presidency regardless of his politics. Republican grandees must agree with Hillary Clinton when she said: “A man you can bait with a tweet is not a man we can trust with nuclear weapons”, not least because Marco Rubio, one of their own, has said as much himself. Yet McCain and Ryan, those enemies of appeasement, have folded and endorsed Trump. Rubio, that piercing judge of his character, has decided that, after all, Trump’s finger should be on the button. Presidents Bush père et fils are bravely abstaining. Bobby Jindal, who described Trump as a “narcissist and egomaniacal madman”, wants him in the White House. Nearly all the Republican names you remember follow suit. The Dick Cheneys, Rand Pauls and Condoleezza Rices are backing Trump or refusing to commit. Confronted with a dictatorial menace in their own time and their own country they lack the courage to risk the unpopularity that Churchillian dissent would bring. Even when Trump followed his years of promoting the interests of a dictator of a hostile foreign power by urging Vladimir Putin to hack Clinton’s emails, they held steady in their cowardice. The Republicans, the party of red-baiters and Cold Warriors, is now in the pocket of a Kremlin “useful idiot” and the best its national security conservatives can manage are embarrassed mutters. Only Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush and Ted Cruz openly oppose him, among prominent Republicans. And when a once mighty political movement relies on Cruz to uphold its honour it is so deep in the dustbin of history it is already composting. My friend and comrade, the American journalist Jamie Kirchick, coined the phrase “Vichy Republicans” to describe its leaders. They don’t quite support Trump, you understand, but you surely can’t expect them to oppose him either. It is not as if America is under occupation. It is not as if the man in the high tower will order the secret police to herd them on to cattle trucks. The only suffering they will face is challenges in Republican primaries and many won’t even face that. A little fear goes a long way. Just the possibility of being told off for challenging a candidate that they fear to be mentally unstable has been enough to persuade them to conform. Optimists say that America’s founding fathers designed its constitution to cage men such as Trump. “An elective despotism was not the government we fought for,” said James Madison in 1788, “but one in which the powers of government should be so divided and balanced among the several bodies of magistracy as that no one could transcend their legal limits.” But where are Madison’s checks today? Trump has already made his contempt for judicial independence clear by race-baiting and bullying a judge who was investigating one of the many accusations of fraud against him. As for the legislature, a Trump victory would ensure a Republican-dominated Congress – those same Republicans who are too frightened to raise a word of protest against him today. Compare them to the British Labour MPs fighting Jeremy Corbyn. They are everything that conservatives despise: hand-wringingly PC, eco-conscious, emotionally literate, bleeding-heart do-gooders every last one of them. Christ, some of them may even read the . But after the killing of Jo Cox by an alleged rightwing extremist, Angela Eagle, Jess Phillips and all the other anti-Corbyn MPs who are speaking out know that the death and rape threats from left-wing extremists may not just be bluster. They are showing true courage. Not just moral courage but physical courage. A courage that those American conservatives, who are so loud in the determination to fight the threats of the past, and so silent before the dangers of the present, entirely lack.
Polio cases could be wiped out within 12 months, says World Health Organisation The World Health Organisation is confident polio is in its dying days and could be eradicated within 12 months, despite challenges in Pakistan and Afghanistan, where the virus is still endemic and vaccination campaigns are sometimes targeted by extremists. If the virus is wiped out, polio will become only the second human-hosted virus to be eradicated since the end of smallpox in 1980. “We absolutely need to keep the pressure up, but we think we could reach the point where we have truly interrupted the transmission at the end of the year or the end of the low season [winter] next year,” said Michel Zaffran, the WHO’s director of polio eradication. So far this year, just nine cases of wild – as opposed to vaccine-derived – polio virus have been recorded: two in Afghanistan and seven in Pakistan. Noting that there were generally fewer cases of polio in the cold winter months, Zaffran said that, even if there was a spike in recorded cases during the summer, the WHO believed it could still end transmission by early next year. “It is going to be an extraordinary achievement. This has been an ongoing effort since 1988. We started with 150 countries and we are now just down to two countries and nine cases [so far this year],” said Zaffran. Since the start of the global polio eradication initiative in 1988, transmission of the wild polio virus, which used to paralyse hundreds of thousands of children every year, has ceased in all countries apart from Afghanistan and Pakistan. There have been false dawns in this battle, such as in 2013, when the virus re-emerged in Nigeria, Syria and Iraq, where it had previously been eradicated. All three are now free from polio once again. The WHO is concentrating its efforts in three areas known to be reservoirs for the virus – the Pakistani city of Karachi and two cross-border corridors, around Quetta Block and in the Peshawar district. Zaffran said 47 districts in Afghanistan have been prioritised for vaccination and surveillance, of which 32 are under control of anti-government forces. “In these cases it is difficult to reach the children. We are vaccinating at transit points but we are still confident, because we’ve only had two reported cases this year so far compared to 22 [total cases] last year. We know when polio strikes because when a child is paralysed, the parents seek help and when they cannot find it locally they move,” said Zaffran. In Karachi, the WHO is intensifying its efforts to reach pockets of children missed during previous vaccination drives. “If we can achieve this, it is enormous: not only will it be the second human pathogen to be eradicated ever but it will be a great legacy for the world in terms of efficacy of vaccination programmes,” said Joël Calmet, a doctor with Sanofi Pasteur, a polio vaccine manufacturer. Calmet said the end of polio will be a “landmark for humankind” because it has created a public health model for vaccination even in the most difficult and challenging places. “The original deadline for eradication was 2000, which was said to be too challenging at the time, but now I think they set the barrier too high to mobilise everyone to collectively step up as there were too many cases and not enough was happening to reduce them,” he said. “A 20-year delay might seem enormous, but polio has been around for thousands of years and to have got rid [of it] will be amazing.”
Bob Dylan: Fallen Angels review – unfaithful and lovely The thought strikes, part-way through Bob Dylan’s second album of standards from the mid-20th century American songbook, that it sounds like nothing so much as the unreleased soundtrack to a later Woody Allen movie. It has the same tastefully muted jazzy arrangements, the same love for the music combined with a slight sense of didacticism (Listen! You WILL love these songs as much as I do), the same oddly absurd disconnection from modernity. The arrangements aren’t faithful in any way to those that made these songs famous – That Old Black Magic becomes a rockabilly shuffle – but there’s a certain loveliness to them. It Had To Be You had yet another lease of life on the When Harry Met Sally soundtrack in 1989, but the version here makes you think not of Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal cracking wise to each other, but to the old couples interspersed throughout that film, reminiscing about when they fell in love. Fallen Angels sounds like another love letter to Dylan’s own youth, and it’s charming. Whether you would prefer listening to his readings of the songs, rather than to those by Sinatra, Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald and so on is entirely your choice.
Swansea City 1-1 Manchester City: Premier League final day – as it happened Ah yes, the transfer season European Championship is upon us! Yes! So, we’ll see you for that, and in the meantime, thanks all for your comments and company. Bye! So, that’s that for another season, and, despite a squid of a final day, what a season it’s been. Leicester champions, Sunderland relegating Newcastle, Chelsea imploding, Arsenal and Spurs collapsing, West Ham progressing, two promoted teams staying up - and all the rest. However will we fill our days until August? And that’s that for Manuel Pellegrini. City take the fourth Champions League spot - unless United beat Bournemouth by 19 clear goals. Swansea finish a deeply creditable eleventh. We all wonder quite what the Old Trafford abandonment will mean. 90+3 min “I’m no great lover of Navas, he’s consistently been an odd weak point in this team,” emails Matt Dony. “But I’d kind of like to see what Klopp could do with him. I’d be quite happy to see a sly Liverpool bid for him.” I don’t know - maybe he’d coach him better, but it seems too late to have him play with his head up. 90+2 min Aguero won’t win the golden boot this season - he departs to be replaced by Toure, making perhaps his last appearance for City. And what a player he has been for them, if not the best in their history certainly the best in big games. 90 min There will be three added minutes. 90 min Swansea look to go forward at the same as they look to knock the ball along the back-four. They’ve barely threatened this half. 88 min Crivens, Spurs are 5-1 down at Relegatednewcastle; it was 2-1 when Mitrovic was sent-off. This is an absolutely world-class paddy from them. 86 min This game is phutting and sputtering to a finish. 85 min Sky News are reporting that a controlled explosion has taken place at Old Trafford. And dearie me, what a state of affairs: people can’t just go to a football match for fear other people might blow them up. I fear this isn’t the end of that story. 84 min Around the grounds: Leicester and Chelsea are drawing 1-1-, Olivier Giroud has scored a hat-trick for Arsenal against Villa, and Newcastle, down to ten men, lead champions-elect, best team, best football in the league players Spurs, 3-1. 82 min Sagna goes down with no one near him, rarely a good sign. While he receives treatment, Gomis replaces Montero. 81 min While Jesus Navas gives City balance of a sort - pace on the wing, a natural right-side who looks to go on the outside - you’d think not playing well much might restrict his appearances. 80 min Leroy Fer tries a stepover, and is robbed by Clichy. It’s bit like this. 78 min Brilliant from City. De Bruyne breaks through the centre with the ball and finds Aguero, who moves across the face of the box from right-to-left before swivelling into a reverse-pass for Nasri. His low cross is a dangerous one, but eludes all those in the middle and Kingsley wallops clear. 75 min He may be a kind of Silva-lite, but I’m surprised Nasri hasn’t played more recently; he’s composed on the ball, a goal threat, and a bit nasty, none of them qualities with which City are replete. 74 min Ayew finds Barrow on the right, but he can’t find a way past Clichy, and City break; Britton slides in and lifts a leg to halt De Bruyne, for which he is booked. 73 min Nasri has taken up a position on the left, with De Bruyne moving in behind Aguero. 73 min Nasri replaces Iheanacho. 71 min Bony warms up and is cheered by the home crowd. It was put to me recently that he’s bulked up and lost whatever pace he had and that looks a fair explanation; he used to be quite good. 70 min Hart, Silva, Aguero, De Bruyne, Fernandinho, Iheanacho: the only City players safe when Guardiola arrives, I’d say. 68 min Montero runs at Sagna, played into trouble by Navas, and forces the foul. It earns him a yellow card, and Swansea a free-kick, close the by-line and box, but the cross is too high and ill directed. 67 min This Navas-Fernando situation highlights the dangers of scouting according to job description, rather than quality. City needed players in their positions, but neither is good enough to be a first-teamer. 66 min Lovely play down the left between Navas and Fernando, a one-two allowing the former to cross, low. Naturally, he hits the first man. 64 min Back to United, you wonder if they’ll be watching this game wondering if they might, somehow, have avoided conceding two goals in eight minutes after taking the lead at West Ham. 62 min Aguero lifts a lovely scooped ball into the box and follows it like a ferret, unwinding for a shot - but Amat does just enough, sliding in and forcing him to slice wide. 60 min Lovely ball from Clichy, slotted behind Rangel for Iheanacho, taking up another dangerous position. Without looking, he squares gently for Aguero, but Rangel recovers well to concede a corner - it comes to nothing. 60 min Stoke have equalised against West Ham, Imbula with the goal. 58 min Change for Swansea: Barrow replaces Routledge. 58 min And Fernandez’s corner is a good one, picking out Fernandez 10 yards out at the back post. He heads it back from whence it came, but the ball loops wide. 57 min And there he goes, roadrunning at his man and winning a corner... 55 min Swansea have barely been able to get Montero on the ball so far - they might look to address that in the next bit. 54 min This game is getting stretched - 1-1 will not be the final score. 52 min Huge let-off for Swansea and Nordfeldt! Iheanacho, more or less dead centre, slipped right to Aguero, who advanced and rolled in Navas. His low cross was straight at the keeper, but he somehow directed it into Iheanacho’s path - the goal was gaping, only for him to trip over the ball readjusting his feet. 51 min Swansea make space down the left and Kingsley nashes into it, absolutely slamming his cross aeons and hectares past the backpost. 48 min I wonder how many of this back four Guardiola will keep when he arrives at Eastlands. I suppose Kompany is safe as captain and totem - though I’m not sure he’ll be a regular, given his injury record. But Otamendi and Mangala are not exactly what Guardiola’s type. 46 min City immediately win a corner down the left, De Bruyne’s kick headed clear by Fernandez. But the loose ball finds its way back to him, now at the corner of the box, and he whips a brilliant cross towards the far post, where Mangala heads over the top. Great chance. 46 min And off we go again... Sky reckon that at some point, there’ll be a controlled explosion at Old Trafford. “What’s the protocol for an abandoned game? Do you bother replaying it if it doesn’t change anything?” asks St Fual on Twitter. I’m pretty sure they’d replay it whatever, but with money on offer for where teams finish, plus potential Europa League issues, this one doesn’t fall into that category. Well, that was a rather unexpected ending to the half. Swansea have actually played some okay stuff in safe spaces, unable to muster any kind of threat save the disallowed goal. City, on the other hand, looked dangerous throughout thanks to De Bruyne’s invention, Aguero’s hold-up play and Iheanacho’s movement. I’ve no idea what’ll happen in the second half, but both managers have work to do. Fer runs over the ball in peculiar style, fooling everyone, and Ayew then steps up looking to bend over the wall and into the top right corner. But Fernandinho waves a head in its road, sending it careering into the top left and leaving Hart flummoxed. Game on, cat pigeoned, and all that. 45 min And there’s Otamendi’s yellow card - Mangala sent a tricky ball into Iheanacho, he bumped it back, and Britton seized upon it, weaving some space and coaxing the foul. Free-kick, 25 yards out, just right of centre... 44 min After landing awkwardly challenging for a header, Iheanacho is limping - looks like one he can run off, but. 43 min Mike Dean allows Swansea an advantage and Montero cuts in, losing Sagna, but then scuffs a low swipe past the near post. 41 min More aesthetic interplay from Swansea and as Otamendi hurtles into a two-footed challenge on Rangel, Iheanacho trips him from behind - probably accidentally. He’s booked, and here comes the free-kick, 25 yards out, right of centre; Cork drifts it gently over the wall and into Hart’s hands, one bounce. 40 min Thanks to Tim O’Brien for pointing out that, thanks to Jordon Ibe’s equaliser, Liverpool are no longer losing. However, Newcastle now lead Spurs 2-0. 37 min Fantastic play from De Bruyne, finding himself on the right touchline and unfurling a majestic crossfield pass for Navas as City break. He then absolutely bousts towards the box and is there waiting for a return just as Navas wallops a useless shot over the top. 36 min Ayew pulls wide to the left by-line and digs out a cross that’s deflected behind by Mangala - the corner is a funny, midriffy height, and headed back towards the taker by Fernandez, who was held by Mangala. How Mike Dean would’ve loved gesticulating a penalty, but he either denies himself or failed to spot the offence. 36 min I should also mention that Liverpool are losing at West Brom and West Ham are winning at Stoke. 34 min Little flurry of Swansea, Ayew weaving into space 25 yards out, right of centre, and absolutely pounding a shot into Otamendi’s excellent block. And they then won the ball back, Angel floating a cross towards the back post that Montero won but could only squirt square. 33 min More on that Urawa abandonment from Patrick O’Brien, who reminds me that lightening hit the ground, and also mentions that the previous time it had happened at Old Trafford was at home to Villa in 1991. 31 min “Okay I know the situations are different but look at Liverpool’s starting 11,” emails Mike McKenzie. “Bogdan, Flanagan, Skrtel, Lucas, Smith, Stewart, Allen, Brannagan, Ibe, Ojo, Benteke. So 5 junior players start with 3 (Randall, Canos, Chirivella) on bench. And it isn’t the first time Klopp has given young guys a match. It can only be beneficial both for the players and for Klopp to evaluate them. Didn’t Fergie always say that you have to see what the kids can do?” As you say, it’s different - Klopp is resting players for the Uefa Cup Final, United were chasing 4th place. And, though there are infinite reasons to criticise Van Gaal, giving kids a chance isn’t one of them; that’s the reason United have a small squad. 29 min Montero passes back from halfway, stuck out on the touchline, and it’s nowhere near hard enough - Iheanacho is right onto it. But after transferring it into his stride, he can’t quite zone in towards goal as intended, losing his direct run at it. Even then, though, he might slip a reverse-ball into Aguero but instead lamps one over the bar. 27 min Excellent save from Nordfeldt, making his first Premier League start. Iheanacho, at inside-left, flicks outside him for Fernandinho, who crosses low to the near post. Aguero darts towards the goal then towards the ball, losing Amat and turning a low shot that’s well saved via leg extension. 24 min Ayew, Britton and Routledge do very well moving the ball from centre to right, but again, they can’t get it into a dangerous area - they’ve yet to register a shot on target. City then break and Iheanacho again takes up a dangerous position, but the ball to him is overhit and he can’t quite regain control. 22 min Iheanacho slams one over the bar from 20 yards as we learn that Spurs are losing at Newcastle. With Arsenal winning at home to Villa, of the scores stay the same, they’d finish above their rivals, having their greatest season in a generation, yet again. 20 min Swansea look sharp, as you’d expect from a team in such smart form, but hard to see them restricting De Bruyne, Aguero and Iheanacho to no more goals. 19 min More news on that United-Bournemouth abandonment, here. 17 min The last time a game as Old Trafford was abandoned - I think - was the pre-season friendly against Urawa Red Diamonds in 2004. That time, the cause a storm; it must’ve been bad to be worse than this one against Boro in 1997. 15 min Routledge causes mither down the left, moving inside to slot a ball through for Montero - but he’s wandered offside. On which point, Routledge has come on a lot the last couple of seasons. Players sometimes need patience. 13 min Surely this is it now - surely City, despite it all, can’t make a mess from here? 10 min Swansea have the ball in the net - Rangel’s swinging cross bounces in front of Sagna and Montero and the former can’t decide whether to head or kick so falls over instead, leaving the latter to bundle home. But Mike Dean mikedeans a signal that there was a push, and Niall Quinn agrees; they’re both probably right, but it’s not entirely easy to be certain. Gosh. A long, searching ball into the left corner is well held up by Aguero and then laid back for De Bruyne. His low shot was shoved away by Nordfeldt and tapped in by Iheanacho - what a knack he has. The confusion was whether or not he was offside. It looked to me as though he was, Niall Quinn was certain to the contrary, we are, of course, both neutral, so we’ll have to wait for another replay. ... 5 min On which point, my guess would be that this delay does not suit United - they need to up the pressure on City, which means scoring goals and such. 4 min 3 min City ease forward with Iheanacho, Aguero and De Bruyne, the latter arcing a venomous low cross that narrowl eludes the former, Nordfeldt snatching on the dive. Good start to the game. 2 min Lovely from Swansea, playing like a side in form and moving the ball rapidly from centre to right. Rangel, marauding down the flank, then chipped a cross that went behind off Fernandinho’s arm; no penalty, and the corner is wasted. 1 min Apparently the “Premier League works hard to synchronize everything” - by telling teams to all kick-off at the same time on the same day. Today’s game will be United’s third late kick-off in recent weeks after they got stuck in traffic en route to Spurs and were waylaid at West Ham - you may have heard. Out come the players at the Liberty. Apparently, supporters outside the Stretford End have been asked to move away from the ground. 45 minutes sounds unlikely to me, on which point Swansea-City will kick-off at 3pm. Swear down Manuel Pellegrini just said City have had a good season. Nice guy and all, but, well, y’know. Meanwhile … Turns out that, amazingly, Rojo wasn’t dropped for consistent abjectivity but, amazingly, is injured again; Schneiderlin is ill. “For Utd, I’d keep all of the first XI,” emails Laim Searle. “But the subs are the problem. Would keep Pereira, Jones and Varela, ditch the rest.” Heh - I disagree, to the extent I even know - anyone even knows - what the first XI is. The, er, “strength” in depth isn’t too bad, there just isn’t enough quality among the better players. The North Stand and Scoreboard End are still populated - more news regarding what’s going on as I get it, but on a footballing note, this could make things better or worse: Swansea-City will presumably start on time, so we’ll know whether the Battle for Fourth PlaceTM is either on or off. There’s an incident somewhere in the ground that the authorities are dealing with. The ground is emptying, and it looks like a minimum delay of 45 minutes. Let’s hope everything and everyone is ok. Let’s play a parlour game: of the City and United squads, who would you bin and who would you keep? “Is anyone taking bets on United finishing 4th, winning the FA Cup and still sacking Van Gaal?” emails Thabo Mokaleng. “I’d put down a fiver.” I’d say the first is the least likely of those... Graeme Souness reckons if United finish top four and win the Cup, Van Gaal should keep his job. Tangentially, here is some information on his time at United: BREAKING NEWS: Michael Carrick’s kids are United’s mascots today. Read into that whatever you please. Anyway, what of Bournemouth and Swansea? That’s a rhetorical question. Both have been superb this season, the former all the way through, the latter when they really needed to be The question for both is how they progress from here... Nostalgia corner: 25 years ago today, United beat Barcelona in Rotterdam to win the Cup Winners’ Cup, and English teams were back to dominate Europe. Here’s Elton Welsby and Denis Law, perhaps the only man able to wear overcoat over shoulders and still look smart as. And here’s ITV’s post-match coverage, along with some news reports. As for United, Marcos Rojo is left out following the longest jetlag on record - Cameron Borthwick-Jackson comes in. Also dropped are Ander Herrera and Morgan Schneiderlin, who, along with Rojo, isn’t even on the bench. All three were signed by Van Gaal and thought to be quite good at the time. Bournemouth make five changes: out go Boruc, Stanislas, Gradel, Afobe and Grabban; in come Federici, Surman, Pugh, Wilson and King. What does it all mean? Well, Swansea bring in Nordfeldt, Rangel, Britton and Montero for Fabianski, Naughton, Barrow and Ki; Ki is on military duty and was outstanding in their win at West Ham. City, on the other hand, are playing so well as to be unchanged. Which also means that Yaya Toure, who may well never play for City again, is on the bench. Swansea City: Nordfeldt, Rangel, Fernandez, Amat, Kingsley, Britton, Cork, Fer, Routledge, Montero, Ayew. Subs: Vickers, Naughton, Fulton, Gorre, Barrow, Emnes. Gomis. Manchester City: Hart, Sagna, Otamendi, Mangala, Clichy, Fernando, Fernandinho, Navas, De Bruyne, Iheanacho, Aguero. Caballero, Sterling, Kolarov, Demichelis, Nasri, Toure, Bony. **** Manchester United: De Gea; Valencia, Smalling, Blind, Borthwick-Jackson; Carrick, Rooney, Lingard; Mata, Rashford, Martial. Subs: Romero, Jones, Varela, Young, Herrera, Pereira, Memphis. Bournemouth: Federici, Francis, Elphick, Cook, Daniels, Ritchie, Arter, Surman, Pugh, Wilson, King. Subs: Holmes, O’Kane, Gosling, Iturbe, Gradel, Grabban, Afobe. It’s been a funny old season. Well, provided your team doesn’t play in Manchester, where mirth has been conspicuous by its schadenfreude. Because, let’s be clear: City and United have both been absolutely appalling. Yes, they sit 4th and 5th in the table, but standards are relative and neither are anywhere near those demanded of them. Naturally, they have accomplished this in different ways: where City are a debacle, United are a travesty. The Blues started well then fell apart, generally defending badly and mainly struggling to score against the better teams, entirely devoid of purpose or plan; the Reds started tediously and continued similarly, occasionally defending badly and routinely struggling to score against everyone, entirely devoid of conviction or élan. So, to today. If City beat or draw with Swansea, they take the final Champions League qualifying spot; if City lose at Swansea and United beat Bournemouth, United usurp them. Which, on the face of it, it barely matters. Neither deserve to be anywhere near the competition, neither is any sort of threat to those who might win it, and neither is likely to be next season. Or, put another way, the only fitting outcome this afternoon is for City to lose and United to draw, which probably means City will score early, get the job done comfortably, and that’ll be an end to it . But, just look at the state of them! Kick-off - or kicks-off - 3pm BST
Brexit referendum could destabilise UK recovery, says IMF The International Monetary Fund has warned that Britain’s steady growth could be jeopardised by the uncertainty in the run-up to the referendum on EU membership in June. The Washington-based organisation, which broadly backed the government’s handling of the economy, said on Wednesday the decision to hold an in-out vote injected another risk to UK growth when it was already under pressure from slowing global trade and turmoil in financial markets. IMF chief Christine Lagarde told CNN: “Uncertainty is bad in and of itself. No economic player likes uncertainty. They don’t invest, they don’t hire, they don’t make decisions in times of uncertainty.” Lagarde also argued that Britain had benefited from trade and financial ties with the EU, and from migration of workers back and forth, though she sidestepped calculating the damage Brexit might cause. “My hunch … is that it is bound to be a negative on all fronts. For those that stay, because there are fewer of them, and for those who go, because they lose the benefit of [that] facilitation of exchange.” Lagarde’s comments reveal her frustration with one of the developed world’s few growing economies and that, rather than the UK providing a calming influence, concerns over the impending referendum add to the already febrile atmosphere in global markets. Britain’s economy has remained resilient in recent months to shocks from plunging stock markets and fears of a dramatic slowdown in China, the eurozone and the US. In a report on the UK, the IMF, the global lender of last resort, praised George Osborne’s efforts to calm the property market with stamp duty tax reforms and a strengthening of banking regulations. It also welcomed the chancellor’s plan to bring down the deficit in public spending over the next five years while the Bank of England maintains loose monetary policy with low interest rates. But the IMF’s annual health check said “the relatively positive outlook is subject to risks and uncertainties”, including a global slowdown, sluggish productivity growth, a large trade deficit, still-high levels of household debt, and the forthcoming referendum on EU membership. It said any sign of weakness in growth should be met with higher spending by the Treasury. The UK authorities should explore “both revenue and expenditure measures, while protecting spending in priority areas, including healthcare, education, and infrastructure”. The report emphasised that “flexibility in the fiscal framework should be used to modify the pace of adjustment in the event of weaker demand growth”.
Never mind immigrants, let’s clamp down on nasty Euro moths! With all the frantic panic going on around the EU referendum next week, it’s easy to overlook the fact that this is a distraction from the real issue. Never mind immigration, or terrorism, or economic concerns, or who controls what; the real danger facing the UK at the moment? Moths! Millions and millions of greedy selfish European Diamondback moths are set to invade our glorious land, devouring our crops, hassling our women, taking our jobs and claiming benefits. You won’t have heard a peep about this from the government though, thanks to the liberal pro-moth lefty PC agenda that controls our media for some reason despite us having the most right-wing government for a generation. You can’t argue with the facts! Unless they’re facts you don’t agree with, in which case argue all you want. Fill your boots. Whatever happened to free speech? Where was I? Ah, yes, moths. Thank God for that bastion of honest reporting and insightful journalism that is The Sun, for having the mothballs big enough to warn us of this new threat from the EU while our elected leaders try and distract us with minor concerns like an economy in meltdown. Churchill wouldn’t have allowed this. He’d have scrambled the RAF at the first sign of the flappy terror appearing over the white cliffs of Dover. Simply put: you can’t trust moths. What have they ever done for us? They come over here, uninvited, lay about 150 eggs in a single go, eat our cabbages, and even our clothes! You seen those large bins in car parks and supermarkets where you can donate clothes to “charity”? Yeah, right. There is no charity, they’re all fed to the hordes of freeloading moths, kept here at the expense of your taxes. It’s true, because it stands to reason. And it stands to reason because it’s true. That’s not circular reasoning, that’s watertight logic. Honestly, what kind of person eats clothes? Sure, the bleeding-heart lefty liberals of the will say “It’s not a person, it’s a moth! It doesn’t have the cognitive capacity to think like a human. It’s an insect! The most common form of the order Lepidoptera, in fact. Diamondback moths feed exclusively on vegetables in the family Brassicaceae, which includes things like cabbages and sprouts. Some moths seem to eat clothes, but it’s actually the larvae that do that as they grow. Adult moths don’t have the mouth parts needed to eat threads. But never mind all that, who are you? Why are you constantly yelling? And what are you doing in my house?! Get out or I’ll call the police!” Typical lefty nonsense, as ever. But do you want moths infesting this country, pushing up the house prices and influencing your children? Is that what you want? To end up living next door to a house filled with thousands of moths, and your children to only come out at night to hang upside-down from the ceiling and chew on a cabbage stalk? And Diamondback moths? DIAMONDback? They come over here, take our crops and upset our farmers, and they have diamonds on their backs? The most expensive jewel there is? What else, do they have the latest iPhones tucked under their wings too? Do they own a string of houses in Hampstead as well? You know they do. Don’t give me all that “there’s no way any of this could be correct in any logical context whatsoever” talk, it’s about time somebody came forward and spoke the truth about moths. And these diamondback moths are even pesticide resistant! With typical European arrogance, they refuse to drop dead when exposed to toxic chemicals, like a good honest polite British moth would do. It’s a disgrace, it really is. So what’s to be done? Well moths are attracted to light (I think), so that explains why they’re drawn to the bright shining beacon of hope and democracy that is the UK. Makes sense. But desperate times call for desperate measures, so we need everyone to shut off their lights when it gets dark. Literally everyone in the country (apart from her majesty the Queen of course). Only then will these flying vermin get the message that they’re not welcome anymore. We also need to step up passport control. Tighter rules need to be brought in; we’re already not allowed to smile or wear glasses in our passport photos, surely they can exclude anyone who has anti-reflective compound eyes? Or is about 2 inches long and has wings and is an insect? How hard can it be? But mark my words, if we don’t make a stand now, we’ll soon be swamped with freeloading moths. Maybe in a year, maybe months, weeks, even… tomorrow? What do you mean “don’t get in a flap?” Flap? FLAP! YOU’RE ONE OF THEM! Dean Burnett is on Twitter and is currently promoting his latest book The Idiot Brain. Neither contain any mention of moths. The Idiot Brain by Dean Burnett ( Faber, £12.99). To order a copy for £7.99, go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. Phone orders min. p&p of £1.99.
University mental health services face strain as demand rises 50% The number of students seeking counselling at university has rocketed by 50% in the last five years, according to figures obtained by the . As tens of thousands of teenagers leave their family homes this week and begin to arrive on campuses for freshers’ week, research shows that university counselling services are under increasing pressure as demand grows. Heads of university counselling services say they are seeing more students arrive with existing psychological or mental health conditions. Some counselling services are under-resourced, and students are seeking help against a backdrop of mounting pressure to get the best possible degree, in order to secure a good job to pay off their debts from student loans. “What used to happen was that in the first year people played hard,” said one head of counselling. “But now they are coming in already worried that they need to do well. They are far more vulnerable.” The increasing number of international students is also a factor, with many under even greater pressure to succeed, coming from families who may have saved up for years to send one of their children to a UK university. But though the overall trend is up, experts in the sector say part of the increase in demand is down to a new willingness among young people to ask for help. Many universities have also become far more proactive in reaching out to students. The figures, obtained through a series of freedom of information requests to higher education (HE) institutions across the UK, indicate that at some universities young men, who are traditionally hard to reach, are increasingly using services as some of the taboo surrounding mental health dissipates. For instance, at the University of Edinburgh, the number of male students approaching support services – including chaplaincy, disability and mental health services – between 2010-11 and 2014-15, more than doubled, with numbers up from 274 a year to 623. Numbers of men approaching services also almost doubled at Glasgow University over the same period, thanks in part to male staff working on the counselling team, and a peer-to-peer support network which attracted a significant number of male students. University College London was the only institution in the sample to include figures for transgender students seeking counselling. The figures were collected for the last three years and have increased slowly to 12 in 2015-16. Catherine McAteer, the head of UCL’s student psychological services, said: “We have 39,000 students, soon to go up to over 40,000. There are 13 clinicians in my team. The reality is 13 people cannot meet that kind of demand.” McAteer said her team had looked after 3,022 students in 2015-16, some of whom had lengthy waits before being seen, the longest being 15 weeks. “The problem is the longer they have to wait, the more likely it is that the problem will escalate,” she said. When McAteer took over as head of the department in 2002, just 9% of students who accessed the service had existing psychological or mental health conditions. Last year 53% had previously been seen by therapists for a variety of issues including depression, anxiety and eating disorders. The 50% increase in the number of students accessing counselling is based on figures comparing uptake of services in 2010-11 and 2014-15 provided to the by 37 higher education institutions, including many leading Russell Group universities, such as Oxford, Durham, Liverpool and Sheffield. In numerical terms, students accessing counselling services in the sample rose from just under 25,000 five years ago to more than 37,000 in the 2014-15 academic year, a 50% rise. This trend persists even when an overall increase in student enrolment is taken into account. Among those institutions which provided comparable enrolment and counselling figures, the proportion of students accessing these services rose by 47% in the same period. “What’s happening is that students are now coming to university when previously they would not have come,” McAteer said. “When they come to a university like UCL or Oxford or Cambridge – one of the top 10 universities – the pressure is enormous.” Swansea University, which recorded just 80 students seeking counselling in 2010-11, saw figures shoot up to more than 1,000 five years later, largely as a result of the university’s efforts to raise awareness among students and to destigmatise mental health issues. Kevin Child, the head of student services at Swansea, said: “The significant increase in demand for mental health support is a national trend, with all HE providers identifying the issue as a significant challenge. “We have attracted students to our services who may traditionally have attempted to manage mental health issues for longer periods without coming forward, especially males. This has enabled us to make earlier interventions and provide more specific and effective support at an earlier stage.” Ruth Caleb, the head of counselling services at Brunel University London (which was not part of the sample), and chair of the mental wellbeing in higher education working group, said there had been a 22% increase in demand for counselling at her university last year alone, with young men coming forward in greater numbers – 42.5% of Brunel students seeking counselling were male in 2015-16. “Now that students are paying higher fees and are coming away with quite a lot of debt, there’s a lot more concern about getting a job and paying that debt off. They come in with the anxiety that they need to get a good degree,” Caleb said. “If the first few assignments don’t go brilliantly, it’s far more of a concern to them than it used to be. “The other issue is the enormous growth in international students and widening participation students. It’s much harder to be a student if you are the first in your family or community to go to university.” International students are often reluctant to join in social activities because they feel they should work all the time. Caleb cited “students who are coming from sometimes unstable societies – Syrian students Skyping their families and hearing the guns going off behind the Skype picture”. She said it was good that more young people felt able to come forward and ask for help, but resources for counselling services had not always grown sufficiently, and in some cases had reduced in spite of the growth in demand. A report on Thursday by the Higher Education Policy Institute said that a number of universities needed to triple their spending on mental health support to meet demand. Some universities are prioritising mental healthcare. The University of York announced on Thursday it was investing £500,000 in mental healthcare provision across its campus after a six-month review, prompted by an increasing demand for services from students and disruptions to mental health provision in the city. The university is planning to expand its in-house counselling service, employing two new members of staff to ensure those who need urgent appointments can be seen quickly. The vice-chancellor, Prof Koen Lamberts, said: “As the number of students considering higher education grows, we must work hard to encourage openness between staff and students to talk about these issues in a supportive environment.” The Nightline Association, which offers counselling services to roughly 18,000 students a year through its 39 branches, said that in the last year alone calls rose by 78% in Leicester, 46% in Sheffield, 40% in Durham and 35% in Leeds. Katie Nicoll Baines, a volunteer at Nightline, said: “The rise is perhaps because people are becoming willing to use our services, and perhaps they just need them more because university is becoming such a competitive and trying environment for a lot of young people.” Alan Percy, who is head of counselling at Oxford University and on the executive of the Heads of University Counselling Services, warned against “catastrophising” student mental health. “A lot of these things are normal emotional responses to life challenges,” he said. “A lot of students are feeling overwhelmed by life and the pressures of life in terms of having to be perfect. A lot of them feel they’ve got to get everything right.” But he added: “It’s not universities that are causing this. It’s a wider social problem.” ‘You know that you’re going to come out with around £50,000 of debt. I stress about that all the time’ Struggling to be heard over the din of excited freshers, a small group of students has gathered in Sheffield University’s students’ union to talk about mental health. The committee of the Mental Health Matters Society are not in the least surprised by the statistics showing university counselling services around the country are under huge pressure. They all say they love their university, describe it as “welcoming” and are sure it’s better than most at providing services, but have joined the society, set up a decade ago, to be part of a student support network and to campaign for more awareness and funding for mental health. Joseph Bonnett, a final-year geography student and the society’s men’s health representative says he found help by talking about his problems with friends and with the society. He says that although such societies cannot provide treatment or counselling, they offer a support network outside the official structures for those suffering from mental health problems. With £9,000-a-year tuition fees and a tough graduate jobs market, the group agree that modern student life involves more pressure. When the society’s president, Reena Staves, was managing its online accounts last year she was inundated by people needing help, with depression, anxiety and eating disorders being among the most common problems. “I just really wanted to say to them: ‘I’ve been in a similar place,’ but I couldn’t because that would have been unprofessional, so I just had to point them in the direction of the various services available,” she says. Gracie Marlow, a second-year English and philosophy student, says she is constantly stressed about her future job prospects. “You know that you’re going to come out with around £50,000 of debt. I stress about that all the time,” she says. “And you’re probably going to end up with a job that doesn’t pay much more than it would if you didn’t have a degree.” A commonly raised issue is the pressure to have the stereotypical student experience, with all the heavy drinking and late nights that that entails. “I remember during the first week of uni there was a kind of intro tour and they told us this was going to be the best three years of our lives and that we were going to have the most amazing time,” says Lucy Baldwin, the society’s vice-president, who is in the final year of a zoology degree. “My uni experience has not been the same as a lot of people’s and you think: ‘Have I wasted this? Should I have tried harder?’ And a lot of people can get in a rut thinking that their experience hasn’t been what it was supposed to be and feeling like everybody else around them is having the best time ever. I don’t think social media helps with that.” The group acknowledges that the growing burden put on university mental health services is also partly the result of a greater willingness to talk about issues. “[Society] is becoming more open, but if we can’t provide support for the people who now feel that they can speak up about [mental ill health], that’s a really difficult position to be in,” says Megan Myer, who is doing a master’s in English literature. Myer argues that universities should be prioritising funding for mental health services above all else. “It’s great to have the infrastructure and the resources, but if you as a person don’t have the resources to get through university then there’s no point having the big expensive buildings,” she says. “People should be the priority.” Louise Knowles, the head of the University Counselling Service, says the wellbeing of students and staff is paramount and that the service works hard to ensure its “free, confidential service is one our students have confidence in”. “It is our work in this area that helped us become the first university counselling service – and one of only seven organisations nationally – to be awarded a new quality assurance accreditation badge through the Accreditation Programme for Psychological Therapy Services last year,” she says. “Our accreditation recognises both the extremely short wait times – which have almost halved since 2011-12 – as well as our talented and clinically robust team who offer a varied range of treatments and interventions in a challenging environment. “We are committed to continually improving the quality and standard of the service we deliver, balancing this against increasing numbers accessing our service and looking at new and innovative ways of working with students.” Additional reporting by Pamela Duncan and Sophia Schirmer. Producing in-depth, thoughtful, well-reported journalism is difficult and expensive - but supporting us isn’t. If you value the the ’s coverage of mental health issues, please help to fund our journalism by becoming a supporter.
Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom: The book that declared pop music dead In the spring of 1968, the former Queen magazine pop columnist Nik Cohn rented a cottage in Connemara on the west coast of Ireland. All of 22, he had fallen out of love with pop music, and he hid himself away for two months to write a cross between a memoir and a farewell letter. For Cohn, it felt like the end of an era of pop that was “intelligent and simple both”, that carried its implications lightly, that was “fast, funny, sexy, obsessive, a bit epic”. He sniffed pretension in the air as pop turned to rock, and he wanted to get it all down on paper before he completely lost interest. The confidently titled Pop from the Beginning moved from Bill Haley’s Rock Around the Clock in 1955 to the ebbing tide of psychedelia and the return to roots (Dylan’s John Wesley Harding, the Beatles’ “Lady Madonna”) of early 1968. Published in 1969, just as the Beatles disintegrated, Pop from the Beginning was the first definitive text on pop music. Cohn wrote in fast, short sentences; the book read like a series of 7in singles, with no room for deviation, no long solos, no flab at all. By the time it was reprinted as a paperback a year later, it had a new title – Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom – and a telltale subtitle: “the Golden Age of Rock”. Cohn had predicted the sea change; he had fallen out of love with pop just as the Beatles-led consensus years came to end: pop was split, hard left and right, between Radio 1 factory‑farmed pop (“Sugar, Sugar”) and self-conscious, album-based heavy rock (Led Zeppelin, Jethro Tull, Black Sabbath). For Cohn, a teddy boy at heart, neither came close to the glamour and speed fix of the rapidly receding “golden age” he wrote about with such dash: Elvis’s “great ducktail plume and lopsided grin”, Phil Spector’s “beautiful noise”, and James Brown, “the outlaw, the Stagger Lee of his time”. Among the the reasons Cohn’s book has remained such a thrilling, inspirational read are its total confidence and absolute sense of finality. By 1969, Cohn considered John Lennon “self-pitying”, thought the Who were “going through the same old stunts”, and dismissed Pink Floyd as “very solemn, most artistic, boring almost beyond belief”. The new order spurned flash, and dressed down in T-shirts and denims; Cohn, disgusted, reacted in 1971 with a book on fashion called Today There Are No Gentlemen. He has never shown any inclination to write an updated edition of Awopbopaloobop. Nik Cohn grew up in postwar Derry. His father was a renowned historian, Norman Cohn, which may have put young Nik off anything approaching rigour in his writing. At 13, he spent a week in London, where he found a paperback of Alan Lomax’s Mister Jelly Roll: The Fortunes of Jelly Roll Morton, New Orleans Creole and Inventor of Jazz; the cover promised to explain how “he put the heat into hot music”. Jazz historians have dismissed large chunks of Morton’s life story as wishful thinking, while confirming that he was also a hugely significant talent and influence, but aged 13, Nik Cohn didn’t care for dry history, wasn’t remotely bothered that Morton had vamped up his past. He was absorbed by tales of pimps and voodoo queens, and pictured Mister Jelly Roll as the dust jacket described him, “wearing a hundred-dollar suit as sharp as a tipster’s sheet … the diamond in a front tooth gleaming like gaslight”. The book contained a map of New Orleans – Cohn memorised every street. As a Jewish kid growing up in sectarian Ulster, he felt like an outsider and sought escape in invention; Mister Jelly Roll fed right into a mythology of flash, violence and seven-day weekends that he had first discovered through Elvis Presley’s records, and became the biggest literary influence on Cohn’s career. Awopbopaloobop transferred the underworld grit, diamond-studded teeth and overflowing dresses in Cohn’s imagination to the glamour, the ostentation, the ruthlessness and grubbiness of the pop business. He would soon base the 1970 novel Arfur: Teenage Pinball Queen in his fictionalised New Orleans, now renamed Moriarty (“the foremost city of the nation, a compound of refinement and squalor, grace and depravity”), where there were now beautifully named quarters of Cohn’s own making – Jitney, Cicero and Savoy, “the wealthy St Jude and the shanty Canrush”. Cohn applied this fantastical approach to the real story of pop, cutting down people he thought were likely to diminish the music’s sense of fun and fast-moving disposability (Bob Dylan, the Doors, even the Beach Boys), and to praise outsiders, troublemakers, short-lived stars whose one major hit (Del Shannon’s “Runaway”, for instance) he considered to be worth as much as Van Morrison’s entire career. Trouser-tearing PJ Proby’s profile was elevated monstrously – with all of three top 10 hits to his name, Proby was given a whole chapter in Awopbopaloobop on the strength of his outsized ego and chaotic potential. This was significant and, at the time, outrageous – in 1969, it must have seemed that seriousness had won out for good, with levity confined to novelty singles and bubblegum. After all, it had only taken John Lennon six years to get from the lung-busting liberation of Twist And Shout to a concept album about Arthur Janov’s trauma-based primal scream therapy. Cohn took sides, and it wouldn’t have been a hard choice. Just as he had romanticised New Orleans, Cohn set to perfecting the story of pop, from the beginning. “My purpose was clear,” he wrote in 2004. He wanted “to capture the feel, the pulse” of what he called “Superpop”, with no dry discographies or chart positions. In doing this, he latterly admitted to adding baubles and colouring. Some of the stories, he wrote in Triksta (2005), were flat-out invented. I’d lay money on one of the embellished stories being his meeting with Gene Pitney in a hotel room, where Pitney “was talking business on a long-distance telephone … like a full-blown tycoon … tie twisted, sweatmarks under his armpits. Deals – they lit him up like neon.” I love Gene Pitney, I own a dozen of his albums and a stack of 45s, but I’d still admit that his public presentation could do with a little ornamentation. Cohn was cheeky. He thought he was doing acts such as Pitney a favour by making them seem more interesting and, most of the time, he was. It was showmanship. It was Hollywood. And it was a little depressing to read in Triksta that Cohn winced at his embellishments, and considered his younger self a fraud. In a new preface for the Vintage Classics edition of Awopbopaloobop, he seems a little more at ease: “Any man, at 70, who claims he relishes being confronted by his raw self at 22 is crazy or lying or both.” The main lesson I learned from reading Awopbopaloobop when I was 22, and a budding music writer, is that pop is all about myth-building – there’s really no such thing as authenticity or fraudulence. Many of the judgments he made in 1969 still seem mischievous. The Rolling Stones he considered heroic, but a spent force (the imminent Let It Bleed changed his mind in time for the paperback afterword); if they had “any sense of neatness, they’ll get themselves killed in an aircrash three days before their 30th birthdays”. Led Zeppelin he dealt with in a single word: “embarrassing”. Cohn liked his black music to come from black musicians, and his soul music on the rawer side. “Softness and tenderness, wistful ironies” he conceded as blindspots, describing Motown as mere “foot fodder” but having a lot of time for relatively minor practitioners such as Joe Tex, who he saw as “hugely smug” but with “great charm and inventiveness”. Tex didn’t make it easy for you to find your way in to his music. The way Cohn paints it, Tex isn’t just awkward, he’s barely likable. On his Vietnam song “I Believe I’m Gonna Make It”, a girlfriend’s letter overwhelms him with love and pride, and gives him so much inner strength that stands up and shoots dead two North Vietnamese soldiers. Joe Tex did not exude kindness. You reel back at Cohn’s words, and wonder why anyone would even bother listening to Tex’s records, but then he turns on a sixpence and reels you in with a couple of lines: “He’s funny, he really is, and he obviously enjoys himself. So his records turn into good clean dirt and you can’t resent them. You keep trying to disapprove but your principles slip. That’s how you get corrupted.” The writing is so bittersweet and succinct, the cadences so true. Cohn also pulls out plums by being at the heart of the story as it unfolded, chronicling forgotten truths. The Beatles are now regularly credited with making pop acceptable, elevating it from the realms of teenage delinquency, and forcing critics in the Sunday papers to consider pop stars as thinkers, not just purveyors of teenage noise. Cohn doesn’t doubt the group took pop from the back streets and into the art gallery (something he strongly disapproves of), but spots an earlier turning point in Adam Faith’s 1960 appearance on the BBC TV show Face to Face. An interview programme, hosted by John Freeman, Face to Face smelled strongly of importance – guests included Augustus John, Carl Jung and Tony Hancock. Acton boy Faith had quickly become one of the biggest British pop stars of the post rock’n’roll, pre-Beatles era by dint of a hiccoughing, Buddy Holly-like vocal style, so was not expected to do anything other than embarrass himself in front of Freeman. So when he spoke neatly and smoothly on national television about his admiration for Sibelius and The Catcher in the Rye it was a minor sensation. “Pop began to go up in the world,” says Cohn. “Slowly and humbly, admittedly, but upwards just the same.” Praising Adam Faith was never going to win you kudos from rock classicists, but Cohn wasn’t afraid of appearing uncool, or even plain wrong. Pseuds and bores, no matter how feted, were his real enemy, and he guessed the 70s would be a pretentious decade. At the conclusion of Awopbopaloobop, he predicted “formal works for pop choirs, pop orchestras; pop concerts held in halls … sounds and visuals combined … on something like a gramophone and TV set knocked into one”. Briskly, he had predicted progressive rock and MTV. Still he didn’t care; his love affair with pop was over. After Awopbopaloobop, he spent the 70s writing novels – the super-bleak King Death (1975), which he now considers a failure – and short pieces including the clubland story “Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night”, which morphed into Saturday Night Fever. But mostly he left music alone. Even if his thoughts had been entirely negative, I’d have loved to read Cohn on Marc Bolan, Joe Strummer, Prince, even Boyzone. It’s not hard to see why he can’t be bothered now, when you look at Britain’s current crop of top-selling acts: the milky Ed Sheeran, the glum foghorn Sam Smith, and Ellie Goulding, whose major characteristic seems to be that she loves going to the gym – they simply don’t cut it. You’d never call them superstars. It isn’t just that they don’t match up to the “golden age of rock” – even the vulgar neediness of Robbie Williams or Geri Halliwell in the recent past was something to latch on to, to love or to hate. Pop music needs writers like Nik Cohn to kick up trouble, to give albums anything other than four-star reviews, and that way maybe the musicians will also rise to the challenge. •Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom is reissued by Vintage Classics. To order it for £7.19 (RRP £8.99) go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. Bob Stanley’s Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!: The Story of Pop Music from Bill Haley to Beyoncé is published by Faber.
Antonio Conte’s adaptability is helping his Chelsea side to prosper At first, the idea was simply to stop the bleeding. Three-nil down at half-time against Arsenal at the Emirates Stadium a little over five weeks ago, Antonio Conte switched to a back three. The Chelsea manager had enjoyed success with the approach in his previous jobs with Juventus and the Italy team and, against Arsenal, it restored a measure of stability. Chelsea still lost, 3-0, but Conte could feel the stirrings of something. Look at Chelsea now. This was their fourth Premier League game since Conte’s tactical move and it was also their fourth clean sheet. Even better from a Chelsea perspective, Southampton never looked like scoring. The only time Thibaut Courtois was worked in the Chelsea goal was in the 28th minute, from a Dusan Tadic free-kick, and the save was entirely regulation. Claude Puel’s Southampton had entered on the back of a five-match unbeaten league run, a sequence that took in the impressive 1-1 draw at Manchester City the previous weekend. The manager deserved the plaudits that had tracked him for his dynamic style of football, in which the player in possession is encouraged to take the daring option. Puel does not tolerate sideways tedium. He has given the club’s latest reworked team the platform to play. Here it was dismantled, and Conte could revel in how he brought that about. His system has flexibility, speed and options, and it has also had Chelsea’s recent opponents gasping for breath. Southampton could not find the spaces, they had the life steadily squeezed out of them and, from the moment that Eden Hazard put Chelsea in front early on, it was possible to feel that it would be a long afternoon for the hosts. It was Chelsea who constructed the platform to play. They had 45% of possession but they made it count. It was they who created the chances and they could conceivably have scored more to emulate the 4-0 scoreline that they inflicted upon Manchester United at Stamford Bridge last Sunday. What makes Conte’s work so praiseworthy is how he has adapted. He did not moan when the summer transfer window closed and he had not made the signings he wanted; instead, Conte took what was available and worked with what he already had. David Luiz, who arrived on deadline day, looked assured again in the middle of the back three – in other words, not as though he was about to step on a rake and be smacked in the face – while César Azpilicueta, the right‑back turned left-back turned right central defender, continued to impress with his decision‑making. He did not put a foot wrong. What about Victor Moses? There have been times in the past when his Chelsea future has looked bleak. After a few months under Conte, he seems as if he has been a marauding right wing‑back all of his career. The manager described him as a pleasant “surprise”. The drive and stamina of Moses and Marcos Alonso, the left wing-back, helped to make Chelsea tick here. On Saturday, three of the major title contenders had made statements – City, Arsenal and Liverpool each scoring four times in victory – and Chelsea had to respond. How they did so, and it was the control with which they won that resonated most loudly. Conte danced around the questions about his club’s title-winning prospects but, on this evidence, the notion is far from outlandish. Conte had moved Azpilicueta back into the back three at John Terry’s expense, after the 2-1 EFL Cup defeat at West Ham United last Wednesday, with Moses and Alonso returning to the starting lineup. The A-team had been reinstated and, with N’Golo Kanté and Nemanja Matic harrying relentlessly in front of the defence, there was a robustness about Chelsea. There were numerous moments when their height and physical power was decisive, particularly in the air on defensive set-pieces and, with Haz-ard and Diego Costa at the other end, Conte had the ruthlessness where it mattered the most. Puel gave Hazard his professional debut at Lille and he could curse Steven Davis for taking his eyes off him in the sixth minute. Hazard’s goal was marked by his presence of mind. He could have crossed when Moses ushered him in but the he believed that there was a better option. For long spells Chelsea were happy to allow Southampton to have the ball, and Conte’s formation was more 5-4-1 than 3-4-3, with the wing-backs and wide attackers dropped back. When Southampton looked forward, it felt like a daunting assignment to plot the way through. Costa’s goal was a beauty out of very little and, in many respects, this was the perfectly balanced away-day performance. It ought not to have been this straightforward. Chelsea have their tails up.
Clive James: ‘Ben Affleck has overcome the handicap of his absurd good looks’ My copy of the 2012 Ben Affleck movie Argo lay around unwatched for a long time. A few nights ago, I fought my way in through the shrink-wrap and took a look. It revealed Affleck to be a terrific director as well as a fine actor. That latter quality was probably the reason I had left the shrink-wrap intact for so long. In Pearl Harbor, Affleck had overcome the handicap of his absurd good looks and done a creditable job of bringing to life his role as a brave young pilot, instead of doing what the script deserved and setting fire to it before placing himself under citizen’s arrest for having signed the contract in the first place. The movie was such a dog’s dinner that I couldn’t stop blaming Affleck for being in it. Though he had acted superbly as a has-been B-movie superhero in Hollywoodland, I still had to be persuaded at gunpoint to watch Gone Baby Gone, which proved that he had immense talent as a director. But, for me, Affleck was still the too-handsome actor who had been in that awful movie where a thousand Japanese aircraft tried to destroy Kate Beckinsale’s career. The only reason I finally took a look at Argo was that I was planning to write an article about Alan Arkin. Take a look at Arkin in Argo (so my article might start), and you’ll see what a great screen actor can do. You will also see (so my article might go on) why a great screen actor is not necessarily a bankable film star. Robert Redford at his peak was more bankable than Lassie, but he could never act like Arkin. He didn’t have to. All he had to do was stand there being gorgeous. He’s still doing it, looking a bit crinkled at the edges. In the 1990 movie Havana, you can see Arkin and Redford on screen together. Arkin convinces you he is a thoughtful expatriate whose complex soul has been eaten away by corruption, and Redford convinces you that he has a profile on each side of his face. Occasionally, Redford got so bored by his own beauty that he would go off and direct something. Affleck probably has the same motivation, but he has a lot more directorial flair. You can already see what this critical article of mine is up to. I might not get the chance to write it, but the theme is set to go. The theme is that it takes a lot of luck to defy expectations. Right now, I’ve got two new poetry books out and I should count my blessings if a camera crew turns up at my door. They might have thought I was just a pretty face and stayed away.
Enough is enough: the 2016 election is now a referendum on male entitlement Lashing out at his accusers this afternoon, Donald Trump attacked all the women who say he has groped, kissed or inspected them naked without their consent. He called them “horrible, horrible liars” and vowed to sue the New York Times for reporting their accounts. Minutes before the Florida rally where Trump declared war on women and the media, Michelle Obama offered a diametrically opposite view of reality and morality at a campaign appearance in New Hampshire. Condemning Trump’s conduct as “intolerable”, she forcefully argued that no woman deserves to be treated this way. The contrast between the two couldn’t have been more dramatic. “This is not about politics. It’s about basic human decency,” the first lady said, urging her listeners to vote for Hillary Clinton. “It’s about right and wrong. Now is the time for all of us to stand up and say, ‘Enough is enough’.” Her words echoed the thoughts of millions of women who watched last Sunday’s presidential debate and heard Trump deny he’s ever sexually assaulted women, even though he himself has publicly described having habitually done just that. What Trump didn’t realize was how many of his listeners were thinking about all the times that men had done such things to them. And in the moment future historians may define as an historic turning point, countless women said to themselves, “Enough.” By midweek, even before Michelle Obama voiced that thought, the floodgates had opened as a rapidly expanding array of women described various forms of sexual assault they said Trump had inflicted on them – and told their stories, on the record, to the , the New York Times, Buzzfeed, People magazine, and the Palm Beach Post, among a growing list of publications. Since Trump thinks the best way to deal with any charges is to counter-attack as viciously as possible, his campaign immediately promised to dredge up more allegations of Bill Clinton’s past sexual misconduct. But no matter what Bill Clinton has done, he’s not running for president – and nobody has ever accused Hillary Clinton of grabbing the genitals of a stranger or pushing a man up against a wall and shoving her tongue down his mouth. The overwhelming majority of sex crimes are committed by men, and neither Trump nor most of the commentators trying to keep up with the current firestorm seem to understand that that fact alone has transformed this race. What Trump is now up against is not only his own actions, but the lived experience of every American woman. Is there a gender empathy gap? The last couple of decades brought a sea change in women’s sense of empowerment, as well as a new awareness of issues ranging from harassment to sexual consent. And as Bill Cosby and Roger Ailes could attest, women are no longer willing to remain silent about what men have done with impunity in the past. This week, a man finally acknowledged on national television what many women already understood about the 2016 election. “This is a gender war,” Donny Deutsch announced on MSNBC’s Morning Joe the morning after the second debate. “Women in America are going to stand up and revolt – every woman in American who has ever been held down, oppressed, harassed. And if you’re not seeing that, you’re missing it.” And yet many men are still missing it. Following the second debate, a series of national polls revealed a gender split that showed women opposing Trump by increasing margins. If only women voted on election day, Hillary Clinton would win in a landslide with 458 electoral votes to only 80 for Trump, as Nate Silver reported on FiveThirtyEight.com. As recent days have finally made clear, the 2016 election constitutes a referendum on male entitlement – and a Clinton victory will herald an earthquake that remakes the social landscape as dramatically as it does the national agenda. On one issue after another, polls reveal the widening divisions between men and women. Announcing the results of a survey measuring public reactions to Trump’s infamous “grab her by the pussy” remarks, ABC’s Rachel Tillman wrote, “There was a stark gender gap, with 62% of women less likely to vote for him while 55% of men say it will make no difference on their vote.” Such differences should surprise no one, because men lead entirely different lives than women. Over the course of their lifetime, 57% of women report having been touched or grabbed in a sexual way by a stranger in public. Thirty-seven percent of women have had a stranger masturbate in front of them at least once in public. But strangers pose less of a danger than loved ones; more than a third of female murder victims are killed by their intimate partners. One in five women will be sexually assaulted in their lifetime – most often by someone they are close to. Trump’s first wife accused him of such acts; in a sworn deposition during their divorce, Ivana Trump used the word “rape” to describe forced sex in which her husband pulled out fistfuls of her hair. Is it any wonder that the segment of the electorate that is routinely victimized views such offenses differently than the segment of the electorate that commits them? Whether the crime is harassment, domestic violence or murder, the root cause includes an overwhelming sense of male entitlement: “I get to do this to you because I’m the man and you’re a woman.” Such privilege carries an assumption of ownership, as with property rights: experts on domestic violence attest that men are more likely to assault female partners when they feel they’re losing control, as when threatened with a divorce or a restraining order. And men who fear they’re losing control have fueled the rise of Donald Trump. The gender gap between Trump’s support and Clinton’s is particularly staggering among men who are ill-equipped in comparison with their female peers. An ABC News/Washington Post poll at the end of September showed Trump with an overwhelming 59-point lead among among white men who don’t have college degrees – 76% of whom supported him. In an era when women make up nearly 60% of college and graduate school students, those men are falling further and further behind. Despite such numbers, any real recognition of their import has been a long time coming. For the last year and a half, as myriad so-called experts struggled to understand the Trump phenomenon, their analyses focused on race, religion, ethnicity, class and income. With notable obtuseness, they resisted the most universal explanation well past the time when it should have been obvious. Throughout this campaign, Trump’s public persona has constituted a textbook illustration of male domination: gaslighting, threatening and insulting at every turn. he has consistently acted like a vicious bully who will stop at nothing to subordinate his foes. At his first debate with Hillary Clinton, he interrupted her 51 times. But Trump’s interrupting and shouting over his adversaries during the debates were only an extension of the domineering traits that have long been clear. This week’s news included reports from Miss USA contestants, some as young as 15, that Trump deliberately walked in on them backstage while they were naked. Trump has even bragged about doing so: “I sort of get away with things like that,” he said on The Howard Stern Show in 2005. As the possessor of a penis, celebrity and a fortune, Trump has never questioned his right to inspect and rank women in terms of his own interest in having sex with them. For decades his objectification of women has remained as consistent as the ugliness of his values; as a self-appointed judge of female worth, he and his beauty pageants and reality shows have perpetuated the misogynistic standards that nullify the value of any woman who is not very young, very thin and conventionally attractive. And with Trump, the double standards are so extreme it would be laughable if they weren’t so destructive, from his fat-shaming of former Miss Universe Alicia Machado to the gratuitous insult he lobbed at Heidi Klum when he announced, apropos of nothing, that the supermodel was “sadly, no longer a 10”. Nor did Trump – a chronic philanderer currently married to his third wife, having dumped the previous two after each had borne him children – see anything wrong with attacking Hillary Clinton over her husband’s past infidelity. No matter what awful things men do, it’s always the woman’s fault. But women are becoming ever less compliant – and female insurrection is particularly upsetting to men who are already anxious about their ability to maintain their authority. Women have always been penalized for violating conventional gender norms, but no woman has ever had a realistic chance of winning the White House until now – and the backlash against Clinton’s temerity was apparent from the start of her campaign. As Sandy Garossino wrote in the National , “Until she ran for president, Clinton was the most admired woman in the world … So what the hell happened? The woman ran for president, that’s what. Who does she think she is?” Clinton’s approval ratings have fluctuated wildly for decades. But the 2016 campaign ratcheted up the stakes to the point where the Republican nominee has promised to jail the female opponent who trounced him in both debates. The confidence of the mediocre white man Invoking the popularity of a tote bag that reads, “Lord, Give Me the Confidence of a Mediocre White Man,” Jessica Valenti wrote about how exasperating it is to deal with “a bombastic but woefully under-informed man who is convinced of how much smarter he is than you”. When the article was published in the , its headline was: Why the mediocre male’s days may be numbered. Such predictions are, of course, what those men are worried about. In the early days of the modern women’s movement, Gloria Steinem observed humorously that the reason many men oppose equality is that they fear women will treat them the same way they’ve treated women. Then as now, it’s true that Not All Men behave badly. But the archetype is painfully familiar, as Nicholas Kristof pointed out in a New York Times op-ed column headlined: A 7th grade bully runs for president. Kristof’s litany of characteristic behaviors was withering: “The boasts about not doing homework, the habit of blaming others when things go wrong, the penchant for exaggerating everything into the best ever, the braggadocio to mask insecurity about size of hands or genitals, the biting put-downs of others, the laziness, the self-absorption, the narcissism, the lack of empathy – and the immaturity that reduces a woman to her breasts.” As Kristof’s list suggests, the less hard-working or accomplished men are, the more threatened they seem by the prospect of having to compete on a level playing field – and the more they resist the prospect of real female empowerment. Despite growing competition, many men – like Trump in the run-up to the first debate – refuse to compensate by working harder, no matter how poorly they fare. Time-use studies show that even when men don’t have jobs, they do far less housework and childcare than their working wives. Whether the issue is slacker husbands or discriminatory bosses who perpetuate the inequities of the gender pay gap, some women remain acquiescent to the unfairness of the status quo – but a lot of others are simply fed up. The question is: how many – and are they exasperated enough to head for the polls in droves? And will enough fair-minded men join them to elect the first female president in American history? The answer depends on how far we’ve come in accepting the idea of women as truly equal human beings who sometimes outdo their male counterparts. Last month Vanity Fair reposted a profile I wrote in 1994, when the then first lady was working on healthcare reform. The article quoted a powerful Capitol Hill insider who compared Mrs Clinton’s performance with that of her husband, the president. “I’ve seen them both make presentations, with dozens of senators at the table, and she’s better than he is,” he said. “And these guys know it. They’ve sat in rooms with her, and they’ve sat in rooms with him. He’s good – he’s very good. She’s just fucking perfect.” In a globalized world increasingly riven by conflicts of byzantine complexity, Clinton’s hard-earned knowledge and experience constitute her strongest claim to the Oval Office. But her rival – and the male minions who laud him as a “genius” for evading taxes – fail to appreciate even that obvious point. Is this the president we want for our sons? As election day approaches, the larger question is how much sense of self-preservation will be manifested by the nation’s adult females. Will American women – and the men who actually care about their welfare – support the leadership of a man who feels entitled to kiss strangers on the mouth and brag about grabbing crotches, simply because he is rich and famous and male? Will voters agree that a man should view and rank all women according to their physical attributes and fire those he doesn’t find sexually desirable, because he thinks a woman’s value is measured by her looks? Will voters approve the double standards of a man who publicly humiliates women for their sexual conduct even as he laughs off his own far more lurid transgressions? Will the electorate agree that males don’t have to play by the rules – that men don’t need to do what’s best for their families (like refraining from dumping the mothers of their children in tabloid sex scandals) or for the economy (like paying contractors who provided services instead of cheating them) or for their country (like paying taxes)? The Clinton campaign has been running a commercial featuring some of Trump’s denigrating comments about women, superimposed over pictures of uncertain young girls scrutinizing themselves in the mirror as they struggle to decide whether their bodies define their value in the world. “Is this the president we want for our daughters?” the ad asks. That leaves out an equally critical question: is this the president we want for our sons? A vote for Trump is a vote for the continuation of male entitlement – for the arrogance and inequity of unearned privilege, for the acceptance of irresponsibility in personal, familial and civic behaviors, and for the perpetuation of all the hateful biases that oppress women solely because of their gender. Is this the world we want to keep on living in, or is it finally time for us to demand a better one?
Russia praises possible Trump pick Rex Tillerson's 'highly professional manner' The Kremlin has praised the professionalism of Rex Tillerson, thought to be Donald Trump’s leading contender for secretary of state, the ExxonMobil CEO who has forged close ties to Russia. “On account of his work as the head of one of the largest oil companies, he had contacts with our representatives more than once,” President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists on Monday. “He fulfills his responsibilities in a highly professional manner.” Peskov also said “there’s a big difference being secretary of state and directing even a very big company” and that the Kremlin hoped for a “readiness to demonstrate a constructive attitude and display professionalism” from Washington. Putin had hosted Tillerson on several occasions, Peskov added. The Russian president honoured the oil executive with an order of friendship award in 2013. Although US president-elect Donald Trump has not yet nominated Tillerson, several news outlets have reported he is likely to do so in the next few days. Sergei Markov, a consultant to Putin’s staff, said that Tillerson’s likely appointment, combined with jobs offered to Michael Flynn, the president-elect’s national security adviser, and Trump’s nominee for defense secretary, retired General James Mattis, added up to “a fantastic team.” “These are people that Russia can do business with,” he told Bloomberg. Carter Page, an American energy consultant with ties to the president-elect who has criticised US sanctions against Russia, also lauded Tillerson on Monday during a trip to Russia. Trump named Page as one of his foreign policy advis ers in March, but his campaign subsequently denied any connection to the consultant after reports that US intelligence was probing Page’s ties to Russia. “The US and Russia still have 99 problems to address at home and around the world. But this marks the start of a new era where they can now work on them together, instead of remaining consistently obstructed by a long history of toxic personal relationships,” Page said of the expected Tillerson pick, news agency Sputnik reported. Russian officials have greeted the possible appointment warmly. Senator Alexei Pushkov, a leading voice in foreign affairs, said the choice of Tillerson “confirms the seriousness of Trump’s intentions” to improve relations with Moscow. “Judging by his appointments to key positions in his administration, Trump wants to see America decisive and strong, but doesn’t see any reason for a conflict with Russia,” Pushkov tweeted after the news broke. Tillerson is known to have grown close to Putin and Rosneft head Igor Sechin while working on oil exploration in Russia, which was frozen when the US imposed sanctions in 2014. The three were filmed raising a champagne toast to an agreement between Rosneft and ExxonMobil. Putin also commended the “increasingly close relations” between Tillerson’s company and Russia. Sechin once said that before sanctions he and Tillerson had been planning a motorcycle road trip in the US.
Health secretary says problems with NHS are 'not just about money' Jeremy Hunt has sought to play down a row about the amount of new funding available for the NHS, saying the health service’s challenges are not just about money. The health secretary was challenged by the BBC’s Andrew Marr over the gulf between the government’s claim that the NHS had been awarded an additional £10bn of funding, and estimates by independent organisations that have put the “true” figure at about £4.5bn. Last month, MPs on the health select committee threw their weight behind the lower figure, with the Tory parliamentarian Dr Sarah Wollaston warning that the government’s £10bn figure “is not only incorrect but risks giving a false impression that the NHS is awash with cash”. Last week, Nigel Edwards, the Nuffield Trust’s chief executive, warned: “The NHS is going into its toughest winter yet with the odds stacked against it. Demand for healthcare is on the rise, funding for both health and social care is being squeezed and A&E departments are missing their targets.” Hunt dismissed a suggestion from Marr that the NHS’s performance was suffering because of a lack of funding: “We do tend to get in the run-up to the autumn statement a coalition of people who will say that the answer to all the NHS’s problems is more money from government.” He said: “The big question is: does the NHS have enough money, and the answer to that is that we do need more resources – we are looking after a million more people aged over 75 than five years ago. That’s why we are putting in £4bn more.” But he added: “It isn’t just about money – it’s also about standards.” Ensuring that lessons were learned from medical accidents could help save the NHS on legal bills, Hunt said. “There’s lots of things we can do in terms of helping to ensure we are better at learning from mistakes, so that we don’t have this huge legislation bill of £1.5bn because of some of the mistakes we have made – that all helps on the money front.” He added: “There are, of course, financial pressures, but I think it’s a mistake to say this is only about money. It’s also about getting the culture right.” Winter is “extremely tough” for the health service, Hunt said: “I can say I think we are better prepared this year than we have ever been.” But he added: “There’s always the unpredictable, the cold spells, the flu outbreaks and so on ... I think it would be wrong for any health secretary in the run-up to winter to say everything’s tickety-boo.”
Jane Got a Gun is not a feminist western – unless by ‘feminist’ you mean ‘contains a woman’ Jane Got a Gun was first described to me (by a man) as a “feminist western”, a notion that got me excited and curious right away. What did they mean by “feminist western”? Was it written and directed by women? Did it cleverly subvert and comment on the variegated female character tropes of traditional westerns, such as tragic brothel employee, bawdy brothel employee, brothel employee who is just OK with it, brothel employee giggling on a balcony, brothel employee behind a fan while men play cards, brothel employee being watched through a peephole and loving it, and Wyatt Earp’s wife? Did it strive to fill in the blanks about all the women missing from traditional westerns – the negative space around male heroes – their stories rendered invisible by histories and genre fiction written largely by men? I like westerns and I love feminism, so even if Jane Got a Gun was just 110 minutes of public breastfeeding near a cactus, I would take it. Jane Got a Gun is an adequate, conventional western. The performances are good. The writing is fine. I don’t know why you’d watch it when you could watch, say, Deadwood (which, incidentally, has some arguably masterful feminist characters), but if you eat, sleep, and breathe horse troughs and saloon doors and beard grime, it’ll scratch that itch. Natalie Portman is Jane, a grizzled-but-don’t-worry-still-hot frontierswoman homesteading in the New Mexico desert with her husband, a fur trader, and their little girl, a little girl. One day her husband shows up, full of bullets, and groans that the Bishop Boys – a band of ghoulish but dimensionless outlaws led by Ewan McGregor – are coming to put a bunch more bullets in Jane and the kid because of their irrational hunger for man-revenge (hey, instead of plodding hundreds of miles through unforgiving desert waste just to kill some random mom who isn’t even doing anything to you, why not heist a few trains and retire to a place not made entirely of snakes?). To save her family, Jane does what any feminist heroine would do: she rides a horse to her ex-boyfriend’s house to beg him for protection, then brings him back home so he and her husband can spend the rest of the movie having a low-energy slap-fight about who gets to own her while they all wait for death. Much like the work of Betty Friedan. Meanwhile, Jane’s backstory unfurls in a series of diminishingly sunny flashbacks, revealing itself to be – surprise, surprise – the ex-boyfriend’s backstory instead. He is the only character who experiences any growth, revelation or change (however minor) over the course of the film, the vehicle of his growth being horrific sexual violence enacted on Jane. This isn’t to say that we shouldn’t make art about sexual violence, or that men aren’t worthwhile film subjects, or that you can’t have feminist characters in movies about men, but leveraging female trauma for male character development is not feminist storytelling. Strangely enough, in the film’s best moments, Jane seems to explicitly address this shortcoming: “You might want to see a day where the sun don’t just shine on your story,” she scolds the ex. “Because there’s a whole world out there of other people’s tales.” At this point in my life, I have heard many, many white men’s tales. I crave other people’s tales. So, unless your criteria for what constitutes feminist media is “contains a woman”, Jane Got a Gun is hardly a new Fried Green Tomatoes. I wonder if, perhaps, that same confusion lies at the root of feminism’s branding problem. If people think that the mere presence of women evinces equality, no wonder so many young men believe feminism is a selfish, superfluous vanity project. Women are all over the place! At the shop, on the bus, modelling lingerie, bringing my dad coffee while he’s in his board meeting. Equality is achieved! What are you girls still caterwauling about? Jane Got a Gun got me thinking about what does constitute a “feminist” movie. There certainly isn’t a single objective model – as we saw last year, even Suffragette wasn’t given a blank cheque by the feminist media – but it is clear that simply putting women on screen and letting them occasionally talk or fire a gun isn’t enough. What I look for are films that portray women the way that I know them: fully formed human beings with complex lives shaped by forces other than sexual trauma, motherhood, heterosexual love and the possessiveness of men. Films that don’t deliver such lines as: “When I finally found you, and seen you holding another man’s child, I knew you weren’t mine no more. And that did something to me that the war never could,” and expect me to read them as – ugh – romantic instead of entitled and proprietary. Films that treat every woman as a human being, whether the film-makers set out to create a “feminist” work or not. “Feminist western” has been applied to a few films over the past decade – the dourly verite Meek’s Cutoff, the civil-war thriller The Keeping Room (which I haven’t seen), the A-list drama The Homesman and the Coen brothers’ remake of True Grit – and there is clearly a tremendous vein to be mined there. The lawlessness and vulnerability of the west have always felt relatable to me as a woman. There is no escape hatch. No one is coming. It’s just you and the night and the snakes and the villains and your own wits. There are plenty of feminist westerns left to be made – Jane Got a Gun just isn’t one of them.
A lethal combination of secrecy and jargon has overshadowed NHS plans The NHS is in danger of losing control of public debate around the sustainability and transformation plans (STPs). Days after the unnecessary secrecy around STP blueprints for change predictably backfired, with lurid headlines about closures and cuts, both NHS England and the government have been trying to get a grip on public understanding of what all this frantic management work is trying to achieve. At this week’s Health and Care Innovation Expo in Manchester, NHS England chief executive Simon Stevens said that in the next few days his organisation will be spelling out expectations on how the public will be involved in discussions. This is a reversal of its previous position, which was to discourage STPs from publishing their draft plans. Meanwhile, at prime minister’s questions, STPs put the prime minister, Theresa May, on the defensive, forcing her to reiterate the importance of taking into account the concerns of local people. The emerging plans are sensitive because a large number involve substantial changes to hospital services. It is far from clear how many of these will eventually go ahead, because there is a desperate shortage of capital funding with which to implement them. While some of the emerging hospital changes, such as those in south-west London, are trying to resolve disputes about the right shape of hospital services which have dragged on for many years, there is a serious risk in some areas of pursuing highly controversial changes of questionable benefit on dubious evidence. The King’s Fund and others warned that major changes to acute services rarely deliver the anticipated substantial savings. It has been repeatedly proved that the quickest way to trigger massive opposition to hospital changes is to make them look like a secret plan that is to be sprung on the public. Yet the NHS keeps on doing it. Local political leaders are key. When councillors – not just the handful involved in the STP process – and MPs are involved early on, understand the case for change and feel their concerns are being taken seriously, they can be engaged in productive public debate. And what about patients? One of the guiding mantras of the NHS is supposed to be patient involvement, but at the Expo a small band of community campaigners gave voice to their complaint that service users are being excluded from these crucial discussions. With much of the work supposed to be completed by December, it is stretching credulity to believe that much more than token consultations with patient groups can take place. One of the difficulties around consultations faced by the STP teams is that some of them have made too little progress to present credible, watertight arguments. It is difficult to overstate the huge variation in STPs. A handful involve organisations that have been working together for years, have well-developed plans and are poised to deliver. These areas are likely to have already carried out extensive consultations through their clinical commissioning groups. Others are trying to work to unfamiliar boundaries and admit privately to having little more than “plans to have plans”. Public understanding of the issues is minimal, the evidence base is thin and they have little of substance to discuss. It is these ones at the back of the queue that are most nervous about consultations. The crucial error NHS England has made is to allow the process to be seen almost entirely through the lens of cuts, obscuring the vast amount of work underway to reshape services around the needs of patients, particularly in the community. As NHS staff giving talks at the Expo proved, across the country from pharmacy management in Wessex to musculoskeletal services in Wigan, clinicians, managers and commissioners are delivering the vision captured in the Five Year Forward View of a patient centred NHS – and driving up productivity along the way. But the lethal combination of unnecessary secrecy and impenetrable management jargon has obscured the most important part of the story – that the health and care system would still need drastic reform even if it was awash with money. Join the Healthcare Professionals Network to read more pieces like this. And follow us on Twitter (@GdnHealthcare) to keep up with the latest healthcare news and views.
Taxpayer stake in Lloyds Banking Group falls below 9% The taxpayer stake in Lloyds Banking Group has fallen below 9% after Philip Hammond sanctioned a further sale even though the shares are trading below the average paid by the taxpayer during the 2008 bailout. The reduction was announced to the market the day after the bank said it was taking another £1bn charge for payment protection insurance misselling which knocked its profit in the third quarter of the year. The chancellor announced this month that he was abandoning his predecessor’s plan to offer the public cut-price shares in Lloyds and would instead sell the remaining stake on the stock market at prices below the 73.6p average price taxpayers paid for their stake. Lloyds shares were trading at 56p on Thursday ,prmomg, well below that average price, although the Treasury argues that it will not make a loss on the overall sale because of the profit made on selling off shares earlier. At its peak, the taxpayer stake stood at 43% when £20bn was pumped into the bank. Some £17bn has been received by the exchequer. Hammond said: “Selling our shares in Lloyds and making sure that we get back all the cash taxpayers injected into it during the financial crisis is one of my top priorities as chancellor.” The decision to abandon the retail offering to the public – a key pledge made by George Osborne – has infuriated some of the brokers hoping to handle the sale. Hargreaves Lansdown has set up a petition asking the government to reconsider the decision. “Rather than engage with working taxpayers willing to invest in our economy, the government has favoured city institutions,” said Ian Gorham, chief executive of Hargreaves Lansdown. The disposal of the stake began in September 2013 when £3.2bn of shares were sold at 75p to institutional investors. In March 2014, a further £4.2bn tranche was sold at 75.5p and in December 2014 the chancellor began to dribble shares into the market as long as the level was above 73.6p. Hammond has now signalled that shares can be sold below this break even price. The Treasury has to inform the market of share sales only when it falls through one percentage point thresholds.
Al Sharpton: 'This will be the last night of an all-white Oscars' In a strip mall parking lot just yards from the Dolby theatre where the Oscars ceremony was due to start a few hours later, civil rights leader Al Sharpton and his organisation, the National Action Network (NAN), held a rally denouncing the lack of diversity in the Academy Awards. Protesters carried placards bearing the hashtag #OscarsSoWhite, and others with the slogan, “Black lives matter.” When Sharpton took the stage, from a staircase balcony overlooking the parking lot, he led the crowd in a chant that has been a familar part of racial justice rallies across America in the last two years: “No justice – no peace.” He said that in 2015, following the release of last year’s nominee list – in which, as with this year, no people of colour were nominated for awards in major categories – the Academy had promised him and his organisation that they would change. But, he said, no such change had occurred. During his speech, Sharpton held aloft an Oscar statue made of white, rather than the usual gold material, implying that this would be a more accurate coloration. “You are out of time,” he told the Academy. “We are not going to allow the Oscars to continue. This will be the last night of an all-white Oscars.” After Sharpton spoke, he led protesters in a march, chanting, “Greenlight diversity” and “Diversify the Academy”. Hemmed in by police, who had closed most of the roads surrounding the Dolby theatre, the protesters instead marched in a circle around the parking lot. “In this lot, where you see people have come out to walk in a unity circle, this is the colour of America,” Sharpton told reporters after the rally. “What they will see tonight is blacks on stage giving awards to whites that whites decided.” “There’s nothing wrong with whites getting awards, but they should not be the only ones making decisions,” he continued. “We love Leonardo DiCaprio … but we also love Michael B Jordan. So why isn’t he in consideration?” Colleen Williams, a supporter from Los Angeles, said that she was there “supporting for justice”. She called for more African Americans to be nominated for Academy awards. “[It’s] just fairness. We support the Oscars, but we just want fairness.” Yolanda Christian, another supporter, said that she wanted “to make sure that everyone gets equal rights”. The National Action Network planned a nationwide boycott of the televised ceremony night, calling it the “white Oscars tune-out”. The idea, Sharpton told the in an interview on Thursday, was to put pressure on advertisers, especially event sponsor Kohl’s, to suspend ties with the organisation until it makes concrete changes to its diversity policies.
Is Manchester about to become a global digital leader? From the industrial revolution, to the birth of the computer and the rise of acid house, Manchester has a history of creativity and innovation that is recognised worldwide. But does the city have what it takes to become a global digital leader? Sir Howard Bernstein thinks so. The Manchester council chief executive is highly-regarded across the country for the way he led the city’s rebirth over the past 20 years, encouraging the private and public sectors to work together. He has overseen the transformation of the city centre following the IRA bomb of 1996, the creation of Sportcity for the 2002 Commonwealth Games, and the redevelopment of the Spinningfields business district – allowing Manchester to realistically stake a claim as the country’s second city. Sir Howard said: “Over the past 40 years, I’ve witnessed a dramatic change in Manchester’s local economy. But today, the city is on the verge of assuming its potential as a global leader in the digital economy.” According to Tech Nation, Manchester is the largest tech cluster outside London – with 51,901 employees in the sector. It also has the UK’s second highest GVA growth – 92% between 2010 and 2014 – while having a total digital turnover at £2.2bn, the fourth highest in the UK. The city’s civic and business leaders are now intent on ensuring Manchester realises its digital potential. A £4m government grant is to be used to create a tech hub in the city centre. The plan, known as Project Forward, is aimed at nurturing start-ups, fostering collaboration and providing mentoring. It is hoped the hub will establish a focal point in the city for attracting inward investment from technology businesses while developing and retaining the country’s best software engineers and entrepreneurs. The city has also secured £10m investment after a team from across industry, academia and the public sector won a competition to become the UK’s Internet of Things (IoT) City Demonstrator. Manchester council worked with global technology giant Cisco UK, the University of Manchester and BT to put forward a proposal that uses technology to improve health and social care, energy and environmental management and transport. The win will lead to the creation of a UK IoT Centre of Excellence at Manchester Science Partnerships’ city centre campus, which will provide the region’s start-ups and SMEs with access to a world-leading open innovation programme. Sir Howard added: “The public and private sector has to work together to ensure that every Mancunian business has the opportunity and resources to reach its potential.” Sir Howard has now thrown his weight behind business WiredScore as it launches in Manchester. Founded in New York three years ago, this rates and certifies buildings in terms of internet connectivity. It is hoped the rating system will drive up the standard of connectivity in Manchester’s buildings, which in turn will help digital economic growth. Manchester is the first UK city outside London in which WiredScore has launched, and the company is already working with some big names including Peel, Legal & General and Property Alliance. Ahead of the launch, WiredScore commissioned YouGov to interview 306 technology industry workers about their perceptions of Manchester and produced a report on how the city can grow into a digital leader. According to the report, the most important factor for attracting tech companies to Manchester is closer links with the city’s universities – who could offer incentives such as business accelerators or grants. Meanwhile, 58% of people interviewed said Manchester’s commercial landlords should offer flexible or short-term leases for start-ups, to attract them to the city. The report also found that a local talent pool, the city’s industrial heritage, and its commercial real estate prices were key factors in what makes Manchester attractive as a tech hub. WiredScore invited business and tech leaders to discuss the report at a roundtable event on Wednesday night. Antony Whittle, from KPMG, said Manchester needed its own home-grown success story to help attract talent. He added: “If Manchester had a tech company that came up and took the world by storm, that would be a really useful anchor.” Martin Bryant is co-founder of SpaceportX – one of a number of places in Manchester providing space and assistance for start-ups to flourish – along with Rise, The Sharp Project, Innospace and the Landing. He said Manchester was already attractive to tech talent because it was a special city, adding: “There are a few obvious reasons why Manchester is already doing well – such as lower costs than London. “But there is something unique about Manchester, a certain spirit that not many other places have. It makes it a different and exciting place to be based. “I think maybe it’s been guilty of living off its reputation too much in the recent past – that there hasn’t been much substance here – but I feel like we’ve got good momentum now.” Bryant also pointed to the work of support organisation Manchester Digital, which has helped foster an active tech community in the city and is trying to brand the city as a global tech leader. He added: “Manchester Digital is running a campaign to attract people to the city by circulating testimonies of people who have moved here and thrived. More needs to be done to market Manchester as a place where individuals can come and thrive.” William Newton, UK director for WiredScore, said that Manchester was becoming central to the UK’s digital evolution. But he added: “It is essential that developers and landlords in Manchester consider the important role of technology in business and provide the connectivity that meets the current and future needs of their occupiers. “Manchester has the potential to be a leading global capital of technology if it can demonstrate it’s a future-proofed choice for entrepreneurs and investors.” Sign up to become a member of the Small Business Network here for more advice, insight and best practice direct to your inbox.
Met police received more than 500 reports of hate crimes after Brexit vote More than 500 reports of hate crimes were made to police in London after Britain’s vote to leave the European Union. The Metropolitan police said they received 599 allegations between Friday 24 June, the day the result was revealed, and Saturday 2 July. Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, the Met commissioner, said that the vote had allegedly been “directly referenced or alluded to” in 23 incidents. The force said it had received eight allegations that Polish or other European communities had been targeted. The Met, which is Britain’s largest force, usually averages between 20 and 50 reports of hate crime a day. On Sunday 26 June it received 62 reports and the following Tuesday it had 64. The figures were revealed in a letter from Hogan-Howe to Keith Vaz, the chair of the home affairs committee, which on Tuesday announced an investigation into hate crime. Suspected incidents in London have included the spraying of racist graffiti on the front entrance of the Polish Social and Cultural Association (POSK) in Hammersmith on 26 June. On Monday, police released CCTV footage of a man throwing rotten pork meat at a mosque in north London. Nationally, police say the aftermath of the referendum produced a fivefold increase in reports to a special hate crime reporting website, with 331 received by last Wednesday. Most incidents involved alleged harassment, but Avon and Somerset police said a Polish man suffered “significant injuries” following a racially aggravated assault by two men on the day the result was announced. The victim, in his 30s, was walking along St Michael’s Avenue in Yeovil, Somerset at about 6pm on 24 June when two men approached him and asked whether he spoke English, before repeatedly punching and kicking him, police said. He required hospital treatment for a potentially life-changing eye injury, a fractured cheekbone and substantial bruising to his body. Other incidents included the distribution of cards saying “Leave the EU/No more Polish vermin” in English and Polish outside a school in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire. An official report published last year said there were an estimated 222,000 hate crimes on average per year in England and Wales. The most commonly reported motivating factor was race. Police estimate that only one in four hate crimes are reported to them.
Why did people vote for Donald Trump? Voters explain Despite a lack of political experience, business magnate Donald Trump swept to an improbable victory in the US presidential elections. It is clear that despite a series of controversies, his message resonated with a huge number of American voters in key states, and revealed deep anti-establishment anger and discontent. We spoke to six Trump voters about why they voted for the Republican candidate, and why they think he’ll make a good president. ‘I don’t want the Clinton legacy continued in the White House’ Trump is a self-made man. Regardless of getting a hefty loan from his father, he used that money to make a name and legacy for himself. I hope that Trump’s experience as a businessman will enable our country to operate more effectively when it comes to managing our money. I want to change America to serve the people instead of a political system that wants to serve itself. My life won’t change much, except I will have more hope that my government is trying to make our country strong instead of pandering to its own liberal interests. My main hope is that he will help balance our budget, and secondly that he will help our economy to remain strong. I don’t want the Clinton legacy continued in the White House. We impeached one Clinton, and there is too much scandal that revolves around the other. Why would I want that legacy in my government? He may say controversial things, but at least he tells you what he thinks. I certainly disagree with anyone that has behaved in a racist or sexist way. However, I feel like I know where I stand with Trump. He says what he thinks, right or wrong, and I know what I’m dealing with. I’m so tired of the media and Democrats bellyaching about Trump getting voted in. It’s what the people wanted! It’s pretty sad when all you hear is gloom and doom on the news, which I thought was supposed to be a balanced representation of the two sides. Surprise! There is a whole other part to this country outside of your newsroom walls that actually thinks differently from the mostly liberal ideas that most news outlets put out there. We are middle America, we are the hardworking people who are holding this country together with our roots, and we are ready to have a country that keeps its cheque book in balance like we do with our private bank accounts. – Rachael, 34, Indiana, small business owner ‘He knows how to make deals, deals that will make America prosperous again’ I was a Democrat for 39 years, but my children and grandchildren need an America that is out of debt. All that Obama did was double the debt since he took office. I will feel a whole lot safer than I ever would with Hillary. The biggest question is to ask why he kept sending troops and flooding us with Syrian refugees that are not vetted for the proper amount of time with the possibility of terrorists mixing in and coming to our homeland? My great nephew is still asking that question as he did two tours in Afghanistan. He got out because he felt the president didn’t care about him or his comrades. We have the greatest veterans in the world; I am one of them. The last two presidents didn’t care about what happened to us. Obama created jobs, but minimum wage jobs. You can’t support a family on a minimum wage. Our manufacturing plants are gone, the coal industry is gone from my area and Hillary would just shut it down the rest of the way. Obamacare is a failure. Thank God I don’t have to use it. But there are families that need it and if they can’t afford it they get fined. That in itself is the mindset of a dictator. Hillary was going to expand it and make it available for illegals too. I believe Trump will be a good president because he knows how to make deals, deals that will make America prosperous again. We need to bring our nation together. I like the fact that all three branches are controlled by the same party, now we can get down to the business of straightening out our country, taking care of our people, our veterans, getting the economy moving again and repealing Obamacare. – Nate, 58, Pennsylvania, retired from the federal government ‘I want conservative laws’ I cried when I left the polling location because I don’t like Trump at all. I was deeply saddened to vote for him. His personality, his mannerisms and his inexperience repulse me. I wish there had been another conservative choice without simply throwing away my vote. I know if I travel outside of the US I will be deeply disliked because of him. However, he is only a four-year investment and I am trusting in the checks and balances of our country to prevent him and his poor-judgment from damaging the country too much. Hopefully Trump will not affect my daily life. I personally do not have a gun but I strongly support the right to bear arms recognising it as a right that ensures protection from government tyranny. I am also against abortions. Trump has the opportunity to elect a supreme court member, maybe even two or three members considering the current health and age of some justices. Justices serve for a lifetime and I do not want the justices to be liberal. I want conservative laws therefore conservative justices. I can deal with a somewhat low four years, but I couldn’t deal with a supreme court that swings liberal and I couldn’t deal with losing gun rights. I hope the years fly by and that he will do as little damage as possible. I am deeply saddened by these options and I am not proud of our president in the least. – Andrea, Florida ‘Trump is exactly what you get, with Hillary you can’t know what’s real’ I couldn’t decide who to vote for until the day before voting. It was one the hardest decisions I have ever made. I decided on Trump for one reason: no-fly zones. Hillary guaranteed full scale war with Syria on day one. I mean how do you expect to initiate a no-fly zone over a sovereign nation? That would then in turn guarantee a conflict with Russia, which will assuredly lead to war. I know Hillary would have been business as usual as we spiralled ever closer to a full-scale nuclear war with Russia. Four years is a long time but there is always impeachment, and the next election. It’s a risk but one the American people are willing to take. I’ve previously voted Al Gore, Bush, Obama, Obama, and now Trump. I hope for a sincere shake-up and a breath of fresh air. Trump is a slimy scumbag, who wears it like a badge of honour. But Trump is exactly what you get, Hillary is a phantom and you can’t know what’s real about her. Fainting in New York saying it was heat when it was a mild day, then saying it was pneumonia finally. Lying straight-faced about her emails. Countries may be laughing at us but it took some balls to elect Trump last night. I don’t think a single person who casted a vote for him felt good about it. I sure didn’t, but felt like there was no other choice. It was either Trump or guaranteed war. I think Trump knows he is under-qualified but I sincerely think he will fill his cabinet with people who perform their functions effectively. His legacy is banking on this and right now it isn’t secure because the whole world, even Americans, are laughing when they say Trump won. It’s sincerely hard to believe. I feel Hillary would have been business as usual, she would have had nothing but political favours. – Paul, Ohio, software engineer ‘Obama has put a wedge between the people of this country’ The first woman president should have integrity and that historic moment should not be tainted by someone like Hillary Clinton. Donald Trump might not have political experience but I truly believe he has the American people’s interest at heart. We need to bring jobs back to our country, make the economy stronger and hopefully unite all people. I feel Obama has put a wedge between the people of this country. We should be looked at as individual merits and not by the colour of our skin. Trump won’t take nonsense from anyone and he doesn’t have any special interest he has to make happy. He’s for the people! – Arlene, New Jersey ‘Under Trump the American dream is revived’ Trump understands and supports the American dream; no matter what you have now, if you work hard you can better yourself and positively shape your wealth and future. Clinton made it known that she would continue Obama’s agenda of redistribution. What dream is there in working to see your future gains chopped up by taxation and welfare? Under Clinton I would have just held out my hand and stopped dreaming. Under Trump the American Dream is revived! I may not like the Trump he shows his buddies in the locker room, I may not agree with his too-rich-to-care insolence or his private life with women, but I agree with his platform and passion. He gets things done and his drive is proven. He fails and he fails better. I voted for Trump to keep the minimum wage hike down, retain our constitutional gun rights, and keeping close to the constitution and immigration. I can now start planning my next boutique without the threat of a minimum wage hike. I can afford to get sick while I’m working 60 hours a week to get my business off the ground. The fear of the taxation-to-death threat will lessen. Trump is a businessman. He will pave the way for me to start dreaming again. Until this election I was independent. This election I declared myself Republican for the first time. My friends are mostly liberal Democrats. They say I’m the poorest Republican they know. I hope that the silent majority stops being bullied by the loud minority. Trump promises to rebuild our army and fight for our safety, I look to see terrorism defeated and the war on cops to end, a solid declaration of war on Isis and a halt to the preference of immigrants before citizens. I hope welfare will be scaled back and employment will once again become the preferred way to support oneself. I cried when I heard Trump won. There is once again hope for the American Dream! – Heather, 43, Kansas, small business owner *Some names have been changed.
Eagles of Death Metal review – exultant crowd radiate a protective positivity Halfway through this cathartic show, Eagles of Death Metal frontman Jesse Hughes shouts: “Rock and roll will never die!” It’s the sort of off-the-peg, in-the-moment war cry you might hear at many gigs. From Hughes, however, it comes freighted with additional meaning. Eagles of Death Metal were originally conceived as a joke in a bar in 1998. Now the band will always be associated with violence after their gig at the Bataclan in Paris last November was interrupted by three extremists armed with Kalashnikovs, grenades and suicide vests. The terror attack left 79 people dead. After surviving that atrocity, it would have been understandable if Eagles of Death Metal had decided to quit. Instead they have thrown themselves back into playing. After appearing as guests of U2 in Paris within a month of the attack, the Californian garage-rockers returned to life on the road in February and have barely stopped since, clocking up almost 70 gigs and festival appearances on their Nos Amis (“Our Friends”) tour. There have been speed bumps. Hughes, a gun enthusiast who has long cultivated an outlaw image, has made several inflammatory remarks in interviews. His claim in May that he had seen Muslims celebrating in the streets after the Paris attacks were provocative enough that his band were removed from the bill of two French music festivals taking place this weekend. (Instead, Eagles of Death Metal will play Reading and Leeds.) At their first UK show since the attack, the band take the stage to the unlikely stomp of Shang-a-Lang by the Bay City Rollers. They’re cheered loudly and at length, the sort of reaction usually heard at the end of a triumphant gig rather than before the band have played a single note. It allows Hughes to ritually undo perhaps one too many buttons on his shirt and carefully primp his bushy Doc Holliday moustache. In a scuzzy 90-minute set of raucous, ratbag rock, the Bataclan experience is referenced only obliquely. It remains unclear whether the Eagles of Death Metal gig was targeted because the band were from the US; for his part, Hughes seems happy to symbolise his country. During the rattling two-chord boogie of I Only Want You, large banners unfurl to reveal Uncle Sam’s iconic recruiting posters recreated with Hughes’s likeness. You could arguably read something into their plangent reading of Save a Prayer, but the Duran Duran cover was a mainstay of their set before last November. There are no lengthy sermons, despite Hughes’s habit of hollering like an impassioned tent preacher. Instead, there is exhilarating rock burlesque. Hughes vamps. He struts. He repurposes jokes from Airplane. He pulls on a bright red jacket with “Bowie” embroidered on the back before the band play a roughed-up but rather beautiful version of Moonage Daydream. The closest acknowledgement of their horrific experience comes near the end. “It’s been a strange fucking year and I am so grateful,” says Hughes. His ramshackle band represent the right to make preening, priapic, occasionally obnoxious rock’n’roll, a sentiment that goes over well with the exultant crowd, who radiate a protective positivity. Before a last splurge of excessive guitar solos, Hughes offers one final piece of advice: “Stay horny!”
Andy Carroll and Mark Noble fire West Ham to victory against Watford This was no surprise result given the circumstances but a first win in eight for West Ham United and one in which Andy Carroll fired his calling card in the direction of Roy Hodgson once more. Carroll set West Ham on the way to a comfortable victory against a depleted Watford and was his usual swashbuckling self throughout, just weeks before England name their squad for the European Championship. The striker scored his sixth goal in five Premier League appearances and, backed up by Dimitri Payet and Diafra Sakho, was at his troublesome best against this makeshift Watford side who rested players in preparation for their FA Cup semi-final against Crystal Palace on Sunday. The opposition may not have been the strongest, but on this evidence Carroll is a man in as good nick as he has ever been. Payet was also excellent and Mark Noble accomplished in midfield. It was the West Ham captain who scored twice from the penalty spot before Sebastian Prödl pulled one back for Watford with a fine finish, Troy Deeney missed a late penalty and Nordin Amrabat was sent off. Yet despite their penalty miss, Watford were never in this game and their manager, Quique Sánchez Flores, insisted afterwards that he was not concerned about reports that his position is under threat even though he has steered the club to safety in their first season back in the top flight. For Slaven Bilic, there was satisfaction. A first win since early March and, following the recent Cup defeat against Manchester United and late draw at Leicester, a smile. “We said before that every game is important at this stage of the season but this was a decisive game that will determine if we look up, or if we don’t win look down,” he said. “Of course Liverpool are in good form but it’s nice to have five-point cushion [over Southampton in eighth].” Asked if the pressure was on the teams above West Ham, who will attempt to make a late push for a top-four finish, Bilic said: “The pressure is on us as well, it’s great pressure and positive pressure. It’s not like the pressure that Sunderland, Newcastle and Norwich have. It’s the pressure you are grateful for, worship for, go to church and pray it’s going to be the same for the next six years.” It did not take long for West Ham to exert control here. Watford made seven changes following the weekend victory against West Bromwich Albion – a first Premier League win in seven attempts – ahead of their FA Cup semi-final against Crystal Palace at Wembley on Sunday. However, they were undone within 11 minutes. Payet, who has been in sublime form all season following his move from Marseille last summer, cut inside and lifted a precise ball over the defence for Carroll, who prodded home with his left foot past Heurelho Gomes. West Ham’s second came controversially as José Holebas grappled with Cheikhou Kouyaté and the referee, Mike Dean, awarded a penalty. Noble sent Gomes the wrong way from the spot. Bilic’s men did not have to wait long for another, following a few minutes to forget for Almen Abdi. Watford should have pulled one back through their Swiss midfielder and moments later he gave away a blatant penalty after lunging at the West Ham right-back Michail Antonio, who had made a bustling run forward. Again Noble stepped up and again he scored, down the middle. Watford’s fans had something to cheer. in the 64th minute when the centre-half Prödl timed his run well from Steven Berghuis’s free-kick and finished sweetly with a left-footed half-volley. It was a dramatic last few minutes as Deeney, brought on at the death, had a penalty saved by Adrián after Prödl was adjudged to have been fouled by Angelo Ogbonna, before Amrabat was sent off following a second yellow card. Asked about his job security, Flores said: “I am happy. I feel good. I think it is an amazing time we have now, four matches to finish and we have 41 points, it’s amazing. We are in a position that is very comfortable. We are in the semi-final of the FA Cup, but my future does not depend on one thing. We will see what happens.”
Matt Damon and Ben Affleck surprise fans with Good Will Hunting reading Matt Damon and Ben Affleck reprised the roles that made them famous onstage in New York on Friday night, with a surprise appearance in a one-off live reading of the screenplay of Good Will Hunting. The childhood friends were almost unknown when they wrote and insisted on starring in the tale of a young working-class polymath who is mopping floors at MIT when his life is turned around by a therapist, played by Robin Williams, and a Harvard student, played by Minnie Driver. It won the two an Oscar for best screenplay, was nominated for eight more (Williams also won), and provided them with a route to the big time. Today, they occupy numbers three (Damon) and six (Affleck) on the 2016 Forbes list of the world’s highest-paid male actors. John Krasinski reunited the pair on Friday as part of a Film Independent and New York Times series of “live reads”, in which actors read the screenplay of a film to a live audience. The cast list was not released in advance, allowing Krasinski a moment of pure showmanship before the reading began. Introducing his cast one by one – including his wife, Emily Blunt, in the Driver role – Krasinski finally came to the leads, announcing that he himself would be playing Will … before Damon unexpectedly marched on to the stage, to a standing ovation from the crowd at New York University’s Skirball theatre. “Thirty seconds before that, you were happy to see me do it!” Krasinski said. Preparing to sit down and take Affleck’s part instead, he said: “Chuckie’s a better role anyway …” On cue, the Batman star followed Damon out from the wings, bringing the delighted audience leaping back to their feet. The 1997 screenplay has held up well, and is often laugh-out-loud funny, much of its charm resting on the witty, wisecracking, believable banter between the dumb but protective Chuckie and his best friend, the brilliant, defensive and confrontational Will. Affleck and Damon slid easily back into characters based presumably on young men they had known or witnessed growing up in Boston, and Affleck in particular – now bearded, tanned and heavy-set – seemed to take great delight in revisiting the ribald put-downs and convoluted anecdotes which pepper the script. Damon, whose DiCaprio-like quicksilver charisma has become something more stolid and workmanlike, was able to recapture that early magnetism. He was devastating in that indelible scene in which he tells Williams that when his father used to give him a choice of wrench, belt or stick for a beating, he would always choose the wrench – “because fuck him, that’s why”. Blunt approached the part of Damon’s student girlfriend with something of the English naturalism that Driver brought to the film in 1997, and Krasinski, who read the stage directions, stumbled for comic effect over some of her love scenes with Damon, altering the ending of one to: “They do not kiss,” tripping over the word “postcoital” in another. “It was really good!” his wife blurted out, to which Krasinski asked rhetorically: “You’re really going to take Jason Bourne over Jim from The Office?” Less successful was his casting of The Americans’ Margo Martindale in the crucial Williams role. The gender switch might well have worked, but she was hesitant and seemed under-rehearsed. Introducing the event, Krasinski made the case for Good Will Hunting as a modern American classic. “As a kid from Boston, I think we all get tattoos of the poster of this movie on your back,” he said, calling it “unbelievably well-written”. In truth, Affleck and Damon lay it on a bit thick in establishing Will’s genius – what is meant to come off as autodidactic brilliance occasionally teeters over into insufferability – and it’s a more sentimental film than it thinks it is, emotionally manipulative in a way that seems mercilessly machine-tooled for maximum effect, particularly towards the end. But it works. And looking back, it laid the groundwork for Affleck’s career as a director producing compelling thrillers such as Argo and The Town that use tension as shamelessly as Good Will Hunting uses emotion, pleasingly calling to mind the crime dramas of the 1940s and 50s in which taciturn men find themselves forced into intractable situations, weighing up dilemmas about love and corruption and morality. Which, come to think of it, doesn’t sound a bad template for the Batman film Affleck is currently writing.
Royal Bank of Scotland 'plans further 900 job cuts in UK' Royal Bank of Scotland plans to cut 900 jobs in the UK, taking the total number of staff losses to 2,700 over the past four months, according to Reuters. The roles would be lost in IT and back-office positions across the bank’s operations as the bailed-out bank attempts to cut costs in its bid to return to the private sector. At the start of the year, RBS had 64,000 UK staff in the UK but since then jobs have been cut across most of its operations in retail, commercial and investment banking, as well as its IT functions. Ross McEwan, the chief executive of the 73% taxpayer-owned bank, set a target to save £800m in 2016. While he acknowledged this could result in job cuts, he didn’t specify how many roles would be lost. The cuts are part of efforts to scale back the global ambitions of RBS, which had operations in about 50 countries with approximately 180,000 staff at the time of its bailout, to focus on domestic retail banking. RBS said: “We understand how difficult this is for our staff and will be offering as much support as we can, including redeployment to other roles where possible. The bank’s global workforce is 87,800. McEwan, who took over from Stephen Hester in October 2013, is focusing RBS on 13 countries. He is also adapting the bank for the digital age by closing branches and automating services. As part of the move to reduce its global presence, the bank is looking to increase the profile of its NatWest brand in England and Wales. As part of this, it is in talks to sponsor English cricket and have its logo replace Waitrose’s on the shirts of cricket players.
Trump presidency bodes ill for Israel-Palestine peace process As Donald Trump continues to ponder his choice for secretary of state, and other key foreign policy positions, one thing seems clear: the impact on the peace process between Israelis and Palestinians is likely to be serious and retrograde. The question now is whether the moribund process, which has weathered presidents both Republican and Democrat since it was sealed in 1993 with the aim of securing a two-state solution, can survive the Trump era at all. The signs are not encouraging. Israel’s far right has greeted Trump’s success with ecstasy, hailing his promises to recognise Jerusalem as the country’s capital and move the US embassy to the city, as well as suggestions from his team he would not stand in the way of Israeli settlement construction. The frontrunners for the secretary of state nomination – Rudy Giuliani and John Bolton – have both been vocal opponents of the idea of a Palestinian state. Trump’s own pronouncements have swerved wildly between suggesting he would be “neutral” on the question, promising to be Israel’s “best friend”, and even suggesting he could secure the best peace deal ever. Meanwhile his advisers have fuelled a sense of deep confusion by making a series of highly contradictory statements. What is clear, for all the muddle, is that the centre of gravity in US thinking is lurching from the two-state solution as it has been understood by US politicians and diplomats for more than 20 years seemingly towards one of two extremes: a maximalist pro-Israel administration or, equally risky, a minimalist and disconnected isolationist position. The dangers of the latter approach were summed up most tellingly in a leaked paper drawn up by two officials at Israel’s ministry of foreign affairs. They paint a picture of Trump’s possible Middle East policy as incoherent, unsettled, and transactional. “The diplomatic process between Israel and the Palestinians will not be a top priority for the Trump administration and it’s reasonable to assume this topic will also be influenced by the staff surrounding him and developments in the field,” they wrote last week. “Trump’s declarations do not necessarily point to a coherent policy on this issue. “As part of his minimal interest in foreign affairs, Trump doesn’t see the Middle East as a good investment and it’s reasonable to assume he will seek to reduce American involvement in the region.” The officials are not the only ones to see the risk of Trump’s transactional terms. Some anonymous Israeli officials have warned that the new president might view the peace process “only in terms as currency to pay for things in other fields – for example, in dealing with Russia”. Beyond lies a more existential question that has been picked up on by several Israeli commentators, among them Ben Caspit in Ma’ariv: whether Trump – beyond his instinctive isolationism – even cares about the issue. “The truth is,” wrote Caspit in the aftermath of Trump’s victory, “he is not even a Republican. Trump is Trump. “People who have worked with him for years have a sense that he does not particularly like Jews or Israelis. In his genes, he does not have everything that every American politician (including Hillary) has: a deep, automatic commitment to Israel, in any situation and in any weather.” Another who has cautioned the Israeli right against prematurely celebrating has been the former Obama envoy Martin Indyk, who told Israeli radio: “Trump’s position on Israel is quite unclear. He has said different things to different audiences. I would not depend on a real estate lawyer who works for Trump as necessarily the person who will decide these things.” That “lawyer” is in fact a pair of them who work for Trump’s business and have advised him on the Middle East: David Friedman and Jason Greenblatt. They represent the more maximalist position that was seized on last week and celebrated by Israel’s pro-settler parties. They have both said that Trump does not believe Israeli settlements should be condemned as an “obstacle to peace”. Giuliani’s hostile view on the Palestinian question has been as public as it has been consistent. Along with his bitter opposition to the Iran nuclear deal it constitutes one of his most identifiable international policy positions. “Somebody has to question why are we creating a Palestinian state that’s going to be another terrorist state,” he said in 2011, welcoming comments by Newt Gingrich that the Palestinians were an “invented people”. “Put Israel aside for a minute. Is it in the interest of the United States of America to create another state where they’re going to be training people to come over here and blow us up? Of course it isn’t.” Bolton’s stated views do not breach this rightwing consensus. He has suggested the two-state solution is not viable, instead proposing a “three-state solution” that would dump much Palestinian territory on Egypt and Jordan – willing or not. The maximalist and minimalist positions carry the same inherent risk: that they will push Israel’s most rightwing government even further towards the far-right pro-settlement positions held by the likes of Naftali Bennett’s Jewish Home party. “Trump’s victory offers Israel a tremendous opportunity to announce that it changes its mind regarding establishing a state of Palestine in the heart of our country,” said Bennett in the immediate aftermath of Trump’s election. “The era of the Palestinian state is over.” Bennett and likeminded ministers have been as good as their word, pushing new legislation to legalise illegal settlement outposts over even the objections of Israel’s rightwing prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. All of this is deeply alarming Palestinian officials. “There is a feeling of despair,” said one official privately, countering official sentiments of watch and see, adding that whoever Trump selected for secretary of state – and other key foreign policy positions – would be crucial. “In many ways it is too early to know what it means. Our feeling is Trump doesn’t have an opinion. The first time he spoke on the issue he said the US should be neutral. But if he appoints John Bolton, Rudy Giuliani or Newt Gringrich to secretary of state that would be a disaster for Palestine.”
Five of the best... rock & pop gigs 1 Wiley Wiley is back and still as self-destructive as ever: this summer he didn’t turn up to his headline slot at east London’s Born & Bred festival, while his highly anticipated Godfather album has seen various delays. That doesn’t mean the grime great’s show at KOKO – which precedes a few dates across the UK – won’t go off, though. KOKO, NW1, Fri 2 Lost In A Moment Osea Island is not your average festival location: for a start you can only get to it twice a day while the tide is out. Yet despite its remoteness, it has musical pedigree: artists such as SBTRKT have decamped there to record albums in recent times. Ame, Marcus Worgull and Job Jobse are booked to get the party started here and let’s hope they do, because if not you won’t be able to get back home in a hurry. Osea Island, Maldon, Sat 3 Sean Paul Recently seen defending dancehall culture from the new wave of magpie imposters (artists he viewed as jumping on the bandwagon included Drake and Justin Bieber), the man behind 2002’s Dutty Rock is back to show us how it’s really done. This week you can catch him in London as well as on the Isle Of Wight as a Bestival headliner. Bestival, Isle Of Wight, Sun; Electric Ballroom, NW1, Tue 4 Flatbush Zombies To understand some of the weird and wonderful directions hip-hop has ventured in recent years, you could do worse than listen to this Brooklyn trio’s debut studio album, 3001: A Laced Odyssey – a druggy, psychedelic affair that deals with lows (in particular, mental torment) as well as highs. London, Mon & Tue; Bristol, Thu; Birmingham, Fri 5 Rat Boy Jordan Cardy channels the likes of The Streets and Jamie T with his scuffed, dancefloor-infused tales of UK life. Live, he’s all about fighting for your right to party – expect things to get very sweaty when he arrives with his teenage fanbase in tow for a Sheffield show this week. The Leadmill, Sheffield, Fri
George Soros: EU exit risks 'black Friday' The world’s most famous currency speculator has warned a vote on Thursday for Britain to leave the EU would trigger a bigger and more damaging fall for sterling than the day he forced Britain out of the Exchange Rate Mechanism almost a quarter of a century ago. George Soros, writing in the , said that a Brexit vote would spark a “black Friday” for the UK, but the devaluation of sterling would bring none of the benefits to the economy that it enjoyed after it dropped out of the ERM on 16 September 1992 – Black Wednesday. He said that, as in 1992, there would be big financial gains for speculators who had bet on the UK leaving the EU but that such an outcome would leave “most voters considerably poorer”. Soros said that unlike after Black Wednesday, there was little scope for a cut in interest rates, the UK was running a much larger current account deficit, and exporters would be unable to exploit the benefits of a cheaper pound due to the uncertainty caused by a vote to leave the EU. “Sterling is almost ­certain to fall steeply and quickly if leave wins the referendum,” Soros said. “I would expect this devaluation to be bigger and also more disruptive than the 15% ­devaluation that occurred in September 1992, when I was fortunate enough to make a ­substantial profit for my hedge fund investors at the expense of the Bank of England and the British government.” In the months following the UK’s departure from the ERM, interest rates were cut from 10% to 5.5% – easing the financial burdens facing consumers and businesses. However, with official borrowing costs currently at 0.5%, Soros said rates were already at the lowest level consistent with the stability of British banks and meant there was little the Bank of England could do in the event that Brexit led to a recession. A vote to leave would force the pound to slide towards parity with the euro – “a method of joining the euro that nobody in Britain would want” – and plunge more than in September 1992 when his $10bn (£6.9bn) bet against the pound broke the Bank of England. “Too many believe that a vote to leave will have no effect on their personal financial positions. This is wishful thinking. If Britain leaves the EU it will have at least one very clear and immediate effect that will touch every household: the value of the pound would decline ­precipitously. A vote to leave the EU would also have an immediate and dramatic impact on financial markets, investment, prices and jobs,” Soros added. “A vote to leave could see the week end with a black Friday and serious consequences for ordinary people,” Soros said. Michael Gove, the justice secretary and leading leave campaigner, said Soros had previously predicted that Britain would be better off with the single currency, a forecast which proved the currency speculator had made mistakes. “George Soros is an advocate of the single currency, an advocate of European integration,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. “If economic forecasters were as reliable as doctors or airline pilots then we’d all be billionaires. When we reflect on what George Soros is saying we also need to remember he has got things wrong in the past.” Gove said the EU model was a “sinking ship” which Britain could unshackle itself from, and “send Europe in a better, more progressive direction”. Two days before the polls close a series of high-profile figures warned about the risks of a vote to leave. Enda Kenny, the taoiseach of Ireland, appealed to Britain to vote to remain inside the EU, warning that the return of a stronger border between Ireland and Northern Ireland required by a Brexit vote would play into an old narrative – “one of division, isolation and difference”. Writing in the , Kenny warned of a psychological effect, saying the reappearance of the old border after decades of work to promote peace and reconciliation “would be a step backwards and present an opportunity for others, with malign agendas, to exploit”. Jeremy Corbyn repeated his careful endorsement of a remain vote. The Labour leader said he was “not a lover” of the EU but had come to a rational decision about his support for remain. He cautioned that either result was possible: “I’m hoping there is going to be a remain vote; there may well be a remain vote, there may well be a leave vote.” Amid worries about whether Labour supporters would turn out for remain, Len McCluskey, who heads the Unite trade union, wrote that he was not surprised that they were concerned about immigration. “In the last 10 years, there has been a gigantic experiment at the expense of ordinary workers. Countries with vast historical differences in wage rates and living standards have been brought together in a common labour market,” he said. “The result has been sustained pressure on living standards, a systematic attempt to hold down wages and to cut the costs of social provision for working people.” Sterling rallied on Monday as polls published over the weekend showed a rise in support for the remain camp after the death of Jo Cox and propelled the pound to its biggest one-day move in almost eight years when compared with the world’s other major currencies. Sterling jumped more than 2% to touch $1.47 against the dollar and headed towards €1.30 against the euro. The FTSE 100 index of leading shares jumped 3% to 6,204 – pulled higher by the banking and property companies that had dragged it lower in recent weeks. Nigel Farage, the Ukip leader, accused remain supporters of trying to take advantage of the death of Cox. “What we are seeing here is the prime minister and the remain campaign trying to conflate the actions of one crazed individual with the motives of half of Britain who think we should get back control of our borders and do it sensibly.” Soros said that speculators – hailed the Gnomes of Zurich in the 1960s by Harold Wilson – had made large profits at Britain’s expense at the time of the 1967 devaluation. “Today there are speculative forces in the markets much bigger and more powerful. And they will be eager to exploit any miscalculations by the British government or British voters. A vote for Brexit will make some people very rich – but most voters considerably poorer,” Soros said. Not all economists agree with Soros’s assertion that a rate cut will not be possible: economists at JP Morgan are among those forecasting a cut to zero in August from the historic low of 0.5%. But economists at Pantheon Macroeconomics expect sterling to plunge if there is a vote for Brexit. “If Britain opts for Brexit – as it well could, given the latest neck-and-neck opinion polls – sterling likely will plunge,” Samuel Tombs at Pantheon said, warning the market was underestimating how far sterling could fall. Tombs warned that capital outflows could be “gargantuan”.
Twitter adds function to report multiple abusive tweets at same time Twitter has improved its anti-harassment tools, adding the ability to report multiple abusive tweets at the same time. Previously, users had to manually report each abusive tweet individually, filling out the required report repeatedly. This was time-consuming and frustrating for users subjected to online harassment who faced being bombarded by hundreds of tweets at a time. Hao Tang, one of Twitter’s safety engineers, said: “We want everyone on Twitter to feel safe expressing themselves. Behaviour that crosses the line into abuse is against our rules and we want it to be easy for you to report it to us.” Twitter has been attempting to help prevent abuse of its users since its former chief executive Dick Costolo made it one of the company’s top priorities. But the company has been criticised for not going far enough to weed out abusive users and protect those subjected to often extensive campaigns of harassment. Tang said: “This update makes it easier for you to provide us with more information about the extent of abuse and reduces the time it takes to do so. That added context often helps us investigate issues and get them resolved faster.” The update will be rolling out to users across Twitter.com and users of its iOS and Android apps in the coming weeks. It follows the introduction of muting, blocking and reporting tools and recently the addition of a “quality filter”, which is designed to automatically screen out abusive language from a user’s notifications.
Sam Beam and Jesca Hoop review – Americana's golden duo make sweet music together Sam Beam and Jesca Hoop are so clearly made for each other that they should consider making this professional pairing permanent. The former, who trades as the folk-lounge-Americana outfit Iron and Wine, and the eclectic Californian songwriter Hoop are like a pair of unrelated siblings: their delicate golden harmonies are as instinctive as their genial bickering. Visually, they’re also cut from the same rawboned cloth, he bearded and brimstoneish, she full-skirted and ramrod-spined. Their collaborative album, Love Letter for Fire, played almost in full here, harvests the best of both. Notwithstanding their individual dabblings in hip-hop and funk, as a duo they gravitate to backwoods folk with country accents. Both play guitar, with Hoop the more adventurous player as Beam chunks out the rhythms. From the opening Kiss Me Quick, their vocals puddle mellifluously, often reducing lyrics to a blur. Ironically, it’s hard to discern a word these exceptionally wordy writers are singing. No matter. The autumnal flow of We Two Are a Moon – the first song they wrote as a team – sounds like a more authentic Civil Wars, while solo songs such as Iron and Wine’s Resurrection Fern and Hoop’s Hunting My Dress entice an unexpected earthiness out of Hoop and silvery delicacy from Beam. If anything is lacking, it’s drama: the set ambles along at the same gentle pace throughout, broken only by a wonderfully odd cover of the Parton/Rogers hit Islands in the Stream. Gummed up and creaking, it’s a welcome palate-cleanser during this four-course soft-folk meal. •At End of the Road festival, Salisbury, on 3 September, and Moseley folk festival, Birmingham, on 4 September.
Amy Adams to return for Enchanted sequel Disenchanted, a belated sequel to Disney’s 2007 hit, Enchanted, is set to start shooting next summer. According to the Hollywood Reporter, Hairspray director Adam Shankman is in talks to direct the follow-up, which featured Amy Adams as an animated princess accidentally transported to contemporary Manhattan. James Marsden co-starred as her prince charming, who follows her down the wormhole, while Patrick Dempsey played a New Yorker who falls for Adams despite being engaged to Idina Menzel. Susan Sarandon was an evil queen. A sequel to the film, which took more than $340m worldwide, has been in development since 2010. This iteration of the script is said to focus of Adam’s character questioning her happily-ever-after life and accidentally triggering events that upend everyone’s lives. Adams is shortly to be seen in Tom Ford’s mordant thriller, Nocturnal Animals, and in Denis Villeneuve’s sci-fi about aliens on earth, Arrival.
Password strength meters fail to spot easy-to-crack examples The meters that supposedly tell you when you’ve entered enough different characters to make a secure password when signing up for a new site are next to useless, according to a web security consultant. The meters, which often appear as a bar that goes from red to green, rank passwords using traditional measures such as complexity, length and character use, but it turns out most fail to spot easy to guess or predictable passwords. This results in them giving users a false sense of security, or worse, downright terrible advice. Mark Stockley, founder of Compound Eye web consultants, said: “The trouble is that most password strength meters don’t actually measure password strength at all. The only good way to measure the strength of a password is to try and crack it – a serious and seriously time consuming business that requires specialist software and expensive hardware.” Instead password strength meters measure entropy – the amount of time or energy needed to crack a password using brute force methods. The longer and more complex the password, the longer it will take to crack by simply iterating through a list of all possible passwords. According to Stockley, however, brute force is a password cracker’s last resort. “Their first line of attack is likely to be based on dictionary words and rules that mimic the common tricks we use to di5gu!se th3m. Measuring entropy doesn’t tell us anything about that,” Stockley said. Stockley tested five popular password strength meters jQuery Password Strength Meter for Twitter Bootstrap, Strength.js, Mato Ilic’s PWStrength, FormGet’s jQuery Password Strength Checker and Paulund’s jQuery password strength demo. He used five of the worst passwords possible that appear on a list of the 10,000 most common passwords: abc123, trustno1, ncc1701 (registration number of Star Trek’s USS Enterprise), iloveyou! and primetime21. All five were broken by the open-source password cracking software John the Ripper in under a second. He also tested what is considered to be one of the best password strength meters, the open-source zxcvbn, which is used by Dropbox and Wordpress, among others. The five popular password meters failed to successfully spot that all five tested passwords were terrible, while zxcvbn identified them as very weak. Arguably they should all simply tell the users not to use the passwords at all. One even ranked trustno1, iloveyou! and primetime21 as “good”. Stockley said: “The result, sadly, is exactly the same as [the last time I conducted this test in 2015]. They all failed.” Other researchers have also come to the same conclusion. Microsoft published a paper in 2014 to that effect, while others have urged a shift away from the traditional sense of what a strong password is, using complex character strings that no one can remember. However, there is data to suggest that password meters do help users pick better passwords, therefore improving the security of their accounts and the site they’re trying to register with as a whole, if they are set up correctly. The trouble is that most do not exclude popular passwords automatically, which they and the site accepting them should do by default. Advice on passwords is still conflicted, with many still recommending multiple special character substitutions in real words, but pass phrases – those that use a string of real words to make a very long password easier to remember – have recently become popular. For those that do not want to use a password manager, Wordpress, the content management system used by millions of websites, recommends using pass phrases such as “copy indicate trap bright” avoiding a predictable series of words: “Because the length of a password is one of the primary factors in how strong it is, passphrases are much more secure than traditional passwords. At the same time, they are also much easier to remember and type.” Two-step verification, which uses another piece of information or a code generated by an app, keyfob or sent in a text message, is also highly recommended because it means attackers need to do more than simply crack or know a users password. Most high-profile sites and services have two-step systems, and while being another barrier to entry, they should be used. What to do if your email gets hacked - and how to prevent it
Your 20s start out like a Tom Hanks movie, then the cracks start to appear I survived my 20s by staying alive until they were over. If that sounds facetious, great. It’s also true. The years between 27 and 30 were the hardest of my life, and I wasn’t always sure I would bother getting through them. I was unemployed, and heavily depressed. My life was directionless. I felt old. Determined to be lonely, I had broken up with my girlfriend, and was sleeping around. My father died. I moved back home. Sometimes I would hear a Black Eyed Peas song, and think “This sounds all right”. It was, in short, a dark time. Even if you’re not battling mental health issues, your 20s can be rough. They start strong, like a Tom Hanks movie, where you are handed a lot of adult freedoms despite being, at heart, 14 years old. Then the cracks start to appear. If you go to university, you’ll be presented with a bill for approximately £100,000,000 when you leave. (The student loans company once tracked me down to a sublet in Bristol where I was sleeping on the sofa. I’m sure their entire staff consists of Liam Neeson, breathing into a telephone.) But your mid- to late-20s are worse. You still don’t know what you want to do for a career; or you do, and are on the lowest rung, or a rung below that. Relationship-wise, you hold a middling hand of blackjack and don’t know whether to stick or twist. Or perhaps you’re alone, which means you will be alone for ever, until you die and are devoured by cats. It’s good to remember you will look back on this time, and miss it. Even the wretched, financially challenged, interesting facial hair years. Recently at a friend’s house, having been asked not to laugh because upstairs a baby was asleep, I thought back to a time we all stripped naked and hung out of the windows. The time we travelled to a party in Dublin with only a toothbrush and a passport. I even miss the misery, the “where do I belong in the world” intensity, the heartbreak, the wailing in the street. Nostalgia is mental sandpaper, the sharpest edges being the first to go. I do have some advice, like Moses. If you are still in your 20s, I urge you to screw it. In fact, get a neck tattoo that says SCREW IT in capitals. There will never again be a point when your power to personal responsibility ratio is so golden. Spiderman sees you and weeps. Screw your insecurity with how you look. You are so hot right now. Even if you don’t believe it, trust that others will. Your skin is firm, your hair is great, and you are IN YOUR 20s. One day you will look back at pictures of yourself and acknowledge, “I would absolutely hit that”. Then you’ll feel a little strange, because it’s a weird thing to say. Screw expectations. This is your life, and there are no wrong answers. As the decade wore on, I wasted it, paralysed by thinking I’d been left behind. Trying new things felt impossible, because I couldn’t afford to put another foot wrong. So I went nowhere. I survived my 20s, but I didn’t live them. In depression, one of my most negative habits was wondering how so many people I knew seemed to land on their feet. As I waded through anxiety, they rode a hovercraft made of cash. I was bad at making money, so felt I had no worth. If this sounds familiar, listen very carefully: SCREW THAT ROUNDLY, SIDEWAYS and UPSIDE DOWN. We have more ways than ever of comparing ourselves to our peers – the lifestyles, the clothes, the stuff they own – which leads us to think life is a race. It isn’t. We’re all going to totally different places. Twentysomethings who make 80k a year are often going to a place where they wake up in a cold sweat, thinking: “My God! I was never young! The people I spend time with are very boring!” I don’t mean to make your 20s sound like the river of shit in The Shawshank Redemption. They’re not really. The difference between 29 and 30 is the difference between Wednesday and Thursday. But if you’re having a quarter-life crisis, don’t worry. I know there is anxiety and confusion. There’s no way around them, only through; you are a child lost in the architecture of adulthood. It’s scary, because no parent is coming to pick you up, there will be no announcement over the public address system. But this is no emergency. You’re expected to be lost.
Iggy Pop – 10 of the best 1. Kill City (with James Williamson) The Stooges had come off the rails before, but in February 1974 they finally split for good. Despite the ignominious nature of their demise, Jim Osterberg – the man behind Iggy Pop – had still not quite reached his rock bottom. He spent the best part of a year couch surfing and relying on the charity of others, including fans, for heroin and quaaludes. An intervention took place when he was arrested for intimidating diners at an LA burger emporium. Detention at a psychiatric facility on the UCLA campus gave the singer time to cool off, and at the weekends he was allowed out to record with former Stooges guitarist James Williamson at Jimmy Webb’s home studio in Encino. Kill City is an edgy and erratic blur of driving riffage in the style of the old band, with Pop grumbling about surviving in the city, “until you wind up in some bathroom overdosed and on your knees”. Record companies passed on the 1975 Kill City demos, at least until 1977, when Iggy Pop’s stock was on the rise again, and Bomp! Records gave Williamson funds to complete and release the album. 2. Nightclubbing Despite their narcotic proclivities, David Bowie and Iggy Pop were good for each other. Their counterintuitive logic led them to try to clean up their lifestyles by moving from LA to Berlin, the heroin capital of the world, but they showed a surprising degree of restraint while living there (for a while anyway). The 18 months they spent together would turn out to be the most productive period of both their lives. Iggy managed to release two albums in 1977, the first of which – The Idiot, named after the Dostoevsky novel – was a far cry from the Stooges. Minimalist, electronic and experimental, it was recorded at the famous Château d’Hérouville in Val d’Oise, before being finished off in Munich and Berlin. The recording techniques of the pair were said to be unorthodox and eccentric. In his Iggy biography Open Up and Bleed, Paul Trynka writes that drummer Michel Santangeli was packed off back to Brittany before he’d even realised they’d started recording, while guitarist Phil Palmer was asked to imagine and replicate the sounds one might encounter walking past the clubs of Wardour Street. Nightclubbing throbs with the sleazy ambience of an underground Kreuzberg club, though with the persistent disco thud slowed down to create the kind of disorientating effect one might experience while heavily sedated. “We recorded the song with a lousy drum machine,” Pop recalled later. “Bowie kept saying, ‘But we gotta call back the drummer, you’re not gonna have that freaky sound on the tape!’ And I replied, ‘Hey, no way, it kicks ass, it’s better than a drummer.’” 3. Funtime Funtime followed the Stooges’ Fun House and No Fun; in fact it was the Sex Pistols’ cover of the latter (which eventually soundtracked their messy unravelling at the Winterland Ballroom) that first inspired Iggy to revisit the familiar motif. It’s written, unusually, in the first person plural (“Hey baby we like your lips / Hey baby we like your pants”), and Bowie’s backing vocal attacks high in the mix, with both voices offering confrontation. In fact, it’s a deadpan and almost threatening delivery that juxtaposes the devil-may-care lyrics, making it all the more sinister and disconcerting. Based on the pair’s partying experiences in LA, the mechanical tenacity of the backing track and the dehumanised singing represent repeatedly going through the motions when all the fun has dried up. 4. Lust for Life The unlikely musical germ of an idea for Lust For Life came when Bowie attempted to imitate the Armed Forces Network call signal with his ukulele (he was apparently waiting for Starsky and Hutch to come on the television in Germany). The Armed Forces Network “was one of the few things that was in English on the telly”, said Bowie, “and it had this great pulsating riff at the beginning of the news”. The insistent beat was reinforced by drummer Hunt Sales and his brother Tony on bass, while guitarist Carlos Alomar said its driving rhythm was so dominating that to play something on the offbeat was out of the question. Iggy Pop then improvised the lyrics, alluding to the clean regime he and Bowie were trying to observe (“No more beating my brains with the liquor and drugs”), while the “that’s like hypnotising chickens” line comes straight from the character Johnny Yen in William Buroughs’ novel The Ticket That Exploded. The song got a boost in the 90s when it was prominently used in the film Trainspotting, and thanks to that exposure, it now rivals The Passenger as Pop’s best-known song. Lust For Life is also the title track of the first album written and conceived entirely in Berlin for both Iggy and Bowie. “The wall was beautiful,” said the former. “It created a wonderful island, the same way that volcanos created islands in the sea. The opposing pressures created this place that they all studiously [ignored] and nobody bugged you. It was wonderful.” The album should have sold more in 1977, but Elvis Presley’s unexpected death coincided with Iggy’s own release schedule, meaning all of RCA’s resources were used up reprinting the King’s back catalogue. 5. I’m Bored Iggy’s third solo album proper, New Values, was the first not to feature Bowie, with James Williamson back as producer. New Values is a wildly creative and commercially undervalued tour de force of songwriting that suffers only slightly from Williamson’s dry and unostentatious production. That doesn’t impede I’m Bored, a song that actually thrives on its threadbare garage simplicity. Pop bellyaches with a deep boom about the ennui he feels, while gently lampooning the captains of industry driving the economy – “I’m bored / I’m the chairman of the bored”. As a champion of the hoi polloi, Pop often had a pop at the establishment, though I’m Bored was far more subtly subversive than I’m a Conservative on the following album. Such nihilism was in keeping with the musical climate, though Iggy had been expressing his dissatisfaction long before it was fashionable to do so. 6. I Need More Iggy had recruited Rich Kids bass guitarist and ex-Sex Pistol Glen Matlock for the New Values tour. Matlock stuck around for the following album, Soldier, writing one track and co-writing another three (although he soon left again after an altercation over the final mix). The pick of the bunch is I Need More. “More venom, more dynamite, more disaster,” spits Pop, “I need more than I ever did before.” According to Trynka, the song is an exploration of Pop’s narcissism, which was partly inspired by his time in that psychiatric institution. Intriguingly, Murray Zucker, the doctor who treated him in 1975, has said the hypomania he diagnosed might have been a misdiagnosis, adding that I Need More is a “brilliant exploration” of narcissism as a condition. It’s a rough and ready, picaresque adventure into Ig’s id, while musically the song swings with a menace that’s oddly reminiscent of the Fall. 7. Repo Man In the early 80s, Iggy was struck by hard luck, tax demands and artistic underperformance, but much of his misfortune could be attributed to a tendency to self-sabotage. Record contracts came and went, and musically he lost his way as he persisted in beating his brains, winding up paying another visit to Dr Zucker in 1983. The British movie director Alex Cox found him in an unfurnished studio off Sunset Strip and gave him carte blanche to do whatever he wanted with the theme to Repo Man. “At the time, I’d had a hiccup in my career due to my wild lifestyle,” said Iggy. “I was sort of on the ropes, not making much money … It was like a gift from God to express myself.” Joining forces with ex-Sex Pistol Steve Jones, who was now clean, as well as members of Blondie, Iggy delivered another biting indictment of LA living, which begins with the lines: “I was riding on a concrete slab, down a river of useless flab / it was such a beautiful day / I heard a witchdoctor say, ‘I’ll turn you into a toadstool.’” Repo Man – the song – is a stream-of-consciousness masterclass conceived and recorded in 20 minutes flat. It’s one of Iggy’s indisputable highlights of the decade, though to be fair, there weren’t too many of those. 8. Shades “There’s a fine line between entertaining flamboyance and being a prat,” said the newly self-aware singer. “I was becoming Don Quixote.” His getting clean and sober also coincided with reconvening his artistic relationship with David Bowie. Again Bowie was there at his lowest ebb with the promise of redemption, and 1986 saw Pop’s profile rise again. There were even hits, notably a cover of Johnny O’Keefe’s The Wild One, renamed Real Wild Child, which went Top 10 in the UK. The resulting album, Blah Blah Blah, certainly sounds like a product of its time, but some of the songs cut through the fluorescent sheen, especially Shades, which is a much better David Bowie song than the ones he was writing for himself at the time. It’s a dizzyingly romantic love song that Iggy carries off with surprising aplomb. “I’m not the kind of guy who dresses like a king / And a really fine pair of shades means everything,” he sings, enamoured with his new present from his sweetheart. “And the light that blinds my eyes shines from you.” 9. Wild America It may surprise some that Iggy Pop’s best selling album to date is 1990’s Brick by Brick, mainly thanks to his first US top 40 hit, Candy, a duet with the B52s’ Kate Pierson. The album was poor, and at times, puerile; the follow-up, American Caesar, was vastly superior, but sold nothing like its predecessor. In fact the 90s is generally regarded as another fallow period for Pop, the nadir coming in the shape of 1996’s dreadful Naughty Little Doggie, but American Caesar is blessed with some truly fine moments, like a song that documents a night out in the US Iggy Pop style. “Now I’m in a black car with my Mexicana / She’s got methedrine but I want marijuana,” he drawls, and the morning after is recounted too: “She laughed and said Iggy / You have got a biggy.” Wild America features a scything, repetitive guitar line, while the video cuts to autobiographical footage of a shirtless Jim Osterberg recounting growing up in a Michigan trailer park. 10. Paraguay Iggy Pop’s career is strewn with some fairly indifferent collaborations, but when he gets it right, true alchemy happens. Bowie is the most obvious example of a perfect partner (80s French new wave duo Les Rita Mitsouko are probably less obvious), and then there’s Josh Homme, who has helped resurrect Iggy’s solo career. It all happened thanks to Pop reaching out to the musician by text message, suggesting they might try writing together. Subsequently Pop said Homme took him to “a place I’d never been,” while Homme added it was a place “neither of us had gone before. That was the agreement. And to go all the way.” This year’s album Post Pop Depression is a masterwork by the 69-year-old that may yet prove to be his last. If so then it’s a profound and stylish way to conclude an illustrious career. Every song is a contender, but Paraguay gets the nod because of its sheer ambition. During the clattering, blues-driven outro, Iggy dreams of “getting away to a new life / Where there’s not so much fucking knowledge / I don’t want any of this ‘information’.” Right to the last, there’s an internal struggle and the desire to get away, though at least this time its for new climes rather than disappearing into a deleterious hole (Paraguay may well symbolise a spiritually higher plane). Those that know the singer well often talk of a duality, of the charming James Newell Osterberg versus the monster Iggy Pop. Iggy might appear to be a loser at times, but with a legendary career spanning more than half a century behind him, one can only beg to differ.
Tom Hiddleston and Taylor Swift: match made in heaven or a PR stunt? Hiddleswift. It sounds like some arcane practice out of JK Rowling but it is, of course, the latest celebrity hybrid that takes its place alongside those other magnificent centaurs, Brangelina, Bennifer and Kimye. Names that are – in ways that would require a PhD in marketing to explain – so much more than the sum of their parts. Ever since that fateful day, only last Thursday, when the Sun revealed its “world exclusive” with the deathless headline “Tinker Taylor Snogs a Spy”, the world has been coming to terms with the apparent merger of two leading glamour brands: the actor Tom Hiddleston and the singer-songwriter Taylor Swift Photographs showed the alleged couple kissing and canoodling on some rocks on a beach in Rhode Island. Exactly how and why the photographs were taken remains the subject of fevered speculation. Some suggest that they are not authentic paparazzi work, insofar as they lack that hallmark sense of furtive intrusion. The word that has been used is “staged”. That a fledgling romance between two such talented luminaries in distinct fields of the arts could be reduced to so crude an epithet is perhaps a reflection of the cynical times in which we live. That said, the images do indeed look as if a team of PR consultants and fashion stylists had just stepped out of the shot, rather than as though they were captured by lucky lurking snapper. Which raises the question: why would a singer whose private life forms the basis of her songwriting and is the source of intense interest for her army of fans and a man widely judged to be waging an unprecedentedly aggressive campaign to become the next James Bond want to place themselves in a situation that gained global exposure? Who knows? Forget the photos and enjoy the story, which comes with such a strong aroma of invention that it can only be true. It seems that they met last month at the Met Gala in New York, where Swift challenged Hiddleston to a dance. Among his many gifts – a passable Robert De Niro impression and a winningly bashful smile – Hiddleston, as YouTube will confirm, is a seriously good dancer. And if it should turn out that buried in the works of Ian Fleming is a scene in which Bond struts his funky stuff, then the job’s in the bag. Anyway, they danced, chatted and he called her the moment he heard that Swift had broken up from her boyfriend, the Scottish DJ Calvin Harris. Anonymous sources – and this tale features more anonymous sources than a Seymour Hersh exposé – say that he sent her flowers and deployed that bashful smile – so lethal in The Night Manager that it completely disarmed an arms dealer – to devastating effect. Or perhaps not. No one official is saying. Even the PRs are withholding a clarifying statement. All that leaves for the watching world are the enigmatic clues left on social media. Harris has unfollowed Swift and composed a (since deleted) gnomic tweet: “Oh boy it’s about to go down”. That may have referred to his next gig, but the consensus of opinion is that it means they are never ever getting back together. If love has always been cruel, in the age of 24-hour status updates it can be particularly unforgiving. But then Swift, still only 26, has never been one for keeping her emotions to herself. As Rolling Stone said, she overshares “louder than anyone else in the game”. Her deceptively catchy brand of country-pop is shot through with the bittersweet memories of her various relationships with, among others, Jake Gyllenhaal, One Direction’s Harry Styles and Robert F Kennedy’s grandson, Conor. She is an uncannily gifted songwriter, able to infuse irresistible riffs with surprisingly poignant lyrics. Her album 1989 – the year of her birth – has been hailed as a pop classic. She is hugely successful, rivalled only by Adele on the international stage, and said to be worth in the neighbourhood of $200m. It says something about the elusive nature of sexual equality that a young, powerful, rich, attractive and extremely famous woman still represents a problematic equation. History, even more enlightened recent history, is not overendowed with men who are comfortable with taking a lesser position in the spotlight. But say what you will about old Etonians, they tend not to suffer from a shortfall in confidence. And one of Hiddleston’s strongest suits is his easy physical charm. “He has an exceptional sense of rhythm and moves like a dream,” the director Joanna Hogg has said. And he looks not only smart enough to recognise the great good fortune that life has brought him, but also to enjoy it. As he told an interviewer a couple of years ago when his career was starting to take off, with major parts in Steven Spielberg’s War Horse adaptation and the Marvel Comics’ Thor series: “It’s mad and bananas and amazing. But I can handle it for the simple reason that it genuinely feels like it’s not real. You know when you go to a fancy dress party and everyone looks incredible and there are crazy things hanging from the ceiling? For about five hours or so, you enter into another world and then, when you come out of it, you are sitting at home with a cup of tea and a biscuit and you’re thinking to yourself, ‘Well, that was weird. Fun, but weird.’ That’s exactly what it feels like.” The suffering artist he is not. Having grown up in Oxford, attended the Dragon School, Eton and then Cambridge, where he gained a double first in classics, there is little argument that he has had a privileged start in life. His father was a self-made man from a working-class background in Glasgow who wanted to give his children a leg-up. His parents split up when he was 13 and had just started Eton, an experience of which he said: “I like to think it made me more compassionate in my understanding of human frailty.” As a consequence, he has often been cast in film and television roles as a handsome young man condemned to accept a blessed existence. In this, he has never been better than in his very first film role in Joanna Hogg’s excellent Unrelated, playing the object of a middle-aged woman’s thwarted desires. There is a boyish but unruffled quality about him that some critics have construed as complacency. Although The Night Manager – the most expensive audition for the Bond part ever filmed – was a success, it was said that Hiddleston didn’t do much. But it’s fair to say that his main responsibility was looking captivating to both the male and female characters alike and he managed this with aplomb. However, if the photos, and the subsequent ones of the couple getting on Swift’s private jet, are true (even if staged), then Hiddleston is going to come under the kind of scrutiny that will test his refined unflappability to the very limit. Swift, who likes to surround herself with a posse of famous friends (Lena Dunham, Cara Delevingne, Ellie Goulding), is used to the attention. She was declared a prodigy in the New Yorker when she was just 16. Taught to play guitar by a computer repairman when she was 12, she showed such promise that her parents relocated the family to Nashville when she was 14. By the time she was 18, her second album, Fearless, was a multimillion bestseller. She is nine years younger than Hiddleston, but she has been in show-business as long as he has and she has within her a resilience that belies her tender years. The press has written in detail about all her relationships, but then so has she, the difference being that she doesn’t name names. As she has said: “The fact that I’ve never confirmed whom those songs are about makes me feel there is still one card I’m holding.” She hates the idea that she has been “calculating” about her private life, using it to increase her public reach. “You can be accidentally successful for three or four years,” she told one interviewer who raised the issue. “Accidents happen. But careers take hard work.” As do relationships, especially in the glare of carefully arranged paparazzi cameras. Perhaps Hiddleswift will handle it with the ironic understanding that it’s not real but mad and bananas and amazing and it’s all just weird fun. But if they don’t, well at least they make a pretty – if not entirely convincing – picture. THE HIDDLESTON AND SWIFT FILE Born Taylor Alison Swift, Reading, Pennsylvania, 13 December 1989; Thomas William Hiddleston, London, 9 February 1981. Best of times Swift’s fifth album, 1989, released in 2014 sold more copies in its opening week than any album in the previous 12 years. It also won three Grammy awards. Hiddleston’s title role in BBC1’s hit spy thriller The Night Manager was a huge hit with critics and TV audiences. He’s favourite to be the new James Bond. Worst of times When Kanye West ruined Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech at the 2009 MTV VMA awards, telling the audience that Beyoncé should have won. Hiddleston starred in a 2014 Jaguar commercial criticised for encouraging irresponsible driving. She says “I went out on a normal amount of dates in my early 20s and I got absolutely slaughtered for it. I didn’t date for two-and-a-half years. Should I have had to do that? No.” He says “You can’t treat the woman you love as a piece of meat. You should treat your love like a princess. Give her love songs, something with real meaning.”
Roger Daltrey planning solo record and book – but he may not release them In October the Who’s Roger Daltrey will appear at the star-studded Desert Trip festival in California. Now he’s adding two projects to his calendar: a solo album and an autobiography – both of which, he says, may never see the light of day. “I’m working on a solo project, but I don’t know whether I’ll ever release it,” Daltrey said in an interview with Rolling Stone. “I’m working on a biography … [but] I’ll only release it if it’s a good book. I don’t care how long it takes. “I won’t sign a publishing deal. People sign a publishing deal and they have to put it out because they’ve taken the money. Well, bollocks to the money, I don’t care about the money. I want [to write] a good book.” He also expressed concern about the way in which people consume music for free online: “The way the internet has come about has been the biggest robbery in history,” he said, “like musicians should work for nothing.” When asked about whether the Who would put out any of its unreleased songs, he said he wouldn’t pay-to-play. “There’s no royalties, so I can’t see that ever happening. There’s no record business. How do you get the money to make the records? … I’m certainly not going to pay money to give my music away for free. I can’t afford to do that. I’ve got other things I could waste the money on,” Daltrey said. “Musicians are getting robbed every day,” he added. “You notice, the internet is a slowly but surely destructive thing. I don’t think it’s improved people’s lives. It’s just made them do more work and feel like they’re wanted a bit more, but it’s all bollocks.” A new solo record would be Daltrey’s first lone venture since 1992’s Rocks in the Head. The Who frontman has released eight solo studio albums so far, kicking off in 1973 with Daltrey. He says he has collected “five great tracks” for a proposed solo record, and is “looking for another five”. What musical direction might he take? “I started off as a soul singer. I’ve never done a soul album. I’m playing some stuff like that. I’ve got ranges in my voice that people have never, ever heard.”
The Family review – riddle of a Melbourne cult goes largely unanswered The formation of Melbourne-based cult The Family and the behaviour of its charismatic leader – a yoga teacher who claimed, as you do, to be Jesus Christ reincarnated – is a terrific story, full of incredulous events and hair-raising details. Teaching a hodge-podge of eastern mysticism and Christianity, Anne Hamilton-Byrne was the group’s self-appointed head honcho, who sat on a literal throne and fed her home-schooled young followers LSD. Throughout the 60s and 70s Hamilton-Byre adopted children she raised (and claimed to be her own), dressing them in identical clothes and cutting their peroxide-dyed hair in the same bob cut. Looking at photographs of them evokes memories of Village of the Damned, or the twins from The Shining (“come play with us forever and ever and ever …”). A falling out between the leader and one of her “daughters”, Sarah, spelt the beginning of the end: police raided The Family’s property in Eildon in the late 80s and legal proceedings followed. In the field of stranger-than-fiction Australian tales, this one is certainly on the podium. A terrific story indeed. But sadly, not the one presented in film-maker Rosie Jones’s ambitious attempt to make sense of it; a structurally higgledy-piggledy documentary that is less an expose than a tantalising suggestion of the history lesson that might have been. The tendency for film-makers to shoot first and “pick it up in the edit” is a particularly tempting one in documentary. Here it seems to have overwhelmed the film-maker; there’s a feeling The Family was ordered retrospectively and the task was monumental. Jones’s research is commendable (perhaps an upcoming book tie-in will provide a more accommodating format) and the film includes access to several of the now grown-up children. But the riddle of what compelled Hamilton-Byrne’s followers to behave in ways they would otherwise find morally reprehensible remains largely out of reach. So too for more elementary questions. What did a standard day at the club cult-house look like? What did the adults get up to when they weren’t drugging the kids? The Family drops most of its information about Hamilton-Byrne towards the end (her life is unquestionably interesting, journeying from an impoverished background to an insanely – in more than a single sense – privileged one) but that content might have worked better front-loaded. The film would have immeasurably benefited from a clearer, more palatable structure, a path to guide audiences through this tangled, creepy, improbable yarn. At one point a new interview appears, credited as a current member of the sect. The viewer’s response is likely to be What’s that? Say again? This thing still exists? But the film-maker greets the revelation with no sense of surprise, a frustrating approach, presumably predicated on an assumption audiences more or less know this story. Most of us don’t. A great one remains – evidently, like the cult itself – lurking somewhere, waiting to be told.
No 10 rules out forcing obese people to undergo treatment to get benefits Downing Street has ruled out adopting David Cameron’s proposal for obese people or those with drug or alcohol problems to be forced to undergo treatment as a condition of receiving benefits. Theresa May’s deputy official spokesman confirmed that the idea of sanctions for people who are obese or have addiction problems and refuse help is “not under consideration”, after a government-commissioned review found that there was no evidence it would work. The review by Dame Carol Black, a doctor and academic who is the principal of Newnham College, Cambridge, was set up by Cameron 18 months ago to examine the wider effects of obesity and addiction on employment levels. Black was specifically tasked by the then prime minister with looking into whether very overweight people, or those with addiction problems, could be deprived of benefits if they declined treatment. At the time, Cameron said: “Whether it is drug or alcohol problems, or preventable conditions in terms of obesity, support and treatment will be there for you. And we must look at what we do when people simply say ‘no thanks’ and refuse that help, but expect taxpayers to carry on funding their benefits.” But in her report published on Monday, Black said such a proposal was impractical, in part because of ethical concerns and the fear that such sanctions could lead people to try to hide their problems. She also found that it would be hard to accurately identify benefits claimants with addictions, and noted that treatments and other help were too sporadically available for such a plan to be effective. Instead, her report recommended a series of measures to improve the way the benefits system deals with people with addictions, and make access to work or volunteering a part of treatment regimes. “After a searching inquiry, we are clear that a fresh approach is needed, one that brings together health, social and employment agencies in new collaborative ways, personalised to the circumstances of each individual,” Black said. Following the report’s publication, May’s spokesman said: “Withdrawing benefits from obese people is not under consideration.” In the 140-page report, Black noted that with the benefits system, “there is no reliable way of identifying claimants with addictions and there is a distinct lack of specialised support”. “We doubt whether mandation of treatment – one of the possibilities mentioned in our terms of reference – should be the first response to the evident problems for the cohorts under discussion,” she said. “Further, there is a strong consensus that mandating treatment would lead to more people hiding their addiction than revealing it. “We also heard from health professionals [with] serious concerns about the legal and ethical implications of mandating treatment, and whether this would be a cost-effective approach.” On obesity, she said the relationship between being overweight and out of work was complex. “We cannot infer a direct causal relationship between obesity and unemployment,” the report noted, recommending more research on the subject. In her introduction to the report, Black said she thought the benefits system required “significant change” to better help people with addictions into work, and any connection with obesity seemed indirect. While treatments for drug and alcohol dependence were easily available, with waiting times for both about three or four days, only about 20% of people entering such schemes have a job and relatively few people find work during or after the treatment, she said. “It is clear that providing treatment alone, without additional support such as employment, housing and skills, has limited and inconsistent effects on employment,” the report found. Black recommended that claimants with drug or alcohol problems should see a health professional about what could be preventing them from obtaining work. She said employers should be encouraged to give jobs to those who have faced addiction, for example by providing grants to small companies that employ people with a history of alcohol or drug dependence. While the report found relatively little difference in employment rates between obese adults and those of normal weight – 68% and 70% respectively – the gap increased by more than 10 percentage points for severely obese people. But establishing a causal relationship was difficult, with unemployed obese adults more likely to live in the most deprived areas, and have poor qualifications and health issues such as diabetes. The report found there was a significant overlap between obesity and poor mental health. In a statement, the minister for disabled people, Penny Mordaunt, said Black’s findings “support our plans to join up employment and health systems”. “Your success in life shouldn’t be determined by the circumstances of your birth. We are committed to helping people break down the barriers they face and secure a good job where they can fulfil their potential,” she said.
Help us check the facts of politicians' claims about the EU As the referendum on Britain’s place in the European Union draws nearer, both the Leave and Remain campaigns are flinging facts and statistics around with abandon. But which can we actually trust? George Osborne claims that public services such as health and education could face £36bn of cuts as a result of a vote to leave. But he has come under fire from Brexit campaigners who have questioned the Treasury’s calculations. Tory MP John Redwood described the forecast as “completely worthless” and Stewart Jackson, Conservative MP for Peterborough, mocked the chancellor by producing a fake report written on the back of an envelope. Claims made by those backing a Brexit have prompted similar disputes. Labour MP Gisela Stuart – chair of Vote Leave campaign – says that health tourism costs UK £700m a year; a claim that has been dubbed “hugely misleading” by those on the Remain side. So when it comes to the referendum, what is the truth? We want you to help us to check. Does a piece of data sound suspicious? Do you have evidence to prove statistics are being misused? Help us sort the facts from the fiction by filling in the form below.
Scrutiny grows on Manchester United’s José Mourinho as losses mount up It fell to Marouane Fellaini to break the news. Put up in front of the media following his team’s defeat by Watford, the midfielder told French TV: “We can say it’s a little crisis because a club like Manchester United cannot lose three games.” And there it was, the c-word. The Belgian might be overstating matters. As far as the league is concerned, the crisis-hit United are only a point behind Liverpool, who everybody agrees have started the season like a train. What’s more, a club very much like United lost four games in a row in December last year and three in a row in January 2013. So maybe Fellaini’s remarks ought to be paraphrased: a club like Sir Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United should not lose three games when the team are managed by José Mourinho. This is the first time Mourinho has lost three consecutive games in a season since he was fresh in the door at Porto in 2002. And two of those defeats came in the Champions League at the hands of Real Madrid. It is also the worst league start in the Portuguese’s all-conquering career since he first made his bow as manager, at União de Leiria in 2001, and even then his first five matches served up only a solitary defeat. The Special One has earned a reputation in this country, among many other things, as being a manager who hits the ground running, inspiring immediate faith and fire in his teams. This legend was forged in his first stint at Chelsea, where he won four of his first five games in the 2004-05 season, starting with a 1-0 win against Ferguson’s United. It set a tone that took Chelsea to their first title in 50 years. Looking back on Mourinho’s past achievements and the almost endless commentary he provided on them is interesting because the tropes that define his success have always been clearly articulated. After defeating United in August 2004 he happily admitted that his side had played with a defensive mentality, even though they were at home. “If you have to play a little bit different to win a game then you have to do it,” he said. In further remarks he stressed the team’s unity and concentration, comparing it favourably with his rivals with “great teams [who] have worked with their managers for a long time”. Just as visible in the rearview mirror are Mourinho’s flaws, however, particularly his penchant for personal attacks. It was Luke Shaw’s turn to feel the wrath of his manager at the weekend; the full-back, only recently returned from long-term injury, was accused of lacking the necessary “tactical and mental” strength to compete. In August 2004 it was United’s Mikaël Silvestre who got it in the neck. The United defender had suggested Chelsea might struggle to gel immediately under their new manager. Mourinho made sure to issue a response. “When Silvestre said we haven’t got the time to create a big team spirit he was wrong,” he said. On arrival in Italy as manager of Internazionale in 2008, Mourinho won three of his first five matches. He lost the fifth, which happened to be the derby against Milan. This time it was the opponents who had played defensively, but Mourinho was less understanding. “It’s better to lose a game than to be afraid of playing football,” he said. “Milan have a lot of experience and they know how to control the tempo, commit a tactical foul or pretend to have an injury to slow down the pace.” Kaká was singled out, having in Mourinho’s eyes feigned being fouled. The Brazilian rejected the accusation: “Mourinho makes me laugh. He’s funny.” Mourinho had the last laugh, though, as Inter won the league. After winning the Champions League with Inter, Mourinho made his move to Real where he had the best start of his career. Madrid went unbeaten in all competitions until the end of November, but that defeat was a calamity, the 5-0 manita whitewash by Barcelona that remains the worst defeat in his career. The performance was so bad, he could not even single anyone out. “I leave disappointed both in my team and my players, individually,” he said. When Mourinho returned to Chelsea as “the Happy One” in 2013, he seemed content to pursue Roman Abramovich’s ambitions of expansive, attacking football. That changed with his first defeat, in his fourth match, 1-0 at Everton. Mourinho’s verdict: “Artistic football is no use without goals.” He went on to blame André Schürrle for missing “three big chances”, before adding, in the same breath: “I don’t like to be critical of players who missed some chances.” Chelsea went on to win the league the following year, but yet the abiding memory of Mourinho’s second stint at the club will be the awful defence of their title and his graceless part in it. Now, before the leaves have even begun to turn, he is under pressure again at Old Trafford. Mourinho has taken jobs at big clubs that have fallen from grace, those that have needed an overhaul and those with the very highest of expectations. It might be the first time, however, that he has taken a job combining all three. The scrutiny is hardly about to diminish.
Jeb Bush meets Republican field amid Trump momentum – as it happened We’re closing up shop on today’s liveblog - stay tuned for our new liveblog, which will be tuned in to the Democratic presidential primary debate in Miami! US contributor Christopher Barron has been watching the Fox News town hall with John Kasich. He finds that he is a serious candidate ... its just too bad for him that we live in very unserious times. Ohio Governor John Kasich kicked off the Fox News primetime Republican love fest with a town hall moderated by Greta Van Susteren and attended by largely undecided voters in Illinois. Governor Kasich is a serious man and a serious candidate, unfortunately for him the Republican primary electorate seems to prefer Trump’s vaudeville act or Cruz’s televangelism to his sober policy prescriptions. Kasich got specific on policy (though often in his rambling, stream of consciousness style). He spoke fluently on education, taxes, trade, health care, the economy and foreign policy - where, interestingly enough, he struck an almost libertarian tone. While others in the race have tried to take on front-runner Donald Trump head on, showing a willingness to get down in the dirt, Kasich has chosen a very different path - his entire campaign is focused on being the adult in the race. This town hall was devoid of the red meat and ramped up rhetoric you find at a Trump or Cruz or Rubio rally these days. It is clear Kasich is banking on the Republican primary electorate coming to their collective senses at some point. It doesn’t, however, seem to be a smart bet at this point. Whatever happens to Kasich in Ohio on Tuesday, watching the arc of his campaign does make me wonder how far Jeb could have gotten if he would have taken this path rather than getting drawn into the brawls with Trump. A Republican congressman has joined the growing chorus of people who have - implicitly or otherwise - compared Donald Trump to a European fascist leader in the 1930s. Chris Stewart, of Utah, compared Trump to dictator Benito Mussolini during a forum at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, according to Buzzfeed. “If some of you are, I’ll just tell you now, Donald Trump supporters, then we see the world differently,” Stewart said, “because I can’t imagine what someone is thinking.” “I’m telling you, Donald Trump does not represent Republican ideals,” Stewart continued. “He’s our Mussolini.” Stewart has endorsed Marco Rubio’s presidential bid. Former Mexican president Vicente Fox says a Donald Trump presidency could lead Mexico and the US to a trade war that would hurt both countries, according to the Associated Press. A day after Trump stretched his lead over GOP rivals with wins in Michigan, Mississippi and Hawaii, Fox says that if he were to impose tariffs Mexico would have to react in kind. Fox says: “We are going to lose everything in a trade war.” He added Wednesday that it’s up to Hillary Clinton to “save” the United States from a Trump presidency. Fox also criticized Bernie Sanders as a proponent of the kind of “stupid” populism that has led to “demagogy” in some Latin American nations. Nor does he like Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, who Fox said “denied their (Latino) origins”. Ted Cruz just scored another major-ish endorsement This morning, the Texas senator was greeted with the welcome addition of former Hewlett-Packard CEO and onetime Republican candidate for president Carly Fiorina to his roster of endorsers. This evening, Cruz has received the endorsement of another prominent female figure in the conservative movement: Meghan McCain, daughter of longtime US senator and Republican presidential nominee John McCain. “I was a huge Carly Fiorina fan and supporter,” McCain said on Neil Cavuto’s show on Fox News, stating that it was Fiorina’s endorsement of Cruz that moved her to support the Texas senator. “I think her most notable moment was when Donald trump talked about her face, and she responded so eloquently during the debate,” she continued. “I think she has the capacity getting a lot of young conservative women taking a second look at Ted Cruz.” “For me, honestly, I’ve been hesitant about Ted Cruz, and the Carly Fiorina endorsement has swayed my personal opinion,” McCain said. Her father the senator has been less positive about Cruz, famously dismissing him as a “whacko bird.” The ’s Stuart Dredge spotted this... thing in Manhattan’s Union Square today: Donald Trump is winning not just with voters, but with former New York Yankee outfielders as well. This afternoon, former Yankee Johnny Damon announced his support for the Republican frontrunner. Damon, a former contestant on The Apprentice, defended Trump’s controversial views on immigration in an interview with the New York Daily News. “Everyone is calling him a racist. He just wants people to come into this country legally and fill out the proper paperwork. That’s how I’m viewing it,” said the two-time all star. On Tuesday, former Yankee outfielder Paul O’Neill announced his support for Trump while attending the candidate’s election night press conference in Jupiter, Florida. Trump even mentioned the five time World Series champion by name in the course of his meandering monologue. While elected officials have been loathe to associate themselves with Trump, the Republican frontrunner has long kept up ties to the world of sports. He has rolled the endorsements of a number of NASCAR drivers and famously is friends with New England Patriots star quarterback Tom Brady. With the endorsements of Damon and O’Neill, the Republican frontrunner is now supported by as many former outfielders for the New York Yankees as sitting GOP governors. It’s been a good season for candidates who can channel the anger of the electorate and we saw that again on Tuesday night, when exit polls continued to turn up in favor of Donald Trump, while Bernie Sanders pulled off a surprise victory in Michigan. The victories for Trump and Sanders come after a week when both men’s chances were being played down. Sanders’ campaign had been all but left for dead after he failed to make significant inroads with minority voters on Super Tuesday. Trump faced attacks from the party establishment (most notably Mitt Romney) and scorn from the media establishment for his habit of asking people to raise their hands and pledge allegiance to him at rallies, something Cruz quickly seized upon. “We’ve had seven years of a president who thinks he’s an emperor,” he quipped. For a fleeting moment on Tuesday, it looked like Trump’s star might finally be fading. After all, on Saturday he only won by a few percentage points in Louisiana and Kentucky, while Cruz won handily in Maine and Kansas. But winning by less is still, to put it in Trump terms, #winning. And Tuesday’s results suggest the weekend was merely an ebb in the candidate’s current. Former secretary of state Hillary Clinton and Vermont senator Bernie Sanders are meeting tonight for their fourth one-on-one debate, and their second in less than a week. Coming on the heels of an embarrassing defeat in Michigan for Clinton (and a correlative win for Sanders) and less than a week before major primaries in Ohio and Florida, tonight’s debate will feature a resurgent Sanders and a defensive Clinton - a dynamic we haven’t seen on the debate stage since after Clinton’s massive win in South Carolina. Before we get to the knock-down-drag-out, here’s a quick run-through of the whos, whats, wheres, whens and whys of tonight’s debate: Who’s going to be there? Aside from Clinton and Sanders, the event will be hosted by anchors Maria Elena Salinas and Jorge Ramos, of Univision, and Karen Tumulty, of the Washington Post. The audience will largely be composed of Florida voters, with a sizable contingent of students from Miami Dade Community College. What’s the topic? Most of the Democratic primary debate moderators have taken an ecumenical approach to questioning the candidates, picking and choosing from current events, foreign policy, economic issues, social services and dumb questions from YouTube celebrities. With Univision as the debate’s co-sponsor, expect a fair number of questions around issues relating to Latinos, including immigration and social programs. With the college student contingent present in the audience, the cost of higher education and student-loan debt will likely make an appearance as well. Where is the debate being held? The Miami debate will be held at Miami Dade Community College, “the nation’s largest campus-based institution of higher learning and the most diverse.” When is the debate? The debate will begin at 9 p.m. EST, although since it’s being broadcast on CNN, it could drag the intro out for 47 minutes until a candidate actually takes the stage. (Sorry for calling you out, Anderson Cooper, but some of us have kids to babysit.) How can I watch it? The debate will be simulcast from Univision, CNN and the Washington Post’s website. Fusion will also hold a livestream of the debate. This is what we call “poor advance work.” Marco Rubio is big into the clickbait-y email subject lines: Granted, he continues that “If we hand the conservative movement over to Donald Trump by making him the Republican nominee, we will lose,” but the beleaguered Florida senator got your attention, right? One of the nation’s most influential gun-control advocacy organizations has come out strongly against Vermont senator Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign, calling his vote in 2006 to keep law enforcement from shutting down gun dealers who operate illegally “unforgivable.” “This is one of the most dangerous and potentially deadly pieces of special interest legislation to ever come before Congress,” said Dan Gross, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, in a statement. “And where was Bernie Sanders when it came to a vote? Right where the corporate gun lobby wanted him. Sanders voted to effectively tie the hands of law enforcement and shield gun dealers who knowingly sold weapons illegally and irresponsibly. Most gun dealers operate on the up and up, but the few ‘bad apples’ who flood our nation’s streets with crime guns need to be stopped, not granted a license to kill.” The statement refers to H.R. 5092, a bill to soften punishments for firearm retailers and dealers that was introduced during Sanders’ final term in the House of Representatives before he became a US senator. The bill passed the House, but died in the senate. “The Brady Campaign is calling on senator Sanders to renounce his shameful vote for this dangerous bill during tonight’s Democratic debate,” Gross continued in the statements. “His vote to protect irresponsible gun dealers, his repeated votes for gun industry special legal protections, and his five votes against the Brady Bill further affirm that, for Americans who have had enough of gun violence, Bernie Sanders is on the wrong side of the issue.” The reigning Dalai Lama, leader of Tibetan Buddhists and winner of the Nobel peace prize, may have learned a few things from Pope Francis after the pontiff’s public feud with billionaire Republican frontrunner Donald Trump. Namely: Don’t do it. “Oh, that’s your business!” the Dalai Lama told ABC News in an interview today, after he was asked “if you have any views on the presidential candidate in this country who is making the most noise, Donald Trump.” “Firstly, I have no right or option to vote,” the Dalai Lama said, pointing out that he is only in the United States for a short visit. He did say that “sometimes I feel, oh, too much personal criticism” on the campaign trail. “Serious discussion about policy matters, that’s useful,” the Dalai Lama said. “But sometimes, little bits of personal criticism in these things - that looks a little bit cheap. That’s my view.” “Silly!” he said of the state of the Republican primary shaking his head. Donald Trump is about to take his political roadshow to its biggest stage yet, report the ’s Ben Jacobs and Zach Stafford: On Friday, the Republican frontrunner will campaign in Chicago, the third largest city in the US. Since launching his campaign in June, Trump has filled arenas, stadiums, and airplane hangars across much of the country but has tended to stick to predominantly white and politically conservative areas. But with his rally on the campus of the University of Illinois, Chicago, Trump will be campaigning in a city that is a Democratic stronghold and has a large minority population. A Rubio spokesman seeks to spike rumors that the Florida senator would ever consider leaving the race before Florida votes on Tuesday: Former Republican hopeful Jeb Bush will meet with Marco Rubio today and with Ted Cruz and John Kasich tomorrow ahead of Thursday night’s Republican debate in Miami, multiple organizations reported. Why? A Bush spokeswoman “wouldn’t say where or when the meetings will take place other than to confirm they will occur,” the Washington Post reported. Clinton is inspired by the women of Avalon Bakery in Detroit. But they’re not inspired back: Bloomberg’s Michael Bender explores Trump’s support base, starting with the scene last night at the Trump news conference at his Palm Beach golf course: As has become Trump’s habit in South Florida, he invited club members to the news conference, and seated them in the first few rows. For all the huge rallies and talk of angry outsiders, this small, expensively dressed group is Trump’s real base. There are CEOs, insurance brokers, health-care executives, former debutantes, trophy wives, and a woman in a short, sparkling silver dress (and thick bracelet to match) with an animal fur wrapped around her like a sash. Read the full piece here. The former nominee acquits himself fairly well, do you think? On Jimmy Kimmel Live which has the running series Celebrities Read Mean Tweets. What’s happening in the comments? We missed a lot of the action last night under the pressure of rapid results. So let’s dig in – The Fiorina endorsement A superdelegates sham? The party writes the rules for awarding delegates, the order in which states vote, the number of bonus delegates a state may get, and the selection of superdelegates, who indeed are not beholden to the rank-and-file voters. And if that sounds to you like a rigged game – well, why would you think that? Bernie versus Donald R.I.P. ‘politics as usual’ The energetic Republican gaming-out of ways to block Donald Trump has included a scenario in which the party gets Marco Rubio and John Kasich to stay in after losing their home states in order to continue splitting the vote with Trump to deny him the 1,237 delegates. (It that sounds a bit Rube Goldberg, consider that a variant plan has Kasich calling on his supporters to vote for Rubio in Ohio and Rubio returning the favor in Florida in an effort to build a cooperative coalition to beat Trump. Or consider the current reports of advisers urging Rubio to drop out before he even has a chance to get beaten – or win – in his home state.) That’s a long-winded way of introducing the general impression that if Rubio doesn’t win Florida next Tuesday, he’s toast: Video – Carly Fiorina endorses Ted Cruz: ‘He doesn’t care about DC cocktail parties’ Here’s another moment of political vertigo brought to you by the 2016 race for the White House: Cruz is not leveraging his presidential run as a merchandising opportunity. Loser! Actually there’s all kinds of junk you can buy in the Ted Cruz store at tedcruz.org – a cooler, a foam finger, a fan jersey, a yoga mat and a pretty snazzy looking spatula. Just cookin’ with my Ted Cruz spatula. Who wants eggs. Ted Cruz does not appear to have been what prevented Marco Rubio from winning Hawaii last night. Trump defeated Cruz in the caucuses 42-33 and Rubio ran a distant third. But yesterday team Rubio accused Cruz of more “dirty tricks” in spreading rumors on the islands that Rubio was a dropout. Cruz emails to Hawaii supporters highlighted a CNN report about advisors seeing no path to the nomination for Rubio. “Senator Cruz is up to his dirty tricks again spreading false rumors and lies,” a Rubio spokesman was quoted as saying by the New York Times. The Cruz camp similarly spread reports that Ben Carson was a dropout in advance of the Iowa caucuses. Here’s the Cruz camp statement on Fiorina’s endorsement: Carly Fiorina is a strong, principled leader and woman of faith,” said Cruz. “Our campaign is stronger with her leadership and her voice. Her story embodies the promise that in America anyone can start as a secretary and become a Fortune 50 CEO. Carly speaks the truth with courage, doesn’t back down to the Washington powerbrokers, and terrifies Hillary and the Democrats. We are blessed to have her support, and together I am confident we will continue to unite conservatives so that every American has the opportunity to achieve the unimaginable.” During the eight months of her candidacy, Fiorina showed a penchant for hitting Democratic hopeful Hillary Clinton. “Unlike another woman in this race, I actually love spending time with my husband,” she said at a January debate. There’s a Trump-sized wall between Cruz and the general election, of course. Can Fiorina help ? Fiorina, who didn’t win many votes but did win respect for sharp debate perfomances that propelled her out of the bottom tier of candidates and into the public eye, suspended her campaign almost a month ago to the day, on 10 February. Here’s part of what she said upon leaving the race: I’ve said throughout this campaign that I will not sit down and be quiet. I’m not going to start now. While I suspend my candidacy today, I will continue to travel this country and fight for those Americans who refuse to settle for the way things are and a status quo that no longer works for them. Does the Cruz endorsement fit that bill? Here’s a Fiorina’s spokesperson: Look who appeared in Florida for senator Ted Cruz: It’s former Hewlett Packard CEO and former Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina. Does anyone even have the stomach to digest more polling after what happened last night? It feels, when we’re talking about polls, like we’re talking about data that under certain conditions suggests basic features of the reality in which we live and breathe. But then Michigan happens and it is once again driven home that we might as well have been discussing a hookah-smoking blue caterpillar and a baby turning into a pig. Except at least that would’ve had some entertainment value. Anyway, three pollsters are still at it this morning in Florida and Ohio, the big 15 March prizes, and they seem to bring glad tidings for Donald Trump, glum news for Marco Rubio and a glimmer of hope for John Kasich. Florida _____________________________________________Trump______Rubio______Kasich Quinnipiac (likely GOP voters) _______45___________22 CNN/ORC (some likely voters)________40___________24 U. of North Florida (likely voters)____36___________24 Ohio Quinnipiac__________________________________38__________________________32 CNN/ORC____________________________________41__________________________35 If you missed Donald Trump’s hourlong victory news conference / sales meeting in Florida last night, you can watch the highlights – all minute of them – below. There’s quite a little story actually that has emerged from the Trump appearance, which was held at one of his golf clubs outside Palm Beach. The centerpiece of Trump’s staging was a pile of steaks and rows of wine bottles and magazines and pallets of bottled water and boxes of who knows what. Update: the steaks appear to have been halal! Donald Trump: accommodating of Muslims. Trump brought all that stuff out, he said, to show how his enemies were lying about various products he’s branded over the years. Because his enemies have said he fails all the time. The list of his failures usually includes Trump University, Trump steaks, Trump magazine, Trump vodka... and Trump airlines. But the room was too small for a plane. And Trump argued that those other concerns were still alive. But here’s a remarkable demonstration of Trump’s... chutzpah. All those props he presented to illustrate the durability of his brand – he walked off his dais at one point to handle the steaks, which were shrink-wrapped, and he told reporters all to take a bottle of wine – it was all fake, reports Mashable’s Jonathan Ellis. Here’s a snippet of Trump’s appearance: Hello and welcome to our live-wire coverage of the 2016 race for the White House. Democratic hopeful Bernie Sanders had a grand-slam night last night with an unexpected (for those with any faith in polls) win in the Michigan primary over Hillary Clinton. Sanders was supposed to be behind in Michigan by 20 points. But then it turns out he was slightly ahead. So what else that we thought we knew about this election isn’t true? The Democratic candidates themselves may get a chance to discuss the result in Miami tonight, where they are scheduled to meet for a debate, their eighth. It was a big night too for Donald Trump, who topped 47% – his best finish yet – to win Mississippi and who won Michigan by more than 11 points. Then he took the stage in a country club ballroom in Florida next to a pile of steaks (not Trump steaks?!) and cases of vodka and invited Republican holdouts to join his movement. Check out all the results here: Clinton partisans, however, have spent the past 11 hours or so pointing to the following figures ... ... and in fact Clinton did gain delegates on Sanders last night, thanks in part to her huge 83-17 win in Mississippi. But that number 2,383 somehow did not appear to come much closer. Here’s where the Republican race stands, delegates-wise: We have a wealth of politics news to catch up on today. What’s your take on what happened last night? What’s going to happen in Ohio in six days (remember the Democratic race is not, like the Republican contest, winner-take-all)? Thanks for reading – and for pitching in!
Africa's farmers fret over Brexit amid calls to boost regional trade African countries must trade more between themselves to be better equipped to deal with shocks in the global economy such as that caused by Britain’s vote to leave the EU. Speakers at a forum on the sidelines of the 14th UN Conference on Trade and Development (Unctad) said enhanced intra-African trade would reduce poverty and help development at a faster rate than most other reforms and would make regional blocs within the continent more attractive to investors. It would also help to cushion against dramatic developments in other markets. The UK-based Overseas Development Institute expects the post-Brexit slump in the pound to cost developing countries nearly $4bn (£3.1bn) in the coming year, with exports projected to decline by approximately $500m. Countries such as Bangladesh, Mauritius, Fiji, Belize and Kenya, whose flowers, garments, sugar, bananas, tea and coffee exports find a large market in the UK, are forecast to be hit particularly hard. Experts say boosting trade within Africa would go a long way towards mitigating the effects of a possible slowdown in exports. “No continent trades within itself less than Africa,” said David Stanton, director general of TradeMark East Africa, a non-profit that promotes regional and international trade. “Trading more between and within nations in the region would mean they would be far less exposed to shocks elsewhere. It would also make them more attractive to foreign direct investment and, ultimately, less dependent.” Trade between African nations stands at a modest 10%-12%; Europe’s intra-regional trade stands at 60%, and Asia at 40%. This has been blamed on a wide range of regulatory barriers that make it extraordinarily difficult for a trader on one side of the border between Kenya and Uganda, or Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, for example, to cross borders and sell farm produce. The UN’s latest Economic Report on Africa (pdf) found more than 80% of the continent’s exports are shipped overseas, mainly to the EU, China and the US. Anabel González, senior director of the World Bank’s global practice on trade and competitiveness, told a forum in Nairobi in December that in southern Africa, a truck serving supermarkets across a border may need up to 1,600 documents in permits and licences. She described one supermarket chain reporting that it lost $500 each day a truck was stuck at border points due to slow customs procedures, and spent $20,000 a week on securing import permits to distribute meat, milk and plant-based goods to its stores in the region. “If the residents of San Francisco faced the same charges in crossing the Bay Bridge to Oakland as do residents crossing the Congo river between Kinshasa and Brazzaville, a similar distance, they would pay more than $1,200 for a return trip,” she said. “As a result, passenger traffic at this obvious focal point for cross-border exchanges between the two Congos is around five times smaller than that between East and West Berlin in 1988.” Speaking in Nairobi at the Unctad conference, Pascal Lamy, former head of the World Trade Organisation, challenged authorities in the region to make it easier for businesses to trade across borders and do business more generally. “Apart from making trade possible, you have to make trade happen,” he said. “You have to address obstacles to access to the market through things like infrastructure projects, but at the same time you must ensure that people have the tools they need to trade including access to credit and the information they need.” Josephine Kizza, a Ugandan farmer representing a collective of 6,000, mainly female, farmers who grow bananas, avocados, pumpkins, jackfruit, watermelon and plums, and whose herbs and spices are finding a growing market in the UK and the EU, said it was essential to move quickly to address the uncertainty following Brexit. Kenyan tea farmers are also anxious to see what kind of deal Britain can negotiate for access to European markets. The country is the world’s biggest exporter of black tea and enjoys a large market in the UK, but 17% of imports are blended and re-exported to the EU. Stanton said the lesson regional blocs should draw is to avoid complacency and ensure citizens are more engaged and kept aware of the benefits of integration. “Maybe this is a wake-up call,” he said. “You need to ensure the public understands how the East African Community secretariat works, build strong links between capitals and keep the people closely informed so that they appreciate both the gains from working together as a bloc and the risks if it falls apart.”
Cult heroes: Amanda Palmer – a fearless one-woman creative typhoon Times and places are fuzzy. Some anonymous arena, around 2004. I can’t even remember which band I was there to review – something a bit goth, I suspect. But the pre-gig video is fried forever on to my internal Imax like a nuclear shadow, in all its surreal, expressionist cabaret glory. A woman dressed like a Weimar-era debutante mime – face pan-stick white, curlicues for eyebrows, the striped stockings of a Brechtian sex doll – slammed the window on a stream of human suitors and cuddled up instead to a clockwork boyfriend. “I turn him on and he comes to life,” she cooed, animating her robotic beau by dropping a silver penny into a slot on his chest, “automatic joy … many shapes and weights to choose from / I will never leave my bedroom / I will never cry at night again / wrap my arms around him and pretend.” By the end of the clip she’d graduated from forcing her plastic man-toy to waltz along to her entrancing music-box melody to hammering at a piano and bawling like a horror movie banshee crying out for her long-dead baby. It even came with a postmodern cry for help in the bridge, “written to make you feel smittener / with my sad picture of girl getting bitterer / Can you extract me from my plastic fantasy?” The song was Coin-Operated Boy, the band was the Dresden Dolls and the woman was Amanda Palmer. And I wasn’t the first, or the last, person dumbstruck by her. Occasionally known as Amanda Fucking Palmer, she first emerged as a leading agent provocateur of the Boston street-theatre scene. Between directing surreal Nazi-themed performance art pieces based on the music of the Legendary Pink Dots and touring the world’s tourist plazas with her Eight Foot Bride living statue act, she developed a cult following with the Dresden Dolls, the “Brechtian punk cabaret” band she formed with drummer Brian Viglione in 2000. Inviting fans to fire-breathe, stilt-walk and generally burlesque it up at their early shows, they grew a wing called the Dirty Business Brigade to co-ordinate the performers and became a keystone of the burgeoning dark cabaret movement, a parade of theatrical freaks, mimes and Moriartys. The Dresden Dolls lived out the dream of every university drama troupe that’s ever bagged free Glastonbury tickets in return for parading across the theatre fields dressed as escapees from a vaudevillian drumming workshop, but it worked because of Palmer’s innate talent, tortured demeanour and contemporary nous. Lesser artists might have defined themselves by the am dram theatrics or played it as Dita Von Teese with attitude, but Palmer dug deep into her squirming sack of issues and let her songwriting skills speak for themselves. Their debut album certainly contained enough cabaret overtones to warrant its own woodland stage in Bestival’s ambient forest, but Palmer’s savvy piano punk construction of Girl Anachronism, Coin-Operated Boy and Bad Habit was blessed with a post-millennial pop edge and her lyrics struck a chord with the damaged emo era. In interview she spoke of abortion, bisexuality, open relationships, date rape and a past as a stripper called Berlin; on record she seemed constantly on the edge of screaming emotional meltdown, tackling thorny taboos such as self-harm, romantic delirium, paedophilia and psychiatric medication in brutally frank terms. Missed Me’s portrayal of a young girl’s thought processes while being groomed for abuse was particularly disturbing: “If you kiss me mister you must think I’m pretty / If you think so mister you must want to fuck me / If you fuck me mister it must mean you love me.” Difficult pills indeed, only made palatable by the fourth wall of Palmer’s melodramatic persona and the gallows humour of the unbroken survivor. Witness her skewering an uncaring ex from behind a fake mask of indifference on first single Good Day, years before we all perfected the “look how much fun I’m having without you” Facebook album. Like other artists using their music as an open diary of tangible anguish, Palmer grew a devoted following, sucked into her expanding web of artistry. Rather than let her success in music constrain her, she remained a theatrical and poetic polymath, writing books that accompanied the Dresden Dolls albums, and encouraged and collaborating with fans on two 2006 musicals of their work: A Clockwork Waltz and The Onion Cellar. Their gigs became carnivals or nights of “celluloid vaudeville”, featuring short films made by fans and friends, local artist performances and Palmer playing impromptu solo shows of film soundtrack covers. The result was a fan community that felt intrinsically involved in her beautiful dark twisted fantasy, and deeply defensive of their hardy heroine. When Palmer blogged that her label, Roadrunner, had tried to insist that she remove shots of her “uncommercially fat” stomach from the video of a song called Leeds United from her 2008 Ben Folds-produced solo debut, Who Killed Amanda Palmer – a song, obviously, about losing a football shirt given to her by Ricky Wilson – a fan “reBELLYon” struck up online. Fans sent pictures of their stomachs to Roadrunner in their droves, eventually helping Palmer achieve her goal of being released from her contract. The album’s other videos, featuring Palmer stripped bare on Ampersand or caught mid-breakdown on Runs in the Family, received overwhelming support in the 24-hour Troll Power rally that is the YouTube comments section. When she launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund her second solo album, Theatre Is Evil, in 2012, her modest target was smashed as thoroughly as all of her bedroom mirrors. The grand total of $1.2m was the most raised by a musician at the time. In return, Palmer leaves nothing about her life and music out of bounds. On the tour for Theatre Is Evil, she invited fans to join her Grand Theft Orchestra backing band on horns and strings for a few songs, only to run into criticism from the likes of Steve Albini for not paying them out of her Kickstarter windfall. She’s regularly played all-ages guerilla gigs on the ukulele, covering the likes of Neutral Milk Hotel, NWA, Radiohead (she released an entire covers album of Radiohead songs) and, oh yes, Rebecca Black’s Friday. Sometimes, she stripped naked to let hordes of fans write and draw on her. The Daily Mail was playing with fire when it tried to turn her into faux-shock tabloid titillation in the wake of a “nip slip” at Glastonbury 2013; she responded by performing a song called Dear Daily Mail, Up Yours in the nude at London’s Roundhouse. Bold, brazen, inclusive and flamboyantly political – this is the woman who kissed, gagged, kidnapped and mock-married a Katy Perry impersonator onstage in 2008 to protest Proposition 8 – Palmer is a one-woman creative typhoon, gathering disciples and import wherever she spins. In a pop landscape full of contrived shock and ghostwritten soul-baring, Palmer’s the real deal.
Neil Young and Promise of the Real review – rocking down the nature trail After recent dalliances with combusting custom converted electric cars and less than highly praised high-fidelity music players, Neil Young is back on firmer and more familiar ground with his anti-agribusiness concept album The Monsanto Years. “Look at Mother Nature on the run, in the 21st century,” sings the grizzled dude hunched over a beat-up old upright piano in a black fedora hat and T-shirt emblazoned “EARTH”, as he contemporises a lyric from 1970’s still miraculous sounding After the Gold Rush to roars of approval from the crowd. (The line “I felt like getting high” also gets its own telling ovation.) The 70-year-old Canadian folk, country and rock icon was writing about the embattled natural world long before most people had even heard of their carbon footprint. In an atypically theatrical start to proceedings, two men dressed like poor farm hands scatter seeds across the stage, ahead of a lassoing opening solo acoustic segment that includes Heart of Gold, still powerful anti-heroin anthem The Needle and the Damage Done and, performed on a wheezing church organ, Mother Earth (Natural Anthem). After a time, as the young bucks from Promise of the Real emerge – Young’s latest backing group and collaborators, a five-piece Californian jam band featuring Willie Nelson’s sons Lukas and Micah (the former rocks a kilt) – men in hazmat suits pretend-spray pesticides about their feet. GM foods, corporate greed and America’s busted rural economy are clearly on Young’s mind at the moment, although strangely he largely eschews songs from The Monsanto Years, save for the inclusion towards the end of weary country love song to a wounded planet Wolf Moon, and the record’s supermarkets-spearing title track. (Its low choral drawls of “at Saaaafeway” sound like the most dissuasive advertising jingle ever penned.) But no matter, considering the diverse and career-spanning array of songwriting riches otherwise disbursed over two-and-half hours. They’re arranged roughly on an increasing scale of heaviosity, from the harmonica-licked rootsy likes of Out on the Weekend and Unknown Legend through to a handful of Crazy Horse numbers starting with a sludgy-rousing Down By the River that lasts nearly 20 minutes by the time its droning strains finally fade. Promise of the Real prove very able accomplices, whether hitting levitational multi-part chorus harmonies, or clustering around their esteemed patron for a feedback-whacked guitar solos tossing wig-out. Enjoyment of the show’s final act is substantially contingent on an appreciation of protracted instrumentals, but whether you’re a fan of long-form cosmic gnarl or not, you’ve got to agree that nobody does it quite like Young. Come a 15-minute Love and Only Love he’s lost in his own fretboard in front of 13,000 people, deafeningly coaxing out the final chord longer than entire songs had lasted in the show’s opening phase. After that it’s approving dad hugs all round for the band, and a short time later, a curfew-busting encore of Fuckin’ Up – a tractor-strength reminder why every generation that values howling riffs and angry dissent will find inspiration in Young’s evergreen natural anthems. • Neil Young and Promise of the Real play SSE Arena, Belfast (028 9073 9074) 7 June; First Direct Arena, Leeds (0844 248 1585), 10 June; O2 Arena, London (0844 856 0202), 11 June.
Elijah Wood qualifies comments comparing Hollywood abuse to Jimmy Savile Actor Elijah Wood has taken to Twitter to make clear he has “no first-hand experience” of a Hollywood paedophile ring, after comments he made in a Sunday Times interview made headlines around the world. The Lord of the Rings star drew parallels between what was described in the article as a US film industry culture of abuse and the prolific sex attacks carried out by TV host Jimmy Savile in the UK. He said he had been protected as a child – mainly through the efforts of his mother, who stopped him going to parties – and revealed many of his peers were regularly “preyed upon”. “You all grew up with Savile,” Wood told the Times interviewer. “Jesus, it must have been devastating. Clearly something major was going on in Hollywood. It was all organised. There are a lot of vipers in this industry – people who only have their own interests in mind.” “There is darkness in the underbelly,” he added. “If you can imagine it, it’s probably happened.” But in a lengthy series of tweets, the actor and producer said his only knowledge of Hollywood paedophilia was drawn from reading articles and viewing the 2015 documentary film An Open Secret, directed by Amy Berg, which deals with the subject. “The Sunday Times interviewed me about my latest film but the story became about something else entirely,” said Wood. “It prompted a number of false and misleading headlines. I had just seen a powerful documentary and I briefly spoke with the reporter about the subject which had consequences I did not intend or expect. Lesson learned. “Let me be clear: This subject of child abuse is an important one that should be discussed and properly investigated. But as I made absolutely clear to the writer, I have no first hand experience or observation of the topic, so I cannot speak with any authority beyond articles I have read and films I have seen.” An Open Secret focuses on paedophilia in Hollywood and the alleged effect it has had on a number of child performers. Despite making headlines prior to its release, the documentary failed to find an audience and was limited to only a few screenings in a small number of cinemas last year.
'She seemed shy. Then suddenly this wild beast came out' – my 10 years shooting Kate Bush “Any other star,” says Guido Harari, “would have gone crazy. They’d have probably thrown me out.” It was 1am one night in 1989 and the Italian had been photographing Kate Bush non-stop for 15 hours. “We hadn’t eaten. We weren’t really talking. Just shoot, costume change, more makeup, shoot, costume change, more makeup, shoot.” You worked in silence? “Yes. It was like we had telepathic communication.” Bush had asked Harari to do the official photo shoot for her new album The Sensual World. And then, in the early hours, Harari had a bright idea. “I thought she looked like the figurehead of a ship. So I would make her look as though she was swimming towards the camera underwater.” Harari decided to create this image by shooting Bush in a Romeo Gigli dress in front of a rented painted backdrop that looked like a Pollock painting. Then he would ask her to step out of the shot, rewind the film on his Hasselblad camera and shoot the backdrop again, making it look like she was a swimming through a submarine world of drips and blobs. And then he had another idea. Why not have two images of Kate Bush on the same frame? “And then I thought: why only two Kates? Why not three Kates – all swimming in the water? She had to stand really still so she wouldn’t go out of focus because I was using a wide aperture, so there was no depth of field. She had to walk out of the shot, then back in, stand very still, and do the same again. I knew it was going to be great but it was going to take time and patience – and you don’t get either often from famous people when you’re photographing them.” Isn’t that when her PR minder should have intervened and said: Guido, enough already? “Well yes! But there was no minder. She was never part of what she called the machine.” As we chat, Harari shows me shots from his new book The Kate Inside, which documents his 10 years photographing the British pop star. It shows her wearing a T-shirt that says: I am a prima donna. “My God,” he says. “I’ve worked with some real prima donnas, not to mention any names. She wasn’t one of them.” Indeed, there is a copy of her handwritten thank you note which says: “You’ve made me look great.” Harari has made his name over the years with disarmingly odd images of musicians. Leonard Cohen asleep on a little table before a huge painting; Tom Waits strutting in an improbably voluminous cape; Laurie Anderson and Lou Reed in a moment of tenderness, her nuzzling nose disappearing into his open shirt. Harari was a Kate Bush fan from the first time he heard her first single, Wuthering Heights, on the radio in 1978. “She was a pioneer, especially in Britain where no solo female artist had had a number one-selling album until she came along. And you had the sense that, despite her wistful manner, she had balls of steel.” The photographer first met her in 1982 in Milan, when she was promoting her album The Dreaming. In the book he describes his first impressions:“Beautiful golden eyes, pouty lips, a big mane of hennaed hair.” Bush and her dancers had just come from a TV studio. “She was wearing what looked like decaying astronaut gear,” he recalls. “I had my equipment with me, so I asked them to improvise. What amazed me was how she switched. She seemed to be this shy girl then suddenly this wild beast came out. ” In Milan, Harari showed her proofs for a new book he was making aboutLindsay Kemp. The choreographer had trained the teenage Kate Bush in the mid-1970s, becoming a mentor to her, as he had been for David Bowie. “So my book was like a calling card – showing her that I understood where she was coming from artistically.” Three years later, Bush called, asking if he would do the official shoot for her album Hounds of Love. “I went to meet her at her parents’ farmhouse in Kent. She had built a 48-track studio. One thing that really struck me was that there was no glass between the control room and where the musicians recorded. It was a place of silence and retreat from the rock’n’roll world. She had no desire to go to parties or be famous. Instead, she had her family around her. Her father was her manager and her brother had taken photos for her previous albums.” For the Hounds of Love shoot, Bush told Harari that she would bring clothes that would be brown, blue and gold. “Nothing else! No other clues! So I got some backdrops I thought would go with those colours, and at 8am she turned up at the studio with her makeup woman and a few outfits and we went to work.” Most of the photographs in Harari’s book have never been seen before. “There are lots of outtakes. What would happen is, at the end of the day, I’d have hundreds of rolls of film which I’d edit and then send to Kate. She’d send, say, four images to the record company. What nobody has seen until now is the progress through the day’s shoot. They really give a sense of her. The way she’s goofy one minute and then posing the next.” After doing the photography for Hounds of Love and The Sensual World, in 1993 Harari was asked to be the stills photographer for her 50-minute film The Line, The Cross and the Curve starring Miranda Richardson, Lindsay Kemp and Bush, and showcasing songs from Bush’s album The Red Shoes. “It was a great invitation because I could be a fly on the wall. No fancy set ups, just me recording what was happening.” He’s particularly proud of his shot of Bush asleep on set in her curlers with Kemp posing behind her head. “I know she was disappointed in the film, she maybe thought it was a flop - not commercially but for her. So the photos were never published.” That shoot marked the end of their collaboration, but there could have been another chapter. In 1998, Bush phoned Harari and asked if he would photograph her with guitarist Danny McIntosh and their newborn son, Bertie. “I said, ‘No. This is a private moment, keep it as it is.’” Harari goes back to that Hounds of Love shoot, recalling Bush’s rapid transformations. First she appeared in an orange jacket with padded shoulders. “She looked like Joan Collins. And then she went off to the dressing room and came out wearing this fabulous purple scarf, like a woman from 1900. And then she disappeared again and I wondered where she was, so I went to the dressing room. And there she was sitting in a chair in this thick white Kabuki make up. She looked great, even with the powder still on her shoulders, but there was one detail missing – so I took her lipstick and smeared it across her lips.” The Kate Inside is available from Wall of Sound Gallery. An exhibition of 50 photos from the book runs at Art Bermondsey Project Space, London, from 13-30 September
George Osborne: 'Brexit won a majority. Hard Brexit did not' George Osborne has warned Theresa May against pursuing a “hard Brexit” that would see the UK drifting away from cooperation with the rest of Europe. The former chancellor made the remarks at a speech in Chicago, in a sign that he intends to continue to play a role in the political debate about leaving the EU, despite departing the government at the same time as David Cameron. Osborne, who campaigned strongly to remain, argued that it was unwise for politicians to claim the UK had a stronger hand in negotiations than the EU. “I find some of the take-it-or-leave-it bravado we hear from those who assume Europe has no option but to give us everything we want more than a little naive,” he told the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. “We need to be realistic that this is a two-way relationship – that Britain cannot expect to maintain all the benefits that came from EU membership without incurring any of the costs or the obligations.” He urged May’s government to “resist the false logic that leads from exiting the EU to exiting all forms of European cooperation – and that values the dangerous purity of splendid isolation over the practical necessity of cooperation in the real world”. “Brexit won a majority. Hard Brexit did not,” Osborne said. The former chancellor also predicted that there would be no serious progress in negotiations with the EU until after the French and German elections next year. “It is highly unlikely that the rest of Europe will be in any position to conduct serious negotiations until the autumn of next year. “My experience of six years of European negotiations is that nothing serious happens until the French and, especially, the German governments take a view – and both countries will be preoccupied with their own domestic elections for much of next year.” The Tory MP Dominic Grieve, a former attorney general and leading supporter of the Open Britain campaign group, said: “George Osborne is absolutely right that a hard Brexit has no mandate and would be no answer to the problems Britain faces. “In fact, it would put jobs and livelihoods at risk by erecting new barriers to trade with Europe. As he said, being close to Europe despite the Brexit vote is vital for Britain’s future. “Our economic future depends on membership of the single market, while cooperation with Europe on security is crucial in the fight against terrorism and organised crime.” It was Osborne’s first major speech since he lost his job when May took over from Cameron as prime minister in July. Since then, she has set about unravelling key aspects of Osborne’s economic policy and overturning central tenets of Cameron’s premiership, such as his opposition to bringing back grammar schools. Osborne indicated in a BBC Radio 4 interview last week that he would stay on the political scene but he gave only a lukewarm endorsement of May’s premiership. May is facing competing pressures when it comes to carrying out negotiations with the EU. She has said she wants a bespoke deal for Britain that preserves free trade at the same time as curbing free movement for EU citizens to come to Britain. Some of the most hardline Eurosceptics would like her to be prepared to walk away from the single market and close trade cooperation if the EU does not concede to strict controls on immigration.
David Bowie tribute concert to be streamed live The forthcoming tribute shows to David Bowie featuring performances from the Pixies, Blondie, Michael Stipe, J Mascis, the Flaming Lips and more will be streamed live for fans unable to attend the New York shows. The first concert will take place at Carnegie Hall on 31 March, with a second date at Radio City Music Hall on 1 April. The latter concert will be available to watch online, organisers of The Music of David Bowie have confirmed. Those watching will be asked for a donation to one of a selection of arts based charities in return. “Due to unprecedented interest in the David Bowie memorial concert in Radio City, we have teamed up with Skype and Ammado to stream the concert around the world, in return for a small donation to our charity partners,” reads a statement on the memorial’s official site. “We suggest a minimum donation equivalent to $20, or £15.” Names confirmed for the concert so far are Mumford & Sons, Blondie, Pixies, Michael Stipe, J Mascis, Rickie Lee Jones, Esperanza Spalding, Ron Pope, Jherek Bischoff, Amanda Palmer and Anna Calvi with Kronos Quartet, Ann Wilson Of Heart, The Roots, The Polyphonic Spree, Perry Farrell, Jakob Dylan, Holy Holy, as well as the Donny McCaslin Group, who will joined by guests Mark Guiliana, Jason Lindner and Bowie producer Tony Visconti. David Bowie died on 11 January, aged 69. His extraordinary life and career has so far been marked by a divisive performance by Lady Gaga at the Grammys and a well-received tribute by Lorde and Bowie’s former band at the Brits A memorial is scheduled for 2016’s Glastonbury festival in Somerset. • This article was amended on 30 March 2016 because an earlier version said that Skype was going to live-stream the concert. In fact Skype is a promotion partner for the event.
Trump's polls: a case of tortoise versus hair While Donald Trump has not acknowledged polls showing him losing to Hillary Clinton by as much as double digits, he did admit for the first time that he appeared to be down a few points. The Trump polling disaster “I’m four down in one poll, three and a half in another that just came out, and I haven’t started yet,” Trump told the New York Times. “And I have tremendous Republican support.” Trump: ‘I’ll save second amendment’ At least two GOP factions – “Anybody but Trump” and “Delegates Unbound” – were trying to figure out how not to nominate Trump for president, and many Republicans have stopped taking questions about Trump. Trump surrogate denies being Trump surrogate House speaker Paul Ryan said Republicans should follow their hearts on Trump. “The last thing I would do is tell anybody to do something that’s contrary to their conscience. Of course I wouldn’t do that,” Ryan told NBC. Republicans’ soul journey I get that this is a very strange situation. He’s a very unique nominee. But I feel as a responsibility institutionally as the speaker of the House that I should not be leading some chasm in the middle of our party. – House speaker Paul Ryan Senator Elizabeth Warren paid a visit to Clinton headquarters in Brooklyn on Friday to give staffers a pep talk. One NBC News source summarized her message as “Don’t screw this up”. Bernie Sanders (still running) told supporters Thursday that “the major political task that together we face in the next five months is to make certain that Donald Trump is defeated and defeated badly”. Bernie Sanders: from upstart to revolution Libertarian presidential nominee Gary Johnson, the former New Mexico governor, told USA Today he hasn’t used marijuana in “about seven weeks”.
Sugar lobby paid scientists to blur sugar's role in heart disease – report Influential research that downplayed the role of sugar in heart disease in the 1960s was paid for by the sugar industry, according to a report released on Monday. With backing from a sugar lobby, scientists promoted dietary fat as the cause of coronary heart disease instead of sugar, according to a historical document review published in JAMA Internal Medicine. Though the review is nearly 50 years old, it also showcases a decades-long battle by the sugar industry to counter the product’s negative health effects. The findings come from documents recently found by a researcher at the University of San Francisco, which show that scientists at the Sugar Research Foundation (SRF), known today as the Sugar Association, paid scientists to do a 1967 literature review that overlooked the role of sugar in heart disease. SRF set an objective for the review, funded it and reviewed drafts before it was published in the New England Journal of Medicine, which did not require conflict of interest disclosure until 1984. The three Harvard scientists who wrote the review made what would be $50,000 in today’s dollars from the review. Marion Nestle, a nutrition, food studies and public health professor at New York University, said the food industry continues to influence nutrition science, in an editorial published alongside the JAMA report. “Today, it is almost impossible to keep up with the range of food companies sponsoring research – from makers of the most highly processed foods, drinks, and supplements to producers of dairy foods, meats, fruits, and nuts – typically yielding results favorable to the sponsor’s interests,” Nestle said. “Food company sponsorship, whether or not intentionally manipulative, undermines public trust in nutrition science, contributes to public confusion about what to eat, and compromises Dietary Guidelines in ways that are not in the best interest of public health.” The cushy relationship between food companies and researcher has been captured in recent investigations by the Associated Press and New York Times. The AP revealed in June that candy trade groups were funding research into sweets. And in 2015, the New York Times showed how Coca-Cola has funded millions in research to downplay the link between sugary beverages and obesity. The Sugar Association said in a statement that SRF “should have exercised greater transparency” in its research, but also accused the study authors of having an “anti-sugar narrative”. “We question this author’s continued attempts to reframe historical occurrences to conveniently align with the currently trending anti-sugar narrative, particularly when the last several decades of research have concluded that sugar does not have a unique role in heart disease,” the Sugar Association said. “Most concerning is the growing use of headline-baiting articles to trump quality scientific research – we’re disappointed to see a journal of JAMA’s stature being drawn into this trend.” The findings were based on documents found by Cristin Kearns, a postdoctoral fellow at UCSF, in library archives. The scientists and executives involved are no longer alive. In recent years, the link between fat and heart disease has become a more contentious topic – a 2010 review of scientific studies of fat in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that “there is no convincing evidence that saturated fat causes heart disease”. The role of sugar in heart disease is still being debated.
Unearthly wails, Chvrches cheese and a fleeting Ghostface Killah haunt SXSW Anyone playing on the Radio Day Stage of the Austin Conference Centre deserves a medal for bravery – it’s hard to imagine a more soulless venue for a concert. It’s even more impressive when someone has the intensity to make you forget about the 70s lecture theatre-style ambience. Buckinghamshire native Jack Garratt pulled off exactly this feat on Friday lunchtime. Face screwed up, attacking a drum machine with one hand and playing a keyboard with another, he unleashed some unearthly soulful whimpers and wails during The Love You’re Given. He’s not a million miles from the Jacko-esque vocal stylings of the Weeknd, but is coming at R&B from an entirely different angle – as he proved when he straps on a guitar and plays a riff that could strip the formica off the venue’s buffet tables. This is Worry, originally released in 2014, which manages to be darkly compelling but still have a radio-friendly hook. It’s no surprise that he’s won the BBC Sound of 2016 poll and Critic’s Choice at the Brits, but to his credit there is no element of coffee-table smugness in his performance. Chvrches take the opposite presentation tack. Lined up behind a table with their computers and keyboards at chest height, they look as though they’re about to conduct a science experiment. Or, as singer Lauren Mayberry said while adjusting her synthesizer: “I feel like a bad children’s presenter from the 80s – but not that kind of a bad one.” The audience whoops, encouraging a slightly grating between-song chat – the anecdote, including one about “feeling like Jon Bon Jovi” when she asked for cheese at a gig, and fans showed her pictures of cheese on their phones – almost went on longer than the music. When the tunes arrive they’re stripped of the enjoyable bombast that fills the recorded versions, but they still strike home thanks to Mayberry’s piercing voice and the skyscraper-sized melodies. Never Ending Circles has a chorus that is 100% proof, while Leave a Trace is sleekly soulful. Despite stagecraft that amounts to little more than a few frowns and shuffles from the other two members, Iain Cook and Martin Doherty, it’s a confident triumph. Stormzy has been one of the busiest musicians at SXSW. He’s done the rounds at showcases and even attended a boat cruise, but Fader Fort was a chance to preach to the convertible. Along with acts such as Elf Kid, Little Simz, Lorne Carter and Rejjie Snow (Section Boyz were suppose to play but cancelled), he’s been responsible for showing America what grime and UK/Irish hip-hop is all about. A small crowd gathered, with a sizable South London contingent in the front, to hear Stormzy riff on the importance of post codes, MCs’ Twitter faux pas and putting doubters in their place. For someone who is a bonafide known name in the UK, Stormzy had to go through the motions of introducing himself after every track. He did so with humility and an understanding that more than 10 years after Boy In Da Corner, grime is still mostly an unknown quantity for US hip-hop fans. Some things do translate though, and when he played his biggest hit to date, Shut Up, there were head nods of recognition and a mass singalong. That energy grew when he finished with Where Do You Know Me From? – which saw actual pogoing. There was a full on circle pit at Deftones, who played the Spin showcase at Stubb’s BBQ. The nu-metal survivors drew a crowd that could hardly fit in the venue and ran through a decent amount of their 2000 album, White Pony, with Feiticeira, Knife Prty and Change (In The House Of Flies) all sending fans whirling. Chino Moreno’s voice has lost none of it’s otherworldly squeal, and when Stephen Carpenter started the main riff of My Own Summer (Shove It), Moreno let off a high pitched sound that set the circle pit off all over again. The Ninja Tune showcase was a mixed bag with early performers such as Taylor McFerrin, Leon Vynehall and Machinedrum showing the full breadth of the label’s (and its imprints such as Brainfeeder) sound. McFerrin blended jazz with down-tempo electronica that was at times plodding; Vynehall mixed up his productions with a DJ set that led into Machinedrum’s showcase, a mix of new productions which reached gabber levels of ear-drum punishment. That cleansed the palette before Ghostface Killah entered stage left – or did he? At first he sent on a young group whose name couldn’t be made out through the over saturated PA system. Once they finished a couple of a songs, to a crowd that was generous considering they weren’t on the bill – and considering they sounded like a Whitehouse track played backwards – Ghostface’s DJ came on. He proceeded to complain about the monitors for five minutes, before winning the crowd back with a whistle-stop tour through some of hip-hop’s milestones: the likes of Dead Prez, Luniz, Biz Markie and Beastie Boys. The air was sucked out of the room, though, when Ghostface Killah finally appeared and was barely audible. His middle section picked up once the sound issues were resolved, and Cappadonna joined him on stage for renditions of Tearz, Da Mystery of Chessboxin’, Ice Cream and CREAM, but they were fleeting moments in a performance that lacked the class everyone knows he can produce. It was left to Moodymann to finish the night off. After some technical difficulties of his own, during which he joined fans at the front to give away CDs and signed T-shirts, he delivered. In an apparent nod to those who came before him, he played ODB’s Got Your Money and Junie Morrison’s Suzie Thundertussy, which is itself sampled on Kanye West’s No More Parties In LA, which also samples Ghostface Killah. Wearing what looked like a beekeeper’s hat and veil, he then stepped things up, rattling off 2012’s Ibiza standout Around, by Noir & Haze, and DJ Nature’s Let It Ring. Never boring, always eclectic it showed why a show must go on attitude is vital to SXSW.
I, Daniel Blake review – Ken Loach's quiet rage against injustice At the age of 80, Ken Loach returns to an arena of British social outrage he first occupied with pictures such as Poor Cow and Cathy Come Home; he and screenwriter Paul Laverty take up the idea that the benefits system has been repurposed as the 21st-century workhouse in our age of austerity: made deliberately grim, to deter or design out all but the most deserving poor. This movie won Loach his second Palme d’Or at Cannes, and has already become renowned for a brutal scene showing the secret visceral shame of a food bank. Maybe, in years to come, this sequence will become as famous as Charlie Chaplin and the edible shoe. But there are no laughs, only horror and anger. In a pre-election interview, David Cameron revealed that he hadn’t the smallest idea how many food banks there were in Britain, and it isn’t clear if Theresa May has been briefed any better. Either way, Loach’s film positions itself in the middle of the eating-or-heating dilemma: the story of a fictional benefits claimant (whose situation Laverty has based on real-life research) called Daniel Blake, played with honesty and humanity by standup comic Dave Johns. He is a skilled labourer and carpenter in Newcastle who can’t work following a heart attack. Kafkaesque bureaucracy deems him ineligible for sickness benefit; as a middle-aged web neophyte he finds online applications for jobseekers’ allowance an ordeal, but, having embarked on this frustrating, humiliating mission to prove his respectability, he can’t accept jobs that come up. All his hard won expertise and knowledge of the world are now valueless. Daniel befriends an angry, lonely single mum from London in a similar situation: Katie, tremendously played by Hayley Squires, who has been relocated to the north-east. Widower Daniel becomes a kindly quasi-grandpa to her two children and a good friend to her. He is witty and wise, with real practical knowledge, but, like Katie, as innocent as a child about the new world of welfare non-provision. On revisiting this movie, I was struck again by its radical plainness and simplicity. Loach is the John Bunyan of cinema; a bringer of parables. It has been said of Loach that he would do without the camera if he could, and that doing-without aesthetic is absolutely right for the unfashionable, uncompromising seriousness of what he has to say. There is humour in his work, but clear and straightforward humour. He and Laverty are utter strangers to the irony and cynicism that are pretty much integral to the language of almost any other kind of cinema. Loach avoids smart-alec stuff the way an Amish farmer dislikes buttons and bows. Another kind of film would get Daniel increasingly involved in crime or scamming to survive, and, in fact, Daniel is exasperated to be vaguely drawn into his next-door neighbour’s lairy scheme to import cheap trainers from China and sell them on street corners. But even here there is no outright wrongdoing. His neighbours are likable lads with no side to them. As for Daniel and Katie, their friendship is to be ultimately tested by the obvious question of how she could make some serious money if she wanted; the resulting drama is put together with a kind of robust naivety – and perhaps the narrative reveal could have managed with less of a clunk. It is a bit like the bookcase Daniel is putting together: nothing fancy, but conceived with candour, delicacy, and lack of prurience. The labyrinthine nightmare of the system seemed even more painful when I revisited the film this week: a system in which the claimants are told their fate will be settled by the horribly titled “Decision Maker”: the modern-day beadle. It is a system that is almost deliberately planned to create just those desperate, futile shouting matches in the benefits office that lead to “sanctions” and punishments. When Daniel fails the initial test by just a few arbitrarily conceived points, you find yourself thinking, ‘If only he wasn’t so honest, if only he had the wit to trick the system, just a little bit.’ But in so doing, he would become precisely that kind of TV stock figure, that Shameless or Benefits Street cheat whose presence in black comedy and reactionary political gossip justified the whole setup to begin with. This film and its pairing of Hayley and Daniel makes me think of a line from Dickens’s Bleak House: “What the poor are to the poor is little known, excepting to themselves and God.” Loach wants to expand and ventilate that knowledge, and show us that poverty is not God’s business but ours. We can understand it and do something about it.
Hidden Figures trailer: Nasa's overlooked black female mathematicians Three, two, one ... liftoff on the trailer for Hidden Figures, Theodore Melfi’s biopic of the black female mathematicians whose work at Nasa helped the US win the space race. Starring Octavia Spencer, Taraji P Henson and Janelle Monáe and based on the book by Margot Lee Shetterly, Hidden Figures follows the life story of Katherine Johnson (Henson), a physicist who began her career as one of the administration’s first “computers” – female Nasa staff who were responsible for calculating the results of wind tunnel tests. Johnson went on to calculate the flight trajectory for Alan Shepard – the first American in space – and supplied some of the theory that ensured the success of the Apollo moon landing. She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Barack Obama in 2015. Spencer and Monáe play Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson, brilliant mathematicians who likewise stood out from Nasa’s largely white staff. From the trailer, it looks as though Melfi’s film will chart a course between civil-rights drama and workplace comedy, with emphasis put on the womens’ struggle against the white male perception of them. Their mistreatment is presented most obviously in the scene where a white-collar Joe dumps his trash can into the arms of Johnson, assuming she’s the cleaning lady. Elsewhere, a cop who pulls the friends over remarks that he “had no idea Nasa hired ... ” “There’s quite a few women in the space programme, sir,” Spencer’s character curtly replies. Hidden Figures, which also stars Kevin Costner and Kirsten Dunst, will be released on 13 January.
What’s best for savers who’ve lost £160bn of interest in seven years? Not many experts thought that the “emergency” base rate cut to 0.5% on March 5, 2009 would last for long. But seven years later savers have lost around £160bn in interest, while the prospect of rate rises are slipping further into the distance. In the immediate aftermath of the cut to 0.5%, rates for savers remained relatively high. Our analysis shows how cash Isas were offering 3%, and notice accounts 3.5%, in March 2009, and for the next couple of years they hovered around this level. After all, most banks and building societies were desperate for deposits after the great financial crash, so they were willing to pay far above the Bank of England base rate. The real villain turns out to be the Funding for Lending government programme introduced in July 2012, which effectively provided cheap money for cash-strapped lenders. The effect was almost instantaneous: banks no longer needed to attract cash from savers, so they cut the rates on offer. Susan Hannums of Savingschampion.co.uk says: “While the base rate hitting the record 0.5% was bad enough, it was Funding for Lending that had one of the biggest impacts. Almost overnight, best-buy rates for savers dropped like a stone, followed by an unprecedented number of reductions on existing rates. “Today we’ve hit over 4,000 rate reductions for existing savers, with little sign of this slowing down. This means all savers would be wise to keep checking the rate they are getting, and to switch to improve returns when they are no longer competitive. “With almost 50% of easy-access accounts paying 0.5% or less, and the best-paying 1.55%, it’s easy to see why so many need to switch.” Notice accounts Despite the Bank of England cutting rates to 0.5% in 2009, there were three providers offering savers 3.5% – more than twice that on the best accounts today. And, what’s more, they did not expect customers to lock their money away for years in a fixed-rate bond. Anyone who took out Secure Trust Bank’s 60-day notice account (issue 2) has actually had a very good deal. Back in 2009 it paid a table-topping 3.52% on balances over £1,000. Today it is closed to new customers, and when that happens banks usually let the rate fall to a miserable level. But to Secure Trust’s credit it continues to pay 1.99% to existing customers. That may not sound much, but it’s more than any bank is paying on notice accounts and would be at the top of our tables if it were available to new customers. It’s not so good news for the people attracted to the 3.5% that West Bromwich building society was paying on its High Income Over 65 account at the time. In 2015, the society renamed it Monthly Income Saver, and it now pays 1.25%. It’s the same story at FirstSave, where the 90-day notice account was paying 3.5% in 2009. It has also been withdrawn, but pays 1.25% to savers who continue to keep their money there. Neither is terrible, given today’s prevailing rates, but not great either. Customers might want to shift their money to today’s best notice accounts, which are the 1.75% deal from Secure Trust and the 1.81% from Al Rayan. Savers who trusted ICICI Bank may be feeling more miffed. In 2009 it featured heavily in our best-buy tables with its internet-only HiSave account paying 2.95% interest. But today that pays only 0.5%. Its web page still says “earn a high rate of interest”, which must be galling to account holders. The same bank is paying 1.4% interest to new customers who open a HiSave Super Savings account. Customers with the old HiSave account should ask to be transferred. Cash Isas Nearly all the big names were battling for your Isa cash in 2009. Top of the table for instant-access cash Isas was Marks & Spencer Money, paying 3.1%. Even higher was the 3.35% from Halifax if you were happy to lock the money away for four years. It may not have seemed much of a deal at the time, but compared with today’s rates it was a miracle. The very best instant-access cash Isa, from Post Office Money, now pays just 1.45%, while if you lock your money away with Halifax now you will get just 2%. Customers who took out the M&S Isa at the time now get 1.3%. But the good news is that savers have been able to shelter far more in a cash Isa over the past seven years. In 2009, the maximum that could be placed in one was £3,600, but that has jumped to £15,240. However their attractions will diminish from April this year, because the new personal savings allowance will enable account holders to earn up to £1,000 interest tax-free if they are a 20% taxpayer, or £500 for a 40% taxpayer, without having to put the money in an Isa. Instant access accounts In 2009, the best branch-based instant-access savings account was Chelsea building society’s Rainy Day Savings 3, which paid 2.35% and could be opened with just a £10 deposit. Now it has been withdrawn and pays 1% to account holders who have left their money there. But while that sounds a low amount, if you are a new customer at Chelsea looking for an instant-access account it’s even worse – you will earn just 0.5% gross. Chelsea building society soon disappeared from our best-buy tables later in 2009 when it was almost wrecked by £41m in “potentially fraudulent loans”, mainly from its buy-to-let mortgage book. It merged with Yorkshire building society in 2010 and this year will close the last remaining branches carrying the Chelsea name. Meanwhile, Tesco Bank was the new kid on the block in 2009 in our best-buy table for its instant-access account paying 1.75% gross. Today the supermarket group’s instant-access account in the stores pays just 0.6% gross, although it does offer an internet-only account that pays 1.01%. Children’s accounts A scan down our best-buy table from March 2009 reveals a shockingly high figure. The Halifax was paying a fixed rate of 8% interest on its children’s regular saver account. Some will be surprised to find that it still pays the best rate on children’s savings, with the same regular savings account offering 6%. But the maximum you can save is just £100 a month. Current accounts Today the best interest to be earned is often on a bank current account rather than a savings account. In 2009 Abbey (remember them) was paying 5.37%, but for an introductory period only. Lloyds was in the best-buy table, even though it paid just 1% on its Classic Plus account. Abbey, of course, was taken over by Santander, and its 123 account, paying 3% on balances up to £20,000, has been a huge success. TSB, meanwhile, was carved out of Lloyds, and its Classic Plus account pays 5% interest – but sadly only on balances up to £2,000.
Clinton v Trump on the economy: speeches underscore competing visions Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump laid out their competing visions for the US economy in the past week, with varying degrees of detail and some surprising overlap. But the bulk of each speech was spent on the differences: Trump embraced more tenets of Republican orthodoxy and Clinton made pledges that progressives would be comforted to hear. Tax cuts v the ‘ Buffett rule’ Trump proposed tax cuts for all Americans, though the terms would disproportionately benefit wealthy people. The conservative-leaning Tax Foundation found that tax revenue would fall by $2.4 tn over the first decade, and the top 1% of Americans would make 5.3% more money under the Republican plan, which would consolidate seven tax brackets into three, of 12%, 25% and 33%. Trump’s new plan accepts more common Republican proposals; his old plan would have cut the top rate to 25%. The Tax Policy Center estimated his plan would reduce revenue by $9.5tn over a decade and increase the deficit by 80% by 2036. Clinton, in contrast, has backed an expanded version of a proposal by billionaire investor Warren Buffett to tax the ultrarich. She proposed a “fair share surcharge” that would place an extra tax on people who make more than $5m a year, in an effort to close loopholes that often mean millionaires pay lower effective rates than middle-class families. Corporate tax cuts v a carrot and stick Corporate profits have by and large increased over the past 15 years while wages have stagnated. Trump’s plan entails a cut to the corporate tax rate, to 15% from 35%, which he argues will entice companies to return to or stay in the United States to invest and create jobs. He has also often told crowds that he will threaten companies who want to move overseas with extremely high tariffs. Clinton offered both benefits and threats. She said she would simplify taxes for small businesses and offer tax credits to companies that share profits with employees. Her campaign has laid out similar benefits for companies that invest in the US. But Clinton also threatened an “exit tax” for companies that want to move overseas, close the carried-interest loophole and strengthen financial regulators, such as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Repealing regulations v clean energy funds In another nod toward conventional Republican ideas, Trump said he would place a moratorium on any new regulations, and he has frequently blamed environmental safety rules on the decline of the coal industry, whose market has been hugely taken over by natural gas companies. Clinton took the common Democratic path and proposed new investment in clean energy and research. She gave no real specifics in her speech but her campaign has proposed a “clean energy challenge” that would “partner” the federal government with local counterparts to reduce pollution and invest in clean energy infrastructure. Infrastructure funding Clinton promised $250bn in federal infrastructure funding and a $25bn “national infrastructure bank” to create jobs and rehabilitate things such as the country’s roads, airports, water and electrical grids . Barack Obama struggled for years to pass major infrastructure funding through Congress, until he finally managed to convince lawmakers to back a five-year, $305bn plan last December. Clinton has said that higher taxes on the richest and corporations would offset the spending, and gave a few specifics about her plans, including expanded broadband internet around the US. Trump spoke at length about deteriorating conditions of American infrastructure in his speech, and has said at many rallies that he wants to reinvest in utilities and transportation at home. But in his speech in Detroit he only spoke of infrastructure vaguely, saying: “We will build the next generation of roads, bridges, railways, tunnels, seaports and airports that our country deserves.” Trade deals and tariffs Both Clinton and Trump said they would renegotiate trade deals they deem unfavorable to the US. But while the Republican has said he would start from scratch on deals, and possibly impose tariffs as high as 45% on imports from foreign companies, the Democrat said she would specifically stop “any trade deal that kills jobs or holds down wages, including the Trans Pacific Partnership”. She also said she would appoint “a chief trade prosecutor, triple the number of enforcement officers, and when countries break the rules we won’t hesitate to impose targeted tariffs” – a less protectionist stance than Trump, yet sharing some of his philosophy about penalties directed at foreign corporations. The ‘death tax’ Trump called for the repeal of the estate tax, a fine levied on wealthy inheritors that affects about 0.2% of all Americans, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, as the tax exempts the first $5.45m a person inherits. Clinton would leave the estate tax as law. Families and childcare Trump called for “allowing parents to fully deduct the average cost of childcare spending from their taxes”, which would benefit most families with moderate to significant childcare costs but not low-income families, who would have the least to deduct, and who by definition, pay less in federal income taxes. His campaign has said he also supports a “credit to stay-at-home caregivers” and an exemption on childcare expenses from half of payroll taxes. Clinton has proposed tax credits, subsidized childcare and increased pay for childcare workers – expensive proposals that she says will be offset by increased taxes and closed loopholes. She said she wants to limit the cost of childcare to 10% of family income, and to expand social security. Higher education Trump has largely ignored the issue of higher education, though he has bemoaned the high debts that many young Americans shoulder. In his speech, he merely said: “likewise, our education reforms will help parents send their kids to a school of their choice,” an allusion to supporting the repeal of federal education standards at the grade and high school levels. His party’s official platform supports privatizing student loans, saying: “the federal government should not be in the business of originating student loans”. Clinton said she would “liberate millions of people who already have student debt by making it easier to refinance and pay what you owe as a portion of your income”. She also advocated for federal support for trade schools and “high-quality union training programs”, and tax credits to companies that offer paid apprenticeships. Earlier this summer her campaign compromised with Bernie Sanders, and agreed to support a plan that would eliminate tuition costs for four-year state colleges, for families who make less than $125,000 a year.
Twitter pays £1.24m in UK tax as revenues increase by 30.5% Twitter’s British operation paid £1.24m in tax last year as staff enjoyed a £12.5m shares windfall. The US technology company, which is the subject of rumours of a potential acquisition by Google, Disney or computing company SalesForce reported a rise in UK revenues of 30.5% to £76m in 2015, well short of the £135.7m that it made in Britain, according to estimates from analysts at eMarketer. This could mean that up to £60m of Twitter’s revenues may have been booked in Ireland, where the parent company of the UK operation is incorporated. Twitter UK made a £3.36m pre-tax profit last year, up from £3.29m in 2014. The £1.24m tax payment was shown in accounts filed at Companies House. Legally diverting revenues can help companies avoid paying higher corporation tax bills in the UK, and Twitter is one of a number of large companies that has been criticised for locating activities in Ireland to take advantage of the country’s more generous tax regime. A spokesman for Twitter UK said: “We account for sales in the UK and we pay tax in the UK.” The company, which has headquarters in London, employed 163 people last year, up from 126 in 2014, running up a bill for wages, pensions and social insurance of £17.6m. On average, each staff member cost almost £108,000. The pay of the company’s top UK directors is not revealed in the UK accounts. Dara Nasr is the managing director of Twitter UK. The company set aside £12.5m to cover the cost of shares for employees, down from £14m in 2014.
Premier League and Championship clubs raise stakes with unprecedented spend Maybe it is an unintended consequence of Brexit. Maybe it was just the weather. But the fact is that in this summer’s transfer window not only was more money spent by Premier League clubs but more money was spent in England than ever before. The question many fans will now be asking is where that money goes next. According to research by the consultants Deloitte, Premier League clubs spent £1,165,000,000 in the transfer window that closed on Wednesday night, with fees ranging from the £89m Manchester United paid for Paul Pogba to the £1m Sunderland paid paid it for Donald Love. £445m of that total was spent on players from English clubs, roughly a 50% rise on last season. Further to that, spending on players in the Football League practically doubled, to a record £140m. The reasons for the rise in spending are not difficult to ascertain, with the advent of the new £5bn TV deal the primary culprit. “As has been the case for a number of years now, the increase in broadcast revenue is the principal driver of this spending power,” said Dan Jones, partner in the sports business group at Deloitte. “The increase in the value of these deals and the comparatively equal revenue distribution of these by the Premier League have again allowed clubs throughout the division to invest significantly in this summer’s market.” For those concerned about the health of the domestic game the key question is what will happen to any newfound riches. According to Deloitte, the answer is simple: more players. “Membership of the Premier League has never been as lucrative as it is today and as such we have seen this have knock-on effects in terms of the spending in the Championship,” says Jones. “This summer saw a record £215m gross spend by Championship clubs, more than twice the previous record, driven by the investment of recently relegated clubs seeking an immediate return to the Premier League as well as by that of ambitious Championship clubs seeking entry to the world’s richest football league.” These are unprecedented sums for the English football pyramid, although much of the spending is condensed at the top of the Championship. Aston Villa, Newcastle United and Norwich between them, the three clubs relegated from the Premier League in May, spent roughly £117m on new players, more than half the gross total in the Championship. Further to that the sale of four Newcastle players – Giorginio Wijnaldum, Moussa Sissoko, Andros Townsend and Daryl Janmaat – accounted almost entirely for the growth in transfer fees received by Football League clubs from their Premier League counterparts. “There are vast sums coming into the game and we want to see that shared more equitably throughout the footballing pyramid, right down to grassroots level,” Liam Thompson, a spokesperson for the Football Supporters’ Federation, said. “Concerted efforts from fans over the last few years have shown that clubs can do more with the money coming into the game. For example, Stoke City have continued to keep season ticket prices low as well as providing free coach travel to away games. A number of other clubs in the Premier League and Football League have frozen or reduced prices. This helps ensure live football is not out of reach of fans. The £30 [Premier] league-wide cap on away ticket prices is a significant victory for football supporters but we urge football fans to remain vigilant and continue to ask their clubs what they’re doing for their supporters.” The £30 rule does not apply in the Championship and fans of relegated sides are finding they can pay more for away travel in the second tier than in the Premier League. John Williams is an academic at Leicester University who specialises in the social impact of the national game. He suggests clubs could focus on this issue to bring in more support. “The fear, with Championship clubs in particular, is that they will spend whatever money they get to try and get into the Premier League, that’s the danger,” he said. “The riches are so great, they’ll spend the money on players, wages and whatever else they believe necessary to produce that dividend. “But there are a few other places the money could go though. Firstly, clubs could spend it on the women’s game. This would firstly stimulate local support locally, but it would also show that clubs are working for the public good and for inclusion. It would also be a good investment as the women’s game is growing and is no longer sniffed at by big clubs. “It would also make sense to work hard on young supporters,” he says. “We know that the temptation is for young supporters to identify with much larger clubs, to wear their stuff locally. Anything a smaller club can do to reduce the price of their own goods is a good thing. Reduce the price of kits, reduce the price of tickets, see how far you can push it down, make it real.” One final tweak that could be made, Williams says, is one adopted by the Premier League champions. “Maybe do the thing that seems to have proven surprisingly popular here in Leicester. The owners chose a couple of games and gave any supporter who came to the match a free donut or soft drink. When my students have interviewed fans since, they don’t see it as a crass stunt but as a sign that the owners care. Why not choose a couple of matches and show that we care and you’ll get something that you like too? Why not spread the love?” • This article was amended on 2 September 2016. An earlier version said Sunderland paid Everton £1m for Steven Pienaar. In fact he had been released by Everton and Sunderland paid no fee.
Paul Manafort resigns as chairman of Donald Trump campaign Donald Trump’s campaign chairman Paul Manafort has resigned, in the latest convulsion to sweep a candidacy reeling from poor polling numbers and self-inflicted controversy. With voters able to cast absentee ballots in the crucial swing state of North Carolina in just three weeks and his poll numbers sliding rapidly, the Republican nominee ousted his campaign chairman on Friday, only two months after the forced departure of campaign manager Corey Lewandowski. Manafort’s exit followed another unconventional move by Trump, who hours earlier had admitted that he “regretted” the pain caused by some of his intemperate remarks this year. “Sometimes in the heat of debate and speaking on a multitude of issues, you don’t choose the right words or you say the wrong thing,” he said, in tightly scripted remarks said to bear the hallmark of new campaign manager Kellyanne Conway. Though the apology at a rally in North Carolina did not specify precisely whom he was saying sorry to, it was the first acknowledgment by the candidate that his swashbuckling style was proving self-destructive. News of Manafort’s resignation also came as a surprise to some within the campaign, and followed a slew of denials that a shakeup was under way. “I would have thought we were done with revolving chairs,” one source familiar with the campaign told the after the publication of Friday’s statement. Another person familiar with the shakeup said the change underlined how Manafort had never quite been able to communicate with Trump the way Lewandowski had. His departure meant Conway would be in charge of the messaging, whereas Bannon, a former banker, was there to run the business side of the campaign. It was also pointed out that Trump had long been uncomfortable with the campaign spending heavily to buy television commercials, a step that was taken earlier this week with Trump shelling out $4m to go on the air in Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania and North Carolina. “He thinks he is being robbed,” said the source familiar with the shakeup. “Boots on the ground are worth it” but “media buys, mail and other stuff” were looked on by Trump skeptically. In an interview with Fox News, Trump’s son Eric suggested that the controversy over Manafort’s ties to Russia and a report this week that he had potentially committed a felony by evading the reporting requirements of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) led to the top operative being pushed out. “My father just didn’t want to have the distraction looming over the campaign, and, quite frankly, looming over all the issues Hillary is facing right now,” said the younger Trump. Manafort, a veteran political strategist, has been under mounting scrutiny as more details emerged of his role in advising foreign politicians, including Ukrainian strongman Viktor Yanukovych. His close connections to Russia through Yanukovych, at a time when Trump is trying to criticise Clinton for taking money from foreign donors for her family foundation, were proving a growing problem. Manafort first joined the campaign as an unpaid adviser in March after Trump had been repeatedly outmaneuvered in the delegation selection process by rival Ted Cruz. The veteran operative, who helped Gerald Ford win the last contested convention in American history in 1976, soon used that foothold to expand his mandate. Within weeks, he had in effect replaced former campaign manager Lewandowski, who was disdained by many within the party establishment as well as the Trump family. In a statement issued on Friday, Trump suggested Manafort’s role had peaked as an adviser during the Republican national convention in Cleveland, where rival Ted Cruz had threatened to lead a revolt, but this time expressed no regret over the departure. “This morning Paul Manafort offered, and I accepted, his resignation from the campaign,” said a statement from the Trump campaign issued on Friday morning. “I am very appreciative for his great work in helping to get us where we are today, and in particular his work guiding us through the delegate and convention process. Paul is a true professional and I wish him the greatest success.” The resignation, which contradicts claims Manafort would stay on earlier in the week, is the second moment Trump has exercised his famed slogan “you’re fired” – following the ousting of Lewandowski, in June. Lewandowski is now thought likely to make a comeback within the constantly shifting Trump inner circle, as he favours the same approach of “letting Trump be Trump” as Bannon is believed to. Trump also appeared rattled by recent opinion polling which suggests he is far adrift of where he needs to be to challenge Clinton in crucial swing states. The urgent need to confront his collapse in the polls suggests expediency, rather than a personality, may have been the largest factor leading to Manafort’s departure. At a rally on Friday night in Dimondale, Michigan, he again read off a prepared speech, with no mention of polls or crowds – two of his favorite topics for months of rallies. Instead he urged African Americans to join his “change movement”, saying, “to those hurting, I say: what do you have to lose by trying something new?” Signs of the old Trump did break through his restrained performance. At one point he went off-script, riffing to the mostly white crowd, “I am nothing more than your messenger.” “Strong defense, common sense, take care of our vets,” he rhymed. “I am the change agent.” Amid the Trump campaign shakeup and the apologetic address on Thursday night, Democrats rejected the notion of a new-look Trump on Friday, ridiculing a new emphasis on unifying the country that emerged on the same day as a campaign ad attacking immigrants. “In case you thought for a split second Trump was genuine about feeling regret, he is back to demonizing immigrants again in his new ad today,” said Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon.
'I felt pushed away': Beth Grant on having to move 380 miles for anorexia treatment Beth Grant, 25, has been receiving treatment for anorexia on and off since she was 13, including five months in a hospital in Glasgow earlier this year, 380 miles from her home in Hertfordshire. I was 13 when I was first diagnosed with anorexia. I didn’t have my first stay in hospital until I was in my 20s. Before that I received outpatient treatment, first through children’s and late adults mental health services. I was discharged when I went to university aged 21. I got support while at university from the university’s counselling services, though I gradually declined while on my course. During the last month of my third year in 2015, I was admitted to the Priory hospital in Chelmsford, Essex, about 45 minutes from my family home near St Albans in Hertfordshire. It was a great place. As you progressed you got more freedoms, for example unsupervised snacks and home visits if you managed to get your Body Mass Index up to 15. That gave many of us something to aim for. I left having regained a suitable amount of weight but was still not completely healthy. Then in February this year I relapsed after a family bereavement. I was told I couldn’t go back to Chelmsford. It’s my understanding that there are just over 300 beds in the country and there are thousands of people who need help. Chelmsford only has 12-14 beds, was small, intimate and a nice group of people. I was told that the only place available was in Glasgow, 380 miles and a six-hour drive from my home. I resisted the move at first because I really didn’t want to be that far from home. My family were similarly concerned. The problem was that I needed more help than my parents could offer. I was worried that if I lost any more weight I would end up on a medical ward. I didn’t want to leave, but I felt I had no choice. My parents were so incensed that I had to go so far away that they refused to drive me up. So the NHS decided to transport me by taxi, which must have cost them over £1,000. After that I didn’t see my family for five weeks. My mum was going through treatment for breast cancer at the time so found it hard to come up. I stayed in Glasgow for the next five months but saw my mum a total of four times. I felt let down. I felt I had been sent away originally just so people could get rid of me, like I was being pushed aside. During my time in Glasgow, no friends came up to visit. I know it sounds silly, but I felt ashamed about being in an inpatient unit and I didn’t want to tell too many people. The nurses were for the most part OK. Some clearly cared more than others, though they could be dismissive at times and sometimes they would simply ignore you. Staff weren’t as hands-on as they should have been and some of my friends were left for five hours during the day without being checked on. But the daily group programmes were very helpful, such as ‘nutritional education’ and ‘understanding your eating disorder’. In June this year, I was eventually transferred because I was so homesick and depressed. Knowing I was so ill didn’t help as I blamed myself and believed that I deserved to continue to feel that bad. It felt even worse not to be near my mum and unable to physically support her while she was going through radiotherapy as well. I wasn’t putting on weight and it was decided that it would be better for me to be treated closer to home. Having an eating disorder is extremely isolating; as a normally sociable person it feels like torture. Being so far from home just made it worse. I absolutely love food so for me anorexia is more of a self-punishment. I was bullied from a young age and withholding food became a way of controlling something in my life. I didn’t deserve food. I am also extremely driven, which is maybe linked to it somehow, although it holds me back. I’ve been an inpatient at one other place since then, in Ealing in west London, which is not too far from my home. The very strict regime there meant I put on weight, but my mental health was no better. I left two weeks ago. I didn’t want to have to stay there over Christmas and I didn’t like the unbelievably strict, inflexible guidelines. I’m now in treatment through my old outpatient team and see a counsellor twice a week, a dietician and a social worker. Constant support is really important and having someone to talk to, or simply to sit with and be near when you don’t want to be alone, is what you need most when you are this unwell.”
Ethical credentials in doubt at the Co-op Bank In your article on Niall Booker’s pay package (Co-op Bank defends chief’s £3.85m pay, Financial, 2 April) you state that the Co-op Bank presents itself as an ethical alternative to the big high street lenders. However, many of us who banked with Co-op for precisely that reason have sadly closed our personal accounts in the past few months. The Co-op Bank has lost its ethical credentials by closing several charity and “solidarity” accounts, including Palestine Solidarity, for the stated reason of not meeting its “risk appetite”. Unfortunately, the bank no longer meets my human rights support or ethical appetite. To see the pay award given to its chief executive shows what happens to ethics under hedge fund management. Angie Mindel Nottingham • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
A less than special one at Old Trafford as Mourinho and United’s woes continue It is a moot point whether Arsenal fans have any right to make the claim that he is “not special any more” after what José Mourinho would describe as their specialising in failure years, but they know what needles Manchester United and their manager. The home side have not been special enough this season, Mourinho has even begun blaming his success in the past for the raised expectations that are currently going unfulfilled at Old Trafford, and if United are back in the realms of the ordinary there is no longer anything special about this fixture other than its history. Arsenal looked at all times as though they would be happy with a point, and though they left it late that is what they took. The story in short was that Mourinho dropped Wayne Rooney after claiming he has looked after pencils more carefully than England protect their internationals, and in the absence of Zlatan Ibrahimovic through suspension Marcus Rashford and Anthony Martial missed their chance to sharpen the United attack The home side began well enough, with Antonio Valencia, Paul Pogba and Rashford all making inroads down the right wing, but with no Ibrahimovic to aim for in the middle their attempted crosses were easily dealt with. United tried to do most of the attacking, Arsenal were content to merely keep possession much of the time, yet it was clear throughout that in Alexis Sanchez and Mesut Özil the visitors had players who could create something from nothing with a single feint or pass. That is an ability United presently lack, and though Martial and Juan Mata did begin to show up a little more forcefully towards the end of the first half, as both forced saves from Petr Cech, when the score was unchanged after an hour Mourinho acquiesced to the Stretford End’s request and sent Rooney on. The script now demanded that everyone’s favourite wedding gatecrasher would put a week of lurid headlines behind him by supplying the winning goal and perhaps Arsenal thought so too, for when Ander Herrera pulled a cross back from the right the defence tracked Rooney and left Mata expensively unmarked by the penalty spot. Still, Rooney had only been on the pitch for five minutes and not only had United made a breakthrough but Mourinho heard his name being enthusiastically chanted around the stadium. Rooney did not quite manage to transform the game, it remained resolutely low key, though while United were winning he put himself about quite effectively, was hungry for the ball and might have claimed an assist for a second goal had Pogba managed better contact with a probing cross along the six-yard line. Marcos Rojo should really have made the points safe from Daley Blind’s cross but missed the target with a free header at the far post, leaving United to cling on to their narrow lead. Despite Mourinho sending on Morgan Schneiderlin for Mata to try to lock up the midfield already containing Michael Carrick, they failed to manage it. What does all this prove, apart from the suspicion that Arsène Wenger should probably seek to involve Olivier Giroud and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain earlier if he hopes to improve his shocking record against Mourinho teams in competitive matches? Arsenal will be encouraged by gaining a draw from an unpromising situation, and the old adage about champion teams picking up points when not playing well will most likely be wheeled out, though neither of these teams looked like champions. Arsenal are going to have to do better than one attempt on target in 90 minutes to achieve their ambitions, and the possibility exists that a greater commitment to attack could have brought a greater reward. “In years gone by we might have lost this game,” Theo Walcott claimed afterwards, revealing a surprising timidity within the Arsenal outlook. The whole point about coming to Old Trafford these days is that this is not the United of years gone by. Teams with title aspirations have to look at a defence containing Rojo and Phil Jones and try to exploit weaknesses. Even the notion that Carrick automatically improves United took a knock with the Arsenal equaliser. Initially it appeared that Carrick’s inclusion had successfully freed up Pogba and allowed Herrera to operate in a more advanced role, yet that impression faded quite early. United were left with the disappointment of a third successive home draw, achieved in almost exactly the same manner as the first of the sequence, when Stoke City claimed a late share of the points at the start of October. “We have been dominating games, making an amazing number of chances, but from our last two home games we got just two points,” Mourinho said beforehand. Make that three points now from three home games. This time without the domination or the amazing number of chances. Nothing special, in other words, for all Mourinho’s protestations about luck.
So what attracted tech bosses to the billionaire president-elect Donald Trump? On Wednesday, a curious spectacle could be observed in New York. A swarm of tech billionaires arrived in their private jets and were whisked to Trump Tower, the Louis XV pastiche that is the residence of Trumplethinskin, as the tech journalist Kara Swisher calls the president-elect. The roll call of assembled tech moguls ran as follows: Satya Natella and Brad Smith (Microsoft), Jeff Bezos (Amazon), Larry Page and Eric Schmidt (Alphabet, Google’s holding company), Sheryl Sandberg (Facebook), Tim Cook (Apple), Elon Musk (Tesla), Ginni Rometty (IBM), Safra Catz (Oracle), Chuck Robbins (Cisco), Alex Karp (Palantir) and Brian Krzanich (Intel). Apart from their vast wealth and an aversion to paying tax, what linked these notables? Answer: a deep loathing of Trumplethinskin. Yet when he issued the summons to his preposterous “summit” they all came running. Why? For the answer, we need to delve into the darker recesses of human nature. First of all, there was naked fear. During the election campaign, Trumplethinskin had made no secret of his contempt for the tech companies. He castigated Apple, for example, for not caving in to the FBI’s demand that it unlock the San Bernardino killer’s iPhone and for manufacturing the phone in China rather than in the US. He accused Amazon of abusing its monopoly power. And so on. But it wasn’t the abuse that spooked the tech crowd as much as his demonstration of what he could achieve with a single tweet. At 1:26pm on 12 December his tweet “The F-35 program and cost is out of control. Billions of dollars can and will be saved on military (and other) purchases after January 20th” instantly wiped $4bn off the value of Lockheed Martin, the lead manufacturer of the $100m-a-pop warplane. If he can do that to an aerospace manufacturer, what could he do to the tech companies? In seeking an explanation for the abject obeisance of the tech moguls on Wednesday, we should also not underestimate the aphrodisiac effect of power. Trumplethinskin may be a repellent demagogue (and we know from off-the-record conversations reported by Swisher – the ultimate tech insider – that that’s how the Silicon Valley crowd see him), but on 20 January he will be president and proximity to power has a funny effect on many people. It causes them to lose their marbles, their judgment and sometimes their principles. So it was in New York on Wednesday when the assembled titans fawned on their host in his blinged-up lair. Thirdly, there is that old staple – greed. There is money to be made out of President Trumplethinskin. One of the first letters he received upon winning the election came IBM chief executive Rometty. “Dear Mr President-elect,” it gushed, “last Tuesday night you spoke about bringing the country together to build a better future and the opportunity to harness the creative talent of people for the benefit of all. I know that you are committed to help America’s economy grow in ways that are good for all its people. I am writing to offer ideas that I believe will help realise the aspiration you articulated… I do so as the leader of the nation’s largest technology employer. Permit me to offer a few suggestions.” These included “data analytics, data centre consolidation and the use of cloud technologies” to cut government costs. This is interesting for two reasons. First, Trumplethinskin isn’t any old chief executive but a president-elect who comes to power after a campaign that was laced with racism and promises of action against a particular ethnic/religious group: Muslims. In order to implement any of his proposed policies towards illegal immigrants, border control, etc, he will need a database. A very large database. So who will build it for him? The federal government? Given his contempt for the civil service, that seems unlikely. So it will be outsourced to tech companies and the question becomes: will they do it? In this respect, the IBM chief’s letter might turn out to be an inspired pitch for business. After all, the company could be said to have a track record in this line of business. Way back in the 1930s, its German subsidiary was the outfit that provided the Hollerith tabulating machines that were a cornerstone of the murder machine that ran the Holocaust. For the avoidance of doubt, this is not to say that IBM was responsible for the Holocaust or that Trumplethinskin is a genocidal maniac – just that, to update a 1970s feminist phrase, the technological has suddenly become political. Very political. So how will Silicon Valley respond when the next presidential summons comes? Stay tuned.
Head of Wikimedia resigns over search engine plans The executive director of the Wikimedia foundation, the body that manages the online encyclopaedia Wikipedia, has resigned following a row within the community over leaked plans to apparently build a search engine and compete with Google. Lila Tretikov, who joined the organisation in May 2014, offered her resignation to the board this week, and will work out her term until the end of March, according to Patricio Lorente, a member of the Wikimedia’s board of trustees. In a letter to Wikimedia employees and members of the community, Tretikov wrote: “I am both inspired by, and proud of, the many great things we have all accomplished at the Foundation over the last two years, most significantly reversing the loss of our editorial community … I remain passionate about the value and potential of open knowledge and Wikimedia to change the world.” When Tretikov started at Wikimedia, the number of active editors on the English version of Wikipedia had been falling for seven years straight. The site, which is edited by volunteers, had peaked in 2007 with almost 5,000 very active editors, defined as more than 100 edits a month; but by 2014, this had fallen to just 3,000. In the first year of Tretikov’s time as executive director, that rose to 3,200, and currently stands at 3,500. But that success, along with others Tretikov cited including the introduction of new editing tools, a focus on anti-harassment initiatives and the creation of a new endowment for the encyclopaedia, wasn’t enough to counter opprobrium from the community about the Wikimedia foundation’s aborted search plans. Motherboard’s Jason Koebler reports that the key reason for Tretikov’s departure was a plan, leaked earlier this month to build the “Wikipedia knowledge engine”. Described in grant documents as “a system for discovering reliable and trustworthy public information on the internet”, there was considerable doubt over what the tool was actually intended to be: a search engine aimed at halting a decline in Wikipedia traffic sent by Google, or simply a service for searching within Wikipedia? The latter was the initial suggestion put out by the Wikimedia Foundation in a blogpost after the news broke, but was contradicted by the terms of a grant from the Knight Foundation, which described instead “a model for surfacing high quality, public information on the internet”. It also explicitly described competition from Google or Yahoo as a risk to the project, and the “biggest challenge” that the group had to face. The plan to build the Knowledge Engine was controversial within the Wikimedia community. Many objected to the perceived mission creep that such a project would represent for an organisation that had previously been very focused on the creation of a singular item of human endeavour. But equally controversial was the fact that the plans had been put in place without consulting the wider community. Wikimedia prides itself on transparency, but had apparently planned the project, and applied for a grant, without any disclosure. This, added to the fact that the initial blogpost about the knowledge engine still failed to fully explain why the first grant application seemed so much bigger than simply building an internal search engine, lead to Wikimedians calling for Tretikov’s resignation. Those calls were granted this week. Wikimedia’s Patricio Lorente says the organisation’s board is meeting “to develop a clear transition plan that seeks to build confidence with community and staff, appoint interim leadership, and begin the search for a new Executive Director”.
Music shone through my wife’s Alzheimer’s Laura Barton’s description of Hannah Peel’s relationship with her gran through music (Waking moments, G2, 23 November) brought back so many memories of my wife’s struggle with Alzheimer’s. Denise died last year having struggled with Alzheimer’s for five years. She had been a music teacher and church organist in her early life but, even though I was able to care for her at home until the end, her memory and recognition failed early on in the disease. However, even when she slept most of the time, hymns would sometimes bring a smile to her lips, not least the weekly Songs of Praise on a Sunday afternoon. Such was the awakening that she would join in with most hymns and was word perfect. As the final credits rolled Denise would close her eyes and return to her abyss of darkness. Dennis Ruston Derby • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com • Read more letters – click here to visit gu.com/letters
Journalists wear Kevlar in the field – they also need to protect their minds News feeds on tragedy. When others run from danger, we run towards it, keen to witness disaster first-hand, trying to interpret the inexplicable, asking those in grief or shock to articulate how it feels. We are always looking for a personal take on a big news story, the more emotive the better. That means thrusting a microphone or pointing a camera at someone who’s experiencing one of the worst days of their lives. It’s a vital way of informing the world what’s happening, but often there’s a psychological impact of our coverage – both on those who are at their most vulnerable and also on us. Most journalists are able to deal with the day-to-day job of covering traumatic and challenging events, whether in war zones, disaster areas or courtrooms, without any long-term damage to their psychological health. However, a minority, estimated to be between 9% and 28%, will develop post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms, the higher end of the scale being similar to that of conflict veterans. I’ve spent years studying the effects of trauma on individuals and, as part of an MSc in psychology, I conducted research with nearly 150 journalists across all broadcast media. The majority said they relished the job and had pride in their work – sometimes they risked their personal physical and mental health to do that job well. They would rather cover the story than not, even with huge demands. Many of them had also experienced acute stress while doing it. The research found that exposure to personal risk in hostile environments dramatically increased that risk. But even those who did not work under threat in the field experienced difficulties, especially if they had spent time on a long court case, or spoken to grieving relatives. In fact, the person in my study with the highest post-traumatic stress score had never left the office but, after viewing images from Syria day after day, could no longer cope. For some, there was a perceived lack of engagement by those back at base that exacerbated any mental health issues. Here’s a selection of comments from news crew across various TV companies. I think my organisation takes its staff – and their mental robustness – for granted. Female, 38 There is an assumption that journalists have to be prepared to deal with any situation but even if you complete your duties in a professional way, it doesn’t mean you won’t be personally affected by the human impact of the story you’ve been covering. Male, 36 Journalists are viewed as part of (the) cost and resource matrix. There needs to be fewer spreadsheets and more humanity shown, particularly to staff who are working long hours in trying circumstances. Male, 51 I get the feeling some news desks act like first world war generals and send in the troops regardless of the situation, just to be first with the story. Excuses are frowned upon. Male, 63 Few of the journalists who spoke to me about their experiences had talked about it with anyone else. Not their families. Not their colleagues or their managers. They felt they would be considered weak, be passed over, would not be taken seriously, be labelled. At home they felt they couldn’t talk about it because they didn’t want to frighten those they loved. One in four of us have mental health issues – yet in many environments, perhaps particularly in news, where the emphasis has traditionally been on mental toughness, it’s invisible. Safer perhaps, to keep quiet about those nightmares that don’t go away after returning from a distressing story – easier to put on a brave face while going through a period of depression. Panic attacks, PTSD, phobias – all conditions that seem too tough to talk about in a hard news environment. This is where ITN’s Mental Health Week comes in. It is designed to discuss mental health in the workplace, address what gaps exist in provision and talk about how we can protect staff, while also looking at how we do the same for our most vulnerable contributors. Whether they are affected by mental health issues themselves, or they are a manager responsible for a team; whether they want to understand what mental health pressures their contributors may have and how to handle them or are simply curious to learn more about an issue that is highly likely to affect someone they know. We want to make news a place where we are not afraid to talk about out mental health. We would all put on a Kevlar vest if we were heading into a battlefield, so we should equip ourselves with a psychological first-aid kit to protect our minds, too. Sian Williams is anchor and presenter of 5 News. She is a trained trauma assessor and has written a book on resilience after trauma.
Kidney dialysis – from the comfort of your sitting room If Ian Hichens wants to go away for a few days, he must book three or four months in advance – not a hotel, but a hospital. Hichens uses a kidney dialysis machine five times a week at his home in Bleasby in Nottinghamshire; it is four feet high and too large to move. “I can go away, but I have to book a hospital,” he says. It must have a dialysis ward he can use. “It takes quite a lot of calls between hospitals to do it, and it’s [it’s a question of] if they’ve got space.” When staying on the south coast he sometimes has to drive 90 minutes to get to a ward with capacity. Hichens speaks while dialysing at Nottingham city hospital. He is using the ward so he can appear as the Sugar Plum Fairy in Sleeping Beauty in nearby Burton Joyce, but it also lets him take part in the first human trials of a new compact dialysis machine, the Quanta SC+. Since May last year, Nottingham university hospitals trust has carried out more than 100 treatments with the machine, each typically a four-hour dialysis session. The SC+ is designed to fit into users’ homes, being a third of the height of older dialysis machines and a fraction of their weight, at 30kg, without being less powerful so users can stick with their existing schedule. It uses disposable cartridges to filter blood, meaning there is less setting up for each treatment, and has simple controls. Dr Charlotte Bebb, consultant nephrologist, says it saves at least 30 minutes per cycle compared with older machines. The SC+ has been used only within the ward, but she adds: “I think these kinds of machines will make home dialysis more accessible to more patients.” Patients save on travel time and can dialyse when they want to, rather than when the ward is open. Frances Valencia, a home haemodialysis training nurse, says it is quicker to teach patients to use the SC+ than older kit. “All the patients that have been on the machine have liked it,” she says, adding that, unlike current machines, it could fit into a flat or small house. More home dialysis would have advantages for the NHS. “Lots of units have difficulties with capacity,” says Bebb, and more home dialysis would free space on wards. “It’s good for the patients, and good from a cost-effective point of view. It’s a win-all-ways,” Bebb sums up. Nottingham’s home dialysis rate of 8% is higher than the 4.2% average for England, Wales and Northern Ireland and the trust is aiming to increase this to 10%. (The figures, compiled by the US Renal Data System for 2013, put Scotland on 2.6%.) The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence has set a target for England of 15%. In 2013, the all-party parliamentary kidney group published a Home Dialysis Manifesto (pdf) that described home dialysis as “a most striking missed opportunity” for the NHS. “Not only is home dialysis clinically effective, it is also substantially more cost-effective than in-centre haemodialysis and can bring about a marked improvement in patients’ quality of life,” the report said. A study in May 2014 in New Zealand, where the home dialysis rate is 18.4%, found that home dialysis in that country is associated with the best overall survival rate. John Milad, chief executive of Warwickshire-based firm Quanta, believes the SC+ can help reach Nice’s home dialysis target. The simpler-to-use machines should also allow a further 10%-15% of patients to “self-serve” on hospital wards, taking pressure off nurses and acting as a stepping stone to home dialysis. “There are a lot of patients who are underserved right now, by being forced into this passive care-recipient model, where we could be giving them the tools to empower them to look after themselves,” he says. Quanta was spun out of Birmingham-based industrial engineering firm IMI in 2008, and its staff have experience from other industries; Milad says the SC+ cartridge system was inspired by drinks dispensers. He adds that the firm has been “really delighted” with the early results from the Nottingham trial, and has made improvements to the machine’s operation based on clinical practice, including making it more flexible to use. Geoff Chambers, a dialysis patient who also works for the trust as a patient liaison officer, says home dialysis is not for everyone. He prefers to dialyse on the ward, as he lives alone and likes to have someone present during treatment. He tried using the SC+ but normally uses haemodiafiltration dialysis, a method it does not provide. But for those it suits, it has big benefits: “The beauty of home dialysis is you can do it when you want, as many times a week as you want,” he says. “If you’re at home, you are in control, and I like the idea of being in control as much I can of my health.” Chambers, who was on the silver medal-winning GB volleyball team at the 2000 World Transplant Games in Sydney, controls his condition in other ways. He arrives for his three-weekly visits at around 7.15am so he can park easily and has the afternoon free, carries out much of the dialysis work himself – including inserting his own needles – and manages his diet carefully. Dialysis wards can be unnerving for first-timers, Chambers says. He recalls the first time he was brought in 30 years ago: “I can laugh about it now, but everyone was asleep and it was a lot of old people. I simply thought they were all unconscious. It completely freaked me out.” The machines have got much quieter. Chambers says they used to sound like washing machines, but the ward now sounds more like a supermarket than a laundrette, with beeping, clattering and conversation. Dialysis can still make new patients nervous, however, something Chambers is tackling in his liaison job, funded by Nottingham Hospitals Charity and thought to be the first of its kind in the UK. Nottingham’s trial of the SC+ machines will end in a few months’ time. Quanta has not announced pricing, although Milad says the firm wants to sell to UK customers and is considering options, including charging per treatment. Cost will decide whether the machines will be available to those using Nottingham’s dialysis ward, Bebb says, adding: “It would be nice to offer it to patients.” Join the Healthcare Professionals Network to read more pieces like this. And follow us on Twitter (@GdnHealthcare) to keep up with the latest healthcare news and views.
Sterling hits three-year low against the euro over Brexit worries The pound has sunk to a three-year low against the euro on worries over the UK’s prospects outside the EU, after the government set a timetable for Brexit negotiations and fanned fears it would go for a deal that leaves Britain excluded from the single market. Sterling came under pressure on Monday after Theresa May used her weekend speech at the Conservative party conference to pledge to trigger article 50 before the end of March. The prime minister raised the possibility of a hard Brexit as she spelled out that greater border controls would trump any attempt to remain a member of the single market. That pushed the pound down sharply against the euro single currency to €1.1438 in afternoon trading, a drop of 0.9% on the day. The pound was also down more than 1% against the US dollar to $1.2835, not far off a 31-year low hit in the wake of June’s shock referendum result. Sterling’s weakness contrasted with a rally on stock markets where share prices were lifted by a combination of near-term economic optimism, relief over May providing some certainty on Brexit timing and the effects of a weak pound, which flatters the earnings of UK-listed firms reporting in dollars. “Brexit continues to be the word of the day, with the markets somewhat caught between the future consequences of Britain’s separation from the EU and the lack of discernible impact in the past few months,” said Connor Campbell, analyst at the financial spread betting firm Spreadex. “While the FTSE is celebrating the UK’s recent, and unexpected, economic sturdiness, the pound has its eye on a time when Britain officially no longer belongs to the European Union.” The FTSE 100 index of bluechip shares rose more than 1% to a 16-month high of 6,996. The more domestically focused FTSE 250 was also up, by 1.6% at 18,152, boosted by a surge in the shares of Henderson, the fund manager, which announced a merger with the asset manager Janus. Henderson shares were up 17% at 271p. The mood was further bolstered by a poll of manufacturers that suggested factory activity expanded at the fastest pace for more than two years in September, helped by stronger export orders on the back of the pound’s fall after the EU referendum. The survey chimed with other recent reports suggesting businesses and consumers have largely recovered from the initial shock of the Brexit vote in June. The key index on the Markit/Cips UK manufacturing PMI (pdf) rose to 55.4 from 53.4 in August, beating forecasts for 52.1 in a Reuters poll of economists and the highest since June 2014. The survey also showed manufacturing production expanded at the quickest pace since May 2014, employment rose for the second month running and new orders picked up thanks to higher sales to domestic and overseas clients. New export orders grew at the fastest pace since January 2014 as the weak pound continued to make UK goods more competitive overseas. The flipside of the weaker pound was further upward pressure on import costs for manufacturers and they passed part of that on in higher prices last month. Rob Dobson, senior economist at IHS Markit, which compiled the survey, said the latest improvement in the PMI report from its post-referendum low in July was encouraging for overall growth prospects. “The rebound over the past two months has been encouragingly strong, and puts the sector on course to provide a further positive contribution to GDP in the third quarter,” he said. The survey follows official figures last week showing stronger-than-expected growth after the referendum in the services sector, which accounts for about three-quarters of the economy. Other official data also showed the economy went into the vote with slightly faster growth than previously thought. The chancellor, Philip Hammond, seized on signs of economic strength in his address to the Conservative party conference in Birmingham. “The markets have calmed since the referendum vote. And many of the recent data have been better than expected. That is the clearest demonstration of the underlying strength of our economy,” he said, without referring to the pound’s fall. Currency traders had more long-term concerns on their minds as they digested the prime minister’s weekend comments, said Chris Saint, senior analyst, at City firm Hargreaves Lansdown Currency Service. “Sterling’s woes are being compounded by speculation the UK could take the hard Brexit route, sacrificing access to the EU single market in return for greater control over immigration,” he said. There were also fresh warnings about reading too much into early signs of resilience to the referendum outcome. Statisticians have cautioned against reading too much into any single month’s data and point out that figures can get revised over time as more information comes in. Economists warn that various factors could soon weigh on spending power and sentiment. “Notwithstanding the stronger-than-expected run of economic data thus far, we expect that consumers, who until now have remained resilient in the face of Brexit, may struggle to maintain their optimism in the face of rising inflation and a softer labour market,” said Dean Turner, economist at UBS Wealth Management.
Ex-BCC chief: business bosses may fear backing British EU exit in public Business leaders may now feel too intimidated to speak out in favour of Brexit, according to the outgoing director general of the British Chambers of Commerce who resigned on Sunday night after saying the UK could be better off out of the EU. John Longworth, who was initially suspended by the BCC board after his pro-Brexit comments, said he did not know whether Downing Street had any influence on the decision but it would not be surprising if there had been some contact between officials and the business group. The row over Longworth’s Eurosceptic comments has inflamed leave campaigners, who are suspicious that No 10 may have encouraged the BCC to silence its director general. The BCC is remaining neutral on the referendum, with about two-thirds of its members favouring staying in. But Longworth had told the group’s annual conference that it was his personal view that the UK could have a “brighter” future outside the EU. David Davis, the Eurosceptic former shadow home secretary and Tory leadership candidate, has now submitted a freedom of information request to Downing Street to get to the bottom of whether government officials put any pressure on the BCC. Speaking to the , Longworth said he was “very convinced the business community is much more split than people think” and it was up to them to speak out if they had something to add to the debate. But he raised concerns that other senior figures in the corporate world may be reluctant to come out in favour of Brexit because of the furore around his remarks, which were made at the BCC annual conference on Thursday. Asked whether he thought his decision to speak out could encourage other business leaders to back Brexit, he said: “Anybody sat there watching what’s been going on, I think it would put them off quite frankly rather than it encouraging them … I’m sure people would be intimidated.” Longworth said he did not personally hear from Downing Street after his speech and he has “no idea what happened after the conference day”, so allegations about government pressure were “for the BCC to answer”. “The only thing I can say is that I have been dealing with governments for many years and it is normal practice for government representatives to make their views known, sometimes in the strongest and most striking terms about issues, but they have never influenced me. I have always said it like it is without fear or favour,” he added. Longworth is now considering whether to participate formally in the leave campaign, and separately told the Telegraph that he thought David Cameron was peddling “highly irresponsible” scare stories to try to keep the UK in the EU. The BCC has strongly denied any political interference influenced its decision to suspend Longworth. “His subsequent resignation was agreed mutually between Mr Longworth and the BCC board, and there were no external factors involved. The only views taken into account were those of the BCC board and the BCC’s owners – the UK accredited chamber network,” a spokesman said. Michael Fallon, the defence secretary, also firmly rejected the idea that No 10 or other government officials exerted any pressure on the BCC over the suspension, suggesting the leave campaign was engaging in a conspiracy theory. He told Sky News: “I can give you that absolute assurance, because the board of the British Chambers of Commerce have made it very clear that this was their decision, and there was no external pressure from anybody else. “People who want to leave Europe are seeing conspiracy theories everywhere now because they don’t want to answer the basic questions, which is if you leave Europe, where are you going? What are the new arrangements for trade? What is going to happen to the jobs that depend on Europe? They have to start answering these questions instead of coming up with rather bizarre conspiracy theories that the British Chambers of Commerce have flatly denied.” However, Downing Street has refused to reveal its contact with the BCC after the speech on Thursday and before Longworth’s suspension on Friday night. The prime minister’s spokeswoman said: “We are in regular discussions with business organisations. I am not going to get into the details about private conversations.” She would not deny that there had been contact before or since the speech and suggested that it was reasonable for the government to court the opinions of pro-EU supporters in the business world. Boris Johnson, the London mayor, said Longworth had “effectively been gagged” from expressing a bright and optimistic vision of Britain outside the EU. He also told LBC: “I think it is very sad that somebody like John Longworth, who’s given a lot of time, a lot of thought to the needs of British business and industry should be basically pushed out for saying what he thinks.”
World trade hangs in the balance as Trump prepares plan of action Donald Trump’s determination to stamp his mark on US trade policy “would be horribly destructive”, according to the most exhaustive assessment of his pre-election tweets, speeches and declarations in Fox News interviews. Among the more consistent themes in his various pronouncements, the president-elect said he would tear up the Nafta agreement that gives Mexico tariff-free access to US markets on about half of its goods. Trump also threatened to impose tariffs on China, which he said could be as much as 35%, to punish the Beijing for a policy of “currency manipulation”. The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement, president Obama’s hard-won free trade agreement with Japan, Australia and much of the Pacific rim, which lowers tariffs on a wide range of goods, will be thrown in the Oval Office bin, if a Trump video outlining his policies in the first 100 days is anything to go by. The Peterson Institute, a non-partisan thinktank in Washington, said in its September report assessing trade agendas in the US presidential campaign that the sum of all these moves would bring the US recovery to a juddering halt, and possibly plunge it into recession. The institute’s chairman, Adam Posen, a former Bank of England policymaker, said in his foreword to the report: “The belligerent trade policies proposed by Trump would devastate viable American businesses and their vicinities.” But as the inauguration nears, it looks like the doomsday scenario put forward not just by Posen, but also in the pages of Forbes, Fortune and much of the US media, can be put on ice. Just as Trump is turning his attention away from prosecuting Hillary Clinton, so a trade war with the Chinese and Mexicans is no longer a priority. Of the three main threats to trade, only axing the TPP agreement looks likely to happen, since it has yet to be ratified by Congress and remains, like the Paris climate deal, a White House policy, not a US policy. Marcus Noland, an author of the Peterson Institute report, says signals from the Trump camp indicate he has also shelved his threatened war on China and Japan while he focuses on domestic concerns. That will be a relief to the International Monetary Fund and the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which have spent the last couple of years wringing their hands over a sharp decline in trade. In October, the IMF said the sum of trade across the world had grown by just over 3% per year since 2012, less than half the average rate of expansion during the previous three decades. “The slowdown in trade growth is remarkable, especially when set against the historical relationship between growth in trade and global economic activity. Between 1985 and 2007, real world trade grew on average twice as fast as global GDP, whereas over the past four years it has barely kept pace. Such prolonged sluggish growth in trade volumes relative to economic activity has few historical precedents during the past five decades.” In a barely disguised attack on Trump and fellow protectionists, it warned leaders to put more effort into mitigating the effects of globalisation. “An increasingly popular narrative that sees the benefits of globalisation and trade accrue only to a fortunate few is also gaining traction. Policymakers need to address the concerns of trade-affected workers, including effective support for retraining, skill building and occupational and geographic mobility, to mitigate the downsides of further trade integration for the trade agenda to revive.” Noland says Trump’s first term could still be scarred by battles with China. “Let’s say the president wins approval from the Republican-dominated Congress for a large fiscal stimulus with a mixture of tax cuts and infrastructure spending. If this boom sucks in more imports and increases the balance of payments deficit, as everyone expects, Trump will come under renewed pressure to act,” he said. “This could be a couple of years down the line, but would mean him pursuing all the protectionist threats he made in the campaign.” Swati Dhingra, a trade specialist at the London School of Economics’ Centre for Economic Performance, says there could be some easy wins for Trump if he needs them. “The Nafta agreement has an inbuilt annual renegotiation clause, so there is the potential for the president to secure changes to tariffs with Canada and Mexico without throwing out the whole thing,” she says. “But it’s scary when Trump starts to attack China. Who knows how bad things will get if he imposes tariffs against World Trade Organisation rules.” China could appeal against them to the WTO board, though Trump has said he would quit the WTO rather than step back from a fight. A more likely reaction from Beijing would be tit-for-tat tariffs. The Global Times, a newspaper seen by many as a vehicle for the Chinese leadership to float ideas and respond to sensitive political issues, said earlier this month that China could easily favour Airbus over Boeing when it buys aircraft. “US auto and iPhone sales in China will suffer a setback, and US soybean and maize imports will be halted. China can also limit the number of Chinese students studying in the US,” it said. President Obama has already been down this road. Not long after he took office, he imposed a 35% import tariff on Chinese tyres to protect Firestone and other domestic suppliers. But one study estimated it saved a maximum 1,200 jobs and cost US consumers $1.1bn in higher prices. In addition, China reacted by slapping tariffs on US chicken and car parts, costing US businesses millions of dollars in lost revenue. Worse, the US economy was growing strongly and adding jobs in the tyre industry, so the 1,200 jobs were probably in the pipeline anyway. Mitt Romney, the Republican’s losing presidential candidate in 2012, was damning in his criticism of Obama and the way he allowed auto workers to bully him into raising protectionist tariffs. The former Massachusetts governor will need to eat his words should he become Trump’s secretary of state and join an administration only too keen to upset free trade advocates. But then he will need to apologise for calling Trump a fraud and a phoney during the campaign, so maybe ditching his free-trade principles will be the least of his worries. The deals under threat TPP The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) would cut tariffs and deepen economic ties between the US, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Malaysia, Vietnam, Singapore, Brunei, Mexico, Peru and Chile. It also aims to simplify regulations and copyright laws so that member countries would have a more or less unified system. Overall, more than 18,000 tariffs would be affected, and though some will take more than 10 years to disappear, the result could be a new single market, similar to the European Union, with the current signatories comprising about 40% of the global economy. Nafta Opinion is divided over success of the North American Free Trade Agreement, a deal between Mexico, Canada and the US signed by Bill Clinton in 1994. Its critics say it meant millions of poor Mexicans became servants of a northern power that exported its 2008 financial crisis and not much else. Supporters say it bolstered the rule of law, and kept democracy afloat and the generals and dictators at bay. Maintaining strong links with the US is a top priority for the Mexican government. TTIP The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership is a series of negotiations between the EU and US that aims to cut tariffs on everything from cars to beef. It is a bigger version of the TPP: the US wanted agriculture and financial services included. But it was put on hold following a rebellion by German MPs and disquiet in France over the use of secret courts to resolve trade disputes. Critics say the courts allow large, mainly US multinationals to sue governments when policy changes hit their profits. Trump, however, believes it will favour EU companies and undermine US jobs, so it is probably dead, rather than on hold. Ceta The Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement is a mini-me deal between Canada and the EU that was supposed to pave the way for the much bigger TTIP, but now it looks like being the only scheme for lower tariffs with another country to secure approval in Brussels. It must now be ratified by all 28 members of the EU, including Britain, though Theresa May could well abstain.
Earth, Wind & Fire review – a groove parday with the funk soul uncles When Earth, Wind & Fire were in their funky late-70s pomp, they put on some of the most theatrical pop shows ever seen. Their silver outfits could have come straight from Star Trek and bassist Verdine White’s favourite party piece was levitating several feet above the stage. Now, after making music for 45 years, they’re down to three remaining original members. Founding singer (and Verdine’s brother) Maurice White exited the touring lineup in the 90s owing to Parkinson’s disease; he died this year. Ralph Johnson has departed the drum kit for a less physically demanding percussion role. However, at 65, singer Philip Bailey’s extraordinary falsetto still visits places usually made possible only by painfully tight trousers. Nowadays, Verdine White remains rooted to the spot, although his red sparkly flares could provide several families with Christmas decorations and his rubbery funk basslines deliver the throbbing power for a near two-hour “parday”. Opening with signature tune Boogie Wonderland would be foolhardy if the band didn’t have plenty more where that came from, and the 1979 song has been given something of a makeover. With the 13-piece band augmented by younger musicians, including Bailey’s son, a new middle section flits from Latin to Kraftwerk-style electronics to house music, ending with the musicians spinning on their heels into a collective Black Panthers-type salute. In a breathless opening salvo, Jupiter and Shining Star demonstrate the band’s trademark ability to lay down stupidly funky grooves, showered with disco, pop and soul. It’s a shame, then, that with the entire if undersold arena audience on their feet, a lengthy middle section of purist’s favourites, slower-paced songs and instrumental sections promptly has them sitting down again, although the rest is perhaps welcomed by the more venerable members of the audience. Still, there’s a lovely moment when Maurice White appears on screen to “sing” with his surviving peers, and in grainy black and white images of the band in their prime. Bailey wonders aloud how many people present were conceived to the sound of EWF’s funky-pumpy. The smoother soul After the Love Has Gone probably soundtracked more divorces than lovey-dovey, although Bailey seems close to tears when the song is taken up by an impromptu, mostly female audience choir. The brassy cover of the Beatles’ Got to Get You Into My Life gets the party restarted in no uncertain terms, before Fantasy and September sound exactly as they should. With barely anything with a date stamp past 1980 and well-worn, if effective, call-and-response routines, it’s a show that leans mostly on nostalgia and old-fashioned showmanship, but keeps Maurice White’s life’s work alive. If the late frontman is visiting in spirit, he would surely be thrilled to witness the jubilant reception given the 35-year-old Let’s Groove, as every audience member follows Bailey’s tried and trusted command to “wave your hands in the air, wave them like you just don’t care”.
Italy's political class should be very alarmed if MPS needs state bailout Monte dei Paschi di Siena’s attempt to float itself off the rocks with private capital appears doomed and a state-sponsored bailout looks inevitable. The Italian government on Wednesday granted itself the funds for a rescue package. The deed will probably be done by Christmas, with losses imposed on junior bondholders. It is tempting to think this outcome was inevitable. The crisis at Italy’s third-largest lender has bubbled away for most of 2016 and the bank has a long and grim record of disappointing its backers. Over the past five years, it has raised €8bn in capital but churned out losses of €15bn. But, turn the clock back just a few months, and there were realistic hopes that recapitalisation by the private sector would succeed. The Siena-based lender was bottom of the class in the eurozone’s regulatory stress tests in the summer but a few Greek banks have proved it is possible to find brave investors willing to take a punt on recovery. MPS also seemed to have acquired two ingredients it had previously lacked – a credible chief executive and a serious cost-cutting plan. Marco Morelli, a former Bank of America executive, arrived in September and outlined his ambition to cut 2,500 jobs and a quarter of the branches. If recapitalisation could be achieved, said Morelli, MPS would emerge at the end of 2019 with one of the healthiest capital ratios among European banks. And why not? Italy is not Greece. Half the country is rich. It ought to be possible for a bank founded in 1472 to shuffle off its bad loans, even at depressed prices, overcome its foolish acquisitions from the boom years and regain a profitable niche. The critical sum at stake in the recapitalisation plan – €5bn – was not off the scale and JP Morgan, the Wall Street powerhouse advising MPS, was on hand to round up a few so-called anchor investors. It has not worked. The immediate reason is that the anchor investors, supposedly from Qatar and China, have got cold feet. Meanwhile, junior bondholders have squealed at being asked to turn their IOUs into equity. In other words, confidence drained away, not helped by MPS’s warning that its levels of liquidity were falling fast. But the other trigger was the landslide defeat for prime minister Matteo Renzi in the referendum on constitutional reform. That reopened the debate about Italy’s long-term future in the eurozone. Until the elections are held and the political picture clears, investors seem to have decided that Italy is not a place to take a high-risk bet. January’s planned €13bn recapitalisation of Unicredit should still be safe. Unicredit is bigger, its bad debts are less severe and underwriters are already in place. But Italy’s political class should be alarmed by MPS’s failure to find private-sector friends. Bigger challenges have been overcome during the eurozone’s many crises. This state bailout looks like investors’ vote of little confidence in Italy. Lily-livered Deloitte’s ridiculous apology The sins of Serco and G4S, circa 2013, were grave. The companies had been billing the government for placing electronic tags on offenders who were dead or in prison. They were told to engage in “corporate renewal” – in other words, get their houses in order – and they would be banned from bidding for public sector work in the meantime. The response was reasonable and appeared to have the desired effect. The companies reformed their boards and audit committees to try to ensure that such a scandal could never happen again. Six months later, the bans were lifted, which also seemed roughly right. Outsourcing is designed to save money for the public purse and Serco and G4S, love them or loathe then, are two of the biggest operators in the country. So best to have the duo, in scrubbed-up form one hopes, in the market to keep the bidding competitive. Now Deloitte has similarly been banned from bidding for central government contracts for six months. Or, rather, the consultant has volunteered for punishment. Has it also ripped off taxpayers for millions through deceit or incompetence? Not at all. All that has happened is that one of its consultants wrote a two-page internal memo suggesting the government had no plan for Brexit, which is hardly a controversial opinion, and that civil servants are struggling to cope with the extra workload. But Deloitte thinks it needs to apologise for the “unintended disruption ... caused to government” by a leak to the Times. It wants “to put this matter behind us”. This affair is ridiculous. The partners of Deloitte come across as lily-livered. And Theresa May, in apparently endorsing the six-month ban, appears terrified of criticism. Outsiders will draw a simple conclusion from the colossal over-reaction: the memo was on the money.
Corporate governance experts call for the head of HSBC chairman HSBC investors should reject the bank’s “excessive” executive pay plans at its annual general meeting, according to a shareholder advisory group, which branded the position of chairman Douglas Flint “untenable”. Pensions and Investment Research Consultants (Pirc) advised shareholders to oppose the re-election of Flint at the meeting on 22 April. Pirc said it had concerns over the variable pay of chief executive Stuart Gulliver, which exceeded 200% of his salary. It also described his benefits package – worth 50% of salary – as “excessive and inappropriate”. Pirc welcomed some of HSBC’s plans to limit future benefits for executives but said “changes are still considered insufficient to align with best practice”. The group said Flint’s position had become untenable because he was finance director at a time when there were regulatory breaches for which HSBC was later fined. It said: “Pirc would expect such issues to require intense scrutiny by the board of the position of the finance director and the auditors. Given this, it is considered that Mr Flint has failed in his responsibilities and his position is untenable.” HSBC declined to comment.
In or out – what’s the best for British bats? We have written to the Britain Stronger in Europe and Vote Leave campaigns to ask how a leave or remain vote will affect the UK’s treasured natural environment and its remarkable and already threatened species (Could Brexit be the best thing for Europe’s wildlife?, theguardian.com, 9 May). The decision on whether to stay in the EU or to leave will have many far-reaching and long-term effects. While several of the areas where this effect will be felt have been debated in some depth, such as trade, investment, immigration and jobs, there are other important areas that have not been given attention by campaigners, but directly or indirectly affect us all. A significant gap is the impact on wildlife. The outcome of June’s referendum has the potential to change the face of the UK’s countryside for generations to come. We strongly believe that whether people are committed to the EU, determined to leave, or still undecided, the effect their vote will have on the natural environment must be known. We have asked both campaigns to make clear what effect their preferred referendum result will have on the UK’s wonderful natural environment that so many of us care about. Chris Packham President, Dr David Gibbons Chair, Julia Hanmer Joint CEO, Kit Stoner Joint CEO Bat Conservation Trust • It is time progressive forces in British politics came together to make the positive case for Europe. With ITV planning a debate between David Cameron and Nigel Farage, we need to energise the 75% of registered voters who didn’t back the Conservatives in last year’s general election. Anyone who professes to be a progressive leader must explain that it is the EU protecting worker rights, setting environmental standards and regulating the banks. So far Jeremy Corbyn’s Euro battle bus hasn’t clocked up too many miles. He, and leaders of the other so-called progressive parties, should join me on platforms up and down the country. Progressive leaders must be in the futures business, and it is vital for our children’s future that our place in Europe is protected. Tim Farron MP Leader, Liberal Democrats • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
NHS 'struggling to cope' with increase in people undergoing cancer tests NHS pathology services cannot keep up with the increasing number of samples being taken from the growing number of people being tested for cancer, raising fears that some will be diagnosed late. That is the conclusion of a report published on Wednesday by Cancer Research UK, which warns that units are “struggling to cope” with the number of biopsies and blood samples being taken as the ageing and growing population produces more cases of suspected cancer. Experts fear the lack of capacity and shortages of pathologists could hamper the NHS-wide drive to improve Britain’s poor record in early identification of cancer. “Diagnostic services, including pathology, urgently need support and investment to ensure that diagnoses aren’t delayed and patients benefit from the latest treatment,” said Emma Greenwood, Cancer Research UK’s director of policy. “The UK’s cancer survival is lagging behind other European countries and improving early diagnosis through diagnostic services is one of the ways to address this. The diagnostic bottleneck will only get worse without action now and this involves addressing staff shortages in imaging, endoscopy and pathology.” The research found that the number of NHS pathologists is failing to keep pace with rising demand, leaving pathology services under growing pressure. “Pathologists are the medical specialists who diagnose cancer. They also play a vital role in the prevention, treatment and monitoring of cancer and are at the forefront of research to improve the length and quality of life of people with the disease,”said Dr Suzy Lishman, president of the Royal College of Pathologists. Meanwhile, women with ovarian cancer – the deadliest female cancer – are being “left stranded without vital support at every turn”, from diagnostic tests to access to nurses, according to a report by the charity Target Ovarian Cancer. Its Pathfinder 2016 study found that only one in five UK women (20%) could identify bloating as a major symptom of the disease. Two in five women (41%) visited their GP at least three times or more before they were referred for ovarian cancer tests, risking a delayed diagnosis. And 80% of women diagnosed with ovarian cancer said they had encountered mental health problems since being diagnosed. “Women with ovarian cancer are being failed at diagnosis, in access to trials and effective drugs, and they lack support,” said Annwen Jones, the charity’s chief executive.
Think Leicester will fold against Liverpool, Manchester City and Arsenal? Think again If all eyes have admiringly and disbelievingly been on Leicester City for a great deal of this Premier League season, the focus is about to get that little bit sharper. England’s buccaneering pacesetters have in front of them a large hurdle that has all the makings of an important signpost in this remarkable campaign. Within the space of 12 days Leicester confront three difficult assignments. “Three unbelievable matches,” emphasised Claudio Ranieri. Liverpool at home on Tuesday, followed by Manchester City away and Arsenal away. That little flurry includes the only two sides to have beaten them in the Premier League so far this season, with the bookies’ favourite to finish top sandwiched between. “It’s important to be ready,” added Ranieri, making all the right noises about his team feeling strong at the moment. Come teatime on Valentine’s Day, at the end of this mini-series, it will be very revealing to see if he can still make light and chuckle away at the questions about Leicester’s title hopes. Think they are bound to falter? Think again. Of course, this being unscripted sport none of us have the slightest clue really, but the big positive Leicester have going for them is they were supposed to drop off a cliff once already this season and they managed to maintain their footing. Not so long ago, beginning in late November, a bunch of tricky fixtures loomed over the course of a testing month, including Manchester United, Chelsea, Everton, Liverpool and Manchester City. Leicester came unstuck in only one of those fixtures – losing narrowly at Anfield. They began that period top by one point, and ended it second only on goal difference, so any expectations that they would have a serious wobble were adeptly answered. Leicester’s fortune in keeping so many crucial players fit enough to play the majority of the games has given them a great foundation. Naturally, any serious injuries will test Ranieri’s resources, but the purchases of Daniel Amartey and Demarai Gray during January are promising ones. Judging by the way most of the summer signings have shone, with N’Golo Kanté, Christian Fuchs, Robert Huth (who made his successful loan from Stoke a permanent move) and Shinji Okazaki all becoming mainstays in the team, the manager has shown a great touch for bringing in players who are ready to adapt quickly to the fast, determined tempo that has served Leicester so well. Joining a settled and optimistic dressing room, the vibes around the team continue to be upbeat and fiercely driven. Although the Premier League summit remains, quite rightly, their priority, Leicester ought to be keeping a eye on the distance between them and the team fifth in the table, currently Manchester United. Could there be a greater confidence boost in the last few weeks of the season than confirming a place in the Champions League? The gap over United at the moment is 10 points. Keeping a comfortable cushion should be a huge incentive, because, irrespective of how the title challenge ends up, a Champions League position would in itself be a staggering achievement. It has been an age since a team from the Midlands has been represented in Europe’s elite competition. None of Leicester’s current players were even born around the golden age in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when Nottingham Forest and Aston Villa flourished. More recently, following the modernisation of the European Cup from the 1990s onwards, English football’s modern history has no precedent for a club outside the traditional power bases, one without a domestic title on its honours board, qualifying for the Champions League. It has never happened before. When English football first saw its number of qualification spots increased to four, during the 2001-02 season, it was reasonable to imagine a greater spread of teams could gain access to the prosperous, luxurious, promised land of the Champions League. In reality the opposite occurred. Since 2001-02, a Champions League ticket has been claimed 57 times by English clubs (this includes a bonus spot, when Liverpool won the competition in 2005 so even though they finished outside the top four they were allowed special dispensation to join in). The usual suspects – Arsenal, Manchester United, Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester City – have taken up 53 of those 57 slots. Outside that list of heavyweights, Newcastle qualified twice (failing once to reach the group stage), and Everton (also failing to reach the groups) and Tottenham once each. Back in 2001-02, Leicester City were anything but one of those clubs hungrily eyeing up a Champions League position. They were relegated, the first team to drop out of the Premier League that season, and finished in bottom place. It was a doleful and worrying way to bid farewell to their ancestral home, Filbert Street. With spiralling debts as they endeavoured to pay for a new stadium, they went into administration. The weeks ahead offer tantalising opportunity. A shot at history. The chance to do something nobody thought possible when Ranieri was appointed to take over from Nigel Pearson continues to be astounding.
The view on the Queen’s speech: playing it safe For anyone out there who is agonised by their wait for a Michael Gove government, today will have come as a blessed relief. The Queen read out words chosen by David Cameron, but almost all the substantive programme that she detailed had a Govian flavour. There was, in no particular order, a drive to extend academy schools, only slightly diluted since the budget, hot-headed measures on terrorism, including a return of the snooper’s charter and a plan to criminalise “extremism” before making clear what it means, a useful reform of adoption (a personal passion of the justice secretary) and then the centrepiece – his very own prison reforms. And all of this, too, was wrapped up in favoured Gove slogans about modern, reforming Conservatism. No doubt this analysis is a little too flip. But the desperate need to keep on board Tory Brexiteers, Mr Gove included, is a serious constraint on the government just now. Anything prone to deepen the divide in the Conservative party has to be parked until after the 23 June EU referendum. This would ordinarily be the stage of a parliament for pushing ahead with the most difficult choices, but legislation to facilitate various service cuts and a mooted scrap with the House of Lords over its delaying powers appear to have been postponed. A year into the first Cameron government, it was full speed ahead on Andrew Lansley’s NHS overhaul and plans to expose every last council service to competition; a year into the second the fear is that anything so controversial would be opportunistically resisted by Mr Cameron’s opponents in the EU debate, and so – it seems – he has resigned himself to a quiet life. Today a more conciliatory tone finally edged things to a deal in the long dispute with junior doctors. The looming tussle to succeed the prime minister before the next general election also had a bearing on what made it on to the parchment in a thin Queen’s speech. There are extra powers once again, this time over buses, for the new metro mayors, an icon of George Osborne’s ambitions. Theresa May, who has made a point of challenging the police, will have a new law to hold them to account. But Mrs May will be miffed about something else. She is on the side of remaining in the EU, but her one big referendum intervention thus far artfully coupled this stance, a challenging sell to the Conservative members who will pick the next party leader, to a demand that the UK withdraw from another pillar of the European order, the convention on human rights. She favours ripping up the Human Rights Act, which enshrines convention protections, and has said so. Today, however, the detail and the timetable of the proposed Tory alternative, a British bill of rights, remained vague. The language stressed revision rather than replacement of the HRA, and nodded at consistency with the convention. This relative restraint brings us back to Mr Gove because, being a relative liberal on questions of law, he put the brakes on the stampede of his predecessor, Chris Grayling, towards a headlong assault on human rights. This is somewhat reassuring for defenders of civil liberties, but only somewhat, because Mr Gove is widely tipped to be reshuffled once the referendum is out of the way. Any restraint he is exerting on human rights, therefore, needs to be regarded as temporary. Likewise there can be no guarantee that the leadership that he and a final-term prime minister purport to be showing on prisons will be sustained. Of course it is welcome to hear top rank politicians facing up to the manifestly miserable results of mass incarceration, which include widespread recidivism. But we have, on and off, heard similar things before over the last quarter of a century, and yet this penal era has been defined by an outright doubling of prisoner numbers, despite declining crime and an ageing population. This weight of numbers has combined with staff reductions to condemn many prisoners to being banged up for all but two or three hours a day, a regime that makes a mockery of serious hopes for education and other paths to redemption. Only this week, the home affairs select committee warned of rising disorder, and demanded urgent change, and yet Messrs Gove and Cameron have responded with a pilot scheme for devolving some decisions to prison governors, which is only likely to work at all if they are given the resources and the backing to experiment confidently. A central innovations unit might be one way to provide such support; another analogue might have been the college of policing. Equally significant is one missing freedom – the freedom to release prisoners early where the governor decides they have mended their ways. Without such measures, the generation-long rising tide of prisoner numbers will not be reversed. And governors, worn down by navigating between central diktats and the interminable pressure of numbers, may be too paralysed to try anything bold. A bit like the government just now.
Absolutely Fabulous film trailer: do Edina and Patsy defenestrate Kate Moss? The first full trailer for Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie has Edina and Patsy on the run in France after possibly killing Kate Moss. Jennifer Saunders and Joanna Lumley reprise their roles as the champagne-drinking fashionistas for the first time in four years, while the film brings back the sitcom’s other co-stars Julia Sawalha and Jane Horrocks. The trailer also shows off a long list of celebrity cameos, including Jon Hamm, Rebel Wilson, Stella McCartney, Gwendoline Christie, Lily Cole and Moss herself. Other stars set to make an appearance include Joan Collins, Perez Hilton and Jeremy Paxman. The original TV series was first broadcast in 1992 and continued for five seasons, also inspiring a French film called Absolument Fabuleux, starring Nathalie Baye and with a cameo from Saunders herself. Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie has been in development for about five years, with Saunders saying she would do the film for no other reason than to have the two characters walk the red carpet at the premiere. The production has already been subject to controversy, when it was announced that Krankies comedian Janette Tough would be playing a Japanese man called Huki Muki. “I love AbFab but #YELLOWFACE is something I cannot watch – I just can’t,” Korean American comic Margaret Cho tweeted. “It’s sad when heroes are no longer heroic. Too bad. #racism.” Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie will be released in UK cinemas on 1 July
Roberto Saviano: London is heart of global financial corruption The financial services industry based in the City of London facilitates a system that makes the UK the most corrupt nation in the world, the anti-mafia journalist Roberto Saviano said at the Hay festival. Saviano, who has been living under armed police guard for more than 10 years after writing an expose of the Neapolitan Camorra, said London’s banking institutions were key components of “criminal capitalism”, which laundered drug money through the offshore networks. He said: “If I asked what is the most corrupt place on Earth, you might say it’s Afghanistan, maybe Greece, Nigeria, the south of Italy. I would say it is the UK. It’s not UK bureaucracy, police, or politics, but what is corrupt is the financial capital. Ninety per cent of the owners of capital in London have their headquarters offshore. “Jersey and the Caymans are the access gates to criminal capital in Europe and the UK is the country that allows it. That is why it is important, why it is so crucial for me to talk to you because I want to say: this is about you, this is about your life, this is about your government.” As he spoke two bodyguards stood by silently scanning the crowd. In his interview on Saturday with and journalist Ed Vulliamy, Saviano said that there was a hidden danger of voting to leave the European Union that was little discussed. He said if the UK left the EU, it would undermine joint attempts to fight illegal economies. “Leaving the EU means allowing the Qatari societies, the Mexican cartels, the Russia Mafia to gain even more power,” he said, highlighting the fact HSBC had paid $1.9bn in fines to the US government for financial irregularities in dealing with money that had come from cartels. He added: “We have proof, we have evidence. Today, the criminal economy is bigger than the legal economy. Drug trafficking eclipses the revenue of oil firms. Cocaine is a £300bn-a-year business. Criminal capitalism is capitalism without rules. Mafia and organised crime does not abide by the rule of law – and most financial companies who reside offshore are exactly the same.” Saviano also recalled how he had been moved to write the book that led to the Camorra telling him it would kill him. “In my lifetime, more than 4,000 people have been killed in Naples and the surrounding area by the Camorra,” he said. “But when I was younger I did not have a clear perception of the criminal power that ruled that area.” He said that the murder of a priest in his home town radically changed his view. “The priest was 30 years old and was shot in the face,” he said. “He had spoken out about the Camorra. He had said ‘for the love of my people I will not keep quiet in the face of a dictatorship run by the Mafia. He called it a totalitarian power within a democracy, and wrote an essay denouncing them. He said by doing so, he felt he could influence the power that was around me.” Saviano explained how his life had changed dramatically, aged 26, when he wrote Gomorra, a book exposing the people in the Camorra and the way they acted. Saviano said: “When I got myself into this situation and I could not imagine that it would end like this because many books have been written on the Mafia, but it was my book that made them so angry. “My life is unique. I am followed by two bulletproofed cars and by more than five officers and that brings about a feeling of guilt sometimes because you exposed yourself too much, you were not cautious enough. I live under police protection and have done so for 10 years. What got me into trouble wasn’t so much that I wrote a book, but the way I wrote it. I named names and I stated facts. I took you to the crime scene.” Vulliamy praised his bravery and Saviano replied by saying writers should cherish their ability to speak out. “Never take for granted the freedom of expression,” Saviano said. He cited the case of Malala Yousafzai, who was shot by the Taliban aged 15 for campaigning for the right for girls to education. “They are the world’s biggest heroin traffickers, who make fortunes from the trade, and they were frightened of this 15-year-old who was brave enough to speak up for women and girls to go to school as a way to transform her society,” he said. He added he had been influenced by fellow Italian writer Primo Levi, whose book If This Is a Man about life in Auschwitz laid bare the daily horrors of life in the Nazi death camp. “He brought the reader to Auschwitz,” explained Saviano. “I wanted to say to the reader, this story is about you – that way the reader becomes a problem for organised crime.”
Rogues gallery: how photographers are targeting the 1% When the London riots kicked off in 2011, Daniel Mayrit was living in Tottenham, and he witnessed violent events on his doorstep. A few months later, he received a police leaflet in the post featuring faces of the alleged participants, taken from CCTV cameras, which asked neighbours to help identify them. At the same time, banks were being bailed out and financial scandals were rolling out in the press. “On the one hand we had the petty thieves that maybe had stolen a TV in the supermarket, and on the other those responsible for the financial crisis,” says Mayrit. “The difference was that in one case we got their images delivered to our homes, in the other we had no idea who they were or what they looked like. There was a representation vacuum, and I wanted to put faces on them the way that power puts faces on criminals.” Mayrit worked to fill that space. The Spanish photographer tracked down the 100 most powerful people in the City of London (according to Square Mile’s 2014 report) and, after trying to photograph them directly – going to their places of work, or finding out about events they would attend – he gave up and resorted to the internet instead. He carefully selected images that were already in the public domain (in the press, YouTube, and footage from parliamentary appearances) and gave them a treatment that made them look like screenshots from security cameras. His motivation? Without representation, there can be no action. “It’s very difficult to point your indignation towards something if you don’t even know its face.” The resulting photobook, You Haven’t Seen Their Faces, questions how presentation can change narratives. “We could not possibly know if the youngsters portrayed by the police were actually criminals,” Mayrit says on his website. “We almost inadvertently assume their guilt because they have been ‘caught on CCTV’.” Likewise, he says, “we cannot assume either that the individuals featured here are all involved in the ongoing financial scandals.” His book, which won the Paris Photo First Photobook award and is featured in Martin Parr’s Strange and Familiar show, currently on at London’s Barbican Gallery, features photocopies of the faces printed on brown paper and bound together by three golden screws. Mayrit overlays handwritten texts on each face giving information about their earnings, scandals or legal cases they’ve been involved in – all of it information that had already been published by established media. With editor Verónica Fieiras, he was looking to spark “a sort of physical reaction”. So they included a map that identifies these people and their workplaces. “We wanted for the book to allow readers to take action if they wanted, for them to really use it.” Meanwhile, in his Suburban Scenes project, Mayrit staged daily anodyne scenes with actors in Tottenham and retouched the shots to give them a Google Street View look. “I wanted to question how those images were interpreted by the viewer, depending on what they knew about Tottenham. They could all be read in one way or its opposite – like this kid jumping a fence: had he just stolen something, or was he taking a shortcut to the shopping centre?” Despite the activist slant of his art, Mayrit is sceptical that images can change the world: “After Vietnam, their power is relatively small, and I’m infinitely aware of that.” However, he is tackling something that bothers him: “Photographers always seem to focus on the victims, in any type of conflict.”. He wanted to do the opposite: “What about those responsible for it?” Spending months working on closeups of these faces, “obsessing about getting the right look” affected Mayrit. “I felt like they were part of my life, like I knew them – they felt like the neighbour you see every morning.” But the more he researched, the more he realised that he – and we – are clueless about real life in the City of London. In one particular case, number 71 in the power 100 – he could not even find a photo of the subject, Jonathan Sorrell. “Some of these people have so much power that they’ve managed for their image not to be on the internet. It felt like a metaphor for the whole project.” Mayrit is one of a growing number of photographers turning their cameras on the wealthy. Dougie Wallace takes garish portraits of customers outside Harrods; Italian duo Paolo Woods and Gabriele Galimberti photograph tax havens around the world; Zed Nelson visually explores the cost of gentrification in London. In Points of Authority, Thalia Galanopoulou photographed bankers going about their daily business: “Some of them have given me consent, but most of them were just passing by,” says Galanopoulou of her gonzo approach. “I always made myself visible, as I used a 50mm lens. I didn’t want to be hiding … I think this confrontation is an important element.” No reactions from the City have, as of yet, reached Mayrit, who draws a parallel between the isolation of the financial and art sectors: “Both are a niche. Most people in them don’t really care about what goes on outside of their worlds.” He is now working on a project around Spain’s controversial “gagging law”, which prohibits the dissemination of pictures of police forces. “They are also trying to create a representation vacuum,” he says of the legislation. “The financial system had a moral vacuum; this is creating a vacuum by law.” You Haven’t Seen Their Faces is published by Riot Books
UK economy shrinks in July as activity falls after Brexit vote, says Niesr One of Britain’s leading economic thinktanks has said the UK economy shrank last month as the impact of the Brexit vote led to a pronounced weakening in activity. The National Institute of Economic and Social Research estimated that gross domestic product contracted by 0.2% in July. Niesr published the findings after official government figures showed that the UK trade deficit widened and factory production eased back in the weeks immediately before and after the EU referendum on 23 June. James Warren, a research fellow at Niesr, said: “We estimate that in the three months to July, the UK economy grew by 0.3%, a marked economic slowdown. The month-on-month profile suggests that the third quarter has got off to a weak start, with output declining in July. Our estimates suggest that there is around an evens chance of a technical recession by the end of 2017.” The thinktank came to a gloomy conclusion after data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed that a spurt in manufacturing came to an end in June, with output dropping by 0.3%. Meanwhile, UK exports failed to match imports, with the trade deficit rising by £0.9bn to £5.1bn. The poor trade and manufacturing figures led to a fall in the pound on the foreign exchanges. At one stage, sterling dipped below $1.30 and threatened to reach a post-Brexit vote low, before later rallying. However the ONS said there was little evidence of industry adopting a cautious approach because of uncertainty caused by the closely fought referendum campaign. The organisation’s chief economist, Joe Grice, said: “As we previously highlighted in our preliminary estimate of GDP, production and the wider economy grew strongly in April, and then remained at roughly the same level throughout May and June. “Any uncertainties in the run-up to the referendum seem to have had little impact on production, with very few respondents to our surveys reporting it as an issue.” The ONS said total production, which includes mining, output from the North Sea, energy supply and manufacturing, increased by 0.1% from May to June. Manufacturing, the biggest component of production, fell by 0.3%. During the three months to June – which is considered a better guide to the trend than one month’s figures – production was up by 2.1% on the previous quarter, while manufacturing rose by 1.8%. Despite the strong quarterly increases, manufacturing and overall production remain well below the peak reached in early 2008, when the UK was on the cusp of a recession. A steady decline in North Sea oil and gas output means that production is 7.5% below the early 2008 level, while manufacturing is 4.5% lower. The struggles of manufacturing during and after the recession of 2008-09 have made it harder for Britain to close its trade gap with the rest of the world. According to the ONS, there was an increase of £0.9bn to £12.4bn in the UK’s deficit in goods in June, offset by the continued strong performance of the service sector, which ran a surplus of £7.3bn. Between the first and second quarters of 2016, the UK’s deficit in goods and services combined widened by £0.4bn to £12.5bn. Lee Hopley, the chief economist at manufacturers’ association EEF, said: “The latest data suggests manufacturing posted some significant gains in the second quarter. Growth was supported by record levels of exports of cars to the EU and aircraft to non-EU markets. “Clearly, indicators of sentiment post referendum suggest that we’ve hit the high point for manufacturing this year. Amid the wavering levels of confidence, however, we should take away some positive news, firstly that manufacturing entered this period of uncertainty from a relatively strong stance, and the weaker exchange rate could yet bring benefits on the export side. “Still, we’ll need a concerted effort from government to maintain investment across the sector and ensure growth like that seen in the second quarter gets back on track.”
Bob Bradley born in the USA but fully immersing himself in Swansea City From talking about watching Jack to a King, the documentary about Swansea’s City rise through the leagues, to recognising the need to earn the respect of the supporters, and expressing his determination to finally make his mark in the Premier League, Bob Bradley made all the right noises on the day he was officially unveiled as Francesco Guidolin’s successor. A gregarious character, Bradley set the tone with his opening answer as he made it clear that the first American to manage in the Premier League is much more interested in reviving the fortunes of the Welsh club than blazing a trail for his fellow countrymen. “I’m honoured to be at Swansea City Football Club,” Bradley said. “The American side I can cover in 30 seconds and then we can push that out the door. “With football in the United States we’ve always understood that we have to earn respect. When I was with the national team, every time we got the chance to play in Europe, the players and I would understand it was one more day where we could show what the game was like in our country. So if in some way this helps, I’m proud of what I’ve been able to do. “But this bit about pioneer and all the rest? I’m not an American manager, I’m a football manager. So now, when I come here, I realise there is not one person in Swansea who could care less what anybody in the United States thinks at the moment. They care about their football club. And I’m here to give everything I have for the fans and the club and I couldn’t be more excited about that chance.” Aged 58, Bradley has a rich CV that includes managing at club level in his homeland, in Norway and in France. He also took charge of his country for five years and, in a role that could not have been more challenging, was appointed as the Egypt manager in the immediate aftermath of the Arab spring. The way in which Bradley lost his job as the USA manager clearly still rankles. There was a long pause when it was put to Bradley that Jürgen Klinsmann, the man who replaced him in 2011, had been very complimentary in the wake of Swansea’s decision to turn to him. “From the day I got fired by the US I’ve not said one thing publicly. I don’t appreciate the way it was done,” Bradley said. “I’m glad that Jürgen said some nice things now; when he did commentary on the 2010 World Cup he was already jockeying for the job. “So I’ve shut my mouth, continued to support the team because I, of course, want to see the team do well – Michael [Bradley’s son] is the captain. So if [Klinsmann] has said something in a nice way I appreciate it. And if at some point he chooses to try to work again outside the US, I wish him all the best.” The way in which Swansea handled Guidolin’s dismissal has upset some of the club’s supporters. Bradley made no attempt to disguise the fact that he spoke to Huw Jenkins, Swansea’s chairman, and Steve Kaplan and Jason Levien, the club’s American owners before last Saturday’s defeat against Liverpool, which proved to be the Italian’s last match in charge. “But at the end of both of those interviews I said – because I’ve been through this before – ‘Let’s be clear about one thing, I hope you win and I hope you keep winning.’” While Bradley said that he accepts some Swansea fans will be “angry” he promised to “do everything to earn their respect”. In fairness to Bradley, he came across as a man who has done his homework on the culture around the club and not just the players he has inherited. “I know enough about Swansea City Football Club. I had seen Jack to a King before this week. Most of all what I know is that we have a club with a soul, a club that has real passion and real supporters. For me that’s special.” At the same time Bradley is no fool. He knows that he has to win people over and the only way he will do that is with victories. “When the talk is about proving yourself, yes, I understand that. There will be sceptics. But I don’t care. I love football and I believe in my ability. I am going to come here and every day step on the field with the same kind of energy and passion and commitment I had the rest of my career. Whatever happens, happens and after that, people can say or write whatever the flip they want.”
'Unshackled' Trump goes to war against Republicans Trump unleashed becomes a party of one Donald Trump’s war with his own party, which he called disloyal and unable to win, is intensifying with any semblance of unity effectively destroyed. Trump tweeted, after clashing with the House speaker, Paul Ryan, who condemned the Republican nominee following the release of a tape of him boasting about groping women without their consent: “It’s so nice that the shackles have been taken off me and I can now fight for America the way I want to.” In Florida, Trump railed against the “corruption” of the Clintons, warning that the Democratic candidate would “ruin our country” if elected. His tirade came days after dozens of elected Republicans abandoned the candidate following the release of the footage. Donald Trump rails against ‘disloyal’ Republican party as support collapses The view from Indiana The ’s Gary Younge is spending a month in Muncie, Indiana, ahead of the election to get a closer reading of the issues affecting ordinary voters. In the primaries Muncie’s electoral county, Delaware, voted for both Donald Trump (53%) and Bernie Sanders (58%), an ideal place perhaps to find out what is alienating about their political establishment. The dispatches will be published on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The view from Middletown: join Gary Younge for a unique look at the US election Obama on Trump: unfit for 7-Eleven Barack Obama said the Republican presidential nominee, Donald Trump, is unfit “for a job at 7-Eleven”, let alone the presidency, as he assailed Trump over remarks about sexually assaulting women. “You just have to be a decent human being to say that’s not right,” he told supporters at a rally in North Carolina. The president also mocked Republicans who rebuked Trump’s comments but continued to endorse his candidacy. “You can’t repeatedly denounce what is said by someone and then say but I’m still going to endorse him to be the most powerful person on the planet and to put them in charge.” Obama savages Trump over groping boast and urges party to abandon him Clinton accuses WikiLeaks Hillary Clinton’s campaign fired back on Tuesday as WikiLeaks released a new tranche of hacked emails from the account of its chairman, John Podesta, calling the website a “propaganda arm of the Russian government”. More than 2,000 emails, disclosed on Monday, included messages relaying concerns by Chelsea Clinton over potential conflicts of interest for the family’s foundation. Foreign minister Sergey Lavrov told CNN that accusations that Russia was behind the DNC hack were “flattering but ridiculous”. Clinton campaign dubs WikiLeaks ‘Russian propaganda’ after latest hack North Carolina flooding worsens The death toll from Hurricane Matthew in the United States climbed again on Tuesday, as officials warned of a continuing threat from floodwaters still rising in several areas of North Carolina. Overnight, four more people were reported killed in the state, Governor Pat McCrory announced, bring the total to 14. One victim was shot dead late on Monday after a “confrontation” involving a state trooper. Hurricane Matthew, which has killed at least 1,000 people in Haiti and left a million vulnerable to cholera, has now accounted for at least 33 deaths in the US, including 12 in Florida, three each in South Carolina and Georgia and one in Virginia. Hurricane Matthew’s US death toll rises to 33 as flooding chaos continues Russia rejects ‘hysteria’ over Aleppo bombing Moscow has responded forcefully to accusations that it was involved in an attack on an aid convoy in Syria last month, as intense violence in Aleppo continued. “There were no Russian planes in the area of the aid convoy to Aleppo. That is a fact,” ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said in a statement. He said allegations by the British foreign minister, Boris Johnson, that Russia should be investigated for war crimes in Aleppo were “Russophobic hysteria”. Russia scorns Boris Johnson’s ‘hysteria’ as bombs hammer Aleppo Bernie Sanders backs brother in UK contest Bernie Sanders, the former candidate to be Democratic nominee for US president, has released a video backing his brother Larry to take David Cameron’s parliamentary seat. While US presidential hopefuls do not often intervene in British regional elections, Sanders recommended his brother as a “very, very caring human being”. He continued: “I do not know a heck of a lot about British politics … but I do know a lot about my brother, Larry Sanders.” Bernie Sanders endorses his brother in race to replace David Cameron San Francisco’s tent cities under threat A tent on a sidewalk is the only place thousands of San Franciscans have to call home. But if a few of the city’s tech billionaires and millionaires have their way, even that shelter could be taken away. Sequoia Capital’s chairman, Michael Moritz, tech angel investor Ron Conway and hedge-fund investor William Oberndorf have donated $49,999 apiece to a divisive ballot measure intended to clear San Francisco’s streets of homeless encampments, according to campaign filings. Wealthy San Francisco tech investors bankroll bid to ban homeless camps The world’s toughest exam For two days in early June every year, China comes to a standstill as high school students who are about to graduate take their college entrance exams. Literally the “higher examination”, the gaokao is a national event on a par with a public holiday, but much less fun. A high or low mark determines life opportunities and earning potential. That score is the most important number of any Chinese child’s life, the culmination of years of schooling, memorisation and constant stress. Is China’s gaokao the world’s toughest school exam? In case you missed it … With greater oil reserves than Saudi Arabia, Venezuela should be at least moderately prosperous. Instead, it has the world’s fastest-contracting economy, the second highest murder rate, inflation heading towards 1,000% and shortages of food and medicine that have pushed the poorest members of its 30 million population to the edge of a humanitarian abyss. Latin America correspondent Jonathan Watts travelled 870 miles across the country from the Amazonian border with Brazil to the capital, Caracas to get a snapshot of a country in crisis. Venezuela on the brink: a journey through a country in crisis
Trump, Brexit and the age of popular revolt: 2016 in Long Reads The political earthquakes of 2016 have shaken the complacent preconceptions of the liberal establishment. But the signs were there. Here are ten stories that tried to reckon with our new era of populist backlash. The dark history of Donald Trump’s rightwing revolt – Timothy Shenk The Republican intellectual establishment tried to block Trump – but his message of cultural and racial resentment has deep roots in the American right How technology disrupted the truth – Katharine Viner Social media has swallowed the news – threatening the funding of public-interest reporting and ushering in an era when everyone has their own facts. But the consequences go far beyond journalism How the education gap is tearing politics apart – David Runciman In the year of Trump and Brexit, education has become the greatest divide of all – splitting voters into two increasingly hostile camps. But don’t assume this is simply a clash between the ignorant and the enlightened The ruthlessly effective rebranding of Europe’s new far right – Sasha Polakow-Suransky Across the continent, rightwing populist parties have seized control of the political conversation. How have they done it? By stealing the language, causes and voters of the traditional left How the ‘Great Paradox’ of American politics holds the secret to Trump’s success – Arlie Hochschild In the heartland of the American right, people harmed by polluting industries have instead come to hate the government whose environmental regulations protect them. Now they’re voting for Donald Trump The cult of the expert – and how it collapsed – Sebastian Mallaby Led by a class of omnipotent central bankers, experts have gained extraordinary political power. Will a populist backlash shatter their technocratic dream? How remain failed: the inside story of a doomed campaign – Rafael Behr They promised it would be an easy victory. But they had no idea what was about to hit them Revenge of the tabloids – Andy Beckett Rocked by the phone-hacking scandal and haemorrhaging readers, the rightwing tabloids seemed to be yesterday’s news. But now, in Theresa May’s Brexit Britain, they look more powerful than ever Welcome to the age of Trump – Jonathan Freedland Donald Trump’s rise reveals a growing attraction to political demagogues – and points to a wider crisis of democracy Us v Them: the birth of populism – John B Judis It’s not about left or right: populism is a style of politics that pits ‘the people’ against ‘the establishment’. Its rise is a warning sign that the status quo is failing
Five of the best... rock & pop gigs 1 Kamasi Washington It might occasionally seem as though music critics’ palates are too unsophisticated to appreciate a deconstructed alto sax improvising across a shifting 13/8 time signature. Yet Kendrick Lamar collaborator Kamasi Washington made our top 10 last year with his forward-thinking experimental jazz debut, The Epic. Royal Albert Hall, SW7, Tue 2 Eleanor Friedberger The competition for most offbeat lyric of 2016 could be staged entirely within Eleanor Friedberger’s New View album – “I’m opening a tree museum” is just one potential winner. Live, the singer-songwriter from Illinois pulls off the neat trick of making those quirky lines feel warm, intimate and entirely relatable. Village Underground, EC2, Wed; De La Warr Pavillion, Bexhill-on-Sea, Thu 3 End Of The Road Festival It’s the end of the road for this summer’s festivals (if you’re not keen on dressing up as an alien for Bestival, that is) and this Dorset knees-up has a lineup fit for a finale. There’s a lot of what you might call cerebral American indie, with Animal Collective, Joanna Newsom and the Shins headlining, and US Girls, Devendra Banhart and Cat’s Eyes among the other treats on offer. Larmer Tree Gardens, Thu to 4 Sep 4 Margo Price The backstory of Margo Price’s debut album Midwest Farmer’s Daughter is so raw you almost fear for anyone who wants to encounter it live. The country singer lost a baby, went broke and had a series of failed relationships before putting it all to music via Jack White’s label. She’ll be taking her tales across the UK this week. Exchange, Bristol, Sun; Brudenell Social Club, Leeds, Mon; Deaf Institute, Manchester, Tue; Scala, N1, Thu 5 Nas and Loyle Carner “Supporting one of my heroes in Bristol at the end of the month,” Loyle Carner tweeted recently, adding: “My little brother lost his shit.” Lil Carner won’t be the only one going berserk as one of hip-hop’s bona fide legends gives the promising south London rapper a leg-up. O2 Academy Bristol, Wed
Van Williams obituary The actor Van Williams, who has died aged 82, achieved brief fame as the masked comic-book hero the Green Hornet in the 1960s US television series of the same name. As Britt Reid, a playboy media mogul who owns a newspaper and TV station, he was seen transforming into his alter ego to tackle criminals with hand-to-hand combat and two deadly weapons, a gas gun and the Hornet’s Sting sonic blaster. He was aided by Bruce Lee (in his first TV role) as Kato, his valet and martial arts expert, and Black Beauty, a customised Chrysler Crown Imperial sedan fitted with infra-green headlights, hood-mounted machine guns, a grille-mounted flame thrower and Stinger missiles stashed in the bumpers. Unfortunately for Williams, the masked vigilante – created for radio in the 30s by George Trendle and Fran Striker – was unleashed on television viewers in 1966 shortly after the launch of the hugely popular, camped-up Batman TV series, from the same producers. “One of the things I absolutely insisted upon was that I was going to play it straight,” said Williams. “None of this ‘wham, bam, thank you, ma’am’ stuff that was going on with Batman.” But one critic described the star in costume as looking like an “overgrown grasshopper” and the drama was cancelled after just one run of 26 episodes. Williams was born in Fort Worth, Texas, the son of Priscilla (nee Jarvis) and Bernard Williams, who ran a ranch. After attending Arlington Heights high school and studying animal husbandry and business at Texas Christian university, Williams headed for the South Pacific in 1956 to work as a salvage diver. The following year, Mike Todd, the theatre and film producer, spotted him and suggested he go into acting. He took vocal and drama lessons, worked on contract to Revue Studios for six months, soon landed bit parts on TV, then signed up for six years to Warner Bros. His big break came in the detective drama Bourbon Street Beat (1959-60) with the role of Kenny Madison, a private eye operating from above a restaurant in the French quarter of New Orleans. He reprised the role in another crime series, Surfside 6 (1960-62), featuring detectives with an office on a Miami houseboat. Switching to sitcom, Williams played Pat Burns, assistant to the cantankerous billionaire Walter Andrews (played by Walter Brennan) and pilot of his private plane, in The Tycoon (1964-65). He later took the role of Steve Andrews, the father in a family on a journey around Pacific islands, in the children’s adventure series Westwind (1975) and appeared on and off (1976-78) as Captain MacAllister in How the West Was Won. Williams became a reserve deputy in the Los Angeles county sheriff’s department in 1971, working part time at its Malibu station, where he also captained the mountain rescue team and was a volunteer firefighter. In 1982, he retired from acting to concentrate on running the telecommunications company he had set up in Santa Monica 13 years earlier. He was a partner in a 4,000-acre ranch in Hawaii and he enjoyed hunting geese, duck, elk and other game. “I didn’t really care that much for the acting business,” Williams said. “I didn’t like the people in it, the way they operated and all the phoniness and back-stabbing. It was not a very pleasant education for a guy from Texas whose handshake was his word. Plus, I’d gone into acting looking at it as a business, not wanting necessarily to be a celebrity.” Nevertheless, he jumped at the opportunity to take a cameo as the director of The Green Hornet in the film biopic Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story (1993). Williams is survived by his second wife, Vicki Flaxman, whom he married in 1959, and their children, Nina, Tia and Britt; and by Lisa and Lynne, the twin daughters of his first marriage, to Drucilla Greenhaw, which ended in divorce. • Van Zandt Jarvis Williams, actor, born 27 February 1934; died 29 November 2016
Chelsea 3-3 Everton, Newcastle 2-1 West Ham and more: clockwatch – as it happened • Chelsea 3-3 Everton • Manchester City 4-0 Crystal Palace • Southampton 3-0 West Brom And with that, I’m off. It’s been special. Bye! John Terry speaks: A lot of teams would have thrown the towel in but the fight, the desire from the team … unbelievable, and unlucky not to win the game [MBMer spits out tea]. Was it offside? I don’t know. I don’t really care. It was my first one this season. Scott Murray is all over the Aston Villa v Leicester City game here. Deja vu dept November 28: Everton score incredible last-minute goal to take 3-2 lead in crazy game at Bournemouth. Final score: 3-3 January 16: Everton score incredible last-minute goal to take 3-2 lead in crazy game at Chelsea. Final score: 3-3 That John Terry offside equaliser was scored in the 53rd second of the eighth of the allotted seven minutes of stoppage time. Final score: Newcastle have beaten West Ham 2-1! Final score: Chelsea and Everton have drawn 3-3. Terry opened the scoring and he’s closed it too, with a late, late equaliser for Everton! And it’s a clever backheel flick as the ball headed between his legs! And, what’s more … he was way offside when Costa flicked on! Middlesbrough have conceded a goal! Bristol City have scored a last-minute winner! Aden Flint with the goal! Ooof! Willian’s low drive across goal whistles just wide, having taken a deflection on its way. Meanwhile at Newcastle there’ll be six minutes of stoppage time, and at Stamford Bridge they’re going to have seven! Final score: Bournemouth have beaten Norwich 3-0. Final score: Southampton have beaten West Brom 3-0. Stinker of the day: Leyton Orient have won two second half penalties against Exeter … and Jay Simpson has missed them both – one hit the post, the other saved. They trail 1-3. Final score: Manchester City have beaten Crystal Palace 4-0. A corner from the right is cleared back to the taker and re-crossed to the far post, where two Everton players are competing with each other, and Funes Mori gets in front of Lukaku to score with a flying sidefoot volley! Defending, anyone? Oooh, a cross from the right is only just too high for Lukaku in the middle as Everton look to snatch a win at Stamford Bridge. If a 5-0 away defeat was enough for the fans to be refunded, logically they should actually be paid for enduring this: “I don’t understand this “reimburse travelling fans after a poor performance” business,” complains Peter Oh. “What’s next? A surcharge for a better-than-expected away result? Modern football … sigh.” Aguero, on a hat-trick, runs clear from the half-way line as City break. You’d have thought he’d only have eyes for goal, but instead he notices Silva’s supporting run and passes to him instead, and the Spaniard has time to control the ball before scoring from six yards! Derby are now 3-0 down at home to Birmingham, Makel Kieftenbeld with their latest. Boro remain at 0-0 against Bristol City. The teams for today’s late kick-off: Aston Villa: Bunn, Bacuna, Okore, Lescott, Cissokho, Westwood, Gana, Veretout, Ayew, Kozak, Gil. Subs: Guzan, Richards, Clark, Sinclair, Richardson, Lyden, Gestede. Leicester: Schmeichel, Simpson, Morgan, Huth, Fuchs, Drinkwater, Kante, Mahrez, Okazaki, Albrighton, Vardy. Subs: De Laet, King, Gray, Ulloa, Wasilewski, Schwarzer, Inler. Referee: Roger East. It’s over a year since Palace last conceded three away goals. And guess where they did that? The home side have been considerably superior today, and the scoreline reflects it. Charlie Daniels raids down the left, Afobe meets the cross six yards out and he can hardly miss. And doesn’t. Miss, that is. In the big game in League One, Burton are now 2-0 up at Coventry, and it looks very much like they will remain on top of the league tonight. Coventry are, as it stands, unbeaten at home this season. Not, though, for long. Tadic comes on and scores almost instantly for the second time in a week! Davis passes into the area and Tadic crashes in a first-time left-foot shot from an acute angle! A long delay at Stamford Bridge, where Oviedo has been receiving treatment for a while, and has now been loaded onto a stretcher. Funes Bori comes on. City will be, temporarily at least, joint top of the league at the final whistle having extended their lead over Palace to three, Agüero being presented with a tap-in after Touré found De Bruyne in the area, and the Belgian crossed low! What a turnaround! Fábregas plays a one-two with Costa and shoots low from the edge of the area, his effort taking a deflection and bobbling inside the near post with Howard nowhere! Chelsea have been huffing and puffing ever since they went two down, and Howard excelled to deny Fábregas, but he doesn’t look quite so clever here, as he hares out of his area as Costa races Jagielka for the ball. The defender I think got a tiny touch, Howard certainly didn’t, and Costa taps into the empty net! Bad news for Derby, who have fallen a goal down at home to Birmingham. Hull are streaking to victory and as it stands they go third, though first-place Boro remain goalless against Bristol City. Not that I can think of. He replaced Pedro Obiang. Chelsea fall further behind! Lennon picks out Baines, and he passes into and across the area, Mirallas controls with his left foot, bringing the ball back inside, and then shoots also with his left foot, inside the near post! The penalty flies in off the inside of the right-hand post! Penalty for Bournemouth! Obidja is cursing and scowling, having punished for a trip on Marc Pugh, whose fall looked remarkable dramatic to my eyes. Terry is not responsible for the day’s most idiotic defending, mind. That prize will surely go to the author of the back-pass from which Jelavic just nipped in and brought West Ham back into the game at St James’ Park! Everton hit the post! Barkley with the effort, hitting the near post from the left side of the area. Those are superlative own goal stylings from John Terry. The ball is worked to Baines on the left touchline, and his powercross is met by Terry at the near post, who volleys it right-footed into his left leg, with which he backheels into his own net! Oooh! Bournemouth should have extended their lead within 30 seconds of the restart, as Pugh tricks his way into space inside the penalty area but his low shot is saved! Half-time double substitution: West Brom bring on Brunt and Rondon for Fletcher and Olsson as they attempt to claw back a 2-0 deficit at Southampton. Scottish weather latest: That’s a first-half hat-trick for Abel Hernández of Hull. “Will the Charlton players be doing another refund for the travelling fans?” asks Tom Harp. “Could get costly by the end of the season.” Tuesday Saturday Today’s Premier League games have an aggregate score, as it stands, of 11-1. A good day so far for the home sides. The half-time whistles are busily shrieking. Four of the five top-flight games are done, for now. Ooooh! Rudd streaks from his area and trips Afobe, and the referee is immediately surrounded by Bournemouth players demanding a red card! but he was heading away from goal, and there were a couple of defenders in the neighbourhood, so he’s given only a yellow. Palace have given City a decent examination here, but it doesn’t look like they’re going to get anything out of it. Agüero shoots from 25 yards, and it beats Hennessey at the near post after taking a deflection off Dann. Oooh! West Ham should have pulled a goal back at Newcastle, but when picked out by Payet’s free kick Valencia somehow fluffs his shot! Final cricket update: England have won the match by seven wickets, and with it the series. Goal-line clearance! Southampton nearly went 3-0 up, but McClean popped up on the line to divert Targett’s first-time left-foot drive to safety! It might have been postbound rather than goalbound, but even so, fine defending there young man! Ward-Prowse sends the keeper the wrong way, and rolls the ball low to his left to double the Saints’ lead. Targett is bundled over by Craig Dawson (though to me it looked like Dawson was bundled over by Targett). Whatever, it’s a penalty. At the Etihad, Cabaye’s free-kick is athletically tipped round the post by Hart. In the cricket, England have collapsed to 71-3. They need three to win, so should scrape through. “As I watch West Ham meekly let Championship hopefuls Newcastle walk all over them, it begs the question why the Premier League has subjected half the league to two away games in four days?” moans Dan Bryant. “First set of midweek fixtures all season and they gift the likes of City, Newcastle, Chelsea and Liverpool etc with doubled up home games. And of course, every home team (bar Chelsea) is already winning. Why not just do home and away like normal? Why change it this week of all weeks?” Um, don’t know, really. I’m sure there’s an innocent explanation. Confusion! Ward-Prowse takes a corner and Myhill comes out to punch it, misses completely and the ball hits him in the side and plops straight down to earth, five yards out. To his very great fortune, it lands very near a defender, who wallops clear. So the only goalless top-flight game is at Chelsea, where Everton look to be doing a certain amount of bus-parking. Diego Costa has just been caught offside. Confusion! Hart collects the ball after a Palace corner, runs to the edge of the area, kicks it into the back of the nearest Palace played and Delaney, I think, hits a first-time shot over the bar. The referee gave a free kick, I think. Not sure why. Another home goal! Delph takes aim with his left foot, probably 35 yards out, and it flies hard and low towards the near post. Hennessey got two hands on it, should have stopped it, but, um, didn’t. Penalty? No! Norwich’s Russell Martin pretty much rugby tackles Charlie Daniels, who makes the mistake of not going straight down when two arms appear around his waist, and by the time he does crumple a moment later the referee doesn’t think he needed to. A super, long crossfield pass from Shelvey picks out the rampaging Janmaat on the right, he crosses and Wijnaldum converts having escaped the attentions of Collins. Lovely goal in a very old-fashioned English style. Today’s is Ward-Prowse’s second in the league, in his 47th appearance. Given the dead-ball excellence he’s just demonstrated, he should have more. In cricket news, England are 10 runs from victory in the third Test against South Africa, but have just lost their first wicket (it’s been reviewed, but Hales looks plummish). The Championship strugglers are already struggling: second-bottom Charlton are 1-0 down at Hull, and rock-bottom Bolton are 1-0 down at Nottingham Forest, with the added blow of goalkeeper Ben Amos being sent off. That’s three of the five top-flight home sides in the lead. A left-wing cross from Pugh is cleared, but Bournemouth reclaim possession, work it back to Pugh and this time his cross finds Gosling at the far post, who heads in from five yards! There aren’t many better names in football at the moment than Max Power, and this sounds very much like an excellent example of nominative determanism. It’s not his first chance of the day, either. He had a low shot saved, in the fifth minute, and then he scored in the sixth. Shelvey’s pass zipped to the edge of the area, where it was laid back into Perez’s path and he hit a first-time shot into the right corner! It’s a free kick from five yards outside the penalty area, towards its left corner, and Ward-Prowse slams it into the top left corner with the goalkeeper nowhere! Meanwhile at Newcastle, James Collins is already limping quite badly. Impossible miss for Palace! Or save, if you’re feeling charitable! Joe Hart has kept out an absolute sitter, Damien Delaney with a headed chance at the back stick, seven yards out and completely unmarked. It’s 3pm. Let’s play! Lewis Grabban “said to be unwell” today, so unable to play for Bournemouth against Norwich, the team he just left. Which is convenient. … and out they come! Players are emerging from dressing rooms and congregating in tunnels. Nearly there. Are those strictly necessary? Today’s big transfer news has seen Charlie Austin sign for Southampton, for a rumoured £4m. Great signing, surely. Results so far today: Gary Hooper scores both goals as Sheffield Wednesday beat Leeds 2-0, and the final whistle has just gone on Tottenham 4-1 Sunderland. That’s four in six now for Hooper, who remains on loan from striker-seeking Norwich. “Afternoon Simon,” writes sometime volunteer Scotland correspondent Simon McMahon. Afternoon. “Game of the day in Scotland takes place, eh, last night at Tannadice where Dundee United continued to build confidence after last weeks cup win against League One Airdrie by only shipping 4 goals against league leaders Celtic. Just watch us go now. Other SPFL fixtures are Hearts v Motherwell, Kilmarnock v Inverness and, after passing an early pitch inspection, St. Johnstone v Hamilton. A number of games in the lower leagues are off, but in League Two Annan, fresh from their stunning cup win over SPFL Hamilton, face East Fife, still the only team to have won the Scottish Cup when playing outside the top division (in 1938, since you ask).” Excellent. That’s a big fat tick in the don’t-totally-ignore-Scotland box. A managerial pre-match interview distilled to its very essence. Good effort. So Jonjo Shelvey starts for Newcastle, and Victor Moses is in West Ham’s squad for the first time since 5 December. Bournemouth v Norwich Bournemouth: Boruc, Smith, Francis, Cook, Daniels, Surman, Pugh, Gosling, Arter, Stanislas, Afobe. Subs: Iturbe, MacDonald, Kermorgant, Federici, Distin, Murray, O’Kane. Norwich: Rudd, Martin, Bennett, Bassong, Brady, Odjidja-Ofoe, Tettey, Howson, Jarvis, Hoolahan, Mbokani. Subs: Ruddy, Wisdom, Jerome, Dorrans, Mulumbu, Redmond, Olsson. Referee: Robert Madley. Chelsea v Everton Chelsea: Courtois, Ivanovic, Zouma, Terry, Azpilicueta, Matic, Mikel, Willian, Fabregas, Pedro, Costa. Subs: Begovic, Baba, Oscar, Kenedy, Remy, Cahill, Loftus-Cheek. Everton: Howard, Oviedo, Stones, Jagielka, Baines, Barkley, Barry, Besic, Lennon, Lukaku, Mirallas. Subs: Robles, Koné, Cleverley, Deulofeu, Osman, Pienaar, Funes Mori. Referee: Mike Jones. Man City v Crystal Palace Man City: Hart, Zabaleta, Otamendi, Demichelis, Kolarov, Delph, Fernando, De Bruyne, Silva, Iheanacho, Aguero. Subs: Sagna, Sterling, Caballero, Jesus Navas, Clichy, Toure, Humphreys. Crystal Palace: Hennessey, Ward, Dann, Delaney, Souaré, Ledley, Cabaye, McArthur, Puncheon, Wickham, Zaha. Subs: Speroni, Campbell, Lee, Jedinak, Mutch, Chamakh, Kelly. Referee: Jon Moss. Newcastle v West Ham Newcastle: Elliot, Janmaat, Mbemba, Coloccini, Dummett, Colback, Shelvey, Sissoko, Wijnaldum, Perez, Mitrovic. Subs: Gouffran, Lascelles, Aarons, Saivet, Darlow, Rivière, Toney. West Ham: Adrian, Tomkins, Collins, Ogbonna, Cresswell, Noble, Kouyaté, Obiang, Payet, Valencia, Antonio. Subs: Randolph, Reid, Song, Jenkinson, Moses, Jelavic, Cullen. Referee: Neil Swarbrick. Southampton v West Brom Southampton: Forster, Cedric Soares, Fonte, van Dijk, Targett, Wanyama, Ward-Prowse, Steven Davis, Mane, Bertrand, Long. Subs: Kelvin Davis, Yoshida, Tadic, Romeu, Martina, Pelle, Juanmi. West Brom: Myhill, Dawson, McAuley, Olsson, Evans, Gardner, Fletcher, Yacob, McClean, Sessegnon, Anichebe. Subs: Foster, Chester, Brunt, Lambert, Berahino, McManaman, Rondon. Referee: Martin Atkinson. Hello world! So, then, here we are. Another Saturday afternoon yawns before us like a wild chasm of possibility. Untold excitement awaits (I’m an optimist). Here are this afternoon’s English Football League fixtures. I’ve searched high and low but in vain for key games from other leagues – there are 3pm GMT kick-offs in Scotland, Northern Ireland, Spain, Cyprus, Israel and Algeria, but I can’t find a single one that seems particularly vital. Do feel free to point out my unforgivable ignorance, though. In the meantime, this is what we’ve got: Premier League Bournemouth v Norwich (preview) Chelsea v Everton (preview) Man City v Crystal Palace (preview) Newcastle v West Ham (preview) Southampton v West Brom (preview) Championship Blackburn Rovers v Brighton & Hove Albion Bristol City v Middlesbrough Derby County v Birmingham City Huddersfield Town v Fulham Hull City v Charlton Athletic Ipswich Town v Preston North End Milton Keynes Dons v Reading Nottingham Forest v Bolton Wanderers Rotherham United v Queens Park Rangers Wolverhampton Wanderers v Cardiff City Middlesbrough’s recent league results (in the last two months they have won eight and drawn one, with an aggregate scoe of 13-0. Yes, nil) are astonishingly awesome. They are, as a result, five points clear at the top of the Championship with a game in hand on every team in the league except 18th-place Blackburn, and two games in hand on some. Today they visit third-bottom Bristol City who, in the two months in which Boro haven’t conceded, haven’t kept a clean sheet and have won only once, and who sacked their manager, Steve Cotterill, this week. Three more points look on the cards. What this does is heap enormous pressure on the chasing pack. Burnley did the business last night, beating Brentford, but Hull and Derby both play this afternoon, at home to second-bottom Charlton and eighth-place Birmingham respectively. You’d certainly have one, and probably both – Derby are a little out of sorts, not having won in three matches, and Birmingham’s away record is pretty good, though they’ve now not won on their travels since 7 November – down as home wins, but even with 20 games remaining they can’t let Boro pull further away, and that can induce wild panic. Meanwhile Brighton, who were level at the top with Boro just before Christmas, undefeated in their first 21 matches, have taken one point from their last five and head to Blackburn clinging desperately on to the last play-off place. League One Blackpool v Scunthorpe United Bradford City v Oldham Athletic Bury v Walsall Colchester United v Sheffield United Coventry City v Burton Albion Doncaster Rovers v Gillingham Peterborough United v Southend United Rochdale v Fleetwood United Shrewsbury Town v Barnsley Swindon Town v Crewe Alexandra Wigan Athletic v Chesterfield Top-of-the-table Burton have two games in hand on most of their rivals, and one on the rest, but could finish the afternoon in fourth. They travel to fourth-placed Coventry, who would overtake them with a win. But even if Coventry do win they could still only end up third, with Gillingham, who visit 12th-place Doncaster, and Walsall, who travel to 14th-place Bury, hoping to end the day above them. League Two Accrington Stanley v Portsmouth AFC Wimbledon v Mansfield Town Barnet v Carlisle United Crawley Town v Notts County Dagenham & Redbridge v Northampton Town Hartlepool United v Wycombe Wanderers Leyton Orient v Exeter City Luton Town v Cambridge United Morecambe v Yeovil Town Plymouth Argyle v Stevenage York City v Newport County Third-place Oxford play fifth-place Bristol Rovers tomorrow, and without that there’s no truly outstanding fixture, with Accrington v Portsmouth – or seventh v fourth, if you prefer – the only meeting between two top 10 teams. Two of the bottom five play, with Newport travelling to bottom-place York. With Dagenham & Redbridge hosting second-place Northampton, victory for York could well take them off the foot of the table. Having said that, they’ve won only once in the league, losing 11, in the last four months, including at one stage a run of 10 defeats in 11 in all competitions, so probably shouldn’t get their hopes up.
Ted Cruz warns at Republican debate: government could 'take your guns' Endorsements from gun-rights advocacy organizations were brandished with gusto on the debate stage on Thursday, with Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz, Chris Christie, Marco Rubio and Donald Trump dueling over who would do more to protect the second amendment rights of Americans concerned about their access to firearms. Cruz went furthest in playing to such fears, pointing out that the next president could have multiple supreme court appointments to make, which he said meant: “The government could confiscate your guns.” Fox Business Network host Maria Bartiromo ignited the battle when she asked Bush whether, in light of the revelation that the suspect in the fatal mass shooting that claimed nine lives in Charleston last year was able to procure a weapon despite not passing a federal background test, there was anything that could be done to limit access to deadly weapons by those who would use them to commit violent crimes. Bush touted his A-plus rating from the National Rifle Association and said that the failure lay not with loopholes in the law, but with the federal government. “The FBI made a mistake,” Bush said. “The law requires a background check.” The true area of the federal government’s focus, Bush said, should be with mental health, rather than restrictions on firearms. When asked if he believed in enacting any restrictions on access to guns, Trump – who has previously described himself as “a big second amendment person” – responded that such restrictions may have led to the deaths of 130 people in terrorist attacks in Paris. “Even in Paris, if they had guns on the other side, going in the opposite direction, you wouldn’t have 130-plus people dead.” With a variation on an old line, he added: “The guns don’t pull the trigger, the people pull the trigger.” Rubio, in a bid to top Trump, declared that any president who was willing to take guns away from American citizens wasn’t a president worth having. “I am convinced that if this president could take away every gun in America, he would,” Rubio said. “The first impulse of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton is to take rights away from law-abiding citizens.” Echoing Trump’s insistence that gun restrictions contributed to the fatalities in the Paris terrorist attacks, Rubio said that restrictions would only aid those who would commit crimes while armed. “Isis and terrorists do not get their guns from a gun show,” he said. “[Obama’s] immediate answer, before he even knows the facts, is gun control. Here’s a fact: We’re in a war with Isis.” Christie, in his take on the president’s record on the second amendment, gave a variation on a line he has used before. “This guy’s a petulant child,” Christie said. He followed that up by saying that “we’re not against you – we’re against your policies” and that “we’re going to kick your rear end out of the White House come this fall”. Cruz also questioned the fidelity of his rivals to the second amendment, saying that as a Republican candidate for president, “unless you are clinically insane, that’s what you say in the primary”. “But people’s actions don’t always match their words,” he added.
Arsenal and Leicester fans furious after date of February game switched Arsenal and Leicester fans have reacted with fury after their Premier League fixture at the Emirates was moved to Sunday from Saturday, four weeks before it was due to take place. The match between the top two was to have taken place on 13 February at 3pm but has been moved to Sunday 14 February after Sky decided they wanted to screen the potential title-decider. A Leicester fan group, called Union FS, suggested boycotting the first five minutes of the game in protest at the change. “‘Why? To make a point that without fans, there is no saleable product,” say the fan group. “Just 22 blokes kicking a ball around on some nicely cut grass. We would encourage Arsenal fans to join us with this, as they graciously did with Bayern Munich fans recently. “We appreciate that fans want to watch the game they have paid for, and rightly so, but this is an extraordinary issue and we would ask you to join us and make a one-off stand for all football fans.” The TV company said Leicester’s unexpected title challenge had prompted the change. Fans of both clubs are furious at the prospect of being left out of pocket for travel costs. A Premier League spokesman said: “We always seek to give fans a minimum of six weeks’ notice of fixture changes. It is only on extremely rare occasions we don’t meet that aspiration during the normal course of the season. “We are in discussions with Arsenal and Leicester City to see what can be done to help fans affected by this scheduling change.”
How can mental health services deliver better care for black patients? Over recent years there has been a growing consensus in mainstream political parties as to how to tackle neglected mental health services and improve the poor outcomes experienced by many service users and their carers. The concern has been of particular significance for black and minority ethnic (BAME) communities. This challenge is reflected in NHS England’s Mental Health Taskforce report which sets out a new cross-system, all ages, national five-year plan for NHS mental health services to 2020-21, launched earlier this year. More than 20,000 people took part in the taskforce consultation process that informed the report. Several key themes emerged: better access, better quality services, better attention to physical and mental healthcare, better preventive care. The taskforce has responded to these requests by outlining: A seven-day NHS providing crisis care across the country, including a new model for children and young people. An integrated approach to mental and physical health. Promoting good mental health and preventing poor mental health. The taskforce concluded that the best way to revolutionise care is to treat people’s minds and bodies equally, hardwiring mental health into the NHS. This means greater transparency in spend and outcomes and a relentless focus on inequalities. The report recommendations for the NHS have been adopted with a target that by 2020-21, at least a million people with mental health problems will be accessing high-quality care they aren’t getting today. This is further backed by £1bn new investment by the year 2021, which we hope will materialise as real money backed up by greater transparency in how this is spent by local services. The report also challenges the government for stronger leadership because a mentally healthy society – and one which cares well for people with mental health problems – involves social care, housing, employment, education and schools. The prime minister has made a personal commitment to this work. The experiences of African and Caribbean service users, carers, and frontline staff were not overlooked by the taskforce. At community events and in informal conversations, black service users and professionals shared their experiences – positive and negative – of mental health services. These conversations also raised issues of stigma and discrimination, not only across services but the perception of how our community views mental health and the stigma that we may hold against people with mental health challenges. It is clear that we can do more to make sure mental health is a strong area of advocacy and campaigning for better services. The introduction of NHS England’s Workforce Race Equality Standard, which aims to increase black and minority ethnic senior representation on NHS trust boards and to tackle bullying of frontline staff, means there is an opportunity to put race equality back on the agenda for mental health services. The Royal College of Psychiatrists’ commission report on adult inpatient care also recognised the issue of BAME over-representation in detained services. Although the report does not recommend a return of the Delivering Race Equality programme, there are specific recommendation for the appointment of a senior mental health equality lead at the Department of Health to oversee how race and other equalities areas are being delivered and implemented by the NHS and social care. A deeper question also emerges: how do we ensure that the issue of race equality is mainstreamed into the delivery of services by the NHS, local government, criminal justice, the police, employers and housing providers? Furthermore, can black-led providers, service user and carer organisations be supported to have a voice which is actually heard and encourage delivery of high quality, culturally appropriate services for our diverse communities? Part of the answer is that we need to raise our game and not become docile and passive citizens. We need to do more in making mainstream service providers and commissioners more accountable by playing an active role as part of a wider social movement of change in mental health services. Without this proactive engagement and informed challenge the taskforce report will not deliver the services we deserve and need; the report provides some of the tools to ask better questions locally and nationally. Its recommendations set the direction of travel. Of course there are those whom are responsible for delivery, but it is also up to us to hold them accountable. Jacqui Dyer is vice-chair of NHS England’s Mental Health Taskforce; Patrick Vernon OBE is a non-executive director of Camden and Islington NHS foundation trust Join the Healthcare Professionals Network to read more pieces like this. And follow us on Twitter (@GdnHealthcare) to keep up with the latest healthcare news and views.
Partisan review – cult thriller suffers charisma bypass The chief oddity in this oddly underpowered, anticlimactic and torpidly acted movie from Australian director Ariel Kleiman is the fact that it only comes to life with the final shot: an ingenious and macabre image, promising retributive violence. But that’s hardly worth the price of admission, and for audiences who have stuck with it that far, this flourish might just be something else to get frustrated about. It’s set in a lawless urban badland of remote, ruined apartment blocks (filmed in Tbilisi), where there is a secret cult run by an allegedly charismatic man called Gregori, played by Vincent Cassel on dismayingly uncharismatic form. He finds desperate single mothers with newborns and persuades them to come as quasi-wives to his strange community, where he trains up the kids in an artful-dodger robbery scam, the spoils being converted into cash by a fence figure called Uncle Charlie (Frank Moylan). Kleiman’s film is arguably interesting in that it sets out to show the relatively calm, day-to-day life of a cult. But Cassel never gives us the terrifying explosion of temper that the film always appears to be promising, or indeed anything in the way of hypnotic charm or leadership aura. He just looks bored – and boring.
Andy Burnham sounds alarm at 'very real prospect' of Brexit The Remain campaign is facing the “very real prospect” of defeat in the referendum in two weeks’ time as it fails to reach traditional Labour voters, Andy Burnham has warned. The shadow home secretary said a vote to leave the European Union on 23 June could lead to social “fragmentation” and the break-up of the United Kingdom. Burnham sharply criticised the party’s campaigning, saying it had failed to reach out to traditional Labour voters amid fears that concerns about immigration are driving them to back Leave. “We have definitely been far too much Hampstead and not enough Hull in recent times and we need to change that. Here we are two weeks away from the very real prospect that Britain will vote for isolation,” he told BBC2’s Newsnight. “I think it would have a profound effect on our national life – the fragmentation that will come, the fear and the division. “Those are all the things that the terrorists couldn’t create with their bombs and yet we will have a situation where society becomes more divided. “If this decision is taken, dominoes will start to fall. It won’t just be the EU that starts to break up, it will be Britain too.” The warning comes as Ed Miliband tries to inject new momentum into Labour’s campaign effort with an attack on Boris Johnson and the Leave camp for perpetrating a “fraud” on the British people. The former opposition leader and other senior colleagues will make a series of interventions aimed at winning over wavering Labour supporters. The former cabinet minister Yvette Cooper will release a report warning of the damage facing Labour heartlands if the “far right of the Conservative party” gets its way. The Labour deputy leader Tom Watson will release analysis indicating Brexit could result in £18bn of welfare cuts and tax hikes as the Tories impose tighter austerity measures. The attacks by Labour are aimed at rallying the party’s supporters behind the Remain cause following criticism of Jeremy Corbyn’s efforts in the referendum campaign. In a speech in London, Miliband will warn that senior members of the Brexit campaign want to abolish measures protecting workers’ rights. He is expected to say: “The Leave campaign are trying to perpetrate what I can only describe as a fraud on the British people. Tories who in the last days of this contest are trying to disguise themselves in Labour clothes. “Let’s be clear what the Leave agenda would mean for working people. They want out of Europe so we can be out of the social chapter, as Boris Johnson said in terms in 2012. Their competitiveness strategy for Britain is deregulation and the erosion of rights of working people.” A Vote Leave spokesman said: “As support drains away from the Remain campaign, they are getting ever more desperate and hysterical with their fanciful Leave predictions. “We need to vote Leave if we want to take back control of our economy, borders and democracy.” With Press Association
David Cameron heads to Brussels for summit over Brexit vote David Cameron will travel to Brussels on Tuesday to explain to Europe’s stunned leaders why Britain has voted for Brexit, as Conservative MPs pushed to speed up the process of replacing him as prime minister. Cameron will meet the European commission president, Jean-Claude Juncker, and the European council president, Donald Tusk, before a working dinner with his counterparts from the 27 other member states, at which the verdict in Thursday’s historic referendum will be the only item on the agenda. The Brussels summit comes against a background of continuing financial market turmoil, as anxious investors weigh up the economic impact of Brexit, despite the chancellor insisting on Monday morning: “Our economy is about as strong as it could be to confront the challenge our country now faces.” The credit ratings agency Standard & Poor’s announced on Monday night that it was stripping Britain of its prized AAA credit rating, underlining the risks that may lie ahead. The executive of the Conservative 1922 Committee of backbench MPs announced that it would fast-track the process of replacing the prime minister against the backdrop of turmoil in financial markets. Candidates hoping to succeed Cameron will be jockeying for position – with Boris Johnson and Theresa May widely seen as frontrunners – with nominations for the Conservative party leadership race set to open on Tuesday. Cameron’s fellow EU leaders are likely to be keen to hear what Britain will demand in the forthcoming negotiations, but the prime minister is determined not to speculate about what formal relationship with the EU his successor will demand. Instead, he will try to explain the British public’s rejection of EU membership. “He’s likely to talk about a number of factors that he thinks were issues in the campaign, and in the debate,” his spokeswoman said. “He will want to encourage people to think about how both the UK and the EU need to work together to make the best of the decision the British people have taken.” She added that he would not pre-empt any decision on when to invoke article 50, the formal process for withdrawal from the EU. “He will reiterate that article 50 is a matter for the next prime minister.” Cameron announced his resignation on Friday morning, in the aftermath of the public’s vote to reject EU membership, by 52-48%. He said he would stay on until a successor could be appointed, before the party’s annual conference in October – but under the new timetable, nominations will close on Thursday and the decision will be made by 2 September. Graham Brady, who chairs the executive of the 1922 Committee, which met on Monday lunchtime, said a quick decision was in Britain’s best interests. “Things are in our hands, and we are moving as quickly as possible,” said Brady. “We think that the party and the country want certainty.” Their recommendation needs to be approved by the board of the Conservative party, which meets on Tuesday, and the full 1922 Committee on Wednesday. Brady added that if a new prime minister presses ahead with the crucial renegotiations, they could then call a general election to allow the public to give their verdict on Britain’s new relationship with the EU. “We have a big, complicated task to accomplish,” he told Sky News. “I think it is entirely reasonable to expect that the government should embark on that, get on with that, seek to negotiate as good an outcome as we can before the people then are asked to approve or reject that in a general election.” If there are more than two candidates for leader, Conservative MPs will hold rounds of voting, the first of which would be on 5 July, with the least popular hopeful being eliminated each time. The party’s members would then be given a choice – almost certainly – of two contenders. Cameron held the first cabinet meeting since the referendum result on Monday, with ministers on both sides of the Brexit debate paying tribute to his premiership – and discussing how they can continue to fulfil the government’s manifesto, including on social reform, in the little time left before Cameron hands over to a new prime minister. May, who backed the prime minister’s pro-remain stance in the referendum campaign but made few public appearances in support of the cause, hopes to be seen as a unity candidate to bridge the divide in the party. She also burnished her Eurosceptic credentials by backing a withdrawal from the European convention on human rights. May is widely expected to announce herself as a candidate and is likely to be backed by a significant number of MPs as the “stop Boris” choice. One of the arguments being used to tempt Tory backbenchers to support her is that there would be less need to hold a general election. This is because she was in a significant position in government when the Conservatives stood on their manifesto at the last election and would therefore be better able to argue for carrying on with the same mandate. In contrast, Johnson was not in government then, which would put more pressure on him to seek his own mandate. Johnson, the former London mayor, arrived with an entourage at Portcullis House on Monday after spending the weekend holed up with allies at his country home. The justice secretary, Michael Gove, who chaired Vote Leave, is expected to play a key role in Johnson’s leadership campaign. Earlier, Johnson had set out his thoughts about life after Brexit in his Telegraph column, claiming the UK would be able to introduce a points-based immigration system while maintaining access to the European single market – a possibility that has already been rubbished by EU diplomats as a “pipe dream”. Some pro-remain Conservative MPs who watched Johnson arrive said they would do everything they could to stop to him taking over as leader of the party. One MP said they had been taken aback by the level of antipathy towards Johnson after the bitter referendum campaign; and there were growing questions about whether he is the right person to lead the complex Brexit negotiations. However, other challengers may yet emerge, including the education secretary, Nicky Morgan, Amber Rudd, the energy secretary who made a series of personal attacks on Johnson in the televised referendum debate, and the work and pensions secretary, Stephen Crabb. Liam Fox, the pro-Brexit MP from the more socially conservative wing of the party, has not ruled out running. Crabb has been canvassing MPs about the possibility of running on a joint ticket with Sajid Javid, the business secretary, who would serve as his chancellor. Javid will face questions on his intentions on Tuesday when he hosts a meeting of business leaders to reassure them about the consequences of Brexit. Both men come from working-class backgrounds, and see themselves as an antidote to the Etonian Johnson. Meanwhile, George Osborne ruled himself out as a candidate to replace his friend Cameron as prime minister. In an article for the Times, the chancellor accepted that he was too divisive a figure to reconcile the Conservative party following the EU referendum. Johnson sought to play down the disruption in the financial markets that had followed the public’s decision, saying sterling had been “stable”. But one Tory source ridiculed his comments, describing him as “the pound shop comical Ali of British politics”. A Tory MP who supported the remain campaign claimed “the liars had won the day” on the referendum. But they argued that when the electorate realised they couldn’t have everything they’d been promised, they wouldn’t want “the liar in chief”.
Leicester’s Dannys, Drinkwater and Simpson, seek sweetest triumph at Old Trafford The two Dannys always dreamed of eventually proving Manchester United wrong. They had long hoped to jog a few memories by reminding the Stretford End of what might have been but neither man envisaged it happening quite like this. When Danny Drinkwater takes up his position in central midfield and Danny Simpson stations himself at right-back at Old Trafford on Sunday afternoon Leicester City will be one win away from the most startling of Premier League title triumphs. To clinch English football’s biggest domestic prize back at the place where it all began for the pair would make things even more special. The prospects of such an evocative victory may be complicated by Manchester United’s desperate, against-the-odds scramble for a top-four place but even Louis van Gaal will know better than to underestimate Claudio Ranieri’s team. Or their two United old boys. In many ways, the two Dannys constitute a hopelessly romantic, wonderfully feelgood story but if Drinkwater’s journey since being shown the door by United more than fulfils this narrative, Simpson’s progress has been somewhat darker. The 29-year-old made eight senior appearances for Sir Alex Ferguson’s team but spent much of his time on the Old Trafford books farmed out on loan – to Royal Antwerp, Sunderland (where he helped Roy Keane’s side win promotion from the Championship), Ipswich Town, Blackburn Rovers and Newcastle United. Eventually, in 2010, Simpson was transferred to Newcastle, where he played a big part in their return to the Premier League under Chris Hughton. Aware Hughton’s successor, Alan Pardew, was keen to replace him with an “upgrade”, a defender who had courted controversy by leaving Stephanie Ward, the mother of his baby daughter, for an ill-starred, volatile romance with the singer and X-Factor judge Tulisa subsequently moved on to Queens Park Rangers. Another promotion was followed by another transfer, this time to Leicester, and last season’s relegation fight. A few months after the move, in January 2015, Simpson was charged with assaulting Ward. Shortly after Nigel Pearson’s then side confirmed a most unexpected relegation escape, he was convicted and sentenced to 300 hours of community service. The judge told him he had been fortunate to escape a six-month custodial sentence for throttling his former partner and, with many Leicester fans demanding his sacking, he was forced to beg the club’s hierarchy for one last chance. Magistrates were told that Simpson was straddling Ward on the living room floor with both hands around her throat when police arrived at her house and officers said they heard screams, crying and then a choking sound before finding Ward gasping for breath. The court heard that Simpson was pulled away from Ward. Simpson found himself spending football-free days variously steam‑ironing bin-bagged clothes in a charity shop, escorting people with mental health problems to the toilet and teaching them to play bingo. “It helped me grow,” he said recently. “I was in this football bubble and community service broke that. It made me think. It humbled me. It was a massive eye-opener.” Only time will tell if this particular leopard has truly changed his spots. Pardew, though, is delighted to see a full-back he had once regarded as a Championship level player undermined by a Jack the Lad persona, not only prospering professionally but apparently getting his life back on track. “We released Danny from Newcastle thinking we could get something better in his position,” says Crystal Palace’s manager. “But here he is in a position to win the title, attracting admiration and envy. I take my hat off to him.” Drinkwater, three years Simpson’s junior, was part of a Manchester United youth system that also hot-housed Matty James, another Leicester midfielder. James, something of a forgotten man after rupturing a cruciate ligament last May, was often preferred in midfield by Pearson but his injury created a big opportunity for Drinkwater under Ranieri. Drinkwater has seized it so assuredly he has even forced his way into the England squad – a feat few would have thought possible when he quit United for an uncertain future. Like Simpson he came from the Manchester area – Altrincham to the right-back’s Eccles – grew up supporting United and, again as with Simpson, surprised teachers by obtaining nine good GCSEs. Drinkwater’s Old Trafford class reached the 2007 FA Youth Cup final, losing on penalties to Liverpool. Of that team Danny Welbeck is at Arsenal, James Chester at West Bromwich Albion and Corry Evans with Blackburn but other squad members have drifted out of football. “Some of the guys from that time don’t play professionally any more,” said Drinkwater, aka Leicester’s “puppet master”, recently. “They play Sunday League and I know that could have been me. I didn’t have as good an attitude as I needed but you learn an awful lot when you see players falling out of football. “I still speak to a few of those boys and you can sense the disappointment in them. But a lot of making a breakthrough at big clubs is down to luck.” Despite not formally leaving Old Trafford until he was 21 Drinkwater never made the first team and began life on the loan beat at 18, experiencing stints at Huddersfield Town, Cardiff City, Watford and Barnsley. The enduring potential of a youngster determined to emulate Paul Scholes was ultimately spotted by Pearson, who transplanted him to Leicester, then struggling in the Championship. Underwhelmed, Drinkwater was “gutted” by United’s decision but now sees that a move which brought him to his “lowest” ebb ultimately changed and matured him. This metamorphosis did not surprise Keith Hill, his manager at Barnsley. “I always thought Danny would become a Premier League player,” says Hill, now at Rochdale. “He was superb.” Old ties still bind the midfielder to his original habitat and he continues to take a close interest in United. “I’ve always supported them,” he said recently. “But I guess there’s a part of me that wants to prove people they’re wrong.” Simpson still relishes memories of training alongside Cristiano Ronaldo, Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes, Wayne Rooney et al. “I tried to base my game on Gary Neville’s,” he says. “United was a dream.” Now an even bigger fantasy seems about to come true.
George Clooney meets Angela Merkel and backs Germany's support for refugees George Clooney has backed Germany’s open-door policy towards refugees fleeing the Syrian conflict after meeting Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin. Clooney and his human-rights lawyer wife, Amal, enjoyed a one-hour meeting with Merkel on Friday morning to discuss the ongoing crisis in the Middle East and the political reaction to it in Europe and elsewhere. Merkel has led Germany’s approach to the greatest movement of refugees since the second world war, which has resulted in Europe’s most populous nation taking in nearly one in two of all asylum applications made by Syrians in EU member states last year. The actor, director and humanitarian, who was also due to meet refugees in Berlin, earlier told reporters: “I absolutely agree with her”. The Clooneys were accompanied by David Miliband, the former UK foreign secretary who is now head of the New York-based International Rescue Committee. Miliband told the BBC the meeting involved discussing solutions to the “global problem” and praised Merkel for “showing very strong leadership” during the crisis. Clooney told the BBC last year that he intended to do more to help the people of Syria, without becoming directly involved with politics, after his marriage to Lebanese-born Amal, née Alamuddin, gave him a new perspective on the country. The actor, a United Nations Messenger of Peace since 2008, has urged the US to take in more refugees. Speaking on Thursday at the Berlin film festival, where he is currently promoting his role in the new Coen brothers film Hail, Caesar!, the actor admitted the world’s film industry takes too long to respond to humanitarian crises in the wider world. “I’ve struggled to find ways to make a film about Sudan, about Darfur, something very close to me, and which I spend a lot of time on – but I haven’t been able to find the proper script,” he said. “It’s hard enough to find a good script for anything, and you don’t want to do it badly – because if you do you only get one chance.” But the actor also reacted angrily to a reporter questioning his commitment to Syria. “I spend a lot of my time working on these things,” he said. “And it’s an odd thing to have someone stand up and ask, ‘What are you doing about it?’” The refugee crisis has been a major talking point in Berlin, with the city’s mayor, Michael Müller, telling audiences at the film festival that Germany should look to its past as it takes a stand on the issue. “Building new walls and barbed wire, shooting at refugees — these are messages that must never be transmitted from Germany ever, ever again,” he said. Germany took in 1.1 million refugees in 2015, many of them fleeing the conflict in Syria. But the country’s attitude towards migrants appears to have hardened recently, with Merkel’s open-door policy under fire from opponents within her own conservative camp and outside. Last month Sigmar Gabriel, the German vice chancellor, announced the country was moving to place Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia on a list of “safe countries of origin” – meaning that migrants from those countries would have little chance of winning asylum. He also said some migrants would be blocked from bringing their families to join them in Germany for two years.
US advances on clean energy with first offshore wind farm Several miles off the coast of Rhode Island, a clean energy landmark quietly just powered up. Five 560-foot-tall wind turbines are now spinning their 240-foot-long blades, sending electricity out onto New England’s regional grid. The wind turbines, which are connected to the sea floor via steel foundations, are linked to the broader grid by transmission cables deep under the sea. The wind farm is quite small at just 30 megawatts. That’s a fraction of the amount of energy that can come from an average coal or natural gas plant – it’s enough energy to power about 17,000 average American homes. But what the project lacks in size, it makes up for in importance. The close to $300m Block Island project, which came online yesterday, is the very first wind farm in America. Developed by a company called Deepwater Wind, the wind farm could pave the way for more successful projects in the US after other high profile American offshore wind projects have failed. A 468-megawatt project called Cape Wind was blown off course after wealthy residents of Cape Cod in Massachusetts protested the turbines marring their views. The small size of the Block Island project and the placement of the turbines have helped the Block Island Wind Farm dodge strong criticism, though some local residents are still upset about the new additions to their views. Rhode Island also showed more support for offshore wind. The governor of Rhode Island, Gina M Raimondo, said on Monday that she was proud that the state was the very first to “have steel in the water and blades spinning over the ocean”. Tapping the strong wind out in the ocean for electricity isn’t a new concept. For years, thousands of offshore wind turbines off the coast of European countries have been supplying the continent with an important source of carbon emissions-free electricity. Over that time, the European offshore wind industry has matured, and today the cost of electricity from wind turbines in European seas is at a record low. If the US can follow in the footsteps of Europe, it could find an important source of power for coastal states that have been closing large coal and nuclear plants and are looking for new clean energy sources. Some states with their own renewable mandates have struggled to find large sources of clean energy. Over the years, the federal government has supported the development of an offshore wind industry. As of last year, the Department of Interior had awarded 11 commercial leases for offshore wind development that could one day deliver 14.6 gigawatts of capacity. That’s the equivalent power of 15 large coal or gas plants. Other offshore wind projects are under development, including a 765-megawatt proposal in California that would erect wind turbines on floating foundations. But the election of Donald Trump as the next president may weaken federal support and squelch an emerging industry. Trump has been vehemently opposed to an offshore wind farm off the coast of one of his golf courses in Scotland because it disrupted the course’s views, and has expressed his dislike of wind farms in general. Last month, he even reportedly met with a British politician to discuss campaigning against offshore wind farms. Historically, renewable energy businesses such as solar and wind have relied on generous federal tax credits to help reduce the initial high costs of developing the technology and building power plants. Those costs have fallen significantly as more solar and wind farms come online from California to Florida. The still new offshore wind business is also counting on the same federal incentives, and it will need them more than the solar and onshore wind industries, both of which have grown large enough to compete in price with electricity from coal and natural gas power plants in parts of the country. The Block Island wind farm is eligible to get a tax credit worth 30% of the cost of building the project. That tax credit is set to be lowered in 2019, and its renewal will require an approval from Congress and support from the Trump administration. Trump could make it difficult for the offshore industry to take off even if he doesn’t oppose the extension of the tax credit. If he follows through with his campaign promise to reduce corporate tax rates, his actions could reduce the tax appetite of companies and likewise the interest in tax equity investments, according to Daniel Shurey, an analyst with Bloomberg New Energy Finance, in a new report. Deepwater Wind refused to comment on the Trump administration’s possible effect on the offshore wind industry. The company has another offshore wind project in the works off the coast of Maryland, and its CEO, Jeffrey Grybowski, has noted that the industry has other sources of help, including tax and other incentives passed by states such as Massachusetts. Offshore wind proponents hope the jobs that can be created with the new industry could win them support from Trump, who counts job creation as an important part of his agenda. The Block Island wind farm employed 300 local workers over the several years it took to build and commission.
From Battleship Potemkin to Baker Street: sightseeing with Sergei Eisenstein Sergei Eisenstein was the most notorious filmmaker in the world in 1929, when he made a six-week visit to Britain. Three years earlier, his Battleship Potemkin had created a sensation in Germany and was banned outright in most countries outside Soviet Russia, for fear its impact would incite mutiny and revolution. But it was also admired by all who managed see it, from a young David Selznick starting his career in Hollywood to the British documentary impresario John Grierson, who used a private screening for MPs to extract funding for films to counteract such dangerous propaganda. Potemkin received its long-delayed British premiere at a glittering private Film Society screening, and everywhere the great and the good wanted to meet its director. Now, a new exhibition drawing on Russian archives probes Eisenstein’s enthusiasm for British history and culture, revealing little-known aspects of his life – and art – beyond the famous films. Eisenstein’s Anglophilia ran deep. As a privileged child in pre-revolutionary Riga, he learned English from a governess and read all the great Victorian children’s classics. He later insisted that English authors were the first to take children seriously (citing Dickens’ “little Paul Dombey, David Copperfield, Little Dorrit and Nicholas Nickleby”) and also defending the nonsensical invention of Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear, while noting wryly that “infantilism” was not much in fashion in the USSR. He knew Sherlock Holmes from childhood and the exhibition, at the Gallery for Russian Arts and Design in London, includes his costume designs from the Bakhrushin Theatre Museum for a 1922 stage extravaganza that would have pitted Holmes against the reigning dime-novel detective, Nick Carter, in the early years of Soviet experimental theatre. It seems unlikely that he could have resisted visiting Holmes’s mythic Baker Street when in London, but otherwise he explored the East End from a modest base near Russell Square and gave lectures to would-be film-makers in a room above Foyles bookshop. As late as 1934, he was impatiently ordering the very latest contribution to the legend – Vincent Starrett’s playful mixture of scholarship and whimsy, The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes – from the London bookshop where he was proud to have an account, Zwemmer’s on Charing Cross Road. Shakespeare was a lifelong passion, as was Ben Jonson, whom he had discovered after buying a copy of Volpone for Aubrey Beardsley’s illustrations. When Eisenstein came to update his famous theory of montage in 1937, he invoked Shakespeare’s “astounding skill” in using short separate episodes of battle in the last acts of Macbeth and Richard III, but also “the image of the dizzy whirl of a fairground” in Jonson’s Bartholomew Fair. Eisenstein “woke up famous”, as he recalled, because of the worldwide impact of Battleship Potemkin. And this fame – followed by October, which celebrated the 1917 revolution on an epic scale – allowed him to pursue his intellectual and emotional passions to an unusual degree. In Mexico in 1931, trying to complete a sprawling epic about that country’s history, he started to draw in a new and intense way. In just one day, he produced a vast, astonishing cycle of variations on the murder triangle of Macbeth, his wife and King Duncan. Some of the riotously obscene Mexican drawings would help to blacken his reputation with the backer of his Mexican venture, the socialist millionaire Upton Sinclair. But the Duncan death cycle shows Eisenstein as a gifted draughtsman. Another little-known series of drawings, Thoughts on Music, reveals Eisenstein exploring ideas of visual rhythm with imagery from Alexander Nevsky, the film that restored him to favour in Stalin’s Russia in 1938. Nevsky showed one of ancient Russia’s saintly heroes rallying a peasant army against the fearsome might of the invading Teutonic knights, who are defeated on a frozen lake in a sequence that has influenced countless later screen battles. The film proved a temporary embarrassment when Stalin struck his truce with Hitler in 1939, but after the German invasion began 20 months later, it became a rallying point for all who opposed the Nazi war machine. Nevsky would have a particular resonance in Britain. After it was shown by the Film Society, BBC television pioneer Dallas Bower used it to train his first cameramen. Transferred to wireless after the outbreak of war, Bower proposed a radio version of Nevsky, and commissioned the poet Louis MacNeice to write the text, while Prokofiev’s score was brought in for a full-scale performance to be conducted by Adrian Boult. With Robert Donat starring as Alexander, and 200 performers and technicians gathered at Bedford School, news came of the Japanese strike at Pearl Harbour that brought the US into the war. The transmission of Alexander Nevsky on 8 December 1941 proved not only a landmark in radio drama, but a first celebration of the grand wartime alliance against fascism. Bower next pushed the idea of a British equivalent. Why not film Shakespeare’s rousing Henry V in the style of Nevsky? He managed to interest the producer Filippo Del Guidice and Laurence Olivier in the idea. The eventual result was the great Technicolor production of 1944, which borrowed Nevsky’s combination of historical research and stylised realism, culminating in the Battle of Agincourt shot with Irish troops in Eire. Eisenstein planned an Elizabethan episode for what would be his own last film, Ivan the Terrible. With apparent disregard for the prudishness of Stalin’s Russia, he envisaged that the Russian Tsar would be shown paying court to Elizabeth of England through Moscow’s first ambassador. And his choice of actor for the virgin queen was fellow-director Mikhail Romm, eerily anticipating Sally Potter’s casting of Quentin Crisp as Elizabeth in her 1992 Orlando. This and many other sequences planned for Ivan were never filmed, and the film’s sombre second part remained banned by Stalin for the rest of Eisenstein’s life. By the time it was finally released during the Khrushchev “thaw” of the late 1950s, Eisenstein’s reputation had entered what might be considered its cold war phase. In Solzhenitsyn’s 1962 novel One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, a convict dismisses him as an “arse-licker” for making films that satisfied Stalin. And later, he would be sidelined by western enthusiasm for Dziga Vertov as a more uncompromising radical, and even later by Andrey Tarkovsky’s antagonism to the very idea of montage. But in recent years, awareness has grown of Eisenstein’s prodigious output of writings and drawings, and the many unrealised film projects that filled his short life. The challenge today is whether we are ready to grant this polymath another kind of status: as an artist who, like many before him, worked at the court of a tyrant patron; but also as a thinker, who reached back into the prehistory of art and forward into an immersive future cinema in his last writings. There’s another challenge: imagining the young Sergei, still feeling like “a little boy from Riga”, as he set out to discover the world beyond Russia in 1929, exploring Bloomsbury, Hampton Court, Eton, Windsor and Cambridge in six hectic weeks. We know from his memoirs that these experiences stayed with him (shaping the court scenes of Ivan the Terrible that so spooked Stalin), along with the books that continued to arrive from Zwemmer’s, and the countless English authors and artists who peopled his memory. Eisenstein may no longer seem as dangerously subversive as he did in 1929. But like another of his heroes and models, Leonardo da Vinci, he remains the nearest cinema has had to a universal genius, with images that even today can still shock and inspire us . Unexpected Eisenstein is at GRAD from 17 February to 30 April.
Dr Dre and Michel'le biopic Surviving Compton to air on Lifetime A new TV biopic will focus on an allegedly abusive relationship between Dr Dre and the singer Michel’le. Next month, Lifetime will premiere Surviving Compton: Dre, Suge and Me, which follows the story of Michel’le, who sang on 1980s R&B hits such as No More Lies, and is the mother of one of Dr Dre’s sons. Michel’le is played by Lincoln Heights actor Rhyon Nicole Brown. The biopic follows the 2015 NWA film Straight Outta Compton, which was criticised by the singer for ignoring “several of NWA’s own harsh realities”. Michel’le has claimed that the producer was physically abusive to her. The journalist Dee Barnes has also criticised the NWA biopic. “I was just a quiet girlfriend who got beat on and told to sit down and shut up,” Michel’le told VladTV last year. This new film is told from Michel’le’s perspective and follows her career and relationship with Dr Dre, from their early studio sessions to the alleged physical abuse and dealing with motherhood. At one point, she is pictured with a black eye, while in another scene, the actor portraying Dre chokes her in front of collaborators in the studio. While Dr Dre has never fully admitted to or addressed allegations of abuse that the film has raised, speaking with Rolling Stone in 2015 he described his regrets about his behaviour when younger: “I made some fucking horrible mistakes in my life. I was young, fucking stupid. I would say all the allegations aren’t true – some of them are. Those are some of the things that I would like to take back. It was really fucked up. But I paid for those mistakes, and there’s no way in hell that I will ever make another mistake like that again.”
Michael Gove is wrong: Cameron’s EU agreement will be legally binding Michael Gove described the decision of the EU’s heads of state on the reform package for the United Kingdom as an “international declaration” in his BBC interview on Wednesday morning. That is not accurate. While it is accompanied by a number of declarations that complement its contents, the decision itself is a treaty binding in international law. The renegotiation package belongs to a perfectly familiar category of international treaties, which are concluded by the parties to an existing treaty in order to agree on how elements of it should be interpreted. That is what has now been done. The various representatives of EU nations have expressed their understanding of certain aspects of the treaties that are of concern to the United Kingdom. They did the same in 1992 to address concerns of Denmark regarding Maastricht, and again in 2009 to address the concerns of Ireland regarding the Treaty of Lisbon. The EU court of justice acknowledged that it was bound to take the decision on Denmark into consideration when interpreting relevant provisions of the treaties, and it will have to do the same with respect to David Cameron’s renegotiation. As an instrument of interpretation, the decision will become binding as soon as it enters into force – if the UK votes to remain in the European Union. The purpose of eventually introducing some of those principles into the treaties themselves would be to enhance their status, from interpretative tools to provisions of primary EU law in their own right. A different legal technique employed in the decision, which Gove did not mention, involves what may be termed “council conduct agreements”. These are agreements binding the member states as to how they will behave in certain circumstances, when acting in their capacity as members of the council (which, with the European parliament, constitutes the EU’s legislature). An important example is the safeguard mechanism to reinforce the protection of non-members of the eurozone. Under this mechanism, the council’s decision-making process can be interrupted by a single member state making a reasoned case that the proposal under consideration infringes one or more of the economic governance principles. An effort must then be made to accommodate those concerns, which may entail referring the issue to the European council. This will be implemented by adding a new provision to an existing council decision, which provides for a similar procedure, where the threshold for a qualified majority decision is achieved by a relatively narrow margin. Council voting agreements are a tried and tested technique of uncontested legality. Another point missed by Gove is that the prime minister’s aims in respect of benefits are to be achieved, without any need to amend the treaties, by agreed interpretations of existing legislation and by the introduction of two significant rule changes. This provides a sound basis for the robust application by courts in the UK of the various limitations on rights of free movement that are recognised by EU law. The rule changes entail giving states the option of indexing child benefits, which are exported, to the standard of living in the member state in which the children are resident, and the introduction of the so-called “emergency brake” on in-work benefits. These changes can be achieved by amending existing legislation. It cannot seriously be doubted that the commission will fulfil its undertaking to bring forward the proposals necessary to introduce those rule changes, and the members of the council will be obliged to adopt them. While the European parliament will have a part to play in the adoption of the legislation, it is implausible that, in a situation where the UK has voted to remain within the EU and the renegotiation has entered into force, the parliament would see any political advantage in putting the new constitutional settlement in jeopardy. Nor would there be any significant risk of such legislation being struck down by the court of justice. EU law-makers are perfectly entitled to lay down the conditions under which rights of free movement for workers are exercised. A fair overall assessment would, therefore, be that the reform package achieved by the prime minister is legally binding to the extent that it needs to be, and irreversible in practice.
Trump picks prominent white nationalist as delegate A list of delegates chosen by the Donald Trump campaign in California includes a prominent white nationalist who leads a party “to represent ... White Americans”, Mother Jones reported. Read the Mother Jones story I just hope to show how I can be mainstream and have these views. I can be a white nationalist and be a strong supporter of Donald Trump and be a good example to everybody. – Trump delegate William Johnson As a Muslim, Donald Trump inspires me ... to vote Ted Cruz told radio host Glenn Beck that if he beats Trump in the Nebraska primary tonight, he might get back in the presidential race. He was certainly joking, probably. Cruz hints at revival The reason we suspended our campaign was that with the Indiana loss, I felt there was no path to victory. If that changes, we will certainly respond accordingly. – Ted Cruz, joking, surely What ex-candidates said when they withdrew Barack Obama has said he won’t “meddle” in the Democratic nominating race. Vice-President Joe Biden? No such qualms: he predicted Hillary Clinton to go all the way. Sanders fans who prefer Trump to Clinton I feel confident that Hillary will be the nominee and I feel confident that she’ll be the next president. – Vice-President Joe Biden It’s just one poll, it’s early, and it’s an outlier. But a Quinnipiac survey published Tuesday had Clinton and Trump in a virtual tie in the crucial swing states of Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania. Read the poll A second pollster, PPP, tested Trump’s favorability against various things. Trump beat out hemorrhoids (45%-39%) and cockroaches (46%-42%) but lost to traffic jams (40%-47%), lice (28%-54%) and Nickelback (34%-39%). Read the poll
What to see at the Tribeca film festival, from Tom Hanks to Taxi Driver The Tribeca film festival launches its 15th edition on Wednesday in the wake of the biggest controversy the event has ever weathered, following the festival’s decision to program and then pull the anti-vaccination documentary Vaxxed: From Cover-Up to Controversy from its program. Co-founder Robert De Niro, who allegedly initially fought to have it included, is no doubt hoping this year’s slate of films and panels will overshadow the Vaxxed fallout. Given the robust lineup, the chances appear to be in his favor. Positioned shortly after the Sundance and SXSW film festivals each spring, and weeks before Cannes, Tribeca often serves as a springboard for artier independent fare from lesser-known film-makers, and star vehicles set to open shortly after the event packs up, in order to add some needed glamour to the red carpets. This year, the star with biggest clout set to attend is Tom Hanks, who will be world-premiering his latest film, A Hologram for the King, at the festival. Based on the popular novel by Dave Eggers, the drama reunites Hanks with one of his Cloud Atlas directors, Tom Tykwer, for a freewheeling tale about a desperate American salesman waiting an eternity to meet a Saudi Arabian billionaire. Hanks is also scheduled to take part in a panel hosted by comedian John Oliver, where he is to discuss his “passion for great stories”. In fact, the bulk of the star wattage at this year’s edition can be found in the featured speakers sidebar, where Hanks is included on an illustrious roster that also includes Patti Smith, Tina Fey, Jodie Foster, Baz Luhrmann, Jane Fonda, Joss Whedon and Mark Ruffalo. In a spirited pairing, JJ Abrams is to talk about his career opposite this year’s Oscars host, Chris Rock. Probably most anticipated of all, De Niro himself will be on hand to reflect on the making of Taxi Driver in honor of the film’s 40th anniversary. Martin Scorsese and the writer Paul Schrader will join him for the onstage talk following a screening. Other highlights to feature prominent actors include the drama The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, starring Jason Sudeikis as an introverted architect who bonds with a homeless teen following the death of his wife (Jessica Biel); Custody, which stars Viola Davis, Hayden Panettiere and Catalina Sandino Moreno as three women whose lives are changed after they cross paths at a New York family court; the romance The Meddler, which pairs Susan Sarandon with recent Oscar winner JK Simmons; the coming-of-age drama Mr Church, starring Eddie Murphy as a chef; and the Michael Shannon-led Wolves, about a troubled father whose addiction to gambling threatens to derail his son’s aspiration to go to Cornell on a sports scholarship. Shannon also features as Elvis Presley in the festival’s centerpiece screening, Elvis & Nixon. The Amazon Studios release follows the star in 1970, when he visited the White House seeking to be deputized into the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs by the president himself (played by Kevin Spacey). In 2014, Courteney Cox made her feature film directorial debut at the festival with Just Before I Go. This year, the big star to take the leap is Katie Holmes, who will unveil All We Had, her mother-daughter drama based on Annie Weatherwax’s popular novel. The film boasts a script by The Fault in Our Stars director Josh Boone, and pairs Holmes onscreen with Luke Wilson. Mia Wasikowska also steps into the director’s chair for the first time with a film that features in the anthology effort Madly, which features six shorts from film-makers from across the globe. Wasikowska’s segment follows a young mother’s postpartum struggles. As for the “smaller” pictures, AWOL, premiering in the festival’s US narrative competition, looks to be a standout based on its premise alone: it’s a rural-set love story about lesbians in and around the military. Lola Kirke, who delivered a strong performance in Mistress America and Gone Girl, stars. Also hoping to make an impact is Kicks, an opening night selection about a 15-year-old in Oakland on a mission to retrieve his recently stolen Air Jordans. The film marks the feature debut of Justin Tipping, who won a Student Academy Award for his short Nani. Tribeca has in recent years also become a strong showcase for documentary film. Past standouts include Frédéric Tcheng’s acclaimed Dior and I, which followed Raf Simon’s first couture collection for the Parisian fashion house, and the hypnotic Bombay Beach, from music video director Alma Har’el. Har’el returns to the festival with her anticipated follow-up LoveTrue, executive-produced by Shia LaBeouf. Her new feature is rumored to be similarly experimental in tone, exploring three complimentary stories that aim to “demystify the fantasy of true love”. There’s also a lot of buzz about All This Panic, a documentary by the artist Jenny Gage, who took a Boyhood-like approach by following two sisters in New York City as they came of age over the course of three years. The 15th edition of the Tribeca film festival will take place from 13-24 April in New York City. It opens on Wednesday with the world premiere of The First Monday in May, a documentary about the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute exhibition, China: Through the Looking Glass.
The targeting of Hillary Clinton suggests a vicious campaign ahead We now know how Donald Trump will take on Hillary Clinton this autumn – by framing her as a criminal who should be sent not to the White House, but to jail. Trump had already signalled as much via the two-word label he likes to hang around the neck of his Democratic opponent: Crooked Hillary. But the Republican convention in Cleveland, which on Tuesday formally nominated Trump as its presidential candidate, has given colour and shape to that strategy. Now we know how it will look and sound. Speaker after speaker has pressed the same themes: that Clinton is a liar who regards herself as above the law, that she is corrupt, that she is stained by a series of scandals going back 25 years. On Tuesday night, New Jersey governor Chris Christie used his turn at the podium to play prosecutor, asking the audience in the hall and watching on TV to act as a “jury of her peers” and sit in judgment on Hillary Clinton as he laid out the case against her. He had barely got going when the crowd in front of him began chanting “Lock her up! Lock her up!” Christie smiled indulgently, before promising: “All right, we’re getting there.” It was a telling moment, for it confirmed that, when it comes to this line of attack, the Republican party and the Trump campaign are following as much as they are leading. The activists of the right have been banging this same drum for months; some of them have been doing it for years. On Monday, in a lakeside Cleveland park, a rally convened by longtime Trump backer Roger Stone and the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones was peppered with posters urging “Hillary for Prison”, alongside placards depicting the Democratic candidate as “wanted”, in the style of the old west. Also spotted around town: pictures of Clinton in an orange jumpsuit and behind bars. Christie sought to give substance to those slogans and memes. Much of his case related to policy decisions Hillary Clinton had taken, especially as secretary of state. But now those decisions – to negotiate a nuclear deal with Iran or to thaw relations with Cuba – were refashioned as crimes. And as he worked through each item – Libya, Syria, China – he invited delegates to bellow their verdict. Never mind that some of the accusations were bizarre – including the claim that Clinton was an “apologist” for Boko Haram – the hall answered loudly and in chorus: “Guilty!” The old favourites got a run-out too, naturally. Hillary, said Christie – who having been passed over as a vice-presidential choice hopes to be attorney general in a Trump administration – had lied about the deaths of four US diplomats in Benghazi, deaths for which, according to earlier speakers in Cleveland, Clinton was directly culpable. And she had lied about her use of a private email server, offering an account which, Christie reminded his audience, the director of the FBI had recently deemed untrue. The audience lapped it up, of course they did. For this is the one thing on which all Republicans, those who backed Trump and those who opposed him, can agree: that Hillary Clinton is so corrupt that she must not be allowed to become president. Indeed, my conversations with delegates previously hostile to Trump suggest that this is what enables them to fall in behind the nominee: their belief that, morally speaking, Clinton is even worse. Strategically, you can see Team Trump’s logic. The polls are staggeringly bad for Clinton on this, with some 67% of Americans regarding her as not honest or trustworthy. It makes sense for Republicans to exploit that weakness. But there is a larger calculation at work. The Trump campaign has clearly concluded that there is not much it can do about their man’s stratospherically high disapproval ratings. (He is regarded as dishonest by 62% of Americans, for example, and his other numbers are even worse.) So if they can’t lift him up, they might as well tear her down. The result will be a relentlessly negative campaign from now until November, with both candidates depicting the other as the greater evil. And if talk of evil, rather than the merely criminal, sounds excessive, consider Tuesday’s closing speech by one of Trump’s former fellow candidates, Ben Carson. He suggested Clinton was a devotee of a man, the long-ago radical Saul Alinsky, who had once praised … Lucifer. Yes: Hillary Clinton was just one degree of separation away from Satan. If this is what the Republicans are saying about their Democratic opponent in July, imagine what they’ll be saying come November.
How to … make NGO videos for social media They are called dabs, those short, snappy and highly shareable videos that dominate your Facebook or Twitter feed. News organisations such as NowThisNews and AJ+ (Al Jazeera) are leading the way in this micro-video style, based on the idea of a little bit of news, every now and then. How they work The videos are short and reduce a story to its bare bones, but “that doesn’t mean they are any less sophisticated,” says Michael Tait, multimedia commissioning editor at the . A great deal of thought goes into the script, length, amount of words and which images or footage is used. “In fact, it’s really difficult to take a journalistic story and reduce it to 20 lines of texts, and then make all the images graphic enough to be engaging,” he says. More and more people watch videos on their mobile phones (Facebook has actually changed its algorithm to prioritise live video) so the videos must be made for mobile rather than, say, created for desktop and pushed through social media channels. Critically, videos must be shareable. “If people don’t share the video, it won’t get the reach,” says Fred McConnell, deputy video editor for Australia. “We have 5m followers on Facebook, but have views of more than 18m on some videos.” Think beyond your own followers and make the video as accessible to as many people as possible. But don’t make it with the thought that people should share it because that never works, he says. Ask yourself instead, “Would I share it?” How to make your own Hire millennials The hardest part is finding the right people to do the job. They need to be digital natives, millennials, and they need to understand the language. “We’re hiring people who aren’t just great filmmakers or who can produce really artistic stuff, it’s about having a strong understanding of why people share stuff on social media and how they interact with content,” says Richard Casson, online campaigner at Greenpeace. As well as being social media savvy, you need someone who can use Premier, Final Cut Pro, Photoshop and, ideally, AfterEffects to create motion graphics. They should also have some journalism experience. “We’re not close to these stories so we can make decisions that improve the storytelling, but if someone is really invested in the issue, they’re not going to have that distance or that objectivity,” says McConnell. Invest in assets You don’t need a huge team to make micro-videos, but you do need access to images, footage and music. “We try to use open source music and we always credit the person whose songs we’re using at the end of the video, with a link to wherever we found it,” says Casson. “We also try to use open source footage or pay a fee to use someone else’s. If it’s a small organisation, they’re often happy for us to just credit them.” Another option is to buy subscriptions to production libraries or photography agencies for instant access to images and video. “A licence is quite expensive in the short-term but would pay off over time, both in terms of finance and the speed at which you can produce these videos,” says McConnell. But these days, says Tait, even an iPhone will do and there are apps – such as Verify – that ensure coverage from news hotspots around the world. If you have that, and the means to steady your iPhone, you can record all sorts of things to include in videos. Grab people’s attention “We call them thumbstoppers,” says Tait. “Because you’re scrolling through your news feed on your phone and whatever holding image and headline you choose has to be dynamic and powerful enough to stop someone scrolling.” McConnell says you have around a second to get people’s attention, so don’t have an introduction, a build-up, or fade in from a black screen. You should also create a separate eye-catching holding image for the video that gives a good overview of what it’s about. Putting a famous face at the front of the video also helps, says Casson. “When we bring people like George Osbourne or David Cameron to the forefront of the video we tend to get a higher reaction.” Be concise If you want the video to be watched on social media, keep it short. “It has to be as tight as you can get it without compromising on the content,” says Tait. Micro-videos shouldn’t be longer than two minutes. “Focusing on an individual is really effective when you only have a minute,” says McConnell. Make sound optional More than 90% of people watch dabs without sound, so it has to be optional. Avoid talking points, but if someone is speaking, add subtitles that can be read on a small screen. And think carefully about any text used in the video. “Strike a balance between having enough time to read the text and having it move in a way that keeps you interested,” says McConnell. “Your eye shouldn’t have to travel from one corner of the screen to the other, either.” Also make sure that any words are positioned above the play bar so it doesn’t obstruct the text. Tell real (and positive) stories “Charity videos often feel fake,” says McConnell. “We know that person’s probably not called Jean, for example – it’s just an anonymous child you happen to have footage of.” Videos can be serious, but doom and gloom is not appealing and won’t make people stop scrolling. Use real people, focus on the issue and deliver character and narrative. Tell a positive story about an inspirational person. “We had really interesting footage of a 26-year-old girl who refuses to leave Damascus and is still teaching ballet at a school without heating or anything like that,” says video producer Ekaterina Ochagavia. “She spoke so passionately about the kids, dancing and how she couldn’t leave her home, but it was also interesting about the crisis there. You could show a story like that and, at the end, have a call to action for donations to help her.” Include a call to action We try to make it as explicit as possible that there is some sort of call to action,” says Casson. “We might put words at the end, such as ‘Share to expose this story’ or ‘Share to celebrate’ if we have some good news. Within the video itself, we always try to have a mini theory of change so that it’s not just reporting on a problem, but actually a way for people to participate in the campaign by interacting with the video afterwards.” And ideally, posts should have a link accompanying the video where people can read more. Don’t make it all about the campaign A good approach is to have a desire to create good content that will increase your NGO’s social media reach. If Facebook recognises, through its algorithm, that your page produces good videos, it will continue to place them into people’s news feeds. “A successful piece of content will bring more people to our page,” says Casson. “More likes means more reach and more ways for people to support us.” Join our community of development professionals and humanitarians. Follow@ GDP on Twitter.
UK commander in Iraq calls for patience over retaking Mosul from Isis Britain’s most senior commander in Iraq and Syria told politicians and diplomats to show patience in the battle to remove Islamic State from Mosul, despite Donald Trump’s pre-election demand that bombing against the terror group should be intensified. Maj-Gen Rupert Jones said daily attacks on Isis had led to “an extraordinary amount of progress” in the last year, but warned that the jihadi group was defending the city vigorously and that it was necessary for the Iraqi security forces (ISF) to demonstrate restraint. The deputy commander of the US-led international coalition in the region added: “What we have all got to then have is patience and what you want is the ISF to clear their way through the city in a deliberate manner. “They could hard charge their way through the city and there would be an awful lot of civilian casualties but it has been really impressive to watch [Iraqi prime minister Haider al-] Abadi downwards really care about civilian casualties. Therefore, they are taking a deliberate manner and trying to minimise their own casualties.” The remarks contrasts with Trump’s seeming impatience with Barack Obama’s anti-Isis strategy. Trump has pledged that Isis will disappear very quickly after he becomes president, and though he declined to disclose his plan for how that would be achieved, said he intended to hit the militants harder, including bombing “the shit out of ’em”, referring to Isis-controlled oil fields. Last year Trump said: “I know more Isis than the generals do, believe me. I would bomb the shit out of them. I would just bomb those suckers. And, that’s right, I’d blow up the pipes. I’d blow up the refineries. I’d blow up every single inch. There would be nothing left.” Jones declined to offer a timetable for the fall of Mosul, beyond saying it was on schedule and that while Isis was defending the city fiercely, he expected the group to have been cleared from all Iraq’s towns and cities by the second half of next year. Asked about Trump’s criticism that Obama was not being firm enough on Isis, the general said: “I am not going to comment on some of the Trump campaign narrative. What I would say to you is that we are hitting Daesh [another name for Isis] very, very hard. I have just described to you how much progress has been made in the last year. An extraordinary amount of progress. “And that has been built in part on us hitting Daesh day in, day out. By the time the ISF stepped off into Mosul, we had been shaping and degrading that enemy day in, day out for months.” Jones is the youngest general in the British army and son of Lt Col H Jones, who was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross after being killed in the Falklands in 1982. Jones also said a huge intelligence trove was expected from the fall of Mosul and confirmed that documents seized from Manbij in northern Syria in August had revealed plots against targets in Europe and elsewhere around the world. A unit was set up in Kuwait to process all the hard drives, USB sticks and other data collected from the Manbij that reportedly includes details of financing, propagandists and terror plots. It is understood that while plots were identified throughout Europe, including France, there were none specifically targeted against the UK. Jones, who is based in the Kuwaiti headquarters of Operation Inherent Resolve, the campaign against Isis in Iraq and Syria, said the jihadi group was struggling, having lost 56% of the territory it once held in Iraq and 28% in Syria. But he pointed out that Isis was behaving as barbarically in Iraq’s second city as it had ever done, saying it was “being ruthlessly evil on the streets of Mosul as we sit here in the sunshine: beheadings, throwing people in oil pits”. There have been repeated allegations of atrocities by the Popular Mobilisation Forces militia that form part of the ISF taking back territory from Isis. But British officers said the militias have been barred from entering Mosul was the city was recaptured and that they would be barred from the next objective, Tal Afar. After Mosul falls, Jones said, the next big thing would be a push on Tal Afar, which has effectively been isolated, and to push up the Euphrates river valley, led by the Iraqi army’s seventh division based at the al-Asad base. He anticipated the international community, mindful of the speed at which the US withdrew from Iraq in 2011, would want to remain in the country after the defeat of Isis. Trump on the campaign trail also said he would work with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, to defeat the group in Syria. He also challenged the Obama administration for putting its faith in Syrian moderates taking the lead in retaking Raqqa, Isis’s de facto capital, as he demanded a more aggressive military campaign. At the time of Trump’s comments a retired US army general, Mark Hertling, told CNN the Republican’s approach would lead to mass resignations across the military, and that it was difficult to remain apolitical in the face of such statements from people who had not been there. Jones declined to comment on the sensitive issue of of role of Russia, but, asked about Trump’s scepticism about whether there were enough Syrian moderates, he said: “Yes, I am confident that there are. Our partners wouldn’t be partnering on Raqqa if we didn’t think there were sufficient moderate Syrians. The plan is to build on those moderates.” Asked if Trump might change his opinions when he takes office on 20 Januaryafter being briefed on Iraq and Syria by the military and intelligence agencies, Jones replied: “Who knows?” Syrian Kurdish and Arab militias seized more than 10,000 documents and 4.5 terabytes of digital data in Manbij. Commenting on the trove, Jones said: “I am not going to go into the details but we know that external operations have been getting orchestrated to a very significant degree from within the caliphate critically from within Raqqa and from within Manbij. “They were key external operations hubs. There is a huge amount of intelligence, documentation, electronic material that has been exploited there that points very directly against all sorts of nations around the world.”
Eastern promise: the Hollywood films making their money in China The ambitiously, or perhaps foolishly, titled orcs v humans video game adaptation Warcraft: The Beginning was perceived as not just a standalone summer blockbuster but the first instalment in an epic new series of adventures. Before the film had even been released, director Duncan Jones was teasing that more was to come and Universal, a studio that’s seen franchises bloom in recent years from Fast & Furious to Despicable Me to Fifty Shades, was surely eyeing a Lord of the Rings style profit-making saga. But as every poorly received trailer and poster landed online, the buzz started to smell worse than the inside of an orc’s boot. The reviews were reflective of this undeniable stench. It was labelled “a contender for the worst movie of the year” and one reviewer hoped that the sequel “languishes in development hell forever”. Audiences made this a safe bet with a disastrous US opening of just $24.4m, meaning its domestic gross would be unlikely to make back even half of its $160m budget. Game over. But on the other side of the world, one country was desperately inserting coins to continue. Warcraft opened in China to a record-breaking five-day total of $156m, the highest ever debut for a foreign release, thanks to the game’s popularity, a whopping 26 brand sponsors and a stack of specially created localised marketing materials. Along with a strong showing from other countries, it’s up to $300m worldwide, with analysts suggesting that an entirely achievable $450m would be the magic break-even number that might even lead to a sequel. Its success has come just a week after news of John Boyega signing on to star in Pacific Rim 2, pushing the film closer to production. In 2013, this seemed an unlikely proposition. The reviews were more positive for Guillermo del Toro’s brash monster movie, but it failed to find the required audience in the US. A $101m total might sound respectable but from a $190m budget, it’s a disaster. Yet the film scored overseas, making $114m in China and topping out at $411m worldwide. The sequel, again teased early on by the original film’s director, was still far from a sure thing, but in the years since China’s box office has become even more important, with 2016 set to be the year that the country overtakes the US. Pacific Rim 2 then became the first Hollywood sequel to be greenlit thanks to international audiences, and, if China continues to embrace the orcs actioner, Warcraft: The Middle could well be on the way. However, it’s not guaranteed. The resurrection of the Terminator franchise was seen as a regrettable decision by critics and audiences in the US, but in China, Terminator: Genisys was a hit, making $113m compared with a US total of just $89m. Ultimately, Paramount decided against their planned sequel, despite a $440m worldwide number. There’s also a problem with heritage when it comes to Chinese blockbusters. The success of Warcraft and Pacific Rim could be traced back to their relative newness. But the success of sequels and reboots often relies on brand awareness, and since many Hollywood films have never been released in China, that’s not always easy to ensure. Star Wars: The Force Awakens broke records around the world, but it was only moderately successful with Chinese audiences and its final underwhelming gross was seen by some analysts as the reason why the film didn’t beat Avatar’s international record. The first film in the series to be released in the country was Phantom Menace in 1999, meaning the saga doesn’t have the same feverish cult following in China. The forthcoming spin-off Rogue One: A Star Wars Story has smartly recruited Chinese stars Donnie Yen and Jiang Wen. If we’re being cynical, it’s a tactical casting decision, but it’s far from a new trend. Transformers: Age of Extinction was part-funded by China Movie Channel and utilised local talent and locations, while Iron Man 3 included extra footage in China with popular actor Fan Bingbing. It all started, though, with a more modestly budgeted film: 2009’s indie time-travel thriller Looper. A co-production with a Chinese company led to a major location change from Paris to Shanghai for key scenes, extended for the Chinese release, and it became the first US film to open to more money in China than at home. Working with a Chinese company also means that the film is exempt from the country’s strict annual quota of just 34 foreign movie releases (a number that may increase next year). Warcraft: The Beginning was also a co-production between Universal and Legendary, a company that has recently become a subsidiary of Chinese conglomerate Wanda Media Group. Next year, the company is set to release prequel Kong: Skull Island and The Great Wall, a China-set fantasy adventure from director Zhang Yimou starring Matt Damon, a film that’s a clear sign of a growing commercial relationship between the two countries as well as a creative one. It’s still likely to leave many Hollywood films unaffected but could lead to worrying side-effects. While spectacle translates well to international audiences, humour isn’t always as easy. s of the Galaxy proved a hit with critics and audiences in most of the world, but it didn’t catch on in China. The title translation to Interplanetary Unusual Attacking Team goes some way to explain why the film’s unique brand of comedy was tough to convey. The less joke-heavy X-Men: Apocalypse has already eclipsed it. It’s also likely to affect content on a broader level, with Chinese censorship still notoriously stringent. Deadpool was denied a release in the country thanks to its violence, nudity and language, while Crimson Peak was barred because of its supernatural content as the censorship guidelines prohibit films that “promote cults or superstition”. An alarming, commercially minded future could see all blockbusters conforming to Chinese rules in order to maximise profits. The overseas success of Warcraft: The Beginning is an undeniable turning point for global box office, but the long-term effects remain unknown. Jackie Chan believes that it will lead to more homegrown blockbusters, once the Chinese film industry realises the money that can be made. That would make sense and hopefully curb an influx of overly modified US offerings. Appealing to an international audience doesn’t need to be a bad thing, but if the industry spends too much time and effort directing content to one country, one that has an entirely different view on so many issues, Hollywood could end up losing its domestic audience. Warcraft: The Beginning (and the end), please.
‘I’m with Nigel’: the Farage entourage tries to break America Finally, a catchphrase as iconic as “I’m with Vince”, the access-all-areas intro dropped by the hangers-on in Entourage. Say hello to “I’m with Nigel”, as the breakout star of Brexit tries to make it big in America, accompanied by his coat-tailing posse from back home. Don’t ask me the title of this shitshow, girls. Cause you know you just switched on Enfarage. First, the set-up. Nigel Farage is a leading man whose success in the referendum vote has drawn offers from That America. Specifically, from Donald Trump’s campaign for the presidency, which has taken inspiration from the poll-busting Brexit result, and reportedly wants to pick his brains. Please don’t conclude that the relationship is being wildly exaggerated, and that Farage is so junior that even Trump’s people have people who deal with him. Instead, just get behind the fact that it’s finally happening – Nigel Farage is GOING WEST! He is LIVING THE DREAM! If you’re up to speed with the series, you’ll know that Nigel has already gone to the Republican national convention in Cleveland. Nigel has been permitted to open for Trump in Mississippi. Nigel has been said to be advising Trump in advance of the final two debates. Nigel is on Fox News. Nigel is in the spin room. Nigel is hotly tipped to play the lead in James Cameron’s Aquaman. I don’t know if Nigel has a mid-Atlantic accent yet, but when asked whether he would return as the permanent Ukip leader, his reply was genuinely “not for 10 million dollars”. Nigel, your official logo is a pound sign. Why are you suddenly speaking in dollars? Is this a bit like that Alan Partridge episode where his mate from the petrol station gets infatuated with a cod-American trucker called Tex? Or do you just prefer to talk in currencies that aren’t tanking? But wait, because Nigel also has a crew, who he wants with him for the journey because 1) he’s codependent, and 2) that’s the entire show, dude! Don’t take it from me – take it from Ukip financier Arron Banks, whose forthcoming book on the gang is called The Bad Boys of Brexit, and features a cover shot I’ve already captioned “Turtle, E, Vinnie, Drama”. The aforementioned bad boys are Arron, communications chap Andy Wigmore and another businessmen bankroller called Richard Tice. (“Tice is the worst!” honks Arron, presumably in a teaser for the episode Tice is the Worst.) Tice doesn’t seem to be with Nigel as we speak, but the others have caught a ride with him at various stages of the US journey. And why not? Entourage was, of course, a show whose almost ineffably complex and nuanced four-way bromance was best summarised in the following exchange: E: “Could you get laid without Vince? That’s the question?” Turtle: “Do I give a fuck? That’s the answer!” So picture the same dynamic, only with Nigel Farage. Of course, I mean it only metaphorically as far as the bad boys of Enfarage are concerned. I’m pretty sure they all have wives, estranged or otherwise and, anyway, they wouldn’t have gone near the traditional RNC hookers’n’coke bonanza. Fine wines, yes. Blowing rails off a paid friend while telling her about the Breaking Point poster? Don’t be absurd. Essentially, these are country mice. I get the feeling they’re a bit “unsettled” by alt-right comers such as Milo Yiannopolous . Of course, there are some characters too silly even to make the Enfarage cut. There is Breitbart London editor Raheem Kassam, for instance, who is running for the Ukip leadership under the Trump-frotting slogan Make Britain Great Again. Raheem once poignantly bought the same coat as Nigel, but his puritan dullardry is preventing him getting even a three-episode arc. “Irony of Trump tape,” ran a Raheem tweet revealing a grasp of irony to make Alanis Morissette’s look Sophoclean. “The left has pushed sex liberation & filthy Hollywood culture for decades. Now complaining about the language it causes.” “Complaining about the language”? Also, “filthy Hollywood culture”? Obviously, no one expects Raheem to have a clue as to why so many Republican women are vocally enraged and disgusted by Trump’s sexual assault boasts – he presumably last spoke to a female sometime during the Dubya administration. But it’s an interesting choice to run for the Ukip leadership on a Mary Whitehouse platform, and he is advised to manage his expectations accordingly. Back to Nigel, though. Back to our star. Clearly, this is the most concerted attempt to break America since Robbie Williams moved there for a decade and became the de facto leader of the Brits in LA for No Good Reason. Robbie’s US career basically consisted of hosting five-a-side football matches for fellow time-rich expats such as Vinnie Jones. Farage’s strategy, in contrast, is to get as close to Trump’s campaign as he possibly can, build up his recognition Stateside, and hope it doesn’t end up like when Cheryl went to US X Factor. Thus he’ll do anything. Farage is now the Paul Ross of the Trump campaign – as in, his answerphone message says: “I’ll do it.” Wait – the candidate has been taped bragging about grabbing women’s pussies? Fine, Nigel will go on Fox News to defend him. Like he told the anchor, Trump’s apparent predilection for sexual assault was fine because “he’s not running to be pope”. Quite. That’s the last way to get ahead in the Catholic church. Anyway, the pope bit was sufficiently splashy for Nigel to be invited into the post-debate spinroom, where he dispensed further look-at-me lines. Trump, Farage declared, was “like a big silverback gorilla” – an analysis that makes me wonder if those paw ashtrays are always morally wrong. Either way, the last thing you should think is that Nigel is coming off like a small fish in a massive pond. “I’ve been there myself,” he mused of the first presidential debate. “I remember my first debate.” Thanking you, Obi-Wan. What is the endgame to all this? If Nigel has an Ari Gold figure, where is he steering him? My feeling is that Farage ultimately wants a berth on Trump TV, the network Trump is rumoured to be launching should his presidential bid fail. Our natural instinct is probably to see Nigel occupying the Partridgean 3am-6am graveyard slot. Then again, in the world of Trump, maybe the small hours are prime time? God knows that’s when the candidate has done some of his most eye-catching work. Or perhaps Nigel hopes Trump will employ him as a sidekick on his own show – kind of like Hank on Larry Sanders. The fear, naturally, is that Nigel will end up some kind of Madge Allsop figure – monstrously insulted and abused, but too beaten to find the courage to escape. All we can do is remind Nigel that lil’ ol’ Britannia will be waiting for him with open arms if all goes tits up. Leave a $10 bill on her nightstand, Nige, and tell her about the time you were big in America.
Five of the best new films in the UK 1 Silence (15) (Martin Scorsese, 2016, Mex/Tai/US) 161 mins Scorsese is in repentance mode with this austere, spiritual drama. Two Portuguese missionaries (Andrew Garfield and Adam Driver) are smuggled into 17th-century Japan, where Christians are violently persecuted, in search of a padre who’s apparently gone native. What follows is an earnest study of faiths – in crisis and in conflict. Non-believers may tire of its longueurs, but it’s a film of depth and devotion. Out on Sun 2 Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (12A) (Gareth Edwards, 2016, US) 134 mins The prospect of fresh Star Wars characters, locations and hardware is all many punters need. But despite the retrograde male domination (Felicity Jones excepted), this spinoff is pacy, action-packed, and rendered with a conviction that most effects movies lack. 3 Assassin’s Creed (12A) (Justin Kurzel, 2016, UK/Fra/HK/US) 115 mins The bestselling video game becomes a Matrix-like epic, throwing Michael Fassbender between high-tech prison movie and Spanish Inquisition swashbuckler. The complex mythology takes some explaining (it’s all to do with a secret Assassins v Templars war), but the action scenes are exhilarating, with rooftop and horseback chases that look agreeably non-digital. Out on Sun 4 The Son Of Joseph (12A) (Eugène Green, 2016, Bel/Fra) 113 mins This oddball French comedy contains hints of both Robert Bresson and Wes Anderson in its deadpan story of a young man seeking the identity of his father. Drawing on a range of cultural references, not least the Bible, it’s sophisticated without being pretentious. 5 Why Him? (15) (John Hamburg, 2016, US) 111 mins It’s not going to win any awards, but this Meet The Parents-style bromance is funny enough to pass muster. James Franco was possibly the only option for the part of an overbearing zillionaire dude, whose proposal to Bryan Cranston’s daughter is not exactly welcomed.
Councils failing to monitor most British schools for dangerous air pollution Councils are failing to monitor most schools in Britain for dangerous air pollution despite government advice, freedom of information requests have revealed. All Britain’s 433 local councils were asked by the British Lung Foundation (BLF) whether they placed pollution monitors within 10 metres of school grounds. Of the 322 which replied, only 140 said they did. In urban areas identified by the World Health Organisation as having harmful levels of particulate pollution, nearly half were found to be monitoring only one or two schools. Less than one in three local authorities monitored more than two schools. Air quality monitoring guidance for the UK is drawn up by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). The government does not insist that schools are monitored and local authorities are left to implement and interpret results and take action where needed. The survey showed “alarming discrepancies” in council behaviour, said a BLF spokeswoman. Some used very simple diffusion tubes to measure only NO2 gas, but others monitored for different-sized particles called PM10s and 2.5s which are spewed out by traffic and industry, she said. Equally, some authorities monitored the air close to school playgrounds, but others measured air quality hundreds of metres away. “The guidance on monitoring that Defra gives local authorities needs to be revised and strengthened. Parents should be able to tell what their children are breathing, especially if they have conditions like asthma,” the spokeswoman said. Concern about children’s health has grown following new scientific research which has shown lung capacity can be permanently impaired by pollution at very early ages. A study of 2,400 children at 25 schools across east London found children had 5-10% less lung capacity, with an increased risk of diseases such as asthma and bronchitis. According to the BLF, nearly 1 million schoolchildren up to 15 years old have been diagnosed with lung conditions. “Children and teaching staff are not being made fully aware of the health risks posed by air pollution. Local authorities need clear guidance to monitor the air that children breathe as well as more resources and funding to tackle it,” said Russell Hobby, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers. “Children’s lung health is particularly vulnerable to air pollution, yet they are not being protected by the government’s air quality monitoring guidance. There is a huge discrepancy in the levels of monitoring outside schools across the country, with many schools in the most harmfully polluted places not being monitored,” said Dr Penny Woods, chief executive of British Lung Foundation. A an LGA spokesman said: “Councils follow guidelines on monitoring air pollution which are laid down by central government. These are to take a risk-based approach – monitoring those locations where members of the public might be regularly exposed. “As well as schools this could also include residential properties, hospitals and care homes – depending on which area is at greatest risk. Many schools are actually some distance from busy roads and therefore unlikely to have high air pollution levels.” He added that the “real issue” was for councils to move from monitoring pollution to acting on it, which would take government support. A report that was commissioned but not published by London city hall under Boris Johnson showed that the number of primary schools in the capital breaching EU pollution levels had fallen from 433 in 2010 to 357 in 2013. Another report, for the mayor of London, found children at nearly 90 secondary schools in London regularly breathed illegal and dangerous levels of air pollution. Research by the Campaign for Clean Air found that 1,148 schools in London are within 150 metres of roads carrying 10,000 or more vehicles per day, and a total of 2,270 schools are within 400m of such roads. “Children across the UK are exposed to illegal levels of air pollution on a daily basis. Air pollution is an invisible problem and parents have a right to know if their children are breathing dirty air, so it should be monitored,” said Andrea Lee, healthy air campaigner at environmental law firm ClientEarth.
Customers’ reluctance to try newcomers props up the banking giants When HSBC held its annual meeting at this time last year, the bank’s shares were trading at around 611p. When outgoing chairman Douglas Flint fronted up to shareholders for this year’s event last week, they were around 472p – 23% lower. If the meeting had been held a fortnight earlier, the picture would have been an even more gloomy 416p. At these sorts of share-price levels, the market is valuing the bank at almost less than half the value of its assets. HSBC is not alone in getting such an assessment from the market. The UK banking sector is lagging behind the wider stock market and as all the major players publish their results in the coming fortnight, they will hope to elicit a better reception. It is all too easy to understand why investors would shy away from the sector. Geopolitics, cybercrime, pressure from digital startups and the risk of financial fines are among the great imponderables for anyone wanting to take the plunge. Errors from the past are still weighing on the banks, as HSBC knows all too well. A monitor installed as a result of a 2012 fine for money-laundering offences by the US has flagged up issues with the speed at which the bank is able to make changes to its internal systems and controls. Libor-rigging and manipulation of the foreign exchange markets have already shaken the public image of banks – and the fines knocked a dent in their profits. Royal Bank of Scotland, meanwhile, could be facing a penalty of as much as £8bn for the way it sold mortgages to US investors during the sub-prime crisis nearly a decade ago. Its prospects of making an annual profit in 2016 – it would be its first since 2007 – are slim. And then there is the payment protection insurance scandal. This has already cost the industry more than £30bn – and while the banks are desperate to draw a line under the compensation payouts through the introduction of a time bar, there has to be a risk that they will have to dig even deeper to cover the cost of mis-selling this insurance. Add to the mix the fact that interest rates are still stuck at record low levels – with little immediate prospect of going higher – and the banking sector is stuck in a mire. Banks are finding it harder to make money on customers’ juicy deposits – and shoving up borrowing costs is difficult to pull off when other rates are so low. These themes will play out in the coming days when the bank bosses line up to provide their latest trading updates – and also face their shareholders. Barclays’ new chief executive, Jes Staley, will address his on Thursday, personally delivering a message that appears likely to be very different to the one incoming chairman John McFarlane hoped for. A year ago, McFarlane described the dividend level as “less than we would wish”. How is he going to deliver the message to impatient Barclays shareholders that the all-important dividend is going to be cut almost in half for the next two years? Yet despite this dismal backdrop, with the reputation of bankers at rock bottom, the established players appear confident about one thing: their high-street customers are reluctant to rock the boat. Barely 4% of retail customers move their current accounts each year – a figure that could increase tenfold, challenger bank TSB reckons, if customers were given more information about the accounts they hold with the big four. One suggestion – handing over information about “foregone interest” on current accounts rather than savings accounts – seems unlikely to happen voluntarily. And the Competition and Markets Authority seems too scared to move – possibly the one piece of good news for the downtrodden banking sector. Even the director-in-chief has had enough of soaring pay First Sports Direct felt its wrath, then the entire corporate world. Having told the billionaire Mike Ashley, who owns the clothing chain Sports Direct, that his treatment of the clothing chain’s low-paid warehouse staff “will leave a scar on British business”, the Institute of Directors has sent out a wider warning: allow executive pay to soar and the roof will fall in. Or, at least, a welter of government regulation will be imposed on boards, tying them up in administrative knots. It is a counterintuitive message in some ways for a traditional supporter of the free market. The IoD is the oldest of the business lobby groups and its Regency-era Pall Mall offices are steeped in history, most of it centred on protecting the livelihoods of its immensely rich members. Some club members must be asking themselves how self-imposed pay restraint could be considered a feature of a free market. Surely executives should be paid whatever a majority of investors believe they need to offer? But pay restraint is seen by IoD director general Simon Walker, a former press chief at Buckingham Palace, as the crucial element in a campaign to keep meddling politicians and unnecessary regulation out of remuneration. In this way he harks back to the Scottish philosopher and economist Adam Smith, who believed that owners of capital should accept they are part of wider society and honour a compact with workers to achieve a degree of fairness. It was either that or be crushed like the French aristocracy were to be in the 1789 revolution. After BP’s recent AGM, when shareholders registered a protest vote against a £14m pay package for boss Bob Dudley, Walker said British boardrooms were “in the last-chance saloon”. Walker took charge in 2011. In 2012 it looked like the shareholder spring would deliver a victory, but boardroom pay has continued to rise. This week the pharmaceuticals firm Shire is expected to face down a revolt and WPP boss Sir Martin Sorrell will defend his £60m pay package. If the votes against excessive pay are large and boardrooms continue to sail on, Walker, who steps down in October, must fear that the pressure for regulation will only build. Energy firms could get burned Business is business and if you expand too quickly nasty things can happen, whether you are in a technology of the future (solar) or a fuel of the past (coal). Just days after Peabody Energy, the biggest US coalmining business, was forced into bankruptcy protection, one of the world’s largest solar companies, SunEdison, did the same last week. Last year Ahmad Chatila, the SunEdison boss, claimed he was aiming for his firm to be bigger than Exxon Mobil and his acquisition record suggested he was driving the business flat out to get there. But last week he admitted the firm needed to be “shedding non-core assets” to survive. It is a nasty wake-up call for over-ambitious executives but the solar sector is still booming – although not so much in the UK, where the government is determined to put the brakes on subsidies. However, worldwide solar installations are expected to grow by more than 20% this year compared to 2015.
Massive Attack: ‘There was always someone out there ready to bash your head in’ Backstage at the Dublin Olympia Theatre, down a corridor decorated with a painting of Phil Lynott so hideous it appears to have been painted by someone with a longstanding personal grudge against the late Thin Lizzy frontman, Massive Attack’s dressing room is tiny, scruffy and stiflingly hot. In its confines sit Robert “3D” Del Naja and Grant “Daddy G” Marshall. The former is voluble and intense, the latter friendly but even more laconic than he was the last time I met them, in 2009, a state of affairs I didn’t think was possible. “Why don’t you say something?” asks Del Naja plaintively, at one juncture: “I don’t want to say anything,” frowns Marshall, famously no great fan of the interview process. “I’ve got nothing to say. I don’t need to talk about anything.” Glamour is in very short supply in the dressing room, unless you count the large framed photo of David Bowie – with whom Massive Attack once collaborated on a version of the jazz standard Nature Boy – exuding insouciant cool on the Olympia’s stage, and a large wicker basket that has just been delivered, containing champagne, Guinness, a recipe for black velvet cocktails and a card welcoming them to Dublin. “It’s from U2,” Marshall says. “A very nice gesture,” Del Naja agrees, reading the card. “‘Best of luck.’” He frowns. “We need it. We need all the fucking luck we can get.” On the one hand, this is just Robert Del Naja being Robert Del Naja. For a man who began his musical life as a rapper – not a career much associated with understatement – and went on to release a succession of era-defining albums, including Massive Attack’s 1991 debut Blue Lines and 1998’s Mezzanine, sell 11m records, collaborating along the way with everyone from Bowie to Burial, Snoop Dogg to Sinéad O’Connor, he is remarkably self-deprecating. A pioneering graffiti artist hailed as an influence by Banksy, he has exhibited visual art around the world, but startled a journalist who came to talk to him at a recent London gallery show by informing them that he was “a chancer” who didn’t really know what his own paintings looked like because he is colour blind: “People tell me it’s great and I pretend that’s what I intended.” Over the past 15 years, Del Naja has become famous as one of a scant handful of rock stars who engage in political activism – Massive Attack have worked with the Stop the War coalition and visited refugee camps in Lebanon, while in 2011, Del Naja and Radiohead’s Thom Yorke threw a party for Occupy protesters who had taken over a UBS bank building in London. Nevertheless, he seems at pains to play it down. “What’s happened is that once you’ve planted a flag in the sand in one place, people will come and say, ‘Look, do you want to get involved in this and that and the other?’ It’s good to learn and be engaged and listen to people, see what’s going on. But that’s not the motivator: if I was a political person, I’d have gone into politics. I just get involved in things when people come to me: I’m not a musician-slash-activist, that’s not the word.” On the other, the first date of Massive Attack’s European tour does seem to be attended by a certain sense of mild panic. The tour was meant to be low-key, small venues, a means of introducing new songs – some of them so new that, as vocalist Martina Topley-Bird later confesses onstage, they haven’t actually come up with titles yet. But the tickets sold out and more dates got added and somehow the UK leg of their low-key tour of small venues has wound up concluding with three nights at London’s 5,000-capacity Brixton Academy. In addition, there’s the sheer complexity of Massive Attack’s audio-visual performance to take into account. This time out it incorporates more than the band’s trademark LED screens, created by Del Naja and London’s United Visual Artists group, that flash up facts, figures, headlines and gibberish created by a “news generator”, as well as news stories and information specific to whichever city the band are playing in. Apparently, they are a big enough headache in themselves. “Every place we go to, we change them to the local language, so in Belgium, we’ve got to do fucking French and Flemish,” Del Naja says. “In Switzerland, we’ve got to do French and German and Italian. You never know which language most of the audience speak, and whichever one it is, they start booing when the other one comes up.” In addition, the show also features the work of Giles Duley, the former rock photographer who lost both legs and his left arm after stepping on an IED while taking photographs in Afghanistan in 2011 and who has spent the past couple of years on what is known as the refugee trail, taking portrait photographs everywhere from Syria and Lebanon to the Greek islands and Calais. “He’s captured everything, it’s remarkable,” Del Naja says. “Just shots of people. It’s apolitical, really, but they give you a real understanding of how immense and tragic the whole thing is, how important the right response is. I was a bit concerned about putting his photographs to pop music, effectively, but it does have a power and he wants it to be communicated. So we’ve ended up with this mix of reality and … aesthetic pleasure, statistics, a bit of journalism, some irony. It’s a kind of balancing act; you don’t want to be sort of relentlessly battering people over the head with facts when, after all, they’re coming here to be entertained, apparently. But you also want people to get what you’re doing, you want them to join the dots; you don’t want to trivialise anything.” To that end, Del Naja called filmmaker Adam Curtis in to the final rehearsals. They collaborated with him and stage designer Es Devlin on a multimedia piece for the 2013 Manchester International festival: this time, says Del Naja, his job was to “idiot-proof” the show, and “make sure it had some political coherence, make sure people could understand what we were trying to say”. And what are you trying to say? “Well, when we started with the LED screens it was the beginning of the internet age, so it was about data and information, how it was regurgitated, the feedback loops that were created by that. Now the whole world is consumed by the internet and the internet consumes us, so it’s very different. I think, right now, this particular iteration of the show, is more saying …” He pauses. “We’re all fucked,” he says. “We’re all fucked. Wouldn’t it be nice if these utopian tech companies could save us? But that’s not likely to happen, so we’re all fucked.” It’s a mood that permeates the first new Massive Attack material in six years, four songs, helmed by Del Naja, that appeared first not for download or on vinyl, but as an app, Fantom, that uses information from mobile phones – location, movement, time of day, images from the camera – to manipulate the music, “making dub mixes for yourself as opposed to having them pre-mixed for you”, as Del Naja puts it. The versions coming out as an EP meanwhile, feature a variety of guest appearances: Roots Manuva, a new singer from London called Azekel and Scottish trio Young Fathers, whom Del Naja describes as “currently the best fucking band in the world”. Perhaps most excitingly for longstanding Massive Attack fans, they also feature the return of rapper Tricky, who departed the band amid some acrimony after 1995’s Protection. On one level, it sounds like a charmingly romantic, even nostalgic reunion. Recording at his home in Paris, Tricky insisted Del Naja should rap, something he eschewed years ago in favour of a vocal style he jokingly describes as “melodic whispering”. The pair ended up “both of us on the same microphone, doing it all in one take”. On the other, it is clear the reunion wasn’t without its tensions. “It’s always going to be slightly odd working with someone after so much time has passed,” says Del Naja. “But after half a day, you revert to type, all the veneer’s stripped, all the posturing’s gone and you’re just what you were back then, 20 years ago, whether you like it or not. You just realise: ‘Oh, I haven’t fucking changed at all, I’ve got all the same issues, he knows how to push my buttons, I know how to push his.’ But that’s the nature of it. It’s kind of funny and difficult at the same time. He literally forced me to rap – ‘Chap, you’d better start bloody rapping again!’ We did it in one take, and afterwards, Tricks goes, ‘You’ll never do that again’, and I said, ‘Let’s hope not.’” The new material sounds fantastic, but there’s no mistaking the bleakness of its tone. Then again, Massive Attack have always been a bit like that. The popular image of them as laid-back West Country stoners upon whom an inexplicable mood of paranoid gloom seemed to descend during the fraught sessions for Mezzanine doesn’t really hold up. When Blue Lines was reissued a few years ago, what was striking about the album that virtually singlehandedly spawned the chilled-out trip-hop genre was how resolutely un-chilled it sounded: the braggadocio of its raps spiked with intimations of isolation and depression, the lyrics to Safe from Harm anxiously painting a nocturnal world of “gun men and maniacs”. Del Naja thinks it had something to do with “navigating the choppy waters of nightlife in Bristol” in the 80s: the scene that gave birth to the Wild Bunch, the mythical hip-hop crew that eventually became Massive Attack, appears to have been far from the relaxed multiracial melting-pot it’s frequently painted as. “In the old days, you stepped out, you had to think about what you were wearing, you had to get out at the right time, you had to stand in a corner, you didn’t fucking tread on anybody’s foot, you didn’t make eye contact with the wrong geezer, you definitely didn’t burn someone with your fag. You did anything wrong, you were fucked. You grew up with that survival thing, of how you might get through the night or through an afternoon down the city centre, going to Virgin Records, without getting your head kicked in.” “We had our group that we all moved with, so there was always some sense of safety,” says Marshall, suddenly animated. “But there was always that thing, you know, of someone out there ready to bash your head in if you stepped out of line. Going back to where we were with Massive Attack and the Wild Bunch, it was always a mixed-race thing, so we were always going into circumstances where it could go either way. Either he could get beaten up for being in the wrong place because he’s in a Jamaican club with me, or I could get beaten up for being a black bloke in a punk club. So we were always treading water in that respect.” Massive Attack have, of course, been accused of treading water in other ways. Their reputation as, in Del Naja’s words, “lazy Bristol bastards” who manage to release something every six years precedes them, although he, in particular, seems a veritable Stakhanovite, churning out film scores, music for computer games and soundtracks to art installations. There’s another Massive Attack EP on the way, this time comprising tracks produced by Marshall, although getting information about that proves a pretty thankless task: “I don’t want to talk about it until it’s finished,” Marshall says. After that, there should be an album, although no one seems entirely certain when: Del Naja has been in the studio with a succession of intriguing collaborators, including Run the Jewels and Jack Barnett of These New Puritans. For now, there are more immediately pressing matters to deal with. The pair vanish off to soundcheck, with Del Naja still fretting about the show. “There’s a musical arc, there’s a visual arc, blah blah blah, and amongst that you’re trying to make various points or highlight things or examine things, but then you take that too far and you alienate your audience: people who’ve known you or lived with you for 20, 25 years, you don’t want them coming to a show and just being turned off. It’s a balancing act, and it’s stressful.” He needn’t have worried. Later that night, the show is variously overwhelming, potent and, at times, genuinely moving. No one in the audience seems remotely turned off: they receive the new songs pretty rapturously, bellow when Young Fathers and Azekel make their appearances and chant Horace Andy’s name when the veteran reggae singer leaves the stage. As it ends, Del Naja takes the microphone. “Thanks,” he mutters apologetically, amid a gale of applause, “for putting up with us.” The Ritual Spirit EP is out now on Virgin/EMI. Massive Attack play the O2 Academy, Birmingham, on 30 January, then tour the UK until 5 February. Details: massiveattack.co.uk
RBS paid consortium including Church of England at least £180m for flotation A consortium made up of private-equity firms and the Church of England has received at least £180m from Royal Bank of Scotland for backing the bailed-out bank’s aborted attempt to float off 300 branches on the stock market. The Edinburgh-based bank, 73% owned by the taxpayer, has already admitted that the ill-fated attempt to carve out the 300 branches under the Williams & Glyn (W&G) brand has cost £1.5bn. Documents filed at Companies House shed light on the sums paid by RBS to the consortium – which, as well as the Church of England, included Corsair Capital and Centerbridge – formed three years ago to participate in the flotation of W&G. In a complex deal, they put £600m into RBS through a bond, which was intended to be exchanged for shares when the new bank floated on the stock exchange. RBS may reveal further costs associated with the troubled branch spinout when it publishes its third-quarter results on Friday, at the end of a week in which rival bailed-out bank Lloyds Banking Group also reports, along with Barclays. The sale of the 300 branches was forced upon RBS by the EU as a penalty for its £45bn taxpayer bailout in 2008. It has run into repeated problems and must now be completed by the end of next year. Ross McEwan, the RBS chief executive, warned last month that RBS faces unchartered territory if he cannot find a solution. An attempt to sell the branches to Santander collapsed in 2012 and the deal with the consortium clinched the following year. But any attempt at stock market flotation was abandoned in August and the bank is now looking for a buyer. The consortium was to have ended up with a stake of between 30% and 49% when W&G floated and the £600m bond converted into shares. The consortium used £330m of its own money to pay for the bonds and borrowed £270m off RBS. Documents at Companies House for Lunar Investors – a limited-liability partnership set up by members of the consortium – show that in the period 26 September 2013 to end-December 2015 RBS paid £184m in interest to the holders of the bond. The consortium was charged £18m in interest for its £270m loan. RBS said at the time the transaction was announced in September 2013 that it would pay the consortium a rate of interest between 8% and 14% a year. The documents at Companies House indicate that RBS was paying the higher rate of interest to the investors. It paid £100m for the 15-month period to end of December 2014 and £84m for the 2015 calendar year. RBS would not comment on the payments, nor would Corsair. The Church Commissioners, which manages £7bn of the Church of England’s investments and helps funds dioceses and parishes and helps pay the pensions for clergy, said it had invested in W&G “due to our belief in the importance of competition in the banking sector and the vital role of challenger banks. “We are pleased to have been able to work with Williams & Glyn on ethics in banking and are grateful to the management team for their enthusiasm on this issue,” the Church Commissioners said. It is reported to have a 10% stake in the consortium. There had been hopes that W&G would be a new high-street competitor to the big four – RBS, Lloyds, Barclays and HSBC – along with TSB, which was spun out of Lloyds under instructions from the EU because of its taxpayer bailout. TSB is now owned by Sabadell of Spain.
Liar, liar: in a post-truth world, writers reveal their biggest fib ‘Not only had I never done any form of martial art in my entire life, but I couldn’t even do any exercise’ When I was 21, I lived in Hong Kong, having dropped out of university in London and basically run away. Somehow it worked: I was soon making a living working as an extra in Chinese soap operas, which were broadcast on the mainland but shot in Hong Kong, where it was easier to find white people to play roles such as “foreign woman standing at the back of a party”. I played her quite a lot. Many backpackers tried it for a couple of weeks and then moved on, but I had a childhood background in drama and was keen, so the offers improved. They peaked when I got invited to Jackie Chan’s studios to audition for an unspecified part in his forthcoming film Hot War. By this point, I really felt I was made of magic: I was just some girl from Yorkshire who couldn’t even handle uni – how on earth had any of this happened? So when I got there and filled in the form, which asked if I knew any martial arts, I wrote a big YES. Then I sat and waited, reading all of Jackie Chan’s birthday cards from his mates, which were stapled to his office door. He was away, but the producers finally called me in for my screen test. I think I was videoed reading a few lines from a script. I’m not entirely sure, because all I really remember is the bit where they said, reading from my notes, that I could apparently do martial arts? “YES,” I repeated. Not only was this utterly untrue – I had never done any form of martial art in my entire life – but I couldn’t even do any exercise. I was the least sporty person you could imagine, entirely uncoordinated, and had also acquired a beer belly from enjoying the tropical expat lifestyle rather too much. “Can you show us a high kick?” they asked. “YES!” I repeated, by now fully believing in angels, miracles and just the basic amazingness of me. I wouldn’t say that I fell over exactly, more that my attempt to thrust my leg into the air derailed the rest of my body and the floor seemed to shake a little as my arms flew up towards the heavens. I imagine that, for the panel of Chinese experts watching me, it was a little like watching an elephant pretend to be a bird. “Ah,” they said. I did not get the part. Looking back, I’m not even embarrassed. It just felt so madly wonderful to be free. Sophie Heawood ‘He shot me a look of withering, friendship-destroying contempt. All my bullshit turned to ash’ The Argos catalogue said: “Snake Mountain. Skeletor’s stronghold. Talk into the wolf’s head and your voice changes into a scary voice of evil.” It should have said: “Snake Mountain. A plastic box that looks as if it once contained dildos. Talk into the cruddy, spring-operated box and your voice sounds exactly the goddamn same.” But I was five. I wanted it badly. Everyone else wanted Snake Mountain, too, but it was £40. Nobody’s parents could justify throwing that sort of money around. Matthew’s house was bigger than mine. His school jumper wasn’t handknitted, and he had more toys. One day, he told me he’d just bought Night Stalker, Skeletor’s gold robot horse. The seed of an inferiority complex kicked in for the very first time, and I did something stupid. “Yeah, well, I just bought Snake Mountain,” I lied. My regret was instant. Matthew wasn’t the type of kid who would easily forget this. He wanted to come to my house to see it. I tried putting him off, but it didn’t work. He went above my head, asking my mum if he could come for tea. She said yes, so I was screwed. I pleaded with my parents to buy me Snake Mountain, but they wouldn’t budge. I racked my brain, thinking up ways to cobble together £40, but none came. Eventually, in a fit of abject, sweat-drenched desperation, a solution appeared like a ray of light from heaven. The next day Matthew came over, brimming with excitement. With my heart in my mouth, I led him upstairs. I opened my bedroom door. And then… “That’s not Snake Mountain.” I was anticipating this reaction. He was right. It wasn’t Snake Mountain at all. It was a damp cardboard box on which I’d drawn a wonky face in Biro. “Yes, it is,” I replied, determined to front it out. I cupped my hands around my mouth. “Listen to my scary voice. Rargh.” Matthew shot me a look of withering, friendship-destroying contempt. All my bullshit turned to ash. This pitiful “my greatest toy is my imagination” shtick held no truck with him. He was furious. “Don’t tell anyone,” I whispered. As mortifying as this still is – to this day, I can’t look at Snake Mountain without feeling my stomach lurch – it did teach me some important lessons about life. It taught me that actions have consequences. It taught me that it’s always better to own up. And, most importantly, it taught me that I should have bought Snake Mountain and left it in its box. Those things go for hundreds of quid now. Stuart Heritage ‘Where’s my salad, he asked. I told him it was still defrosting’ If there was some way of communicating to a bull that china is worth preserving, I’m sure it would have most of the motor skills required to tread carefully through that shop. I say this because, as a teenager, I was that bull – at least when it came to lying. I just didn’t know when to do it. When I was 15, instead of asking my parents if I could “sleep over at a friend’s house”, as any normal teen would, I asked if I could stay with my 19-year-old boyfriend for two nights. It was all about practicality, you see: we were driving to Oxford one day and Alton Towers the next, and driving to and from my parents’ house on top of all that would have been a pain. Unsurprisingly, they answered (and I’m paraphrasing), “No, 15-year-old-daughter, you obviously may not stay at your much older boyfriend’s house.” I scoffed like Harry Enfield’s Kevin: “Ugh! What’s the problem? His parents aren’t even going to be there!” They laughed, loudly. “You think we’re worried you’ll be putting his parents out?” Relieved at my innocence, but amused by my stupidity, they laughed for roughly 17 years. I worked out the whole lying thing embarrassingly late. I was 17, and had started working Sundays as a waitress in crap pubs on the outskirts of Slough. Early on, I got in trouble for telling an unnecessary truth. The first customer of the day had ordered a sandwich. When I brought it, he asked, “Where’s the salad?” I told him it was still defrosting. During the dressing down that followed, I had an epiphany. When the truth will provoke a bad reaction, you can just... lie. It’s magic, essentially. In an establishment where lettuce and pre-sliced tomatoes needed thawing, and the chef morphed from “still drunk” to “monstrously hungover” in the first two hours of the day, lying became my shiny new toy. For a while, I continued to report customer comments to the chef – “They say the bacon is undercooked/the cabbage is raw/the gravy is lumpier than a rice pudding” – even though the response was always, “Well, tell ’em to fuck off – it’s my fucking menu.” But eventually I would just stand in the kitchen for a count of 15 before going back to the table and giving my, “She says she’s really sorry…” speech. A grunt and a gruff acceptance usually followed. I had finally learned how to tiptoe through the china shop. Erica Buist ‘I was left unsupervised near a paper shredder, I told someone’ My forearms are striped with self-harm scars. These wounds were inflicted when I was much younger and fed up with everything. (I’m paraphrasing: I was clinically depressed, struggling to find the right medication, and in a lot of pain.) In those days, I wore long-sleeved shirts at all times, until it became unfeasible, or just absurd. You can’t go swimming in a shirt or play football in a cardigan. I am neither Thierry Henry nor Mr Darcy. Years later, when I was either confident or bored or hot enough to start wearing short sleeves again, people began to notice the scars. If they understood, they would stiffen imperceptibly, the conversation becoming suddenly strained. But often they didn’t and asked about them. That’s when I started lying. It’s just easier, I’d tell myself, watching relief flood their faces as I told them I owned a cat who scratched. (Animals offered a handy alibi for the wildness, and deepness, of some of the slashes.) Over time, though, my excuses grew more baroque. I referred darkly to an accident with a thresher, despite the fact the closest I’d ever got to harvesting cereals was bulk-buying Coco Pops. “I was left unsupervised near a paper shredder on work experience,” I told someone, without elaborating. As I got older and more frustrated with the question, the lies became preposterous: “My first job was training attack dogs for the police,” I’d tell people, looking them dead in the eye. Or, “I became entangled with a flotilla of jellyfish on a European holiday.” I sometimes wonder why I responded this way, and what lies beneath a lie. Unacknowledged anger towards the people asking? An English sense of the indecorous? Shame? I think elements of all of them were present, but there was something else, too. As many politicians can tell you, it’s fun to lie. It felt creative. To dip a toe into an alternative history, write my own backstory, go one better than the squalid truth. These days, I am stronger, with less need to lie. Telling the truth is uncomfortable, and can blow up in your face, but that’s the risk that makes any kind of connection precious. The scars on my arms have faded now, and blend better with my natural skin tone. I’m asked about them far less – which is ironic, because I’ve finally reached a point where I can talk about them honestly. Rhik Samadder ‘I pretended to be a Dalek hosting a party at Wagamama’ On occasion, a lie is preferable to the truth. I don’t lie much now, but I have lied an inordinate amount to celebrities. It’s generally been more a fudging of the truth than a downright deceit, and to me has always felt morally sound because it was told in pursuit of another virtue (a salary). I don’t for a minute want to normalise lying – it leads to a decline in trust that creates cynicism, and worse. But, sometimes, needs must. Here are my professional lies I lied to Jake Gyllenhaal I was a teen, he was a teen star; I was a bit drunk, outside the theatre on my own, and he, fresh from starring in Kenneth Lonergan’s This Is Our Youth, was hovering outside, waiting for his car. I walked over, shook his hand and discreetly passed over one of those boxes of matches with a space for your number. I told him I was from London (lie), 24 (lie) and would be happy to show him around. He smiled and said thank you (lie). I lied to Tony Wilson A music festival in Turin, Italy, in the mid-00s, where I lied repeatedly because I wanted to meet Factory Records founder Tony Wilson. First I lied to his manhandlers, a terrifying pair of stone dogs who guarded his DJ booth, then I lied to Tony in order to procure an interview. The lie – that I was a British journalist, not a student, in Turin to review music, and not for a holiday – worked. He did the interview, and then he died a couple of years later. I eventually sold the story posthumously. I’m not proud of this story. I lied to Bob Hoskins It was 2007 and I told him I liked his film. I lied to Benedict Cumberbatch During a roundtable interview with multiple journalists, I asked Benedict whether he felt he could relate to Sherlock in any way. He paused and fixed his eyes on me: “I don’t know what you are insinuating,” he said, because I was, of course, insinuating he had Asperger’s. “Nothing,” I muttered and passed the mic on. I was then asked where I worked and I lied to my fellow journalists, muttering about a blog. If anyone had known I was there for the News Of The World, asking that sort of thing, there’s a strong chance I would have been lynched. I pretended to be a Dalek’s publicist Or, rather, I was paid to lie in the name of social commentary (to ring up restaurants pretending to be a celebrity publicist and make outlandish demands for my clients). I did this a lot, pretending to represent Tom Cruise, George Clooney and Grace Coddington’s hair. A career high was the time I pretended to be a publicist representing a Dalek who wanted to host a dinner at Wagamama and to check there was sufficient wheelchair access. Yes, they said, there was. I stopped this line of work when the lying became too easy, and when real celebrity demands began to outweigh even my creativity. Morwenna Ferrier ‘Some people are rude to cold callers, some are icily polite and some hang up straight away. I always chose to lie’ I’ve been a freelance writer for 25 years, and in all that time I’ve never not been working. That is the main lie I tell. When people ring or email me about work, I always act and speak as if I am sitting at my desk. Sometimes I am sitting at my desk, but I might just as easily be downstairs watching Homes Under The Hammer, or sitting on the top deck of a bus, or standing in a dusty field in France. That thing I said I’d have finished for you today? Yes, I’m working on that right now and it’s nearly done. I never say, “I’m on holiday and I have no idea what you’re talking about.” When I am actually working at my desk, I don’t want to talk to anyone. I’m busy. Some people are rude to cold callers, some are icily polite and some hang up straight away. I always chose to lie, boldly and without effect. Whenever my phone rang, I deployed my all-purpose office hours response. “He’s not here,” I would say. If the person at the other end asked to leave a message, I would sigh heavily, like a useless personal assistant. “Yeah, fine,” I’d say, then pretend to write words on a pad. Sometimes it would turn out not to be a cold call at all, but an urgent inquiry about my lapsed house insurance. But once I started playing someone else, I had to carry on. “And who am I speaking with?” said the voice at the other end one day. This was unexpected. A long silence followed. “My name’s Ron,” I said. “Ron,” said the other voice, with transparent disbelief. “Yes,” I said. “R-o-n.” “When do you expect him back, Ron?” said the voice. “No idea,” I said. “He doesn’t tell me anything.” “OK,” said the voice, exasperated. “Thanks for your help, Ron.” I couldn’t understand what was so unconvincing about my bad-tempered PA. He reminded me so much of me, back when I was an office temp. Ron never passed on the message, and I later had to sack him, mostly because he required too much acting. But also because you would sack someone like Ron. No one who called back a week later would believe Ron still had a job. I haven’t answered my landline since. Tim Dowling ‘The only time I told a real whopper, I did it in style: on television, in front of millions’ I am a hopeless liar. In fact, I’m a compulsive truth-teller, to the point of self-destruction. The only time I can remember telling a real whopper, I did it in style: on television, in front of millions. It was, and remains, the low point of my career. I was due to interview the documentary-maker Louis Theroux for the in 2002. He insisted we do it in his office. I thought that was unfair; after all, he likes to follow his subjects around, see them in action. But there was no budging him. At the time, Theroux was making a TV show about the then-undisgraced celebrity publicist Max Clifford. Like many journalists, I knew Clifford a bit, having interviewed his clients over the years. I asked him if there was any way he could get Theroux and I together before our formal, office-based interview. A few days later, I got a message telling me to meet Clifford at Sainsbury’s in Weybridge in a couple of hours. That was it. I hoped this was to do with Theroux, but there was no other information. (This was typical Clifford: keeping his cards close to his chest, manipulating Theroux and me at the same time.) I arrived at Sainsbury’s and spent half an hour self-consciously mooching around the aisles, then decided to leave before I got arrested for lurking with intent. But on my way out I walked into Louis Theroux, Max Clifford and a camera crew. Which is when everything went tits up. “Simon Hattenstone!” Theroux exclaimed loudly. “What are you doing here?” I hadn’t even anticipated this moment, when I would have to make something up. I burbled some incoherent nonsense about being there to interview Clifford, and suggested that now that we were all happily together, through pure serendipity, why didn’t we just carry on like a happy family; I could quietly observe Theroux observing Clifford. Theroux wasn’t having any of it. “Oh come on,” he said, “you’re obviously here because Max told you I’d be here.” No, I insisted, my eyes flitting nervously from Clifford to Theroux and back again. “I’m here to see Max.” “Do you often shop together?” he asked. Yes, no, yes, I don’t know, I whimpered. Why didn’t I just tell the truth? Because I felt a perverse loyalty to Clifford, who had set this up for my benefit. Theroux, slicker than me, suggested that if I had business to discuss with Clifford, I should walk around with him as he shopped, then leave them to make their film. So Clifford and I walked up and down the aisles. “Do you think we should level with him?” I asked. OK, begged. “Nooooo,” Clifford said, with utter assurance. “You came up to do a piece on me, you’ve read about the Louis thing, you know I come here every week.” Five minutes later, shopping completed, we returned to Theroux. “I don’t think you’ve been totally honest,” Theroux said to us. “I have,” I said, blushing, aware of a huge camera eyeballing me and wanting to die. “The thing is, Max left his mic on,” Theroux said, “and we could hear everything.” Clifford groped inside his shirt, threw the mic on the floor and walked out, shouting, “You can all fuck off!” Theroux and his crew, panicked and thrilled, raced after him. I was left alone, humiliated in Weybridge. For months after the documentary was broadcast, I was stopped on a regular basis. “Aren’t you the journalist who lied?” I was asked by a stranger on a train. People were surprisingly generous. They felt sorry for me, they said: I had been caught in a difficult situation, and it was obvious I’d wanted to tell the truth. Friends told my partner she was lucky to be with such a bad liar. And the Mirror got in touch to say they were so impressed by my “rabbit in the headlights impression” that they would like to offer me a job on their undercover investigations team. I think they were taking the piss. Simon Hattenstone ‘I announced to my classmates that my real family was in fact the A-Team’ Like most people, I grew up being told not to lie, and broke that rule when I was but a girl. As the daughter of immigrants, and someone who felt I was the wrong colour, culture and somehow born into the wrong family, I devised what I thought was an ingenious lie. I announced to my classmates that my real family was, in fact, the A-Team. Despite them pointing out that a small Asian woman called Nilu came to pick me up every day from school, I ploughed on. “That’s all a cover, you wallies, because of the Situation. My real father is Hannibal, but he’s on an international wanted list. Murdock is in a mental health institution and BA can’t get on a plane. So I’m having to stay with this family called the Hazarikas who live in Coatbridge for safety reasons. But I’ll be back with the gang soon.” It’s no wonder I ended up being a political spin doctor. I have since become highly conscious of the value of truth in a profession that can treat it casually. When I got my first job, as a junior press officer at the ministry of agriculture, the director of communications, a very hard-drinking, well-connected, Westminster operator, took me aside and gave me the most important political advice of my career: “Never lie, even if your boss tells you to and you think you can get away with it. Don’t. It’s always the lie or the cover-up that gets you in politics.” I always remembered those words, mainly because I was so scared of them. Of course, politicians, like most humans, at times sail close to the wind, and sometimes for understandable reasons – personal, security, confidentiality. But there is a dangerously relaxed approach to the truth that has infected our political discourse. I think every politician should be reminded of my old boss’s words on an annual basis. Especially when there’s a big red Brexit bus involved. Ayesha Hazarika
Charmian Carr obituary The actor Charmian Carr, who has died from complications relating to dementia aged 73, was a supporting player who appeared in only one feature film. But that film was the perennially popular, five-Oscar-winning The Sound of Music (1965), which has attracted obsessive devotion from legions of fans. Radiating youthful charm, Carr played Liesl, the slightly rebellious oldest daughter of the Von Trapp children, all seven of whom sang and danced to Do-Re-Mi, The Lonely Goatherd and So Long, Farewell. However, it was in the duet Sixteen Going On Seventeen that Carr had a chance to shine. Liesl makes a play for Rolfe (Daniel Truhitte), the blond telegram delivery boy, singing “I need someone older and wiser, Telling me what to do. You are 17 going on 18. I’ll depend on you.” When a storm breaks out, the couple shelter in a gazebo, where they dance romantically, ending with Rolfe giving Liesl a quick kiss, to her obvious delight. Carr later reprises the song in a duet with Maria (Julie Andrews), the fresh-faced singing governess. Carr was 21 going on 22 when she got the role of Liesl. She was a student attending San Fernando Valley State College, California, studying speech therapy and philosophy, and working in a lab for a doctor, as well as modelling on the side, when her mother arranged for her to audition for a role in The Sound of Music, although she had never sung or danced professionally. Yet the producer-director Robert Wise chose her over several other beginners, including Mia Farrow, Geraldine Chaplin and Teri Garr, and changed her surname from Farnon to Carr. She was born in Chicago, Illinois, to Rita Oehmen, a vaudeville performer, and Brian Farnon, a musician. Her winning the role of Liesl came after a four-month search by Wise. She could never have imagined how popular The Sound of Music was to become. With its catchy Rodgers and Hammerstein songs, the film, set in spectacular Tyrolean scenery and shot in magnificent Todd-AO and De Luxe Color, grossed $200m worldwide on its first release. More recently, since 1999, it has engendered a Sing-Along-A-Sound of Music, an interactive entertainment in which audiences dress up as characters from the film, and sing all the songs. Carr, who attended many a cast reunion, felt that singing along was a perfect therapy for people’s woes. In 1966, she co-starred with Anthony Perkins in Evening Primrose, a 60- minute musical written by Stephen Sondheim. The haunting work takes place after closing in a department store inhabited by night people, including Carr as a 19-year-old who has lived in the store since she was six. She and Perkins, as a poet seeking refuge, fall in love and attempt to escape. Carr’s poignant performance, which included singing Take Me to the World and I Remember, makes one wonder why she did not become a star. Perhaps one reason was her marriage, in 1967, to a dentist, Jay Brent, with whom she had two daughters. (They divorced in 1991.) However, she later ran an interior design firm, Charmian Carr Designs, in Encino, California. Among her faithful clients was Michael Jackson, who became a friend. She also wrote two books (co-written by Jean Strauss), Forever Liesl (2000) and Letters to Liesl (2001), inevitably dominated by her candid reminiscences of the shooting of The Sound of Music and its aftermath. In the memoirs, Carr revealed that she had a “huge crush” on Christopher Plummer, 13 years her senior, who played Captain von Trapp, her handsome widower father in the film. Carr is survived by her daughters, Jenifer and Emily. • Charmian Carr (Charmian Anne Farnon), actor, born 27 December 1942; died 17 September 2016
Beth Orton – hear Moon, from her forthcoming album Kidsticks Beth Orton was never just your conventional singer-songwriter with an acoustic guitar and a desperate need to share. She made her name in the 90s by incorporating the electronics of dance music producers into her music. On Kidsticks, her sixth album and her first for four years, she has worked with Andrew Hung of Fuck Buttons, combining both her past and a look to the future. The origins of Kidsticks lie in the electronic loops Orton began working with when she moved to California two years ago. From that she has produced a record apparently inspired by Los Angeles as well as her early work with Andrew Weatherall, William Orbit and Kieran Hebden. We’ve got an exclusive track from Kidsticks – which is released on Anti on 27 May – for you. Have a listen to Moon and let us know what you think.
Where do we even start with Michael Gove’s hypocrisy on scaremongering? My word, Michael Gove, you have some front. First, he accuses the remain campaign of treating voters like children, waging a campaign of fear, seeking to leave the electorate “frightened into obedience by conjuring up new bogeymen every night”. Then he goes on national radio to warn Brexit must happen “before it’s too late”, that a vote for remain would mean “voting to be hostages, locked in the back of a car” before warning of the threat posed by foreigners and criminals. Call it what you want. Chutzpah, shamelessness, brazen hypocrisy, an attempt to put satirists out of business because reality is too absurd to be mocked. Last month Gove’s Vote Leave campaign released a list of murders and rapes committed by EU nationals. Who, other than the terminally disingenuous and the chronically mischievous, can convincingly argue that the Vote Leave campaign is doing anything other than infantilising the electorate, of waging a quite frankly sinister campaign of fear? Actually, I’ve overstepped the mark in appropriating Gove’s arguments. Children are often smart, inquisitive, critical, and certainly not gullible. Gove – a man who once argued that all schools should be better than average, which is statistically impossible – and his allies are not treating us as though we are children, but as though we are thick. Brexit will mean an end to austerity, they argue: the very austerity they have gleefully imposed as a means to an end, not to balance the books but rather to roll back the state. It will save the NHS, they say, as they castigate the policies of Jeremy Hunt that many of them have championed and indeed voted for. Boris Johnson is among leading Vote Leave figures who have advocated scrapping a NHS free at the point of use. Brexit will save the steel industry, they argue: the very same people who still swoon over Thatcher and her ideology that laid entire industries – and the communities they supported – to ruin. They have as much interest in industrial strategy as I do in dancing the fandango naked down Whitehall. Let’s just say I suspect their sudden conversion to the causes of anti-austerity, the NHS and industrial salvation will not outlive a referendum. Are the Cameron and Osborne remainers themselves waging a campaign based on fear? Yes, but a campaign of fear was waged to prevent Scotland from voting against independence. I didn’t support independence, but still objected to the fear campaign on a point of principle. Did they? No – they were waging it. Similarly, when an outlandish campaign of scaremongering was directed towards Labour in the run-up to the general election, did they object? No, again, they were waging it. And now, again, they are conducting another campaign of fear, including deploying the threat of raping and murdering foreigners. If only there were as many English words for hypocrisy as Eskimo words for snow, then I might be able to accurately sum up the brazen shamelessness of this bunch of shysters. In February, I wrote that the issue isn’t whether the Tories teeter on the brink of civil war, but how civil that war will be. I’m not sure I predicted the brutality that was to come. How the Tories are supposed to get back into bed with each other post-referendum remains to be seen. But for those of us who want to change the European Union into a democratic Europe run in the interests of working people, we have no dog in this pathetic fight. Let them shred each other to pieces and trash each other’s reputations and throw around fear and hysteria. Let’s stick with those – like Britain’s Another Europe Is Possible and Yanis Varoufakis’s Democracy in Europe Movement – who have a positive, compelling vision. Let them have their race to the bottom in fearmongering, and opt for hope instead.
Louis van Gaal’s time at Manchester United is surely up after new low Lads, it’s Manchester United. Or at least, it’s something that looks a bit like them, United at one remove, a United‑style product. On a chilly, slow-burn, ultimately raucous afternoon at White Hart Lane the contrast between the collection of energetically baffled red shirts currently representing English football’s champion club of the past 25 years, and the team Alex Ferguson could send out to feast on their opponents with a flick of his finger was so pronounced as to be more or less completely meaningless This was instead a kind of alternate red and white world, Manchester United glimpsed through a psychedelic prism. Weird, late, jumbled up. Expensively acquired, dotted with youth, charged with pace. But somehow also lost in their own ponderous moments, like a collection of dying flies trying to batter their way out of a fluorescent tube. There have been a few disjointed, downright odd days in the recent history of Manchester United. The competition is pretty stiff here. But this has to be up there, an afternoon to make you question not simply whether Louis van Gaal should carry on as manager of the club, but whether anything could actually be gained from getting rid of him, an existential-crisis 3-0 defeat for a United team so devoid of urgency and bite the only emotion it seems to inspire is a kind of humorous relief, a perverse kind of weirdness-fascination. United started brightly here, before descending slowly, but inevitably into entropy. No doubt in those opening 20 minutes Spurs were a little spooked by United’s late arrival for the game, the time to reflect on and digest Leicester’s victory at Sunderland , a result that took a great deal of heat out of this game. Even in victory Tottenham ended the day seven points behind. Leicester have been top or joint top on all but four Premier League weekends since the 21 November. Oh for a more open league. In effect there was more riding on this fixture for United, who came here with a fair chance of edging Manchester City for fourth place. By the end both the result and the performance felt like the final, rasping breaths of their league season that has spluttered and sparked without ever seeming to thrum into life. What now for Van Gaal, who seems to be wheeled out at the end of games such as these as much out of a perverse, vicarious fascination with what he might say next? Even for a Van Gaal sympathiser it is almost impossible to make a case for keeping him in place for the final year of his contract. Not because any team has a right to win trophies, or because it is a disgrace to come fifth in a competitive league. The positives of the Van Gaal interlude were on show here in a team containing three players aged 20 or younger. Anthony Martial might have opened the scoring here in the second half. He looks a wonderfully pure modern footballer, blessed with speed, power and driving intelligence. Timothy Fosu-Mensah is a hugely impressive teenage powerhouse, and was United’s best player until he limped off. It is simply that United continue to play with so little verve and joy. There is no sense here of a team emerging, of a shape and a purpose being found, simply of a collection of parts poking out in various places, occasionally offering the odd misleading sparkle of hope, before collapsing back into a froth of confusion. For 20 minutes Tottenham played like a team with a slow puncture. For 10 minutes midway through the second half they began to surge and swarm in familiar fashion At which point United abruptly buckled. Dele Alli had been quiet, but he was there to sweep in Christian Eriksen’s excellent cross from the left on 70 minutes. Three minutes later it was 2-0. Six minutes later it was 3-0, each goal coming from United’s right via a fairly simple cross. And suddenly United looked utterly hollowed out, bumbling, slope-shouldered, a group of players who simply no longer wanted to be there. At least at the start of the second half there was an opportunity to speculate exactly why, how, with what in mind – satire, boredom, an obscure absurdist protest at the rigidity of identity politics – Van Gaal would have decided to send on Ashley Young not as a false nine, or a deep-lying striker, but an actual lead-the-line centre forward. By the end Young had moved to right-back, Jesse Lingard had shuttled most of the way across the midfield, Juan Mata had spent an inconclusive spell filling in at right-wing, Fosu-Mensah had done a fine job winkled in at right-back. At the final whistle Van Gaal stood up as the players trooped off and ordered them down the touchline to applaud the away support. They looked more than a little surprised, but trudged over and waved a bit, to a mixed response. It was a fittingly half-cocked end to an afternoon on which the most jumbled, oddly skewed and seasick-looking United team of modern times more or less reached an end point in the Premier League season.
The view on Jeremy Hunt and the doctors: stop fighting, start talking At last, common sense, and maybe a revived awareness of their responsibilities to patients, has persuaded both the health secretary and the junior doctors to agree to another attempt to find a settlement in their painful and damaging dispute. After eight months, 30,000 delayed operations and more than 100,000 postponed outpatient appointments, and after the first ever full-on strike by doctors, there is a chance of breaking the deadlock. But the two sides need to meet in a more positive atmosphere than the armed neutrality that followed Thursday’s exchange of letters, which opened the door to talks. Whitehall’s instinct is to continue with the same confidence-sapping handling of the dispute it has shown to date. The first response from the Department of Health to Wednesday’s plea from the Academy of Royal Medical Colleges for both sides to accept a five-day period of negotiation without preconditions, including a pause in imposing the new contract, was a flat “no”. Jeremy Hunt insisted the process of implementation was too far advanced to delay even for a few days. Happily, Downing Street (which is driving the negotiations) was prevailed upon to sanction a more emollient letter a few hours later. Understandably, Mr Hunt – who feels that attempts to get a deal have been derailed by the junior doctors’ refusal to focus – is demanding that this small window of opportunity is only about what he insists is the last substantive difference remaining – the question of antisocial hours and Saturday working. Doctors have taken big risks to pursue their cause; the depth of support for industrial action – four-fifths of the ’s junior doctor members took part in the two days of all-out action last month – indicates the profound disillusion, frustration and low morale among a workforce that fears its very professionalism is being eroded. But they too have sometimes appeared to negotiate in less than good faith. They do not often acknowledge the concessions the health secretary has made. In his response to Mr Hunt, the BMA junior doctors committee chair, Dr Johann Malawana, promised an open mind; but he also argued that there was more than just the pay issue to resolve. That argument may be justified, but it feels unwise. If they genuinely want constructive talks, then it might be smarter to leave issues such as the potentially discriminatory nature of the contract to be resolved by the courts, where actions are already under way. On Saturday, the junior doctors committee meets to discuss how to escalate the dispute. There has been talk of mass resignations or an all-out strike that would not, unlike last month’s, operate within restricted daytime hours, which allowed hospital trusts to manage cover and minimise the risk to patients. Either of those courses would be fraught with danger. People who care about the meaning of being a professional should not jeopardise public trust and respect, damage the reputation of the entire profession nor, above all, endanger lives. It would surely be a helpful gesture if those options were taken off the table at least while talks take place. On the other side, there should be no ramping up the temperature with chest-thumping talk of the dispute being the new miners’ strike, nor whispers of concessions for the doctors opening the floodgates of public sector pay demands. It is probably too much to hope that both sides might abandon the contest for public support, which the doctors are winning easily. But the public deserve to know that everyone is genuine in their search for a deal, and that both sides are prepared to make concessions to reach one.
How bad will Brexit be for UK farmers, retailers and consumers? Will higher tariffs on UK exports to the EU following Brexit be bad for farmers, retailers and the consumer? Nick Clegg has claimed that quitting the European Union without staying inside the single market will devastate British farming. He said a hard Brexit would be followed by “punishing tariffs” on products including beef, cheese and wine, effectively pricing them out of their biggest export market. The former Liberal Democrat leader and deputy prime minister warned that reverting to rules governed by the World Trade Organisation (WTO) after the article 50 process has run its course could saddle companies with extra bureaucracy and costs that push them out of business. In a report published on Monday the Lib Dem MP gives a breakdown of the £11bn worth of agricultural products the UK sells to the EU each year and how they will be hit with an average tariff of 22.3%. This average is constructed from some extreme highs, including 59% on beef, 38% on chocolate, 40% on cheese and and some tariffs that are not so onerous, like the 14% on wine. Under WTO rules, he says these tariffs will also have to be applied to all imports into the UK until a trade deal with the EU is struck. “This will cause a significant increase in food prices, compounded by increased costs to producers from extra red tape such as customs checks and labour shortages caused by the end of EU free movement,” he said. These are the longer-term consequences of a move towards a hard Brexit that has already sent the pound plummeting and import prices rising. The recent Marmite battle, in which Tesco resisted demands from Unilever to raise prices, is an early skirmish in a battle that retailers will soon begin to lose, leading to the soaring cost of a weekly shop. According to Clegg: “It’s clear that Marmite was just the tip of the iceberg,” as food importers either pass on prices or see their profit margins wiped out. “The only way the government will be able to avoid this outcome is if it maintains Britain’s membership of the single market,” he said. Will higher tariffs cripple the agriculture industry and lead to higher prices in the shops? The answer is not as clearcut as Clegg argues. The gains and losses from operating outside the single market are the subject of several studies. Most economists agree that in the coming months, prices of certain goods will rise. Next, the clothes retailer, said the cost of its shirts and skirts could rise by 5% over the next year, more than eight times the rate of inflation. The company’s boss, Lord Wolfson, said this after a 10% fall in the pound. Sterling has fallen almost 18% since Wolfson, a Brexit campaigner, made his assessment. Yet, British supermarkets will use their buying power to minimise the impact and keep prices low. They could also increase productivity, which is another way of saying they will try to sell the same amount of stuff with fewer staff. Clegg assumes the UK would impose retaliatory tariffs that mimic the EU’s, based on a speech by the trade minister Liam Fox. But Economists for Brexit, the grouping that supported Boris Johnson and Michael Gove in the referendum debate, recommend abolishing tariffs, a move that would offset the fall in the pound. This might be tough for the burgeoning British wine industry and its exports to the continent, and French and Italian wine would flow freely into the UK. And even if a future chancellor of the exchequer imposed tariffs, once outside the EU, shops could also start to source goods from countries where the tariff is less significant because prices are at rock bottom. That would mean replacing Irish beef with the South African equivalent. New Zealand wine would step in to replace the more expensive Italian and French varieties. Economists for Brexit agree the agriculture industry will face a challenge. South African beef will undercut British beef as well, forcing them to use the land for something else. But an opportunity opens up to farm organic livestock to achieve higher profit margins or, in the case of low value land that is only farmed to grab a subsidy from the common agricultural policy, left to become wilderness again. It will mean a huge shakeup that is long overdue, as left-leaning commentator George Monbiot has argued. And the government could use some of the funds repatriated from Brussels to cushion the blow to those farmers worst affected. Ryan Bourne, head of public policy at the free market Institute for Economic Affairs, said by his calculation the EU’s food was 15% more expensive than the average world price between 2002 and 2011. This is not just the cost of CAP subsidies, but the “overbearing regulation” that Brussels has imposed over the years, though his version of overbearing regulation includes a block on genetically modified food. If the UK could achieve a little more than half this cost reduction once outside the single market, it would ease the pain of the estimated 8% increase in costs that a study for the National Farmers Union said would take effect by 2025.
Max Landis: there are ‘no A-list female Asian celebrities’ who could have taken Scarlett Johansson’s Ghost in a Shell role The Hollywood screenwriter Max Landis has denied defending the casting of Scarlett Johansson in a “whitewashed” remake of the classic Japanese anime Ghost in the Shell. Landis, writer of films such as Chronicle and American Ultra, took to YouTube on Friday to explain why studios chose Johansson over Asian actors for the part of cyborg policewoman Major Kusanagi in the controversial live action reworking. “The only reason to be upset about Scarlett Johansson being in Ghost in the Shell is if you don’t know how the movie industry works,” he said, arguing that there were no “A-list female Asian celebrities” capable of getting a major Hollywood movie green-lit in 2016. “It’s infuriating,” added Landis. “There used to be, in the 90s, diversity in our A-list actors. Jackie Chan and Jet Li were famous at the same time, they could both get movies made. We don’t have that guy any more, we don’t even have Lucy Liu any more. “That is not the fault of the movie industry, really,” continued the film-maker. “That’s culture and movies getting more and more afraid because movies make less and less money.” The blogosphere hummed with articles describing Landis’ comments as a “defence” of Johansson’s casting over the weekend. But the screenwriter later took to Twitter to angrily deny such a reading. “NO I FUCKING DON’T [defend it] he wrote in response to an Indiewire post about a recent article. “I list it as PART OF A BROKEN SYSTEM that FUCKS OVER ACTORS and MINORITIES.” Johansson was plunged into a fresh Twitter storm over her casting in the Hollywood remake on Thursday after the first image of the Hollywood star as Kusanagi hit the web. High-profile critics included the actor Ming-Na Wen, the voice of Disney’s Mulan, who said she had “everything against this whitewashing of Asian role”. Adding to the controversy, fan blog Screencrush alleged on Friday that studios Paramount and DreamWorks commissioned visual effects tests that would’ve altered Johansson in post-production to make her appear more “Asian”. Paramount has denied the tests, which were “immediately” abandoned, involved Johansson. Ghost in the Shell, with Snow White and the Huntsman’s Rupert Sanders in charge of the cameras, is due out in the UK on 31 March 2017, with US multiplexes seeing the film a fortnight later.
Mark Carney: Bank of England will tolerate higher inflation – as it happened Before we close the blog for the day, here is a summary of the main events. Predictably, it’s been Brexit focused. The day began with a message from the French finance minister, Michel Sapin, who said US banks had told him they were definitely planning to move operations out of the UK now that Brexit looks certain to go ahead. The pound has suffered no major lurches, hovering around the $1.22 mark (although it did dip below at one point). It is currently at $1.2208. European markets have built on gains throughout the day, with all the major indices up more than 1% and in some cases up more than 2%. Europe’s STOXX 600 is up 1.6% at 341, while the FTSE 100 is up 1% at 7,048. Mark Carney, the Bank of England governor, told an audience in Nottingham that he is willing to tolerate an inflation overshoot above the Bank’s 2% target. The former chancellor George Osborne decisively threw his weight behind Heathrow airport expansion. US retail sales rebounded in September, while UK construction data showed a surprise fall in output in August. A final point: Traders have been offloading government bonds today following Carney’s inflation comments and fears of a hard Brexit. The yield on benchmark 10-year bonds climbed to 1.14%, up from 0.97% a week ago. On that note, we’ll close up. Thank you for reading the blog and for all the comments. You can follow all the latest breaking business stories here. Have a great weekend and please join us again on Monday. AM Wall Street has opened higher, with better than expected results from Citigroup and JP Morgan lifting financial stocks. Dow Jones: +0.8% at 18,238 S&P 500: +0.6% at 2,144 Nasdaq: +0.6% at 4,830 Over in Greece today, a conversation that allegedly took place at the height of the euro debt crisis between the Greek prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, and the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, is causing ructions. Did he or didn’t he? That is the question on the lips of many as the fallout from revelations in a book about the French president, François Hollande, reverberate around Athens. In the tome, entitled “A president shouldn’t say that”, Hollande is cited as saying Putin had confided that in summer 2015, Tsipras asked him if Russia would consider printing drachma in the event of Athens being ejected from the eurozone. Putin is claimed to have said: “Greece has asked us to print drachma in Russia, since it no longer has a printing press to do it. I wanted to tell you so you understand that we don’t want something like that.” But did Tsipras ever utter such words? Sources close to him swear not – even if it is now well known that his request for a €10bn loan from Russia was refused at the time. Earlier today, the deputy defence minister, Dimitris Vitsas, a close confidant, fiercely denied the claim, calling it “nonsense.” Officials in Moscow have also rejected the allegation. With Tsipras and his Syriza party now enthusiastically embracing the eurozone, despite the immense price Athens is paying in terms of bailout-induced austerity, the spat is overshadowing a much-anticipated Syriza congress. In a speech opening the three-day event last night, Tsipras insisted that leaving the euro would have destroyed Greece and was not an alternative the progressive left could adopt. The Prime Minister has met the chief executive of Nissan, Carlos Ghosn, to discuss the impact of Brexit. It follows a warning from the Japanese carmaker that it could pull further investment at its Sunderland plant, unless the UK government guarantees compensation for any Brexit-related tariffs it might face in the future. A Nissan spokesman said: The purpose of this meeting between Mr Ghosn and Mrs May is to ensure both Nissan and the UK government have an aligned way forward that meets the needs of both the company and the country. We do not expect any specific agreement to be communicated followin g this initial introductory meeting of the chief executive and the prime minister. Chris Williamson at IHS Markit says the headline rebound in US retail sales in September masks a weaker picture for “core” sales, which strip out food, fuel and cars. While the September upturn is good news, take a step backwards and it’s clear that the picture is not so bright. The September upturn leaves total sales 0.7% higher in the third quarter, less than half of the 1.5% expansion seen in the second quarter. The data on core sales are even more worrying. Over the third quarter as a whole, core sales were up a mere 0.1% (or 0.4% annualised), which is the worst performance since the second quarter of 2013. It’s core sales which tend to be a better guide to wider measures of consumer spending, so this weakening trend is a big concern and will likely lead to some downward revisions to third quarter GDP forecasts. Retail sales in the US rose by 0.6% in September, following a 0.2% drop in August. The increase was in line with economists’ expectations, and will support expectations that the Fed could raise rates in December. US data for factory gate inflation also suggested price pressures are starting to build, which is likely to further fuel expectations of a hike. James Knightley, senior economist for the UK and US at ING: Overall, the reasonably firm retail sales number and slightly higher inflation data support the idea of a Federal Reserve rate hike in December – Fed funds futures currently pricing a 66.7% probability of this happening. The only things that can really stop momentum building for such a move would be a market unfriendly election outcome and softness in the two payrolls reports between now and the December Fed meeting. European new car sales rose 7.2% in September, figures published earlier showed. It was slower than the 9.8% growth in the same month last year, held back by weaker sales in the UK. A total of 1.45m new cars were registered last month, according to European Automobile Manufacturers Association (ACEA), the highest September total on record. Sales in Italy were up 17.4% over the month at the top end of the table, but sales rose by just 1.6% in the UK. Carlos DaSilva at IHS Markit said there was no sign of a Brexit impact in the data: After a bumpy ride through the summer months, with a disappointing July followed by a surprisingly strong August, the European passenger car market came back to a more normal pattern in September − one of solid but not outstanding growth. By and large, September was broadly in line with expectations with still no evidence of any impact from the UK’s vote to leave the European Union. Britain is committed to leaving the EU, a spokeswoman for Theresa May has said, brushing off a suggestion by the European council president, Donald Tusk, that the country might change its mind. Tusk said on Thursday that Britain was facing a choice between hard Brexit or no Brexit. May’s spokeswoman said: The prime minister has been very clear ... that the British people have made their decision and we are now going to get on with that, with taking the UK out of the EU and on making the most of the opportunities ahead. The spokeswoman pointed out that Tusk had said Brexit talks should be approached in good faith: That is the sort of spirit the prime minister wants to encourage and foster with other European partners, that we approach this constructively. There are opportunities both for the UK and for the EU with the decision to leave and so we now need to come together, work together effectively to agree on a new arrangement, a new relationship that can work in the interests of all of us. Weak UK construction data for August shows that the government needs to invest more in infrastructure, according to the TUC. Frances O’Grady, the TUC general secretary, says: Today’s construction figures are a timely reminder for the chancellor. We are not building enough homes, roads and railways. Philip Hammond must use next month’s autumn statement to green light investment in housebuilding, high-speed rail and a new runway at Heathrow. With investors twitchy after Brexit, the government needs to step up. Mark Carney has said he is willing to tolerate an overshoot of the Bank of England’s 2% inflation target. The governor’s comments suggest that the Bank’s policymakers will focus on supporting economic growth through low interest rates following the Brexit vote, rather than acting to bring inflation down. Speaking at an event in Nottingham, Carney said: Our judgment in the summer was that we could have seen another 400,000-500,000 people unemployed over the course of the next few years. So we’re willing to tolerate a bit of overshoot in inflation over the course of the next few years in order to avoid that situation, to cushion the blow. UK inflation was 0.6% in August, well below the 2% target. But the Bank and other commentators have warned that inflation will soon start to rise, as the sharp fall in the pound since the Brexit vote starts to feed through to higher import prices. Carney also conceded that it’s “going to get difficult” for people on lower incomes as prices start to rise at a faster pace. The former chancellor George Osborne has made it very clear that he is not ready for a quiet life on the backbenches. In a series of tweets on the controversial and long running subject of UK airport expansion, Osborne decisively backed Heathrow. A formal decision is expected next Tuesday ... The former chancellor George Osborne has said Britain must work hard to retain its status as the world’s financial centre. Comments this morning from Michel Sapin, the French finance minister, show that London’s rival European cities for finance are prepared for a fight to win business in the post-Brexit vote world. Samuel Tombs, the chief UK economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, says the weak construction data suggests that the sector has relapsed into recession. He adds: The construction sector’s outlook will brighten if the chancellor cancels planned cuts to public sector investment in next month’s autumn statement. But with firms’ investment intentions still depressed by the Brexit vote, commercial construction work looks set to fall sharply. Meanwhile, the recent flat trend in housing starts and skilled labour shortages suggest that housebuilding will continue to track sideways for now. Supplementary point on Marmite-gate ... The detail of the UK construction output data shows the biggest drag in August came from a 5.1% monthly drop in infrastructure building. It followed a 6.1% increase in July. The ONS said infrastructure is particularly volatile because of “the range of products that are included within this type of work”. That sub-sector of the construction industry covers a range of big projects such as windfarms, roads, railways and nuclear plants. New house building meanwhile fell by 1.3% over the month. As far as investors are concerned, Tesco came out on top following its spat with product supplier Unilever over prices. Tesco is the FTSE 100’s best performer this morning, with shares up 3.9%. Unilever on the other hand is near the bottom of the pack, with shares down 0.4%. Construction output fell 1.5% in August, surprisings economists who had forecast a 0.2% rise. The slightly better news was that the Office for National Statistics revised up the figure for July from zero to 0.5% growth. Kate Davies, a statistician with the ONS, said the fall didn’t appear to be related to the Brexit vote: Construction output has fallen back quite sharply in recent months and contracted by 1.5% in August. As the fall this month is led by infrastructure, it seems unlikely that post-referendum uncertainties are having an impact. Monthly construction data can be quite erratic, though, so we would warn against trying to read too much into one set of figures. The annual rate of growth in construction output was 0.2% in August, better than July’s -1% but much weaker than the 1.5% predicted by economists. Berenberg’s “chart of the week” is entitled migration to Germany: beyond the big surge. The German bank says the number of new arrivals has fallen sharply this year for a number of reasons, including the German government’s decision to tighten its policies since early 2016. It follows a huge surge in 2015, when about 890,000 asylum seekers went to Germany, adding 1.1% to the resident population. The equivalent annual number for 2016 is about 160,000-170,000, which the bank says should be manageable in “economic, fiscal and political terms”. Here is the chart: Holger Schmieding, chief economist, says: Providing for the migrants and refugees is adding to German government spending. Partly as a result of this, the growth rate of government consumption in Germany has risen from an average of 2.5% year on year in the first half of 2015 to 4.1% in the first half of 2016. This amounts to a fiscal stimulus worth 0.3% of GDP. The mostly state-financed consumer spending of migrants and refugees and the impact on housing construction add to that. The pound has fallen below $1.22, currently down 0.6% at $1.2176. Connor Campbell, financial analyst at Spreadex, says the Brexit comments from French finance minister Michel Sapin, and those from Donald Tusk on Thursday (“it’s hard Brexit or no Brexit”) are weighing on the pound: The President of the European Council (Donald Tusk) poured cold water on the idea, propounded by Boris Johnson, that Britain could potentially strike a better deal with the EU post-Brexit, claiming that a hard exit is the only offer on the table. Sapin, the French finance minister, then stated this morning that some US banks are already looking to move their operations out of London in favour of the continent. Unsurprisingly this kind of rhetoric hasn’t been welcomed by the pound, which has fallen half a percent against the dollar and 0.1% against the euro. While this keeps sterling above the week’s (and, indeed, decades’) lows, that fact will provide mere crumbs of comfort for the currency. The FTSE 100 is faring better, as Campbell points out: As for the FTSE, the abrupt end to Marmite-gate last night, with Tesco and Unilever coming to a price agreement, and a rebound from its mining stocks has allowed the UK index to climb back above the 7000 mark. Higher food prices pushed official inflation in China to 1.9% in September, from 1.3% in August. It was higher than the 1.6% predicted by economists, and helped to ease investor fears about the health of the world’s second largest economy after disappointing trade data on Thursday unnerved global markets. Producer prices (or factory gate prices) also rose unexpectedly in September for the first time in almost five years because of higher commodity prices. Michael Hewson, chief market analyst at CMC Markets UK, said it was good news: In an encouraging sign this morning’s Chinese consumer prices inflation data does appear to show that inflation is gaining traction, with CPI coming in at 1.9%, above expectations. Factory gate prices still remain sluggish, though they have finally made it into positive territory at 0.1%, the first time that has happened since February 2012. Chinese PPi prices have been slowly improving for several months now so this return to positive territory is welcome news, especially so when prices were -5.9% at the beginning of this year. After hitting an record intraday high on Tuesday, the FTSE 100 slipped back below 7,000 on Thursday when disappointing trade data from China hit mining stocks. It’s a different story this morning, with European markets up across the board: FTSE 100: +0.6% at 7,021 FTSE 250: +0.4% at 17,956 Germany’s DAX: +0.6% at 10,476 France’s CAC: +0.7% at 4,438 Italy’s FTSE MIB: +0.5% at 16,353 Spain’s IBEX: +0.9% at 8,683 Europe’s STOXX 600: +0.7% at 338 Ratings agency Standard & Poor’s says the pound could lose its status as a save haven currency following the Brexit vote. Ravi Bhatia, S&P’s director of sovereign ratings for Britain, told the Telegraph: To be a reserve currency means that the world has trust in you and is happy to hold its savings in your currency. It creates a pool of available capital. If you lose this and sterling becomes just another currency, a key advantage is lost. He also suggested some complacency on the part of the UK government as it prepares to negotiate its way out of the EU: There seems to be this view that ‘we’re a big important economy, the Europeans export a lot to us, so they have got to give us what we want’, but is that really true? The pound is down slightly against the dollar this morning, by 0.4%, but is just about managing to stay above the $1.22 level. It is currently at $1.2206. It is also holding steady against the euro, down -0.1% at €1.1075. European markets have opened higher. Full details to follow. Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of the world economy, the financial markets, the eurozone and business. Marmite-gate might have been settled for now (read here how yesterday’s dramatic events unfolded), but there are other tales this morning of how Brexit might negatively affect Britain. The French finance minister Michel Sapin has told a press conference in Paris that US banks are definitely pressing ahead with plans to move some operations out of the UK in favour of other European countries. Sapin was in Washington last week for the IMF meetings and he says that now that Britain’s exit form the EU seems certain, US banks are busy making plans to leave the UK. Paris, of course, would welcome the banks with open arms, but it will undoubtedly encounter stiff competition from other cities such as Frankfurt. Of course we’ve heard it all before that banks will consider moving out of London, but Sapin suggests the plans have moved up a gear. Here is what he had to say about US banks: For them, until now, the question was ‘will Brexit take place? Will it really be implemented? You talk about two years but maybe it will last three or four years?’. That’s over now, there’s no more of that. It’s no longer ‘will there be’ or ‘if’ there’s a Brexit. It’s ‘there will be a Brexit in two years and after two years we will have to take decisions. Sapin said some banks had already decided that activities will be transferred to the continent. Those are their words, not mine. [It is an] inevitable outcome, whatever the result of the Brexit negotiations.
Minister vows to clarify NHS abortion rules for Northern Irish women A government minister has pledged to examine an “interesting anomaly” that means Northern Irish women are not entitled to abortions on the NHS in the rest of the UK. Speaking in parliament on Wednesday, Ben Wallace, parliamentary under-secretary for Northern Ireland, said he had asked his officials to provide clarity on the rules surrounding the issue. Abortion is illegal in Northern Ireland, except when a pregnancy is deemed to pose a serious long-term or permanent threat to the mother’s health. Women from the region regularly travel to other parts of the UK to terminate pregnancies, but they have to pay privately for the procedure. The British Abortion Act 1967 was never extended to Northern Ireland and the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 still dictates its abortion law, with life in prison the maximum penalty. Wallace was responding to a question from Cat Smith, MP for Lancaster and Fleetwood, who said: “The minister will be aware that women in Northern Ireland can and do travel to England for abortions. However, they cannot access NHS abortions. They have to pay to go privately. Does he agree that this is an inequality issue between women in Northern Ireland and women who live, say, in England.” Wallace said: “The honourable member points out a very interesting anomaly and … I’ve asked my officials to provide clarity. I do know that there is a court case pending, before the courts, in Northern Ireland on that very issue and I think it is really important that we get to the bottom of the differences between living in one part of the United Kingdom and another, and what NHS services are available to those people.” Pro-choice campaigners in Northern Ireland staged demonstrations this month against the first prosecution of a woman in 40 years for inducing a termination. The 21-year-old from County Down appeared in a Belfast court on 11 January charged with taking abortion pills she bought over the internet. The woman’s case is separate from the ongoing prosecution of a woman who obtained abortion pills for her underage daughter. This month a number of Northern Irish women openly challenged the Police Service of Northern Ireland and the Public Prosecution Service through the to arrest and prosecute them for their decision to take abortion pills.
A 'total lie': Trump University ex-staffers condemn school as 'fraudulent scheme' Some of the harshest critics of Trump University have been revealed to be former employees of the now-defunct university majority-owned by Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican US presidential candidate. In sworn testimony, three former staff members have described the real estate school as “a facade, a total lie” and a “fraudulent scheme” that “preyed upon the elderly and uneducated to separate them from their money”. In extracts from their evidence to a class-action lawsuit against the school, made public this week, the former staff tell the inside story of the “front-end high-pressure speaker scam” at Trump University. Ronald Schnackenberg, who worked at Trump University’s headquarters on Wall Street between 2006 and 2007, said he felt compelled to resign because he thought the company was “engaging in misleading, fraudulent and dishonest conduct”. Schnackenberg said the “primary goal of Trump University was not to educate students” but to “make money, as quickly and easily as possible”. In his experience, he said, “virtually all students who purchased a Trump University seminar were dissatisfied with the program they purchased” and he was not aware of “a single consumer who paid for a Trump University seminar program [who] went on to successfully invest in real estate based upon the techniques that were taught”. Corrine Sommer worked as manager of the events department at Trump University in 2007. She said that the university worked to “lure consumers into the initial free course based upon the name and reputation of Donald Trump” and then “try and up-sell consumers to the next course using high-pressure sales tactics”. Sommer said Trump University staff regularly advised prospective students to “max out their credit card” to pay for the course and said some instructors were trained to ask students in introductory seminars to “call their credit card companies and raise their credit limits two, three or four times”. Jason Nicholas, worked as a sales executive for Trump University in 2007, said he was forced to read from a script that told customers they would “work with Donald Trump’s real estate experts”. He said most of the teachers were “a joke”. The testimonies were released by US district court judge Gonzalo Curiel alongside Trump University “playbooks”, which instructed staff in how to sell courses costing up to $34,995 to prospective clients. Judge Curiel released the documents and depositions, which are central to a class-action lawsuit against Trump University in California, despite sustaining repeated public attacks from Trump, who had fought to keep the details secret. Curiel ruled that the documents were in the public interest now that Trump is “the front-runner in the Republican nomination in the 2016 presidential race, and has placed the integrity of these court proceedings at issue”. Trump hit back, calling Curiel a “hater”, a “total disgrace” and “biased”. “I have a judge who is a hater of Donald Trump. A hater. He’s a hater,” Trump said at a rally near the courthouse in San Diego. “His name is Gonzalo Curiel. And he is not doing the right thing … [He] happens to be, we believe, Mexican.” Curiel, who is Hispanic, is American and was born in Indiana. Lawyers for Trump disputed the former staff testimonies, describing them as “completely discredited”. A Trump spokeswoman said: “Trump University looks forward to using this evidence, along with much more, to win when the case is brought before a jury.” The trial is due to begin in San Diego on 28 November – not three weeks after the US goes to the polls. Trump has made it clear that he intends to attend the trial and give evidence in his own defence, which raises the prospect that the newly elected president of the United States could take the stand. • This article was amended on 1 June 2016 to correct the time period between election day and the start of the trial.
Chaos ahead after Brexit vote, says UK's food and drink industry body The UK food and drink industry is facing a period of uncertainty and chaos following the vote to leave the EU as more than a quarter of its workforce come from eastern Europe, according to the sector’s trade body. Ian Wright, director general of the Food and Drink Federation, which represents 6,620 businesses, said 130,000 of the industry’s 450,000 staff came from eastern Europe. The body’s members range from big brands such as Britvic, McVitie’s and Mr Kipling to small-scale producers such as the oatcake maker Maclean’s Highland Bakery. “Inevitably they are very frightened and unsure of what they should do,” Wright said. “We may see many decide to go home. The reassurance we have heard from the leaders of the Leave campaign at the moment does not amount to much,” he told attendees at the annual conference of the Grocery Code Adjudicator, the industry watchdog. Wright said the industry faced chaos because of the outcome of the referendum vote which he personally thought was “catastrophic and inexplicable”. The likely devaluation of the pound against the euro could drive up the cost of ingredients sourced from abroad while the “entirety of regulation on food labelling and safety is about to disappear” because it was set in the EU. He said prices for shoppers were likely to increase as a result of the fall of the value in the pound, and businesses would be pausing investment because of the difficulty in writing a business or marketing plan in such a volatile environment. Before last week’s referendum, 71% of the FDF’s members wanted the UK to remain in the EU and just 12% backed leaving. Wright said most international businesses would now freeze their investment decisions and he knew of three major businesses – though none were in the food and drink sector – which were already planning to inform staff of their long-term strategy to exit the UK. Some eastern European workers, whose rights here would not be guaranteed on Brexit, were likely to be planning to leave the UK because they would want more certainty about their future, he added. “We now face a period of complete chaos. The country is leaderless on both sides. The remain camp has no plan B and those who voted leave have no plan at all. We face months of profound uncertainty.” He said the economy was about to go on a “big dipper” ride. Wright’s warning comes after the National Farmers Union also warned of price rises following the Leave vote. Meurig Raymond, president of the NFU, said the EU referendum result had been a “political car crash” and that UK farmers who receive up to £3bn in subsidies from the EU each year were headed into “uncharted waters”. One retail analyst, Bruno Monteyne at Bernstein Research, suggested last week that the cost of food for retailers could rise by as much as 2% or 3%, compared to deflation of about 2% at present if the pound devalues against the euro. While retailers are likely to absorb some of that rise, because economic uncertainty will mean shoppers are being very cautious, some inflation will hit the shop floor. A high proportion of fresh produce sold in July, August and September – peak harvest time – tends to be grown in the UK but that diminishes into the autumn when prices are likely to rise, particularly on fresh produce. According to the NFU, only 15% of the fresh fruit sold in the UK and 55% of the vegetables are grown here. Most of the rest comes from the EU. Pork is another foodstuff likely to be heavily affected, as nearly 40% sold in the UK comes from overseas.
The secret formula for bridging the digital divide? It's 1 for 2, claims study Without urgent action, the international community will be 22 years late in fulfilling its pledge to bring affordable internet access to the world’s poorest countries, denying hundreds of millions of people access to online education, health services and a political voice, a report claims. When they met in New York last September to agree the sustainable development goals (SDGs), which will underpin the development agenda for the next 15 years, the UN’s 193 member states agreed to “strive to provide universal and affordable access to the internet in least developed countries by 2020”. But according to a study by the Alliance for Affordable Internet (A4AI), progress on meeting the internet access goal is so slow that, on current trends, the world’s least developed countries will not achieve it until 2042. The reports defines universal access as at least 90% internet penetration. At the moment, more than 4 billion people – 56% of the global population, mostly women – are not using the internet. The report argues that an entire generation will lose out on the opportunities offered by the net unless more is done, and calls on the UN to accelerate progress by bringing down broadband prices. Even in countries that have managed to get broadband costs down to the UN-agreed threshold of 5% of average national income for 500MB of mobile data a month, levels of poverty and income inequality mean that women and the poor are often excluded from the digital revolution. The study says the UN should rethink its measure of “affordable internet”, because 70% of people in the world’s least-developed countries simply cannot afford to pay for a basic monthly 500MB broadband plan. If the world is to hit the target, says A4AI, it needs to commit to a more ambitious affordability agenda: 1GB of mobile broadband data priced at 2% or less of average monthly income. According to the report, the new target – dubbed “1 for 2” – would be the best and quickest way to speed up progress and get hundreds of millions of marginalised people online. However, the alliance said it will take more than lower prices to connect those left behind, and urges governments to provide free or subsidised public access as well as digital education. The alliance – whose members include Google, Facebook, Intel, Microsoft, Cisco, the UK Department for International Development and its US counterpart, USAid – seeks to place the internet within the reach of everyone on the planet. Sonia Jorge, A4AI’s executive director, said the report is a wake-up call to policymakers, business leaders and civil society groups all over the world. “If we are serious about achieving universal access by 2020, we need to condense almost 30 years’ worth of work into the next five years,” she said. “Immediate, collaborative action is required – let’s work together to build open and competitive markets that can drive prices down to 2% or less of monthly incomes, while creating innovative public access programmes to reach those that market forces can’t.”
Bill Ryder-Jones review – a magical talent spills melody and emotion With dishevelled clothing and hair over his eyes, Bill Ryder-Jones looks more like a sleepy teenager than a seasoned music industry veteran. However, now 32, he co-founded Wirral psychedelists the Coral aged 13, and subsequently enjoyed No 1 albums before agoraphobia and stress-related illness led to his departure from the band. Eight years on, any music business-related trauma is confined to an impishly comical tirade against the venue’s overpowering smoke machine. “Is that supposed to be on all the time, or is someone trying to kill us?” he chuckles. The rooms may be more intimate, but he is packing them out as he becomes a solo artist of considerable heft. Waterfalls of melody spill from his and Liam Power’s guitars as the band’s sound fuses Pavement’s 90s alt.grunge with the gentler Velvet Underground. His eyes in some faraway place and voice cracking with strain and emotion, Ryder-Jones’s delivery is delicately compulsive as songs from last year’s West Kirby County Primary album find magic in the everyday. “Take me somewhere I’m not likely to forget,” he sings, affectionately. “Two singles to Birkenhead.” However, few songwriters would tackle the almost unbearably raw subject matter of Daniel – about the death of Ryder-Jones’s brother, and its devastating impact on the family – let alone turn it into a song of such humbling beauty. Cheers greet the gorgeously yearning Wild Roses, before the transcendent Satellites alludes to his post-Coral breakdown and recovery: “Of all the things I’ve loved, but had to tear apart. I got lost in myself, and time got lost as well.” Perhaps music almost lost him, too, but it is graced by the return of such a magical, colossal talent. • At Stereo, Glasgow, 8 March. Box office: 0141-222 2254. Then touring.
Viola Beach's debut album tops the UK charts Viola Beach, the band who tragically died in a car crash in Sweden, have reached No 1 with their debut album. The band’s four members and their manager were killed in February when the car they were in fell from a highway bridge into a canal in Stockholm. The families and friends of the group released a self-titled collection of nine songs as a tribute to vocalist Kris Leonard, guitarist River Reeves, bassist Tomas Lowe, drummer Jack Dakin and manager Craig Tarry. In a statement, the families said: “The tragedy that ended Craig, Jack, Kris, River and Tom’s lives in Sweden and the pain and sense of loss will never leave us. By sending the Viola Beach album to Number 1 the public have sent out an important message to the world. “The tragic circumstance that met Viola Beach and their manager Craig that fateful night in Sweden will not now define their lives. What will now define their lives and what they will be remembered for, forever, is the music they were so passionate about making together.” At the time of the crash, Viola Beach were a rising guitar band steadily building a fanbase. The story of a group who never got the chance to realise their potential touched a nerve with many music fans, including Coldplay, who dedicated a section of their Glastonbury headline slot to them. Chris Martin told the crowd: “We’re going to create Viola Beach’s alternate future for them and let them headline Glastonbury with their song,” before playing Boys That Sing. Martin Talbot, chief executive of the Official Charts Company, said: “It is hard to think of an album more people were rooting for than the Viola Beach release – nor a success which has felt so bittersweet. We’re delighted that it has taken the No 1 spot, but it is an awful tragedy that Jack, Kris, River, Tomas and Craig are not here to see themselves take a place in the annals of British music.”
UK banks get two more years to meet capital rules The Bank of England has given banks an extra two years to comply with new rules that are intended to avoid a repeat of the taxpayer bailouts needed during the financial crash. Setting out regulations about the shares and bonds banks must hold to absorb losses, Threadneedle Street said they would have until 2022, rather than 2020, to build up their buffers. Since 2008, regulators around the world have been trying to find ways to make banks safe during a crisis without recourse to the taxpayer and the latest rules from the Bank are part of a package of measures intended to avoid bailouts. Mark Carney, the governor of the Bank of England, said: “This policy is a significant milestone on the journey to end ‘too big to fail’ in the UK.” The aim, he said, was to “ensure that banks that provide essential economic functions hold sufficient resources to be resolved in an orderly way, without recourse to public funds, and whilst allowing households and businesses to continue to access the services they need.” The rules will apply to banks that have more than 80,000 accounts – double the number first suggested by the Bank of England – which means some of the smallest lenders will not need to comply. The Bank of England said institutions were already holding several times more capital than they did before the crisis and were subjected to annual stress tests. The next results will be published at the end of the month. The latest rules “represent one of the last pillars of post-crisis reforms designed to make banks safer and more resilient, and to avoid taxpayer bailouts in future”. The Bank added: “These requirements will make it possible to resolve failing banks by ensuring that they hold sufficient equity and debt to absorb losses. It will enable the recapitalisation of businesses that need to keep operating during the process because they provide important financial services to households and businesses. This process is called ‘bail-in’.” The rules relate to what is known as minimum requirement for own funds and eligible liabilities (MREL) – part of an EU directive.
A Prehistory of the Cloud by Tung-Hui Hu review – the reality behind virtual storage The cloud is “a system of networks that pools computing power”. You may think of it as a mute and ethereal concept but for Tung-Hui Hu it is “both an idea and a physical and material object”. His slim yet wide-ranging study attempts to reify and historicise a concept that has “become a potent metaphor for the way contemporary society organizes and understands itself”. The idea dates back to a 1922 design for predicting weather using a network of human “computers”, or mathematicians, connected via telegraph. From the 19th-century train tracks repurposed as routes for fibre-optic cables and the cold war bunkers retrofitted to store data, Hu shows that the intangible cloud has a solid and polluting infrastructure. He also reveals the human costs, such as the poorly paid foreign workers screening content for Silicon Valley companies, and explores the monetisation of the user: “the cloud is a subtle weapon that translates the body into usable information.” Witty, sharp and theoretically aware, Hu deconstructs this much-discussed but poorly understood “cultural fantasy”. • A Prehistory of the Cloud is published by MIT
Mobile web browsing overtakes desktop for the first time Mobile devices are used more than traditional computers for web browsing, as smartphone and tablet use overtook desktop for the first time, October figures show. Mobile web browsing has been steadily growing since 2009, while the desktop’s share of web traffic has steadily decreased. In October, the two crossed over, with global mobile and tablet browsing accounting for 51.3% versus the desktop’s 48.7%, according to the latest data from web analytics firm StatCounter. Aodhan Cullen, chief executive of StatCounter, said: “This should be a wake up call especially for small businesses, sole traders and professionals to make sure that their websites are mobile friendly. Many older websites are not. “Mobile compatibility is increasingly important not just because of growing traffic but because Google favours mobile-friendly websites for its mobile search results.” Despite following a similar downward trend, the desktop is still king in some parts of the world. In the UK, the desktop accounts for 55.6% of browsing, 58% in the US and 55.1% in Australia, according to StatCounter, but it seems only a matter of time before they follow the global trend, with mobile taking the majority of web browsing. The ’s data indicates that an on an average weekday, just over 40% of visitors to the site are reading on a desktop, while that number drops to just under 30% on a weekend. The rest are using a combination of mobile browsers on a tablet and smartphone, or the mobile app. Google identified the trend towards mobile browsing several years ago and has since accelerated the shift with changes to its search favouring mobile. It began ranking sites within its search index by mobile accessibility in 2015 and recently made a change making mobile search potentially more up to date than desktop. At the same time, PC sales have been in decline for years, while smartphones have reached at least 80% saturation within most developed markets and have become the sole point of access to the internet for many in developing nations. Google hides URLs in mobile web search results
Various: PC Music Volume 2 review – the smartest gang in British pop PC Music first presented its ridiculously saccharine and relentlessly weird dance-pop to the world three years ago, and were greeted with a mixture of fervour, revulsion and skepticism: was it a deliberately crap parody or digital music taken to bracing new extremes? It never quite disrupted the mainstream, but has made inroads into proper pop through collaborations with artists such as Carly Rae Jepsen and Charli XCX. Now, with the hype muted, this second compilation provides an opportunity to appreciate the music on its own terms – and it feels more beautiful and progressive than ever before. Highlights include Hannah Diamond and her slickly plaintive musings on online life, GFOTY introducing nu-rave and industrial influences into the PC universe, and head honcho AG Cook’s sublime postmodern pop song Superstar. The latter, which balances on a knife’s edge between sincerity and pastiche, is proof that Cook and his gang are the cleverest, most thoughtful people in British pop.
Wide Open Sky review – Young Talent Time goes bush in a charming documentary Lisa Nicol’s modestly charming documentary Wide Open Sky takes some potshots at the Australian education system for its general emphasis of sport over music. But from a cinematic point of view, when it comes to narrative structure and key themes there is usually not a great deal that differentiates feel-good films focused on either pastime – particularly when it comes to stories propelled by young participants. Youth-oriented music or sports films with a group dynamic (think School of Rock or The Mighty Ducks) often take the form of triumph-of-the-underdog tales. You know the kind: a motley array of personalities band together and work hard en route to a big public performance, like a grand final or a concert, where heart-on-sleeve emotions shoot for the bleachers. Wide Open Sky reminds us this is as much a feature film concept as one equally conducive to documentary. Nicol directs a sort of Mrs Carey’s Concert on wheels (or Young Talent Time gone bush) with private school city slickers swapped out for children from disadvantaged rural locations. The film-maker goes off-road into remote New South Wales to follow the annual recruitment process of conductor and music teacher Michelle Leonard, a pragmatic, inspirational figure who commands an army of singing pipsqueaks. Every year Leonard journeys 4,000km to audition 2,000 children from 55 schools, selecting 13 to join her Moorambilla Voices choir. The chosen few attend a three-day training camp in Baradine, where Leonard gives their vocal cords a work out and preps them for a one-night-only performance at a music festival in Coonamble. There’s a lot of “repeat after me” sessions, during which intensely focused li’l tykes stretch their mouths and contort their young faces to hit the right notes. Presumably a number of clips from the film will resurface at 21st birthday parties. One choir member, Opal, announces to the camera her ideal future: “When I’m older I’d like to be a singer and a naturalist.” Like a lot of docos where children are encouraged to speak candidly, Wide Open Sky has a whiff of Kids Say the Darndest Things. Also of the 1972 outback tournament movie Sunstruck, about a teacher who recruits a choir of bumpkin shoe-size-exceeds-their-age amateurs and takes them to Sydney to compete in a talent show at the Opera House. You get a feel for Wide Open Road pretty quick: it’s sweet, slight and good-natured to the core. Hardly riveting or must-watch material but equally difficult to hate. Like the kid-oriented Australian documentaries Gayby Baby and I Am Eleven, the film probably works best as a perspective-widening educational package informing children of other young lives whose cultural and socioeconomic circumstances differ from their own. Even if – unlike, say, the bling-lathered That Sugar Film – its no-frills vanilla aesthetic suggests the look and feel of it has not necessarily been tailor-made for them. Leonard reveals, in a moment given only cursory consideration, that she doesn’t have proper financial support for her altruistic initiative, implying something of a shit fight when it comes to extracting enough money to make the singathong possible year-on-year. Perhaps this also poses the question of whether Wide Open Sky is actually some kind of elaborate exercise in support, or even fundraising. If so, what the hell – only a hard heart wouldn’t want to throw a coin or two in the tin. • Wide Open Sky is showing in Australia now
Donald Trump takes poll lead over Hillary Clinton – is it time to panic? For the first time, Republican Donald Trump seems to have edged ahead of Democrat Hillary Clinton in presidential polling. But only just. What does it mean and should those opposed to Trump be worried? The polling data site RealClearPolitics (RCP) takes an average of national polls that ask Americans who they would choose in a contest between the two candidates (a scenario that now looks inevitable). On Sunday, RCP updated their numbers to show that Trump is now, on average, 0.2 percentage points ahead of Clinton. That gap might be narrow, but it has still led some (including a senior elections analyst at RCP) to conclude “it’s probably time to panic”. I’d disagree. For those concerned about the prospect of a Trump victory, it’s been time to panic for a while – zooming out from a single statistic shows it. Delayed panic? Although this might be the first time that Trump has come out on top in the RCP polling average, he has come very close to doing so on two prior occasions – in September and December of last year. Since September, Clinton’s lead has fluctuated significantly from being as large as 11 percentage points to as narrow as 0.6. In other words, there have been many other periods when Trump’s opponents should have been worrying before now. Just as it took pundits a while to wake up to the fact that Trump was a sufficiently popular candidate to win the Republican nomination, it seems that they have also been slow to switch focus to his chances of winning the White House. Part of the reason why they didn’t panic before was a belief that measuring American public opinion a long time before a national election is a bad predictor of voting patterns. Why? Because people change their minds. November is still six months away. The alternative view is that preferences may be becoming hardened now, making voter behavior less likely to shift. Looking backward, rather than forward, results from the last six presidential elections suggest that 31 states are “safe” – based on the fact that the same party has consistently won them. Unsurprisingly, polling companies are investing their time and resources in states they think might “swing” and therefore determine electoral outcomes nationally – states like Arizona, Florida, North Carolina, Ohio and West Virginia. So far, polling suggests neither candidate has a significant lead in those states which could provide extra cause for concern for those worrying about a Trump win. Polling on a pedestal All that said, the RCP polling average is not the perfect political barometer it is so often held up to be. The polling average has become the go-to number for those trying to make quick sense of the state of the presidential race. That’s problematic in itself; this election can’t be predicted on the basis of just one number, not least because a candidate’s vote share does not neatly translate to their chances of winning the White House. Each state wields a different number of electoral votes, so it matters how a candidate’s support is distributed throughout the country. Democratic victories in highly populous states, which have more electoral votes to award, could cause the performance of the Democratic candidate in the electoral college to outstrip her or his performance in the popular vote. In 2008, Barack Obama won 68% of the electoral college vote with only 53% of the popular vote. Clinton may be buoyed in the 2016 election cycle by traditional Democratic strength in populous states such as New York, New Jersey, Illinois and California. There’s another, much bigger problem with the RCP average, though: it’s only as good as the individual polls that make it up. RCP always takes a straight average of the five most recent polls that were conducted. Once you peek under the hood, you’ll see that an average of 0.2 percentage points flattens out some very different findings. These are the five latest polls RCP used to calculate Trump’s narrow lead: ABC News/Washington Post: Trump leads by 2 percentage points NBC News/Wall Street Journal: Clinton leads by 3 percentage points Rasmussen Reports: Trump leads by 5 percentage points FOX News: Trump leads by 3 percentage points CBS News/New York Times: Clinton leads by 6 percentage points These polls have different results in part because they use different methodologies for assessing public opinion. Although they were all conducted during a relatively similar period of time (which is essential when trying to get a snapshot of what the public thinks now), the polls by NBC/WSJ and Fox News only spoke to registered voters, Rasmussen interviewed “likely voters”, while the ABC News/Washington Post poll simply spoke to adults (82% of whom were registered voters). All polls claim to speak to a “nationally representative” sample of adults, but virtually none will publish data showing where their respondents were based. Perhaps Rasmussen Reports had to adjust their findings to account for the fact that they only managed to speak to two people in Iowa – we just don’t know. Languages matter too. Two of the polls mentioned above conducted their interviews in Spanish and English – it seems that the others did not. Methodologies matter. They’re one reason why the footnotes in each poll mention slightly different degrees of accuracy. Take the ABC News/Washington Post poll for example – those numbers have a margin of error of +/- 3.5 percentage points. That means that Trump’s reported lead of 2 percentage points could have actually been as high as 5.5 percentage points. Or it could be that Hillary Clinton actually led by 1.5 percentage points. Polling is far from perfect. To understand what will happen when the country votes this November, pundits would do better to look at the electoral map, demographics and – most importantly of all – listen to the concerns of voters. Tom McCarthy contributed to this article.
This is not normal – climate researchers take to the streets to protect science Desperate times call for desperate measures, and for scientists, these are desperate measures. Tuesday in San Francisco’s Jessie Square, approximately 500 people gathered for a ‘rally to stand up for science.’ Many of the attendees were scientists who had migrated to the rally from the nearby Moscone Center, where some 26,000 Earth scientists are attending the annual American Geophysical Union (AGU) conference this week. This was an unusual activity for scientists to participate in; after all, they’re often accused of remaining isolated in the ivory towers of academia. Scientists generally prefer to focus on their scientific research, use their findings to inform the public and policymakers, and leave it to us to decide what actions we should take in response. In fact, one of the keynote speakers at the rally, Harvard science historian Naomi Oreskes made that exact point: We don’t want to be here. We want to be doing the work we were trained and educated to do, which is science ... but we are at a moment in history where we have to stand up. As Georgia Tech climate scientist Kim Cobb noted, with the appointments made thus far by the incoming Trump administration, science is under attack and scientists feel compelled to protect their research, and their ability to keep doing it. Cobb also called on more of her scientific colleagues to step outside their comfort zones and engage in activism: The rally followed other recent efforts by scientists to advise the Trump administration and reassure the public. For example, over 800 Earth scientists and energy experts signed a letter urging the President-elect to take six key steps to address climate change: 1) Make America a clean energy leader; 2) Reduce carbon pollution and America’s dependence on fossil fuels; 3) Enhance America’s climate preparedness and resilience; 4) Publicly acknowledge that climate change is a real, human-caused, and urgent threat; 5) Protect scientific integrity in policymaking; and 6) Uphold America’s commitment to the Paris Climate Agreement. Over 11,000 women scientists also signed a pledge committing “to build a more inclusive society and scientific enterprise.” The leaders of 29 scientific societies signed a letter encouraging Trump to appoint a “nationally respected” science advisor with sufficient expertise. And more than 2,300 scientists, including 22 Nobel Prize recipients, published an open letter with the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) urging the Trump administration and Congress to set a high bar for integrity, transparency, and independence in using science to inform federal policies. UCS plans to act as a watchdog protecting science and scientists during the Trump Administration, as it did during the Bush administration. Scientists under attack, win the first battle These scientists have been motivated by concern stemming from President-elect Trump’s decision to fill the key powerful positions in his administration with an oil industry dream team of climate deniers. Some of those selections include individuals who have harassed and intimidated climate scientists, like David Schnare and Chris Horner, whose tactics forced the creation of the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund (CSLDF) five years ago. The CSLDF began in an effort to assist Michael Mann with the legal attacks documented in his book The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars (Mann also has an excellent new book co-authored with cartoonist Tom Toles, The Madhouse Effect). Over the past five years, CSLDF has provided legal assistance to over 100 scientists, and has helped coordinate counsel for approximately 20 scientists facing litigation. The Legal Defense Fund has had a significant presence at the AGU conference, assuring scientists that their organization can answer basic legal questions, or help with potentially costly legal attacks and litigation. Adding to scientists’ alarm, the Trump Department of Energy transition team submitted a questionnaire that raised serious concerns about the incoming administration’s plans to influence or curtail DOE’s research, potentially engage in a witch-hunt, and perhaps even tamper with or destroy scientific data. After much public and media backlash, the Trump team now denies that the questionnaire was authorized. This retreat was the first victory for science in an impending battle with the incoming administration. Scientists also have any ally in California Governor Jerry Brown, who spoke at the AGU conference and promised: If Trump turns off the satellites, California will launch its own damn satellite. We’ve failed to hold up our end of the bargain On the issue of climate change, it’s been decades since scientific research first identified the threats and dangers resulting from human-caused global warming. A growing number of climate scientists had already begun to speak out about the need for much more aggressive global efforts to cut carbon pollution if we’re to avoid its worst impacts. Finally, nearly all of the world’s countries signed last year’s agreement in Paris, creating a framework to limit global warming below the dangerous level of 2°C hotter than pre-industrial temperatures. Less than a year later, the world’s largest cumulative carbon polluter elected a president who promised to do what he can to reverse that landmark Paris agreement. Though he has since claimed he will keep an “open mind” about climate change and the Paris agreement, at every opportunity Trump has hired individuals who deny climate science, work for the oil industry, and/or have spent years harassing and attacking climate scientists. As author Robert Fulghum once wrote: It doesn’t matter what you say you believe - it only matters what you do. Scientists have reached a breaking point In the AGU conference, many scientists have voiced their grave concerns about these events, about the relevance of science in a post-truth world, and about the attacks they seem to be facing from the incoming government. Scientists have expressed emotions ranging from bewilderment and fear, to the defiance exemplified in their rally. In order to protect science, more such defiance will likely be needed, and scientists will also need public support to help protect their critically important research.
Academy addresses Oscars race row with new appointments The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has added three new governors from diverse backgrounds to its 51-member board and appointed six minority ethnic members to other leadership positions, amid a fresh row over lack of diversity surrounding the Oscars. Academy president Cheryl Boone Isaacs announced the new appointees after a meeting of the organisation’s board. The Academy fulfilled its promise to add new board members from diverse backgrounds, appointing Oscars producer Reginald Hudlin, Selena director Gregory Nava and Kung Fu Panda stalwart Jennifer Yuh Nelson. The board also ratified other changes in response to the #OscarsSoWhite crisis aimed at increasing diversity, including limiting voting rights to those active in the movie business. Boone Isaacs has been under intense pressure since the row over racially homogeneous acting nominees at the past two ceremonies. On Tuesday she was forced to issue another apology after two dozen Academy members published an open letter to organisers complaining about “tasteless and offensive skits” based on racial stereotyping at this year’s ceremony. They referred to skits in last month’s broadcast, during which host Chris Rock introduced three children of east Asian descent named “Ming Zhu, Bao Ling and David Moskowitz”, who he said were “the accountants” who had tabulated the Oscars results.
Japan recognises 'right to be forgotten' of man convicted of child sex offences Japan has taken another step towards recognising “the right to be forgotten” of individuals online after a court ordered Google to remove news reports about the arrest of a man who, according to the judge, deserved the chance to rebuild his life “unhindered” by records of his criminal past. While Japanese courts have demanded the removal of information strictly for privacy reasons, the recent ruling by Saitama district court is the first in the country to cite the right to be forgotten – something that has been enshrined in law in the European Union – in demanding the removal of personal information online, according to legal experts. The decision in December, which was only revealed in recently unearthed court documents, is expected to ignite a debate in Japan over whether authorities can reconcile an individual’s right to have expunged details of, say, a crime committed in the distant past with freedom of information and the public’s right to know. In handing down the ruling the judge, Hisaki Kobayashi, said that, depending on the nature of the crime, individuals should be able to undergo rehabilitation with a clean online sheet after a certain period of time has elapsed. “Criminals who were exposed to the public due to media reports of their arrest are entitled to the benefit of having their private life respected and their rehabilitation unhindered,” Kobayashi said, according to the Kyodo news agency. Kobayashi added that it was difficult to live a normal life “once information is posted and shared on the internet, which should be considered when determining whether (the information) should be deleted”. The man, who has not been named, had demanded that Google remove reports posted online more than three years ago detailing his arrest and conviction for breaking child prostitution and pornography laws, for which he was fined 500,000 yen (£3,165). He complained that the case appeared whenever his name and address were entered into Google search. Google has appealed against the decision in the high court, although media reports say that the man’s criminal record no longer appears in its search results. The Saitama case is not the only ruling to suggest that Japan is following the lead set by the EU, where residents can request the removal of search results that they feel link to outdated or irrelevant information about themselves on a country-by-country basis. In November, a court in Tokyo became the first in Japan to issue a temporary injunction ordering Google to delete search results relating to the arrest of a dentist who had been arrested for illegal dental practices. A month earlier, the same court issued an injunction ordering Google to remove search results that revealed the identity of a man who complained that articles implicating him in past criminal activity were violating his right to privacy and harming his reputation. Yahoo Japan, meanwhile, said last year it would comply with requests to remove information from search results if they included an individual’s address or telephone number, or referred to minor crimes committed years earlier. Google has been resisting attempts to widen the application of the right to be forgotten since the EU’s court of justice ruled in May 2014 that Google must delete “inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant” data from its results when a member of the public requests it. That decision came after a Spanish man, Mario Costeja González, took Google Spain to court after he failed to secure the deletion of his debt records dating back to the late 1990s.
More companies risk shareholder anger over excessive pay deals Banks, miners, energy groups and building materials specialists are among companies in shareholders’ sights as discontent mounts over exorbitant pay deals for boardroom bosses. After an explosive start to the annual general meeting season on Thursday - when shareholders voted against pay deals at BP and Smith & Nephew – big City investors are now scrutinising pay deals at FTSE companies such as mining company Anglo American, building products group CRH and advertising firm WPP. Centrica, the owner of British Gas, will hold its AGM on Monday and boardrooms are on high alert for further signs that investors are preparing to revive the 2012 “shareholder spring”, when a wide range of companies faced rebellions over pay. “The AGM season has started with a bang. It is unprecedented for two FTSE 100 companies to have their pay voted down on one day,” said Sarah Wilson, the chief executive of shareholder advisory body Manifest. Shareholders said they were less willing to accept big pay deals and companies that judge bosses’ performance without considering the wider context. That context refers directly to BP, which had awarded its chief executive Bob Dudley £14m, including 100% of his possible bonuses, even though the oil group had run up record multibillion-pound losses. Oil companies and miners, which are cutting thousands of jobs, are especially under scrutiny but other pay packages could also cause unrest, with the gap between rich and poor highlighted by the Panama Papers and benefit cuts. Paul Lee, the head of corporate governance at Aberdeen Asset Management, said: “The mood has hardened and people are taking a more robust approach to pay than they have done. “Companies in some cases have eased the restraints that we’ve seen in the difficult years since the financial crisis and that’s leading to some actions that shareholders aren’t happy about. We don’t say there’s a number that’s too much but if it’s a very large number it needs to be justified.” Shareholder advisory group ISS has recommended a vote against boardroom pay at next week’s AGM of mining company Anglo American. The firm’s chief executive, Mark Cutifani, received £3.4m and could earn £6.3m this year for achieving his targets, according to the small investor group ShareSoc. Anglo American – where the share price slumped from 1152p to 328p last year – said Cutifani’s bonus was reduced by 40% and his salary had been frozen. CRH has increased pay for all its directors including the chief executive, Albert Manifold, who was paid €5.5m (£4.4m) last year. His salary has risen to €1.4m from €1.29m and he can now earn almost six times that in bonuses and shares, compared with less than four times on last year’s salary, taking his maximum earnings to about €10m. Dublin-based CRH said the increases were justified by acquisitions that had made it a bigger company and insisted it had consulted shareholders. But a fund management source said investors were unhappy about the increases because they reward CRH bosses merely for doing deals and said the company’s consultation with shareholders was lacking. HSBC is the first major bank to hold its AGM this year, on Friday 22 April, when executive pay, succession planning – the chairman, Douglas Flint, has said he will step down next year – and its links to Mossack Fonseca, the law firm at the centre of the Panama Papers, are expected to be raised by investors. Other banks – accustomed to rows over pay – hold their AGMs in the coming weeks, including Barclays, where a move by new boss Jes Staley to cut the dividend for the next two years is expected to unleash rows over boardroom pay. Pay deals at consumer goods company Reckitt Benckiser, where the pay of the chief executive, Rakesh Kapoor, almost doubled to £23m last year, and advertising firm WPP, whose chief executive Sir Martin Sorrell is in line for at least £63m for last year, are other potential flash points. Shire, the drugs company, Standard Chartered, the Asian-focused bank, and Man Group, the hedge fund, also face potential unrest over pay. Luke Hildyard, the governance and stewardship lead at the Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association, said: “Lavish incentive payments should not be made to executives while their companies face an uncertain outlook and their employees are losing jobs. “It’s unnecessarily divisive and likely to weaken industrial relations and human capital. It’s perfectly possible to exercise a bit of discretion and hold back on pay awards that are plainly inappropriate, even if certain operational targets included in the policy have been met.” Tim Bush, the head of governance at Pensions & Investment Research Consultants (Pirc), a shareholder advisory group, said: “Any remuneration committee chairman with a similar scheme to the one at BP is at risk of similar rejection. There are a lot of concerned people out there.”
Bishop campaigns to highlight issue of body image among children Rachel Treweek, the bishop of Gloucester, has said she is highlighting the issue of body image among children to challenge perceptions that physical appearance determines self-worth. On Monday, Treweek – the first female bishop to sit in the House of Lords – will visit All Saints Academy in Cheltenham to talk to a group of 13- to 16-year-olds in the first of a series of school visits in her constituency to discuss the issue. It follows a report from the Children’s Society last month that found one out of three girls aged 10 to 15 was unhappy with her appearance and felt ugly or worthless. The study highlighted the growing pressure of social media with regard to body image. The proportion of girls with negative feelings about their bodies increased from 30% to 34% over five years; among boys it remained unchanged at 20%. Treweek told the the issue urgently needed addressing. “When I talk to girls, it strikes me how much of how they view themselves and their self-worth is caught up with appearance and the way that society sees them,” she said. “Issues of health and mental health are more and more linked with how people are viewed by others, and much of that begins with external appearance.” The bishop plans to listen to the concerns of teenagers over the coming months before considering what action can be taken. “I want to challenge the subconscious messages we’re giving,” she said. “We need to look at the language we use as adults and how it shapes our culture. For example, when adults engage with girls, nearly always the first thing we say is a comment on appearance. We need to find out who they are, what they enjoy, what they’re good at, what makes their souls sing.” She added: “I don’t want to say to girls: ‘Don’t worry about hair or nails or fashion’ – I want them to enjoy those things. But I want these things to be an expression of who they are, not their starting place.” Treweek acknowledged that as one of a handful of female bishops she had a different perspective on society than her male colleagues. “The church doesn’t always appear in touch with people’s everyday lives. This faith stuff has got to connect with people’s lives – and if this is shown to be an issue affecting girls’ mental health and happiness, then we have to be listening to that, the church needs to engage with it.” The Children’s Society report found that 14% of girls aged 10 to 15 were unhappy with their lives as a whole. Another study last month by the Department for Education found an increase in psychological distress among 14-year-olds in 2014 compared with similar research in 2005.
FCA says it is watching algorithmic traders linked to pound's flash crash The City regulator has said it is keeping a close watch on algorithmic traders of the type that may have been connected with the flash crash in the pound earlier this month. Sterling plunged in a few minutes of early trading in Asia on 7 October, prompting the Bank of England to say it was looking into possible causes of the sudden movement. On Wednesday, a senior official at the Financial Conduct Authority was asked how it regulated algorithmic trading – computers programmed to take bets on markets. Megan Butler, director of supervision at the City regulator, said: “Our approach is to recognise that a poorly designed, poorly controlled, inappropriately used algo[rithm] can have a very significant impact on proper operation of the market.” Andrew Bailey, the chief executive of the FCA, said the use of such trading systems had been discussed with companies in the City in the run-up to the EU referendum on 23 June. Bailey, who took over at the FCA in July after a long career at the Bank, was setting out his “mission” for the regulator as he pledged to clean up the behaviour of major financial companies after a “very sorry” history of scandals. There had been two financial crises in the past decade, he said, the first about the strength of the banking industry, which called into question “our financial stability at the level of the whole system”. “The second crisis has involved the conduct of business by financial firms,” he said, highlighting the mis-selling of payment protection insurance to individuals and interest rate swaps to businesses, the rigging of the Libor rate and foreign exchange markets, as well as breaches of money laundering rules. “This is a very sorry history and the future needs to be radically different from the past. We owe this to the public, who are the consumers of financial services,” said Bailey, as he launched a consultation on the regulator’s mission. His appointment followed the decision by the then chancellor, George Osborne, not to renew the contract of Martin Wheatley, the first head of the FCA when it was set up after the financial crisis. When the regulator was launched, Wheatley said he would “shoot first and ask questions later”. But Bailey said he was not steering the FCA towards a different approach around regulating City firms. “I should also point out that this is not a document about Brexit. In fact, that is the only time the word appears in the document. “This is because we believe that the issues we are setting out in the mission are at the heart of financial conduct regulation, whatever we do next,” he said.. In a speech to a City audience later on Wednesday, he said any attempt to water down the rules put in place since the financial crisis should be resisted. “We should not now start to regret the policies that are in place, but remember the scale of the crisis and what has been avoided,” Bailey said. Earlier this week, a report by the thinktank New City Agenda, which Bailey described as disappointing, warned that regulations were being scaled back. Bailey was speaking alongside his successor at the Bank, the deputy governor Sam Woods, who told guests at Mansion House that banks needed to make sure their business models could cope with extra regulation and the low interest rate environment. “This is a first-order issue for us,” said Woods, who is the chief executive of the Prudential Regulation Authority. “Firms need to review their business models for the new world,” said Woods, indicating that rules would continue to be implemented despite the Brexit vote.
David Cameron: I know I should have handled it better. Not a great week The report published by the on Blairmore Holdings Inc landed on Monday afternoon: David Cameron’s father had run an offshore fund that for three decades avoided paying tax in Britain by hiring a small army of Bahamas residents – including a part-time bishop – to sign its paperwork. In Downing Street, the initial response was lofty and dismissive. A spokeswoman for the prime minister lazily swatted questions away, referring to a story four years ago that revealed the existence of the investment fund. “Most of you seem to be aware that that story was written in 2012 and we responded at the time. I don’t have anything to add to that,” the spokeswoman said. Asked whether the Cameron family still had any money invested in the fund, she responded: “That is a private matter.” Not any more, it isn’t. The world now knows all about the Blairmore shares held, quite legally, by Cameron and his wife Samantha, which were finally sold in January 2010. But the wider fallout from a week that began with stonewalling and worked its way to full disclosure via prevarication and partial explanation remains to be seen. Right now, the starring role of Blairmore in the Panama Papers appears to have dented the credibility of a prime minister who now faces the battle of his political career to ensure the continued membership of the United Kingdom in the European Union. Yesterday, speaking to the Conservative spring forum, Cameron wryly observed that it was “not a good week”. It was, as he knew, an understatement. Rarely has the “establishment” looked more, well, establishment-like. As thousands of employees at the Port Talbot steel works pleaded for their livelihoods after being left to the mercies of global competition, the Panama Papers revealed the squalid manoeuvres of a monied class devoted to stashing away their cash in sunny places well away from the taxman’s reach. And yet it is the British establishment – most particularly the prime minister – that is asking the country to put their faith in their judgment and stay in the EU. “This walks straight into every Eurosceptic’s dream,” Matthew Parris, the former Tory MP, wrote in the Times, “Every swivel-eyed populist loon, every crazy Corbynite, every ‘they’re all in it together’ pub bore, will be hugging themselves this weekend. This tax story may be minor, it may be overblown, it may be unfair on David Cameron. But it is very, very dangerous.” Downing Street’s refusal to discuss Blairmore was never likely to hold in the febrile atmosphere created by the disclosure of the Panama Papers – an unprecedented leak of 11.5 million files from the database of the world’s fourth biggest offshore law firm, Mossack Fonseca, to the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, which shared them with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). It was on Friday morning – five days after questions first began to be raised about whether the prime minister had ever benefited, or would in future benefit, from the trust set up by his late father Ian – that Cameron and his aides decided he had no option but to give the kind of detail the media was after. Insiders claim that it was on seeing his father’s picture featuring again and again on the television evening news channels that the prime minister felt he had to try to bring the saga to an end through a frank interview. Some believe that as attention was also falling on the financial affairs of his chancellor, and favoured successor, it was considered wise to cause a distraction. Whatever the truth, Cameron belatedly thought strategically and decided to take action. An interview had already been arranged with Robert Peston, the political editor of ITV News, for Friday afternoon, during which the prime minister had planned to talk about the importance to young people of Britain’s continued membership of the EU. That theme was pushed aside to deal with the questions about Blairmore Holdings Inc, (a shift of emphasis that felt ominous to many Remain campaigners). “Of course I did own stocks and shares in the past – quite naturally, because my father was a stockbroker,” Cameron told Peston. “I sold them all in 2010, because if I was going to become prime minister I didn’t want anyone to say you have other agendas, vested interests. Samantha and I have a joint account. We owned 5,000 units in Blairmore Investment Trust, which we sold in January 2010. That was worth something like £30,000… I paid income tax on the dividends.” But if the prime minister thought that the interview would, or could, put an end to the matter, he was wrong. Cameron must account for himself in parliament, insisted Labour. The Labour MP John Mann even called for Cameron’s resignation. Jeremy Corbyn demanded he give a “full account of all his private financial dealings”. Newspapers pored over the finances of the wider Cameron clan, showing to the world just how very different he was from the rest of us. The images of David and Samantha enjoying a beer during an Easter break in Lanzarote were swiftly overshadowed in the public consciousness by screaming headlines such as at that published in yesterday’s Daily Mail: “Cameron Inc – The father with the £20m property empire, the step-father with a 20,000-acre estate and the mother who founded a £30m company... You thought Dave and Sam were super-rich, now meet the rest of the family!” Yet more damage limitation was required from a chastened PM. A precedent had to be set. “I know I should have handled this better,” the prime minister told yesterday’s spring forum. “I could have handled this better. I know there are lessons to learn and I will learn them. And don’t blame No 10 Downing Street, or nameless advisers – blame me. And I will learn the lessons.” Cameron added he had been “very angry about what people were saying about my dad”. “I love my dad. I miss him every day,” he said. “He was a wonderful father and I’m very proud of everything he did. “But I mustn’t let that cloud the picture. And the facts are these. The facts are I bought shares in a unit trust, shares that are like any other sorts of shares, and paid tax on them in exactly the same way. I sold those shares – in fact, I sold all the shares that I owned on becoming prime minister. “And later on I’ll be publishing the information that goes into my tax return, not just for this year but for years gone past because I want to be completely transparent and open about these things. I’ll be the first prime minister, the first leader of a major political party, to do that. But I think it’s the right thing to do.” The published tax figures may finally put this chapter to bed. Many fear, though, that it may be too little, too late. The Tory MP Mark Pritchard recognises the tactics being deployed by campaigners for the UK to leave the EU. “Some Brexit campaigners do think if you damage Cameron you will also damage the Remain campaign,” he admitted. “[But] it is a rather binary and polarised view of politics, which is thankfully both an inaccurate assessment and one of their strategic weaknesses.” Maybe. Cameron’s worst critics will admit that his great strength as prime minister has always been that the public finds him convincing, decent, trustworthy, competent. He has consistently polled better than his party and, indeed, anyone in it. In making the case for EU membership those are precisely the qualities he needs to exude in the weeks ahead, pollsters suggest. Yet he suddenly looks weakened, and, for a time at least, somewhat diminished; which is a problem not just for Conservatives but for all those who want the UK to remain in the European Union. “This has profound effects on domestic politics in that it is very good news for Jeremy,” one senior Labour MP said last week. “But for those of us who want to stay in the EU and are relying on Cameron to carry the torch, it could be completely bloody fatal.” At no point was the damage to the prime minister more apparent, perhaps, than on Thursday, during a visit to Exeter University to try to talk young people round to backing EU membership. Refusing to take questions from the assembled media, who had one thing on their mind, Cameron opened the discussion for questions and a student threw back at him the question of his tax affairs. “I am very interested in what the collective EU states could do to combat tax avoidance – something you have personal experience of,” the student said with a twinkle in his eye. The comedian Jimmy Carr, whom Cameron had condemned as “morally wrong” in 2012 for his use of aggressive tax avoidance schemes, tweeted: “I’m going to keep it classy. It would be ‘morally wrong’ and ‘hypocrytical’ [sic] to comment on another individual’s tax affairs.” Harsh words, and personal attacks, politicians can take. When the public starts to laugh and mock, the rot on a political career may well have set in. Soon after the publication of the Panama Papers, a YouGov poll published last week suggested an extraordinary turnaround in sentiment among the general public: Cameron’s approval rating had fallen below Corbyn’s for the first time. Just 34% cent of voters had responded that the prime minister was doing a good job, while 58% felt he was not. Only 30% approved of the job Corbyn was doing, but 52% disapproved. On net scores, Corbyn had nudged ahead by one of his whiskers. Tomorrow, Labour will call for a series of actions to rebuild trust, including a public inquiry into the revelations in the Panama Papers, a change in the register of MPs’ interests to include details that the prime minister had been able to leave out of his records, and a set of minimum standards for crown dependencies and overseas territories. Next month, Cameron will host an international anti-corruption summit which gives him a much-needed opportunity to take back some high moral ground. The global fallout from the Panama Papers will rumble on for a long time yet. But no other country has quite such a pressing date with destiny as Britain. Former Labour MP Ian Davidson, who is the party’s coordinator for the Vote Leave campaign, believes the most significant impact of last week’s drama could be witnessed on 23 June. “This is a referendum on Dave’s deal on the EU,” said Davidson, who was MP for Glasgow South West until the general election in 2015. “Cameron came back saying he had achieved something and it all fell apart. It is very much a vote about him and if he loses this referendum he will have to resign. “It will be the end for Osborne too,” Davidson added. “This is a vote on the future of both of them. Why would you trust a man about the European Union if you can’t trust him on his own tax affairs?” How the prime minister’s position changed MONDAY So, is Cameron family money still invested in Blairmore Holdings, the offshore fund set up by the prime minister’s father, which appears in the Panama Papers? “That is a private matter” says a spokeswoman for David Cameron TUESDAY The media persist. Pressed by Sky News’s Faisal IslamCameron begins to open up. “I have no shares, no offshore trusts, no offshore funds, nothing like that. And so that, I think, is a very clear description” Not quite clear enough, though. Downing Street issues a statement later that day: “To be clear, the prime minister, his wife and their children do not benefit from any offshore funds. The prime minister owns no shares. As has been previously reported, Mrs Cameron owns a small number of shares connected to her father’s land, which she declares on her tax return” WEDNESDAY Cameron’s spokesman issues a further clarification which raises an obvious question. “There are no offshore funds/trusts which the prime minister, Mrs Cameron or their children will benefit from in the future” Did they benefit in the past, though? THURSDAY Cameron tells the full story to Robert Peston of ITV News: “We owned 5,000 units in Blairmore Investment Trust, which we sold in January 2010” The shares were sold for £31,500. SATURDAY Addressing the Tories’ spring forum, the prime minister admits it has “not been a great week” He goes on to take full responsibility for a week of botched answers and explanations: “I know that I should have handled this better, I could have handled this better. “I know there are lessons to learn and I will learn them. “And don’t blame No 10 Downing Street or nameless advisers, blame me. And I will learn the lessons”
Desert Trip festival reportedly sells out in less than three hours The Desert Trip festival – featuring the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, Neil Young, Roger Waters and the Who – sold out all its 70,000 three-day tickets for each of the festival’s two weekends in under three hours, Billboard reports. Although the festival’s organisers – Goldenvoice and AEG z – have not made an official announcement about how quickly all tickets for the event have sold, Billboard reports that its sources say both Desert Trip weekends – 9-11 October and 16-18 October – sold out in less than three hours. Billboard estimates the gross revenues from ticket sales at $150m (£104m). Last year’s highest grossing festival was Coachella – run by the same people who are putting on Desert Trip, on the same site near Palm Springs, California – which made $84.26m over two weekends, according to Forbes. Desert Trip would be, comfortably, the highest-grossing event in music history. As well as ticket sales, the organisers will be making money from ancillary activities such as selling licenses for catering and luxury camping. Desert Trip promises “over 30 culinary masterminds” providing food, as well as assorted catering packages starting at $129 per person per day. Desert Trip, with its likely appeal to a prosperous audience of baby boomers, has charged premium prices. The 35,000 reserved seats for each weekend sold for between $699 and $1,599, while general admission was $399. The last tickets to sell out were the $199 day passes. However, the cost of booking the six acts who are appearing would have been colossal. One source familiar with the logistics of booking huge acts, and who had worked with some of those appearing at Desert Trip, suggested to the that Desert Trip might well be paying between $6m and $9m to each of the six acts.
£24k for an Adele ticket? But there could be a bargain in the next seat A rather apocalyptic report in the on Sunday noted how much one might pay to get tickets for Adele’s UK tour. It found that you could be charged up to £24,000 to see the superstar at the O2 in London, if you went through “secondary ticketing sites”. That was true. There were sellers asking those prices, but that doesn’t reflect the whole picture. Get Me In, the site that was – alas no longer; the listing has disappeared – offering four seats in row R of the top tier of the O2 for £22,000 each plus fees, also has tickets a couple of rows further forward for £180 each. It has tickets in block A3 – the seating block on the floor in front of the stage – for £2,750. That’s not meant to excuse those prices. They are horrific. The secondary ticket sites (where people resell tickets they have already bought, for events they can’t go to, often discovering they can’t go just seconds after buying the tickets, incredibly) have succeeded in turning touting into a leisure activity: lots of people now think nothing of buying an extra ticket or two and then offsetting the cost of their own attendance against the profit from tickets they resell. Worse still, secondary ticketing sites have become havens for organised touts, who’ve found ways around the flimsy security devices intended to deter them. What’s worse, plenty are engaging in what’s known as “speculative ticketing” – copying one of the less attractive practices of City trading by selling something they don’t have, in the hope that before the event comes, they’ll be able to buy the ticket they are advertising at a price less than they are selling for. If they can’t do that, of course, the secondary buyer never gets the ticket. It’s not really a surprise to learn that the Association of Chief Police Officers believes organised crime gangs are active in the secondary ticketing market, given the ease with which it’s possible to make a fortune. The government has also launched a review of the secondary ticketing market. Ticketmaster – which owns Get Me In and Seatwave – offered this defence: “Ticketing marketplaces react to demand and the willingness of fans to pay. With high-profile events, such as Adele, tickets are sometimes listed at prices higher than the face value. Tickets very rarely sell at these elevated prices though, with many selling at face value or below the original price.” What that means is that tickets for sold-out shows will go for more than face price, while tickets for shows that don’t sell out might go for less than face price. That doesn’t mean you’ll be able to get the best seats in the house for half price, mind you – if all the premium seats are gone, you’ll still have to pay through the nose. But if there are plenty of rubbish seats left at the box office, you might get them cheaply through a secondary seller. But the point about secondary ticket prices responding to demand is absolutely correct. The people who are charging a fortune for terrible tickets, having set the prices themselves, are either a) trolls b) misreading the markets or c) not expecting anyone to buy the tickets until the very last minute, when all other options have disappeared, and the only way someone with a great deal of money can get to see the show is if they are willing to be taken to the cleaners. It is routinely the case that when you see a ticket being sold for a truly eye-watering price, one that stretches credulity, then you will find a seat of similar quality for very much cheaper. It doesn’t make it right – I find the secondary ticketing business reprehensible, which is why I’ve always refused to do PR-driven interviews with the big players at any of the companies (they are offered frequently; these people are well aware of how bad they look when a story like the Adele tickets breaks) – but it’s important to remember that the headline price you might see offered isn’t the definitive price, it’s one price. How the big summer show prices compare on the big resale sites Beyoncé The cheapest seat we found for any of Beyoncé’s UK dates on Viagogo was £75.90, to sit in row 19 of block 519 at Wembley Stadium on 3 July – on the top tier, in the furthest corner from the stage. That’s to sit in a seat from which Beyoncé will be little more than a rumour. The most expensive was £12,101, for row 7 of block 520 on 2 July – another terrible seat, and the worst value we found. Leaving that one aside, it was a £10,000 drop to the next most expensive seats: £2,300 for block 206 was still awful value, given that while lower down, it’s still a long way from the stage, especially when £2,250 would buy you a “Beyhive” package with a standing place at the very front of the stage. Seatwave was much the same, with a cheapest ticket of £80 for block 516 of Wembley on 3 July, and a priciest one of £1,500 for Old Trafford cricket ground on 5 July, in its “The Point” section. Though that looks badly overpriced when you can still buy the top hospitality package for The Point for £375 for that show. Give it a couple of months. It’s the same story at the cheap end for Get Me In (£75.99 for block 526 at Wembley on 3 July), while its most expensive is an optimistic £5,500 to stand in the golden circle at Sunderland’s Stadium of Light on 28 June. You can get the same ticket, for the same show, on the same site, for £550. Stubhub has Wembley top tier seats for £75, with a Beyhive package topping the price list at £2,250 – how interesting that it’s the same price as on Viagogo. There’s also a general admission standing ticket for £2,500. That’s to stand miles away from the stage with no golden circle or Beyhive privileges. Coldplay Things are much the same at the bottom end for Coldplay – all four of the big resellers have their cheapest offers for seats in Wembley’s top tier, and all for the band’s show on 15 June (one of four Wembley gigs they are playing), with prices ranging from £70.91 (Viagogo) to £81.99 (Seatwave and Stubhub). At the other end of the scale, for three of the sites, the most expensive tickets are for the band’s gig at the Etihad Stadium in Manchester on 4 June. Viagogo is offering a “VIP pass” for block 204 – second tier, decent position relative to the stage – for £900. The same block with no pass is £1,023.75 on Seatwave, and £1,320 on Get Me In. The most most expensive Stubhub seat for Wembley is £1,300 for block 227 of the Club Wembley tier – a decent seat, but not £1,300 worth of decent seat.
Ava DuVernay backs 'DuVernay test' to monitor racial diversity in Hollywood A new test designed to challenge Hollywood’s record on racial diversity has received backing from its inspiration, the award-winning African American director Ava DuVernay. Dubbed the “DuVernay test”, the initiative was first posited by New York Times film critic Manohla Dargis in a review of this year’s Sundance film festival. The long-established Bechdel test, first proposed by the US cartoonist Alison Bechdel in a 1985 comic strip, requires two women to talk to each other about something other than a man to prove its egalitarian values. Dargis said her “DuVernay test” would merely require “African Americans and other minorities [to] have fully realised lives rather than serve as scenery in white stories”. While the critic appears to have used the term as a light-hearted framing device for a piece on diversity in Sundance movies, the concept may have legs. DuVernay’s name symbolises the ongoing battle by African American film-makers to get movies made in Hollywood, given the furore over the Oscars’ decision to limit her acclaimed civil-rights drama Selma to just two nominations (for best picture and best song) in 2015. After the feminist film blog Women in Hollywood tweeted about Dargis’s coinage, DuVernay posted: “Wow. Floored. What a lovely cinematic idea to embrace. What a thrill to be associated with it. Absolutely wonderful.” In a blogpost, Slate magazine’s Megan Logan suggested the concept could be developed. “Though the Bechdel test is, of course, an over-simplified yardstick for feminism in film, it remains a simple, straightforward way to begin the conversation about how any given movie humanises its female characters,” she wrote. “Perhaps it’s just as well that Dargis doesn’t propose any specific measure for the DuVernay test; rather than producing a simply binary yes/no, it can serve similarly as a way to begin discussing the diversity, representation, and depth of the stories of minority characters in the films we make and watch.” The idea of a Bechdel test focused on racial as opposed to gender diversity has been proposed before. In 2013, the author Nikesh Shukla suggested the “Shukla test”, requiring two ethnic minorities to talk to each other for more than five minutes about something other than race. In the wake of the ongoing row over the all-white lists of Oscar nominees, bloggers Nadia and Leila Latif proposed a more complex test for racial diversity in film. In a piece for the , they suggest films should feature two named characters of colour with lines of dialogue, who were not romantically involved with each other and did not talk about comforting or supporting a white character. The bloggers also said neither of the two main black characters should conform to the hated “magical negro” stereotype.
European entrepreneurs say Brexit will harm their business Two-thirds of European entrepreneurs feel that Brexit will harm their business and 95% want a stronger say in European Union trade policy. More than 700 entrepreneurs, from businesses in all sectors and sizes, met in Brussels on Thursday to debate their role in the EU. The business owners voted on a range of topics as part of the bi-annual European Parliament of Enterprises (EPE) event, which is organised by the Association of European Chambers of Commerce and Industry. While they are supportive of the value of the EU negotiating trade deals on their behalf (94% feel it makes a difference to the competitiveness of their business), an overwhelming 92% are not sufficiently aware of the commercial implications, meaning that opportunities for job creation and economic growth could be left on the table. Much of the EU is struggling with high levels of unemployment, particularly among young people in countries such as Spain, Italy and Greece. But business owners say it is harder to recruit staff with the right skills now than it was in 2010 and 64% say a lack of transparency between national qualification systems makes it difficult to recruit from other member states. Almost all (98%) attendants support the integration of practical, work-based learning with all vocational education and training programmes. And 94% want entrepreneurship skills to be taught at all levels of education. The support for the EU as a whole, and the benefits it provides, was evident but many entrepreneurs do not feel that the single market is sufficiently integrated, and more could be done to remove barriers to cross-border trade and investment. Only 49% of business owners search for finance outside their own country. Entrepreneurs also believe national governments need to help companies tackle the problem of late payments between the public sector and businesses. The European small claims procedure is suitable for claims up to a value of €2,000 and there are proposals to increase this to €10,000. However, 83% do not feel that governments do enough to tackle the economic conditions and power imbalances in the market. Concern about the rise of China’s influence was also discussed, with 80% agreeing that granting the country market economy status would negatively effect European businesses. Beijing has been campaigning for the change, which would require trade regulators to compare Chinese bids with those of domestic suppliers, and would limit their ability to introduce tariffs. The EPE event has been running since 2008 in an effort to bridge the gap between EU institutions and entrepreneurs. Representatives from the 27 member countries were invited, as well as entrepreneurs from 24 non-member states. In attendance were the European parliament vice-president, Antonio Tajani, and the European commission vice-president, Jyrki Katainen. Sign up to become a member of the Small Business Network here for more advice, insight and best practice direct to your inbox.
We need you, Andrew Tyrie. Without you, the bankers will get away with it A new year and, for bankers, it seems, a new regime. Not a tough new rule book which would help regulators to clamp down on the outrageous behaviour that caused the 2008 crisis and the ensuing economic recession, but a regime in which an official review into the culture of banking has been abandoned and the government has U-turned on a pledge to toughen up the rules holding senior bankers to account. What has prompted this change of heart? Have the bankers mended their ways after the $150bn (£96bn) of fines imposed on major banks since 2008? (Those fines, incidentally, have deprived the real economy of $3tn of credit, holding back growth around the world.) Perhaps rules to clamp down on bankers’ bonuses have finally started to erode the “greed is good” culture of the City? Or have banks started to treat their customers with respect after paying out £27bn in compensation for sustained mis-selling of payment protection insurance? There is little evidence to suggest any of this has happened. In the coming months (possibly weeks) Royal Bank of Scotland – rescued with £45bn of taxpayer money – is expected to hand over billions of dollars to the US authorities because of how it sold off dodgy packages of mortgage debt in the run-up to the financial crisis. While RBS might try to pass the penalty off as a “legacy issue”, it is also awaiting the outcome of a review by Britain’s Financial Conduct Authority into its treatment of small business customers. Barclays – still being investigated by the Serious Fraud Office over the way it raised money from Middle Eastern investors to avoid a taxpayer bailout – provides the clearest illustration that fines do little to change behaviour. On the day after it was fined for rigging Libor in 2012, one of its traders was busy fixing the price of gold despite the immediate public backlash following the interest rate manipulation penalty. When it comes to pay, bankers are also having the last laugh. The bonus cap imposed by the EU, instead of putting a lid on excess, has resulted in bankers getting a boost to their fixed pay through new handouts alongside their salaries and bonuses. Data last week showed how four US banks paid out at least £736,000 to almost 900 individuals in 2014. The 2015 bonus season is about to begin, and will no doubt be just as lucrative. On the crucial matter of how banks treat their customers evidence of reform is also thin. Lloyds Banking Group has been fined for a bonus culture that put staff under pressure to sell. Santander also showed it had scant regard for its customers by naming Chris Sullivan as its new corporate business chief at 8pm on the day before Christmas Eve. Sullivan left RBS – where he was deputy chief executive – exactly a year ago after being forced to apologise to Andrew Tyrie, chair of the Treasury select committee. Tyrie had accused him of being “wilfully obtuse”. This is the backdrop against which a more softly-softly approach is being adopted for big City firms, no doubt in a bid to ensure that HSBC does not move its headquarters out of the UK. George Osborne appears to be in some confusion. In November he was talking tough, saying bankers were getting off more lightly than shop lifters. But a few months earlier the chancellor had set out his hopes for a “new settlement” with the City, signalling a more relaxed approach after being released from a coalition government. It seems to be a good moment for Tyrie – who presided over the parliamentary commission on banking standards set up in the wake of the Barclays Libor-rigging fine – to step forward. His committee is the one hope for making sure that bankers will not be able to sleep easy in 2016. Ashley will struggle to copy John Lewis Sports Direct’s attempt to turn itself into another John Lewis will begin in earnest this week. Mike Ashley’s comment that he wants to make Sports Directhis chain the best employer on the high street behind John Lewis was unprecedented. In the coming months we will see whether he means what he says or whether the 15p pay rise for staff was, as trade union Unite claims, a PR stunt. As ever with Ashley, people will look for ulterior motives. He was forced into this position by a investigation last month into working conditions at the Sports Direct warehouse in Derbyshire and by investor impatience with SD’s shares. Key things to watch in 2016 are how the retailer changes its employment practices and its share price. The more the shares fall, the more Ashley will be pressured into sweeping changes. The shares have been under strain since a handful of City analysts claimed Sports Direct may be past its peak. The company’s pile-it-high-and-sell-it-cheap approach has attracted bargain-hungry shoppers, but its reputation has been tarnished with customers and key suppliers. Major brands such as Adidas and Nike have become unhappy with Sports Direct’s presentation of its products and turned instead to JD Sports to launch new trainers and football shirts. In 2015, Sports Direct shares fell almost 20% while JD shares more than doubled. Sports Direct is revamping its stores and moving to larger, out-of-town locations, but this could deter the canny customers who have made the company what it is. Some of Sports Direct’s overseas businesses are also struggling, so Ashley and his lieutenant Dave Forsey have a lot on their plates. While the rest of the world starts a new year by looking ahead, retailers begin January by looking back. Christmas trading updates kick off this week with John Lewis, which is expected to set the benchmark for performance as well as working practices. Ashley and Sports Direct are a very long way from both. This rail fare rise is unreal By the standards of recent years, commuters may feel they have escaped lightly as they return to work with rail fares having increased by a mere 1.1% after the weekend’s annual rise. Even among the worst-hit season ticket holders, few will see their train operator lift more than an extra £60-£70 a year from their wallets. But before passengers thank George for small mercies, let’s not allow the chancellor to persist with his claim of a real-terms “freeze” on fares. The rate by which they are rising is pegged to the retail price index, a measure the government scorns when it comes to other areas. Inflation as generally counted – the CPI measure – is zero. This is, in real terms as well as on the bank statement, another of the manyfare rises, small or large, overt or by stealth, that have compounded and accrued to make Britain’s privatised railway the most expensive in Europe. And now, that little bit more so.
Shared parental leave is suffering teething problems Talk about baby steps. On the first anniversary of the government’s shared parental leave scheme, figures show men have not leapt at the chance to have a chunk of time at home with their new baby. According to the research by My Family Care and the Women’s Business Council, the main obstacle was family finances. This should not come as a surprise. Equality campaigners have long warned too few families can afford for fathers to take shared parental leave. The government’s own analysis estimated that only 2-8% of fathers would take up the entitlement. The financial reality for many families is that the father is still the main breadwinner. The arrival of a new child and the extra financial strain is understandably seen as the worst time for them to take extended leave. In other words, the UK’s enduring gender pay gap is keeping old roles entrenched. Men go out to work, women stay home as carers. That is underscored by this new research, which found half of men believe that taking shared parental leave is perceived negatively at work while 57% of women say it would impact negatively on their partner’s career. Shared parental leave should in time help cut that gender pay gap – something which David Cameron has vowed to do “in a generation”. That men currently feel unable to take the career risk or financial penalty of extended leave shows they also stand to gain from greater equality. Sadly, recent history shows progress is painfully slow. The Equal Pay Act was passed more than four decades ago and the latest official figures still put the gender pay gap at more than 9%. PPI savings account - with interest Mis-sold payment protection insurance policies have turned out to be a lucrative form of savings account. Banks are obliged to pay 8% interest on the money they are returning to hapless customers. They are not only getting back their premiums but a sizeable chunk on top. It is worth thinking about what this means for the banking sector. The latest reporting season provided a new wave of provisions for PPI refunds with Lloyds alone adding a further £4bn to the pot. The figures are mindboggling. Calculations by Which? show that the total amount set aside by the big five banks alone is £32.2bn. Since 2011, £23bn has been handed over – seemingly a fair chunk of the £44bn paid in premiums between 1990 and 2010. However, once the interest payments are factored in, there appears to be scope for further payouts. According to the Professional Financial Claims Association (PFCA), only about half the £23bn represents refunded payments. The rest is interest. The PFCA chairman, Nick Baxter, suggests that on a conservative estimate about three-quarters of policies were mis-sold. Not all of those sales would warrant a full refund – in some cases a policyholder may have been flogged an expensive single premium policy when they would have willingly bought one that they paid for every month. But, by some measures, there could be a further £22bn worth of premiums to repay – plus interest. Clearly the PFCA has an axe to grind. It represents claims management companies and is lobbying against the Financial Conduct Authority’s proposed 2018 deadline for customers who want to complain. This time bar is also causing controversy with consumer bodies and Baxter argues the banks can hardly claim to be “nearly there” in tackling the scandal if half of what they have paid out is in fact interest and not just the return of premiums. The political and regulatory mood is clearly for the time bar to proceed – the sale of PPI was lucrative for the industry, while the prolonged period over which compensation is being repaid is a drag on the sector. But the implementation of any time limit on claims needs to be carefully thought through. Executive pay’s long-term flaw Who’d have thought that selling kitchen cleaners, condoms and throat soothers could be so lucrative? Six years after Bart Becht, the then boss of Reckitt Benckiser, received an eye-watering £90m pay deal, the Slough-based company revealed his successor has been handed £23m for 2015. Rakesh Kapoor’s total is down to an £18m payout from a long-term incentive plan. These “Ltips” are deployed by most major companies and, largely, based on performance over three years. Stefan Stern of the High Pay Centre points out that they are hopelessly flawed and that three years is hardly long term. It has been said many times, but it is worth repeating: executive pay deals need a radical rethink.
Trump campaign manager sued to get on Massachusetts ballot as 21-year-old Donald Trump this week threatened to sue the Republican party over disputed results in a bitterly contested presidential primary that may yet end up in the courts if the party establishment denies him the nomination this summer. The has found that Trump’s pugnacious campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, has more experience in this field than was previously known, having resorted to litigation in his only election as a candidate himself. Profiles of Lewandowski have noted that as a Republican college student, he ran for a seat in the Massachusetts legislature in 1994 but lost to Thomas Golden Jr, the Democratic candidate. Golden still represents their native Lowell in the state’s house of representatives. Lewandowski was not, however, the Republican candidate. Nobody was. According to court records, Lewandowski was denied a place on the ballot for the Republican primary that September. “My memory is that he didn’t get as many signatures as the party required,” Golden recalled this week. Despite being unopposed, Lewandowski then failed to get 150 Republicans to name him as a “write-in” candidate in the primary, which he required to subsequently appear as the Republican candidate on the ballot in November’s general election. So Lewandowski, then just 21 years old, sued the Massachusetts secretary of state, Michael Connolly, and election officials in Middlesex County superior court. He demanded in a lawsuit that they declare him the winner of the Republican primary, and tried to have Connolly banned from printing general election ballot papers without his name on them. In an affidavit filed to the court, Lewandowski argued that the results were not accurate and blamed the people who counted them. “Poll workers put in very long hours on election day” and “errors are made”, he wrote. His claim was rejected by Judge Mary-Lou Rup, apparently forcing Lewandowski to again run as a write-in candidate in the general election. “At that stage, it is usually an insurmountable task to overcome,” said Golden. According to state records, Golden won 99.9% of the vote in the 17th district of Middlesex County, while “all others” received just seven votes between them. A state elections official said on Thursday that no record had been kept of how many, if any, of those seven votes were cast for Lewandowski. Almost 2,000 blank votes were cast, which the official said was normal for a down-ballot race. Golden’s district is now the 16th, following redistricting. Lewandowski, who was on Tuesday charged with the battery of a young reporter at a Trump campaign event in Florida, did not respond to a request for comment about the election. An account of factual findings written by the judge as she considered Lewandowski’s lawsuit painted a picture of a chaotic primary day in Lowell in September 1994, where a system of punch-cards and coloured envelopes appeared to confuse some voters. Several people wrote in Lewandowski’s name on a pink Democratic party ballot card rather than a blue Republican one, rendering them useless to his campaign. Lewandowski argued in his lawsuit that the apparent “will of the voter” should be respected. After his total was initially stated at 133, Lewandowski requested a recount. It increased to 142. One more vote was then awarded to him after a batch of missing ballot envelopes were recovered, bringing him to 143. Four envelopes from what Lewandowski said was “the most heavily registered Republican section of the city” remained missing. He was, however, seven votes short. Golden, who was raised on the same street as Lewandowski in a blue-collar neighbourhood in Lowell, said his opponent’s newfound controversy took him by surprise. “I know there’s a lot going on now, but I’ve known him for 30 years,” he said. “He was very likable, very affable. It’s just not the person I know.”
Julia Gillard: 'We've made progress in education and gender equality – but more must be done' A few years ago, an outbreak of cholera and other deadly diseases swept through one of the poorest villages in the northern region of Ghana, taking the life of Ruhainatu’s mother, Jamila. Ruhainatu was in her teens. A decade ago, Jamila’s death would have extinguished Ruhainatu’s chances of getting the education she needs to succeed in life. Instead of going to school, she would have taken on her mother’s role of caring full time for her home and family. But efforts by the Ghanaian government, together with development partners like the Global Partnership for Education, have strengthened the country’s education system. Now Ruhainatu and girls like her have a more hopeful prospect for life. One of the top performing students in the local school, Ruhainatu has ambitions to go away to university to become a nurse and then return to her village to help others remain healthy. Her story is one of countless affirmative real-life testimonials showing how educating girls can help them be healthier, more economically prosperous and become more civically empowered women. Their new knowledge can also improve the health and wellbeing of others around them. But enabling children to succeed requires the right combination of support, so that they will be healthy, well-nourished and can attend a quality school that has access to clean drinking water and toilets. Providing school meals and deworming programmes, for example, can have an important impact. The 2016 Unesco global education monitoring report notes that school meals and deworming programmes promote better education outcomes, especially for girls. For very poor families, the prospect that their daughter will be fed means that sending her to school is a more attractive option than keeping her at home so she can attend to domestic duties, farm work or taking goods to market. Greater access to clean water can also translate into education improvements for girls, by reducing the time they take to collect water for the family and giving them more time for school. This give-and-take between education and other social development factors has received more emphasis since the unveiling of the sustainable development goals (SDGs) last year. We are breaking down the silos that have historically divided development sectors. Education and global health groups now understand that improvements in each are essential to progress for both and we are already creating opportunities for deeper collaboration. Now the evidence of what works is increasingly clear, let’s just get on with it and drive progress on the mutually reinforcing goals for global education (SDG 4) and gender equality and women’s empowerment (SDG 5). For groups like the Global Partnership for Education, whose board I chair and which partially funded the program in Ghana that helped Ruhainatu, “getting on with it” includes continuing to support countries to close the gender gaps in their education systems. Closing those gaps requires recognising and breaking down barriers to gender equality. Poverty is the biggest, but other significant factors include ethnicity, language, disability, early marriage, the distance from home to school, gender-biased pedagogy, fragility and conflict, absence of proper sanitary facilities, pressure to take care of family or earn money, and insecurity within and on the way to school. We – in education or in any other related development sectors – could accomplish much more in less time if there was sufficient political support and enough financing. This includes first and foremost more domestic financing for education by developing countries themselves. But it also requires more donor funding. We can’t “just get on with it” when education’s share of overseas development aid has fallen from 13% to 10% since 2002. The International Commission for Financing Global Education Opportunities, notes in its just-released report that under present trends, only one in 10 young people in low-income countries will be on track to gain basic secondary-level skills by 2030. Clearly, this is completely unacceptable. The Education Commission, on which I serve as a commissioner, advocates for a range of far-reaching transformations to improve education. The commission’s work provides new evidence on what works and costs out what it would take for the world to educate every child. The call to action in financing is to increase total spending on education from $1.2tn (£0.9tn) per year today to $3tn (£2.3tn) by 2030. That’s a big jump but not an insurmountable one. Making the leap starts with developing countries, donors, NGOs, the private sector and many others choosing right now to just get on with it. Join our community of development professionals and humanitarians. Follow @ GDP on Twitter.
How West Ham United are laying the foundations for long-term success Four years after promotion from the Championship, West Ham United, who take on Arsenal in the early kick-off on Saturday, are challenging for Champions League qualification under an exciting manager and on Wednesday face Manchester United for a place in the FA Cup semi‑finals. As West Ham prepare to move to the Olympic Stadium, people are asking whether this season is a flash in the pan or if they are capable of establishing themselves as title contenders. What are the key factors determining current success and future prospects? 1 The manager It always was a marriage of convenience between West Ham and Sam Allardyce and no one was getting anything out of it in the end. Supporters pined for a manager with a more expansive approach, someone who got their desire for attractive football and Slaven Bilic ticked that box. As a former player, he understood the West Ham way. At the same time, the club knew that replacing the pragmatic Allardyce with someone who had not managed in the Premier League was a risk, despite Bilic’s experiences with Croatia, Besiktas and Lokomotiv Moscow, and a shambolic 4-3 defeat at home to Bournemouth in August generated a sense of foreboding around Upton Park. Those fears quickly proved unfounded, though, as Bilic demonstrated he is a quick learner, reacting to the Bournemouth game by masterminding a 3-0 victory at Anfield, West Ham’s first win there since 1963. The holder of a law degree, he is a highly intelligent man and those close to him speak of a manager whose charisma, charm and passion allow him to command the respect and admiration of his squad. The players have embraced his methods. They are free to express themselves on the pitch and those who have been around for a long time cannot remember training being this intense. A day off early in the week is followed by sharp sessions as match day approaches and Bilic is a prominent figure on the training ground, allowing his assistants, Nikola Jurcevic and the popular Edin Terzic, to run the sessions while occasionally stepping in to offer a quiet word of advice here and there. West Ham are not flawless. They have struggled to assert themselves in several games, often starting slowly against lesser sides, and have ridden their luck at times. It makes their overall level hard to assess. Which is the real West Ham? The one that took 30 minutes to string two passes together against Norwich in September? Or the one that outplayed Tottenham Hotspur last month? Either way, they know how to stay in games. Take the 2-1 victory over Southampton on 28 December, when they were fortunate to be only 1-0 down at half-time, before Bilic’s substitutions changed the game. He can make tactical tweaks on the go and he is not afraid to ditch Plan A, which is why West Ham have recovered 12 points from losing positions this season. Bilic is capable of surprising his rivals, with the win over Spurs notable for his use of a 5-3-2 formation after months of veering between 4-3-3 and 4-2-3-1, and his calm demeanour behind the scenes has helped the team maintain their composure when they are behind. Survival was the main objective at the start of the season but it was not long before West Ham were setting their targets higher. 2 The board As one board member puts it, 20 minutes in Bilic’s company is all it takes for people to warm to him and David Sullivan and David Gold, the club’s co-owners, knew that they had their man at the end of the interview with the Croat. There is chemistry, trust, a sense that the owners and the manager are pulling in the same direction. Sullivan and Gold have not got everything right since buying the club just over six years ago. Hiring Avram Grant in 2011 was a huge mistake. West Ham went down and needed Allardyce to piece them back together. Yet Sullivan and Gold are experienced and the good has outweighed the bad. Reeling under Icelandic ownership in 2010, West Ham were on the brink of financial oblivion. The squad was a mess and Mark Noble has admitted that the club was run like a circus. Now they are challenging for the Champions League qualification and will move into the Olympic Stadium this summer. The challenge is to keep growing. West Ham have had successful seasons in the past but the problem has been backing it up consistently. Previous regimes have stood still, leaving supporters cold with faceless PR. Sullivan and Gold are not everyone’s cup of tea but they have engaged with fans via traditional and social media and while West Ham cannot compete with the financial muscle of the traditional big clubs they are starting to challenge. 3 Recruitment Without spending eye-watering sums, West Ham have been astute in the transfer market in the past two years. Sullivan is heavily involved in identifying and securing targets, while Tony Henry, who worked with David Moyes at Everton, has performed excellently since being put in charge of the recruitment department. Diafra Sakho, signed for £3.75m, was playing in the French second division. Cheikhou Kouyaté joined from the Belgian champions, Anderlecht, for £5.63m. Angelo Ogbonna arrived for £8.25m from Juventus, the £4.5m midfielder Pedro Obiang has impressed since joining from Sampdoria and even Dimitri Payet, signed for £11.25m from Marseille, was overlooked by other clubs. It has reached the point where even the groundsmen cannot tear their eyes away when Payet practises his free-kicks in training and sighs of disappointment can be heard around Chadwell Heath when the ball flies off target. West Ham believe that the 29-year-old is worth every penny of his £125,000-a-week, five-year deal. That was a sign of West Ham’s intent and perhaps they will look to make one marquee signing this summer; they have targeted two expensive forwards, for instance, Lyon’s Alexandre Lacazette and Marseille’s Michy Batshuayi. Yet they have not been afraid to sign players from the Championship. Aaron Cresswell cost £3.5m from Ipswich Town, Sam Byram cost £3.7m from Leeds United and Michail Antonio cost £7m from Nottingham Forest. Antonio, 26, has scored seven goals despite breaking into the team only in December. Loan deals have also given West Ham time to think. While they signed Manuel Lanzini on a permanent basis last month, waiting before spending £9m on a 22-year-old Argentinian who had been playing in the Middle East, Emmanuel Emenike, Victor Moses and Alex Song will probably be sent back to their parent clubs. 4 Squad depth Bilic has selection headaches now that he has a fully fit squad and, although West Ham’s FA Cup quarter-final replay against United is a few days away, he will play his strongest side when Arsenal visit Upton Park on Saturday afternoon. But for the injury crisis that decimated West Ham’s attack in the winter months, they might have challenged for the title. Yet Bilic looks back on that period positively. The squad players stepped up and West Ham had to graft during a nine-game unbeaten run. Bilic did not hide his frustration about the spate of muscle injuries that threatened to derail his side, prompting the former West Ham winger Matthew Etherington to criticise the quality of the pitches at Chadwell Heath. There is respect for the experienced fitness coach, Miljenko Rak, and West Ham hope that moving to their new site in Rush Green will solve the problem. 5 The stadium Arsenal are generating more match‑day revenue than any club in the world, making over £100m from the Emirates Stadium last year. Manchester United made £87.96m from Old Trafford, Chelsea made £71.84m from Stamford Bridge. Liverpool made £57.85m from Anfield and Tottenham made £41.83m from White Hart Lane. West Ham made £19.9m from Upton Park, which holds 35,000. Although the majority of income for Premier League clubs comes from the broadcast money, moving to a bigger, commercially attractive stadium will strengthen West Ham’s position. Far from struggling to fill the Olympic Stadium, West Ham are expanding the capacity from 54,000 to 60,000 and could eventually increase it to 66,000. The attraction is clear. Upton Park can be difficult to reach and even harder to get away from after full time. Getting to Stratford is simple. The team are playing well. There are whispers of a visit from Barcelona in pre-season. Champions League football is a possibility. What West Ham can hope to make from the stadium remains unclear, with critics of the move pushing the London Legacy Development Committee to release the full terms of a deal that has led to disputes over the use of public funds and the cost to taxpayers, but it has boosted their commercial potential. Last year they agreed a record shirt sponsorship deal with the online bookmakers Betway, who agreed to pay £20m over three and a half years. “When the deal was signed with West Ham United we were in the right place at the right time, but there was certainly a long term view towards the Olympic Stadium and the growth of the club because of that move,” a spokesman for Betway told the . The challenge for West Ham is to keep their identity after the move. Upton Park remains one of the most atmospheric grounds in the country and, while the club are pulling out all the stops to make the Olympic Stadium feel like home, the adjustment will not be straightforward. Ambition must not come at the cost of the club’s soul.
Trump blames media after more sexual misconduct accusations reported Donald Trump disassembled his teleprompter during a North Carolina rally on Friday night, in the same week that he boasted on Twitter Tuesday about having his “shackles off”. The Republican nominee, who saw further accusations of groping on Friday from two different women, responded by trashing the media. Speaking to a crowd in Greensboro, North Carolina, he seemed to allege that the New York Times was part of a Mexican conspiracy to undermine him. “The largest shareholder in the Times is Carlos Slim,” Trump said. “Now, Carlos Slim comes from Mexico. He’s given many millions of dollars to the Clintons and their initiative.” In Trump’s conclusion, “reporters of the New York Times, they’re not journalists, they’re corporate lobbyists for Carlos Slim and for Hillary Clinton”. The Republican nominee denounced the media in more abstract terms in his rally in Charlotte, insisting that the press was responsible for “rigging the system” as well as the coming election. The Republican nominee also insisted that he could not have sexually harassed Jessica Leeds, a businesswoman who said Trump groped her on a 1979 flight because Leeds was unattractive. “Believe me – she would not be my first choice, that I can tell you.” The candidate’s campaign also rolled out an eyewitness who claimed that he was sitting across from Leeds and Trump and that nothing ever happened. The witness, Anthony Gilberthorpe, an Englishman who would have been a teenager at the time that he said he was flying first class on the domestic US flight, has also claimed that he procured underage male prostitutes for British MPs and that Margaret Thatcher covered up the scandal. A campaign aide told the that Gilberthorpe was “just the beginning” in their effort to fight back against the allegations of sexual misconduct. Trump denied all accusations against him and suggested that women coming forward might be motivated for “financial reasons”. He told the crowd in Charlotte, North Carolina, “these allegations are 100% false. They are made up, they never happened. When you have met tens of thousands people as I have ... it’s not hard to find a small handful of people make false smears for personal fame, maybe financial reasons.” The controversy over Trump’s sexual misconduct towards women was launched last Friday when a 2005 tape emerged of the Republican nominee discussing kissing and grabbing women by the genitals without their consent. After repeated questioning during Sunday’s presidential debate, Trump eventually said that he had never engaged in such actions. Since then nearly a dozen women have accused Trump of inappropriate, unwanted sexual conduct including groping them, putting his hand up skirts and barging in on dressing rooms. In addition to commenting on Leeds’ attractiveness, Trump also appeared to attack the appearance of his rival Clinton. Referring to the second presidential debate in St Louis, he said: “I’m standing at my podium and she walks in front of me, she walks in front of me and when she walks in front of me, believe me, I wasn’t impressed.” Later, in Charlotte, he added of his opponent that “she was the most corrupt person to ever seek the presidency of the United States and her specialty has been, as you see over the years, it’s character assassination”. The Republican nominee eventually reverted to standard lines from his primary campaign after his teleprompter broke down on Friday night at a rally in Charlotte. Trump laid the devices on the stage before returning to old chestnuts, including his attack on the Obama administration’s concern over climate change. “Obama thinks global warming is our biggest threat. I happen to think it’s nuclear warming,” Trump said. He also went to jab at former rival Jeb Bush, using the epithet “low energy” while going on a tirade about primary opponents who signed the RNC pledge to support the eventual nominee but are now not backing Trump. The day after Trump spoke in ominous tones about global elites and Hillary Clinton meeting “in secret with international banks,” President Barack Obama bashed those comments in a campaign trip to Cleveland. “This is a guy who spent all his time hanging around trying to convince everybody he was a global elite,” Obama said, laughing. “Talking about how great his buildings are, how luxurious and how rich he is and flying around everywhere. All he had time for was celebrities and now suddenly he’s acting like he’s a populist out there. I’m going to fight for working people.” Obama added, “Come on, man.” On a fundraising swing in Seattle, Clinton expressed disappointment in the tenor of the campaign. “This election is incredibly painful. I take absolutely no satisfaction in what is happening on the other side with my opponent,” Clinton said at a stop at a campaign office in Seattle. “I am not at all happy about that, because it hurts our country, it hurts our democracy, it sends terrible messages to so many people here at home and around the world. Damage is being done that we’re going to have to repair. Divisions are being deepened that we’re going to have to try to heal.” Clinton has no public events scheduled Saturday as both candidates prepare for the final presidential debate to be held Wednesday in Las Vegas. Trump will speak at an event at a Portsmouth, New Hampshire, car dealership before holding a rally in Bangor, Maine.
The growing list of Republicans withdrawing support for Donald Trump On Friday and Saturday, after the release of an 11-year-old recording that revealed Donald Trump boasting about his advances on a married woman and his desire to “grab [women] by the pussy”, a succession of Republican lawmakers condemned the remarks and in some cases withdrew their support for their party’s presidential nominee. Here is a list of those Republicans and their current statements and positions regarding Trump, in context of what they have previously said on the subject. Republicans who have endorsed and now abandoned Trump John Thune, South Dakota senator and third-ranking Republican in the Senate: “Donald Trump should withdraw and Mike Pence should be our nominee effective immediately.” In May, Thune argued Trump was a necessary candidate of “change”, saying: “We have to get it right in 2016 because the future of our country is hanging in the balance in so many different ways. And there are three words that ought to scare everyone in this room: President Hillary Clinton.” John McCain, Arizona senator and 2008 presidential nominee: “I have wanted to support the candidate our party nominated. He was not my choice, but as a past nominee, I thought it important I respect the fact that Donald Trump won a majority of the delegates by the rules our party set. I thought I owed his supporters that deference. “But Donald Trump’s behavior this week, concluding with the disclosure of his demeaning comments about women and his boasts of sexual assaults, make it impossible to offer even conditional support for his candidacy … We will write in the name of some good conservative Republican who is qualified to be president.” Kelly Ayotte, New Hampshire senator: “I cannot and will not support a candidate for president who brags about degrading and assaulting women.” Last week, Ayotte called Trump a “role model” and then promptly recanted the remark, saying neither he nor Hillary Clinton were worthy of admiration. Jason Chaffetz, Utah representative: “I’m pulling my endorsement. I cannot support in any way, shape or form the comments or approach Donald Trump has taken.” This summer, after some public struggle, Chaffetz said he would support the nominee. Bradley Byrne, Alabama representative: “It is now clear Donald Trump is not fit to be president of the United States and cannot defeat Hillary Clinton. I believe he should step aside.” Gary Herbert, Utah governor: “Donald Trump’s statements are beyond offensive & despicable. While I cannot vote for Hillary Clinton, I will not vote for Trump.” Dennis Daugaard, South Dakota governor: “Enough is enough. Donald Trump should withdraw in favor of Governor Mike Pence. This election is too important.” Joe Heck, Nevada representative: “I can no longer look past the pattern of behavior and comments that have been made by Donald Trump. Therefore, I cannot in good conscience continue to support Donald Trump, nor can I vote for Hillary Clinton.” Mike Crapo, Idaho senator: “His repeated actions and comments toward women have been disrespectful, profane and demeaning.” Deb Fischer, Nebraska representative: “It would be wise for him to step aside and allow Mike Pence to serve as our party’s nominee.” Lisa Murkowski, Alaska senator: “I cannot and will not support Donald Trump for president. He has forfeited the right to be our party’s nominee.” Dan Sullivan, Alaska senator: “I’m calling on Trump to step aside for Gov. Pence. Trump can’t lead on critical issue of ending dom violence & sexual assault.” Ann Wagner, Missouri representative: “I must be true to those survivors and myself condemn the predatory and reprehensible comments of Donald Trump. I withdraw my endorsement and call for Governor Pence to take the lead so we can defeat Hillary Clinton.” Brian Sandoval, Nevada governor: “This video exposed not just words, but now an established pattern which I find to be repulsive and unacceptable for a candidate for president of the United States. I cannot support him as my party’s nominee. Martha Roby, Alabama Representative: “Donald Trump’s behavior makes him unacceptable as a candidate for president, and I won’t vote for him.” Shelley Moore Capito, West Virginia senator: “Women have worked hard to gain the dignity and respect we deserve. The appropriate next step may be for him to re-examine his candidacy.” Cory Gardner, Colorado senator: “If Donald Trump wishes to defeat Hillary Clinton, he should do the only thing that will allow us to do so – step aside.” Tom Rooney, Florida representative: “If I support him for president, I will be telling my boys that I think it’s OK to treat women like objects – and I’ll have failed as a dad. Therefore, I can no longer support Donald Trump for president and will not be voting for him or Hillary Clinton.” Frank LoBiondo, New Jersey representative: “I will not vote for a candidate who boasts of sexual assault. It is my conclusion that Mr Trump is unfit to be President.” John Boozman, Arkansas senator: “If I ever heard anyone speak this way about [my daughters and granddaughters] they would be shopping for a new set of teeth … I am focused on saving the US Senate.” Rodney Davis, Illinois representative: “The abhorrent comments made by Donald Trump are inexcusable and go directly against what I’ve been doing in Washington to combat assaults on college campuses. Because of this, I am rescinding my support for Donald Trump.” Rob Portman, Ohio senator: “While I continue to respect those who still support Donald Trump, I can no longer support him. I continue to believe our country cannot afford a Hillary Clinton presidency. I will be voting for Mike Pence for President.” (Portman did not disavow Trump in his initial statement Friday night.) Nevada representative Cresent Hardy, Utah representative Chris Stewart, and Nebraska representative Jeff Fortenberry have also rescinded their support of Trump but not released statements. Republicans who condemned remarks but still officially support Trump Mike Pence, Indiana governor and Trump’s running mate: “I do not condone his remarks and cannot defend them. I am grateful that he has expressed remorse … we pray for his family and look forward to the opportunity he has to show what is in his heart when he goes before the nation tomorrow night.” Paul Ryan, speaker of the House and most powerful Republican in Washington: “I am sickened by what I heard today. Women are to be championed and revered, not objectified. I hope Mr Trump treats this situation with the seriousness it deserves and works to demonstrate to the country that he has greater respect for women than this clip suggests.” Mitch McConnell, Kentucky senator and Senate majority leader: “As the father of three daughters, I strongly believe that Trump needs to apologize directly to women and girls everywhere, and take full responsibility for the utter lack of respect for women shown in his comments on that tape.” Ted Cruz, Texas senator and failed presidential candidate: “These comments are disturbing and inappropriate. There is simply no excuse for them. Every wife, mother, daughter – every person – deserves to be treated with dignity and respect. Marco Rubio, Florida senator and failed presidential candidate: “Donald’s comments were vulgar, egregious & impossible to justify. No one should ever talk about any woman in those terms, even in private.” Reince Priebus, chair of the Republican National Committee: “No woman should ever be described in these terms or talked about in this manner. Ever.” Rand Paul, Kentucky senator and failed presidential candidate: “His comments are offensive and unacceptable.” Bob Dole, former senator from Kansas and 1996 presidential nominee: “It was 11 years ago. He shouldn’t have said it, but there’s nothing he can do about it except to do well in the debate.” Joni Ernst, Iowa senator: “The comments DJT [Donald J Trump] made are lewd & insulting. There is no excuse, and no room for such reprehensible and objectifying talk about anyone, ever.” Bob Corker, Tennessee senator and chair of the foreign relations committee: “These comments are obviously very inappropriate and offensive and his apology was absolutely necessary.” Richard Burr, North Carolina senator and Trump national security adviser: “I am going to watch his level of contrition over the next few days to determine my level of support.” Jon Cornyn, Texas senator: “I am disgusted by Mr Trump’s words about women: our daughters, sisters and mothers. Phil Bryant, Mississippi governor: “Donald Trump’s remarks are unacceptable … They do not square with the man I have gotten to know the past few months. He has done the right thing and apologized.” Ryan Zinke, Montana representative: “The language is shocking and wrong and should never be used ever. Lola and I have talked about it and we pray he has grown from this mistake.” Asa Hutchinson, Arkansas governor: “While he has acknowledged it as wrong and apologized, it is important that he demonstrate in the debate on Sunday and in the future that he understands and respects the value of women.” Chris Collins, New York representative: “There is no change in my support of Mr. Trump as our nominee because he remains the only candidate who will bring our jobs back, secure our borders and stand up to our enemies.” Dan Coats, Indiana senator: “Donald Trump’s vulgar comments are totally inappropriate and disgusting, and these words have no place in our society.” Greg Abbott, governor of Texas: “Deeply disturbing rhetoric by Trump. An insult to all women & contrary to GOP values. Absent true contrition, consequences will be dire.” Republicans who have never supported Trump John Kasich, Ohio governor and failed presidential candidate: “Nothing that has happened in the last 48 hours is surprising to me or many others … It’s clear that he hasn’t changed and has no interest in doing so. As a result, Donald Trump is a man I cannot and should not support. The actions of the last day are disgusting.” Mitt Romney, former governor of Massachusetts and 2012 presidential nominee: “Hitting on married women? Condoning assault? Such vile degradations demean our wives and daughters and corrupt America’s face to the world.” Jeb Bush, former governor of Florida and failed presidential candidate: “As the grandfather of two precious girls, I find that no apology can excuse away Donald Trump’s reprehensible comments degrading women.” Ben Sasse, Nebraska senator: “Character matters. @realDonaldTrump is obviously not going to win. But he can still make an honorable move: Step aside & let Mike Pence try.” Susan Collins, Maine senator: “It was comments like these, including the statements he made about John McCain, a disabled reporter, the family of a fallen soldier and more, that caused me to decide this summer that I could not support his candidacy.” Mike Lee, Utah senator : “Your conduct, sir, is the distraction … I respectfully ask you, with all due respect, to step aside. Step down. Allow someone else to carry the banner of these principles.” Mark Kirk, Illinois senator: “DJT [Donald J Trump] is a malignant clown – unprepared and unfit to be president of the United States.” Jeff Flake, Arizona senator: “America deserves far better than @realDonaldTrump.” Arnold Schwarzenegger, former governor of California: “For the first time since I became a citizen in 1983, I will not vote for the Republican candidate for president. Like many Americans, I’ve been conflicted by this election – I still haven’t made up my mind about how exactly I will vote next month … But as proud as I am to label myself a Republican, there is one label that I hold above all else – American. So I want to take a moment today to remind my fellow Republicans that it is not only acceptable to choose your country over your party – it is your duty.” Mia Love, Utah representative: “Mr Trump has yet to clear that bar and his behavior and bravado have reached a new low. I cannot vote for him.” Mike Coffman, Colorado representative: “For the good of the country, and to give Republicans a chance of defeating Hillary Clinton, Mr Trump should step aside.” Fred Upton, Michigan representative: “I urge him to think about our country over his own candidacy and carefully consider stepping aside from the ticket.” Erik Paulsen, Minnesota representative: “For months I have said Donald Trump has not earned my vote. The disgusting statements revealed last night make it clear he cannot. I will not be voting for him.” Justin Amash, Michigan representative: “Character matters. @realDonaldTrump has been saying outrageous, offensive things the whole time. He should have stepped aside long ago.” Pat Tiberi, Ohio representative: “Donald Trump’s comments and behavior were reprehensible, vulgar and extremely disrespectful. He was not my choice for our nominee and I never endorsed him. I have always said that I want to see a positive message and winnable strategy against Hillary Clinton from the Republican nominee. It is disappointing, especially for Americans who are looking for real leadership and integrity in their presidential candidate, that Trump has not been able to clear that bar. Americans deserve better choices for the highest office in the land. Trump should consider stepping aside. Otherwise, this will continue to consume the remainder of the campaign and help Clinton become the next president.” Never committed for or against Trump Pat Toomey, Pennsylvania senator: “Donald Trump’s comments were outrageous and unacceptable.” Rob Portman, Ohio Senator: “As I said yesterday, Donald Trump’s comments were offensive and wrong. I had hoped to support the candidate my party nominated in the primary process. I thought it was appropriate to respect the millions of voters across the country who chose Donald Trump as the Republican Party nominee. While I continue to respect those who still support Donald Trump, I can no longer support him. I continue to believe our country cannot afford a Hillary Clinton presidency. I will be voting for Mike Pence for President.” Barbara Comstock, Virginia representative: “No woman should ever be subjected to this type of obscene behavior and it is unbecoming of anybody seeking high office. In light of these comments, Donald Trump should step aside.” Will Hurd, Texas representative: “I never endorsed Trump and I cannot in good conscience support or vote for a man who degrades women, insults minorities and has no clear path to keep our country safe.” Condoleezza Rice, George W Bush’s secretary of state: “Enough! Donald Trump should not be President. He should withdraw.” Susana Martinez, New Mexico governor: “That’s why I have withheld my support from the very beginning, and will not support him now.” Bill Haslam, Tennessee governor: “I want to emphasize that character in our leaders does matter.…It is time for the good of the nation and the Republican Party for Donald Trump to step aside.” Kay Granger, Texas representative: “Watching that video is disgusting. Mr Trump should remove himself from consideration as commander in chief.”
For 12 years I've felt a burden at work. Now I'm ready to talk about mental health Even though I have been an occupational therapist in adult mental health for 16 years, it took me a long time to learn how to balance the demands of the job with a healthy lifestyle. Over the years in previous working environments, I have had many comments from different colleagues such as: “Why are you returning to work in mental health?” “Are you sure you are up to this type of emotionally demanding work?” “You’re not fit enough to work in this type of environment.” “It’s about trust. I have to think about risk.” I have felt judged; thought to be not strong enough, unreliable and at times a liability in the workplace. A burden, not a valued member of the team. In 2013, , I was formally diagnosed with bipolar disorder, 18 months after the birth of my twin boys. It has been incredibly difficult over my career to gauge how much to say about my mental health at work. As a junior occupational therapist, I was well supported by my colleagues in my phased return to work after my first episode. I felt fully recovered, applied for promotion and did not disclose in the application or interview process. Not disclosing made it impossible for my new team to put support in place when I did need it. I came up against some difficult situations, with a senior colleague suggesting I had bipolar even though I hadn’t been diagnosed with it. I felt that boundaries between work and my health and personal life had been crossed. However, I worked hard to prove to everyone that I was good at my job. Phased returns were put in place when needed and occupational health support was all in-house and on-site at the time, so I saw the same doctor and could build up trust and communication. But lots of sickness absences eroded trust from management in my capability to work safely with people with severe and enduring mental health issues. It often felt more about risk and liability than valuing my resilience and empathy as a person with lived experience of mental health difficulties. Nine years ago, things came to a head and I was witness to a difficult personal situation in my team. The pressure was too much, I became isolated within my team, and one day found I could not go back to that workplace. I was just too worn out and demoralised. Seven months later, after I successfully battled a grievance filed against me and negotiated medical redeployment, I began working in a different locality. I continued to struggle with my confidence in my ability and performance at work. I grappled with how much to share in one-on-one meetings with my line manager when I was trying to cope. When I had a terrible manic depressive episode 18 months after the birth of my twins, I finally received the proper treatment for my underlying bipolar disorder, following a hospital admission and a long period of home treatment. I wanted to open up more about my health condition, but did not know how to do this safely. By this point I was too scared of feeling judged and not trusted. So I attended speaking out training through charities Rethink Mental Illness and Time to Change in August 2014. Since the integration of my small team with a larger one, I have grown in confidence and been able to show what I can do with a great bunch of people around me when I am trusted and given autonomy. This year, I felt it was time for me to talk about my mental health. Tips for disclosing mental health conditions at work • It’s your choice – say as much or as little as you want. Being open on a one-on-one basis with individual colleagues in the team helped me. Being upfront on my terms gave me an amazing sense of freedom. • You are the expert on your own needs – ask for a meeting with your line manager to discuss your mental health if you feel you need it. • Agree a plan of changes with your boss and a time to meet again to discuss whether things have improved. • You have rights – under the Equality Act, mental health conditions are a disability so you are likely to be protected, but always seek legal advice. Union support has helped me fight for my reputation at work in the past, so always check whether your employer is affiliated to one. Consider signing up. • You are not alone – one in six workers experience mental health issues each year. With time and practice, it is possible for many of us to balance our health with the demands of a job. For more information and advice, go to Mind or Time to Change
BHS inquiry, act III: enter the bankers and lawyers Goldman Sachs merely had a walk-on role in the great BHS sale giveaway, but Sir Philip Green should have listened more closely to Anthony Gutman, his old mucker from the investment bank. Gutman seems to have taken about two minutes to spot the obvious flaw in selling BHS, a loss-making chain of department stores with 11,000 staff and 20,000 pensioners, to Retail Acquisitions: the outfit was led by Dominic Chappell, a former bankrupt individual with no retail experience waving a sketchy business plan. Gutman did the sensible thing and flagged his worries to Paul Budge, finance director of Green’s Arcadia group. The rest of the saga seems to have been a tale of the various other parties – lawyers, Arcadia’s management – convincing themselves that Chappell’s past bankruptcies were not a deal-breaker, or else were somebody else’s lookout. Monday’s select committee session heard a Linklaters partner deliver an effective hatchet job on his counterpart at Olswang, the lawyers acting for Chappell and thus the firm responsible for checking their client’s credentials. Olswang’s version of its fact-finding efforts is keenly awaited. For his part Budge pointed to the experienced and competent folk who later surrounded Chappell, including advisers Grant Thornton who were all over his business plan “like a rash”. Besides, argued Budge, Arcadia gifted Retail Acquisitions a load of cash and working capital to have a good crack at a turnaround. It was all fascinating detail. None of it, however, changes the central fact that Green was taking a huge risk in selling BHS to Chappell’s bunch of amateurs. On Monday’s evidence, Green’s moral obligation to do the right thing for BHS’s pensioners remains. Biggest cash takeover in history? Bayer beware A $62bn (£43bn) cash bid should be contemplated only if you can be confident you’ve got – or can secure – the backing of your shareholders. Bayer chief executive Werner Baumann, in pursuit of US seeds business Monsanto, isn’t remotely able to make this claim. Bayer’s share price has fallen 14% since news of the adventure broke, and Monday’s confirmed bid price – $122 a share, or a 37% premium to Monsanto’s old share price – will do little to calm investors’ nerves. Naturally, Baumann was full of smooth talk about how Bayer’s pesticides and Monsanto’s genetically modified seeds would create “a global leader in agriculture”, spread joy among the world’s farmers and deliver an instant kick to earnings. “Arrogant empire-building” that will destroy shareholder value, reckoned fund manager Henderson Global Investors’ John Bennett. That sounds closer to the mark. First, Bayer would be stretching its balance sheet to the limit. Even after whacking shareholders with a hefty rights issue, Bayer’s debt would sail past four times’ top-line annual earnings. Such financial leverage flatters earnings per share, assuming all goes well, but taking on €55bn-plus of debt is not without risk. Second, annual “synergies” of $1.5bn in the third years don’t look large in the context of the size of the deal. Third, any hopes of Bayer’s expanding its pharmaceutical division would be on hold while it sweats off the Monsanto debt; given that many investors think prospects in pharma are stronger, that’s a serious drawback. Fourth, there’s the mystery factor of whether US competition regulators would allow one company to be so dominant in the US agriculture business. If it happens Bayer/Monsanto would be the biggest cash takeover in history. On day one, Baumann is struggling. Every little trip hurts Taxi for Mr Higgins. Actually, no, it seems Tesco is gloriously relaxed about Benny Higgins, boss of its Edinburgh-based bank, running up a London taxi bill of £18,000 in just eight months, as revealed in Saturday’s . Higgins is still in his post, says a company spokesman, declining to elaborate on the mundane statement that “all Tesco colleagues adhere to a clear policy that allows travel and other expenses for business reasons”. So no explanation as to why it is OK to claim £389.85 for a trip from Soho Hotel to the Victoria & Albert museum, just five stops away on the underground. And no explanation as to how Higgins’ liberal use of taxis squares with the parsimonious approach taken by group chief executive Dave Lewis, who likes to parade the fact he takes the train to London from the Hertfordshire head office to save money and keep a checkout worker in employment. In the grand scheme of things, an £18,000 taxi bill doesn’t move the profits dial at a company the size of Tesco. But, to judge by the sickly share price, it won’t be long before Lewis is firing off another of his uplifting all-staff emails about the urgent need to pull together as “a total Tesco team”. Good luck in explaining to staff why the daughters of your £2m-a-year banking executive are transported to the airport apparently at the company’s expense.
Virtual fracture clinics enable patients to receive care online A physiotherapist and orthopaedic surgeon are transforming the way patients with fractures are treated and saving the NHS more than half a million pounds in an initiative which could become a national model. Physio Lucy Cassidy and consultant James Gibbs have established a virtual follow-up clinic for patients with simple fractures or soft tissue injuries. In the past these patients would have come through A&E and have to return for a follow up appointment at a consultant-led fracture clinic. But today these patients receive all their post A&E care online. The patient’s x-ray and injury is assessed within 24 hours by a physiotherapist and an orthopaedic consultant to decide if they can self-manage their recovery remotely. Patients are then phoned by the physio and offered a virtual clinic referral. Virtual clinic patients are emailed a video message from the consultant talking through the injury and the prognosis and a link to an individual rehabilitation video – one of 27 which have been produced – with a six-week exercise plan to follow. Patients can phone a specialist physiotherapist if they have any problems; the option to come into a traditional face-to-face consultant outpatient clinic remains open. Cassidy, an extended scope practitioner says: “This is a no brainer – it works for the patient, it works for the consultants and physios and it’s cost-efficient. Patients absolutely love the virtual clinic they say ‘What, I don’t have to come in?’ They really appreciate the service and they have a safety net.” Some 12,000 patients have been referred to the virtual clinic run by Brighton and Sussex University hospitals NHS trust since it began three years ago. Fifty seven per cent of those patients are discharged without ever having to return to hospital; 37% have a follow up appointment at a consultant out-patient clinic and 6% are seen by a specialist physio. The service has already saved the NHS around £500,000 as the cost of a virtual referral is £67 – half the price of a traditional clinic appointment. Those savings are expected to double in the next year because since May the service has expanded to include wrist and hand injuries which account for almost half of all fracture clinic referrals. Under the virtual system patients who require a face-to-face appointment are now booked in with the most appropriate specialist consultant at an outpatient clinic. Cassidy explains: “Under the old system it was a bit of a lottery who you saw. The patient would come to the fracture clinic and if it was run by the shoulder consultant on that day, but you had broken your ankle, you would still be seen by the shoulder consultant. One of the complaints I get from the consultants now is that ‘all my clinics are now full with people that need to be seen.’ ” Gibbs first had the idea of a virtual fracture clinic when he was a junior doctor: “I would sit in the fracture clinic and feel exasperated for me, and for the patients, because the majority of injuries you see heal on their own with the passage of time and we were seeing people in clinic unnecessarily.” He admits his consultant colleagues were sceptical at first about the changes but there would be a “hue and cry” now if the trust reverted to the old system: “It’s standardised treatment for specific injuries, it’s freed up consultants’ time and we are working smarter.” The virtual clinic – which is being showcased at the NHS Health and Care Innovation Expo 2016 in Manchester next month (September) - is already being adopted by others. Virtual clinics are now run at Western Sussex hospitals NHS foundation trust and Maidstone and Tonbridge Wells NHS trust in Kent; others in Hastings and Eastbourne are due to launch in January. A free “plug and play” package – an electronic virtual clinic blue print – is available for trusts to use as a starting point. Computer software which will allow hospitals to run their own branded virtual clinic on their own system – to be sold under license – is due to be launched next February. Cassidy and Gibbs believe the virtual clinic – which was recognised in the NHS Innovations Challenge awards this year – could become a national model. That ambition is shared by the Chartered Society of Physiotherapists. Society professional advisor Priya Dasoju says: “We would like to see this model rolled out but it’s key that it is a physio-led service because it’s physios who can provide the rehabilitation service. It’s such a simple concept but makes such a massive difference.” Virtual fracture clinics are new to the UK but others already exist worldwide – particularly in rural areas of Scandinavia, according to orthopaedic surgeon Stephen Cannon, vice-president of the Royal College of Surgeons. He says: “It does require resources in terms of time from the physio and the consultant and is a huge change for patients. But it is patient-centred, it works in other parts of the world – it’s a great idea.” Health and Care Innovation Expo in Manchester on 7 and 8 September will explore the Five Year Forward View in action. High profile health leaders will speak across two stages, while feature zones will explore digital health, personalised medicine and new models of care. NHS colleagues can attend free-of-charge. Click here to register. Do you work in the NHS? Please take our survey and tell us whether bullying is a problem and how it affects your work. Join the Healthcare Professionals Network to read more pieces like this. And follow us on Twitter (@GdnHealthcare) to keep up with the latest healthcare news and views.
SXSW: John Legend goes down smooth and Rae Sremmurd delivers rowdy trap After a dispiriting morning watching Tony Visconti give an impression of an old man yelling at clouds in his keynote speech which basically said that the music industry is screwed, something uplifting was needed. It was time to head to the space in Austin, Texas co-sponsored by Spin magazine and Axe, the kind of deoderant worn by teenage boys. Into this unpromising environment came John Legend, who took his seat at a grand piano set on stage at one end of a courtyard and performed a handful of numbers solo. Legend’s melismatic R&B will never been anywhere near music’s cutting edge – and arguably it’s a lot less interesting than his politically savvy Twitter feed – but on a sticky St Patrick’s Day afternoon, a swirling take on Green Light goes down like a cold Guinness. It’s followed by Ordinary People (“some of y’all were 10 when it came out,” notes Legend), which inspires a spontaneous audience singalong. Suave and smiley, Legend is a winning presence, and while his version of Bob Marley’s Redemption Song has none of the rawness of the original, it’s smoothness doesn’t make it any less sincere. With an announcement that he has a new album coming out in September, and a shamelessly slushy All of Me to conclude, Legend leaves the crowd sweaty enough to require some of that deodorant – even if the free sticks being given away are scented with “amber and tobacco”. Over at the Fader Fort, sponsored by another music magazine and a bewildering number of other brands, the audience is showing admirable restraint in the face of a bar giving out free Jack Daniels, and enjoying a bill that prides itself on its diversity. Neon Indian takes the stage, aka Mexican-born local boy Alan Palomo, whose Todd Rundgren-inspired chillwave has evolved into something even more colourfully 80s-tinged – think Prince jamming with Discovery-era Daft Punk. The first song is decorated with the kind of drums Sheila E used to play in Prince’s band the Revolution, while Annie dares to approach that most toxic of genres, white reggae, but with a playfulness that prevents it from being obnoxious. Slumlord, which begins with a ridiculously dramatic synth flourish, has a glossy bounce that sends some in the crowd into paroxisms of delight. It’s euphoric, slightly arch, clever pop and Palomo is an enjoyably daft presence with his knock-kneed Matt Bianco dance moves and luxuriantly cascading fringe. It’s quite a transition from that to the fratboy-friendly trap exuberantly purveyed by Atlanta duo Rae Sremmurd. Stripped to the waist, covered in tattoos and headbanging harder than Slayer, it’s a total rock’n’roll show, assisted by the regulation posse including one man wandering around in a cherry MIA jacket and bulging floral backpack. With their songs about strippers (Come Get Her), getting too “swoll” (No Flex Zone) and dodgy exes (My X) there’s nothing exactly groundbreaking going on, but it is a lot of fun. The concluding No Type (“Bad bitches is the only thing that I like,” it elaborates) provokes a cascade of free Jack and Cokes to be launched into the air, while their ode to Donald Trump, Up Like Trump, concludes with an appeal to the crowd to vote for Bernie Sanders. Rowdy, funny and packed with energy, it’s the perfect late-afternoon set. Hearing the rapid-fire, pounding sounds of Jlin’s take on Chicago footwork as the sun streamed into the Hype Hotel was strange. Tracks like Abnormal Restriction from last year’s well-received Dark Energy bounced around the cavenous hall with the unsettling samples from Joan Crawford biopic Mommie Dearest combining with the instrumentation to make things unnerving. Jlin’s palette is varied and although things moved along at the 160 bpm that footwork is known for, within those parameters Jlin has found spaces to explore and develop. When she played Black Ballet – arguably the best track from Dark Energy – there’s a noticeable shift in the room with the half a dozen or so fans who were head banging from the first snare, now swaying from side to side. A later billing in darker room probably would have benefited Jlin, but it was still a showcase of a singular talent. DAWN (formerly Dawn Richard) followed Jlin and brought with her a slick and polished show that saw her meld electronica, R&B and techno. She’s been working with footwork producer Machinedrum (Not Above That) and her sound has morphed into something that’s got an eye on the dancefloor. The live show itself features two male dancers in all black and ab-baring crop tops who perform choreography that recalls early Janet Jackson, while Richard commands the stage and nods approvingly at her drummer and keyboard player. It’s an interesting proposition, but when she plays a cover of Rihanna’s Work the gulf in songwriting is apparent. Nothing really jumps out of the Richard repertoire and in the short show, there’s not enough stand out hooks or moments to draw you in. Kacey Musgraves was the first country star to ever grace the cover of Fader, a magazine that’s known for its courtship of rap and R&B’s biggest stars. At the Fader Fort she closed the show on Thursday. The crowd, which had been bulging and riotous for Rae Sremmurd, has now calmed and more than half the audience had left by the time Musgraves came on. But that didn’t kill the atmosphere, instead it felt like an intimate show with the singer and her band – who were doused in glitter – playing to a dedicated audience. Slower rancheras were followed by bigger hits including Step Off and a cover of Gnarls Barkley. There was a segue into a cod reggae version of Three Little Birds before she played her hit Late To The Party and her defiant anthem Follow Your Arrow. She closed the show with a cover of Nancy Sinatra’s and Lee Hazlewood’s classic These Boots Are Made For Walkin’ before striding off herself. Toronto’s Dilly Dally played Hype Hotel in the evening and delivered their brazenly scuzzy punk rock wares. There’s plenty of charm from frontwoman Katie Monks, who screeches and wails her way through the bands Pixies-esque single Desire. Like the Pixies, Dilly Dally mix loud and quiet and go as far to play their cover of fellow Torontonian Drake’s Know Yourself. Rather than drenching it in a load of feedback, they keep the melancholy tale of counting money and driving through Toronto clean and just turn up the volume on the chorus. Recent single Purple Rage rattles through the venue and shows off a punk band that know when to hold a tune and when to distort it beyond all recognition.
RBS reports £469m loss for the third quarter Royal Bank of Scotland has been driven deep into the red again by legal costs and a hefty restructuring bill as it enters its ninth year under government ownership. The bailout of the Edinburgh-based bank was announced in October 2008 and £45bn of taxpayer money was eventually pumped into the bank, which has not reported a full-year profit since then. In the first nine months of 2016, RBS made a £2.5bn loss after incurring a £469m loss in the third quarter. It was profitable in the same three months last year. As Ross McEwan, the chief executive, tried to focus on the £1.3bn of profits generated in the third quarter before the legal and restructuring charges, he said the 73% taxpayer-owned bank faced several hurdles in the months ahead. Among them is the admission that it will fail to meet a deadline to divest 300 branches – which were to be known as Williams & Glyn. That deadline was imposed by the European Union as a result of its taxpayer bailout. After a number of failed attempts, RBS said full separation and divestment could not now be achieved by the end of 2017. Discussions are under way with the Treasury to discuss how it can spin off the branches. The bank was ordered to get rid of them by the EU as a penalty for its bailout. The inability to dispose of W&G – a process which has already cost £1.7bn – is one of the barriers to the government selling off any more of its stake and the bank’s ability to pay dividends. The third quarter was knocked by restructuring costs of £469m, largely W&G, a £425m legal bill and a £300m loss incurred because of changes to tax rules. “We’ve said that 2015 and 2016 would be noisy as we work through legacy issues and transform this bank for customers,” said McEwan. “These results reflect that noise. Our core business results were good with a £1.3bn adjusted operating profit, our best quarter since 2014.” In its third-quarter results, RBS warned that it faced a “range of uncertainties”, which included a settlement with the US Department of Justice over the sale of mortgage bonds. The bank said it could face charges and costs that would be so large it could knock its level of capital. RBS said it did not know when it would be able start paying dividends, with McEwan adding that performance targets he set for 2019 would not be met. He is expected to announce in February what measures would be needed to respond to the post-Brexit-vote environment. The bank’s shares initially rose on Friday but fell back to close at 194p, down 1.2% and well below the average price of 502p paid by taxpayers during the bailout. As a result of missing the W&G deadline, McEwan faces the possibility of the EU installing a trustee at end of next year. But he said he did not know what the consequences would be of missing the already extended deadline. RBS had deployed 7,000 staff to work on the divestment but this has now been cut back to 350. The bank has abandoned any hope of a stock market flotation for W&G, bringing that formally to a close this week by redeeming a bond it had sold to a consortium of private equity firms – and the Church of England. The bond was to convert into W&G shares. A trade sale may be possible as Clydesdale bank said this week it had made an offer for the branches. Small-business owners were angered when RBS did not set aside any money to pay compensation for the poor treatment they claim they received from the bank’s now defunct global restructuring group. A delayed report into the conduct of the division is expected to be published by the Financial Conduct Authority by the end of the year. “RBS continues to mislead the market by not making adequate provisions to meet pending legal challenges,” said James Hayward, chief executive of RGL Management, which was formed to sue RBS over the claims. RBS set aside an unspecified sum to cover a £4bn legal claim from investors in relation to its 2008 cash call. Attempts at mediation have failed and McEwan said: “We are exploring settlement options. If that fails we’ll be in court in March 2017.” This raises the prospect of former RBS boss Fred Goodwin being called to court.
The view on Donald Trump: years of living dangerously Donald Trump’s election shook the world as no other event of 2016. His presidency is still four weeks away, so it would be wrong to pass a verdict on it before there is any evidence. Yet the world can be justifiably fearful. Mr Trump’s cabinet picks, an overwhelmingly white male cohort of low tax and small government obsessives, climate change denying oilmen, and career soldiers, add to the dismay. But it is Mr Trump who matters. This week, the president-elect has revived the idea of a ban on Muslims entering the US and has given the green light to a new nuclear arms race. For Americans to choose someone with Mr Trump’s prejudices and instincts remains as outrageous now as it did on 8 November. It will not be hard to stay shocked. Never before has a candidate tried so hard to make America hate again. That’s why the Trump election was bigger than Brexit, both in itself and because of its global impact. Never before has someone endorsed by the Ku Klux Klan prepared to enter the White House. Never before, if you believe the CIA, has a foreign power intervened so audaciously in a US election. The impact on America itself is already enormous. No elected president has been greeted with more overt hostility, more protests and, perhaps most important of all, more soul searching. The biggest question for 2017 and beyond is how Mr Trump’s personality, judgment and behaviour will impact and shape America and the way it is governed. Election has not obviously changed him. He remains by turns shameless, impulsive, vain, threatening, slapdash, abusive – and much else. The personality matters; it shapes his judgment. It also matters because he appears to recognise so few boundaries between his private interests and his public responsibilities. This is one of those moments when those who report politics and analyse policy need to summon fresh rigour to their tasks. Mr Trump’s election will not mean politics as usual. His victory, the election of an authoritarian and demagogue in the world’s most important democracy, has raised fundamental questions of whether America is in some sense falling apart, its historic norms now unsustainable, perhaps to the extent that it is a failed state. Serious people are even asking how far and in what ways it is appropriate to consider Mr Trump a fascist or whether the republic itself can endure. To ask such questions is not to presuppose that the answer is yes. America is not a failed state. Mr Trump is not a fascist (though it is unnerving even to discuss whether he is a little bit fascist). The US remains one of the most prosperous and innovative places in the world. It is still governed according to the rule of law. It has both a well-educated and a large ageing population – each of which is a seedbed for stability, not revolution. And America is a more serious place, in the best sense, than it can seem from outside. As David Runciman has written, “its frustrations are those of a country where all this is true and yet still things are going wrong”. But the echoes of the 1930s should be taken seriously. Mr Trump says his nation is broken, corrupt and violent and he is the answer to all three problems. Race remains an often virulent obsession among his supporters. He charged during the campaign that Hillary Clinton “meets in secret with international banks to plot the destruction of US sovereignty in order to enrich these global financial powers, her special interest friends and her donors,” language drenched in classic antisemitism – as he must surely know. This triggers the question of whether those who voted for him really believed him. What they believed, perhaps, was that he would shake things up in ways that might be good for them and that no other candidate would do. To reach a verdict on Mr Trump means keeping several once unthinkable questions in mind. One of these is whether Americans truly believe that the US is a place whose institutions no longer provide stable government. Another is whether these institutions have forfeited consent so badly that the people want them overthrown and replaced. A third is whether they genuinely expect Mr Trump is going to do that. Another America America is certainly not working. Its failings have generated destabilising fears (see graph above). These have in turn produced Mr Trump. He was not a normal candidate. The election was not a normal election. Mr Trump will not be a normal president. It remains to be seen what he does in office. But it is neither honest nor true to pretend that this is the same America as in earlier eras. This is another America, and it has to be judged as such. Yet rigour also means acknowledging things that point in a different direction. The US stock market is currently surging in the expectation of a big fiscal stimulus in the spring. Though the president-elect’s favourability ratings remain negative – and are far inferior to Barack Obama’s increasingly positive figures – they are clearly narrowing. And a Pew poll this week showed that fewer Democrats now feel angry about the result of the election than expected to, just before it happened. None of this may last. All of it may be transient. But it can’t just be ignored. Two days before the election, Mr Trump went to an old steel-making community near Pittsburgh. There he told a cheering crowd: “We are going to win the great state of Pennsylvania and we are going to win back the White House … When we win, we are bringing steel back, we are going to bring steel back to Pennsylvania, like it used to be. We are putting our steel workers and our miners back to work. We are.” Parallels with Brexit Some bits of that have come true. Mr Trump won Pennsylvania – by 44,000 votes. He won back the White House – though more than 2.8 million more people voted for Mrs Clinton. Other parts, however, were and are lies. It is not true that Mr Trump will be bringing steel back to Pennsylvania like it used to be. He can’t. It is not true that he will be putting steel workers and miners back to work. He won’t. Most Trump voters were relatively well off, not poor; most of the poorest Americans voted for Mrs Clinton. But blue-collar white workers in swing states like Pennsylvania tipped the election to Mr Trump. Just 80,000 of them in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania made the difference. These voters were fired up that here, at last, was a candidate who took, or said he took, their lives seriously – and who might win. But that does not mean they believed his promises. The elusive truth about the Trump presidency may be that it rests on a tacit understanding on both sides: that he was telling lies, that his voters knew it; that they were going to vote for him anyway because he would rattle the system; but that they could simultaneously rely on the system to shield them from the worst effects of their reckless choice. In that respect, there may be a parallel with the UK’s Brexit vote. Two things can nevertheless be said with some confidence. The first is that, even if they do not believe him, Americans have elected their most unpredictable and dangerous president of all time. The second is that Mr Trump will fail in the end, in spite of the damage he does on the way, because he will not be able to satisfy those who swung the vote his way in November. However you look at the possibilities, the Trump presidency makes 2017 a fearful prospect for America and the world.
Former Asda director takes helm of Amazon’s UK operations Amazon has brought in Doug Gurr, the boss of its Chinese business, to run its UK operations in a move that could signal an acceleration of the online firm’s plans to sell groceries in Britain. Gurr was development director at Asda for nearly five years before joining Amazon in 2011. His return to the UK comes weeks after Amazon revealed a deal to sell fresh, chilled and frozen food made by Morrisons, the Bradford-based supermarket chain. Last September Amazon also began selling frozen items via its Prime Now one-hour delivery service, which is offered in big cities including London and Manchester. That followed the expansion of the Amazon Pantry service, which enables shoppers to fill a box of grocery items from a range of 4,000 household products, including big brands such as Kellogg’s, Ariel, Colgate and Kronenbourg. Fresh and frozen food is not available. Gurr replaces Chris North, who will quit the company in May to join the US online photo gift retailer Shutterfly. Under North, Amazon has achieved strong growth in the UK, confirming its position as one of the company’s most important markets. However, his tenure has also been fraught with controversy over Amazon’s tax arrangements, handling of weapons and employment practices. Gurr has also attracted controversy after he was appointed as a non-executive director at the Department for Work and Pensions in January. The Labour MP and tax campaigner Margaret Hodge described his appointment as “disgusting”, given Amazon was among the companies embroiled in a row over taxes. There have been concerns that US-based technology giants such as Amazon are having an increasing influence on government, even during growing public pressure for them to pay more tax in the UK. Gurr stepped down from his role at the DWP on Wednesday in order to “focus on his new role,” according to Amazon. Xavier Garambois, the vice-president of EU Retail at Amazon, said: “Doug has a deep knowledge of Amazon’s business and is ideally placed to provide both continuity and progression in the UK as we continue to focus on providing our customers with ever better selection, value and convenience.” When Gurr joined Amazon he led its UK hardlines division, which includes products such as lawn and garden equipment and toys. But Gurr has extensive experience of running online food business. At Asda, where he spent about four and a half years, he was responsible for strategy, logistics and online operations helping the supermarket strengthen its dotcom business. Before that he was chief executive of Blueheath Holdings, an online grocery wholesaler he founded and led to its listing on London’s AIM market. The group later merged with cash and carry group Booker.
Malcolm Turnbull insists bank inquiry unnecessary after fresh rate-rigging case Malcolm Turnbull has rejected calls for a royal commission as a third bank faces legal action for rate-rigging allegations, saying the financial watchdog was “sinking its fangs” into suspects. The prime minister said the corporate sector was “well regulated” and the government had already increased the Australian Securities and Investment Commission’s powers and resources. “The watchdog is sinking its fangs into a few suspected culprits and doing his job, that’s what he should do.” But Labor has redoubled its efforts to push for a bank royal commission after Asic launched legal proceedings against National Australia Bank for “unconscionable conduct and market manipulation”. The allegations relate to setting the bank bill swap reference rate (BBSW) during the period 8 June 2010 to 24 December 2012. NAB will fight the claims. Asic is also investigating Comminsure – the insurance arm of the Commonwealth Bank – which is accused of manipulating reports to avoid life insurance payouts to sick and dying customers. NAB is the third bank, after ANZ and Westpac, to face rate rigging allegations in the federal court and the news spilled into the federal election campaign where Labor and Greens have been pushing for a bank royal commission. Bill Shorten said evidence for a royal commission was growing by the day. “How many more people need to suffer and get ripped off before Mr Turnbull stops covering up for the banks?” Shorten said. “Rather than hold the big banks accountable, Mr Turnbull is gifting them a $7.4bn tax hand out.” Labor’s shadow treasurer, Chris Bowen, said addressing the public’s trust in budget was not a binary choice between Asic or a banking royal commission. “We don’t have to say we can have Asic or the royal commission, you can have both,” Bowen said. “Asic is determining illegality, Asic is determining whether what has happened here is illegal. They may or may not be able to prove that to the standard of proof required.” Bowen said the culture required investigation as well as the “cowboy-like behaviour”. “We are interested not only in the illegality but in the culture that allows this to happen,” Bowen said. “If you read the transcripts of the tapes you see the contempt not by everybody involved but by people making key decisions on Australian interest rates which means the Australian economy, businesses, have paid the price for that contempt. “That is a matter of culture as much as it is a matter of law. Asic can not determine culture.” The finance minister, Mathias Cormann, said the Coalition had already given additional powers to the watchdog with the “same powers as a royal commission”. “It is important to note that the alleged events took place between 2010 and 2012 under the period of the previous Labor government, incidentally when Bill Shorten was the minister for financial services,” Cormann said. “Since then we have had a financial system inquiry, there have been various inquiries through the Senate. We don’t need more enquiries. We need to ensure that a well resourced regulator with the appropriate powers can take effective action. That is precisely what Asic is doing.” In a statement after Asic announced the action National Australia Bank Group’s chief risk officer, David Gall, said “trust in the integrity of our financial markets is crucial to a strong Australian economy”. “A fair, well-functioning and competitive financial system is crucial to providing the best outcome for customers and the wider community,” Gall said. “NAB takes its role in upholding high standards of professional conduct seriously. We are committed to service, integrity and ethics and our values reflect this.” The Greens finance spokesperson, senator Peter Whish-Wilson, said the Asic case against NAB highlighted the “inadequacy” of the penalty regime for white-collar crime, given the the BBSW was used to price $2.5tn worth of securities trades each year. “The maximum civil penalty for market manipulation is capped at $200,000,” Whish-Wilson said. “This is ridiculous. It’s the equivalent of a parking fine for the big banks. They simply factor this into the cost of doing business. “Australia’s penalty regime is not deterring the sort of behaviour that is alleged. Asic needs to be given the power to recover ill-gotten gains. Disgorgement provides a real deterrent. Taking back the money that is effectively stolen will provide a real deterrent.”
Paul Verhoeven and Pedro Almodóvar among record 85 foreign language Oscar entrants The 85 entrants for next year’s foreign language Oscar have been announced – which beats the previous record of 83, from 2014. A shortlist of nine will be revealed in December, before five nominees are unveiled along with the other Oscar nominations on 24 January. The Academy Awards ceremony takes place on 26 February. Key contenders at this stage include Toni Erdmann, the three-hour German comedy reckoned by many to have deserved the Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes film festival, and Elle, a rape revenge comedy directed by Paul Verhoeven and starring Isabelle Huppert, also a hit at Cannes. Familiar names include Asghar Farhadi, whose film A Separation won the Oscar – Iran’s first – in 2011 and is back in contention with The Salesman, as well as Pedro Almodóvar, for Julieta. Two key, politically contentious films are also on the list: Fire at Sea, Gianfranco Rosi’s documentary about life on the Sicilian island of Lampedusa amid the migrant crisis; and Clash, Mohamed Diab’s thriller set inside an Egyptian police van in 2013 as post-revolution tensions boil over. This year’s prize was won by László Nemes’s harrowing Auschwitz-set drama Son of Saul. The full list of submissions Albania: Chromium (directed by Bujar Alimani) Algeria: The Well (dir Lotfi Bouchouchi) Argentina: The Distinguished Citizen (dir Mariano Cohn, Gastón Duprat) Australia: Tanna (dir Bentley Dean, Martin Butler) Austria: Stefan Zweig: Farewell to Europe (dir Maria Schrader) Bangladesh: The Unnamed (dir Tauquir Ahmed) Belgium: The Ardennes (dir Robin Pront) Bolivia: Sealed Cargo (dir Julia Vargas Weise) Bosnia and Herzegovina: Death in Sarajevo (dir Danis Tanovic) Brazil: Little Secret (dir David Schurmann) Bulgaria: Losers (dir Ivaylo Hristov) Cambodia: Before the Fall (dir Ian White) Canada: It’s Only the End of the World (dir Xavier Dolan) Chile: Neruda (dir Pablo Larraín) China: Xuan Zang (dir Huo Jianqi) Colombia: Alias Maria (dir José Luis Rugeles) Costa Rica: About Us (dir Hernán Jiménez) Croatia: On the Other Side (dir Zrinko Ogresta) Cuba: The Companion (dir Pavel Giroud) Czech Republic: Lost in Munich (dir Petr Zelenka) Denmark: Land of Mine (dir Martin Zandvliet) Dominican Republic: Sugar Fields (dir Fernando Báez) Ecuador: Such Is Life in the Tropics (dir Sebastián Cordero) Egypt: Clash (dir Mohamed Diab) Estonia: Mother (dir Kadri Kõusaar) Finland: The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Mäki (dir Juho Kuosmanen) France: Elle (dir Paul Verhoeven) Georgia: House of Others (dir Rusudan Glurjidze) Germany: Toni Erdmann (dir Maren Ade) Greece: Chevalier (dir Athina Rachel Tsangari) Hong Kong: Port of Call (dir Philip Yung) Hungary: Kills on Wheels (dir Attila Till) Iceland: Sparrows (dir Rúnar Rúnarsson) India: Interrogation (dir Vetri Maaran) Indonesia: Letters from Prague (dir Angga Dwimas Sasongko) Iran: The Salesman (dir Asghar Farhadi) Iraq: El Clásico (dir Halkawt Mustafa) Israel: Sand Storm (dir Elite Zexer) Italy: Fire at Sea (dir Gianfranco Rosi) Japan: Nagasaki: Memories of My Son (dir Yoji Yamada) Jordan: 3000 Nights (dir Mai Masri) Kazakhstan: Amanat (dir Satybaldy Narymbetov) Kosovo: Home Sweet Home (dir Faton Bajraktari) Kyrgyzstan: A Father’s Will (dir Bakyt Mukul, Dastan Zhapar Uulu) Latvia: Dawn (dir Laila Pakalnina) Lebanon: Very Big Shot (dir Mir-Jean Bou Chaaya) Lithuania: Seneca’s Day (dir Kristijonas Vildziunas) Luxembourg: Voices from Chernobyl (dir Pol Cruchten) Macedonia: The Liberation of Skopje (dir Rade Šerbedžija, Danilo Šerbedžija) Malaysia: Beautiful Pain (dir Tunku Mona Riza) Mexico: Desierto (dir Jonás Cuarón) Montenegro: The Black Pin (dir Ivan Marinović) Morocco: A Mile in My Shoes (dir Said Khallaf) Nepal: The Black Hen (dir Min Bahadur Bham) Netherlands: Tonio (dir Paula van der Oest) New Zealand: A Flickering Truth (dir Pietra Brettkelly) Norway: The King’s Choice (dir Erik Poppe) Pakistan: Mah-e-Mir (dir Anjum Shahzad) Palestine: The Idol (dir Hany Abu-Assad) Panama: Salsipuedes (dir Ricardo Aguilar Navarro, Manolito Rodríguez) Peru: Videophilia (and Other Viral Syndromes) (dir Juan Daniel F. Molero) Philippines: Ma’ Rosa (dir Brillante Ma Mendoza) Poland: Afterimage (dir Andrzej Wajda) Portugal: Letters from War (dir Ivo M. Ferreira) Romania: Sieranevada (dir Cristi Puiu) Russia: Paradise(dir Andrei Konchalovsky) Saudi Arabia: Barakah Meets Barakah (dir Mahmoud Sabbagh) Serbia: Train Driver’s Diary (dir Milos Radovic) Singapore: Apprentice (dir Boo Junfeng) Slovakia: Eva Nová (dir Marko Skop) Slovenia: Houston, We Have a Problem! (dir Žiga Virc) South Africa: Call Me Thief (dir Daryne Joshua) South Korea: The Age of Shadows (dir Kim Jee-woon) Spain: Julieta (dir Pedro Almodóvar) Sweden: A Man Called Ove (dir Hannes Holm) Switzerland: My Life as a Zucchini (dir Claude Barras) Taiwan: Hang in There, Kids! (dir Laha Mebow) Thailand: Karma (dir Kanittha Kwunyoo) Turkey: Cold of Kalandar (dir Mustafa Kara) Ukraine: Ukrainian Sheriffs (dir Roman Bondarchuk) United Kingdom: Under the Shadow (dir Babak Anvari) Uruguay: Breadcrumbs (dir Manane Rodríguez) Venezuela: From Afar (dir Lorenzo Vigas) Vietnam: Yellow Flowers on the Green Grass (dir Victor Vu) Yemen: I Am Nojoom, Age 10 and Divorced (dir Khadija Al-Salami)
Nissan got a sweetheart deal. Under hard Brexit, everyone will want one Welcome to the wonderful world of Brexit PLC: a nod here, a wink there, something under the counter and “I-don’t-mind-if-I-do”. No one knows, yet, what a government minister or official said to the Japanese company Nissan, to secure a massive new investment in Britain’s biggest car plant in Sunderland. We can only be sure it is neither the first nor the last. As Theresa May’s government steers its unsteady course between the shoals of soft Brexit and the storms of hard, it assures all and sundry that everything will be fine on the night. But harsh business reality is immune to the cliches of political spin. Nissan has to make a decision now on a planned 2018 investment for its new Qashqai and the X-Trail SUV vehicles. Vague assurances would not do. This was hard cash and 7,000 jobs, threatened by a double-figure tariff on trade with Europe under “hard Brexit”. The idea that industry minister Greg Clark could have got away with “just trust me” is ludicrous. Clark’s reported guarantee of continuing “competitiveness”, plus subsidies for training and other forms of job support, must have been expressed in bankable terms. Similar deals are rumoured to be busting out all over Planet Brexit. The farmers have allegedly been given assurances that the migrant worker schemes on which their harvests depend will be protected. The big banks are told over ministerial lunches there is no question of obstacles to the free movement of their staffs round Europe. Care homes, NHS hospitals, the construction industry, tourism are all beating paths to Whitehall’s doors, relying as they do on low-paid continental and seasonal labour. Within the car industry, it goes without saying that Toyota, Ford and other big manufacturers are awaiting the same soothing words as Nissan has received. Otherwise all hell will break loose. The British government complains when international companies are offered sweetheart deals from Ireland, Luxembourg or Monaco. When investment becomes a free-for-all, there is a rush to the bottom. Countries compete with each other, either to subsidise business or – the same thing – to excuse them taxes or compensate them for tariffs. The prospect under a “hard” Brexit, and a reversion to World Trade Organisation tariffs, would result in myriad such deals, day in, day out. And when clout is the issue, one thing is for sure: the smaller the business the less clout. Ever since the industrial revolution, free trade has been one of the greatest boons that politics has brought to mankind. The idea that it should start to unravel within the European cradle of that revolution is appalling. Soft Brexit is a no-brainer. Britain has to trade openly with Europe and Europe with Britain.
EasyJet profits fall due to weak pound and discount fares EasyJet suffered a sharp fall in annual profits – its first decline in six years – and expects a further drop this year after the budget airline was hit by the weak pound and was forced to cut prices. Currency movements cost the company £88m as the pound’s fall against the dollar increased fuel costs. The company said unexpected events such as increased competition, terrorist attacks, airport strikes and higher holiday expenses for British customers cost it £150m. Pre-tax profit for the year to the end of September dropped 27.9% to £495m, at the top of the company’s guidance, on flat revenue of £4.7bn. The company cut its dividend by 2.5% to 53.8p. City analysts expect profit to fall again this year to £405-410m and the company said it had no reason to encourage them to lift forecasts. Carolyn McCall, easyJet’s chief executive, said the company’s performance was “resilient” in a difficult market for all airlines. McCall said: “I think we are still very successful and that is what is important to convey. Half a billion of profit in a time of external challenges and upheaval is an extraordinary performance for an airline. We are a very successful airline and strong airlines get stronger at times like this.” EasyJet shares, which have fallen 40% this year, rose 3% to £10.62 in late morning trading. McCall, who has run easyJet since mid-2010, said the pound’s decline had affected easyJet more than its rivals because the company reports in sterling. EasyJet said the weak pound would affect next year’s results, reducing annual profit by about £90m. Like Michael O’Leary, the boss of low-cost rival Ryanair, McCall said fares would continue to fall for a fourth straight year amid economic and political concerns. But she said easyJet’s long-term prospects were good because people are flying more and inefficient established airlines cannot match budget carriers’ prices. “The fundamentals of European short-haul aviation haven’t changed. Low-fare, low-cost models are the winners. Ryanair and easyJet – both of them will win. We are competing with the legacy carriers.” McCall said airlines such as Air France-KLM had gained some breathing space from ultra-low oil prices, which encouraged them to fly more planes, putting pressure on air fares, but that as oil rises those carriers will find trading tough. She said at least seven terrorist incidents during the year, including attacks on Belgium and France, had made people wary of flying, prompting fare cuts. “The demand environment is there but it has needed a lot of stimulation, particularly in France, as you would expect … From the consumer’s perspective it’s an absolutely brilliant time to be booking leisure or business.” McCall said she was not worried by persistently low fares because easyJet was designed for low prices and was selling more add-ons such as rental cars, hotels and in-flight extras. EasyJet increased seat capacity by 6.5% last year and flew 73.1 million passengers, up from 68.6 million the year before. Profit per seat fell to £6.19 from £9.15. It will increase capacity by 9% this year, including in the UK, where it is the biggest airline, and in France. McCall said she did not expect Britain’s departure from the EU to disrupt easyJet’s operations. It will apply for an air operator certificate in another EU country where some planes will be registered but the company is keeping its head office at Luton airport, where it has been based since it was founded 20 years ago. “Our headquarters would remain in Luton and the jobs we have in Luton would remain in Luton.”
Brexit minister accuses Bank of England of 'dangerous intervention' The Bank of England’s warning that leaving the EU could lead to a recession is an “incredibly dangerous intervention” that has increased financial instability, a Tory minister campaigning for Brexit has said. Andrea Leadsom, a Conservative energy minister, accused the Bank’s governor, Mark Carney, of disrupting the markets and jeopardising his independence, after he argued last week that leaving the EU could lead to a financial downturn in the short term. In the face of fury from the leave camp, Carney defended his impartiality, saying it was important that people do not ignore economic risks. He was swiftly backed by George Osborne, the chancellor, who tweeted that he agreed with the governor that those “telling voters EU exit will have no impact on economy are in denial”. On Thursday, Carney had said Brexit could send the pound sharply lower, stoke inflation and raise unemployment, leaving the Bank with a difficult balancing act on interest rates. His comments infuriated leave campaigners, who responded by accusing the Bank of having a chequered record on forecasting. But Leadsom went further on the BBC1’s Andrew Marr Show on Sunday, claiming Carney had destabilised financial markets just weeks before the June referendum and had increased the chance of self-fulfilling prophecy. She said that “to get involved in what might happen, that’s just not in their remit”, adding: “They are not there to promote financial instability but that is what they’ve done. “It is institutional ganging up on the poor British voter who is trying to get a decent primary school place and doctor’s appointment.” The Bank of England governor had “come out with some nonsense that is totally unjustifiable, totally speculative stuff” and predicted that he would be wishing that he had not done it, she said. Jacob Rees-Mogg, a backbench Tory MP, said Carney should be fired and had become highly politicised in what was meant to be an impartial role. Carney strongly defended his intervention on the same programme, saying it was a lesson of the last financial crisis that an independent institution should have responsibility for stability. He said another lesson was “not to cross your fingers and hope that risk would go away” and that his job was to be “straight with people”. It was “absolutely not” overstepping the mark to warn of possible storm clouds ahead, he said. “The lesson of the financial crisis, of the run-up to the financial crisis, was to give an institution responsibility for identifying risk, not to cross your fingers and hope that risks would go away or everything would be all right on the night,” Carney said. “But to identify the issues, come straight with the British people about them and then take steps to mitigate them – what brings those two approaches together, those two big lessons of the last quarter century, is transparency. “So we don’t just have a responsibility to the British people to be fair and not pop up after the vote and say: ‘Oh by the way this is what we thought at the time.’ But we also have a responsibility to explain risks and then take steps, because by explaining them, by explaining what we would do to mitigate them, we reduce them. And that is the key point: ignoring a risk is not to reduce it.” Carney said it was a short-term forcast, and declined to be drawn about the longer term financial modelling on the consequences of Brexit.
Lib Dems 'could force Theresa May to reveal Brexit plans before article 50' Pro-remain Liberal Democrat peers believe they could insert extra clauses into even the most tightly worded Brexit bill to force Theresa May to tell parliament more about her negotiating plans before she triggers article 50. With the supreme court judgment on whether the government must consult parliament before invoking article 50 – the formal process for leaving the European Union - not expected until the new year, the government is thought to be quietly drafting a basic bill that its lawyers believe would be hard to amend. But constitutional experts have told the Lib Dems there is no obstacle to adding extra clauses to such legislation, which could force the government to publish a white paper detailing how it plans to approach talks with the other EU member-states – and even offer voters a second referendum. In a statement, four Lib Dem peers who are also QCs – including Menzies Campbell and Alex Carlile – said: “We welcome the acceptance that a parliamentary bill is likely to be needed. We shall use parliamentary procedure to ensure that the act of parliament that emerges ensures that the government has to have regard to MPs’ and peers’ reasonable expectations of the negotiation process.” Lib Dem leader Tim Farron said: “The Liberal Democrats believe that the voters should have a say through a vote on the final deal, because departure is not the same as the destination. We will try to amend the bill and, if necessary, we will do this by proposing extra clauses to it to ensure proper debate and scrutiny of the process and the issues.” Labour has said it will not join any collective effort to delay or block an article 50 bill, and shadow chancellor John McDonnell has described Brexit as an “opportunity”. But Labour sources have suggested that this would not rule out the party’s peers backing clauses that would oblige May to report back to parliament regularly on her progress, for example – something that need not cause a delay. The government is appealing against the high court judgment in the case brought by Gina Miller over whether the government could invoke article 50 using its prerogative powers, without winning parliament’s backing. May has set herself a deadline of the end of March for triggering article 50, which would leave the government a tight timetable for getting legislation through both houses of parliament if it loses the supreme court case. In the House of Commons, few MPs have said they would vote against a brief bill triggering article 50 — but even some Conservatives privately suggest they might withhold their support unless the government is clearer about its negotiating stance. The supreme court case will be heard by all 11 justices because of the seriousness of the issue. One of them, Brenda Hale, caused controversy on Tuesday by discussing the case in public at a lecture in Kuala Lumpur. Critics including former work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith condemned her decision to speak about the appeal, and warned of a “constitutional crisis” if the supreme court upheld the high court’s verdict. But in an interview with Solicitors Journal on Wednesday, Lady Hale defended herself by insisting she had simply offered a neutral explanation of the issues at stake. “I have exhibited no bias and those that suggested that I have are simply mistaken,” she said. Hale also lamented the negative press coverage of the high court judgment, which saw the judges who ruled on the case referred to as “enemies of the people”. “It is unfortunate that it isn’t made clear to the British public, because it is very important they understand what the role of the judiciary is, which is to hear cases in a fair, neutral, and impartial way,” she said. “You have to be independent and true to your judicial oath and cannot allow yourself to be swayed by extraneous considerations that have nothing to do with the law.”
What has the EU ever done for my … fellow creatures? From the sea to the land to the air, EU directives on habitats and birds have protected and enabled the recovery of wildlife, including dolphins, orchids and butterflies and the booming marsh-dwelling bird the bittern. But, with the intensification of farming having seriously harmed wildlife in past decades, the impact of the EU’s huge common agricultural policy (CAP), has often been in the opposite direction. Among the most beneficial of the EU interventions has been the Natura 2000 network of specially protected sites. It now covers 18% of the EU’s land area and half of that area has no protection under national laws, and so would otherwise be unprotected. Sites protected include landscapes and plants, from peatland on the Isle of Lewis to heaths in Dorset, and the delicate fen orchid in Norfolk and Wales. Freshwater pearl mussels and Atlantic oakwoods are among the species and habitats supported by EU funding. The directives have also helped strengthen UK protections that were in place. Before the directives, 10-15% of sites of special scientific interest were damaged every year but this fell to 2-3%. Research has shown that birds protected by the EU directive have fared better than those that are not. The red kite, a spectacular bird of prey, is one success story. Its population was once widespread but persecution almost led to extinction in the UK. However, EU protection has allowed reintroduced birds to flourish and there are now 2,000 in the UK. However, there are 421 million fewer birds in Europe overall than there were 30 years ago, including far lower populations of skylarks, house sparrows and starlings. CAP subsidies that encouraged harmful farming are a significant factor, although some more recent agri-environment measures funded by the policy have reversed declines at local levels in species such as the corn bunting, turtle dove and the marsh fritillary butterfly. Bees and other crucial pollinators could also benefit from an EU ban in 2013 on harmful neonicotinoid pesticides, a move the UK opposed. The RSPB’s Martin Harper says the questions for supporters of staying in the EU are how they would keep the directives intact in the face of pressure from industrial lobbies and how they would reform the CAP. The question for the leave camp, he says, is how they would maintain current levels of protection for wildlife and support for farmers. The father of the prominent leave campaigner Boris Johnson, Stanley Johnson, who helped write environment directives at the European commission, says: “I personally believe that our country’s greatest resource – its nature – will be better protected and better preserved for future generations if we remain an active, full, partner within Europe.”
Ashley Williams sinks Watford to lift Swansea out of relegation zone In many ways this felt like another of those days when it was hard to make sense of the storyline that is unfolding at Swansea City this season, yet at least on this occasion there was a happy ending for the Welsh club. Ashley Williams chose a good time to score his first Premier League goal at the Liberty Stadium, the captain’s first-half header being enough to lift Swansea out of the relegation zone and to give Francesco Guidolin, who was watching from the stands, something to build on. Guidolin, who has been named as the new head coach in the latest bizarre development at Swansea, was looking down from the directors’ box on a night when Alan Curtis took charge of his last game before preparing to take a step backwards. It was not exactly comfortable viewing for Guidolin and at one stage near the end, after Neil Taylor’s careless header gave José Manuel Jurado a chance to equalise, the Italian could be seen running a hand over his face in despair. Swansea, however, held on and the raucous celebrations that greeted the final whistle provided evidence of how significant this victory was regarded for a club that had won only two of its previous 17 league matches and, in terms of results, has been playing relegation football since September. Curtis had initially been charged with the task of reviving the club and it is hard to escape the feeling that there is something very odd about the way that Swansea have handled things since, even if the Welshman sounded relaxed about the chain of events that has effectively seen him replaced only 11 days after he was told he had the job until the end of the season. “I’ve always been quite happy if the club thought it was necessary to bring somebody in,” Curtis said, reflecting on Guidolin’s appointment. “It sounds an obvious thing but I think if we had won more games, then possibly there might not have been a need. I think our performances have been good and we haven’t had the results those performances warranted. You’re bringing in an experienced coach and manager and maybe he can get points out of those good performances. Again, I haven’t really got a problem with that.” Gabriele Ambrosetti has joined the coaching staff and the impression that Curtis gave is that the former Chelsea midfielder will be used as an interpreter as much as a coach. What is clear, however, is that Guidolin, who led Udinese to third place in Serie A and has a colourful CV with a vast amount of coaching experience over several decades, will pick the team and take the lead in the training. “You can’t have a joint managership. It’s got to be one or the other. I’m quite happy for Francesco to have that,” Curtis said. With eight points from his seven games in charge since Garry Monk’s sacking last month, Curtis may privately reflect that he was a little unfortunate to be asked to hand over the reins so soon. At least he has the satisfaction of doing so on the back of a win and with Swansea above that dreaded drop zone. Swansea did enough to pick up three points here but it was not a hugely convincing performance and Watford, who slumped to a fourth straight league defeat, proved to be obliging opponents. Quique Sánchez Flores’s side were particularly flat in the first half, which the Watford manager attributed to a hangover from their disappointing display at Southampton last Wednesday, and, although there was an improvement after the restart, the visitors never did enough to expose Swansea’s weaknesses. Miguel Britos headed Ben Watson’s deep free-kick on to the roof of the net and Jurado, who offered a sporadic threat drifting in from the left, had that late chance but otherwise Watford struggled to create much. “We are not happy with the first half,” said Flores, who will hope that the arrival of Nordin Amrabat from Málaga in a club-record £6.7m deal will give the team a lift. “But we have enough points to be positive.” Williams’ goal was something of a collector’s item and provided a rare moment of excitement in a drab first half. Wayne Routledge, one of the smallest players on the pitch, won an important header on the edge of the area and Williams was able to hook the ball on to Ki Sung-yueng. Afforded the time and space to pick out his man, Ki delivered a measured centre from close to the byline that Williams headed emphatically beyond Heurelho Gomes. Swansea looked anxious in the second half although Bafétimbi Gomis did thump the upright late on. “It was a massive win, takes us out of the bottom three and psychologically that will give us a lift,” Curtis said. “I think over the course of the 90 minutes we deserved it. We got a little bit edgy in the second half, that’s probably more down to the situation we find ourselves in. Certainly I think if we had got that second goal we would have relaxed but I suppose that’s going to be the way between now and the end of the season.”
400 Days review – like Solaris performed by sock puppets This low-budget sci-fi thriller starts out semi-promisingly and then runs out of steam, ideas and, seemingly, interest from the film-makers in getting the job done, given its fizzle of an ending. Four would-be astronauts – Brandon Routh, Dane Cook, Caity Lotz and Ben Feldman – sign up for a private-sector-funded experiment, a sort of hi-tech dress rehearsal, in a fake space ship buried underground to simulate the conditions of deep-space travel. They are warned that there may be surprises in store to test how they handle emergencies. But when the air supply is damaged, is the quartet’s paranoia the result of oxygen deprivation or justified anxiety about who is controlling the experiment and what’s going on? The first third generates a modicum of drama out of interpersonal tensions, especially given the revelation that Routh and Lotz used to be a couple. But nearly all the spooky bits are achieved by pure aural assault, and the characters are such stock types, haunted by such predictable backstories, it’s like watching Solaris performed by sock puppets.
I’ve seen enough genitals to know we are all truly unique When people find out what I do for a living, they mostly want stories - and tend to hold off shaking my hand until they are quite sure I’ve washed them. I do have stories - by the bucketload: of mystery objects inserted in unusual places, tattoos you wouldn’t expect a pain threshold to manage, discharge that has put me off custard for life, and the occasional bifurcated penis … (Google it. Go on. Unless you’re at work. Then maybe don’t.) But the average day involves very few weird and wacky cases. I fell into sexual health after working in South Africa and wanting to get experience in HIV nursing. The lure of the bright examination lights caught me, and I’ve been in the specialism for 10 years now. The first few shifts were an eye-opener, but it is surprising how quickly you get used to asking, “Any fisting, rimming or sex toy use?” with a completely straight face. My waiting room is full of people from all walks of life, from teenagers to septuagenarians, all worrying about the same things: “Am I going to get told off?” “Will she laugh at my bits?” “Have I caught something?” First, it’s not my place to tell you off. You’re asking for help, and I’m here to help. So short of being concerned about window periods (the incubation time when a test may be inaccurate), and what you’ve been putting where, I really don’t mind how many times, with how many people. I’m here to listen, not to judge. Equally, I will never, ever, laugh at your junk. I’ve seen enough genitals now to know that we are all truly unique. No one has a flawless lady garden, and despite what many like to believe, the perfect penis does not exist. No, not even yours. So go ahead, wax your flaps, bleach your anus, tattoo the entire cast of Fraggle Rock down there if you wish. But don’t do it on my behalf, I’m just here for the diagnostics. Have you picked up something? Quite possibly. Many people do. And this is where my job gets tricky. Fortunately, many infections are now curable with a quick course of antibiotics and a week of living like a nun. There are some that, though manageable, are still incurable. Telling a patient they have a lifelong condition is a challenging part of the job. Reassuring someone that, with careful management, they can live a normal life has to be balanced against the knowledge that this person has to go home to tell family, friends, partners. They may face stigma from their community or from their own beliefs about their condition. Finding ways to navigate this with a patient is one of the hardest but also the most rewarding parts of the job. And these patients aren’t just diagnosed, then off they go. They stay with me. I check up on them, feel proud when they make progress in their treatment, worry when they miss follow-up appointments. The moment of diagnosis can bond you to someone in a profound way. Many people carry secret shame about their sex life, and everybody wants to know if they’re “normal”. The longer I do this job, the more I realise there is no “normal”. I love hearing people’s stories and am fascinated by the complexity of human sexuality, how it is so entangled with our identities and emotions. The downside of this is when I bump into patients outside of work. More often than not they will be trying to remember where they know me from, and I will be hoping they don’t. The general rule in sexual health is that if we pass a patient in the street we treat them as a total stranger. Confidentiality is essential. Which is tricky if you happen to treat someone famous. But my lips are sealed. One of the most startling changes of the past decade is how much porn appears to have affected attitudes and practices. Ten years ago, it was rare to see women with no pubic hair, let alone men. Nowadays it is practically the norm. As seems to be the expectation that anal sex is part of everyone’s sexual repertoire. Which is fine, if people are enjoying it. But the relief I often see on patients’ faces when I say, “If you don’t want to, you don’t have to” suggests we have a long way to go with teaching our young people about consent and mutual pleasure. It depresses me that, although most patients don’t come in as a result of a sexual assault, when I ask, “Have you ever been pressured into having sex, or been too drunk to remember agreeing to it?” the overwhelming majority of women, and many men, say yes. If I had control of the national curriculum for sex education in schools, consent and sexual wellbeing would be in every single lesson. Another big change is how sexual health is seen within the NHS. Now that the terrifying crisis of Aids has died down, it is not a speciality that gets much sympathy or publicity. As a result, perhaps, we have been one of the areas to feel the pinch of austerity, with further cuts looming. Many sexual health clinics are now run by private companies, and it has been an interesting ride, finding out what life may be like with a privatised health system. The pressure to see more patients in a shorter space of time is very real; quantity is prioritised over quality. A few minutes spent reassuring a patient in distress is questioned when the waiting room is full. I miss the days of being able to make a patient a cup of tea and give them the time and care they need. For the most part, my job is great fun, meeting interesting people and hearing their interesting stories, alongside an incredibly hardworking and dedicated team. Obviously, I would say that nurses should be paid more. But we get just about enough to live on, and our jobs are secure. As long as the gonorrhoea keeps on coming, we’ll always be needed. • Are you a doctor, a chef, a teacher? We want to hear your candid accounts of what work is really like. Find full details on submitting your story anonymously here
The Anchoress: Confessions of a Romance Novelist review – a rich and complex debut The richness of this debut album from Welsh singer-songwriter Catherine Anne Davies betrays its years in the making, through griefs, injuries and heartbreaks paid wry tribute to in the darkly dreamy 70s pop of Doesn’t Kill You. Styles from the romping Kate Bushisms of Popular to the Princely post-punk of One for Sorrow are stitched together by the theme of the titular “second-rate writer”, sketching portraits of bitter ex-lovers in the likes of PS Fuck You, sending up confessional singer-songwriterdom at the same time as crafting a blackly witty breakup album. That concept could come through more clearly, and on the slower, heavier piano ballads such as Bury Me, the drama of Davies’s gothic Broadway stylings can grow suffocating, but her vengeful vision remains compelling.
David Bowie's Blackstar sales soar as tribute shows announced Sales of David Bowie’s final album, Blackstar, have soared after the singer’s death, as a series of tribute shows and memorial events in his honour were announced. Sales and downloads of Blackstar, released on the singer’s 69th birthday two days before he died, have reached 43,000 in the UK in the 24 hours since the news of Bowie’s death shook the world. The critically acclaimed album, described by his long-term producer and friend Tony Visconti as Bowie’s “parting gift”, has also topped the iTunes charts, and more than half of the UK’s top 40 chart has been taken up by albums from Bowie’s back catalogue. Spotify has reported that global streams of Bowie’s music were up by 2,822% since Monday – totalling more than 6.5m listens – and Life on Mars, Heroes, Let’s Dance and Blackstar have entered the site’s top 10 chart. It was announced on Tuesday that a tribute would be paid to Bowie at the Brit awards in February, celebrating what the chairman, Max Lousada, described as the “extraordinary life and work of one of our greatest icons”. New York’s Carnegie hall will also host a memorial concert on 31 March. The show, announced hours before Bowie’s death, was originally scheduled as a tribute with performances of the singer’s hit songs by Visconti, Cyndi Lauper, and The Roots among others. But the event that organisers spent the last seven months planningwill now memorialise Bowie’s life and his influence on music. “This year’s concert will certainly be remembered as a poignant celebration of his music by his friends, peers, and fans,” a statement on the organisers’ website said. “The show is taking on many more emotions. RIP David and may God’s love be with you.” Bowie died age 69 after suffering from cancer for 18 months. Notoriously private, Bowie kept his illness a secret until the end, only letting a small inner circle know of his diagnosis. The musicians who worked with Bowie on jazz-inspired Blackstar have said they had no idea the musician was ill, and Bowie’s family have chosen not to confirm what type of cancer he had, the circumstances around his death or where he died. The family have also requested that those close to Bowie do not give interviews. It is thought the Brixton-born singer’s funeral will be held in New York, where he moved to in 1993 after marrying his second wife, Iman, and where they raised their daughter, Alexandria. Visconti’s supergroup, Holy Holy, which also features Bowie’s Spiders From Mars drummer Woody Woodmansey, will also perform two tribute shows to Bowie on Tuesday and Wednesday at the Toronto Opera House. Ivo van Hove, director of Bowie’s musical Lazarus, was one of the few people Bowie had informed of his illness, in November 2014, to explain why he would not be able to attend all rehearsals. The singer had asked that van Hove keep the information to himself. The director said Bowie had “fought like a lion” through his illness and had been determined to keep working to the end. Speaking about Lazarus rehearsals, Van Hove told the New York Times that Bowie came “whenever he could”. He said: “Sometimes he sent me an email – ‘I’ve had a bad day’ – but he was very close to the whole process.” The director said that on the production’s opening night last month, the last time the singer was seen in public, Bowie had seemed very frail, adding: “I felt it deeply, that this would be the last time I see him.”
Premier League: 10 things to look out for this weekend 1) Start of a tough run for the Hammers On the last day of the 2006-07 season Manchester United, who had won the title five days earlier, fielded a weakened side – Cristiano Ronaldo, Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes, Rio Ferdinand and Nemanja Vidic were all left out of the starting XI – at Old Trafford against a West Ham team who needed at least a point to avoid relegation. Carlos Tevez, who was to join United a few weeks later, scored the only goal on the stroke of half-time. “They couldn’t have come to Old Trafford on a better day,” said Sir Alex Ferguson after the game. “We had already won the league and the edge was off our game.” There was also a 1-0 win in December 2001, against a wretchedly out-of-form United side that were completing a memorably horrific run of five defeats in seven league games. Those two games are the Hammers’ only highlights in a miserable run of top-flight visits to Old Trafford that now extends over 30 years and in which they have otherwise drawn once and lost 20 times. And now they must go there twice in four days, with Sunday’s match being followed by an EFL Cup quarter-final on Wednesday (in the same time period they have visited Old Trafford four times in cup competitions, losing two and winning one). With the Manchester double-header to be followed by games against Arsenal and Liverpool, stories this week suggesting “West Ham chiefs have started to consider their options should they feel forced to make a change” are not just unwelcome but almost cruel. After the visit to Anfield the Hammers have a less daunting run of four fixtures before the turn of the year and it would seem sensible to delay any judgment until they have been completed, which will helpfully coincide with the start of a new transfer window and, less helpfully, another game against Manchester United. SB • Are Manchester United really the unluckiest team in the Premier League? 2) Karanka’s bewildering persistence with Negredo Álvaro Negredo has failed to score for Middlesbrough since forcing home a close range debut goal with his shoulder against Stoke City on the opening day of the season and there is a growing clamour on Teesside for Aitor Karanka to drop the on-loan Valencia striker from a team that is joint bottom of the Premier League goalscoring charts alongside Hull with just 10. Karanka, whose side face Leicester City on Saturday, recently came out in defence of his compatriot, who has failed to find the net in 11 consecutive matches and looked woeful against Chelsea, where his obvious lack of speed and mobility came in for criticism. “He is working and fighting but he is not playing at Chelsea or Manchester City,” said Karanka, before expanding on a theme that is unlikely to boost dressing-room morale at the Riverside. “He is not with the team-mates he had in the past or the team-mates Diego Costa had at Chelsea.” Negredo has played 85 minutes or more in 10 of the 12 matches he has featured in for Boro this season and on the only occasion he was substituted – replaced by Jordan Rhodes against Tottenham Hotspur – Karanka’s switch was greeted with loud applause from the Riverside faithful. Middlesbrough’s manager may still have faith in his striker, but the fans do not. Rhodes and his fellow striker David Nugent have yet to complete a game in eight Premier League appearances between them this season and surely can’t do any worse than the man who has restricted them to little more than fleeting cameos off the bench. BG • Leicester City top dogs after Shinji Okazaki leads win over Club Brugge • Ranieri delighted but desperate to focus on Premier League problems • Danny Drinkwater to serve three-match ban for violent conduct 3) Cherries struggle against top five Bournemouth have impressed all impartial observers since their promotion in 2015, and indeed for a while before that, but their results against the current Premier League top five have disappointed: in 12 games so far they have won one – against Chelsea shortly before José Mourinho’s sacking last December – lost 10 and sit on the wrong end of an aggregate score of 31-5 (every other team that was in the division last season has been beaten at least once except Watford and Leicester, against whom they have neither won nor lost). Arsenal won both of their meetings last season by the same score, 2-0, and will face a Bournemouth side forced to play without the influential and injury-free midfielder Jack Wilshere, on loan from Arsenal. Despite his absence it might be a tough day for the woodwork, with these teams being the two most post-rattling in the top flight: the Cherries lead the way in this regard, having struck the frame of the goal 13 times so far, and Arsenal follow behind with eight. SB • Wenger not panicking on Arsenal second place in Champions League • Barney Ronay: Özil’s vision prevents Arsenal from drifting against PSG • Match report: Arsenal 2-2 Paris Saint-Germain 4) A touch of dead ball inspiration from Sigurdsson? Between them, Crystal Palace and Swansea City have managed just four wins and a staggering 15 defeats in 24 Premier League matches so far this season, a state of affairs that makes this contest the weekend’s equivalent of two drunks swinging at each other in an alley. Should either manager lose a game likely to be low on finesse but no less compelling a spectacle for its absence, they will find themselves the subject of no end of criticism from fans for whom the spectre of relegation looms increasingly large. Alan Pardew seems genuinely delusional, having convinced himself his side do not concede from set-pieces even though the stats suggest otherwise. Nine of the 21 goals shipped by Palace this season have come from dead ball situations and in Gylfi Sigurdsson, Swansea have one of the most accurate set-piece specialists in the business. Whether it’s from one or more of the free-kicks and corners Pardew’s team have proved so hopelessly inept at defending, the in-form Icelandic midfielder could well prove instrumental in helping Bob Bradley secure his maiden victory as Swansea City manager in a game that looks must-win for both men in charge. BG • The Knowledge: players confused by penalty rebounds 5) Ighalo’s woes to continue There has only been one home win in the last eight matches between Watford and Stoke, the away side winning five of those games including both of last season’s encounters. But Stoke have only won one away game since their visit to Vicarage Road in March – at Hull last month – and will probably have to overcome a Watford side buoyed not only by last week’s victory over Leicester but by the new formation that brought it. When preparing for his last visit to Hertfordshire Mark Hughes spoke about the Hornets’ key threat at the time, their front two of Odion Ighalo and Troy Deeney. “The two guys up top have had a big influence on what they’ve done,” he said. “They are a good pairing who work off each other really well and certainly they are something we’ll talk about before the game.” This time he needn’t bother: Ighalo’s influence in recent months has been minimal, leading to him being dropped in favour of Isaac Success for last month’s victory at Middlesbrough. Injuries to both Success and Watford’s other first-team striker, Stefano Okaka, allowed Ighalo to return to the side for their following three games but last week he was on the bench again as Walter Mazzarri played a 5-4-1 formation in which Troy Deeney was given considerably more effective support by a combination of the two wide midfielders, Roberto Pereyra and Nordin Amrabat, and by Etienne Capoue’s running from central midfield. When Deeney was replaced late in the game, it was by the recently-recovered Okaka; with Success now ready to return to the squad, Ighalo’s hopes of a return to the starting XI appear, like his recent form, underwhelming. SB • Football Weekly Extra: AC Jimbo and co preview the weekend 6) A third consecutive win for Sunderland? Free-scoring Sunderland have never beaten Liverpool at Anfield in the Premier League era but will fancy their slim chances of bucking that trend as they arrive on the back of consecutive wins for the first time since last May. Sunderland last won three consecutive league games three seasons and three managers ago, on the run-in of the 2013-14 campaign when wins over Chelsea, Cardiff City, Manchester United and then West Brom helped them pull off the mother of all escape acts. The bookies give them little or no chance of beating Jürgen Klopp’s Liverpool, who drew a rare blank against Southampton last weekend and have had a full week to find their range. You can get odds of 16-1 against David Moyes’s side making it three wins on the spin, but with confidence high, Moyes having bought himself some much-needed wriggle room and Victor Anichebe joining Jermain Defoe among the goals, Sunderland could conceivably leave Anfield with a point or even more. Of course the far more likely scenario is that they will get thumped but in facing top class opposition will at least get to see if their two recent victories were more down to good luck (Bournemouth) and the poor quality of their opposition (Hull City) than any major advances they have made under the stewardship of Moyes. BG • Steven Gerrard retires from football after ‘incredible career’ • Paul Wilson: Charlton and Guardiola offer Gerrard lessons from history • Sean Ingle: Do stats support ‘benefits’ of Liverpool’s European absence? 7) Burnley have a chance of an upset Manchester City’s last two Champions League games were followed by disappointing 1-1 draws at home to Southampton and Middlesbrough, and now they must follow a similar result at Borussia Mönchengladbach with a visit to a side that has already beaten Liverpool and Everton (as well as Watford and Crystal Palace) and come within a whisker of holding Arsenal, all at home. Burnley are the division’s Jekyll and Hyde side, boasting the sixth-best home record with an average 1.86 points per game (having played once more at home than any other team) and the second-worst away record, with the goalless draw at Old Trafford last month securing the only point they have won in five games on their travels. Motivated by the rollicking Sean Dyche gave them following a 4-0 capitulation at West Bromwich Albion on Monday – he told the press they “got drunk on the ball” and “just looked weak willed” – and against opponents who are themselves out of form and against whom they have a decent recent record (amounting to two draws and a win each in four Premier League encounters, though Burnley’s victory was a tight 1-0 win in March 2015, and City’s a 6-1 thumping in April 2010), there is reason for genuine optimism. Dyche said his side are relying on little more than “the marvel of football” and the fact “random results turn up”, but he is perhaps understating the chances of an upset. SB • Joey Barton back training with his former club Burnley • City through after Silva earns draw at Mönchengladbach • Yaya Touré left off shortlist for 2016 African player of the year award • Luis Enrique gives Messi to Manchester City rumours short shrift 8) Some sanity after the all poppy madness Football is never slow to embrace a cause and the Premier League has promised to throw its weight behind Stonewall’s rainbow laces initiative on a weekend when its own branding will feature a rainbow motif and most, if not all, Premier League players will wear rainbow laces on their boots as part of a wider push to encourage diversity in grounds around the country. Along with several extremely courageous former footballers, the ’s chief football correspondent, Daniel Taylor, continues to shine a light on the hitherto unreported scandal of historical cases of child abuse of footballers in a depressing story that looks likely to run and run. Considering some of those victims who have come forward to tell their horrific stories previously felt unable to speak out for fear of being labelled “gay”, any campaign to support LGBT people and stamp out homophobic abuse in football can only be applauded. BG 9) Some resilience from Spurs Ten minutes. That’s how long Chelsea need to keep Tottenham Hotspur at bay this weekend to rack up 600 Premier League minutes without conceding a goal. Should they beat Spurs and hold them scoreless, Antonio Conte’s men will have recorded seven consecutive league wins without conceding a goal, two shy of the record set by Stockport County, then of League Two, between 13 January and 2 March 2007. It will be intriguing to see how Spurs bounce back from the midweek disappointment of their defeat at the hands of Monaco, in which there were several conspicuous absentees from Mauricio Pochettino’s starting lineup and few of those the manager did select covered themselves in glory. After their midweek meltdown, Tottenham could hope for no stiffer test than a run-out against the Premier League leaders with their apparently impregnable defence and an attack that is behind only Liverpool in terms of goals scored. With Pochettino having questioned the mental fortitude of his players during the week, the manner in which Spurs bounce back from Wednesday’s Champions League reverse ought to give a fair indication of whether their season will end with a half-decent title challenge or merely end up petering out and finishing up in an underwhelming and characteristically Spursy fashion. BG • Pochettino: Tottenham will stay at Wembley for Europa League • Summer signings and lack of savvy: why Spurs failed in Europe • Pochettino says changes needed after Spurs flop in Monaco • Barney Ronay: Conte stamps his dynamic personality on Chelsea 10) Koeman’s return to Southampton It is the season of reunions for Southampton, who after facing Liverpool’s selection of ex-Saints last week prepare for Ronald Koeman’s first return to the club he departed in the summer under something of a cloud, a few weeks after promising supporters that “I know nothing about the Everton job” and that not only does “everybody know I have a year on my contract” but he “could sign a [new] contract next week”. After his move was announced the former Southampton goalkeeper Artur Boruc tweeted something Koeman had said a couple of moths previously, criticising “the lack of loyalty in modern day football” and asserting not only that would not be tempted away from the St Mary’s Stadium for “short-term gains”, but he “would hate to ever become that kind of manager”. As he walks out before the game he may become the latest manager to be reminded that it is not so much the leaving of a club by which they will be judged, but the manner of it. SB • ‘What’s this geezer doing? He’s hopeless’ – the Ali Dia story, 20 years on • Everton Under-23s to sleep rough for homeless charity
Henry Wagons: After What I Did Last Night … – exclusive album stream It’s a cliche to compare every male Australian singer with a deep timbre to Nick Cave, but there’s something appealing in the idea of a Cave in cowboy boots – an alternative-universe country Cave who found redemption not in gothic post-punk but in winding tales of high melodrama and the twang of Nashville guitar. Meet Henry Wagons, a musician Justin Townes Earle has described as “Dr Seuss meets Conway Twitty”. After more than a decade of touring and recording with his band Wagons (Cave, in fact, co-produced their 2014 album Acid Rain and Sugar Cane), Henry is releasing a solo album – an autobiography of songs that spans his life so far, from a rowdy misspent youth to a stint as a tour-hardened troubadour, to his latest role as a new father. To record After What I Did Last Night…, Wagons headed to Nashville, the home of country music, where he worked with producer Skylar Wilson. “So many of my favourite albums have been made in Tennessee with sort of pick-up studio musicians,” Wagons says. “And over my many years of going there, I’ve gotten drunk enough at bars there to have met some great musicians. Basically, it was great to be able to rock up and do the same process as so many of my favourite albums, from [Bob Dylan’s] Blonde on Blonde to [Neil Young’s] Harvest.” Wagons says he’s hooked on the city. “Good burgers on tap, fine bourbons and American accents, Southern gentlemen, kind manners and long stories,” he says. “I suspect I’ll be over to the States again to record one day soon.”
Kids in Love review – gap-year angst This fatuous coming-of-age drama plays out like an advertisement for entitlement. Jack (Will Poulter) has a case of gap-year angst that is not helped when he meets Evelyn (Alma Jodorowsky) and her well-heeled bohemian chums (including Cara Delevingne, underused in a supporting role). A tourist in this world of privilege, Jack is fascinated, until he gets his visa revoked and financial reality bites. It’s staggeringly shallow stuff.
Dispatch from Myrtle Beach: Trump ignites rally, Cruz tastes the offseason Broadway Louie’s in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, 11pm on a Wednesday: there’s a man singing Sir Mix A Lot’s Baby Got Back, and two women dancing with vigor nearby. I was in town to attend Donald Trump and Ted Cruz’s respective campaign events, which both took place on Friday morning. I’d arrived early to soak up some culture, to provide some context. What would happen when the billionaire collided with the senator here, a city of jet ski shows and afternoons on inner tubes, of biker rallies and a reputation for the real spring break experience? I’ve seen films. I know how it works. I wanted to drink Bud Light in a rowdy bar. I wanted to wear wraparound shades on the top of my head. I wanted to punch a dweeb in the face and then dive-bomb into a pool. Ted Cruz and Donald Trump’s dueling campaigns had given me my chance. On Friday morning, Cruz seemed ready to get into the spirit of the town. He showed up with his favorite bro, Phil “Duck Dynasty” Robertson. The crowd was less into it. Cruz told them that last week’s debate had revealed personalities. He tried out a call-and-response with the audience. Cruz: “Who’s best prepared to be commander in chief?” Crowd: an awkward silence. Then about five people shouted: “Ted Cruz.” An elderly woman was loudest. The lackluster atmosphere spread beyond Cruz’s rally. On my Wednesday night out I had discovered that Myrtle Beach is deathly quiet in February, with plenty of Bud Light but nobody to drink it. There weren’t any rowdy bars or wraparound shades or compliant dweebs. The man and women performing Baby Got Back, for example, were in town for a leadership conference. I wanted to find people other than aspiring management executives – maybe even some voters – so I dipped out of Broadway Louie’s. A bunch of other bars nearby line the faux downtown area: cobbled streets, old-timey buildings with balconies. Then I found Señor Frogs, a chain restaurant and bar; I hastened inside. “It’s offseason,” the bartender told me. There were four of us, including the bartender. I ordered a Bud Light. This didn’t feel like the full Myrtle Beach experience. When Donald Trump swept through Myrtle on Friday he probably missed the quiet melancholy that pervades the tourist town in the offseason. Hundreds of people lined up for Trump’s event, in a queue that wrapped around the venue and two artificial lakes. There were thousands more inside. An attendee named Bill was wearing a hard hat and a high visibility vest, and held a sign saying: “I’m ready to work on the wall.” There were cheers as Trump came out on stage. The billionaire called Ted Cruz “the biggest liar I’ve ever seen”. Trump alluded to a picture that the Cruz campaign doctored, appearing to show rival Marco Rubio shaking hands with Barack Obama. He mocked their photoshopping skills. “I’m not sticking up for Marco Rubio but I looked at this picture: Marco Rubio looked like he was about four feet tall,” Trump said. “I never saw anything like it.” A little later on some protesters started shouting something. “Get them out! Get them out!” Trump shouted back. “Don’t hurt them but get them out.” Trump also seemed to dismiss his feud with Pope Francis. “The pope is great, he made a beautiful statement this morning,” Trump said. “They had him convinced that illegal immigration is a wonderful thing,” he added, implying a reference to the pope’s Mexican hosts. “Not wonderful for us, it’s wonderful for Mexico.” But Cruz got a taste of the offseason at his rally, no thanks to his pal Robertson. You’d have thought a “duck commander” would give an uplifting intro to his favorite senator, but instead Robertson whipped out a Bible and railed against everything Myrtle Beach stands for – venereal disease, especially. Sex should be reserved for marriage, he said. Between one man and one woman. “Then you won’t get a debilitating disease.” There are “110 million Americans with STDs at any given time”, he added, harshing the already fragile spring-break vibe. Finally Cruz came out. “Just imagine for a second: Phil Robertson, ambassador to the United Nations,” the senator said. I think it was a joke. Then Cruz got fired up. Very fired up. He lamented the death of Antonin Scalia. It made this election all the more important, he said. “One more justice on the left and the second amendment is written out of the bill of rights. One more justice on the left and our religious liberty is gone for a generation,” Cruz shouted, with a clenched fist. He sounded like he was ready to grab his musket and charge at Washington DC, or Hillary Clinton, or any dweeb at the party who couldn’t tell Creed from real Christian rock. “Nobody here should be confused what we are fighting for,” Cruz summarized. “We are fighting for the rights of our children and grandchildren.” But neither Cruz nor Trump had excited the gang of revelers I met on Wednesday. Paula Davis and Carol Martinelli, on a “girls’ night out”, for instance, didn’t know either candidate would be in town. “I liked Trump until he opened his mouth,” Martinelli said. What came out of Trump’s mouth? “Pretty much shit,” she said. “We’re a joke to other countries,” Davis said. Back inside Louie’s, which seemed to be the only bar in Myrtle Beach with more than 10 people, a woman gave a rousing rendition of Bon Jovi’s Livin’ on a Prayer. She wore a sash saying “40 looks good”. Her name was Nesha Madox, and she had travelled to Myrtle Beach from Charlotte “to party”. “I’m scared,” she said, when asked about the election. “There’s no strong candidate. They’re so divisive.” I asked Madox who she thought was divisive. She said Donald Trump. “The way he speaks, I genuinely don’t believe he means what he says. But the way he says it, people who have hatred seize upon it,” she said. “He’s dividing the country.” Madox returned to partying and I went for a walk around Louie’s. The man who had been singing Baby Got Back was called Tiger. He was 37. “A lot of [the election] is pretty comical,” he said. “Some of the things these guys are out here saying, it’s pretty reckless.” “The Trumps and others who are fearmongering … we’re better than that as a nation, as people,” Tiger said. I asked him what was important in this election. “Minimum wage is a big issue,” he said. “Republicans are in favor of leaving it where it is. The reality is that a person working a full-time job on minimum wage, they are below the poverty line.” I could feel the Bud Light kicking in. A woman called Melissa came over at the bar and ordered a pint of Stella Artois. “I find politics so exhausting that I would rather crawl up in the fetal position and sleep right through it,” Melissa said. She said she worked for a “big” insurance company. “Can’t we talk about something more fun?” Melissa asked. She showed me a picture of her dog, a pug called Rooney, named after Dan Rooney, the chairman and owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers. She wrote “Donald Trump sucks” in my notepad and stole a pin badge I was wearing. I left at 1am. It was not a classic Myrtle Beach party experience. Neither I nor anyone else was socked in the jaw. I never met anyone wearing wraparound shades, failed to dive-bomb into a pool, and didn’t get up to any high jinks at all. “But,” I thought, as I wobbled back towards a brightly lit building that looked like it might be my hotel, “Is that such a bad thing?”
Grattan Institute: ageing population 'will not cause collapse of health system' The ageing population will not cause a collapse of the healthcare system because it is not the primary cause of increased health costs, the Grattan Institute’s Stephen Duckett has said. Duckett warned against panic over sustainability of the system, despite accepting it was an “issue of concern”, with health costs to rise from 9% of GDP to 12.5% in the next 20 years. The former health and human services department secretary made the comments at a Council of the Ageing forum on primary healthcare for older Australians in Canberra on Thursday. The ageing of the population was outweighed as a cause of rising health costs by changing patterns of care, including increased visits and higher quality services, Duckett said. “People at age 85 are getting different treatment now than an 85-year-old did 10 years ago.” Duckett said the Grattan Institute had analysed the cause of increased spending on health and found “the pure ageing component is relatively small”. Between 2004 and 2014, the increase in the number of people aged 70 and over accounted for 18% of the increase in hospital admissions, he said. That was dwarfed as a cause by population growth of those under 70 (which accounted for 35%), change in treatment patterns for people under 70 (26%), and change in treatment patterns for those over 70 (22%). “Increase in expenditure is blamed on ageing and it’s just not true,” Duckett said. “When they say ageing is the cause of these health cost increases – they are either numerically challenged or benefit from self-education.” Duckett warned against the “Henny Penny approach to sustainability of the healthcare system – people saying the sky is falling in”. “It forces you down the path of thinking you need to do something dramatic and do it soon.” The Abbott government cut $57bn from hospitals over 10 years in the 2014 budget and extended the Medicare rebate freeze until 2020 in the 2016 budget. The Turnbull government restored $2.9bn to hospitals, after warnings from the states they faced serious revenue problems in paying for health. In its 2016 election campaign Labor promised to restore $2bn more to hospitals than the Coalition and to spend $12.2bn reversing the Medicare rebate freeze. Speaking in the same session as Duckett, the research director of the Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia, Ross Clare, in part blamed intergenerational reports produced by Treasury for alarmism about health spending and debt levels. “The intergenerational reports are more of a propaganda device than a serious public policy analysis most years,” he said. “A range of them in recent years have had quite peculiar themes that have been selected for whatever Treasury or their masters want them to do. “The last one had a lot about the impending debt crisis and quite far-fetched projections … but we seem to have moved on from that.” Australian Medical Association president Michael Gannon met health minister Sussan Ley for the first time since the election on Monday. Gannon said the discussion had focused on the fact health was not the problem with the budget and should not be targeted in further attempts at budget repair. Duckett said it was inevitable the number of elderly people would increase, but far from being a “grey tsunami” it was a “grey glacier”. “It is slow: we have time to do something about it, and redesign the system.” Duckett said warnings that focused only on costs overlooked the fact that people might be receiving higher quality care. Deaths attributable to healthcare failings fell from 200 per 100,000 in 1987 to about 80 in 2007. “And if you ask people how well they feel, people who report having poor or only fair health is going down, so we are feeling better,” Duckett said. He said it was not clear whether the improved outcomes were worth the increased spending, but argued “it is improper to look at the cost side without looking at the benefit side”.
We asked: what do people outside the US wonder about presidential race? The reaches millions of engaged readers around the world, and some of our most exciting work comes when they talk to each other. As we looked through our coverage of this US election cycle, we realized that this was already happening: people wanted to know what the situation looked like from outside and inside the US, and they had some real questions about what exactly is going on. And hey, we did too: we asked readers who live outside the US to ask some questions of our American audience. We also asked our American readers to come up with a list for readers abroad. Hundreds of people submitted. We read all of the responses, then edited them into the list below. The next step is getting some answers. This too will come back to our readers: AKA, you. If you’re a US citizen, answer as many of the questions posed by our international readers as you’d like. If you’re not a US citizen, answer as many of the questions posed by our US citizens as you’d like – just scroll down to find them. As the responses come in, we’ll read through and again select the most interesting and emblematic to publish late next week. Live outside the US? Here’s what our American readers want you to answer: Live in the US? Here’s what some of our international readers want you to answer:
Live music booking now Despite the revival hype, most of grime’s old guard never actually went anywhere. Kano is one such artist who has been plugging away (albeit punctuated by a high-profile acting stint on Channel 4’s brilliant Top Boy) just above street level since his mid-00s heyday. He’s found the spotlight again now, though, collaborating with Little Simz, JME and Giggs in recent months, and will embark on a string of dates to coincide with upcoming fifth album Made In The Manor (16-26 Mar, tour starts Concorde 2, Brighton) … Meanwhile, fellow grime stalwart Big Narstie plays London next month (O2 Academy2 Islington, N1, 24 Feb) … Antony Hegarty is soon to release a new album under new moniker ANOHNI, entitled Hopelessness. A collaboration with Oneohtrix Point Never and Hudson Mohawke, it has some accompanying Barbican dates, during which ANOHNI will be “performing embodied within a live avatar”, whatever that means (7 & 8 Jul, EC1) … Finally, anti-socialite, new pop hope and general breath of fresh air Alessia Cara briefly tours the UK (23-25 Mar, tour starts Electric Brixton, SW2).
Serious mistakes in NHS patient care are on the rise, figures reveal Serious mistakes by hospital staff that put patients at risk are on the rise, despite the government’s drive since the Mid Staffs scandal to make care safer, official NHS figures reveal. The last few years have seen more cases of delayed diagnosis, staff failure to act on patients’ test results, poor care of seriously ill patients and blunders during surgery. The figures, obtained by former health minister Norman Lamb from NHS England, have sparked concern that the unprecedented strain on hospitals – created by rising demand for care, shortages of doctors and nurses, and the need to save money – is making staff more likely to make errors. The number of cases in which NHS England recorded that a patient whose health was deteriorating received what it calls sub-optimal care more than doubled, from 260 in 2013-14 to 588 in 2015-16. Similarly, the number of diagnostic incidents – either a delayed diagnosis or an NHS worker not acting on test results – rose from 654 to 923. “Jeremy Hunt [the health secretary] has talked a lot about wanting to make the NHS the safest healthcare system in the world,” said Lamb. “But is that ambition realistic? These figures show worrying rises in the number of incidents which have a damaging and potentially fatal effect on patients. “My worry is that the NHS is under such impossible pressure, with clinicians too often working under intense strain, that increases the risk of serious harm being caused to patients, which can have incalculable consequences for them and their families. “These figures confirm the stark and distressing reality that thousands of people are being failed in their hour of need because the NHS is under such intolerable pressure, with overstretched hospital staff unable to give patients the care and treatment they deserve,” he added. The figures that he obtained, using the Freedom of Information Act, also show that the number of surgical incidents more than doubled from 285 in 2013-14 to 740 in 2015-16. There were 202 surgical errors and 83 cases of wrong-site surgery – in which surgeons operated on the wrong part of a patient’s body – during 2013-14. They rose to 248 and 114 respectively a year later. But after changing the way it collates data in May 2015 regarding incidents in which patient safety is endangered, NHS England says that 30 surgical errors and 19 wrong-site surgeries occurred in 2015-16, as did another 691 cases of a “surgical/invasive procedure incident”. The disclosures come amid growing fears among NHS bodies, health trade unions and thinktanks that the service in England will experience its first full-blown winter crisis since 2011-12 and that both the quality and safety of care are in danger of deteriorating in coming weeks and months. Worsening gaps in medical rotas, big year-on-year rises in the number of patients attending and being admitted, and the growing complexity of patients’ illnesses are also key factors. Hunt has launched an array of initiatives to improve the safety of NHS care since Robert Francis QC’s seminal report in 2013 into the scandal of poor care at Stafford Hospital between 2005 and 2009, which led to patients dying. “We have long warned that underfunding and staff shortages within the NHS will impact on patient safety. It appears that our worst fears are now being confirmed,” said Eddie Saville, general secretary of the Hospital Consultants and Specialists Association, which represents several thousand hospital doctors. “Hospital doctors and fellow medical staff are increasingly hampered by the spending constraints placed on frontline services. It is time that the government listened to those voices warning that it has got funding wrong. It shouldn’t be a case of waiting for a major incident to hit the headlines before acknowledging this fact and changing tack.” The figures also paint a mixed picture of patient safety in NHS maternity services. There were fewer maternity-service serious incidents (82), mothers’ unplanned admissions to intensive care (134) and unexpected neonatal deaths of a newborn (122) in 2014-15, compared with 2013-14. However, 535 newborn babies had to be admitted to a neonatal intensive care unit in 2014-15, up from 380 the year before. The number of maternal deaths also rose over the same period from 54 to 62. The Department of Health denied the figures were proof that patient safety was slipping. “To suggest this indicates a decline in standards is a simple misreading of the information,” a spokesman insisted. The rises in these types of serious breaches of safety were due to better recording of such occurrences, he said. “This data is precisely what we would expect given the government’s focus on building the safest and most transparent healthcare system in the world. The NHS is becoming ‎far better at recording and learning from the open reporting of a wider range of incidents,” he said.
UK press accused of 'misinformed media storm' over email spying story The British press has been accused of whipping up a “misinformed media storm” over a court case in which judges decided that a man whose employer accessed his personal messages had not had his rights violated. Europe’s top human rights body took the unusual step of issuing a statement explaining how the European court of human rights works after a series of what it called “inaccurate scare stories” was published this week. “Certain parts of the UK media sometimes have trouble getting their facts right when covering ‘Europe’. It’s understandable, to a certain extent. Europe’s institutions are complicated, journalists cover lots of different issues and they work to tight deadlines,” a spokesman for the body said. “Nonetheless, this week’s reporting of a judgment from the European court of human rights on monitoring personal communications at work has set something of a new benchmark.” The case centred on a Romanian man, Bogdan Barbulescu, who asked the human rights court to rule that his right to a private life had not been upheld. Barbulescu sent private messages to his fiancee and brother on a Yahoo Messenger account his employer had asked him to set up for work purposes. The firm argued that it had forbidden any use of the internet for private purposes. When confronted by his bosses, Barbulescu denied the personal use of the account and, in order to establish the facts, his employer accessed both the professional and private messages he sent. He was subsequently fired. After fighting an unsuccessful battle in the Romanian courts, he took the country to the human rights court. But judges decided that there had been no breach of his rights. The spokesman said: “Numerous outlets – primarily, but not exclusively, from the UK – have portrayed Tuesday’s judgment as giving bosses across the continent a new ‘right’ to snoop on all of their staff’s personal messages sent using Facebook, Twitter, What’sApp, Gmail or any other platform. “It sounds scary, and it makes a good story, but it’s not true.” He added that the reporting was a “striking example of how far and wide inaccurate scare stories can spread if journalists, and others, don’t get their facts right”. The story was reported on the front page of the Sun, the Mail, Metro and the Financial Times on Thursday. Metro issued a clarification the following day, saying it had erred in linking the court to the European Union. It was also covered by the Telegraph, the and the BBC, as well as by the Independent and the Times. Besides those titles, the Mirror, the Star and the Express, as well as Huffington Post, the Evening Standard and many others produced articles on it. The spokesman for the Council of Europe, which upholds the convention and of which the human rights court is a part, did not name the specific titles or news reports that had led the body to issue the statement clarifying the workings of the Strasbourg court and the details of the case. The European convention on human rights obliges the governments of the 47 countries that have ratified it to abide by the decisions of the human rights court in the cases that involve them. Any not named as a party are not affected. The effect of the court’s decisions on domestic judges differs from country to country. In the UK, for example, the human rights act requires judges to take the decisions into account, but there is no obligation to follow them. The Independent Press Standards Organisation, which does not regulate all of the outlets that covered the story, said it has not received any complaints about the media coverage.
Individual athletes more prone to depression, researchers find Athletes in individual sports are more prone to depression than those in team games, according to German research to be presented at a conference in Cardiff. The research by the Technical University of Munich confirms not just the loneliness of the long distance runner but a range of other depressive symptoms among solo sportsmen and women more generally. Prof Jürgen Beckmann, the university’s chair of sports psychology who will be presenting the research, said: “Individual athletes attribute failure more to themselves than team sports athletes. They take the blame more than team players. On a team there is a diffusion of responsibility, as social physiologists would say, compared with the performance of an individual athlete.” One of the studies compared 128 young German footballers and hockey players with 71 junior athletes in a range of individual sports including swimming, speed skating and badminton. They were assessed on a depression scale that measures symptoms such as guilt, sadness and suicidal feelings. It found that individual athletes showed significantly more signs of such symptoms than athletes in team sports. The finding was replicated in a study of 162 senior elite athletes including many in various German national teams. Individual athletes including triathletes, golfers and cyclists were found to have higher symptoms of depression than team players in games that included volleyball, rugby and football. The research, which is to be presented at the British Psychological Society annual sport and exercise conference in Cardiff on Monday, found that the individual athletes tend to blame themselves for sporting failure. One of the papers to be presented suggests that individual athletes take both sporting success and failure more personally than team players. “The internal attribution could lead to stronger experiences of emotions such as pride (positive events) and guilt or shame (negative events) in athletes in individual sports,” one of the papers says. The researchers also expected to find more signs of perfectionism among individual athletes but were surprised to discover that team players were more prone to perfectionism. A separate long-term study found that perfectionism and chronic stress often led to burnout but not depression. Depression was found to be linked with a lack of time to recover from stress and injury. The research also found that depressive symptoms were particularly prevalent among young athletes. Beckmann said: “The real problem is with young athletes. Those who receive social support from parents and peers experience much less stress than those who don’t. That’s especially important during adolescence. “We found that up to 20% of young athletes do have a problem with higher depression scores. In the general population its range is between 9% and 12%. “We are not diagnosing them as being depressive, but on the depression scales they have quite a score.” He said subsequent studies have suggested that the level could be even higher among solo athletes only. “We have very high prevalence rates in swimming, for example,” Beckmann said. He called for more support to be given to athletes to help them recognise signs of depression and to suggest ways of tackling it. He said: “In Germany, we have developed a burnout and screening instrument for junior athletes and a website to give them advice on coping with stress and other psychological problems they may experience.” The mental health charity Mind said the research underlined pressures facing athletes. Hayley Jarvis, Mind’s community programmes manager for sport, said: “Following the increasing number of ex-sportspeople who have spoken out about struggles with their own mental health and some high profile suicides, Mind commissioned research to explore how sports’ governing bodies and players’ organisations currently deal with mental health, and identify best practice which can be shared with other sports. “To help create an environment where all sports professionals can fulfil their potential, we need to see managers, coaches, clubs, governing bodies and players’ unions all support athletes to manage their mental wellbeing.” Andy Baddeley’s story Andy Baddeley, a two-time Olympian and Britain’s former No 1 1,500m runner, has blogged about his experiences of depression on the Mind website. Speaking to the , he said: The hardest thing about running is that you are on own before a race. When things are great that’s what’s good about it. I’m not dependent on 10 other guys being on the top of their game in order for me to be successful. But there is also nothing to fall back on. The nature of athletics is that one guy gets to win each race, and so there’s 11 or more in my event who don’t. And its that unpredictability that’s the hard bit. It got to a point with my coach when I couldn’t express how low I was. There are not many people I get to talk to about these things. I’m not surrounded by a team. I don’t have to turn up to a training ground. I have often felt that I would be better suited to a team sport. What I enjoy most is group training, but the nature of distance running is that that doesn’t happen every day. You’re the only one who can train hard. It is a lonely decision each day, especially when it’s cold and raining. If I plan to meet someone, I find that’s powerful in terms of motivation. And it’s the days when I am not meeting someone that it takes me a lot longer than it should to get myself out of the door. Talking to someone is what has helped me. My mental health has been best when I’ve been meeting coaches and other team members. Having a mental heath struggle doesn’t mean you are not mentally strong for a race. These things are separate. You can still run through the pain barrier but still have bad days – they are not mutually exclusive. People think admitting mental health problems makes them seem weak or susceptible to being beaten. But after I wrote about my experiences I felt stronger. I was lucky enough to see a sports psychologist when I was on lottery funding. When I was injured I saw someone privately and that helped. I deliberately chose a non-sports psychologist because I wanted more of an idea of what was normal, rather than what’s normal in elite sport.” In the UK, the Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Hotline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14. Hotlines in other countries can be found here.
Everyman cinema chain is next to drop zero-hours contracts The Everyman cinema chain is set to move hundreds of staff off zero-hours contracts by the end of next year, joining a wave of companies turning against the controversial employment contracts. Crispin Lilly, the chief executive of the boutique cinema group, said five of its 19 outlets would be free of zero hours by the end of this year and the rest in 2017. The group began experimenting with guaranteed monthly hours at its Birmingham branch and has already introduced that system in new outlets in Harrogate and Chelmsford. In the next few months two further sites, including Leeds, will switch to the system, which promises at least 40 hours a month. Lilly said: “If all goes well we want to take it across the chain. Some people say, ‘why not do it tomorrow?’ but we want to make sure that when we move existing sites we don’t lose good employees in the process. We’ve proven it delivers the same level of flexibility that zero hours did but zero hours has been much maligned by [businesses] that treated it badly. “Our staff have never had problems with zero hours but it has become a bad word and there are employees out there who would not come to us if we’re associated with it.” He revealed the plans alongside a trading statement in which Everyman said revenues had risen nearly 51% to £12.1m in the six months to June as it opened a string of new sites. Box office takings at established cinemas fell by about 2%, in line with the wider market, as some box office blockbusters failed to ignite. Successes included Jungle Book and The Revenant but none was as popular as Jurassic World in 2015. Lilly said takings had picked up briskly in July and August with the release of The BFG, Suicide Squad, Ghostbusters and Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie. The appeal of the boutique chains has been tarnished by rows over the use of zero-hours contracts and low pay. Film fans have criticised poor pay and conditions when they are paying as much as £18.50 a seat to watch a film. In January last year, the Curzon chain moved all 200 cinema staff at its 14 sites off zero hours and onto the living wage. Cineworld, which owns the Picturehouse chain, told the it continued to use zero-hours contracts across the business but implemented them “on a ‘responsible use’ basis, which allows staff the same benefits pro rata as their fixed-hours counterparts.” Picturehouse said it offered staff the choice of zero- or guaranteed-hours contracts. Everyman’s move comes after retailer Sports Direct said it would offer 18,000 workers at its shops contracts guaranteeing at least 12 hours’ work a week following heavy criticism of its employment practices, although it has emerged that this change could take until the end of the year. Earlier this week Greene King said it would move thousands of pub workers at chains including Wacky Warehouse off zero-hours contracts after fellow pub firm JD Wetherspoon announced it would allow 24,000 staff to choose between a zero-hours contract and one offering fixed hours.
Billions: Showtime’s power-mad Wall Street drama is worth investing in What’s the name of this show? Billions. When does it premiere? Sunday 17 January, at 10pm EST on Showtime. You can also watch the pilot episode for free on Showtime’s website. What’s this show about? Money, stupid. Well, yeah, of course. But what, exactly, about money? The core of the story concerns Paul “Axe” Axelrod (Damian Lewis, with a spot-on American accent, as always), a rags-to-riches hedge fund billionaire who has been less than clean in his ascent to the top. His company Axe Capital becomes a company of interest for US attorney Chuck Rhodes (Paul Giamatti), who is hell-bent on making the wolves of Wall Street pay for their various and assorted crimes. The show is essentially a cat and mouse game between the two as they try to outsmart each other and eat the other for breakfast. Can it be a cat and cat game? I’m not sure exactly what a hedge fund does. Will the show explain it? Not really. There’s lots of talk about “short squeezes” and “holding positions” that make absolutely no sense to non-traders and the show doesn’t bother with much exposition about what it all means. This is especially tricky for viewers trying to determine why a move one of the traders makes might actually be illegal. However, I give the show credit for not talking down to its audience. And much like watching the Great British Bake Off makes you feel like you can bust out a Victoria Sponge without a recipe, this show gives you a sort of confidence about the financial world. Who are we supposed to root for, Lewis or Giamatti? The answer is both and neither. “Prestige” television such as this loves an antihero, and here is one of the few shows where you have two going after each other. Axe is a total shark who will screw anyone over to make money, but he has a weird moral code all of his own. Rhodes is nominally doing the right thing by punishing the rich who break the law, but his dogged determination belies something else. In one scene, he makes a guy who didn’t pick up his dog’s poop clean it up with his bare hands. That’s kind of Rhodes in a nutshell. So, you like them both but you know they both have to pay. Are there any other characters worth rooting for? Rhodes’ wife, Wendy (Maggie Siff, who played Rachel Menken on Mad Men), is my favorite character on the show. She is a psychologist who works for Axe, using her expertise to make him and his analysts work even harder and better. She’s also a badass dominatrix who puts cigarettes out on her husband’s chest, which makes for some, ahem, colorful scenes. Axe’s wife, Lara (Malin Akerman), the sort of yoga mom who will shank you if you cross her, is a great character too, but so far there isn’t enough meat on her bones for the always charming Akerman. Is the show any good? Yes, quite. Though sometimes it doesn’t manage to thread the needle between complicated and convoluted, watching two men at the tops of their games trying to take each other down makes for a very interesting dynamic. Rhodes, I think, is the better character; a principled lawyer from a rich family who is into S&M makes for much showier television than another guy who is driven by greed and the desire to prove he’s no longer the poor kid he used to be. Their motivations are often murky, their quest to win driven more by winning itself (or simply staying out of prison) than some more noble or complicated goal. However, the show does provide interesting insight into the elite world of traders, including the pressure, bravado, and moral sacrifice it takes to work in such a business. Unfortunately, this leads to some eye-rollingly silly talk about “stocks popping like a prom queen’s cherry” meant to impress the boys. This sort of language is masterful in the hands of Armando Ianucci, but here it often falls with a thud. Who writes this dialogue? It’s a collaboration between Brian Koppelman and David Levien, the writers of Ocean’s Thirteen, and Andrew Ross Sorkin, the writer of Too Big to Fail and a former Wall Street reporter. Should I watch this show? I think you should. It’s an interesting world worth investing in (pun entirely intended), full of colorful characters and the sorts of giant mansions and incredible yachts few of us are ever invited on in real life. The financial jargon might be a bit hard to follow, but the more human elements of the story make it worth slogging through.
Spotlight and The Revenant deserve their Oscars – but where were Carol's? Insofar as it’s possible to get a surprise at the Academy Awards – an event in which outcome-permutations are notoriously reduced almost to zero before anything happens at all – we had one tonight. Spotlight has won best picture: a high-minded, heartfelt and thoroughly absorbing movie about a journalism campaign pursued at the beginning of the last decade by the Boston Globe’s investigative reporting team Spotlight. It exposed child sex abuse by the Catholic church and the way the city’s conservative and clubbable institutions conspired to cover it up and look the other way: and this included the Globe itself. It was a classic issue movie, in this case about journalists caring about something other than building their personal brand on Twitter. And it reminds everyone working in today’s digital, atomised world of journalism that sometimes only big, old-fashioned newspapers have the collective, institutional weight and clout to go up against wholesale wrongdoing. Perhaps after the #OscarsSoWhite controversy, the Academy has found a way of showing its accusers that it does care about progressive issues. But by next year the Academy will have to find a way to show the world it is a more modern, transparent institution — perhaps by publishing its membership criteria and even the voting breakdown? The Revenant was such an exciting and sensual piece of work that it seems strange that its victories in this year’s Academy Awards feel like an anticlimax. It picks up best director for Alejandro González Iñárritu (his second in a row after last year’s Birdman), best cinematographer for Emmanuel Lubezki, and of course best actor for Leonardo DiCaprio for his highest-of-high-octane performances as the 19th-century fur trapper Hugh Glass who endures an ordeal of survival and revenge – and an unforgettably grisly encounter with a bear. DiCaprio is, to use an old-fashioned, studio-era phrase, an above-the-title player: a real star. In truth, he made the other nominees look a little dull, although The Revenant was not really about his acting. It was the spectacle, the physical immersive effect. As for DiCaprio, this was his night, although I prefer him in comic roles, such as the ones he played in Django Unchained and The Wolf of Wall Street. But he really embodied the muscular power and fanatical concentration in The Revenant. Now I have to utter a futile howl of rage and pain on behalf of that wonderful film Carol, directed by Todd Haynes, adapted from the Patricia Highsmith novel by Phyllis Nagy and with sublime performances from Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara. How on earth has this superb movie been so overlooked by the Academy? I now hope that Carol has a kind of One Direction career: snubbed by the awards establishment, it may get an underdog bounce as everyone realises that it is better than most of the films being showered with praise. As far as the screenplay Oscars go, I applaud the prize going to Spotlight, which cleverly approximated the steady and relentless drumbeat created by effective and consistent investigative journalism. However, at the risk of being churlish, I have to reiterate my scepticism about The Big Short – the winner of best adapted screenplay – a smug, shallow film endlessly congratulating itself on how clever it is and not seriously interested in challenging the status quo. The film simply goes along with the system, and worships the half-dozen or so money guys who found a way of doing well out of the 2008 crash. Ryan Gosling and Steve Carell give awful performances. But Christian Bale was good in it. In the best supporting actor category, Mark Rylance delivered a technical knockout to Sly Stallone, up for his sentimentally revered revival of Rocky Balboa in Creed. Rylance was a worthy winner. A few years ago, when Christoph Waltz won this Oscar for Inglourious Basterds, he gave a gallant speech noting that everyone else was supporting him. This in its way was true of Rylance, who was (in the nicest possible way) such a scene-stealer in Bridge of Spies that he drew the eye magnetically and made it seem as if everyone else, including the veteran star Tom Hanks, was just there to lend more lustre to this unique performer. As the convicted spy Rudolph Abel in cold war America, Rylance was wily, calm, unreadable, with the deadpan air of a villain – a distant cousin to Anthony Hopkins’s Hannibal Lecter in his imperturbable stillness – and yet on the side of the angels. Or rather: Tom Hanks is on his side. And the fact that his accent is so unlocatable makes his performance even more exotic: a weird blend of English, Scottish and Hollywood Russian. I have been a partisan for best actress nominee Saoirse Ronan who gave a lovely, ingenuous performance as Éilis, the young Irish girl forced to emigrate and then partially re-immigrate, and therefore contemplating parallel life-choices, in the heartfelt drama Brooklyn. But I have to concede the justice of Brie Larson’s win for Room, in which she plays the mother forced to bring up her infant son in a tiny cell, having been captured by an abuser. It was a challenging role in which Larson really showed what she could do in that film’s remarkably subtle and complex final act. Alicia Vikander’s win for The Danish Girl in the best supporting actress rewards a performance and a performer with beauty, charisma and guile, although I would have preferred to see her get the prize for Ex Machina, the sci-fi thriller in which she was more interesting as the automaton who may or may not have a mind of her own. Vikander’s success is a conservative if plausible choice, though I feel that Vikander’s best is yet to come, and I think the more powerful turns came from Jennifer Jason Leigh in Tarantino’s incendiary The Hateful Eight and of course Rooney Mara who was so good in Todd Haynes’s Carol. What a remarkable win for Ennio Morricone, who at 87 years old gets his very first Oscar, for best original score. It is genuinely exciting that this remarkable man is doing vital creative work. His theme for The Hateful Eight was insistently and insidiously catchy, trailing its own disquiet across the landscape, and played its own crucial dramatic role. What a glorious Oscar. The least surprising win of the evening was for Pete Docter’s Inside Out, which of course best animation: it is a thoroughly decent, overwhelmingly attractive and good-natured film. The fact that it won over Charlie Kaufman’s conceptually stunning stop-motion film Anomalisa is no surprise and though in terms of strict merit Anomalisa should really have won – and in fact should have been nominated for best picture and best work of art and indeed best sex scene – Inside Out has developed an enormous claim on everyone’s loyalty and love. In fact, its win casts an interesting light into how cinema competes with literature. The movies traditionally offer spectacle, drama, action and speech: they offer the thrilling interplay of those externals, while literature can give you direct, unmediated access into consciousness: you can go inside characters’ minds and hearts to discover what they are feeling. But actually, that is exactly what Inside Out is offering. With those five characters, Joy, Sadness, Fear, Anger and Disgust, Inside Out gives you a most accessible and unpretentious version of the stream of consciousness. This year’s best foreign language film has its own claim to be the best film tout court and is one of those occasions where the Academy really has got it right. László Nemes’s Son of Saul is the extraordinary film about Auschwitz in 1944, telling a brutal story the Sonderkommando, the inmates forced to do petty tasks and police the actual business of extermination itself – and imagines one survivor’s discovery of the body of his own son. It is hardly something to compare to Spielberg’s far more conventional Schindler’s List which by comparison pulls punches. But the remarkable Son of Saul is something to compare with Klimov’s Come and See. Asif Kapadia’s Amy has become in its own unshowy way, an awards-season juggernaut, now effortlessly demolishing the last obstacle in its way: the best documentary Oscar. Perhaps strict justice should have given this to Josh Oppenheimer for his The Look of Silence, effectively the second panel in a masterly film-diptych about the way Indonesia’s ruling classes have perpetrated horrific human rights abuses since the 1960s, and became blandly content with this grisly achievement. But Amy packed an enormous punch: it was a viscerally passionate picture about Amy Winehouse and her music and made the best possible use of its treasure-trove of home video. Finally: a host of technical wins for Mad Max: Fury Road, including best costume design for Jenny Beavan. It’s great to see a rewards for that terrifically enjoyable film which was not encumbered by looking like a solemn piece of Oscar bait.
Brexit vote pushing up household energy bills, claim experts Energy experts are warning that household energy prices could be about to rise for the first time in two years, driven partly by higher import costs following the Brexit vote. The Co-op started the ball rolling when it told some of its 500,000 energy customers that, from 1 October, it would be raising bills by between 3% and 6% – the latter equating to a potential rise of almost £70. The price of wholesale gas has steadily risen over the last three months but Britain is facing a double hit because gas imports from the continent are about 10% higher still, due to a fall in the value of sterling against the euro. The Co-op is raising the average bill for dual-fuel customers on a standard plan from £1,152 to £1,184 a year. People with pre-payment meters could find their bills rising from £1,115 to £1,184, according to the price comparison site uSwitch. “This is a worrying warning bell that the wholesale price honeymoon may be drawing to a close. Wholesale prices are now climbing at the fastest rate in years, driven by upward pressure on the cost of energy imports from the falling value of sterling following the EU referendum, future supply concerns and higher transmission costs,” said Claire Osborne, energy expert at uSwitch. “Unfortunately, it’s the smaller suppliers who are less able to cope as they cannot buy their energy as far ahead as the big six [companies]. The danger is that other small suppliers could now follow suit and raise their prices – just in time for winter.” Osborne claimed the Co-op service was now more expensive than British Gas, SSE or any other of the big six suppliers. She urged consumers “to fight back” by transferring their business to cheaper firms. But there could be still cheaper deals available from a raft of new independent companies. Cornwall Energy, an independent energy consultant, confirmed that changes in the exchange rate since Brexit had made power more expensive in Britain. Gas imported from other European countries was used in the home directly and for burning in power stations to produce electricity, it pointed out. Co-op Energy was unable to immediately comment on its price rises. But critics pointed out that the energy trading group of Midcounties Co-op had also been put at the top of a complaints league by the energy ombudsman last November. SSE attracted the least complaints, while uSwitch said it now believed that British Gas offered one of the cheapest standard rate tariffs, at £1,102 a year. None of the big six firms have increased their prices in the last two years but they have also being losing market share. Figures from the industry lobby group Energy UK, indicate that 1.3 million customers moved from a large supplier to a small one during the past 12 months, partly persuaded by bad publicity. The Competition and Markets Authority at one stage concluded that customers using standard tariffs were wasting collectively as much as £1.7bn a year. It is still possible to find rates from an independent supplier, such as Avro, of £770 a year, but experts say that the smaller firms are less able to withstand rises in wholesale costs as they do not have the cash to hedge their investments. A reduction in the market share of the big six, from over 99% to less than 87%, over the last seven years, has also forced those companies to cut prices and improve customer service.
Juliet Stevenson: why I bought a double decker bus on eBay First excursions on to eBay often tend toward the modest. A pair of shoes, a coffee table. A bicycle, at a push. Not so for Juliet Stevenson. “It’s surprisingly easy to buy a double-decker bus, you know, once you start looking,” says the 59-year-old actor, picking over a chicken salad in a London restaurant. “I immediately discovered that a red one costs twice as much. And older ones are better, if they’re working well, because the parts aren’t as complicated. There’s less to go wrong.” All this is said in a helpful manner, as though she has heard I might be in the market for a bus myself and is determined I make an informed purchase. Celebrities are permitted their indulgences. Johnny Depp has an island. Rupert Grint owns an ice-cream van. Juliet Stevenson’s bus, however, cannot be written off as an eccentricity. After visiting the Calais refugee camp in February, she asked one of the volunteers what was needed. The surprising answer was that a double-decker would go down a treat. “There are hundreds of kids in the camp,” she explains. “You can take the seats out of the upper deck, turn it into a dormitory, and it can also be a day centre. It’s warm, dry, safe. No one can knock it down and, if necessary, it can be driven away.” Within a few weeks of returning, she and a friend had snapped up a blue bus for £5,500 and driven it to the camp. She is keenly aware that the tabloid press never knowingly gives a break to posh liberal celebrities. Has she come in for any luvvie-bashing? “‘Luvvie’,” she shudders. “Now there’s a word I’d like to ban. Generally the press hates people like Emma [Thompson] and Jude [Law] and myself for doing these things. It’s the very same media desperately craving stories about well-known people who are then the ones to slag us off for wanting to help.” As if on cue, the director Stephen Daldry pops over to our table to give Stevenson the latest update on his own efforts to get a theatre going at the camps. Were a tabloid photographer in the vicinity, this snapshot of two luvvies saving the world over lunch might be worth a pretty penny. Still, Stevenson is fairly sure that “even the Mail would have a hard time saying there’s anything wrong with rescuing children living in mud and shit”. Word is that the bus has been a big success. “I’ve got a young film-maker out there filming what’s going on for fundraising purposes. He sent back footage at the weekend of children on the top deck watching Mary Poppins.” She sounds genuinely moved – not easy given she has to practically holler to be heard over the boisterous lunchtime trade. But then Stevenson has always been able to embody apparently contradictory qualities. She is tall and, at times, indomitable-looking. (“I do think tall women have to work harder to get sympathy. I often joke about this with some of my smaller friends.”) And yet her best work has involved devastating displays of vulnerability. Her screen breakthrough was the bittersweet 1990 romcom Truly, Madly, Deeply, in which she alternated authentically messy tears and radiant laughter as a grieving woman whose partner returns as a ghost. She was offered a part in Schindler’s List on the strength of it. “I was in the bath and my mum called through the door: ‘Darling, there’s a Steven Spielberg on the phone.’ ‘God that’s hilarious mum!’ ‘No I really think that’s his name.’” Only she’d already committed to do a play in Los Angeles. “The tragedy of life is mistiming. I’ve turned down wonderful stuff. But is there even a right or wrong? It’s more like, ‘That’s what I did. I can’t do anything about it.’” The LA trip had been at the insistence of her agent. “I went a bit reluctantly. I’m not very good at self-promotion. So I did a play out there because I wanted to be working rather than hanging out by swimming pools trying to look nice.” Then she received an offer to come home for what transpired to be her second great signature role: Paulina, the torture victim who turns the tables on her former tormentor, in Ariel Dorfman’s Death and the Maiden at the Royal Court. Bang went any more LA meetings (“Much to my agent’s dismay”). But she did get the 1992 Olivier award for best actress. “I loved doing it. A philosophical proposition that was also a thriller.” It was Stevenson’s idea to have Paulina shove her knickers in her torturer’s mouth. “It came up in rehearsal. I think it’s made its way into the stage directions now.” Did she feel her Hollywood moment was over? “No. I’ve done American films: Being Julia, Mona Lisa Smile. It’s ticked over. And that’s fine. Being flavour of the moment is not a good place to be. If you’re flavour of the moment, by definition you’ll be the bad taste of the moment in five years’ time.” Her career – a model of longevity – bears this out. In 2014 she brought formidable pluck and cheer to the partially entombed Winnie in Beckett’s Happy Days. The ’s Michael Billington called her interpretation “brilliantly intelligent”. Her range is exploited well in the new British drama Departure, in which she plays a newly single woman clearing out her French holiday home, with her teenage son. With her husband gone and her son on the cusp of leaving home, she has to face her own incompleteness. “Everything has been motivated by and structured around their child. He reaches adolescence, and then … well, they leave you. They don’t leave you for good. I’ve got children myself [Rosalind, 22, and Gabriel, 15, with her husband, the anthropologist Hugh Brody] so I’ve been through this. There’s a necessary and painful letting go.” The film is striking for giving a middle-aged woman unpredictable notes to play. “Female roles are often not complex because they’re adjuncts,” Stevenson sighs. “Very often the interesting things happen to the man. The woman is there as wife, mother, daughter, PA. A lot of writers won’t give you your own narrative because it isn’t deemed necessary. So much in our culture about women’s identities relates to their sexual value. When that is no longer of interest they, as individuals, are past the point of being of any interest either. It’s a source of frustration. As you get older, you get more experience, you have more to say, more layers. And at exactly the same time that’s happening in your life, the roles are narrowing down. It’s like you’re on the up escalator but the parts are on the down escalator. You’re waving to your actress self: ‘Byeee!’” As a young performer, the pickings weren’t as slim. “I got offered a wide range in my 20s and 30s. My only hand on the rudder through all that was to to try not to get pinned down as one thing. After Truly, Madly, Deeply, I got many wacky, daffy, quirky single women, trying to cope in their daft, loveable way. But I’d done that. I need the insecurity of not knowing where I’m going.” Born in Essex, Stevenson had an itinerant childhood. Her father’s job in the army uprooted the family every few years; there were spells in Germany, and at boarding school in Berkshire. She studied at Rada and got roped into the RSC in 1978, when she was 22. “I was an unhatched egg that had just rolled out of drama school. But someone fell sick in The Tempest and they needed a replacement quickly. They grabbed my coat and suitcase off me when I arrived in Stratford, rushed me into the wings and said, ‘Do whatever she does!’” ‘She’ turned out to be Ruby Wax. “If she barked, I barked.” The production had its shortcomings. “It had all been designed around laser beams. Only they never worked.” But it was invaluable for another reason: it introduced her to Alan Rickman, with whom she later starred in Truly, Madly, Deeply and on stage in the legendary 1986 RSC production of Les Liaisons Dangereuses. “I’d seen Alan playing King Rat in Dick Whittington at Bristol rep and I thought, ‘That is one sexy, charismatic actor’. He befriended Ruby and me, little sprogs that we were. Ruby was so funny, and he told her: ‘Write it down.’ They stayed best friends. She wouldn’t brush her teeth without ringing Alan first.” To Stevenson, he was like a big brother. “That’s why I wasn’t happy in Truly:‘I can’t snog my brother!’ I’d sometimes drive him mad, occasionally vice versa. But it was an unconditionally loving friendship. He came to see everything I ever did, right up to Happy Days. If you wanted notes, there’d be a whole list after and they’d be brilliant. I can hear his voice in my head: ‘Get off the front foot, on to the back foot. Jules, less is more’.” She doesn’t need to say she misses Rickman. The loss resonates every time she mentions him. “Nobody scared me more in the audience because I minded so much what he thought. I’m a mother of grown-up children but it was like I was 20 years old needing his approval.” About his legacy, she is clear. “He collected talent around him, nurturing it, giving people opportunities. You would come into your own working with him. ‘What you need is this script editor’ or ‘What you need is this director’. He’d hook you up. Many hundreds of people probably owe their careers to Alan. There was no one else like him.” Departure is released 20 May.
Soft Hair: Soft Hair review – Connan Mockasin and LA Priest do icky sex-pop Connan Mockasin and LA Priest make some of the most peculiar modern-day pop-funk, and so a collaboration was always going to be oddball. Together, they present an Iggy and Bowie-ish pairing, except with trembling falsetto, dolphin mating sounds and rippling electronic effects. But it’s unclear whether they are sending up macho male sexuality by contrasting pervy lyrics with their wimpy bare chests and luscious locks, or just using their “weirdos, us!” image as an excuse to be a bit Bloodhound Gang. Relaxed Lizard sets out their stall with slippery psychedelic pop, as Mockasin rebuffs a younger love interest (“I’d love to fuck you but I’m older …”). In Love is their answer to Iggy’s Tiny Girls, its submerged sax not quite matching Bowie’s arrangement, but the lyrics about fancying “Japanese/Chinese girls” living up to its grim message. Lying Has to Stop strikes a better balance, where silly tales of “babes and wine” and how they’ll “never touch your bum” meet loopy synths, cooing and groovy underwater whammy effects. Delightfully weird and yet unmistakably icky.
Can Amazon's new 'dream team' fix the company's sustainability reputation? Amazon has a reputation for forward thinking, but when it comes to sustainability, the company has often fallen behind the times. For years, it has weathered criticism over its worker treatment, recycling and other sustainability metrics. Recently, however, the online retailer has signaled that a change may be on the way. Dara O’Rourke, a leading expert on global supply chains, has joined the company’s sustainability team. O’Rourke, 48, joins three other notable corporate responsibility executives at Amazon. Kara Hurst, the company’s director of worldwide sustainability and social responsibility, is the former CEO of The Sustainability Consortium; she became Amazon’s first sustainability leader in 2014. Christine Bader, author of The Evolution of a Corporate Idealist, joined Amazon last August. And, in December, the company hired Christina Page, who led energy and sustainability strategy at Yahoo for eight years. It’s a dream team, of sorts. The question is, will it change Amazon? “They’ve hired great people,” says sustainability consultant Andrew Winston. “But we really don’t know what they’re doing. Amazon is a very quiet company.” In keeping with that reputation, Amazon didn’t make any of the executives available for interviews. Hurst and O’Rourke – neither of whom had previously been known for their reticence – declined to respond to questions via email. Ironically, O’Rourke’s career has largely been about increasing transparency. In the 90s, he drew attention to the issue of sweatshops in developing countries by exposing what he called “exploitative and hazardous working conditions” in factories in China, Vietnam and Indonesia, notably those supplying Nike. He later co-founded Good Guide, which rates the environmental and social performance of consumer products, enabling buyers to make well-informed choices. Since 2003, he has taught environmental and labor policy at the University of California, Berkeley. Dan Viederman, the chief executive of Verite, a nonprofit that aims to eliminating child labor, slavery and dangerous working conditions from global supply chains, says of O’Rourke: “He’s one of the most knowledgeable and independent people in the field.” At Amazon, O’Rourke will be a senior principal scientist, leading a team called Sustainability Science, a spokesman for the company said. Amazon now has more than 50 people in its sustainability group, working on six teams: social responsibility, energy and environment, customer packaging experience, sustainability services, sustainability technology and sustainability science. A spokesman declined to elaborate on what each team does, but said the company expects its sustainability operation to grow significantly this year. There’s certainly plenty to do. For years, Amazon has been mostly absent from the corporate responsibility conversation. In terms of corporate sustainability, Amazon continues to lag behind its competitors in the internet and technology industry, such as Apple and Microsoft, as well as rival brick-and-mortar retailers like Best Buy and Walmart. Unlike most big companies, it has never published a sustainability report, nor has it reported on its carbon emissions to the CDP, an investor-backed nonprofit that has collected the most comprehensive set of global environmental data. It’s also not made itself a visible player in the environmental arena. Walmart, its biggest retail rival, has partnerships with respected nonprofits like the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) and aggressively works to drive efficiencies in its stores and fleet, and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in its supply chain. Best Buy has an industry-leading electronics recycling program. On recycling, Barbara Kyle, the national coordinator of the Electronics TakeBack Coalition, has called Amazon the “king of laggards”. Its human rights record is harder to discern: unlike many companies that rely on global supply chains, Amazon does not disclose its overseas suppliers or publish the results of factory audits. Domestically, it is reputed to be a brutal place to work. Working conditions in its warehouses have been criticized in a series of stories in the Morning Call, a Pennsylvania newspaper, as well as by Mother Jones and Harper’s. White collar workers are under pressure, too, according to an an investigative story last year in the New York Times that was strongly disputed by Amazon. All of this might have been understandable during Amazon’s startup days, but the company is now 20 years old and – at last count – the seventh largest US company by market capitalization, just ahead of Johnson & Johnson and GE. That said, Amazon has recently taken steps towards recognizing its social and environmental responsibility. It has invested in wind and solar farms, and says that 40% of its electricity will come from renewable sources by the end of 2016. “They’re now on the short list of companies that buy large amounts of renewables,” says Winston. The company headquarters are Leed certified, and it promotes recyclable packaging. Citing a single study from 2009, it says online shopping is inherently more environmentally friendly than traditional retailing. Yet Amazon Prime, a subscription service that offers free shipping and has helped drive the company’s rapid growth, remains a problem according to some environmental advocates. “Free shipping means people don’t think about the consequences of shipping,” says Amy Larkin, a former Greenpeace executive and author of Environmental Debt: The Hidden Costs of a Changing Global Economy. In reality, she notes, shipping isn’t “free” – it requires packaging, generates carbon emissions and may create waste – and a sustainable economy would account for those costs. It’s not yet clear how Hurst and her team will advance Amazon’s sustainability efforts. But another technology company – Apple – has shown that getting the right people in place can turn around a company’s sustainability practices. Lisa Jackson, the former Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) chief, has worked wonders for Apple, although to do so she needed the backing of the company’s new chief executive, Tim Cook. Apple is now transparent about its supply chain, a major buyer of renewable energy and a visible advocate for climate action. Speaking of his company’s years of inertia, Cook said that “the time for inaction has passed”. It remains to be seen if, with his new sustainability team, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is echoing the sentiment.
Restricting immigration will be at heart of Brexit deal, Theresa May says Theresa May has agreed with her cabinet that restricting immigration will be a red line in any negotiations with the EU, in a move that experts claim will end Britain’s membership of the single market. The prime minister and her team, who met at Chequers – the PM’s country retreat – also confirmed that MPs will not be given a vote before the government triggers article 50, beginning the two-year countdown to a British exit. “There was a strong emphasis on pushing ahead to article 50 to lead Britain successfully out of the European Union – with no need for a parliamentary vote,” May’s spokeswoman said, before setting out how restrictions to freedom of movement would be at the centre of any Brexit deal. “Several cabinet members made it clear that we are leaving the EU but not leaving Europe, with a decisive view that the model we are seeking is one unique to the United Kingdom and not an off-the-shelf solution,” she said. “This must mean controls on the numbers of people who come to Britain from Europe but also a positive outcome for those who wish to trade goods and services.” May began the session, which is the first cabinet meeting since the summer break, by telling her ministers that there will be “no attempts to stay in the EU by the back door”. She said that meant no second referendum, before restating the slogan from the early part of her premiership: “Brexit means Brexit”. Her spokeswoman said the group also had a long discussion on their commitment to the devolved nations of the UK, promising to “make sure Brexit works for all”. However, they made clear that it would be the UK government’s decision to establish the terms of Britain’s EU exit and when it would begin, ruling out any possibility of a Scottish veto. Charles Grant, director of the Centre for European Reform, said immigration controls meant Britain’s Brexit deal would not be along the lines of that used for Norway or Switzerland. Instead, it put the UK on track for a Canada-style agreement, with free trade for manufactured goods but not necessarily for services. “People have been assuming there will have to be restrictions on immigration of some sort, either an emergency brake, or an Australian-style points system for European workers,” he said. “Whatever system we go for it is going to be unacceptable to our partners if we want access to the single market. We will only have limited access to the single market and have to content ourselves with a free trade agreement, which would not cover many of our key services sectors including financial services.” The foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, has suggested that Britain could retain membership of the EU with restrictions on freedom of movement but European diplomats have responded by calling it a “pipe dream”. Officials in Johnson’s department are some of the most keen in Whitehall to remain as close to Europe as possible, while those in the Treasury are also pushing hard for single market access in particular sectors such as financial services. David Davis, secretary of state for the newly created Department for Exiting the EU, has claimed that European countries will offer Britain a good economic deal because it is in their interest to do so. Liam Fox, who will be leading trade efforts with the rest of the world, has argued that not being in the single market is a price worth paying for border control. Labour’s shadow foreign secretary, Emily Thornberry, seized on the cabinet’s discussions about no vote for MPs and no veto for the devolved nations. “The country was dragged into this mess by a Tory party acting as a law unto themselves, and now they want to trust us to get them out of it, acting in exactly the same way,” she said. “It is sheer, high-handed arrogance for them to say they will take all the decisions themselves, with no consultation of parliament or the public, with the devolved administrations consulted but not listened to, and with the governments of London and Gibraltar now not even mentioned.” May and her team were keen to emphasise the idea that Britain would still be open for business and agreed to brand the first day of Tory conference as being about “global Britain – showing that we are more outward-looking than ever before”. During a presentation, Tory party chairman Patrick McLoughlin said the party would have the largest attendance in a decade for October’s event, and said the party’s membership had grown by 50,000 over the summer. The theme of the four-day gathering in Birmingham would be “a country that works for everyone”, he said, echoing the message delivered by May when she delivered a speech before entering Downing Street as prime minister for the first time. At Wednesday’s meeting at her country retreat, which stretched across much of the day, with a political session in the afternoon without civil servants, May praised the fantastic success of Team GB in the Olympics. She called it “absolutely great” and wished the country’s Paralympians well. The prime minister said she wanted to discuss social reform, arguing that a major priority was wanting “to be a government and a country that works for everyone”. “I want it to be a society where it’s the talent that you have and how hard you’re prepared to work that determines how you get on, rather than your background,” she said. And she insisted that the government had to discuss how “we can get tough on irresponsible behaviour in big business – again making sure that actually everyone is able to share in the country’s prosperity”. The ministers were keen to stress that their party was “united” and to contrast that with Labour, which the spokeswoman described as an “inward-looking and divided opposition”. The cabinet meeting came as a new ICM/ poll gives the Conservatives a 14-point lead over the opposition, with May’s party up one point to 41%, while Labour has fallen one point to 27%. The survey had Ukip third with 13%, followed by the Liberal Democrats on 9%. The Tories’ strong lead could be underpinned by consumer confidence, according to ICM director Martin Boon, who said that while 53% of the public were confident in the measure of financial security, just 19% were not confident. “The gap of +34 is well ahead of the +23 noted in March 2015 and indeed not beaten since June 2002. The rampant fears of Brexit appear to have manifestly failed to dent the hardy British consumer, at least for now,” he said. The economic outlook was also discussed at cabinet alongside a commitment to fiscal discipline and “seizing the opportunity of Brexit to confirm the UK’s place as one of the great trading nations in the world”. Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary, who sat next to the prime minister, updated colleagues on the campaign against Islamic State in Syria, Iraq and Libya. “The foreign secretary highlighted the progress that had been made in squeezing the territory held by Daesh [Isis], with 40% reclaimed, as well as a fall in support for Daesh’s ideology around the world,” added a spokeswoman. This story was amended on 31 August 2016 because Liam Fox’s stance on single market membership was misrepresented.
Pro-Brexit minister attacks EU over anti-corruption measures The justice minister Dominic Raab has said the European Union is in “violation of international law” for failing to take steps required by the UN to tackle corruption. Raab, a high-profile Brexit campaigner, said the EU had so far failed to take the first step in implementing the UN convention against corruption, despite approving it in 2008. He pointed to a statement by Transparency International, an NGO, which said the EU should be “mildly embarrassed” given that it had claimed to be at the forefront of this debate. The group said: “Eight years after ratifying the convention they have failed to implement the first step, which is an assessment of its own anti-corruption rules and capacities. This baffling delay does not help its cause when engaging with its member states on anti-corruption matters.” Raab also pointed out that there had been a huge increase in the amount of EU money linked to irregularity or fraud. The European anti-fraud office (Olaf) identified €901m (£685m) to be recovered in 2014, the most recent figures available, compared with €194m in 2011. Raab said it represented “systemic fraud”. The most recent year also had a record 1,417 fraud allegations, he said. Raab argued that the figures ought to raise serious concern given Britain’s net contribution to the EU, which he said was £10bn. “We are pouring huge amounts of money into the EU, huge sums that could be spent on schools and hospitals and whatever else British elected lawmakers decide. People ask, understandably, why are you pouring it into the EU, which has got these rising reports of fraud?” he said. “While you’ve got systemic fraud within the EU, Transparency international have put their hand up and said: hold on a minute, the EU has signed the UN convention against corruption and eight years after having ratified it and approved it, it hasn’t done the first step which is to have a systematic analysis of its practices.” The NGO itself, which is neutral in the referendum debate, sought to play down its recent statement on the EU’s lack of action. A spokesman described it as an “embarrassment rather than an issue of overwhelming significance”. He added: “But it does suggest that the EU has not prioritised assessing its own compliance with the world’s most wide-ranging anti-corruption convention.” The spokesman indicated that Transparency International was not keen to be drawn into the debate over Britain’s membership of the EU, adding: “We are a non-political organisation and this is a highly politicised debate, therefore we have no further comment at this time.” Raab said the organisation had documented systemic risks of corruption at EU institutions and asked if it was now “scared of a backlash from the establishment”. He said: “With reports of fraud at the EU soaring to record levels, British taxpayers will view this is as more than just presentational embarrassment.” A European commission spokesman said: “We have zero tolerance for fraud against the EU budget. Olaf’s work is part and parcel of the efforts to uncover and prevent fraud in the member states, including the UK, and to get money returned to the taxpayers.” A spokeswoman for Olaf said its job was to seek the recovery of EU funds defrauded in the member states, or to prevent additional amounts being disbursed. “Typical examples of Olaf investigations relate to public procurement fraud, evasion of customs duties or smuggling of goods,” she said. “As member states are in charge of managing most of the EU budget, they are responsible for recovering any money which has been subject to irregularity or fraud from the beneficiaries. It is important to note that this money will progressively be recovered.” She argued that the very large sums identified for recovery in 2014 were linked to complex investigations, suggesting the rise in numbers wasn’t simply down to a spike in fraud. A spokesman for Britain Stronger in Europe described Raab’s intervention as “desperate stuff”. The spokesman said: “He is trying to pull to wool over people’s eyes. Even the organisation he cites admits this is not a significant issue.”
Taylor Swift wins best pop vocal album award at Grammys 2016 for 1989 Taylor Swift’s 1989 has won the 2016 Grammy award for best pop vocal album. 1989 was Swift’s fifth studio album, and one that saw her complete the transition from country star to fully-fledged mainstream pop act. It reached the top of the charts in numerous countries, including the US and UK. Writing in the , Alexis Petridis said: “As a songwriter, Swift has a keen grasp both of her audience and of pop history. She avoids the usual hollow platitudes about self-empowerment and meaningless aspirational guff about the VIP area in the club in favour of Springsteenesque narratives of escape and the kind of doomed romantic fatalism in which 60s girl groups dealt.” Swift’s album triumphed in a group that also featured Piece By Piece by Kelly Clarkson, How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful by Florence + the Machine, Uptown Special by Mark Ronson, and Before This World by James Taylor. Best pop vocal album was one of seven nominations for Swift at this year’s awards, including a song of the year nod for Blank Space, which she co-wrote with Max Martin and Shellback.
Publication of Andrea Leadsom's CV prompts new questions about her career Attempts by Andrea Leadsom to silence critics questioning her City credentials have backfired after fresh holes were discovered in claims about her 25-year career in finance. The energy minister, who has emerged as a leading candidate to succeed David Cameron, published the official version of her CV on Wednesday in a move her spokesperson said would “comprehensively disprove” allegations that she had been less than clear about her career before entering politics. But Leadsom’s CV has raised a number of further questions because it omits some company directorships, alters existing claims and fails to clear up question marks over sections of her City career. The issues include: Some past roles being omitted from the CV, including Leadsom’s directorship of her family’s buy-to-let company Bandal Limited and Seaperfect, a company connected to her brother-in-law. Her job title at Barclays, where she worked in the 1990s, is given as deputy financial institutions director, not — as previously stated — financial institutions director. The CV describing her position at a hedge fund run by her brother-in-law, De Putron Fund Management, as managing director while company filings give her role as marketing director. Stating she was a senior investment officer at fund management firm Invesco Perpetual for 10 years, though she was only authorised as an investment manager for a three-month period. As well as omitting mention of her family buy-to-let business, Leadsom’s CV also glosses over her directorship at Seaperfect, a company that invested heavily in clam and scallop farming in Chile and America during the 90s. However, the company lost millions after the investments failed and her brother in law, Peter de Putron, subsequently took control of the business through an offshore vehicle called Wildernesse Holdings. Leadsom, working under her maiden name of Andrea Salmon, became a director of Seaperfect from February 1998 to May 1999. Amid questions over Leadsom’s City career, a spokesperson for Invesco Perpetual confirmed Leadsom had been given the job title of senior investment officer, but declined to say whether she had responsibility for managing funds. One former colleague, who worked with Leadsom at Invesco Perpetual, said he did not believe she made investment decisions. Robert Stephens told the that she “absolutely, emphatically” had no involvement in controlling funds and that her title was not representative of her responsibilities. “What does senior investment officer convey to the uninitiated? If you’ve got a chief investment officer, you would think the senior investment is someone with just slightly less responsibility than the chief investment officer. This is totally untrue; she had no investment management responsibilities at all,” he said. Last week Stephens sent an email to Leadsom asking why her biography on Wikipedia identified her as the chief investment officer of Invesco Perpetual. Leadsom replied, denying that she had made the change, but said that she would check it. An MP who had worked alongside Leadsom on the Treasury select committee, but asked not be named, said he was concerned the energy minister’s career in finance was being misunderstood. Given she was authorised by the City regulator to manage investments for only a brief period of time, he said: “I don’t think she would have been running money, making [Invesco investment] decisions.” The MP was equally sceptical of claims that Leadsom had played a significant role helping calm the financial markets after rogue trader Nick Leeson brought down Barings bank in 1995. The energy minister has previously claimed that, while working at Barclays, she “helped the then governor of the Bank of England, Eddie George, over the weekend that Barings collapsed as he tried to reassure the markets and prevent a run on the banks”. Though an impressive claim, this is not repeated on her CV. The Treasury select committee MP told the : “I cannot quite see why a 30-year-old would be in a huddle with Eddie George in the middle of the Barings crisis. Yes, she was there. But David Cameron was photographed behind Norman Lamont [during the Black Wednesday financial crisis in 1992]. That doesn’t mean he played a big role in sorting that crisis out.” Leadsom has regularly cited her role in the Barings crisis. In May she explained in one newspaper article how such experiences made her confident Brexit would not trigger another financial crisis for the UK. “As someone who spent 25 years working in finance ... I’ve seen at first hand the economic cycles, the disasters and triumphs”. In the article she said she had spent the mid-1990s “running Barclays Investment Banking team”. A spokesperson for Barclays declined to comment on her role. Andrew Buxton, who was chairman of Barclays in the mid-1990s and had a leading role in leading the City response to the Barings collapse, said : “She wasn’t a senior manager at the time, it was quite early in her career. But she was well-regarded. “I honestly can’t remember exactly what her role was: when I say senior manager, she didn’t run the company, but she was senior middle manager, that sort of thing. This was 20 years ago and you can’t judge someone on where they were 20 years ago.”
Manchester United’s Henrikh Mkhitaryan takes breath away with sublime moment Life is sustained not just by what it is but by what it might be; if we weren’t continually hoping for better, how could we carry on? And the tease works just as well when watching sport, a generally disappointing activity that costs time, money, energy and patience. We keep coming back, though, mainly because that’s what we do, but also because it gives us a shot at seeing the most incredible earthly event on any given day. Your sunrises, your sunsets and your newborns are all very nice, but at its best, sport is the best, and yesterday that meant your Henrikh Mkhitaryans. A particular joy of football is the infinite number of ways there are to get the spherical thing into the rectangular thing. Even so, most brilliant goals are riffs on eternal themes, but every so often we get a Roberto Carlos against France or a Ronaldinho against Chelsea , recalibrating reality to remind us that we haven’t seen it all. And it reflects not just skill but character. After joining Manchester United in the summer, Mkhitaryan began the season as a substitute, a move which seemed to reflect little more than United’s comparative strength in wide attackers – and away to Hull City, he still catalysed an onslaught that brought an injury-time winner. Next came the Manchester derby, a match which Mkhitaryan started though he’d picked up a knock playing for Armenia while, on the opposite wing, Jesse Lingard, returned after a month out. Remarkably, both were off the pace, subbed and criticised afterwards; curiously, José Mourinho was less loquacious in explaining how either were meant to get the ball given the midfield mismatch that was Marouane Fellaini and Paul Pogba against Fernandinho, Kevin de Bruyne and David Silva as City won the match 2-1. But the blame was set. Lingard vanished for two weeks and Mkhitaryan for two months, deemed ill-prepared for the harum-scarum of the English game. This is not unusual, there was just little reason to expect it in this instance. Mkhitaryan grew up in Armenia, played for two teams in Donetsk, and then moved to Borussia Dortmund; we can probably assume that he has a solid grasp of cold, rain and grime. Moreover, he arrived at the top of his game and in his physical prime, which made Hull look a more telling cameo than City. While he acclimatised, United floundered, dominating some games, disappearing in others, and struggling to score in nearly all of them. Apparently, a man directly involved in 49 goals the previous season had nothing to offer against Stoke City and Burnley, omitted in favour of Memphis Depay. Or, put another way, Mourinho’s policy of antidisestablishmkhitaryanism didn’t sit right, reminiscent of earlier problems with Arjen Robben, De Bruyne and Eden Hazard. Then, at the start of November, Mkhitaryan appeared off the bench away to Fenerbahce, but despite the uniform awfulness of United’s performance, he was left out of the next two games, by which time he had played just 134 minutes of a possible 1,710. For a man who arrived as the Bundesliga player of the year, the frustration of peak months wasted cannot have been easy to take. Eventually, though, Mourinho was convinced – coincidentally, at a time when he had run out of alternatives and was desperate for a win. So Mkhitaryan started at home to Feyenoord and was superb; it was almost as though he could have made a difference all along, not that Mourinho had calculated precisely the right moment to unleash him. Still, he was left on the bench for United’s home Premier League draw with West Ham, returning to the starting XI for the EFL Cup tie against the same opposition. It took him all of two minutes to backheel Zlatan Ibrahimovic through for the opening goal in a 4-1 victory, and then, after a patchy but largely impressive display against Everton, he saw off Zorya in the Europa League and Tottenham with a pair of dazzling finishes, before getting injured again. Returning against Sunderland, Mkhitaryan was introduced after an hour and almost immediately, broke with the ball in the inside-right position. Allowing it across his body as he moved towards goal, at the very last second and when it no longer looked possible, suddenly it was gliding back the other way to put Ibrahimovic in; this time, he missed. The pass, though, with its delay and disguise, encapsulated Mkhitaryan. So it was that with four minutes to go, Ibrahimovic pulled on to the right wing and Mkhitaryan bustled into the middle. Uncharacteristically, he was ahead of the play as the cross came in – “offside”, some have said – but before the ball arrived, he somehow decided what to do, adjusted his feet, inclined his body and dived forwards as it passed behind him, flinging a leg over his back to place a finish into the far corner with the outside of his right heel! It is hard enough to describe, never mind execute. In England, the moment of celebration is different to elsewhere, the squeak of “Yes!” not as primal, guttural and full as the roar of “Gol!” But presented with something it had never seen before, Old Trafford produced something closer to the latter, a collective “Ohhhhh!” of belief and disbelief, of ecstasy and community. It was the sound of a better life.
Randy Lerner’s Aston Villa head for relegation woefully unprepared It’s brutal, relegation. If you follow a team the chances are you have suffered it at some point or another and, as Aston Villa’s supporters can probably testify, it does not matter how prepared you think you might be, or how many times it might have happened in the past, it is still a desperately numbing feeling when the guillotine falls and the players are wandering around, like zombies, not knowing where to rest their eyes. “I’ve seen childbirth twice and relegation five times,” Pete May, the author of several books on West Ham, once wrote. “Childbirth does look very painful but it lasts only a few hours. The pain of relegation lasts all summer and beyond. Plus childbirth at least results in something positive. With relegation, you’re always worried that it’s going to get worse.” It often does, as Leicester City can corroborate bearing in mind the previous ordeals encountered by the champions-in-waiting and what those experiences tell Villa about the potential for more unravelling. Leicester’s last demotion from the Premier League, in 2004, was followed by successive finishes of 15th, 16th and 19th in the Championship and then another deterioration in their fourth season at that level – to 22nd and a place in League One. Nottingham Forest have spent time in the third best division in English football or, put another way, the second worst. Leeds United have been down there and David Bernstein, one of the executives Villa have hired to try to halt the downward spiral, will know the dangers from first-hand experience if we go back to his days as Manchester City chairman and an era of Richard Edghill, Ged Brannan and Lee Bradbury rather than Vincent Kompany, Kevin De Bruyne and Sergio Agüero. City went two leagues down before coming back up and when the fingers of relegation closed around their neck for a second time the Manchester Evening News carried a photograph of a young supporter wiping away tears with a flag. Bernstein asked for a copy of that picture and hung it in the boardroom at Maine Road. It was a reminder, he used to tell guests, that the club must never put their fans through the same again. Bernstein also wrote to the club’s season-ticket holders to apologise – which is the least that Villa should be doing – while City, the official club magazine, attempted to lift the mood in an article entitled: “Reasons to be cheerful”. These included “fun weekends at a variety of coastal resorts like Blackpool and Bournemouth”, the prospect of “red-hot Lancashire derbies against grand old names like Burnley and Preston North End” and, best of all, the “chance to snuggle up together in the ‘cosy’ stands we’ll be visiting on our away trips”. Among them, Lincoln City, Macclesfield Town and York City. Villa are not quite that broken but, equally, it is difficult finding any reasons for them to be cheerful when Walsall and Burton Albion could conceivably be on their list of derbies next season and the stench of disillusionment, built up over six years of drift, listless performances and boardroom buffoonery, has become so overpowering it is difficult to imagine that fumigating the place will be a quick fix. The financial impact, even taking into account the parachute money from the Premier League, means losing upwards of £200m merely from television revenue if they cannot find a way back during the next three years. The new television deal comes into force in August and will be worth £8.3bn over that time. Then factor in the lost ticket revenue, sponsorship and other forms of income. However it is dressed up, there has never been a worse time for relegation. All of which leaves Villa in a harrowing position, bearing in mind the size and history of the place and the feeling I still get, 25 years after walking down Witton Lane for the first time, that the imposing red-brick walls, the steps leading to the Holte End, the statues of the lions, the colours and the noise make Villa Park one of football’s special monuments. The club have, if nothing else, recognised that it is not just the playing staff that has to be overhauled and begun the process by bringing in Bernstein as well as a new chairman, Steve Hollis, and creating new positions on the board for Brian Little, a former Villa player and manager, and Adrian Bevington, previously of the Football Association. That, at least, is a start and few will miss the former chief executive, Tom Fox, or the sporting director, Hendrik Almstadt, who has also been ushered off the premises. All the same, there is an awful lot of work to be done when, trying to make sense of the Randy Lerner era, there is a jarring irony that they have just lopped off the word “Prepared” from their expensively redesigned club crest (Villa having spent more on that badge and all the necessary changes than Lerner was apparently prepared to pay for any players in January to get them out of this hole). One long-serving employee was asked recently to undertake a quiz on Villa’s history to convince the people above her that she should keep her job. In total, there could be 100 job losses and it will be intriguing to see whether Paddy Riley, the former video analyst who now goes by the title of director of scouting and recruitment, is spared. Riley’s transfer record hardly eases the suspicion that he has been overpromoted and there is an excruciating story about what happened when the agent of one signing turned up to negotiate the contract. Riley had been put in charge along with the club secretary, Sharon Barnhurst, and the agent was so unimpressed by the absence of more senior staff he is said to have taken one look and walked out in a fit of pique. Riley did, in fairness, persuade him to return. Nigel Pearson is an obvious candidate for the manager’s job but there are no indications that Lerner is any closer to finding a buyer and, in the meantime, the bottom line is that Villa have become a tragicomedy, on and off the pitch. One of the club’s European scouts, with responsibility for Spain and Portugal, turns out to be a journalism student. Another is said to have emigrated to Australia earlier this season, at a time when his role was apparently to cover the Bundesliga. As for the players, what does it say for Gabriel Agbonlahor – born in Birmingham, affiliated to Villa since a young age and someone, you might assume, who would give everything for his club – that he is so bereft of professional decency he has just been placed on a two-week fitness programme because he cannot even keep himself in shape? Agbonlahor, with one goal all season, spent the last international break partying in Dubai. His attitude is symptomatic of the culture of drift and, if Villa have serious aspirations of restoring some dignity, this summer might be a good time to thank him for happier days and cut him loose. It is a tremendous mess and, plainly, it is easier for Lerner to avoid awkward questions about his culpability when the other option is to keep his distance, holed away in the Hamptons, and communicate in occasional statements via the club’s website. “I can’t think of anyone else in Cleveland sports in the last 30 years who rode into town with similar fanfare and delivered so little in comparison,” Bill Livingston, the American sportswriter, once wrote of Lerner’s time in charge of the Cleveland Browns, and Villa’s followers will note the similarities. “The biggest constant among those Randy hired was a lack of judgment,” Livingston concluded. “He wasn’t a good owner by any means, but he wasn’t a lucky one, either.” One day, maybe, the subject of all this criticism will be decent enough to answer the principal charge that he simply went cold on Villa, having been unable to break into the Champions League positions in his early years, and withdrew to a point that it became inevitable stagnation would follow. Not the most important thing right now, perhaps, but Lerner could also explain why Fox’s annual salary was almost five times higher than that of the previous chief executive, Paul Faulkner, up from £265,792 to £1,255,769. Maybe he could let us know whether it was really necessary to have 496 members of staff, the sixth highest in the league, compared with, say, Tottenham Hotspur (380), Newcastle United (288) and Everton (274), and more than the combined workforce of West Ham (250) and Leicester (188). And maybe, like Bernstein all those years ago, he might want to apologise to all those supporters who suspected this mismanagement and apathy would take them only one direction. Kevin doesn’t need friends like these The decision to remove Kevin Friend from refereeing duties for Tottenham Hotspur’s visit to Stoke City on Monday was always bewildering but especially now it transpires that he is apparently a Bristol City supporter. Friend lives in Leicester and, by his own admission, has been to watch Claudio Ranieri’s team this season, but taking him off a game because a few daft people think he will deliberately give decisions against Spurs sets a dangerous precedent, as Arsène Wenger has stated, and it all seems particularly unnecessary when the Tottenham manager, Mauricio Pochettino, has made it clear he had no issue whatsoever with the original choice of officials. Friend’s treatment comes across as a lack of trust from the organisation that employs him – even if, conversely, the Professional Game Match Officials Ltd will argue the decision was taken to protect him - and if it is true that it stemmed from a social‑media campaign from Spurs fans (one that certainly passed me by) should the decision-makers really be pandering to the Twitter orchestra? Sure enough, there are now Everton supporters questioning the appointment of Anthony Taylor for their team’s FA Cup semi-final against Manchester United on the basis that he lives in Altrincham, just a few miles from Old Trafford. Already, it has been noted that Michael Oliver – a Newcastle supporter, apparently – refereed Norwich’s 1-0 defeat at Crystal Palace last weekend and turned down a penalty appeal that might have led to the game being drawn and, in turn, ultimately benefited his own club. Nobody had given it a second thought until now but no doubt there will be fans of other clubs scouring referees’ profiles to come up with historic grievances or flimsy arguments why further restrictions should be placed. A different case could be highlighted every week and the referees are probably entitled to wonder why their organisation has given credence to a fuss about nothing. PFA awards fail to tell whole story The Professional Footballers’ Association holds its player of the year awards next weekend and it would be a surprise, looking back at the last eight months, if the prize went to anyone bar one of the three Leicester City players – Riyad Mahrez, Jamie Vardy and N’Golo Kanté – on the six‑man shortlist. What, though, if Leicester suddenly implode from this point onwards and Harry Kane’s goals take Tottenham Hotspur to the title? Who would ultimately be the more deserving player? It is certainly strange that the PFA holds this event a month before the season has finished and even more so that the voting slips had an 8 April deadline but actually started coming back at the beginning of March, when some teams still had 10 games to play. In 2016, is it really beyond Gordon Taylor and his colleagues to hold the event at the end of the season and find an online voting system that means the award is for the full campaign?
The impact of Brexit on UK's £200bn public procurement spend Campaigners in favour of leaving the EU have claimed that not having to apply EU procurement rules would enable the UK to save £1.6bn a year in procurement costs. But what are the facts? What impact would a vote to leave the EU have on the UK’s £200bn annual public procurement spend? The EU procurement directive covers all public sector procurement in member states. It defines processes, procedures and standards and is intended to ensure that all EU businesses stand a fair chance of obtaining public sector contracts in any EU country. It has been introduced formally into UK law through parliamentary legislation and through the Scottish assembly, so a Brexit vote on 23 June would only change procurement law if the Westminster parliament or the Scottish assembly chose to do so. All large businesses require a clear set of procurement procedures and processes. These help protect against fraud, satisfy corporate governance requirements, ensure suitable competition to deliver value for money and mean suppliers understand the rules of the game and can be confident that they will be treated fairly. The same applies to governments. Public sector corruption deters private investment, misallocates resources and generates social grievances. Transparency International’s corruption league table demonstrates that countries with the best reputations have robust procurement legislation. Most of the top 20, out of 167 nations, apply the EU procedures and others have equally robust procedures. At the bottom end of the scale are North Korea, Somalia and Afghanistan. Good quality public procurement legislation is complex. Public sector organisations work with businesses that operate globally and procure products and services on a bigger and more complex scale than almost anything the private sector procures. Both the public and suppliers need to know that the UK’s £200bn spend is managed fairly. Outsourcing prisons, for example, is complex and the cost of letting a poor contract can be immense. At the other end of the scale, there is no reason for procurement procedures not to be simple and timescales short, particularly for small businesses. But, as the Commons communities and local government select committee has pointed out, the UK often operates its public procurement in an unnecessarily bureaucratic way, with a lack of consistency in the way regulations are implemented that means tendering costs are typically higher in the UK than in other EU member states. In the event of Brexit, the UK would either have to retain the EU directive or introduce something similar. In practice, if the UK wished to continue to trade with the EU on preferential terms, like the European Free Trade Agreement nations, such as Norway or Switzerland, part of the price would be continuing to adhere to the EU procurement laws. Changing UK legislation would be complex and time consuming due to the number of public sector and industry bodies with which consultation would be required. Moreover, the UK was very influential in the drafting of the latest procurement directive, so it largely meets UK requirements. Replacing it would be a low priority for any government. There are many ways that public procurement can save £1.6bn a year. Abandoning the EU procurement directive is not one of them. Talk to us on Twitter via @ public and sign up for your free weekly Public Leaders newsletter with news and analysis sent direct to you every Thursday.
The 'good billionaire': Silicon Valley roots for Bloomberg for president Michael Bloomberg may feel that his recent hints at a 2016 run for the White House have barely registered in a presidential year dominated by big characters and unexpected twists. After the initial stir caused by news the former New York mayor was considering entering the 2016 race as a centrist, independent candidate, he has quickly receded to the shadows, barely discussed by either Democratic or Republican candidates. Yet there is one corner of the US still holding out for a Bloomberg candidacy: Silicon Valley. The tech industry sees the billionaire entrepreneur, who is fiscally conservative and socially liberal, as one of its own. “Bloomberg is good billionaire to Trump’s bad billionaire,” former Google executive and current startup founder Mike Dudas said. Or as Twitter’s chief financial officer Anthony Noto recently put it: “Wow!! Please Please @MikeBloomberg”. In part, Bloomberg’s popularity in the tech sector stems from the absence of any other candidates that so closely resemble the values that underpin the industry. Libertarian Kentucky senator Rand Paul, who aggressively courted Silicon Valley with mixed results and may have been the most naturally suited to anti-government techies, dropped out of the Republican race after a disappointing showing in Iowa. “The other candidates are just so weak and weird,” said bombastic Uber investor Jason Calacanis, who often wades into conservative politics through his various media platforms. “In Silicon Valley, everybody loves somebody who’s an operator,” Calacanis added. “Bloomberg’s an operator. You just look on Twitter people are like yes, yes, yes, Bloomberg please, please, please.” Donald Trump’s immigration plan doesn’t work for an industry whose biggest political issue has been H-1B visa reform, and his rhetoric has pulled other candies to the right. Texan senator Ted Cruz and Florida senator Marco Rubio are too socially conservative to be palatable for people who just want the financial side of Republicanism without the aversion to social progress. On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton, whose gender could be a problem for an industry that famously struggles with female leadership, can seem more attuned to Wall Street than Sand Hill Road. Vermont senator Bernie Sanders may enjoy a constituency among some radicals in Silicon Valley – and the self-avowed socialist is now outpacing Clinton in fundraising among employees at the five largest tech companies. But, given his stringent views on inequality and his repeated denunciation of the “millionaires and billionaires” of the country, it is hard to see Sanders getting that much traction in a place with such a concentration of eye-popping wealth. It is unsurprising, then, that there appears to be such enthusiasm for a Bloomberg presidential run. Erick Schonfeld, the co-founder of TouchCast and former editor in chief of TechCrunch, cites Bloomberg’s work to bring a tech campus to New York as one of the reasons technologists can get behind him. Bloomberg’s fortune was made in tech, selling stock market data analytics through his Bloomberg terminals. “He’s an entrepreneur’s entrepreneur,” Shonfeld said. “He invented the SaaS business model. That’s how he made his billions.” He added: “Literally I’m here at the Nob Hill Center and there’s hundreds of companies here that are all trying to sell subscriptions and most of them for data services, and he [Bloomberg] invented this.” Garrett Johnson, the co-founder of conservative think tank Lincoln Labs and the startup SendHub, said many in the tech community have been shocked by the way candidates approach the internet, especially when it comes to national security issues. “The guy who won the New Hampshire primary for the Republicans has openly threatened to shut down the internet to fight Isis,” Johnson said, referring to Trump. “How do you propose to shut down the internet?” Johnson questions, though, whether Silicon Valley can actually hold political sway, despite all its talk – and its growing reputation as a source for big money donations to both parties. “It’s easy to tweet something but how many of them are on the ground helping to organize or donating to Bloomberg?” Johnson said. “Talk is cheap.” He added: “The question is, so what? Who gives a damn about Silicon Valley?”
Louis van Gaal blames Manchester United players for Newcastle draw It was a case of one step forward and two steps back for Manchester United and Louis van Gaal as they cast off their recent “boring” image on Tyneside on Tuesday night but, despite some thrilling attacking, dropped to sixth place in the Premier League. “Of course it feels like a defeat … we are very disappointed, we’ve lost very expensive points,” he said after his side’s 3-3 draw at Newcastle United where, despite Wayne Rooney scoring twice and creating another goal for Jesse Lingard, the visitors could not hold on to their leads. “We have only ourselves to blame because we could have won this match,” said Manchester United’s manager. “We missed big chances to win it. We were the better team. We have scored three goals but only have one point. So now is the defence weak? No. We were unlucky in decisions of the referee and a deflected shot and we did not finish our chances.” The Dutchman was unhappy with the award of a penalty to Newcastle, for shirt-pulling by Chris Smalling on Aleksandar Mitrovic, that made it 2-2, but put the blame on his own players. “We have given it away. I have told that to my players. When the referee gives a penalty for nothing – it is a duel I think and you cannot decide who is worse – but we gave it away.” While Paul Dummett’s late Newcastle equaliser took a hefty deflection off Smalling, Steve McClaren arguably had considerably greater cause to be aggrieved by the refereeing and strongly disagreed with the early handball penalty awarded against Chancel Mbemba from which Rooney opened the scoring. Van Gaal gave credit to Newcastle’s approach. “Newcastle only wanted to attack,” he said. “You see two teams who want to attack. We saw a fantastic game tonight.” He added that normally it was different and his side were the victims of opposition spoiling tactics. “Only one team [Manchester United’s opponents] wants to waste time and frustrate opponents,” he claimed. Relieved to have ended a run of four defeats, McClaren’s mood was further buoyed by the completion of Jonjo Shelvey’s £12m transfer from Swansea City shortly before kickoff. McClaren said: “I think there’s a lot more to come from him.” The midfielder is expected to make his debut at home to West Ham United on Saturday. “I’m delighted to have signed Jonjo Shelvey,” he said. “I tried to sign him last summer. He’s English, he’s in the England team and I think there’s a lot more to come from him.” He feels much the same about his team as a whole. “Manchester United are a quality team but at the end of the night we’ve shown what we’re all about,” said McClaren. “We’ve shown character, attitude. By the end we actually had more possession that Manchester United.”
Mail pays out £150,000 to Muslim family over Katie Hopkins column Mail Online has been forced to pay out £150,000 to a British Muslim family over a Katie Hopkins column which falsely accused them of extremism. The column, published in December last year, said that US authorities were right to stop Mohammed Tariq Mahmood, his brother Mohammed Zahid Mahmood and nine children from travelling to Los Angeles for a trip to Disneyland last year. Hopkins also suggested that the two brothers were extremists with links to al-Qaida. In a correction published at midnight on Sunday, Mail Online said: “We and Katie Hopkins apologise to the Mahmood family for the distress and embarrassment caused and have agreed to pay them substantial damages and their legal costs.” Hopkins’ article suggested that the reason the family gave for visiting the US was a lie, and that she would have stopped them from boarding the flight from Gatwick. Her next column a week later also falsely suggested that Mohammed Tariq Mahmood’s son Hamza was responsible for a Facebook page that allegedly contained extremist material. The brothers said they were pleased that after “a great deal of dragging of their heels” the Mail and Hopkins had accepted the allegations were false. “Even to this day, the US authorities have not explained the reason why we were not permitted to travel; we assume it was an error or even a case of mistaken identity,” they said in a statement provided by their lawyers, Carter Ruck. “However, matters are not helped when sensationalist and, frankly, Islamophobic articles such as this are published, and which caused us all a great deal of distress and anxiety. We are very pleased that the record has been set straight.” Carter Ruck said that while most of the coverage of the Mahmood family’s ordeal had been fair and balanced, “there was absolutely no basis for suggesting that any of the Mahmoods were or are extremist, and the family were simply going on holiday”. Hopkins tweeted the apology herself at around 2am. She was hired by the Mail in September 2015 from the Sun where she had regularly come under fire for offensive columns, including one where she likened asylum seekers to cockroaches. That article, which has since been removed from the Sun website, drew condemnation from the UN high commissioner for human rights, Zeid bin Ra’ad al-Hussein. The Mail’s apology comes just days after it corrected an online article claiming that the NUS president, Malia Bouattia, had said young Muslims are travelling to join Isis in Syria due to cuts to education. Mail Online did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Wave review – impending doom and a big red button can't stop this dull ride The Wave teaches us two things. One: you don’t need to be from Hollywood to make a big, dumb Hollywood action picture. Two: between this and Force Majeure, you should take your vacation anywhere other than in view of Europe’s natural splendor. We meet Kristian (Kristoffer Joner), a handsome Norwegian geologist with mixed feelings about his last day at work. He’s about to take his family away from Geiranger, a gorgeous tourist town built alongside a fjord. (I highly recommend slipping its name into Google image search, it’s absolutely stunning.) His new gig is “in the city” for an oil company, and even though he tries to sell his wife and two children on their modern home with a door that unlocks with a phone app, he’s gonna miss this little berg, their old house and an office where he doesn’t have to wear a tie. He works, as luck would have it, at the mountain observatory, where his one job is to monitor for rockslides and tsunamis. If something happens, he needs to push a giant red button which alarms the villagers and visitors that they have 10 minutes to get to higher ground. Well, take a wild guess what happens on Kristian’s very last day. There’s a murmur on the dials and everybody but Kristian wants to shrug it off. The boss, echoing the mayor from Jaws, refuses to spook all the tourists. Kristian says his goodbyes, packs up the kids and leaves his wife Idun (Ane Dahl Torp) behind to tie up some loose ends and pull a few final shifts at the hotel where she works. Then he turns back to study those charts some more and stew. The Wave has a solid 30 minutes of nightmarish tension, during which we’re the only ones who know that the world is going to end, and no one will listen. (How do you say “Blob” in Norwegian?) The observatory crew relent and start some poking around at some cables and sensors until finally disaster strikes. In a very clever moment (and one of the few instances of levity in director Roar Uthaug’s film) we watch the guy on late-night monitor duty watch a horror film on his laptop. On the screen, a woman has no idea that peril lurks just behind her. On the reverse shot, our doofus (eating a tuna melt with pickles on it) is unaware that bright orange warning lights flash just over his shoulder. Kristian is up at his house with his young daughter and her stuffed bunny, but his Idun and their teenage son are down at the hotel. The siren finally goes off, at just around the 45-minute mark, and all hell breaks out as all race to safety. Even though The Wave is fiction, there comes a point where it ceases to be nail-biting fun and just an exercise in voyeuristic cruelty. If you want a devastating sequence in which nature comes down to brutally kill groups of people at random in horrifying ways, this is the movie for you. It’s certainly gripping, but eventually one asks: “This is entertainment?” Kristian eventually rows down to the hotel, engulfed in flames, looking like Aragorn approaching the Black Gate of Mordor. Will each member of the family be saved? Well, here’s where arthouse films have an edge. In a Hollywood picture there would be no doubt. The Wave, on the other hand, is a thorough soak in torment and doubt. While the story is about as subtle as that big red panic button, The Wave isn’t dull and Roar Uthaug knows how to manipulate an audience. It therefore shouldn’t surprise you to learn that he’s already signed his first Hollywood deal, rebooting the based-on-a-video-game Tomb Raider franchise.
Will Hollywood ever respect east Asian actors? The British actor Burt Kwouk, best known for his role as Cato Fong – the long-suffering servant of Inspector Clouseau in The Pink Panther – died this week. Duty-bound, Cato’s main task was to keep Clouseau alert, launching surprise martial-arts attacks as his employer entered his apartment. The 85-year-old went on to appear in three James Bond films and in numerous British television shows. In 2011 he received an OBE for services to drama, and will always be remembered for raising the status of east Asian actors on screen. However, as Kwouk himself acknowledged, in many roles he acted out racist stereotypes. Most of Kwouk’s earlier roles would raise eyebrows if they were seen today. Imagine sitting through a feature film where a Chinese man is repeatedly referred to by the main protagonist, Clouseau, as “my little yellow friend” while acting out crazed karate moves. Or watching the numerous evil villains he played throughout the 1960s. “If I don’t do it, someone else will,” he said in a 1981 interview. “So why don’t I go in, get some money, and try to elevate it a bit, if I can?” Since Kwouk began his career in 1957, the film and television industry has changed dramatically. But what has really changed for Asian actors? These days most of us are aware that not every east Asian person knows how to do a tornado axe-kick, and that not every Asian person has a dastardly cunning plan. But all too often we’re seen playing the foreigner, the comedy character, the sexy yet dangerous female, or the kung fu expert. We’re rarely ever just normal people. The consistent lack of roles for Asian actors leaves talented people with the same dilemma Kwouk faced: give up on your career aspirations, or act out racist stereotypes. Think of the mobster character Leslie Chow in The Hangover. It seems to be accepted that if you couch racism against Asian people in humour, it’s OK. It definitely isn’t. Although we’re now more likely to recognise racism against east Asian people, the problem now is that very little is changing in the film industry. Whitewashing is the term used to describe the act of taking Asian roles and stories and filling them with white actors. We may no longer see anything so blatantly negative as Christopher Lee playing Fu Manchu, or Joseph Wiseman as Dr No, both in the 1960s. But Scarlett Johansson has been cast in the Hollywood remake of the classic Japanese anime, Ghost in the Shell. This choice was widely criticised after Paramount Pictures released the first image of her as cyborg policewoman Major Kusanagi. And last month, Marvel Studios released a trailer for Doctor Strange, in which a Tibetan monk was reimagined as a Celtic mystic played by Tilda Swinton. Both films are expected to make millions of dollars in profit. In Kwouk’s early career, there was a dearth of voices to speak up on behalf of east Asian people, and a lack of commissioners, producers, scriptwriters and casting directors able to handle the problem sensitively. Now, the situation is, relatively, a little better. Kwouk has almost certainly help pave the way for actors such as Gemma Chan; Katie Leung, who played Cho Chang in Harry Potter; Benedict Wong, who played Bruce Ng in Ridley Scott’s The Martian; and Naoko Mori, who starred in Everest. East Asians’ visibility on screen is improving, giving space for critics such as comedian Margaret Cho, and American actors Daniel Dae Kim and Constance Wu to speak out. We must applaud Kwouk for acting in roles that he didn’t feel comfortable in, and working in an arena filled almost entirely with white people. In his first film role, in The Inn of the Sixth Happiness, most of the Chinese characters were played by a European cast. It must have been tough. Yes, there might have been other actors who would have taken his place, but Kwouk’s resilience helped to make an underrepresented group more visible on screen. What we need to do now is to build on his legacy and speak more openly about the film industry’s failure to represent and respect east Asian people, their history and culture. This year’s #OscarsSoWhite campaign showed the industry has to wake up to diversity. Could next year mark a breakthrough for East Asian actors?
Nigel Farage will not be ambassador to US, say No 10 and Foreign Office Downing Street and the Foreign Office have brushed off a suggestion from the US president-elect, Donald Trump, that Nigel Farage would be a good ambassador to Washington, as MPs said the interim Ukip leader’s inflammatory views made him a poor candidate for a diplomatic post. No 10 declined to criticise Trump’s call for Farage to become the ambassador and stressed that it was “important to reiterate that the UK already has an incredibly strong and enduring relationship with the United States”. The prime minister’s spokesman said: “As far as the ambassador goes, there is no vacancy for that position. We have an excellent ambassador to the United States and he will continue his work.” Overnight, Trump tweeted that Farage’s appointment would be a popular choice, an unprecedented comment from an incoming US president in suggesting a foreign appointment to another world leader, especially given Farage’s opposition to the government. Sir Kim Darroch, formerly the UK’s national security adviser and permanent representative to the EU, took over the role as US ambassador in January, one of the most prestigious in the diplomatic service. Both Downing Street and the foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, took pains to praise Darroch’s tenure in Washington in their responses to Trump’s tweet. Speaking in the House of Commons, Johnson said Darroch was a “a first rate ambassador in Washington doing a very good job with the current administration and the administration to be, and there is no vacancy”. Johnson said the UK hoped to be influential as Trump took the reins at the White House. “I do think it is very important that on all sides of this House we should be as positive as we possibly can be about working with the incoming US administration,” he said. “It is of massive importance to our country and indeed to the world. And I suggest to the honourable member that he should judge that new administration by their actions in office which, of course, we hope to shape and influence.” Fellow Conservative MP Dan Poulter asked Johnson to stress that those with a character such as Farage’s would not make good ambassadors. “Diplomats require diplomacy,” he told the Commons. “There should be no place for anyone who expresses inflammatory and what sometimes can be considered to be borderline racist views in representing this country in discussions with the United States.” Johnson said he thought Poulter “captures the mood of the House” on the issue, adding: “We have already settled that question, there is no vacancy.” In Brussels, the Brexit secretary, David Davis, said he believed Darroch would be in place for the foreseeable future. “We are believers in free speech in Britain, but we have got a very good ambassador Kim Darroch who is going to be there for some years,” he told the BBC. “People can say what they like. The simple truth is there is no vacancy. The ambassador there is very, very good. And he will be there for years.” Sir Christopher Meyer, a former UK ambassador to Washington, tweeted on Tuesday morning that it was not for foreign leaders to suggest candidates for diplomatic posts. Earlier, Farage said he had not been expecting Trump’s tweet, but said it was a signal that Downing Street needed to change its thinking. “I can still scarcely believe that he did that, though speaking to a couple of his longtime friends perhaps I am a little less surprised,” he wrote in an piece on Tuesday morning for rightwing US site Breitbart. “They all say the same thing: that Trump is a very loyal man and supports those that stand by him.” Farage, who recently suggested he could mount an eighth attempt to become an MP after failing seven times, said personal relationships were key to how Trump operated. “Sadly, the cesspit that is career politics understands nothing of this,” he said. “In their world, the concept of trust is transitory.” The Ukip leader has previously said it was “obvious” that Darroch should resign, calling him part of the “old regime”. Though Farage admitted he did not necessarily have the personal qualities for a diplomatic position, one ally of Ukip’s interim leader suggested Theresa May could solve a political problem for her party by appointing him, saying it would be an effective way of ending Ukip as a force in British politics. Farage, the first foreign politician to meet Trump after the Republican candidate’s shock victory, is expecting an invitation to Trump’s inauguration in January, sources have told the . Having campaigned together during the election, Trump and Farage met recently at Trump Tower in New York, where the president-elect is said to have encouraged Farage to oppose wind farms, which he felt marred the views from his Scottish golf courses. Andy Wigmore, a communications officer for one of the groups campaigning to leave the EU who was at the meeting alongside Farage, told the Daily Express: “We covered a lot of ground during the hour-long meeting we had. “But one thing Mr Trump kept returning to was the issue of wind farms. He is a complete Anglophile and also absolutely adores Scotland, which he thinks is one of the most beautiful places on Earth. But he is dismayed that his beloved Scotland has become overrun with ugly wind farms, which he believes are a blight on the stunning landscape.”
When political leaders are selected via elitism not talent, you get chaos There’s nothing quite like a constitutional crisis to expose what can only be described as the abject crapness of our political class. The parliamentary Labour party has largely decided it has had enough of Jeremy Corbyn and wants a new ruler, but seems categorically unable to suggest anyone. Who would fit the bill? Dan Jarvis, who promises to be “tough on inequality, tough on the causes of inequality”? What does that even mean? Or how about Hilary Benn? He gave one well-delivered speech to parliament about Syria and people seemed to decide that made him the new Winston Churchill, before forgetting about him a week later. There is talent in the Labour party, but barely any in the former disciples of Tony Blair, which is the wing of the party that set the ball rolling for the coup currently under way. Many of those MPs seem to think that what the country wants right now is a political middle manager to soundbite the country out of this quagmire, while also validating some of the racist sentiments of the leave campaign, naturally. Then there’s the Tory party. David Cameron resigned and made himself a lame duck prime minister so he wouldn’t have to take part in Brexit negotiations, or “the hard shit” as he reportedly called it. Meanwhile, Boris Johnson is attempting to strike a deal with the EU via a column in the Telegraph, and we’re left deciphering Michael Gove’s feelings from Sarah Vine’s Facebook posts. It’s fair to say that some in the leave campaign now appear not to want to leave after all. But their remorse has led to a giant buck-passing exercise, or as the Economist put it: “The country is sailing into a storm with no one at the wheel.” Although actually, since I started writing this, No 10 has announced that Oliver Letwin will be in charge of post-Brexit negotiations. Yes, that’s right – Oliver Letwin, a man whose most famous political act was to get photographed dumping sensitive documents in a bin in a park in central London. Good luck, Britain. This total incompetence, this craven self-interest, this embarrassing fecklessness is what you get when you live in a country where political leaders are mainly selected via elitism rather than talent: 33% of MPs went to private school, and nearly a quarter went to Oxbridge. This doesn’t just end with members of parliament either: 43% of newspaper columnists and 26% of BBC executives were all educated privately. Oxbridge graduates make up 57% of permanent secretaries, 50% of diplomats, 47% of newspaper columnists, 44% of public body chairs and 33% of BBC executives. It’s no surprise that people feel alienated by politics and locked out of democracy, and view the people who represent them as out of touch. Indeed, Brexit should be seen as an expression of that as much as anything else. But there is less discussion about what this elitism means for the quality of people who actually end up leading us and formulating political discourse. And this seismic crisis should change that, because it reveals that a lot of these people are basically defunct – obsolete in this new era of crisis. Think of what has been happening in this country since 2008. In mainstream politics there has been virtually no analysis of what caused the financial crisis, no attempts to address the underlying structural problems in the economy, no retribution for the people that caused it, no serious attempt to stem widening inequality, no support for the people who lost their jobs during the recession, no viable solution to a worsening housing crisis, no hope for a generation of young people entering into an unstable, precarious economy. The political class has done very little of worth since they bailed out the banks in 2008. And before that, it wasn’t exactly a bed of roses: there were still thousands of people feeling abandoned by politics up and down the country, reeling from de-industrialisation; there were the grotesque attempts by New Labour to appeal to middle England by treating the working class as voting fodder; the unwillingness to criticise free market capitalism and plastering over the cracks it caused. This is not about individual politicians. Indeed, there are many who are talented – Ruth Davidson, Nicola Sturgeon, Caroline Lucas to name a few. But the political class as a whole, and how it functions alongside its outer circle of pundits, lobbyists, policymakers and so on, has proven itself to be woefully unqualified to cope with crisis as well as being utterly unable to comprehend the country it is supposed to be governing. The consequences of this are already obvious: an electorate that is so angry and mistrustful of its leaders that it becomes susceptible to the likes of total charlatans such as Nigel Farage. And Farage may be dishonest, but make no mistake – he will capitalise upon this crisis by taking advantage of the ineptitude of the mainstream. He will, amazingly, lead the charge against broken promises. He will attract voters by vocalising their utter dissatisfaction with the mediocrity of their leaders. And then we will all lose. To turn things around, the Westminster bubble will need to display a level of self-reflection that it has hitherto been incapable of. It needs to display humility, and recognise that it has got pretty much every major political event of the past five years completely wrong. It needs to display more than a cursory interest in ordinary people’s lives. And finally, it needs to find some way to guide the country out of this crisis – starting with a profound and sincere acknowledgement that the status quo before it was not good. Things are not good, and they need to be better. Start there.
LBJ review: Woody Harrelson compelling if physically unconvincing in firm biopic It’s inevitable that an election year would have an effect on Hollywood, but 2016 has seen an unusually high number of films centred on, or at least relating to, US political history. There’s been Elvis & Nixon, the two Obama dramas, Southside with You and the Toronto-premiering Barry and even a Purge sequel subtitled Election Year. But even within this subgenre, Lyndon B Johnson has been a surprisingly recurrent character. Bryan Cranston took on the role in HBO’s All the Way, he cropped up in Pablo Larrain’s Oscar-tipped Jackie and he’s now front and centre in Rob Reiner’s earnest but entertaining drama. He’s played by Woody Harrelson, an odd choice for anyone who’s ever seen a picture of Johnson, but with heavy prosthetics, distracting at first and also strangely useless given that he ends up looking more like Nixon. The film focuses on Johnson’s rivalry with John F Kennedy as the pair go up against each other as the democratic candidate and once Johnson loses, we see him deal with life as an over-experienced vice-president and, after tragedy strikes, president. Overwhelmed with responsibility and disrespected by Kennedy’s aides, he finds himself stuck in a difficult situation. From the first notes of worthy presidential music, it’s clear that LBJ is not going to worry itself with reinventing the political biopic. Reiner’s take on the Kennedy years of Johnson’s life is strictly conventional, even down to the oft-used marching drums in the background, but it’s solidly entertaining nonetheless, its adherence to formula never dulling its drama. The dialogue might often resort to painfully clunky exposition but it never resorts to a simplistic portrayal of Johnson and his politics. As an older southern democrat, he’s torn between his heritage and Kennedy’s progressive views and, in particular, his strong belief in the importance of civil rights. He’s painted as a man playing both sides but also learning, his pragmatism and values ultimately ushering him towards equality. It’s refreshing in a rigid, and often cliched, film as this to see such a flawed protagonist. There’s also a pleasing focus on political minutiae, detailed enough but accessibly conveyed and the film weaves in the growing issue of aesthetics (Johnson is deeply aware of his position as workhorse compared to JFK’s showhorse) at a time when media representation was starting to have a profound effect on voters. There’s also a nicely played scene where Johnson discusses the importance of civil rights with a bigioted southern senator (a believably foul Richard Jenkins) as his black maid serves them dinner. Harrelson overcomes the heavy layer of prosthetics to deliver a commanding and layered take on the president. He easily flips from confidence (bragging about the size of his penis to a busy room) to embarrassment (a Dallas crowd eager for JFK has no interest in him) and it’s a pleasure to see him play something other than wisecracking support. Yet Jennifer Jason Leigh has precious little to do in the thankless role of his wife and, at a tight 98 minutes, the film feels somewhat short on their relationship. It’s a well-worn road but Reiner steers with skill, delivering his best film since 1995’s The American President, hinting that he might have more political tales in him yet. It might not go all the way but it’s a biopic that’s just about worth your vote.
Celebrities don emergency blankets at Berlin fundraiser for refugees A film charity event held alongside an installation in Berlin by the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei has sparked anger. According to Artnet, the Cinema for Peace fundraiser took place at the Berlin Konzerthaus, whose pillars the artist decorated – as part of his installation Safe Passage – with 14,000 lifejackets flown in from Lesbos, Greece, where almost 450,000 refugees arrived in 2015 on their way into the EU. Fundraiser guests, including actor Charlize Theron and Pussy Riot member Nadya Tolokonnikova, were encouraged to don emergency thermal blankets similar to those given to refugees. In a Facebook post, Tim Renner, Berlin’s culture secretary, was highly critical of the sight of dinner guests at a star-studded gala posing in the blankets at the party. “When Ai Weiwei illustrates the dimensions of terror outside [the gala] with 14,000 life jackets from Lesbos, it is perhaps not subtle but effective and justified; but when the guests of Cinema for Peace are prompted by the organiser to don emergency blankets for a group photo, even if understood as an act of solidarity, it has a clearly obscene element,” he said. Ai Weiwei, whose recent work has focused on the migration crisis, was criticised two weeks ago for recreating a photo of the drowned Syrian toddler Alan Kurdi – for the magazine India Today – in which the artist lies face down on a beach. He maintained that his work was intended to “defend the dignity” of the refugees.
‘Now I don’t trust my neighbour, and I have lived here for 30 years’ The tiny library at Bartley Green boasts two commemorative plaques on its walls. One pays tribute to the Scottish philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, who put up the money for the building; the other remembers Jane Bunford, who at 7ft 9in was the world’s tallest woman at the time of her death in 1922, and led a solitary and sometimes bullied life. At the bus stop close to where the gentle, red-haired giant lived, Gloria Abedune says she has never noticed the memorial before: “It’s funny you don’t see what’s in front of you sometimes.” The same thought has occurred in relation to the extraordinary events of the past week. “Everyone said they were not against immigration,” Abedune says, “that they were not racist. I am shocked. I am disgusted. I look at everyone: ‘Did you do this?’ I thought this was a strong Labour community, not a Ukip place – people were concerned for each other. Now I don’t trust my neighbour, and I have lived here in this place for 30 years.” She isn’t happy with Jeremy Corbyn and thinks he should go: “That man never had his heart in it, did he?” But she has no idea about a replacement. “Wouldn’t know any of them if they sat down on the number 18 bus.” Bartley Green is a ward of local authority-style terraced houses and flats in the Edgbaston constituency of Birmingham, staunchly Labour, with nine of its 10 MPs from the party. The city bucked the national trend last year with a landslide victory for Labour in local authority elections, moving the council’s leader, John Clancy, to declare: “This is a Labour city and will stay a Labour city.” But there are longstanding problems with housing and basic services, and the council, which is cutting 1,000 jobs, has to make £250m savings in its budget over the next four years. It will be a huge challenge for Labour to keep poorer voters on side, illustrated starkly by the polarisation of the referendum. Edgbaston as a whole voted 52.7% for Remain despite the MP, Labour’s Gisela Stuart, being the chair of the Vote Leave campaign. Stuart declared her party’s position to be the “biggest recruiting agent for Ukip I can think of”. Bartley Green voted 66.5% for Leave. Stuart has attacked Corbyn as being willing to tear the party apart, although has not yet directly called for him to stand down. Jean Wright is 78 and a lifelong Labour voter with some sympathy for Corbyn, although she admits she is not impressed with him as leader. “Very weak. I’m Labour through and through – my husband used to go out and do the leaflets for them, so both lifelong Labour, yes. I don’t know what they’re up to down there. They voted Corbyn in, and what did they do that for if they weren’t going to give him a chance? I think he’s a good enough man – he just doesn’t come over very well, that’s his problem. Now I just don’t know what’s going to happen to any of us, any of it. It’s a mess.” She rolls her eyes. “And it’s us have to just get on with it.” Edgbaston also includes the University of Birmingham, where students such as Jeevan Jones had been actively campaigning around campus and now fear the fallout for Labour will alienate young people, once so energised by the Corbyn promise. “There is a lot of support for him. What MPs don’t like, many young people do. “There’s a real sense of disbelief at the level of incompetence that’s being shown in Westminster – it’s astounding,” he adds. “For a huge amount of people in Birmingham, they had nothing to lose when they voted – that’s where the Labour party should have stepped in and made the case. But we didn’t and we have to accept what people said, and accept no free movement of people is what the issue was. I was for Andy Burnham the last time; this time I don’t know. Corbyn does have to go. I can’t believe he hasn’t.” Jack Dromey, another Labour Birmingham MP whose constituency voted against him, and who warned of the unleashing of “a tidal wave of racial abuse and attacks”, was among the first frontbenchers to offer his resignation and call for Corbyn, his friend of 40 years standing, to resign. Writing to Corbyn, he said: “I believe we may now be on the brink of a catastrophic defeat from which Labour may never recover.” He concluded: “I would urge you, therefore, as the decent and principled man that you are to put the working people of Britain first. I want history to record that my old friend Jeremy put principle before self.” At Bartley Green, Alex and Stephen are heading into One Stop for post-school supplies. “I read the papers about it,” says Alex, 15. “Mum wanted to vote Ukip but we told her they were just racists so she votes Labour. I’d vote Labour because I think if the MPs don’t like their leader and people do, then he is doing something right.” Stephen, 14, isn’t so sure. He doesn’t know the name of any Labour politicians – although he is standing next to a newsstand where Corbyn’s glares out of the headlines: “I wouldn’t vote for any of them, don’t see what they’re for.” No photographs exist of Bartley Green’s almost forgotten former resident Jane Bunford, but in a scandal only uncovered 90 years after her death, it emerged that her coffin was buried empty, and her skeleton kept by the university without even her name being recorded alongside it. As her bus arrives, Gloria Abedune sees the story as having resonance. “That’s the story of working people, is it not? Good people get run over – they are not left with even dignity.” She thinks people are too tired of politics to engage with Labour’s squabbling. “If I don’t trust you, and you are my neighbour, then what are our chances?” she asks, adding the same went for Labour. “Why should I vote at all?”
Is South Carolina the establishment's last stand in the Republican civil war? While Marco Rubio took the stage inside a barn flanked by two South Carolina lawmakers who like him were once seen as the future of the Republican party, two hours south-east in North Charleston Jeb Bush focused on the past, with his brother George W Bush joining him for the first time on the campaign trail. The candidates jockeying to emerge as an alternative to Donald Trump and Ted Cruz have struggled to break through in a primary season that has thus far rewarded anger over optimism, and a failure to win over South Carolina’s conservative electorate might cause the race to winnow down to a two-man contest between deeply polarizing figures regarded as unpalatable by the party’s top ranks. In searching for ways to seal the deal with those voters still willing to give them a look, Rubio and Bush arrived in the state attempting to create sharper contrasts to underscore what is at stake, focusing on their opponents’ lack of civility, dirty campaign tactics and, in Trump’s case, perceived lack of religious conviction. “I promise you, if you’re a parent, you are not going to have to put your hands over the ears of your children at any time today,” Congressman Trey Gowdy told a couple hundred people who had packed into a barn on a tree farm in Gilbert to see Rubio. The crowd, recognizing immediately the reference to Trump’s recent headline-grabbing use of profanity, hooted in agreement. When Rubio grabbed the mic moments later, he looked anything but diminished despite a disappointing fifth-place showing in New Hampshire. Criss-crossing the state with Gowdy and Senator Tim Scott in tow, Rubio hit the trail encouraged by positive reviews for his most recent debate performance on Saturday – a much-needed return to form after his now-infamous encounter with New Jersey governor Chris Christie in the previous debate. “There’s a reason I get attacked by every other Republican,” Rubio had explained to voters at an earlier town hall in Rock Hill. “Because we draw voters from them, because we can speak to every part of our party.” The Florida senator emphasized what he said was a 15-year record of applying conservative principles in public service. And, on the other side of town, George W Bush similarly touted his brother Jeb’s conservative bona fides as the candidate continued to attack Trump. George W Bush echoed his brother’s criticism of the Republican frontrunner on Monday, telling the crowd: “I understand Americans are angry and frustrated. But we do not need somebody in the Oval Office who mirrors and inflames our anger and frustration.” The elder Bush brother also rejected the label of “establishment” that his brother – along with Rubio and Ohio governor John Kasich – has been identified as belonging to. “If being president of the United States makes me part of the establishment,” Bush said, “well, I proudly carry that label.” Quoting his father, former president George HW Bush, he added: “Labels are for soup cans.” Cruz and Trump are riding high after resounding victories in Iowa and New Hampshire, respectively, and Trump is leading the polls in South Carolina, with Cruz second. At the other end of the spectrum are Jeb Bush and Kasich, facing an uphill battle in terms of resources and the ability to expand their appeal among the more conservative wing of the party; Kasich’s decision to start the week campaigning in the more moderate terrain of Michigan instead of South Carolina seemed to be an acknowledgement of this. Meanwhile Rubio, seeking to revive the momentum he lost in New Hampshire, continued to claim a spot somewhere in between. Despite his disappointing performance in that primary, the senator insists he is uniquely positioned to bridge the gap within the party and win the general election. Speaking to reporters aboard his campaign bus on Monday, Rubio took aim at both Cruz and Trump as candidates whose support has a ceiling. “Ted is not someone who can bring the party together; he’s not someone who can grow the party,” Rubio said, adding of Trump: “He’s obviously got a message that’s resonated with some people ... but ultimately you also have to be able to unite our party. “We have to be able to take our conservative principles – not water them down – but convince more people to vote conservative.” He echoed one of his themes from the stump, warning voters what the consequences might be if the party allowed itself to be engulfed by “Republican-on-Republican violence” rather than keeping its sights focused on retaking the White House after eight years. “We cannot lose this election, and we cannot win if we are divided against each other,” Rubio said. “The Democrats would pay us to continue to fight against each other well into October. When I am our nominee, I will bring the party and the conservative movement together.” Blair Shropshire, a voter who came to see Rubio in Rock Hill on Monday morning, was mostly convinced. For him, it was down to the Florida senator or Kasich – even if the governor was not competing strongly in the southern states. “He has a very good track record in Ohio, and I like his unifying message,” Shropshire said, while adding his appreciation for the fact that neither Kasich nor Rubio appeared to attack their rivals unless prompted. “I think Rubio has the best shot of defeating Hillary [Clinton],” he said. “I just hope he can overtake Trump and Cruz.”
How do you become music's next big thing? You hope your record label will spend, spend, spend Jack Garratt won the BBC Sound of 2016 poll less than a fortnight ago, but behind the scenes, the lobbying by record labels on behalf of the acts they want to win the 2017 poll is already swinging into action. Since the BBC launched the Sound of … poll in 2003, it has become a flagpole event for launching and breaking new acts, a convenient cavalry charge at a time when the album market started to go into freefall. With the record industry keen to turn any lifeline it is handed into a whip with which to direct the market, it didn’t take long for it to become virtually a monopoly, shaped and directed by the incredible marketing weight and promotional expenditure of a handful of labels. From its earliest days, Sound of … has been criticised as a cordoned-off VIP room for the major labels. Indeed, only one act on an independent label has ever won it – Adele in 2008, when signed to XL Recordings. EMI, when it still existed and before it was carved up between Universal and Warner, managed to win once in 2006 with Corinne Bailey Rae. Warner also managed to win once in 2009 with Little Boots. Sony has never had an act win. Acts signed to Universal and its imprints, however, have won it 11 times in the past 14 years. Universal’s signings have triumphed every single year since 2010. Rather than it being a syndicate for the majors, it’s increasingly looking like a cartel for Universal – the biggest and most profitable record label in the world – and its sub-labels. There is no suggestion that there’s anything corrupt going on; simply that the results of the poll reflect the fact that those with the biggest marketing budgets can make their acts much more visible, and therefore much more likely to win. But the result has been that the BBC’s poll is less a promoter of talent than a promoter of commerce. “It is presented as a certainty,” says one independent publicist, speaking anonymously, who long ago stopped putting forward acts for consideration. “I find the whole thing monumentally fucking depressing.” Another independent publicist, speaking off the record, remembers feeling that a few leftfield acts were starting to make the longlist at the turn of the decade, which inspired them to consider pushing one of their acts for the Sound of 2011 poll. “As soon as I started to pitch to people, I realised the decisions had already started to be made,” they say. Why are publicists so important to the process? Because journalists make up the majority of the 144 voters. Although the panel includes a selection of the BBC’s most respected new music presenters and producers, the majority of the pundits are from newspapers, magazines, blogs and commercial radio and TV. “We hope to represent a huge spectrum of music from across the world, covering a diverse range of musical styles and backgrounds,” the BBC’s website says. “When selecting the pundits, the BBC is looking for the most genuine and passionate music fans, whose day-job also involves showcasing the best new music to a wider audience. None of them work full-time for record labels, management or PR, and none of them can make money directly from the success of the artists. None of the pundits are paid for taking part.” No one makes money, no one is paid. And the pundits do not, as the BBC takes care to stress, vote from a list of predetermined acts. But most of the voters are besieged by new music all year round: it’s only natural, if unfortunate, that the acts they remember, come voting time, are the ones who have been thrust upon them with the greatest frequency. Simply, these are the names that get remembered. “I would imagine that the vast majority of people who are voting are not the people who will spend ages on Bandcamp buying music and investigating what else is being recommended around those artists,” says one writer who still votes each year, even if they know they are throwing a sponge at a tornado. “There were a few years where I thought: ‘Fuck this – I don’t want to do it.’ I hated the way it had become a self-fulfilling prophecy.” At the turn of this decade, the PR machines began roaring to life around six months before voting took place, to get the preferred names into the right minds. Today, it is a year in advance. Having a publicist devote this much time to pushing forward an anointed act is not cheap. Which prices out the small acts who would gain the most from an award that is meant to reward musical promise rather than – as with the Brits critics’ choice award (also won this year by Garratt) – highlight the act most likely to be successful over the following year. “If someone wanted my undivided time to launch a new act over the course of a year, it would cost about 10 grand,” says the head of one small independent PR firm. “If you were talking to one of the big PR firms, they’d probably charge two grand a month. Major labels are the only ones who have the money to bankroll something like that.” Add in similar costs for a TV and radio plugger, to get the music aired in public and make voters feel that said act really is the kind of label priority worth voting for, and the same again for an online marketing team to make things appear “viral” and “organic”, and you will be lucky to get much change out of £100,000. Labels say that the cost of developing and launching a new mainstream pop act today can be anywhere between £500,000 and £1m. With winning the tastemaker polls seen as the blue chip moment in a launch campaign, it’s clear why an increasing number of chips from a decreasing number of bettors are being stacked on the side of the BBC’s roulette wheel. It’s not that the BBC decided to create a poll that required this level of expenditure, but that the major labels have, in effect, turned it into one. “With Jack Garratt, there was a lot of excitement around him at the Great Escape festival in Brighton last May,” explains a publicist about when it became obvious who was being positioned as the frontrunner for January’s big reveal. “The way they build things is to release a track or a video to create a buzz, and then get the artist to play the showcase festivals. Then, after the Sound … poll, the story is launched into the public consciousness that he is this humble, nice guy who started out busking.” For a label to see anything back from the PR cost of pushing an act, the act would need to both win the poll (mainstream media outlets are not concerned with offering much coverage to the runners-up) and then sell an extra 100,000 albums. Given that most new acts today struggle to reach anything approaching those sales figures, the stakes are far too high for most to even dare compete. Bear in mind, too, that for many indie labels, the significantly lower costs of mounting a campaign for even the Mercury prize are still too high. But the more of them that duck out of the race, the more the poll is at risk of becoming little more than a satellite marketing division of Universal. How can this be resolved? Maybe the solution lies in taking a Logan’s Run approach to the voting process, whereby anyone over the age of 30 is automatically retired from the panel, and voting rights are handed back to those most enthusiastic about the music and least concerned with backing a winner. As it stands, the poll is more of a coronation than a competition. Despite being given a week to comment for this piece, the BBC has put no one forward. Perhaps there is a realisation there, too, that Sound of … might just as well be renamed Spend of ….
Trump country: why Democratic strongholds are turning red In the Republican primaries this spring, Donald Trump won sweeping victories in Appalachia. In a region that includes parts of 13 states and has a distinct cultural and demographic identity, the New York billionaire won all but 16 of 420 counties. I was intrigued. I wanted to meet Trump supporters, to explore why they had cast their lot for him, and to find out what he represented to them. And so I travelled though parts of West Virginia, the Ohio Valley, the Pittsburgh area and the coal country of eastern Pennsylvania. Whether Trump wins or loses against Hillary Clinton on 8 November, the so-called “Trump voters” I met, and thousands more like them, will continue to be a significant factor in American politics. John Selzer, Marietta, Ohio John Selzer, 74, is a retired brick mason living in Washington County, in south-eastern Ohio. Thanks to hard work, he said, he was able to build a successful construction company, producing brickwork known for its artful and original design. In summer, he and his wife, Eileen, like to travel in their 1983 Volkswagen Westfalia (“Vanagon”) camper, shown here on the banks of the Ohio river. Selzer said he “loved” Trump because Trump was doing something he didn’t have to do, and had the money to back it up. “The reason I like him,” Selzer said, “is that he is a no-nonsense individual. He’s got his life together. He wants to get the country out of the hole that it’s in.” Many people get a “free ride” from government programs, Selzer added, though he had always had to work hard to get anywhere. He always gave his customers a break on the work he did, he said, because he wanted repeat business. Anthony Venditti, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania Venditti works as a chemical engineer at a steel plant owned by Allegheny Technologies, producing specialty steel and super-alloys for the aerospace, defense and oil and gas markets. Venditti studied engineering at Johns Hopkins University and returned to Pittsburgh to work in an industry which has long employed members of his family. With the market for speciality steel currently “soft”, however, ATI recently laid off 30% of its workforce. “There is illegal dumping going on, with steel from China,” Venditti said. “ATI just won a trade case over it. If the government can help on that, we shouldn’t have to do it all by ourselves. We should be stronger – it would make us stronger.” He conceded that Trump was not his first choice and said he had been more drawn to Rand Paul, a Libertarian Kentucky senator, and Ted Cruz, a hardline conservative from Texas. But, he said, Trump’s greatest appeal lay in his not being part of the Washington political elite. “Trump is not a career politician,” he said. “He is an outsider. He funded his own campaign. I wanted someone from outside Washington to manage the country. He is one of the better business leaders that I could have voted for.” Anthony Mickey, Jefferson County, Ohio Anthony Mickey served for three and a half years as a combat engineer in the US army and was then honorably discharged, due to an injury. A self-described conservative activist, he follows the presidential election with great interest. He pointed to a shuttered steel mill just a few hundred yards from his apartment building, and said: “Production of steel here in Mingo Junction was huge. It produced lots of jobs. Now that the steel mill is shut down, people have to travel elsewhere to work. It’s a ghost town.” Proudly displaying a Trump sign on his porch, he said the billionaire would create jobs and make life easier. “He can relate to people who struggle,” he said. Dr Antonio Ripepi, head of surgery, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Ripepi is third-generation Italian American and a lifelong resident of western Pennsylvania. He works as a surgeon in a major Pittsburgh hospital, specializing in minimally invasive surgery, surgical endoscopy and gastrointestinal surgery. A father of four children aged nine to 13, his political outlook is colored by his family’s immigrant background. “People moved here [from Europe] so that their children could have a better life,” he said. “I am tremendously worried about what my children will inherit from this world, from this [Democratic] political party that has been running our country for too long. That’s my fear, and I think it is the fear of a lot of people like me.” Ripepi would have preferred John Kasich as the Republican nominee, because he sees the Ohio governor as more fiscally conservative. He will vote for Trump, he said, because of the alternative. “[Hillary] Clinton has always held herself above the law,” he said. “The most recent stuff that came out [about her use of a private email server while secretary of state], the FBI said she was wrong but they didn’t indict her. If I did that, I would be in jail. This is not about a woman. This is about a political way of life.” He added: “Despite the fact Donald Trump and I are so far apart on our values, I cannot continue to support or vote for the established liberal party.” Brenda Miller, pharmacy worker, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania A mother of four, Miller works in a mom-and-pop pharmacy in Lehman Township and knows about economic challenges. In March, her husband was laid off from the coal mines near Hazeltown. He was able to find a new job. Miller described herself as “a born and raised Democrat” who in 2008 wrote in Hillary Clinton, because she wanted a woman in the Oval Office. “It was our time,” she thought. But she didn’t vote in 2012. “I was disgusted,” she said. “I couldn’t believe they wanted Obama for a second time.” This year, she said, she was planning to vote for Trump. In the primary, he got 77.4% of the vote in Luzerne County. “We just need a new person,” she said. “It has been the Bushes, the Clintons, I think we need a fresh start.” Robert Katrainak, meat cutter, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania Describing himself as a lifelong Democrat who voted for Barack Obama twice, Katrainak said Trump would get his vote this year. “I think Trump is getting a lot of support because Bill Clinton started Nafta,” he said, referring to a controversial trade agreement. “I used to work for a company called Carter Footwear. I was a union steward. They passed Nafta, and three weeks later, there were 249 people without jobs. People that worked for Carter Footwear for 20 to 30 years didn’t have anywhere to go. Katrainiak spent $350 to have an illuminated sign made and installed on his property, by the highway. It reads: “VOTE Donald Trump. BEAT Crooked Hillary.” “People love my sign,” he said. “People always honk their horns when they pass.” Elson See, retired farmer, Hampshire County, West Virginia Known to other patrons at Shirley’s Diner only by his nickname, “Buck”, See is a local celebrity. His long life has been chronicled in a biography, An Uncommon Man, which covers his humble beginnings on a small farm, military service in Germany toward the end of the second world war, and a struggle with a crippling illness. People in West Virginia, he said, tend to vote by party. It has been that way since the 1930s, when most people voted Democratic, but: “People are getting tired of it. They are going for the Republican this year.” He blamed Barack Obama for shutting down jobs in the coal industry. “When they shut down the coal fields, they shut down all of eastern West Virginia,” he said. “And people are part of that.” Sydney Gore, nursing student, Grafton, West Virginia Born and raised in a coal-mining community in Logan County, in the southern part of West Virginia, the 18-year-old came to Morgantown to study nursing at the West Virginia University. During the summer, she worked as a waitress at Jerry’s Restaurant in nearby Grafton. Gore said her father started working in the coal mines at age 18, he is now 45 and there is no longer work for him in the mines. The family had to move from Logan County for him to find other work. After Clinton made a public statement during the primary about “putting coal companies out of business”, Gore said, voting for the Democrat was out of the question. She plans to vote for Trump.
Fantastic Negrito: the drug-dealing hustler who became Bernie Sanders' favourite bluesman “You wanna hear my robbery tactics?” says the rangy 48-year-old sitting opposite me in a Soho ramen house. “I’d make friends with the kid that was not that popular. I’d go to his house. I’d find a house key and secretly make a copy. Then I’d find out the schedule of the family. Then, when they were gone, I’d make my move. I was that kind of robber.” Ask Xavier Dphrepaulezz (it’s pronounced “dee-FREP-ah-lez”) about any of his past lives – including his teenage years of petty crime while in foster care – and he has a way of taking you to the heart of the action. His story is, by any criteria, extraordinary, and the enjoyment he derives from sharing it is infectious. The singer, who describes himself as a lifelong hustler, landed in London this morning for the first time in a decade. Last time he was here, long before his current incarnation as Fantastic Negrito, he was briefly the blue-haired frontman of Blood Sugar X, a manic Cali-funk-punk collective “in the tradition of bands like Bad Brains and Fishbone”. Ten years earlier, he was simply Xavier, peddling innocuous MTV funk before a car crash put him in a coma for three weeks and laid his pop star aspirations to waste. Far from distancing himself from all these personas, Dphrepaulezz places his phone on the table and Googles them for you, lest you imagine he has anything to hide. After half a lifetime spent chasing a break, Dphrepaulezz’s luck turned when he stopped trying. To start with, there was the DIY video for his song Lost in a Crowd, which last year saw off more than 7,000 allcomers to win the National Public Radio (NPR) Tiny Desk competition. He was railroaded into submitting the song by the other members of Blackball Universe, the Californian arts cooperative he co-founded to create a structure of mutual support among struggling black artists. Dphrepaulezz’s prize was the chance to follow in the footsteps of Adele and Florence and the Machine – and record a concert for NPR. One person who connected with Dphrepaulezz’s urgent blues epistles was Bernie Sanders. It’s easy to see why a man running for the Democratic presidential nomination on a leftwing ticket might seize on, say, a song called Working Poor. When Sanders heard it, he enlisted Dphrepaulezz to play at events around the primaries in New Hampshire and Nevada. On the day we meet, the singer will be beamed across the US, thanks to a performance in Fox’s music industry drama Empire. That’s Fantastic Negrito you can also hear on Ron Perlman’s Amazon series Hand of God: the show’s theme song is the battle-weary testifying of An Honest Man. Dphrepaulezz seems as much a bemused onlooker as a participant in the events of his life. The first time he heard any of the blues records that inform Fantastic Negrito’s debut album, The Last Days of Oakland, their concerns seemed a world away from his own. Aged eight, Dphrepaulezz was visiting relatives in south Virginia. The music playing in their house bore as little relevance to his life as the classical-pop records favoured by his father – a half-Somalian, half-Caribbean restaurateur born in 1905. Until the age of 12, home for Dphrepaulezz and his 14 siblings was rural Massachusetts. “My dad was a strict Muslim. He had a lot of rules,” he recalls. You probably have to be strict, I suggest, if you’re raising 15 kids. “Well,” he shoots back, “he wasn’t strict when he was making them.” When the family moved to California in 1979, setting up home across the bay from San Francisco in Oakland, they were in effect releasing him into the wild. Gang-controlled drug-dealing had brought the city to the brink of lawlessness. Confronted by “this explosion of counterculture” – hip-hop, thrash metal and punk all meeting in one location – Dphrepaulezz made new friends, left home and didn’t come back. “We were all selling drugs, man. We all carried pistols. There was a crack epidemic. Mostly, I was small-time. I was the kind of kid who would sell fake weed, shit like that. Sometimes I would use tea. What was it that the Beatles would smoke from a pipe in order to try and get high? Typhoid?” Typhoo tea? “That’s the shit!” Dphrepaulezz’s saving grace was that, even as a teenage drug-dealer, he avoided ingesting anything heavier than weed. This period, spent pinballing between foster families, seems to have hardened his political outlook. “As long as we have have predatory capitalism,” he says, “we’ll have guns, because the gun industry loves to make money out of guns. They don’t care if children die. What concerns them is profit.” Dphrepaulezz rarely gets emotional when going over these distant memories. But the death of Prince is another matter. “His Dirty Mind album changed everything for me,” he says, momentarily faltering. “Someone told me he was self-taught and that opened the door for me. I was 18 and getting into trouble. I was thinking, ‘What can I do that’s safe?’ So I started teaching myself how to play.” His method was nothing if not ingenious. He “grew long sideburns” and pretended to be a student at the University of Berkeley. Taking the 40-minute bus ride north every day, he would head for its music rooms, copying students as they practised their scales. By day, he was not quite a student; by night, he was not quite a gangster. The realisation that he was “small-time” came when he and his friends bought some firearms from a gang, who returned to their house, held Dphrepaulezz at knifepoint and took the rest of their money. “The next day I got out. I hitchhiked to LA with $100 and a keyboard.” There, Dphrepaulezz was surprised to find that a decade of hustling had been the perfect music business apprenticeship. A deal with Prince’s former manager was followed in 1993 by a $1m deal with Interscope, which he almost instantly regretted. Released in 1996, Xavier’s passable debut album The X-Factor pleased neither himself nor his hit-hungry paymasters. Three years of limbo ensued, which were broken one Thanksgiving evening. Dphrepaulezz’s car was hit by a drunk driver who ran a red light. “I fishtailed and rolled over four lanes of traffic.” The first thing he remembers after waking up three weeks later was the sensation of having a beard – not that he could lift his arms to feel it. The accident had broken both his arms and his legs, leaving his strumming hand mangled. Far from sending him into freefall, Dphrepaulezz says the crash “released” him. Interscope terminated his contract and Dphrepaulezz reverted to the only other thing he knew: the hustle. Noticing that the only nightclubbing opportunities in LA involved “$20 for parking, $20 to get in, and at least $20 when you’re in, I converted the warehouse where I lived in South Central into an illegal nightclub. I knocked down a few walls and built a bar that looked kind of like a pimps-from-outer-space thing. Velvet movie theatre seats. A hot tub on the roof. Nude body painting.” When Club Bingo wasn’t paying host to a clientele that included Alicia Silverstone, Mike Tyson and Eric Benét, its creator was working under a bewildering array of alter egos – among them Chocolate Butterfly, Me and This Japanese Guy and the aforementioned Blood Sugar X – and licensing material to film and TV shows. When he and his Japanese partner had a son, he stopped looking for further incarnations, sold all of his equipment except for one guitar, moved back to Oakland and bought himself a smallholding with no greater plan than to supplement his publishing royalties by growing “medical marijuana” and eating homegrown corn, tomatoes and freshly laid eggs. Five years had elapsed since he last played his guitar. His fingers were still crooked from the accident, but he had just enough mobility to play a G chord for his son in an attempt to stop him from crying. “His entire face changed,” recalls the proud father. He learned the Beatles’ Across the Universe and played it to him every night for a year. With that came a slew of new songs, informed this time by the blues records that had bewildered him on that childhood vacation in Virginia. “In the middle of the conflict between me myself and lies / I saw people die for nothing / I sold coke to hungry eyes,” went his first song, Night Turned to Day. Together with Malcolm Spellman, his longtime Oakland friend who would go on to write Empire, Dphrepaulezz threw his publishing royalties into the Oakland art gallery, label and creative space that became their Blackball Universe cooperative. Within strolling distance is the Blues Walk of Fame, which commemorates musicians who passed through the city in its pre-gentrification days. “Black roots music is part of our story here,” says Dphrepaulezz. “Our art comes from their struggle. You think of that and you stay humble.” But to really understand why Dphrepaulezz is now succeeding, you have to see him in action. A few days later, at London’s Rough Trade East, near the end of an electrifying performance, he plays Lost in the Crowd. As his clawed hand plays the last chord, he loosens his neck tie, leans into the mic and revisits its inception. “My collective calls me a narcissist,” he tells the crowd. “They were like, ‘Will you stop writing about yourself? Go look at people! Look around! Aren’t people interesting to you?’ So they sent me off to Berkeley, San Francisco, and told me to watch people for a day. Just sit and watch. So that’s what I did. And that’s what this song is.” It’s surely no surprise that Dphrepaulezz sees his own values reflected in those of Sanders. It was the collective power of a wider group that launched Fantastic Negrito on to the world, while the “predatory capitalism” against which he rails almost claimed him before he reached adulthood. Back at the ramen house, he tries one more time to make sense of the past few years. “I thought my story was over. But that was when I realised I finally had a story to tell – and it seems to remind people of their own story.” • The Last Days of Oakland is out now on Blackball Universe
Despite the Falling Snow review – creaky cold-war thriller in cold-tea sepia A stolidly old-fashioned, rather bafflingly preposterous spy-tale-slash-love-story is what this creaky film offers, directed by Sharim Sharif and adapted by the director from her own 2004 novel. It features laborious acting and directing, and a screenplay whose revelations are uninteresting, even were they not guessable long in advance. It is like Jeffrey Archer with a twist. The time frame flashes back and forth between the early 60s and the early 90s. In cold war America, ambitious young Russian diplomat Sacha (Sam Reid) has arrived with a trade delegation, planning to defect – but will his beautiful young wife Katya (Rebecca Ferguson) be able to escape with him? This story is interspersed with scenes from Glasnost Russia of 1992, in which old Sacha is played by Charles Dance and his young niece Lauren, an artist keen to discover the truth about her family, played again by Ferguson. Whatever potential subtlety and complexity we are promised does not materialise — only hammy airport-bestseller histrionics, and the whole movie sometimes seems submerged in a kind of cold-tea sepia look, appropriate to its historical background.
Boris Johnson is nicer than Trump but just as divisive, says Ken Clarke The campaign to leave the EU has turned into a leadership bid by Boris Johnson, Ken Clarke has said – calling him simply a nicer version of Donald Trump. The former Tory cabinet minister, who has served as chancellor and home secretary, suggested Johnson was exploiting people’s fears about immigration in a similar way to Trump, the controversial US presidential candidate who is expected to become the Republican nominee. “I think Boris and Donald Trump should go away for a bit and enjoy themselves and not get in the way of the serious issues that modern countries in the 21st century face,” Clarke said. “He’s a much nicer version of Donald Trump but the campaign’s remarkably similar in my opinion and about as relevant to the real problems the public face. “The personalities get in the way and it’s no good turning the leave campaign into a leadership bid for Boris Johnson and anti-immigrant fears.” Clarke’s accusations highlight the increasingly acrimonious divide between senior Conservatives campaigning on different sides of the EU debate. Johnson and Michael Gove, the justice secretary, have been scathing about Downing Street’s record on immigration. They have said that Cameron’s failure to reduce immigration was “corrosive” of voters’ trust in politicians, while David Cameron and George Osborne have rubbished the leave campaign’s economic claims. There is particular fury among pro-Brexit campaigners that Cameron is fighting so hard to keep the UK in the EU, with backbench Tory MPs Andrew Bridgen and Nadine Dorries calling for him to face a motion of no confidence. Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Monday, Clarke dismissed these threats to Cameron’s premiership as a diversion at the same time as claiming that Johnson was using the leave campaign as a vehicle for a leadership challenge. “All this stuff about whether one or two backbenchers have signed a letter calling for David Cameron to resign, I think most of the public would agree is a bit of a diversion,” he said. “The public are getting fed up of Tory civil wars when they thought they were being asked about the future of this country for their children and grandchildren. “Why are the leave campaign turning the whole thing into an argument about Turkish criminals about to flood into the country and Boris Johnson’s bid for the leadership?”
Five brokers found not guilty of helping Tom Hayes rig Libor rate Five brokers accused of helping rig the Libor interest rate have been found not guilty by a jury at Southwark crown court in London. In a large blow to the Serious Fraud Office, five of the six brokers accused of helping Tom Hayes – who is serving 11 years in prison – to rig Libor have been cleared. The judge has asked the jury to reach a majority verdict on the sixth. The brokers on a trial were Darrell Read, Danny Wilkinson and Colin Goodman, who worked at Icap, Noel Cryan, formerly of Tullett Prebon, and Jim Gilmour and Terry Farr, who worked at RP Martin. The jury reached a not guilty verdict on one count of conspiracy to defraud faced by Read, but is yet to reach a verdict on the second count. The trial of the brokers has lasted 15 weeks, but the jury was out for less than a day before revealing its verdicts. The brokers, whose nicknames included “Lord Libor” and “Big Nose”, were accused of acting as gobetweens by passing around requests from traders and being paid extra commission by Hayes. The jury will return on Thursday.
For the Republican party, it's Trumpocalypse Now There will be those in the Republican and conservative establishment who will try to spin the Super Tuesday results. Some among the GOP chattering classes will tell you that Trump didn’t get the knock-out punch he wanted – that there is still a chance to restore order. Don’t believe it. The numbers make it clear that, for the Republican party, it’s Trumpocalypse Now. While Ted Cruz won his home state of Texas as well as Oklahoma, and Rubio ran him close in Virginia and actually managed to win Minnesota, Trump dominated elsewhere. His success extended from Massachusetts to Georgia to Alabama to Tennessee to Oklahoma. He won in Ted Cruz’s south, and he won in the north-east, where a more establishment-friendly candidate like Marco Rubio was supposed to prevail. Trump is winning with men and women, moderates and conservatives, with the young and the old. Trump is winning despite a weekend of unforced errors – after failing to repudiate former Klu Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke. Trump is winning even after taking political napalm from Marco Rubio since last week’s debate – with Rubio ridiculing his rival on the trail for days. Trump is winning despite the fact that the Republican speaker of the House and majority whip in the Senate both criticized him this week. He is winning in spite of the fact that almost every big name Republican officer-holder and mega-donor is lined up behind his opponents. The race is not technically over. While Trump will win the lion’s share of delegates tonight, both Cruz and Rubio will pick up delegates and spend the next couple of weeks trying to convince voters and donors that they can stop the frontrunner – that they have a path to the nomination. Whether or not either of these men can really achieve that at this point – and I remain highly skeptical, despite Cruz’s two-state win – the day of reckoning for the Republican party has arrived. Whatever happens, what neither Cruz nor Rubio nor anyone else can do is to stop the forces that Trump’s candidacy has unleashed. It’s no longer possible to say the Republican party is a conservative party. You can’t even say the Republican party’s base is conservative. It appears that a new, populist-nationalist wing has wrested control of the of the GOP away from its familiar constituency. This is no longer the party of William F Buckley and Jack Kemp. It’s now the party of Pat Buchanan and Ross Perot. Trump’s opponents have argued that he has run a campaign devoid of policy. That is simply not true: he’s taken plenty of policy positions. Unfortunately for traditional Republicans, almost every one of them is complete anathema to conservatives, from trade, to entitlement reform, to healthcare, to the power of the federal government. While Rubio and Cruz fight he battle to keep a hold on the party in the short term, they have already lost the war. The carpet bombing that the stop-Trump forces now believe is necessary to keep him from winning the nomination will only serve to widen and deepen the schism between the conservative and the populist-nationalist wings. The Trump campaign and its stunning success represents a fundamental reordering of forces in the Republican party. If you are traditional, limited government conservative in the GOP, this Super Tuesdsay will truly have made you exclaim “the horror, the horror”.
Viva Trump: meet Donald Trump's Hispanic supporters ‘Trump is our wakeup call’ Raul Rodriguez, 74, Apple Valley, California I always carry a bullhorn with me to rallies and campaign events. Into it I shout: “America, wake up!” Americans have been asleep for way too long. We need to realise that the future of our country is at stake. If we don’t elect Donald Trump, we’ll get another four years of Barack Obama and frankly, I don’t know what would happen to this wonderful country of ours. Obama has already done so much to destroy our way of life and Hillary Clinton is promising to carry on where he left off. Like Obama, she wants to change our fundamental values – the ones people like my father fought to defend. My father was born in Durango, Mexico. When he came to the US he joined the military and served as a medic during the second world war. He was a very proud American – he truly loved this country. I think I got my sense of patriotism from him. Obama and Hillary Clinton want to have open borders. They let illegal immigrants cross our borders and now they want to accept thousands of Syrians. We don’t know who these people are. If they want to come to this country, they have to do it the right way, like my father did it. I’m tired of politicians telling voters what they want to hear and then returning to Washington and doing whatever their party tells them to do. Politicians are supposed to represent the people – not their parties or their donors. Part of the reason I like Donald Trump is because he isn’t an established politician. Sometimes that hurts him and people get offended. But the truth hurts. Even if he doesn’t say it well, he’s not wrong. Trump is our wakeup call. ‘Democrats treat Latinos as if we’re all one big group’ Ximena Barreto, 31, San Diego, California I was in primary school in my native Colombia when my father was murdered. I was six – just one year older than my daughter is now. My father was an officer in the Colombian army at a time when wearing a uniform made you a target for narcoterrorists, Farc fighters and guerrilla groups. What I remember clearly from those early years is the bombing and the terror. I was so afraid, especially after my dad died. At night, I would curl up in my mother’s bed while she held me close. She could not promise me that everything was going to be all right, because it wasn’t true. I don’t want my daughter to grow up like that. But when I turn on my TV, I see terrorist attacks in San Bernardino and in Orlando. There are dangerous people coming across our borders. Trump was right. Some are rapists and criminals, but some are good people, too. But how do we know who is who, when you come here illegally? I moved to the US in 2006 on a work permit. It took nearly five years and thousands of dollars to become a US citizen. I know the process is not perfect, but it’s the law. Why would I want illegals coming in when I had to go through this? It’s not fair that they’re allowed to jump the line and take advantage of so many benefits, ones that I pay for with my tax dollars. People assume that because I’m a woman, I should vote for the woman; or that because I’m Latina, I should vote for the Democrat. The Democrats have been pandering to minorities and women for the last 50 years. They treat Latinos as if we’re all one big group. I’m Colombian – I don’t like Mariachi music. Donald Trump is not just saying what he thinks people want to hear, he’s saying what they’re afraid to say. I believe that he’s the only candidate who can make America strong and safe again. ‘Trump beat the system: what’s more American than that?’ Bertran Usher, 20, Inglewood, California Donald Trump is the candidate America deserves. For decades, Americans have bemoaned politicians and Washington insiders. We despise political speak and crave fresh, new ideas. When you ask for someone with no experience, this is what you get. It’s like saying you don’t want a doctor to operate on you. But Trump is a big FU to America. He beat the system and proved everyone wrong. What’s more American than that? As a political science student who one day hopes to go into politics, I am studying this election closely. Both candidates are deeply unpopular and people of my generation are not happy with their choices. I believe we can learn what not to do from this election. I see how divided the country is, and it’s the clearest sign that politicians will have to learn to work together to make a difference. It’s not always easy, but I’ve seen this work. I was raised in a multicultural household. My mother, a Democrat, is Latino and African American, raised in the inner city of Los Angeles. My father, a Republican, is an immigrant from Belize. My parents and I don’t always see eye to eye on everything, but our spirited debates have helped add nuance to my politics. I’m in favour of small government, but I support gay rights. I believe welfare is an important service for Americans who need it, but I think our current programme needs to be scaled back. I think we need to have stricter enforcement of people who come to the country illegally, but I don’t think we should deport the DREAMers [children of immigrants who were brought to the country illegally, named after the 2001 Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act]. Trump can be a nut, but I think he’s the best candidate in this election. Though there are issues of his I disagree with, at least he says what’s on his mind, as opposed to Hillary Clinton, who hides what she’s thinking behind her smile. It’s up to my generation to fix the political mess we’re in. I plan to be a part of the solution. ‘Trump’s The Art Of The Deal inspired me to be a businessman’ Omar Navarro, 27, Torrance, California When I was a kid, people would ask what I wanted to be when I grew up. I would tell them: I want to be president of the United States. If that doesn’t work out, I want to be a billionaire like Trump. In a way, I supported him long before he announced he was running for president. He was my childhood hero. I read The Art Of The Deal as a student; it inspired me to become a businessman. Now I own a small business and am running for Congress in California’s 43rd district. Trump built an empire and a strong brand that’s recognisable all around the world; he’s a household name and a world-class businessman. Almost anywhere you go, you can see the mark of Donald Trump on a building or property. When I see that, I see the American Dream. Some people ask me how I can support Donald Trump as the son of a Mexican and Cuban immigrants. They are categorising me. In this country we label people: Hispanic, African American, Asian, Caucasian. We separate and divide people into social categories based on race, ethnicity, gender and creed. To me, this is a form of racism. I’m proud of my Hispanic heritage but I’m an American, full stop. Like all immigrants, my parents came to this country for a better opportunity. But they did it legally. They didn’t cut the line. They assimilated to the American way of life, learned English and opened small businesses. Why should we allow people to skirt the law? Imagine making a dinner reservation and arriving at the restaurant to find out that another family has been seated at your table. How is that fair? We have to have laws and as a country we must enforce those laws. A society without laws is just anarchy. If someone invited you to their house and asked you to remove your shoes would you keep them on? If we don’t enforce the rules, why would anyone respect them? I believe Donald Trump will enforce the rules. ‘He has taken a strong stand against abortion’ Jimena Rivera, 20, student at the University of Texas at Brownsville I’m Mexican, so I don’t have a vote, but I support Donald Trump because he is the one candidate who opposes abortion. He may have wavered in the beginning, but since becoming the nominee he has taken a strong stand against abortion. Hillary Clinton is running as the leader of a party that has pushed a very pro-choice platform. Even Democrats like her running mate, Tim Kaine, who is a devout Catholic, compromise their faith to support abortion. I don’t always agree with his positions on immigration. I see the border wall every day. I’m not convinced that it’s effective. The people who want to cross will find a way. I don’t think it’s right that they do, but most of them are looking for a better way of life. A wall won’t stop them. ‘Lower taxes and less regulation will create more jobs’ Marissa Desilets, 22, Palm Springs, California I am a proud Hispanic conservative Republican woman. I became politically engaged as a political science and economics major at university. By my junior year, I was a member of the campus Republicans’ club. As a student of economics, I am very impressed with Trump’s economic agenda. I believe we must cut taxes for everyone and eliminate the death tax. Lowering taxes and reeling back regulations will create more jobs – meaning more tax-paying Americans. This in turn will generate more revenue for the Treasury. I also support Trump because he favours strong leadership and promised to preserve the constitution of the United States. We must have a rule of law in this country. We must close our open borders. Like Trump says: “a nation without borders is not a nation.” This doesn’t mean we should not allow any immigrants. We should welcome new immigrants who choose to legally enter our beautiful country. This won’t be the case if Hillary Clinton becomes president. I would expect the poor to become poorer and our country to become divided. I believe that liberals’ reckless domestic spending will bankrupt our future generations. I refuse to support a party that desires to expand the government and take away my civil liberties. ‘He has gone through so many divorces, yet raised such a close-knit family’ Dr Alexander Villicana, 80, Pasadena, California I am an example of the opportunities this country has to offer. My parents came from Mexico at the turn of the 20th century. They were not educated but they worked hard to make a better life for us and it paid off. I went to school and studied cosmetic surgery. Now I work as a plastic surgeon and have been in practice for the last 40 years. I have a beautiful family and my health. I am Hispanic – but I am a citizen of the United States and I feel very patriotic for this country that has given me so much. I’m supporting Trump because I agree with his vision for our economy. He has experience at the negotiating table, so he knows what to do to create jobs and increase workers’ salaries. In Trump’s America people would be rewarded for their hard work rather than penalised with hefty taxes. The security of our nation is a top priority for me. I think it would be impossible to deport 11 million people who are here illegally, but we have to do a better job of understanding who is in our country and who is trying to come into our country. A lot of what Trump says, especially about security and immigration, is twisted by the media. What he said about Mexicans, for example, that wasn’t negative – it was the truth. There are Mexicans bringing over drugs and perpetrating rapes. But what he also said – and the media completely ignored – is that many Mexicans are good people coming over for a better quality of life. He may be blunt and occasionally offensive but I find him likable. I was so impressed by Trump and his family at the Republican National Convention. It’s hard for me to imagine that someone who has gone through so many divorces has managed to raise such a close-knit family. None of his children had to work and yet they spoke with eloquence and integrity about their father. ‘When Trump is harsh about Mexicans, he is right’ Francisco Rivera, 43, Huntington Park, California People ask me how I can support Donald Trump. I say, let me tell you a story. I was in line at the movie theatre recently when I saw a young woman toss her cupcake into a nearby planter as if it were a trash can. I walked over to her and said, “Honey, excuse me, does that look like a garbage can to you?” And you know what she told me? “There’s already trash in the planter, so what does it matter?” I asked her what part of Mexico she was from. She seemed surprised and asked how I knew she was from Mexico. “Look at what you just did,” I told her. “Donald Trump may sound harsh when he speaks about Mexicans, but he is right. It’s people like you that make everyone look bad.” I moved from Mexico with my family when I was seven. I still carry a photo of my brother and I near our home, to remind people how beautiful the city once was. Now I spend my time erasing graffiti from the walls and picking up trash. Sixty years ago, we accepted immigrants into our country who valued the laws, rules and regulations that made America the land of opportunity. Back in those days, people worked hard to improve themselves and their communities. I’m tired of living in a lawless country. It’s like we put a security guard at the front door, but the Obama administration unlocked the back door. And I have seen what my own people have done to this country. They want to convert America into the country they left behind. This country has given me so many opportunities I wouldn’t have had if my mom had raised her family in Mexico. I want America to be great again, and that’s why in November I am going to vote for Donald Trump. ‘I voted for Obama twice, but Hillary gets a free pass’ Teresa Mendoza, 44, Mesa, Arizona In my day job I am a real estate agent but every now and then I dabble in standup comedy. Comedy used to be a safe space. You could say whatever you wanted to and it was understood that it was meant to make people laugh. Now everything has to be politically correct. You can’t say “Hand me the black crayon” without someone snapping back at you: “What do you mean by that?” Donald Trump offended a lot of people when he gave the speech calling [Mexicans] rapists and criminals but he didn’t offend me. I was a liberal Democrat all my life. Before this I voted for Obama twice. I wanted to be a part of history. If it wasn’t for Obamacare and the ridiculous growth of our federal government, I’d probably still be a Democrat, asleep at the wheel. But I woke up and realised I’m actually much more in line with Republicans on major policy points. I like to joke that I’m an original anchor baby. My parents came from Mexico in the 1970s under the Bracero work programme making me a California-born Chicana. We later became US citizens. But now that I’m a Republican, Hillary Clinton is trying to tell me I’m “alt-right”. It’s strange isn’t it? All of a sudden I’m a white nationalist. My sons and I go back and forth. They don’t like Trump. But it’s what they’re hearing in school, from their friends and teachers, who are all getting their news from the same biased news outlets. I’m very concerned about the role the media is taking in this election. The networks sensationalise and vilify Trump while they give Hillary Clinton a free pass. It amazes me. I don’t care if Trump likes to eat his fried chicken with a fork and a knife. I do care that Clinton has not been held responsible for the Benghazi attacks.
Insults and rape threats. Writers shouldn’t have to deal with this When you find out that you’re the best at something, normally it makes sense to feel happy. I’m not sure that reaction applies, though, when what you’re top at is being hated. When the examined the 1.4 million comments that have been blocked by moderators since 1999, they found that eight of the 10 writers receiving the most blocked comments were women, and topping the list was … well, me. Sure, there’s a small part of me that’s proud – I’m No 1! – but the bigger truth is that I’m mostly just exhausted. I’m tired of laughing it off and rolling my eyes. Because while misspelled threats or entreaties for me to get back in the kitchen are certainly easy to mock, the disdain with which they’re employed is not very funny. For all the progress women have made, there’s always an online comment section or forum somewhere to remind us that, when given anonymity and a keyboard, some men will use the opportunity to harass and threaten. I don’t read the comments any more, and even if I did the moderators block the worst of them, but it’s not a coincidence that the articles of mine that attract the most abuse on social media are those about rape, harassment, political representation or everyday examples of sexism. Anything that suggests there’s still work to do for true gender equality sends some men into a rage – a response that mostly serves to prove my point. If the mere act of writing about women’s issues sets off a stream of harassment and threats, surely we are nowhere near where we need to be. And though I’ve been on the receiving end of abusive comments for as long as I’ve been writing online – more than 12 years – I’m exhausted at not feeling like a part of the community I contribute to. I work hard on the articles I write, but I don’t see the point of looking in the comments section any more. People who disagree with me often don’t merely say so – they lob personal attacks or make cruel and snide remarks. There’s not much back-and-forth to be had with someone who showed up with the sole intention of calling you stupid. I can see that in other comment threads – on articles that aren’t about gender, race or sexuality – people have interesting and forward-thinking conversations. I’m disappointed that I’m rarely privy to the same. Most of what I get are different iterations of the same two sentiments over and over again: I’m dumb; feminism is a waste. On a good day, I might have someone say an article I wrote isn’t a total piece of garbage “like usual”. It’s hurtful, but even more than that, it’s boring. I’m tired of having to explain, over and over again, why the tone of the comments under my pieces is indeed sexist. It’s not just a matter of critique – all writers get that – it’s the way that criticism manifests. Are my male colleagues called cutesy nicknames? Do they have their appearance commented upon? I’m tired of logging into Twitter or Facebook just to dodge rape and death threats in response to my articles; the latest one I got came on a Sunday evening just after my family and I had finished dinner. Because the harassment doesn’t begin and end on the website – being on social media has become, for better or worse, part of being a writer online. And the things you publish for one site have a ripple effect across all of your various social media profiles. It’s a workplace harassment issue that doesn’t stop at the workplace. I’m exhausted hearing that the harassment has nothing to do with the abused writer’s identity. It’s also difficult to argue that abuse in the community isn’t focused on race or gender when the 10 writers on the site whose articles attract the most blocked comments are all women or people of colour. Just a coincidence? Come on. It’s not that I find the transparently sexist responses surprising – writing about feminism online for more than a decade makes you a bit jaded about such things – but it impacts, tremendously, on the way I feel about my job. Imagine showing up to work just to run the gauntlet of hundreds of people telling you how worthless you are. I’ve been writing online long enough to not attach my value as a person or writer to strangers’ opinions, but it would be a lie to say that the cumulative impact of being derided daily isn’t damaging. It is. It’s changed who I am on a fundamental level. And though I’d still like to think of myself as an optimistic person, being called a “cunt” or “whore” every day for a decade leaves its mark. I’m not as worried for myself, though, as I am for younger women who have grown up seeing the harassment that female writers endure. I speak at colleges frequently, and at every one I visit at least one young woman comes to me with the same concern: she wants to be a writer but says she doesn’t have the stomach for the online abuse. This is especially true for women of colour and trans women: we are losing out on talented writers who are part of marginalised communities because they don’t want to pursue a career where harassment is considered an expected part of the gig. And I can’t say I blame them. I often wonder, if I could do it over again, would I write under my real name? I certainly could have spared myself and my family a lot of grief if I had written about feminism anonymously. I wouldn’t have had to leave my house in a hurry, my one-year-old daughter in tow, when authorities considered a particular threat credible and dangerous. I would never have listened to abusive voicemails or worried for my safety at public events. What may be the most difficult – for anyone who faces these kinds of harassment or threats – is that it just doesn’t seem to be getting any better. Harassers largely go unchecked by social media companies and media platforms; law enforcement agencies still haven’t sorted how to deal with online abusers; and perpetrators are still celebrated as “free speech” warriors. We are a world of smart, innovative people – if there’s enough will to change the culture of online commenting, it can be done. But that requires taking the issue seriously, and putting the voices of those most impacted at the forefront of the conversation. Despite my No 1 status at the , I’m still happy with what I do. I’m incredibly fortunate to get paid to write about issues that I care about. It’s a privilege; I realise that. Still, I hope things will change. If not for me and my peers, for the writers who come after us.
Baskin review – muddled horror This Turkish horror movie about a group of policemen who stumble upon a satanic mass, complete with a gimp orgy and a demon butcher, has all kinds of grisly fun with production design and hallucinatory shifts in reality. However, the screenplay is such a muddle that the audience is left groping through curtains of entrails and flayed skin trying to figure out what in the world – or perhaps the underworld – is going on. The film, which owes a debt to Clive Barker’s Hellraiser, is based on an acclaimed short film by director Can Evrenol; he’s clearly a film-maker with a flair for creating a macabre and unsettling atmosphere. However, for all the mortified, mottled flesh and salacious shots of butcher’s equipment, Baskin is just not very frightening.
Chips Moman obituary If Chips Moman had done nothing more than revive the becalmed recording career of Elvis Presley in the late 1960s, he would have earned his place in history. By selecting In the Ghetto, Suspicious Minds, Don’t Cry Daddy and Kentucky Rain for sessions held at his own Memphis studio, he gave fresh impetus to the final phase of the singer’s professional life. But Moman, who has died aged 79, had a much more extensive string of achievements. As a guitarist, he decorated the closing bars of Aretha Franklin’s epochal I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You) with eloquent country-soul phrases. As a producer, he instructed the 16-year-old Alex Chilton to sing “aeroplane” rather than “airplane” on the first line of the Box Tops’ The Letter. As a composer, he co-wrote (with Dan Penn) The Dark End of the Street, a definitive and much-covered deep-soul ballad. The artists he worked with included Neil Diamond, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson and Tammy Wynette. For the Presley sessions in January 1969 he broke with the usual practice by introducing songs in which Elvis, his manager and his song publisher had no financial interest, and by actively supervising the sessions, persuading the singer to go over each song many times in search of the best result. Presley’s positive response won the admiration of Moman’s elite corps of session musicians, who had turned up in expectation of a decent payday but little musical reward. In the Ghetto took Presley into the US top three for the first time in four years. But it was Suspicious Minds, released in the autumn, that gave him his first No 1 hit since 1962, although Moman hated the false ending that had been added in a Las Vegas studio after it proved to be a success in Elvis’s stage show. Moman’s refusal to cede a portion of the song’s copyright to Presley’s manager and publisher created such bad blood that the partnership between the singer and the producer was never repeated, despite its artistic and commercial success. Born in LaGrange, Georgia, to Mildred and Abraham, who had worked in a local textile mill before buying a farm, Moman left home as a teenager to live with relatives in Memphis. There he played guitar with several prominent rockabilly singers, including Warren Smith and the Burnette brothers, and earned his nickname through a love of gambling. In 1956 he accompanied Johnny and Dorsey Burnette to Los Angeles, where he also played with Gene Vincent and began to learn about recording technology at the famous Gold Star studio. That knowledge stood him in good stead when, back in Memphis to recover from a car accident in 1958, he began an involvement with Jim Stewart and Estelle Axton, the founders of a small local record label initially known as Satellite but soon rechristened Stax. As well as taking part in the sessions that produced hits for Carla Thomas (Gee Whiz) and the Mar-Keys (Last Night), Moman also set up the fledgling company’s studio in an abandoned cinema, the Capitol Theatre, on East McLemore Avenue. By the time Otis Redding, Sam & Dave and many others used that hallowed space to make their great hits, Moman was gone, following a financial dispute with Stewart. He believed he was entitled to a third of the proceeds from the company’s initial successes, but was forced to walk away with a $3,000 settlement. After a year in Nashville, he returned to Memphis to open his own facility, American Sound Studio, gathering around him a clique of gifted musicians including the guitarist Reggie Young, the pianist Bobby Emmons, the bass guitarist Tommy Cogbill and the drummer Gene Chrisman. Soon the hits were pouring out of the building at 827 Thomas Street, including the Box Tops’ Cry Like a Baby, Merrilee Rush’s Angel of the Morning, Sandy Posey’s Born a Woman and Single Girl, James Carr’s Dark End of the Street, Wilson Pickett’s I’m a Midnight Mover, BJ Thomas’s Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head, Neil Diamond’s Sweet Caroline, the Gentrys’ Keep on Dancing and Dusty Springfield’s classic album Dusty in Memphis, which included Son of a Preacher Man. Not all of these artists were actually produced by Moman, but each benefited from the ambience he had created and which lasted until the studio’s closure in 1972. The tensions following the murder of Martin Luther King at the Lorraine Motel four years earlier had begun the disintegration of the creative collaboration between black and white musicians on which the international success of the Memphis scene had been built. Moman moved first to Atlanta and then to Nashville, where he let his country music instincts take over. His later hits included Nelson’s Always on My Mind and Thomas’s (Hey Won’t You Play) Another Somebody Done Somebody Wrong Song, which secured the Grammy award for best country song of 1975 for Moman and his co-writer, Larry Butler. In the 90s he returned home to LaGrange. A first marriage to the songwriter Toni Wine had ended in divorce. He is survived by his wife, the former Jane Calhoun, and by a son, Casey, and a daughter, Monique. • Lincoln Wayne “Chips” Moman, record producer, songwriter and guitarist, born 12 June 1937; died 13 June 2016
Amazon bans 'incentivised' reviews over lack of impartiality Amazon has banned “incentivised reviews” after evidence suggested writers typically awarded almost half a star extra compared with reviews where the reviewer paid for the product themselves. Incentivised reviews involved companies giving big discounts to reviewers on products, although the reviews were still meant to be impartial. Amazon operates its own incentivised reviews programme, Vine, which will continue. Amazon said it believes the Vine programme has “important controls in place” and is “especially valuable for getting early reviews on new products that have not yet been able to generate enough sales to have significant numbers of organic reviews”. Amazon did not directly explain its decision to ban incentivised reviews from other companies, but its defence of the Vine programme can be read as an admission that some of the concerns raised by the research were valid. “Here’s how Vine works,” the company said: “Amazon – not the vendor or seller – identifies and invites trusted and helpful reviewers on Amazon to post opinions about new and pre-release products; we do not incentivise positive star ratings, attempt to influence the content of reviews, or even require a review to be written; and we limit the total number of Vine reviews that we display for each product.” The change comes after an analysis of 7m reviews by ReviewMeta, which found that the average incentivised review had a star rating of 4.74 out of five, while the average non-incentivised review stood at 4.36. That’s enough to push a product from the 54th percentile all the way up to the 94th, the site said. ReviewMeta’s analysis didn’t include Amazon Vine reviews in the incentivised category, but a subsequent investigation revealed that that service actually had a lower average rating than even non-incentivised reviews, with the 4% of reviews that are part of Amazon Vine having an average rating of 4.2 stars. “At first glance, it seems to be much better controlled than their “review club” counterparts,” said ReviewMeta. Anecdotal reports suggest that Amazon Vine has also acted as a gateway programme in the past, introducing reviewers to the concept of incentivised reviews. One Amazon Reviewer told the he had been invited by Amazon to join Vine in 2011. “After a few years on the Amazon Vine forum, I found out people put an email address in their Amazon profile,” he added, “and if you’re quite highly ranked companies will literally just get in touch.” Through the letterbox: the secret life of an Amazon reviewer
Scrap insurance rule for stay-at-home parents from EU, says Tory MP Ministers should scrap strict immigration rules that risk disqualifying EU citizens such as stay-at-home parents and students from securing permanent residency in the UK if they have not taken out private health insurance, according to a backbench Tory MP. Sarah Wollaston, the MP for Totnes, said she would be supporting a petition that calls for the removal of the little-known requirement, after several EU citizens applied to the Home Office post-Brexit and discovered they should have obtained health insurance when not working. The MP said a new “simple, efficient and rapid” immigration registration process for the 3 million EU citizens in the UK was needed as soon as possible to end the “bureaucratic nightmare” they faced. She added it was “completely unacceptable” that EU citizens living in the UK were being left in limbo, and said their situation, and that of Britons in Europe, should be the “number one priority” in Brexit negotiations after Theresa May triggers article 50. The petition backed by Wollaston was launched by the EU citizen Claudia Holmes and has so far been signed by more than 5,000 people. It also calls for an automatic right to remain for all spouses and civil partners of Britons and of UK servicemen and women. The petition calls for the removal of “comprehensive sickness insurance as permanent residency requirement for EU/European Economic Area students, homemakers, carers, retired, and disabled people or applicants self-sufficient through other income, including their non-EEA spouses/civil partners”. EU citizens are currently entitled to live in the UK under European law, but once the UK leaves Europe, almost all rights apart from the right to own property or a business, which are protected under international law, will need to be reasserted. The Home Office has repeatedly said since the referendum that the status of EU citizens living in the UK has not changed, and Theresa May says she is keen to clarify their long-term residency rights at the same time as negotiating with the EU over the rights of UK citizens living in the other 27 member states. Despite that, the Home Office has been inundated with applications for permanent residency from EU citizens who fear that their rights may otherwise be eroded. The latest figures available show that more than 100,000 cases are currently being processed. Wollaston said the Home Office needed to come up with a new system for handling applications. “They need to have something that is very quick, efficient and low cost. It is completely untenable that [the current permanent residency process for non-EU citizens] could be the process that would be in place for EU citizens. “It has to be something simple, rapid in place and that’s before you get to the morality of it. There are real people being caught up in this. It is totally unacceptable. This is something they are not in any way to blame for and it is up to politicians to put themselves in people’s shoes and see the anxiety it is causing and do something about it.” She said one of her constituents, a British man who did not want to be named, had discovered that his EU wife of 30 years had been told by the Home Office that she was in the country unlawfully because she had never been in full-time employment. He was told by the Home Office that his wife, originally from the Netherlands, would have to leave the country and apply for permission to live in the UK from abroad even though she has spent the past 30 years in the UK, bringing up their children, studying and working freelance. Wollaston said no one expected the man’s wife to be kicked out of the country, but thousands of EU citizens panicked into applying for permanent residency were being made to feel like second-class citizens. About 30% of the current applications for permanent residency are failing and the has already uncovered several instances of EU citizens married to Britons who are being failed for simple bureaucratic reasons. Earlier this week, the reported that the Dutch-born software developer Monique Hawkins, who has been in the country for 24 years, had been told to make preparations to leave the UK because her application process failed after she included a solicitor-certified copy of her Dutch passport with her paperwork instead of an original. Others have since contacted the to report that they also received rejection and “prepare to leave” letters. The Italian Francesca Gernone, a partner in an architectural practice in London who has been in the UK for 22 years, had her application for permanent residency rejected two weeks ago. “I have received the exact same [prepare to leave] letter from the Home Office. They have obviously not changed the offensive phrasing from their letter yet,” she said.
'America can cure cancer': Obama announces national effort to fight disease Barack Obama has channeled John Kennedy’s space race with the Russians to pledge a new “moonshot”, led by vice-president Joe Biden at “mission control”, for the United States to win a new global health race and find a cure for cancer. “Last year, vice-president Biden said that with a new moonshot, America can cure cancer,” Obama said during a standout new policy moment during his final State of the Union address on Tuesday, referencing Biden’s remarks in announcing he would not run for president. “Last month, he worked with this Congress to give scientists at the National Institutes of Health the strongest resources they’ve had in over a decade. “Tonight, I’m announcing a new national effort to get it done. And because he’s gone to the mat for all of us on so many issues over the past 40 years, I’m putting Joe in charge of Mission Control. For the loved ones we’ve all lost, for the family we can still save, let’s make America the country that cures cancer once and for all.” Obama laid out the cancer challenge in a section of his address devoted to America’s “spirit of discovery”, making out Silicon Valley and US innovators to be a kind of successor to the American effort “when the Russians beat us into space”. The answer then, he said, was that “we built a space program almost overnight, and 12 years later, we were walking on the moon”. Curing cancer, of course, will not happen overnight. Inspired and led by Biden, who lost his eldest son, Beau, to brain cancer last year, the White House’s bold pledge follows the path laid forward by the vice-president when he declined to run to replace Obama in the White House. “I’m going to spend the next 15 months in this office pushing as hard as I can to accomplish this,” Biden said from the White House Rose Garden in October. “Because I know there are Democrats and Republicans on the Hill who share our passion, our passion to silence this deadly disease.” “If I could have been anything, I would have wanted to be the president that ended cancer,” Biden added. “Because it’s possible.” Moments after Obama made the pledge, Biden published a memo on Medium promising to use the “moonshot” to “accelerate our efforts to progress towards a cure, and to unleash new discoveries and breakthroughs for other deadly diseases”. “Over the next year, I will lead a dedicated, combined effort by governments, private industry, researchers, physicians, patients, and philanthropies to target investment, coordinate across silos, and increase access to information for everyone in the cancer community,” Biden wrote. The vice-president is pushing for a two-pronged approach to defeating cancer: increasing resources to fight the disease; and breaking down divisions between drugmakers, insurers and doctors and “to work together, share information, and end cancer as we know it”. “I know that we can help solidify a genuine global commitment to end cancer as we know it today,” Biden wrote, “and inspire a new generation of scientists to pursue new discoveries and the bounds of human endeavor.” Hours before the president’s announcement, a coalition of drugmakers and insurers announced the formation of the Cancer MoonShot 2020, a group with the goal of speeding the development of new approaches to treating cancer.
The 10 best things to do this week TALKS Kate Tempest (London, Bexhill-on-Sea) With its mixture of hip-hop hooks and literary smarts, Kate Tempest’s 2014 album Everybody Down sunk its hooks into a lot of people. But it is indicative of her range that anyone looking for the south Londoner’s next instalment will have to venture into a different artistic discipline altogether. Her debut novel, The Bricks That Built The Houses, breathes fresh life into characters from the album, placing them at the heart of what initially appears to be a crime story but eventually proves to be a musing on trademark Tempest themes such as place, identity and belonging, along with class, immigration, drugs and violence. At these sessions she’ll be reading extracts and taking part in Q&As with her audience. Don’t expect music, however; Tempest is as comfortable working as a poet, a playwright and a prose writer as she is a rapper, and these nights will be dedicated to the written word. A magnetic and charismatic performer regardless of her chosen medium, this event should be a treat on its own terms. Phil Harrison All this week’s best talks MUSIC Kiran Leonard (Bath, London, Ramsgate, Cambridge, Nottingham) It can’t be easy being a musical prodigy. By the time he was 18, Kiran Leonard already had an impressive catalogue, a profusion of styles and a growing reputation. Here was a young man who could play most instruments, sing in an impressive fashion and hold an audience with lengthy digressions on the meanings of his songs. Which path, however, should he take? To judge by his recent Grapefruit album and its predecessor Bowler Hat Soup, he has not felt any pressure to decide, veering between batty psych, lo-fi tinkering and passionately delivered songs. It’s an interesting mix, and Leonard at times comes over like a one-man Mystery Jets, on the cusp between psychedelia and quirk. It’s likely, though, that he’ll find a decent audience for another of his modes: that of a post-rock Jeff Buckley. John Robinson All this week’s best live music COMEDY Namedroppers: Reginald D Hunter On Censorship & The N Word (Backyard Comedy Club, London, Wednesday) It is sometimes said that trying to analyse comedy ruins it for everyone. And that may be true, in so far as learning or understanding anything about anything can really spoil the fun of staring in slack-jawed incomprehension at the world as it passes you by. Those with a little more curiosity are likely to find plenty to interest them at Namedroppers, a newish club night where comics are grilled about their career and approach to their art form. Comedy promoter and performer Joel Sanders plays host, having already persuaded big names such as Harry Hill and Barry Cryer to submit to his interrogation. This week it’s the turn of the reliably incendiary Reginald D Hunter. There should be plenty of interesting ground to cover, given Hunter’s penchant for unapologetic truth-telling and willingness to push taboos. There may also be time to discuss the sublimely hysterical imbroglio that occurred when Hunter was accused of racism by that shining chapel of political correctness, the Professional Footballers’ Association. James Kettle All this week’s best live comedy FILM Victoria The “all in one take” conceit gives this Berlin thriller an invigorating immediacy and a technical wow-factor, even if real-time storytelling has its drawbacks. It starts like a freewheeling urban indie: trusting Spanish clubber meets random trio of tearaways for nocturnal carousing and potential romance. But the story shifts several gears into nailbiting heist-thriller territory, where all bets are off. Steve Rose All this week’s new film releases CLUBS NTS Is 5 (Various venues, London, Monday to Friday) Operating out of a soundproofed shack in Dalston, NTS Radio has become a resounding success since its inception back in 2011. Its fifth birthday celebrations see 30 artists take over five venues, with Gigi Masin kicking off proceedings on Monday. Tuesday sees a lineup of post-punk, grunge and psych-rock from Shopping, Skinny Girl Diet and more, then Atlanta rapper Playboi Carti and UK grime crew Neverland Clan are amongst the acts taking over a snooker hall on Wednesday. Expect dry ice, reggae and deadpan social commentary as Babyfather, the latest project from Dean Blunt, follows on Thursday. The whole shebang climaxes at Corsica Studios on Friday, with some 12 members of the NTS family gathering together: Hieroglyphic Being and Funkineven are the cool, cognac-toting uncles, while Eclair Fifi and Nidia Minaj are the freakishly precocious cousins. Ben Beaumont-Thomas All this week’s best club nights EXHIBITIONS Joe Fletcher Orr (The International 3, Salford, to 29 April) Joe Fletcher Orr’s father used to take him to galleries to have a giggle at contemporary art. Accordingly, the young artist tends to dodge notions of artistic seriousness in his own creations. Rather, he offers up jokes, teases and impish sidesteps, playing with ideas of collaboration and what artwork should consist of. Past exhibitions have featured edible information printouts, a bouncy castle guarded by a real-life bouncer and even the artist’s own outline spray-tanned on to a gallery wall. For his second solo show the theme is Mummy’s Boy. His installation mixes plant pots created with his mother at a pottery class at home in Liverpool and professionally shot photographs of fruit bowls from the family home (such as Welcome Fruit), with the walls painted an especially nice colour she picked out at B&Q. Robert Clark All this week’s best exhibitions THEATRE Boy (Almeida Theatre, London, Tuesday to 28 May) An ordinary youth at a bus stop is the starting point for Leo Butler’s new play, appropriately entitled Boy, which uses his journey as a portrait of coming of age in austerity-hit London. For 10 years, Sheffield-born Butler worked with young writers at the Royal Court, which was where his second play, Redundant, was premiered in 2001. This production, involving 25 actors, is also the jumping-off point for a joint project with the Arsenal Foundation to get young people from north London involved in theatre. It’s directed by Sacha Wares, who returns to the Islington venue alongside award-winning designer Miriam Buether after last year’s highly praised Game, about the negative effects of rising property prices. Mark Cook All this week’s best new theatre TV You’re The Worst (10pm, 5Star, Thursday) Unlike the majority of Brit actors who’ve decamped to the US in recent years, former Waterloo Road star Chris Geere turns up in this romcom with his accent intact. Thankfully he’s not playing some bumbling, 90s Hugh Grant type; rather, Jimmy is a misanthropic writer who hooks up with Gretchen, a friend of his ex’s sister at said ex’s wedding. Naturally, by the second episode of tonight’s opening double bill they’ve embarked on an inadvisable fling. A leftfield love story with aptly stunted, cynical leads. Hannah J Davies FILM EVENT Kinoteka (Various venues, London, Thursday to 28 April) Polish cinema is alive and well, as the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar win for Ida in 2015 indicated. But although there’s new talent to spot, as always the real draw at this annual festival is the older talent – in particular, retrospectives of three Iron Curtain veterans who helped put the country on the map. First up is Jerzy Skolimowski, former Polanski collaborator and purveyor of vintage British classics such as The Shout and Deep End, who presents his latest, the formally innovative 11 Minutes. Also in town, and still in business, is Agnieszka Holland, a former arthouse fixture who’s moved on to directing TV such as The Wire and House Of Cards. And then there’s Andrzej Zuławski, best known for his deranged horror Possession, who sadly died in February. The UK premiere of his final film, the typically offbeat Cosmos, is followed by a panel discussion. SR All this week’s best film events DANCE Phoenix Dance Theatre (Theatre At The Mill, Newtownabbey, Wednesday; touring to 17 June) Although they’ve been established some 35 years, Phoenix continue to trawl for interesting new work from a variety of sources. The latest addition to their repertory comes from distinguished choreographer Kate Flatt. Based on five of Shakespeare’s sonnets, Undivided Loves combines words and dance in an exploration of duplicity and desire. Also in the programme is Sharon Watson’s Melt, a fusion of aerial dance and floor-based choreography set to a score by Wild Beasts, and a revival of Itzik Galili’s Until.With/Out.Enough. Judith Mackrell All this week’s best new dance
Capitalism under the spotlight: six must-read books Capitalism took a bashing in 2015: Corbynomics, the rise of anti-austerity parties Podemos and Syriza, Hillary Clinton slamming our culture of short-termism, COP21 protests and more. Capitalism – and more specifically its failings – is likely to be as brashly and uncompromisingly in the headlines this year as it has been over the past 12 months. To prepare you, we’ve put together a reading list of books we’ve loved and learned from. It’s not easy to narrow down a list of must-reads to just six, but we’ve done our best. Please add your own recommendations in the comments below. 1. The Extreme Centre: A Warning by Tariq Ali (2015) It’s not the extreme left or extreme right we should be concerned about, argues Ali, but the inertia at the extreme centre. Read this critique of the “indistinguishable political elite” that thrives at the heart of the British political system and you – like Ali – will be seeking out alternatives to neoliberal politics. 2. The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine by Michael Lewis (2010) Lewis’s tale of three small hedge fund managers and a bond salesman who bet against the banking system just before the biggest credit bubble in history burst – and made a killing – is a fascinating insight into the dark side of Wall Street and the deception that led to the financial crash of 2008. The book has been turned into a film directed and co-written by Adam McKay, which comes out in the UK on 22 January 2016. 3. The Dispossessed by Ursula Le Guin (1974) Revolutionaries have fled the planet Urras, which is mired in poverty and ruled by an exploitative wealthy class, and have built themselves a new world on the planet Anarres. At the heart of Anarres’ anarchist society is the principle of sharing. But progress on the planet is stalling and all is not well. It might have been written more than 40 years ago, but that doesn’t stop this science fiction classic from exploring issues acutely relevant to us today. 4. Postcapitalism by Paul Mason (2015) Capitalism may have undergone significant changes over the past two centuries, but with every cycle of boom and bust it has emerged stronger. Not any more, argues Paul Mason, who believes information technology is heralding a post-capitalist era. Read this excellent insight into the coming wave of automation and why it will revolutionise the way we live and work today. 5. Refusal of Work: The Theory and Practice of Resistance to Work by David Frayne (2015) A perfect partner to Paul Mason’s Postcapitalism, David Frayne scrutinises the emergence of a working culture that sees some condemned to work harder than ever while others must cope with unemployment or underemployment. By exploring the motivations of those who resist the nine-to-five, Frayne explores the world of work that props up present-day capitalism. 6. Capitalism: A Ghost Story by Arundhati Roy (2014) Man Booker Prize winner Arundhati Roy makes the case that India answers to a handful of megacorporations that run the country . In the era of what Roy calls “the privatization of everything”, these companies have made the Indian economy one of the fastest growing in the world. There’s only one problem – they exploit everything and everyone in its wake. “It’s a dream come true for businessmen – to be able to sell what they don’t have to buy,” writes Roy.
Sunset Boulevard: what Billy Wilder's satire really tells us about Hollywood “Without me there wouldn’t be any Paramount Studios,” declares Gloria Swanson as Norma Desmond in Billy Wilder’s black comedy Sunset Boulevard (1950). Former silent film star Desmond may be mad, but there is a grain of truth in what she says: Swanson was one of Paramount’s biggest stars even back when it was called Famous Players-Lasky, just as we are told Desmond was too. While Sunset Boulevard appears to attack the pretentions and excesses of the silent era, in fact its argument about the bad old days of Hollywood is more complicated than that. The horror at the heart of the film is that, as the studio system was starting to crumble, the beginnings of the industry were coming back to haunt it. Desmond’s pride mocks the fall of Hollywood just as it was teetering, rocked by the antitrust laws, the coming of TV and the communist witch-hunts. Desmond lives in dusty seclusion on the aptly named Sunset Boulevard, with her butler Max (Erich von Stroheim), until a young screenwriter, Joe Gillis (William Holden) stumbles across her house one day. She ensnares him to become her script editor as well as her lover, until, as we already know thanks to a flash-forward at the film’s opening, he will meet a violent end. Although he will ultimately be her victim, Gillis initially feels pity for Desmond, “still proudly waving to a parade which has long since passed her by”. He compares her house to Miss Havisham, “given the go-by”, and clearly thinks Desmond has been rejected too. Perhaps he is projecting his own recent lack of success, but he is right that Desmond is deluded about the scale of her fame (the fan letters she receives are fake) and her importance to the modern movie industry (whatever she thinks, Cecil B DeMille is not waiting for her call). Her eccentric behaviour, her unwieldy plans for an epic comeback project (“I hate that word!”) and unstable mental health contrast with the brisk and breezy behaviour of Gillis and his young pals. They live cheaply and crack wise about the industry, seemingly cynical and smart enough not to be fooled by it. Crucially, however, the film industry in Sunset Boulevard is shown to be on its last legs. Paramount producer Sheldrake is ill with stress; Gillis is broke and only one rejection letter away from quitting show-business for “a copy-desk in Dayton, Ohio”; his friend Artie is stuck on a disastrous shoot in Arizona; Betty the script-reader is optimistic that she can make films that matter, but even she has been through the mill, rejected as a wannabe starlet, with the rhinoplasty scars to prove it. Meanwhile, at 10086 Sunset Boulevard, in Desmond’s mad mansion, there is always champagne and caviar to hand, and enough money to cater to her every whim and to turn Gillis into a kept man. Paramount and DeMille may not wish to make her extravagant Salomé film, but it is feasible that Desmond, with her funds, could produce it herself. After all she has hired a writer, she already employs a director (Max) and in the film’s final seconds, her palatial home becomes – at least in her mind – a movie set. Even if all Paramount can supply that day are the compact cameras used for shooting TV newsreels. For all its humour, Sunset Boulevard is a bitter and queasy film, and the figure of Desmond is its greatest grotesque, a woman of 50 striving to be 25, surrounded by images of herself and entranced by her own face on a cinema screen. It should go without saying, of course, that Swanson was no Norma Desmond. The character of Desmond borrows some biographical details from Swanson: she too worked with DeMille and Von Stroheim (it’s their 1928 Queen Kelly on the cinema screen) and Swanson recreates her Chaplin impersonation from Manhandled (1924). Swanson made a successful transition into the talkies, and then went on to be a successful business woman, remaining a very public figure. She had been a great beauty and clothes horse as a young woman – and her devotion to healthy eating and high fashion kept her chic and active to the end of her life. Her career was long, too: she first appeared on film as a teenager in 1914; she was precisely 50 years old when she gave her tremendous performance in Sunset Boulevard, and she lived until she was 84. The most telling difference between Desmond and Swanson is that it was Swanson who left Paramount, not the other way round. She turned her back on the studio where she had had her greatest successes, to sign with United Artists and take control of her own career, selecting and producing her own films. Swanson was a big shot, not an ingénue, who made films and career choices that marked her out as a modern woman, frank by the standards of the day about sexuality and married life. Her first hits were brisk sex comedies directed by DeMille such as Don’t Change Your Husband (1919) and Male and Female (1919). By 1928 she was courting controversy with her passion project (“my Gold Rush”) Sadie Thompson (1928), a steamy Somerset Maugham adaptation directed by Raoul Walsh, in which she plays a prostitute. The point is that the crumbling Hollywood of Sunset Boulevard is built on the silent era: the houses and studios that “crazy movie people built in the crazy 20s”. Betty’s family is a cinema dynasty because “Grandma did stunt work for Pearl White”; Gillis dismisses Desmond’s fame but he can name all her co-stars and friends from Mabel Normand to Valentino and Rod La Roque; even Desmond’s “waxwork” bridge companions each earn themselves a close-up (and Buster Keaton’s is, of course, especially memorable). Sunset Boulevard is twice as chilling a film when you realise that Desmond made Paramount Studios a success, rather than the other way around. The faltering movie business was built not on fragile foundations of an art form doomed to obsolence, but on stronger, more ambitious grounds than it occupied in 1950. Norma Desmond still causes a ripple of excitement when she enters the soundstage. After all, she is big – it’s the pictures that got small. • Sunset Boulevard screens at Somerset House on 7 August as part of the Film4 Summer Screen season. Before the screening, you can join Isabel Stevens and me for a talk on female power-players of Hollywood, including Swanson. Tickets are available here. • This is the final instalment of Silent but deadly! Thank you for all your great conversation in the comment threads, and if you want to read more from me on silent cinema, visit silentlondon.co.uk and follow @silentlondon on Twitter.
Who’d have thought it? Jeremy Corbyn could shape Britain’s destiny in Europe It’s a fair bet that never, ever did the British establishment imagine that one day it would be resting its hopes on Jeremy Corbyn. For years the likes of David Cameron, George Osborne, the governor of the Bank of England, the heads of most FTSE companies and the masters of the City of London – to say nothing of Peter Mandelson and the entire New Labour aristocracy – would either have mocked Corbyn or struggled to place his name. But now they’re relying on him. On Thursday, the campaign for Britain to remain in the European Union exhaled collectively, relieved as the Labour leader weighed in at last – declaring himself to be in tune with the rest of his party, which, as he put it, is “overwhelmingly for staying in”. The relief was intense because, without Labour voters, the referendum on 23 June is lost. With the campaign officially launched yesterday, and polls showing the contest too close to call, the numbers could not be starker. By one estimate, remain needs 6 million Tories and up to 9 million votes from Labour supporters and others if Britain is to stay in the EU. And that’s presuming a general election-style turnout, when each party brings out its support more or less evenly. The great fear is of differential turnout, with outers more motivated than inners – so that while too many of the latter stay home the former stampede for the door marked “Brexit”. The related anxiety is that the differential will be generational. The old vote. The young? Not so much. Younger voters are pro-EU, but that won’t matter if they sit out the referendum and let the old take the decision for them. One senior remain figure notes that 23 June coincides with Glastonbury: “That could be 150,000 of our voters too busy getting stoned in Somerset to turn up.” That the in campaign is worrying about who’s headlining the Pyramid Stage is a sign of how nervy they are. Charles Grant, who heads the Centre for European Reform and is one of remain’s best-informed advocates, says that, as things stand, Britain is “probably heading for Brexit”, estimating leave’s chances at between 55% and 60%. The sources of this concern are manifold. Start with the message. Remainers worry that there is a visceral simplicity to the leave case that is cutting through. I spoke to one US pollster, entirely sympathetic to in, who admitted that when he looked at the key out propositions put to British voters in focus groups, even he found himself nodding in agreement. Would you rather laws were made by Britons or by foreigners? Would you prefer to give £12bn to the NHS or to the EU? Would you prefer that Britons or foreigners decide who can enter the UK? Grant admits that “the devil has the best tunes”, while the arguments for staying tend to be “complicated, boring and hard to explain”. What’s more, leave has been able to swat aside remain’s best missiles with surprising ease. When in says Europe needs to stay united against an assertive Vladimir Putin, out has only to reply that France and Germany are bound to want an alliance with a post-exit Britain – and the argument seems to crumble. By the time the inners have explained the nature of deeper security cooperation and established alliances, the voter is yawning or has moved on. And if the message is troubled, so too is the messenger. Until Corbyn’s speech, the remain campaign was looking like a one-man show. Cameron has been on stage all but alone. Half his own MPs don’t back him and those who do have been conspicuously mute. Theresa May has been all but invisible, and Osborne so sparing in his interventions, some wonder if he’s decided his only hope of becoming Tory leader rests on keeping his distance from remain. And Cameron himself is weakened, thanks to the Panama Papers revelations about his finances and his hesitant, contorted response. The in campaign drew up its battle plan assuming Cameron would be the same asset to them that he was for the Tories in 2015, sufficiently trusted to persuade the country that his assessment of the national interest was the right one. But that assumption now looks shaky. Britain is not immune to the anti-establishment mood spreading across Europe and the US, and 23 June could offer the perfect outlet for it. On top of all that are the very specific defects of the official in campaign, Britain Stronger in Europe. Putting aside the confusion about whether it, or Downing Street, is in charge, even its allies despair that its top-down, old-fashioned reliance on corporate suits is a turnoff. They believe it has failed to engage wider civil society and to deploy the sort of voices younger voters might listen to – and that it lacks the killer instinct embodied by leave’s resident rottweiler Dominic Cummings. Remainers have waited for the takedown that would expose the wild inconsistencies of Boris Johnson, for example, but worry that BSE – a campaign with a name that sounds like a disease – lacks that ruthless appetite for the jugular. Even as Project Fear, it has failed: the picture it paints of a Brexited Britain is clearly not scary enough. This is the context into which Jeremy Corbyn stepped on Thursday. The risk is that he might succumb to one of Ed Miliband’s great failings – and believe that, having given a single speech, he has done enough. He hasn’t. He has to campaign constantly and vigorously for in, between now and 23 June. He should relish it – for this is a challenge for which he is unusually well suited. His task is not to win over the entire country, where he might struggle, but Labour voters, where he should be strong – and, specifically, the young, where his admirers insist he is stronger still. He even has an organisation at his disposal, perfectly equipped for the task. He needs to unleash his grassroots movement, Momentum, right away. Momentum can use the EU campaign as a demonstration exercise, proving its much-vaunted muscle by mobilising the Labour voters who will determine this referendum. In this mission, Corbyn’s own backstory is an asset. With sincerity he can say that he empathises with the misgivings so many Britons have about the EU: he has them too. He can reiterate this week’s message that he has overcome his doubts, because he sees that the progressive cause – of protecting workers’ rights and combating climate change and tax avoidance – is best served as one of 28 nations rather than alone. And he can do all that in a language and demeanour that shows him to be as unspun and outside the establishment as Nigel Farage. He can’t do it alone, of course. Hopefully, he’s now given the signal for Labour’s other big dogs to run – and it’s heartening to hear that an intervention is coming from Gordon Brown, eternally credible on this issue as the man who kept Britain out of the euro. But such a burden falls chiefly on the leader. There are self-interested reasons for Corbyn to take it on. Here is one issue on which the whole Labour movement, unions and MPs alike, can unite behind him. If he succeeds in energising Labour voters, he can disprove those critics who insist he’s toxic at the ballot box. He can notch up a win. And, at the same time, Jeremy Corbyn will do his country a great service, even shape its destiny. And not many predicted that.
What Facebook's On This Day shows about the fragility of our online lives Can you remember how you were feeling on this day last year? How about three years ago? Facebook can, and if you’re a regular user of the service, you may have noticed that for the better part of the last year, it’s been ready to remind you. “We care about you and the memories you share here,” the platform warmly intones, offering a confetti draped image of a photo or status update from some time ago. Theoretically this is a sensible idea – we upload massive reams of stuff to our online networks, and our fleeting day-to-day engagements with these services are easy to forget, and occasionally fun to remember. Sure, you’d like to be reminded that your friend’s wedding was six years ago now, and look how much fun you had then! Or look how three years ago you posted about your favorite coffee shop, and now just today you did almost the exact same thing. Ha ha! Good times! Except all too often the algorithm chooses posts that we’d really rather not “like to look back on,” as Facebook suggests. At best there’s some comedy in the idea that you’d appreciate a tender, wistful reflection on the time you took a picture of a snack. At worst, announcements of job loss, photos of happy days with your now-ex, a pet that has died, or a family illness are suddenly unearthed without warning, served into your day along with Facebook’s chirpy, intimate good-day wishes. When I polled Twitter to ask about some of the most egregious violations, one person recalled having Facebook “warmly” remind her of the time she shared the missing persons poster for a friend who ultimately was not found alive. Someone else once used Facebook to keep family and friends updated about how their mum’s cancer treatment was going – she’s fine now, but seeing those old daily updates were an unpleasant reminder. Frightening times packaged in a “caring” Facebook memory box. It’s common for people to get lovely party pictures from weddings that led to divorces, or friendships that ended acrimoniously. It seems Facebook is still experimenting with the feature, which it calls On This Day. In October it added some filters that allow users to control the experience by excluding particular dates or people – one woman said the ability to exclude periods of time was crucial to her wish to forget the time before her transition. But as with lots of Facebook features, these controls can be tough for the average user to find (here they are in the Help Center), and there doesn’t actually seem to be any way to reliably turn On This Day off (we got in touch with Facebook’s external PR firm to confirm details of how the feature actually works, but they were unable to help). Though many users might not like On This Day, few are surprised – we’ve come to expect unwanted “features” to keep sprouting up out of Facebook like spores. We tolerate this sort of encroachment as so many of us have come to depend on Facebook as a hub for social connections, daily chat, and as a way of keeping up with people we don’t know well but would like to. Admittedly, my personal user file is massive – what would happen to all my pictures, my personal history, if I tried to get away? But there’s more to learn from the On This Day feature than simply another lesson in how creepy Facebook is and how difficult it is to get away from. Certainly the discomfort we feel in the face of these unwelcome “looks back” is partially to do with Facebook’s invasive qualities, and the revelation of how much of ourselves we have volunteered to it. But part of the palpable dissonance clearly comes from the fact that many of our posts were never intended to become “memories” in the first place. An important question gets raised here: what’s the purpose of all this “content” we serve to platforms, if it’s useless in constructing a remotely valuable history of ourselves? Are we creating anything that’s built to last, that’s worth reflecting on, or have social media platforms led us to prize only the thoughts of the moment? These platforms have led to a shift in the daily computer user’s thinking and self-expression. In a world of status updates and tweets the longform idea starts to become a luxurious rarity; our primary means of receiving and processing news and culture becomes the “take”, a shareable response designed for live conversation and the ideas of the day, not for the authority of permanence. So many of the things we post lose energy and purpose outside of their intended moment. Even some of my own columns I’ve written on daily issues startle me, in that in five years – no, even in one year – the context will have well and truly passed, leaving ideas dangling, illogical, useless outside their time. We generally think of social media as a tool to make grand announcements and to document important times, but just as often – if not more – it’s just a tin can phone, an avenue by which to toss banal witterings into an uncaring universe. Rather, it’s a form of thinking out loud, of asserting a moment for ourselves on to the noisy face of the world. The mostly useless On This Day feature makes clear how fragile our histories online are becoming. If we’re channeling our energy into hot takes, context-dependent tweets and fleeting daily status updates, where are we storing our actual histories? Though I’m an avid, dependent social media user, my childhood is documented in a shoebox of physical photos and a couple of notebooks. My parents treasure a few photo albums and a little set of squiggly VHS tapes, and that is all we have. I grew up with the idea of memory as intimate and owned, significant events and times folded lovingly and tucked away in the home. Today we stagger under daily records served up to us without our permission, by platforms we hardly trust, in formats that mean little to us, of snippets and half-thoughts we never intended to remember. Sometimes it’s even impossible to permanently destroy the things we want to forget, and they remain etched forever on the internet’s endless memory for strangers to find. In 10 years, will you want your daily weather complaints filed alongside your ancient political causes, your cries for help, your old relationships and your minor headaches – in a theoretical cabinet owned by someone else? How can we reliably access the things we’d like to remember, instead of the mental clutter we’d like to forget? What would a more permanent, more substantial, more valuable “disk image” of ourselves look like online, and what kind of solution could arise to host it? It’s an interesting technology and culture challenge. Lots of my friends and colleagues use Timehop, an app that well pre-dates On This Day. Timehop can aggregate your history from Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Foursquare, Flickr, and even your phone’s own Camera Roll if you opt to let it. A cartoon dinosaur mascot offers users a daily update featuring anything you shared on that day in previous years, and you can also view updates from Timehop friends you’ve elected to connect to. You can even re-share the “memories”, with your choice of decorative frames with captions like “STILL TRUE” – this element of customisation is small but significant. Unlike Facebook, Timehop offers a dedicated, curated space, and its users are basically in control of how and what is shared. But this ability to control what you see of your past, to manage who sees it and how they can engage with it, and the ability to delete it should you choose to is becoming rare. In many senses, we’ve lost control of our own stories online – the ongoing “right to be forgotten” discussions that began in the European Court of Justice in 2014 act as a partial concession to that point. Instead of a shoebox of pictures and a diary, your child will grow up depending on interconnected platforms and services. Her entire history, from the first ultrasound picture you share to your network to the day she has a headache to the day she makes a snack, and on like that, will be documented – and could belong to service providers. Unless we can regain control of our narratives online, unless we can discover a way to value our social content, thisflickering constellation of forgettable “moments” and social media “memories”, is the main way our histories will be kept.
BBC3 boss on going online only: ‘We are reinventing the BBC’s offer to youth’ On 16 February BBC3 will go online only, causing, according to critics such as producers Jimmy Mulville and Jon Thoday, “massive damage to the development of future television audiences and of new talent, both on and off-screen”. BBC3 controller Damian Kavanagh, unsurprisingly, disagrees. The fast-talking Irishman says that when it was first announced that the BBC wanted to close BBC3’s broadcast channel to save money it “felt a bit when we were having conversations that this was sad for talent or there would be lost opportunities for talent. In truth when I see the kinds of things we’re commissioning [especially] short-form there’s more opportunity for talent in a way.” He points to new ventures such as a collaboration with Idris Elba’s company Green Door Pictures, which is “still in the very early stages of discussion” but will feature new writers working with established actors and “a range of people will be involved”. A genial man born in Dublin, he joined the BBC in 1994. He has stayed there, in various roles including as head of planning and scheduling at BBC Daytime and controller of CBBC, apart from a short sojourn to Channel 4 a few years ago. But looking after Big Fat Gypsy Wedding was not for him. As acting controller of BBC3 after founding controller Stuart Murphy left in 2005, and with experience in BBC children’s, Kavanagh was an obvious choice to head up the channel after Zai Bennett left for Sky two years ago. Kavanagh, who has a similar quickfire wit to Dara O’Briain, undoubtedly has one of the hardest gigs in the BBC. But he is open about how difficult things have been to get to the point of closure – convincing the BBC Trust and the public that online only is the way to go. “I can’t deny there have been certain challenges along the way. I believe in the content and that there’s a purpose behind BBC3 – working with a group of really enthusiastic, incredibly creative people who just seem to get it. “We’re going to try things and we don’t have to wait eight or nine months for things to come to fruition, then see how it goes, then take another eight or nine months to put that into effect.” But what about the money? Mulville and Thoday argued the move, “represents a major change of BBC policy whereby spend on younger viewers is reduced by £30m per annum”. “There is less money around,” admits Kavanagh, “and BBC3 grew out of that but the way we focus our editorial priorities makes us sharper. We’re not going to be spending as much money on acquisitions. We are supporting and nurturing new British talent, it’s not about spending money on foreign acquisitions.” By which he is probably referring to shows such as Family Guy, which has now been picked up by ITV2. However, the focus on new talent can pay off as the roll call of those helped or given their big break by BBC3 is like a Who’s Who of British comedy. James Corden, David Walliams, Matt Lucas, Ruth Jones, Mathew Horne and Russell Howard have all been propelled into the mainstream while BBC3’s launch schedule included Little Britain, which subsequently moved to BBC2, as later did Jack Whitehall’s Backchat. Other notable highlights include documentary series Our War and the satirical animation Monkey Dust, which helped boost Sharon Horgan’s career prior to her acclaimed Pulling. These are the kind of shows the old BBC3 would want to be remembered for rather than those with headline-grabbing titles so beloved of the Daily Mail such as F*** Off I’m a Hairy Woman and Snog Marry Avoid. The new BBC3 will target 16-34 year-olds with two new platforms, the Daily Drop providing content including short films, articles and news and sport updates and The Best Of, bringing together new shows, long and short. To work with the new outlets, Kavanagh has had to design innovative ways of working, putting him at the frontier of the BBC. If it works it could provide a template for other areas to follow. “We’re doing things differently and with other parts of the BBC,” he recounts at breakneck speed. “We’ve got a content team here that does stuff for us on a daily basis, we’ve become a production hub in addition to just a commissioner broadcaster. “The big top line numbers people need to know are we’ve got £30m a year to spend on content for young people – 80% of it spent on long form and 20% on new forms.” The budget breaks down into around £10m on comedy, the same on serious factual, £3m for drama and the rest on new forms of content. Kavanagh points out, though, that the follow-up to the award-winning Murdered By My Boyfriend, Murdered By My Father, is a drama but some of the money comes from factual so “it’s not locked in stone”. One of the most exciting things for writers and producers is the fact they are not constrained so much by time. Murdered By My Boyfriend is currently 15-minutes longer than its predecessor. How the BBC will measure the success of the pioneering BBC3 is tricky because as well as some shows being broadcast on BBC1 and BBC2 it will also have outlets on YouTube, Snapchat and Facebook. “We’re working it out,” says Kavanagh. “It is difficult and no one’s cracked it entirely as we’re out on so many different platforms. I don’t envy the job of the people who are going to try and tell the story. But the way people are consuming content is changing and we as an organisation have got to get good at measuring how it’s doing.” With the bright pink new logo – which caused a stir when it emerged in January – not having the words BBC on it and the use of names without BBC branding such as The Daily Drop, it almost seems as though the corporation is reaching “the youth” by stealth – not drawing attention to the BBC brand in case it puts them off. Kavanagh is pretty resilient, having worked on BBC3 in its early days. He recounts something Murphy said to him at the time: “He said ‘all those slots on BBC3 that rated zero. Your job is to try and get them to rate something other than zero’ and I think people forget it started as a fledgling service that went on to produce the great talent that it did.” He remembers the naysayers who did not want BBC3 when it first began 13 years ago: “People don’t like change, people love the BBC and BBC3 in particular, but there was all the hoo-ha when BBC3 launched in the early days … People said that means you’re taking away money from what we do traditionally, you’re doing something different.” The negative reaction from some to the online BBC3 was because “genuinely I think people did not understand. The more we went out and started talking to people, particularly young people, the interesting thing for me on this journey and where my confidence came from is we’ve done a hell of a lot of talking to our audience – who I think are the most important people and they get it and are supportive of it.” On switchover day there will be new episodes of popular Greg Davies comedy Cuckoo, new comedians in Live From The BBC and a new series of the Bafta winning Life and Death Row. There will be trails on BBC TV and Radio 1, in particular, telling audiences what is going on and the old channel will remain on the electronic programme guides for six weeks with information on where to find BBC3. As well as offering a chance for experimentation, the move off the airwaves has also it seems kept Kavanagh in a job. Last month Charlotte Moore took control of BBC1, BBC2 and BBC4, Kavanagh kept BBC3. “The reasoning behind it, what we’re trying to do, and what I’m doing on BBC3, is we’re reinventing the BBC’s offer for young people and I imagine they felt at the moment that Charlotte’s going to be a busy woman!” With the TV industry and BBC3’s audience looking on intently to see how the BBC’s experiment goes, surely Kavanagh is going to be pretty busy too? “Nah, there’s not much going on,” he quips. Curriculum vitae Age 47 Education Presentation College, Glasthule; University College, Dublin. Career 1994 various roles in BBC daytime and BBC1, BBC3 head of planning and scheduling 2005 acting controller of BBC3 2006 BBC daytime head of planning and scheduling 2009 controller, CBBC 2012 head of features and factual formats, Channel 4 2013 controller, BBC Daytime 2014 controller, BBC3 This article was amended on 8 February to correct inaccurate references to Kavanagh’s education
'I've seen horrible things': photographer Laia Abril on her history of misogyny ‘My project begins in the 19th century,” says Laia Abril, as she guides me through A History of Misogyny, Chapter 1: On Abortion, her sometimes disturbing exhibition at the Arles photography festival. “Back then, the problems facing women trying to control their reproduction were medical and technological. Now we live in a technological age and the problems women face are linked to politics and religion. But in many countries, where abortion is still illegal, they have to resort to life-threatening procedures. So for them, nothing has changed.” Although Abril’s exhibition is not for the faint-hearted, she does not resort to shocking imagery or polemics. Instead, the show shifts between the personal, the historical and the cultural. It begins with her artful photographs of objects from the archive of the Museum of Contraception and Abortion in Vienna – a condom made from a fish bladder, an array of surgical instruments and medical illustrations – which s he presents as painterly still lifes, either singularly or in groups. From there, she leaps to what she calls photo-novels, which consist of personal stories that graphically illustrate the consequences – both physical and psychological – of unsafe abortion. A young Polish woman recalls a 15-hour illegal procedure in an overcrowded, airless clinic. When she described the ordeal to her boyfriend, he said: “That’s seems right – murderers should be treated like cattle.” An Irish man describes how his pregnant and terminally ill wife was prescribed an abortion because chemotherapy had damaged the foetus. “Michelle did not want to, but we had no other option,” he says. “To our surprise, Cork University Hospital refused to do it.” Abril, 30, hails from Barcelona, and is a graduate of Fabrica, the Benetton arts project in Italy. Working closely with the designer Ramon Pez, who is crucial to the layouts of her shows and photobooks, Abril is a thoughtful conceptualist who tells metaphorical stories about difficult subjects using a mixture of research and whatever raw material comes to hand: found photos, her own images, family photographs, personal testimonies, official archives, interviews and diaries. The Epilogue, her previous project, tackled eating disorders though the tragic tale of Mary Cameron Robinson, an American woman who died of heart failure in 2005, at the age of 26. This time, the found material and loaded objects – from an operating chair to a tangled heap of coathangers – make the testimonies all the more stark. One of the most resonant images is a staged photograph of a pair of handcuffs hanging from the rail of a hospital bed. It is titled Hippocratic Betrayal and refers to the case of a 19-year-old woman from São Paulo, who was taken to hospital with severe abdominal pains after ingesting abortion pills. After treating her, the doctor called the police, saying he would autopsy the foetus if she did not confess to trying to abort. She was handcuffed to her hospital bed and freed only after agreeing to pay £200 bail. Denunciation by doctors is common in Brazil, Peru and El Salvador. “There are so many stories,” says Abril, “and it was important to find ways of telling them visually. The image of the handcuffs is a reconstruction because, of course, I was not present. No one was. The stories are true, the research is journalistic, the imagery is sometimes imaginative and sometimes documentary.” Abril has photographed bundles of toxic-looking herbs she bought on the black market in El Salvador, and one wall of her show is papered with adverts for Peruvian clinics that “fix” and “regulate” what they call “menstrual delays”. In Peru, abortion is illegal except when the life of the mother is at risk, and anyone caught self-aborting faces up to two years in prison. The most chilling exhibit, though, is not a photograph or a text, but a voice. On a small shelf rests an old-fashioned telephone. When you hold it to your ear, you hear a recording of a prolonged threat left on the phone of someone who worked at a clinic in Orlando, Florida. “You like killing babies, don’t you?” the caller says in a quiet but simmering voice. “You like to sell death parts for a dirty profit while you get funded by my taxpayer money.” It is a glimpse of the frontline of the abortion wars in the US, where staff at pro-choice clinics live with the fear of fire-bombings and shootings from extremist pro-life groups such as The Lambs of Christ and The Army of God. Last year, an attack on a family-planning clinic in Colorado killed two civilians and one police officer. To date, anti-abortion violence in the US has led to 11 murders and 26 attempted murders. Why has Abril chosen such a loaded subject as the first chapter in her history of misogyny? “It seemed timely,” she says, “because of the Pope’s ruling on forgiveness, which just seemed so strange.” In September 2015, Pope Francis announced the beginning of a one-year-long abortion amnesty entitled the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy, in which he granted permission for every priest in the world to forgive the sin of abortion for a period of one year. With this one edict, he seemed to overthrow the declaration of his predecessor, John Paul II, that abortion was murder and that women who have terminated a pregnancy should be excommunicated. When the year is up, though, the Catholic church reverts to that ruling. For her project, Abril has recreated a confession made by a woman who had an abortion. “I use whatever I need,” she says, “because I am really dealing with an invisible subject, one that it is hard for women in these countries to talk about because they feel ashamed or threatened or afraid. Even in confession, they are treated as murderers. It is important to confront this. In El Salvador today, 17 women who were pregnant and had late miscarriages have been charged with homicide and are serving prison sentences of between 20 and 40 years. Not for abortions, but miscarriages.” She sighs. “I have heard and seen so many horrible things while making this work. So many horrible things.” • A History of Misogyny, Chapter 1: On Abortion is at Magasin Électrique, Arles, until 25 September. See more here.
MPs to scrutinise Sir Philip Green's link with influential banker The relationship between one of Britain’s most influential bankers and Sir Philip Green will be thrown into the spotlight this week as MPs deepen their investigation into the collapse of BHS. Michael Sherwood, the vice-chairman of Goldman Sachs, will appear before a parliamentary committee on Wednesday to answer questions about his ties with Green. Sherwood is the co-head of Goldman’s European business and has advised Green for more than a decade. He worked on the tycoon’s failed attempt to buy Marks & Spencer in 2004. Sherwood will appear alongside Anthony Gutman, the co-head of investment banking for Goldman in Europe, and Michael Casey, another Goldman banker. Goldman has been thrown into the centre of the BHS scandal after Green claimed he “one million per cent” would not have sold the department store chain to Dominic Chappell if the prospective buyer had not passed an informal vetting by the bank. Chappell has been declared bankrupt three times and had no experience of running a retail business before buying BHS. BHS collapsed into administration in April, putting 11,000 jobs at risk and leaving a £571m pension deficit. Green controlled BHS for 15 years until he sold it for £1 in March 2015 to Chappell’s consortium Retail Acquisitions. There is growing anger about the collapse of BHS because Green and other investors collected more than £580m in dividends, rental payments and interest during the tycoon’s period in charge. Retail Acquisitions also collected at least £17m from the retailer despite owning it for just 13 months. MPs are investigating how the BHS’s pension scheme ended up heavily in deficit and why Green sold the company to Chappell. The Goldman trio will be grilled on claims by Retail Acquisitions and its advisers that the bank acted as the “gatekeeper” for Green during the sale process. Gutman will be appearing in front of the the joint hearing of the business, innovation and skills committee, and the work and pensions committee, for the second time. He initially told MPs last month that Goldman had offered only “informal assistance” to Green and had not been paid for its work. However, it subsequently emerged that Goldman’s work involved 79 emails, 13 calls, and three meetings, including a “congratulations” email from Gutman to Chappell when Retail Acquisitions completed its deal to buy BHS. MPs will also hear from a string of other witnesses this week who are connected to Green or the BHS scandal. This includes Neville Kahn of accountancy firm Deloitte, another key adviser to Green, and Brett Palos, the tycoon’s stepson. Palos is a non-executive director of Arcadia, Green’s retail business. He bought a BHS shop in Ealing, west London, for £6.9m just days before the Retail Acquisitions deal and sold it for a £3m profit just weeks later. Chappell told MPs he was shocked when he found out that Palos had been behind the property deal. Other witnesses to appear will include Alex Dellal, who runs Allied Commercial Exporters (Ace). Dellal helped to finance Retail Acquisition’s takeover of BHS by providing £35m that the consortium used to demonstrate its credibility to Green. Ace then went on to make an estimated £16m profit from a series of property deals and loan agreements with BHS and Retail Acquisitions. Paul Sutton, who introduced Chappell to Green, will also answer questions from MPs. Sutton was in talks to buy BHS from Green until a whistleblower handed over a dossier to the billionaire that showed Sutton had been convicted of fraud in France. Chappell then stepped in to buy the retailer. MPs have recalled Arcadia executives and the head of the Pensions Regulator for further questions about the collapse of BHS. The recalled Arcadia witnesses are Paul Budge, the finance director, and Chris Harris, the property director. Lesley Titcomb, the chief executive of the Pensions Regulator, will be asked to explain what steps were taken to restructure the BHS pension scheme before Green sold the company, and what action could be taken against the tycoon to fill the £571m deficit. Green told MPs he would “sort” the pension problems facing BHS, but a plan is yet to emerge. “Nothing is more sad than how this has ended,” Green said. “There is certainly no intent at all on my part for anything to be like this, and it didn’t need to be like this. I just want to apologise to all the BHS people who have been involved in this.”
Leicester stun Manchester City to maintain remarkable title charge Match of the season? Not quite. It takes two sides to make a real contest and Manchester City were so unimpressive in this early title showdown it made a mockery of the games’s first v second billing. Result of the decade? Quite possibly. Leicester still have to keep going – they have the small matter of a trip to the Emirates next Sunday – but they did not just squeeze past their closest rivals, they beat them handsomely. The scoreline does not lie, except that Sergio Agüero’s late contribution rather flattered the home side. Manchester City could not have complained had they lost 4-0, such was the imbalance between opportunities created. “Scoring so early gave us confidence,” Leicester’s manager, Claudio Ranieri, said. “That allowed us to close down all the space.” It had been suggested beforehand that Leicester’s pace and precision might find reward against Manchester’s City’s somewhat ponderous central defence, though it was envisaged Jamie Vardy or Riyad Mahrez might do the damage. Instead it was the unlikely figure of Robert Huth who turned out to be the two-goal hero as Ranieri’s team passed their greatest test to extend their lead at the top of the Premier League. The big defender nipped in ahead of Martín Demichelis to give the visitors a third-minute lead as Manchester City failed to defend the first set piece of the game. Mahrez had set up the opportunity, drawing a foul from Aleksandar Kolarov with a run down the right and taking the free-kick himself. The home side might have been expecting a high cross but got a low one and Huth simply reacted quickest to get a foot to the ball on the six-yard line, even if a ricochet off the defender was the final touch. Goal of the season contender it was not, but it was a dream start for Leicester and one that helped them stick to the gameplan that has proved so effective this season. There is nothing complicated about what Leicester do, they stay compact and deep in defence and try to hit Vardy upfield on the counter. Once City were obliged to chase an equaliser and leave gaps at the back it played into Leicester’s hands, at times excessively so, for on a few occasions in the first half the visitors were turning over a reckless amount of possession. Constantly inviting such dangerous players as David Silva and Raheem Sterling to carry the ball into the final third does not seem the most sensible of strategies, but Manchester City were short of ideas and invention and Leicester got away with it. The best chance Manchester City managed to create came right at the end of the first half when Agüero rolled a cross right across the face of an unprotected goal with no one available to tap it in. The game was still in the balance while there was only a single goal in it and it seemed likely that if Leicester persisted in trying to soak up whatever their opponents could throw at them Manchester City would at some point get back on terms in the second half. So Leicester just repeated what they had done in the first half and scored another early goal, two minutes after the restart, and this time there was nothing scrappy about it. Using Vardy in the centre as a decoy, Mahrez ran at the home defence and ended up outstripping almost the entire back four before beating Joe Hart with a confident finish. Pablo Zabaleta lost possession high up the field on Leicester’s left, Nicolás Otamendi sold himself too easily by going to ground without managing to dispossess the ball carrier, an elegant feint took Demichelis out of the equation and by the time Kolarov came across from the right to attempt a challenge it was too late to prevent the shot. It might not have been as jaw-dropping as Vardy’s effort against Liverpool last week, but it was a goal elegant enough to light up any game and it prevented any accusations that Leicester had merely ridden their luck after taking an early lead. Manuel Pellegrini made a double substitution in response, withdrawing the ineffective Yaya Touré and the labouring Fabian Delph. While Fernando did manage to bring a smart save from Kasper Schmeichel with a close-range header, Leicester went another goal in front before any tactical adjustment could take effect. It was another from Huth at another set piece, this time a simple matter of rising higher than anyone else and nodding Christian Fuchs’s deep corner back over the head of a powerless Hart, though that bald description does scant justice to the part Vardy played in winning the corner. Flicking the ball beyond the home defence and accelerating into the penalty area to reach it, Vardy proved capable of terrorising Manchester City with his pace after all. He was unlucky not to score in the second half, on one occasion being foiled by Hart’s prompt action in coming off his line to block, then putting a header just wide from a corner and finally finding the side-netting with a shot from a tight angle. If it had been all Manchester City in the first half, it was all Leicester City in the second. If the final score was a surprise, there was nothing inexplicable about it. Manchester City had struggled to create chances when they had a mountain of possession, largely through the hard work of the indefatigable Danny Drinkwater and N’Golo Kanté in closing them down. Agüero did grab a headed goal back right at the end, but you would be hard-pressed to work out how that afforded Manchester City any sort of consolation. They had been outplayed and outthought by opponents who do the important things in football. Defend when necessary, score when possible. “My team defended bad and attacked bad,” was Pellegrini’s pithy summary. “But Leicester played very well. If they can continue like that they have a great chance of the title.”
A lifetime of misogyny catches up with Trump Back in the spring, Jill Harth didn’t want to talk. Neither did a number of the other women who had crossed paths with Donald Trump. But few of them had documented their encounters so thoroughly as Harth, whose 1997 lawsuit alleging “attempted rape” against Trump is a matter of public record. It wasn’t surprising that having kept quiet on the matter for almost 20 years, she wasn’t jumping at the chance to respond to a reporter’s phone call. But a few months later, her lawyer got in touch. The impetus, as Harth put it in an emotional hour-long interview at the ’s New York office, was Trump’s repeated insistence that any woman alleging misbehaviour on his part was lying. His eldest daughter Ivanka’s widely aired insistence that “my dad is not a groper” pushed her over the edge. “What did she know?” Harth asked. “She was 10 years old.” A former Trump business associate from his early beauty pageant industry days, Harth said that the tycoon behaved inappropriately with her from the day she met him. The first presentation she gave with her boyfriend and business partner George Houraney back in December 1992 marked not just the beginning of their partnership with Trump, which Harth described as the professional “highlight” of their career, but also, the beginning of a steady stream of unwanted sexual advances, culminating in the alleged assault in one of the children’s bedrooms at Mar-a-Lago, his ostentatious Florida mansion. “He pushed me up against the wall, and had his hands all over me and tried to get up my dress again,” Harth recalled, “and I had to physically say: ‘What are you doing? Stop it.’ It was a shocking thing to have him do this because he knew I was with George.” If she had known Trump a bit better at the time, she might not have been so shocked. Today, the examples of Trump’s misogyny, casual and calculated alike, are as well-rehearsed as they are reprehensible. But something has changed again. Last week, the tape of his conversation with Billy Bush brought them front and centre in the American conversation; this week, further testimony from two women who spoke to the New York Times, alleging that his claims back then were more than mere words, have ensured that the spotlight will not shift. His unguarded phrase, “grab them by the pussy”, has stuck because it chimed with the testimony of Jill Harth, and so many other women who have spoken out about their experience with Trump. As a former Miss Utah, Temple Taggart, put it to the New York Times when remembering how he had introduced himself by kissing her on the lips: “It was like, ‘Thank you.’ Now no one can say I made this up,” she said. In this context, the stories of the women who spoke up about Trump have taken on fresh weight: now undeniable as a map to his values and treatment of women for more than 40 years. *** Jill Harth was not the only woman who got in touch with me about Trump this year. Kari Wells, a former model and Bravo actor, described her own experience with Trump’s sexual entitlement back in December 1992 when she was modelling in Aspen, Colorado, at the Ritz Carlton hotel and the Little Nell Hotels doing various fashion shows. Trump was dating a girlfriend of hers at the time, the model Kelly Ann Sabatasso, so she was friendly in passing when she saw him. “I kept running into him and her at the different hotels and at the fashion shows,” she said. “He asked me what time I was doing the show until, and I just thought it was polite conversation, so I told him it ended around 6pm. He asked if I would like to come up to his room as Kelly was coming over and he thought that the three of us could have some fun together. He pushed his room key forward on the table for me to pick up.” At the time Wells was in her early 20s; the age difference, as well as the abruptness of his proposition, shocked her. She quickly made up an excuse, but she kept thinking about the exchange. “What gave him a right to ask me such a thing? Just because I had been polite and friendly towards him, and the fact that I was a model?” In the case of Alicia Machado, whom I interviewed in Los Angeles where she now lives, it would ironically be the widely available video footage of the humiliation he subjected her to after the 1996 Miss Universe gained a modest amount of weight that would devastate Trump. Venezuela-born Machado became an American citizen this year with the express purpose of voting against him. And in an hour-long interview, interrupted only by a phone call from her mother, Machado described the infamous incident in which Trump turned a forced workout into a press event – “I was in some gym in New York like a mouse,” she said. “Look at that mouse: how she run, how she jump, how she make exercise. Like that. In that moment is when … problems come to me and start.” Machado subsequently suffered from anorexia and bulimia. A week later, Hillary Clinton would tell Machado’s story on the debate stage, blasting out a media package to back it up afterwards. It was a devastating moment for Trump, not just on the debate floor, but in the week that followed, with Trump tweeting out defensive comments about Machado’s non-existent “sex tape”, part of a larger effort by him and his campaign surrogates to tar her character with claims irrelevant to the issue at hand; her readily verifiable account of her experience with Trump. Machado had the evidence to prove her case against Trump, from video to a dossier of press clippings, precisely because Trump had wanted to document the moment. The trouble for Trump was, in the intervening 20 years the context changed and society had progressed. He, meanwhile, had not. It’s one thing for Clinton to do things like call Trump a bully or even for his biographers to do so – as practically every one of them will. It’s another to see it and feel it viscerally, as we can in Machado’s story. And hers was not even the most compelling story I heard on Trump’s bullying. That dubious distinction belongs to former beauty queen Sheena Monnin, sued by Trump for $10m when she made a negative comment on Facebook about his pageant. She had thrown a stone in his eye and now Trump was coming down on her with Goliath force. “There was no way I could have afforded to pay that off and frankly, he had to have known that,” she told the this summer. In a more rational world, Monnin would not have spent years locked in legal battle with a man worth many billions more than she’ll ever see in her lifetime for what amounted to a slight on Facebook; but in telling her story years later, as an increasing number of women are stepping forward to do, she found a measure of vindication and dignity. It is perhaps unsurprising that an exploration of how Trump got to this point takes you right back to his mother. Mary Trump, her son explained in The Art Of The Deal, was an unmatchable ideal. “Part of the problem I’ve had with women has been in having to compare them to my incredible mother, Mary Trump,” he wrote (or his ghost did). “My mother is smart as hell.” At the New York Military Academy, where he had been sent after an incident involving switchblade knives, he quickly developed the measure of success that would persist. He was seen with beautiful women on his arm so often he was voted ladies’ man of his class. And as he grew up, Trump never lost his adolescent way of seeing women as trophies – or of measuring himself in the world. When he met his first wife Ivana Trump, a Czech American socialite skier whom he married in 1977, Trump recalled being impressed by more than her looks. “Good looks had been my top – and sometimes, to be honest, my only – priority in my man-about-town days,” he recalled in Trump: Surviving at the Top. “Ivana was gorgeous, but she was also ambitious and intelligent. When I introduced her to friends and associates, I said, ‘Believe me. This one’s different.’ Everyone knew what I meant, and I think everyone sensed that I found the combination of beauty and brains almost unbelievable.” Astonished as he was, his marriage to Ivana lasted over a decade, long enough to have three children. When his wife’s ambition started to grate, and rumours of his philandering persisted, he moved on to Marla Maples – “nice tits, no brains”, as he would later sum her up. Ivana, in a sworn deposition from the time, pointed not just to these infidelities but also to her own violent rape, following a fight. She has since softened her stance on the story she gave under oath, telling one biographer she didn’t mean rape in the “literal” sense, and is now bound from discussing it by a non-disclosure agreement. Trump’s tabloid life was never even put on hold when he took up with Marla – Jill Harth’s allegations occurred after he had taken up with Maples. They married in 1993, but the relationship was never strong and the rumours of affairs never quieted. Six years and one daughter – Tiffany Trump – later, Maples would become his new ex-wife. Trump blamed Marla, not himself for the destruction of their marriage, as he had blamed Ivana before her. He accused her of not making him dinner in a timely manner, and not being supportive enough of his long hours at work, but when it came to giving her emotional support all consideration went out the window: “One thing I have learned: There is high maintenance. There is low maintenance. I want no maintenance,” he wrote in The Art Of The Comeback That much at least has not changed. Now on his third marriage to Melania Trump, 24 years his junior, he still brags about never changing diapers. *** Alongside that marital history, and the litany of other charges against him, the stories of Machado, the fat-shamed beauty queen struggling with body image, Monnin, the bullied defendant fighting Trump’s machine, and Harth, the sexually assaulted woman who thought she was launching a business proposition, paint the picture of a domineering man. But all three women chafed at the notion of being defined by him. “I don’t like to say his name,” Machado told me, when prompted at one point to indicate she was talking about Trump. She wanted to talk about the telenovelas she’s starring in, the new business ventures she has, the home she keeps with her mother in Los Angeles and the seven-year-old daughter she adores. She wants me to know who she is now, not just who she was then. Mostly though, like every woman I interviewed, she wanted her story to be about her. Each woman came to me for different reasons: Harth was sick of hearing Trump tell her story; Monnin, who recently published a self-help book, wanted to help other bullying victims; Machado wanted to make sure her abuser wasn’t the next president. But none of them wanted to talk about Trump. They did it because they felt that they had to, or someone else would. One surprising legacy of Trump’s campaign is that, as he falls in the polls, it is women, perhaps recognising something of their own life experiences in what happened to these three, who look poised to rise up and denounce him and the strain of political misogyny he represents. As the writer Rebecca Traister asks: “Which is worse, threatening to grab someone by the pussy or forcing someone to carry and give birth to a baby that is the result of rape? Which is worse: Popping a Tic Tac in preparation for forced extramarital kissing with a stranger or actively discouraging women’s full participation in the workforce? The answer is: None of these is worse; they are all of a kind.” Early in the campaign, women in the first primary state of Iowa sought to defend their votes for Donald Trump, and even at the time, it felt like a stretch. His rejection by African Americans and Latinos is overwhelming, and now independent voters are following suit. Single women in particular – a growing coalition expected to make up a full quarter of the US electorate this year – are poised to deal Trump a devastating blow. The morning after the election, Americans will wake either to the first female president in their history, or one of the most regressive misogynists ever to hold office. If Trump is to lose, he will have been undone by the very groups he has sought to keep down – by immigrants, minorities and women, most especially by women. How will Trump feel, this man who has regarded women all of his life as mere adornments, to understand that he was beaten, at last, by a woman?
Watford strike early to heap more misery on Leicester City’s title defence Claudio Ranieri’s hopes of restoring the champions’ solidity on the road? Gone in 33 seconds here. That was how long it took Étienne Capoue to open the scoring for Watford, who quickly increased their lead thanks to a lovely goal by Roberto Pereyra. Riyad Mahrez converted a penalty for Leicester but the champions could not avert a fifth defeat from six Premier League away matches this season. Add that to the fact that they lost their year-long unbeaten home league record in their last match at the King Power and Leicester’s title defence is beginning to bear an uncomfortable resemblance to a struggle against relegation. After 12 matches they are two points above the bottom three. Leicester will confirm progression to the knockout stages of the Champions League if the beat Club Brugge on Tuesday but their domestic troubles recall a different kind of history: Manchester City’s class of 1938 are the only English champions to have been relegated the year after winning the title. Leicester kicked off here as if intending to ease themselves into the game. That was a liberty Watford were not willing to give them. The hosts seized possession almost immediately and Pereyra embarked on a wriggly run down the left before clipping in a dangerous cross. Troy Deeney helped it on with a canny header and Capoue arrived to volley it into the net from 16 yards. It was a severe rebuke to the dozing visitors and the latest proof of Capoue’s increased deadliness from midfield: the Frenchman did not score at all last season but this was his fifth goal of this campaign. Watford had been trounced 6-1 by Liverpool in their last outing before the international break and their manager, Walter Mazzarri, had ordered his players to channel their anger at that result into their performance here. They seemed intent on doing just that, which was bad news for any Leicester player hoping the hosts would lower the intensity after their early goal. Instead Watford, far more fluent and robust than the disjointed visitors, helped themselves to a second goal in the 12th minute. It was a work of beauty, too. Pereyra again made inroads down the left, turned sharply past Danny Drinkwater and curled a delicious shot beyond Ron-Robert Zieler and into the net from the left-hand corner of the box. Drinkwater was included in the starting lineup after passing a late fitness test but he and Daniel Amartey were regularly bypassed in the opening stages as Leicester reeled. Falling two goals behind finally provoked a reaction from the champions, who pulled a goal back in the 15th minute thanks to a successful penalty by Mahrez. The spot-kick had been awarded for a foul on Jamie Vardy despite Miguel Britos protesting that the striker had simply used an untidy challenge as an invitation to tumble. The home crowd made similar claims for the rest of the match, booing every decision given against Watford by referee Neil Swarbrick, who later booked Britos for nagging. Leicester improved as the match went on and began to corral Watford into their own half. But they seldom bothered Heurelho Gomes, who was well protected by a vigilant home defence. Watford came closest to scoring in the second half thanks to strong work down the right by Nordin Amrabat, who rounded Christian Fuchs and fed Daryl Janmaat, who calmly deposited the ball on to the head of Pereyra. The forward’s header from close-range was much more central than it should have been but still demanded a terrific save from Zieler. Claudio Ranieri made a trio of late substitutions and at last began to threaten an equaliser. But Watford were not about to let them off the hook, their defenders making repeated last-ditch blocks to hold on to victory. Ranieri is not sounding the alarm. Just as he spent most of last season talking down Leicester’s title chances, he played up their performance here. “Watford scored two fantastic goals and then we did a very fantastic reaction,” said Ranieri. “Gomes didn’t make any saves but I think until the end we had a chance to score a goal because the team was alive. But against us today there was a big wall to stop all our shots at goal. We lost the match but the spirit is high. I’m proud of them.”
Jim: The James Foley Story review – heartfelt film of brave frontline reporting Nothing typifies the homicidal sadism and spite of Islamic State quite as much as its kidnapping and public murder in 2014 of James Foley, an American journalist covering the war in Syria. It also marked a larger moment of chaos: the west had once been backing rebel opposition to Assad; now the jihadis were a dominant part of this opposition, and the concept of intervention was more of a nightmare than ever. Brian Oakes’s film is a heartfelt, if slightly unreflective tribute to Foley, focusing on the strength he drew from his family and faith, although his private life and relationships are not touched on, and it does not provide an analytical context for Foley’s work. Understandably, and rightly, the film does not show the online execution (though it has no qualms about showing dead Syrians, a fact that might have been discussed further). Foley was clearly tough and courageous to the end. The irony was that this journalist had already had a similar experience: kidnapped in Libya, but released. He was in harm’s way all his professional life, and it came with the territory. The searing video footage of the carnage and destruction provided by Foley and his colleagues is a key part of making everyone understand the horror of what is happening, and his work was vital.
Benefits of cycling and walking 'outweigh air pollution risk' in cities The health benefits of cycling and walking outweigh the harm from inhaling air loaded with traffic fumes in all but the world’s most polluted cities, according to a study. An international team of researchers who have modelled the effects say only 1% of cities in the world have such high levels of air pollution that cycling or walking could make a person’s health worse. “The good news is that across the world, in 99% of cities it is safe to cycle up to two hours a day,” said Dr Audrey de Nazelle from the centre for environmental policy at Imperial College London, one of the study’s authors. “That’s because physical inactivity is such a public health issue – it is not that pollution is not detrimental.” In respect to air pollution, London is one of the safer cities in the world in which to cycle and walk, with the researchers finding it safe to do so all day. “Our model indicates that in London health benefits of active travel always outweigh the risk from pollution,” said Dr Marko Tainio from the Cambridge MRC epidemiology unit, who led the study. “Even in Delhi, one of the most polluted cities in the world – with pollution levels ten times those in London – people would need to cycle over five hours per week before the pollution risks outweigh the health benefits. “We should remember, though, that a small minority of workers in the most polluted cities, such as bike messengers, may be exposed to levels of air pollution high enough to cancel out the health benefits of physical activity.” Air pollution in major cities including London is of increasing concern, particularly to those who are regularly exposed to it when commuting to work. In February, the Royal College of Physicians published a report looking at exposure to air pollution across a lifetime and concluded that 40,000 people die as a result of it every year. The report linked polluted air to cancer, asthma, stroke and heart disease, diabetes, obesity, and dementia, and calculated that NHS, business and other costs in the UK came to more than £20bn a year. The college called for tougher action against polluters and for local authorities to be given powers to close roads and divert traffic when pollution levels were high. The authors of the study, from the UK, Switzerland, Spain and Brazil, say their findings published in the journal Preventive Medicine are not a reason for complacency. “While this research demonstrates the benefits of physical activity in spite of air quality, it is not an argument for inaction in combatting pollution,” said Dr James Woodcock from the Centre for Diet and Activity Research. “It provides further support for investment in infrastructure to get people out of their cars and on to their feet or their bikes – which can itself reduce pollution levels at the same time as supporting physical activity.” The researchers modelled the effects of cycling and walking at different levels of air pollution and established a tipping point – the length of time after which there was no further health benefit, and a break-even point, when the harm from air pollution began to outweigh the health benefit. For Delhi, the most polluted city on the World Health Organisation’s database, the tipping and break-even points for cycling were 30 and 45 minutes per day respectively, while for walking they were 90 minutes and six hours and 15 minutes respectively. While the researchers looked at the levels of particulates – PM2.5 – in the air and not NO2, which has also been established as harming health, “we did lots of sensitivity analyses and the message would have been the same”, said De Nazelle.
Florida mobilizes to control mosquitos causing 'unprecedented' Zika outbreak A 500 square foot area in the Wynwood neighborhood of Miami, Florida is now the epicenter of the US fight against Zika, as federal and state health officials said at least 15 people were infected with the virus by local mosquitoes. Officials said more diagnoses could be made in the coming days. The cases represent the first Zika infections transmitted by mainland American mosquitoes. The city began aerial spraying against the mosquitoes, a technique whose effectiveness is hotly criticized. “Zika is unprecedented,” said Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Dr Tom Frieden, at a press conference Thursday with Florida governor Rick Scott and state health officials. “We’ve never before had a mosquito-borne disease that can cause birth defects.” Frieden said his top priority is to lower mosquito populations in the area. The mosquito that transmits the disease, Aedes aegypti, lives in and around homes, and can breed in containers as tiny as a bottle cap. “It’s not going to easy, this is a difficult mosquito to control,” said Frieden. “Coffee cup, paint can, bucket for collecting rainwater … trash that can support a little bit of water when it rains” all will need to be emptied, Frieden said, and “a major effort to clean that entire effort” will be undertaken. “What we want to see is mosquito counts coming down,” he said. Scott also repeatedly emphasized that Florida is still “safe” for the roughly 110 million tourists that travel to the state each year, even as officials warned pregnant women not to visit the Wynwood neighborhood. Zika is believed to cause microcephaly, or abnormally small heads and severe developmental problems, in babies whose mothers are infected with the disease. There is no specific treatment for the virus, no vaccine and little is known about how it impacts children not born with apparent birth defects. It is also sexually transmitted and can cause an autoimmune disorder that can lead to paralysis called Guillain-Barré. Already, Miami has the longest mosquito season of any major city in the country, according to a new analysis by Climate Central. On average, just 28 days per year are inhospitable to mosquitoes in Miami, an increase of 20 days since 1980. And although the recent infections in Miami are the first to be transmitted by local mosquitoes, cases of Zika have entered the US for months now. The CDC confirmed more than 1,800 infections in people returning to from travel. In Puerto Rico, more than 5,500 people have been infected with the virus. Despite ample warning from experts that Zika would reach, and likely infect, American mosquitoes, Congress was unable to pass any appropriations to combat the disease. A bipartisan effort by Florida’s senators, Republican Marco Rubio and Democrat Bill Nelson, to fund President Obama’s request for $1.9bn in Zika funding was quickly quashed. A Senate proposal for $1.1bn also failed, and a House proposal loaded with “poison pill” abortion politics riders also failed. Instead, the Health and Human Services Administration raided other budgets to fund Zika vaccines and mosquito control efforts across the country, including monies originally allocated to fight Ebola. Already scarce dollars are expected to run out before the National Institutes of Health is able to begin the second phase of Zika vaccine clinical trials this fall. “Now that the United States is in the height of mosquito season and with the progress in developing a Zika vaccine, the need for additional resources is critical,” HHS secretary Sylvia Burwell wrote in an 3 August letter requesting additional funding. Public outcry has also hampered what some experts believe is one of the best answers to a complicated problem – aerial spraying. Local resistance in Puerto Rico has so far stopped fumigation with a CDC recommended chemical called naled. The mosquito that carries Zika also carries a range of viruses, including Dengue fever and chikungunya. When Aedes mosquitoes spread Dengue fever through Puerto Rico in 1987, the pesticide naled was also used in a mass spraying campaign on the island. The man who ran a study on that spraying, and the former head of the CDC’s dengue branch, Duane Gubler, told the University of Minnesota Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy that the mosquito’s habitat in trash cans, closets and indoors makes mass spraying challenging at best. “Successful spraying against Aedes depends on too many factors. Do people have their windows open? What rate is the wind speed? What is the weather?” Gubler told CIDRAP in July. “Spraying doesn’t kill larvae, and naled isn’t a residual insecticide. You’d have to spray weekly to make an impact.” Miami-Dade county mayor Carlos Gimenez told the Miami Herald that even he had heard conflicting accounts of using naled. “Some say it’s effective. Some say it’s not that effective. But it’s been recommended by the state and the federal government and we’re going to do it,” Gimenez told the Miami Herald. “If it has a success rate of 10%, 20%, 30%, then that’s 30% more than what we had before.” Even the company that makes naled admitted potential drawbacks. “Resistance is always a potential in a living ecosystem,” Jeff Alvis, a business manager at Amvac Chemical told Chemical & Engineering News in February, about its effectiveness. In Florida, state officials have tested 2,400 people for Zika across several counties. Officials also said that at least one other case in south-west Florida is also being investigated, but called it “unrelated”. “As long as there is Zika spreading anywhere, pregnant women should protect themselves against mosquito bites,” said Frieden.
The Princess Diarist by Carrie Fisher review – fame, sex and Harrison Ford Before being cast as Princess Leia in Star Wars, Carrie Fisher thought she knew about fame. Her mother is Debbie Reynolds, star of various MGM musicals, while her father was the crooner Eddie Fisher, who caused a sensation when he left Reynolds and their young children to marry Elizabeth Taylor. But the fame that Fisher knew as a child of celebrity parents was, she later discovered, “associative fame. Byproduct fame. Fame as the salad to some other, slightly more filling main dish.” When she became famous in her own right, she was completely unprepared. “What is happening?” she would ask herself. “How did we get here? Where is here? How long will it last? What is it? Do I deserve it? What does this make me?” Her sudden leap into the limelight at the age of 19 forms the backbone of The Princess Diarist, which Fisher calls her “sort of memoir”. This isn’t her first “sort of memoir”, but whereas 2008’s Wishful Drinking focused on her mental health (Fisher has bipolar disorder), this one examines her troubles with celebrity and sex. On the fame front, Fisher, who is now 60, is typically sardonic, adeptly capturing the unexpected madness of Star Wars, which was meant to be a “cool little off-the-radar movie directed by a bearded guy from Modesto. A thing like that wasn’t going to make people want to play with a doll of you, was it?” Had she known how things would end up, she adds, she “definitely would have argued against that insane hair”. When discussing her relationships, she mostly maintains an air of amusement, though the facts are, if not earthshattering, certainly eyebrow-raising. The big revelation in The Princess Diarist – indeed its very raison d’être, given that it takes up over half the book – is that, during the filming of Star Wars in Elstree, Fisher had an affair with her co-star Harrison Ford, then a married father of two. She kept it under wraps, mainly out of shame. So why spill the beans now? Partly because of the obvious: Fisher has a book to sell and, if you’re in the business of writing multiple memoirs, such bombshells are better eked out than squandered in a single volume. But also because she recently found her teenage diaries stashed under her floorboards, and, confronted with her 19-year-old self, was taken aback by this young woman whose wisecracking exterior masked an inexperienced, insecure girl who was way out of her depth. Fisher goes pretty easy on the then 33-year-old Ford, who first seduced her in the back of a taxi when she was seriously drunk. This was shortly after he’d rescued her from the clutches of some similarly inebriated crew members at George Lucas’s birthday party. He was, she recalls, “just so handsome. No. No. More than that. He looked like he could lead the charge into battle, take the hill, win the duel, be leader of the gluten-free world, all without breaking a sweat.” She also remembers him as emotionally distant, monosyllabic and a bit boring, though this didn’t stop her falling for him. They would have sex at the weekends and act like strangers on set during the week. That he never properly acknowledged what was happening between them clearly rankled. “If Harrison was unable to see that I had feelings for him (at least five, but sometimes as many as seven) then he wasn’t as smart as I thought he was – as I knew he was. So I loved him and he allowed it. That’s as close a reckoning as I can muster four decades later.” Fisher also includes her original diary entries, which are rambling, repetitive, overwrought and ultimately not worthy of the generous space that they are given. At one point she remarks that she would be “posthumously embarrassed” were anyone to read them; you can’t help but wish her older self had taken note. Diaries aside, however, her writing is mostly smart and funny. The pages crackle with self-deprecating one-liners, chatty observations and the singular wisdom that comes with being forever immortalised in the minds of teenage boys in a metal bikini and chained to a slug. Her relationship with the space fantasy that made her famous is clearly a love-hate one – “Star Wars was and is my job. It can’t fire me and I’ll never be able to quit.” It’s only in the penultimate chapter that Fisher strikes a truly bum note, as she grumbles about the Star Wars conventions where fans and fanatics queue up for autographs, often dressed as their favourite characters, each paying $70 for the privilege. She once said that she wouldn’t be caught dead at these nerd-fests but now, she notes, “I’ve been caught alive at those round-ups often enough to wish I was dead.” Her send-ups of the breathless soliloquies delivered by silver pen-wielding acolytes are just mean. It is one thing for Fisher to come clean about her relationship with Ford. But for a woman who signed away her rights to Leia merchandise and has intermittently found herself strapped for cash, laying into the fans would seem not just ungenerous but biting the hand that feeds. • The Princess Diarist is published by Bantam. To order a copy for £13.93 (RRP £16.99) go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of £1.99.
Mental health affects all of us and we need to talk about it Mental health issues, they affect me. I suffer from anxiety, and find the pressures of the work-life balance, relationships and everything that comes with society’s view of “being a woman”, makes me worry. A lot. I am also a comedian. Mental health might seem like a trait amongst us joke tellers with big comedy names coming out of the mental health closet and many now bravely mining their experiences for jokes onstage: not to ridicule the experience but to start conversations. Ruby Wax has long been a beacon of honesty when it comes to what is going on inside her head and Australian comedian Felicity Ward performed a brilliant show about anxiety at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival (which hits the Soho theatre in March). This openness about mental health is now stepping off the stage and making its way into the mainstream. #Itaffectsme is a viral crusade that is gaining steam across the globe with people in Palestine, Australia and Mexico joining the fight. The campaign encourages those who have been affected by mental health issues to post selfies on social media with a post-it on their foreheads which reads #itaffectsme. The campaign is attempting to break the stigma surrounding mental health: something that affects us all whether personally or through loved ones. The woman leading the battle cry is twenty-nine year old Londoner Laura Darrall. Last year, she explains, the pressures of “over-working, striving to move forward in [her] career and constantly trying to say yes to people” led to her experiencing what is commonly known as a mental breakdown. Darrall is not a fan of the term, she believes it suggests that those who have experienced it “are broken and can’t be fixed”. Although, the statistics are no joke: women are more likely to have been treated for a mental health problem in their lifetime than men. One in four women will require treatment for depression at some time, compared to one in ten men and women are twice as likely to experience anxiety as men. But why does mental health have such a huge impact on women particularly? Darrall suggests it’s because we “have to fight more and constantly prove ourselves”. But perhaps women are just better at admitting something is wrong? Perhaps the fact that mental health affects so many women gives us the strength to open up, and when we do we find kinship in others. Are women just better at being openly vulnerable? Darrall reveals that at her lowest she would burst into “uncontrollable tears on the tube” and she told me about one occasion when a woman - a complete stranger, stopped her and gave her this note: “Perhaps women are more ready to listen, reach out and talk”, says Darrall. Darrall also told me of one of her most memorable responses to the #itaffectsme project: a woman with post-natal depression. She wanted to thank Darrall, because the campaign enabled her husband to understand what the post-natal depression was putting her through and empowered them to talk openly, bringing them closer together. But starting conversations isn’t the only aim of the campaign. Darrall wants to have mental health education on the curriculum in schools, “We teach sex education, we learn the symptoms of chlamydia and gonorrhoea so why don’t we learn the symptoms of OCD and depression.” It was only through the support and encouragement of my family and friends that I was able to get help for my anxiety and Darrall had a decade of panic attacks before seeking help at twenty-eight. Let’s teach young people, male and female, to recognise the signs early and give them the confidence to talk about mental health because #itaffectsme and all of us.
Through the letterbox: the secret life of an Amazon reviewer Fake reviews on Amazon can’t be trusted as they’re biased, or at least that’s what recent reports claim. But who are the people behind these thousands of reviews, how did they get into it all and are the so-called incentivised reviews really fake? There are two types of solicited reviews on Amazon. The retailer has its own Vine programme, recruiting writers of highly ranked reviews marked as helpful by others on Amazon, and then pitches them products that vendors have sought reviews of, acting as the middle man. Vine reviews are clearly marked up on Amazon’s site with Vine branding. The other is the incentivised review, which Amazon is not directly involved with. Its guidelines dictate that there must be a disclaimer within the review, which normally means “I have been given this product in exchange for a fair and unbiased review” or similar appears in the text of the review. These are the reviews that are solicited directly by companies and are accused of giving biased, high-starred reviews skewing star ratings. The spoke to one Amazon reviewer responsible for more than 400 posts on the site, who wished to remain anonymous for fear of being blacklisted. You have a fairly normal day job, so how did you start your Amazon reviewing career? Amazon reviewer: It all started with Amazon contacting me after I’d posted five to 10 reviews for purchases that were quite well received. I was invited to its Vine reviewing programme in 2011 and after ignoring the emails for a while (genuinely thought it was spam or a scam) I found out it was legitimate and started reviewing everything from steam cleaners to top-of-the range TVs. How did you go from being part of Amazon’s Vine to incentivised reviews? AR: After a few years on the Amazon Vine forum, I found out people put an email address in their Amazon profile – and if you’re quite highly ranked companies will literally just get in touch. For some companies its the top 10,000 reviewers, for better ones it’s more like the top 500 reviewers. So I created a bespoke email address, added it to my profile and sure enough several companies got in touch fairly soon. I also decided to be proactive and get in touch with some companies directly to do reviews for them, which has worked quite well. These days I reckon I get about 60 emails a week. I probably reply to around five emails a week – but of those I only expect one to go through – these emails are sent to a lot of people so it’s very much first come, first served. Who are these companies contacting you? AR: When it comes to people that get in touch directly, the majority are white-label firms most people have never heard of. However, I have had conversations with the likes of Creative and Anker who are bigger household names. When it comes to the Amazon Vine programme it’s very much big household names, from Sony to AEG, Panasonic, Samsung and Lenovo to name just a few. How do they get in contact with you? AR: Normally everything is done via email, the only time I get in touch over the phone is if I need help troubleshooting something or have a repair issue, then it’s easier to pick up the phone. What’s the difference between Vine and incentivised reviews? AR: The Amazon Vine programme is very much managed by Amazon and as such the items offered vary hugely in kind and price. It is very well structured and although Amazon’s automated targeting is terrible – in terms of what you get offered – the products are great and the system really is unbiased. Amazon also seems to keep an eye on the programme to ensure people post accurate reviews and provide support if there are any issues with the item. It has no issue with a one-star reviews. In fact, I think all Vine reviewers use the full spectrum of stars to represent their views, not just the middle threes and fours and the reviews usually go into a lot of depth, as people do take a lot of pride in what they do – myself included. The direct reviewing on the other hand is probably more open to abuse, though I’d really stress that most people do care about helping other people and that they are unbiased. Why do you think incentivised reviews often award higher star ratings than real purchasers? AR: I would say that higher star ratings happen naturally as a result of the picking and choosing products. For instance, I’ve reviewed a number of CCTV cameras and solar lights, to a certain extent I knew what I was getting. I had downloaded the app before requesting the product for review and then decided that it seemed quite well put together and that it should be pretty decent. Then once I received the item checked it out for a week or two and then wrote my review based on these experiences. Perhaps, there is an element of wanting to curry favour with distributors by some people, but the vast majority of reviewers do give accurate reviews as they do want to help consumers. Do reviewers get paid for their reviews? AR: As rule I would say no they don’t get paid. For one it’s against Amazon’s terms and conditions and secondly there are only a small number of organisations that offer it. That being said, I was offered payment once (only about £5) but still declined as it’s against the T&Cs. Rather than receiving payment, the items are either shipped directly from companies at no charge or reviewers are given a discount code to enter at checkout on Amazon that reduces the product by 90-100% - thus money never actually changes hands. But you get to keep the products? AR: The majority of the time you do get to keep the product after it has been reviewed, so that’s the bonus you get for writing reviews. Personally I do it as it’s a great way of getting products that are a ‘nice to have’ but not enough to justify buying them, and I definitely use the vast majority of products on a regular basis. Do companies edit your reviews before being posted to Amazon? AR: I post reviews directly to Amazon. No one has ever asked to see them beforehand but I’d never let them anyway. That being said I have had companies disagree with what I’ve written – mostly to add more information about their product. I rarely entertain those requests, though I’m sure I’ve been blacklisted by some companies for not writing more favourably about them. What’s the most expensive product you’ve reviewed? AR: That was a flat screen 3D TV when they were very expensive a few years back – that was supplied by Amazon Vine and would have cost around £1,000. When it comes to products I’ve received directly from those that got in touch with me, probably CCTV equipment that cost over £200. Are there ever any disputes between reviewers? AR: Some people can get quite animated if they have a particularly different experience and their reviews differ hugely. On the whole though, people are very civil and are more likely to share advice rather than anything else. The only thing that is frowned upon are reviews that are not real, in those cases people tend to report them to Amazon and the company rightly takes action against people. Amazon launches Dash instant-order Internet of Things buttons in the UK
Michèle Morgan obituary One of the quintessential images of pre-war French cinema was the almond-eyed Michèle Morgan, dressed in trench coat and beret, trying to grab some happiness together with the doomed army deserter, Jean Gabin, in a sombre fogbound port in Le Quai des Brumes (Port of Shadows, 1938). “You have beautiful eyes, you know,” Gabin tells her. “Kiss me,” she replies. It was the first film in which the distinctive melancholic “poetic realism” of the director Marcel Carné and the screenwriter Jacques Prévert expressed itself. The then 18-year-old Morgan had already been in pictures for three years, yet never again in her long career would she appear in a role so perfectly suited to her, that of the beautiful, mysterious waif, old beyond her years. Following Le Quai des Brumes, Morgan, who has died aged 96, was paired once more with the great Gabin, with whom she had a brief affair, in Jean Grémillon’s Remorques (Stormy Waters, 1941), another gloomy tale of doomed love, with Morgan again falling for a married man. On the strength of her performances in these successful films, Morgan was offered a Hollywood contract by RKO Pictures. In Hollywood, she found that “RKO didn’t know what to do with me. I spent the first year perfecting my English, then I made two films, both of them stinkers.” The first was Joan of Paris (1942), a competent resistance drama in which Morgan, as a Parisian barmaid, nobly sacrifices herself to help a Free French flyer (Paul Henreid, also in his Hollywood debut) and four RAF flyers escape the Gestapo. Higher and Higher (1943) was a pleasant enough musical with Morgan as a scullery maid who impersonates a debutante in order to attract a wealthy man (Frank Sinatra, in his first acting role). In the same year, Morgan tested for Casablanca, and was extremely disappointed at losing out to Ingrid Bergman over contractual problems. Her pain was slightly assuaged when she landed the follow-up picture, Passage to Marseilles (1944), with the same director, Michael Curtiz, and several of the same cast. Morgan seems to spend most of the movie looking up at the sky waiting for her flyer husband, played by Humphrey Bogart, to return to her. “It was a wartime melodrama full of propaganda,” she recalled, “although Hollywood at that time couldn’t have been more remote from the war. I didn’t enjoy doing the film. At the time I was single, bored and unhappy with Hollywood. It seemed very unreal to me then.” She was not single for long and married a minor American actor, William Marshall, with whom she had a son, Mike, in 1944. (He also became an actor.) After the marriage broke up, Morgan returned to France. Back on home territory, after liberation, Morgan immediately re-established herself as one of her country’s pre-eminent screen actors with her performance as the blind orphan girl in La Symphonie Pastorale (Pastoral Symphony, 1946), Jean Delannoy’s sensitive adaptation of André Gide’s novella. Morgan, whose performance earned her the inaugural best actress award at Cannes, managed to communicate the girl’s innermost thoughts through her expressive eyes. In Britain, Morgan was moving as the devoted mistress of Ralph Richardson as a butler at a foreign embassy in London, in Carol Reed’s masterly The Fallen Idol (1948), co-written by Graham Greene. She then took the title role in Fabiola (1949), the most expensive film made in Italy at that time. In this costume epic, she was the daughter of a senator who falls for a secretly Christian gladiator, played by Henri Vidal, whom Morgan married soon after. They made three further films together, all rather hackneyed melodramas, before Vidal’s death of a heart attack in 1959 at the age of 40: La Belle Que Voilà (Here is the Beauty, 1950), L’Etrange Madame X (The Strange Madame X, 1951), and Pourquoi Viens-tu Si Tard? (Too Late to Love, 1959). Morgan married the director-actor Gérard Oury in 1960. She was born Simone Renée Roussel in Neuilly-sur-Seine, a wealthy suburb of Paris. At 14, after her bourgeois parents moved to Dieppe, she ran away from home to Paris to stay with her grandmother, who arranged for her to study drama with René Simon, the founder of the Cours Simon drama school. After some film work as an extra, one of her first speaking roles was as a schoolgirl in Le Mioche (40 Girls and a Baby, 1936). It was Marc Allégret who gave Morgan both her big break and screen name (with an eye on international stardom) in two films. In both, she is innocently involved with married men, the first played by Raimu in Gribouille (Heart of Paris, 1937), in which she played a penniless young woman on trial for manslaughter, and the second by Charles Boyer in Orage (Storm, 1938). Morgan thought herself dreadful in the latter because “I was terrified of Boyer.” Following her 1930s and 40s heyday, Morgan was kept busy during the stagnant 1950s period of French cinema in several mediocre commercial productions, and her status as a monstre sacré grew. She appeared as Joan of Arc in the portmanteau movie Daughters of Destiny (1954), and as Josephine Bonaparte in one of the series of vignettes that made up Sacha Guitry’s Napoléon (1955). The rot was stopped temporarily by René Clair’s Summer Manoeuvres (Les Grands Manoeuvres, 1955), a gently ironic romantic comedy in which Morgan as a standoffish divorcee is seduced by a handsome dragoon (Gérard Philipe). In Claude Autant-Lara’s updating of the Faust legend, Marguerite de la Nuit (1955), she was beautiful enough to sell one’s soul for. Hollywood claimed her once more for The Vintage (1957), a dud drama set in the vineyards of the Midi. More challenging was her role in André Cayatte’s Le Miroir à Deux Faces (The Mirror Has Two Faces, 1958) as a bored, ugly duckling wife transformed by plastic surgery into the glamorous Michèle Morgan that audiences knew and loved. In fact, despite her ignoring and being ignored by the French New Wave, she continued to be high in the popularity polls in France for many years to come, even when she started playing ageing beauties in minor vehicles. Her last Hollywood film, Lost Command (1966) – a turgid action movie about the Algerian war – was no better than her others. After Benjamin (The Diary of an Innocent Boy, 1968), a ribald comedy set in the 18th century, and one of the few of her more recent films that she actually liked, Morgan spent most of her time with her silk tie fashion business, Cravates Michèle Morgan. In the year of her temporary retirement, 1969, she became a chevalier of the Légion d’honneur. She returned to the screen six years later in Claude Lelouche’s glossy thriller Cat and Mouse (1975) as a woman suspected of killing her wealthy husband, then continued her career in the occasional film, a TV mini-series, and on stage, retaining the elegance that one associates with French female stars from a bygone era. She received an honorary César award in 1992 for her contributions to French cinema, and in 2014 was elevated to the grand croix of the Légion d’honneur. Morgan’s son died in 2005; her husband in 2006. She is survived by six grandchildren. • Michèle Morgan (Simone Renée Roussel), actor, born 29 February 1920; died 20 December 2016
Arsenal fans have journey to Burnley thrown into chaos after train hits cows Arsenal supporters had their journey to watch the team play Burnley at Turf Moor thrown into chaos after a Grand Central train collided with a herd of cows. The 9.38am service from Kings Crosson Sunday reportedly killed eight cows crossing the track between London and Peterborough, blocking lines and disrupting services running north from the capital. Arsenal fan and writer Tim Stillman tweeted that his train had been sent back to London. “First game I’m missing in nearly 15 years and it’s cos a train hit a cow,” he wrote. Grand Central said in a statement: “Due to animals on the railway between Peterborough and London Kings Cross all lines are blocked. Train services to and from these stations may be subject to disruption on all routes. Disruption is expected until 1400.”
10 moments that have defined the US presidential election campaign ‘They’re rapists’: Trump launches campaign like no other June 2015: For Republicans, it all began on an escalator. Donald Trump descended one at Trump Tower on 16 June 2015. He announced he was running for president and set the tone for a campaign like no other. “They’re bringing drugs,” he said of Mexicans. “They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.” Jon Stewart was still presenting the Daily Show and thanked the heavens for this godsend to satire. Trump, it seemed, was a no-hope joke. The Bernie movement is born July 2015: Septuagenarian socialist Bernie Sanders, who had announced his presidential run in April 2015 from a modest lectern in a low-key press conference, was initially dismissed as quixotic. But the size of crowds at his rallies said otherwise. Last July nearly 10,000 people turned out for the senator in Madison, Wisconsin, dwarfing the crowds that Democratic heir apparent Hillary Clinton was able to draw. “Tonight we have made history,” Sanders declared to loud applause. An unlikely movement had been born. ‘Blood coming out of her wherever’ August 2015: The first Republican primary debate. Host Megyn Kelly of Fox News challenged Trump: “You’ve called women you don’t like fat pigs, dogs, slobs, and disgusting animals.” He retorted: “Only Rosie O’Donnell.” Later, in a CNN interview, Trump reflected: “You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever.” The tone had been permanently lowered and, at a later debate, Trump would even reference his private parts. One of the most unpopular candidates among women in history, he now looks set to face America’s first female presidential nominee. His biggest mistake? Sanders sides with Clinton on emails October 2015: Future historians will debate whether Sanders would have had a better chance if he had gone for Clinton harder and sooner. Perhaps the decisive moment came in the first Democratic debate when the issue of her use of a private email server as secretary of state cropped up. Sanders said bluntly: “I think the secretary of state is right, the American people are sick and tired about hearing about your damn emails.” They have heard more about it since as an FBI investigation continues, but Sanders’ decision to avoid attacking on this front has been described as the biggest mistake of his campaign. Clinton triumphs in 11-hour Benghazi grilling October 2015: They came to bury Clinton. They failed. In October she put the controversy over terrorist attacks in Benghazi firmly behind her after 11 hours of meandering questions from conservative critics on Capitol Hill failed to derail her presidential run. Clinton showed her mettle, defended her decision to push for the Libyan intervention and set out her accomplishments as secretary of state, a job that one friend says left her “armor plated”. What could have been a millstone around the neck of her election campaign was converted into a badge of strength. Trump loses Iowa and behaves … graciously February 2016: Trump erupted into US politics with braggadocio, an elephant-sized ego and a fusillade of insults. So how would he react when he lost the first caucus, in Iowa to Ted Cruz? News networks salivated at the prospect of him throwing a sore loser tantrum. Yet, the Washington Post recorded, “what followed was one of the most atypical, un-Trump speeches of his entire eight-month-old campaign”. The losing candidate graciously thanked the people of Iowa and described himself as “honored”. In that moment it became clear he could not be written off as a petulant clown. Jeb Bush’s death knell: ‘Please clap’ February 2016: It was supposed to be Bush v Clinton in November. Jeb Bush, son and brother of former presidents, had the name, the money and the establishment backing, but not the chops. At one of countless rallies in New Hampshire he described all the ways in which he would protect the homeland. Silence. “Please clap,” he entreated. The audience laughed, then finally burst into applause, but it was clear New Hampshire would be Bush’s graveyard. Chris Christie taunts broken-record Rubio February 2016: Marco Rubio once seemed poised to become the Republican establishment’s choice. But when, in a debate in New Hampshire, Chris Christie taunted him over being able only to recycle a “memorized 25-second speech”, the Florida senator inadvertently made his point for him by repeating a soundbite about Barack Obama having a deliberate plan to transform America. When Christie pounced, Rubio repeated it yet again. The “Marcobot” had been exposed and, he now admits, suffered negative coverage from which he never recovered. Trump rallies turn ugly March 2016: Trump stood accused in March of inciting racially charged violence among his followers and TV footage showed protesters being pushed, shoved and punched. Then came Chicago. There were skirmishes inside the arena and there was a tense standoff outside it. At the last minute, the rally was cancelled, prompting a joyful cheer from protesters and anger from Trump supporters. There have since been similarly ominous scenes in California, New Mexico and elsewhere, prompting some observers to compare the brash billionaire with charismatic fascists of the past. Cruz’s last stand: ‘Trump is utterly amoral’ May 2016: Weeks later, Trump was on course for victory. In desperation, Ted Cruz, campaigning in Evansville, Indiana, told reporters: “I’m going to do something I haven’t done for the entire campaign, for those of ya’ll who have traveled with me all across the country. I’m going to tell you what I really think of Donald Trump.” The Texas senator threw everything but the kitchen sink at his opponent, branding Trump a “pathological liar”, “utterly amoral”, “a narcissist at a level I don’t think this country’s ever seen” and “a serial philanderer”. It was the thrashing tail of a dying animal. Cruz lost Indiana and dropped out of the race. Trump’s once unthinkable ascent was complete.
JK Rowling defends Donald Trump's right to be 'offensive and bigoted' JK Rowling has said that while she finds almost everything that Donald Trump says “objectionable”, he still has her full support to come to the UK and “be offensive and bigoted there”. Rowling, speaking at Pen America’s annual literary gala in New York, was referring to the petition launched last year calling for Trump to be barred from visiting the UK, which garnered hundreds of thousands of signatures. While she personally finds Trump “offensive and bigoted”, Rowling said that his freedom to speak “protects my freedom to call him a bigot”, just as those critics who have claimed that she is trying to convert children to satanism with the Harry Potter books “are at liberty” to do so, and she is “free to explain that I’m exploring human nature and morality, or to say ‘you’re an idiot’, depending on which side of the bed I got out of that day”. “If you seek the removal of freedoms from an opponent simply on the grounds that they have offended you, you have crossed a line to stand alongside tyrants who imprison, torture and kill on exactly the same justifications,” the novelist said. Rowling was at the Pen event to receive the 2016 Pen/Allen Foundation literary service award, an honour given to a writer who works to “oppose repression in any form and to champion the best of humanity”. Rowling, who was honoured for her work as an advocate for women’s and girls’ rights and as a “fierce opponent of censorship”, was clear that the US presidential hopeful’s “freedom guarantees mine”. “Unless we take that absolute position without caveats or apologies we have set foot upon a road with only one destination,” she told her New York audience. “If my offended feelings can justify a travel ban on Donald Trump, I have no moral grounds on which to argue that those offended by feminism, or the fight for transgender rights, or universal suffrage, should not oppress campaigners for those causes”. Warning that the growing “intolerance of alternative viewpoints” is making her “most uncomfortable”, Rowling said the west sometimes takes its freedoms for granted. “I worry that we may be in danger of allowing their erosion through sheer complacency. The tides of populism and nationalism currently sweeping many developed countries have been accompanied by demands that unwelcome and inconvenient voices be removed from public discourse. It seems that unless a commentator or a television channel or a newspaper reflects exactly the complainant’s world view it must be guilty of bias or corruption.” She ended her acceptance speech by pointing to the case of Tal Al-Mallouhi, who was arrested by Syrian security forces in 2009 over her blog entries. Al-Mallouhi was 18 at the time, and remains in prison. Rowling quoted from one of Al-Mallouhi’s blogs, in which the Syrian wrote: “I do not like the words of the poet Rudyard Kipling the ‘Oh, the East is East, and the West is West, and never the twain shall meet’! Instead I promote the union of the East and the West. The East is not east and the West is not west but they meet somewhere. As an example, with rational thought, two great souls from here and from there can agree with each other irrespective of the vast separation in time and space.” “This is some of the material considered so inflammatory she remains incarcerated,” said Rowling. “I repeat that beautiful plea for plurality, tolerance and the importance of rational discourse in the hope that Tal Al-Mallouhi will soon be freed. In the meantime, long may Pen continue to fight for her, and for the freedoms on which a liberal society rests, without which no literature can have value.”
Italian prime minister tries to buoy shares in Italy's banks Italy’s beleaguered banking sector has been boosted after the European Central Bank and the Italian prime minister sent soothing messages to anxious investors. Shares in Italy’s troubled banking sector recovered on Thursday following weeks of freefall, after the ECB president Mario Draghi said there were no plans to demand tougher provisions to cover the country’s bad debt pile. Italy’s banks have some €201bn (£154bn) in non-performing loans (NPLs) which are unlikely ever to be paid back and which are restraining the country’s sluggish economic recovery by putting a brake on the release of new credits. However, the Italian leader, Matteo Renzi, underscored the ECB’s positive comments to help buoy shares in the country’s largest banks. “The situation is much less serious than the market thinks,” Renzi told reporters in Rome, adding that his economy minister was “working miracles” trying to find a solution with Brussels to Italy’s bad loan problem. The Italian banking index closed up 6.9%, ending a rout which had seen it lose nearly a quarter of its value this year. The country’s third largest lender, Monte dei Paschi di Siena, led the recovery, jumping 43%. However, that still left it down 40% on the month, battered by concerns over its bad loans which total more than a fifth of all its loans – the highest such ratio in Italy. But volatility in the sector, coupled with escalating tensions between Italy and the EU on a broad range of topics, have generated fear that the country could be inching towards a financial crisis. Worries over the high number of bad loans to small businesses – which have struggled during the prolonged Italian recession – and clashes between Italy and Brussels over how it ought to tackle the complex problem, coupled with concern over the ability of the government to manage a potential financial crisis, have created a sense of unease in the markets. The turbulence comes at a time when the economic outlook in Italy was improving after years of recession and sluggish growth. “There is a sense of vulnerability and the markets decided to test it,” said analyst Wolfango Piccoli, co-president of Teneo Intel. Opinions vary about the precise cause of the sell-off in recent weeks, which at one point saw Monte dei Paschi di Siena lose almost half its stock market value. One area of concern remains over the Renzi government’s plan to create a so-called “bad bank”, possibly underpinned by state guarantees. Italian officials have been in protracted talks with the EU over the plan, details of which are still being hammered out, for hundreds of billions of euros in bad loans to be unloaded from the banks in order to alleviate pressure on the financial services sector. However, one complicating factor is that under EU rules that became significantly tougher from 1 January, any creditor in a failed bank must first take a significant financial hit before the state lends aid to it. Francesco Galietti, an analyst at Policy Sonar in Rome, said the rebound in some banking shares on Thursday was potentially a temporary reprieve. “I wouldn’t say it is over,” he said. “Everyone is giving the government some extra hours to come up with a solution. Once there is a solution, it will either stabilise the situation or things will come sharply down.” Italy’s ability to deal with any potential financial crisis down the road was called into question late last year following what was seen as a botched bailout of four regional banks, in which a number of pensioners lost their savings. Regardless of the internal and external factors fueling the concern, Piccoli added, the sell-off has created a “significant political emergency” for Matteo Renzi, Italy’s prime minister. Renzi has sought to downplay any concern over the volatility. In an opinion piece published in the on Thursday, the prime minister acknowledged that “Italy still has a lot to do to re-establish its rightful position” in Europe and that the recent “turbulence” in its banking sector showed that it needed to have fewer but stronger banks. He emphasised that Italy’s credit was nevertheless “solid and strong thanks to Italians’ extraordinarily high household savings”. “When the market speaks, as it has done in recent days, it is right that bank executives and shareholders comprehend the need for serious and swift intervention,” he said. The current tumult comes at an already tense time for Renzi, who has been increasingly vocal about his displeasure with the EU and particularly Germany over issues ranging from migration to energy policy. It is a swift about-face for Italy’s 41-year-old prime minister, who seems to be reacting not only to legitimate gripes with Europe, but also responding to increasing domestic pressure to talk tough with Europe. Renzi’s most potent political rivals – the populist Five Star Movement headed by former comedian Beppe Grillo, and the rightwing Northern League, headed by Matteo Salvini – are both harsh critics of the EU and the perception that he has been too compliant with demands from Brussels and Berlin.
Meet the 75%: the young people who voted to remain in the EU According to polling data from YouGov, 75% of 18- to 24-year-olds voted to remain in the European Union. On Friday, the UK voted to leave, with 52% of the overall vote. How does it feel to be one of that 75%? When we tweeted a callout asking young readers for their responses, rather than the 20 or so we expected, we received more than 200 emails in half an hour. While a handful said they were pleased with the outcome, reading through them a picture develops of a generation angry about the direction the UK has taken. This reaction was not limited to young people of voting age – we received responses from 16- and 17-year-olds who did not have the chance to have their say in this momentous decision. Here’s a selection of their responses: I couldn’t vote in what is probably the most important political decision the British people have made I am 17 years old, I am a student and currently study politics. Last night a decision was made which will have a direct impact on my future. The decision to leave the EU was made without my voice being heard. I couldn’t vote in what is probably the most important political decision the British people have made, an irreversible decision. I have followed these campaigns, I am capable of making an informed and rational choice – the fact that I wasn’t able to, that many other informed and passionate 16/17-year-olds were not able to, seems to me incredibly undemocratic. My future is completely changed; I will not have the benefits my parents and their generation have had, such as freedom of movement between all EU countries. Mostly I am outraged that this decision, which reflects on the British people, has been made without my consent. The future already looks less bright for us and it is a future I did not have a say in shaping. Erin Minogue, 17 Today I am proud to be exceptionally indecent Waking up this morning, it is heartbreaking to see my news feed is full of thoroughly dejected people. Most of these are young, intelligent and passionate, individuals who were determined to support integration, tolerance and compassion. Yet, our futures have been governed by the votes of narrow-minded older generations who now will sit back and see our bright futures dimmed. I am embarrassed and disappointed that our country has been manipulated by the xenophobic, racist and above all incorrect facts that have been spread. Nigel Farage stated that leaving the EU is a victory for the ordinary, decent people – today I am proud to be exceptionally indecent. Lucinda Jones, 20, West Sussex I’ve always felt unwanted, uncomfortable, underrepresented. This result confirms my fears My first response was panic. I’m a recent graduate, already facing financial instability, uncertainty in the job market, trying to work out my future. A leave result means more anxiety for me, more instability to navigate and try to understand. I’m also a woman of colour. From a young age, I’ve been aware of racist and nationalist attitudes in Britain, spread around the country outside of my home and haven of London. I’ve spent years watching people argue to dismantle the systems that allowed my mother and closest friends into the country to work, to lead better, productive lives. I’ve seen people screaming that my immigrant family (biological and chosen) are worthless, that they contribute nothing. And I’ve always felt unwanted, uncomfortable, underrepresented. This result confirms my fears. That my families aren’t seen as people, as human. They’re numbers, they’re a swarm, a threat. They’re not welcome here, and as a product of immigration, neither am I. With this result, England clings on to its colonial history, and I’m ashamed. Zainabb Hull, 23, London I cannot envision how Brexit is going to bring working-class unity Living in Northern Ireland, I am concerned the effects a leave vote has on political stability here with votes having been cast upon traditional party lines – green and orange politics prevailing. The DUP supported Brexit while Sinn Féin were for remain. The latter have already called for a poll on Northern Ireland’s status within the UK, which will only serve to further complicate relations between Unionists and Nationalists. Nevertheless, what happens with the north/south border is a valid concern as bureaucratic measures will affect free movement and trade. We in Northern Ireland are, under the Good Friday Agreement, entitled to Irish citizenship and by extension, EU citizenship, but whether this claim to citizenship will now be dependent upon acquisition of an Irish passport is yet to be seen. My main concern is what impact the leave verdict has upon jobs with so much employment, especially in the charity sector, dependent upon EU funding. Leave creates job uncertainty and is a huge snub to the immigrants living, studying, and working here. I cannot envision how Brexit is going to bring working-class unity. Instead, I imagine that it will result in reactionary policies that are only going to bring more social segregation and economic deprivation. Eileen, 24, Belfast I feel I’ve been let down by an older generation I’m 17 but turn 18 in four days. This morning I’ve woken up to feel completely betrayed by my own country. One thing that upsets me most is that this decision has been made by people who will not have to live with the consequences for as long as us. Young people voted to remain and older people voted to leave. I feel that I have been let down by an older generation who won’t be affected by the volatility of this decisions. Abi Kirkby, 17 I want to make sure that my first vote, my first taste of democracy, leads to something positive Yesterday was my first vote: I voted to remain in the EU. I felt strongly that the EU was something which we needed to be. For me it wasn’t about politics. It was not about whether we’re Labour or Conservative, or right or left, it was about what we stand for. As a nation, could we really stand for abandoning an organisation which, although admittedly flawed, brings together so many nations in a common purpose? I hoped not. For me a vote for Europe was a vote for humanity and a vote for possibility and therefore this morning my first reaction was one of devastation. After far too many tears and a lot of anger directed towards the older generations and the politicians who failed to make this referendum moral and true, I want to make sure that my first vote, my first taste of democracy, leads to something positive. My first vote is going to lead to even stronger political engagement. It’s so important that despite this result we pull together to show the world that we are not hostile or prejudiced towards them. We have to be open to the future, and work to create a positive future. We are the future and although today our country has chosen to disregard our opinions, from now on we have to work even harder to make our voices heard. Today is the start of a new future, of a different future. Let’s not decide that everything is doomed. Instead, let’s work for a positive and accepting future of possibility, rather than the hostility that has been shown today. I know that the result of this referendum could have a huge impact on my future. I’m hoping to study German at university, but I also recognise that we can’t be too negative about today. Nothing can come from deciding that everything is damned, we’ve got to rise from the ashes and show the world our capability for love and good. Laura Peacock, 18, South Wales I’m disgusted and terrified I’m disgusted. Utterly and completely disgusted with my country and what they have done to my future. I’m 16 years old and therefore didn’t vote on this matter, which incidentally I’m also absolutely furious about. The fact that people who are going to be gone in the next 10 years were allowed to vote on something that my peers and I have to live with for the rest of our lives is completely and utterly unacceptable. I’m disgusted with the way the campaigns have been carried out and the fear-mongering that has taken place. I’m disgusted that this country are so fearful of immigration and the outside world they would cut themselves off entirely from any connections we may previously have had. But most of all, I’m scared. I’m terrified. I’m terrified for my future, and what that may bring. I’m terrified that we live in a country of racists and bigots and that young people will have to live with their mistakes. I’m terrified that we are governed by a group of disgusting, rightwing, racist trolls who couldn’t care less about what young people have to say. I’m terrified that this is the country I live in, and this is the choice that they have made. Madeline Gomes, 16, I feel scared for the future of the economy and the future of our country I can’t yet vote, and am completely furious with the result. Sixty-four per cent of my town’s votes were counted for leave, and I don’t think I have ever been so disappointed. Almost everything that made Britain great came from being a part of the structure of the EU, and I feel as if casual racism and colloquial xenophobic reactions to immigrants have blinded so many people to the extent in which they would rather rid immigrants than anything else …there were so many benefits of being in the EU that people took for granted, and by the time they notice it’ll already be too late. I feel scared for the future of the economy and the future of our country too. I am not feeling proud to be British, and I think that the majority of my demographic feel similarly. Jack Webb, 17, Corby I can’t imagine staying here where my work is not valued Today I’m disappointed and sad. I’m scared for my generation’s future and generations to come. Scientists receive so little funding from the UK we are very dependent on EU sources and collaboration. I won’t be surprised if over the coming years the UK’s output of original research falls because people, both European and British, choose to move and work elsewhere. I will likely be one of these people when I finish my PhD, I can’t imagine staying here where my work is not valued and every day is a fight to stay funded. I’m also sad that people have managed to be persuaded by the at times less than savoury leave campaign. ‘X’ amount of money won’t be diverted back in to the NHS. We’ve seen enough money-based promises that the government fails to go through with to know that. It is going to be very costly to maintain a decent position within finance and trade with the rest of the world. Also, immigrants are just as responsible for this country’s successe. They have given so much and continue to do so. Mainly, as citizens of the world, how can we turn away from people who are just looking for a better life and block ourselves off from the outside world? Kirsten Dutton, 25, Newcastle I have lived in this country all my life and for the first time feel very ashamed to be British I am a 24-year-old British-Asian woman from London. I voted remain. I am so deeply saddened by the results I watched come in through the night. It seems I’ve been experiencing the run-up to the election in some sort of bubble on my Facebook page, where it is filled by the people who have similar political leanings. This is what makes it even more shocking. In the past three weeks I have experienced harassment (physical and verbal) on public transport. Two out of the three have included racial slurs. It is hard to disassociate that from the rhetoric of the leave campaign, which seems to have given a voice to “moderate” racists and xenophobes. It can’t be a coincidence that several of my friends have experienced a similar thing. I have lived in this country all my life and for the first time feel very ashamed to be British. I am angry that the older generation have selfishly voted for a future that I will have to live with. Young people did not vote for this. I am angry that I have to wake up to Nigel Farage’s smug face claiming that the NHS figures that have been touted were a lie. I am angry that my European friends, as well as my non-white British friends and family members have woken up to a less safe, more divided country. Alexandra D’sa, 24, London My future, and my friends’ futures, have been taken away from us Today, I am disgusted to be British ... I resent what I thought was a minority in this country, ignorant people, but it seems fear tactics from the likes of Farage and Johnson have convinced people to ruin a future that doesn’t belong to them. As a teenager living in London, my future, and my friends’ future, has been taken away from us and tossed into disarray by people who are completely alien from the things they are scared of. Immigration was never the problem, money was never going to go into the NHS, and we’re less “free” than we ever were with the financial and political crash that is happening. And all we can do as the progressive and inclusive youth of Britain is watch our elders destroy what little we had to build on. Seeing idiots like Farage call for “independence day” as the pound plummets makes me think that we were in a better place before we let bigots decide our future. I don’t know what to do, I sit here in awe of the place I am no longer proud to live in, surrounded by people I am no longer proud to be associated with. Fear has changed this country forever. I hope whoever voted leave is happy with the turmoil they’ve sent us into. Matthew Healing, 18, London Maybe this vote was too big for this country to handle I feel so let down by the people who could vote and decided to put their own personal hatred before others. Maybe this vote was too big for this country to handle. Throughout this all I supported remain and feel upset and angry over this result. Everyone my age will be left to deal with the consequences of this and I couldn’t even have a say in it. Evidence is showing the impact already over this, with the fall in the pound and I fear the worst is yet to come. I fail to understand why people aged 60 and above feel aggrieved by the apparent threats immigrants cause like lack of jobs and homes when they are already living comfortably with their pensions and houses when it’s young people who would be impacted by this, although I don’t personally feel like we are, yet people my age have no say. Heather Dowding, 17, Woking I plan to claim German nationality I’m a 20-year-old student in Scotland. Although originally from London I’ve lived most of my life in France, where my parents moved when I was young. I consider myself European rather than British or English or Scottish. I strongly supported the Better Together side in the Scottish independence referendum, but today I would rather live in an independent, but European Scotland, than a UK broken off from Europe. In the immediate few weeks, I intend to make good on my pledge to myself to claim German nationality to retain European citizenship, as I am eligible for it as a descendant of refugees of Nazism to Britain. I’m shocked that my grandparents, refugees themselves, voted leave to curb immigration. Ben Bernheim, 20, Scotland My future was left in the hands of people I’ve never met I have never felt less British. For those who voted out due to immigration, maybe they forgot who treats them when they are ill, or teaches their children, or keeps their area clean, they are ignorant to how much many immigrants contribute to our society. I am incredibly scared about the prospect of my future. Who knows if my parents will be able to afford for me to go to university? The imminent fall of the pound suggests further economic downfall, my future was left in the hands of people who I’ve never met, whilst the 16- and 17-year-olds of the country, on the edge of our future, were not allowed to vote and now have been left isolated on our tiny island. Just like all my friends now, I am close to tears, the prospect of such a severe unknown is so unnerving and I feel like we’ve already begun to fall apart. I think we’re all acutely aware that had 16-year-olds been allowed to vote, it would have been a different outcome. Please pray for our futures. Annie, 16 And two young people who voted to leave: We have to stand up, shout and protest for a general election I’m a 23-year-old nursing student. We have a chance to take this country in a progressive direction. Leaving the EU does not mean we have to become a rightwing reactionary country. British values are what the people want them to be. I think that all Brits will unite against the racist rhetoric that has dominated this referendum. I think they will deny Boris, Farage or even Osborne the chance to become prime minister as they know they can’t be trusted to lead a post-Brexit Britain. We have to stand up, shout and protest for a general election. If this is a new era for Britain, the British public should have the chance to decide what direction we take. Anthony Johnson, 23, London I understand that our country will experience a tough period I decided to vote leave at the last minute, I had been vote remain for the entire campaign but I couldn’t stand the idea of waking up tomorrow with nothing being done about the EU’s lack of democracy and lack of accountability. I am very restrained and humble right now and I understand that our country will experience a tough period but I’m hopeful for the future and my prospects as a young person. Craig Dillon, 22, London
Bridging the divide: how can the NHS get collaboration right? In a time of austerity and strained budgets, it has never been more essential for the NHS to get partnerships and collaboration right. Every day, clinical teams save lives – and if the NHS is to survive and thrive, it must draw on this collective strength. Yet collaboration can be patchy among the higher echelons of the NHS, with many potential partners complaining of the health service’s seeming inability to work effectively and courteously with others. Would the NHS be in a different place if health leaders had, over the past 20 years, facilitated collaboration in the same way they had done for competition? That was one of the questions from the floor at a seminar hosted by the and supported by business solutions and technology company Brother. In front of an audience of invited healthcare professionals, an expert panel, chaired by the ’s public services editor David Brindle, discussed and debated the gaps in healthcare provision in the UK, as well as if – and how – they could be solved by more effective partnerships. Could the health, social care and voluntary sectors work more closely together, how might this be achieved and what would it mean for patients? “We too often dish out lazy cliches about different sectors and different parts of the system, whether it be the private sector describing the public sector as inefficient or the public sector [describing the private sector] as ethically questionable,” said David Hare, chief executive of NHS Partners Network, which represents independent sector providers of NHS clinical services. “For the patients, some of those divides are false. Even within the NHS we’ve had divides between primary care and secondary care, physical health and mental health. The future has to look at how to integrate and bring all that together for the service user. If you have that fragmentation, you have an element of duplication; duplication costs money and we can’t afford that in the current climate. We have to work our way through this.” Integration, or joined-up working, has long been the buzzword of choice among professionals in both health and social care. But years of talking have brought few benefits for the social care and voluntary sectors, which continue to be the “poor relations” of the NHS, according to Grainne Siggins, policy lead at the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (Adass) and director of adult social services for the London borough of Newham. “There are different cultures across health and care and we shouldn’t underestimate the impact of that in terms of trying to work collaboratively and as partners across a whole system,” she said. Asked if the picture was improving, she replied that it wasn’t, adding: “You’ve only got to look at the approach to sustainability and transformation plans [five-year plans for the future of health and care services in local areas] to see that equality wasn’t important in that partnership.” There are chinks of light in the gloom, however – areas where improved collaboration is beginning to happen. Take Manchester, where powers and responsibilities for health and social care, among others, have been devolved from national government. John Patterson, a GP and clinical director of of Hope Citadel Healthcare, says people now understand that wellbeing is about a range of factors, including health, housing, friends and diet and that healthcare and social care must reflect that. “A housing officer with 30 years of experience can’t be replaced by an app,” he said. “We need to find out how to get that experience and compassion into the health system. How do we get the experience of a community matron into the social care system? The thing I love most about Manchester is that here we’re trying to do that with and through people.” Another positive associated with “Devo Manc”, he added, is that people are brave enough to try new things. “We were one of the first organisations in the country to get double-badged workers. We had a care navigator that had a council badge and an NHS badge – somebody who would walk between worlds, find the sickest people and help them the most.” Anu Singh, director of patient and public participation at NHS England, pointed out that the challenge she faces is that people see partnerships as an accounting trick or something that is about saving money. Instead, she said, people needed to realise that traditional models of healthcare hadn’t worked and hadn’t met the needs in the community. “We’re trying to work differently with localities because we know that if we don’t get housing right – if we don’t have people helping with social isolation – this will add to the pressure on care and things will continue to spiral out of control,” she said. “It’s not so much an austerity issue as about doing the right thing for people.” She recalled how one GP had told her that when a patient came to him in the past with mental health problems, they would prescribe prozac; now, they can help that patient get a job. She believes this example highlights how the NHS can work differently and more effectively. “As always with health, you have innovators and policy people trying to pull strings in different directions,” she said. “People know we’ve not quite got it right so far – I don’t think all the parts have come together before – but the time is now.” This was a point that Dr Mahiben Maruthappu, a London-based doctor and social entrepreneur, agreed with. He said that the challenges were social, demographic and economic – and that the frontline and national decision-making bodies were not aligned. “I think the vision in the Five Year Forward View still stands – we need a radical upgrade in prevention, better integration of services, and to overcome fractures between primary and secondary services.” He also explained how technology could save cash while enforcing a better quality of service by being “an enabler” of healthcare that can support doctors, nurses and patients. “We always ask how the health and care system can be more sustainable – if we allow patients to identify and manage their conditions better, that’s going to relieve a tremendous amount of pressure.” The panellists agreed that the patient or service user must be at the centre of all decisions and Singh admitted that patients could get “pushed around clinical pathways” in the current system. “If the health service is going to be more sustainable, we need to shift that paradigm,” she said. A question from an audience member about whether there was too much focus on external partnerships and not enough on bringing a “highly disillusioned” workforce into decisions then prompted the panel to discuss healthcare staff. Singh said she learned the difference between how those on the frontline and policymakers think when she was trying to introduce a scheme to help clinicians empower patients: “What seemed obvious to the policymakers seemed alien to a lot of the clinicians we were talking to.” Talking initially to those involved in care, to see if they had a solution, is key, she said. Maruthappu, a doctor himself, pointed out that clinicians work in partnership every day – in multidisciplinary teams made up of doctors, nurses, occupational therapists, physiotherapists and more. He suggested that the model be amplified and replicated higher up. Siggins, meanwhile, highlighted the importance of getting clinicians involved in social care. Now that local authorities have taken over responsibility for commissioning a range of public health services, GPs need to be involved in conversations, she said: “It’s our job to support GPs so we can support people coming into the system.” All panellists recognised that the current work climate is a difficult one for everyone – but will this strain drive people working in the health, social and voluntary sectors apart? Hare acknowledged the danger, but pointed out that this has only made collaboration more necessary. “We’ve got no alternative. We’re going to have to do things differently. There isn’t going to be a magic pot of money.” Maruthappu agreed: “Healthcare is a team sport and we need to embrace that far better than we do at the moment.” At the table David Brindle (chair), public services editor, the Dr Mahiben Maruthappu, co-founder, NHS Innovation Accelerator Anu Singh, director of patient and public voice and insight, NHS England David Hare, chief executive, NHS Partners Network Grainne Siggins, policy lead, Adass, and director of adult social services, London borough of Newham Dr John Patterson, co-founder, Focused Care scheme
Sure, Taylor Swift deserves protection from trolls. But don’t we all? In the battle against online harassment, a few bits of conventional wisdom have held (bafflingly) for at least a decade: “This is just what the internet’s like!” “If you don’t like the internet, stay off the internet!” “Can’t make an internet without getting a little internet on your internet!” Somehow, we’ve convinced ourselves that the internet – a thing that we built, and populate with our own brains and labour – is immutable, inert and utterly beyond our influence. Fight back and we’re “feeding the trolls”. Ban harassers and we’re “afraid of debate”. Report death threats and we’re “censoring free speech”. Speak out about our experiences and we’re “professional victims”. Tech companies “try” to curb harassment, but somehow can’t preemptively stop heavily documented abusers from sending hundreds of thousands of acolytes to hurl racist, misogynist abuse at unsuspecting Ghostbusters. The overwhelming message is this: your safety is not a priority – your choices are to suffer or to leave. Unless, maybe, you’re Taylor Swift. Beneath the rather histrionic headline “Is Taylor censoring social media?” (answer: no) and even more absurd subhead “The singer has been accused of working directly with both Twitter and Instagram” (the horror!), the Sun speculated on Monday that Swift has been given access to a secret algorithm to scrub her social media accounts of abusive comments. “A number of high-profile accounts have been selected by [Instagram] to trial a new tool which prevents abusive comments,” the paper reported. Which ... sure, yes, great. Human being to human being, I believe that Swift deserves to be able to maintain an online presence free from unrelenting, violent, misogynist abuse. I oppose violence. I oppose harassment. (A deluge of snake emojis in defence of Kanye West is not precisely the kind of harassment I’m talking about, but Taylor gets plenty of the hard stuff, too.) I think social media platforms should reach out to and work directly with victims of harassment, and I’m glad to hear that Instagram is experimenting with ways to better protect its users. However, this conversation should not have started with Swift, and it absolutely cannot end with her. Protecting only the most high-profile users isn’t a fix; it’s a sham. It’s a veneer over a rotten tooth. I had my own tiny Swift moment once. In December 2014 – after grappling with and writing about online abuse for years – I got on the phone with an internet troll who had impersonated my recently deceased father. He said he targeted women, especially women like me who had stepped beyond their culturally prescribed roles. It was fascinating. Anonymity is foundational to internet trolling – if not the blueprint, it’s certainly the mortar – so such a candid conversation was rare and riveting. In January 2015, we broadcast the interview on a US radio programme called This American Life. It’s a compelling piece of tape (thanks, in no small part, to the almost superhuman perspicacity of my remorseful troll), and it threw a key aspect of online harassment into harsh relief: trolling cannot be separated from politics. People, mostly men, are inflicting emotional torture on other people, mostly from marginalised communities, for the twin purposes of massaging the trolls’ insecurities and silencing their perceived political foes, defending the precious status quo. But, “you can’t claim to be OK with women,” my troll told me, “and then go online and insult them, seek them out to harm them emotionally.” (If you don’t believe that online harassment is a political issue, and that ignoring it makes the world worse, scan the accounts tweeting in support of recently banned professional troll Milo Yiannopoulos, and note how many of them rabidly back aspiring troll-in-chief Donald Trump.) A few weeks later, in February 2015, someone at Twitter leaked a memo from then-CEO Dick Costolo. My piece had been posted to an internal forum, causing Costolo to respond: “We suck at dealing with abuse and trolls on the platform and we’ve sucked at it for years.” He went on: “We’re going to start kicking these people off right and left and making sure that when they issue their ridiculous attacks, nobody hears them.” And then, abruptly, my experience on Twitter changed. When I reported an abusive tweet, I got a response immediately. Far more of my reports were accepted, as though they had been thoughtfully screened and contextualised by a human rather than summarily dismissed by an algorithm. Trolls who had been gleefully abusing me for months suddenly vanished. I’ve never had this confirmed, but I can only assume that, following Costolo’s internal memo, a Twitter employee was assigned to monitor my account. I was the squeaky wheel of the moment, and I was grateful for the grease. But, much like giving Swift tools to clean up her feeds, Twitter’s momentary focus on me didn’t fix a thing – any more than a successful GoFundMe campaign fixes a broken healthcare system, or one person winning the lottery fixes the economy. If anything, it bolstered the erroneous perception that Twitter harassment is a white woman’s problem, and making loud white women temporarily happy is a solution. (I sincerely hope that Instagram is planning to roll out this feature, or one like it, to the masses who need it the most, and I will praise it when I see it functionally protecting vulnerable users.) I don’t care about online harassment because I, personally, was being harassed – I care about it because it is toxic, dangerous and regressive. By targeting the vulnerable, it silences the voices we need to hear the most. What I deal with online is nothing compared with the experiences of trans women, black women, sex workers and other marginalised groups. Swift has the money to hire a team of assistants to buffer her from online hate. I have a platform to complain, as well as the cladding of credibility granted by that platform. The vast majority of harassment victims do not. As is the function of privilege, those with the most resources seem to get the most – and the quickest – help. As Leigh Alexander elegantly wrote of Yiannopoulos’s ousting from Twitter and its aftermath: “But what about the everyday users, who aren’t famous and highly visible actors? What about the black activists, particularly black women, whose every day on the service is a minefield? What about LGBTQ users who face the very real threat of having the dialogue around their identity wrestled away by abusers? They have not been made safer in any way by the removal of one toxic person.” It’s important to remember that, although we frame it as a tech problem, online harassment is fundamentally a culture problem. What we need isn’t a plaster, a way to temporarily shuffle abusers out of our line of vision, but to banish misogyny, racism, ableism and transphobia from our brains, our culture and our justice systems. And, yes, that’s a long game, but we’ll never get there if we keep letting the experts – the people who live and survive under those oppressive systems – be silenced. The best thing the tech industry can do is start protecting them so that the rest of the world can listen.
Modern society needs 24/7 health provision As strike action by junior doctors once again hits the headlines, we are witnessing a fundamental failure, by both sides, to negotiate effectively. What has been missing from the outset is mutual trust based on honesty and integrity and a willingness to compromise. Such entrenched positions are not helpful. From a patient’s point of view, it is entirely reasonable for us to expect to have access to healthcare round the clock. We no longer live in a nine-to-five, Monday-to-Friday society, and it is unrealistic to expect our health services to continue to operate on this basis. We have hospitals equipped with the latest and very costly technology that is not put to full use, and there can no longer be sufficient justification to resist change. I know full well that doctors work long hours, but in most other walks of life workers, particularly those with less skill and knowledge, are required to work all the hours they can if they are to keep a roof over their heads and their families fed and clothed. What has been absent from the negotiations is a willingness to see things from the patient’s point of view. Both sides must realise that as taxpayers and users of the health service we should have access to the service we want. Only once it has been accepted that a seven-day, 24-hour service is desirable can a way forward be found, with the sole aim of working together to achieve the desired outcome. There should be no room for the political posturing we have experienced so far. Linda Piggott-Vijeh Combe St Nicholas, Somerset • Doctors are well paid in the UK and the search for alternative employment may see them travelling to the US (which they may like even less) or Australia, where pay is indeed higher. This threat of exodus happened at the inception of the NHS and sadly, ever since, the government has given in to doctors’ threats. Currently, doctors in the UK earn 2.25 times more than German doctors (who are very keen to work here) and more even than doctors in Spain, Italy, Denmark and France. They also work in a healthcare system that is the envy of the world, do not pay for their training (as they would in the US) and are rightly accorded high status in our society with an enviable level of remuneration. They are welcome to leave, and some probably will. I hope Jeremy Hunt will ask those who do to reimburse the NHS for the training costs they have incurred. Dick Stockford Malvern, Worcestershire More of today’s letters on the NHS • Misdiagnosis of what’s ailing the health service • European law and the imposition of the new junior doctor contracts • How I weep at this government’s cruelty and inhumanity • This is preparation for full privatisation of the NHS • Celebrate 5 July as NHS Day • When moral pressure runs out of options • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
Trump polling over Cruz in Indiana as Sanders vows to fight – as it happened Did you get heckled by a preteen, told that an entire state’s population “don’t want you,” questioned about your citizenship and have your spouse grilled about whether you are actually a prominent serial killer who operated in northern California from 1968 to 1970? If not, you had a better day than Texas senator Ted Cruz, whose attempts to win over last-minute undecided voters in Indiana were as awkward as his attempted handgrab with “running mate” Carly Fiorina: Less than 24 hours before voting begins in the Hoosier State, all eyes were on the Midwest today. Here are some of the highlights from the campaign trail: Cruz said on Monday that he “absolutely” has a path to the nomination if he loses in Indiana, where the victor is expected to gather 40-some delegates. If Donald Trump collects such a prize, he would need to grab about 45% of the remaining pledged delegates to cross the line, very doable for him based on past performance. (And Trump could still get to 1,237 without winning Indiana.) The path Cruz sees to the nomination after an Indiana loss, in short, remains well-hidden to everyone else, and would seem to involve a sudden and drastic shift in momentum in the race of the kind that’s difficult to imagine. Hillary Clinton raised more money than Bernie Sanders last month for the first time in 2016, according to end-of-month totals released by the campaigns. Clinton reported a $26m haul for April, while Sanders reportedly took in $25.8m – significantly down from his high-water-marks in February and March, when he took in $43.5m and $44m, respectively. Asked to comment on the Internet joke pretending that Cruz is the Zodiac Killer, would-be first lady Heidi Cruz was unbothered. “Well, I’ve been married to him for 15 years and I know pretty well who he is, so it doesn’t bother me at all. There’s a lot of garbage out there,” Cruz said. Nominal Cruz running mate Carly Fiorina slipped off a stage at a Cruz rally, although she was apparently uninjured. That’s it for today - tune in tomorrow for wall-to-wall, up-to-the-second coverage of the Indiana primaries! Hot on the heels of a piece by CNN’s Dylan Byers that highlights a close relationship between Fox News talk show host Sean Hannity and billionaire Republican frontrunner Donald Trump, the candidate is making an appearance on Hannity’s show this evening in a last-minute bid to pump up his followers ahead of tomorrow’s primary in Indiana. After touting tomorrow’s election as having “the potential to change the direction of the Republican race,” Hannity asked Trump via satellite why the most recent polls showing him beating Texas senator Ted Cruz in Indiana is “is so important.” “It’s just been, like, a lovefest,” Trump said of his reception in the Hoosier State, declaring that “it just all ends in Indiana, and then we start against Hillary.” “Wouldn’t it be better to unify [the party] in the end?” Hannity asked. “It’s better, but I don’t think it’s necessary,” Trump said. Carly Fiorina has sent out a fantasy-fueled email to supporters of Texas senator Ted Cruz after his terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad day, asking them to help fund his “surging” campaign ahead of tomorrow’s Republican primary in Indiana, emphasizing that he is “running neck and neck with Trump.” “Ted’s surging ahead of tomorrow’s Indiana primary - but we can’t win without your help right away,” Fiorina writes. “On the ground, our crowds have been growing and our momentum has reached fever pitch.” Sidenote: A picture of the crowd at tonight’s Cruz rally tells a different story... “Recent polls show us running neck and neck with Trump in Indiana,” Fiorina continues, apparently using a definition of “neck-and-neck” with which we were previously unaware. “This is still anyone’s race,” Fiorina concludes. “If we’re going to win we have to keep fighting as hard as possible, right down to the wire - and that’s why Ted and I are counting on you right now.” A Freudian slip from senior Trump adviser Ed Brookover? Texas senator Ted Cruz’s dim prospects ahead of the Indiana primary that he himself has called a bellweather for the Republican nomination has had a silver lining: Several within the Republican party have floated him as a potential replacement to fill the vacant seat on the supreme court. But don’t count Donald Trump as one of the “Justice Cruz” enthusiasts. In an interview with the Daily Mail, Trump said that “I’d have to think about it,” when asked if he would name Cruz to fill the seat once occupied by conservative icon Antonin Scalia. “There’s a whole question of uniting and there’s a whole question as to temperament,” Trump said. “He’s certainly a smart guy, but there’s also a temperament issue. He’s got a tough temperament for what we’re talking about; you have to be a very, very smart, rational person, in my opinion, to be a justice of any kind.” This does not bode well. Political commentator and professional opinion-haver Bill Kristol has been one of the loudest voices of the #NeverTrump movement - although in an interview on Newsmax, Kristol indicated that “never” basically means “¯\_(ツ)_/¯.” When host Steve Malzberg asked Kristol whether there was anything that the billionaire Republican frontrunner could do to earn his support, Kristol said that Trump’s character deficits were almost too high a barrier to clear. “It’s more of a matter of character, and I don’t know that you can change your character at age 69,” Kristol said. “And given the things he’s said, even very recently, about other people, the way he demeans other people.” That all being said... “I mean, I guess never say never,” he continued. “On the one hand, I’ll say #NeverTrump, and on the other hand, I’ll say, ‘never say never.’” Conservative talk-radio host and would-be media titan Glenn Beck - remember him? - has called on his supporters to join him “for a day of prayers, fasting and humility” for Texas senator Ted Cruz ahead of the Indiana Republican primary tomorrow. In a long and meandering Facebook post, the onetime Fox News host asks his fans, “beginning Monday night and running for 24 hours ending on Tuesday will you pray and if possible fast like you have never done before?” (All sic.) “Join me and my family in praying and fasting for our nation and our God to look down and forgive us of our misguided ways,” Beck continues in the post, with a sample prayer one might use in asking the almighty for guidance ahead of the nomination contest: “Help us Lord to return to you and have the bravery to do the hard thing - to Trust in You and to do our part by standing firm in the eternal truths that Got us here in the first place.” Cruz currently lags behind billionaire frontrunner Donald Trump in every major poll of the Hoosier State. On top of that, the Texas senator was today heckled by a child, quizzed about his birthplace and faced questions over whether he’s a serial killer. The Texas senator was heckled by a child, quizzed about his birthplace and faced questions over whether he’s a serial killer, reports the ’s Alan Yuhas - all while polling behind in Indiana. Politicians who run for president are used to scorn, mockery and a healthy skepticism from the American people. But few have been heckled by a 12-year-old, questioned about their Canadian birth, or had their spouse field questions about their resemblance to a serial killer. All in one day. Ted Cruz suffered all this and more on Monday in Indiana, a state where he desperately needs to do well if he wants to preserve any hope of winning the Republican nomination for president. Simple arithmetic eliminated Cruz from an outright victory two weeks ago, but he has clung to the possibility that he could deny Donald Trump the 1,237 delegates a candidate needs to win the primary election. The trouble started with a 12-year-old in La Porte, Indiana. At a rally there, a boy shouted “You suck!” and “Shut up!” during Cruz’s stump speech, thwarting the senator’s attempts to turn the pubescent heckler into a talking point. “You know, one of the things that hopefully someone has told you is that children should speak with respect,” Cruz said. “Imagine what a different world it would be if someone had told Donald Trump that, years ago.” Eventually he gave up, saying: “In my household, when a child behaves that way they get a spanking.” Donald Trump is picking up all the Indiana sports endorsements today. Before his event in Carmel, Indiana, longtime Purdue basketball coach Gene Keady endorsed Trump. Keady, who coached the Boilermakers for 25 years, said “I listened to his foreign policy speech the other day and he just won himself the presidency.” The college basketball coach is also famous (or perhaps infamous) for his now-late combover, which bore certain similarities to Trump’s coiffure. The endorsement at the rally was paired with an online endorsement offered former Notre Dame football coach Lou Holtz, who said “the main reason I am endorsing him is I’ve played his golf course, I’ve stayed in his hotels. He does nothing but first class in everything. He wants this country to be first class as well.” The two coaches, along with legendary Indiana basketball coach Bobby Knight, give Trump a trifecta of endorsements from each of Indiana’s three major universities. Trump though added to his celebrity glitter, throwing in an endorsement from former pro football player and actor Fred Williamson. Williamson, nicknamed “the Hammer” for his hard hits as a safety for the Oakland Raiders and Kansas City Chiefs, was praised by Trump, “I love people that hit hard.” The newly minted Trump endorser, a native of Gary, Indiana, also had extensive acting career. He starred in the blaxploitation classic Black Caesar and also appearing films ranging from M.A.S.H. to From Dusk Till Dawn. Donald Trump’s nickname for “Lyin’” Ted Cruz sometimes feels like it’s straight out of a schoolyard. Now, the Texas senator is hitting back on the billionaire Republican frontrunner with an ad that responds: “I know you are, but what am I?” In the ad, titled Lying, a narrator tells voters that “Donald Trump is lying about Ted Cruz,” touting his opposition to trade deals and his against-it-after-he-was-for-it undermining of the Gang of Eight immigration bill while Trump donated to politicians of whom the gang was composed. “Trump also had a $1 million judgment against him for hiring illegals,” the narrator states, referring to a 1980 lawsuit in which a contractor hired undocumented Polish workers to build his eponymous Midtown Manhattan corporate headquarters. (Sidenote: Although the lawsuit aimed for a $1 million settlement, the presiding judge ordered Trump to pay considerably less, and the case was eventually settled out of court for an undisclosed amount.) “Trump still brings in hundreds of foreign workers to replace Americans,” the ad states, referring to a New York Times article that pointed out the high number of legal-status foreign workers at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida. “What a phony.” It was bound to happen. Brooklyn-accented Vermont senator and Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has been played by Seinfeld co-creator Larry David on Saturday Night Live for months, but for the first time, Sanders has been edited into the cast of the hit “show about nothing.” The supercut pastes Sanders’ head onto the body of George Costanza, the neurotic best friend of the eponymous Jerry Seinfeld character, whose jeremiads about the state of inequality are met with eyerolls and skepticism by the rest of the gang. For planning purposes: Donald Trump has readily signaled his willingness to inject Bill Clinton’s sexual pecadillos into the 2016 presidential campaign, telling NBC in December that the former president might be likened to a sexual predator. “There certainly was a lot of abuse of women, you look at whether it’s Monica Lewinsky or Paula Jones, or any of them, and that certainly will be fair game,” Trump said at the time. But comments unearthed by the Daily Beast show that at the height of the national controversy over the then-president’s affair with a White House intern, Trump was singing a different tune: the ballad of a “victim” injured by a cast of “unattractive” women. “The whole thing, it’s just so unattractive,” Trump told Fox News host Neil Cavuto at the time. “Linda Tripp maybe one of the most unattractive human beings I’ve ever seen - not women, human beings. She’s just an unattractive person. This [Lucianne] Goldberg person, her agent or whatever she is, is just a terrible woman. You look at Paula Jones, I mean the whole cast of characters.” “It’s like it’s from Hell,” he continued. “It’s a terrible group of people.” Trump then went on, telling Cavuto that while he didn’t “necessarily agree with [Clinton’s] victims,” that Clinton was “really a victim himself. But he put himself in that position.” The White House has faced tough questioning over comedian Larry Wilmore’s use of a taboo racial slur at its annual correspondents dinner. Press secretary Josh Earnest was challenged repeatedly by April Ryan, an African American journalist and author of The Presidency in Black and White, who suggested that many people in the room were “appalled” by the N-word being uttered to the president’s face. Earnest said that Barack Obama appreciated “the spirit” of Wilmore’s remark. Wilmore, who is African American, ended his after-dinner speech on Saturday by recognising the historical significance of America’s first black president, pounding his chest and telling Obama: “Words alone do me no justice. So, Mr President, if I’m going to keep it 100: yo, Barry, you did it, my nigga.” The comment immediately divided people both in the room and beyond. Jonathan Capehart of the Washington Post blogged: “Never before has the n-word been used to address the president. At least, not in public and most definitely not to his face. That’s why Wilmore’s use of it was as shocking as it was disrespectful.” At today’s daily press briefing at the White House, the issue was raised by Ryan, Washington bureau chief for American Urban Radio Networks. She described it as “a word that is one of the worst words, many people say, you could say to anyone”. Earnest did not address this directly but noted that following Obama’s act at the annual dinner is “one of the most difficult tasks in comedy”, since the president has shown himself “adept” at delivering one-liners and so expects comedians to go “right up to the line”. But Ryan pressed further: “Many African Americans in that room – who included civil rights leaders, black comedians – were very appalled ... Black Republicans were upset, black Democrats were upset. People felt that not just throwing it at him, he threw it at them, and also, it diminished the office of the presidency and it diminished him. Did he cross the line?” Earnest responded: “April, what I would say is it’s not the first time that people on the Monday after the White House correspondents dinner have observed that the comedian on Saturday night crossed the line.” Ted Cruz’s hail Mary pass in picking a former California senate candidate as his potential running mate isn’t making the splash he was likely hoping for in the Golden State. A new poll conducted by SurveyUSA shows that in California, billionaire Republican frontrunner is currently leading the Republican field with the support of 54% of registered Republican voters, while Cruz trails with 20%. Ohio governor John Kasich is currently at the bottom of the three-man dogpile with the support of a mere 16% of California Republicans. As for the Democrats, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton currently leads among registered Democrats with 57%, with Vermont senator Bernie Sanders nearly 20 points behind at 38%. At an event in Indiana, billionaire Republican frontrunner Donald Trump is making a bit of a hash over Carly Fiorina falling off a stage in the Hoosier State on Sunday. “Carly’s perfectly nice - she fell off the stage the other day and Cruz didn’t do anything. Even I would have helped her!” Trump said. “That was a weird deal.” Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton spoke to coal miners in Kentucky earlier today, and Kentucky senator Rand Paul is not happy about it: Vermont senator and Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders is pushing the results of a recent poll out of Indiana that shows him within the margin of error of upsetting frontrunner Hillary Clinton’s lead in the race for tomorrow’s primary. “We intend to fight for every vote and delegate remaining, starting with tomorrow night’s primary in Indiana where recent polling shows us well with the margin of error,” a email from the campaign tells supporters, citing an NBC poll that shows Sanders trailing Clinton by four percentage points in the Hoosier State. Calling the race to win a majority of pledged delegates ahead of the convention “admittedly a tough hill to climb,” Sanders’ campaign tells supporters that “winning Indiana tomorrow night would not only cut into Secretary Clinton’s lead, but it would send a powerful message to the political establishment and corporate media who just want this race to end so they can get on with the ratings and fundraising bonanza that would be a Clinton v. Trump general election. After asking for donations to help this upset occur, Sanders’ campaign makes an interesting argument about its ability to keep Clinton from clinching a pledged-delegate majority (although, perhaps, not a highly accurate one): Let’s be clear. It is virtually impossible for Secretary Clinton to win all of the pledged delegates she needs to capture the nomination without the help of superdelegates at the convention. That means every vote we receive, every delegate we win between now and July strengthens our hand as we get to a contested convention. We’ll see if this Rudy-like gumption pays off. CBS News has captured footage of the standoff between Ted Cruz and a Trump supporter in Indiana. Cruz wades right in and tries to talk him out of his position, to jeers of “Lyin’ Ted!”. Update: here’s the footage: Democracy in action. Watch it here. More to come. Yahoo News’ Hunter Walker has asked Heidi Cruz to comment on comedian Larry Wilmore’s string of jokes at the White House correspondents’ dinner at her husband’s expense. Wilmore referred repeatedly to the good-times Internet habit of pretending that Ted Cruz is the Zodiac Killer, the mysterious and uncaptured serial murderer in California from the 1960s and 1970s. “Well, I’ve been married to him for 15 years and I know pretty well who he is, so it doesn’t bother me at all. There’s a lot of garbage out there,” Heidi Cruz said. But Cruz’s using a bleakly tinted filter to tweet a picture of himself and Indiana governor Mike Pence Monday with CNN anchor Dana Bash stoked the rumors anew: Here a serious play at the game of lowering expectations, from the husband of a certain top Hillary Clinton aide: There hasn’t been a lot of polling in the Indiana race. Averages appear to show Clinton up in the race by about 7 points. But she was supposedly ahead in Michigan, too. An attempt by the New Hampshire Republican party to limit Donald Trump’s influence in a potential contested convention was halted Monday, when the state chair canceled a controversial online vote for positions on crucial committees just minutes after the voting deadline, writes politics reporter Ben Jacobs: In an email obtained by the , party chair Jennifer Horn said that although all 23 of the state’s delegates to the Republican National Convention participated in the vote, she was canceling it “in the interest of full transparency”. Instead, she summoned a delegates-only meeting in Concord on Friday where those unable to attend could participate via conference call. Initially, in an email sent out Saturday night, the state party’s executive director proposed a slate for the eight slots on convention committees reserved for New Hampshire delegates at the Republican gathering in Cleveland in July. The proposed slate included two supporters apiece of John Kasich, Jeb Bush and Ted Cruz and one supporter of Marco Rubio. The eighth slot was left vacant. Trump won overwhelmingly in the Granite State’s February primary, with 35% of the vote. His nearest competitor, John Kasich, only received 15% in what was then the first primary in the country. Under New Hampshire’s relatively proportional rules, by which any candidate who gets more than 10% of the vote receives delegates, Trump was awarded 11 of the state’s 23 delegates. Since then, the well-organized Cruz campaign has picked up stray delegates in other states that Trump won, such as Louisiana, and swept local contests inWyoming and Colorado. Read the full piece here: The Trump campaign has announced that the candidate will speak at Trump Tower in Manhattan tomorrow, following the closure of the last polling stations in Indiana at 6pm central / 7pm eastern. Ted Cruz is fighting for every last vote in Indiana. Nominal Ted Cruz running mate Carly Fiorina slipped off a stage at a Cruz rally Monday, according to a Hollywood Reporter dispatch. There’s no report as yet of any injury, details to come. Update: nothing apparently hurt. Video shows that Fiorina was quickly back on her feet: Hillary Clinton raised more money than Bernie Sanders last month for the first time in 2016, according to end-of-month totals released by the campaigns. Clinton reported a $26m haul for April, while Sanders reportedly took in $25.8m – significantly down from his high-water-marks in February and March, when he took in $43.5m and $44m, respectively. Sixty-five percent of Sanders’ fundraising in the cycle this far has come from small individual contributions, according to the campaign finance web site Open Secrets, compared with 19% for Clinton. Clinton has reported receipt of $133m in large individual contributions, versus $64m for Sanders. Half of registered voters in North Carolina disapprove of a law barring transgender people access to their preferred bathrooms and nearly as many want the law repealed, according to a new survey from bipartisan polling firm Red America, Blue America. Forty-eight percent of poll respondents said they believed the law, HB2, should be repealed, while 34% wanted the law to remain in place and 18% were not sure. The result appeared to hinge on political independents, who disapproved of the law 52-33. Republicans in the poll largely supported the law, which was signed by Republican governor Pat McCrory in March, while Democrats opposed it. Some North Carolinians believe the law has cost the state economically. In protest of the law, PayPal canceled plans for a facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, that would have created 500 local jobs, the Charlotte reported, while “at least 20 conventions and events have dropped plans to come.” “North Carolina did something that was very strong. And they’re paying a big price, there’s a lot of problems,” Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said last month. McRory, who is in a re-election fight this year, has blamed the Charlotte mayor for the law, which the legislature signed in a special rush session after the city of Charlotte passed a local ordinance saying that people could use bathrooms in line with their gender identities, irrespective of what was on their birth certificates. “It’s absolutely not personal on my end,” McRory told the on Friday. “We have to correct the record of both your newspaper and national newspapers … This whole bathroom idea was the political left’s idea, not the political right.” That was a slightly different explanation from the one he gave at the time: Pollster Brad Anderson of Red America, Blue America said the law may also be influencing the state’s attorney general race, in which the Republican candidate called on supporters at a rally to “keep our state straight.” “It is a safe bet to say the new HB2 legislation has done the Republican party no favors in North Carolina,” Anderson said. “Independent voters oppose the law just as strongly as Republicans support it, which could be a problem for Republicans in November.” First billionaire bankroller Charles Koch suggested that it was possible that he and his brother, David, would support Hillary Clinton over the Republican nominee. Now Republican representative David Jolly of Florida, who’s running for the US senate, says he does not know whom he would support in a Clinton-Trump race. “So, I’m going tell you something you rarely hear in elected official say: I don’t know,” Jolly told AM970 The Answer, in an interview flagged by BuzzFeed’s Andrew Kaczynski. “I truly don’t know.” Jolly said he called on Trump to drop out of the race after Trump called for a ban on Muslims. “I also have strong disagreements with secretary Clinton,” Jolly says. “I’m a Republican, and I hope we can find a conservative leader.” Campaign bloopers. Although anything looks like a blooper when you loop it over a tuba bassline like that and finish with an air horn. This is a pretty bracing anti-Trump ad from the senate race in Arkansas. It accuses Trump of harassment, with selections from the catalogue of odious things Trump has said about women, including a few less well circulated examples: Update: influential anti-Trump conservative voices think it hits the mark: Ted Cruz needs 672 more delegates to clear 1,237, according to the AP tally. Unfortunately, there are only 10 Republican contests left – and only 502 pledged delegates remain to be awarded. So any path Cruz has to the Republican nomination, barring some truly wild twist, involves Donald Trump failing to capture a 1,237 delegate majority, unleashing a chaos from which Cruz could emerge as the nominee. Cruz said on Monday that he “absolutely” has a path to the nomination if he loses in Indiana, where the victor is expected to gather 40-some delegates. If Trump collects such a prize, he would need to grab about 45% of the remaining pledged delegates to cross the line, very doable for him based on past performance. (And Trump could get to 1,237 without winning Indiana.) The path Cruz sees to the nomination after an Indiana loss, in short, remains well-hidden to everyone else, and would seem to involve a sudden and drastic shift in momentum in the race of the kind that’s difficult to imagine. FiveThirtyEight’s Harry Enten notes the historic unpopularity, going back to 1988, of both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, at this stage in the nominating race. The figures below reflect the opinions of the public at large. Both Donald Trump and Ted Cruz are viewed favorably by a majority of Republican voters, according to polling. Clinton’s favorability among Democrats hit a new low last month, but remained as high as +36 or 66-30, according to Gallup. Bernie Sanders’ net favorability among Democrats was measured highest of all, at +52. So the historic un-favorability of the frontrunners this cycle may in part be attributable to growing political polarization, in which a smaller share of partisans on one side are open to seeing the other side’s nominee as acceptable. Racing to close the deal in Indiana, Ted Cruz has rolled out a video ad featuring his endorsement by governor Mike Spence, whom Donald Trump was actively courting late last month. But Spence, who signed a law placing new restrictions on abortions in March, rebuffed Trump’s overtures to back Cruz, whom he praises as a “principled conservative”. “I’m a Reagan conservative,” Spence says in the new ad. “I see Ted Cruz as a principled conservative who’s dedicated his career to advocating the Reagan agenda.” Maricella Olvera encounters Donald Trump on occasion, but she’s careful not to say a word. The 47-year-old cleans the penthouse at the Trump International Hotel Las Vegas, where Trump, his family, and celebrity guests often come to stay. She cleans around them in silence. Trump is always uninterested, report the ’s Oliver Laughland and Mae West: “The policy is: you don’t talk to the boss,” she said at her small one-bedroom home, on the joyously named Sing Song Way in the city’s northern suburbs. While Olvera may be silent at work, she and a collective of cleaners, bar workers, and kitchen staff at the Trump hotel have been a thorn in the billionaire’s side for the past year, using what voice they have to remind the public of the hypocrisy that surrounds his audacious run for the presidency and his record as an employer. Although Trump has touted himself as “the greatest jobs president that God has ever created”, these workers point to the fact they are paid on average $3 less than the thousands of unionised hotel workers in Las Vegas who work identical jobs and enjoy a host of other benefits, including pensions and free health insurance, not available to Trump employees. Earlier this month, following a protracted dispute with Trump and his co-owner, casino billionaire Phil Ruffin, the National Labor Relations Board officially certified a union for over 500 staff at the hotel. Workers argue they have been subjected to surveillance, intimidation, and unlawful dismissal as they have sought to organize. Read the full piece here: Seattle police used pepper spray to disperse black-clad anti-capitalist protesters authorities say threw rocks, flares, bricks and Molotov cocktails at officers during a rowdy May Day gathering, the Associated Press reports: At least nine people were arrested Sunday evening. Authorities said five officers were hurt, none seriously. The clashes in Seattle followed a peaceful march in the city earlier in the day by advocates for workers and immigrants, just one of several events in cities nationwide Sunday to call for better wages for workers, an end to deportations and support for an Obama administration plan to give work permits to immigrants in the country illegally whose children are American citizens. In Los Angeles hundreds of May Day marchers took to the streets chanting slogans and carrying signs and at least one Donald Trump piñata. Read further here: Hello and welcome to our live-wire coverage of the 2016 race for the White House. A Marist poll released at the weekend had Donald Trump ahead of Ted Cruz by 15 points, 49-34, in the Republican race in Indiana, which holds primaries tomorrow and which could significantly simplify Trump’s path to winning the Republican presidential nomination outright. (Trump’s lead in the Marist poll was about double his lead in polling averages.) If talk of a contested convention is diminishing on the Republican side, however, Vermont senator Bernie Sanders has predicted such a twist in the Democratic race. Sanders said on Sunday that he would continue battling against Hillary Clinton, revealing plans for a new series of mega-rallies in California. “She will need superdelegates to take her over the top at the convention in Philadelphia,” Sanders said. “In other words the convention will be a contested contest.” The Republican fight for Indiana, meanwhile, saw Texas senator Ted Cruz make a last-ditch series of attacks on Donald Trump on Sunday. “No one is going to clinch it on the first ballot. I’m not and Donald Trump is not either,” Cruz said. “It’s why Donald Trump is so desperate to say it’s over now... It’s going to be a contested convention.” Trump made headlines in the Hoosier state by accusing China of “the greatest theft in the history of the world” and of “raping” the United States. In other news, president Obama tickled his audience in his final turn at the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday by poking fun at Trump and Clinton and concluding his remarks with a mic drop. And it’s Harvard for Malia Obama, after a gap year: Thanks as always for joining us, and jump right in in the comments to tell us what you think will happen in Indiana.
Mauricio Pochettino hails ‘complete’ Tottenham performance in latest win Mauricio Pochettino has urged his Tottenham Hotspur players to continue “to fight and believe” the gap to Leicester City at the top can be bridged after his team produced one of their most impressive displays of the season to overwhelm Bournemouth. Harry Kane’s two goals, establishing him as the Premier League’s leading scorer with 21 and matching his tally from last season, and Christian Eriksen’s third enabled Spurs to maintain their pursuit of the leaders. They trail Leicester by five points once more with seven games to play in their challenge for a first league title since they won the double under Bill Nicholson 55 years ago. “It’s true that we need to reduce the gap Leicester have with us, Arsenal and Manchester City, and it’s true they have a good advantage,” said Pochettino. “But we need to keep fighting and believing. We need to believe we can catch them. We have to keep our standards up and go into the next game looking to perform like this again. Today was complete. It helped us to score early in the game, in the first action, and we controlled and managed the game very well after that. “But we’ll go into a different period now from recently. After the international break we’ll play one game every week and we’ll have time to prepare in a different way, to training, to improve and do a lot of things that were impossible before. We are in a moment where we need to see our future in a very good way. It’s important to keep working hard and fight in every game.” Kane, who opened the scoring after 44 seconds, is only the fifth English player – after Andy Cole, Les Ferdinand, Alan Shearer and Robbie Fowler – to score 20 league goals in successive seasons since the top division was revamped in 1992. Pochettino described his striker as “one of the best”, with the player insisting Spurs are not growing tense in their game of catch-up. “With Leicester and Arsenal winning, there was a lot of talk about us having to get a result but we were very calm,” he said. “We played well and looked comfortable, and, if you score early, it always settles the nerves. We wanted to come out of the blocks flying and get that early goal, and we controlled it from then on in. All we can do is keep winning games and see where it takes us. There is no panic, no rush. “Hopefully Leicester will drop points, but all we can do is keep doing what we’re doing. We’ll see where we are come the last two games of the season, but of course we believe we can win the league. Why not? We are playing well and are very confident. We just have to focus and see what happens.”
Panic review – spiky East End shadowlands thriller It’s great to see a role for a black Londoner that doesn’t involve repping any endz, and David Gyasi (Cloud Atlas, Interstellar) capably anchors this piece of East End noir, playing a traumatised music journalist who gets a Rear Window-style peek of a kidnapping in the tower block across the way. A little under-plotted in its dip into the immigrant-labour demimonde explored most comprehensively by Stephen Frears’s Dirty Pretty Things in 2002, Sean Spencer’s debut feature is still carried off with sharp-eyed poise. Carl Burke’s cinematography thrives in this sodium-flooded twilight world; Spencer not only shows an aptitude for staging violence with everyday household items, but more importantly writes coiled, guarded dialogue that mordantly funnels his characters down dead ends of the soul. Joining Remainder and Hyena in the ranks of recent thrillers with an interest in the capital’s shadowlands, Panic packs a dank, reverberatory kick.
Michael Cimino obituary It took just over two years for the film-maker Michael Cimino, who has died aged 77, to go from being one of the figureheads of the ambitious and intelligent US cinema of the 1970s to the man blamed for killing it off. The peak of his career was The Deer Hunter (1978), the first in a spate of pictures to articulate the effect on the American psyche of the Vietnam war. It was divided into three distinct sections depicting a group of Pennsylvania steelworkers before, during and after the war. Cimino was criticised for sequences in which the soldiers are forced by the Vietcong to play Russian roulette against one another. He was also accused of expressing rightwing sentiments in the final scene, during which the surviving characters sing God Bless America. These controversies could not overshadow the strength of the film-making, or the wealth of elegiac material that explored the men’s friendships with uncommon patience and tenderness. The early scenes showing a raucous wedding party that spills into the deserted streets, followed by a haunting early-morning hunting trip, were especially fine, and proved that Cimino had a talent for expressing theme and emotion in visual terms. The backdrop of the steel mills was crucial and evocative. “In a strange way, the mills become a symbol of life,” he explained. “People go but the mills are there.” He was a masterful, intuitive director of actors, ensuring a consistency of performance from a cast that included Robert De Niro alongside relative newcomers Meryl Streep and Christopher Walken, who won an Oscar for his performance as the most sensitive member of the group. Streep’s then partner, John Cazale, also starred; though his bone cancer was at an advanced stage, Cimino hid his illness from the studio and managed to get all the actor’s scenes filmed before he died. The Deer Hunter won five Oscars, including best picture and best director. For all its harrowing moments, Cimino considered it a hopeful work. “It has a positive feeling for life, an admiration for the characters’ abilities to go on after a horrendous experience and go on in a quiet way. There’s a great deal of open sentiment in the film; people say, ‘I love…’ They’re passionate about things.” Encouraged by its success, United Artists gave Cimino total creative and financial freedom on his next film, the western Heaven’s Gate (1980), starring Kris Kristofferson, Isabelle Huppert and John Hurt. It was a decision that would bring about the downfall of director and studio – UA, founded in 1919, was sold to MGM in 1981. Cimino’s interest in the Johnson County war of 1892, when a stockgrowers’ association in Wyoming hired mercenaries to defend their land monopoly by wiping out European immigrants, dated back to the early 1970s, when he had first written a script on the subject. It had been rejected by one studio as “a pretty downbeat story at a pretty heavy cost”, but the escalation in his standing after The Deer Hunter made it a viable proposition. However, an initial budget of $11.5m proved unrealistic. After six days’ shooting, the production was five days behind schedule. By the time it was finished 11 months later, the budget had snowballed to a reported $44m, Cimino had shot 1.3m feet of film and the title had become a byword for hubris and folly. The beauty of the picture was undeniable. “It looks like David Lean decided to make a western,” said the producer Steven Bach after seeing a rough cut. (Bach later wrote a salutary 1985 book about the debacle, Final Cut: Dreams and Disaster in the Making of Heaven’s Gate.) But in the search for absolute authenticity, which included establishing at great cost a vast irrigation system beneath the site of the film’s key battle, Cimino had exploited the studio’s weak management. A 219-minute version of Heaven’s Gate premiered at the end of 1980 (cut down from an initial 325 minutes), and was savaged by critics. This was quickly withdrawn and replaced by a cut that was 70 minutes shorter but even less coherent; it was a predictable and costly flop, with Cimino’s sudden reversal of fortune only compounding the sense of disaster. Michael was born in New York City and grew up in Long Island. His father was a music publisher and his mother a clothing designer. He was educated at Westbury high school and Michigan State University before studying painting, architecture and art history at Yale. He enjoyed a successful career as a commercials director in New York, widely admired for his advertisements for high-profile clients including United Airlines and Pepsi, but renowned even then for his perfectionism. He began writing screenplays and moved to Los Angeles in 1971. The following year, he got a co-writing credit (as “Mike Cimino”) on Silent Running, a science-fiction drama with environmental concerns. Realising he needed to get a major star attached to one of his scripts, he wrote Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, a heist-cum-buddy movie, in six weeks and offered it to Clint Eastwood. After hitting it off with Cimino, Eastwood agreed to let the young writer direct. He also hired him to do rewrites on the second Dirty Harry movie, Magnum Force (1973). With Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974), which starred Eastwood and Jeff Bridges, Cimino exhibited a breezy touch and knowing wit that would never again be associated with his name. In the aftermath of Heaven’s Gate, he had clearly exhausted his credit in Hollywood and lost his way. He directed only four more films, none of them well-received. Year of the Dragon (1985), co-written with Oliver Stone, was accused of perpetuating negative stereotypes about Asian-Americans. The Sicilian (1987), Desperate Hours (1990) and Sunchaser (1996) were largely ignored, though he wrote a novel, Big Jane (2001), which was highly regarded in France. Cimino became reclusive in recent years, with his own agent describing him as “the Howard Hughes of Hollywood”. Drastic alterations to his appearance fuelled erroneous rumours that he was undergoing gender reassignment surgery. It wasn’t only his face that changed dramatically: with the unveiling in 2012 of a new 216-minute cut of Heaven’s Gate, an increasing number of critics fell in step with early admirers such as the ’s Philip French, who called it “a towering masterpiece” and “one of the finest westerns ever made”. Perhaps in time it will be forgiven for contributing to the end of an era in which directors could pursue expensive personal visions on the studio dime. Though he was elusive about every aspect of his private life, he claimed in a 2000 interview to have a college-age daughter. • Michael Cimino, film-maker, born 3 February 1939; died 2 July 2016
Legal experts on Donald Trump: 'He lacks respect for basic norms' Donald Trump’s racist attack on a judge of Mexican heritage won him criticism across the political spectrum. But it is not the only issue worrying former judges, an ex-attorney general, and legal scholars as they contemplate a Trump presidency. Several other issues have also raised serious legal concerns among such observers, including the presumptive Republican nominee’s call for a temporary ban on Muslim immigration, his advocacy of bringing back waterboarding, and his statement that if elected he would “open up” the nation’s libel laws to make it easier to sue the press and win “lots of money”. Republican and Democratic legal critics tell the that Trump on several occasions has seemed woefully ignorant of the law, and dismissive of American social conventions. “My concern is that he lacks respect for basic norms,” said Robert Smith, a former associate judge on the New York court of appeals who was appointed by ex-governor George Pataki, a Republican. “He’s a totally irresponsible egomaniac, and it should be no surprise he pays no attention to the law and other basic social norms.” Attack on Trump University judge Criticism of Trump escalated in legal circles last month when he devoted almost 12 minutes at a San Diego rally to vilifying Judge Gonzalo Curiel – who is overseeing fraud lawsuits against the candidate’s defunct Trump University – as “ a hater”. Trump charged that the judge was biased and had a conflict of interest in overseeing the fraud case because of his Mexican heritage, initially claiming the Indiana-born judge was Mexican. Stephen Larson, a former US district court judge in California who was appointed by President George W Bush, was appalled by Trump’s attacks on Judge Curiel. “Those remarks were racist. Those remarks were foolish. And those remarks were embarrassing,” Larson told the . Larson added that “it’s embarrassing to have a leading presidential candidate invoke race”. Likewise, former attorney general Richard Thornburgh who served under President George HW Bush, said in an interview that while he found certain Trump statements “troubling”, the attacks on Judge Curiel were “particularly offensive. If broadly applied they threaten the sanctity of the rule of law.” Separately Larson, now a lawyer in Los Angeles with the firm Larson O’Brien, voiced dismay over Trump’s calls for bringing back waterboarding and killing family members of terrorists, statements that the former judge deems “contrary to long and deeply held American legal and moral values”. Trump’s notion of bringing back waterboarding also outrages ex-New York court of appeals judge Robert Smith, who says that the now-banned practice is tantamount to “torture [which] violates American and international law”. Smith also takes strong exception to Trump’s oft-touted proposal for a ban on Muslim immigration, an idea he brought up again after the recent massacre in Orlando as a way to curb terrorism. “I think the idea of a religious test for immigration is un-American and appalling,” said Smith, who served on the New York court for a decade and is now with the law firm Friedman Kaplan. ‘Constitutionally problematic’ Smith’s view of the proposed ban was echoed by legal scholars who spoke with the . Deborah Rhode, a Stanford law professor, said Trump’s call for banning Muslim immigrants was “hard to reconcile with the ideals that have motivated this nation”. Rhode noted that the standard test for immigration has long been good moral character, and said that “to suggest that someone fails to meet this standard because of religion alone seems constitutionally problematic”. Similarly, Erwin Chermerinsky, the dean of the University of California Irvine Law School, said he thought Trump’s call to ban Muslim immigration “violates the constitution’s principles of equal protection and freedom of religion”. Moreover, other legal scholars are deeply dismayed by Trump’s suggestion in February that if he wins in November he intends to “open up our libel laws, so that if they [the press] write purposely negative and horrible and false articles, we can sue them and win lots of money”. “If you open up the libel laws, the first person who would be sued is Donald Trump,” said Richard Epstein, a law professor at the University of Chicago who is highly regarded in conservative legal circles. “He makes false and malicious statements about public and private people … I regard him as semi-hysterical and self-righteous [and] utterly unfit to be president of the United States.” Ironically perhaps, during his decades-long business career, Trump has exhibited a strong penchant for filing suits and has often been sued. According to a recent survey by USA Today, Trump has sued or been sued an astonishing 3,500 times over the past three decades, a sum that is more than all the suits combined against five other prominent real estate moguls. ‘All-consuming egomania’ On another legal front, conservative lawyers are aghast that Trump has made statements that are flat-out erroneous and betray his ignorance of fundamental judicial matters. A case in point: in late March, Trump stated that he would probably appoint a supreme court justice or attorney general who would “look very seriously at [Clinton’s] email disaster because it’s a criminal activity … What she is getting away with is absolutely murder.” But Smith noted that he “would hope that high school students after civics classes would know that judges don’t investigate. Judges decide.” In an effort to allay fears about his judgment and conservative bona fides, Trump in May published a list of 11 judges that, if he wins in November, he would consider as supreme court replacements for the late Antonin Scalia. The judges, eight men and three women, are all white and all allied with the Federalist Society, a powerful conservative legal organization. Chicago law professor Richard Epstein and ex-judge Robert Smith have also been involved with the Federalist Society. Nonetheless, if Trump wins the election, Smith worries that the candidate’s “all-consuming egomania makes him irresponsible,” traits that could affect his appointments. “You have some chance that you would get a principled conservative. But there’s also a chance you could get someone completely off the wall. You don’t put an unfit person in the presidency just because you think you’d like his supreme court appointments.”
Two tribes: how the theatre and music scenes are mixing it up The deaths of Prince and David Bowie, whose musical Lazarus opened in London this week, were reminders of how theatrical the greatest rock stars can be. Yet there remains a gulf between the worlds of theatre and modern music (by which I mean pop, guitar bands, hip-hop, electronic sounds: anything that inhabits grassroots gig or club spaces rather than classical concert halls). That’s beginning to change with the rise of theatre presented as a gigs, such as Weekend Rockstars, and works such as the crazed J-pop explosion Miss Revolutionary Idol Berserker at Lift festival. But the crossover between these two worlds can be fraught and unpredictable. This summer, Róisín Murphy gave the first contemporary live music performance at Shakespeare’s Globe in London. It’s maybe symbolic that the Globe announced its parting of ways with artistic director Emma Rice shortly after its production of Imogen, which reimagined Cymbeline with grime beats. As someone who works with and writes about modern musicians, from the pop heartland to the experimental fringes, I was asked to help in programming the All the Right Notes season for Camden People’s theatre. They had theatre pieces with musical elements, and wanted me to bring in musicians with a theatrical edge. It was thrilling to think about – and quickly I found a grime veteran willing to perform his work as spoken word (Flowdan) and a rave provocateur with whom I can reconstruct 5am chillout room conversations (Andy Blake). But the process made me realise how little I know about theatre, its mechanics and its culture. Then I became aware that both sides were baffled by each other. Even some of the sharpest, most out-there minds in the theatre world seemed to have a hang-up that music was fundamentally “cooler” than theatre. As writer-performer Rachel Mars, whose Our Carnal Hearts forms part of the CPT season, puts it: “Theatre is a very nerdy world, not very rock’n’roll, really.” When I spoke to friends in the music world, the general impression of theatre tended towards total ignorance or a sense that it was all highbrow and, as such, intimidating. When pressed on the differences, Mars says: “Gigs are about quite an ecstatic experience, losing yourself along with a crowd of people – which usually means a constant stream of music. It doesn’t always work so well when that is interrupted by dialogue or anything else that isn’t expected by the audience.” Our Carnal Hearts, written with the composer Louise Mothersole, is built around “sacred harp” singing from the southern US states: “it’s about the deeply seductive and manipulative act of communal singing” and leads the audience into “some really quite horrid things”. Matt Regan concurs that the live music circuit is not always receptive to alterations in the usual formats. A working classical musician, but also a singer-songwriter, inspired in part by Sufjan Stevens’s performances, he began to want to “be identified as something other than a front-person” and to perform “weird gigs” using narration, lighting and staging that go beyond the standard performance format. “Sometimes it worked,” he says, “but mostly, gig audiences were just baffled if the music stopped and I started talking about something cryptic.” A friend who worked at the Tron theatre in Glasgow persuaded him that he should try his show in a theatre space rather than the standard gig venues he’d been using. Immediately his “weird gigs” became the theatre piece cum song cycle Greater Belfast, and he found himself “more welcomed than I could imagine” by the theatre world. Regan says the theatre offers “far, far more freedom to create what you want” than the music circuit. “And being pragmatic,” he adds, “more security, too. Where the best I could see happening with the gig circuit was essentially a life touring small venues, with theatre, once you’re established a bit, there’s the possibility of funding, of residencies, of building up a proper little team around your production. When I think of how I can maintain working as a creative person, this seems a better route.” Nwando Ebizie had her feet in live music and theatre before she created The Passion of Lady Vendredi. In the show, Ebizie plays “a voodoo priestess from a parallel dimension”, and she also has a convincing rock star persona, splicing equal parts Poly Styrene, Grace Jones and MIA. It has been well-received in theatres and gig/club spaces: its punky energy is more than enough to keep crowds on their feet, and Lady Vendredi as rock star stands up on the five-track EP she has released of the show’s songs. However, when I ask if she’s ever been tempted to build Lady Vendredi’s career – make albums, tour properly on the gig circuit – she is horrified. “No! That would be absurd!” she gasps. “I mean, I could do it, but I’d go mad … We had to tone down the rhythms and stuff in the show, just for the sake of my own wellbeing.” She’s agog at the ability of music stars, be they Axl Rose or Kanye West, to inhabit the same inflated persona their whole lives. “I don’t know how they manage it,” she says. “I suppose the money helps.” She thinks that theatre is doctrinal in insisting on the primacy of narrative over other elements: “European theatre at least,” she says, “is hung up on the text. It uses music, of course, but it’s pretty unusual to let it be as central as the words and visuals, to be completely integrated in the way you might find in some other cultures.” It’s true that theatre and modern music have distinct infrastructures, rituals, social functions and written or unwritten rules of conduct that in many cases serve to keep them separate. But a more positive way to look at the gap between them is as a wide-open space of possibility. Rock, pop and soul have existed for maybe 60 years, hip-hop and disco for 40, electronica and rave for less than that: all are still maturing, still have many of their mechanisms unexamined or little understood, and all have deep and fundamental human experiences at their heart. Beyond the jukebox musical, beyond the concept album, beyond the rock star changing costumes between songs, there are untold dramatic ideas still to be explored in the hinterland. All the Right Notes is at Camden People’s theatre, London, until 3 December.
Minister dismisses 'have cake and eat it' Brexit notes When it comes to the Brexit negotiations, “have cake and eat it” is not the official policy, a cabinet minister has said, in reference to a handwritten document photographed outside Downing Street that said the government was pursuing such a strategy. The government has sought to distance itself from the notes carried by an aide to the Conservative vice-chair, Mark Field, which appeared to say Britain would not be able to stay in the single market and would not seek a transitional deal after leaving the EU. The business secretary, Greg Clark, said he did not recognise the claims in the notes, which also said the “French are likely to be most difficult” in the negotiations. “I was interested and amused to see it because it doesn’t reflect any of the conversations that I’ve been part of in Downing Street,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. “I don’t know what the provenance of that note is. All I can say is that it is going to be a negotiation which has to be serious, we have to get our negotiating mandate in place but this is being done soberly and meticulously. It would be nice to have [cake and eat it] but it’s not the policy.” Downing Street said the notes were not written by a government official and did not reflect its official position. “These individual notes do not belong to a government official or a special adviser,” a No 10 spokesman said. “They do not reflect the government’s position in relation to Brexit negotiations.” Field does not work directly with the Department for Exiting the EU but, as MP for the Cities of London and Westminster, he has large numbers of constituents working in financial services. He is believed to have been in a meeting at the department, which is headed by David Davis. Field’s role as vice-chairman (international) of the Conservative party also includes liaising with Conservative MEPs and with sister centre-right parties in Europe. The notes said: “What’s the model? Have cake and eat it” and cites an ideal arrangement as “Canada-plus”, referring to the free trade deal hammered out over seven years with Ottawa. The memo also said: “Transitional – loath to do it. Whitehall will hold on to it. We need to bring an end to the negotiation.” The reference to the civil service suggests the notes were taken in a meeting with a minister, rather than with Whitehall officials from the department. The prime minister of Luxembourg, Xavier Bettel, said Britain could not “have its cake and eat it”. In an interview with the Agence France-Presse news agency, Bettel also ruled out any transitional deal with the EU to soften the impact of Britain’s departure if difficult negotiations were not completed in two years. “They want to have their cake, eat it, and get a smile from the baker, but not the other things,” Bettel said on Monday evening in his office in Luxembourg. “There are European values which cannot be separated. No cherry-picking.” This week the governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, urged the government to seek a transitional deal to try to smooth out the process of leaving. Officials in Brussels played down the significance of the handwritten note, saying they did not see it as official British policy. One source said it was normal that governments started with a maximalist scenario when embarking on any negotiation. But he added: “Do they really think they can get this? That for the UK is the worrying part.” Some British politicians had shown an “absurd lack of knowledge” about how the EU works, he said, referring to statements by David Davis, before he became Brexit minister, that Britain could sign trade deals with Germany – legally impossible under EU law. To “have your cake and eat it” (or “avoir le beurre et l’argent du beurre” in French), has become a familiar reference in Brexit talks, ever since Boris Johnson popularised it during the leave campaign as his preferred strategy. In a barb aimed at Johnson, Donald Tusk, the European council president, criticised proponents of the “cake philosophy”. Speaking last month, he said it was pure illusion for anyone to think they could have the EU cake and eat it. “To all who believe in it, I propose a simple experiment. Buy a cake, eat it, and see if it is still there on the plate.” Sources also dismissed the notion that France would be the most difficult country in the Brexit negotiations. “Everyone is on exactly the same page,” a European diplomat said, referring to EU leader statements agreed in June and September. “If there is no freedom of movement, there can be no access to the single market.” The photographed note could be a talking point during the breaks in a meeting on Tuesday on Britain’s EU exit, led by the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier. He is running “a half-day technical seminar” with officials from EU member states, excluding the UK, where he will answer questions and map out the big issues for Brexit talks. The note, which was carried into Downing Street by Julia Dockerill, Field’s chief of staff, suggests a deal on manufacturing with the EU should be “relatively straightforward” but admits that services, such as in the financial or legal sectors, are harder, because of the desire in Paris to snatch more business for France. Other comments, which filled a full A4 page of a notebook, included: “Difficult on article 50 implementation – Barnier wants to see what deal looks like first.” “Got to be done in parallel – 20 odd negotiations. Keep the two years. Won’t provide more detail,” it added. “We think it’s unlikely we’ll be offered single market.” In reference to Britain remaining a member of the European Economic Area, like Norway, the note said: “Why no Norway – two elements – no ECJ [European court of justice] intervention. Unlikely to do internal market.” Leave supporters in the government are sceptical about a Norway model, where a country remains in the single market but also accepts free movement of people – the reference to the internal market – and is under the jurisdiction of the European court. Stephen Gethins, the Scottish National party spokesman on Europe, said the notes revealed a government “with no direction, and no clue”. “Worryingly, those in favour of taking us out of the EU appear set to cut off their nose to spite their face – with an apparent call to end any negotiations with Europe before they’ve properly begun and already wishing to pull the plug on the prospect of transitional arrangements,” he said. Tim Farron, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, added: “If this is a strategy, it is incoherent. We can’t have our cake and eat it and there is no certainty on the single market. This picture shows the government doesn’t have a plan or even a clue.”
Trump chooses Nikki Haley and Betsy DeVos for administration posts – as it happened We’re going to wrap up our politics live blog coverage for the week. Happy Thanksgiving! Donald Trump told Apple CEO Tim Cook that he is going to “get” the company to start manufacturing its products in the United States, the president-elect told the New York Times on Tuesday. Trump revealed that he had received a post-election phone call from Cook during which he said, “Tim, you know one of the things that will be a real achievement for me is when I get Apple to build a big plant in the United States, or many big plants in the United States.” According to Trump’s account, Cook responded, “I understand that,” and Trump went on to promise incentives through tax breaks and reduced regulations. “I think we’ll create the incentives for you, and I think you’re going to do it,” Trump said he said. Read further: (h/t @daveweigel) Yes we cran. Who writes this stuff. Impeach. Further reaction to the DeVos pick for education secretary: Obama closes with thanks from his family to the American people. “Let’s get on with the pardoning because it’s Wednesday afternoon and everybody knows that Thanksgiving traffic can put everyone in a fowl mood.” Get this guy offstage. Obamas’ nephews pet the turkey, Tot. That’s cute. Here goes Obama. He says he won’t embarrass his daughters with “a cornycopia of dad jokes about turkeys.” The president gets off some strong punning: He has brought two nephews this time, Austin and Aaron Robinson [sp?]. “They still believe in bad puns,” he says. “The still have hope.” “Malia and Sasha are thankful by the way that this is my last [ceremony]...What I haven’t told them yet is we’re going to do this every year from now on. No cameras, just us, every year. No way I’m cutting this habit cold turkey’ The turkey pardoning ceremony commences: The president of the national education association does not like the Betsy DeVos pick for education secretary: DeVos has tweeted that she is not a supporter of Common Core education standards: Further reaction, via @politicsK12: Donald Trump is poised to eliminate all climate change research conducted by Nasa as part of a crackdown on “politicized science”, his senior adviser on issues relating to the space agency has said. Nasa’s Earth science division is set to be stripped of funding in favor of exploration of deep space, with the president-elect having set a goal during the campaign to explore the entire solar system by the end of the century. This would mean the elimination of Nasa’s world-renowned research into temperature, ice, clouds and other climate phenomena. Nasa’s network of satellites provide a wealth of information on climate change, with the Earth science division’s budget set to grow to $2bn next year. By comparison, space exploration has been scaled back somewhat, with a proposed budget of $2.8bn in 2017. Bob Walker, a senior Trump campaign adviser, said there was no need for Nasa to do what he has previously described as “politically correct environmental monitoring”. “We see Nasa in an exploration role, in deep space research,” Walker told the . “Earth-centric science is better placed at other agencies where it is their prime mission. “My guess is that it would be difficult to stop all ongoing Nasa programs but future programs should definitely be placed with other agencies. I believe that climate research is necessary but it has been heavily politicized, which has undermined a lot of the work that researchers have been doing. Mr Trump’s decisions will be based upon solid science, not politicized science.” Read the full piece: Former Florida governor, education policy wonk and ex-presidential candidate Jeb Bush praises the DeVose pick, hailing her “allegiance to families”: The full Bush statement on DeVos: Betsy DeVos is an outstanding pick for Secretary of Education. She has a long and distinguished history championing the right of all parents to choose schools that best ensure their children’s success. Her allegiance is to families, particularly those struggling at the bottom of the economic ladder, not to an outdated public education model that has failed them from one generation to the next. I cannot think of more effective and passionate change agent to press for a new education vision, one in which students, rather than adults and bureaucracies, become the priority in our nation’s classrooms. I congratulate Betsy and look forward to her bold leadership at the U.S. Department of Education. But really, Bush can’t get enough of Trump’s picks: Jill Stein, the Green Party presidential candidate, is prepared to request recounts of the election result in several key battleground states, her campaign said on Wednesday. Stein launched an online fundraising page seeking donations toward a $2m fund she said was needed to request reviews of the results in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Stein said she was acting due to “compelling evidence of voting anomalies” and that data analysis had indicated “significant discrepancies in vote totals”. Her move came amid calls for recounts or audits of the election results by groups of academics and activists concerned that foreign hackers may have interfered with election systems. Donald Trump won unexpected and narrow victories against Hillary Clinton in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and may yet win Michigan, where a result has not yet been declared. Donald Trump has released a statement describing grand plans for American education under the leadership of Betsy DeVos, his education secretary nominee. DeVos is a Michigan philanthropist who has chaired the state Republican party who “has kept a low national profile,” according to Chalkbeat: “She has neither worked in public education nor chosen public schools for her own children, who attended private Christian schools.” DeVos’ husband, Dick, is an heir to the Amway fortune and a former company president, AP reports. Trump called DeVos “a brilliant and passionate education advocate.” “Under her leadership we will reform the U.S. education system and break the bureaucracy that is holding our children back so that we can deliver world-class education and school choice to all families,” Trump said in a statement. “I am pleased to nominate Betsy as Secretary of the Department of Education.” Donald Trump has chosen charter school advocate Betsy DeVos to be his education secretary, the AP reports. The nomination is subject to senate confirmation. The education policy web site Chalkbeat had said that a DeVos appointment could indicate that Trump intends to go through with a sweeping school vouchers plan and would leave the future of Common Core education standards an open question. Red, white and blue George HW Bush, 92 years old and thankful: When Jimmy Fallon cum Pepe tousled the future president-elect’s hair: Turkey’s president is accusing anti-Donald Trump protesters in Western nations of not respecting democracy or the result of the US election, AP reports: Recep Tayyip Erdoğan also suggests that any leader who doesn’t serve the West’s interests is denounced as a despot. He made the comments in Ankara, Turkey, at meeting of the Organization for Islamic Cooperation. Erdoğan said: “In America they started calling Trump a dictator. In various countries of the Europe they spilled into the streets and started saying ‘dictator.’ Why aren’t you respecting the results of the ballot box?” BERLIN (AP) The German government expressed revulsion Wednesday at Nazi-style salutes such as those performed at a recent far-right event in Washington, but said it was confident the United States can tackle the issue. Video published by The Atlantic showed participants at the event Saturday raising their arms in salute during a speech by Richard Spencer, head of the white-nationalist National Policy Institute. “Speaking generally, whenever we see videos from anywhere showing people raising their hand to do Hitler salutes we are repulsed,” German government spokesman Steffen Seibert said Wednesday after being asked about the clip . “It goes against the principles and values of our politics,” he added. Nazi Germany was responsible for genocide and war that resulted in the deaths of tens of millions of people in the 1930s and 1940s. After the war, Germany made it a criminal offense to display Nazi imagery including the salute, which was usually accompanied by the cry “Sieg Heil!” which translates as “hail victory.” Seibert said the fact that the incident is being widely discussed in the United States was a good sign. “We have great faith in American civil society, media and politics to address such bad developments, such terrible events,” he said. White-nationalist groups have existed in the United States for decades but drew increased attention last summer when activists showed up at the Republican National Convention to celebrate Donald Trump’s nomination as the party’s presidential candidate. Spencer, who is credited with coining the term “alt-right,” was filmed Saturday saying “Hail Trump, hail our people, hail victory!” to cheers from the audience. The presidential campaign and election of Donald Trump has witnessed an outpouring of overtly anti-Semitic attacks through the mail, in graffito, in person and by other means.. Neo-Nazis held a conference last weekend in DC where they evoked Hitler. The movement may not be large but it’s visible and empowered with the rise of Trump, who claims not to want to boost white-supremacists and Nazis but who has managed to communicate extremely effectively to them that he is their man, and whose chief strategist proudly declared in July that his web-site was “the platform for the alt-right” meaning racists, white-supremacists, and neo-Nazis. Those who discern a moment of historic global crisis in the rise of Trump garner among the evidence correspondence such as this: Read Matthew Yglesias of Vox on what’s happening: On Monday, November 14, six days after Donald Trump’s election as the next president of the United States, and on the day that Trump had selected Steve Bannon to be his strategic adviser, I came home to a letter addressed to me personally, at my home. The envelope contained four pages’ worth of anti-Semitic propaganda printed on three sheets of paper. Read further. Each year the turkeys up for presidential pardon come from an out-of-state farm. This year the turkey pair Tater and Tot are traveling from Iowa. The presidential turkey has its own Twitter feed. Check it out The Turkeys stay in a hotel, gross Jesus wept. In a sure addition to the holiday spirits of everyone, Donald Trump will appear today to deliver a Thanksgiving message, his transition team says. It’s not yet known when Trump will appear. He’s at his Mar-a-Lago place in Palm Beach, Florida, where he’s spending the weekend. Per the press pool: [Trump’s spokespeople] did not elaborate on the president-elect’s activities today, saying the Trump family expects “some degree of privacy” during the holidays. Fair bet that tens of millions of Americans also would appreciate some degree of privacy during the holidays. See you Monday then? Hello, and welcome to our live-wire coverage of Donald Trump’s transition to the White House. Know-it-all Newt Gingrich has said that Trump’s bedimpled son-in-law, Jared Kushner, may need an “anti-nepotism” waiver to continue working with Trump, who told the New York Times yesterday that Kushner might achieve peace in the Middle East. (Trump seemed serious.) “I think they would have to get a waiver to the anti-nepotism law,” Gingrich said on Fox News on Wednesday, in comments snagged by Politico. “That might be a little tricky, although I think if they worked at it, they could do it.” Trump picks Haley Donald Trump has chosen South Carolina governor Nikki Haley as US ambassador to the United Nations. Haley is the first woman Trump has named for a top-level administration post during his White House transition so far. Trump said in a statement quoted by the Associated Press that Haley is “a proven dealmaker, and we look forward to making plenty of deals” and that she “will be a great leader representing us on the world stage”. Read further. Racists decry Trump for perceived mushiness President-elect Trump’s disavowal of Richard Spencer and his far-right thinktank the National Policy Institute, a day after video of Spencer’s supporters giving the Nazi salute at an event in Washington DC surfaced, has dismayed some of his supporters on the “alt-right”. “This constant virtue signaling needs to finally end, otherwise our civilization will simply collapse,” a commenter wrote underneath the article of Trump’s disavowal on rightwing news site Breitbart. People in the myriad “alt-right” communities that have flourished online in recent years are also expressing their displeasure that Trump appears to have abandoned the most extreme of his policies – at least for now – such as building a wall and prosecuting Hillary Clinton. Barack Obama to pardon turkeys It’s nearly Thanksgiving, which can mean only one thing: Barack Obama is going to appear outside the White House and pardon two turkeys, and one or both of his daughters will be forced to suffer through it in public. Here’s our 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015 coverage of the ceremony. This is Ronald Reagan’s fault. Awkward DJRP This is the longest-serving governor in Texas history. He was elected three times with double-digit margins and served for 15 years. He ran for president twice, and he met with Trump this week about a possible administration post. Word? Thanks for reading and please join us in the comments.
Tegan and Sara: Love You to Death review – glossy pop with razor-sharp lyrics After 15 years in the outer reaches of the indie mainstream, the Canadian sisters Tegan and Sara Quin dived headlong into pure pop on 2013’s excellent Heartthrob. Now they have reunited with the producer Greg Kurstin (Sia, Kylie), Love You To Death is poppier still, each song buffeted by fizzing synths, pin-sharp drumbeats and chant-along, glitter-bomb choruses. While their musical palette has shifted, their lyrical detail remains razor-sharp – dissecting the complexities of modern relationships on Boyfriend and their own fractured sisterhood on the lovely 100x (“It was cruel of me to do what I did to you,” sings Sara). At times, the high-definition production sheen feels smothering, but overall this is a multilayered, emotionally engaging pop confection.
,Sie fühlen sich zurückgewiesen': Wie kommen Deutsche in GB mit dem Brexit klar? Seit 2009 lebt und arbeitet Nicole Janz in Grossbritannien. Sie promovierte in Cambridge, heiratete und liess sich mit Mann und Tochter in der Universitätsstadt nieder. Seit dem Sommer ist sie als Assistenz-Professorin fest angestellt an der renommierten Universität Nottingham. Janz und ihr Mann sind zwei von über 300.000 Deutschen, die im Vereinigten Königreich leben. Seit dem 23. Juni wird ihnen die Tatsache, dass sie deutsch sind häufiger bewusst. Mit Freunden habe sie kürzlich einen Pub besucht, erzählt Janz. Sie bestellte ein Bier und als die Frau hinter dem Tresen des deutschen Akzents gewahr wurde, wies sie Janz zurecht: „Wir sagen hier Bitte und Danke in Grossbritannien.” „Ok, vielleicht war ich nicht höflich genug, aber so etwas ist mir vorher noch nie passiert”, berichtet sie. „Mir wird jetzt häufiger vor Augen geführt, dass ich Ausländerin bin.” Die Deutschen gehören zu den Top 10 der grössten Immigrantengruppen in Grossbritannien: sie sind weniger als die Iren aber zahlreicher als US-Amerikaner. Unter jenen, die schon sehr lange hier leben, empfinden viele die Entscheidung für den Brexit auch als Votum gegen Europäer. „Viele fühlen sich persönlich beleidigt”, sagt Ulrich Storck, der seit vier Jahren das Büro der SPD-nahen Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung in London leitet. „Diese Menschen haben jahrelang versucht den Briten näher zu kommen und fühlen sich nun zurückgewiesen.” Renate Dietrich-Karger stimmt zu. Seit drei Jahrzehnten pendelt sie zwischen Bayern und Schottland, wo sie ihren zweiten Wohnsitz hat und sechs Monate im Jahr lebt. „Es fühlte sich für mich an, als ob ein naher Verwandter gestorben ist”, beschreibt sie ihre Gefühle am Morgen nach dem Referendum. „Eine Reihe meiner Verwandten waren vor den Nazis nach Grossbritannien geflohen, weil sie Juden waren. Ich war von 1965 an regelmässig in Grossbritannien, das für mich doch damals das ,Land of hope and glory’ war. Doch seit damals hat sich viel verändert. Was mich zunehmend beunruhigt ist die Bereitschaft, ,andere’ zu hassen und das offen auszusprechen.” Die Zustimmung zum Brexit schwankt im Vereinigten Königreich von Region zu Region beträchtlich. In Schottland, wo die Wähler mit überwältigender Mehrheit für einen Verbleib in der EU stimmten, versucht die Scottish National Partei unter Umgehung der Britischen Regierung direkten Kontakt zu den Spitzen der EU aufzunehmen und sie daran zu erinnern, dass sie nördlich der englischen Grenze einen Verbündeten haben. „Deutsche Touristen sind eine der wichtigsten Gruppen für die schottische Fremdenverkehrsindustrie”, sagt Angus Robertson, der Fraktionsführer der SNP im britischen Unterhaus. Der Abgeordnete, dessen Mutter Deutsche ist, ist auch ein Duzfreund von David McAllister, dem ehemaligen Ministerpräsidenten Niedersachens und Parteifreund von Angela Merkel. Die Abgeordnete der Labour Partei Gisela Stuart ist ebenfalls Deutsche, doch sie war eine von jenen, die die Brexit-Kampagne anführten und dafür warben dass Grossbritannien die Kontrolle über Immigration, Handel, Steuerpolitik und Justiz zurück erlangen müsse. Ihr eigener Status als europäische Immigrantin rückte sie im Vorlauf des Referendums ins Rampenlicht. Eine ideale Besetzung, um der Brexit-Kampagne Glaubwürdigkeit zu verleihen. Allerdings machte Stuart ihre herausgehobene Position auch zur Zielscheibe. Von EU-Befürwortern innerhalb des Vereinigten Königreichs und im Ausland sie als Verräterin bezeichnet worden, erzählt Stuart. „Ich wurde in Grossbritannien nie dafür beschimpft, dass ich Deutsche bin”, sagt sie, „doch nun erhalte ich Beschimpfungen aus Deutschland von Leuten, die sich als gute Europäer betrachten.” Indessen können weder Befürworter noch Gegner des Brexit verlässlich voraussagen, was die in der UK ansässigen Europäer erwartet und welche Folgen der Brexit für jene haben wird, die nach dem wahrscheinlichen Austrittsjahr 2019 einreisen. Viele der Deutschen, die in den vergangenen 20 Jahren nach Grossbritannien kamen, sind gut ausgebildete Fachkräfte. Über 5.000 Deutsche forschen und lehren an britischen Universitäten, sie stellen damit die grösste Gruppe ausländischer Wissenschaftler. Ausserdem arbeiten über 3.000 Deutsche als Ärzte und Pfleger im staatlichen Gesundheitssystem. Oliver Cramer ist stellvertretender ärztlicher Direktor des einzigen Krankenhauses auf der Isle of Wight. Cramer kam 2003 zusammen mit seiner griechischen Frau, die ebenfalls Ärztin ist, nach Grossbritannien. Die Eheleute, die seitdem auf der Insel arbeiten, fühlten sich in all den Jahren nie als Immigranten – bis zum Juni. Fast 70% der Wähler auf der Isle of Wight stimmten für den EU-Austritt. „Uns wurde gesagt, wir sollten das nicht persönlich nehmen. Wir seien ja nützliche Einwanderer”, sagt Cramer und stockt. „Nützlich … Und wenn wir uns in 20 Jahren hier zur Ruhe setzen, sind wir dann nicht mehr nützlich?” Auch Michaela Frye ist nützlich. Die Forschungsgruppenleiterin am Institut für Genetik an der Universität Cambridge lebt seit 15 Jahren im Vereinigten Königreich und war bestürzt über das Ergebnis des Referendums. Obwohl fast drei Viertel der britischen Staatsbürger in Cambridge für den Verbleib in der EU stimmten, spürt auch Frye seitdem eine unterschwellige Ausländerfeindlichkeit. Ihr Sohn besucht eine britische Privatschule an der viele internationale Familien ihre Kinder anmelden. Eltern hätten ihr erzählt, sie seien von Nachbarn gefragt worden, wann es denn nach Hause ginge. Doch wo ist Heimat, wenn man seit 15 Jahren in Grossbritannien lebt. „Ich fühle mich als Europäerin. Meine Arbeit lebt von einem gemeinsamen Europa. Und plötzlich heisst es: Verschwindet!?” Sie fürchtet, dass der Brexit ernsthafte Folgen für ihre Forschung haben könnte. Ihr Labor ist zur Hälfte aus EU-Mitteln finanziert. Wenn diese Quelle versiegte, wäre sie auf die Nationale Forschungsförderung angewiesen, die Schwierigkeiten haben dürfte die EU-Gelder zu ersetzen. Also schaut Frye sich nach Stellen in Deutschland um. Sie ist nicht die einzige. Janz’s Ehemann wurde erst vor kurzem eine Stelle in Berlin angeboten, das Ehepaar überlegt seitdem, ob sie nach Deutschland zurückkehren sollen. Britische Kollegen befürchten, dass der Brexit zu einem Exodus ausländischer Talente führen könnte den wichtige Institutionen nur schwer verkraften würden. „Der Brexit hat uns das Leben nicht leichter gemacht”, sagt Cramer und verweist darauf, dass auch sein Krankenhaus betroffen wäre, wenn die Europäer gingen. “Bis zu 30% des ärztlichen Personals sind keine Briten. Hier arbeiten 89 Nationen. Wir hatten bereits Kündigungen und Bewerber, die abgesagt haben.” „Der Hauptgrund ist die Unsicherheit. Wenn du kommst und deine Familie hierher umpflanzt, dann möchtest du nicht nach zwei Jahren wieder umziehen.” Wie viele andere Deutsche hat Cramer gleich nach dem Referendum eine dauerhafte Aufenthaltsbescheinigung beantragt. Als Vorsichtsmassnahme. Eigentlich brauchen Europäer, die in Grossbritannien leben, diese nicht, doch es wird erwartet, dass die Zahl der Anträge im Zuge der Unsicherheit über den Status der EU-Bürger steigen wird. Unterdessen bewirbt sich eine wachsende Anzahl von Briten mit deutschen Wurzeln um einen deutschen Pass. Die Deutsche Botschaft in London bestätigt, dass sich die Zahl der Anfragen seit dem Referendum deutlich erhöht habe. Dies betreffe unter anderem die Bereiche Pass, Staatsangehörigkeitsrecht und Sozialversicherungsrecht. Abraham, ein britischer Staatsbürger mit deutschem Nachnamen, hat vor einigen Wochen einen deutschen Pass beantragt. Der Doktorand arbeitet auf Zypern, wo er aufgewachsen ist. „Ein deutscher Pass erlaubt mir meine europäische Identität in bürokratischer Hinsicht aufrecht zu halten, denn ich identifiziere mich mit Europa”, sagt er. Gisela Stuart ist überzeugt, dass die britischen Grenzen durchlässig bleiben. „Ich selbst kam vor 40 Jahren hierher, ich wohne in Birmingham, in einer Stadt wo die Kinder der Einwanderer in zweiter und dritter Generation leben. Man kann kaum ein offeneres Land finden.” Ob die 300.000 Deutschen ihr zustimmen, bleibt abzuwarten. • Anna Lehmann ist Redakteurin im Parlamentsbüro der taz.die tageszeitung. Sie arbeitet für einige Wochen beim im Rahmen des George Weidenfeld Stipendiums des Internationalen Journalisten Austauschprogramms.
Premier League: 10 things to look out for this weekend 1) Wenger keen to focus on occasion before Mourinho reunion Arsenal’s first league game of last November (though they had already played in the Champions League) was a 1-1 home draw with Tottenham, and the month also included a defeat at West Brom and a draw at Norwich, and the collection of two of nine possible points. On the first day of November they were joint top, though behind Manchester City on goal difference; at its end they were fourth. Arsenal’s first league game of this November (though they had already played in the Champions League) was a 1-1 home draw with Tottenham, and games against United and Bournemouth await. At the start of the month they were joint top, though behind Manchester City on goal difference. This is all spectacularly uncanny, and not entirely encouraging. Inevitably Arsenal will also be reminded of their poor record against United at all venues (six defeats and one win in 10) and especially at Old Trafford (no victories since September 2006), and of the fact that Arsène Wenger has never managed a team to victory over one led by José Mourinho. In the build-up to this match the Frenchman has spoken to Sky about his rivalry with the United manager. “I was in a press conference today when it was more about the controversy between Mourinho and me. That’s not what football is. People do not enjoy that. People enjoy the quality of the game today,” he said. “It’s not a game of managers, it’s a game of two clubs, two big teams who want to do well. What is important to me is we turn up on the day with a strong performance. We have to make sure we focus on football and not on the rest. It’s a game watched all over the world. The most important is quality – intensity, technical quality, drive – and I personally feel we have to focus on that.” Honourable intentions, though his words also sound very much like a pre-emptive dig at a United coach who he fears will be more concerned with retaining his unbeaten record against Wenger than with encouraging his charges to broaden their technical horizons. SB • Arsenal suffer blow as Héctor Bellerín is ruled out for four weeks • Ecstasy to agony: when Man Utd thumped Arsenal, then blew the title • Manchester United’s debt rises to £338m partly because of Brexit 2) Another entertaining game featuring Liverpool Following their unexpected setback against Hull, Southampton go toe-to-toe with a Liverpool side whose much discussed inability to keep clean sheets (just one in 11 Premier League excursions so far this season) hasn’t precluded them from reaching the top of the table. Apart from a Merseyside derby the week before Christmas, six of their next seven matches are against teams currently no better than tenth in the table, a state of affairs that could help them open a sizeable gap on their title rivals before Manchester City visit Anfield on New Year’s Eve. Securing maximum points from all seven games is a far from unrealistic target and getting the ball rolling against a team jokingly disparaged in some quarters as their own feeder club is likely to be one of the tougher assignments on that run. Jürgen Klopp was extremely generous in his praise for Southampton’s scouting department during his pre-match press conference, while his opposite number Claude Puel used his to point out that his side are third in a table for “chances against opponents” that is also topped by Liverpool. In a season of often dubious match quality, yet another entertaining game featuring Liverpool seems assured. BG • Klopp on Rooney: ‘All the legends drank like devils and smoked like crazy’ • Steven Gerrard holds talks with MK Dons over vacant managerial position • Liverpool fail in bid to avoid playing two matches in under 46 hours 3) Leaky Palace face toughest of tests against free-scoring City Deep into November, Opta has revealed that Crystal Palace’s haul of Premier League points per game this year is 0.73, the lowest return of any team in England’s top four tiers. They entertain Manchester City following a run of four consecutive top-flight defeats that began at the end of the October international break, with Alan Pardew under increasing pressure after a crushing last-minute defeat at the hands of Burnley. Despite describing that reverse as “galling” and insisting his was the better side, he can have few complaints. Having shipped two sloppy goals to gift Burnley a two-goal cushion, Palace pegged them back and looked good for what would have been an extremely hard-won point. Pardew wanted more and his gung-ho side promptly gifted Burnley a late winner on the break after abdicating their defensive responsibilities and throwing far too many men forward in search of the goal that might have secured them all three points. Having failed to keep a clean sheet in 16 Premier League matches, Palace will need to have all their wits about them against a Manchester City side that have averaged more than two goals per game this campaign. Whatever small chance Palace have of arresting their slide down the table this weekend will hinge on focus and obduracy in defence and less impulsiveness in the technical area. BG • Manchester City reach last eight of Women’s Champions League • Premier League must fight the tide of increasingly quiet crowds 4) Spurs could use derby against West Ham to return to form “It is always a big game against Spurs,” said Slaven Bilic this week. “Maybe the biggest derby for West Ham.” For the Hammers, then, this is the biggest derby of the season; for Spurs, it’s the third-biggest they’ll play this month, which started with a 1-1 draw at Arsenal and will conclude with a visit to Chelsea. Mauricio Pochettino’s side are hardly in good form – they have played seven times in all competitions since they last won a match, against Manchester City – but they remain unbeaten in the league; should they avoid defeat here they will have avoided defeat in their first 12 games of a league season for the first time since the double-winning year of 1960-61. West Ham meanwhile have lost five of their last six away games, but are buoyed by the return to fitness of Diafra Sakho, who has made only nine league appearances – plus 26 minutes in the FA Cup – since last November and none at all this season but is finally ready to return from a back injury. SB • Toby Alderweireld not ready for Tottenham return – Mauricio Pochettino • Mauricio Pochettino surprised by Arsène Wenger criticism of Danny Rose 5) Williams faces Swansea with no room for sentiment The visit of second-bottom Swansea has come at a particularly auspicious time for Everton. They have lost three, drawn two and won one of their last six games, and were thrashed by Chelsea in their last, casting an ashen pallor upon a team that had started the season with a ruddy glow of good health. Still, they have the division’s third-best home record, for now at least: this game is also a precursor to a particularly testy run of fixtures at Goodison Park: between Saturday and mid-January they are due to host Manchester United, Arsenal, Liverpool, Southampton and Manchester City, in that order. In the circumstances it would seem imperative that Everton get a positive result from this game, but so long as they can cast this pressure from their minds they should probably do so. Inevitably much attention will be focused on Ashley Williams, who plays Swansea for the first time since ending his eight-year association with the club in the summer. “Ash was a very important player for us and is a good friend of mine,” said Neil Taylor this week. “We were sad to see him go in the summer, but he moved on to a new project in his career. We spoke about it on international duty and we said it was going to be very weird.” SB • Ronald Koeman states desire to see Romelu Lukaku stay at Everton • Koeman pokes hornets’ nest with uncomfortable truths | Andy Hunter 6) More ruthlessness in front of goal required from Bournemouth? Stoke City go into this unbeaten in six matches on 13 points, the same number they had accumulated at the same point last season. That campaign began with a six-match winless run that ended with victory over Bournemouth and Stoke are firm favourites to win this one too, despite several injury concerns. Eddie Howe’s side are far from being a poor one but have failed to achieve any kind of consistency this season. In little over a month they smashed six past Hull in between creditable draws with Watford and Tottenham but have since lost consecutive matches against Middlesbrough and 10-man Sunderland. Howe criticised his team’s lack of “killer instinct” following their somewhat unlucky defeat at the hands of the Premier League’s worst team. It seems to be an ongoing problem: despite their six goals against Hull, Bournemouth have scored just seven times in their other 10 games. Callum Wilson, who is being assessed ahead of this game by Bournemouth’s medical team, said recently that his responsibility as a centre-forward goes well beyond scoring goals, but should the striker step up this season’s rate of just under one every three games, his manager is unlikely to complain. BG 7) A rare glimpse of the lesser-spotted Berahino? West Brom entertain Burnley on Monday night in a match where Saido Berahino could make his first appearance for the Baggies since their defeat at the hands of Bournemouth over two months ago. The striker failed to feature in any of West Brom’s past four match-day squads after being deemed too overweight and unfit to earn even a place among the substitutes. Having been called into the England set-up by Roy Hodgson in 2014, the wayward striker spent the recent international break shedding excess blubber at a French fat camp and has been posting pictures of himself looking chiselled, lean and fit on social media. It will be left to Tony Pulis to decide if the player is mentally tuned in, with Berahino having become better known for his bad attitude than the goalscoring feats that first catapulted him into the public consciousness. Still only 23, the striker’s status has been transformed from that of 20-goal a season man to borderline cautionary tale in less than two years and it is clear his manager feels he is being badly advised by malign forces outside the Hawthorns. “There’s lots of good people who have spoken to him, the most important thing is Saido unravels who has given him good advice and bad advice,” said Pulis. “That’s something that over the years I’ve been here, he’s got a little confused about.” BG • Mascots, mayhem and wigs – a glimpse into world of football anecdotes 8) Leicester seek to find form on the road When Leicester won at Sunderland in April it was a third successive away victory, a run that had started at Vicarage Road the previous month. While they were the best team in the division last season both at home (where they won 42 points, one more than Manchester United in second and two more than third-place Arsenal) and away, their superiority on their travels was considerably more emphatic (they won 39 points, five more than Tottenham in second and eight more than third-place Arsenal). This season they have the division’s seventh-best home record, but with one draw from five games giving them an average return of 0.2 points per outing, the very worst away. It should be pointed out that four of those games came against Liverpool, Chelsea, Tottenham and Manchester United (and that no other side has already travelled to four of the current top six) but they also contrived to lose 2-1 at Hull. The return of Sebastian Prödl should help Watford recover some defensive solidity after a shambolic performance at Liverpool in their last game, but their frailty from crosses this season – they have conceded eight headers, the most in the Premier League – and the absence through suspension of their first-choice left wing-back, José Holebas, should give the champions hope that once again they could start an impressive run of away results in Hertfordshire. SB 9) Karanka happy to play Scrooge as Boro aim to extend run In an interview this week, Aitor Karanka, who joined the club precisely three years ago last Sunday, was asked to pick out his worst moment at Middlesbrough. His mind immediately went back to a moment in 2014 when his players asked if they could stay in London after a league game against Millwall to do a bit of Christmas shopping. “We’ve won one game in four and you are talking about Christmas shopping?” he apparently responded. “I am sorry. You are going to spend money you earn from Middlesbrough Football Club? I think you need to win some games!” From this we learn two things: firstly, nothing genuinely bad has happened to Karanka on Teesside, and secondly, this man is the very embodiment of the Grinch, Dr Seuss’s Christmas-stealing grump. After all, while it is true to say that when he was asked to green-light the shopping spree the side had indeed won one game in four, they had won the one before that as well, had only lost once in 15 matches and were two points off the top of the table, and then they capped that by putting five past the Lions. Still their coach wasn’t happy. This is a man who has adapted to England’s yuletide feast of football with the unabashed relish of someone who doesn’t much like presents, tinsel and goodwill to all men much anyway. “The players will be training on Christmas Day,” he said in 2014. “My decision is clear. It is important to be here and prepare. We don’t have a lot of time to be with our families, but we are professional and we have to train.” In 2015 he added: “We know it’s an important day for everybody but we have chosen our style of life.” If that was how Karanka reacted to a run of one defeat in 15, Boro’s players – having lost four of their last eight – can look forward to a particularly frosty winter this year, at least unless there’s a very significant upturn over the next few weeks. So if they add to the commendable points they have recently earned against Arsenal and Manchester City, they should refrain from asking their manager if he’d like to celebrate with a nice mince pie and a festive movie. It’s a Wonderful Life? Don’t get him started. SB • Karanka lightening up and ever happier to be at Middlesbrough • Frank Lampard to be offered Chelsea post if he retires from playing 10) Moyes and Phelan in last chance saloon – already? Rock bottom host third from bottom in a six-pointer between two teams many observers believe are not good enough to stay in the Premier League whatever the outcome. Despite largely dreadful results this season, both David Moyes and Mike Phelan are seeking unlikely consecutive victories after signing off for the international break with wins over benevolent opposition from the south coast. Hull haven’t won two on the spin since August, while no team managed by Moyes has embarked on anything longer than a one-match winning streak since April 2014. Of course he has not been in gainful employment for all of that time and another spell out of work seems imminent if Sunderland lose this match and remain anchored to the bottom of the table. Speculation had linked him with the Scotland job currently held by Gordon Strachan, who has been given the unanimous backing of the Scottish Football Association despite a bad run of results. He would not be missed on Wearside, while his opposite number at Hull City, another club plagued by boardroom incompetence, also has about him the air of a dead man who will be walking sooner rather than later. BG • Lynden Gooch: ‘People talk badly about the north-east but I don’t know why’
Delete fast: when celebrities get it wrong on social media The life of a celebrity is never easy, loaded as it is with relentlessly difficult decisions, such as how to find the optimum camera angle for a selfie. Imagine then, how much harder our celebrities’ lives become when a global tragedy occurs, and they have to decide not only on the camera angle, but whether they should be doing a sadface selfie, in keeping with the public mood, or a sexy smiling one to cheer everybody up. All right I’m joking – but only just, because Hollywood actor Mischa Barton recently had to delete an Instagram post for exactly that reason. It’s a tricky one, because what she wrote was an impassioned and political rant about the death of yet another black man, Alton Sterling, at the hands of US police, and the need for gun control and race awareness in her country. Yet what she wrote was beside a photograph of herself speeding along on the back of a luxury yacht. In a bikini. With her eyes closed, looking humbled by her own thoughtfulness. One fan commented, rather politely really, that while they agreed with “the sentiment” it was “hard to take you seriously while you post a picture of you sipping alcohol on a yacht”. A few years ago this was all so much easier. Enormous world events such as 9/11 could happen, and we barely heard a peep out of any celebs, because they didn’t have social media. Well apart from Lee Ryan from Blue, who did manage to broadcast his interesting view that nobody should give “a f**k about New York, when elephants are being killed”. Many have learned from his mistake, and learned to keep quiet about their zoological/human preference. But there are still so many other faux pas that a poor celebrity can make. Mischa Barton on a police killing Shivering in her white shirt, Mischa Barton shows that the killing, just like her white privilege, leaves her chilled. Zoom into the glass in her hand and you see the clear liquid it contains is actually a vale of tears, captured as they fall from her eyes. Or it could be a slimline vodka tonic. Hard to be sure. Jennifer Lopez on black lives matter Trying to show her understanding of the Black Lives Matter campaign, J Lo wrote something on Twitter saying that All Lives Matter, too. Which, of course, they do, but not all lives are getting shot at just now, so it’s hardly a mark of solidarity to take away from the black movement that’s trying to be heard. J-Lo, it’s not about you this time. She later deleted it. Madonna on the Orlando massacre After the Orlando massacre in a nightclub, Madonna reached out to show that her heart was deeply entrenched in gay culture – by uploading a photo of her snogging Britney Spears on stage to cash in on a bit of pretend lesbo attention, while they both had boyfriends at home. A heartfelt commenter wrote: “OK, it’s time to lay off the memes, sis.” Bianca Jagger on the Iraq War The internet is a risky place, where you can retweet something you haven’t actually read, at 4am. Bianca Jagger tweeted a list of Labour MPs who voted in the Iraq War so we could all shout at them, not stopping to notice that this curious list also denoted them as “Negro”, “Infamous homosexual”, or “Judeo-negress hybrid”. Oops.
MPs call for Financial Conduct Authority to lose enforcement powers The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) should be stripped of its powers to fine and ban individuals for wrongdoing, according to a report by MPs that calls on new chancellor Philip Hammond to commission an independent review into whether an alternative investigatory body should be set up. The Treasury select committee said a new enforcement function should be set up outside the FCA and the Bank of England. Such a move would address the issues raised by the report into the collapse of HBOS, which was published in November 2015. That report laid the blame for HBOS’s collapse on its former bosses but also questioned why only one former executive faced sanctions. The select committee’s report said: “The current system, whereby the same organisation both supervises, applies and prosecutes the law is outdated and can be construed as unfair. By moving enforcement away from supervision, it can focus independently on undertaking its key functions: interrogating evidence and assessing whether a regulatory breach has been committed”. In calling for a separate enforcement body to be set up, the Treasury select committee is repeating a suggestion in 2013 by the parliamentary commission on banking standards that was rejected by the then chancellor, George Osborne. Andrew Tyrie, chair of the Treasury select committee, said: “A separate body would bolster the perception of the enforcement function’s independence, and provide the regulators with greater clarity over their objectives. The case for separation merits serious re-examination. The Treasury should appoint an independent person to undertake a review”. The regulator at the time of the HBOS collapse was the Financial Services Authority – now split between the FCA and the Bank under changes brought in by the 2010 coalition government. The Treasury select committee said the ultimate responsibility for the “omission and failures” that led to an investigation into one former HBOS executive lay with the then FSA chief executive, Sir Hector Sants. Sants, it had emerged at the time of the November 2015 report, had wanted to pursue enforcement action and had not been told there were grounds to investigate executives other than Peter Cummings. Sants declined to comment. Tyrie said the new regulators were an opportunity to “exhibit greater vigilance and energy if they are to win public confidence, which has on occasion been lacking”. He added that the FCA was still “work in progress”. The Treasury said it would respond formally at a later date. “The shortcomings that led to the failure of HBOS in 2008 prove that the government was absolutely right to overhaul our system of financial regulation,” a Treasury spokesperson said. “Our reforms directly address the regulatory failings identified in this report,” the Treasury spokesperson said. The FCA said separating its enforcement division would “potentially lessen our ability to be an effective regulator and impact our ability to protect consumers and ensure the integrity of the UK financial system”. The Treasury committee said that in the event of another bank failure, the public should not have to wait so long – seven years – for a report into what went wrong. It also criticised the accounting body, the Financial Reporting Council, for “a lack of curiosity” in not investigating the auditing of HBOS sooner. The FRC announced an investigation last month.
Donald Trump: EU was formed 'to beat the US at making money' Donald Trump has claimed that the European Union was created to “beat the United States when it comes to making money” in an interview with NBC News. Speaking to Chuck Todd, whom the Republican nominee has repeatedly berated as “sleepy-eyed”, Trump also said of the EU “the reason that it got together was like a consortium so that it could compete with the United States”. The European Union was founded as the European Coal and Steel Community in 1952 in an effort to promote strong cross-border ties in Europe and avoid future wars. It has since evolved to a customs union and eventually to the transnational entity devoted to removing internal trade barriers, building a common market and a fiscal union. Its development and growth has been repeatedly supported by the United States under presidents of both parties. Trump’s anti-European statements come after the Republican nominee repeatedly praised Brexit, the vote by the United Kingdom to leave the European Union, including in a press conference in the day after the referendum held at a Trump golf course in Scotland. In the interview, Trump defended his recent attacks on Nato, saying that countries in the organization needed to pay more to the United States in order for Washington to meet its treaty obligations of mutual defense. In doing so, Trump called Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell “100% wrong” for rebutting his comments earlier this week. The Kentucky senator told Politico: “Nato is the most important military alliance in world history. I want to reassure our Nato allies that if any of them get attacked, we’ll be there to defend them.” Trump also called both the World Trade Organization and Nafta “disasters”. The Republican nominee also said that his call to ban people from the United States from “any nation that has been compromised by terrorism” was an expansion on his infamous Muslim ban of December, 2015. “I actually don’t think it’s a rollback. In fact, you could say it’s an expansion,” said Trump. He added: “I’m looking now at territory. People were so upset when I used the word Muslim. Oh, you can’t use the word Muslim. Remember this. And I’m okay with that, because I’m talking territory instead of Muslim.” Trump also stood by longtime friend Roger Ailes, who left Fox News this week after being accused of sexual harassment by a number of former and current employees. “He’s been a friend of mine for a long time,” said Trump. The Republican nominee went on to describe the situation as “very sad. Because he’s a very good person. I’ve always found him to be just a very, very good person”. Trump added: “I feel very badly. But a lot of people are thinking he’s going to run my campaign.” He also confirmed reports that he would seek revenge against former presidential nominee rivals John Kasich and Ted Cruz by funding a super PAC in the 2018 cycle to help defeat their respective attempts to win the gubernatorial election in Ohio and US Senate election in Texas. “I’ll probably do a super PAC, you know, when they run against Kasich, for $10m to $20m, against Ted Cruz,” said Trump. “And maybe one other person that I’m thinking about.” Trump also initially hedged on whether he’d support the Senate candidacy of former Ku Klux Klan candidate David Duke, who announced Friday that he would mount a bid as a Republican in his home state of Louisiana. When asked: “Would you support a Democrat over David Duke,” Trump responded: “I guess, depending on who the Democrat was, but the answer would be yes.” Duke has cited Trump as an inspiration for his candidacy and is a long-time endorser. The Republican nominee has faced controversy during his campaign for his unwillingness to condemn Duke at times.
David Gilmour review – Pompeii rocks again It has been some while since the amphitheatre at Pompeii hosted any kind of audience – AD79, in fact, when Mount Vesuvius erupted and buried the ancient city five metres deep in tephra, only to lie undisturbed until the 18th century. But on Thursday evening, as the grass stood yellowing in the heavy July heat, it prepared to receive the crowds once more; not this time for some gladiatorial combat, execution or venatio, but for a concert by the English rock musician David Gilmour. Notably, it was also a return for Gilmour himself, who last played this venue (if one can call such majestic surroundings a venue) in 1971, during his days with Pink Floyd. No audience was permitted then, and instead the show was filmed and released as a documentary, Pink Floyd: Live at Pompeii, the following year. And so, long before it begins, tonight’s concert has the ring of something momentous – for the place, and the player, of course, as well as those who will be here to witness it, flying from all over the world to mill outside the gates and wait all the long afternoon. For this run of shows, part of the Rattle That Lock world tour, Gilmour has largely spurned the vast arenas of the modern rock tour and opted instead for a run of heritage sites – Circus Maximus in Rome, a chateau in Chantilly, amphitheatres in Verona and Nîmes and five nights at the Royal Albert Hall in London this September. His reasoning is that he is less interested in the size of a performance than the desire for audiences to leave the show with a sense of unforgettable occasion. Of these venues, Pompeii is the smallest – a mere 3,000 capacity compared with 17,000 in Rome. Hosting a modern rock concert at a Unesco world heritage site and the oldest surviving Roman amphitheatre in the world is, it transpires, something of a logistical operation. For starters, the terrain is precarious – by Wednesday evening a member of the lighting crew had already broken his arm falling down a hole. Then there is the issue of toilets – tonight there are but 22 portable loos, fermenting gently in the warm air. And there is the matter of the pyrotechnics – with hours to go before the show, permission for fireworks still eludes the organiser. Once permission is finally, cautiously, granted, a group of red-suited firemen gather on the summa cavea (the higher tiers), wearily unravelling a hose. Mount Vesuvius looks on in the distance, as if she might just join in for the hell of it. For all the air of history tonight, there is a sense of modernity too: largely in Gilmour’s recent recasting of his band. Though Guy Pratt remains on bass and Steve DiStanislao on drums, they are joined by Chuck Leavell (the Rolling Stones’ keyboard player since 1981), and Michael Jackson’s musical director, Greg Phillinganes, on keys; Chester Kamen on guitar and João Mello on saxophone; and Bryan Chambers, Louise Clare Marshall and Lucita Jules on backing vocals. At nine o’clock, the sky a soft peach, the amphitheatre filled with the billow of smoke machines and the warm burr of chatter from the audience, lights suddenly splay out across the cavea and the opening notes of 5am fill the air. Much of the opening set, which runs for a little over an hour, strikes a quietly momentous tone. At times, there is something spectral about it; the audience standing more in reverence than roaring fury until the unexpected performance of Pink Floyd’s Great Gig in the Sky – a song Gilmour has never played solo – causes an emotional surge to ripple across the crowd and carry on through Wish You Were Here, Money and on to the first section’s culminating track, High Hopes. A brief interlude follows before the band returns for the second set, opening with One of These Days – the only song tonight to have been played at Pink Floyd’s 1971 performance. Despite Gilmour’s decision not to echo the original Pompeii show, there is still a sense of return and completion, of something coming full circle, there in the giant round screen, and the curve of the building, the sharp crescent of a moon above. And though he does not play bare-chested this time, Gilmour himself seems quite unchanged – his voice, still that beautiful, gravelled thing, his guitar still holding its bluesy depth and sharp wistfulness. It is hard to stand in this amphitheatre and not to feel that somewhere old ghosts are stirring. Gilmour himself makes mention of them as he plays A Boat Lies Waiting, his 2015 tribute to Rick Wright, and, though it goes unmentioned, Shine on You Crazy Diamond seems to carry more weight tonight – 10 years to the day since Syd Barrett passed away. It is impossible not to notice the keen emotion across the crowd’s faces, and yet there is a pervading air of politeness – the audience, one senses, somewhat overawed by the locale, and Gilmour offering a charming and quintessential Englishness: “Thank you very much indeed,” he tells the crowd, shortly after Run Like Hell and a burst of golden fireworks shooting into the night. “Thank you. We’ve had a lovely evening.” Still, this does not dilute the passionate intensity of the occasion – much of which should be attributed to the lighting designer Marc Brickman, who in the course of the most remarkable light show unleashes lasers so bright the band are forced to wear shades, beams of turquoise and green and red that go macrame-ing across the sky during the grand finale of Comfortably Numb. As the lights die and the night rises once more, it is pleasing to recall that in its day this space was known as a spectacula. In tonight’s extravaganza, in all its beauty and bedazzlement, it appears to have earned that name once more.
British Olympic chiefs criticised for Strongbow sponsorship of Team GB British Olympic chiefs have been accused of encouraging underage drinking following their decision to allow the cider brand Strongbow to sponsor Team GB at the Rio Games. Doctors, public health experts and alcohol groups are warning that Strongbow’s high-profile association with the exploits of British athletes in Brazil could lead to teenagers starting to drink and increase the amount of alcohol-related harm. In a letter to the , members of the Alcohol Health Alliance (AHA)say that the sponsorship of Team GB by a cider brand will “promote the idea of drinking to our young people”. The signatories include Dr Clifford Mann, the president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, which represents A&E doctors, Sarah Toule of the World Cancer Research Fund and experts in liver health. They say: “We are concerned that children will be encouraged to drink as a result. There is strong evidence that exposure to alcohol marketing leads young people to drink at an earlier age. “We know from the research that exposure to alcohol messages increases the likelihood that non-drinking young people will start to drink, and increases the likelihood that existing young drinkers will drink more alcohol, and in a more risky fashion. This exposure also leads to more positive beliefs among young people about alcohol.” Under the deal, Strongbow is featuring official Team GB branding on its products and spending several million pounds promoting its “supporting the supporters” campaign aimed at sports fans in Britain. Heineken, the drinks multinational which makes Strongbow, has not disclosed how much it is paying the British Olympic Association (BOA), which did not have an alcohol sponsor when the Games was held in London four years ago. But Strongbow rejected the AHA’s concerns and said its tie-up with Team GB and promotional campaign was aimed entirely at adults and would not involve any individual British competitor endorsing the drink. “Our partnership is exclusively focussed on the adult fans who will be cheering on Team GB over the next two weeks. Strongbow will not be sold or promoted at Games venues, feature in TV coverage, or be linked to any individual member of Team GB,” said a spokesman. The AHA letter adds: “A study of school children aged 13-14 from four EU countries found exposure to alcohol sports sponsorship through viewing a major football tournament was linked to a 70% increased chance of underage drinking. “The later we can delay the uptake of drinking among young people, the better. We know that the younger people start to drink, the more chance there is that they will become dependent drinkers, with all the harm that causes to individuals, their families and society.” When the sponsorship deal was agreed in April, Bill Sweeney, the BOA’s chief executive, said:“The fans made the difference in 2012 and with the team competing some 6,000 miles away in Rio we want to make sure they know they have the whole nation behind them all over again. Strongbow’s commitment to supporting the supporters and celebrating success is a great way of embracing that passion for our Olympians.” The Portman Group, the alcohol industry trade body, defended the deal. “Alcohol sponsorship makes a significant contribution to the economy, supports major sporting events and provides essential investment for grassroots programmes. In the UK marketing alcohol to children is prohibited and alcohol sponsorship is strictly controlled. The strict rules are supported by all major sports organisations, alcohol producers and have been welcomed by the UK governments,” said a spokesman.
Tory men dominate EU referendum coverage, study finds The media’s coverage of the European Union referendum debate has been a largely male, Conservative affair in which the new era of multi-party politics has been ignored in favour of the rivalry between David Cameron and Boris Johnson, new research has claimed. A study of print and broadcast coverage found that only one in 10 contributors to the debate in the national press were women, with Johnson, Cameron and George Osborne the top three most frequently featured across both media. On television, fewer than one in six people on screen were women. The Loughborough University report, published on Monday, found that Tory party sources dominated press and TV reporting, with Labour voices sidelined and the Lib Dems and Scottish National party “virtually invisible”. Dominic Wring, professor of political communication at Loughborough University and one of the five authors of the report, said: “Conservative politicians and internal party rivalries have dominated the referendum campaign. “Longstanding in-out campaigners such as Nigel Farage and Alan Johnson have been comparatively marginalised. Unlike Cameron and his putative successors, Jeremy Corbyn’s profile has been similarly modest. “But these male politicians have at least received some attention whereas women representatives have been seldom seen, heard or reported in this stage of the campaign.” He added: “Nicola Sturgeon’s absence from the news reporting considered here is quite striking [and] reflects the marginalisation by the media of the constitutional implications of a vote for Brexit.” The report looked at 10 days of reporting (weekdays only) between 6 May and 18 May. It analysed the main evening bulletins on BBC1, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5, and a 30-minute evening slot on Sky News, as well as a representative sample of pages from all the national daily newspapers. The report said TV news was more favourable to the in campaign than the national press, but said it was too early to say whether either side was “definitively winning the media war”. It went on to highlight the narrowness of the media’s coverage ahead of the vote on 23 June, which it said focused on the conduct of the campaign and personal rivalries at the heart of the government. “The new era of multi-party politics in the UK is not reflected in referendum coverage. Labour voices have been sidelined and the Lib Dems, SNP and other parties are virtually invisible,” it said. The report said coverage of issues to do with business, trade and the economy featured twice as much as immigration and border controls, which it suggested was good news for the remain campaign because immigration was a key issue for potential leave supporters. Other issues related to the vote such as environment, travel, social rights and constitutional issues “barely registered”.
Edward Snowdomes and edible internet cookies: welcome to Yami-ichi The internet is not what it used to be, cries the chorus. Once a playground of geeks and innovators, it is now ruled by the corporate giants, Facebook, Google and Apple. But those nostalgic for its heyday are gathering at Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall this weekend for the first UK Internet Yami-ichi. Translated as “black market’ in Japanese, the Yami-ichi has a simple aim: bringing internet culture offline. Think Edward Snowden snow-globes, spambot love letters (in envelopes not emails), and chocolate chip browser cookies you can actually eat. Founded in Tokyo in 2012, the Yami-ichi has since set up shop in Berlin, New York and Amsterdam but this is London’s first chance to “browse IRL”. Looking for a new artwork for your living room? Give the Tate shop a miss and head instead to Yinan Song’s booth, which is selling prints of images taken from people using public Wifi. Song will obscure images for privacy purposes and sell them for between £1 and £3 a pop. Alternatively, you can get your digital fortune told by London artist Libby Heaney, who offers personalised Tarot readings based on age, gender and relationship status,read out in the form of pre-programmed phrases from the likes of Match.com. “Internet companies already hold so much data about us, they can essentially predict our future,” says Heaney. Japanese artist Kensuke Sembo, who founded the Internet Yami-ichi, agrees. “Once upon a time, the internet was supposed to be a place for liberty, now there are privacy issues, flame wars and social media stress. We thought we should turn off, log out and drop in on the real world to enjoy our internet liberties.” At another booth, Nye Thompson is mining Backdoored, an archive of unsecured webcam images that end up in public search engines. “Many are from private domestic spaces and the people who live there have no idea they are broadcasting their lives to the world,” said Thompson, who is selling postcards, stickers and underpants of the images for £10. Most of the 20 stall-holders are applying a comical touch to the internet’s darker issues, says Nimrod Vardi, curator of the London event. “Their projects give a new way to look and understand digital “objects”. It is important to remain experimental; that’s what the Yami-Ichi is all about.” Other pieces up for grabs includes “glitch embroidery” by Japanese fashion designer Nukeme, who hacks digital patterns on sewing machines to make custom hoodies. Erik Zepka has made a series of T-shirts that incorporate Twitter and Apple-inspired logos into his own pseudo-corporate brand. Meanwhile sound artist Tadeo Sendon is selling Browsing Noise, a book of field recordings from his travels around the internet. It ties into the Yami-ichi’s main premise: to create a space to show experimental works that, while digitally influenced, don’t necessarily fit online. “The idea for the Yami-Ichi began when my own iPhone app was rejected by Apple because it was too simple,” said Sembo, who began to wonder how he might sidestep digital marketplaces like the App Store. “We thought that not only data, but also internet-inspired ideas, can be exchanged in real space.” Just like any market, there will be haggling. But it’s meant to go beyond bargains. “I hope people leave with an insight of new forms of art, new worlds to explore, commercial and non-commercial,” says Vardi. “London needs more of those.”
Half Way review – dispatch from the frontline of the homelessness purgatory In a crushingly personal dispatch from a family pushed off the edge of London’s housing boom, Daisy-May Hudson hits record on her camcorder as she, her mother Beverly and 13-year-old sister Bronte are evicted from their Epping home and forced into the purgatory of the hostels system. The younger sibling, afraid to stay there alone at night, dubs the pebbledashed lodging they are allocated “Hansel and Gretel’s thing in the woods”. They face an all-too-familiar austerity-Britain obstacle course: freefalling living standards, bureaucratic vindictiveness and stonewalling – plus paying a pretty penny (£500 a week) for the privilege. What’s less obvious, and brought home especially well by Hudson’s insider perspective, is the undermining effect on mental health of this loss of control. In one curious sequence, a strained Beverly accuses Bronte of picking arguments; Bronte flatly denies ever opening her mouth. Even if Hudson could step out of the eye of this emotional storm, a more objective overview of the reasons for their treatment and the housing crisis overall might not even be possible, judging by the council’s refusal to let her shoot on their premises. But the film wasn’t made to do that, so much as “take back power” in a depersonalising situation. Strangely, it’s the most trite images amid Hudson’s generally alert shot selection – water spiralling down plugholes, heart-shaped decorations offsetting tatty institutional wallpaper – that seem most poignant in their inadequacy. Hudson’s chronicle in support of her mother has a desperate, defiant quality, too: I, Beverly Hudson.
‘We are the 48%’: tens of thousands march in London for Europe The hollow, bitter wit of the banners and placards was a fair indication of who took to the streets of London, in their tens of thousands, on the March for Europe on Saturday, hastily scrambled on Facebook. “And if this isn’t big enough,” said Jonathan Shakhovskoy, who is with a marketing firm in the music industry, “we’ll do it again next week, and the week after. Normalise the mood, make it less ugly.” “Un-Fuck My Future”, “No Brex Please, We’re British”, they read. Pictures of Whitney Houston with “I Will Always Love EU”, “Europe Innit” and “I wanna be deep inside EU”. “All EU Need Is Love”, “Fromage not Farage”, “Eton Mess” and, more seriously, “Science Needs EU”. “Hell no, we won’t go!” they shouted, rounding Piccadilly Circus. At the end of the march, in Parliament Square, protesters listened to speakers including Bob Geldof and Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker as well as politicians such as the Labour MP David Lammy, and Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron. Geldof urged Remain campaigners to take to the streets, speak to their neighbours and work to stop the UK’s exit from the EU. “Let’s get real,” he said. “Going online and tweeting your indignation is only venting into the ether. It achieves nothing. Come out. Take action among your friends, work colleagues and in your neighbourhoods. We need to individually organise ourselves. Organise those around us and do everything possible within our individual power to stop this country being totally destroyed.” . Cocker, in a recorded a video message for the rally, held up a world map saying: “You cannot deny geography. The UK is in Europe.” The co-organiser Mark Thomas said the march was to address the “anger, frustration and need to do something”. “We would accept the result of the referendum if it was fought on a level playing field. But it was full of misinformation and people need to do something with their frustration.” No one was fooling themselves that these were the penitent huddled masses from Ebbw Vale or Sunderland come to beg after all for EU funding; this was a vocal segment of the 48% for whom departure from the EU is a disgrace, a catastrophe or both. “I’m here because I feel totally disenfranchised, hoodwinked and browbeaten into this political, financial and social suicide,” said Mark Riminton, a business consultant from Sussex, “and the only thing I can think of to do is go on a march.” Lark Tester, an optometrist, had come from Cardiff – and drawn a heart and written “Peace, Love, EUnity” on the back of a pizza box to make her placard. “Even if we achieve nothing,” she said, “we will have shown our neighbours in Europe that we are not all for Brexit, and we love you.” But her mother-in-law, Tas Earl, insisted: “There is a point to this. We need to stress that it is not possible for them to go ahead with article 50 with just under half the country totally opposed to what they are doing.” David Lang, a manager with a precision engineering company in Birmingham, said he was one of the few people at his firm to vote Remain, “even though departure from the EU could bankrupt us in two years – almost all our exports are to Europe. It’s madness.” Joanna Chapman-Andrews from Winchester made the point that “it’s a good thing in some ways. It’s brought a whole lot of issues into the open that weren’t there and needed confronting. It’ll shake things down.” “It’s the mother of all shakedowns,” said her daughter Anna, who lives on a houseboat at Kew and had brought Joanna’s granddaughter Sadie in a pushchair for her first demo. There was a strong hint of one of the many upcoming chapters in this unsteady narrative: a brain-drain from Britain, and the shedding of British passports. Alex Good, an architect, had convened his friends in a coffee shop on Curzon Street before the march, and joked that it was his leaving party before moving to France. “I’m here, but to be honest I think the march will achieve very little. I campaigned for Remain, and it was clear to me that Britain has a lot to do before it really deserves to be a member of the EU.” His friend Jonathan has an Irish passport, and is about to set in motion securing the same for his three children, “so they don’t get stuck here”. The writer and historian Stella Tillyard was marching, but also carefully planning her next move: residency in Italy, to which she is entitled for family reasons. Stationery retailer Julian Watson, up from Bristol, explained that his father-in-law was Dutch, and that he and his wife plan to “be living in Holland, if this happens, with Dutch citizenship”. Liz Mackie and her boyfriend Leo Dawson – both in their 20s – planned to move to Athens within six months, said Leo. “The vote showed that deep racism is not something that happens to other people, locked away,” said Liz. “It’s everywhere – ultimately this vote was about race, and fuck ’em, I’m out.” In some ways, those who watched the march pass were as interesting to observe as the demonstrators. From the open top of a tour bus, a man jeered and booed, thumbs down. But chambermaids ran to the windows of bedrooms they were cleaning at the Ritz to cheer, applaud and wave. Fiona Edwards from Brighton held her child’s hand in one of hers and in the other a placard reading: “A future of hope can’t be built on hatred and bullying.” “We’re here because we are the 48%,” she said. Exactly, not the 51.9%. This article was amended on Sunday 3 July. The comedian Mark Thomas did not organise the march for Europe, as originally stated. The march co-organiser quoted in this article is a different Mark Thomas.
The 100 best nonfiction books: No 14 – Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom by Nik Cohn (1969) Pop, the cultural revolution of the late 20th century, has touched art, poetry, fiction, and everything musical, with its hot white wand. In the beginning, in the 1960s, pop was sex and drugs and rock’n’roll: a way of life. A lot of young journalists covered it, but very few transcended the genre to create a narrative that would outlive the generation that hoped it would die before it got old. Awopbop…, however, a luminously clear, aerial survey of an extraordinary phenomenon, set the gold standard that others would follow. Nik Cohn’s dispatch from the frontline of rock is about to turn 50 (its author is now in his 70s) and is still as evergreen and wild eyed as it was when it burst on to the scene, with a snarl and a stamping foot, in 1969. Since then, many Scandinavian forests have been laid waste to describe the pop revolution, with names such as Greil Marcus, Philip Norman and Jon Savage jostling for attention at the front of a crowded field, but Nik Cohn was the first. No one had taken the subject quite as seriously as he did. There was nothing before him and there has been nothing quite as raw or as memorable since. Different, yes; sweeter, for sure; more searching, possibly; but never as fearless, flashy or straight-out thrilling. Written in a white heat, like some of the best journalism, Awopbop… supplied the last word. Here, in 250 pages, was a new form: rock criticism. This was a new kind of critical discourse, the strange fruit of a personal and passionate love affair, smoking with teenage intensity. “From the first blast of Tutti Frutti,” writes Cohn, “rock’n’roll had possessed me, body and soul.” From 1956 to 1968, the year Cohn signed off, he covered the “first mad rush” of a phenomenon that would eventually morph into disco, heavy metal, grunge, glam, techno, punk and many bizarre sub-genres. At first, Cohn wrote as a freelance, prowling the streets of Soho, and later for the uber-cool Queen magazine. Eventually, he got a job “pontificating on yoof” for the . The celebrated record producer (and manager of the Who) Kit Lambert recalls Cohn showing up “about 1963” as a “thin young man – he looked about 14 – wearing carefully dirtied-down sneakers”. Cohn’s approach was perfectly in tune with his subject. He writes: “Rock in the late 60s was still a spontaneous combustion. Nobody bothered with long-term strategies; hanging on once the thrill was gone was unthinkable. If anyone had told me then that the Stones or the Who would still be treading the boards in 30-plus years, I’d have thought they were out of their minds.” Cohn, the son of the historian Norman Cohn, author of a cult classic, The Pursuit of the Millennium, had grown up in Ireland, but escaped to London by 1963, “the year the Beatles broke through, and the climate seemed to change by the day”. The metropolitan feeding frenzy he became part of was not confined to rock’n’roll. He writes that “newspaper editors, book publishers, fashion mags and film financiers were all caught up in the same fever. Almost overnight, being a teen degenerate was the hottest ticket around.” By the time he was 22, these heady days were done. “Even as I was pigging out on the moment,” Cohn recalls, “rock and pop were already changing. The world I knew and savoured was basically an outlaw trade, peopled with adventurers, snake-oil salesmen, inspired lunatics. But their time was almost over. The scene was becoming more industrial. Accountants and corporate fat cats were fast driving out the wild men.” Before long, rock had become “just another branch of commerce, no more or less exotic than autos or detergents”. Cohn’s account of this “mad rush” is at once an elegy, a retrospective and a lingering goodbye. In 1968, he took a publisher’s advance and holed up in Connemara for seven weeks to write the first draft of what would become a kind of farewell to arms. “My purpose was simple,” he said later, “to catch the feel, the pulse of rock, as I had lived through it… I simply wrote off the top of my head, whatever and however the spirit moved me. Accuracy didn’t seem of prime importance. What I was after was guts, and flash, and energy, and speed. Those were the things I’d treasured in the rock I’d loved.” Awopbop… was the result: subjective, unruly and unintentionally definitive. Questions about good and/or bad were afterthoughts and accidental. Cohn was riffing off memories and impressions. “Did Dion’s Ruby Baby have any aesthetic value?” he asks. “Who cared ? What it had was dirty magic – the slurred, sex-drunk vocal, those shambolic handclaps, the whole glorious unmade bed.” From Bill Haley to Jimi Hendrix, Cohn runs the gamut of rock’n’roll, with chapters on Elvis Presley, the twist, Phil Spector, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Who, Bob Dylan, even the Monkees. “What I’ve written about,” he concludes, “has been the rise and fall of Superpop, the noise machine, and the image, hype and beautiful flash of rock’n’roll music. Elvis riding on his golden Cadillac, James Brown throwing off his robes in a fit, Pete Townshend slaughtering his audience with his machine-gun guitar, Mick Jagger hanging off his mike like Tarzan Weissmuller in the jungle, PJ Proby – all the heroic acts of pulp.” Cohn was never American, but the wild chords of 60s’ new journalism had left their mark on his style, shaping it into the perfect medium for a new kind of reportage, the journalism of correspondents in motley and denim, not mufti or combat fatigues. Finally, the last war was over, replaced by peace and love and the illusion of immortality. A signature sentence “All that’s left now is the image, the vision of Elvis as he was when he was 21, 22, strutting and swaggering, hanging his grin out, putting on the agony, and freewheeling through everything.” Three to compare George Melly: Revolt Into Style (1970) Greil Marcus: Mystery Train (1975) Jon Savage: England’s Dreaming: The Sex Pistols and Punk Rock (1991)
How to get the most out of a doctor’s appointment Going to the GP can be a stressful experience: the phone’s engaged for ages, the receptionists are scary as hell and securing an appointment this side of Christmas can be tricky. Then you sit in the waiting room and read a sign that says you should only discuss one thing with the doctor and make another appointment if you have multiple problems. And you only have a 10-minute slot to tell your story, be examined, agree a plan and ask any supplementary questions. Many patients feel hurried by this short time frame, especially elderly people who may take several minutes just to walk into the room and settle down. And it’s a tough ask for doctors too; in 10 minutes they have to engage with the current problem, deal with ongoing conditions like diabetes, offer interventions such as smoking cessation, feed the computer and listen out for a hidden agenda – the real reason you’ve come. So it’s no surprise that the British Medical Association is calling for GP appointments to be extended to 15 minutes. This would mean seeing fewer people in a day; GPs in the UK may see 40-60 patients a day although many EU countries say 25 a day is a safer workload. One way of managing the shortfall in appointments would be by linking several surgeries together into hubs so that local practices can work more efficiently. But in the meantime, you’ve bagged your precious appointment slot and you’ve got 10 minutes to sort yourself out. How can you make the most of the time? Here’s my advice. Rehearse what you want to say The GP will kick off with an open question like: “What brings you here today?” This is an invitation to tell your story. Evidence suggests that if you are allowed to talk uninterrupted for 90 seconds, you’ll be able to impart the key details. In most cases, the GP will make a diagnosis on the basis of what you say, backed up by examination and some basic tests if needed. Doctors are trained to listen out for “red flags” that suggest you may have a serious underlying problem. So if you say you’ve had unexplained weight loss, blood in your poo or a new breast lump, expect further detailed questioning and urgent referral. Other diagnoses are made by recognising a pattern of typical symptoms that strongly suggest a particular cause. If you say you’ve had an attack of severe pain in your right upper abdomen and right shoulder with nausea and vomiting that started after a large, fatty meal, your doctor will assume you’ve got gallstones. That will mean blood tests, a scan and possibly referral for surgery. But if you say you’ve had an attack of pain behind the breastbone and both shoulders with lots of burping, that suggests acid reflux which is treated with dietary advice and medication. Keep it clear and jargon-free In the bad old days of paternalistic medicine, people were labelled as being “poor historians”. This was shorthand for doctors’ frustration when they just couldn’t get a clear story. These days the problem is often that the doctor is too rushed, doesn’t listen carefully or fails to ask the right open-ended questions. But there is no doubt that some people are clearer than others. Doctors make the worst patients in my experience; they pre-empt the diagnosis – not always correctly – and use medical jargon instead of describing what’s actually happening to them. People often Google their symptoms, find a diagnosis and then mould their story to fit. The “best historians” write down their symptoms and just tell it as it is. It’s fine to discuss what you’re worried about at the end of the account. “I’ve had tingling in my right hand and pain in my neck for the past week since I got back from a cycling holiday. I’ve never had it before and it’s getting better now.” That says “trapped nerve” to the GP but if you’re worried that you may have multiple sclerosis, you should say so. It can be good to take someone with you for support and as another pair of ears. They may have witnessed a seizure or have important information. But don’t let them talk over you or interrupt. I am amazed at how many people in their 20s let their mums talk for them and how often spouses contradict their partner’s account. Don’t be coy By all means ask for a chaperone for intimate examinations; all GP surgeries offer the service. But don’t waste precious time apologising for having an “intimate” problem. Similarly, don’t worry about shaving; the doctor won’t notice or care. Best to be honest, clear and use accurate language. You may feel embarrassed but the GP won’t be. So if you have a smelly vaginal discharge and suspect you left a tampon in over a week ago, do say so. If you have no difficulty getting an erection but suffer from premature ejaculation, it’s so much better to describe what happens than to mumble about “something wrong down there”. Access all areas Be prepared to show the body part that you’re concerned about. It sounds obvious, but people often pitch up to discuss their fungal toenails with every nail painted a dark and impenetrable colour. Or they have a rash on their calf but are wearing skinny jeans and knee high boots. It’s understandable why teenage girls with facial acne like to wear thick foundation but this needs to be wiped off before the appointment if the acne’s severity is to be assessed. Bring data – and urine Data is helpful; recording your weight, blood pressure, blood sugar levels, date of your last period, last seizure or migraine and details of possible allergies can all add valuable information if they relate to the problem you want to discuss. And if you think you may have a urine infection, it’s great to produce a fresh sample with a flourish as you describe your symptoms of pain and frequent urination. The GP can check it on the spot, confirm your diagnosis, prescribe an antibiotic, check your blood pressure and still have time for a relaxed chat about your holiday. You’ll be in and out within the 10 minutes; sometimes that’s all it takes.
From cash woes to digital #fails, Trump's campaign is 'worst of all possible worlds' Judging by the headlines, Donald Trump’s presidential campaign is in meltdown. He sacked his campaign manager, raised a historically low amount of cash, and is tanking in opinion polls in key swing states. That’s just the start of it. Behind the scenes, in the largely invisible world of digital organizing on which modern presidential campaigns increasingly depend, Trump is not merely lagging behind – he’s not on the map. Technology is a key battleground in any election, and increasingly so. Trump may rule Twitter, yet there is no evidence that the real estate billionaire is doing anything to build the more prosaic but essential digital fundraising and volunteering network that in no small part propelled Barack Obama to victory in both of his runs for the White House. On the national stage, Trump is vastly out-organized by Hillary Clinton with just 70 campaign staff to her 732. On Tuesday night, Trump announced he had hired “several staff members to expand his campaign operations” including a new digital director, but that still leaves him lagging far behind. Zoom in to essential swing states such as Ohio – a state that should be promising territory for Trump given its old manufacturing base and preponderance of angry white male voters – and Democrats outgun the Republicans by three to one: 150 full-time employees on the ground, according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, to Republicans’ 50. That disparity is reflected in – and compounded by – Trump’s diabolical financial figures. New campaign filings released on Monday night showed he has just $1.3m cash available, 1/30 of the war chest at Clinton’s disposal. The filings for May also revealed a bizarre set of spending priorities. Instead of using his paltry income to bolster a modern campaigning machine ahead of November, Trump spent large amounts on his own properties, including $423,372 to rent his Florida resort, Mar-a-Lago, and a further $207,869 on Make America Great Again hats. That’s before you get to the $35,000 paid to a New Hampshire advertising firm named after characters from Mad Men. So far, Trump has defined his digital prowess almost exclusively through his strident personal use of social media, specifically Twitter. The strategy proved to be a winning one in the primary stage of the election, with the candidate’s Twitter feed acting as a megaphone that amplified his contentious views on immigration and national security through cable television in a constantly revolving feedback loop. But that was then. The general election in November is an entirely different ball game in which the participants proliferate dramatically from the small number of devoted primary voters to a giant sea of largely disengaged Americans. Trump’s team of core advisers appears to believe that the same social media sleight of hand can be pulled off in the general election and that a lean, mean campaign can work for the candidate again. As Corey Lewandowski, the billionaire’s dumped but loyal-to-the-end campaign manager, told CNN: “It’s been proven time and time again that the amount of money you spend on paid advertising doesn’t equate to votes – it’s not like that.” But experts in mass communication and modern elections warn that the presumptive Republican nominee is making an epic mistake in thinking that his attention-grabbing tweets will suffice to sway the entire nation. “Trump sending out a tweet in response to events is hardly comparable to the millions of contacts produced by the ‘ground game’,” said Shanto Iyengar, a Stanford professor of political science and communication. Studies have found that state-of-the-art voter mobilization technology, which uses digital tools to harness the enthusiasm and energy of volunteers, can boost voter turnout on election day by about 7% in battleground states. Obama deployed the methodology to devastating effect in 2012, helping him rout his Republican rival Mitt Romney and acting as a game-changer in today’s electioneering. For Iyengar, that means Trump ignores the new technologies at his peril: “If the Trump campaign does not invest heavily in developing a sophisticated voter mobilization campaign, I don’t see how they can be competitive in battleground states. At the moment, I don’t think there is any doubt that the Clinton campaign is miles ahead in being able to target and mobilize their voters.” Even Trump’s advantage on social media appears to be slipping. Clinton began shakily as she sought to respond to his constant barrage of attack tweets. Her answer to his piercing moniker for her – “Crooked Hillary” – was the wooden “Dangerous Donald”, which lacked similar impact. Recently, though, observers have noted that Clinton’s use of social media has shown a new wry edge. Her three-word slap in Trump’s face will go down in Twitter history. Besides, it remains a truism of modern presidential elections that no amount of clever tweeting will drive voters to the polls in large enough numbers to take key swing states such as Ohio. “Trump has made Twitter relevant again, but he’s done nothing to capture the enthusiasm that he’s generated in the process,” said Patrick Ruffini, a Republican digital strategist who advised George W Bush in 2004 and primary candidates in both the 2008 and 2012 elections. Ruffini said that Trump was beginning to bump up against the limits of celebrity in contemporary politics. His digital weakness – Clinton’s campaign website is recording five times more traffic than his – is hurting him by restricting the cash he can raise through small online donations, which in turn gives him less to spend on ground organizing, setting up a vicious circle of decline. “This is the worst of all possible worlds,” Ruffini said. “At least in 2012 we had a professional campaign that tried to make use of digital tools. But Trump is just phoning it in, not just digitally but in everything – fundraising, ground organizing, every aspect of a modern presidential campaign.” The fall-guy in all this is the Republican National Committee, to which Trump has indicated he plans to devolve all responsibility for a ground game and digital strategy. The good news for conservatives is that the RNC is much better placed than it was even four years ago to launch a robust effort on the billionaire’s behalf, having invested more than $100m in building up an email list of potential supporters that can be used to fundraise and get out the vote. The bad news is that unless the candidate steps up and engages with the RNC, its potential for making real headway in key states will be limited. Four years ago, Romney worked with the RNC to maximize his fundraising and organizing potential, and vice versa; this year the connection between presumptive nominee and party is minimal. The results are already palpable. As the New York Times pointed out, new figures released on Monday showed that the RNC raised three times as much in May 2012 with Romney at the helm than the $13m it reported for the same month this year with Trump as its figurehead. That bodes badly for Trump’s presidential ambitions. It will mean less money to pay the salaries of ground staff; less online advertising targeting women, young people, independents; fewer volunteers to send out emails and knock on doors; and ultimately what this is all about – fewer voters bothering to get out of their armchairs and to the polling stations to elect Donald Trump as the next president of the United States.
Yahoo misses its quarterly earnings predictions again The bad news keeps on coming for Yahoo. On the same day the company reached a shortlist for the sale of its troubled assets, the fallen tech giant once again missed its quarterly earnings predictions. Revenue for the company’s second quarter was $1.31bn. Revenue, minus commissions paid to partners for web traffic, fell 19% in the second quarter, the sixth decline in the past seven periods. Investors have demonstrated renewed optimism about the company’s stock as it seeks a buyer – the share price rose more than 13% this year so far. CEO Marissa Mayer is rumored to be on her way out, but the company has given no indication of when she will go or who will replace her. Yahoo is reviewing a third and potentially final round of bids for its web properties that is expected to include Verizon Communications and private-equity firm TPG. Bidders have reportedly expressed concerns about Yahoo’s flagging fortunes. Once Silicon Valley’s pre-eminent online presence, it has fallen further and further behind Google parent Alphabet and Facebook. The company announced it would fire 15% of its workforce in February as it tried to recoup money following a series of big-ticket purchases. Mayer could potentially walk away with a $137m payoff if she is fired. “With the lowest cost structure and headcount in a decade, we continue to make solid progress against our 2016 plan,” said Mayer. “In addition to our efforts to improve the operating business, our board has made great progress on strategic alternatives. We are relentlessly focused on delivering shareholder value.” Ahead of the results Ross Levinsohn, the company’s interim president whom Mayer beat out for the top job in 2012, was asked what he thought was the future held for his old company. He elected to quote Rocky III: “I think the prediction is pain,” Levinsohn said in a CNBC interview. “The state is troubled, clearly,” Levinsohn said. “I think we can look back over the last four years and say the strategy did not pay off.” Yahoo has pursued revenue growth along a number of avenues, none of them ultimately very lucrative and all of them advertising-based. The company tried to program high-end video like Netflix and Hulu but ended up with an anemic market share after years of changing tacks – at no point were its programs available on a TV except through an XBox gaming console – and last year it announced a $42m writedown on the cost of the programming itself. From there, investors pressured the company to decide how to deal with its stake in Chinese e-tailer Alibaba, its most significant financial asset. Most of the company’s shareholders would prefer to have a stake in Alibaba alone, but Yahoo is still trying to find away to spin off its stake without a major tax burden. Yahoo still engages a huge number of people: 228.2 million users visit the parent site alone, with an average time spent on the site per month of 12 hours. Its Yahoo Mail and Tumblr products have solid viewer figures, as well. But growth has eluded, and continues to elude, one of the first digital companies to become a household word.
Toy: Clear Shot review – flashes of intrigue amid the jamming Coming up with interesting ideas has never been Toy’s problem; corralling them into something consistently enjoyable is another matter. Their 2013 breakthrough, Join the Dots, was a dense, ambitious and occasionally excellent record, but could have gone easier on the extended jams. Its follow-up is equally intriguing (influences include Ennio Morricone film scores and psychedelic folk), but also feels heavy-going in places. At its most engaging, as on We Will Disperse, it balances strung-out hooks and melodies with a more orthodox indie jangle. But the shifting tempo and queasy wig-outs of tracks such as Cinema don’t sound like much fun for anyone other than the band itself.
The lost albums loved by the stars – from ecstatic gospel to Italian prog Jarvis Cocker on … Bob Lind: The Elusive Bob Lind (Verve Folkways, 1966) I hesitate to recommend this record because I know that Bob Lind himself hates it and that it did a lot of harm to his career – but I love it, so here goes … This is the story as I understand it: Lind had a massive global hit with Elusive Butterfly in 1965. Someone crawled out of the woodwork and sold some acoustic demo recordings he had made a few years earlier as a teenager to Verve Records. Verve decided to add bass, drums and strings to the songs, which consisted of voice and acoustic guitar only, in order to make them sound more like the single he had in the charts. The whole affair reeks of the worst side of the exploitative music business of those days – and yet … somehow they made something beautiful. It’s like a weird, inverted form of sampling: instead of cutting and pasting the vocals and guitar over a steady rhythm track – as would happen today – Lind’s performances speed up, slow down, have irregular bar counts, and the bass and drums just have to follow him as best they can. So the songs end up with very modern-sounding, unusual structures. The dislocation between the various elements emphasises the loneliness in the songs. It has an absolutely unique atmosphere – the voice is swathed in a 50s-style reverb, the instrumentation and string arrangements are very mid-60s, but when they lock into a groove and trance out (like on What Colour Are You?) it could have been made last week. It’s not only my favourite Bob Lind album; it’s one of my favourite albums, full stop. Go figure. Izzy Bizu on … Ala.Ni: You & I (No Format, 2016) Ala.Ni is from London but lives in Paris and she has sung with Damon Albarn and Mary J Blige but I love her own music. It reminds me of old songs such as Dream a Little Dream of Me. I saw her playing in this bar, like some cool 1940s nightclub, and she started singing at really low volume, and it was so beautiful I fell in love with her. A few years later I was on the Eurostar and I saw her walking past and I was like: “Oh my God, it’s the girl from the bar!” So I said hi and told her I loved her music. Then I saw her again at a festival and she was incredible. The sounds she uses, the mic she uses, it’s really “old” and the way she sings is really conversational. She even uses her hands in a really elegant way. Listening to her is like having a big hug; you feel like you have had a massage. Saul Milton of Chase & Status on … Angus & Julia Stone: Down The Way (Capitol, 2010) You would expect us to be constantly listening to drum’n’bass, the Prodigy, Biggie Smalls and bashment but we have a wide spectrum of music that we love. We were touring America in 2011 for our No More Idols tour and our frontman MC Rage put this on our tourbus and this incredible tune called Big Jet Plane came on. The beautiful music and combination of male and female voices really touched me. It became the soundtrack to the tour and since then I’ve followed their career and got all their records. Fans of folky funk with classic songwriting and modern production – Bon Iver fans, for example – will love it. Sarah Cracknell of Saint Etienne on … Laura Nyro: Eli and the Thirteenth Confession (Columbia, 1968) She doesn’t have the recognition that she’s due. Other people, such as Barbra Streisand and the 5th Dimension, had hits with her songs: she was a bit of a Carole King. This was her second album – she was 20 at the time. She had so much passion in her songwriting, her voice and her arrangements. Very theatrical, in a way: she clearly influenced Kate Bush. I love the changes in tempo – these are songs of many parts. Her singing style was a mixture of jazz, gospel, soul and pop. But she had a real fear of performing live that stemmed from a disastrous appearance at the Monterey festival. She retreated from the limelight after that, although she carried on making records such as the cover versions album Gonna Take a Miracle, with Labelle, which is another brilliant album. Tom Ogden of Blossoms on … Dion: Born To Be With You (Phil Spector Records, 1975) Phil Spector produced six of the tracks; I’m a big fan of his Wall of Sound. Spector was drinking a lot and quite fucked-up when he was making this record. Dion disowned it and he faded into obscurity. He described it as “funeral music”. I think it’s a great pop record: grand and epic. It’s got that Be My Baby sound, with a lot of the Wrecking Crew on. I love Only You Know and In and Out of the Shadows, which were both co-written by Spector and Gerry Goffin, who used to write with Carole King. It was actually James Skelly of the Coral, who produced our album, who put me on to it. Musicians love it, such as Bobby Gillespie and Pete Townshend. And Bruce Springsteen, who visited the studio during the recording of it. It’s got an uplifting melancholy to it, a euphoric heartbreak –an atmosphere I’m always trying to recreate. Moby on … Simple Minds: Sons and Fascination/Sister Feelings Call (Virgin, 1981) This album charted when it was released, but over time has slipped gently into quasi-obscurity. Simple Minds went on to become a stadium rock band, leading most people to forget that before super-stardom they were idiosyncratic, electronic and Bowie-influenced. I first heard this in early 1982 when I was a junior at high school in Darien, Connecticut, and for me it was everything that suburban America in 1982 was not. It was atmospheric, weirdly European and disco-influenced at a time when radio in the States was all shiny American pop and pedantic rock. It’s a remarkable record that deserves its place in the canon of great Bowie-inspired albums. Jim Kerr of Simple Minds on … Robert Wyatt: Nothing Can Stop Us (Rough Trade, 1982) This is without doubt one of my favourite albums. Before its release, Robert Wyatt was known to me as drummer and co-vocalist of Soft Machine, through listening to John Peel, who almost single-handedly championed him throughout his solo career. Peel brought Wyatt further attention, particularly in 1983 when his original version of Elvis Costello and Clive Langer’s Falklands war-inspired song Shipbuilding reached No 2 in his Festive 50. By that time, I was already well under the influence of Nothing Can Stop Us. It was on my Walkman throughout that summer, usually as I hoofed it on a daily basis from Paddington up to Shepherd’s Bush, where my mates and I were busy occupying ourselves with the recording of a bunch of songs that would be released as New Gold Dream. I loved listening to the album in its entirety, and repeatedly so. I still do. Why? You could begin by listening to At Last I Am Free, followed by Strange Fruit, and then the aforementioned Shipbuilding. And perhaps like me you, too, will get a lump in the throat listening to what was surely a purposefully pale and wan rendition of Red Flag. I don’t think Robert Wyatt knows how great an artist he really is. Green Gartside of Scritti Politti on … The Clark Sisters: Is My Living In Vain (Sound of Gospel, 1980) This was given to me by a writer I met in New York in about 1982: this recording of rapturous devotion to God has abided with me ever since. It’s so good … it almost passeth all understanding. Taped live in 1979 at Detroit’s Bailey Cathedral, Elbernita “Twinkie” Clark with her four sisters and their mother, group founder Dr Mattie Moss Clark, perform some of the most ineffably sublime music I have ever heard. As funky as grandpa’s drawers and with an ecstatic sense of yearning, the sisters’ goosebump-inducing singing – sometimes fragile, sometimes fearsome – is put to the service of eight exquisitely crafted paeans to the Lord. You can find a clip of the sisters in their floor-length pastel chiffon gowns performing a version of the album’s title song on YouTube, which is magnificent but only hints at the record’s treasures. In 1983, the Clark Sisters performed at the Grammys, provoking the ire of their church, which forbade Mattie Moss from ever performing with her daughters again. Her singing of They Were Overcome on this album is one of the loveliest things I know. A couple of years after I was first given the record, the sisters came to London to sing at [the] Westminster Hall. After their astonishing appearance I approached them to express my admiration and gratitude. I was invited to visit the family next day at a house in Tottenham, or maybe it was Finsbury Park. I’m sure I was a nuisance but they were gracious and I was blessed with some albums from their back catalogue. Is My Living In Vain is an exalted delight and is up there with the venerated best. Petite Meller on … The Clark Sisters: You Brought the Sunshine (Sound of Gospel, 1981) I was recommended these sisters by a female Uber driver in LA; I’d just played my song Baby Love to her. It was my best musical ride. She heard the gospel vocals in my song and said: “You’ve got to hear these girls!” They’re sisters who sing these big gospel songs with so much energy and love. It’s inspiring to listen to as it gives me ideas. I love the rawness of the recordings from those days. Go find them … you won’t regret it. Naughty Boy on … Nitin Sawhney: Beyond Skin (Outcaste, 1999) I was in the sixth form when I came across this. I was working in Watford WH Smith in the music department, and I’d get 25% discount, so I ordered it in and used to listen to it on my PlayStation because I didn’t have a CD player. I was fascinated because Sawhney was British-Asian, too: I didn’t think it was possible to make Asian sounds and still be cool. On the surface, the album was about nuclear weapons, but really it was about a personal quest to find yourself, with lots of songs about love. It’s quite dark, but the lyrics are full of light. He was refusing to be bound by any rules. He combined flamenco music with Qawwali, jazz with drum’n’bass. It made me ultimately brave. Once I’d finished sixth form, I was ready to start my journey as a composer and producer. Being boxed-in wasn’t an option because of this album. Sean Paul on … Buju Banton: ’Til Shiloh (Loose Cannon/Island, 1995) I bought this at the Derrick Harriot record shop in Kingston, Jamaica. It was one of the few stores that would carry albums as soon as they were released; they used to rent movies on VHS as well, so it was a popular spot. When it came out, Buju was already a dancehall superstar but it took him to a different level. Most dancehall albums at that time were usually a collection of hits that were already out but this was made up of new material. When I got home and put it on the stereo, it was mind-blowing. Buju was in full-on rasta mode and every single song was absolute fire. The consciousness was turned all the way up. Even on the party songs and girl tunes he was talking from a higher perspective. Champion and Murderer may have been the hardcore boom shots that everyone knows but Til I’m Laid to Rest and Not an Easy Road spoke to me deeply and truly inspired me even more to pursue music. Everyone needs to listen to this dancehall reggae gem and see who Buju Banton really is. Faris Badwan of Cat’s Eyes and the Horrors on … Faine Jade: Introspection: A Faine Jade Recital (Sandiland, 1968) This is one of my favourite psychedelic records – and one of the rarest. Get it now! It has the visceral edge of the Velvet Underground in places and the wistfulness of Syd Barrett in others. Faine Jade is effectively a solo project from Chuck Laskowski, a Long Island-based singer and guitarist who previously released one single with the Rustics in 1966. Barrett similarities run through the record; one of my favourite things about Syd’s songs is the feeling that they could go in any direction, at any moment. They are totally tense, raw and unpredictable, and the songs on Introspection follow a similar creative path. Laskowski claims to have been unaware of Pink Floyd at the time, which is totally believable as the tracks never stray into homage territory. While seeking to emulate some of the British psych sounds of the time, Introspection retains the identity of late-60s amphetamine-driven US garage. Don’t Hassle Me captures the spirit of rebellious youth, and Ballad of the Bad Guys is a burst of garage rock that Between the Buttons-era Rolling Stones fans will be into. The tension reaches its height on People Games Play, a song that combines the “ostrich guitar” strumming of Lou Reed with familiar late-60s percussion and unsettling, monotone vocals. There’s definitely a bit of the Byrds in here as well. The lyrics are fairly typical of the Timothy Leary era, with mystical lines such as, “Trim the wick with scarlet scissors,” but they fit the mood. Laskowski went on to release an album with the country rock band Dustbowl Clementine in 1970 but has since been largely inactive. More recently, Faine Jade gained wider exposure as MGMT covered the folk-rock title track Introspection on their debut Oracular Spectacular. Laskowski even gave his seal of approval by appearing with them on the closing date of their accompanying US tour. Petula Clark on … Michel Colombier: Wings (A&M, 1971) Herb Alpert produced this album, mostly in LA and Paris. It was a hugely expensive project, a mixture of jazz, rock, symphonic, with fantastic people on it – Bill Medley, Paul Williams – and some great jazz musicians. It’s one of those masterpieces that isn’t what you’d call a commercial record, but it’s one of my favourites. I love Herb, and Michel, who was a great composing talent. It was a bit of a love-in! There’s some amazing music on it: very moving – there’s a song on it called Emmanuel, for Michel’s son, who died very young – but it also rocks like mad. It was very personal to Michel, who was a very unusual musician. He was often in another place, another world. It was made for pure pleasure. You could call it a kind of folly. Alexis Taylor of Hot Chip on … Franco Battiato: Foetus (Sony/BMG Italy, 1971) It’s progressive rock but more short song-based than overblown 15-minute rock like Yes, Genesis or ELP. He’s a composer and songwriter who’s still one of Italy’s best-known musicians; a sort of Italian Peter Gabriel. He moved away from this strange experimental record towards a more poppy, new wave direction; Foetus is his first solo album. It’s a very beautiful-sounding, analogue synth-based record, but also very pop: the songs are very immediate, melodic and easy on the ear. The Italian version was the first one I really loved; then I came across the English version and that suddenly opened it up; now I knew what the songs were about. It’s a very original take on describing your place in the world; not your usual singer-songwriter confessionals. It’s similar to the experimental pop approach of a Brian Wilson mixed with someone like Jim O’Rourke from 90s underground Chicago. Alexis Krauss of Sleigh Bells on … Eccentric Soul: The Deep City Label (Numero Group, 2006) The Numero Group collect really old compilations from obscure labels no longer in existence. This album is all of the tracks from a soul label based in Miami called Deep City; most of the music is mid-to-late-60s. A lot of the players were part of Florida marching bands – the cover of the album shows them wearing the most sick, badass uniforms – who later went on to run more successful studios that released funk and disco. This predates that stuff; it’s tracks that had no commercial success, but it does feature artists such as Betty Wright. It’s similar to what was going on in Detroit, only a little funkier. It’s a little rough around the edges, but if you like old soul, it’s great. Andrew Savage of Parquet Courts on … The Necessaries: Event Horizon (Sire, 1982) This is a record that has even evaded diehard fans of Arthur Russell, who played keyboards in the group during their short lifespan and wrote two of the album’s best songs: Driving and Talking at the Same Time and More Real. When I listen to Event Horizon, I marvel that it isn’t one of the most influential records in rock music. But it didn’t make the impact it intended to, and was forgotten by Sire and eventually by fans. Russell went on to a celebrated solo career after quitting the band by jumping out of the van at the mouth of the Holland Tunnel in New York, while on the way to a gig in New Jersey. But this is a record that needs to be examined further by anybody interested in this era of rock music. It’s an elusive missing piece to the lore of the downtown scene. Everyone who walks through the door of my apartment is subjected to and is changed by it. Mark Stewart of the Pop Group on … The Fire This Time: Dancing On John Wayne’s Head (Extreme, 1995) It’s a shining example of an activist-musician using art as a weapon. The guy who got it together is Pat Andrade, who organises indigenous resistance, helping Aboriginal people, with songs about native rights issues and the way corporations own the government. In the punk days, people tended to wear politics like a haircut, but Pat actually walks what he talks. He was influenced by us [Pop Group/On-U Sound] to a certain extent. There are loads of guests – Augustus Pablo, Chuck D, Mikey Dread – on this album. He’s a real internationalist; a dub activist. It’s resistance through reggae. What he’s talking about is really real. Charlie Simpson of Busted and Fightstar on … Aereogramme: A Story In White (Chemikal Underground, 2001) When people talk about artists who don’t get the recognition they deserve, Aereogramme are always the first band I think of. It’s a stunning record, so different to anything I’d heard before: atmospheric, with beautiful melodies and really heavy riffs. I got into Mogwai through my brother when I was 11 or 12 and I thought it would be great to have that sort of music with vocals and Aereogramme did just that. I love the contrast of light and dark. It was definitely an influence on Fightstar. Funnily enough, Iain Cook the guitarist, is now in Chvrches, so he did finally get some recognition. Shirley Manson of Garbage on … Hey! Elastica: In on the Off Beat (Virgin, 1984) They were my peers growing up in Edinburgh. I had a massive crush on Giles, the singer with the thunderbolt hair: she was like a rock star, with incredible charisma and an image that would still look killer today. Back then she appeared to come from Mars: she was like a female David Bowie to me. I worked in Miss Selfridge and she came into the store one day and I kept staring at her. Later I got introduced to her at a club and became obsessed with her and her band. I still think they deserve more recognition; they were a fantastic pop band. The record was produced by Tony Visconti and Martin Rushent, and the result is a strange mix of white funk, jangly 80s guitar, catchy pop and synths, with girl group harmonies and some “alternative” flavour. They flamed brightly for a few minutes then seemed to disappear, but they’re really unique. Rebecca Ferguson on … Lisa Gerrard: The Best of (4AD, 2007) She used to sing with Dead Can Dance. She is kind of classical and sings in her own language that she makes up. She works a lot with Hans Zimmer and she’s just unreal. She did the theme from Gladiator, Now We Are Free. That made me want to find out more about her. I really like the song Sanvean (I Am Your Shadow). It’s quite dark; heavy and emotional. It creates a mood and it’s moving. To me, she’s one of the best vocalists of all time. If someone went on The X Factor and sang Now We Are Free, it would be unbelievable. It’s whether the audience are ready for that. Gilbert O’Sullivan on … Carole King: Writer (Ode, 1970) This was Carole King’s album before Tapestry, which I don’t think anybody bought apart from me and a couple of other people. She made an album before it, in 1968, with a group called the City because she didn’t really like being a frontperson. But Writer was significant because it was the prelude to Tapestry. There are some wonderful songs here such as Up on the Roof and Goin’ Back – covers of her own songs. But the album only sold about 10 or 20,000 whereas Tapestry sold 10 or 20m! James Taylor is on it, and [guitarist] Danny Kortchmar; a lot of the same people who were on Tapestry. It’s a really lovely album. It definitely influenced my writing, particularly the chord sequences on Child of Mine. If I’d grown my hair and worn jeans and a denim shirt I would have easily fitted into that category of singer-songwriter. But I dared to be different and chose an unusual image. Stuart Braithwaite of Mogwai on … Abner Jay: True Story of Abner Jay (Mississippi, 2009) This is the only record I own that I love that has jokes on. I tend to like miserable, depressing, pretentious music. Abner Jay was a one-man-band, who classed himself as an entertainer – “The last great southern black minstrel show,” as he described himself. He’d move from town to town, selling vinyl records and cassettes that he published on his own label. It’s folk-blues; the kind of thing that, when you hear it, you can’t believe it hasn’t sold a million copies. It’s a guy singing his heart out, playing amazing music. The songs are absolutely incredible, poignant, dark, really captivating and wild. He wrote them about Vietnam, cocaine, the moon landing. My favourite one on this album is I’m So Depressed. That’s the one that blew me away. I’m not sure if it’s a joke, but it’s really moving.
When it comes to character, trust your ears I used to buy weed from a guy who I’ll call Garrett. He was one of several “unlicensed pharmacists” I dealt with in those days. He got really good, potent pot that smelled like orange peels and Christmas trees and made your scalp tingle. The trouble was that you had to hang out with Garrett to get it. He lived in a dark terrarium of a basement apartment on the east side of Athens, Georgia. White as an underground mushroom, Garrett was always in the same spot on the couch facing a pair of 50-inch TV screens he’d parked side by side so he could play video games and watch daytime TV at the same time. The apartment itself wasn’t what made hanging out with Garrett such an ordeal, or even the competing blasts of sound, light and color coming from the two TVs. It was Garrett’s voice. Garrett is the only person I’ve known in real life who has what I call “Alex Jones voice”, a sound somewhere between a bleat and a wail with a foot-high slurry of gravel underneath. And, like Jones – the popular conspiracy theorist, “birther” nut and talk-radio howler monkey – Garrett seemed to live in a perpetual state of enraged grievance. Every time I visited it was the same, and yet it was always different. In a bawling tone like a wounded calf wailing from a ditch, Garrett would recount the latest low-down trick his ex-wife had pulled, the staggering amounts of money our other friends owed him for weed and cocaine and pills, the way the damn neighbors’ dog barks all day when they’re at work. I would sit there with smoke trailing from my mouth and nostrils, sinking lower and lower on the slightly greasy-feeling leather couch as I got bludgeoned by Garrett’s voluble swings between mawkish self-pity and heated vows of revenge. It was enervating, exhausting, overwhelming. It occurred to me one day as I paid for my quarter bag and drove bleary-eyed and thoroughly demoralized back to my apartment in Normaltown that people’s voices are a song that we sing about ourselves to everyone we meet. And Garretts’s song was like a bombastic “modern classical” suite for orchestra, choir and leaf-blower. I believe that our minds are often processing information at levels that we’re only dimly aware of, if at all. Our ears are often smarter than we are. Look at the recent controversy that has erupted over audio tape of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump bragging to Access Hollywood reporter Billy Bush about how his fame entitles him to kiss and grope women without their consent. For months we have known that Trump is a sexist and a braggart with an interior life that most probably resembles the decimated hellscape around Hiroshima’s ground zero on the day after the blast. We’ve read court depositions about how he treated his ex-wife Ivana. We’ve shuddered over transcripts of his conversations with Sirius XM shock jock Howard Stern. However, there is something entirely different about hearing the slimy, grasping over-eagerness in his tone with Bush, his smugness and complete nonchalance about women’s personal space and agency. It makes the skin crawl and has led a segment of his followers and supporters to abruptly rediscover their gag reflex. There’s a certain delicious irony in Trump’s own horrible, cold-fingers-on-your-neck voice being the final thing that shuts him up and potentially derails any last fleeting hopes that he might expand his appeal beyond his angry, frothing base. We’ve seen this before, though. After years of faint signals on the horizon that actor Mel Gibson was coming unraveled, the world was treated to a venti-sized dose of his insanity when voice mails leaked of him threatening his ex Oksana Grigorieva. That’s what ended up killing his career. It was one thing to know intellectually that he was hitting the big mental bug-zapper, but when we heard the viciousness with which he spoke to Grigorieva, the bullying rage in his voice, the public rejected him on a visceral level. Similarly, former Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling was known as a racist for decades and yet enjoyed a respectable reputation to the world at large. However, when audio leaked of Sterling castigating his girlfriend for appearing on social media with black people, the world reacted with revulsion. It was the mix of the petulance and contempt in Sterling’s wheedling, nasal rant that lit the fuse on the bomb that detonated his good standing before the world. As with Gibson and Trump, the world heard his voice and immediately remembered the grade-school bully who tormented them, the fatuous high school vice-principal who unjustly punished them, the police officer who punched them in the face before shoving them into a squad car or the boss who made their work life a living hell. Our minds are constantly recording, measuring, analyzing. We recognize patterns and make associations. It’s how we learned to survive in this world, by keeping close track of what hurt us or made us sick in the past. Your voice is revealing more about you to the world than you realize. What are your lyrics? What kind of song are you singing?
Black Americans on 'what they have to lose' if Trump becomes president In medieval courts, the jester had special license to speak unpalatable truths. The silly hat, garish costume and jingling bells somehow liberated him to deliver unwelcome news. When Donald Trump launched his primary campaign last year, Republican elites underestimated him as a reality TV star – a showman good for entertainment, not high office. His acid tongue, however, enthralled the party’s base. He said the unsayable about immigrants, race, trade and the state of America, and he won the nomination. Now Trump is turning to a new audience. On Saturday he is due to visit a church in Detroit, grant an interview to its pastor and address the congregation, his first campaign speech to a black crowd. An ambitious courtship, to say the least. For many African Americans, the Republican candidate is a sinister clown, the man who tried to prove Barack Obama was Kenyan, who flirted with white supremacists, who refused to speak to black organisations such as the NAACP, and who, upon spotting a black man at a rally, said: “There! Look at my African American.” But the jester brings to Detroit a question, a blunt, uncomfortable challenge that compels attention and demands an answer. “What do you have to lose by trying something new, like Trump? You’re living in your poverty, your schools are no good, you have no jobs, 58% of your youth is unemployed, what the hell do you have to lose?” Set aside that he pitched this to black people two weeks ago while addressing a white audience and that this vision of Gotham was factually incorrect – black youth unemployment is 17.6% – and cartoonish. It was, many feel, overdue recognition that eight years after the election of America’s first black president, millions of African Americans are struggling. “Nothing to lose? It’s true,” said Katrina Langford, 46, book shopping with two sons in Leimert Park, the centre of African American arts and culture in Los Angeles. She cited dire rates of incarceration, illness and poverty. Her boys clutched books about Louis Armstrong and Keith Black, a neurosurgeon, but the scene up the street was less inspirational: a shabby park with homeless people dozing under the California sun. Settling in for a trim 2,200 miles away in a Detroit barber shop on Gratiot Avenue, Leonard Logan, 45, saw things the same way. “What do you have to lose? And that’s true, that’s true. What do we have to lose?” Umi, a cigar shop owner in Bedstuy, a black area of Brooklyn, shared that bleak verdict. “In terms of the black community, it never comes to us, it don’t trickle down this far.” It barely mattered if Donald Trump or Donald Duck sat in the Oval Office, he said. “They just had a black man in the president’s box and he didn’t trickle down nothing.” Interviews this week with a cross-section of African Americans across the US – east coast and west coast, rust belt and the deep south, lawyers, barbers, students, mothers and veterans – painted a heterodox picture of black America in the Obama twilight. Some are thriving, others floundering; some are hopeful about the future, others despairing; some consider Trump’s question offensive, others deem it pertinent. All, however, felt it worth answering. Responses ranged from having nothing to lose to having a lot – a hell of a lot – to lose. Concerns included policing, economic opportunity, judicial representation, voting laws and reproductive rights. The multifarious voices largely united on only one issue: the jester must not become king. “We have issues in our community, but he’s not going to address them,” said Vanessa Greyman, a single mother in Harlem. Terry Bethel, a Brooklyn barber, snorted at the notion of President Trump. “He’s a joke. There’s no empathy, there’s no sympathy.” LaDreya Carlisle, a barber in Detroit, said the casino owner was too brash. “I can’t take him seriously because somebody who’s trying to win the votes of Detroiters and African Americans, you wouldn’t say things like that.” One exception was Ian, a 41-year-old Detroit barber who declined to give his last name. He backed Trump, he said, because of Democrats’ support for same-sex marriage and abortion rights. “I’m not voting for somebody because I think they’re going to make the economy better. Whoever gets in, it’s going to be trash. I’m voting more for my religious convictions and beliefs. I’m not voting for him personally, I’m voting the platform.” Most, however, dismissed the billionaire businessman as a bad punchline. Courting their support after all he had said and done was a farce, they said. Atlas Parker, a restaurant chain maintenance worker from Marlow, Alabama, shook his head. “It’s like a comedy act. He’s had nothing good to say about minority people this whole time, and now right at the end he acts like he’s going to save us.” Trump’s dystopian depiction of African American life was a double insult, Parker said. “He talks that way about us and then expects us to come to his side.” Demiah Boykin, 22, a student and veterinary worker in LA, said Trump was a Republican party caricature. “He seems like a joke.” If so, perhaps Trump is in on it, at least in relation to his visit to Detroit, where, accompanied by Ben Carson, he will address a congregation on the city’s west side and give a taped interview to Wayne Jackson, bishop of the Great Faith Ministries and the president of Impact Network, a Christian television network. “Trump is delusional if he thinks he will get more than a tiny percentage of the African American vote,” said Jack Pitney, a politics professor at Claremont McKenna College. “His record of housing discrimination and incendiary comments is well known among African Americans, and a few gestures won’t erase that memory.” Which suggested, Pitney said, that the candidate was not in fact courting black voters. “Rather, he is trying to enable white moderates to rationalize voting for him.” When English ships destroyed the French fleet at the battle of Sluys, King Phillipe VI’s jester said the English sailors lacked “the guts to jump into the water like our brave French”. In a similar vein, one could say Trump’s black support can only increase. In a Public Policy Polling survey this week, his favorability rating with African Americans languished below 1%. A USA Today/Suffolk poll on Friday gave him 2% support. An NBC News/SurveyMonkey poll last month, in contrast, rated his support at a positively vertiginous 8%. Trump’s handlers have drafted proposed answers for him to give to Jackson, including, according to a version leaked to the New York Times, un-Trumpian utterances such as: “I want to make race disappear as a factor in government and governance.” If asked whether his campaign is racist, he is advised to avoid repeating the word and to talk about his plan to wean people from welfare to work. “The proof, as they say, will be in the pudding. Coming into a community is meaningless unless we offer an alternative to the horrible progressive agenda that has perpetuated a permanent underclass in America.” A Clinton/Kaine campaign sign hangs in the window of his barber shop on Detroit’s west side, but Vonzie Whitlow doesn’t mind Trump’s visit. “Why not? I think it’s a good thing.” The Republican’s rhetoric about the black community has an air of truth, Whitlow said. He reeled off recent presidents. “What’d they do for us? Ain’t too many [presidents] come into the black communities since I’ve been here, so I think it’s a good job for him to come out here, talk to the black people. Ain’t nothing wrong with it.” Even if Trump avoids unleashing toxic fumes in Motor City, however, he will remain radioactive to the likes of James Fugate, 61, who runs LA’s Eso Won Books, one of the US’s few remaining African American bookstores. “I’ve not heard a single thing from Trump that I agree with. I think he’s a cynical person who is appealing to the most racist instincts of a lot of white people, to a legacy of fear about blacks.” The real estate mogul and his father were sued in the 1970s for anti-black bias in rental properties. In 1989, Trump took out full-page ads in four New York newspapers demanding the execution of the Central Park five, a group of teenagers charged with a particularly heinous rape. When their conviction was overturned – DNA identified the real rapist – he doubled down, branding the apology and payout to them the “heist of the century”. Trump hounded Obama over his birth certificate, emboldening the rightwing fringe that thinks the president is a foreign Muslim. He was slow to disavow an endorsement from former KKK leader David Duke. Supporters have insulted, shoved and punched African American protesters at his rallies. Despite all that, the candidate’s Hobbesian diorama of ghetto hell, of an underclass mired in poverty, violence and hopelessness, has commanded attention. It ignores the existence of a large African American middle class; that in the past eight years, black poverty and unemployment have improved; and that Obama’s health law has extended healthcare to the needy. But black incomes have stagnated and the wealth and employment gap between black people and white people has widened. Fatal police shootings have underscored racial inequality in the criminal justice system. With just a few months left to Obama’s presidency, hope and change feel like a faint, distant echo. “I love Barack, but I’m still struggling,” said Greyman, the Harlem single mother. She was on her way to a city jobs programme, as her current job will soon end. She travels an hour each day to take a daughter to a charter school for a better education. They still live with Greyman’s parents because she can’t afford decent housing. She is no great fan of Hillary Clinton, but will vote for her come November. “At least my kids would have a better shot with Hillary in office.” Bethel, the barber, is backing Jill Stein, the Green party candidate, because he associates Clinton with her husband’s incarceration policies in the 1990s. “The three strikes law is a pipeline to the prison industry, and these are the ramifications now in the neighborhood.” Others, such as Umi, the cigar show owner, hope an election that has become a referendum on Trump will lead to an awakening. “I hope it sparks something in us as a race to understand that we don’t have no voice out here. Who waiting for leaders out here but us? Who waiting for somebody to say some shit to help us get ahead? We gotta get ourselves ahead.” Fugate, a soft-spoken, bespectacled figure who hosted the LA launch of Obama’s memoir Dreams From My Father in 1995, gives more credit to progressive achievements – achievements that would be imperilled under Trump. “What have we got to lose? Voting rights.” The Republican-led effort to curb voting rights in North Carolina and elsewhere, said the bookstore owner, was the most offensive thing he had seen in 40 years. Trump-appointed judges would roll back recent victories on this front, he warned. “He’s already named 10 wackos” as potential supreme court nominees. ( Trump has named 11 potential justices, all white.) Another thing to lose, Fugate said, was police oversight, such as federal investigators uncovering the Ferguson police tactic of fining poor residents to feed city coffers. “They found out all the little tricks. But Trump? He’d be pro-police. He just doesn’t understand the world.” Others cited Obamacare as an example of what could be lost. It all added up, in truth, to a rather short list of progressive accomplishments. But it was enough to decide that if the jester took the throne, there was plenty to lose. Lou Gehrig’s disease has robbed Leroy Peete, a 72-year-old Detroit native and Vietnam veteran, of speech. He communicates by moving a pen toward letters printed on a sheet, spelling out words. Asked about Trump’s visit to Detroit, an acquaintance read aloud his response. “Don’t want his ass here.” Asked about Trump’s outreach to African Americans, Peete moved the pen again over the letters. “Bullshit.”
'Relax and be gracious': Republican chair advises Trump on how to win over party The chairman of the Republican party has called on Donald Trump to reassure conservatives worried about his presidential nomination by releasing more names of potential supreme court justices he would pick if elected. Speaking as the party reeled from the unexpectedly swift coronation of Trump this week, Reince Priebus also revealed that the New York billionaire had rung him “within minutes” of hearing that House speaker Paul Ryan was refusing to endorse him and asked: “What do I need to do?” Priebus, whose role as chairman of the Republican National Committee is to try to heal the rift before its convention in Cleveland this July, said he told Trump to “relax and be gracious”. Yet, like Ryan, Priebus urged Trump to reach out to help unify the party when the presumptive nominee meets Republicans on Capitol Hill next week. “A smart thing for Donald Trump to do would to release five to 10 names of people that he would pull from: ‘Here’s 10 folks who I think would make great supreme court justices’,” Priebus said during a Politico breakfast discussion in Washington on Friday. “Things like that would be helpful in recalibrating some people’s minds as far as ‘why do we need to support the Republican nominee?’... I think we’re going to get there.” Trump has already floated at least two names of conservatives he might pick for the supreme court vacancy, but Priebus acknowledged that the swift turn of events this week was raising fresh questions in the party about his suitability. “I am sure it is going to take some time to get into general election mode and out of primary mode,” the RNC chair said when asked about some of Trump’s more controversial outbursts during the bitterly fought contest. “He’s trying. Honestly I think he’s trying,” added Priebus, to laughter, when asked what he thought about the latest controversy over a tweet from Trump eating a taco bowl on Cinco de Mayo and claiming it showed how much “loves Hispanics”. But Priebus dismissed talk of fresh attempts to derail the nomination process in Cleveland with an alternative candidate, something he described as still “possible, but highly, highly unlikely”. He also rejected the idea floated by Nebraska senator Ben Sasse that conservatives might rally behind an independent candidate running against Trump and Clinton. “The amount of time, energy, money,” responded Priebus. “And it’s a guarantee to elect Hillary Clinton. When people take a breath and calm down they are going to understand that the supreme court is too important to let differences of opinions get in the way.” Priebus also backed the House speaker on the issue of whether the party should rally behind Trump’s controversial call to ban Muslims from entering the country. “I’m agreement [with Ryan] on the ban coming in. I had put a statement out on that already. It’s not something that I believe in, or our party believes in. I believe that our party is the party of the open door. Our party is the party of opportunity and equality and it always will remain such.” Priebus suggested the Republican party leadership might try to convince Trump to back down on this but had not discussed it yet: “It’s been like three days, so we’re not quite there yet ... [we’ll] get the speaker on board and get into some of those details later.” The RNC chair also bristled at suggestions of a “hostile takeover” by Trump. Asked if it was his party now, Priebus replied: “It’s the party’s party.” He acknowledged that in practice they would jointly organise the running order of the convention in July and that Trump would probably receive an entry card to party headquarters in Washington, but Priebus insisted he would remain in charge of the RNC, not the presumptive nominee. Nonetheless the RNC chair acknowledged recent tensions had strained relations between Trump and the party, revealing he had “needled” Trump about his claim that the nomination process was rigged once it became clear he had won nonetheless. “He laughed,” said Priebus, when asked what the response was. Later at a White House press conference, Barack Obama was asked about Ryan’s refusal to back Trump. “I think you have to ask Speaker Ryan what the implications of his comments are,” the president said. “There is no doubt that there is a debate that’s taking place within the Republican party about who they are and what they represent.” He added of Trump: “Republican women voters are going to have to decide, is that the guy who I feel comfortable with, and representing me, and what I care about?” Additional reporting by Tom McCarthy in New York
Sergio Agüero hits double as Manchester City thrash sorry Aston Villa Manuel Pellegrini asked Manchester City for nine more wins to secure the title and here was the first of them, in the end a predictably comfortable goalfest against a stricken Aston Villa. Beating a dispirited side nailed to the bottom of the table is no guarantee a further eight games will be won, much less that the title will be heading their way, but, after three straight league defeats, City needed to stop the rot and begin consolidating their position in the top four. Their supporters will forgive Pellegrini for dreaming of a second title as long as City win enough matches to stay ahead of West Ham and Manchester United, whose form has raised the embarrassing possibility of welcoming Pep Guardiola to the club with Europa League football. Not that the home side looked like a Champions League one for all of this game. Granted, it is unusual to face opponents of such limited ambition and content to play almost all of the game in their own half, but all City had to do was find a way past Rémi Garde’s flat back five and, for 45 frustrating minutes, they could not manage it. The first half was like a training ground exercise, and about as much fun to watch, although City were quite inventive in finding a number of different ways to threaten. Once Brad Guzan set the tone in the 11th minute, by keeping out a Sergio Agüero shot after the striker had shown magnificent control in bringing down Fernandinho’s pass, the crowd became gradually more restless and attempts on goal became progressively more rushed. Wilfried Bony was guilty of a bad miss after Gaël Clichy’s cross picked him out in a perfect position on the six yard line, shooting first time but putting the ball wide from right in front of goal. Agüero saw a shot on the turn palmed away by Guzan, then put his next effort just past the post after an interchange with Bony, who ended the first half with a tame header from the edge of the area that summed up City’s lack of actual penetration. Watching from his technical area, Garde seemed satisfied enough with the way the game was going, though on one of their rare forays upfield Villa missed a wonderful chance to take an interval lead. While Joe Hart did well to get down to Jordan Ayew’s shot after almost half an hour of inaction, with half the City defence having stopped in anticipation of a free-kick that never came it was a better opportunity than the striker perhaps realised. Villa were left to rue their inability to spring a surprise when City opened the second half with the sort of goal that made you wonder why they had taken so long. For once their three most effective attackers combined in unanswerable fashion, Agüero driving to the goal line before turning the ball back for David Silva, who moved the ball across for Yaya Touré to stroke languidly home from near the penalty spot. Against Villa that was probably always going to be enough but, as if to emphasise the gulf between the sides, City went two up within two minutes. There was a touch of good fortune about their second, with Micah Richards’ attempted clearance bouncing back off Agüero’s shin and into an empty net, though no question that Villa had been opened up again through Silva and Bony, the latter making up for his lacklustre finishing with a measured through ball. When Agüero added a third after a trademark surge into the area from Silva’s return pass the contest was clearly over, so much so that Pellegrini introduced Raheem Sterling for the last half hour. There has been some debate of late over whether the substitute’s up-and-down season has represented a reasonable return on an outlay of £49m, and this was another indifferent display, though a goal with one of his first touches will have done the player’s confidence no harm. In truth he could hardly have missed, and watching the almost comical ineptitude Joleon Lescott and Alan Hutton demonstrated in failing to cut out a Jesús Navas cross to leave Sterling with a tap-in, the withdrawn Bony must have been highly unamused. The rout could have been worse but Agüero struck a post with a penalty after Ciaran Clark had brought down Kelechi Iheanacho. It will not do the goalkeeper or his side a tiny bit of good but Guzan deserved a break. “Our only plan was not to concede,” Garde admitted. “It worked in the first half but not in the second. We can play in a different way, and maybe the fans would like us to, but when you are bottom of the table you have to be realistic at a club that could still win the Champions League. Being too open and optimistic would be like suicide.”
Five things we learned from the new Ghostbusters trailer If you placed all the articles written about the new Ghostbusters movie (before anyone had seen a single frame) back to back, they would probably stretch at least 10 times round Manhattan. Even prior to Bridesmaids’ brilliant Paul Feig signing on the dotted line for the current iteration in 2014, original star Dan Aykroyd spent at least four years trying to convince a reluctant Bill Murray to pull on his proton pack and fire up the Ecto-1 for one last time. Then, almost as soon as Feig had announced his plan to recruit a new, all-female team of ghost hunters, the backlash began from both former cast members and disgruntled “men’s rights” advocates. The film-maker swiftly dispensed with what he quite rightly labelled “vile, misogynistic shit”, and rather more politely pointed out that anyone who felt their childhood was about to be ruined by a Hollywood comedy should probably get out more. Now, the first trailer for Ghostbusters 2016 has landed, and – yes, you guessed it – the whiff of controversy is still palpable. Here are five takeaways from our debut look at Feig’s follow-up to the hip-swingingly fabulous Spy. The ghost of JJ Abrams is hovering over Paul Feig’s movie Is it a remake? Is it a sequel? An opening line tells us that the new movie is set 30 years after another crew of scientists saved New York, but if that’s so, why don’t our new quartet – Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, and Saturday Night Live regulars Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones – recognise the Ghostbusters emergency vehicle as a dead ringer for the 1984 Ecto-1? Maybe they lived out of town, but the suspicion is that such logic gaps are born of the same Hollywood obsession with nostalgia that led Star Wars: The Force Awakens baddies to waste all their precious galactic credits on yet another implausibly fragile Death Star. Diversity campaigners have joined the anti-Ghostbusters queue Feig’s movie looked like being a liberal’s wet dream, with the film-maker singlehandedly righting all Hollywood’s Bechdel test-baiting wrongs by casting four of the funniest women in America in roles originally inhabited by men and handing Annie Potts’s receptionist’s desk to Thor out of The Avengers. But what’s that you say? Someone’s still not happy? The problem, say many, many people on Twitter, is that the new version of Ghostbusters features three brainy white scientist types and one street-smart black stereotype. That’s pretty much the same setup as we saw in Ivan Reitman’s original film. But, so the argument goes, Feig and his writing team might easily have switched the dynamic for the remake – even if Jones does seem to be getting all the best jokes, and is clearly a more equal player than Ernie Hudson’s Winston Zeddemore was in 1984. ‘Someone’ is trying to bring the evil back to New York City But on to more immediate matters, like the plot. We’ve been told the major villain in Ghostbusters 2016 is Neil Casey’s Rowan, a powerful demon of unknown provenance, and the trailer tells us that someone is “creating a device that amplifies paranormal activity”. In the original movie, two human vessels, Rick Moranis’s unfortunate Louis Tully, and Sigourney Weaver’s lissom Dana Barrett, were required to summon the demon Gozer to Earth. Might Chris Hemsworth’s Kevin the secretary, whose eyes look a little glazed at one point, be involved this time? We know the Australian actor asked for his role to be beefed up before taking the part, and he’s got the look to play a musclebound Sumerian demigod. Ghosts seem to be getting mixed up with demons Hollywood is pretty clear on this. Ghosts are usually visible and do not possess people; demons are usually invisible and do. But Feig has decided to shake things up, and it seems that once a bit of green goo gets inside you, there’s no telling what manner of head-spinning-all-the-way-round type behaviour may ensue. Luckily, a bit of extreme violence is all that’s necessary to banish evil spirits back to the seventh layer of Hades – or perhaps the corner of 7th and 34th – rather than a full exorcism carried out by a trained cleric. The jokes are closer to Spy than the original Ghostbusters Anyone who bet that Feig was going to change his style just because he’s remaking one of the 80s’ best-known movies was always going to lose that wager. Like last year’s superb espionage caper, Ghostbusters 2016 is sending up its source material as much as it’s paying tribute to it. This is Feig, and his trusted, regular team of McCarthy and Wiig, having huge amounts of fun once again with genre silliness, as opposed to essaying the more nuanced indie comedy of Bridesmaids. If you’ve seen Spy, you’ll probably “get” the humour here. But there are clearly plenty who haven’t and are wondering when Murray (yes, he’s in) and Aykroyd are going to turn up and bring the jokes. Yet even this brief look at the film suggests McCarthy’s spectacular improvisational skills are once again coming to the fore, and that’s enough to settle any lingering nerves for me on this one.
Pro-EU Labour and Tory MPs look at forming a new centrist party Tory and Labour MPs have held informal discussions about establishing a new political party in the event of Andrea Leadsom becoming prime minister and Jeremy Corbyn staying as Labour leader, a cabinet minister has disclosed. Senior players in the parties have discussed founding a new centrist grouping in the mould of the Social Democratic party (SDP) should the two main parties polarise, according to the minister. Talks should be taken seriously, though they are still at an early stage, according to the source. “There have been talks between Labour and Tory MPs about a new party,” the minister said. “A number of my colleagues would not feel comfortable in a party led by Andrea Leadsom.” It is understood that MPs in both parties who campaigned to remain in the European Union believe there is an opportunity to build on the newly founded relationships between centrist MPs in both parties made before the EU referendum. A Tory party source said Labour and Conservative MPs who campaigned in favour had become closer during the campaign and increasingly come to regard themselves as “a tribe”. “Nothing will happen until the Tory leadership election, but people are talking about this in the tearooms [in parliament],” the source said. A senior Labour party source confirmed that at least one Conservative minister and one of the shadow cabinet ministers who resigned last week had been involved in discussions about such a reshaping of British politics. “There is a feeling that there might have to be a new party at the centre of British politics,” he said. “It’s early days, but the conversations are at a pretty high level.” The suggestion comes as the Liberal Democrat peer Shirley Williams demands a central role for all pro-EU parties at Westminster in shaping the UK’s relationship with the EU. She warns that, without a cross-party consensus on the final deal, the country could fall apart in bitter post-Brexit division and acrimony. Williams, who was one of the Labour “gang of four” who broke away from Labour in 1981 to form the SDP, says that Labour under Corbyn is in disarray and unable to provide effective opposition as the UK plans for Brexit – the biggest, most far-reaching challenge for the country and Europe in a generation. In an article in the that has strong echoes of an open letter she wrote to the 35 years ago, about the Labour party’s desperate plight after it voted to quit the European Community in 1981, she calls for all those on the pro-EU centre-left at Westminster to join forces with the SNP and pro-EU Tories to stamp their mark on any Brexit deal. Their joint mission, she argues, must be to ensure that the 48.1% who voted to remain on 23 June have their share of input into the eventual deal after what was a knife-edge referendum result. If there is not a willingness on both sides to compromise, she suggests the union with Scotland will be at an end and a rump UK will be left disunited and scarred. Her comments reflect a growing view at Westminster that, following the 51.9% to 48.1% vote for Leave – after a campaign in which the Out camp made promises, many of which they now admit will be difficult to deliver – the views of those on the Remain side must be respected when the future of the country is determined. Williams says the answer is for a cross-party committee to be established in parliament involving Labour, the SNP, the Lib Dems, the Greens and pro-EU Tories, which would have to approve any final deal negotiated on the UK’s future EU relationship. She writes: “With Labour in such disarray, how do we ensure that our future, long-term relationship with the European Union truly reflects the range of disparate opinion in this country, in a way that will avoid the referendum result leaving an appalling legacy of division? Over the next two years the consequences of our departure from the EU will become clear and disturbing. “Two things are crucial. First, we must see the committed involvement of those representing all sides of the debate in the UK in the renegotiation of our long-term relationship with the EU. “That means, secondly, that all parties represented in parliament should take part in a monitoring committee to oversee the negotiations as they proceed. “Parties that supported staying in the EU must be part of this committee, including Labour, the SNP, the Lib Dems and the Greens, as well as the pro-Remain element of the Conservative party.” The impact of the decision to leave is only just dawning, Williams says, noting: “With every passing day, the problems confronting the new prime minister multiply.”
Arsène Wenger and Arsenal rescued from muddle of own making There was a good moment at the final whistle here. Arsène Wenger and José Mourinho shook hands brusquely on the Old Trafford touchline, turned to walk off, then realised with a shared prickle of awkwardness they were heading the same way, the world’s most awkward shared hundred metre stroll ahead of them. Wenger did the decent thing, taking a couple of paces then stopping and pretending to fiddle with his coat. It was deftly done and no doubt a sensible move, the thick black cloud above Mourinho’s head almost visible as he stalked off at the end of a 1-1 draw from which Manchester United really should have taken three points. Arsenal were lucky here. There is no disgrace in being outplayed for periods at Old Trafford, not least when United click, as they did here, with Paul Pogba all indolent craft, Juan Mata buzzing and Marcus Rashford providing speed up front. The more positive spin is that Arsenal got a point while playing poorly. It was, though, hard to avoid the impression this was a point snatched in part out of their own muddle, a performance that never thrummed up through the gears, and a chance to go out and actually beat one of their major rivals was once again passed up. Right up until the late shift that rejigged a flat, lateral midfield Arsenal looked to have blinked here. Useful points aside, their record this year against Liverpool, Chelsea, Tottenham and the two Manchester clubs reads played nine, won one, lost four, drawn five. A wise man once wrote that for an entity to be genuinely happy and functional it must first truly want to exist. Discuss, using no more than five sides of A4, in relation to Arsenal and genuine, full-blooded, white-knuckled title chases. By the end here Wenger had dismantled the oddly flat, samey Mohamed Elneny-Francis Coquelin central fulcrum, and replaced it with Aaron Ramsey and Granit Xhaka, a midfield that does at least look like it genuinely wants to go out and win a football match at Old Trafford. To select one workaday, lateral, do-a-job central midfielder seems sensible enough. To pick two looks like self‑defeating caution. In Wenger’s defence, a lack of muscle in the middle has been exposed by Mourinho teams before, most glaringly in the 6-0 defeat by Chelsea at Stamford Bridge in 2014, which quietly euthanased Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain’s central midfield career. But at some point, not least when this is your team’s strength, you do have to play a little, too. Elneny is a good, neat player, but he is essentially a VW Polo of a footballer, matched here against Pogba’s high spec, quiveringly cantilevered four wheel-drive-mobile. At one stage late in the first half Elneny and Coquelin tried to oversee a rapier counter-attack, an odd spectacle as the ball pinged back and forth between them, like watching a particularly stodgy rugby line trying to lumber forwards, only backwards passes allowed. Clearly Wenger does not entirely trust Xhaka, his £30m midfield summer signing, who is on the face of it a superior all-round player, able to pass and run and shoot as well as tackle and cover, not to mention a more imposing athlete with a greater reach and mobility. Here Coquelin and Elneny struggled to hold their ground against the power of Pogba and the progressive passing angles of Ander Herrera. With half an hour gone United began to dominate in midfield, not so much storming through Arsenal’s centre as leaning on it like a plasterboard wall and feeling the screws start to bend. They should probably have had a penalty for a slight but significant tug by Nacho Monreal on Antonio Valencia. Ahead of that flat midfield the ploy of using Alexis Sánchez as a mobile centre‑forward did not stick on this occasion. Sánchez’s energy and movement has been key to Arsenal’s altered sense of menace in recent weeks. Wenger, the alleged tactical Eeyore, has adopted elements of the Klopp-Pochettino forward blitz to good effect. At the start Sánchez appeared furiously game as ever, right leg bandaged, huge flapping black gloves paddling the air. This was not really his game though, or indeed the best way to test a Phil Jones-Marcos Rojo central defence, the equivalent of unleashing a series of cunningly angled body punches when your opponent has come out with the point of his glass jaw raised in your direction. Here Arsenal at no stage roughed up or got an arm around that makeshift-looking defence right up until Oliver Giroud leapt prodigiously to power a fine late equaliser, their first and only attempt on goal. Until then this was a game Arsenal looked like losing. For much of the second half United’s panzer tanks rolled through those scurrying yellow shirts. Theo Walcott was simply Theo Walcott, a player who, to borrow a phrase from cricket, has not so much played 400 matches as a professional footballer, as played the same match 400 times. And yet for all that, they took a point. Mata’s fine second-half goal might have killed the game. Instead Arsenal surged and scored late as they had against Paris Saint-Germain in similar circumstances. Laurent Koscielny was as ever quietly excellent. Oxlade-Chamberlain crossed well for Giroud’s goal. And for all the slight sense of having bottled up his own team’s strengths, Wenger will have made that touchline walk with a little more spring in his step.
'In the Faroe Islands, everyone is in a band' It is midnight on Saturday in Syðrugøta, a village on the Faroese island of Eysturoy. On a stage at the beach, a house band is joined by a succession of singers for a singalong. And sing along is precisely what the Faroese do. Although this is perhaps the least fashionable event at G! festival, it attracts one of the event’s largest and most committed crowds. The music itself is pretty unremarkable – a kind of Nordic answer to the Germanic folksy MOR style called Schlager. But everyone knows the songs – toddlers, teenagers, tough-looking lads, parents, grandparents – and everyone joins in. Around the beach snakes a giant rope of people engaging in Faroese music’s ancient tradition of chain dancing: join hands, take two steps to the left, one to the right, and repeat to create a closed chain that never forms a circle but instead spirals around itself. The immersion of hundreds of people in the music is memorable. And the fact that it is happening at the foot of a fjord, with mountains tumbling into the sea on either side, only adds to the oddity. Music is embedded in Faroese culture. Kristian Blak, who runs the islands’ only record label, Tutl – state-supported and artist-owned – explains that there is a music school with 2,000 students, which is staggering on a set of islands with a population just shy of 50,000. “Even if we don’t want 2,000 musicians,” he says, “music makes a difference in society.” As Heini Djurhuus, the 24-year-old bassist of the Faroese metal band Iron Lungs, puts it: “It’s rare you meet someone who doesn’t play an instrument.” You can take the facts and figures to explain the prevalence of music in Faroese culture. Or you can be more ethereal. Eivør is possibly the Faroes’ biggest star. She’s 33, and has been making albums since she was 16, building up an international profile in the process. She’s famous in Iceland and popular in Denmark; she’s got an audience in the US; and her music was featured in the BBC Viking saga The Last Kingdom. “I think it’s something to do with the landscapes and the weather,” she says of the number of musicians. “Artists tend to like this kind of place because it has so many dynamics. We have this crazy landscape, and weather can change from one day to the next. And the light is very bright and the darkness is very dark, and the contrasts are big. I think that inspires artists and musicians to create.” Eivør is one of several leading musicians from the Faroes who incorporate the lyrics and musical styles of traditional Faroese music and have achieved international recognition. There’s also the “Viking metal” band Týr and the folk metal band Hamferð, both of whom look to the ancient ballads for inspiration. Hamferð take the whole seafaring heritage thing seriously enough that they have toured the island by boat, stopping to play acoustic sets in coves and inlets inaccessible by road. Though how you get an audience to those shows I’m not sure. Faroese music evolved in isolation. Not just for geographical reasons – the archipelago sits midway between Scotland and Iceland in the North Atlantic – but also for cultural and commercial ones. Although it is a country with its own parliament, cabinet and prime minister, it’s also part of the kingdom of Denmark. No musical instruments reached the islands until the 1860s, partly because of their remoteness, and partly because until 1854 Denmark was the monopoly trader with the Faroes, and the islanders were not allowed to own their own ships or trade with other nations. Before then, the only accompaniment to song was the stamping of feet. And so its ancient traditions have remained part of the mainstream. There are three strands to Faroese traditional music. There are the ballads, the ancient tales, whose lyrics are handed down orally and are accompanied by the chain dance. Here’s a sample ballad storyline, taken from the sleeve notes of Traditional Music in the Faroe Islands 1950-1999, a compilation of field recordings: “Viljorm’s sister Kristin has a child by him and advises him to find a wife for himself. She tells him to propose to the daughter of the king of Girtland. Viljorm sails to Girtland and asks the king for his daughter’s hand. He receives an insulting reply. The king bars the door to his hall and his men attack Viljorm, who is killed.” There’s more – some of these ballads have 200 stanzas – but you get the picture. There is also the strand of music known as skjaldur, which are lullabies for children that have roots in the pre-Christian, fairytale universe. And then there are hymns, known as Kingosálmar, or Kingohymns, after the Dane Thomas Kingo, who published a hymn book in 1699. (Faroese hymns are known as Kingosálmar whether or not he wrote the words.) In the tiny, austere wooden church in Norðragøta, Kári Sverrisson – who compiled Traditional Music in the Faroe Islands – explains that even in the Faroes the old songs vary enormously. All forms of music differ from village to village – until the advent of cars and roads, getting from one place to another was a slog over the fells, or a potentially hazardous journey by boat – and the field recordists who started to compile the Faroese ballads in the 1950s discovered that you might find different melodies for the same song even in the same village. “There are harmonies, but there also disharmonies,” Sverrisson says. The 50s were the last decade when the Kingosálmar were still commonplace. In the 70s you might have heard them at funerals, he says, but no longer. The ballads, however, remain alive. Every week, the Nordic House cultural centre in the capital of Tórshavn hosts a ballad-and-chain-dance session for local kids in the venue’s dance hall. It’s the ballads that feed most into modern Faroese music. But don’t get the idea that Faroese musicians are all woolly-jumpered folkniks (though pretty much everyone here seems to wear the islands’ famous fishing sweaters). At G! festival, the new Faroese music on offer veers from the bouncy, primary-coloured pop of Sakaris, to the slick mainstream music of Konni Kass – tipped to be the island’s next breakthrough – to the Nilssonesque pop-rock of Lyon, through to Jógvan (who was the runner-up on the Danish X Factor last year) and also techno, country and metal. What’s noticeable is how enthusiastically all are supported. Every single Faroese performer seems to get a large proportion of the crowd singing along, and boys and girls are equally delighted by all of them. Not everything is good – some of it is very average indeed – but almost every performer gets a response. On the metal stage on the Thursday night, Iron Lungs are the standouts in a lineup that also features the black metal of Goresquad, who have released an EP on Tutl, and the thrash revivalism of Asyllex. There’s nothing distinctly Faroese about Iron Lungs. Heini’s brother 22-year-old brother Fríði might be singing in Faroese, or he might not. All I can pick up is a guttural roar of “WRRRROOGGGGH! ARRRGH! URRGGGH!” But they’re magnificent: in appealingly crappy Alice Cooper-style face paint, they plough through a set that veers between blast beats, proggy breakdowns, and one song where Fríði, a vast young man with a slightly camp air, reads from the Necronomicon. Rarely has the threat of black magic been less threatening, but it doesn’t matter – Iron Lungs are genuinely skilful and terrifically entertaining. Best of all, they look like they’re having incredible fun doing it. Having fun is the only real reason to get on-stage. As Fríði points out, the gig circuit is so small – a handful of venues, if that – that artists simply can’t tour all of the time. “We’d really like to play each week, but people get tired of you. So we keep it to once a month. It tends to be the same people who come to each show.” It hasn’t been easy for Iron Lungs. Twice they’ve been into the studio, and both times the results have been, in their own words, “massive failures”. “The last producer we had was drunk the entire time,” Fríði explains. “In his defence, he offered to do it for free,” Heini says. “But it was too awful to release.” Now they’re having another bash – they hope to record a single next month and maybe release an album next year. So there’s no hope of finding something good online. “Shit quality live footage,” Heini says. “True cult stuff.” Is there any stigma attached to being a Necronomicon-wielding metal singer in a society that still looks askance at difference (Magni Arge, one of the two Faroese MPs in the Danish parliament, explains that it remains a patriarchal society, and gay people and even single mothers often emigrate to Denmark to escape the stigma)? “My mom definitely doesn’t like it,” Fríði says. “Even if she doesn’t like it, she’s supportive. If people know you’re in a band, they tend think: ‘You’re in a band? You’re probably not very good, but I’m going to support you anyway.’ In the Faroe Islands, everyone is in a band.” But when everyone’s in a band, and there are only a handful of places to play, very few people can become full-time musicians. Eivør is one, and she had to move to Iceland when she was 17 to build a career; nowadays she lives in Copenhagen. Even in Denmark she had her problems when she started: “I remember my first concert there. Just one person turned up to the show. It was this drunk Faroese guy. But things got better.” Apart from a few solo stars, it’s only rhythm sections who can get enough work to do nothing but music. The unsung star of G! festival is a huge, hairy drummer called Per Ingvald Højgaard Petersen, who turns out to be playing eight times over the weekend. On Saturday night alone he does three consecutive sets, running from the stage on the beach to the one on the AstroTurf football pitch and back again. The festival schedule had to ensure he was never double-booked. Whatever style they play, Faroese musicians are likely to end up passing through Tutl. The label was established in 1979, initially for jazz and folk, but it later expanded into rock and pop. Kristian Blak says the arrival of MTV was a crucial boost to Faroese rock, exposing kids to a far greater variety of music and inspiring them to compose their own music, rather than just perform covers. Tutl released its first rock album – a 12-band compilation called Rock in the Faroe Islands – in 1995, and that was the kickstart to the scene. “We did not make the bands,” he says. “They were there. We just registered that they would like to be on a CD.” Now Tutl releases an album almost every week, and streaming makes it possible for more people than ever before to hear its records. It also means it’s harder to make money. Ten years ago, an album might sell 2,000 copies domestically; now a successful release might sell 700. And sales are often boosted artificially; if someone who works for a fishing company makes an album, their employer might buy a load of copies, out of pride. Only the artists who have an international audience sell more (Eivør’s music sells in five figures). At 6.30am on Sunday, I see just how small the Faroese music scene is. I arrive at the festival headquarters to get a car to the airport and find three dozen or so people outside, all still drinking from the night before. Lyon comes over and slurrily asks me where I’m going. He’s followed by Eivør, who weaves the few paces over to where I’m standing and has to steady herself on my arm. (She evidently didn’t make it back to her mum’s house, 200 yards away). Did I enjoy myself? she asks, as earnestly as is possible when you can barely stand. I did. I loved it. And it’s true. It’s not so much that I loved all the Faroese music I heard, though I have come back with a pile of CDs and a bizarre 7in single that appears to be from the late 70s, by a bunch of kids who look about 12, called Disco Ride, by Funkies. But I’ve been entranced by how much the Faroese love music. It’s not just background noise here: it’s still something to be treasured. Michael Hann’s visit was paid for by G! festival.
Triple 9 review – cop corruption drama clogged up with guns and explosions John Hillcoat sure does put the pedal to the metal directing this heist-cum-cop-corruption movie. He believes in delivering heavy-duty action, guns, explosions, sweaty-faced guys in grainy closeup and crash-prone SUVs at all times. He’s got gusto, but the story is clotted and overloaded, lacking the necessary clean tautness and suspense. And Kate Winslet’s turn as a hatchet-faced Russian mob matriarch is a bit on the ridiculous side. The triple-nine of the title is a cop code for “officer down”; it means every policeman and policewoman will come rushing to help. A bunch of dirty cops in league with ex-military tough guys have to pull off a super-dangerous robbery on the orders of Winslet’s mafia queen, herself acting on the instructions of an imprisoned gangster husband so terrifying that Putin himself is supposedly a bit scared of him. They must steal some security codes on minidisks, which is a MacGuffin the film can’t quite be bothered to explain. So they need a triple-nine to divert the police while they’re pulling off this difficult job – which means they have to kill a cop, and the candidate seems to be detective Chris Allen (Casey Affleck): an annoyingly uncorruptible guy. Can they go through with the agony of killing a brother officer? This could have been a smart suspense thriller, but the aggressive action element is cranked up way too high.
The ‘tears of joy’ emoji is the worst of all – it’s used to gloat about human suffering We need to discuss the political significance of emoji. Not just any emoji, but the worst emoji of all. That obnoxious, chortling little yellow dickhead – bulbous, cartoonish tears streaming down its face – which seems to have taken over social media in recent months. Some have suggested that the frog face is the worst emoji, because of its recent association with the so-called alt-right (neo-Nazi nerds, in layman’s terms) who adopted it as a mascot after the Southern Poverty Law Center declared the Pepe the frog meme a symbol of hate. These people are wrong. While it’s true that this new fascist connection has irreparably tainted the previously innocent amphibian character, it’s still not as intrinsically offensive as the “crying laughing” or “tears of joy” face that is the subject of my ire. Emoji is a complex and ambiguous language. If your mum texts you the aubergine, for instance, it might mean that she wants you to pick up the ingredients for a moussaka. This is less likely to be the case if you receive a similar message from a lover or spouse. Still, there’s something about this particular character – with its broad, cackling grin and the perfomatively prominent tears of mirth – that just feels inherently mocking and cruel. When I found out that the design had been used to create balaclavas, my immediate thought was: “At least we know what They’ll be wearing when They come.” Even in cases where the emoji user’s meaning seems entirely innocent, it still provokes a visceral reaction in me that I’d struggle to overstate. It almost certainly has less to do with the actual nature of that graphic than the scenarios in which I most commonly encounter it. Most often, the sender is gloating about something or other. In many cases, the topic that appears to have amused them is the sort of thing you’d hope any empathetic, reasonable person would find unconscionably horrific. Deaths of refugees who were desperately attempting to cross the Mediterranean in a rickety, overfilled boat entirely unfit for such a journey. Reports of a rise in hate crime in the immediate aftermath of the Brexit vote. Particularly horrendous benefit sanction case studies. Trump’s threats to create a register of Muslims living in the US, to deport millions of primarily Latino US residents and to defund Planned Parenthood. However, I’ve come to realise that the specific nature of the horror frequently isn’t the primary reason for the glee. It takes a certain level of callous disregard to respond to human suffering in such a manner, but the real target of derision is most often People Like Me. That is, socially liberal, middle-class do-gooders piously informing people that they should care about these various issues. In the words of Rage Against the Machine, the message being conveyed is clear: “Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me.” The idea of class-based condescension definitely factors in, but it’s the “liberal” bit that’s really key. People who respond to expressions of upset or anger about social injustice with the crying-laughing emoji are as likely to be affluent golf club members from Surrey as disillusioned jobseekers from my home city of Sheffield. Different people have different reasons for ending up on one side or another, but what’s basically happening right now is a culture war. And that chuckling, mocking emoji? They’re using it to remind us that they’re winning. When I look at its yellow face, I see the detestable, carefree smirks of Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson as they merrily dance through the current chaos – hop, skip and jumping over the cracks in society they’ve helped drive deeper and wider, safe in the knowledge they’ll personally be just fine no matter what. Not everyone who finds the situation hilarious has that same level of insulation, though. Many of those currently chortling away could find their personal circumstances significantly deteriorate as a result of decisions taken by the politicians they support. That’s not really the point, though. Personally benefiting is far less of a priority than ensuring that the appropriate people are losing. Call it spite, or even just a desire to exert some sort of influence on the world because many of these people have felt powerless for a very long time. In the UK, in elite rhetoric if not always in policy, the liberal social and economic consensus has held for almost as long as I’ve been alive. Though we disagree heavily on the details, I empathise with the yearning to bring about some sort of change. It’s undeniable that the ability to affect things must feel thrilling, even if the specific nature of your influence mainly involves just totally fucking stuff up. Long stretches of political inertia also lend a sense of unreality to the whole thing. “Sure, it kind of feels like we’re in control now, but is it possible that what I do can really make a difference?” I expect that for many it still feels like an enormous game. I could get into Baudrillard’s theory of hyperreality right now – further signalling my membership of the despised, philosophy-reading “liberal elite” – but even without modern technology the emotional impulse might be similar. The internet has at least made it easier for people to connect with each other and feel part of something ... which sounds great, until you realise what it is that many of them seem to want to be a part of. What’s more, without it I would never have to see that sniggering yellow bastard ever again.
RBS to strengthen NatWest brand Royal Bank of Scotland is giving more prominence to NatWest, the bank it bought more than 15 years ago, in a move that further signals its break from the Fred Goodwin era. RBS is to rebrand its investment banking arm – already much diminished from Goodwin’s time – NatWest Markets, which itself had a troublesome history when it was part of the former NatWest group. Customers of the bailed-out bank in England and Wales will see the NatWest brand, although Scottish customers will continue to use RBS-branded branches. RBS logos will be removed from the bank’s offices in the City of London, at 280 and 250 Bishopsgate, and replaced with NatWest branding. The address 250 Bishopsgate used to belong to ABN Amro, the Dutch bank bought by RBS just as the banking crisis began. The changes are being announced by the 73% taxpayer-owned bank as it outlines how it will implement the ringfencing rules born out of the Vickers commission and intended to help avoid bailouts in the future. Under these rules, high-street operations must be ringfenced from the potentially more risky investment banking arms. This requires a complex legal restructuring, under which all the retail banking customers will be held under a holding company called NatWest Holdings Ltd – a move that puts more emphasis on the name of the bank that RBS took over in February 2000 after a hostile bid. NatWest Holdings will house high-street customers of NatWest, RBS, Ulster Bank and its brands for wealthier customers such as Coutts, Drummonds, Holt’s and Adams & Co. In a further complication, the banking licence for Adams & Co will technically be the one used for retail customers of RBS. Under the current structure, RBS retail and investment banking customers are all handled through the same entity. The use of Adams & Co means customers will not have to be handed new sort codes. The announcement that RBS is pressing on with the ringfence – which must be completed by the start of 2019 – comes amid turbulence in financial markets sparked by fears about the ability of Deutsche Bank to pay a $14bn (£11bn) penalty from US regulators. It evokes memories of the crisis that hit the markets eight years ago when Lehman Brothers collapsed and eventually led, in October 2008, to a bailout for RBS. It also comes as Ross McEwan, the RBS chief executive, begins his fourth year running a bank that has incurred £52bn of losses since taxpayers pumped in £45bn to keep it afloat. He has distanced the bank from the empire-building of Goodwin, who left after the bailout and after plastering the RBS logo across Formula One cars and Edinburgh airport. “The future ringfenced structure of the bank is not only designed to be in compliance with the new regulatory requirements and objectives, but will better reflect who we are as a bank and what we stand for: a bank that is focused on its customers,” said McEwan. “Our proposed future structure under the ringfencing legislation and our brand strategy are key elements of the bank we are becoming.” Last week, RBS began a new advertising campaign, which signalled that the NatWest brand would be given more prominence in England and Wales and set out that in Scotland it would be known as “The Royal Bank”. The situation has been complicated by the failure of RBS to sell off the 300 branches it was required to by the EU as a penalty for state aid. These Williams & Glyn branches are supposed to be sold by the end of next year, although McEwan warned this week that the bank faced uncharted territory if it failed to do so.
Osborne: voting for Brexit means embracing Farage's divisive vision George Osborne has told voters that by choosing to leave the European Union they would be embracing Ukip’s “mean, divisive” vision of Britain. The chancellor used a television interview with the BBC’s Andrew Neil to draw the battle lines for the final two weeks of what he called a fight for “the soul of our country”. While not attacking his close friend and cabinet colleague Michael Gove, or potential leadership rival Boris Johnson directly, the chancellor claimed the campaign to leave had been hijacked by the anti-immigration agenda of Nigel Farage, Ukip’s leader. “Nigel Farage and his vision of Britain has taken over the leave campaign,” he said. He said warnings about the risk of Cologne-style sex attacks by migrants, or “bodies washing up on British beaches” – both fears voiced by Farage in recent days – spoke for a Britain he couldn’t endorse. “I don’t want Nigel Farage’s vision of Britain. It is mean, it’s divisive, it is not what we want for our country,” he said. By tarring Vote Leave, which includes cabinet ministers Priti Patel and Chris Grayling as well as Gove and Johnson, with the same brush as Farage, the Stronger In campaign, which has been rattled by a series of close opinion polls, hopes to win over waverers. In a speech on Wednesday, Gove focused on the issue of Turkey’s proposed membership of the European Union, accusing the government of appeasing Ankara over its crackdown on free speech in exchange for cooperation over the migrant crisis. “There are particular times when the assertion of our liberalism needs to be especially muscular. Nowhere more so than when the essential freedom – freedom of speech – is threatened. Which brings me to the case of Turkey. That country’s democratic development has been put into reverse under President Erdoğan,” Gove said. “We and the European Union should be protesting in the clearest and loudest possible manner at this erosion of fundamental democratic freedoms. But instead we and the European Union are making concession after concession to Erdoğan.” However, Osborne insisted the threat of Turkey joining – which Vote Leave has made central to a poster campaign – is unlikely to be realised in his lifetime. The chancellor also doubled down on the strategy of warning the public about the economic risks of Brexit, dubbed “Project Fear” by his critics, saying: “There is a lot to be scared about: it is vital that people know what is at stake here.” He claimed leaving the EU would mean losing control over Britain’s economy, comparing it to the shock that followed the 2007-8 financial crisis and plunged the UK into a deep recession. The chancellor brandished a small part from an Airbus plane wing, manufactured in a factory in Keighley, saying that it could be made elsewhere – turning workers out of jobs – if Britain no longer had free access to the European single market. His blunt approach was a sign that Britain Stronger in Europe is seeking to hone and simplify its economic message in the final days of the campaign. It unveiled a poster on Wednesday that is going to be used on billboards across the country, which simply states “out of Europe, out of work” on top of an image of shutters. The image represents a final push to get across an economic message, with reference to a Treasury estimate that 3m jobs are dependent on EU trade. The Labour MP Yvette Cooper said: “Boris Johnson and Michael Gove are more concerned with their own jobs than the risk that leaving the EU poses to other peoples. For them this is a game but the consequences of Brexit are real.”
Jack Garratt: Phase review – Jack of all trades About 10 years ago, a former musician called Mike McCready started attracting a lot of attention from the press. Understandably so: he had come up with a computer program that he claimed could accurately predict whether or not a song was going to be a hit. Furthermore, if it wasn’t, he claimed it could tell you what to do it to rectify the situation. It was a complicated business idea – a New Yorker profile by Malcolm Gladwell was full of phrases like “periodicity score” and references to the 18th-century Scottish philosopher Henry Home – but at root, the whole thing was predicated on the idea that what people really want to listen to is stuff that sounds like music they’ve already heard. Naturally there were naysayers, but the kind of thinking that powered McCready’s program is still very much abroad in the music industry. It’s hard not to believe that it accounts for the dramatic rise of Jack Garratt, a 24-year-old from the seamy rock’n’roll badlands of Little Chalfont – best known as the location of Ozzy Osbourne’s home counties pile – who currently has a fair claim to call himself the most hotly tipped artist in Britain: winner of the Brits critics’ choice award, the BBC Sound of 2016 poll, and MTV’s brand new 2016 shortlist; his songs covered by stars including Ellie Goulding; a gig at the Brixton Academy already booked, in the steadfast belief that it will be packed out come April. That isn’t to suggest for a moment that Garratt has somehow cynically contrived a sound that he thinks is going to sell; just to note that the speed of his recent progress might have something to do with the fact that the music on his debut album powers through a lot of what McCready would have called “hit clusters”. It’s a bit earnest singer-songwriter: there’s a lot of ballady stuff performed on a roughly recorded, slightly out-of-tune piano, and you don’t have to strain too hard to imagine Weathered, with its fingerpicked guitar-figure, being performed by Ed Sheeran. It’s a bit folky – I Know What I Do cleverly weaves a trad-sounding melody around an electronic drone – but also a bit poppy. On Worry and Breathe Life, he comes up with bulletproof Radio 1-friendly choruses, while, less enjoyably, on Surprise Yourself, his lyrics start dealing in the motivational poster “be yourself” shtick that pop songwriters seem intent on spreading thickly over the charts like manure. There are falsetto vocals and gospelish choruses that recall Sam Smith, while on the closing My House Is Your Home, his voice takes on the prematurely aged bluesman patina favoured by James Bay. But Phase is most richly indebted to James Blake, both in the way its sound adapts the standard singer-songwriter approach to influences from dance music – dubstep-inspired sub-bass judder, the skippy rhythms of UK funky house, the noisy, Day-Glo electronics of EDM – and in its resolutely gloomy, lovelorn mood: after 47 minutes of sleepless nights and relationship trauma, the album ends with the sound of Garratt sighing disconsolately, as if he’s too upset to continue. It’s not just in its influences that Phase seems entirely of the moment. There’s something about the way the sound on Breathe Life or Far Cry keeps flicking between disparate styles – the former features scratchily lo-fi guitar, squealing rave synthesisers, percussion interludes that sound like drumsticks clattering on an upturned plastic bucket, a pop chorus with massed woah-oh vocals, woozy electronic ambience, churchy piano, grinding sub-bass and a hint of chopped-and-screwed hip-hop – that makes you think of someone flitting between umpteen open browser windows with a different YouTube video in each: it sounds like music with its concentration completely shot from trying to watch TV while checking Twitter, Snapchatting, Skypeing a friend and swiping on Tinder. Sometimes the constant jump-cutting is exciting – as demonstrated by the startling arrival of the chorus of Coalesce, or the moment during Chemical where electronically warped piano chords and echoing vocals come to rest over a ticking house beat, with the sort of reedy synthesiser sound that decorated D-Train’s 1981 dance smash You’re the One for Me sounding oddly mournful somewhere in the distance. Sometimes it just gets on your nerves, usually when the gulf between Garratt’s resolutely mainstream songwriting and what’s going on in the background proves too wide to bridge: the sound feels grafted-on and uncomfortable, the sense of someone trying a bit too hard is difficult to escape. You could say the same thing about the lyrics. Garratt is the type of writer who is always threatening to burn up in the sky and turn to dust, or pleading for respite for his cold, dead lungs, or telling you how his love is powerful, ruthless and unforgiving. It feels a little overwrought: it may be that Garratt has suffered an unbearable amount of emotional turmoil in his life, but something about the slightly strained nature of his lunges for poeticism – “Don’t feed the solace within you and allow it to grow, because when the leaves, the blossom become you, they’ll turn black and they’ll fall,” he sings, puzzlingly, on The Love You’re Given – suggests he’s actually engaged in the time-honoured tradition of Making a Meal of Things. “Shield my eyes, baby, they’ve seen so much,” he sings at one point, his voice the tremulous quaver of a man who has witnessed scenes of unimaginable degradation and suffering, and is struggling to maintain his psychological equilibrium and faith in humanity. But at risk of sounding cynical, something about it doesn’t ring true. You find yourself thinking: oh, come off it, mate. Where have you seen this? BBC3? Of course, Garratt might reasonably respond that it’s better to have pop music that’s trying too hard than not trying at all, better to be overstuffed with ideas than lacking them. None of the criticisms you might level at Phase are insurmountable: they’re the kind of things artists tend to do early in their career. Garratt can already write the type of playlist-hogging melodies that Swedish pop factories charge top dollar for. Time will tell whether he finds a way to make himself heard more clearly over the sound of his influences, and cottons on that less is sometimes more. Until then, he’ll just have to console himself with an album that feels entirely of the moment in a way that isn’t entirely satisfying – and, of course, with vast commercial success, which feels inevitable. He’ll doubtless struggle through somehow.
Has 2016 turned into most trivial US election ever? This is a public service announcement. Despite all the drama of the debates; despite all that’s at stake for the world’s security and stability; despite all the breathless coverage; this election is about as small as it gets. A little more than a month away from election day, what have we really debated through this long contest? We have dissected the midnight tweets of a delusional, failed businessman. We have watched in awe at his man-child tantrums and eruptions. We have investigated emails that the National Archives will never see. We have fretted about a candidate’s bacterial infection. Let’s be honest. We have not debated war and peace, capitalism and socialism, or even surveillance and privacy. More than anything else, we have simply obsessed about the psychopathic freak show that is the Trump campaign. Let the historians of the future know that the great Trump-Clinton contest of 2016 was much like the famous Seinfeld pitch to NBC: it’s a show about nothing. In that sense, we have to recognize something profound about this point in time. The blame is not entirely on the candidates or the campaigns, or even on our own shallow nature. For this is an election at a time of relative peace and prosperity. Yes, it’s true: peace and prosperity. And our failure to admit the obvious is hurting our ability to sustain an adult conversation about our politics. If you haven’t already pressed the publish button on your comments below, or tweeted your outrage to the world, it’s time to consider the facts. Yes, of course there are unacceptable levels of gun violence and isolated acts of homegrown terrorism. And the squeeze on the middle class – as well as the gap between rich and poor – is a profound challenge to us all. But back in the Seinfeld era, our cities saw far higher murder rates. There were the large-scale terrorist attacks of Oklahoma City and the Atlanta Olympics, the first attack on the World Trade Center and the embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. The first internet bubble created millionaires and billionaires overnight, while the manufacturing decline that began in the early 1980s continued to hollow out the rust belt. So we rolled into an election at the end of the 1990s that bears a remarkable similarity to this one: a contest between two candidates who thrilled nobody in particular. A wonkish Democrat who wasn’t particularly good at retail politics, seeking a third term after a popular and charismatic president. A simplistic Republican gun-slinger who promised a return to the Reagan era of even greater wealth and military superiority. Reporters (including this one) considered which of the two they would rather share a beer with. Meanwhile younger voters thought both candidates were hopelessly irrelevant to their lives and tiresomely similar in their politics. Of course the political differences between George W Bush and Al Gore were obvious and catastrophically so. As we now know, within a year of taking office, President Bush had decided to invade Iraq – a decision almost unthinkable for a President Gore. With a Gore White House, the US would have led the world on climate change more than a decade before President Obama struck the Paris agreement. But back in 2000, at another time of relative peace and prosperity, it didn’t seem to matter whether voters cast a few ballots for Ralph Nader or even got confused and chose Pat Buchanan. And so the infinitely wise supreme court decided the course of the planet on the basis of 537 votes in Florida. The Trump-Clinton election isn’t like 2004: a contest about national security, playing out in the bloodbath of the Iraqi civil war, while Osama bin Laden was still at large. It’s nothing like 2008: an election that unfolded as the economy plunged into freefall in the middle of the worst financial crisis since the Wall Street Crash of 1929. It may have some echoes of 2012, when a wealthy businessman who liked the idea of self-deportation went up against a mainstream Democrat on issues of gender equality. But that was a presidential re-election effort, and both the president and the economy were very far from where they are today. Today unemployment stands at 4.9%. That’s lower than it was during George W Bush’s election in 1988, Clinton’s re-election in 1996, and Bush’s re-election in 2004. Four years ago, as Obama ran for the second time, it was 7.8%. The only recent election with a lower rate: Bush v Gore in 2000, when unemployment was 3.9%. Household incomes surged 5.2% last year, the largest gain since records began in 1967. If incomes continue to grow this year, they will have made up all the lost ground since the Great Recession of eight years ago and will be close to the all-time high reached in – when else? – 1999. Gas prices are lower than they were in the last two elections, and the president’s job approval ratings are above 50%. And while there are still thousands of US troops deployed across the world, not least in Afghanistan, combat deaths are a fraction of what they were in the last three presidential cycles. None of which is to say that this election should remain substance-free. After all, it certainly is not consequence-free. Donald Trump’s election would throw the world’s economy and its security framework into disarray. There are many factors to blame for this Seinfeld election: the capitulation of responsible Republicans to an extremist fringe; the small-bore politics of campaign strategists in a divided nation; and of course the brain of the GOP nominee himself. But you should also blame our stubborn inability to recognize the relative peace and prosperity that exists today. Until we turn the page on our mindset of recession and war, we are condemning ourselves to an election that is entirely Trumped up.
Emily Blunt's character written out of Sicario 2 The screenwriter behind the hit crime thriller Sicario and its upcoming sequel, Soldado, has revealed that he is writing Emily Blunt’s character out of the followup. Speaking to The Wrap, Taylor Sheridan said: “That was my decision, and at some point I’m going to have to talk to her about it.” In the 2015 movie, Blunt played an FBI agent who must navigate a complex web of double bluffs to take down a Mexican drug cartel. Benicio Del Toro and Josh Brolin play her colleague and boss respectively; the first film ends – spoiler alert – with Blunt’s character unable to exact revenge for a series of professional compromises. Sheridan said: “Her arc was complete … I couldn’t figure out a way to write a character that would do her talent justice. Look what she went through. It was a difficult role. Here I write this lead character and then I use her as a surrogate for the audience. “I make her completely passive against her own will so the audience feels the same impotence that a lot of law enforcement officers feel. I drag her through hell, and betray her in the end. It was an arduous journey for the character, and for Emily. That character had arc.” He added: “What do you do next? She moves to some little town and becomes a sheriff and then gets kidnapped and then we have Taken? I had to tell the story that was true to this role, and I didn’t feel like I could create something with that character that would further that world that would do Emily’s character justice. That said, there could be room for [her character] somewhere else down the road.” Sicario made $85m (£68m) from a production budget of $30m. Following its Cannes premiere, it made many critics’ lists of the best films of 2015. Its director, Denis Villeneuve, followed it with the alien-language-deciphering drama Arrival, and is completing a sequel to Blade Runner, due next year. The Italian film-maker Stefano Sollima will replace him in the director’s chair.
Your pool-peeing habits are pissing off the American Chemical Society Do you love the smell of a chlorinated pool in the summertime? Unfortunately, urine for a surprise. That nostalgia-inspiring aroma is actually a result of disinfection byproducts, or DBPs, created when people skip the bathroom and pee in the pool – and those DBPs are not good for you. A new video produced by the American Chemical Society explains that when urine and other organic matter mix with the disinfectants we use in pools, they set off chemical reactions that produce compounds such as cyanogen chloride, chloroform, dichloramine, trichloramine and bromoform – AKA the unwanted DBPs. Chloramines can cause irritation to the skin, eyes and respiratory tract, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. DBPs are also the result of dirt, sweat and lotion that swimmers bring into the pool, but urine accounts for about half of them, which is why the video calls using a toilet before diving in “your civic duty”. The tricky art of pool chemistry has made international headlines this summer, thanks to the startling metamorphosis of Rio’s Olympic diving pool from azure to emerald. Though Olympics officials have attributed the murky green waters to the accidental introduction of 160 liters of hydrogen peroxide into the pool, chances are there was a good amount of urine in there as well. Seventeen percent of Americans admit to peeing in the pool, according to a 2009 survey by Water Quality and Health Council, but among elite athletes the number is probably much higher. “Nearly 100% of elite competitive swimmers pee in the pool. Regularly,” Carly Geehr, a former member of the US swimming national team, wrote on Quora in 2012. “Some deny it, some proudly embrace it, but everyone does.” Among those in the latter camp are Olympians Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte. In 2012, Lochte responded to a question about peeing in the pool, saying: “Of course. We always do. I think there’s just something about getting into chlorine water that you just automatically go.” Lochte went on to admit that he had befouled the pool during the London Olympics: “Not during the races, but I sure did before in warm-up.” Phelps subsequently backed up his sometime rival, telling the Telegraph: “I think everybody pees in the pool. It’s kind of a normal thing to do for swimmers. When we’re in the water for two hours, we don’t really get out to pee.” Such brazen pee-havior is unwelcome to Ernest R Blatchley III, a professor of engineering at Purdue University who studies DBPs. “High-profile swimmers have a real opportunity to take a position of leadership and responsibility,” he told Chemical & Engineering News. The scientist urged swimmers “to practice commonsense hygiene”.
David Cameron claims victory in battle with EU over migrant arrival rules David Cameron will claim on Wednesday that Britain has won a battle in the EU that will prevent more asylum seekers from travelling to the UK and allow those who do arrive to be returned to elsewhere in Europe. Downing Street said “intense lobbying” by British officials had helped stop the European commission from tearing up the so-called Dublin regulation, which says refugees have to claim asylum in the first European country they arrive in. But the proposals to be unveiled by the commission on Wednesday, which have been seen by the , do not point to such a clear outcome for the UK as Downing street has claimed. Instead, plans to scrap the Dublin regulation is still on the table as one option, in a move that would pave the way for a mandatory redistribution system for asylum seekers based on a country’s wealth and ability to absorb newcomers. A second option would preserve the existing rule, but add a “corrective fairness mechanism” so refugees could be redistributed in times of crisis to take the pressure off arrival states. The “corrective fairness mechanism” would be based on an existing scheme, where member states have agreed to resettle 160,000 Syrian refugees from Greece and Italy to other EU countries. But in the first six months of operation, barely 1,000 refugees have been resettled under the scheme, raising questions about its viability. EU officials have stressed that since January the UK, could opt out of EU asylum policy but has chosen not to do so. Successive governments have preferred to opt into the Dublin regime because it allows the UK to deport asylum seekers to the first EU country they entered. A government source said: “We have lobbied hard to ensure that we can retain the right to return asylum seekers to the countries where they arrive and it looks like we’ve succeeded in persuading the European commission to put this into the proposals. “It shows that when you stand up for Britain in Brussels, we can get what we need.” Officials are trying to use the situation to make a pro-EU argument by saying the UK has achieved the “best of both worlds” – keeping its seat at the table but avoiding opting in to what he described as “migrant relocation”. “A vote to leave the EU would mean the Dublin regulation would be gone for good, so thousands more asylum seeker reaching our shores would have the chance of staying put,” the government source said, adding that the powers had been used to return 12,000 asylum seekers since 2005. But Matthew Elliott, chief executive of Vote Leave, said: “Being subject to the Dublin regulations result in hardly any removals from the UK but do leave EU judges in complete control of our asylum system. Just like the £350m we give to Brussels each week, that represents a bad deal for Britain. “If we want a humane asylum policy that we can hold accountable and ensure is in our national interest, the only safe option is to vote leave.” Campaigners have described the push to maintain the Dublin regulation and not share the burden of the refugee council as appalling. They are likely to be outraged that the government has been actively lobbying in this way. It comes after Cameron rejected a call by the House of Lords to take 3,000 unaccompanied refugee children. Guy Verhofstadt, leader of the liberal group in the European parliament, urged member states to agree “a new EU asylum system based on a fair distribution scheme”. He said: “The overhaul of the Dublin agreement is an essential step if we are to put in place a much-needed collective European response to the refugee crisis. Under the Dublin regulation, we have witnessed a race to the bottom in which Member States compete to become the least attractive for refugees; but this has paralysed Europe.”
Trump is a fool to mess with Pope Francis. He plays in a higher league Someone should remind Donald Trump that Pope Francis is the religious leader of 1.2 billion Catholics and the sovereign of the Vatican City. Trump is simply a businessman running for president. The Catholic church has been around for almost 2,000 years, and the church is the master of the long game. A day before the Pontiff and the Donald exchanged salvos about whether or not those who build walls, and not bridges, are acting religiously, Rev Frederico Lombardi called Trump’s previous criticism of Pope Francis and immigration “very strange” and said that Trump could use a dose of the global perspective. Just a day later, it’s clear that Trump is not the only person who knows how to get the internet going. For American Catholics who are conservative, this dust-up presents an interesting choice: side with church teachings on helping the stranger, or embrace the protestant who wants to build a wall to keep out immigrants, many of whom are Christian? The usual Republican suspects lined up to side with Trump, chastizing Pope Francis for insinuating that the candidate isn’t Christian. (Trump responded: “For a religious leader to question a person’s faith is disgraceful.” If nothing else, Trump does understand Protestantism.) Rush Limbaugh, the de facto pope of Republican purity, reminded his listeners that the Vatican has a wall akin to the one Trump proposes for Mexico. Jerry Falwell Jr, president of Liberty University and Trump supporter, said: “Jesus never intended to give instructions to political leaders on how to run a country.” No matter that Falwell’s father, Jerry Falwell Sr, was co-founder of the Moral Majority and often tried to influence politics from his bully pulpit at Thomas Road Baptist church. No doubt he is is rolling in his grave over his son’s newfound support for the separation of church and state. It’s worth noting that this Protestant-Catholic dynamic has been a problem throughout America’s history. Protestants attacked Catholics during the 1844 Nativist riots in Philadelphia. Guess what that was about? Anti-immigrant sentiment. Back then, it was the influx of Irish Catholics into the city. Now, it’s Donald Trump clinging to a bygone notion of protestant ascendancy and nativist sentiments, when mainline Protestantism is on the wane in the US. This war of words and belief will most likely help Donald Trump in the short term as he campaigns in South Carolina and the southern primary states. Trump’s defense of white Anglo-Saxon Protestantism is gathering those who support him into a strong solidified base. Since the election of Francis, Republicans have been very wary of the Pope, attacking his liberal statements on homosexuality, global warming and capitalism. Immigration is just one more thing they consider the Pope to be wrong about, and the Pope’s prayers at the Mexico US border are for them, part of religious practice, and not a symbol of faith in action. Trump’s remarks will galvanize his voters, who are white, mostly protestant and against immigration. The war of words over Trump’s Christianity may not have immediate implications for the presidential primary – any bump Trump gets out of the scuffle could well be balanced out by other constituencies – but it does have long-term implications for Donald Trump and the Republican party. Republicans will need to get votes from Latino immigrants, Catholics and others if they hope to regain the White House in November. With Donald Trump as their leading candidate, a nativist who wants to build an expensive wall between the US and Mexico, that seems to be a losing proposition. Pope Francis 1, Trump 0.
Premier League farewells: 14 people and things we’re saying goodbye to 1 Manuel Pellegrini Since February’s grand reveal that football’s hot kid Pep Guardiola had been signed up by City’s squillionaire owners, the Chilean has cut a dignified if slightly forlorn figure. After three seasons and a league title, he says he wants to stay in England and manage a top club. But for now it’s adios, Manuel. 2 Guus Hiddink Chelsea’s Mr Stopgap has steadied the good ship Stamford Bridge after the Mourinho rupture and pulled the underperforming side into mid‑table. Even Eden Hazard is starting to look like his old self as he hands over to Italy’s Antonio Conte after a second stint in charge. Back to the golf course for good guy Guus. 3 Eric Black Villa’s caretaker oversaw the bitter, guileless end of a shambolic season. Having been relegated with Birmingham, Black knows only too well what awaits. You only hope owner Randy Lerner does too. 4 Roberto Martínez Everton’s patience finally ran out on Thursday. Farhad Moshiri had seen enough. One win in the last 10 matches sealed it. 5 Quique Sánchez Flores Ru thless old business, this Premier League. Flores had fulfilled his remit by keeping the club up with a respectable 13th-place finish after they were promoted last season, although their form dropped off alarmingly in the latter half of the season and they have won just two of their last 11 league games. 6 Norwich’s directors’ box Cutaway shots on Match of the Day were enlightened by the sight of the doyen of cookery writers tastefully clad in a custard yellow and spinach green scarf urging on her beloved Canaries. There, too, was ex-politico Ed Balls, now club chairman after a stint as shadow chancellor. Now that’s what you call a directors’ box. 7 Shirtless Newcastle fans Hardy lot, the Gallowgate lads, but they must now bare their tattooed chests and bellies in the Championship. 8 Crests of Manchester City and West Ham If confirmation were ever needed that the Premier League is a corporate world where brands count more than tradition it is the trashing of club crests for fresh, shiny ones. It’s bye-bye to two crests today before they change over the summer. City’s new rounded badge is indeed smart and the Hammers’, er, hammers-only logo comes complete now with the word “London” for the geographically challenged. 9 Upton Park No more Green Street ambushes, no more Chicken Run, farewell too to the 15,000-seat West Stand. West Ham move on. Next stop, the taxpayer-funded uplands of the Olympic Stadium. 10 Villa fans on the Holte End The 13,472 souls who each week urged the Villa players to match their passion and commitment for the club take their distinctive colour and pageant to the Championship. Good luck. 11 The Premier League logo Yes, next season we’re getting an “exciting new visual identity”, featuring a few fat cats (a lion’s head with a crown in four different styles). And farewell to Barclays, title sponsors since 2004. From next season it’s simply the Premier League, in an effort to mirror American sports’ “clean branding”. 12 Free Friday nights From August the new £5.14bn Premier League deal kicks in, with 168 live matches per season, 14 more than the current deal. A new package includes up to 10 live Friday games. There is no escape from televised football. Except for Saturdays at 3pm. 13 Tim Howard After 10 years between the Goodison sticks the beardy American heads home for the MLS. 14 Fletch and Sav The Darren Fletcher and Robbie Savage Saturday morning banter-fest is no more. BT Sport has scrapped the show as its Saturday match slot moves to 5.30pm. Soccer AM remains. Is that just?
Gene Wilder – five key performances Gene Wilder exemplified a certain kind of crazed comic intensity that found a mass audience in the 1970s and 80s, with Wilder seeming to function best in partnership with other comedy greats: principally Mel Brooks, with whom he made three masterpieces, and Richard Pryor. The Producers Wilder had a small role in a TV production of Death of Salesman, and another minor part in Bonnie and Clyde, but the film that really put him on the map was Mel Brooks’ celebrated The Producers, released in 1967. Wilder played highly strung accountant Leo Bloom (named in homage to James Joyce’s central character in Ulysses) opposite Zero Mostel as the pair work a scheme to swindle wannabe theatrical backers on Broadway. Brooks originally tried to cast Peter Sellers as Bloom, but Sellers dropped out; Brooks remembered the “natural comic” he had met some years previously and the rest is history. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory Roald Dahl didn’t much like Wilder’s version of eccentric sweetmaker Willy Wonka, having lobbied to get Spike Milligan the role. Be that as it may, the pop-art design and nifty musical soundtrack has meant the film remained a candy-coloured cult classic, and Wilder’s fizzing energy works well in the role. Blazing Saddles Wilder did his best work in the 1970s with Brooks, and this spoof western nailed it – and was commercially huge. As the Waco Kid – a boozed-up gunslinger who recovers to help the new sheriff see off a gang of racist goons – Wilder carried it off brilliantly. As he did in Young Frankenstein, Brooks’ 1975 parody monster movie, which includes the edifying sight of Wilder hoofing with his lumbering creation to Puttin’ on the Ritz. The Frisco Kid In outline, this sounds like the western Mel Brooks should have made, but bizarrely it was directed by The Dirty Dozen’s Robert Aldrich. Wilder plays a Godfearing rabbi trying to get a Torah scroll across the old west in the mid-19th century; he runs across Amish, native Americans, con artists and a bankrobber (played by, yes, Harrison Ford). Stir Crazy Wilder found another comedy partner in the shape of Richard Pryor; they were first cast together in Silver Streak, which features the slightly less edifying sight of Wilder hamming it up in blackface. They came together a second time on Stir Crazy – which was directed by Sidney Poitier – as two friends who end up in jail after being framed. There’s a pleasing equality to his and Pryor’s onscreen relationship, which represented a considerable advance in Hollywood’s appreciation of African American talent.
What We Become review – unoriginal Danish zombie outbreak film lacks bite Once when traveling in a small city in the Middle East my wife and I waited too long to have dinner. Every restaurant was closed, except for one: McDonald’s. We sure as hell didn’t want to eat their burgers, but we tried to find a positive spin. Let’s see what McDonald’s is like in this part of the world. It’s with this level of cultural curiosity surrounding less-than-enticing options that you should approach What We Become, a wholly unoriginal but mildly interesting zombie outbreak picture set in suburban Denmark. It’s the same low-budget horror flick you’ve seen many times before, but it’s nice to see some local variants on a familiar theme. For starters there are some really slick interior furnishings. That may sound like a gag, but by the end of the film the wood finished table-top radio and off-white parallelogram lampshades will turn to ruin as the docile, affluent community of Sorgenfri is destroyed by the undead. What We Become never leaves this safe, tidy community outside Copenhagen (the name translates to “free of sorrow”) and it’s in exploring the breakdown of society, sustained only by a drip-feed of official televised reports, where the movie is most successful. We’re embedded with one family: Dino (Troels Lyby) is a father whose protection instinct manifests itself in a desire to follow orders, with his wife Pernille (Mille Denesin) backing him up. Their teenage son Gustav (Benjamin Engell) is mildly rebellious in that he plays violent video games and creepily spies on his new neighbor Sonja (Marie Hammer Boda) while she’s undressing, but he’s basically a good dude. Kid sister Maj (Ella Solgaard) is an adorable moppet with a pet rabbit, who suddenly looks delicious once the government halts their food deliveries. The first signs of some sort of viral outbreak pop up slowly: a vomiting child at a party, a missing retiree, a shrub spattered in blood, ambulances racing down a would-be quiet street. Soon families are told to stay indoors, followed by thick tarps covering all the windows. The slow change of a familiar interior space into one in which government interference and eventual violence becomes normalized is, terrifyingly, probably quite accurate. Fear immobilizes intelligent people to do what they are told, even though the tipping point beyond self-interest seems obvious. (Men in hazmat suits holding machine guns have that effect, I imagine.) Gustav, as teen boys are wont to do, refuses to listen to authority and starts poking his head out, and that’s when he discovers that soylent green is made of people. Well, not exactly, but he finds that things aren’t nearly as under control as the media is reporting, and that he and his neighbors are in danger. Action must be taken and that’s when the movie downshifts into tedium, with about 35 minutes to go. There’s racing around and bashing heads, enough so that I’d like to retroactively apologize to the film Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse for at least giving us interesting kills. (Though for a recent low-budget outbreak picture that leads with comedy, stick with New Zealand’s much more entertaining Deathgasm.) The character development in What We Become is, unfortunately, not quite lively enough for us to care too much about who makes it out of buildings without bite marks.
Terry Pratchett's Wee Free Men to be made into film by Jim Henson Company Terry Pratchett’s Wee Free Men, an adventure about a nine-year-old girl who teams up with a troupe of small, kiltedblue men to defeat an evil queen, is being made into a film by the Jim Henson Company. Pratchett’s story, set in Discworld, but aimed at a young adult audience, will be adapted by his daughter, award-winning video game writer Rhianna Pratchett. It’s the second time the story has been earmarked for the big screen. In 2006, Sony Pictures acquired the rights for the book and hired Sam Raimi to direct it. Pratchett, who died last year from Alzheimer’s, hated the script, telling SFX magazine that it “had all the hallmarks of something that had been good, and then the studio had got involved”. He retrieved the rights in 2009. Wee Free Men is the first of a series of five books that feature a race of characters known as the Nac Mac Feegles, Pratchett’s spin on the mischievous fairies of Victorian children’s stories. In Pratchett’s world, the charismatic clan speak in broad Glaswegian and spend their time drinking, fighting and stealing. The book’s protagonist, Tiffany Aching, befriends them after she realises she is one of a very few human beings who can see them. Rhianna Pratchett, known for writing the critically-acclaimed reboot of the Tomb Raider video game, told the BBC it had long been her ambition to adapt Wee Free Men for the screen. “I’ve loved the Jim Henson Company’s work all my life, so it’s a great honour to team up with them,” she said. Terry Pratchett was sceptical about film adaptations of his work making it to the big screen after a number of projects fell through. His 1987 novel, Mort, was stalled in development because, according to Pratchett, American film executives didn’t like the idea of the personification of death, a key character in the Discworld universe. “I wrote a couple of script drafts which went down well and everything was looking fine and then the US people said ‘Hey, we’ve been doing market research in Power Cable, Nebraska, and other centres of culture, and the Death/skeleton bit doesn’t work for us,” he told fan site alt.fan.pratchett. “It’s a bit of a downer, so lose the skeleton.”
We’re making a new tech podcast – and we need your help We launched our technology podcast Tech Weekly the year the first iPhone was released. Think about that. Most of us were still making calls on flip phones, MySpace was still relevant, and people were still renting DVDs from Blockbuster. That was eight years ago, and needless to say, Tech Weekly has come a long way. We’ve covered topics such as how social media is used in Middle-Eastern conflicts and President Obama’s Reddit AMA session, and done deep dives into things like ISIS’ use of tech and why your Uber rating is actually quite important. We’re ecstatic that so many of you have joined us for the ride, but it’s time for Tech Weekly to be cut loose to make way for something even bigger and better. The new show We are making a new digital culture and technology podcast that explores how tech influences and impacts our lives on a day-to-day basis ... Coming this June! To help us shape it, we’d love to hear the one thing about tech you’d like explained. You can also drop us an email at podcasts@theguardian.com with “Tech” in the subject line, or tweet at us @guardianaudio. While we’re working away on the new show, we’ll be releasing the best of our archived Tech Weekly episodes. You can tune in here, on iTunes or on your podcasting app of choice.
Liverpool’s Jürgen Klopp puts emphasis on consistency before Arsenal trip Jürgen Klopp is hopeful an emphasis on gaining consistency during his first pre-season at Liverpool will come to fruition during this campaign, starting at Arsenal on Sunday. Klopp has used the summer to get his squad up to speed with a variety of solutions to combat the opposition’s changing tactics. “Different things have influence on consistency – the style of play, the shape, the injury situation … a lot of things,” said Klopp. “The biggest advantage Leicester had last year was not that they didn’t have to play that many games, because they could have had injuries with fewer games, but they could play nearly the whole season with the same team. “That helps if it’s good – and the team was obviously good and they came into a run.” “All of this is difficult because it’s the Premier League and your own shape is only one of the things that is important, the shape of the other team is pretty important too. “That’s what we’ve tried to do in pre-season – to be more independent to the style of play of the other team. If they defend deep, we cannot change it – we cannot say, ‘come on, it’s boring, give us a little bit of space to play’. “If they only play counter-attack, if they play high-pressure, all that stuff, you need to always have a solution. That’s what we were working on. “In general, and now in this week, we thought about things we have to do especially in the Arsenal game.” Liverpool blew hot and cold last season and twice good runs came to an abrupt end, in frustrating displays away at Swansea City and Southampton, with both matches ending in defeat. “Consistency is the only way to be successful,” said Klopp. “All of these big jumps in performance, up and down, don’t help. It’s possible because we are all human beings and things can happen that should not happen too often.” Klopp, could be without his striker Daniel Sturridge and midfielder James Milner through injury for the trip to Emirates Stadium, where Brendan Rodgers’s Liverpool side drew 0-0 almost a year ago. Sturridge missed Liverpool’s final two pre-season fixtures with a hip injury that flared up again at training on Thursday, while Milner has a damaged heel.
Tough customers Leicester City stay on course for shock of the new millennium Manchester United put in a decent performance for once at home against Stoke City, and in the press room after the match the in-house television channel was naturally full of it. We are back to our best, was the slightly premature MUTV message, while up in Sunderland the noisy neighbours had only managed to “scrape a win” by a single goal. Everyone laughed at that, believing it was routine pro-United, anti-City bias, yet blow me when we all got home and watched Match of the Day on catch-up it was apparent Manchester City had only scraped a win. But for some Joe Hart heroics in goal Sunderland would have had at least a share of the points, and as Sam Allardyce said afterwards with any sort of finishing the relegation strugglers might have taken a giant stride upwards. The other thing that was apparent from the MotD highlights – well, more obvious actually – was that Leicester City are still not having any problems in the finishing department and are still on course for the shock of the new millennium. Jamie Vardy is now a contender to win goal of the season as well as player of the year, the Foxes have become the first Premier League team to hit 50 points, a five-point gap has been opened on Tottenham Hotspur and Arsenal and their nearest challengers, Manchester City, lie in wait at the Etihad on Saturday. “Yes, of course,” said Claudio Ranieri, who possibly needed no reminding that the next two fixtures against Manchester City and Arsenal could define Leicester’s title challenge. “But we are in good condition and under no pressure.” The next two games will not define Leicester’s season – Ranieri, Vardy, Riyad Mahrez and a strong supporting cast have already done that – but if last season’s relegation escapees are still top by close of play on Valentine’s Day all the questions along the lines of “can they do it?” will have to stop. Because they will be doing it. Valentine’s Day, by the way, could have a major influence on the way the title and the top four work out. While Leicester travel to the Emirates, for what one imagines might be little reward given the way Arsenal carved them open to win 5-2 at the King Power back in September, Manchester City entertain Spurs so that all the present top four are in action against each other on the same Sunday. But first comes Saturday’s aperitif at the Etihad. The December meeting between the clubs was goalless and inconclusive, with Leicester glad of a point after suffering only the second defeat of their season at Liverpool the week before. This time practically everything is at stake, and though both managers would doubtless pooh-pooh the notion that titles can be decided in February, it should certainly provide a pointer as to who might finish on top. Leicester seem to be returning to peak form after a slight dip in effectiveness, personified by Mahrez performing at his best again after a quiet January. They are now out of the cups as well as out of Europe – not that they were ever in Europe – and, as Jürgen Klopp so succinctly remarked, their task now is simply to play a match a week while all their major opponents tie themselves in knots with fixture pile-ups. Manchester City may well view their next two games – against Leicester and Spurs, do try to keep up – as the last before their fixture programme becomes hectic. They have the small matter of an FA Cup tie at Chelsea on 20 February, followed by a trip to Dynamo Kyiv in the Champions League and then the Capital One Cup final against Liverpool at the end of the month. And they have just announced a managerial change, not exactly an unexpected one but a development that has been known to impact adversely on teams’ concentration and results in the past, especially as it has been widely suggested that when Pep Guardiola takes over he will have a significant amount of money to spend on new players. If the City squad all love Manuel Pellegrini as much as they say they do, the most desirable outcome would clearly be to win the title and perhaps another pot or two and dedicate the silverware to the outgoing manager. With the best of intentions, that is what the City squad will probably try to do, but it is easier said than done. Think back to when Sir Alex Ferguson said he was bowing out at United (several seasons before he actually did) then had to change his plans about retirement because his team’s attempt to win every game in his honour went so spectacularly awry. An outgoing manager, no matter how popular and successful, subtly changes the normal dynamic. An incoming one with money to spend does the same. Manchester City are not going to turn into a team of also-rans overnight; it is possible in fact that Pellegrini went public with the Guardiola news because he feared rumour and conjecture was already proving a distraction, but his team was not at its best on Wearside on Tuesday night and it could turn out that City are below par again at the weekend. Whereas the one thing Leicester have never been this season is below par. They have been fabulously above par, if that is not a golfing contradiction, punching above their weight from day one and using their relatively streamlined fixture programme to ensure they perform at their best for 90 minutes when a league game comes along. They are not so good as to go into Saturday’s game as favourites, but Manchester City will have to be at their best to beat them, particularly if Vardy and Mahrez get in among the still somewhat ponderous home defence. That is a huge compliment to Ranieri and his players, but only one of dozens they have thoroughly deserved all season. Regardless of the result at the Etihad, Leicester seem nailed on for a Champions League place whether they win the title or not. Yet Leicester would do well to shut their ears to such talk and concentrate on the main prize, in case they subconsciously begin to accept that finishing second or third would still be an outstanding achievement. It would, of course, but the outstanding achievement to end all outstanding achievements is still on offer. Ranieri is smart enough to know that, and so are his players. Klopp sounded like he had been mugged on Tuesday night, which is exactly the effect a team like Leicester should be aiming for. They are tough customers, you cannot argue with their approach, and at the moment no one is doing so. Manchester City, Spurs and Arsenal all have stronger squads but Leicester have proved brazenly effective at 11 v 11 contests over 90 minutes. There is still a way to go but if titles were won on verve and confidence the bookies would probably be paying out already.
Trump set to save a fortune in taxes by moving trademarks to Delaware The Trumptini, a twist on the classic martini served with flakes of gold and a T-shaped slice of lemon, and 100-odd other Trump trademarks including simply “Donald Trump” are now owned by a company in Delaware – allowing the US presidential candidate to save a fortune in taxes. Filings at the US Patent and Trademark Office show that the ownership of Trump trademarks have been moved from various states to DTTM Operations LLC, a recently incorporated company registered alongside thousands of others at National Registered Agents office in Dover, Delaware. Shifting his portfolio of trademarks, also including “Trump Tower” and “Trump National Golf Club”, to Delaware will help Trump in his mission to “pay as little tax as possible”. The presumptive Republican nominee for president is exploiting the so-called “Delaware loophole”. It allows him to legally avoid paying taxes on royalty fees for use of his trademarks in every other state. It is unclear how much tax Trump will save from the move, but his financial disclosure form states that Trump “deals, brand and branded developments” are worth $3bn. Trump is not alone in exploiting the Delaware loophole, which is used by most of America’s biggest companies including Apple, Coca-Cola and Walmart. The tax regime is said to have cost other states more than $9bn in lost taxes over the past decade and led to Delaware being described as “one of the world’s biggest havens for tax avoidance and evasion”. Trump already significantly exploits Delaware’s business-friendly tax code with 378 of his 515 companies, including New York City landmarks such as the Trump Carousel in Central Park, and 40 Wall Street Corporation, his 72-storey downtown tower, registered in the state. Trump’s office did not respond to requests for comment about the shifting of this trademarks. Alan Garten, executive vice-president and general counsel of the Trump Organization, told Bloomberg, which first reported the news: “I can’t get into that; it’s confidential … It’s sort of too complicated to explain.”
NBN leaks: Stephen Conroy pursues possibility contempt committed during police raids Labor has opened a new front in the controversy over the leaked NBN Co documents, asking the privileges committee to examine whether there has been “improper interference” or “attempted improper interference”, with Stephen Conroy’s free performance as a senator. The Senate president, Stephen Parry, gave the matter precedence in the Senate on Wednesday afternoon, and senators will determine whether or not the matter proceeds to substantive consideration on Thursday. In making the case for the matter to be given precedence, Conroy told Parry he wanted to pursue whether any contempt had been committed during the police raids and during the investigation into leaked documents by either the Australian federal police or by the NBN Co. Conroy said he was concerned that his telecommunications and communications by his staff may have been intercepted and accessed by the AFP – an action, he said, that “may constitute a contempt”. “I am also concerned that NBN Co may have acted on information obtained during the raids, over which I had claimed privilege, to penalise NBN Co staff alleged to have been connected to the provision of information to enable me to carry out my functions as a senator,” Conroy said in a letter to Parry. “Any adverse action against an employee of NBN Co because of a suspicion that they provided a senator with information in relation to proceedings in the parliament may also constitute a contempt,” he said. Parry agreed to give the issue precedence, but in a statement to the chamber, he said that decision was procedural rather than an overt signal that he believed the matter should go to the privileges committee for inquiry. The Senate on Wednesday agreed that the privileges committee would determine whether material obtained by the AFP in their controversial raids during and after the election campaign will be protected. The government had been signalling it was not inclined to support Labor in referring the matter to privileges, but waved the reference through after Coalition senators expressed concern about the police conduct and the accessing of parliamentary communications. The Liberal senator Cory Bernardi signalled he could side with Labor in sending the matter off to the privileges committee. The contempt motion raises the stakes in the transaction further, because it is possible, at least technically, that the Senate could resolve to apply sanctions. The privileges act has penalty provisions which include “imprisonment for a period not exceeding six months for an offence against that house determined by that house to have been committed by that person”. Labor appears confident it has the support to send the contempt inquiry to the committee when the vote happens on Thursday.
Under the shadow of 'dirty' HIV, South African children offered a refuge In Edendale in KwaZulu Natal, which has the highest HIV rate of any province in South Africa, there are children who had believed, from when they were very young, that they were on daily pills for chronic tuberculosis. It comes as a shocking revelation to discover that they were born with HIV in a town where it is said in the Zulu language to be a “dirty” infection. “Most parents don’t know how to tell [them],” says Dr Nonhlanhla Madlala, who works in the clinic of a project called the WhizzKids Health Academy. “The nature of the disease, being sexually transmitted, causes a lot of stigma. “You find a young person who has been taking medicine since they were born and at 13 or 14 they find they have this disease that everybody has been talking about. Sometimes they discover it by overhearing somebody talking about them or a granny or an aunt gets frustrated and says, ‘Take your pills or this HIV is going to kill you.’” WhizzKids, funded by the Charlize Theron Africa Outreach Project, gives young people a safe place to come, away from stigma and the judgmental gaze of parents and other relatives. Madlala runs a clinic that offers HIV medication and counselling for young people who are appalled at the discovery of their infection and afraid they will be rejected by their community and wider family and friends if they are open about it. Some of them miss their pills because relatives visit who do not know the secret. “But the internal stigma is a bigger problem – what they are telling themselves about their disease is more difficult than having to deal with what other people are saying about them,” says Madlala. WhizzKids helps these children and others who do not have HIV but are at risk because there is no family conversation about safe sex, and adolescents are afraid to go to family planning clinics. “They ask too many questions,” says Nqobile Maphalala, 18. “Like, ‘Does your mother know you are here? Why are you doing these things?’ Sometimes they even try to call your mother.” She and her 15-year-old friend, Mandisa Buthelezi, both have boyfriends, they say, but would never tell their parents or carers. “My mother would beat me hard, saying, ‘You are too young,’” says Mandisa. She lives with her grandmother, four siblings and four other children. She does not know how her mother died – her father left home – but she knows she does not have HIV because she was tested at WhizzKids. “My gran is the only one working. She goes into people’s houses to clean,” Mandisa says. They live in four rooms in a mud house and a house built of blocks next to it, which she says allows the orphans a little bit of dignity in their community. In 2010, the academy launched WhizzKids United. Young people gain lessons in self-confidence, learned through football games where obstacles are identified and goals can be reached. “Young people want to be healthy,” says WhizzKids founder Marcus McGilvray, a British HIV nurse who went to help in the African epidemic in 2002, launching the Edendale project in 2006. “They want opportunities for education and they want to have jobs in the future.” He has also launched a year-long programme for unemployed, disadvantaged young people aged 17 to 23 called Game Changers, to help them develop skills that will get them into work or university. About 6,000 young people have come through the WhizzKids projects. Now he hopes to open more such projects to help others elsewhere.
Can a new graduate scheme address problems in mental health social work? As a mental health social worker turned NHS trust chief executive, John Short is an excellent advertisement for the new Think Ahead fast-track training scheme which aims to create a new route into adult social work for graduates and career-changers and “build a movement of leaders”. “We haven’t been attracting the brightest people into social work,” says Short, himself a graduate of Durham University with a 2:1 in human geography. “I don’t meet any of my daughter’s friends who would even remotely think of going into it - and that’s because we’re not getting people motivated at a young age.” With £1.6m from the government to cover its first year, Think Ahead is an ambitious attempt to bring a new generation of high-flyers into mental health social work. Having opened for applications last autumn, it already claims to be one of the most competitive graduate training programmes in the country, boasting more than 2,300 applicants for up to 100 places available in July. Successful candidates will attend a six-week residential summer school, after which Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust, which Short heads, will be among an unspecified number of employers providing two years of intensive on-the-job learning. One incentive for recruits will be the freedom to work with people in their families and communities, in contrast to the deskbound routine that many social workers complain of. The NHS trusts and local councils hosting the first cohort of students will need to guarantee that they will spend their time getting hands-on experience helping people with serious mental health problems to regain control of their lives. However, Emad Lilo, vice-chair of a national network of approved mental health professionals – social workers and others trained to apply mental health law – warns that recruits may be in for a rude awakening when the two years’ training are up. “Because of financial cuts and increased caseloads, mental health social work has reverted to meeting statutory requirements like doing assessments and seeing whether eligibility criteria for services have been met,” he says. “When they go into employment, they’ll be bogged down with care management and the statutory role.” Gavin Moorghen, British Association of Social Workers professional officer, also questions whether Think Ahead’s ambitions are realistic. “Even if you have the best training in the world, you have to have good preventive measures to maintain mental health and facilities for when a crisis does hit,” he says. “Social workers tell us all the time that they have real problems finding beds for people in a mental health crisis and giving adequate support. It would be setting people up to fail if we said: ‘There’s your community, go and fix it.’ We need investment in infrastructure first, and a fast-track training programme won’t be enough.” Other criticisms of the scheme which, like Frontline in children’s social work, has been stimulated by the success of Teach First in education, are that it is elitist and that it prizes academic performance above empathy with service users. But such doubts are batted away by Think Ahead’s energetic young chief executive, Ella Joseph, a career civil servant who sees her recruits as future leaders who will redesign services to achieve “sustainable improvements” in mental health. “Social workers play a vital but often underappreciated role,” says Joseph. “They struggle to get their voices heard and their important role in therapy, support and advocacy is sometimes not used to the full. I’m unapologetic about setting a high academic bar, but we’re also putting applicants through an assessment to test their motivation, emotional intelligence and leadership skills. So I feel very confident that we’re looking for the right attributes.” As with Frontline, Think Ahead participants will formally qualify as social workers after one year instead of the usual two, although they will undertake a further year of in-service training to gain an MA from the University of York. Only 8% of students on general social work courses are given mental health placements, so the chance to specialise and earn a salary has not been lost on applicants. For John Short, who describes social work vacancy rates in Birmingham as “frightening,” the new entrants can’t come soon enough. But even he shies away from making promises about community-focused social work that a hard-pressed system may be unable to keep. “We’re not saying that we’ll have all the right jobs for our Think Ahead participants after their two years with us,” he says. “It’s chicken and egg. You need the funding to create the jobs, but then you need the people to fill the jobs - if and when they become available.” ‘I like to see how people can develop and move forward’ Kirsty Shires takes up her new role as consultant social worker with Think Ahead in September. She will lead a unit of four students during their qualification year, supervising them as they undertake 200 days of on-the-job training with Bradford council. “It’ll be really challenging having four students because I’m used to having just one on a standard practice placement,” says Shires, who is currently a social worker on the local authority’s psychosis early intervention team. “I’ll be sharing a caseload with them and they’ll take more responsibility as they become more skilled.” She says the work with clients is “really recovery-focused – I like to see how people can develop and move forward.” Too much social work ticks boxes, she thinks, making sure someone takes their medication or attends a care review rather than working closely with them to turn their lives around. “We can help people to understand their own mental health experiences and what triggers them, where they come from and why,” she says. “It’s about giving them confidence to manage for themselves. A lot of the people we work with progress well in their recovery journey with our support, and are often in education or employment when they are discharged back to their GP.” After starting as a community and youth worker before gaining her social work degree at Huddersfield University in 2007, 38-year-old Shires has plenty of experience at the sharp end. She likes to get results, an attitude she will extend to her Think Ahead students. “It’s more about enthusiasm and attitude than whether they’re bright young things from blue-chip universities,” she says. “I’m not going to judge people on where they got their first degree from.” ‘It’s not like doing a master’s in Latin’ Mental health social workers help those who sometimes seem beyond help: people lost on society’s margins, prone to suicidal thoughts, hearing voices and seeking solace in drugs and alcohol. As a social worker accustomed to dealing with such cases, Rob Goemans is sceptical of claims that students from elite universities are the solution. Goemans, who also teaches on Lincoln University’s master’s degree in social work, agrees that his profession needs sharp, analytical thinkers. But he insists that this is just one component of a more rounded personality profile. “It’s not like doing a master’s in Latin; there’s a lot of emotional development involved,” he says. “You need people with the right values, able to challenge themselves and societal norms, and that involves a significant emotional journey. “Even becoming a social worker in two years is stressful; if you condense it to one year, where’s the time for the emotional side?” His other concern is a slide towards early specialisation, spurred on by fast-track courses. Social work is supposed to be a “generic” profession, equipped with a broad understanding of both adults and children in the contexts of their families and communities, and he thinks much will be lost if it is compartmentalised from the outset. “A mental health problem can never be understood by looking at an individual in isolation; it can only be resolved by understanding that person’s social context, what has happened to them and what is going on around them,” he says. “But nobody is speaking up for social work as a generic profession. If we’re going to change the model, we can’t just do it on a whim of government or the people who design these courses.” What he does like about Think Ahead is that participants will be doing “proper social work”, even if, in his view, they will be unprepared for the task. They will work face-to-face with clients and their families, unlike many social workers he encounters, whose time is taken up calculating personal budgets for service users to spend on their own services. “It’s not hard to imagine a future dystopia where social work will consist of an outsourced call centre dealing with personal budgets down the phone,” Goemans says. “That’s a real danger if we split adults’ and children’s social work.” Join the Social Care Network to read more pieces like this. Follow us on Twitter (@GdnSocialCare) and like us on Facebook to keep up with the latest social care news and views.
The big issue: Britons were cruelly mis-sold the truth about Brexit Your leading article demonstrates precisely why I have been a long-term reader of the (“The attack on the judges is shameful. It strikes at the very heart of our democracy”, Comment), but I have to take issue with one statement. You wrote: “No one disputes the result of the referendum”, but many most certainly do. The Leave campaign was mis-sold by those who concentrated entirely on the immigration issue and not on the European Union. Arron Banks, who bankrolled the Leave.EU campaign, openly states: “We always knew that the referendum would come down to two things – the economy on the In side and immigration on the Out side and that if you could keep the subject on immigration you would win.” This worked for enough voters to make the result at the very least unsafe. When the banks mis-sold PPI and other investments, it resulted in compensation for the victims and heavy fines for the perpetrators. Perversely, the mis-selling of the Leave case resulted in the opposite: rewards for those who did it and penalties for the victim – the Remain case. There is no case for accepting the 23 June result with all its consequences. Michael Meadowcroft Leeds Are we happy with the already visible consequences of the Brexit referendum such as social division, racism, xenophobia, phoney nostalgia, isolationism, rising prices, falling living standards, declining tax revenues, institutional damage, lying and expert-free government? This is one of those times when one might have been grateful for the British constitution, had it not been so misunderstood, undermined and traduced. Judges have clearly stated the law, as they are supposed to. It is unlikely that the House of Commons will do its job as well. Do we look forward to a world once again dominated by populist myth-makers above the law? Does anyone – even those wearing poppies today – remember the last of the very many times when that happened in Europe? Peter Robb London N1 A general election would solve nothing and might even make the situation worse. What is now required is a second, very much shorter referendum campaign within six months to see whether the developments since 23 June have changed people’s minds. The whole point of the referendum was to heal Conservative divisions. This remains Theresa May’s priority, which is why she is so keen to carry out Brexit before another general election, while Labour’s supine capitulation to the Brexiters’ aggressive rabble-rousing aims at regaining support lost to Ukip. Both Labour and the Tories are placing party before country and risking the break-up of the union in the process. Neither is worthy of our support. James C Robertson (Dr) Tunbridge Wells I had to chuckle when I read and considered the absurdity of the proposal by the Coventry City owning group, Sisu, to introduce a “text-a-substitute” scheme at Coventry City matches (Daniel Taylor’s column, Sport, 6 November.) It is hard to imagine that any other governing body (the elected government of the UK, for example) would be so naive and negligent as to pass the responsibility for making game-changing decisions to the underinformed, unqualified, opinionated (with the best of intentions) population, instead of requiring their paid managers, supported by appropriately qualified advisers to make and justify such decisions. On the other hand… John Barlass Warwick
Teenage Kicks review – a compelling new voice in queer Australian cinema In the first two minutes of director Craig Boreham’s feature film debut, we see a homemade bong put to use and two teenage boys in school uniform performing mutual masturbation to lesbian porn while dad cooks dinner in the kitchen. Yes indeed, teenage kicks, but the film quickly morphs from a haze of cheap teen thrills into much more meaningful drama: a gutsy coming-of-age story that signals the arrival of a compelling new voice in queer Australian cinema. A regrettable incident – let’s just say it too involves masturbation – instigated by the 17-year-old protagonist Miklós (Miles Szanto) tumbles into tragedy, when his older brother Tomi (Nadim Kobeissi) storms off and dies in a car accident. Blaming himself, Miklós sets about doing things that might dull the pain. This includes expressing love where it isn’t reciprocated and, that old chestnut, hanging out with the Wrong Crowd. “This was supposed to be my new family,” says Annuska (Shari Sebbens), Tomi’s heavily pregnant girlfriend, expressing an unsubtle feeling niggling at the core of the film. That anything, simply put, can go to shit at any point, and rarely are we fully equipped to deal with worst-case situations. Contextualised in the turbulence of adolescence, with such a vivid character at the heart of it, that message packs a punch. Miklós is coming to terms with his sexuality and confronted with mixed feelings when his best friend Dan (Daniel Webber) starts dating a new girlfriend. His family do not exactly calm the waters, with Miklós’ largely absent father and a mother who wails about how he’ll never be half the man his brother was. Bonnie Elliott’s lightly bobbing camerawork, well suited to the unstable-feeling nature of the drama, helps pull the film away from social realist impulses to a more stylistic pallette. Elliott recently gave These Final Hours its distinctive, stinky-hot look and Spear a rich meditative aesthetic. She is emerging — if she hasn’t already — as one of Australian cinema’s finest sharp eyes. Top-notch editing from Adrian Chiarella and a drifty score by David Barber, which seems to rise like mist and seep into our consciousness, also bring cinematic flair to a story that could have felt like downtrodden naturalism. Boreham has honed his skills from almost two decades of experience making short films. The cast are uniformly strong. Sebbens (whose credits include The Sapphires and TV’s Redfern Now), an ever-reliable presence, is tender and warming. In Teenage Kicks she has a sadness in her eyes, which are forlorn and distant; they seem to scan every situation for possible answers. Like the film, her character arrives at emotions rather than practical solutions. In a demanding lead role, Szanto gives a brave baring-all performance, unpredictable but acutely balanced. He holds himself so well; the contradiction of an out of control character and an actor hitting all the right beats. Boreham’s screenplay isn’t wired to show us Miklós’ life experiences in the context of anything particularly new in terms of plot points or story; the director’s brief isn’t narrative innovation. But his perspective, and the film’s, always feels fresh and interesting. In recent years, there has been a growth of LGBT stories in Australian cinema, with features such as Holding the Man, Downriver, Cut Snake, 52 Tuesdays and the soon-to-be-released Drown as well as documentaries Ecco Homo and Remembering the Man. Teenage Kicks belongs to the upper crust of that cannon: a film that confronts the topsy-turvy world of adolescence with a deeply compelling style and spirit.
Mike Posner: 'I’ve only had success when I’m not trying to' After Mike Posner had an inescapable smash in 2010 with his debut single Cooler Than Me, the 28-year-old Michigan native endured a period of soul-searching, dealing with depression and enduring the shelving of his second album. “There was a time when being loaded and loved and popular really mattered a lot to me,” he tells the on a Friday afternoon from his home in Los Angeles. “I’d say that when I was less popular, I learned to be happy without those things. So now that I guess those things are happening again, it just feels less heavy.” Posner is of course referring to his current position at the top of the global charts once again. His song I Took a Pill in Ibiza, remixed by Norwegian duo SeeB, has been No 1 in four countries, including the UK, made the top 10 in the US – and annoyed the Ibizan authorities into the bargain. The island’s tourism chief, desperate to rid the island of its raucous reputation, invited Posner to go and explore the museums, beaches and restaurants instead – though in fact the song has a strong anti-drugs message. Hits, says Posner, “don’t happen every year for me, so it’s exciting. I’m pretty blessed.” It’s no surprise that I Took a Pill in Ibiza has been so huge, from that eye-catching title to its self-aware lyrics (“I’m just a singer who already blew his shot / I get along with old timers / ’Cause my name’s a reminder of a pop song people forgot”), a typical Posner trope also employed in Cooler Than Me. Ironically, however, I Took a Pill in Ibiza was originally released as an acoustic song about the pitfalls of partying after Posner decided to leave his pop roots behind. Posner had a hard time dealing with the success of Cooler Than Me. After scrapping his second album, he turned his attention to production and co-writing, concocting hits for the likes of Justin Bieber (Boyfriend) and Maroon 5 (Sugar). Suffering the ill effects of too much hedonism, Posner decided to sober up. He also changed his musical style to a more stripped-down sound, a gamble considering that acoustic tracks were the last thing he was publicly known for. “I always wanted everyone to love me, probably because I didn’t love myself enough,” Posner says. “But now I realize that when you’re an artist you’re making the music that’s in your head and in your heart, and not for any other reason.” Posner crafted a four-song acoustic EP bluntly titled The Truth, a very personal collection of tracks centered on the downside of fame and the lessons he’s learned along the way. One of those tracks was the original version of I Took a Pill in Ibiza, its lyrics a raw look at stardom (“You don’t wanna be high like me / Never really knowing why like me / You don’t ever wanna step off that rollercoaster and be all alone.”) Its production was also starkly different, simply featuring his voice (which was turned up for maximum effect) and a strumming guitar. “I showed Avicii the song after I first wrote it,” he says of his superstar DJ friend who is name-dropped in the hit’s opening verse. “I send music to him all the time to get feedback, and if I remember correctly, after he listened said to me, ‘All of your old songs are really great but these are the best ones you’ve ever written.’” The Truth came out quietly last June, essentially unnoticed by all but a collection of diehard Posner fans who have stuck with him despite his lengthy absence from the limelight. At one point two A&R men from Posner’s label Island Records had an idea to remix some tracks. “I said of course because I came into the game doing remixes,” Posner says referring to his past reworkings of songs by artists as varied as Beyoncé and Electric Light Orchestra. “I believe in the ethos of the remix, like Andy Warhol making a painting of a Campbell’s soup label.” The obscure Norwegian production duo SeeB wound up getting their hands on I Took A Pill in Ibiza and when he first heard the song he “thought it was great. Next thing I know, people are telling me the track is No 1 in Norway. I thought, ‘That’s crazy.’” Now Posner’s acoustic song about the dark side of the club scene, with lyrics alluding to depression, has turned into a pulsating smash beloved by raving partygoers worldwide. The irony is not lost on Posner. “When I look at it from a more poetic point of view, I wrote this sad song with a chorus that explicitly says ‘All I know are sad songs,’ and there’s a percentage of people hearing it who are having these positive happy experiences to it. As an artist, what’s more beautiful than getting joy out of your sorrow?” It seems quite likely that a new generation, misinterpreting the lyrics, will take the song as their cue to go to the white island and neck some pills. “I’m not the first artist this has happened to,” Posner says, citing Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the USA as one example. “That was really a commentary about these politics he didn’t agree with, and then you have Ronald Reagan use it as his campaign song.” Now Posner is finally preparing the release of his long-awaited second album. At Night, Alone, released next month, is one-half acoustic, one-half remixes and perfectly reflects the crossroads Posner currently finds himself at. “A year ago I’d wake up and do stuff all day and go to sleep. Today I did slightly different things and went to sleep,” Posner says, summing up his life before and after his current ubiquity. “I’ve only had success when I’m not trying to. It’s that weird thing where if you’re trying to impress a girl, you’re not going to impress her. But if you aren’t trying to impress a girl, you’ll probably impress her because you’re not trying. It’s not really my job to worry about how quote-unquote big a song is. My job is to make the best songs that I can possibly make.”
Attacks on Brexit judges are bad for democracy, says former law lord Harsh personal attacks on judges are bad for democracy and in danger of diminishing the independence of the judiciary, the former deputy president of the supreme court has warned. In a forceful defence of the court’s justices ahead of next week’s pivotal article 50 appeal hearing, Lord Hope, who retired in 2013, said recent attacks had gone far beyond legitimate criticism. He revealed that a scheduled speech about the law and Europe by a supreme justice, Lord Mance, had to be cancelled because of heightened political sensitivity over the European Union and Brexit. His comments come in the wake of a Daily Mail front page that branded the three high court judges who decided the article 50 case “enemies of the people” and media attacks on the supreme court president, Lord Neuberger, and the deputy president, Lady Hale. “Things have been happening which have made the lives of those wishing to come into the judiciary much less [free],” Hope told a meeting hosted by the centre right thinktank Policy Exchange. “We run the risk of a diminished judiciary as a result. Recently the criticism has been taken too far and [there have been] harsh personal attacks.” Hope said he had suffered from “wounding” personal attacks in the past. “It’s bad for democracy,” he added. “Every lecture given by members of the supreme court and [even] sentences are being taken out of context. “Supreme court judges do give and publish lectures as part of their public [role]. This [excessive criticism] runs the risk of closing things down. At least one lecture [Lord Mance’s] was taken out in case it excites that sort of comment.” The supreme court will next week hear the appeal by the government against the high court ruling that only parliament, as opposed to ministers, has the authority to trigger article 50 of the treaty on the European Union, which will formally start the UK’s withdrawal from the EU. In recognition of the unprecedented case’s constitutional importance, 11 supreme court justices will hear the arguments. Addressing the Policy Exchange meeting, the former editor of the Daily Telegraph, Charles Moore, called on Neuberger and Hale to “recuse” themselves and stand down from the bench because of their alleged impartiality. He accused Hale of giving a detailed speech on the issues in the article 50 case before hearing it and of introducing new questions about potential parliamentary procedure which had not been discussed in the high court case. Moore also said pro-European tweets by Neuberger’s wife constituted political activity. Judges, Moore said, were traditionally considered to be the guardians of the constitution and the “lions under the throne”. Have they now become “snakes in the grass?”, he asked. “The great majority of judges are very pro-human rights and pro-Europe,” he added. “Is there enough diversity of opinion on the supreme court? They should be independent of one another or is it group think?” The former home secretary and Conservative party leader, Michael Howard, accused Hale of “getting her retaliation in first” by delivering a speech ahead of the case. “It was wholly undesirable,” he said. Although the Brexit case was not an example of judicial overreach, Lord Howard said there was evidence of a “judicial grab for power”. Since judges are “unaccountable” it would be “monstrous” if criticism of the judiciary were to be curtailed. “It’s of the utmost importance that the judiciary should not be immune from robust criticism,” he said. Responding to attacks on the justices, a supreme court spokesperson said: “The role of the justices is to consider the points of law presented to them impartially, and to fulfil their judicial oath in reaching a decision according to the law. No evidence has been presented that would suggest any justice of the supreme court has compromised their ability to fulfil that duty.” In statements earlier this month, the court defended Neuberger and Hale. A court spokesperson said: “Justices’ spouses are fully entitled to express personal opinions, including on issues of the day. Lady Neuberger’s passing comments on Twitter have absolutely no bearing on Lord Neuberger’s ability to determine the legal questions in this case impartially, according to the law of the land.” In relation to Hale’s speech, a supreme court spokesperson said: “Lady Hale was simply presenting the arguments from both sides of the article 50 appeal in an impartial way for an audience of law students, as part of a wider lecture on constitutional law. It is entirely proper for serving judges to set out the arguments in high-profile cases to help public understanding of the legal issues, as long as it is done in an even-handed way. “One of the questions raised in these proceedings is what form of legislation would be necessary for parliament to be able to lawfully trigger article 50, if the government loses its appeal. A number of politicians have raised the same question. Though it was not dealt with explicitly in the high court judgment, it is not a new issue. In no way was Lady Hale offering a view on what the likely outcome might be.”
Personal loan war heats up as First Direct raises limit to £50,000 First Direct has launched a new era of jumbo-sized personal loans, allowing customers to borrow as much as £50,000 without the need to secure it against property or jump through the hoops of a mortgage application process. Previously, the bank’s maximum personal loan was £30,000, and the new ceiling leapfrogs the maximum at other lenders such as Sainsbury’s (£40,000) and Tesco (£35,000). However the typical rate charged, at 6.7%, is significantly above typical mortgage interest, and double the 3.4% that First Direct charges on personal loans below £30,000. For someone borrowing the full £50,000, the cost of repayments spread over the longest possible term, which is seven years, would be £743.45 a month. Other lenders are now expected to follow suit in the increasingly competitive world of personal loans. “It could be that it is used by people who are renting, or by people who are happy to pay more so they don’t have to jump through the hoops to remortgage – however, you have to be one of their customers to apply, so they will know quite a lot about you,” says Andrew Hagger of Moneycomms.com. Critics fear that the boom in personal loans, allied to personal contract plans for car purchase, will add to ballooning levels of personal debt. Ikea’s finance arm, Ikano Bank, this week launched the cheapest generally available personal loan rate in the UK, at just 3.1% interest in an intensifying price war between loan providers. The deal is on offer to customers who borrow between £7,500 and £15,000, and means repayments on £15,000 of borrowing over five years will cost just £269.91 a month. Sainsbury’s Bank also offers loans at 3.1%, although only to Nectar card holders. For other customers, its lowest rate is 3.2%. However, will would-be borrowers be granted loans at low best-buy rates, or be lured into far pricier loans instead? When lenders advertise interest rates, they are “representative” rates. To meet advertising rules, only 51% of applicants have to be offered the rate in the advert. So nearly half of applicants may end up with a much higher interest rate, or be rejected for a loan. According to data provider Moneyfacts.co.uk, the best personal loan rate on offer to someone with a fair credit rating is 14.9%, while someone with a poor rating is unlikely to be offered a deal below 37.9%, compared with the 0.25% Bank of England base rate. Nearly all the providers offer loan calculators to enable potential borrowers to estimate monthly costs, but in reality the only way borrowers will discover if they will obtain the lowest rate is by applying. Generally speaking, if you have any adverse marks on your credit file, then the chances of obtaining the low advertised rates are virtually zero. Martin Lewis of Moneysavingexpert.com says that individuals should consider credit cards for borrowings below £5,000. “You can get up to 28 months 0% spending on a credit card, but this is only useful if you can budget to pay your debt off in that time, or you’re organised enough to balance transfer the debt to another card before the 0% period ends.”
Leicester City and Carolina Panthers: a friendship founded on underdog success Their bandwagon has beer. Charlotte gets the swag and the bromance, but Leicester City’s true Carolina hearts actually rest two hours north and west of Bank of America Stadium, nestled in a mountain range. If ever an official mid-south Foxes supporters group were to see the light of day, the odds are good it would probably spring from Asheville, North Carolina, dubbed “Beer City USA” four years in a row, a soccer-friendly burg of 83,000-plus that’s home to more than a dozen craft breweries. A burg where Chris Watts has been preaching the gospel of blue for more than 15 years now. “It’s like a dream,” says Watts, a Leicestershire native who has called Asheville home since moving to the States almost two decades ago. “My brother’s a season-ticket holder and he gets to the games. I was over there in October, against Crystal Palace and Watford, and it was just unbelievable to see where we were. And you keep thinking, ‘Is this going to keep going?’ It’s a bit like a dream. At the same time, it’s brilliant.” Pinch him, he giggles. And why the hell not? Watts has been a Carolina Panthers fan for more than 10 years and a Foxes fan for pretty much the last five decades, through thick, thin, and thinner. Some eight years earlier, he had shepherded a group of US friends back to Leicestershire for his 50th birthday and a series of matches in the Midlands, including a pair at the King Power, then the Walkers Stadium. “Five minutes into the [match],” one of those friends, Tim Branson, recalls of his initial Foxes experience, “I saw four guys carrying out two.” But he was hooked. The second game, they got the skybox treatment. Watts landed a program signed by the team — which, as it turned out, would become the first Foxes side ever to be relegated from the Championship to the third tier of the English football pyramid. “I’ve still got it,” Watts chuckles. “I’ve got a signed program, in a frame, of Leicester at their lowest.” And look who’s laughing now. The Panthers prepping for the biggest single event in North American sport, Super Bowl 50’s NFC gatecrashers. The Foxes are atop the most popular soccer league on the planet. First, they were cute. Then a curiosity. Then a fluke. Then a stubborn anamoly. They weren’t supposed to here, either of them. The parallels are valid and real enough: they’d finished their previous seasons on an unexpected, almost desperate hot streak. They’d been dismissed by the experts, were under-appreciated outside their own province, middling brand names turning in gold-caliber performances, week after week, month upon month. Leicester City looked at the Carolina Panthers, 3,924 miles and an ocean away, and saw — well, themselves. “The beginning of the year, [Leicester City] didn’t have great expectations … and kind of the same goes for us,” says Panthers kicker Graham Gano, one of four Carolina players to receive customized Leicester City shirts from the surprise Premier League leaders last month. “They’ve done really well this year, and so have we. So they kind of thought their season was similar to ours and they pulled for us and that’s how we got the jerseys.” Before their NFC Divisional Round test against Seattle on 17 January, Panthers players turned up at work to find that the Foxes had sent over customized blue shirts for quarterback Cam Newton, cornerback Josh Norman, linebacker Luke Kuechly and Gano. “Carolina have had an incredible season,” the Leicester left-back Christian Fuchs told the team’s official website. “Like us, they ended last season really well and again, like us, some people didn’t expect them to do what they’ve done this season, even after the great start they had.” Before long, they shared a narrative and a hashtag: #KeepPounding. The Panthers returned the favor, and Leicester shared pictures and videos on social media of striker Jamie Vardy, centre-back Wes Morgan, Fuchs and goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel decked out in Carolina black, tossing and kicking an NFL football around. “They were natural at it,” Gano says. “It would be interesting to see them kicking field goals and what it would look like. Obviously, their form looks good, but I never saw the ball going through the uprights. It’s a little different swing than [it takes] to keep the ball under the posts. But I’d love to have an opportunity sometime to have a kick around with some of the pros over [there], and compare how I match up with those guys.” But he thinks they’d probably be thick as thieves, especially after the Foxes posted a video to YouTube of Fuchs attempting a series of “keepy-uppis” with the oblong American football. “I was in the airport in Chicago and I’m sitting at the bar and got talking about football – American and English,” Watts recalls. “And I pulled up [the Fuchs video] to show a few others. It’s pretty neat to see an English soccer player, albeit an Austrian, keeping up an American football. They thought it was pretty cool.” In one corner, the Panthers, unloved, slapped with 22-to-1 odds to win the NFC back in May and 40-1 to win the whole shebang. In the other, Leicester, dismissed almost universal preseason favorites to be relegated this term, 2000-1 odds to win the league at the start of the campaign. “It’s not quite the same,” Watts says of the two franchises and their comparative roads. “But nobody was expecting the Panthers to be where they are. A lot of my friends, when they saw the stuff about the shirts [coming over], and then the Panthers sent shirts back the other way, it’s been neat.” Carolina are playing in their first Super Bowl in 12 years; since 2003-04, 13 different NFL teams have qualified for the title game. Leicester are the first squad other than one of the “Big Five” clubs [Manchester United, Manchester City, Liverpool, Arsenal and Chelsea] to be leading the Premier League in the last week of January since Newcastle in 1995-96. “Being on both sides, [the more remarkable story is] Leicester City, for me, just because of what they’ve had to do, the fight, where they’ve had to come from,” says Branson. “Going down to the third division and going back into the second and having to fight their way back to the top. Asheville’s got a single-A [baseball] club. It would be like them somehow winning and if they did promotions, getting promoted to the majors. In a little city like Asheville, it doesn’t happen very often.” “You’ve got to have respect for them,” Gano says of the Foxes’ rise. “I haven’t been able to catch a ton of their games – we’ve been pretty busy over here, so I haven’t really had the opportunity to catch up with them.” And, full disclosure, Gano is a Bayern Munich fan, having grown up bouncing from Scotland to Germany to Scotland to Canada as a Navy brat (“I used to have a thick accent,” he notes, without a trace of burr.) Born in Scotland, he also maintains a bit of a soft spot for Rangers. “But I didn’t have a favorite English team,” the kicker says. “So I guess I can pull for [Leicester] now.” After all, there’s plenty of room on the wagon. And in Asheville, the best beer on the continent never tasted better.
Sierra Leone: we save lives of women in childbirth – while fighting Ebola Months of talking, more than a year of reflecting, and finally on 6 January we went into Magburaka government hospital to work alongside the Ministry of Health, supporting the life-saving activities of the clinical teams in maternity and paediatrics. There are many events I will remember from that first weekend: the first of three newborn babies to present with neonatal tetanus – watching his face scrunch up in pain as his muscles contracted, our presence enabling the hospital to deliver medicine, analgesia and care for him. In maternity the ambulances kept coming, sometimes two patients squeezed in the back together. There were women with ruptured uteruses, one needing an emergency hysterectomy, a teenager in labour for days who subsequently developed a fistula, and a woman who came with a massive placental abruption needing emergency surgery despite huge blood loss. I will remember, too, that no woman died and no baby survived. That first weekend will also stay in our memories for the patient we didn’t see too. A 22-year-old woman came to outpatients. She presented with vague symptoms; she was seen by Ministry of Health staff, sent for tests, and went home. She died three days later at a family home in Magburaka and then had a traditional burial. As with all deaths in the country, she was swabbed for Ebola before burial. Thursday evening we gathered for a team meeting – one week into the project, and the mood was good. We made a brief toast as the WHO was due to finally announce that the Ebola outbreak was over. We first heard rumours that the 22-year-old woman’s swab was positive approximately 10 minutes later. When Ebola first visited in 2014 no one knew what to expect. Paranoia was rife, and the death toll soared. At our previous hospital we tried to withstand the force of the disease and find ways to keep going but ultimately it was stronger than us. Closing the maternal and child health project back then was a painful decision, but the safest one, given the uncontrolled situation. That experience kept many of us returning during the outbreak, and pushing for the need to create a project that could withstand another. That objective was now being tested less than a week after opening. On Friday, a group of us got up and quietly left for the hospital in the dark. The confirmation had not yet come, but rumours were all around the town. We made our way from ward to ward, checking on every patient. We talked to all the staff, ensuring there was sufficient protective equipment, hand washing and observations for any worrying signs. We retraced the flow of patients through the hospital and put plans in place for isolation facilities. Pregnant women and children are especially challenging groups in an Ebola outbreak. Separate isolation areas, thought out according to different needs, were quickly set up. Before the sun had risen, before the world was told, we were putting up defences and getting ready to fight. Once a case of Ebola is confirmed, the definition for suspecting the disease changes to become wide and general. If not carefully applied with scrutiny of patients and their symptoms it can result in the unnecessary isolation of many sick (and easily treatable) conditions. We carefully question each patient, and use universal precautions for everyone. But this takes time, and can lead to delays in treatment. When the official announcement finally came it was no surprise. I had assumed our fledgling project would suffer and that new staff would not come to work, but I was wrong. Everyone came, and the team has stood taller and stronger than I would have ever dared to expect. The decision to isolate a patient carries huge responsibility. On Saturday, a nine-year-old girl was brought by her mother with a high fever, weakness and difficulty breathing. The girl was visibly very sick, probably with severe malaria, and in her critical condition isolating her – treating her in a tent and only while wearing the restrictive protective suits – would limit the care she could receive. If we did not isolate her, though, we would be risking a very precarious situation. The mother sat across the orange plastic fence from us with her daughter in her lap. Lovingly supporting her head she looked at us, the defendant facing the judge and jury. We searched for a way to justify the decision, but we were cornered. We agreed to isolate her and begin resuscitation, intensive antimalarial and broad antibiotic treatment. As we prepared to isolate, the girl’s breathing slowed, then stopped. We could not touch her, we could only throw a cloth over for her mother to wrap her daughter’s body as she murmured and sobbed. The body had to be treated as if Ebola-positive and the whole area decontaminated. The posthumous test was negative. Ebola is a cruel disease, not only for the illness it causes but for the collateral damage it forces us to be part of and bear witness to. On Wednesday news came that a woman who had cared for the person with Ebola was going to be sent to us for assessment. The challenge would be making sure she could be assessed and cared for, while maintaining normal hospital services. We managed to discreetly admit her into isolation. There are some characteristics to Ebola infection – a certain way of moving, a look in the eyes and lethargy. They can be subtle, but they are also recognisable. The test was taken, but we already knew what the result would be. The concept of the project was now being truly tested: we were isolating the only suspect Ebola case in west Africa, while simultaneously running busy general healthcare. A woman with twins was in labour, but they were not coming. She had been injected in the community with a high dose of oxytocin, a common problem often resulting in a ruptured uterus. The twins were “locked” together, a rare complication that put all three lives at risk. We rapidly got her to theatre and delivered the babies; all three of them are now safely home. In between managing the screening and isolation we continued to see ambulance after ambulance arrive. The woman suspected of having Ebola tested positive, so we mobilised counsellors to get the news to her before the local gossip spread. We then transferred her to the referral centre in Freetown. We were isolating and testing for Ebola, while a stone’s throw away we continued to perform emergency surgery, and resuscitate mothers and babies in the country with the highest mortality figures. And despite being the last place to treat an Ebola patient, we are seeing an increase in people coming for care. More pregnant women are coming to wait for a safe delivery than ever before – word has got out that Magburaka government hospital offers quality care, and we (a partnership of the Ministry of Health and MSF) do so with pride. On Friday night three of those waiting went into labour. One of them, a 25-year-old in her seventh pregnancy, had no living children. She cried with fear, afraid to push in case history repeated itself. We supported her, gently coaching her through. The baby came with the cord tightly round the neck; calmly and quietly we helped him breathe. The woman then had a massive haemorrhage. We got her to the operating theatre, eventually managing to stop the bleeding. If there is any symbol of those first weeks it is that woman looking contently at her healthy boy, being cared for in the proud arms of his grandmother. We have seen what Ebola can do, and we are working to prevent it disrupting the vital services we are supporting the hospital to provide. There was no emergency team, no influx of international staff or trucks of supplies. We managed with what we have and who we have. Ebola came and showed its ugly face again, but I am glad it came to where we are. Together, national and international, we have stood firm. One woman died from Ebola in the last month, but many lives were saved. • Benjamin Black is an obstetrician/gynaecologist for Médecins Sans Frontières
No single market access for UK after Brexit, Wolfgang Schäuble says Germany’s finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, has slammed the door on Britain retaining access to the single market if it votes to the leave the European Union. In an interview in a Brexit-themed issue of German weekly Der Spiegel, the influential veteran politician ruled out the possibility of the UK following a Swiss or Norwegian model that would allow it to enjoy the benefits of the single market without being an EU member. “That won’t work,” Schäuble told Der Spiegel. “It would require the country to abide by the rules of a club from which it currently wants to withdraw. If the majority in Britain opts for Brexit, that would be a decision against the single market. In is in. Out is out. One has to respect the sovereignty of the British people.” The German conservative’s intervention seems to rule out the “reverse Maastricht” option floated privately by some British MPs and government sources, whereby pro-remain MPs in Westminster could use their parliamentary majority to retain access to the single market after a British exit from the EU. Their first target is likely to be to try to ensure that despite a Brexit the UK could remain in the single market by joining the European economic area, of which the non-EU countries Norway, Lichtenstein and Iceland are currently members. The single market – to which Switzerland also has access despite not being a member of either the EU or the EEA – guarantees the free movement of people, goods and services inside the bloc. Supporters of the British leave campaign argue that it is in Germany’s economic interest to maintain barrier-free trade relations with the United Kingdom. Britain is the third-largest export market for German car manufacturers and the destination of around 7% of total German exports. In a debate on the BBC, Nigel Farage, the Ukip leader, went even further than the official leave campaign and suggested getting rid of tariffs on goods traded with all countries. This was condemned by the remain campaign, who said it was a “reckless” plan that would “decimate our domestic industries”. “People would be able to sell in to the UK market for free, but our exporters would face tariffs selling in to Europe,” a spokesman said. Commentators in Germany point out that Germany has more to lose from a Brexit than a segment of its export market and that the government was able to sideline economic interest to diplomacy in its relationship with Russia. Until recently, the assumption in Berlin’s political circles had been that Schäuble’s finance ministry was more open than others to the idea of keeping open a back door for renegotiating some form of associate membership for Britain after an out vote. But the interview in Der Spiegel, which will be published on Saturday but has been seen by the , indicates a less flexible stance. “Europe will also work without Britain if necessary,” Schäuble said. “At some point, the British will realise they have taken the wrong decision. And then we will accept them back one day, if that’s what they want.” The Christian Democrat, seen as the key actor behind Germany’s hardline stance towards Greece at the height of the eurozone debt crisis, said he and his counterparts in the eurozone would “do everything possible to contain these consequences …We are preparing for all possible scenarios to limit the risks,” he added. While warning that it would be a “miracle” if there were no economic drawbacks for Britain following a withdrawal, Schäuble also admitted that a Brexit could have dramatic consequences for the rest of the European Union. The 73-year-old said it could not be ruled out that other countries could follow Britain’s lead after the referendum on 23 June: “How, for example, would the Netherlands react, as a country that has traditionally had very close ties to Britain? It is important for the EU to send the message that it has understood the vote and is prepared to learn from it.” Schäuble also poured cold water on suggestions that France and Germany would react to Britain’s departure from the 28-member bloc with a leap towards accelerated integration. On the contrary, he said, it was important that the EU needed to show that it could learn from the British referendum. “In response to Brexit, we couldn’t simply call for more integration,” he is quoted as saying. “That would be crude; many would rightfully wonder ­whether we politicians still haven’t understood. Even in the event that only a small majority of the British voters reject a withdrawal, we would have to see it as a wake-up call and a warning not to continue with business as usual. Either way, we have to take a serious look at reducing bureaucracy in Europe.” Leading figures in the campaign to leave the EU, including Michael Gove, the UK justice secretary, want to officially withdraw from the single market to stop freedom of movement. But Matthew Elliott, its chief executive, said in response to Schäuble: “The eurozone economies are dependent on trade with the UK. We are the fifth largest economy in the world, while many of them are in a desperate state due to the failing single currency. There is no question about it, Britain will still have access to the single market after we vote leave. It would be perverse of the eurozone to try to create artificial barriers – and would do far more damage to them than to anyone else. “One thing that will change if we vote leave is that we will be able to forge trade deals with the economic powerhouses of the future – the emerging markets – which we are currently forbidden from doing by the EU. That’s why we will not only be stronger and more secure if we vote to leave the EU, we will also be more prosperous.” However, George Osborne, the UK chancellor, who has played a leading role in the remain campaign, tweeted: Peter Mandelson, the former EU trade commissioner and ex-business secretary, said Schäuble’s comments “finally knocks on the head the leave campaign’s claim that we can leave the EU and still enjoy the benefits of the single market”. “We cannot leave the club and continue to use its facilities,” the Labour peer said. “Being outside the single market wold be a hammer blow to the UK economy. Our future trade [would] be hit and our manufacturing sector, which relies on the single market’s free movement of goods and people, [would] be at risk. This is the cold reality of Brexit that the British people must face. If we leave we lose the economic gains of being the world’s largest free-trade zone, putting jobs and livelihoods at risk.” Iain Duncan Smith, the former work and pensions secretary, said of Schäuble’s comments: “To quote Mandy Rice-Davis, he would say that, wouldn’t he? … What I call the realpolitik underneath the surface is that they don’t want to get into spats. Of course they don’t. We’re a friend, we cooperate in Nato, the G8 and G20. Mr Schauble’s bound to say what he said. Come on. Don’t tell me that Mr Osborne hasn’t been on that line to him almost permanently for the last few weeks … “You’ll probably get a load of these statements. Every finance minister in Europe is going to line up. They’ve probably got them every day between now and the referendum.” The leave campaign has said it does not want to be in the single market, because it would not want the UK to have free movement. But its leading advocates, including Boris Johnson and Gove, dismiss the idea that Germany or other EU countries would impose trade tariffs given they sell the UK more in manufactured goods than they buy. Schäuble’s comments were made on the same day that the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, repeated her hope that Britain would vote to remain in the EU. Speaking on Friday to a group representing family-owned businesses, Merkel said: “From my point of view, Great Britain remaining in the European Union is the best and most desirable thing for us all. “We have very close cooperation on many questions with Great Britain and would of course like to continue this within the framework of the European Union.’’ Der Spiegel, which sells around 800,000 copies per issue, has upped its circulation in the UK for Saturday’s special bilingual edition and reduced the cover price from £5.20 to £2. The cover carries the headline in German and English: “Please don’t go!” In an editorial, the magazine argues that while it is too late “to convince the British to love the EU, perhaps we should use this opportunity to mention how much the rest of Europe admires them. It’s unbelievable that they don’t seem to see how much they’ve shaped the continent, how much we value them here, how close we Germans feel to them”. “Germany has always looked across the Channel with some degree of envy,” it adds. “On our emotional map of Europe, the Italians were responsible for love and good food, the French for beauty and elegance and the Brits for nonchalance and progress. They have an inner independence that we Germans lack, in addition to myriad anti-authoritarian, defiant tendencies. A lot of what happened in Britain spilled over to us sooner or later, reinforcing our cultural ties.” In a homage to British cultural exports ranging from “James Bond to Twiggy’s haircut”, the magazine’s staff writers said they wanted to offer Britain a “firm handshake, coupled with an honest, straightforward appeal: remain”.
UK GDP growth rises 0.5% as annual rate slows to three-year low Britain’s economy picked up pace at the end of 2015 but GDP growth for the year as a whole was down markedly, as both the manufacturing and construction sectors struggled with an uncertain outlook. Official figures published on Thursday showed GDP expanded 0.5% in final three months of 2015, up from 0.4% growth in the previous quarter and in line with the consensus forecast in a Reuters poll of economists. On a year earlier, GDP was up 1.9%, after growing an annual 2.1% in the third quarter. This latest quarter marks the slowest annual expansion rate since early 2013. For 2015 as a whole, GDP growth was 2.2%, down from 2.9% in 2014. The pound strengthened against the dollar after the data met market expectations. Some economists had warned in recent days that GDP growth could come in softer against the backdrop of a global economic slowdown, a downturn in China and turmoil on financial markets which have seen oil prices plunge in recent months. Services drive growth The details behind the GDP figures are likely to fan fears about the unabalanced nature of the UK’s economy, with the services sector being relied upon again for growth in the latest quarter. Commenting on the figures, ONS chief economist Joe Grice said: “Growth continues to be driven by the UK’s dominant services sector, while the production and construction sectors shrank slightly in the fourth quarter.” Chris Williamson, chief economist at the data company Markit which compiles surveys of UK businesses, said the outlook remained tough for the UK. “The upturn masks an unbalanced economy and a slowing pace of expansion, with the annual rate of growth slipping to the weakest for almost three years. Survey data also point to a further loss of momentum in December,” he said. “Uncertainty over ‘Brexit’, weak overseas growth and financial market volatility are all creating an unsettling business environment and point to downside risks to the economy in 2016.” The official figures follow mixed reports on the economy in recent weeks. Christmas retail sales figures disappointed, manufacturers have been showing signs of struggling with tough export markets and construction output has dipped. There have also been warnings from businesses that the looming EU referendum is hurting confidence and forcing some firms to put investment plans on hold. Chancellor George Osborne said in a Tweet that the latest figures showed the UK “continues to grow steadily” but warned that with “turbulence” in the world, “there may be bumpy times ahead”. The Bank of England has indicated it will keep interest rates at their record low of 0.5% for many months to come after signs the economy lost steam in recent months and as low oil prices have kept inflation close to zero. Policymakers say low oil prices, which recently hit a 13-year trough, should support the UK economy by boosting consumer spending. There were signs of such a fillip in a survey of UK retailers on Thursday. Retail sales growth was broadly steady over the year to January, beating retailers’ expectations for a slight slowdown, according to the poll of 126 companies by business group CBI. Sales were considered to be well above average for the time of year but the outlook was less upbeat. Orders placed on suppliers fell over the year at the fastest pace since May 2013 and sales growth is predicted to slow next month. CBI director of economics, Rain Newton-Smith, commented: “With competition remaining fierce and persistent price deflation in the sector, it’s not surprising the outlook for retailers in February looks subdued. “Mild weather looks to have hit clothing sales, but current low oil prices continue to support consumer spending.”
Miserden, the UK village with worse internet than Mount Everest Name: Miserden, Gloucestershire. Age: Old enough to be mentioned in the Domesday Book – which was completed in 1086 – under its former name, Greenhampstead. Appearance: The living embodiment of nominative determinism. I can’t remember what nominative determinism is. Let me Google that. Hold up a second. Before you Google anything, do you live in Miserden? I do, yes. Then don’t bother Googling anything. Walk to a library and look it up instead. It’ll be so much quicker, I promise. But the nearest library is four miles away. It’ll take me 90 minutes to walk there. Listen to me. It’ll still be quicker. Why’s that? Because Miserden has officially the UK’s stingiest broadband download speeds, that’s why. Tests have shown that the local population endures an average speed of 1.3Mbps. One especially unlucky resident there even recorded a speed of 0.12Mbps. Is that slow? Given that the average speed in the UK is 22.8Mbps, it’s incredibly slow. It would take you about 11 hours to download a film. That’s literally almost twice as long as it would take on Mount Everest. That doesn’t seem fair. It’s not. Although Miserden is the worst, there are several of these rural blackspots around the country. The risk is that everyone will eventually move out of these areas, because they won’t be able to email their family or watch that YouTube video of the sneezing panda. Oi, spoilers! I’ve been trying to download that video for the past three hours! Have you got to the bit where the panda looks as if it’s about to sneeze? No. See what a mess this is? Most of the country takes reliable, high-speed internet for granted, and basic neglect like this risks turning some of our prettiest villages into ghost towns. It’s OK. We persevere. Wait a minute, are you reading this online? I am, yes. When are you reading this? Well, I started loading the page the second it was published, so it’s now October 2018. Oh, wow, you’re from the future. Say hello to President Trump for me! Do say: “Access to the internet is a fundamental human right.” Don’t say: “How am I going to get all my cat gifs now? Go outside and look at a cat? Yuck.”
'Diversity is good': your views on plans to end reliance on overseas doctors Those who agree with Hunt’s proposals: ‘I think it is wrong that graduates aren’t legally obliged to stay’ I think Hunt’s proposals are excellent considering what he has said in the past. It’s important to train more British doctors and I also really like his idea to help more people from disadvantaged backgrounds get into medicine. Foreign students already pay eye-watering fees to study medicine in this country. If you can afford to pay £35,000 per year it isn’t that much of an increase to £40,000. So the funding should be there, as should the demand for medical school places from domestic students. I’m not put off by his proposal to work for four years. The NHS massively subsidise medical students and I think it is wrong that UK graduates aren’t legally obliged to stay in the NHS after graduating. I certainly feel morally obliged to do so. Anonymous, 23, medical student, London ‘Doctors need to be able to communicate in English to a very high level’ Doctors need to be able to communicate in English to a very high level, so what Hunt is proposing is a good idea. Also, it is not ethical to employ doctors from countries who have a great need for doctors themselves. Especially when the need for doctors in hospitals and in GP practice is increasing. As a nurse, I saw doctors who were far too tired to be working. I know things are better since the early 1980s, but there is still room for more improvement. Anonymous, 64, former nurse living in Huddersfield ‘We have been draining other countries of their clinical talent for decades’ Hunt’s proposals are the right decision but have been far too long in coming. While I have complete faith in the ability and competence of foreign NHS staff of all grades, we have been draining other countries of their clinical talent for decades - this is not a newly identified issue. While medical schools conduct fairly robust vetting processes already, which of course include a requirement to achieve specific grades at A-level, I do believe that there is room for this process to become more nuanced. One risk to Mr Hunt’s plan, however, is that his recent battles with junior doctors may undermine any prospective student’s faith that they will receive a fair salary once they find themselves in employment as a doctor after years of studying and training - a considerable commitment. Anonymous, 32, senior NHS analyst, Hampshire Those who disagree with Hunt’s proposals: ‘The NHS needs those extra 100,000 medics’ I believe having a diversity of doctors and nurses in the NHS is a good thing. Our patients are not exclusively UK-born or speak English as a first language, so why should our doctors? There are excellent doctors, and not-so-excellent doctors. There are doctors who are wholeheartedly invested in the NHS, what it stands for, what it provides, and some who are not. My experience is that neither of these groups relate to a doctor’s immigration status. 1500 extra medical students a year will not replace 100,000 doctors, particularly in a service that is spectacularly under-staffed as it is. The NHS needs those extra 100,000 medics, regardless of what Jeremy Hunt says or believes. Becca, 27, junior doctor, Yorkshire and Humber ‘People will just leave after four years’ This will not help the recruitment and retention crisis whatsoever. Unsatisfied with breaking every NHS target in recent years, he’s now picking fights with the people who work tirelessly to keep the NHS going. He is the most hated health secretary, and possibly politician, of recent times. Hunt’s proposals are absolutely not workable. People will just leave after four years, or, train in European universities, the fees are much less than UK, and allows them freedom to move. We will haemorrhage the brightest and best. I am leaving for Canada. I have no intention in taking part in the willful destruction of the NHS. Medicine as a career is finished in this country. Rather like our motor industry, we have been mismanaged to the point of rock bottom morale and people are leaving in droves. Several of my colleagues have left for Australia and New Zealand, I wish I had left sooner. If you treat highly intelligent people like this, they will leave. Zakir Hajat, 30, anaesthetist, Sheffield ‘If I were a student now there is no way I would pursue medicine in the UK’ Hunt’s proposals are insane. We’ve never trained enough doctors or nurses to staff the NHS. We used to have a regular supply of well-trained doctors coming here from the Indian subcontinent, as well as a steady flow of doctors from Australia and New Zealand who would come for a couple of years as our training was excellent. They don’t anymore, because why would they now? To train enough doctors to be all UK grown will take many, many years. With the haemorrhaging of staff to early retirement or overseas he’ll be lucky to have any kind of useful workforce to maintain what services we provide now. To recruit and retain doctors is easy. You treat them with respect. You offer them reasonable conditions. You pay them fairly, and you train them well. Then they will come and they will willingly work very hard, over and above what is expected or paid for. Treat them the way Hunt is, and they’ll go. If I were a student now, there is no way I would pursue medicine in the UK. If you treat staff properly, they won’t want to leave anyway. This is home. The vast majority want to live and work here. Tim Campbell-Smith, 47, consultant surgeon, Sussex
British doctors and health professionals call for rapid coal phase-out Groups representing Britain’s 600,000 doctors and health professionals say it is “imperative” to phase out coal rapidly to improve health and reduce NHS costs. The doctors and nurses say tackling outdoor air pollution from traffic and power stations would cut climate emissions, reduce air pollution, and deliver a powerful boost to the nation’s health. “Climate change and air pollution are both major health threats,” says the UK Health Alliance on Climate Change in a report. “They share a common driver: the combustion of fossil fuels. Pollution from coal plants alone costs the UK as much as £3.1bn each year in human health impacts.” The group of 15 health bodies includes seven royal colleges of medicine and the British Medical Association. Pollution from coal plants causes many serious health conditions including stroke, coronary heart disease and lung cancer. It disproportionally affects children and kills more people than road accidents , says the report. The government has said it intends to phase out coal power plants by 2025 but the doctors say they are alarmed that no consultation papers looking at how this could be achieved have been published in more than a year. “Ending the use of coal is a simple, no-regrets public health intervention. The rapid phase-out of coal fired stations is an imperative first step. Coal is the most carbon-intensive source of power generation, and is a key focus for reducing the risks of climate change. “In the UK, burning coal is linked to 1,600 premature deaths, 68,000 additional days of medication, 363,266 working days lost and more than 1m incidents of lower respiratory symptoms,” says the report. It urges politicians not to tackle air pollution and climate individually, as has been done in the past. “The UK has witnessed ... policies that encouraged the use of diesel cars which inadvertently worsened air quality. Considering air pollution and climate change together can limit adverse health effects. “Some strategies can be good for both air quality and climate change, for instance wind, solar and tidal energy. Acting on ones that are beneficial to both is advantageous to health. Indeed, joining up policies on health, air pollution and climate change can offset the costs of climate mitigation policies through the health benefits that they bring.” Air pollution is the second biggest public health threat in the UK after smoking and kills 40,000 people a year in Britain, said Prof John Middleton, president of the Faculty of Public Health. “Coal-fired energy is particularly damaging through its invisible particulates and because it is a driver of climate change,” he said. “The phase-out of coal use is an essential step towards creating a sustainable energy policy for the UK,” said Dr Richard Horton, editor-in-chief of the Lancet medical journal. “It is also a vital co-benefit for health - ending coal use will deliver long-lasting health and dividends for the British population. Life expectancies will be prolonged, disease and disabilities reduced, and future risks to health diminished. This is an opportunity to be seized.” Jonathan Griggs, professor of paediatric respiratory and environmental medicine and fellow of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health said that children were particularly vulnerable to burning coal. “Air pollution from burning coal has been linked to low birth weight and pre-term delivery as a result of maternal exposure during pregnancy,” he said. “The phase-out of coal is a double win for tackling the twin health threats of air pollution and climate change.” “Tackling air pollution and climate change will have numerous health benefits but it requires a joined-up approach from government to ensure the health impacts are better recognised and fully realised,” said Janet Davies, the Royal College of Nursing’s chief executive and general secretary.
EU officials hail deal to release billions in bailout loans for Greece European officials have hailed a late night deal to unlock €10.3bn (£7.8bn) of much needed bailout cash for Greece as a major breakthrough. However, in Athens unions threatened further strikes in protest aagainst the contentious pension and tax reforms which paved the way for the agreement to be reached. After an 11-hour meeting in Brussels which ended in the early hours of Wednesday morning, eurozone finance ministers agreed to release two tranches of funds, €7.5bn in June and €2.8bn in September, and to implement measures to ease Greece’s €321bn debt mountain in a number of stages. But the agreement represented a climbdown for the International Monetary Fund. It had wanted “upfront and unconditional” debt relief, something Germany successfully argued against. The Eurogroup president, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, said the agreement was a major breakthrough, while the Greek finance minister, Euclid Tsakalotos, said it would help end the country’s vicious circle of austerity and recession. The IMF admitted it had made a significant concession in an effort to remain in the bailout process. But debt campaigners criticised the lack of progress on debt relief and called for a significant cancellation of Greece’s liabilities. Ratings agencies Moody’s and Fitch, while welcoming the news, warned of the problems Greece faced in implementing the proposed reforms. Markets reacted well to the deal, which could pave the way for the European Central Bank to start buying Greek debt once more as part of its quantitative easing programme. Greek two-year bond yields fell 100 basis points to 7.2%, having earlier dropped to 6.77%, the lowest for six months. Germany’s Dax added 1.47%, while Italy’s FTSE MIB rose 1.66% and Spain’s Ibex ended 2.3% higher. But the Athens stock market closed virtually unchanged after earlier climbing 1.5%, as the threat of further strikes unsettled investors.
US supreme court justices spar over strictest abortion law in the nation In the most closely watched abortion rights case to come before the supreme court in nearly two decades, the eight high court justices on Wednesday spent an intense hour sparring over the fate of what many consider the strictest abortion law in the nation. The case concerns House Bill 2, an abortion restriction passed in Texas in 2013 that many regard as the toughest in the nation. The legislature justified the law as a necessary health measure, although major medical groups such as the American Medical Association have questioned whether it actually makes abortion any safer. Looming over the proceedings was the absence of Justice Antonin Scalia, who would have almost certainly voted to uphold the law. After his death, it is likely that the justices will, at most, reach a tie on the outcome, which would limit but not blunt the dramatic impact of a ruling that upholds the Texas law. The court’s four liberal justices seemed distinctly on the side of the providers. In a dramatic moment of the arguments, Scott Keller, the solicitor general for the state of Texas, struggled to answer their barrage of questions about the need for such a law in Texas. Justice Elena Kagan, conceding that the court allowed states to single out abortion providers, asked: “Why would Texas do that?” A hard-to-read Kennedy was silent for long stretches of oral arguments. Both sides regard him as a crucial ally in the final decision. Early in the arguments, he asked if it would be useful to remand the case back to the lower court, to explore how many abortions a reduced number of clinics could provide. The bill is the most hotly contested abortion restriction in the country, and the first in the wave of hundreds of recent abortion regulations to be aired before the supreme court. The outcome of the case could have broad implications for abortion access and the anti-abortion movement across the US. A district judge struck down the law on the basis that there was little medical evidence to justify the burden it placed on Texas women. A three-judge panel drawn from the fifth circuit court of appeals, the most conservative in the nation, later reversed that decision, causing abortion rights providers to appeal in Washington. A portion of the bill requiring providers to have admitting privileges – the ability to admit and treat patients – at a hospital no more than 30 miles away closed nearly half of 41 clinics. Another prong, requiring abortion facilities to meet the same, expensive standards as hospitals, is not in effect but threatens to close all but nine clinics. Or so a group of Texas abortion providers challenging the law has argued. On Wednesday, the conservative members of the court grilled Stephanie Toti, the attorney from the Center for Reproductive Rights representing the providers, on the extent of the evidence that the law would force clinics to close. Justice Samuel Alito questioned whether there was direct evidence that 11 clinic closures the day the admitting privileges became required were actually linked to HB2. He also expressed skepticism that the law actually closed nine Texas clinics that ceased providing abortions shortly before the admitting privileges rule. Chief Justice John Roberts noted that Planned Parenthood, which operates five of the nine clinics in Texas that meet the hospital-like requirements, was not party to the lawsuit – proof, he suggested, that it is not difficult to comply with the law. But the most pointed questions were those that four liberal members of the court reserved for Keller. Justice Stephen Breyer pressed the Texas solicitor to describe the nature of the problem with abortion that Texas was trying to correct. “Where in the record will I find evidence of women who had complications and could not get to a hospital?” asked Justice Stephen Breyer. “Which were the women? On what page does it tell me their names and their complications?” Keller responded that the supreme court in previous cases had permitted lawmakers to hold abortion facilities to heightened health standards. “According to you, the slightest health improvement is enough to burden hundreds of thousands of women,” said Justice Sonia Sotomayor. “Is that your point? … Can the legislature say anything?” Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg asked Keller how many Texas women would live more than 100 miles from an abortion clinic if the law were fully in place. When Keller noted that El Paso women in the far west corner of the state could drive one mile over the border to a clinic in New Mexico, Ginsburg pounced. Why count clinics in New Mexico, she asked, when New Mexico does not hold its clinics to the same supposedly high standards as abortion clinics in Texas? The stakes in this case are especially high because the supreme court has never explicitly spelled out how far states can go in restricting abortion ostensibly to protect women’s health. The court has said that states can make laws to protect women’s health as long as they do not constitute an “undue burden”. But it has never clarified what constitutes an “undue burden”, or whether a law is an undue burden if it does not serve an actual health purpose. The latter is a question that has divided the lower courts. Donald Verrilli, the US solicitor, seemed mindful of those facts as he told the court, “I think the question before you is whether the right here”, the right to an abortion, exists only on paper or “still retains its substance”. The justices, in their questions for Toti and Keller, sparred with one another over various points of fact. Ginsburg, with an air of incredulousness, asked why Texas felt the need to require women to complete medical abortions – first-trimester abortions induced with pills – in what amounts to a mini-hospital. When Kelly responded that medical abortions were still prone to complications, Ginsburg further noted that complications were most likely to occur after the woman has gone home. The law requires providers to have connections within 30 miles of the clinic. “30 miles of what?” Ginsburg said. Roberts noted that three ambulatory surgical centers, the term for outpatient surgery facilities that meet the strict standards set by HB2, had opened up since the law’s passage. One of those, a Planned Parenthood clinic in Houston, was able to perform 9,000 abortions a year. To say that nine clinics could provide abortions for the entire state, he said, “does not stretch credulity”. Verrilli clarified that between 65,000 and 70,000 abortions were performed annually in Texas prior to the law, and the ASCs open today can provide only 14,000. He noted that the cost of converting an existing clinic to an ASC starts at $1.6m and a new ASC can start at $3.5m. Toti later added that the three clinics to have opened since the law passed were in the works for years. Besides Texas, seven other states – Alabama, Kansas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Mississippi, Wisconsin and Tennessee – have passed similar abortion restrictions that have been contested in federal court. Those laws collectively threaten to shut down dozens of abortion clinics across the south and midwest, and their fates are tied to the outcome of Wednesday’s arguments: a broad ruling against the Texas law would probably have the effect of striking down all those laws. An expansive ruling in favor of Texas would have allowed all those laws to take effect, devastating the number of abortion clinics across the south. But this scenario is less likely than it was a month ago. The death of Scalia has all but erased the possibility that a five-justice majority will vote to uphold Texas’s law. But the remaining justices could tie in a 4-4 split. A tie sets no precedent – leaving the questions presented to the court unanswered – and it allows the ruling on appeal to go into effect. In this case, that means the Texas law would take effect. Justice Clarence Thomas refrained from asking any questions – his custom, although on Monday he surprised the legal world by breaking his silence from the bench for the first time in a decade. Scalia’s chair was empty and draped in black. This story was amended in 2 March, 2016. The name of the Texas solicitor general is Scott Keller, not Scott Kelly.
My 200 years of family fortunes Take three sisters from Victorian London – disadvantaged and up against it, they turn to pickpocketing and petty crime to support themselves and their families. Look, too, at a young pauper whose widowed mother and siblings had been forced into the workhouse, though he was rescued from that fate himself by a benevolent, well-to-do matron. Now, spool forward 200 years. Where are the descendants of these people today? Have two centuries of social change and educational opportunities altered the lives of subsequent generations? Are “bad lot” families always a bad lot who repeat their mistakes, down through the generations? Or have the decades and centuries changed these families, economically and socially? Two years ago, film-maker Joseph Bullman set out to answer these questions. The idea came to him after his successful BBC series, The Secret History of Our Streets, a series of films that explored the details of history by piecing together events on individual roads in London. He says: “We focused on the microcosmic territory and from that we were able to get a different perspective on the big changes that were happening across time in people’s lives. After that I thought, if you take something small and look hard enough, what you get is the rich detail that makes up the sweep of real change. I knew that individual families, like individual streets, would be portals through which we could open up important elements of history.” Bullman had no idea, when he chose families to follow forward, what he would discover about their descendants. What fascinated him was the impact of big changes brought by social, economic and educational history. To find out, he decided to focus on “problem” families, the sort of petty criminals whose existence worried figures like Charles Dickens and William Gladstone in their day, and whose modern matches would be today’s Asbo recipients. But he was interested, too, in how the better off turned out; descendants of people such as Florence Hunt – whose handout enabled John Manley to escape the workhouse in the 1880s. Bullman’s instinct was that there would be changes in the families’ wealth, status and social positioning. That had been his own experience of life. Now 52, he was raised on a council estate in Rainham, east London, in a very loving, but no-frills, household, and went to a comprehensive school, where his academic potential was spotted by a few teachers. “They got me to take an O-level early because I was seen as bright,” he recalls. “I think it was commerce. When the teacher called me in and said he’d got some news about the O-level, I said, ‘Oh fuck, I’ve failed haven’t I?’ “The teacher produced his swear box for my 20p fine and then said, ‘No, you’ve not failed – you’ve got an A.’” In the sixth form, Bullman shone at politics and a school staff member came up with the idea of putting him in for the Oxford entrance exam. Against the odds, he got a place to study philosophy, politics and economics. Today, he’s an award-winning film-maker, but he says he’s never lost touch with his roots. As he had experienced social mobility in his own life, and knew others who had done the same, he imagined he would find plenty of examples of it in the families he followed in his films. He didn’t. Or there was some movement but the overall picture was, “Depressingly static. Overwhelmingly, what I discovered was that the descendants of the disadvantaged families were still the people with far fewer advantages; and the descendants of the upper-class people we followed were still upper class, still advantaged. “I’d naively expected that if you trawled through five or six generations of one family, you’d find some people had gone up in the world and others had gone down. I was shocked at the extent to which all this turns out to be predestined.” One of the most fascinating families Bullman follows in his films are the Gadburys: Caroline, Sarah and Mary-Ann, a trio of Victorian petty criminals from Shoreditch, east London. They were quick-witted and successful: Caroline boasted that she would shoplift several times a day, and said she had committed up to 50 robberies without being caught. But all three ended up in the dock, as a result of which Caroline was transported to Van Diemen’s Land, now Tasmania; Sarah was transported to New South Wales; and Mary-Ann, a lesser offender, served six months in a London prison. And how different these destinations turned out to be, from the point of view of their descendants. “The people you meet in the film, their great-great-grandchildren, are very different from one another,” says Bullman. “Van Diemen’s Land was a place where virtually everyone was a convict, so there had to be a kind of collective forgetting.” He goes on: “The past was quickly eradicated, the society became very socially mobile and Caroline’s descendants include the premier of Tasmania, two senior judges and a senior politician. They are the elite of Tasmania. We showed Michael Slattery, supreme court judge of New South Wales, the transcript of the court proceedings that led to his great-great-grandmother being transported. He was shocked by how brief the case was and that Caroline wasn’t able to speak in her own defence.” The depressing thing about Bullman’s findings is that only in rare circumstances – such as Tasmania after the deportations – does sufficient social fluidity exist to allow a meritocracy. Sarah Gadbury, who ended her days in New South Wales, landed up in a far more socially rigid society than Tasmania, and her descendants are what would be called working-class if Australians talked about class, which as a rule they don’t. And Mary-Ann’s descendants, still in the east end of London, are window cleaners, van drivers and refuse collectors. What of John Manley, the boy saved from the workhouse? Bullman found some colourful characters, but no one whose destiny changed the pattern. Manley moved out of London to Berkshire. His great-great-granddaughter, Denny Kidd, still lives there – she is a fitness instructor and mother of five who managed to get one of her brood into public school on a scholarship. As for Florence Hunt, John Manley’s benefactor, the family pile has been sold to a hotelier, but her descendants have not fallen upon hard times. So how did Bullman himself manage to transcend his background – something it seems from his films that most people can’t? It came down to two factors, he says: his father and one or two teachers at school. “My dad and I would talk the whole time and he ignited in me an interest in the world, a thirst for understanding that I wasn’t prepared to give up.” The teachers he remembers also recognised his potential and helped to propel him along. “There are always those two influences – someone in the family and someone at school, to ignite and nurture talent. I was no more intelligent than a lot of the people I went to school with and the only reason I’m not stacking shelves or driving a van is down to my dad and those teachers.” But, Bullman says, “The scariest thing is, where will the descendants of the Victorian upper classes and those working-class petty criminals be in another 200 years? Will Florence’s family still be part of the elite and Mary-Ann Gadbury’s descendants still be working class? Apart from the injustice, how incredibly embarrassing is it that in a country that calls itself civilised, social mobility turns out to be so difficult to achieve?” • The Secret History of My Family, a four-part documentary, begins on Thursday 10 March on BBC2, 8pm
Bryan Cranston and Kevin Hart to star in The Intouchables remake Breaking Bad star Bryan Cranston will star opposite Ride Along’s Kevin Hart in a US remake of the French smash-hit comedy The Intouchables. According to the Hollywood Reporter, the pair have been picked by the Weinstein Company for the roles played by François Cluzet and Omar Sy in the original film. Released in 2011 and directed by Olivier Nakache and Éric Toledano, The Intouchables told the story of the unlikely friendship between a wealthy quadriplegic man and his caregiver. It was a massive homegrown hit, grossing $166m (£115.4m) and selling 19.4m tickets – and is the second highest-grossing homegrown film at the French box office (after Bienvenue Chez les Ch’tis). It was also a worldwide hit, grossing $426m globally. However, unlike The Artist, which the Weinstein Co also acquired, The Intouchables’ relatively low profile in the US (where it took a modest $10.2m) means it is ripe for the remake treatment. The new production will be directed by My Week With Marilyn’s Simon Curtis from a script by Bridesmaids’ Paul Feig. Hart, meanwhile, is seeking to capitalise on his rising profile as an actor and live performer by setting up a streaming service called Laugh Out Loud, in partnership with Lionsgate. Laugh Out Loud will hold exclusive rights to show Hart’s non-film and live-show material – reports mention a hidden-camera series in which Hart is a driver in the ride-along sharing service Lyft – and will showcase material by other comics. Hart, who has a substantial social media profile, including 27.5m followers on Twitter, has also closed a deal to develop a social media game, where players take part as aspiring comedians who are mentored by the star.
Transforming social care starts with the smallest pieces of the jigsaw Fundamental changes are needed in the way we commission, plan and deliver health and social care. That’s what the Five Year Forward View is asking for. The responsibility for making this happen falls on the shoulders of local services at a time of unprecedented financial challenges and growing demand. It’s no surprise, then, that some areas are struggling. We recently spoke to a county struggling to deliver reforms to care and support. While the area had delivered pockets of real improvements, such as GP practices working closely with social care and mental health colleagues, the vision for transformed care hadn’t really left the drawing board. This is far from an isolated example. Wicked problems To be fair to areas such as this, they are trying to tackle problems that are immense – issues so complex, so multi-faceted, that they are often difficult to define, never mind solve. In policy parlance, such situations are called wicked problems. Now everyone, from clinical commissioning groups and care providers to local people themselves, are tasked with tackling these problems. There are also challenges that will need to be overcome if we are to deliver the forward view: major service reconfigurations; co-design of new systems and processes; establishment of integrated and multi-disciplinary teams; and above all shifting behaviour towards preventative, self and family care. These challenges are multi-causal, complex, require a multi-agency response and are almost impossible to build consensus around. When confronting them, organisations on their own cannot test the success of their interventions other than by developing crude targets and proxies. In fact, the problems are probably impossible to actually solve. That’s because we like to tame the problem with clear plans and processes. We like to diagnose, treat and cure. Clumsy solutions When faced with the complexity and unpredictability of these changes, many public professionals feel anxious. They may interact with others as anxious people often do: defensively and sometimes with hostility. This can undermine the conditions necessary for tackling wicked problems: the building of constructive and trusting relationships. But the skills and behaviours required for good quality interactions are ones that we often call soft. Moreover, they can even be called inelegant or clumsy. Paradoxically, this is because these skills are challenging to develop in a technocratic health and care workforce. And yet having these skills in health and care organisations is essential if we are to overcome the challenges we face. Ongoing work The Health Foundation has commissioned us at the Social Care Institute for Excellence, PPL and the Institute for Government to research how local health and care systems can create the space for more meaningful and effective interactions or constructive conversations. We are working closely with the Dudley and Nottinghamshire vanguard sites to study the issues related to the development of new models of care, testing when and how constructive conversations can be used to tackle these problems. We’re also involved in Devon, where care homes are coming together to develop a quality kite mark. We will make clear recommendations for policymakers on how we can encourage professionals to stop acting tough and start embracing their “clumsiness”. Deep listening We are learning that local communities can be a big part of brokering these conversations. Clenton Farquarson, co-chair of a recent event on this issue and expert by experience, says: “It is no longer acceptable to foist large-scale change on to local communities without their involvement in developing the solution.” We will have to relearn, in the view of professor Paul Corrigan, another contributor to the event, “those social work skills that are about deep listening”. Harder still, we need effective constructive conversations. These are likely to involve leaders having to let go, whether that’s power, money, or ownership of risk. Constructive conversations will involve everyone at the table surrendering something in order to gain something. The challenges faced by our colleagues are considerable; we all know that. But what can be done? In life, good conversations often help us overcome some of the most difficult situations we face as individuals and families. Could they also have a role to play in solving the problems we face in improving our health and care system? We hope our research will help us find out. Join the Social Care Network to read more pieces like this. Follow us on Twitter (@GdnSocialCare) and like us on Facebook to keep up with the latest social care news and views.
Donald Trump is real danger to US security, says Alex Salmond Alex Salmond, Scotland’s former first minister, has warned US voters that Donald Trump is an emotionally stunted “manchild” who presents “a real and present danger to the security of the American republic”. Salmond said his many dealings with Trump over the property tycoon’s controversial golf course near Aberdeen and a nearby windfarm had persuaded him that Trump was so unstable that the prospect of him becoming US president “should give us all the heebie-jeebies”. Salmond said he was still unclear whether the Republican candidate’s attacks on Mexican immigrants and Muslims were political calculation or genuinely held racist views. “It is a matter of debate as to whether it is more comforting to believe that a candidate says disgusting things not because he believes them but because he thinks they might benefit him in a campaign,” Salmond said in an article for the Daily Record. “It is an open question whether a demagogue is preferable to a genuine racist.” Salmond then linked Trump’s candidacy to the famous attack ads used by the US Democrats in 1964 against the then Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater, which stated: “In your guts you know he’s nuts.” As head of the Scottish government and the MSP for Gordon, the constituency around Trump’s estate, Salmond played a key role in the developer’s successful quest to build “the world’s greatest golf course” in Aberdeenshire against heavy opposition from Trump’s neighbours and Scotland’s major environment organisations. Salmond had endorsed Trump’s claims that he was justified in bulldozing a legally protected dunes system, designated as a site of special scientific interest under the UK’s environment laws, because the resort would create thousands of jobs and involve a £750m sports, hotel and housing development of national importance. In fact, eight years after winning approval for the resort, Trump now only employs 95 people, many of whom are seasonal or part-time, and has only invested about £30m in the course, a single-storey club house, and a small boutique hotel. The two men fell out after Trump furiously attacked a small experimental offshore windfarm being planned several miles from his course, which was backed by Salmond and many of Trump’s other local allies, including the Robert Gordon University and Sir Ian Wood, an influential industrialist. That dispute made him “a target for bizarre Trump ravings”, Salmond wrote, adding: “Trump swings from public support to extreme opposition with no intervening period whatsoever. “Indeed in the course of a single phone call he would veer alarmingly from bonhomie, to bullying, to pleading and then back to a jocular mood. Emotionally he is a Peter Pan – the boy who never grew up. “And this disagreement between us was just about wind turbines! Imagine the consequences if similar phone calls were taking place from the oval office, not Trump tower, and the subject matter was not wind power but hard power – the use or deployment of military force and nuclear weaponry.” Salmond urged the Democrats to repeat their “Daisy” attack advert used against Goldwater. “It shows a lovely young girl counting daisy petals from one to 10, which then morphs into a countdown to a nuclear strike from 10 to one. Its purpose was to highlight the danger of a Goldwater presidency,” he wrote. “As this presidential campaign now reaches its climax, they should consider using such an approach again. “Because while many disgruntled Americans are still attracted to the Trump anti-establishment, anti-Washington, anti-big government rhetoric there are only a few who want to risk a manchild in the White House. “The truth is indeed out there because: ‘In your guts you know he’s nuts’.” Salmond’s distaste for Trump’s Islamophobic and anti-migrant rhetoric is not new. He endorsed the decision by his successor, Nicola Sturgeon, to strip Trump of his status as an honorary Scottish trade ambassador last year, and backed a petition calling for the UK government to ban Trump from entering the UK.
Africa's top 10 tech pioneers: 'We have become an internet-consuming culture' Africa’s digital transformation would be nothing without the tens of thousands of people who have invested, and continue to invest, energy into propelling it forward. They are the leading lights driving change in infrastructure, mobile connectivity, online activism, e-commerce and financial services. Some are opening up digital cultural spaces or working to bring in investment for tech startups. As part of the ’s focus on technology in Africa we’ve listed 10 individuals who’ve been pioneers in the transformation from Tanzania to Tunisia, with the three of sub-Saharan Africa’s big tech hitters – South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya – particularly well represented. And in a bid to look forward we asked each of the 10 pioneers to predict the next development in Africa’s digital transformation and to each nominate an emerging talent to watch. Jason Njoku, Nigeria: ‘We’ve got everything to play for, but it won’t be easy’ The British-Nigerian entrepreneur founded iROKOtv which hosts the most extensive online catalogue of Nollywood content in the world. Nicknamed the Netflix of Africa, iROKOtv is one of the continent’s biggest internet TV providers and has raised over $35m in international investment. He says Africa’s digital transformation is ahead of us. By my calculations, we haven’t even really started, we’re still building, we’re still scaling. Everything is to play for – the majority of Africa’s potential digital population aren’t properly online yet, but it’s not going to be an easy ride. We need homegrown investors to get behind the tech sector and understand the opportunities that are under our noses. He nominates Fikayo Ogundipe, co-founder of ToLet.com.ng which has completely reshaped Nigeria’s property market, starting with Lagos. Buying, selling and renting houses in the city isn’t for the faint-hearted but Fikayo and his team have painstakingly researched the market, pouring their findings into a website to help consumers navigate the process. But Fikayo is not building the Foxtons of Nigeria, he’s building a Nigerian company for Nigerians, that tackles the problems encountered by Nigerians in the Nigerian property market. Lina Ben Mhenni, Tunisia: ‘Digital action must be combined with real world action’ Author of the blog A Tunisian Girl, Lina Ben Mhenni rose to prominence during the Tunisian revolution in 2011, as she documented the Tunisian uprising and violence at the hands of the security forces. Mhenni was one of the few Tunisian cyber activists who blogged under her real name while President Zine Ben Ali was still in office. Her blog was turned into a book and she was later a favourite for the Nobel peace prize. She says After Ben Ali fled Tunisia, people all around the world focused on the role of the internet in his departure. Some talked about a Facebook or internet revolution. But this ignored the sacrifices of the people who took to the streets and demonstrated, often against live fire. No one can deny the importance of the internet and social networks – when a regime imposes a media blackout, they can be used to both inform and mobilise people. But some have overestimated its role. Action in the digital world must be combined with actions in the real world. She nominates Rahma Sghaier a young leader who is using ICT to bring change to Tunisia, Rahma blogs on the YaLa platform, commenting on politics and advocating for international peace. Her main mission is to support young Tunisians to write, create photo essays and videos and explore their talents. She also promotes citizen journalism through blogging and vlogging and wants to train young girls in how to make videos. Ory Okolloh, Kenya: ‘We’ve reached the important stage of African-led technology that’s not over-hyped’ Ory Okolloh is an activist, lawyer, blogger and technology commentator. She helped to create Ushahidi, and mapping platform that crowd-sourced incidents of violence after Kenya’s disputed 2007 election. The site has since been used to map crisis everywhere from Haiti to Gaza. Okolloh was previously Google’s policy manager for Africa and now works with the Omidyar Network. In 2014 she was featured in Time magazine’s top 100 list of the world’s most influential people. She says What’s next? To borrow a phrase from founders of mobile money providers Paystack we must “do the difficult things differently”. We are maturing from the “look how amazing Africans can code” to a phase of solid African-built-and-led technology: companies tackling real problems or without much hype. This is an important stage because it’s how we get to a sustainable digital Africa. She nominates Billikiss Adebiyi-Abiola, co-founder of recycling company Wecyclers. Why? I’ve long spoken against the tendency to embrace tech as a solution to the myriad of problems facing Africa as an end in itself, rather than a means to an end. Bilikiss turns this on its head. At the heart of her work is solving a problem that previously seemed intractable: creating livelihoods and leveraging technology to improve how we live in our cities. She’s also a fantastic entrepreneur. *Okolloh is commenting in a personal capacity Nii Quaynor, Ghana: ‘The internet improved development by making communication more efficient’ The computer scientist and engineer is a pioneer of internet development and expansion on the continent. He was the first African to be elected to the board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the global non-profit body that coordinates databases across the internet and is often referred to as the “father of the internet in Africa”. He says The internet has already improved development by making communication more efficient in Africa, but the next steps are to look at how we improve digital currency transactions like Bitcoin. Citizens currently rely on companies to act as the go-between when transferring money, but when they are able to transfer money directly between peers then development will be further improved. He nominates Ashifi Gogo, the CEO and founder of Sproxil, a company that uses mobile phones to fight counterfeiting in developing country markets. The product allows consumers to check if their products are genuine with a free text message. Gogo came up with the idea after witnessing how damaging counterfeit medicines were for developing countries. Now, customers can check their pills in one simple step. The technology is also being used verify other products from cars to electrical goods. Mbwana Alliy, Tanzania: ‘Drones are the next big thing for Africa’ Mbwana Alliy is the founder and managing partner of Savannah Fund for tech startups in Africa, specialising in $25,000-$500,000 seed investments. As of this year, Alliy has invested in 22 companies across six African countries – Kenya, Uganda, South Africa, Zimbabwe Nigeria and Ghana – and has generated over 200 full-time jobs and raised more than $20m. He says Drones are the next big thing and the possibilities go way beyond delivery. Drones can help farmers understand their land better, they can help with mapping, with construction and mining, even market research. They are becoming available to the masses with prices starting as low as $300. Drones may well bring the most exciting potential to marry the real and vast physical challenges of Africa with the digital revolution. He nominates South African telecommunications entrepreneur Alan Knott-Craig for all the work that he is doing to improve internet access through mobiles and public wifi. Anyone who is spreading affordable internet access – not under a corporate umbrella – deserves a lot of respect. Without air, you can’t breathe and without reliable and affordable internet, we’re doomed in Africa tech. Jepchumba, South Africa and Kenya: ‘Our digital transformation will be seen through the content we create’ A digital artist and founder of the African Digital Art project, that provides an online space to display the work of African artists using technology in their work, and a space for digital artists to connect. She recently received a Creative Disturbance Fellowship, and has been listed by Forbes as one of the 20 Youngest Power Women in Africa. She says With the explosion of mobile and access to new and faster devices, we have become an internet-consuming culture, hungry for digital content created in Africa. The next frontier will be the exploration of our stories and collective culture: stories that will help us explore political instability, immigration, security, racism, religion and spiritualism. Our digital transformation will be seen through the content we create. She nominates Tegan Bristow, a Johannesburg-based interactive media arts and lecturer at the Digital Arts Division of the Wits School of the Arts. A behind-the-scenes champion of African culture and technology. She was also involved in Africa’s first digital innovation festival, Fak’ugesi, in South Africa. A true pioneer in the development of digital art. Opeyemi Awoyemi, Ayodeji Adewunmi and Olalekan Olude, Nigeria: ‘We’ll see transformations to our lives in ways we cannot yet expect’ The idea for Jobberman, sub-Saharan Africa’s largest jobs site was conceived in the student dorm room of its cofounders, Opeyemi Awoyemi, Ayodeji Adewunmi and Olalekan Olude, in 2009. Seven years on and the site is now used by over 45,000 companies and is valued at millions of dollars. They say Africa will see transformations that touch the fundamental aspects of our lives in ways we cannot yet expect, or have not yet experienced, all made possible by the ubiquitous presence of the mobile phone on a continent with limited infrastructure. They nominate Solar electricity provider Txtlight, which wants to bring light to the 90 million Nigerians who currently live off grid. They provide home solar panels linked to indoor storage units and the Lumos service that provides a “pay-as-you-go” option , letting people purchase electricity by text message. Hilda Moraa, Kenya: ‘Financial technology is set to grow and grow’ Hilda Moraa is known for her work as the founder and CEO of Weza Tele Ltd. A Kenyan startup that offers supply chain, payroll and distribution solutions for businesses and a company that sold for over $1m in 2015. Moraa has since become a director at PesaZetu, a mobile lending marketplace. She says The financial technology space is set to grow and grow. Nearly 80% of adults in Africa do not have access to formal or semi-formal banking services – the majority of the continent is still unbanked. The failure of three Kenyan banks in the past year has made mobile money more attractive as the Uber effect forces the banks that remain to think about how their services work online. She nominates Wangechi Mwangi, CEO of Valuraha a company that is trying to foster a new generation of African investors. The company, which Mwangi founded as a student in Nairobi, runs investment clubs in schools where students learn about personal finance and practice investing in a virtual trading platform, a platform recently opened up to the public via a low-cost subscription. Last year she won the Global Social Impact Award at the Global Student Entrepreneur Awards. Mteto Nyati, South Africa: ‘Entertainment-on-the-go is gaining traction’ Mteto Nyati has been CEO of MTN South Africa, the country’s second largest telecommunications provider, since July 2015. He previously worked at MTN South Africa’s parent MTN Group, and at Microsoft and IBM. He says Africa has already demonstrated leadership in innovation in the mobile ecosystem. We have seen a surge in e-commerce and we expect this momentum to continue as affordable sub-$50 smartphones are introduced to the market. Entertainment-on-the-go is also gaining traction and customers now demand TV viewing that is not dictated by broadcasters, but by their viewing requirements. He nominates Founded in Cape Town in 2013, Hepstar are trying to transform the insurance market by making policies more freely available online. It assists its partners, including airlines and online travel agencies, to maximise revenue from the sales of insurance providing “plug-and-play” options for websites to help customers sign up quickly and efficiently. It’s an industry worth billions. Funke Opeke, Nigeria: ‘Submarine cables and satellites connect us, but mobile networks are congested’ Funke Opeke is the CEO of MainOne, which was responsible for bringing broadband connectivity to Nigeria, and other west African countries, via a 7,000km undersea fibre optic cable from Portugal. The company now provides wholesale internet capacity to eight countries across the region. She says Submarine cables and satellites mean that Africa has more than adequate connectivity. Mobile penetration is high, 60%, of and more than 50% of those users have access to the internet. However the quality of the service is poor – limited infrastructure on the ground leads to congested mobile networks. For digital services to become pervasive citizens need affordable access to the internet and businesses need to provide continent-specific services that address low incomes and limitations on infrastructure. She nominates Iyinoluwa Aboyeji, co-founder of Andela, a global talent website that trains developers and connects them with employers. The company recruits the brightest on the continent and helps them grow into the next generation of global technology leaders. Over the past two years, the company has trained over 200 tech talents.
European banks prepare for possible shockwaves from stress test results Europe’s biggest banks are braced for the outcome of financial health checks that could expose the extent of the weaknesses of the world’s oldest bank, Monte dei Paschi di Siena (MPS), and send shockwaves through the markets. However, the tests – due to be published on Friday – are being viewed by some analysts as a missed opportunity to gauge the full extent of the fragility of the banking system in Europe. Only 51 banks are being assessed, compared with 124 in 2014, and they will not be given a pass or fail mark as in the past. Of the 51 banks being tested by the EU-wide European Banking Authority, only MPS failed two years ago. “We think it is a missed opportunity that the EBA 2016 stress tests will not be used to do a fuller and deeper health check of the banking system in Europe. This is especially the case as in some countries the smaller banks are the least sound. A case could have been made to include more banks rather than less,” said Tomas Kinmonth, an analyst at Dutch bank Abn Amro. The fate of the Italian banks is being closely watched. “Italy could provide the watershed moment for European banks. If a banking crisis were to start in Italy, we believe it would spread throughout Europe with the more levered names in the sector bearing the brunt of the pressure,” said analysts at Berenberg. Analysts at Credit Suisse said that unusually the stress tests did not have a pass or fail hurdle. “The idea, we argue, is to avoid negative market reactions if a number of banks were to ‘fail’,” said the analysts. The market, though, will still be able to gauge which banks are weakest when the results are published at 9pm BST on Friday. Much of the focus is on MPS, Italy’s third-largest lender, which has already been bailed out twice and is regarded as needing more capital. While new EU rules mean governments can no longer bail out their banks, if MPS performs weakly in the stress test, the Italian government may be allowed to invoke so-called article 32 to stop some bondholders from incurring losses, said Kinmonth. “This article could indirectly be a positive for the Italian government, as it attempts to help domestic banks. Additionally, it gives another angle to the stress test announcement. The interpretation of the law is still not fully confirmed, especially as there is no pass/fail result in this year’s stress test. However, the European commission has said it would still prefer that before any taxpayer funds are used, creditors should face losses. Discussions will come to the fore once the results of the test are released,” said Kinmonth. “Counterintuitively, if MPS was to ‘fail’ the test, and article 32 could be applied, it would be a major boost to Italy’s third largest bank,” said Kinmonth. The EBA has said the 51 banks cover approximately 70% of the EU banking sector. No banks from Portugal, Cyprus or Greece are big enough to fall within the scope of the test. The UK’s biggest lenders – Lloyds Banking Group, Royal Bank of Scotland, Barclays and HSBC – are being assessed. The outcome of the check on Deutsche Bank will also be closely watched. The EBA said that a pass or fail label was no longer necessary: “The objective of the crisis stress tests was to identify possible capital shortfalls and require immediate recapitalisation actions. As banks have now moved to a more steady-state setting, the aim of the 2016 exercise is rather to assess remaining vulnerabilities and understand the impact of hypothetical adverse market dynamics on banks.”
Manchester United 2-1 Middlesbrough, Chelsea 4-2 Stoke and more – as it happened That’s about it for today’s Clockwatch. You can join Bazzer for Liverpool v Manchester City right now. Thanks for your company today and throughout 2016. Happy new year! Here are the last two Premier League match reports Get your match reports here! Dominic Fifield was at Stamford Bridge to see Chelsea beat Stoke 4-2 in a fantastic game. Here’s his match report. In case you missed it, Celtic won the Old Firm derby 2-1 against Rangers. “Last time I open my mouth about United losing...” says Stephen Lysaght. Schadenfreude, like onanism, is an activity in which you should only partake if you are absolutely certain it’s not going to come back in your face. Here’s how the Premier League table looks after today’s matches. West Brom are up to eighth; most impressive of all, Burnley are now 11th. Sergio Aguero is back for Manchester City, who face Liverpool at Anfield. Get the latest news with Barry Glendenning. Sunderland are well and truly in the malodorous stuff. It’s probably fair to say that United would have lost that game a year ago. They aren’t quite back, but they are going in the right direction. Chelsea make it 13 consecutive league wins despite a fine performance from Stoke. They are nine points clear of Liverpool, who play Manchester City later today. Virgil van Dijk gets a second yellow card at St Mary’s, where Southampton are still trailing West Brom 2-1. The substitute Josh King completes a thumping win for Bournemouth, who have completely outclassed poor old Swansea. “United being beaten by Boro after biggest spending ever and no better than LVG,” says Stephen Lysaght. “Meanwhile Chelsea don’t spend and are 27 points better off. So what is Jose?” He’s a mirage, a spook story, a concept. United have turned it round with two goals in two minutes. The increasingly influential Paul Pogba has headed them ahead from Juan Mata’s cross, and Sir Alex Ferguson, in the crowd on his 75th birthday, will be experiencing many a happy flashback. Anthony Martial has equalised from Ibrahimovic’s knockdown, the inevitable conclusion of 15 minutes of ceaseless pressure. Chelsea have been severely tested today, and they have come through it so impressively. Diego Costa has sealed victory with a thumping finish. Manchester United’s love affair with the referee Lee Mason continues: after disallowing Ibrahimovic’s goal in the first half, he has now turned down a big appeal for a penalty. Manchester United are swarming all over Middlesbrough, with the substitute Marcus Rashford having their 25th attempt at goal. Don’t call it a comeback. Sunderland are taking one hell of a beating at Turf Moor. Ashley Barnes has got the fourth for Burnley, who have now picked up 22 points at home this season. Oh my. Middlesbrough lead at Old Trafford, with Grant Leadbitter finishing well from a superb knockdown by Alvaro Negredo. The last time Boro won at Old Trafford was in 2004, when Juninho scored twice and Diego Forlan hit the crossbar from 0.0001 yards. Stoke were level for 74 seconds. Willian has scored the greatest goal of all time his second to restore Chelsea’s lead once again. Well, well, well: Peter Crouch has scored his first Premier League goal since the 2014-15 season to bring Stoke level again. “If you as the writer on Clockwatch cannot legally view the action,” says Steve Colwill, “how do you know if was a fine finish from Gray?” Bob Kingsley told me. Ach, I can’t keep up with all these goals. Willian has finished off a brilliant move to put Chelsea back in front. Teams managed by Antonio Conte aren’t exactly renowned for losing a lead twice in one game, so you’d fancy Chelsea to win from here. A hat-trick for Andre Gray! This is another excellent finish, and surely ensures victory for Burnley. “Dearest Rob,” lies Mac Millings. “Greetings and seasonal felicitations from (thanks to North Carolina’s passing of the “bathroom law”) the superior of the two Carolinas - although not, I suspect, for long; South Carolinians are proud to be among the worst people in the nation (State Motto: “Nil Satis Nisi Oppressio”). I don’t really care about the football any more - just wanted to take the opportunity to make fun of my adopted homeland while that’s still allowed.” Happy new year! Andre Gray gets his second to give Burnley a comfortable lead at home to Sunderland. As things stand, Burnley are nine points clear of the relegation places. “Thanks for the clip of the Arsenal defence being shredded by QPR,” says Charles Antaki. “Particularly prophetic are the two appearances of Steve Bould in the post-goal scenes, practicing the wearied, disbelieving expression that would come to be so useful in later years.” Hal Robson-Kanu scored one of the goals of 2016, and he has ended the year with a screamer to give West Brom the lead at St Mary’s. Indeed that’s his first goal since he paid tribute to Johan Cruyff against Belgium in the summer. Thanks to my colleague Niall McVeigh for pointing out this Tim Cahill celebration. Go get me a corner flag. A flying start to the second half at Stamford Bridge, where Bruno Martins Indi has lumbered forward to equalise for Stoke. “Hi Rob,” says Wilfy, “To spread some Christmas/New Year’s cheer among all QPR fans looking forward to another year at the wrong end of the table and wondering where it all went wrong, please can you show all the goals from John Jensen’s finest hour.” Better still: tomorrow is the 25th anniversary of Dennis Bailey Day. Peep peep! It’s half time around England, if not Scotland. Chelsea are on course for their 13th consecutive win; Swansea are on course for the Championship. “Lee Mason’s call to disallow Zlatan’s goal is, for me, the worst refereeing decision in 2016,” says Putera Satria. “According to his standards, then all overhead kicks should be disallowed for high feet.” This is what really sets Clockwatch apart: many of the readers can legally view the action being described, but the writer can’t. Bournemouth pass Swansea to death and go 2-0 up. Eventually Stanislas goes through, draws the goalkeeper and gives the goal to Fraser. West Brom equalise straight away at St Mary’s thanks to an accomplished finish from Matt Phillips. He’s having a fine season. Shane Long heads Southampton ahead from a lovely cross by Sofiane Boufal Dusan Tadic. “Re: Mark Eyeington - some of those Chelsea players very much underperformed last year, but didn’t Jose do the same - if not more so - by publicly humiliating Dr. Carneiro in the first game of the season (something he still hasn’t apologised for), and blaming everyone else for all the subsequent mistakes?” writes Ian Staerck. “I’m a Chelsea fan who still sang his name when things were going sour, but to entirely blame the players is a blinkered viewpoint.” A couple of near misses at Old Trafford: Martial hits the post for Manchester United, and then Zlatan Ibrahimovic has a goal disallowed for a high foot. “No, not sarcasm,” says JR. “He’s roasting people left and right and spraying passes to spring teammates. He also almost scored.” Gary Cahill, who has always been such a good finisher, heads Chelsea into the lead at Stamford Bridge. As things stand they are nine points clear of Liverpool in second place, 10 clear of Manchester City and 37 clear of Swansea. Burnley’s brilliant home form - only Chelsea and Spurs have won more - may be set to continue: Twitter’s Andre Gray has given them the lead with a fine finish. It’s not going to plan for Chelsea, with Stoke still the better side at Stamford Bridge. “Just so you and Jeff Stelling know, Sofiane Boufal is absolutely shredding the Baggies midfield and defence,” says JR in Illinois. “By far the best player out there.” I have no idea whether JR is being sarcastic or not. “This may be naive, but I have seldom seen a player more out of place than Fellaini in this United side,” says Matt Richman. “His slowness of touch and thought takes the sting out of the midfield entirely and he will ballwatch throughout any Boro attack. Does he add something on the pitch that I am completely missing?” I don’t really see it, but the fact he is liked by Ferguson, Moyes, Van Gaal and Mourinho – who have about 482 trophies between them – makes me confident we are missing something. Benik Afobe has given Bournemouth the lead against relegated Swansea. Leicester are winning a football match. Islam Slimani has given them the lead with a cracking header from Marc Albrighton’s cross. “Currently top of the Premier League, Chelsea are drawing plaudits for their discipline, resolution and knowhow,” says Mark Eyeington. “But let’s remember that this same group of players now conducting themselves on the pitch with the slightly smug air of chastened schoolboys are the same collection of reprobates that could not scrape together a point for Jose Mourinho last season and effectively got him sacked. Hard to like these PL leaders, all the more so when one contrasts them with last season’s honest and hard-working equivalents.” I see your point, though I’d be reluctant to generalise about the whole squad. There were plenty of players – Azpilicueta, for example – who didn’t let Mourinho down. Also, I suspect Mourinho was happy to let it spiral out of control so that he would get sacked and then take his dream job. Lee Grant has made an excellent save from Diego Costa at Stamford Bridge, where it is still Chelsea 0-0 Stoke. Another chance for Boro at Old Trafford, with George Friend’s shock blocked by Marouane Fellaini. Paul Merson, on Soccer Saturday, says Stoke have been the better team at Stamford Bridge. They might have taken the lead too, with Azpilicueta making a vital interception to deprive Martins Indi. On this day in 1994, it happened. At Old Trafford, Paul Pogba has hit the outside of the post with a scissor-kick. Michail Antonio has missed a decent chance to give West Ham the lead at Leicester. Still no goals in the six Premier League games, though my sources tell me it won’t be long. It’s all happening at Shielfield Park. After three minutes, Edinburgh City lead the home side Berwick Rangers 2-0 (TWO). Middlesbrough have missed a great early chance at Old Trafford, with Adama Traore messing up a three-on-one break. At the King Power Stadium, Riyad Mahrez has hit the post for Leicester against West Ham. At various locations around England, groups of men are shaking hands under duress. You know what that means: it’s football time. On Sky Sports, Jeff Stelling has gone off on an imperious one about Southampton’s Sofiane Boufal’s display against Spurs. “It was the most disgraceful performance by a professional footballer I’ve ever seen in my life. He did not put an ounce of effort in, he gesticulated towards all of his fellow players ... how did he come out for the second half? And how does he start today? Explain that to me.” “Rob, you’ve summed up the ghastliness on 2016 by offering us, as antidote, the prospect of seeing whether Chelsea can beat Stoke,” says Charles Antaki. “Respect to all involved, of course, but a fitting valedictory for 12 months of spiralling misery.” “Afternoon Rob,” says Simon McMahon. “It’s a game of guess the kick-off time in Scotland today. The game of the day is taking place right now, KO 1.30, as Dundee United - or the Chelsea of the Scottish Championship as they’re currently known after 14 games unbeaten - face Dumbarton. Although Dumbarton, or the Swansea of the Scottish championship as they’re currently known, lead 1-0 at half time. Falkirk v Hibs, KO 12.30, is 1-1 into the final few minutes. In the Scottish Premiership two Glasgow teams played at 12.15. One of them won 2-1. “Struggling Dundee v St. Johnstone and Partick v Kilmarnock both kick off at 2.00pm, and the Highland derby between Ross County and Inverness starts an hour later at 3.00pm - don’t think that will ever catch on. The three games in Scottish League One kick off at 1, 2 and 3pm, and 2017 kicks off at midnight, or maybe earlier, who knows? Happy New Year when it comes to everyone!” Swansea (4-2-3-1) Fabianski; Naughton, Amat, Mawson, Taylor; Ki, Britton; Dyer, Fer, Sigurdsson; Llorente. Substitutes: Nordfeldt, Fernandez, Rangel, Cork, Barrow, Baston, McBurnie. Bournemouth (4-2-3-1) Boruc; Francis, Cook, Ake, Daniels; Arter, Surman; Fraser, Wilshere, Stanislas; Afobe. Substitutes: Federici, Mings, Smith, Ibe, Gosling, King, Wilson. Southampton (4-3-3) Forster; Martina, van Dijk, Yoshida, McQueen; Davis, Romeu, Hojberg; Boufal, Long, Tadic. Substitutes: Taylor, Fonte, Bertrand, Reed, Sims, Ward-Prowse, Rodriguez, West Brom (4-2-3-1) Foster; Dawson, McAuley, Evans, Nyom; Yacob, Fletcher; Brunt, Chadli, Phillips; Robson-Kanu. Substitutes: Myhill, Galloway, McClean, Leko, Morrison, Gardner, Rondon. Manchester United (4-3-3) De Gea; Valencia, Bailly, Smalling, Blind; Herrera, Fellaini, Pogba; Mkhitaryan, Ibrahimovic, Martial. Substitutes: Romero, Jones, Rojo, Schweinsteiger, Mata, Lingard, Rashford. Middlesbrough (4-3-3) Valdes; Bernardo, Chambers, Gibson, Friend; Forshaw, Leadbitter, de Roon; Traore, Negredo, Downing. Substitutes: Guzan, Fabio, Ayala, Clayton, Ramirez, Rhodes, Stuani. Leicester (4-4-2) Schmeichel; Simpson, Morgan, Huth, Chilwell; Mahrez, Drinkwater, Amartey, Albrighton; Slimani, Gray. Substitutes: Zieler, Fuchs, Mendy, King, Musa, Okazaki, Ulloa. West Ham (4-2-3-1) Randolph; Nordtveit, Reid, Ogbonna, Cresswell; Noble, Kouyate; Antonio, Ayew, Payet; Carroll. Substitutes: Adrian, Quina, Feghouli, Lanzini, Obiang, Fletcher, Fernandes. Burnley (4-4-2) Heaton; Lowton, Keane, Mee, Ward; Arfield, Marney, Defour, Boyd; Barnes, Gray. Substitutes: Robinson, Tarkowski, Darikwa, Gudmundsson, O’Neill, Bamford, Vokes. Sunderland (3-5-2) Mannone; O’Shea, Kone, Djilobodji; Jones, Januzaj, Larsson, Borini, van Aanholt; Defoe, Anichebe. Substitutes: Mika, Love, Manquillo, Pienaar, Khazri, Rodwell, Ndong. Chelsea (3-4-3) Courtois; Azpilicueta, David Luiz, Cahill; Moses, Kante, Fabregas, Alonso; Willian, Diego Costa, Hazard. Substitutes: Begovic, Ivanovic, Zouma, Matic, Chalobah, Loftus-Cheek, Batshuayi. Stoke (4-2-3-1) Grant; Johnson, Shawcross, Martins Indi, Pieters; Allen, Adam; Diouf, Afellay, Shaqiri; Crouch. Substitutes: Given, Bardsley, Sobhi, Imbula, Whelan, Bony, Bojan. The first email of the last day of 2016 “Hi Rob,” says Philip Brennan. “Can I just send a little message of hope and cheer to all my fellow long suffering Man United friends out there in social media land: it’s been a difficult year for us not least because every small setback on the pitch would trigger a veritable tsunami of ‘advice’ from every ABU and his granny. The end of days though has yet to happen and if results go our way this weekend we will enter the new year a mere point behind Arsenal and only four behind Liverpool with half a season to go. Thank you for your time and happy new year one and all.” Yes, they are starting to look good. It’s almost as if one of the greatest managers in football history knows how to manage a football club. Hello, good afternoon and happy old 2016 to you all. Let’s end this vile year on a high, with some hardcore football action. We’ll be focussing primarily on the six Premier League fixtures, listed below, and particularly whether Chelsea can move nine points clear by beating Stoke. They have won 12 consecutive league matches and are two away from the English top-flight record, held by the great Ljungbergkamp Arsenal side of spring 2002. It’s been a staggering run, reminiscent of that monstrous 2004-05 Chelsea side, who went three months without conceding a goal in the league at one stage. This team isn’t as formidable on paper, which will give the chasing pack a sliver of hope, for the time being at least. There’s plenty more to look forward to today, not least the existence of Henrikh Mkhitaryan and a very significant fixture at Turf Moor, where Burnley play Sunderland. By tonight, they could be nine points clear of the relegation places. Premier League 3pm kick-offs Burnley v Sunderland Chelsea v Stoke Leicester v West Ham Manchester United v Middlesbrough Southampton v West Brom Swansea v Bournemouth
Unseen treasures from the golden age of Disney revealed for first time A lost world of Disney is to be made public for the first time, including images that, when added together, show Donald Duck dancing with giant cigars, and sketches for a film about the American folk hero Davy Crockett. Film historian Daniel Kothenschulte has collated celluloid images from hundreds of Disney projects that, for various reasons, never saw the light of day. Having been given unrestricted access to the Disney Archives and Animation Research Library, his discoveries are to appear in a major book entitled The Walt Disney Film Archives: The Animated Movies 1921–1968. Kothenschulte told the : “You open up pastel drawings that are still rolled up, and all this coloured dust appears on the table. A wonderful moment. The Donald Duck film was developed pretty far. There are beautiful colour storyboards, pastels that give you a view of the whole film. Those have never been published anywhere.” Kothenschulte was also given access for the first time to Thomas Hart Benton’s 10-page treatment for a never-made Davy Crockett film, with sketches of “fantastic” swamp creatures drawn in 1946. “This is a wonderful thing that nobody has ever seen except for the archivists at Disney,” he said. “It’s not just the images that have never been seen; nobody knew what it was about. It was just known that a Davy Crockett project was in development.” In the book he writes: “Benton shows himself here as a true storyteller who uses the opportunity to pay homage to his second-greatest artistic passion – early American folk music. The script begins … in a swamp landscape, out of which alligators emerge and begin to tap dance to Johnnie Queen’s Clog. The song grows wilder and wilder as the alligators transform into ‘ring-tailed roarers’. In a sketch, Benton depicts one of these creatures out of American folklore, which he describes as ‘half-alligator, half-horse, and half-devil’.” Speculating on why the project was shelved, Kothenschulte pointed to a letter from Benton that suggests it was too extravagant, although Disney himself was an enthusiastic backer. Other ideas that fell by the wayside include a feature film on Hiawatha, inspired by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s epic poem, The Song of Hiawatha. Kothenschulte described the surviving storyboard as “monumental”. Other unpublished imagery includes a scene from the short film, Little Hiawatha, in which the main character’s canoe is wrecked on forbidding rocks. The holdings of the Animation Research Library extend to some six million artefacts, of which Kothenschulte estimates “less than a million have been scanned or catalogued so far. I was able to get access to things that other scholars didn’t, or maybe they didn’t ask the right questions. It’s not an archive that you can just move in and touch things. You have to wait for them to come up with a box, or maybe 10 boxes if you’re lucky.” With 1,500 illustrations and essays by Disney experts, the book covers each of the major animated films made in Disney’s lifetime, including Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and The Jungle Book. Kothenschulte said: “With every film, we have examples that have not been published before. We have 50 or 60 unpublished drawings from The Jungle Book.” He also expressed excitement about seeing beautiful storyboard illustrations of planned extensions to Disney’s musical masterpiece Fantasia: “None of this was made into a film. This was my greatest joy to see.” Single images have appeared in print, but the whole sequence has not. But he added: “It’s also disappointing to see what they don’t have any more. In the past, they didn’t see a purpose in saving cels [celluloids] and backgrounds, so they would discard or sell them.” Kothenschulte is also publishing the full transcripts of story conferences held by Disney with his staff. “This is something very rare,” said Kothenschulte. “Other studios don’t have this. Walt Disney liked to have everything documented. He had stenographers present during all these story meetings, which could go on for hours, just making up ideas. “Walt was the key story man, as you can see, but everyone had an opinion. It was a very open discussion.” The book’s introduction is by John Lasseter, the Oscar-winning director of Toy Story, the world’s first feature-length computer-animated film. Lasseter, who is now Disney’s chief creative officer: “People sometimes describe something as ‘Disney’ as if it were a single look and style, when in truth the look of the studio’s work was continuously evolving.” The Walt Disney Film Archives: The Animated Movies 1921–1968 will be published by Taschen on 1 October
What does your router name say about you? What you choose to call your wireless network can say a lot about you. If you’re the attendee of an “alt-right” event at Texas A&M University who decided to promote genocide in the form of a network ID, it can say you are violently racist. While it is perhaps not surprising to see the USA’s new far-right white supremacist movement engaging with the language of Nazism, there seems something particularly insidious in using such hateful language in something as benign as a Wi-Fi connection. What turns a simple technical feature into a personalised billboard? Amber Burton, a senior lecturer in digital media and communications currently researching digital identities, likens the naming of our networks to a “digital T-shirt”. “Remember as teens, your mates wearing those T-shirts that were designed to provoke? Always validated with a ‘it’s just a joke’, or ‘just my freedom of speech’? It’s making public something they know will provoke a reaction.” While some router names are picked to deliberately offend, others cover everything from the deliberately arcane through to crowd-pleasing puns. Why do we pick particular names and what do these names tell us about ourselves? Burton argues that the names we then choose for ourselves serve to telegraph our identities on our own terms. “It’s all woven into the fabric of how we choose to present and represent ourselves.” If we choose a particularly humorous name or an interesting play on language, we are broadcasting something about who we are. But there’s a twist when it comes to network names: not only are we communicating something about ourselves via a named router, we are insisting others comply with it. “Unusual names further extend the owner’s agenda and insists that the receiver must deal with it, by virtue of having to click on or accept a device with that handle,” Burton argues. The racist network ID in Texas isn’t just an attempt to shock, then: they’s also an attempt to normalise the attitudes through implied compliance and active collaboration. In a bid to shed light on the tapestry of messages that invisibly permeate our world, digital marketer Federico Prandi set up The Berlin Wi-Fi Project: a map of Berlin overlayed with different network names. The idea came to him while trying to source a Wi-Fi connection from his phone on the train. “I watched the names change as the train sped through the city; some funny, some personal, some mysterious. I liked the idea of the streets being lined with a series of secret messages addressed to the universe.” Meals’s own Wi-Fi is named EasyBox-876524. What that says about him, he suggests, is “I’m too lazy to change the name”. But his project has revealed a world of router-based innovation and wordplay. “My favourites,” Meals admits, “are the ones that broadcast something to the neighbours: ‘Please play the violin at a lower volume’, ‘It’s too loud by the convenient store” and ‘Your children are shit’.” Meals’s investigations have also revealed some strange, wordless interactions. “In one area ’Dennis is an asshole’ is countered by ‘Dennis is no asshole’; while in my own neighbourhood “NutellaMann” and “NutellaFrau” co-exist within metres from each other. I want to believe there’s a platonic, wireless flirting going on there.” Meals and his readers work to decode the meanings of the names. A network named “Prinzessin Anabell” was discovered to be a character from an animated Czechoslovakia children’s show. A network named “Reichts Nach Genf” turned out to be a reference to a controversial graphic novel; the “genff” in the name denoting the smell of dimensional hiatus within the book’s universe. While router names can be used to transmit something funny or personal, in the hands of hackers, things get a little dicey. Aaron Singer, a Service Delivery Manager at Pulsar Online, an internet security firm, advises on thinking twice before clicking on what appears to be a seemingly open access Wi-Fi. “Hackers might put up a bogus Wi-Fi hotspot, named ‘BT Openreach’ for example. You then click on it and load up your internet banking or social media, all the while using a hacker’s router which is stealing your data. “Hackers could even impersonate your personal router. These things happen.” An inquiry into some of the more unusual Wi-Fi names within my own area indeed returned some instances of trickery (“TV License Detection Unit”) alongside “Tell My Wi-Fi I Love Her” and “I Believe I Can Wi-Fi”. There’s one other reason for the experimentation in network names: Though there is a very modern tradition of collating funny and passive aggressive Wi-Fi network names, a network name is ultimately transient. A slogan which we once found funny we soon find tedious or trite. We continually reevaluate the ways in which we want to present ourselves to the wider world. Even the racist sitting in a lecture hall in a Texas university might, one day, realise the error of their ways. And when they do, change is just a click away. • This article was amended on 10 January 2017 to correct the name of Federico Prandi.
Clinton victorious in Puerto Rico – but Sanders isn't quitting Clinton hits stride with win in Puerto Rico, Sanders stays in The Democrat is now less than 30 votes short of a winning tally of 2,383 delegates. Has she finally found her footing? After winning in Puerto Rico, the presidential candidate, currently barnstorming through California, tweeted that she had beaten rival Bernie Sanders. Not so fast, said Sanders – there are still several hundred delegates up for grabs in contests New Jersey, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota and New Mexico. Plus, Clinton could still lose California on Tuesday, a state she needs symbolically, if not mathematically. Hillary Clinton claims victory in Puerto Rico and edges closer to nomination Trump: Muslim judges could be biased too The presumptive Republican nominee continues to go after the judicial system, saying it’s “possible, absolutely” that not only Mexican but also Muslim judges would be biased against him. Among uncomfortable senior Republicans, potential running mate Newt Gingrich described Trump’s comments about Gonzalo Curiel, the judge in one of three cases pending against Trump Univesity, as “inexcusable”. Trump: ‘It’s possible, absolutely’ Muslim judges could be biased against him Muhammad Ali returns home As the boxer’s casket was flown to Louisville, residents of the Kentucky city reflected on the skinny kid who used to tell people he’d one day be the heavyweight champion. It wasn’t just Louisville that Ali changed, though – he altered “the world”, said childhood neighbor Lawrence Montgomery. Ali’s funeral on Friday will feature eulogists including Bill Clinton, the sportscaster Bryant Gumbel and the actor Billy Crystal. Louisville, forever changed by Muhammad Ali, prepares to bury him Bitter clash in Stanford rape case After the father of a student convicted of sexual assault at Stanford University issued an extraordinary defense of his son, who he said was now suffering for “20 minutes of action”, the 23-year-old victim’s full statement has been released. The victim said that former star swimmer Brock Turner, who has been sentenced to six months in prison and probation, was “willing to go to any length, to discredit me, invalidate me, and explain why it was OK to hurt me”. Her unflinching account of the crime and its aftermath has been read thousands of times online. Stanford sexual assault case: victim impact statement in full Cody Wilson: 3D-printed gun advocate He quotes Nietzsche and Foucault and calls himself a crypto-anarchist. Cody Wilson, 28, is also the leading advocate for open-source 3D gun design, an online movement advocating homemade weapons. His own design, created in 2013 while a law student at the University of Texas, is named the Liberator. “All I tried to do in law school was print a pistol and put it on the internet,” he tells the . “Now I’m on a ride I can’t get off of.” Cody Wilson: the man who wants Americans to print their own 3D guns Human-pig embryo created in lab Scientists in California attempting to grow human organs in pigs have created part-human, part-pig embryos. They allowed the embryos to mature for 28 days before analysing the tissue. Some hope pigs could someday provide a ready source of human organs. But opposition is growing – the US National Institutes of Health has said it will not, at this point, back research into so-called chimeras. Scientists create human-pig embryo Euro 2016 terror attacks foiled, says Ukraine Ukraine’s state security service (SBU) has said a French citizen detained in May was planning attacks to coincide with Euro 2016, the 24-team soccer tournament which kicks off in Paris this weekend. The SBU said it had followed the man since December and allowed him to purchase five machine guns, two rocket-propelled grenades and other weapons. The man was not identified but the SBU said he was driven by ultra-nationalist views and planned attacks on Jewish and Muslim places of worship, government buildings, bridges, railways and other infrastructure. Euro 2016 ‘ultra-nationalist’ attacks ‘thwarted’, Ukraine says Warriors slam Cavaliers but San Francisco move divides After the Golden State Warriors humiliated the Cleveland Cavaliers 110-77 in NBA finals Game 2, leaving the Cavs down 2-0 in the series. Julia Carrie Wong and Sam Levin look at what the Warriors’ move to San Francisco means to Oakland: they find Oakland’s inferiority complex – as “the Town” – is matched by a certain smugness among wealthy residents of San Francisco, “the City”. But Oakland is rapidly gentrifying, so it’s game on. Golden State Warriors humiliate Cleveland Cavaliers Can AI do things better than we can? If so, what? The marriage of artificial intelligence and humanity is the emerging issue of the future. Leo Benedictus asks if AI will be able to do even the things humans find difficult. So far it’s been good at easy tasks that dazzle us, such as mathematics, but bad at those we take for granted. “One example is the ease with which you or I could make a cup of tea in someone else’s kitchen,” says Professor Alan Winfield, a roboticist at the University of the West of England. “There isn’t a robot on the planet that could do this.” Man v machine: can computers cook, write and paint better than us? For Apple, how much is too much? A small Danish technology studio named Lovable Hat Cult has produced La Petite Mort, a touch-based, female orgasm stimulation game described as a “one of a kind digital erotic experience”. It is, in effect, a simulation of stimulation. Apple has declared the game inappropriate for its app store and removed it for being “excessively objectionable or crude”. Game designer Patrick Jarnfelt says such erotic games are “a very unexplored area”. The female orgasm simulation game that’s too hot for Apple to touch In case you missed it… Last week, a survey in the journal Archives of Sexual Behaviour stated that there had been a huge increase in the number of people reporting having had same-sex experiences and, alongside this, a greater acceptance of people’s sexuality. Sarah Hughes takes the social temperature and looks at how we embarked on a new age of gender fluidity, asking: have we reached a tipping point? Sexuality today: how we embarked on a new age of freedom and tolerance
The rising power of China will create new political fissures in the west Whether he wins or loses the US presidency next November, Donald Trump has already come up with one of the defining slogans of 2016 – “Make America great again”. Trump’s vision of an America in precipitous decline is all-encompassing. At home, he points to falling living standards for many Americans and the disappearance of well-paid manufacturing jobs. Overseas, he claims the world is laughing at the US and laments that “we don’t win any more”. Many in Europe are tempted to see Trump as an “only in America” aberration. Yet the fear of economic and geopolitical decline that Trump is capitalising upon is widely visible across the west. The coalition of frustrated working-class voters and nostalgic nationalists that the Republican has put together is uncomfortably reminiscent of the alliance that voted for Brexit in the UK. Trump’s “make America great again” mantra has an echo of the Brexit campaign’s winning slogan – “Take back control”. Nor is this is just an Anglo-American phenomenon. Across the EU, including in France, the Netherlands, Italy and Poland, protectionists and nationalists are gaining ground. As Trump might put it: “Something’s going on.” That something is a historic shift in economic and geopolitical power that is bringing to an end a 500-year period in which western nations have dominated global affairs. This erosion of the west’s privileged position in world affairs is creating new economic, geopolitical and even psychological pressures in both the US and the EU. The driving force of this change is the extraordinary economic development of Asia over the past 50 years. In 2014, the IMF reported that, measured in purchasing power, China is now the world’s largest economy. The US had held this title since 1871, when it displaced the UK; now China is number one. The rise of China is just part of a broader shift of economic power towards Asia. The IMF reports that three of the world’s four largest economies are now in Asia. China is first, the US is second, India third and Japan fourth. It is true that if you measure economies at current exchange rates the US is still the world’s largest economy – and European nations also rise up the pecking order. But growing Chinese and Asian economic weight is demonstrable in many other ways. China is now the world’s largest manufacturer and the largest exporter. It is also the world’s largest market for vehicles, smartphones and oil – and the biggest single market for many western companies such as Daimler and KFC. But it is not just Mercedes and fried chicken that are being consumed in Asia. In 2012, for the first time in over a century, Asian countries spent more money on armaments and troops than European nations. The world’s two largest arms importers are now India and Saudi Arabia. Conventional economic theory holds that the growing wealth of Asia should be a boon to the economies of the west, since it offers new markets and sources of investment. But it is also clear that particular communities in Europe and the US, especially manufacturing workers and the less educated, have had their living standards badly hit by competition from Asia. Economists call this the “China shock” and the effects have been profound. By the end of 2008, the US had lost one third of its manufacturing jobs from peak and most of those had gone in the previous decade. Italy, whose industrial heartlands have suffered particularly badly from competition with Asia, has lost 25% of its industrial capacity since 2008. Researchers at Bocconi University in Italy have shown that across Europe it is the areas that have been hit hardest by Chinese competition that are most likely to move towards political parties advocating “identity-based nationalism”. China’s increasing economic weight is also leading to tricky strategic and political choices for western nations. Britain’s current dilemma over the proposed nuclear power station at Hinkley Point is illustrative. With Brexit looming, investment from China looks ever more crucial to the UK. But China is not just an enormous economy. It is also a rising power with strategic aims that have led to a rise in tensions with its neighbours and with the US, Britain’s most important military ally and the bedrock of the Nato alliance. Given the rising tensions between the west and China, it was all but inevitable that the May government would have to consider whether it is sensible to hand over the management of such a strategic chunk of the UK economy to Chinese companies. The trade-off between security and economics when dealing with China is likely to be a recurring dilemma for the UK – and it is not just a problem for Britain. A few months ago, Australia faced its own Hinkley Point moment when it blocked a Chinese consortium from buying a company that owns more than 1% of Australia’s landmass. Since then, tensions between the Aussies and the Chinese have risen. A few days ago, the Global Times, a subsidiary of China’s People’s Daily, suggested that if the Australian navy joined the US in patrolling waters claimed by Beijing in the South China Sea, Australia would be “an ideal target to warn and strike”. The shrill tone of such Chinese pronouncements underlines the fact that the shift in global economic power has not just altered attitudes in the west, it has also produced an increasingly assertive nationalism in Xi Jinping’s China. Over the past year, Beijing has asserted its claims in the South China Sea by building artificial islands across the ocean. In response, the US navy has sent patrols through waters claimed by China. Both a Trump and a Clinton presidency would probably lead to increased tensions with China, but by very different routes. Hillary Clinton is regarded in Beijing as a dangerous hawk who would be likely to be more determined in pushing back against China’s maritime claims. President Xi is a tough-minded nationalist, so a Clinton presidency would increase the chances of a clash in the Pacific between the US and China. Trump, by contrast, seems relatively uninterested in America’s strategic role in the Pacific, but his vociferous protectionism has led him to propose swingeing tariffs on Chinese goods. Any such policy would be regarded as an act of economic warfare by Beijing. Either way, the era when globalisation seemed like a process that could create only common interests between China and the west is over. It is now giving way to an epoch that looks altogether darker and more dangerous.
Stephen Dorrell: We can’t just keep bailing out A&E As the NHS family gathers for its annual showpiece conference this week, anyone expecting that family’s new patriarch to speak in its narrow interest is in for a rude shock. For Stephen Dorrell, chair of the NHS Confederation, is going to tell the movers and shakers of the health service that neither they – nor the service – have any future unless they start to think and act very differently. And quickly. If the NHS is not yet on its knees, it is surely sinking to them. Hospitals in England ended the 2015-16 financial year with unprecedented debts of almost £2.5bn; the plan to realise savings of £22bn by 2020 looks dead in the water; and of a rash of performance indicators out last week, all moving either in the wrong direction or alarmingly little in the right one for the time of year, the most concerning was a record number of patients stuck in hospital when ready for discharge. Dorrell, the former Tory health secretary in his first year as chair of the organisation that represents both providers and commissioners of health services, thinks he knows what needs to be done. It is, he says, not just to re-imagine what good care will look like in 10 years’ time, but to start to put real flesh on the bones of concepts of early intervention and prevention of ill-health in local communities – something “way beyond the current understanding of the health and care system”. And way beyond its capacity alone. “It’s not just about how to make the current model sustainable: that’s the wrong question,” he says. “The right question is, what does the model look like to support a sustainable society? That seems to me a completely different narrative to take to government and the funders of the current system; to say, ‘If we use taxpayer pounds, these are the outcomes we can achieve.’ That’s completely different to saying, ‘The system is broke, send us a cheque.’” At the heart of Dorrell’s message is a blunt warning that the days are over of the NHS acting in isolation from local government, housing and other agencies that shape the sense of “place” in communities. From now on, the NHS must see itself as one player in a team, a local team – and perhaps not even the most important one. It’s fitting that the confederation should be meeting in Manchester, the setting for the most ambitious English devolution experiment involving £6bn of health and social care money. Dorrell describes Manchester city council chief executive Sir Howard Bernstein, who is addressing the conference, as “one of the most influential people in healthcare”, even though he has never worked in the NHS, and references him eight times during this interview. The health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, and NHS England chief executive Simon Stevens, who are both also speaking, do not get a single mention between them. Most tellingly, Dorrell illustrates one argument, about preventing ill-health by spending on employment, training and better housing, by saying: “The answer, the Bernstein answer, is: ‘There is no such thing as health money. There is only Manchester money.’” Such messages will not win universal support from cash-strapped hospital chiefs attending the conference. And some will mutter that it’s fine talk from a man who not only served as a Conservative secretary of state for health in the mid-1990s, but also later chaired the Commons health select committee for four years, during which time he voted for the controversial 2012 Health and Social Care Act – though he has subsequently acknowledged that the structural upheaval brought in by the act was the biggest mistake of the coalition government. But Dorrell, who left parliament at the last general election after 36 years as an MP, maintains he is no new convert to his theme, pointing out that key strands were evident in the overlooked 1996 NHS white paper, A Service with Ambitions, published just six months before New Labour swept to power. In the foreword to that document, health secretary Dorrell wrote: “At [this] time it is not everyone’s first instinct to lift their eyes to the horizon. But the urgent must not be allowed to squeeze out the important. We need a clear idea about how we want the NHS to develop and what steps are necessary to allow that to happen.” He also insists that six years before that, when he was a junior health minister, in the early 90s, he questioned the removal of local councillors from health authorities that then represented the commissioning side of the fledgling NHS internal market. “I think it was a mistake,” he says. “I have been wrong about many things in life, but I was right to doubt that NHS commissioning could have legitimacy without local democratic accountability.” Twenty years on, he is still talking about the NHS’s fundamental problem being that the urgent – an A&E crisis, say – will always squeeze out the important. “One day you have to do the important, otherwise you will never get away from the urgent,” he says. “And that links straight back to making the case for money. If new money is simply going to be used to bail out the urgent, then that’s a very poor case.” Such is the NHS’s current plight that speculation is rife about a further cash injection less than 12 months since the agreement to an £8bn boost in return for those £22bn savings. Choosing his words with care, Dorrell says it would be without precedent for any advanced society not to devote some proceeds of economic growth to health and care. Asked if that is an argument for immediate deployment or for the next spending round, he replies: “I think tomorrow starts tomorrow, not in 2020.” He is optimistic that key figures in government – and beyond, in other sectors and in the health professions – are hearing and understanding the changing dialogue about future healthcare and its changing locus – not national but local, through devolution deals and the 44 new “sustainability and transformation plans” (STPs), mapping the development of services across England over the next five years. Dorrell is independent chair of the Birmingham and Solihull STP, working with Birmingham city council’s chief executive Mark Rogers. But Rogers and Bernstein are two of only four local government figures chosen to lead an STP, with the other 40 system leads coming from the NHS, something which Dorrell says “sends a disappointing message” about balance of responsibility and understanding of the emerging world. Evidently not everyone is hearing the new dialogue. When he addresses the conference , he will make clear his own, strong view that voting to leave the European Union next week would cause, at least, economic uncertainty, which would be bad for the NHS, and would imperil the UK’s important health research sector. In saying so he may feel it necessary to declare an interest as a part-time adviser to management consultancy KPMG. When he took the role in 2014, he had stepped down as health committee chair but remained an MP and rejected calls to quit ahead of the general election. On his present position, he says that there are strict compliance rules in place at both KPMG and the confederation and that there have been instances where he has withdrawn from conversations because of potentially being conflicted. Dorrell will also outline to the conference how the NHS Confederation itself must adapt to work more closely and flexibly with social care, wider local government, public health and housing groups. If the past has sometimes felt like trench warfare between sectoral silos and with government, he says, the future is going to be all about alliances, movement – and change. Curriculum vitae Age 64. Lives Worcester. Family Married, three sons and one daughter. Education Uppingham school, Rutland; Brasenose College, Oxford University, BA law. Career 2015-present: chair, NHS Confederation; 2014-present: senior adviser, KPMG; 2010-14: chair, health select committee; 1995-97: health secretary; 1994-95: national heritage secretary; 1992-94: financial secretary to Treasury; 1990-92: junior health minister; 1979-2015: Tory MP for Loughborough, then Charnwood; 1973-79: family textiles business and assistant to Worcester MP Peter Walker. Interests Walking, reading, music.
Vincent Cassel says Italian dubbers have a 'mafia-like' hold on film industry The French actor Vincent Cassel has labelled the powerful Italian voiceover industry a “mafia”, claiming it is impossible to see foreign films in their original language in Italy. Cassel, whose new movie Un moment d’égarement (One Wild Moment) debuts in Italian cinemas on 24 March, is upset that the local dub of the Jean-François Richet-directed comedy loses nuances in the Parisian and Corsican accents spoken by its French characters. “In Italy it is difficult to see a film in the original language, because the voice actors here are a mafia,” he told the Independent. “There’s film dubbing in France, too, but the dubbers don’t have so much power that they run the show. There are the creators and the dubbers. The dubbers stick to the voiceovers. When there’s a dubbers’ strike, the cinemas don’t close.” Cassel’s comments have caused a storm in Italy, which has long preferred dubbed versions of foreign movies, resulting in an entire industry of voiceover artists. Many have become stars in their own right: when Claudio Capone, the man who was the Italian voice of John Travolta, died in 2008, tributes poured in. In 2014, a 15-day strike by the country’s dubbers meant several US TV shows were broadcast in their original language with Italian subtitles, drawing complaints. In 1998, dozens of Hollywood films had their Italian releases delayed due to industrial action. Roberto Pedicini, a famous Italian voiceover artist, who has dubbed Cassel in the past, said the practice improved the popularity of foreign films. “It would be nice to see every film in its original language. The problem is that we’d have to learn really diverse languages, given that the most awarded films at festivals are Asian or from the Middle East,” he told the Adnkronos news agency. “And subtitles are often misleading or compromised.” One Wild Moment stars Cassel and François Cluzet as best friends on holiday with their teenage daughters. It is a remake of the 1977 French film, also titled Un moment d’égarement, which in turn inspired the 1984 Hollywood comedy Blame It on Rio – in which Michael Caine embarks on an affair with his best friend’s 17-year-old daughter. Pedicini suggested Cassel should be grateful to Italy’s dub artists for helping to bring his film to a wider audience. “To make an Italian film appeal to the largest number of people, it has to be dubbed,” he said. “If it weren’t dubbed, the new film of Cassel would be seen by much fewer people.”
Corbyn urges voters in Scotland to show solidarity with people across EU Scottish voters hoping that a vote to leave the European Union could spark a second independence referendum should first consider their “solidarity with people across the continent”, Jeremy Corbyn has suggested. The SNP leader and Scottish first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, has repeatedly said that a vote to leave the European Union could trigger another vote on Scotland’s future, and former Tory prime minister Sir John Major said earlier this week that a vote to quit the EU could “tear apart the UK”. During a campaign visit to Aberdeen on Saturday, Corbyn said Major “may be right”. While he accepted “the SNP would want to promote another referendum” in such a scenario, he said: “I think we should not get into that debate at the present time, the important thing is to decide how you are going to vote on 23 June.” Corbyn added: “I hope people will vote for what they want and decide whether they wish to be part of the European Union or not on the basis of solidarity with people across the continent.” The Labour leader’s visit to Aberdeen came after senior figures in the Labour party, including Tom Watson, Ed Miliband and Chuka Umunna, urged the party to step up its campaign to stay in the EU amid fears that Labour voters would let the UK sleepwalk towards Brexit. There has been concern from parts of the party that their leader has been lukewarm in his backing for remain. “I don’t think the European Union is perfect, nobody does,” Corbyn told reporters in Scotland,adding: “I do think the working time directives, the employment rights that have been achieved by trade unions across Europe and enshrined in European law are very important.” He said a vote to remain is “not an endorsement of every bureaucratic excess of the European Union”, claiming what is important is “a principle about working with people across national borders”. He also said David Cameron had made a mistake in not allowing 16- and 17-year-olds to vote in the referendum as young people provide a “counter-momentum” to the apparent rise in support for the leave campaign. “I supported votes at 16 and do, it’s the policy of the Labour party to lower the voting age to 16 for all elections. It was achieved in the Scottish referendum and that was right and I think it should be extended. “Large numbers of young people have registered to vote, young people are more likely to want to vote to remain because they enjoy the free movement across Europe if they choose to study and travel. Older people tend to be more sceptical, I think that’s disappointing, but it’s not universal.” Corbyn argued the decision on the UK’s future membership of the EU must not be made “on the basis of xenophobia or attacks on all foreigners” and condemned claims from leave supporters that the NHS would be better off if Britain was out of Europe. “The reality is if you go to any hospital across the UK, you’re more likely to be treated by a doctor from another part of Europe than you are to be queuing up beside a patient from another part of Europe,” he said. “52,000 European nationals work in our NHS – well done them and thank you very much. If they all went I think we would have a problem.” He said he was disappointed with the result of an Aberdeen University study, which suggested 92% of fishermen in the UK would back a leave vote. He accepted there had been “a lot of arguments over the common fisheries policy over the years” but that “to leave the European Union won’t solve the problems of the fishing industry”. For the leave campaign, Iain Duncan Smith, the former work and pensions secretary, claimed the tactics of the remain camp were “definitely showing panic”. Duncan Smith, a prominent figure in the campaign to leave the EU, was mobbed by remain backers dressed as Boris Johnson during a visit to Harlow town centre in Essex on Saturday. The protesters shouted “he cut benefits, what else is he going to cut?” and “where is Boris” at the former cabinet minister as he stepped off the battle bus to canvas voters. “It does suggest to me when people do this sort of stuff that they are really worried,” Duncan Smith later told reporters. The incident took place during a difficult day for the remain camp, after an online poll for the Independent put the campaign for Britain to leave the EU 10 points ahead of its opponents. The survey of 2,000 people by ORB found that 55% of Britons believed the UK should leave the EU, up four points since the newspaper’s last poll in April, while 45% wanted it to remain, down four points. Duncan Smith said the poll made it clear the public was responding to the Vote Leave message but insisted that it was “all still to play for”. He told the Press Association: “I am astonished at remain at the moment. They are breaking all the normal rules you’d ever make about a successful campaign. You never show panic and they are definitely showing panic at the moment. This personal abuse, the old rule of thumb in politics is that once you start getting abused you must be doing something right. They seem to have given up on any positive messages. In the debate the other day there was literally no attempt by Amber Rudd [the pro-EU environment secretary] to say anything positive.” He added that he was “happy for the abuse” because “the more personal abuse they fly the better it is for us – people don’t like it”. He said: “I just want to win this, I don’t care what happens to me personally. I believe if we are an independent nation again the British people will thrive and prosper – like the prime minister once said, but he doesn’t say it any more.” The Chingford and Woodford Green MP, who stepped down as work and pensions secretary over “indefensible” benefit changes, also said he “doesn’t believe a word” of the claims that Brexit would mean £18bn of welfare cuts and tax rises, and rubbished comments by the German finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, who said the single market door would be shut to Britain if there was a vote to leave. “I predict there will be a line-up now of European Union finance ministers saying they will never do a deal with Britain over the next two weeks,” Duncan Smith said. “One by one they are all going to threaten us and that’s great because the public does not like being threatened, as we saw with Mr [Barack] Obama. Everyone should recognise that what you say in the run-up to a referendum is different from what you actually say when it has been established. Second biggest economy in Europe, fifth largest in the world, what are you going to say: ‘We are not going to trade with you’? I don’t think so.” The comments echoed those of Sir James Dyson, the inventor, who on Friday night backed the leave campaign and called claims that British international trade would suffer outside the EU “absolute cobblers”. Speaking to the Daily Telegraph, Dyson criticised employment restrictions for non-EU workers as “crazy” and vented frustration that some British-trained engineers were unable to stay after graduating from university. He said doing business on the continent had left him with the belief that EU powers “protect vested interests” and called Cameron and George Osborne fundamentally wrong in campaigning to remain. “I don’t just mean from the business point of view, I mean from the point of view of sovereignty,” Dyson said. “We will create more wealth and more jobs by being outside the EU. We will be in control of our destiny. And control, I think, is the most important thing in life and business.” The remain campaign did receive a boost, however, after Nobel laureates including Prof Peter Higgs, whose predictions were tested in the large hadron collider at Cern, the graphene pioneer Sir Kostya Novoselov and geneticist Sir Paul Nurse, warned that Britain’s future as a world leader in scientific research was being thrown into jeopardy by “naive” Brexit campaigners. The group said Britain currently helped “steer the biggest scientific powerhouse in the world” and wielded greater influence than it would alone on the outside. In a letter to the Daily Telegraph they wrote: “Science drives our prosperity, health, innovation and economic growth. It should be front and centre in the EU debate. As British science Nobel laureates, we are concerned that those commenting on science for Brexit lack experience in scientific leadership, and are putting the superb UK research endeavour in jeopardy.”
Face-off with Google, Facebook and Twitter over snooper’s charter It is clear we are about to see far too much political power exercised by the US internet companies (Snooper’s charter will have limited shelf life, warns industry, 8 January). Before the Home Office and then parliament accepts the level of influence from the likes of Google, Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo and Microsoft, as indicated in the criticism they level at the draft bill before a joint committee of both houses, we need a few homes truths on the table. The first is to spell out that not one of these companies could have started up business anywhere other than a western liberal democracy founded on the rule of law. Yes, that means that these companies that preach globalism would not have been able to start business in (say) Russia, where company lawyers get beaten to death; or China, where they just disappear. The second is that the system that allowed them to start up and operate is under threat. That they do not respect this shows in the way they have operated in some parts of the globe. The third is that they have, or think they have, much influence in the countries which gave them birth in the quest for profits in those parts of the globe the rule of law does not reach. I do not see why customers (interest declared) should buy their line. They clearly want no-go areas for law enforcement. Well, they should not be appeased. Jeff Rooker House of Lords; member Rusi independent surveillance review, July 2015 • After Paris, the fainthearts are calling for the snooper’s charter. Spying on everybody dilutes our intelligence and allows criminals and terrorists to sneak through in the crowd. The answer is targeted surveillance, not blanket snooping. The French tried blanket snooping and look where it got them. Barry Tighe London • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
Boris Johnson as PM is 'horror scenario', says Juncker EU aide Boris Johnson has faced an extraordinary string of attacks from some of the most senior figures in the EU, one of whom described the prospect of him becoming prime minister as a “horror scenario”. Martin Selmayr, who is chief of staff to the European commission president, Jean Claude Juncker, lumped Johnson in with France’s Marine Le Pen and the US presidential candidate Donald Trump in a provocative tweet. The message, in which Selmayr says “it is worth fighting populism”, has already triggered a backlash among out campaigners in Britain. The Vote Leave media spokesman Robert Oxley said of the intervention: “Unelected bureaucrat working for unelected bureaucrat speaks.” There was speculation that Selmayr’s action might have been coordinated as it landed immediately after criticism from Juncker. The commission president accused Johnson of painting an unreal picture of the EU for the British public and said he should return to Brussels, where he previously worked as a journalist, to see whether his claims chimed with “reality”. Juncker also hinted that if Britain’s highest-profile campaigner were to become prime minister then his discussions with European partners might be strained. At the G7 summit in Japan, responding to a question at a press conference about Johnson’s decision to compare the EU’s aims to those of Adolf Hitler, Juncker said: “I’m reading in [the] papers that Boris Johnson spent part of his life in Brussels. It’s time for him to come back to Brussels, in order to check in Brussels if everything he’s telling British people is in line with reality. “I don’t think so, so he would be welcome in Brussels at any time.” Asked whether the European institutions would be able to work with Johnson if he entered Downing Street, Juncker replied: “The atmosphere of our talks would be better if Britain is staying in the European Union.” Johnson hit back with claims that Germany was the “paymaster” of an EU project designed to create a United States of Europe. “I’m afraid what I am saying to the British people is in line with reality and if we vote to remain, which I sincerely hope we don’t, then they will go on with measures that will take us further into a federal European superstate,” he told Sky News. “The whole exercise in Europe is now aimed at propping up the euro. That is the entire mission of the European union. They will try to create a fiscal union, a political union.” He said it all tended towards a mission for a “United States of Europe, into which Britain will be sucked”. Johnson added: “I’m afraid we have not been able to get out from under the obligation for paying for this whole enterprise.” Donald Tusk, president of the European council, said: “We have to respect every democratic decision, the result of the referendum and possible political consequences of the referendum. But I think it’s quite normal to have normal relations with politicians and at the same time to have your own opinion about their opinions.” Tusk also tweeted: “G7 needs to be tough in defending common values. Questioned by states outside but also by opponents from within.” Speaking in Ise-Shima before the official opening of the summit, Tusk brought up the refugee crisis, saying Europe had responded to it first because it was the most affected. The geography meant the crisis was the responsibility of Europe first and foremost, he said. But he called on the international community to show solidarity and recognise that it was a “global crisis”. In particular he asked for financial support for the “public good” that countries such as Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon were doing in helping refugees, and for help with resettling schemes. “Europe is doing a lot and is happy to share its experience,” he said. On the issue of the global steel crisis, Juncker promised that the EU would step up its measures to defend the industry against Chinese dumping. He said the issue would be part of any decision on granting China market economy status, something Britain has pushed for but which the steel industry has warned could further damage Britain’s ability to compete. “Global overcapacity in the steel sector is of great concern to Europeans. It has cost Europe thousands of jobs since 2008 and the overcapacity in China alone has been estimated at almost double European annual production,” Juncker said. “So we will make it clear that we will step up our trade defence measures … Everyone has to know that if somebody distorts the market, Europe cannot be defenceless.” He said overcapacity was not just a problem for the UK, where Tata’s move to sell off British assets has put up to 40,000 jobs at risk. David Cameron had said he could offer “no guarantees” about the future of the Port Talbot site, which is one of a number under threat, but he promised the government would do “everything we can”, including raising the issue at the G7. The UK prime minister said it would be discussed alongside counter-terrorism strategies in the Middle East, keeping up pressure on Russia over the Minsk agreement, and the dangers facing the world economy. Although Britain’s EU referendum is not on the formal agenda, Cameron said he planned to discuss it on the margins. “But the G7 and G20 have already made clear that it is a threat to economic growth, a risk to the world economy,” he added. On Thursday morning, he joined other G7 leaders at Japan’s most sacred shrine at Ise Jingu. They were then escorted to the inner Naiku shrine – an area reserved for Japan’s most distinguished visitors. After a cleansing ceremony with holy water, Cameron planted a Japanese cedar tree with the French president, François Hollande, and the Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, using shovels handed to them by schoolchildren from the Mie prefecture. They then started with working sessions that stretched over lunch, followed by side events on Europe, trade, and counter-terrorism.
Toxic chemicals in household dust linked to cancer and infertility Household dust harbours a cocktail of toxic chemicals that have been linked to an increased risk of a range of health hazards, from cancer to problems with fertility, researchers in the US have found. The chemicals are shed from a host of common products, from flooring to electrical goods as well as beauty and cleaning products. “We think our homes are a safe haven but unfortunately they are being polluted by toxic chemicals from all our products,” said Veena Singla, co-author of the study from the Natural Resources Defense Council in California. The scientists cautioned that children were particularly vulnerable to the health effects of contaminated dust as they often play or crawl on the floor and frequently touch their mouths. “They end up having a lot more exposure to chemicals in dust and they are more vulnerable to toxic effects because their brains and bodies are still developing,” said Singla. Writing in the Environmental Science and Technology journal, Singla and colleagues described how they analysed 26 peer-reviewed papers, as well as one unpublished dataset, from 1999 onwards to examine the chemical make-up of indoor dust. The studies covered a wide range of indoor environments, from homes to schools and gymnasiums across 14 states. “What emerged was a rather disturbing picture of many different toxic chemicals from our products that are present in dust in the home and [are] contaminating the home,” said Singla. While, perhaps confusingly, homes that are too clean have been linked to an increase in allergies and asthma in children, potentially due to a lack of exposure to various microbes, the presence of toxic chemicals in dust raises separate concerns. The researchers highlighted 45 toxic chemicals in indoor dust, 10 of which were present in 90% or more of the dust samples – these included flame retardants, fragrances and phenols. Among them is the flame retardant TDCIPP that is known to be cancer-causing and is frequently found in furniture foam, baby products and carpet padding, as is TPHP, another flame retardant in the top 10 list that can affect the reproductive and nervous systems. “They are just a bunch of letters – a lot of people might not recognise what those chemicals are, or what they mean, but they are really a number of bad actor chemicals,” said Singla. Other toxic substances found in almost all of the dust samples include chemicals known as phthalates that are often found in vinyl flooring, food packaging, personal care products and have been linked to developmental problems in babies, hormone disruption, and are also thought to affect the reproductive system. While some chemicals on the list have been banned from use in childcare products, or are being more widely phased out, Singla says many remain widespread in the home. “Especially for building materials there is not as much turnover of a lot of those products, like flooring,” she said, adding: “Unfortunately even though some of these phthalates have been banned from kids products, they are not banned from other kinds of products.” In a separate, unpublished, analysis, Singla compared the levels of chemicals found in household dust with soil screening levels used by the Environmental Protection Agency in the US. “What we found – and we were shocked by it actually – is that the dust levels exceed those EPA screening levels for a number of the chemicals and again it is the phthalates and flame retardant chemicals that are standing out as the bad offenders here,” said Singla. But, she adds, there are steps that can be taken to reduce exposure to contaminated dust. As well as vacuuming floors, hands should be washed with plain soap and water before eating, while cleaning with a wet mop and dusting with a damp cloth can help to reduce household dust levels. While a wider policy change on the use of toxic chemicals is needed, Singla added, consumers could also take action by making careful choices about the products they buy. “It is really important for companies and regulators to get the message that people care about this and want and need safer products for their families.” Stuart Harrad, professor of environmental chemistry at the University of Birmingham, said the research backed up previous work on the hazards of indoor pollutants. “This review of evidence for the presence of consumer chemicals in indoor dust from the US confirms the substantial evidence for the presence of the same chemicals in dust from UK cars, homes, and offices, as well as school and nursery classrooms,” he said. “This is pertinent as we and others believe the presence of these chemicals in consumer articles and dust leads to their presence in human milk and blood.” Stephen Holgate, clinical professor of immunopharmacology at Southampton general hospital, described the research as important. He said though the study was US-based, the findings were also relevant in the UK. The review, he added, showed “what we all have suspected – namely indoor exposure to household chemical and personal products accumulate in house dust, which serves as a Trojan horse when inhaled carrying these chemicals into the body”. Holgate raised concerns over the findings that high levels of phthalates and replacement flame retardants appear to be ubiquitous, given their health impacts. Together with evidence from other studies, “there is an urgent need to consider the indoor environment as a crucial source of chemical pollutant exposure”, he said.
Wield your student vote: have your say on mayors, regions and the EU Bored to tears with the in, out, in, out hokey-cokey of the EU-referendum debate? Sick to death of speculations about what a Zac Goldsmith or Sadiq Khan mayoralty might mean for London? Well you’re out of luck, because we’re about to delve into the nitty gritty of exactly what’s happening in UK politics over the coming months, and what you need to know to have your say. It’s confusing for anyone trying to work out whether they’ve already registered to vote and whether they’re even eligible in the first place, but for students with dissertations and exams on their plate, it can be even more baffling and politics may take a back seat. However, we can’t let this happen. The voting registration system changed in 2014 so that individuals now have to register themselves, rather than the head of the household being able to do so. Students are particularly at risk of not being registered because previously many universities would block register those in halls of residence, and their term address tends to change each year. According to figures compiled by Labour last December, the electoral register had shrunk dramatically in areas with high student populations, such as Canterbury, which had fallen by 13%, and Cambridge and Dundee West, both of which fell by 11%. Research by the Electoral Commission in 2014 also found that young people (24 and under), recent home movers who have been at their current address for less than a year, and people in rented accommodation are less likely to be registered to vote. Megan Dunn, NUS president, says: “With so many important elections across the UK this year, we must make sure people know they have to re-register and when, or hundreds of thousands of students are at risk of being disenfranchised.” Here’s the lowdown on what’s coming up and what you need to know. Mayor of London and London assembly The London mayoral election is on Thursday 5 May, with elections to the London Assembly on the same day. These are the 25 people who sit in City Hall and hold the London mayor to account. In order to vote, you must be over 18, live in London, and be a British citizen, an EU citizen or a Commonwealth citizen who has – or doesn’t require – leave to remain in the UK. You can vote in person, by post or by proxy. You can’t vote if you’re a British person living overseas, for example, if you’re studying abroad. The deadline to register to vote is Monday 18 April and you can do so on the government’s website. If you’re already on the electoral register, you don’t need to register separately to vote in the London mayoral elections. Find out if you’re on the electoral register by contacting your local electoral registration office. Visit the London Elects website for more information. Local council and mayoral elections in England It’s not just Londoners who will be voting for their mayor on Thursday 5 May. Liverpool, Salford and Bristol will also be going to the polls. If, for example, you’re a Londoner whose term-time address is in Bristol, you can vote in both places. This is also the case with the local council elections that are taking place in some local authorities in England on 5 May. Find out if there are local council elections where you live by contacting your local elections office (find out where yours is by searching for your post code on the About My Vote website). Or, for a full list of the participating local authorities, check out this document from the Electoral Commission (page 41). To vote in both sets of elections, you must also register on the government’s website by Monday 18 April. You must be over 18, a British citizen, an EU citizen or a Commonwealth citizen, and live in the UK. Find out more about the English local government and mayoral elections here. Scottish parliament Elections to the Scottish parliament are also happening on Thursday 5 May and the deadline to register to vote is Monday 18 April. You can do so on the government’s website. The voting age is lower in Scotland than the rest of the UK so you only have to be 16 to vote. You must also be a British citizen, an EU citizen or a qualifying Commonwealth citizen, and live in Scotland. For more information, check out the Electoral Commission’s guide and the About My Vote website. Welsh assembly Welsh voters will also be going to the polls on Thursday 5 May to elect members of their national assembly. The deadline to register is also Monday 18 April and you can do so on the government’s website. To be eligible, you must be 18, a British citizen, an EU citizen or a Commonwealth citizen, and live in Wales. For more information, see the Electoral Commission’s guide and the About My Vote website. Northern Ireland assembly Thursday 5 May will also see the election to the Northern Ireland assembly and again, the deadline to register to vote in this is Monday 18 April. Find out how to vote on the Electoral Office for Northern Ireland website – the process is slightly different to the rest of the UK. You must be 18, a British citizen, EU citizen or Commonwealth citizen, and live in Northern Ireland to vote. Check out About My Vote’s guide and the Electoral Commission’s website for more information. Police and crime commissioner elections Also taking place on Thursday 5 May are elections for police and crime commissioners in England (excluding London and Greater Manchester) and Wales. These are the people who hold the chief constable of your police force to account. To vote in these, you also have to be registered with your local authority by Monday 18 April. You must be over 18 and a British, Irish, EU or qualifying Commonwealth citizen currently living in the UK. Unfortunately, if you’re a British citizen living overseas, you can’t vote in these elections even if you’re registered. For more information visit the Choose My PCC website. EU referendum The big one: “Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union?”. In case you’ve been living under a rock, the EU referendum is on Thursday 23 June and the deadline to register to vote is Tuesday 7 June. Register to vote on the government’s website. You won’t need to register separately for this if you’re already registered to vote in the May elections. Voters must be over 18, a British or Irish citizen living in the UK, a Commonwealth citizen in the UK, a British citizen living overseas who has been registered to vote in the last 15 years (if you were too young when you left the UK, your parent or guardian must have been registered), or an Irish citizen overseas who was born in Northern Ireland who has been registered to vote there in the last 15 years. This means you can still vote if you’re a British student studying overseas. How you register to do so will depend on your circumstances – for example, if you’re abroad for a short while it may make sense to register at your home address, but if you’re away for longer it might be worth registering as an overseas elector. Either way, it’s worth contacting your local electoral registration office for advice. Unluckily for many of us, the referendum clashes with Glastonbury. If you’re going this year, make sure you sign up for a postal vote. Emily Eavis, co-organiser of Glastonbury, says: “It’s very important to us that the young people coming to Glastonbury – and young people in general – make use of their vote in the EU referendum. “We’ve been promoting postal and proxy voting via our website and social channels since the date was announced. And we’ve sent every person who has bought a ticket an email with the details of how to register for a postal or proxy vote, with the deadlines for doing that. I really hope we’ve been able to encourage more young people to make their voices heard.” A recent poll by Opinium suggested that the outcome could depend on whether enough young people turn out to vote. It found that just half (52%) of 18 to–34 year-olds are certain to vote – the group most likely to want to remain in the EU. Of this age group, 53% said they backed staying in, while 29% wanted to leave. With so much power over the direction of the UK, what are you waiting for? Keep up with the latest on Students: follow us on Twitter at @GdnStudents – and become a member to receive exclusive benefits and our weekly newsletter.
School pictures what its orchestra would look like minus EU students Higher education faces the challenge of making it clear to overseas students that the UK is still a vibrant, tolerant and open country in spite of the vote to leave the EU, the principal of one of Europe’s leading conservatoires has said. Before the vote, the Guildhall School of Music and Drama released striking photographs of its young symphony orchestra with and without EU students. In total, 49 of its 109 orchestra members come from other European Union countries. The school’s principal, Barry Ife, said: “We were trying to bring to people’s attention just how important and essential a part of our cultural fabric EU students are. I was sitting in a concert doing a mental stock-take of how many EU students we had in our orchestra and what it would look like if those students were not there.” All the students will remain, but Ife said last week’s vote had felt like a “death in the family”. The mood among staff and students was very low. “We had a lot of tears around the place. There was shock … when it actually happens and you realise that the majority of your compatriots don’t want to engage with continental Europe in the way we have been doing for the last 40 or 50 years, it is a big shock.” The Guildhall school has more than 200 students from EU countries and the job now, he said, was making it clear that they were still welcome. “The thing that depresses me and many of my colleagues is the message that has gone out from this country. It is a public relations disaster. Leaving aside any economic impacts and so on, it is the kind of country that we are projecting ourselves as. “Institutions and individuals have now got to work really hard in making it clear that we are still a vibrant, tolerant, open and enthusiastically international country in spite of the impression that might have been given last week.” Ife said his school would have a comprehensive marketing and PR strategy aimed at international audiences in place by the end of the week. “Nothing has changed in my institution … Our determination to engage with talented people around the world is if anything more intense than it was last week.” Most if not all of Britain’s orchestras are strikingly international and their umbrella group, the Association of British Orchestras, has also warned of challenges ahead. Its director, Mark Pemberton, said: “We will need the new leadership of this country to give us guarantees as to continued freedom of movement across Europe’s borders for our orchestras, artists and orchestral musicians, and whether the many pan-European regulations that currently affect our sector, from VAT cultural exemption to harmonisation of radio spectrum, noise at work to the digital single market, will still apply. “The worst outcome for our members will be additional uncertainty, bureaucracy and expense, allied to a worsening of their financial viability.” The minister of state for universities and science, Jo Johnson, tried to reassure EU students in the UK via Twitter. He wrote:
Ruth Davidson was the star at Wembley. Can’t we have more politicians like her? The Scottish Tory leader, Ruth Davidson, was the star striker of the EU referendum semi-final at Wembley Arena last night. Highlights included her demolition of Boris Johnson’s “lying” about the cost by quoting his “there might or might not” be job losses if Britain votes for leave, and followed it up by telling voters to massive applause: “You deserve the truth.” It is no surprise to anyone who has watched Davidson since the Scottish referendum that she is an impressive politician. Unlike so many of those we’re disdainful of in Westminster, she gives every impression of being a normal, rounded human being. During the 2015 general election campaign she posed for photographs on a tank à la Margaret Thatcher with a union flag, re-enacted Alex Salmond’s cringeworthy Solero photoshoot, and generally took the mickey out of herself. She’s also the only politician ever photographed with a pint of beer who looks comfortable with it. Davidson’s a far cry from the Bullingdon Club posh boys who’ve done so much to turn people off the Conservative party. She’s a gay kickboxer from Selkirk, a former local journalist and Sunday school teacher whose dad was a mill manager. Davidson was inspired to join politics not by a lust for power or an accident of birth but when, in the wake of the 2009 expenses scandal, David Cameron called for people who had never been political before to get more involved. Her Twitter feed is not just a set of party political broadcasts. She deals sarcastically with trolls, retweets funny gifs and uses slang without it sounding forced. In short, she does everything that most ordinary people do, and along with the other two women leading Scotland’s major parties, makes most of the politicians we have south of the border look slightly dim and fairly incompetent. Davidson, along with the SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon and Labour’s Kezia Dugdale are all politicians of such capability that it seems unfair Scotland has been able to conjure them out of a population of 5.3 million while the best England and Wales can come up with out of 56 million is an Eton schoolboy and a dropout from North London Poly. Perhaps it’s the accent; maybe it’s the elfin grin. Or maybe Scotland is just better at elevating people worth elevating rather than turning its back on politics, and letting whoever rise to the surface. Political life has to include ruthless game-playing, strategies that make your eyes water and the sort of decisions that none of us would fancy making. You have to be able to choose whether to close a library or build a roundabout, fund new knees at the expense of fixing kidneys, campaign alongside Cameron or snub him. And the more disengaged people become from politics, the more likely it is that the person making those choices is someone who doesn’t think it’s difficult – who quite genuinely finds changing other people’s lives for better or worse the kind of thing that doesn’t keep them awake at night. Nobody’s perfect, but personally I’d far rather the sort of person working on that sort of thing were one who comes across like a normal human being. It’s easier to forgive them when they get it wrong and easier to trust them to make the right decision nine times out of 10. And it’s a beautiful Catch-22, if you like, that the more normal and unpolitician-like a politician is, the more they engage us in the issues that they wrestle with, and thus the more they seem one of us. Davidson has the best of Boris Johnson – an ability to appeal to voters across the board – without his waffle or sense of entitlement. She’s able to go toe-to-toe with Sturgeon and has overseen a resurgence in Tory fortunes north of the border. She’d probably petrify Nigel Farage, which would be a good thing to see. It’s just a shame that we can’t stage a cross-border raid and grab her, Sturgeon and Dugdale for our own.
Joss Whedon to write 75th-anniversary Captain America story for Marvel Comics The Avengers director and Buffy the Vampire Slayer creator Joss Whedon is taking on Captain America for Marvel Comics this month, writing a new story to celebrate the character’s 75th anniversary. Captain America appeared in the first issue of Captain America Comics in 1941, when his alter ego Steve Rogers took a super-soldier serum “to become America’s one-man army” and fight the Nazis. The mantle of protecting America has not only fallen to Rogers, however: Sam Wilson, AKA the superhero Falcon and one of the one of the first African-American superheroes, took on the role in 2014. The 75th anniversary issue of Captain America: Sam Wilson, will see Whedon work with Astonishing X-Men artist John Cassaday on a new story about the character, Entertainment Weekly reported. The issue, out on 30 March, will also feature stories “celebrating the legacy and legend of Captain America throughout history”, Marvel said, from writers and artists including Greg Rucka, Mike Perkins and Tim Sale. As well as Whedon’s contribution, said Marvel, the issue’s main story will see Rogers “asked to wield [his red, white and blue shield] one last time, against a foe so deadly he knows it could very well be his final stand”. Whedon and Cassaday have previously worked together on the Astonishing X-Men comic series. Cassaday, who has illustrated Steve Rogers’s adventures before, announced on his Facebook page last week that he was working on a new short story featuring the character with an unnamed writer. Marvel recently announced that Steve Rogers would return as Captain America to celebrate the character’s 75th anniversary, meaning there will now be two Captain America’s, as Sam Wilson will also retain the title.
From Dutch hospital to Afghan clinic: new VR app aims to link 8.5m doctors Imagine you’re a doctor in Swindon and a patient with a chewing tobacco habit turns up with unusual tongue lesions. What if you could, at the press of a few buttons, locate and get instant advice from the Mumbai-based world expert on cancers related to chewing tobacco? This is the vision for a new app which aims to transform the way in which 8.5 million doctors around the world share their knowledge and skills. MDLinking – an expert directory, instant messaging service and video source – began trialling a beta version for iPhones in May this year and aims to launch its full Apple and Android versions before 2017. The Dutch startup, which has €2.5m of seed funding, has several hundred testers in the Netherlands, 4,000 registered doctors so far and is in talks with organisations including Médecins Sans Frontières and the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN) about using its free software. “The original idea was that if doctors worldwide connect with each other and share knowledge, healthcare will improve on a global level” says Alec Behrens, co-founder of Booking.com and founding partner of MDLinking. Instant messaging Many doctors are already using instant messaging tools to discuss patient cases. A 2015 survey found more than 30% of doctors surveyed said they were sending patient related information over services such as WhatsApp. Vascular surgeon Hans Flu, co-founder of MDLinking, came up with the idea for the secure healthcare network when he realised just how much his colleagues were using WhatsApp. He had privacy concerns over the app and worried about its plans to share account information with parent company Facebook. Ultimately, however, Flu wants to find a solution to what he sees as the big problem in the medical world: communication. “If you communicate badly, the patient’s going to suffer, and this is a key element that everyone can improve. This is a tool developed by medical doctors, for medical doctors, that is free.” As well as being a directory and secure instant messaging tool (it only accepts vetted medical professionals), the start-up is using virtual reality technology to record operations from multiple viewpoints, to form an interactive teaching tool – especially for countries where operating theatres are scarce. Gijs Walraven, director for health at AKDN – which operates a non-profit, private healthcare system in developing world communities – is interested in collaborating with the MDLinking tool. “AKDN’s work in health is mainly in sub-Saharan Africa, central and south Asia,” he says. “In these countries, there are fewer medical doctors and they have much more limited opportunities to consult with colleagues on difficult cases as well as to [access] education. New ways to interact at a distance and in a secure manner could play a very important role to improve this. “Learning new operating techniques and how to better diagnose using the innovative video techniques that MDLinking is developing could be a real breakthrough.” And it works both ways, he says: “Healthcare providers in rural settings in Afghanistan have knowledge and skills that could be beneficial to health practitioners in London.” Teaching by virtual reality Dr Gijs van Acker, a surgeon at Medisch Centrum Haaglanden hospital in the Netherlands, first created teaching videos for his vascular surgery website a decade ago. “One of my residents was Hans Flu, and when he started MDLinking I said, ‘You need something that’s educational’. We wanted to make something more intuitive than 2D films,” he says. They came up with virtual reality combined with the view-selection interface, allowing users to flick to different sections of the operation. Traditional teaching methods can’t compete, according to van Acker, who says that dead body tissue loses its colour, so isn’t the same teaching experience, while students observing actual operations are often distracted by nerves. He has recorded four 3D operations for MDLinking so far and – thanks to a partnership providing Samsung equipment – these are viewable via mobiles and virtual reality headsets. As the app is free, the business plans to raise revenue by broadcasting sponsored medical conference content and acting as a recruitment site for international medical placements. It wants to establish video centres in different places around the world using tools and facilities available there – for example, treating appendicitis in remote Africa. Kiran Jobanputra, deputy head of the Manson Unit at Médecins Sans Frontières in London, says the organisation is looking into MDLinking as it develops a medical IT strategy. “Until something is piloted and evaluated, it is hard to say, but I do see potential in this app,” he says. “Having been a field doctor, I came up against huge difficulty getting access to information, particularly relevant technical advice.” He says MSF medical experts at the London HQ and its telemedicine platform have time, context and connectivity limitations. “MSF clinicians are using WhatsApp groups of colleagues to get rapid, relevant advice – although it’s not an official MSF tool, and some people in the organisation might not agree with it,” he says. “That MDLinking ‘LinkedIn’ function to join or create a new group of people happy to give their opinion, with regional experience, has huge potential. “I suspect the educational content will still require connectivity of too high bandwidth. We’re not testing MDLinking at the moment but if it comes on to Android, which is the main smartphone operating system in the contexts we work in, we probably will. “The sharing economy isn’t new – in our medical studies we are taught ‘see one, do one, teach one’ – but barriers to sharing information are getting lower.”
Westminster: wealth, opulence and socially isolated new mothers In a noisy community hall in London, mothers and toddlers sit in a circle shaking tambourines and singing. At first glance it’s just another infant music session, but looking around, a different picture emerges. Nearby a mother, a sleeping baby in her arms, chats quietly to an attentive volunteer known as a maternity champion, while another cheerfully hands out cups of tea to a couple of exhausted-looking women, that tell-tale sign of new motherhood. The maternity champions project, run by Paddington Development Trust in partnership with the NCT, the UK’s largest parent charity, and the charity Creative Futures, launched as a two-year pilot in 2014, funded by Westminster council’s public health team. Funding has recently been extended for a further two years and the aim is to roll out the concept nationally. The pilot is part of a wider programme of NCT peer support projects across the country, to provide support, link parents to antenatal and postnatal services, and reduce the social isolation many new mothers feel. In London’s Queen’s Park, which crosses the boroughs of Brent and Westminster, where the project takes place, wealth and poverty sit side by side. Despite being in central London, a third of the households in Queen’s Park earn less than £20,000 a year and parts of it fall within the top 10% most deprived in England. The volunteers, recruited from the local estates, have been trained through NCT’s Birth and Beyond community peer supporter scheme and run twice weekly drop-in sessions, open to all mothers in the area. When Anne Watson, a new mother in her 30s, first came to the drop in, she was sleep-deprived and emotional. Her baby, Oscar, was nearly six months old and having problems sleeping. “I hadn’t slept properly for weeks and I was beyond exhausted,” she says. “I turned up and said I’d like some advice, and promptly burst into tears. He got scooped off me and cuddled, I got taken off and cuddled too. I was given a cup of tea and someone to talk to. It just made me feel not alone to speak to the maternity champion as she had been through it. I got some support and advice. It was just wonderful.” NCT research has found that 80% of participating parents reported that the project helped them to access local services (including health-visiting services and support groups for new and pregnant parents) and three quarters said they felt more confident about their pregnancy or being a parent. Sarah McMullen, head of knowledge for the NCT, was involved in the design of the project. She says: “Women often have very specific and personal needs; in some cases it might be around domestic violence or mental health, it’s very individual.” The maternity champions are trained to deal with vulnerable situations and have a good knowledge of local services, which means they are often the first person women choose to talk to, especially as GP appointments are so short. McMullen says: “They are building the trust and the relationship, and they’ve got time for women to open up about things. They can then signpost to different services.” Not only the mothers have benefited. Most of the volunteers have accessed further education courses since becoming maternity champions; three have won places on midwifery courses and four have gone on to train as NCT breastfeeding peer supporters. One is Lina, 33, who has four children of her own. She is originally from Syria and came to the UK aged 16. She married an Iraqi man soon after arriving and had her first child not long after that. “I didn’t have much support. I had problems breastfeeding but I didn’t speak much English so it was really difficult for me to get the information to help. Volunteering and doing all the training has changed my life as a parent and helped me change the lives of my children. I like to share what I’ve learnt with parents like me. That’s why I do it.” There is a large migrant community in the area – 53% of Queen’s Park residents are from non-white ethnic groups. “Most speak Arabic so I can help and translate for them,” Lina says. “I help them if they are shy or just need advice. I used to be like some of the mums I now help, like a pregnant Moroccan woman I met recently who was really struggling. She doesn’t speak English yet and I helped her access a translation service for all her appointments.” Caroline Adebayo, 34, from Nigeria, attends drop-ins on the Mozart estate and sums up why the pilot has been so successful. She says: “I was made to feel welcome right away. I met other mothers and the maternity champion told me about other services. I got to learn how to relate to my baby, how to talk to her, songs to sing her. “I was a little down from staying at home too much but the love they showed me helped. It was like a family.” • This article was amended on 27 October 2016 to add that the charity Creative Futures also part fund and run the Queen’s Park families drop-in sessions. Join the Healthcare Professionals Network to read more pieces like this. And follow us on Twitter (@GdnHealthcare) to keep up with the latest healthcare news and views.
Banking Standards Board yet to outline any banking standards The Banking Standards Board, established to bolster the reputation of the industry, has yet to issue any standards nine months after formally being created. The body, chaired by Dame Colette Bowe, was the industry’s response to the public backlash against bankers unleashed by the £290m fine imposed on Barclays for Libor rigging in 2012. It was established on the recommendation of Sir Richard Lambert, a former editor of the Financial Times and ex-head of the CBI, the employers’ body. Lambert was commissioned by major banks to devise ways to help restore the sector’s fortunes. It formally began its work in April. The body does not have any statutory powers. However, its role in assessing banks was one of the reasons cited in the Financial Conduct Authority’s decision to abandon a review into banking culture. The revelation at the end of last year that the City regulator’s review had been dropped prompted a range of accusations about Treasury involvement - repeatedly denied - in encouraging a softer approach towards the financial sector. In its first nine months the Banking Standards Board has measured banks against their own internal standards and sent them the first of what are expected to be annual reports on their compliance with their own internal goals. Bowe said last month that she expected these reports – sent to 10 major banks – to be published in some form although she was not specific about what form this would take. Although there are not any industry-wide standards the board said it was working on ideas which could be adopted across the sector. “We are currently exploring with firms, professional bodies and other organisations, areas of banking where new, cross-firm standards would be beneficial for customers, the sector and the economy,” the board said. “It’s important that any standards issued are implementable, properly targeted, and don’t duplicate what is already out there. They need to be clearly differentiated from minimum regulatory requirements. And, in line with best practice in standard setting, there needs to be proper consultation for them to be effective.” The accountancy body, the Financial Reporting Council, has also embarked on a review of culture, that goes beyond the banking sector. It said: “The FRC recognises the challenges that boards face when addressing the culture of their companies and in 2015 brought together a ‘culture coalition’ to highlight effective approaches and share good practice. “The FRC is looking to understand the role of boards in shaping and embedding a desired culture, and will publish its findings in summer 2016.”
Major UK banks sign charter pledging to tackle gender gap Several major UK banks including HSBC, Barclays, Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group along with the Lloyd’s of London insurance market have signed up to a new voluntary charter aimed at getting more women into senior roles in the finance industry. Harriett Baldwin, the economic secretary to the Treasury, hailed the charter as evidence that the voluntary approach was working, and said if this momentum continued it would rule out the need for more prescriptive measures from the government. The insurer Legal & General, Virgin Money, fund manager Columbia Threadneedle Investments and Capital Credit Union also signed up to the Treasury-backed employer charter on the day of its launch. The charter contains a set of voluntary proposals designed to improve companies’ gender balance following recommendations by Jayne-Anne Gadhia, the chief executive of Virgin Money. Gadhia launched her government-sponsored review to a room packed with female City executives at the Bank of England on Tuesday. The four pledges are that companies: • Appoint an executive responsible for gender, diversity and inclusion. • Set internal targets for gender diversity in senior management. • Publish gender statistics annually on their website. • Link the pay of senior executives to delivery against these targets. Gadhia rejected the idea of quotas, arguing that a one-size-fits-all approach would not work well in financial services, and left it up to individual firms to work out the practicalities of linking bonuses to progress on gender equality, and to whom this should apply. One of the Bank of England’s deputy governors, Andrew Bailey, who has been appointed chief executive of the Financial Conduct Authority, said at the report’s launch: “There is some virtue in winning them [companies] over rather than forcing them.” Jane Amphlett, a partner at employment law firm Howard Kennedy, said: “Since the banks will be setting their own targets, it seems likely that they will set achievable targets, and that board bonuses will not be substantially affected. The real value in the package of measures proposed will be that it focuses attention in an organisation on improving gender balance by, for example, making an individual executive responsible for this and by the required public reporting.” Baldwin said financial services was the most highly paid sector, but also had the highest gender pay gap, at 39.5%, compared with 19.2% across the economy. This means that for every pound earned by a man in the Square Mile, a woman earns just over 60p. Aside from the moral case, a compelling economic and business case could be made for closing the gender gap in the finance industry, she and Gadhia argued. Gadhia quoted findings from Credit Suisse that the average return on equity of companies with at least one woman on the board between 2006-12 was 16% compared with 12% for firms without female board representation. Her report quoted figures from the Government Equalities Office (pdf), which suggest that harnessing women’s productivity and employment could add £600bn to the UK economy, while equalising participation rates could add 10% to the size of the UK economy by 2030. The Bank of England governor applauded the review: “For too long the financial sector has suffered the economic consequences of this inequality while society has borne the broader costs.” Mark Carney said the Bank had itself taken action to improve its gender balance, and was aiming for 35% of its senior management to be female by 2020, up two thirds from 2013. Separate research from Glassdoor Economic Research found that even when certain factors such as gender imbalance in some industries, age, experience and location are stripped out, there is still a 5.5% pay gap between men and women in the UK. Sarah Henchoz, partner at law firm Allen & Overy, said: “This kind of open debate is to be encouraged but the real question is, what next? How do we keep up momentum? Positive action – as opposed to discrimination – is required to ensure intentions are translated into actions, whether that be through increasing talent pools by encouraging employees to refer those from underrepresented classes and offering a higher referral fee for doing so or by increasing female sponsorship, firms need to really think about how to take action.”
FCA warns banks on use of anti-money laundering rules to close accounts UK banks have been told by the City regulator they should not use anti-money laundering rules as an excuse to close accounts for charities, politicians and other clients just because they perceive them as risky. Publishing an assessment of how banks have responded to rules intended to hold them accountable for money laundering offences, the Financial Conduct Authority said: “It is important that banks retain flexibility in setting up appropriate systems and controls to ensure they comply with legislation as well as in making commercial decisions on whether to provide banking facilities that are consistent with their tolerance of risk. “However, banks should not use AML [anti-money laundering] as an excuse for closing accounts when they are closing them for other reasons.” The FCA published a report which attempted to assess how banks had responded to the crackdown on money laundering, particularly after the penalties imposed on banks such as HSBC, which was fined £1.2bn by US regulators in 2012 for offences related to its Mexican operations. The report said two large UK banks closed about 1,000 personal accounts and 600 business or corporate accounts “for being, essentially, outside risk appetite”. It also highlighted how one bank had tripled the number of staff working on compliance while at the same time cutting accounts, having the effect of increasing the annual cost of compliance from £60-£70 a customer to more than £300 in less than two years. The situation has been highlighted on a number of occasions in recent years, notably with Barclays in 2013 when Olympian Mo Farah urged the bank not to end a relationship with the Dahabshiil money transfer business. The FCA reminded banks that they were also subject to competition law which could be relevant when ending relationships. “We note that banks, like all firms, are subject to competition law, in particular the prohibitions on anticompetitive agreements and abuse of market power contained in the UK Competition Act 1998, and in the treaty on the functioning of the European Union. They should be mindful of these obligations when deciding to terminate existing relationships or decline new relationships,.” It added: “We would emphasise that many of the client exits alluded to above result from a ‘perfect storm’ of multiple impacts, including higher capital requirements, higher costs for compliance resource, higher levels of sanctions, a perception of higher risk of sanctions, and specific US private legal cases, inter alia [among other things], which in many banks provided a suitable context for a strategic review.”
Island that rocked to Bowie and the Stones stakes claim as true home of British R&B Back when rock music was deemed antisocial, and even traditional jazz bands were frowned upon, it cost just fourpence to gain entry to a place where the young were free to dance, drink and kiss. The Rolling Stones, a teenage David Bowie, Rod Stewart, Eric Clapton, the Who and Pink Floyd all first found regular audiences in this hidden haven. The venue was Eel Pie Island: a tiny enclave in the middle of the river Thames at Twickenham, which is now claiming its place in Britain’s cultural history. A museum dedicated to the island’s past glory as the centre of a British R&B boom is set to have a permanent home. Curator Michele Whitby has been promised £8,000 from the London mayor’s office and now has until next month to raise another £4,000 on a crowdfunding site to see her scheme come to life. “I want to run a museum just a stone’s throw from the island itself, in Twickenham’s main street,” she said. “People describe Eel Pie Island as like nowhere else and so seven years ago I wrote a book about it. Now I have a fantastic wealth of material to share.” Whitby, 49, now lives on a boat moored to the island, but first arrived on its shores aged 21, when she rented space for a photographic studio. “The Stones had 15 dates here early in their career and were paid around £45 for a gig; good money then, although you could not get tickets to see them for that now,” said Whitby. “I made a montage of photographs of the band from 1963 and sent it to them. It came back signed by them all ‘to Eel Pie Island’.” Once known as Twickenham Ait, the island takes its current name from the snacks once sold to passing traders from its banks. It was a leisure destination as early as the beginning of the 17th century and a map of 1635 marks a plot of land with “hath bin A Boulding Alley”. Henry VIII is said to have used it for discreet courting. With the construction of the grand, three-storey Eel Pie Island hotel in 1830 it became a popular holiday destination for the rest of London. But its modern influence dates from the launch of the Eelpiland dance club in 1956. When an arched footbridge to the mainland was built a year later, clubbers paid fourpence admission and were wrist-stamped as they queued to join dancers in the ballroom adjoining the neglected hotel. They were given a passport instead of a ticket, underlining the notion that different social rules prevailed. The passport read: “We request and require, in the name of His Excellency Prince Pan, all those whom it may concern to give the bearer of this passport any assistance he/she may require in his/her lawful business of jiving and generally cutting a rug. Given under our hand this first day of November 1963 PAN Prince of Trads.” For Whitby, and for older fans who saw the Stones or Eric Clapton play, Eelpiland is the birthplace of a youth movement, comparable to the Cavern Club in Liverpool, the Wigan Casino, the pubs of Canvey Island or the Hacienda in Manchester. “Fans used to have to get there by ferry before they built the bridge and even then there was very little residential accommodation here,” said Whitby. “It was all boatyards. They thought the police would find it more difficult to come over and so they were free to make more noise.” Last year Whitby put together artefacts and memorabilia for a pop-up museum, housed in two rooms in Twickenham library. It also told the story of the remarkable Arthur Chisnall, the antiques dealer and philanthropist who set up the club. He started by booking trad jazz stars, such as Acker Bilk and George Melly, at the weekends, but the bar and large, sprung dance floor also made it suitable for rock’n’roll gigs. Chisnall, a pipe-smoking guru in tweed, booked visiting American blues stars such as Buddy Guy and Howlin’ Wolf. “Arthur really was the centre of it,” said Whitby. “He was not a massive music fan, but was fascinated by young people and their problems in a genuine way. A lot of people have told me that he changed their lives for the better.” The pop-up museum contained a recreation of Arthur’s living room in nearby Strawberry Hill, with his original desk. In June 1961, on the club’s fifth birthday, he was interviewed by the News of the World. “This place started as a jazz club. Now it is one of the biggest political discussion centres in this part of greater London. There are 8,386 members. The bands only play at weekends. During the week the members jam the bar … while discussing all sorts of serious topics. We are not tied down to any one line of political thought,” he said. By the end of Chisnall’s reign the club had also welcomed the Yardbirds, John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, the Tridents with Jeff Beck, and Long John Baldry and his Hoochie Coochie Men, featuring Rod Stewart. In his 1998 autobiography, All the Rage, Ian McLagan, keyboard-player with the Small Faces and the Faces, recalled supporting the Stones at Eelpiland and first meeting Rod “The Mod” Stewart, dressed up and “on the pull”. “It was one of the best places to hear blues bands at the weekends,” McLagan wrote. Chisnall lived on until 2006, but lack of funds closed down his club in the late 1960s. Threatened with demolition, it briefly reopened as Colonel Barefoot’s Rock Garden, when Black Sabbath and Pink Floyd performed. But eventually squatters and anarchists took over and the hotel was home to 100 hippies. “One particularly cold winter, squatters started cannibalising the building for firewood and in 1970 it was pretty much destroyed by fire,” said Whitby. The coveted homes of the 1970s residential block Aquarius now stand on the site, surrounded by a small community of artists living and working in former boathouses. The maverick inventor of the wind-up radio, Trevor Bayliss, is a proud local and would surely approve of Chisnall’s vision for the island: “You must realise that what goes on here is the expression of the latent desire among the young to get away from mass media and regimentation,” he said during Eelpiland’s heyday.
Brexit vote would bring EU states closer together, says French finance minster European countries would counter the economic shock of a British vote to leave the EU by accelerating plans for closer integration, the French finance minister has said. Michel Sapin said Europe was undergoing a recovery after eight years of almost zero growth and would be reluctant to allow a “shock to the European economy” to jeopardise it. He warned Britain would lose influence following a Brexit vote, which would probably encourage the 27 remaining EU members to draw closer together to protect themselves from a downturn in growth. He said: “If the UK chose not to belong to the EU, I know it will be a shock for the rest of Europe. Denmark and Sweden, I don’t know, but it’s a personal opinion that they will want to get closer to the euro.” Sapin, who was in London on Thursday to attend David Cameron’s anti-corruption conference, is a close ally of President François Hollande and has recently helped force through changes to the labour market, bypassing the French national assembly. While reluctant to comment on the vote, saying it was a matter for the British public, he said if the UK voted to stay inside the EU, governments would implement demands from voters across the bloc for greater simplicity, transparency and democracy. “This is something we must press ahead with in the coming years,” he said. If the UK voted to leave, he said: “It would be fanciful to believe this would not have any consequences.” London’s status as a global financial centre would probably be affected as banks in the eurozone looked elsewhere to conduct their business. “The City (of London) is a considerable financial force and I don’t think that (Brexit) would transform all the elements that constitute its strength,” Sapin said. “But I don’t think that it would be without effects, which would have to be seen.” Some French banks had told him Brexit would have consequences for them and that some of their activities based in London might not carry on as they were, Sapin said. The finance minister’s comments were echoed by a senior economic adviser to President Barack Obama in an interview for a German newspaper. Jason Furman, the chairman of the White House council of economic advisers, said a vote to leave the EU would hurt Britain, Europe and the global economy. “You can certainly argue about whether the damage Brexit would cause would be small, medium or big but it would definitely cause damage, especially for the Brits but also for the Europeans and the global economy,” Furman said in an interview with Handelsblatt. “We don’t need more uncertainty at the moment.”
Laura Mvula review – leftfield soul talent swaggers and soars It may not be a particularly crowded field, but no one has ever looked as good wielding a keytar as Laura Mvula. On a smoke-shrouded stage, she hefts a dazzlingly white symbol of 1980s tech-funk with something approaching swagger. Like her fluid but fissured voice, it’s an instrument a little out of time, but is no less effective for it. It has been an eventful year for the Birmingham-born soul singer. Ahead of the release of her second album, The Dreaming Room, Mvula spoke candidly and often about her struggles with anxiety and heartbreak. Post-release, things seem to have been heading in the right direction: she made the Mercury shortlist, received multiple Mobo nominations and sang a sumptuous version of Abide With Me for the Queen at the recent Festival of Remembrance. Despite this promising trajectory, Mvula seems to intuitively understand the precariousness of things. “You need this, I need this,” she tells the crowd. “Let’s get it on!” As the eye-catching nexus for her tight five-piece band – including a sci-fi cello and a keyboard stack capable of blasting out huge orchestral swells – she interleaves soaring cosmic-soul songs with a stream of equally heartfelt, if occasionally surreal, stage banter. She jokes that her mum is only interested in hearing about her debut album. She bravely attempts a Scottish brogue. She hauls a fan up on stage for a smooch during Flying Without You, a rebound ballad threaded with a militaristic beat. As the temperature rises, she waves away her sweat. “Let’s just pretend I look sexy,” she says, to a rowdy response. Much has been made of Mvula’s training in classical composition but her best songs owe as much to jazz inflections, from casually slippery time signatures to leap-of-faith chord progressions. Her voice is what binds together the disparate elements: the swooning Lucky Man soars on eddies of colliery brass, while Sing to the Moon is punctuated by harmonic strings that sound like whalesong. Audience singalongs usually work best when they are kept very simple but during the sparse, stripped-back Bread, Mvula coaxes a complex chorus of “lay the breadcrumb down” from the crowd, a murmured canticle that – once locked in – she scats and vamps on top of, unamplified. It is one of the highlights of an enthralling 90-minute show that runs long, seemingly just because Mvula is having such a good time. “I’m literally going to walk off stage to the tour bus and cry my eyes out,” she says, setting off a rolling wave of cheers and applause that, perhaps inevitably, brings her close to tears. Oddly, there’s no room for her current single, a nervy version of the evergreen Delfonics track Ready or Not currently being used to soundtrack a department store Christmas ad. Instead, she encores with a moving cover of Nina Simone’s Be My Husband. If it feels like there might be an easier course for Mvula to chart, one that steers harder toward the voodoo retro of Amy Winehouse or the deluxe balladry of Adele, it’s all the more impressive that she seems so focused on doing her own thing. At Rock City, Nottingham, 17 November. Box office: 0845-413 4444. At O2 Institute, Birmingham, 19 November. Tickets: 0844-477 2000. Then touring.
Trump: 'Had I been president, Capt Khan would be alive today' – as it happened Speaking with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump declared that if he had been president in place of either George W. Bush or Barack Obama, Captain Humayun Khan would be alive. “I have great respect for the Khan family, I have great respect for - I mean, the son is a great hero,” Trump said, when asked if he should apologize to the Khan family for insinuating that their grief was choreographed by the Clinton campaign. “But if I were president at that time, Captain Khan would be alive today, George, because I wouldn’t have been in Iraq.” Khizr Khan, who is currently touring Virginia on Hillary Clinton’s behalf, called Trump’s comments “the most cruel thing you can say.” “There’s no sincerity in those remarks,” Khan continued. “He utters these words totally oblivious to the understanding of where we are, where we stand, what our values are, and how to be empathetic. There is one character that a leader must have to be the leader of a great country, to be the leader of the armed forces of the United States: empathy.” Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign has announced the location of her Election Night party - and it comes with a literal glass ceiling.Clinton will deliver remarks to supporters and volunteers at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in Manhattan on November 8, according to a release from her campaign. (You can RSVP here.) The Javitz Center is a massive convention center on the west side of Manhattan - and, has been noted, is made entirely of glass: Donald Trump is insisting that he will spend $100 million or more of his own money on his presidential bid. Campaign finance documents show he’s not even close, the AP reports: The Republican nominee said in a CNN interview Wednesday that his personal investment in his campaign will top $100 million. He said he’s “prepared to go much higher than that.” Yet finance reports current through Sept. 30 show Trump, a billionaire New York businessman, has put about $56 million into his own campaign. To hit $100 million, he would have to put another $44 million into his race - far more than he’s ever contributed in a single month. Utah congressman Jason Chaffetz, who un-endorsed Donald Trump after the release of video in which the Republican presidential nominee bragged about sexually assaulting women, has announced that he will vote for Trump anyway: At the time, Chaffetz cited his 15-year-old daughter when he pulled his support. “Do you think I can look her in the eye and tell her that I endorsed Donald Trump?” Chaffetz asked. A pair of fundraisers for the Clinton Foundation attempted to steer business opportunities toward former president Bill Clinton, according to hacked emails obtained by activist group Wikileaks: In the memo, Mr. Band explained how he helped the foundation and former president, and found donors among his own firm’s clients. Mr. Band responded to the review by writing: “We appreciate the unorthodox nature of our roles, and the goal of seeking ways to ensure we are implementing best practices to protect the 501(c)3 status of the Foundation”... In 2009, according to the memo, Declan Kelly, an Irish-American businessman and ally of the Clintons, introduced a senior UBS Group AG executive, Bob McCann, to Mr. Clinton at a charitable event. “Mr. Kelly subsequently asked Mr. Mccann to support the foundation … [and] also encouraged Mr. Mccann to invite President Clinton to give several paid speeches, which he has done,” according to the 12-page memo. Mr. Clinton earned $1.5 million from those speeches. The Clinton campaign has refused to confirm or deny the authenticity of this or any hacked emails obtained by Wikileaks. Speaking with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump declared that if he had been president in place of either George W. Bush or Barack Obama, Captain Humayun Khan would be alive. “I have great respect for the Khan family, I have great respect for - I mean, the son is a great hero,” Trump said, when asked if he should apologize to the Khan family for insinuating that their grief was choreographed by the Clinton campaign. “But if I were president at that time, Captain Khan would be alive today, George, because I wouldn’t have been in Iraq.” Stephanopoulos, an assiduous fact-checker, countered that Trump did, in fact, support the war in Iraq before it began. “I never supp- look, look, let’s get it straight: I was opposed to the war in Iraq,” Trump said, falsely. “Right from the beginning - that was way before the war started, and that was the first time I was ever even asked about Iraq, and I gave a very, like, ‘I don’t know, who knows.’ That was way before. If you look at just before the war started, I said, ‘don’t do it, it’s a mistake, you’re gonna destabilize the Middle East.’ From the beginning, I was opposed to the war in Iraq.” Trump’s record on the matter has been exhaustively fact-checked. In an interview in 2002, before the invasion of Iraq, radio host Howard Stern asked Trump: “Are you for invading Iraq?” Trump answered, “Yeah, I guess so.” “Had I been president, Captain Khan would be alive today,” Trump continued. “We wouldn’t have been in this horrible, horrible mistake, the war in Iraq.” Khizr Khan, who is currently touring Virginia on Hillary Clinton’s behalf, called Trump’s comments “the most cruel thing you can say.” “There’s no sincerity in those remarks,” Khan continued. “He utters these words totally oblivious to the understanding of where we are, where we stand, what our values are, and how to be empathetic. There is one character that a leader must have to be the leader of a great country, to be the leader of the armed forces of the United States: empathy.” “And he totally lacks that.” Donald Trump, about getting in a fistfight with Joe Biden: I dream about that kinda stuff. Mister Tough Guy. I would dream about that. Speaking in Kinston, North Carolina, Donald Trump was swiftly interrupted by a protestor, who he accused of being a Clinton campaign plant. “Were you paid $1,500 to be a thug?” Trump said. “Was he paid? Get him out - get him out. Out!” Trump then marched around the platform while the protestor was escorted out. “Folks, did you see where, through Wikileaks, we found out that Clinton was paying people $1,500 plus an iPhone to go out and be violent at our rallies?” Trump said, referring to a discredited conspiracy theory espoused by James O’Keefe, of Project Veritas.” Okay? It’s a disgrace - it’s a disgrace.” “They found our people were very tough - they found that out.” Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has a long history of making suggestive - some might say “super creepy and gross” - comments about his eldest daughter, Ivanka Trump. But a newly unearthed interview from 2013 shows the tycoon making the connection much more explicit. In the February 2013 interview on the Wendy Williams Show, obtained by Us Weekly, Williams asked Ivanka Trump, then 31, her favorite thing that she had in common with her father. “Either real estate or golf,” Ivanka replied. Williams then asked the elder Trump, then 67, the same question. “Well, I was going to say sex, but I can’t relate that to her,” Trump said, pointing to Ivanka, who appeared embarrassed by the comment. Nearly half an hour after he was scheduled to appear, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has emerged from his private jet in Kinston, North Carolina, to speak to a smallish rally of supporters at an airfield. “We are going to win North Carolina, and we are going to win back the White House - believe me!” It was once a brand synonymous with gold and marble; a sign of guaranteed opulence if not necessarily good taste. Instead, the taint of sexual assault claims and alleged racism hung over the formal opening of the latest building to bear the Trump name: the Republican presidential candidate’s newest hotel in Washington DC. Just 723 short steps along Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House, this may be the closest Donald Trump comes to the heart of political power this year, but the glitzy launch was meant to be the highlight of his business calendar. Rooms during inauguration week in January were marketed at up to $500,000 each. During a soft launch in September, Trump ensured wall-to-wall media coverage by using the occasion to finally admit he had been wrong to doubt Barack Obama’s right to American citizenship. But weeks of political scandal appear to have taken their toll on the brand. During the recent IMF meetings in Washington, usually the busiest week of the year for luxury hotels in the city, rooms could be found online at a significant discount compared to its sold-out rivals. While Trump was boasting of the building’s 5ft-thick walls during Wednesday’s ribbon-cutting ceremony, the sound of political protest out on the street could be heard from inside the lobby. Overnight, Trump’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame was destroyed by a vandal with a sledgehammer and pickaxe. The candidate sounded wistful and unusually subdued as he took a break from the campaign trail to attend the launch. “With the notable exception of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, this is the most coveted location in DC. The best location,” said Trump. Even the struggling campaign’s slogan, “Make America great again”, was watered down, perhaps succumbing to criticism that it implies the country is no longer at its best. ‘The United States is great. Its people are great,” said Trump, during brief political remarks that followed the launch. Watch it live here: For those outside of the United States - we’re so, so sorry. Donald Trump, on love: Last night was something, wasn’t it? You know, they kept 15,000 outside. They actually did this - they said we couldn’t allowed, they allowed 15,000 in. They said, ‘We’re afraid of a stampede.’ Can you imagine? Because there were so many people, if there were a stampede we’d be in trouble. Even out of love! Love can kill too. Donald Trump dismissed the expertise of former Army War College dean Jeff McCausland, telling ABC’s George Stephanopoulos that “You can tell your military expert that I’ll sit down and I’ll teach him a couple of things.” McCausland had said that Trump’s recent comments declaring that the current battle for control of Mosul is a “total disaster” betrays a lack of knowledge on military strategy. “I’ve been hearing about Mosul now for three months,” Trump said, reiterating his longstanding point that the essence of military strategy is surprise. “‘We’re going to attack. We’re going to attack.’ Meaning Iraq’s going to attack but with us. Okay? We’re going to attack. Why do they have to talk about it?” “Element of surprise,” Trump said. “One of the reasons they wanted Mosul, they wanted to get Isis leaders who they thought were, you know, in Mosul. Those people have all left. As soon as they heard they’re gonna be attacked, they left. The resistance is much greater now because they knew about the attack. Why can’t they win first and talk later?” Throughout her presidential campaign, Hillary Clinton has said that she supports the second amendment rights of law-abiding gun owners. But many gun rights advocates say they fear she will reopen the door for cities and states to ban private ownership of handguns, pointing to her repeated comments questioning a key US supreme court decision on gun ownership. Even liberal second amendment experts have called some of Clinton’s explanations of her position “odd”. As one law professor who supports gun rights put it, Clinton on guns is like a Republican politician who claims she supports abortion rights, even as she opposes Roe v Wade. At the final presidential debate last week, Clinton reiterated her position that the supreme court was wrong in its 2008 decision in District of Columbia v Heller, which overturned Washington DC’s ban on handgun ownership, as well as a law that required other guns in homes to be “kept nonfunctional”. In a controversial 5-4 decision, the court ruled that Americans have a constitutional right to have and use firearms in their homes for self-defense. Clinton had dodged giving a clear answer about her opinion of the ongoing case during a presidential primary debate in early 2008, though she suggested that the supreme court would probably find a full ban on handguns unconstitutional. But in 2015, the Washington Free Beacon reported, Clinton told an audience at a private event that “the supreme court is wrong on the second amendment. And I am going to make that case every chance I get.” That’s an opinion that is shared by many people – including some of the liberal justices on the supreme court, who argued in their dissent that the second amendment was intended to protect the right of people in each state to form militias, not to limit lawmakers’ ability to regulate civilian gun ownership. But that particular view is not one that is popular with the general public. A Gallup poll from 2008 found that 73% of Americans believed the second amendment “guarantees the rights of Americans to own guns”. With less than two weeks before the general election, Hillary Clinton’s campaign deployed one of its most potent weapons in the fight against Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump: Khizr Khan, the father of a Muslim war hero killed in the line of duty. Khan, a Gold Star father whose impassioned speech on the final night of the Democratic National Convention helped knock Trump down to his current position in the presidential race, spoke on Clinton’s behalf to congregants and guests of a mosque in Norfolk, Virginia, home to the world’s largest naval base and more than 60,000 active duty military personnel. “The courage [to speak against Trump] wasn’t ours,” Khan said at Masjid William Salaam, the first of three stops in Norfolk Khan made on Wednesday. “The courage was given to us.” “People ask would I do it again,” Khan continued. “A million times - again and again and again - up until hatred and political bigotry is wiped out of this United States, we will continue to speak.” Khan’s son, Marine captain Humayun Khan, was killed in 2004 by a car bomb after instructing the soldiers under his command to fall back from the vehicle. Khan was posthumously awarded the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart, and is buried in nearby Arlington National Cemetery. With his wife, Ghazala Khan, standing beside him, Khan excoriated Trump in a self-written speech at the DNC in June, describing his family as “patriotic American Muslims with undivided loyalty to our country” whose son would never have been able to serve his country had Trump’s proposed ban on Muslims entering the United States been in place. “If it was up to Donald Trump, he never would have been in America,” Khan said at the time. “Donald Trump consistently smears the character of Muslims. He disrespects other minorities, women, judges, even his own party leadership. He vows to build walls and ban us from this country.” Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton leads Republican rival Donald Trump by 9 points in battleground New Hampshire - but is dead-even with him in Nevada, according to two new NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist polls out this afternoon. In the Granite State, which gave Trump his first victory in the Republican primaries, Clinton leads with the support of 45% of likely voters, trailed by Trump with a mere 36%. Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson holds the support of 10% of likely voters, and Jill Stein of the Green Party has 4% support. Clinton is up seven points from the most recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll of New Hampshire, which showed her lead at a mere two points. Down-ballot, the race is much tighter: Incumbent Republican Kelly Ayotte leads the race for reelection to the US Senate with the support of 48% of likely voters, with Democratic challenger Maggie Hassan at 47%. In battleground Nevada, Clinton and Trump are tied with 43% support from likely voters each. Johnson holds 10% support, and Stein is not on the ballot. In an exclusive interview with Bloomberg’s Mark Halperin, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump dismissed polls showing Democratic rival Hillary Clinton on the verge of an electoral landslide in the upcoming presidential election. “We are gonna win,” Trump said. “I think we’re going to do fantastically in Pennsylvania... I think we’re winning North Carolina,” Trump continued, naming two states where he has led in a single poll stretching back months. The proof, Trump said, is in the popularity of his campaign rallies. “You know the reason why they couldn’t get in?” Trump said, of the lines outside his most recent rallies. “Stampede.” Former congressman and professional troll Joe Walsh seems keen on armed rebellion if Donald Trump loses on November 8: Lennie and Pearl, a lesbian couple who have been together for five decades and helped fight for the right to same-sex marriage, have filmed a get-out-the-vote short for Hillary Clinton: Sad news on the campaign trail: Maverick, Republican vice presidential candidate Mike Pence’s beagle, has died. More video of the anonymous man who destroyed Donald Trump’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame: I get it. Sheryl Crow’s call to shorten our presidential cycle will resonate with just about everyone this year. Who isn’t counting down the days until this is over? Even Hillary Clinton has been winding the months in balls. As Crow points out in a petition on Change.org, which, as of Wednesday, had more than 40,000 signatures, this extended political circus is a singularly American phenomenon. “The 2016 election will have lasted nearly 600 days by the time polls close on Nov. 8. By comparison, Canada had its longest campaign season in recent history last year, and it lasted just 11 weeks,” she writes. “Countries across the globe have limited campaign seasons to as short as 6 weeks. With an organized system, a successful, informative, professional campaign could be run.” The sentiment is relatable but perhaps the problem is less the length of the cycle than the fact our Republican nominee for president actively brags about “grabbing” women by the “pussy”; a fact which, it’s worth noting, didn’t come out until more than 500 days into the cycle. What Crow deems the “start” of the election – Ted Cruz choosing to announce the beginning of his campaign – is not something the DNC or RNC can actually control. Nor is the fact that campaign reporters often start sourcing up to cover the next campaign the moment the current one ends. Party committees do set the timetable for primaries, but even there they are in a constant tug-of-war with state governments, which battle to move up in the primary calendar so their voters get more attention. Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign has announced the location of her Election Night party - and it comes with a literal glass ceiling. Clinton will deliver remarks to supporters and volunteers at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in Manhattan on November 8, according to a release from her campaign. (You can RSVP here.) The Javitz Center is a massive convention center on the west side of Manhattan - and, has been noted, is made entirely of glass: Win or lose, works either way... Donald Trump is insisting that he will spend $100 million or more of his own money on his presidential bid. Campaign finance documents show he’s not even close, the AP reports: The Republican nominee said in a CNN interview Wednesday that his personal investment in his campaign will top $100 million. He said he’s “prepared to go much higher than that.” Yet finance reports current through Sept. 30 show Trump, a billionaire New York businessman, has put about $56 million into his own campaign. To hit $100 million, he would have to put another $44 million into his race - far more than he’s ever contributed in a single month. When pressed by CNN’s Dana Bash, Trump declined to give specific plans about when he might be contributing additional money. The election is Nov. 8. Separately, Trump told ABC News that he would put “a lot” of money into the campaign in the next 13 days. “I’m going to be over $100m and it could be much more than that,” he said. Her campaign headquarters is in Brooklyn, but for her election night party, Hillary Clinton and friends will occupy the cavernous Jacob K Javits center on Manhattan’s west side, Politico reports: I get it. Sheryl Crow’s call to shorten our presidential cycle will resonate with just about everyone this year. Who isn’t counting down the days until this is over? Even Hillary Clinton has been winding the months in balls. As Crow points out in a petition on Change.org, which, as of Wednesday, had more than 40,000 signatures, this extended political circus is a singularly American phenomenon. “The 2016 election will have lasted nearly 600 days by the time polls close on Nov. 8. By comparison, Canada had its longest campaign season in recent history last year, and it lasted just 11 weeks,” she writes. “Countries across the globe have limited campaign seasons to as short as 6 weeks. With an organized system, a successful, informative, professional campaign could be run.” Her suggestion for how we reform our electoral process – that we ask the DNC and RNC to reform the process – is less compelling. In a segment on Morning Joe on Wednesday, she threw out 5 days as the optimal amount of time (was she joking?). And she’s previously floated the notion that all 50 states and the District of Columbia should hold their primaries on the same day, a move that would prove hugely advantageous to the richest candidates by short-circuiting grassroots campaigns. [...] Again the sentiment is relatable but perhaps the problem is less the length of the cycle than the fact our Republican nominee for president actively brags about “grabbing” women by the “pussy”; a fact which, it’s worth noting, didn’t come out until more than 500 days into the cycle. Read further: Isn’t it kind of cold in Wisconsin right now to be running around at night in your undies? This is in Platteville, a southwestern university town in Grant county, which Barack Obama won by 14 points in 2012. Does anyone have any appetite for individual national polls anymore? The new Suffolk poll happens to mirror be 50% again as large as the margin in HuffPost Pollster’s average [sorry, misread the #s at first]: In which conservative Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan praises a get-out-the-vote video targeting Hispanic voters, paid for by an outside group, that ends with a dicey election result and a young girl asking her papí, “can we stay?” Hillary Clinton kicked off her birthday celebrations with a rally in Lake Worth, Florida, on Wednesday as Donald Trump christened his new Washington DC hotel. The crowd gathered at Palm Beach State college for the midday rally broke into a round of “Happy Birthday” as Clinton took the stage. She is 69 years old. Clinton hit many of her usual themes, but tested a new impression of Trump following her onstage during the second presidential debate. Hunching her shoulders she shuffled away from the podium, miming the way she said Trump “stalked me and lurked over me”. She later criticized Trump for his business practices, and drew ‘boos’ from the crowd when she mentioned his event in Washington. “Today he’s in Washington DC to open a new luxury hotel, and while the hotel may be new, it’s the same old story,” she said. She asked the crowd to inform their Trump supporting friends that Trump “relied on undocumented workers to make his project cheaper” despite his campaign promise close the border and deport immigrants living in the US illegal. She also said that the hotel is furnished with products made overseas, despite his promise to return jobs to American. And she said he sued to reduced the taxes on the luxury hotel. “You can talk a good game, but lets look at the facts and the facts show he has stiffed American workers – he has stiffed American businesses,” Clinton said to cheers. On Wednesday afternoon, Clinton will campaign in Tampa with celebrity chef José Andrés, who once had plans to open a restaurant inside Trump’s hotel. Andrés, a naturalized US citizen originally from Spain, fell out with Trump over his vocal denunciation of immigrants and pulled out of the project. The businessman sued and the Spanish chef has launched a countersuit, in a legal battle that has yet to be resolved. Here’s Tim Kaine chatting about criminal justice reform, systemic racism, voting rights, early childhood education and more with Pusha T, the recording artist, who is helping the Clinton campaign get out the vote: (h/t @fahima_haque) Last month, Clinton was ahead by nine points in this Monmouth poll of New Hampshire voters, so while her margin still looks healthy, the trend doesn’t, particularly: Huffpost Pollster has Clinton up by six on average in the Granite state, which is a must-win for Trump in scenarios within reason. Note how close the run for the senate is – all tied up at 46-46, in this poll. The Democrat leads in the gubernatorial race. Another day, another brilliant picture by Doug Mills of the New York Times. That baby is intrigued – but not committal: If she’s elected president, Hillary Clinton will be spending most of her time testifying before the House oversight committee, to hear chairman Jason Chaffetz tell it to Dave Weigel at the Washington Post: “It’s a target-rich environment,” said Chaffetz in a interview in Salt Lake City’s suburbs. “Even before we get to Day One, we’ve got two years worth of material already lined up. She has four years of history at the State Department, and it ain’t good.” If Republicans retain control of the House, something that GOP-friendly maps make possible even in the event of a Trump loss, Clinton will become the first president since George H.W. Bush to immediately face a House Oversight Committee controlled by the opposition party. (Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama lost Congress later in their presidencies.) Read further. Is this one of those states that matters? Trump’s headed there now, after his ribbon-cutting. Some fascinating detail if you click through: Already, about 812,000 people have voted in North Carolina, out of about 4,425,000 we think will eventually vote. Based on the voting history and demographic characteristics of those people, we think Hillary Clinton leads in North Carolina by about 6 percentage points. We think she has an even larger lead – 22 percentage points – among people who have already voted. There are less than two weeks to go before the election, and Hillary Clinton is doubling down in Florida with Latino voters. On Tuesday, the Democratic presidential candidate paid a visit to El Gordo y La Flaca, the popular variety chat show on Spanish-language channel Univisión – and it was one of the most unrestrained appearances of her campaign. Clinton was personable, relaxed and, thanks to the nature of the show, fully committed to having some fun. During the show, Clinton danced to Marc Anthony, practiced her Spanish and was even serenaded by Bronx-born singer Prince Royce and a Mariachi band for her 69th birthday, on Wednesday. “What gets better than this? I get Prince Royce to give me a hug, I get a mariachi band to play for me and I get to be here with you guys. It doesn’t get any better than this,” said the Democratic nominee. Read further: 🎂 Clinton gets the James Franco nod: “After she opens a can of whoop ass, she always recycles the can.” Where did he get that toaster? Clinton swipes at Trump for the hotel opening: Today he’s in Washington DC to open a new luxury hotel. While the hotel may be new, it’s the same old story... He relied on undocumented workers to make his project cheaper. And most of the products in the rooms were made overseas. And he even sued to get his taxes lowered. We know he used undocumented workers... he’s made his products in foreign countries. He’s used Chinese steel instead of American steel. You can talk a good game, but let’s look at the facts. Clinton notes that she will appear in Tampa later today with celebrity chef José Andrés, who “had the courage to stand up to Trump about his divisive anti-immigrant views by refusing to put his restaurant in this hotel.” The Democratic congressional campaign committee jumps on Ivanka Trump’s expression of gratitude at the hotel opening for the help of John Mica, the 12-term Republican congressman in a tough reelection fight in Florida: “As Ivanka Trump highlighted today, John Mica pulled out all the stops to help Donald Trump with his luxury DC hotel project,” a DCCC statement reads: Mica has not only helped Trump line his own pockets, he’s stood by Trump every step of the way, even after he was caught bragging about sexual assault. When Donald Trump’s toxic candidacy brings down John Mica’s campaign, I’m glad that Mica will have a place to stay in DC, where he has spent the last three decades. Hopefully he gets the Trump family discount he clearly deserves.” (h/t @bencjacobs) A star dedicated to Donald Trump on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame has been badly vandalised after it was reportedly attacked with a sledgehammer, according to a Press Association report: According to Deadline, a man dressed as a city construction worker and wielding a sledgehammer and pick-axe targeted the star on Wednesday morning. The man told the Hollywood trade magazine he originally intended to remove Trump’s star to auction it off to raise funds for women who have accused the Republican candidate of sexually assaulting them. Trump has vehemently denied the allegations. The billionaire tycoon received the 2,327th star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame in 2007 for his work on the American version of The Apprentice. Here’s Hillary Clinton speaking in Lake Worth, Florida – that’s Palm Beach county, north of Miami. Most humiliating? More than just tweeting to their faces that they’re bought-and-sold losers who are going to lose? More than refusing to endorse Paul Ryan after calling the House speaker to heel? More than Scotland-Mexico-the convention-the debates-no ground game-no campaign –– well it’s a competitive prize: Trump says “make America great again” and steps away. There’s applause. Trump: “Today is a metaphor for what we can accomplish for this country.” Either that or it’s an opportunistic play by Trump to enrich himself personally. Which may be... a metaphor for what he hopes to accomplish for this country. Trump was talking about crumbling infrastructure. “Right, Newt?” he says. Then: By the way, congratulations Newt on last night. That was an amazing interview. We don’t play games, right? We don’t play games. Trump is riffing on “bad results” in the educational system, crumbling infrastructure and Obamacare “in freefall”. “The American people know what this election is about and they see it every time they get their health care bills... or arrive in an airport.” Trump says – generously, is it supposed to be? – that the hotel project is insignificant compared to the year’s other project: “As soon as we’re finished cutting the ribbon, I’m off to North Carolina and Florida, where I hear we’re doing very well.” “My theme today is five words: under budget and ahead of schedule.” That’s six words, everybody surely is now pointing out. Ivanka’s done. Trump to speak. Nothing reportable out of the Trump event so far, except to say it’s a purely commercial event. Here’s that live stream if you like. Ivanka Trump about to talk: The Trump family has joined the event. They were applauded. The head of the Trump hotel group is now talking. He says the company mantra is “never, ever settle.” “If you allow me a moment of commercial, I hope you will experience our other hotels as well.” We’ve got to stop using Trip Advisor. They’re only giving us $429! The Trump pool report advises that in addition to the Gingriches, senator Jeff Sessions and former Apprentice contestant Omarosa are in attendance. Empty seats in the front next to the Gingriches are reserved for Trump family members. Campaign staff tell your pooler that Melania, Don Jr., Eric and Ivanka will all be here. No fun waiting for Trump to pop up to brag about his Washington DC hotel. Let’s tune into Bill Clinton speaking now in Wilmington, North Carolina: Hmmm... trying to think of a race Mitt Romney left off of this get-out-the-vote tweet... After Trump launched his presidential candidacy on a platform of Mexicans-are-rapists, two restaurateurs pulled out of contracts to establish restaurants in the very hotel Trump is about to open. Lawsuits in both directions ensued. One of the chefs involved was celebrity chef José Andrés – who this morning announced he is hopping a plane today to campaign with Clinton in Florida: The only part of Trump’s hotel that’s solidly occupied: More Gingrich on himself: Yesterday Clinton told a Florida crowd not to get complacent and to ignore the polls showing her far ahead – people still have to get out and vote. Cher amplifies that message in Cherspeak: (ty @ambiej) Daily Mail politics editor David Martosko, who has Trump pool duty today, has cornered Newt Gingrich at Trump’s hotel to ask him about his tangle on TV last night with Megyn Kelly. Martosko is a partisan of all caps which we’re letting stand for effect. Gingrich explains Trump’s appearance at his hotel like this: “Right now he’s got to make the case that he brings things in under budget and ahead of schedule. And a Trump government would be under budget and ahead of schedule.” Here’s Martosko’s report: ASKED IF HIS INTERVIEW WITH MEGYN KELLY GOT “A LITTLE ROUGH” LAST NIGHT: “That’s just the business.” ASKED IF TRUMP CAN “TURN IT AROUND” BY NOV. 8: “I think Trump will win. I don’t think he has to turn it around. I think he’ll win.” ASKED WHAT TRUMP SHOULD BE DOING FOR THE NEXT 13 DAYS: “What he’s doing. Right now he’s got to make the case that he brings thing in under budget and ahead of schedule. And a Trump government would be under budget and ahead of schedule.” TOLD THAT A LOT OF PEOPLE SEE THIS HOTEL EVENT AS “A DISTRACTION FROM THE CAMPAIGN”: “That’s because they don’t understand the message: It’s under budget and ahead of schedule. That’s a very important message because it means nothing in the current bureaucratic government tells you what a Trump administration would be like.” ASKED IF TRUMP IS “WORRIED ABOUT UTAH” AND THE “THIRD-PARTY” THREAT: “I’m sure he is.” “REALLY?” “Sure, he is! He should worry about all 50 states.” Longtime Republican strategist and communications hand Matt Mackowiak, who it should be noted doesn’t like Trump, questions what in Hades Trump is doing in DC today: 2. Today, with 13 days left, here’s what the GOP nominee’s campaign is doing: > Trump is opening a hotel in DC (3 EVs) > Pence is in Utah 3. Trump has only 1 path to 270. Hold Romney states (incl GA, AZ, NC) & pick up FL, OH, IA & NV. But that’s only 265. He needs NH(4) & ME(1) 4. Any campaigning or resource deployment anywhere outside FL, OH, NC, NV, IA and NH is deliberately wasteful at this point. Time and money. 5. The single most valuable commodity in any campaign is the candidate’s time, because it is a constantly diminishing resource. 6. Trump in DC today, instead of NH (which he must have) or the 5 battleground states he needs is ridiculous. @KellyannePolls knows this. 7. As @stuartpstevens says, “Trump isn’t running a campaign, it’s a concert tour.” All he cares about is earned media and his brand. 8. There are no more big moments left in the campaign. Debates are past. Early voting is going on everywhere. Clinton is banking votes. 9. I’ll admit this is a volatile election and Trump’s base is more enthusiastic, but as of today I see no way for Trump to win. None. 10. Set the polls/punditry aside. Hillary is -700 to win. That means you’d have to bet $700 on Hillary to win $100. She’s a 7-1 favorite. Hillary Clinton turns 69 years old today. This looks more like an anniversary photo? Democrats take their fight to the heart of the US military establishment on Wednesday by deploying the father of a Muslim war hero to campaign againstDonald Trump. Khizr Khan, whose speech at the party’s convention in June came at the high-water mark in Trump’s poll ratings, will speak to veterans in Norfolk, Virginia, home of the world’s largest naval base and some 150,000 military workers. Trump shocked many Republicans earlier this year by initially attacking the sincerity of the parents of army captain Humayun Khan, who died saving his unit from an Iraqi suicide bomb, after they criticised his proposed ban on Muslims entering the US. But Captain Khan’s father is returning to haunt the campaign, and launching anew television advert, in which he again challenges the celebrity property developer: “Would my son have a place in your America?” It could further drive a wedge into remaining Republican support among military families after a disastrous few weeks that has seen the party’s presidential campaign pull out of states like Virginia. Washington bureau chief Dan Roberts catches a protest outside the hotel: Donald Trump is expected to appear any moment at the grand opening of his empty hotel in Washington, DC. Here’s a live video stream: Hello and welcome to our live-wire coverage of the 2016 race for the White House. The Clinton campaign has the candidate and surrogates arrayed across Florida, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Ohio today while the Trump campaign is in ... Washington DC and Utah? Donald Trump is attending a ribbon-cutting ceremony today at his eerily empty new hotel in the nation’s capital. He has two later events in North Carolina. Trump running mate Mike Pence, meanwhile, will be covering serious ground, with events in three western states: Nevada, Utah and Colorado. Pence’s stop in Utah is sure to have people talking, as the state usually is at the top of the rankings of states voting Republican. Mormon aversion to Trump and the independent candidacy of Evan McMullin have changed the calculus this time around. Hillary Clinton has two rallies in Florida today, one in Palm Beach County in the south-east and one in Hillsborough County on the Gulf coast. Tim Kaine has two events in Pennsylvania, while Bill Clinton is diligently trying to put his wife over the top in North Carolina, with three stops there today after three stops there yesterday. Chelsea Clinton has three stops in Ohio, while senator Elizabeth Warren has an event in Pittsburgh. Trump with narrow Florida edge – Selzer poll A poll of likely voters in Florida by gold-star pollster J Ann Selzer for Bloomberg politics has Trump slightly ahead of Clinton in the state, 45-43, when third-party candidates are included. That’s within the margin of error of plus or minus 3.2 percentage points. Trump had 46% to Clinton’s 45% in a head-to-head matchup. Clinton has a three-point lead in polling averages of the state. Trump wants Biden behind barn The campaign action overnight was typically nasty and nausea-inducing, with Trump saying that yes, he would like to go in back of the barn with Biden (Biden had said gym), and campaign surrogate Newt Gingrich accusing Fox News host Megyn Kelly of having a “fascination with sex” because she takes the women who say Donald Trump violated them seriously. The row on Tuesday night between Kelly and one of Trump’s most stalwart supporters began when the host brought up the multiple sexual assault and misconduct allegations against the candidate. During the ensuing debate, which bordered on personal attack, Gingrich said the host was “fascinated with sex” and Kelly urged him to “take your anger issues and spend some time working on them”. Dan Scavino, Trump’s director of social media, later responded on Twitter, saying Kelly had “made a total fool out of herself” and warning: “Watch what happens to her after this election is over.” Revealed: Trump’s ties with pipeline company Donald Trump’s close financial ties to Energy Transfer Partners, operators of the controversial Dakota Access oil pipeline, have been laid bare, with the presidential candidate invested in the company and receiving more than $100,000 in campaign contributions from its chief executive. Trump’s financial disclosure forms show the Republican nominee has between $500,000 and $1m invested in Energy Transfer Partners, with a further $500,000 to $1m holding in Phillips 66, which will have a 25% stake in the Dakota Access project once completed. Thank you for reading and please join us in the comments.
Where will it all go right? Fans of Premier League clubs preview the season AFC Bournemouth My only hope for the season is continued survival in the Premier League. Bournemouth have kept Callum Wilson and, although they lost Matt Ritchie to Newcastle, he’s been replaced well with the slightly overpriced Jordon Ibe. Even more importantly, manager Eddie Howe has stayed. In Burnley, Sunderland and a newly chaotic Hull City, there are three clubs we should finish above – and this season we’re without the added pressure of being newly promoted. The main ambition will be to improve on last season, particularly towards the end, when we relaxed too much. If we can avoid any notion of a relegation battle, that’ll be a step up on last season. That has to be Howe’s main focus. We don’t need to challenge for Europe or even the top half of the table. Knowing where we stand – as still the smallest club in the league – means we can avoid delusions of grandeur. Off the pitch I’m hoping to see the beginning of the expansion at Dean Court. I can sympathise with the idea of not getting carried away after winning the Championship, but we should take advantage of new funds. An 11,000-capacity stadium isn’t enough for where we are. Liam Searle Arsenal The usual pre-season calls for a defensive midfielder and a striker have been partially heard this summer, with the signing of Granit Xhaka. But that frontman who scores at least 20 goals a season remains elusive. This might not be Arsenal’s biggest problem though – I believe there is too much mental fragility in the team. Last season the league was lost in a costly defeat to Southampton on Boxing Day, with no leaders stepping up in the rain to grab the points. Arsène Wenger needs to install a win-at-all-costs mentality to go alongside some beautiful build-up play. The seasons have all ended up the same – great work in for two thirds of the campaign and then coming up short when it really matters at the end. With some amazing managers joining the Premier League this summer, was last year a missed opportunity? Dave Gardiner Burnley Staying in the Premier League this time would be good. It won’t be a Leicester City sort of season, but if the board can be persuaded to open their wallets, manager Sean Dyche might get enough quality to survive. Ronny Craven Chelsea I have high hopes that this season will be better than last year– it can’t be too much worse. I’ve been very impressed by new manager Antonio Conte so far and team morale seems much improved. Conte will get the best out of our underachieving stars, and Michy Batshuayi and N’Golo Kanté look like very solid additions. Kante in particular will be crucial in front of a still nervy-looking defence. I’m predicting, and desperately hoping for, a top-four finish. Sally Albright Crystal Palace Our successful FA Cup run highlighted many of our squad’s shortcomings as we staggered over the Premier League safety finish line last season. Ten wins on the board by mid-January would be a natural progression for this season, with a potential springboard to a top-half finish. We’ve had decent signings so far this summer in areas we needed to improve – Andros Townsend from Newcastle, James Tomkins from West Ham and Steve Mandanda from Marseille – but our squad still requires an additional striker to ensure a regular supply of goals. Bob White Everton This season I’m hoping that we wash away the awful performances and well-below-average finishes in the table. We need to return to basic defending under new manager Ronald Koeman and I’m hoping that his wealth of knowledge and experience will make this happen. In his time at Southampton, Koeman injected a combination of a solid defence and a potent attack. Off the field we have the addition of the respected and talented Steve Walsh who will be able to find the best talent available. With the financial muscle of Farhad Moshiri, we should be able to acquire these targets. I’m very excited at the prospect of having a football legend in charge of my club and a structure that can finally secure us the silverware we’ve been seeking for the past 21 years. All in all a position back in the top six or a cup would be a good start to the Koeman era. Adam Ferguson Hull City We can only hope for survival – in every sense of the word! Our club has been eviscerated by the incomprehensible, self-defeatingly antagonistic actions of the owners towards the fans. First we had the absurd attempt to change the name to Hull Tigers, which sounds like a circus act. To add insult to injury the new “membership” scheme has ended concessions for OAPs, children and disabled fans. We now have just 13 fit players and no manager. Optimistic? We try! We need new owners who are prepared to treat fans with respect. If anyone comes in with the right attitude, they will find that Hull City fans are loyal and passionate. It needs to happen soon or we’ll be effectively relegated before the first frost. James Hoyle Leicester City As a lifelong Leicester fan, 2015-16 was a fantastic season. You cannot get any better than being champions. This season will be one of consolidation. I can’t see them retaining the title against the big spenders, who have worked hard to destabilise the club during the summer transfer window. I’d be happy to finish 17th, but anywhere top half would be good. Our new signings need time to adapt to the pace of the English game. I expect Leicester to look for early exits from the domestic cup competitions to focus on the Champions League and Premier League. Their style of play will cause real problems for European teams, as it did for Premier League teams last season. Anything is possible in the Champions League, and it wouldn’t surprise me if they reached the quarter-finals. Maybe the dream this season is a Champions League dream where the words again could be: “This really is happening”. Barry Liverpool If you offered me fourth place and a cup right now, I’d snap your hand off and kiss it. I have no doubt that we have the manager we want in Jürgen Klopp. He’s as marvellously mischievous as the city of Liverpool itself. As always, success this season will come down to the results of eight fixtures – the home and away games with the Manchester clubs, Chelsea and Arsenal. That is not to discount Leicester or Spurs, but if the former constitute a 24-point mini-league of their own, the goal must be 16 points. Secure that and surely the Champions League beckons. Sadio Mané is our best summer signing. He performed brilliantly in my fantasy football line-up last season, so I am delighted that Klopp and I share the same sentiment. Hubert O’Hearn Manchester City I want to see us play good football again: heroic defending, great counter-attacking play and tactical awareness of our opponents. If we deploy the above, I’m sure the club will look significantly better in a year’s time. If passion is shown by our players, I’ll have nothing but pride for the team. It’s as simple as that. In Pep we trust. Alasdair Bayman Manchester United Louis van Gaal was a failure. He set high but manageable expectations for himself, his club and his team, and then he failed to meet those expectations. He didn’t embody what Manchester United means. José Mourinho has that fire and that passion to create real leaders on the field who will follow his example. Manchester United is about the greats and Mourinho has the passion, wisdom and drive to raise and nurture future great players at this club, while also managing the great players who are present now. We’re going to have a strong season this year and Mourinho will make the players want that for themselves, rather than wanting it to please their manager, like last season. I am not a betting man, but anyone can see that Manchester United will snag a Champions League spot with ease and may once again contend for the title. Grant Wood Middlesbrough Getting a train home from Kings Cross after a play-off final defeat is never easy, and you start to wonder if you will ever be playing with the big teams again, but last season was outstanding. I can’t describe the joy and relief of being back in the Premier League. It’s so important we stay there this year. The Championship is very difficult to get out off, but we have finally given ourself an opportunity to re-live “the good old days”. Steve Gibson has once again backed the club and in Aitor Karanka we have one of the brightest young managerial talents in Europe. With the quality we have brought in, and perhaps another defender, we have given ourselves a real chance to go and have an exciting season. A decent cup run and a finish outside the bottom six would be a fantastic achievement. Bring it on, and Up The Boro! Andy McCarten Southampton Doing well in Europe must be our aim this season. And finishing in the top four would be be a dream come true for Saints fans. The new manager, Claude Puel, seems very positive and, while we’ve lost good, strong players, we’ve kept many too. Building on a strong team from last year, with the decent signings we’ve made already, will hopefully mean success in the league this season. Katherine Stoke City My hopes for the season: Manager Mark Hughes continues to strike the perfect balance – improving the team once more but not by so much that he is plucked away by one of the (even) richer clubs. Xherdan Shaqiri scores a goal that makes his Euro 2016 effort look like a tap in. Charlie Adam scores a goal that makes his inside-his-own-half effort look like a tap-in. Glenn Whelan scores a goal. The roof does not blow off the stand, which happened the last time things were going too well, back in 1976. It wasn’t insured and it has taken us 40 years to get back to where we were then. David Carr Sunderland The season will start with the manager not recognising his players’ best assets and capabilities. The players not will recognise the manager’s style demands. This confusion will result in the team storming up the league. Once the player/manager understanding develops, there will be a mid-season hiatus with a plummet down the league giving the fans an all too familiar feeling, before everyone is happy to end the season in mid-table mediocrity. Sam Basian Swansea City The increasingly forlorn hope is that we’re not going to sleepwalk through another transfer window and will instead invest seriously in a squad that showed last season that it isn’t immune from becoming involved in a relegation battle. We got away with it last year, but I doubt we will get away with it again. We are well short of established strikers. One hopes our new owners splash the cash and Huw Jenkins has his customary rabbits ready to pull out of the hat. Otherwise it could be a long old season. Gary Tottenham I don’t expect us to dominate the way we did last season, but we should be a top-four team and put up a fight in the Champions League. In Vincent Janssen and Victor Wanyama we have solid backups in areas we lacked depth in last season. Our continuity compared to other teams should give us an advantage, particularly early on in the season. Chelsea and the Manchester clubs will have some growing pains with their new managers, and I expect us to benefit from that by achieving a top four place. We have the potential to go even higher. Rye Bails Watford Walter Mazzarri’s 5-3-2 will bamboozle everyone and new signing Christian Kabasele will win gushing praise from chin-stroking Match of the Day 2 pundits, only for us to be found out after Christmas with club-record signing Isaac Success proving to be anything but. Nevertheless, we’ll survive again and hire a new glamour name to keep us up in 2017-18. Guy West Brom We have a real shot at leading the league in shots blocked. We were second last season, only four behind Palace. Last season we were last in touches, passes and shots on target. We were second to last in shots and goals. With Aston Villa gone, it will be interesting to see if we can sweep all those categories this season. James McClean’s red cards are something to look forward to. He kicks people with a real flair. I’m hoping that Saido Berahino doesn’t pull a Peter Odemwingie and go for a drive around another club’s car park on transfer deadline day. Young striker Jonathan Leko is the most exciting thing to look forward to at The Hawthorns this season, so Tony Pulis will probably loan him out. Evilaundria West Ham There’s been an influx of outrageously talented managers this season but hopefully we’ll reach new heights with a healthy squad – that means you too Andy Carroll. Slaven Bilic’s second season looks to be an exciting one with the creativity and immense class we have within the squad. We can expect another season of attractive football. And we still have Dimitri Payet - the most exciting player in Europe. Paolo
Silicon Valley's tech titans may be Democrats, but not as we know them Good news for Hillary Clinton: there are very few Republican voters in Silicon Valley. Bad news: the Democrats there are not Democrats as you know them. They detest trade unions, for example, and they’re very keen on immigration – so long as the immigrants have PhDs from elite Indian or Chinese universities. They are in favour of government, so long as it’s “smart” government. And they believe that all change is good – especially in the long term. We know this courtesy of a fascinating piece of opinion polling by Gregory Ferenstein, the guy who runs TechCrunch’s policy channel. He surveyed a sample of 1,200 startup founders, executives and investors from a database of 8,500 such people in order to find out what their views were on a wide range of political and social issues. What he found was that Silicon Valley is not – as most of us had assumed – a hotbed of techno-libertarianism, but rather a colony of people who “reject the very heart of libertarianism: individualism and small government”. In fact, they appear to believe in big government. But it’s a government that acts as “an investor in citizens” rather than as a force that protects people from capitalism. These tech pioneers want government “to heavily fund education, encourage more active citizenship, pursue binding international trade alliances, and open borders to all immigrants”. They believe that “all change over the long run ends up being good. Likewise, they reject the notion that there are inherent conflicts of interests between citizens, the government, corporations or other nations”. The best way to solve social ills, they believe, is via “the discovery of new information”. Not surprisingly, founders of IT startups are more liberal and wealthier than those who make tools for finance, privacy, or security; and those who have created technologies for “sharing” information (social networking etc) are “more comfortable with collectivist government policies”. This is reflected in their political donations, which go overwhelmingly to Democratic candidates (in sharp contrast to those founders of fintech and cybersecurity companies, who donate to Republicans). And in November an overwhelming majority of the Silicon Valley tech crowd will vote for Hillary Clinton. As far as I know, this is the first serious attempt to understand how these people view the world. And the usual caveats about opinion polling – especially about value-laden issues – apply, though Mr Ferenstein is admirably open about both his data and his methodology. One could view his study merely as the landing craft for an invasion of anthropologists seeking to understand the mindset and mores of a truly exotic tribe. But he’s already done enough to prove that, if Silicon Valley’s “tech titans” are Democrats, then they are the weirdest Democrats ever to put a cross on a voting slip. And they’re full of interesting contradictions. For example, they want relaxation of immigration controls because the US isn’t producing enough of the high-IQ talent they need. Similarly, they believe that government should be investing in schools, universities and infrastructure to foster homegrown talent. Yet at the same time they are absolutely fanatical about paying as little tax – federal and local – as they can get away with. They desire the ends, but decline to provide the means – by parking their profits in Irish “subsidiaries” which, as one commentator wryly observed, “have as much physical reality as a leprechaun”. Similarly, the ethnic composition of Silicon Valley’s poster-children is appalling. In 2013 Facebook hired just seven black employees out of an overall increase of 1,200. Google’s employees are 60% white, 31% Asian, 3% Hispanic and 2% black. And then there’s the Valley’s gender gap. At the moment, it looks as though only 12% of engineers working in tech companies are female. This low number might just be a reflection of the level of sexual harassment prevalent in the Valley. A recent survey of 220 women working in these companies revealed that nearly two thirds had experienced unwanted sexual advances, 84% had been told they were “too aggressive” and 88% had experienced questions being directed at a male colleague that should have been addressed to them. And so on. Just like any other male-dominated company, in fact. The days when we regarded Silicon Valley as exceptional are long gone. The truth is that it’s just weird. Mrs Clinton is welcome to it.
Readers suggest the 10 best journalists on screen 1 | Hildy Johnson, His Girl Friday Suggested by: TopQuark, AugustaG, ID8729015, Albini, AlexJones While commenters balked at Lois Lane’s inclusion, they were just as adamant that Rosalind Russell’s fast-talking Hildy Johnson, who starred opposite Cary Grant in His Girl Friday, should have been included. The screwball comedy was released in 1940 to roaring reviews and has garnered a cult following ever since. Hildy was sensational: a star reporter with wit, style, and the inability to turn down a good scoop — even if it meant missing her own wedding day. 2 | Tintin Suggested by ccmac10, VerneWells VerneWells was aghast that our list overlooked the cartoon contingent, failing to mention superstar reporter Tintin: “He has been imprisoned dozens of times, discovered treasure, captured spies, saved states from coups, and even went to the moon once. And he has a cute dog.” On top of a grand journalistic career, Tintin books have sold more than 200 million copies in 70-plus languages. What other journalist on our list boasts such lofty commercial success? 3 | Augustus ‘Gus’ Haynes, The Wire Suggested by MantisToboggan, David_J_Shaw While much of The Wire focused on the drug trade and Baltimore’s complex web of public institutions, commenters praised the HBO drama’s insightful depiction of newsroom politics in its fifth season. At the centre of the series was Gus Haynes (played by Clark Johnson), a tough-talking editor whose unrelenting morality clashed with higher-ups, forcing budget cuts and dubious editorial decisions. 4 | Richard Boyle, Salvador Suggested by CthulhuRules, Raleighchopper, ID0403009 Having blown all his cash on booze and drugs in Oliver Stone’s 1986 drama Salvador, photojournalist Richard Boyle heads to El Salvador in hope of scoring a commission to cover the country’s brutal civil war. James Woods was nominated for an Oscar for his role as the American journalist, who descends into hellfire as leftist guerrillas and right-wing death squads clash violently. While Stone was criticised for his dramatic rendering of the 1980 Salvadoran war, Woods was praised for his complicated and contrary Boyle, a capricious freeloader with a conscience, “who’s not afraid to get his hands dirty”. 5 | Danny Concannon, The West Wing Suggested by stevenjameshyde, JipJaapStaam The West Wing’s Danny Concannon is a weathered White House reporter who, despite his close relationship with the president’s press office, does not hesitate to censure the administration. While notorious for his principled reporting, Danny is probably best known for his on-again, off-again relationship with White House press secretary CJ Cregg. As one commenter put it: “Don’t know much about his journalistic skills, but his chemistry with CJ was fantastic.” 6 | Billy Kwan, The Year of Living Dangerously Suggested by MoreNotLess In The Year of Living Dangerously, a drama set in mid-1960s Jakarta, American actor Linda Hunt made a career bet that paid off: she cut off her hair, shaved her eyebrows, and threw herself into the role of male photojournalist Billy Kwan, a Chinese-Australian cameraman. Billy helps Mel Gibson’s character, an Australian journalist, weave through the political landscape of a country on the brink of revolution. Kwan’s portrayal of the ethical, quick-witted Kwan was ahead of its time, and celebrated with an Oscar for best supporting actress. 7 | Paul Avery, Zodiac Suggested by ID3334123, Knight_2359 In 2007’s Zodiac, a thriller based on a string of real unsolved murders in San Francisco in the late 60s and early 70s, Robert Downey Jr gives a “totally wired performance” as journalist Paul Avery. Downey depicts the San Francisco Chronicle reporter’s obsession with the manhunt for the Zodiac murderer with finesse — including the moment the real-life Paul Avery received a death threat from Zodiac himself. 8 | Will McAvoy, The Newsroom Suggested by Steve H, Valerio Fiandra The Newsroom’s Will McAvoy begins the series as a complacent, disgruntled anchor who declares that the United States is no longer the greatest country on earth — a cardinal sin in America — in a video that goes viral. Forced to rebuild his reputation, Will’s show is overhauled by producer and former flame MacKenzie McHale, who revives the anchor’s passion for reporting. As the series goes on, Will serves as the moral epicentre of the newsroom by refusing to air unsubstantiated and frivolous stories, inspiring his team with grandiose speeches, and taking a stand against upper-management meddling. 9 | Jane Craig, Broadcast News Suggested by AugustaG In Broadcast News, Holly Hunter plays Jane Craig, an uncommonly multidimensional female character for the time (1987) and the genre (romantic comedy). Jane is an idealistic, talented news producer — but she’s also neurotic, blunt, and does not have a clue how to reconcile her personal and professional lives. When faced with the choice of romance or career, Jane ultimately chooses the latter — in an ending that was decades ahead of its time. 10 | William Miller, Almost Famous Suggested by BewilderedMark In the iconic 2000 rock film Almost Famous, Patrick Fugit plays William Miller, a 15-year-old aspiring music journalist who gets his big break right before graduating from high school: an assignment from Rolling Stone to cover a stadium rock band’s first tour. As the endearingly awkward William gets closer to the band — and its groupies — he grapples with the blurred line between friend and journalist. The character of William is famously based on director Cameron Crowe’s own experience as a nascent rock journalist.
Social care cuts take English service to tipping point, regulator warns A&E units are struggling to cope because social care services that help elderly people have been cut so much that they are reaching a “tipping point”, England’s care regulator is to warn. Hospitals are ending up dangerously full and have seen “bedblocking” hit record levels because of a widespread failure to give elderly people enough support to keep them healthy at home, says the Care Quality Commission. A worsening lack of at-home care services and beds in care homes are forcing hospitals to admit more patients as emergencies, which deepens their already serious financial problems. “What’s happening, we think, is that where people aren’t getting access to [social] care, and we are not preventing people’s needs developing through adult social care, is that they are presenting at A&E,” said David Behan, the CQC’s chief executive. Figures contained in the commission’s annual report show that the number of hospital bed days lost through patients being unable to leave because social care was not available to allow them to be discharged safely soared from 108,482 in April 2012 to 184,199 in July this year – a 70% rise. The fact that growing numbers of mainly frail, elderly people are being left without the help they need with basic chores such as washing, dressing and cooking “creates problems in other parts of the health and care system, such as overstretched A&E departments or delays in people leaving hospital,” he added. GP surgeries are also having to treat patients who became unwell or suffered an injury because they did not receive help they needed. Behan urged ministers to give social care a higher priority and urgently find extra money for it to prevent its ongoing deterioration causing even worse problems. “We are becoming concerned about the fragility of the adult social care market, with evidence suggesting that it might be approaching a tipping point,” he said. The CQC’s assessment of health and social care, called State of Care, adds that: “The difficulties in adult social care are already affecting hospitals. Bed occupancy rates exceeded 91% in January to March 2016, the highest quarterly rate for at least six years, and in 2015-16 we saw an increase in the number of people having to wait to be discharged from hospital, in part due to a lack of suitable care options,” the CQC’s annual report says. The number of people in England receiving local council-funded social care services fell by 26% from 1.1m in 2009 to about 850,000 in 2013-14, at a time of Whitehall-driven cuts to town hall budgets. The number of people with unmet needs has risen from 800,000 in 2010 to more than 1 million last year, according to Age UK. Growing unavailability of social care was a key driver of the 3% rise in emergency admissions to hospital last year and 11% rise in bed days lost to bedblocking. That was mainly due to patients having to wait for a package of care to be put in place to let them return home or for a place in a nursing home to become available. “The effect of these delays on the NHS is significant, costing hospitals £820m a year,” the National Audit Office says. NHS bodies, health thinktanks and charities urged government to use next month’s autumn statement to inject extra funding into social care. Simon Stevens, the chief executive of NHS England, has already called for any extra funding for the health service to instead be used to prop up social care. Jeremy Hunt, the health secretary, is understood to privately agree. On Monday Stephen Dorrell, the ex-Conservative health secretary, said that the government’s policy of giving social care less and less money was “insane economics and bad social policy” and undermined its claim to be backing the NHS. Cuts to social care and also mental health and public health mean “the NHS is being stretched to the limit,” said Stephen Dalton, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, which represents hospitals. “Relying on political rhetoric that promises to protect the NHS but fails to acknowledge that a cut in social care results in a cost to the NHS, is an economic deception.” The CQC also disclosed that about 800,000 patients are registered with a GP practice that its inspectors have judged to be inadequate on safety grounds. It is concerned that some surgeries deliver “unacceptable standards of care”. Safety failings include poor management of medicines, inappropriately trained staff and premises that are unsuitable. The Department of Health welcomed the CQC’s findings that “the majority of the NHS, 72% of adult social care services and 87% of GP practices inspected are good or better – and that improvement is taking place all over the country”. A spokeswoman said: “The NHS is performing well at a time of increasing demand. The government is investing £10bn to fund its own plan for the future, and crucially is ensuring that the amount of money available to local authorities for social care is rising in future years of the parliament, reaching up to £3.5bn extra by 2020.”
Of Montreal: Innocence Reaches review – accomplished but slightly exhausting This year’s dispatch from Kevin Barnes’s 20-year art-pop project is accomplished but slightly exhausting. Lead single It’s Different for Girls is impeccably catchy electro-pop, betrayed by lyrics shallower than a Facebook meme. It might be easier to respect its trite musings on gender – girls are “mercurial creatures”, apparently – if the artwork didn’t include a line drawing of four pairs of perky breasts. When Barnes applies his huge gift for melody to less predictable pastiches than usual there are gorgeous moments, like the swirling coda to My Fair Lady, or the motorik sulk of Chap Pilot. But mostly it feels like he’s lost in the dress-up box, never quite finding a mask to fit his ever-changing face.
Somaliland faces ‘explosion’ of mental health conditions Amina usually takes her brother to the clinic by force. He doesn’t like going. “I feel very bad when I take him there. I have to do it but I cry at the same time,” says the young mother who lives in downtown Hargeisa, capital of the breakaway republic of Somaliland. “We have no choice but to take him. What else can we do for him?” Amina* adds, visibly pained. Her 38-year-old brother Bulhan* has on four occasions been admitted to the Macruuf Relief Organisation, a privately run mental health clinic in Hargeisa, one of many that have been established in recent years. These under-resourced private centres operate largely without scrutiny from the authorities. Chaining patients is common, as is confinement without consent, practices that Human Rights Watch says violate “basic international standards prohibiting ill-treatment, and may constitute torture”. “If people fight, they are punished, they are chained,” says Bulhan, who is now at home with his family. “They use the chains in different ways. They’ve stopped using this technique now but they used to chain your legs and tie you up on the roof with your head facing down. Now they just chain your legs and tell you to sit somewhere.” Amina’s dilemma is one that many families in Somaliland face amid a substantial mental health crisis. Many people are ill-informed about psychosocial disorders, which are widely stigmatised in Somali culture. “There is an explosion of mental illness in this society,” says Abdirisak Mohamed Warsame, mental health project manager for the Italian NGO Gruppo Relazioni Transculturali, and one of just a handful of professionals working in the sector in Somaliland. “The community has no formal ways to provide for the mentally ill,” he adds. “The government is struggling with other health issues that are more treatable; the ministry of health only recently established a mental health office.” While there is no official data on the prevalence of psychosocial disorders in Somaliland, a study (pdf) of four regions in 2004 estimated that at least one person in every two households had some form of mental illness. The problem extends across the whole of Somalia, from which Somaliland declared independence in 1991, although its independence is not formally recognised. A World Health Organisation report (pdf) in 2010 estimated that up to one in three people in Somalia had been affected by some kind of mental illness, a figure that is substantially higher than in other low-income and war-torn countries. “We are a country that has come from war,” says Warsame. “There is a high rate of poverty and widespread unemployment; also many people chew khat” – a plant with narcotic properties popular in the Horn of Africa and the Middle East. In Somaliland, there are only two psychiatric doctors for an estimated population of 3.5 million, although more training is taking place. “Psychiatry is now taught by myself and my colleague as a one semester course as part of general undergraduate medicine,” says Dr Liban Ahmed Hersi, one of the two psychiatric doctors. “Before, tutors would come in for short trips and there was no local supervisor – it was very rushed and difficult to grasp.” There are only four mental health wards in general hospitals across the country, while in Hargeisa many families rely on the privately run residential centres. Families usually pay $100-$150 (£70-£100) a month to place relatives in the private facilities – there are at least nine in the capital. Conditions in both the public and private facilities are often poor. Patients sleep several to a room – some of which are highly unsanitary – and activities are nearly non-existent. While the mental health ward in the Hargeisa group hospital is chain-free, patients are chained in most other facilities. Access to drugs is limited and diagnoses are often unclear. Community-based care systems are absent, although some families turn to traditional Islamic healers to try to cure patients. “Within the community, mentally ill patients in Somaliland face very negative attitudes,” says Hersi. “They are stigmatised, they are humiliated. Children throw stones at them, as well as insults. “Family caretakers take relatives to various asylums, pay monthly fees and patients are kept there as long as the family wants. Private centres make good money out of this and that is why so many have emerged in recent years,” he says. Bulhan’s repeated admissions to Macruuf seem linked to his consumption of khat. “Last time I was there for two months. I was admitted by my family because I was not sleeping, especially when I was chewing khat,” he says. “The neighbours complain about him when he is unwell because he disturbs them, he throws stones at them and they feel annoyed by that,” says Amina. “He doesn’t hurt me and my children but he disturbs the neighbours, he does strange things sometimes and that is why I take him to the centre.” She adds: “When he stays outside for a long time, he starts chewing a lot of khat. There, they give him medicines that make him sleep. He is not mad, we only want him to eat well and rest and have a good sleep.” “There is a belief that mental illness is not curable, that patients won’t get better,” says Hersi. “So they lose their freedom – at home and within the wider community, they are abused, they really suffer greatly.” * Names have been changed to protect identities • Zoe Flood travelled to Somaliland with Human Rights Watch
Ryanair profits to be hit by fall in pound Ryanair has said its full-year profits will be lower than expected because of the sharp drop in the value of the pound since the Brexit vote in June. The budget airline said an 18% fall in sterling since the referendum was the main reason it was downgrading its expectations for full-year profit growth, from 12% to to 7%. Profits are now expected to be between €1.3bn (£900m) and €1.35bn. The Dublin-based company warned, however, that the outlook for profits would worsen in the event of a further drop in the pound or weakness in ticket prices. Fares in the second half of the year are expected to fall by 13-15%, more than the 10-12% previously expected. Michael O’Leary, the chief executive, said lower fares would be partially offset by cost savings, with costs expected to fall by 3% in the full year, more than the 1% given in previous guidance. “The recent sharp decline in sterling will weaken second-half yields by slightly more than we had originally expected,” he said. O’Leary is one of several senior business figures to criticise the government in recent weeks for a lack of clarity on its Brexit strategy. “Whether the UK leaves the EU or stays, I couldn’t care less. The issue for us is whether we stay in the single market,” he said in September.
‘Revenge porn’ threats could be made a crime in England and Wales The threat of circulating “revenge porn” would be criminalised and the evidence threshold lowered to bring England and Wales in line with Scottish law, under changes to be proposed by a former Lib Dem cabinet minister. The law south of the border has failed to keep pace with the rapid increase of the malicious exploitation of explicit or sexual images without their subject’s consent, according to former Scottish secretary Alistair Carmichael. He is to argue in the Commons in favour of amendments to criminalise not only the circulation of private sexual photographs and films without consent, but the threat of circulating them. The proposed changes would also make it an offence to promote, solicit or profit knowingly from such private material. And the definition of private and sexual images will be expanded to include photographs and films of “breast and buttocks” rather than merely “exposed genitals”. The Scottish parliament passed the offence of disclosing, or threatening to disclose, intimate images without consent as part of the abusive behaviour and sexual harm (Scotland) bill in March. Carmichael’s amendments will be voted on by MPs in the Commons when they come to debate the police and crime bill on Monday. They are designed to increase the number of successful prosecutions of the crime, which carries a jail term of up to two years and a fine. Carmichael, who has already tabled an amendment proposing to give alleged victims anonymity, said: “In the last parliament we criminalised the awful act of revenge porn. One year on it is still a problem and convictions under the law remain abysmally low. We must act to do everything we can to empower victims to come forward. “That is why I have tabled a raft of amendments to strengthen the law and ensure that victims aren’t left suffering in silence. “I hope to get the support from MPs across the house and hope that the government agrees with me that more must be done to help and support victims of this horrific act.” Figures released in April from 31 police forces after a freedom of information request revealed that most offences of revenge porn do not result in a criminal charge. There were 1,160 cases reported between April and December 2015 in England and Wales. Three of the alleged victims were just 11 years old. About 11% of the offences reported resulted in someone being charged. There were 82 prosecutions and 74 cautions were issued. The College of Policing is also seeking to increase knowledge about the definitions and law in relation to revenge porn, which became a criminal offence in England and Wales in April 2015. Last month it emerged that one man, Oliver Whiting, 36, from Eastbourne, received only a caution after five women came forward complaining they were victims. Campaigners also claim that the courts appear overly soft on the offence. Last week the former girlfriend of an EastEnders actor was spared jail after posting a sexual video of him online when they separated. Emilia Marcou, 40, and her friend Sarah McKenna, also 40, shared the explicit footage on Facebook. They earlier pleaded guilty to a “revenge porn” offence for publishing the video, which the actor, who cannot be named for legal reasons, had asked Marcou to delete after they broke up. Marcou received an 18-week sentence suspended for 18 months, and McKenna a 12-week term suspended for 18 months, along with 12-month community orders, restraining orders and an £85 victim surcharge and an £80 government surcharge.
Taron Egerton: ‘A part of everyone wants to be Leonardo DiCaprio’ No one knows how to be a movie star. You can be trained to act, but not – really – to be a celebrity. Living in the spotlight, promoting yourself as you promote your movie … it’s something you learn on the job. Taron Egerton, one of Britain’s best young actors, hardly needs a top-up in the art of playing himself. In 2013, shortly after his (subsidised) training at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, he was picked by Matthew Vaughn for the lead role in the R-rated spy caper Kingsman: The Secret Service. The day he was cast he was given two roles: Gary “Eggsy” Unwin – a working-class kid yanked from obscurity to join a secret organisation of gentleman spies – and “Taron Egerton” – a working-class kid yanked from obscurity to become the face of a $400m-grossing blockbuster. Egerton was pulled around the globe on the Kingsman press tour. During it, he returned to Rada for a special screening of the film. The school’s director, Edward Kemp, remembers how quickly things had changed. “It felt like he didn’t know what continent he was on,” he says. “Colin Firth, Samuel L Jackson, Michael Caine [Egerton’s co-stars] – they were not going to be dumped on planes and flown around the world. The next best bet was Taron Egerton. That’s pretty scary, to go from being a student to that.” Since Kingsman, Egerton has put in skilful, solid supporting roles opposite Tom Hardy in Legend and Alicia Vikander in Testament of Youth. Today, he’s back in the middle of another round of the month-long jetlag that comes with selling a mainstream film. The marketing campaign for Eddie the Eagle is, for a gentle movie, relentless. You can’t walk 20 metres in London without Egerton’s face looming at you from the side of a bus. Not that he would know. He has been in the US, Norway, China and Korea promoting the film. When we meet, France, Germany and Lithuania are still waiting for the Eagle to land. In the film, Egerton plays Michael “Eddie” Edwards, a former plasterer from Cheltenham who taught himself to ski jump in order to compete at the 1988 Winter Olympics. Eddie didn’t win any medals (in fact, he finished last), but he won people’s hearts. The public loved the story the press wrote for him: the dorky guy, taking to the slopes with his thick-rimmed glasses and prodigious underbite, who had a go at reaching for the top level of his sport because he loved it so much. In truth, while he made it look like he had no idea what he was doing, Eddie’s mindset was far from that of the bumbling amateur. He was as driven and ambitious as the best. He might not have worked out how to jump as well as his competitors, but Michael Edwards understood how to sell Eddie the Eagle. “The guy wasn’t an idiot,” says Egerton. “That’s been a really common misconception. The folklore is that he was this fool, but he wasn’t. He was sharp and shrewd. He’s lovely, but he’s not someone to be trifled with.” Egerton is no rube, either. He has Eddie’s pluck and steeliness. Talk to anyone he has worked with and they will tell you how smart and confident he is. His Eddie the Eagle co-star, Hugh Jackman, says it has taken him 12 years to feel the level of comfort Egerton has attained. Vikander, who played his sister in Testament of Youth, mentions his “warmth and ease” and says the chemistry between her and Egerton was like that of twins. Colin Firth was his on- and offscreen mentor in Kingsman. He was bowled over by how quickly Egerton took to working on his first film. “He knew he was lucky to have the role. That, in itself, can be somewhat paralysing,” he says. “But he carried it all with remarkably unassuming grace. I keep trying to figure out if he knows, or cares, how talented he is. I could spend hours in his company … trying to cultivate some flaws in him.” They’re hidden deep. Egerton has quickly become as good at the unfilmed performance as he is in front of the lenses. I’m another face shuffled into another hotel room, but he handles the switch – that moment when a star realises the new person in the room is there not to instruct, primp or feed, but to interview – beautifully. After being ushered in, he offers me a (soft) drink and shows concern for my wellbeing (I look tired – my baby’s not sleeping). He must have done this – different hotel rooms, different drinks, different babies – so many times. But he is genuinely friendly, if a little restless. His feet do a cancan on the coffee table. Perhaps to shake off any chance of lingering DVT. Maybe – perhaps – because he’s a little bored. Born in Birkenhead to Liverpudlian parents, Egerton moved to Wales with his mum after she and his dad split when he was two. For a while, to the delight of chat-show hosts, he lived in the Anglesey village of Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch. Jonathan Ross, Ellen DeGeneres and Jimmy Fallon have all goaded him into pronouncing the name, but it was Fallon who had the best comeback: “Did a cat crawl across the keyboard when they were typing this?” Now, when not up in the air, he calls Aberystwyth home. Life is a balance between using the opportunities his talent is affording him and reminding himself that the route to the A-list comes via many more air miles. “A part of everyone wants to be Leonardo DiCaprio, don’t they?” he says. “But then a big part of me recognises that I’m a very private person – someone who really likes to go to the pub and get silly with my mates. I don’t want to worry about maintaining an air of decorum that’s not natural to me.” Does he get lonely? “Yeah. Massively,” he says. “I don’t want to start getting my little violin out, but travelling across the world constantly and staying in hotels is tough, man. I think it’s probably easier if you have a partner, but I’ve been single for three years now. “I find the lack of structure difficult, but it’s a very first-world problem. Part of me looks forward to a time when I have a family and a partner and I take less of my nourishment from social occasions. Having a little unit around me will make my working life easier, because it is quite lonely otherwise”. He recognises that all of this, the playing of a part to promote the playing of a part, is imperfect, but it’s endemic now – a crucial part of the franchise system that offers an actor job security (Jackman: “If you haven’t got a franchise, you’re dead”), if not always the best roles. Egerton thinks he’s lucky to have latched on to one (Kingsman 2 is released next year) that gives him both. “The endless teen franchises that come out of Hollywood ... more often than not the central character doesn’t have any discernible character traits,” he says. “They’re just the young, good-looking guy who goes on this journey. They’re always played by fantastic young actors, but ultimately they’re not very interesting characters”. It’s for that reason he’s wary of taking other big roles. Recently he has been named as one of the three key contenders to play the young Han Solo in a spin-off Star Wars film. He has denied he has auditioned for the part and has said he’s flattered by the suggestion. He tells me that – if the part were offered – he would think hard before making the leap. “Roles of that level are always going to be life-changing,” he says. “I wouldn’t run into it blind. It would definitely be a shutting-a-door-behind-me moment. That is something that I’d be wary of.” There’s no way drama school can prepare someone like Egerton for what he’s going through now, says Rada’s Kemp. He last saw this kind of mania around one of his 2007 graduates, Gemma Arterton. “Doing the press has become as much of a job as getting in front of the camera,” he says. “You have to avoid burnout, avoid saying anything stupid, but still come across as yourself.” He thinks Egerton has the tenacity to ride out the hype and will still be making interesting work in 40 years’ time. The tricky bit is doing that while keeping something for yourself. Kemp talks about attending this year’s Baftas, where the biggest star in Hollywood was going about his public life, and mollycoddled through every moment. “I saw DiCaprio slip out for a breath of air,” he says. “There were a dozen people around him, just to get Leonardo DiCaprio from one side of the room to the other. That’s the world you enter into.” Before all this, when he was a kid, Egerton conjured monsters. A Pixar nut, he went through a phase of drawing strange and fabulous beasts, inspired by Monsters, Inc. One of the high points of his new life was a meeting with Pete Docter, the film’s director. Docter drew him a picture of Joy and Sadness, the anthropomorphised emotions at the centre of his recent film Inside Out. Egerton has the sketch framed in his flat and carries a snap of it on his mobile phone. He shows it to me proudly. Joy is leaping – for joy. Sadness is crumpled in a heap. Joy and sadness. Professional success and personal fulfilment. You sense that Egerton is flying high above all of it, working out where it’s safe to land. • Eddie the Eagle is released in the UK on 1 April
Corporate ownership of our power and skies Amazon want to fill the skies immediately above our heads with buzzing, swishing drones carrying packages (Amazon to test drone delivery in partnership with UK government, theguardian.com, 26 July). It is reported that the government’s transport ministry is happy to be a partner; and they see this mainly as a matter of sorting out safety issues (we look forward to hearing their plans to deal with terrorists’ use of this technology once the skies are full of “legitimate” drones). But do we, the people, get any say at all? Chris Grayling, the new minister of transport, was a leader of the leave campaign. The population voted leave in protest that unaccountable elites in Brussels were taking decisions behind our backs. Citizens were urged by Mr Grayling to “take back control”. If Amazon had announced this as an EU-backed plan to fill the air with drones, would Mr Grayling be queueing up to smooth its path through government? For the whole of human existence and all of our lives so far, the sky has been free for us all to look up to for quiet pleasures and the sense of freedom it evokes, captured so memorably in Wordsworth’s opening lines in one of our nation’s favourite poems, “I wandered lonely as a cloud / That floats on high o’er vales and hills”. The unaccountable elite of Amazon are attempting to use their connections with ministers in Westminster to take control away from us all to serve their commercial interests. Amazon want Mr Grayling to give them control of our skies. That would mean the pollution and spoiling of one of our most precious freedoms, with no democratic consultation. Simon Szreter Professor of history and public policy, University of Cambridge • It is encouraging, to say the least, that someone in authority has at last noticed that all the so-called “energy firms” do is meter supply and send out bills – and they don’t even do that very well (Energy firms’ profits too high, says inquiry head, 25 July). These companies have, for far too long, stood as unhelpful intermediaries, essentially parasitic, between those who actually produce energy and the consumer. It is, after all, the same gas and electricity coming down the pipes and wires, regardless of whom we settle our bills with. The energy market is a natural monopoly ripe for exploitation, not amenable to competition, and in desperate need of community ownership. These companies siphon off monopoly profits which should be going into actually “making the stuff” and securing energy supply for the future. Roy Boffy Walsall, West Midlands • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
Could children one day sue parents for posting baby pics on Facebook? That photo of your toddler running around in a nappy or having a temper tantrum? Think before you post it on Facebook. That’s the advice from French authorities, which have warned parents in France they could face fines of up to €45,000 (£35,000) and a year in prison for publishing intimate photos of their children on social media without permission, as part of the country’s strict privacy laws. It’s a development that could give pause for thought for many parents used to sharing details of their children’s lives across social media. A 2015 study by internet company Nominet found parents in the UK post nearly 200 photos of their under fives online every year, meaning a child will feature in around 1,000 online photos before their fifth birthday. “Your favourite picture of your child sitting on the potty for the first time may not be their favourite picture of themselves when they’re 13,” says author and child psychologist Catherine Steiner-Adair. Given the relative youth of social media, it’s hard to say exactly how growing up online could affect children but there are concerns around infringing privacy, safety and security (for example providing information that could be used by somebody to steal your child’s identity), and leaving children open to bullying. Professor Nicola Whitton of Manchester Metropolitan University is among those predicting trouble. “I think we’re going to get a backlash in years to come from young people coming to realise that they’ve had their whole lives, from the day they were born, available to social media. A recent University of Michigan study found that children aged 10 to 17 “were really concerned” about the ways parents shared their children’s lives online “Parents have to work out what’s right for them, but be aware that this is another person, another human being, who may not thank them for it in 15 years to come. “It may seem hard, but my line would be don’t put pictures online until they’re of an age where it’s appropriate to discuss it with them,” Whitton says. This doesn’t have to mean a serious conversation every time you capture a charming moment on camera and want to share it, says Professor Sonia Livingstone at the London School of Economics. “If [parents] can be open with their children about what they wish to share, with whom and why, this need not result in a draconian crack-down on all sharing,” she says. She suggests parents think about exactly who they are sharing with, because 50 friends is one thing and 500 random people quite another. The recent Nominet study found 17% of parents had never checked their Facebook privacy settings. “Everyone needs to consider the needs of themselves and others in an open way, bearing in mind that the digital world is changing, that images are permanently posted, and that the conditions of sharing and norms are all shifting in unpredictable ways,” says Livingston. Social sharing isn’t inherently bad for children; sharing pictures can benefit children, for example, by helping to maintain connections with family members such as far away grandparents and cousins abroad. If a child doesn’t like a photo posted by their parent, they could ask them to take it down. If that’s not possible, social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter have reporting functions to request photos be removed. On Facebook, if a third-party has posted the image and refuses to take it down, parents themselves can request removal of a photo of a child under 13, while those 14 and over are expected to make the report themselves. However, parents sharing photos of their children online isn’t just about future embarrassment. One of the complaints Steiner-Adair hears from children is that parents are “obsessed” with snapping photos, particularly when they excel at their hobbies and activities – making them feel pressured to perform to help mum and dad get the right snap to share. Children notice when parents come to their pageant or sports match and focus on photography instead of them, says Steiner-Adair. “They look out into the audience looking for their parents and all they see is a sea of smartphones … [when] what the children really want is to see you smiling at them.”
The Joy Formidable: Hitch review – driving indie rock born of heartbreak London-based trio the Joy Formidable produced Hitch themselves in their north Wales studio. Their guitar riffs are indeed as formidable as anyone who has heard their previous two albums would expect – but there’s a deficit on the joy side of the equation. That could be because Hitch, with its blood-spattered Ralph Steadman sleeve illustration, is essentially a breakup album – the couple in question being singer Rhiannon “Ritzy” Bryan and guitarist Rhydian Dafydd, who glumly takes the lead vocal on The Gift (“We won’t get this gift again”). Songs such as Radio of Lips, Blowing Fire and single The Last Thing on My Mind are driving indie-rock with big choruses and a wall of guitar and drums. But the Joy Formidable are at their best when they switch off their default setting: The Brook takes some surprise twists and turns with time-signatures, while Underneath the Petal introduces acoustic guitar, piano, woodwind and strings, giving Bryan’s breathy vocals a chance to shine.
Why the Rogue One: A Star Wars Story reshoots might not be a bad thing The Oscar-winning director Andrew Stanton, on making the leap from Finding Nemo and Wall-E to the ill-fated space spectacular John Carter, was asked to name the biggest difference between live action and animated film-making. His reply: the cost of reshoots. Pixar, Stanton said, might reconfigure a movie half a dozen times before considering it finished. With an entirely digital mise-en-scène, the studio’s greatest expense when trying to turn around a failing film was the re-recording of dialogue. Video could then be reworked to match remarkably cheaply, via not much more (figuratively speaking) than a few swipes of an animator’s mouse. With a live-action movie such as John Carter, even a single set of reshoots could see budgets ballooning out of control – especially if the faulty original footage had been shot on location. The idea of being able to shoot for a third or fourth time, if a film still didn’t sit quite right, was simply out of the question. The anecdote perhaps explains why John Carter, still for me a fine movie, is generally seen as a black mark on Stanton’s otherwise spotless résumé. But it should also give us some perspective on reports this week that Gareth Edwards’ Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is in crisis, with some fan sites suggesting up to 40% of the movie is being reshot. Star Wars: The Force Awakens also went through a limited reshoot process before being put to bed. And JJ Abrams has gone on record to say that Finn and Rey’s scenes on board the Millennium Falcon were completely rewritten (and later reshot) during a two-week break that followed Harrison Ford’s on-set injury. Movies do change in the making. The term reshoot has come to resemble shorthand for rampant studio interference and a sense of film-makers floundering in Herzogian creative jungles. But some of the greatest blockbuster movies of all-time, from Jaws to Back to the Future and ET, went through radical late reworkings. Spielberg’s pioneering shark thriller initially showed us far more of the dodgy-looking mechanical fish itself, until the young director realised that giving the viewer only occasional glimpses of the beast, Hitchcock-style, would radically amp up the movie’s fear factor. Back to the Future featured Eric Stoltz, not Michael J Fox, as the time-travelling teen Marty McFly. ET never woke up from under all those medical straps to resurrect Gertie’s chrysanthemum and finally go home. The difference with all of the above is that none of the changes were imposed on the film-maker by studios, and it remains to be seen whether the same applies to Rogue One. A Reddit thread posted by an anonymous source who claims to be close to the movie suggests Edwards is bitterly disappointed at Disney’s decision to add levity to a film he has always pitched as a relatively dark “war movie”. Some reports say Michael Clayton’s Tony Gilroy is effectively reshooting the film himself, with Edwards sidelined. Others say Gilroy has simply been added as a second unit director and additional screenwriter. It must be said that Rogue One does appear to be a heading into “too many cooks” territory, with After Earth’s Gary Whitta also previously removed from duties on a screenplay that, officially, is now entirely the work of The Golden Compass’s Chris Weitz. But again, The Force Awakens went through a similar process, with Little Miss Sunshine writer Michael Arndt’s script radically reworked by Abrams and Lawrence Kasdan. The end result there pleased most Star Wars fans. Reaction to reports of reshoots seems to have been split into two camps: those concerned that Disney might be trying to “water down” Edwards’ original vision, and those wondering why the Godzilla director was given the gig in the first place rather than somebody like Joss Whedon. Let’s not forget this is a director with origins in horror (the excellent Monsters), whose first major movie opened with a scene in which a husband looks on in terror as his wife is left trapped on the wrong side of a blast door in a collapsing nuclear reactor. Rogue One was always going to have its dark side. Studio sources have told Entertainment Weekly that the reshoots were scheduled long ago as part of the normal production process for a major film, and are mainly to add extra crackle to dialogue. But if Disney really has asked for a lighter tone, it says a lot about the success of Star Wars: The Force Awakens and its effect on the brave new cinematic universe being built around Abrams’ blockbuster megalith. When Rogue One was first announced, Edwards’ comments on the film suggested the spin-off movies would be given free rein to shift into spikier, weirder territory, while the main movies in Star Wars’ new trilogy cleaved closely to the long-running space saga’s traditional feelgood formula. That no longer appears to be the plan, if we are to believe some of this week’s reports. And in many ways that’s a pity. Star Wars, despite its fantasy leanings and the original 1977 film’s U rating, has never been a saga of buttercups and fairy cakes. From the deaths of Obi Wan-Kenobi, Yoda, Han Solo and Vader himself to Luke Skywalker’s Kurosawan loss of limb in The Empire Strikes Back, the series has always balanced light and dark. Moreover, if Disney really does want to make future films about morally dubious figures such as Boba Fett, it is going to have to accept that some episodes will be grimmer than others, and therefore less suitable for children. In the meantime, there are still a full six months before Rogue One hits cinemas, and there are far worse rumours to worry about than a few reshoots. Some fans still seem to be convinced that Hayden Christensen is returning as Darth Vader.
Top 10 books about cancer My relationship to cancer is professional but also personal, such that the terms used to characterise it – doctor, oncologist, investigator – can be added to, unhappily, by the words nephew, grandson, friend and son. Being a doctor is no protection of course, and can even, I’ve found, be spectacularly unhelpful. Nothing drains objectivity more than a family member’s name in the top left hand corner of the CT scan you search for confirmation, or for the signs of spread and damage. For years, I could also add the term “writer”, but only in secret, working at it in the morning before going to work, the way some people do their yoga or run. With the publication of my novel This Living and Immortal Thing, this secret is less zealously held and even to be publicised. Perhaps it will not matter. Perhaps I’ll be fired when it’s found out. But before there is a writer there’s a reader. These are some of the books I’ve read where cancer has figured, either as the dominating theme or in a walk-on role that you won’t forget. The list is personal, not exhaustive. Some of them I read as an oncologist, some as an interested bystander, and some with the pathos and pain of that nephew, grandson, friend and son. By the way, I’ve left out the most prominent recent book, The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee. This is not because I didn’t like it, but because I haven’t read it. (Apparently it’s very good.) 1. The Immortal Tale of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot I was halfway through my novel when I discovered – to my horror – that this book was coming out. Lacks is an important woman in cancer history and features in my book, albeit figuratively. She died of an aggressive cervical cancer in the 1950s, which was then maintained after her death as an immortalised cell line. I calmed down when I found out that Skloot’s book was biographical and, I like to think, a non-fictional counterpart to my own. 2. Sabbath’s Theater by Philip Roth One of the books where the illness is confined to a devastating side role. Although you could say the themes of Roth’s book – bodily cravings, pushed to their limit – are part of the same spectrum, the other end of it maybe. I had just moved to New York to begin a hospital fellowship when I read the part where Drenka, Mickey Sabbath’s lover, lies in the final stages of ovarian cancer. I remember well the terrible stillness in which I sat for minutes, the book closed in front of me, stunned by Roth’s highly specific language, the best depiction of a cancer patient I have ever read, before getting up and crossing First Avenue to go to clinic. 3. Memoir by John McGahern My favourite of all McGahern’s books, the narrator’s tone that of a small boy who will go through his entire life never quite getting over the early death from breast cancer of his adored mother. I got to know John a bit during his final illness while still working in Dublin. (I always tried to turn the conversation towards literature; he kept turning it back to his treatment.) Near the end of things he gave me a copy of this book bearing an inscription in handwriting I was too embarrassed to admit I couldn’t make out. (He had been a schoolteacher after all.) It was only when I eventually came to the end of the book, and after John’s passing, that I recognised his words as those of the last section in the book, among the most beautiful I have ever read: “I would want no shadow to fall on her joy or her deep trust in God. She would face no false reproaches. As we retraced our steps, I would pick for her the wild orchid and the windflower.” 4. Cancer Ward by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Perhaps the most famous work of fiction dealing directly with the disease. Definitely one of the books I read with my oncologist’s hat on. What struck me most was how dated and limited the treatments were. You either got radium or an “injection”. This was the 1950s. I believe the book was intended mainly as a commentary on the failures of communism as a reality, and its datedness now probably attests even further to this. From a science point of view it also attests to how far we’ve come in such a short time. It is a book from the beginning of an era, a primitive origins story. 5. The Newton Letter by John Banville Cancer as insidious player, shaper of behaviour, the quiet ongoing tragedy that you live with, hidden. (It is not the dreaded end I admire patients for bearing up to, but the everyday, the school runs and meals and holidays that must still go on, the breathing in and out, the paying the bills.) You can never know what other people are going through. 6. A Scattering by Christopher Reid The poet eulogises, remembers, draws out of the mundane episodes of vivid intensities, and generally introduces us to his late wife who died of sarcoma. The humour is always there, pointing at the devastation. One of the most moving books I have ever read. 7. Birds of America by Lorrie Moore Specifically the penultimate and most harrowing story in the collection – People Like That Are the Only People Here – where the narrator, a famous writer, finds herself in a pediatric oncology ward (“peed onk”), after her son develops a Wilm’s tumour. Two things stick in the memory: the image of how the tumour presented itself in the infant’s bloody stool (“startling against the white diaper, like a tiny mouse heart packed in snow”) and the terrifying and then awful moment where a doctor pulls her aside to speak in private, only for him to ask for her autograph. 8. The Biology of Cancer by Robert Weinberg A textbook, but pretty accessible as these things go. If you want to know the whys and hows of it, this would be worth a slow study. 9. It’s Not About the Bike by Lance Armstrong I was gutted when I found out that the No 7 yellow jerseys were worthless. But his cancer battle was real. (He had brain metatasis, for Christ’s sake.) And many good things came out of his foundation. They still do. I confess that I found myself skipping the oncology bits to his material on cycling. 10. Mortality by Christopher Hitchens A gathering of his Vanity Fair articles dealing with his sudden diagnosis of oesophageal cancer, which he experienced as a “gentle and firm deportation … from the country of the well across the stark frontier”. Brilliant and wry, obviously, but you can sense his fear and confusion, the furious struggle of the alert and combative mind to understand its new surroundings. I read this one as an oncologist, but also as a researcher. Hitchens was a defender of science and innovation. But I can’t help feeling we let him down. His descriptions of the limitations and toxicities of the standard therapies he received, as well as the transient hope of the experimental ones that didn’t work for him, remind us that while it is absolutely beyond question that we have come a long way from Solzhenitsyn’s comrade Rusanov getting his radium and his injections, nobody is or should be satisfied with the pace of things. This Living and Immortal Thing by Austin Duffy is published by Granta, priced £12.99. It is available from the bookshop priced £10.39, with free p&p.
FBI gives Clinton interview documents to Congress, report says – as it happened We’re going to wrap up our live blog politics coverage for the day. Click here for today’s Campaign Minute summary – and see you back here tomorrow! Donald Trump has told a local Wisconsin interviewer that he does not plan on unveiling a general election persona after all: Tim Kaine, pint, and incredible rainbow-unicorn-flying-past-the-moon T-shirt: The FBI has turned over material to a Republican-led congressional committee investigating Hillary Clinton’s use of private emails while secretary of state, the Washington Post reports. The material is believed to include notes on an interview FBI agents conducted with Clinton about her email hygiene. FBI director James Comey told Congress earlier this summer that the interview with Clinton was not recorded. The FBI has handed over a “number of documents” to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, a spokesman told the Post Tuesday afternoon. The Post quotes a committee spokesman: The FBI has turned over a ‘number of documents’ related to their investigation of former Secretary Clinton’s use of a personal email server. Committee staff is currently reviewing the information that is classified SECRET. There are no further details at this time. This morning the Washington Post delivered a poll showing Hillary Clinton leading Donald Trump among likely voters in Virginia by 8 points, a margin in line with polling averages. Meanwhile, Monmouth has released a poll of Florida likely voters showing Clinton up by 9 points: Polling averages have Clinton ahead by only three or four points in Florida. A Public Policy Polling survey of Texas, meanwhile, finds Trump ahead by only six points, in a four-way race. Mitt Romney won the state, which has not voted Democratic in a presidential election in 40 years, by 16 points in 2012: There’s a sliver of good news out there in polling land for Trump today, via Mobile, Alabama, local WKRG-5: Trump still has the Skynyrd vote. Donald Trump will appear at an event hosted by Iowa senator Joni Ernst later this month, in an effort to swing a state where polling averages show a tight two-point race. “The Roast and Ride is a great event to honor our veterans, celebrate the best of Iowa, and hear from our Republican candidates and leaders about a better way forward for our nation,” Ernst said in a statement. “Iowa will play an important role in 2016, and I look forward to rallying together with fellow Iowans to hear from this exciting lineup of speakers about ways to ensure America is always a strong, stabilizing force around the globe.” (h/t: @bencjacobs) The ’s Sabrina Siddiqui is in the room with Clinton in Philadelphia: Hillary Clinton is addressing supporters in Philadelphia. Here’s a live video stream: Trump campaign spokeswoman Hope Hicks has told The Hollywood Reporter that the Times and NY Magazine reports that Roger Ailes is advising Donald Trump are wrong. THR quotes Hicks as saying of Ailes: He is not advising Mr. Trump or helping with debate prep. They are longtime friends, but he has no formal or informal role in the campaign. Have you checked in lately on our election countdown fact generator? 84 days and counting! Donald Trump has said he “would be the best for women” if elected president. On the other hand, the New York Times reports, his campaign has just recruited Roger Ailes, the media maestro who resigned from Fox News last month following allegations that he sexually harassed numerous subordinates. For starters, Ailes is going to help Trump prepare for the debates, the Times reports: Mr. Ailes is aiding Mr. Trump’s team as it turns its attention to the first debate with Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee, on Sept. 26 on Long Island, according to three people briefed on the move, who insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter. Ailes, a former top aide to Richard Nixon, has helped past presidents prepare for debates including Ronald Reagan and George HW Bush. Josh Holmes is the former chief of staff and campaign manager of the current (Republican) senate majority leader. In the tweet below he refers to the conspiracy theory that Donald Trump is “running for president” in collusion with the Clintons/Democrats as opposed to against the Clintons/Democrats. The theory imagines a deal between Trump and the Clintons in which the plan was for him to win the Republican nomination and then throw the general election to Hillary Clinton. (Note: The theory rests very shakily on the notion that the conspirators would have thought that Donald Trump had a chance at winning the Republican presidential nomination.) The Morning Joe team at MSNBC has made a video illustrating how several foreign policy positions that Donald Trump bragged about yesterday – on Iraq, Libya and Egypt – did not used to be his policy positions: The ’s Luke Harding met Paul Manafort in 2007, a couple years after the current Trump campaign chairman had set up “an anonymous office at number 4 Sophia Street in Kiev” to restore the party of future Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovich to power. “Close up, Manafort looked every inch the classic Washington lobbyist,” Luke writes: He wore an expensive suit and tie and exuded seriousness. He also bore a faint physical resemblance to his client – even their hairstyles were similar. (Manafort, I was told later, had instructed Yanukovich to blow-dry his hair. Manafort’s camp denies this.) The American had an interesting story to tell – one which may sound familiar to observers of Donald Trump’s campaign – of how his candidate had been almost wilfully misunderstood by the west, especially by its media. The new Yanukovich was nothing like the old one, Manafort suggested. He had absorbed the lessons of his previous defeats, was studying English – and was even playing tennis with the US ambassador. “People are still looking at the political system in this country through the prism of 2004,” Manafort told me. “That’s not at all the situation here.” But after Yanukovich claimed the presidency in 2010, he “moved quickly to consolidate all instruments of power,” Luke writes: Those who worked with Manafort say that he cannot be blamed for the Ukrainian disaster. Oleg Voloshin, a former aide to Kostyantyn Gryshchenko, Yanukovich’s 2010-12 foreign minister who now works as a political consultant, says Manafort urged Yanukovich to press ahead with the EU integration agenda. Voloshin still has ties with the ex-Party of Regions, which Manafort rebranded in 2014 as the Opposition Bloc. (Manafort’s consultancy in Ukraine continued until at least parliamentary elections in 2014.) He suggests that Yanukovich “listened to what Paul said” between 2007-2010, but then, once he became president, stopped listening – with catastrophic results. [...] But Manafort’s critics in Kiev are scathing. “He’s an evil genius,” Alex Kovzhun, who spent a decade working for [former Ukrainian prime minister Yulia] Tymoshenko, beginning in 2001, said. “He doesn’t work statesmen. He works dictators and all-round bastards. He sells the unsellable product. If you have a dead horse and you need to sell it, you call him.” “He works bad guys. They pay more, of course.” Read the full piece here: Hello and welcome to our live-wire coverage of the 2016 race for the White House. Donald Trump is scheduled to travel today to restive Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where the police killing of Sylville Smith on Saturday has sparked protests. Trump will participate in a town hall hosted this evening by Fox News. The ’s Oliver Laughland will be on the scene. Hillary Clinton is campaigning in Pennsylvania today. The ’s Sabrina Siddiqui will be with the candidate, including at a voter registration event in Philadelphia this afternoon. Blame it on Kaine? A new Washington Post poll of Virginia voters holds good news for Clinton and running mate Tim Kaine, the commonwealth’s former governor and junior US senator. Clinton is up 14 points on Trump among registered voters in the poll, and up eight points among likely voters. The second margin is on the button with polling averages. Clinton leads Trump by seven points in a four-person race, according to the poll. Virginia is theoretically a swing state. Nevermind Virginia. Last night Kaine had moved on to North Carolina: Particularly worrisome for Trump in the poll might be his mere 24-point lead among non-college-educated white voters: Clinton names transition team Clinton’s campaign on Tuesday named a leadership line-up for her transition team, which will prepare the way should she win the November election, Reuters reports: Ken Salazar, previously both a secretary of the interior and a Colorado senator, will chair the team ... the team will include four co-chairs, according to a statement: former National Security Adviser Tom Donilon, former Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm, president of the Center for American Progress Neera Tanden, and Maggie Williams, director of Harvard’s Institute of Politics. Thanks for reading and please join us in the comments.
Is the European Union demanding even more of our money? The claim The European Union is “demanding even more of our money”, the leave campaign is claiming. According to Boris Johnson, British taxpayers face a “triple whammy of woe”: a £2.4bn bill to plug a hole in the EU budget, plus extra contributions to pay for the migration crisis and eurozone bailouts. The former mayor of London is repeating his claim that the UK is sending £350m a week to Brussels. Johnson and fellow Brexiter Michael Gove also say the UK is “sending more and more money to a dysfunctional bureaucracy that has no proper democratic oversight”. Is the EU sending £350m a week to Brussels? This claim has been exposed as misleading again and again, most recently by the Treasury select committee, which concluded the leave figure was “tendentious”. Once the British rebate and contributions from the EU budget are taken into account, the UK makes a net weekly contribution of £110m. But this figure does not take into account the economic gains from being part of a single market of 500 million people. Is the EU demanding even more of our money? This claim is false. In 2013 European leaders fixed the EU budget for seven years until 2020, when they agreed the first spending cut in the bloc’s history. One source at the European commission described reports that member states would be asked for more money as nonsense. A spokesman said the amounts agreed in 2013 are set in stone, adding that “unless all member states agree to those amounts being changed, they cannot be changed”. The UK has a veto and can overrule spending plans it objects to. What about that £20bn black hole? The EU did run up backlog of €26bn (£20bn) in bills, as a result of a rapid expansion of road-building and infrastructure projects in central and eastern Europe. Kristalina Georgieva, the commission’s vice-president in charge of the budget, agreed a payment plan with member states in 2015. The backlog will be reduced to what EU sources regard as a “reasonable level” of €2bn by the end of this year, following a deal by EU finance ministers and MEPs. Where is the democratic oversight? The EU’s seven-year budget is not decided by civil servants in Brussels, but agreed by EU heads of state and government. Each year the EU’s 28 finance ministers and European parliament have to agree annual spending limits. Won’t the UK be dragged into paying for the migration crisis or another eurozone bailout? David Cameron got EU leaders to make a legally binding promise in February that non-euro countries would not be required to contribute to eurozone bailouts. The commission had already promised to write this into EU law in July 2015 at the height of the Greek debt crisis. The EU has increased spending on refugee aid, especially in Greece, but is doing so by juggling existing resources rather than asking countries to pay more. The verdict: The leave campaign has been urged to repaint its battle bus to cover up the misleading claim the UK sends £350m a week to Brussels. These latest claims on the EU budget deserve a similar treatment.
Linda turned up at A&E twice a day. A dedicated team now stops that In a desperate effort to get relief for excruciating pain caused by osteoarthritis, curvature of the spine, and abdominal discomfort following surgery, Linda Douglas went to A&E twice a day. The chronically ill 48-year-old, who lives near Sunderland, was “at the end of [her] rope” because of the constant pain and frequent hospital visits, and felt life “was not worth living”. That was until a new team of health and social care professionals took over her case and improved her quality of life from “six to 99%” in early 2016. The team comprising her GP, consultant, community matron, social worker and paramedic worked together to come up with a care plan tailored to her needs. Now, she can largely avoid hospital and live a much more normal life, mainly because John, her husband and carer, has been trained to administer her daily medication. She says: “My life was driven by fear. I was terrified of being unwell and not being able to get the care I needed to control my pain. I don’t need to worry any more. It’s like a weight has been lifted.” Douglas was helped thanks to the All Together Better partnership, part of NHS England’s Vanguard programme that was ushered in last year via chief executive, Simon Stevens’s Five Year Forward View blueprint policy. This same programme, which was expected to champion ways of providing better, more efficient care for heavy users of NHS services, has not been given as much money as originally hoped. According to Kerry McQuade, head of vanguard delivery in Sunderland, the £4.8m the partnership received in 2016/17 did not match the initial bid, although it received more than similar projects in other parts of the country. Sunderland is one of the most deprived cities in England. On average, people born there start having health problems more than 10 years before those born in wealthier parts of the country, and die more than six years sooner. The NHS is a big part of many lives there, but a small minority of long term sick, vulnerable or frail elderly locals account for a large proportion of health and social care resources. Six per cent of the population – those with long-term, multiple illnesses – are responsible for half of the city’s health spend. With the pressure on from NHS England to reduce costs by nearly £1bn by 2021 in the Northumberland, Tyne and Wear region as central funding is squeezed, the focus on the most needy patients makes sense. Local GP Dr Fadi Khalil describes Sunderland’s scheme – one of 14 across England – as “massive” in scale. Covering nearly 300,000 patients at 50 GP practices across the city, it is focused on reducing hospital admissions via a series of initiatives designed to offer care that aim to keep patients well and cared for where they live. In the past, despite the “best intentions in the world”, the most needy patients weren’t getting the best care because of a disjointed and fragmented set of services, says Khalil. Patients had to undergo repeat visits to A&E, repeat crisis admissions to hospital, and had to repeat their stories to a string of frontline primary, community, acute and social care staff. This was not only bad for them but a tremendous waste of precious resources. Finally, under the vanguard programme, local authority and health commissioners and providers are being encouraged to work together with patients. “In the past when someone [got] a chest infection, they would end up in hospital. Now we’ve got things in place that keep them at home where they’re safer and more familiar with their environment,” Khalil says. Such patients, who have been identified by their GPs as at risk of rapid onset of health problems, have access to their GP, and a nurse or paramedic out of hours who can visit them at home, and who make regular check-ups to prevent urgent, unplanned visits to hospital. Five teams, created late last year, are at the core of Sunderland’s scheme, with community matrons, district nurses and social workers all were moved into the same office. It was a shock to the system at first and “initially quite daunting”, according to adult social care team manager Rachel Daurat, particularly to the social workers who had to move out of their dedicated offices at Sunderland city council. She says health and social care have traditionally worked to entirely different agendas. However, working together on a patient case has meant they have been able to learn from each other’s perspectives and ensure different providers are working in harmony to improve circumstances for those receiving their care. Sue Hughes, a district nurse taking part in the initiative agrees: “We are just a team now,” she says. “We understand the pressures we each face day to day and we support each other. It’s hard to ever imagine us going back – and I don’t think it could work.” Join the Healthcare Professionals Network to read more pieces like this. And follow us on Twitter (@GdnHealthcare) to keep up with the latest healthcare news and views.
If You Kiss Me, Kiss Me review – teenage kicks with Jane Horrocks The actor and singer Jane Horrocks, best known as daffy Bubble in the BBC TV series Absolutely Fabulous, grew up in rural Lancashire, and in her teens was captivated by northern bands such as Joy Division, Buzzcocks and the Smiths. Now 52, Horrocks has conceived a show with the director-choreographer Aletta Collins in which she sings 13 of her favourite songs from that era. The show’s title, If You Kiss Me, Kiss Me, is taken from Soft Cell’s The Girl With the Patent Leather Face. As Horrocks sings, and a band plays, four dancers perform choreography by Collins. Sometimes they interact with Horrocks, sometimes not. They are in no sense her backing dancers, and Collins has gone to some trouble to avoid any suggestion of the video-clip format. As Horrocks belts out Gang of Four’s Anthrax, Conor Doyle writhes on the stage, his limbs scything and scissoring through a routine that’s part breakdance, part death spasm. As she performs the Fall’s My New House, complete with Mark E Smith-style banshee wails, Horrocks rolls over the prone dancers like luggage on an airport scanner. Like Michael Clark, Collins introduces classical motifs in unexpected contexts: as Horrocks delivers Cabaret Voltaire’s Nag Nag Nag – “Home again asphalt boys, broken bodies, broken toys…” – Daniel Hay-Gordon performs a classroom-perfect pas de chat, his ironic delicacy a nicely judged counterpoint to Doyle’s blokeish elan. The show riffs on notions of physical size. The set consists of a giant three-pin plug in a giant socket. Is this a reference to Horrocks’s connection to the outside world via her radio and record player – or perhaps, in that the cast shrink to miniature, Borrower-like scale in front of it, to her 5ft 2in stature? “I want to be tall tall tall, as big as a wall wall wall,” she sings, echoing the Human League. Horrocks conveys, effectively, the sardonic anger and the poetry of the songs. But what we never learn is what they meant, and presumably continue to mean, to her. She addresses a few rather impersonal words to us about “the ubiquitous premise of the love song”, but that’s as far as it goes. We don’t get any intimate, close-focus stuff. No wistful recollections of teenage heartbreak, no tales of romantic yearning in Lancastrian back-bedrooms. If Horrocks experienced the “dreams of love and dreams of pain, and dreams again again again…” that Pete Shelley describes in Buzzcocks’ Fiction Romance, and that every teenager who ever lived can viscerally connect with, she keeps it to herself. She delivers the song capably enough, and Collins’s spiky, sub-robotic moves and baroque flourishes frame it neatly, but there’s an emotional vacancy at the heart of the number, and indeed the show, that no amount of choreography can disguise. It’s a pity, because we feel instinctive affection for Horrocks. She’s funny, quirky and clever. But here she chooses to keep her distance, which rather robs the show of its point.
Leicester City 0-0 Arsenal: Premier League – as it happened A draw is probably the right result overall, though Leicester should certainly have had a penalty in the 88th minute. Koscielny and Drinkwater were superb, and Mahrez produced four or five moments of genius. Thanks for your company, goodnight. 90+3 min Drinkwater’s free-kick hits his own man King, and that’s the end of the match! 90+2 min Mahrez almost wins it for Leicester with a brilliant run and shot that is saved by Cech! The rebound comes to Musa, who can’t decide whether to shoot or pass and ends up doing neither. Leicester keep the ball alive and Holding is booked for clattering Ulloa in the D. The free-kick might be the last kick of the game. 90 min There will be three added minutes. The game is suddenly wide open. 89 min Yep, that should have been a penalty; there was a tangle of legs and Bellerin clearly fouled Musa. 88 min The substitute Musa dupes Bellerin superbly on the left and breaks into the box before going over as Bellerin challenges him from behind. That looked a penalty, but Mark Clattenburg disagreed. 86 min Leicester bring on Ahmed Musa for the excellent Albrighton. 83 min The outrushing Schmeichel makes a fine save to deny Ozil, who tried to slide it past him from a narrow angle after an excellent pass from Sanchez. Arsenal are well on top now thanks to the probing of Ozil and especially Wilshere. 80 min WIlshere’s dangerous low cross is hooked clear by Simpson, an important intervention at the far post, and moments later Morgan makes a superb sliding block from Walcott’s low shot. I think that was going in. 78 min An old man is carefully applying some kind of cream to Olivier Giroud’s nipples, which can mean only one thing: he’s about to replace Oxlade-Chamberlain. 76 min “Dodginess of provision has denied me Leicester-Arsenal moving images for a while, Rob,” says Charles Antaki. “But your comments suggest that the game has had a bit less incident than Barcelona 6-2 Betis. Perhaps Giroud ought to come on and change all that?” 75 min Ozil introduces himself to Fuchs with a delicious Cruyff turn on the right. That starts a move that ends with Walcott shooting fairly tamely at Schmeichel with his left foot. 73 min A double change for Arsenal, with Wilshere and Ozil replacing Xhaka and Cazorla. Xhaka played well on his full debut. 70 min Vardy misses an excellent chance! Albrighton robbed Xhaka and put Vardy through in the inside-right channel. He scooted into the area but sliced his shot wide of the near post from eight yards. He was under pressure from Koscielny, who got back superbly, but he should at least have worked Cech. 69 min Sanchez runs onto a long pass down the right, and Schmeichel hares out of his box to clear the danger with a diving header that goes out for a throw-in. 68 min Arsenal earn a corner on the left. It’s cleared and Leicester break through Mahrez, who tries a killer pass to Vardy that is intercepted by the last man. 67 min A Leicester substitution: Okazaki off, Ulloa on, with instructions to enliven this muck. 66 min “It’s a game that needs a goal,” says the BT Sport commentator Darren Fletcher. He is not wrong. 63 min Leicester have had much more possession since half-time, and look the likelier scorers. Mahrez is starting to do good things with the ball. 58 min Oxlade-Chamberlain lofts an inviting pass back to Bellerin, whose rising half-volley from 25 yards is comfortably patted down by Schmeichel. It was a lovely strike but too straight. 57 min Drinkwater wins a corner for Leicester, who are having an excellent spell. Albrighton’s outswinging corner is headed away by Walcott, who thus reminds us that he’s on the pitch. 55 min The sublime Mahrez beats Coquelin with a stepover and is taken down just outside the area. Coquelin, already booked, is pretty lucky not to be given a second yellow. Mahrez curls the resulting free-kick just over the top, though Cech had it covered. 52 min Mendy comes back on and goes straight down. His game is over, and he could be out for a while as that looks like a ligament injury. That’s a sad way to end his league debut. Andy King comes on to replace him. 51 min Mendy is being helped towards the touchline. He wants to continue so the physios are testing out his leg while play goes on. 49 min Mendy gets his foot stuck as he intercepts a pass and goes down in considerable pain. That could be ligament damage; it looked pretty nasty and Andy King is being readied. 48 min Vardy hunts down a backpass to Cech, who calmly beats his man with a dragback. People are just openly ridiculing Joe Hart now. 47 min A reminder that both teams have some lively options from the bench, including Musa, Ozil, Giroud and Gray. We can only hope one of them might do something. 46 min Peep peep! The second half is under way. As it stands, both teams are five points behind the Manchester clubs. Has Claudio Ranieri taken Leicester as far as he can? “Wenger is more like the Beatles,” says Tom Murdock. “Ten years of glorious, unprecedented success, followed by tragedy, mediocrity and thoughts of what might have been.” So which player is the Frog Chorus? “Arsene Wenger is the Rolling Stones of football management in England,” says Justin Kavanagh. “A revolutionary start bringing a whole new style from abroad, followed by a glorious peak of success, then the long, slow decline into predictable if respectable economic success. Claudio Ranieri on the other hand, is Leonard Cohen, currently enjoying a miraculous second coming.” So which one’s Wilson Phillips? Some half-time reading Both sides worked very hard and did many good things. But in terms of old-fashioned entertainment, that was a dreadful half. See you in 10 minutes. 44 min Howard Webb on Snapchat thinks Koscielny got the ball when he tackled Drinkwater. It’s not entirely clear on the replays, so you can at least understand why Clattenburg didn’t give it. I thought it was a penalty. More importantly for lovers of all things beautiful, the pass from Mahrez was glorious. 42 min Leicester might have had a penalty then. Mahrez put Vardy through on goal with the most ingenious angled pass from the right touchline. Cech came from his line to dive at Vardy’s feet, a superb interception; then Drinkwater followed up and seemed to be clearly tripped by Koscielny. Mark Clattenburg disagreed. 40 min A couple of important defensive headers from Koscielny, who has been excellent thus far. 38 min Oxlade-Chamberlain combines well with Alexis and roars past Simpson on the halfway line. Arsenal eventually recycle possession five or six times before Xhaka welts a long-range shot well wide. 35 min This game is, in the parlance of our time, boring. 33 min “I’d like to name things that WILL affect Wenger’s reputation when we’re all done here: years 11-20 of his tenure at Arsenal,” says Robert Wilbanks. “You’re welcome.” All those top-four finishes; it’s a wonder he can sleep at night. 31 min Cazorla almost scores with a booming free-kick from the left wing. It beat everyone and bounced up towards the far corner, but Schmeichel was alert enough to dive to his left and push it behind for a corner. 28 min Vardy shows outrageous pace to make good Drinkwater’s overhit pass. He plays it back to Albrighton, whose cross is cleared. 27 min I wonder how much BT paid for this match. Unless it was less than 50 pence, they probably aren’t getting value for money. 26 min A lovely effort from Oxlade-Chamberlain, who moves infield from the left, away from Mahrez, before curling just wide of the far post from 20 yards. 25 min “Last season’s champions being held at home without much penetration by either side,” says Charles Antaki. “Yes, it’s Barcelona 1, Betis 1. But desultory switching between games suggests that the football in one is a little more entertaining than in the other.” I hate football. 24 min Coquelin is booked for a foul on Vardy. 23 min Here’s Mike Gibbons. “Other things that won’t affect Arsene Wenger’s reputation when we’re all done here - collections of the oxymoronic ‘best tweets’ that succinctly banter his team selection and tactics during games, and the ‘is the camera on me yet?’ faux outrage on Arsenal TV.” I don’t understand why coverage of football, as compared to other sports, is so bloody infantile. 22 min Don’t worry, I’ll wake you up when something happens. 20 min Arsenal are pinning Leicester in their half, though their domination is of the sterile variety. 17 min Morgan makes a crucial interception from Bellerin’s low cross; Walcott was waiting behind him with an open goal. That said, it wasn’t the best cross from Bellerin, who had an angle to take Morgan out of the game and still find Walcott. 14 min It’s all bit a frantic at the moment. Hey, men, slow down. 12 min Albrighton volleys a good long pass to Mahrez, who beats Monreal with ease but then overhits the cross. 9 min A long spell of possession from Arsenal yields the square root of bugger all. 7 min The pattern of the game is as expected, with Arsenal dominating possession and Leicester playing on the counter. 5 min “95,000 summer rooms £35 or less,” writes Travelodge. “Why not visit the UK’s friendliest places.” 3 min Drinkwater passes the ball straight into touch. He’ll never make a goalkeeper. 2 min A lively start, this. Sanchez’s shot is blocked, and Cazorla’s 25-yard follow-up deflects wide for a corner. 1 min Arsenal, in yellow, kick off from right to left. Football! Vardy wins a corner after 16 seconds with an aggressive run at Koscielny. There’s a great atmosphere in the stadium, with a striking, pop-art ‘CHAMPIONS OF ENGLAND’ banner behind one of the goals. Leicester, champions? Yes, it really, really, really did happen. Pre-match reading Leicester (4-4-2) Schmeichel; Simpson, Huth, Morgan, Fuchs; Mahrez, Drinkwater, Mendy, Albrighton; Okazaki, Vardy. Substitutes: Hernandez, Musa, King, Amartey, Zieler, Gray, Ulloa Arsenal (4-2-3-1) Cech; Bellerin, Holding, Koscielny, Monreal; Xhaka, Coquelin; Walcott, Cazorla, Oxlade-Chamberlain; Alexis. Substitutes: Ospina, Gibbs, Wilshere, Giroud, Ozil, Chambers, Elneny. Hello. Here’s where we’re at: Leicester and Arsenal, the top two last season, meet in the second game of the new season knowing that, if they lose, they will probably be deemed to be in crisis. It’s an insane, offensive state of affairs, indicative of a game that has not only lost touch with reality but deliberately ostracised it. If that wasn’t bad enough, it’s now put the dullards in charge of the debating society! Arsenal, in particular, need a result or they and Arsene Wenger are in serious danger of being overwhelmed by the brattish entitlement of their more extreme and narcissistic fans. Things aren’t so serious for Leicester but you don’t an A-level in England Studies to know that the people of this country like to play Jenga with their sportsmen. If you step away from the hot air it’s possible to recognise that Leicester are immortal and Arsene Wenger is the best thing that ever happened to Arsenal. In the long term, the result of a match in August isn’t going to change that. Kick off is at 5.30pm.
Comedian Mo Amer sat next to Eric Trump on a flight: I said 'I'm a Muslim' Comedian Mo Amer was glad of his upgrade when it pinged on the board. His tiredness – he had only just arrived back from Australia, and was heading from the US to Scotland – slipped away as he thought of the first-class sleep he would get. But when he got to the front of the jet bridge, there was a strange atmosphere. “You know when there’s a celebrity on the flight there’s a different energy on the plane,” Amer said. “I walked to my seat and I could see the lady behind me looked perturbed by something.” He followed her eyes to the seat next to his, where he saw the famous man, unmistakable, wearing a blue sweater emblazoned with his family crest. “I’m like: are you kidding? Eric Trump?” Amer was born in Kuwait to Palestinian parents, and came to America as an asylum-seeker after the first Gulf War and became a US citizen in 2009. He saw his assignment as a golden opportunity, both as a Muslim, an American and a comedian. “I put my bags up, I sat down, introduced myself as Mohammed,” Amer told the . Then he got straight to the point. “I said: ‘I’m a Muslim. I’m not gonna do that Muslim ID thing. That’s not gonna fly.’” Eric Trump’s response was not exactly on-message with his father’s campaign. “His exact words were: ‘come on, man, don’t believe everything you read, we’re not going to do that’,” Amer said. Representatives for president-elect Trump did not respond to a request for clarification on the policy, or Trump’s past suggestion of a registry of Muslims. Eric Trump was on his way to their golf course, Turnberry, in Scotland, for a 24-hour visit; Amer was on his way to take part in The Human Appeal Charity Comedy Tour. As the conversation progressed, the comedian found his seat-mate quite amiable. In a very friendly 45-minute chat, they bonded over mutual appreciation for Dave Chappelle sketches – Amer has opened for Chappelle on stage – and Trump complained about the difficulties of having to travel with the secret service in tow. Trump asked Amer, as a comedian, to “take it easy, take it easy on us”. Amer said sorry, but no. “I was like, part of what we do as comedians, we observe the world and talk about its absurdities.” The conversation, however, returned inevitably to politics. “I told him: I knew you were going to win. Your father played the game so well, he played the media like a fiddle. He just nodded yes. He mentioned his dad was a good man and what-have-you – but it’s not going to change my views.” Amer doubts that he changed Trump’s mind either. “I hope [I did], on some level ... but do I think it happened? Probably not. But it doesn’t hurt to have a civil conversation with someone you rarely interact with.” “I see the whole thing [politics] as a game,” Amer said. “I know it’s just chess pieces moving. That doesn’t mean I feel nothing, like it doesn’t affect me [and] my family.” His wife, he said, is Mexican-American, a navy grad, born in Key West, Florida. Nonetheless, in his chat with Eric Trump, Amer kept things very friendly. “I think it was important for me to sit there and put aside my feelings about the situation and truly, truly be present in that moment and have a conversation,” he said. “Because people fear what they don’t know.”
Readers recommend playlist: your songs about volunteering Here is this week’s playlist – tunes picked by a reader from your suggestions after last week’s callout. Thanks for them all. Read more about how our weekly readers recommend series works at the end of the piece. A volunteer can be defined as one who “freely offers to do something” and the offerings from the RR community this week produced a fine variety of takes on the “something” in question. The community angle gets our list off to a boisterous start with the exhortations of Canned Heat in Let’s Work Together … Come on now people Let’s get on the ball and work together Come on, come on, let’s work together … underlining that it can be important to organise and enthuse potential volunteers for maximum benefit and enjoyment all round. While on that subject, I’m eager to echo a fellow reader’s timely comment from earlier in the week: Well spoke, as they say. On with the list and selflessness was much in evidence this week, vividly portrayed as it is in Jacob’s Dream by Alison Krauss. In the spring of 1856 two boys aged five and six became lost in the Pennsylvanian forest wilderness. Several hundred volunteers searched for two weeks for the children, but it was apparently only after a man named Jacob Dilbert dreamed of their location that their bodies were eventually located. More understated, but still oddly poignant selflessness features in A Postcard to Nina by Jens Lekman. The video is a touching animation by Nathan Heigert, telling the story of Jens going a significant number of extra miles to help his friend Nina avoid some parental relationship-approval issues. Things don’t progress entirely smoothly, which adds to the song’s general charm. A much shorter journey next, but still one with positive benefits for a companion. Reader Pairubu sums up Fats Domino’s My Girl Josephine: “When it rained, for some reason, Ms Josephine ‘couldn’t walk’ so Fats would ‘Tote you on my back’. What a picture that conjures up in one’s mind.” Fats’ selflessness thus saves the day, albeit only from the effects of inclement weather. Contrast this positive outcome with the travails that ensue for a volunteer placing themselves in the less than expert hands of Warren Zevon’s protagonist in For My Next Trick I’ll Need a Volunteer: I can saw a woman in two But you won’t want to look in the box when I’m through Volunteering conjures images of “signing up” for causes, or conflicts, and there were a number of fine nominations in that vein. One of the most hauntingly memorable included the lines: We all volunteered, and we wrote down our names And we added two years to our ages Eager for life and ahead of the game Ready for history’s pages In making the suggestion, SpoilheapSurfer observed that the singer’s voice is “like a windchime made of six-inch nails”. It’s worth listening to 1916 by Motörhead just to check how wonderfully accurate that description is. Viva la Quinta Brigada was the pick of several songs referencing the Spanish civil war. Powerful storytelling, given added resonance by Christy Moore’s elegant name-checking of specific volunteers “from every corner of the world” standing beside the Spanish people. Sublime. And from the sublime to, well, to something else – Paper Lace, with Billy, Don’t Be a Hero. In fairness, this earns its place on grounds both aesthetic and dramatic; not only is Billy embroiled in battle to begin with, he’s the one who unflinchingly volunteers to ride out and seek reinforcements. That extra mile again. Conflict exists even in the title of Rahsaan Roland Kirk’s Volunteered Slavery. Much historical and philosophical discourse is available online and elsewhere about the concept. The song itself is a remarkable sax-driven amalgam of jazzy, bluesy, gospelly call and response goings-on. A tad more accessible is Let’s Hear It for the Volunteers, a celebratory round-up of ways to be helpful. Mustard’s Retreat sing the praises of cookie makers, hall openers, chair putters-away and all those others whose efforts help small town community activities to thrive. I’m hoping there’s already something to appeal to most tastes this week, but there’s surely room in any list for a public information film backed with an hypnotic electrogroove soundtrack, so our penultimate selection is Dig for Victory by Public Service Broadcasting. It admittedly takes a bit of time before the tune kicks in, so it’s worth persevering with the initial “garden implement and community spirit” footage. The one issue that remains is how the vital foodstuffs secured by digging for victory are to be distributed among those who most need them, and luckily Vic Reeves offers the solution: Meals on Wheels. New theme: how to join in The new theme will be announced at 8pm (GMT) on Thursday 10 November. You have until 11pm on 14 November to submit nominations. Here’s a reminder of some of the guidelines for RR: If you have a good theme idea, or if you’d like to volunteer to compile a playlist from readers’ suggestions and write a blog about it, please email matthew.holmes@theguardian.com. There is a wealth of data on RR, including the songs that are “zedded”, at the Marconium. It also tells you the meaning of “zedded”, “donds” and other strange words used by RR regulars. Many RR regulars also congregate at the ’Spill blog.
Competition regulator's grilling on banks was exquisite torture Inquiries into the banking sector have arrived at a rate of about one a year for the past couple of decades, but has any been as feeble as this summer’s offering from the Competition and Markets Authority? That was the one that concluded that a few tweaks, like better price comparison websites and a voluntary cap on overdraft charges, might succeed where stiffer remedies had failed in the past to boost competition. Andrew Tyrie, chair of the Treasury select committee, who knows a thing or two about banking inquiries (he’s conducted a couple himself), is not the only person to think the CMA “dropped the catch”, as he put it. But Tuesday’s questioning-cum-torture of Alasdair Smith, who chaired the CMA’s investigation, was exquisitely done. As he waved a copy of Smith’s latest attempt to combat the criticism, Tyrie turned his headmasterly scorn to maximum: “This speech has an air of complacency greater than ever I have read from a regulator. It seems to say ‘don’t worry, let time go by, let’s build on existing practices, let’s use behavioural remedies of an incremental nature and we’ll be fine.’” Yes, that’s a fair summary. The only possible defence of the CMA is that structural remedies – like reversing the 2008 merger of Lloyds and HBOS – attract little political support. Royal Bank of Scotland, for example, has made the job of splitting off 300 branches resemble the labours of Hercules. Even so, the CMA could have been far bolder. The shame, as Tyrie argued, is that regulators have rarely had such an opportunity to improve the lot of banking customers. After the crash and scandals, the balance of power shifted away from the corporate lobbyists. The next inquiry – and there’s always another – can’t come soon enough. Shell dividend still hostage to the oil price Here’s a group of winners from Brexit: those Shell shareholders who elect to receive their dividends in sterling. The oil giant, operating in an industry that runs on dollars, has kept its quarterly dividend unchanged all year at 47 cents a share but, after sterling’s fall, the progress looks much better in pennies: 32.9p in the first quarter, 35.3p in the second and, at current exchange rates, 38.4p for the third. That’s a handy improvement. It is also, however, a sideshow to the main event. Can Shell, after consuming BG Group at the start of the year, afford to sustain its dividend at such levels, in any currency? We’re not talking small change. With BG on board, the Shell dividend costs $15bn a year to maintain, which is a reason why many investors were sceptical about the £35bn purchase. Some 17% of shareholders voted against the deal, which counts as serious dissent. Shell executive Ben van Beurden has won round one. His gamble is looking better than it did in January. The price of a barrel of Brent has improved from $32 to $48, allowing Shell to boast that, unlike many rivals, it did not pay dividends out of debt in the latest quarter. Meanwhile, the company is doing its best to demonstrate that, just as it told the doubters, it can duck and dive. Another few billions have been hacked out of next year’s spending budget. Jolly good. But here’s why van Beurden, who staked his reputation on the BG deal, can’t relax yet. Debt is a colossal $78bn and financial gearing, at 29.2%, is bumping up against Shell’s self-imposed ceiling of 30%. Some $30bn-worth of assets are due to be sold, but talk of disposals is not the same as cold cash. In short, the dividend still looks hostage to the oil price. If a barrel costs $60 a barrel in a year’s time, Shell is out of the woods. But another year of sub-$50 prices would test the company’s ability to keep investors sweet while investing for the future. There is no point trying to predict the oil price but we can say this much: the shares looked a decent bet at £13 in January, as said here at the time, but today’s £22 looks too much, too soon. That dividend, yielding 7% in sterling terms, is not safe yet. Saying no to Hargreaves Lansdown’s Lloyds stunt Publicity stunts masquerading as serious petitions to government are a modern irritant. So it is encouraging that only 30,000 people have so far signed Hargreaves Lansdown’s attempt to get the government to flog a few Lloyds Banking Group shares to the general public at a discount. Chancellor Philip Hammond sensibly reversed his predecessor’s idea of selling shares at less than their market price. This annoyed Hargreaves, an investment platform, because it had 374,000 potential investors lined up, some of whom could become valuable customers for years. But the commercial self-interest behind the petition was so blatant it was offensive. If nine out of 10 of Hargreaves’s would-be Lloyds punters decline to sign, that’s a good thing.
Previously unknown Ingmar Bergman script to be filmed by former antagonist A previously unknown script by Swedish director Ingmar Bergman, intended to be part of a collaboration with Federico Fellini and Akira Kurosawa, is to be turned into a film to mark the 100th anniversary of his birth. Sixty-Four Minutes With Rebecka, written in 1969, is about a teacher of deaf children who falls pregnant. The film follows her over the course of a few days, during which she gets into a car accident, visits a sex club and goes to dress fittings. The role was intended to be played by Katharine Ross, who had at the time been nominated for an Oscar for her role in The Graduate. Bergman’s script was to be his contribution to a portmanteau film with Fellini and Kurosawa, but the collaboration never came to fruition. It was not until Bergman donated his archive to the foundation he set up in his name in 2002 that its existence came to light. Bergman’s script will be adapted and filmed by Suzanne Osten, one of Sweden’s most prominent directors, and a surprising choice given that Osten and Bergman were openly hostile to each other up until his death in 2007. They were on opposite sides of the cultural struggle of the late 1960s: Bergman was seen as traditionalist, individualist and patriarchal, whereas Osten was one of the founders of the radical, feminist and collectivist Group 8 movement. They also had personal conflicts. Osten’s mother, a film critic and would-be film-maker, had worked for Bergman on one of his early movies, but could not progress in the male-dominated industry of the time. Osten’s first film, Mamma, was about this struggle and portrayed Bergman in an unflattering light. Their next clash was in Glasgow in 1990, when Osten’s film, The Angel – which had won prizes and had been well received at Cannes – had eight nominations at the European film awards. “I was sure we would get some prizes,” Osten told the . But Bergman was chairman of the jury and they won nothing. Osten believed he had blocked her film, so she sent him a long letter attacking him. Osten also tells a story of Bergman warning a friend not to work with her. “He said, ‘Don’t get near her, I will shoot her’”, Osten said. “That was pretty tough … he really did some mean things to me.” The script took a serendipitous path into Osten’s hands. It was initially offered to the national radio station, Sveriges Radio, with the idea that it would be recorded and broadcast for Bergman’s centenary in 2018. One of Osten’s former students had just been appointed as head of the station’s drama department and offered it to her former teacher, who liked it so much she decided to turn it into a film as well. Osten has already adapted it as a radio play, which will have its world premiere on 6 November on Sveriges Radio. “At first I was rather reluctant,” Osten said. “I had zero idea what it was. And then I was really enthusiastic when I read it. I exclaimed immediately, ‘Wow! He was a feminist for 64 minutes!’” Sixty-Four Minutes With Rebecka was written around the same time as Shame, The Passion of Anna and The Touch, films Osten describes as very different to the rest of Bergman’s canon. “They’re so political and open-minded, and of the zeitgeist,” she said. “When you see his text, it’s very good. Politically, he became very conservative, but as an artist he was still struggling with the existential questions. Sixty-Four Minutes is so openly optimistic and on the woman’s side. It has his sadism and his tension – it’s very good dialogue, for instance. It’s in the framework of his 1969-71 films, but it’s something of its own kind.” Particularly shocking is the scene in the sex club, in which Rebecka asks a man to have sex with her, telling him “I want it to really hurt”, and later revealing that he had nearly killed her. But Osten said the script is unusually progressive for Bergman, especially in the portrayal of Rebecka and one of her deaf students. “This girl is very vivid and rebellious. She has a body and a sexuality and she goes her own way. It’s a queer motif, a love story, and it’s very modern.” Osten added that the themes of Sixty-Four Minutes With Rebecka are echoed in later Bergman films such as Autumn Sonata and his TV series Scenes from a Marriage. Jan Holmberg, who runs the Ingmar Bergman Foundation, said he was delighted when he found out Osten would be making the film, describing it as “a match made in heaven”. “They had a difficult personal relationship to say the least,” Holmberg said. “Bergman tried his best at times to hurt Osten’s career, whereas she, from her underdog position, would attack his world view, his privileges, his alleged abuse of power, etc. As it recently turned out that Bergman had written a script on exactly those issues – gender, power, sexuality, politics, etc – during this exact time, I for one couldn’t think of a better director than Suzanne Osten to do it.” Holmberg described the script as “a missing piece of the puzzle”. “It’s quite on a par with finding an unpublished manuscript by Ernest Hemingway or an unknown painting by Picasso. It’s Bergman at the peak of his abilities, and in the same category as his best work – hardly some juvenile stuff written for the writing desk drawer.” Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter has published two excerpts from Bergman’s script, both in the original Swedish and translated into English.
Why Britain should stay in the EU – by readers who work in the arts After the majority of arts leaders contacted by the said they were against the UK leaving the EU, and with 250 British cultural stars signing a letter backing the remain campaign, we asked readers working in the arts and cultural industries for their views. Overwhelmingly respondents echoed the thoughts of one reader, Iain Bennet, a consultant working in the creative and digital industries in London. He said: “Cultural exchange is the bedrock of arts – and of our civilisation. A post-Brexit Britain would be a sad, turned-in little place.” The filmmaker Holly Aylett, who belongs to a pro-remain Facebook group called Creatives for Europe, summed up the concerns: the loss of shared cultural heritage; trade and employment issues; and reduced cultural cooperation. It was clear too that respondents’ careers in the arts and cultural industries were central to their voting intentions. Below are some of their views. Lindsey Dear, general manager of Akram Khan Company: ‘I’m worried about my European staff’ Having spent my career working within the UK arts sector, always with an international focus, I am personally and professionally committed to the idea and ideals of a culturally united European Union. Within our organisation – a dance company that tours extensively in Europe and beyond – we are concerned about the impact that Britain leaving the EU would have on our work. Our concerns include diminished artist mobility because of revised immigration and visa regulations; potential reduction in touring opportunities within EU countries; and decreased access to European co-production funding – a vital part of our financial model for new productions. I’m also worried about existing London-based European staff and their employment status. Is there potential for significantly increased bureaucracy in relation to touring, for example visas, taxation or reciprocal healthcare leading to increased administrative costs? Many of our concerns will, I am sure, be echoed by colleagues across the sector. My biggest concern personally is the potential for a “nationalistic” approach to UK cultural policy taken by the government following a departure from the EU, which would be limiting and short-sighted. Hilary James, musician, Reading: ‘Other countries in Europe have a greater respect for artists and musicians’ If Britain votes to leaves the EU, will this affect the freedom of movement within mainland Europe of musicians and artists? Will we need visas and carnets to cross borders with our instruments and sound equipment? It’s difficult enough travelling with a bass mandolin! My vote will be independent of my personal situation. Other countries in Europe have a greater respect for the professions of artist and musician. Here, the British class system persists. Only in England could a government arts minister comment that “the idea of listening to three Somerset folk singers sounds like hell”. And Morris, our national dance, is frequently mocked in our national media. The rest of Europe, including the Irish, Scots and Welsh, hold their national arts and traditions dear. I fear the British class system will become more entrenched without the enlightening influence of the rest of Europe. Name withheld, projection artist and designer, Wiltshire: ‘The ability to just go to Europe and do my work with no paperwork has been liberating’ My career in the arts has definitely influenced my voting intention. My entire practice is based on the easy movement of labour within Europe. In the early 1990s I was offered work in Paris, and I ended up living there for four years. When I returned to the UK, I brought with me a skill set which has allowed me to work successfully and also provide employment to others. If we leave Europe, I fear that this will reduce opportunities for people to gain experience that enhance not only their own lives, but the lives of their families and wider society. Like any other touring industry, the ability to just go to Europe and do my work with no paperwork has been liberating. This presumably will stop if we leave – or at least become a lot more difficult. The arts, like any industry, needs free access to as large a market as possible. The idea of leaving a very large market for the uncertainty of possible new markets at some unspecified time in the future makes no sense to me. David Worthington, sculptor, Dorset: ‘As an artist one feels international and we want to take part’ I carve stone sculpture and like many of colleagues import marble from Italy. It takes two emails: one to order the stone, one to arrange the delivery. Importation papers that would take time are not needed. Also, like many colleagues, our finished work goes back into Europe for exhibitions, fairs and commissions. Again there is no paperwork. I lived in Barcelona for six years and was able to study at the university at a reduced rate due to being a national from an EU member state. I was living in Spain during the period Spain fully entered the EU and suddenly I was protected as equal to a Spanish citizen. It was a good feeling. As an artist one feels international and we want to take part in a wider context, sharing and working with EU artists. Do we want to build together a stronger Europe, fight corruption, poor democratic accountability and bad bureaucracy, or be seen as parochial and marginal? That was how British art was viewed for centuries – parochial, marginal, and not at the forefront of artistic invention and excellence. Holly Aylett, filmmaker and director: ‘There would be a significant loss of funding support to the audiovisual sector’ The UK is seen as a leader in the creative industries and the hub through which EU funding can be distributed. Were we to come out, this would not be the case. There would be a significant loss of funding support to the audiovisual sector, including to cinemas. Given the 20%-plus cuts to local government many cultural venues have depended on EU support through the regional development funds – leaving the EU would make many cultural centres even more vulnerable. There is an argument that since the UK is a net contributor to the EU if we get our money back we will have even more to give to the arts. Since this government has no intention of maintaining the current levels of subsidy and is inclined to an American model of foundation support which there is no evidence can be grafted here in the UK, it is unlikely that any additional funds will find their way into the UK arts. The European Union also leads in the regulation we need to maintain pluralism and diversity in the era of the internet dominated by the large internationals, Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple in particular. The AVMS directive and the e-commerce directives, as well as frameworks governing fair competitive practice, protect the UK from the dominance of the internet giants commercially and from the negative impact this will have on all forms of diversity in our culture. Edward Gosling, co-owner of Chivaree circus company, London: ‘We are a company essentially defined by our European integration’ A lot of people who work with us are from the EU – we also do a lot of work in the EU and it is incredibly easy. In the circus industry there is a lot of cultural exchange, with performers studying at schools across Europe. Circus in London is incredibly exciting right now, with festivals showing a fantastic array of shows from the UK and the EU. We would like this to continue. I worry that if we leave the EU we may struggle to do work abroad, and we may struggle to find good specialist performers. I would assume this would be the same for many other companies. We are a company essentially defined by our European integration – I co-own with my French partner. It is deeply troubling to think that would not have been possible (or certainly much harder) if we hadn’t been part of the EU. Jerome Mazandarani, producer and chief operating officer, London: ‘For our clients, the UK is seen as a gateway into Europe’ I co-own and run a successful anime publishing house. Newly independent from our US parent, we want to expand in Europe. Currently, our manufacturing is done in Poland. We also distribute goods for a French publisher out of our UK warehouse. I worry about the reintroduction of tariffs restricting the movement of goods between the UK and EU. I also worry about it becoming harder to launch pan-European digital platforms as a result of Brexit. As far as the Japanese and American companies we license from, the UK is seen as a gateway into Europe. I can only assume we’ll be left behind in favour of those French and German publishers that are happy to pick up the slack. The EU market for anime is three times that of the UK, if not larger. We must not let this become a referendum on immigration. The arts and culture industry is based out of London to a massive extent. It terrifies me that my company’s future is being left in the hands of a bunch of clueless people who simply don’t like foreigners. Tim Thornton, drummer in indie band Fink: ‘I foresee general astonishment from EU colleagues and friends if we leave’ I can see direct effects of potentially leaving the EU: increased red tape going abroad, possible work permits needed, longer queues at customs, higher travel prices, taxes and tariffs, but also plenty of knock-ons. If we vote to leave I forsee general astonishment from EU colleagues and friends that we as a nation could have been so dumb, leading to a frosty reception when we arrive at EU venues/radio stations etc and a general feeling that we’re not “one of them” any more, a perception that we’re an uncaring and possibly bigoted nation. UK arts venues that are funded by the EU may cease to receive this – something unlikely to be replaced by funding from the UK in the current climate and with the current government. All arts industries will have the same worries, stemming from a possible period of confusion (between an out vote, new deals being struck and the actual exit) and a lack of confidence in the future. George Jackson, orchestral and opera conductor, 28: ‘I worry concert hall and opera stages will gradually take on the Little England mentality’ My problem with a potential Brexit is the impact on regular travel across different EU countries. Although London born and based, I spend 50% of my time living in Germany, and a significant amount of time working contractually in other EU countries. For British citizens, the process of obtaining the A1 form necessary to work in other EU countries already takes time. Leaving the EU will simply increase the bureaucratic nightmare for performing artists who work internationally. I worry that concert hall and opera stages in Britain will gradually mirror the Little England mentality of the Brexiteers. A discipline like classical music prides itself on being international, and performing artists from within the EU travel here constantly. The disruption to free movement would also affect Britain’s music colleges, which play host to a diverse student body formed from many countries.
British labour laws could control influx Ian Austin, MP for Dudley, has pointed out that an impressive body of rules, limitations, barrings and financial charges, unrelated to those of the EU, is already in existence (though not always employed) in British labour law. These rules may be readily imposed upon prospective immigrants. If they were to be properly applied in the face of a too-great body of immigrants, they could dispel the well-managed fear of a vast, EU–derived influx of workers. Labour, rightly wishing to stay in the EU, not least for all-round steadier employment, should resonantly endorse all these native powers. The UK could be a member of the EU, employing native regulation to serve British workers – native, settled, resident and accepted. Edward Pearce York • The remain camp is losing the argument because it can’t give a straight answer to a straight question about control – whether it’s regarding control of immigration, control of our borders or control of our lives (Labour steps up fight for EU as alarm grows, 14 June). The reason is that most remainers, whether Tory or Labour, are committed to neoliberalism, which indeed does mean we have little control over these matters, any more than we have control over the multinational corporations that cross borders with impunity, shifting profits to tax havens, withdrawing capital and transferring jobs to other countries in search of greater profits. Withdrawing from Europe or remaining in will only give us greater control if it is coupled with a return to social democracy and a well-regulated capitalism. Since there is less prospect of this with Gove, Johnson and co in charge, we should vote to remain in. John Quicke Hull • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
Inspired by Stephen Hawking’s call to work together Stephen Hawking (This is the most dangerous moment for our planet, 2 December) brought tears to my eyes; of all the articles published since the Brexit and Trump votes, this one, with his insight and suggestions as to how we should act now, is the most compelling. Whatever way people voted, whatever religion or nationality, we need to work together if our world is to survive for our grandchildren and future generations. As a retired GP, despairing about our NHS and wondering how best to act now, I feel inspired to do what I can, even in a small way. Dr Anthea Kaan Glenridding, Cumbria • Stephen Hawking declares himself to be among the “elites” of society and then claims to be a champion of equality. His egalitarianism is superficial but familiar. Among the egalitarian elite, such professions are status markers. Equality is what the better sort of people believe in. It shows one’s superiority but costs nothing. Is it any wonder that anti-elitism thrives together with anti-egalitarianism among Mr Hawking’s inferiors? Boris DeWiel Prince George, British Columbia, Canada • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com • Read more letters – click here to visit gu.com/letters
Kate Bush and the K Fellowship: Before the Dawn review – a pop treasure, live and kicking A pressing question looms over Kate Bush’s new live release, her first since Live at Hammersmith Odeon in 1994, an album drawn from her then most recent live shows, some 15 years before. That question being: what’s the point? Live albums can only ever hope to give the faintest flavour of the multi-sensory experience of attending a gig, and Bush’s 2014 shows at the Hammersmith Odeon were about as multi-sensory an experience as gigs get. The subsequent album isn’t credited to Bush but the K Fellowship, presumably in recognition of the vast ancillary cast of musicians, technicians and actors required to bring Before the Dawn to fruition – but it obviously doesn’t capture most of the results of their work. You get a vague sense of the crackling excitement in the audience, but despite the plentiful photos in the CD booklet (“Note the parked helicopter at the top,” reads one caption) it can’t give you any real sense of the overwhelming visual spectacle of the shows, which the DVD that was mooted to appear last year, but never did, might have done. There are moments on the album when the audience break into spontaneous applause during a song. If you were there, you find yourself scrolling through your memory to work out what provoked it – not an easy task, given that audiences frequently seemed to be so overwhelmed to be in Bush’s presence that they applauded pretty much everything she did. If you weren’t, it’s doubtless even more frustrating. Meanwhile, it’s hard to work out whether the original show’s solitary misstep – the clunky, ostensibly comedic playlet by novelist David Mitchell inserted in the middle of The Ninth Wave – is amplified or minimised by appearing on an album. Divested of the accompanying action, its dialogue sounds even more laboured, even more like a particularly spirit-sapping scene from perennially unfunny BBC1 sitcom My Family. On the other, well, there’s always the fast-forward button, although long-term fans might suggest that it wouldn’t really be a Kate Bush project unless an array of dazzling brilliance and original thinking was offset by at least one moment where she felt impelled to follow her muse somewhere you rather wish she hadn’t. You can file the playlet alongside The Dreaming’s Australian accent, dressing up as a bat on the back cover of Never for Ever, and The Line, The Cross and the Curve, the short film that accompanied The Red Shoes, later appraised by its author as “a load of bollocks”. Clearly a degree of tinkering has gone on with the music. A beautiful take on Never Be Mine, from 1989’s The Sensual World, seems to have mysteriously appeared in the middle of the initial act, which never happened during the actual concerts, raising the tantalising prospect that far more material was prepared than made it to the final show. Perhaps they were off in a rehearsal studio somewhere, trying out versions of Suspended in Gaffa and Them Heavy People after all. But the really arresting thing about Before the Dawn – given that Bush is an artist whose perfectionism has led her to make a grand total of three albums in the last 22 years, one of them consisting of pernickety rerecordings of old songs – is how raw it sounds. Of course, raw is an adjective one uses relatively, when considering an album that features a band of blue-chip sessioneers, celebrated jazz-fusion musicians and former Miles Davis sidemen: you’re not going to mistake the contents of Before the Dawn for those of, say, Conflict’s Live Woolwich Poly ’86. But, unlike most latterday live albums, it actually sounds like a band playing live. There’s a sibilance about the vocals, a sort of echoey, booming quality to the sound, the occasional hint of unevenness: it doesn’t feel like a recording that’s been overdubbed and Auto-Tuned into sterility. Given their pedigree, you’d expect the musicians involved to be incredibly nimble and adept, but more startling is how propulsive and exciting they sound, even when dealing with Bush’s more hazy and dreamlike material. It’s a state of affairs amplified by Bush’s voice, which is in fantastic shape. On King of the Mountain or Hounds of Love, she has a way of suddenly shifting into a primal, throaty roar – not the vocal style you’d most closely associate with Kate Bush – that sounds all the more effective for clearly being recorded live. Furthermore, there’s a vividness about the emotional twists and turns of A Sea of Honey, A Sky of Honey – from the beatific, sun-dappled contentment associated with Balearic music to brooding sadness and back again – that just isn’t there on the studio version, great though that is. That answers the question about what the point of Before the Dawn is: like 2011’s Director’s Cut, it’s an album that shows Bush’s back catalogue off in a different light. And perhaps it’s better, or at least more fitting, that her 2014 shows are commemorated with an album rather than a film or a Blu-ray or whatever it is that you play inside those virtual reality headsets people are getting so excited about. They were a huge pop cultural event, as the first gigs in four decades by one of rock’s tiny handful of real elusive geniuses were always bound to be, but they were shrouded in a sense of enigma: almost uniquely, hardly anyone who attended the first night had any real idea what was going to happen. Even more unusually, that air of mystery clung to the shows after the 22-date run ended: virtually everyone present complied with Bush’s request not to film anything on their phones, and the handful that didn’t saw their footage quickly removed from YouTube. Before the Dawn provides a memento for those who were there and a vague indication of what went on for those who weren’t, without compromising the shows’ appealingly mysterious air: a quality you suspect the woman behind it realises is in very short supply in rock music these days.
Scotty Moore obituary If the mythology of the rock’n’roll star began with Elvis Presley, then Scotty Moore, who has died aged 84, could claim to have invented the role of the rock guitarist. Moore was one of the creators of the revolutionary sound that launched Presley’s career in the mid-1950s, and the discs they cut together in the early years of Presley’s career stand today almost as the Ten Commandments of rock’n’roll. As Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones put it: “All I wanted to do in the world was to be able to play and sound like that. Everyone else wanted to be Elvis, I wanted to be Scotty.” Moore’s great adventure with Elvis began on 5 July 1954, when Sam Phillips, boss of Sun Records, assembled Moore and the bassist Bill Black to join the 19-year-old Elvis for what was supposed to be an audition. However, their spontaneous performance of Arthur Crudup’s That’s All Right, with Presley’s voice riding confidently over Black’s thumping bass and Moore’s lithe guitar licks (enhanced by an echoing “tape slap” effect), was so fresh and powerful that Phillips released it as a single. It was a local hit in Memphis, and the start of a rocket-powered ride. By the end of 1955, Moore, Black and Presley had been joined by the drummer DJ Fontana (their band becoming known as the Blue Moon Boys), had become a sensational live attraction, and had released a batch of singles including Good Rockin’ Tonight, Baby Let’s Play House and Mystery Train. Moore cited Mystery Train as one of his favourites, and its crisp, propulsive guitar work is some of his best. He preferred to play Gibson hollow-body guitars, and described his playing as “just a combination of several different styles rolled into one. I was a big fan of Merle Travis, of Chet Atkins with his thumb and finger styles, and a lot of the blues players.” After Elvis signed to the RCA label in late 1955, the pace of touring and recording accelerated frantically, as they created a stream of classic hits including Heartbreak Hotel (featuring an eerie solo from Moore), Hound Dog, Don’t Be Cruel, Too Much and Jailhouse Rock. The group also appeared with Elvis on TV shows and in the movies Loving You (1957), Jailhouse Rock (1957), King Creole (1958) and GI Blues (1960), made after Elvis returned from the army. Moore was born on a farm near Gadsden, Tennessee, son of Mattie (nee Hefley) and Winfield Scott Moore. With three older guitar-playing brothers and a father who played the banjo and fiddle, he started playing the guitar when he was eight. In 1948 he joined the US navy, and served in China and Korea before he was discharged in January 1952. His oldest brother ran a dry-cleaning business in Memphis, and gave Scotty a job in the hat department. Aiming to make a living in music, Moore formed a country music group, Doug Poindexter and the Starlite Wranglers, which made a recording of Moore’s song My Kind of Carrying On for Phillips’s Sun Records. After Phillips put Moore together with Presley, Moore also became Elvis’s manager in 1954, but he was edged out by Colonel Tom Parker. When Presley signed to RCA, both he and Parker enjoyed huge financial benefits, while the band were paid a wage. Moore said that in 1956 he earned $8,000, while Elvis became a millionaire. During the making of the film Loving You, the musicians threatened to quit when they discovered they were being paid less than the minimum scale for actors. Afterwards, they were paid per performance rather than receiving a salary. When Presley was drafted into the US army in 1958, Moore worked at the Memphis label Fernwood Records, and played on and produced Thomas Wayne’s single Tragedy, which reached No 5 on the Billboard Hot 100. With the Scotty Moore Trio, he cut the instrumental Have Guitar, Will Travel. He resumed work with Presley after his return from the military, playing on the album Elvis Is Back! (1960) and appearing regularly on his albums until How Great Thou Art (1967). However, the now middle-of-the-road Presley was increasingly preoccupied with making movies, and Moore boosted his income by working as a production manager for Phillips in Memphis. In 1964 he made the solo album The Guitar That Changed the World, comprising instrumental versions of Elvis’s hits, but it sold poorly. He parted company with Phillips and moved to Nashville, where he founded the studio Music City Recorders and started Belle Meade Records. His final work with Presley was on a 1968 comeback NBC television special. Thenceforth he concentrated on engineering and production. He engineered Ringo Starr’s album Beaucoups of Blues (1970), as well as singles by Joe Simon. In 1979 he played the guitar on Ral Donner’s album I’ve Been Away for Awhile Now, a musical tribute to Presley after his death. He played on the Carl Perkins album 706 ReUnion: A Sentimental Journey (1992) and on the Elvis tribute album All The King’s Men (1997) alongside Fontana, Richards, Jeff Beck, Ronnie Wood and Levon Helm. His memoir That’s Alright, Elvis, co-written with James Dickerson, was published in 1998. In 2000 he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and, last October, into the Memphis Music Hall of Fame, with Richards accepting the award on his behalf. Moore’s longtime partner, Gail Pollock, died in 2015. He is survived by five children, Donald, Linda, Andrea, Vikki and Tasha. • Scotty Moore (Winfield Scott Moore III), guitarist, producer and songwriter, born 27 December 1931; died 28 June 2016
Democrats begin fight against Trump: his election 'does not feel like America' Leading Democrats have begun their fightback against President-elect Donald Trump, accusing him of unleashing the “forces of hate and bigotry” and warning that America’s enemies were exultant at his election win. As tens of thousands of Americans plan further protests and acts of dissent against the new president’s election, Democratic politicians have begun to echo the defiance seen on the streets of major cities from New York to Oakland that has sparked dozens of arrests. Thousands were on the streets on Thursday in Denver, Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Portland, Oakland and dozens more US cities, and although the protests were smaller and more muted, there were scattered acts of civil disobedience and damage to property. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have been measured in their language, in keeping with the traditions of the post-election period of transition between administrations. But Harry Reid, departing as the most senior Democrat in the Senate, issued a blistering statement on Friday, warning that adversaries at home and abroad were jubilant and calling on Trump to take responsibility for healing the nation. “The election of Donald Trump has emboldened the forces of hate and bigotry in America,” the veteran Nevada senator said. “White nationalists, Vladimir Putin and Isis are celebrating Donald Trump’s victory, while innocent, law-abiding Americans are racked with fear.” This was particularly true for black, Hispanic, Muslim, LGBT and Asian Americans, Reid added. “Watching white nationalists celebrate while innocent Americans cry tears of fear does not feel like America.” Trump, the outsider Republican candidate, swept to power on Tuesday after a fiercely divisive election campaign that included attacks on Mexicans and Muslims and saw him accused of sexual assault or harassment by a dozen women. There has been a subsequent spike in reports of hate crimes against minorities. The election outcome is also reverberating in America’s intelligence community. The has learned that some officials, wary of Trump’s authoritarian inclinations including a proposal to revive the use of torture, are debating whether to quit in protest or remain at their post in the hope of checking impulses they consider dangerous. Democrats, meanwhile, are seeking to regroup in the wake of Clinton’s shattering defeat and their failure to regain control of the House or Senate. Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, a lodestar for liberal Americans, urged supporters to resist Trump. “You can either lie down, you can whimper, you can pull up in a ball, you can decide to move to Canada, or you can stand your ground and fight back and that’s what it’s about,” she said on MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show. “We do fight back. We will stand with those who are here who were told, come out of the shadows, we welcome you. We will stand with them. And we will stand with them every day. That’s what we have to do.” Her clarion call came hours before Reid’s statement, and left no doubt about the anxiety gripping some communities. “I have heard more stories in the past 48 hours of Americans living in fear of their own government and their fellow Americans than I can remember hearing in five decades in politics,” he wrote. “Hispanic Americans who fear their families will be torn apart, African Americans being heckled on the street, Muslim Americans afraid to wear a headscarf, gay and lesbian couples having slurs hurled at them and feeling afraid to walk down the street holding hands. “American children waking up in the middle of the night crying, terrified that Trump will take their parents away. Young girls unable to understand why a man who brags about sexually assaulting women has been elected president. We as a nation must find a way to move forward without consigning those who Trump has threatened to the shadows. Their fear is entirely rational, because Donald Trump has talked openly about doing terrible things to them.” During a rancourous buildup to election day, Obama led warnings that Trump posed an existential threat to American democracy and that fundamental values such as tolerance were on the ballot. But once the votes were in, Obama began the traditional process of welcoming Trump to the White House, cordially describing their meeting as “excellent” and wishing for his success. Reid, however, pushed back against efforts by politicians and media outlets to co-opt Trump into the mainstream. “Every news piece that breathlessly obsesses over inauguration preparations compounds their fear by normalizing a man who has threatened to tear families apart, who has bragged about sexually assaulting women and who has directed crowds of thousands to intimidate reporters and assault African Americans. Their fear is legitimate and we must refuse to let it fall through the cracks between the fluff pieces.” Trump owes it to the nation to try to “roll back the tide of hate he unleashed”, Reid added. Warren, a potential future leftwing standard bearer for the party, has clashed with Trump on Twitter; on the eve of the election he recycled his description of her as “Pocahontas”, mocking her disputed Native American heritage, and a “terrible human being”. She set out a clear manifesto for the progressive left, urging people: “Get out there and volunteer.” She cited Planned Parenthood, the reproductive health organization, adding: “Give a couple hours a week to them or to any other organization that really matters to you, an environmental organization, an immigrants’ rights organization, somebody who is working on economic justice, someone who is working on financial reform, get out there and volunteer because volunteering is a way to say we’re making these groups stronger. “This is one way our voice will be heard. It’s not all going to be heard in Washington. This is how we’re going to have our voice heard … We are going to fight back. We are not turning this country over to what Donald Trump has sold. We are just not.” The fallout from Trump’s shocking win has served to highlight the depth of division in America and the scale of the challenge of healing it. It mortified millions of people in major liberal cities on the coasts such as New York, Washington, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Legislative leaders in California, a Democratic stronghold that is home to Hollywood and Silicon Valley, issued a joint statement that said: “Today, we woke up feeling like strangers in a foreign land, because yesterday Americans expressed their views on a pluralistic and democratic society that are clearly inconsistent with the values of the people of California. “We have never been more proud to be Californians. By a margin in the millions, Californians overwhelmingly rejected politics fueled by resentment, bigotry, and misogyny. The largest state of the union and the strongest driver of our nation’s economy has shown it has its surest conscience as well.” Thousands gathered in major cities across the US to protest about Trump’s victory for a second night. Motorways were blocked, shop windows smashed and fires ignited. In Portland, Oregon, police began pushing back against the crowd that threw objects at them, making 26 arrests and using pepper spray and rubber bullets. In Oakland, California, protesters hurled molotov cocktails, rocks and fireworks at police. About 5,000 people, including the singer Lady Gaga, gathered outside Trump Tower in New York. The celebrity businessman seemed to change his mind about the demonstrations. Late on Thursday he tweeted that “professional protesters, incited by the media, are protesting. Very unfair!” But early on Friday, he wrote: “Love the fact that the small groups of protesters last night have passion for our great country. We will all come together and be proud!” Trump was in Trump Tower in New York on Friday morning meeting with senior staff members. He tweeted that he had a “busy day planned in New York” and “will soon be making some very important decisions on the people who will be running our government!”
Dawn Richard – from girl group star to future R&B queen When the R&B singer Dawn Richard abandoned the safety of the major-label machine to strike out on her own in 2011, she was gambling. All she’d managed to release under her own name was one promising but flawed mixtape. So her announcement that she intended to start her solo career with a concept trilogy of albums – despite lacking a team around her, let alone a record deal – was seen as overly ambitious. “Everyone laughed at me,” she recalls wryly. In 2011, Richard was just another girl group refugee who talked a good game – Danity Kane, formed by Diddy on MTV’s Making the Band in 2005, had scored two US No 1 albums before disbanding three years later. Since reinventing herself as D∆WN in 2015, she’s found acclaim in the underground dance world. But her true triumph is the visionary body of work she’s put together, vast in sonic, thematic and technological scope, that – having taken in medieval warfare, Norse and Greek mythology and feminist reimaginings of classic pop archetypes – has now culminated with the final instalment of the promised trilogy, the appropriately titled Redemption. “It’s built to be jubilation and dance,” says Richard. “I wanted to make an album that sounded like a release of inhibitions, really getting away from the idea that you have to be anything other than in that moment.” Richard’s sound is defined equally by the number of ideas she packs into her songs and the shape-shifting, boundary-free nature of where she takes them: house beats segue into Afro-Cuban drums on Love Under Lights; lead single Renegades is propelled by staccato grime rhythms; centrepiece LA transitions from synths straight out of an 80s thriller into swampy rock before winding up with a trumpet solo from New Orleans jazz musician Trombone Shorty. That song – its title refers to both Los Angeles and Louisiana – is a homecoming for Richard, whose family was made homeless following Hurricane Katrina. While writing Redemption, she immersed herself in her home city’s musical history: “old zydeco, old bayou blues like Dr John”, the carnival culture of the Mardi Gras Indians (for whom her great-uncle was a costumier) and New Orleans’ second line tradition. “It’s when we dance in the middle of the street and play the horns,” she says. “People just sing in sheer joy. They celebrate each other with such genuine love.” While delving into the past, Richard also felt herself pulled towards the future. Redemption’s predecessor, 2015’s Blackheart, had been the album that catapulted her from lone-wolf status into the arms of the underground. Close collaborations followed with Fade to Mind co-founder Kingdom (with whom she released the Infrared EP in May) and, for much of Redemption, the North Carolina producer Machinedrum. Redemption will also be the first of Richard’s albums to be jointly released with another label, the London-based grime and garage imprint Local Action. When its founder Tom Lea talks about her, it’s with a degree of awe: “Most people look at artists like Grace Jones and David Bowie and see them on a different plane, but Dawn – humbly – sees them as in reach.” She’s also making forays into experimental new technology: working with YouTube on the platform’s first ever 360-degree live performance in April, and creating a 3D virtual reality universe with VR Playhouse for her Not Above That video in June. “The point of me doing the type of music I was doing was to see it in 3D, 4D, VR perspective,” she says. “As you peel back the different layers of coding in VR, you can also peel the layers of plug-ins and live instruments back on the album. That was where I wanted to go.” Richard had always planned for her trilogy’s narrative arc to conclude with a return to her roots, but the journey itself has been unpredictable, often painful and sometimes absurd. Following 2013’s Goldenheart, Richard fell out with producer Druski, the musical partner with whom she’d intended to make the entire trilogy; a Kickstarter to fund Blackheart failed; and a year was given over to a doomed Danity Kane reunion that redefined girl group messiness. (It ended with punches thrown before even making it to an album release.) “That’s a good fuckin’ question,” laughs Richard darkly when asked why she had returned to the band. In the same year, her father had cancer and her grandmother died. “Man, it was a super-low,” she says. “It was crazy how low it was. But it made for some of the best material [Blackheart] I’ve done.” The lessons Richard has learned haven’t just been emotional. As an independent artist, she’s relished the freedom of self-releasing the kind of music she wants. Self-funding it hasn’t been so easy, particularly when she faced so many rejections. “We’re having ideas that are so much larger than our pockets,” she says. “We’re doing nine visuals per album, and we’re held to the standard of any other artist. You have to work twice as hard, otherwise people say, ‘That looks cheap.’ Or, ‘She’s a flop.’ And you’ve got to create content every other day to keep people interested in a time when everything’s accessible and moving so fast.” Richard, who compares herself to a tech startup company, began studying accounting, investment and money management, and picked up an old animation sideline (Danity Kane had been named after an anime character she’d invented) for extra funds. She carried on knocking at doors, fleshing out her brand. “I wasn’t saying, ‘Look, here’s me as an artist and I can sing, can you support me?’” she says. “I was laying out an entire, full-drawn economic plan and saying, ‘Look, this is what we can attain.’ It didn’t sell to the mainstream or the machines of the world, but it sold to the artists, the passion players.” She has had to be her own PR firm, her own agency, even her own stagehand. When she realised this year that she couldn’t afford to tour with her band and dancers as well as the 9ft neon triangle that formed her stage set, she took on that latter role. “I realised the way I can save costs is to build it and fix it and carry it myself. I brought along my screwdrivers and I set it up and took it down for each show myself. It’s hollow steel rods and a lightbox that carries the LED – two big cases I carried everywhere I went.” It paid off: Richard points to her SXSW shows in March as a turning point after which doors began to open for her. “I had backaches every day, but I managed to give people a stadium-style show in dive bars – a show that was talked about for an indie girl with no label. It was fucking worth it.” One year, on her birthday, Richard went skydiving. Now, she compares that adrenaline rush to what she’s felt over the past few years. “Anything that creates fear, I want to conquer it,” she says. “To create and do something no one else has done before – that feeling beats anything else I’ve felt.” • Redemption is out now on Local Action/Our Dawn Entertainment.
Aston Villa finally seal home league win thanks to Crystal Palace keeper It has been a long time coming – 157 days to be exact – but the wait is finally over for Aston Villa supporters, who at last remembered what it feels like to win a Premier League match. Wayne Hennessey gave them more than a helping hand on a night when Joleon Lescott went some way to repairing the damage he did to his reputation in those unsavoury scenes at Wycombe Wanderers on Saturday. Involved in an ugly altercation with Villa supporters at Adams Park after taking part in a rather bizarre game that involved seeing how far he could spit his chewing gum while sitting on the bench, Lescott went from villain to hero in a little more than 72 hours with a precious goal that gave Rémi Garde his first win since taking over as manager on 3 November. The Villa captain’s header ended up trickling over the line – Lescott could probably have propelled a stick of Wrigley further – and Hennessey will ruefully reflect on how he made the ball look like a bar of soap as it wriggled out of his hands and through his legs before goalline technology confirmed the inevitable. Yet all that mattered to Villa was that the goal was enough for them to pick up a rare three points – against a hugely disappointing Palace side who looked strangely out of sorts and, in the words of Alan Pardew, “never got going”. To put this result into context, it is Garde’s first victory as manager at the 11th attempt and the first time that Villa have won in the league at home in eight months, stretching back to a time when Tim Sherwood was in charge, the Midlands club were looking forward to an FA Cup final and there was an air of optimism about the place. The mood has turned mutinous of late and the chances are that this victory will count for very little in the grand scheme of things but at least it provided Villa fans with something to cheer. Garde’s side remain eight points adrift of safety with 17 games remaining and still require a minor miracle to avoid relegation but the impression at the end was that a cloud has been lifted. Asked whether Lescott owed the fans a performance after his part in that odd chewing gum game with Brad Guzan, Garde replied: “Maybe. The best is to ask him the question. I cannot answer for him. To be fair, I didn’t speak with Joleon about this stuff. I am pleased with the way he gave an answer tonight but not an answer regarding this [incident] – an answer regarding the fact he’s an experienced player and he should be very important for the team.” The big question for Villa is whether this win can be the platform for something bigger – if not an improbable great escape, then at least an improvement in results – and perhaps represent a turning point in their miserable season. “Hopefully [it can],” Garde said. “We have to stay very humble because it’s only three points. We’re far away from what we all want. Let’s hope this victory can give us a little bit more confidence. But not only the victory; the way we played tonight I didn’t see a bottom team – the difference between Palace and Aston Villa didn’t reflect the table. I want my players to be more confident and hopefully that’s what will happen.” That was a fair assessment on a night when Villa played with spirit throughout and grew in belief as the game went on. Wilfried Zaha’s shot hit the woodwork after only 44 seconds and Scott Dann spurned a decent chance late on but Pardew acknowledged that Villa were the better side, with Jordan Ayew the standout player on the pitch. “We came across an Aston Villa team tonight that worked very hard and from the videos and games I analysed that was their best performance and we struggled to cope with it,” the Palace manager said. “We’ve been struggling offensively with injuries and I thought going forward tonight that really wasn’t us.” Garde made some bold calls by leaving Guzan on the bench and giving Mark Bunn his first league game since May 2013. Libor Kozak also came in out of the cold, with the Czech Republic striker granted his first start in more than two years in a move that felt born of desperation more than anything else. Kozak came close to scoring early in the second half, when his low deflected shot was turned round a post by Hennessey in what was a fine save from the Palace keeper, yet the Welshman’s next contribution provided a moment to forget. Lescott towered above Dann and Connor Wickham, who came on at half-time as Pardew tried to give his side more of an attacking threat, and the defender’s header ended up rolling just over the line after Hennessey made a pig’s ear of holding on to the ball. Lescott’s reaction was subdued – perhaps not surprising in the circumstances – but there was nothing muted about Villa’s celebrations at the final whistle. “The goal was disappointing,” Pardew said. “I think Wayne’s first touch puts him in trouble. He’s been brilliant for us. His mistake tonight cost us the goal but we made mistakes in other areas all night and they of course go unnoticed while the goal is a highlight for everyone else. “I don’t want to take too much away from Villa. They deserved the win and my team didn’t play well. The Premier League would not want to lose a club of this magnitude. I hope they can resolve it.”
As political debate rages abroad, the age of cynical reason continues in Australia Four weeks into an enervating election campaign, where do we stand? The polls tell us that the parties are in a dead heat, and the prime-ministerial contenders are disliked as much as they are liked. The phoney war in the torpid leaders’ debate did nothing to resolve the languorous deadlock. While ongoing campaigns in other English-speaking democracies – the Brexit referendum and US national elections – are exciting great rancour, here there seems to be something more like resignation. More people expect the Coalition to prevail than desire that outcome. We don’t like the choices on offer among the parties most likely to govern, but there seems to be no room for imagining how things might be better. If Malcolm Turnbull is the embodiment of disappointment, Shorten is the avatar of permanently lowered expectations. Turnbull’s numbers might have cratered during nine short months in office, but Shorten’s have always been grim to mediocre. There’s apparently no transformational figure waiting in the wings of either major party who might redeem this. A month in, then, know things aren’t as they should be, but we’re held in place by the weight of conventional wisdom. The given seems intractable to change. Things have started to curdle. The German philosopher, Peter Sloterdijk, coined the term “cynical reason” in the 1980s to describe a pervasive contemporary mindset – that of “enlightened false consciousness”. He thought that in postmodern times, people have not so much been blinded by systematically false ideology as crippled by the realisation that while things may be bad, even depressing, there are no alternatives to the current economic and political paradigm. Sloterdijk described the modern cynic as a “borderline melancholic” who harboured “a permanent doubt about their own activities. They know what they are doing, but they do it because, in the short run, the force of circumstances and the instinct for self-preservation are speaking the same language, and they are telling them that it has to be so.” It was this cynicism that pacified highly educated, literate, and information-rich populations in the west, even as the neoliberal ascendancy gradually eroded their wages, working conditions and political rights. Sloterdijk saw modern cynicism as a mass phenomenon: whole populations were immobilised by a force that was impervious to ideological criticism, because cynicism already incorporated a thorough understanding of that criticism. Does this sound familiar? In some contemporary democracies – for better or for ill – the age of cynical reason seems to be coming to an end. While neoliberalism still lies at the centre of politics in most advanced states, it looks increasingly beleaguered. As matters of individual survival have become more complicated, the mood has changed from cynicism to fury. Take the US elections. While Donald Trump is proffering a feral paleoconservatism, which frequently lapses into outright white nationalism, on the Democrat side, Bernie Sanders is calling into question the trade deals, deregulation, and corporate control that have defined that country’s economy and politics since the 1980s. This double insurgency has been accompanied by a marked change in tone by comparison with recent elections. When Rolling Stone recently asked Bernie Sanders what the common denominator was between his voters and Trump’s, he answered: “To the media’s great shock and to the pundits’ great shock, there are millions of Americans who are very, very angry.” He connected this to economic desperation. “They’re angry because they’re working longer hours for lower wages. They’re angry because they’re working two and three jobs.” While Trump scapegoats, blaming “Mexicans or Muslims or women for the problems facing society”, Sanders said “we are also addressing the anger of the American people”. That anger has not only powered two campaigns, but spilled over into searching criticisms of media commentators and their role in maintaining things as they are. People have lost jobs because their criticisms of those committed to consensus politics was adjudged impolite. This, in turn, has led to a debate about political civility. But anger, as the man sang, is an energy. Whatever might be happening in the US election, it’s not possible to view it as cynical resignation. The fruits of the open, internecine conflict on both sides of politics in the US is likely to transform both main parties. Trump is leading the Republicans further down a nativist cul-de-sac. But there’s the possibility that Sanders can push the Democrats into more progressive positions. (There’s evidence that this is already happening.) This has presented Americans with some clear and dramatic political choices. And the durability of both campaigns shows that status quo is no longer seen as an imperfect means of surviving. Politics as usual is on the rack. Perhaps it has served to remind Americans what politics actually is. It is not the elite parlour game played between politicians and pundits. That’s how real politics is shut down. It returns in the moments when that cosy pursuit is rudely interrupted. By contrast, Australia’s campaign has proceeded in an entirely familiar manner. Neither of the prime ministerial candidates is contemplating a radical departure from the orthodoxies of recent decades, nor even hinting that it’s possible. Bill Shorten is promising to keep company taxes on big business where they are to fund education a little better, but then the government is effectively running to his left on superannuation. There’s no consistency on either side. 2016 may be the apotheosis of Australia’s political cartel: the whole show is about cautious product differentiation on a policy-by-policy basis. No one’s discussing anything which violates political common sense, let alone making a call to arms. There’s not much anger in play so far in Australia, perhaps because leaders can’t seem to spell out what exactly is at stake. Or because we are all too aware that the election is being contested in areas where one side or another detects an incremental electoral advantage in marginal seats. We’re also conscious that our understanding of this changes nothing. Once again, cynicism is being imposed on us. The ostensible reason for the double dissolution, the government’s attempt to bring back the Australian Building and Construction Commission, might in other circumstances have stimulated a debate about industrial relations, the changing shape of employment, long hours culture, and connected with anger at the worsening situation many of us face at work. But it seems to have been mostly forgotten, with the party of workers as keen to let it drop as the Coalition. (When Malcolm Turnbull attacked the construction industry union, the CFMEU, last Tuesday for negotiating a large pay increase for its workers, Shorten offered a dead bat, saying “Ultimately what employers and employees negotiate is their business.”) Other emergencies are either avoided, or treated cursorily. Like the connection between the Great Barrier Reef, climate change, and Australia’s coal industry. Or the general post-boom drift that is ravaging regional economies. At best these problems are ticked off with disconnected announceables. When a topic is given sustained attention, as in the case of superannuation, we can watch, in real time, as proposals are ground into a shape that derives maximal electoral advantage without unduly offending powerful interests. There’s no real pretence that anything else is happening – no sense that posterity or principle are consulted, and no apparent shame about that fact. The election is presented, and desultorily accepted, as a professionally-crafted series of transactional bribes. In Australia, the age of cynical reason continues. In the United States, change has come, as Sanders says, from the deep crisis that’s still hanging around after almost a decade. Consensus politics precipitated that crisis and saw to it that those who profited from the immiseration of the American people were not only not punished, but rewarded. Let’s hope Australian politics can shake off its cynicism without first passing through such a catastrophe.
10 things we’ve learned from the EU referendum campaign Ignorance is bliss Not knowing about things is the new knowing about things. Most experts insisted withdrawal from the EU would bring a lot of pain for the UK and very little else. This being an unwelcome downer, a great enthusiasm for the idea that sheer weight of informed insight tends to squash common sense out of a person sprang up. So-called “experts” were in fact just partisan peddlers of self-interested elitist cobblers, too clever to see what every true Brit knows instinctively – that when Britain unites to beat the world, the world stays beat. Nobody really likes the EU Even as an unwavering remainer, I often drifted into long minutes when I found critiques of the EU more persuasive than paeans to it. In fact, paeans to it were in notably short supply, largely because so much time was spent patiently rebutting the wilder misrepresentations among the critiques. Again and again. And again. Penny Mordaunt, in a closely fought contest, wins most lying liar among liars, for her claim that the UK would not be able to veto Turkey joining the EU. So, well done her. Positive visions of the EU were often sentimental – the family of European man holding loving hands across the continent. More realistic arguments – the world has giant troubles and we can’t escape them by turning away – were sobering rather than inspiring. The eurozone is a joke Absolutely no one in Britain defends it. I doubt anyone in Europe actually knows how to. Not much united the two sides in Britain’s polarised debate. But devout gratitude to God and Gordon Brown that we didn’t join the euro was very much the order of the day, because nobody on the planet seems to have the smallest clue how to sort that lot out. Good luck, guys. Free movement is a big political problem The idea of Europe is basically that a huge single market with free movement of people will facilitate industrious mingling until prosperity reaches every nation. The essential problem is that the footsoldiers of this grand, multi-generational experiment – hard-up migrants – are often expected to pitch up and compete for scarce resources against hard-up non-migrants. It’s tricky to explain to people that they have to share what little they have so that people thousands of miles away in some unspecified future can one day be as lucky as they are. Well, it’s hard to explain it if you don’t want doors slammed in your face. The Tories are a mess It’s plain that the referendum was promised in order to solve two difficulties for David Cameron. First, the threat from Ukip to his party; and second, the threat to his leadership from his party’s Eurosceptics. His thinking was unbelievably short-term and survivalist. The idea of two-party politics is that each party is a broad church. The Conservatives no longer seem broad enough to contain the range of rightwing views. The Tories may be in power, but they’re also in trouble. Labour’s a mess Labour is in trouble too and seems happy for the moment to be quite a narrow church. It was during this campaign that we first saw Jeremy Corbyn really beginning to grapple with the realities of compromise. Had Corbyn still been a backbench MP, it’s hard not to assume he’d have been doing what he mostly used to do, and criticising the Labour leadership from the left. Still, cometh the hour, cometh the man. But he cut a lonely figure. The big beasts of the Tory party may have been kicking lumps out of each other, but at least there were some to see. No one from Labour emerged as a figure able to inspire the public (leaving aside the horrific exception of Jo Cox). The moderates are playing a waiting game and the longer they wait, the more marginal their party is going to start to seem. Our own democracy’s a bit dysfunctional too Despite the disarray within both parties, our first-past-the-post system is designed to ensure that one of them will hold the balance of power – even if they’re too rubbish to win outright – and in the process eviscerate any naive smaller parties who imagine they can Change Things. It’s funny, really, that we’ve spent all these weeks discussing the lack of democracy in Europe when our own democracy is so rickety and etiolated. Sure, we can kick our leaders out if we don’t like them. But, more and more, people don’t like the alternative either. This is known by experts and elites as “voter apathy”. The right can’t see the appalling sight the left sees Nigel Farage’s notorious “breaking point” poster looked to a lot of people like fascist propaganda. To others, however, this was hysterical leftie nonsense. Far from a reference to Nazi Germany, it was a reference to refugee-welcoming Christian Democrat Germany, which takes in refugees as if it’s a sovereign state, even though said refugees can then become citizens of Europe and thereby move freely around the continent, sexually assaulting women as they rove. People and politicians denouncing it, even Brexit darlings such as Gove and Johnson, were simply another bunch of experts too addled by intellect to understand a very simple message. Which is that refugees are obviously the scum of the earth. Unless they’re good at sport. Or at medicine. Or at being rich. The left can’t see the appalling sight the right sees A few days ago a heartwarming story started doing the rounds. A man on a bus told a woman in a niqab that she should speak in English in England. Another passenger – a doughty grandmother, of course! – told the man that the niqab-wearer was in Wales and was speaking Welsh. What a fortuitous illustration of fabulously integrated migrants and horrible, racist Englishmen! How great that it arrived just as the referendum was reaching its final stages! The right looked on in disgusted wonder. They knew the left was packed with credulous fools. But these guys were so pumped up with confirmation bias that they might as well be economists. Britons never, never, never, shall be slaves Oh, God. Is that offensive? No. It’s PC gone mad. We plucky Brits can do anything if we put our minds to it. It helps if you’ve got some colonies – hell, a lot of colonies. And some slaves – hell, a lot of slaves. But it’s not necessary. Anyway, mass migration is bad now. Have you seen the US, Australia and Canada? Characters totally changed by Too Many Migrants. The natives are too primitive to have a breaking point though, so it’s all good.
The Fed should show some reserve and not plough on regardless Share prices are tumbling. Bank shares are being clobbered. There is talk of a US recession, induced by a strong dollar that is already causing havoc in China, much of the rest of Asia and Latin America. In the good – or bad – old days, we could predict what the chair of US Federal Reserve would do in these circumstances. Alan Greenspan would cut interest rates, or hint at his intention to do so. Is Janet Yellen, Greenspan’s successor but one, of similar mind? If she is, she has an opportunity to say so on Wednesday when she begins two days of testimony before Congress. This event has suddenly assumed an importance that seemed unlikely when the Fed raised interest rates last December for the first time since 2006. Back then, investors cheered the early evidence of “normalisation” in monetary conditions. Stock markets rose and few were troubled by the thought of four quarter-point increases in US rates in 2016. The economy looked strong enough to take it. Two months later, and investors are screaming for relief. The central banks of Japan, the eurozone, and the UK have turned their dials to dovish in the face of weakening global growth, and now the same is demanded of the US. Some even argue that the Fed should reverse December’s tweak, not just signal delays to further rises. Yellen plainly won’t go that far. But she could join her colleague William Dudley in warning that additional strength in the dollar could have “significant consequences” for the US economy. That would be a sure sign that a rate rise in March is off the agenda. Embarrassing for Yellen? Absolutely: the Fed, having trailed its plans for a year, cannot have expected to hit a hurdle so soon. But embarrassment is better than ploughing on regardless. The basic fact is that the world economy, and the US, looks weaker than two months ago. That fragility is deeply alarming but, for the Fed’s credibility, a small about-face now is better than a big U-turn later. Yellen should delay a rate rise – not for fear of igniting more turmoil in financial markets, but because the economic weather has deteriorated. HSBC: should we stay or go now? Even HSBC can’t prolong the suspense much longer. A decision on whether to stay in London or go is imminent. Having pondered the question since last April, the board can’t credibly delay beyond the full-year results on 22 February. London is now deemed by outsiders the warm favourite, which should not be surprising. Chancellor George Osborne has performed contortions in pursuit of his “new settlement” with the banking industry, rejigging the bank levy to the benefit of mega banks such as HSBC and to the disadvantage of the “challenger” banks that were once the politicians’ favourites. Meanwhile, the supposed allure of Hong Kong has surely faded in the past year as Chinese regulators have shown themselves to be variously naive and incompetent when trying to manage the inevitable popping of their stock market bubble. Hong Kong may still formally enjoy the “one country, two systems” model but, when contemplating moving a bank the size of HSBC, it’s the 20-year, or 30-year, outlook – which remains obscure – that matters. The decision lies with HSBC and its shareholders, of course, but we can make one plea. If London is the winner, HSBC should commit for a decade or so. Anything less and its board would look as if it is addicted to prevarication. Rolls-Royce must stay in the driving seat The debate over Rolls-Royce’s dividend seems more of a non-debate. Nine times out of 10, roughly speaking, companies that say they will “consider” changes to their dividend policy – as Rolls did last November – end up cutting. It is true that Rolls’ balance sheet is not under severe strain, even after five profits warnings in two years, but there’s no point giving credit rating agencies an excuse to grumble. Downgrades could affect the Rolls’ negotiating clout when signing 20-year service contracts on engines. Stay away from that slippery slope. A near-halving of the dividend would save £200m a year. It all helps. In fact, the more interesting question for Friday’s full-year results is whether Rolls will grant a seat in the boardroom to ValueAct. The US activist hedge fund is a 10% shareholder in Rolls and its request for a seat needs to be answered. The view here remains the same: just say no. ValueAct may be co-operative in style but there is no guarantee that it wants to stay for the long-haul, which is what a seat in the boardroom should mean. Chairman Ian Davis should keep it simple and remember that managers are paid to manage.
Stock rout demotes Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey from billionaire to millionaire Jack Dorsey is no longer a billionaire, thanks to the crashing stock markets and his struggling tech empire. As global stocks tumbled on Wednesday morning, so did Square and Twitter, the two tech companies he helped found. An hour and a half after the opening bell, Twitter had fallen 6% and Square was down 11%. At $8.46 a share, Square has now fallen below the $9 price set when it went public in November 2015. Both Twitter and Square are down about 30% so far in 2016. Twitter is down 57% in the past 12 months. Dorsey, who is currently attempting to juggle the top job at both companies, saw his worth fall with the value of Square and Twitter stock. Official word that the 39-year-old entrepreneur has dropped out of the billionaires league came from Kate Vinton, a reporter who tracks the world’s wealthiest people for Forbes, compiler of the benchmark rich list. “At the Forbes 400 in September, we pegged Dorsey’s net worth at $2.2bn, thanks in large part to Square’s $6bn dollar private valuation. His net worth dropped $800m to just below $1.4bn when the company went public in November at $11.20 a share. Now, with both companies struggling on the stock market, he’s fallen out of the three-comma club with a net worth of $944m as of 10:30 am,” she wrote. On 5 October, Dorsey was reappointed as CEO of Twitter, a company that he cofounded in 2007. He was Twitter’s first CEO before he was replaced by Dick Costolo. Costolo was ousted last June as the social media company struggled to grow its user base. It has continued to struggle under Dorsey, who will report the company’s latest results early next month.
60 Minutes of cringe: the Trump-Pence debut was a stiff, awkward marriage After shocking the nation with a campaign logo so erotically charged that it should only be seen on HBO after midnight, the Donald Trump/Mike Pence presidential ticket needed to do something to lessen the thick sexual tension clouding their candidacy. Sadly, I can’t think of a less sensual venue for them than CBS’s 60 Minutes. They were so stiff, so awkward, and so clearly uncomfortable that they either had no chemistry whatsoever or they’d been married 10 years. Either way, we can be certain they’re not having sex, despite that logo. Host Lesley Stahl did a fine job grilling the Republican nominee and the cyborg police officer he’s chosen to be his running mate. She did everything in her power to try to hold them accountable for their disinterest in supplying straight answers to her reasonable questions, though I think she should have taken things a step further and electrified those hideous chairs so that every time they dodged her queries, they’d receive a light shock. If they continue to refuse to cooperate, a stiff caning would be in order. As a last resort, we’d dunk them in a tank full of wet oatmeal and force them to eat their way out. To quote Trump, those techniques get information. When Trump wasn’t skillfully evading Stahl’s questions, he was answering governor Pence’s for him. Is there a way for the Donald to join him on stage for the vice-presidential debate? Is that legal? It would certainly be more efficient than him screaming Pence’s answers from the audience, which is not outside the realm of possibility. “Um, I believe it’s the governor’s turn to respond,” he’d bark at the moderator. “No, he hates Nafta. Trust me. Hates it. The worst, Wolf. So bad. So, so bad.” So, what does Mike Pence believe now that he’s had his brain sucked out and replaced with a parasitic lizard creature from the planet Zartan? Isis Mike Pence believes that we should declare war on Islamic State (Isis). He also believes that we have to “decide to destroy the enemies of freedom”. I guess this is not dissimilar to the concept of the Secret. You can’t have what you want until you put that positive energy out into the world. Tell the mysterious universe that you want to destroy Isis, otherwise it just thinks you’re not really serious about it. Also, Isis probably isn’t aware that we want to destroy them. As far as they know, we kinda want to, but not really. It’s sort of like when you say you want to go to Red Lobster to appease your spouse, but you really want Olive Garden because the Never Ending Pasta Bowl is back. Why not just be honest and say you want Olive Garden because when you’re there, you’re family? Quit faking it, America. You want Olive Garden. Free trade Despite a history of supporting free trade, governor Pence is far more skeptical now, because he’s running with the Dealmaker-in-Chief. Before getting cut off by Trump, Pence tells Stahl, “I really do believe when the American people elect one of the best negotiators in the world as president of the United States, we would do well.” Yeah, I’m sure Trump is great and all, but you know who’s also pretty good at negotiating deals? The average used car salesman. I almost got duped into buying 2007 Honda Civic for $10,000 because the guy said it was one of the cars from The Bourne Ultimatum. Maybe that’s Trump’s philosophy? “You ever see Ninja Turtles? This is Leonardo’s samurai sword. If you want to touch it, you have to bring your rubber nipple factories back to Iowa.” Waterboarding Make it rain, says Pence. “What I’m OK with is when people have the intent to come to this country and take American lives, that – that we are – that we are prepared to do what’s necessary to gain the information to protect the people of this country.” He also states that we should never tell the enemy what kind of tactics we use. I guess that’s in case Isis is currently breeding soldiers immune to waterboarding. After all, if I know someone is going to punch me in the crotch, it hurts way less. That’s just science. Negative campaigning Pence, a highly religious man, has spoken out against the sort of negative campaigning that made Donald Trump a pop culture sensation during the Republican primary. When asked point blank if Trump went too far when he maligned the character of senator John McCain because he was captured during Vietnam, Pence said ... well, nothing. He was too busy listening to Trump answer for him. At least Trump had the decency to tell Pence that he had permission to answer yes if he wanted to. He refrained, but it’s all about having the option. Donald Trump is a fair leader who is willing to listen to all sides of an issue, so long as both sides agree with him. “I mean, you’re not – it’s fine – hey, look, I like John McCain, but we have to take care of our vets,” Trump says in lieu of a response from Pence. I don’t know what that has to do with the question of whether or not Trump was out of line to insult senator McCain, but I can say for certain that is definitely a series of words in the English language strung together to form a rudimentary sentence of sorts. Finally, Pence says something: “I promise you that when the circumstances arise where I have a difference on policy or on presentation, I have – I can tell you in my heart, I know – I would have no hesitation, were I privileged to be vice-president, to walk into the president’s office, close the door, and share my heart. And I also know this good man would listen, and has the leadership qualities to draw from the people around him.” It’s good to know that Pence will be sharing his heart with Trump when they disagree. Unfortunately, they don’t appear to disagree on anything. But, if they ever do, Pence won’t shy away from standing up to the president. Like, maybe Trump wants to hold Israel/Palestine peace talks in Atlantic City over a seafood buffet, but Pence would rather play nine holes at the Trump golf course in Jupiter, Florida. Mahmoud Abbas loves golf, as everyone knows. President Trump would happily listen to that opinion. Sure, he’d tell vice-president Pence to shut his little turd mouth and get on Air Force One immediately and be sure to bring plenty of cash because one must always be “strip club-ready” in Atlantic City, but at least he’d listen first. Truly, these two were made for each other.
Lucius review – meaty, beaty pop revelation “We’re thrilled to be back touring”, yells Lucius’s Jess Wolfe, with a delicious sense of irony. Their new album, Good Grief, is based on the more stressful side of life on the road – not breaking down on the M6 and waiting two hours for the recovery services, but the mental anguish. There are songs about fits of tears and problems on the bus. “My fists are clenched and I’m so angry with you,” the two frontwomen purr in Go Insane. And yet, here they are, beaming from ear to ear and styled like identical twins. With their red piled hair, heavy eye makeup and strange costumes, they could have stepped from the set of Nic Roeg’s Bowie film, The Man Who Fell to Earth, although those matching capes could also double as Auntie Ada’s curtains. Their music similarly mixes ancient and modern, plastic pop and soul. With Wolfe and Holly Laessig’s piercing voices way up in the mix, it’s 60s girl group meets synthetic 80s chart hits and the occasional indie rock guitar. They’re meatier and beatier live than on record, with percussive workouts. Sometimes, they’re that bit too processed, and need some space to breathe, so the homegrown country of Dusty Trails – which finds them huddled around an acoustic guitar, revealing their inner Dolly Partons – comes as a revelation. A 90-minute set risks outstaying its welcome without any recognised hit singles, and there are lulls, but there’s an unexpected treat when the girls suddenly pop up singing in the audience. Catchiest song Born Again Teen is pure pop bubblegum. By the time they hit peak harmonies with 2013’s Wildewoman, they’re being cheered to the rafters. At this rate, their next album could be all about how touring is wonderful, after all. • At the Art School, Glasgow, 8 April. Box office: 0141-353 4530. Then touring until 13 April and at Latitude, 13 July.
Gap between credit card and reserve bank interest rates at record high The head of the competition regulator has said Australia’s major banks are making huge margins on credit cards with the gap between credit card interest rates and the Reserve Bank’s official interest rate now at a record high. Rod Sims, the chairman of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, said the big banks were clearly charging interest rates “considerably above costs” and it was something “that needs to be looked at”. The gap between credit card rates and the official cash rate is now more than 18% – the largest it has been in 27 years, since data has been kept – after the major banks failed to pass on any of the Reserve Bank’s rate cut last week to credit card holders. Labor leader Bill Shorten has called on the banks to explain themselves, saying there is no reason the gap should be so big. “There is no case being made by the banks for the reason why, whenever is there is a reduction in interest rates, even if they pass some of it through to mortgages and some through to depositors, you never see significant reductions in credit card interest rates,” he said on Wednesday. “Deposits are relatively low return, but credit card interest rates are relatively high. And it’s not good enough for the banks to ignore credit card holders, mortgagees and small businesses just in the pursuit of bigger and bigger, bloated bottom line.” The Commonwealth Bank unveiled a record full-year profit after tax of $9.45bn on Wednesday, an increase of 3% on last year, just a week after refusing to pass on the rate cut in full to mortgage holders. Ian Narev, the Commonwealth Bank’s chief executive, defended his decision not to pass on the RBA’s full rate cut, saying whenever the cash rate was lowered it made life harder for depositors whose income relies on interest rates. Sims told Australia it was clear the state of competition in the credit card sector needed investigating., given the gap between the cash rate and interest rates on credit cards. “It’s a classic example of, you look at that and you say how does that continue?” he said. “Now, it may not just be a competition issue, in terms of entry barriers and how they manage to keep that market so lucrative. “It could be something that needs to be looked at from the consumer side as well, like why are consumers so sticky [and don’t shop around for the best offer]. “It’s a key sector of competition you’d want to understand better. Those are huge margins. They’re clearly charging interest rates considerably above cost.” Asked why the CBA did not pass on any of the Reserve Bank’s rate cut to credit card customers, a CBA bank spokesman said only: “The official cash rate is only one factor in determining the interest rates on credit cards. Credit card interest rates are determined in a different way from home loans as they are a form of credit that is not secured to assets.” Sims said he was looking forward to to a Productivity Commission review of competition in the banking sector, flagged by the Coalition in response to the financial system inquiry. He said the review must look at the credit card sector.
'People are nicer to each other when they move more slowly': how to create happier cities When Charles Montgomery first started talking about urban happiness, people laughed at him. As his colleague Omar Dominguez explains, “happiness is kind of an out-there concept for some people”. Montgomery and Dominguez work at Happy City, a Canadian organisation named after Montgomery’s 2013 book, which makes the case for retrofitting cities for happiness and argues that streets, parks, shopping centres, housing estates – indeed most urban infrastructure – can be designed to make people feel happier, behave better and be kinder. “If we give a damn about human wellbeing in cities, we need to study the emotional effects of spaces and systems,” says Montgomery. “We need to use evidence to help fix the horrific mistakes we’ve made over the last century.” To beat the sceptics, the team at Happy City gathers evidence from psychology, neuroscience, public health and behavioural economics. They know that hospital patients who can see trees through their bedside windows heal faster than those who only see brick walls. They know that commuters at rush hour suffer more anxiety than fighter pilots or riot police facing angry mobs. They even know that the friendliest front gardens are precisely 10.6ft deep. And they conduct their own research, particularly around Montgomery’s theory that the most important ingredient for human happiness is social connection. An experiment in Seattle found that passersby are four times more likely to help lost tourists on lively streets filled with lots of small shops than on pristine, but essentially characterless, blocks, where people tend to move more quickly. “We think the kindness effect was a result of velocity,” says Montgomery. “People are nicer to each other when they move more slowly and have time to make eye contact.” At the Project for Public Space conference in Vancouver from 12 to 15 September 2016, Happy City will host walking tours of the city. Participants will be hooked up to sensors that measure their physiological arousal, enabling scientists to test people’s physical and emotional responses to their surroundings, as they walk through community gardens or down dark alleys. ‘An explosion of interest’ But the real problem is that this kind of evidence rarely makes it outside academia. With one foot in research and another in urban planning, Happy City tries to bridge the gap between them. It is a consultancy, advising local governments, developers and any other organisations that have control over how cities grow, including the World Health Organisation. Montgomery says he’s seen an “explosion of interest in the field” of happiness and urban planning over the past three years – and not just from Scandinavian countries. “I’m especially thrilled to see that property developers are embracing the wellbeing agenda,” he says. Happy City has helped British Land, the UK’s largest real estate investment trust, to weave wellbeing principles into its new development practices. “But we’re seeing an awakening in other parts of the world, too,” says Montgomery, referring to Ahura Builders, which invited Happy City to hack the designs for a community of 8,000 people in Punawale, India. “Our happiness interventions included breaking up imposing superblocks, investing in quiet streets that are safe and friendly for pedestrians and creating a village heart to which residents could walk and shop.” Another project was based in Mexico City. Chaotic, crowded and with high levels of crime, it’s an unusual setting for the happiness agenda. But in the autumn of 2014 the local government’s innovation unit commissioned Happy City to do a three-day “happiness audit” of Colonia Doctores, a poor neighbourhood in the south-west of the city. Dominguez, Happy City’s director of operations and sustainability, gathered together public officials, city planners, architects and – most importantly – local residents. On the first day they discussed key principles that influence wellbeing, such as access to nature and the ability to have positive social interactions on a daily basis. “One of the key concerns in Mexico is safety. What people do when they’re concerned about their safety is to fortify,” says Dominguez. “Actually, one of the best things you can do is generate a sense of trust and calm.” On the second day the group toured Colonia Doctores, applying the principles to physical aspects of the neighbourhood and on the third they presented their findings. Recommendations included opening a new museum and pedestrianising an area outside the local wrestling arena, turning it into a cultural corridor around Mexican wrestling. “That sense of community is good for their wellbeing,” says Dominguez. ‘Happiness is good for the bottom line’ One thing the Happy City team is really passionate about is making the business case for happiness. “Building healthier, happier places is not more expensive. In fact, these places save society money in the long run,” says Montgomery. He can, of course, point to the proof. People who are socially connected are more resilient and more productive at work. Cities that encourage social interaction foster greater levels of creativity and trust, both of which correlate with GDP growth. There’s an app that analyses the cost to society of commuting: driving to work incurs costs you might not think of, such as infrastructure, accidents, pollution, congestion and lost productivity due to ill health. Cycling, meanwhile, offers savings to the healthcare system and improved productivity from exercise – making that bike lane look like a great investment, Montgomery says. The private sector also has a lot to gain from from designing workplaces where employees can be more productive, or shopping centres that encourage loyalty from customers and businesses. Some developers understand that places that promote health and happiness are also good for their bottom line, says Montgomery. Talk to us on Twitter via @ public and sign up for your free weekly Public Leaders newsletter with news and analysis sent direct to you every Thursday.
Readers recommend: share your songs about bodily fluids Perhaps there will be blood, sweat and tears on the agenda this week – though in fact the first of those was covered in its own list back in 2013: pick your tune and make your suggestions now for a playlist of the best next week. You can find a list of all songs previously picked and so ineligible for the series here. You have until 11pm on Monday 6 June to post your nomination and make your justification. Regular RR contributor Pairubu will then select from your recommendations. If you would like to volunteer to compile a playlist from readers’ suggestions – and potentially blog about the process/selection for the – please email matthew.holmes@theguardian.com with the subject line ‘RR guru’ or make yourself known in the comments. Here’s a reminder of the guidelines for RR: Tell us why it’s a worthy contender. Quote lyrics if helpful, but for copyright reasons no more than a third of a song’s words. Provide a link to the song. We prefer YouTube, but Spotify or Soundcloud are fine. Listen to others people’s suggestions and add yours to a collaborative Spotify playlist. If you have a good theme, or if you’d like to volunteer to compile a playlist from readers’ suggestions, please email matthew.holmes@theguardian.com. There’s a wealth of data on RR, including the songs that are “zedded”, at the Marconium. It also tells you the meaning of “zedded” (picked for a previous playlist so ineligible), “donds” and other strange words used by RR regulars. Many RR regulars also congregate at the ’Spill blog.
MGM reports $47.8m loss from Ben-Hur box-office flop MGM’s expensive remake of Ben-Hur lost the company approximately $47.8m (£37.9m), investors have been told. The company released its quarterly earnings statement on 10 November, telling investors that its earnings were $20.2m lower than the equivalent quarter last year, “primarily due to $47.8 million of film impairment charges”. “Our third-quarter results were negatively impacted by a significant impairment charge resulting from the substantial underperformance of Ben-Hur,” MGM CEO Gary Barber was quoted as saying by Deadline. Timur Bekmambetov’s adaptation of Lew Wallace’s 1880 novel cost approximately $100m to produce before promotional expenses, but has so far taken just $94m worldwide. In the US it took a disappointing $26m. It opened to largely negative reviews, with the ’s Peter Bradshaw saying “the passion and grandeur of scale have gone missing. Bekmambetov’s direction has nothing in the way of nuance or ordinary human light-and-shade.” There have been four earlier adaptations of Ben-Hur, the best known being William Wyler’s 1959 version starring Charlton Heston, which won 11 Oscars and became a box office smash. However, it was not all bad news for MGM’s investors – earnings from TV increased by 108% to $185.2m, thanks to strong performances from Vikings, Celebrity Apprentice, The Voice and Survivor. Barber said he expected MGM to deliver overall earnings of $390m for 2016.
From GM mosquitoes to condoms: the companies tackling Zika “Did you know that even away from water, eggs from the Zika mosquito can survive for up to a year?” Launched on Brazilian TV last month, a 15-second advert for a well-known household disinfectant shows the clear liquid being poured into a roof gutter, down a drain, and being used to sterilise the dishes used underneath potted plants. The TV ad for Vim, a simple, chlorine-based liquid, marks one of Brazil’s first mass-market consumer products to claim Zika-fighting properties as a direct selling point, tapping into concern around the virus. Businesses and institutions are mobilising to come up with solutions in the hope of not only providing some measure of protection against Zika, but also of making that protection financially viable. Those include vaccines, insect-repellent products and GM mosquitoes. Already known to be passed from human to human via mosquito bites, Zika is now also thought to be transmissible through sex, through blood transfusions, and possibly also via prolonged exchanges of saliva – “deep kissing”. The mosquito-borne virus is thought to be behind a spike in cases of microcephaly, a birth defect resulting in babies being born with smaller than normal heads, as well as an increase in cases of Guillain–Barré syndrome, a rare autoimmune condition. Zika has now been detected in Africa, the Americas, Asia and the Pacific. As of 15 June, 1,581 cases of microcephaly had been confirmed in Brazil. The role of big pharma According to the WHO, there are 18 programmes actively working on Zika vaccines worldwide, including 15 commercial entities. Among them are Sanofi in France and the Indian company Bharat Biotech. In the US the big pharma guns Johnson & Johnson, Merck and Pfizer are all working on vaccine projects. As is Inovio Pharmaceuticals, which in June announced approval from the US Food and Drug Administration to begin testing its experimental vaccine on humans. Many others are working to develop diagnostic tools, methods of neutralising mosquitoes and antiviral and therapeutic treatments. Yet as encouraging as those potentially life-saving breakthroughs may be, they are mainly slow-building, long-term solutions. As the virus continues to spread since the first outbreak in Brazil in February 2015, and with the Rio Olympics fast approaching, other businesses are focusing on more immediate measures. Australian athletes will be arriving at August’s Olympics, for example, with their own supplies of Dual Protect condoms. “The world’s first anti-viral condom”, according to the products creators condom manufacturer Ansell and pharma company Starpharma. They are marketing the active ingredient, astodrimer sodium or SPL7013, as showing “near complete antiviral protection” against Zika in lab tests. Despite the Australian team’s implicit endorsement of the condoms, Dual Protect has in the past faced criticism . The brand was first launched in 2014, claiming added protection against HIV, herpes and HPV, but many sources have said all quality-assured condoms should offer protection against viruses when “correctly and consistently used”. New insect repellents Insect repellents provide another business opportunity for well-positioned companies. In particular demand are those based on a compound called icaridin, produced by German company, Saltigo. Icaridin is much sought after by pregnant women and the parents of young children, due to its low toxicity and relatively long-lasting effect. Until recently, only one icaridin-based repellent, Exposis, was available in Brazil. Osler, the French company behind the brand, has seen its sales increase 30-fold in the past year, but there are now two additional brands, Luvex Gold and Sunlau, the latter launched by the Brazilian company Henlau in January. Henlau is also working on the launch of a repellent-impregnated fabric. Sunlau’s label says it is effective against insect bites and the transmission of diseases like dengue, chikungunya and malaria but there is no mention yet of Zika. “We’ve applied to Anvisa [the Brazilian body that regulates and approves drugs],” says Marcos Brunieri, the manager of Henlau’s cosmetics division. “Each new application for a product has to be researched, submitted and approved before we can change the label to include it.” GM mosquitoes Oxford-based Oxitec is developing an initiative focused on preventing Zika. The biotech company has genetically modified male mosquitoes to make them “self-limiting”, so any offspring die before reaching adulthood. Through experiments releasing its modified mosquitoes, Oxitec says it has seen good results in reducing the Aedes aegypti population responsible for the transmission of Zika, as well as of dengue, chikungunya and yellow fever. Such initiatives are essential, says Dr Rosana Richtmann, an infectologist at São Paulo’s Emilio Ribas Institute of Infectious Disease: “Each of the fronts on which Zika is being combated is vital in its own way,” she says. But rooting out the mosquito behind its transmission demands huge levels of investment, she says. For Richtmann, one of the most urgent, pressing areas in Zika research is diagnosis. “All being well, we may have a vaccine in two to three years,” she says. “But we can’t wait that long. Something we need urgently, now, are diagnostic tools.” Currently, the tests used within the Brazilian public healthcare system are prohibitively expensive, says Richtmann, costing from R$1000 to R$1400 (US$300-$400). “The government simply can’t afford to cover those kinds of costs.” Only a few cases of Zika have been diagnosed at Emilio Ribas so far, says Richtmann. As a result, diagnosis is only possible in a few instances, leaving the rest as suspected cases. “It’s very hard to know how many infections there have actually been.” In São Paulo in January, the Fundação Oswaldo Cruz, a major state health institution dedicated to research into vaccines and associated technologies, announced the development of a new, cheaper test for Zika infection, costing around $20. The Foundation is now working on developing a serological test, which can detect past infection via antibodies in the blood – an essential resource, says Richtmann. “We have many women wishing to become pregnant who ask, and who need to know before they make a decision, whether or not they have had Zika. It’s essential that they should be able to find that out.” This article was amended on 13 July to reflect that icaridin is no longer produced by its developer, Bayer, but by Saltigo, a subsidiary of Lanxess, which was spun off from Bayer in 2004.
'We have to be nimble and pragmatic' – crisp maker hit by price rises Manufacturer Nimisha Raja has been following the foreign exchange markets more closely than usual since the referendum. She makes dried fruit and vegetable crisps at a factory in Sittingbourne, Kent, and buying ingredients from abroad has become a lot more expensive since the Brexit vote sent the pound tumbling against the euro, the dollar and other currencies. Like other manufacturers who buy materials from abroad, Raja has had to decide whether to take a hit to profit margins at Nim’s Fruit Crisps, charge more to clients or change her products. “On the whole, because we have our own production we can change things as and when we need to,” says Raja. “We have had to be pragmatic and nimble.” Raja opened her factory a year ago and has been in talks with high street retailers and supermarkets about selling her crisps. During talks with potential customers she has had to navigate swings in fruit prices, thanks to the weaker pound. The price she pays for pineapple jumped from 55p per kilo to 70p per kilo, while watermelon went from 60p to 90p. The company has just signed a deal with one retailer and, instead of raising the price it charges for pineapple products, Raja will absorb the higher cost herself. “We’ve decided we will make less on the pineapple, but they buy other products from us.” Watermelon crisps, meanwhile, have been postponed until the import price comes down again. The higher costs of overseas fruits has pushed Raja’s firm to look at using more local fruits than before. Its apples, pears and vegetables are UK-grown. The company has also invested in a new pineapple peeling machine to cut its production costs and help offset higher import prices. As for many other manufacturers, the pound’s weakness has a silver lining for the fruit crisps maker: export demand has gone up as Raja’s products have become cheaper to overseas buyers. “It’s been quite amazing,” she says. “We have had six emails from five different countries in the last couple of weeks. Lithuania, Italy, France, Belgium and Hong Kong.” Overall, Raja says she will be watching the pound closely as Brexit negotiations kick off, but she is confident she is adapting her business to cope with higher import costs if the pound falls further. “When I introduce new products now, I just have to make sure it’s not from imports but local produce.”
Too big? Too loud? Too real? Billy Lynn and other failed cinematic innovations Dearly beloved, We come here today to bury another bold-but-bad idea in theatrical cinematic presentation. Many artists feel compelled to push the boundaries of their chosen craft, and without them we wouldn’t have color, we wouldn’t have sound, we wouldn’t have those machines with approximately four hundred different flavors of sugary carbonated beverages that call to us from the lobbies of multiplex cinemas. But for every Mustang there’s an Edsel, and after two very costly, public humiliations, I think we can safely say that high frame rate is not the future of cinema. Maybe this eerily clear window of hyper-pixelated video reproduction works for sporting events, nature shows and, um, short films detailing human mating rituals, but it just doesn’t jibe with the language of visual storytelling. At least not yet. When I saw Peter Jackson’s Hobbit films, the first to be presented in 3D and in high frame rate (at 48fps), I bristled at the smooth, plasticized look. “It just doesn’t feel like a movie!” I barked, but, for fear of seeming like a luddite, I conceded that maybe high fantasy wasn’t the appropriate genre for this first encounter. With such resolution you could see the makeup lines on the Dwarven faces. You could see where the practical set ended and the keyed-in computer generated backgrounds began. But perhaps a tense drama with lots of action would work with this new technology? (Captain Phillips, a film released at the same time as the second Hobbit, was one I suggested could maybe pull it off.) Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk is no Captain Phillips, but its intersection of international affairs and individual psychology is at least in the same ballpark. So having seen it, I can tell you, no, 3D high frame rate doesn’t really “work” in this genre either. I recognize that I’ve been conditioned by seeing a lifetime of movies a certain way, but this isn’t an enhancement, it’s an obliteration. The 120 frames-per-second rate, the crystal clear 4K projection and the extremely fluid 3D (no pop-up book-style planes here) kneecaps the suspension of disbelief. It’s like sitting in a theater and the screen is an window onto what your mind perceives as just more of life. It is like watching a play, only with editing and a mobile POV. Close-ups of Steve Martin’s enormous sphere of a head all up in your business is fascinating, but good luck concentrating on what he’s saying when you can count his lower eyelashes. I found it impossible to get oriented, even two hours in. It’s like the first time I tried hard contact lenses. “You’ll get used to it,” the doctor said. Forget that, give me back my glasses, they worked fine. Out of respect to Ang Lee, who has made some terrific movies in the past, I’ll rationalize that maybe this is all intentional, and that Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk is some brilliant, Brechtian exercise in distancing its audience toward some higher goal. After all, Lynn is a returning war hero with PTSD, mostly quiet and observant, and as his mind adjusts it’s as if he’s on another planet. This reading maybe makes HFR an interesting discussion point in the context of this specific film, but also a one-of-a-kind gimmick. I strongly doubt we’ll be seeing it again in a Hollywood movie any time soon. Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk has over twice the frame rate than Jackson’s Hobbit did, at 120 frames-per-second (not that I was counting), and it was altogether panned by critics following its debut at the New York Film Festival. (So it ain’t just me.) As such, Sony, the studio releasing the film, offered only traditionally projected press screenings after the festival. Only two theaters – AMC Lincoln Square in New York City and the Cinerama Dome in Los Angeles – are exhibiting the film the way Lee envisioned it. Is 4K 3D 120FPS dead? Considering we still haven’t found a uniform way to describe this thing, I say yes. But once it’s covered with earth and left to rot, it should know it has some good company. Here’s a reminder of other technological advances that croaked before it. The Rope Trick Alfred Hitchcock helped create what theorists call film grammar, so you can forgive him for wanting to break as many rules as possible. 1948’s Rope, a decent enough yarn starring James Stewart, concerns two young men attempting the perfect murder. Behind the camera, Hitchcock was attempting to make a movie exclusing its essential element, the cut. Nowadays, with video, many have made movies from unsimulated single takes. Back then, with the need to shoot on a soundstage and change film magazines, Rope is a complex dance of hidden reel changes and transitions. It’s crafty and somewhat interesting, but the attempt to make a movie in “real time” to better capture a higher truth ends up coming across as more distant. Cinerama In an effort to combat the creeping competition of television, the movies went wider. When things couldn’t get any wider, they curved. Thus begat Cinerama, an initially successful experiment in which three projectors beamed images onto a giant screen with a 146 degree arc. Two would criss-cross, one would be down the center and, if everything lined up correctly, no one in the audience would notice the seams. This was an incredibly expensive process, from production on the way down through editing and presentation. Early Cinerama films were basically showcases for the technology (This is Cinerama featured roller coasters, bull fights and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir) but two traditional movies were produced in the three-strip process, the most famous being How The West Was Won. By the 1960s some Super Panavision 70mm films, like 2001: A Space Odyssey, were shown on the curved screens care of special lenses, but by then the novelty had worn off. A few Cinerama screens are still out there, but for large format event presentations, Imax is King. The first wave of 3D The jury is still out on whether modern 3D is here to stay. Audiences aren’t begging for it, but they aren’t balking at the price hike either. Occasionally a movie still uses 3D in innovative ways (Doctor Strange being the best since 2011’s Hugo.) But the first wave of 3D in the early 1950s never got over the “we’re going to wave a fishhook in your face” vibe. The need to have two projectors running (and in sync, despite wear-and-tear) made it difficult. While this was, indeed, a technical process that involved a great deal of skill and care, audiences eventually lumped it in with schlockmeisters like William Castle buzzing seats for the Vincent Price film The Tingler. Plus the glasses were even worse back then. Senssuround Any film professor worth her salt will tell you that sound is just as important as picture. Mainly this is to soothe kids who are incompetent with a camera, but there is some truth to the statement. Senssuround was a failed audio process from the 1970s that amplified certain frequencies in the mix that would cause a rumble and vibration during key moments in the film. There were a few problems right off the bat. Senssuround wouldn’t work for all movies, just for ones from the affiliated studio, in this case Universal. As such, theaters would have to rent the special speakers and pay to have them installed and removed. While the tech may have worked fine, there was a different corporate problem. Universal was making junk at the time. The George Segal vehicle Rollercoaster was no match for Star Wars. Moreover, this was just as the multiplex was born, so theater-goers seeing a New Hollywood classic in Auditorium A probably wasn’t too thrilled by the constant rumbling coming out of Auditorium B’s showing of Charlton Heston in Earthquake. The Interactive Movie It was late 1992 and that weird quiet kid was playing chess with someone in Estonia on his computer. What was once just for Nasa was now coming to neighborhoods: push-button computers. Loews Theaters thought they saw the future, and as such commissioned I’m Your Man, a 20 minute “interactive” short film that changed depending how audiences voted. Theaters were refitted with joysticks in the armrests to the tune of $70,000, and if you paid three dollars you could stay and watch different permutations as long as you wanted. A few shorts were made (one by Back to the Future scribe Bob Gale) but by 1994 the perplexing experiment was scrapped. Even on DVD, where one could easily answer prompts with a remote control, audiences rejected getting too involved with storytelling. Sometimes we just want a space without responsibility. Drive-In Movies The Drive-In ain’t dead. It’s just asleep.
Small businesses worry over RBS plans to charge interest on accounts Royal Bank of Scotland’s decision to warn customers that it might charge them to accept deposits has caused alarm among small business customers about the impact of any cuts to interest rates. Mike Cherry, national chairman of the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB), said the warning by the bailed-out bank was deeply concerning to small firms and suggested customers should look for the best accounts on offer. “FSB’s latest research shows small business confidence is already at a four-year low. Firms are less optimistic, cutting headcount and curbing investment intentions,” said Cherry. The reported on Monday that NatWest – the main high street banking operation for RBS in England and Wales – had written to 850,000 business customers to warn them about the impact of low interest. If RBS customers are included, the number of customers reaches 1.3 million. The letter to customers, which includes self-employed traders, charities and clubs as well as big corporations, reads: “Global interest rates remain at very low levels and in some markets are currently negative. Dependent on future market conditions, this could result in us charging interest on credit balances.” The next opportunity for the Bank of England’s monetary policy committee to cut interest rates is on 4 August. The City expects a cut from the already historic low of 0.5% after remarks by the Bank’s governor, Mark Carney, after the British vote to leave the European Union. Carney said some monetary policy easing would probably be required over the summer. Cherry had a message for the MPC, which Carney chairs. “When the monetary policy committee meets next week to decide on interest rates, we would call on them to do everything possible to consider the implications of changing interest rates for smaller firms and the self-employed looking to maintain or grow their business,” said Cherry. He said all banks holding deposits for small business should update customers about changes to their business current accounts (BCA). “We would also encourage small firms themselves to take action and consider whether it’s worth switching to a more competitive BCA. One resource to consider is the Business Banking Insight website, which compares BCAs offered on behalf of every bank operating in the UK, to see whether there’s a better deal for your business.” RBS tried to reassure customers on Tuesday that it was not planning to implement negative interest rates. “We will consider any necessary action in the event of the Bank of England base rate falling below zero but will do our utmost to protect our customers from any impacts. “We have no current plans to pass negative rates through to personal or business customers,” the bank, which is 73%-owned by the taxpayer, said.
Santander – where’s my account with £125,000? I read with interest a complaint from a reader who had a small amount in an Abbey National account which then disappeared, despite a passbook turning up. I moved from the UK to the US in 1997 and had just over £125,000 in an Abbey National account. Living in the US, I had no idea Abbey National had been acquired by Santander. Despite contacting Santander and the Financial Services Ombudsman, I have had no success in tracing the money. Surely this is an absolute disgrace. As far as I can see, it has no relevance whether the Abbey National has converted to another name, but is robbery on a grand scale. Is there any other path to recover this money? JD, New York City (formerly London W1) Passbooks were generally replaced by computerised records and printed statements from the early 1970s. But building societies have continued to issue passbooks for some accounts. Accounts are declared “dormant” after banks fail to track you down at your last known address. However, any funds and interest will always belong to you, no matter how long has passed. A Santander spokesman said: “JD contacted Santander and then the FSO, who upheld the complaint in Santander’s favour in January 2014. We were unable to find any evidence that the account still exists. Under the Data Protection Act 1998 we are only required to hold customer information for six years after an account has been closed or become dormant. “Also, as long as identification is provided, passbooks don’t need to be presented by customersfor each transaction on the account. This means the absence of confirmation in a passbook that funds have been withdrawn and/or the account closed, is not proof that funds remain in the account or that it remains open. “JD has provided us with details of a second account, which is blocked as ‘dormant’ due to inactivity over a long period of time. We place blocks to protect customers and their accounts from potential fraudulent activity. We have offered to transfer these funds into JD’s overseas account and await confirmation.” We can imagine your frustration but find it extraordinary that, even given a move abroad, you lost track of over £125,000, a very substantial sum. We agree with Santander’s advice strongly urging customers to keep an eye on their accounts. Any that have beenleft for more than 10 years, as in this case, can be difficult to locate and it is ultimately a customer’s responsibility to manage their finances. We welcome letters but cannot answer individually. Email us at consumer.champions@theguardian.com or write to Consumer Champions, Money, the , 90 York Way, London N1 9GU. Please include a daytime phone number
Patients ‘at risk’ as the anaesthetists shortage is predicted to increase The NHS faces a critical shortage of anaesthetists that could force operations to be delayed and even threaten patient safety, doctors’ leaders have warned. New research shows that by 2033 every hospital trust will have 10-20 fewer consultant anaesthetists than they will need to meet rising patient demand. It estimates that, while the NHS has agreed that its total of anaesthetists should expand to 11,800 by that date, on current trends it is likely to reach only 8,000 – a shortfall of 3,800, or about 33%. Anaesthetists play a vital role in preparing patients for surgery and monitoring them, are key members of the medical teams in maternity units and intensive care, and deliver pain relief and resuscitation. They become involved in the treatment of two-thirds of hospital inpatients. Like many other areas of medical care, anaesthesia already has too few practitioners. Rota gaps – where there are too few doctors to cover every shift in hospital units – are increasingly common. The Royal College of Anaesthetists (RCoA), which carried out the research, warned that patients and the smooth running of hospitals would be hit if the existing shortfallin numbers was allowed to increase. Dr Liam Brennan, the college’s president, said: “Anaesthetists possess a unique and non-transferable skill set that is essential to maintaining core hospital services, so the potential impact of a reduced anaesthetic workforce would have serious implications for patient safety across the whole NHS. We already have fewer than we need and the shortages are worrying.” The college’s latest census of the UK’s anaesthesia workforce, the first since 2010, also found that 74% of hospitals already rely on locum anaesthetists hired from medical employment agencies to ensure their rotas are full. The cost of that is part of the NHS’s huge annual bill – £3.7bn a year in England alone – for temporary staff. Brennan said the outlay on locums showed that the shortfall in anaesthetists was a false economy. Even more anaesthetic departments – 98% – needed their own staff to do extra shifts as internal locums to avoid rota gaps. The report’s findings were “very worrying”, said Brennan. “These shortages mean that doctors who are already overstretched are having to work even harder to maintain services, particularly for urgent and emergency care for patients. They are going the extra mile on a daily basis to fill these gaps. “Part of the picture is that there are no other doctors that can do our jobs, therefore there’s no potential for cross-cover, because the skills we have aren’t part of the generic skill set of doctors.” Tight NHS budgets and hospitals’ need to make efficiency savings meant there was not enough money to hire the number of anaesthetists needed, he added. “If consultant anaesthetists are continually having to ‘act down’ and fill gaps in rotas, then they are less available during the day, so there will inevitably be delays to people needing elective care, such as hip operations and the like. Is this situation sustainable? I don’t think it is,” said Brennan. A report last year by the Centre for Workforce Intelligence, which is part of the NHS staffing agency Health Education England, said that demand for anaesthetic services would grow by 25% by 2033 because of the ageing and growing population. That would require the number of anaesthetists to grow by 300 a year to keep up. But the royal college’s findings show that only 130 more a year were added between 2007 and 2015, leading to a significant gap that on current trends is set to continue widening. Brennan urged NHS planners to create more training places for young doctors seeking to make a career in anaesthetics in order to minimise the expected shortfall. The time-sensitive nature of what anaesthetists do made adequate numbers essential, added Brennan. “If we delay even for a few minutes intubating a patient who needs intubation, that patient might well die,” he said. Labour’s Heidi Alexander, the shadow health secretary, warned patients could be hit by the shortages the college’s research uncovered. “Anaesthetists are absolutely essential to the delivery of many hospital services – and staff shortages of this kind present a serious risk to patient care. Ministers can’t keep turning a blind eye to this crisis. Unless urgent action is taken the people who will suffer most will be patients,” she said. The Department of Health said: “We don’t recognise the RCoA figures. Anaesthetists play a vital role in the NHS, so it’s important we have an appropriate number available across the week. Since 2010 we have almost 900 additional anaesthetists in the NHS, an increase of more than 16%, with more than 3,000 in training posts every year.”
Trump hopes to avoid convention ‘violence’ A new Emerson poll put Hillary Clinton 15 points ahead of Bernie Sanders in New York, which votes tomorrow. Donald Trump showed a 34-point lead. Both numbers were in line with averages. Sanders’ NY buzz may not deliver In a hypothetical national primary between the Democratic candidates, however, a WSJ/NBC poll had Sanders nipping at Clinton’s heels, 48-50. A year ago averages had Clinton up 62-8. Immigration activists look to election as supreme court considers key case The pro-Clinton political group Priorities USA reserved $35m to spend in a general election battle on advertising targeting millennials, Hispanics, African Americans and women, the Washington Post reported. Super Pac plans big Clinton buy Speaking of Pacs – the Sanders camp sent a letter to the DNC suggesting a party-aligned fund was illegally funding Clinton instead of state party committees or down-ballot races. ‘I am writing to convey some extremely serious concerns’ Speaking on Staten Island on Sunday, Trump said: “You’re going to have a very, very upset and angry group of people” at the national convention if he’s denied. He called the system “100% crooked”. Trump gets hero’s welcome on Staten Island Trump rival Ted Cruz dismissed the frontrunner’s insistence that he is owed victory, saying: “Donald’s calculator is missing a few keys.” Cruz, meanwhile, continued to quietly rack up delegates. Cruz sweeps Wyoming after Trump cedes fight
The 50 best films of 2016 in the UK: No 3 Arrival Of all the appalling injustices exacted by the Golden Globe nominations earlier this week (wot, no Kate Beckinsale?! Aaron Taylor-Johnson for Nocturnal Animals not Michael Shannon?!) the lack of nominations for Arrival seemed among the most baffling. Granted the two it did pick up were in the areas in which Denis Villeneuve’s cerebral sci-fi shines the brightest: Amy Adams’s leading role, plus the score. But still. Really no recognition for Eric Heisserer’s extraordinary screenplay (adapted from Ted Chiang’s Story of Your Life)? The direction? Or just for being a damn fine drama? Arrival is a movie for which prejudices about the genre, or qualms about the premise (Adams is a linguist who translates for newly landed aliens), might have had you lowering your expectations. You come out with mind blown, nails absent and tissue supply severely depleted. Yes, it’s set among space beasties, but it is a movie absolutely about the human condition, about how we choose who to love and how to love them. It is a thriller featuring helicopters and Forest Whitaker shouting, but it is never ever dumb, only gripping. And it is by far the most thoughtful release this year. It informs and explores ideas subconsciously common to us all about our interplay with language, and the past and the future. In what it suggests about how we experience time in a much more non-linear fashion than most conventional narratives, it is, I think, overwhelming. We are stuck in shuffle, says Heisserer, we do not pass through forever in the present. Everyone, everything seems elevated by a movie about which there is something intangible, miraculous. Even Jeremy Renner seems much less slappable than usual (though concerns about the ethics and plausibility of the actions of his character in the final reel do persist). Best of all is that sound design (never words I thought I’d write): Jóhann Jóhannsson’s alarming brass and booms that herald the arrival of the spaceships and, best of all, the Max Richter piece, On the Nature of Daylight, which bookends the film. The whole amounts to something transcendent; something to reignite your excitement for cinema, for life. • More best films of 2016 in the UK
Bank inquiry: ANZ has 'no link' to Malaysian 1MDB scandal – as it happened The second day of bank hearings has concluded, ending ANZ’s testimony to the House of Representatives Economics Committee. What we learned today: Chief executive Shayne Elliott said a bank tribunal would be a “good idea”, joining CBA chief executive Ian Narev who expressed openess to the idea. The ANZ chief executive revealed the bank is considering whether to stop giving political donations. Elliott suggested the bank had an “appetite” to restructure credit card interest rates, including possibly dropping headline rates. Two ANZ employees were fired for code-of-conduct breaches, but others whose actions are the subject of an Asic case on rigging the bank bill swap rate have been reinstated because the bank concluded they had done nothing wrong. ANZ executives had no difficulty responding to questions about the bank’s role in the aftermath of Timbercorp’s collapse, and denied any link to the 1MDB scandal. Elliott accepted that banks had not always met standards and apologised for any harm caused. Matt Thistlethwaite has returned to why rate rises are passed on “like rockets” but rate cuts are passed on “like feathers”. Deputy chief executive, Graham Hodges, says the delay can be caused by determining what the best interest rate is and moving rates at a convenient time to avoid multiple movements rather than a calculation that the bank makes money for every day it delays a rate cut. Asked by Liberal MP Trevor Evans to address the perception that banks pass on rate rises quicker than rate cuts, ANZ chief executive Shayne Elliott says: It’s not our intention – I understand a lot of people will be cynical about that. He says ANZ wants to move rates on a more regular basis, but “people expect them ... shortly after [Reserve Bank] moves, so that’s what we will do”. Liberal MP Craig Kelly has questioned why the difference between home loan interest rates and those for small business loans secured by houses has increased over time. ANZ chief Shayne Elliott denies this reflects lack of competition – and points to the fact the risks on small business loans secured by a house are 10 times greater than a home loan. A regulatory change also increased the amount of capital that needs to be held by 60% relative to a home loan. Asked if there has been a substantial increase in risk in lending to small business, he replies: No. This was covered yesterday – it reflects that the risk was incorrectly priced in the past. Adam Bandt has quizzed the ANZ executives about its role sitting on the board of Malaysian bank AmBank which held billions in the 1MDB funds at the centre of a global financial scandal. More than $US1bn is alleged to have flowed into Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak’s bank ­accounts between January 2011 and April 2013 — much of it from 1MDB. ANZ chief executive Shayne Elliott says he is satisfied nobody employed by ANZ did anything wrong and the bank was not being investigated by the US Justice Department. He says the bank has no relationship with 1MDB, or link to what is alleged to have happened. Adam Bandt asks about ANZ lending money to Timbercorp and whether there was a condition that other investors put up their houses or other security for their investment. Deputy chief executive Graham Hodges denies imposing any conditions to control how Timbercorp dealt with its investors except for “normal [conditions] around credit criteria to support a securitisation structure”. Asked what input ANZ has had in the liquidation process, Hodges says it encouraged establishment of a hardship program. Bandt asks for all ANZ documents relating to Timbercorp and its liquidator, and will make a more specific request in writing. ANZ takes it on notice. After Adam Bandt said ANZ gave $1.65m to the two major parties over 10 years, here’s a quick fact check on their most recent donations: The Greens MP Adam Bandt has asked how ANZ justifies to its shareholders the fact it gave $1.65m to the Coalition and Labor between 2004 and 2015. CEO Shayne Elliott responds: We justify it by saying we are supporting the democratic process in the country. Elliott denies the bank considers donations an “investment” to achieve outcomes such as avoiding a bank royal commission. He reveals that there are “discussions at the board level about the role of political donations” and whether to continue making them. It comes after NAB’s board of directors said it “resolved in May 2016 that the making of any political donations would cease with immediate effect”, according to its policy statement on political donations. Shayne Elliott says his salary as chief executive is $2.1m a year plus, $2.1m in short-term and $2.1m in long-term incentives. The pay of a teller is “about the $50-60,000 mark”. He says contingent elements of pay are based on performance metrics including people management, financial results and customer satisfaction. Balance is key to ensure remuneration based on performance is a “healthy driver in their behaviour and doesn’t drive poor outcomes”, he says. Deputy chief executive, Graham Hodges, says ANZ will “always provide assistance” when customers say they are experiencing hardship. He says the customers’ issues are “not just the card itself” but other financial problems, including bills and unexpected events. “That’s what financial hardship is,” Labor MP Matt Keogh responds. He suggests that given evidence that 90% of customers experience hardship because of unexpected events after getting a card, 10% must have had financial problems when they got the card. Chief executive Shayne Elliott responds that they may simply have overextended themselves after the bank gave them credit. Shayne Elliott reveals ANZ’s credit card business makes “a couple of hundred million dollars” out of its total profit of $7.5bn. He accepts that movements in funding costs “unless they are extreme” are not going to have a significant impact on the bank’s profits. Labor’s Matt Keogh makes a declaration before beginning his questions: Shayne Elliott says ANZ has an “appetite” to consider restructuring its credit card products. He concedes the headline interest rate on credit card rates may be too high and could be changed so that there is a “better correlation between pricing and risk”. Liberal MP Scott Buchholz heralds the concession (without a commitment) as “a good day for Australians”. Liberal MP Scott Buccholz has challenged the proposition in Shayne Elliott’s opening statement that ANZ wants credit card rates to be “as low as possible”. The chief executive qualifies that he meant: “as low as possible, competitively”. Deputy chief executive, Graham Hodges, says the bank has run a trial with 1% of its customers who showed signs of financial hardship to suggest they use different products like a different credit card. Some were “quite offended” others found it “very helpful”, he said. Pat Conroy has asked whether the government and Reserve Bank implicitly subsidise the big four banks to the tune of $3.7bn because of the fact they are “too big to fail”. The deputy chief executive, Graham Hodges, disputes that this constitutes “government support”. Rather it is the markets and ratings agencies which have a view that Australian banks have a higher credit rating because of a perception that authorities would step in in the event of financial crisis, he says. Pat Conroy has asked about ANZ’s return on equity in its credit card business. Shayne Elliott repeats a similar objection to the CBA’s, that it is “difficult for us to disclose without giving away competitive information”. He accepts the return on equity for credit cards is higher and “well above” average but says it is “decreasing at a fairly fast rate”. The Labor MP Pat Conroy has asked if Shayne Elliott is confident that bank managers don’t put pressure on tellers to refer customers to financial planners after they’d already met their minimum targets. The chief executive sys: “No, and I’m not necessarily sure that’s a bad thing.” If we believe having good conversations with specialists is a good thing, then generally more is better. If staff feel under duress, pressure or are harassed there are avenues for them to discuss that. With the ANZ hearings under way, it appears National Australia Bank has now banned all political donations. NAB’s board of directors says it “resolved in May 2016 that the making of any political donations would cease with immediate effect”, according to its policy statement on political donations. The document says NAB recognises it has an important role to play in Australia’s political process, and in the development and promotion of policy, but it now believes that can be better achieved by avoiding making political donations altogether. Therefore, “from May 2016 NAB ceased making political donations at the commonwealth, state and local government level”. It means the federal Liberal, National and Labor parties will lose a crucial source of political funding: In 2014-15, NAB donated $239,686 to the Coalition and $35,600 to Labor In 2013-14, it donated $45,570 to the Coalition and $43,500 to Labor In 2012-13, it handed $130,010 to the Coalition and $56,850 to Labor Asked about the fact the ANZ has referred 45 breach reports to Asic in the last year, Shayne Elliott replies: We are raising the standards at which we operate ... when we find problems, we report them. Elliott says there are about 2,000 people in the financial planning division, which the Labor MP Pat Conroy calculates is about one in 40 subject to breach reports. Shayne Elliott has addressed ANZ’s diversity policy and the Male Champions of Change program. He replies: My key objective is that we have an open, transparent, fair and diverse workforce. Elliott says, of the bank’s senior leadership roles, 40% are held by women but “not enough of the most senior roles”. The Liberal MP Julia Banks asks if Elliott has read her maiden speech because of her warnings for the need for unconscious-bias training. He has not. Elliott says the bank has done an “extraordinary amount” of such training but he is not sure at which levels and how far down the bank it has extended. The Liberal MP Julia Banks has asked about an “endemic blokey culture” at the bank, including reports of sexist banter and attendance at strip clubs. Shayne Elliott agrees that “culture is key”. Asked about two employees sacked over code of conduct violations who then launched unfair dismissal claims exposing this culture, he replies: It is in their interests to make such allegations. Unfortunately there were a small number of people in the markets division that behaved appallingly. When we found out, we acted immediately. Matt Thistlethwaite has asked – same as yesterday – whether the chief executive is prepared to return if the committee asks. Shayne Elliott gives a simple answer: “Yes.” Matt Thistlethwaite is quizzing the ANZ executives about league tables for performance of branches. The bank’s chief executive, Shayne Elliott, says league tables do exist but branches are not just measured on the one metric of sales but also customer feedback and their performance relative to their opportunity (based on where the bank is located). While the bank hearings are under way, the prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, has been on the ABC in Brisbane. He has been grilled about how this parliamentary inquiry compares with a royal commission, which has subpoena powers, and would have a long period to interrogate witnesses, as opposed to a process where individual committee members face time limits of 10 or 15 minutes. Turnbull’s response to the time limits was to suggest the committee members recall the bank CEOs “as often as they like”. The prime minister suggested the committee move to extend the hearings if members didn’t sufficient time had been given to pursue the issues. The prime minister (who declared himself earlier in the interview as “a businessman, who had gone into politics at the age of 50”, and an “activist”) has told his host, Steve Austin: I understand the banking industry and I understand what’s wrong with it. He said the problem with banks was they were insufficiently transparent and accountable to their customers. That’s why “my government” (as opposed to, as he said, earlier in the interview, “Tony’s government”) had insisted on the parliamentary hearings for the banking CEOs. Over time this will change the culture of accountability in the banks. Shayne Elliott has been quizzed about dealings with the Indian tycoons Pankaj and Radhika Oswal. The bank reached a legal settlement with the pair in a dispute about the winding up and sale of their Australian fertiliser business Burrup Holdings. Pankaj Oswal allegedly forged documents to show the company had the support of European banks before getting a further $1bn in loans from ANZ. Elliott explained the bank continued to advance the business credit because claims of forgery were just allegations and Oswal had withdrawn an admission relating to it. At that stage and it was in the interests of the bank for the project to go ahead, because a “half-finished” fertiliser plant would be “worth nothing”. Labor’s Matt Thistlethwaite is asking about ANZ financial planners that have been banned by Asic, including one for 10 years as a result of falsifying documents, and one who is contesting a one-year ban after resigning from the bank. ANZ’s chief executive, Shayne Elliott, explains: We have not –to date – specifically advised those clients [that their advisers have been banned]; we are going to. There is a gap in our process – we should [advise their clients]. To check how common it is for financial planners to be banned, take a look at Australia’s big timeline of banking scandals. Asked about a bank victim redress tribunal, Shayne Elliott says the only consideration is that it must be “simple and effective for customers”. I think it’s a good idea, we have no issue with a bank tribunal. Commonwealth Bank’s chief executive, Ian Narev, raised some practical considerations but no objection to this tribunal when asked on Tuesday. Labor’s financial services spokeswoman, Katy Gallagher, labelled the plan put forward by backbench Coalition MPs for a bank tribunal to grant victims compensation a “stitch-up” designed to avoid a royal commission. Shayne Elliott says ANZ will enable customers to transfer data to other banks but “we have to make sure that our customers are protected in the process”. Asked if ANZ had resisted proposals facilitate portability of accounts to help customers switch banks, Elliott replied: As an institution we may have, but I haven’t and at this point today we don’t oppose it at all. Shayne Elliott is explaining what has happened to individuals at the bank whose conduct has been questioned by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, which has taken action against ANZ for alleged unconscionable conduct and manipulating the Bank Bill Swap Rate between 2010 and 2012. He said two employees had been fired for violating the banks code of conduct but the rest had been reinstated after initially being stood down. Because we’ve done our own internal investigations and believe they’ve done nothing wrong. Elliott said the individuals whose conduct had resulted in Asic legal action against the bank had not been charged as individuals. Under questioning from the committee chairman, David Coleman, the ANZ chief executive, Shayne Elliott, has admitted the bank overcharged 400,000 customers fees it was not entitled to. The bank paid back $29m in fees. He explained the overcharging was caused by a “misinterpretation around terms and conditions of those fees” for moving money between accounts. Elliott said processes had been improved but he couldn’t say whether there were disciplinary consequences for the mistake. Shayne Elliott has addressed failings in ANZ’s farm lending business Landmark, which it acquired in 2010. He accepted the bank should have worked better with customers, especially when they were already in difficulty. This was wrong, we were too slow to fix it and we apologised. On Timbercorp, Elliott said the bank had worked with liquidator to help investors in financial distress but had not recommended people invest in the scheme. Shayne Elliott is now addressing the interest rates the ANZ charges. “We need our lending rates to be as low as possible to attract and retain business,” he said. He explained the sources of funds are: equity invested by shareholders; deposits, which account for only 50% of funds for borrowing; and international borrowings. When the RBA changes rates it directly impacts some but not all of our funding costs. The chief executive has explained that ANZ made a profit of $7.5bn last year, but said “we’re a very large business assets of $900bn”, and that amounts to less than 1 cent for every dollar the bank holds. The trend of returns in the last decade at ANZ has decreased from almost 20% down to little over 12%, Elliott said. The ANZ chief executive, Shayne Elliott, has got the mea culpa part of appearing before a parliamentary committee out of the way early, offering this apology in his opening statement: In truth we’ve not always met the standards we’ve set for ourselves or that the community rightfully expects of us. Each time we fall short we potentially harm a customer or a member of the community, and for that I apologise. And we’re off! The ANZ witnesses at the table are: the chief executive, Shayne Elliott, and the deputy chief executive, Graham Hodges. A reminder or notice for those who weren’t following on Tuesday, the House of Representatives economics committee examining the big four banks is chaired by the Liberal MP David Coleman. Its deputy chair is Labor’s Matt Thistlethwaite. The other members are: Liberals Craig Kelly, Julia Banks, Scott Buchholz and Trevor Evans; the Nationals’ Kevin Hogan; Green Adam Bandt; and Labor’s Pat Conroy and Matt Keogh. For those who’d like to watch along a live stream is available here. The Australian Bankers’ Association chief executive, Steven Münchenberg, has told ABC News Breakfast on Wednesday that sackings should “absolutely” be part of disciplinary consequences if bank employees have done the wrong thing. We have acknowledged, as an industry, and we heard that from the CBA boss yesterday, that we have not always lived up to expectations. Münchenberg defended high credit card rates to cover the risk of debts that aren’t recovered, and said mortgages that track the official cash rate were not popular when they were offered overseas. On financial advice and conflicts of interest, he said: We’ve actually announced an independent review of the way in which ... bank staff are paid … and we’ve indeed committed to removing or changing any payments that do lead to poor customer outcomes. Welcome to our live blog of day two of parliamentary committee hearings into the big four banks. On Tuesday the committee heard from the Commonwealth Bank, whose chief executive, Ian Narev, revealed that nobody had been sacked for the CommInsure denial of insurance payout scandals. Today it is the turn of ANZ, with hearings to run from 9.15 to 12.15 AEDT. Labor plans to ask ANZ’s chief executive, Shayne Elliott, about the Timbercorp scandal, financial planners banned from the bank and remuneration structures that encouraged staff to offer financial advice unfit for customers. ANZ is being pursued in the courts – along with NAB and Westpac – by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission over alleged unconscionable conduct and manipulating the Bank Bill Swap Rate between 2010 and 2012. The Liberal MP Craig Kelly plans to raise credit card fees. In August Kelly told Australia the high court had weakened consumer protections when it rejected a class action against ANZ for charging late fees of $35. After the first day of hearings Labor and the Greens made it clear they will continue to push for a full royal commission. Let’s see if they are more satisfied with the answers provided by ANZ. Comments for the live blog are open – so please contribute your take on proceedings below. You can contact me on Twitter @Paul_Karp.
Every single thing that is wrong with Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice Like a big, wet glob of fetid bird droppings tumbling down from the sky, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice has landed with an audible splat. It’s been almost three years since director Zack Snyder revealed the project at San Diego Comic-Con and in those years, the multimillion-dollar hype machine has been slowed only periodically by rumblings that something was amiss with the film. Amid splashy trailer releases and return trips to Comic-Con there’s been a steady drumbeat of skepticism in the background. How bad could it be? Well, it turns out, pretty bad. Despite the 30% Rotten Tomatoes score, you probably rushed out and gobbled up this picture with the reckless abandon of DJ Khaled confronted with a horse trough full of fried chicken. You – the hypothetical reader whom I am very certain is terribly attractive, very intelligent, and wise beyond your years – probably want someone to explain what it is you just witnessed. I would like to offer up my expertise free of charge so that you might better understand the many layers of this motion picture event. I warn you now that this is a spoiler-heavy article, so if you haven’t seen the film and want to remain untainted, please click away immediately. I won’t mind. I mean, you’ve already clicked on it anyway, so cha-ching. *** The film opens with one of many dream sequences. Let me just say here early that Batman v Superman is mostly dream sequences, and those scenes that are not dreams still seem to function as though the basic laws of reality do not exist. Granted, this is a film about an alien and an alcoholic billionaire pervert throwing each other around in the rain while grimacing heavily. I should probably cut it some slack. Anyway, Bruce Wayne dreams about his parents being gunned down in front of a movie theater. This is intercut with Bruce Wayne tumbling down a hole where he discovers a massive gathering of bats in a cave. These bats swarm around him, magically lifting him up and out of the hole while he strikes a Christ pose. In other words, we are off to a smashing start. After that, we witness Metropolis being wiped out by Superman and General Zod from the last movie. Superman destroys one of Bruce Wayne’s buildings by accident, which makes Wayne hate Superman. This is an important plot point. You see, Batman only approves of the destruction of private property when he’s the one doing the destroying. Later in the film, Batman tears through the city in his own personal tank, blows up some cars, shoots up a building with his Batwing, kills numerous anonymous henchmen, and lures a dangerous mutant back to a populated area without a coherent plan to defeat it. But he’s not an alien, so it’s OK. I should also mention that Bruce Wayne has a second dream about his dead parents in which blood pours out of his mother’s tomb, then explodes to reveal a demon inside of it. I think maybe he has some unresolved issues. Bruce Wayne is not alone in hating Superman. The United States government is none too pleased with the last son of Krypton leveling large parts of a major city. Lex Luthor, a wealthy businessman and scientist, also hates Superman. Now, you probably couldn’t quite figure out why Lex Luthor hated Superman so much. Unlike Batman, he has no clear professional jealousy. In fact, in a brief aside, Luthor mentions the construction projects his company undertook after Superman wrecked Metropolis. If he had just kept his mouth shut and let Superman topple a few more buildings, he could have kept raking in the government contracts for decades to come. Instead, he spends most of the movie trying to get Batman and Superman to fight, then creates a monster in a pool of brown toilet water for no reason. I thought this guy was some kinda genius? It doesn’t make sense at first, but upon second viewing, it’s clear that Lex Luthor is actually a malfunctioning android and his moronic behavior is due to his circuits being fried. Every bizarre character choice can be chalked up to what I like to call the “Android Defense”. Something happened in Batman v Superman that doesn’t make any sense? It was probably done by a secretly malfunctioning robot. Sorry, got a bit off track here. Batman has another dream, where Superman has become a fascist dictator with his own army of stormtroopers. Batman is a lone freedom fighter rebelling against Superman’s iron rule. At the end of the dream, Superman punches a hole in Batman’s chest. Batman wakes up and sees The Flash (not identified as such, I just know because I’m a nerd) inside a time vortex. Flash explains some important plot points for another movie, then disappears. Why is The Flash invading Batman’s dreams? Why did he travel back in time? He’s got to juggle a lot of balls and he only has one butler to handle all of his affairs. He’s not a huge note-taker and doesn’t maintain an iCal. Things slip through the cracks. That’s why he sent The Flash back in time in the first place, like a really elaborate Post-It note. Unfortunately, if Batman had never forgotten about his dream, he never would have sent back The Flash to remind him about the dream, which creates a major paradox, which I don’t want to get into right now. I haven’t even mentioned Wonder Woman, AKA Diana Prince, warrior princess of Themyscira. Wonder Woman periodically shows up at parties to annoy Bruce Wayne. She steals some computer files from Lex Luthor during a fundraiser for a library or something. Then, Bruce and Diana meet at a totally different party where they stare at a dagger in a glass case. You may have wondered whose party that was, why either of the characters were at that party, and what the point of the knife in the box was. Look, cool people get invited to parties all the time that you don’t know about. You should be used to this by now. Stop asking. It makes you look desperate. Bruce Wayne opens up Lex Luthor’s computer files and discovers a photo of Wonder Woman from the first world war, plus some trailers for other Warner Bros movies. Luthor even designed logos for all of these movies in Adobe Illustrator. Why does Lex Luthor have four blatant bits of product placement on his computer? Because he’s been maintaining a secret double life as a film publicist. You thought running a multinational corporation while trying to murder an indestructible flying alien was hard? Try selling the Aquaman movie. Back to Superman, he’s quite depressed over the mixed reaction to his theatrical heroics, and I don’t mean the reviews for Man of Steel either. Some worship him for his daring deeds, while others are terrified of the unchecked power he wields. Using that divided public opinion against him, Lex Luthor attempts to frame Superman for a variety of very un-Superman activities – shooting up a village, neglecting to stop a suicide bomber, and drinking red wine with seafood. Of course, Superman would do none of these things, but that doesn’t stop the public from turning on him, playing directly into Luthor’s hands. Dejected, Superman flies off to Buffalo, New York, or some other desolate, snow-covered landscape. There, we are treated to yet another dream sequence. This time, Clark Kent imagines seeing his father throwing bricks on to a pile of other bricks while telling a story about inadvertently ruining the lives of his neighbors during a flood. At this point, you may have asked yourself why Superman flew out to this barren wasteland. You may have also asked what that pile of rocks was? Maybe you thought it was the place where Clark Kent’s dad is buried, but I’m fairly certain it’s been established that he was buried on the Kent farm. So why the hell is Superman having visions of his dead dad in the middle of nowhere? As with everything, there is a simple answer. Nothing reminds me more of Kevin Costner’s acting than a pile of rocks, bricks and twigs in the snow. So, it’s natural that when one sees a pile of inanimate objects, one would pause to consider Kevin Costner. This movie makes perfect sense. Considering the title of the film, Batman and Superman fight toward the end of the story. It’s as brutal and ruthless as it is boring, with the fisticuffs coming to an abrupt end when Batman realizes that his mom and Superman’s mom have the same first name. If only Biggie and Tupac’s moms had the same first name. They might still be here today. Lex Luthor’s monster, Doomsday, is unleashed and Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman join forces to defeat him. Why did Lex Luthor create a monster he couldn’t control when he easily could have just shot Superman with a kryptonite rocket 30 minutes into the movie? Why did he waste all of that time convincing Batman and Superman to fight if he was just going to create Doomsday? What if Batman killed Superman? Would Lex Luthor still have a need for a rampaging, uncontrollable beast? At the end of the film, Superman sacrifices himself to defeat Doomsday, leaving Batman and Wonder Woman to form the Justice League in his absence. Lex Luthor has gone crazy (because he is a malfunctioning android) and has had his head shaved because long hair is strictly forbidden in solitary confinement, as everyone knows. He could have hidden a knife or a grenade in that moptop. Batman mourns his friend, who he had been pals with for a grand total of a couple hours and had previously been single-mindedly obsessed with murdering. Why was Batman so broken up about the death of a man he had spent two years despising? Because, as a great man (me) once said (right now, for the first time), the greatest friendships are the ones that burn out the quickest. If you learn anything from this movie, it should be that. If I were Warner Bros, I’d be throwing that brilliant aphorism on a T-shirt right now.
Cate Blanchett on repeat and a woman who thinks she's a dog: Sundance 2017's final titles released The Sundance film festival has completed the lineup for its 2017 edition, adding to the previously announced titles with the now customary mix of big Hollywood names, acclaimed indie directors and celebrated European auteurs. Most of the new films are in the festival’s Premieres strand, and will see, among others, Cate Blanchett, Jack Black and A Bigger Splash director Luca Guadagnino pitching up in Park City, Utah. Blanchett plays multiple roles as the central figure in Manifesto, a re-enactment of artists’ statements from German director Julian Rosefeldt; Black stars in The Polka King, a comedy about Jan Lewan, a real-life Polish-American polka showman who was jailed after his Ponzi scheme collapsed; and Guadagnino arrives with his new film Call Me By Your Name, about an Italian boy who falls in love with a visiting academic (played by The Lone Ranger’s Armie Hammer). The festival also sees the return of a string of Sundance’s favourite sons and daughters: Youth in Revolt director Miguel Arteta brings Beatriz at Dinner, a comedy starring Salma Hayek as a holistic health practitioner; Michelle Pfeiffer stars in Where Is Kyra?, a drama about a woman who loses her job; and the festival’s founder Robert Redford pops up alongside Jason Segel and Rooney Mara in The Discovery, a romance set in a future world where the afterlife is a proven fact. Sundance will also see the directorial debut of Hell or High Water scriptwriter Taylor Sheridan: Wind River, a crime thriller set on a Native American reservation starring Jeremy Renner and Elisabeth Olsen. Sundance has also attracted some heavyweight names to its documentary section. The Crash Reel’s Lucy Walker is bringing her follow-up to Wim Wenders’ celebrated Buena Vista Social Club, while Barbara Kopple’s This Is Everything: Gigi Gorgeous follows the gender transitioning of an Olympic-level diver. Elsewhere in the lineup Sundance has found room for Bitch, a horror-thriller from Scottish actor-director Marianna Palka about a woman who thinks she’s a dog; the first three episodes of Amazon’s I Love Dick, based on the celebrated novel by Chris Kraus; and Oklahoma City a documentary by Barak Goodman about the terrorist bombing in 1995 of the Alfred P Murrah Federal Building. The Sundance film festival runs from 19-29 January. Premieres Beatriz at Dinner (Dir: Miguel Arteta) A Mexican immigrant health worker (Salma Hayek) has a mutually life-changing encounter with a smug billionaire (John Lithgow) at a dinner event. Before I Fall (Dir: Ry Russo-Young) A fable about a young woman (Zoey Deutch) who is forced to question her “perfect” life. The Big Sick (Dir: Michael Showalter) A cross cultural relationship is threatened when a woman becomes ill, and her Pakistani-born boyfriend struggles to deal with it. Call Me By Your Name (Dir: Luca Guadagnino) Gay romance from the Bigger Splash director, about a boy who falls in love with a visiting academic. The Discovery (Dir: Charlie McDowell) Romance with Jason Segel and Rooney Mara in a world where the afterlife is a scientifically proven fact. Fun Mom Dinner (Dir: Alethea Jones) Four mothers of kids at the same school set up a dinner, but it doesn’t go quite the way they expect. The Incredible Jessica James (Dir: Jim Strouse) Romantic drama about a playwright (The Daily Show’s Jessica Williams) who begins a relationship after a tough breakup with recently divorced man (Chris O’Dowd). The Last Word (Dir: Mark Pellington) A former businesswoman (Shirley MacLaine) becomes friends with a young journalist (Amanda Seyfried) after she decides to write her own obituary. Manifesto (Dir: Julian Rosefeldt) Video artist Rosefeldt stages re-enactments of key artists manifestos, as performed by Cate Blanchett. Marjorie Prime (Dir: Michael Almereyda) Sci-fi parable about an elderly woman who is given an AI companion that is a replica of her late husband. Mudbound (Dir: Dee Rees) Mississippi-set drama with Carey Mulligan and Garret Hedlund, about a family attempting to adjust to life after the end of the second world war. The Polka King (Dir: Maya Forbes) Jack Black comedy about real-life polka fraudster Jan Lewan. Rebel in the Rye (Dir: Danny Strong) Nicholas Hoult plays JD Salinger in a study of the early years of the celebrated Catcher in the Rye author. Rememory (Dir: Mark Palansky) Noirish thriller about the death of a scientist who has invented a device to record and play out human memories. Sidney Hall (Dir: Shawn Christensen) Logan Lerman plays a novelist who hits big early with a generation-defining book – but whose life then falls apart. Where is Kyra? (Dir: Andrew Dosunmu) A sensitive woman (Michelle Pfeiffer) struggles to hold things together after her mother dies. Wilson (Dir: Craig Johnson) Woody Harrelson stars in an adaptation of Daniel Clowes’ graphic novel about a lonely misanthrope who reconnects with his former wife and teenage daughter. Wind River (Dir: Taylor Sheridan) Sicario writer makes his directorial debut with a thriller about an FBI agent (Jeremy Renner) trying to solve a killing on a Native American reservation. Documentary premieres 500 Years (Dir: Pamela Yates) The recent history of Guatemala as seen through the eyes of the local indigenous people. Cries from Syria (Dir: Evgeny Afineevsky) Account of the current humanitarian crisis and its effect on anti-migrant hostility. Give Me Future: Major Lazer in Cuba (Dir: Austin Peters) Record of the dance music act’s 2016 free concert in Havana, heralding a society on the brink of major change. Legion of Brothers (Dir: Greg Barker) Account of a US special-forces mission inside Afghanistan straight after 9/11. Oklahoma City (Dir: Barak Goodman) Study of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, the worst ever incident of domestic terrorism on US soil. Rancher, Farmer, Fisherman (Dirs: Susan Froemke, John Hoffman, Beth Aala) Study of how climate change is affecting farming folk and what they are doing to protect the environment. Take Every Wave: The Life of Laird Hamilton (Dir: Rory Kennedy) Bio-doc of surf pioneer Hamilton. Tell Them We Are Rising: The Story of Black Colleges and Universities (Dir: Stanley Nelson) Account of the crucial role played by higher-education institutions that have developed African-American intellectual life. This Is Everything: Gigi Gorgeous (Dir: Barbara Kopple) Oscar-winner Kopple’s study of a family in turmoil after a champion diver embarks on gender transition. Untitled Lucy Walker/Buena Vista Social Club Documentary (Dir: Lucy Walker) The British director’s follow-up to the celebrated 1999 documentary about Cuban musicians. Midnight 78/52 (Dir: Alexandre Philippe) Detailed inside look at the legendary shower scene in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, largely credited with kickstarting modern horror cinema. Bad Day for the Cut (Dir: Chris Baugh) Revenge thriller about a farmer who heads off to Belfast looking for answers after his mother is murdered. Bitch (Dir: Marianna Palka) New film from the Good Dick director, about a woman (played by Palka herself) in breakdown who starts acting like a dog. Bushwick (Dirs: Cary Murnion, Jonathan Milott) Action thriller in which Brooklyn has been invaded by secessonist militias. Killing Ground (Dir: Damien Power) A couple find a seemingly abandoned child at a campsite and end up undergoing an ordeal to survive. Kuso (Dir: Steven Ellison) Post-apocalyptic fable set in the aftermath of a huge LA earthquake, directed by the musician AKA Flying Lotus. The Little Hours (Dir: Jeff Baena) Dark comedy starring Alison Brie and Dave Franco, about a medieval Italian convent where a young servant finds refuge. XX (Dirs: Annie Clark, Karyn Kusama, Roxanne Benjamin, Jovanka Vuckovic) Four-part horror anthology bringing together films from female directors. Spotlight Colossal (Dir: Nacho Vigalondo) Anne Hathaway stars in an oddball tale of an American girl who develops a psychic connection with a giant Korean monster. Frantz (Dir: François Ozon) Sumptuous and moving drama, about a German woman mourning her fiance’s death in the first world war, and the Frenchman who claims to have known him well. Lady Macbeth (Dir: William Oldroyd) Low-budget British romance set in the 19th century, with a Lady Chatterley’s Lover style narrative. Look and See: A Portrait of Wendell Berry (Dirs: Laura Dunn, Jef Sewell) Study of the American essayist and activist and his assessment of rural America and its agricultural practices in the modern era. Raw (Dir: Julia Ducournau) Notorious cannibal horror about a vegetarian student who develops a craving for meat after a hazing ritual. Sami Blood (Dir: Amanda Kernell) 1930s set drama about a young Sami girl – the indigenous Lapland people – and the struggles she endures in the face of anti-Sami prejudice. Their Finest (Dir: Lone Scherfig) Romantic comedy set during the second world war, with Gemma Arterton as a writer joining the British attempt to get the US to join the war effort.
Banks may groan – but Andrew Tyrie is right to launch a new inquiry It’s been ages – actually only three years – since the last parliamentary inquiry into the banking industry, but here comes the tireless Andrew Tyrie with another. The Treasury select committee is to ask whether the revamped capital rules, supported by arrangements to wind down failing banks, are up to the job. Taxpayers are supposed to be protected in another 2008-style crisis. Would they be? A collective groan, one suspects, will have passed across the banking sector at news of this inquiry. The so-called capital and resolution regime, after years of debate and fine-tuning, is supposed to be set in stone. The regulators perform stress tests on the big institutions every year; and the banks’ role is to get on with the job of reorganising their operations to fit the new ringfenced model while reordering their capital structures to contain the correct portion of instruments capable of absorbing losses. Yet there are at least three reasons why Tyrie is right to have a prod. First, Sir John Vickers, one of the architects of ringfencing, is not convinced that the banks yet hold enough capital. The Bank of England disagrees, pointing out that the UK brigade has raised £130bn of new equity since the 2008, about twice the level of losses experience in the crisis. But that debate needs to be settled once and for all, preferably before the next crisis arrives. Second, the current crisis in the Italian banking industry is a reminder that talk of state-funded bailouts has not been banished forever, at least in the eurozone. The Italian banks may, in the end, get all their capital from the private sector, but it is not reassuring that there is even room for doubt. UK taxpayers deserve to hear, in detail, how it could never happen again here. Third, Royal Bank of Scotland is still 73% owned by taxpayers. To what degree is the state still on the hook should calamity strike? The select committee, let’s hope, will be reassured. But this is the right moment to ask hard questions. Here’s one for Tyrie to add to his list: given that the ringfencing rules don’t come fully into force until 2019, how would the too-big-to-fail question be addressed before that date? Regulators tend to mutter and obfuscate when the question is put directly. Tyrie could do us all a favour by insisting on clarity. Drax fired up after EU nod It is only a slight exaggeration to say that Drax Group had bet the farm on winning EU state-aid approval to convert a third coal-burning unit to run on wood pellets. Without a thumbs-up, Drax would not have been able to afford its planned corporate reinvention via the £340m purchase of Opus Energy, a supply business serving small and medium-sized businesses. That deal, unveiled earlier this month, was conditional on Brussels coming good. There was relief all round, then, that EU approval arrived, just as the long-serving chief executive, Dorothy Thompson, predicted. The handout may only be a last hurrah for biomass subsidies since the last UK government made clear its preference for offshore wind in the renewables stakes. But there’s nothing like the sight of guaranteed income – Drax will get £100 a megawatt hour at the converted unit – to lift an energy generator’s spirits. Drax’s shares rose 8% and have now improved by a quarter since the Opus announcement. Justified? Yes, probably. A month ago, Drax, the UK’s largest power station, seemed destined to become an exercise in managed decline. Now “retooling for a post-coal future” – the clunky corporate slogan – may mean something tangible. Aside from coal and biomass, Drax will have a beefed-up supply business plus development sites to get into gas-fired stations one day. It is an odd collection of assets that one probably wouldn’t design from scratch. But, yes, given Drax’s turbulent history, one can call it a sensible diversification of risk. Apple’s rotten jibe at Vestager The great EU versus Apple and Ireland tax battle will be fought on facts, in particular the right of Brussels’ competition commissioner to intervene in the tax affairs of an EU member state. The legal scrap will take years. In the meantime, though, note Apple’s petulant line about why it thinks it found itself in the sights of Margrethe Vestager. The Danish EU commissioner wanted a target that “generates lots of headlines”, claims the US technology company. This is self-regarding nonsense. When the sum at stake is €13bn (£10.8bn) in allegedly unpaid taxes, Vestager would be failing in her job if she didn’t act.
Shock in Calais: ‘Perhaps the French and English were not best of friends after all’ On the corner of the Boulevard des Allies, the thoroughfare that runs parallel to the port of Calais, the sense of dismay and regret was palpable. “Naturally the English people are still welcome to come to buy their cheap alcohol, but maybe the French and English were not the best of friends after all,” said Adeline, 20, a nurse who was born in the port. The prevailing sentiment among locals in the corner of continental Europe closest to Britain was one of bitter sadness. “It is a big surprise. We were supposed to be building a future together,” said hotel worker Mathis Robert, 33, jabbing his finger towards the white cliffs of Dover, 20 miles away across the channel. “I thought we were closer. We have English friends who live close to Vannes [in Brittany] and they are also extremely upset,” said retired English teacher Genevieve, who has lived all her life in Calais. Many of the port’s residents paraphrased a central slogan from the defeated Remain camp, as if repeating it might undo an unwelcome development. “We’re stronger together, it’s obvious,” said 45-year-old taxi driver Frank. Xavier Chauberi, 42, who works at the Eurotunnel terminal at nearby Coquelles, admitted to being horrified at the venom of the referendum debate in the British media. “It’s crazy that this has happened. Maybe it’s an island mentality thing. Great Britain is one of the biggest members of Europe and what does it mean for us now?” Inevitably, talk turned quickly to the border. Less than 12 hours after the news came that Britain had voted to leave, the mayor of Calais urged the scrapping of a deal that allows the UK to carry out immigration checks in France. Natacha Bouchart said it was now the moment to renegotiate the Le Touquet agreement, which places border controls – and with them the hopeful refugees aspiring to settle in Britain – on the French side of the Channel. Bouchart, stipulating that Britain must “take the consequences” of its vote, wants the Jungle, the sprawling refugee camp on the outskirts of Calais, to be moved across the Strait of Dover. For many Calais residents, the Jungle is the hottest issue in town. Standing in the central Place d’Armes, architect Nico Cousineau, 34, said: “I am very curious about what they will do with the border now. We want it moved to Dover. “The migrants have caused many, many problems for us, including insecurity and perception issues. Many people, including British, avoid the town because they think it is unsafe.” Yet in the vast refugee camp itself, where an estimated 6,000 people are camped within a six-minute drive of the town’s central square, news of the referendum result was greeted with indifference by many. Most said it would neither deter them nor make them more determined to reach Britain, though several admitted they would welcome any attempt to move the camp across the Channel. Fawad Khan, 29, who last year fled a Taliban stronghold in Wardak province, close to the Afghan capital of Kabul, said: “It makes no difference. I will keep trying to get to my cousins in Southall like I do every day.” During his eight months inside the jungle, Khan estimated he had made more than 200 attempts to illegally gain entry to the UK. “Hundreds of my friends have made it there,” he beamed. Aemal Niazi, 19, from the east Afghan city of Jalalabad, said that after four months of travelling to reach Calais he would not give up, whatever the ramifications of Brexit: “I have family in Birmingham and I intend to get there.” Some were relieved to hear of the UK’s decision. Eritrean Hlebi Araya, 25, from Asmara, hoped it meant he could not be deported to countries like Italy. “Perhaps if there is no agreement with Britain they cannot send us back again into Europe.” For others, the decision – and the resulting reaction of the global financial markets – meant that overnight the UK had become a place that might not be able to support their ambitions. Engineer Ali Khan, 26, from Jalalabad – listening to Brexit reports on a small radio in the middle of the jungle on Friday evening – said the turn of events might dictate a change of plan. “For the UK it is very bad, very bad for its people. I might try somewhere else: Sweden, maybe Germany.” There was however, at least one unrepentant Englishman in Calais. Among the crowd in the Place d’Armes was Lee Davidson, 40, from Dover, who had voted Leave. Asked if he felt anything had changed, he smiled: “Nothing really, the beer still tastes good.”
Arab Strap review – songs of drugs, jealousy, mirth and heartbreak After Arab Strap split up in 2006, guitarist Malcolm Middleton said: “Unless there’s a definite need for us to play, I don’t think we should ever get back together. Maybe in a few years, for a laugh.” A decade later, here they are, celebrating their 20th anniversary with a tour of impressively sized venues, presaged by this packed-out warm-up. “Which means that you pay us to rehearse,” says frontman Aidan Moffat, swiftly adding: “Only joking.” Back in the day, the Falkirk duo’s brilliant records for Glasgow’s Chemikal Underground label documented chaotic lifestyles of drink, drugs, jealousy and casual sex with vivid social realism, sadness, self-deprecation, black humour and an eye-watering number of swear words. If there is a need for them now, it’s that in the car crash of Brexit UK, those songs sound more vital than ever. From the moment they walk on to the sound of bagpipes, the gig feels like a valediction. “Tune!” yells someone in the crowd, greeting Stink’s tale of emotionless sex, which sets the tone for the evening with its opening line. “Burn the sheets that we’ve just fucked in …” Middleton’s shock of red hair has long gone and the heavily bearded Moffat seems to be metamorphosing into the actor Brian Blessed. However, the older, wiser frontman’s deeper voice has gained all sorts of knowing tics as he delivers his lyrics like a rich storyteller who happens to work in music. Middleton’s delicate guitar playing is a joy, and the compelling words shouldn’t overshadow the wonderment and beauty of the music. A seven-piece lineup ricochets between evocative King Creosote-type Highlands folk, rollicking trumpet pop, Joy Division-esque intensity and the occasional pulse of an 808 drum machine, a knowing nod to their one foot in dance culture. “Has anybody got any ecky [ecstacy]?” asks Moffat, to cheers in response, swiftly adding: “It’s a Wednesday night, I hope you’re fucking joking!” It’s left to The First Big Weekend (set in Glasgow’s much-missed Arches, but given a 2016 remix) to deliver the clubland highs before I Would Have Liked Me a Lot Last Night delivers the comedown of emptiness and loneliness. These are brutally glorious, ostensibly autobiographical songs. In Fucking Little Bastards, the big man is scrutinised by watching birds, who’ve “seen me in the shower with shit down my legs, seen me searching a stranger’s house for dregs”. New Birds, about encountering an old love, is unusually moving. The hapless Casanova explains that the sublimely frank Blood got him into the most trouble. “I went with her sister as well … Malcy has just reminded me that it was her twin sister.” The two-hour setlist careers between mirth and heartbreak, and they end up playing audience requests. Whether or not this latest outing finally puts the band to bed, one can’t help wondering what new music they could make together if Moffat took his own advice: “We’re grown men, we should be respectable. But tae fuck with that, let’s make a spectacle.” At Electric Brixton, 13 October. Box office: 020-7274 2290. Then touring.
A year of challenging fixtures for BT’s Gavin Patterson - on the field and off On the day Jose Mourinho was ousted as manager of Chelsea football club, the only televised interview with him ran on BT Sport, BT’s pay-TV channel. The interview was pre-recorded, and had been filmed before Mourinho knew about his sacking, but its exclusivity was a feather in BT’s cap and delighted its chief executive, Gavin Patterson. “That was a significant moment,” he says. Liverpool-supporting Patterson has taken a colossal risk in the past couple of years by challenging Sky, previously the nation’s dominant sports broadcaster, by doing big-money deals for live football rights. Other contenders, such as Setanta and OnDigital, fell by the wayside. Patterson feels the group is beginning to reap the rewards of its massive investment. “Not so long ago, that interview would have run on Sky, with little chance of it appearing anywhere else,” he says. But the same would have been said about most Champions League matches until, two years ago, BT Sport poached these rights for a sky-high £897m from its bitter rival. It has been broadcasting the matches this season for the first time, in an effort to gain broadband customers. Patterson says: “There remain significant competition issues in pay-TV, but there should be plenty of room in the market for two players, if not more. Sky offers a great service, at a very high price, while we offer customers access to Premier League matches for free and Uefa matches for a modest fiver a month.” So far the plan appears to be working. BT says it now has 7.8 million broadband users, up from 6.9 million a couple of years ago, as customers are lured to its broadband offering by incentive deals for BT Sport. Revenue in BT’s consumer division increased by 7% to £4.3bn in the year to March 2015, contributing to a jump in overall profits to £3.17bn. Despite the massive spend on sports rights the group’s share price has performed reasonably well, especially over five years: it now stands at more than twice its 2011 level. Not that the year has all been about BT Sport. BT is also pushing other forms in a deal with US TV drama channel AMC (now broadcasting hit horror series Fear the Walking Dead), though it will be some time before BT’s television service can rival the choice on offer from Sky. In what has been an all-action year, Patterson has also taken the group back into mobile telecoms with its £12.5bn takeover of EE. BT was one of the pioneers of mobile telephony, launching a network in 1986. But later it spun off O2 – then called Cellnet – and put mobile on the back burner. But the growth in smartphones persuaded BT back into the business. The acquisition of EE more than trebles BT’s total retail customers, adding its 10 million to EE’s 24.5 million direct mobile subscribers. “Our mobile plans have added to the air of excitement in our industry and I’m hopeful that the Competition and Markets Authority will approve our acquisition of EE in January,” says Patterson. Alongside all this consumer activity, Patterson is rolling out the group’s fibre-optic broadband network. “We’ve invested £20bn in UK networks over the past decade and that has helped make the UK the leading digital nation in the G20 for the past five years,” he says. “Nine out of 10 homes can now access fibre broadband and we’re not stopping there: plans are in place to get that to 95% if not higher by the end of 2017.” In the year ahead, Patterson’s biggest battle will be to stop its Openreach division – which owns the pipes and cables that connect people to the internet – being forcibly split from the company. Most of BT’s rivals, including Sky, TalkTalk and Vodafone, insist the fact that BT owns the fixed network is detrimental to the UK broadband market. Earlier this year, Ofcom, the telecoms regulator, decided to conduct a full and thorough investigation of the market, with a view to splitting BT and Openreach into two companies. Ofcom’s decision is due shortly, and BT, which argues that the current model has helped the UK beat its immediate European competitors, reckons it has a convincing case. Patterson may well be looking forward to watching games like Arsenal v Barcelona on BT Sport, but his biggest challenge this year probably won’t be with Sky on the sports field, but with all his rivals in the regulator’s office.
Forget Brexit, Quitaly is Europe's next worry First it was Grexit, then it was Brexit. Now the looming threat for Europe is Quitaly, the fear that Italy might decide it has had enough of the single currency and go back to the lira. Put simply, Italy’s economy is floundering and has been for the past two decades during which time there has been virtually no growth and Italian goods have become less and less competitive in export markets. Sluggish growth and high levels of unemployment are reflected in the high level of non-performing loans that are now hobbling Italian banks. Potential bad debts have almost doubled to €360bn (£300bn) in the past five years and now account for 18% of all outstanding loans. What is clear, though, is that the non-performing loans reflect a non-performing economy. They are the symptom of the problem and not its cause. Unlike Greece, Ireland or Spain, Italy did not go through a period of economic boom before the Great Recession of 2008-09. Instead, its performance has been unremittingly poor. The economy is 10% smaller than it was before the financial crisis and as a result unemployment is high, especially in the poorer southern half of the country. In the days before it joined the euro, Italy would have been able to make itself more competitive by devaluing the lira. That option is no longer available. The risk, therefore, is obvious. Europe suffers a fresh slowdown as a result of the shock imparted by Brexit. An already weak Italy suffers more than most and its banks start to fail. Small investors are told that European rules mean that they have to shoulder some of the losses. Matteo Renzi’s centre left government loses power and is replaced by the Five Star Movement, which has pledged to hold a referendum on leaving the euro. Given the state of the economy, Quitaly could not be ruled out. If it happened, the single currency would collapse.
Digital prophet Kevin Kelly: I’ve learned a lot from Spielberg Kevin Kelly may not be a household name but he is one of the quietly influential people who have helped shape the modern world, or at least the bit of it at the end of our keyboards and phones: the internet. A college dropout and a hippy, he spent his 20s and early 30s travelling before landing a job editing the Whole Earth Review, the successor to the Whole Earth Catalog, the counterculture’s “bible” that influenced many computing pioneers. He later became involved in The Well, one of the earliest online forums and virtual communities, and went on co-found Wired magazine. These days, aged 63, he still contributes to Wired (he has the title of “senior maverick”) and also writes books about the future, the latest of which is The Inevitable. Am I right in thinking that you’re saying the future isn’t as scary as we think, and that it’s coming whether we like it or not so we might as well get used to it? I think that’s a well-put subtext. The future is going to be a little better than today and we should embrace it so we have a better chance of domesticating it, so to speak. It is only by engaging with technology that we can maximise the benefits and minimise the harms. If we try to prohibit it, outlaw it, stop it, diminish it, we’ll fail. These larger shapes of technology are inevitable. But while you’re saying we shouldn’t be scared of the future, you also talk about some scary new things coming… Absolutely. I’m not a utopian. I think technology generates as many new problems as new solutions. And most of the problems we will have in the future are going to be caused by the technologies that we are making today. There are a lot of downsides to them. But if we tally them up, there is a small differential. Basically, we create 2% more a year than we destroy. And, compounded annually over years, that’s what civilisation is. Most people would prefer to live today than 30 years ago, or 50 years ago, or 100 years ago. That’s because we have a few more additional choices, options and opportunities, a few more people in the world are able to reach for their dreams and that small progress, I think, is what should give us optimism for the future. You live in San Francisco’s Bay Area… Yeah, I have totally drunk the Kool-Aid. That was exactly what I was going to ask. Yes, I am bathed in this American Silicon Valley worldview where the solution to any problem is more technology. But you make a clear point of saying: “I’m not a utopian”, drawing a distinction between yourself and the so-called techno utopians of Silicon Valley? Right, though I’ve never actually met one. The techno utopian, I think, is a straw man. Elon Musk is worried about AI and other things. Of course he is also funding AI, right? I think most of us are “protopian”, this is my term for people who believe in progress, who don’t believe there is any kind of a state where we have things solved, but we believe that things are getting a little better and maybe it’s not by much, but that tiny difference is what has built civilisation. But if we say “technology is inevitable”, does that absolve us of the responsibility of regulating it and overseeing it? Not at all, because while some forms of technology are inevitable, the specifics aren’t. So, while the internet was inevitable as soon as the planet discovered electricity and wires and stuff, Twitter was not. The internet was inevitable, but the kind of internet was not, whether it was international, national, open or closed, commercial or non-commercial. Those are all choices that we have. So, it’s 2050 and I’m walking down the street. What’s going on? Do I have a chip in my head? Are there cars flying overhead? Do our cities look different? I think there will be a small layer of change on top of these immense infrastructures of cities but we’re not going to have flying cars, we’re not going to have jetpacks, but there will be auto-driven cars. But the Industrial Revolution, which did the rearrangement of the physical world, is over. The second Industrial Revolution is about how we use our time, how we identify ourselves and that social aspect. By 2050, we’ll have very well developed virtual realities. There’ll be different ways to share presence and experiences with one another. We’re social animals and that’s what robots don’t do very well right now. At the moment, the internet is the internet of information. With virtual reality and AI, what we’re going to get is an era of experiences, where we can not just know something, but feel it. When you say that, it just makes me think there’s going to be a lot of porn. There already is. This is what I’m saying – 49% of what’s made will be crap. We’re creating more and more, this is the interesting thing, if you track the number of songs being written every year, there are millions and millions. We’re on a curve where basically everybody in the world will have written a book or a song or made a video, on average. Most of this is going to have a very small audience but that’s fine. Who cares? I think it’s OK that most of it is crap. One thing that scares a lot of people about the future is how we’re going to be earning a living. You’ve said that the advertising industry is ripe for the next big disruption. Can you explain this? In this world with bots and automation, technology basically makes things cheaper and cheaper – only a few things are becoming more expensive. One of those is access to human experiences, concert tickets, Broadway plays, babysitters, all these. The only scarcity that we have in this world is human attention. The disruption is going to come when we start to charge for our attention. Someone will have to pay me to watch their ad, to read their email. People will be paid different amounts, depending on their influence, their connections, their spending. That is where it is going and that takes out the advertising industry as it exists today. There will still be ads; in fact, I think most of those ads are going to be generated by consumers themselves, by the customers. Isn’t that more or less what’s already happening with Instagram? Exactly. And it will happen in a much more systematic way. You were involved in The Well, which was one of the first online communities. Last time I spoke to you, you said you wished that you’d enforced real name usage. Yes. I think anonymity is like a rare earth element that is required in extremely small doses and is very toxic in anything larger than a minuscule dose. My experience with any kind of community is that they’re stronger, better, more positive to society when they’re not anonymous. We tried to encourage responsibility. We told people they owned their words. But we didn’t emphasise that you were also responsible for them. That’s what I regret. If you had, do you think the internet would be a different place today? Absolutely. Online communities were inevitable, but the character of that online community was not at all inevitable. You have a lot of choice and say in them and that makes a huge difference. You were a futurist adviser on Minority Report. Do you think that’s an accurate depiction of what’s coming down the line? Our job was to create this everyday world of 2050. I’ve learned a lot from Spielberg in that process because he wasn’t interested in the big trends – he wanted to know what people had for breakfast. I think the world we invented was pretty plausible. Most of it is the same as today, but there’s this overlay of differences. The old persists. We have concrete plumbing, pipes, roads, doorways, glass windows, that’s going to be the majority of what we’ll have in 2050. How much technology have you actually adopted? Are you on Snapchat? Do you own an Apple watch? Nope and nope. My job is to try all these things but I’m a minimalist. My first smartphone was an iPhone 6. I didn’t use Twitter until last year. We still don’t have TV at our house. I think this idea of judiciously curating the technologies in your life will be what we do in the future as these choices proliferate. Finally, if you were 20 now, but knowing what you know now, what would you advise you to do? Do something that is of service to others. And travel. I think it’s the best thing to confront otherness and get over this disease of nationalism that is a terrible, terrible disease. I think it’s an essential experience for the young. I’m a little sceptical about all these people in their 20s trying to make a lot of money with some new startup – I think it’s not that useful. Better to try something crazy and impossible like trying to go to Mars or something. I think that’s what I’d try and do if I was 20. The Inevitable by Kevin Kelly is published by Random House USA (£22.50). Click here to order a copy for £18
A United Kingdom review – black king to white queen… As a female British film-maker of Ghanaian heritage, the director Amma Asante broke several glass ceilings when her third feature, A United Kingdom, opened the London film festival in October. With an awards-worthy, powerhouse performance by producer/star David Oyelowo – whose brilliant portrayal of Martin Luther King in 2014’s Selma was overlooked at the “so white” Oscars – A United Kingdom also chimed with the launch of the BFI’s Black Star season, a programme “celebrating the range, versatility and power of black actors”. Yet watching the film for a second time with a packed audience who swooned at its romance, laughed at its wry humour and cheered its moments of triumph, it struck me that, for all its progressive importance, this is first and foremost an impressively crowd-pleasing piece of intelligent screen entertainment. Its true-life tale of unity in the face of cultural apartheid and political expediency remains as relevant as ever in these divided times, but it is Asante’s talent for making the personal political – and vice versa – that is the real story here. Her position as one of the UKs most accessibly agitating film-makers is confirmed. Eye in the Sky screenwriter Guy Hibbert’s screenplay (from Susan Williams’s 2006 book Colour Bar) revisits an often forgotten chapter of postwar history that might be filed under “stranger than fiction”. Rosamund Pike is Ruth Williams, a clerk from Blackheath, south London, working in Lloyds of London in 1947, who is swept off her feet by handsome law student Seretse Khama (Oyelowo). Ruth doesn’t know that Seretse is an African king in waiting, leader-to-be of the Bamangwato people of Bechuanaland (later Botswana), the British protectorate to which he is due to return on completion of his studies. When Seretse proposes, having duly explained his true identity, Ruth imagines a new life away from the misty drizzle of London, a life that, she assures her fiance, will be taken “moment by moment – together”. But when the news of this high-profile black-and-white union reaches neighbouring South Africa, whose National party is busy enshrining apartheid in law, the cash-strapped British authorities move first to forbid and then to undermine the marriage, scared of alienating their supplier of cheap gold and uranium. Seretse’s regent uncle, Tshekedi Khama (Vusi Kunene), also refuses to countenance a white queen and a rift develops that threatens to tear apart more than just love. Handsomely shot on locations in the UK and Botswana by Sam McCurdy, A United Kingdom contrasts sweeping exteriors with fusty interiors, breathing rich visual life into the battle between an entrenched establishment and an emerging republic. Production designer Simon Bowles and composer Patrick Doyle clearly relish the broad canvas opportunities of the narrative, while Asante cites Richard Attenborough and David Lean as her guiding lights. For all the film’s vibrant grandeur, though, our attention is kept tightly focused on the central couple’s romance, even when they are separated by geography, economics and politics. Much is made of the world-turned-upside-down absurdity of Labour prime minister Clement Attlee’s obsequious loyalty to South Africa while the Conservative Churchill appears to be an ally of Khama’s progressive cause (although pragmatism soon overrides opposition promises), but it’s the wholly believable and tangible bond between Oyelowo’s Seretse and Pike’s Ruth that delivers the real emotional punch. As with 2014’s superb Belle, A United Kingdom depicts a world in flux, and once again Asante manages to dramatise global upheavals through intimate personal observations – Pike’s anxious yet resilient smile (not to mention her hilarious regal wave); Oyelowo’s defiant boxer stance and commanding vocal manner. Having cut her teeth as an actor, the director draws terrific performances from her cast, who dance nimbly around some rather on-the-nose dialogue. Lively support comes from a superbly supercilious Jack Davenport as Sir Alistair Canning (a composite of snotty British representatives), and a sturdily sympathetic Terry Pheto as Seretse’s sister Naledi. Plaudits, too, to Nicholas Lyndhurst who wrings real pathos from his small but significant role as Ruth’s loving but outraged father. “I want to make pieces of entertainment and art that mean something,” Asante recently told the BBC while musing upon her forthcoming film, Where Hands Touch, a longstanding passion project about a relationship between a bi-racial girl and a Hitler Youth boy in 1930s Berlin. “I want to make movies that leave some kind of mark on you.” With A United Kingdom she has done just that.
Arsenal 3-2 Swansea, Manchester City 1-1 Everton and more – as it happened West Brom 1-1 Tottenham. Match report: Stoke City 2-0 Sunderland. Match report: Bournemouth 6-1 Hull City. Match report: Manchester City 1-1 Everton. Match report: Arsenal 3-2 Swansea. Match report: All the scores in one place? Here you go. Now why not join Rob Smyth for a dose of Crystal Palace v West Ham. Thanks for reading, bye! Championship Steve McClaren’s second coming at Derby begins with a win against Leeds, Preston scored late to salvage a 2-2 draw at Brighton, Fulham put four past Barnsley and Newcastle hit Brentford for three. Norwich jump to the top of the table after a 3-1 win against Rotherham, who remain bottom. Another disappointing day for David Moyes whose side continue to search for their first league win of the season, but welcome relief for Stoke who get theirs. Mike Phelan will be glad he got his signature on that contract before this debacle. A brilliant day for Bournemouth, mind, whose fine form continues. Dele Alli’s late equaliser saves Spurs from defeat having dominated the game. A stunning performance by Maarten Stekelenburg, with two saved penalties, helps Ronald Koeman’s side to a point. A fun start to life in the Premier League for Bob Bradley but unfortunately no points to take back to south Wales. Championship Simon Makienok has scored deep into injury time at the Amex to give Preston a handy point against Brighton. Scotland “As things stand,” emails Simon McMahon, “Dundee go bottom of the Premiership after a defeat at Hearts, and only 4 points separate the top five teams in the Championship after leaders Queen of the South lost 5-0 at home to Morton, and Dundee United won 2-0 at St. Mirren.” Five minutes of added time at The Hawthorns... Championship Norwich are heading to the top of the table, Steven Naismith putting the Canaries 3-1 up against struggling Rotherham with only a couple of minutes left on the clock. Spurs do break through! It’s a deft Dele Alli finish. Is there time for a winner? Where’s that terrific emoji of a monkey covering its eyes when you need it. Nacer Chadli is replaced at The Hawthorns and Craig Gardner comes on for West Brom. Tony Pulis is not going for the second goal, that’s for sure. It is looking a tough ask for Spurs to break through. Moussa Dembele strikes from the penalty spot and Celtic are 2-0 up at home to Motherwell, and will stay four points clear at the top. Walcott goes close again but can’t find the finish and Swansea are still very much in this thriller at the Emirates. Up at the Etihad, Manchester City are trying desperately to break down Everton but Koeman’s boys aren’t budging. Oh, Hull. Spurs punished for not taking their chances at The Hawthorns, and looks who’s got it! Victor Anichebe is on for Sunderland as they try to turn around their 2-0 deficit at Stoke. Seems unlikely. Vigo Anichebe? It’s full-time in the Bundesliga where Marco Fabian saved a point for Frankfurt against Bayern Munich: Messi comes on. Messi Scores. Barcelona 4-0 Deportivo. Thoughts on a crazy match at the Etihad: Jim Nolan emails: “I couldn’t believe it when I didn’t see Kelechi ‘Ice-Cool’ Iheanacho stepping up to take our penalty. Horses for courses, and all that!” “Man City is playing 3 at the back for the first time under Pep Guardiola this season,” emails Ashwin. “Seems like Pep was expecting Koeman to press like Spurs did, and he decided to have that extra man at the back line to wriggle out of tough situations. But, it doesn’t seem to be producing the desired result at the other end of the field so far.” Simon McMahon emails: “Dundee United currently leading 1-0 at St. Mirren thanks to Scott Fraser’s first half strike. Morton are 4-0 up at previously unbeaten Queen of the South and Falkirk lead Dunfermline 2-0. Celtic, Aberdeen and Partick Thistle all ahead at home. In the Angus derby Arbroath are 1-0 up against league leaders Forfar, who are down to 10 men. They’ll be dancing into the North Sea if it remains like that.” Granit Xhaka takes one for the team hoping to pick up a yellow as he cynically breaks up a quick Swansea break, but it’s deemed a straight red and he’s off! Can Swansea turn this game on its head? No matter, as moments later David Silva finds the substitute Nolito and City get the equaliser. What a finish in store. Wow. Wow. Wow. Sergio Aguero misses his fourth penalty of the season, Maarten Stekelenburg makes his second penalty save of this game, and somehow Everton remain in front at the Etihad! Penalty to Manchester City... What a game! Pre-game exclamation mark enthusiast Borja Baston pulls one back for Bob’s Swans (an excellent nickname, no?) and perhaps there is more to come from the Emirates. Junior Stanislas has his second of the day and this is turning into a miserable game for Mike Phelan and Hull. Man City have been dominant all afternoon but Romelu Lukaku finishes a counterattack expertly and Everton could just pinch all three points from the Etihad. Some way to go, of course. League One Calum Butcher has put Millwall two goals clear at Northampton, while Charlton are still 1-0 ahead against Coventry. Here is more on the pre-match pig protest at The Valley: Bad news for Spurs: not only are they struggling to break down a stubborn West Brom defence, Toby Alderweireld has picked up what looks like a significant injury. He is replaced by Eric Dier. Sunderland are under pressure at Stoke, 2-0 down and Jordan Pickford coming to the rescue after a Shaqiri shot. Mesut Ozil: Theo Walcott probably should have a hat-trick but no matter, as Mesut Ozil shows great finesse to put Arsenal two goals clear once again. Steve McClaren celebrates! Derby are ahead against Leeds 1-0 through Johnny Russell. Re my unstoppable desire to call Hector Bellerin Hugo, Rolf Wilhelm emails cheerily: “Clear cut case of the debilitating Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. There is no cure, there is only the sweet release of death after years of torment. How is West Brom doing?” Adam Levine is equally helpful: “Can’t offer any theories as to why you unflinchingly substitute Hugo for Hector but my wife finds the words ‘tennis racket’ and ‘guitar’ completely interchangeable. Often a root cause of much hilarity at our son’s guitar/tennis lessons. Hope that helps.” Stephen Mitchell suggests: “Perhaps you called him Hugo because he plays like a BOSS. You might even say that the name suites him.” Championship The pick of the matches is at Barnsley where Fulham have turned the game on its head, Scott Malone’s goal shortly after the break giving the visitors a 3-2 advantage. Newcastle are showing their class, now 3-0 clear against Brentford at St James’ Park after Dwight Gayle’s second of the game. Joshua Kimmich has restored Bayern Munich’s lead at Frankfurt – it’s 2-1. “Hey Lawrence,” emails JR. “Now wait a minute, you need to have your eyes shielded from Tottenham’s kit? Well I’ve got news for you, I’ve just seen the highlights from the first half of all the games and Sunderland’s kit is about 50% worse than Tottenham’s. And the shirt Hull are sporting is 100% worse than that, It is literally nauseating.” I got lost in the maths there JR, but I take your point. Kit-gate: Mohamed Salah rounded off the win in Naples to send Roma above Napoli to second in Serie A. Leaders Juventus play Udinese later tonight. It’s half-time in Barcelona. The obvious news? They are beating today’s unwitting opponents Deportivo 3-0. The surprising news? Rafinha bagged two of them. Luis Suarez scored the other one. Mark Turner emails re Hugo-gate: “It may be sartorial, with your brain getting subliminal influence from the shoe designer Hugo Belle. Anyway, Hugo your way and I’ll go mine.” Terrific sign off. This is almost certainly the answer, me being an admirer of Hugo’s soft leathers. A run down of all the half time scores? Here you go. It’s half-time around the grounds. There have either been lots of goals or no goals in the Premier League fixtures, like the 0-0 between Spurs and West Brom at The Hawthorns: Someone has pointed out that I called Hector Bellerin ‘Hugo’ earlier. This is one of those things I regularly and inexplicably get wrong without hesitation. Is it his perfectly coiffed hair that makes him look like a Hugo? If someone could be kind enough to come up with a theory as to why, perhaps I can be cured. Serie A Over in Naples, Edin Dzeko has his second for Roma but Napoli have hit back through Kalidou Koulibaly. It’s 2-1 to the visitors with only a few minutes to play. Joe Allen is on a hat-trick, I kid you not. This time it’s a left-footed drive from the edge of the box which a perhaps unsighted Jordan Pickford can’t pick in time. Junior Stanislas calmly strokes the ball down the middle after Robert Snodgrass had clearly fouled Callum Wilson. Penalty to Bournemouth... Saved! Maarten Stekelenburg gets across to save Kevin De Bruyne’s weakish penalty and keep Everton level at the Etihad. Penalty to Manchester City... Steve Cook powers a diving header past Marshall and the Cherries are back in front, which is no less than they deserve. A mistake by Granit Xhaka allows Gylfi Sigurdsson to get a shot away but the midfielder still had plenty to do to beat Petr Cech and finished sublimely. Game on! The Bundesliga games are into the second half, where Frankfurt have equalised against Bayern to cause a fright for the league leaders. This is about as against the run of play as it gets. Bournemouth have utterly dominated their visitors but a deflected strike by the summer signing Mason has levelled the scores. Here’s something I didn’t expect from Bob Bradley – a fresh sartorial angle: Theo Walcott is really, really good at the moment. Hector Bellerin isn’t playing badly either, and he is the man to provide the assist with a header across goal for the winger to finish. Meanwhile at Charlton, their game with Coventry has got under way after the earlier swine-based protest: As predicted, West Brom and Tottenham are not putting on a show of attacking recklessness. Spurs have had 73% possession in this opening half an hour but have mustered only one shot on target. Jordi Amat is shouldering the blame for that one, I understand. Swansea really do miss Ashley Williams. Theo Walcott sprints in at the near post to prod the ball home and Bob Bradley’s Swans are behind. Rolf Wilhelm emails to ask where Sergio Aguero is – well he is on the bench, having returned from international duty where he picked up a minor knock. City are in charge against Everton by all accounts but it remains goalless at the Etihad. Scotland Scott Sinclair has handed Celtic the lead against Motherwell, while Massimo Donati has given Hamilton a 1-0 lead against Partick. No goals at the Emirates so far where Leroy Fer has just gone close for Swansea with a curling effort which doesn’t dip enough to trouble Petr Cech. “Boo Bradley?” emails Tony Barr. “Do you think this could be a red-top headline if Swansea crumble today, or are Too Kill A Mockingbird puns too much to hope for?” At the Etihad Kevin De Bruyne is back in the Manchester City starting lineup ahead of schedule, and lines up a free-kick... but it strikes the wall. League One Bolton lead Oldham through local lad Zach Clough, who bends a beautiful free-kick into the top corner. Thabo Mokaleng emails: “Is there any reason - besides, you know, supporter apathy - that there significant pockets of emptiness at the Etihad?” Some quick research on Twitter suggests it may have just taken a while to fill... Championship Goals in the second tier: Marley Watkins hands Barnsley the lead against Fulham after four minutes, while Preston lead at Brighton through Jordan Hugill and Ciaran Clark has nudged Newcastle in front at home to Brentford. The Welsh Xavi strikes again, this time a close-range header which takes his tally this season to three. Remarkable scenes, and bad news for the still winless Sunderland. A disaster for David Marshall in Hull’s goal who fails to react to a Junior Stanislas free-kick and allows Charlie Daniels a free go at the rebound off the post, which he buries brilliantly. Fan power Charlton v Coventry has been delayed because immediately upon kick-off 3,000 pink plastic pigs were let out on to the pitch by both teams’ supporters. Neither are too happy with their clubs’ owners: Someone shield my eyes from Tottenham’s kit. Whistles peep around the grounds and finally, thankfully, the sweet release from the international break is complete. In the market for one more piece of pre-match reading? I highly recommend this little number: I swear every time I do a clockwatch Bayern Munich are playing Eintracht Frankfurt. They are today and Arjen Robben has given the champions a first-half lead. It usually ends up four or five, just so you know. Premier League kick-offs are imminent. You think I’d forgotten all about Scotland? No way. It’s just that Simon McMahon always tells it better: “Afternoon Lawrence. Scotland’s game of the day is in Paisley as Dundee United look to continue their recent good form and stretch their unbeaten run to four games against St Mirren. The Buddies will be fired up themselves as they look to impress new manger Jack Ross in his first game in charge. Elsewhere in the Championship it’s Raith v Hibs, Falkirk v Dunfermline and Queen of the South v Morton. In the Premiership Celtic host Motherwell and struggling Dundee could go bottom of the table if they fail to win at Hearts. In League Two there’s an always tasty Angus derby between Arbroath and Forfar.” A goal in Naples – Edin Dzeko strikes for Roma after a mistake by the Napoli centre-back Kalidou Koulibaly. It’s almost half time at the Stadio San Paolo and Roma have a crucial leg-up in the battle to be the second-best team in Italy. Will Bob Bradley be a hit in south Wales? I think he will do well, though they are badly missing Ashley Williams and Andre Ayew, both sold in the summer. The Swans are about to get the new era under way at the Emirates. Here’s our recipe for success: For more from Poch, here he is boasting about his sizeable midfield. Tottenham ran out of gas last season but they are surely in better shape this time around: Son Heung-min, scorer of five goals this season, starts on the bench today for Tottenham at The Hawthorns. “We have seven games in 23 days and we always need to be right with our decisions,” says Mauricio Pochettino pre-game. “This team is the right XI to compete against West Brom. We must rotate if we are to arrive fresh and compete in very game. Maybe I’m boring but players aren’t machines.” Vincent Janssen is given another chance to start up front having scored a stunner for Holland this week – Eric Dier and Mousa Dembele are on the bench. Spurs face their former winger Nacer Chadli who has been in form himself with three league goals. If you thought you were the only one bored by the international break, check out exclamation mark enthusiast Borja Baston: Full time at Stamford Bridge where goals by Diego Costa, Eden Hazard and Victor Moses have seen off Leicester, who are rivalling the Blues for the meekest title defence since football began (1992). There’s always the Champions League. You can get all the details from that one right here: Arsenal v Swansea Arsenal Cech; Bellerin, Mustafi, Koscielny, Monreal; Cazorla, Xhaka; Walcott, Özil, Iwobi; Sanchez Swansea Fabianski; Naughton, Fernandez, Amat, Taylor; Cork, Britton, Fer; Barrow, Sigurdsson, Routledge Bournemoth v Hull City Bournemouth Boruc; Smith, Francis, Cook, Daniels; Surman, Arter; Wilshere, Stanislas, Ibe; Wilson Hull City Marshall; Davies, Maguire, Robertson, Maloney; Snodgrass, Livermore, Mason, Elmohamady; Clucas; Keane Manchester City v Everton Manchester City Bravo; Otamendi, Stones, Clichy; Gundogan, Fernandinho, De Bruyne, Silva; Sane, Iheanacho, Sterling Everton Stekelenburg; Coleman, Jagielka, Williams, Oviedo; Barry, Gana, Cleverley; Deulofeu, Bolasie, Lukaku Stoke City v Sunderland Stoke City Grant; Bardsley, Shawcross, Indi, Pieters; Cameron, Whelan; Shaqiri, Allen, Arnautovic; Bony Sunderland Pickford; Manquillo, Djilobodji, O’Shea, van Aanholt; Rodwell, McNair; Watmore, Ndong, Khazri; Defoe West Brom v Tottenham West Brom Foster; Dawson, McAuley, Evans, Nyom; Phillips, Fletcher, Yacob, McClean; Chadli; Rondon Tottenham Lloris; Walker, Alderweireld, Vertonghen, Davies; Wanyama; Sissoko, Dele, Eriksen, Lamela; Janssen Kick-offs: 3pm BST By the way, Chelsea are playing some lovely football as the slice and dice Leicester at Stamford Bridge. You can read all about their delicious third goal with Rob Smyth right here: Every now and then the bods at Fixtures HQ throw up a doozy, and for my money this weekend’s lineup is one of them: Leicester and Chelsea are currently in combat, Liverpool and Manchester United get down to it on Monday, and there’s still plenty to enjoy in a (Super) Saturday clockwatch. Take Arsenal v Swansea, where the longest serving manager in the Premier League hosts the new man on the block. There have been plenty of American talents to grace the English top flight, particularly between the posts, but Bob Bradley today becomes the first to make his mark in the technical area – baptisms don’t come more fiery than a trip to the Emirates. Pep Guardiola and Ronald Koeman have been trading compliments all week as the former Barcelona maestros begin what could become a long and entertaining rivalry at the top of game. Might Everton inflict a third successive non-win on the previously unstoppable Manchester City? Stoke play Sunderland in a fixture which hardly drips with glamour yet feels hugely significant for two managers under some early-season pressure in Mark Hughes and David Moyes, and Mike Phelan takes charge of Hull for the first time as permanent manager in their visit to Bournemouth, where Jack Wilshere might just play his first full 90 minutes. Imagine. Plus there is Tottenham’s trip to West Brom where a Tony Pulis side takes on the league’s best defence – OK, we’ll dip in and out of that one. It’s a busy day in the Football League too with Steve McClaren pressing reset on his Derby County career, plus games across Europe featuring Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Roma v Napoli. Yes please. Premier league teams are coming right up.
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them: what we know about its creatures The Harry Potter books and movies would not have been quite the same without the boisterous cavalcade of magical creatures with which JK Rowling populated her wild and whimsical wizarding world. Who could forget Goblet of Fire’s majestic dragons, the hippogriffs of Prisoner of Azkaban, Chamber of Secrets’ giant arachnid, Aragog, or the soul-sucking dementors? Now, thanks to the new issue of Entertainment Weekly, we have our first proper look at some of the monstrous entities who look set to escape from the Tardis-like briefcase of Eddie Redmayne’s Newt Scamander in the upcoming prequel Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Some could prove almost impossible to catch We know the basic premise of Fantastic Beasts. Scamander arrives in the Big Apple, suffers a mishap that causes many of his pet monstrosities to escape, and presumably spends the rest of the movie trying to put everything back in the box. But how do you go about re-capturing a Demiguise, described as “a primate-like creature that resembles a silver-haired orangutan with large, doleful black eyes”, when the darned thing has the ability to go invisible at any time and can also use its magical abilities to predict what you’re about to do next? This particular beast could be harder to track down than Pikachu. Others look more cute than scary The cheeky little Niffler, we’re told, resembles a cross between a mole and a duck-billed platypus. But don’t be fooled by its benign countenance, the ferrety little magical marsupial is after your treasures. It will go hunting for precious things – coins, jewelry or just about anything shiny – with relentless determination, before carting off any ill-gotten gains in its seemingly bottomless pouch. Newt might not be the only ones after them There’s a reason the bumbling magizoologist keeps his magical creatures safely out of sight: some of them are very valuable indeed. The aforementioned Demiguise is sought after for its pelt, which can be made into invisibility coats. And the sinister Occamy, described as a “plumed, two-legged, winged creature with a serpentine body ... like a cross between a dragon and a bird” lays eggs of pure silver. It’s also capable of contracting or expanding in size depending on its environment. Groot from s of the Galaxy has a cute little cousin As briefly mentioned in Order of the Phoenix, the Bowtruckle is a plant-like species that can apparently be used to pick locks. Scamander is said to have several of these as pets, and keeps one named Pickett in his top pocket. It’s not yet known if they are capable of Groot-like speech or funky disco dancing moves. Thunderbirds are go A majestic white bird seen briefly in Fantastic Beasts’ recent trailers, this creature has the ability to see danger before it happens and can create storms with the beating of its wings, which must be useful when there’s a drought on in its native Arizona. We’re told Scamander promised to return a Thunderbird named Frank to its home after rescuing the creature from traffickers in Egypt, which might just explain what the English wizard is doing in north America in the first place. Regular Rowling watchers might recall that the author-turned-screenwriter was accused of appropriating indigenous culture for her debut foray into North American wizarding culture back in March. The Thunderbird is a legendary creature in many Native American cultures, so there could be more trouble brewing here. Fear now has wings The freakiest beastie on show, and perhaps the fastest if its fleeting appearance in trailers is anything to go by, looks to be a flying reptile named Swooping Evil that might just be Fantastic Beasts’ answer to the terrifying dementors. Resembling a spiky butterfly or airborne manta ray in terms of its shape and mode of flight, it also has the unfortunate habit of sucking the brains out of living creatures, like a cross between a vampire and a zombie. Ugh.
Why spending more time on the internet is a good thing One in three people have tried to have a “digital detox”, giving up using the internet because it’s taking over their lives, according to an Ofcom report. But while returning to a simpler time may have some appeal, most of us would never want to go back to the age before connectivity. Here’s a few reasons we love being always online - add yours in the comments below: You can know if you need an umbrella, if your train has been cancelled and if your boss is in a foul mood before you even leave the house You can spend hours of your time replicating the menial repetitive tasks our ancestors strived so hard not to have to do, but this time you’re not even being paid for them, thanks to Farmville, Pokémon Go, etc You can self-diagnose with a mystery ailment without wasting time trying to see a doctor You can become an instant expert on any subject, saving yourself from never-ending arguments with terminal pub know-it-alls You can avoid ever, ever having to set foot in a supermarket again You can get a recipe for anything (and order a takeaway just as soon as your cooking skills fail) When you’re drunk and it’s 4am you don’t need to turn on QVC to buy random crap - you have eBay You can instantly find out which song is your earworm and then subject everyone else to it too You can look up every actor you see in a popular TV show to find out which unpopular TV show from 10 years ago you remember them from You can look up every teenage crush and see what they look like now Cat videos! (And gifs) Tell us what we’ve missed ...
'Back on my feet': how artificial limbs can have a second life in Africa Losing a limb is a devastating physical and psychological experience for anyone. For adults and children in countries where prosthetics are not routinely available, it can also mean losing your home, your family and ending up on the streets. Mohamad Musa, from Sanchaba in western Gambia, has experienced first-hand the harsh reality of life as an amputee. His leg was removed at Banjul hospital in 2014 after suffering pain for many years. Without a prosthetic limb, he spent much of his day “just sitting” and had to leave school in 7th grade. Now in his twenties, Musa is among hundreds to date who have benefited from recycled artificial legs sent out by UK charities to places where they are desperately needed. Earlier this year, Legs4Africa volunteers arrived in his town and offered him the chance of being fitted with a prosthetic. “They brought me back on my feet,” he explains. His story and others have been made possible due to effective partnerships. One such collaboration between Limbcare and Legs4Africa resulted in 500 limbs being despatched to Tanzania in May this year. The prosthetics which also include arms and hands will be distributed to a Dar es Salaam hospital where experienced technicians will fit them to those in need. Len Amos, Limbcare’s director of recycling and communication, says: “All of these parts went to a country with no NHS and where an awful lot of children are disowned by their parents because they can’t work, so end up begging.” The partnership between the two charities began with a phone call. Amos had been asked by a foundation working with underprivileged communities to send out disability equipment. He contacted Legs4Africa founder Tom Williams asking if he wanted to help fill the container destined for Tanzania. By coincidence, Williams had received a request for legs also from Tanzania. Aided by volunteers, they had the limbs tagged, bagged and sent on to their destination. Limbcare and Legs4Africa obtain second-hand legs from the NHS, private clinics and funeral firms. Under EU laws, prosthetics are classed as medical waste so the NHS cannot reuse them once a patient has outgrown or stopped using them because of a change in health. Instead, around 5,000 are either incinerated or go for landfill every year in the UK. “There’s no market [for used limbs] in the UK and if we don’t collect them they’ll be destroyed,” explains Williams whose charity collects from nearly a dozen hospitals and clinics. This informal process usually starts with Legs4Africa approaching either senior management or the prosthetist who then fill a box of redundant limbs for the charity to collect. In some cases, trusts will encourage staff to put prosthetics and mobility aids aside. Williams’s dream would be for formal collaboration and partnership between charities and the entire NHS. One country’s waste is another’s opportunity to transform lives, especially in parts of sub-Saharan Africa where prosthetics are not manufactured. “You have to be rich, in the military or the government to receive an artificial limb,” says Amos. “You’d have to be lucky even to get walking sticks.” Although manufacturers will not guarantee prosthetics for life, secondhand ones are generally perfectly reusable according to Amos. They will be exported to local hospitals where occupational therapists assess people for suitability then engineers adapt the limbs to individual patients. It is a painstaking process. A person’s height has to be taken into account, to ensure the leg section is the correct length, and their weight so the limb doesn’t swing out too quickly. Diseases such as diabetes, car accidents and civil war are all to blame for an increasing number of people in Africa living with limb loss. Gambia’s only prosthetist, Gabu Jarjue, is based at the Royal Victoria teaching hospital in Banjul which benefited from a Legs4Africa shipment this year. Gambia is a developing nation and disability a low priority, says Jarjue, with the daily life of patients and their families one of “discrimination and exclusion”. His belief is that the sooner Gambia addresses the needs of amputees, the quicker it will realise that a properly rehabilitated patient costs less than a disabled one. “[A prosthetic] leg can be the reason someone rises out of poverty and begins living a life of dignity.” There is no set structure to how Legs4Africa establishes and maintains partnerships with healthcare professionals like Jarjue and with healthcare institutions. However, hospitals and clinics, which are often referred to the charity by individuals in the community, must meet strict criteria. They must have the facilities and expertise to customise the components sent out by the charity, guarantee not to sell them and be responsible for transporting the prosthetics from port to hospital. “We also ask for reports and photos,” adds Williams. As for Musa, he’s enjoying having a new prosthetic leg and the opportunities it affords him. He says: “I’m with no pain and thinking of my future – my dream is education.” The aim of charities like Limbcare and Legs4Africa is to get many more like Musa back on their feet. Through partnerships like theirs, this is a very achievable goal. Join the Healthcare Professionals Network to read more pieces like this. And follow us on Twitter (@GdnHealthcare) to keep up with the latest healthcare news and views.
Dylan LeBlanc: Cautionary Tale review – pretty but unengaging country folk One can only presume the note on the back sleeve – “this record is enjoyed properly at maximum volume” – was written with a smile. Louisiana-born Dylan LeBlanc has never been about rattling the foundations, rather he specialises in country folk as smooth as a freshly shaven eel. He has been compared to Neil Young, but the rough edges that define the Canadian icon are sanded down here, making this third album a pleasant but occasionally unengaging listen. Roll the Dice sees pedal-steel swooning around a gorgeous melody, but it also relies on a hackneyed gambling metaphor for love (“Roll the dice on me”; “play your sleight of hand” etc). Cautionary Tale glides soulfully like Chris Isaak; Man Like Me is reminiscent of My Morning Jacket. It’s pretty and well-crafted, but there might not be a volume setting loud enough for it to truly grab your attention.
What do you make of the Sleaford byelection? When Stephen Phillips resigned as MP for Sleaford and North Hykeham, he cited a lack of parliamentary scrutiny on the Brexit process, and unease at the government’s treatment of child refugees and changes to international aid. In contrast to last week’s anti-Brexit byelection in Richmond Park, Sleaford’s Ukip and the Conservative candidates are battling to appear the most anti-EU in a constituency that voted largely in favour of Brexit, as Rowena Mason, our deputy political editor, reports. We want to hear from local voters and supporters from across the political spectrum for their take on the byelection. What are the main issues you are considering when deciding to vote? You can share your views by filling out the form below. We will use a selection of your responses in our reporting.
The view on the high street: help urgently needed British Home Stores, for nearly a hundred years a stalwart of almost every high street in the land, is to close. Despite upbeat reports of bank holiday trading and rumours of potential purchasers, the attempt to find a buyer has failed. As stocks run out, the shutters will come down, and 11,000 people who are directly employed in 163 stores will be told to go home. The security of their pensions is uncertain, their prospects for a job that matches the one they have lost in terms of pay and conditions are slender. The jobs of thousands more who work for suppliers may be under threat too. Millions of shoppers will lose a destination that was familiar to their parents and grandparents, and hundreds of towns and cities will have another gap in their struggling centres. Meanwhile Uber, the taxi app that has built a global presence in a matter of years, has attracted the biggest ever investment in a startup, $3.5bn, from the Saudi Arabian government. Perhaps BHS workers will find a future as Uber drivers, working for a company that controls their capacity to work but refuses to treat them as employees. Disruptive technology comes at a high cost. The collapse of BHS was not, or not only, the now familiar tale of the collapse of real shopping in the face of the digital challenge, a challenge that has claimed Woolworth’s and MFI and threatened to undermine PC World and Currys and a score of other household names in the high street. Before the end of this month, Sir Philip Green and the man to whom he sold the group, Dominic Chappell, will have to face MPs on two Commons committees to explain why they took decisions that led to them extracting millions of pounds of assets before the collapse of the group in April. Sir Philip, who sold the business for £1 a year ago, took out more than the value of the pension fund in dividends, rent and interest payments during the 15 years that he owned it. There are plenty of people, including former employees, who are likely to feel he will be answering the MPs’ questions across the carcass of what was almost a national institution. Less publicly, a government insolvency service investigation will be asking hard questions about the impact of the policies followed by BHS directors. There is a real fear that BHS may merely be the first apple to fall in the face of an impending hurricane sweeping down the British high street. Austin Reed is closing 120 outlets and shedding 1,000 jobs after going into administration last month. Marks & Spencer is still struggling, and even challenger stores such as SportsDirect and Poundland report slowing sales and flat profits. There is no easy answer to the shifting dynamics of high street retail, and it will be small comfort for those now facing unemployment that when it launched in 1928, BHS was once a disruptive force too, driving out small independents. Years of relaxed financial regulation may have contributed to the retail group’s demise and businesses may have a case when they complain that the rating system is old fashioned and inadequate. However, economic slowdown and the transformational impact of changing shopping habits will not be solved by a more flexible and transparent system of local government finance. But it would certainly be a big help if online retailers had the same level of tax liability as those in the high street.
MPs demand hard line against clinicians who do not report FGM The government should impose harsher punishment on professionals who decide not to report female genital mutilation in children, saying they are “complicit in a crime being committed”, according to a group of MPs. The failure of the UK to make a single prosecution against FGM despite changes in legislation that make it mandatory for professionals to report FGM is “beyond belief” and is leading to “the preventable mutilation of thousands of girls”, according to a damning report from the home affairs select committee. The committee says it is alarmed by reports that clinicians are ignoring the requirement to report child cases of FGM to the police, which was put in place last year, and urges NHS employers and royal colleges to “take a hard line against such attitudes”. It states: “Existing disciplinary procedures for professionals who ignore the duty on mandatory reporting are insufficient and ineffective and it is unacceptable that some clinicians appear to refuse to accept it as their responsibility. The duty to report must not be seen as optional. A decision not to report puts children’s lives at risk and is complicit in a crime being committed.” The committee risks reigniting a row with health professionals, some of whom have argued that mandatory reporting is counter-productive and compromises patient confidence. The first annual statistics gathered on FGM released in July revealed there had been 5,700 new cases of female genital mutilation recorded in England in 2015-16, and provided hard evidence that the practice was happening on UK soil, with 18 cases recorded as happening in the UK. There are an estimated 134,600 women with FGM born in countries where FGM is practised and living in England. More than 20,000 girls a year are thought to be at risk of FGM in the UK. FGM – the practice of removing some or all of a girl’s outer sexual organs, which can lead to serious and lifelong health complications – has been illegal in the UK since 1985 but it took 29 years before the first prosecution was brought to trial. The defendants were found not guilty. Since 2010, only 29 cases of FGM offences have been referred to the CPS, with a number of cases still live. The report compared these result to other countries: in a similar period there have been 40 FGM-related trials in France, six in Spain; two in Italy and Sweden; and one each in the Netherlands and Denmark. “It is beyond belief that there still has not been a successful prosecution for an FGM offence since it was made illegal over 30 years ago,” stated the report. “That is a lamentable record and the failure to identify cases, to prosecute and to achieve convictions can only have negative consequences for those who are brave enough to come forward to highlight this crime.” There was a “strong case” for routine medical examinations of children deemed to be at particularly high risk of FGM, said the committee. The practice had resulted in “large number of successful prosecutions in relation to FGM in France” but would require “a radical change in practice in the UK” and risked being “unnecessarily traumatic”. The report also criticised the quality of data being gathered on FGM, although some progress had been made. Despite publicity surrounding the Government’s Summit on FGM in 2015, there was still “a paucity of information on the scale of FGM, on its trends over time and on the number of girls at risk”, stated the report. It called for a government FGM Unit – similar in scope to the Forced Marriage Unit – to collect data and report on progress in police investigations. Police said on Wednesday that 33 children had been referred to safeguarding services, an 11-year-old girl was taken into police protection and a man and woman detained at Heathrow airport following a police operation that targeted flights to countries with high rates of FGM. Officers spoke to 5,000 people about UK law during Operation Limelight, according to the National Police Chiefs’ Council, but the report said “much more needs to be done to detect and prevent girls from being taken out of the UK to undergo FGM”. Alison Macfarlane, a professor of perinatal health at City University London and author of a report on the prevalence of FGM in the UK, said the current methods of collecting data on FGM were “completely meaningless”. She added: “Ferocious penalties against doctors who don’t report FGM gets nobody anywhere. It is a sideshow from the positive things that are being done to prevent FGM, and it will deter women and girls from going to the doctor for help they may need.” The Royal College of Midwives said that while a prosecution was “an important element” in the fight against FGM, many survivors were finding it difficult to access health care and psychological support. “We must address the need for culturally appropriate physiological services for survivors of FGM,” said the college’s professional policy adviser, Janet Fyle. “They are not being provided at anywhere near the levels required,” she added. Equality Now, which has advised the government on FGM policy, said it did not support medical examinations of girls and did not think an FGM unit would be beneficial as “past experience showed that this did not work very effectively”. Mary Wandia, End FGM programme manager, said: “Every girl at risk of FGM should be protected in every possible way – particularly by those with a duty of care. If there is a failure to prevent this – or any incidence of child abuse – then the person who failed should be held to account.” Nimko Ali, an anti-FGM activist and survivor, said she was confident that data collection and mandatory reporting – as well as a raised awareness about FGM – would result in a prosecution and welcomed the call for professionals to face disciplinary procedures if they failed to report FGM. “That prosecution will take time, but what is more important is that these policies are preventing girls from being cut in the first place, she said.”
Hillary Clinton: 'I'm sick of the Sanders campaign's lies' – as it happened One of the most important skills that a president can possess is crisis management - the process by which a leader and their supporters handle an event that poses a threat to themselves, their administration or to the American people. If crisis management is a skill honed through practice, then Donald Trump got a good dose of training on the subject today, as the billionaire Republican frontrunner’s campaign struggled to juggle the aftermath of his disastrous comments on abortion with the continued fallout from his campaign manager being charged with battery. While Trump’s woes - as usual - took over most of the news cycle, other would-be crisis managers faced their own difficulties as another week of campaigning comes to a close: John Kasich has released a statement on Donald Trump, declaring him “not prepared to be president.” “He proposed punishing women who received abortions, attacked the Geneva Conventions and said he’d nominate supreme court justices based on who will look into Hillary Clinton’s email scandal.” Kasich still hasn’t out and said he would not support Trump as the nominee, however. Donald Trump released a letter from his tax lawyers, who say he hasn’t released his federal tax returns – and in the process revealed what he’s really worth – because of a 14-year continuous audit by the IRS. Trump’s tax returns are “inordinately large and complex for an individual” Translation: Trump is being audited, and he won’t release the older tax returns because they’re related to business that’s being audited in the newer tax returns. But he could legally release any of them if he wanted. You can read the full letter here. Trump’s threat to not support his party’s eventual nominee may end up costing him as many as 50 delegates in his race to clinch the Republican nomination. South Carolina required all candidates on its primary ballot to sign a pledge declaring their loyalty to the eventual winner of the Republican presidential nomination as a precondition for being placed on the ballot. Trump, of course, has reneged on that pledge. Party chair Reince Priebus held a meeting with the billionaire frontrunner today, which lasted approximately 50 minutes and touched on the subject of... nobody knows. But we have a few good guesses that it had something to do with declaring that women who have abortions should be legally punished in some way. At a rally in upstate New York today, former secretary of state and Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton lost her patience with an activist for Greenpeace who asked her whether she will reject money from the petroleum industry in the future, declaring that she was “tired of the Sanders campaign’s lies.” Sanders hit back with a fundraising email that highlighted her relationships with numerous members of the fossil fuel industry. Trump continued damage-control operations late into the night. “If you answer one question inartfully or incorrectly in some form, or you misunderstood it or you misspoke, it ends up being a big story,” Trump told the New York Times. “That doesn’t happen with other people.” That’s it for today - we’ll catch you tomorrow, the next day and every day until Election Day! The executive director of the US Election Assistance Commission, the federal agency tasked with widening access to voting, used his position to help push legal obstacles to voter registration in three states, according to the Associated Press. Brian Newby, the official in question, used his position to unilaterally declare that residents of Alabama, Georgia and Kansas could no longer register to vote by using a national form without providing proof of American citizenship. According to the Associated Press, Newby did so with the knowledge of Kansas’ Republican secretary of state Kris Kobach, whom Newby emailed in June to say that “I think I would enter the job empowered to lead the way I want to.” Kobach has been a fervent proponent of voter ID laws, which he says curb voter fraud. Critics have alleged that purported concern about voter fraud - the existence of which is hotly disputed - is in fact a cover to curb voter registration among economic and racial demographics who tend to vote Democratic. Do you have what it takes to betray the Colonies? ClickHole, for the win. California lawmakers have approved the nation’s highest statewide minimum wage of $15 an hour, to take effect by 2022 after it was hailed by Democrats as an example to the nation as it struggles with a growing gap between rich and poor. The legislation now goes to Governor Jerry Brown, who is expected to sign it into law after previously working out the plan with labor unions. The state of New York was considering a similar move. About 2.2 million Californians now earn the minimum wage. The University of California, Berkeley’s Center for Labor Research and Education projected the increase would have a ripple effect for those whose wages would increase to keep pace. The researchers project it would increase pay for 5.6 million Californians by an average of 24%. More than a third of the affected workers are parents. Latinos would benefit most because they hold a disproportionate number of low-wage jobs, the researchers said. Billionaire Republican frontrunner Donald Trump continued damage-control operations after the candidate declared on Wednesday that women who had abortions would be legally punished if the procedure became illegal. “If you answer one question inartfully or incorrectly in some form, or you misunderstood it or you misspoke, it ends up being a big story,” Trump told the New York Times. “That doesn’t happen with other people.” Trump’s campaign issued a statement backtracking on his comments within three hours, but the outcry from both the left and the right has dominated the news cycle, with Trump apparently being summoned to a closed-door meeting with Republican National Committee chair Reince Priebus this afternoon. While acknowledging that he “misspoke” on the issue of criminalizing abortion, Trump told the New York Times that he was being subjected to undue scrutiny. “I’m asked hundreds of questions a day,” Trump said. “You multiply that by months and months and months, and every once in awhile, if you misspeak - I was very focused on the topic of the Catholic Church.” “The difference is that if I say something that’s off, if I say something that’s off one way or another, it gets massive publicity,” Trump continued. “If somebody else does it, nobody cares.” Anyone who has lived in the nation’s capital knows that Washington, DC, is a tight-knit community, but a connection between Barack Obama’s supreme court nominee and Donald Trump’s campaign manager? That’s odd even for Washington. As it turns out, Merrick Garland, the federal appeals court judge currently up for consideration to fill the vacant seat on the supreme court, was once one of three judges who stymied efforts by Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s campaign manager, to get his gun back after he was arrested for bringing it into an office building on Capitol Hill. According to USA Today, Lewandowski - who has been charged with battery for allegedly assaulting a campaign reporter at a Trump event in Florida - fought legal battles for four years in an effort to get the gun returned to him. An appeal of his federal lawsuit in hopes of receiving his gun and payment for mental anguish landed in Garland’s court in 2003, where a panel composed of Garland and two conservative judges denied Lewandowski’s claim. Bernie Sanders’ campaign spokesman Michael Briggs has issued a statement after Hillary Clinton declared on video that she was “sick of the Sanders’ campaign lying about” fossil-fuel industry donations to her campaign. “The truth is that Secretary Clinton has relied heavily on funds from lobbyists working for the oil, gas and coal industry,” Briggs said. “According to an analysis by Greenpeace, Hillary Clinton’s campaign and her super-PAC have received more than $4.5 million from the fossil fuel industry. In fact, 57 oil, gas and coal industry lobbyists have directly contributed to Clinton’s campaign, with 43 of them contributing the maximum allowed for the primary. Eleven of those 53 lobbyists are working as bundlers and have raised over $1.1 million in bundled contributions between them.” “If Secretary Clinton wants to discuss this and other important issues she should stop stalling and agree to a debate in New York before the April 19 primary election,” Briggs said. An incredibly creepy new advertisement aired on behalf of John Kasich’s struggling presidential campaign takes Donald Trump’s nickname for Texas senator Ted Cruz to an extremely uncomfortable level. “Many just call him Lyin’ Ted,” the ad begins, using Trump’s nickname for Cruz, saying that he “lied about Ben Carson to steal a win in Iowa.” The ad goes on to list several other ostensible untruths as Cruz’s nose winds its way around his head, a la Pinocchio. Cruz, the ad says, “lies about being best for the GOP when polls show he can’t even beat Hillary Clinton.” “If Ted Cruz’s mouth is moving, he’s lying,” the ad finishes. Susan Sarandon and Debra Messing have declared their Twitter feud over after the two actors got into a public spat over their support for Bernie Sanders andHillary Clinton in the Democratic presidential race. The feud began when Sarandon implied that she would vote for Republican frontrunner Donald Trump if Sanders, her preferred Democratic candidate, lost the nomination to Clinton. “I think a lot of people are like, ‘Sorry, I just can’t bring myself to vote for [Clinton],’” Sarandon said during an appearance MSNBC’s All In with Chris Hayeson Monday. “Some people feel Donald Trump will bring the revolution immediately.” While Sarandon later clarified that she would never vote for Trump, her comments drew immediate fury – not least from Messing, a prominent Clinton supporter, who asked the Thelma and Louise star why she would not use her large platform to make clear that she would not vote for Trump. Sarandon defended herself, saying she was thinking more about first-time voters who might have a “dilemma” in voting for someone who they had not originally supported. Republicans holding out hope that Mitt Romney or Paul Ryan might arrive as white knights at the Republican convention in Cleveland this summer might want to reconsider their options, if a new poll is any indication. The newest national poll conducted by Public Policy Polling finds that onetime ticket-mates Romney and Ryan wouldn’t neautralize the Republican party’s forthcoming general election crisis. Romney, in fact, would perform even worse against Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton than Trump. Romney, once the Republican presidential nominee, has a favorability rating even more underwater than Trump’s: 65% of Americans view him negatively, compared to a mere 23% who view him favorably. (Trump, by comparison, is viewed negatively by 63% of Americans polled.) Both Clinton and Vermont senator Bernie Sanders lead Romney by double digits in a hypothetical faceoff, with Clinton taking 45% of voters to Romney’s 32%. The newly minted speaker of the house would perform almost as poorly. Ryan’s hypothetical run against Clinton has him down six points, while he trails Sanders by seven points. “Donald Trump doesn’t do very well against Hillary Clinton,” Dean Debnam, president of Public Policy Polling, said in a released statement. “But it’s not clear the white knights the GOP dreams of would do any better.” A teenager who was pepper sprayed in the face at a rally for Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump may face a disorderly conduct charge after she allegedly punched a man in the face, according to the Associated Press. Police in Janesville, Wisconsin, are recommending that charges be brought against the juvenile, who alleges that she punched the man after he touched her in a sexual manner. The man in question told police that he does not want to press charges. Police chief David Moore told reporters that the charges would be for her punch, which was “an act of violence.” “Clearly her punch was illegal,” he said. Moore said that Janesville police have not identified the person who pepper sprayed the girl, but said that the person could face battery charges for the act. Retired senior military officers and human rights advocates are reacting with disgust at Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump’s description of the Geneva conventions as a “problem” for the conduct of US wars, writes the ’s Spencer Ackerman. At an appearance in Wisconsin on Wednesday that was obscured by his suggestion that women who choose abortion should face punishment, Donald Trump was also quoted as saying: “The problem is we have the Geneva conventions, all sorts of rules and regulations, so the soldiers are afraid to fight.” Trump has previously advocated killing the families of terror suspects; torture “a hell of a lot worse” than waterboarding; and widespread bombing campaigns against Islamic State, which operates in civilian-packed areas. The Geneva conventions provide the basis for protections against war crimes, privileging the status of civilians and detainees during wartime. Several retired officers said the comments called into question Trump’s fitness to serve as commander-in-chief, saying that service members operating in line with his predilections would be tasked with behavior ranging from the disgraceful to the illegal. “Donald Trump cannot possibly understand [Geneva] because he has neither the experience, the expertise or the moral compass to grasp it,” said Steve Kleinman, an air force reserve colonel and an interrogations expert. Geneva is “a fundamental moral and tactical construct that serves as a foundation for the law of armed conflict, because all wars, including the global war on terror, come to an end. We as a community of nations need to engage with one another and not be separated by horrible, immoral treatment of one side over another,” Kleinman said. At a rally in upstate New York today, former secretary of state and Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton lost her patience with an activist for Greenpeace who asked her whether she will reject money from the petroleum industry in the future. Pointing her finger at the activist, Clinton said that she only takes money from employees of companies involved in the fossil-fuel industry, and called the accusations from opponent Bernie Sanders’ camp “lies.” A succession of disturbing attacks on women have raised fresh questions about Donald Trump’s credibility as a presidential candidate and are an ugly reminder of his long-standing deeply questionable attitudes, writes the ’s Jon Swaine. In the space of a single week he has insulted an opponent’s wife’s looks, defended an aide for manhandling a female reporter and said women should be punished for having abortions. But his persistent attacks on women, which have caused widespread outrage, and have heightened alarm about him within the Republican party have not come from nowhere. From flippant offensive comments about women to serious allegations of assault from those he has encountered through his relationships and career, Trump stands accused of misogyny to a degree that has not been seen in mainstream American politics for decades. Hillary Clinton could easily win not just the battle for the Democratic nomination but also the race for presidency, according to an article today by the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics. Larry J. Sabato, the Director of the center who co-authored the piece, estimates that Clinton will win 347 electoral votes while Trump would take a total of just 191. A race between Cruz and Clinton would probably be closer, but the authors still expect Clinton to come out on top (though they don’t quantify by how much). The article forecasts the results by controlling for many factors which may change. As the authors explain “we don’t know the shape of the economy or terrorism, or the precise job approval rating of President Obama in the autumn, or the gaffes and scandals that may yet unfold on our way to the ballot box.” The subtitle of the post reads “it’s a long way to November”. That caution from the present about the future is the most important caveat when reading analyses like this one. Americans have the right to change their minds, and many will. Donald Trump thanked Wisconsin for putting him in second place out of three candidates on Twitter today. The Republican National Committee is keeping tight-lipped about Reince Priebus’ meeting with Donald Trump: The Chairman and Mr. Trump had a productive conversation about the state of the race. The Chairman is in constant communication with all of the candidates and their campaigns about the primaries, general election and the convention. Meeting and phone conversations with candidates and their campaigns are common and will increase as we get closer to November. Billionaire Republican frontrunner Donald Trump’s threat to not support his party’s eventual nominee may end up costing him as many as 50 delegates in his race to clinch the Republican nomination. South Carolina required all candidates on its primary ballot to sign a pledge declaring their loyalty to the eventual winner of the Republican presidential nomination as a precondition for being placed on the ballot. After deliberating, Trump signed the pledge in a much-hyped public event at Trump Tower in midtown Manhattan. “I will be totally pledging my allegiance to the Republican Party and the conservative principles for which it stands and we will go out and fight hard and we will win... I have no intention of changing my mind,” the billionaire said at the time. “I see no circumstances under which I would tear up that pledge.” But during a town hall in Milwaukee with CNN on Tuesday night, Trump revoked the commitment and declared that he had been “treated very unfairly” by the party and his opponents. “Breaking South Carolina’s presidential primary ballot pledge raises some unanswered legal questions that no one person can answer,” South Carolina Republican chair Matt Moore told TIME. “However, a court or national convention Committee on Contests could resolve them. It could put delegates in jeopardy.” Although Moore has backtracked - however slightly: Following a ballot-certification snafu that may have accidentally kept Vermont senator Bernie Sanders’ name from being placed on the Democratic primary ballot in the upcoming Washington, DC, primary, a member of the federal district’s city council is preparing to submit emergency legislation to ensure that both Sanders and opponent Hillary Clinton will make it on the Democratic party’s ballot. According to NBC’s Washington affiliate, DC city council member Anita Bonds, who also chairs the DC Democratic party, will put the legislation up for a vote as soon as this coming Tuesday. Both Sanders and Clinton submitted the necessary paperwork to the local Democratic party before the March 16 filing deadline, but the party did not forward either candidate’s name to the DC board of elections until the next day. A voter filed a challenge to Sanders’ registration, igniting the issue. No such challenge has been filed against the Clinton campaign. Along with some world leaders, the US’s neighbors to the north have been watching the American elections with alarm, my colleague Ashifa Kassam reports from Toronto. The leader of Canada’s progressive party has labeled Donald Trump “a fascist”, and faulted prime minister Justin Trudeau for not condemning the Republican. “Donald Trump is a fascist,” Tom Mulcair said at an event last week. “Let’s not kid ourselves, let’s not beat around the bush.” He pointed to Trump’s proposals to temporarily ban Muslims from entering the country and build a wall along the Mexican border as examples of how the leader was appealing to what he called “the lowest feelings in human nature”. The remarks surfaced this week after the NDP sent a videoclip to media. Mulcair also attacked Trudeau’s reticence to speak frankly about Trump. “I will not hesitate to point out the fact that Mr Trudeau just shrugs his shoulders when he’s asked about Donald Trump and says, ‘Oh the relationship between Canada and the United States goes beyond any two individuals,’” he said. “I’m sorry, if a fascist becomes president of the United States, I want to be on record as having opposed it long before that election.” Trudeau, dubbed the anti-Trump by some in the US media, has shied away from offering his views on the possibility of Trump at the helm of Canada’s largest trading partner in recent months. “I’m not going to pick a fight with Donald Trump right now. I’m not going to support him either, obviously,” he said at a forum in early March. Trudeau’s hesitation was later probed in an interview with the CBC. “I respect the American electoral process,” he demurred. “I have faith in what [Abraham] Lincoln referred to as ‘the better angels of American nature’, and I am looking forward to who I am going to work with after 4 November.” Many have cautioned Trudeau to stay quiet. “Trudeau, as prime minister, should refrain from commenting on candidates in US presidential elections,” said Derek Burney, a former Canadian ambassador to the United States. “He will deal with whomever the electorate chooses.” The question of how to engage with Trump is one leaders around the world are wrestling with, said said Brett Bruen, a former director of global engagement at the White House. He suggested actions rather than direct confrontation, such as Trudeau’s greeting of Syrian refugees at the airport, as an example. “That sends a very clear message but does not entangle him in a very dirty campaign in the US,” said Bruen. You can read Ashifa’s full piece here, and watch Mulcair’s remarks below. Only his second tweet of the day. Trump has left the Republican National Committee headquarters without making a statement to the press – even though there’s at least a dozen of them hovering about. Details are sparse about Donald Trump’s meetings with Republicans in Washington, but his campaign did announce a “House Leadership Committee” to “lead outreach” for the campaign in Congress. Trump named two congressmen, Duncan Hunter and Chris Collins, to the effort. “Congressman Hunter and Congressman Collins are conservative stalwarts,” the businessman said in a statement. “I am honored to have the support of these two well respected Members of Congress who share my vision of securing our borders, strengthening our military, treating our veterans with the respect and care they deserve and putting Americans first again.” From the campaign: Mr Trump is conducting meetings today in Washington DC. Earlier in the week, he announced that his campaign will be opening a Washington DC based office to coordinate his campaign’s work with the Republican National Committee, Congress, and his convention and delegate operations. Meanwhile in New York, “the Bernie people came” to a rally for Hillary Clinton, in the candidate’s words. Like Sanders, she’s ratcheting up the civil but pointed rhetoric: “As they’re leaving I want to say I have earned nine million votes in this election, already. I have one million more than Donald Trump. And I have two and a half million more votes than Bernie Sanders.” Time’s Zeke Miller confirms the story circulating round Washington DC – that Donald Trump is in town in part to meet with the Republican party’s leaders, including chairman Reince Priebus. Earlier this week Trump reneged on his pledge to support the Republican party’s nominee no matter who that ends up being. The Republican presidential candidates past continues to parade by. Now it’s Kentucky senator Rand Paul, who is probably glad he helped change his state’s rules ban on running for two offices at the same time. Chris Christie, the Republican governor of New Jersey, erstwhile presidential candidate, and sometime stage prop for Donald Trump, has called onto a radio show to defend the way he eats M&M. The governor’s decision to pour a bag of candies into a box of the same candies, photographed at a basketball game, went over so well online that Christie called a WFAN radio show, Boomer and Carton, on Wednesday morning to explain himself. “There’s a bag inside the box, you dope.” “Why would you go bag-to-box?” the host asked. “Just eat ‘em out of the bag!” Christie: “You know why? Because it’s easier to hold the box than to hold the bag.” The host told him “that’s an interesting maneuver.” His co-host clarified: “it was just transferring the M&Ms from a soft paper into a box?” Christie: “You get the box, you open the box. There’s a bag inside the box. Why they do it that way I have no idea. But you open up the bag, you pour the bag into the box, so it’s easier to hold.” The hosts pressed him to explain the logic of this. “Listen, I run New Jersey, not M&M-Mars. I have no idea,” Christie answered. A Wisconsin teen asked Ted Cruz to help him win a date to his prom on Wednesday, and the senator complied: “that’s strong. I’ve got to say, Alex, that’s strong.” But the teenager says that Cruz left out the final line of his note. Ted Cruz just spoke to Charlie Sykes, a conservative radio host, and used his time on Wisconsin’s most prominent conservative radio to relentlessly belittle John Kasich. “If Kasich had dropped out before Illinois, I would have won Illinois and beaten Trump,” Cruz said. “What happened in Illinois could happen in subsequent states.” He then took issue with Kasich’s argument that he’s the only Republican who can beat Hillary Clinton in a general election. “You’re not electable if you can’t win elections. He’s lost 30 nationwide,” he said, alluding to the race so far. Kasich has only won in his home state of Iowa, and has nearly 600 fewer delegates than Donald Trump. “Part of the reason he does well against Hillary is that no one knows anything about him.” Cruz threw in an aside about Trump’s comments from Wednesday about “punishment” for women who have illegal abortions. “Donald’s notion was bizarre and something with which I strongly disagree,” Cruz said. The Texas senator has a narrow lead over Trump in Wisconsin, according to poll averages, and the state has a delegate system that awards 18 of its 42 delegates to the candidate who wins the state-wide vote. The remainder are awarded by Wisconsin’s eight congressional districts: three each to the winner of each district. Running at 21% of the vote to Cruz’s 33%, per the polls, Kasich could spoil the Texan’s hopes to sweep all 42 delegates away from Trump. In perhaps the least surprising turn of the 2016 election, the National Border Patrol Council has endorsed the Republican candidate who means to build a massive border wall. “Unlike his opponents, Donald Trump is not a career politician, he is an outsider who has created thousands of jobs, pledged to bring about aggressive pro-American change, and who is completely independent of special interests,” the group said in a statement. “We don’t need a person who has the perfect Washington-approved tone, and certainly NOT another establishment politician in the [White House]. “Indeed, the fact that people are more upset about Mr. Trump’s tone than about the destruction wrought by open borders tells us everything we need to know about the corruption in Washington.” The group also praised Trump for enduring “the withering media storm”. “He did not back down one iota. That tells you the measure of the man. “When the so-called experts said he was too brash and outspoken, and that he would fade away, they were proven wrong. We are confident they will be proven wrong again in November when he becomes President of the United States.” Earlier this week my colleague Paul Lewis met with families divided by a border wall that already exists. They often meet there at the barrier, for “amargo y dulce” reunions. Kasich ends the press conference. Sanders has finished too. Bill Clinton is still meeting with voters in New York – and he’s mentioned us! Or at least he’s mentioned a column published on Monday, by Jill Abramson, the former editor of the New York Times. The Times’ Amy Chozick is with the former president, who is hosting an “organizing event” in the city. Later this afternoon he’ll be doing three more events, one in Chelsea, near the Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons, one in south Tribeca, just a few blocks from the World Trade Center, and one at the United Federation of Teachers’ building, in the financial district. The events, unlike most staged by candidates themselves, are not being aired online. Bernie Sanders lands in the city this afternoon as well, to hold a rally up in the south Bronx, alongside actor Rosario Dawson. “I am with the Trump people, they just don’t know me,” Kasich insists. “They see Coke, Pepsi and Kasich, when they’re out shopping,” he says. They go with what they know. He gets as close as he ever has to disavowing Trump the hypothetical nominee: “If he were the nominee, at that point, I would have to determine how I felt.” Trump is “pulling so many people apart,” Kasich says. “Terrible, atrocious” attacks on women, on Muslims, on “people who came here, came here illegally, but should have an opportunity to settle here, if they have not violated the law.” “And then these absolutely absurd statements,” about building a wall and making Mexico pay for it. Kasich blames the press, or at least television, for giving so much airtime to the former reality TV star. “I don’t know how you people even deal with this,” he says. “You also have a responsibility in this business!” “It’s an unsettling time but people are looking for a way to express their frustrations, and he’s a way to do it.” Kasich takes a question. Will you support Donald Trump if he’s the nominee. He doesn’t really answer. He says he believes Trump will not have the 1,237 delegates to win the nomination outright. He doesn’t think much of the other Republican in the race either. “There’s a greater chance that you will fly out of this building,” he says, “and fly up to where the ball drops at the end of the year, than for Ted Cruz to have enough delegates to win the convention.” Then he says he’ll do well in New York, and be “very competitive” in Pennsylvania. “Finally people are starting to hear the message that I have, and begin to understand the record, understand who I am.” “I’m the only one that, frankly, can win in the fall.” He argues that delegates will take their jobs seriously at the convention this summer, and that if it goes past a first ballot chaos won’t ensue. The reality TV tenor of the Republican race won’t survive, he insists. It’s going to be “less Kardashians, more who’s gonna be president.” “Not that I have anything against the Kardashians, let them know.” CNN is not cooperating with his plea for seriousness. John Kasich is giving a press conference in midtown New York to address the many controversies of his Republican rival, Donald Trump. He’s rattling off a long list of things Trump has said that make him unprepared, in Kasich’s view (and many others’) to be president. Yesterday’s comments about abortion and the “problem” of the Geneva Conventions. Last year’s belittling of “American heroes” who were prisoners of war, such as John McCain. His idea that “Nato is obsolete” and his comments suggesting a ban and religious test for Muslims. Kasich says he believes “the religion of Islam has been hijacked by a handful of extremists” and that the US should rally with Muslims around the world to counter it. “For those people who’ve been fervent Trump supporters, their frustrations, their problems, do not fall on deaf ears for me,” he says, mentioning stagnant wages, huge debts, labor woes of the working-class voters around the US – Trump’s base. “There are a lot of people out there who say, ‘why is no one speaking for me?’” “I share their frustration,” he says. “I’m also a citizen, and I see what’s happening … To the Trump voters, there’s hope.” He says Trump is moving in an “unmoored, untethered fashion”, and that he understands that Trump is “a vessel” for their frustrations. “I want to offer myself up as a new vessel,” he concludes. “I take orders from no one other than my wife.” Sanders continues with his stump speech, drawing the differences between him and Clinton. She supported free trade deals, he did and does not; she voted for the Iraq war and has supported military intervention abroad. “No more stupid wars that our young people die for,” he says, attacking politicians who talk of increased military action. “It’s not their kids that are going to go to war, it’s your kids.” “We are not addressing the real crises in this country,” he says, boiling down his stump speech into bullets. “Campaign finance system which is corrupt and is undermining American democracy,” he says. “Democracy is not about billionaires buying elections.” He adds to this voting rights, and the efforts to roll them back in southern states with laws that limit early voting, require photo ID, etc. “I really get outraged by Republican governors who do not have the guts to participate in free and fair elections.” “It is a rigged economy,” he says, for crisis number three. “The top one tenth of 1% now own as much wealth as the bottom 90%.” He goes after the Walton family, the owners of Walmart, and highlights them as the recipients of subsidies: “get off of welfare, pay your workers a living.” “It’s a little bit stupid when struggling, working-class family have to subsidize the wealthiest family in America. We’re gonna end that.” Minimum wage to $15 an hour. Expanded social security benefits. Equal pay for women. College loan forgiveness and free public college. Sanders says that young people are on course to have a worse standard of living than their standards,“the American dream in reverse.” Climate change, a ban on fracking – a sensitive subject in western Pennsylvania, where the natural gas industry is immensely controversial – and the move away from fossil fuels toward developing renewable energy. Paying for all this with taxes on the rich, closing loopholes in corporate tax law. “I have here this morning a major announcement to make in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,” Sanders says. He’s going to release “all of the transcripts of all of the speeches that I have given to Wall Street.” “Are you ready?” “Here they are!” He throws his arms up into the air toward the crowd with a grin, and a little bit of “whoosh” sound, too. “No transcripts, no speeches, not for $250,000, not for $2,000, not for $2,” he continues, starting to channel Larry David. “I just don’t know why Wall Street has not invited me to speak before them. You know I’ve got my cellphone on, I’m waiting for the call!” Then he gets back to the righteous anger of his stump speech: “Their greed, their recklessness, and their illegal behavior, has done enormous harm to millions of people in this country.” He debuted the joke at a Democratic debate earlier this year, but the crowd doesn’t mind at all. Clinton has said she’s willing to release the transcripts of speeches she gave to Wall Street firms, in all for more than $2m, though she has not yet done so. Bernie Sanders is holding an event in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where a huge crowd has turned out to a convention center for his speech. “Let me begin by introducing myself to the state of Pennsylvania,” he says. “I am a senator from the state of Vermont. I grew up in Brooklyn New York. My father came to this country at the age of 17 from Poland. And I grew up in Brooklyn in a three-and-a-half room, rent-controlled apartment. “The lessons that I learned growing up with a family that has to struggle economically, is a lesson I have not forgotten and never will forget.” He gets a big ovation for that. “We started this campaign at 3% in the polls, he says. “A lot has changed in the last 11 months.” “We are fighting hard in Wisconsin, which has their primary on Tuesday, then in New York and then, on April 26, here in Pennsylvania!” He’s in a spirited mood, going on about how he can not only win the Democratic nomination, but that several polls show him beating Donald Trump by about 20 points in a general election. He contrasts his campaign with Hillary Clinton’s, first by talking about her reliance on “big money”. His campaign, he says does not “beg Super Pacs” but has “gone to the working class and the middle class”. “And in 11 months we have received more than six million individual campaign contributions. That is more contributions than any candidate in the history of the United States of America.” The crowd is loving it, and boos vehemently when he brings up the “$15m from Wall Street” that has gone to Clinton’s campaign. “I think that if you get paid $250,000 a speech, it must be an extraordinary, mind-blowing, earth-shattering speech,” he goes on. “It must be a speech written in Shakespearean prose.” My colleague Mona Chalabi breaks down a new poll on the New York primary, as pollsters take stock of the state. The New York primary is a huge milestone in the Democratic nomination calendar. With 291 delegates available, it could be a game changer for presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders. At the moment, Sanders has lags behind Hillary Clinton by 263 pledged delegates and time is running out to close that gap. Previous opinion research has suggested that New York could be Bernie’s undoing - so far this year, two polls have showed that Hillary Clinton has a 21-point lead in New York and one found that the former Secretary of State could win by as much as 48 points. With less than three weeks until New York votes, a new poll of voters conducted by Quinnipiac University offers some hope – it puts Clinton on 54% of the vote and Bernie on 42%. Donald Trump has released a letter from his tax lawyers, who say he hasn’t released his federal tax returns – and in the process revealed what he’s really worth – because of a 14-year continuous audit by the IRS. Trump’s tax returns are “inordinately large and complex for an individual”, they write. The letter reads in part: “You [Trump] hold interests as the sole or principal owner in approximately 500 separate entities. These entities are collectively referred to and do business as The Trump Organization. These entities engage in hundreds of transactions, deals, and new enterprises every year. Because you operate these businesses almost exclusively through sole proprietorships and/or closely held partnerships, your personal federal income tax returns are inordinately large and complex for an individual. “Your personal tax returns have been under continuous examination by the Internal Revenue Service since 2002, consistent with the IRS’s practice for large and complex businesses. Examination of your tax returns for the years 2002 through 2008 have been closed administratively by agreement with the IRS without assessment or payment, on a net basis, of any deficiency. “Examinations for returns for the 2009 year and forward are ongoing. Your returns for these years report items that are attributable to continuing transactions or activities that were also reported on returns for 2008 and earlier. In this sense, the pending examinations are continuations of prior, closed examinations.” Translation: Trump is being audited, and he won’t release the older tax returns because they’re related to business that’s being audited in the newer tax returns. But he could, legally, release any of them at any point. You can read the full letter here. Trump’s critics have called for him to release the tax returns and reveal his true worth and business dealings; Mitt Romney, for instance, has suggested the returns contain a “bombshell” revelation. More prosaically, they could simply reveal that Trump is not worth the “TEN BILLION DOLLARS” [sic] that he told campaign finance officials he is worth. There are cracks in his claims to be worth billions, including at a golf course in upstate New York. Trump told the FEC that the property was worth $50m, but he told a judge that it’s worth $1.4m as part of an argument that he should not have to pay high taxes on it. Retired senior military officers have denounced Donald Trump’s description of the Geneva Conventions as a “problem”, my colleague Spencer Ackerman reports. The former officers told him Trump’s ideas range from the disgraceful to the illegal. “Donald Trump cannot possibly understand [Geneva] because he has neither the experience, the expertise or the moral compass to grasp it,” said Steve Kleinman, an air force reserve colonel and an interrogations expert. Geneva is “a fundamental moral and tactical construct that serves as a foundation for the law of armed conflict, because all wars, including the global war on terror, come to an end. We as a community of nations need to engage with one another and not be separated by horrible, immoral treatment of one side over another,” Kleinman said. At an appearance in Wisconsin, Trump said: “The problem is we have the Geneva Conventions, all sorts of rules and regulations, so the soldiers are afraid to fight.” Trump has previously advocated killing the families of terror suspects, torture “a hell of a lot worse” than waterboarding, and widespread bombing campaigns against Islamic State, which operates in civilian-packed areas. The Geneva Conventions provide the basis for protections against war crimes, privileging the status of civilians and detainees during wartime. “America’s military men and women swear to support and defend the constitution, including our obligations to adhere to treaties on the treatment of non-combatants,” said Paul Yingling, a retired US army colonel. Yingling was the deputy commander of the armored cavalry regiment that recaptured the Iraqi city of Tall Afar from insurgents. He gained renown in military circles for criticizing the general officers who presided over the deterioration of the Iraq war. “Prisoners of war and the family members of suspected terrorists are noncombatants. Torturing and murdering noncombatants are the actions of criminals and cowards. America’s military men and women are neither,” Yingling said. Christopher Harmer, a former navy pilot and current analyst at the Institute for the Study of War, said Trump’s dismissal of Geneva demonstrated he was “monumentally unprepared” for the White House. “From advocating the assassination of women and children whose only crime is being related to terrorists, to speaking glibly of carpet bombing entire swaths of the Middle East, to opining that Japan, South Korea and Saudi Arabia should obtain nuclear weapons, Donald Trump comes across exactly as what he is: a reality TV star who has no idea about how US national security actually works in practice,” Harmer said. “His candidacy is merely an embarrassment to the United States; if he were to actually become president, the damage he would do to our strategic relationships with our allies would be immense.” Politico has learned where Donald Trump went off on Thursday after a week of blitzing the media and campaign trail with appearances. The businessman is in Washington DC for a private meeting with his new foreign policy team, the magazine reports. Trump for months had declined to name his foreign policy advisers, and has said that he largely relies on himself when it comes to matters of national security and international relations. “I know what I’m doing and I listen to a lot of people, I talk to a lot of people and at the appropriate time I’ll tell you who the people are,” Trump said earlier this month. “But my primary consultant is myself and I have a good instinct for this stuff.” A week later, he rattled off the names of five men who are sources of regular advice on national security: Walid Phares, Carter Page, George Papadopoulos, Joe Schmitz, and Gen. Keith Kellogg. The list, however, provided little reassurance to those concerned about Trump’s readiness to become commander in chief, as many of his named advisers are either unknowns or have mixed reputations among GOP national security pros. John Kasich has released a statement on Donald Trump declaring him “not prepared to be president”. He still hasn’t out and said he would not support Trump as the nominee, however. The statement reads in part: “The past 24 hours revealed in the clearest way yet that Donald Trump is not prepared to be president. On top of all his previous inflammatory statements, yesterday he proposed punishing women who received abortions, attacked the Geneva Conventions and said he’d nominate supreme court justices based on who will look into Hillary Clinton’s email scandal. Donald Trump is not ready to be commander in chief. He talks loosely about the use of nuclear weapons and of dismantling Nato. America is facing major challenges at home and abroad and cannot afford to elect a president who does not respect the seriousness of the office.” Kasich was in New York yesterday meeting voters and local Republican politicians. His campaign does not list him for any events today. *Update: the campaign has announced Kasich will speak to the press in midtown New York, at 11.10am local time. He’s going to appear at the Sheraton New York Times Square Hotel “to address Trump comments”, according to a release. Ted Cruz faced an unusual question on Wednesday night: “Who do you like better, Obama or Trump?” The senator was on Jimmy Kimmel Live, and joked with the comedian about hitting his opponent with a car. “I dislike Obama’s policies more, but Donald, uh, Donald is a unique individual,” Cruz said. “If I were in my car and getting ready to reverse and saw Donald in the back-up camera, I’m not confident which pedal I’d push.” They also talked about crying at Star Wars, Mueslix and Cruz appears to allude to the meme that he is the Zodiac killer. And Stephen Colbert also met with a prominent senator last night: Democrat Elizabeth Warren took to his CBS show to talk to talk about the election, and he pressed her on whether she supports Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders. She was cagey. He called her a “Vultron candidate”. She made fun of Donald Trump. Bernie Sanders in the south Bronx, Hillary Clinton’s off to upstate New York, Ted Cruz has his wife campaigning in Wisconsin and Donald Trump is … taking a break. Here’s what’s up on the schedule for Thursday, 31 March: Bernie Sanders is holding a rally in Pittsburgh this morning (tentatively 10.30 Eastern), with an eye to blue-collar Pennsylvanians who live in and around Steeltown. Hillary Clinton is near her home in Westchester, New York, for a rally at 1pm ET, while her husband Bill is down in the city holding three rallies on her behalf. Clinton also is scheduled for an event in Purchase, New York, and then set to head off to Boston, Massachusetts, for an “evening fundraiser” with Forest Whitaker and a fundraiser with the former president of the Boston Red Sox. Heidi Cruz and Carly Fiorina are stumping for the Texas senator in Green Bay, Appleton and Wausau, Wisconsin, today, at (10.30am, 12.45pm and 4.30pm local times, respectively). The campaign schedule doesn’t list Ted Cruz himself as making an appearance, though he was in Los Angeles on Wednesday night and is likely fundraising, courting Republican leaders, etc. Sanders then departs the Keystone State for the south Bronx. He’ll be holding an evening rally at Saint Mary’s Park, a slice of green south of 149th St, with actor Rosario and Grammy winner Residente. Donald Trump is nowhere to be found … except for TV, where he is everywhere. His campaign schedule says his next event ins’t until Saturday, in Wausau, Wisconsin. Hello and welcome to our rolling coverage of the 2016 campaign for the White House, a race dominated by one man and his indefatigable ability to upset: Donald Trump. On Wednesday, the Republican frontrunner for president said “there has to be some form of punishment” for women who have illegal abortions. After a huge and swift outcry, including from members of his party, he retracted his statement, saying he supported granting states the authority to ban and prosecute. “The woman is a victim in this case as is the life in her womb. My position has not changed – like Ronald Reagan, I am pro-life with exceptions,” he said in a statement. In 1999, when he was mulling a run for the presidency, Trump told NBC he was “pro-choice in every respect”. But his position has starkly changed as a 2016 candidate. The latest controversy from Trump came only a day after he turned the tables on conservative conventions, reneging on his pledge to support the Republican nominee no matter who ends up being selected. He abandoned the pledge only hours after Florida police charged his campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, with battery against a reporter. Trump defended the aide, mocked the reporter and suggested her pen could well have been “a little bomb”. Looming over these controversies – not to mention Trump’s suggestion that more Asian countries should develop nuclear weapons – is Wisconsin’s primary on 5 April, where Trump will be put to the test. Texas senator Ted Cruz, endorsed by the governor there, narrowly leads Trump in an average of polls, 33.7% to 29.9%. Ohio governor John Kasich, adamantly staying in the race, trails at 21.8%. Cruz and Kasich hope to win enough delegates to force Trump into a contested convention this summer, where after an initial vote delegates will be unbound from state results. For Democrats, the focus is on both Wisconsin and New York, a state with 291 delegates at stake. The diverse electorate of working-class whites upstate, minority majorities in New York City, financiers and progressives has made for a surprisingly competitive race. Frontrunner Hillary Clinton represented the state in the Senate for two terms, and set up her headquarters in Brooklyn. Bernie Sanders grew up in the outer borough, retains his thick Brooklyn accent and has found ready allies in the young people and progressives who’ve taken over the area. Both have turned their ire to the third New Yorker in the race, Trump, the lifelong emblem of city tabloids, skyscraper branding and the borough of Queens.
Desert Dancer review – flat-footed drama Loosely based on the life of Iranian dancer Afshin Ghaffarian, this flat-footed drama about the transformative power of art is crippled by earnestness and clunky allegory. In the Islamic Republic of Iran, where dance is forbidden, we first meet Afshin as a dance-loving child. His mother, in a handy piece of exposition, gestures to a mob of suited goons: “Those men over there – they are the morality police.” Her point being that if Afshin must express himself through the medium of dance, he should do it behind closed doors. Ten years later, Afshin (Reece Ritchie) finds a band of like-minded creatives at university in Tehran and decides to ride the wave of political and social optimism that coincides with the 2009 election and form a dance company. He is joined by beautiful, troubled Elaheh (Freida Pinto), who exercises her creative impulses by smoking heroin. It is montage heavy and toe-curlingly naive. However, as dance partners, Ritchie and Pinto have a certain physical chemistry.
Mannequin challenge, Rae Sremmurd and the meme-powered viral hit A recurring joke expressing political exasperation in British satirical magazine Private Eye runs: “Time to end the disastrous democratic experiment.” Many in these post-Brexit and post-Trump times may find the gag increasingly barbed; but if you want to see it at its absolute worst, the meme-powered viral hit single shows just what terrible things can happen when the public moves as one. Black Beatles by Rae Sremmurd has overtaken Chainsmokers’ Closer to top the Billboard Hot 100, having become the soundtrack to the “mannequin challenge” that’s been clogging up your Facebook and Twitter feeds in recent days, wherein people push themselves to the limits of human endurance by standing still for a minute or so. It’s reached a frightening level of ubiquity now that Garth Brooks and the Broadway cast of Aladdin, among others, have given it a spin. There’s something fitting about this passing of the baton, as Chainsmokers rose to prominence with the flatpack meme of #Selfie in 2014, while Closer was a huge hit off the back of an anemic retread of “user-uploaded videos of awful dancing” that powered The Harlem Shake to the top of the US charts. Meme begets meme, refracting forever into the distance. The idea of a “viral hit” long ago stopped being something that just happened to a song and became, through contrivance and orchestration, a core part of the marketing plot. We can see this today, the air thick with the tang of desperation, as tracks are propelled by endless Musical.ly videos and vloggers shamelessly bankrolling themselves with “promoted content”. Songs are announced as viral hits on launch, semantically bulldozing through what “viral” actually means, perhaps reaching its nadir with the ghastly contrivance of Rockie Gold’s Dicks Out For Harambe. The grim antecedents of today’s structured viral hits are videos – something that could only have happened in the past 11 years due to the reach of YouTube – that were deemed meta-ironically as being “so bad they’re good”. Psy became the world’s first South Korean pop megastar in 2012 with Gangnam Style, which is still the most-viewed video on YouTube and a No 1 single in over 30 countries. He managed to avoid one-hit wonder status with Gentleman the following year, but that was less proof of concept and more about it being accidentally sucked through in the slipstream. Rebecca Black became a figure of hive mind malice in 2011 with Friday – a track that was immediately hailed as the worst song ever – made by people keen to roar with laughter at a 14-year-old girl whose only crime was to have parents rich enough to pay for a pop video for their daughter. Both Gangnam Style and Friday have an endearing naivety to them, but the turning point in all of this is arguably The Fox (What Does The Fox Say?) by Ylvis, that was precision engineered as an “anti-hit” to go viral by a Norwegian TV talkshow, combining low-level surrealism and heavily signposted catchphrases and dance moves. As far as the record industry was concerned, the perfect storm here was Harlem Shake which was something everyone could join in on (and frequently did), which managed to go to No 1 in 2013 because of a change in the rules that allowed YouTube streams to count towards the US chart for the first time. Pre-dating this was a weird transitional melding of old media (TV) catching a wave on new media (online video), first tested by the unspeakable Cheeky Girls with their equally unspeakable Cheeky Song (Touch My Bum) spinoff from their 2002 Popstars: The Rivals audition in the UK. This was subsequently perfected in 2009 by Susan Boyle with her Britain’s Got Talent audition that turned her, for a short time, into the biggest-selling female artist in the world despite coming second on the show. Before that, adverts were the fast-track to tentative viral success, with both Babylon Zoo and Stiltskin having UK No 1 singles from appearances in ads for Levi’s. The bridging song of the internet age was Crazy Frog that became a hit single in 2005 after finding its way online in 1997 and eventually being used in TV ads six years later for ringtone company Jamba. Really, however, all of this can be traced back to British DJ Kenny Everett, a friend of Queen, “accidentally” playing a pre-release Bohemian Rhapsody on his Capital FM show in October 1975. Legend has it that EMI felt it wasn’t a single and initially suggested a radio edit that the band would not agree to; but the clamorous audience reaction to Everett playing it was such that the label had its hand forced and the band got their first No 1. This all goes to prove that, as far as the record business is concerned, there is nothing new under the sun and is the trick all labels want to pull off today; fabricating a “viral hit” that keeps making money four decades later.
My name is Michael Caine … actor changes name due to Isis His name is – now officially – Michael Caine. The legendary British actor, born Maurice Micklewhite, has legally changed his name to the showbiz moniker he adopted in 1954 because of the rise in airport security checks prompted by Islamic State. “An airport security guard would say, ‘Hi, Michael Caine,’ and suddenly I’d give him a passport with a different name on it,” Caine said. “I could stand there for an hour. So I changed my name.” The 83-year-old began his acting career on the Sussex stage as Michael Scott. He was required to change his handle after moving to London, where another Michael Scott was already treading the boards. During a harried call to his agent he looked outside the telephone box and saw a poster for the Humphrey Bogart naval drama The Caine Mutiny. “I was opposite the Odeon and I looked up, and my favourite actor is Humphrey Bogart, and there it was,” Caine said. Caine, who had hinted he might retire after his appearance in the magician crime caper Now You See Me 2, has signed up to play General Anton Vincent in the US comedy Coup d’Tat. Vincent is a dictator who, after being ousted by his people, turns up on the doorstep of a US high-schooler who wrote to him as a homework assignment. Further reading: Michael Caine: the class act that enjoys the political fray
Love & Friendship review – Whit Stillman's Austen drama is a racy delight What audacity, what elegance! Here is a hilariously self-aware period comedy polished to a brilliant sheen. Whit Stillman was probably born to direct a Jane Austen movie. But he has found a new way of dramatising Austen – or just found a new Austen, an Austen who appears to have pre-emptively absorbed 21st-century satire and inoculated herself against it. This Stillman has done by lighting on an early, posthumously published novella, Lady Susan, bringing it to the screen, and renaming it after a quite separate piece of juvenilia, thus playfully echoing the classic noun balances of her more famous titles. It’s a racier, naughtier piece of work than you might expect. Naturally, it takes place in a world where money is supremely important, but it is also a story in which women are permitted to be older, cleverer and better-looking than the men they wish to ensnare. It also has a young woman talking about earning her living by taking a job: that’s a worst-case scenario that does not come to pass, but even mentioning it is interesting. Here is a Jane Austen film that feels like a coolly measured theatrical chamber piece, rather than something from the full Hollywood orchestra. It reinvigorates the cliches, the breeches, buttons and bows, and proves you don’t need zombies to restore this writer’s carnivorous appetite. Stillman uses arch intertitles as a kind of visual archaism, almost like a literary silent movie, to introduce his characters and to flash up on screen the contents of letters. With its wistful witticisms, its airy contrast of town and country, Love & Friendship somehow feels like an undiscovered Oscar Wilde play. Lady Susan is the scandalous heroine, to whom Kate Beckinsale gives something predatory yet enigmatic, dressed very becomingly in full mourning black. She is a widow with beauty and a distinguished name, but no financial means, thus entitled to sympathy and in need of money: a dangerous combination. She has a scheming American confidante, Mrs Johnson, played by Chloë Sevigny, to whom she can periodically make her scheming explicit and also put the audience in the picture. She has already left one aristocratic house in some disorder, having apparently exerted her charms, and is now staying with her sister-in-law Catherine (Emma Greenwell) and Catherine’s biddable, bufferish husband Charles – a lovely performance from Justin Edwards. Here she appears to set her cap at Catherine’s handsome brother Reginald (Xavier Samuel), to the horror of Catherine and Charles’ parents: very enjoyably played by James Fleet and Jemma Redgrave. But she has a wayward daughter, Frederica (Morfydd Clark), whom she is trying to marry off to a wealthy blockhead called Sir James Martin. In the outrageous role of Sir James, Tom Bennett comes very close to pinching the whole film, with his gormless, grinning comedy: the David Brent of Georgian England. His opening speech, in which he appears unfamiliar with the word “Churchill” is a showstopper, as is the moment when he praises William Cowper for being able to write both verses and poetry, and a scene at dinner where he professes he has never seen peas before. He almost overbalances the picture, especially with the daft way he claps along at the obligatory ball scene. But Stillman keeps him under control, in check for a colossal cuckold joke later on. Stillman gets very big laughs by choreographing a veritable quadrille of absurdity. Lady Susan’s response to a gentleman who has the bad taste to hail her in the street is a masterpiece of hauteur. Stephen Fry has a nicely judged cameo as Mr Johnson, who reproves Sevigny’s disagreeable American by informing her that the Atlantic passage is very cold at this time of year. The whole film is a very satisfying archery contest of zingers, mostly from Lady Susan. It is a film of surfaces and cynicism, in which the romanticism of the more famous stories is almost entirely absent: not much of either love or friendship. Interestingly, the real Austen heroine is probably the good-looking Reginald; he is the yearning idealist who is revolted by the idea of marrying for money, and is poignantly vulnerable to manipulation. His fate is settled in the way we might expect. But Lady Susan’s role is harder to read. Might she have a heart after all? Love & Friendship is a refreshing and invigorating delight. • Love & Friendship is screening at Sydney film festival 2016
Bridget Jones's Baby bellyflops at US box office – but breaks records in UK Bridget Jones’s Baby experienced a difficult labour in the US this weekend, taking just $8m and landing third in the charts, despite a wide release. But across the Atlantic, the birth of the third movie in the series was far smoother, with the movie opening at No 1 in 24 countries and making $30m from 38 territories, including $11m in the UK. That figure marks a best-ever weekend total for Working Title, the studio behind the film, as well as a record take for a romantic comedy. Australia followed with $4.2m; the film also made nearly half that figure in Spain. The film has already made back its $35m budget; plans for another sequel look yet more secure. Continuing to top the US box office on its second weekend of release was Sully, Clint Eastwood’s drama starring Tom Hanks about the emergency landing of a passenger aircraft on the Hudson river in 2009. So far, it’s made nearly $100m. New openers Blair Witch (another belated sequel) and Snowden disappointed in the US, the former failing to make $10m, as well as earning poor audience feedback, while Oliver Stone’s film was his lowest ever opener for a movie debuting in over 2,000 cinemas. The biopic of NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden cost $40m and made $8m on its first weekend.
Neil Gaiman's Sandman: maybe a film adaptation just isn't meant to be The bid to bring Neil Gaiman’s Sandman characters to the big screen appears to have run off the rails again, after director Joseph Gordon-Levitt dropped out of the project citing creative differences with New Line, the studio that owns the rights to the comic book published by DC and its mature-readers line Vertigo. It’s not the first time plans to film Sandman have hit the buffers. Originally, DC was in talks with HBO to turn it into a TV series, which collapsed. Then in 2010 it was announced that Eric Kripke, the man behind Supernatural, was planning to bring Sandman to the small screen. By the following year, that had stalled as well. By 2013 Gordon-Levitt was linked to Sandman – possibly having a starring role in it as well as directing – but last week he said in a Facebook post that “a few months ago, I came to realize that the folks at New Line and I just don’t see eye to eye on what makes Sandman special, and what a film adaptation could/should be. So unfortunately, I decided to remove myself from the project. I wish nothing but the best for the team moving forward.” Sandman as a comic book began in 1988 and ran for 75 issues, followed by a couple of spin-offs and, recently, a six-issue miniseries penned by Gaiman with art by JH Williams III. All the way back in issue three there was a guest spot by urban magician John Constantine – and more of him later – who mused: “Something’s trying to tell me somebody.” Maybe something – the universe, the Dreaming, the place where stories come from – is trying to tell the somebodies – the bean-counters at DC and New Line – that maybe, just maybe, Sandman shouldn’t be a TV series or movie at all. That’s something that Neil Gaiman might not thank me for saying, though any Sandman adaptation, even if it broke box office records and scooped a dozen Oscar nominations, wouldn’t put food on his table; Sandman is owned by DC, and what they do with the character is up to them, not Gaiman. It could be turned into a Farrelly brothers gross-out comedy with a soundtrack by Little Mix for all the say he’d have in it. Which is, of course, highly unlikely for such beloved source material. And aye, there’s the rub (Shakespeare himself does, of course, feature in Sandman). Over the 75 issues and more than seven years, Gaiman and his various artistic collaborators painted a sprawling, epic canvas that would take a dozen movies to do justice to, that featured issues and whole story arcs where the titular character of Morpheus, lord of dreams, barely appeared, yet which – if you take a step back to admire in its entirety – is stunning in its cohesion and execution. Any kind of adaptation could only in reality tackle the introductory storyline, of Morpheus escaping from his imprisonment at the hands of an Aleister Crowley-esque magician, and his quest to return himself to his realm of the Dreaming. And that’s really just scratching the surface of the whole story. No one can blame the comic publishers and studios for wanting to take a punt, of course. It barely needs saying that comic book adaptations are ripping through the box offices and TV schedules. The big-budget spectacles of the costumed heroes are part of our cultural fabric now, from Avengers to Batman v Superman, from Suicide Squad to Ant-Man. And the success of shows like Netflix’s Jessica Jones, adapted from the Marvel comic Alias, shows there is a market for grittier, adult-orientated, non-costumed fare. But what works on paper doesn’t always translate to the screen. Take the TV show Constantine, which drew heavily on the early issues of another DC/Vertigo hit, Hellblazer. The character was created by Alan Moore as a wise-cracking walk-on magician, from Liverpool by way of London, full of street-smarts and an ever-present Silk Cut, and got his own series just ahead of Sandman. Despite playing fast and loose with the mythology to Americanise it more (though keeping Constantine’s UK origins), it wasn’t a bad attempt at an adaptation at all, and won a fair few fans – not enough to get it a second series, though, or encourage any other network to pick it up. Lucifer, which debuted in January on Fox, with Brit Tom Ellis in the title role, is actually based on a character from Gaiman’s Sandman run, who got his own hugely popular Vertigo title written by Mike Carey. Does this tale of an Earth-bound Satan match up to the comics? The damned it with the faintest of praise: “If you love the comic and have room in your DVR, this is the perfect thing to half-watch while you try to defeat level 372 of Candy Crush.” The next Vertigo comic to make it to TV is Preacher, based on the story by Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon, and starring Brit Dominic Cooper as Jesse Custer, the Texan preacher bonded to a demon. It’s due mid-2016, though a trailer released last year by the network AMC (who also do the Walking Dead) curiously downplayed the supernatural elements on which the whole comic is built, raising slight alarm among fans. Neither Lucifer nor Constantine – though they have their own merits – can hold a candle to the comics they were based on, and early indications suggest Preacher might follow the same path. So perhaps like them Sandman is one of those stories that can only be told in the medium it was intended to be told in: the comic book form, an alliance of literature and visuals which is neither prose nor film but an altogether different way of storytelling. Perhaps Sandman was never meant to be anything other than a comic book, and perhaps there’s nothing wrong in that at all.
Iranian online shopping site launches its own version of Black Friday Iranians are experts at driving a hard bargain, famous for haggling with shopkeepers even when sales are not on offer. That traditional skill may not come in handy online, but on Friday the country’s tech-savvy young population will have plenty of opportunity to secure a good deal. Bamilo, one of the country’s two main online shopping websites, is holding its first version of Black Friday, called Harajome or Friday sale, with lucrative discounts for items including the iPhone 7. Iranians are already preparing for an online discount bonanza, according to Bamilo’s founder and CEO, Ramtin Monazahian. “Black Friday used to be a foreign concept here in Iran. In fact, a lot of folks have never even heard of the idea,” he said. “In total more than 600 retailers are participating in Harajome with great discounts to Iranian customers. As of Thursday we have had more than 100,000 pre-subscribers.” In the absence of Amazon in Iran, Bamilo and its rival, Digikala, have been highly successful. On Friday, Iranian customers will be able to get a 14% discount on the latest iPhone, priced locally at 24.9m rials (£625). A 4K LG television is on offer with a 24% discount at around 17.9m rials (£450). The list of electronic items on offer does not give the impression of a country that was under sanctions for many years and still struggling to reconnect with the global market after the implementation in January of a landmark nuclear deal. Monazahian said his company has prepared thoroughly for Harajome, mixing offline and online marketing efforts to maximise exposure and spread the word about the event. “Bamilo organised bus tours around several key cities, such as Shiraz and Mashhad, where we distributed Parsonline internet packs so shoppers can be online during the campaign period,” he said, in reference to a local service provider. “We also set up strategic partnerships with leading internet providers, national banks, payment providers and even international brands.” Iranians still have no access to Visa and Mastercard. Under the country’s moderate president, Hassan Rouhani, Iran’s tech startup scene has flourished. Internet speeds have improved significantly and 4G mobile phone connections are the norm for a country in which one in four people use the instant messaging app Telegram to communicate. Filtering, however, is rife and hardliners are trying to undermine advances. They have also threatened those who participate in Iranian startup conferences such as iBridge, scheduled for December in Barcelona. Monazahian was in London this week to speak about Bamilo, which Alexa ranks as Iran’s 17th most visited website, at the Iran Consumer Summit. A banker educated at the University of Cologne, he returned to his home country a few years ago to co-found the Iran Internet Group, which has apps including Snapp – Iran’s answer to Uber with more than 25,000 drivers in Tehran – and Zoodfood, which is similar to Just Eat. “Iran’s e-commerce industry is still in its nascent stage, with less than 0.5% of retail commerce online,” Monazahian said. “This is both a challenge and an amazing opportunity. For us, we see it more as the latter. What Alibaba did for China with Singles Day, we want to do for Iran with Harajome.” Bamilo delivers to more than 1,000 cities in Iran with a cash on delivery option. Digikala is considered the biggest site of its kind in the Middle East and third most visited in Iran. It is estimated to be worth $150m (£120m). Last year its co-founder Hamid Mohammadi said it had 760 employees and shipped more than 4,000 orders a day, with same-day delivery services in Tehran. Monazahian said Iran still had a long way to go. “Many people are still unfamiliar with the marketplace model,” he said. “If you think about it, that’s just step one. We’re also trying to teach our consumers to demand their right to good quality customer service. “Before we entered the market, there was no such thing as 30-day return policies, free size exchanges and 24/7 customer service support.”
Middlesbrough’s aim is to keep calm and build foundations, says Aitor Karanka Aitor Karanka has set out Middlesbrough’s manifesto for Premier League survival, revealing that patience and pragmatism will be very much the mantra on Teesside this season. “We have to stay in the Premier League,” Boro’s manager said of the club promoted from the Championship in May. “If we stay in the Premier League by finishing 17th then perfect. If it’s 16th, perfect. We can’t think of being 10th or fourth – I prefer to finish 17th and to be in the Premier League for the next 50 years than finish fourth, play in the Champions League and then go down to the Championship. That has happened before in Spain. I came here to build the club as much as I can in the Premier League.” Karanka’s team begin their campaign at home to Stoke City on Saturday and it is clear the Spaniard regards Mark Hughes’s side as something of a template. “I think our biggest aim is to keep calm knowing that it’s been really tough to get here,” he said. “It’s impossible to think we can play Champions League or Europa League or win the league this season. If someone thinks that then they are a little bit crazy as now we have to build the foundations.” Nine new signings, including Victor Valdés and Álvaro Negredo, have prompted optimism among some Middlesbrough fans that their team might morph into the new Leicester City but Karanka is simply happy to have intense competition for every place. Not to mention a newfound tactical flexibility. “One thing I learnt from assisting José Mourinho at Real Madrid is to have two players in each position and for them to fight for the position,” he said. “In some positions now we have more than two; it’ll be difficult for me in the beginning to choose as all of them start in the same condition but, eventually, they’ll show me who’s better. “With the depth we have in our squad, we can play 4-4-2, 4-2-3-1 and with three central defenders. We can play with different systems, we’ve been working in pre-season with different systems and I’ll try to pick the right one every game or maybe during the game I will change the shape. That’s no problem. The players know how demanding I am – and I know how good they are. “We need to show everyone that we’re a really good team when we play in our style, with our organisation, intensity and spirit. If we do that, we will win games. I want to show everyone we’re a tough team to beat.”
Juncker questions Barroso's decision to join Goldman Sachs The European commission president, Jean-Claude Juncker, has criticised the controversial decision of his predecessor, José Manuel Barroso, to join the investment bank Goldman Sachs. Juncker said he objected to Barroso’s decision to work for Goldman because of the US investment bank’s role in the financial crisis. “I think José Manuel Barroso is an honest man and he is a friend. Personally I do not have a problem with him working for a private bank – but maybe not this bank,” Juncker said in an interview featured on YouTube (at 45 mins). “Goldman Sachs was one of the organisations that knowingly or unknowingly contributed to the enormous financial crisis we had between 2007 and 2009. So one does wonder about the particular bank he has ended up working for.” Barroso led the commission from 2004-14 and has come under intense pressure since his appointment in July as chairman of Goldman Sachs International, the bank’s UK and European operations. Earlier this week, Juncker launched an unprecedented investigation into whether Barroso broke EU rules by taking the job. The former prime minister of Portugal is being asked to clarify his responsibilities at the bank, according to a letter from Juncker to the EU ombudsman, Emily O’Reilly. Some staff from European Union bodies have reacted with fury to the appointment, denouncing their former boss’s behaviour as “morally reprehensible”. An anonymous group of workers launched a petition calling on Barroso to forfeit his pension for bringing the EU into disrepute by joining Goldman Sachs. The petition has been signed by almost 145,000 people. Barroso, however, hit back at the criticism, insisting he would act with integrity and discretion in his role. In a letter to Juncker, Barroso said he was not being employed as a lobbyist nor as a special adviser on Brexit. “I have not been engaged to lobby on behalf of Goldman Sachs and I do not intend to do so.” He accused Juncker of discrimination by warning Barroso he would not be received in EU institutions as a former president, but as an “interest representative” subject to the same rules as other lobbyists. “I have never sought a privileged position but I would not expect to be discriminated against,” Barroso said. “Not only are these actions discriminatory but they appear inconsistent with decisions taken in respect of other former members of the commission.”
Bullet helps take TE Lawrence's Arab revolt story off the line of fire A tantalising find in the Arabian desert may cast new light on TE Lawrence’s account of his part in the Arab revolt a hundred years ago. Archaeologists who have spent a decade excavating dozens of sites associated with the 1916-18 conflict have uncovered a bullet that was probably fired by the man who became known as Lawrence of Arabia. It was found during fieldwork at Halat Ammar, on the Saudi Arabia-Jordan border, site of an ambush that provided the famous train attack scenes in David Lean’s biopic starring Peter O’Toole. Lawrence served as a military adviser with Arab forces fighting the Ottoman Turks, who were allied with Germany. Experts from Bristol University, who have led the Great Arab Revolt Project, believe the discovery corroborates Lawrence’s own account in his war memoir, The Seven Pillars of Wisdom, and undermines the claims of some biographers that Lawrence over-embellished his stories. Prof Nicholas Saunders said: “The bullet we found comes from a Colt automatic pistol, the type of gun known to be carried by Lawrence and almost certainly not used by any of the ambush’s other participants.” Dr Neil Faulkner said: “Lawrence has something of a reputation as a teller of tall tales but this bullet – and the other archaeological evidence we unearthed during 10 years of fieldwork – indicates how reliable his account of the Arab revolt in Seven Pillars of Wisdom is.” Both experts have books in the pipeline. Faulkner’s Lawrence of Arabia’s War, to be published by Yale University Press later this month, aims to rewrite the history of the maverick’s legendary military campaigns, looking too at the decline of the Ottoman Empire, the role of Bedouin tribes, growing Arab nationalism and western imperial ambition. Saunders’ book, Desert Insurgency: Archaeology, TE Lawrence and the Great Arab Revolt, to be published by Oxford University Press next year, will detail how findings from investigations at armoured car raiding camps, Ottoman army campsites, desert fortifications, and train ambush sites have helped chart the origins of modern guerrilla warfare.
From Slim Dusty to the Drones: around Australia in 12 classic songs When it comes to establishing an Australian identity separate from the multitude of cultures brought to it, few art forms offer a stronger means than music. Long before the first sea shanty rang against the walls of the first penal colony, Australians have been singing about the land, what it means to them, and what it can do to its inhabitants. On this Australia Day, which has people across the country debating exactly what the anniversary says about our national identity, here’s how the idea of the nation has aged via popular song: 1. Slim Dusty – A Pub with No Beer, 1957 In a time before “the music industry” existed as we know it, songwriters were building on a long history of bush ballads and appropriated European folk songs to paint an Australia of rose-tinted nostalgia and hummable fictions. Gordon Parsons’ million-selling ode to enforced sobriety is populated by a Lawsonsworth of internationally recognised Australianisms: dingoes, stockmen, blacksmiths, a swagman and a dog awaiting his master. Slim Dusty knew better than anyone how to sell a vision and get disparate towns singing the same optimistic songs, building an idea of Australia in the process. On the road his whole life (between recording a staggering 103 albums), Dusty sung about what he knew: bars, travel, human nature, work and how to reframe a story. Songs like 1960’s King Bundawaal honoured Aboriginal Australia’s connection with land with a reverence that was rare for the time. 2. Peter Allen – I Still Call Australia Home, 1980 Peter Allen was clearly far too busy selling out Broadway shows to hop a plane back to Sydney, so penned a showstopper about homesickness instead. Now better known for its orchestral arrangement and the association of children singing it in various picturesque locations, I Still Call Australia Home spends most of its time describing places and people that aren’t in Australia at all. Allen may be one of the first people in the “home of the free”, the US, to sing about finding freedom by leaving it. His longing for this freedom remains a vague homesickness, a feeling to which anyone can relate, but which Allen makes a key quality of being Australian. 3. Goanna – Solid Rock, 1982 While Men at Work could crank out a catchy pop tune and throw together Australian symbolism and a flute hook in a massively appealing way, only Goanna tried to channel the spirit of the country and the betrayal of colonialism into a stomping trans-Pacific pop hit. Rather than commemorate places or yeast-based spreads, the songwriter Shane Howard, approached the spirit of the land and the oppression of colonialism like a witness, poetically, radically and commercially finding a way to sing the slogan “always was, always will be, Aboriginal land”. Howard has just been appointed a Member of the Order of Australia for his service to the performing arts, but acknowledged the irony of being recognised for this particular song: “Australia Day is a complicated day and as a nation we have to deal with that, and it’s become a symbol of division and not unity,” he told AAP. “It’s lovely and ironic in a way that you are recognised for a song that criticises government policy.” 4. The Go-Betweens – Cattle and Cane, 1983 Mining the sight and smell of houses among cane fields to trigger a poignant memory is a popular move for Australian songwriters. In Cattle and Cane, Australia is evoked in flashback; singing in the third person, the lyricist, Grant McLennan, is given an omnipotence to move through time across the land, arranging images. Like The Waifs’ London Still, McLennan’s vision of Australia came from a London bedsit, and like Gang Gajang below, he describes a life in Queensland as one fraught with peril: “In the sky, a rain of falling cinders.” Even more powerful than the violence of the weather is the power of forgetting, of escaping via books and memory and an old railroad. 5. Gang Gajang – Sounds of Then (This is Australia), 1985 It’s a safe bet that patios have never been more reverentially cited in a lyric than in the Sydney pop group Gang Gajang’s Sounds of Then. The lyricist, Mark Callaghan, refers to the song as a “Brick veneer drama”, more inspired by family dysfunction than by the view from the veranda – but much like with Peter Allen’s best-known song, once you attach it to some stirring images and put it in a famous ad, it takes on a life of its own. Here, while the land is dangerous (“we watch the lightning crack over cane fields”) there’s a resigned acceptance that nothing can change it. Living next to something that can kill you is as Australian as it gets, so why worry? 6. The Triffids – Wide Open Road, 1986 As the 1980s progressed, venues got big and bands started sounding bigger. Drums echoed, stars stalked across arena stages and, if you were writing about Australia, you could use echoes and emptiness to suggest the vastness of the country. As with Icehouse’s Great Southern Land, the Triffids needed big drums, airy synths and a man with a rich voice to bring the outback to life as a place whose scale could only be described by the vast space evoked by echo and reverb. Few city-dwelling listeners would have encountered the vastness of the country, and those who lived there already knew that the southern land was great and the road was wide and open. Though penned for “the stretch of highway in between Caiguna and Norseman”, Wide Open Road was more favourably received in Europe, where it fitted in with an exoticised version of the country known from Nicolas Roeg’s film Walkabout and David Bowie filmclips. 7. The Seekers – I Am Australian, 1987 In a rare example of a modern populist historical song, the Seekers used their status as international pop legends to update the Australian identity, throwing in Aboriginal references right up top and name-checking Albert Namatjira. This pluralistic paean to openness proclaims the only prerequisite to being Australian is to understand the relationship between identity and the land. The chorus, once sung in robust optimism and endowed with the ability to unite a AFL grand final, now sounds almost idealistic: “We are one / But we are many / And from all the lands on earth we come / We’ll share a dream.” 8. Christine Anu – My Island Home, 1995 Originally written by the Warumpi Band’s Neil Murray in 1986, Christine Anu’s glorious appropriation of My Island Home is another song about pining for a place and shaping it in your mind. Elcho Island, home to Murray’s Warumpi bandmate George Burarrwanga (and coincidentally Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu), inspired a balance of specificity (“I’m holding that long turtle spear”) and universality. As one YouTube commentator notes, “It’s all one big island.” Anu’s version forgoes Warumpi Band’s slow-building folk anthem for shimmering mid-90s dance that somehow remains timeless. Unlike its film clip. 9. The Paradise Motel – German Girl, 1996 While it’s easy to celebrate the sunshine-y wonder of being born and growing old in the lucky country, one overwhelming feeling accompanies the thought of actually being left on the land alone: fear. The Paradise Motel’s noir-ish orchestral work German Girl uses the mysterious 1993 death of German backpacker Nancy Grunwaldt to examine this feeling in a niche of Australia often ignored: the Tasmanian wilderness. The songwriter, Charles Bickford, focuses on the sense of isolation and uncertainty, which is expressed by the piercing voice of Merida Sussex over a crescendo of fear and release. 10. Illy – Our Country, 2009 If one genre of music has been committed to examining Australian identity and celebrating Australian symbols and totems of cultural pride more than any other, it’s Australian hip-hop. Illy’s Our Country puts its dedication to the land up front: “to Indigenous Australia and the soldiers and firefighters who protect it”. He later notes that it’s the land and people – not “galleries and museums” – that define Australian culture. Unlike many artists on this list, Illy’s articulation of Australia’s strengths and problems is delivered in an accent that plants lines like “They wouldn’t call it the lucky country if it wasn’t, mate” in the heart of Australia’s suburbs. 11. Wildflower – Galiwin’ku, 2010 Like Gurrumul, Saltwater Band and other artists on Arnhem Land’s Skinnyfish Music roster, the music here seems sprung from the land itself. Wildflower sing about relationships with the land, travelling, and – being based on an outstation in the Northern Territory – the interconnectedness between land and time. Like most of their songs, Galiwin’ku is sung in the Kunwinjku language and was inspired by a story told by mentor Aunty Jill Nganjmirra. As the lead singer, Jean, told Triple J, “these songs are Aboriginal songs. They’re for the future.” 12. The Drones – Taman Shud, 2015 At once a glorious celebration of the best qualities of Australiana and a vitriolic riposte to all that’s ill in the lucky country, the Drones’ Gareth Liddiard delivered a “big piss off [to those who] try to lay down the rules and the terms, tell you what you have to do to be Australian”. Looking to the land and sea for the answer to the unsolvable mystery suggested in the title, his frustration turns to fury. As Liddiard explained to Australia, he rages against the version of the country reinforced by the mainstream media and promoted by conservative politicians. “I ain’t sitting around being gallipolised / One man’s BBQ’s another’s hunger strike.” Despite a campaign to get Taman Shud in the Hottest 100, the failure of previous attempts suggests that YouTube may be the best place to hear the song that best captured Australia in 2015.
FT editor to be honoured by France for 'positive role' in EU debate The editor of the Financial Times has been offered France’s highest honour in recognition of his career in journalism and the paper’s “positive role in the European debate”. However, Lionel Barber appears to be aware of the sensitivity of such an award following the UK’s Brexit vote, and deleted a tweet he posted featuring a photo of a letter from the French ambassador saying he has been appointed as a Chevalier in the Ordre National de la Légion d’Honneur. The letter to Barber, which it seems he intended to send as a private direct message to someone referred to as “LW”, outlined the criteria for the award. “France wants to recognise your remarkable career, your contribution to high-quality journalism, and the Financial Times’ positive role in the European debate,” the letter read. Barber told “LW” he was sharing the award letter “confidentially because not good publicity in the UK right now!” The letter said Barber would be presented with the “insignia of the Chevalier” at a ceremony at the French Residence in London” on a date of his own choosing. The Légion d’Honneur is France’s highest military and civil award, and was established in 1802 by Napoléon Bonaparte. British recipients include musician Paul McCartney, author JK Rowling and actor Kristin Ann Scott Thomas, while US members include directors Clint Eastwood, Martin Scorsese, David Lynch and Steven Spielberg, music producer Quincy Jones, writer Toni Morrison and actors Robert Redford, Barbra Streisand and Arnold Schwarzenegger. The Financial Times had not responded to a request for comment at the time of publication.
Paul Ryan deserts Trump campaign but won't formally drop endorsement Top Republican Paul Ryan deserted Donald Trump on Monday after an aggressive debate attack against Hillary Clinton failed to quell mounting disgust over his attitude toward women. The speaker of the House told congressional colleagues on a conference call that he would no longer defend Trump or campaign with him. He urged them “to do what’s best for you” to save the party’s majority and avoid giving Hillary Clinton a blank check in the White House, though stressed he was not yet formally unendorsing the party’s official nominee. A CNN poll showed 57% of respondents felt Clinton had won the second debate, as a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal survey taken over the weekend showed her leading Trump by 11 points among likely voters. She is 5.8 points ahead in polling averages calculated by Real Clear Politics, a position that translates into a base of 260 of the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency, with 165 relatively solid for Trump and 113 to play for. Trump immediately fired back at Ryan on Twitter. “Paul Ryan should spend more time on balancing the budget, jobs and illegal immigration and not waste his time on fighting Republican nominee,” wrote Trump in a blast at the House speaker with whom he has long had a rocky relationship. Ryan dragged his heels on endorsing Trump after the real estate developer clinched the Republican nomination in May and disinvited him from a joint appearance in Wisconsin on Saturday in the aftermath of the leaked remarks Trump made about women. As Clinton climbed the steps to board her plane in Westchester, New York, on Monday to depart for a campaign rally in Detroit, a reporter shouted a question about whether she believed Trump would show up for the final debate. Laughing, she replied: “Yes.” Earlier the Democratic frontrunner accused Trump of stalking her on stage with an “avalanche of falsehoods” after a bullying second presidential debate that nonetheless rallied some hardcore supporters. As America reeled from the menacing sight of Trump threatening to imprison his political opponent if elected, Democrats admitted they were caught off guard by what their campaign manager called the behavior of a “dictator of a banana republic”. “I really find it almost unimaginable that someone could stand and just tell falsehood after falsehood,” Clinton told reporters who asked what had surprised her about the brutal night in St Louis. “He was very … present,” she added, from a plane bound for her next rally in Detroit, after describing how she was aware of him standing close behind her as she fended off repeated attacks over sexual assault allegations against her husband and a private email server kept by the former first family. But Trump’s glowering presence succeeded is restoring confidence among watching allies, one of whom, Nigel Farage, affectionately described him as a silver-back gorilla. “I believe in redemption,” running mate Mike Pence, who had been rumored to be dropping out after a groping scandal that had threatened to sink the campaign, told MSNBC on Monday morning. “I believe in second chances,” added Pence. “And I think Donald Trump in expressing genuine contrition and remorse, apologizing not only to his family but to the American people for the words that he has used, I think – and saying that he was truly embarrassed about all of it on national television last night merits grace.” He told CNN it was “absolutely false” that he had considered quitting the ticket. Ryan’s office was forced to clarify his position after an angry reaction among Trump supporters to his apparent concession of defeat. “The speaker is going to spend the next month focused entirely on protecting our congressional majorities,” his press secretary AshLee Strong told the . Regarding whether he is maintaining his endorsement of Trump, she added: “There is no update in his position at this time.” According to one person on the call, the speaker told House members, “you all need to do what’s best for you in your district.” Another source said that most members on the call thought Trump had won a decisive triumph in Sunday’s debate and were upset at the House leadership for distancing themselves from the party’s nominee. The tone wasn’t helped by the fact that both Ryan and House majority leader Kevin McCarthy made several pitches for members to contribute more money to the NRCC during the call. Ryan said he will not defend Trump or campaign with him for the next 30 days but would “spend his entire energy making sure that Hillary Clinton does not get a blank check with a Democrat-controlled Congress”.
Osborne prepares to pick right moment for Lloyds share sale George Osborne will be scrutinising the share price of Lloyds Banking Group in the coming months as he prepares to sell off its shares to the public in what he has described as the biggest privatisation for 20 years. The chancellor has been reducing the taxpayer stake in the bank by drip-feeding small quantities of shares on to the stock market when the price is above 73.6p, the level at which the taxpayer breaks even on its stake. But his pledge to offer £2bn of shares at a 5% discount to the prevailing price means he could be facing a loss on the offering unless the share price starts to rebound. The shares ended 2015 at 73.07p after dipping as low as 68p in December, although they traded above the crucial break-even point at certain times during the month. In December, the Treasury extended its trading plan for six months but said it would be halted to ensure the government has enough shares for the retail offer. At the time, the government said the shares sold in this process had achieved an average price of over 81p. “Osborne has a bit of a problem, it seems a little bit embarrassing to have achieved an average disposal price of [over] 80p on the drip and then to come to the market with a public offer at a 5% discount,” said Ian Gordon, banks analyst at Investec. “He could justify it by saying in aggregate we’ve achieved a level above the average [73p] in price,” said Gordon. Would-be shareholders have been registering their interest with stockbrokers and on the government website. If individuals hold their shares for a year they will be given a bonus share for every 10 held. Osborne has said individuals applying for less than £1,000 worth of shares will be given priority. A Treasury spokesperson said the government had made significant progress in selling off the Lloyds stake. “So far we have recovered more than £16bn from Lloyds shares for the taxpayer. We are determined to build on this success, and to continue to return Lloyds to the private sector and reduce our national debt. As part of this plan, we will launch a share sale which will be open to retail investors in the spring.‎ This will allow hardworking people to buy a stake in our economy and help to build a share-owning democracy.” Lloyds’ 2015 results are due in February and City analysts will be looking for signs the dividend will be raised, which could bolster the share price ahead of Osborne’s sell-off. The taxpayer stake in Lloyds was 43% following its takeover of HBOS during the 2008 crisis and now stands at about 9%. The disposal of the stake began in September 2013 when £3.2bn of shares were sold at 75p to institutional investors. In March 2014, a further £4.2bn tranche was sold at 75.5p and in December 2014 the chancellor first began to dribble shares into the market as long as the level was above 73.6p. The sell-off of the government stake in Royal Bank of Scotland is not as advanced as that of Lloyds. The first chunk of shares was sold in August when the taxpayer shareholding was reduced from 79% to just below 73% – at a £1bn loss. This is because the shares were sold at 330p – far less than the 502p average price taxpayers paid for each share during 2008-09. The government wants to reduce the RBS stake to 25% during the lifetime of this parliament. Shares in the Edinburgh-based bank ended 2015 at 302p.
G7 summit: Obama says Trump has 'rattled' world leaders – as it happened That’s it for now. We’ll end with Justin McCurry wrap up of day one of the summit: They could be “rattled” by the prospect of Donald Trump as US president? Or just amused. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is on his way to the summit. The leaders of both the EU and the US have made some barbed comments about Chinese protectionism at the summit. European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker said the EU was ready to “step up” its measures to defend the steel industry against dumping. He made clear the issue would be considered when deciding whether to grant the coveted “market economy status” to China. He added: “Global overcapacity in the steel sector is of great concern to Europeans. It has cost Europe thousands of jobs since 2008 and the over-capacity in China alone has been estimated at almost double European annual production. “So we will make it clear that we will step up our trade defence measures. This effort has started and as far as the market economy status for China is concerned, we will discuss this in detail. The European Union has launched an in-depth impact assessment and when this impact assessment is finished, we can deliver in the best way possible. “Everyone has to know that if somebody distorts the market, Europe cannot be defenceless.” Obama also appeared to be addressing the Chinese when he said the leaders at the summit “emphasised the importance of pushing back against either protectionism or competitive currency devaluations or the kinds of beggar-thy-neighbour strategies that all to often lead to everyone being worse off.” David Cameron uses a possible trade deal that could be worth £5bn to UK economy to make argument for Britain remaining in Europe, writes Anushka Asthana. Some of the world leaders at the G7 got an underwhelming spin in fuel-cell cars, according to AFP. Matteo Renzi of Italy and Canadian leader Justin Trudeau were bundled into eco-friendly sedans for an achingly slow ride around a carpark that ended with the photogenic pair dropped off for the talks, which are being held southwest of Tokyo. European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and European Council President Donald Tusk also got a very uneventful crash course on the cars, which are powered by hydrogen and emit only water from their exhaust pipe. Juncker emerged from his low-adrenaline ride looking a little underwhelmed and offered what appeared to be a shrug. David Cameron stayed away, as Justin McCurry noted earlier. Here’s a summary of the key developments on the first day of the G7 summit. Barack Obama said that world leaders are rightly “rattled” by the prospect of Donald Trump running for US president. “A lot of the proposals that he has made display either ignorance of world affairs or a cavalier attitude,” Obama told reporters at the summit. Speaking a day ahead of his historic visit to Hiroshima, Obama said the trip will underline the dangers of nuclear warfare. “The backdrop of a nuclear event remains something that presses on the back of our imagination,” he said. “North Korea is big worry for all us,” Obama said. He added: “Kim Jong-Un in particular seems to be convinced that his own legitimacy is tied up with developing nuclear weapons.” The leaders of European countries and Japan have agreed to timeline on a trade deal that is said to be worth £5bn for the UK economy. Cameron said: “This agreement underlines once again why we are stronger, safer and better off in a reformed EU.” Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe warned of an economic crisis on the scale of 2008. Abe presented data at an opening session showing that commodities prices have fallen 55% since 2014, the same margin they fell during the global financial crisis, the newspaper said, interpreting this as “warning of the re-emergence of a Lehman-scale crisis”. European commission president, Jean-Claude Juncker, and his senior Martin Selmayr, have criticised leading Brexit campaigner Boris Johnson. Juncker said Johnson’s claims about European integration were not “in line with reality”. Selmayr, then stoked the row by tweeting about the “horror scenario” of a 2017 G7 meeting with Donald Trump, Marine Le Pen and Johnson around the leaders’ table. Johnson dismissed the remarks. “What I’m saying to the British people is in line with reality. If we vote to remain ... then they will go on with measures to take us further into a federal European super state,” he told Sky News. Earlier, the leaders attended the Ise Jingu shrine – a choice of location that drawn criticism that Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe is attempting to use the shrine to promote his conservative political agenda. The European Union and Japan have reached political agreement on speeding up the completion of long-running negotiations for a trade deal which Downing Street believes could be worth £5bn a year to the UK economy, PA reports. In talks at the G7 summit in Japan, leaders including David Cameron agreed to instruct negotiators to work to an accelerated timetable which could see the deal concluded as early as this autumn and come into effect next year. The prime minister made it a key objective of the two-day gathering to secure progress in negotiations on the EU/Japan Economic Partnership Agreement/Free Trade Agreement - which began in 2013 and were initially intended to be completed last year. Downing Street said an agreement could be worth the equivalent of £200 a year to British households in increased exports of products such as cars, manufactured goods, chemicals, food and drinks, as well as services, to Japan. But key elements of the deal - including tariffs on agricultural and automotive exports and government procurement - must be completed over the summer if it is to be signed by the end of the year. A successful deal would mean the elimination of the vast majority of trade tariffs and boost imports and exports in key areas such as agriculture, car manufacturing and clothing, said Downing Street. Welcoming the progress made towards finalising the deal, Cameron said: “This agreement underlines once again why we are stronger, safer and better off in a reformed EU. As prime minister [Shinzo] Abe said when visiting the UK, Japan’s priority is negotiating with large trade blocs - not individual states in Europe. And this is something we hear time and again from foreign leaders. “Not only will UK households lose out to the tune of 4,300 a year if we vote to leave, but we will be turning our backs on global trade deals which underpin our security and prosperity.” In a statement Abe said: “The agreement is going to be beneficial for bringing in sustainable and robust growth for the whole world economy.” Obama said he expects the Taliban to continue a strategy of violence following the appointment of a hardline leader, adding that the United States aims to uphold Afghanistan’s fragile democratisation and prevent its use as a base by Islamic State, Reuters reports. “This continues to be an organisation that sees violence as a strategy for obtaining its goals and moving its agenda forward in Afghanistan,” said Obama, told reporters during the G7 summit. “In the short-term, we anticipate that the Taliban will continue to pursue an agenda of violence and blowing up innocent people.” “Our goal right now is to make sure (Afghanistan’s) constitution and democratic process is upheld (and) maintain the counter-terrorism platforms that we need in the region so that al Qaeda and now Isil are not able to take root and use it as a base to attack us in the United States,” he said, using an acronym for Islamic State. The selection of cleric Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada as the new Taliban chief on Wednesday all but dashes Obama’s hopes for opening peace talks before he leaves office, one of his top foreign policy goals, current and former US defence and intelligence officials said. Akhundzada, a conservative Islamic scholar from the Taliban’s stronghold in southern Afghanistan, succeeded Mullah Akhtar Mansour four days after he was killed in a U.S. drone strike. Some US officials had expressed hope that Mansour’s death would eliminate an obstacle to peace negotiations between the Taliban and the government of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani. And here’s AP take on Obama’s claim that world leaders are rattled by Trump. Associated Press have done a take on Obama’s comments on Trump: It’s not just world leaders who are “rattled” by Donald Trump. A new poll of the public in six countries allied to the US found that 78% thought that Trump would make the world more dangerous. The YouGov poll for the campaign group Avaaz found that 61% said his views made a Paris style attack more likely. The survey views from the UK, France, Germany, Mexico, Canada and Japan is believed to be the first global poll on attitudes to Trump. When asked about Trump’s views, 62% of Britons with good knowledge of Trump’s views said they made them ‘concerned’, 75% said they ‘dislike or hate’ his politics, and they make 38% feel ‘sick to their stomach’. Results also show that Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric, which has targeted Muslims, Mexicans, and women, is damaging America’s reputation among citizens of its allies, with 74% of polled respondents saying they thought less of America thanks to Trump’s hardline views. Ricken Patel, the head of Avaaz, said: “Most of the world agrees with most Americans - The Donald is dangerously dumb. A dream for Isis [Islamic State] and a nightmare for the rest of us. People everywhere are united against his politics of division, because they know the only way we meet challenges like terrorism and climate change is together.” David Cameron’s enthusiasm for cars clearly doesn’t carry over to the new, eco-friendly variety, after he reportedly turned down the opportunity to try out a one of Japan’s latest hydrogen-powered vehicles, writes Justin McCurry. With the slowdown in the global economy dominating talks, it was perhaps appropriate that Jean-Claude Juncker, Donald Tusk, Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi and Canadian leader Justin Trudeau were driven around at snail’s pace during a demonstration of Japan’s latest fuel-cell technology. The four were treated to a post-prandial spin in eco-friendly sedans, which are powered by hydrogen and emit only water from their exhaust pipe. Juncker reacted to his experience with a shrug, while David Cameron, Barack Obama, Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande had reportedly indicated to their Japanese hosts that they did not wish to appear in Top Gear: the G7 episode. Obama brushed off calls for Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton to move hurriedly to resolve the primary so that Democrats can unite behind one candidate, AP reports. The president argued that that unlike the Republicans, this year’s Democratic candidates aren’t that ideologically divided. He likened the hard-fought campaign between Clinton and Sanders to the one he waged with Clinton in 2008. “During primaries, people get a little grumpy with each other. Somebody’s supporter pops off and there’s a certain buildup of aggravation,” Obama said. “Every little speed bump, conflict trash-talking that takes place is elevated.” He urged both Democratic candidates to “try to stick to the issues,” adding that the grumpiness often stems from voters’ frustration when the campaign instead becomes dominated by talk about “personalities and character.” Here’s more about what Obama said about Donald Trump. Ask about the reaction of world leaders to Trump, Obama said: “The world pays attention to the US elections ... I think it is fair to say that they are surprised by the Republican nominee. “They are not sure how seriously to take some of his pronouncements, but they are rattled by him and for good reason, because a lot of the proposals that he has made display either ignorance of world affairs or a cavalier attitude or an interest in getting tweets and headlines instead of actually think through what it it that is required to keep America safe and secure and prosperous, and what’s required to keep the world on an even keel.” On North Korea, Obama said its nuclear ambitions pose a serious medium-term threat, adding that engagement with China and other countries had seen progress on the issue. He said: “North Korea is a big worry for all of us. They are not at point right now when they can effectively hit US targets. But each time that they test, even if those tests fail, they learn something. It is clear that ideologically they are convinced and Kim Jong-Un in particular seems to be convinced, that his own legitimacy is tied up with developing nuclear weapons.” “It’s something that we’ve put at the centre of discussions and negotiations with China. “What we’ve seen is improved responses from China and countries in the region...that may reduce the risks of North Korea selling weapons or missile material to other countries.” The bitter legacy of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and the US military presence on Okinawa are threatening to cast a shadow over Barack Obama’s last G7 summit as US president, writes Justin McCurry in his latest dispatch from Ise-Shima. Here’s a recording of most of Obama’s 30 minute remarks to reporters at the summit. Here’s a transcript of Obama’s remarks about the global economy. One of the benefits of the G7 is that you have like-minded countries who are committed to democracy, and free markets and international law, and international norms. So far we have discussed issues of the global economy and the need to continue to accelerate growth. To use all the tools at our disposal to ensure that we are not only putting people back to work but also helping to lift wages and helping to make sure we can maintain the momentum of the recovery that’s taking place in the United States most prominently but also we are starting to see some progress in Europe. The fact that the Greek debt crisis has been resolved for a reasonable length of time, should help, but we have all got a lot of work to do. We had a chance to talk about trade, not only TTP but also TTIP and we recommitted ourselves to try to finish those negotiations before the end of year. And emphasised the importance of pushing back against either protectionism or competitive currency devaluations or the kinds of beggar-thy-neighbour strategies that all to often lead to everyone being worse off. Japan’s prime minister Shinzo Abe said G7 agreed to the need for spending plans to boost world growth, but said they would be flexible, writes Anushka Asthana. Flexibility on the economy was one of David Cameron’s key desires coming into the summit. “G7 leaders voiced the view that emerging economies are in a severe situation, although there were views that the current economic situation is not a crisis,” Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary, Hiroshige Seko, said after the first day of a two-day G7 summit in Ise-Shima, central Japan. On Afghanistan, Obama said: “I wasn’t expecting a liberal democrat to be the new leader of the Taliban. This is an organisation that still sees violence as a way of achieving its goals. There comes a point that the Taliban realises that they not going to be able overrun the country.” He urged the Taliban to enter reconciliation talks led by the Afghan government. There will come a point eventually where there are those who surround the Taliban community will realise their goals are best served by talks, Obama said. Obama dodges questions about Clinton’s emails and the release of transcripts over her speeches to Goldman Sachs. On the Democratic race, Obama claimed “not much” divided Bernie Sanders and Hilary Clinton ideologically, citing education and health care. He said the only real difference surrounded “tactics”. He added: “They are both good people. Both sides have run serious campaigns.” Obama said every blip in the campaign was “elevated”. On Democrats prospects he added: “Day to day choppiness is not indicative of longer term trends ... the eventual nominee sure wishes it was over. It’s lot more draining arguing against your friends ... these are folks who are serious about solving the country’s problems. They are veterans of the political grind.” Obama said the world is “surprised” by the prospect of Donald Trump as the Republican nominee for president. He added that Trump had “rattled” world leaders. Many of the likely Republican nominee’s proposals display ignorance about world affairs, a cavalier attitude or an interest in getting “tweets and headlines,” Obama added. He contrasted that to proposals to make America safe. Pressed about the threat from North Korea, Obama said he has been working on “defence architecture” with the Pentagon to guard against unexpected events. “North Korea is big worry for all us,” Obama said. They can’t yet reach US targets, he added, but said: “Each time they test they learn something.” Asked about his visit to Hiroshima on Friday, Obama said: “The dropping of the atomic bomb was an inflexion point in modern history. It is something that all of us have had to deal with. The backdrop of a nuclear event presses against our imaginations.” He says we should all have a “sense of urgency” about the threat of nuclear war. “The job is not done, in reducing conflict and building institutes for peace,” he said. But he described the nuclear deal with Iran as a “big piece of business”. Barack Obama is giving a press conference at the summit. He says there has been “some progress” towards economic recovery in Europe. He said the Greek debt crisis has eased but there is still a lot of economic work to do. Obama said the leaders agreed to try to get a deal on TTIP and TTP before the end of the year. He also warned against “protectionism”. Johnson was played a clip of Juncker’s remarks on Sky News. He replied: “I’m afraid what I’m saying to the British people is in line with reality. If we vote to remain ... then they will go on with measures to take us further into a federal European super state ... The whole exercise in Brussels is now aimed at propping up the Euro. “They will try to create a fiscal union, a political union. Germany who is effectively the paymaster of this whole enterprise will want to insist that there is an economic governance of Europe that in my view become – it is already profoundly undemocratic, but it will tend towards the creation of united states of Europe into which Britain will inevitably be sucked by the usage of single market mechanism. “And I’m afraid we have not be able to get out of the obligation of paying for this whole exercise.” Boris Johnson is being interviewed on Sky News. He hasn’t been asked about Juncker’s remarks yet. The European Commission has published a transcript of Jean-Claude Juncker’s remarks at the summit including his barbed comments about Brexit campaigner Boris Johnson. Q4 Mister President, what would you advise to Boris Johnson - should we stay in the EU? President Juncker: The general atmosphere of our talks would be better if Britain is staying in the European Union. I am reading in British papers that Boris Johnson spent part of his life in Brussels. It is time for him to come back to Brussels, in order to check in Brussels if everything he is telling the British people is in line with reality - I do not think so. So, he would be welcome in Brussels at any time. PA’s political editor Andrew Woodcock say that David Cameron and the other G7 leaders are believed to be the first sitting heads of their countries to visit the Ise-Jingu Grand Shrine. Welcoming Cameron to Japan, Shinzo Abe described Ise - which has remained a popular pilgrimage site - as “a place dear to Japanese hearts”. Cameron and the other leaders - US president Barack Obama, Germany’s Angela Merkel, Francois Hollande of France, Canadian PM Justin Trudeau and Italy’s Matteo Renzi - were granted access to the inner part of the shrine, which is normally out of bounds to everyone but the site’s priests and distinguished visitors. After a brief cleansing ceremony with holy water, Cameron planted a Japanese cedar tree with President Hollande and Mr Trudeau, using shovels handed to them by schoolchildren from the Mie Prefecture. The G7 leaders then signed individual visitor books, with Cameron writing: “It is a great pleasure to visit this place of peace, tranquillity and natural beauty as we gather in Ise-Shima for Japan’s G7, and to pay my respects as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom at the Ise-Jingu.” The second working session - a discussion on trade - is underway. It will include talks on the controversial trade agreement TTIP or Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. For more on the EU referendum debate and the future of Tata steel, Andy Sparrow has just launched today’s Politics Live. The host of the summit Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe has warned of an economic crisis on the scale of 2008, according to Reuters citing a Nikkei report. Abe presented data at an opening session showing that commodities prices have fallen 55% since 2014, the same margin they fell during the global financial crisis, the newspaper said, interpreting this as “warning of the re-emergence of a Lehman-scale crisis”. Abe has pledged to raise Japan’s sales tax to 10% from 8% in April next year as planned, unless there is a financial crisis on the scale of the Lehman collapse or a major natural disaster. “G7 leaders voiced the view that emerging economies are in a severe situation, although there were views that the current economic situation is not a crisis,” Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroshige Seko told reporters at the summit. Abe told the group that they shared the view on the risks to the global economy, Seko said. The first day of the G7 summit in Japan has so far been overshadowed by a row over Brexit, with statements from the European commission president, Jean-Claude Juncker, and his senior aide bringing the issue of the UK’s EU membership to the forefront of the discussions: Juncker dragged prominent Brexit campaigner and former London mayor Boris Johnson into the talks in Ise-Shima, saying Johnson’s claims about the EU were not “in line with reality”. His aide and head of cabinet, Martin Selmayr, then stoked the row by tweeting about the “horror scenario” of a 2017 G7 meeting with Donald Trump, Marine Le Pen and Johnson around the leaders’ table. Meanwhile, the summit continued with the group of seven leaders set to discuss the global economy, steel, terrorism and the refugee crisis, in a wide-ranging agenda. Earlier, the leaders attended the Ise Jingu shrine – a choice of location that drawn criticism that Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe is attempting to use the shrine to promote his conservative political agenda. I’m now handing over this live blog to my colleague Matthew Weaver in London for continuing coverage of Thursday’s summit. I will be back on Friday to cover day two, including US president Barack Obama’s historic visit to Hiroshima. Thanks for reading. The first session is over. There will be a side event on terror attacks against cultural artefacts. David Cameron has been strolling and chatting with Barack Obama, and is about to head to a restaurant for a drink. A Downing Street adviser said it was a “very friendly chat” with the president. There will be another side event focusing on trade. A popular request from below the line: Initially David Cameron appeared to be missing from the line-up – but here he is, better late than never: One of the most senior officials in the EU has warned that having Boris Johnson as British prime minister would be a “horror scenario”. Tweeting from the G7 summit, Martin Selmayr, who is chief of staff to the European Commission president, lumped Johnson in with France’s Marine Le Pen and the US Republican presidential candidate, Donald Trump. “#G7 2017 with Trump, Le Pen, Boris Johnson, Beppe Grillo? A horror scenario that shows well why it is worth fighting populism. #withJuncker,” he wrote, in a provocative message that could trigger a backlash in Britain. A not particularly diplomatic tweet from Martin Selmayr, Juncker’s head of cabinet and righthand man, who describes a potential 2017 G7 meeting convening Donald Trump, Marine Le Pen, Boris Johnson and Beppe Grillo, leader of Italy’s Five Star Movement, as “a horror scenario”: Along with this warning from the account of Donald Tusk: The economy The precarious state of the global economy – and the slowing of growth in China – will be top of the agenda over the next two days. The G7 leaders are not united on the best way to tackle the issue. As Agence France-Press reports: One side, led by Japan, favours spending: government stimulus. The other, led by Germany, thinks the fiscal largesse of recent years needs to be brought under control … Expect a final statement that supports a bit of both stimulus and austerity, but offers a firm rebuke on currency manipulation. Brexit Also up for discussion, although not on the official agenda, is Britain’s upcoming referendum – looming on 23 June – on whether to stay within or leave the European Union. As Justin McCurry reports: For David Cameron, who went straight into talks with Abe and Obama after touching down in Japan on Wednesday night, the summit will be an opportunity to win backing for his campaign to keep Britain in the EU, less than a month before the Brexit referendum. Abe and Obama have already voiced concern over a possible Brexit, but a unanimous show of support for Cameron, while unlikely to appear in the communiqué, would make the long journey from London to Japan seem worthwhile. The issue has already caused a stir on the sidelines of the summit, with European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker accusing pro-Brexit campaigner Boris Johnson of making claims about the EU that are not “in line with reality”. Terrorism A pressing issue after attacks in Brussels and Paris, leaders are likely to want to present a strong, united front against the threat. Justin Trudeau might also raise the plight of a Canadian hostage held by militant group Abu Sayyaf in the Philippines – in particular Canada’s resolve, backed by the UK, that ransoms should not be paid to extremists. Refugees A key concern for European leaders, with European Council president Donald Tusk saying he had come to Japan to seek international support to ease the crisis: If we [at G7] do not take the lead in managing this crisis, nobody would. China China is not represented at the G7 summit, but the reach of Beijing will certainly feature, whether in discussion about the global economy or concerns over territorial disputes in the South China Sea. Already this week, Barack Obama has said Washington supports Vietnam’s territorial claims against Beijing in the South China Sea and – without mentioning China by name – warned: Big nations should not bully smaller ones. David Cameron also warned China that it must abide by the outcome of international arbitration on its increasingly assertive territorial claims in the South China Sea – the cause of bitter disputes with the Philippines and other countries in the region. G7 host Japan is also embroiled in ongoing rows over disputed territory in the East China Sea. And this was before news broke today that China is poised to send nuclear-armed submarines into the Pacific. A Downing Street source has responded to Jean-Claude Juncker’s comments on Boris Johnson’s Brexit claims: Our view on Boris is that we think that he is wrong, we don’t agree with him. So far neither the out campaign nor Boris Johnson have been able to articulate what getting out of the EU looks like. And here’s what they ate during that working lunch: lobster, beef and manju (a kind of cake made with bean paste). Another shot of the assembled leaders, this time at their opening working lunch session, complete with handy table signs telling each other what nation they’ve come from: Ahead of the traditionally awkward traditional group photo, expected later on Thursday afternoon, we have this equally awkward tree-planting image. It’s safe to say nobody here looks entirely comfortable with a shovel. They’re planting Japanese cedar trees close to the inner Naiku shrine at Ise Jingu. It is not clear why David Cameron and Justin Trudeau have had to share a sapling. As the talks begin in earnest, Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi tweets about the Italians saving lives at sea – on Wednesday, the Italian navy saved 550 refugees after a vessel capsized in the Mediterranean. The refugee crisis is on the agenda at G7, with Donald Tusk earlier saying he had come to Japan to seek international support: If we [at G7] do not take the lead in managing this crisis, nobody would. As the G7 leaders come to the conclusion of their working lunch – and ahead of the traditional group photo – Donald Tusk, the European Council president, has been speaking on the sidelines of the summit about China and Russia. (Russia has not been invited to the meetings of what was once the G8 for two years, since its annexation of Crimea.) Tusk said the Crimea issue, as well as China’s activities in the South and East China Seas, were problems on which the G7 ought to take a “clear and tough stance”. The test of our credibility at the G7 is our ability to defend the common values that we share. This test will only pass if we take a clear and tough stance on every topic of our discussions here … I refer in particular to the issue of maritime security and the South and East China Seas, and Russia-Ukraine issue. If we are to defend our common values it is not enough these days to only believe in them. We also have to be ready to protect them. The policy of the G7 is clear: any maritime or territorial claim should be based on international law and any territorial dispute should be resolved by peaceful means. Unilateral action and the use of force or coercion will not be accepted. The European Union and the entire G7 continue to believe that this crisis can only be resolved in full compliance with … international law, especially the legal obligation to respect Ukraine’s sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence. I want to state clearly that our stance vis-a-vis Russia, including economic sanctions, will remain unchanged as long as the Minsk agreements are not fully implemented. Unfortunately there is much less progress on the implementation of Minsk than we had hoped for one year ago. (All quotes via AFP.) For those interested in background reading: China’s ambitions in the South China Sea Tensions between China and Japan over East China Sea Ukraine crisis: what is the Minsk ceasefire agreement? With the G7 leaders expected to continue their support of David Cameron’s argument that Britain should stay in the EU, the Australian prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, has hit back at criticism of his own position, arguing he is on a “unity ticket” with Barack Obama, Justin Trudeau and John Key. A British Conservative MP, Andrew Rosindell, who sits on the foreign affairs select committee, has argued Turnbull’s position against Brexit is “ridiculous”, saying: Australia would never countenance signing away permanent legal power over its rules, its laws, its traditions to other countries in the Asia-Pacific region. Come on Malcolm, when are you going to do your political union with Indonesia or Japan? When are you going to have free movement with Asia? It’s absolutely in Australia’s interests that Britain leaves the EU, so that we can have free trade agreements, we can have more free movement, so we can work together. On the campaign trail in Rockhampton on Thursday, Turnbull hit back, pointing out that he holds the same position as the US president and prime ministers of Canada and New Zealand: We all believe that our countries benefit from Britain being part of the EU. So it is to our advantage if Britain is part of the EU. They are part of a big market and they’re a good friend to have there. But it is a matter for British people and I am on a unity ticket with those other leaders that I’ve mentioned and many others. But it is a matter for the British people. The global steel industry crisis is high on the agenda in Ise-Shima, with G7 leaders set to discuss how to deal with China’s dumping of surplus steel. British prime minister David Cameron has said the summit was an opportunity to tackle the crisis in Europe’s steel industry, saying EU tariffs had proved “effective” against market distortions caused by China’s selling of surplus steel at low prices: Wherever we have taken action, there has been very steep – 90%-plus – reductions in Chinese steel imports. This is a good opportunity to talk again with the European Commission and the president of the Council and France, Germany and Italy about the actions we are taking in Europe to put tariffs up against dumping of Chinese steel, which is effective. European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker said the EU was ready to step up its defence of the industry: Global overcapacity in the steel sector is of great concern to Europeans. It has cost Europe thousands of jobs since 2008 and the over-capacity in China alone has been estimated at almost double European annual production. So we will make it clear that we will step up our trade defence measures. This effort has started and as far as the market economy status for China is concerned, we will discuss this in detail. The European Union has launched an in-depth impact assessment and when this impact assessment is finished, we can deliver in the best way possible. Everyone has to know that if somebody distorts the market, Europe cannot be defenceless. With China not at the table in Ise, but certainly on the agenda, news that the Chinese military is poised to send submarines armed with nuclear missiles into the Pacific Ocean for the first time will no doubt resonate at the G7 summit. As the ’s world affairs editor, Julian Borger, reports: Until now, Beijing has pursued a cautious deterrence policy, declaring it would never be the first to use nuclear weapons in a conflict and storing its warheads and its missiles separately, both strictly under the control of the top leadership. Deploying nuclear-armed submarines would have far-reaching implications. Warheads and missiles would be put together and handed over to the navy, allowing a nuclear weapon to be launched much faster if such a decision was taken. The start of Chinese missile patrols could further destabilise the already tense strategic standoff with the US in the South China Sea. Read the full report here: So far, anti-G7 protests have been virtually non-existent, bar a small demonstration in Shima on Wednesday morning. This is partly because of the large police presence, but also the location of the summit, which is being held in a relatively remote part of Japan – the venue for the meetings is a hotel in the middle of an island. But there has been a demonstration today outside the US embassy in Seoul, South Korea, ahead of Obama’s planned visit to Hiroshima on Friday. As AFP reports: A group representing Korean victims of the US atomic bombings of Japan protested on Thursday that their suffering was being neglected ahead of Obama’s historic visit to Hiroshima. The Association of Korean Atomic Bomb Victims estimates that anywhere between 40,000 and 70,000 Koreans died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki when atomic bombs laid waste to the two cities in August 1945. The Korean peninsula was under Japanese colonial rule at the time, and most of those who died had been conscripted by the Japanese military or forced into hard labour. Consequently, the association argues that Koreans were multiple victims, deserving not only of an apology from the United States, but also from Japan. Around two dozen members of the group – including survivors and relatives of those who died – gathered outside the US embassy in Seoul with placards reading: “Apologise to Korean victims of the Atomic Bomb” and “Acknowledge the 2nd generation victims”. “The world thinks Japan is the atomic bomb victim. That is wrong. Japan is the country that began the war. Koreans are the victims of the atomic bomb,” said Shim Jin-Tae, who was two years old and in Hiroshima when the first bomb fell. Some details coming through of the leaders’ time in the Ise Jingu shrine, where each of the visiting politicians were greeted by the Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe. The leaders were taken to the inner Naiku shrine – reserved for distinguished visitors only – where they underwent a cleansing ceremony. British prime minister David Cameron, French president François Hollande and Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau then planted a Japanese cedar tree, helped by schoolchildren from the Mie prefecture. The ceremonies then switched to the signing of the visitor books, in which Cameron wrote: It is a great pleasure to visit this place of peace, tranquillity and natural beauty as we gather in Ise Shima for Japan’s G7, and to pay my respects as prime minister of the United Kingdom at the Ise Jingu. While the G7 leaders begin their talks on Thursday afternoon, their spouses are due to visit Mikimoto pearl island in the nearby town of Toba, where they will watch a demonstration by Japan’s female free divers. Ama – women who dive without breathing apparatus to scour the seabed for shellfish – say their traditional way of life is threatened by falling seafood stocks and a lack of interest among younger women in learning the skill. Akie Abe, the wife of the Japanese prime minister, will lead the trip. She recently described the ama as the embodiment of Japanese values. Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European Commission, has called on Boris Johnson – the former London mayor and high profile Brexit campaigner – to come to Brussels and see whether his view of the EU fits with “reality”. Juncker also warned that if Johnson became prime minister in the UK, his discussions with European partners may be strained. Speaking at a press conference at the G7 summit in Japan, Juncker said: I’m reading in [the] papers that Boris Johnson spent part of his life in Brussels. It’s time for him to come back to Brussels, in order to check in Brussels if everything he’s telling British people is in line with reality. I don’t think so, so he would be welcome in Brussels at any time. Asked whether the European institutions would be able to work with Johnson if he took over in Downing Street, he replied: The atmosphere of our talks would be better if Britain is staying in the European Union. Donald Tusk, the president of the European council who is also at the G7 summit, added: We have to respect every democratic decision, the result of the referendum and possible political consequences of the referendum. But I think it’s quite normal to have normal relations with politicians and at the same time to have your own opinion about their opinions. The leaders are due to be treated this afternoon to a display of self-driving cars. What could possibly go wrong? A Cameron adviser tells me that while Europe is not on the agenda we can expect it to be raised in the margins. The British prime minister highlighted that all the G7 leaders have expressed their view on Brexit – and all have suggested it would damage the world economy – but he may be looking for more support while in Japan. Angela Merkel hadn’t said much for a long time. The PM told me that his priorities while here were the fight against Daesh (Isis) in Syria and Iraq, antimicrobial resistance – which he said was a priority for him – as well as maintaining pressure on Russia over the Minsk agreement and anti-corruption. The British prime minister David Cameron is leading a session on trade after lunch on Thursday, at which they are likely to discuss Chinese dumping of steel. Cameron said he was particularly keen to focus on talks with the presidents of the European Commission and Council, and the leaders of France, Germany and Italy on what more can be done on tariffs. The venue for the summit, Ise-Shima, is in lockdown. About 23,000 police officers have been deployed in areas near the venue, where many restaurants and businesses have also closed for the duration of the summit. Residents have been encouraged not to venture out, and some schools cancelled classes in anticipation of congestion caused by traffic restrictions. Several ships from the maritime self-defence force – Japan’s navy – have been deployed off the coast of the summit venue, including the Izumo, the country’s largest destroyer, according to Kyodo News. The Japan coastguard has sent 100 smaller vessels out on patrol. The security effort has even spread as far as Tokyo – 300km away – where 19,000 police officers have been mobilised. Lockers and rubbish bins have been sealed in and around major railway stations in the capital. The economy The precarious state of the global economy – and the slowing of growth in China – will be top of the agenda over the next two days. The G7 leaders are not as one on the best way to tackle the issue. As Agence France-Press reports: One side, led by Japan, favours spending - government stimulus. The other, led by Germany, thinks the fiscal largesse of recent years needs to be brought under control … Expect a final statement that supports a bit of both stimulus and austerity, but offers a firm rebuke on currency manipulation. Brexit Also up for discussion is Britain’s upcoming referendum – looming on 23 June – on whether to stay within or leave the European Union. As Justin McCurry reports: For David Cameron, who went straight into talks with Abe and Obama after touching down in Japan on Wednesday night, the summit will be an opportunity to win backing for his campaign to keep Britain in the EU, less than a month before the Brexit referendum. Abe and Obama have already voiced concern over a possible Brexit, but a unanimous show of support for Cameron, while unlikely to appear in the communiqué, would make the long journey from London to Japan seem worthwhile. Terrorism A pressing issue after attacks in Brussels and Paris, leaders are likely to want to present a strong, united front against the threat. Justin Trudeau might also raise the plight of a Canadian hostage held by militant group Abu Sayyaf in the Philippines – in particular Canada’s resolve, backed by the UK, that ransoms should not be paid to extremists. Refugees A key concern for European leaders, with European Council president Donald Tusk saying he had come to Japan to seek international support to ease the crisis: If we [at G7] do not take the lead in managing this crisis, nobody would. China China is not represented at the G7 summit, but the reach of Beijing will certainly feature, whether in discussion about the global economy or concerns over territorial disputes in the South China Sea. Already this week, Barack Obama has said Washington supports Vietnam’s territorial claims against Beijing in the South China Sea and – without mentioning China by name – warned: Big nations should not bully smaller ones. David Cameron also warned China that it must abide by the outcome of international arbitration on its increasingly assertive territorial claims in the South China Sea – the cause of bitter disputes with the Philippines and other countries in the region. G7 host Japan is also embroiled in ongoing rows over disputed territory in the East China Sea. Leaders of the Group of Seven countries should begin their summit in central Japan today feeling spiritually cleansed after their morning visit to Ise Jingu, Japan’s most sacred Shinto shrine. Their trip to the shrine, set in a 2,000-year-old forest, risked sparking the first controversy of the summit, with academics and other religious groups warning that Shinzo Abe could use the presence of Obama, Cameron and co at the site to further his conservative political agenda. After their morning stroll, discussions among the leaders of Japan, the US, the UK, Italy, Canada, France and Germany will quickly turn to the parlous state of the global economy – although one of the chief countries of concern, China, will not be present, of course. There is disagreement on how to pull the global economy out of its difficulties, with Japan persevering with a combination of pump-priming and monetary easing, while counties such as Britain retain their faith in austerity. There is little agreement on how to tackle recent fluctuations in the currency markets, with the US opposed to attempts by Japan to weaken the yen and give its exporters some much-needed breathing space. In the end, the G7 leaders will probably make do with a diplomatic fudge. With agreement on concerted action unlikely, the communiqué, due to be released on Friday, is expected to encourage flexibility and allow member states to adapt economic policies to their own circumstances in the search for growth. Obama has arrived, pausing to wave at the kindergarten children lined up to wield flags at the leaders. Now he and Abe cross the bridge together for what will be Obama’s final G7 summit. We – and Shinzo Abe – are still waiting for President Obama to arrive at the shrine. In the meantime, here’s an earlier image of French president François Hollande crossing the Ujibashi bridge, which symbolises leaving the temporal world and entering the spiritual one. All the leaders bar Obama have now arrived at the shrine – the US president is expected imminently and he will cross the bridge into Ise Jingu alongside Abe. The official G7 programme has begun with a visit to Ise Jingu shrine on an overcast and humid morning in central Japan. Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe was greeted by Ise Jingu’s head priest priest at shrine entrance. Abe and other world leaders will cross Ujibashi bridge, leaving the temporal world and entering the spiritual on their way to the revered centre of Japan’s indigenous Shinto religion. A gravel path will taken them to main sanctuary, home of Amaterasu Omikami, the mythological empress from whom all Japanese emperors are said to be descended, although they will not be permitted to enter the inner sanctuary itself. Japanese officials said the leaders would not be taking part in any religious rituals. The idea, said a foreign ministry spokesman, is to give them a sense of the “air, water, nature and atmosphere” of the shrine. “Ise is the place to present the beauty of nature and the richness of our culture and long tradition,” the spokesman said. Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Commission, has arrived – along with Donald Tusk, president of the European Council, he is at the summit to represent the EU alongside the G7 leaders. The leaders are now being welcomed at the Ise Jingu shrine by Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe. This marks the official start of the G7 summit. Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau seems to be displaying his sensitive side - post-elbowgate - since arriving in Japan on Monday. He and his wife, Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, celebrated their 11th wedding anniversary – which is actually on Saturday – on Tuesday with a trip to Meiji Shrine in Tokyo and a night at a traditional ryokan inn. Yesterday they went hiking in a forest near the G7 summit venue. Trudeau told reporters: This is the kind of work-life balance that I’ve often talked about as being essential in order to be able to be in service of the country with all one’s very best, and that’s certainly something I’m going to continue to make sure we do. All seven leader have now arrived, with German chancellor Angela Merkel, French president François Hollande and Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi landing in Japan this morning: British prime minister David Cameron arrived earlier and has already held a meeting with his Japanese counterpart, Shinzo Abe: Obama and Abe have already held a press conference in which the US president expressed his “deepest regrets and condolences” over the suspected rape and murder of a Japanese woman by a worker at a US military base on the island of Okinawa. The two leaders agreed steps would be taken to address crimes by US military and American base workers on Okinawa. Earlier this week, Kenneth Franklin Shinzato, a worker at the US Kadena airbase, was arrested in connection with the death of Rina Shimabukuro. As my colleague Justin McCurry reports, the attack – which Abe labelled a “despicable crime” – could have wider implications for US-Japanese relations: The case could frustrate the controversial relocation of a US marine base on Okinawa, which hosts more than half the 47,000 US troops in Japan and 75% of its bases. Most Okinawans oppose plans, agreed by Tokyo and Washington two decades ago, to move Futenma base from its current location in the middle of a densely populated town to a remote coastal area. The plan would require the construction of a new offshore runway that local people say would destroy the local ecosystem and increase the risk of accidents. Both leaders vowed to reduce the military burden on Okinawa, but there was no commitment to amending the status of forces agreement, which can make it difficult for Japanese authorities to investigate and prosecute crimes involving US servicemen and base workers. Talks between the seven leaders begin after the visit to the shrine, over lunch at the Shima Kanko hotel. This afternoon they will watch a demonstration of driverless and fuel-cell vehicles. The “family photo” opportunity mid-afternoon – expect to see the leaders don some kind of traditional clothing – will be followed by further talks until early evening, when the first day wraps up with cocktails and a working dinner. The agenda for Thursday begins with all seven leaders visiting the Ise Jingu shrine; that will be around 11am local time (just over an hour from now). The Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, is one of the shrine’s most fervent devotees and its location nearby is thought to be one of the reasons behind the decision to host the summit in Ise-Shima, Justin McCurry reports: That Ise Jingu, actually a collection of 125 shrines dating back 2,000 years, is a place of beauty and contemplation is beyond dispute. But its role at the heart of the Abe-led Shinto revival would make a G7 leaders’ visit more than a carefree stroll admiring the shrine’s sprawling ancient forest and crystal-clear river. Abe and most members of his cabinet are members of the Shinto Seiji Renmei (Shinto Association of Spiritual Leadership), an influential lobbying group that counts more than 300 MPs among its members. The association has called for the removal of pacifist elements from Japan’s US-authored constitution – a key Abe policy goal – increased reverence for the emperor, and a state-sponsored ceremony to honour Japan’s war dead at Yasukuni, a controversial war shrine in Tokyo. The choice of venue is “very closely connected” to Abe’s strong ideological connections with Shinto and its revisionist political agenda, said John Breen, a professor of Japanese history at the International Research Centre for Japanese Studies in Kyoto. It is “a perfect fit with his active involvement with the Shinto Seiji Renmei, and its aim of bringing Shinto into the heart of government”, Breen added. While Abe has stayed away from Yasukuni shrine in Tokyo since his controversial pilgrimage there in December 2013, his frequent to Ise Jingu have formed the spiritual – and political – backdrop to his three-and-half years in office. Read the full report here: Welcome to the first of our two days of live coverage of the G7 meeting in Ise-Shima, Japan. The leaders of seven countries – US president Barack Obama, Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe, German chancellor Angela Merkel, UK prime minister David Cameron, French president François Hollande, Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau and Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi – will meet on Thursday and Friday for two days of talks on a wide-ranging agenda including: the global economy and trade international terrorism the refugee crisis climate change North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme Chinese claims in the South China Sea On Friday, Obama will make history as the first sitting US president to visit Hiroshima, where he will lay flowers at a cenotaph to the 140,000 people who died after the US dropped an atomic bomb on the city in August 1945. We will have live coverage here as events unfold. I will also post key updates on Twitter @Claire_Phipps. The has two correspondents at the G7 summit: Japan and Korea correspondent Justin McCurry and political editor Anushka Asthana. You can follow them too: @justinmccurry and @ Anushka.
Davos 2016: eight key themes for the World Economic Forum The world’s political and business leaders, plus the usual smattering of celebrities – including Leonardo DiCaprio – are heading to Davos, the Swiss Alpine resort where the World Economic Forum’s annual conference begins on Tuesday evening. The ensuing four days of debate will focus on the following themes: The rise of the robots The relentless rise of automation and ever more intelligent machines will be a key issue at the WEF. The official theme of the 2016 meeting is “mastering the fourth industrial revolution”. That, in WEF-speak, means the “fusion of technologies that is blurring the lines between the physical, digital and biological spheres”. For some Davos attendees, this means business opportunities. Top executives such as Satya Nadella of Microsoft and Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg will debate how the new industrial revolution could improve industry and society. But Davos will also look at the threat to white collar jobs, asking if the changes are “failing the middle classes”. Another question is whether we are heading towards “a world without work” – a serious issue given that some experts reckon one in two jobs could eventually be taken by intelligent automation. More than 7m jobs are at risk in the world’s largest economies over the next five years, according to a WEF report published on Monday, with women losing out more than men as they are less likely to be working in areas where the adoption of new technology will create jobs. And if the daily trudge through icy Davos does not provide enough shivers, attendees will be told the implications of smart machines going to war. Sir Roger Carr, the chairman of defence giant BAE Systems, will discuss whether robots will become soldiers and generals, along with experts such as Prof Alan Winfield of the University of the West of England. Terrorism and the migration crisis World leaders and the heads of humanitarian agencies will debate how to address the growing migration crisis and better integrate refugees into the communities who shelter them. Queen Rania of Jordon will discuss the Middle East turmoil driving millions overseas, as desperate people continue to risk the winter cold and storms by crossing the Mediterranean. The leaders of Iraq and Tunisia are also attending. The EU foreign affairs chief, Federica Mogherini, and the French minister Emmanuel Macron are to consider whether Europe has been pushed to a tipping point by the crisis and discuss recent terrorist attacks. John Kerry, the US secretary of state, is giving a keynote speech. Last year, he delivered an electrifying talk on the need to tackle violent extremism and the “monsters” of Islamic State. But it is not just talk. Delegates can choose to be jolted out of their comfortable existence by spending an hour experiencing a day in the life of a refugee. This has become a regular event at Davos, with some people being moved to tears by a taste of the trauma felt by displaced people. Some former refugees are also on hand to share their stories. Angela Merkel won’t be signing up, though. With criticism over her refugee policies rising by the day, the chancellor is skipping this year’s event. So Germany’s president, Joachim Gauck, will be carrying the black, red and gold flag instead. Market turmoil The stock market rout of 2016 has already made a small dent in the large fortunes of the Davos elite. So there will be plenty of nervous chatter about whether we are heading into a new crash – and whether it can be fended off. The big worry, of course, is China, with its slowing economy and swelling credit levels. One of the Chinese government’s top market regulators, Fang Xinghai, will update the global elite on wherethe economy is heading, alongside the IMF chief, Christine Lagarde. Jack Ma, the head of Chinese online retailer Alibaba, could also be in demand for his insights. With crude prices falling below $30 per barrel, the energy ministers of the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait will talk publicly about how Arab economies can reform to handle cheap oil. Argentina’s new president, Mauricio Macri, is to discuss how emerging economies could suffer from the turmoil. Macri has just experienced his own painful shock; he is nursing a cracked rib after an incident playing with his daughter. No fewer than 10 central bank governors are descending on the ski resort, a chance to consider whether they will need to do more to help the global economy this year. Climate change The WEF hopes to build on the Paris climate deal, agreed in December, by examining how governments and businesses can work together to cut carbon emissions. Its annual risk survey found that failing to deal with and prepare for climate change is the biggest single threat facing the world economy. This is the first time in more than a decade that environmental issues have topped the list of worries. A string of top scientists will be providing technical expertise on how to tackle global warming and create cleaner energy. This includes the Solar Impulse team, which broke the world record for the longest solo flight in an un-refuelled vehicle last summer. DiCaprio will also be pushing for action; his foundation helps protect threatened ecosystems and funds projects to shield wildlife from the impact of climate change. Europe Turmoil in the Middle East and in the markets has pushed the eurozone debt problems down the agenda. But it still provides hope of a verbal punch-up, when the Greek prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, and the German finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, discuss the future of Europe. Memories of last summer’s crisis, where Tsipras was forced into a painful third bailout deal, are still fresh. Tsipras is also expected to meet with Lagarde. On the agenda: debt relief and pension reforms. The European Central Bank president, Mario Draghi, will be giving his own assessment of the eurozone economy on Friday morning, fresh from a governing council meeting the day before. David Cameron is also attending; Davos could give him an opportunity to push for EU reform ahead of Britain’s referendum on membership. But he could also have his ear bent by business leaders who fear a UK exit. Inequality This annual gathering of the global elite is a perfect opportunity to remind them about wealth inequality. Oxfam already got the ball rolling before some Davos attendees had even reached the ski resort, with a new report warning that wealth is becoming increasingly concentrated in the hands of a small group of billionaires. Save the Children will warn that the fourth industrial revolution risks deepening the gap between rich and poor. That is because automation can destroy job opportunities for those with few educational qualifications, hollowing out labour markets in the developing world. Medicine The US vice-president, Joe Biden, is heading to Davos to push his “moonshot” initiative to find a cure for cancer. Biden, leading a heavyweight US delegation, will meet with top scientists, doctors and data researchers in an attempt to speed up the fight against the disease which claimed his son Beau in May 2015. Last week, Biden said “cancer politics” were holding back progress and called for more data sharing about patient information and treatment outcomes. Davos is an opportunity to push that message. Ebola will also be on the agenda. Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance is expected to announce an agreement with pharmaceuticals company Merck to help prepare for the next outbreak. Last summer, tests showed that Merck’s experimental ebola vaccine was 100% effective in providing immunity to a disease that killed more than 11,000 people last year. But the world will always face new threats: Bill Gates is to lead a discussion on how to prepare for the next pandemic. Cybercrime and civil liberties Davos will see a clash between the authorities, which want closer control of our digital communications, and campaigners, who fear privacy is being eroded. The US attorney general, Loretta Lynch, and Jürgen Stock, the head of Interpol, will be pushing for closer partnerships with companies and new laws to catch cybercriminals across the globe. Salil Shetty, the secretary general of Amnesty International, is due to talk about how privacy and secrecy has changed in a world of digital communication and new terrorist threats.
Big rise in UK firms struggling financially, warns insolvency expert The number of British manufacturers who are struggling financially has risen by 20%, with food and drinks companies hardest hit – despite the weak pound making UK exports cheaper abroad. Data from the insolvency firm Begbies Traynor showed that 21,061 UK manufacturers, many of which rely heavily on exporting, ended the first quarter of this year in a state of significant financial distress – 20% more than a year ago. The number of food and drinks makers suffering significant distress rose the fastest, by 29%, compared with a 17% increase among carmakers and a 21% rise in the broader manufacturing sector. Britain’s financial services industry is also in a much weaker financial position than a year ago, the research found. The number of firms experiencing significant distress is up 23%, to 5,391 companies. Begbies warned that companies could be tipped over the edge if Britain votes to leave the EU in the June referendum. It said that the uncertainty surrounding the closely fought referendum had already put the brakes on manufacturers, which should be benefiting from sterling’s weakness. It said many firms were adopting a wait and see approach to the referendum. Julie Palmer, partner at Begbies Traynor, said: “Our data shows that the UK’s exporting industries are already under significant financial pressure and can ill-afford any potential risk to the 50% of British exports that go into the EU. “Considering the current struggles that the UK manufacturing industries are facing, as seen most starkly in the steel industry recently, and the significant potential impact of a Brexit vote, it is crucial that firms make contingency plans for either outcome of the referendum to avoid further deterioration in their financial health.”
Could foreign policy be Bernie Sanders' undoing? Yes – if you believe the polls In the last Democratic debate before the New Hampshire primary, Hillary Clinton went on the attack against Bernie Sanders. The former secretary of state did so by focusing on the Vermont senator’s perceived weak spot: foreign policy. Given that many voters seem to care a great deal about America’s role in the world, that could yet prove a fatal vulnerability. Sanders, who polls predict will win easily in New Hampshire on Tuesday, appeared to be out of his depth when pressed about how his administration would handle foreign policy issues. Two particular stumbles stood out. First, when asked about the presence of US ground troops in Afghanistan, Sanders replied: “We can’t continue to do it alone.” America isn’t alone in Afghanistan, where the Nato coalition is still present; Sanders’ answer was far more relevant to US troops in Iraq. Second, when asked whether North Korea, Iran or Russia posed the greatest threat to the US, Sanders said Islamic State did. Pressed further, Sanders said North Korea, “because it is such an isolated country run by a handful of dictators, or maybe just one”. Clinton’s vote for the Iraq war – when she was a senator from New York – could also leave her vulnerable but the former secretary of state was quick to shift the focus back to Sanders’ inexperience, saying: “When New Hampshire voters go on Tuesday to cast your vote, you are voting both for a president and a commander in chief.” But does foreign policy even matter to those who were watching the debate and making up their minds? In short, yes. It might even be fair to describe foreign policy as the defining issue of this election, if public polling from Pew Research Center is to be believed. In December 2011, US adults were asked about the most important issues facing the country on the eve of the 2012 election: 55% mentioned economic concerns and only 6% mentioned foreign affairs. When Pew offered the same options to respondents in December 2015, only 23% chose economic concerns – and 32% said foreign affairs. More specifically, terrorism is a growing issue. In December 2014, just 1% of respondents said terrorism was the most important issue facing the country. A year later, that had risen to 18%. There are, however, clear partisan divides here. Republicans are much more likely than Democrats to say that Iran’s nuclear programme, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and China’s power are the top threats to national security. Democrats are almost as likely to consider global climate change a national threat as Isis. Unless Sanders can build confidence in his ability to handle foreign policy (or convince Democrats that the economic issues which form the centerpiece of his electoral platform are the most pressing facing the country) his efforts to reach the White House may well be in trouble. The latest polls With the New Hampshire primary just three days away, a poll from CNN and WMUR published on Monday morning is particularly interesting. The survey is based on interviews with 837 adults in New Hampshire before the Iowa caucuses and 556 adults after them. Not all the individuals questioned said they planned to vote in either party’s primary, and the margin of error on these numbers is over 5%. In other words, be cautious interpreting these numbers. The poll suggests Sanders has not been harmed by his very narrow defeat in Iowa. The Senator could win 61% of support in New Hampshire; Clinton is backed by just 30% of possible voters. Those numbers are largely consistent with the averages Real Clear Politics creates across dozens of polls, which also suggest that Sanders has a 31% lead. Another poll, from NBC/WSJ/Marist and published on Thursday, tells a slightly different story. The 2,551 adults interviewed 2-3 February gave Sanders a 20% lead on Clinton. Finally, a survey from the Lowell Center for Public Opinion suggests the race is even tighter, with just 15% between the two Democratic candidates. Among Republicans, polls published since the Iowa caucus suggest a slight dip in support for Donald Trump, but not enough to make a dent in his considerable lead in the state. An average of all polls currently suggests Trump is 17% ahead of his closest rival in the state, Marco Rubio. The Florida senator overtook Ted Cruz two days ago – a trend that might yet be reversed.
What will be the role of humans in a world of intelligent robots? Further automation of the retail sector raises issues far beyond the needless luxuries of choice, convenience and speed of delivery (Amazon to test drone deliveries in British skies, 27 July). I wonder if the “demand” for stuff to be delivered by robot to our door within 30 minutes of ordering really exists – is modern satisfaction really that shallow? But in an increasingly automated society, where are the wages to buy these goods going to come from? While Brexit showed that politicians were detached from the anger of the dispossessed of this country, where are they on the automation of yet more of the jobs that so many people depend on? It seems they are keen to race headlong into a very misty future. There are so many unresolved issues: the need for a citizen’s income to allow those disenfranchised from the workplace to live a reasonable quality of life (and the taxation on corporate profits that this would require); the loss of peace and quiet, privacy, safety, security; and beyond all this, what will humans be doing in the future? What will be our role? It is important that we ask ourselves these questions before these increasingly intelligent robots start answering them. Dr Colin Bannon Crapstone, Devon • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
The Pop Group: Honeymoon on Mars review – unfailingly envelope-pushing In the late 1970s the Pop Group found themselves at the avant-garde end of the post-punk continuum, meshing together elements of dub, free jazz and radical politics. Their second post-reunion album occupies similar ground. With production by old collaborator Dennis Bovell and Hank Shocklee of the Bomb Squad (best known for their work on early Public Enemy albums), there’s an appealing push-and-pull throughout between the former’s exploratory journeys into spacey dub and the latter’s denser, more abrasive soundscapes, most notably on album closer Burn Your Flag. Yet, while the results are unfailingly envelope-pushing, coherent songs are few; Zipperface comes closest, but too often tracks go off on tangents just as momentum is building.
Vanessa Redgrave: ‘I’m stunned anyone ever said a word against Howards End’ Twenty-four years ago, Vanessa Redgrave, Anthony Hopkins, Emma Thompson and Helena Bonham Carter strode up the red carpet in Cannes to present Howards End, the latest EM Forster adaptation by director/producer powerhouse James Ivory and Ismail Merchant. The film was ecstatically received and, despite losing out on the Palme d’Or to The Best Intentions, the Bille August drama about Bergman’s parents, it did go on to impress at the box office and win countless awards, including three Oscars. On Friday, Redgrave and Ivory were back on the Croisette (Merchant died in 2005) to present a restored print, reflect on how the film’s message – about the necessity of bridging the English class divide – is less fashionable today and consider why the film’s fortunes fell in favour of a millennial itch for grit. The success of Merchant Ivory’s catalogue in the 1990s presaged a glut of upscale costume dramas, meaning the company name became a barbed byword for a particular type of prestige British film-making. “It was a political attitude that rose up against anything to do with old England,” said Ivory. “Such political things lose their strength after a while and fall away and what you made doesn’t lose its strength, hopefully.” “It was a new kind of snobbery. We were showing examples of snobbery but their attitude was very snobbish.” Such opinions, said Redgrave, were often the result “of people who just like hearing the sound of their own voice and have usually not seen the film. Howards End is really, really deep.” “I’ve found throughout my life that people jump to assumptions without having any knowledge, really. But they like to make an opinion and if it’s flashy or well-chosen or whatever then it becomes a catchphrase and becomes passed around. It’s like catching a cold, it seems to me. I’m stunned that anybody ever should have said a word [against it]. It’s superb film-making. Some people won’t go along with that. But who cares about those people?” In the film, Redgrave plays Mrs Wilcox, the first wife of Hopkins’ banker. She is highly-attached to their country home, Howards End, and leaves it in her will to her friend Margaret Schlegel (Thompson), who, with her siblings, is being evicted from their flat by developers. Wilcox and his children burn the will, but Margaret and her family end up inheriting the property anyway after she and Wilcox marry; the fates of the two families become further entwined when Margaret and sister Helen (Bonham Carter) try to improve the lot of a sensitive bank clerk, Leonard Bast (Samuel West). Redgrave rejects any suggestion the narrative reinforces predestination – “I don’t believe in fate for a second. Why should I?” – but says that since the film was shot she has come increasingly to “share James’s belief in humans and in extraordinary processes of nature. Even when the odds seem entirely against something good happening it happens. That’s without a doubt. Sometimes one can get impatient with superficial reactions of media or a person or whatever. I sometimes get maddened by the but nevertheless. As the film shows, I think perfectly, there’s more to life and human beings than the human beings themselves know.” Forster’s dream that the classes would manage to connect had been realised through social media, says Ivory. “I think he would have liked anything which brought people together, where they would open their hearts and minds to each other. Social media does do that; in a very superficial way sometimes, but it has brought us closer.” Although Ivory said that rewatching the film had alerted him to one shot he would now shoot differently, Redgrave said there was nothing about her performance she would alter with hindsight. “I have done work in films [where] I’ve deeply regretted some of the choices that were made which I had to adapt to and which I made which were clearly not right. You see those moments in your work overall but not in this film.” The critical and commercial success of Howards End should, said Redgrave, stand as an example to financiers wary of backing apparently non-commercial projects. Producers today, she said are forced “to think what the financiers and distributors are wanting, not what ordinary people are wanting. Because the two have got nothing to do with each other.”
UK banks expected to pay out £5bn in bonuses Britain’s biggest banks are preparing to hand out an estimated £5bn in bonuses even as they cut thousands of jobs and endure dramatic falls in their stock market value. With investors taking fright at the prospects for the banking industry, major high street lenders are finalising the bonus pools they will pay out in the coming weeks when they report their results for 2015. Bailed-out Royal Bank of Scotland is expected to hand out bonuses despite being on course for its eight consecutive year of losses. It has not made a profit since 2007 and in 2008 slumped to a record loss for corporate Britain, receiving a £45bn taxpayer bailout. Rival bailed-out bank Lloyds is also expected to hand out bonuses, as are Barclays and HSBC. According to one estimate by Sky News, the total for bonuses could be in the region of £5bn. While down on the levels paid the previous year, the sums could prove surprising, given investors’ concerns about the banking industry. At one point this week, the leading index of UK bank shares dropped to levels not seen since the depths of the post-Lehman Brothers recession in early 2009, amid the global rout on stock markets. Investors are concerned about the prospects for the banking industry in the low-interest environment, particularly with the prospect of negative interest rates, which make it increasingly difficult for them to make profits on their lending. The Robin Hood Tax campaign, which advocates a tax on the financial sector, said: “It’s outrageous that banks are doling out huge sums to their lucky few while still being knee-deep in scandals. The City seems to operate in a parallel universe to the rest of the economy – it is time the government helped bring it back to reality.” Lloyds has pledged to cut its bonus pool after being fined £117m in June for mishandling compensation claims for payment protection insurance, and it could still pay out more than £300m. The bank is also in the process of cutting jobs. Last week, 1,755 staff were told they would lose their jobs, part of a programme to remove 9,000 roles in three years. The biggest bonuses are expected at Barclays and HSBC, both of which have investment banking arms. For 2014, Barclays cut its bonus pool by 22% to £1.9bn and is expected to reduce it again for 2015 under the guidance of its new chief executive, Jes Staley. HSBC is the first bank to report its results on 22 February, when the bank is also expected to publish its annual report, which will shed light on how much HSBC’s boardroom executives received during 2015. A year ago, the bank’s results were overshadowed by the ’s revelations about the tax evasion practices deployed by its Swiss banking arm. The bonus pool at HSBC is expected to amount to about £2.5bn. Earlier this week, the chief executive, Stuart Gulliver, was forced to make a U-turn on pay freezes after protests from staff. None of the banks would comment.
JP Morgan and Bank of America in cluster bomb investors 'Hall of Shame' More than 150 financial institutions including JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America invested $28bn in companies that produce cluster bombs despite an international ban, according to a new report by the Netherlands-based peace organization PAX. The report includes a “Hall of Shame”, a list of 158 banks, pension funds and other financial institutions that have invested in cluster munitions producers since June 2012, according to the 2016 report, titled Worldwide Investments in Cluster Munitions: A Shared Responsibility. The leading financial investors come from 14 countries including the United States, Canada and the UK, and include the investment firms China Everbright Group and T Rowe Price. Cluster bombs are banned under international law by the Convention on Cluster Munitions, a 2008 Oslo treaty which was signed by more than 100 countries. The convention was the result of a years-long campaign against the weapons, which kill indiscriminately. A majority of the institutions on the list are from countries that have not signed the convention, including the United States, China and South Korea. However, the report notes that several financial institutions are from signatory countries, including the United Kingdom, Canada, France and Germany. The report calls for all of the financial institutions to sever all financial links with companies involved in cluster munitions productions and develop divestment policies that apply to all aspects of their business, including commercial banking, investment banking and asset management. “It is an absolute outrage that financial institutions are investing billions into companies that produce weapons which are banned under international law,” Suzanne Oosterwijk, the author of the report, said in a statement. “Canada has also banned these weapons. It is time for financial institutions to stop disregarding the international norm with these explosive investments into producers of illegal weapons that maim and kill civilians.” Cluster bombs scatter explosive ‘bomblets’ over a wide area, and are responsible for the deaths and injuries of thousands of civilians. Often the bomblets do not explode on impact and can continue to kill and maim civilians long after the initial bombing campaign. Recently, the weapons have been used in conflicts in Syria and Yemen. In recent years, the campaign and its Hall of Shame has been successful in persuading some countries to suspend their involvement in cluster munitions producers. Furthermore, a number of states have adopted legislation prohibiting investment in cluster munitions, including Belgium, Ireland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Samoa, Spain and Switzerland. The report says that 28 additional states have interpreted the convention to mean that investments in such companies are prohibited. “Growing leadership by countries taking action against investments in cluster munitions is a great step forward,” said Megan Burke, director of the international Cluster Munition Coalition. “Now all governments that have joined the life-saving Convention on Cluster Munitions must follow their lead. Cluster munitions are banned – not a single penny should go to companies making this horrendous weapon.”
NCA investigating six people over £1bn sale of Irish property portfolio The National Crime Agency has confirmed that six people are under criminal investigation over the controversial sale of a £1bn property portfolio in Northern Ireland “owned” by the Irish state’s so-called bad bank. The properties belonging to the National Assets Management Agency (Nama) – the state body in the Irish Republic that bought homes, business premises and flat complexes when their owners became bankrupt after the 2008 global financial crash – were in Northern Ireland. Allegations have been made in the Irish parliament, the Dáil, that the sale of the Nama properties, which were mainly in Belfast, was aided by a series of bribes. The NCA said on Thursday that 40 witnesses have been interviewed, with six people now under investigation. Two men have been arrested, according to the NCA. Lynne Owens, the NCA’s director general, told the BBC on Thursday evening: “If we think a law has been broken, we will provide that information to the prosecutors. “We are investigating laws under bribery legislation, under corruption legislation and under fraud legislation; those are the sort of offences we are currently considering.” Owens said she could not rule out further arrests in connection with the Nama sale, which was also known as Operation Eagle. The Irish parliamentarian Mick Wallace alleged last year that “fixers’ fees” were paid to help the sale of the debt-ridden properties. Wallace originally claimed in the Dáil that £7m was set aside in an Isle of Man bank account for a Northern Irish politician to help smooth the passage of the sale. This prompted the Police Service of Northern Ireland and the NCA to open an inquiry into claims of corruption surrounding Project Eagle.
Mechanic: Resurrection review – Jason Statham undersold as cut-price Bond 2011’s The Mechanic, a carefully calibrated remake of the Charles Bronson hitman thriller, was presented as a notable development in Jason Statham’s transition from hired muscle to self-made leading man. This humdrum spot of repeat business ditches the definite article, and with it much of the precision and gravity. Formerly a meticulous one-off, Statham’s Bishop now looks more like another cut-price Bond, obliged to assemble his own lethal weapons while drifting through exotic Pacific locales in a dreary opening travelogue. Matters pick up with the three hits Bishop undertakes to rescue bikini-clad aid worker Jessica Alba: there’s an ingenious kill involving a rooftop pool, and it’s amusing watching Tommy Lee Jones’s return to Under Siege styling as an eccentric arms dealer. We’re stuck with a nondescript Mr Big, however, and the perfunctory action climaxes with a submarine-base shootout that screams “direct-to-DVD”. The Stath, alas, is following orders throughout: given his revelatory comic turn in last year’s Spy, he may yet return to material that allows him to raise smiles and smash heads, but this shrugging afterthought isn’t it.
'Move to Canada' threats return – but actually emigrating there is difficult Online searches for “move to Canada” have spiked significantly as some Americans grapple with the reality of Donald Trump’s election as president of the United States. But the trend also prompted a flurry of warnings of that immigration to America’s northern neighbour can be an arduous process. As a Trump victory looked increasingly likely on Tuesday night, reports emerged that Canada’s citizenship and immigration website was down, with users around the world receiving an internal message error when they tried to access the site. Soon after Barack Obama phoned Trump to congratulate him on his win on Wednesday, the website appeared to be working sporadically. A spokesperson for Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada said the site “became temporarily inaccessible to users as a result of a significant increase in the volume of traffic”. The website’s outage dovetailed with a rise in online searches on how to move north. Google Trends data showed a spike in searches for “move to Canada” and “immigrate to Canada” as the results rolled in. On Wednesday several American media outlets joined the fray, publishing articles that offered advice on how to move to Canada. It was an echo of a sentiment expressed throughout the campaign by celebrities such as Girls’ Lena Dunham and comedian Keegan-Michael Key – and embraced by an enterprising Texan who launched a matchmaking service linking Americans looking to flee a Trump presidency with Canadians. On Wednesday, Maple Match founder Joe Goldman said that traffic to the website was up 50-fold while the number of users on the app had more than doubled overnight. Some in Canada had also sought to capitalise on the mood. Earlier this year, a radio announcer in Canada set up a website inviting Americans to move to Cape Breton, population 100,000, should Trump win. What started as a joke soon snowballed into an unofficial public relations campaign for the island in eastern Canada, with the website racking up more than two million hits and receiving thousands of emails from curious Americans. But the site’s creator Rob Calabrese warned those who are seriously contemplating heading north to prepare for an arduous process. “Even if you have a job, even if you are married to a Canadian … It’s not easy,” he told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation on Wednesday. While Canada has committed to accepting 300,000 immigrants in the coming year, about 120,000 of those spots are expected to be allocated for family reunification and refugees. The rest will likely go to skilled workers, where processing times for applicants can stretch upwards of six years. Those wanting to move to Canada under the express entry program, where processing times average around six months, are at the mercy of a program that privileges those who hold a job offer in Canada, who are between 20 and 45 years old and have higher education. “Immigrating to Canada is a complex, paper-intensive, time-consuming process,” immigration lawyer Lee Cohen told CTV news this week. “This notion that somebody can just decide to move to Canada and live here is misdirected.” Still, some have managed to make it happen. David Drucker moved from Cambridge, Massachusetts to Vancouver after George W Bush was elected for the second time. Speaking to the CBC earlier this year, Drucker noted that the process of immigrating to Canada had become much more difficult since he made the move some 11 years ago. A Trump presidency, said Drucker, most likely wouldn’t send scores of Americans following in his footsteps. “It is one thing to want to go. It is another to pick up and leave,” he said. “You have to put everything on a van and then you have to get the van across the border. Do you have kids in school? Have you got an elderly parent to take care of or a set of parents? Are you going to be able to adjust to a new culture? There’s so many things that have to line up.” For those who do manage to make the move, the interdependence between Canada and the US suggests Canada may be among the countries most affected by a Trump presidency. Analysts warned Wednesday that a Trump presidency could wreak havoc on Canada’s economy as the US accounted for 60% of Canada’s global trade in 2014. The trade relationship is underpinned by Nafta, described repeatedly by Trump as the worst trade deal in history. Trump has vowed to renegotiate the terms and would move to withdraw the US from the deal if Canada and Mexico refuse. Trump’s presidential run is far from the first time that the idea of moving to Canada has gone mainstream – in 2004, hits to the country’s main immigration site increased more than fivefold, from an average of 20,000 a day to 115,000 the day after Bush won the election. In 2012, the threat shifted colours, as news broke that Obama had been elected. After some Republicans declared they would move to Canada, they were swiftly countered by those who contrasted Obama’s policies with Canada’s universal healthcare or legalisation of same-sex marriage. The apparent popularity of the idea has left some bristling at the notion of Canada as a second-rate alternative. On Tuesday evening many took to Twitter to echo a tweet first fired off by Toronto hockey writer Adam Proteau during the 2012 election campaign:
Alan Rickman: Jon Snow criticised for Victor Meldrew joke during tribute Jon Snow, the Channel 4 presenter, has been criticised for making a joke during an interview with Richard Wilson about the late Alan Rickman. During a tribute item in Thursday night’s programme, Snow spoke to the One Foot in the Grave star about his friendship with Rickman, who died earlier that day from cancer at the age of 69. “Did you know he was dying?” Snow asked, to which the actor replied: “I did.” Snow then joked: “So it wasn’t a case of ‘I don’t believe it’ then?” in reference to the actor’s trademark catchphrase from the BBC sitcom. While Wilson met the joke without obvious offence, many viewers criticised the incident as jarring. Wilson and Rickman worked together on stage in 1980 when the former directed the latter in a play called Commitments. “He could take on anything,” Wilson told the on Thursday. “He was an open actor, a non-demonstrative actor. And he was easy peasy to direct. We remained friends ever since. He would come and see everything I did, and I would always see everything he did, and we would talk at length about it.” Rickman’s death has led to tributes across the entertainment industry and from Harry Potter fans who have been laying flowers and cards at Platform 9 3/4 in King’s Cross station in London.
Aipac decries Donald Trump's criticism of Obama at pro-Israel group's event An influential pro-Israel lobby group has denounced Donald Trump for his blunt criticism of Barack Obama at its conference in Washington on Monday. The Republican frontrunner was cheered by some delegates at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s (Aipac) event when he said: “With President Obama in his final year – yay!” and added: “He may be the worst thing that ever happened to Israel.” But on Tuesday morning the Aipac president, Lillian Pinkus, broke from the planned agenda to distance the organisation from Trump’s remarks. Other Aipac leaders stood with her on stage. “Last evening, something occurred which has the potential to drive us apart, to divide us,” Pinkus said. “We say unequivocally that we do not countenance ad hominem attacks and we take great offence against those that are levied against the president of the United States of America from our stage.” She added: “While we may have policy differences, we deeply respect the office of the United States and our president, Barack Obama. There are people in our Aipac family who were deeply hurt last night and for that we are deeply sorry.” Israel’s prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, who addressed the conference on Tuesday, has had a strained relationship with Obama. But noting the enthusiasm with which Trump’s comments were received by some in the 18,000-strong crowd, Pinkus said: “We are disappointed that so many people applauded a sentiment that we neither agree with or condone.” She said Trump’s outburst undermined the group’s efforts to broaden the base of the pro-Israel movement. “Let us take this moment to pledge to each other that in this divisive and tension-filled political season … those who wish to divide our movement from the left or from the right will not succeed in doing so.” The audience responded with a standing ovation. Trump, with Republican rivals Ted Cruz and John Kasich and Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton, addressed the Aipac gathering on Monday and did not hold back in excoriating both Obama and Clinton, claiming both “have treated Israel very, very badly”. It was a highly unusual occasion which saw Trump reading from a lectern rather than speaking off the cuff. But he could not resist veering off script to describe Clinton, formerly Obama’s secretary of state, as a “total disaster”. Clinton went on the offensive against Trump, questioning past statements that he would be “neutral” in Middle East peace negotiations, though she did not mention him by name. As in so many arenas, Trump was a divisive presence. His promises to round up immigrants and build a wall on the Mexican border caused unease among many who attended, but his criticism of Obama’s Iran nuclear deal was well received. On Tuesday, Netanyahu told the conference he hoped the US would continue to reject any move towards a United Nations security council resolution backing Palestinian statehood. “A security council resolution to pressure Israel would further harden Palestinian positions and thereby could actually kill the chances of peace for many, many years,” he said via satellite from Israel. Netanyahu also said he was ready to begin talks “immediately, without preconditions” for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But he insisted that the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, did not back the idea.
2 Dope Queens: the podcast pair who reign supreme It is less than a year since 2 Dope Queens (iTunes, WNYC) shot a comedy glitter cannon all over the podcast sphere, but it has firmly established itself as a guaranteed laugh-out-loud listen. The Dope Queens in question are Phoebe Robinson (Broad City) and Jessica Williams (The Daily Show), who cover all the important issues in life. How to Channel Your Inner White Lady, Make Man Buns Great Again and Dad Bods: it’s all here. New tangents are defined on Dude For a Day, in which they brand Beyoncé’s If I Was a Boy “so basic” and riff on how, if they woke up male, they would send a “’Sup” to 10 girls in their phone in the hope of taking one of them back to their American Psycho-style apartment for six-minute sex. As Robinson and Williams squeal with laughter, you realise they are the kind of women you would want to drink a cocktail with, whether they’re talking about the human papilloma virus (HPV) or the overimpressed white woman who “literally like Weekend at Bernie’s herself into the seat” watching The Color Purple. They trade the kind of one-liners that only best friends can, as well as showcasing new standup comics live from Brooklyn. Obsessions with Bono, the Kardashians and Billy Joel weave through the series. Joel and his soft hands earned their place after the duo faced the dilemma of whether or not to be offended when they were asked to move to the front row “because Billy likes to look at pretty women”. (Wisely, they didn’t take a stand and enjoyed the gig.) These two are so funny they can abbreviate just about anything without it being annoying. “Googs,” “The Dalai Lams” and “Post-coi-coi” are all part of their language. One of their finest episodes features them answering listeners’ questions. A woman who wants to “get her ebony and ivory” on with a colleague receives heart-warming wisdom. “You might be the first lady outside of the white realms that he’s tried to put the move on,” says Robinson. “Realise that you probably look regal AF,” advises Williams. They’re promising a third season soon, so long may the Queens (and their argument over whether Lenny Kravitz is hot or not) reign. If you like this, try this … Call Your Girlfriend.
Adblocking is a 'modern-day protection racket', says culture secretary Adblocking companies acting as a “modern-day protection racket” have been slammed by culture secretary John Whittingdale, who offered government support to those such as newspaper websites hit by the technology. In a speech at the Oxford Media Convention, the culture secretary said the fast-growing use of software that blocked advertising presented an existential threat to the newspaper and music industries. He vowed to set up a round table involving major publishers, social media groups and adblocking companies in the coming weeks to do something about the problem. “Quite simply – if people don’t pay in some way for content, then that content will eventually no longer exist,” he said. “And that’s as true for the latest piece of journalism as it is for the new album from Muse.” “Ten years ago, the music and film industries faced a threat to their very existence from online copyright infringement by illegal file-sharing or pirate sites,” he added. He said that in the current climate, adblocking potentially posed a “similar threat”. Stopping short of announcing an outright ban on adblocking, he said he “shared the concern” of the newspaper industry about the impact of the technology and would “consider what role there is for government” after hearing all sides of the argument. “My natural political instinct is that self-regulation and co-operation is the key to resolving these challenges, and I know the digital sector prides itself on doing just that. But government stands ready to help in any way we can.” Whittingdale was particularly damning about adblockers offering incentives for companies, or so-called “whitelisting” in which companies were “offering to whitelist providers in return for payment”. Whittingdale’s speech, which comes in the wake of the announcement that the print edition of the Independent is to be closed, is likely to be welcomed by newspaper groups and other content providers. In a speech which otherwise dealt with three recent reports on the BBC, Whittingdale said adblocking was far more of a competitive threat to online news providers than the BBC. “The BBC does have an impact on online news provision but my concern is that while the BBC may make it harder, it doesn’t pose a threat to the survival which I think adblockers could do,” he said. “The newspaper industry brought this to my attention and did not understate the severe consequences if this trend continues.” His speech highlighted industry estimates that suggested that – within one week of going on sale – the top three mobile adblockers in the App Store were downloaded nearly 175,000 times. And in the 12 months to June last year, there was a 48% rise in the use of in adblocking use in the US and 82% growth in the UK.
Post-Brexit racism does not exist in a vacuum Let’s first acknowledge that, for the vast majority, a leave vote in no way validated the attitudes and actions of the people that callers to my radio show have been telling me about – tearfully and still incredulous – all week. But it is even more important to acknowledge that the people who told the elderly German-born widow of a Chester GP or the 42-year-old Ilford-born shop assistant that they would soon be “going home” would not and could not have uncorked their bottles of bile without the perceived validation of last week’s vote. While any suggestion, however cautious, that 52% of voters harbour such prejudices is palpably absurd, it seems fair to suggest that many of those who are bigoted are labouring under the toxic illusion that 52% of the population are somehow on their side. And who can blame them? As a phone-in host you have a daily opportunity to canvass not just what people think on a given issue but why. It is not a scientific selection – 99% of listeners would never dream of ringing in and the ones who do are obviously skewed towards the highly opinionated – but it is clear to me that many, many people believe that “uncontrolled” immigration is wreaking havoc not because of what they see outside their windows and front doors but because of what they see on their TVs, hear on their radios and read on their newspaper front pages. There are myriad reasons to fear the unknown, to believe that negative social change must be the fault of the most recently arrived. It is not racist or even odd to feel unsettled by women walking in the streets of your home town with their faces covered or shops with frontages in incomprehensible languages. But when you dig a little deeper, when you ask the caller concerned if they actually know of a single child without a school place, or precisely how the sausage and vodka in a Polski Sklep “dilutes” British culture any more than the local tandoori, something very strange happens. Not only do folk mostly fail to provide substantive answers or evidence – a personal recent favourite would be a jolly chap from Bishop’s Stortford who ended up claiming that he couldn’t get to the till at his local shop because of all the immigrants – but they also end up convinced that by unpicking their position, by encouraging them to be less angry and fearful, you are somehow labelling them racist. This is the problem decent politicians now face, and it is created by journalists and editors who know it is easier – and considerably more lucrative – to sell tickets for the ghost train than the speak-your-weight machine. Journalists and editors, moreover, who live in gated communities and Kensington mewses but talk about “liberal elites” being out of touch with working-class lives. Point out that concerns about immigration are routinely much higher in areas where there is hardly any, and you merely confirm your deafness to the “valid concerns” of the population. Looking at the referendum campaigns and factoring in the deliberate and cynical demonisation of “experts”, you suddenly see what the wonks mean by “post-factual” politics. Politicians on both sides of the Atlantic who encourage “othering” are big box office, and if they can talk not just unchallenged but actually endorsed by journalists in a way that suggests all Muslims (or Mexicans) are rapists, and immigrants are sucking the NHS dry while stealing our jobs and living on benefits, why shouldn’t ordinary punters employ similar rhetoric on public transport or in shops or with their neighbours? All that’s changed, post-Brexit, is the target. We’re witnessing a move from “immigrants” as a faceless horde to “immigrants” as identifiable individuals: whether it’s an American college lecturer on a Manchester tram being told to “go back to Africa”, a German-born pensioner being told to go back to Germany or an Essex retail worker being told to “go back” to a country she’s never visited, a swath of the country clearly believes the “leave” they voted for referred to what they want “foreigners” to do. The challenge now is to address those pouring this poison on their neighbours while remembering that it was brewed and delivered quite deliberately by politicians and journalists. And for all the editorials calling for calm and harmony there is little evidence, and still less hope, that the breweries will be closing any time soon.
Christian Eriksen strikes late as Tottenham stun Manchester City Yaya Touré will not wish to see a replay of the error that led to Christian Eriksen’s late goal that sent Tottenham Hotspur home jubilant and put a further dent in Manchester City’s championship hopes. The Ivorian ran into traffic and trouble near halfway and from there City unravelled. Erik Lamela had just come on as a substitute but a cool head allowed the Argentinian to carry the ball forward before passing to Eriksen, whose finish beyond Joe Hart may prove priceless when the Premier League trophy is handed out in May. City had fought back impressively during a second half in which they appeared the more likely to claim the points, especially after Kelechi Iheanacho’s equaliser. Yet by the end, after Nicolás Otamendi had failed to beat Hugo Lloris to a header that might have grabbed the draw, Tottenham had moved to within two points of the leaders, Leicester City. With only 12 games remaining Manuel Pellegrini’s side suffered a second consecutive loss but look at the same six-point gap to the top with which they began the day. The normally cool-headed Pellegrini stopped to “congratulate” Mike Dean, the fourth official, before walking off at full-time. Pellegrini was particularly unhappy at the 53rd-minute penalty awarded by Mark Clattenburg after the referee decided Raheem Sterling had handled Danny Rose’s cross. Yet the truth is this result means City’s best showing against their three title rivals remains a goalless draw at Leicester in late December and they have still not beaten a side in the top six. This is not the kind of form to offer convincing evidence Pellegrini could yet guide City to a second title in three years. Since Pep Guardiola was announced as his summer successor they have lost twice and won only once. The start was the opposite of the free-for-all that had been the Arsenal-Leicester game earlier in the day. It featured the kind of cautious exchanges that often occur in a title race’s defining phase. City, however, posed the greater threat. David Silva was in chief-conductor mode, Sterling was finding space and Sergio Agüero was given two chances to open the scoring. Each of these came from City corners. A Silva-Fernandinho-Silva-Sterling-Silva move along the Spurs right ended with the Spaniard’s shot being deflected out. Silva took the kick from the left but Agüero’s header was looping and weak, and simple for Lloris to collect. The second chance again saw Silva swing his cross in from the left, but Agüero’s attempt with his left foot was high. Pellegrini positioned Touré as the No10 behind Agüero and in flashes the Ivorian posed the visitors problems – either by running with the ball or without it, as a late arrival into the area. The way to trouble this Pellegrini team is to hound and cut off their thinking time. This is how Leicester departed with a 3-1 win just over a week ago, but during the first half Spurs failed to do the necessary. Any questions they asked were more prosaic. Eriksen, the No10 in Mauricio Pochettino’s 4-2-3-1, drifted across the turf and let fly a 25-yard shot that forced the under-worked Hart to save. Later, Rose hit a volley that was on course to trouble Hart before Pablo Zabaleta’s head intervened. Vincent Kompany had been confirmed in the City starting XI for the first time since 8 November and given their defensive maladies the hope was he could immediately reach match-day speed. As the interval arrived the home rear-defence had indeed been more composed, though Kompany’s rustiness caused two errors. There was an awry header that conceded possession and a clearance that allowed Tottenham to rove straight back at City. But like the rest of the opening half, this came to nothing. Only eight minutes of the second half were needed to change the picture as the referee awarded a penalty after Sterling was ruled to have committed the handling misdemeanour from Rose’s attempted ball into the area. It was actually more of an elbow after the No7 turned his back. Kane made no mistake, smacking the spot kick past Hart. The atmosphere had become raucous and City nearly enjoyed an instant response when Touré addressed a 25-yard free-kick after Kevin Wimmer’s foul, for which the central defender was booked. Touré stuttered his run-up and was unlucky to see his fine attempt crash back off the bar. After 74 minutes Pellegrini made his first move, taking off Fernando for Iheanacho. Having to look to a 19-year-old for help to turn round such a crucial match is illustrative of the injuries that blight a City squad whose most important miss is Kevin De Bruyne, a long-term absentee. Iheanacho did not make the best start when a regulation touch was clumsy and the ball ran away for a goal kick. The next time he was found the youngster made serious amends. Gaël Clichy fashioned a slick one-two with Silva and when the City left-back pinged the ball over the substitute produced an instant finish that left Lloris no chance. City had grabbed the momentum and were flying at Tottenham. Touré galloped forward and aimed a shot a Lloris that warmed the Frenchman’s fingers but at the final whistle all the positive energy and feelings belonged to the visitors. Man of the match Christian Eriksen (Tottenham Hotspur)
A Street Cat Named Bob review – feline groovy A stray cat moves in with a homeless junkie; eats his food; watches dispassionately as he squirms and sweats his way through cold turkey. Admittedly, the story doesn’t have quite the dramatic peaks and troughs of, say, Lassie saving a trapped child or Old Yeller chasing off a bear intent on snacking on a little boy. But then we have different expectations of cats and of dogs. Dogs are plucky, loyal, lifelong companions. With cats, it’s sometimes just enough to make it through the night without getting our faces clawed off. That said, Bob, who appears as himself in this film (alongside six other ginger feline lookalikes), is a particularly gorgeous specimen. And Bob’s weapons-grade cuteness is almost enough to power this slight but warm-hearted film by Roger Spottiswoode (a veteran of the animal/human buddy movie genre, he also directed Turner & Hooch). Bob’s human companion, busker James Bowen, is played by Luke Treadaway, who conveys convincingly the jittery emotional chaos of a former addict.
Trump's victories aren't mysterious if you understand why people are angry Donald Trump’s victory in the Nevada Republican caucus wasn’t even a close one; he reportedly led in practically every demographic (and listed them in his victory speech). Evangelicals, young, old, Hispanics, the highly educated and “the poorly educated” they all loved him on Tuesday night. Hispanics? Yes, even Hispanics, even after that line about “drugs and rapists”. And though establishment toffs like to issue signifying snorts about Trump voters being predominantly “poorly educated”, in the minutes after the caucus even CNN started to come around to the most elusive explanation: Trump’s popularity isn’t about his supporters’ education, their religion or the policies they’d like to see enacted. Trump is popular because of his supporters’ anger. Anger isn’t something that Beltway pundits recognize, let alone understand because everyone employed in media or in politics in and around Washington DC is pretty well off. Even ink-stained wretches pull down five-figures – and, unlike everywhere else in America, since journalism is built on documenting nonsense, there’s some real job security in documenting Washington. Television people fare even better, because TV money is stupid money. Thinktank malefactors reap great sums from the aggrieved heartland or from industries looking to build a canon of falsified data, and Congress and the attendant lobbying is a helluva racket. Anger is pretty easy to miss when it’s something pretty difficult to feel. When you sit at the center of the world and are unlikely to ever lack for the basic materials of self-sufficiency, the idea of blind, gnawing resentment – let alone of feeding that resentment even with irrational aims – is ineluctably beyond your ken. It’s harder still to understand that there are millions of people in America whose ambitions for a life of steadily improving conditions cratered sometime around nine years ago and have never recovered. If you can hardly imagine that you could follow the Horatio Alger script to the letter and still find yourself sinking in quicksand, you’re never going to understand why someone would be so contemptuous of the pieties of a system that only pays attention to you when doing soft-focus interviews in search of a journalism award or a campaign ad. And anger isn’t something so easily ratiocinated. When your job is explaining world events, irrational phenomena lie fundamentally outside your brief. Explaining things with, “Well, people are angry!” is like surrender; it’s explaining badly resolved story lines in a TV show with, “A wizard did it.” Journalists learn to see the world in terms of the push/pull of conflicting ideologies and the necessary stratagems within a needlessly complicated governmental system; they’re necessarily going seek their explanations for seeming irrationality in the more elegant realms of philosophy and economics and political science. Doing so fails them all the time. Look at the Tea Party, which the Beltway (at various points) tried desperately to explain as populist resentment of Business As Usual, or a new libertarian moment. Only recently has the media madding crowd come around to some kind of consensus about it just being racist as hell. That wasn’t a difficult conclusion to reach, and it didn’t need to take seven years; all they had to do was look at their damn signage – all those placards of Obama as “Curious George” the monkey and signs like “OBAMA’S PLAN = WHITE SLAVERY” were kind of unambiguous. Which brings us back to Trump’s victory speech in Nevada, which was his usual gallimaufry of disconnected thoughts. They aren’t traditional political speeches as much as they are The Donald emceeing his own Dean Martin roast for everyone and everything he hates, with interruptions for what he loves. He burns his enemies to a crisp, tells America it’s wonderful and drops in random praise. “Florida, we love Florida.” Hey, Florida, baby, you’re beautiful. You’re wonderful. I tell ya, I love ya. You’re aces. Here’s $100 for the tables. I know you’re going to be lucky tonight because I can feel it. There’s a great temptation to fume at the emptiness and banality of Trump’s statements and at the absence of traditional policy plans; it’s almost irresistible to seek some grander explanation for his success than that people like him. But you don’t need some grand overarching political science theory. There are millions of miserable people in America who know exactly who engineered the shattering of their worlds, and Trump isn’t one of those people – and, with the exception of Bernie Sanders, everyone else in the field is running on the basis of their experience being one of those people. When you are abused and bullied enough, anyone willing to beat up or burn down whomever put you in that position is your friend. Even a bully can be a hero if he targets others bullies – and that is, more or less, what Trump has done since day one. Trump’s nativism is horrifying and nauseating, as is his delight in talking about beating up protesters and intimidating anyone who hassles him. People are right to fear the way he has turned movement conservatism’s loathing of protest, the media and non-white foreigners up to 11 and ripped the knob off. But that disgusting behavior gets paired with the sight of Trump humiliating establishment empty suits like Scott Walker, stuffed shirts like Jeb Bush, party pets like Marco Rubio and habitual liars like Ted Cruz. The fact that Trump himself is frequently lying doesn’t matter to those that see themselves as the establishment’s victims if he’s lying in service of exposing another government predator. As tacky and thuggish as it might be, Trump plays the hero to people that the wise warriors of the system have abandoned. He’s the ultimate Gary Stu character: a billionaire beholden to no one and able to abuse every disingenuous and pettifogging remora latched headfirst on the nation and sucking upward. And as long as people can enjoy the elbow-throwing wish-fulfillment of watching him in action, most of the rest doesn’t matter to them – not the bombast, not the war-mongering, not the unfeasibility of even his signature promises and certainly not the consequences if he keeps them. If the system is already so broken that it abandoned you, its preservation is not your concern. Hell, burning it down might be what you want most. Anger has a clarity all its own. It renders most detail extraneous, and it animates like nothing else. It is not to be underestimated, and, at this point, we will probably have to wait until November to find out if it truly has been.
Grimsby sickens but fails to gross as Deadpool continues heroics at the UK box office The disappointment: Grimsby With its traditionally scripted set-up, extreme gross-out humour and lampooning of beery lad culture that hardly qualifies as innovative, Grimsby was never likely to endear itself to critics as much as past Sacha Baron Cohen triumphs such as Borat. But he has always been pretty reliable at the UK box office, with even the so-so offering The Dictator taking £11.4m. Grimsby contains at least one rather remarkable talking-point scene, unfolding inside an elephant’s vagina, which you would imagine would help the film achieve audience traction. Grimsby’s debut of £1.93m, including Wednesday/Thursday previews of £441,000, will be viewed as disappointing. The Dictator began with £4.96m including previews of £1.54m in 2012. Other Baron Cohen films are less aptly compared, since they benefited from established characters, but Bruno opened in July 2009 with exactly £5m, without benefit of a previews boost, while Borat, the comedian’s biggest UK hit with a £24.15m total, began in November 2006 with £6.24m including £910,000 in previews. The winner: Deadpool Despite falling 48% in its third frame, Deadpool had no trouble resisting the challenge of Grimsby, retaining the chart crown with takings of £2.99m. Its total after 19 days is a healthy £31.15m. That’s higher than all the X-Men and Wolverine films (the franchise’s best performer, Days of Future Past, took £27.3m). It’s better than Sam Raimi’s first two Spider-Man films (£29m and £26.7m lifetime), and is closing in on Spider-Man 3’s £33.6m. Deadpool’s number is well ahead of the first two Iron Man films (£17.4m and £21.2m respectively), and distributor Fox will be hoping it can eventually catch Iron Man 3 (£37m). These comparisons are not adjusted for ticket price inflation. Ryan Reynolds’ previous attempt at a comic book superhero franchise, Green Lantern, self-destructed with a poor £6.19m here. Deadpool has already achieved five times that film’s UK box-office. Star Wars exits Falling out of the UK top 10 in its 11th week of play, Star Wars: The Force Awakens has now reached an astonishing £122.6m. In 2012, Skyfall become the first film to crack £100m at UK cinemas (with £103.2m), and, after Spectre fell short with £94.7m, it remained the only one to achieve this feat until the arrival of the latest Star Wars. The Force Awakens is now running 19% ahead of Skyfall, and Disney could conceivably squeeze a bit more life out of the film in the Easter holidays. The earliest possible DVD release date, respecting the 16.5-week theatrical window required by the multiplex chains in the UK, is 11 April. The foreign language hit: Rams Excluding Bollywood titles, no foreign-language film managed £1m at the UK box office in 2015, and only three cracked £300,000: Wild Tales, Force Majeure and Timbuktu. This led to a lot of despondency in the indie distribution and exhibition sectors, a discouragement for future risk-taking. So the current success of Rams – an Icelandic film about two mutually antipathetic sheep-farmer brothers from a director with no name recognition here – is all the more heartening. Rams was released here three weeks ago with a debut of £26,900 from 20 cinemas – hardly a number that suggested Grímur Hákonarson’s film would go on to become a breakout art house hit. In fact, Rams benefited from only limited showtimes at most of its venues (a programming strategy that might be seen as either timid or realistic depending on your point of view) and so the opening site average of £1,343 was not bad. The film’s distributor, Soda, was able to expand Rams for its second weekend, and again for its third, and held on to 24 cinemas for the fourth frame. Box office is now at £180,000, which is a healthy 6.7 times the opening number. Only eight non-Bollywood foreign-language films grossed more than that last year, and that’s including Gemma Bovery, which was partly in English. Rams will have no problem cracking £200,000 here, and it remains to be seen how far Soda can extend the run, building on warm audience buzz for the title. So far, it’s played in 60 UK and Ireland cinemas, and a further 71 have booked it for the future. The flop: Secret in Their Eyes When Universal bought select territory rights including the UK on Secret in Their Eyes, the studio must have had high hopes. The remake of the highly regarded Argentinian 2010 foreign-language Oscar winner rounded up a cast including Chiwetel Ejiofor, Nicole Kidman and Julia Roberts, and its script was in the hands of Billy Ray, whose screenplay credits include The Hunger Games and Captain Phillips. Universal may have lost heart after Secret in Their Eyes ended up grossing just $20.2m (£14.5m) in the US, despite an initial broad rollout into more than 2,300 cinemas. The film was released here last Friday on 110 screens with limited marketing support, and the result was pretty much a foregone conclusion: a soft UK opening of £117,000, yielding an average of £1,064. In fact, everyone will probably be vaguely relieved to see the site average hit four figures. Expect a rapid burnout as showtimes quickly get downgraded. Meanwhile, spare a thought for The Benefactor, starring Richard Gere, Dakota Fanning and Theo James, essentially a video-on-demand title. Hardy souls able to track it down in cinemas delivered box office at the weekend of £25 from two venues, according to official data gatherer comScore (formerly Rentrak). The future The disappointing performance of Grimsby and the paucity of other appealing releases helped the market to record a decline of 41% from the previous session. Takings are also 22% down on the equivalent frame from 2015, when The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and Focus were the top new releases. Multiplex bookers will now be pinning a lot of hopes on the arrival this week of London Has Fallen, the suitably mayhem-packed sequel to Olympus Has Fallen, starring Gerard Butler, Aaron Eckhart and Morgan Freeman. The Coen brothers’ star-packed Hail, Caesar! provides nice counter-programming, as does The Choice, the latest in the conveyor belt of films based on Nicholas Sparks novels. Cate Blanchett and Robert Redford star in Truth – although the space for a true tale about US journalism is rather healthily occupied currently by Spotlight, which won the best picture Oscar on Sunday. Top 10 films February 26-28 1. Deadpool, £2,987,877 from 568 sites. Total: £31,154,454 2. Grimsby, £1,928,789 from 522 sites (new) 3. Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip, £1,221,818 from 567 sites. Total: £14,666,345 4. How to Be Single, £954,311 from 445 sites. Total: £3,666,958 5. Goosebumps, £499,446 from 526 sites. Total: £8,152,609 6. The Forest, £448,258 from 344 sites (new) 7. The Revenant, £433,363 from 421 sites. Total: £21,759,689 8. Dad’s Army, £363,608 from 415 sites. Total: £7,713,149 9. Zoolander 2, £310,204 from 415 sites. Total: £4,535,472 10. Triple 9, £292,606 from 432 sites. Total: £1,471,050 Other openers Secret in Their Eyes, £117,094 from 110 sites Action Hero Biju, £17,464 from 32 sites Tere Bin Laden: Dead or Alive, £7,137 from nine sites Kanithan, £6,329 from five sites The Propaganda Game, £4,132 from four sites King Jack, £2,479 from five sites Remember, £2,216 from two sites The Truth Commissioner, £1,776 from two sites Sant Te Sipahi, £925 from five sites The Hexecutioners, £199 from one site Exposed, £88 from five sites The Benefactor, £25 from two sites Thanks to comScore and Rentrak UK All figures relate to takings in UK and Ireland cinemas.
Clinton and Obama lead calls for unity as US braces for Trump presidency Americans woke to a divided country and fearful world on Wednesday as Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton led calls to respect the shock election of Donald Trump but warned of a fight to protect constitutional values. As final votes were tallied against all predictions, the president-elect was on track to record the largest electoral college lead of any Republican in nearly 30 years yet receive 1% fewer ballots than Clinton in the popular vote, behind the losing candidate for only the second time in over a century. Underlining the immense power he is now afforded nonetheless, Trump will begin receiving the same daily intelligence briefing as the president and was immediately offered the support of both a Republican-controlled House of Representatives and Senate. Early on Wednesday, Trump delivered a victory speech in a Manhattan hotel in which he insisted he would “deal fairly with everyone”. “Now it is time for Americans to bind the wounds of division,” he added. “It is time for us to become together as one united people … I pledge to every citizen of our land that I will be president for all Americans.” Later a sombre Obama spoke from the White House, where he will meet his successor on Thursday, and called on Trump to maintain the new-found inclusiveness of his victory speech. “That’s what the country needs – a sense of unity; a sense of inclusion; a respect for our institutions, our way of life, rule of law; and a respect for each other,” said Obama. “I hope that he maintains that spirit throughout this transition, and I certainly hope that’s how his presidency has a chance to begin.” Clinton also called for a “peaceful transition of power”, urging: “We don’t just respect that. We cherish it. It also enshrines the rule of law; the principle we are all equal in rights and dignity; freedom of worship and expression. We respect and cherish these values, too, and we must defend them. “We have seen that our nation is more deeply divided than we thought but I sill believe in America and if you do then we must accept this result,” she added in an emotional concession speech. “We owe him an open mind and the chance to lead.” Many Americans were in shock: unsure what to say to their children, greeting office colleagues in tears or stunned silence, or planning to head to a bar. A leading employment website reported a tenfold surge in US searches for jobs in Canada. For many others, the result was a vindication. “He’s being given a mandate,” said Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway. “And that mandate is going to be somewhat different than what we’ve had, it’s a repudiation of some of the things we’ve had.” Stock markets recovered from initial losses, though the Wall Street Journal reported that shares in defence contractors were a bright spot. World leaders also pledged to try to work with Trump. Britain’s Theresa May congratulated him and said: “We are, and will remain, strong and close partners on trade, security and defence.” Angela Merkel also pointed out that Germany and the US were still connected by values of “democracy, freedom and respect for the law and the dignity of man independent of origin, skin colour, religion, gender, sexual orientation or political views” but tempered her offer to work with the next president only “on the basis of these values”. Vladimir Putin, who US intelligence agencies had accused of trying to manipulate the election in Trump’s favour, said Russia was now keen and “ready to restore fully fledged relations with the United States”. Despite previous misgivings, US House speaker Paul Ryan also offered Trump a “unified Republican government” that would “work hand-in-hand” to help him deliver promises such as repealing Obama’s healthcare reforms. “This is the most incredible political feat I have seen in my lifetime,” acknowledged Ryan, who credited the Trump effect with saving many vulnerable congressmen by their “coat-tails”. “Many American citizens have lost faith and feel alienated by our core institutions,” he said. “But Donald Trump heard a voice out in the country that no one else heard. “There is no doubt that our democracy can be very messy and we do remain a sharply divided country but now we have to work to heal the divisions of the campaign,” added Ryan. “This needs to be a time of redemption, not a time of recrimination.” For Democrats however, a collapse of some 6 million in their national vote since 2012 and a decisive swing toward Trump in Rust Belt states stirred an immediate debate about the party’s future direction. Our Revolution, a campaign group set up Bernie Sanders after his defeat by Clinton in the Democratic primary, said the election demonstrated “what most Americans knew since the beginning of the primaries: the political elite of both parties, the economists, and the media are completely out of touch with the American electorate”. “Those of us who want a more equitable and inclusive America need to chart a new course that represents the needs of middle income and working families,” it added in a statement. Despite a small shift toward Trump in the finely balanced swing state of Florida, analysis of his victory showed it relied almost entirely on converting white working-class voters in five Rust Belt states previously won by Obama: Iowa, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Ohio. Clinton focused her concession speech on the need for social rather than economy unity in the face of Trump’s unprecedented attacks on women, Muslims and immigrants. “This loss hurts, but please never stop believing that fighting for what’s right is worth it,” she said. “I believe we are stronger together and we will go forward together. And you should never, ever regret fighting for that.” Dressed in black rather than the white suit she wore through final stages of the campaign, her voice cracked as she turned to the missed opportunity to become the first female president of the United States. “To all the women, and especially the young women, who put their faith in this campaign and in me,” she said. “I know we have still not shattered that highest and hardest glass ceiling, but someday someone will.” Her running mate Tim Kaine said the nation had made it “uniquely difficult” for a woman to be elected to federal office and quoted William Faulkner: “They killed us, but they ain’t whooped us yet.”
David Davis went to seminar that drew up hard Brexit blueprint David Davis, the secretary of state for exiting the European Union, attended a seminar at Oxford University last month that drew up a blueprint for hard Brexit, the term describing Britain’s total departure from the bloc. The seminar at All Souls college on 9 September was also attended by leading pro-Brexit MPs, legal and trade experts who broadly support a hard Brexit from the EU, and senior civil servants. The group proposed the ”great repeal bill” set out on Sunday by Theresa May, the prime minister, as well as an early triggering of article 50, the clause that starts the two-year timetable for the Brexit negotiations. May has announced that it will be triggered by the end of next March. The discussions at the seminar have been condensed into a pamphlet published jointly by the Centre for Social Justice and Legatum Institute, two thinktanks likely to be at the heart of setting out the Conservative case for a hard Brexit. Davis has insisted he is consulting widely, but his involvement at the seminar underlines the closeness of his contacts with leading Eurosceptic MPs such as John Redwood, Iain Duncan Smith and Peter Lilley. Allies of Davis said he had attended to observe and did not speak at the seminar. They also stressed he did not endorse the conclusions of the Legatum report. Those conclusions bear a remarkable resemblance to the government’s work on Brexit to date, and the attendance of such high-ranking figures as Davis suggests it will continue to remain influential. The summary published last week states the seminar “concluded that the government should now make due haste with sending an article 50 letter and introducing a repeal bill for the 1972 European Communities Act”. It adds: “The country and business wish to reduce the uncertainty.” The seminar “was swayed by a survey of larger businesses and by the business debate into seeing the need for speed, and the opportunities that flow from exit”. The report says the seminar “was persuaded that leaving the EU is primarily a UK parliamentary process, repealing the 1972 act and renewing EU law as UK law to ensure continuity. “There was general agreement that this is best done by means of a short general principles and powers bill, mirroring exactly the short legislation of the 1972 act to impose the EU legal authority in the first place.” The seminar also concluded that legal proceedings due to start soon intended to produce a court ruling that would force a parliamentary vote on the triggering of article 50 would not succeed. The report suggests: “The best course could be to pass a Commons motion in support of a letter and to send it as soon as possible, whatever the state of the legal proceedings.” It also suggests May should explore what kind of future trading relationship the EU commission seeks with the UK, suggesting the issue is largely for the EU to determine. It says the conference “was sympathetic to the view that the trade negotiations can be short and simple. The UK can offer either to carry forward current tariff-free trade with service sector passports, or to fall back on the World Trade Organisation standard-tariff trade. The UK would recommend the former, but could live with the latter. Rather than negotiate, it is just a question of which the rest of the EU will choose.” It concludes “Whilst the EU commission is likely to threaten the imposition of WTO rules, the member states are likely to opt for the status quo of tariff-free trade given business lobbies in their own countries. “The balance of trade and tariff rates under WTO rules is more damaging to the rest of the EU than to the UK, given the UK’s bias to services which are all tariff-free, and given the devaluation of the pound which has already made rest of the EU products less price-competitive without extra tariffs.” The report on the conference gives an optimistic assessment of the balance of forces on trade talks, stating: “It was also confirmed that the UK remains a member of the WTO, and establishing the same or a new tariff schedule with the WTO for trade with the EU would be easy, given we would be taking either our current tariff-free approach or the standard EU rest of the world tariff schedule. “What takes time in international trade is negotiating a new deal between two countries with substantial barriers, which is the opposite of the case of the UK/EU where all tariff barriers have been removed.” All Souls said it was neutral on the issue of Brexit, and was simply hosting the discussion.
I never thought I'd find common ground with evangelicals. Enter Donald Trump Last week, the group Liberty Students Against Trump released a statement rebuking both the Republican presidential nominee and the Liberty University president, Jerry Falwell Jr. In the statement, the group notes: “We are Liberty students who are disappointed with President Falwell’s endorsement and are tired of being associated with one of the worst presidential candidates in American history. Donald Trump does not represent our values and we want nothing to do with him.” As for Falwell, the group argues: “While he occasionally clarifies that supporting Trump is not the official position of Liberty University, he knows it is his title of president of the largest Christian university in the world that gives him political credentials.” Trump is then further criticized for “actively promoting the very things that we as Christians ought to oppose”. I’d like to offer my kudos to these young evangelicals; it’s about time those who claim to be all about morality take a stand against a racist, sexist xenophobe. Falwell claims to be “proud of these few students for speaking their minds”, though there are reports claiming he has already punished his top critic at the university for public disagreement. Like his daddy, Falwell wants to attach himself to powerful politicians. At what point, though, does one realize the stench of someone is too disgusting to ignore? You can’t pretend to be BFFs with Jesus and sing the praises of one of Howard Stern’s most notorious guests. And that’s why I’m most impressed with the Liberty student group, part of a demographic with whom I never anticipated finding common ground: their objections break with a long-established custom in which the religious right claims to have the moral high ground but is really using religion to sell the world a very rigid strain of righteousness. There has traditionally been little room for discernment in rightwing Christian dogma, and Jesus has not so much been a savior as he’s been a weapon used to inflict guilt, fear, and shame – mostly at gay people, women who like autonomy and non-white people in general. I’m not saying everyone has to be pro-choice, pro-marriage equality, and less anal about sex performed outside of marriage to qualify as moral – our worldviews don’t have to totally align. But as far as Trump goes, anyone claiming to be for the right thing cannot be supportive of this orange monster. So to those students blasting Trump: I may not agree with you on most issues, but that gesture is one step in making you all more believable to anyone outside your orbit. “Tying yourself to a man who promotes and laughs about sexual assault and creepy, awful things like that doesn’t exactly do well to advance the mission of making the teachings of Jesus Christ the center of your life,” Dustin Wahl, executive director of Liberty United Against Trump, said in an interview with Time. Wahl is 21 years old and realizes Jesus probably wouldn’t be co-signing for the guy who boasts about grabbing women by their pussies. Meanwhile, Falwell has condemned Trump’s comments yet says he will still vote for him. But his influence in American politics is on the wane. With shifting demographics and a stunted message, white evangelical numbers are declining. If the next generation is to try to salvage what’s left of their influence in American politics, it’s about time they start having a more practical version of morality.
India's ban on Facebook's free service is an overreaction What constitutes digital equality? India’s national telecoms regulator thinks it knows, its national consultation on differential pricing for mobile data packages concluding that “zero rating” services, or offering them for free, is discriminatory. And over objections that zero rating practices create more opportunity for the 1 billion digitally disconnected, India has banned them. This follows months of ferocious lobbying on both sides of the debate, focused around Facebook’s Free Basics offering. In India, as it has done in more than 30 other countries, Facebook has offered a curated, stripped-down internet experience called Free Basics consisting of Facebook itself, BBC News, local news and information, a few NGOs, and dozens of other low-bandwidth services. Critics argued that the Facebook offering is a degraded internet experience specially marketed to the poor –hardly the ticket to digital equality. Telecom Regulatory Authority (TRAI)’s decision is viewed as a victory for open internet advocates who have been trying to get India to adopt US-style net neutrality rules. Dozens of small businesses seeking their own share of the internet audience also filed comments seeking this result. Yet Facebook had argued that Free Basics would democratize the internet, bringing disconnected Indians online for the first time. And behind the policy debate, there is an internet land grab with big companies on both sides of zero rating vying to stake their claims to the disconnected. Roslyn Layton, an academic who contributed to the TRAI consultation and has done research on the economic impact of zero rating, feels the decision is a setback for internet adoption and access in India. “This battle is essentially one between Google and Facebook for the future of India’s digital advertising market,” she said. “Facebook launched Free Basics and Google plans Android One, a low-cost smartphone bundled with Google apps. We should allow both models in the marketplace to compete.” Carriers use zero rating as a loss-leader in the scramble for subscribers, hoping to get users to pay a little now, and more once they’re hooked online. For Facebook, Free Basics drives new users into the Facebook ecosystem. At the same time, the company is able to use the Free Basics platform to lure more third-party content providers onto Facebook’s servers, and so get a share of more ad revenue and user data. Zero rating opponents, including Google, have their own plans to grab market share in the southern hemisphere, focusing on spreading the Android ecosystem and building wireless capability. In late December, TRAI ordered Facebook’s telecom partner, Reliance, to shut down Free Basics until the regulator could take comment on the propriety of zero rating. This order followed the rapid mobilization of net neutrality advocates who succeeded in getting more than a million signatures on a petition demanding an end to Free Basics. The claim is that zero rating is the same thing as net discrimination. India and the US, although not the EU, has banned “paid prioritization” at the network level as discriminatory, meaning that Facebook would be prohibited from paying Reliance for preferred (as in faster or better) network access. Net neutrality advocates say that zero rating has the same effect as the banned network practices: some services get preferential access to consumers. This is true whether the service pays the carrier to be fee-exempt or whether there is no cash consideration, as in the Free Basics deal. There are three related strands to this argument. First, consumers will naturally migrate to the free services, making it difficult for competitors and other new and often local entrants not part of the zero-rated bundle to break through. Second, consumers may become so accustomed to a stripped-down internet – so embedded in a Free Basics ecosystem – that they don’t even go looking beyond the walled garden. And third, in the absence of sufficient carrier competition, carriers have an incentive to suppress bandwidth supply and increase prices for data packages outside of the zero-rated services. None of these arguments has landed with quite the power that net neutrality did, in large part because zero rating is very popular with consumers. It’s difficult to tell people that the government must intervene to prevent them from getting free stuff they value because, in the long run, it will be better for them to pay for it. The consumer appeal of free has steadily blown zero-rated services into dozens of countries over many years, without much debate. The exploding controversy in India raises questions about technological imperialism, innovation and competition, and most profoundly, the nature of online freedom. Zero rating is unlike network discrimination because it affects only price, leaving the ultimate consumption choice with consumers. Nothing is blocked, nothing degraded. So whether zero rating is discriminatory really depends on whether “free” substantially skews choice and constrains net freedom. The data seem to show that price differentials do not substantially change consumption patterns or advantage incumbent applications. Moreover, consumers seem to understand the difference between the whole internet and the limited choices made available for free. Indeed, about half of Free Basics users opt to pay up for a general data plan within a month’s time. If the risks of zero rating have not yet come to pass, the rewards are substantial. Differential pricing policies help non-dominant carriers to differentiate their products and compete more robustly. In the US, the mobile challenger T-Mobile is using zero-rated offerings like Binge On to sign up new customers. As everyone agrees, more carrier competition is ultimately the solution to net discrimination as well. Zero rating can also help to close the digital divide and bring the poor into the digital conversation. Net freedom is illusory, after all, for the 80% of the Indian population that isn’t online. An insistence on uniform pricing, while internet adoption stalls, has a “let them eat cake” tenor. If zero rating comes down to a risk-reward calculation, then regulators should require practices that reduce the risk of anticompetitive effects and increase consumer benefits. One of the reasons TRAI ordered Reliance to suspend Free Basics is that it apparently refused to comply with TRAI’s information requests. That was the right decision. Transparency reduces zero rating risk, and is sorely needed to keep the power of internet platforms like Facebook in check. The public needs to know what, why, and on what terms services are zero-rated. It’s also important that zero-rating deals be non-exclusive as among content providers in a certain class (music streaming, or social media platforms), and as among carriers, which will reduce the gatekeeping power of a company like Facebook or a carrier. Is zero rating the best way to increase connectivity? No. It would be better for the poor to have government-subsidized service, or free data that allows them to “zero rate” whatever service they choose. Fortunately, TRAI’s ruling has left carriers with the option to provide free data if not pegged to specific services. It would be better for there to be no data caps and therefore no value in being fee-exempt in the first place. But these are not options right now. Under conditions of constraint, something may be better than nothing. The burden should be on those who would ban the something now to show that the nothing will benefit consumers later. And not too much later, because digital exclusion exacts a daily price. Ellen P Goodman is a professor at Rutgers Law School and co-director of the Rutgers Institute for Information Policy & Law
Self-help works for us as individuals – but as a society we’re failing How clean is your sleeping? And, no, this has nothing to do with changing the sheets more often. Actor and queen of dubious wellness fads Gwyneth Paltrow is now seeking to do for the previously straightforward and cost-free business of going to sleep what annoying green-juice gurus have done for eating: turn it into yet another manic form of self-improvement. “Clean sleeping”, according to a new book from her lifestyle website Goop, turns out to be remarkably like the boring old sleeping you’ve been doing all your life, only more time-consuming and expensive. First, download and learn some special yoga techniques. Then massage your feet for three minutes every night with special cream. And, finally, why not splash out £50 on a special pillowcase “infused with fine strands of copper oxide”, which supposedly reduces wrinkles through the power of – and I’m paraphrasing a lot here – metal ions and witchcraft? Because sleep, according to Gwynnie, who claims at least seven or eight hours of it a night, is going to be 2017’s “biggest health trend”. Heaven only knows how the increasingly preposterous clean movement is going to top this. Clean breathing, maybe, using special fresh air bottled and sold at £70 a pop? Or are they finally clean out of ideas? Don’t get me wrong; I’m as tempted as anyone, right now, just to shut out the big bad world and contemplate my navel for a while. Why not forget about the scary things nobody can change, and concentrate on those you can, such as losing half a stone and making a New Year resolution to be more patient with the kids? Who knows, perhaps everything else will just magically fall into place if we can all become marginally better, thinner and more organised, if slightly self-obsessed, people. Just plug into your mindfulness app, strip away the horrid toxins polluting your clean life or – if that all sounds too hard – simply curl up with one of the umpteen books churned out this year on how to do hygge, the Danish art of cosiness. But the truth is that most Brits are making a reasonably passable go of life as individuals. It’s as a collective – a people who used to rub along well enough, but seem increasingly incapable of tolerance, empathy or letting go of our cherished individual grievances – that we’re failing. Louise Casey’s review said migrants needed to integrate better into British society. In fact, it’s all of us. Sixteen years ago, sociologist Robert D Putnam published Bowling Alone, which identified a growing threat to democracy from what he called declining “social capital”, or a reduction in humans doing ordinary everyday things together – such as joining a bowling league or volunteering for the parent-teacher association. The idea that doing small things in collaboration with others encourages people to participate more actively in society as a whole – perhaps by turning out to vote or paying taxes to support public services – was fashionable in Labour circles in the past decade and lived on under David Cameron in the guise of the policy he initially hoped would define him, the ultimately doomed big society. Togetherness and social cohesiveness is also an underlying theme of hygge, although you wouldn’t know it from the saccharine British magazine interpretations, generally involving images of a lone woman blissfully drinking hot chocolate in cashmere socks. (As an exasperated Danish friend pointed out, the whole point is that you’re not meant to get hyggelig on your own. It’s about togetherness, friendship and quite often communal singing – not expensively accessorised me-time – as such, it’s hard to disentangle from communitarian Scandinavian attitudes more generally.) But whatever it does or doesn’t do for democracy, evidence suggests that looking outwards rather than inwards – strengthening your ties to others, finding ways to be part of something bigger – does at least make people happier than obsessing on themselves. If there’s a basic human skill we need to improve and practise, it’s not eating or sleeping, but the rusty art of togetherness. Sitting dutifully through the school carol service in the village church last week, I felt myself getting emotional in a way that can’t entirely be explained by the sight of tinsel-haloed small people squawking Away In a Manger. There was something unexpectedly moving about the sound of voices coming together at the end of a harsh, divisive year. Joining a choir has been said to help sufferers of depression and anxiety, and it’s not hard to see why singing together could unlock emotions that doing it alone in the shower does not. There is something powerful about the synchronicity of singing in time with others, the way each voice in a harmony relies on the rest. Choirs are now so popular that there are even versions specifically for hopelessly bad singers, who just want to join in. Outlets for this fuzzy and half-articulated desire for togetherness are everywhere. It’s there in the renewed popularity of live events, from festivals to lecture tours, and in the unstoppable rise of social media. It’s there on dancefloors, but also in the rise of grassroots movements such as Momentum – at least until zealots predictably began trying to divide and conquer – and it is also welling up in More United, the centrist grouping set up after Brexit to crowdfund for candidates standing or openness and tolerance. A third of Britons feel motivated to do something vaguely political as a result of this year’s events, according to a More United poll this week and, while most wouldn’t join conventional parties, they do want to come together in some other way, even if they’re not yet clear how or why. But togetherness was there in leavers voting in the EU referendum, too, finally finding a tribe with which they could identify and a way to feel they mattered. You don’t necessarily have to agree with the reasons people want to be together to accept that they do. There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with resolving to be a better person, or with occasionally longing – as Voltaire’s Candide put it – just to cultivate your own garden for a bit, and stop worrying about other people’s. But don’t kid yourself about what it actually achieves. As an idea, “better together” has been rather tarnished by political association. Still, it’s true all the same.
Republican Super Pacs accelerate efforts and rally behind Donald Trump Two Super Pacs hoping to raise at least $170m to help Donald Trump win the presidency unveiled new efforts this week that reflect early fundraising momentum – even as some big donors remain wary of the billionaire’s credibility after his serial Super Pac bashing and his inflammatory rhetoric that many in centrist Republican circles deem dangerous. The Great America Pac, which recently recruited strategist Ed Rollins as a co-chairman, this week announced it would hold a weekend event to corral donors in June at the ranch of billionaire Texas energy magnate T Boone Pickens. Eric Beach, a veteran fundraiser and co-chair of the Pac, revealed in an interview that the Pac is shooting “to raise and spend $150m through election day”. The Committee for American Sovereignty – the other Super Pac – has set a goal of raising $20m before the Republican convention in late July with a strong focus on roping in California donors with ties to Trump. The accelerated drives by pro Trump Super Pacs come as the prospect of a Hillary Clinton presidency seems to be outweighing the still deep concerns of many mega donors about Trump’s thin policy pronouncements, and a number of his recent reversals on issues including his repeated attacks on the harmful influence of big donors and Super Pacs. Mega donor Sheldon Adelson, in an op-ed endorsement of Trump in the Washington Post on Friday urging party leaders and other investors to back him, underscored the big-donor embrace of Trump by writing the “alternative to Trump being sworn in as the nation’s 45th president is frightening”. After self-financing much of his primary campaign to the tune of some $40m, Trump and his allies seem to have belatedly realized that for the general election there is a need for the unlimited checks from corporations, individuals and unions that Super Pacs – unlike campaigns – can accept to help boost his prospects of winning in the fall. What’s more, Trump likely will face a very well-funded Democratic opponent in Clinton, who boasts a few big money Super Pacs backing her. The key pro Clinton Pac, Priorities USA Action, had hauled in about $67m this election cycle as of the end of March. Donors and analysts, however, say that after consistently criticizing Super Pacs and the role of big money in politics as part of his populist messaging, Trump’s allies now face real hurdles in luring donors who write six- and seven-figure checks. “There’s no doubt that fundraising for Super Pacs to support Trump is going to be an uphill fight,” said DC-based election lawyer Ken Gross of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom. “Not only is the candidate controversial, but he’s coming off a campaign that demonized Super Pacs and touted his self financing, both of which were popular. It now looks like he’s reversing himself on both popular positions.” More broadly, other fundraising headaches for the Super Pac may occur due to Trump’s calls for deporting 11 million undocumented immigrants and instituting a temporary ban on Muslim immigration. “There will probably be less donors [than usual] who will participate because Trump has not yet shown the tolerance, inclusiveness and willingness to listen to others that many people are looking for,” said Fred Malek, a major fundraiser for the Republican Governors Association. But, Malek admitted, there were “enough wealthy people that he will be able to attract significant resources”. Bringing in strategic muscle Trump’s Super Pac allies are indeed banking on attracting a significant number of big donors who will overlook some of his blistering rhetoric and positions in order to defeat the Democratic nominee. To rev up the drive for big checks, the Great America Pac has taken steps in recent weeks to bolster its fundraising and strategic muscle with new hires: veteran strategist Rollins, who ran Ronald Reagan’s 1984 campaign recently joined as a co-chairman, and Amy Pass, who raised funds for Trump ally and former House speaker Newt Gingrich, and was appointed national finance director for the Super Pac. Beech, who joined in March as a co-chairman, was a top fundraiser in Gingrich’s 2012 presidential campaign. But the Great America Pac also has faced internal problems and has drawn some unfriendly fire from Roger Stone, a long-time Trump confidante and lobbyist who has run a much smaller Super Pac, the Committee to Restore America’s Greatness. When Rollins’ role was announced early this month, Stone, who has long clashed with the GOP strategist, tweeted that he was a “buffoon”. Besides the Stone barbs, the Great America Pac also suffered some embarrassment earlier this month when one of its key operatives, consultant Jesse Benton, was convicted of a felony violation for spending campaign money in a scheme with others in 2012 to buy the support of an Iowa political leader for presidential candidate Ron Paul. Great America co-chairman Beach told the that Benton was no longer being paid by the Super Pac, and “has stepped back from his position” with it. Nonetheless, early signs suggest that a number of big donors are ready to help, albeit with some mixed feelings after they had earlier given large sums to other Super Pacs backing their favored GOP candidates. Billionaire broadcaster Stan Hubbard says he has agreed to serve on an advisory committee for the Great America Pac and plans to write a check – despite the $10,000 he ponied up this year to a Pac seeking to block Trump’s nomination, which came after he gave at least $50,000 to a Super Pac supporting Wisconsin governor Scott Walker. “The bottom line is that none of my candidates won and Trump is the last one standing,” Hubbard said. “I don’t think he’d be the best candidate but he’d be better than Clinton.” Hubbard stressed he favored cutting more regulations and said he thought Trump would do that more aggressively. Co-chairman Beach said another 15-20 advisory board members will be named over the next few weeks, probably including some other big donors to help it meet its initial goal of raising $15m before the convention in late July. To boost fundraising further, Great America Pac also has hosted at least one conference call with donors that included Trump ally and former candidate Ben Carson. Next month, billionaire oilman Pickens is slated to hold an event for the Super Pac on the weekend of 11 June at his Amarillo Texas ranch, which is likely to draw a couple dozen potential check-writers. Pickens, who initially gave $100,000 to a pro-Jeb Bush Super Pac, has said he will back Trump and is weighing a contribution to the Super Pac, according to a GOP source. Texas billionaire private-equity investor Doug Deason told the that he and his father, Darwin Deason, planned to back Trump and help one of the allied Super Pacs, despite putting hundreds of thousands earlier this year into a pro-Ted Cruz Super Pac. Deason predicts “Trump will stop acting like the lunatic he’s been and act more presidential. We’re keeping our fingers crossed.” Deason said he had been contacted by another big Cruz supporter, Toby Neugebauer, who is now backing Trump, about working together to support a pro Trump Super Pac, but they remain undecided about which one they will help underwrite. Other mega-donors have voiced support for Trump since he became the presumptive nominee last month, including energy baron Harold Hamm; investor Foster Friess; Home Depot co-founder Ken Langone; and hedge fund magnate Anthony Scaramucci. What’s more, there are growing hints that a number of even bigger mega donors may help including casino billionaire Adelson who, in tandem with his wife Miriam, gave almost $150m in 2012 to a mix of Super Pacs that must disclose their donors and politically active nonprofits which can keep donors secret. Adelson and his wife gave $30m to a pro Romney Super Pac. Adelson announced he would back Trump late last month and on Friday wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post making the case for Trump and formally endorsing him. “I am endorsing Trump’s bid for president and strongly encourage my fellow Republicans – especially our Republican elected officials, party loyalists and operatives, and those who provide important financial backing – to do the same,” Adelson wrote. Asked if the Super Pac had reached out yet to Adelson for a check, Beach said: “No comment.” Overall, Trump has talked about needing some $1.5bn for the general election which would be made up of a combination of funds raised by his campaign, which is also aggressively beefing up its fundraising operations, and pro-Trump Super Pacs. Roger Stone’s Committee to Restore America’s Greatness was set up to fight efforts to deprive Trump of the nomination by tracking alleged delegate fraud in the event of a contested convention. Stone told the the Super Pac was now phasing itself out since a contested convention was no longer likely. But Stone’s own role as a longtime confidant and informal adviser to Trump is ongoing. The two men, who have known each other since the 1980s when Stone became an early lobbyist for Trump’s real estate and casino interests, are said to talk fairly regularly; Stone’s niche now is helping with messaging with a strong focus on personal and financial attacks on the Clintons, a subject he promoted heavily last year in a book he co-authored called The Clintons’ War on Women. “My sense is that Stone will run the black ops effort against Clinton,” said a senior GOP strategist who has known Stone for many years. Another veteran operative with long ties to Stone described his tactics thus: “Roger is very aggressive and doesn’t mind going beyond the bounds of civility and frequently does.” The newest pro-Trump Super Pac, the Committee for American Sovereignty, also boasts good ties to big donors plus allies and friends of the real estate mogul’s. The group is being led by Doug Watts, who was a communications director for Ben Carson’s campaign; and one of its top advisers is Nick Ribis, who used to be a top executive with the Trump Organization and has more recently been an executive with Colony Capital, a private equity firm run by billionaire Tom Barrack, a long time friend and business associate of Trump’s. Trump’s new found acceptance of Super Pacs seems on track to give a financial lift to his campaign in the months ahead. But outside analysts say Trump’s embrace of big money carries real political risks. “Welcoming Super Pac support contradicts his rhetoric about the corrupting influence of money in politics and will undoubtedly be used against him in the months ahead,” said Sheila Krumholz, the executive director of the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.
Don’t postpone Rio Olympics over Zika, says expert Britain’s leading expert on the Zika virus yesterday rejected a call by 150 international academics for this summer’s Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro to be postponed because of the dangers posed by the disease. Professor Jeremy Farrar, head of the Wellcome Trust, said such a move would be disruptive and completely unnecessary. In an open letter to the World Health Organisation (WHO), released on Friday, the group of academics said the Brazilian strain of Zika virus harmed health in ways that science had not observed before. “An unnecessary risk is posed when 500,000 foreign tourists from all countries attend the Games, potentially acquire that strain, and return home to places where it can become endemic,” they added. But Farrar, a specialist in tropical medicine, told the yesterday that the risks did not warrant such a drastic course of action. “The numbers travelling to and from Brazil for the Games is likely to account for about 0.25% of world travel,” he said. “That does not pose a sufficient risk of spreading the disease in my view.” Farrar added that if the Games were halted because of the threat of Zika, other major international events would also face calls for cancellation. These could include the Hajj, which sees around 2 million pilgrims travelling to Saudi Arabia every year. “Halting that would be very difficult,” Farrar said. Zika disease is caused by a virus that is spread by infected mosquitoes. Symptoms include fever, rash and joint pain. Serious complications can arise for pregnant women, who can give birth to babies with abnormally small heads. For this reason, expectant mothers have already been advised not to travel to Rio. However, the signatories say the only effective measure for containing Zika is a to postpone the Games – a call that has been rejected by the WHO, which said yesterday that there was “no public health justification” for postponing the Rio Olympics because of Zika. This rejection has led the signatories of the open letter to attack the WHO for having too close a partnership with the International Olympic Committee and for being biased in its actions. The WHO went into official partnership with the IOC in 2010, in a deal that Professor Amir Attaran, one of the open letter’s authors, described as “beyond the pale”. He added: “It is ignorant and arrogant for the WHO to march hand in hand with the IOC.” Nevertheless, in the wake of the open letter, many scientists have rejected the signatories’ call for the games to be postponed. Farrar said: “Mosquitoes in August are not nearly so active in Brazil as at other times of the year. Risks are therefore reduced.” The answer to the Zika emergency was to provide education and advice – particularly about the dangers of the virus’s sexual transmission – and to work to control its mosquito vector. His views were endorsed by Lancaster University biologist Derek Gatherer. Brazil was affected by many tropical diseases – including malaria and dengue – that were all clinically more serious than Zika, he said. “But none has been proposed as a reason to cancel the event.” Pregnant women would be best advised to stay away, while people who do attend should use insect repellant and avoid risky sexual behaviour. “If these principles are observed, there is no reason why the Olympics cannot take place,” Gatherer added. Virologist Jonathan Ball of Nottingham University agreed. “Global travel and trade offer Zika an opportunity to spread. By comparison with these routine activities, the increased risk that the Olympics poses is a drop in the ocean.” This article was amended on 31 May 2016 to remove a mistaken reference to the signatories calling for the Games to cancelled. They call for “the Rio 2016 Games to be postponed and/or moved to another location – but not cancelled – in the name of public health.” Letter to the editor Professor Farrar of the Wellcome Trust reasons that there is not a substantial risk of Olympic travel in Brazil seeding new Zika infections in other tropical countries because “The numbers travelling to and from Brazil for the Games is likely to account for about 0.25% of world travel.” That is unsound scientific reasoning, because it is not the percentage of travel that matters, but its destination. In a hypothetical world where even 100% of world travel was between Rio and London, there would be little risk because the mosquitoes native to the UK are not known to transmit the virus, making a mosquito-borne epidemic impossible. The outcome would be very different if the travel was into Lagos or Mumbai, where the mosquitoes are perfect and the potential victims of Zika in the urban slums are many. Nor is Prof Farrar correct to believe that moving 500,000 international visitors into an epidemic zone is trifling, even assuming that it is just 0.25% of world travel. When in 2013 Brazil acquired its now infamous Zika epidemic, that was due to a single viral introduction event from French Polynesia. In 2013, Brazil received fewer than one traveller a day from Oceania (excluding Australia and New Zealand), accounting for just 0.00017% of world travel using Prof. Farrar’s assumptions. That slender thread of connection touched off Brazil’s epidemic, and it makes 0.25% look plenty large in comparison. The Olympics are unique among mass gatherings – unlike even the World Cup or the Hajj – because they create totally new threads of connection with literally every country in the world. This fact makes the Olympics incomparably efficient at potentially spreading epidemics which the host country has failed to quell. When South Africa hosted the World Cup, it spent many years and used aggressive methods to push malaria to virtual elimination. Not so Rio and Zika, where in the early part of 2016, mosquito-borne disease has risen sharply over last year, including even in the exact neighbourhood of the Olympic Park (Barra da Tijuca). Until Rio gets its house in order, as South Africa did, the Olympics ought not to proceed. Amir Attaran Professor, Faculty of Law & Faculty of Medicine University of Ottawa Canada
Who's WHO? Six candidates named for next World Health Organisation chief Six candidates from Africa, Asia and Europe – including one Briton – have been nominated for the position of director general of the World Health Organisation, at a time when experts have emphasised the need for the agency to prove it can be “transparent and accountable” to the public. The candidates include current and former government ministers and academics. Dr Philippe Douste-Blazy of France, a former health and foreign minister, makes the list, as does Ethiopia’s foreign minister – and former health minister – Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. In contention too are Pakistan’s former health minister, Dr Sania Nishtar, Italy’s Dr Flavia Bustreo – currently the WHO’s assistant director general for family, women’s and children’s health – and Hungary’s former minister of health, Dr Miklós Szócska. The UK’s Dr David Nabarro, a sustainable development adviser to UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon, completes the list of contenders. The director general is the WHO’s chief technical and administrative officer, and oversees the organisation’s international health work. The successful candidate will take office in July 2017 and replace the incumbent Dr Margaret Chan, who has held the position since 2006. Experts believe the nominees will face a tough task in proving to the international community that the WHO is still competent as an agency delivering global health, particularly given the criticism it received after 11,000 people died during the Ebola outbreak. “The next DG has a narrow window in which to change the narrative about the WHO,” said Ashish Jha, director of the Harvard Global Health Institute and co-author of a report calling for urgent reform within the agency. “It has become an organisation that, when faced with real challenges, cannot perform.” While Africa has openly backed Ethiopian candidate Tedros, the discussion over who should succeed Chan should focus less on “Whose turn is this?” and more on which candidate will most benefit the organisation, said Jha. “The world needs an effective WHO – there’s no way around that,” he added. “There are things only the WHO can do. Instead of thinking about creating entities that will fill in the gaps, it is in our interest to make sure the WHO can fill those gaps itself.” Dr Philippe Douste-Blazy A former cardiologist, the Frenchman is currently a UN special adviser on innovative funding for development, and has been lauded for his work in promoting the millennium development goals and raising money for Unitaid to fight HIV, malaria and tuberculosis. Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus A long-time senior Ethiopian government official, Tedros is a popular minister and a member of the country’s most powerful political party. Widely respected as a malaria researcher, he has a significant social media presence. Insiders say the moustachioed minister has excellent standing with donors and major development partners, and as health minister helped push forward delivery of basic services through the pioneering “health extension workers” programme. He is also backed by a number of African governments, who have joined forces to help fund his WHO candidacy. Dr Sania Nishtar One of only two women in the running, Nishtar is founder and president of Heartfile, a health thinktank, and co-chair of the WHO’s commission on ending childhood obesity. As a former federal minister in the Pakistan government, Nishtar has thrown herself wholeheartedly into her nomination, and is the only candidate with a website devoted exclusively to her bid. Dr Miklós Szócska The Hungarian nominee, lauded as the first health minister to manage a full four years in office, has implemented a wide range of public health regulations, from banning smoking in public to adding a tax on food and beverages with added salt and sugar. Dr David Nabarro Nabarro trained as a doctor and has years of experience working abroad in child health and nutrition programmes in south Asia, east Africa and Iraq. His postings have included stints at DfID, the WHO and universities; the BBC even made a documentary about his volunteer work during his gap year. The Briton calls himself “Dr Who” on his website. Dr Flavia Bustreo Currently the WHO’s assistant director general for family, women’s and children’s health, the Italian has focused on developing policy for child and maternal health. A former clinician for children with disabilities, she has worked all over the world and has published a number of articles on public health, and women and children’s health.
Twitter 'leaving us in the dark' over state hacking claims, activists say When more than 50 political activists from across Europe and North America were told by Twitter in December 2015 that their accounts had been attacked by anonymous “state-sponsored actors”, they had very little to go on. One of those targeted was Anne Roth, who has been advising the German Left party during the government’s investigation into US surveillance. She is no stranger to these type of attacks, she said, but when threats come from her own government she has a framework for what to do. “It was a Friday night, almost midnight in Berlin, and no lawyer in sight. I emailed the Electronic Frontier Foundation, because I thought they might still be awake. A few moments later I saw people tweeting about it, and that felt relieving somehow because in that instant I knew it wasn’t about me personally.” In the two months since, campaigners from EFF and developers from anonymity tool the Tor Project have joined the activists in demanding more information from Twitter. In an open letter published in January, the group asked a detailed list of questions, including whether attackers gained administrative access to Twitter’s servers. “Why does Twitter suspect that the attacks came from state-sponsored actors? Has Twitter identified any specific state as the source of the attacks? Were these automated brute-force attacks, customized attacks with a human behind them, or something else?,” it demanded. Twitter has still not responded to the letter, campaigners said. The notifications are thought to be the first example of Twitter warning its users of state-sponsored attacks, yet the campaigners say the company has not released as much information as Google, who have sent similar warnings to users since 2012. After sending its first batch of notices, Google’s information security team gave an interview to the New York Times, and their VP of engineering published a blog post with more information. “Twitter should make a public statement explaining their rationale for sending out these warnings, as Google and Facebook did before it,” says Jillian York, a director at EFF, a digital rights campaign group based in San Francisco. York did not receive a warning from Twitter, but has previously received five similar notices from Google. The original warning sent from Twitter in December recommended users take steps to secure their accounts, suggesting using Tor to connect to the service and EFF’s guide on using social networks anonymously. “Twitter’s users deserve to know which government has gained access to their account,” says Kate Krauss, spokesperson for the Tor Project, the non-profit that develops the anonymity network. “Twitter’s complete silence on this point is puzzling.” Sent on or just after 14 December, the notification warned: “As a precaution, we are alerting you that your Twitter account is one of a small group of accounts that may have been targeted by state-sponsored actors. At this time, we have no evidence they obtained your account information, but we’re actively investigating this matter.” The statement said Twitter had no additional information it could share, but said the attackers may have been trying to access users’ IP addresses, email addresses and phone numbers. The lack of information from Twitter has led to speculation within the group about both the motive and the culprit of the attack. Some suggested that use of Tor could be a common factor, while others suggested the nation state implicated could be anyone from the US or UK, Germany, France, Russia or China. The group includes members of the French digital rights advocacy group La Quadrature Du Net, the US-based Seattle Privacy Coalition, the international digital rights organization Access Now, developers of the anonymity software Tor and other privacy activists and writers from Canada, Switzerland, Germany and Italy. One of the affected users is an activist tweeting about the war in Donetsk, another a journalist covering the German parliamentary investigation into surveillance by the US National Security Agency. Anne Roth, one of the 50 activists targeted, has been advising the German Left parliamentary party as part of that investigation and had to gain security clearance for her government job. “It is my job to investigate activities of the ‘five eyes’ and probably not too far fetched to assume that this is of interest to different secret services,” she said. “My partner was arrested with a terrorism charge (in Germany) years ago, and later released, charges dropped. We lived with anti-terror surveillance for years.” “When I first saw the (email from Twitter), I felt a moment of shock. It felt like ‘oh no – here they come again’,” Roth says. “It felt in that moment like I was personally targeted and that’s scary, especially when you have no idea who’s targeting you.” Another affected user, German security consultant Jens Kubiezel, observed that around 30 of the affected accounts almost exclusively connect to Twitter through Tor, although 10 users said they never used it. “While the accounts are geographically widely distributed, some of them use Tor to access the web. So there is a chance that really all used the same server,” said Kubiezel. Other activists dismissed the idea that Tor was the common factor, saying that the only common factor was Twitter itself. Twitter was praised in 2011 when the company contested a Department of Justice gag order accompanying a subpoena for the data of the member of the Icelandic parliament and other Wikileaks volunteers. “Twitter resisted (the subpoenas) in secret, not for PR,” says David Robinson, of the targeted activists. “Though they lost in court, they modelled admirable corporate behavior.” Twitter has repeatedly declined to comment or to confirm whether it was still investigating the breaches. A spokesperson pointed to a previous public statement in which the company acknowledged that users accessing the site via Tor may have to navigate anti-spam measures: “Twitter does not block Tor, and many Twitter users rely on the Tor network for the important privacy and security it provides. Occasionally, signups and logins may be asked to phone verify if they exhibit spam-like behavior. This is applicable to all IPs and not just Tor IPs.” Google has warned users of this type of attack since June 2012, and Facebook since October 2015. Microsoft and Yahoo have announced they will follow suit, although are not known to have issued any warnings yet.
I, Daniel Blake star: 'working-class actresses are cast as drug addicts and bad mothers' The star of Ken Loach’s Palme d’Or-winning movie I, Daniel Blake has attacked the film industry for prejudicial treatment of actors from less privileged backgrounds. Speaking to the Evening Standard, Hayley Squires said: “It’s a cliche for me to say, but there aren’t enough parts for working-class women. “And the ones that are out there, you’re either playing the girlfriend of a drug dealer, a heroin addict, or a mother who can’t look after her kids.” Squires said she thought her height – she is 5ft 2in – had also held her back. “When they’ve got 20 English roses who are 6ft tall and a size six, why would [Hollywood directors] see me? I always know I’m not going to get a part when I walk into a room and they go, ‘OK, we’re just going to do a full body shot, how tall are you?’ I’m 5ft 2in and a size 10, so you’re not going to put me in that Hollywood film, are you?” In Loach’s film, Squires plays a single mother who befriends an older carpenter with whom she bonds over their struggle to claim welfare benefits. Squires said she hopes the film will cause a “shitstorm” when it is released next month. “I hope the film resonates with working-class audiences and helps them understand that compassion and unity is needed. Without that, no kind of change can happen.”
Arsène Wenger: I am not in the mood to dream of Arsenal winning League Arsène Wenger has written off Arsenal’s hopes of winning the title and admitted they are looking over their shoulders in the race to qualify for the Champions League after drawing 1-1 with Crystal Palace at the Emirates Stadium. Arsenal trail Leicester City by 13 points with five games left after they were denied by Yannick Bolasie’s late equaliser, and Wenger has lowered his sights. They are fourth after falling below Manchester City on goal difference and lead Manchester United by four points. “Honestly after the game today I am not in that kind of mood to dream about the championship, I am more in the kind of mood to repair the mental damage and prepare for the next game,” Arsenal’s manager said. “It is much more about that and to look behind us because everybody is playing well and winning games. For us it could be a fight until the end to get the place in the top four. If we can do more, we will do more but let’s not dream and focus on the next game.” Arsenal had led thanks to an Alexis Sánchez goal. “You have to sometimes win 1-0 and this was one of those days,” Wenger said. Palace moved nine points clear of Sunderland, who are 18th, and a step closer to safety. “I think you have to be very careful as a Premier League manager because you guys can definitely kick us to pieces when we say something silly,” Alan Pardew said. “But I do think it’s going to be difficult maybe for two of those teams to get 40 below us because with our goal difference that’s probably what we need. One could do it, I don’t know. But we still have four games left. I think we’re a mid-table team and we need to prove that.”
Stone Roses – 10 of the best 1. Tell Me The band disowned their earliest recording, but the presence of this song on the soundtrack of Mat Whitecross’s sparky though sycophantic film Spike Island (2012), a dramatisation of their most famous gig, emphasises how much it has affected fans. The group was formed in Manchester in the early 1980s by childhood friends Ian Brown and John Squire, and went through various lineups. Then Brown toured England and Europe on his customised pink scooter, while Squire made models for an animation company. When the duo re-formed as the Stone Roses, with guitarist Andy Couzens (later of the High), bassist Pete Garner and drummer Alan “Reni” Wren, they attempted to record a debut album in 1985 with the producer Martin Hannett. The group shelved the results, which were a legendary bootleg until it was released – to the band’s dismay – as Garage Flower in 1996. Only the double A-side debut single So Young/Tell Me emerged at the time, and it holds up surprisingly well. Squire’s scratchy, frantic guitar on this song sounds as if it was recorded in a rave-ready warehouse and Brown’s angry but cocksure yelp reveals his well of self-confidence. “I love only me / I’ve got the answers to everything … and there’s a place for me anywhere,” he swaggered. John Robb reported that formative sets would end with this song, Brown strutting through the crowd eyeballing individuals as he delivered the lyric. 2. Made of Stone It sounded, said Squire, like “making a wish and watching it happen, like scoring the winning goal in a World Cup final on a Harley Electra Glide dressed as Spider-Man”. It’s hard to disagree. Made of Stone is one of Ian Brown’s top three Stone Roses songs – and the one they were playing on The Late Show in 1989 when the power went down and Brown bellowed about the BBC being “amateurs … wasting our time!” This first single from their debut album is the one to hold up when someone claims the Roses were musically oikish and lyrically simplistic. Squire’s guitar and Gary “Mani” Mounfield’s bass wrap around each other seductively. The lyrics, meanwhile, evoke fiery death on the road – in this case, that of Squire’s art muse Jackson Pollock – and encapsulate the bittersweet feeling of being young and broke but as free as it gets. “Sometimes I fantasise / When the streets are cold and lonely / And the cars they burn below me / Don’t these times fill your eyes?” is as perfect as a pop lyric gets. 3. She Bangs the Drums She Bangs the Drums is another contender for the definitive Stone Roses song on an album full of them. The hi-hat tingles with anticipation, the bass builds with hair-raising determination and finally Squire’s guitar soars, coupled with the lovesick opening couplet “I can feel the Earth begin to move / I hear my needle hit the groove.” To call it a simple song is to disregard the beauty of its construction; this song boiled three decades of guitar pop down to the bare bones of the euphoria of meeting someone you desperately want to be with and hearing a song you can’t stop playing. Listening to She Bangs, only stony hearts will fail to see why a generation fell hard for the Roses. It’s the sound of that brief but beautiful moment when the teen years become hopeful young adulthood. “The past was yours but the future’s mine / You’re all out of time” were lines utterly justified by the song. 4. Standing Here Like the Beatles’ A Day in the Life, the B-side to She Bangs the Drums was two songs in one. The first, a noisy, languid guitar groove, was nice enough, with Brown’s loping lyric assuring that “I really don’t think you could know that I’m in heaven when you smile.” The second, which appeared in the last two minutes of the song, was a minor revelation. Over a shuffling beat, Brown’s voice apes Art Garfunkel at his most subdued, a precise study in male vulnerability and tenderness as he repeats the mantra: “I could park a juggernaut in your mouth / And I can feel a hurricane when you shout / I should be safe forever in your arms.” It was the moment that most set them apart from the armies of mooning, faux-sensitive lads who scrambled in their footsteps. The Stone Roses were a masculine band, but even amid the meatiest guitar solos they never stooped to being macho, and whenever they expressed admiration for women it was as an equal partner. 5. This Is the One You could pick 10 of the 11 songs from the debut album and declare them the Stone Roses’ best, but that wouldn’t capture the breadth and underrated quality of their B-sides, standalone singles and later work (and it would mean leaving out the essential Fool’s Gold). To give the first phase of their career a fair shout, the mighty I Wanna Be Adored and Waterfall have been omitted here. But it’s impossible to leave behind the sparkling This Is the One, the last track to be added to the record. It’s a glorious May bank holiday of a song, leading to an extended coda of battered drums, churning electric riffs and Brown’s yearning repetition of the title. “I’d like to leave the country / For a month of Sundays / Burn the town where I was born,” he hollers, flying high above the clouds away from the staleness of rainy days on housing estates. 6. I Am the Resurrection The Stone Roses’ use of religious imagery in their songs is often seen as a simple declaration of faith, but John 11:25 probably wasn’t written in the expectation it would one day be adapted into “I am the resurrection and I am the life / I couldn’t ever bring myself to hate you as I’d like.” The closing song on the band’s first record previews the pseudo-religious touches that Second Coming would revel in, and has an extended, one-take instrumental coda that occupied more than half of the song’s more than eight-minute running time. “The only thing I did to excess were guitar solos,” joked Squire to the in 2002. This one is finely honed and perfectly balanced, wringing an abundance of leftover joy from the first album like a sugar-fuelled child racing around the living room. 7. Fool’s Gold Released six months after the debut album and not included on it, Fool’s Gold was the Roses’ first UK Top 10 single and was, arguably, the song that made their reputation. The band performed it on Top of the Pops the same week the Happy Mondays played Hallelujah, a mainstream arrival for the Madchester sound when indie still suggested some kind of deviation from the mainstream. It also fits into a most unlikely lineage, with its funk-laden drumbeat lifted from the James Brown song Funky Drummer, which Squire apparently discovered on a breaks compilation he found at Manchester’s Eastern Bloc Records store. The lyrics – inspired by The Treasure of the Sierra Madre – record Brown’s disdain for avarice, but there’s also a sense of pilgrimage; unsurprising, given that it was recorded at Sawmills studios in Cornwall, which is accessible only by boat at high tide or a long walk through a forest. 8. Love Spreads In 1994, almost five years after the Stone Roses had released new music, Steve Lamacq and Jo Whiley played the first single, Love Spreads, from The Second Coming on Evening Session – and a collective intake of breath came from the indie nation. Some listeners were probably shocked by the size of its debt to Led Zeppelin, particularly the breakdown to hi-hat and a single wailing guitar note just after 3.00, but there’s no doubt the Roses’ biggest hit – it reached No 2 just before Christmas – had acute focus and poise. Squire’s noisy guitar riffs churn through the track, and Reni and Mani’s groove-laden backing complements Brown’s swaggering assertion: “The messiah is my sister / Ain’t no king, man, she’s my queen.” It’s a dusty, old, desert-blues rocker, but the anti-patriarchal message imagining Jesus as a black woman and the quality of the playing elevate this song above its contemporaries. They were never a group to overexplain their songs, but one interviewer did draw out of Squire that “it’s about the hijacking of religion”. Noteworthy fact: one of the bearded prospectors just after 3.40 in the video by Steven Hanft is apparently Beck. 9. Begging You On first listen to Second Coming, Begging You might have seemed the most abrasive song, the least in keeping with the rest of the record’s focus on fusing trad-rock styles with the band’s undoubted alchemy as players. But more than 20 years on, it still sounds fresher than most of its contemporaries. Its lyrical content is odd but pleasingly rhythmic, and it crams in references to Aesop’s Fables. “The fly on the coach wheel told me that he got it / And he knew what to do with it / Everybody saw it / Saw the dust that he made,” lands blows on overweening personalities like that of the fly from Aesop’s story, desperately trying to claim credit for the dust that the wheel he’s sitting on is kicking up. One for the band’s many high-profile imitators, perhaps? Anyway, aside from a guitar figure used almost as punctuation by Squire, the song is all at the bottom end, a deep, heavy repeated riff engineered by Mani and Reni. It is to drum and bass what the Beatles’ Tomorrow Never Knows was to acid house. And, though the two songs coincidentally sounded alike, that similarity didn’t unfairly flatter the huge and intuitive abilities of their composers. 10. Ian Brown – FEAR Such was the press-stoked, decade-and-a-half clamour for a Stone Roses reunion, that the quartet’s solo activities in that period have been unfairly written off by many. Reni laid low, briefly appearing with his band the Rub (he was a decent lead singer and guitarist). Mani added bass to many of Primal Scream’s finest moments, including all of XTRMNTR. Squire launched the pleasant guitar-pop quartet the Seahorses, and a couple of low-key solo records. Meanwhile, Brown’s work, with hindsight, was significant. In 11 years he released six albums (five of them went Top 10) and had 15 Top 40 singles, from the martial anthem My Star, about the militarisation of space exploration, to the jaw-droppingly confrontational antiwar tirade Illegal Attacks, featuring Sinéad O’Connor. From 2001, the stoned, playful FEAR – the title was an acronym for each line of lyrics – and its swooping, melancholy string lines marked the point when even diehards accepted Brown’s work on its own terms.
Six firms investigated over pension exit and transfer charges Britain’s financial watchdog has strongly criticised the way some life insurance firms have treated longstanding customers with pensions and other savings products and is carrying out a further investigation into six companies. The investigations forms part of a wider review conducted by the Financial Conduct Authority into whether insurers have treated customers locked into pension and other savings plans fairly compared with new customers. The review has focused on 11 insurers, and found a mixed picture, with most of the firms demonstrating good practice in one or more areas and poor practice in others. The companies being investigated are Abbey Life, now owned by Deutsche Bank; Scottish Widows, part of Lloyds Banking Group; Countrywide; Police Mutual; Prudential and Old Mutual The new investigation is expected to take months, and will focus on the disclosure of exit and paid-up charges at the six firms after December 2008. For Abbey Life and Old Mutual, the FCA will also investigate whether they breached regulatory requirements across a number of other areas. The FCA scrutinised samples of documents sent to customers who had requested either to surrender or transfer their policies. At six of the 11 insurers, exit charges applied in some cases and the FCA said the companies might have failed to inform customers of these charges when the policy was exited or converted. If any of the six firms are found to have breached the FCA’s standards, they could face disciplinary action and potential fines and may be forced to pay compensation to customers. Tracey McDermott, the acting FCA chief executive, said: “The practices at some firms appear to have been poor. We have particular concerns regarding how some firms communicated with their customers about exit and/or paid-up charges. We are now doing further work to understand the reasons for these practices, whether customers may have suffered detriment as a result and, if so, how widespread these issues are.” She added: “Given the long-term nature of closed-book products, it is vital that customers are treated fairly and given the right information on an ongoing basis in order to help them make important financial decisions. We expect all firms with closed-book customers to take into account the findings we have published today and ensure they are treating their closed-book customers fairly.” Matt Browne, the director at PricewaterhouseCoopers, which has helped clients prepare for FCA visits, said: “The regulator isn’t pulling any punches and looks set to take action across the life industry based on these findings.” He added: “It’s clear the review is going to have a big impact on life assurers. That’s to be expected. But these firms are already shouldering a weight of regulatory and legislative change, not least of which are the pensions reforms, which could include a cap on charges.” Bruno Geiringer, an insurance partner at the law firm Pinsent Masons, said: “Insurers would be well advised to treat these findings very seriously.” He warned of extra costs for all life insurers with closed-book customers, and advised them to carry out an extensive fairness review of their products, particularly the exit and paid-up charges and their communications with customers. Geiringer added: “On top of that, some insurers have already announced scrapping exit charges for corporate pensions and, if this practice is extended across their closed-book product range which is what is suggested by the FCA, there will be further direct costs to these insurers.” He believes this could lead some insurance companies to sell off their closed books of old life insurance policies and pensions, also known as zombie funds, to specialist operators. The FCA wants to work with industry on a voluntary solution to capping or removing exit and paid-up charges. New rules currently being considered by parliament would cap exit charges on customers cashing in their pension savings from the age of 55 following the government’s pension reforms. A Prudential spokesman said: “Prudential will work closely with the FCA as it continues its review.” Hugh Savill, director of regulation at the Association of British Insurers, said it would study the findings in detail, before adding: “It should be recognised that products analysed in the review bear little resemblance to the long-term savings market today, which continues to modernise and deliver value for money products with lower charges in the era of auto enrolment and pension freedoms.” He added: “We are pleased that the FCA has found no evidence of any systemic intention to take advantage of customers in older, closed-book products. However this report highlights that more needs to be done to improve governance of and communication with customers with older-style products. We will be discussing with members and the regulator ways to ensure that this happens.”
Wet review – slow jams draped with smoke and allusion “Hey! Hey!” Wet’s Kelly Zutrau had been lolling at the back of the stage, immersed in the tiny intricacies of the song Body; now, startlingly, she’s at the front, shouting at a couple of screechers in the front row. “Shut the fuck up or get the fuck out of here!” When they persist, she orders: “Someone take these girls to the back. They’re distracting all these people.” To Zutrau and her Brooklyn-based bandmates, Marty Sulkow and Joe Valle, loud appreciation is a mood-killer. It’s a minute before the trio (plus tour drummer) are ready to pick up the reins again, and not until the next song do they recover the flow. And this is a show that’s essentially all flow, each slow jam eliding into the next with a nudge of Sulkow’s many guitar pedals. Wet (who aren’t without humour; until “legal issues” forced them to change it, their Twitter name was @kanyewet) get a lot out of a little: playing most of their debut album Don’t You, they create a viable show out of something that’s basically smoke and allusion. Encased in a travel-crumpled anorak, Zutrau is in a reverie throughout, hazily picking out the lyrics – which stick to romantic boy/girl convention – as Sulkow and Valle recreate the album’s fluttery shimmer on guitar and synthpads. Jessie Ware, the xx and Chvrches come to mind; what Wet lack at this point is their sense of the scraped-raw psyche. Even so, having made music designed to be heard on headphones, Wet pull it off live. If anything, Don’t Wanna Be Your Girl is much more affecting with Zutrau summoning its country-goth isolation right in front of us; Island devolves into a primal stomp that leaves the trio seemingly wrung out. When they leave the stage, one song later, even the chattering girls restrict themselves to quiet applause, which feels more appropriately Wet. • At Broadcast, Glasgow, 21 March. Box office: 0141-332 7304. Then touring until 23 March.
The Trust review – offbeat thriller is a criminal waste of talent If you’re telling a story involving buddy cops, Las Vegas and a heist, you’d better have something new to bring to the party, but this potentially offbeat thriller relies too heavily on its lead actors: Nicolas Cage and Elijah Wood. They’re set on breaking into a criminal strongroom they’ve located – with no clear idea what’s inside. It’s a tough job involving kidnap, German power tools and several hours of drilling from the apartment above. In time-honoured fashion, the well-laid plan goes awry, but the story never settles into a comfortable groove. Once in a while Nicolas Cage remembers he’s Nicolas Cage and throws in an offbeat line delivery or an incongruous burst of goofiness, but there’s little in the way of tension, surprise or consistency, and the disappointing ending leaves questions about the point of the whole exercise.
The wants to engage with readers, but how we do it needs to evolve The internet has a problem, and that problem is people. Dramatic incidents of public harassment, abuse and threatening behaviour are never far from the news, and during recent years, public awareness of this unpleasantness has grown dramatically. With it has come an understanding of the harms done, not just by high-level threats and abusive behaviour but by a more insidious culture of dismissal, denigration and disrespect that surrounds them. There is a widespread perception that these are problems that need to be solved, and many digital media sites - including Twitter, Facebook and many others - are actively looking for solutions. The is among them. Like the rest of the internet, the ’s comments can be a pleasure to read and participate in; they can also be a hard slog full of dismissive discrimination, or a grim argument between camps whose views are immovable and whose main goal is simply to advance an agenda. For news organisations, the question is no longer whether or not we want to engage with our audience: no news organisation that wants to be relevant in the digital age would dream of retreating from social media, and engagement in many forms is vital to our survival. The question is how we want to engage, and under what circumstances. In some places, news organisations are stepping away from comments, deciding that the costs outweigh the benefits, and turning to other modes of interaction instead - often away from their own platforms, in striking contrast to other industries which are eager to invite interaction that they can manage and own. The is not making that retreat - but that means we do have to evolve and manage our comments deliberately. We are not like the 4chan message boards, where anyone can say almost anything without consequences. Just as Facebook, Twitter, Metafilter and many others provide spaces for different kinds of communities to gather, we want to create spaces on the for particular conversations and particular groups to speak - with each other and with us. The issue of comments on news sites is often conflated with conversations about free speech - about the ability of individuals to speak their minds without fear of government censorship. But, as we do with the stories we publish, the can and should make decisions about the tone of the conversations we want to see flourish here. Allowing freedom for some means effectively silencing others - and deciding to let everyone speak regardless of what they say is, in effect, a statement that abuse is acceptable. Moderation is not censorship, any more than editing is - it’s a careful process that aims to curate the best of the web and allow expert voices and thoughtful discussion to emerge. It can be too easy to ignore the good comments in favour of focusing on the problematic ones, and it’s important to be clear: the majority of commenters on the leave entertaining, enlightening and engaging messages. They point out errors, they keep us sharp, they share experiences or alternative viewpoints, and they chat together. These communities range across all the ’s journalism, and sometimes emerge in unexpected places; on the running blog, on the politics live blog, around our video games coverage and our cartoons. But we need to do more to facilitate respectful discussions and constructive debate everywhere on the site, as well as to protect our staff from the abuse and harassment that has become a routine part of writing for the internet for too many people. Not every writer experiences these things in the same way, and not every community on the needs the same amount of attention or management. We do not believe that conversations about crosswords, for instance, need to be treated in the same way as conversations about rape - but we do think that both should adhere to common principles of respect to the community, to the author, to the subjects of our articles and to the space in which they are published, even when participants may violently disagree with one another. We are going to be implementing policies and procedures to protect our staff from the impact of abuse and harassment online, as well as from the impact of repeatedly being exposed to traumatic images. We are also changing the process for new commenters, so that they see our community guidelines and are welcomed to the ’s commenting community. On that point, we are reviewing those community standards to make them much clearer and simpler to understand, and to place a greater emphasis on respect. We are also looking at how our moderation processes and practices work. We have already changed the structure of the moderation team to give them greater visibility and authority within the , and we are streamlining the process of reviewing moderation decisions for consistency and other factors. We’re examining our off-topic policy and will be moving to make its application more transparent. And we are working to make our comment spaces more welcoming and more connected with our editorial work. We’re trialling different ways for journalists to be involved in conversations that can sometimes be overwhelming purely because of the volume of comments, and we’re working to make sure that we open comments and encourage conversation only where it can be well managed - and where we can listen. We have started digging deep into the data we have on how users behave in our comment threads, and will be publishing some preliminary findings next week as part of our series, The web we want. All these changes are only the beginning of a larger process. Building a community is a difficult endeavour even under perfect conditions, and changing the way a community works once it has been established is even more difficult. Fostering constructive debate on topics that are often flashpoints for severe disagreement is harder still: it is easier to allow one side to drown out another, and for an echo chamber to form around those with the loudest and most persistent voices. Smaller communities are - for the most part - both easier to manage and calmer; one of the side-effects of the ’s global reach is a global community below the line, which can come together positively or with great antagonism depending on the topic to hand. Since our change in strategy to reduce the number of threads open on contentious topics, there has not been a major reduction in the numbers of comments we receive - but we have seen some changes in tone. There are more diverse voices emerging in these threads, and while they are still divisive and divided conversations, there is (on the whole) more engagement with the issues, and less abuse. Of course, this is still a work in progress, and there is a great deal more to do. But we can’t do it without your help, or your input. After all, you are responsible for the conversations you have, and the way you choose to engage with the . And while we know that only a tiny proportion of our audience ever comments, we know that many more people read the comments. So we would like your opinions: what would you like to see the ’s comments become? How would you like to see the community develop, or change - or stay the same? Please share your thoughts with us: they will help us to work on what the next phase of development will be. For more information about the moderation of individual comments please see our Community Standards and FAQs. Further questions should be addressed to moderation@theguardian.com or opinion.moderation@theguardian.com
Angry protests sparked across US by Trump's shock victory Donald Trump’s shock election victory sparked dramatic protests across the US early on Wednesday morning. College students and activists shut down roads, started fires in the street and angrily cried “not my president”. University campuses from California to New York saw demonstrations and marches shortly after Trump announced that Hillary Clinton had called him to concede. In Oakland, a northern California city that Trump had previously called one of the “most dangerous” in the world, some protesters set trash on fire and broke windows, while many on the streets chanted “Fuck Trump!” and other rallying cries, some in Spanish. “I was just devastated,” said Drae Upshaw, a 19-year-old college student. “I come from a Mexican community. I have family and friends crying tonight in fear that Donald Trump will deport them.” Demonstrations spilled out on to the streets from a number of University of California campuses, with particularly large protests dragging on late into the morning in Los Angeles. The impromptu protests drew activists who said they were frightened about the impact a Trump presidency would have on women, people of color, immigrants, LGBT people and other marginalized groups. “I come from a family of two immigrant parents who came here with nothing but the clothes on their backs,” said Yamary Ornelas, an 18-year-old who live-tweeted protests at San Francisco State University. “I got to go to university only to have something as important as the presidency be given to somebody who doesn’t represent me and doesn’t represent anybody I would ever associate with.” Ornelas, a first-year student, said it was difficult to fathom her younger siblings growing up under a Trump presidency. “Four years is a long time. And what if we get eight years of Trump?” Saahel Alimagham, another 18-year-old protester in San Francisco, said it was infuriating to think that US voters preferred Trump to the first female president. “We’re going to let this racist man win, but we’re not going to let an overly qualified woman in?” she said. “America just doesn’t want a woman president, and it just sucks as a woman especially to know that and realize that.” Alimagham, who is Middle Eastern, said she was also terrified of the message a Trump victory would send and the impact he could have on undocumented immigrants in her life. “It’s validating that it’s OK to be racist,” she said. Alimagham said it was cathartic to take to the streets with a group of people who shared her anger and fear. “It felt like a really supportive group, like we can get through this together,” she said. “There’s power in unity. We’re not just going to take it. We’re going to fight.” Eddie Gutierrez, a 33-year-old Oakland protester, said he was most concerned about how the world would view the US. Gutierrez, who works as a sales manager, said he feared the Trump administration would damage international business relationships. “Everyone was hoping that once the election was done, everything would be back to normal, but who knows now?” he said. “We’re fucked. No one is going to want to fuck with America.” Devan Bentley, a 29-year-old artist who lives in Berkeley, California, said he felt he had to join the protests to try to find reasons to be optimistic on such a dark night. “I felt like I needed to be here, because I needed to be with people who want to create a community and live in a community that is accepting of all people.”
Vatican library digitises 1,600-year-old edition of Virgil The Vatican Apostolic Library has digitised one of the world’s oldest manuscripts, an illustrated fragment of Virgil’s Aeneid that dates back 1,600 years. Created in Rome around 400AD, the Vatican Virgil consists of 76 surviving pages, and 50 illustrations. The fragments of text are from the Latin poet’s Aeneid, his epic tale of Aeneas’s journey from the sack of Troy to Carthage, the underworld and then Italy, where he founds Rome. It also contains fragments from Virgil’s poem of the land, The Georgics, but the original manuscript is likely to have contained all of Virgil’s canonical works. According to Fine Books magazine, it is “one of the oldest [copies of The Aeneid] to survive the centuries”. The 1,600-year-old document is one of more than 80,000 manuscripts, running to 41m pages, in the library, which was founded in 1451 by Pope Nicholas V. With its delicate texts ranging from Sandro Botticelli’s 1450 illustration of The Divine Comedy, to a collection of 111 pages of manuscripts containing poems, technical notes, and preparatory sketches by Michelangelo, the library only allows access to its materials by specialised scholars. But even with these restrictions, according to the library, “the need to consult the library’s documents puts their very survival and their future availability and accessibility at risk every day”. A major project to digitise all 80,000 documents will ensure that scholars have less need to consult the originals, and also make the texts available to the general public. Digita Vaticana, which is raising the funds needed for the digitisation, has estimated that the project will take more than 15 years to complete and cost more than €50m (£42m). Its latest initiative is offering the first 200 people to donate €500 or more a limited edition reproduction of a page from the Vatican Virgil, depicting Creusa trying to keep her husband Aeneas from battle. “Our library is an important storehouse of the global culture of humankind,” said Cesare Pasini, prefect of the library. “We are delighted the process of digital archiving will make these wonderful ancient manuscripts more widely available to the world and thereby strengthen the deep spirit of humankind’s shared universal heritage.”
The Innocents review – a fervent drama about a wartime tragedy Anne Fontaine has directed a robust film inspired by a true story from the second world war: a tragic drama that veteran screenwriter Pascal Bonitzer has adapted from the eyewitness account of French nurse Madeleine Pauliac, who served with the French Red Cross in Poland in 1945. It has force, but less complexity and subtlety than I hoped, and is perhaps too obviously in search of palliative redemption. César-nominated French star Lou de Laâge plays Mathilde Beaulieu, a Red Cross medical assistant who chances across an extraordinary situation: in a Polish convent, most of the nuns have become pregnant through being raped by the brutal Soviet soldiers who are stationed nearby. The sisters refuse official help but the Mother in charge reluctantly accepts Mathilde’s offer to nurse the women secretly through their pregnancy. They are in horror-struck denial, unable to relinquish the belief that it must somehow be their fault. One stricken soul clings fast to the delusion that her attacker gallantly defended her against worse assault, and that he is now her “fiance”. As for Mathilde’s colleagues, they have no great regard for the Polish Catholic church. Guilt and shame hang heavy thereabouts, like the fallen snow. But there is no real examination of psychological or historical minutiae in this film, and there is an apparent need for a happy, even sucrose, ending. It pales in comparison with, say, Paweł Pawlikowski’s Ida. Yet it is fervently and strongly performed.
Bank​ royal commission: government would be crazy brave to stand in the way As we saw with the recent ABC Four Corners report on juvenile detention, there are times when the path to a royal commission is unavoidable. When public sentiment moves to such an extent, it’s a crazy brave government that stands in the way. Like allegations of abuse in juvenile detention, allegations of financial misconduct in some banks have been around for years. So have calls for a royal commission into banking misconduct. From Greens senator Peter Whish-Wilson, from Nationals senators John Williams and Matt Canavan and finally from Labor in April this year before the election. So far, it has all come to nought. During the election campaign and in the face of the latest allegations of rate-rigging, Malcolm Turnbull said the corporate watchdog, the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (Asic) was “sinking its fangs” in. Problem solved. But pressure is building. There has already been one senate inquiry into financial advisors at the Commonwealth Bank. NAB, ANZ and Westpac have faced rate rigging allegations. Asic is also investigating Comminsure – the insurance arm of the Commonwealth Bank – which is accused of manipulating reports to avoid life insurance payouts to sick and dying customers, in some fantastic investigative journalism by Fairfax’s Adele Ferguson. If the juvenile detention scandal has shown anything, the right evidence, in the right moment, can crack open an issue to the point where government has no other choice but to act. While Bill Shorten said he would pursue a royal commission in the parliament given Turnbull’s slim majority, such an inquiry cannot be forced through legislation. There is no bill for a royal commission - it can only be established by executive government. As a result, Labor is exploring the committee process which could expose evidence in the financial services industry to force the government to act. A coalition of Labor, the Greens and assorted crossbenchers could bring about another inquiry into the banks through a private bill - option B after a royal commission. There are reasons it is option B. While a senate committee can take evidence under oath and require people to attend and produce documents, it rarely compels witnesses, unlike a royal commission. A royal commission has stronger powers. It also has the capacity to fund witness costs and bring in expert counsel – a crucial factor in running an inquiry into the corporations as powerful and wealthy as the banks. You need to know where to look. An Essential poll in April showed a clear majority of respondents favoured a banking royal commission. Labor’s and the Greens’ pursuit of the issue – not to mention John Williams who crossed the floor on the issue – shows no sign of waning. But in the face of opposition to the royal commission from the Coalition, a committee inquiry may be the foot in the door.
Do Rogue One reshoots spell the end for Hollywood's dark side? It is easy to forget what a shock to the system Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins was when it debuted just over a decade ago. Nolan seemed to trim all extraneous fat from the comic book movie template, handing the caped crusader a humanising backstory that intelligently explained his capacities as the byproduct of huge wealth and near-psychotic levels of determination to perfect himself as a martial unit. Villains were stripped of their more fantastical elements and draped with the adornments of real-world freakiness, Cillian Murphy’s Scarecrow shifting from Worzel Gummidge-like silliness to steely-eyed sociopath; Liam Neeson’s Ra’s al Ghul losing the comic character’s magical powers but retaining his hatred of civilisation. For the first time, we witnessed Gotham as a sort of shadowy doppelganger of real-world cities, rather than the pantomime facsimiles of the previous films. Then, once viewers had got their heads round the idea of a Batman flick with the silliness scraped off, The Dark Knight debuted three years later to the highest box office returns ever seen (at that point) for a superhero movie, not to mention rapturous reviews. No wonder everything that came afterwards tried to copy the formula. What Hollywood film-makers failed to grasp, though, was that while audiences wanted their superheroes treated with Nolan’s verve and tenacity, that didn’t necessarily mean throwing everything through a super-serious “dark” filter. It’s a collective misunderstanding that has almost destroyed Warner Bros’s fledgling DC universe, whose films Man of Steel and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice have strained so hard for wracked solemnity that you sometimes worry for their bowel control. The director of upcoming DC movie Aquaman, James Wan, has even taken the bizarre step of promising fans he won’t “darken” the king of Atlantis for his first big-screen venture. Earlier this week, Simon Kinberg, producer of last year’s ill-fated Fantastic Four reboot, admitted the film’s “darker, sort of body-horror” tone was out of keeping with its “bright, optimistic, poppy” source material. We also know that Warner’s Suicide Squad movie is being reshot to add extra funnies in the wake of huge popularity for an early, bombastic trailer. And it now appears that Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is going through the same process, following reports Disney execs are concerned Gareth Edwards’s spin-off lacks the knockabout space fun of The Force Awakens. I hardly need mention that we’ve also seen James Bond move back towards his light-hearted roots via last year’s Spectre, despite the series’ most popular movie having been the intensely melancholy Skyfall. Likewise, the most successful superhero movies of recent times have not been Nolan’s Batman saga but the far cheerier Avengers films from DC’s rival Marvel. In fact, one of the darkest entries in the studio’s canon is the most recent. Captain America: Civil War, despite a bravura frenzy of wisecracking rival superhero teams midway through, is largely pitched around a bleak storyline about national security and the end of friendship. But that’s because the graphic novel being adapted lends itself to such a tone. We may be entering the twilight of Hollywood’s near decade-long shift to the dark side, but it would be a great pity if the studios’ response was to add Joss Whedon-esque smarts to the screenplays for every new movie being produced, not least because there are few writers around with Whedon’s knack for crackling, pop culture-infused dialogue. The lesson we should be learning from recent comic book movies – let’s take Deadpool, The Dark Knight and the Avengers as examples – is that they all flourished by sensibly adapting their source material rather than myopically trying to impose a “dark” or “light” template. In the case of Rogue One, then, there is cause for hope. Even in an expanded cinematic universe, an overly grim entry to the Star Wars series would certainly jar with what’s come before. So reshoots may not be the worst idea ever. JJ Abrams’ The Force Awakens, successfully balanced zippy camaraderie with dour moments of desperation and loss (Han Solo’s death) without adding any sense of tonal imbalance. While we don’t know quite how moody an entry Edwards has been putting together, a skilled director ought to be able to brighten up the filmic firmament with a few well-timed moments of levity. And hopefully do so without irreversibly destroying the balance of the movie.
Norwich City 4-5 Liverpool: Premier League – as it happened There’s time for Klopp to tear off down the touchline in celebration, and for Lallana to take off his shirt and race about in incredulous disbelief. And that’s that! Heartbreak for Norwich City. Liverpool’s players dispatch their shirts into the away end. Klopp appears to have lost his glasses. That is one of the most ridiculous - and ridiculously entertaining - games the Premier League has coughed up in a long while. Twelve shots on target, and nine goals scored. Football, eh. And to think Klopp was unhappy about the amount of added time. Oh this is utterly preposterous! A scramble in the Norwich box, Can having swung the ball in from the left. Benteke can’t control. Neither can Brady or Caulker. And then Lallana, cutting in from the left, batters a shot into the ground, sending the ball looping up and into the right-hand corner of the net, Rudd totally wrong-footed. Wow! 90 min +3: Celebrations. Klopp self-combusts. Mignolet comes to the edge of his box and claims a long Olsson ball. He fires it up the other end. Benteke is caught offside down the left. The free kick is pumped long. It’s knocked down by Jerome for Bassong, who pearls an unstoppable low screamer into the bottom right! And there’s still time for another twist! Can either side find a winner? 90 min +1: Space for Benteke and Lallana down the right. The ball’s held up, and a corner’s won. On the touchline, Klopp engages the fourth official in debate over the amount of added time. From the set piece, Milner has a dig from distance, but it’s easily blocked. 90 min: A final change for Liverpool. Caulker comes on for Moreno. Something tells me he won’t be going up front this time. There will be five minutes of added time. 88 min: Benteke dribbles into the Norwich box down the right, and attempts to make his way past Brady. But the double shuffle doesn’t fool his man, and Norwich clear. There were options in the middle there. 86 min: Benteke’s inability to hold the ball is putting Liverpool under pressure. He miscontrols on the halfway line, allowing Norwich to attack down the left. Jerome tries to fling a cross into the box from a tight position, but is denied by Toure, who has on the whole been resolute today. 85 min: Firmino finds plenty of space down the left, and enters the Norwich box. He attempts a curler into the bottom right for his hat-trick goal, but it’s straight down Rudd’s throat. 84 min: Benteke tries to bring the ball under control to the right of the Norwich D, but only succeeds in rolling it harmlessly out of play to the right of the target. 83 min: Norwich are beginning to spend some time in the Liverpool half. Mbokani tries to bring a tricky high ball down on the edge of the Liverpool box, but can’t quite get it under control with Toure on his case. 82 min: Alex Neil makes a last throw of the dice. Naismith, who has had an eventful debut all right, is swapped for Jerome. 79 min: Liverpool try to draw a little of the sting from the game, passing it hither and yon along the back. Hmm. It’s a look they patented back in the 1970s, but it wears like a cheap suit right now. 77 min: The hapless Moreno should be booked for a cynical bodycheck on Jarvis, as the Norwich sub looks to bowl off down the right. The referee even calls the player to him, but doesn’t show the card. That’s another poor decision from the ref, who hasn’t had much of a game himself today. 76 min: Klopp isn’t easing off, despite the comeback. Benteke comes on for Henderson. In truth, attack’s probably the best form of defence for Liverpool, as not many would bet the farm on their back line holding onto this hard-earned lead. Oh dear. Martin, on the halfway line, plays a blind backpass down the Liverpool right. It’s woefully underhit, and straight at Milner, who is clear on goal. Milner shifts the ball to the right, and slams it past Rudd. What an absurd moment. What an absurd game this is. 73 min: Moreno has looked a lot better going forward than in defence. He skitters up the left, cuts inside, plays a long-distance one-two with the excellent Firmino, and from the edge of the box tries to send a daisycutter towards the bottom right. It’s straight at Rudd, who gathers calmly. “Klopp must be looking at that today and already has his list done of who’s first out the door,” suggests Anthony O Connell. “We’ve really bought some below average rubbish the last few season for superstar money.” 72 min: Can, in the centre circle, sprays wide left for Firmino. He’s got a chance to shift the ball inside and take a shot from the edge of the area, but looks to find the overlapping Milner instead, trundling at 1mph on the left. Milner wins a corner, but it’s not the greatest outcome from that situation, Norwich having looked threadbare at the back. The corner comes to naught. 70 min: A double change by Norwich: Redmond and Hoolahan off, Olsson and Jarvis on. 69 min: A free kick, conceded cheaply by Moreno, deep on the Norwich right. Redmond swings it in deep. Bassong rises to meet with a header that’s guided towards the bottom right. It’s harmless, and easily gathered by Mignolet. But this is marvellous end-to-end entertainment. 67 min: Lucas, wide on the right, chips a delicate cross into the Norwich area and very nearly finds Firmino, who is on a hat-trick. Pinto wasn’t awake there. Luckily for Norwich, the ball squirts off the penalty spot and away to the left. Norwich clear. 65 min: Norwich are struggling to keep hold of the ball right now. Lallana is sent scampering clear down the middle by a lovely raking Lucas pass from deep on the left. But he’s offside. The away side are suddenly on top. This is brilliant by Firmino. He plays a clever flick round the corner down the left on the halfway line. Milner feeds Lallana, who whips into the middle for Firmino, who has kept going and is completely free in the box! He draws Rudd, and dinks a cute chip over the keeper. Klopp punches the sky, though irritation and anger are still the top notes. The comeback’s been completed in double-quick time; nevertheless, good luck predicting which way this one is going to go. 62 min: Liverpool are pressing Norwich back now. Moreno, Firmino and Milner probe down the left. Can busies himself down the right. But the Norwich defence keeps compact and doesn’t budge. Eventually an aimless ball sails out of play for a goal kick. On the touchline, Klopp delivers a gegenbollicking. He’s really not happy. 59 min: Ibe is replaced by Lallana. That’s a slightly strange decision, as Ibe has been one of Liverpool’s few plus points this afternoon. Milner and Can, for example, have done bugger all. Ibe’s on the bench sulking, and who can blame him. And then there’s a brief skirmish in the Liverpool area, Mbokani and Naismith making nuisances of themselves, but Toure blams clear. 57 min: It’s Alex Neil’s turn to react on the touchline. He’s tapping away furiously at his temples, ordering his men to clear their heads and think. That’s let Liverpool back into this game. The away side press forward again, but Clyne loses control on the right wing. To be honest, absolutely anything could happen here now. Carrow Road is jumping. Moreno tries to make amends with a burst down the left. His cross inside doesn’t find his man. But Clyne recycles the ball down the right, sending a low cross into the area. Firmino dummies, allowing the ball to drift through to Henderson, who sweeps a fine first-time shot into the bottom left. Well, this second half took a while to start, but now look! Hoolahan gets away with a mishit Panenka, the chip drifting to the right but sailing over the prone Mignolet anyway. On the touchline, Klopp has his arms crossed very tightly indeed. 53 min: Sheer idiocy by Moreno. Redmond slides Naismith free into the area down the right. Moreno is fortunate to get away with knocking Naismith to the floor from behind - so to make sure, he knocks into the back of Naismith again as the Norwich debutant springs up! Naismith goes back to the ground again, and the referee points to the spot. 51 min: Ibe tries to inject a bit of pace into the Liverpool play. He dribbles down the middle, then spreads the play wide right, but Clyne and Can combine to slow things right down and eventually gift possession to a resolute Norwich back line. 49 min: It’s been a low-intensity start to the second half. Exactly the way Norwich want it. Nothing much going on. 47 min: Adam Lallana and Joe Allen are already warming up for Liverpool. On the touchline, Klopp is expressionless. But he’ll be on a rolling boil now, with Clyne having gone walkabout, allowing Mbokani to flick Pinto clear into the Liverpool area down the right! Mignolet comes to challenge, then retreats. Pinto foolishly tries to flick the ball into the centre while running at full pelt, instead of stopping to size things up. The ball floats harmlessly out of play. But what a sorry state the Liverpool defence is. Norwich haven’t won a single game from a losing position this season. They’re 45 minutes plus stoppages away from breaking that duck. Liverpool get the ball rolling for the second half. No changes. “I had to begrudgingly admit to myself that Michael Owen sometimes does make some very informed points on the game in hand,” begins Ben Bennett. And you know there’s a but coming. “But you just know that every time he does, he fists pumps and writes it down in ‘Michael’s Victories’. It’s also pretty ironic that he has invested his money in Drone technology considering the timbre of his voice.” Half-time entertainment: In honour of the Liverpool bench. Liverpool went into the lead, looked decent for ten minutes or so, and should have gone two up. And yet Norwich are fully worth their half-time lead. They’ve been brilliant either side of that little burst from the away side. This promises to be a storming second half, because Norwich look confident, Liverpool desperately need to react, and there’s more goals in this! 45 min: On the touchline, Jurgen Klopp looks ready to blow. He’s not ranting and raving, or dancing around. He’s looking straight ahead, breathing deeply, quietly stroking his chin. It’s a much more scary look. You’d pay good money to be a fly on the away dressing room wall at half time. 43 min: Norwich thoroughly deserve their lead. But they nearly give it up foolishly, Brady playing a lazy backpass down the Liverpool right, Firmino only just denied by the outrushing Rudd, who blooters clear. Hearts in mouths for the Carrow Road faithful. Here’s Andy Gordon on That Shirt: “As deckchairs are only seen for a few weeks each year and collapse surprisingly easily, I’m thinking Daniel Sturridge.” Hoolahan’s diagonal ball from the right is taken down brilliantly by Brady, who earns a corner off Clyne as he breaks into the box. Liverpool finally deal with it, clearing easily. But much good it does them, because Norwich are quickly coming back at them down the right - and Naismith is sent clear into the area by a lovely reverse pass from Hoolahan. Naismith smacks a low shot across Mignolet and into the bottom left! He scored on his debut for Everton against Liverpool, and now he’s repeated the trick for Norwich! Question marks over the keeper there, as well as Henderson, who allowed Hoolahan to make the assist without pressure. 39 min: Moreno slips and allows Hoolahan to make off down the right wing. Danger here for Liverpool, but Moreno springs up and tracks back brilliantly, sticking a boot in to reclaim possession just as the Norwich man looked to break into the area. “I have to agree with the po’ MBM hack about Michael Owen,” writes Nathan Fisher. “It has become received wisdom that he is the dullest pundit in punditry, but the only rationale ever offered to justify this view is that he has a boring voice. He is clearly not without intelligence, and I’d much rather him than, say, Alan Shearer or Phil Neville. Accusations that I sound like Micky O have nothing to do with my point of view. P.S. love the Norwich third kit too. Fancy a pint sometime?” 36 min: ... Sakho heads clear, out to the Norwich left. Naismith chases after the ball, and is shoved in the back by Milner. That should be a penalty kick, but the referee again gives nothing. Both teams should have had a free shot from 12 yards, then, though Norwich’s claim was the more blatant of the two. Who’d Be A Referee Huh pt.II. 35 min: Can looks to one-two with Firmino on the edge of the Norwich area. But it’s all suddenly very ponderous, and Howson is allowed to burst off up the other end. After one-twoing with Mbokani down the left, he breaks into the area and his shot is deflected by Lucas. The ball loops over the bar from another corner. From which ... 33 min: Norwich are pressing Liverpool back. Naismith irritates Toure as the defender attempts to usher a ball down the right out of play. Toure’s forced to hoick out of play for a throw. The ball’s flung into the area, and though Toure volleys clear, the sense of trepidation among the Liverpool defence is palpable. 31 min: Mbokani is down, winded again, Lucas having clattered into him this time. The physio is on. A chance for Liverpool to clear the collective noggin, because they have appeared stunned since the goal and the restart, unable to retain any sort of possession. The home side have their tails up. And sure enough, here we go. The corner’s hit deep. It looks like going out, but Martin heads it back into the mixer. After a game of tennis, Liverpool only half clear. Brady, to the left of the D, heads back into the box. The ball falls to the feet of Mbokani, who has his back to goal - and backheels powerfully and brilliantly past Mignolet! That’s a wonderful finish, and needless to say some more utterly inept set-piece defending by Liverpool. 27 min: On BT Sport, Howard Webb suggests that Bassong tug should indeed have been a penalty kick, but can see why both referee and linesman missed it. Who’d be a referee, huh? Meanwhile a free kick for Norwich out on the right, and a chance to load the box. Redmond swings it in. It’s easily cleared, but Martin recycles play on the left, and swings deep. With Bassong still in attack, Mignolet is forced to come off his line and flap it out for a corner. And you know what Liverpool are like at defending those. 25 min: Milner slides the free kick to the left. Moreno looks to slam one into the bottom-left corner, but it’s sliced well wide. There was a suggestion that Bassong’s tug on Firmino started inside the area, but it’d have been a brave referee who gave that one. It’d have been a very cheap penalty kick indeed. 24 min: Now Firmino busies himself on the right-hand edge of the Norwich D. He’s looking to work space to shoot, so Bassong tugs his shirt. A free kick in a very dangerous position. 23 min: Liverpool started so very slowly, but they’re well on top right now. Ibe and Firmino are taking turns to cause all sorts of havoc down the Liverpool left. Ibe jigs in from the flank and lays off to Henderson, whose long-distance attempt is blocked pretty much at source. 21 min: It should be 0-2. Norwich play a high line, and are caught out. Firmino flicks the ball down the inside-left channel for Milner, who breaks clear. But he’s not got the pace to burst free of Brady, coming back to hassle. Brady slides in before Milner gets his shot away. The resulting corner comes to nothing. What a chance. 20 min: A decent response to falling behind by Norwich, with Hoolahan and Redmond probing down both wings. Toure is on hand to head clear. Ibe, Moreno and Milner combine well down the left wing. Milner slides a pass down the channel to Firmino, who aims across Rudd and towards the far corner. The ball bobbles off the keeper’s boot, and in the slowest of slow motions, dribbles diagonally towards the right-hand post, hits the base, and rolls into the net. 16 min: Liverpool go route one, a base blooter straight down the middle. And it nearly bears fruit. Bassong tries to usher the ball back to Rudd. The keeper doesn’t come. Firmino, hovering on Bassong’s shoulder, sticks a telescopic leg around the dozing defender, and tries to loop a cheeky shot over Rudd. He shanks it wide right. Bassong looks suitably sheepish at giving up the chance. 15 min: Henderson, deep on the right, looks to curl one down the flank towards Firmino, near the Norwich box. Not quite. But Liverpool are finally stringing a few things together. “Those shirts are not too bad,” writes Steve Wiles. “They remind me of a ‘classic’ Colchester United shirt from the 80s. I do miss singing ‘bring on the deckchairs, bring on the deckchairs’. Up the U’s!” 12 min: Ibe finds a bit of space down the left, turns on the burners, and skins Pinto. His cut-back looks dangerous, but ends up flying just behind Milner on the penalty spot. “Gotta take issue with that shirt,” begins Andy Turner. “Its the colour combo – they barely get away with it on the away ones, it’s got a harlequin look to it and its not good. I can’t imagine it fills defenders with horror when they are confronted with a clown running towards them. But enough Benteke jokes.” 11 min: Naismith and Redmond link well down the centre, a crisp-one two. The ball’s shuttled wide to Hoolahan, who enters the box and fizzes a low centre towards Naismith. But Toure is on hand to whack clear. Liverpool aren’t at the races at all. 9 min: A bit of space for Clyne down the right as Liverpool finally string a couple of passes together. His low centre nearly finds Milner ... but doesn’t. 8 min: Liverpool haven’t turned up yet. Norwich are beginning to find their groove, though, and Redmond finds a little space to the right of the Liverpool area. His cross is only half-decent, and headed clear by Sakho. 7 min: Pinto goes a-jugglin’ down the right wing. He’s very unlucky not to break into the box; instead the ball squirts out of play for a goal kick. But that was a very positive burst by Norwich’s other debutant. 5 min: Naismith plants his studs on Lucas’s ankle. That’s late and clumsy. It should have been a yellow; if the referee was in the mood, it could have been a red. In fact, on second view, it’s a pretty poor challenge, coming down on Lucas’s ankle, his foot bent right over. The referee, perhaps factoring in debut nerves, and the fact Lucas has escaped injury, simply gives Naismith a talking to. 4 min: It’s a scrappy start, this. The ball bouncing around this way and that. Three passes in a row seems a pipe dream right now. Norwich enjoying slightly more of the possession, though, and a little territorial advantage too. 2 min: Mbokani and Can run into each other in the centre circle. A free kick for Norwich. Mbokani is slightly winded, and rolls around a bit. The free kick goes nowhere. A strange, slow-motion start to this game by both teams. A warm handshake between two smiling managers, and then Norwich get the ball rolling. Early pressure down the left, Hooahan making a proper nuisance of himself, neither Toure nor Clyne looking particularly comfortable as they try to clear. But the ball’s eventually sent back into Norwich’s half. Rudd gets his first feel of the ball, launches long, and that allows his opposite number Mignolet to get his gloves on it too. The teams are out! A cracking atmosphere as always at Carrow Road. A crisp, cold afternoon. It’s a pleasant aesthetic experience as well, because both teams play in their first-choice colours: Norwich in their yellow and green, Liverpool in red. Hands to be shaken, coins tossed, songs sung. We’ll be off in a minute or two! A very determined looking Alex Neil speaks! “We didn’t get the chance to strengthen the squad as much as we’d have liked last summer, but we’ve done some good work in January so far. We’re really excited to see Pinto and Naismith. Tetty called in this morning, and he’s been unwell overnight, which is disappointing, but it gives someone else a chance.” He’s reminded that Norwich haven’t beaten Liverpool in 22 years. A wry smile plays across his face. “Thanks very much for letting me know that! I wasn’t aware of it. Records are there to be broken, eh?” Some refreshingly honest punditry on BT Sport this morning. Will Norwich stay up? Michael Owen: “No.” Will Liverpool make the Champions League places? Chris Sutton: “No.” Not a beat skipped. Marvellous. I don’t get the across-the-board hate for Owen the pundit. He’s more willing than most to offer an opinion that deviates from the same old, same old. I wonder if a lot of it is in the delivery? Would he be tolerated if he’d been blessed with the mellifluous timbre of Leonard Cohen? I dunno. Mind you, as I said downpage, I quite like the Norwich third kit, so my opinion doesn’t count for much. Po’ out-of-step MBM hack! Pre-match chat mit Jurgen Klopp und BT Sport. “Generally we could use a few results! Against Man U and Arsenal, from the performance side, it was OK, we are in good shape, so we should transform it into results. Keep the good things, change the bad things, that’s the challenge for today.” He’s asked whether he should have been starting with Benteke, given that Norwich are the team most vulnerable to crosses in the entire division. “Yes, well, that’s good, he can play them when they are tired! I have made this decision. Do with it what you want.” A cheeky smile. Ivo Pinto and Steven Naismith make their debuts for Norwich today. Ryan Bennett and Vadis Odjidja-Ofoe step down. Alex Tettey also makes way from the side that started at Bournemouth, with Graham Dorrans coming into the starting XI. Liverpool only name two players who started the FA Cup win over Exeter: Simon Mignolet and Jordan Ibe. The second string exit stage left, pretty much as expected. But once again Christian Benteke doesn’t get a Premier League start. His performance on Wednesday night was one of the strangest you’ll see: two excellent contributions in the build-ups for two goals, but a confidence-free shambles when presented with the sort of simple chances a £32m striker should be putting away. So Klopp’s decision to bench him is pretty much as expected, too. Norwich City: Rudd, Ivo Pinto, Martin, Bassong, Brady, Howson, Hoolahan, Dorrans, Redmond, Naismith, Mbokani. Subs: Ruddy, Jerome, Jarvis, Klose, Mulumbu, Olsson, Odjidja-Ofoe. Liverpool: Mignolet, Clyne, Toure, Sakho, Moreno, Can, Lucas, Henderson, Milner, Firmino, Ibe. Subs: Benteke, Caulker, Lallana, Allen, Flanagan, Ward, Teixeira. Referee: Lee Mason (Lancashire). 0-3, 0-5, 2-3. Liverpool have enjoyed their recent visits to Carrow Road. Or, to put it another way, a certain Uruguayan superstar did. Of those eleven goals, Luis Suarez scored seven. No Luis, no party? Norwich will fancy their chances of bucking the recent trend in this fixture. They’ve lost their last three games, it’s true, shipping three goals each time. But two of those defeats were away from home, and they’ve won their last two league games in Norfolk. A fine win at Old Trafford is recent in the memory, too, and the Canaries might be boosted by a debut for their new big-name signing Steven Naismith. The home side will also take succour from Liverpool’s failure to yet win a league fixture in 2016. Jurgen Klopp’s side are coming off the back of a disheartening home defeat to Manchester United, in which they sported lovely fur coats but were found to be severely lacking in the undergarment department. Yet there’s a sense that it wouldn’t take too much for things to click into place, which in fairness it’s done a couple of times on the road in spectacular style. But they can’t be trading on those Chelsea and Manchester City performances for ever. Norwich will be hopeful of continuing their good home form in the league, and keep their heads above the relegation waterline. Liverpool meanwhile want a positive result that’ll keep their faint Champions League hopes alive, and give them confidence ahead of the midweek League Cup semi against Stoke. It should be an intriguing end-to-end battle. It’s on! Kick off: 12.45pm BST.
Fishing communities' Brexit hopes may be too high, peers say The UK’s fishing industry has been warned it will have to accept difficult deals over foreign fleets in British waters if the country is to win favourable terms in next year’s Brexit talks. A House of Lords committee told fishing communities, who campaigned vigorously for a leave vote during the referendum, that they may have unrealistic hopes about the chances of reducing foreign fleets or cutting their catch sizes once the UK leaves the European Union. The UK’s trawlermen were among the most vocal critics of the EU during the referendum, fuelled by several decades of resentment against increasingly strict controls on fishing quotas, which are blamed on Brussels and the common fisheries policy (CFP), and claims that their interests are too easily traded away. Their campaign culminated in the famous “battle of the Thames” confrontation between a flotilla of trawlers skippered by pro-leave fishermen and led by Nigel Farage, the then Ukip leader, and a pro-EU flotilla led by Bob Geldof. Farage said this issue typified the need for the UK to take back control of its resources from the EU. The Lords energy and environment subcommittee said leaving the EU would allow the UK and devolved administrations to directly control access to the UK’s waters – the largest exclusive economic area in the UK – and its rich fishing grounds. But the fate of those fish stocks was closely linked to the UK’s wider interests, it said. Flexibility during the Brexit negotiations would be essential to protect British trawlers from retaliatory controls on access by its neighbours and also to preserve the UK’s wider trade and political interests in the talks. The peers told ministers that open and low-tariff access to the single market was essential for UK fisheries, because the industry was so integrated and dependent on European markets. The UK would also have to urgently negotiate new bilateral fisheries deals with two of Europe’s most powerful and competitive fishing nations, Norway and Iceland, and with the Faroe Islands. They all have substantial interests in mackerel and herring, the two most valuable catches to the UK. In 2010, a fleet of 50 Scottish boats blocked a Faroese trawler from entering Peterhead in a dispute over sharing out mackerel and herring stocks, after Nordic fleets decided their share was too small. The incident echoed the cod wars of the 1970s, where Royal Navy warships were confronted by Icelandic coastguard vessels when British boats were excluded from Iceland’s coastal waters, and was also a warning of the potential for future conflicts. “The vote to leave the European Union and, with it, the common fisheries policy has raised expectations for the future of fisheries policy that may be hard to deliver,” peers said. “In withdrawing from the EU, the UK will be able to develop a domestic fisheries policy and control fishing activity within its exclusive economic zone. However, the majority of commercial fish stocks in UK waters are shared with other states, rendering continued cooperation with the EU and other neighbouring states crucial to the sustainability of those stocks.” The committee said fish stocks were mobile and crossed international boundaries, which underlined the need to maintain existing management agreements. “The government should therefore pursue new, or interim, agreements as a matter of urgency, building on existing models where possible,” it said. The subcommittee said even though fisheries made up a tiny fraction of the UK’s GDP – contributing £426m to the economy - ministers had to be aware that they had substantial economic and cultural value to coastal communities. The UK government should also collaborate with devolved governments on fisheries policy during the Brexit talks, peers said, to present a united front and prevent fisheries fragmenting into competing areas within the UK. The Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish parliaments legally have jurisdiction over fisheries in their waters through devolution settlements, raising the prospects that they could win full control over policy and quotas too after Brexit. The UK’s fishing industry bodies, who are frequently at odds with each other, signed a joint position statement in November calling on the government to take full control of access by foreign vessels to British waters. They also demanded a full revision of quotas and fisheries management policy, to further distance the UK from the common fisheries policy. The Lords committee said the UK would still need to base its fisheries policies and catch levels on objective scientific data, agreed and shared with neighbouring countries, and base its quotas on international protocols. Despite the industry’s attacks on the CFP, peers said recent changes – heavily influenced by the UK – meant it was now far better run. The rest of the EU would continue to operate under the CFP, making it impossible for the UK to ignore. Bertie Armstrong, the chief executive of the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation, the largest of the industry bodies, said although deals would need to be struck, it was clearly in the UK’s economic interests to greatly tighten up access to British waters. They are the richest and largest fishing grounds of any in the EU, yet 58% of fish was taken by other national fleets while only 17% of the UK’s overall catch came from other waters. “Every nation or state has a set of fundamental assets,” Armstrong said. “One of the UK’s fundamental assets are these exceptionally rich waters. It is not an act of aggression to wish to take up your rights and responsibilities [for those waters] under international law. It’s normal.”
May minds her grammars, all for want of a decent ringbinder Monday You’d have thought that government officials would have wised up to the fact that the Downing Street snappers can read their briefing notes if they wander about with them in their hands. So for the want of a decent ringbinder, the government was forced to bring forward plans to reintroduce grammar schools, a policy the education secretary, Justine Greening, is far less keen on than Theresa May. Still, at least the row about selection and parental choice has taken everyone’s eyes off another embarrassment for the Department for Education. Last year’s SATs are now acknowledged to have been so hard that even primary schools that performed above average have been given a negative progress-related target for next year’s tests. In layman’s terms, this means the majority of schools will have to do less well than last year to prove they are doing better. Tuesday It’s an ill wind ... Keith Vaz announced he would stand down as chair of the home affairs select committee just as many of his colleagues were going through the division lobby to vote on the government’s finance bill. One Labour MP just happened to be standing behind a colleague who is on the committee. Seeing news of Vaz’s resignation on the colleague’s mobile, without blinking an eye, she immediately turned to another Labour MP and said: “I trust you will be supporting my candidacy for chair of the home affairs committee.” The king is dead, long live the queen. She hopes. Still, Vaz does have a few friends left in the Labour party. Ken Livingstone went on Sky News to say a politician shouldn’t be judged on one or two mistakes, such as apparently offering to pay for cocaine and appearing enthusiastic about breaking in an inexperienced east European sex worker. Ken then went on to mention Hitler. Wednesday Relationships don’t get much more meta than this. Having very openly got together at the Met Ball in the summer, actor Tom Hiddleston and singer Taylor Swift then went on to conduct their romance almost entirely in public, with photographers on call to detail every hook-up of l’affaire Hiddleswift. Swift has now very publicly broken up with the Hid on the grounds that their relationship had become too public and the Hid has been very publicly photographed mooching around looking broken-hearted. To make matters worse for the Hid, it now looks as if he won’t land the job of playing the next James Bond that he or his people had been angling for after his success in The Night Manager. Daniel Craig has reportedly been offered $150m to continue as 007 for another couple of films. Thursday At last something Labour can win. For years now, the title of Westminster dog of the year has been a safe Tory seat, but Labour MP Jonathan Reynolds’ two labradoodles, Clinton and Kennedy, managed to see off a strong field to be crowned 2016 champions. “I speak for everyone in the Labour party when I say it’s about time we won something, so we might as well accept this,” Reynolds said. Mind you, Clinton and Kennedy did have an advantage as the competition seemed to be rigged in favour of the bigger dogs: the assault course jumps were twice the size of Clem, the diminutive shih tzu owned by Labour MP Anna Turley. Despite there being two Tories on the judging panel – Andrea Jenkyns and Hugo Swire, the owners of last year’s winners – the result wasn’t well received by some Tories, who felt Reynolds’ pooches should have been marked down for not being sound enough on Brexit. Friday Today is the day Britain starts a huge round of trade deals that will be wrapped up within one to two years. At least that’s what the Brexit minister, David Davis, promised in a piece for the Conservative Home blog in July: “I would expect the new prime minister on September 9th to immediately trigger a large round of global trade deals with all our most favoured trade partners. I would expect the negotiation phase of most of them to be concluded within 12 to 14 months.” Except, as the Australians, the US and the Japanese have pointed out in the past week, that isn’t going to happen. Partly because they have said they will prioritise concluding trade deals with the EU, but mainly because it will be impossible to conduct meaningful trade negotiations with other countries until the precise nature of our own exit from the EU has been finalised. So it will be at least two and a half years before we can even start negotiating. All of which is great news for the international trade secretary, Liam Fox, as it means he can do what he likes doing best – flying round the world doing not very much. With or without his friend Adam Werritty. Digested week, digested: Brexit means never having to give a running commentary on Brexit.
Animal Collective review – joyful oddity becomes wilful wackiness The late Factory Records boss Tony Wilson once said that bands never turn in anything good after their fifth album. Baltimore’s Animal Collective proved him wrong, producing their masterpiece with their eighth. Merriweather Post Pavilion in 2009 was a marvellous record, in which the group turned collages of everything from jungle beats to wind chimes into moments of transcendent, childlike joy. Seven years on, their hands aren’t quite as steady at the wheel, and the revelation that they made Painting With, their latest album, by hiring a baby pool, dimming the lights and projecting images of dinosaurs on the walls, hardly dispels suspicions that joyful oddity has tipped into wilful wackiness. Here, they eschew their best-loved songs in favour of a setlist drawn mostly from the album, which proves more troublesome live. There are the familiar collages – everything from Clangers-type squeaks to pop bubblegum and the cackle from the Surfaris’ Wipeout. But vocal “hocketing” (an early-music technique in which two voices sing alternating syllables) is experimental but baffling, and eventually grows irritating. Animal Collective have never been great showmen, but with the banter-free band huddled behind electronics, there could be more in the way of performance than the sight of Brian Weitz, aka Geologist, torch strapped to his head and rolling about like an acid casualty at Woodstock. As the lighting gradually becomes more kaleidoscopic, things tiptoe from the inpenetrable towards the sublime. Dancing erupts for FloriDada, a giddy collision of EBM and tribal beats and the doo-wop/surf pop era. Golden Gal – expressing empathy with objectified women – is warm and catchy. Bees, from 2005, in which a sampled strummed instrument (an autoharp?) combines with yearning vocals, is truly lovely, but the expected transcendent experience never comes. Animal Collective tour the UK and Ireland in September.
Where are Leicester City’s Asian fans? This weekend Leicester City could seal the biggest shock of the modern football era by winning the Premier League title. The east midlands team, put together with a fraction of the resources available to the game’s giants, such as Manchester United, Manchester City and Chelsea, were 5,000-1 outsiders to take the title at the start of the season. But now it’s a fairytale that really could come true. And everyone, it seems (apart from fans of second-placed Tottenham Hotspur), wants the minnows to win. But in all the words written about this amazing achievement, one thing strikes me as having been ignored. Watch the highlights of any Leicester City game, and look at the faces in the crowd. Leicester, you see, is one of Britain’s most diverse cities. Proportionately, it has the highest Asian population in the UK (almost 30%), and another 20% are either African, Caribbean or mixed race. Yet the home crowd at the club’s King Power Stadium is almost exclusively white. I looked at TV pictures of a home match this month and counted about five Asian supporters for every 100 fans. So, despite its on-field success, why has the club failed so badly to attract a diverse fan base? Though you’d never guess it from the crowd, Leicester fans tell me that away fans used to chant at them, “You come from a town full of Pakis.” To be fair, Leicester are not alone: fans of many other teams - from Aston Villa to Blackburn Rovers to Huddersfield Town, where there are also substantial local Asian populations – tell me they don’t see many Asians at their grounds. The club I follow, Southampton, built its stadium in an ethnically mixed area, but sometimes I come away from games thinking there was more diversity on the pitch than in the stands. This evident lack of diversity at our football grounds seems at odds with the bold statements made by clubs about how rooted they are in their communities. Sure, the Premier League will tell you that this season 14% of people who attended its matches were of ethnic minority background: but ask them what proportion of these are of south Asian origin, and they’ll tell you they don’t know. Football in this country seems to be ignoring the Asian community. Despite the odd initiative, such as at Bradford City, clubs have not really reached out. But even if clubs are not that interested in diversity, you would think the commercial benefits of attracting new fans would rouse them, with the prospect of selling so many football shirts and other memorabilia. Could it be that Premier League clubs don’t worry too much about appealing to Asian fans as they think we are not passionate about football, or that we stubbornly stick to games our parents played, like cricket and hockey? Why people think south Asians can’t be passionate about football, like white British people are, baffles me. British Asians play football at grassroots level in large numbers. Research by Goals Soccer Centres estimated that as much as 20% of its five-a-side business comes from Asian players. What will definitely help bring more Asian fans through the turnstiles is more British Asians playing professional football. Leicester City fans I’ve spoken to claim Asians in the city support bigger clubs rather than their local team. But what they seem to forget is that in the 1980s clubs like Arsenal led the way in English football by bringing through black players, which in turn attracted ethnic minority fans. These days, clubs like Chelsea, with their Asian Star programme, are doing their bit to bring through young talent, but there’s a long way to go. Of 3,000 professional footballers in the top four divisions, just nine have south Asian heritage. The Premier League currently has only one player of South Asian background, Swansea’s Neil Taylor. Racism at grounds in the “bad old days” of English football, and a cultural tendency for British Asians to keep away from traditionally white spaces, have both led to a lack of connection between Asians and local football clubs. So it is hardly surprising that the children of previous generations are less inclined to go to matches. But times have changed. Clubs nowadays often boast of their heritage, claiming how integral they are to their towns and cities. If that’s really true then they need to prove it by promoting diversity within their stadiums, starting with better engagement with their local communities, of all backgrounds.
Mrs Cameron’s Diary: Sarah’s like, hey bff - can we have Govey’s bongos back? Well I said to Mummy at a guess Sarah Govey has now sent 50 texts that go hey Sam I do hope our boys won’t spoil our friendship, u R my bff for ever, Sam I promise I am not really bffs with Marina, just pretending until June 23rd, btw you look super gorge on the FROW do u get a discount at Burberry, Marina’s clothes are well tragic!!!! If you see the stuff in the Mail pls tell Dave soz Dacre made me, so blame him, btw Sam if you have last week’s Grazia can I have ur free gift plus Michael needs his bongos back, Mr Lebedev luvs bongos PS his beard is real he says he luvs my work!!! luv u lots Sarah. Mummy’s like how SWEET, I’m like, excuse me, Dave is beyond devastated, have you actually tried finding cheap & reliable babysitting, she’s like, but darling I thought you already dropped them? I’m like, demi-dropped, they were totally on call for date nights, school runs & any difficult homework, I mean, being chucked by the Johnsons it’s like, whatevs, I mean *shudders*, having to kiss Mr Lebedev’s naked foot, I do not care if it is a Russian thing, but the Goveys? Dave is like, I totally MADE Govey, it is literally like when Frankenstein tries to get James Fox’s part in All About Eve, can you believe his bongos are still in our utility room #betrayal? Mummy’s like, well at least it is not the first time #Hilto #Rebekah #Coulson #Murdoch #Clarkson #Crosby, I’m like, except they did not do Elwen’s Latin unseens & do not forget netball, Nancy is like excuse me mother, at least he does not go to their kid’s actual SCHOOL, & poor Florence has female Govey for a godmother? Mummy’s like, bright side darling, she is not Tony Blair, just get Welby to do an excommunication, I’m like, you mean exorcism, do not get me started on their hideous TASTE, Dave’s mother always said never trust a person who buys one elephant lamp, let alone 12 - Mummy’s like *OKA voice* EXCUSE ME? I’m like *hastily* because they are obviously just doing it to show off, she’s like, well don’t say it didn’t work, everyone we know simply adores dear Govey :(((
The patient who showed me how to be a better doctor and person The thing that keeps me going in my job as a doctor are the patients. There are days, no matter how dark, where certain ones shine like stars – their strength glows when you least expect it. These star patients take you by surprise and never leave you. They become your guiding lights through this challenging and rewarding career. Every day a patient moves me. However, there are some extra special ones who stand out, like the teenager who was told she’ll never have children or the man who wasn’t suitable for urgent treatment for his heart attack. I later received a letter of thanks from his bereaved daughters for telling them this difficult news. The patient I have been thinking about most recently is one I met while doing an A&E shift. He was an elderly gentleman wearing a pristine, tailored, brown-checked suit with polished brown shoes with leather soles. He wore a shining silk tie and handkerchief bursting like a blossom from his pocket. Beside him was his wife who was as well dressed and stylish. Both were waiting patiently, watching the hustle and bustle around them. Seeping from his brow and smooth grey hair were floods of bright red blood. I was too busy to pay them any more attention until, by chance, he became my patient. He’d been at a family wedding and was hundreds of miles from home. Bending down in the car park a car had reversed into his head. The couple had driven themselves to hospital, rather than call an ambulance. I completed my assessment, did a neurological exam and he was rushed for an urgent CT scan of his head and neck. It turned out he was a retired consultant haematologist. While waiting for the scan results he told me about his career and his love of the job. I felt stupid discussing with him the risks of head injuries. As a young adult he’d been diagnosed with a significant malformation of his brain. His CT scan was one of the most shocking I had seen, huge gaps in places there should have been brain tissue. There was an audible gasp when I had his image up in the doctors’ station. He later told me: “As a young man I was told I could die at anytime. I’ve lived my life like that and I’m still here. I’m 83 and I’ve had a great, great life. Look at this woman, my wife, my love.” He told me how he’d enjoyed training doctors and watching them grow and how he as an old man needed these doctors now. He spoke with such truth and honesty, I blinked back the tears. I saw in him my late grandfather whom I loved so dearly. I saw how medicine is a career of sharing knowledge, an apprenticeship and teaching of the next generation. I felt the stories of patients he had cared for, lives this man had touched. I had no doubt that this was one special doctor. I explained that I would like to keep him in hospital for a period of observation. “Absolutely not,” he told me. “I’m going home. If I die in one hour, one week or one year from now, I’m more than happy to take that chance.” I told him I would have to discharge him against medical advice. Sometimes we doctors completely understand when people just want to go home against advice. Sometimes no treatment is the best treatment. I completed my capacity assessments, mental state exams and sutured his head. And there he was, gracious, grateful and inspiring. I asked if there was anything else I could do. He said he wanted to see a scan of his brain because he had never seen one. After some organisation I gave him a copy and he was delighted. I watched he and his wife leave in their blood-stained wedding outfits. He held the door open for her and I saw their love for each other. I was having a bad day until he came into it like a shining light. These star patients humbly remind you what a privilege it is to do this job. Stories of lives lived, personal experiences. We see lives saved and stars blinking their last light. I hope he is still shining his shoes somewhere, drinking tea with his wife and looking at his scan. I hope to endeavour to be like him as a person and a doctor. Even in his retirement he was a glowing example of how a good person, a good doctor, should be. Some details have been changed Join the Healthcare Professionals Network to read more pieces like this. And follow us on Twitter (@GdnHealthcare) to keep up with the latest healthcare news and views.
Hollywood's acting workshops are really 'exploitative' auditions, insiders say They are billed as “acting workshops” – opportunities to learn the craft and network. But to some in Hollywood they are something else: the dirty secret of the fame game. Dozens of companies run workshops across Los Angeles promising jobless and struggling actors a chance to hone their skills in a hyper-competitive industry. In reality, critics say, these sessions are de facto auditions that actors pay to attend, which is not only wrong but also illegal. They call the practice “pay for play”. According to this critique, casting directors and their proxies disguise auditions as training exercises in order to pocket about $50 from participants. “The system is horribly exploitative,” said Dea Vise, an outspoken casting director. “And it goes against diversity because actors who can’t afford to pay don’t get to play at all. Most actors are afraid to speak out because they’re afraid of being blackballed by the casting community. Everyone wants a magic potion to make themselves famous, and there just isn’t that.” An investigation in the Hollywood Reporter, a trade magazine, shone a harsh light on workshops this week, saying they had “metastasized” into a human resources policy for the entertainment industry. “The result is a gig economy in which temporary labor pays to be ‘taught’ by independent contractors, who in many cases are staffing programming for media corporations,” the article said. “Cost-conscious networks and studios offload a burden once held by productions to cast their shows on to the labor market itself. Millions of dollars previously spent on casting have been cut from balance sheets, and tens of thousands of aspiring actors have been stuck with the bill.” The article said the workshops were linked to original productions on nearly every broadcast and cable network as well as prominent streaming services. “Many observe that more than half of new actors give the system a shot. A typical aspirant might spend $1,500 a year on two to three workshop classes a month in the hope of landing an entry ‘co-star’ role that pays about $1,000 for a day’s work.” The investigation triggered a polarised reaction, some hailing it as an overdue expose, others lamenting an unjustified attack on a legitimate, valuable resource for actors. Mike Funk, an actor and writer, said everyone knew workshops were really auditions. “The whole thing is pretty disgusting – how some of these casting directors are making money off of struggling artists. You learn nothing from these workshops. You get to run your scene or a monologue. They have a monitor with a stopwatch around their neck and they knock on the door when your time is up. They are not teaching you anything; it’s a paid audition, bottom line.” Under the Krekorian Talent Scam Prevention Act, exchanging money for the prospect of employment is illegal in California. The law bans workshops and casting directors from charging or attempting to charge performers for auditions or employment opportunities. Rob Wilcox, a spokesman for the Los Angeles city attorney, said that prosecutors had taken six cases under the act, but none related to casting workshops. Asked if workshops were exploitative, representatives for the actor’s union, Sag-Aftra, and the Casting Society of America, were unable to provide an immediate response. Some industry figures defended workshops as invaluable stepping stones for talented, driven actors. “This is a way of thinning the herd,” said Marlene Forte, a veteran actor who has appeared in Dallas and Star Trek. “Actors have to act and workshops are a great way of doing it. Why not do it in front of someone who can hire you? If I was an actor here without representation I’d do it. Casting directors are the people who need to know your work. Plus, workshops are tax deductible.” Gigi Garner, a talent manager, said some workshops were dead ends but others opened doors. “You have to do your homework. Workshops give actors a chance to meet casting directors that they may not be able to get in front of any other way. I’ve recommended them to my clients but I only choose those casting directors that I know will bring them in … if impressed.” Casting directors were not the villains in the Hollywood machine, Garner said. “Casting directors don’t get paid all that much and they work really long hours.” •A previous version of this article described Gigi Garner as a talent agent. She is a talent manager and never claimed to be an agent.
REM, Christine and the Queens, Marilyn and more – our favourite interviews of 2016 REM by Michael Hann I had a startling October, during which I got to interview Bruce Springsteen and REM. The former was the one I had been waiting for – the chance to talk to the man who had soundtracked my early middle age. But the latter turned out to be the one I felt most deeply about. REM were one of the most important bands of my teens and early 20s – in my memory, at least, I fell asleep every night listening to either Murmur or Fables of the Reconstruction on headphones. I was awfully nervous about meeting Michael Stipe, not just because his music had meant so much to me, but also because so many latter-day interviews had turned out to be cantankerous affairs. In fact, he was delightful. You’re never going to mistake him for Peter Ustinov – there are no anecdotes beginning, “So, Zsa Zsa Gabor and I boarded the Orient Express with a case of very fine whisky, a pair of budgerigars and one passport between us… ” – but he was engaging and engaged company, forthright and as honest as a rock star will ever be. Before I travelled to the States to speak to him, my 16-year-old daughter had asked who I was going to meet. I told her. “Oh, they’re cool,” she said. I pointed out she had barely listened to REM; “Yeah, but people know they’re cool anyway.” I repeated that story to Stipe. “Cool? From a 16-year-old?” he said. “I’ll take that.” Then – to my astonishment and delight – he went hunting through REM HQ for memorabilia to sign for her. I have to admit, I was on the brink of tears. Rarely has an interviewee confounded me so completely. Read the interview here Jamie T by Rachel Aroesti Although I was an early Jamie T devotee, one thing I completely failed to pick up on as a teenage indie enthusiast was the way he wove the topic of anxiety into his music (you’d think the name of his debut, Panic Prevention, might have been a clue). Before I met him, I looked back at past reviews and interviews, and was reminded that it wasn’t just me – at that time so many things connected to mental health were simply glossed over by a confused public. Even if Jamie Treays didn’t know why he’d decided to bravely confront such a stigma, it was fascinating to hear how he’d done so in the face of a dismissive and largely unsympathetic response over the years – as well as how he now seemed determined to call the shots in his career in order to look after his mental health. Read the interview here Bon Iver by Laura Barton There’s something very special about interviewing an artist over the course of their career – as if every few years you pick up the thread of a conversation and simply carry on. I think it can result in something quite unusual in terms of illumination and honesty, and bring a broader perspective on a musician’s career. I’ve been fortunate enough to have just such a long-running conversation with Justin Vernon since his debut in 2008. This summer in Minneapolis I met him again to discuss his third record, 22, A Million, and the despair, love, determination and fierce friendship that led to its making. Read the interview here Tony Conrad by Ben Beaumont-Thomas As social media calcifies debate into entrenched positions and Spotify sells your moods back to you, raise a glass to Tony Conrad, an artist who never let himself be neatly packaged up. In perhaps the last interview before his death in April, after suffering from prostate cancer, he reflected on a life that took in everything from giving the Velvet Underground their name, to meeting his wife dressed as a mummy for an erotic underground movie – and the creation of masterful drone music. Most important to him, though, was a project highlighting children’s academic achievements on local TV. “It wasn’t art, it wasn’t social service, it wasn’t teaching – it was nothing!” he said joyfully. “My whole life project, my whole art, had gone down into some kind of black hole.” We need more like him: people who grow in the cracks of a consumer culture, and split it apart. Read the interview here Patti Smith by Tim Jonze Whenever I get the chance to meet a rock’n’roll icon – and how could you possibly describe Patti Smith if not as a rock’n’roll icon – the initial excitement swiftly dissolves into anxiety. As I start to read up on them, the stomach knots usually increase: Patti Smith used to scream obscenities in the faces of boorish hecklers; she slept in graveyards; she took on the entire rock patriarchy. By the time I arrived at this interview and realised that, owing to a mixup, I’d kept her waiting an hour already, I accepted that we were going to be in for a testing time. Imagine my surprise then when she took me arm in arm, apologised for the delay to my day, and began rhapsodising about the Peter Pan statue in Hyde Park. She was warm, maternal and extremely generous with her time – but she did take a minute to angrily admonish a group of people loitering nearby who were talking too loudly, which reassured me that this really was the correct Patti Smith I was talking to. Read the interview here Christine and the Queens by Laura Snapes Over a two and a half hour lunch with Héloïse Letissier in Paris this August, we shared a very un-Parisian bottle of sparkling water. But when we parted ways – Letissier to a blood test to assuage her hypochondria – I felt drunk on her. I took a cab to Place des Vosges and walked aimlessly until I emerged from my daze a few hours later. Even though she was the one being grilled, Letissier makes you feel seen. “You are introverted as well,” she observed kindly, which might have knocked me off-guard if she hadn’t said it to a writer friend of mine a few months earlier. Not that she’s manipulative: Letissier is eloquent, intensely intelligent and warm with it. I’d read more than 300 French press clippings (and as many in English) as slightly anal interview prep. There’s always the danger that there’s nothing left to know when you go that far down the rabbit hole. But given Letissier’s total candour and apparent ability to discuss anything incisively, I could have talked to her for three times longer. Read the interview here Madness by Simon Hattenstone I thought I could cope with the full Madness. No way, said the publicist, two is more than you can handle. He was right, of course. An hour of Suggs and Kix talking at you in a Camden pub and you feel battered. Great fun, mind. Wonderful stories (if at times I wondered whether they indulged in the old poetic licence) from the Nutty Boys. My favourite bit is their nostalgia for the good old days when you got hit on the head with bicycle chains, which made me smile (not that I’m advocating it). And Suggs’s tale about seeing Amy Winehouse just before she died had me welling up. Read the interview here Marilyn by Alexis Petridis Like anyone who’s read Boy George’s autobiographies, I approached interviewing Marilyn with a degree of caution. Before, during and immediately after his brush with early 80s fame, he sounded like a bit of a nightmare: he happily described himself as “vile”. Furthermore, he’d subsequently spent decades in drug-addled seclusion. But I was also fascinated by him, not least the fact that, 30 years on, he looked like a very modern kind of pop star: more famous himself than the records he made, a bigger star than his commercial success suggested. He turned out to be a dream interviewee: charming, funny, self-aware, unflinching in telling his extraordinary story. The subsequent piece went viral: at one point it was the most-read thing on the entire website. “How would I know if people were still interested in me?” he snorted when I asked him if he was surprised that people still cared, 32 years after he’d last had a hit. “I was locked in a fucking room for years, taking drugs and watching Alien.” Read the interview here Teenage Fanclub by Jude Rogers The story of Teenage Fanclub is not a drama of epic proportions – if you’re looking for whiteouts and breakdowns, take your snarl elsewhere, sunshine – but a loving, gently evolving story of a band who’ve been together their whole adult lives, writing beautiful songs and taking their fans with them. Being asked to write about what a band means and feels to people was a particular delight; music’s often about the image and the narrative, of course, but it’s also about the endorphin surge when those chords start to chime. In the commercial-success stakes, nearly-men TFC will always be. For those of us who love them, that’s enough. Read the interview here Little Mix by Michael Cragg Little Mix are a very modern pop band. Formed on The X Factor and born and raised under the scrutiny of a social-media world, they should, like their peers, be media-trained to within an inch of their lives. Brilliantly, almost miraculously, they still have absolutely no filter, which makes interviewing them a complete joy. Some parts of our chat – conducted over a heated game of Popstars Top Trumps and covering a stolen lamb shank, RuPaul and Syria – proved too scandalous to print, which is how I wish all pop-star interviews would go. Read the interview here Richard Ashcroft by Dave Simpson I first interviewed Richard Ashcroft in Wigan in his pre-supernova Verve days, when journalists dubbed him Mad Richard because of his tendency to offer such pronouncements such as “I can fly.” Nowadays, acid and grandiosity have given way to family life, wealth, sobriety and battles with depression, but he didn’t need more than a couple of mineral waters to turn back into Mad Richard. I’m sure his estranged former bandmates will have their own views on how superstardom affected him, but at least for a couple of hours in a pub on a sunny afternoon, he seemed to cherish the opportunity to become his old self. Read the interview here Phil Collins by Dorian Lynskey I had pursued an interview with Phil Collins because I was fascinated by his story. What I took for granted at the time now seemed like a very peculiar journey: one of the most admired drummers of the 70s becomes one of the biggest, most unlikely and, eventually, most divisive stars of the 80s, before entering an uneasy retirement. His career was extreme even though his music wasn’t. Many veteran stars are too smooth and complacent to be rewarding interviewees, but Collins is one of those unfortunate souls in whom minor slights take up far more headspace than major achievements. I found his intense vulnerability very endearing. Read the interview here Barry Hyde by Harriet Gibsone An interview with Barry Hyde, whose stark and elegant portrayal of bipolar disorder was the heart of his solo album Malody, was the piece I received the most feedback for. It was a feature I was proud to have been part of. Hyde, known by many as the frontman of the buoyant Sunderland art pop group the Futureheads, was open and articulate about his experience of mental-health problems, from his false awakening in the Arizona desert to his diagnosis and the trauma of the years that followed. Although keen not to be presented as a crusader, his message to men similar to him, men from Sunderland, or any working-class town who might not be expressive or open about their feelings, was a pertinent antithesis of the usual copy-shifting promo we normally encounter. Read the interview here Read more on the best music of 2016
Benefit cuts threaten independent living for thousands of disabled people Kate Rae, from Aveley, Thurrock, in Essex, was keen to get back to work after being diagnosed with a serious disability. And for four years, government support, in the form of the disability living allowance, allowed her to do so. But in January, six days into a new job as an events sales executive for a four-star London hotel, Rae got a letter saying that her reassessment for the new personal independence payment (PIP) had found her capable of walking between 20 to 50 metres. She no longer qualified for a Motability car, crucial for her journey into London for work. Without it, she was forced to give up her job. This weekend, Rae, 40, was dealt another blow: she expects to be one of the 200,000 disabled people who will lose benefit altogether, according to a Labour analysis, under further changes to disability benefit to be included in Wednesday’s budget. “It is the last straw for me,” said Rae, who has chronic pain and Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, a disorder causing poor balance that makes walking difficult. “Under the new scheme, I will no longer qualify. I don’t know what I’m going to do. How am I supposed to feed myself, clothe myself? Without these things, I can’t get ready to work.” Under the old scheme, Rae would have been awarded eight points, for help with daily living, including two for an aid to help with dressing and undressing and two for an aid, such as a rail support, for going to the toilet, giving her £56 a week in daily care allowance. If she was reassessed under the new criteria, she would only score six points, which means no award. This week, after much soul-searching, she is packing up her house to move to Shropshire so that “my mum can look after me”. “I’ve lived independently all my life since I was 18,” said Rae. “I’ve been working since I was 14. I had seven years out of work when I first was disabled, but, through work, I was starting to feel like a proper person. They’ve taken away my ability to do that. Now I’m back to feeling like a poor little disabled girl again. “We’re being treated like a financial inconvenience. The government forget that there are actual lives at the end of these changes.” Disabled charities have described the plans, which is expected to hit an additional 400,000 people who will see their weekly PIP payments fall from an enhanced £82 to the standard £55, as devastating. They say cuts to benefits helping people to lead independent lives is a “false economy”. The cuts are the latest in a string of reforms, including the change from disability living allowance to PIP, to proposed changes to employment support allowance and the cuts to social care that have affected disabled people. Bethen Thorpe, an actor and former pub landlady from Highgate, north London, also expects to be among the 200,000 people who face having their benefit stopped under the measures in Wednesday’s budget. Thorpe, who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in September 2014, after losing the use of her left side and suffering vision problems, accused the government of discrimination. “With the cuts to employment support allowance and the proposed cuts to PIP, I do feel discriminated against,” said Thorpe, 39. “These cuts are against some of society’s most vulnerable people, with the proviso that they won’t fight it.” Following her diagnosis two years ago, Thorpe applied for PIP and was refused, but successfully appealed against the decision. Her appeal awarded her nine points, for standard daily living, including two points for an aid for using the toilet and two for an aid dressing and undressing. Under the proposed rules for each of these tasks, she would only receive one point, bringing her total to seven points and no award. “If I don’t qualify, I will have no money coming in,” said Thorpe. “It is counterproductive to what they are saying disabled people should be doing. PIP can help cushion you getting into work or help you travel there. Without it, people with disabilities are less likely to get back to their normal lives.” Disabled people and their relatives contacted the in response to an appeal for stories of experiences with the changes. One woman, from Nottingham, said she feared her mother, who has osteoarthritis as the result of a car accident, would lose her benefits. The woman, who did not want to be named, said: “I’m incredibly angry. This will have a knock-on effect. My mum worked for 40 years, most recently as a housing officer. She helps me out with my son and she helps out her former husband, who has mental health problems. She is going to be trapped in her bungalow. They are targeting the wrong people.” Liz Sayce, chief executive of Disability Rights UK, said: “It’s a false economy to make cuts in the very areas that enable people to get their lives on track. We profoundly believe that disabled people have got so much to contribute to British society. But with the cuts to benefits, social care cuts and now the tighter regulation to PIP, we are really concerned it will jeopardise independent living for disabled people, leaving them socially isolated.” A spokeswoman from the Department of Work and Pensions said: “The truth is that these changes are about ensuring that PIP is achieving its original purpose of supporting people with the extra costs associated with their disability. We have consulted widely with disability organisations, to ensure we get this right, and have been careful to protect people with the most complex needs. We continue to spend £50bn a year on disability benefits.” She said the majority of people leaving the motobility scheme would be eligible for a £2,000 one-off payment and that claimants could also apply for an access to work grant for support to get to work. Analysis by DWP found that 33% of claimants who receive the daily living component of PIP qualify solely due to their use of aids and appliances.
Hollywood's technical wizards honoured at 'the nerds' Oscars' Every year, around two weeks before Hollywood’s highest-profile players convene for the Oscars, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences hosts a sidebar awards event affectionally known in Tinseltown as “the nerds’ Oscars”. The evening, officially dubbed the Scientific and Technical awards, rewards innovation in film – allowing the behind-the-scenes wizards of the industry to have their moment in the spotlight. Although hosted by the Academy, the institution responsible for the Oscars, the event itself more closely resembles the Golden Globes, despite the fact that the winners are pre-ordained. Emceed every year by two comedic actors (this year the duties fell to Jason Segel and Olivia Munn, who made for a spirited duo), the awards are doled out as honourees mingle over a boozy dinner in a Beverly Hills hotel large banquet hall. The key difference that separates it from the pack: this is the one event where talent gunning for Oscar glory get to take a night off. Of the awards, Segel and Munn had a ball honouring Michael John Keesling for the design and development of Image Shaker (an optical system that creates a replicable camera shake), by enacting the effect of the gadget by flailing around the stage. Another highlight came when software developer and engineer Kiyoyuki Nakagaki earned laughs for thanking his mother for “raising me up ... and buying me a thick programming book as a child,” in accepting his honour for co-creating MARI, a 3D texture painting system, originally developed for use in the making of Avatar. Other notable honourees included David McIntosh, Steve Marshall Smith, Mike Branham and Mike Kirilenko for the development of the Aircover Inflatables Airwall, which enables green and blue screens, used for computer graphics, to reach enormous scales; and Brian McLean and Martin Meunier for advancing stop-motion film-making with the advent of 3D printing. Additionally, the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers received a special plaque to commemorate its centennial celebration. The main Oscars ceremony on 28 February will feature clips from the evening.
Suffer from anxiety? Try a sensory deprivation tank When was the last time you really stopped running around and just stood still? At a time when work, endless emails and a million distractions vie for our attention, the idea of taking time to just be present is more popular than ever. This is where sensory deprivation flotation pools come in. Flotation pools promise to give that stillness back to you, even if you have never meditated a day in your life. That said, sensory deprivation is really a misnomer, according to Justin Feinstein, a clinical neuropsychologist who studies the effects of the practice in his laboratory at the Laureate Institute for Brain Research. The pools reduce external stimulation, and thus enhance internal sensation of a person’s world, he explains. From science experiment to fashion statement Flotation pools originated in the 1950s with a wacky researcher named John Lilly, who tried to see what would happen if a person was submerged underwater for long periods of time, without the distractions of light and sound. Lilly published no scientific research, according to Feinstein, and instead wrote about his experiences taking hallucinogens while underwater. Lilly was ostracized by the scientific community, explains Feinstein, and the practice didn’t catch on. In the 1970s, when meditation and Eastern philosophy became fashionable, a much more palatable version of the flotation pool emerged, without the hallucinogens. For an hour at a time, at a spa or at someone’s home, a person could float face up in a warm tub or pool of very salty water. The temperature was set to match that of the human body, and the salt content was high enough that you could float effortlessly. With sound- and light-proofing, the desired effect was a feeling of weightlessness and a sensation that your body and the water were one. The practice faded away in the 1980s, which some attribute to the AIDS scare, when bathhouses and other communal places also closed – only to reemerge today, stronger than ever, as yoga, meditation and alternative medicine have also done. Commercial tanks have cropped up all over the country, promising an easier path to meditation and a new experience for people looking for another way to inner peace. The resurgence of flotation pools is relatively recent, says Feinstein, with the movement really coming back around 2010. In 2009, Feinstein tells me, there were only 20 flotation centers in the US. These days, he says there are over 300 places to float across the country. While the tanks offer a way to relax and self-reflect, for scientists like Feinstein, flotation also shows promise of helping people deal with anxiety. Flotation allows the nervous system a chance to relax, explains Feinstein. According to him, the level of relaxation achieved in a flotation pool is similar to what would be achieved with anti-anxiety drugs or meditation. Flotation pools also help people with anxiety become more aware of their own body: those with anxiety will often imagine that their heart is beating out of control, and a flotation pool allows them to lie still and really hear their own heart rate and breathing. “Flotation has been shown to be an effective intervention to prevent sick leave, as well as an effective treatment of stress-related disorders and chronic pain conditions,” says Kristoffer Jonsson, a PhD candidate studying the practice in the laboratory of Anette Kjellgren, a psychologist and flotation researcher at Karlstad University in Sweden. Like Feinstein, Jonsson has found promising results in using flotation for the treatment of anxiety. “The world is so beautiful” To better understand what happens inside the flotation tank, I dropped $100 to experience an hour of senselessness at Lift/Next Level Floats, in trendy Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn. While a number of tanks have popped up at spas all over New York City, Lift is devoted exclusively to flotation. Situated on a busy shopping street, the flotation center is eerily still. The silent waiting room is outfitted with comfy couches, herbal tea and books by Oliver Sacks and Buddhist scholars. At Lift, the flotation tank looks like a cross between a sleek car top carrier and a huge bidet. After a shower, you enter the pod, close it, turn a dial inside the pod to turn off all light, and lie still. Despite the fact that you are lying naked in a huge plastic tub, I felt calm as soon as the lights went out. The pod felt like a cocoon – albeit one I kept gently bumping into in my first restless minutes. The experience really does remind you how seldom we are alone and in silence with our thoughts, outside of the time when we are trying to fall asleep. If you have trouble shutting out the world, says Sam Zeiger, flotation shuts it out for you. Zeiger has operated a flotation tank service in New York since 1985, and runs the only commercial flotation business that has survived since the last time flotation was in fashion. One of its most profound effects was the feeling that for the next hour there was nowhere I needed to be and nothing I needed to do, but relax and float in the warm water until I felt dissolved. That sense of calm is a big reason people use flotation tanks, says Zeiger, who refers to flotation as a “mini retreat” that gives you a rest from “gravity and outside sensory input”. “The greatest gift is the gift of having a little pause in your life, stopping the wheels that we have to be doing something or achieving something and just be yourself,” he explains to me. Preliminary brain imaging data also implies flotation has the same effect on the brain as some anti-anxiety drugs, says Feinstein. In his research, he compared brain imaging of people given the anti-anxiety drug Ativan to people who had floated and found the same dampening of the amygdala, the part of the brain responsible for emotion and survival instincts. My amygdala potentially dampened, I stopped fidgeting and was finally able to lie still without touching anything in the pod. Your sense of time is the first thing to go as you float. Without a watch or any outside cues, the difference between 10 minutes and 30 minutes totally disappears. At first I kept thinking about this article, and trying to remember every part of the experience so I could relay it, but after some time, my mind started to drift. As I allowed myself to relax, I seemed to enter a half asleep state. “A lot of people talk about being in this liminal state between sleeping and waking” Feinstein explains, an idea echoed by Zeiger, who has been floating for years. “Right before we fall asleep, we are in that state with disconnected thoughts and little insights that only last a few seconds before we fall asleep. In the float tank, you hang in that state for long periods of time,” Zeiger explains. As I lay there, groggy but awake, I couldn’t help thinking, “My god, the world is so beautiful.” (This despite the fact that my non-pod self would probably roll her eyes at the hokeyness of this sentiment.) Newly sprouted flowers pushing up through the earth, warm sunshine, the feeling of being close to my family – it was all so wonderful. If I could just ignore politics and world news, pretend to live in this little bubble, and focus on this moment and this day, it would all be bursting with happiness and light. In Feinstein’s research, in addition to reduced anxiety, he had told me that subjects typically report a feeling of serenity when they float. In my case, I found myself smiling into the dark. Breaking the illusion Before I knew it, a soothing recorded voice piped up to ask me to exit the tank so the water could be changed. I felt a rush of euphoria as I exited the tank, which in my happy state suddenly seemed more like a clam shell than a bidet. The euphoria unfortunately did not last beyond a few minutes out of the tank. By the time I was going through the acrobatics of trying to put my jeans back on without stepping into a puddle of water on the floor, I was more or less back to my normal self. I walked back into the waiting room and sat on the couch sipping chamomile tea and wondering at how loud and overwhelming the Brooklyn street outside now seemed. I can’t say that single experience had a lasting impact, but it was restful to have had an hour in that warm plastic cocoon. Feinstein hopes to gather more data over the next five to 10 years on exactly what happens to the brain during a float session and whether it has long term effects. If the data supports it, he would be happy to see this become a therapeutic treatment for anxiety. While he admits more research is needed, Jonsson sees a place for flotation in current treatment, pointing out that methods supported by less scientific evidence, like massage and acupuncture, are already used in healthcare. With a resurgence in flotation, it’s possible that one day people will float regularly to reduce stress at the suggestion of their doctor. For now, it remains a somewhat pricey, somewhat brief retreat from reality.
Market turmoil: Dow Jones falls 99 points after Yellen testimony - as it happened That’s all for tonight, after another lively day. A quick reminder of the key points. Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen has warned that the turmoil in the markets could hurt the US economy. She hinted the interest rates will only rise slowly, but tried to dampen speculation that the Fed could cut borrowing costs. Here’s our summary of her testimony to Congress. The Dow Jones index closed down 99 points after Yellen spoke. The dollar weakened, as traders anticipated more dovish monetary policy this year. European markets had rallied back from two-year lows, on hopes that the recent selloff had gone to far. Bank shares led the rebound, with Deutsche Bank gaining 10%, after Germany’s heavyweight began planning to buy back debt to strengthen its financial position. Credit Suisse boss Tidjane Thiam became the latest top bank executive to call for calm. He argued that banks are in much better shape than before the 2008 crisis. But Australia’s market earlier fell into bear territory, having lost 20% since its recent high last April. Japan’s Nikkei also suffered losses on Wednesday. The International Monetary Fund threatened to pull the plug on Ukraine’s bailout. It wants its government to cleans our corruption and implements reforms. And new data showed that Europe’s factory sector had a bad December; Britain’s industrial output fell by 1.1% during the month. Goodnight! GW It now seems pretty unlikely that the Fed will risk raising interest rates in March, for fear of throwing fuel on the fire. Our economics editor, Larry Elliott, says: As most analysts spotted, the key phrase in Janet Yellen’s testimony was when she said conditions in the US had become “less supportive of growth”. That suggested a Fed belief that the drop in share prices will slow the economy but not derail it completely. Yellen’s wait-and-see approach means that a March increase in interest rates is now off the agenda, but the Fed will require more evidence before abandoning its strategy of cautious tightening. With the spectre of 2008 looming larger, that evidence may not be long in coming. Here’s our US colleague’s Jana Kasperkevic’s take on Janet Yellen’s testimony: And here’s a flavour: In her first major speech for two months, Yellen sought to tread a fine line, acknowledging the threat posed by the financial tremors while at the same time pointing out that the US had continued to recover from the deep recession of 2008-09. The Fed chief said: “The economy is in many ways close to normal.” Specifically, Yellen pointed out that the unemployment rate had declined to below 5%, which many of her Fed colleagues consider to be full employment, and that inflation was likely to move up to 2%. What was not normal, she said, were the federal funds rates, which had to be held for seven years at “exceptionally low levels”. Yellen added that oil prices, steady job creation and faster wage growth should support growth of incomes and consumer spending. “Against this backdrop, the committee expects that with gradual adjustments in the stance of monetary policy, economic activity will expand at a moderate pace in coming years and that labour market indicators will continue to strengthen,” she said....(click here for more) Janet Yellen makes the front page of the Financial Times, with her warning about deteriorating financial conditions threatening the US recovery: Another turbulent day in the financial markets is over! And the Dow Jones index has finished in the red, losing 99 points or 0.6% to finish at 15,914, as investors digested Janet Yellen’s testimony. As we covered earlier (summary here), the Fed chair warned that financial conditions have worsened, which could mean future interest rate hikes come more slowly. But she also said she didn’t see rates being cut again. The broader S&P 500 index was unchanged, while the Nasdaq inched up a bit. That means Wall Street failed to match the early rally in Europe, where shares rebounded from two year lows. That followed a weak Asia-Pacific region; earlier, Australia’s market fell into bear territory, and Japan’s Nikkei lost another 2%. Janet Yellen’s hearing at Congress was also attended by a group of protesters from the Fed Up campaign, who oppose December’s rate hike. Wearing green t-shirts reading “Recovery, What Recovery?”, they sat behind the Fed chief during the session in a reminder that the public aren’t too happy about economic conditions right now. A quiet end to the session? That would be too much to ask. A sudden bout of selling has hit Wall Street, sending the Dow down around 100 points, or 0.6%.... The dollar has fallen against the yen, hitting a 15-month low. That indicates traders are calculating that the Fed will be more cautious about interest rate rises, after Yellen said financial conditions had become less supportive for growth. Yellen also managed to reassure investors, says Richard Sichel, chief investment officer of Philadelphia Trust Co. Sichel told Reuters that the Fed chair managed to spur some bargain hunting, even through she also flagged up economic risks: “What Yellen said has been taken positively. Stocks in general are cheaper now than they were three days ago or three months ago, so there’s an opportunity to step in.” Cornerstone Macro analyst Roberto Perli believes Janet Yellen managed to leave her monetary policy options open, even though few investors expect many rate hikes this year. Perli says: “The general message she intended to deliver is that additional rate hikes remain the base case, but markets have to stabilize before we see more.” The US stock market is holding onto its earlier gains, after Janet Yellen completed her appearance at Congress. The S&P 500 is up almost 1%, following the earlier rally in Europe. Joshua Mahony, Market Analyst at IG, says Yellen gave a “mixed testimony”. Her acknowledgement that a Chinese-centred slowdown is detrimentally impacting US growth expectations was offset by yet another reference to a plan for steady and gradual rate rises going forward. A few photos of today’s session: Capital Economics says that Janet Yellen is still more hawkish about interest rate policy than the markets. They write: Fed Chair Janet Yellen’s testimony to Congress today revealed that, while the FOMC might not be ready to raise interest rates for a second time in March, she still anticipates a “gradual” series of rate hikes over the next couple of years. That view is clearly at odds with futures markets, which imply that any additional rate hikes are almost now off the table. Let’s recap the main points from today’s hearing at the Financial Services committee over the last three (long...) hours. 1) Janet Yellen has warned Congress that the global financial turbulence is threatening the US economic recovery. She cited the weakening financial conditions in America, following recent turmoil in the financial markets. “These developments, if they prove persistent, could weigh on the outlook for economic activity and the labour market, although declines in longer-term interest rates and oil prices provide some offset.” One analyst saw that as an admission that the Fed perhaps shouldn’t have raised interest rates two months ago. 2) But despite this, the Fed chair did not suggest she will reverse course on interest rates. She defended December’s rate hike, arguing that the economy was strong enough to support slightly higher borrowing costs. And she also insisted that any future rises will be heavily dependent on economic performance -- if things deteriorate, the Fed rate will stay exceptionally low for longer. She doesn’t expect to actually cut rate, though, which suggests the Fed isn’t panicking about the situation. 3) But could the Fed go negative, following Japan and the eurozone? Crucially, Yellen indicated that this isn’t really on the agenda yet. She pointed out that the Fed may not have the legal authority to impose negative rates; you’d think this would have been cleared up, if the Fed was really worried. This was the key quote: “I am not aware of anything that would prevent us from doing it but I am saying that we have not fully investigated the legal issues - that still needs to be done.” 4) Yellen have her clearest warning yet about China. She said the financial instability, and plunging commodity prices, caused by its slowing economy was a key threat to the US. 5) But she also tried to remain positive about economic conditions, saying she sees signs of wage growth increasing. “There are some hopeful signs but I think if the labor market continues to progress we are very hopeful we will see faster progress on wages.” She also argued that families are better off than in 2008, when the financial crisis struck. 6) The Committee raised several other important issues with Yellen; they fear that small challenger banks are being disadvantaged, and want the Fed to release the transcripts of its meetings from 2012, to assist a leak inquiry. Despite Sean Duffy’s best efforts, he only got a holding reply from the Federal Reserve’s top official. The Fed was also criticised for not doing enough to bring down African-American unemployment, and for never even having an African-American regional bank chief. Yellen agreed this is disappointing. And several Representatives challenged Yellen over the state of the domestic economy, pointing out that not enough well-paying ‘middle-class’ jobs are being created. One was even moved to verse (yes, it was that kind of day....) Congress chair Jeb Hensarling says members have five days to submit further questions for Yellen to respond to. And with that the meeting is adjourned. John Delaney of Maryland says when rates were raised in December, it was based on an improving economy. A lot has happened since then in the markets. When you look at the data now, does it change your view on economic activity and gowth Yellen: The answer is maybe, but the jury is out. We continue to see progress in labour market. GDP growth clearly slowed a lot in the fourth quarter. My expectation is it will pick up in this quarter but financial conditions have tightened which could have implications. Then, we said the risks to outlook were balanced. In January said we were assessing the implications. This is what we’re doing at this point. Has there been a contraction in credit availability recently? Yellen: We haven’t seen this really at this stage. Spreads on lower graded bonds have been widening... When we surveyed banks we’ve seen a tightening of.. loans. This is something that bears watching. There will be additional data before we meet in March [The next Fed meeting}. Andy Barr of Kentucky is asking about the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and its funding. Yellen seems unsure of the answers, and starts packing her bag. Keith Ellison of Minnesota also brings up the subject of the high levels of black unemployment. He says this needs the attention of the Fed chair. Is there adequate discussion of Afro-American workers within Fed discussions and if not, what can be done. Yellen: It is of course important we look at different groups, particularly those suffering most in the labour market. Our tools are not ones that can be targeted at particular groups in labour market. Ellison wants Fed to realise not all US citizens are experiencing this upturn. Yellen: We should pay adequate attention to different groups. Unemployment rate is only one measure of what’s happening, appropriate for us to do more detailed assessment. Congressman Ed Perlmutter of Colorado ( a Democrat) praises Yellen (and the President) and asks how we can do better. Yellen: Our objective is to try to make sure the picture shows continuing improvement. The signs of wage growth increasing are tentative but hopeful.. and we will try to keep that progress growing. Inflation [should] move up over time [towards our target]. Some of burden should also be on Congress. Job training, educational programmes... are Congress’s job to address. Perlmutter: Soft spot in the economy is oil and gas. Saudis are pumping like crazy into an oversupplied market. Good for pump prices but causes job losses. Yellen: We’re taking account of fact that energy sector is hard hit, we’re losing jobs there. But it is a pretty small sector of the workforces. It is rippling through to manufacturing. But average household is saving $1000 a year {so that is having a positive effect} Robert Pittenger of North Carolina says the economic recovery is dismal despite all these accommodative policies. Is real unemployment not 10% not 4.9%? Yellen barely gets a chance to begin answering before Pittenger steps in again and his time runs out. Wiliam Clay of Missouri says the Fed is more focussed on inflation than unemployment. Yellen: We have both targets and take issue with idea we are not focussed on the unemployment objective... We continue to have accommodative monetary policy. Mia Love of Utah asks about implications of European financial instability, and ECB and Fed using different policies Yellen: The ECB is dealing with inflation falling well beyond their goal...US has done better, is among the strongest economies. It’s put [upward] pressure on dollar, harming manufacturing and exports. Maxine Waters is back and is back with the topic of big banks receiving support from the Fed. Yellen: It’s an essential tool we need to adjust the rate of short term interest rates. We have 2.5trn dollars of reserves compared to 20 to 30 billion during the financial crisis. If we have to use another technique, we will be likely forced to shrink our balance sheet and.. it would have adverse effects on the economy. David Scott of Georgia disagrees when Yellen says Fed can’t target unemployment, pointing out the large unemployment rate among Afro-Americans. He says Fed has historically downplayed unemployment, nor has Fed ever had an Afro-American as head of one of the regional Fed banks. Yellen: We recognise how serious the problems are and we take our employment mandate extremely seriously, we have been doing everything to promote a strong labour market which would benefit Afro-Americans. She agrees there should be an Afro-American head and regrets there has not been. Ed Royce from California: Are negative rates a tool in the tool box? (He says a recent bank stress test from the Fed suggests this might be being looked at). Yellen: ECB and Japan have gone to negative rates. We have had periods of market stress where we see flight into US Treasury bonds as safe haven. We have set stress tests for banks to look at if Treasuries go negative, this may happen without Fed necessarily setting negative rates. Ruben Hinojosa of Texas asks what else could we do to boost economy. Yellen: Productivity growth has been disappointing since the financial crisis. The debt situation facing the country needs to be addressed by Congress. As population ages debt to GDP ratio will be on an unsustainable course. Hinojosa asks about addressing inequality. Yellen: We don’t have policies that target specific groups, main thing we can do is make sure labour market is working well. There is further to go. Sean Duffy of Wisconsin, as head of oversight committee is complaining Yellen does not always respond to requests from the committee on compliance issues (in particular documents on possible leaks) and says she has ignored subpoenas. Yellen: We have some concern with providing transcripts since they relate to monetary policy. We will consider this and get back to you. Duffy: This is about a leak, will you let me know why I am not entitled to these documents? I sent a letter a year ago. You knew I would ask. Why will you not provide documents. This is about the internal working of the Fed, not market moving documents. Yellen: I think we have complied fully.. Duffy: What would you do if you wanted this from a bank [but were ignored]. I can imagine what Fed would do. I expect these documents to come over. The discussion ends after a point of order is made about the subpoena and dismissed. European markets are closing in positive territory but on Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has now slipped back and is down around 12 points. Gregory Meeks of New York asks if Yellen thinks the position is better now than in 2008. Yellen: I believe it is. We’ve made a lot of progress although there are a lot of challenges, a lot of households are suffering. Elsewhere oil is on the rise - Brent is now up 2.7% at $31.15 a barrel - after US crude stockpiles fell unexpectedly last week. Crude inventories dropped 754,000 barrels compared to expectations of a 3.6m barrel rise. Blaine Luetkemeyer from Missouri asks what Fed could do if there is another downturn. Yellen says there are a number of tools including interest rates, but Luetkemeyer rightly points out that rates are almost as low as they can go (even with the recent hike). Brad Sherman of California: Are you going to break up the too big to fail institutions? To make sure it’s not “too big to jail”? Yellen: We are using our powers to make sure a systemically important institution could fail without having a systemic effect. Maloney asks: Given the market turmoil and slowing US economy, some analysts are suggesting a possible recession. What would it take to cut rates again? Yellen: Our commitment is to achieve goals of maximum employment and price stability. I do not expect the FOMC (Federal Open Market Committee) will soon be in a situation to cut rates. The Labour market continues to perform well. Many of the factors factors holding down inflation are transitory. There is always a risk of recession, global developments could produce a slowdown, but don’t want to jump to premature conclusions. I don’t think it will be necessary to cut rates. But if it turned out to be necessary, the FOMC would do what was necessary. Carolyn Maloney of New York asks: Has the turmoil in global markets changed your view on the pace of interest rate rises? Yellen: We are watching very carefully what is happening in global financial markets. The stresses we have seen since the turn of the year relate to uncertainties over Chinese exchange rate policy, the price of oil.. We have not seen shifts that seem significant enough to have driven the sharp move in markets. It seems to be increased fears of recession risk. We have not yet seen a sharp drop off in growth, globally or in the US. Global market developments bear watching. We recognised these developments may have implications for the outlook, which we are currently assessing. Monetary policy is not on a preset course. Patrick McHenry of North Carolina: Does Fed have legal authority to move into negative rates. Yellen: The FOMC considered this around 2010, we were exploring our options. We decided not to lower interest rates into negative territory. Didn’t fully look at legal issues. We would stilll need to investigate more thoroughly. Don’t know any restriction that would prevent us doing it. But we have not fully investigated legal issues. Moore says is there moral hazard in not a single person involved in 2008 crash going to jail. Yellen: I do not think individuals guilty of wrongdoing should escape appropriate penalties. We cannot put in place criminal penalties. We can make sure they are not allowed to work at banking organisations where they committed misdeeds, and in many cases they can be banned from working. We always co-operated with Department of Justice. Gwen Moore from Wisconsin is concerned about small banks. She asks how the rules should have been tailored for small banks, saying “stress tests, capital constraints are killing our small banks.” Yellen says: Community banks and their vitality are exceptionally important. The burden on community banks is intense. We are focussed on doing everything we can to reduce that. What will the world have to look like for a rule based system, asks Mulvaney. Yellen says guidelines from rules are looked at but we should not mechanically follow rules, we need to take into account a large set of indicators. Following on from that, Mick Mulvaney asks if the economy is now normal. Yellen says: The economy in many ways is close to normal... inflation is below 2% but there is a good reason to think it will move up over time. But the neutral level of federal funds rate is by no means normal. We have needed for 7 years to hold the federal funds rate at exceptionally low levels to achieve growth of 2% and in that sense it is not normal. Maxine Waters asks what alternative processes could there be to the Fed paying billions to banks on excess reserves when it raises interest rates. The Fed uses IOER (interest on excess reserves) and Yellen defends the use of this system even though it pays commercial banks above market interest rates. Now for the questions. Chair Jeb Hensarling brings up a recent bill that would require the Fed to follow a rules-based monetary policy, which Yellen opposes but a number of economists have backed in a letter. Yellen is against it because it could jeopardise its independence from political pressure. The two sides are basically just repeated their existing stance on the issue. Markets are moving much higher now even though Yellen has just so far repeated her statement. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is currently up 151 points or 0.9%. (Unsurprisingly it’s taking longer than five minutes - the statement is here if you want to follow along). Yellen now gets five minutes to present her testimony, and is reading her statement. The session is underway, and can be viewed live here. Opening remarks come from chairman Jeb Hensarling - who says he will not use the session to criticise the Fed’s decision to raise rates - followed by a number of members of Congress including Maxine Waters and Soth Carolina’s Mick Mulvaney. Congress, waiting for Yellen. The US economy is strong enough to see through this period of turbulence, says economist Harm Bandholz at UniCredit after Yellen’s testimony: In a nutshell: Chair Yellen has, correctly in our view, highlighted the solid fundamentals of the US economy. Accordingly, her baseline outlook for both the economy and monetary policy have not changed. That said, recent developments in financial markets as well as in the global economy have clouded the picture. In this environment, Fed officials prefer to take a step back and wait. Once the clouds have lifted, the gradual normalization of interest rates will continue. Yes, there are risks out there – and the longer the financial market rout lasts, the bigger the risk that it will become self-fulfilling –, but we believe that fundamentals are solid enough to carry the economy through this period. And this also seems to be the Fed’s view. Accordingly, the fact that financial markets do not expect the next rate hike before the second quarter of 2017 seems well overdone. Well, it’s not a ringing endorsement of Janet Yellen’s comments but US markets have opened in positive territory. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is currently up 59 points or 0.39%, while at the open the S&P 500 added 0.5%. But the tech-heavy Nasdaq has outperformed, up 1.1%. The dollar has reacted to Yellen’s comments as if more rate rises this year - perhaps even in March - could indeed be on the cards despite the worries about global growth. The US currency has risen 0.25% against a basket of currencies, up from a near four month low on Tuesday. The euro fell 0.5% after the release of the testimony, while sterling has dropped from $1.4560 to $1.4484. Janet Yellen’s testimony might appear to leave the door open for further rate rises, but she is likely to be quizzed sharply about the last one, says Rob Carnell at ING Bank. In his initial thoughts he says: In summary – Yellen retains an open mind on the need for further tightening, though with a heavy skew of risks to the downside, and was defensive about the December rate hike: The mercifully short prepared statement of Fed Chair Yellen to the House Committee on Financial Services did not contain much that was new from earlier speeches, statements or minutes. To the extent that any new material was used, this was mainly an expansion of the risks from softer overseas demand, with China explicitly mentioned, and also from financial market tightening (stronger USD, higher yields on riskier assets and lower equity prices, offset to some extent by lower bond yields and oil prices). The testimony retained the text about the possibility that rates might have to be increased at a faster than anticipated rate if growth and inflation were stronger than expected. However, that is sounding rather hollow right now. We see the continued inclusion of this text as an attempt to portray an open mind about the recent activity slowdown, and not to present a self-fulfilling picture of gloom at the Fed. Financial markets may see this as dovish speech overall, though probably not out of line with expectations. There was also a somewhat defensive paragraph justifying the December rate hike – we expect that once the questioning starts, Chair Yellen will come in for some stick from disgruntled members of Congress, some of whom may be facing a hostile electorate later this year. One interpretation of Yellen’s remarks on rates is that she is admitting they were raised too soon, says Augustin Eden at Accendo Markets. A not unusually muted reaction to Fed Chair Janet Yellen’s testimony this afternoon, given that she’s come out and said ‘financial conditions in the US have recently become less supportive of growth.’ It doesn’t take a 1st class physicist to recognise that this is essentially another way of saying ‘we raised interest rates before we should have.’ Nothing had fundamentally changed in December, but the Fed decided to ignore the fundamentals and move US monetary policy to a place that’s less supportive of growth. It now appears the markets chose to ignore the Fed in January, preferring the fundamentals, and what do you know? The markets were right – they’ve been reacting to this testimony for the past four weeks. An economist’s view on Yellen’s comments: Yellen also, as indeed she has to, defended the December decision to raise interest rates. Many have judged that to be a mistake, especially in the wake of the market turbulence and fears about global growth and stresses on the banks which have dominated the headlines so far this year. Yellen suggested that if a pre-emptive rate rise was not implemented, a sharper increase may well have been necessary in the future which could have pushed the economy into recession: The decision in December to raise the federal funds rate reflected the Committee’s assessment that, even after a modest reduction in policy accommodation, economic activity would continue to expand at a moderate pace and labor market indicators would continue to strengthen. Although inflation was running below the Committee’s longer-run objective, the FOMC judged that much of the softness in inflation was attributable to transitory factors that are likely to abate over time, and that diminishing slack in labor and product markets would help move inflation toward 2 percent. In addition, the Committee recognized that it takes time for monetary policy actions to affect economic conditions. If the FOMC delayed the start of policy normalization for too long, it might have to tighten policy relatively abruptly in the future to keep the economy from overheating and inflation from significantly overshooting its objective. Such an abrupt tightening could increase the risk of pushing the economy into recession. It is important to note that even after this increase, the stance of monetary policy remains accommodative Janet Yellen has also said that the Fed would slow the pace of interest rate hikes, if the threats to the US economy materialise. She tells the Committee on Financial Services that: In particular, stronger growth or a more rapid increase in inflation than the Committee currently anticipates would suggest that the neutral federal funds rate was rising more quickly than expected, making it appropriate to raise the federal funds rate more quickly as well. Conversely, if the economy were to disappoint, a lower path of the Federal funds rate would be appropriate. The full testimony is here. Janet Yellen has also touched on the big issue dominating the markets - how quickly will interest rates rise? She sounds cautious, but neither rules anything in or out (classic central banker) “The FOMC anticipates that economic conditions will evolve in a manner that will warrant only gradual increases in the federal funds rate. In addition, the Committee expects that the federal funds rate is likely to remain, for some time, below the levels that are expected to prevail in the longer run.” (the FOMC, or Federal Open Market Committee, meets eight times a year to set US monetary policy) Janet Yellen has also warned that “foreign economic developments” could harm the US economy. In her testimony to Congress, the Fed chair singles out concerns about the slowdown in China. That has already caused “increased volatility in global financial markets”, and “exacerbated concerns about the outlook for global growth”, says Yellen. She adds: These growth concerns, along with strong supply conditions and high inventories, contributed to the recent fall in the prices of oil and other commodities. In turn, low commodity prices could trigger financial stresses in commodity-exporting economies, particularly in vulnerable emerging market economies, and for commodity-producing firms in many countries. Should any of these downside risks materialize, foreign activity and demand for U.S. exports could weaken and financial market conditions could tighten further.” Newsflash: The Federal Reserve has just released Janet Yellen’s prepared testimony, ahead of this afternoon’s grilling from Congress in 90 minute time. The Fed chief is striking a cautious note about economic prospects, warning that: “Financial conditions in the United States have recently become less supportive of growth, with declines in broad measures of equity prices, higher borrowing rates for riskier borrowers, and a further appreciation of the dollar. These developments, if they prove persistent, could weigh on the outlook for economic activity and the labor market, although declines in longer-term interest rates and oil prices provide some offset. But Yellen also points to “ongoing employment gains and faster wage growth”, which should push real incomes higher. She also suggests that global economic growth should “pick up over time”, helped by “highly accommodative monetary policies abroad” [such as Japan and the eurozone]. And the Fed chief remains confident about medium-term growth prospects, saying: Against this backdrop, the Committee expects that with gradual adjustments in the stance of monetary policy, economic activity will expand at a moderate pace in coming years and that labor market indicators will continue to strengthen.” Inequality is one of the issues of our age. Bernie Sanders is building a presidential bid by fighting it, and charities like Oxfam regularly warn that the rich are taking more and more of the cake. Now, credit ratings agency S&P has warned that quantitative easing (QE), a key weapon used in the financial crisis, is widening inequality and the wealth gap between young and old. Under QE, central banks buy assets such as government bonds with new money, driving up the cost of safe assets and encouraging investors into riskier ones (this is the theor, anyway) But it’s also hurting those who don’t own assets, as S&P explains: Quantitative easing (QE) stabilized the economy but also exacerbated wealth disparity between rich and poor, mainly by boosting financial asset prices and house prices. During the U.K.’s recent “jobs-rich, pay-poor” economic recovery, strong employment gains were accompanied by a further rise of already high wage dispersion and an ever-growing share of part-time employment in lower income groups. Between 2006 and 2008 (before QE) and 2010-2012 (after QE started), average wealth held directly in stocks increased by 55% for the wealthiest 10% and by 130% for wealthiest 1% of U.K. households. In the context of the tight housing market, low interest rates and QE are among the drivers behind the widening wealth and income gap between younger and older generations and between those on the housing ladder and those not on it. European markets are sailing higher, up over 2% on average, reversing six days of steady losses which dragged them to a two year low. But the rally looks could unravel, depending on how the chair of the Federal Reserve, Janet Yellen, performs at Congress in a couple of hours time. Jasper Lawler of CMC Markets explains: Talk of Deutsche Bank doing an emergency bond-buyback to shore up its finances and relieve worried creditors has seen the German bank’s shares rally by over 10%, lifting the rest of the banking sector. In a way it’s a bit of deju vu from yesterday when markets initially rose thanks to news from Deutsche Bank before financial and commodity sectors led to a spectacular roll-over. There is plenty of scope for another sharp twist in the direction of markets today around 3pm GMT when fed Chair Janet Yellen gives her testimony to the House Financial Services Committee. Investors can’t get enough of Deutsche Bank today. Its shares jumped 17% at one stage this morning, fuelled by reports that it will launch a debt buy-back offer soon. That move would show Deutsche’s financial muscle and calm fears over its ability to meet debt repayments and dividends. Supportive words from Berlin’s finance ministry today may also have helped, along with Deutsche management’s insistence yesterday that the bank is “rock solid”. But Deutsche’s problems are not suddenly solved. There are still fears over the quality of the bank’s assets (it is trading at around half its book value). An economic downturn would inflict further losses. Deutsche made a €6.8bn loss last year, showing the struggles in the banking sector. Newish CEO John Cryan is trying to clean the bank up, following fines for various scandals. But it could face further provisions in the future. There are fears that banks will suffer if eurozone interest rates are cut deeper into negative territory. That would eat into profits, penalising them for leaving cash at the ECB. It would also force prices of government bonds even higher, meaning banks would get an even lower rate of return (if anything). It’s been a bad morning for UK modelmaker Hornby. The miniature train firm, which also owns racing car outfit Scalextric and aeroplane kitmaker Airfix, hit investors with another profit warning today. It also admitted it could breach its loan agreements with its banks - never a good sign. And there was nothing small about the market reaction - Hornby shares have tanked by over 40%. TV presenter James May (who loves toys of a certain generation), has urged the British people to act now, while there’s still time. This might dampen the mood in the markets. The head of the International Monetary Fund has warned that Ukraine could lose financial support unless its government gets serious about cleaning up and reforming its economy. IMF chief Christine Lagarde declared: “I am concerned about Ukraine’s slow progress in improving governance and fighting corruption, and reducing the influence of vested interests in policymaking. Without a substantial new effort to invigorate governance reforms and fight corruption, it is hard to see how the IMF-supported program can continue and be successful. Ukraine risks a return to the pattern of failed economic policies that has plagued its recent history. It is vital that Ukraine’s leadership acts now to put the country back on a promising path of reform.” The IMF agreed to a $17.5bn bailout program for cash-strapped Ukraine last year, but has held back a $1.7bn payment since last autumn due to concerns over corruption. Those fears were inflamed when economy minister Aivaras Abromavicius resigned last week, saying it was impossible to implement reforms. He claimed he was under pressure to appoint government cronies to key positions, continuing Ukraine’s well-known problems with graft and vested interests. Ukrainian government bonds have already tumbled in value recently, to levels suggesting a high risk of default or restructuring. Context is everything.... There are encouraging signs from New York. Wall Street is expected to rally when trading begins, just over three hours time. The Dow Jones and S&P 500 are tipped to rise by 1%, while the Nasdaq is being called 1.6% higher. The German government has reiterated that it is not worried about Deutsche Bank. A finance ministry spokeswoman told reporters in Berlin that: “You heard the short sentence that the minister [finance minister Wolfgang Schuable] said yesterday in Paris that he is not concerned, I don’t have anything to add to that.” European banking shares are surging, lead by Deutsche Bank which has jumped by 15%. Investors seem to be regaining their nerve, having been gripped with worries over the financial sector. Rumours that Deutsche is planning to strengthen its financial position by buying back some debt have also helped the mood. Economic jitters are also being eased, with the oil price up 1.5% today. Alastair McCaig, market analyst at IG, explains: Despite another poor session overnight, markets in the UK and Europe have rallied impressively. Banks are surging higher, with Deutsche shrugging off the woes of yesterday as investors take the opportunity to buy on weakness once again. A better performance from the oil price and heavily oversold conditions in a number of markets, plus expectations regarding Janet Yellen’s appearance later in the day have provided bulls with the chance to reverse some of the heavy losses seen so far in February. The main European banking index has gained 5% today. A decent rally - but it still leaves shares down 23% so far this year. And although we’ve heard supportive words from Deutsche CEO John Cryan and German finance minister Wolfgang Schauble yesterday, nothing has really changed. The head of Swiss bank Credit Suisse has launched a full-throated defence of the banking sector, in an attempt to calm fears of a new crisis. Tidjane Thiam told the Financial Times that: “The banking system in general is much stronger than in 2008, 2009 [but] there are a lot of memories of that period. “Some of the scenes we are seeing today are not justified . . . Banks are smaller, they are deleveraged, they are less risky, they are better capitalised.” Thiam was speaking after Credit Suisse shares slumped to their lowest in more than two decades yesterday. He told the FT that Credit Suisse has “no liquidity issues”, and a “strong balance sheet”. And investors may have heeded his words. Credit Suisse shares have jumped by 5%, as part of a wider rally in bank shares.... The slump in UK industrial production may show that Britain’s economy is weaker than we thought. Economist Howard Archer of IHS Global Insight explains: December’s sharp drop in industrial production will fuel concerns about the UK economic outlook as well as the unbalanced nature of growth. It will also likely harden views that the Bank of England will not be raising interest rates during 2016. However, we believe it remains highly unlikely that the Bank of England will cut interest rates. The ONS estimated last month that the UK grew by 0.5% in the last quarter of 2015. Sky News’s Ed Conway reckons this could be cut: Ouch. Britain has suffered its biggest fall in industrial output since September 2012. It’s another sign of weakening economic demand – one of the main triggers for the recent market turmoil. UK industrial production shrank by 1.1% month-on-month in December, according to new figures from the Office for National Statistics. That was primarily caused by a 4.6% plunge in oil and gas extraction, and a 4% drop in mining. But British manufacturing also suffered, with output down by 0.2% month-on-month and 1.7% lower than in December 2014. Alarmingly, the UK isn’t alone either. France and Italy have also reported sharp falls in factory output this morning, and Germany did the same yesterday. It fuels fears that the global economy ended 2015 with a whimper, not a bang. Shares across Europe are picking up pace, as investors shake off some of their gloom. The FTSE 100 is now up 43 points, or 0.8%, and there are bigger gains over the channel. Germany’s DAX has leapt by 1.8%, as worries over Deutsche Bank recede this morning. Francois Savary, chief investment officer at Geneva-based Prime Partners, says: “The rebound in Deutsche Bank is helping to reassure some investors who had been concerned about possible contagion in the banking sector.” The slump in profits at shipping magnate A.P. Moller–Maersk [details] hasn’t caused much alarm. It’s quite a different picture than we saw in the Asia-Pacific markets a few hours ago: But there is still a lot of anxiety around, as investors prepare to hear from the head of the Federal Reserve when she testifies to Congress this afternoon. Janet Yellen may concede that the Fed is unlikely to raise borrowing costs four times this year, as it originally expected. But if she sounds too worried, that could spark another bout of market mayhem. It’s a tricky balancing act, says Ilya Spivak, currency strategist at DailyFX. He reckons Yellen will try to avoid saying too much. it ought to be kept in mind that the markets want to be reassured. This injects a degree of wishful thinking into the equation. F or her part, the Fed Chair will almost certainly refrain from plain-spoken commitment on the direction of policy. Here’s the worst-performing companies in Australia today, who helped to drag its stock market more than 20% below its recent peak. Mesoblast, the biggest faller, is an adult stem cell research firm. Many of the other fallers are natural resource and energy companies (including Liquified Natural Gas, Western Areas, Karoon Gas and Whitehaven Coal) Deutsche Bank is climbing higher! The Wall Street Journal has a good take on how Australia’s banks helped drag the country’s stocks into a bear market today. “This is the first sustained bear market I have seen since the GFC [global financial crisis],” said Evan Lucas, a market strategist at brokerage IG in Melbourne, noting the S&P/ASX 200 briefly was in bear territory in 2011. Australia’s major banks, which are some of the biggest stocks on the S&P/ASX 200 and have a large index weighting, have been caught in a global bank-share selloff this week, despite their having less exposure to liquidity risks compared with peers in the U.S. and Europe and substantially less reliance on the long end of the bond curve and wholesale funding, Mr. Lucas said. Still, worries about banks globally have only exacerbated a decline for local lenders. The financials subindex has lost 14% this year as brokers have flagged concerns about the sustainability of the industry’s attractive dividends as Australia’s economy remains subdued and signs emerge that the property market is beginning to cool. More here: Australia Shares Fall Into Bear Market It’s not all the fault of the banks, though. Mining stocks have also tumbled, in response to waning demand for commodities from China. BHP Billiton, for example, has fallen 12% since the start of January. Resource companies are now cutting thousands of jobs, in response to falling prices for coal, iron ore, zinc, nickel, copper and bauxite. Australia’s fall into bear market territory today has sent another cloud of gloom over the City of London. Conner Campbell of SpreadEx sums up the mood: Once again the European indices are enduring the aftermath of a rocky Asian session, the Nikkei plunging to a 16 month low following a 2nd day of heavy losses, with the added concern of a bear market-entering night for the Australian markets thrown in for good measure. A red-washed commodity sector is dragging the index down at the moment, though if Brent Crude can see a sustained climb above $31 per barrel (with the US crude inventories arriving this afternoon) sentiment may be able to shift as the day goes on. Danish shipping and oil conglomerate A.P. Moller–Maersk is getting a kicking. Shares in the group have slumped by 7.5%, making it the worst stock in Europe today, after it reported a fourth-quarter net loss due to impairments of $2.6 billion on its oil assets. The global slowdown is hurting the firm. Demand for shipping goods overseas has fallen, just as new ships ordered years ago come into service. Shares in Deutsche Bank have jumped by over 4% at the start of trading, amid rumours that it is planning new steps to reassure investors about its financial health. The Financial Times set the hare running last night, reporting that: Deutsche Bank is considering buying back several billion euros of its debt, as Germany’s biggest bank steps up efforts to shore up the tumbling value of its securities against the backdrop of a broader rout of financial stocks. After European banks suffered a second consecutive day of sharp falls, Deutsche Bank is expected to focus its emergency buyback plan on senior bonds, of which it has about €50bn in issue, according to the bank. The move was unlikely to involve so-called contingent convertible bonds [cocos] which, along with the bank’s shares, have been the butt of a brutal investor sell-off in recent days, people briefed on the plan said. Banks can generate capital gains by buying back bonds at a discount to their face value. More here: Deutsche Bank considers multibillion bond buyback European stock markets are crawling higher in early trading, after two days of hefty falls. The FTSE 100 index of major blue-chip London shares is 26 points higher (+0.3%), led by mining group Anglo American (up 3%). The other European markets are also gaining a little ground, with Spain’s IBEX up 1.1% and the French CAC up 0.7%. So, not exactly a big rally. Traders will be hoping it lasts, after seeing fears over the global economy take hold on Tuesday. I suspect they’ll try to sit tight until Fed chair Janet Yellen testifies to Congress in 7 hours time. Tony Cross, market analyst at Trustnet Direct, says: Once again the FTSE-100 has kicked off the session with a modest bounce, recovering some of yesterday’s gains in the process, but the underlying situation appears little changed. Crude oil prices may be ticking higher but they are still in what could be termed ‘distressed’ territory below $30/barrel, although despite all this there’s a definite air of risk-on returning to markets. Japan’s stock market also had a rough day, losing another 2.3% and sending the Nikkei to a fresh 16-month low. The selloff was partly fuelled by fears that central bankers are losing the battle to keep economies afloat. My colleague Martin Farrer explains: One analyst said markets could be seeing the start of the “final capitulation” as the attempt by central banks to stimulate growth with cheap money since the global financial crisis in 2008 had run its course. “The artificial support from central banks is at a crossroads,” said Evan Lucas, of IG in Melbourne. “Central bank intervention will no longer create the holding pattern of the past year; markets now believe banks are out of ammunition.” Here’s Martin’s news story on the Asian selloff: The heavy falls on the Australian stock market has triggered fears that we’re entering another GFC, or Global Financial Crisis. ABC News explains: Stockbroker and author of Marcus Today, Marcus Padley, holds the view that this week’s Australian bank sell-off is more about fear than reality. “There is fundamentals and there is sentiment, and people are very fearful of another GFC-style event,” he told ABC News Online. This chart shows how the Australian market has now shed more than 20% since last April. Australia’s stock market has been dragged into bear market territory as the the global market rout hit Asia again. The country’s benchmark index, the S&P/ASX 200, endured a rough day and finished down 1.2% at 4775.7 points. That’s more than 20% below last April’s peak, that calm time before fears over the global economy (particularly China) began to hit shares worldwide. It means Australia joins Japan’s Nikkei, China’s Shanghai Composite, and Britain’s FTSE 100 in bear market territory. Financial shares were hit, with Bank of Queensland tumbling by almost 7%, and energy companies also led the selloff. Australian investors are getting spooked by events across the globe, says Reuters: Persistent fears about slowing global growth and the Chinese economy, the health of Europe’s banking sector and concerns that Beijing and major central banks might not be able to turn things around have combined to rattle investors. “What’s the scary part about this is we can see things get pretty ugly, pretty quickly,” said Evan Lucas, market strategist at IG in Melbourne. Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of the world economy, the financial markets, the eurozone and business. Hold onto your hats, because it’s going to be another stressful day in the financial world. With concerns over the banking sector mounting, investors have three items on the agenda today. 1) Deutsche Bank. Germany’s biggest lender is fighting back against concerns over its financial strength, which drove its shares to a record low last night. There are reports that Deutsche is considering buying some of its debt back, to reassure investors. 2) Janet Yellen. The head of the Federal Reserve testifies to Congress today (3pm GMT, or 10am local time). She’ll be quizzed about the state of the world economy, the banking sector, and whether she’s considering imposing negative interest rates in America (just two months after raising borrowing costs) 3) Oil. The canary in the global economic coalmine had a bad Tuesday, plunging by around 9% to around $30 per barrel. That’s putting more stress on the energy industry, and also the banks, who could suffer heavy losses if producers default on their loans. London’s stock market hit a three-year low yesterday, but traders are suggesting it could be a calmer morning. Economic-wise, the latest UK industrial production data is released at 9.30am. That will show if British factories suffered from the global slowdown in December. And on the corporate front, we get results from (among others) UK chipmaker ARM this morning, and social media network Twitter late tonight. We’ll be tracking all the main events through the day....
Stoke City new boy Giannelli Imbula inspires convincing win at Bournemouth It had been a long time coming, more than 380 minutes of Premier League football in fact, but Stoke finally ended their goal drought in scintillating style. Mark Hughes’s side, inspired by Xherdan Shaqiri and the club’s new £18.3m record signing, Giannelli Imbula, never looked bereft of confidence here, despite being without their captain, Ryan Shawcross, or a goal from their previous four league matches. Stoke, in a pristine all-white strip, rolled up their sleeves to dig in and make things uncomfortable for Bournemouth. Hughes’s team defended like giants, from Mame Biram Diouf to Marc Muniesa, who barely gave Benik Afobe a sniff. Hughes and his staff evidently did their homework on the Cherries. Bournemouth were a shadow of their usual selves and any rhythm was disrupted by the industrious Stoke midfield pairing of Glenn Whelan and Imbula, while the visiting goalkeeper, Jack Butland, slowed proceedings down at every given opportunity. It took less than 10 minutes for Stoke to go ahead, Shaqiri saw his ambitious effort only partially cleared by Simon Francis, with the ball dropping kindly for Imbula. The Frenchman, who arrived from Porto last month, was invited to let fly and sent his first-time volley arrowing across goal and into the corner past Artur Boruc. Stoke supporters – some topless even in freezing conditions on the south coast – were already singing Imbula’s name just 99 minutes into his career in English football. “It was a great opening goal and I thought all game he [Imbula] showed a real calmness and understanding of what was required,” said Hughes, whose post-match duties were abruptly curtailed after a fire alarm forced the press room to be evacuated. Hughes walked outside, where fans joked that one of Imbula, Shaqiri or Ibrahim Afellay were still on fire. “The sure sign of a good player is when you look at them and they always have time and space to find the right pass, that’s indicative of a top-quality player and we feel we have one in the building now,” added Hughes. Bournemouth struggled to contain Stoke’s attacking trio behind the workhorse striker Jon Walters. Charlie Daniels ran the length of the pitch to inject some urgency into a tepid Bournemouth display but his ball could not find Afobe. For the first seven minutes of the second half Howe will have been largely please, though. His half-time substitutes, Matt Ritchie and Joshua King, had made an instant impact. Stoke were camped inside their own half and Bournemouth began to flood forward. Butland was forced into a smart stop, spreading himself superbly to deny King the simplest of finishes. But then Stoke counterattacked in devastating style. Walters bamboozled Steve Cook, after he found a pocket of space on the right flank behind the Bournemouth defender, before picking out Afellay with a sideways pass. The Dutchman did the rest, sweeping home an unstoppable strike. Stoke were comfortable again and the substitute Joselu was next to capitalise on another open invitation from the home defence. Shaqiri was the orchestrator on this occasion, crossing for the unmarked Spanish striker, who headed home with ease. Two minutes later the Bournemouth winger Ritchie, having seen Imbula and Afellay’s forays into goal of the month territory, filed his very own contender. Daniels went forward down the left before crossing for Ritchie, who lashed his first-time volley past Butland. King later flashed the ball across goal but Junior Stanislas failed to convert, much to the exasperation of Howe. Stoke executed their game plan to perfection, were ruthless and performed like a team enjoying their eighth successive season in the top flight. Bournemouth have lessons to learn, and fast. Howe, though, will hope this defeat can prove just as galvanising as the reverse fixture, when they lost 2-1 at the Britannia Stadium in September. The striker Callum Wilson was carried off that day amid a string of long-term injuries that were supposed to dash any hopes of Bournemouth surviving. Such pessimism has been wide of the mark. “Any defeat can be a positive in time because hopefully it makes you refocus your aims,” said Howe.
On my radar: Gemma Whelan’s cultural highlights Born in Leeds, Gemma Whelan began her career as a standup comedian, winning the Funny Women Variety award in 2010. She appeared in films The Wolfman and Gulliver’s Travels, and in 2012 secured her best known role as the fearsome warrior Yara Greyjoy in HBO’s Game of Thrones. Last year she won acclaim for her performance in Philip Ridley’s theatre production Radiant Vermin. She has also appeared in Ben Elton’s sitcom Upstart Crow and will soon be starring in BBC drama Moorside playing real-life kidnap hoaxer Karen Matthews. Whelan will perform at New Songs 4 New Shows, a gala night showcasing songs from new musicals at the Lyric, London W1, on 28 November. 1 | Documentary The Crash Reel (2013) My brother recommended this: it’s about a pro snowboarder called Kevin Pearce and this devastating accident he suffers. The film focuses on the fallout, how it affects him and his family and – not to sound too saccharine – the lessons learned and his triumph after everything. I’m a huge fan of who he becomes after this life-changing event. It’s an extraordinary piece of documentary-making: there’s a goodie and baddie, but it happens quite naturally. It has an incredible soundtrack to boot. I’ve only skied twice before and I’m not a fan of snowboarding so it was a left-field choice, but then I also loved The King of Kong and I’m not a gamer either. Brilliant documentaries are about so much more than their subject. 2 | Book The Outside Lands by Hannah Kohler This is written by my friend Mike Wozniak’s twin sister. She has managed to create a novel that is deeply detailed and transportive to 1960s America, and then Vietnam. The vocabulary, imagination and depth of understanding is quite extraordinary. It’s beautiful to read – I just got completely lost in it. Again, it starts with a tragedy which happens to two children, Jeannie and Kip. It’s about people finding comfort where they can and how disillusioned they can become, focusing on the loss the children experience and the way it shapes them. Mike gave me the book and it’s very nice to give genuine feedback that I loved it. 3 | TV Black Mirror This is something I’m very much into at the minute. I thought the first episode of the new series was the most affecting: it’s about a woman who is so desperate to be liked on social media that she loses sight of the bigger picture. It externalised all our internal needs and made it profoundly clear that we’re doing this to ourselves now. It made me think I must reform my own phone addiction – I often find myself watching TV and poking around on Instagram for likes, and it’s disconcerting. Depressing as the show is, it is frighteningly accurate as to where we’re probably heading – it’s always just reachable by the imagination, and that’s what’s so scary. We can just about imagine it’s possible. 4 | Music Christine and the Queens I saw Christine and the Queens at Brixton Academy, but I first noticed her on Graham Norton as I’m sure many did. Often singing acts at the end of chatshows get quite lost, but she made such an impact that night and it seemed to launch her into UK public knowledge. I love how she is unapologetically herself – she has a strong and independent image. She’s a great role model for young people, rather than the pop stars who are more manufactured. She’s really strong, culturally interesting and can dance as well. I find her very striking in a pop world that is quite ordinary now. Her extraordinariness seems to come authentically from who she is. 5 | Website PalomaWool.com I’ve been following a Barcelona-based artist and designer called Paloma Wool on Instagram, and she also has a website. It’s a clothes line but it also shows the art of making clothes, wearing clothes and getting dressed. It’s about being in the belly of a woman. There are bold prints, pale nudes, silks and cottons, but it’s tasteful and stylish.Sometimes they wear shirts in their pants and throw paint at the wall. It sounds like student experimental art but it shows passion and fire. I just ordered my first dress because I was so emboldened by what Wool was doing. Hopefully it will arrive soon and I’ll look as sexy and cool as she does. 6 | Theatre R AND D @ Hampstead Theatre This was fantastically acted and directed. It’s written by Simon Vinnicombe and has a lovely director called Nadia Fall. It’s not dissimilar from Humans, in that a character suffers a loss at the beginning and a robot is introduced whose hyper-real nature is confusing and intriguing to him. I’m more frightened than interested by artificial intelligence – in fact, perhaps fright and interest are not far away from one another. Things can become real in your mind, you can be tricked, and you believe things you wouldn’t ordinarily. A world run by automatons doesn’t seem completely unrealistic any more. It’s a bit chilling. 7 | App Headspace A friend recommended this because I’m working quite hard at the moment. The creator Andy Puddicombe went on a long adventure in the Himalayas and became very spiritual through meditation and mindfulness. The app is designed around taking 10 minutes out of your day to reflect on the sounds you hear and your breathing. We’re losing touch with ourselves in the technological world and it is increasingly important to take time out. I’ve enjoyed listening to it while in the car – he has a lovely calming voice. It helps you to remember what you’ve lost sight of after scrambling around in the mornings putting socks on the wrong way. And I found the effect stays with you throughout the day.
Bernie Sanders on SNL upstages Republican debate – as it happened The eighth Republican presidential debate is in the can. Here’s a summary of what we learned: New Jersey governor Chris Christie ambushed Florida senator Marco Rubio by laying bare Rubio’s rhetoric as repetitive, rehearsed and off-point. “You have not been involved in a consequential decision,” Christie told Rubio. Rubio seemed shaken by the attack, repeating a single sentence, about the fiction of Barack Obama not knowing what he was doing, three times. The debate got off to a rocky start, as retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson declined to take the stage upon being introduced, apparently not having heard the moderator introduce him. He lingered awkwardly. Very awkwardly: Donald Trump handled a question about his use of eminent domain to evict an elderly lady from a planned New Jersey casino parking lot with aplomb, saying the Keystone XL pipeline, for example, “would not get 10 feet” without eminent domain. But Trump was booed when he attacked the crowd for booing him. “We needed tickets. You can’t get them.” Booed and booed and booed. Ohio governor John Kasich told voters that if he’s elected president, they better “go out and buy a seatbelt,” because he’s going to hit the gas in his first 100 days. Trump and Cruz both said they would “bring back” waterboarding, which both said did not constitute torture. Bernie Sanders was on Saturday Night Live! The moment ragamuffin Bernie enters shaking his finger at upscale David, via a RT by Sanders feed, which is working not to squander the media moment: OK, why not. What’s everybody think of 1975? How many people are in this band? They’re back - Sanders and David. Just onstage, dressed like themselves. “So Bernie,” David asks. “How are things going in New Hampshire?” “OK,” Sanders says. “Just OK?” “Well it’s pretty, pretty, pretty pretty good,” Sanders says, in a Curb Your Enthusiasm line. Then they introduce the musical act, 1975. And here’s Sanders! He has a cameo in the shipwreck skit. The setup is that Larry David is a distinguished passenger who tries to take a lifeboat on his sinking ship based on his wealth and social position. Enter Sanders, in a social justice intervention. “Hold on hold on wait a second. I am so sick of the 1% getting this preferntial treatment. Enough is enough . We need to unite and get together if we’re going to get through this!” Sanders says. He’s dressed like a ragamuffin from 100 years ago. “Sounds like socialism to me,” says the David character. “Democratic socialism,” says Sanders. “What’s the difference?” asks David. Fun back-and-forth here, with them both leaning on the sinking-ship-rail. “Yuge difference,” says Sanders. “Huge?” “Yuge! Huge with a ‘y’.” “Who are you?” asks David. “I am Bernie Sandersowsky, but we’re going to change it when we get to America so it doesn’t sound quite so Jewish.” “That’ll trick ’em.” Punch line: Sanders: “Share a cab?” David: “Eh. I think we’ve talked enough.” Sanders points followers to Saturday Night Live, which now is airing a Titanic skit. Or a story of some other high-society shipwreck from a hundred years ago. The shtick is that Sanders shares all of David’s worst inclinations, famous from David’s show, Curb Your Enthusiasm. David-as-Sanders just told a member of staff to Eff Off. The spot is supposedly directed by Bernie Sanders. UPDATE: While there was a title card that said as much, Bernie Sanders did not in fact direct this Saturday Night Live skit. D-a-S runs into a voter who has dislocated her shoulder in a car accident. She needs his help to “pop it back in” to get to the polls before they close. D-a-S: Are you nuts? Go to a hospital? I don’t pop. I’m not a popper. Voter: But the polls close in an hour. If you want my vote, pop it back in. D-a-S: I don’t want it that bad. The skit ends with D-a-S watching results come in from Iowa. “Point-2%!?!” he yells. “How many people is that?!” “It’s like five people!” “Five people!’ The gag is that they’re watching a Clinton victory celebration on TV, and there in the crowd... is the car-crash voter, with her arm in a sling, and a Clinton sticker on the sling. Oh wait, here we are: Bern Your Enthusiasm, is the premise of the Sanders / David skit. Although for now we only get David, as Bernie Sanders at a presidential rally. In this skit, Sanders shares David’s phobias about germs, and refuses to shake the hand of a voter who had coughed into her hand. David-as-Sanders gets into a fight with the voter. “I am running for president, I do not shake disgusting hands!” he says. The voter replies: “Really, Bernie?!?” We’re not going to blog portions of Saturday Night Live not starring Bernie Sanders. We’re not going to blog portions of Saturday Night Live not starring Bernie Sanders. Here’s a picture from the debate spin room, where political reporter Ben Jacobs is chasing interviews: NB: Larry David is 68 years old. Six years younger than Bernie Sanders. David is on to the topic of dating. Do we need to narrate this portion of the monologue to you, our politics audience? Bernie Sanders isn’t onstage. This is pretty funny though. Tune in, we’d say. If you made it through that three-hour debate broadcast, there is literally no possible way on Earth you will be disappointed. Here’s the monologue. Larry David walks out. The actual Larry David not Bernie Sanders-as-Larry David. Not that anyone expects Sanders to try a David impression tonight. What do we expect? We don’t even know. That’s part of the thrill. David says something about having a dipless house. And his transition from a poor shmuck to a rich prick. “I’m not that much happier as a prick than a shmuck,” he says. It’s a seamless transition from the Republican debate. Here comes Bernie Sanders and Saturday Night Live. It’s the cold open of the show. A Ted Cruz impersonation. That guy doesn’t look a thing like Bernie Sanders. Oh it’s Taran Killam. But this is a pretty good line: Folks, we’ve had presidents who were governors, generals. Isn’t it time we had a president who was just a nasty little weasel? Christie is already fundraising off his mauling of Rubio tonight. Agree? (h/t: @lgamgam) Marco Rubio won the debate... in terms of Google searches coming out of New Hampshire. Which may only indicate that Granite Staters were trying to figure out what the buzz about Rubio getting into some kind of trouble was? Note that the Rubio searches, rankings-wise at least, seemed to intensify later in the evening – a while after his memorable encounter with Chris Christie’s fists: We asked, you answered – and here’s a sampler: Extra credit to Huples, who was brave enough to take on every single question we posed – though we’re not sure Jeb Bush is going to win American Idol: Was Isis onstage tonight? Is Rubio’s abortion stance “evolving”, asks Lucia Graves? Tonight Christie sought to draw a distinction with Rubio on abortion, an area where the candidates have diverged in the past. While Rubio only supports abortions to save the life of the mother - and not for cases of rape or incest - he has indicated in interviews that he would sign abortion legislation without such provisions were he president. Tonight he seemed to go a step further calling a woman’s right to make choices about her body “a real right”. Christie has attacked Rubio over not making exceptions for rape in his personal politics before, and when a moderator asked if he was being “harmful to the pro-life cause” by doing so Christie was happy to argue the point. “If a woman has been raped… this is not a woman’s choice but a woman being violated,” he said. It would seem to be impossible to argue with that statement but welcome to the Republican debates on women’s health ... Nevertheless, both Rubio’s rhetoric and Christie’s retort signal we may be seeing some progress, or uh, evolution here. Here’s how Twitter experienced the debate tonight – with thanks to the Twitter metrics team: Top moments on Twitter: 1. Trump tells Bush to be quiet. Continues to be booed by audience. 2. Rubio: “I think conservatism is about three things...”3. “There it is” --Christie to Rubio on his 25 second stump speech. Final #GOPDebate share of Twitter conversation: -Trump 29% -Rubio 18% -Cruz 14% -Bush 9% -Christie 8% Most-Tweeted topics during #GOPDebate: 1. Foreign Affairs and National Security 2. Healthcare 3. The Economy That’s it, they’re done. Who won? Don’t hold back, let’s hear it in the comments. And who do you think is going to win this upcoming Bernie Sanders- Larry David thing? Kasich: 100 town hall meetings in New Hampshire. Loved every second. I’ve had your hugs. Conservative message, positive message. Bring people together. Please give me a chance. I’ll be back. Christie: 13 years of my life serving the people. People first. War on terrorism. Hurricane Sandy. Proud to be here. I’ve spent 70 days here. You’ve gotten to know my heart. Vote for me I’ll fix it. Bush: Thanks New Hampshire. Ronald Reagan is 105. We need someone with a proven record. Peace through strength. I can take our party to victory. Thanks. Carson: The political class and pundits and media try to bury me. Guess what? I’m still here, and I’m not going anyplace, either. Faith, integrity and common sense. Rubio: My kids campaigned with me this week. I was reminded what’s at stake. [Cut to TV shot of kids. Wow cute kids. Vote Rubio.] Single greatest nation etc. Cruz: Everybody says they’ll stand up to Washington. Last week in Iowa I opposed ethanol. [It’s true.] Governor of state attacked me. Iowa put country above cronyism. We can fix it. The ethanol close. Trump: “That’s because he got Ben Carson’s votes by the way, but we won’t say that.” Ooh! Our country doesn’t win anymore. New Hampshire is addicted to heroin. China is killing us on trade. If I’m elected president, we will win and we will win and we will win. That’s it! They’re done. Epic commercial break before these closing statements. Gives us time to think about what’s up next: Saturday Night Live With Bernie Sanders vs. Larry David. Worth the wait, wethinks. OK final commercial break. Closing statements next! Who won? Who’s winning? Weigh in now! Who’s going to win the Super Bowl? Who do you like on American Idol? Lightning round: Who wins Super Bowl? Kasich: South Carolina. Bush: Peyton Manning likes me. Denver. Rubio: Carolina. (Bush’s PR guy liked that one.) Trump: Carolina. Cruz: With an eye to November, Carolina. Carson: With absolute certainty, I will predict a winner: Either Denver or Carolina. Christie: Denver. --- UPDATE: Sports fact check from the US sports editor Tom Lutz: Kasich, Rubio, Trump and Cruz are right. And technically Ben Carson too. Tough luck, Christie and Bush. After all that work on the ground in New Hampshire, too. --- Pretty shamelessly shallow from all on a night when Rubio’s scripted campaigning spirit has set the pundits afire: Rubio is asked how to speak to millennials on same-sex marriage and abortion? Guess what: Rubio has a smooth answer about same-sex marriage and abortion. “The issue of life is not a political issue, it is a human rights issue,” Rubio says. He calls the woman’s right to choose what to do with her body “a real right”. But the right of the foetus to life outweighs. He calls Democrats “extremists on the issue of abortion.” He’s vigorously applauded. Then a bit of a mini-debate breaks out on abortion: Bush says he’s pro-life, except for cases of rape, incest, and the mother’s life being in danger. He calls it a “sweet-spot” position for the Republican nominee. Not that there are political calculations going into his thinking here. Rubio: “I do support an exception for the life of the mother, because I’m pro-life.” Which isn’t new ... ... but: Rubio says he would “rather lose an election, than be wrong on the issue of life.” What do you think, is that true? Christie, after equating abortion to “the murder of children”, says that in cases of rape and incest, abortion should be an option, as a “self-defense”. “That woman should not have to carry that child.” Lucia Graves examines Ted Cruz’s comments about whether waterboarding is torture. “Under the definition of torture, no it’s not,” Cruz said. “Under the law, torture is excruciating pain that is equivalent to losing organs and systems, so under the definition of torture, it is not. It is enhanced interrogation, it is vigorous interrogation, but it does not meet the generally recognized definition of torture.” Torture has been defined as “any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person” by the United Nations. And in 2014 The International Committee of the Red Cross ruled that waterboarding fit the definition of torture. The technique, which involves covering a person’s face with cloth and pouring water over it repeated to simulate the effect of drowning, was dubbed one of many “enhanced interrogation techniques” infamously used by the George W Bush administration administration. And that is how Cruz argued it should be classified tonight. But since those techniques were employed by the Bush administration, and in particular following the release of a Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA interrogations in 2014 - a 500-plus page report detailing the effectiveness of some of the harshest interrogation techniques employed by the United States - “enhanced interrogation techniques” has widely come to be viewed as a euphemism for torture. Technically speaking, whether waterboarding fits the definition of torture depends on whether it can be said that making a person feel like they’re drowning can be considered enacting severe suffering. It’s a somewhat subjective matter but I’m going to go with yes. Trump takes the question. “I know Diane Foley [James’ mother] very well,” Trump says. “I raised a lot of money for the foundation.” “That said, you cannot negotiate this way with terrorists. If you do that, you’re going to have so many other James Foleys.” And on the vets, Trump does not let to go unmentioned: “During the last debate, I raised $6m for the vets.” Now a question about James Foley, a New Hampshire native, and a journalist killed by Isis militants in Syria. Should families be allowed to raise money for ransom for loved ones? “Putting in place legal regimes that encourage the payment of ransom has the effect of putting a bounty on other Americans,” Cruz says. Is Cruz tired? He tries to refer to “loved ones and family members” and calls them “love members.” Then he calls Bowe Bergdahl “James Bergdahl.” Kasich says that experience in the military should translate to civilian licenses, college credits and other accreditations based on their military experience. “Everybody wants to hire a veteran,” Kasich says. “There should be no unemployment among veterans.” “Let’s lift them. They’re the greatest people taking care of the United States of America, and we need to take care of them, and we will. We will.” Next question: how to fix the veterans administration? Bush says people in the VA should have been fired when routine long waiting lists were revealed. He says he met someone at a town hall this morning who was a veteran informed by the VA that he had died. “This is outrageous,” he says. “I met him. And he’s voting for me!” Only 40 minutes to go! Can Rubio claw back? The opinionators are already beginning to call this one of his worst sweatiest performances yet: Or maybe it’s working? Christie says he has two daughters and if a young woman wants to fight for her country, she should be allowed to do so. “Anything they can dream, anything they want to aspire to, they can do.” Carson jumps in too, on the draft. “Fourteen per cent decrease in the number of people applying for military service,” he says. And mentions veteran suicide. He strays from the point of the draft to his plan for veterans. “They should have health empowerment accounts ... If we start taking care of our veterans the right way, we won’t ever have to worry about the draft again.” Unclear how that tracks. Here’s the asterisk for Bush. “The draft’s not going to be reinstituted. We don’t have a draft. I’m not suggesting we have a draft.” So he’s OK with women being required to sign up for selective service, so long as there’s no possibility of them being called up? Rubio is asked about young women signing up for selective service in case the draft is reinstated. Rubio says there are already women serving today in roles that are like combat. He says he supports women in combat. And he believes that selective service should be opened up for both men and women. The deeper problem, he says, is the shrinking of the military. Bush agrees with Rubio on selective service subscription. “If women can meet the minimum requirements for combat, they ought to be allowed to do it. Carson is asked about Zika. “This is going to be obviously a big deal,” Carson says. But he would not “willy-nilly go out and quarantine a bunch of people because they’ve been to Brazil”. Christie takes a question about Zika virus – and his decision to quarantine an American nurse who had traveled to Ebola-infected West Africa. Would he maybe quarantine people, if Zika virus deepens, who’d traveled affected areas in Brazil? “You bet I would. You have to remember what happened with that nurse. She was showing symptoms.. had been treating patients.” He stands by the decision. Rubio is asked whether he would visit a mosque as president. He says he would, but that the country has to confront the threat posed by radical Islamic terror. They’re back! Trump us asked how he would bridge the divide between police and communities they serve, as ABC’s Muir cites the discredited, unscientific so-called “Ferguson effect” invoked by the FBI director. Trump’s sympathies lie with the police. “The police in this country have done an unbelievable job of keeping law and order,” he says. “Minorities all over the country, they respect the police of this country,” Trump says. He says police are afraid about their pensions because of videos on the local news. “They’re afraid for their jobs,” he says. “We have to give great respect... to our really fantastic police.” But how would he bridge the divide? Of the families, Trump says: They sue. Everybody sues. They go out. They sue. We have so much litigation. You know what? We don’t want to have excessive force. But at what point can you do his job... you’re going to have abuse and you’re going to have problems.. but you have to weed out the problems. Kasich jumps in: “There can be a win-win here.” He talks about a law-enforcement-community-leaders collaborative he formed to make recommendations on police recruiting, hiring and the use of deadly force. “We love the police, but we’ve got to be responsive to the people and the communities.” Applause for trickeration. Talk times so far: Low for Kasich. Second commercial break! They’re doing them hourly. Doesn’t give us much time to dip into the comments. How are you reading this thing? That second hour was not quite as electrifying as the first. Note to Bush, Christie, Carson, maybe Kasich – when you come back, you may in effect have an hour left to make your 2016 presidential campaigns breathe. (Unless debates don’t matter.) Same question for Carson: First of all, I think it would be a fairly easy contrast between myself and Hillary Clinton. He says Clinton is “known to be deceitful,” then he starts talking about Benghazi, which he says he will never let go. “I would simply make it a referendum on honesty and integrity versus deceit and the Washington way.” Rubio says the changing of the narrative of the arrival of the first woman president is “already happening.” He cites Iowa turnout and attendance at Republican rallies. “Here’s what Hillary Clinton needs to understand... we’re going to bring this party together, and we are going to defeat Hillary Clinton, because she is unqualified to be president.” Question for Trump: How do you run against Hillary Clinton, who will be running to make history as the first woman president? Trump points to the polls, of course. “We’ve created a movement,” Trump says. “We will galvanize the people of this country, and we will beat Hillary Clinton.” “I will win the election and we will win it by a lot. We will win it handily.” Q for Christie: Would you chase drug enforcement into Mexico, without the cooperation of Mexican government? “Of course I would,” Christie says. He says that first-time drug offenders in New Jersey go to treatment, not to prison, and the result has been dropping prison populations. “This is a disease. It’s not a moral failing. It’s a disease and we need to get people help.” Christie says he’s pro-live, and that means support for addicts. Next question: 48% of New Hampshirites knows somebody who has abused heroin. Question is for Cruz, who told a personal story about a family member who struggled with addiction. What can you say to show people you understand the danger of the problem? And Cruz tells a tragic and moving story about his older half sister Miriam. Cruz says her older half sister struggled her whole life with drug and alcohol addiction. She went to jail. “She ended up spending some time in a crack house.” She says she drove with his dad to try to get his sister, Miriam, out of the crack house. She wouldn’t come. “She was angry.” About five or six years ago, she died of an overdose. “This is an absolute epidemic. We need leadership to solve it.” More here on the crisis: Kasich says as president, you need to have an agenda in “the first hundred days.” Then he rattles off what he would do. Kasich: If I get elected tomorrow, go out tomorrow and buy a seatbelt, because there’s going to be so much happening, it’ll make your head spin!” That’s applauded with some vigor. Kasich says the problem with Washington is not that there are too many deals. It’s that there’s no leadership. “The point is, you have to work with people....” and Obama does not. “Since he’s given up on working with Congress, he thinks he can impose anything he wants. He’s not a king, he’s a president.” In Ohio, Kasich says, “I don’t trump the legislature, because if you do, you aggravate them, you anger them.” Trump’s invited to talk about making deals as president. This is his dream question? “A good dealmaker will make great deals but will do it in a way our founders thought it should be done. People will get together, they’ll make deals,” he says. You have to get people in, grab ‘em, hug ‘em, kiss ‘em and get the deal done. But it has to be the deal that you want. Ted Cruz says “on day one, I will rescind every single illegal and extra-constitutional executive action Barack Obama has done.” “Obama is abusing executive power.” He says he would also change Obama’s foreign policy and also be better at legislation. Because he has so many friends in Congress. Q for Cruz: Is waterboarding torture? “Well, under the definition of torture, no, it’s not,” he says. “Under the law, torture is excruciating pain that is equivalent to losing organs and systems, so under the definition of torture, it is not. It is enhanced interrogation, it is vigorous interrogation, but it does not meet the generally recognized definition of torture.” But this from Cruz: I would not bring it back in any sort of widespread use. And indeed I’d join with Senator McCain in prohibiting line officers from employing it. Trump takes the waterboarding question. He breathes fire on the issue. “In the Middle East, we have people chopping the head off Christians... we have never seen before what’s happening right now. ... I would bring back waterboarding, and I would bring back a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding.” Some guy in the audience goes, “Yeah!” Same for Bush: “It was used sparingly, Congress has changed the laws and I think where we stand is the appropriate place.” Same for Rubio: We shouldn’t talk about specific tactics in the war on terror. But we’d get them. Here’s Marco Rubio saying his rehearsed line several times over the course of three minutes earlier this evening: That’s from a rival campaign, but, well: Carson takes the question. I want to talk about this, he says, “because I’m not just here to lend beauty to the stage.” “I would support the possibility of renewed airstrikes” if the military people agreed, in Libya, Carson says. He basically says he would punt the question to the Pentagon: “None of us up here is a military expert... if we actually sit down and talk with [the Pentagon] and get their impression... we can decide.” Raddatz vs Bush: You supported strikes on Libya. Would you support renewed air strikes? “I would. And I would do it in concert with Arab allies and Europe.” Then this, from the brother of George W Bush: This is the lesson learned in history, if you bomb something and not do anything with the aftermath of this, you end up with [chaos], you end up with Libya. You have to lead. With out the United States, nothing seems to work. Now Raddatz confronts Trump: How would you get rid of Isis ‘quickly’ as you’ve said? Four years ago, he says, “I said bomb the oil and take the oil.” He talks about bombing the oil. “You have to knock the hell out of the oil, you have to take the oil, and you also have back channels of banking... we have to stop those circuits. Nobody knows banking better than I do. They have back circuits, back channels. Follow-up: What about Isis-occupied cities full of civilians? Trump says “When you stop the oil and take the oil... when you do that, it’s going to dry up very quickly, they’re going to become a very weakened power, quickly. Rubio calls for increased air strikes on Isis “not just in Iraq and Syria, but around the world.” He supports a regional ground force led by the United States. Raddatz presses him: you’ve called Isis “the most dangerous group in history.” Why not commit a large US ground force? Because they occupy Sunni cities, Rubio says. “It will take Sunni fighters themselves in the region to take those cities and villages and to hold them.” If not, Rubio says, “you are going to have a successor group to Isis, just as it is a successor group to al Qaeda.” He’s handling himself well in a high-pressure line of questioning from Raddatz. Cruz is asked whether he would expand the rules of engagement to fight Isis and other militant groups in Iraq and Syria. Cruz says yes. “We are sending [soldiers] in to fight with their arms tied behind their backs... it is wrong. “We should use overwhelming force, kill the enemy and then get the heck out.” Then loosen the rules of engagement? “Absolutely, yes,” Cruz says. Then Raddatz asks Cruz about his strategy to carpet-bomb Isis. What kind of strategy is that? “Now when I say saturation carpet bombing, that’s not indiscriminate,” Cruz says. Doesn’t sound like it. Then Christie gives a super-solid Republican answer on the dangers of taxation. To the 68% of Americans who believe there need to be higher taxes on the rich, “I want to tell you the truth. You’re wrong, and here’s why you’re wrong”: After New Jersey raised taxes on millionaires, we lost in the next four years, $70bn in revenues. It’s a failed idea, it’s failed policy, it’s class warfare. Rubio elbows in, because Christie attacked him. And once again Rubio attacks Obama. A non-response to Christie. Rubio is booed a bit, as if the crowd has ingested Christie’s critique of him as a one-note piano. Then Rubio takes a tax question. He says business taxes are too high and “the solutions to the problems we have today are not a tax increase.” Bush takes the tax question. 68% of Americans believe that the richest should pay higher taxes, Muir says. Does Bush agree? I’d like to see more millionaires. I think we need to grow more millionaires... this notion that we’re undertaxed as a nation is just foolhardy. The three biggest questions in America right now, apparently: Google Trends also tells us that searches for “Is Ben Carson still running for President?” went up by 275% around the beginning of tonight’s debate ... back when this happened: This, too: Unlike Marco Rubio, frontrunner Donald Trump has not taken too many direct assaults, or “incoming” as he calls it in his speeches, so far tonight, points out Ben Jacobs in Manchester. However, Trump reacted shakily to a question about eminent domain, the power of the government to seize property for “public use”. While its use is not controversial for government projects like roads or bridges, it is for economic development projects led by private property owners. In particular, Trump has been criticized for trying to have an elderly woman’s house in Atlantic City seized for a limousine parking lot for one of his casinos. Jeb Bush used the opportunity to draw blood. He insisted to Trump “a limousine parking lot for his casinos is not a public use”. Bush went on to brag that, in Florida, “based on what we did we made that impossible as part of the constitution.” Trump used the opportunity to mock Bush as “a tough guy,” and held a single finger to his lips to urge Bush to be quiet. This set off a cascade of boos from the audience which Trump welcomed. Instead of rebutting Bush on the facts, Trump used the opportunity to play the villain to the crowd as if he was a heel in professional wrestling. “All of his donors and special interests, you know has tickets,” the real estate mogul said. “The reason they are not loving me is because I don’t want their money” as the audience kept on booing. Christie is asked about Kasich questioning his success at creating jobs in New Jersey. He says Kasich deserves credit for his record on jobs. But unfortunately John’s using old numbers, he says. “New Jersey had its best year of job growth in the last 15 years this year,” Christie says. Then Christie tries to get another hit on Rubio. He’s dinged. But he keeps talking. “He acts as if he’s somehow disembodied from his bill... it was his bill. It was his idea.” “I like my record. And by the way, I like Governor Kasich’s record too, he’s a good governor.” Turns into a bit of a love fest between Kasich and Christie. Kasich says common-sense regulations, lower taxes and a fiscal plan to balance the budget are the keys to economic growth, and he has put in place all three in Ohio. It was evident within minutes of the debate that Marco Rubio had walked on to the stage with a target on his back, writes Sabrina Siddiqui in Manchester, with the Florida senator’s rivals seeking to halt his momentum ahead of Tuesday’s primary. And Rubio, in arguably his weakest moment in any debate thus far, struggled to fend off an early attack from New Jersey governor Chris Christie over his relative inexperience. Asked to defend himself against criticism that he has a thin resume for the nation’s top job, Rubio quickly cited some of his accomplishments in the US Senate before pivoting to Joe Biden. The vice president, Rubio said, “has been around for 1,000 years” and would not be fit to be commander in chief. “Marco, you shouldn’t compare yourself to Joe Biden,” Christie said, before pointing out Rubio named as an achievement passing sanctions against Hezebollah despite skipping the vote on the actual legislation. “That’s not leadership, that’s truancy. I like Marco … but he simply does not have the experience to be president of the United States.” Rubio initially sought to fight back by going after Christie’s record in New Jersey, a state that has under his stewardship undergone several credit downgrades. But the Florida senator quickly pivoted to his talking points about Obama, going on to repeat the same answer three times in a row in a brutal back-and-forth with Christie. Although Rubio took a few shots at Christie, charging that the governor was “shamed” into leaving the campaign trail to tend to New Jersey after a recent snow storm, Rubio took on the form of a broken record. The senator’s inability to regain his control fed directly into the notion pushed by his Republican opponents that he sticks relentlessly to the same set of talking points. Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor, also chimed in to make the case that Rubio was ultimately untested. “Marco Rubio is a gifted, gifted politician, and he may have the skills to be president of the United States,” Bush said. “But we tried it with Barack Obama.” Now for Trump: How many jobs would you create in the first term, and how? Trump does not even come close to saying: “I will bring jobs back from China. I will bring jobs back from Japan. I will bring jobs back from Mexico. “I’m gonna bring jobs back, and I’m gonna start bringing them back very fast. “We will bring back trillions of dollars from offshore.” Assertion, assertion, assertion. They’re back! Here goes Kasich. He was endorsed by the New York Times – no recommendation in the eyes of the right. How would you change conservatism? he’s asked. Kasich points out that the New York Times said “He’s certainly not a moderate.” “In America, conservatism should mean not only that some rise with conservative principles, but everybody should rise.” Trump gets the same question. “To me I view the word conservative as derivative of the word conserve. We want to conserve our money. We want to conserve our worth... We want to conserve our country.” Rubio: “I think conservatism is about three things”: 1/ Limited government. 2/ Free enterprise. 3/ Strong national defense. “That’s conservatism,” he concludes. Good answer! Commercial break, after a solid hour. Who’s winning? What do you think of those Christie-Rubio fireworks? What about that booing of the crowd of Donald Trump? Did Bush actually land a punch? Where’s Kasich tonight? Why didn’t Carson walk onto the stage when he was called? Did Cruz escape from the first few tough questions about how everybody else on stage thinks he’s been very naughty? Next question on eminent domain – the seizure of private property for the greater good, ostensibly. Does Trump see eminent domain as a legit way to take property? “So many people have hit me with commercials. Eminent domain is an absolute necessity for a country. For our country. Without it you wouldn’t have roads... you wouldn’t have bridges,” Trump says. “The Keystone Pipeline without eminent domain, it wouldn’t go ten feet. “When eminent domain is used on somebody’s property, that person gets a fortune... without eminent domain, you don’t have roads highways schools hospitals - none of it.” Bush hits Trump, describing the “difference between eminent domain for public purpose” and private purposes. “What Donald Trump did was try to take the property of an elderly woman in Atlantic City to turn it into a limousine parking lot for his casino,” BUsh says. Then Bush and Trump really spark – and the crowd turns on Trump. “Jeb wants to be a tough guy. He wants to be a tough guy. I didn’t take the property.” Then Trump straight-up shushes Bush: “He wants to be a tough guy. Let me talk. Quiet.” Trump is booed. “That’s all of his donors and special interests out there.” Booed. “We needed tickets. You can’t get them. You know who has the tickets. Donors, special interests.” Trump booed and booed and booed. Cruz takes the question and talks and talks. Then Carson gets the question about what to do about and with Obamacare. “I was hoping to get the chance to talk about North Korea,” Carson says. But he lets it go. “I have proposed a health empowerment account system...[from birth to death] we pay for it with the same dollars that we pay for traditional health care with. Each family basically becomes its own insurance company without a middleman.” “Go to my web site, BenCarson.com, and read about it.” Trump’s asked whether, with his past support for some kind of universal health care system, he isn’t close-ish to Vermont senator Bernie Sanders on the issue. “I don’t think I am. I think I’m closer to common sense. We are going to repeal Obamacare. We are going to replace it with something so much better. .. The insurance companies are getting rich on Obamacare.. we’re going to end it.” He says he could pull it off because he’s not bought and sold by the insurance lobby. He does not mention the Congress that would have to draft and pass whatever new law he’s talking about. Then Trump gets strangely ... real: “There’s a certain number people who will be on the street dying. As a Republican, I don’t want that to happen. You can’t have people dying on the street. You’re not going to let people die sitting in the middle of the street, in any city in this country.” Christie gets to punch Rubio again! “He didn’t answer the question,” Christie says. He’s applauded. The crowd likes his critique of Rubio’s rhetoric. “The question was did he fight for his legislation? It’s abundantly clear that he didn’t,” Christie says. “...The fact of the matter is, a leader has to fight, not to handicap it and say if I can’t handle it, I’ll run. That’s not leadership, that’s Congress.” Rubio’s apt retort: “Leadership is about solving the problem.” Rubio is asked about the “Gang of 8” immigration bill, which provided a path to citizenship for some undocumented migrants. Rubio gives his usual answer, which is that his legislation didn’t work. For some reason this is seen as a viable defense. “Here’s the bottom line: We can’t get that legislation passed,” Rubio says. Then he calls for a secure border. “Did you fight for the legislation at the time, or did you run from it?” follow-up question. “Well the legislation passed [the senate], but it has no support!” Rubio says. On to Cruz. “We’re going to build a wall!” he says. Trump reacts with a huge eyeroll and waved arms. He recognizes the policy proposal. It’s familiar from somewhere. “Since Donald enjoyed that, I will simply say that we’ve got somebody in mind to build it,” Cruz quips. Cruz is pressed: What about the families? “What you do is enforce the law,” Cruz says. He says under federal immigration law, if someone is here illegally they should be deported. “Enforcing the law is feasible, what is missing is the political will.” On to immigration. Kasich gets the question. No commercial breaks for this crew. Maybe they couldn’t sell any ads against this. Kasich is asked whether he disagrees with Rebuplican voters on the topic of immigration. “We have to have practical solutions,” Kasich says. “We have to finish the border.. the country has to be able to lock its doors.” Then Kasich says he supports legal status for undocumented migrants who pay back taxes and other fines. Out of step with Republican voters. “Taking a mom and dad out of a house who haven’t commited a crime since they’ve been here? Leaving the children in the house?” says Kasich. “That is not in my opinion the kind of values we believe in.” Next to Christie: Would you negotiate with North Korea? He says he learned as a federal prosecutor, “You never pay ransom to the criminals.” “They do not understand anything but toughness and strength.. we need to engage with the Chinese. “This president and his secretary of state are for paying ransom for hostages.” Not true, in serial publicly known cases, in Syria at least. Trump is asked if he has any red lines on North Korea. He says he disagrees with Rubio’s assessment of Obama as intelligent. “I think he has no idea what he’s doing, and our country’s going to hell.” He says he deals with the Chinese “all the time.” “They have absolute practical control of North Korea,” he says. “I would get on with China. Let them solve that problem.” Rubio gets the question back, and says North Korea should go back on the list of terrorist nations. But he seems, ever so slightly, shaken, perhaps wounded from Christie’s abrasions earlier, pointed directly at what Rubio usually does so well, which is speak. Here’s a brief round-up of Twitter reaction to that bizarre opening: A tweet just before the debate from the ’s Michael Cohen seems eerily prescient ... Kasich finally gets the mic, on the North Korea question. “Well we’ve got to step up the pressure,” he says. Then he critiques the conversation that came before. “Every one of my 100 town hall meetings in New Hampshire were a lot more fun than what we saw here.” Kasich calls for sanctions on North Korea, a la Iran. “We’ve got to be very tough on this. I think we could’ve let the Japanese know, that if you want to take action, you will have our support. “We cannot continue to be weak in the face of North Korea and the rest of the world.” Cruz is asked about the North Korea ballistic missile launch announced just before the debate began. Cruz says the launch is the fault of the first Clinton administration, and the easing of sanctions on North Korea negotiated by Wendy Sherman who – Cruz notes significantly – also led negotiations on the Iran deal. Then Cruz jumps into the electromagnetic pulse exploding satellite scenario. EMP! The Republicans’ favorite doomsday scenario. Cruz is asked whether he would blast a North Korean launch from afar. Cruz replies that he doesn’t have the intelligence. Then he says the North Korean threat points to the danger of the Iranian nuclear deal. He’s applauded. Jeb Bush gets the floor. He beats on Rubio too, saying that Barack Obama was another young senator who was good at speaking but couldn’t lead. But that came at the end of a minutes-long Bush speech that did not live up to the drama that had come before. Rubio says under Christie in New Jersey, his state’s credit rating was downgraded nine times. Then Christie seriously lifts the curtain on Rubio, trying to reveal a tiny Wizard behind the mighty Oz. “That’s what Washington DC does. The drive-by shot at the beginning, with incorrect information, and then the memorized 25-second speech that his advisers gave him,” Christie says. “The 30 second speech doesn’t solve one problem.” Rubio jumps back in and says Christie did not want to go back for the snowstorm that hit New Jersey two weeks ago. Go back from New Hampshire campaigning. Then Rubio shifts to attacking Barack Obama. Christie is not letting up. Truly great guns. And Christie appears to be winning, he’s applauded while Rubio is... booed? “There it is. There it is. The memorized 25-second speech. There it is everybody,” says Christie. Cheers. Rubio: “You didn’t want to go back!” Christie: “Is that one of the skills you get as a United States senator, ESP also?” Big cheers! Christie attacks Rubio directly: “You have not been involved in a consequential decision, where you had to be held accountable, you just simply haven’t.” The crowd goes ooooh. The Republicans are taking a cue from the Democrats here, trading real punches. Christie says Rubio wasn’t even around to vote on the Hezbollah sanctions act, which Rubio listed as an accomplishment. “That’s not leadership, that’s truancy.” Rubio is asked what successes he has to show in his years in electoral politics that show he’s ready to be president. He skims through his work in Florida, including protecting the VA. If the presidency becomes electing the people who have been in Congress the longest, we should rally around Joe Biden. He’s been in Congress a thousand years. Carson rebuts Cruz. He points out that CNN corrected its report on Twitter in One Minute - not hours later as Cruz said. “What happened to that one is unclear,” Carson says. “Everybody can see what happen and you can make your own judgments.” Cruz’s offense in question was to allow his camp to send an email saying that Carson had withdrawn. “When this transpired I apologized to him then, and I do so now. Ben, I’m sorry,” Cruz says. Cruz blames CNN, Jake Tapper and Dana Bash by name. “My political team saw CNN’s report, breaking news, and they forwarded this report to volunteers... I knew nothing about this.” Then he says his staff should have double-checked the report. Carson is asked about his camp’s assessment of Cruz’s Iowa shenanigans as being “deceitful.” “When I wasn’t introduced number two as the plan I thought that maybe you thought that I’d already dropped out,” Carson quips. Then Carson invokes Reagan, the birthday boy. “His 11th commandment was not to speak ill of another Republican... I’m not going to savage the reputation of Ted Cruz... I was very disappointed that members of his team thought so little of me ... to think that I would just walk away ten minutes before the caucus, and just say forget about you guys – who would do something like that?” He calls it “a good example of Washington ethics.” Cruz takes the question. “I am convinced anyone standing on this stage would make a much better commander in chief than Barack Obama or Hillary clinton or Bernie Sanders,” Cruz says. Cruz is pressed about specifically questioning Trump’s temperament, specifically. “I think that is an assessment the voters are going to make, and they’re going to make it of each and every one of us,” Cruz waffles. Trump is leering at him. “First of all I respect what Ted just said. But if you noticed, he didn’t answer your question. And that’s what’s going to happen with our enemies... we’re gonna win with Trump. And people back down with Trump.” Trump uses Cruz as a stand-in for China and Mexico under the Trump candidacy. The debate starts with Trump asked about Cruz saying Trump would “nuke Denmark” if he were president. “I actually think I have the best temperament,” Trump says. He says he’s gotten along with people for “years and years.” He points out, correctly, that he broke the ice for Republicans on immigration and other signpost issues in this campaign. “I talked about Muslims. We have a problem. Nobody else wanted to mention the problem.” Trump says his opposition to the Iraq war proves his calm. “I’m not one with the trigger. Other people up here believe me would be a lot faster.” Muir has to specifically ask Carson to take the stage. And he finally... does. Then the moderators forget to introduce Kasich. Christie reminds them. Here comes Kasich. Action! Well that part was difficult. But now they are all safely installed behind the lecterns. In the moderators’ defense, that was a seriously strange curveball from Carson, with the collusion of Trump. The candidates are being introduced. First is Chris Christie, who storms the stage like a bull. Second is Dr Ben Carson... who extremely awkwardly lingers offstage. Carson is not moving. A producer is trying to wave him onto the stage. What is happening? Carson refuses to take the stage. There goes Bush. Trump has stopped to talk with Carson. Ha! There’re Senators Lindsey Graham and John McCain, doing Statler and Waldorf, the beloved Muppet peanut gallery, in an ABC News promo for the debate. Short spot: McCain: I don’t think this one will be very good, Lindsey. Graham: Why’s that? McCain: Because we’re not in it. Guess who was born on 6 February? A certain Republican president who just might receive some birthday wishes from the stage in Manchester: Donald Trump can’t emphasize enough his excitement to join tonight’s debate, after skipping the last one, in New Hampshire – after he cancelled an event here Friday on account of snow. Very exciting! More exclamation points!!! The chairman of the Democratic National Committee accuses the Republican party of seeking to conceal their debate tonight by scheduling it ... on the weekend with the heaviest TV viewership of the year, Super Bowl weekend. Particularly befuddling given the Democrats’ original plan to host only six debates, and scheduling the majority on weekend nights over three-day holiday weekends. Seriously? With the onward rush of the Republican debate cycle it’s easy to lose the narrative thread (could it be that there’s actually no thread?). For those in whom the untraceable twists induce a sense of malaise – we refer you to our live coverage of the previous debate, which we summarized like so: The knives were out for Texas senator Ted Cruz, who is polling second behindTrump in Iowa. Florida senator Marco Rubio said Cruz’s campaign was built on a “lie” of shifting positions for votes. It was a substantive debate. Body cameras for police, Libya, Iran, Kim Davis, mental illness, Bridgegate, immigration, Isis, Obamacare, veterans’ affairs, Bill Clinton’s affairs – it was all in there. Speaking of shifting positions, the moderators strived to pin Cruz and Rubio down on immigration, using video medleys of their most blatant calls for a path to legal status for undocumented immigrants to prove that they had in the past supported a path to legal status for undocumented immigrants. The pair waffled. Read more: Republicans are crying foul about the Iowa result, but the Democratic contest was much closer – and, it develops, perhaps much messier, political reporter Ben Jacobs wrote: In the Iowa Democratic party’s chaotic attempt to report caucus results on Monday night, the results in at least one precinct were unilaterally changed by the party as it attempted to deal with the culmination of a rushed and imperfect process overseeing the first-in-the-nation nominating contest. Read the full piece here: Did you sleep through the week in politics? Here’s what you missed: Marco Rubio won Iowa by coming in third, everybody ganged up on actual winner Ted Cruz, Donald Trump threw a Twitter fit and said he was robbed, the Democrats staged an unusually pugnacious debate, and Jeb Bush was reduced to pleading for applause. It’s all right here in our two-minute video roundup: Gloria Steinem appears to have offended a large group of Bernie Sanders supporters by suggesting that his young female supporters are only backing the senator because of “boys”, Adam Gabbatt reports from North Hampton, New Hampshire. The feminist writer and activist made the comments on Bill Maher’s show on Friday. Steinem suggested young women prefered Sanders to Hillary Clinton because: Women are more for [Clinton] than men are. Men tend to get more conservative because they gain power as they age, women get more radical because they lose power as they age. They’re going to get more activist as they grow older. And when you’re younger, you think: ‘Where are the boys? The boys are with Bernie.’ Many young female Sanders supporters were unhappy with this characterization. “Gloria Steinem’s statement was the worst kind of sweeping generalization I’ve heard in years about women my age,” said Moumita Ahmed, 25. She has been campaigning for Sanders as one of the leaders of the Millenials for Bernie movement. “I was hurt because I consider her to be an icon of the feminist movement,” she continued. “I identify as a feminist. I’m not sure how she could admit us young women are graduating with more debt and earning less money, then say young women are supporting Bernie Sanders to impress all the boys.” Tennessee Thomas, 31, has been hosting Sanders campaigning events at her shop The Deep End Club in New York City’s East Village. She was similarly unimpressed. “I am supporting Bernie Sanders because of where he stands on the issues,” she said. “It wasn’t a good statement. The left needs to unify. We should be allowed to support who we want without attacking each other.” She added: “I could list a million reasons why I prefer Bernie to Hillary. She supported the KXL pipeline, was in favor of TPP and opposed gay rights until 3 years ago.” A tweet from Sanders on Saturday may have been a response to the controversy: Don’t believe in TV? You can watch tonight’s debate on your computer on the ABC web site: Behind the scenes of the Republican debate … with reporters. political reporter Ben Jacobs does a walking tour of the arena at Saint Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire. NB: Ben’s peers filmed the video on Periscope, so mobile users need the app. On a computer it should work fine, though. Hello and welcome to our livewire coverage of the eighth Republican presidential debate of the 2016 cycle. The action tonight is happening in snowy Manchester, New Hampshire. political reporters Sabrina Siddiqui and Ben Jacobs are at the scene. Tonight marks the return to the debate stage of polling frontrunner Donald Trump, who skipped last month’s debate in Des Moines, Iowa, because host network Fox News hurt his feelings. Trump ended up finishing second in Iowa, despite leading the polling averages in the run-up to the caucuses. With just three days to go until New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation primary contest, Trump enjoys an even stronger polling lead than he had in Iowa. But his rivals, notably Ohio governor John Kasich and Florida senator Marco Rubio, have been gaining ground. Ted Cruz, the winner in Iowa, has slipped a bit in the most recent New Hampshire polls, owing perhaps to voter wariness of aggressive Cruz campaign tactics in Iowa that retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson decried as “dirty tricks” and un-Christian besides. We’ll see whether and how that mini-drama plays out tonight. Rounding out the field are former Florida governor Jeb Bush and New Jersey governor Chris Christie, both of whom have staked their campaigns on a strong New Hampshire showing – though there’s reason to doubt their strategies are working. There’s no “undercard” debate tonight – we commiserate with you about that – and so in just a half hour’s time it will be directly to the main proceedings. If you make it through the debate, there’s a special reward: we’re going to watch Bernie Sanders face off against Larry David on Saturday Night Live. David is leading in the polls but Sanders has a better ground game? But more seriously – is Trump really on track to take New Hampshire? Who needs to shine tonight? Who’s overrated/underrated? Let us know in the comments! And thanks for joining us on your pre-Super-Bowl Saturday. Appearing tonight: Former Florida governor Jeb Bush Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson New Jersey governor Chris Christie Texas senator Ted Cruz Ohio governor John Kasich Florida senator Marco Rubio Donald Trump Moderating tonight will be crack ABC anchors David Muir and Martha Raddatz.
Quietly, symbolically, US control of the internet was just ended It’s early March in Marrakech, and a gleaming conurbation of hotels run in the kind of rare equilibrium of slick organisation and genuine friendliness that Tyler Brûlé might dream about. Inside, the people who run the internet’s naming and numbering systems have been meeting with some of the governments who would rather be doing the job themselves. Eventually they cut a deal, and then negotiators from countries mostly in the northern hemisphere staggered blinking into the sunlight and splayed like lizards around the azure swimming pools, almost too tired to drink. Almost. What they have agreed is a plan for Icann, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, to end direct US government oversight control of administering the internet and commit permanently to a slightly mysterious model of global “multi-stakeholderism”. Like any settlement of a long-running conflict, the trick is to spread the unhappiness evenly and not celebrate too much, lest anyone think they’ve lost more than they’d reckoned. Though the French government was still seething over a spat about “dot champagne”, it rallied the naysayers the weekend before the official meeting started. Yet the real worry was the United States. Larry Strickling, assistant secretary at the US Department of Commerce, is a man who defines jovial calm, but I pity any rug salesman who tries to get one over on him at the medina. He has steadily navigated the US government towards fulfilling its original commitment to Icann’s independence almost 20 years ago, but he has a tough crowd back home. To avoid spooking Republican congressmen or presidential candidates, Icann won’t big up last week’s historic achievement. Make no mistake, though, Thursday 10 March 2016 was a bright shining day on the internet. Internet Independence Day, no less. But why did we even need a carefully brokered deal to make managing the internet the world’s business, and not America’s prerogative? When Icann was founded in 1998, the plan was to keep its anchoring contract with the US National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) for a year or two, and for Icann to become independent in 2000. But in the meantime, the internet became just too important for the US to let go of the reins. Shielded by the US, Icann resisted attempts by the United Nations’ International Telecommunication Union to take over its job. Iana (the Internet Assigned Names Authority, the part of Icann that deals with country codes, internet numbers and protocols) went on being part of Icann, even as other countries felt sure the US must be abusing its power behind the scenes. And Icann’s “multi-stakeholder model” evolved; a hodge-podge of different interests, meeting by conference call, email list and in different cities around the world to manage the domain name system. But as the millions of dollars of business transacted over the internet became trillions, and the first, second and then third billion people came online, it started to look a bit odd that one government had de jure control of a chunk of the internet. And that this oversight was done via a procurement contract. Even as Icann staff travelled the world saying “we’re just a technical coordination organisation”, having a California not-for-profit organisation run part of the global infrastructure no longer passed the sniff test. Under pressure from the EU and others, Icann and the US government took small steps, spelling out their relationship in a deceptively simple document, the Affirmation of Commitments, in 2009. Icann and the US would probably have muddled along together for another decade, with the occasional hand-wave towards global accountability. And then Snowden happened. In September 2013, just months after the first Snowden revelations confirmed long-suspected global internet surveillance by the US, the internet’s elders rebelled. Technical organisations around the world issued the “Montevideo Statement”. No one was more surprised than themselves when the sleeping giants of technical organisations woke up and growled that the “recent revelations of pervasive monitoring and surveillance” had undermined the trust of internet users around the world. It was time, they said, to hurry up and “globalise the Iana”. In a prescient flash of political brilliance, Icann’s CEO, Fadi Chehade, made a pact with Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff. Still smarting over the NSA tapping her smartphone, Rousseff announced a global meeting to decide the future of the internet. But just a few weeks before the meeting in early 2014, the US leapt in to grab back the steering wheel from Brazil, announcing it was finally ready to let go of Icann/Iana. There were just a few conditions. The new oversight model had to be multi-stakeholder. It had to be developed by the world’s internet community, whoever that is. It could not be run by governments. And only the US government could decide if the new model passed the test. It has taken almost two years, one contract extension, 32,000 emails and 600 meetings to put the plan for the future of the internet together. It comes in two parts; one to transition Iana out of US control (Iana transition proposal) but keep it part of Icann, and the other for a much-needed beefing up of Icann’s anaemic accountability mechanisms. Last week’s nail-biting days in windowless rooms were dominated by how to keep Icann honest when that’s no longer the NTIA’s job, and how to give governments a role but not a veto overall. The plan has plenty of ugly compromises and, yes, everyone is about equally unhappy with it. What happens next? After some more intensive lawyering, the plan goes to the US NTIA in April. The NTIA must get it approved before Icann’s contract expires in September, and well before the Obama administration finishes. So far, the signals are good. But in a presidential election year, anything could happen. Will the internet work any differently? All being well: no. Domain names will go on resolving. Internet protocol numbers will be distributed (IPv6 ones, anyway) And internet protocol parameters will … do whatever it is they do. And can a multi-stakeholder system of lobbyists, geeks and idealists (but mostly lobbyists) really run a complex technical ecosystem the world relies on? Icann’s board says that just having come up with the plan is “a true demonstration of the strength and triumph of the multi-stakeholder model”. Time will tell. • Maria Farrell worked for Icann from 2005 to 2010 and represented European civil society organisations on its Generic Names Supporting Organisation from 2012 to 2014
Donald Trump: Clinton's bodyguards should disarm and 'see what happens' After a bruising day dominated by his non-apology for promoting the “birther” conspiracy theory, Donald Trump attempted to regain control of the direction of his presidential campaign at a Miami rally in which he appeared to hint at the assassination of Hillary Clinton. In a sometimes bizarre 45-minute speech on Friday night, which opened with the unfurling of a new “Les Deplorables” battlefield flag backdrop, the Republican nominee went off-script to call for his opponent’s bodyguards to “disarm immediately” – adding, “Let’s see what happens to her.” “Take their guns away!” Trump demanded to loud cheers during a section of the speech in which he said his rival wanted to “destroy your second amendment” and he accused Clinton of “arrogance and entitlement”. In a statement, Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook denounced Trump’s comments: “Donald Trump, the Republican nominee for President, has a pattern of inciting people to violence. Whether this is done to provoke protesters at a rally or casually or even as a joke, it is an unacceptable quality in anyone seeking the job of Commander in Chief.” “But we’ve seen again and again that no amount of failed resets can change who Donald Trump is.” The call to leave the Democratic nominee protected by unarmed secret service agents, first made by Trump in May, raised eyebrows as a reversion to the undisciplined candidate of the primaries rather than the more scripted one of recent weeks. Trump also suggested in August that if Clinton was elected president, “the second amendment people” might be able to stop her from appointing judges. That statement was widely interpreted as a veiled assassination threat as well at the time. It came hours after Trump finally admitted that “President Barack Obama was born in the United States, period” after five years of promoting conspiracy theories that the first African American president was born in Kenya. However, the Republican nominee did not offer a mea culpa for his past statements and also falsely accused Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign of initially spreading rumors about Obama’s birth. Trump made the comments at what was billed as a press conference in a downtown Washington hotel. However, the Republican nominee did not take questions. Speaking to the Black Women’s Agenda symposium in Washington, Clinton excoriated Trump for spreading the birther gospel. “For five years he has led the birther movement to delegitimize our first black president,” she said. “His campaign was founded on this outrageous lie. “He is feeding into the worst impulses, the bigotry and bias, that lurks in our country. Barack Obama was born in America, plain and simple, and Donald Trump owes him and the American people an apology.” Trump did break some new ground on foreign policy on Friday as he attempted to appeal to Miami’s large populations of Cuban-Americans and Venezuelans. Attacking President Obama for “weakness” over his administration’s conciliatory new approach to Havana, Trump promised to “stand with the Cuban people in their fight against communist oppression”, a stance that drew applause from hard-line Cuban-Americans in the audience. “The president’s one-sided deal for Cuba benefits only the Castro regime,” he said. “But all the concessions that Obama granted were done through executive order, which means the next president can reverse them. And that is what I will do unless the Castro regime meets our demands. They include religious freedom for the Cuban people and the freeing of political prisoners. Am I right?” Trump also addressed problems in Venezuela, which he said had been “run into the ground” by socialists. Appealing specifically to the sizable Venezuelan community in and around the neighborhood of Doral, home of his Trump Doral golf resort, he said: “Miami is full of hard-working Venezuelans. The next president must stand with all people oppressed in our hemisphere.” At past rallies, Trump has often been prone to suggesting, if elected, Clinton would turn the United States into Venezuela. Mostly, however, Trump’s speech relied on the familiar themes of attacking Clinton’s “lies and corruption”; supporting the nation’s veterans and rebuilding the “depleted” military; repealing Obamacare and “making deals” that would create jobs in “unbelievable numbers”, saying “American hands will rebuild this nation”. Yet despite the enthusiastic reception, and poll numbers giving Trump his first lead in Florida since early August, Trump has work to do in Miami-Dade, the only one of Florida’s 67 counties the Republican nominee failed to win in the party’s March primary. From former Florida governor Jeb Bush to Miami Mayor Tomás Regalado and Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, several among the city’s influential Republican leaders have all said they cannot support Trump in November. After a mauling earlier in the day over the “birther” issue from the Congressional Black Caucus, Trump also made sure to reference his visit Friday afternoon to Little Haiti, a predominantly black area of Miami that he said had been let down by Clinton and overlooked by Democrats for years. He sat down briefly with Haitian-American leaders at a community center while a handful of protestors carrying a “Little Haiti says no to Trump’s racism and hate” placard waited outside. Later, during Trump’s early-evening speech at Miami’s James L Knight Center, Trump blamed Democrat policies for failures in inner cities and promised to “bring back jobs”, pitching directly to traditionally Democratic-leaning black voters. “Democrats have run these inner-cities for half a century … and all they have delivered is more poverty, more crime and failing schools,” he said. “These are the results of the policies embraced by Hillary Clinton. If she’s elected the inner-cities will get nothing but more suffering and crime and pain and heartache. To the African American people in the community, what do you have to lose?” Ben Jacobs in Washington contributed reporting
United States of New York: Bloomberg 2016 talk keeps focus on Big Apple Ted Cruz was more right than he knew – the scourge of “New York values” he so memorably criticized in the last presidential debate is coming on thick and fast. It’s manifest not just in the candidacy of Donald Trump, but all across the presidential field, from former New York senator Hillary Clinton to Brooklyn-raised and accented Bernie Sanders. Now the race is threatening to get even more New York-centric. On Saturday we learned that Mike Bloomberg – the city’s three-time former mayor and quite possibly the most New York person ever – is mulling a third party presidential bid. Bloomberg, who confidants say has been disturbed by the “tone and tenor” of the race and unsettled by the persistent rise of the Donald, wants to make sure America has yet another rich white New York billionaire to consider: himself. In all reality, a third-party bid from Bloomberg could do more to help than hurt Trump. While it’s not clear whom Bloomberg would steal the most votes from, and while many liberals don’t like his Wall Street coziness or affinity for aggressive policing, it also seems safe to say Bloomberg’s patently progressive views on immigration, gun control and climate change – to say nothing of his support for abortion and gay marriage – are unlikely to sit well with fervent Trump supporters. Bloomberg could, however, steal away the votes of moderate Republicans. Trump has said he would welcome a bid from the New York technocrat, and called him a “friend” and “great guy”. Remember, though, Trump also attended Clinton’s wedding, and until recently had nice things to say about Cruz … before he had nasty things to say about both of them. Bloomberg is presumably just as intent, if not more so, on going after yet another New Yorker: billionaire-hating Bernie Sanders, the self-described democratic socialist who’s made it a personal crusade to break up the very same Wall Street banks that Bloomberg has made billions off of as his customers. The former New York mayor has even said he wouldn’t rule out a third-party bid against the best-known (adopted) New Yorker of all: Clinton. Clinton, a technocrat like him, socially liberal but relatively sympathetic to Wall Street, could see her campaign devastated by a third-party candidacy from Bloomberg. It’s not clear he cares, despite the fact that he has had a strong working relationship with Clinton and once encouraged her to succeed him as mayor of New York City. Even if Clinton wins the nomination, sources close to Bloomberg have revealed several factors that might persuade him to run anyway, according to the New York Times. The federal investigation shrouding Clinton’s use of email, for instance, could weaken her credibility, as could early losses to Sanders in Iowa and New Hampshire. The presidential race is threatening to become alarmingly New York-centric. One New Yorker, such a city exceptionalist that he changed term laws to serve as mayor a third time, wants to challenge a New York mogul-turned-reality-TV-star-turned-presidential candidate, who wants to defeat the most powerful woman in New York state, who wants to elbow out a Brooklyn Jew-turned-Vermonter who can’t stop yelling at people in an accent perfectly personified by New York comedy legend Larry David. But the Bloomberg story isn’t just potentially helpful to Trump. Looked at another way, it could be a fortuitous turn for Sanders, who has long sought to frame his campaign through the lens of class warfare. If Trump wins his party’s nomination and Bloomberg enters the race, it would be Bernie versus the Billionaires. For a guy who’s struggled to consolidate a lead in a cycle dominated thus far by talk of foreign policy, an area of comparative weakness, this could be his big break. But for my money, nobody is more pleased about the Bloomberg development than New York-hating Ted Cruz. Though the initial consensus was Cruz went too far in the most recent debate when he criticized Trump for his “New York values”, it was a consensus more driven by the media than by the electorate. And in a sign of where Cruz thinks the politics lie, he hasn’t backed off the attack, issuing a “sorry-not-sorry” apology to further drive home his point. Cruz’s attack, after all, marks the first time since Trump took over the race that someone not named Trump has changed the conversation. And there’s some indication that Republicans, at least in Iowa, care a whole lot more about traditional Christian ideas like Cruz’s – ie opposing gay marriage and abortion rights – than about protecting their impression of New York values. That’s what Cruz was trying to tap into in his somewhat clumsy distinction with Trump. His execution was imperfect, but the attack was strong. Now he’ll be able to draw that distinction not just with Trump but with the entire presidential field, and all the more so if Bloomberg jumps in. Welcome to the 2016 circus, where the framing changes almost weekly. Will it come down to a case of Bernie against the billionaires ? Or Ted Cruz versus the New York values of Clinton, Bernie, Bloomberg and the third-party specter of Trump? Or will America face a kind of choose-your-own-white-New Yorker adventure: Trump, Hillary or Bernie, and Bloomberg?
Hull City 2-2 Everton: Premier League –as it happened Peep peep! That was highly enjoyable Friday-night fare, though the result isn’t much use to either side – especially as they can both make a decent argument that they should have won. Thanks for your company, goodnight! 90+1 min Tom Davies falls over in the Hull area and is angry when the assistant referee gives a goalkick. It looked a dive at first - and he’s been booked - but replays suggested Clucas was holding his shirt. Where’s Mike Dean when you need him? 90+1 min There will be four additional minutes. 90 min What a chance for Calvert-Lewin! Coleman’s superb cross came to him eight yards out, and he planted his header just wide of the near post. 88 min Coleman’s attempted hooked clearance smashes into his own confused coupon and behind for a corner. It comes to nowt. 86 min Now Everton make a change: Funes Mori replaces Mirallas. That means a switch to a back three. 85 min A Hull substitution: Tom Huddlestone replaces Diomande. Ross Barkley equalises! Baines beat Snodgrass on the left and coaxed a fine, dipping cross towards the far post. Barkley, unmarked six yards out, planted a good downward header to the left of Marshall and into the net. 84 min Hull are really struggling to get out of their own half now. This’ll be a long last few minutes for them. 83 min Mirallas is put in the ejector seat by Maguire, 30 yards from goal. Maguire is booked. 82 min That penalty appeal could have gone either way. It definitely hit Snodgrass’s chest, and maybe his left arm as well as that was tight to his side. It’s hard to call it definitively even after a few replays. 81 min Tom Davies’s cross hits the arm of a Hull defender in the box, prompting a huge shout for a penalty from the Everton fans. Jon Moss isn’t interested. 80 min Coleman gets into the area on the right after a misjudgement from Diomande. His fierce cross is headed behind by Davies, and then Barkley’s corner is headed away by Dawson. 78 min In the Hull dugout, Mike Phelan is reclining in his chair like he’s just had Christmas lunch and is settling in for a James Bond marathon. He’s almost horizontal! 77 min If there was a Pound for Pound league table, Hull would be challenging for the title. There is so much to admire about them, most notably a spirit that is exemplified by players like Dawson and Davies. 75 min Barkley goes around the houses, from centre to right, before driving a really dangerous low cross into the six-yard box. Lukaku is poised to do the necessary when Dawson stretches to make a vital clearance. Moments later, Barkley’s fierce shot from 15 yards is beaten away by Marshall. Hull break and Tom Davies is booked for a tug on Snodgrass. 74 min Another Everton change: the disappointing Valencia is replaced by Dominic Calvert-Lewin. 74 min Barkley tries to wriggle away from Maguire, ends up on his backside and complains to the referee. I think Maguire got the ball. 72 min Hull certainly aren’t sitting on their lead at the moment. In fact Everton have hardly been out of their own half since the goal. Joel punches away Robertson’s dangerous cross, but the ball keeps coming back at Everton. 70 min Snodgrass could play for any team in this league. He is such a lovely footballer. 68 min Everton will be aggrieved at the award of the free-kick for that goal. It was pretty soft. 67 min An Everton substitution: the ’s own Tom Davies replaces Gareth Barry. ... and this time he scores! It was another booming, dipping strike that Joel could only push into the net as he leapt to his right. He should probably have saved it but it was still a lovely free-kick from a high-class footballer. 64 min Maguire goes off on another Beckenbauer tribute run before being fouled by Baines, 25 yards out. Well, a foul was given but there wasn’t much in it. Snodgrass is poised for another crack... 62 min Elmohamady is booked for offending the referee Jon Moss’s sensibilities. 61 min Dawson almost gets his second! Snodgrass’s corner was half cleared to Elmohamady, who wafted an excellent ball over the top as the Everton defence pushed out. Dawson controlled it superbly beyond the far post before rattling a low shot that was pushed away by Joel. 59 min Jagielka is booked for a rib-ticklingly inept hack at Mbokani. That came straight out of 1984. 56 min A Hull substitution: Sam Clucas replaces David Meyler. 55 min Hull get a free-kick 25 yards from goal, just to the right of centre. That makes it perfect for the left foot of Snodgrass - and he curls a beautiful shot off the crossbar! Joel was nowhere near it. 53 min Coleman’s long ball is headed on by Lukaku to put Barkley away just inside the box. As Davies comes across he tries a first-time sidefoot that is too close to Marshall, who claims it at the second attempt. 52 min Barkley plays a sharp pass out to Mirallas, who comes infield from the left and hits a low shot that is too close to Marshall and comfortably held. 50 min This has been an ominous start to the second half for Hull. Everton have been excellent and Lukaku is starting to really threaten. 49 min That really was a brilliant save. Lukaku’s shot from just inside the area took a sharp deflection off Dawson and was arrowing towards the top corner before Marshall leapt to his left to tip it onto the bar. 48 min Marshall makes a great save, tipping Lukaku’s deflected shot onto the bar! 46 min Hull begin the second half. They are kicking from left to right, if you’re into the whole mind’s eye thing. “Kirk Shepherd,” considers Simon McMahon. “Dundee United? Or maybe I’m thinking of Kirk Stevens. There’s got to be some good MBM mileage in discussing every team’s darts and snooker player equivalent, but those six bottles of gin I’ve got in the kitchen aren’t going to drink themselves.” That’s a bad blow for Hull, who played admirably in the first half and were leading until David Marshall contrived to Lukic a corner into his own net. See you in 10 minutes for the second half. This is an Andrex-soft goal for Hull to concede. Marshall comes for an inswinging corner, mistimes his punch and slices it into his own net. 45+1 min Baines plays a superb sliderule pass into the area for Lukaku, whose first-time shot on the turn is blocked by the sliding Davies at the expense of a corner. From which... 43 min “Top six = PDC,” says Simon McMahon. “Also rans = BDO. Leicester = Keith Deller.” So who’s Kirk Shepherd? 41 min Valencia bursts into the box and slides a beautiful low cross that goes between goalkeeper and defenders and out for a goalkick. No Everton player was near the six-yard box, never mind in it. 39 min Diomande catches Mirallas in the face with his arm as they jockey for position at a throw-in. It’s hard to say whether it was intentional; the referee thought not and took no action. 36 min Robertson’s cross goes behind for a corner off Gueye. Snodgrass’s outswinger is cleared at the near post. 35 min Barkley has been neat and tidy in possession but no more than that. Lukaku has struggled to get into the game. Saying which, Lukaku’s 20-yard shot pinballs around the box before Mirallas hooks an awkward dropping ball straight at Marshall from a tight angle. 33 min “Lots of talk about the oceans of cash sloshing on the shores of the Premier League leading to an evening out of standards (yep, Leicester City etc etc etc), but the gap between the top six and the Also Rans is enormous,” says Gary Naylor. “The quality of football also appears to have levelled down, because this Everton side could be 17th as easily as 7th. (You’re right BTW - I’d also rather be watching the darts). We’re not far off the top 14 XIs in the Premier League comprising the top seven and their reserve teams.” Yeah, I agree. This has been getting worse for the last 15 years, which makes Leicester even more miraculous. That will never make sense, thank goodness. 31 min Lovely play from Hull. Maguire swaggers forward like Morten Olsen before playing the ball out to Snodgrass on the left. His dipping cross is met by the sliding Diomande, whose half-volley hits the back of Jagielka and flies wide. 28 min Barry collects a loose ball, runs to within 25 yards of goal and strikes a fantastic rising shot that whistles this far wide of the far post with Marshall motionless. 23 min Snodgrass’s superb deep cross from the right finds Mbokani, who towers above Coleman but ends up shouldering the ball back across the face of goal. Everton break and Barkley drags a low shot not far wide from 16 yards. 21 min Hull have calmed things down a bit in the last few minutes, even crossing the halfway line on a couple of occasions. 16 min Mirallas has dragged Everton kicking and screaming into this match after an abysmal start, and now they are probing incessantly. Hull are sitting too deep. 14 min Barry’s flat cross from the left is headed onto the post by Coleman! That was a really good header from Coleman, who was only just inside the box when he made contact. It beat Marshall and bounced up to hit the inside of the post. 12 min Mirallas springs into action, cutting inside from the left to hit a low shot that deflects off Dawson and is fumbled behind for a corner by Marshall. 11 min Human nature being what it is, Everton have had more of the ball since going behind. Gueye tries to lob Marshall from the halfway line, and puts it 20 yards wide. 8 min Everton’s start has put the ‘pathetic’in ‘apathetic’. They look like they’d rather be watching the darts! Hull are rewarded for their flying start. Snodgrass’s outswinging corner from the left is flicked across goal by the head of Davies at the near post. It bounces up awkwardly beyond the far post, where Dawson shows superb technique to contort his body and smash the ball low past Joel. 6 min I thought Everton would dominate possession, but so far Hull have played like, erm, the home side. Elmohamady vrooms into the box on the right and hits a dangerous cross that Jagielka, stretching towards his own goal, has to shin high over the bar for a corner. 4 min Robert Snodgrass’s left foot will be one of the main features when Hull becomes the UK City of Culture for 2017, and he has been influential in a good start from Hull. He runs at Baines on the right edge of the box, comes inside and whips a big curling not far wide of the far top corner. 2 min Robertson’s floated cross is headed clear to Livermore, whose fizzing 20-yard shot is blocked by a defender. 2 min “Hey Rob,” says JR in Illinois. “I’ll have one eye on this game and the other on the darts. I started following darts while in Ireland at this time of year in 2003. One of my most memorable nights was wandering from pub to pub in Athlone and watching that insane final between Taylor and Painter. Mercy, that was fantastic.” Talking of Athlone, this is the greatest kick off ever. 1 min Peep peep! Ross Barkley, recalled to the side, kicks off for Everton. They are in blue; Hull are looking waspish in amber and black. An email! “Evening Rob,” says Simon McMahon. “You on the naughty step again? I mean, Hull v Everton could turn into a classic, but we both know you’d rather be watching the darts. This afternoons QF’s were sensational. Chisnall hit about 100 maximums and still lost to Anderson. The standard is just mind blowing. And the atmosphere looks and sounds electric.” Yes, careless planning on my part. PLEASE, dear reader/s, don’t plotspoil as I plan to watch it on delay later. The standard is preposterous and is likely to get even better in the semis and final. The ceaseless excellence under pressure is mind-boggling. A late Christmas present for the Everton fan in your life This book is very, very, very good. Hull City (3-4-2-1) Marshall; Maguire, Dawson, Davies; Elmohamady, Livermore, Meyler, Robertson; Snodgrass, Diomande; Mbokani. Substitutes: Jakupovic, Huddlestone, Clucas, Maloney, Weir, Henriksen, Mason. Everton (4-2-3-1) Joel; Coleman, Jagielka, Williams, Baines; Gueye, Barry; Valencia, Barkley, Mirallas; Lukaku. Substitutes: Hewelt, Funes Mori, Holgate, Cleverley, Davies, Lennon, Calvert-Lewin. Referee Jon Moss. Hello and welcome to our live blog of Hull v Everton – or, if you prefer, Performances v Results. Hull have been playing pretty, pretty well without much reward; Everton are top of the Premier League Also Rans table, yet their fans are not especially enamoured with the football they have played under Ronald Koeman. Though Hull are bottom of both the Premier League and the Premier League Also Rans tables, they have not been cut adrift yet. They are a manageable four points off Crystal Palace in 17th, especially as they have some decent fixtures in the next month, including Swansea and Bournemouth at home. If they are going to survive, it’s probably time to start swapping good performances for good results. Kick off is at 8pm.
Welbeck’s winner highlights Arsenal’s options and augments the title push Ten seconds before the grandstand finale, Arsène Wenger stood in his technical area wearing the expression of a man almost too desperate to clutch at the last straw. His drawn features seemed to tell the story of a season’s travails that felt typical Arsenal of the Emirates era. The pain of opportunities untaken closed in. It is hard to think with too much clarity in the centre of the maelstrom. Wenger admitted as much afterwards. But when he looked over to see the shape of his team in those final seconds of stoppage time as Mesut Özil eyed up a free-kick something gave him a sliver of faith. “When we had the free-kick on that side, and I saw Mesut taking it, I thought we had a chance there. Because his balls are top quality, and we had tall players in the centre then – Welbeck, Chambers, Mertesacker and Giroud. I had hope,” the Arsenal manager reflected. “It did smell goal.” Even so, Leicester’s dogged resilience until that point had almost taken them over the line with their momentum intact. The evidence of the match until its denouement gave off an equally strong scent of Foxes defiance. Between Kasper Schmeichel, Robert Huth, Wes Morgan and the rest of their 10-man band after the sending off of Danny Simpson, they had collectively dealt with most of what Arsenal could summon. Theo Walcott’s equalising strike was the only breach, but both teams knew full well that only a win for Wenger’s side would suffice to genuinely tilt the dynamics between these title chasers. Wenger watched. Özil arced the ball into the thick of it all. And there, after all the months of absence and rehabilitation in the background, arrived Danny Welbeck to seize the Premier League’s centre stage. The touch of his glancing header was subtly soft, but just enough to appear absolutely transformative to Wenger and his team. “It was …” the Arsenal manager concluded, “happiness.” In the immediate aftermath, Leicester’s emotions felt crushing. Claudio Ranieri admitted he and his players were very sad and also angry. His own frustration that a contest with a full quota of players could have allowed his team to attack was compounded by the last-gasp wound. The Italian became animated as he announced that when he was a player himself he would have more or less wanted to rip the faces off any opponent trying to score in the dying seconds. At the worst time, his defenders were too passive as Welbeck found space to make the difference. Leicester go off to rest, to take stock, for a week, before resetting themselves to take on the remaining games in the title race in voracious fashion. Still two points clear, still playing with unremitting energy, still ambitious. But that Welbeck goal has the potential to significantly alter Arsenal’s own approach to the run-in. Pivotal moments sometimes come in unexpected ways, and Wenger was not even planning to include the forward in his squad until the strength of his performances in training over the past couple of days made him change his mind and include him as a substitute. It may not be such a coincidence that both Arsenal’s scorers came off the bench during the second half. One of the telling problems Wenger has had to contend with over the winter has been the lack of experienced options to delve into when a game needs fresh impetus. That was especially felt in attack, during the months that Alexis Sánchez was out as well as Welbeck, and goals dried up for Olivier Giroud and Walcott. Compare Arsenal’s bench when they visited Stoke for a goalless draw a month ago to now. At the Britannia, in need of a spark to turn one point into three, Wenger’s scoring options were limited to goalkeeper David Ospina, defenders Gabriel, Calum Chambers and Kieran Gibbs, defensive midfielders Mikel Arteta and Mohamed Elneny and the teenager Alex Iwobi. Against Leicester, Wenger could bring on Walcott and Welbeck, two England internationals with many collective years of Premier League experience. They were decisive. After Simpson’s red card, once the second-half pattern established itself, there was a stark visual contrast between Jamie Vardy, isolated in one half with at least two Arsenal defenders at all times for company, and Arsenal’s expensively assembled cavalry once Walcott and Welbeck came on to augment the efforts of Giroud, Sánchez and Özil. “That shows you, at that level, the bench plays a big part,” said Wenger. “When you dominate games, you can bring on strikers like Walcott or Welbeck, it changes your opportunities completely.” Goals have been an issue for Arsenal this term. Of the top four who still have the title in their sights, Wenger’s team have been the least productive in front of goal. They have eight fewer goals in the Premier League after 26 games than last season, and 15 fewer than eventual title winners Chelsea at the same stage. But Wenger is hopeful that he can get his attack clicking again – and he certainly needs to. Giroud has scored in only one of his past nine Premier League appearances. Walcott’s influential strike to finish crisply past Schmeichel came after a confidence-sapping dry period. Sánchez is still finding his rhythm having come back after two months on the sidelines. More game-time, more variety, more freshness and more options can only help with the challenges ahead.
A machine to lip-read? Best of luck with that According to your report, there will be a machine that lip-reads (Read my lips? One day soon, a machine could do it, 25 April). The myth that lip-reading solves deaf people’s problems and makes us into hearing people simply will not go away, since our culture keeps the hidden disability of deafness right where it is. Lip-reading is not an exact science, but is mostly sheer guesswork, based on working out from the conversation’s context, facial expression, body language and visemes, or shapes that can be seen on the lips. We are pretty certain this machine will blow up with the same frustration we deaf people have in trying to make sense of the extremely limiting shapes on the mouth which form the so called art of lip-reading. In addition to the examples given in your report, regarding words beginning with b, m and p, there are many other words that look similar on the lips. These are some examples: t, d, n – town, down, noun; ch, sh, j – chew, shoe, Jew; q, w – quell, well; f, v – fear, veer. Some of the hidden sounds that come from the throat are: g, t, c, ck, x, h, l, r, s, z, ing, ed. This is a sample of the difficulties faced daily by lip-readers which DEXperience calls “always calculate”, as it is like doing a crossword without a pen to hand. Why there has to be a machine of this nature begs belief, when efforts and funding should be put to much better use by ensuring all parents of deaf children understand that lip-reading and technical aids are insufficient, and hold back their deaf child’s wellbeing and educational opportunities. British Sign Language needs to be enshrined in law as one of the UK’s languages and its promotion alongside English and Welsh in education will give deaf people the best of both worlds, and celebrates being deaf. Jill Jones Chair, Deaf Ex-Mainstreamers’ Group Ltd/DEXperience • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
The view on online abuse: building the web we want In the beginning was the web. A playful, creative and open space, where anyone could connect, and every assumption, every hierarchy, could be challenged. Instead of textbooks and newspapers handing down fact and opinion from on high, there was a blossoming of online communities, sparky self-starting blogs, and Wikipedia to set the wisdom of crowds to work. Somewhere along the way, however, as the internet moved from the computer on your desk to the phone in your pocket, it ceased to be a quirky corner of life, and instead became the environment in which much human life was lived – for better, and for worse. The engagement continued, of course, but along with online camaraderie, the vituperative modes of interaction took hold: bullying, shaming and intimidation. Worse, instead of upending old assumptions, much of this new online abuse works to reinforce ancient prejudices. For women it frequently assumes a particularly violent and sexualised form, sometimes extending to public rape threats; for ethnic minorities it is often racist. With 40% of American adults complaining of online abuse and 73% having witnessed it, we have reached a tipping point. Police forces acknowledge that existing laws are not working. Social media companies, so laissez-faire for so long, are at last trying to work out what to do, with Twitter’s former CEO Dick Costolo confirming that harassment on its site cost it core customers, and conceding that “we suck at dealing with abuse” before stepping down. Around the world, politicians are waking up. To say that something must be done is the easy bit. Before deciding what that something should be, it is important to get to the roots of where all the net nastiness comes from. For some, it is simply human nature, the inescapably nasty and brutish ways of the world finding electronic expression. Others, however, are less fatalistic, including inspiring victims of abuse who have resolved to stand their ground and fight back. They point to problems with the rules of engagement, with some suggesting that the freedom to invent a new identity is, like Plato’s ring of Gyges, taken as a freedom to slip free of all morality. Others point to the appalling lack of women in technology. Researchers say that computer science has the largest diversity gap of “almost any profession”, and the percentage of women in tech companies has actually dropped since the 1980s. There is, however, no need to despair – for we have been here before. Physical chastisement of women at home was once unexceptional, racist name-calling “a bit of fun”, and bottom-pinching at work an everyday occurrence, something to be endured, because it was not going to change. Slowly but surely, though, time was called on such shoulder-shrugging indifference, and the world changed. After the will to act is summoned afresh, the question becomes how to act smartly. Does society better stop abuse by drawing attention to it, or is that just feeding the trolls? Are there changes to the law that could ensure better protection and policing of this shared space? What responsibility lies with platforms like Facebook; and then, what responsibility lies with publishers such as the ? Our Comment is free site (now called Opinion) opened up our columnists to reader challenge in 2006, and the idea that every reader can have their say is something that has made our pages special ever since. Much of the debate between readers and writers has been fascinating. But some subjects – historically Israel/Palestine, and today Islam, refugees or immigration – attract hate like a magnet. For the great bulk of our readers, and – yes – to respect the wellbeing of our staff too, we need to take a more proactive stance on what kind of material appears on the site. Thanks to our skilled moderators, much of the abuse on our site is at the milder end of the spectrum. But even this can derail conversations and have a chilling effect on writers. So the today launches a series to find the right answers – “The web we want”. As part of it, we are publishing our own analysis of abuse on our site; other platforms that have been reticent until now must follow suit. In the light of the diagnosis, the prescription must then be debated – and openly. True to the spirit of the whole endeavour, we want to know what all our readers think, including all those who rarely comment. As Sarah Joeng, author of The Internet of Garbage, says: “If private platforms are to become communities, agoras, tiny new societies, they have to make a real effort to collect the garbage.” Who takes out the trash? Who cleans the streets? We all have a responsibility. Let’s have the debate, take out the trash, and create the web we want.
Mr Church review – Eddie Murphy's saintly cook leaves nasty aftertaste With its sentimental depiction of the relationship between a wealthy white woman and a nobly subservient black man, if there’s one film that hasn’t aged well, it’s Driving Miss Daisy – and indeed there were plenty of people who excoriated its racial politics on its release in 1989, Public Enemy giving it a memorable shout-out on the self-explanatory Burn Hollywood Burn. Now, displaying either a brass-balled disregard for his critics or a mulish inability to understand their complaints, the movie’s Australian director Bruce Beresford has made another film in which a saintly black servant teaches the white folks how to live. In his first film role for four years, Eddie Murphy plays Mr Church with quiet dignity on full blast but his crackling charisma turned down to zero. Mr Church is a cook who’s been appointed to look after Marie, played by Natascha McElhone, and her 10-year-old daughter Charlotte (Natalie Coughlin), by Marie’s deceased, rich former lover. The bratty Charlotte throws a tantrum, demanding Apple Jacks cereal rather than Mr Church’s extravagant steak, eggs and grits (for breakfast – the fact that the characters aren’t all built like the Michelin man being one of the film’s unrealistic elements), but is soon won over by both Mr Church’s cooking and his collection of literary classics, which he lends to her from his personal library. Marie is suffering from breast cancer, but outlives her diagnosis by several years, long enough to see her daughter – now a less objectionable teenager played by Britt Robertson – get taken to her first prom. By this time Mr Church is part of the family unit, though he’s still waiting on the pair hand and foot from morning until night and calling Marie “ma’am”. What he does in his extracurricular time becomes an object of fascination for Charlotte, especially since Mr Church won’t tell. Sadly for the viewers, by night Mr Church doesn’t turn out to be a cat burglar, habitue of S&M sex dungeons or – better still – a revolutionary plotting to bring about the violent downfall of white America. Instead he just enjoys going to Jellys, a supposedly seedy jazz club, and having a skinful – and with such a lack of agency in the rest of his life, no wonder. Set in the 70s, Mr Church mercilessly trades in cliches – for instance, Charlotte’s former schoolfriend turns into a rich-bitch fashion designer, her extravagant lifestyle failing to make up for the fact that she can’t have children. There’s also a fairytale subplot involving the salvation of the local drunk. Yet it’s the film’s racial politics, particularly its stereotypical evocation of willing servitude by an African-American, and its characters’ refusal to acknowledge this imbalance of power, which make it not so much old-fashioned as downright retrograde – and likely to go down even worse with black audiences than Driving Miss Daisy.
Grandstand, Countdown, Ski Sunday: the unsung heroes behind TV's greatest tunes Brian Bennett, drummer with Cliff Richard and the Shadows and co-writer of hits such as Summer Holiday, is considering one of his more unlikely successes. “I’ve had three hit rap records,” he says, with a thoroughly bemused smile. “I did one for Nas, one for a guy called Kanye West … in fact, I had a No 1 rap thing in some American chart about three months ago.” “Really?!” I ask. “Yes! It was with some guy whose name escapes me at the moment. I think it was … Drake?” He laughs as he clocks my rising astonishment. “Oh, my granddaughters think it’s fantastic. Grandad’s cool! He’s a rap writer!” What makes this story particularly unlikely – if, indeed, you need to make the story of the Shadows drummer providing beats to Drake’s Summer Sixteen any more unlikely – is that the song in question, Glass Tubes, never made it into the charts, and wasn’t even sold in shops. Instead, it was recorded as a library music track in 1975. If you’re wondering exactly what library music is, then perhaps the most surprising thing you’re set to discover is just how well you already know it. Those stirring intros for Grandstand, Ski Sunday and Wimbledon? That quirky theme to Grange Hill? The ominous drumbeat that opens Mastermind or the military march that signalled it was time for Crimewatch? These will all be familiar to readers of a certain age, even if you were unaware they were all plucked from the UK’s vast archives of library music – essentially stock songs recorded with no definitive purpose, other than to be perused and selected in the future for use on TV, film or radio projects. As Keith Mansfield, composer of the Wimbledon and Grandstand themes, says: “There was no pressure to have a hit record. We were making music that people might find useful, and some of that would be really unusual music – strange time signatures or key changes. If it got picked up, well, that was a bonus. And if it lasted 35 years? Wonderful! Who could have ever expected that?” Mansfield was one of several young musicians who helped reinvent KPM, perhaps the most famous of all library labels. He was there during its golden period between 1966 and 1973 when, energised by the revolution sweeping British pop music, KPM went from being a slightly old-fashioned, second-division library to the world’s premier destination for production music. The music Mansfield composed, alongside names such as Alan Parker, Johnny Pearson and Alan Hawkshaw, still sounds fresh: a mixture of pop, jazz, funk, big band and orchestral work played with a soulful looseness that’s impossible to imitate without access to top musicians playing live. That’s undoubtedly the reason why KPM have decided to relaunch their catalogue by getting those original musicians back together to make another record. I’ve joined them in the studio as they do so – there are four trumpets, trombones, saxophones, french horns, plus drums, Rhodes piano, Hammond, and the effect is invigorating. The musicians’ stories are equally refreshing. Despite their considerable talents, they had no idea that the songs they were composing at the time would end up soundtracking the lives of future generations. Mansfield says he first became aware of this when his 13-year-old daughter got home from school and asked if he’d written Grandstand. “I thought it was going to be some wind up, but she said, ‘All my friends think it’s a wonderful tune.’” I realised that it had gone somewhere else – it’s part of their growing up.” The reason why the songs have stood the test of time is simple: they’re clever pieces of music. Grandstand transitions gracefully from pop triads to big band chords without the listener detecting a shift, for instance, whereas Wimbledon is constantly changing key. But none of those ideas were brought to the table with the sporting events in mind. Rather, when the likes of Johnny Pearson, Johnny Scott and Mansfield composed a theme for Grandstand, the programme’s makers decided that they didn’t like any of the tracks in KPM’s archive and went for something completely different instead. “I thought, ‘Why have they chosen that? That’s not sports music!’” laughs Mansfield now. “But they saw in it things that I didn’t. They saw the fun in it. And that it was quite chameleon-like – it could work for a small event or a big event, too.” These songs were not long projects that had been in the works for months. Rather, they were bashed out, six at a time, during frantic three-and-a-half-hour sessions – nobody knew at the time that some would go on to be so iconic. As Mansfield recalls: “All this music flying past people. All that energy. And the whole orchestra in the studio at the same time. You had little time and very little control. There was no overwriting. Any mistakes went in.” The Grange Hill theme was one such speedy example. Alan Hawkshaw was told during a session in Munich that they had half an hour to spare and could he write something quickly. “Luckily, I had some good players. I sketched it out, and they came up with that. It was probably for some comedy album at the time.” Time was always at a premium – musicians were expected to be able to play on sight. Hawkshaw says: “You had to walk in there on the day and play what you were given. It was daunting.” He recalls Mansfield frequently working through the night on parts for the next morning’s sessions. One of Hawkshaw’s fastest jobs was writing the opening music for Countdown, which was “one of the simplest pieces of music I’ve ever written in my life”, and not one he’s particularly proud of musically – although he does reveal that the royalties from the music go to his foundation supporting underprivileged students at the Leeds College of Music – meaning that every time you hear someone tackling a conundrum it is helping a music student catch a break. John Cameron, whose credits include the soundtracks to Kes and Poor Cow, has fond memories of them all running to the pub during their 15-minute break: “The last one to the pub had to buy the beer! We also had a string section who had to ride motorbikes everywhere because if they were in Olympia in morning, Lansdowne in the afternoon and Kingsway in the evening, it was the only way you could get there and park in time.” A string-playing motorcycle gang? “That’s right!” It’s the same snappy pace today, as brass-powered tracks from Parker and James Clarke whizz by. Cameron unveils some slinky jazz, while one of Mansfield’s numbers sounds like an orchestral update of Bobby “Blue” Bland’s Ain’t No Love in the Heart of the City. “These players are the cream,” marvels Bennett, “the top players you can get anywhere in the world.” Like Mansfield, Bennett has a healthy résumé of sports themes. His BBC golf theme earns him respect on the golf course, while when he toured Australia with Cliff Richard and the Shadows in 2010 cricket fans couldn’t believe that he’d penned the song that leads the coverage there. “That’s more important to an Australian cricket fan than any Summer Holiday,” he smiles. As we watch them fly through takes, he tells me how his two pieces on the new album are dedicated to Robin Phillips, the man he calls his mentor. Phillips was responsible for reinventing KPM, bringing this new generation onboard to fuse the old orchestral sound with pop and soul energy. Everybody talks of him giving young talent a chance. “He taught me how to write for pictures,” says Bennett. “It’s not just about the music – the music is to make the pictures look good and to get people out of the kitchen to go watch something on television.” He says you need to have an imaginary programme in your head when you write (indeed, his politically edged new song We Come in Peace was written with a current affairs show in mind). But as we keep discovering, the programme you have in mind may bear scant resemblance to the one it ends up on. One piece Bennett wrote for a jaunty children’s comedy show called Holy Mackerel ended up being picked up by the BBC’s Rugby Special. It’s unlikely that this is the last time we’ll see these musicians together – Mansfield et al still meet up and play together every now and then as the KPM All Stars – but it could be the last library album they record. “It was a lot of fun,” says Hawkshaw, surveying the studio as the music plays. “I do miss the companionship.” KPM 1000 will be out later this year.
Martine Syms at the ICA: 'people act like art is a white thing' Walking into Martine Syms’s first solo UK show, Fact & Trouble at the ICA, feels like walking into someone else’s memories: a disconcerting mix of the familiar and the foreign. Arrows point up a narrow, poorly lit stairwell which opens up into a bright white floor. In the small corridor that separates two rooms, enlarged pictures and video stills plaster the walls. These images are part of Syms’s 2016 work, Misdirected Kiss, and appear in what seems to be no particular order; an imperfect tapestry of moments in other people’s lives. Syms builds on this sense of voyeurism in the adjacent rooms. Two screens mounted back to back show snippets of home videos from her ongoing project Lessons (2014-), in a randomly ordered loop. I watch footage of a gospel choir, the video quality so bad I can’t make out any faces, until it’s suddenly replaced by another clip. Painted in large black letters on the three walls that surround the screens are the words: “Lightly, Slightly, Politely.” The characters here are anonymous, save for a photograph of the actor and rapper Queen Latifah, and another of model Tyra Banks, posing with a pre-teen Syms. Syms’ work considers what is to be a black woman, based on representations in film, text and photography: but Fact & Trouble makes no explicit attempt to create a narrative. As I crane my neck to see what lies behind one of her double-sided pictures, searching for meaning starts to feel as futile as trying to make sense of a hoarder’s treasures – their aesthetic and symbolic appeal apparent only to the hoarder. And Syms does describe herself as a hoarder, of what she calls “orphaned media” – old home videos and family photos. We meet just after her exhibition opens, at the west London hotel where she is staying. Tired, dishevelled and dressed in black, she is sitting at a booth in the restaurant, sipping on green juice. Given what I’ve read about her – Syms calls herself a “conceptual entrepreneur” whose work covers themes as varied as “Afrofuturism, queer theory, the power of language, and the spiritual nature of the colour purple” – I am expecting to meet someone burdened by deep thoughts and artspeak. Instead Syms, who looks younger than her 28 years, exudes southern California cool. She takes her time, pausing often, aware perhaps that her life and experiences will always be compared to the stereotype of what it means to be black in America. “My mum was very interested in art and liked to write, and my dad was a hobbyist photographer,” she says of her upbringing (some of her father’s photos are in the show). “It was a cultural household, but that wasn’t a special thing – I feel like a lot of black families are like that. Being into music wasn’t a thing. I don’t even know if being into photography is anything special.” This habitual exposure, and also her years as a graphic designer, explain why Syms isn’t interested in what she calls “a rarified type of art”. Instead, she takes her work to where everyone is – the internet – and engages with different audiences through films, public lectures and publications. “People act like art is a white thing – or not for people of colour – when really so much culture and art comes from people of colour. I want everyone to get into what I am doing. So sometimes I don’t like to work just in an art context because” – she pauses for a long time then says, laughing – “it feels like a lot of people aren’t going to see it. I like it to be a part of everyday life. It is for me.” Raised with three siblings in Altadena, an area north of Los Angeles (which in the early 1900s attracted millionaires from the east, many of whom left after the schools became desegregated in the 1960s and 70s), Syms was home-schooled for three years: “The area I grew up in didn’t have the best public schools and it was hard to get all of us into the same private school – for a lot of racist reasons from what it sounds like.” Skipping grades when she did start school, Syms is influenced by ideas old and new. Misdirected Kiss derives its name from a 1904 film and both our conversation and her “performative lecture”, later in the week, are peppered with references to African American intellectuals (Jacqueline Najuma Stewart, Arthur Jafa, Audre Lorde) and other cultural theorists such as Alison Landsberg. She appears more at ease examining and testing the work of these thinkers than immersing herself in the more ephemeral, attention-seeking world of pop culture. Even as pop icons such as Beyoncé delve into politics and respond to protests such as the Black Lives Matter movement, Syms doesn’t believe art can change the status quo for black people in America. “I have said it before and I will continue to say that I don’t think art is the most effective form of protest,” Syms tells me. “I don’t think it changes policy, I think it changes discourse, and discourse can change ideas, and for me that’s what it’s about: having that space for conversation.” And Syms wants to have that conversation, whether with art audiences at venues such as the ICA or the wider black cultural community, whom she targets in her Mundane Afrofuturist Manifesto, a video essay first published in 2013 by the digital art organisation Rhizome. Afrofuturism has traditionally explored the black experience through science-fiction and is often seen as a means of escape from present-day hardships. But Syms puts forward the theory there’s no happy-ever-after for the black person beyond the stars. “I was a black person using technology so in this one year I kept getting invited to all these Afrofuturist events,” she explains. “And I was not really feeling it. I thought some of the claims were just a little too self-serious. Around the time there was a noticeable increase in deaths from police brutality, and some of it just felt extremely strange. Senseless. I had already been thinking about that and responding to that.” Drawing inspiration from writers Kodwo Eshun and Greg Tate, as well as Geoff Ryman’s mundane science-fiction manifesto, Syms starts by saying: “We the mundane Afrofuturists, being alternately pissed off and bored, need a means of asserting a different set of values to begin imagining the future.” Dreams of utopia, she says, “can encourage us to forget that outer space will not save us from injustice … post-black is a misnomer, post-colonialism is too”. It’s not all serious, of course. Syms’ humour, transmuted to her work, is dry and sarcastic. At her ICA lecture, she deadpans some of her personal “rules”: “The natural state of your skin is ashy. Shea butter is the only defence, use it generously. Lotion is for white people. When unoccupied, read from a book with an impenetrable title such as The Politics of Representation in Network Television.” But at a time when black creatives from Cape Town to Chicago are building bodies of work and reputations on the very notions Syms is dismissing, her manifesto has been met with both praise and scorn. “I guess I can be a little mischievous!” Syms counters. Mischievous is one word. Some might say volunteering to create a space for meaningful, open dialogue beyond the art bubble is bold, dangerous even, especially in an age when trolling is mistaken for candour and the ubiquitous presence of cameras means everything you’ve ever said or produced could live forever online. Still, Syms insists she is ready for it: “Art’s function is to communicate. If someone goes to the show and they hate it and want to write about that, that’s cool. I’m happy for that. Don’t email me about it. Don’t @ me, but go ahead!” • Fact & Trouble is at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, until 19 June. Box office: 020-7930 3647.
Twitter shares hit new low on rumored shift to 10,000-character tweets Twitter is rumored to be considering increasing its per-tweet character count from 140 to 10,000 – a potential move that instantly sent the troubled tech company’s share price into a tailspin. Twitter shares plummeted more than 2% on the news, first reported by Re/code on Tuesday, which seemed to undermine the essential nature of the short-form social media platform. The company’s shares ended down 2.97% at $21.89, a new low. The tech company is attempting to grow beyond its 300 million-strong user base, and many are skeptical that Twitter will be able to do that successfully enough to address the elephant in the boardroom: Facebook. Under recently appointed CEO (and company co-founder) Jack Dorsey, Twitter has lost much of its reluctance to tinker with its most basic functions in the face of stagnating growth. Dorsey took to the service on Tuesday after the report provoked controversy among users, and while he did not confirm the upcoming 10,000-character limit in so many words, he did say that the character limit was up for debate. “We’ve spent a lot of time observing what people are doing on Twitter, and we see them taking screenshots of text and tweeting it,” Dorsey wrote, appropriately, in a screenshot of a block of text. “Instead, what if that text... was actually text? Text that could be searched. Text that could be highlighted.” Dorsey had harsh words for his predecessors when he took the reins; now the onus is on him to expand the company’s footprint more quickly than they did. As part of its expansion plan, Twitter is making itself unmistakably more Facebook-like. The service now has a new feature called “moments” – an alternative to the traditional timeline populated with news, entertainment and sports tailored to the user. Twitter also recently added a “while you were away” feature, which curates tweets it thinks the user is most interested in so that people can catch up if they haven’t logged in for a few hours. The company also changed several of the capabilities of its direct messaging service. Re/code said the feature (which could yet change to a different character count) was due to roll out this quarter. Ten thousand characters is currently the allotted maximum for direct messages on Twitter and usually breaks down to about 2,000 words. The deep desire to compete with Facebook – which those inside the company have said is market-driven – may not be realistic, a former executive told the in July as the company’s extended search for a new CEO (eventually Dorsey) began to raise eyebrows. “The only answer, which I don’t think is feasible, is to say, ‘You know what, we’re going to be the best damn 300 million-monthly-active-user [service] we think we can be,’ and not aim for Facebook-like scale.”
Bank of England rejects claim it has watered down ringfencing plans The Bank of England has rejected criticisms from the architect of banking reforms that it has watered down its approach to ensuring the UK’s banking system is strong enough to withstand heavy losses. Sir John Vickers – appointed by the 2010 coalition government to design ways to avoid another taxpayer bailout of the system – has argued that Threadneedle Street is stepping back from his proposals for how much capital banks should hold. His independent commission on banking (ICB) devised the rules that require banks to erect a ringfence around their high-street operations to protect them from riskier investment banking operations. It also set out how much capital – shares and other financial instruments – banks should hold. Vickers has been arguing that the Bank of England has allowed banks to hold less capital than the ICB intended. In February, Vickers said: “The Bank of England proposal is less strong than what the ICB recommended.” However, the Bank has held firm against his calls and is, with one exception, pressing ahead with its plans as it intended. “Having carefully considered the comments received during the consultation period, the committee decided to adopt as final a framework that was broadly the same as that on which it had consulted,” the Bank said. It did, however, add a new idea intended to stop a ringfenced bank sapping a non-ringfenced bank of financial strength. The move is likely to have an impact on Royal Bank of Scotland as it has a large retail arm compared with its investment banking operations. This could push up slightly the amount of capital banks need. The Bank’s financial policy committee (FPC) – set up to look for risks to the financial system – is requiring that regulators take account of the total amount of capital the overall banks hold, not just the ringfenced operation. After publication of the report, Vickers, warden of All Soul’s College, Oxford, maintained his opposition: “It’s disappointing that the BoE has stuck to its soft policy on bank capital. Parliament gave the Bank scope to strengthen capital requirements a good deal further but it has fallen short.” The debate is focused on systemic risk buffers – a cushion of capital that is used at times of stress. “The systemic risk buffer (SRB) augments the capital buffer of a ringfenced bank or large building society, enabling them to absorb greater losses before breaching their minimum capital requirements,” the Bank said. Vickers has argued that the Bank has set these at a lower level than the ICB intended while the Bank argues that the overall level of capital in the system is much higher than Vickers intended at the time the ICB reported in 2011. The Bank said: “The overarching purpose of the SRB is to raise the capacity of ringfenced banks and large building societies to withstand stress, thereby increasing their resilience. This aim reflects the additional damage that these firms could cause to the economy in the event that they incur losses that deplete, or come close to depleting, their capital buffers, and in distress these institutions restrict the supply of critical economic functions, such as deposit taking, lending and payment services.” As it published the outcome of a consultation into the SRBs – to which Vickers was one of five respondents – the Bank indicated it intended to stick with its view on capital. Vickers said the SRB should be set at 3% for all the ringfenced banks, but the Bank has introduced a graded approach and will only introduce the top level for ringfenced banks bigger than £755bn. No bank would currently fit into this level. Overall, the Bank has concluded its current regime is correct. “The FPC’s view at its meeting on 13 May was that no new evidence had been presented since December to affect the committee’s judgment on the overall level of capital,” it said. The views on capital came as the governor of the Bank of England told George Osborne that he is keeping a close watch on the buy-to-let mortgage market and monitoring lenders for any threats to financial stability. In a letter to the chancellor, Mark Carney said he supported the need for the Bank to be given extra powers to clamp down on buy-to-let lenders as had been announced in the budget.
The Weeknd: Starboy review – the attentive boyfriend you can’t ignore Canadian R&B singer the Weeknd pulled out of Rihanna’s European tour back in March to record more music – a move that flew in the face of contemporary pop economics. Recorded music doesn’t make much money – touring does. A year on from Beauty Behind the Madness, his Grammy-winning, US triple-platinum pop rebirth, Starboy shows off the fruits of a solid business decision. Abel Tesfaye may play at being ambivalent about his superstar status, but his third album still has mainstream massiveness firmly in its crosshairs, with even more overt pop influences to the fore. By now, Starboy’s electric collaboration with Daft Punk has lodged some of the Weeknd’s intentions firmly in the airwaves, and there’s another huge tune waiting in the wings – a jaw-dropper called Rockin’. Tesfaye, a formerly shadowy small-hours auteur, collaborated with glitzy super-producer Max Martin for the Weeknd’s breakout hit of 2015, Can’t Feel My Face, and Martin is back on board with this track – a rubber-coated party tune that out-synth-funks Daft Punk. Once again, Tesfaye brings his A-game Michael Jackson tics, but also takes his famed falsetto down a couple of octaves. Tesfaye has always been musically omnivorous, sampling Siouxsie and the Banshees for House of Balloons/Glass Table Girls; Starboy’s most ardent fanboy moment, the lower-register gem Secrets, finds him working with Roland Orzabal, and sampling Tears for Fears. According to Tesfaye, the song began life as a country tune; it also quotes 80s pop bagatelle Talking In Your Sleep by the Romantics. By this point you’re almost expecting a song called True Colors to sample Cyndi Lauper. Instead, it’s a fairly standard R&B ballad, co-produced by Benny Blanco and Cashmere Cat, in which Tesfaye attempts to claw his way towards a sensitive loverman persona. If the lengthy, 18-track Starboy has downsides, they are those puzzling tracks in which Tesfaye tries to persuade his listenership that he feels genuine emotions for girls when his entire canon attests otherwise. What sounds like a tale of death-wish in-car fellatio rings truer: “Everybody said it would hurt in the end/ But I feel nothing,” sings Tesfaye on Ordinary Life. He respects one woman, though: Lana Del Rey, who has a couple of cameos. Much more convincing are the harder-hitting autobiographical tracks – chief among them the exceptional Sidewalks (“I ran out of tears when I was 18”), on which Kendrick Lamar lands a typically pulverising verse. Just as startling is the song’s amazing cheesewire electric guitar flurry. The French robots return for I Feel It Coming, a sweet-natured coda to a mixed bag. It is the one track on this overlong, but unignorable album that just about manages to turn Tesfaye into yearning boyfriend material.
‘A frenzy of hatred’: how to understand Brexit racism Brexit was a political earthquake, but its shocks were felt on our streets even before the polls closed. Lakshmi D’Souza felt the early fallout from the bitter battle over the EU referendum while pushing a pram through east London early on Thursday morning. D’Souza passed a woman who warned her to “be careful”. A man in the street was shouting racist abuse at a shopkeeper and passersby. As D’Souza walked past with her baby son, he looked at her and spat on the floor. D’Souza says that she fears the referendum has unleashed “a frenzy of hatred”. “It takes a lot more than some idiot to bother me,” she says. “But the implication that this sort of behaviour will get worse because of a political decision … just blows my mind.” True Vision, a police-funded hate-crime-reporting website, has seen a 57% increase in reporting between Thursday and Sunday, compared with the same period last month. This is not a definitive national figure – reports are also made directly to police stations and community groups – but Stop Hate UK, a reporting charity, has also seen an increase, while Tell Mama, an organisation tackling Islamophobia, which usually deals with 40-45 reports a month, received 33 within 48-72 hours. In Great Yarmouth, Colin Goffin, who is vice-principal of an educational trust, was told about taunts and jeers being directed at eastern European workers by 10am on Friday morning – just hours after the results of the referendum had been announced. Goffin went to see a Kosovan-born friend, the manager of a car wash, to discuss the vote. In the Norfolk coastal town, 72% had voted to leave. “I wanted him to know that I didn’t agree with the decision, or the way that the issue of immigration had been used in the campaign,” Goffin says. But when he arrived, the abuse against the multinational staff had already begun. “He told me people were slowing down to laugh at his staff, wave and mouth ‘goodbye’,” Goffin says. “They had clearly not wasted any time in deciding to be hateful.” Unsurprisingly, European staff members were worried by the vote. “What was most shocking was that these guys are well liked and go out of their way to help people – up until then, they would have felt part of our community. Suddenly, people felt it was OK to suggest they should clear off ‘home’. I am angry and embarrassed by the way people from my home town acted.” Architect Toni (a Spanish citizen living in Brighton) had barely touched down in the UK after a weekend in Alicante when he came across a group of men causing a disturbance at passport control. “There were four of them,” he said. “One of them shouted: ‘Why are these bloody immigrants in the same queue as we are?’ His friends were laughing. They were saying it loudly so people would hear. It was very uncomfortable. I have been here four years and I have never experienced anything like this.” Although another British passenger challenged the men, Toni said he was shaken by the incident. “I am questioning whether I should stay – will I be a second-class citizen now?” Reports of xenophobia and racism have piled up in the media: the firebombing of a halal butchers in Walsall, graffiti on a Polish community centre in London and laminated cards reading: “No more Polish vermin” apparently posted through letterboxes in Huntingdon. Asked about the rise in hate crimes during PMQs on Wednesday, David Cameron said the government would be publishing a hate-crime action plan. Why this sudden explosion? Paul Bagguley, a sociologist based at the University of Leeds, points to the gleeful tone of the racism: “There is a kind of celebration going on; it’s a celebratory racism.” With immigration cited in polls as the second most common reason in voting for Brexit, “people are expressing a sense of power and success, that they have won,” he says. “People haven’t changed. I would argue the country splits into two-thirds to three-quarters of people being tolerant and a quarter to a third being intolerant. And a section of that third have become emboldened. At other times, people are polite and rub along.” Bagguley stresses that it wasn’t racist to vote leave, and that many people were voting about “political control”, yet the Brexit campaign’s relentless rhetoric about “controlling our borders” has led people who might previously have kept their intolerant views to themselves to feel legitimised. A spokesperson from campaign group Hope not Hate points out that, while not all Ukip voters are racists, it does “swallow up the ‘respectable racist’ vote that might have once gone to the BNP”. Bagguley agrees: “People have to be prepared to be more critical of them and the implicit racism that runs through much of what they say.” Simon Woolley, the director of Operation Black Vote, goes further. “The Brexiters, with their jingoistic rhetoric, have put the country on a war footing. By framing the debate as ‘we want our country back’, they have made immigrants the enemy and occupiers who need to be expelled.” The turmoil that followed the vote – with sterling in freefall, and the leadership of Britain’s two main political parties in disarray – has also played a part, according to Bagguley. “At times of generalised social crises, people think they can get away with things in public that they would not normally do.” On Tuesday, video footage emerged that appeared to show a mixed-race man being racially abused on a Manchester tram. Police have made three arrests over the incident. Corinne Abrahams, 24, witnessed a similar incident in London as she made her way home from the Glastonbury festival on Monday. As she sat on the tube at around 2pm, a man “began shouting things such as: ‘Russians are all scumbags’ and ‘Poles should all leave’”. Another passenger protested and the argument grew heated. Other travellers moved away, but Abrahams, who has Jewish heritage, says she could not stay silent. “My people have gone through all this before. I don’t want it to have to happen to others. I said: ‘You are an embarrassment to the country. No one else here agrees with what you’re saying.’ He replied: ‘I’m a real British man. This is my country.’ It was unprovoked and disgusting.” Bagguley says that what makes the recent attacks unusual is who they are directed at. Central to the anti-EU discourse in the media over the past decade has been a sense of British people being fundamentally different from Europeans. As Scottish politics and identity moved in a new direction, this mutated into a white English nationalism “that has a resonance with racial ways of thinking”, he says. “This has been the bedrock and basis for this xenophobia, directed at everybody who is a little different. It is unlike the backlash after terrorist attacks, which targeted Irish people in the 70s, or Muslims and those thought to be Muslims, more recently. It is a very generalised kind of racism oriented against any groups perceived not to be in that narrow category of white English identity.” The hate crimes recently reported to Operation Black Vote seem to confirm this. “Two Muslim women in Bethnal Green, east London, had eggs thrown at them on the street,” says Woolley. “A black woman on a bus had a bunch of bananas placed on the chair next to her and was told to ‘fuck off back to your country’. It is not just women. An Italian man was punched to the ground for asking another man which way he voted in the referendum.” Nor are attacks confined to areas that voted strongly to leave. A British Asian doctor in Urmston, Greater Manchester, tells me she was told to “go back to your own country” in a petrol forecourt at the weekend by a woman annoyed she had not driven away from the pump quickly enough. “You just don’t expect this in Manchester. I have never had that before,” she says. In Edinburgh, Lauren Stonebanks, 36, was on a bus on Monday when she says a woman shouted: “‘Get your passport, you’re fucking going home.’” She believes she was targeted because she is mixed race. “As I got off the bus, the woman started making threatening gestures, like punching gestures. It made me feel absolutely terrified.” In Cobham, Surrey, British-born Saima, 46, was shopping for her elderly mother when she, too, experienced her first brush with racism. “There was a man in his mid to late 30s ranting in the street about ‘making Britain great again’. I looked over and he pointed at me, saying: ‘People like you will be out of here soon.’ It reminds me of the 70s with the National Front, when I remember being scared for my family. I feel as if we have gone back in time.” Woolley is clear, as is Tell Mama, that hate crimes have never gone away. Tell Mama’s annual report, released on Wednesday, states that anti-Muslim hatred reported to them rose by a staggering 326% in 2015. Women, especially those who wear hijabs or niqabs, bear the brunt of this. Hope Not Hate points out that it has been arguing for some time that far-right extremism is not getting the attention it deserves. Yet the Brexit-inspired racism seems slightly different in that slurs are focused on ethnicity over religion. A report to Tell Mama included an incident of a man shouting: “Brexit, you Paki” at a taxi driver, before assaulting him. Writer Nikesh Shukla was in Bristol on Tuesday when he witnessed an argument between a white man and a black man. As they separated, the white man shouted: “Well, it’s not your fucking country, is it?” On Friday, a tweet about the far right in the US resulted in him being told to “go back to brownland”. “The tool of the racist, more recently, has been to make you feel you have a chip on your shoulder. Now it is barefaced: ‘Go back to your country.’” BBC journalist Sima Kotecha interviewed a leave voter in her home town of Basingstoke who used the word “Paki”. Afterwards, she tweeted: “Haven’t heard that word here since the 80s!” For many British Asians, it is a reminder of a darker period in British history. Anna Rahman, a psychiatrist, posted on Facebook: “The first time I heard the word ‘Paki’, I was five and people were pelting eggs and stones at our windows. My father told me no one had the right to make me feel I didn’t belong here, telling me: ‘You are as British as the Queen.’ It makes me want to sob that, in this climate, I may need to have this discussion with my own kids.” Stop Hate UK’s Rose Simkin cautions that about 80-99% of hate crimes go unreported, making their prevalence hard to estimate. Woolley thinks this could be “because they want to cleanse themselves of the experience and forget that it happened”. Bagguley is confident that after a spike in incidents, things will calm down. Yet he also warns that if these attacks go unchallenged, the damage to our social fabric could be lasting, making attacks more frequent in the future. “It is the residue that is the problem. If people get away with [racist attacks], then the next time there is a reason to have a go, they will.” Additional reporting by Imran Rahman-Jones. Some names have been changed.
Scat, scrapping songs and screaming: a 10-point guide to becoming the next Beatles 1) Grab the listener’s attention within five seconds Many of the Beatles’ songs start with the musical equivalent of an alarm clock. Consider the fanfare of brass on All You Need Is Love, the stark chord on A Hard Day’s Night, or the harp on She’s Leaving Home. Sometimes it is the words that do this trick (eg Paul’s solitary “hey” which starts Hey Jude, or John’s shout of “help!” in the intro to the song of the same name). Indeed, if the music does not offer an initial clarion call, then John and Paul’s voices do. If the lyrics are not the strong point of a song, then it could start out with a riff (I Feel Fine, Day Tripper). Also consider the attention-grabbing intro to Glass Onion, which starts off with a drum beat like someone knocking on a door. 2) Use powerful words Besides “you” and “love”, few Beatles songs are without at least one of the following words: alright, day, dream, goodbye, hello, heart, home, life, mother, pain, shine. They are common and resonant enough to allow both the songwriter and the listener to place their own personal meanings on them. 3) Tell the listener what to do in the first line Consider the invitation for the listener to join John on Strawberry Fields Forever, the enticement to “listen” at the start of Do You Want to Know a Secret, the plea for assistance on Help, the invocation to “turn off” our minds on Tomorrow Never Knows, or – and this is cheating, as it is not a Beatles song – the enticement to picture a better world on John Lennon’s Imagine (though not many people have noticed, he tried a similar ruse on early Beatles B-side I’ll Get You). All of these are the first words the listener hears in each song. Doing this demands attention and puts the onus on the songwriter to continue a conversation with them. 4) Use scat sounds The use of scat sounds can be a quick and effective way of communicating a happy emotion. As a means of expressing delight, John and Paul sing “wooo” after the word “satisfied” on From Me to You and after “glad” on She Loves You. In a similar way, John sings “ewww” before “I need your love” on Eight Days a Week and “umummmmm” after the chorus on I Feel Fine, while sheer joy is evoked on the coda to Hey Jude and when George slips “do-n-do-do” in the middle of the chorus on Here Comes the Sun. 5) Study the Lennon/McCartney chorus The most common Lennon/McCartney chorus is a line that is sung twice, the second time in a slight variation. In We Can Work It Out, when “out” is sung a second time in the chorus, it is lengthened. For Paperback Writer, the second line is sung with a vocal harmony. Usually, the change in emphasis is done to make the second line more easily fit into the pace or the key of the verse that follows the chorus. She Loves You, I Want to Hold Your Hand, Can’t Buy Me Love, Yellow Submarine, Eleanor Rigby and Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds are other examples. Another formula is the pay-off line. On Get Back, the title is sung three times in the chorus, followed by a line that explains where the person in question should “get back” to. Let It Be, All You Need Is Love, I Am the Walrus, The Ballad of John and Yoko, Ticket to Ride and Day Tripper all have choruses made up of four lines, with the last line including a pay-off. 6) Move from one thrill to the next every 10-15 seconds The average Beatles’ A-side crams in eight to 14 sections over two to three minutes giving the listener a constant flow of new activity. The group’s ability to ingeniously weld together these sections, which often change on repetition, was one of their strengths. Their most compact single was We Can Work It Out, which crams an incredible 13 sections into two minutes and 16 seconds; on average a change every 10 seconds. Its structure runs: verse, chorus, verse, chorus, middle eight, verse, chorus, verse, a truncated middle eight, verse, chorus and coda. Note that while some of these sections are repeated, there are five unique sections to We Can Work It Out, as there are on Eleanor Rigby and Get Back; two tracks also notable for their ingenious structures. Eleanor Rigby: high-pitch chorus, verse, low-pitch chorus, verse, low-pitch chorus, high-pitch chorus, verse, low-pitch and high-pitch vocal chorus combined. Get Back: intro, verse, chorus, guitar solo, chorus, Hammond organ solo, verse, chorus, guitar solo, chorus, coda, chorus. 7) Use screams to inject some wildness into your music The public craves drama as a contrast to their routine lives, and so appreciates extremes of passion in their music. This excitement is the essence of rock’n’roll. One of the many ways the Beatles met this requirement was through the large number of screams used on their recordings. A scream, if well-emitted and believable, can add an electric charge to a song. Notable screams include the one that set off the guitar solos on Can’t Buy Me Love and A Hard Day’s Night, the scream mid-song on Slow Down and the ones at the intros to Money and Revolution and at the end of Hey Jude. Sometimes it was the backing vocals that delivered them – consider the way John and Paul encourage Ringo’s lead vocal on Boys from their debut album, or the rising crescendo of backing vocals on songs like Day Tripper. 8) Use a high note for happy and a low note for sad This rule is so simple it is banal, but if you think it does not apply to you, you are wrong. From the beginning to the end of their career, the Beatles followed such practice because listeners love it. Starting from the simple high notes for the word “glad” and a low note for the rhyming “bad” in She Loves You, to the way the guitar riff on Help lunges after the word “down”, to the way John sings the word “high” as one of the highest notes in Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds there are endless examples of how they used it. Once you have tried this, you can apply notes, chords and timing to convey more complex emotions. In Let It Be, Paul not only sings the first high notes when mentioning his mother, but introduces the first minor chord in the song at this point, too. 9) Scrap your first 20 songs This is a tough message if your songs are a labour of love that take weeks or months to complete, but if they are taking that long then perhaps you are doing something wrong. A few people have had hits with the first songs they wrote, but not many. Chances are you will not write anything you can be proud of until you have some experience. The Beatles inadvertently followed this advice, by taking four years to get their first recording contract. It was once boasted by a Beatles PR man that John Lennon and Paul McCartney had written 100 songs in this time, though later Paul admitted it was actually closer to 20. Your early songs need not come to nothing. John and Paul regularly salvaged and rebuilt them later in their career, including I’ll Follow the Sun, I Call Your Name, Michelle, What Goes On and One After 909. 10) Be a hero Most of us are attracted to people who live more heroic, glamorous lives, simply because they have escaped the regular, nine to five existence most of us live. Being a fan of this artist helps us vicariously experience this escape, too, through buying their music, T-shirts, posters, books etc. Consider the following heroic steps taken by the Beatles: they wore their hair long when it was considered shocking, they were the first to use feedback on a No 1 record (I Feel Fine), they put sexual innuendo on a No 1 record (Day Tripper) in the knowledge that if it were discovered it would be banned. They were pioneers in the use of many instruments, including the sitar, mellotron and synthesiser, while pioneering recording techniques such as automatic double-tracking and backwards guitar. They spoke out against the Vietnam war when it was taboo. They had the longest No 1 single of its time: Hey Jude. On their first trip to the USA, as the world’s biggest entertainment phenomenon, they championed black artists such as Smokey Robinson, when segregation of races was still common. They recorded a single All You Need Is Love live for the first international telethon. There must be many more examples … The 10-point guide is an extract from Help! Songwriting, Recording and Career Tips, an e-book available on Amazon.
Julia Jacklin: Don’t Let the Kids Win review – impressive indie country debut from Australia The debut album from Julia Jacklin was trailed by an ear-catching single called Coming of Age, in which Jacklin, over cheerily grungey backing, announced: “I gotta find myself a girl / Who makes my straight toes curl.” It proved to be a bit of a red herring, because this isn’t a straightahead indie-rock album: the instrumentation is often sparse, and the mood subdued. But the themes of Coming of Age – seizing the possibilities of life, and the consequences of growing older (albeit from the perspective of a 25-year-old, rather than someone confronting mortality) run through her impressive debut album. Its quirks are charming, rather than irritating: on Small Talk, a waltz, she imagines Zach Braff as her dad (“But you’re too young to be / A father to me”) and Catherine Deneuve as her mother (“Oh what a life, just you and I / Learning to walk whilst you read your lines”). Don’t Let the Kids Win feels very much like one of those albums that will slowly creep into the affections of a large number of people; it’s that lovely.
Would Brexit make UK businesses less competitive? In this week’s EU referendum Q&A our panel discuss how a Brexit could affect the costs facing UK businesses: Would UK businesses be more or less competitive in the global market if we choose to leave? If you have a question about the potential impact of the EU referendum on your small business, submit it here. Larry Elliott Economics editor at the , he has been with the paper since 1988 A decision to leave the European Union would lead to a fall in the value of the pound as investors react negatively to the uncertainty. A lower pound makes imports dearer and exports cheaper, so UK firms would be more competitive in global markets and the UK’s hefty current account deficit would be reduced. Brexit campaigners say UK firms would also benefit by being less hampered by EU rules and regulations, although there is not a great deal of evidence to support this. Germany faces the same amount of Brussels red tape but runs a large trade surplus with countries outside the EU. The EU remains the most important market for UK goods, so it is possible that any competitive gains from a cheaper pound would be negated by trade barriers in the event of a vote to leave. Much would depend on the size of the depreciation in the pound, whether the depreciation was sustained, and the deal struck with Britain’s former EU partners about access to the single market. In or out, the biggest challenge for the UK is to improve the economy’s recent poor productivity performance. This involves factors such as skills, education, management, innovation and investment – and they will need to be tackled whatever the result on 23 June. Swati Dhingra Assistant professor at the department of economics at the London School of Economics, researching international economics, globalisation and industrial policy, she is co-author of Life after Brexit, a report by LSE’s centre for economic performance After Brexit UK businesses would be less competitive within the EU market because they would face higher non-tariff barriers such as rules of origin and the costs of divergence in regulations. Potentially, UK businesses would also face tariffs when exporting to the EU and to countries with which the EU has negotiated trade agreements. If the business relies heavily on imports from the EU or the EU’s trade agreement partners, then it would have to pay higher costs for its inputs. The EU is the UK’s biggest trade and investment partner, so these higher trade barriers would make UK businesses less competitive. There could be some gain in competitiveness from getting rid of EU regulations. But the gain would be small as the UK already has one of the most flexible employment and product market regulations in the world. And half of the estimated costs of EU regulations for UK businesses comes from just two sets of policies – the EU’s climate change/renewable energy policies and the working time directives (which entitle workers to 20 days of paid leave). Scrapping these seems politically infeasible regardless of Brexit. Depending on the immigration policy adopted after Brexit, UK businesses might face higher recruitment costs. In the short term, businesses would also face greater uncertainty over the UK’s future relationship with the EU and other trade partners, and over the legislation that would be needed to replace EU policies. Ian Cass Managing director of the Forum of Private Business, a business support and lobbying group that specialises in helping employers with compliance and growth We can’t know for certain; it will depend on a number of factors, such as how quickly new trade agreements are signed and whether the UK ends up with World Trade Organisation model, which effectively means they put nothing into the EU but also get nothing out in terms of preferential access to the market. This would mean that, looking even longer term, it is impossible to say whether we would be better or worse off compared to overseas competitors. Regulation wise, small businesses continue to complain about the level of red tape coming out of Europe. Whether red tape would ease in the event of a Brexit vote would depend on what changes the UK government made following the referendum. EU customers are likely to remain a big market for UK SMEs and a key issue for manufacturers could be that BSI standard products may not automatically have access to EU markets. Less focus on the EU may mean a greater focus on emerging markets, which has been the strategy behind UK Trade and Investment for a number of years. More generally, investment is vital to competing in the global market. Many of the barriers to investment such as the UK’s overly complex taxation system (particularly when it comes to innovation), tight planning laws and the cost of employment are predominantly home grown. Atrophy due to a period of uncertainty is, however, the biggest risk to the competitiveness of small firms. Firms generally are used to dealing with calculated risks, but it is hard to gauge what the final outcome will be and whether change will ultimately be better than long term stability. John Van Reenan Director of the Centre for Economic Performance, London School of Economics. In the short run, it is likely there would be negative shocks as uncertainty spikes while we negotiate new trading arrangements with the EU and the rest of the world. This has potential to hurt investment and hiring. In the longer run, there would be an increase in trade costs as we would have a looser relationship with the EU single market. This could potentially cause a fall in overall trade and in foreign investment, which could in turn depress productivity. Second, access to EU migrants, who provide a valuable source of skills to EU businesses, would be restricted. The pro-Brexit campaign emphasises that UK businesses would have to contend with less red tape. However, we would have to continue to abide by EU export rules to trade with the EU without any vote on how these rules are formed. Since we already have one of the most lightly regulated labour markets in the world, there is no political appetite for jettisoning the working time directive. Sign up to become a member of the Small Business Network here for more advice, insight and best practice direct to your inbox.
I'll be barely-there: what the first official Baywatch still tells us about the movie While Dwayne “I saved the world from an earthquake so please stop referring to me as the Rock” Johnson has been teasing his role in the utterly necessary Baywatch movie on social media for a while now, this week saw the first official image stride across the sand and on to the web. To be more specific, it washed up on Johnson’s Facebook page, liked by 55 million people. By way of perspective, that’s almost double the entire population of Peru, which could make for a terrifying dystopian future if they were to mobilise and organise a coup. The picture was accompanied with trademark enthusiasm from Johnson, an actor who is impossible to dislike and the only genuine reason to assume the new Baywatch might not be horrendous. “Are we bad ass? Yes. Do we save lives? All day. Are we a dysfunctional family? Epically. Do we have fun? F*CK YES.” But are we having fun yet? ARE WE? And more importantly, do Johnson’s fans even know what Baywatch is? According to many of the comments, the answer appears to be “not even!”, while others, who are clearly more familiar with the show, are just annoyed about the lack of boobs. We’ve been promised an “edgy, raunchy and hopefully, funny as all hell” take on the original with a 21 Jump Street-style redo on the cards. It boasts five writers (!) including one who wrote The Pacifier (!!) and two who were behind Freddy vs Jason (!!!). But what can we glean from the first image? Does it live up to this promise? Are we on the edge, furiously aroused while laughing maniacally? Almost! But first, there’s an awful lot of clothing on display for a Baywatch scene. If you then glance upwards from all those damn long sleeves, you can see a sky that’s somewhat washed out, suggesting dodgy weather and perhaps a restrictive budget that’s prohibited shooting at sunnier, more expensive times of the year. Plus Ilfenesh Hadera, second from right, looks genuinely cold and/or pissed off. I predict dramas such as “team must find jumpers that won’t get ruined by excessive exposure to salt water” and “snowman comes alive and affects beach attendance”. Second, despite the obnoxiously casual nature of the shot, there’s some devious Photoshoppery already at play. Not that I was initially drawn to Kelly Rohrbach’s crotch, but the poor actor, taking on Pamela Anderson’s role of “blonde woman with ability to run”, appears to have come up (against) a cropper. Go on, look. Along with Zac Efron’s weak, gravy-coloured fake-tan legs, it’s almost as if this isn’t as natural as it appears. It doesn’t help that they all look like they fell out on day one of the shoot and had to be shot on separate green screens, after copious piña coladas to get them in the mood. Also, I hate to make visual assumptions, but since this is the entire point of this piece, I’m guessing Jon Bass, AKA the guy who isn’t the Rock or Zac Efron, will be the provider of lols. He’s probably going to be less competent at the job, insidiously bullied by others off-camera and will never be taken seriously because he doesn’t go to the gym. But as it’s Hollywood and Kevin James has managed to romance Rosario Dawson and Salma Hayek, he’ll do just fine with the ladies. His female equivalent will be relegated to playing “ice cream-eating woman who isn’t allowed on the beach and ultimately dies at home off-camera and then is eaten by cats”. I’m also intrigued by Johnson’s assertion that this will be an “epically” dysfunctional family. I’m thinking somewhere between American Beauty and that dinner scene at the end of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. But on the beach! Well, be patient because we’ll have to wait until May 2017 to find out just how much sun cream, slow-mo and drowning children can be packed into one film. Probably a lot, even more and some, but they get saved by people who look like dolls that came to life.
My mother’s small island taught me what independence really means My mother never made it to 50. She was 44 when she came home from a day of shopping in Stevenage town centre, went to sleep on the floor, and died. Her death was sudden. She didn’t leave a will – but she did leave a wish. She wanted to be buried in Barbados, the island of her birth, “not this cold place”. I was 19, my brothers 24 and 23. None of us had proper jobs or any money – but once we realised we had access to sufficient funds, we made it happen. This was the second time my mother had gone back to Barbados since she left, as a teenager. The first was in 1974, with my brothers. Mum said she wanted to test the waters, see if she might come home. We returned after six weeks and stayed for good. While England had yet to deliver on its promises, she had yet to exhaust its possibilities. Because she didn’t know that the next time she’d come back would be 15 years later in a box; because she valued her independence. Dead mother in the mother country. She didn’t make it to 50 – but Barbados will, at the end of this month. Bajans gained full citizenship around the same time much of the planet did, in that sweet spot after Nelson Mandela had been convicted but before Martin Luther King had been assassinated – a time of hope, resistance and confidence. Smaller than the Isle of Man with a population at the time approximately the same as the city of Derby today, now set free to stake out its place in the world. Audacious, timely, necessary: a village with a flag, an island with an anthem. Independence is not the same as freedom. There are lots of countries that are independent but aren’t free. Barbados would not have been the first country to rid itself of one undemocratic overlord only to replace it with another. But independence is a prerequisite for freedom. How can you be free without running your own affairs and controlling your own resources? In what sense can one truly talk of liberty without first establishing autonomy? But freedom is no guarantor of success. There are lots of countries that are free where people live without hope, or food or support. If freedom means anything, it must mean the freedom to fail. No one who contemplates independence without also contemplating failure is taking independence seriously. Herein lies the audacity, the tenacity, the perspicacity of the independence project: to take the leap, to take the risk, to meet the challenge. When my mother died, this was my challenge. I was about to start exams at the end of my first year at university in Edinburgh. I had a long summer ahead of me with no real sense of where to go. I had lost my lodestar. Edinburgh was not my home. But the place I had called home could not serve that role in the absence of my mother. A year earlier, shortly before university, I had gone to Barbados with a friend in that well-worn pilgrimage of the child of immigrants, hoping to find a sense of security, a warm national welcome where the racial response in Britain had been frosty. The country had my name on it: I was called Gary after Garfield Sobers, the nation’s most imposing cricketer, whose name now graces a roundabout and pavilion on the island. Instead, like most, I found I was more British than I had realised. Barbados had not been waiting to envelop me in its embrace, but was indifferent. I had not been expecting bunting, but nor had I anticipated ambivalence. My mother was home. As we laid her in the ground by St Martin’s, beneath soil that could, on a windy day, be sprinkled by the sea breeze and then dried by the Caribbean sun, she had ended her journey not far from where she had started it, even if earlier than she had bargained for. And I was homeless – bereft of the things that make home possible and meaningful, reinventing my place in the world from scratch. Everything about the funeral in Barbados reinforced this sense of displacement. My hair, which I had been wearing in plaits for several years, was out. The day before, Reverend Small had told me I couldn’t attend the funeral with my hair like that because plaits were for women. He said it was in the Bible. Reverend Small. Small-minded. Small island. I did not know the hymns. Beyond immediate family, I did not know most of the people there. I went back to an empty house and struggled to rebuild my life with the only indigenous resource I had: me. This independence was born of hope yet had been forced upon me by fate. But it had to be undertaken nonetheless. Such was the audacity and tenacity of my project. It was a hard task to heave my teenage self into adulthood alone – until I finally realised that I was not doing it alone. I had brothers, aunts, friends, parents of friends, lecturers, the state – an assortment of hands to catch me if I fell, shoulders to lean on if I wept, bank accounts to draw on if I was broke. I couldn’t have done it on my own. “No man is an island, entire of itself,” wrote the poet John Donne. Barbados is an island, but not entire of itself. It could not have done it on its own. The trouble with national projects, even when they emerge from struggles against colonialism, is that they can degrade into nationalist projects. What starts as resistance based on the notion that all people are equal and should have the right to run their own affairs can descend into the notion that we can run our affairs better than others because we, who adhere to this flag and anthem, are better people. “We” are not. The fact that Barbados was independent did not excuse it from also having to be interdependent. From cricket to currency, it joined forces with the rest of the English-speaking Caribbean at various times. What does it mean to be independent in a neoliberal, globalised age of climate change and trade deals, terrorism and mass migration? That’s the debate that Britain – bigger, richer, more powerful – keeps avoiding at its peril. It cannot escape Barbados. Nor should it. Having exported its people across the globe and stood in the historical crosswinds of slavery, colonialism and imperialism, its small size belies its inherently cosmopolitan nature. My mother never made it to 50. But Barbados did. And she lies within it. And it lies within me: independent, interdependent, autonomous, connected. • This is an extract from a talk given at the British Library
Monday’s best TV: Pocket Money Pitch, Rick Stein’s Taste of Shanghai, The X-Files, Inside Amy Schumer, Royal Navy Sailor School Pocket Money Pitch 5.30pm, CBBC Young entrepreneurs are invited into a mini Dragons’ Den in this new series for inventive eight- to 14-year-olds. The little clever clogs must pitch to a business guru for the chance to win a year’s pocket money, which is worth over £300. This week, Levi Roots is the man to impress and the kids’ ideas are genius, from Sunday lunch on a pizza and a pimped-up scotch egg to spreadable fudge and cool cookies. Although Roots is lovely with them, he’s tough too, firing questions about profit and loss to throw them off. Hannah Verdier Royal Navy Sailor School 9pm, Channel 4 “It’s not the biggest navy in the world,” as HMS Raleigh’s aptly named master-at-arms Ian Gritt tells the new recruits, “but it’s the best.” In this candid new “barnacle-on-the-wall” series we meet school leavers, mid-career-changers and wannabe pirates; and their instructors, intent on turning the “potatoes into packets of crisps” over 10 weeks. For some, homesickness and medical issues await. For others: a discharge. As one PT instructor shrieks, in a surely well-honed line: “This is the Royal Navy, not the Royal Mail!” Ali Catterall Rick Stein’sTaste Of Shanghai 9pm, BBC2 Stein’s introduction notes that Shanghai has a distinctive flavour in many respects – a legendarily raffish and rumbustious port which was, for years, open to the world in a way that much of China wasn’t. However, Shanghai’s relatively recent emergence as a global financial hub has transformed its cuisine still further, as western restaurateurs follow the money, but here Stein is searching for old-school, authentic Shanghai cuisine, visiting restaurants, seafood markets and a rice winery. Andrew Mueller The X-Files 9pm, Channel 5 “Do you miss it? The X-Files?” The question is put to Dana Scully, retired from the FBI and now a surgeon, but it may as well be directed to the audience, nervously awaiting the return of the 1990s phenomenon. Judging by the first episode of this six-part mini-series, it’s very much a resumption, right down to the gauzy credits and synthesizer score. Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny also slot right back into their signature roles, reuniting to investigate an inevitably Roswell-related mystery. Graeme Virtue Addicted To Sheep 9pm, BBC4 A year in the lives of Pennine sheep farmers Tom and Kay Hutchinson and their three children. Filmmaker Magali Pettier quietly observes the hard slog and stunning views as they try to breed the perfect sheep. Whether swathed in snow in winter, or bursting with verdant colour come spring, the hills are glorious. And the kids are particularly brilliant, explaining their rural lifestyle as they attend a school entirely populated by farming children. Another charming film from the national treasure that is BBC4. Julia Raeside Insert Name Here 10pm, BBC2 Final episode for now of the slight but amiable panel show that eschews interrogation in favour of Sue Perkins lobbing underarm softball topics at the panellists. One might argue the licence fee-paying public would gain better value by just sending the panel down to Bella Pasta and screening their subsequent pre-doughballs banter. Nominative know-it-alls joining Josh Widdicombe and Richard Osman tonight include Bake Off invigilator Paul Hollywood, historian Kate Williams and comedians Joe Lycett and Sara Pascoe. Mark Gibbings-Jones Inside Amy Schumer 11pm, Comedy Central More provocative sketch comedy from the winningly abrasive Schumer. The unfiltered star adopts some garish tutus and supremely creepy babytalk to enter the Little Miss Hot As Balls kiddie beauty pageant, passing off her obvious maturity as “reverse Benjamin Button syndrome”. Everything else is as gleefully sharp, from a conclave of competitive pet owners to a ladies-of-leisure meet-up that combines psychopathy with baking. GV FILM CHOICE The Bourne Identity (Doug Liman, 2002) 9pm, ITV2 In the first of the slick, brilliant series, Matt Damon’s soggy hero is fished out of the Med with no memory, and follows a hi-tech trail to discover his identity: a former CIA assassin. With bystander Marie (a sweetly convincing Franka Potente) in tow, he tries to get to his former bosses before they get him. The Principles Of Lust (Penny Woolcock, 2003) 11.35pm, Film4 Writer-director Woolcock’s debut has jobless would-be-writer Alec Newman arriving at one of those forks in the road of life: does he go this way, settling down with lovely working mum Sienna Guillory? Or that way, with Marc Warren, and a life of gambling, drugs, backstreet bareknuckle fights and sex orgies? Billed as a British Fight Club, it’s intriguing, but unsatisfying. *Today’s best live sport ATP Tennis: The Rotterdam Open Coverage of the opening day of the tournament from the Netherlands. 10am, Sky Sports 3 Premier League Football: Southampton v West Ham United Mid-table action from St Mary’s stadium. 7pm, Sky Sports 1 NBA Basketball: Detroit Pistons v Toronto Raptors From Palace of Auburn Hills. 12.30am, BT Sport 1 One Day Cricket: Under-19 World Cup The first semi final from Mirpur. 2.30am, Sky Sports 2
Trump campaign dogged by violent incidents at rallies Donald Trump is facing growing criticism for repeated incidents of violence at his campaign events. On the eve of the Republican frontrunner’s scheduled rally in Chicago, Trump has come under increased scrutiny, after an attack on a non-violent protester led to criminal charges against a Trump supporter and Michelle Fields, a reporter for conservative website Breitbart, was allegedly assaulted by Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s campaign manager. Trump’s campaign events have long been magnets for protesters who disapprove of the Republican frontrunner’s hardline stance on immigration and support for a ban on Muslims entering the United States. But while protesters are not uncommon at political events, Trump’s rallies are the only ones that have seen a rash of violent incidents in response to them. On stage at events, Trump has encouraged this violence at times. On one occasion, he even pledged to pay legal fees for those who “roughed up” protesters. “Knock the crap out of him, would you? Seriously, OK, just knock the hell. I promise you I will pay for the legal fees, I promise, I promise,” Trump said in a rally in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, in February. He also urged security at a January rally in Vermont to confiscate protesters’ coats before booting them out into the winter night. However, Trump has also urged supporters “don’t hurt ’em” on other occasions as protesters have been escorted out. Each Trump rally now begins with a taped warning telling supporters: “If a protester starts demonstrating in the area around you, please do not touch or harm the protester.” At Thursday’s Republican debate, Trump defended himself from accusations that he had promoted violence at his events. “We have some protesters who are bad dudes, they have done bad things,” said the Republican frontrunner. “They are swinging, they are really dangerous and they get in there and they start hitting people. And we had a couple big, strong, powerful guys doing damage to people, not only the loudness, the loudness I don’t mind. But doing serious damage. And if they’ve got to be taken out, to be honest, I mean, we have to run something.” Despite Trump’s claims, the protesters have invariably been non-violent and the list of incidents in which they have been hurt is growing. Going back to November, when a Black Lives Matter protester at a Trump rally in Alabama was punched and kicked, demonstrators have faced increasing violence at the Republican frontrunner’s campaign events. The first criminal charges resulting from an incident were filed this week after a 78-year-old Trump supporter, John McGraw, allegedly punched a protester at a rally who was being escorted out by police. McGraw, who has been charged with assault, later told a cameraman from Inside Edition he enjoyed “knocking the hell out of that big mouth”. He added that the protester, who was flipping off the crowd, “deserved it. The next time we see him, we might have to kill him. We don’t know who he is. He might be with a terrorist organization.” Andy Dean, a Trump surrogate and former contestant on his reality show The Apprentice, praised McGraw in an appearance on CNN on Thursday. He noted that Trump could not control the septuagenarian supporter’s actions and “at that age, it looks like good exercise”. This view was echoed by Omarosa Manigault, a fellow Trump surrogate and former contestant on The Apprentice, who excused the violence in a television appearance on Thursday night. “You have a right to get into a closed, private event, and you get what’s coming to you,” Manigault said. “I do not condone violence, but if you go into an environment where you’re interrupting 13, 14 times, do you expect a hug or kumbaya?” But the violence has not just been limited to protesters. At least two journalists have now experienced violent incidents at Trump events. In February, Chris Morris, an acclaimed photographer for Time Magazine, was body-slammed by a secret service agent at a Trump event as he attempted to photograph protesters. In a statement to the about that incident, a spokesman for the secret service said: “The matter involving an encounter between a member of the Secret Service and a member of the media is under review and we therefore cannot comment further.” Most recently, Fields, a reporter for conservative website Breitbart, was allegedly assaulted by Trump’s campaign manager. In a scrum after Trump’s Tuesday night press conference in Florida, Fields attempted to ask Trump a question about affirmative action. Both Fields and another eyewitness state that Lewandowski forcibly grabbed her by the arm, so hard that he left bruises, and yanked her down to the ground. This account is backed up by audio obtained by the . Fields has since filed a criminal complaint against Lewandowski in Jupiter, Florida. Police there said on Friday that they were investigating an “alleged battery” and the “investigation is ongoing”. A report would be issued today, they said. Trump, Lewandowski and the Trump campaign denied the incident ever took place, the campaign calling it “entirely false”, and repeating the claim on Friday. Lewandowski has tweeted that Fields is “delusional”, citing a blogpost from a fringe website to attack her credibility. Trump himself told reporters on Thursday night “I think she made it up” and insisted the secret service had said nothing happened. The secret service declined to comment on either the incident or Trump’s statement. The incident with Fields may also endanger Trump’s standing with conservative media. Breitbart has been notoriously friendly to the Trump campaign to the point that detractors on the right label it “Trumpbart”. In a statement, Breitbart’s CEO and publisher, Larry Solov, said: “We are disappointed in the campaign’s response, in particular their effort to demean Michelle’s previous reporting. Michelle Fields is an intrepid reporter who has covered tough and dangerous stories. We stand behind her reporting, her techniques, and call again on Corey Lewandowski to apologize.” The rash of violence comes just before Trump’s scheduled rally in Chicago. Large-scale protests are anticipated in the majority minority city and activists there are already taking precautions to avoid potential attacks from supporters of the Republican frontrunner.
Le point de vue du sur le Brexit: lettre à l’Europe et à nos partenaires européen L’onde de choc du Brexit se propage desormais à travers l’Europe. Le désarroi ressenti par tant de citoyens au Royaume-Uni est partagé par le continent. Certains d’entre vous nous ont sollicités avant le référendum pour nous prier de rester, mettant en avant nos interêts communs. Aujourd’hui, c’est à notre tour de faire appel à vous. Révulsés par le résultat, et révoltés par la suffisance triomphante de Nigel Farage et des autres Brexiters, vous pourriez considérer toute requête impudente. Vos citoyens ont fait partie des cibles de cette vague de xénophobie déchaînée. L’Europe peut très bien considérer que nous n’avons plus voix au chapître. Presque la moitié du pays a cherché à maintenir notre statut de membre. Le a été une des voix les plus engagées dans ce sens. Mais, comme le reste des 48%, nous devons respecter le verdict que nous avions tant redouté. Vous pensiez que le pragmatisme britanique triompherait, et nous sommes tout aussi bouleversés que vous. Aussi tentant que cela puisse être, ne nous reniez pas complètement. Beaucoup de britanniques cherchent désormais à assurer un partenariat le plus proche possible avec l’Union Européenne, et il est plus urgent que jamais de poursuivre la coopération par tous les moyens possibles. Certains d’entre vous sont en colère. Le Royaume-Uni était déjà perçu comme un partenaire réticent, traînant les pieds et exigeant sans cesse des concessions. Il a désormais été élevé au rang de démolisseur: celui qui a joué avec une économie européenne déjà fragile, mettant au passage en péril une institution créée pour sauvegarder la paix. Une partie d’entre vous ressentent de la pitié ou du mépris pour une nation qui a soutenu le Brexit poussée par une série de fantasmes et de mensonges déjà retractés, pendant que d’autres jubilent alors que le coût évident de cette dernière lubie commence à se faire sentir. Vous pouvez avoir envie de le punir, ou tout simplement de lui dire: “bon débarras.” Le Royaume-Uni ne doit pas s’attendre à un traitement préférentiel. Néanmoins, dans cette période incertaine, nous vous demandons d’appuyer sur pause – et ce, dans l’intérêt de tout le monde. Nous avons besoin de temps par dessus tout. Le Royaume-Uni a opté pour la sortie, pas pour une alternative. Les électeurs n’ont pas encore été confrontés au choix qu’ils auront à faire entre tourner le dos au libre-échange, ou accepter la migration continue en provenance de l’Europe sous quelque forme qu’elle soit. Evidemment, ne vous privez pas de rappeler aux pro-Brexit qu’ils ne peuvent pas bénéficier des droits rattachés à l’UE sans remplir aucune de ses obligations. Exposer clairement au Royaume-Uni les choix possibles pourrait l’obliger à être plus réaliste. Car si le pays a décidé de ne plus continuer dans la même direction, sa nouvelle route et son éventuelle destination restent pour le moins brumeuses. Il y a beaucoup de choses auxquelles il va falloir penser, et encore plus de décisions à prendre. Elles impliqueront peut-être le parlement, ou même des élections générales. Vous espérez la certitude et la stabilité, mais invoquer à coup de poing sur la table l’article 50 pourrait nous précipiter dans des choix que vous finirez aussi peut-être par regretter. Alors que le Royaume-Uni choisit son capitaine dans ces eaux agitées, vous serez vous-même préoccupés par vos propres décisions, plongés dans des eaux encore plus troubles depuis le réferendum. Le Royaume-Uni a perdu son droit d’exprimer son avis pendant que vous déterminerez combien et quelle type d’Europe vous voulez . Chercher à nous punir pour éviter d’autres sorties est un réflexe compréhensible. La bonne politique sera celle qui empêchera la sortie du Royaume-Uni d’agir en détonateur fatal. Partout en Europe, les mêmes méfiances envers les systèmes politiques traditionnels, les mêmes colères envers l’élite et les mêmes chasses aux boucs émissaires étrangers fusionnent dans un sentiment anti-UE. Nous avons partagé votre angoisse quand le Front National et autres partis d’extrême droite ont célébré la décision britannique. Beaucoup de gens se sentent ignorés et abandonnés. Ils ont le sentiment de n’avoir pas bénéficié de l’appartenance de leur pays à l’union européenne. En Grande-Bretagne, les mensonges sur, exemple parmi tant d’autres, la courbure des bananes et l’opacité de l’UE, ont nourri un sentiment europhobe. Ils ont la conviction que les classes politiques britannique et européenne ont perdu le sens des réalités, et de leur réalité quotidienne, et ont préféré la course aux profits plutôt que l’intérêt des citoyens. Le Royaume-Uni doit établir de nouvelles règles à l’interieur de ses frontières sans trop s’auto-centrer. Laissez-nous continuer à travailler avec vous à chaque fois que nous le pourrons. Nous ne nous attendons pas à prendre les devants ou à dicter les règles ; mais nous pouvons encore offrir notre expertise, nos ressources et nos services de renseignements dans des secteurs-clés tels que la sécurité. La coopération entre nos citoyens, qu’elle soit cuturelle ou académique, est le moyen le plus efficace pour rapprocher l’Europe sur le long terme, et sera donc plus cruciale que jamais . N’oubliez pas que les jeunes électeurs britanniques étaient pour la très grande majorité pro-européens, et aidez-nous à nourrir cet esprit et les opportunités qu’il pourrait un jour féconder. Le Royaume-Uni ne peut pas s’attendre à frapper immédiatement à la porte qu’elle vient de claquer. Cela serait dangereux politiquement pour elle, et demanderait beaucoup de générosité de votre part. Mais tous ceux qui font face au Brexit avec réticence espèrent qu’un jour ils pourront réintégrer le club. S’il-vous-plaît, faisons-nous nos adieux dans la douleur, et non dans la colère ; et pour notre interêt à tous, ne vérouillez pas la porte à double tour.
Les Salafistes is gruelling viewing – but it can help us understand terror France has had a troubled history with film censorship, so it was hardly surprising when rumours circulated that Les Salafistes, a documentary on violent jihadi groups in the Middle East and the Sahel region of Africa, might be banned. In the end, that didn’t happen. Fleur Pellerin, the French culture minister, decided this week to authorise its release in cinemas, but with an adult certificate – under-18s aren’t allowed to see it. The ministry cited the “necessary protection of youth”, noting “scenes and language of extreme violence” without any voiceover narration that might contextualise them. The documentary includes footage from propaganda videos issued by Islamic State and al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, and interviews with salafist religious leaders and jihadi militants. It also shows scenes of life under sharia law in northern Mali when it was under jihadi control in 2012 (before the French-led military intervention), as well as in the Isis-controlled cities of Raqqa in Syria, and Mosul in Iraq. The film’s co-directors – François Margolin, from France, and Lemine Ould M Salem, a Mauritanian – said their intention was to show how salafist ideology is described by its proponents and theologians, and the realities of its implementation. Critics have argued their approach might backfire and serve as a platform promoting jihadism, rather than denouncing its horrors. It is at times a difficult film, especially for someone like me, who has refrained from watching Isis videos online because of their horror. The most gruelling moment comes when an Isis propaganda film shows a line of captured men walking towards the banks of a river; jihadi militants then shoot them in the head, one by one. The waters of the river start flowing with blood. And we see the pleading, panic-stricken faces of Isis’s victims, filmed close-up just before they are killed. If Les Salafistes is meant to make us more aware of what is going on in the lands Isis and other fanatical Islamic groups control, it does so in a powerful way. But might it be misunderstood? Might it be twisted to serve other goals? The fact that a debate has raged around the film reflects the sensitivity of the issue in a country that suffered two traumatic terrorist attacks last year, after which French authorities put the country on a “war footing” and restricted civil liberties. France has long had strict laws against hate speech and genocide denial. But when a police crackdown, shortly after the Charlie Hebdo shootings led to the arrest of over 50 people – some of them teenagers – for “inciting terrorism”, human rights campaigners expressed concerns about limitations to free speech. Would films now face increased scrutiny? This was no light matter because political censorship has long existed in France. It took years for a documentary – October in Paris – on the killings of hundreds of peaceful pro-Algerian independence demonstrators by the French police in 1961 to finally be allowed on cinema screens. A documentary (Partie de Campagne) by the celebrated film director Raymond Depardon, revealing the inside story of Valéry Giscard d’Estaing’s 1974 presidential campaign, was censored until 2002 (because the main protagonist objected to it). Les Salafistes attempts to cast a similar spotlight on disturbing events and characters. It is no wonder that Claude Lanzmann, the director of Shoah, strongly defended the film – declaring that it was a “true masterpiece” depicting some realities “as never any book or specialist of Islam has done before”. He is right in one sense. By contrasting the salafists’ language (claiming their brand of Islam reflects “genuine equality among men”) with images of public beatings and executions (including a scene where a gay man is thrown from the top of a building in Raqqa), the film implacably denounces these groups. And it’s not as if banning young people from seeing the film will stop anyone from accessing the online videos Isis uses for its recruitment. But Les Salafistes deals with a wider danger that has obvious national security implications for France: almost all the perpetrators of the 2015 terrorist attacks were young French Muslims. The mixed reactions to the film have brought some political taboos to the fore. If this film were to be shown in several years, when France’s “war” with jihadism would hopefully have ended, there would be no such controversy. But by touching on a raw, contemporary nerve, the film highlights the ongoing phenomenon of indoctrination – at a time when France’s political leadership has largely preferred to gloss over the fact that the 2015 terrorism was homegrown. It’s true that Les Salafistes requires a certain level of maturity or knowledge if its intentions are to be correctly understood. But that doesn’t mean teenagers can’t see its message clearly. Only minds, be they children’s or adults’, that have already been contaminated by Isis ideology will see it as a vindication of their views. The debate around the film shows up France’s current anxieties. It opens our eyes to a fanatical world that we struggle to understand – and one we are only too happy to let the army and security forces deal with. Yet we in France and elsewhere also need to understand that ideology, however twisted and repulsive, if there is to be any hope of defeating it.
Trouble in Hollywood: who has the formula for blockbuster success? Earlier this week, as the non-controversy over Suicide Squad’s scathing reviews reached its vesuvian apex, studio Warner Bros quietly announced the news that it has picked safe pair of directorial hands David Yates to direct the follow-up to forthcoming Harry Potter spin-off Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Potter author JK Rowling will also return to write her second screenplay. The news may not have made much of an impact because Yates is, on the face of it, not the most exciting of film-makers. In fact, he is not even the most exciting Harry Potter film-maker: Alfonso Cuarón turned in perhaps the only near-classic Potter movie to date, 2004’s Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Yet Yates has now been in charge for the past four movies in the second-highest grossing film series of all time, and will now direct the first two episodes in its much-hyped successor series. In Hollywood terms, the former TV director is a very big deal indeed. To see why, we only have to look at what happens when studios trust their mega-budget productions to greener talent than Yates. Josh Trank was one of Hollywood’s most-buzzed-about young film-makers, on the back of found footage superhero tale Chronicle, before taking on last year’s Fantastic Four for 20th Century Fox, while David Ayer was widely expected to make a triumphant debut in the comic book arena with Warner/DC’s current Suicide Squad. Neither movie has quite worked out the way its key architects might have hoped. And the Hollywood trades have been full of reports about the struggles Gareth Edwards is facing on the upcoming Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, which (like both Trank and Ayer’s films) has faced extensive reshoots and editing issues. The latest report suggests that the Michael Clayton director and regular Bourne series screenwriter Tony Gilroy has been called in by Disney to oversee Rogue One’s edit, though Edwards is said to still be involved. We’re told the two also partnered up on Warner Bros’s Godzilla when the Englishman’s previous big-budget blockbuster ran into trouble. This follows Tuesday’s report that Suicide Squad’s problems may have stemmed from a rushed production schedule, as Warner Bros battles to bring its DC extended universe up to speed with the hugely successful rival Marvel films. The article suggests Ayer had just six weeks to write his screenplay for the antihero epic, and that executives (terrified of a repeat of the bad reception that greeted previous DCEU instalment Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice) repeatedly intervened during the editing process. The most horrifying rumour is that Warner Bros cut its own version of the film with the help of the company that made the popular, punky and fast-cutting trailers that brought Suicide Squad all its buzz in the first place. Studios have been cutting their noses off to spite their faces since the dawn of the blockbuster era. Richard Donner’s visionary, Hesiodic vision of Superman as a god living among men was eventually destroyed by interventions from producers Alexander and Ilya Salkind, who wanted the saga to take a more comedic turn. They kicked Donner off Superman II in favour of the Three Musketeers director Richard Lester. David Fincher’s Alien 3 was famously ruined by 20th Century Fox’s incessant meddling, almost derailing the nascent career of a promising young film-maker. And yet it seems the march towards endless big budget fantasy fare is increasing the chances of cinemagoers paying to see a dud. A paragraph in the Hollywood Reporter’s piece on Suicide Squad hints at a reason: If the villain team-up ultimately works – and it has drawn some harsh early reviews – it will be in spite of the kind of behind-the-scenes drama that is becoming typical for giant franchise movies that now are the main focus of the studio business: a production schedule engineered to meet an ambitious release date; a director, David Ayer (Fury), untested in making tentpole movies; and studio executives, brimming with anxiety, who are ready to intercede forcefully as they attempt to protect a branded asset. Often, efforts to fix perceived problems ratchet up costs, which drive anxiety ever higher. In extreme cases, such as Fox’s troubled Fantastic Four, the intervention is so aggressive that it becomes unclear what it means to be the director. (In each such case, studios are careful to stress that the credited director is on-scene and in charge, which is essential to avoid DGA issues. And the wise director plays along. Is this where fans’ ravenous desire for new big-screen material featuring their favourite fantasy icons, and Hollywood’s willingness to sate it for money, has ultimately brought us? Not so long ago, it looked like studios were getting better at making blockbusters: 2015 saw few large-scale duds, and big winners such as Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Jurassic World took box offices by storm. Now, all of a sudden, DC’s malaise looks like it might be feeding into a larger crisis. The Hollywood machine has been infested by gremlins. Looking back at 2015’s big beasts, a pattern emerges. Neither The Force Awakens nor Jurassic World made any real attempt to push the envelope with bold, visionary twists into radical new territory for their respective franchises. In fact, just the opposite. JJ Abrams ripped up Michael Arndt’s original script for the Star Wars sequel and borrowed elements from the original 1977 movie that introduced us all to Luke Skywalker, lightsabers and the Force. Likewise, Jurassic World’s director Colin Trevorrow played heavily on nostalgia for the Steven Spielberg original, even wheeling out everyone’s favourite dino, the T-Rex, to take down his hideous genetically modified successor in the movie’s denouement. He was promptly rewarded with a Star Wars film. Marvel is the model for delivering regular, strong content. Since the release of 2008’s Iron Man, the Disney-owned studio has pumped out roughly two new movies each year, with only the odd semi-dud (such as last year’s Ant Man or 2013’s Thor: The Dark World) to slightly tarnish an overall excellent back catalogue. But is it any coincidence that Marvel president Kevin Feige has increasingly turned away from maverick film-makers (such as Edgar Wright, unceremoniously dumped from Ant-Man in favour of Yes Man’s unheralded Peyton Reed) and towards directors used to turning round movies to quick deadlines? Directors, who quite often, in fact, have their roots in the faster-moving, more collaborative territory of TV. It doesn’t always work. The Dark World was a mess despite being overseen by Game of Thrones regular Alan Taylor, but Marvel hasn’t yet allowed a real critical or box office turkey – a movie as disastrous as Batman v Superman, Fantastic Four or Suicide Squad – to find its way into cinemas. And most of its films have been popular with both reviewers and fans, so clearly something is working. Sticking with the Disney-owned studio, and Joss Whedon’s travails on Avengers: Age of Ultron are well-documented. Yet the creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Firefly had the TV industry nous and film industry standing (after delivering the $1.5bn Avengers) to pull through when a lesser-known director might have buckled. Ultron is not perfect, but it was well-received and didn’t fall far short of its predecessor at the box office. And yet it looks increasingly likely that visionary film-makers such as Whedon may slowly be shifted off these movies. Marvel’s new heroes are Captain America: Civil War directors the Russo brothers, who appear able to work within the confines of the cinematic universe – with its constantly-evolving demands to cater for new superheroes and meet tight deadlines – yet are still capable of delivering the Whedonesque brio and inter-superhero badinage that made the first Avengers film such a high-octane treat. Once again, the Russos’ background is in TV, often seen as the movies’ poor relation. Yet this is now a golden age for the small screen, so why shouldn’t modern Hollywood learn from the only model that turns round new content at the speed it now requires – for Star Wars to deliver a movie a year and for the DC universe to stop throttling itself to death with every new desperate, rushed instalment? In a new era for blockbuster film-making, we may need a new kind of film-maker to stop the disastrous turkeys continuing their relentless march into multiplexes. A little less visionary, a little less maverick, but capable of keeping the good stuff coming with the help of strong screenwriting. Someone with an understanding of how to work within an abiding macro-vision of a multiple-film story arc. A director, in fact, who probably works a lot like David Yates.
ME affects four times as many women as men. Is that why we’re still disbelieved? Today friends and families of people with myalgic encephalopathy (ME) are taking to the streets of cities around the world to call for more funding for medical research and education about ME. I am joining them at the London demonstration of the Millions Missing campaign, outside the Department of Health. Many ME patients are too ill to take part the global day of action, so instead they will leave pairs of shoes in public places as a visual symbol of the millions of lives gone unlived, jobs undone, relationships never formed by people with the disease. I became suddenly ill with ME during my last year of university. It meant I was in constant pain and completely unable to function, struggling to leave my bed once a day to use the toilet. In my 20s, I faced a life in which I was unable to work, or even walk to the other side of the street. But a quarter of the 250,000 people with ME in the UK have more severe symptoms. Some of them are bedridden, for decades, unable to tolerate light or to touch, chew, swallow or talk. Most people – including many doctors – think ME is just extreme tiredness. Also known as chronic fatigue syndrome, ME can have multiple symptoms, ranging from severe muscle pain to digestive, sleep and autonomic problems. A landmark report in 2015 by the American Institute of Medicine defines ME as “an acquired, chronic multi-systemic disease biological in nature” symptoms of which include “immune, neurological and cognitive impairment”. Yet patients are still being dismissed and disbelieved. In the UK, a survey carried out by the ME Association earlier this year found that 46% of patients thought the care provided by their GP was “poor” or “dreadful”. And 18% have no contact with their GPs, often because they have found their doctors have nothing to offer them, or worse – added to their suffering by not taking them seriously. ME affects four times as many women as men, which I believe has greatly affected how the disease is thought about. Two psychiatrists in the 1970s even tried to rename ME as Encephalomyletis Nervosa. Because it mainly affected women, they thought it must be a kind of hysteria. This attitude towards mainly female patients is still present. Sexism is part of the reason why diagnosis remains poor and prospects of treatment years away. I waited a year to see a specialist – only to be told by him that my ME was probably the result of being stressed by the “posh boys” at Oxford. That was the sum total of my treatment, and I was turned away after requesting further care at a different hospital. GPs continue to treat many people with ME as though it were a mental illness, referring patients for cognitive behaviour therapy and exercise. But being pushed to do more physically can make many people with ME worse, and lead to relapses that last for decades. Graded exercise and CBT came to be the standard treatments for patients on the NHS as a result of a hugely controversial £5m trial – known as the Pace trial – which in 2011 claimed that the two treatments could lead to “recovery”. Pace has been internationally condemned, with 42 scientists signing an open letter earlier this year to the editor of The Lancet, stating that the study was “fraught with indefensible methodological problems”. A recent re-analysis of data from the study has shown that graded exercise and CBT did not lead to recovery in patients. Problems with a lack of adequate medical care are compounded by ME patients being failed by the government in other areas. Despite the fact that 85% of people with ME are too ill to work, many struggle to get any benefits. And only 6% of patients are awarded a care package, despite 97% experiencing two or more difficulties with daily living activities. While the UK spends very little money on medical research into ME, there have been some hopeful steps forward in the US, with the National Institute of Health announcing new funding last year. What this will amount to remains to be seen. Breakthroughs are happening. Researchers at the University of California, San Diego, recently published a paper that analysed blood molecules – known as metabolites – in healthy people and people with ME. They found a clear pattern of abnormalities, or a chemical signature in the patients with ME which could be used in future to diagnose patients. Currently there is no single test that can diagnose the condition and it is partly due to this that there is so much controversy. ME patients have been treated with disdain for too long; the institutions that should be there to help and represent us have all too often dismissed our intense physical suffering as hypochondria or hysteria. Yet throughout it all, people with ME have never given up; many have worked (from their beds), exposing bad science and campaigning for their rights. The Millions Missing campaign is calling for the US government to increase funding from $7m to $250m a year. In London, we too are asking for more funding – and better healthcare for the thousands across the UK who are desperately ill. • Comments on this piece will be premoderated
Lloyds under investigation by FCA over possible market rigging The City regulator is investigating whether traders at Lloyds Banking Group manipulated the price of government bonds, in a sign that the authorities are continuing to seek out rigging of key markets. Following a series of fines across the industry for rigging interest rates and foreign exchange markets, the Financial Conduct Authority has been asking Lloyds for information about trading in gilts. The FCA is seeking information about whether Lloyds traders may have tried to bolster profits by driving down the prices of gilts during official auctions or inflating their price when selling them to investors, the Wall Street Journal reported. The government continues to own nearly 10% of Lloyds following its bailout in 2008, when £20bn of taxpayers’ money was used to buy shares. The initial shareholding was 43% and the government is aiming to sell off its remaining shares in the coming months, partly through an offer to retail investors. The FCA, which has recently been accused of going soft on the City after dropping an review into banking culture, declined to comment. Lloyds also said it would not comment on speculation. The bank has previously been fined for manipulating markets. In June 2014, it suspended seven people after being hit with a £226m punishment from regulators in the UK and the US over Libor rigging. Its penalty included the first censure for manipulating prices to deliberately reduce the fees it paid to the Bank of England for emergency funding during the 2008 banking crisis. This involved changing so-called “repo rates”, which had the effect of cutting fees paid for a liquidity scheme. The scale of fines to hit the industry since the 2008 crisis has been highlighted by the Bank of England governor, Mark Carney, who has cited figures showing that about $150bn (£96bn) worth of fines have been imposed on major global banks since the bailouts. These have deprived the real economy of $3tn of credit, he said. The largest fines have been for rigging foreign exchange and Libor markets. It was not clear precisely what period of trading by Lloyds employees the FCA has been concentrating on but the WSJ said it was not part of an industry-wide investigation. The US is also investigating manipulation of its bond market and there have been reports that had also extended to London. Fines levied by the FCA are handed to the Treasury after the government introduced changes in response to the public outcry that followed the fines imposed on Barclays for Libor rigging in June 2012. This was the first major fine and was followed by a wave of other penalties for market manipulation. Barclays has also been fined for failing to prevent the rigging of gold while a former Credit Suisse trader was found to have artificially ramped up the price of a £1.2bn holding in gilts.
Wetherspoon's founder rails at establishment over Brexit vote JD Wetherspoon’s Eurosceptic chairman has attacked the political and economic establishment for doom-laden predictions about the impact of leaving the EU that he said have turned out to be false. Tim Martin took aim at David Cameron, FTSE 100 chief executives, the governor of the Bank of England, City economists and Goldman Sachs in a tirade accompanying the pub chain’s annual results. He also disparaged the CBI, the International Monetary Fund and the OECD. “The overwhelming majority of FTSE 100 companies, the employers’ organisation CBI, the IMF, the OECD, the Treasury, the leaders of all the main political parties and almost all representatives of British universities forecast trouble, often in lurid terms, for the economy in the event of the leave vote,” Martin said. “What I call ‘scare story one’ was that the act of voting leave would cause an immediate and profound downturn in the economy, and that’s been proved to be entirely false.” He said Wetherspoon’s trading had improved since the end of its financial year and suggested that this was caused by sporting success, better weather and the referendum result. Pre-tax profit, excluding one-off items, for the year to 24 July rose by 3.6% to £80.6m, on sales that increased by 5.4%. Martin criticised Cameron and the former chancellor George Osborne for predicting that families would eventually be £4,300 worse off, mortgage rates would rise and house prices would fall after a vote for Brexit. Mark Carney, the Bank’s governor, supported these claims “in terms”, he said. Martin, a longstanding critic of the EU, attacked Paul Johnson, the director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, for saying it was a given that economists were correct in predicting malign consequences from a vote to leave. “This is a strange argument to advance, since consensus forecasts from economists, who generally failed to forecast the last recession or the catastrophic flaws of the euro, are almost always delusional,” he said. Economic surveys since the referendum on 23 June have been mixed. A report showing a recovery in the services industry during August followed a rebound for manufacturing and high street spending. But economists have said the UK could still slip into recession and have warned that higher prices and slowing investment will eventually take their toll. Martin said: “They [the experts] didn’t say ‘in the long run’. The Treasury said interest rates would immediately go up and that it would cause so much uncertainty that unemployment would go up, and there would be an immediate and severe shock. There is only one thing that is definitely true and that is democracy is better for your economy.” Rival pub operator and brewer Greene King was warier about the economy than Martin. In a trading update, the company said consumer confidence and leisure spending were threatened by the referendum result “and we are alert to a potentially tougher trading environment ahead”. Having been proved wrong about the damaging effects of a Brexit vote, Martin said, the establishment was raising unnecessary fears about whether Britain could do a trade deal with the EU and that trade would continue with or without a formal agreement. “‘Scare story two’ is that if we don’t join the single market, we are in deep trouble, and that is across mainstream economists. That is also in my view absolute twaddle,” he said.
Yoga can injure you. Here’s how to find a class that won’t What is yoga? Sport, therapy, or is it a religion? If you’re not a yoga insider and you heard the director of the British Wheel of Yoga (BWY) clash with a Hindu monastic over these questions on the BBC this week, you’d be none the wiser. Their prickly duet sang of a subculture-turned-industry that not only can’t decide which of the three it is, but for decades has based its mystique on the tensions between them. The question prompting this debate is whether or not yoga is ripe for regulatory intervention through a national occupational standard for teachers. The BWY, which has instigated this idea, says yes because yoga is causing physical injury, although it can’t say how much, and because some teacher training courses are too short – although they won’t say which ones. Swami Ambikananda Saraswati says no, because she claims yoga is a religion, and regulation would constitute a “neocolonial” intervention into an ancient tradition. Both suffer from a cultish charisma that outperforms their evidence. When BWY director Paul Fox asserts in scientific terms that yoga practice can deliver medical benefit via expert instruction, but it can also injure people if the instruction is poor, he sounds reasonable. However, data on both the good and bad of yoga postures is thin, because yoga is hard to study. Researchers face huge definitional, methodological and conflict-of-interest obstacles to finding the answers that would-be regulators would require. Whose yoga is being tested is the first question, followed by what that yoga consists of. Yoga tests are impossible to control or double-blind. And from the beginnings of modern yoga in 1930s India, researchers have been invested in positive outcomes. Many have been self-promoting teachers, propagandists, unwitting pseudoscientists, or a blend of the lot. I can understand Fox’s warnings about injuries. When I started publishing on yoga, I too used to be outraged that people were getting hurt by yoga when they were looking for something that made them feel better. But I quickly realised my concern was about something deeper than the torn hamstrings and shoulder dislocations that could more easily happen at the gym or playing tennis. I learned that what little hard data we have shows that injury rates in yoga are quite low. And in more than 200 interviews with subjects injured doing yoga, I’ve found that “expert” teaching is as much a predictor of injury as a preventer. Why? Because those “experts” who led yoga’s globalisation in the 1970s had some downright medieval ideas about the human body. Renowned yoga practitioner BKS Iyengar suggested that placing the full weight of the body on to one’s head in headstand was a great idea among other things. Pattabhi Jois – Fox’s own root-guru – named his joint-punishing Ashtanga Primary Series Therapy for the Body. Along with the echoes of their abusive childhoods, they passed these axioms down through harrowing training regimes in which devotion served as tuition. My research has led me to believe that if there are injuries to worry about, they’re not primarily from particular postures or inadequate teacher training. They come from dysfunctional learning relationships in which the abusive attitudes and behaviours of top teachers are internalised by students. I’d be less interested in the resumés of ordinary British yoga teachers than in sussing out how to prevent personality cults which risk normalising questionable teaching methods. Think of Iyengar’s habit of slapping students to correct their positions . For her part, Swami Ambikananda Saraswati seems keen on a different kind of micromanagement: to protect the image of yoga from business-oriented interlopers. But when she claims that she stewards a 5,000-year-old tradition that’s religious in nature, and Hindu in essence, and that regulating it would continue the barbarity of the British Raj, she stretches the ligaments of credulity. Her argument must surely make atheist, agnostic, Buddhist and Muslim yogis nervous, even as it neglects to note that regulatory oversight might have prevented some branches of yoga from falling into sociopathy cloaked by traditionalism. Regulating yoga teaching could even protect her own school. Her Traditional Yoga Association claims its spiritual heritage through relationship to Swami Sivananda. Unfortunately, so does the Satyananda school of yoga, which has been rocked by allegations in Australia of historical child sexual abuse. Yet, Swami Ambikananda is right to say the BWY’s regulatory initiative is needless. Questions of physical safety in yoga classes are working themselves out through simple market pressures. Many teacher training courses now hire physiotherapists or osteopaths to teach anatomy and physiology, and the new buzzwords of yogaland are “biomechanics”, “functional movement” and “trauma sensitivity”. Consensus is sure to develop around touchy issues like the safety of the headstand, heated studios or passive stretching. This will happen because people want it to happen, not because organisations like the BWY says it must. While it all shakes out, people who just want to feel the loveliness of yoga can remember a few simple pointers. If you move with the simplicity and curiosity of a small child, you’re unlikely to hurt yourself. If a teacher seems to have an agenda for your body you don’t understand or didn’t consent to, they need to go to therapy. Yoga bureaucrats cannot guarantee yoga safety. Nor can yoga priests. But if you seek out independent, low-key teachers who don’t put on airs and don’t lay their trips on your body, you might feel they naturally offer something that neither regulation nor religion can guarantee: humility.
Crystal Palace 0-1 West Ham United: Premier League – as it happened That feels like a huge moment in West Ham’s season. In fact, it feels like the start of their season. They showed their class in the first half, when Lanzini scored a lovely goal, and their resilience and spirit in the second when Palace bombed them and Aaron Cresswell was sent off. The three centre-halves all played well but Winston Reid was magnificent. Thanks for your company, night. West Ham end their miserable run with a fine victory. 90+3 min Great save from Adrian! Townsend hit a wicked inswinging cross from the right that was headed towards goal from close range by the stretching Wickham at the far post. Adrian reacted superbly to tip it over the bar. 90+1 min There will be four added minutes. 90 min A superb deep cross from Cabaye is headed by Benteke onto Nortdveit and behind for a corner. Adrian claims the corner superbly under pressure. I’d like to see that again but the first header looked like a really good chance for Benteke. 88 min Another West Ham change: Havard Nordtveit replaces the goalscorer Lanzini. 87 min Calleri draws a witless foul from Delaney to buy West Ham a bit of time. 86 min Another West Ham substitution: the willing Zaza is replaced by Jonathan Calleri. 85 min Obiang has had an outstanding game in midfield for West Ham. Meanwhile, Benteke’s snap-volley from 18 yards bobbles well wide. 83 min West Ham have gone to a 4-4-1/8-0-1 formation now. Cresswell’s two yellow cards look more scandalous with each viewing. We’ll hear plenty about them if West Ham don’t win. 81 min A brilliant inswinging corner from Puncheon is headed over by Benteke, six yards from goal. He should have scored. Adrian came from the ball and was nowhere near it, so there was a lot of the goal to aim at. 78 min Dimitri Payet, who was majestic in patches, is replaced by Edimilson Fernandes. 77 min The more I see that second Cresswell incident, the less sure I am that it merited a yellow card. And as for the first one. 76 min The resulting free-kick is taken by Cabaye, and dips over a number of heads before hitting the unsighted Tomkins and dribbling towards goal. Adrian moves smartly across his line to save. That is incredible. Cresswell gets his second yellow card in a minute for fouling Zaha on the right wing. Hmm. That one is probably a yellow card but the first looked harsh. 74 min Payet’s corner flashes across the face of his goal and is headed off the post by Antonio! Cresswell is then booked for diving in the area after a challenge from Cabaye. There might have been contact you know. 73 min Zaza runs 30 yards to win the ball off Puncheon, starting a move that eventually leads to a West Ham corner. Zaza certainly has galootish qualities but his work-rate is so impressive. 71 min Puncheon’s deep cross is headed back across goal by Benteke, and Reid chests it back to Adrian from six yards. That was superb defending, if not good for the blood pressure of the average West Ham fan. 70 min Wickham replaces McArthur, so Palace will switch to a 4-4-2 formation now. 68 min West Ham are hanging on a little now, and Palace are preparing to bring on Connor Wickham. 64 min This is Palace’s best spell of the match, and Opta stats show that 94.21 per cent of West Ham fans just know their team will lose 2-1. Zaha appeals for a penalty after falling over in the box. No dice, soldier. 62 min Ogbonna is booked for fouling Zaha on the right wing. “I hate to say it but that’s a brilliant foul,” says Owen Hargreaves on BT, and he’s right because Zaha was breaking into a very dangerous area. 59 min Zaza has put in an heroic shift up front. If he can get some confidence back he will become a West Ham cult hero. 58 min Townsend curls straight at Adrian from 25 yards. 55 min Another chance for Payet! Lanzini surged through the Palace defence and, though he overran the ball slightly, he was able to slide and steer the ball back to Payet as Mandanda came to meet him on the edge of the six-yard box. Payet took his time before hitting a shot that Mandanda did well to beat away. 54 min Cabaye steals possession inside West Ham’s half before shooting well wide from 20 yards. He has given Palace’s midfield a bit more urgency. 52 min Antonio goes on a brilliant run infield before finding Zaza in the box. He gets it back on to his left foot but takes too long and eventually his shot is blocked. 51 min That was a chance for West Ham. Lanzini clipped a lovely first-time pass over the defence to put Payet clear on the right of the box, but Payet’s first touch was fractionally heavy and Mandanda came from his line to claim the ball. 49 min It’s been an excellent start to the second half by West Ham, who are pressing Palace high up the pitch at the moment. 49 min “What do you make of Bilic?” says Matt Collins. “Is he as great as his personality suggests, or will he join Pardew, Zola and others as a manager capable of one good season with West Ham but no more?” I think he’s better than that. In a sane world he would be West Ham manager for the next 10-15 years. 48 min Benteke is booked for inflicting pain on Winston Reid. 47 min “Accidentally wandered into a pub full of south London winners here in NYC watching the game and having a massive row about who is/was better - Messi or Maradona,” says Rachel Clifton. “Only momentarily paused by that bloody terrible penalty.” She didn’t say ‘winners’. Also, anyone who thinks Messi is better than Maradona should be banned from flapping their gums for a week. 46 min Peep peep! West Ham begin the second half, kicking from left to right. Palace have made a double half-time substitution: Yohan Cabaye for Joe Ledley, and Zeki Fryers for Martin Kelly. Half-time chit-chat “Evening Rob,” says Matt Loten. “As we approach half-time in what has been a thoroughly entertaining day of football, I feel as though today’s fare has perfectly encapsulated the promise that this season held before it kicked off. Just the odd point separating the teams as the top; Guardiola and Koeman engaged in the sort of continental tactical battle we’ve sorely lacked for years; Arsene Wenger suddenly deciding the league is competitive enough to bother with; and goals flying in left, right and centre. Could this be the most exciting iteration of the Greatest League in the World ™ since football began in 1992?” It’s such a subjective thing and there’s no right or wrong answer, not even on Twitter. But in ma opinion the best Premier League seasons have been 1998-99 and 2001-02; and although this season has been terrific so far, I can’t see it matching those. Benteke heads against the outside of the post with the last touch of the half! Palace came to life in the last couple of minutes and would be level but for a comedy missed penalty from Benteke. Adrian had already dived to his right, so Benteke only had to roll the ball into the other side of the net. Instead he put it wide. See you in 10 minutes for the second half. Oh my goodness. Benteke strolled towards the ball, sat Adrian down, and then sidefooted wide of the post! Ogbonna is penalised for a stupid tackle on Benteke. 44 min Lanzini plays a neat give-and-go with Zaza and wallops a low shot from 25 yards that is well held by Mandanda. Zaza has his limitations, particularly from 12 yards, but he is admirably game. 43 min Ward bursts down the right to win a corner for Palace. Puncheon’s inswinger is headed clear by Kouyate. 40 min “In Zurich train station (bahnoff!) using the free wi-fi to get the football scores,” writes PB. “I’m specifically in the customer service lounge because it’s warmer than being on the main concourse. Everyone might well be nattering about West Ham but I don’t speak German so it’s difficult to tell.” Is anyone jogging on the spot? If so it’s almost certainly a tribute to Zaza in the form of physical banter. 39 min Palace have had more of the ball but only the most one-eyed eejit would deny that West Ham have been the better side. Palace must need to find a way to get Benteke into the game. 37 min A superb outswinging corner from Payet is headed down into the ground by a combination of Zaza and Ward, from where it bounces onto the roof of the net for another corner. That one is headed away. 36 min “I’m out here!” writes Chris Lewis. “In Tehran actually. Currently two weeks into a tour of Iran, lovely country and I’ve never been anywhere where the people are so friendly. When I mention I’m from England all they want to talk about is football. I say I’m a West Ham fan and Paolo Di Canio’s name invariably comes up but Payet’s name soon follows. Payet’s genius has reached Iran.” Any mention of George Parris? 33 min Payet’s booming inswinging free-kick from the left is headed a few yards wide by Zaza, jockeying for position near the penalty spot. 30 min Thus far West Ham, and Reid in particular, have handled Benteke excellently. 28 min Lovely play from Townsend, who beats Cresswell with a stepover and floats an inviting ball beyond the far post. Zaha was coming in on it but Noble got there first to head behind for a corner. 27 min Townsend on the right swings a long, inswinging cross towards the far post, where Kouyate does superbly to head clear despite having Benteke’s elbow in the side of his face. 26 min Anyone out there? 25 min Palace win their first corner, which will be taken by Puncheon on the right. Reid heads clear. 21 min It’s still hosing down at Selhurst Park, and so far the pitch has held up extremely well. Cresswell and Payet combined on the left, with Payet doodling for a bit before slipping it down the line. Cresswell sidefooted a fierce low cross towards the near post, where Lanzini, arriving late into the box, opened his body to steer the ball into the far corner. It was a lovely finish and a lovely cross from Cresswell, who has had a storming start to this game. West Ham take a deserved lead with a terrific goal. 17 min Payet is so good to watch. There hasn’t been a player like him in the Premier League since Matt Le Tissier. 14 min Payet’s right-wing corner slithers through a couple of defenders at the near post, and Antonio is in the process of attempting to hook it towards goal when Ledley puts it behind for another corner. That was a crucial interception. Payet’s outswinger is met by the head of Kouyate, who heads it whence it came and just wide of the post. West Ham have been terrific thus far. 11 min It really is John Cusack weather at Selhurst Park. In an ideal world, all football would be played in pouring rain. 9 min Zaha misses an excellent chance for Palace. Townsend’s long-range shot was blocked by Reid, with the ball rebounding to Puncheon near the halfway line. He slipped a fine through pass to Zaha, in all sorts of space just inside the box. Zaha got the ball out of his feet efficiently enough but then dragged a low shot a few yards wide of the far post from 15 yards. 8 min West Ham will be pleased with this start. Palace haven’t been able to build anything resembling pressure, whereas West Ham look dangerous. An elaborate drag-flick from Payet finds Lanzini, who tries to slide it through to Zaza. The big man is on his heels and the moment passes. 6 min After another good run from Cresswell, Zaza’s low shot from 18 yards is comfortably held by the tumbling Mandanda. 4 min Cresswell marauds into space down the left onto Obiang’s insouciant pass, leaving Zaha in his slipstream before rifling a rising shot into the side netting at the near post. Mandanda had it covered but that was a decent effort and a fine run. 3 min The keeper Mandanda has just dribbled past Zaza. That’s the highlight so far. 2 min The West Ham team looks so much stronger with Cresswell and Lanzini in the starting XI. If they restore some order to their season in the next month, they could still easily finish in the top seven. But if they don’t, and somebody does something silly involving Slaven Bilic and a P45, they could end up reliving the nightmare of 2002-03. 1 min Martin Atkinson puts his whistle to his lips, and Crystal Palace kick off from left to right. They are in red and blue; West Ham are in white. “Bilic played this system in the win over Spurs in March,” writes our very own Jacob Steinberg. “Didn’t work against Arsenal in April, though.” Any mention of the history of this fixture usually means one thing: everybody starts googling pictures of Neil Shipperley. It’s pelting down at Selhurst Park. This match was always likely to be on the primal side, and the rain will help with that. Crystal Palace (4-2-3-1) Mandanda; Ward, Tomkins, Delaney, Kelly; McArthur, Ledley; Zaha, Puncheon, Townsend; Benteke. Substitutes: Hennessey, Fryers, Cabaye, Lee, Sako, Wickham, Campbell. West Ham (3-4-2-1) Adrian; Reid, Kouyate, Ogbonna; Antonio, Obiang, Noble, Cresswell; Lanzini, Payet; Zaza. Substitutes: Spiegel, Nordtveit, Feghouli, Collins, Fletcher, Carreri, Fernandes. Hello. After all their problems at the London Stadium, West Ham might be quietly glad of an away game. But they won’t find much goodwill at Selhurst Park, where Crystal Palace would derive considerable pleasure from keeping their London rivals in the relegation places. Palace are in terrific form, unbeaten in five after losing their first two league games, while West Ham have been fifty shades of shambles for most of the season. They will hope that Dimitri Payet’s amazing goal two weeks ago, which gave them a point against Middlesbrough, is a turning point in their season. If they keep losing, however, it won’t be long before somebody utters the phrase that has chilled West Ham fans since 2002-03: that they are too good to go down. Kick off is at 5.30pm.
Brooklyn producers: 'A lot of the untold stories are female' In the more than eight decades the Academy Awards have existed, only 10 British films have taken home the trophy for best film. Not a single one has had a female lead. But this year, the two UK films nominated in the best film category – Brooklyn, starring Saoirse Ronan, and Room, starring Brie Larson – are attempting to overturn the gender-skewed precedent, both boasting strong female performances. For the two-woman producing team behind Brooklyn, Amanda Posey and Finola Dwyer, this is not the first time their film has challenged the status quo. In 2009, their first co-produced film, the female-led An Education, was also nominated for the best picture Oscar, though it lost out to The Hurt Locker. Dwyer said she was drawn to adapting Colm Tóibín’s novel, which tells the story of Éilís, a young Irish woman who travels from Ireland to Brooklyn in the 1950s, because it resonated with her own family background. Dwyer’s mother travelled from Ireland to New Zealand in the same period as the novel is set. “Brooklyn was such a personal story for me – it was my mum’s story and it was my story to some extent.” However, she and Posey were also struck by the unique perspective on the Irish immigrant experience born from having a narrative unfold through the eyes of a young woman. “There’s never been an immigration story from a female’s perspective, where she hasn’t been diseased, or had to prostitute herself, or been very vulnerable in some way,” said Dwyer. Posey said that with films such as An Education and Brooklyn, as well as their current project, Their Finest Hour and a Half, which is set during the Blitz in 1941 and stars Gemma Arterton, it was not simply that they wanted to take on projects that pointedly championed gender equality on screen. “We are always looking to tell something from a fresh perspective and with a fresh insight and it just so happens that, because of the way history is told, a lot of the untold stories are female. We are drawn to it from a storytelling point of view rather than specifically because it is based around women,” said Posey. She said in an industry that churned out films with two-dimensional characters “sadly too many of those roles are for women.” In an industry that is still male-dominated both in the UK and in Hollywood, where women directed just 7% of the top 250 grossing films and only 23% were directed by women, Posey and Dwyer acknowledge that their female-run production company is something of an exception. “Every aspect of my career has been majority male and I suppose you just get used to that,” said Dwyer. “We might still be the exception but hopefully we are helping to pave the way and be an example of what you can do as a woman in this industry. I don’t think we stop to think about it too much, we just get on with it.” Both producers said they felt the gender imbalance was most stark when it came to directors. “When we draw up lists of directors for our projects, you can really see how few female options there are,” said Posey. “It can be pretty shocking.” She said in an industry that was always focused on the next big thing, it was still very unforgiving on women who took any time away from their careers to have children, and she said a change of attitude was needed. Dwyer’s whole career was shaped by the sexism that dominated the film industry when she started out in New Zealand. Having wanted initially to be behind the camera, she was told that was a man’s job, and so instead turned to editing, before becoming a producer. She acknowledged that even though things had progressed since then, “an overall shift” was needed to make the film industry more representative. Both Posey and Dwyer said they hoped the box office success of Brooklyn, which has taken $35m (£25m) in the US, would make distributors and investors realise that female-driven films were not “too risky”. As well as Their Finest Hour and a Half, the producing pair are also adapting Jon Ronson’s book The Psychopath Test, which will star Scarlett Johansson. They are also beginning work on a TV spin-off of Brooklyn, which will be based around the Brooklyn boarding house and see Julie Walters revive her role as Mrs Keogh. Unlike the film, it will not be written by Nick Hornby and the director has yet to be decided. Dwyer said the idea of developing Brooklyn beyond the big screen had come to her early on, even before the film’s massive box-office success. “That will be a fun project,” she said. “It was such an interesting time in America politically, and while we couldn’t really delve into that in the film, the TV series will be a chance to explore the cultural and social backdrop of the book.”
Subterranean sonic blues? A journey through the first ever London Underground sound map We’ve seen plenty of alternative maps of the London Underground, from those plotting average rents by station, to those charting life expectancy at every stop. But what about sound? A group of musicians and sound artists have this week launched the first ever interactive “sound map” of the London Underground, capturing the shrieks, grinds and general patter of 55 tube stations across the capital. It’s a noisy old world down there – from the “mind the gap” announcements to Londoners’ idiosyncratic curses and drunken late night conversations over illicit tinnies. This is precisely what The Next Station project, the work of Cities and Memory and The London Sound Survey, spent three months earlier this year gathering. And as well as capturing the real-life aural experience, sound artists from around the world were then invited to remix and reimagine the field recordings and create an alternative sound map to complement the real one – you can listen to all of them in one interactive feature. So why make a sound map of the places we would all rather spend as little time thinking about as possible? Stuart Fowkes, a sound artist and the project’s creator, says London’s underground noises are iconic: “not just nationally but on a global scale” – for residents, tourists, and watchers of London-based films alike. The tube, Fowkes says, defines London in a way that public transport networks in other cities don’t. Clicking through the sound map, you’ll hear a surprising range of noises: a didgeridoo player at Stratford, someone offering free hugs at Brixton and a bagpipe busker at King’s Cross – as well as all the announcements and clattering train noises that you’d expect. “You might think that one underground station sounds much like another,” says Fowkes, “but they’re as characterful as pet dogs once you get to know them.” King’s Cross would be a yappy terrier, then. Brixton an affectionate labrador. And sound matters – what we hear every day on our commute is as much a part of our quotidian experience as our morning coffee. There’s the impact loud noises can have on our ears, for one. An expert working in 2004 recorded sound levels louder than a pneumatic drill on parts of the tube – loud enough to damage the hearing. Then there’s also the psychological impact of sound: though we might classify many of the noises on the tube as stressful, Fowkes insists they can be reassuring in their familiarity, keeping the whole system moving like clockwork: “the details like the intonation of the automated announcements communicate ‘everything is well’ to commuters subconsciously … the trundle of the escalators, the closing of the sliding doors are all as rhythmic as a heartbeat, and become part of Londoners’ natural functions when they’re underground.” This idea of the importance of acoustic ecology is not new – R Murray Schafer, considered the father of the debate around it, began talking about the (damaging) effects of sound, especially on people dwelling in the “sonic sewers” he believed cities to be, back in the 1970s. “Noises are the sounds we have learned to ignore,” he wrote. So perhaps this focus on the tube’s sounds will help Londoners occasionally listen, as well as simply hear, the underground aural landscape. “There’s no blue plaque system for preserving important sounds”, Fowkes says, even though “sounds change as much as visual cityscapes, and today’s sounds are tomorrow’s history.” Perhaps it makes sense that we should be working to archive the soon-to-be-lost sounds of our cities. The remixed sounds on the London Underground sound map – added to “help people to appreciate how sound can form source material for some interesting art,” Fowkes says – are intriguing, if a little high concept. With the field recording made at Piccadilly Circus, Swedish sound artist Anya Trybala has crafted a composition meant to be a meditation on Brexit. Composer and artist Martin A. Smith has reimagined Moorgate by mixing recordings the Northern line with the sound of cigales and church bells recorded in forests in Provence. And with the tube now rumbling through the night into the early hours, will we see this soundscape changing? “From a field recording perspective, the night tube is really exciting,” Fowkes says. He’s planning to head out, recorder in hand, and capture some of these nocturnal tube sounds. Who wouldn’t want to hear Londoners’ late night, post-party deep and meaningfuls mixed over the sound of Provençal cicadas? Cities and Memory is continuing to capture sounds, not just below ground, but also above ground in London and in other cities in 55 countries across the globe. Fowkes’ ambition is to “help people appreciate the joy of the sounds that surround them every day.” So maybe then we can stop grimacing at the shriek of the Victoria line as it passes through Pimlico? Perhaps not. But maybe we can look more kindly on that King’s Cross bagpiper at quarter to nine on a Monday morning. Listen to the London Underground sound map here. Follow Cities on Twitter and Facebook to join the discussion
European shares recover after five days of losses European shares clawed bank some of their losses after a five-day losing streak caused by jitters about next week’s referendum on the UK’s membership of the European Union. Illustrating the volatility gripping stock markets, the FTSE 100 gained 43 points, or 0.7%, to reach 5,966 after reaching a high for the month of 6,300 last week. The pan-European Stoxx 600 index rose 0.9%, recovering some of the €600bn (£477bn) it had lost over the previous five days. British housebuilders such as Taylor Wimpey and Berkeley held back a stronger rally after Berkeley said there was a 20% drop in reservations of new homes at the start of the year, due partly to concerns over Britain’s EU vote. Sterling gained ground for the first time in more than a week, rising by up to half a per cent against the dollar after George Osborne promised a flurry of tax rises and spending cuts to shore up the government’s finances in the event of a Brexit vote. Traders said expectations of a dovish statement from the US Federal Reserve were also calming the market, after the UK’s better-than-expected wages and employment data prodded sterling to a day’s high of $1.4196. The Fed’s interest rate-setting committee indicated that a rise was still some way off after the pace of job growth slowed in recent months, even as the overall economy picked up speed. The Fed, which could opt to raise rates next month, said in a possible reference to the Brexit vote that it needed a clearer picture of economic developments before increasing rates again.
Henry Rollins review – heartfelt insights and the day he met a fan called Bowie Rollins has barely started this spoken-word performance when he starts talking about David Bowie. A heartfelt tribute morphs into an anecdote, from 1997, when his Rollins Band appeared on the same bill as Bowie at a festival, where the former punk found himself gazing silently at his hero in a foyer, like he was watching a rare bird. “Then he stops, turns and looks right at me. He says, ‘Rollins!’ I’m like, ‘David?!’ Implausibly, it turns out that Bowie was a Rollins fan, and ended up quoting the younger man’s books and even interview quotes back at him over lunch, during which an increasingly incredulous Rollins casually mentioned that he’d love to meet Lou Reed. A few weeks later, he was at home in his solitary “man-hole” when the phone rang. “Henry. It’s Lou Reed. David said you wanted to talk.” It’s an eyebrow-elevating but lovely story, which is typical of this three-hour marathon, during which Rollins uses the vehicle of an awed fan who got lucky to deliver heartfelt insights, self-deprecating comedy and walloping home truths. The time flies, because Rollins’s delivery is every bit as honed and intense as when he “waged war” with Black Flag and the Rollins Band. Now 55 – something he seems preoccupied by – and grey, he no longer rampages around the stage, but his wordplay hurtles across countless subjects. He discourses on everything from Los Angeles hairdressers (“They ask, ‘How do you feel about your hair?’ I tell them I want it off my head”) and his cameos in awful movies to the Newcastle cold and how punk rock brought liberation from his racist father. One minute we’re in Antarctica – among penguin poo (his big concern now is global warming), the next in Lemmy’s small LA apartment. It turns out Rollins knew the late Motörhead singer too, and predictable yarns about the rock band’s unfeasible capacity for alcohol give way to valuable insights on loneliness and freedom. There are moments where it’s difficult to know where he’s going with something, but not many. If overarching themes emerge, it’s that “big-balled” macho Americans who hate science, socialists and “your Kenyan trickster president” are the bane of humanity and that science about approaching environmental doom is “50 times worse than the reports”. After explaining why he visits the countries Dubya Bush warned him not to, he pulls everything together with a final thought: that travel and experience of other cultures offers a route to humanity’s salvation. “I meet too many good people to believe that all is lost.” • Rollins’ Charmingly Obstinate tour visits Bridgewater Hall, Manchester, tonight. Box office: 0161-907 9000. Then touring.
Brexit vote divides Europe's leaders as splits emerge on timing of talks Divisions are opening among Europe’s leaders over how to handle Britain’s exit from the union, as the European parliament president called on the UK to “deliver now” on its Brexit vote but a key aide to Angela Merkel insisted London should “take the time to reconsider the consequences”. As government and EU advisers on Sunday began preparing next week’s crunch summit, the US secretary of state, John Kerry, is due to fly to Brussels and London on Monday for urgent talks. Kerry urged both Britain and the EU to “minimise disruption” by negotiating the divorce responsibly. Martin Schulz, the president of the EU parliament, led the call for formal exit talks to be launched as early as Tuesday. “We expect the British government to deliver now,” he told Germany’s Bild am Sonntag. “The summit on Tuesday is the appropriate moment to do so.” Cameron is due to explain the UK’s position at a summit dinner on Tuesday night but will then leave, taking no part in the talks with leaders of the bloc’s 27 remaining members on Wednesday. The European commission president, Jean-Claude Juncker, has also warned London not to drag things out. Talks should start “immediately”, he said. An EU source told the that Juncker had called David Cameron on Friday to say the prime minister should trigger article 50 immediately, beginning a two-year negotiating process leading to the UK’s departure. Cameron said in his resignation speech he would leave that task to his successor, expected to be named by October. Juncker told him “the decision of the British people was crystal clear, and the only logical step would be to implement their will as soon as possible,” the source said. But EU officials said any chance of exit talks beginning imminently was slight. EU lawyers have reached the unanimous view that a member state cannot be forced to take the “grave and irreversible” step of starting the article 50 process, an EU source said, adding that notification “has to be done in an unequivocal manner with the explicit intent to trigger article 50”. London will, however, come under heavy political pressure to launch talks by the autumn – and the EU seems minded to refuse overtures for informal talks before the process is officially launched, an option prominent Leave supporters including Boris Johnson are counting on. “Negotiations on leaving and the future relationship can only begin after formal notification,” another EU source said. In a flurry of further diplomatic activity, Donald Tusk, the European council president who will chair the summit, is due to meet France’s president, François Hollande, on Monday morning, then travel to Berlin to meet Merkel, the German chancellor, and the Italian prime minister, Matteo Renzi, in the afternoon. With frustrations mounting at Britain’s seeming reluctance to begin divorce proceedings, Merkel has called for calm, businesslike discussions, making clear the timing should be up to London. But other European capitals, EU leaders and her own government are pushing for a rapid exit. Merkel’s chief of staff, Peter Altmaier, said politicians in Britain should “take the time to reconsider the consequences of the Brexit decision - but by that I emphatically do not mean Brexit itself”. Europe should “wait for this to happen with calm”, he said. The former Finnish prime minister, Alexander Stubb, also said the EU should not push Britain too fast into launching a formal exit procedure. “This will be an extremely complicated set of negotiations,” Stubb said. “After the initial shock, we should take it easy and be patient, one step at a time. We should not be childish in thinking about punishing the UK.” Britain would end up with a Norway-type deal retaining close economic ties with the EU, but without a say on decision-making, he predicted. The foreign ministers of the EU’s six founding members, however, want Britain to start proceedings “as soon as possible” to avoid a long and potentially damaging period of uncertainty for the already weakened bloc. The Dutch foreign minister, Bert Koenders, told the Volkskrant on Sunday: “We can’t have the kind of dithering Boris Johnson is suggesting. Everyone wants clarity: people, businesses, financial markets.” France’s foreign minister, Jean-Marc Ayrault, said Cameron should be replaced in “a few days”. The German vice chancellor, Sigmar Gabriel, told the Handelsblatt business newspaper the EU would not be making any fresh offers. “The British have now decided to go. We will not hold talks about what the EU can still offer the Britons to keep them in,” he said, describing Cameron’s decision to call the referendum “a grand and historic blunder” and saying he should step down soon. Senior representatives – so-called sherpas – of the EU member states were meeting in Brussels on Sunday to prepare the 24-hour summit. After Britain’s EU commissioner, Jonathan Hill, resigned on Saturday, Juncker plans to meet the remaining 27 on Monday. London and Brussels have conflicting priorities: the EU wants minimum economic disruption, implying a swift UK exit, and is also concerned that any fresh concessions made to Britain run the risk of a domino effect in other Eurosceptic member states that could end up wrecking the union. Britain will be eager to obtain the best possible terms for its departure – which are highly unlikely to be negotiated in just two years. Several leading figures in the Vote Leave campaign have said informal talks must precede any formal triggering of the two-year article 50 time limit. Amid rising irritation in Brussels, EU officials have said London does not need to send a formal letter to begin the procedure but could do so by making a formal statement, possibly at next week’s summit. France and Germany have reportedly drawn up a 10-page document outlining three key areas – security; migration and refugees; and jobs and growth – for members to address at the summit in an attempt to shore up the 60-year-old union, which faces the risk of unravelling following Britain’s vote to leave. French and German industry groups said on Sunday that Brexit had plunged Europe into “turbulence” and called for stronger political and economic cooperation led by Berlin and Paris. “Europe must reunite, recover its confidence and go on the offensive,” the leaders of Germany’s powerful BDI and BDA industry groups and France’s Medef employers federation wrote in a joint appeal in the Journal du Dimanche. Tusk on Saturday appointed a Belgian diplomat, Didier Seeuws, to start work on coordinating future negotiations with Britain.
Arsène Wenger in row with Ronald Koeman after Arsenal-Southampton draw Arsène Wenger was involved in a tunnel row with the Southampton manager Ronald Koeman after frustrations boiled over at the end of Tuesday night’s goalless draw at the Emirates. The Arsenal manager is reported to have confronted the referee, Lee Mason, and the fourth official, Craig Pawson, outside the dressing rooms to complain about several decisions Wenger claimed were missed as Arsenal lost ground in the title race. The Daily Mail reported the Frenchman complaining to Mason: “It’s always the same with you.” Koeman, however, saw the exchange and intervened, telling Wenger: “And it’s always the same with you. You had 10 chances to score and couldn’t take any of them so why have a go at them?” The 0-0 draw left Arsenal five points adrift of the Premier League leaders Leicester City, who beat Liverpool 2-0, and saw them drop a place to fourth, below Tottenham Hotspur, who won 3-0 at Norwich City.
Watch X-Men's Evan Peters and Green Lantern's Ryan Reynolds star in TV ads BT Broadband: ‘Ryan Reynolds’ (starts at 00:04) - UK Green Lantern’s Ryan Reynolds demonstrates his flair for comedy as he becomes the latest star to appear in BT Broadband’s ‘Behind the Scenes’ campaign. Playing a version of himself written by the pretend creative team, he describes how he needs an internet provider able to keep up with his fast-lane lifestyle before his flow is interrupted by a twist written by the actual creative team! Agency: Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO Director: Nick Jasenovec Sky Fibre: ‘X-Men’ (starts at 00:37) - UK Evan Peters (X-Men: Apocalypse) reprises his role as Quicksilver in this impressively crafted commercial for Sky Fibre broadband which was directed by Brian Smrz – the second unit director of the popular superhero franchise. As you’d expect, there’s some nifty special effects for fans of these films to savour. Agency: WCRS Director: Brian Smrz Foster’s: ‘Dry Cleaners’ (starts at 01:31) - UK The young man at the centre of this funny commercial for Foster’s has discovered that his job at a dry cleaners allows him to be anyone he wants to be. Like a modern day Mr Benn, he pops on a costume and adopts the persona of the man who would normally wear it... and he’s not above taking advantage of any misplaced generosity that comes his way. Agency: adam&eveDDB Director: Gary Freedman Hennessy: ‘A New Further’ (starts at 02:35) - UK This stunning advert for Hennessy tells the story of two generations of the Piccard family – a clan seemingly destined to chart the great unknown. We’re propelled into the heavens as Auguste Piccard begins his historic flight up, up, and up in 1931 before son Jacques embarks on his own record-breaking expedition several decades later. Agency: Droga5 (New York) Director: Daniel Wolfe Jason Stone is the editor of David Reviews
Targets, paperwork and scrutiny don't make us better social workers No-one ever tried to performance manage Mahatma Ghandi. Mother Teresa didn’t have to fill out quarterly reports. Martin Luther King Jnr wasn’t concerned by key performance indicators. And on that basis, as great as these figures were as agents of social change, none of them would land a job in public services these days. Two mantras I’ve often come across as a social worker are: “If you didn’t record it, you didn’t do it” and: “What gets measured gets done.” Both of which make you wonder how much more Nelson Mandela might have achieved had he been filling out the right forms. But, then, what am I saying? Times are different. We live in an age of accountability and, of course, you should expect a social worker to have performance targets. Everyone else has them. A friend of mine, working in a call centre, used to return home from work each night horrified that even the length of his toilet breaks were monitored. Social services hasn’t got that far yet. But most other parameters of our work are recorded; how often we see a client, the length of time we spend with them, what the nature of each visit is. And I’m not saying this is a bad thing. We’re a public service. You have a right to know how well we’re performing. But does it actually work? I’d say it’s questionable. There’s often a powerful mismatch between the information an organisation wants and what frontline staff can actually provide without impairing their ability to do the job. It’s a pain. You’re trying to get on with seeing clients but there’s this constant tugging at the shirtsleeve. Another survey, another questionnaire, another tick box, another form – unceasing demands to know what you’re up to. A belief has arisen that the more a job is scrutinised, the better it will be done. And, up to a point that’s true. But with the dawn of the computer age, when all it takes is the workforce tapping in some new data, there’s no limit to what senior managers will ask for. Timescales for seeing clients are a big one, but you can also record how quickly documents are completed, how complete these documents actually are, how long social workers spend with clients, how long they spend in meetings talking about clients, and then, from drop down boxes, what was the purpose of talking about the client. That’s what senior managers want to know. And, then, from another drop down box, what was the outcome? When you opened your mouth, was it a good use of hot air? Everything is outcome based. I once tried to use my dog for animal therapy with clients. She was taken to the vets, given a clean bill of health, assessed as being of good temperament and issued with a certificate. But before Tilly could step over the threshold, a business plan had to be assembled. What was the measurement for success? What data were we going to collect before bringing in a Labrador that we were also going to collect post-Labrador visit, to demonstrate it was a good idea? Imagine if this applied to guide dogs. How many times would a person have to be run over, and on what paperwork would this all have to be recorded, before someone thought it a good idea to help? Sometimes the need, and the help required, is self-evident. But we’re venturing into a world where good judgement isn’t enough. All that matters are the statistics and how these can be used to demonstrate good performance. Yet, harvesting all this takes time, and that inevitably takes away from performance. It doesn’t add to it. Am I the only one to realise that? Once – and I promise I’m not making this up – I attended a meeting in which a secretary with a stopwatch timed how long everyone talked so she could compile a spreadsheet. Senior staff then reviewed this at a week-long event, so they could see whether meetings could be run more efficiently. I despair. As a public service we need to perform well, no question. But if Martin Luther King Jnr had taken this approach to organise his march from Selma, he wouldn’t have got as far as putting on his shoes. The Social Life Blog is written by people who work in or use social care services. If you’d like to write an article for the series, email socialcare@theguardian.com with your ideas. Join the Social Care Network to read more pieces like this. Follow us on Twitter (@GdnSocialCare) and like us on Facebook to keep up with the latest social care news and views.
Sell everything ahead of stock market crash, say RBS economists Investors face a “cataclysmic year” where stock markets could fall by up to 20% and oil could slump to $16 a barrel, economists at the Royal Bank of Scotland have warned. In a note to its clients the bank said: “Sell everything except high quality bonds. This is about return of capital, not return on capital. In a crowded hall, exit doors are small.” It said the current situation was reminiscent of 2008, when the collapse of the Lehman Brothers investment bank led to the global financial crisis. This time China could be the crisis point. Stock markets have already come under severe pressure in 2016, with the FTSE 100 down more than 5% in its worst start since 2000. In the US, the Dow Jones industrial average has made its poorest ever start to a year. Oil prices have also fallen sharply on fears of lower demand and a supply glut, especially with Iran due to start exporting once more when sanctions are lifted. Tensions between Iran and Saudia Arabia make it less likely that Opec can agree to cut production to halt the slide in prices. Brent crude is down another 1% at $31.18, its lowest level since April 2004. Investors have been spooked by fears of a severe slowdown in the Chinese economy and a fall in the value of the yuan, not helped by a crash in the country’s stock market despite attempts by the country’s authorities to curtail selling. Andrew Roberts, RBS’s credit chief, said: “China has set off a major correction and it is going to snowball. Equities and credit have become very dangerous, and we have hardly even begun to retrace the ‘Goldilocks love-in’ of the last two years.” Markets have been supported for some time by low interest rates, stimulus measures from central banks including quantitative easing, and hopes of economic recovery. But with the Federal Reserve raising rates and the Bank of England expected to follow suit, that prop is being removed. Roberts said European and US markets could fall by 10% to 20%, with the FTSE 100 particularly at risk due to the predominance of commodity companies in the UK index. “London is vulnerable to a negative shock. All these people who are long [buyers of] oil and mining companies thinking that the dividends are safe are going to discover that they’re not at all safe. “We suspect 2016 will be characterised by more focus on how the exiting occurs of positions in the three main asset classes that benefited from quantitative easing: 1) emerging markets, 2) credit, 3) equities … Risks are high.” RBS is not the only negative voice at the moment. Analysts at JP Morgan have advised clients to sell stocks on any bounce. Morgan Stanley has said oil could fall to $20 a barrel, while Standard Chartered has predicted an even bigger slide, to as low as $10. Standard said: “Given that no fundamental relationship is currently driving the oil market towards any equilibrium, prices are being moved almost entirely by financial flows caused by fluctuations in other asset prices, including the US dollar and equity markets. “We think prices could fall as low as $10 a barrel before most of the money managers in the market conceded that matters had gone too far.”
Slaven Bilic wants West Ham to be No1 story in ‘permanent shift at the top’ While others look at the league table and see a one-off, Slaven Bilic eyes the future. If many regard Leicester City as an anomaly, the Croat believes they could be trailblazers. As West Ham United chase the top-four finish that would make this their best season in three decades, their manager thinks it could be the sign of things to come. “I think this is a permanent shift at the top,” Bilic said. “At least I hope it is.” West Ham finished 12th last season. They are a point off fourth now, inspired and obscured by the league leaders, Leicester, who have soared further and faster. “Our story is excellent but their story is miraculous,” Bilic said. “I would love to be the No1 story.” Instead, he is constructing a grander, broader narrative, one where a division is being radically reshaped by the resources all of its members now enjoy. Bilic believes the best cannot become much better with a bigger budget, whereas the rest can. He sees quality and equality alike. “Say Man City buy Karim Benzema,” he hypothesised. “They have Sergio Agüero already, so there is no big gap for them to improve. There is no big space to get much better. Chelsea can sell Diego Costa and buy Robert Lewandowski, yes, but they are only different; not better. “But clubs like us, Crystal Palace, West Brom, Leicester: we can still improve with the money. Two years ago West Brom maybe could afford Salomón Rondón, but they would have had to sell Saido Berahino to get him. Now they can keep Berahino, so next year, with more investment, you can keep those players. Crystal Palace can keep Yohan Cabaye and bring another one.” It is not often that money is portrayed as the great leveller but Bilic is a left-field thinker. His marquee buy possesses similar creativity. Dimitri Payet fashioned Diafra Sakho’s equaliser and scored the winner at Goodison Park, leaving him with nine assists and 10 goals for the campaign. He is West Ham’s transformative player. His new £125,000-a-week contract is rendered affordable by next season’s TV deal. The era of the newly affluent outsider ought to suit Everton, finally able to abandon the austerity economics that characterised David Moyes’s long reign of cut-price top-eight finishes. Bilic, a former Everton player, said: “On paper their team is one of the best in England.” Yet they reside in the wrong half of the table. On the pitch Everton are potent but porous, entertaining but error-prone, extravagant wastrels who are undermining the excellent work of their top scorer. Romelu Lukaku could yet become the first player from a lower-half team to win the golden boot since Dion Dublin shared it in 1998. “When I look at the players, it is a really strong squad,” their manager, Roberto Martínez, said. “We can’t wait to get good wins, good performances and build something special.” He saw a fine display for much of the match, marred first by Kevin Mirallas’s deserved dismissal and then by a catastrophic ending, when Everton sieved three goals in a dozen minutes. “If you played the game 20 times those last 12 minutes we would have won probably 19,” Martínez said – but his men are not the kings of the 3-2 defeat for nothing. Two years ago, and in more stringent times, Everton were posing their own challenge to the top four. Now when they rub shoulders with Chelsea it is because they are neighbours in underachievement. They are no less talented than West Ham but are less proficient at the mechanics of securing a result. “The Premier League is the most ruthless league in world football,” Martínez said, citing his seven years’ experience in the division as a reason why Everton’s new stakeholder, Farhad Moshiri, should entrust him with his investment. Bilic, a rookie in this league, is outperforming him, however, and a focus on the finances, while prompted by the Croat, deflected from the acumen that has underpinned West Ham’s rise. Sakho’s cameo produced a goal and an assist. He cost only £3.5m. Michail Antonio, who has scored in their past three games, was recruited from Nottingham Forest. Aaron Cresswell, an influence throughout, was unearthed at Ipswich Town. Old-fashioned principles, of scouting, team-building and astute management, still play a part in Bilic’s brave new world. Man of the match Adrián (West Ham)
Keneally 'incredibly disappointed' by ABC journalist's reply to stillbirth release Former NSW premier Kristina Keneally, the patron of the Stillbirth Foundation, says she is “incredibly disappointed” that an ABC journalist responded so insensitively to a media release from the foundation about the number of babies born dead each year. On Thursday the Stillbirth Foundation issued a press release with the news that Australian Bureau of Statistics data revealed that stillbirth claimed the lives of more than 1,700 babies each year – or five babies every day. The brusque emailed response from one journalist at the ABC was: “Don’t care, take me off your list thanks”. When Keneally was told about the email she decided to make it public to illustrate how hard it was to get the story of stillbirth in Australia in the public eye. The mother of a stillborn child herself, Keneally tweeted the email with the ABC staffer’s name obscured. “One of the biggest challenges when it comes to stillbirth is getting people comfortable enough to talk about it,” Keneally told Australia. “I know how hard it is to talk about it. I have been trying to talk about it since 1999. “I don’t understand how any human being could get an email that said 1,700 babies died last year and answer with I don’t care.” On Friday morning the ABC apologised. “This is not a sentiment endorsed by the ABC and we apologise for any offence it has caused,” an ABC spokesman told Australia. Keneally said the ABC was generally supportive of the cause, which made it all the more shocking. “The ABC has been pretty good to us,” she said. “The ABC ran an entire Australian Story on my experience of being the mother of a stillborn child; the ABC has often run stories in the past about stillbirth. The fact that this person thought that a flippant and disrespectful response was appropriate to send back to the Stillbirth Foundation shouldn’t condemn the entire organisation but it should mean that there is some counselling given to that individual. The ABC’s AM program interviewed Keneally and the foundation’s CEO, Victoria Bowring, on Friday in a segment organised before the email was sent. “Sure journalists have to deal with lots of bad-news stories,” Keneally told Australia. They have to become a bit harder, a bit immune, I get that. I work in a newsroom. But to physically write those words ‘don’t care’ and to send it back to the very organisation that is trying to raise awareness one of the most tragic circumstances a family can experience? I don’t understand the thought process that thinks that is an appropriate response. “There is a genuine lack of awareness about stillbirth. They think it is something that happens in their grandmother’s generation. They think it doesn’t happen anymore. They are shocked when they find out the rate of stillbirth in Australia and they’re shocked because it is so hard for the families who have gone through this to talk about it openly. “Doctors also don’t talk to women and families about the risk in pregnancy and we don’t do a very good job in society of talking about grief and loss. “This is the most tragic and horrifying form of grief and loss.” In 1999, Keneally gave birth to a daughter, Caroline, who didn’t survive. “Until we can get them to talk about it we won’t be able to get the funding we need.”
Unsick days: a day off when there’s nothing wrong with you ... but there’s a catch Name: Unsick days. Age: Brand new. Appearance: Confusingly altruistic. I like the sound of this, provided that an unsick day means I can take time off work when I’m not sick. That’s right! That’s exactly what an unsick day is! Amazing! I already know how I’m going to spend mine. Does it involve going for routine medical and dental appointments? Well, I’d been planning to spend a lot of it eating takeaways and watching Judge Rinder. Then you’ve fundamentally misjudged the notion of an unsick day. It’s specifically a day on which workers can preventatively go and get themselves seen to. Really? I haven’t seen a dentist in 13 years because my boss would kick off if I took an afternoon off work. That’s exactly what an unsick day is for. It’s a day when you’re encouraged to see a dentist, so you don’t have to take six months off when your jaw starts rotting two years from now, which it definitely will. How thoughtful. I know. It’s the brainchild of American healthcare scheduling service Zocdoc, who ... Oh, I get it, this is a publicity stunt. Apparently not. Apparently companies such as Virgin Hotels and Foursquare have agreed to sign up to the scheme from next year. What are the benefits? Better health, obviously, and the overwhelming morale boost that comes from knowing that your boss isn’t a cackling Victorian workhouse supervisor determined to wring every last ounce of productivity from you before watching you drop dead from exhaustion. Sounds great! When do we get unsick days over here? Well, don’t hold your breath. Why? Have you tried getting a doctor’s appointment for a non-emergency lately? My local surgery is rammed until the middle of 2023. Surely, we could still benefit from some sort of unsick day? I mean, perhaps there could be a day where you get to stay at home and Google the symptoms of that rash on your arm until you become convinced that you’ve contracted a rare form of penis cancer. Well, sure, if it gets me a day off work. You’re right. I demand an unsick day! Do say: “Hi, doc! There’s nothing wrong with me, but here I am.” Don’t say: “This won’t put any more undue strain on the NHS, will it?”
Cranes In The Sky: can Solange finally step out of big sister Beyoncé’s shadow? TRACK OF THE WEEK Solange Cranes In The Sky This song is a beautiful, soulful musing on depression, escapism and Solange’s place as a black woman in the US. You can either see it as representative of her continued development as an artist and essential voice in today’s pop landscape, or as part of a sustained campaign to stop being referred to as “Beyoncé’s younger sister” in every single review of her music. And, do you know what? We reckon the really good “away, away, awaaaaay” bit is what’s going to nail it for her. Clean Bandit ft Sean Paul & Anne-Marie Rockabye Here’s a tropical house track (of course!) featuring Sean Paul (of course!), but with the unwelcome addition of violins. To make things worse, it’s about a single mum who has to strip in a pub so she can feed her son, a point that Paul underlines by shouting “daily struggle!” at random intervals, while the video sees Clean Bandit performing an awkward dance routine with all the enthusiasm of, well, a pub stripper. Horrific. Maroon 5 ft Kendrick Lamar Don’t Wanna Know It’s the year 2078, and archaeologists find a box buried deep in the desert. “Found a valuable historical artefact?” asks one. “It says Maroon 5 – Don’t Wanna Know,” replies the other. “This can’t be it! The song that caused all music to be banned, for everyone’s sanity, in the worst year humanity has known to date!” And then they’ll smash it to pieces, just so no one has to ever hear this bland, lazy attempt at jumping on the tropical house trend ever again. Cashmere Cat ft Selena Gomez And Tory Lanez Trust Nobody Trust Nobody is a sparse house track about late-night, clandestine, back-seat-of-the-car hookups, which, to be frank, is a bit uncomfortable thanks to wholesome former Disney star Selena Gomez groaning and purring her way through lyrics such as, “I’mma tell you how I want it / Baby, tell me how you need it”. Let’s just pretend she’s talking about her Starbucks order in a really sexy way instead. Mont Jake Daydreaming In these tropical house-laden times, you’ve got to be grateful for Mont Jake, a new artist from Denmark who creates the kind of soothing, soulful, electro-tinged anthems that make everything feel all right again. Daydreaming sounds like slipping into a warm bath after a long day of burying Maroon 5’s single in the desert, and it’s amazing.
The Chinese firm taking threats to UK national security very seriously Welcome to the Cell. All visitors must surrender their phones at the door. No cameras or filming equipment allowed. In a deceptively humdrum office block on the outskirts of Banbury, Oxfordshire, a team of cybersecurity experts is working to combat the risk of surveillance and hacking attacks from China. The Cell’s technicians have the highest level of security clearance, with their personal and financial histories combed by investigating officers. Their work is overseen by a board that includes directors from GCHQ, the Cabinet Office and the Home Office. But the Cell’s staff are not on the British government payroll. They are employed by Huawei, one of China’s largest technology companies. A maker of broadband and mobile network equipment, its kit is installed all over the UK. In Banbury, the task is to check Huawei hardware and software for faults and bugs that could be exploited for nefarious purposes. Circuit boards are dismantled, and millions of lines of software code are analysed. The centre was created as a compromise – between the security concerns of intelligence agencies and the private sector’s desire for cheap imported technology. With George Osborne’s ejection from the Treasury, China has lost its main cheerleader in government. The new prime minister, Theresa May, is taking a more cautious approach. A decision on allowing the Beijing-backed Hinkley Point power station project to go ahead has been delayed at her request. In a climate of cooling economic relations, could the Cell provide a model for managing the potential risks of Chinese involvement in critical national infrastructure? Perhaps. Up and running for five years now, the Huawei Cyber Security Evaluation Centre, to use its official name, is regarded as a success by the board of government officials which oversees its work. In their second annual report, published this spring, they found the arrangements to ensure the Cell was independent from Huawei were operating “robustly and effectively”, and that any potential threats to national security “have been sufficiently mitigated”. But in 2013, the Banbury operation was heavily criticised by parliament’s intelligence and security committee, then chaired by the former defence secretary Sir Malcolm Rifkind. MPs had decided to review its work after a US senate report raised the alarm, urging American firms not to use the company’s equipment. Attempts by Huawei to take over US technology companies had been blocked. In Australia, it was barred from bidding for the country’s multibillion-pound project to connect every home to a superfast broadband service. Rifkind’s committee concluded that the Cell’s staff should not be Huawei employees. His report warned this amounted to Huawei “effectively policing themselves”. He recommended Banbury be staffed by GCHQ, and failing that, subject to much greater scrutiny by government officials. And so, in 2014, security experts from the highest echelons of the civil service were brought together, along with representatives of Vodafone, Huawei and BT, to create the Cell’s oversight board. It is currently chaired by Ciaran Martin, director general for cybersecurity at GCHQ. Concerns persist. Ernst & Young, hired to evaluate whether the Cell is truly independent from Huawei headquarters, concluded that the ability of the company to set the bonus of the Cell’s managing director, David Pollington, hired from Microsoft last year, “provides a vector by which performance ... could be influenced”. Ernst & Young argued that “by withholding or awarding the bonus (irrespective of performance), which constitutes a significant element of the reward package, the bonus could be used as a tool to motivate certain behaviours from the MD”. The risk was reconsidered, but “accepted as reasonable”, according to the 2016 annual report. A spokesman for the company points out that the Huawei and Hinkley scenarios are not quite comparable. The technology firm sells its equipment to other companies which then own and manage it. At Hinkley, the proposal is to sell a stake to the Chinese state, and in return for the investment, allow it to build Chinese-designed reactors at a new nuclear power station in Bradwell, Essex. So what kind of risk does Huawei’s equipment present? The company makes everything from the routers and switches that steer traffic across the internet, to BT’s green street cabinets, to the transmission equipment used in mobile phone masts. Sending an email from your home computer, making a mobile phone call from a street corner, or using the tablet to order a weekly shop – wherever you are in the UK, the chances are your private communications will be carried over Huawei equipment. With customers in Europe, the Americas, Africa and of course China, it claims to connect a third of the world’s population. Founded by a former Red Army officer, Ren Zhengfei, the firm has no public list of shareholders, but it claims to be privately owned and independent from the state. Its biggest UK customers are Vodafone and BT. Until recently the only British-owned mobile network, Vodafone has carved out a niche as the largest supplier to government ministries and major corporations. The phone calls made by the prime minister and her cabinet run over its network. BT’s broadband grid stretches from Whitehall to remote rural areas and is still the largest in the UK, supplying much of the infrastructure used by rivals including TalkTalk and Sky to connect their customers. The concern is that so-called “back doors”, hidden in the Huawei software, could be used to eavesdrop on sensitive government, military and business communications. They could even be used to disrupt or shut down mobile networks in the event of a conflict. “Bugs can be hidden in sloppy code,” says Graeme Batsman, a data security consultant and blogger at datasecurityexpert.co.uk. “China and others are known for spying. But I don’t think China is a terrorist state which would make these devices explode one day. The UK and US are probably just as bad anyway.” Indeed, the papers leaked from America’s National Security Agency by Edward Snowden revealed that it had hacked into Huawei’s headquarters, obtaining technical information and monitoring the communications of its top executives. One of the reported aims was to try and uncover vulnerabilities in the products to use them for US surveillance operations. The Cell has identified multiple vulnerabilities in Huawei products. The latest annual report warns: “Code quality has shown signs of improvement, but remains below industry good practice.” More than 100 concerns had been raised with Huawei’s research and development arm in China, the 2015 report stated. Three issues identified that year resulted in interventions having to be made in equipment already deployed in telecoms networks. On the plus side, using company staff to identify faults means they are more likely to be fixed quickly. And the cooperation has brought cash into the UK. In 2012, Ren met with David Cameron to promise £1.3bn of procurement and investment. The following year, after Rifkind’s inquiry, he confirmed the deal when Osborne visited Shenzhen. For Huawei, the monitoring arrangement not only improves its products, but makes good business sense. Cooperating with the UK advertises its trustworthiness to other foreign governments. Reassuring the prime minister is another matter. Vince Cable has revealed that while he was in government, May was “never completely satisfied about Huawei”. The Cell’s recent efforts may have quelled those fears. For now, it is business as usual in Banbury.
Star Wars: Episode VIII 'leaked script' reveals rumoured plot twists The full plot of the next Star Wars movie and the true identity of Daisy Ridley’s mysterious Rey have reportedly been revealed by a Reddit user who claims to have read the film’s script. The heavily spoiler-laden script rundown, for the follow-up to JJ Abrams’s blockbuster The Force Awakens, explains why the staff-wielding space scavenger is strong with the Force, and features one major revelation that, if true, would be as shocking a plot twist as Darth Vader’s “I am your father” moment in 1980’s The Empire Strikes Back. Among the more minor, less spoilery revelations are the return of Yoda, Obi-Wan Kenobi and … yes, you read it right … Hayden Christensen’s Anakin Skywalker as Force ghosts, and the unveiling of Benicio del Toro as a political leader tasked with overseeing the crumbling Republic in the wake of the disastrous Starkiller Base planetary attacks in Abrams’s film. New cast member Kelly Marie Tran is revealed to be a contact of Carrie Fisher’s Leia, who engages in a flirty subplot with John Boyega’s Finn as the pair investigate the underbelly of a city on a key Republic planet. Looper director Rian Johnson is currently shooting Star Wars: Episode VIII at Pinewood Studios in England, Dubrovnik, Croatia, and on location in Donegal and on the island of Skellig Michael, Ireland. There have also been reports the production has shot scenes near Las Vegas in the US. The new movie, which the Reddit report claims has the working title of Star Wars: Echoes of the Dark Side, is due in cinemas on 15 December 2017. Ridley, Boyega and Fisher will be joined by Force Awakens returnees Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker), Adam Driver (Kylo Ren), Andy Serkis (Supreme Leader Snoke), Lupita Nyong’o (Maz Kanata) and Oscar Isaac (Poe Dameron), while Del Toro and Laura Dern are among newcomers to the cast. To read the full Reddit thread on the rumoured plot leak (WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS) click here.
Investigatory powers bill not fit for purpose, say 200 senior lawyers The investigatory powers bill, which goes before MPs on Tuesday, is not fit for purpose and breaches international standards on surveillance, according to a letter signed by more than 200 senior lawyers. The legislation acknowledges for the first time the extent of bulk interception and hacking carried out by the government’s monitoring agency, GCHQ, and sets out a legal framework with safeguards. In a letter to the , however, the complex and controversial bill is condemned by former judges, QCs, law professors and senior lawyers as being fundamentally flawed because it destroys privacy. Among those who have signed are the chair of the Bar Human Rights Committee Kirsty Brimelow QC, Tom de la Mare QC, who has been a special advocate in security cases, Sir Stephen Sedley, who is a former court of appeal judge, Prof Sir Geoffrey Bindman QC, Hugh Southey QC, Michael Mansfield QC and Philippe Sands QC. Among academic lawyers, there are representatives of nearly 40 law schools in the UK. One of the key differences between the government and its critics is whether bulk interception of emails and digital records constitutes mass surveillance and breach of privacy. GCHQ argues that it only carries out targeted searches of data under legal warrants in pursuit of terrorist or criminal activity and that bulk interception is necessary as a first step in that process; other intercepted material, it insists, is never read. But the United Nations special rapporteur on privacy, Joseph Cannataci, last week criticised the investigatory powers bill saying that authorising bulk interception would legitimise mass surveillance. The letter coincides with the second reading of the bill. “A law that gives public authorities generalised access to electronic communications contents compromises the essence of the fundamental right to privacy and may be illegal,” it declares. “The investigatory powers bill does this with its ‘bulk interception warrants’ and ‘bulk equipment interference warrants’.” The bill also permits “targeted interception warrants” to apply to groups, persons organisations or premises, the letter notes. The bill also fails to mention “reasonable suspicion” – or even suspects – and there is no need to demonstrate criminal involvement or a threat to national security, the letters adds. “These are international standards found in the recent opinion of the UN special rapporteur for the right to privacy, and in judgments of the EU court of justice and the European court of human rights,” it continues. “At present, the bill fails to meet these standards – the law is unfit for purpose.” James Blessing, chair of the UK Internet Service Providers’ Association, said: “[We] support reform of investigatory powers through a new bill, but we are a long way from having a bill that is clear and workable. “Government needs to address concerns around its intentions, definitions and costs to enable industry to make a proper assessment of the bill and help arliament scrutinise the complex proposals. Getting this right is essential for the UK digital economy and user trust in services.” Eric King, director of Don’t Spy On Us, said: “The government’s approach to this important reform has been wrong from the very beginning: they’ve sought to make bad habits lawful, rather that chart a new and legitimate course for the future. “The fact so many of the bill’s key provisions fall short of international standards cannot simply be pushed aside. A full redraft of this flawed bill is needed for it to stand the test of time. Anything less is simply a waste of parliament’s time.” Labour has said it will abstain in Tuesday’s vote, but the Liberal Democrats and the SNP will oppose the government’s bill.
Documentary casts doubt on guilty verdict in 1990 Virginia murder trial He was the academically inclined son of a German diplomat, she the daughter of a wealthy society couple, educated in a string of European boarding schools. Jens Söring and Elizabeth Haysom were convicted for the brutal 1985 murders of Haysom’s parents, who were bludgeoned to death in their home in Bedford County, Virginia. Thirty years after the former lovers were put behind bars for the killings of Derek and Nancy Haysom, a new documentary highlights the extent to which Söring’s 1990 trial was a jumble of omissions and inconsistencies – and casts doubt on the veracity of his conviction, which was based purely on his initial guilty plea and the print of a bloody sock found at the crime scene. The case has become a diplomatic issue: the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, has expressed her wish for Söring to be repatriated and has raised her concerns about the case in one-to-one talks with Barack Obama. It has also become a political issue in the US: in 2010 former governor Tim Kaine – who is Hillary Clinton’s running mate – granted Söring’s request to continue his prison sentence in Germany. But the decision was reversed by Kaine’s Republican successor, Robert F McDonnell, on his first day in office. Since then Kaine’s decision has been cited by Republicans as evidence of what they say is questionable judgment. Terry McAuliffe, Virginia’s current Democratic governor is considering a new request from Söring. The petition throws doubt on the German’s guilt, drawing on DNA tests – unavailable at the time of the trial – to show that blood found at the scene does not belong to Söring. While Söring waits for a response, the new documentary makes its US premiere at the Virginia film festival on Saturday at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville – where Söring and Haysom first met in 1984. Considerable resentment has been expressed locally that it is being shown at all. The Promise is also due to be serialised in six parts in the UK on the BBC in March. German film-makers Marcus Vetter and Karin Steinberger spent more than four hours interviewing Söring, now 50, at Buckingham correctional center in Dillwyn, Virginia, where he is serving two life sentences. In the film, he admits making “lots of mistakes” but insists on his innocence. Derek and Nancy Haysom were found stabbed to death in their house on 3 April 1985. At first, police seemed not to consider either Söring nor Haysom as potential suspects. But when Söring was called in for questioning, the couple fled the country, initially heading to Thailand, then Europe. They were eventually arrested for cheque fraud in Richmond, on the outskirts of London, in April 1986. After four days of questioning – with no lawyer present – Söring confessed to the murders. Later he recanted his account, saying he had only confessed in order to protect Elizabeth Haysom from the electric chair, believing that he enjoyed diplomatic immunity through his father. “I thought I was a hero,” he says in the film. “I thought I was a great guy and I was saving her life. What I saw before me was Elizabeth, a beautiful young woman who I deeply loved and who was in danger of being executed,” he said. In a landmark case, the European court of human rights ruled that he could only be extradited for trial in the US if it would guarantee he would not end up on death row. US authorities agreed the death penalty would be ruled out as a sentencing option. Back in the US, Elizabeth Haysom pleaded guilty to two counts of accessory to murder before the fact. Haysom, a former boarder at Wycombe Abbey in Buckinghamshire, is serving 90 years at the Fluvanna correctional center for women in Troy. She communicated with the film-makers by letter, but declined to give them an interview. In a 2010 statement issued to the Press Association when Söring’s extradition to Germany was being considered, she said: “If Jens was innocent I would shout it from the highest mountain peaks but he isn’t innocent, he is just as guilty as I am.” In a 2015 interview with the New Yorker she said she hoped he would nevertheless be repatriated. The new documentary does not reach a conclusion over Söring’s guilt, but it raises a string of questions about the investigation and trial – the first criminal trial in the US to take place in front of live TV cameras. Why was Judge William Sweeney allowed to take the case, despite the fact he had been a friend of the Haysoms and had given a press interview saying he was surprised that Jens had allowed Haysom to “dare” him to kill her parents? Why did Sweeney dismiss attempts to examine repeated claims – based on photographic evidence that subsequently disappeared – that Elizabeth had been sexually abused by her mother? Why were no attempts made to track down the hire car Haysom and Söring had rented on the weekend of the murders, which was later found with bloodstains in it? What happened to an FBI profile of the offender? Why were eyewitnesses, interviewed in the film, not called to give evidence at the trial? The bloody sock print – the main piece of evidence on which Söring was convicted – was deemed by a tyre mark expert to be Söring’s, even though it was too small for his foot. “Despite having researched this case for 10 years,” film-maker Karin Steinberger told the , “I still don’t know what happened the night the murders were committed. I don’t know if he’s innocent or guilty. But I do know that this was not a judgment beyond reasonable doubt as another man’s blood was found at the scene. “The movie doesn’t say Jens is innocent, it says there are lots of things that remain unanswered. Not least the question: ‘is the real culprit still out there?’” The two main investigators who worked on the case came to opposite conclusions, with one convinced of Söring’s guilt, and the other believing that the wrong man is behind bars. Gail Marshall, the former deputy attorney general of Virginia has been one of the most prominent Americans to suggest Söring had what she called a “very unfair trial”. Söring has become something of a cause célèbre in Germany, triggered by Steinberger’s initial interview with him for the Süddeutsche Zeitung in 2006. He has a Facebook page of supporters and recently more than 120 German MPs – together with the former president Christian Wulff – signed a petition for him to be brought home. Some of them have even visited him in prison. For years he has sent a Christmas card to Angela Merkel. Reportedly, she also sent him one last year. The US reluctance to allow him to return to Germany and carry on his sentence – his supporters say it would save the US taxpayer hundreds of thousands of dollars – has been widely interpreted in Germany as a rebuke of its more lenient judicial system and driven by the political calculus of appearing tough on crime. “There are many people in the US who are out for revenge, who don’t believe in mercy, and say he should die there,” Steinberger said. “In Germany the belief is that after being punished, people should be given a second chance.”
It would have been better if the guards had left the hacks alone and tagged Cameron instead Monday David Cameron’s long-delayed conversion to prison reform this week did not extend to those who are paid to spread the good news. Unusually for one of these events, there was a long queue of people waiting to get in. The reason became clear when I reached the front; every journalist was being electronically tagged with a red wristband. It would have been quicker if the security guards had left the hacks alone and merely tagged the prime minister instead. Isn’t Dave the biggest danger to society? But then maybe the tagging was always more intended for Michael Gove, the justice secretary, who looked to be fighting to stay awake while Dave made his speech. As we all were; the room was hot and overcrowded. If it was a prison, it would have been closed down under the new proposals. Tuesday As so often, freebies keep flowing to those in least need. The big name Oscar nominees are all in receipt of a $200k goody bag that includes a five-star holiday to Israel, a walking tour in Japan and a voucher for plastic surgery – most of which have already been redeemed. Now even civil servants are muscling in on the act. The latest National Audit Office report runs to 40 pages of senior Whitehall officials – and their families – being lavished with corporate freebies at top restaurants, along with iPads, Fortnum & Mason hampers and Mont Blanc pens. All of which makes my own meagre haul after more than 20 years in journalism so disappointing. The only highlight came this year after I wrote a sketch about London men’s fashion week. I received an email saying the fashion desk would like to express its gratitude with a bouquet of flowers. I wrote back to say I’d rather have some socks. Socks from Topman duly arrived. Wednesday Every year the Conservatives hold their Black & White Ball at which Tory donors with large cheque books get to rub shoulders with cabinet ministers. Tory donors with even larger cheque books get a brush by with the prime minister himself. One of the star lots in the auction was a day out campaigning with Zac Goldsmith that went for £35,000. But did the winner have any idea of just how dull Zac can be? I know he’s very good-looking, but the charm might wear off if his conversation is anything like his rather plodding contributions to parliamentary debates. Let’s be kind and say he keeps his intelligence hidden. And take it from me, there’s nothing more dull than a day’s campaigning. During the last election, I went out for the day with the former Lib Dem MP, Michael Moore, in his constituency in the Scottish borders. Knocking on doors is soul destroying. From behind some doors, I could clearly hear voices saying: “Don’t open it. It’s a politician.” Others opened their doors for the pleasure of being abusive. Some were scarcely aware there was an election going on. “It’s all perfectly normal,” Moore reassured me. He went on to lose by a landslide. Thursday Embarrassing families have become the latest political trend. David Cameron’s mother has signed a petition protesting over cuts; if she keeps this up, she’ll end up wearing a red electronic tag. Michael Gove’s mother-in-law thinks Gove has gone soft on prison reform; that latest insight was provided by Sarah Vine, the Daily Mail columnist who never knowingly passes up an opportunity to kick someone when he’s down. Even when he’s her husband. George Osborne’s psychiatrist brother got struck off after having an affair with one of his patients, while Marina Wheeler, Boris Johnson’s wife, wrote in the Spectator about how badly David Cameron’s EU negotiations were going – just when Boris was beginning to get back into Dave’s good books. Marina has waited a long time to get revenge for Boris’s various indiscretions. I’ve always been more fortunate with my family. Either I’ve been the embarrassing one or I’ve benefited from people who happen to share my surname. My first ever piece of journalism was only published because the editor thought I was the author Jim Crace. Friday I’m delighted that Einstein has finally been proved right after 100 years, but I suspect I’m not alone in not really understanding what gravitational waves really are and why they are important. Even after reading screeds about it, all I have gathered is that we have discovered two black holes that bumped into each other billions of years ago – “In all the gin joints, in all the universe” – and that we might discover something else as a result. I had much the same experience reading Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time. Every sentence made complete sense on its own, but by the end of every paragraph I was hopelessly lost. Some things really are too complicated to be easily explained; if they weren’t they’d have been solved by idiots like me. Talking of other mysteries, maybe the interferometer could be used to find out why there’s no apostrophe in Finnegans Wake. Then it could get to work on the rest of the book. Digested week, digested: Gravity’s rainbow
Hal Robson-Kanu’s touch of class fires West Brom past Southampton At least Hal Robson-Kanu will remember 2016 fondly. The Welshman scored one of the goals of Euro 2016 during his country’s run to the semi-finals and he struck again here with an absolute rocket to claim three points in his first start for West Bromwich Albion. In an evenly matched first half Shane Long headed Southampton into the lead, before Matt Phillips restored parity with a calm finish after a fluid move. But the game’s memorable moment came from Robson-Kanu and Tony Pulis was happy to sing the praises of the forward he signed as a free agent last summer. “He is that type of player who’s so wholehearted, he gives everything all the time,” Pulis said. “I had no problem playing him; the problem came in leaving Salomón Rondón out. Hal’s been wonderful as a backup, if you like, but he showed today he’s kept his fitness high and was ready for his chance. I’ve got a choice to make on Monday now.” After two consecutive away matches, the Baggies now return to the Hawthorns to face Hull on Monday in good heart. For the Saints, however, their Christmas has turned sour. After receiving a thrashing by Tottenham, this was a second consecutive home defeat and there were boos at the final whistle. Their manager, Claude Puel, chose to rotate his side for the second of three fixtures in six days. But his decision to rest three of his first-choice back four looked odd even before the match. The only defender to retain his place, Virgil van Dijk, was sent off with minutes of the match remaining and will now miss Monday’s match against Everton at Goodison Park. “Yes, you can say [you have regrets] after the result but if it’s not this game it would be the next game‚” Puel said of his changes. “We are the only team playing three games in six days, just us, and our squad have been playing many games since the beginning of the season. It was normal to make a rotation with all these games and I think it’s not the rotation that was the problem, it’s a problem of concentration and a problem of the calendar.” After a predictably physical opening, Southampton broke the deadlock with a goal their visitors would have been proud of. After seeing their passing triangles simply break against West Brom’s compact defence, the crowd favourite Dusan Tadic used the chance of a corner to whip a wonderful ball to the near post, which Shane Long met with a decisive header. Coming against one of his old clubs, it was the Irishman’s first league goal of the season. Before the crowd had even finished celebrating, the Baggies were level. And their goal was equally uncharacteristic – an attractive move from open play. Chris Brunt played a one-touch pass round his marker to Robson-Kanu who, in turn, poked it to Matt Phillips. Cool as required, Phillips stepped inside Maya Yoshida and fired the ball low past Fraser Forster. All square at half-time then, but it turned out Robson-Kanu had just been warming up. Just as he did during those summer nights in France, the striker pulled a world-class finish out of nowhere, thrashing the ball from 25 yards past both an unsuspecting Van Dijk, then the keeper and into the roof of the net. Saints went two up top almost immediately, but that only proved an invitation for West Brom to do what they do best. The closest Saints got to a shot on target was when Ben Foster cleared the ball into an onrushing Jay Rodriguez. With the game about to enter added time, Van Dijk earned his second yellow card after tangling with the substitute Rondón. The Dutchman, currently the subject of so much transfer speculation, ripped the captain’s armband off in disgust as he left the field.
Batfleck to the rescue! DC desperately needs a super smash to stop the bad buzz Bret Easton Ellis may well go down as one of this era’s epochal novelists, a singular essayist on the icy inhumanity of 20th- and 21st-century living, delivering grim librettos on the emptiness of privileged youth. As a film-maker, his legacy is less assured, as anyone who has seen The Informers will be aware. But that has not stopped Ellis joining the merry band of blowhards who enjoy giving Warner Bros’ DC expanded universe (DCEU) of superhero movies a good kicking at every available opportunity. “I was having dinner with a couple of executives who know other executives who are working on the Batman movie, The Batman,” Ellis told The Ringer. “And they were just telling me that there are serious problems with the script. And that the executives I was having dinner with were complaining about people who work on the Batman movie. And they just said they went to the studio and they said, ‘Look, the script is … Here’s 30 things that are wrong with it that we can fix.’ “And [the executives] said, ‘We don’t care. We don’t really care. The amount of money we’re going to make globally, I mean 70% of our audience is not going to be seeing this in English. And it doesn’t really matter, these things that you’re bringing up about the flaws of the script.’” To be fair, Ellis was being interviewed for a piece on the death of movies and concurrent rise of television as an art form when he made his comments. It was probably not his intention to add to the chorus of disapproval that has greeted the launch of Warner’s DCEU among critics. Moreover, the novelist and noted cineaste has now made an apology of sorts on Twitter, clarifying that his anecdote was at best third hand, and that he has “no idea” personally what the screenplay is like for Ben Affleck’s debut solo Batman outing. None of this matters a jot, of course. The word is now out there in the blogosphere that The Batman is “struggling”, just as Patty Jenkins’s Wonder Woman is deemed to be experiencing difficulties thanks to an anonymous open letter from a disgruntled ex-Warner employee to CEO Kevin Tsujihara in September. Then there’s The Flash, which recently lost its second director, and Justice League, which has been squeezed down into one movie because everyone hated Zack Snyder’s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. The problem for Warner Bros is that it has brought this on itself. The studio has a reputation as a place that allows film-makers free rein to deliver their own original visions, a policy that worked superbly for Christopher Nolan’s Batman movies but proved disastrous for Dawn of Justice. So freaked out do executives appear to have been at the reaction to it, the first instalment in an ambitious slate of 10 new films based on the DC comics back catalogue, that they reportedly intervened to try and ensure David Ayer’s Suicide Squad didn’t go the same way. Hence that movie emerged as a right royal mess stuck half way between two radically different cuts. Jenkins has complained that talk of her own movie being in similar difficulties couldn’t be further from the truth. And Affleck probably has a right to be irritated that The Batman is already getting bad press given his own film-making credentials are rather more polished than those of Snyder (or Ellis himself). The problem is that there’s a lingering reek of putrescence surrounding the DCEU, thanks largely to its two early efforts both proving to be stinkers. And until Warner puts its house in order and begins pumping out quality movies in the manner of rival Marvel, these kind of stories are just going to keep on coming. The idea that the script for The Batman is riddled with errors, and that executives can’t be bothered to fix them because international markets will make up the box office, is like something from a bad clickbait tagline. And yet it feeds into fears that Warner is happy to continue putting out substandard product while utilising huge marketing budgets to paper over the cracks, just as it did relatively successfully with both Dawn of Justice and Suicide Squad. The reality is that far from being blase about its upcoming superhero roster, Warner appears terrified at the prospect of failure. That’s why Suicide Squad was reportedly edited in part by the team who came up with the movie’s eye-popping trailers, rather than being left under Ayer’s full control. And it’s also why Snyder and his team struck such an apologetic tone towards bloggers and critics at a recent Justice League set visit. Whether Snyder really can learn from his mistakes is one thing. But those of us hoping the DCEU can be turned around will be hoping that at least part of Ellis’s anecdote – the bit about studio executives leaving the creatives to their own devices – is true. Whether they end up being classics of the genre or not, I want to see what a Ben Affleck-directed Batman movie looks like and how a Patty Jenkins Wonder Woman flick turns out. Like Marvel, Warner needs to have an overarching vision for its comic book movies – the creation of DC Films and comics legend Geoff Johns’ elevation to head geek should help in that regard. But no one wants to see these movies being directed by committee.
Death by drone strike, dished out by algorithm “Guns don’t kill people,” is the standard refrain of the National Rifle Association every time there is a mass shooting atrocity in the US. “People kill people.” Er, yes, but they do it with guns. Firearms are old technology, though. What about updating the proposition from 1791 (when the second amendment to the US constitution, which protects the right to bear arms, was ratified) to our own time? How about this, for example: “algorithms kill people”? Sounds a bit extreme? Well, in April 2014, at a symposium at Johns Hopkins University, General Michael Hayden, a former director of both the CIA and the NSA, said this: “We kill people based on metadata”. He then qualified that stark assertion by reassuring the audience that the US government doesn’t kill American citizens on the basis of their metadata. They only kill foreigners. Pakistanis, specifically. It turns out that the NSA hoovers up all the metadata of 55m mobile phone users in Pakistan and then feeds them into a machine-learning algorithm which supposedly identifies likely couriers working to shuttle messages and information between terrorists. We know this because of one of the Snowden revelations published by the Intercept, the online publication edited by Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras and Jeremy Scahill and funded by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar. The NSA programme doing this is called Skynet, is not to be confused with the murderous intelligent machine network in the Terminator films. In essence, it’s a standard-issue machine-learning project. What happens is that the algorithm is fed the mobile metadata of a number of known terrorist suspects, and then sifts through the data of 55m users to try and find patterns that match those of the training set. It’s the same kind of approach that drives your spam filter: it’s fed examples of known spam, and then uses that to decide whether a particular message is junk mail or not. The critical difference is that if your filter gets it wrong, then the worst that can happen is that you are annoyed or amused by its clumsiness; if Skynet gets it wrong you could find yourself on  the receiving end of a Hellfire missile dispatched by a Predator or a Reaper drone. For Pakistani citizens, this is still a remote – but not an entirely improbable – possibility. According to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism – which monitors drone strikes – more than 2,400 people in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia have been killed by such strikes in the five-year period 2010-2014. This is the sharp end of the so-called war on terror, as the US brings the war to its adversaries in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen, and it raises interesting questions about the legality of extrajudicial killing which, so far, does not appear to trouble the US administration unduly. We know a little – but not much – about the process by which individuals are placed on the “kill list” that President Obama personally approves every week. According to a leaked official study conducted in 2013 and published by the Intercept, which reported that “US intelligence personnel collect information on potential targets… drawn from government watchlists and the work of intelligence, military, and law enforcement agencies.” At the time of the study, when someone was destined for the kill list, intelligence analysts created a portrait of a suspect and the threat that person posed, pulling it together “in a condensed format known as a ‘baseball card’”. That information was then bundled with operational information and packaged in a “target information folder” to be “staffed up to higher echelons” for action. On average, “it took 58 days for the president to sign off on a target, one slide indicates. At that point, US forces had 60 days to carry out the strike.” It’s likely then that the output of the Skynet algorithm is just one of the considerations that goes in to identifying an individual at whom a drone strike could be targeted. So at the moment it’s probably inaccurate to say that this particular algorithm kills people; the decision to strike is still made by a human being. Nevertheless, it’s important to ask how good the algorithm is at its job. Not great, is the answer provided by Patrick Ball, a data scientist and the director of research at the Human Rights Data Analysis Group, who has previously given expert testimony before war crimes tribunals. He has studied the Snowden documents and uncovered a flaw in how the NSA trains Skynet’s machine-learning algorithm which leads him to describe its outputs as “scientifically unsound” and “ridiculously optimistic”. So maybe algorithms don’t kill people – yet. They just put them on lists of candidates for extrajudicial killing. Maybe we should be grateful for such small mercies.
Richmond Park offers a first glimpse at a changed political landscape Whatever the outcome of the Richmond Park byelection today, the result will offer a glimpse of the shape of politics to come. That’s the easy bit. This corner of southwest London is such an odd constituency that it may be hard to say quite what the result means. But even before the polling booths close, it is safe to say that the campaign itself has been a sign of how far politics has departed from what, as recently as last year, was deemed to be normal. There is nothing typical about this byelection. Start with the candidates. There is Eurosceptic Zac Goldsmith, who after six years as Richmond’s Conservative MP, resigned, as he had promised, when the government approved the expansion of Heathrow. He is running as an independent in an election he wants understood as a referendum on the third runway. He could be said to represent insurgency and direct democracy. But he has the tacit, and sometimes discreetly active, support of his old party, as well as the backing of Ukip, which will portray a victory for Goldsmith as a reinforcement of Brexit. There is Sarah Olney, the candidate for the Liberal Democrats – the party that held the seat from 1997 to 2010. She is campaigning against triggering article 50, the tentative pioneer of some kind of progressive alliance (better names welcomed), who has the support of Bob Geldof and the leadership of the Green party, although not all of the local Greens, some of whom back the Labour candidate. She can also count on some local Labour members, although not those supporting Christian Wolmar, who is Labour’s official man. He was selected after the party’s central command refused to have any truck with the former coalition partners of the Tory party. There is also the normal run of candidates from the exotic fringe. Even for a byelection these are unusual circumstances. They don’t even fit the now-familiar truth that Britain, like many other western liberal democracies, has become a deeply divided society in both economic and cultural terms. Richmond Park is one of the few constituencies where that couldn’t be less the case: it is unusually homogeneous, and its residents are more than averagely young, prosperous, in work, and healthy. Its unemployment rate and the number of children in poverty are both half the UK average, while house prices are a stonking three times above it. In fact, the constituency stands out only for having a larger than average number of non-white and non-UK-born voters. It ticks all the boxes to be strongly pro-remain, and so it was, by an estimated 72% to 28%. Goldsmith built his political career on claiming to be the servant of his constituents. As a new backbencher five years ago he campaigned assiduously for a recall bill – allowing constituents to force a byelection – that was rather stronger than the feeble one MPs finally approved. The Goldsmith version would have put control of the process firmly in the hands of the voters rather than the party machine at Westminster. It is perfectly possible for him to be both the wealthy, solipsistic dilettante his critics see, and at the same time the representative of a different kind of politics – one which, if it were repeated widely, would destroy Westminster as we know it by subverting the discipline of the party whips that allows the government to get its business through parliament. Olney, on the other hand, stands for a souped-up version of “business as usual”. She says that if she is elected, she will take it as a mandate to oppose article 50. And ardently though I long to see that, at the same time it seems to me that such a course might be nearly as perilous as the Goldsmith route. The uncomfortable truth is that the more that is known about why people voted Brexit, the harder it becomes to frame an argument in favour of remaining that will win people back. The question then becomes: how, and around what, can a case be constructed that goes beyond support for the EU, and becomes the basis for a defence of the liberal democratic values it represents? Remaining is deeply unpopular. It is even more unpopular now than it was on 23 June. YouGov’s latest poll, like its one a month earlier, found that two-thirds of voters, including half of those who voted remain, thought the government had to go ahead with Brexit. That is one indicator. Another can be found in analysis done soon after the June vote. It mapped the Brexit result on parliamentary constituencies (the referendum was counted on local authority boundaries) and concluded that in a general election, leave would win nearly twice as many seats as remain. Even allowing for the referendum being as different from a general election as elephants are from giraffes, there is no reason to suppose that anything has changed. If new analysis that YouGov presented in Cambridge a couple of weeks ago is correct, the characteristics of people who backed Brexit closely match the characteristics of a group of voters that the polling organisation calls “authoritarian populists”. They are people who could broadly be described as out of step with the cultural assumptions – such as a respect for human rights, immigration, feminism and diversity – that are the bread-and-butter of liberal democracy. The significance of cultural preferences, as well as economic ones that are now widely recognised, makes the fightback for the EU much more complex. It is not, or not just, about tackling inequality or corporate greed. It is about shifting the way we all see the world. And that means that those of us who are convinced that Britain is better off in the EU have to find something, soon, that is much more persuasive than “don’t do it”.
Miracles, midsummer, and minor ailments Janis Sharp (Opinion, 17 September) writes “support through difficult times means so much to someone whose life is in limbo. The good that exists in our world and the power of the people in it can and does achieve miracles.” I have set up a petition calling on the Ministry of Justice to overturn Lauri Love’s extradition order. We can at least make our views known about this cruel decision – and try to achieve a miracle – rather than just thinking it’s somebody else’s problem. The petition is at: https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/stop-the-extradition-of-lauri-love David Smith Burton upon Trent, Staffordshire • It is so disappointing that after Saturday’s marvellous Refugees Welcome march, there has been almost no publicity from the BBC or the press – not even from the . Thousands of mainly young people, with colourful banners and placards, enthusiastically chanted “Refugees are welcome here”.  Politicians and actors added their voices in Parliament Square. These young people are our future, yet their voices clearly haven’t reached Theresa May, who is even now preparing to speak discouragingly at the UN summit on refugees in New York. Thelma Percy Bognor Regis, West Sussex • I too am a lover of A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Reports of my death, Weekend, 17 September). When I am sad I play the DVD. Two weeks ago I went to my granddaughter’s wedding in a forest outside Paris, beside the river. The weather was very hot and it was magical. It reminded me of that beautiful play. I danced even though I’m 86 years old. Shirley Betteridge Southampton • Perhaps some old folk remedies will re-emerge now that the NHS no longer offers treatment for a variety of “minor ailments” (G2, 19 September). I’ve been told that the best cure for a ganglia, for example, is to hit it hard with a Bible. Alison Jeffers Manchester • Please do not interfere with Rufus (Letters, 16 September) It is the only crossword I have any hope of finishing. I can’t even get started in all the others. Rev Cecil Heatley London • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
BMA hits back at Jeremy Hunt's claims of political point scoring The British Medical Association has accused the government of misrepresenting junior doctors after Jeremy Hunt turned up the political heat by declaring that “some elements” of the doctors’ union were out to get the Tories. In an interview with the Sunday Telegraph, the health secretary attacked what he said were hardline factions within the BMA. “There is a tradition inside the BMA of taking very extreme positions against the health secretary of the day,” he said. “Nye Bevan, the founder of the NHS, was described as the medical führer by the BMA only three years after the second world war. But patients must always come before politics. “Of course it’s a concern if some elements within the BMA are seeing this as a political opportunity to bash a Tory government that they hate. I am sure the vast majority of doctors are not in that place. The BMA hit back by blaming the government for creating the impasse by causing a fundamental breakdown in trust with junior doctors. “How can junior doctors have confidence in a government which, while giving public assurances, has been deliberately turning up the temperature behind the scenes in order to misrepresent them?” the BMA said in a statement. It went on to argue that the biggest threat to patient care was the government’s insistence on removing safeguards that prevent 45,000 junior doctors from being forced to work dangerously long hours without breaks, with patients facing the prospect of being treated by exhausted doctors. “The government is threatening to impose contracts in which junior doctors have no confidence and which represents the first step in a wholesale attack on all NHS staff at night and over weekends,” said the BMA. The BMA, which described itself as an apolitical organisation, dismissed Hunt’s accusations of hardline elements within the NHS putting politics ahead of the wellbeing of patients. It pointed out that the call for industrial action was made by junior doctors themselves, with 98% voting in favour of taking action. Dr Marie-Estella McVeigh, a junior doctor in London, said: “For all of us, the strikes, planned to start on Tuesday, are the last resort to make Jeremy Hunt listen to the issues that we face on the front line of patient care. This is not about getting more money; the government and BMA have agreed right from the start that the total cost of changes remains neutral, there’s no increase in the pay bill.” Junior doctors are setting up a fake betting shop storefront called Jeremy’s Punt outside a London hospital and Westminster to represent how Hunt’s plans could gamble with the public’s health. The mock shop was offering “money back” if Hunt re-negotiates, “evens on being treated by an overworked doctor” and “3/1 on reforms causing a preventable medical error” as a way to get the message across. Hunt was accused last week of trying to politicise the Paris terrorist attacks after it emerged his officials helped orchestrate a letter from the NHS chief medic questioning whether striking junior doctors would be available to help in the event of a major incident in the UK. Junior doctors were outraged in November when Prof Sir Bruce Keogh, medical director of NHS England, wrote to the BMA asking what would happen if a strike coincided with a terror attack on the UK. The action comes at a time when the health service is already struggling to cope with patient demand across England, Wales and Scotland, leaving some facilities with more patients than beds. Hunt said the government was now going through the “exhaustive process” of contacting every A&E department in the country to establish whether they would have enough staff to stay open on Tuesday. Dame Sally Davies, the chief medical officer for England, told the Sunday Times she had sympathy with junior doctors but wanted them to call off the strike. “Industrial action will lead to patients suffering, and no doctor wants to see that happen,” she said. The areas of disagreement include: plans by Hunt to scrap the system of automatic annual pay rises for junior doctors; hospitals forcing them to work dangerously long hours; and the demarcation of the periods of the week for which they receive only basic pay for working rather than to overtime. The first industrial action by junior doctors since November 1975 will result in those in England providing only emergency cover for 24 hours from 8am on Tuesday, leading to a much reduced level of operation. They will stage the same withdrawal of labour for 48 hours from 8am on 26 January and then stage one all-out strike between 8am and 5pm on Wednesday 10 February.
HSBC launches Britain's first fixed-rate mortgage below 1% HSBC has launched Britain’s first fixed-rate mortgage with an interest rate below 1%, as competition among lenders hots up and the cost of borrowing for banks and building societies falls to new lows. The bank is offering customers the chance to lock in for two years at an interest rate of 0.99%, but they need a deposit of at least 35% and will pay a product fee of £1,499. David Hollingworth, of mortgage brokers London and Country, described the rate as “absolutely ridiculously low … It sets a new benchmark for two-year fixed rates.” He said the fee was “big, but not the biggest” and that repayments on a £150,000 mortgage would be £565 a month. The deal is the cheapest fixed rate on the market, and the lowest ever recorded by the financial information firm Moneyfacts. It matches HSBC’s previous lowest rate, a 0.99% discount deal it offered in 2014, but undercuts Yorkshire Building Society’s current market-leading fixed rate of 1.14%. That loan has a slightly lower fee of £1,345. Rachel Springall, finance expert at Moneyfacts, said: “As with any deal, applicants should always work out the true cost of the mortgage to decide whether it’s right for them.” Hollingworth said the rate on the deal was one percentage point below the cheapest five-year fixed-rate, a 1.99% mortgage also offered by HSBC. “You have to weigh that up against the longer-term security of the five-year deal. Two years comes around pretty quickly, but for some people that suits them just fine,” he said. Funds for the loan would be limited, so it was unlikely to be around for a long time, he added. The launch comes as Moneyfacts data shows that rates on two-year fixed-rate mortgages have risen since May, from an average of 2.56% to 2.58%. However, five- and 10-year deals have fallen to all-time lows of 3.16% and 3.46% respectively. Although the Bank of England base rate has remained unchanged since March 2009, mortgage rates have fallen in recent years as the cost of funding the loans has dropped. The recent dip in long-term fixed-rate deals has been driven by investors seeking a haven for their cash in the run-up to the EU referendum on Thursday. Concerns about a Brexit vote have driven money into government bonds, driving yields on them down to record lows. The maximum available to borrowers who take out HSBC’s new mortgage is £500,000.
Disharmony in British yoga community over moves to regulate teachers Last year, while attempting an advanced yoga move, Chris Flack ruptured a muscle in his back and slipped a disc in his neck. He had set himself a challenge – to achieve the scorpion pose, an advanced position that involves balancing on your hands or forearms, then arching your back and legs over until your toes touch your head, scorpion-like. “I wasn’t listening to my body. It was a good lesson to me, to slow down. I had come out of some inversions [headstands and handstands] quite badly a few times, and came crashing down on to my neck. It was just irresponsible practice.” For six months, Flack was in and out of hospital with pain management appointments, and taking morphine. The eventual cure happened shortly before he was due to have a guided cortisone injection, and was less orthodox. After staying off alcohol for months because of the injury, he got a little tipsy at a wedding, and was on the dancefloor at 2am when an elderly woman – “a drunk auntie,” he says with a laugh – jumped on his back and all but fixed him. He still has to manage the injury, which involves daily physiotherapy and a fortnightly deep tissue massage. As for his yoga practice: “I don’t practice inversions any more. Here in the west we want to push ourselves. It’s a competitive culture where we want to win, to achieve, to be the gold medal winner of the yoga Olympics. I think for me yoga’s a lot more about letting go and being comfortable with just being. It’s quite hard to get that balance. I think it’s dangerous if you’re not really aware.” As a yoga instructor, he says, “I teach very carefully, I don’t want to push people, but the odd thing was I was pushing myself.” Which goes to show even conscientious yoga teachers can get it wrong when it comes to their own practice. But it’s the ones who encourage their students to go too far who are currently under scrutiny. Now the British Wheel of Yoga has begun a year-long consultation with a view to regulating yoga teachers and introducing National Occupational Standards. Is there really a problem with bad, even dangerous, teachers? “We think so,” says Paul Fox, the organisation’s chair, which won’t be a surprise to anyone who has ever taken a dodgy yoga class (in my first class in a south London leisure centre, the teacher encouraged me to do a headstand). In a now infamous (among the yoga community) excerpt from science journalist William J Broad’s book The Science of Yoga: the risks and rewards, he highlighted how yoga had been linked to knee, back and shoulder injuries and even strokes. Others have reported repetitive strain injury, torn ligaments, and damaged wrists and hips caused by yoga. But there isn’t really any evidence to suggest yoga is more dangerous than any other physical activity. Fox concedes most of the evidence is anecdotal, but says good teaching will minimise any risks. “If you’re going to take members of the public through a set of yoga poses, you do have a duty of care towards them. You do have to do a risk assessment, and know how to modify postures and how to deal with people who have lower back pain, arthritis, high blood pressure or any number of common ailments. Many good yoga teacher training courses will cover that.” In gyms and leisure centres, yoga teachers have to join the Register of Exercise Professionals (REPs), in the same way spin and aerobics instructors do, but privately anyone can set themselves up as a yoga teacher. And the problem with REPs, say many within the yoga community, including Yoga Alliance, which represents and accredits instructors, is that its standards are so low. The new proposal is to improve standards, but it has been criticised as needless bureaucracy and financially beneficial for the bodies involved, the BWY among them. Yoga Alliance describes it as “a cosy little arrangement”. Is it a money-making scheme? “I think it’s the opposite,” says Fox. The BWY trains teachers, which takes a minimum of 18 months; some courses take three years. “Because it’s unregulated, a lot of people run [sub-standard] teacher training courses and charge pretty much what we charge. They’re the ones making a lot of money out of it.” But people within the yoga community are not happy. At the recent first meeting, says Fox, the mood was “rather un-yogic”. The problem is that it’s not entirely clear what yoga is. For a start, there are a variety of disciplines. Then there are some who believe it’s a spiritual or religious practice (and probably one that should not be taught by western instructors to white people in designer gymwear) and as such shouldn’t be regulated. Or that it’s a creative art and can’t be controlled. “The other school of thought,” says Sarah Shone, a chartered physiotherapist who is also a yoga teacher, “is that yoga is more of a physical practice and physical practices do run the risk of having a negative effect on the body. There is a risk of injury with any physical activity that any of us undertake.” In yoga, she says, the most common injuries are often to do with overstretching and that can apply to any joint of the body. “People who are put into poor alignment can overstretch ligaments and tendons and can flare up problems that are already there. Yoga is a very safe form of physical activity for the vast majority of people, and as long as they are sensible and take responsibility for their own practice and always make sure the yoga instructor is aware of any pains and injuries so they can take that into consideration.” She is undecided on whether it needs more regulation. “Anybody can call themselves a yoga teacher because there isn’t a central governing body. But then is there a governing body for every other form of exercise? And there isn’t.”
Every Australian film-maker owes something to director Paul Cox When I met Paul Cox in Sydney in late 2015, in the lead up to the release of his final film Force of Destiny, he was thin and wiry, picking at a muffin for the entirety of our hour-plus conversation. Cox told me he no longer had an immune system. The cancer that corroded his first liver, leading to a last-minute transplant in 2009, had come back with a vengeance and hit its replacement. “That really hurt me,” he said in his distinct, clipped Dutch accent, quiet but fierce. Every Australian film-maker owes something to the prolific and internationally renowned writer/director, who has passed away, aged 76. Beginning his feature film career in the mid-1970s, the Dutch-born, Melbourne-based artist made more than a dozen documentaries and more than 20 features including Lonely Hearts, Innocence, Man of Flowers, Cactus, A Woman’s Tale, Salvation and The Nun and the Bandit. Almost always working with very limited budgets, several financed by European investors, he was a huge force on the international festival circuit and accrued many champions at home and abroad. Among them was the American film critic Roger Ebert, who called Cox “one of the best directors of our time”. Born Paulus Henriqus Benedictus Cox in 1940 in Limburg, Holland, his first memories – of a Nazi invasion – stayed with him for life. One assumes they played a part, conscious or otherwise, in shaping his approach to telling stories and informing a long-running loathing of gratuitous violence. Cox’s films are deep, sensitively drawn and sometimes profoundly humane; clearly the work of a person who felt a lot and thought a lot. The auteur was often described as the father of independent cinema in Australia. While such an honour is, in reality, almost always shared (George Miller and Byron Kennedy funded the first Mad Max completely independently, for example) there is no under-estimating the film-maker’s influence. And there’s no doubt he was feisty until the end. Many people who collaborated with Cox speak about his big heart, his passion, his hatred of injustice. He certainly didn’t seem like the kind of bloke you’d want to get off-side. Cox never forgave, to put it lightly, the producers of 1999’s Molokai: The Story of Father Damien (one of several collaborations with actor David Wenham) after they fired him from his own film. In post-production the producers hired Cox back after, according to him, the original print was tampered with beyond repair. For the record, I still think Molokai is a very fine film – moving and beautifully shot, with one of Wenham’s best performances. Perhaps the director was too close to it to recognise its virtues. Cox wrote an as-yet unpublished book venting about his experiences. He even came close to outright blaming the producers for his death. “I think it really killed me on many levels,” he told me. “Suddenly I couldn’t get out of bed and my liver was fucked.” The film-maker took the “write what you know about” mantra to extremes. Art imitates life, as they say, but in his case the causality was obvious and direct, closely wired to his own life and experiences. In Force of Destiny, Wenham, like Cox, finds romance late in life after being diagnosed with liver cancer. After his transplant, the director met his partner Rosie Raka in hospital and they were together from then on. For his 2012 documentary The Dinner Party, he invited a group of recipients of life-saving transplants to share a meal and reflect on their experiences. Cox was inspired to make 2008’s Salvation after seeing an evangelist on TV. The 1984 film My First Wife (which stars John Hargreaves and Wendy Hughes and was co-written by Bob Ellis) is probably Australian cinema’s most powerful portrait of a marriage breakdown. It was based on his own. Cactus (1986), one of Cox’s most elegant films, is about a French woman in Australia who becomes blind. It is dedicated to Cox’s mother, Else Cox-Kuminack, who also lost her sight. In true art house/indie style, Cox’s films generally did not receive a wide release but most are available on DVD. Some are better than others – the director’s fondness for an improvisational style sometimes put slow-moving naturalism ahead of compelling writing – but when they were good, they were very good. His sheer output was inspiring; Cox just kept on pumping out quality films, putting aspects of his own life and personality on the line. One of my favourites of his films is 1981’s Lonely Hearts, which stars Norman Kaye and Wendy Hughes as an oddball couple who meet through a dating agency. My experience writing about it, for a column exploring classic Australian cinema (by complete coincidence, published one week before we met) will always be associated with my memories of Cox in person. When I told him our interview was for The , his eyes lit up. Cox said that on the way to the café where we met, he got a phone call from the co-writer of Lonely Hearts, the veteran comedian and character actor John Clarke. Clarke, according to Cox, said to him “finally somebody cares”. Cox said his eyes immediately filled with tears. When I told him I was the person who wrote the column, Cox went quiet for a moment. He placed one of his hands on mine. I don’t recall what he said. I don’t think he even said anything at all. The look on his face was warm and appreciative. Soon after, we hugged and said goodbye. As I walked down the street, I remember thinking that moment marked a lovely synergy between art and the artist. Like his films, it was beautiful but not sentimental. It was soft but profound. Paul Cox will be missed.
Ayeeshia Jane Smith's murder must not be used to score points Recently the country has reacted in shock and horror to the murder of 21-month-old toddler Ayeeshia Jane Smith. The immediate reaction to such an horrific death, as always, is a baying for blood. Everyone wants to find someone to blame: if it is their fault then it cannot be mine. I can understand why members of the public, who may know very little about child protection, see these terrible cases in such simple terms. If only the social worker had done X, this child would still be alive. It looks so clearcut when you look at the timeline of what happened. The trouble is everyone can be wise with hindsight and the world is not so linear. When we look back at past events it seems so obvious that one thing led to another. But when you are in the midst of it nobody knows what is going to happen in five minutes time, let alone a week. The professionals working with children and their families make judgements every day as to the level of risk. It is their job to manage risk, but no one can completely eradicate it. We know the greatest risk factors for a child are living in a family where there are domestic abuse, mental health problems and substance misuse. We could not possibly remove every single child from homes where there are these factors and it would be entirely wrong to do so. Most children who grow up in these circumstances survive, and indeed many thrive, with the right professional support. It would be so easy if we could predict which ones will not. What is so unhelpful is when people in positions of power and privilege and so-called experts who are called upon to comment on these terrible events speak as if we could prevent every child death. The prevailing subtext is “if only the quality of workers was better”. It appears that popularity is more important than integrity. It is these people who act so irresponsibly and do even more damage. This time it was the local MP, Andrew Griffiths, calling for an inquiry. He was quoted as saying that he is not “particularly satisfied” with the serious case review. He talks of the need for there to be an “open investigation” – but that is exactly what a serious case review is. We do not need another inquiry, costing millions of pounds, to tell us that children’s social care, along with other statutory services, are on their knees from funding cuts and early help is being decimated. Griffiths is also quoted as saying “We need to work out why this child was not saved and why her life was lost needlessly and pointlessly”, again creating the illusion that we can prevent every child from being abused or killed. What Griffiths has said could be seen as pre-empting the findings of the serious case review. This is wrong. We should wait for those before we have these conversations. The blaming then starts all over again when the serious case review is published. Naysayers point fingers at individuals, when the reality is so much more complex. In the last eight years I have undertaken 11 reviews. In not one of them was a particular professional responsible for the child dying. It is a ridiculous concept, in the majority of cases. There has been so much discussion about the purpose and value of serious case reviews over recent years. Successive governments say they want to move away from blame, but some MPs and ministers are as guilty as any others at pointing fingers. Some politicians, journalists and commentators will pick one or two lines out of the review, take them completely out of context and so the story runs. Are these people disingenuous, or ignorant? I don’t know which is worse. It is awful enough when children live and die in such terrible circumstances. For those who should know better to use that life and death to score points and cast blame is a dismal state of affairs. Join the Social Care Network to read more pieces like this. Follow us on Twitter (@GdnSocialCare) and like us on Facebook to keep up with the latest social care news and views.
Moshi Monsters maker in crunch talks on loan as figures show revenue slump The maker of hit kids’ game Moshi Monsters is in critical talks to extend the terms of a loan it cannot afford to start paying back after revenues slumped by more than half pushing the company into a £14m loss in 2014. Mind Candy, the British firm that also makes World of Warriors, reported a 57% slump in revenues from £30.6m to just £13.24m in 2014. The slump contributed to the company reporting a drastic fall in pre-tax losses from £2.84m to £14.1m year-on-year, according to Mind Candy’s latest financial filing published at Companies House on Tuesday. The company, which said that 2014 represented a year of “heavy investment”, has now been forced into renegotiating a long-term loan and must arrest the revenue decline or it will struggle to remain a going concern. Mind Candy took out a £6.5m loan with company Triplepoint in 2014, secured against company assets, at a rate of 12%. The loan is due to be repaid from June next year, with the first payment due in July. “The company has a good relationship with the lender and is in negotiations to delay the capital repayment start date,” the company said in a statement approved by its board of directors. “In the event that the negotiations are not successful or that the company cannot generate sufficient revenues then there exists a material uncertainty which may cast significant doubt over the company’s ability to continue as a going concern”. Mind Candy’s board said it has looked at a “number of options” for repaying its debt and strengthening its working capital to ensure it can “continue in operational existence”. The company is confident it can complete the negotiation of an extension to the loan repayment terms, but it also needs to shore up its revenues. “Having completed certain sensitivity analysis on the forecasts, it is evident should the level of revenue fall short of expectations, the company would need to arrange additional finance,” the company said. “While the directors are confident that they would be able to obtain the necessary financial support, there are no binding agreements in place.” Mind Candy’s revenues from Moshi Monsters subscriptions and membership cards fell from £13.2m in 2013 to £5.7m in 2014, but it was the company’s licensing business that was hardest hit, with sales of magazines, toys and other merchandise falling from £12.8m in 2013 to just under £3m in 2014. While Mind Candy’s mobile business grew from nothing in 2013 to £2.1m in 2014, it was not enough to stave off a significant increase in the company’s net losses from £2.2m to £14.1m. “As our financials show, 2014 was a year of very heavy investment for Mind Candy with multiple teams developing a wide range of products and apps across all three of our brands: PopJam, World of Warriors and Moshi Monsters,” said a spokeswoman for the company. The company’s chief operating officer, Divinia Knowles, left in September 2015, with founder Michael Acton Smith leading the search for a new managing director for the company. Mind Candy also found itself in hot water with the Advertising Standards Authority in 2015 over the way subscriptions were advertised to children within Moshi Monsters. The company also closed its Brighton office in November 2015. Acton Smith said that Mind Candy’s biggest challenge had been adapting from a shift in children’s entertainment habits away from the web and towards mobile apps. “We, and many others, assumed that it would be relatively simple to transfer our business from the web to mobile, but the learning has been that, in the mobile eco-system, there are now millions of apps that they can choose from,” he told GamesIndustry.biz in November. “They’re less interested in playing traditional kids games when they have access to everything from Clash of Clans to Game of War to Candy Crush Saga. Games that aren’t designed for them but have marketing budgets of hundreds of millions of dollars, which means they see them every day, in pop culture and elsewhere.”
What would the Trump TV network actually look like? With the election slipping ever further from his grasp, it’s thought that Donald Trump will now use the momentum from his failed campaign to launch his own far-right television network. But what will the Trump News Network’s output be? The has received an exclusive leak of TNN’s opening schedule. 6am – What Just Happened? Your early morning bulletin, where a beautiful woman reads the furious barrage of splenetic tweets that Trump inevitably wrote and sent while sitting on his golden toilet between the hours of 2am and 5am the previous night. 9am – Alex Jones and Friends Live from a tinfoil-lined bunker full of bottled urine three feet below his mother’s house, Alex Jones from Infowars hosts a lively magazine show about the issues of the day, with special guests including Mike Huckabee (via malfunctioning Skype feed), a photo of Fox Mulder and a dirty pillow with a face drawn on it in lipstick. 11am – Melania! The current Mrs Trump’s daytime talkshow. Today, Melania chats to Melissa Joan Hart, Gary Busey and the owner of the world’s fattest dog while simultaneously blinking out an urgent request for sanctuary in Morse code direct to camera. 1pm – The Trumpprentice A three-hour compilation from NBC’s long-running reality show The Apprentice, comprising clips featuring nothing but Donald Trump. This week, Trump walks parallel to a helicopter, Trump says “What are you, a dummy?” to an unseen contestant offscreen, and Trump reacts to an unheard joke by smirking like a Goodfellas extra who’s been carved out of contaminated meat and then electrocuted. 4pm – The Adventures of Crooked Hillary Children’s animation. Crooked Hillary and her friend Ben Ghazi have been hiding emails all over town! Will she apologize, or will Officer Don’s special prosecutor throw her back in jail where she belongs, the bitch? 5pm – Trump’t Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump present this hilarious hidden camera show. Today, Chris Christie sees a doughnut on the floor and eats it, but the doughnut has piss on it and he cries. Then he dies because the doughnut is also poisonous. The end. 6pm – Shootin’ With Putin Friend of TNN and all-round great guy Vladimir Putin takes off most of his clothes and shows us the best way to murder things from a distance. Deer, bears or leftwing radicals, it really doesn’t matter so long as there’s a warm gun in his rugged hands. Theme tune: On Blueberry Hill, performed by Putin. 7pm – RIGGED! With Donald Trump Failed presidential candidate Trump rails against different aspects of a system that he feels is intrinsically weighted against him. This week: Why Do I Always Get Put Near A Screaming Kid Whenever I Go On A Plane? 9pm - That’s My Girl! Sitcom. Old Man Trump’s eyesight is failing, and he can’t stop trying to nonconsensually force his tongue into his nurse’s mouth. Only problem is, his nurse is also his daughter! Awkward! 10pm – Sean Hannity The big money transfer from Fox News hosts a prestigious analysis show, notorious for its segments where the host keeps looking offstage, gulping and then immediately apologizing whenever he says anything that displeases his paymasters. 11pm – Gropenight Nightly talkshow. An all-star panel of Trump, Roger Ailes and Bill Cosby debate the day’s news while simultaneously using their absurd male privilege to force themselves upon a series of cowering women who are clearly gagging for it because they’re too terrified and embarrassed to immediately file a police report. 12am – My Two Pence Former potential vice-president Mike Pence closes out the schedule by denying that any of today’s shows actually ever happened and suggesting that we’ve all somehow misread the existence of this entire network on a deeply profound level. 2am to 6am – Infomercials Tiny rings and pussy grabbers.
Fifty Shades Darker trailer gives Star Wars: The Force Awakens record a beating Fifty Shades Darker has beaten a record previously held by Star Wars: The Force Awakens, for the most trailer views in 24 hours. The trailer for the film was released on Wednesday, and viewed 114m times across all digital platforms in its first day of release. Within the first hour, says Universal, it had more than 2.5m views on the official US domestic Facebook page. Yet the majority of views did not come from north America, but from 32 international territories including, most prominently, the UK, Mexico and France. The second and fourth places in the chart are both taken by Star Wars: The Force Awakens, with 112m views for the first full length trailer and 88m for the teaser released in April 2015. In third place is another Disney film: the live-action remake of Beauty and the Beast, starring Emma Watson. That teaser had 91m views in May. Fifty Shades Darker will be released to coincide with Valentine’s Day 2017, and sees Jamie Dornan and Dakota Johnson return as the bondage-loving couple Christian Grey and Anastasia Steele. James Foley, whose last movie credit was the 2007 erotic thriller Perfect Stranger, replaces Sam Taylor-Johnson as director. Fifty Shades of Grey was released in 2014 and made more than half a billion dollars worldwide.
Why George Michael turned his back on America George Michael found success quickly in the US, briefly eclipsing even superstars such as Michael Jackson and Madonna at the tail end of the 1980s. But his experience and life in America were soured by a fight with his record label and arrest in a public bathroom that forced him to come out as a gay man. As a solo artist and with Wham!, the singer collected 10 No 1 singles on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, including Faith, Father Figure, One More Try and Careless Whisper, Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go and Everything She Wants. Over on the albums charts, Wham! claimed a No 1 with its breakthrough album Make It Big, while Michael led the list as a soloist with Faith, spending 12 weeks in the top spot in 1988. As the Rolling Stone writer Greg Pond noted that year: “He is only 24 – three years younger than Prince, five years younger than Michael Jackson, and outselling both of them. He is ridiculously famous; he has more money than he can spend. And for most of his brief career, he has had virtually no artistic credibility.” I Knew You Were Waiting, his duet with Aretha Franklin in 1987, earned him a Grammy award for best R&B performance. But it was his first solo album, Faith, released in 1987, which catapulted him to true American superstardom. That album’s first single, I Want Your Sex, was banned by some radio stations, adding to its appeal. US radio host Casey Kasem would not say the song’s name on the air. Faith spent 51 non-consecutive weeks in the top 10 of the Billboard 200, eventually selling more than 10m copies, and won album of the year at the Grammys in 1989. But Michael’s fortunes soon began to slip. He believed his record label Sony had not sufficiently promoted Faith’s follow-up, Listen Without Prejudice Vol 1. Michael’s label complained that the David Fincher-directed video for Freedom 90, while featuring emerging supermodels Naomi Campbell and Christy Turlington, did not feature the singer, causing the album to perform poorly compared with its predecessor. In 1992, Michael went to court in an attempt to break free from his recording contract. He later explained he was “trying to get myself into a situation where I worked with a company that had some respect for me”. But he lost the case, which had prevented him from releasing any new material for two years, and was obliged to pay Sony $30m -$40m (£24m-£33m) to release him. The dispute put him in the same situation as Prince, who was also mounting a high-profile campaign against his label at the time. Prince reportedly kept phoning Michael during the trial. “I just never rung him back. We weren’t exactly in the same boat. All I really wanted to say to him was, ‘Wipe that fucking word [‘slave’] off your cheek, you’re not exactly doing me any favours’,” Michael said. Despite making new deals with Virgin in Britain and DreamWorks in America that gave him the artistic freedom he craved, Michael had trouble coming up with new material. He told friends that it did not matter that he had signed with Geffen, run by a prominent gay executive and founder David Geffen, because the music industry functioned as an old boys’ club, its contracts based on those used to tie stars to studios. “It was part of the reason he turned his back on America,” recalls Kim Bowen, a close friend of the singer who before his death was announced had been opening Christmas presents for her children sent by the singer. According to Bowen, his arrest in 1998 for engaging in a lewd act in a public restroom in Beverly Hills and the subsequent response changed his view of the country. “He was such a fabulous, truthful gay man and he loved America, but when all the stuff went down he was just over it,” says Bowen, who styled the Outside video. “America had loved him so much, I think it really broke his heart.” But the star’s tribulations were a source of strength for many gay men and women, Bowen believes. “His coming out, which he did not plan and was not managed by any publicity machine, was a very painful thing for him. But the way he handled it, and the way he braved it, and the way he made it all right for them, empowered a generation of young men.” That may turn out to be Michael’s true legacy in the US. He sold his house in Beverly Hills and visited only sporadically. In 2008, Michael appeared in the TV series Eli Stone and performed on American Idol in 2008. He released a new track called December Song in the same year and in 2011 participated in James Corden’s first Carpool Karaoke with a cover version of New Order’s 1987 hit True Faith.
Son of Saul review – a stunning, excoriating Holocaust drama The experience of evil and the experience of being in hell are what are offered by this devastating and terrifying film by László Nemes, set in the Auschwitz II-Birkenau death camp in 1944. This film would be an achievement for anyone, but for a first-time feature director it is stunning – something to compare with Elem Klimov’s Come and See. Son of Saul reopens the debate around the Holocaust and its cinematic thinkability, addresses the aesthetic and moral issues connected with creating a fiction within it and probes the nature of Wittgenstein’s axiom “whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must remain silent”. Saul, played by the 48-year-old Hungarian actor Géza Röhrig, is a Jewish prisoner who has been made part of the Sonderkommando, inmates given tiny, temporary privileges in return for policing their own extermination. They must manage the day-to-day business of herding bewildered prisoners out of the trains and up to the very doors of the gas chambers and then removing the bodies, the chief task being to pacify the victims in advance with their simple presence, silently shoring up the Nazi soldiers’ reassuring lies about these being simply showers. They are bit-part players in a theatre of horror. With staggering audacity, Son of Saul begins with something other, comparable movies would hardly dare approach even at the very end – the gas chamber itself. Here is where Saul discovers the body of a boy, whom he believes to be his son, and sets out to find a rabbi among the prisoners to give him a proper burial. He must do this in a series of furtive, enigmatic whispers with prisoners who are trying to concentrate on a planned uprising, using what they call “shiny” as bribes for information and material: valuables taken at enormous risk from the bodies of the dead. The camera stays in a tight closeup almost throughout, with a shallow focus on Saul’s haggard face, scorched and strip-mined of normal human emotion and response, like the face of a pterodactyl. The horrendous reality of everything else – bodies, uniforms, vehicles, muzzle flashes – is glimpsed at the edges, often out of focus. Like the sun, the reality of this evil cannot be directly looked at. This movie won the Grand Prix award at Cannes and the best foreign film at the Oscars, and has taken its place in the debate concerning cinema and the Holocaust. Gillo Pontecorvo’s 1960 film Kapò was about a young girl who achieves these same special poisoned-chalice privileges in a Nazi concentration camp, and the director Jacques Rivette once said he could not forgive Pontecorvo for the film’s showy tracking shot that framed one woman, played by Emmanuelle Riva, as she killed herself by throwing herself against an electric fence. What is held to be suspect is the implication that some emollient artistic satisfaction can be taken from Nazi evil. (I would have raised an eyebrow at another scene, in which a female prisoner bares her breasts at a medical inspection to distract a German officer from the condition of her hands. But perhaps it is precisely the scene’s lack of good taste that excused it, in Rivette’s eyes.) Overt dramatisation will always risk looking crass, exploitative and inauthentic and I myself have winced at Hollywood attempts to tackle this issue in the grotesquely misplaced language of redemption and naive humanism. Jean-Luc Godard said cinema’s great failure was its failure to show the Holocaust, an objection that has, in fact, gained a new currency with the restoration of Sidney Bernstein and Alfred Hitchcock’s all but lost official documentary German Concentration Camps Factual Survey, and André Singer’s Night Will Fall, the documentary about how that film was nervously suppressed after the war. The most successful – or only successful – approach is widely held to be that of Claude Lanzmann’s Shoah, an epic oral history of the Holocaust, because of the candour of eyewitness accounts, avoiding the pitfalls of fiction. Yet Nemes’s technique answers the traditional objection, to the extent that this is possible, with his closeup approach on the face – perhaps a fictional variant on Lanzmann, and a method that allows fiction and the individual subject to take some of the weight of horror and history. Its good faith and moral and intellectual seriousness are beyond doubt. And Röhrig’s performance is transfixing, without ever drifting into the realm of actorly pretence. The final image of his face – transformed by events that may be real or hallucinatory – is extraordinary.
What lies beneath The Revenant Alejandro González Iñárritu’s The Revenant, nominated in 12 categories at the Oscars, which take place this weekend, is based in part on the novel of the same title by Michael Punke. And yet all the force of the film turns on that “in part”. By transforming the novel’s largely functional descriptions of the natural environment to the fierce wintry features of mountains, plains, rivers and waterfalls, the entire landscape of the movie becomes a character in itself – helping to focus more fully on the survival struggles of the character Hugh Glass, the main protagonist superbly played by Leonardo DiCaprio. By giving him a Native American son, Iñárritu also adds a more meaningful plot twist than anything we find in the novel. The novel is a canvas upon which the director has projected many wishful things that evoke an American supremacy of yesteryear. Perhaps the most important of the film’s reworkings is the subtle justification it lends to the notion of settler colonialism. Events in the novel take place between 1 September 1823 and 7 May 1824, encompassing the tail end of the fur and pelt trade that took place in the United States and Canada for almost 250 years. Both Canada’s Indian Act of 1876 and the American General Allotment Act of 1887 developed as a long process of shifting from the agreed treaties of previous centuries to the formal colonialism of the 19th century. The novel is set in the early stages of the establishment of this formal colonialism and offers hints about this process of settlement. There is an opening reference to the US army being sent in to defend a trading post against the attacks of a native tribe in Missouri. The movie also references the army, but places its activity in the background to unfolding events. Settler colonialism takes good and bad forms in the film – the bad invested in the greedy French pelt traders, the good infused in the redoubtable Glass, and by extension the English traders. The movie painstakingly establishes the credentials of Glass and his party, who are also shown trudging patiently through the icy terrain to reach the safety of their campsite. By contrast, the depiction of the French trappers is one of greed, rape and abhorrent racism against the native population. And with strands drawn together, the message is clear: that the uncharted territory that was North America was harsh and unforgiving and required a particular form of robust masculinity to be successfully tamed. This necessarily required the ruthless quelling of local populations, with layers of pacification added to the film that won’t be found in the novel. The most egregious form of this pacification in the movie is in the scenes of the razing of the Native Americans’ village. Since the villages appear when attacked to be occupied mainly by women and children, it comes to define a female and maternal quality to the aboriginal land. This stands in sharp contrast to the various episodes of violent and muscular masculinity that we see throughout the movie. Depictions of Glass’s wife suggest that he went native in more ways than one. Not only did he marry and have a child with a native Pawnee woman, he had also been educated into their language and spirituality. Again, this is a notable difference between the novel and the beautifully shot film. A long list of novels have been successfully adapted for the big screen in recent decades, but it must be said that The Revenant is not as accomplished as many of them. It is no The English Patient, or Life of Pi, or even Brooklyn. So why, one might ask, was it chosen for adaptation? Because it provides us with yet another instalment in the long line of images of the frontier of which Hollywood is so enamoured; cult classics such as Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven (1992), Jim Jarmusch’s surreal Dead Man (1995), Tommy Lee Jones’s The Homesman (2014) and, of course, Gore Verbinski’s The Lone Ranger (2013). Because in today’s America – wrestling with serious existential doubts about the possibility of harmonious inter-race relations, and beset by the legacies of ill-judged frontier wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere – a film that glorifies settler colonialism evokes a celebrated past and thus becomes a vehicle for present-day celebration. With more diverse voices in Hollywood, there might have been a more critical take on what were historically brutal forms of colonial oppression. If studios – which choose what films get made and what stories are told – hope to do better, The Revenant seems a poor start. This article was amended on 22 February 2016 because it attributed Unforgiven to Oliver Stone. This has been corrected.
Don't take me so seriously, says 'sarcastic' Trump Trump retracts Isis accusation, mocks Clinton Donald Trump has tweeted a retraction of comments he has made repeatedly this week claiming Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were the co-founders of Isis. “Ratings challenged @CNN reports so seriously that I call President Obama (and Clinton) ‘the founder’ of ISIS, & MVP,” he tweeted at 3.26am on Friday. “THEY DON’T GET SARCASM?” In Florida on Thursday night, the Republican candidate implied Clinton lacks mental stamina, and twice got the day wrong. “Look, what happens, she gives a short speech then she goes home, goes to sleep, she shows up two days later. Remember, short circuit. Remember that, right? Short circuit.” Last week the Democratic nominee said that she “may have short-circuited” her answer in a TV interview about the FBI investigation into her use of a private email server as secretary of state. Meanwhile the ’s Amber Jamieson returned to 12 “secret Trump” supporters who did not want to tell their friends and family about their choice and found that four of them had now jumped off the Trump train. Donald Trump: I was being sarcastic about Obama and Isis Clinton lays out economic vision In a speech that sharply criticized her opponent’s economic vision for the US, Clinton said Trump’s proposals would only benefit the rich and would destroy the economy. Positioning herself as a defender of the middle class, Clinton pledged to create “good-paying jobs” by rebuilding infrastructure across the nation. “We are way overdue for this, my friends. We are living off the investments that were made by our parents’ and grandparents’ generations,” she said. Here, Alan Yuhas compares her speech with the one Trump made about the economy on Monday. Clinton: Trump’s economic plan will benefit rich, mine will create 10m jobs Phelps, Biles golden in Rio Michael Phelps won a fourth gold last night in Rio in the 200m individual medley, his 13th victory in an individual event – the most solo wins by any man or woman in history, breaking the record held by Leonidas of Rhodes since 152BC … 2,168 years ago. Here, we look at why Phelps is still great at an age when most swimmers have faded (persistence, money and freakish talent have helped). Simone Biles, meanwhile, took gold in the individual gymnastic competition. And Simone Manuel became the first African American woman to win individual swimming gold. “It means a lot, especially with what is going on in the world today, some of the issues of police brutality,” Manuel said after her win. “This win hopefully brings hope and change to some of the issues that are going on. My color just comes with the territory.” Friday’s liveblog is already going strong, and here is a preview of day seven in Rio. Phelps claims 200m individual medley gold for fourth straight Olympics Trump Taj Mahal bankruptcy faces protest In Atlantic City, a fierce battle over Donald Trump’s former casino, the Trump Taj Mahal, is near its conclusion. Carl Icahn, billionaire owner of Atlantic City’s decaying but still opulent elephant-fronted Taj, wants to shut it down, saying striking workers have made it impossible to turn around a property that has lost him $100m. Unions representing casino workers say Icahn is a raider who used expensive loans to squeeze the Taj into bankruptcy and then used legal proceedings to shaft workers. Trump Taj Mahal bankruptcy pits Carl Icahn’s casino against striking workers Thai tourist centers hit by explosions Multiple explosions at the tourism hotspots of Hua Hin and Surat Thani have left four people dead and dozens injured, including seven foreigners. No responsibility has been claimed for the bombings but Thai authorities were quick to rule out terrorism, instead blaming “local sabotage”. “This is not a terrorist attack. It is just local sabotage that is restricted to limited areas and provinces,” said national police deputy spokesman Piyapan Pingmuang. Tourist towns of Phuket and Hua Hin in Thailand hit by fatal explosions US engineer accused of nuclear espionage Szuhsiung “Allen” Ho, a nuclear engineer employed by the China General Nuclear Power Company, has been charged by the US government with conspiring to develop nuclear material in China without US approval and “with the intent to secure an advantage to the People’s Republic of China”. But little is known about the 66-year-old American citizen who was born in Taiwan, educated in the US and lives in Wilmington, Delaware. Nuclear espionage charge for China firm Obama drops summer playlist From Aloe Blacc’s joyful anthem The Man to Mary J Blige and Method Man’s ballad of love against the odds I’ll Be There for You (You’re All I Need to Get By), the president’s mixtape reminds us why we will miss him, writes Rebecca Carroll. The president’s daytime list includes Wale, Jidenna, Nina Simone and Prince. But nighttime is when the president gets moody … President Obama’s summer playlist: a proud affirmation of his blackness Campus rape victim demands to be heard Another victim of college sexual assault has released a statement on the trauma of the attack and ensuing trial, offering a powerful depiction of rape culture and victim-blaming that echoes the viral letter of the woman at the center of the high-profile Stanford sexual assault case. ‘Inspired by other survivors’: campus rape victim demands to be heard The case for Arianna Huffington As the founder of Huffington Post leaves to spend more time with her pillow, it’s worth reflecting on how she helped rouse old media from a complacent slumber. “To think of Huffington Post as taking a wrecking ball to a noble industry which would otherwise have found a righteous path of prosperity and good practice through the digital swamp is completely wrong,” writes Emily Bell. Love her or loathe her, Arianna Huffington woke the news industry up In case you missed it … World’s oldest vertebrate pre-dates America Researchers at the University of Copenhagen estimate that a female Greenland shark is most likely around 392 years old, although the range of possible ages stretches from 272 to 512 years. That makes the slow-moving shark, which only reaches sexual maturity at age 150, almost twice as long-living as its nearest rival in longevity, the Arctic-living bowhead whale. But the title of the world’s longest-lived animal is held by Ming, an Icelandic clam known as an ocean quahog, that made it to 507 years before scientists bumped it off. 400-year-old Greenland shark is oldest vertebrate animal
Kanye West confirms he and Drake are making an album together Kanye West has confirmed that he and Drake are working on an album together. Speaking to Vogue, West said: “We’re just working on music, working on a bunch of music together, just having fun going into the studio. We’re working on an album, so there’s some exciting things coming up soon.” A joint venture between the pair had previously been hinted at, when a billboard appeared in Los Angeles next month, displaying a pairing of West’s GOOD Music and Drake’s OVO logos. West offered no more information, but the announcement might be a welcome piece of good news for Drake. On Tuesday night, while he was playing in Phoenix, Arizona, a thief broke in to one of his tour buses and stole up to $3m (£2.24m) worth of jewellery belonging to his DJ, Future the Prince. A bag containing the jewellery was later recovered by police, and a suspect – a 21-year-old named Travion King, who has sometimes worked as a stagehand at the Talking Stick Arena, where Drake was playing – was arrested on Wednesday. Phoenix police spokesman Sergeant Vince Lewis said King had been identified through CCTV footage.
Trouble in the air: Trump jet registration expired in January, report says Donald Trump is often fuzzy on the details of his policy proposals, but a New York Times report has detailed another area where what seem like minutiae might pose a problem for the billionaire Republican presidential candidate: the registration on one of his private planes has expired. According to a Federal Aviation Administration document first reported by the Times, the registration for Trump’s Cessna 750 Citation X jet came to an end in January and is not currently in good standing with the FAA, which means that the jet may be forced out of commission for days or even weeks while its registration is updated. The lapse means that the dozens of trips Trump has taken on the aircraft – which he owns through a limited liability company – since January may have exposed him to serious civil and criminal penalties. Flying an aircraft without proper registration is punishable by a civil penalty of up to $27,500, a $250,000 criminal fine and up to three years’ imprisonment. Trump’s personal aircraft have become vital campaign props during his improbable rise to frontrunner status in the race for the Republican presidential nomination. He arrived at the Iowa state fair ahead of the state’s caucus in one of his three Sikorsky helicopters, which he then loaned out to allow Iowa children the chance to ride it. He frequently gives stump speeches in front of his custom Boeing 757, which has its own theme music, lifted from the 1997 action film Air Force One. The 757’s registration is good through 2018, according to FAA records, but it still poses a problem: it is too large to land at many smaller airports, where Trump frequently hosts his rallies. Losing out on his personal Cessna for a few weeks ahead of the so-called “Acela primaries” in the mid-Atlantic region next week might complicate Trump’s travel plans – and require the expense of renting a smaller jet in the meantime.
Michael Douglas: ‘Kirk was film star first, father second’ When I was born, my father, Kirk, was 28, my mother, Diana, only 21. When I was barely two, my father decided he’d had enough of playing not particularly memorable parts in Broadway plays and took off on his own for Hollywood in pursuit of fame and fortune. Whichever way you cut it, Kirk was a man who cast – who still casts, aged 99 – an extremely long shadow. He was, and is, incredibly dynamic, larger than life, sometimes aggressive, a very masculine man who loved women. As my mother quickly discovered. Within 18 months of him being in California, she had seen and read enough to call time on the marriage. They divorced when I was seven and my younger brother, Joel, four. A lot of marriages hang on too long for the sake of the children. But, if you start asking questions when they are older, those children will often tell you that you could have cut the tension with a knife when their parents were together and that divorce was rather like letting the air out of a balloon. Even at that young age, I knew they weren’t right for each other. He was a Russian Jew peasant. She was a sophisticated woman, an Anglican from a well-off Bermudian family. But you know what they say: opposites attract. She was very beautiful. He was in the navy during the war and came across a copy of Life magazine one day and there was my mother on the cover. They had already met at drama school and he decided he would marry her. She clearly had a penchant for bad boys so there was an animal attraction. But they were mismatched. I adored my mother, whom we lost last year at the age of 92. She struggled as a single mum, working in soap operas and on and off Broadway. Then she made a wonderful choice in her next husband, a lovely man, another actor, called Bill Darrid. They married when I was 12. We lived in a small farmhouse in Connecticut, not 20 miles from where I live today. Bill was an extraordinary guy, the most important male influence through my teenage years. To his credit, Kirk always referred to him as my surrogate father. Step-parents often get a bad press. But it isn’t always true. This was a man who took on the responsibility of raising another man’s children, and that included answering questions about the birds and the bees. Dad’s second wife, Anne, is still alive and theirs has been a good marriage – lasting now for more than 60 years. She’s a wonderful woman, the opposite of a wicked stepmother, who has been an integral part of my life all that time. Joel and I would go off to Hollywood to see Dad during the holidays, and we had some great times. We would visit him on set. I had my 16th birthday in Los Angeles. Hayley Mills was my date. Or we would go to Kirk’s house in Palm Springs where Joel and I became the Desert Rats, riding horses out into the countryside. People such as Burt Lancaster, Frank Sinatra and Tony Curtis would drop by. All of that left a lasting impression although, looking back, I can see that Dad was film star first, father second. We were much more emotionally attached to our stepfather. Like Kirk before me, I was too absent from my first marriage. Second time round, I’m so much more hands-on. By the time Dylan and then Carys were born, I was well ensconced in my career. They both want to be actors and Catherine [Zeta-Jones] and I have seen enough of them on stage to know they have got it. You’ll be hearing from another generation of Douglases. I’ve no doubt about it. • Tickets for An Evening with Michael Douglas at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane on Sunday 30 October are available at rutlive.co.uk or on 0844 412 4657
Watford 1-4 Tottenham Hotspur: Premier League – live! Peep peep! Spurs make it consecutive 4-1 wins away from home and move to third in the table for the time being at least. They were superb; Watford were crap. Thanks for your company, bye! PS Join Niall McVeigh for Arsenal v Crystal Palace, or else. I have your IP address. Don’t call it a comeback. Watford get a goal in added time, with Kaboul sliding in a free-kick at the second attempt after a brilliant save from Lloris. 90 min A bit of olé football from Spurs takes us into added time. They’ve scored eight goals away from home in five days; not bad preparation for Wednesday’s humdinger at home to Chelsea. 87 min The tempo is much slower now. Spurs are content to pass the time rather than try to score a fifth. 84 min A well-worked free-kick from Watford releases Kaboul on the left of the box, and his volleyed cross is acrobatically claimed by Lloris. That’s the first significant thing he’s had to do in the match. 82 min Janssen screams with pain as Cathcart plants studs onto the top of his foot. Cathcart is booked. 80 min “Hey Rob, here’s my review of the year,” says Kevin Smith. “Manager of the Year: obviously it’s Bob Bradley. Hands down. I mean, just look at Swansea - 8 of 33 points (24%) with him, 4 of 24 (17%) without him. “Player of the Year: Scott Arfield, because it’s nice to have a Canadian in the premier league again. “Disappointment of the Year: Sticking with the Canadian thing, the lack of consideration Christine Sinclair gets for women’s player of the year. More international goals than anyone other than Abby Wambach (and she’s only 19 back), led Canada to a 2nd Olympic bronze as well as a domestic title, she’s still never finished higher than 5th in voting, and this year will be at best 4th. The top 3 includes Marta and Carli Lloyd, neither of whom got a medal in the Olympics, with Marta only scoring one goal (a penalty) the entire tournament.” 79 min Watford’s final substitution: Capoue off, Christian Kabasele on. 78 min Spurs make their final substitution: Kane off, Vincent Janssen on. 77 min Son continues to not score. First the last man Doucoure makes a vital interception; then Son lashes a bouncing ball over the bar. 74 min Amrabat winces his way off the field to be replaced by Jerome Sinclair. 73 min Amrabat bumps Wanyama over while protecting the ball and then collapses himself in the comedy style. He’s going to go off. 70 min The youngster Mason does well to deny Son a shooting chance after a fine long pass from Wimmer. 68 min A substitution for each side. Watford bring on the teenager Brandon Mason for Jose Holebas, who is on a yellow card, while Spurs introduce Ben Davies for the ever excellent Danny Rose. 67 min Trippier is continuing, though he doesn’t look particularly comfortable. He fell awkwardly after a challenge with Holebas. 66 min Trippier is struggling with a shoulder injury and might need to go off. 64 min “The fear,” says Peter McLeod. “Sure, we’ll always have it, and with good reason. It was super Spursy to qualify for the Champions League, book Wembley for our home matches and then go and lose the first two. But we need to have some perspective. Back in the late 90s Spursiness consisted of trying to copy Arsenal by getting a fancy foreign manager, then watching as Wenger racked up Doubles while Christian Gross almost got us relegated. Some fans complain about the Levy era but it’s been a dream compared to what came before.” 63 min Prodl is booked for a foul from behind on Son. 61 min Dele Alli is substituted with Chelsea in mind. He played beautifully, scoring twice and smashing a long-range shot off the bar. Harry Winks replaces him. 59 min Deeney, put through on goal by Prodl, is erroneously flagged offside. Morally speaking, it’s now Watford 1-4 Tottenham Hotspur. 58 min “Hai Rob!” says Arief. “I’m watching Spurs in Klaten, Indonesia now. What do you think are the chances of Harry Kane surpassing Thierry Henry’s 59 goals in first 100 appearances in the second half?” Ordinarily I’d say it’s unlikely but with the way Watford are defending he could easily get the 58 goals he needs. 57 min “Agents Kabul and Gomes seem to have done their job, not forgetting Capoue who is joining in by being totally invisible,” says John Tumbridge. “Surely now is the opportunity to get Carter-Vickers on and see how he is in the Premier League and Janssen in the hope it will bounce off his backside and he can score without requiring a penalty.” 56 min Kane curls it low around the wall, and Gomes gets down smartly to his left to push it wide. I think it would have hit the outside of the post anyway. 55 min Capoue commits an offensively brainless foul on Rose 20 yards from goal. Eriksen usually takes free-kicks but Kane is on a hat-trick... 53 min Here’s Mark Turner. “Manager of the Half Year: Allardyce. You want entertainment? Big Sam got your entertainment. Player of the Half Year: Hazard. Nailed on. Can’t even think of a jokey alternative. Disappointment of the Half Year: John Stones still being taken seriously as a defender.” 52 min Son slices wide of the near post after another fine move. I assume Spurs will declare soon, with Wednesday’s match against Chelsea in mind, but for now they look like scoring every time they attack. 49 min Doucoure’s low cross finds Deeney eight yards out with his back to goal, but he dithers and loses possession. 48 min “I was very disappointed when the FA deemed Big Sam too spicy but then the Premier League is more fun with him so let’s say he’s my pick for manager,” says Phil Podolsky. “Best player? Always liked that Yaya fella.” What, Sanogo? Dele Alli makes it four after 58 seconds of the second half. It’s another shocker for Watford. Prodl gives the ball away to Kane, who crosses to find Alli in his own personal postcode at the far post. He takes a slightly heavy touch but gets to the ball before Gomes and slides it under him with his left foot. 46 min “Following here in Vadodara, India, rooting for my Spurs,” says Rich Zumkhawala-Cook. “Is Trippier playing as well all over the pitch as he is in attack?” The moment he has any defending to do, I’ll let you know. 46 min Peep peep! Spurs begin the second half. “I’ll see your 3-4 and raise you a 3-5,” says John Dalby. I didn’t like to mention that. No team deserves to be reminded of being terrorised by Juan Sebastian Veron. Matt Loten’s half-year awards “Manager of the Half Year: Tony Pulis, because not even West Brom fans seem to give this man the love that he deserves. Not sure about his financial nous, mind, but I’m choosing to keep off-field issues out of my decision. Player of the Half Year: Zlatan Ibrahimovic. To do what he’s doing, at his age, in ‘this league,’ is nothing short of astonishing. Context: The last Manchester United player to score 16 goals before Christmas was a 26 year-old Ruud van Nistelrooy. Disappointment of the Half Year: Crystal Palace doing away with stripes for their home kit. It’s just wrong, I tell you. If Norwich were still in the top flight, though, it’d be their third kit.” Half-time reading (optional, encouraged) And the scoreline flatters Watford. See you in 10 minutes to see how many more Spurs can get. 45 min Spurs know better than most about the dangers of a 3-0 half-time lead. I think they’ll be okay today though. 44 min Holebas is booked for a bad tackle on Eriksen. This could end up a darts score. Kaboul mishits a clearance across his own box, Alli beats Cathcart to the loose ball and slides it calmly under Gomes. Spurs have been entirely magnificent today. 40 min “If you need some space and time filler, how about if we choose our mid-season award winners?” says Hubert O’Hearn. “My idea so I get to go first: Manager of the Half Year: Has to be Conte. Player of the Half Year: Diego Costa. In large part this is why Conte is Manager of the season - he’s transformed the little ball of hate into the best striker in the Premier League. Disappointment of the Half Year: Leicester’s title defence ... but we love them anyway.” Was Leicester a disappointment? It was pretty predictable. I agree with the first two. My main disappointment of the half year? Alton Towers. 39 min Son misses a great chance to make it 3-0. He met Eriksen’s inswinging free-kick on the volley, 10 yards out, but slid it fractionally wide of the near post. 36 min Wanyama places his studs down the back of Amrabat’s leg, which gives Watford a free-kick. It lobs around the box for a bit until Alderweireld mistimes a header back towards his own goal. Deeney looks set to score until Kane appears to clear the danger. Who does he think he is, Roy Race? 35 min I bloody love this Spurs team. There is so much to admire about them. Two goals for Kane, two assists for Tripper. This time he produced a sensational right-wing cross, larruping it into the six-yard on the box on the half-volley, and Kane muscled his way between two defenders to volley into the net. That is a brilliant goal. 32 min “A Spurs fan mate of mine is at Cheltenham races this afternoon,” says Mark Turner. “I’m busy winding him up, so far told him that Watford are 2-0 up via an Alderweireld own goal and a Guedioura screamer. Will happily take suggestions for Chapter 3 of the wind-up (at some point he’ll check the interwebs and the fun is over). Happy New Year, Rob.” Better still, tell him Spurs are 1-0 up and playing brilliantly. If that doesn’t give a Spurs fan the fear, I don’t know what will. 30 min Spurs are rampant. Alli’s majestic scooped pass over the defence almost puts Kane clear, with Prodl making a desperate and vital challenge. Seconds after Alli hits the bar, Kane gives Spurs the lead. Trippier, on the right wing, played a clever pass around the defence to put Kane through on goal, and he calmly placed it over the diving Gomes. 27 min Alli hits the bar with a brilliant rising drive from 25 yards. It was moving away from Gomes all the time and clattered off the bar. A goal is coming... 25 min Two of Tottenham’s centre-backs almost combine for a goal in open play. Alderweireld drives an angled pass over the top of the defence to put Dier clear. He has the chance to loop a header over Gomes, lurking in no-man’s land, but instead tries to head down to a team-mate and the chance goes. Moments later, Eriksen rifles just over the bar from 20 yards. Gomes had it covered. 24 min “I’m out there,” says Richard Wood. “Getting your coverage from Middleton, south Australia. Can we get Mike Dean in to give that penalty?” He’s not actually the referee today, though such semantics needn’t be an impediment to him awarding a couple of penalties for shirt-pulling. 23 min Eriksen’s square pass is dummied neatly by Alli, allowing Rose to maraud onto the ball, control it with his left foot just inside the area - and then splatter a right-footed shot miles over the bar. 21 min 20 min This game is not very entertaining. 16 min Anyone out there? 14 min Watford haven’t got going at all in attack. At the other end, Kane wallops a 30-yard shot not too far wide of the far post. Gomes knew it was going wide and didn’t make an attempt to save. 10 min Spurs are beginning to control the match. Rose’s cutback finds Eriksen, whose hopelessly mishit shot slams off the outstretched hand of Capoue and behind for a corner. Some referees would have given a penalty there. That said, Eriksen’s appeal might have been an attempt to distract attention from the fact his shot was going approximately four miles wide of goal. 8 min Amrabat is a bit lucky not to be booked for a clumsy hack at Rose. 7 min Eriksen finds Son in space, 25 yards from goal. He moves infield and curls a decent left-footed shot that is comfortably held by the sprawling Gomes. 4 min Both sides have started busily, though nothing of note has happened. You’re welcome. 2 min Both teams are playing a back three, a formation that has come back from the dead in recent years. There are no right and wrong tactics, only fashionable and unfashionable ones. 1 min Watford kick off from right to left and welt the ball straight out of play. Happy new year! Here come the players. It’s a grim day in Watford, with rain pelting down. Watford have had to make a last-minute change to their team: Juan Zuniga is injured so Odian Ighalo comes in. The first email of 2017! “I trust Messrs Kaboul, Capoue, and Gomes won’t forget that without their time at Spurs they would not now be playing for Watford,” says John Tumbridge. “They all have much to be grateful for.” Is gratitude a legitimate defence in match-fixing cases? Some pre-match nostalgia Watford (3-5-2) Gomes; Kaboul, Prödl, Cathcart; Amrabat, Capoue, Guedioura, Doucoure, Holebas; Ighalo, Deeney. Substitutes: Pantilimon, Sinclair, Folivi, Kabasele, Mason, Stewart, Rowan. Tottenham Hotspur (3-5-2) Lloris; Dier, Alderweireld, Wimmer; Trippier, Eriksen, Wanyama, Alli, Rose; Son, Kane. Substitutes: Vorm, Carter-Vickers, Davies, Dembele, Winks, Sissoko, Janssen. Referee Michael Oliver. Hello, happy new year one and all. Whether in 2016 or 1900, Watford haven’t generally had the best of times against Spurs. Their list of defeats includes 7-0, 8-1, 5-0, 7-1, 6-3, 5-2 – not to mention 4-1 in the famous 1987 FA Cup semi-final. It’s 23 years since they last beat Spurs – and even that meant the square root of bugger all, because a 3-2 win in the second leg of their Coca-Cola Cup tie didn’t quite compensate for a 6-3 shellacking in the first leg at Vicarage Road. That was then and this is now. Watford are an awkward side to face on their home soil - ask Manchester United, Everton and Leicester – but Spurs are an awkward side to face anywhere. They have only lost twice in the league all season and looked close to their exhilarating best in trouncing Southampton 4-1 last Wednesday. All told, this should be a good way to start a new year. Bloody better be because I’m in no mood for another 2016. Kick off is at 1.30pm.
Bros announce 2017 reunion at London's O2 Arena It’s been described as “the biggest reunion in pop”. Today, Matt and Luke Goss have announced they will be reforming for a show at the O2 arena. Marking 28 years since they last played together, at Wembley Arena in 1989, the twin brothers will play the London venue on 19 August 2017. Best known for their hit When Will I Be Famous? – and for inspiring a wave of teens to wear bottle caps on the shoes in the late 1980s – Bros last performed together in 1989 before their split in 1992. In an age of frequent pop reformations, Bros’s return is particularly surprising. Craig Logan, the oft-forgotten third band member whose nickname was Ken, sued the twins for alleged unpaid royalties and was awarded £1m, which left the brothers nearly bankrupt. Although a statement from the group’s representative states that “both Matt and Luke remain friendly” with Logan, who left the band in 1989, their reunion next year does not include its third member. “As the lead singer of the band, my musical connection has always been with Luke. Bros is Matt and Luke,” Matt said in a statement. “Bros has been part of my life for 30 years,” Luke Goss said. “I’m deeply proud of it. Our biggest show was at Wembley Stadium, Bros Into Summer, it was just Matt and I so I feel comfortable saying with great pride that Matt and I are Bros.” The singer had recently quashed speculation surrounding their reunion, saying: “Bros is always surrounded by rumours. I think if it was going to happen it would come out of my mouth and my brother’s mouth.” While Matt has set up a solo career, and most recently had a residency in Vegas, Luke pursued a career in acting. The end of the group left Matt depressed, “misunderstood and judged”. “For a while I was a hermit and just sat inside my house,” he told the in 2003. “All my food began to rot and one of my friends was very concerned I was retreating into a shell so he broke in through a window to pull me out of it.” Tickets for the concert will go on general sale at 11am on 7 October.
Panic! at the Disco: Death of a Bachelor review – hollow and shapeless Since Panic! at the Disco’s last album, 2013’s Too Weird to Live, Too Rare to Die, the former emo pin-ups have lost two band members, making this fifth LP a solo set by singer Brendon Urie in all but name. Perhaps he would have benefited from some outside help for, as befits an album Urie has described as a cross between Queen and Frank Sinatra, Death of a Bachelor is hollow and shapeless. Though operatic pop-punk is the dominant sound, here and there Urie affects a Vegas croon (the Radio 2-friendly title track; Impossible Year, in which he dissects an old relationship), indicating a desire to reinvent himself as an edgy Michael Bublé. It’s unlikely to pay off.
Will Italy be Europe’s next casualty as Renzi risks all on referendum? Matteo Renzi has never seen himself as a short-term prime minister. Months after he assumed power in 2014 in a daring intra-party coup that would have made Machiavelli proud, Renzi addressed the fact that he was the fourth prime minister Italy had seen in three years. “I don’t know if it’s a good or a bad thing, but I think that you won’t see any more for a few years,” he told the at the time, smiling. The centre-left leader saw himself – and was widely regarded – as a dynamic force capable of reforming Italy after two decades of sclerotic politics. When his Democratic party crushed the opposition in European elections that year, it seemed that – like Silvio Berlusconi, the former conservative prime minister – Renzi would be around for a while. Today the future looks considerably less bright, and less assured, for the former mayor of Florence. In a few months, probably in November, Italians will head to the polls to vote in a referendum on a constitutional reform that Renzi says will make it easier to pass legislation by dramatically restricting the powers of the senate, a major source of political gridlock. But whereas as recently as a few months ago a win for Renzi seemed likely, things are suddenly a great deal more complicated. And when the Italian prime minister contemplates the fate of David Cameron, consigned to political history after his own ill-starred referendum, he must feel distinctly queasy. Much like Brexit in the UK, the referendum is increasingly being seen as a way for Italians to air their general discontent with the establishment, in large part because Renzi swore that he would leave politics if the referendum did not go his way. If he loses his gamble, the results of the referendum could have vast consequences for Italy and the whole of Europe. A defeat could potentially open the door to a new national election that could see the Eurosceptic, populist Five Star Movement push the Democratic party out of power. “I think, as with every referendum, the Italian constitutional referendum will not only be fought over the substance of the legislation, but a whole number of issues will come to play, and one of those will be the banking crisis,” said Vincenzo Scarpetta, a political analyst with Open Europe. Italy has been grappling with its troubled banks, whose problems have dominated the news all summer and have provoked worries of a major bank failure. A plan to save the country’s third largest lender, Banca Monte dei Paschi of Siena – which recently found to be the weakest lender in Europe-wide bank stress tests – has not won the full confidence of investors. In order to avoid a bailout by the government, which would have disastrous political consequences for Renzi and potentially wipe out thousands of Italian savers, the bank has found a “market solution”, requiring it to raise at least €5bn in private capital. But there are doubts whether it will be able to convince investors to fork out the capital. The big question now is whether worries about the banking sector, coupled with anger over the economy’s slow growth and concerns about the ongoing migration crisis, will pose a further risk to Renzi’s chances of winning the referendum in the autumn. One possible silver lining, according to Scarpetta at Open Europe, is that the deadline for MPS to raise the funds will probably fall after the date of the referendum, allowing Renzi to “kick the can down the road” one last time. Analysts say one thing is clear: the usually confident Renzi made a big error when he decided to stake his own political career on the vote. Much to his chagrin, the vote is beginning to resemble a national election – something which, thanks to the manoeuvring that got him into power, he has never personally won. In 2014 Renzi elbowed out prime minister Enrico Letta in a tussle for power within his own Democratic party. “Since he took office in February 2014, his original sin has always been that he never fought a general election,” said Scarpetta. “Now we are seeing a clear change in tack and rhetoric, with him saying ‘this is not Renzi’s referendum, it is just a referendum’. It may be too little, too late.” If he wins, Renzi will have been chastened but ultimately vindicated by the vote. But if he loses, the reality of Italian politics is that no one is quite sure what will happen. Under one scenario, a caretaker prime minister would take over until the next national election. In another, the president of Italy, Sergio Mattarella, would call new elections, paving the way for a possible win by the Five Star Movement, which has in the past called for a referendum on the use of the euro and is generally Eurosceptic. While the Movement is not considered a staunch opponent of immigration, the party’s founder, comedian Beppe Grillo, has expressed admiration for Nigel Farage, the former Ukip leader, for his stance against Brussels. Renzi recently acknowledged the risks Italy is facing, telling CNBC: “We’re in a situation where perhaps the Five Star Movement are allowed to lead this country. The people need to understand what voting ‘no’ here means: we learnt that in the UK.” The prime minister’s big miscalculation, said Scarpetta, was that he believed that the constitutional reform was a top priority for Italian voters who were eager for change. “First, it is clear that for many Italians, the priority is returning to economic growth. The second is that, by personalising the referendum, he has united all the opposition against it,” Scarpetta said. Gianni Riotta, the former editor of Sole 24 Ore, a leading business newspaper, said he believed Renzi could still eke out a victory. “Yes, I predict he will win, even in this mess,” he said. “I have faith in Italian common sense. Before he wins, he has to fly a little bit lower, eat a little crow, try to mend fences with his former enemies, and realise he cannot do it all alone.”
Liverpool's Jürgen Klopp defends Karius after late collapse against Bournemouth Jürgen Klopp admitted Liverpool “gave it away” as Bournemouth’s late comeback condemned his side to a first defeat since August but the manager insisted he had no concerns over his goalkeeper, Loris Karius, despite the errors that played a part in the hosts’ dramatic win. Karius, who looked nervous throughout, spilled Steve Cook’s shot for Nathan Aké to convert from close range to complete a remarkable turnaround as Bournemouth, inspired by their substitute Ryan Fraser, secured their first victory against Liverpool. They had trailed 3-1 after 76 minutes with the visitors apparently in complete control, only for their defensive frailties to be exposed to leave the Merseyside club in third place, four points off the leaders, Chelsea, from whom Ake is on loan. “We gave the game away, and the boys know that,” said Klopp, whose frustration had been clear on the sidelines but who was philosophical in the aftermath. “Only because of us Bournemouth came back. It was our mistake to let them back in the game but, even when we were 2-0 up at half-time, I wasn’t happy because we weren’t playing too well. “We were too static in our play and I didn’t like what I was seeing too much, so I told the boys that the game wasn’t over. We kept the ball too long at the wrong moments, passing it late, and, eventually, everything changed.” Karius, who has displaced the error-prone Simon Mignolet as first-choice this term, did produce one fine save from Benik Afobe but, with the visitors increasingly pushed back, drew criticism from the former Liverpool player Jamie Carragher. The former centre-back, in his capacity as a pundit, bemoaned the German’s slow reaction for Fraser’s goal, which pulled the game back to 3-2 before the calamitous late mistake. “In eight starts for Liverpool he has not shown me one thing to suggest he’s good enough at this level,” Carragher said. “He’s yet to convince me in any game. It is still early days but he would need a massive improvement. When your defence is under pressure, sometimes you need your goalkeeper to save it and he’s miles away [from Fraser’s second goal]. “Too often in last two or three years, Liverpool fall apart when put under pressure. The back four and the goalkeeper can’t deal with [pressure].” Klopp said: “Look, I’m sure people criticised Jamie Carragher in his career. I have no concerns [with Karius]. If you make mistakes, you get criticised. That’s what happens in life, so I have no problem with that. So if people want to say we’re blind, silly, not good enough, then do it. We missed chances today but do we have good strikers? Yes we do. And the last goal was not easy for a goalkeeper. It says nothing about him as a goalkeeper. It happens. “I knew there would be moments like this. There is no attitude or character problem here. We have been 100% before now, and we were 99% today, but it’s quite simple to go back up to 100%. No one is born a winner. Not in the first two or three months [of a project]. You have to learn and we must learn from this. Things like this can happen – you don’t like it and it still feels bad but why should I be angry? We are not ice skating, it’s not about how it looks. I know we can play football but we gave the game away at a decisive point. We opened the door and they ran through and scored some wonderful goals.” Bournemouth’s comeback, in Eddie Howe’s 301st game in charge, hoisted the hosts into the top half of the table and served notice of this team’s own spirit and attacking prowess. “I don’t think I’ll ever forget this one,” Howe said. “It was a real contrast of emotions. At half-time we were in real trouble because Liverpool had been excellent and we’d not been very good. So that makes the comeback all the more impressive.” The late recovery owed much to the impact of Fraser from the substitutes’ bench, with the Scottish forward scoring one, earning a penalty and assisting another as the home side rallied. “He was magnificent,” Howe said. “The wee man’s been patient and waited for his chance. He’s a very young player and had to make a decision in his career to come to England from Aberdeen, signing for us when we were a League One club, and that was a huge leap of faith. But hopefully it’s paid dividends. He’s got a great future.”
Daily Mail lawsuit is a message from Trump: stay away from my family The lawsuit filed by the wife of Donald Trump against the Daily Mail is a message to the media from her husband “to stay away from my family, particularly Melania”, his biographer has said. Lawyers for Melania Trump on Thursday filed suit for $150m in damages against the newspaper in Maryland state court. The wife of the Republican presidential nominee is also suing a blogger, Webster Tarpley, from the state in question. In a statement, Trump’s lawyer, Charles Harder, said: “These defendants made several statements about Mrs Trump that are 100% false and tremendously damaging to her personal and professional reputation [and] broadcast their lies to millions of people throughout the US and the world – without any justification. “Their many lies include, among others, that Mrs Trump supposedly was an ‘escort’ in the 1990s before she met her husband. Defendants’ actions are so egregious, malicious and harmful to Mrs Trump that her damages are estimated at $150m.” The suit was filed in Montgomery County, a suburban area bordering Washington DC, in response to articles published in August by the Daily Mail that reported rumors that Melania Trump worked as an escort in the 1990s. Last month, announcing that she was considering a suit, her lawyer called those rumors “100% false”. In an interview with the , biographer Wayne Barrett, who has been threatened with lawsuits by Trump in the past over his reporting, said that the lawsuit seemed to be “more a threat to other reporters, publishers, news organizations” to shy away from reporting about the Republican nominee’s wife. The author of Trump: The Greatest Show on Earth and Trump: The Deals and the Downfall noted that the candidate had a reputation for litigiousness with reporters and said Trump had bragged to him nearly 40 years ago about “breaking reporters”. Barrett noted that, at the time, “there hadn’t been anything written negative about Donald”. Trump went on to sue author Tim O’Brien for reporting that the Republican nominee had exaggerated his wealth in what Barrett described as an “attempt to wreck O’Brien”. (The suit was dismissed.) Barrett added that Trump’s approach with the press had always been, “from the very beginning, to threaten, browbeat, seduce them”. The Daily Mail article also contained allegations that Melania Trump came to New York a year earlier than she has claimed, raising issues about her immigration status. Trump denied a story in Politico in which questions about her immigration status were first reported. The lawsuit noted that while the article in question had been removed from the Daily Mail’s website, the newspaper had yet to apologize or formally retract it. The Mail included a retraction of the story in its Friday UK print edition. “We did not intend to state or suggest that these allegations are true,” the newspaper said, “nor did we intend to state or suggest that Mrs Trump ever worked as an ‘escort’ or in the ‘sex business’.” It added that its article had included denials from a Trump spokesperson and the owner of the modelling agency in question, and said it regretted “any such misinterpretation”. The retraction was also posted online. “The Daily Mail newspaper and MailOnline/DailyMail.com have entirely separate editors and journalistic teams,” it added. “In so far as MailOnline/DailyMail.com published the same article it wholeheartedly also retracts the above and also regrets any such misinterpretation.” Asked if the retraction would affect the suit, Harder replied: “It does not.” Tarpley’s blogpost, which has been retracted, claimed, per the suit, that “it is widely known Melania was not a working model but rather a high-end escort” and that she had a “mental breakdown” after a plagiarism controversy over her speech to the Republican national convention in Cleveland in July. Harder is best known for representing Hulk Hogan in the lawsuit that bankrupted Gawker Media and forced its sale to Univision last month. That suit was funded by the Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel, a vocal Trump supporter. Steve Klepper, an appellate lawyer for the Baltimore law firm Kramon & Graham, said the inclusion of a blogger in the suit indicated legal maneuvering. He told the : “Any time you have a filing that adds a minor in-state defendant, it’s a flag that they were joined to prevent removal to federal court. And as we know, Donald Trump has not been having been the best luck in federal court recently.” Klepper pointed to a Maryland defamation statute that might provide a basis for Melania Trump’s suit. It reads: “A single or married woman whose character or reputation for chastity is defamed by any person may maintain an action against that person.” He added, however: “Montgomery County has possibly the highest-percentage college education jury pool in the whole country and I cannot see how the jury pool would be good for [Melania Trump].” News of the lawsuit came 68 days before the election, on the day Donald Trump pledged to promote “patriotism” in schools and a day after he gave a hardline immigration policy speech, hours after striking conciliatory notes on the topic in a meeting with the Mexican president, Enrique Peña Nieto. The Republican nominee, who has consistently trailed Hillary Clinton in the polls, has developed a combative relationship with the media, blacklisting a number of news outlets and pledging to pass stricter libel laws if elected. A Trump campaign spokesperson told the : “We do not have anything in addition to the Harder statement.” The Daily Mail responded to a request for comment by pointing to its online and print retractions.
Global markets are no longer obeying economic common sense One of the oddest things about 2016, so far at least, is how economic common sense is being twisted in all sorts of ways to explain what’s going on in the global economy. By the end of 2015 market commentators were clamouring for an interest rate rise from the Federal Reserve to restore confidence. Normally, the only reason to raise rates is if there is inflation in the economy and you want to squeeze it out. Problem: there was no inflation in the US, or almost anywhere else, at the end of 2015. So despite that rather obvious fact, the markets got the rise that they wanted and … it helped lower economic activity, precisely as one would expect, which has had a decidedly negative impact on confidence. Generally speaking, when you make something more expensive – in this case, money – people buy less of it. But in this world, “the markets” were arguing that people would buy more of something if you made it more expensive, and that would produce confidence, so they would buy more, which is a bit odd, to say the least. The next bit of oddness, apparent as we entered into 2016, was that the fall in commodity prices, especially oil, was not good news. Yet falling commodity prices means that everyone who is not a commodity producer or an oil company pays less for their inputs, and can then spend more on other stuff, which has to be good – right? But the markets, once again, figured different. Falling oil prices were now seen as a bad thing, with markets in January having a mini heart attack as oil prices fell below $30 a barrel. When pressed as to why this was a bad thing, no one in these markets seemed to have a clear answer. But the markets freaked out anyway. A cause for this volatility had to be found, and it was, by the middle of January, in the form of China’s banking sector. And so for the past month the markets have been fretting about the non-performing Loans (NPL’s) in China … and their “dodgy” economic statistics. But just last year the IMF, who has plenty of data on NPL’s everywhere, brought the yuan into its basket of reserve currencies, which is hardly what you would do if you thought it was all going to pot. After all, China’s statistics and loan book have been questionable for years … but so has Italy’s and Ireland for that matter. And China has literally trillions of dollars (and other currencies) in reserves to throw at the problem – not to mention a decidedly non-democratic state that can, and often does, just make things go away. So why is China now the cause of all ills? Along with China, cheap money, and everything else? Quite possibly because the world has changed, fundamentally, and financial markets are incentivised not to recognise this. Today there is no inflation anywhere that isn’t due to a currency collapse brought on when the country that issues the currency is heavily dependent on imports, such as Russia and Brazil. Globalisation, and concerted action for 30 years by the political right, has killed the ability of labour to demand higher wages, hence record inequality and super low inflation. Meanwhile, yields on assets, and interest rates in such a world, will stay long and low well beyond 2016 as global savings outpace global investment, and everyone except the US tries to run an export surplus. This is an ugly world for financial markets, used to delivering the types of returns that people thought normal before the crash: 6 to 8%, liquid, and abundant. That money was made in a period when interest rates and inflation rates across the world fell year on year from abnormally high levels. In that world it was hard not to make money. But now we find ourselves in a post-crisis world in which the old tricks no longer work despite growth at 1.5%, inflation at 0.5% and interest rates in some places at minus 0.25%. Rather than face this fact, the markets blame China, this week, or it’s the Fed’s rate policy, last month, or its quantitative easing (another bete noire for markets of long standing). But here’s the bad news. It’s not their fault. Long and low as far as you go driven by ageing populations in developed countries that save more than they spend pushing down interest rates and consumption to the point of deflation as everyone tries to run a surplus is the reality of the world today. So what will the rest of 2016 look like? Just like we have seen so far – periodic inexplicable and what the heck moments as markets everywhere hunt for causes to explain away something very inconvenient. That the game has changed for financial markets – that there is no going back to the boom times – and that the world going forward is a much more boring, and much less finance friendly place, than the markets want to admit. Most of all to themselves. Mark Blyth is Eastman professor of political economy at Brown University
Donald Trump's Israel ambassador is hardline pro-settler lawyer Donald Trump has named as his ambassador to Israel a pro-settler lawyer who has described some US Jews as worse than concentration camp prisoner-guards. David Friedman, a bankruptcy lawyer who represented the president-elect over his failing hotels in Atlantic City, served Trump’s advisory team on the Middle East. He has set out a number of hardline positions on Israeli-Palestinian relations, including fervent opposition to the two-state solution and strong support for an undivided Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. He has called President Barack Obama an antisemite and suggested that US Jews who oppose the Israeli occupation of the West Bank are worse than kapos, Nazi-era prisoners who served as concentration camp guards. Liberal Jewish groups in the US denounced the appointment as “reckless” and described Friedman – a man with no experience of foreign service – as the “least experienced pick” ever for a US ambassador to Israel. Yossi Dagan, a prominent Israeli settler leader and friend of Friedman, welcomed the news, describing him as “a true friend and partner of the state of Israel and the settlements”. Morton Klein, the president of the Zionist Organization of America, said Friedman had “the potential to be the greatest US ambassador to Israel ever”. An indication of how Friedman views Israel came in a 16-point action plan he issued with another Trump adviser in November. It included “ensur[ing] that Israel receives maximum military, strategic and tactical cooperation from the United States” and a declaration of war on the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement and pro-Palestinian campus activism. Friedman, 57, has worked with Trump for more than 15 years and advised the president-elect on the Middle East during his election campaign. He represented Trump after the umbrella company for his three Atlantic City casinos, Trump Entertainment Resorts, went into bankruptcy in 2009. He said he was looking forward to taking up his post in “the US embassy in Israel’s eternal capital, Jerusalem”, indicating Trump’s determination to overturn years of US policy and move the embassy from Tel Aviv. The change would be a potentially explosive gesture in the Middle East, as the status of Jerusalem is one of the issues in the long-stalled Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. Also controversial is Friedman’s presidency of the American Friends of Bet El Institutions, an organisation that supports a large illegal West Bank settlement just outside Ramallah. His links with Bet El, along with recent revelations that the family charity of Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, gave money to one of the West Bank’s most hard-line ideological settlements, suggests the settler movement will have an unprecedented number of advocates in the heart of Washington. Announcing the appointment in a statement, Trump said: “[Friedman] has been a long-time friend and trusted adviser to me. His strong relationships in Israel will form the foundation of his diplomatic mission and be a tremendous asset to our country as we strengthen the ties with our allies and strive for peace in the Middle East.” The announcement appears to have caught Israeli analysts by surprise. The Haaretz columnist Chemi Shalev said Friedman made Israel’s rightwing prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, “seem like a leftwing defeatist”. “From where Friedman stands,” he said, “most Israelis, never mind most American Jews, are more or less traitors.” Friedman disagrees with the general international consensus that the settlements are illegal and he opposes a ban on settlement construction on the West Bank and in East Jerusalem. He wrote in the Jerusalem Post during the US election campaign that Israel would feel “no pressure” under a Trump administration. “America and Israel will enjoy unprecedented military and strategic cooperation, and there will be no daylight between the two countries,” he said. In a column for the Israel National News website, he compared the liberal Jewish US lobby group J Street to concentration camp prisoner-guards and described its supporters as “smug advocates of Israel’s destruction delivered from the comfort of their secure American sofas – it’s hard to imagine anyone worse”. He went further at the Saban forum earlier this month, saying J Street’s supporters were “not Jewish, and they’re not pro-Israel”. The J Street president, Jeremy Ben Ami, said in a statement on Thursday: “J Street is vehemently opposed to the nomination of David Friedman. This nomination is reckless, putting America’s reputation in the region and credibility around the world at risk.” The National Jewish Democratic Council tweeted: “Trump must stand for a strong US-Israel relationship and take it seriously. [There] hasn’t ever been a less experienced pick for US ambassador to Israel.” Lara Friedman, of Americans for Peace Now, tweeted: “I don’t know about the Palestinians, but I know Jews who truly care about Israel’s security, democracy & place in the world are outraged.” Like Trump, Friedman is an admirer of Vladimir Putin, and has portrayed the Russian president as fighting Islamic State in Syria despite little of the Russian war effort being focused on Isis. “Vladimir Putin gets it,” Friedman wrote in November last year. “He may be a ‘thug,’ as he was recently described by Senator [Marco] Rubio, but he knows how to identify a national objective, execute a military plan, and ultimately prevail.”
No surprises: how unexpected album drops became the norm Last week two major artists did something that would once have been a shock, but which now seems inevitable. On Thursday, after months of dripfeeding, Rihanna released her album Anti with no warning. Two days later, Beyoncé followed with an unheralded new single, Formation. Yet it’s less than 10 years since surprise releases became “a thing” for the record industry, kickstarted by an act of defiance by a huge band. Radiohead’s In Rainbows was self-released in October 2007, in part to spite Terra Firma, the private equity firm that had taken over EMI, the record company they had been signed to on a six-album deal since 1991. Except it wasn’t, in the truest sense, a surprise. The band’s guitarist Jonny Greenwood announced it was coming 10 days in advance on the Dead Air Space blog, with a link to a dedicated inrainbows.com site, where fans could preorder a deluxe physical boxset version or choose to pay what they liked for a low-res MP3 version. The band’s The King Of Limbs in 2011 was slightly more of a surprise, but even so, a 19 February release was announced on 14 February, although in the end they went a day early to create a frisson of faux surprise. Of all the major acts that have subsequently leaned on this approach, only a handful could be classed as genuine surprises. Beyoncé’s self-titled album suddenly appeared on iTunes in December 2013, with a video for every track, making it the most ambitious surprise release to date. U2’s Songs of Innocence in September 2014 was also made available free to every iTunes customer. My Bloody Valentine’s m b v was not on the same scale, but ended 12 years of silence after their last release, Loveless, and therefore ratcheted up the shock. Kid Cudi’s Satellite Flight: The Journey To Mother Moon last February also went to the wire, coming out with 24 hours’ notice. This has been made possible by online distribution. The emergence of the internet was initially seen by the record industry as a threat, with pre-release album leaks becoming increasingly common. Digital also meant more music was released more frequently. Surprise releases came to serve three functions: to pre-empt piracy; to seize back some of the control lost to the internet; and to spin a marketing angle to stand out from the hundreds of other albums released that same month. Richard Jones of Key Music Management says Pixies’ decision to follow this route for their three comeback EPs in 2013 and 2014 was partly a statement about the band’s independence, but also a reaction to the heavy front-loading of marketing that had become the norm. “The worst thing you can do is this pompous and long-winded announcement that new music is coming,” he suggests. “The internet has made everything immediate. Rather than seeing that as a problem, you can turn it to your advantage.” Like Radiohead, Pixies were out of a record deal and Jones believes this made the whole idea of a surprise release much easier to do. “There are fewer people to deal with,” he says. “You haven’t got people [at a label] going, ‘Oh, this doesn’t work for Germany.’ You can be more maverick if you do it yourself.” While Radiohead had to build a delivery platform from scratch, the Pixies piggybacked on BitTorrent for the release of Bagboy, the lead single from their first comeback EP – even though most of the industry saw the technology as synonymous with piracy. “Our thinking was that here was a distribution model in a completely different sector that we wouldn’t ordinarily interact with,” he says. For Pixies, putting out music for free was partly about building a mailing list (you had to submit an email address to download the track); for Radiohead, it was about selling £40 boxsets so the free tracks could be treated as a loss-leader. U2, meanwhile, were paid by Apple; Jay Z, for the semi-surprise release of Magna Carta Holy Grail in July 2013, was able to give away 1m downloads as Samsung picked up the tab. Beyoncé, however, was focused on sales and chart positions, giving iTunes the first-week exclusive as a deluxe bundle with a video for each track and a retail price twice the average for a new album. It worked and the album sold 617,213 copies in its first three days in the US alone. Equally, the abrupt release of the Where Are We Now? single by David Bowie on 8 January 2013, was partly to announce and set up the release of The Next Day, his first album in a decade, which came two months later. With an act of his stature, who many had presumed to have quietly retired, keeping it a secret was paramount. “I am told that only three people at Sony, including [chairman and CEO of Columbia Records] Rob Stringer, knew,” says a source close to the Bowie camp. “The interesting thing about the Beyoncé and Bowie releases is that Stringer was involved in both of them. He has given these artists this incredible leeway to do these wonderful things. He had probably the most respected artist on the planet and the biggest artist on the planet – and they both did this.” Rather than give the Bowie track to a heavyweight digital service such as iTunes or Spotify and get them to promote it, it was left to fans themselves to whip up the flames of excitement. “It was quite egalitarian,” says the Bowie source on why the song went live on YouTube first. “A lot of people, when they have a big album, will do exclusives. But here, everybody got the video at the same time. There was no exclusive. Nothing.” In theory, getting a new album on to a paid download or streaming service can be near instantaneous. Ben Drury co-founded the digital music service 7digital in 2004 and says the company’s first big test came the next year during the Live 8 show in London’s Hyde Park. The show’s opening, a cover of Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band by U2 and Paul McCartney, was to be made available immediately after the performance ended. A runner with a USB key loaded straight from the mixing desk ran across to St James’s Square where 7digital and iTunes were awaiting the file. The iTunes team took a few hours to made the track available as they had to liaise with head office in Cupertino. 7digital got it up and on sale in 46 minutes. “As we were a scrappy start-up at the time, we were used to having to hack things together and get them live,” says Drury. “We will usually get a day or two’s notice for a rush release – if we are lucky. Sometimes we get less notice if it’s a very big artist. In theory, we can put something live in a matter of minutes.” Ingesting music into a download service’s central server and then linking it to its payment mechanisms so it can be sold can be swift. The biggest obstacle to surprise releases is the way the music business often buckles under complex licensing systems that can take this light-speed ideal of digital delivery and slow it to a sluggish crawl. Nowhere was this more apparent than during the run-up to the release of Radiohead’s In Rainbows. For any digital track, there are three separate sets of rights: the composition rights, the performing rights and the rights in the master sound recording (often owned by a record label). Rarely are all the sets of rights owned by the same people. Radiohead owned their masters for In Rainbows, but the publishing and public performance sides were where it all threatened to come unstuck. Jane Dyball was working in international legal and business affairs at Warner/Chappell, Radiohead’s publisher, when In Rainbows came out. She had been increasingly frustrated with how slow digital licensing was, and was contemplating pitching new licensing ideas to “people I thought would be up for a challenge”. A speculative email to Radiohead’s management proved serendipitous, as what she was proposing was inadvertently the solution to the problem they were struggling with as the secret plans behind In Rainbows grew. She was summoned immediately to Oxford and brought into “the circle of trust” of about 20 key people, including the band and their management. “They were several steps ahead of me [with what they were proposing], but the bit they had struggled with had to do with the publishing,” she says. They had to ensure no one outside the band contributed any work that might need a writing credit, to contain the rights issues as much as possible. In what was unchartered territory, they had to take the performing rights for In Rainbow away from the Performing Rights Society (PRS), which traditionally owns and administers those rights on behalf of artists – but in a way that did not alert anyone to the plans for In Rainbows’ release. “For online licensing, PRS has rules and rates that you have to abide by,” explains Dyball. “That would have prevented the band from doing their pay-what-you-like model, even though the band wanted to allow for publishing royalties to be paid.” Dyball went to the society’s board with her pitch, asking that the rights for this one album be taken out of PRS. Although the songs were all written by the band, it was not a guarantee that the PRS board would agree to the band withdrawing their rights. It made it easier that the request came from Radiohead, whose stature was enormous. Consequently, In Rainbows was released as intended. When it went live, Dyball was at the head of the queue. “I have a plaque in my office saying I was the first person in the world to buy the boxset,” she announces. “That made it worthwhile.” Today, few surprise releases are fraught with such complexities and, the more there are done this way, the more the licensing creases are ironed out. However, the more acts do it, the more cliched it becomes. “People often ask us, ‘Is this what you’re going to do all the time?’” says Jones about future Pixies releases. “Next time, we’ll do something different because we’ve already done it.” The Bowie source agrees that what was once exciting and unpredictable has become rote and anticipated. “It’s been done,” they say. “People now will just go, ‘Oh, they’re doing a Beyoncé’ or ‘Oh, they’re doing a Bowie’ with these things.” Drury feels, however, they are just tapping into consumers’ shifting expectations in a culture of instant digital gratification. “It may not have the big bang marketing effect that it used to,” he says of such releases. “Consumers are now so used to everything being on demand that it has come to be expected.” Therein lies the hindrance facing anyone thinking of doing it now. Like a magician revealing how they did their tricks, any act attempting to shout “Surprise!” today will probably be faced with their fans rolling their eyes in resignation and sighing, “I knew you were going to do that.” The Surprise-o-meter Not all surprise albums are equal. Here are the biggest ones ranked in order of most surprising to the most shambolic. Huge surprise Beyoncé – Beyoncé (13 December 2013) There were rumours of an album being made but its release was downplayed. Rob Stringer, her label head, put people off the scent, telling media on 9 December that it was coming in 2014 and would be “monumental”. Genuine surprise U2 – Songs of innocence (9 September 2014) Rumours circulated they were playing at an Apple product launch event on 9 September where the Apple Watch was unveiled and they would possibly be releasing an album. Spokespeople played it down. Apple CEO Tim Cook came on stage and said Songs of Innocence would be available later that day for free to all iTunes Store customers. Real surprise My Bloody Valentine – m b v (2 February 2013) Announced on their Facebook on 2 February and their site was relaunched later that same day to sell it. Pretty much a surprise Kid Cudi – Satellite Flight: The Journey to Mother Moon (24 February 2015) In late 2014, Cudi said a new project was coming in a few months but he’d only give 24 hours’ notice. It came on February 24. He sent teaser tweets and it was on iTunes at midnight. Pretty much a surprise Drake – If You’re Reading This it’s Too Late (13 February 2015) Arrived on iTunes with minor notice as Drake had tweeted a link to iTunes the day before. Semi-surprise D’Angelo – Black Messiah (December 2014) Inspired by the events in Ferguson, he scrapped a planned 2015 release and went early with it. Not an album, but definitely a surprise Aphex Twin (January 2015) A steady trickle of tracks and demos were put up on SoundCloud, starting on 25 January. A total of 44 tracks went up. Not an “album” per se as some were old tracks. Single was a surprise to set up the album David Bowie – The Next Day (8 January 2014). The Where Are We Now? single was a total surprise. The album was announced and came two months later. Single was a surprise Pixies – (EP1 September 2013, EP2 January 2014, EP3 March 2014) Bagboy was launched immediately as a video on 28 June and put it on BitTorrent on 1 July 1. EP1 followed in September. A surprise following a label spat Death Grips – Government Plates (13 November 2013) The lead single came out in August but the album came out after the band had a fight with Epic Records, their label, and whacked it on to multiple filesharing sites without notice as well as SoundCloud. A response to a leak Bjork – Vulnicura (20 January 2015) It was due to come out in March but it was leaked online so it was rush-released it on iTunes. Sort-of cryptic and sort-of a surpise Skrillex – Recess (March 2014) Teased online on 7 March with his site playing clips and directing to an app that seemed to be just a game. The app had an unexplained countdown and then the album was unlocked when it hit zero, each track coming in 30-minute increments. A sort of surprise Radiohead – In Rainbows (10 October 2007) Jonny Greenwood gave 10 days’ notice on the Dead Air Space blog and a link to the dedicated In Rainbows site. A sort of surprise Radiohead – The King of Limbs (18 February 2011) Announced on 14 February that it was coming on 19 February, then put it out a day early. Not that much of a surprise Jay Z – Magna Carta Holy Grail (with Samsung) (4 July 2013) Available to the first 1m people on certain Samsung handsets via an app. It got a full release on 8 July. A shambles Rihanna – Anti (27 January 2016) It had been teased for months but leaked on Tidal two days early. It was pulled but then put back on and the first 1m downloads offered for free. Made available on iTunes a few days later.
Clydesdale Bank makes offer for 300 RBS branches Royal Bank of Scotland has been thrown a potential lifeline after Clydesdale Bank made an offer for 300 branches which RBS must offload under the terms of its £45bn bailout. The sale of the branches, which were due to be rebranded Williams & Glyn, has been protracted and RBS has warned the City that it risks failing to meet the end of 2017 deadline imposed by the EU for extricating the network. Clydesdale’s bid will be a relief for RBS, which is trying to demonstrate that potential exit routes are still being pursued for the branches, which largely comprise branches of RBS in England and Wales and NatWest in Scotland. Ross McEwan, the RBS chief executive, warned last month that the bank would enter uncharted territory if he failed to find a solution to the branch sale, which has cost the Edinburgh-based bank £1.5bn to date. He will face questions about the sales process on Friday when RBS is scheduled to report its third-quarter results, which are expected to add the £52bn of losses incurred by the bank since its 2008 taxpayer rescue. Clydesdale, formally known as Clydesdale and Yorkshire Banking Group, floated on the stock market this year after an often tricky relationship with its former owner, National Australia Bank. It has long been touted as a likely bidder for the Williams & Glyn network, which has about 5,000 staff and market shares of current and small business accounts of 2% and 5% respectively. Clydesdale initially declined to comment on its offer but later said its board “can confirm [it] has engaged in discussions with RBS and has made a preliminary non-binding proposal to RBS in relation to its Williams and Glyn operations. This engagement is ongoing and there can be no certainty that any transaction will occur, nor as to the terms on which any transaction might be conclude”. It is not clear if the UK division of the Spanish bank, which has been formed through the amalgamation of Abbey National, Alliance & Leicester and parts of Bradford & Bingley, is ready to enter the process. Santander was initially the agreed bidder for the branches but abandoned the talks in 2012. A deal was announced in 2013 with a consortium backed by private equity investors and the Church of England to try to complete the separation through a stock market flotation under the Williams & Glyn name. Any attempt at a flotation was abandoned in August when it concluded that the low interest rate environment would make it difficult for the operation to be profitable as a standalone entity. The consortium has received at least £180m from RBS for backing the aborted float. RBS would not comment when asked whether Clydesdale had entered the bidding process. In a previous statement, it said: “We continue to explore options in meeting our obligations to the European commission. We have been clear that there is interest in the business and this remains the case.” The branches are thought to be valued at about £1.3bn but are not expected to fetch as a high price when – or if – the deal is done. The stumbling sales process for Williams & Glyn was among the reasons cited by Philip Hammond this month when he said the time had not yet arrived to sell the taxpayers’ 73% stake in RBS. The chancellor also pointed to the uncertainty over a long-running investigation by the US Department of Justice into the mis-selling of mortgage bonds, which could cost RBS £9bn. RBS shares closed at 192p on Tuesday, well below the 502p average price at which taxpayers bought the stake and less than the 330p level at which Hammond’s predecessor, George Osborne, sold a 5% stake in August 2015.
Swansea v Liverpool: Premier League – as it happened Read Paul Doyle’s match report from Swansea: Anyway, thanks all for your company - bye. Well, Swansea played very well indeed. They set the tone early, snapping into tackles and attacking intelligently and in numbers. Then, when Liverpool threatened a comeback, they responded almost immediately; they cannot now be relegated. As for Liverpool, consult next Thursday night for a verdict. 90+3 min The away end is not full. Hard to argue with that one. 90+2 min So, if you’re Klopp, how do you respond to this effort? On the one hand, a few smacked bottoms would be fair enough, on the other, why give out for a flat effort when there’s a crucial game imminent? 90+1 min Brittan goes off and Fulton comes on. 90 min Swansea are enjoying this, fizzing the ball about as Ayew seeks his hat-trick. There shall be four added minutes. 90 min Time is elapsing. 88 min Steve McManaman gives Andre Ayew the man-of-the-match award, which is well deserved though still slightly harsh on Jack Cork, who set the tone for the afternoon. But it then transpires that Ayew’s wife had a baby last week, and, as far as I can see, he refrained from the rocking celebration - which makes the bubbly all his. 87 min Swansea knock it along the back-four like Liverpool circa 1984, and the crowd cheer. 85 min Swansea are seeking more goals, and Sigurdsson has another belt from distance, this time finding Ward’s midriff - he’s had a very presentable afternoon. 83 min Martin Skrtel’s head is not made of head. Sigurdsson absolutely panels one from outside the box and he simply bumps it away like it’s nothing, which it was not. 82 min More rueful smiling from Klopp. I wonder what he means by it. 81 min For Howard Webb, that Sturridge penalty appeal wasn’t a penalty, for him. 80 min Change for Liverpool: Brannagan replaces Ibe, who’s had better days. 78 min Swansea win a corner down the left and the ball scooshes across the box, playing Sturridge’s arm off the turf. As the penalty appeals ring out, Rangel slaps a shot at goal that hits the stanchion and ripples the side-netting,deceiving the commentary team, never mind the crowd. Good effort. 77 min Skrtel dives in on Sigurdsson, knocks him over, and is duly booked. He misjudges the flight and bounce of the ball so that when a leaping Ayew nicks it away from him, he’s already committed to the foul. 75 min Sturridge, who has not made his selection for Villarreal an automatic one, weaves away from Brittan, his cross deflected behind. The corner comes to nothing, and so too does the next one, fisted clear by Fabianski. 73 min Ojo allows the ball to run across him onto his left foot and moves away from Rangel, who barges through him accordingly. He’s booked. 73 min Montero departs - Clyne will be enjoying that more than most - and Naughton replces him. 71 min Ayew has been excellent this afternoon and he takes a pass from Cork on the half-turn, looking to feed Routledge in the same movement. He can’t, but it was a nice idea. 69 min Liverpool are searching for the heroes inside themselves. What a glorious mess this is! After Lucas loses possession Montero races at Skrtel, twisting him inside and out before Clyne intercedes. But despite the presence of 43,865 defenders in the box Liverpool can’t clear, and Montero retrieves the ball down the left of the box to cross. Somehow, Ayew reaches it first and swivels hard to scuff a drill and drill a scuff past Ward. That, you would posit, is in close proximity to that. 66 min Can Swansea raise it again? Simple, again. The corner finds Benteke around the penalty spot, Sigurdsson already lost in a risible mismatch, and with Stewart also chasing it, he heads firmly past Fabianski and into the corner. 63 min Better from Liverpool, Clyne breaking forward and finding Sturridge inside the box, who lays off a return. As he forces himself towards the ball, Taylor inserts himself into the race and slides it behind for a corner, studding Fabianski’s face in the process. There’s a break while he receives treatment. 62 min Lovely play by Rangel skipping forward and finding Routledge, who lifts the ball over Lovren and scoots around him to collect before the offside Ayew can intervene. But the attack is crowded out, after which ire is dispensed towards the ref for failing to penalise Ayew. 60 min Adam Lallana is warming up along the touchline. 58 min Lucas turns quickly and passes forwards, the ball finding its way to Ojo on the left. His cross is a decent one, and Benteke reckons he’s pulled back by Amat as Taylor sidefoots firmly at his own goal - and just wide. At the corner, there’s the usual skullduggery from both attackers and defenders, the free-kick awarded to the latter for an offence not entirely obviously on first or second glance. 58 min Not much going on, which is kind of the problem with this 4-4-2 Liverpool are at. There’s not much movement between the lines, meaning it’s tricky to find space and disconcert defenders. 56 min Ojo runs at Rangel and drills a cross into his shins, winning a corner; it’s useless, and headed clear before the it so much as reaches the front post. 55 min Swansea are largely sitting back now, allowing Liverpool to knock it about from side to side and in front of them. 53 min This is already much better from Liverpool, who are trying and all sorts. Ibe races around two players along the right touchline, hits a cross against one, then the other, and is vexed when it bounces out of play and the throw-in goes against him. 51 min Lovren reaches a ball ahead of Ayew and leaves him first limping, then lying. Eventually, Klopp instructs his players to find toch and we see an inadvertent foot-stomp - a sair yin, no mistake, but not one that needed the play stopped. 50 min Sturridge accepts possession inside the centre-circle and seeking Ojo, floats a square ball behind him and into touch. He looks suitably sheepish. 49 min Liverpool knock it around in midfield - to no end, but it’s an improvement of sorts. 48 min Physics appears to have taken hold - the rain means that the ball is dragging more than zipping now. This is not going to be pretty. 46 min That must’ve been a tricky one for Klopp - Countinho played so badly that he deserves to trudge through a further 45 minutes, but, on the other hand, he’s got things to do on Thursday. Anyway, looks like Liverpool are now playing a 4-4-2. 46 min Liverpool make two changes: Chirivella and Coutinho are relieved, with Lucas and Benteke pressed into service. “Arabic version of White Rabbit from the American Hustle soundtrack,” emails Steven Wyatt: While you wait: Swansea have been as good as Liverpool have been abject, strong in the tackle and enterprising in attack with Cork, Montero and Ayew standing out. Klopp being Klopp, expect him to make changes and go for it after the break. 45 min There shall be a single, solitary additional minute. 44 min Coutinho seems, finally, to have reconciled his status with his presence on the pitch, and a sharp turn away from Brittan wins a free-kick just outside the D, just left of centre. He and Sturridge wait behind the ball, and the latter slams a miserable effort well over the top. Klopp enjoys more rueful laughter, and Benteke looks to be getting ready for a second half appearance. 43 min So, does Klopp try and win the game by sending on players he’s keeping for Thursday - because that’s what he’ll need to do - or does he accept defeat right about now? Not a great choice, that. 42 min Ibe, who’s barely featured, is given time on the ball and moving from left to centre, rolls square to Coutinho. He shoots hard, and Taylor deflects behind - the corner comes to nothing. 40 min Chirivella finds Stewart, who passes the ball around his heel, fooling Cork who fouls him. That’s a booking. 38 min Montero is giving Clyne a difficult afternoon, and when he and Chirivella are beaten in quick succession, he slides in to earn a booking. Taylor’s ball in is useless, but Liverpool don’t get it away and a further cross comes in. This time, Skrtel heads clear, and Montero is there again, meeting it with an overhead kick that Ayew tries flicking on. He misses, and Ward seizes. 37 min Sturridge is in the game now, and on the half-turn clips an effort from outside the box that Fabianski grabs easily. But things may be changing. 36 min And Sturridge almost responds with an even better goal! Ojo rauns across midfield and slides through a pass that puts his man in a race with Amat. He wins it, easily, and lifts a delectable chip over Fabianski - it looks for all the world as though it’s in, but drifts and pitches just wide. Liverpool may just have woken up. 35 min Liverpool have been shambolic so far, with the notable exception of Ward. Liverpool lose the ball just by the centre-circle - it’s bouncing and Coutinho simply isn’t arsed. Cork, on the other hand, is, and bursts through midfield before, just outside the box, just left of centre, using Lovren as a screen to powerdraw a curler into the far corner, three-quarters of the way up. Fantastic goal from the game’s dominant force. 31 min Swansea have had 72% of the possession and Liverpool are doing well to be only one behind. 28 min Klopp is grinning ruefully - there might be some heavy metal tea-cup chucking in the changing room at half-time. And there’s the Jefferson Airplane again, haring through at inside-left when Chirivella loses possession - he feints to go inside Lovren, fires in a low shot with his toe that Ward does well to save. 23 min A favourite and now topical football photo 26 min Smith loses Routledge and pulls him back - he’s booked. And from the ensuing free-kick, just outside the box down its right side, Sigurdsson places the ball on Amat’s head, about three yards out. But, somehow, he contrives to get underneath it and power a header over the bar! Strange behaviour. 25 min More excellence from Swansea as Montero nashes down the left and cuts back a sorely tempting cross for Sigurdsson, who thunks a drive at goal. But Ward does superbly to save with his feet, diving the wrong way. Simple but brilliant. Sigurdsson drills over a flat, low corner and Ayew, losing Sturridge and charging at Lovren, headbutts powerfully past Ward. Swansea have earned that. 20 min A Liverpool attack breaks down and Swansea break through Montero, on the left touchline and lifting a delicious ball into midfield. Another astute pass from Cork then finds Routledge, who does superbly to play in Ayew. He’s about to shoot - and does - but Lovren is right over the deflect behind for a corner, 19 min Britton and Cork are showing Chirivella and Stewart at the moment. 17 min Taylor fires the ball into Ayew and Skrtel extends a leg around him to intercept. But Ayew falls over and the ref deduces a foul, the free-kick 40 yards out left of centre. It’s underhit and headed clear, but Swansea come again, and a Cruyff turn from Cork just inside the box almost slips Ayew through. 16 min The aforementioned Klopp will not be enjoying this - his team have done almost nothing so far. 14 min Sturridge dallies in possession and Swansea pinch it from him to launch a break. In the end, Ayew leathers a shot over the bar when he ought to have done better, but that’s Jurgen Klopps’ preference for Divock Origi right there. 13 min Coutinho messes about outside his own box and is duly nailed by the excellent Cork, who transfers possession towards Ayew. He whips over a dangerous cross from the left, forcing Smith to hip behind. The corner comes to nowt. 12 min The rain is tipping down now - the helpful sheen will soon become unhelpful drag. A favourite footballing downpour: 10 min Smith finds Ibe who cuts into the box and stubs a cross at Sturridge. The ball is nip-high, more or less, and he swivels well to hook goalwards - but with toe not laces, enough to send the effort wide. 9 min Smith slides in on Routledge with studs up and control lacking; Roger East deems it worthy of nothing but a free-kick. That’s Roger East no red cards so far this season, Roger East. 8 min “I am bound to take issue with that sign indicating the kick off time of this fixture,” emails Roy Allen. “12 noon is, by definition, neither am nor pm. What is the world coming to? (If you print this I’ll know it’s a really terrible game.)“ Me, telt. I’d always thought that it was a.m. when it’s dark and p.m. when it’s light. 6 min Liverpool have barely strung two passes together. 4 min Again, Rangel hits Montero, and this time he catches up with the ball and arriving on the edge of the box, has two men to his left - he finds neither. But Swansea look a threat, and if they can find a reliable striker for next season - not easy, granted - they’ll do a lot better. 3 min Good stat from Darren Fletcher: with an average age of 23 years and 218 days, this is the youngest starting XI in Liverpool’s history. 1 min Rangel lifts a ball down the touchline for Routledge, but it kicks off the turf and hurries on over the by-line. 1 min There’s a lovely, footballing rain at the Liberty as Liverpool kick-off. Swansea have laid a wreath on the centre-spot in tribute to those killed at Hillsborough, and the crowd now honour the heroism of the families who finally achieved justice. The players are waiting to emerge, Liverpool led by captain for the day and Primal Scream devotee, Mrtn Skrtl. Get to grips with Sheyi Ojo. He looks a proper talent. Brilliant meaningless games (2): West Brom 5-5 Man United 5 Jurgen Klopp is excited by his young players - in particular by Cameron Brannagan, who is on the bench. He feigns amazement that the various selection and non-selection of Daniel Sturridge should be a topic for discussion - his growing disdain for obligatory interviews should be a pleasure to watch. Brilliant meaningless games: France v Belgium, third place play-off, Mexico ‘86 So, back to the teams: Swansea make two changes from last week’s hiding at lowly Leicester. At the back, Amat replaces Fernandez, and in midfield, Montero comes in for the injured Fer; Gomis is back on the bench. Liverpool, meanwhile, make eight alterations following their defeat in Villarreal. Most interestingly, Kevin Stewart and Pedro Chirivella anchor their midfield, while in front of them, Coutinho, Ojo and Ibe offer pace, trickery, imagination and movement. BREAKING NEWS: Michael Owen has had a haircut. More as I get it. You will of course note that Liverpool have but six subs - Connor Randall was ruled out this morning after succumbing to a virus. And here are our teams... Swansea City (4-2-3-1, blatantly): Fabianski; Rangel, Amat, Williams, Taylor; Britton, Cork; Routledge, Sigurdsson, Montero; Ayew. Subs: Nordfeldt, Naughton, Fernandez, Ki, Fulton, Barrow, Gomis. Liverpool (4-2-3-1, obviously): Ward; Clyne, Skrtel, Lovren, Smith; Stewart, Chirivella; Ibe, Coutinho, Ojo; Sturridge. Subs: Mignolet, Benteke, Lallana, Lucas, Brannagan, Teixeira. Receptacle for misdirected fury and blame: Roger East Hello, good morning, and welcome to the merry month of May - or silent bum time as it’s known by the unfortunate majority. Swansea are staying up, Liverpool want the Europa League, here’s a meaningless game of football to encroach on the weekends of all concerned. Well, that’s one way of looking at it - but fear not, there is another, correcter one. First of all, it is a scientific fact no game of football is ever meaningless, but in any case, import and excitement rarely correlate. So, Swansea are under no pressure whatsoever, able simply to enjoy themselves, and Liverpool have players keen to be involved in Thursday’s return against Villarreal - in particular, the most talented amongst them, Daniel Sturridge. Eyes down for a thriller. Kick-off: 12pm BST
Is it too late to stop the trolls trampling over our entire political discourse? It was a pretty standard far-right account: anonymous (check); misappropriating St George (check); dripping with venom towards “Muslim-loving” lefties (check). But this one had a twist. They had found my address and had taken screen shots of where I lived from Google’s Street View function. “Here’s his bedroom,” they wrote, with an arrow pointing at the window; “here’s the door he comes out at the morning”, with an arrow pointing at the entrance to my block of flats. In the time it took Twitter to shut down the account, they had already tweeted many other far-right accounts with the details. Then there was a charming chap who willed me to “burn in everlasting hell you godless faggot”, was determined to “find out where you live” so as to “enlighten you on what I do to cocksucking Marxist faggots” and “break every bone in your body” (all because he felt I slighted faith schools). And the neo-Nazis who believe I’m complicit in a genocide against white people, and launched an orchestrated campaign that revolved around infecting me with HIV. This is not to conjure up the world’s smallest violin and invite pity, it is to illustrate a point. Political debate, a crucial element of any democracy, is becoming ever more poisoned. Social media has helped to democratise the political discourse, forcing journalists – who would otherwise simply dispense their alleged wisdom from on high – to face scrutiny. Some take it badly. They are used to being slapped affectionately on the back by fellow inhabitants of the media bubble for their latest eloquent defence of the status quo. To have their groupthink challenged by the great unwashed is an irritation. In truth, the intensity of the scrutiny ranges from the intermittent to the relentless, depending on a few things: how far the target deviates from the political consensus; how much of a profile they have; and whether they happen to be, say, a woman, black, gay, trans or Muslim. There’s scrutiny of ideas, and then there’s something else. And it is now so easy to anonymously hurl abuse – sometimes in coordination with others of a similar disposition – it can have no other objective than to attempt to inflict psychological harm. Take the comments underneath newspaper articles. Columnists could once avoid any feedback, other than the odd missive on the letters’ page. Now we can have a two-way conversation, a dialogue between writer and reader. But the comments have become, let’s just say, self-selecting – the anonymously abusive and the bigoted increasingly staking it out as their own, leading anyone else to flee. Such is the level of abuse that many – particularly women writing about feminism or black writers discussing race – have simply given up reading, let alone engaging with, reader comments. Sending abuse in the pre-Twitter age involved a great deal of hassle (finding someone’s address, licking envelopes, traipsing off to the post office); you can now anonymously tell anyone with a social media account to go die in a ditch – and much worse – in seconds. Yet it is not my experience that this is how people who follow politics behave in real life. I’ve met people who are incredibly meek, but extremely aggressive behind a computer. Online, perhaps, they no longer see their opponent as a human being with feelings, but an object to crush. I spend a lot of time attending public meetings. One of the most fulfilling aspects is when individuals with differing perspectives turn up. One man at a recent event was leaning towards Ukip, but he didn’t angrily denounce me as an ISLAM LOVING TRAITOR!!!! Instead, he shared a moving story of his father dying as a result of drug addiction, and how it had informed his political perspective. We were speaking, one to one, as human beings: unlike in online debate, our humanity was not stripped away. The potential – or, sadly more accurately, theoretical – political power of social media is to provide an important public forum in which those of diverse opinions can freely interact, rather than living in political enclaves inhabited only by those who reinforce what everyone already believes. The truth is that those entrenched political divisions are cemented by trolls who – without conspiracy or coordination – pillory, insult or even threaten those with dissenting opinions. Being forced to confront opinions that collide with your own worldview, and challenge your own entrenched views, helps to hone your arguments. But sometimes the online debate can feel like being in a room full of people yelling. Even if others are simply passionately disagreeing, making a distinction becomes difficult. The normal human reaction is to become defensive. A leftwinger who is under almost obsessive personal attack from rightwingers or vice versa may find that separating the abusers from those who simply disagree becomes difficult. Is the effect of this to coarsen, even to poison, political debate – not just in the comment threads and on social media, but above the line, and among people who have very few meaningful political differences? I worry that people will increasingly avoid topics that are likely to provoke a vitriolic response. You may be having a bad week, and decide that writing about an issue isn’t worth the hassle of being bombarded with nasty comments about your physical appearance. That’s how self-censorship works. Of course, online rage can be more complicated. If you’re a disabled person struggling to make ends meet, your support is being cut by the government and you are feeling ignored by the media and the political elite, perhaps seething online fury is not only understandable but appropriate? Similarly, trans rights activists are sometimes criticised for being too aggressive online, as though gay people and lesbians or women won their rights by being ever so polite and sitting around singing Kumbaya. The most powerful pieces are often written by those personally affected by injustice, and the comfortable telling them to tone down the anger for fear of coarsening political debate is unhelpful. On the other hand, there are certain rightwing bloggers who obsessively fixate on character assassination as a substitute for political substance. Corrupt the reputation of the individual – however tenuous, desperate or unfair the means – and then there is no need to engage in the rights and wrongs of their argument. Some will say: ah, suck it up; if you want to stick your neck out and argue a case that may polarise people, you’re asking for it. Opinion writers hardly represent a cross-section of society as it is. But why would – for want of a better word – “normal” people seek to express political opinions if the quid pro quo is a daily diet of hate? Won’t those from private schools, where a certain type of confidence and self-assurance is taught, become even more dominant in debate? Will women be partly purged from the media by obsessive misogynistic tirades – I know of women who turn down television interviews because it will mean being subjected to demeaning comments by men on their physical appearance. Will only the most arrogant, self-assured types – including those who almost crave the hatred – be the beneficiaries? Online debate is revolutionary, and there are few more avid users than myself. But there seems little doubt that the political conversation is becoming more toxic. And it is democracy that is suffering. • Comments on this article will open at 1pm; Owen Jones will be available to respond to your posts
Tim Farron: Lib Dems could be main party of government in a decade British politics will undergo a “significant realignment” after the EU referendum which could see the Liberal Democrats follow the example of their Canadian cousins to mount a serious challenge to be the main party of government within the next decade, the party leader, Tim Farron, has said. As he hailed the “quiet rise” of the Lib Dems after their devastating losses in last year’s general election when they won only eight seats, Farron said his party could become a major force at the 2025 general election as a “meeting place” for pro-EU liberals from Labour and the Conservative parties after the referendum. Farron said the presence of pro-EU Tories and Labour MPs appalled by the “utter shambles” of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership meant the Lib Dems could entertain ambitions higher than simply holding the balance of power within a decade. In a interview before this weekend’s spring conference in York, the Lib Dem leader said he hoped to repeat the success of the new Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, who took his party from third place in 2011 to lead a majority government last year. “I know all the analogies to the Canadian Liberals don’t stack up entirely,” he says. “But they were not seriously thought of as the alternative government to the Conservatives certainly even 12 months ago. You have just got to push your chest out and when an opportunity arises, fill that space, so we need to do that … The scale of the task is massive but I don’t see why my ambition shouldn’t be equally massive.” The Lib Dem leader, whose party shrank from 57 MPs at the 2010 general election to just eight MPs last May, said the party was enjoying a “quiet rise”. Adrian Sanders, who lost the Torbay seat last year to the Tories after 18 years in parliament, stormed back in a local council byelection win last November. The party has also seen its vote increase in council byelections this week in Farron’s Westmorland and Lonsdale seat and in Theresa May’s Maidenhead constituency. Farron, who declined the opportunity to serve as a minister in the coalition government and carved out a niche as a grassroots campaigner to the left of Nick Clegg, secured a decisive win in the leadership contest last year. But the Lib Dem leader has had to fight hard to establish his presence in parliament in the past year after the Lib Dems lost their cherished status as the third party. Farron is only allowed one pop at prime minister’s questions every three months, which he has used to highlight what he regards as the main parties’ timidity over the refugee crisis. In his interview Farron moved to set out distinctive yellow water between the Lib Dems and the other two main GB parties with a strong attack on the investigatory powers bill, or snooper’s charter, published by the home secretary earlier this month. The Lib Dem leader warns that far from helping combat terrorism the government’s proposals will undermine the fight because the powers handed to the intelligence agencies are too broad. “There are always finite resources in terms of time and attention as well as money, but every hour spent on looking at what people are shopping for on Amazon is time not spent tracking people who are a genuine threat to our security,” he said. “If you are looking for a needle in a haystack, don’t triple the size of the haystack. We hope the bill will be gutted and will come back as a proportionate and effective response to the terrorist threat … It undermines our ability to catch people who are a genuine threat to our country because we will be permitting the security forces, services, to look at data that in reality is of little interest.” Farron hopes that his strong stance on touchstone liberal issues such as the snooper’s charter shows that the Lib Dems could provide a welcome refuge for like-minded Labour and Tory politicians who may feel alienated by their parties after the referendum. “It’s frustrating that a classroom squabble between Boris and Cameron is becoming the focus of this referendum and potentially runs the risk of us losing it,” he said. The Lib Dem leader recalls how the 1975 referendum on Britain’s EEC membership failed to resolve differences over Europe in spite of the emphatic yes vote. The winning side within the Labour party, led by Roy Jenkins, founded the breakaway SDP six years later when the losing side, led by Tony Benn, sought to move the party to the left. Farron believes that even if the remain side wins in this year’s referendum, many pro-EU Labour and Tory MPs may feel more comfortable with the Lib Dems as he embarks on his “two-election strategy” (2020 and 2025) to return his party to the frontline. “The question is whether this is a historic moment where we could become the meeting place for liberals in other parties and there could be some quite significant realignment around the Liberal Democrats. I don’t want to say things which are not deemed credible at this moment but we could have ambitions higher than that [holding the balance of power in a hung parliament]. “I’m not going to get my crystal ball out but I am quite sure there are good liberals in both of the other parties and there is one Liberal party which is united and very comfortable with being liberal. The point is, how do we get ourselves into a position where we are sufficiently credible and have sufficient mass to be that Liberal party? Who knows? A hundred years ago there were two progressive parties. One blew the moment, one took the moment. Who knows?”
The 10 best... things to do this week TV Miranda Sings YouTube sensation Miranda Sings (AKA Colleen Ballinger) has landed her own Netflix series, expanding the hopeless-singer premise to incorporate the family dynamics of her creation. Its one of the strangest/funniest commissions for the streaming service since Kimmy Schmidt, and one which draws on a rich tradition of oddball fam-coms a la Arrested Development. Available now on Netflix Performance Séance A little premature for Halloween, perhaps, but this immersive piece of theatre performed in a shipping container in Birmingham’s Centenary Square should still be full of scares. Set in a darkened room, it uses 3D stereo sound movement to summon up the spirit realm. Spooooooky. Birmingham Repertory Theatre, 18 to 29 October Vogue Ball A merging of club culture and future fashion, Liverpool’s Vogue Ball has become something of an institution in the city. It sees various houses do battle with each other in a dance contest that is as much about ambitious costumes as the moves you do them in. After hosting Gods And Monsters and Sugar And Spice themes in previous years, tonight’s ball’s topic is Iconic. Dip and spin the night away at Invisible Wind Factory. Saturday, Invisible Wind Factory, Liverpool Billy Budd Opera North, in a co-production with Nederlandse Reisopera, tackles Britten’s bruising opera about a sailor’s descent to the gallows. It’s staged at Leeds’ Grand Theatre from Tuesday. Grand Theatre & Opera House, Leeds, 18 to 29 October; touring to 3 December Clubbing Save Fabric parties Perhaps the silver lining to UK clubland being in crisis is that, while councils will try (and succeed) at closing spaces, evidently you can’t keep a good raver down. After having their licence revoked, London’s Fabric are putting on a series of pop-up parties to raise money for their appeal, with a host of events starting from today, in London and Manchester. Check venues and dates Exhibitions Feminist Avant-Garde Of The 1970s Martha Rosler brandishing knives. Nil Yalter’s poetry written on a belly dancer’s stomach. Birgit Jürgenssen’s bird’s nest. The feminist artists of the 1970s were raging and rebellious, and a collection of their works is on show at the Photographers’ Gallery in London. For more feminista firebrands, head east to the Whitechapel Gallery, where the infamous Guerrilla Girls are exploring (the lack of) diversity in European arts organisations. Photographers’ Gallery, London, to 15 January Books OMG Posters: A Decade Of Rock Art The gig poster has had a resurgence in recent times, fuelled by creative types on the internet. This lovely looking book documents some of the best work displayed on art blog OMG Posters, featuring Oz rockers Tame Impala, QOTSA and beyond. OMG indeed. (simonandschuster.co.uk) Talks London Literature festival Eerie coincidence: just as we at the Guide are embarking upon our own journey to the future, the LLF is staging a Living In Future Times theme for this year’s event. This is the final weekend of the festival and features talks on future cities, Chinese and Iraqi sci-fi, and a reading by Naomi Alderman from her new feminist superhero novel The Power. Southbank Centre. London, to 16 October Cambridge festival Of Ideas There’s a feast of thoughtfulness at this annual festival, which begins its latest iteration this Monday and features a fortnight of talks, debates and performances. Highlights include a conversation on the ethics of using police body cameras; a live recording of a BBC World Service special on the rise of anti-establishment politics; and World Factory, an immersive theatre piece on the global textile industry. And that just stratches the surface: there are also talks on Facebook, breast-feeding and the science of the colour red. Various venues, to 30 October Film Black Star A much-needed corrective in the year of #Oscarssowhite, this major BFI season celebrates “the range, versatility and power of black actors” in film and TV. Taking place at over 90 locations across the UK, with a BBC2 season to follow, it features screenings of notable black performances past and present, from Sidney Poitier in The Heat Of The Night to Will Smith in Ali. London BFI, to December
MP Vicky Foxcroft gives moving speech about losing her baby A heartbreaking speech by a Labour MP moved several members of the House of Commons to tears during a debate on stillbirths, as Vicky Foxcroft described being pregnant at 16 and losing her baby after just five days. The MP for Lewisham and Deptford said the speech was the hardest she had ever had to give, saying she had felt as a frightened teenager that she was “treated like a kid, not a grieving mum”. Her baby, Veronica, died after the umbilical cord became wrapped around her neck during labour, starving her of oxygen. She died five days later after Foxcroft and her then partner decided to switch off life support. “I don’t have children now because I’ve lived with the fear of the same thing happening and I couldn’t do it twice,” Foxcroft said. She said she had never spoken publicly about her loss before. “The absolute truth is I struggle to talk to my family and my very close friends about it,” Foxcroft said, describing her daughter as “my little angel”. “I also want to apologise to my many friends who I haven’t told. It’s not because I don’t want you to know or I am embarrassed, it’s just because I find it so very hard to do so.” Visibly shaking and close to tears, Foxcroft said she was treated like she should be pleased not to be a teenage mother. “As a young woman, going through this, I felt like most people looked at me as if I should be grateful, but I wasn’t and I’m not,” she said. “I was her mum and I also hoped one day I would be her best friend. If she was alive today, she would be 23 years old. The pain does get easier to deal with, but it never goes away. “I hope one day nobody else has to go through this. I want my message to be heard by young women, in my constituency and across the country, just to say you are not alone.” Describing the moment she decided to turn off her daughter’s life support machine, Foxcroft said: “She was never able to cry, to smile, but I loved her and desperately wanted her. I got to hold her then for the first time until her heart eventually stopped ... I never wanted to let her go.” Sitting down, Foxcroft was comforted by fellow Labour MP Gloria De Piero, who had tears in her eyes. The Conservative MP Sir Nicholas Soames, who was next to speak, wiped his eyes as he praised Foxcroft. He said: “I hope that the whole house will read the honourable lady’s speech and will feel that she has done something incredibly brave today and courageous, and to my honourable friends who have proposed this debate, nothing but the greatest respect is due. “And to my honourable friend who first talked about this with such courage and straightforwardness, all our thoughts are with her and all the other parents who have suffered these terrible losses.” The debate was brought by the Conservative MPs Antoinette Sandbach and Will Quince, who both also spoke about losing children. In his speech, Quince praised Foxcroft, saying MPs were “breaking a silence, breaking a taboo, telling parents up and down the country that it is OK to talk about the babies and children we have lost. In the mother of all parliaments, there is no subject we won’t talk about.”
Child and adolescent mental health services need a tangible commitment Jeremy Hunt is right when he says that too many young people are being let down by the NHS (Hunt says mental health services for young are biggest NHS failing, 21 October). As a school counsellor in secondary schools for 14 years I have seen a steady decline in our young people’s mental health. Child and adolescent mental health services (Camhs) have suffered budget cuts of £85m since 2010, rendering them now unfit for purpose and there has been a gradual disappearance of many other support agencies. The children’s commissioner for England states that a quarter of children referred for specialist mental health treatment do not receive a service. This has serious repercussions in their education and mental wellbeing, and will put an ever increasing burden on adult mental health services. Mr Hunt says schools should work more closely with Camhs teams and more should have counsellors on the premises. Faced with severe budget cuts themselves, many schools are cutting counselling services. Furthermore, it has become increasingly difficult for schools to refer pupils on to Camhs as the waiting lists become longer and the threshold for referral is continually raised. Priority cases can wait months for an initial assessment and schools are advising pupils in crisis to present at A&E, where the mental health team is obliged to give some immediate psychological support. Providing funding for counselling in all English schools would show a tangible commitment to improving our children’s mental health. The UK consistently comes towards the bottom of Unicef’s ranking of child wellbeing in the 21 most economically advanced countries. Jeremy Hunt might look at the reasons behind our children’s mental health problems rather than overburdening schools, the NHS and counselling professions when mental health reaches crisis point. Catrina Goundry Leamington Spa, Warwickshire • We welcome Jeremy Hunt highlighting the need to more effectively help children and young people with mental health issues by intervening early, and the emphasis he puts on schools and Camhs teams working together. The secretary of state refers to the need for Camhs workers in schools, and that is important, but as in many areas of healthcare, you need to consider the whole system. You can’t just put a Camhs worker into a school and think everything is fixed. Schools need better trained staff, who can identify and signpost children who might have mental health problems, a curriculum where children and young people learn how to look after their own mental health, and a culture that addresses wellbeing. A Camhs worker or a counsellor in schools can help with all of this, but there will inevitably be those who need more specialist support, so there have to be appropriate services in the community as well. We already have a blueprint from government about how to do this, in the form of Future in Mind.  It now needs to be implemented properly across the country so no child is left behind. Many schools already see the importance of supporting children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing. For instance, Schools North East, which is UK’s only regional network of schools, has recently launched their schools-led mental health commission, which Prof Sue Bailey is privileged to chair. Prof Sue Bailey and Dr Pooky Knightsmith Chair and vice-chair, Children and Young People’s Mental Health Coalition • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
North Middlesex A&E staff describe unit as unsafe and unsupported Staff working in a troubled A&E unit have criticised it as “unsafe, unsupported and relentless” because its care is putting patients at such serious risk, a secret NHS report reveals. Treatment at North Middlesex hospital’s emergency department is allegedly so poor that none of the doctors interviewed who work in it would advise their friends or relatives to seek medical help there, according to the unpublished report by Health Education England (HEE), the NHS’s workforce agency. The report goes into extraordinary detail about the alarming responses hospital staff gave to HEE inspectors, and led the agency to warn of “numerous examples of patient safety potentially being compromised” by a list of failings at the unit, which treats 181,000 patients a year. Inexperienced trainee doctors were reportedly left in charge at night of both the main A&E unit and a separate emergency department that looks after children, because there were no middle-grade medics or consultants to help and give advice, the inspectors were told. “Most trainees reported having to deal with situations beyond their competence without appropriate supervision on a regular basis,” says the document, which the has seen. The hospital, however, denied that junior doctors had been left in charge of the unit. “There is and always has been at least one and usually two or more middle-grade doctors or consultants on duty,” a spokesman said. “Junior, unqualified staff were never left in charge of the A&E department overnight or at any other time.” The discrepancy between the hospital’s denial and some staff’s detailed testimonies remained unexplained. The report, drawn up by HEE’s quality and regulation team for London and the south-east, says: “Issues were raised about the competency of some staff. As a result of this, there were concerns about patient safety. This was exacerbated by the high volume of patients coming through the department. The department was reported to be ‘unsafe, unsupported and relentless’.” It alleges that some junior staff were “being left unsupported in the emergency department at night with neither middle-grade nor senior on-site presence”. The document, which is based on interviews with 24 staff , also discloses that: Some doctors found working in the A&E unit so stressful that they cried when they finished their shifts. “Foundation doctors had been reduced to tears by the sheer volume of patients they had to deal with, for example 200 patients and a six-hour wait, and they felt that they regularly had to send children home without having discussed their case with anyone senior,” the report states. “They often finished their shift and returned home full of anxiety that they had not been able to provide care at an appropriate level.” Some trainee medics expressed serious misgivings about the competence of some more senior colleagues, including one who misdiagnosed a patient. They also said they had difficulty getting expert help overnight. Handovers of patients from doctors on one shift to their replacements did not always happen, despite being standard medical practice. Vital equipment, including some needed to resuscitate patients, was missing. The findings have raised further alarm about an A&E unit that the revealed last week could be shut down within weeks because of fears that patients could be harmed. MPs whose constituents use the hospital have demanded urgent changes, including a clearout of senior figures. Kate Osamor, the Labour MP whose Edmonton seat includes the hospital, said she was horrified by the report. “HEE’s findings make me very, very worried. For HEE to find that medical staff at the unit saying such things tells me that the hospital is in crisis”, she said. She also expressed fears that the unit was not safe for constituents. “They tell me they don’t want to use it but they feel they have no choice. They are over-reliant on it because there’s a chronic shortage of GPs in the area,” she said. The disclosure of the 18-page report comes as the General Medical Council, which regulates the medical profession and ensures the safety of hospital units where trainee doctors are working, prepares to start inspecting the unit on Monday. The disclosed last week that, in a move unprecedented in NHS history, the GMC and HEE were so worried about conditions at the A&E unit that both had threatened to withdraw junior doctors from working there, which would lead to it having to close and patients being treated elsewhere. Osamor and the Labour MP for Enfield North, Joan Ryan, will meet the North Middlesex chief executive, Julie Lowe, on Tuesday. They want a new board and new senior management team installed at the hospital to get a grip of its problems, Osamor said. “We are going to ask her to ensure that there are changes urgently, [and if not] then she should resign,” she said. David Lammy, the Labour MP for nearby Tottenham, said: “These revelations demonstrate an extraordinary collapse at this hospital that has been largely covered up for almost a year. There are questions to be asked about the role of NHS England, NHS Improvement, the Department of Health and the local clinical commissioning group. Why has nothing been done? My view is that heads should roll.” The hospital spokesman said: “We apologise for the concerns about our A&E caused by the shortage of middle-grade doctors and consultants.” The Department of Health last week said that patients had been seriously let down by the standard of care at North Middlesex. It added: “This situation must change and NHS Improvement is supporting the trust so patient care is quickly improved.”
Midwife in Haiti tells of delivering babies knee-deep in water by torchlight A midwife in Jérémie, Grand’Anse, one of the worst-hit towns in Haiti during Hurricane Matthew, has told how she delivered six babies, two boys and four girls, in a blackout during the night of the storm. Marie-Lyrette Casimir, a midwife at St Antoine hospital, worked by flashlight as the fiercest Caribbean storm in almost a decade ripped though the south-west tip of the country, killing more than 500 people and causing widespread devastation. Casimir, who was trapped in the hospital with her patients for hours after the storm, due to rising floodwater, said: “During the deliveries, the mothers were saying: ‘Miss Casimir, please save us. You’re going to save us.’ I was worried a lot, but I tried to calm them down, to be reassuring. I said to them: ‘Even in this desperate situation, you have to play your role, in the interests of the baby.’” In a town where 80% of the buildings have reportedly been destroyed, St Antoine’s maternity unit, housed in one of three buildings that make up the hospital, emerged relatively unscathed. One of the hospital’s adjacent buildings was flattened by winds of up to 145mph, the other suffered extensive damage. Casimir, who works for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), described how windows were shattered and doors wrenched off their hinges during the storm and, amid fears the building itself would collapse, mothers were screaming and crying. There were two nurses in the ward that night, but she was the only midwife, she told the . “I was very sad and worried … At first, the wind wasn’t very strong but the hurricane became really strong around midnight.” When a power cut plunged the hospital into total darkness, she carried on using a rechargeable lamp and a flashlight, she said. “I was afraid, there was a lot of noise and I was worried I could be injured. But I had to stay – my work was to help women give life.” Casimir, 46, said that by dawn the floodwater in the hospital had reached her knees. At one point she had to raise the bed in the delivery room, which was becoming contaminated with floodwater. But her fears that falling debris or, worse, the collapse of the building, could risk all their lives, went unrealised. “I’m very proud of what I achieved that night. There were no deaths. The deliveries went well and none of the babies needed to go to paediatric care. Everything was great.” Casimir’s story emerged after an assessment by the UNFPA and Haiti’s ministry of women’s affairs revealed the scale of devastation in Grand’Anse and Nippes, two of the country’s hardest-hit departments. It found most of the population affected were living in appalling conditions, with 176,000 in temporary shelters. Almost 100% of crops were destroyed in what is one of this impoverished country’s most fertile areas. Up to 1.4 million people, 40% of them children, are in need of humanitarian assistance, according to a report (pdf) by the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha), with 806,000 people being at what it described as at “extreme-impact level” of food security (near-famine conditions), mainly in Grand’Anse and Sud. A further million people were at a “very high” or “high” level, it said. Maternal health facilities were badly hit, particularly St Antoine and the City Med hospital in Beaumont. All seven of the main health facilities in the area were flooded and remain without power, water, equipment and short of staff. The directorate of civil protection of the Haitian government has reported 11 of the 33 hospitals in Grand’Anse, Nippes and Sud were damaged. Along with the unmet basic needs of food and shelter for thousands, an estimated 13,650 women – among the most affected people – are due to give birth in the next three months, according to Ocha. Vavita Leblanc, reproductive health programme manager of UNFPA in Haiti, said the agency has sent two teams of six midwives into the affected areas. “In Grand’Anse, we found none of the health facilities have power [or] water, and all are flooded,” said Leblanc. “They have problems with medical supplies. Human resources have also been affected as nurses and doctors are facing their own problems, with their houses and with food.” Leblanc said the devastation caused by the hurricane would severely affect the country’s maternal mortality rate – it is already the worst in the Americas but had been falling due to more hospital births. “People will now stay in their communities to give birth,” said Leblanc. “It will set us back a decade.” Two-thirds of babies in Haiti are delivered without qualified help. The country’s maternal mortality rate stands at 359 per 100,000 births in 2105. Cuba has a maternal mortality rate of 39 per 100,000. Amid warnings by aid agencies of the risk of a fresh cholera outbreak, the storm also damaged most of the cholera treatment centres of Grand’Anse, according to the Ocha report. The country’s cholera epidemic began in 2010, when UN peacekeepers unwittingly introduced the disease shortly after a devastating 7.0 magnitude earthquake. The disease, previously unknown in the country, went on to kill more than 9,000 people. This week, a UN official said he was concerned the scale of the cholera outbreak may be under-reported because remote areas are cut off. He also warned that protests, by desperate people angry about the slow pace and uneven distribution of aid, were impeding progress. A spokesman for the World Food Programme’s Haiti operation told the it had so far managed to get food assistance to just 10% of the 800,000 estimated to urgently need it. “Initially, the response took time,” the WFP spokesman said. “We started distributing on 8 October and so far, 80,000 people have received assistance.” He said the damage to infrastructure and roads delayed trucks going to the peninsula until 7 October, four days after the hurricane. It is now sending out between two and four trucks a day to the hardest-hit areas, as well as helicopters, he said. They plan to use boats to get out to the coastal areas. There have been a few security issues, he said, but they represent a small proportion of the response. “People are really suffering, they are desperate and hungry, but we expect safe passage so that we can get to the communities that need it.” To support the government-led response, the humanitarian community in Haiti launched an appeal for $120m, only $15.1m of which, according to the latest Ocha report, has been raised. Paul Brockman, MSF head of mission in Haiti, speaking from Baradères, around 50km from Jérémie, said that while cholera is not as bad as they feared, significant risks remain. Brockman said: “There is a great need for shelter and drinkable water everywhere. Cholera could be a very substantial risk. It’s important to remember, that, as a small country, Haiti was very affected by the rain in the hurricane, even in the areas where the wind did not devastate – and with cholera still present everywhere, it increases the risk when treatment centres [have been] flooded. “In every coastal area we’ve been in, there has been partial or total destruction of the cholera treatment centres.”
Asic examines claims CommInsure avoiding payouts to sick and dying The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (Asic) will urgently examine whether allegations CommInsure may be routinely denying legitimate claims from sick and dying customers point to a systemic practice in the insurance industry. On Monday a joint Fairfax-ABC investigation revealed that claims managers at CommInsure, the insurance arm of the Commonwealth Bank, were reportedly delaying claims to dying customers or rejecting them based on outdated, sometimes unobtainable, criteria. CommInsure’s former chief medical officer, Dr Benjamin Koh, told the ABC the insurer would allegedly “blatantly” ask doctors to “please change it or delete [assessments] so that we can go to someone else to provide another opinion that’s more favourable”. The assistant treasurer, Kelly O’Dwyer, said on Tuesday the stories of jilted customers were “very troubling and shocking” and would be examined by the corporate watchdog. She said: “Asic has advised the government they are looking into the cases that have been raised and we have asked Asic for an urgent report to look at whether the practices that have been raised in the story overnight are more systemic than simply just related to CommInsure.” A Senate inquiry into the financial advice industry, headed by the Nationals senator John Williams, was extended last week to include the $44bn life insurance industry and whether companies “are engaging in unethical practices to avoid meeting claims”. O’Dwyer said it would scrutinise the cases raised on Monday’s Four Corners episode. The Commonwealth Bank’s chief executive, Ian Narev, said he was “very saddened and very disappointed by the experiences of those customers”. He blamed the conduct that, in one instance, saw payments repeatedly delayed to a customer with terminal leukaemia on “excessive attention paid to the detail of specific process and policies versus taking the bigger picture”. “That has been rectified,” he said. “But this business has 4 million customers, it pays out 22,000 claims a year … The high-level statistics of this business are that it’s doing its job.” But he conceded: “That doesn’t help the individuals whose cases were talked about last night.” Labor’s spokesman for financial services, Jim Chalmers, said the alleged misconduct at CommInsure demanded a royal commission into the industry. “This is a government very quick to pull the trigger on royal commissions when it relates to the union movement,” he said. “This will be a test of whether they’re prepared to take the same kind of action when it comes to the disgraceful practices that [have been] highlighted.” Parliament is currently considering a bill to bolster regulation of the life insurance industry, including by scaling back upfront and continuing commission payments. The reforms are the result of an Asic review that found 37% of life insurance advice “failed to comply with the law”. With upfront commissions the rate rose to 45%. The chief executive of Industry Super Australia, David Whiteley, told the ABC commissions created “an incentive for the adviser to make a particular sale rather than providing advice that is just in the client’s best interest”. Calling the Senate inquiry “an important first step”, Whiteley said CommInsure’s conduct was the product of a culture that prioritised “selling product to consumers rather than looking at products which are in the interest of those consumers”. The Commonwealth Bank apologised in July 2014 to customers who lost savings as a result of fraudulent and misleading behaviour by its financial advisers. A parliamentary inquiry at the time said the conduct of the bank, and the failure of the regulator to rein it in, were so serious as to warrant a royal commission. In February the bank announced a record half-year profit of $4.62bn.
Prisoners 'should get same healthcare as general population' Prisoners should receive the same level of healthcare as people in the general population, a health watchdog has said as it released new guidelines for the wellbeing of inmates in a drive to improve the situation. Prof Mark Baker, the director of the National Guideline Centre, which is funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice), said that it had become clear that healthcare provision in prisons was often poorer than in the general community and not sufficient to meet the needs of prisoners. “Something had to be done, I think, about defining what healthcare should look like in custodial settings,” he said. From 2006 NHS primary care trusts commissioned healthcare for prisoners, with the responsibility for prisons in England transferring to NHS England when it was set up in 2013. Baker said that adequate healthcare provision for prisoners would reduce pressure on community services later. “If their health needs are not properly cared for while they are prisoners, then their demand on the NHS afterwards is going to be that much more difficult to handle,” he said. The recommendations, issued for prisons in England, include carrying out a healthcare assessment on arrival – with questions on physical health, mental health and alcohol and substance misuse, testing for TB within 48 hours of entering prison, and offering tailored advice on issues such as exercise, diet, smoking and sexual health. The guidelines also highlight the need for confidential testing for hepatitis B, hepatitis C and HIV. Some of the recommendations, says Baker, are subtle, but important. “HIV testing is offered, but it should be done in a way which encourages people to take it up, rather than avoid it, which is sometimes the case now,” he said. Other recommendations include ensuring that condoms, dental dams and water-based lubricants are easily and discreetly accessible to prisoners. “Condoms are made available in prisons but currently you have to make an appointment with a doctor, whereas outside prison that is not the case at all,” said Baker. The new guidelines also focus on the growing pressures of an ageing prison population, with older inmates more likely to have multiple conditions and a higher risk of chronic illnesses such as diabetes and heart disease. What’s more, said Baker, “they are sicker and more likely to have complex health needs than people of an equivalent age who are living in the community”. According to recent figures, there are more than 4,400 prisoners aged 60 or over in England and Wales, nearly three times that in 2002, making it the fastest growing prisoner age group. Inadequacies in monitoring chronic diseases, and in making sure that care is continuous when prisoners are moved between custodial settings such as prisons or courts, or are released, need to be addressed, said Baker. “Doing that and maintaining that continuity is not only good for the health of the prisoners,” he said. “But it is much better for the operation of the prison system as a whole and reduces the burden on both the prison service and the NHS in having to deal with emergencies that could have been avoided if chronic disease management had been good enough.” Mark Day, head of policy and communications at the Prison Reform Trust, welcomed the new guidelines. “People in prison should receive the same treatment and care as they would in the community, but too often their health needs go unrecognised and unmet,” he said. “With an ageing prison population and rising numbers of deaths, both natural and self-inflicted, behind bars, ensuring that people get the physical, mental health and social care they need is vital.” Day added that new guidelines on mental health, currently in draft form, are also much anticipated. “The new Nice guideline is an important and welcome step towards achieving parity of healthcare for people in prison,” he said. “We hope the forthcoming guideline on mental health will do the same for the high proportion of people in prison with a mental health need.” Adam Horner, national lead nurse from Care UK, which provides healthcare for people in around 30 prisons, said: “Whilst we haven’t yet had an opportunity to review the guidelines in full, we welcome their publication. We are certainly seeing a growing number of older prisoners with long-term conditions such as heart disease, cancer and dementia.”
Frank Ocean: Endless first-listen review – brilliantly confounding And so, after all the delays and rumours and teasers and the DIY-themed live streams, Frank Ocean’s new album is finally here! What, I hear you ask, is Boys Don’t Cry actually like? Erm, we don’t really know. Because Frank Ocean being Frank Ocean, the album he has put out isn’t Boys Don’t Cry. At least we don’t think it is. Instead it’s billed as a “visual album” called Endless. Apparently, it is one big teaser – the teaser to end all teasers, if you will – before the real thing, with a brand-new title, arrives this weekend. Although haven’t we heard that before? So what, I hear you ask – perhaps with a slightly less patient tone than before – is Endless like? And what the bloody hell is a “visual album”? To answer the second question, the 18 tracks here have been released as one long video in which Ocean appears to get back on the home improvements game. We see him building a spiral staircase in his warehouse, while rocking various outfits – from an impressively baggy Jesus and Mary Chain sweater to a protective suit – as the music drifts by. And it really does drift, with brief instrumentals such as Ambience 001: In a Certain Way and the Daft Punk-sampling Hublots acting as segues. They also double up as palette-cleansers throughout what is a rich, varied and – at times – challenging musical feast. Because Endless isn’t always an easy listen. There are computerised voices (arty curtain-raiser Device Control), hazy electronic shimmers (In Here Somewhere) and the odd snippet of conversation littered across Endless, the latter providing a pleasingly lo-fi counterbalance to what is overall a rather futuristic and lush aesthetic (the London Contemporary Orchestra provide a variety of sumptuous strings). Song structures are often free-form, especially through the second half of the record, where the point at which one song ends and another begins is difficult to keep track of. Strangest of all is the final track, Higgs, which seems to be a spoken-word advert for a Samsung Galaxy phone, read aloud by German artist Wolfgang Tillmans over pulsing electronica. It must have thrilled the execs at Apple Music. But the idea that this is a singularly avant-garde statement would be wide of the mark. There are clearly songs here, as proved by the swooning synth lines on Commes Des Garçons, or the reggae-tinged Slide On Me, staged over a skittering rhythm and acoustic guitar. It’s just that these tracks have the tendency to dissolve into cut-up voices, or pitch shifts, or electronic bleeps. That’s certainly the case on Alabama, but that shouldn’t discount the fact it also features Sampha’s gorgeously plaintive question: “What can I do to love you more than I do now?” In fact, soulful melody is in no short supply throughout Endless, and Ocean’s voice ensures it’s delivered more passionately than any other mainstream pop star is managing right now. You realise how much you’ve missed that devastating falsetto the second it hovers into view on a cover of the Isley Brothers’ 1976 hit At Your Best (You Are Love). As Ocean gets busy with a circular saw (those stairs won’t build themselves, you know), the track embodies the merging of R&B and sadboy electronica that’s been developing ever since Ocean first emerged. (Hardcore Frankophiles will have heard a slightly different version in a 2015 tribute to Aaliyah.) The influence of James Blake, Sampha and Jonny Greenwood would have been heavily present here even if those artists hadn’t appeared on Endless. Of course, your view of Endless may well depend on how you approach it. If you’re expecting a conveyor belt line of hits, then you will be somewhat disappointed as much of this album floats by hazily and with no clear direction. Endless feels like an artistic statement before a pop album, even if it’s ultimately an impressive merging of the two. You might wonder at times – perhaps as beats flicker by and Ocean starts sanding down a particularly rough piece of wood – what on earth is going on. But surely the whole point of Frank Ocean is that he likes to confound, and this really does feel like a brilliantly confounding, unique piece of work. And besides, the full pop Frank will undoubtedly be unveiled when whatever Boys Don’t Cry is now called emerges. Probably. Possibly. Who knows with this most mysterious and intriguing of artists? All we can say for sure is that there are rumours that an image of Ocean’s face is gradually being projected on to the John Lewis store in Peterborough, along with a countdown clock to a date in March 2018, when etc etc etc.
The Emojibator: how a euphemistic fruit became an actual sex toy Jaime Jandler didn’t start out in life thinking he’d be the king of a burgeoning emoji-themed sex toy empire. But when you invent the Emojibator – a small, battery powered vibrator shaped like an eggplant, in an obvious homage to the sexual interpretation of the purple fruit emoji icon – and invite potential customers to “Go fuck yourself. Literally.” – well, you’d better hope your mother has a sense of humor. He also didn’t think more of the world would know him as “Jaime Jandler” than by his real name (which he prefers to keep under wraps, to avoid his sex toy business being the only thing that Google knows about him). The Long Island native went to the University of Delaware to study business management, then settled in Philadelphia and spent a few years working in tech while trying to build his musical career. Jandler and his business partner, Kristin, launched the small company with an order of 1,000 4.84-inch vibrators and a couple of press releases in late August. One of those press releases (to Cosmopolitan) apparently hit a sweet spot, and they sold out before the end of September. By the end of their second month in business, they’d sold another 1,000 vibrators through their website and scored retail contracts with New York’s Museum of Sex and sex toy retailer Good Vibrations – and, come Thanksgiving, they’ll release their second retail offering: a chili pepper. “It has more of a little bit of a curve” explained Jandler. The Emojibator wasn’t the product of a lot of market research or a deep-dive on the connection between humor and sex. “I was really just looking to start a new business” said Jandler. “I stumbled upon this idea as a joke, in a late-night brainstorming session on video chat.” “It had that ‘wow’ factor’ and I thought it had viral potential” he added. “I guess I was right.” Jandler and his partner then connected with a Chinese manufacturer on Alibaba with experience selling quality sex toys. “I modified a mold that had already existed, working with a really great, awesome sex toy manufacturer” he explained. The rest, including a photo shoot with an unsuspecting feline named Renard, is history. Or could be. In a statement, Jandler added that the fledgling company has even bigger plans. “The challenge we face now is seizing this opportunity to permanently change the public’s perception about sex toys and masturbation, and an even bigger task of changing consumer behavior along the way,” he said. “Our mission is to destigmatize masturbation and promote healthy sexuality” – one emoji-themed sex toy at a time. “We don’t think sex needs to be taken seriously all the time,” he added. “So we’ll make more unique products that are both intimate and silly.”
Shares in challenger bank Shawbrook plunge on loan irregularities Irregularities uncovered in one of the operations of Shawbrook will knock the profits of the challenger bank and force it to take an unexpected £9m bad debt charge. The unscheduled trading statement stunned the market, sending shares in the group 26% lower when trading began, to 120p. Shawbrook shares had already been caught up in the market rout following the Brexit vote, losing 45% of their value in the previous two days. Before the result of the EU referendum they were trading at 295p, and the shares floated at 290p a year ago. The bank, which specialises in lending to small- and medium-sized businesses, said it uncovered the problem in one office of its asset finance division. . The additional impairment charge of £9m will be taken in the second quarter of 2016 on £14.7m of loans. “The irregularities, which have now been rectified, were the result of a number of loans being underwritten in our asset finance business that did not meet the business’s strict lending criteria,” the bank said. A spokesman was not able to say if anyone had left as a result but said “appropriate management action” had been taken. In October, the bank hired Steve Pateman from Santander as its chief executive. Pateman said: “While this is extremely disappointing, the irregularities were identified by the upgraded risk management systems and controls we implemented earlier this year. They have been investigated thoroughly and appropriate action has been taken.” He added: “Whilst the additional impairment charge arising from these irregularities will impact pre-tax profit for the year, performance is otherwise in line with our expectations.” But Gary Greenwood, analyst at Shore Capital, said: “Although management claims that this issue has now been addressed and that it is confident such an event cannot happen again, we have to admit that our confidence has been severely damaged by this news.” In a separate announcement, Shawbrook said Tom Wood, its chief financial officer, was resigning after four years to spend more time with his family. Pateman said: “He leaves with our appreciation and best wishes for the future.” Wood said: “After a hugely enjoyable four years with Shawbrook, and the immense privilege of leading the group for a period of time post the [flotation], I have decided that after a very intense couple of years I need to make more time for my family. I have seen little of them in the past two years.” Greenwood said: “This means that the chairman, CEO and CFO will have all been replaced since the [flotation] last April.”
Revealed: the biggest money makers on Kickstarter UK More than three years after launching in the UK, Kickstarter has taken its hundred-millionth crowdfunding pound in Britain. The money has come from more than 1.2 million individual backers, spending an average of £53.80 per pledge across 20,651 individual projects, according to data provided exclusively to the by the crowdsourcing company. While more than 20,000 projects have been launched from Britain since the site officially opened up to the UK, only 8,181 of those projects raised enough money to pay out. Kickstarter’s model means that the 12,000 unsuccessful projects never received any money, nor were their backers charged. The money spent in Britain’s projects was spread among all 15 of Kickstarter’s categories, but some were more successful than others. Games led the way, with more than a quarter of the total amount pledged to the category. Taking a significant chunk of the £26m pledged to games in Kickstarter’s British projects is one single project: the Dark Souls board game, which is the most backed project in Kickstarter’s British history. Almost £4m was pledged to the game, which is a physical adaptation of the hugely popular Dark Souls video game series, with an average pledge of more than £120 (the base game cost £80, but almost 800 backers went for the £200 retailer package, which offered six games to shops that wanted to resell). Three other categories raised over £10m a piece: technology, design and film and video. Of those, technology also managed to secure the highest average pledge, at over £80. At the other end of the scale, journalism, crafts, and dance projects still aren’t your ticket to the big bucks, even through crowdfunding. Barely £500,000 have been pledged to journalism projects, and crafts and dance projects have raised less still. The average pledge for those three categories, though, is still around the norm for kickstarter, between £40 and £50. Kickstarter’s British launch in 2012 followed years of the site being loosely available to Brits: British creators and customers could still use the site, but had to be able to spend or receive US dollars. The launch of the British site successfully brought Kickstarter a newly international audience: about half the pledges made to British projects are from British backers. But British projects get backers from all over the world, including half a million Americans, and tens of thousands of Germans, Australians and Canadians. But the site has some way to go before it catches up with its American older sibling: In November, Kickstarter announced it had raised a total of $2bn, raising the second billion in less than two years after the first.
Davos: how can an event that's 82% male solve the digital gender divide? The global business elite will descend on the upmarket Swiss resort of Davos this week for the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting, which this year focuses on the transforming power of technology – or the fourth industrial revolution. Long regarded as a leading platform on key international issues, Davos has in some quarters become a byword for a champagne-soaked chums club of the global financial elite, personified by the “Davos man”. Last year’s delegate list was 83% male, despite the introduction of an unambitious quota for the WEF’s strategic partners to bring one woman in every group of five senior executives. And this year the female quotient has only increased by 1%. So while transforming the lives of future generations through technology is a worthy topic for debate, we might well ask what a gathering that is so grossly gender-unbalanced is likely to do to close the worrying digital divide between the sexes globally. Excluded women Too many women are being excluded from the technological revolution. The UN estimates that some 200 million more men have access to the internet than women and this chasm is especially wide in developing countries. It’s vital that this industrial revolution doesn’t entrench gender divides. The digital exclusion of women is primarily a product of social inequalities. In many global south countries, women occupy traditional roles in the home or in the primary production sector, such as farming. According to the UN’s report, The World’s Women 2015, women are more likely than men to be unemployed or to work in the home or smallholding, which usually implies that they have little or no monetary income. In Oceania, sub-Saharan Africa and southern Asia, between 30 and 55% of employed women are contributing family workers, about 20% higher than men in the same regions. With many women beginning these roles in their childhood years, their access to digital technology is limited early on and often never recovers. This process of digital exclusion creates barriers to prosperity. It can restrict women’s ability to gain employment and use digital health and education services. In low-income countries, the entry point for the internet is often through a mobile phone, but ownership patterns can disadvantage women here too. In sub-Saharan Africa, there is a 13% gender gap in mobile phone ownership overall and in Niger, that gap is as wide as 45%. Digital divide restricts growth There is plenty of evidence to suggest that digital access can help boost women’s personal development and wider prosperity. The Women and the Web report by Intel found that enabling greater internet access in the developing world would contribute an estimated $13bn-$18bn (£9bn-12.6bn) to annual GDP across 144 countries, while 70% of the women they surveyed said they considered the internet “liberating”. Extra income derived from digital access for women is often invested back into families and communities: Arancha Gonzalez, head of the International Trade Centre, a joint agency of the World Trade Organisation and the UN, has estimated that women reinvest as much as 90% of their income into education, nutrition, household expenditure and caring for children and elderly relatives. Despite its pivotal role in advancing digital access, business in general has been slow to help break down the digital divide. But there are signs this is changing: a Google initiative called Helping Women Get Online is working to improve female digital literacy in India. The project provides how-to guides and videos to get women started on the internet, with a goal of getting 50 million more online. Meanwhile, Andela, a web and software development firm, has made skilling up women in Africa a key part of its business model. It runs a bootcamp scheme that identifies promising young female coders and recruits them to its network of Africa-based programmers who work as part of multinational teams on digital projects. The WEF claims gender parity is one of its key global issues and the subject will be discussed as this year’s forum, albeit as a side issue. But a group that is so male and so western needs to be more representative if it is to fulfil its remit as the “World” Economic Forum. No less than 65% of nearly 3,000 delegates at Davos last year were from North America and western Europe, versus just 4% from Africa. So listening to more voices from the developing world – especially female ones – and allowing them to participate would be a good place to start. US president Barack Obama – who has never attended Davos – stated last year that “the internet is not a luxury, it is a necessity”. Before we embark on the next steps of the global technological revolution, we must ensure that the most basic of online tools are accessible to all. None of us – including those attending Davos – should be content that something as transformative and integral to our daily lives as the internet remains out of reach for people around the world who have so much to gain in terms of their future prosperity by getting connected. Professor Henrietta Moore is director of UCL Institute for Global Prosperity
Slice of serenity: home from The Castle up for rent but demolition risk remains It’s not a house, it’s a home – and it’s also a case of life imitating art. The “castle” that the Kerrigan family sought to save in the much-loved Australian comedy is at risk of demolition. The three-bedroom house in Melbourne’s north that featured in the 1997 film is up for rent, billed as a chance to inhabit “a part of Australian movie history”. With one bathroom, a lounge, a kitchen with “ample cupboard space” and a “sun room” – Darryl Kerrigan’s beloved pool room – it is “waiting for someone to call it home ... Sorry, jousting sticks not included.” The house’s proximity to shops, Westfield shopping centre and a freeway is listed as a selling point. It is also, of course, close to Essendon airport; in the film, it directly neighbours a runway. “Dad still can’t work out how he got it so cheap,” marvels Dale Kerrigan, played by Stephen Curry. “It’s worth almost as much today as when we bought it.” The house in Strathmore is listed for $380 per week – unfortunately too reasonable to tell property manager Samantha Barker she’s dreaming. But Barker told Australia that, while a handful of people have inquired about buying the house or visiting it for a walk-through, genuine interest in leasing the property has been slow. “It’s probably a good thing that people aren’t just inquiring because it’s the Castle, because we legitimately do want to lease the house,” Barker said. While she made the decision to market it as the home from The Castle, the rent was based only on comparable properties in the area. “It’s a competitive rate ... but if we don’t get enough interest we may look at reducing the rent by $10 or so.” Whoever does make a successful bid may not be surrounded by serenity for long. The Ballarat Courier reports that the vendor is considering demolishing the house towards the end of next year because of continuing maintenance issues. Vicky Cosentino, the owner, has subdivided the plot, erecting another house in the backyard where Daryl kept his greyhounds. She told 3AW in 2010 that she made nothing from the movie: the tenants at the time told her a “documentary” was being filmed at the property for up to three days. Two weeks later, they took off with the profits. Repairing the house and finding new tenants left her out of pocket. “I know it’s sad but the home is going downhill and it’s just taking too much to maintain,” Cosentino said.
When Muhammad Ali took a blow below the belt It would appear that we wouldn’t need to leave the EU to lose our hard-won rights for workers (This is a brutal and inhumane way to treat staff – and Sports Direct is not alone, 8 June); just unfettered zero-hours contracts, a low-paid workforce terrified of becoming unemployed, and people like Mike Ashley running the whole thing. Rights? What rights? Diane Janicki Oldham • Will a Brexit legal challenge to the extension of voter registration go all the way to the European court (Cameron accused of bias as extension to vote deadline expected, 9 June)? Harold Mozley York • Marciano? Ali? The debate goes on (Letters, 8 June). It was Malky Munro, Glasgow journalist and Joe Louis fan, who, on being introduced to Ali at a function with “Mr Munro, meet The Greatest”, replied “Nice to meet you, Joe.” Ali replied, with a mock narrowing of the eyes, “Listen, buddy, when I pick up the tab, I get to make the funnies.” I’m sure Malky, like most others touched by the great man, eventually came round. Jack Collins Edinburgh • Reading Christina Patterson’s article (Memorising poetry is an art of the heart, 8 June) reminded me of A-level English classes with Margaret Higginson, headteacher at Bolton School in the 1960s. She advised us to learn as much poetry as we could while young, because our brain cells would start dying after the age of 20. More importantly, she said that remembering poetry would always sustain and comfort us in times of trouble and loneliness, even if we were in prison! (I’m sure she didn’t imagine that any of us had criminal tendencies, but she would have hoped that we would risk prison for a principle.) Eryl Freestone London • Lindsay Mackie (Opinion, 7 June) laments the loss of BHS and reminds us of many fine department stores up and down the country. Belfast boasts Robinson & Cleaver, the now defunct Anderson and McAuley and Brands and Normans, where my great uncle Bertie checked the ladies’ handbags for security when they entered the store during the Troubles. He was over 70 at the time. The alleyway behind his terraced house was known as the entry. Barbara Patterson Leatherhead, Surrey • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
Sex education more needed than ever How many more reports on sex education do we need making the same recommendations for the government to take action (Sex education in schools is inadequate, say MPs, 13 September). The women and equalities committee report is yet another in a long line to make the recommendation for “age-appropriate sex and relationship education to be compulsory in primary and secondary schools and for clear national government guidance on the issue”. Earlier this year Middlesex University published research in collaboration with the Office of the Children’s Commissioner and NSPCC, and called for safe spaces where children can freely discuss the full range of issues related to sex, relationships and the accessibility of online pornography in the digital age. It is especially positive that last week’s report highlights the links between online pornography, sexual harassment, violence and relationships, and sex education. These are links that those working in the field have known about for years but are regularly ignored. Building children’s digital resilience is vital. We need to enhance their awareness and understanding of the pressures they experience and ensure that sex (on- and offline) is placed in the context of respectful relationships based on mutual consent. Dr Miranda Horvath Associate professor of forensic psychology, Middlesex University • British-based commercial pornography sites are already required to have an age verification system which keeps out under-18s (When did pornography become sex education, 14 September). However, most porn sites are based overseas. The relevant parts of the digital economy bill now before parliament will apply a similar standard to them. How sites verify someone’s age will have to be approved by the proposed new regulator, but there is no doubt that technologies exist which will allow that to happen without anyone having to hand over details of their credit card – credit card numbers provide a very direct way of identifying a specific person, their home address and so on. All porn sites need to know before granting viewing rights is “is this person over 18?”. Third-party companies can vouchsafe that information and confirm it to a porn site via a highly secure encrypted file which renders no other information about the individual. John Carr London
From Niasse to Imbula: five arrivals who can make Premier League impact Oumar Niasse (Everton) The forward’s first venture to Europe failed when he was 22, as injuries hampered his chances of making an impact at the Norwegian club Brann, so he returned to his native Senegal. But his compatriot and the former Reading defender Ibrahima Sonko recommended him to the Turkish club Akhisarspor, where he made such a strong impression that Lokomotiv Moscow snapped him up after a season. He was even more successful there and was voted 2015 Russian Player of the Year as a reward for the damage he did to opposing defences, scoring 13 goals and creating more. Now 25, Niasse can play either centrally or wide on the right, where his speed and dribbling power make him difficult to contain. Like his new Everton team-mate Romelu Lukaku, he needs to fine-tune his hold-up play and, furthermore, could do with adjusting his timing in terms of offsides but when running on to the ball, or with it, he can be marvellously destructive and is usually a smart finisher. Wahbi Khazri (Sunderland) “It really pisses me off when I see the table; the supporters are giving us stick and I understand them but they have to realise that we are not going to spare any effort on the pitch, and that to get out of the shit we need them.” Wahbi Khazri is a straight talker and his declaration for the benefit of Bordeaux fans in December could be recycled for use at his new club Sunderland, where he is likely to make an interesting impact following his arrival this week for a fee of around £9m. The 24-year-old’s debut against Manchester City on Tuesday might have been unremarkable but Khazri is unlikely to take much longer to make his presence felt in the north-east. Sam Allardyce will obviously hope the Tunisia international’s creative qualities catch the eye and decide matches: Khazri can delight with his nimble dribbling, tremendous speed, inventive passing and spectacular habit of scoring from long distance. But the fear comes from the flipside – a combustible streak that makes him an unintentional yet prolific collector of cards. Seydou Doumbia (Newcastle) Seydou Doumbia is not a conventional striker: during five and a half seasons with CSKA Moscow he trained sparingly because of a tendency to be injury-prone and his style of play is difficult to define, having been honed on the streets of one of the poorest parts of Abidjan, where he grew up. But what is certain with this 28-year-old is that when fit he offers enormous dynamism and plenty of goals. At least, that was the case during two years in Switzerland and his time at CSKA, where he averaged more than a goal every two games. Encouragingly for Newcastle, the Ivorian has proved particularly menacing to Premier League clubs in the Champions League, scoring five in six meetings with English sides. He flopped during a short spell at Roma last year before returning to Russia, where he struggled to regain his best form. He comes with no guarantees but, fitness permitting, his attitude at least is likely to endear him to Newcastle fans during his loan spell and his instincts suggest he could provide the sharpness up front that the team desperately need. Daniel Amartey (Leicester) Liverpool were interested in signing the Ghana international before Leicester went and actually did the deal, which is why Amartey was cheering for Jamie Vardy and co as he watched Tuesday night’s contest at the King Power. Leicester’s success this season has, of course, been partially down to their canny recruitment and what appealed most about this 21-year-old to Claudio Ranieri is the player’s versatility: strong, fast and technically sound, Amartey is also adaptable enough to play in an array of positions across defence and midfield. He is also an indefatigable fighter, a quality that Ranieri considers essential for sustaining his team’s thrilling momentum. “I want to bring in players with our spirit,” said the Italian. Giannelli Imbula (Stoke) When Imbula joined Porto from Marseille last summer, many observers expected him to go on to enjoy a career as glorious as those of Didier Drogba and Franck Ribéry, the only two players sold by Marseille for more money than the €20m that Porto paid for this midfielder. At 23, Imbula may still fulfil those prophesies. He has plenty of time to put his generally unhappy spell in Portugal behind him, and Stoke could prove be the first beneficiaries, having broken their transfer record to sign a player who would not have considered joining a non-Champions League participant last summer. His move to Portugal came on the back of an excellent season in Marseille under Marcelo Bielsa, who knew that Imbula was no mere enforcer but rather a dynamic and precise link between defence and attack. Steven N’Zonzi’s departure from the Britannia last summer left a hole that Stoke have struggled to fill: Imbula has the potential to do that and more.
Aaron Sorkin publishes letter urging daughter to fight after Trump win Aaron Sorkin, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of the Social Network and creator of the popular political series The West Wing, has written a letter to his wife and 15-year-old daughter after the election of Donald Trump, in which he calls on them to “fight injustice” anywhere they see it. The letter, which is addressed to “Sorkin Girls”, focuses on the potential pitfalls of a Trump victory as well as the importance of keeping hope in the face of difficulty. “Well the world changed late last night in a way I couldn’t protect us from,” Sorkin writes in the letter published by Vanity Fair. “That’s a terrible feeling for a father. I won’t sugarcoat it – this is truly horrible. “It’s hardly the first time my candidate didn’t win (in fact it’s the sixth time) but it is the first time that a thoroughly incompetent pig with dangerous ideas, a serious psychiatric disorder, no knowledge of the world and no curiosity to learn has.” Sorkin goes on to lament that it was not just Trump who won but his supporters too, including the Ku Klux Klan as well as “white nationalists, sexists, racists and buffoons. Angry young white men who think rap music and Cinco de Mayo are a threat to their way of life … men who have no right to call themselves that and who think women who aspire to more than looking hot are shrill, ugly and otherwise worthy of our scorn rather than our admiration.” Hate, he writes, was given hope, and “abject dumbness” was glamorised as the voice of the outsider. “And the world took no time to react. The Dow futures dropped 7,000 points overnight. Economist are predicting a deep and prolonged recession. Our Nato allies are in a state of legitimate fear. And speaking of fear, Muslim-Americans [sic], Mexican-Americans and African-Americans are shaking in their shoes. And we’d be right to note than many of Donald Trump’s fans are not fans of Jews.” The West Wing detailed the inner workings of government and followed the two-term presidency of Jed Bartlet, a Democrat from New Hampshire – played by Martin Sheen – who was characterised by his fierce intellect, integrity and wit. The drama, which won three Golden Globe awards and 26 Emmys in its seven-year run from 1999-2006, detailed the difficulties of executing power, and was often idealistic in its depiction of good triumphing over evil. The 1600 Pennsylvania imagined by Sorkin could not be more different from the one expected under Trump. President Bartlet, a Nobel prize-winning economist, was in favour of foreign aid and immigration, pushed for progressive social policies and put a Latino liberal in the supreme court. In the letter, Sorkin advises his daughter, Roxy, and her mother, Julia, to remember that they are not alone, that a hundred million people in America and a billion more around the world feel similarly. “The Trumpsters want to see people like us (Jewish, ‘coastal elites’, educated, socially progressive, Hollywood …) sobbing and wailing and talking about moving to Canada,” he writes. “I won’t give them that and neither will you. Here’s what we’ll do … “We’ll fucking fight. (Roxy, there’s a time for this kind of language and it’s now.) We’re not powerless and we’re not voiceless. We don’t have majorities in the House or Senate but we do have representatives there. It’s also good to remember that most members of Trump’s own party feel exactly the same way about him that we do. We make sure that the people we sent to Washington – including Kamala Harris – take our strength with them and never take a day off. “We get involved. We do what we can to fight injustice anywhere we see it –whether it’s writing a cheque or rolling up our sleeves. Our family is fairly insulated from the effects of a Trump presidency so we fight for the families that aren’t. We fight for a woman to keep her right to choose. We fight for the first amendment and we fight mostly for equality – not for a guarantee of equal outcomes but for equal opportunities. We stand up.” Recently, the cast of The West Wing, including Richard Schiff, Allison Janney, Bradley Whitford, Joshua Malina, Dulé Hill and Mary McCormack, reunited in Ohio to campaign for Hillary Clinton. Sorkin, meanwhile, who is also the mastermind of the series The Newsroom, concludes his letter by writing that throughout American history the darkest of days have always been followed by the finest hours. “Roxy, I know my predictions have let you down in the past, but personally, I don’t think this guy can make it a year without committing an impeachable crime. If he does manage to be a douche nozzle without breaking the law for four years, we’ll make it through those four years. And three years from now we’ll fight like hell for our candidate and we’ll win and they’ll lose and this time they’ll lose for good. Honey, it’ll be your first vote. “The battle isn’t over, it’s just begun. Grandpa fought in World War II and when he came home this country handed him an opportunity to make a great life for his family. I will not hand his granddaughter a country shaped by hateful and stupid men. Your tears last night woke me up, and I’ll never go to sleep on you again.”
Brexit unlikely to mean loss of City's role in processing deals in euros One of the City’s most prized businesses – the way that financial products priced in euros are processed – will not be lost to the remaining members of the European Union as a result of Brexit, according to the ratings agency Standard & Poor’s. The costs associated with moving the clearing of complex financial instruments to another financial centre means London is likely to remain the home of the £460tn-a-year business, S&P said. There have been warnings that as many as 100,000 City jobs would be axed if London lost its euro-clearing role, which rival European financial centres were eyeing up jealously even before the result of the 23 June referendum. An estimated 70% of the transactions using the European single currency are processed in London by clearing houses, which step in between major banks and financial firms on big deals to guarantee transactions. The European Central Bank has argued this business should be conducted in the eurozone. Last year, however, the Treasury declared victory over the central bank after a European court concluded the ECB did not have the right to make such a demand. The vote for Brexit, though, has reopened the debate about London’s role at the heart of a key part of the European financial sector’s machinery. “The UK’s referendum vote to leave the EU reopens the possibility that the ECB, supported by other EU authorities, could try to require the clearing of euro-denominated contracts into the eurozone or more likely the EU,” S&P said. There could be two ways to do this – reawaken the demands about where the business is located, or make changes to the regulations which govern the way standards are set for such operations. “We believe the first route is likely to be complex, slow and uncertain; the second could be simpler. At this stage, however, we see neither of these options as likely. This is for several reasons, notably the massive extra burden of margin collateral that it could place on market participants,” S&P said. Clearing houses require collateral to be used as a deposit when they are handling trades so extra demands for collateral would push up the cost of doing business from $83bn to $160bn at the London Clearing House, according to an estimate by financial data company ClarusFT cited by S&P.
Goodnight Mommy review – twin horror doubles down on nightmarish shocks This icy Euro-arthouse horror from Austrian film-maker Veronika Franz has an American-style title, like Michael Haneke’s Funny Games. The original is Ich Seh Ich Seh, or I See I See, which better captures its theme of twins. Franz makes her debut, co-directing with Severin Fala; she is married to the film’s producer, the renowned and terrifying director Ulrich Seidl, known for his own type of extreme ordeal cinema. This movie had its premiere at last year’s Venice film festival, where I first saw it, and now arrives in the UK, where audiences may want to compare it to early Michael Haneke and Jessica Hausner. The twist ending is worthy of a Hollywood director who can’t be named without giving it away. Elias (Elias Schwarz) is a nine-year-old who appears to be enjoying an idyllic summer with his twin brother Lukas (Lukas Schwarz) at an elegant, modern lakeside house. There is no dad on the scene, and their mother (Susanne Wuest) lies upstairs, her face covered in bandages, seemingly recovering from cosmetic surgery. But the boys are scared of this woman, and a pure nightmare ensues. There are some very nasty shocks and gruesome convulsions, though a more unassuming film-maker might have worked on delivering a more tightly bound suspense narrative.
Obama set to hit Russia with further sanctions before leaving office The outgoing US administration is poised to hit Russia with further sanctions before Barack Obama leaves office next month, in response to allegations of Russian hacking and interference in the US electoral process. The Obama administration has had a rocky relationship with Russia and has already imposed several rounds of sanctions on Moscow, mainly for its actions in Ukraine. The US president-elect, Donald Trump, by contrast, has repeatedly praised the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and has dismissed claims that Russia intervened to get him elected. But the prominent Republican senator Lindsey Graham, a hardliner on Russia and a constant critic of Trump, told a news conference in Latvia that Congress would “investigate the Russian involvement in our elections”. “There will be bipartisan sanctions coming that will hit Russia hard, particularly Putin as an individual,” Graham told CNN. “I would say that 99 of us believe the Russians did this and we’re going to do something about it.” A recent report in the Washington Post said the White House was already close to announcing new sanctions on Russia in retaliation for the hacking. The White House did not respond to a request for comment on the report. The fate of new sanctions remains unclear, however, with Trump due to take over the White House in little more than three weeks. During the campaign, Trump not only suggested he might lift sanctions on Russia, but also said he would look into the possibility of recognising Crimea, annexed from Ukraine in 2014, as part of Russia. Asked by reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida if the US should sanction Russia over hacking activities, Trump said on Wednesday: “I think we ought to get on with our lives. I think that computers have complicated lives very greatly. The whole age of computer has made it where nobody knows exactly what’s going on.” Rex Tillerson, Trump’s pick for secretary of state, has also raised eyebrows, given his long history of doing business with Russia as head of Exxon Mobil, and his close personal friendship with Igor Sechin, head of the Russian oil giant Rosneft. Sechin is one of Putin’s closest associates, and is on the US sanctions list. Tillerson said in 2014 that Exxon did not support sanctions in general because they were hard to implement effectively. At an economic forum in Russia earlier this year, he laughed off a question on sanctions, while saying he agreed with “my friend Mr Sechin”. Not all the sanctions currently in place would be easy for Trump to revoke, even if he wanted to do so. Most difficult would be those against Russian individuals implicated in human rights abuses, linked to the Magnitsky Act, named after the whistleblowing lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who died in prison. They were put in place in 2013 using an act of Congress, and as such Congress would be required to revoke them. It is likely that the White House would also ensure any new sanctions related to hacking could not be easily rescinded by Trump. However, the wider ranging sanctions that were introduced by the Obama administration over Russia’s annexation of Crimea and meddling in east Ukraine were implemented by presidential executive order, and as such could be revoked by Trump with the stroke of a pen. Were Trump to do so, European businesses would put major pressure on their governments to lift EU sanctions as well, so as not to allow US companies an unfair advantage on the Russian market. In a televised interview last week, Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia was hoping for “new, fresher and more constructive approaches” from Trump’s administration. He said Russia would welcome further dialogue but was not pushing for sanctions to be lifted. “We didn’t initiate the sanctions dialogue and we won’t initiate their removal,” said Peskov. He said Russia and the US had not been particularly affected by sanctions, unlike European agricultural producers, who suffered losses from Russia’s counter-sanctions banning the imports of many food items. However, there is no doubt that Russia would be extremely pleased to see the sanctions gone, not least because of the broader redefinition of the relationship it would signify. There have also been US business voices keen for the sanctions to be dropped. Alexis Rodzianko, president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Russia, said: “The sanctions have been annoying and unhelpful for business interests. They had a direct impact, in the banking sanctions, and an indirect impact in that attitude towards US business.” Brian Zimbler, managing partner at Morgan Lewis law firm in Moscow, said: “There is intense interest in Russia about future US policy, and lots of speculation that sanctions may be reduced or removed next year. “Reduced sanctions would open up new opportunities to obtain funding for Russian-based projects, and potentially generate momentum for increased foreign investment in Russia, which has fallen to low levels.” Bilateral ties have been extremely strained since Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the sanctions. US diplomats say they have been routinely harassed by Russian authorities. Footage released over the summer showed a diplomat rugby tackled to the ground by a policeman while trying to get back inside the embassy compound. The diplomat was later accused of spying and expelled. In June, the foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said: “Diplomacy is based on reciprocity. The more the US damages relations, the harder it will be for US diplomats to work in Russia.” Russian officials, who cheered Trump’s victory, are hoping he will launch a complete overhaul of western policy towards the country, including sanctions. “Officially nothing has changed, but the mood has changed perceptibly. It’s like a pre-honeymoon honeymoon period. They are openly happy, but only time will tell if they are right to be,” said Rodzianko.
Profits down for Match.com as Britons turn to free dating apps The dating website Match.com suffered a collapse in profits last year as fickle Britons turned to free smartphone apps to find a date. Topline operating profits at the UK’s biggest dating website plunged by 80% to £1.6m in the year to 31 December. Turnover was also down more than 10% at £38.2m as apps such as Tinder changed the nature of online dating. “The industry is in a bit of a crusher,” said Mark Brooks, analyst at consultancy Courtland Brooks. “The mobile medium has come of age and over 70% of internet daters in the UK are just using their smartphones. It’s an amazing transition that has truly roiled the dating industry. If Match is suffering, their competitors are suffering more.” Match, which is part of the Nasdaq-listed US media group IAC, blamed the sales decline on a fall in “average member revenue”. The steep decline in underlying UK profits, revealed in accounts filed at Companies House, was the result of the “reduction in turnover without a commensurate reduction in largely fixed overheads” according to Karl Gregory, Match managing director for northern Europe. Although it is free to post a profile on Match, which pioneered online dating when it launched in 1995, the site charges a subscription fee to users who wish to contact another member. “Smartphone growth is an opportunity more than a challenge,” continues Brooks. “Laggard dating companies that have not created compelling mobile experiences are dying. Most old school incumbents have stumbled in this respect.” Match declined to comment on the figures but in the notes to the accounts Gregory says the business has “considerable financial resources together with a strong customer base and the continuing support” of its parent company. IAC’s dating division, which has its own Nasdaq listing, consists of over 45 brands including Tinder and PlentyOfFish. Research firm Mintel predicts that despite the current upheaval the UK online dating industry will grow from £165m to £225m by 2019. “The popularity of free dating apps has made a big impact on online dating over the last several years by dispelling perceptions, opening up online dating to a new market and driving mobile usage,” says Mintel analyst Rebecca McGrath of the research, which found nearly 60% of people who had used a free dating app or site said they would not pay to use one. Getting users to pay for apps that they have previously used for free will be key to the industry’s future success, added McGrath.
Brexit vote hits confidence, hurts companies and weakens London housing market - as it happened After the Federal Reserve kept US interest rates on hold and ahead of a decision by the Bank of Japan, stock markets fell back after their recent highs. Falling oil prices and disappointing results from the likes of Royal Dutch Shell and Lloyds Banking Group also hit sentiment. Investors were nervous ahead of the European bank stress test results due on late on Friday. The final scores showed: The FTSE 100 finished down 29.37 points or 0.44% at 6721.06 Germany’s Dax dipped 0.43% to 10,274.93 France’s Cac closed down 0.59% at 4420.58 Italy’s FTSE MIB fell 2.02% to 16,522.64 on worries about the country’s banks ahead of the stress tests Spain’s Ibex ended 2.1% lower at 8479.2 In Greece, the Athens market lost 1.11% to 562.84 On Wall Street the Dow Jones Industrial Average is currently down 72 points or 0.4%. On that note, it’s time to close up. Thanks for all your comments, and we’ll be back tomorrow. Markets are in wait and see mode ahead of the Bank of Japan rate decision later, but oil continues to fall on renewed worries about oversupply and weak demand. West Texas Intermediate - the US benchmark has now fallen 20% since its June highs, indicating a bear market. Meanwhile in the UK the FTSE 100 is down just 7 points while the Dow Jones Industrial Average is 74 points lower after the Federal Reserve kept US interest rates on hold but hinted at possible rises later in the year. Joshua Mahony, market analyst at IG, said: An unsurprisingly indecisive session in Europe has seen the likes of the FTSE largely flatlining as traders reduced their risk overnight ahead of the week’s risk event from the Bank of Japan. Commodities have enjoyed a particularly volatile second half of this week, with crude continuing to tumble heavily on a global supply glut alongside evidence that fund managers are heavily shorting crude prices. Tonight’s Bank of Japan meeting has been the focal point of the week despite yesterday’s Fed announcement. One of the main reasons for the post-referendum rally has been the promise of easing from the likes of the ECB, Bank of England and Bank of Japan. With the overnight index swap markets rating the chance of a Bank of England rate cut at 100% next week, it seems like a matter of time until we see some sort of action. However, given that we have seen the post-referendum rally stall after weeks of inaction in Europe, there is a feeling that the FTSE is waiting for some form of stimulus to spark another leg higher. The IMF has been criticised for its handling of the eurozone crisis...by the IMF. Larry Elliott reports: The IMF’s handling of the financial crisis in the eurozone has been criticised by the organisation’s own independent watchdog in a report that says the fund failed to spot the scale of the problem, was guilty of over-optimistic forecasts and left the impression that it was treating Europe differently. While accepting that sorting out the problems of Greece, Ireland and Portugal “posed extraordinary challenges”, the IMF’s Independent Evaluation Office (IEO) said the fund had missed the buildup of banking system risks in some countries and shared the widely held “Europe is different” mindset. The report looked into how the IMF handled the eurozone crisis, which began with the May 2010 bailout of Greece, but subsequently spread to Ireland, Portugal and Cyprus. It found that the “IMF’s pre-crisis surveillance identified the right issues but did not foresee the magnitude of the risks that would later become paramount”. The full story is here: The vast majority of Irish small to medium enterprises believe Brexit is a threat to their business, writes Henry McDonald in Dublin: A survey released today by the British-Irish Chamber of Commence found that out of 400 Irish SMEs 262 of them see Brexit as a threat with far fewer envisaging the post-EU future as an opportunity The research also polled 88 British SMEs who do major business in Ireland. John McGrane, the Director General of the Chamber stressed that the Irish SME sector, which is the largest part of the Republic’s economy, still see the UK as key to their business despite Britain leaving the EU. McGrane said the uncertainty within Irish SME’s over what to do next after the Brexit vote required “joined up support” from both the Irish and British government and their relevant agencies. He added: “Business wants collaborative thinking and the Chamber stands ready to support its members, and Government, to continue to protect and grow the deep trade linkages between the UK and Ireland. We’re ready to join up with likeminded agencies and organisations to ensure all businesses get the most joined-up supports they need to confront the uncertainties, and opportunities, ahead.” The survey was conducted over the weeks following the EU referendum. The expectation of an interest rate cut by the Bank of England continues to put pressure on sterling. The pound has fallen 1% against the euro, hitting a two week low of 84.48p a euro. Against the dollar it is currently down 0.58% at $1.3142. Back with Brexit, and ratings agency S&P Global says the decision to leave the European Union should have little impact on the UK’s project finance initiative. It said: We analyse the effect of Brexit on our U.K. portfolio of over 50 rated transactions, in particular the potential repercussions of a higher inflationary environment, weaker economic growth, and the change in the credit quality of revenues and financial counterparties. While we believe that the risks of adverse economic developments in the U.K. have increased, we expect U.K. private finance initiative (PFI) projects will maintain their credit strength. A day after the US Federal Reserve kept interest rates on hold but suggested there could be a possible hike later this year, US stock markets have slipped lower in early trading. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is down 44 points or 0.22%, while the S&P 500 has slipped 0.29% and Nasdaq 0.14%. Ahead of eurozone GDP figures on Friday, new data from Belgium has shown the country’s economy growing by 0.5% quarter on quarter, despite terrorist attacks and strikes. That compares to 0.2% growth in the first quarter, and analyst expectations of a 0.3% increase. Year on year, the economy grew by 1.4%. Economist Peter Vanden Houte at ING Bank said: According to the Ministry of Economic Affairs the negative impact of the March 22 terrorist attacks in Brussels on hotels, catering and retail trade amounted to about €180m for the first half of this year. This probably shaved off around 0.1 percentage points from second quarter GDP growth. On top of that, the second quarter saw a rather tense social climate, with several strikes, most notably in public transport. This also weighed on growth. While the GDP components have not been published yet, the improvement in sentiment in industry seems to point to a positive contribution from investment and export. Residential construction most likely also contributed positively. With the situation on the labour market continuing to improve, consumption has probably also expanded, though some negative impact of the terrorist attacks seems likely. All in all today’s figure seems hopeful, as it confirms that the Belgian economy still has some underlying momentum, putting in a strong performance despite the terrorist attacks and the strikes. Certainly, with Brexit and potentially a somewhat tighter fiscal policy, there are new headwinds that might hamper growth in the second half, but we believe that even then a quarterly growth pace of around 0.2% to 0.3% should be feasible. We will await further data confirmation in the coming weeks, but on the back of today’s figures we are likely to have to revise our estimate for Belgian GDP growth upwards to 1.4% (from 1.2%). Earlier, US jobless claims rose by more than expected last week, according to the Labor Department. The number of Americans claiming unemployment benefits grew by 14,000 to 266,000, compared to expectations of an increase to 260,000. The previous week’s level was revised down by 1,000 to 252,000. Weekly claims have been below 300,000, which is seen as a sign of a healthy labour market, for 73 consecutive weeks. Over in Paris, an EDF board member has resigned shortly before the energy company announce whether it will push on with plans to build a new nuclear plant at Britain’s Hinkley Point. Gerard Magnin said the project was risky, and would undermine France’s efforts to develop renewable energy technology. Magnin’s resignation may be a sign that EDF will stick with Hinkley. An announcement is expected later today. Over in America, tech giant Oracle has swooped on cloud computing pioneer NetSuite in a $9.3bn deal. The deal should boost Oracle’s web services offering; its founder, Larry Ellison, is also NetSuite’s largest shareholder. Newsflash from Germany: the country’s inflation rate has jumped to 0.4% this month, up from 0.2% in June. That’s the highest level since January, which should pleas the European Central Bank in its battle to ward off deflation. The overall eurozone inflation reading is due at 10am BST tomorrow. Alex Stubb, Finlands’s former prime minister and finance minister, has warned that it will take a long time for the Brexit drama to play out. Speaking on Bloomberg TV, Stubb said Europe was facing one of its biggest events in decades. It’s a 1952 moment, when the Coal and Steel Community was created, or 1989 when the Cold War ended. This is huge for Europe, there’s no denying it. Stubb, a veteran of the eurozone debt crisis, says Europe is following its usual three-stage approach to Brexit – first crisis, then chaos, and finally a sub-optimal solution. He adds: It’s going to be a long, long process. What we get at the end of the day, I don’t know. Eurozone companies have defied the fall in consumer confidence, and are actually a little more optimistic this month. The EC’s economic sentiment indicator has risen to 104.6 in July from 104.4 in June. Anna Zabrodzka, economist at Moody’s Analytics, says it shows “resilience” to the Brexit vote. Other persistent worries such as the slowing Chinese economy, the immigration wave, and continued tensions with Russia also seem to made little impact on the confidence of consumers and businesses in the euro area. However, risks are skewed to the downside.” Consumer confidence across Europe has fallen this month, driven by a sharp slump in the UK. That’s according to the European Commission’s monthly healthcheck on consumer morale, which fell to -7.9 this month from -7.2 in June. UK consumer confidence, which had been riding relatively high, took a real tumble: The dramatic events of the last few weeks have sent some of us staggering towards the drinks cabinet. But Diageo, the UK-based alcoholic beverages giant, is worried that the Brexit vote may hit sales of its whisky brands overseas, once Britain leaves the EU. Ivan Menezes, chief executive of Diageo, told CNBC that Scotland’s whisky industry is dependent on global trade: Out of Brexit, our focus is really on ensuring that we keep Scotch whisky healthy. The trade agreements in Europe and around the world. You know, Johnnie Walker was in over 100 markets, long before Coca Cola left the shores of America.” As well as Johnnie Walker, Diageo also produces Bell’s whisky, plus several single malts including Talisker and Lagavulin. More Brexit gloom. JCDecaux, the French outdoor advertising group, has said it is likely to cut back its UK investment plans following the decision to leave the EU. JCDecaux, which installs those massive screens at railway stations, airports and London bus shelters, says: Given the uncertainty surrounding the impact of the Brexit decision on the UK economy and advertising revenue, we are reviewing the number of screens we are deploying until we can evaluate the economic conditions and have improved visibility. Union leaders are urging the UK government to act urgently to protect the economy from the impact of the Brexit vote. TUC General Secretary Frances O’Grady says: “The growing expectation since the Brexit vote of an economic slowdown seems to be a factor. The government needs to act now to secure jobs and investment before thousands of working people pay the price of Brexit with the loss of their job. And Rob MacGregor of Unite is alarmed by Lloyds’s decision to cut an extra 3,000 jobs: “This announcement is very bad news for workers and their families, and more widely it is a further body blow to the UK economy. “These are permanent jobs that are being lost. As a country, we can’t afford to lose these jobs in a challenging post-Brexit world. As well publishing half year results which reveal job cuts and branch closures, Lloyds Banking Group has also admitted it is being investigated by the Financial Conduct Authority over the way it handles customers facing difficulty paying their mortgages. There is not much detail but in the results Lloyds said: “In May, the FCA informed the group that it was commencing an investigation in connection with the group’s mortgage arrears handling. At this stage it is not possible to make an assessment of the outcome of this ongoing review”. Lloyds did not take a provision for the payment protection misselling scandal. But in the first six months of the year the bank took a £460m to cover a range of so-called “conduct issues”. This included £215m “in respect of arrears related activities on secured and unsecured retail products, £70m in respect of complaints relating to packaged bank accounts and £50m related to insurance products sold in Germany”. In another worrying sign, a closely-watched survey of consumer confidence has hit its lowest level in three years after the Brexit vote. The monthly index conducted by YouGov and the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) has tumbled to 106.6, the lowest since July 2013, down from 111.3. That’s the biggest one-month drop in six years. The survey found that the public are concerned about the impact of the June referendum, particularly on house prices (how very British!). Stephen Harmston, Head of YouGov Reports, says: “The public are still absorbing the EU referendum result but it is clear that consumer confidence has taken a significant and clear dive.” Spain is celebrating the news that the country’s jobless rate has hit its lowest level in six years, before the eurozone crisis began. However.... one in five adults are still out of work, and the situation could deteriorate if Europe’s economy suffers from Brexit. Royal Dutch Shell is one of the biggest fallers on the FTSE 100 this morning, down 3% after posting a 70% tumble in earnings. It blamed the recent tumble in crude oil prices, which have eaten into its profitability. CEO Ben van Beurden warned shareholders that “lower oil prices continue to be a significant challenge across the business.” Inchcape, the UK car dealership, has warned that demand for new cars is weakening, due to the Brexit vote. It told shareholders this morning: Ahead of the EU referendum, the second quarter New Vehicle market growth rate moderated to 1.0% from 5.1% in the first quarter. We expect this moderation of the New Vehicle market to persist into the second half of 2016. Building society Nationwide has reported that house prices were stable in July, rising 0.5% month-on-month. The average house cost £205,715, 5.2% higher than a year ago. However.... as mortgages are approved towards the end of the process, this doesn’t whether buyers have been spooked by the Brexit vote. Engineering firm Rolls-Royce is also cutting jobs, after reporting an 80% tumble in profits in the first half of 2016. Today’s losses mean Countrywide has shed a third of its value since the referendum, highlighting how the UK’s property sector will suffer from Brexit. It’s a bleak morning in the financial sector too, as Lloyds Banking Group slashes 3,000 jobs. The bank is speeding up its cost-cutting programme, and closing 200 branches as it enters a “period of uncertainty” following the Brexit vote. Our City editor Jill Treanor explains that Lloyds is also preparing for interest rates to be slashed next week: The bank is blaming changes to customer behaviour and anticipated cuts to interest rates following the vote for Brexit last month. Mark Carney, the Bank of England governor, signalled a rate cut would take place during the summer and the City now expects rates will be cut from their 0.5% historic low on 4 August. More here: And here’s Reuters’ take: Shares in Countrywide has dropped by almost 5% at the start of trading, following its Brexit-induced earnings warning. Britain’s biggest lettings and estate agent group has issued a stark warning that parts of the country’s property market are weakening, since last month’s referendum, Countrywide, which runs 50 different high street brands, admitted that profits this year will be lower than in 2015. And it pins the blame firmly on the decision to leave the EU. According to Countrywide there was a clear market slowdown in May and June. And since the vote, commercial and London residential transactions have stalled, it says, with a “less pronounced impact” on other operations. The number of homes sold subject to contract in London fell 29% in April-June, compared to January-March. Alison Platt, Countrywide’s CEO, says: As we stated in our last Trading Update on 26 April, we took a cautious view of the months leading up to the EU referendum and beyond. In the event, we saw a slowdown in our Retail and London residential businesses and, since the EU referendum result this has become more marked in London, the South East and expensive prime markets. The rest of the country has fared somewhat better and our Lettings business and mortgage trends have been largely unaffected. Countrywide also posted a 25% tumble in adjusted pretax profits for the first half of 2016, and warned of more challenges ahead. As Platt put it says: This period of uncertainty will inevitably impact the level of transactional activity in the second half of the year and, although it is too early to quantify accurately, we will not meet last year’s result at the EBITDA level. Here’s a round-up of Countrywide’s brands: Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of the world economy, the financial markets, the eurozone and business. Five weeks after the European Union referendum, we’re now seeing signs that the vote to leave the EU is hitting the UK economy. Three influential surveys released overnight have shown worrying signs that Britain’s car industry, retail sector and building companies are all suffering from the Brexit vote. In a worrying cocktail, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders said its members were gloomy about the prospects for growth, jobs and investment; the British Retail Consortium said jobs were being shed in the months leading up to the referendum; and RICS – the body that represents chartered surveyors – said workloads for construction had weakened. It’s a clear signal that the uncertainty created by June’s vote is starting to hit demand, confidence and activity. The SMMT’s chief executive, Mike Hawes warned that Britain’s car revival has been underpinned by “tariff-free access to the single market”, so losing that access would be a serious blow. Here’s the full story: This all rather takes the shine off yesterday’s forecast-beating growth figures, which showed the UK’s GDP expanded by 0.6% in the last quarter. Also coming up... Investors are pondering whether the US central bank might manage to raise interest rates soon, despite the Brexit risk. Last night, the Federal Reserve declared that the US jobs recovery had picked up momentum, and the near-term risks to the US economy had diminished. Intriguingly,the Fed also declared that: “Near-term risks to the economic outlook have diminished.” Perhaps a hint that the EU referendum hasn’t caused as much market mayhem as feared. Over in Paris, French energy company EDF is deciding whether to give the go-ahead for an £18bn nuclear power station at Hinkley Point in Somerset. The rumours are that the project will go ahead, despite concerns over cost and safety: And there’s a blizzard of corporate results this morning, sending my Reuters machine into overdrive as companies clear the decks before the August lull. That include Lloyds Banking Group, BT, Countrywide, Thomas Cook, Diageo, Rolls Royce, Royal Dutch Shell, BAE and Sky. We’ll pick the best bits out...
Tory tax and benefit plans ‘widen generation divide’ The generational divide exposed by the EU referendum will worsen because of Tory tax and benefit plans that will redistribute billions of pounds from the young to the old, the independent Resolution Foundation says today. New analysis of how money will shift from young to old over the next four years has been produced by the foundation as it announces a new intergenerational commission aimed at creating a fairer deal for voters aged under 25. The analysis, which breaks down the impact of tax and welfare changes planned for this parliament by age, shows that people in their 30s will experience the biggest losses of any age group, losing an average of £220 a year by 2020. In contrast, people in their 60s are set to be the largest beneficiaries, gaining an average of £170 a year. The research also shows that 45 is the age at which people, on average, move from losing to gaining from forthcoming tax and benefit polices in this parliament. The RF warns that voters aged under 25 – 75% of whom voted to stay in the EU – will feel increasingly aggrieved by having their European future determined by older voters while at the same being hit by tax and welfare policies which switch money from them to the elderly. The differences across generations are clearest in relation to working age benefits and the reduced generosity of Universal Credit, which fall most heavily on those in their 30s. The average benefit losses experienced by those in their 30s is £480 a year – 16 times greater than the average benefit losses facing those in their 60s. According to the RF data, the next prime minister will inherit planned tax and benefits changes which will lead to massive further redistribution from young to old, with millennials losing a total of £1.7bn while baby boomers gain around £1.2bn by 2020. Some of these changes are due to come in as soon as April 2017. David Willetts, who is executive chair of the foundation and will also chair the commission, said: “Britain is bound together by a social contract based on mutual support between generations. “But these economic and cultural ties are under severe strain, and were brutally exposed last week as young and old took different sides on the EU referendum vote. The new prime minister will need to prioritise the pressing task of repairing our divided nation. “The Intergenerational Commission I’m chairing will bring together some of the best minds in Britain to better understand how policy impacts on different generations, and encourage future governments to avoid repeating past mistakes of past ones who have failed to support today’s younger generation in particular.” The state transfer from young to old comes on top of a wider pay squeeze across Britain in which the typical earnings of those in their 20s and 30s have been squeezed three times as much as those aged 60 and over. Members of the Commission will include Dame Kate Barker (ex-Bank of England), Torsten Bell (Resolution Foundation), Carolyn Fairbairn (CBI), Lord Geoffrey Filkin (Centre for Ageing Better), Sir John Hills (LSE), Paul Johnson (IFS), Sarah O’Connor (Financial Times), Frances O’Grady (TUC), Ben Page (Ipsos MORI), David Willetts (Commission chair and Resolution Foundation) and Nigel Wilson (Legal & General). Torsten Bell, the RF’s director, added: “Questions of intergenerational fairness are moving to centre stage, representing a new form of 21st century inequality. It’s time they were better understood and answered. “From the catastrophic failure to build new homes to inadequate care provision for older generations, all too often the short-termism of public policy means we fail to properly address these issues. “And too often we simply ignore big intergenerational effects of policy. The new prime minister will shortly inherit government’s tax and benefit policies which redistribute billions from young to old in the coming years, compounding both the living standards squeeze that has hit millennials the hardest in recent years and the feeling of disappointment at the referendum result.”
ATM fees reach record $4.57 high – and continue lucrative payday for banks ATMs continue to be as good at taking our money as they are at giving it. And no, we don’t mean deposits. Cash machine fees rose for the 10th consecutive time this year, reaching a record average of $4.57, according to Bankrate. Withdrawing money from an out-of-network ATM usually results in two different fees – one from your bank and one from the bank that owns the ATM. Both of these fees have reached a new high this year. This year, banks charged non-customers an average of $2.90 to withdraw their money – up from $2.88 last year. This is the 12th consecutive year this fee has gone up. The average fee imposed by banks on their customers for using an ATM that does not belong to the bank also went up to $1.67 from $1.64 a year ago. It is the 10th year that the two fees combined have risen. In 1998, banks charged on average $0.89 for non-customer withdrawals and $1.08 for withdrawals made on out-of-network ATMs, meaning that since 1998, ATM fees have gone up by almost 132%. The increase has not gone unnoticed. “In my view, it is unacceptable that Americans are paying a $4 or $5 fee each time they go to the ATM,” Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont said earlier this year when he was still running for US president. One of his campaign proposals was capping ATM fees at $2. “People should not have to pay a 10% fee for withdrawing $40 of their own money out of an ATM,” he tweeted in January. Hillary Clinton also described ATM fees as unfair last year when she appeared on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert. In the interview, Clinton said if she were elected president she would not bail banks out if they were to fail. If they got too big to manage and were failing, they would be broken up, she insisted. “Can you at least just get back from them the $3 they charge us to take $20 out of an ATM machine?” asked Colbert. “You know what, we need to go after that too. Don’t you think?” Clinton said to scattered applause. “Yeah, that’s usurious.” Thanks to these fees, ATMs are a profitable business for banks. An analysis by SNL Financial and CNN Money found that three biggest US banks – JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo – made more than $6bn from ATM and overdraft fees last year. There is some good news in the world of bank fees, however. The Bankrate survey found that average overdraft fees actually went down this year. “The average overdraft fee has been increasing year in and year out for 17 consecutive years and that streak has been broken this year,” said Greg McBride, Bankrate’s senior vice-president and chief financial analyst. “I think it’s too early to say that we’ve reached the peak, particularly because we have seen more increases than decreases [among banks surveyed].” Bankrate’s findings are based on information provided by 10 banks from July to August this year.
The Shining has lost its shine – Kubrick was slumming it in a genre he despised Everyone remembers their first Stephen King experience. Mine was hunkering down in a corner of the basement of an empty house, feverishly turning the pages of The Shining. Even crossing the hall on a toilet break required a major act of nerve when all you could think of was that infernal booming of the roque mallet striking the walls as the misshapen creature approached… “Come out here and take your medicine!” Back then, everyone agreed it was the scariest book they had ever read. And Stanley Kubrick was making the movie. The teaser trailer depicted a tsunami of red liquid gushing out of an elevator; it looked nothing like blood, but was suitably ominous. It promised to be the scariest film ever made. Except it wasn’t. The first time we saw The Shining, it was a shattering disappointment. I’d never expected – nor wanted – a film adaptation that slavishly stuck to its source, but Kubrick had left out all the best bits. Where were the hedge animals? The roque mallet? The boiler? “The novel is by no means a serious literary work,” Kubrick told French film critic Michel Ciment, “but the plot is for the most part extremely worked out, and for a film that is often all that really matters.” Yet he and his co-writer, Diane Johnson, cavalierly junked the central dynamic of a parent struggling against his own dark urges and fear of harming those closest to him, and fans of the book were not pleased. Jack Nicholson, who played Jack Torrance, was a gurning madman who resented his wife and son from the very first frame. Shelley Duvall, as Wendy Torrance, was little more than a hysterical woman in peril. Their son’s imaginary friend Tony was reduced to the talking finger of child actor Danny Lloyd, and the pivotal “REDRUM” moment was accompanied by the sort of musical crash-and-shock-zoom that critics normally despise in films by less adulated directors. Worst of all, following Dick Halloran (Scatman Crothers) all the way from Florida to Colorado, only to summarily kill him off in the hotel lobby, seemed little more than the film-maker’s “Fuck you!” to fans of the novel, in which the character survived. In years to come I would begin to appreciate Kubrick’s film for what it was, rather than what it wasn’t. The Steadicam shots of Danny riding his tricycle around the hotel corridors are a masterclass in building tension. After a decade of subtly calibrated performances, Nicholson crossed the line into the hammy-eyebrow-acting that would henceforth be his default approach, but as a portrait of resentful, abusive, entitled masculinity, his Jack Torrance is a terrifying creation, far scarier than the hotel’s supernatural manifestations, and his interactions with the barman and former caretaker are little masterpieces of unease. Duvall discovering the contents of her husband’s manuscript is chilling. And replacing the hedge animals with a maze was probably a smart move, given the technical constraints of the era. Before the end of the 1980s, I wasn’t the only one to do a 180-degree turn and decide The Shining was a great horror movie after all. Critical antipathy turned to adulation. King scripted a TV mini-series that stuck religiously to the plot of the book – and it fell flat. Kubrick’s version became one of the most-quoted films of all time. Wacko Jacko axing his way through the bathroom door, “Heeere’s Johnny!”, the spooky twins, REDRUM were all referenced endlessly, in everything from Twister to The Simpsons to Spaced and beyond. To paraphrase David Thomson, great films only partly belong to the director – “they also belong to the minds that interpret them”. And as Rodney Ascher’s 2012 documentary Room 237 showed, The Shining became a focus for conspiracy theorists who claimed it was really about the genocide of Native Americans, or the Holocaust, or faked moon landings. It wasn’t the film’s fault it was embraced by weirdos, but it felt like the tip of an iceberg. Otherwise normal people seemed as obsessed as Jack Torrance had been with the Overlook. Of course it’s a seething mass of metaphor, but so are other horror movies – that’s part of their appeal. But you could barely post a photo of a corridor on social media without some wag responding with “REDRUM”, or a tricycle-related quip, or “Watch out for the twins!” – as though there were no other corridors in the movies, or indeed in life. I became fed up with the ubiquity of the film’s tropes, the endless quotation and recycling, and started seeing its flaws again, particularly Kubrick’s contempt for his characters and his cruelty to women (you can see him bullying Duvall in the making-of documentary) and the underlying sense of an A-list director slumming it in a genre he essentially despises. Among King adaptations, Carrie, The Dead Zone and Pet Sematary not only retain their power to scare but also to grip at an emotional level. But the only emotion in The Shining is the “Gotcha!” of a fairground haunted mansion, and those thrills have long since been parsed into extinction. Move along now.
Doctors lack experience and expertise in treating transgender patients, study says Doctors and therapists are struggling to give transgender patients the best medical care because of a lack of expertise and experience, according to a new study from Appalachian State University in North Carolina. The study, published this month in Sage, examined interviews with healthcare workers around the country, finding that medical providers are facing “vast amounts” of uncertainty when treating trans patients. Current guidelines carry little scientific evidence to show they work, writes the author, and the medical community’s narrow definition of what it means to be trans only exacerbates the issue. “My research begins by asking what happens when there is no scientific evidence and little clinical experience to base medical decisions,” said the report’s author stef shuster (whose legal name is written in lowercase letters), an assistant professor of sociology at Appalachian State University. “This particular feature of trans medicine introduces the potential for providers to bring bias or limited knowledge into their work with trans people.” Transgender is the umbrella term used to describe people who don’t identify with their biological, or so-called “assigned” sex. According to the American Psychological Association, a person who is trans has an “internal sense” of being a man or a woman, or something outside of these categories. Often, trans people will seek to change their physical appearance and biology to resemble the identified gender, known as sex or gender reassignment surgery. It’s not a straightforward process, and generally requires multiple meetings with both doctors and therapists. Transgender medicine covers both physical care, such as estrogen or testosterone hormone therapy, as well as mental healthcare, to help a trans person transition both physically and socially. When determining whether a person is a candidate for medical treatment, doctors, therapists and other health professionals typically use a set of clinical guidelines created by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), a nonprofit that promotes transgender healthcare. The guidelines lay out a series of steps, starting with one or more visits with a therapist, who decides whether sex reassignment surgery is the correct course of treatment. If the therapist concludes that the person is indeed transgender, the trans person is sent to a doctor to receive treatment such as hormone therapy or surgery, including reshaping the breasts or the genitals to resemble the identified gender. The process has many challenges, according to the study. The fact that a trans person’s fate is placed entirely in a therapist’s hands is morally questionable and controversial, writes shuster. Transgender medicine has also been built around the idea that to transition means to switch from male to female or vice versa. But that’s changing, shuster says. “More recently, trans people’s understandings of their selves and bodies have become more fluid, and ‘cross’-gender transitioning is not always the ultimate goal,” writes shuster, who asked to be identified with the pronoun “they” rather than “he” or “she”. “The nuance in gender identification that trans people bring to the clinic exacerbates providers’ uncertainty.” The study interviewed 23 doctors and psychologists who have chosen to work in transgender medicine. Many had entered the field because they personally knew someone who had trouble finding a provider to treat them. Only two of the participants worked exclusively with trans people, while just one identified as transgender. According to the study, uncertainty about how best to treat a trans patient was something that was regularly experienced by all of the respondents. To cope with this uncertainty, providers used current guidelines to help inform their decisions. The study found that some providers closely followed guidelines, while others were more flexible and interpreted them on a case-by-case basis. Those new to the profession and those with a decade or more experience tended to be more rigid, expecting trans people to be “100% certain” about their desire to undergo sex reassignment surgery. One reason for this, writes shuster, is that more experienced providers may be slower to accept changing notions of what it means to be trans, while those new to their profession lacked the experience to confidently chart their own course. One respondent named Sarah, a therapist in private practice, said she closely followed guidelines to ensure a patient didn’t come to regret their decision to transition later on. “I can’t have you wake up on a surgeon’s table and say, ‘Who are you and what are you doing to my body?’ That has happened,” she said. “So I am really good about wanting to be holistic with people, and saying, please just let me be your therapist.” This absolute power to decide the course of another person’s future made some of the participants uncomfortable. Alexis, a social worker, said although she has refused to okay some people for sex reassignment surgery, the double standards in transgender medicine versus other areas of medicine doesn’t always sit right with her. “It is a tough function to fulfill,” Alexis said. “In all other areas of mental health practice, I don’t really have to give permission to people to do things.” The idea that a trans person has to be absolutely certain about their desire to transition doesn’t take into account the complicated and oftentimes changing nature of gender identity, writes shuster. For instance, some people might start hormone therapy but decide months later that the treatment isn’t right for them. “Trans people are allowed little room to explore their identities on their own terms,” writes shuster. It also gets more complicated when people identify as “gender fluid” rather than explicitly male or female. One participant, Brandon, a psychologist at a university clinic, said it’s much easier for a therapist to make a decision when the boundaries are clear and a person wants to transition from male to female or vice versa. “In the land of non-binary gender folks, you have to wade through waves and waves of ambiguity,” he said. “You have to build way more of a relationship with the person and establish a whole lot more trust.” Respondents that took a more flexible approach to the guidelines said they weighed up what was more harmful: to treat someone even when it isn’t clear they are ready for medical treatment, or to not treat someone at all. “It seems far less harmful to give someone hormones long term and take some risk that it might kill them, where maybe before they were suicidal,” said Anna, a family practitioner at a community clinic. “It is not for me to say to any given person, ‘Well you are not quite suicidal so I don’t think it is worth the risk.’” Shuster describes gender as a “socially-ascribed category” that cannot be simplified or standardized. More research is needed in the area of transgender medicine, shuster says, especially from the perspective of the medical community. Shuster also urges doctors and therapists to be less dogmatic and allow trans patients to have more ownership in the process. “From a trans patient perspective, healthcare encounters might feel easier to negotiate if providers stopped emphasizing this narrow definition of ‘transgender’,” shuster says. “And opened up more dialogue for their trans patients to describe how they understand their own identities and bodies.”
Obama talks trans bathroom access as Trump defends business practices – as it happened Here are the highlights from today in campaign news: Hillary Clinton called Donald Trump a “fraud” who would “scam America like he scammed all those people at Trump University,” the Republican’s defunct for-profit business school that is the subject of a federal lawsuit. The Democratic frontrunner, who was in New Jersey campaigning ahead of the state’s 7 June primary, trained her fire on Trump the day after a court ordered the release of testimony in the university case. “This election will determine what direction this country heads in and there could not be a more stark and important difference because every day we learn more and more about Donald Trump,” Clinton said at a rally in Rutgers University. Some of the harshest critics of Trump University have been revealed to be former employees of the now-defunct university majority-owned by the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. In sworn testimony, three former staff members have described the real estate school as “a facade, a total lie” and a “fraudulent scheme” that “preyed upon the elderly and uneducated to separate them from their money.” A new poll of a hypothetical general-election matchup between Trump and Clinton aligns roughly with recent polling awarding a slight edge to the former secretary of state, while exposing a stark gender gap that could represent the most forbidding obstacle standing between Trump and the presidency. Women preferred Clinton to Trump 54-30 in the poll, conducted by Quinnipiac University from 24 to 30 May. Men went for Trump to a slightly lesser degree, 51-35. With women expected to make up as much as 54% of the electorate in November, Trump’s challenge is to display either a greater lead on Clinton among men – or to correct his numbers with women. Women both constitute more than half the US voting population and are more likely to vote than men. The presumptive Republican nominee has announced he is to visit the UK on the day after the country votes on whether to remain in the EU. Trump’s announcement throws up the question of whether David Cameron will meet him, as the visit comes the day the result of the EU referendum is declared – a vote some polls suggest the prime minister faces losing. Barack Obama made his most aggressive foray yet into the battle to succeed him, warning that Trump - although he wouldn’t say his name - would serve the interests of his fellow billionaires and heighten the risk of another financial crisis. “The one thing I can promise you is if we turn against each other based on divisions of race or religion, if we fall for a bunch of okey-doke just because it sounds funny or the tweets are provocative, then we’re not going to build on the progress that we’ve started,” he said to applause and cheers from 2,000 people in a brightly lit gymnasium. “If we get cynical and just vote our fears, or if we don’t vote at all, we won’t build on the progress that we’ve started.” Clinton raised more than $40 million for her campaign and the Democratic National Committee in May, according to her campaign. Clinton raised roughly $27 million for her personal campaign, starting the summer with more than $42 million on hand, and more than $13.5 million for the Democratic National Committee and downballot races through the Hillary Victory Fund. #BillionaireShade. Microsoft co-founder, philanthropist and current world’s wealthiest person Bill Gates said today that presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump “hasn’t been known” for his charity work. Speaking at an event hosted by ReCode, Gates declared that Trump “hasn’t been known for his philanthropy... He’s been known for other things.” The line was prompted by a question regarding whether the candidate, who claims that his personal fortune exceeds $10 billion, had been approached to sign Gates’ “Giving Pledge,” a campaign to encourage the world’s wealthiest people donate the majority of their estates to charitable causes, whether during their lifetimes or upon their death. Famous signatories of the pledge include financier Warren Buffett, Oracle founder Larry Ellison, financial information titan and former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg and Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg. Ruth Guerra, the Republican National Committee’s head of Hispanic media relations, is resigning from her position, according to the New York Times, spurring speculation that lingering discomfort with presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump continues in the upper echelons of the party’s establishment. The Times reports that Guerra, whose job was to tailor the party’s message for Latino voters, is joining the American Action Network, a super-Pac that aims to elect conservative members of Congress. Quoting two RNC aides, the Times reports that Guerra, who is of Mexican descent, was “uncomfortable” working to elect Trump, whose platform has included draconian immigration policy since his announcement speech last summer. Update: The RNC has already named a new director of Hispanic communications, Helen Aguirre Ferré. Describing Aguirre Ferré as “a seasoned journalist” in a press release, the RNC avoids naming the party’s presumptive nominee. “I’m excited to welcome Helen Aguirre Ferré as our new Director of Hispanic Communications,” said party chair Reince Priebus. “Helen will be an integral part of our Party’s ongoing commitment to build relationships and communicate our message directly with Hispanic voters.” Gerald Sparks, a union member, asks Barack Obama about the “tens of thousands” of Syrian refugees that the administration is letting into the country, and asks, in part, “How can you guarantee that there’s none that can be radicalized?” Obama begins his answer by refuting Sparks’ numbers. “We don’t have tens of thousands of Syrian refugees,” Obama says. “”We’re trying to admit several thousand so far - I think, we’ve been able to admit about 2,500. In contrast, Canada has taken in 25,000, and we’re a much bigger country than them. Germany has taken in half a million.” “We have some obligation to help, just like we’d expect people to help if Americans were in trouble,” Obama continues. “We’re not spending a lot of money on bringing in and housing refugees. And this is what I mean about making sure that when we’re deciding elections... we’re looking at the facts.” “It’s not close to the kinds of numbers you’re talking about,” Obama says bluntly. Additionally, he continues, “refugees are actually must admitted on a much stricter standard than your average tourist.” “It’s like a month-long process. But if you are somebody from France, you don’t even need a visa - you just hop on a plane, and you’re here in the United States.” Obama points out that even if that tourist were on a terror watch list, Republicans in Congress have blocked him or her from being barred from purchasing a firearm. “That’s a much bigger danger than the Syrian refugees,” he concludes. President Barack Obama, asked about the rising visibility of the issue of bathroom access for transgender students in American public schools, pushes back against the notion that his administration is focusing on the issue of high school bathrooms over “more pressing” issues. “Somehow people think I made it an issue,” Obama says. “I didn’t make it an issue. There are a lot of things that are more pressing!” But, he says, “You have transgender kids in schools, and they get bullied, and they get ostracized, and it’s tough for ‘em. And we’re of a generation where that stuff was all out of sight and out of mind, and so people suffered silently. But now, they’re out in the open. And the question then is, schools are then asking us, the Department of Education, is, how should we deal with this?” “And my answer is that we should deal with this issue the same way we’d want it dealt with if it was our child,” Obama says. “And that is to try to create an environment of some dignity and kindness for these kids, and that’s sort of the bottom line. I have to just say what’s in my heart, but I also have to look at what’s the law. And my best interpretation of what our laws and our obligations are is that we should try to accommodate these kids so they’re not in a vulnerable situation.” “I’m not the one who’s making a big issue of it,” Obama says, but as president, it’s his duty to ensure that “these kids are not excluded and ostracized.” “Look, I have profound respect for everybody’s religious beliefs on this, but if you’re in a public school, children are to be treated with kindness. That’s all.” “My reading of scripture tells me that that Golden Rule is pretty high up there in terms of my Christian belief,” Obama concludes. “As president of the United States, those are are the values that I think are important.” “You don’t choose the issues all the time - issues come to you. And then you have to make your judgement about what you think is right.” Next question comes from Vanessa Corredera, a professor of English, who asks the president to address student-loan debt. “How do you continue to address this issue in your final months in office?” Corredera asks, in particular the humanities, “which are often under attack.” “I have been emphasizing STEM education,” Obama says, “not because I think the humanities are unimportant, but because we generally have not bene producing as many engineers and as many scientists… as compared to China, for example. And we send a lot of people into banking, and folks like me who become lawyers,” Obama says, the US needs to push Americans to study STEM education “if we’re gonna remain the most innovative economy in the world.” “The broader issues of financing education,” Obama says, is government spending. “The reason that college is so much more expensive for this generation than for my generation has to do with government spending.” “They kept tuition really really low. What happened around the 80s 90s, state leg said they gotta build more prisons,” Obama says. “They started cutting higher ed budgets, and they made up for it with higher tuition.” In the first question from an audience member, local Bill Kircher, a “fifth-generation fruit and vegetable grower,” asks about increasing regulation. “At what point are we over regulated, if not now?” Kircher asks. “My administration’s policy has been to encourage family farming, rather than big agribusiness,” Obama says. “We want you to succeed. The problem generally has been family farms getting bought up by larger agricultural operations. It’s been you guys not always getting good prices for the products that you put together.” “I don’t doubt that some” regulations put a burden on you, Obama continues. “Previously, you didn’t think that you were able to provide health insurance for your employees - the problem is that if they’re not getting health insurance thorough you, they’re relying on taxpayers like everybody else to bear those costs.” “There have been a bunch of regulations that have been put in place in the past… that are outdated,” Obama admits, but “making sure we’ve got clean air and clean water… that is part of our overall obligation.” Host Gwen Ifill asks President Barack Obama about his thoughts on his potential successor’s slogan: “Make America Great Again.” “What do you think it means when you hear the words, ‘Let’s make America great again?’ ” Ifill asks. “I think America’s pretty great,” Obama protests. “America is the strongest country on earth, its economy is the most durable on earth. We are a country that has incredible diversity, people are striving, working hard, creating businesses - we’ve got the best universities in the world, the best scientists.” “We’ve got some challenges,” Obama admits, “but overall, not only are we recovered from the crisis, that we had but we’re well-positioned to do extraordinarily well going forward as long as we make some good decisions.” “When we’ve gone through a tough time,” Obama says, “then you feel nervous. People lost homes, people lost savings, people were worried about whether or not they could make ends meet. Even though we’ve recovered, people feel that the ground under their feet isn’t quite as solid.” Under those circumstances, Obama says, voters are likely to get “tempted” by a candidate who comes along primising “some simple answer.” Obama doesn’t name Donald Trump explicity, telling Ifill that “he does a pretty good job mentioning his own name,” to chuckles from the audience. After making an aggressive foray into the battle to succeed him at a speech in this small Indiana town earlier today, President Barack Obama is holding a town hall discussion with the residents of Elkhart, Indiana, hosted by PBS NewsHour co-anchor Gwen Ifill. Elkhart, the first town Obama visited after winning the White House in 2008, has been the site of five presidential visits since, a poster child of the economic recovery that Obama says he has stewarded in America’s small towns. We’ll be livblogging the proceedings - watch it live here: Barack Obama today made his most aggressive foray yet into the battle to succeed him, warning that Donald Trump would serve the interests of his fellow billionaires and heighten the risk of another financial crisis. Returning to Elkhart, Indiana, the first city he visited as president, Obama defended his economic record over the past seven years against not only Republicans but “talking heads” who theorise that outsiders Trump and Bernie Sanders have thrived because of bad trade deals that hollowed out communities. The president stood at a podium jacketless, with his sleeves rolled up, apparently relishing a return to election campaign mode even though he is not on the ballot. He did not mention Trump or Hillary Clinton by name but displayed how he is likely to be a formidable weapon for his fellow Democrat during the general election. “The one thing I can promise you is if we turn against each other based on divisions of race or religion, if we fall for a bunch of okey doke just because it sounds funny or the tweets are provocative, then we’re not going to build on the progress that we’ve started,” he said to applause and cheers from 2,000 people in a brightly lit gymnasium. “If we get cynical and just vote our fears, or if we don’t vote at all, we won’t build on the progress that we’ve started.” He has not yet made a horse his running mate, but Donald Trump can be compared to one of the most notorious of all Roman emperors, Caligula, according to best-selling historian Tom Holland. Holland told the Hay festival there were fascinating parallels between the actions and success of Trump and what was going on in Rome 2,000 years ago. Caligula has gone down in history as one of the maddest and baddest of all Roman emperors, a name synonymous with the worst excesses of absolute power. But there was more to the story of Caligula, Holland said. He is not quite the psychopath of popular imagination and we can see similarities between what is happening now and then. What is known for sure about Caligula, Holland said, is that he had a great love of spectacle and dressing up; and he enjoyed hurting and humiliating people. The young Caligula spent six years on the island of Capri, where he often directed and appeared in spectacular pornographic tableaux for his great uncle, the emperor Tiberius – a man it was said, who enjoyed having swimming boys nibble at his private parts. Likely Democratic presidential nominee and former secretary of state Hillary Clinton raised more than $40 million for her campaign and the Democratic National Committee in May, according to her campaign. Clinton raised roughly $27 million for her personal campaign, starting the summer with more than $42 million on hand, and more than $13.5 million for the Democratic National Committee and downballot races through the Hillary Victory Fund. Donald Trump’s counterpoint to Hillary Clinton: I know you are, but what am i? The Trump Organization, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s holding company, has released a statement about the court-mandated release of documents that paint a deeply unflattering portrait of the now-defunct real estate school, saying that the unsealed depositions actually boost the Trump Organization’s case. “The Court’s order unsealing documents has no bearing on the merits of Trump University’s case,” the statement reads. “Much of the unsealed evidence, including declarations and siurveys from former Trump University students, demonstrates the high level of satisfaction from students and that Trump University taught valuable real estate information.” “Trump University’s sales tactics are commonplace - no different than any other companies in the industry,” the statement concludes. “Trump University looks forward to using this evidence, along with much more, to win when the case is brought before a jury.” Former employees of the now-defunct university have described the real estate school as “a facade, a total lie” and a “fraudulent scheme” that “preyed upon the elderly and uneducated to separate them from their money.” The Donald Trump phenomenon confused the great minds of the Hillary Clinton campaign. Needing to thwart a new, weightless force in American politics, they nicknamed him Dangerous Donald, rubber stamping his renegade brand. Leave it to Trump to have to give them a better one: fraud. On Tuesday, Trump called a press conference to prove he gave $6m to veterans groups, a very large sum of very beautiful money that he totally would have given even without the press hounding him. Honest to God. Later, US district court judge Gonzalo Curiel released 400 pages of “Trump University” documents showing how much Trump promises are worth. The documents confirm what everyone who wasn’t making money off the deal already knew: that, like every get-rich-quick scheme, it reliably delivered that outcome to the people running it by efficiently separating hopeful attendees from their money in exchange for empty promises of billionaire real-estate savvy. It’s uncanny how much Trump’s sham university sounds like his campaign. Trump U salespeople were encouraged to pitch the three-day Gold Elite package to student-clients for the low, low price of $34,995 dollars, pushing clients to max out credit cards or tap other assets to pay for it even if it put them financially at risk. (The Silver Elite package ran $19,495, while the Bronze Elite dinged students a mere $9,995.) An early part of the pitch included the “blast phase” that focused on “giving your clients hope again”. If clients balked at the price of the Gold Elite package, salespeople were told to tell them that everything was horrible, and only one expert had the solution: You’re not even close to where you need to be, much less where you want to be. It’s time you fix your broken plan, bring in Mr Trump’s top instructors and certified millionaire mentors and allow us to put you and keep you on the right track. Your plan is BROKEN and WE WILL help you fix it. Eschewing things like concrete strategies for making money (item one of which would, presumably, be “don’t spent $35,000 on three days of seminars in a hotel conference room), salespeople were instead told to play on clients’ self esteem and anxieties: Marco Rubio’s accusations of fraud weren’t enough to derail Donald Trump’s march to the Republican nomination, but likely Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton is hoping that it’s enough to throw the candidate off-track ahead of the general election. South Dakota senator John Thune has called on Mount Rushmore State voters to back presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, saying that “if people want change, I think their answer is Trump.” At a Minnehaha County Republican party Lincoln Day dinner, Thune cited the potential election of former secretary of state Hillary Clinton as the primary reason for his endorsement of Trump, according to the Argus Leader. “We have to get it right in 2016 because the future of our country is hanging in the balance in so many different ways,” Thune said. “And there are three words that ought to scare everyone in this room: President Hillary Clinton.” Veteran newscaster Dan Rather has issued a scalding statement on presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s sustained attacks on political journalists, calling the candidate’s actions “particularly personal and vicious.” “I felt a shudder down my spine yesterday watching Donald Trump’s fusilade [sic] against the press,” Rather wrote in a Facebook post. “This is not a moment to be trifled with. It wasn’t his first tirade and it won’t be his last.” “This is a dirty, nasty election. And it is only going to get worse,” Rather continued. “The reporters in the trenches need no lecture from me. They are walking through daily mindfields, bracing themselves against winds of discontent whose effects no one can predict.” “I know what it is like to sit in those seats and feel the scorn and even wrath of politicians of all political persuasions,” Rather said. “Attacking the press for unfair coverage has long been a bipartisan pursuit. Sometimes it works. I am happy to say that more often it doesn’t. But Trump’s brand of vituperation is particularly personal and vicious. It carries with it the drumbeats of threatening violence. It cannot be left unanswered.” The friendship between Hillary Clinton and Cory Booker continues... In a massive analysis of three decades’ worth of legal filings, USA Today has found that presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has been involved in an astounding 3,500 lawsuits in both state and federal courts, including 1,900 where he or his companies were a plaintiff and about 1,300 in which he was the defendant. Since Trump announced his candidacy a little less than a year ago, at least 70 cases have been filed, with 50 civil lawsuits remaining open as of today. The cases range from the well-documented lawsuits by former customers of Trump University to personal injury suits to more than 1,700 suits involving his casino dealings. General counsel for the Trump Organization Alan Garten told USA Today that the Trump Organization, the candidate’s holding company, faces “far less litigation of companies of our size” than other conglomerates. USA Today, however, found otherwise: Even by those measures, the number of cases in which Trump is involved is extraordinary. For comparison, USA TODAY analyzed the legal involvement for five top real-estate business executives: Edward DeBartolo, shopping-center developer and former San Francisco 49ers owner; Donald Bren, Irvine Company chairman and owner; Stephen Ross, Time Warner Center developer; Sam Zell, Chicago real-estate magnate; and Larry Silverstein, a New York developer famous for his involvement in the World Trade Center properties. To maintain an apples-to-apples comparison, only actions that used the developers’ names were included. The analysis found Trump has been involved in more legal skirmishes than all five of the others - combined. The whole article is worth a read, particularly in light of the candidate’s well-established litigious reputation. Likely Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has announced a major policy address in San Diego, California, tomorrow, in which the former secretary of state will “make clear the threat that Donald Trump would pose to our national security and to put forth her own vision for keeping America safe at home and leading in the world,” according to a campaign release. “Throughout this campaign, Trump has refused to outline any coherent foreign policy doctrine, failed to demonstrate a basic understanding of world affairs, and repeatedly proven he’s temperamentally unfit to serve as our commander in chief,” the release continues. “Clinton will rebuke the fear, bigotry, and misplaced defeatism that Trump has been selling to the American people. She will make the affirmative case for the exceptional role America has played and must continue to play in order to keep our country safe and our economy growing.” The address will take place at the Prado at Balboa Park Ballroom at 2:30pm EDT on Thursday. Some of the harshest critics of Trump University have been revealed to be former employees of the now-defunct university majority-owned by Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican US presidential candidate. In sworn testimony, three former staff members have described the real estate school as “a facade, a total lie” and a “fraudulent scheme” that “preyed upon the elderly and uneducated to separate them from their money”. In extracts from their evidence to a class-action lawsuit against the school, made public this week, the former staff tell the inside story of the “front-end high-pressure speaker scam” at Trump University. Ronald Schnackenberg, who worked at Trump University’s headquarters on Wall Street between 2006 and 2007, said he felt compelled to resign because he thought the company was “engaging in misleading, fraudulent and dishonest conduct”. Schnackenberg said the “primary goal of Trump University was not to educate students” but to “make money, as quickly and easily as possible”. At a campaign appearance in Spreckels, California, Democratic hopeful Bernie Sanders repeated a call for a national ban on fracking – “I think it’s too late for regulating,” he said. Sanders also called for a fracking ban to be added to the Democratic party platform. As secretary of state, Hillary Clinton supported fracking – natural gas extraction from shale using pressurized injections – around the world. She has more recently said she opposes fracking where local communities oppose it, but she has not supported a fracking ban outright. Hillary Clinton called Donald Trump a “fraud” who would “scam America like he scammed all those people at Trump University”, the Republican’s defunct for-profit business school that is the subject of a federal lawsuit, writes the ’s Lauren Gambino at Rutgers University in New Jersey: The Democratic frontrunner, who was in New Jersey campaigning ahead of the state’s 7 June primary, trained her fire on Trump the day after a court ordered the release of testimony in the university case. “This election will determine what direction this country heads in and there could not be a more stark and important difference because every day we learn more and more about Donald Trump,” Clinton said at a rally in Rutgers University. She was introduced by New Jersey Senator Cory Booker and Jon Bon Jovi, the state’s “patron saint”. Speaking of his relationship with the former Secretary of State, Bon Jovi joked of her accomplishments that “all those titles get confusing and it gets a little awkward for me, so I just like to call her Mrs. C.” When Booker took the mic from the musician, he quipped: “I hate to contradict Bon Jovi but, dear God, Hillary Clinton - you give love a good name.” Donald Trump’s grip on high-profile golf events is to be significantly loosened, with the PGA Tour on the verge of confirming the first World Golf Championship event of the year will no longer be played at the US presidential candidate’s Doral venue, writes golf correspondent Ewan Murray: The tournament, formerly the WGC-Cadillac Championship, is expected to move to the outskirts of Mexico City from 2017. Speaking on Fox News, Trump offered a typical response to the news. “I just heard that the PGA Tour is taking their tournament out of Miami and moving it to Mexico,” Trump said. “They’re moving it to Mexico City which, by the way, I hope they have kidnapping insurance. But they’re moving it to Mexico City. And I’m saying, you know: ‘What’s going on here?’ It is so sad when you look at what’s going on with our country.” Doral, which Trump purchased in 2012 before overseeing a $250m redevelopment, has been a PGA Tour stop since 1962. The WGC there, held each March, carried a most recent prize fund of $9.5m. Trump appeared at the closing day of this year’s tournament, where he held lengthy talks with the PGA Tour’s commissioner, Tim Finchem. On Wednesday afternoon in Ohio, Finchem is expected to spell out Doral’s fate. Read further: On the stump at Rutgers, Clinton keeps after Trump about Trump University: People magazine catches up with House speaker Paul Ryan at home in Janesville, Wisconsin. Ryan forbade any Trump talk: And while his job does require some weekend phone calls to take care of business, Ryan says he doesn’t want to talk politics with his kids. (Or with PEOPLE. One condition of the Speaker getting on the phone for the magazine’s special Fathers’ Day gallery was that he not be asked about his party’s presidential nominee, Donald Trump, whom Ryan has famously declined so far to endorse.) Ryan is a healthy eater: And then there’s his no-sweets, no-processed-foods edict. “I’m probably pretty overbearing about that. I’m not a sugar guy and my general rule for diet at home is, ‘If it wasn’t a food 100 years ago, we don’t buy it or eat it.’” Read the whole interview here. Senator Cory Booker, following Bon Jovi onstage at Rutgers, delete your account: I hate to contradict Bon Jovi, but by god: Hillary Clinton you give love a good name. Update: Lauren Gambino is at the Clinton event at Rutgers University. Appearing on behalf of Clinton at Rutgers, as we speak: recording artist Jon Bon Jovi. “Hello New Jersey,” he says. He reveals that he calls Clinton “Mrs C.” Hillary Clinton is holding a rally at Rutgers University in New Jersey, which votes Tuesday. Her warm-up acts are giving their speeches. Watch live here: The ’s Lauren Gambino is at the scene. She has spoken with Aisha Keller of Brooklyn, New York, who crossed the Hudson to hear Clinton. It’s Keller’s first time attending a Clinton rally but she’s a big fan, she said. The Donald Trump campaign has issued a statement on the release of documents describing sales techniques used by Trump University employees to recruit and upsell students, and a related class-action fraud lawsuit: The court’s order unsealing documents has no bearing on the merits of Trump University’s case. Much of the unsealed evidence, including declarations and surveys from former Trump University students, demonstrates the high level of satisfaction from students and that Trump University taught valuable real estate information. Trump University looks forward to using this evidence, along with much more, to win when the case is brought before a jury. Pittsburgh’s WTAE reports that a local woman lost six figures through Trump University after she was assigned to a real estate coach with a criminal record (theft, drug distribution, sex solicitation) who convinced her to put money in a supposed fund of Spanish real estate that turned out to be a Ponzi scheme: Eventually, she invested $230,000. But just six months later, the SEC called Safevest a fraud and a Ponzi scheme and won a court order shutting it down. Safevest ended up bankrupt, and Norris lost all her money. “I lost a lot of money because I trusted this organization and I have nothing back. I will not get anything back,” she said. Click here for video. The woman sued Trump University in 2008 but the case was thrown out for lack of jurisdiction. This is fun from one of the architects of Huffpost Pollster, depicting where the polls were at in each election cycle going back to 2000. A chart position below the midline represents a Republican lead, above a Democratic lead. The wrong-est years for the polls, judging from a glance at these graphics, was 2012, when a seeming neck-and-neck race yielded a four-point Democratic win (Obama won by seven points in 2008). Also notable: how little time this election cycle, so far, the Democrat has spent below the midline. Further echoes of 2012? A batch of new state polling results has Hillary Clinton ahead of Donald Trump 43-38.5 in Michigan, which has gone Democratic in every presidential election since 1992 (inclusive). Bernie Sanders was viewed more favorably than either candidate, the survey found: The telephone survey found Clinton and Trump are both equally unpopular in Michigan. Nearly 60 percent of polled voters view Trump unfavorably, and Clinton is not much better with 57 percent having an unfavorable view of her. By contrast, Sanders has a slim popularity edge, with 43 percent viewing the democratic socialist favorably and 41 percent unfavorably. The new poll, conducted by the Detroit News and WDIV-TV, surveyed 600 likely voters. The state will award 16 electoral votes in November. Separately, Public Policy Polling finds Trump with a steady, 45-38 lead over Clinton in Georgia: The racial divide in Georgia is massive with Clinton leading 80/2 among black voters, but Trump having a 67/17 advantage with white ones. PPP does not detect, in its early state polling, a significant departure from 2012 patterning, apart from in Arizona, where Trump has so far experienced relatively weak support (68%) among Republicans. Stay tuned, polling junkies... Libertarian party nominee Gary Johnson and running mate Bill Weld are holding a live chat on Facebook with the New York Times. Check it out! Johnson has just taken a question about Barack Obama’s emissions caps on coal-fired power plants. “Personally I lost a lot of money in coal”, Johnson says. “People don’t want coal, it’s just that simple.... nobody’s going to build a new coal-fired power plant... so, why coal, if natural gas is cheaper and it’s as plentiful as it is? “I think the whole coal situation has been blamed on environmental regulations... but it’s a great example of the free market at work, saying we don’t want coal anymore. “Great example of the free market.” Weld says “we should stick with our greenhouse gas emissions targets” and that we should “stick around” in the Paris climate deal. Update: Et tu, Rove? (Unlike Brutus Rove has never been Caesar’s ally.) Donald Trump’s most recent financial disclosure revealed he owes at least $100m to Germany-based Deutsche Bank, raising questions about whether he would be personally vulnerable as president to potential manipulation by a foreign entity, or whether he would face conflicts of interest pertaining to banking regulations and other matters. Mother Jones has the story: But the presumptive GOP nominee also has a tremendous load of debt that includes five loans each over $50 million. (The disclosure form, which presidential candidates must submit, does not compel candidates to reveal the specific amount of any loans that exceed $50 million, and Trump has chosen not to provide details.) Two of those megaloans are held by Deutsche Bank, which is based in Germany but has US subsidiaries. And this prompts a question that no other major American presidential candidate has had to face: What are the implications of the chief executive of the US government being in hock for $100 million (or more) to a foreign entity that has tried to evade laws aimed at curtailing risky financial shenanigans, that was recently caught manipulating markets around the world, and that attempts to influence the US government? [...] Should Trump move into the White House, four blocks away from his under-construction hotel, he would be its first inhabitant to owe so much to any bank. And in recent years, Deutsche Bank has repeatedly clashed with US regulators. So might it be awkward—if not pose a conflict of interest—for Trump to have to deal with policy matters that could affect this financial behemoth? Read the full piece here. It appears that the Clinton campaign is preparing to launch a sustained attack against Trump in connection with revelations about Trump University, which faces a couple class-action fraud lawsuits that could culminate around election time in November. Here’s Clinton’s press secretary: Here’s the Clinton campaign’s quick-turnaround-policy-shop: Here’s our coverage of the controversy: Update: the Clinton camp digs up this Ted Cruz tweet from March: Hillary Clinton tweets news coverage of the release of Trump University documents describing how “university” employees were instructed to pressure potential “students” into signing up by painting a simple and wonderful picture of the rewards that awaited: Apparently not knowing about Brexit may make Donald Trump unique among would-be world leaders – but his (apparent) ignorance establishes him comfortably among the members of a different tribe, a tribe truly his: New Yorkers. Here’s the ’s Adam Gabbatt asking New Yorkers about Brexit, and them not having any idea what he is talking about: Hello and welcome to our live-wire coverage of the 2016 race for the White House. In an as-yet hypothetical general election matchup, Hillary Clinton polled ahead of Donald Trump by a narrow margin, 45-41, in a Quinnipiac University survey of 1,561 registered voters published Wednesday morning. The poll indicated that Clinton could gain significant additional support, however, once the Democratic nominating contest is resolved, with 75% of respondents who supported Bernie Sanders in the primaries picking Clinton over Trump (11% chose Trump). Voters thought Trump to be more “honest and trustworthy” (44-39) and a “stronger leader (49-45), but found Clinton to be better-prepared for the presidency (56-35) and more intelligent (51-37), the poll found. Speaking of trustworthy, an internal memo laying out Trump’s techniques for squeezing money out of prospective students at his defunct Trump University was released Tuesday on orders of a federal judge presiding over one of two class-action lawsuits against the university. Here’s part of one script that Trump salespeople were instructed to use to get students to go into credit card debt to enroll in the school’s real-estate instruction: It’s time you fix your broken plan, bring in Mr. Trump’s top instructors and certified millionaire mentors and allow us to put you and keep you on the right track. Your plan is BROKEN and WE WILL help you fix it. Remember you have to be 100% honest with yourself! Make American Great Again. Read further: The Democrats increased their focus on California, with Sanders planning rallies in Davis and Palo Alto on Wednesday and Clinton planning a major foreign policy address on Thursday that her campaign said would distinguish her from Trump. Speaking of foreign policy, Trump appeared not to know what “Brexit” means in an interview with the Hollywood Reporter: “And Brexit? Your position?” I ask. “Huh?” “Brexit.” “Hmm.” “The Brits leaving the EU,” I prompt, realizing that his lack of familiarity with one of the most pressing issues in Europe is for him no concern nor liability at all. “Oh yeah, I think they should leave.” Trump may learn more, quickly: he is to visit the UK on the day the EU referendum result is announced, his team said Wednesday. The billionaire property developer is to visit the Turnberry hotel at the golf course in Ayrshire on 24 June for its official relaunch following a £200m redevelopment. Trump’s announcement throws up the question of whether David Cameron will agree to meet him, since the event comes the day after the UK’s referendum on European Union membership on 23 June – a vote some polls suggest the prime minister faces losing. Thank you for reading and as always join us in the comments.
The Christmas mountain who high-fives elephants: four-year-olds pitch films There are two things you should know about the upcoming movie Monster Trucks. First, a four-year-old came up with the idea. Second, it looks set to be a gigantic financial disaster, with Paramount already taking a $115m writedown on the film. So what happened? There are two possible explanations: a) Asking a four-year-old to be the primary creative force behind a big movie is an act of almost obscene hubris and the project was doomed to failure from the outset; or b) They asked the wrong kid. Convinced the latter was true, the assembled a crack team of children in its HQ, shut them in a room, and told them that they couldn’t leave until they’d created a blockbuster. Here are their pitches, which we then handed to Oscar-nominated producer Stephen Woolley (The Crying Game, Interview with a Vampire, Carol). Brace yourself, Hollywood. Ben: The Laser Monster from Not Space “The laser monsters come from a really strange planet very far from Earth that’s not in space, and they laser people with their 100 eyes. They came to Earth because they have double-boosters on their feet. The people win in the end because they find a big gun. It’s bigger than the laser monster and the laser monster is bigger than a mountain. I’m thirsty.” Producer Stephen Woolley: “Ben, this has Hollywood potential – especially Big Gun. I’m afraid I couldn’t raise the budget for this, though. Feels like a $150million movie.” Ezra: The Christmas Mountain “There’s a mountain and it’s really cold, so he has a jumper on. He has a lily pad on his eye. He’s a nice monster, because he lets frogs go in his eyes. He grows when it’s Christmas and now he’s as big as anything. He doesn’t do much, but he’s bigger than the Shard and high-fives elephants. I’m bigger than anything. I’m bigger than the Earth. I live on Saturn.” SW: “With the right CGI effects and some claymation, this could be a Nick Park film. In fact, it could be a British hit – especially as it has Christmas in the title!” James: Pokémon Hulk v Marshall the Fire Pup “Pokémon Hulk is a million centimetres tall. His special move is splashing people with mud. He’s fighting Marshall from Paw Patrol. Pokémon Hulk punches Marshall in the face, then he kicks him in the bum. Marshall squirts out fire. He’s a baddie! Then Marshall runs away, then he dies, then he comes back to life, then he puts himself on fire.” SW: “This is 18-certificate stuff. The excessive violence won’t get past the brand owners. But Mel Gibson might like it, if you can give a religious ending!” Tess: The Polar Bear and his Mummy “A polar bear drives a car. He’s half polar bear and half box and half chip. He also has human hands. He’s not friendly, because he’s a witch polar bear. He’s a witch-chip polar bear and he eats humans. His mummy is half elephant and she’s nice and she doesn’t eat people. She’s sad about her son and she uses her long tail to tie him up. The mummy polar bear is a hero. Her tail is made out of teeth.” SW: “Perfect as a European co-production. Can see it fitting a Spanish director – Guillermo Del Toro would love this! Keep the budget down though.” Polly: The Snow Witch “Melanie the witch turns people into snowpeople. People have to stop Melanie the witch by destroying her with her own powers. They turn her into a snowman. There’s also Giant Spider. She turns people into little snowmen. When you’re a snowman, you just melt.” SW: “Another huge concept. Giant spider makes the poster exciting but Raymond Briggs has perhaps cornered this market.” Timmy: The House That Says Yes “There are stones with faces called Austin, Tim and Ralph. They fight a snow monster and the snow monster melts. He melts because he’s made out of snow and it’s good because he’s a baddie. There’s a house that talks, too. It’s a happy house. It says, ‘Yes.’ It goes, ‘Yeeeeeaah!’ I’m going under the table.” SW: “Perhaps Mick and the rest of the Rolling Stones could make a cameo. Given the obsession with reality TV and Kirstie Allsopp’s property shows, this has Brit movie written all over it. Especially the tactical retreat at the end.” Ethan: The Scribbling Monsters “These are monsters that throw scribbles in your eyes. They lived underground for 100 years and now they’re here. Then there’s a dot monster and the dots aren’t attached. They’re going to Australia and they’re going to kill you. And this monster puts cannonballs in your eyes – in your eyes! It sneak up on people and then they’re dead. And then the next monster lives under paper and it bangs on people and then they’re dead. And this one punches you and you’re dead on the floor and you can never get up.” SW: “The violence in this one makes me feel like the main market for this is South Korea. Perfect for Yeon Sang-ho, who directed Train to Busan, although the Australian connection gives a great co-funding opportunity. Thanks to all the four-year-old pitchers. For me, The Christmas Mountain is the winner, the one I’d green-light first.”
Manchester United’s revival stalled by West Brom’s Salomón Rondón West Bromwich Albion have waited for 32 years to celebrate victory in this fixture and it will not take long for Manchester United to work out how that run came to an end. The postmortem will focus on the poor marking that allowed Salomón Rondón the time to control and shoot home from 12 yards out but, more than anything, the two yellow cards that Juan Mata picked up in the space of 158 seconds in the first half. It was difficult to know what was going through Mata’s mind when he brought down Darren Fletcher little more than two minutes after picking up a yellow card for preventing the same player from taking a quick free-kick. The fact that Fletcher was inside his own half on both occasions, not remotely close to threatening the United goal, added to the sense of bemusement about how careless and naive Mata could be. Several United players protested but Mike Dean, the referee, had no option but to brandish a red card and Louis van Gaal’s side were forced to play with 10 men for 64 minutes against a team who are difficult to break down at the best of times. In that sense the outcome was fairly predictable as United, who had never really looked like turning possession into goals with Mata on the pitch, struggled to create much and to compound their frustration, they were undone by one swing of Rondón’s left boot. It was the Venezuelan’s fourth goal in six league games and it all but secures Albion’s Premier League status for another season – they are now on 39 points and up to 11th – while delivering a serious blow to United’s hopes of finishing in the top four. Van Gaal’s side are now sixth, three points behind fourth-placed Manchester City having played a game more, and once again it looks as though winning the Europa League represents their only realistic chance of playing in the Champions League next season. Van Gaal was probably right when he said that Mata’s sending off was the turning point in a game of few chances. He described the first caution, when Mata could easily have retreated but chose to stick out a leg to block Fletcher’s free-kick, as “stupid”, but the Dutchman seemed to believe that the referee should have taken into account the sort of player that the United midfielder is before showing a second yellow card. Referees, of course, do not have that discretion and it would be a dangerous path to go down if they did. With so much of the match still to play, Van Gaal decided that United would be more effective with Anthony Martial up front, rather than Marcus Rashford, who had started in that role. Rashford shifted out to the right and Jesse Lingard swapped flanks to take up a position wide on the left, where Martial had struggled to make much impression in the early stages. Those changes, however, did nothing to improve United’s threat as an attacking force. Albion were not exactly on the offensive in the wake of Mata’s dismissal and for long periods it was difficult to see where a goal was going to come from. Rondón was full of running up front alongside Saido Berahino while Fletcher, up against his former club, impressed in midfield but David de Gea had very little to do prior to the breakthrough. The goal owed much to Sébastien Pocognoli and the substitute’s reaction afterwards – a slow walk back to his own half – provided a measure of the frustration the left-back has felt over the last 15 months or so. Remarkably, this was Pocognoli’s first league appearance since Boxing Day 2014, a few days before Pulis replaced Alan Irvine. Pulis has a fondness for playing centre-backs right across his back four – “We’ve got a full-back on the pitch” – chanted the Albion supporters during their FA Cup replay at Bristol City in January after Pocognoli was brought on as a substitute – and it was only an injury to Craig Dawson that broke up that unusual defensive set-up against United. Receiving the ball from Fletcher wide on the left, Pocognoli highlighted the benefit of having a naturally left-footed player in that position when he looked up before delivering a fine centre that picked out Rondón. With Daley Blind in no man’s land and several other United players marking space, Rondón took a touch and swivelled before dispatching a low left-footed shot into the corner of the net. Van Gaal’s side started the second half brightly, when Rashford saw his low shot deflected wide and Lingard, cutting in from the left, thrashed a 25-yard drive that skimmed the roof of the net, but the visitors were unable to conjure up anything in response to Rondón’s goal. Pulis described Fletcher’s claim that Albion should now be setting their sights on getting to 50 points as “nonsense”, but he was full of praise for his captain. “He’s got that drive and fire in his belly that has maybe been dampened out of his generation,” he said. Pulis was also delighted with the contribution of his strike pairing. “At the start of the season, before the nonsense with Saido, I was looking forward to them playing together. Since Saido has come back in the two of them have looked really lively and we look a threat. I thought Rondón took his goal with aplomb.”
US election: Trump duels Clinton and Sanders in North Carolina Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton campaigned head to head in North Carolina on Thursday, holding competing rallies only 30 miles apart in a state where polls show the Republican gaining on the Democrat five days before the presidential election. North Carolina has a large and growing African American population and a growing number of young, white and college-educated voters, which means it has long figured in Clinton’s plan to win states where Barack Obama lost in 2012. On Thursday evening she tried to appeal to those voters in Raleigh, alongside her former rival, Bernie Sanders, and the singer Pharrell Williams. The trio appeared before a raucous crowd of about 5,200 people at an outdoor amphitheater, where Sanders drew an especially strong response from the largely young crowd, who broke into chants of “Bernie”. The Democratic nominee largely let her surrogates argue for her, underscoring the Vermont senator’s continued popularity among a demographic with which Clinton has struggled. “This is not a personality contest,” Sanders implored voters. “We’re not voting for high school president. We’re voting for the most powerful leader in the world.” Sanders told the crowd that Trump represented an unacceptable option, and that the “cornerstone” of his campaign was bigotry. “We are not going back to a bigoted society,” Sanders said. “We’re not going to allow Trump or anyone else to divide us up.” The senator’s remarks returned to familiar themes from his former stump speech, from addressing income inequality to reducing the amount of money in politics, in a bid to persuade supporters to cast their ballots for Clinton if they wished to see his agenda realized. In contrast, Trump held an outdoor rally in the rural town of Selma in front of a crowd estimated at 17,000. The Republican nominee, continuing to appeal to white conservative voters, emphasized his push for a more isolationist foreign policy in a state with a heavy military presence. Trump vowed that he would only “engage in use of military forces when it is vital for national security interests of United States”, repeating his calls to avoid interventions abroad and to cooperate with regimes such as that of Vladimir Putin’s in Russia. “We will stop trying to build foreign democracies, topple regimes and act recklessly to intervene in situations where we have no right to be there, folks,” he said, backed by a lineup of veterans, many who wore camouflage “Make America Great Again” hats. Trump, who avoided service in the Vietnam war on student and medical deferments, called the veterans “so much more brave than me”. “I’m brave in other ways. I am financially brave,” he added. The stops were the second North Carolina events in a day for both candidates, who are tied in the polls there according to averages. Barack Obama stumped in the state on Wednesday for Clinton, and last week Clinton marked her first joint campaign appearance with first lady Michelle Obama in Winston-Salem. Trump is scheduled to make two more stops in North Carolina before the election, and running mate Mike Pence is scheduled to appear as well. In Raleigh, Clinton told voters that the fabric of US society was at stake in the election. “Come January 20, America will have a new president. It will either be me or my opponent,” she said. “The question is what kind of change are we going to see? Are we going to build a stronger, fairer, better America or are we going to fear each other and fear our future?” Noting the disparaging comments Trump has made about women, disabled people, African Americans, Latinos and Muslims, Clinton borrowed a quote from the first lady: “The presidency doesn’t change who you are, it reveals who you are.” “I think it’s fair to say that my opponent has already revealed who he is,” she added. Trump meanwhile accused the Justice Department of interference in investigations into Clinton’s use of a private email server as secretary of state, adding yet another complaint of wrongdoing in the continuing controversy. The FBI, which began a new review of emails last week, has been riven by leaks and infighting since director James Comey sent a letter to Congress notifying them that additional emails that may be pertinent had been found. Democrats and Republicans expressed surprise and confusion at his letter for its timing, and some Democrats accused the bureau of seeking to interfere with the election. Outside Charlotte, Trump alleged that Clinton had “engaged in far reaching criminal conduct and equally far reaching criminal cover up”, although Comey’s July conclusion was that she had not committed intentional or criminal wrongdoing. Trump then later stated that she had committed “perjury”. The political fallout from Comey’s letter appears to have helped Trump consolidate Republican voters and narrow the gap with Clinton, who had long held a steady lead over him. However, the Republican nominee still trails in crucial swing states like Pennsylvania and Nevada and faces a difficult electoral map.
Trump under siege over Khan attacks Prominent Republicans, including former presidential candidate John McCain, condemned Donald Trump’s comments about Khizr and Ghazala Khan, the parents of a Muslim American soldier who was killed in Iraq. I claim no moral superiority over Donald Trump. I have a long and well-known public and private record for which I will have to answer at the Final Judgment, and I repose my hope in the promise of mercy and the moderation of age. I challenge the nominee to set the example for what our country can and should represent. - John McCain The parents of Humayun Khan declared Trump had a “black soul” unfit for the White House after he suggested he had made sacrifices for the US comparable to their son’s. The speech that started it all: A pocket version of the US constitution has become a bestseller on Amazon after Khizr Khan flashed his copy at the Democratic convention and offered to lend it to Donald Trump. America’s oldest, largest organization for war veterans issued a strong condemnation of Trump’s sustained attacks on Cpt Humayun Khan’s family. There are certain sacrosanct subjects that no amount of wordsmithing can repair once crossed. Giving one’s life to nation is the greatest sacrifice, followed closely by all Gold Star families, who have a right to make their voices heard. - Brian Duffy, newly elected commander of the Veterans of Foreign Wars The long-running Fox comedy show released a clip on YouTube that depicts Donald Trump as a pasty, bald fascist whose hair is actually a small dog nestled on his head. Not now – I’m on Twitter! - The Simpsons’ version of Donald Trump, before mocking Elizabeth Warren, whom he has exiled from the US Sally Bradshaw, who helped author the party’s post-2012 “autopsy”, has officially left, saying her former colleagues are “at a crossroads and have nominated a total narcissist – a misogynist – a bigot”. This is a time when country has to take priority over political parties. Donald Trump cannot be elected president. - Sally Bradshaw, on her party’s future Two of Donald Trump’s top advisers – including the co-chair of the campaign’s national veterans coalition – have accused Khizr Khan of being a “Muslim Brotherhood agent”. Trump advisers tweet link to article As commander-in-chief, I’m pretty tired of some folks trash-talking America’s military and troops. - Barack Obama, speaking to the Disabled American Veterans convention
Steve Bannon, Trump campaign CEO, faced domestic violence charges Stephen Bannon, the head of the Donald Trump presidential campaign, faced domestic violence charges after a fight with a woman he was married to 20 years ago, in which she accused him of grabbing her by the neck “violently” and destroying a telephone when she tried to summon police. Documents from the Santa Monica, California, police department relating to the case were first published by Politico on Thursday, 25 August 2016. The case was eventually dismissed. “She complained of soreness to her neck,” wrote a police officer who responded to the incident. “I saw red marks on her left wrist and the right side of her neck. These were photographed.” Police arrived at the home on New Year’s Day, 1996, after a call was made to 911 and the line went dead, the police report says. The report draws on an account by Bannon’s then wife, whom he had married eight months earlier, three days before she gave birth to their twins. The couple’s decision to marry was described in a separate declaration filed by the woman in their divorce case, obtained by the New York Post. “Bannon made it clear that he would not marry me just because I was pregnant,” the Post quotes the document as saying. “I was scheduled for an amniocentesis and was told by the respondent that if the babies were normal we would get married … After the test showed that the babies were normal the respondent sent over a prenuptial agreement for me to review.” The Trump campaign did not reply to a request for comment. Both Bannon’s ex-wife and his lawyer in the domestic case declined comment to Politico. The police officer who filed the report in the domestic violence case noted that when he arrived on the scene, the woman “appeared as if she was very upset and had been crying”. The document continues: I saw that her eyes were red and watery. She first said, ‘Oh, thank you, you are here. How did you know to come?’ As I started to tell her about the 911 hang up call, she started to cry, and it took 3-4 minutes for her to calm down, so she could tell me what happened. The domestic dispute developed after a night in which Bannon slept on the couch, according to police documents. “Early in the morning she got up to feed their twins, and Mr Bannon got upset at her for making some noise,” the document says. She asked him for the credit card to buy groceries, and he said she should write a check, the police report says. “She asked him why he was playing those games with the money, and he said it was his money.” She spit on him, the document says, and then “he reached up to her, from the driver’s seat of his car, and grabbed her left wrist. He pulled her down … Mr Bannon grabbed at her neck also pulling her into the car. She said that she started to fight back.” In the divorce filing, the woman says that Bannon, who later remarried, then followed her back into the home and destroyed the phone. “I took the phone to call the police and he grabbed the phone away from me throwing it across the room, and breaking it as he [was] screaming,” the Post quotes the document as saying. The couple had gone to counseling earlier in their relationship after “three or four arguments that became physical”, according to the police report. Bannon was charged with misdemeanor domestic violence, battery and dissuading a witness. The case was dismissed. The woman claims in the divorce filing that it was dismissed because Bannon convinced her to leave town, because “if I wasn’t in town they couldn’t serve me and I wouldn’t have to go to court”. “He also told me that if I went to court he and his attorney would make sure that I would be the one who was guilty. I was told that I could go anywhere in the world.” This article was originally published on 26 August 2016 and updated on 13 November 2016 after Bannon was named chief strategist for Donald Trump’s White House.
Don’t insult gorillas by comparing them to Donald Trump I was already feeling sorry for gorillas before London zoo’s Kumbuka made his unsuccessful bid for freedom. Their incarceration in zoos is bad enough, but this week I had begun to feel affronted on their behalf by the way gorillas are being casually used to justify aggressive human, usually male, behaviour. On Thursday’s Today programme, Bruno Monteyne, an investment analyst at Sanford C Bernstein, described the standoff between Unilever and Tesco as “two gorillas on behalf of the industry”. Much worse was Nigel Farage’s defence of Donald Trump’s rather menacing performance against Hilary Clinton as being like a “big silverback gorilla prowling the stage”. This was the day after he had excused Trump’s “grab them by the pussy” comment as “alpha-male boasting” and the “kind of thing men do”. Kumbuka’s escapade at London zoo on Thursday might, on first appearance, appear to justify the use of the silverback gorilla as the ultimate image of an aggressive and dangerous creature mainly preoccupied with asserting dominance. Apparently Kumbuku had a reputation for being “protective” of his family, and on this occasion he rushed aggressively at the glass, banging on it, before escaping into the keeper’s area behind his enclosure. But a more nuanced understanding of gorilla behaviour doesn’t bear out such projections. Although male gorillas in the wild do exhibit aggressive behaviour and can even kill baby gorillas, more often when they are in groups, which sometimes contain several co-existing males, they are gentle and sociable. Primatologists like Dian Fossey observed that like any primate, ourselves included, gorillas respond aggressively to stress and threat but are largely peaceable. There are no recorded instances of “alpha-male” behaviour including genital groping or chest thumping displays over the pricing of Marmite. In fact, the whole idea of the “alpha male” in nature – first popularised by Rudolph Schenkel in his study of wolves – has long since been discredited. It does not exist. To make comparisons between aggressive human males and gorillas is highly problematic. This is anthropomorphism which projects certain human characteristics it wants to “naturalise” on to the animals, in this instance male predatory sexual behaviour or business dominance and aggression. Aiming it at gorillas is not new. “Gorilla” was, and still is occasionally, used in its more 19th-century way, as an insult implying bestial stupidity. Now, however, Farage’s projections are typical. “Gorilla” is used as a shorthand for aggressive, dominant male behaviour as this Wiki entry makes clear: “‘800lb gorilla’ is an American English expression for a person or organisation so powerful that it can act without regard to the rights of others or the law.” It is the sheer size of mature male gorillas (although the more accurate weight is 400lb, not 800) and the existence of one dominant male in groups which have allowed certain aggressive human males to project their preoccupations on to gorillas. But our understanding of their behaviour has also been distorted by natural history programmes with their “alpha-male” preoccupations – and even more so by the existence of zoos. In confined enclosures and in small family groups, it’s easy to form an impression of one huge male dominating his little family. Zoos are also highly stressful environments, making aggression a very real possibility. It’s reported that visitors were banging on the windows of Kumbuka’s enclosure before his escape. When keepers decided to shoot silverback Harambe earlier this year at Cincinnati zoo, visitors were screaming and shouting at him as he stood over the boy who had climbed into his pen. There are different opinions on whether the gorilla would have harmed the boy, but aggression is certainly a well-documented response to fear and stress. In the wild, male dominance is much less striking to primatologists; instead they witness complex, nuanced behaviour where interaction between mothers, and attention to the young is just as important for group cohesion. Howletts Wild Animal Park in Kent has larger enclosures and bigger groups of animals. It’s still captivity but it permits a glimpse of wild gorilla behaviour where maternal attentiveness and group cooperation is just as defining of a gorilla’s essential nature as the dominance behaviour of some males. There are, in short, just as strong grounds to call someone a gorilla if she’s an attentive mother. But that wouldn’t suit the likes of Farage, who seek not just to naturalise but to excuse certain types of human behaviour, making it seem as if treating women with contempt is something eternal and unchangeable. Maybe we should laugh it off. Except gorillas need all the help they can get at the moment and being associated with some of the least endearing examples of the human male is not good for their image.
Deutsche boss tells staff the bank is 'rock solid' as shares slide German’s finance minister and the chief executive of Deutsche Bank have both attempted to allay concerns about the health of Germany’s biggest lender as its shares kept falling on another day of financial market turmoil that left London’s stock market at its lowest level for more than three years. Wolfgang Schäuble said on Tuesday he had “no concerns” about Deutsche Bank, speaking shortly after John Cryan, who was appointed to run Germany’s biggest bank seven months ago, sent an email to his 100,000 staff to assure them the bank was “absolutely rock solid”. But their efforts failed to stem the slide in Deutsche’s shares, which fell another 5% on Tuesday, on top of Monday’s 9.5% fall. The shares have now lost more than 40% this year in turbulent markets hit by fears about the growth prospects for the global economy and the implications of the low price of oil and prolonged low interest rates. In London, a 1% fall in the FTSE 100 index pushed it to 5632 at the close, its lowest close since November 2012, although that was higher than the low point of the day – 5596. The mood for the trading day had been set by an overnight plunge in Japan, where the Nikkei index suffered its biggest one-day fall in three years. A loss of 918 points left it 5.5% down at 16,085. Bank shares across Europe were hit hard. Trading of UniCredit of Italy was suspended after falling 6%. Shares in Credit Suisse, UBS and Barclays were all 4% lower. On Wall Street, data showing the jobs market was improving helped bolster sentiment initially before wider concerns took hold, sending the Dow Jones index down 140 points. Oil prices slid as fears of a greater glut of supply in the US coincided with the International Energy Agency warning of a lack of demand. Cryan’s personal interventioncame after an emergency announcement late on Monday that was intended to calm investor concerns that it might not be able to make payments on a special kind of debt that converts into shares during times of crisis. Concerns about Deutsche have swirled since January, when the bank reported its first full-year loss since 2008. It came during a restructuring and the possibility of further hefty fines from regulators. In his email, Cryan, who is attempting to overhaul Deutsche, said: “The management board talked about progress on our strategy, and how recent market volatility and forecasts for slowing economic growth might impact our clients and us. Volatility in the fourth quarter impacted the earnings of most major banks, especially those in Europe, and clients may ask you about how the market-wide volatility is impacting Deutsche Bank. “You can tell them that Deutsche Bank remains absolutely rock solid, given our strong capital and risk position. On Monday, we took advantage of this strength to reassure the market of our capacity and commitment to pay coupons to investors who hold our Additional Tier 1 capital. This type of instrument has been the subject of recent market concern.” The chief executive, who is British and has spent much of his career at the Swiss bank UBS, said the bank did not share the market’s concern about whether it had set aside funds to cover fines and other legal matters. “We will almost certainly have to add to our legal provisions this year but this is already accounted for in our financial plan.” The bank incurred €5.2bn (£4bn) of litigation charges in 2015.
Social media may have been blocked during Turkey coup attempt Turkey may be blocking or slowing access to social media networks amid an attempted military coup, although there are conflicting reports emerging from a country that’s been described as a “bastion of internet censorship” by the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Turkey Blocks, an organization that monitors internet censorship in the country, tweeted on Friday evening that Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube were being blocked, but that Vimeo and Instagram were still functioning. “Our data indicated a 2 hour period of social media throttling but no evidence of a full internet blackout in #Turkey,” the group subsequently tweeted. Facebook and Twitter users confirmed the service had been inaccessible but had since returned, albeit slowly. Internet censorship in Turkey typically occurs when the government orders internet service providers to block access to certain domains, according to Deji Olukotun of Access Now, a digital rights advocacy group. Olukotun confirmed to the that social media sites have been subject to “intentional disruptions”. He added that technologists could distinguish between outages due to such “manipulation” and outages due to a surges in use that may occur during crises. Gustaf Björksten, chief technologist for Access Now, cautioned that his organization did not yet have “conclusive results” or proof of government censorship. “As governments and the carriers get more skilled at implementing network interference, they move toward tactics that are more difficult to prove ... the picture in Turkey right now is far from clear to us,” he said. “We have no reason to think we’ve been fully blocked in #Turkey, but we suspect there is an intentional slowing of our traffic in country,” Twitter said via its @policy account. A spokesperson for YouTube denied that its service had been impacted, stating: “We are aware of reports that YouTube is down in Turkey, however, systems seem to be functioning normally.” Facebook declined to comment, but it is understood that there may have been some brief outages. Some users in Turkey appear to be accessing Facebook Live and Twitter, but it is possible they are using virtual private networks (VPNs) to get around a government-imposed block. Other social networks appear to be unaffected, so far. Spokespeople for Periscope, the livestreaming video app owned by Twitter, and WhatsApp, a messaging app owned by Facebook, said their services were live. Turkey has a long history of internet censorship, including three earlier blockages in 2016 alone, according to the digital rights advocacy group Access Now. The most recent outage occurred following the terrorist attack on Ataturk Airport in Istanbul. “Turkey spent years building up its filtering capacity to block specific sites and content, as well as amending its internet law to increase government’s control over content online,” said Peter Micek, global policy and legal counsel at Access Now. “Now, Turkey blocks and throttles social media wholesale when accurate information is needed most – after terror attacks, during corruption scandals, and now, apparently, military coups.” In 2007, Turkey passed an internet censorship law that allows the government to ban or block websites. The law was putatively aimed at child abuse images, but internet freedom activists point out that the controls have been used in moments of political unrest or to censor political speech. In 2014, Turkey blocked access to Twitter and YouTube following the leak of politically damaging recordings. In 2015, a Turkish court ordered temporary bans of YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook over the publication of photographs of a kidnapping. Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is an outspoken critic of social media. In 2013, he described Twitter as a “menace to society”. “I am increasingly against the internet every day,” Erdoğan told a delegation from the Committee to Protect Journalism in October 2014. Ironically, Erdoğan – who is out of the capital Istanbul on vacation – turned to social media as the coup unfolded, making a statement on Twitter and speaking to national TV through FaceTime on his iPhone.
Letter: Mike Hart obituary The Roadrunners, the Liverpool band with whom Mike Hart sang, have two tracks, You Can Make It If You Try and Mary Ann, on a live album recorded at a rhythm and blues festival at Birmingham Town Hall on 28 February 1964 and released on the BYG record label. Both showcase Hart’s gutsy vocals well. The story goes that George Harrison bumped into Hart after the Beatles had become world-famous and asked him how the band was going. Hart replied: “Not bad – how about yours?”
Harry Kane capitalises on Tottenham’s pressure to see off Sunderland Tottenham Hotspur nudged up to third in the Premier League with a tight, hard-fought, somehow oddly inevitable 1-0 defeat of Sunderland. Harry Kane scored the only goal but was taken off on a stretcher just before the end with a nasty twist of the ankle, a moment that may prove more significant than three points gathered against muscular but cautious opponents who had only two shots on target all game. David Moyes’s team came to White Hart Lane to defend and did so well enough for 58 minutes until a slip from Papy Djilobodji gave the ball to Kane in front of goal. He had time to take a touch and side-foot into the corner to break a White Hart Lane goal-blank stretching back to March. Mauricio Pochettino was happy with the win after a gruelling week, less so with the injury to a player who is so vital to the rhythms of his team. “It’s for this that we signed Vincent [Janssen] who has been doing very well. He’s a striker who can give us other options,” Pochettino said. But the fact is Spurs have been slightly winging it when it comes to backup for their main man. Currently no other senior striker at the club has actually scored for the first team. Eric Dier and Mousa Dembélé also picked up slight knocks but both should be fit for the trip to Middlesbrough on Saturday. For Sunderland this was a fourth defeat in five that leaves them listing along joint‑bottom of the table and Moyes still looking – although not, on this evidence, with that much urgency – for his first victory. Moyes had suggested that there might be some intangible mental weakness behind his team’s poor start, even an indefinable “something” that goes beyond rational explanation: a bad vibe, a hex, a shadow. Defending properly, as Sunderland did here for the opening 45 minutes, might be one way of shifting that mysterious cloud. Offering a little more adventure might be another. Not least against opponents who did seem vulnerable when Sunderland committed Adnan Januzaj and Steven Pienaar forward in support of the rather lonesome Jermain Defoe, who had a total of 13 touches all game. Sunderland might have even gone to half-time 1-0 up had Pienaar been able to beat Kyle Walker on the line – as he really should – after good work from Januzaj on the break. It was a rare attack from the blancmange-coloured shirts on a grey north London afternoon, with the piles of displaced earth and the huge steel armature of the new stadium now rising above the open corner at one end. Spurs were dominant from the start, pressing down the flanks but finding no way past the athletic and assertive Jordan Pickford. Pochettino has spoken of the need to find other gears, other ways of playing and here he changed the texture of his midfield, bringing in Dembélé, Moussa Sissoko and Victor Wanyama, with Dier dropping into the back four and Jan Vertonghen shifting to left-back. Dembélé in particular has been missed during his ban; a midfielder with muscle as well as craft, able to pass, dribble and keep the ball. Spurs started with purpose, Son Heung-min – who played well throughout – flashing the ball across the face of goal after a driving run. Jason Denayer was a late inclusion in Sunderand’s XI after Patrick van Aanholt withdrew for unspecified reasons. Understandably, he struggled for a while against Son on his Premier League debut. Kane drew a smart near-post block from Pickford after Son’s low cross. Later Son cut inside and spanked a shot on to the foot of the post. Sunderland rarely pushed across halfway but they began to offer a little space after half-time as Dele Alli moved nicely across the front line. It was Alli’s skip across the box that made space for Dembélé to play a lovely little pass to Son, whose shot billowed the side netting. And moments later Sunderland finally blinked. Walker swung a high cross in from the right, Alli nodded down and Djilobodji made a horrible attempt to control on his chest, deflecting the ball to Kane. With the game drifting away Moyes abandoned the deep-lying trench defence, with Duncan Watmore providing some gambolling menace down the right. Januzaj was sent off for a second yellow in the 89th minute. Spurs might have scored again, but could not find the final pass. Janssen’s wild blast over the bar in stoppage time was fitting end to a slightly fretful match.
Neruda review - unconventional drama constructs rather than retells Chilean poet's life The basic formula of the biopic has grown almost unbearably tiresome, thanks largely to the annual parade of mostly uninspiring Oscarbait true stories that serve to do nothing but show actors’ “range”. Would the world have stopped spinning if The Danish Girl or Trumbo had never been released? As a response to the repetition, film-makers have been making more “constructed biopics”, taking elements, ideas and themes then mashing them together to make something less familiar. Born to be Blue, Joy and, most explicitly, I’m Not There have all been upfront about their fabricated narrative, the writers and directors all admitting that some creative license is required to make their subjects fit the medium. Pablo Larrain is no stranger to this technique, employing Gael Garcia Bernal as a fictional ad man working during the Pinochet referendum in his Oscar-nominated 2012 drama No. He enlists Bernal again in this inventive and entertaining drama about the poet and senator Pablo Neruda and his time in exile in post-second world war Chile. Bernal plays a detective on the hunt of Neruda, after he’s threatened with impeachment for accusing the government of abandoning communist ideals to appease the US. The two are locked in “a fabulous chase” that’s part myth and part fact, given that the pursuer doesn’t actually exist ... Larrain’s film is a delicate balancing act and, along with screenwriter Guillermo Calderón, he avoids both smugness and a sense of artificiality with a playful tone and a sharp, meta take on the concept of character and story. Neruda, played by Luis Gnecco who bears a remarkable likeness to the poet, enjoys the thrill of the chase and sends the detective crime novels which then start to transform his character and cause him to question who is controlling his destiny. It’s also refreshing to see a biopic that doesn’t deify its subject. Neruda is an influential idealist and a skilled poet, but he’s also an egotist and a snob. There’s a fascinating interaction when he’s approached by a fellow Communist who questions him on his growing status and how his persona is ultimately against the ideals of the party. Like the character himself, the film never stays still and is vibrant with ideas and energy. Similarly, the detective on Neruda’s trail is anything but a cliche. He’s a man trying to figure out who his father is by examining his own actions and is torn between his artistic sensibilities and his more rigid profession. He’s also excited by the romance of the chase, questioning whether he’s the hero or the supporting character and the film leads the two characters to a surprisingly poignant finale. Neruda takes a lot of wild chances and, like the poet whose life acts as inspiration, it’s unwilling to play by the rules. Dizzily constructed and full of more life and meaning than most “real” biopics, it’s a risk worth taking.
Texas faces first case of Zika transmitted by local mosquitoes, officials say Health officials have announced the first case of Zika transmitted by local mosquitoes in Texas, the second state in the country to find local mosquitoes apparently carrying the virus. The tropical virus country-hopped through Latin America and the Caribbean in the last year, first arriving in the United States in the territory of Puerto Rico, before arriving in Miami, Florida. Zika can cause severe birth defects in pregnant women infected with the disease. “We knew it was only a matter of time before we saw a Zika case spread by a mosquito in Texas,” said Dr John Hellerstedt, the state health commissioner. Until Monday, Texas had 257 confirmed cases of Zika, though all were associated with travel or sexual transmission. Zika is most commonly spread by infected mosquitoes. “We still don’t believe the virus will become widespread in Texas, but there could be more cases, so people need to protect themselves from mosquito bites,” Hellerstedt said. “Especially in parts of the state that stay relatively warm in the fall and winter.” The announcement comes one week after Florida governor Rick Scott sought to quell Zika anxiety in Miami. The governor held a press conference to announce that three miles of Miami Beach, a popular winter tourist destination, was “cleared” of active Zika transmission. Pregnant women are still advised to postpone travel to about 1.5 miles of Miami Beach, and a nearby area of Miami-Dade county called Little River. The World Health Organization also dropped Zika from the category of “global health emergency”, instead settling in for a long fight against the disease. However, tools to fight the mosquitoes that carry Zika remain scarce. Mosquitoes can grow resistant to pesticides, and the widespread application of common airborne sprays has prompted outcry in some places, such as Puerto Rico. Further, alarming discoveries about the virus have continued. For example, a study released in mid-November found some babies of Zika-infected mothers may develop microcephaly after children appear normal at birth. Children with microcephaly are born with abnormally small heads and suffer severe developmental disorders. Microcephaly is considered the most severe birth defect associated with Zika. One Texas-based epidemiologist also criticized politicians’ focus on small geographic areas, such as Miami Beach, noting that public health officials are not surveilling for the disease, and that four out of five patients are asymptomatic. “The idea that Zika is confined to a small, circumspect area of Miami is ridiculous,” said Dr Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. “There’s probably a lot of transmission going on in Texas, Louisiana, Alabama and Florida that we’re not aware of because we’re not really doing active surveillance, so this is not a surprise at all.” Though Zika infection is believed to be widespread in Puerto Rico, officials said they did not expect the disease to spread as far in Texas. Many epidemiologists believe that widespread window screens and air conditioning in Texas is responsible for hindering the spread of mosquito-borne diseases. The infected area, in Brownsville, tends to be a hotspot for mosquito-borne diseases, Hotez said, including a recent case of Chikungunya. The city is one of the poorest in Texas. Brownsville is the southernmost city in Texas, on the Gulf of Mexico bordering the Mexican state of Tamaulipas. In Cameron County, where Brownsville is located, almost half of children live in poverty, according to the Texas Tribune – the highest rate in the state.
IMF boss Lagarde guilty of negligence; German confidence figures improve -as it happened Over in Greece the government is once again denying any suggestion that elections are on the horizon despite mounting speculation that a national ballot may soon be inevitable. Helena Smith reports: Greece’s latest standoff with creditors has sparked widespread conjecture that early elections are not far off. Lenders’ demands for additional austerity beyond 2018, when the country’s current bailout programme ends, has put Athens’ leftist-led government increasingly on the defensive. Prime minister Alexis Tsipras’ surprise announcement of fiscal support for vulnerable groups appears only to have toughened the hard line approach with the European Stability Mechanism, the euro zone’s financing arm abruptly freezing short-term debt relief measures last week. Senior cadres in the ruling Syriza party say they are now being told that unless €4.5 bn worth of extra measures in the form of pension and tax reforms are legislated, a crucial second review of the economy will be delayed. That could once again raise the spectre of Greece’s ejection from the eurozone. Earlier today the credit ratings agency, Moody’s, said it would increase the risk of Greece defaulting on bond payments in July. “We are being blackmailed,” said one. “We have accepted reforms that ideologically have been very difficult to swallow. Asking us to vote through more is democratically unacceptable.” With the two-party government’s wafer thin majority of 153 in the 300-seat house it was far from sure that further belt-tightening could be endorsed. Approval ratings of Syriza and Tsipras have plummeted precipitously on the back of fury over unpopular reforms. “Early elections are not part of our plans,” the government spokesman Dimitris Tzanakopoulos said. “In 2018 Greece will exit the memoranda and [international] supervision,” he said referring to the latest bailout programme. “Even if the review is delayed we will not have elections. The country does not need elections.” On that note, it’s time to close for the day. Thanks for all your comments, and we’ll be back tomorrow. The US economy continues to perform reasonably despite signs of a slowdown between November and December. The initial Markit services purchasing managers index for December came in at 53.4, down from a final figure of 54.6 in November. The composite index came in at 53.5 in December compared to 54.9 the previous month. Here’s our report on the Christine Lagarde guilty verdict. Kim Willsher reports: Christine Lagarde, the head of the International Monetary Fund, has been found guilty of negligence in approving a massive payout of taxpayers’ money to controversial French businessman Bernard Tapie, but avoided a jail sentence. A French court convicted the former government minister, who had faced a €15,000 fine and up to a year in jail, but decided she should not be punished and that the conviction would not constitute a criminal record. The verdict came as a surprise as even the public prosecutor had admitted the evidence against Lagarde was “weak” during a five day trial last week. Jean-Claude Marin told the court Lagarde’s actions fell into the category of politics and not criminality and called for her to be acquitted. Lagarde, who has always argued she did nothing wrong and acted “in the public interest”, was not present for the judgment. Her lawyer Patrick Maisonneuve said she had flown back to Washington DC, where the IMF is based. Lagarde had appeared before the Cour de Justice de la République, a special tribunal set up to judge ministers and public officials for alleged crimes committed while in office. It is made up of three judges and 12 politicians from the French houses of parliament. It was only the fifth time the court had sat and its judgements cannot be appealed against. The full story is here: The prospect of 20,000 on the Dow Jones Industrial Average edged a little closer after it moved higher at the start of trading. The index is currently up 36 points at 19,880, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq are both marginally higher. Elsewhere: Reports that the German bank would have to pay that much spooked investors back in September. The IMF board is meeting shortly to discuss the Christine Lagarde situation. Gerry Rice, the fund’s director of communications, said: The Executive Board has met on previous occasions to consider developments related to the legal proceedings in France. It is expected that the Board will meet again shortly to consider the most recent developments. Here’s AP on the Lagarde news: A special French court has declared International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde guilty of criminal negligence in a long-running arbitration case. But the court decided not to punish her or give her a criminal record. The Court of Justice of the Republic ruled that her negligence while servicing as finance minister allowed for the misappropriation of funds by other people. The others, in a separate case, haven’t yet been tried. International Monetary Fund managing director Christine Lagarde has been convicted on one count of negligence by a French court, Bloomberg is reporting. Lagarde was accused of failing to prevent a government payout to businessman Bernard Tapie when she was French finance minister eight years ago. Uh oh. There could be a spanner in the works of the Monte dei Paschi fundraising. Reuters reports: Italian bank Monte dei Paschi di Siena is trying to resolve differences with a key investor over its 5 billion euro ($5.2 billion) rescue plan to allow the deal to go ahead and avoid a state bailout. Italy’s third-largest bank has until the end of December to raise capital and offload 28 billion euros in gross bad loans as requested by European Central Bank supervisors. Monte dei Paschi has failed to find buyers for its shares so far. On Monday, it shook the market again with a warning that Italian bank industry bailout fund Atlante was rethinking its 1.5 billion euro purchase of bad loans from the lender. Atlante had expressed “deep reservations” in a Dec. 17 letter over the terms of a bridge loan that Monte dei Paschi had secured as part of the sale of bad loans, the bank said. Monte dei Paschi shares extended losses on the news, erasing a week’s gains to trade down 7.7 percent at 19.3 euros each. “If issues raised by (Atlante’s manager) Quaestio cannot be solved, the operation could not be concluded by Dec. 31, 2016 as requested by the European Central Bank,” the bank said in a statement. However, Carlo Messina, chief executive of Intesa Sanpaolo, one of Atlante’s top contributors, said he believed the investment fund should go ahead with the deal and that it would reach a decision by Tuesday at the latest. Italy is ready to bail out Monte dei Paschi, the world’s oldest bank,to prevent it being wound down and destabilising the euro zone’s fourth-largest banking sector. Time for an update on the markets, and it’s an uncertain pattern. Most European markets are still marginally lower, although off their worst levels, while Italy’s FTSE MIB is up 0.3% despite the fall in Monte dei Paschi as the bank starts its €5bn refinancing. The FTSE 100 has also edged higher - just - up 0.09%. But France’s Cac is 0.26% lower, Germany’s Dax has dipped 0.03% and Spain’s Ibex is down 0.66% Meanwhile with the strength of the dollar continuing in the wake of last week’s rate rise from the US Federal Reserve, the pound fell around 1% to its lowest level for a month, although it has recovered a little ground and is now down 0.75% at £1.2394. Against the euro, sterling is down 0.5% at €1.1882. Tomorrow could see more developments in the row between Greek and its lenders over the government’s plan to pay pensioners a Christmas bonus, something which was not approved by the lenders. Greece’s Kathimerini reports: The Euro Working Group (EWG) is to meet Tuesday to discuss the impact on the Greek program of the SYRIZA-led government’s decision to grant a one-off supplement to pensioners. The European Stability Mechanism reacted to the measure by suspending for the time being the implementation of the short-term debt relief measures that were only rubber stamped by eurozone finance ministers on December 5. EWG is expected to discuss a report by representatives of the institutions on the actual cost of the handout. The report was requested by German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble. Clemens Fuest, the president of Germany’s IFO institute, has told Bloomberg that current interest rates may be too low for the eurozone. He presumably then welcomes signs of inflationary pressures in the latest wages data. The International Monetary Fund is positive about the actions taken by Ukraine over its biggest lender, PrivatBank. IMF managing director Christine Lagarde, who also has other things on her mind at the moment, said: Today’s decision of Ukrainian authorities to nationalize PrivatBank is an important step in their efforts to safeguard financial stability. This decision was taken to ensure the smooth operations of the bank given its systemic role in Ukraine’s financial system, and in view of insufficient efforts to strengthen its capital adequacy in recent months... It is now important that the process of nationalisation be followed by firm efforts to maximise the repayment of related-party loans, and the appointment of an independent management team to restore the bank’s viability, minimising the cost to the state and taxpayers in line with existing legislation and international best practice. The IMF will continue to support Ukraine in its efforts to build strong institutions, enhance transparency, and advance structural reforms which are critical to achieve strong and sustainable economic growth. And in Italy: The details of the European Union’s decision against Apple in a dispute over the tax it pays to Ireland have been released. Jennifer Rankin reports from Brussels: Apple could reduce its €13bn (£10.8bn) tax bill to Ireland if it increased payments to its US parent company or paid back taxes to other EU countries, the European commission has said, as it revealed the full text of its landmark ruling against the US tech giant for the first time. Margrethe Vestager, the EU competition commissioner, suggested Ireland may not see the full €13bn in back taxes, if Apple chose to pay larger amounts to its US headquarters to fund research and development. Speaking to the Irish Independent, she also said the total paid to Ireland could be reduced because other EU member states may demand more tax from Apple if they concluded that the US tech firm had underpaid them, because it had been routing profits to Apple’s Irish headquarters in Cork. The full text of the EU’s decision, published on Monday, sets the stage for a titanic legal battle, which pits the European commission against Apple and Dublin, with implications for hundreds of companies. In August, the commission said a sweetheart deal devised by the Irish government had allowed Apple to pay tax of just 0.005% in 2014 and an average rate of 1% over many years. The UK Competition and Markets Authority will investigate the secondary ticketing market. It said: The CMA has today launched an enforcement investigation into suspected breaches of consumer protection law in the online secondary tickets market. This follows concerns that people are not getting the full range of information required by law when buying tickets put up for resale. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) will specifically look at if information is provided on who the seller is and any connections the seller may have with the platform or event organisers; whether there are any restrictions on the use of resold tickets which could result in the person being denied access to the event; and where a seat is located in the venue. Andrea Coscelli, CMA Acting Chief Executive, said: “A night out at a concert or a trip to a big match is something that millions of people look forward to. So it’s important they know who they are buying from and whether there are any restrictions that could stop them using the ticket. “We have heard concerns about a lack of transparency over who is buying up tickets from the primary market. We also think that it is essential that those consumers who buy tickets from the secondary market are made aware if there is a risk that they will be turned away at the door.” Meanwhile eurozone construction activity was also on the rise: Annual growth in hourly eurozone wages rose 1.6% in the third quarter, compared to an increase of just 0.9% in the previous three months and 1.7% in the first quarter. Hourly labour costs - which include wages and non-wage costs - rose by 1.5% in the eurozone and by 1.9% in the wider 28 member European Union in the third quarter of 2016, compared with the same quarter of the previous year. Report compiler Eurostat said: The two main components of labour costs are wages & salaries and non-wage costs. In the euro area, wages & salaries per hour worked grew by 1.6% and the non-wage component by 1.2% in the third quarter of 2016 compared with the same quarter of 2015. In the second quarter of 2016, the annual changes were +0.9% and +1.5% respectively. In the EU28, hourly wages & salaries rose by 2.0% and the non-wage component by 1.5% in the third quarter of 2016. In the second quarter of 2016, annual changes were +1.4% and +1.7% respectively. Howard Archer, chief European and UK economist at IHS Markit, said the data could be encouraging for the European Central Bank: A rise in Eurozone wage costs and total labour costs in the third quarter of 2016 may fuel hope within the ECB that underlying Eurozone inflationary pressures may just be starting to pick up. The ECB has been frustrated and disappointed by the lack of a pick-up in underlying Eurozone in recent months, even though the headline consumer price inflation rate has picked up... However, while the ECB may well take some comfort from the third-quarter Eurozone labour costs and wage data, the Governing Council will still be wary about the current weakness of underlying price pressures – the ECB will likely note that while annual growth in Eurozone total labour costs and wages both picked up in the third quarter, this followed a sharp relapse in the second quarter and both were still just below the levels seen in the first quarter. Over to Greece, and this: If the festive mood in the German economy is not enough for you, then head over to our Christmas quiz for a bit more seasonal cheer. 44 out of 50 is the score to beat in my case (which is less impressive than it sounds given I wrote four of the questions.....) Economists have mixed views on what the December German IFO index portends for 2017: But economist Carsten Brzeski at ING Bank is less sanguine: Germany’s most prominent leading indicator, the Ifo index, closes the year with another improvement. The Ifo index increased to 110.0 in December, from 110.4 in November. The increase was mainly driven by a better current assessment component (116.6, from 115.6). The expectations component remained almost unchanged. The December increase suggests that German businesses are not (yet) afraid of negative economic implications from the new president in the US. Today’s Ifo was the last important macro indicator for the German economy this year. As always, the upcoming Christmas break is a good occasion for a reflective moment. A look at the German economy through the rear mirror. A look which shows an impressive, though slightly slowing growth performance. The German economy has continued its recovery and defied many external risks and turmoil, like Chinese stock market turbulences and economic slowdown, low oil prices, Brexit and continued weakness in many Eurozone countries. The key for economic success has been domestic demand. Strong domestic demand on the back of a strong labour market, low inflation, low interest rates and higher wages, partly fueled by the ECB and refugees. Unfortunately, as with so many good things, the current positive growth cycle is also coming to an end. Gradually, not abruptly. Looking into 2017, the upside for the German economy is that the main growth drivers of 2016 should still be the main growth drivers of 2017, only weaker. Construction, the best-performing sector currently, should continue to benefit from low interest rates and excess demand for housing in urban areas. Consumption should continue to thrive on the back of the strong labour market, higher real wages and low interest rates. Finally, government consumption should remain high as the influx of refugees requires continued expenditure. However, these three drivers are unlikely to gain momentum as interest rates are unlikely to drop further, inflation is gradually moving upwards and the labour market has reached its natural rate of unemployment. Real risks to the German outlook mainly seem to stem from the outside. The still unknown impact from president-elect Trump on trade and economic policies, the ongoing Brexit uncertainty and renewed political tensions in Europe due to several elections or a new flaring up of the Greek crisis are in our view the biggest risks for 2017. On top of everything, national elections in Germany do not pose a risk in itself but should clearly absorb time that could be used to implement new reforms and investments. All in all, it very much looks as if 2017 could be the slimmed down version of 2016. The growth ingredients should remain the same but it will be a bit less of everything. A good recipe to lose some weight after the holidays but not the best recipe for more economic growth. The German economy is in a festive mood, according to Clemens Fuest the president of the IFO institute. He said: The German economy is making a strong finish to the year. In the manufacturing sector, the index rose. Assessments of both the current business situation and expectations improved. Demand picked up significantly and the order back log grew. More companies plan to ramp up production in the months ahead as a result. In wholesaling, the business climate index rose to its highest level in almost three years. This was primarily due to more favourable assessments of the business situation. Wholesalers, however, scaled back their optimistic expectations slightly. In retailing the index remained unchanged at a high level. While retailers assessed their current business situation slightly less favourably, their business expectations improved. Electrical goods retailers reported brisk Christmas business. The construction sector continues to break records. Since Germany’s reunification business has never been better for contractors. Improved business expectations indicate that the boom will continue in the months ahead. But it was not so joyous in the service sector: In the service sector the mood deteriorated in the run-up to Christmas. The indicator fell to 31.7 balance points in December from 35.0 balance points in November. Service providers assessed their current business situation less favourably. They also scaled back their business expectations slightly. Both indices, however, are significantly above their long-term average. Service providers remain keen to recruit additional staff. German business confidence improved in December, with the IFO index rising to 111 much as expected: Ukraine’s largest lender has been declared insolvent, with the country’s central bank saying that nationalisation was the best way forward. Reuters reports: Ukraine declared the country’s largest lender PrivatBank insolvent on Monday and said bringing it under state ownership was the only way to protect the money of 20 million Ukrainian clients and stave off threats to the financial system. The central bank said in a statement that PrivatBank had not fulfilled its recapitalisation programme and 97 percent of its corporate loans had gone to companies linked to the bank’s shareholders. As of Dec. 1, the bank’s capital shortfall stood at 148 billion hryvnia ($5.65 billion). “We are sure that moving the bank into state ownership is the only possible way to save the money of the bank’s clients and to save the financial system,” the central bank said in a statement. The central bank said that Ukraine was ready to support PrivatBank with liquidity if needed, adding that it did not see the nationalisation process as significantly impacting the currency market or inflation levels. PrivatBank’s former shareholders had agreed to restructure loans paid to insiders by July 1 next year, the central bank said, while the finance minister said the bank would be sold once it was back on its feet. Under Western-backed banking reforms, Ukraine is meant to shut lenders that cannot meet capitalisation targets, but PrivatBank is considered too big to fail. The nationalisation comes just days before parliament has to vote on next year’s budget, which must stick to a shortfall of 3 percent of economic output, as agreed with Ukraine’s international backers. Meanwhile the Ukrainian president said the state assured PrivatBank’s clients that their money was safe, and called for people to remain calm. Over in Italy, shares in Monte dei Paschi have opened and are down 8.5%, triggering another suspension. The Santa rally in markets that we have seen since the start of December appears to be running out of steam a little. Connor Campbell, financial analyst at Spreadex, said: It may be the start of the final week before Christmas, but so far the European markets are looking rather Santa-less this Monday. To be fair, the FTSE has actually had a rather impressive December already, finally climbing back above 7000 last Friday, so it can be forgiven for not drastically building on that level this morning. The index is still flirting with that landmark level, though currently it lacks the kind of momentum that could lead it to a fresh all-time high later in the day. As for the pound, it’s still struggling below 1.25 against the dollar, while against the dollar it has shed 0.2%. Over in the Eurozone the situation was similar, with the DAX and CAC both dipping after the bell. Like the FTSE the German and French indices have had a very strong December; the DAX, for example, has risen around 800 points since the start of the month, in part thanks to the ECB’s (sort of) QE boost in its most recent meeting. Defying expectations, stock markets have started the last trading week before Christmas on the back foot. The FTSE 100 has fallen around12 points or 0.18% while Germany’s Dax and France’s Cac have lost 0.2%. Italy’s FTSE MIB has opened down 0.3%. Mining and financial stocks are proving a drag in early trading, with Italy’s Monte de Paschi failing to open but called lower on news of its plans to launch a €5bn cash call in a last ditch effort to avoid a state bailout. The bank said on Sunday its offer to institutional investors, who account for 65% of the total, would be open until 1pm GMT on Thursday. The offer to retail investors would close a day earlier. Here’s Unicredit’s forecast for the German IFO business confidence index, due in an hour or so: “We expect the Ifo climate index to improve to 111.0 in December after the stabilization at 110.4 in November.” And Mike van Dulken and Henry Croft at Accendo Markets said: On a quiet day for macro data, in focus today will be German December IFO Surveys, all expected to show slight improvement since November with the Business Climate figure attempting to post a fresh 2016 high (albeit by a very slim margin). These figures have obvious importance for the Eurozone given Germany’s position as the powerhouse for the European economy. Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of the world economy, the financial markets, the eurozone and business. It’s the last trading week before Christmas, and many investors are already winding down for the festive season. But with thin trading volumes in the markets, there might be some volatile moves to look out for. Will the FTSE 100 hit a new peak, beating the closing high of 7103 reached in April 2015 or the record intra-day level of 7129 in October this year? Will the Dow pass the key 20,000 barrier. On the agenda come German confidence figures and US services and composite PMI numbers, and ahead of that European markets are expected to open higher: We’ll also be keeping an eye on struggling Italian bank Monte dei Paschi di Siena, which is attempting to refinance its huge debts, and could affect the general direction of the markets. Michael Hewson, chief market analyst at CMC Markets UK, said: As we head into the final full trading week of 2016, having come off a decent December so far for European stocks which have seen a number of significant breakouts, the key question as we head into year-end is whether these gains of the past two weeks are likely to be sustained. Initial impressions look positive, however the elephant in the room remains the Italian banking sector after last week’s announcement by Italy’s largest bank Unicredit to draw a line under its recent problems by announcing a significant recapitalisation plan. This week all eyes will return to Monte dei Paschi di Siena who are expected to launch their plans to sell €5bn of stock in the days leading up to Christmas to institutions and retail investors, in the hope that over €25bn of bad loans can then be sold on, and the bank rescued without having to bail in retail bondholders. While the political picture at the top of Italian government has become a little clearer there is no reason that this particular attempted restructuring package is likely to be any more successful than the previous three, given the continued weakness of the Italian economy, which is probably why so far there has been so little investor interest. There may also be developments in the Greek crisis, after lenders objected to the government’s plans to give Christmas bonuses to pensioners.
Stanley Kubrick ruined my childhood: my mum, the Hollywood publicist Stanley Kubrick ruined my childhood. And don’t get me started on Elizabeth Taylor or Marianne Faithfull. Of the hundreds of actors, directors and producers my mother worked with as a publicist in the UK and Hollywood, mention of these names still conjures memories of her muttering darkly while wreathing our London flat in clouds of cigarette smoke and pouring another glass of chianti. Her name was Edna Tromans. She was a baker’s daughter from the West Midlands who travelled the world in the company of Hollywood stars but who believed that most of the so-called “glamour” of showbusiness was in the eye of the beholder. She died six years ago, her ashes scattered in a Kent bluebell wood. Like Nora Ephron (with whom she worked on My Blue Heaven, starring Steve Martin) she believed that “everything is copy”. She wouldn’t have minded her son spilling a few beans. In fact, she would have loved it. Perhaps it’s unfair to blame Kubrick for blighting my entire childhood but I was 10 when shooting began on 2001: A Space Odyssey and nearly 13 by the night of the 1968 premiere. I came to dread my mother’s return from long days dealing with the brilliant but mercurial director. Normally a calm, good-humoured soul, she would arrive home from Borehamwood studios drained and snappy – “Why haven’t you tidied your room?” Handling publicity for Alain Delon and Marianne Faithfull, co-stars of The Girl on a Motorcyle, had a similarly chilling effect on the atmosphere in our flat opposite Battersea Park. At the time of filming, Faithfull was 22, improbably beautiful and dating Mick Jagger. It’s not hard to see why what Edna called the actress-singer’s “diva-like nonsense” caused her to roll her eyes and double her intake of Benson & Hedges. She had a more indulgent attitude to the antics of Elizabeth Taylor (they worked together on Night Watch) and Bette Davis (Death on the Nile). These were “proper” stars who had paid their Hollywood dues. Any mention of Richard Gere (Yanks) would induce a fit of yawning. There were many actors Edna admired, both as performers and people. Working with Katharine Hepburn, Henry Fonda and Jane Fonda during the 1981 shoot of On Golden Pond was a career highlight, as was The Spy Who Loved Me starring Roger Moore as 007. Michael J Fox and Patrick Swayze were “good fun”. Walter Matthau, Peter Ustinov, Richard Attenborough, Dudley Moore and Glenda Jackson all received honourable mentions. Michael Caine was a favourite. “A publicist’s dream,” she told me after working on The Wrong Box and Deadfall. “He’d ask, ‘What’s on the menu today, Edna?’ “I’d say, ‘A set visit from Woman’s Own; lunch with the Financial Times; drinks with the Sunday Mirror.’ “He’d nod, mulling the best angle for each interview. ‘So that’s “me and my dear old mum”; “why taxes are too high”; and “my working-class roots”. Sorted.’” A divorcee in the Mad Men era, when single mothers were rare and “career women” rarer still, Edna worked long hours and was often abroad on location for extended periods, raising me with the support of her parents and a stream of au pairs. I never met my father and regret snubbing his sole overture, a card on my 21st birthday. There was an address in Weston-super-Mare and a handwritten message. “In case you ever feel like getting in touch.” Now, I find it heartbreaking but as a callow 21-year-old, I could only view him as the man who had failed to help my mother in any way, refusing even to honour a promise to pay child support. Chased by the courts, he once grudgingly sent a cheque for £50. She splashed out on a taxi to Kings Road and bought me a leather jacket. Long after his death, I told her that he’d made a surprise “appearance” at a seance (the psychic briefly challenging my scepticism by delivering a spookily plausible message from “Donald”). Edna simply smiled and said, “Good. About time he showed up.” She wasn’t the sort of mother who baked cakes or helped with homework, taking a laissez-faire attitude towards my schooling. But education takes many forms. While my contemporaries wrestled with Pythagoras’ theorem, I was at the Palladium watching the Beatles or riveted by Laurence Olivier in Long Day’s Journey into Night, or bored by Tosca at Covent Garden, or mesmerised by Sinatra at the Royal Albert Hall. Working as a freelance in the fickle film industry meant that household finances were unpredictable. One term I’d be at an expensive prep school in Belgravia, the next at the local state school. I never questioned this. It was my version of normal. When my best friend went away to boarding school, aged 13, returning with exciting tales of girls and spliffs, I begged to follow suit. The fees must have been eye-wateringly expensive but Edna didn’t blink, enlisting the support of a suave actor boyfriend – an Errol Flynn lookalike – to play the role of “father figure” at the make-or-break interview with the headmaster. Perhaps all this explains why I never find Absolutely Fabulous funny. To me, it seems like a documentary. In good times, my mother would fly me out to spend half term on location, once to Rome’s Cinecittà studios where she was working with Ian McShane on Pussycat, Pussycat I Love You. When skint, she would hop on the bus to my boarding school in north London, balancing a birthday cake on her knees. In 1968, on the set of Women in Love starring Oliver Reed, Alan Bates and Glenda Jackson, she told me that the director, Ken Russell, needed me to do a walk-on as a miner’s boy. I was thrilled to be an extra and delighted when he slipped me a fiver. Hopeless with money, she moved us from Battersea (then deeply unfashionable) to Mayfair, a three-bedroom flat off Grosvenor Square. Our rent doubled to £32 a week; our corner shop was Selfridges. But the freelancer’s rollercoaster soon took another dive and film work dried up. In 1973, down to her last fiver (no exaggeration) she was saved, in true Hollywood fashion, by an eleventh-hour phone call from Richard Attenborough. He was starting a new London radio station, Capital Radio. Would she do publicity for the launch? She would. After I left home, she fell for another actor, a craggy American she met in 1979 while working on John Schlesinger’s Yanks. The day after the wrap party they flew to America on a holiday intended to last three weeks. The trip took her to Los Angeles for the first time. She managed to acquire a green card and stayed for 15 years. She had many proposals of marriage. When I asked why she turned them down she told me, “There’s a high price to pay for being able to say ‘we’.” Aged 65, however, she agreed to marry the man who was to be her final boyfriend. An impoverished English charmer, J had a big smile and an even bigger drink problem. During a Christmas Day lunch at Elizabeth Taylor’s Bel Air house (a friend was house-sitting while Taylor dried out at the Betty Ford Clinic), I witnessed my mother patiently explaining to J, clearly for the umpteenth time, that one more drink would mean the end. He swore he was on the wagon. So deep was his state of denial that he was swigging chablis at the time. For years, Edna had tried everything to help him, including ruinously expensive rehab programmes and stomach implants designed to counter alcohol dependency. She was at her wits’ end. It was time for an intervention. On 31 December, I booked J on to a New Year’s Day flight to London. I slept on cushions by the front door, fearing he would try to escape. Sure enough, at 2am, he pushed past, stole the car keys and drove off into the night. Edna and I sat up into the small hours, desperately trying to work out how to get the poor man on to the 10am flight. This was Hollywood. Surely we could hire a few extras to pose as police officers and convince him that he was being deported? At 6am, J phoned from a 24-hour bar on Sunset Boulevard, roaringly drunk. We picked him up in my car. After their tearful farewell, I drove him to the airport, handed over all the cash in my wallet and put him on the plane. He died a year later. Although deeply affected by J’s death, my mother never complained when her rollercoaster life took another dive. Not when the cigarettes caught up with her, triggering emphysema. Not even when she lost her life savings to Jodie Foster’s conman father. That’s a whole other story but I wish she’d lived to see Foster in his prison-issue orange jumpsuit, receiving a prison sentence for grand theft. I’ll be sure to mention it next time I visit the bluebell woods. • Without Trace by Simon Booker is published by Bonnier Zaffre, £7.99. To order a copy for £5.99, go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846
Margot Robbie to play disgraced Olympic figure skater Tonya Harding The Wolf of Wall Street’s Margot Robbie looks set to play the disgraced American figure skater Tonya Harding in a drama about the incident in which Harding’s rival Nancy Kerrigan was attacked with an iron bar at a competition prior to the 1994 Winter Olympics, according to Deadline. I, Tonya is based on a screenplay by Steven Rogers (Love the Coopers), who conducted extensive interviews with Harding and her ex-husband Jeff Gillooly. Robbie will also be a producer and aims to find a director for the project. Harding, who grew up in poverty in Portland, Oregon, was the first American woman to land a triple axel jump in a major competition. She won the ladies’ singles title at the 1991 US figure skating championships and was second at that year’s world championships. Controversy erupted when Gillooly was arrested for hiring men to attack Kerrigan at a competition before the 1994 Games in Lillehammer, Norway. Kerrigan, who came from a privileged background, recovered in time to compete at the Olympics, where she won a silver medal. Harding threatened to sue the American figure skating authorities if they removed her from the competition, and went on to finish in eighth place. The pair’s battle attracted some of the highest US television viewing figures in Winter Olympics history. After she admitted that she knew about the attack after the fact, Harding was banned for life and stripped of her 1994 US championship gold. She later released a sex tape with Gillooly and competed on the TV show Celebrity Boxing. Actor and producer Robbie has been on an upward trajectory in Hollywood since shooting her breakthrough turn as Naomi Lapaglia, the second wife of Jordan Belfort in Martin Scorsese’s black comedy The Wolf of Wall Street. She will next appear as Jane in The Legend of Tarzan and as supervillain Harley Quinn in the comic book epic Suicide Squad.
Premier League 2015-16 review: gripe of the season Welcome to theguardian.com review of the 2015-16 Premier League season. Now that the campaign has ended we would like you to help us choose your favourite goal, the best referee and the best manager, and other winners in a total of 10 categories. We have nominated some contenders but this is just to get the discussion going: we would like your suggestions so that we can compile the best into final polls that you can vote on. The polls will be published at midday on Tuesday 17 May, so please tell us what you think. Thanks The return of the Euro Super League breakaway threat ritual An uncommonly feel-good season epitomised by Leicester smashing the top four cartel would inevitably displease somebody. Sure enough, along came Charlie Stillitano in March, hinting that all this Premier League table-turning is most unsatisfactory, on account of its calamitous impact on revenue projections of the Clubs That Matter. Upon this was pegged the latest European Superleague breakaway hint, and calls for the Champions League to be further restructured to protect the top leagues’ financial elite. “What would Manchester United argue: did we create soccer or did Leicester create [it]?” said Stillitano – supremo of the International Champions Cup pre-season kickabout – after meeting representatives of Manchester United, Manchester City, Arsenal, Liverpool and Chelsea. “Let’s call it the money pot created by soccer and the fandom around the world. Who has had more of an integral role, Manchester United or Leicester? It’s a wonderful, wonderful story – but you could see it from Manchester United’s point of view, too.” As it turned out, the point of view of most United fans, and those of other big clubs, was that Leicester’s triumph was to be welcomed – Claudio Ranieri’s side were applauded off the pitch at Old Trafford later in the season. The European breakaway threat – never followed through, but always a handy negotiating pitch for another power and revenue grab – has become such a regular ritual that it can be inked into the calendar along with World Cups and European Championships – someone could even commission a wallchart. Shockingly poor penalties Jamie Vardy’s spectacular penalty miss for Leicester against Everton may have been of little consequence, with both game and title sewn up, but it did serve to spotlight the often ropey standards of marksmanship displayed from 12 yards this season (it also teed up a friend’s pithy Facebook post: “Jamie Vardy kind enough to give us all a preview of how England’s Euros will end”). There have been some real howlers from the spot this season – Oscar against Watford, Wilfried Bony against Sunderland and Santi Cazorla at West Brom being particular standouts – and only two of the past 20 seasons have there been more outright misses in the top flight than this term’s six: in 2008-09 and 2010-11 (eight). Excessive focus on referees By recent standards, this has been a relatively calm season for refereering-related hullabaloo. Whether this has anything to do with the removal from the scene of José Mourinho halfway through it can be for others to discuss. Nonetheless, there remains an excessive focus on referees – their mistakes, foibles and perceived biases - that perhaps most obviously manifested itself in the removal of Kevin Friend from the Stoke v Tottenham match in April, even though Friend supports neither side. However, the fact that Friend (a lifelong Bristol City fan) lives in Leicester and often goes to matches at the King Power Stadium was enough to see him removed from duty at the Britannia Stadium – following, predictably, a clamour on social media. Aside from the implicit slur on the professionalism of an official who has had a tough season (he collapsed at Bournemouth in March), the decision also reinforced the tendency to regard the referee as a central figure in every match’s drama. The opprobrium heaped on Jon Moss after his erratic performance in Leicester’s tempestuous draw with West Ham last month, including from former members of his own profession, hardly helped either. It would be reassuring to think that the decision to allow referees to explain their decisions to the media next season might calm these storms, though it might also propel officials back into a centre-stage role that they really shouldn’t have. Pointless badge redesigns Quite why, as Aston Villa’s worst season in decades spluttered towards its conclusion, the marketing gurus at Villa Park decided that this would be the right time to unveil a badge redesign is a question best answered by sharper minds than ours. Nonetheless, on 6 April Villa announced the all-important redrawing of the lion on their badge. “Lions have been used for centuries as the centre-pieces of coats of arms – widely perceived as the king of beasts, they stand for values such as bravery, valor and strength,” a club statement enlightened us. “It’s this spirit that made a heraldic lion the perfect choice by the club’s founders to represent our values.” Easily mockable in the circumstances, obviously, but part of a wider and arguably more malignant trend of corporate repositioning. Similarly, West Ham’s new badge, which adds the words “London” to a stripped-down version of the traditional crossed hammers, is clearly an attempt at selling them as a club for the whole capital as they make a move to the Olympic Stadium that was bitterly opposed by many supporters of other clubs in the same city. When clubs are changing so rapidly in so many other ways, the least we can expect is that the simple totems – such as badge and colours – remain the same. Clappers Is anyone going to rain on Leicester’s parade? Unlikely. Nor should they, though the champions really ought to be taken to task for encouraging the pernicious trend of cardboard clapper-clacking that assails eardrums at too many grounds. Leicester took it further by providing clappers on each seat at home games in an attempt to ratchet up an atmosphere the club’s fans proved thrillingly capable of generating all by themselves. As such, clappers represent another attempt to impose corporately sanctioned atmosphere from above rather than trusting supporters to spontaneously create it themselves. Enough. Check out the other categories: Player of the season Manager of the season Goal of the season Match of the season Signing of the season Flop of the season Pundit of the season Referee of the season Innovations for the future
Why we support the cross-party NHS bill NHS services and assets, including blood supplies, nurses, scanning and diagnostic services, ambulances, care homes, hospital beds and buildings – which the British public own – are being handed over to UK and foreign private companies. This is being done without a public mandate. Privatised services cost the NHS and taxpayer far more than when provided by our publicly owned and publicly run NHS. That is because public health systems don’t seek profits. They don’t need to pay dividends to shareholders. They don’t have the added costs of private sector loans. And they don’t have privatisation’s heavy and unnecessary marketising costs of contracts, billings and all the extra administration involved. The huge commercial costs and chaos caused by the ongoing NHS fragmentation are the direct result of privatisation. This is endangering the quality and safety of our public healthcare. That is why we need the National Health Service bill. The cross-party NHS bill to bring back the NHS in England as a national universal service and to get rid of the expensive, chaotic internal and external market is due to have its second reading in the House of Commons on Friday 11 March. It is supported by thousands of individuals and by Labour, Green, SNP and Lib Dem MPs, including Caroline Lucas, Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell. We urge MPs to do everything they can to make sure the bill is debated, and to vote in favour of it so that it proceeds to the next stage. Joanna Adams Founder, 999 Call For The NHS campaign group Sarah Alhulail GP trainee and junior doctor Joan Bakewell Broadcaster and writer Dr Melissa Baldwin CT2 Anaesthetics Julian Barnes Author Hannah Basson Specialist podiatrist Glen Baxter Artist Alan Bennett Author Natalie Bennett Leader, Green party of England and Wales Christopher Birt Honorary clinical senior lecturer Jan Birtwell Coastal West Sussex 38 Degrees NHS group Dr Kambiz Boomla GP William Boyd Author Melvyn Bragg Author and broadcaster Jean Brant University lecturer in public health Hilary Burgess Social worker Darcey Bussell Prima ballerina Dr Kailash Chand Ex-chair of Tameside and Glossop NHS trust Aileen Clarke Professor of public health, Society for Social Medicine Stephanie Clarke Registration Authority manager, NHS Dr Jacky Davis BMA Council Cara Delivingne Actor and model Poppy Delivingne Model John Drewery Benefit officer Dr Youssef El-Gingihy GP, author of How to Dismantle the NHS in 10 Easy Steps Andrea English Advanced nurse practitioner Sir Richard Eyre Film, TV, theatre and opera director Paul Evans Director, NHS Support Federation Emergency Peter Fisher President, Doctors for the NHS Andrea Franks Consultant dermatologist Stephen Frears Film director Dr Patrick French Consultant physician Dr Clare Gerada GP, ex-chair Council of the Royal College of GPs Dr Yannis Gourtsoyanis BMA junior doctors committee executive Roger Graef TV/film producer and director Dr Sarah Hallett Co-chair, South Thames BMA junior doctors committee David Lascelles Film and theatre producer Katie Hill Nurse Julie Hotchkiss Consultant in public health Hugh Hudson Film director Dr Louise Irvine GP and chair of Save Lewisham Hospital campaign Anne Jeavons Clinical psychologist Dr Coral Jones GP Helena Kennedy Barrister Keira Knightley Actor Nic Lee Social worker Damian Lewis Actor Dr John Lister Secretary, Keep Our NHS Public, director of health Ken Loach Film-maker Mary Lyons Senior lecturer in public health Johann Malawana Chair, BMA junior doctors committee John McCarthy Writer and broadcaster Dr David McCoy Public health doctor and academic Helen McCrory Actor Clare McIntyre Health visitor and research nurse Sienna Miller Actor Jonathan Miller Theatre and opera director Dr Kitty Mohan Junior doctor Adam Moliver Psychiatrist Caroline Molloy Editor, OurNHS openDemocracy Marion Morris Head of health improvement Dr Tony O’Sullivan Consultant paediatrician, co-chair, Keep Our National Health Public Lord David Owen Former health minister and neurologist Dr Suzella Palmer Lecturer in applied social studies Dr Clive Peedell Leader, National Health Action Party Dr Tomasz Pierscionek Psychiatry trainee and junior doctor Professor Allyson Pollock Professor of public health research and policy; co-author of the NHS bill Tricia Priestley Teacher Alexandra Pringle Group editor-in-chief, Bloomsbury Publishing Professor Sue Richards Professor of public policy Jonathan Pryce Actor James Righton Actor Peter Roderick Barrister; co-author of the NHS bill Annie Rothenstein Artist Professor Wendy Savage President, Keep our NHS Public Alexei Sayle Writer and comedian Dr Alex Scott-Samuel Joint chair, Politics of Health Group Cllr Sarah Sharp Chichester South Michael Sheen Actor Maureen Shepherd NHS manager Dr Ron Singer President, Doctors in Unite (MPU) Tanya Smart Family therapist Clive Stafford Smith International human rights lawyer Harry Leslie Smith Writer, Great Depression survivor and activist Cam Stocks Medical student and Medsin alumni Rick Stroud Author and film director Tom Sturridge Actor Raymond Tallis Emeritus professor of geriatric medicine Stuart Tilbury NHS data manager Dr Eric Watts Consultant haematologist and chair, Doctors for the NHS Dr Jeeves Wijesuriya Junior doctor and GP trainee Nigel Williams Novelist and playwright Nicholas Wright Playwright And more than 250 others. See the full list at nhsbill2015.org • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
Barclays 100% mortgage: how much does it really help homebuyers? The launch of the Barclays 100% mortgage brings the number of products aimed at borrowers who do not have a deposit to its highest since the financial crash. But, while would-be first-time buyers may be skimming the pages of Rightmove with new-found enthusiasm, there will be many who still can’t get their hands on a loan. The new breed of 100% loans comes with strings – or rather parents – attached. Borrowers who don’t have a deposit have been able to choose between a handful of other lenders for some time. Challenger bank Aldermore launched a 100% loan in 2011, and several small building societies have followed. But we are nowhere near the market seen in the runup to the credit crisis: financial information firm Moneyfacts says there are now eight 100% mortgage deals to choose from, compared with 238 in August 2007. Brokers say that the return of a mainstream lender is notable. “The small building societies and challenger banks have been quite good in offering them for certain people, but to have a big lender coming in is a game-changer,” says Andrew Montlake of mortgage broker Coreco. “We’re seeing more first-time buyers struggling to even raise a 5% deposit without help. This will prompt them to look at whether they can get on the property ladder after all.” The Barclays rate is also competitive, set at 2.99% until 30 June 2019, making it the lowest-priced 100% deal. But you will still need parents who can help ... While borrowers can now choose between eight loans from six lenders, they won’t be able to do it on their own. With the exception of a 100% deal from Kent Reliance, which is aimed at people buying a shared ownership property, they all mean bringing in a family member in some form. At Barclays, families must put at least 10% of the purchase price into a Helpful Start account and keep their money there for three years. Vernon building society has a similar offer with its Family Assist mortgage, although parents need to find 20% to hold in an account and the minimum period is four years. Other lenders, which include Aldermore and Bath building society, are asking for guarantees from parents. Generally, this means some of the cost of the new property is secured on the parents’ home. Although this doesn’t mean the initial outlay involved in gifting a deposit, it does mean only buyers with well-off parents, who are willing to put their finances on the line, need apply. “Barclays’ deal is good but it still doesn’t help the people who really need it: the key workers and people who don’t have access to parental help,” says Montlake. You need to prove you’re a good risk As well as getting your parents on board, to be accepted for one of today’s 100% mortgages you will need to jump through more hoops than in the runup to the financial crisis. The mortgage market review (MMR) brought in new affordability tests for borrowers, with lenders examining outgoings as well as incomes and checking that monthly repayments could be afforded even at a higher interest rate. Montlake said Barclays had a “very robust affordability calculation”, so not everyone will qualify for the loan. Your guarantors’ finances will also be checked more thoroughly than before the MMR. “Anyone tied to the mortgage will also be vetted,” says Charlotte Nelson from Moneyfacts. She adds: “While having a guarantor has its benefits, this should not be entered into lightly as there is a lot more at stake than just the buyer’s finances.” You will have more choice if you have a deposit Montlake points out that rising rents in some parts of the country are making it hard for some borrowers to put anything aside towards a deposit, while Nelson says if you do have a guarantor you will generally pay a lower interest rate. But if you can raise at least 5% you will have more choice of loans and will not need a parent to back you. “The launch of the help-to-buy mortgage guarantee scheme acted as a starting gun for this sector, making it almost acceptable to lend at higher loan-to-values again, particularly to those with a 5% deposit,” says Nelson. Moneyfacts says there are 250 different deals for borrowers who have 5%: a far cry from the 986 available in August 2007, but considerably more than the number of 100% mortgages. Lenders offering 100% mortgages Six lenders offer 100% loans, according to Moneyfacts. It lists these deals: Aldemore - 5.48% fixed for two years or 5.68% fixed for three years, both with £299 booking fee and £999 completion fee; guarantor needed Barclays (under Woolwich brand) - 2.99% fixed to 30 June 2019, fee-free; guarantor needed Bath building society - 3.89% fixed for three years or 3.69% discounted variable rate for three years, both with a 0.4% arrangement fee; guarantor needed Kent Reliance - 4.99% fixed for two years with £499 arrangement fee; for shared ownership properties Tipton & Coseley building society - 3.19% discounted variable rate for term, fee-free; guarantor needed Vernon building society - 3.40% discounted variable rate for four years, £199 arrangement fee; guarantor needed
Facebook wants to stop clickbait. (And you won't believe how they're doing it) Facebook is escalating its war on “clickbait” headlines by instituting a new system on its newsfeed that will weed out misleading and exaggerated headlines the same way that email spam filters weed out fantastic offers to help Nigerian princes recover their lost fortunes. The tweaks to the algorithm, announced today in a blog post, will de-prioritize posts with headlines that “withhold information required to understand what the content of the article is and headlines that exaggerate the article to create misleading expectations”. The blog post listed three examples of clickbait headlines: “When She Looked Under Her Couch Cushions And Saw THIS… I Was SHOCKED!”; “He Put Garlic In His Shoes Before Going To Bed And What Happens Next Is Hard To Believe”; and “The Dog Barked At The Deliveryman And His Reaction Was Priceless.” The changes mark the second attempt by the social network to crack down on the much-reviled but nevertheless effective strategies publishers employ to coax readers to click on their content. In August 2014, Facebook announced changes to its newsfeed that took into account the amount of time people spent on an article, penalizing publishers who used the Upworthy-style “curiosity gap” to garner clicks. “If [users] click through to a link and then come straight back to Facebook, it suggests that they didn’t find something they wanted,” the company said then. The new update is based on publishers’ behavior, rather than the users. Facebook analyzed tens of thousands of headlines, deeming as “clickbait” those that intentionally withhold important information and those that use exaggeration to mislead the reader. Publishers who “consistently” post content with clickbait headlines will be penalized with lower placement in the newsfeed. If publishers stop using clickbait headlines, they will no longer be negatively impacted by the changes. Facebook’s announcement was immediately the subject of headlines – many of them jokingly clickbait-y – by the digital publishers that rely on the social media for a significant proportion of their traffic.
Fleetwood Mac: Mirage box set review – high-calibre songs that outshine the imitators This ultra-shiny remastering of Fleetwood Mac’s Mirage – clearly someone out there thought the band just didn’t sound cokey enough – gives us a chance to reappraise what has become an unfairly overlooked Mac album. After the wilful experimentation of Tusk and with the band branching out into solo projects and drug despair, Mirage probably seemed like a half-arsed statement at the time – a return to the band’s AOR pop songwriting days that didn’t quite match up to the likes of their self-titled 1975 album and Rumours. But with songs of the calibre of Gypsy, Book of Love and Love in Store – before you even get to the second side – and with the band’s dark undercurrent present and correct, Mirage still outshines most of the current crop of Mac imitators. Included in this box set is a weighty slab of vinyl, a 1982 live set from the Forum in Los Angeles – notable for Lindsey Buckingham cackling maniacally on Not That Funny – and an outtakes disc that includes previously unreleased versions of Gypsy and Oh Diane among other things. A suitably decadent reupholstering.
Timothy Spall: 'The feeling of doing it wrong gets bigger and bigger' A couple of weeks ago, Timothy Spall’s agent asked his client – quite casually, as you do – how he was. Spall told him: “I’m feeling a bit that I don’t really feel I can do it at the minute.” It being acting. Acting being what he has slaved at for 40 years, hitting the summit some time back. The agent set him straight: “You’re in the best part of your career ever!” But Spall isn’t the sort to shed vexation easily. Never was. And as he nears 60, that isn’t changing. For all those BBC barge larks (he has shot three series touring Britain with his wife, Shane, on the 52ft Princess Matilda) and bonhomie, all that acclaim and affection, age has neither eased his fretfulness nor mellowed his ambition. Quite the opposite. In a windowless dressing room on an industrial estate outside Harlington (left at the Incontinence Shop, carry on past Mr Clutch), Spall hunches on a sofa and murmurs darkly. “The feeling of doing it wrong gets bigger and bigger and bigger,” he says. “The challenges get bigger and bigger. I feel ashamed if I feel I’m repeating myself or I’m being lazy.” He eyes the rack of shirts in front of him: his wardrobe for the new Sally Potter film, The Party, which is shooting on a soundstage here. Today, he’s wearing two, and looks about as relaxed as a man about to shin up the scaffold. “I feel absolutely that I want it to be different, more textured, deeper, realer. If you are afflicted with an artistic feeling, it’s just perfecting something.” A swig of Coke Zero. He wants, he says, “to elicit in people a feeling they’ve never felt before. Capturing that drives me more and more and more.” Spall invokes JMW Turner, the artist he lately played, slathering on determiners like layers of paint (“accretion” is a watchword). “Turner became more and more intangible – revolutionary and eternal as well as real. It wasn’t until he was old, and then regarded as mad, that he broke right through and presaged modern art by 50 years. I’m not saying I’m Turner in acting, but as you get older you don’t lose that desire to advance.” His eyes pop with worry: gobstoppers in a sea of stubble. The weight he last sported for Turner has since been lost. Today, he looks younger, blonder, certainly more urgent. Two years ago that grunting, genius turn ignited big Oscar buzz off the back of his best actor win at Cannes. But then … nothing. The film was a critical success, a commercial one too (in Mike Leigh terms at least), but awards bodies turned up their nose. Not only did Spall get snubbed at the Oscars first round, he didn’t even get nominated for a Bafta. At the time, he admitted disappointment. Small wonder: it was an unfathomable slap. And yet it has evidently acted as a fillip. Mr Turner stuck him centre-stage and, save for lucrative cameos, he has stayed there ever since. That he was denied prizes also lends him momentum – useful, potentially, this autumn, when we will see him as Ian Paisley in reconciliation drama The Journey (“bit of a mindfuck”) and David Irving in Denial, about the holocaust sceptic’s libel case. He has a fresh appetite, he says, “to understand the atrocious … Say those two names and people have an instant reaction. You have to try and find a humanity. To be loathed and understood at the same time.” The character he plays in the film he is plugging today, Away, is none too cuddly, either. Joseph is a grieving alcoholic saved from suicide by Juno Temple’s runaway junkie in off-season Blackpool. He’s excellent; she’s excellent. He compares the film to Lost in Translation. It’s true, there are echoes. But it’s hard to imagine it gaining quite the same kind of traction. He cheerleads for a scene at the end of Away that boasts a moment of pure, platonic love. Any art that shows us something like that is inherently valuable, he thinks. He recently had an epiphany about human beauty, he says, when he worked with a bloke he hated. “I thought: you’re unpleasant, vile, something wrong with you. But then I just caught this glimpse of the nape of his neck, exposed. Like a bare ankle. Where you’re vulnerable. All of a sudden you go: oh, fuck! This rush of love and affection.” Spall is an old pro at flicking that switch in us, too, making us fall hard for flawed men (“I wish I’d had a dad like you; you’re lovely,” sobs someone at him in Secrets and Lies). His character’s relationship with Temple in Away is weird, but works. It mimics what often happens when the cameras stop rolling, he says. “I have had friendships with young actresses and actors. I’m in danger of sounding idealistic or a wanker or both, but all actors have this tacit thing that because everyone’s shitting it a bit, it’s egalitarian. An absolute meritocracy.” Spall – who says he’s long felt like an “old nine-year-old” – warms to his theme. On film sets, “there’s a wonderful currency of vituperation and bawdiness that cuts through. A Liberty House quality. People are candid.” Spall prides candour high. “If you’ve got a turd,” he says at one point, of duff scripts, “you can roll it in glitter, but you can’t polish it.” It could be his motto. Last year, he was in a revival of The Caretaker at the Old Vic, which was well received by everyone, it seems, save him. “I never felt I got it right. But bottom line is: who gives a fuck what I think?” He rolls the words round his mouth like a wine gum. “If the audience are enjoying it, that’s all that matters.” Solipsism is for scorning, he says, slapping the Coke can against his knee. Just as actors aren’t all luvvies, the audience, he stresses, weren’t all nobs. Spall’s ex-publican brother and his hairdresser daughter liked it a lot, though he concedes such productions “do appeal to a certain faction of society” – not one he counts himself part of. He grins. “I don’t enjoy the theatre. I don’t go. Don’t like going in the back door or the front. “When it’s fantastic, it’s wonderful: I go and see my son [Rafe], my mates. I just got used to lying about watching telly – prefer that, to be honest.” He mentions a show called Hidden Killers, about radium in the toothpaste. At the movies, he heads for the back row, isolated as possible. “I love a cinema with two people in it,” he cackles. “Love it! Absolutely love it!” Being back on stage made him realise he prefers film. He kept wanting to do scenes again, out of sequence, in the morning, without an audience. Spall might have gone straight to the RSC from Rada, but he hadn’t trod the boards since his near-fatal bout of leukaemia in 1996. “I’d forgotten how bloody different it is. It was such a massive, terrifying shock to my system.” He was 39 at the time, with three small children, and he was given half a week to live. “It wasn’t until recently I realised I was still dealing with it. You forget the trauma. But you never get over it. The toll it takes on you. The horror you had to deal with.” He’s quieter here; the words tumble out slower, the sentences come shorter. Spall likes stringy lines broiling with adjectives, bubbly with learning. Not now. “The older I get the more I feel that’s all we are: a big bunch of feelings and instincts all wrapped up in some brief encounter with intellect.” He says he has recently been pondering what drives people to suicide, “how ill, how unhappy do you have to be”, how faith affects those who are thinking, “I’m gonna die, or I could have died, I feel terrible, I’m dying.” “There is nothing more profound than making that choice or being close to it. There’s only two things: being alive or dead. That’s it, that’s it. We forget that that is fucking it. Bye! Gone!” He looks up: friendly, spooky. Spall does not seem on the brink. But what he calls his “peek over the other side” might have left in him a strange appreciation of precariousness. He doesn’t subscribe to any particular religion, he says, but speaks of feelings he doesn’t want structured. “I don’t know. It’s almost as preposterous not to think there’s a God as it is to believe.” When he made Mr Turner, he took painting lessons, then exhibited in a Soho cake shop a collection of small ink paintings, plus accompanying poems, of angels in anguish: “The basic Biblical thing,” he says lightly, “penance, repentance, attrition.” In fact, they belie an immersion in a culture he calls “the furnace of our civilisation. You can’t get away from it. All that imagery is in us, innit.” Now, he can’t bear to look at them. “I hate it. I think: that’s shit, terrible.” His curse, he says, is having enough talent to know his limits. “When I look at what I paint I think: nah, fuck off. I don’t like doing anything unless I can do it well.” A chuckle. “That’s why I don’t do very much. Apart from act.” His agent will be relieved, at least. • Away world premieres at the Edinburgh film festival on 22 June and is in competition for the Michael Powell award
Divock Origi makes Liverpool his home and Manchester United his target “It is always special to play Manchester United,” Liverpool’s Divock Origi says of the Europa League draw that has brought the two northern giants together for the first time in Europe. “I came into the Liverpool team for the first time in the away game in September and I am very motivated and excited for the next match. We are ready for the fight. I believe we can go far in this tournament.” Divock is only 20 and has not yet nailed down a place in the Liverpool starting line-up but he speaks with the quiet authority of someone who has seen a lot in football. And he has, as it happens. He has already scored the winning goal in a World Cup game, the one against Russia in Rio to secure Belgium’s place in the second stage in 2014, earning himself recognition as the nation’s young sportsman of the year in the process and – Wikipedia factoid alert – having a baby dolphin named after him in a Bruges seapark. Liverpool were already tracking him by then and a couple of months later he officially became the most notable product of a footballing family by signing for a Premier League club. Born in Belgium to Kenyan parents, his father Mike was playing for Ostend at the time and later moved to Genk, while a cousin, Arnold, is a goalkeeper with Lillestrom. So Origi already had a degree of fame in his own country even before he scored his goal at the Maracanã, though what was not commonly known was that as a 15-year-old he had turned down the chance to join Manchester United. Not many football-mad schoolboys would do that and even fewer would cite Joe Cole as one of the reasons for staying close to home with Lille but even at that age Origi was clearly thinking deeply about his future. “It was just a decision of my heart,” he explains. “At that moment I wanted to be a product of the Lille academy. I had just seen Eden Hazard come through and Lille had players like Gervinho and Joe Cole in the first team, so I thought I would have a good chance of making it there. “I still remember coming home from school and my parents asking me to sit down because there was something they wanted to discuss. But, even though the offer was a good one, they told me I could choose. I didn’t have anything against Manchester United or any other team, and my dream was always to play in the Premier League one day, but my heart told me the best thing would be to stay at Lille. I had a day or so of thinking it over but in the end I believe I made a good choice.” Naturally, when the time came to leave Lille and join the next Premier League club who showed an interest, the first thing Liverpool did was loan him back to the French club for a season. “That wasn’t easy, because obviously when you sign for a new club you want to play for them,” he says. “But I never regret anything, I learned a lot and it made me stronger. I am here at Liverpool now and for the future, so everything has worked out well. In the beginning it took a while to adapt but now I am starting to see the profits. “Things went so quickly from being a sub in Lille to scoring in the World Cup to signing for Liverpool but I always had good advice from my parents and my religion to help keep me grounded. I am the younger version of my father. I try to be as normal as I can.” Opting for Belgium and not Kenya was a break from family tradition but unlike his parents Origi did not grow up in Kenya. “I came up through the youth ranks in Belgium so the choice was obvious and logical,” he says. Once he made the choice to join Liverpool he resisted offers from other clubs, even one from a particularly persistent German then in charge of Dortmund. “I knew they were interested but Liverpool were very keen and I had made up my mind by then,” he says. It is just as well that Jürgen Klopp eventually turned up at Anfield then because Origi probably does not change his mind too often. “For me this is a perfect place to grow,” he says. “The manager gives me chances, he has a lot of experience working with young players and I try to maximise all the time I get. That is my target for the rest of the season, to maximise my game time. And of course to score goals and do well against Manchester United.”
'Now the world knows where Leicester is': city takes pride in club's title tilt There’s something a little odd going on in Leicester. The city’s football club is mounting an increasingly promising Premier League title challenge – in what some may consider the greatest sports story ever told – and usually sober politicians are linking the team’s fortunes to last year’s reinterment of Richard III. “I’m not one of those who buys into all this paranormal superstitious stuff,” said Rory Palmer, Leicester’s deputy mayor. “But the turning point last season was when Richard III was buried. Since the Richard III reburial last March, Leicester City have won 22 out of 34 matches.” Despite a last-gasp defeat against Arsenal on Sunday, the Foxes’ title bid remains well and truly on. Winning the league would be a feat not far short of discovering the remains of the last Yorkist king of England under a council car park 530 years after he was killed. Television trucks fill the city’s square, Hollywood scripts are being written, and posters of Richard III are outnumbered only by those of Jamie Vardy, Leicester’s talismanic striker. At the back of the Clarendon pub, a back-street boozer 10 minutes from Leicester city centre, Ed Campion, 29, and his girlfriend, Rosie Horne, 29, had ditched the usual Valentine’s Day plans to revel in the football romance. “He’s lucky I’m quite laid back,” said Rosie of their Valentine’s plans. “I do like an underdog though.” Campion, a postgraduate student originally from Ireland, has lived in Leicester for six and a half years, and until this year none of his friends in Ireland could place the city on a map. “Now I don’t need to tell them,” he said. “Now I’m proud”. Rosie added: “Rugby was the only thing going for it – well, that and curry”. Even the border signs welcoming people to the city have had a facelift. Until last summer, motorists would pass weather-beaten signs heralding “Britain’s first environment city”, installed 16 years ago. Now they bear the face of Richard III and the slogan “Leicester: an historic city”. It is surely only a matter of time before the signage is overhauled once more to reflect the football club’s on-pitch achievements. “Sport had always been important to the city but Leicester’s a self-deprecating place – it’s not a city to blow its own trumpet,” said Stuart Dawkins, 53, a businessman and board member of Leicester City’s supporters group, Foxes Trust. “Even now, more fans are signing ‘We’re staying up’ rather than ‘We’re gonna win the league’.” No longer a city associated only with Gary Lineker, Walker’s crisps and the rock band Kasabian, once unfashionable Leicester is undergoing a renaissance. “The East Midlands in general is not as cohesive and well known as other regions, like Merseyside and the north-east. People don’t have a mental image of what it’s like and the football this season has given us that – it’s fantastic,” said Dawkins. “I’m old enough to remember in the late 70s a punk compilation album called ‘Where the hell is Leicester?’ – well now the world knows where Leicester is.” Lifelong Foxes supporter James Walters, 60, is affronted at the suggestion that only now are people proud to be from Leicester. “I’ve always been,” he said, pulling open his jacket to reveal his Leicester City shirt. “But there is a buzz in the city. Richard III for the international status and now this. It’s been a fairytale.” In November 1998, a statue was unveiled in front of Leicester’s historic clock tower to commemorate the city’s status as a hotbed of sporting achievement in football, cricket and rugby. The structure has lost some of its sheen in the intervening 18 years, a term that has seen the club claw its way back up the football ladder from financial administration in 2002. In more than 130 years of history, Leicester City have never won the league or FA Cup; they have lost four cup finals. Its £22m team has outshone rivals whose constellation of stars cost 10 times that figure. Next season, barring an implosion, the galacticos of Real Madrid, Barcelona or Bayern Munich could be visiting the King Power stadium. Town hall officials are already holding hushed discussions on how to handle the delirious celebrations if Leicester win the title. An open-top bus parade last year left the streets full to bursting, and officials know that lifting the Premier League trophy would see those crowds multiplied several times over. “We’ve been getting letters from people wanting a road named after Jamie Vardy,” said Palmer, hinting that plans may be in place if they win the title. Away from the dry logistics of Leicester’s dream season, there is a real bursting sense of pride around the city, the 10th biggest in Britain but one of the least talked-about. “One of the terms people talk about a lot in politics is civic pride, but no one ever can really define it,” said Palmer. “I would suggest that we are now starting to understand and see what civic pride is actually about – because civic pride for me is when people will talk to people about where they’re from in a really bold, confident way.”
Ryan Fraser inspires Bournemouth’s madcap turnaround against Liverpool Out of deference to AFC Bournemouth’s 117-year history it seems proper to suggest there may have been more extraordinary high points than this in their footballing history. But let’s face it, there haven’t. On an increasingly wild afternoon on the south coast Eddie Howe’s high-energy team played their part in one of the great, and greatly improbable, Premier League games. Not only did Bournemouth come back from 3-1 down to win 4-3, barely coming up for air in a second half of relentless motion. They did so after completely they were suffocated for the opening half as Liverpool’s tourniquet of malevolent lime-green shirts took what looked to be a decisive choke-hold high up the pitch. A second defeat of the league season here left Jürgen Klopp shaking his head at fading momentum, decisive details lost. But it also demonstrated once again the glorious, enduring uncertainty, even in a sport stretched thin, every space filled, every sinew at its limits – the fact that even systems-football implemented as aggressively as Liverpool’s was here can be punctured by human variables. At which point enter Ryan Fraser, who came on here with 35 minutes to go and completely changed the game. Fraser is a small, slightly hunched figure, a 22-year-old from Aberdeen whose career has stuttered a little, who Craig Brown feared might be kicked to the edge of things in Scottish football and who looked a bit like a footballer from another age, a ferret in among Liverpool’s giant, rippling uber-athletes as he sprinted on as a second‑half sub. The Vitality Stadium has its own retro feel, a rattly corrugated open bowl, still beaming to the Premier League’s watching billions the good names of Swanage & Dorset scaffolding and Hearnes Estate Agents on the Christchurch Road. At the end here as stands leapt and danced and hugged, Eddie Howe could be seen striding across to find his No24 and taking him in a great beaming hug. Howe had done something similar just before Fraser came on, putting an arm around him and whispering in his ear. Fraser nodded, sprinted on and won a penalty with his second touch, blind-siding James Milner with his thrust and speed and drawing a clumsy challenge. Twenty minutes later he scored a lovely goal, driving through the centre of the pitch, picking out a pass to Callum Wilson and firing the eventual rebound past Loris Karius. Three minutes later Fraser helped level the game, spurting down the right, crossing on the run and watching as Steve Cook took the ball out of the sky and poked it home. Nathan Aké’s winner in stoppage time was both utterly loopy and also somehow inevitable, the only logical endpoint to a story that had by then been turned on its head. Klopp will now turn his thoughts to analysing how this could have happened. Howe deserves huge credit for the response to being behind, bringing on a full hand of direct attacking runners and altering the gravity of this game. But really it should still not have happened. Liverpool had looked to be playing an entirely different game from the start on the kind of freezing south-coast afternoon where the sky is a cold, hard blue and the wind scrapes one like a blunt razor blade. The opening goal came on 20 minutes but it had been coming for 20 minutes too, as Liverpool pressed and harried Bournemouth back towards their own goal. After all the throttling pressure it seemed a bit off-trend that the goal should come from a whipped pass over the top by Emre Can. But it was all of a piece. Aké saw his team moving up after all that pressure and relaxed for a moment. Sadio Mané spun in behind and finished neatly. The second goal was started by some wonderful play from Mané, who scooted round Harry Arter and passed to Jordan Henderson. His ball into Divock Origi’s path lulled Artur Boruc into sprinting out, gloves pumping, and utterly failing to beat Origi to the ball. Two seconds later it was in the net via a fine right-footed finish on the run. And that was that. Game over. With half an hour gone Liverpool had had 65% possession and denied Bournemouth a single shot on goal, corner or offside. They had simply squashed the Cherries, swarming in perfectly coordinated angles and lines, taking all the air out of the game. Can was brilliant it that first hour, holding the ball in tight spaces, passing long and short and haring about with murderous intent whenever Bournemouth took possession. It was Mané-Can that made the third goal at 2-1. Mané fed Can whose first-time shot was nuzzled beautifully into the top corner. What happened next was extraordinary. Klopp knows his team is still evolving. The dream is to have a group that plays a system right the way through, who can absorb the absence of key players, as here, and simply fill in the gaps. For now there will be mistakes, moments of slackness, times where the whole team seems to take a breath and lose its way. It makes for thrilling, high-stakes, irresistibly watchable football. In patches here through the second half the big screen carried an advert with the message No More Pain. If Liverpool’s evolving, high-energy team really are going to get close to a first Premier League title there could yet be plenty more gorgeous agony along the way.
Travelling opened my eyes – the shared experience of the EU is invaluable It’s 2020. Britain has just completed its Brexit procedures, Donald Trump is president of America and Russia has annexed Lithuania. These events may seem apocalyptic or unrelated, but everything is connected in the mind of this young Lithuanian woman. I was lucky enough to grow up in an independent country. I spent my childhood in a tiny resort town of 1,000 inhabitants. I remember my parents starting their first business after the Soviet Union collapsed, selling greasy Lithuanian potato pancakes from the window of a wooden kiosk. Little me was scared to death when a scar-faced racketeer came to my dad to collect money for “protection”. Back then, the only world I knew existed was our town, but it was enough. Or so I thought … Just before our last year at school, my best friend decided to go to London for a summer job as a postman. Sarunas was a troubled teenager, so when he came back from the UK, I could not believe my eyes. He was transformed completely. Physically, he was super fit after a summer of running away from dogs. But there was something much more intense about his transformation. I remember him telling me: “Neringa, I saw these men wearing suits, holding expensive briefcases, rushing to work in this place full of skyscrapers. I want to be like them.” In the space of one year he became the brightest kid in school, got the best exam results and went on to study at York University. Now he works at one of the most prestigious investment banking firms in the City of London. There are thought to be 120,000 Lithuanians living in the UK. For a country with a population of only 3 million that is a lot. Growing up I knew a few kids whose parents went to the UK to find work, while their children stayed with grandparents at home. The parents of my neighbour, Kamile, in our grey “kruschiovka” council estate, worked as a cleaner and construction worker in Britain. Today, Kamile has funky orange hair, works as a nanny in Bristol and is getting married to a bloke called Ben. I can imagine the kids she takes care of growing up knowing some funny sounding Lithuanian proverbs. I first visited Britain when I was 20, for a summer job with three mates from university. We rented a dirty little room for £400 in Barking, sharing a house with heavy-drinking Lithuanian builders. I quickly found a job in a Chinese restaurant in Soho, got my national insurance number and felt like the world was at my feet. I was living in the greatest city in the world. When I returned two years later to study in London it was my turn to be transformed by the experience. I started working as a carer of a disabled English intellectual, who lived in the Barbican. I met a retired American rockstar, who had a private snake zoo and was injecting snake venom. I encountered more and more amazing Lithuanian people: artists, a dominatrix, lots of people from the gay community. I came to understand that they couldn’t express themselves or be open about their sexual orientation in Lithuanian society. So they went to a land of freedom, acceptance and amazing parties. I realised how far I’d come from the first time I visited London: back then, I felt embarrassed to ask a black person on the street what the time was. I had never seen a black person before visiting the UK. Today I am so proud of my hard-working, talented friends residing and finding their voices here: my friend Monika was training Prince Harry, some of my other friends created a successful clothing brand and are dressing Rita Ora. Lithuanians are your doctors, lawyers, photographers, opera singers. Ruta Meilutyte is an Olympic gold medal swimmer, but that would not have happened without Plymouth’s swimming pools. This world-class Lithuanian swimmer is inspiring Plymouth’s young people to strive for greatness in sports. Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla, the first female conductor of the Birmingham Orchestra, is a wunderkind from Lithuania, who graduated from school in Vilnius. These people are paying taxes, raising their children, buying property, making your country more vibrant and amazing. They are contributing to the whole of the society. And many of these people learn the great values of your society and bring this knowledge back to their home country. I myself returned to Lithuania as a different person: more open, tolerant, courageous and ready to make a change in my own environment. I brought back a greater understanding about social justice, democracy, environmental issues and multiculturalism. This is what the EU has given me and my country. It is often easier to define oneself in contrast to the other. That’s why putting the blame on Lithuanians, the Poles or any other group of people might seem like a logical answer at the time of hardship. Hence the rise of Trump in America, and the appeal of the Brexit movement in the UK. But it would be a tragedy if these impulses were allowed to win out. Britain has given me so much – the opportunity to explore the world. This wouldn’t have been possible outside the EU. And it offers the UK the vibrancy of people from all over the continent. At the end of the day we are all European – and there are much bigger fights than those to be had between ourselves. • Tell us what the EU means to you and your country
Gender wage gap costs minority women more than $1m in some states Black and Latino women will lose more than $877,000 and $1m respectively over a 40-year career compared to their white male counterparts, according to a report by the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC). The report, which breaks down the gender wage gap by race and state, found that in 2014, Latina women earned between 54 and 55 cents for every dollar that white men made. This amounts to a 40-year career wage gap of $1,007,080 on average. Latina women lose more than a million dollars over their careers in 23 states, including the District of Columbia where the gap is highest at $1,781,720. “A big driver of the wage gap is the gap in opportunities that push Latinas and African American women into different occupations than white men. Latina women and African American women are over-represented in low-wage jobs, for example, and under-represented in high-paying occupations like law and engineering,” said Emily Martin, vice-president for workplace justice at NWLC. The report comes a week before African American Equal Pay Day, which takes place on the day black women catch up to white men’s pay from 2015. Latina Equal Pay Day takes place in November. In 2014, black women earned 60 cents for every dollar earned by white men. That means that the average black woman would have to work 20 months to earn what a white man earns in 12 months. “African American women shouldn’t need to work more than 66 years to earn what a white man earns in 40 years,” said Martin. “ If we don’t act now to ensure equal pay, for many women of color, the cost of the lifetime wage gap will surpass a million dollars. We literally can’t afford to ignore this.” There are six states, including the District of Columbia, where the gap has already surpassed $1m: District of Columbia: $1,595,200 New Jersey: $1,231,600 Connecticut: $1,140,400 Louisiana: $1,134,880 California: $1,046,960 Massachusetts: $1,022,440 According to NWLC, even black women with a high level of education still experience a wage gap. “African American women with a bachelor’s degree typically make $46,825 per year – only $1,849 more than white men with only a high school degree,” NWLC pointed out. Earlier this year when celebrating equal pay day for all women, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton called for more transparency around pay in the private sector and expressed her support of the Paycheck Fairness Act. The legislation, which says that workers who talk about their pay with coworkers cannot be fired or retaliated against, has been introduced in every Congress since 1997. While serving in the US Senate, Clinton co-sponsored the bill during the 2005-2006 and 2007-2008 sessions. “If talking about equal pay and paid leave and more opportunities for women and girls is playing the gender card, then deal me in,” she said earlier this year on Equal Pay Day, which took place on the one-year anniversary of her presidential campaign. While speaking at the Republican national convention, Ivanka Trump surprised many when she said that her father, too, will fight for equal pay for women. “He will fight for equal pay for equal work,” said Trump, daughter of the Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. Trump has previously spoken in support of equal pay without committing to any policies or expressing support of the Paycheck Fairness Act. “If they do the same job they should get the same pay,” Trump said last year while appearing on MSNBC’s Morning Joe. “But it’s very hard to say what’s the same job. It’s a very, very tricky question and I have talked about competition with other places and other parts of the world, this is one of those things that we have to look at very strongly.”
Fertility, grief and big business are not a good combination Along with thousands of babies, one of the undoubted benefits of assisted reproductive technology, or ART, has been the acknowledgement of procreative rights, along with their long overdue extension to families not conforming to the standard Ladybird-book model. While this is progress for, say, single women, and gay couples needing surrogates – both of whom would once have been denied parenthood via IVF treatment, it also, obviously, represents overwhelming baby joy for the global ART industry. What one country, or clinic, will not provide – donor eggs for a broody sixtysomething mother of grown-up children, say, or a paid (practically nothing) bunk in a surrogate – someone, somewhere, is happy to sell. For once, big business finds itself on the same side as high-minded scholarship, in fact working with it, and with would-be parents invariably described as “desperate”, to defy religious moralists and to mute secular anxieties about the rights or wellbeing of the resulting children. For how can the nonentity that is an unborn child have rights? And once the babies arrive, to the loving – if occasionally ancient – parents who wanted them so dearly, who would wish them unborn? Look, if you will, at some of the people who have babies unhindered. In the face of procreational liberty and an ever-willing industry, opposition to ARTs, in almost any circumstances, has come to look – when it is not practically and ethically futile – churlish, possibly bigoted. For example, why shouldn’t a Mr Arshid Hussain, the multiple rapist and leader of the Rotherham sex-grooming gang, have been granted his reported wish – according to the Times, to which we owe his exposure – to undergo IVF? With a rumoured 18 or so children already, and his history of sex abuse, Hussain might not be the ideal dad, but consider his procreational rights. Had it not been for an unfortunate wound in the abdomen (something of an occupational hazard in the gun-dealing world), nothing could have stopped Mr and Mrs Hussain from conceiving prior to his imprisonment, at home. Perhaps the 19th little Hussain would be very happy with its gift of life. And since we can’t measure desperation, we can’t be sure the rapist and his unfortunate wife are not, in their way, fully as desperate as required to argue their rights under European Convention on Human Rights Article 8, respect for private and family life. The Hussains, if they persist, could benefit from a 2007 precedent, in which a fellow prisoner, Kirk Dickson (who had been convicted of kicking a man to death) was at first refused IVF with his partner, then wife, Lorraine (a convicted fraudster and mother of three). The British court’s objections related to, among other things, the “moral and material welfare of the future child” with its absent father and parents whose epistolary relationship – they met as prison penpals and then married – had never been tested outside prison. The European Court of Human Rights awarded £18,000 compensation to the Dicksons, for this breach of their human rights. So never say never. A current case suggests huge judicial respect for extraordinary parental determination, to the point of outweighing multiple concerns including consent, advanced parental age, and an untraceable donor parent. The court of appeal has just ruled that the parents of a single woman who died, aged 28, of cancer, should be allowed to continue to fight for permission to take three frozen eggs to the US (treatment having been denied here), to have them, for £60,000, fertilised and implanted in the putative grandmother – something of a global first. A judge says the parents have “an arguable case with a real prospect of success”. Last year, Mr Justice Ouseley denied the couple their application for a judicial review of the Human Fertilisation and Embrylogy Authority’s refusal of permission. The regulatory body’s argument, in this desperately sad case, was that the dead woman had not left informed consent for the current plan, despite the many months in which she could have done so. The HFEA did not object on the basis of the welfare of any future child, created to fulfil to a dying wish, though it might surely have done so, recalling anxieties about instrumentalisation that accompanied the decision, in 2006, to allow “saviour siblings” created for a life-saving purpose. It remains unclear, in the current case, whether the parents want a baby to meet their own needs, or to honour their only child’s reported desire for motherhood, although since she will never experience it, they surely amount to the much same thing. The eggs were frozen in the hope that the daughter could, when recovered, use them herself: nothing more than a hope, she must have known, given the miserable birth rates from frozen eggs. Lord Winston has repeatedly advised caution to the women now bombarded with cynical exhortations to shell out £5,000 before it’s too late on gruelling egg-harvesting (plus annual freezing payments) for a distant, around 2% chance of a baby. In this case, the young woman referred to her “ice babies”. This extrapolation, from frozen DNA to living beings, was not, however reflected in her formal consents, nor in any arrangements made with her parents. The identifying of a father, for instance, never arose. The HFEA, and Ouseley, were not merely correct, you might think, to insist upon such evidence of consent, but wise in asking the bereft parents to abandon their mission, with its dismal outlook, and their misapprehension – even if it comforted their daughter – that eggs have independent agency. The woman in the case is said, by her mother, to have considered her eggs “living entities in limbo waiting to be born”. In nature, they are lost in millions, by age 30. If, in this case, the court of appeal has favoured emotional over regulatory argument, it only conforms to the tradition, in complex ART decisions, to give enormous weight to avowals of parenting desperation, and thereby, to advertise fertility as central to a satisfying life. Parental desperation, in the past, has been the go-to justification for the ART industry in the face of anything damaging – from rock-bottom success rates to risky multiple births, the impregnation of pensioners, ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome, the encouragement of clearly obsessed/hopeless patients, the exploitation of surrogates, concealment of donor identities and, today, freezing of probably doomed eggs. To be fair, it helped balance overemphasis on a child’s best interests, as pictured by traditionalists. In this case, the daughter is said to have been “desperate” to pass on her DNA, so much so that this desperation, inherited by her parents, requires suspension of informed consent. It might be distressing for the judges to point out that a woman is more than, as advanced here, some sort of portal through which the unborn process into being. But if this permission is granted, it implies the opposite. Indeed, you would never know, to read of the anguish over these three contested eggs, that one in five women now flourishes without children, not always by choice. Should they, too, be considered candidates for posthumous, donor-assisted childbearing? Somewhere, some enterprising ART clinic is probably working on that.
The Brexit campaign is wrong: the UK is already a sovereign nation Michael Gove and Tony Benn are not related by blood, marriage or spiritual kinship. They belong in separate political universes. And yet such is the nature of the Brexit argument – carving its way through party lines, pitting friend against friend, uniting enemy with enemy – that the Conservative justice secretary has become the authentic voice of Bennism. Not all Bennism, obviously. Not the whole socialist package. But rather that aspect of the Bennite legacy that helped make the indefatigable campaigner a national treasure. I’m thinking of the creed he expressed in his memorable five questions to be put to those in power: “What power have you got? Where did you get it from? In whose interests do you exercise it? To whom are you accountable? And how can we get rid of you?” For Benn, the last of those was the most important: “If you cannot get rid of the people who govern you, you do not live in a democratic system.” This was the voice Gove was channelling when he outed himself as an outer last week. In an essay far more persuasive than the muddled mess served up, with greater fanfare, by Boris Johnson, Gove put democracy at the centre of his case for a British break with the European Union. “I believe that the decisions which govern all our lives … should be decided by people we choose and who we can throw out if we want change.” The problem with the EU, he wrote, is that “laws which govern citizens in this country are decided by politicians from other nations who we never elected and can’t throw out”. The appeal of that argument is as powerful now as when Benn first made it. It has simplicity and clarity, chiming with our most basic democratic instinct. For the liberal or progressive voter, one resolutely unmoved by Faragiste talk of curbing immigration, this, surely, is the outers’ best shot. You saw what the EU did to Greece. You’ve heard how the European commission churns out binding regulations by the crateload. You read Gove describing the way a UK government minister, elected by the British people, can sit at his desk, keen to implement a plan that should help the country, only to be told by his civil servants: “Yes, minister, I understand, but I’m afraid that’s against EU rules.” If you believe in democracy and self-determination, then surely you must want Britain to break the shackles of Europe and govern itself? And yet, simple and clear though that case is, it’s not necessarily right. Start with the observation that Gove’s words could come back to haunt him should there be a second independence referendum in Scotland. Search for “the EU” in the Gove manifesto and replace it with “the UK”, swap “the UK” for “Scotland”, and the text could be republished as an SNP pamphlet. It’s the very same argument the yes side made in 2014: a nation can only truly shape its destiny when it governs alone. This is not a mere debating point, designed to embarrass the Scottish and staunchly unionist Gove. On the contrary, it goes to the heart of the argument. For what was the most persuasive unionist reply to the independence case in Scotland? It said that the Scottish people were indeed a sovereign nation. But that sovereign nations often pool or share that sovereignty with others for the sake of their own national interest. They do it every time they sign a treaty or reach an international accord, voluntarily constraining their own ability to act in order to achieve some other goal. Sometimes that goal is grand and noble, such as when a nation agrees to be bound by the UN Declaration of Human Rights or assorted Geneva Conventions. Sometimes the objective is more self-serving, as when sovereign nations, eyeing the financial bottom line, submit to the rules of the World Trade Organisation. But sovereignty is not like virginity, that once given away is lost forever. On the contrary, sovereign nations can reel back in what they have lent out the instant they decide the previous sharing arrangement no longer suits them. The Scots could have made that move in September 2014 but, exercising their sovereignty, they decided that pooling what they had with England, Wales and Northern Ireland served the Scottish national interest better. The UK has not somehow lost its sovereignty by being in the EU. Parliament can simply repeal the European Communities Act of 1972 and we’d be out. MPs could do it now without a referendum if they wanted. Such is the power of a sovereign nation. Still, the last few decades of pooling and sharing with the other nations of Europe grates on the Brexiteers. You can hear the plaintive cry running through the Gove text. Why do we have to do it? Why can’t we just rule ourselves alone, unfettered, like the Americans do? The answer is a matter of both space and time, geography and history. We are a proud island nation, to be sure, but we are also right next to a continent that represents the largest single market in the world. Half our trade is with mainland Europe. And because those nations have formed a single market, to trade with them on the same beneficial terms they all enjoy means complying with that market’s rules. We could do it from the outside, as the Norwegians do. Or we could do it from the inside, as we do now. Both options involve some constraint of our sovereignty. If anything, after a Brexit, we could discover that we are rather less sovereign than we are now. In order to do business, we could find ourselves compelled to bow before rules that, like Norway, we have no say in writing. As the Norwegian conservative, quoted by David Cameron in the Commons this week, put it: “If you want to run Europe, you must be in Europe. If you want to be run by Europe, feel free to join Norway in the European Economic Area.” Besides the map, there is the clock. Today’s world is very different from the 17th and 18th centuries, when the notion of state sovereignty first took root. National independence is more abstract, less absolute in the age of international interdependence. Britain can no more be sovereign alone in the face of global terror, mass migration or climate change than Canute could be master of the waves. Now the world awards strength to those who combine their muscle. Even the mighty US, spanning a continent, cannot get all it wants alone. The Financial Times’s Philip Stephens wrote this week that “the castaway alone on a desert island may be sovereign over all she or he surveys”, but is also “impotent”. A vote to leave the EU would certainly give an instant sugar rush that would feel a lot like an assertion of sovereignty. But a sovereign nation understands that to share what it has in order to get more can be not an act of weakness – but of great strength.
A manifesto for informed debate on the Brexit question The debate on the EU referendum has thus far repeated that of the Scottish independence referendum – unlike parliamentary elections, where debate is (or can be) on policy built on evidence, a single-issue referendum on a constitutional/economic issue risks descending into an exchange of guesswork built on anecdote (Boris has just launched his latest myth, 27 February). I suggest that it would better if both sides provide a manifesto with policy detail and projected consequences for our country five and/or 10 years from now. The out campaign manifesto should, among other things, clarify which model is proposed for UK-EU relations (eg the Norway model? Or a trading relationship as with a comparably-sized economy like, say, South Korea? Or a new and unique model – to be specified?); and which specific EU laws would be repealed with newly re-established exclusive sovereignty, and with what effect? There are fewer unanswered questions for the in campaign as its manifesto would by definition be an amalgam of the circumstances prevailing today, with an overlay of the prime minister’s new deal. But the requirement to produce a manifesto would provide a level playing field for the more informed debate. And since immigration is clearly an issue for many voters, each manifesto should contain an independently prepared forecast of the annual level of immigration from within the EU and from outside the EU, based on the immigration policy details contained in their manifestos. Crispin Simon Former chief executive, UK Trade and Investment (2013-14) • Brexit will cause administrative chaos throughout the UK for many years, to add to that which is already a characteristic of government departments. To sort out the mess, large numbers of outrageously expensive legal consultants and legions of extra desk jobs will be needed to amend or replace all the administrative machinery and legislation adopted from the EU. The total cost of this transitional process will be so great for a number of years that it will substantially exceed the widely trumpeted financial “benefit” of no longer having to shell out the net payment currently made by the UK to the EU. This transitional cost is unavoidable. It will have to be subsidised by taxes which would otherwise contribute to the repair of our collapsing infrastructure and to the support of our public services. For example, the NHS will almost certainly have to be fully privatised. This “hidden” cost has not been publicised by the “outers” – or at least, not revealed to the public. Why? First, because they don’t know how to estimate the cost. Second, they wouldn’t dare tell us because it might make us think again about leaving. Francis Fahy Kings Somborne, Hampshire • You report that the Cabinet Office has claimed that a vote to leave the EU could lead to up to a decade or more of uncertainty as Britain would need to negotiate new trade and related agreements with the EU and other countries (Brexit ‘would mean 10 years of uncertainty’, 29 February). While Brexit will no doubt cause some disruption, the relatively straightforward accession negotiations of Austria, Finland and Sweden suggest that the Cabinet Office is grossly overstating this risk. According to the European commission, accession negotiations for these countries began on 1 February 1993 and were successfully concluded on 12 April 1994 – a little over 14 months. As the EU has itself stated: “The negotiations on an important number of chapters were facilitated by the existence of Free Trade Agreements between the Community and the candidates, and the recent entry into force of the European Economic Area Agreement whereby the candidate countries were already committed to take over in their national legislation most of the acquis concerning the Single Market”. It is hard to see why the position of the UK leaving the EU should be any different, as there is even greater common ground between the parties and it is in both of their interests to expeditiously agree a new deal. Andrew Borer London • We are warned of dire consequences if we leave the EU: worsened security, a seriously uncertain trading position, damage to the economy with all of its social consequences. Yet only a couple of weeks ago David Cameron was saying that if he was not successful with his largely irrelevant negotiations then he would recommend that we should leave. Surely the supposed consequences in that event would have been exactly the same? Jim Golcher Greens Norton, Northamptonshire • Amazing how politicians now appear able to foresee a dire future for the UK economy when they couldn’t see the obvious signals of the banks’ imminent collapse eight years ago. Pete Lavender Woodthorpe, Nottinghamshire • When Polly Toynbee writes that a Brexit Britain could become nasty (Free spirits? The outers are just another bunch of elitists, 23 February) she reveals a contempt for the average citizen that would seem to be held by many leftist cosmopolitans of privilege. England’s character, including its pioneering welfare state, developed long before the EU was founded. The country’s ethos continues to attract people from all over the world, and that too existed before we joined the EU. I will in all probability vote to remain in, but it will be a judgment call, based on a hazy understanding on my part of the socioeconomic and political gains and losses to the UK from remaining in the union. Most assuredly, though, I will not vote that way because of a worry that if we were to be outside the EU, the average citizen here would not insist on the rule of humane laws and good governance. Partha Dasgupta Frank Ramsey professor emeritus of economics, University of Cambridge • John Harris’s reasons for voting to remain in the EU, as given in his article (Irrational, unhinged, gullible? No, out supporters deserve to be listened to, 26 February), seem quite bizarre. First, he envisages a continental EU taming international capital, whereas the opposite has already happened. Secondly, the EU has already turned member states like Greece into “neoliberal hellholes” rather than prevented this. Finally, the EU has already helped Europe “burst into flames”, as for example in Bosnia and Ukraine. How exactly do your pro-EU columnists experience reality? Through rose-tinted spectacles supplied from Brussels? Professor Alan Sked London School of Economics • I wholeheartedly believe Britain and the world would be significantly worse off if the UK departed from the EU, particularly with regard to the collective partnership that, in my view, is necessary to help combat terrorism, Russian aggression and climate change. However, I concur with John Harris. Too many pro-Europeans are patronising and dismissive of working-class people who feel aggrieved by what they perceive to be mass immigration. It is no lie that, quite often, immigrants undercut Britons. It would do Labour well to realise this problem of undercutting wages and worker exploitation, and come up with real policy changes in this area. If not, the immigration narrative will continue to written by the populist right and their simplistic, unpleasant soundbites. Those who, like me, are pro-EU should not condemn, dismiss and mock Eurosceptics who have real, logical concerns. Dialogue is key. Sebastian Monblat London • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
Manchester United 3-1 Bournemouth: Premier League – as it happened I think we’ll wrap this blog up now. The match report should be along shortly. Thanks for reading. Goodbye. Elsewhere, Hull just about clung on: Otherwise, that was a pretty good display by Louis van Gaal’s team. They were abysmal for 40 minutes, but then scored a very nice goal, and then showed glimpses of excellence in the second half. Rooney, Martial and Rashford all played well, and United were much too strong for Bournemouth, who didn’t threaten much. Fifth place for the hosts, who secure a spot in the Europa League group stages. What a disappointment for David De Gea: he won’t be sharing the Golden Glove with Petr Cech. Gradel, who replaced Pugh earlier, raced into the box, fired it across, Bournemouth got a lucky ricochet and Smalling, facing his own goal, diverted it past his Spanish team-mate. A consolation for Bournemouth, but an irritation for Man United. And that’s the last action! Another own goal for Chris Smalling, and no clean sheet for David De Gea! 90 min: Memphis swishes one into the stand from 30 yards. Three minutes of stoppage time. 89 min: Another assist from Wayne Rooney: he clipped one over the top, Young ran through as Bournemouth tried to play offside, and although Federici tried to block, it slipped past him and trickled over the line. It was a tight offside call, but probably the right decision: Young looked level. No flag, and Ashley Young makes it three! 84 min: Lingard with a chance at the edge of the box, but he took too long, and the chance is lost. Now Bournemouth attack, and win a corner. Played short, and then Cook with an overhead kick! A more than decent attempt, but just too high. 82 min: United happy to retain possession. And then Memphis with a chance! Free in the box eight yards out, but he completely misses his header! Actually he was offside. By miles. It wouldn’t have counted. Anthony Martial’s Premier League season is done, and Ashley Young is on in his place. 79 min: Bournemouth haven’t really been able to muster a response. Man United well on top. 78 min: Now Rashford is replaced to warm applause from the Old Trafford fans. He’s been terrific. On in his stead in Memphis Depay. Meantime, Callum Wilson makes way for Lewis Grabban. 76 min: Ander Herrera is on for Juan Mata. 75 min: Rooney played another lovely, raking pass for Valencia, and this time his control was excellent: his nod-back was cushioned to perfection, and Rashford just smacked one past Federici from 18 yards. Great long ball, lovely headed pass from Valencia, and the finish was excellent. Another very nice Man United goal. Superb stuff from Rashford, and it’s two! 73 min: Wilson puts the ball in the back of the net from a long ball forward, but the flag had long been raised. Wilson was clearly off: another good decision by the officials. 71 min: Mata looks long for Rashford, but Francis is quickly across, and it’s through to Federici. Now Rashford escapes through the middle, and the goalie might have come for that, but chooses to stay home, and it was probably the right decision: Rashford’s touch just took him too wide, and the chance is lost. 69 min: Another penalty shout for United, but Moss says no again, and that’s the right call: Daniels won the ball cleanly from Lingard. Excellent decision. 67 min: Benik Afobe replaces Josh King, who’s been quiet. Bournemouth free kick, but it’s straight through to De Gea. 66 min: Mata is booked after tripping Wilson as Bournemouth broke. That seems a bit harsh; there wasn’t much in it. 64 min: Lee Dixon is extremely quick to praise Marcus Rashford’s work off the ball. He’s had little to work with today, but he doesn’t half make some intelligent runs. And the dummy for the goal was sublime. 62 min: Man United definitely playing with more verve. And Mata works Federici after completely befuddling Cook on the edge of the box. Unfortunately it was on his right foot, and ergo, not powerful or accurate enough to find the net. 60 min: Federici will be OK. Smalling attacks Blind’s corner, but heads it wide! Decent chance. Maybe Francis and Elphick just about put him off. 59 min: Oh, that was nearly two! Rashford skinned Daniels, the ball bobbled around in the penalty area, and Lingard tried to place it … just wide! Deflected, and it’s a corner. Cleared, and then what a hit from Valencia! Great save from Federici: Valencia absolutely leathered that from 25 yards, and it was heading it. Top stop from the keeper, but now he’s hurt himself. 57 min: Super cross by Borthwick-Jackson, and everyone missed it! What a fantastic ball. But no one attacked it! 55 min: Great effort from Carrick. I think it took a deflection, which deceived Federici, but Carrick really laced it, and it clonked flush off the bar. At the other end, Bournemouth try something different from a free kick, but Gosling’s ball is overhit, and he looks suitably embarrassed. 53 min: This second half has been enlivened by an increase in intensity. Martial runs at Francis and wins the corner. United take it short, Borthwick-Jackson feeds Carrick, and Carrick smacks the crossbar from distance! What an effort! So unlucky: Federici was beaten. 51 min: I think Cook got extremely lucky there: Mata raced into the box from Martial’s pass, pirouetted to sort his feet out, and Cook just seemed to take his leg from behind. Jon Moss took a long look, but then said no. It looked pretty clear. United unlucky. 50 min: Oh, that’s a penalty, surely? Cook on Mata – but ref Jon Moss says no! I’d love to see that again: that looked like a foul. 48 min: Gosling is free on the edge of the box … but it’s high! King did well to worry Blind on the right side, fed Ritchie, and then Surman, and then Gosling arrived late, but his left-foot shot was off target. Decent chance, but it fell to him on his wrong foot, really. 46 min: And Rooney with an early chance! Lingard had it on the edge of the box, fed Rooney, but his attempt for a second goal was blocked. And then King with a chance at the other end! Blocked again. The second half starting in much more appealing fashion than the first. I think Rooney’s opener was Manchester United’s first shot on goal. Efficiency! The Rams are clawing their way back from the brink. Follow it here: As it stands, United would finish fifth, and would go straight into the Europa League group stage rather than playing the qualifiers. Bournemouth are staying in 16th. Wayne’s Rooney’s 100th Premier League goal at Old Trafford is the difference, and it was a peach. Nothing else in that half was remotely memorable, but the goal was really good. That’s Rooney’s first goal in 775 minutes of football: he hadn’t scored since 2 February. That’s the whistle. 45 min: The first 40-odd minutes were extremely tedious, but that really was a goal to savour. Four players involved: Martial, Mata, Rashford and Rooney, and the dummy from Rashford was perhaps the best moment of all. One minute of stoppage time. 44 min: What a fabulous goal that was. Martial started it by injecting some pace into the move, exchanged passes with Mata, got into the box, slipped a ball into the danger area, and Rashford produced a beautiful deft dummy, allowing Rooney to run from deep and slot it home. A lovely, technical goal – the passing was superb – and finally we have some action! United have struggled all evening, but that’s a brilliant goal! 40 min: United just haven’t been at the races, and Martial totally miscontrols in a good position on the left flank. It’s out for a goal kick. Here’s Thabo Mokaleng: “This lot is obviously not going to score 19 but it’d be awfully nice if they were to attempt one. Maybe that’d open the floodga… Nope, it won’t. I’m off to bed.” 39 min: It was Valencia with the block, but Pugh didn’t really strike it cleanly. Bournemouth did very well to get in on the right side after Borthwick-Jackson slipped: that was the best chance of the first half. 38 min: Pugh should have done better! Bournemouth worked it nicely on the right side, and it was cut back beautifully for Pugh, about 18 yards from goal, but he struck it straight at a red shirt! He really should have tested De Gea: he had time and space. 36 min: Surman looks for King, but De Gea is quickly out to claim, and he tries to get United moving down the other end, but Bournemouth win it back, and normal service is resumed. 34 min: Francis’s ball is in overhit. Disappointing. Andrew Goudie writes: “Forget the woeful Premier League’s last knockings. In contrast to Manchester United’s dismal efforts, the first half of Hull v Derby has been great – Derby 2-0 up at half-time.” Yes! Follow it here: 33 min: Now a good chance for Bournemouth from the set piece as Borthwick-Jackson tugs back Ritchie. On the corner of the box, right side. 31 min: Free kick to United 40 yards from goal, left side. Played in by Rooney, and Carrick nearly connected! Rooney fizzed it in, and no one picked Carrick up – he was inches from getting on the end of it, and it bounced through to Federici. Unlucky. 29 min: Rooney looks for Valencia … and drills it straight out of play. Bournemouth have barely attacked, but it’s all rather laboured from United at the moment. 27 min: Mata is offside. “We need a goal,” says Lee Dixon, with characteristic litotes. 25 min: Still no work for the goalkeepers to do. United’s players look a little hesitant, as though they’re trying to get through uninjured and seal a place in Saturday’s starting XI. Here’s Rajiv: “Man Utd taking a corner and passing it back to their defenders is the sort of crappy joke people would make up to describe their awful football. But the thing is, it actually happens game after game.” 23 min: Nice scooped pass from Martial to try to set Rashford free, but Bournemouth are quickly back to knock it clear. It’s heating up ever so slightly here. 22 min: Good hold-up play from King to draw the foul, and now Bournemouth have a crossing chance from the left. Daniels with it, and it fell kindly on the edge to Ritchie, was it, but he couldn’t quite keep his footing and his shot was blocked. 21 min: If you’re just tuning in, you really haven’t missed anything. It’s been extremely tepid. 20 min: Good pass from Valencia to release Lingard, who ran in beyond the defence, but Daniels did very well to get back and concede the corner. United take the corner short, to many groans, and it goes all the way across to Borthwick-Jackson, whose cross is dross. 18 min: Ritchie runs at Borthwick-Jackson for the first time, but he handled as he fell to the ground, and it’s a United free kick. 17 min: Oh, chance for Lingard. He ran between the two centre-backs to reach Rooney’s long ball, and tried to cushion a pass back for Mata, who would have had a free shot, but Lingard’s control was off, and Bournemouth clear. Tonight’s hot topic: is Lingard any good? 15 min: Rooney hits another long pass for Valencia on the right flank, but the Ecuadorian goes back to Smalling, and United have to start again. Christopher Dale writes: “Can we have Fergie back now?” 14 min: This is pretty limp stuff, to be honest. Bournemouth haven’t really strung three passes together in the opposition half, but they look fairly solid at the back. Federici with nothing to do so far. 12 min: Played deep, but too long for everyone. I do love how Blind, a centre-back, takes United’s corner kicks. George Graham would never have allowed Andy Linighan to do that. 12 min: Headed away. Rooney lobs it back in, and Smalling looks interested, but again, it’s behind for a corner. Blind to take. 10 min: It’s been a very low-key start. The Bournemouth fans are making a noise, but the rest of the ground is pretty quiet. Here’s a free kick in a decent position for the home side, though. 8 min: The first ball is repelled by Bournemouth. Then Rooney hits a great long crossfield pass into the vacant left-back slot, but Valencia can’t control. He was offside in any case, but that was a super hit from Rooney. 7 min: Great pass by Mata, over the top, for Martial, in space on the back post. Francis gets back to concede the corner. 5 min: Bournemouth happy to “sit in”, as they say in the parlance. United dominant in possession so far, but the game’s been mostly played in the middle third. 3 min: Valencia feeds Rashford in the inside-right channel, but he can’t quite control, and it’s out of play for a goal kick. 2 min: An extremely mellow start. Carrick playing in the midfield anchor role for the hosts, in what Lee Dixon on commentary describes as a 4-1-4-1 formation. 1 min: It’s the 380th and final game of the Premier League season. Let’s hope it’s the best one! United get us under way. We’re a couple of minutes away. Lots of empty seats at Old Trafford. Some of the Manchester United mascots tonight are wearing blue face paint. That’s because Manchester United love money: Eliot Crowe is channeling Ted Crilly: “I agree with Conal Huetter’s earlier comment. It’s a pathetic state of affairs that the Manchester United manager should be expected, indeed obliged, to go out and win a football match. Down with this sort of thing.” About 10 minutes until kick-off. David de Gea just going through his warm-ups. He’s been outstanding this season, and has 15 clean sheets in 33 games. So strange to consider Sergio Romero started the first four games of the season, but since then De Gea has been unstoppable: where does he rank alongside Peter Schmeichel and Edwin van der Sar? (Look, Gary Walsh is not included in this quiz, OK?) If anyone missed this last week, it’s really worth catching up with: Daniel Taylor on the sad story of Adrian Doherty, Manchester United’s lost genius, and a player so quick and skilful that he had the edge on Ryan Giggs, his youth team contemporary in the early 1990s. “He was out of this world,” admitted Gary Neville. “He could go past people at will,” Giggs said. “He could ride tackles like you wouldn’t believe. He could go inside, outside, play one-twos, pass and move. You know in The Matrix, where everything clicks together, where it’s all happening quickly, but in the character’s head it’s slow motion? It was a bit like that with Doc.” And JR in Illinois is hoping for big things from Chris and Jesse: “Hey Tim, don’t tell me there’s nothing to play for. I’ve got Smalling and Lingard on my fantasy team and am desperately trying to take over first place in my league. Unfortunately, despite a quite heroic comeback in the second half of the season, I’m afraid I need a Smalling brace. A red card and own goal for Martial would help me, too.” Here’s Conal Huetter: “In response to Griff – sadly, I don’t think it is pointless. If United finish sixth, they would have to play Europa League qualifiers in July, possibly requiring them to cancel lucrative friendlies. Wouldn’t surprise me if LvG has orders to make sure that doesn’t happen, even if that hurts our chances in the FA Cup final. Pathetic state of affairs all around.” Hull are 3-0 up against Derby County and can book a playoff final spot at Wembley if they don’t do anything silly. Follow that here with Scott Murray: Griff is fed up: “LVG playing a full strength team in an utterly pointless game days before a cup final. I’m betting on at least three injuries, Martial definitely being one of them.” We’re not expecting a capacity crowd tonight: all tickets have been refunded after Sunday’s postponement, but given the short notice of the re-arrangement, Old Trafford probably won’t be full. Bournemouth have put on some free coaches to transport fans to Manchester, so there should at least be a smattering of away supporters. So Man United name the same team that would have played on Sunday, and it looks pretty strong: Mata, Rooney, Martial and Rashford are all included. Bournemouth make one change: Dan Gosling comes in for Harry Arter, and will partner Andrew Surman in central midfield. Man Utd: De Gea, Valencia, Smalling, Blind, Borthwick-Jackson, Carrick, Mata, Lingard, Rooney, Martial, Rashford. Subs: Jones, Depay, Young, Romero, Ander Herrera, Varela, Andreas Pereira. Bournemouth: Federici, Francis, Elphick, Cook, Daniels, Ritchie, Gosling, Surman, Pugh, Wilson, King. Subs: Gradel, Stanislas, Afobe, Grabban, O’Kane, Holmes, Jordan. Referee: Jon Moss (W Yorkshire) It was a farce. A fiasco. A massive annoyance that wasted everybody’s time. No, I’m not talking about Manchester United’s 2015-16 Premier League campaign – ayyy! – but the bomb that never was: the suspicious package that forced Sunday’s abandonment at Old Trafford, but that actually turned out to be a replica device left behind by a private firm carrying out security exercises. Private companies, eh? Anyway, we’re back at it today, and these sides will resume what they planned to start on Sunday. Not much to play for, really, although United need a point to confirm fifth place from Southampton and a definite spot in the Europa League next season. (They could, of course, get that qualification place next week with victory over Palace in the FA Cup final.) A 19-0 victory would see United overtake City in fourth, but let’s be realistic: this isn’t 1885, and Bournemouth aren’t Bon Accord, so that isn’t going to happen. The Cherries could earn a few extra million quid with victory, and could hasten Louis van Gaal’s departure from Manchester, but they can’t finish any higher than 14th. It’s got all the makings of a mellow end-of-season encounter, which means we could get goals, notwithstanding Man United’s attacking issues. Whether fifth spot and an FA Cup victory will be enough to save LvG is still moot, but the impressive Eddie Howe has no such worries: he’ll be keen to lead Bournemouth to bigger and better things next season, providing the likes of Everton don’t come sniffing in the summer. Kick off is 8pm local time, 3pm ET. Join us! Tim will be here shortly. In the meantime, here’s Paul Wilson on why Manchester United are improving at a snail’s pace: Here’s the question then. If United have a miserly defence and exciting players in attack, how come their season has been such a damp squib, failing to make the Champions League for the second time in three years and setting all sorts of unwanted records for scoreless first halves and negligible totals of shots on target? If Van Gaal’s brief was to steady the ship after the David Moyes season and return United to their rightful place among the giants of Europe, then he has failed, surely? Or at least he has got only half the job done. United are a steady, secure, risk-free operation these days, which is probably why Boycott still likes them, but they do not frighten the big names around Europe any longer. That was starting to be true at the end of Sir Alex Ferguson’s long reign. It was true last season when United qualified for the Champions League but were out of the competition by Christmas and it almost certainly would have been true had Manchester City slipped up at Swansea to allow their neighbours the chance to sneak into the top four this time. Even Manchester United supporters do not much care for the brand of football that has been served up this season. Van Gaal does indeed deserve credit for reducing the age of the side, particularly in attack, and showing confidence in youngsters such as Martial and Rashford but he is right about the lack of creativity in midfield. Between a solid defence and an attacking partnership that is going to get better United appear to have little to offer to hurt opponents or to bring spectators to their feet. They play a safety-first, possession-based game that often seems designed to bore opponents into submission rather than play them off the park. Martial and Rashford have been excellent at sticking away what few opportunities have come their way but just imagine what a plod United’s season would have been without them.
Liz Truss swore to defend the judiciary. But she stood by as they got a roasting We all believe in freedom of speech. But freedom of speech must be exercised responsibly. Last Thursday’s judgment from the high court on article 50 led to artificial hysteria in many quarters. There were headlines declaring that the judges who heard the case were “Enemies of the people”; references alluding to the sexuality of a judge briefly appeared on the Daily Mail’s website; and a member of the cabinet, Sajid Javid, ominously stated that “This is an attempt to frustrate the will of the British people and it is unacceptable”. Many have said that those headlines and comments “crossed the line”. And in our constitution, when judicial independence is threatened, the lord chancellor has a legal duty to intervene. Liz Truss, however, failed to say anything for nearly 48 hours and when she did, she simply recited the principle of the independence of the judiciary and stated the government would be appealing against the judgment. She did not condemn the fact that our judges had been declared “enemies of the people”, nor that the sexuality of a judge had been introduced in to the debate. When Truss took office she swore an oath to uphold the independence of the judiciary and the rule of law. In her speech that day she committed to doing so “with dedication”. The headlines which appeared in a number of newspapers the day after the high court ruling in the article 50 case was the first test of her commitment. On any reasonable measure, she failed that test. That’s not just my view. The former lord chief justice, Lord Judge, was interviewed on Radio 4 on Sunday and said this: “The lord chancellor has a specific function and in this case her responsibility, where there has been vituperative criticism of judges, damaging to public confidence in the administration of justice by an independent judiciary, is to speak up for them and explain exactly what the principles are.” He went on to say about Truss’s response to the attacks: “I think it was a little too late and I think it’s quite a lot too little. Because it doesn’t actually address the damage to public confidence consequent on [these] kind of headlines.” During my 10 years as a lawyer before being elected to parliament and then becoming shadow lord chancellor, there were occasions when I disagreed with – or was disappointed with – judges’ decisions. When I lost a case, I was disappointed. When I won a case, the lawyer on the other side was disappointed. But we would never tolerate our judiciary being declared as “against the people” or a judge’s sexuality being brought into the debate. Anyone is free to disagree with a judge’s decision, their reasoning – or lack of it – or their interpretation of the law. But what is surely unacceptable is attacks on the independence of the judiciary by government ministers and powerful government-backing newspapers. The lord chancellor has a duty to act in these circumstances and she failed. It took a bar council resolution demanding action to draw her into the open. And then she provided a statement carefully crafted to say as little as possible, which has only attracted further criticism. And since then she has remained out of sight. Conservative MPs mindful of the rule of law have criticised her publicly and, reportedly, privately, at a fractious meeting of Tory MPs at which she is supposed to have said that it is the job of the lord chief justice to defend the judiciary. Actually, it is Truss’s statutory responsibility – and the lord chief justice is one of the judges who heard the case and is being maligned. I know Truss has a lot on, given the crisis of violence and underfunding that has developed in our prison service, but for many in the legal community, studied silence on this specific matter means a lord chancellor loses their trust and confidence. Her failure to speak out has consequences: only yesterday afternoon, during a debate on Brexit in the Commons, David Davis repeatedly failed to condemn the headlines when asked. Other MPs have spoken about the judiciary “interfering between parliament and the executive”. Whether it’s respecting the outcome of referendums (even when the result disappoints the Labour party) or defending the independence of the judiciary, Labour is the party of the rule of law. A mature democracy – and a mature government – doesn’t stand by while the judiciary gets a roasting.
Thee Oh Sees: A Weird Exits review – evolving and exhilarating In the latest twist to an always-different, always-the-same discography that romps through garage, punk, kraut, pop and multiple lineup changes, US psychonauts Thee Oh Sees have taken their recent double-drummered live lineup into the studio. As with last year’s Mutilator Defeated At Last, there’s less fuzz than of yore, and a newly gutsy dynamism on the likes of the cymbal-crashing Ticklish Warrior, or the thrashily exhilarating Gelatinous Cube. There’s still plenty of range, as on the stately space psych of Crawl Out from the Fallout or the punch-drunk, organ-drenched anti-love song The Axis. It’s comfortably strange territory, and while it might not open any new or mind-melting doors, Thee Oh Sees remain rampantly good fun.
Peter Gabriel – 10 of the best 1. Solsbury Hill Given the financial hole he was in, and the success of The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway, 1974 was an odd year for Peter Gabriel to hand in his notice as frontman of Genesis. One of the reasons he gave for quitting was odd as well – he claimed he wanted to spend more time in his vegetable patch. While he really had been spending a lot of time tending to cabbages in the garden of his Cotswolds cottage, his daughter Anna-Marie had just been born breech and developed a serious infection. This meant that Gabriel had actually quit to spend more time with his family – but with none of the usual euphemistic implication that this phrase often carries when applied to public figures. During his sabbatical from recording music, he combined caring for a child and tending to his legumes with immersing himself in the study of world religion, art and philosophy, not to mention African, Asian and South American music, as well as becoming an early devotee of punk and post-punk. Like a distance-learning degree in esoteric, international and underground culture both modern and ancient, this would all, sooner or later, influence the second stage of his musical career. But not initially. His first single, Solsbury Hill – released in 1977 – may have kickstarted his solo career but both musically and lyrically this was a line being drawn under his time in Genesis. Against the stirring but simple riff, Gabriel sang of a spiritual awakening/epiphany/supernatural event which caused him to cut connections to the past and stake everything on a fresh roll of the dice. It was, by far , the standout track from his debut album, Peter Gabriel One (aka Car). 2. DIY There is a lot to recommend about Peter Gabriel Two (aka Scratch) which came out in 1978. The singer’s interest in applying inventive studio production techniques and lyrics about esoteric or unusual matters to a mainstream popular music format was starting to pay dividends. The presence of Robert Fripp – nearly always something to celebrate – added colour and verve to the LP, not the least on Exposure, the track he co-authored and to which he liberally applied his Frippertronics. The tracks that really shine the most though are the radio-friendly post-glam cuts that owe a debt to Roxy Music and David Bowie, particularly DIY, a crisp new-wave stomper. 3. Games Without Frontiers Games Without Frontiers, the lead single from Peter Gabriel Three (aka Melt), ties with Sledgehammer as his biggest UK hit; it reached No 4 on release in 1980. Melt is arguably the jewel in Gabriel’s crown and represents the start of his “imperial period” (to borrow Neil Tennant’s phrase to describe an artist’s creative and commercial potential hitting a peak in unison), which would carry on until after the release of his fifth album, So, in 1986. However it wasn’t apparent to everyone 36 years ago that the singer’s stars were aligning. On hearing the LP, Atlantic Records – which distributed him in the US – accused him of committing “commercial suicide” and dropped him. This was something the company regretted almost immediately after Games Without Frontiers became a hit in the UK and started picking up radio play in the US. The song was a (purposefully) childlike take on international affairs with reference to the popular family TV show Jeux Sans Frontières (It’s a Knockout) – and showcased his talent for turning out slick but unusual and highly individual pop songs. 4. Intruder This album track from Melt shocked listeners for a number of reasons. Initially it caused a rupture in music production at the start of the 1980s. To all intents and purposes, it was the first track to foreground the use of gated reverb on the drums. This effect, which gives an intense muscularity to the punchiness of a rhythm while presenting each hit in a pristine separation that borders on sterility, would become the trademark sound of pop in the first half of the 1980s. Gabriel’s version of the story (which has been contested) is that engineer Hugh Padgham came up with the effect as a colouring agent and applied it to Phil Collins’s kit during the sessions for Melt. Gabriel became excited by the idea of pushing the now alien-sounding rhythm to the front of the mix and asked his former bandmate to play a simple pattern without frills; going as far as taking all the metal off the kit. When Collins kept on going to hit drums that were no longer there, they solved the problem by simply adding more toms. The results were brutally impressive. (Collins – along with Padgham and producer Steve Lillywhite – wasted little time in applying the methodology to his own single In the Air Tonight. But popular music is at its most impressive when the message is as impactful as the medium. On Intruder, the scrape of a guitar string sounds like a metallic garrotte being tautened to breaking point as Gabriel sings creepily from the point of view of what appears to be a transvestite housebreaker – and the motivation of sexual assault is hinted at darkly. Whatever is going on, Gabriel’s desired aim of creating “a sense of urgency” is certainly achieved. 5. Biko One of the criticisms often levelled at political songs written by pop stars in the 1980s was that these tracks tended to be ill-focused polemics or even offensive flights of fancy; that they were little more than passing whims of the ill-informed and loosely engaged. Biko, the closing track from Melt, could not have been more specific. The opening lyrics served to root the subject matter – the murder of the black South African anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko – in as specific a geographical, temporal, spatial and political position as possible: “September ’77 / Port Elizabeth, weather fine / It was business as usual / In police room 619.” From 1980 onwards – the year he co-founded Womad – Gabriel would receive flak from some quarters because of his involvement in so-called “world music”. However, Gabriel’s own interest in African music and politics was neither faddish nor shallow. Biko – bookended with recordings of Ngomhla Sibuyayo and Senzeni Na?, as performed at the murdered man’s funeral, and containing the Xhosa chorus of Yehla Moya – remains a dignified memorial to a brave man. 6. The Rhythm of the Heat Gabriel has a knack for writing dynamic but unusual songs that he uses to open his albums. Peter Gabriel Four (aka Security) fits this pattern. Rhythm of the Heat is a slow-burning epic that builds to a climactic tattoo of Ghanaian drums (played by the Ekome Dance Company). The track was originally called Jung in Africa because it related the bizarre story of Swiss analytical psychologist Carl Jung travelling to Kenya and Uganda in 1925 in a bid to understand primitive psychology by meeting culturally isolated natives of those countries. The story goes that when Jung actually came face to face with a ritual ceremony he became terrified and tried to scare the participants away by throwing lit cigarettes at them and shouting. He returned home realising the only insights he had actually gained were into the psychology of Europeans. Gabriel, with a wry sense of self-deprecation, has gamely suggested that parallels can be drawn between this story and his own explorations of African culture and music. 7. Red Rain Early in his career, Gabriel had an idea for a movie called Mozo. One of the elements of the plot concerned a village that was punished by a bloody Old Testament-style deluge, and Red Rain was going to be the music for the opening titles. Movie or no movie, Red Rain still makes for a stirring opening track to his fifth studio album, So. When it was released as a single it was, for no clear reason, a big hit only in America, reaching No 3 on the mainstream rock singles chart. Perhaps the apocalyptic imagery was too heavy for the singles-buying public everywhere else. Either way, the week it hit big among rock fans in the States, thrash metal band Slayer went into the studio to record their career (and extreme metal) defining third album, Reign In Blood with its centrepiece anthem, Raining Blood. Who knows – maybe there was something in the air. 8. Don’t Give Up (with Kate Bush) Gabriel’s biggest hit, Sledgehammer, was a bug-eyed and brashly synthetic reworking of the Stax soul sound and was adopted en masse by the MTV generation, partially because of its eye-catching video. But Gabriel was going through something of a purple patch, and wasn’t short of options when it came to potential singles. Don’t Give Up was another example of him reworking a black American sound in a modern but offbeat manner. This time the style he picked was dustbowl gospel, chosen because lyrically the song was about the mass unemployment of the 1980s in the UK. Gabriel originally wrote the song with Dolly Parton in mind, but she turned down the duet. Kate Bush, who had already appeared as a vocalist on Melt, stepped in and one of the great pop duets of the mid-80s was born. 9. Steam The second single from the 1992 album Us was Gabriel’s last big hit in the UK and the US. It fits roughly in the same mould as Sledgehammer – a brash and funky take on Stax soul – although perhaps “roughly” is the wrong word entirely in this context. By this stage, due in no small part to rock bands such as Primal Scream, the Stone Roses and Happy Mondays incorporating hip-hop and funk-inspired breaks into their sound, this kind of ultra-slick Prince and INXS-leaning pop was starting to sound anachronistic. Judged on its own merits, though, Steam is copper-bottomed radio magic. 10. Darkness Gabriel’s last studio album proper, Up (released in 2002), was inspired by his fears regarding world politics and his ruminations on his own mortality. The track Sky Blue alone apparently took him a decade to finish writing. However there were still plenty of moments of studio inspiration to surprise the listener such as the opening track, Darkness. Its high-contrast, dynamic combination of reflective piano ballad with Nine Inch Nails/Outside-era Bowie strength industrial metal bombast reflects the turbulent process of someone confronting their most primal fears. Single-LP editions of the first five Peter Gabriel albums, and double-LP editions of US and Up, all half-speed remastered and cut at 33rpm, will be released on Real World on 2 December.
I'm a hospital consultant and I worry about five-day junior doctor strikes I am worried. Nothing new, you might say, for a consultant working in acute medicine at a busy district general hospital. This time it is not about the acutely unwell patient in front of me but about the announcement by the British Medical Association junior doctor committee (BMA JDC) that junior doctors in England may take part in more industrial strike action. Five days a month of rolling strikes during which there will be withdrawal of all cover from 8am-5pm. These are planned to happen from October onwards unless the government stops the imposition of the junior doctor contract. As well as being worried I am puzzled. Back in May 2016 the JDC recommended to its members that they accept the new contract, the now leader of the JDC saying at the time it was safe for patients and junior doctors. Despite this the contract was rejected by the membership due to ongoing concerns about weekend pay and people who work part-time. The membership and the rest of us have been waiting to see what would happen next. Junior doctors tell me they do not even know what would need to change within the contract for the BMA JDC to be happy with it. This is surely a damning insight into the BMA’s lack of communication and leadership at such a critical time. Then the announcement of the longest and most severe set of strikes the NHS has experienced are announced. They appear to be completely out of proportion to the issues that the BMA JDC and its membership still have with the contract. It is not even the whole contract they want rewriting, but elements of it. Despite that, NHS trusts will have to cancel elective procedures, outpatient appointments and draw up emergency rotas if the strikes go ahead. While the BMA has issues with the employer and the employment contract, it will inevitably be the staff and patients caught in the middle of the strikes who will suffer the most. I am worried about my junior doctor colleagues, many of whom are starting to lose faith in their trade union, the BMA, but fear repercussions if they voice these concerns. They tell me they cannot see how a full strike will help them. They are stressed as they realise the impact of such strike action. They are battling with ethical and moral dilemmas with many not knowing what to do for the best. Some will lose money during the strike making it hard for them and their families financially. Is this really what the BMA JDC intended? There may be a BMA hardship fund for those junior doctors worst affected but there is no hardship fund to support the staff left behind with added stress and work to contend with at an already busy time of year. I feel the BMA JDC have convinced the membership that the issues of NHS under funding, seven-day services etc can be all put together into the justification for the proposed strike. Many junior doctors tell me they do not want to strike this time – they are in a profession that cares for patients and they fear harm will come to patients during a full and protracted strike. Did any of the voting that junior doctors took part in earlier this year really give the BMA JDC the mandate for these current proposed strikes? While other NHS staff will provide all the cover and care they can for patients during the strikes, it is clear that patient harm is a real and valid concern. Junior doctors also feel their training could be extended if they miss more than 14 days of work in a year, which is a possibility. What damage is being done to the profession in the public’s eyes? Public support for junior doctors feels as if it is a surrogate for public distrust of the government. The medical profession is one of the most trusted professions but with industrial action planned, the public support will not last forever. In every strand of this I worry about the patients who will be unduly affected by this strike. They did not ask for this, they have no contract of employment to negotiate; they simply want to be cared for by the NHS. If you would like to write a blogpost for Views from the NHS frontline, read our guidelines and get in touch by emailing sarah.johnson@theguardian.com. Join the Healthcare Professionals Network to read more pieces like this. And follow us on Twitter (@GdnHealthcare) to keep up with the latest healthcare news and views.
The 'human sensor' making Manchester's air pollution visible Heads turn when media artist Kasia Molga and her performers walk the streets of Manchester. When they near buses belching diesel fumes, their futuristic capes and masks turn a bright red. Near a park they go green. Depending on the traffic pollution levels in the northern industrial city, their clothing pulses, flashes and changes colour from purple through to white. Molga calls herself a “human sensor”. She has linked with atmospheric scientists at King’s College London to develop clothing that reacts to the minute particles (PM2.5s) emitted mainly by diesel engines. A pocket-sized aerosol monitor linked to a GPS watch and a tiny Raspberry Pi computer allows pollution data collected in the street to communicate with LED lights embedded in the artists’ capes and masks. The data cannot yet be broadcast by the clothing in real time but information collected a few hours previously is used. “The reaction has been amazing. People quickly realise it’s to do with the air and breathing. Many passers-by have been surprised and concerned that the changing colours on the costumes mean that they can ‘see’ the air pollution for the first time,” said Molga. “I realised that my own body is the best sensor for the environmental changes around me. The act of breathing is a very intimate action – an interface which connects our inner bodies to the outside.” Because air pollution, climate change and so many other environmental problems are largely invisible, artists are increasingly working with scientists to communicate the hazards of everyday life. “It is really important for artists and scientists to work together,” said King’s College senior air quality analyst, Andrew Grieve. “The big challenge we have is that air pollution is mostly invisible. Art helps to makes it visible. We are trying to bring air pollution into the public realm. Scientific papers in journals work on one level, but this is a way to bring it into the street where the public is.” The development of hi-tech clothing is expected to lead to big societal change, said Prof Frank Kelly, director of the Environmental Research Group at King’s. “Here it is being used in a really positive way – making dangerous air pollutants visible. The problem we have as scientists is people cannot see the problem.” In a separate development, 16 children and teachers at East Barnet secondary school in London have this week been issued with portable air pollution sensors enabling the school to generate live air pollution data from both inside the classroom and on routes to and from the school. The monitors, from London technology startup Drayson Technologies, measure carbon monoxide. The data will be fed into a time-lapse heat map that will show the pollution levels in realtime. “We are extremely conscious of the issue of pollution and are keen to raise awareness of it among our children, parents and staff. This will enable us to understand the quality of the air inside, and around our school, and help us to devise a strategy to ensure our pupils have a minimal exposure to pollution,” said Stuart Owen, head of science at the school. A May report on London air pollution showed that 433 of London’s 1,777 primary schools were in areas where pollution concentrations breached EU limits. Outdoor air pollution is now one of the biggest killers in the world and responsible for nearly 9,500 deaths a year in London. In the world’s cities, it has has grown by 8% in the past five years, according to the World Health Organisation.
Johnny Marr unveils details of autobiography, Set the Boy Free Johnny Marr has unveiled details of his autobiography, entitled Set the Boy Free. The guitarist says his aim in his debut book is to channel the experience of “transcendence”, writing in a statement: “I wanted to convey a feeling of breaking free, that has been a constant throughout my life.” It is, he wrote, “a feeling that expresses itself as escape and discovery … I found it through rock’n’roll and art, and a journey living both in the modern world.” Born in 1963 in Manchester to Irish parents, Marr set up his first band aged 13 while living on a council estate in Wythenshawe. In the early 80s, he met and formed a band with Morrissey. Their inimitable song-writing partnership defined the Smiths until Marr left the group in 1987. Marr’s first foray into prose writing may cover his time in the Smiths and his relationship with Morrissey. It might also delve into his work in Electronic, his group with Bernard Sumner, his experience as a solo artist and his collaborations with the Pretenders, Hans Zimmer, the The, Modest Mouse and the Cribs. “For the last few years, as I’ve been out on tour promoting my solo work, fans and journalists have been asking me when I’ll write my book,” the guitarist said of in 2015. “I’m happy to say that the time has come to tell my story.” Set the Boy Free will be published three years after his former bandmate Morrissey’s bestselling autobiography – entitled Autobiography. Asked after its releasewhy he hadn’t read it, Marr said : “I don’t know about you, but I’ve got a lot of books to get through.” Set the Boy Free will be published in hardback, eBook and as an audiobook on 3 November.
Oscars 2017: five things we've learned about this year's race from Toronto La La Land is a major contender Since it world-premiered as the opening night film of the Venice film festival, Damien Chazelle’s big hearted love letter to Los Angeles has continued to buzz as a major awards contender. Reviews were largely glowing out of the gate (in Venice, The ’s Peter Bradshaw declared it a “sun-drenched musical masterpiece”). Even Tom Hanks, an Academy member, is a fan: while attending the Telluride film festival, he acted as La La Land’s unofficial mascot, when he was supposed to be touting his performance in Clint Eastwood’s Sully. La La Land cemented its status as the major breakout this festival season with Sunday’s win of Toronto’s People’s Choice award which, while decided by cinemagoers, has become a reliable indicator of Oscar glory. Previous winners have included American Beauty, Silver Linings Playbook, The King’s Speech, Slumdog Millionaire, 12 Years a Slave, Precious and last year’s Room, which went on to score a surprise four nominations at the Oscars and a best actress win for Brie Larson. The Academy has been known to love films about its own industry, and in that regard, La La Land fits the bill. Emma Stone plays a struggling actor, whose relationship with her jazz pianist boyfriend (Ryan Gosling) becomes strained when his career begins to overtake hers. Chazelle’s swooning execution makes it the most audacious ode to Hollywood since The Artist, which swept to success in 2012. It’s still early to gauge if La La Land will follow in that silent film’s footsteps. So far, the chances appear to be in its favour. The best actress race is stacked Out of La La Land’s lovesick pair, Stone has emerged as the MVP. She anchors the film as the feisty Mia, showcasing all of her best assets as an actor: she’s wry when the script calls for it, devastating in a final number, and altogether charming. It’s a winning performance – and the best of her already impressive career. Stone beat Natalie Portman (who’s also drawing her best-ever reviews for her terrific portrayal of Jacqueline Kennedy in Pablo Larraín’s Jackie) for best actress honours at Venice. But as potential Oscar narratives go, the two are being pegged as this year’s major rivals. Portman hasn’t acted much since winning her Oscar for Black Swan in 2011. She proves that victory was no fluke with a galvanising turn as Kennedy immediately before and following John F Kennedy’s assassination, that’s sure to impress voters for its technical proficiency (Portman thoroughly nails Kennedy’s breathy and docile-sounding voice, without letting the affectations get the better of her), while also appealing to their emotions. The two aren’t the only to impress this season. Rebecca Hall did a victory lap in Toronto months after debuting her dark character Christine in Sundance. Hall is fearless as Christine Chubbuck, the news anchor who achieved notoriety in the 70s for killing herself on live TV. The filmwill probably prove too grim to factor strongly into the discussion, but Hall deserves a major shot. The same goes for Rooney Mara in Una. The two-hander about a confrontation between a woman and the man who sexually abused her as a child didn’t set Toronto aflame. Her performance, however, is too charged to ignore. Amy Adams meanwhile had a fabulous week, earning major plaudits for her varied work in Denis Villeneuve’s brainy sci-fi Arrival and Tom Ford’s sleek thriller Nocturnal Animals. She’s sure to have a busy few months ahead. The Birth of a Nation is still on shaky ground Nate Parker’s The Birth of a Nation entered Toronto so clouded in controversy it probably never stood a chance of reclaiming the glory of its Sundance debut, where it sold to Fox Searchlight for a record sum and ignited Oscar buzz as the film that would combat recent #OscarsSoWhite controversy at next year’s ceremony. For a moment, however, the Nat Turner biopic seemed poised to come close. Similar to Sundance, The Birth of a Nation was greeted by a lengthy standing ovation in Toronto, even amid the rape allegations that have threatened to derail the film’s chances of entering the awards race. Everything appeared to be going so smoothly – that was until Parker took part in a press conference following its rapturous screening, where he uncomfortably chose to evade any questions regarding the 17-year-old case. Ultimately for Parker, there’s no escaping his past. Moonlight is soaring With The Birth of a Nation floundering, Barry Jenkins’s Moonlight stands to become the needed lighting rod to put an end to #OscarsSoWhite. It’s a tougher overall sell: it tells a micro story, focusing on a black gay man at three stages over his life. But ecstatic reviews prove it’s a hit with discerning audiences. There’s no denying its power. Harvey Weinstein is back in the mix The producer, once considered the king of awards season, has in recent years been flailing a bit. Last year, he failed to earn Todd Haynes’s Carol a best picture nomination. In fact, no films from his company made the cut in a major blow for Weinstein, who hasn’t seen a film from his company net the industry’s biggest honour since The Artist. By all accounts, Garth Davis’s directorial debut Lion will bring Weinstein back into the fold. The Academy gravitates towards inspirational and fact-based stories, and Lion has a great one: Dev Patel plays a young man adopted as a child who uses Google Maps to track down the family he left in India. The film generated a prolonged ovation at its premiere, as well as enthusiastic reviews from critics usually immune to such tales. It proved its hold by coming in as the runner-up for the People’s Choice award. If Weinstein plays his cards right, he’ll be back on terra firma in no time.
Football insiders claim world game is ‘endemically corrupt’ in player transfers A starlet at a Premier League club is to be promoted to the first team. His agent has represented him since the age of 16 and they enjoy a good relationship. Then, the manager informs a different registered intermediary (the official term) the player will be catapulted from earning a few hundred pounds a week into the £20,000-a-week bracket. What else is the intermediary, who does not represent the young hopeful, told? Dan Chapman, a lawyer and intermediary at Full Contact, a sports law firm, takes up the story. “This manager says: ‘There will be a new contract on the table for him [the player]. It’s massive. That means his agent is going to pick up a nice fee. But what I want is to destabilise the relationship between player and agent. The big agent’s fee will go to you instead.’ “The proposed new agent, who’s never spoken to the player in his life, thinks: ‘How can I destabilise him?’” Once it was discovered that two of the player’s family members were out of work, Chapman says that both were given expensive gifts and told “‘You need to persuade your boy to sign with this guy,’ not withstanding that’s in breach of contract. It ended up in a court dispute and a settlement.” According to the various agents, lawyers, academics and other industry insiders the spoke with during this investigation, the episode Chapman relates is one of a countless number that contributes to their view football is “endemically corrupt”. What also emerged was a concern more could be done by key stakeholders such as the Football Association, Premier League, English Football League, League Managers Association, and Professional Footballers’ Association. During the investigation it was repeatedly claimed all are reluctant to take responsibility for eradicating widespread bad practices despite having a duty of care to their respective members and this alleged inactivity potentially leading to millions of pounds in illicit payments. When contacted, the various bodies denied this. The Premier League, EFL, PFA and FA said they take governance of the game particularly seriously. The Premier League referred to a joint statement, issued a fortnight ago with the EFL and FA, which said: “Any substantive allegations will be investigated with the full force of the rules at our disposal, which are wide‑ranging and well-developed.” The LMA told the : “Alongside the FA and other principal stakeholders we want to fully investigate any and all substantive allegations of corruption, quickly and comprehensively.” The FA pointed to its integrity unit, which handles any accusation of wrongdoing and how full transparency and disclosure is offered where possible. The PFA chief executive, Gordon Taylor, said: “The PFA is committed to removing any form of corruption from the game and will support any positive efforts by the relevant stakeholders in this area.” Chapman is certain the FA could do far more. Regarding the incidents such as one involving the starlet, he says: “Potentially there are civil matters there – breach of contract. And criminal. It also breaches FA regulations to make a payment to a third party to obtain a client. “ Any agent could give many examples when this happens. It has happened at our agency. You go to the FA and report it. They’ll just say: ‘No hard evidence, it’s all circumstantial, we can’t do anything about it – sorry.’” Again, the FA denied this, saying it investigates any known incident where possible. Andy Evans is a lawyer and founder of World in Motion, an agency that has represented players and clubs since 1997. His clients include the Manchester United defender Chris Smalling, and Chelsea. Evans is insistent the FA abdicated responsibility in April 2015 when Fifa devolved power over agents to individual associations. “The FA refused to enter meaningful discussion with anybody on the agents’ side,” he says. “The FA was given a chance to regulate by Fifa. They had it all in their own hands: whatever systems, whatever regulations they wanted, to regulate the transfer system, the conduct of agents. And they chose to do the bare minimum and, significantly, to adopt a far less regulated system than the one previously in place. “The FA opted to implement standard pro-forma documents and chose to absolve themselves of any real responsibility in the policing of the transfer system. They removed the entrance exam, which was a real barrier to entry with only 10% of candidates passing, and they opened it up to a £500 fee, basically saying: ‘Give us £500 and you can be a professional.’ You can’t imagine a similar system of licensing in the legal, accounting, financial services sector or any profession that values the role of the adviser. “There is now this unsatisfactory situation, for example, where the FA does not review any contracts submitted between player and agent prior to lodging it – accepting it – as a contract. This offers no protection to the player from unscrupulous agents and allows multiple agency agreements to be in place at any one time. “There was reportedly a deal in the summer transfer window where there were at least seven lodged contracts for one particular player alone. So the FA reportedly accepted seven representation contracts. Whose fault is this? Clearly the player. But how can that be any form of reliable, functioning system?” The FA acknowledged multiple contracts may be lodged but stated this is the player’s responsibility. The governing body also pointed to its instigation of a maximum two-year contract with a representative as material evidence of a wish to safeguard a footballer’s welfare. Dr Giambattista Rossi is the coauthor of Sports Agents and Labour Markets and a lecturer at Birkbeck, University of London. He believes European football’s governing body failed to show leadership in April 2015. “I blame Uefa. They should have stood up and said: ‘We are the best example of football in the world – in terms of governance, transparency, whatever – so let’s prepare a proposal to regulate agents at least at European level. And then, in China, Brazil, wherever, they [will] want to follow us because the main turnover of transfers is in Europe.’ “There is something to regulate but everybody is wanting to stand back and doesn’t want to regulate. From the European perspective, football is a competitive industry - agents are considered as any recruitment company and these people are [usually] regulated. A very banal example: if you operate in the stock exchange market you need to be licensed: yes or no? Of course, because you are dealing with money, you require integrity, transparency, a certain level of trust. “Since 2006 everybody is saying: ‘Look, the turnover is increasing’ and the fact it is not controlled is ridiculous. This has always happened because these are agreements everybody can do: simply a manager saying: ‘OK, I’ll buy that player, I will help you, you will give me under the table this amount of money.’ This has always existed. What is surprising is people are probably still shocked.” Liz Ellen is the head of sport at the legal firm Mishcon de Reya, which advises a wide range of clubs. These have included Cardiff City when the transfers of the former manager Malky Mackay were investigated two years ago. The Football Association announced in July 2015 it would not charge Mackay with any offence. Ellen believes there is a sense of entitlement in football. “If I bring in a new piece of work I would never expect any kind of kickback,” she says. “Too often in football it is seen as a natural consequence that when a deal happens someone should get something for it.” Ellen believes a sea change is required. “There’s got to be an actual shift in approach. They don’t accept that what they’re doing is wrong. They don’t see the victim in it. People need to be scared of being caught. “I qualified as an agent before I started as a lawyer. I’ve never worked as an agent, I’ve always done it as a lawyer because I’ve found in the industry too inherently corrupt to allow people to act transparently. “The industry is so twisted that for the many agents who want to do it right they’re pushed out of it in favour of agents who will do it the other way or they will lose players because the parents have been bunged something. “We had a situation where one of the very top young talents was represented by an independent agent. He was a really good guy – he would send him autobiographies and DVDs of players he could learn from. On the cusp of a very substantial deal, his first as a professional, which this agent had negotiated by himself, a family member appeared from nowhere and convinced the player to go with a different agent. There can be no sense in that. And the money that’s paid to the family member comes from the club, which comes from the fan.” She remembers Cardiff owner, Vincent Tan, said that when corruption is proved: “‘It’s the fans who are losing out.’ If someone is spending millions on players they shouldn’t be buying, that comes from fans. “The governing bodies don’t particularly want to look into it because they know it’s a big can of worms.” Ellen, like others the spoke to, is also concerned about duality. “It wouldn’t be allowed in any other industry. You don’t have an estate agent who acts for and is paid by both sides,” she says. “That again is a problem of regulation. It was banned for a short time then reintroduced. The reason? Because they thought if they don’t make it something allowed, people will do it anyway, under the table. That’s not the answer. If it’s something you shouldn’t do, you shouldn’t do it. Managers’ agents shouldn’t be representing players as well. There should be a strict distinction. I can give many examples of where the manager’s agent is representing half of the team as well.” City of London police are reviewing the Daily Telegraph’s evidence of its claims regarding Sam Allardyce, Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink, Eric Black, Tommy Wright and Harry Redknapp. This, as Taylor points out, is in conjunction with the FA as “the regulator of the game”. Chapman believes the police should be more active. “Why on earth didn’t the FA investigate that illegal payments were flying around? They were aware that case was going to court,” he says of the starlet. “Why are people not being put in prison? Until someone is put behind bars I don’t think people will take it seriously because most disputes end up being resolved with financial settlements.” Allardyce lost his job as the England manager for, in part, offering advice on how to bypass third-party ownership. TPO is banned yet the was told repeatedly that if facilitated correctly, it offers a career opportunity to a player that may not have been available. The practice is accepted as the norm in South America, while in Europe the Spanish and Portuguese football authorities were against its eradication, which occurred in May 2015. Marcos Motta is a TPO expert who advised on Neymar’s move to Barcelona from Santos in 2013. He was also a lawyer for MSI, the company that brokered a deal with West Ham United in August 2006 to take Carlos Tevez and Javier Mascherano to the club. The lines remain blurred as Fifa allows an agent a lump sum of any future transfer fee but not a percentage as the latter is considered TPO. Motta says: “TPO is part of the game so let’s regulate it. Why try to close the door to investors? The Sam Allardyce affair shows the system has failed – the ban has failed, it does not work. When there is vast money around you need proper regulation, transparency. When you try to ban a process people try to circumvent it. “TPO is a kind of commercial and financial tool that has been used by South American clubs for a long time. We South Americans do not have this wide range of revenues that European clubs have. We have our assets – players. The very first time European clubs had the contact with the concept of TPO was the Tevez-Mascherano affair, which I was involved in because I was one of the lawyers of MSI in Brazil. “The concept then spread throughout Europe by agents and clubs and investors. But there was nothing illegal – all these tools were used in Brazil under the strict commercial codes and rules of taxation. “I had a chance to be part of the Fifa working group that ultimately banned TPO on a worldwide scale. This was during the Brazil World Cup in 2014. In the subsequent meetings in Switzerland the following November the working group was divided in terms of vision. “On our side, which was not for banning TPO, I represented South America. There was also Daniel Lorenz, of Porto, a club that was very good in working TPO, and Javier Tebas, the president of La Liga. On the other side there were David Gill, representing Uefa, and FifPro. They based their claim on first, a kind of modern slavery which was also in a speech give by Mr Platini [former Uefa president]. “I am a sports lawyer since 1996 and have participated in deals like Ronaldo, Robinho, Roberto Carlos, Neymar, Fernandinho, the twins at Manchester United [Rafael and Fabio da Silva] – more than 300 deals. And more than once I saw these collapse simply because the player didn’t want to go. So ultimately players control their own career. So, modern slavery? I cannot agree with that. Secondly they were saying the money was not staying in the game. It’s not staying in the game if you have banning. Because if you have proper transparency and security on TPO for the investor and they experience spectacular returns of course they will reinvest. “For me the issue is that players in South America were becoming costly. I experienced issues in Brazil in which European clubs came here and said: ‘We want to buy your starlet for X-million euros’ and the Brazilian club needing money, accepted. “With TPO in place we have new guests at the table, which are the investors. So we have meetings where clubs say: ‘No, we don’t want to sell this player for this amount because this amount we already have from this investor. So we need more money.’ And this can double, triple the price.” Motta’s opinion that there is confusion regarding TPO was reflected in a wider view of a lack of knowledge within the industry. Evans says: “I strongly believe there should be ongoing learning for agents as there is in the legal practice. For example, ask the vast majority of the new intermediaries what the new work permit regulations are and they wouldn’t have a clue. Ask a significant number the basic premises of contract law and they would not be able to answer. “There is a need for a strong agents’ association that has commercial and trade specific codes of practice. Intermediaries in football have been allowed to walk through a gate for £500. The FA have allowed that to happen. It’s actually shameful: what other regulatory body would allow that?” Ellen is clear what should be done. “Football tries to regulate itself. It’s not an industry that invites external scrutiny,” she says. “It’s the opposite: they try to do everything to make sure politicians don’t get involved or the police or whoever it may be. On the one hand they [the police] are generally shut out of the game, on the other is it a priority for them? Is it something they can easily follow? “Often the people who know what’s going on are the people who are implicated. So anyone who has evidence is someone who has done something wrong so you struggle to pin down the hard evidence you need to go forward with it. “If you take Cardiff as example – we managed to get a search order. That’s the only time so far [in football]. And that’s because you happened to have an owner who wanted to investigate alleged corruption. “Now you’ll find there are a lot of clubs who know there is an issue and they don’t want to look into it, they don’t want to find out what’s gone on. In terms of actual scrutiny clubs should have much more visibility of what their staff are doing. If you were really going for it you’d say that all of your managers give full disclosure of bank accounts, their emails, phone records, everything – at the start and on an ongoing basis. Clubs wouldn’t dare ask for it and most managers wouldn’t give it. At the moment you’ve got that impasse where people don’t really want to get to the bottom of the problem.”
How would Salesforce, Google and Disney benefit from buying Twitter? Twitter is being sold to Disney. No, Microsoft. No, Salesforce. No, Alphabet. The troubled, often controversial microblogging service is suddenly the prettiest tech company at the dance, with suitors clandestinely announced through media outlets including Bloomberg and CNBC throughout the weekend and into Monday morning. None have yet confessed they are serious. Twitter closed at $18.63 per share on Thursday, the day before the rumors started; by the time the bell rang on Monday afternoon, the stock had reached heights of $23.37, up further than the stock has been since January. Each sale has its apparent advantages – the Salesforce and Alphabet negotiations were initiated by Twitter executives themselves, according to Reuters. Alphabet has been trying to get into social media since the good old days when it was called Google, with Google Wave, Google Buzz and more recently Google+. Microsoft’s incentives would seem to be similar – the company’s recent $26.2bn acquisition of LinkedIn points toward a more aggressive social media strategy. Brian Weiser of Pivotal Research Group told investors the purchase made sense for Google, whose “moonshot” investments in long-lead engineering and social projects may seem frivolous to investors. “We would argue that an acquisition of Twitter would be far better a use of capital than sitting on cash or on investing more in an unrelated business such as, let’s say, Google Fiber or self-driving cars,” Weiser wrote. “There is also the value of securing access to data associated with tweets, as this data can benefit Google’s search product. For Alphabet, the question of the appropriateness of an acquisition is simply one of value.” Salesforce can also incorporate the kind of data that Twitter generates into its software. Twitter’s acquisition would be closer to a merger for Salesforce, which is a far smaller company than Google. With respect to Disney, the ballgame is much different. The company’s ownership of ABC and ABC News, as well as ESPN, suddenly puts every news organization that uses the service to promote, source and engage with news coverage under the aegis of a single news organization-controlling outlet. “The risk to Twitter is that ownership by one news-gathering organization might cause competitors (ie Fox News, CNN, NBC, CBS) to refrain from using the platform or favor a competitor such as Facebook, potentially leading to fewer users of the platform,” Weiser wrote. “However, we can imagine how usage could hold up or even improve if managed well, meaning that an acquisition could still make sense even if many of its contributors relied on the platform less in the future.”
Readers recommend playlist: songs about interlopers Below is this week’s playlist – the theme and tunes picked by a reader from the comments on last week’s callout. Thanks for your suggestions. Read more about the format of the weekly Readers Recommend series at the end of the piece. It seems “interlopers” as a theme had one or two of our community reaching for the dictionary, and a couple more wondering if it wasn’t too narrow a topic. Aw, come on folks, you should know by now, there’s no such thing as a topic “too narrow” for RR. Sure enough, by nomination deadline on Monday, we’d had any number of invaders and intruders, secret lovers and cuckolds, saints and sinners, loners, loonies and even the odd lupus – “becoming involved in a social group without being asked” (Cambridge English Dictionary), since you ask. But at the risk of sounding a bit Royston Vasey, are those really the kind of people we want around our locale? OK, we certainly wouldn’t want to actually make friends with some of these characters. Veruca Salt’s interloper is hopefully only passing through: “You’re So Weird, I’m terrified”. At least that type of unwelcome visitor is easy to spot. Peter Gabriel’s isn’t, but he’s been identified somehow: “You may look like we do, Talk like we do, But you know how it is, You’re Not One of Us”. Michael Kiwanuka doesn’t need anyone to tell him he’s an interloper; he’s singing it from the rooftops for himself. But isn’t it sad that here in 2016, we know what he means by the phrase “Black Man In A White World”? If you’ll pardon the pun, Tricky’s the man to turn those tables. If Hell Is Round the Corner, then it would be too easy wander into “a place where [one] is considered not to belong” (Oxford dictionary definition of Interloper). The trip-hop vibe belies the lyrical threat within. There is an even more self-serving interloper hidden by an even gentler piece of music in our next selection. On Hearing The First Cuckoo in Spring, composed by Bradford’s Frederick Delius in 1912, makes the A-list here on both topic-fit and superstitious grounds – the daughter I take my blogname from has her audition at the Delius Music school next month *fingers crossed*. And, pushing my luck, I’m going to stay in Bradford to give you the next artist for our list: it’s New Model Army with Higher Wall, an edifice built on greed and fear, which is trying to keep the interlopers out. But what happens if the interloper is already inside, yet unseen? Spookily, it seems there may be A Different Bob (Colorblind James Experience) in Chuck Cuminale’s life already. And in the Cure’s Charlotte Sometimes, there are two interlopers exchanging places. Two personal favourites now. Hothouse Flowers’ Ballad of Katie was the first song that came to mind when I was discussing this topic idea, so I’m grateful to billycutshaw for recommending it. And next, at last, all those bloggers habitually nominating Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Gimme Three Steps can finally stand down – it’s in! Ronnie Van Zandt’s good-time seeking interloper leaves at the first opportunity he gets, having learned “it ain’t no fun, starin’ straight down a .44”. Maybe sometimes it’s best to just go, never look back, and put it down to experience once you’ve learned You’re Not Welcome Here (Phantom Planet), eh BlackCombe? But I don’t want to finish on a downer. The joy of RR is that interlopers of all types have been, perversely, made welcome by our community this week, and my final selection has that vibe by the bucketload. Carbon Based Lifeforms’ Interloper may be in an alien land, but this wonderful instrumental just drew me in and wrapped me in sounds that I’ve repeat-played more than any other song this week. I like it here; I think I’ll stay a while … New theme The theme for next week’s playlist will be announced at 8pm (UK time) on Thursday 16 June. You have until 11pm on Monday 20 June to make nominations. Here’s a reminder of some of the guidelines for RR: If you have a good theme idea, or if you’d like to volunteer to compile a playlist from readers’ suggestions and write a blog about it, please email matthew.holmes@theguardian.com or add it here via Witness. There’s a wealth of data on RR, including the songs that are “zedded”, at the Marconium. It also tells you the meaning of “zedded”, “donds” and other strange words used by RR regulars. Many RR regulars also congregate at the ’Spill blog.
New band of the week: Little Scream (No 110) – pop and prog collide in a cinematic adventure Hometown: Montreal. The lineup: Laurel Sprengelmeyer (voice, instruments). The background: You might not have heard of Laurel Sprengelmeyer, AKA Little Scream, but you will know some of the people featured on her new album, Cult Following. It was co-produced by Sprengelmeyer in tandem with Arcade Fire’s Richard Reed Parry, and Mary Margaret O’Hara, Sufjan Stevens, Sharon Van Etten, Aaron and Bryce Dessner from the National, Owen Pallett and Kyp Malone of TV on the Radio all make cameos. Not that their appearances are evident: if anything, they quietly submit to Little Scream’s vision, happily lending their skills along the way as they enter her world. It’s a world where pop and prog, folk and funk happily coexist with alternately lush and eerie soundscapes. Sprengelmeyer has described Cult Following’s predecessor, The Golden Record, as “a bedroom adventure”. This one is way more ambitious, singular and cinematic. As she admits, “I pushed myself to go further on all fronts.” Sprengelmeyer, a thirtysomething Dubuque, Iowa, native who “grew up in a kind of Christian religious cult” as a Jehovah’s Witness, conceived of Cult Following – the clue is in the title – after visiting a friend who lived in a small environmentalist community on an old coconut plantation in a remote area of northern Brazil. It had many of the trappings of a quasi-religious sect. And while some members of the community focused on the dilemmas and joys of living off the land, others began following a local charismatic leader and eschewed regular eating practices, existing instead on a diet of sunlight (and various fruit juices) and reading each other’s auras and interpreting each other’s dreams. She could see the attraction of it all, as well as its potentially fatal allure: “It was as compelling as it was absurd,” she said. “I became very aware of the entropy of belief. You could feel the magnetism of ideas take shape and pull people into their centre like a black hole … a thing so filled with light that its own gravity means that none of it can escape.” On Cult Following, Sprengelmeyer explores her feelings about the nature and repercussions of belief, and her responses to her experiences in the commune. A classically trained oil painter who does her own artwork, she has envisioned it as a single, large piece in which tracks bleed from one to the other as though part of a giant canvas. But it’s not just something to hang on a gallery wall and distantly admire. She hasn’t allowed her confusions and doubts to interfere with her intention to make gloriously accessible music. There are big pop choruses here, reminders of anthemic 80s rock, as well as ambient textures worthy of Eno. St Vincent fans will love it, but it’s Prince whom she mostly had in mind. In an interview with Exclaim, Sprengelmeyer described the album as her attempt at making Purple Rain as if it was “done by a midwestern girl with more of a folk upbringing”. Indeed, three of the songs were mixed by Prince’s collaborator, David Z, at Sunset Sound Recorders where Purple Rain was mixed (although the tracks were not eventually used). Cult Following is at once eclectic and “of a piece”: it has the feel of a concept. There is continuity and consistency even though each track is different. It is coherent even as it darts from ambient and angular to aggressive folktronica to funkadelia. Welcome to the Brain is the fanfare, ushering you into Little Scream’s personal universe. Love as a Weapon is falsetto pop-funk, like Annie Clark doing Stayin’ Alive at Paisley Park. Dark Dance is Madonna and Bruce dancing in the dark. Introduction to Evan is 30 seconds of itchy, scratchy Jive Talkin’ guitar and noise overload. Evan is a husky rocker that builds from a ballad to a frenzied tumult. “I’ll be here in your prayers,” she croaks, the religious connotations clear even if what she is saying about the subject isn’t. Aftermath is one minute of brooding atmospherics, after which the album takes a turn for the experimental. Goodbye Every Body is a misty mix of ghostly wails and vapour trails. Just as the music shifts – often within songs as much as from song to song – so too does her voice. On Wishing Well she is a choir of weeping muses; on The Kissing she goes from a whisper to a scream. This is an artist in flux, in constant motion, searching for answers and finding many in her own music. On Love Is a Weapon she reminds herself as much as anyone else: “Just remember your greatest gift is to dance.” There is wit as well as whimsy and wonder on Cult Following, a quirky, affecting, richly detailed album that deserves more than its title. The buzz: “The sheer audacity of Little Scream’s unbridled exploration is enough to force any listener to engage with this album.” The truth: She’s the Mont-real McCoy. Most likely to: Incite communal glee. Least likely to: Live on a commune. What to buy: Little Scream is at the Sebright Arms in London on Monday 4 July. Cult Following is available on Merge. File next to: St Vincent, Ladyhawke, Stevie Nicks, Prince. Links: facebook.com/littlescream Ones to watch: The Lemon Twigs, Face, Yehan Jehan, Chain Wallet, Club Kuru.
Sturgeon calls for unity in Scotland and tells UK government: 'Get a grip' Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, called on Scotland to move forward “in a spirit of unity and national purpose” as she condemned the leadership vacuum in Westminster. In her first statement to the Holyrood parliament since last week’s EU referendum result Sturgeon called on the UK government to “get a grip”. “These are times that call for principles, purpose and clarity – in short, for leadership. That is why the vacuum that has developed at Westminster is so unacceptable,” she told the Holyrood chamber. Speaking in advance of an emergency debate in which she urged MSPs to back her efforts to protect Scotland’s place in Europe, Sturgeon warned: “One thing is clear: there cannot be three months of drift while both the government and main opposition parties at Westminster immerse themselves in internal elections. That would compound the difficult situation we are already facing and risk even more damage to our economy.” The SNP leader went on: “We have heard that – almost incredibly – there was no plan for this outcome. It is my view that the UK government must now get a grip on this: first, to restore stability and confidence, then, to set out its plan for the way forward. It must involve the Scottish government in that work at every step of the way.” Underlining her determination to protect Scotland’s relationship with the EU, Sturgeon confirmed that she would travel to Brussels on Wednesday to meet representatives of the main groups in the European parliament and its president, Martin Schulz. The first minister has yet to secure a meeting with the president of the European commission, Jean-Claude Juncker. Schulz said he would welcome and listen to the first minister. Asked whether Scotland could hope for either continued EU membership or special status, he said: “It is absolutely a domestic issue for the UK. Everything that concerns the internal debate has to happen within the framework of institutions within the UK.” It also emerged on Tuesday afternoon that the president of the European council, Donald Tusk, had turned down an invitation to meet Sturgeon. Tusk’s spokesperson said: “Given the situation in the UK he feels it is not appropriate, but he is‎ grateful for the invitation.” However, a spokesperson for Sturgeon insisted that she had not expected to see Tusk - who is chairing a crisis meeting of EU leaders on Wednesday - on such a busy day, but that she would be meeting “a range of very senior players in the days and weeks ahead”. In Brussels, SNP MEP Alyn Smith received a standing ovation at the European parliament when he reminded his fellow MEPs that Scotland had voted to remain and also pleaded with parliamentarians from around Europe: “Do not let Scotland down.” Smith said: “I want my country to be internationalist, co-operative, ecological, fair, European – and the people of Scotland, along with the people of Northern Ireland and the people of London and lots and lots of people in Wales and England, also voted to Remain within our family of nations. I demand that that status and that esprit European be respected. “Colleagues, there are a lot of things to be negotiated and we will need cool heads and warm hearts, but please remember this: Scotland did not let you down. Please, I beg you, cher colleagues, do not let Scotland down now.” Sturgeon also talked about her recent discussions with business representatives, stressing her intention to secure access to the single market for Scotland. She noted that, if the country does find a way to maintain its relationship with the EU while the rest of the UK does not, “then [it] will become an even more attractive place to do business”. At the beginning of a debate during which all party leaders offered reassurance to people from other countries who have chosen to make Scotland their home, Sturgeon urged the parliament to “make clear that Scotland is an open and welcoming country and that prejudice, hate and racism will not be tolerated, now or at any time”. She acknowledged that not every voter in Scotland had supported the remain campaign, promising that “I am committed to listening, to understanding and seeking to address the concerns they have”. On the question of independence, Sturgeon told the chamber that if the Scottish government does conclude that the best or only way to protect Scotland’s place in the EU is through a referendum on independence, then she would return to Holyrood and ask the chamber to vote on it. A motion followed her statement which sought cross-party support for discussions with the UK government, other devolved administrations, EU institutions and member states to try to secure Scotland’s relationship with the EU and its place in the single market. About this she insisted: “A vote for this motion is not a vote for a referendum on independence.” While Labour, the Scottish Liberal Democrats and the Scottish Greens have pledged to back this motion, the Scottish Conservatives will not support it. Ruth Davidson, leader of the Scottish Conservatives, put forward an amendment for deleting the mandate for Sturgeon to have discussions with EU institutions and member states. She added a clause stating that 1.6m votes for remaining in the EU did not overturn the 2m votes of 2014 rejecting Scotland being an independent country – and they did not “in themselves demonstrate demand for a second independence vote”. Responding to Davidson’s amendment, Sturgeon said: “It would be ironic – and deeply regrettable – if the party that has put us into this unfortunate position ended up today as the only one standing in the way of our efforts to resolve it.” Davidson responded: “You do not dampen the shockwaves caused by one referendum by lighting the fuse for another.” She added: “The lesson [of the referendum] was not a simple them and us: not when a million of our countrymen voted to leave to.” But Kezia Dugdale, the Scottish Labour leader, with her voice expressing rage, accused Davidson’s party of “putting the future of the UK in danger at every turn”. Dugdale told the Tory leader: “I struggle to put into words the anger I feel towards her party at the moment. An anger that’s been building since David Cameron announced English votes for English laws within minutes of the Scottish independence referendum result. “An anger that grew when her party set Scottish voters against English voters in a hugely divisive and disingenuous 2015 campaign. Anger at a party that forced this EU referendum on a country that did not want it, only to resolve an ego contest in the Tory party ... And a Tory campaign in last month’s election that told the nation that all that mattered was whether you were a unionist or a nationalist.” Dugdale added: “The Tories have put the future of the UK in danger at every turn and it’s high time they shouldered responsibility for that.”
Brexit will increase intolerance outside our football grounds, says Lord Ouseley The chairman of Kick It Out has urged football to do more to promote community cohesion in the face of a rising tide of hate speech and intolerance exacerbated by the Brexit debate. Lord Ouseley said that while football should be praised for measures taken inside stadiums to stamp out discrimination, and for its community programmes, it had the power to do much more to combat the effects of a rise in prejudice in the grassroots game and beyond. “It has been noticeable for at least two and a half years that there has been a rise in what I would call intolerance,” Ouseley told the . “That not only happens in the streets and in the playground but in higher levels of society. There is an underlying subliminal message that all came to the fore during the last few weeks with ‘We want our country back’ and so on.” Kick It Out is making a campaign against hate speech the central plank of its communications through clubs this season and Ouseley called on them to do more to explicitly encourage community cohesion. “We’ve got to do more. We’ve got a role as educators. Football is this great sport that reaches millions. What are the messages we’re sending out? Football clubs are doing great things in the community but in a lot of cases it’s about offering people a place to play. In my mind, mixing is the best opportunity to learn about each other. It’s got to have a component where those who are coaching, those in leadership positions, recognise it’s an important point of learning to grow up in our society.” He added: “We can’t solve the problem of hate without recognising it in every strata of our society. We’ve got a responsibility to young people who are the next generation. I’ve been trying to get football to realise there is a greater responsibility. That’s not to say it’s not happening but it needs to happen with greater fervour, really embracing the way in which football can be a force for good.” He said that although discrimination inside stadiums is now effectively policed, the problem has tended to move elsewhere. “People know that there are certain things you don’t say. People leave their prejudice at the gate and pick it up on the way out. That means that the lower down you go, the more it manifests itself. We have to really look at what is going on at grassroots – the lower down you go, there are no cameras, there is no complaints system. “Schools, playgrounds, the streets. That’s where the next generation are and many of them can’t afford to go to Premier League football. It’s lower down that we’ve got a big problem. In the grassroots game people don’t complain because they don’t think anything will be done.” As one simple step, he said he would like to see the Premier League invest in a campaign similar to Uefa’s “Say No to Racism” slots during Champions League matches. “It’s saying we’ve got people here from all the around the world playing this game and enjoying this game. It’s saying we’re not going to accept hate. Those things resonate. They don’t necessary alter behaviour because people are getting a daily diet of something else but it stops and makes them think. I genuinely believe that.” The independent crossbench peer said the depressing scenes in France over the summer, where a minority of England fans revelled in xenophobic chanting and were filmed abusing Romany children, were an example of what happened when people felt empowered to display racist views. “What happened in France didn’t surprise me,” he said. “If you’ve got people who are used to concealing their prejudice and suddenly feel comfortable about displaying it, it’s easy for those things that are part of you to bubble to the surface. “It hasn’t gone away. It also comes from this recent exposure and diet they were getting from everything around [Brexit] campaigning that sent out the wrong messages, the subliminal hatred of other people came through all the debating that was happening. People did feel empowered and felt they now had a licence to say what they liked.” Kick It Out statistics collected during Euro 2016 to monitor online discriminatory abuse showed 22,000 direct instances during the tournament. Of those, approximately 10,000 were aimed at the England squad. Ouseley said he had detected a rise in prejudice in football and beyond. “You can sense that people are looking at foreigners, immigrants, people coming from the EU, and the message is coming across through politicians, how that is reported in the print media, how that is reflected on the front pages of certain newspapers,” he said. “That feeds a frenzy of people who are looking for something to blame. Football has made progress but we’ve got to keep on making progress in how we complain, how we regulate, how we sanction, how we get that message across.” With the departing Football Association chairman, Greg Dyke, having failed in his most recent attempt to reform the organisation and diversify the make-up of the FA Council, Ouseley, who quit the body in frustration at the pace of change in 2012, said there was a long way to go in governing bodies and the clubs. “Look at the boardroom, look at the senior management, look at the coaching staff then look at the bottom,” he said. “Look at clubs and you’ll see a lot more black and Asian people working in security and catering and so on. There is no progress there at all. The FA have made one step in the right direction with Heather Rabbatts. But it’s only one step. Let’s make some more giant steps. “If you only ever see white men in power and in positions of authority, it represents a problem in terms of the balance of the sexes and different ethnic groups.” The sports minister, Tracey Crouch, said recently she would remove the FA’s public funding of £30m over four years if it did not commit to significant governance changes by next year. Ouseley called on Crouch and the prime minister, Theresa May, to continue to push for a “harder-edged” solution. “How do you change the FA from being a white boys’ club? How do you change the Football League? You’ve got to realise that unless you do something about changing things then nothing will change.”
Brexit X-men: how the prime minister’s key negotiators are coping When Boris Johnson was working for the Daily Telegraph in Brussels in the early 1990s, rival British correspondents dreaded midnight calls from their news desks in London. Sonia Purnell, Johnson’s biographer, who worked with him at the time, recalls that Boris’s stories about the curvature of bananas, the shape of cucumbers and other EU absurdities were known as “duvet blasters”. Despairing reporters were ordered out of bed to write follow-ups. “The stories were almost always wrong but they would still blast everyone’s duvets,” says Purnell. For the young Johnson, it was good journalistic fun. The Brussels establishment regarded the British hack as an irritant set on lampooning Europe’s institutions at every opportunity. But back in London, John Major’s Tory government, beset by Eurosceptic rebellion, was more worried. The foreign secretary, Douglas Hurd, could see that Johnson was framing a new, populist form of Euroscepticism that was spreading beyond Westminster, by depicting Brussels as power-grabbing and ludicrously bureaucratic. A little noticed historical irony is that a young Tory MP called David Davis, who was a whip steering the vote for the Maastricht treaty before he became Europe minister in 1994, was working hard with the Foreign Office to contain the Eurosceptic rebellions by Tory MPs as Johnson stoked them. More than two decades on, and two months after the UK voted to leave the EU, partly as a result of his role in the Brexit campaign, Europe is no longer a target for Johnsonian ridicule. The man who arguably did more than any to lead Britain out – and was then stunningly installed by Theresa May as foreign secretary – has been charged with the giant task of shaping a vision of life after Brexit for the British people. Alongside none other than Davis, the new Brexit secretary, who is now anti-EU, and Liam Fox, who Johnson has long viewed as far too rightwing, he has very serious work to do. In a symbolic gesture of her determination to bind the three awkward Brexiters together in joint responsibility for what they delivered, the prime minister has told Johnson, Davis and Fox to share the sumptuous traditional residence of the foreign secretary, Chevening, in Kent, and to get on with the job. “Brexit means Brexit,” says May, though so far she has given precious few clues as to what she believes that means. When politics resumes in earnest next month, the biggest question facing Britain will increasingly be asked of the three Brexit ministers: what is your Brexit plan? Currently no one seems to know, partly because post-Brexit planning featured hardly at all in the priorities of either the Leave or Remain camps during the referendum campaign. Few thought Brexit would happen. In recent weeks there have been squabbles between Johnson, Fox and Davis over staffing of their departments and turf wars over areas of responsibility that do not augur well. But there has been little sign of clarity on the big picture issues that must be sorted out – the largest of all being the UK’s future involvement in the single market – before detailed discussions can begin on any of the matters that will profoundly affect British people’s lives. The Treasury has admittedly said that scientists, universities and infrastructure projects will have their level of EU funding matched after Brexit, and that equivalent payments will carry on to farmers until 2020. After that a new system to replace the common agricultural policy will have to be developed. But among the myriad other questions likely to remain unresolved for some time are the rights of more than 1.2 million expat Brits who live in the EU, the rights of EU citizens to remain in Britain, the UK’s participation in EU security and counterterrorism and defence policy, and the ability of firms to trade in financial services across the EU. Not to mention the constitutional nightmares that loom, including those affecting Scotland, whose SNP government wants to stay in the EU and is threatening to call another independence referendum. The issue of the UK and the EU single market in goods and services is critical. Before the referendum, May strongly suggested the UK should remain a member in the event of Brexit. Now, whether and how it can do so is the multibillion-euro question at the heart of the Brexit dilemma. The single market serves 500 million EU citizens, allowing the free movement of goods, people, services and capital between member countries. If the UK quits the single market, it will lose full access and many large UK businesses warn of devastating economic results. But if it remains a member, after quitting the EU as a whole, it must play by its rules, continue to pay into the EU budget and accept the right of EU citizens to live and work in the UK. For hardline Brexiters – who promised that Brexit would save £350m a week in EU budget contributions that could then go to the NHS, and the restoration of UK control over its own borders – that would be unacceptable. It would render Brexit meaningless, they say. Thus far, however, the May government has been unable to give clear and consistent answers on the single-market question, because the Tory party and the cabinet is split and the complexities are only now being grasped. Senior UK diplomats have been shocked by how little leading Tories in government – including Johnson – understand about the workings of the EU and its single market. “It is staggering,” said one top UK official. “They have not even got to base one in terms of knowledge.” Charles Grant, director of the Centre for European Reform in London, says some “very senior” people in the UK government are deeply ignorant about the single market, and adds that only now are the Brexit-backers beginning to grasp the difficulty of what faces them. “I think that two months down the line the senior Brexiters are beginning to realise that the whole process is going to be a lot more complicated, time-consuming and boring than they had imagined before, when they had presented it all as black and white. They are beginning to realise that this will occupy most of the energies of government for the next five to 10 years. “That does not mean that Brexit is not going to happen. Of course it is going to happen. But it is a massively complex and lengthy business.” The most pressing question, in terms of the Brexit timetable, is when the UK will trigger article 50 of the Lisbon treaty, which will set the clock ticking on two years of formal negotiations on the UK-EU divorce. That period can, theoretically, be extended beyond two years, but only with the unlikely unanimous agreement of all the 27 other member states. But until the UK government decides the broad parameters of its approach, it is hugely difficult to name a start date. At present the intention is to trigger article 50 early in 2017, probably in February. But one senior EU diplomat says that is now looking optimistic. “We have to be clear by then about the single market, about the budget and free movement. Views on that depend on who you talk to and what day of the week it is.” Soon after the Brexit vote on 23 June, May’s new chancellor, Philip Hammond, declared that the result meant we would have to leave. But the Brexit department run by Davis refuses to confirm that now, saying it does not have a firm position. “We do not give a running commentary,” said a spokeswoman last week. Contradictory messages abound. Johnson suggested on a recent trip to New York that he thought a balance could be struck (a compromise?) over the single market and free movement, while Davis and Fox seem to believe that we can wave it goodbye and do new trade deals with countries across the world, although these would take years to negotiate. Only a few days ago an official House of Commons paper to MPs said that the option of remaining in the single market was live and that the UK, like Norway, could still pay into the EU budget. “Following a negotiated departure, the UK may still make contributions to the EU budget,” says the briefing. “Any future contributions will depend on the arrangements agreed for the UK’s relationship with the EU after leaving. Members of the European Economic Area (EEA), for example, contribute to the EU budget, so if the UK joins the EEA it is likely to pay into the EU budget.” Fabian Zuleeg, chief executive of the European Policy Centre in Brussels, says pressure is building in EU capitals for May’s government to get on with triggering article 50. The EU must start discussions soon on its new seven-year budget, to run from 2020, but cannot do so without knowing where the UK, currently a big net contributor, stands. Elections in France and Germany next year will further complicate the picture, causing a drag on progress. Ideas about how to maximise UK involvement after Brexit are being floated in EU capitals. Michael Roth, a German foreign affairs minister, says that the UK could be given “special status” after Brexit. But he wisely offers no detail. Any suggestions the UK might be granted new half-in, half-out, arrangements – including an offer of a seven-year emergency brake on freedom of movement while remaining inside the single market – are shouted down by purist Brexiters as betrayal of the will of the British people and unacceptable. Serious issues require urgent attention, including the future UK involvement in Europol, the EU’s international crime fighting agency, whose coordination centre and secure information network allows law enforcement agencies to carry out more than 13,500 cross-border investigations each year. May has said that in a dangerous world the UK is safer if it is involved in Europol and the European arrest warrant. The UK has until the end of this year to opt in to Europol’s new regulations, which come into force next May. If it doesn’t do so, it can apply for a diluted form of membership, with less access to services and key databases. Europol’s British director, Rob Wainwright, is hopeful that the UK will sign up, but hardline Brexit supporters resist, saying it would be a step down the road to a European policing. Wainwright told the : “We value highly the contribution the UK makes to Europol’s work as one of the leading contributors of intelligence and casework to the agency’s databases and operations. We also believe that the active engagement of many British law enforcement agencies at Europol derives significant operational benefits for the UK in its fight against organised crime and terrorism. Europol looks forward to that close partnership continuing in the future.” Two months after the vote to leave, a British minister involved in the Brexit process says that little can be said, “because we still have to decide what Brexit means”. A cabinet minister insists that the prime minister wants “as much of the single market as possible”. But Grant argues that membership looks out of the question because it would mean accepting free movement and paying into the EU budget, which would be politically impossible. The UK’s vote to leave has not ended the Tory splits over Europe but merely highlighted battles to come between the Brexit purists and the Brexit pragmatists who want a soft exit. New Tory groups are forming to hold the government to the Brexit promise, while ministers try to devise a plan that will pass through parliament. If anyone has sleepless nights over Europe over the next months and years, it will be Boris Johnson and his government colleagues charged with deciding what Brexit will actually involve. THE WAY AHEAD 24 September Result of Labour leadership contest Will Jeremy Corbyn, who has ruled out a second referendum, or Owen Smith, who wants one, win the day? 2-5 October Tory party conference Theresa May will be under pressure to reveal more detail on Brexit plans as hardline “outers” insist on a total break. February 2017 Likely date for UK to trigger article 50 Clock starts ticking on two-year negotiation. Mid-2017 Budget talks EU officials begin preliminary talks on new seven-year EU budget. Will the UK be paying anything? February 2019 End of article 50 two-year period Divorce deal done. A vote at Westminster to approve the deal? Post-February 2019 Trade deal talks? If the UK is leaving the single market and customs union, talks on new international trade deals will begin.
Martyrs review – remake is a mildly bloody, meatless horror Post-Easter, the chosen one is making multiple, tardy comebacks. A messianic kiddie keeps a religious cult in thrall in Midnight Special (out next week). This week, it’s Lucie (Troian Bellisario) who must suffer because another group of kooks think she holds the secret to something or other. Based on Pascal Laugier’s authentically horrific 2008 original (warning: contains graphic scenes of flaying), Kevin and Michael Goetz’s US remake is, predictably, less hardcore – a relief for the squeamish at least. What’s left after the gore is stripped away is a mildly bloody, meatless horror. There is just enough smart editing (cutting the violence of a home invasion with images of sliced tomatoes and frying bacon adds flavour) to keep it clinging on to life.
Zuckerberg to meet Glenn Beck and Trump rep after Facebook news woes Mark Zuckerberg, a critic of Donald Trump, now wants to make nice with his campaign and conservative media. The feeling isn’t entirely mutual. The Facebook CEO will meet on Wednesday at his Silicon Valley headquarters with one of Trump’s senior advisers, Barry Bennett, along with several influential conservatives including Glenn Beck, thinktank leaders, a Fox News host and a Republican digital media operative. The gathering was called in response to Republican outrage over a report that contractors for Zuckerberg’s company were suppressing conservative articles from its “trending” section. At least one conservative organization invited told Facebook to take a hike. On Monday afternoon Breitbart News, widely seen as the most pro-Trump news outlet of the election, said the social media company had reached out but declared it had “zero interest in a Facebook photo-op”. Breitbart editors, which rely heavily on Facebook traffic for their articles, said they were more interested in Zuckerberg doing a live interview with their technology editor “on the topic of free speech and Facebook’s suppression of conservative media”. Facebook’s damage control efforts illustrate the challenge Zuckerberg faces as he seeks to become more involved in politics while continuing to grow Facebook into a global commons for people of all political stripes. Since the 2012 presidential election, Zuckerberg has taken an increased interest in public advocacy, particularly on America’s immigration laws. At a developer conference last month, he lamented politicians who call for “building walls”, perhaps the signature policy proposal of Trump’s campaign. Facebook has denied the allegation that it told contractors to suppress conservative news and no other media outlet has confirmed the story by Gizmodo – based on a single, unnamed source – that set off the controversy. Several people close to the company, who also declined to speak on record, argued that if bias was being inserted into the trending section, it came from Facebook’s part-time news curators acting on their own. Regardless, conservatives adopted the idea that Facebook is biased as the latest data point that mainstream media leans left. In the week since, the Republican party chairman, Reince Priebus, has accused Facebook of censorship and a leading Senate Republican has opened an inquiry. As Facebook enters its second week of damage control, the veracity of the report arguably no longer matters. And to be sure, many conservatives remain active on Facebook. Beck, the popular radio host, first announced details of the meeting in a Sunday post on Zuckerberg’s service. “I am trying to rearrange my schedule to see if I can make it,” Beck wrote. “It would be interesting to look him in the eye as he explains and a win for all voices if we can come to a place of real trust with this powerful tool.” As of Monday afternoon, the post had 6,500 “likes” or other reactions and 1,300 comments. Other attendees include conservative digital media strategist Zac Moffatt, Fox News host Dana Perino and American Enterprise Institute president Arthur Brooks. In his Facebook post, Beck acknowledged the controversy also illustrates a tension in conservative doctrine. On the one hand, those on the right argue the news-entertainment complex attempts to censor their beliefs. On the other, they argue government has no right to tell private companies how to run their businesses. “In fact, if he had the balls to tell me that he was courting me due to pressure groups I would disagree with his business plan but join him in the fight to make his own decisions with his company against the pressure groups,” Beck wrote of the Facebook CEO. “I will stand for any man’s right to be truly free and run his business the way he sees fit.”
Edward Lear’s shame about his epilepsy It has been assumed, as Colin Grant says, that no one outside Edward Lear’s family “knew of his epilepsy or the shame he felt about it” (After the fall, 13 August). But Lear noted in a late diary entry that he had “almost always” managed to keep his sometimes “heartstopping and braintwisting” seizures secret. The forms of Lear’s grand mal seizures seem to have varied and there are indications that he sometimes had absence seizures (petit mal). It was not only in the culture of Emily Dickinson’s polite America that epilepsy was associated with syphilis, insanity and masturbation, both in the popular imagination and among influential medics. The many editions of the pamphlet Onania, first published in England circa 1715, established masturbation as a cause of epilepsy, and for a while one of Lear’s sisters slept in his bedroom to make sure he did not give way to “impurity”. Lear would have been in accord with Graham Greene’s doctor who prescribed “good walks”, but did not live long enough to enjoy the benefits of Kepler’s malt extract. Charles Lewsen Bristol • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
Wells Fargo chief John Stumpf retires in wake of fake account scandal Wells Fargo’s chief executive and chairman, John Stumpf, is retiring effective immediately from both the bank and the board in the wake of the scandal over its sales practices. Stumpf “will not receive any severance payment”, a Wells Fargo spokeswoman confirmed to the . The bank announced the news on Wednesday after a volatile month for the bank. Early in September, Wells Fargo announced that it had reached a $185m settlement with US regulators for its illegal sales practices. Since 2011 the bank fired more than 5,300 employees for opening more than 2m accounts without customers’ permission. The former employees opened these unauthorized accounts to meet the sales quotas imposed by the company. Since then, Stumpf has testified before both House and Senate and said that the fired employees were not part of an “orchestrated effort”. As of 1 October, Wells Fargo has terminated the practice of setting sales quotas in its retail banking. US lawmakers, including Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, have called on Stumpf to resign, return his earnings and submit to a criminal investigation. “You should resign,” Warren told Stumpf last month. “You should give back the money that you took while this scam was going on, and you should be criminally investigated by both the Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission.” By the end of September, the Wells Fargo board announced that it was launching a new investigation into its retail banking and sales practices. Stumpf was to forgo his salary while the investigation was ongoing; in 2015 he made about $19.3m. Stumpf also forfeited about $41m in unvested equity awards in the aftermath of the scandal. “While I have been deeply committed and focused on managing the company through this period, I have decided it is best for the company that I step aside. I know no better individual to lead this company forward than Tim Sloan,” Stumpf said in a statement. Stumpf has been with the company for 34 years and became CEO in June 2007 and chairman in 2010. Tim Sloan, Wells Fargo’s president and chief operating officer, will take over as chief executive. Sloan, who has been with the bank for 29 years, will retain the title of the president. He was also elected to the bank’s board. Stephen Sanger, the Wells Fargo board’s lead director, was elected to serve as the board’s non-executive chairman. When Stumpf testified before the US House of Representatives, lawmakers pressed him on whether he thought it was appropriate for one person to serve as both the chief executive and the chairman. “For our company, I believe we have the right structure. I serve at the will of the board and the board can make a decision about that,” Stumpf said at the time. He told the lawmakers that he was dedicating all his energy to leading Wells Fargo and that he spent all of his waking hours thinking about it. Within an hour of the announcement, Wells Fargo shares went up up 1.6% in after-hours trading. Wells Fargo is scheduled to report its third-quarter earnings on Friday. Stumpf chose to retire so as not to be a distraction, said Sloan, the new chief executive in an interview with CNBC. When asked if he felt that Stumpf’s departure was a necessary condition in order for the bank to move forward, he said: “John did.” He went on to say that the bank will not allow the past five weeks to define it.
Yahoo cutting workforce by 15% after announcing $4.4bn loss Yahoo chief executive Marissa Mayer has announced plans to cut the company’s workforce by 15% and close five foreign offices by the end of 2016. The struggling tech company reported a $4.4bn loss for the last three months of 2015 as it wrote down the value of assets including Tumblr, the blogging site it bought for $1bn in 2013. Mayer, a former high-flying Google executive, has come under pressure from activist shareholders unhappy with her tenure. She announced an “aggressive strategic plan” that is expected to lead to the sale of parts of its business. Mayer blasted “falsehoods” she said had been circulating in the media, including reports that the company had spent $7m on its holiday party and $4m on a food program. Yahoo is a “far stronger, more modern company than the one I joined three and a half years ago,” she told analysts. Yahoo’s fourth quarter earnings for 2015 were better than expected, coming in at $1.27bn. Overall, the revenue for 2015 was $4.9bn, up from $4.6bn the year before. But the company’s traffic acquisition costs (TAC), the amount Yahoo spends to attract users to its websites, rose to $271m in the fourth quarter, up from $74m a year earlier. Activist investor Starboard contacted the Yahoo board as the results were released demanding a change in management. Board member Charles Schwab announced he would step down as the results were announced. Yahoo said its strategic plan would simplify the company and narrow its focus. While revenue has gone up, Yahoo shares have fallen 33% over the past year. Over the past three months they have fallen by 17%. Its shares fell in after-hours trading. As part of its plan, Yahoo: is expected to exit offices in Dubai, Mexico City, Buenos Aires, Madrid and Milan by end of the first quarter in 2016. expects its workforce to be down to 9,000 and have fewer than 1,000 contractors by end of 2016. “Today, we’re announcing a strategic plan that we strongly believe will enable us to accelerate Yahoo’s transformation,” said Mayer. “This is a strong plan calling for bold shifts in products and in resources.” The company also reinforced its commitment to spinning off its $31bn stake in Alibaba, the Chinese e-commerce business. “Separating our Alibaba stake from our operating business continues to be a primary focus, and our most direct path to value maximization,” said Maynard Webb, Yahoo’s chairman. “In addition to continuing work on the reverse spin, which we’ve discussed previously, we will engage on qualified strategic proposals.” The job cuts announced on Tuesday are not the first round of layoffs under Mayer. About a third of Yahoo’s workforce has left either voluntarily or involuntarily over the last year. Even as Yahoo contemplates further cuts, one former employee has filed a lawsuit in federal district court in San Jose, California, alleging that Yahoo’s employee ranking system allowed senior managers to fire hundreds of employees without just cause. The California department of fair employment and housing is investigating Yahoo’s use of the rating system. ‘Dead elephant in the room’ The lawsuit is not the only issue that Yahoo has had to address in the past couple of weeks. A small group of activists began the morning with a protest outside Yahoo’s San Francisco offices, calling attention to what they call “the dead elephant in the room”: Yahoo Japan’s sale of ivory products on its online auction site. More than a million people have signed a petition circulated by online advocacy group Avaaz calling on Yahoo Japan to follow the lead of other online retailers like Google and Amazon in banning the sale of ivory. The protesters erected a seven-foot-tall inflatable elephant outside the company’s doors and distributed copies of the San Francisco Chronicle, which contains a full-page advertisement urging Mayer to “stop the bloody ivory trade”. Yahoo Japan is a joint venture between Yahoo and the Japanese telecoms firm SoftBank. On 27 January, Yahoo released a statement emphasizing that, while Yahoo Inc does not allow the sale of ivory, the company does not control policy for Yahoo Japan. In the statement, Yahoo Inc said it was asking Yahoo Japan “to reexamine and to clarify their company’s policies” toward sales of products from endangered species.
Met police receive 106 allegations of sexual abuse at football clubs Metropolitan police officers are investigating 106 separate allegations of historical sexual abuse at football clubs in London. Britain’s biggest police force said the allegations were linked to individuals at 32 named clubs or teams in London, including four in the Premier League. Two allegations have been made against Championship clubs, three against clubs in Leagues One and Two and 21 other clubs including non-league or non-professional or amateur teams were involved, the Met said. The update from Scotland Yard comes nearly four weeks after the former Crewe defender Andy Woodward waived his right to anonymity to tell the that he had been a victim of sexual abuse. DCS Ivan Balhatchet, of the Met’s sexual offence, exploitation and child abuse command, said: “The Met take all allegations seriously, and specialist officers will work through the information passed to them. “The number of referrals, pieces of information and allegations will change. Officers will continue to work through the information that has been reported.” The Met refused to name the clubs involved or the number of allegations against each club. Last week, police chiefs confirmed 83 potential suspects had been identified in connection with allegations of historical child sexual abuse in football. After Woodward spoke out, former Crewe player Steve Walters alleged he was abused, also in an interview with the . Other players, including Paul Stewart and David White, then came forward to the and other media. The subsequently reported that an unnamed former Newcastle United player had contacted police with allegations against coach George Ormond, who was jailed for six years in 2002 for numerous assaults over 24 years. The Football Association appointed Kate Gallafent QC at the end of November to help with its internal review of historical child sexual abuse allegations. Twenty-one police forces have launched investigations into the claims. Meanwhile, the Scottish Football Association has announced an independent review into allegations of child sex abuse within the sport. In a statement released late on Tuesday afternoon, the SFA said Scottish football was “a safe and enjoyable environment for children”, but added that it was taking “initial steps towards establishing an appropriate scope and terms of reference for an independent review”. “It is imperative that we take the necessary time and guidance to ensure this review complements the work of Police Scotland and focuses on processes and procedures in place both currently and historically in Scottish football,” the SFA said. Police Scotland is currently investigating a series of allegations of historical sexual abuse at football clubs in Scotland. Partick Thistle admitted firing one of their employees in 1992 over abuse claims. That employee also worked for Motherwell, who are holding their own investigation. A former youth coach for Celtic, Hibernian and Falkirk was charged last Wednesday with a child sex offence in Northern Ireland and has been remanded in custody. SFA chief executive Stewart Regan said: “Police Scotland has reaffirmed that it is the investigatory authority regarding reports of child sexual abuse in football and it is therefore crucial to draw the distinction between their ongoing investigation and what lessons football can learn from historic allegations.”
Even algorithms are biased against black men One of my most treasured possessions is The Art of Computer Programming by Donald Knuth, a computer scientist for whom the word “legendary” might have been coined. In a way, one could think of his magnum opus as an attempt to do for computer science what Russell’s and Whitehead’s Principia Mathematica did for mathematics – ie to get back to the basics of the field and check out its foundational elements. In computer science, one of those foundational elements is the algorithm – a self-contained, step-by-step set of operations to be performed, usually by a computer. Algorithms are a bit like the recipes we use in cooking, but they need to be much more precise because they have to be implemented by stupid, literal-thinking devices called computers. Algorithms are the building blocks of all computer programs and Knuth’s masterpiece is devoted to their analysis. Are they finite (ie terminating after a finite number of steps)? Is each step precisely defined? What are its input and output? And is the algorithm effective? In the broad sweep of his magisterial inquiry, however, there is one question that Knuth never asks of an algorithm: what are its ethical implications? That’s not a criticism, by the way. Such questions weren’t relevant to his project, which was to get computer science on to a solid foundation. Besides, he was writing in the 1960s when the idea that computers might have profound social, economic and political impacts was not on anybody’s radar. The thought that we would one day live in an “information society” that was comprehensively dependent on computers would have seemed fanciful to most people. But that society has come to pass, and suddenly the algorithms that are the building blocks of this world have taken on a new significance because they have begun to acquire power over our everyday lives. They determine whether we can get a bank loan or a mortgage, and on what terms, for example; whether our names go on no-fly lists; and whether the local cops regard one as a potential criminal or not. To take just one example, judges, police forces and parole officers across the US are now using a computer program to decide whether a criminal defendant is likely to reoffend or not. The basic idea is that an algorithm is likely to be more “objective” and consistent than the more subjective judgment of human officials. The algorithm in question is called Compas (Correctional Offender Management Profiling for Alternative Sanctions). When defendants are booked into jail, they respond to a Compas questionnaire and their answers are fed into the software to generate predictions of “risk of recidivism” and “risk of violent recidivism”. It turns out that the algorithm is fairly good at predicting recidivism and less good at predicting the violent variety. So far, so good. But guess what? The algorithm is not colour blind. Black defendants who did not reoffend over a two-year period were nearly twice as likely to be misclassified as higher risk compared with their white counterparts; white defendants who reoffended within the next two years had been mistakenly labelled low risk almost twice as often as black reoffenders. We know this only because the ProPublica website undertook a remarkable piece of investigative reporting. Via a freedom of information request, the journalists obtained the Compas scores of nearly 12,000 offenders in Florida and then built a profile of each individual’s criminal history both before and after they were scored. The results of the analysis are pretty clear. If you’re black, the chances of being judged a potential reoffender are significantly higher than if you’re white. And yet those algorithmic predictions are not borne out by evidence. A cynic might say that this is no surprise: racism runs through the US justice system like the message in a stick of rock. One in three black men can expect to be incarcerated in his lifetime (compared with one in six Latinos and one in 17 whites). That should be an argument for doing assessments and predictions using an algorithm rather than officials who may be prejudiced. And yet this analysis of the Compas system suggests that even the machine has a racial bias. The big puzzle is how the bias creeps into the algorithm. We might be able to understand how if we could examine it. But most of these algorithms are proprietary and secret, so they are effectively “black boxes” – virtual machines whose workings are opaque. Yet the software inside them was written by human beings, most of whom were probably unaware that their work now has an important moral dimension. Perhaps Professor Knuth’s next book should be The Ethics of Computer Programming.
Tips on staying healthy in the workplace – live chat In recent years the perils of our increasingly sedentary lifestyles have been widely accepted – but the link between sitting and health problems was first made in 1949. Scientist Jerry Morris discovered London bus drivers were twice as likely to suffer heart attacks than bus conductors who were on their feet all day. In the following decades, mounting evidence has shown that office work poses a threat to public health, increasing the risk of heart disease, obesity and early death. Meanwhile long hours spent staring at computer screens can cause eye strain, headaches and migraines. Physical inactivity costs the global economy $67.5bn (£54.3bn) per year, comprising $58.8bn in healthcare and $13.7bn in lost productivity, according to a major report published in the Lancet in July. The study found that people need at least an hour of physical activity a day to counter the ill effects of every eight hours spent sitting. With work becoming increasingly desk-bound – and people spending more hours chained to their desks – it can be hard to find the time to integrate physical activity into the working day. Lead author of the Lancet report Prof Ulf Ekelund acknowledges that taking breaks during the working day is not easy for some people. “It’s OK doing some brisk walking, maybe in the morning, during lunchtime, after dinner in the evening. You can split it up over the day, but you need to do at least one hour,” he says. Ahead of Self Care Week – a UK awareness event promoting personal health management – our Q&A will explore how to stay healthy at work. If you have a sedentary job and are concerned about spending long hours glued to a screen, then join us on Wednesday 9 November from 1–2.30pm GMT for a live chat with a panel of experts. We’ll be discussing: How to keep tabs on your health in the workplace Office-based exercises to keep you moving throughout the day Methods for taking breaks even when you are extremely busy The Q&A takes place in the comments section below this article. Taking part is easier than ever: create a free account or log in using your Twitter or Facebook profile to comment. Alternatively, you can tweet us @ Careers or email your questions to sarah.shearman@theguardian.com who can post them for you. Panel Jo Blood is the managing director of Posture People, a commercial furniture consultancy. She has over 10 years’ experience assessing workstations for small and large companies, specialising in ergonomic solutions for people with disabilities and workplace-related injuries. Nicki Cresswell is a wellbeing coordinator at the Chartered Accountants’ Benevolent Association. She is an experienced trainer and development provider with over 20 years’ experience within the private and public sectors. Justin Eade is an active workplace consultant and digital health innovator at Glimpse, a gesture technology company. He passionately believes in physical movement for improving health and has advised organisations including the BBC to the NHS. Andy Magill is a vitality coach at the health insurer VitalityHealth. Prior to that, Magill worked as a musculoskeletal physiotherapist, treating people of different ages and abilities, including professional athletes. Dr Fehmidah Munir is a health psychologist and a reader at Loughborough University’s School of Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences. She has research expertise in workplace health, particularly in the prevention and management of chronic health conditions in the workplace. Dr John Giles is an NHS consultant radiologist and medical director at Benenden. In addition to his clinical roles, he has an interest in preventative medicine and the economic problems of delivering healthcare to an ageing population. Julia Scodie is founder of Exercise in the City, a fitness group running office-based yoga and pilates classes. Formerly a project manager in the city, Scodie used to find ways to exercise while in the office. She decided to retrain as a pilates instructor five years ago to help other people do to the same. Looking for a job? Browse Jobs or sign up to Careers for the latest job vacancies and career advice
Gruesome bride in plus-sized death peril: my year on a tabloid news site When I first got a job at the Australian news website Ninemsn in 2009, my leftwing friends were outraged. One friend who had just come back from aid work in the Middle East was particularly incensed. She kept going on about a story they had run about a freakish goat-eating python that had been found in central Asia. “All the news that is happening in the world and they run the python.” They ran the python because people wanted the python. People say they want world news and politics but they really want a freaky goat-eating python – that’s what I learned during my year on the tabloid treadmill at Ninemsn, then Australia’s most popular news website. This week comes the news that in June, after 19 years, Ninemsn will be no longer. It will be rebranded as Nine.com.au and – one would presume – reflect the conservative, family friendly Nine brand more closely than Ninemsn did. Ninemsn reflected Australia’s id and the id wasn’t always pretty. Its attention flowed more towards pictures of pretty young women in peril than stories about poverty in Indigenous communities. But if that’s what punters wanted, then that’s what they got. The website was totally apolitical and without agenda. The only thing it bowed to was traffic. And that is why it was number one for so long. In real time, every day, it continually bent like a reed to its audience and their tastes. At first, I tried to sneak various “isms” into the site. It never worked. The site was an “ism” free zone. The first Trojan horse was feminism. It was my first day on the job as deputy news editor and in conference we were discussing a story about a woman being thrown off a flight for having sex in her seat. “Surely she wasn’t having sex by herself. She was with a man, right? Why aren’t we doing a story on the man?” I would learn that we would do a story on the man, if the man rated well. We would do a story on the seat, if the seat rated well. But Australia’s id – its pleasure principle – revealed time and time again that readers would rather read about an attractive woman having sex on a plane than read about the man she was having sex with (unless he was a celebrity or there was something unusual about him, like if he was 110 years old). I was quickly told in no uncertain terms that I was not to disrespect or judge the readers. They were always right, and if you understand what they want and put up stories that are informative and entertaining, they will click. And if they click, you win. Based on traffic, readers liked the following: stories about brides, stories about brides in peril, stories about bad bridal wear, tattoos gone wrong, Photoshop gone wrong, plus-sized models, crime stories (particularly gruesome crimes), local crime stories, stories about politics where something actually happens (so if a prime minister is toppled, rather than just speculation that it might happen), people killed or maimed by claw hammers, stories about Josef Fritzl, other stories about people locked in dungeons, freaky animal stories, funny viral videos, stories about Australian television celebrities, stories about celebrities that have died. I had lunch with my former Ninemsn editor this week and we spent the hour reminiscing. “Remember the video of the smoking toddler?” “Yeah, that was great. Remember the woman who choked her kid with pages from the bible?” “Remember the chick-chick boom girl?” – which turned out to be a hoax. In morning conference, if someone pitched an idea that was “stale” my editor would pick up a loudspeaker and activate a shrill and annoying air raid siren. He looks suddenly wistful at the demise of the brand: “It was a distorted, crazy, fun house mirror, a look into Australia’s subconscious, the good and the bad.” And weird. Along with celebrity deaths and leadership spills, any evidence of the divine and life beyond death rated hugely. “Remember angels, that guy who was dying and saw a halo by his bed? That did well for us. Angels were golden,” he said. “And anytime someone found evidence of Jesus in a piece of burnt toast. That did well. ” Jesus toast. Those were the days. There was something fast, dirty, exhilarating and strange about working on an online tabloid news website that was entirely responsive to its audience. All editors had a screen that gave almost real time audience responses to a story (but you had to keep refreshing it). “Drop the thing on Kevin Rudd’s speech – it’s stinking up the site!” would be shouted at you by someone monitoring the analytics, while you’d be searching frantically for another more “clickable” story. Some days I was so desperate for a story our readers would like, I would type “gruesome” or “bride” into a Google news search and find a “gruesome” or “bride” story somewhere in the back blocks of Virginia, Ukraine, China or Indonesia and put that on the site. Then I’d sit back and watch the traffic soar. I changed shape while running on the tabloid treadmill, I was drinking the Kool Aid. And it appeared that this didn’t go unnoticed: Dear Brig, Worst headlines ever, Cheeseball murder, Floury buns, Gloomy roomy. You must be on duty. Love MUMXXXXXXXX Cheeseball was the murder in which a woman rammed a car into a young man who had been throwing cheeseball snacks at her. Floury buns was about a baker accused of sexually harassing female staff by putting his (flour-dusted) hands on her backside. Gloomy roomy was a man who killed his roommate, who was a hoarder. “We weren’t cool, like Buzzfeed,” says my lunch companion, sadly. “But we did first what Buzzfeed are doing – high and low, silly and serious.” We both now work in newsrooms where “isms” are encouraged – and luckily for me, Jesus toast stories are still aired occasionally.
The open, universal internet is over. But did it ever really exist? The internet is being nationalised. A French regulator’s recent insistence that a French citizen has a right to have information removed from the totality of cyberspace – according to the right to be forgotten judgment – is just another instance of a general trend toward what China’s president, Xi Jinping, calls “internet sovereignty”. For which read: assertion of control by the nation-state over the once borderless realm. In some cases, internet sovereignty can mean a state protecting its citizens’ privacy against international corporate surveillance or infiltration by another state. In other cases, it can mean the state ensuring that it can invade the privacy of its citizens whenever and however it likes. The choices made depend on the state, but that of course is the point: it’s the state that decides. Was this inevitable? Perhaps. Computing, and much later the internet, originated in state-run projects and were shaped by the state’s needs. What’s more, the commercial internet, to the considerable degree that it was dependent on advertising income and other forms of retailing, also always had a “localising” logic behind its vast scale. In truth, the globalised web utopia seems to have depended, however much one might prefer otherwise, on an American dominance that could not last forever. As other states assert their own diverse prerogatives, what will remain of the open, extraterrestrial realm that fired so many imaginations? First: some history. The development of cyberspace didn’t have to be an American story. The crucial missing element in the small set of electronic circuits needed for digital computing was a British discovery: the Eccles-Jordan, or flip-flop, circuit, which would make digital memory possible. Frank Jordan and William Eccles invented it during their war work. “The present war has taught the world,” Thomas Edison told the New York Times in 1915, “that killing men in war is a scientific proposition.” Later, the interwar development of computing had many strands but the most important followed Edison’s insight. Imagining how to prevail in a naval battle was an early form of virtual reality, dependent on a lot of high-speed maths – too fast for humans, but not too fast for the analog computers developed in the 1930s. The technology and its metaphors – having machines calculate multiple inputs to produce virtual outcomes, and then real ones – constituted a distinctive American contribution between the wars and formed the basis for much of American computing innovation in the second world war. While some American scientists became pacifist after Nagasaki, others believed that the US having had to play scientific catch-up to its enemies in two global conflicts, now had to stay ahead,. Whatever misgivings the US might have had about a permanent war economy based on government spending and military-industrial-academic coordination were overcome after the Sputnik launch. Sputnik inspired the research that led to the internet, conceived as a network of computers that would be able to preserve command and control of weaponry even under devastating attack. The Pentagon’s efforts today to develop a new “offset” – military jargon for decisive technological supremacy – descends directly from these earlier lessons. The main actor remains the state. But today there are states other than America with the same idea. Not so long ago, the anti-authoritarian culture of the 1960s and 1970s, particularly in northern California, provided a vivid counterpoint to this logic. Its inventors and entrepreneurs repurposed military technology as liberation technology. The counterculture did not, at first, embrace the internet; the excitement was in developing the computer as a personal tool for personal purposes. But because the internet of the 1980s and 1990s was developed by an informal, decentralised subculture of scientific researchers as an “end-to-end” system, with “dumb” pipes connecting smart computers, personal computers eventually became the gateway to individual participation in an agreeably extraterrestrial, infinitely scalable community. As John Perry Barlow famously informed the “governments of the industrial world, you weary giants of flesh and steel” in his Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace, dashed off at the World Economic Forum in 1996: “You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather … I declare the global social space we are building to be naturally independent of the tyrannies you seek to impose.” So it was, if under the unacknowledged protection of a political, technological and commercial American supremacy that had no rivals. The undoing of this extraordinary idyll was, initially, commercial, not political. The commercialisation of the internet, and then the web, depended on gathering information about Wweb users to sell to them. The fantastic scale of this enterprise obscured the reality that netizens were of increasing economic value to business precisely in that they could be ever more individually defined and targeted, not as citizens of the world but as consumers of specific things in specific places. The advent of geolocation, a byproduct mainly of American military GPS and intelligence research programmes, accelerated cyberspace’s descent to Earth. As Barlow observed in 2015, the web was incomparably suited to surveillance: “I knew that. I wasn’t stupid. I just wanted to pretend that was not the future.” The central importance of the web to national economic prosperity brought the terrestrial state back to cyberspace with a vengeance. China and Russia had been wondering since the mid-1990s why this wondrous invention should be controlled by the US government and US corporations. At the time, less than 1% of the world’s population was on the internet. That has grown to about 40% and will continue growing. According to one tally, the internet accounts for more than 5% of the GDP of the world’s 20 largest economies. For now, the commercial imperatives of major web platforms continue to threaten digital sovereignty. As Charles Songhurst (ex-Microsoft, ex-Google) explained to Alec Ross in Ross’s new book The Industries of the Future, “Before Uber there was in Milan, Italy, in Lyon, France, two or three minicab companies that used to compete. You had that in every city in Europe. They’ve all ceased to exist. So a huge chunk of the Italian GDP just moved to Silicon Valley. With these platforms, the valley has become like ancient Rome. It exerts tribute from all its provinces … So the global regional inequality is going to be unlike anything we’ve ever seen.” Pentagon overreach, as revealed by Edward Snowden, only exacerbates the political dangers inherent in Songhurst’s vision. One imagines this can only increase digital nationalism, in an era when nationalism of many kinds is waxing in the face of a once triumphant globalisation. The advantages, as ever, lie more with the (technological) great powers than with each individual state: more Congress of Vienna than Peace of Westphalia. As Lu Wei, director of China’s Cyberspace Administration, said in Nanning last year: “Confronting common challenges from cyberspace, China and Asean have increasingly become a community of common destiny.” In the shaping of that destiny, some will be more equal than others. Scott L Malcomson is author of Splinternet: How Geopolitics and Commerce are Fragmenting the World Wide Web. He is a fellow at the Carnegie Corporation
Microsoft investigates racist messaging incident at University of Pennsylvania Microsoft is investigating a racist incident involving black freshmen at the University of Pennsylvania, which took place on the company’s GroupMe chat app. A number of black students from UPenn were added to GroupMe accounts on Friday with titles such as “Mud Men” and “N****r lynching”, the students reported. Pictures of lynchings were posted and racist messages were sent using the accounts. Microsoft said it was investigating Friday’s incident and would suspend accounts accordingly. “As soon as we became aware of the chats taking place on GroupMe, which violated our terms of service, we took action and removed the chats,” a Microsoft spokesperson told the in a statement. “We’re investigating to determine which user accounts will be suspended.” The incident led to UPenn partnering with the FBI to launch an investigation into the incident. Investigators yesterday reported that three individuals from Oklahoma may have been responsible for the messages. One was a student at the University of Oklahoma and was suspended. “The University of Oklahoma has made it clear that we will not tolerate racism or hate speech that constitutes a threat to our campus or others,” said the University of Oklahoma president, David L Boren, in a statement. “We have a record of taking swift action once all of the facts are known.” Students at UPenn were rattled by the news of the GroupMe account targeting black students. It remains unclear how the message group’s creators were able to identify and target black freshman students. After the incident came light, several black students gathered at the vice-provost’s office to discuss the racist messages. Ngozi Olojede, a junior at UPenn with a double major in international relations and African studies, was present. “At first I was angry, but then I think people were really upset and rattled,” Olojede said. “There were many tears.” Black student groups organized a town hall for students to discuss the incident. Olojede said it lasted four hours as students recounted how they felt following the election results. The UPenn president, Amy Gutmann, also attended the town hall briefly. “We call on everyone to recognize that the events of the past few days are a tragic reminder of the overt and reprehensible racism that continues to exist within some segments of our society,” Gutmann said in a statement on Sunday, “and that we all need to unite together as a community and a society to oppose.” According to Philly.com, the messages originated from people using the handle “Daddy Trump”. Somebody separately sent the message “Heil Trump” to one of the GroupMe message groups. The incident comes as a rapidly growing list of alleged hate crimes have been reported throughout the country since Donald Trump’s victory last week. Several groups began monitoring hate incidents widely reported online since election night. The Southern Poverty Law Center counted more than 200 incidents of hate in the three days following the election. Trump graduated from UPenn’s Wharton School of Finance and his daughter Tiffany graduated from the university in May. In a post on Medium, UPenn alums called on Trump “to break his disturbing silence on this issue, and to follow through on his declaration that the nation must come together”. Trump did so during a 60 Minutes interview on Sunday in which he told his supporters to “stop it” when asked about the allegations of harassment of minorities following his victory.
Bill Gates: world faces decade at risk from antibiotic-resistant bugs People across the world, particularly those in developing countries, face a decade at risk from pandemics spread by antibiotic-resistant bugs, the billionaire Bill Gates has warned. Gates, who made his fortune with the Microsoft Windows operating system before becoming a philanthropist, said the success of antibiotics had created complacency that was now being exposed by the rise of microbial resistance to the drugs. “I cross my fingers all the time that some epidemic like a big flu doesn’t come along in the next 10 years,” Gates told a special edition of Radio 4’s Today programme guest-edited by Dame Sally Davies, the chief medical officer for England. “I do think we will have much better medical tools, much better response, but we are a bit vulnerable right now if something spread very quickly like a flu that was quite fatal – that would be a tragedy and new approaches should allow us to reduce that risk a lot.” Gates said it was crucial for wealthier countries to step in to help the developing world fight disease, both for humanitarian reasons and for their own health security. Although mistakes were made, criticism of the World Health Organisation (WHO) during the Ebola crisis in west Africa was unfair, he said, because it was not funded or staffed to do all the things that observers wanted it to do. International cooperation had led to the eradication of smallpox, and was on the verge of eradicating polio, he added. “The cooperation that we have seen, I think, needs to intensify,” Gates said. “It’s the only way that global problems like epidemics will get solved and so [for] all the people who are negative on WHO, the message to take away from that is not that that kind of multilateral cooperative effort is doomed and the money is not well spent, rather that we actually need to broaden their capacity. We actually need to dedicate ourselves to this global cooperation.” In September the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, warned that antimicrobial resistance was a “fundamental threat” to global health that risked making high quality universal healthcare impossible. It is estimated that more than 700,000 people die each year from drug-resistant infections, though it could be much higher because there is no global system to monitor the figures. There has also been difficulties in tracking death tolls even in places where they are monitored, such as the US, where tens of thousands of deaths have not been attributed to superbugs, according to a Reuters investigation. The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control reported in November that illnesses resistant to so-called last-line antibiotics – drugs kept in reserve for use against pathogens that have proved resistant to all other antibiotics – were on the rise in the continent. Without them, some infectious diseases could become untreatable and some forms of major surgery would again become perilous. Davies said Britain’s health service was well placed to handle a flu pandemic, although it would still take as long as six months to “produce enough vaccine to start putting it into people”. She was less optimistic about how resilient the rest of British society would be to an outbreak. “It’s not just the NHS,” she said. “It’s how would our social care system cope with people who aren’t ill enough to be in hospital but need extra support? It’s how would our economy cope if a large proportion are too ill to work? When we have a just-in-time ordering policy for delivery of food, petrol, whatever. “And if you think about the issues that could happen here if we had a recurrence of the 1918 type flu, then what would it be like in middle- and low-income countries where they don’t have the health systems to look after the patients?”
Why has Dow Jones hit a record high following Trump's victory? Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election was expected to spook investors after a campaign defined by divisive, protectionist rhetoric. Yet on the second day after his election Wall Street investors were in a bullish mood, with the Dow Jones industrial average hitting a record high. The Dow rose as much as 191 points to reach 18,780 by 1pm in New York, while the other two main US stock market indexes, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq, also climbed. Conner Campbell at financial betting firm SpreadEx said: “Before [Wednesday] morning Trump was toxic yet now … he is the biggest turn-on the market has seen in months.” In the days before the vote, share indexes rose when it looked like Hillary Clinton was winning and fell at a hint that Trump could catch her. On 7 November, the day before the election, the Dow had its best day for eight months after the FBI cleared Clinton over her private email server. And on Wednesday markets duly plunged in early trading as Asian and European investors responded to the shock result. But by the time Wall Street opened for business Trump had made a conciliatory acceptance speech in which he promised to heal divisions and work with other countries. After a volatile opening as investors tried to make sense of events, the Dow rose on the day. Shares rose partly on relief at Trump’s tone and the lack of references to erecting trade barriers or a wall across the Mexican border. Trump also rowed back on threats to sack Janet Yellen, who chairs the Federal Reserve central bank. Traders then looked for opportunities. If Trump was going to be more sensible than his campaign pronouncements implied, then what about his policies? Trump has pledged to cut corporation tax, a move all businesses would like. He has promised to cut back regulation and scrap climate change targets, including abandoning the Paris agreement to reduce emissions. Oil and gas shares duly rose. Speculation that the Republicans could ease rules on banks, including scrapping the Dodd-Frank regulations introduced after the 2008 financial crisis to curb risky behaviour, sent bank shares soaring. In his victory speech, Trump talked about putting Americans to work to overhaul the country’s creaking infrastructure. These promises sent shares of mining and construction companies up. Drug companies also rose. Both Trump and Clinton talked about reining in charges for treatments but Clinton was more aggressive and specific. Tom Elliott, an analyst at financial advisers deVere, said a Trump presidency had created opportunities for investors but that they should prepare for a bumpy ride. “Trump’s plans could well increase overall demand in the economy, boost growth and corporate earnings in the near term but result in inflation further down the line. A typical boom and bust scenario may follow.”
Premier League: 10 things to look out for this weekend 1) Martial and Mkhitaryan should keep their places One of the biggest accusations aimed at José Mourinho down the years has been that he favours workmanlike players who can follow instructions over unpredictable talents who are harder to control but more likely to decide a game with a moment of genius. Mourinho’s treatment of Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Anthony Martial at Manchester United has provided his critics with more ammunition. But now is the time for the United manager to give both of them a proper run in his strongest side. Mkhitaryan created Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s early opener in Wednesday’s League Cup win over West Ham with a silky backheel, before Martial scored two emphatic goals in the second half. Although it was a cruise for United against mediocre opposition, both players did enough to keep their places for Sunday’s tougher trip to Everton. JS • Mourinho praises Mkhitarayan after win over West Ham • United glad to have Schweinsteiger back says Carrick • Everton slump to defeat after Austin’s early strike 2) Will another man-marking job test Liverpool? Bournemouth’s home form is decent and their record of having lost only one of their last five matches at their mini-fortress is commendable. Truth be told, they were desperately unlucky in that defeat Sunderland and the three clean sheets they have kept at Dean Court already this season suggest Liverpool will not have it all their own way this weekend. What they almost certainly will have is opposition that do not sit back and defend in the way Southampton and Sunderland did with varying degrees of success in Liverpool’s most recent league excursions. At St Mary’s Jürgen Klopp’s men drew a very rare blank, while it took them 75 minutes to break the deadlock a week later at Anfield. Eddie Howe will have noted the success of the limpet-like man-marking job done on Philippe Coutinho by Sunderland’s Jason Denayer until the Brazilian succumbed to injury. The first blast on the referee Bobby Madley’s whistle will reveal if the Cherries manager has planned a similar scheme to try to keep Liverpool’s front three quiet. BG • Defoe sinks Bournemouth to give Sunderland victory • Andy Hunter: Woodburn’s rise is no surprise • Klopp: Liverpool are equipped to play against ‘parked buses’ 3) West Ham need Noble’s leadership West Ham were wretched at Old Trafford on Wednesday, defending poorly, creating little of any note and rolling over with far too much readiness once the game began to run away from them in the second half. Their lack of belief and fight must be a huge concern for Slaven Bilic, who needs his players to realise they are in a relegation battle. There is no room for complacency and Bilic needs Mark Noble’s leadership more than ever now. Noble has been unable to replicate the form that led to him being tipped for an England call-up last season but West Ham badly missed their rested captain against United. Arsenal will run riot at the London Stadium if Bilic’s side perform so meekly again. JS • West Ham sunk at Old Trafford in EFL Cup • Hammers set to bid £25m for Bournemouth’s Wilson • Wenger dismayed by Arsenal conceding ‘cheap goals’ 4) Omens there for City to end Chelsea’s winning run Chelsea have won seven league games in a row, something they last achieved in the period spanning the end of the 2009-10 season and the start of the next when, as now, their run had featured the concession of but a single goal. Ominously that string of victories came to an end with a 1-0 defeat at Manchester City. Four points clear at the top of the league (this was late September, and they had played only five games) when they set off for what was still known as the City of Manchester Stadium, Chelsea had been overtaken by the end of November and they ended the season nine points behind Manchester United. There are omens there for both of these teams. After all, on the same weekend this season it was City who had a four-point lead at the top of the table (at that stage their advantage over Chelsea was eight), yet a couple of months later they lie third and Pep Guardiola has been speaking of this match as a chance “to play the best team at the moment in the Premier League”. “The last five or six weeks they have played amazing,” he said of Antonio Conte’s side. “We have to try and discover his secret and what we need to do to beat him and will prepare as best as possible.” This could be a definitive test of City’s mettle, in their first meeting with another of the league’s top four sides (they have already lost to the side currently fifth, and are yet to beat a top-half team at home). Given they are unchanged in their last six games, Chelsea’s best team seems established; Guardiola’s will remain uncertain at least until late on Saturday morning, when it will become clear precisely how impressed he has been with Yaya Touré’s recent good performances (Ilkay Gundogan is expected to return to the starting XI in his place). SB • Premier League frontrunners: who is best equipped for the Christmas rush? • Guardiola v Antonio Conte: a tactical showdown of brooder against extrovert 5) How much gas is in Crystal Palace explosion? The focus will once again be on Alan Pardew as the beleaguered Crystal Palace manager goes into the home match against Southampton clinging to his job in the wake of last week’s extraordinary defeat at Swansea City’s Liberty Stadium. In a lengthy interview with Dominic Fifield for the as recently as mid-October, Pardew said he was aware of talk linking him with the England job but suggested he had no wish to leave Palace and wanted to be remembered for the legacy he would leave at the club. That much, at least, seems assured. The interview made for interesting reading, not least Pardew’s talk of the numerous technological innovations he had overseen at Crystal Palace’s training ground. Blinding your players with science is all very well but, when smartphone apps, Sky Pads and number-crunching appear to come at the expense of the rudiments of defending set pieces, something has clearly gone terribly wrong. Crystal Palace’s inability to defend corners and free-kicks was highlighted in this column last Friday and the following day they shipped four goals from dead-ball situations. “I don’t just want them to do basic things, I’m asking them to do complicated things,” said Pardew of his players in October. Five consecutive defeats later he must be ruing those words. BG • Pardew makes transfer plans amid doubts over future at Palace • Palace set to lose Wickham for season with cruciate injury • Alan Pardew interview: ‘Why would I leave Palace?’ • Southampton swagger past Arsenal in EFL Cup 6) West Brom’s chance to assert themselves Flying under the radar, West Bromwich Albion are an unlikely presence in the top half of the table. That looked unthinkable when they slumbered to a goalless home draw with Middlesbrough at the end of August, when a few rumbles of discontent could be heard from West Brom’s fans about their team’s style of football. Yet now, at the start of December, Tony Pulis has West Brom in ninth place. They are tipped as possible relegation candidates at the start of every season, yet Pulis has never been relegated from the Premier League and, while his pragmatism can be tough to watch, it is impossible to argue that he is not meeting expectations at The Hawthorns. But can he exceed them? With two wins and a draw from their past three matches, three points over Watford could see West Brom end the weekend in sixth place. JS • Pulis ordered to pay Palace £3.77m after ‘deceiving’ tribunal • Watford’s lethargy is punished by Stoke 7) Eriksen must produce more Christian Eriksen is one of those players whose reputation often protects him from widespread criticism. Yet many Tottenham fans have been unimpressed with the Dane’s contribution this season. Sure, Moussa Sissoko is the main whipping boy at White Hart Lane at the moment. Mauricio Pochettino pulled no punches with his assessment of the £30m summer signing’s form last weekend. But it was also interesting to hear Pochettino demanding more desire from his attacking midfielders in the final third a few weeks ago, when Harry Kane was yet to return from his ankle injury and Tottenham were struggling for goals. As the most high profile of Tottenham’s creators, much of the responsibility falls to Eriksen. Compared with his rivals at other clubs – Mesut Özil, say, or Philippe Coutinho – he has not produced enough. Having scored his first league goal of the season with a fine strike in last week’s defeat at Chelsea, Eriksen needs to push on when Swansea City visit White Hart Lane on Saturday. JS • Kane signs new Spurs contract worth £22m • Pochettino says Sissoko is falling short of expectations • Llorente settles 5-4 thriller for Swansea 8) More Premier League indifference from Leicester City? Make no mistake, Leicester are in serious danger of being relegated. They will always have last season’s fairytale title win but they desperately need to arrest their current slide if they are to avoid the ignominy of becoming the first reigning English champions to go down the next season since Manchester City in 1936-37. While their adventures in Europe have made a mockery of their domestic form, they may also have contributed to it; most of the current squad have been there, done that and were always unlikely to do it again as far as the league title is concerned, while their run in the Champions League is a novel and exciting escapade. Leicester have won only one top-flight encounter since beating Burnley in the middle of September – against the haplessly charitable Crystal Palace – and are currently on a run of four without a win in the Premier League. Failure to beat the bottom side Sunderland would get the alarm bells jangling in earnest but it is a measure of the champions’ apparent indifference to their league form that this is a match Sunderland will go into with something approaching bullish confidence. BG • Paul Doyle: Ranieri tries to find Leicester’s balance after title hangover • Paul Wilson: Surely Leicester deserve Spoty team award • Slimani rescues draw against Middlesbrough for lacklustre Leicester • Sunderland owner Short open to offers – beginning at £170m 9) Another northern Monday night Tinfoil hat-wearing southern conspiracy theorists may be curious to learn that Middlesbrough v Hull City continues a quirky six-match run of Sky Monday Night Football matches featuring teams almost exclusively located north of Watford Gap, with the Welsh side Swansea City and ... actual Watford being the exceptions. Since Chelsea beat West Ham in an all-London needle match in August, Sky has used its Monday night showcase to present Sunderland v Everton, Burnley v Watford, Liverpool v Manchester United, Stoke v Swansea and West Brom v Burnley – a largely uninspiring selection of fixtures in which the only one likely to get neutrals bubbling with anticipation turned out to be the lamest of the lot. Obliged to televise a certain number of each team’s games, Sky is clearly keeping its powder dry until the business end of the season by fulfilling its obligations to less glamorous sides who will not be involved in the title shake-up early doors. On the face of it events do not really get less glamorous than Middlesbrough taking on Hull City at the Riverside on a freezing Monday night in December. Indeed, the huge number of empty seats at the KCOM Stadium stadium for Hull’s midweek EFL Cup quarter-final win over Newcastle suggests many of the visiting side’s increasingly disaffected fans will not even bother tuning in. In the absence of any pre-match hoopla, those who will are left to hope both teams contrive to serve up a decent game for a TV show that remains more popular for its fascinating extended pre- and post-match punditry than most of the football action it hypes without an ounce of shame or sheepishness. BG • Boro denied victory at Leicester by Slimani penalty • Hull beat Newcastle in shootout to reach semi-finals 10) Stoke and Burnley labour over whether to stick or twist Burnley’s five away games this season have brought one point and a 1-13 aggregate scoreline, the most recent – a 4-0 reverse at West Bromwich Albion – so riling Sean Dyche that he called his charges “weak-willed” and promised extensive change. “The definition of madness is always doing what you’ve always done and expecting a different outcome,” he has since mused. Stoke showed the potential benefit of a bit of change when using an unfamiliar 3-4-3 formation to secure a 1-0 win at Watford last weekend, a result achieved despite the absence of Joe Allen, Glenn Whelan, Jack Butland and Ryan Shawcross – at least the first two of whom are likely to return here. “We had a different formation, a different game plan than we’ve normally had,” Mark Hughes said this week. “That’s another string to our bow, it’s one we can revisit. We may well continue in the same vein.” Burnley will surely look to add another string to their bow rather than sticking with the 4-4-1-1 with which they started at The Hawthorns. “We’ve got to rethink our mentality away from home and what we’re about,” Dyche said, “rethink how we can take maybe different shapes, different formats, personnel.” Their poor away form certainly increases the pressure on the home side to beat them but Hughes is not worried about being taken by surprise by Dyche’s anticipated noodlings. “It might be the case that we face a team that we’re not expecting,” he said, “but we’re in good form, so it doesn’t matter what they do really.” SB • David Squires on … Steven Gerrard, Paul Robinson and Mr Pardew’s Palace • Football Weekly Extra: Remembering Chapecoense
Lloyds Banking Group to close 49 branches and cut 665 jobs Lloyds Banking Group is cutting 665 jobs and closing 49 branches as it continues to cut costs in an attempt to complete its return to the private sector. To cushion the blow of further branch closures, the bank – bailed out in 2008 – is launching a fleet of mobile vans intended to visit communities knocked by the disappearance of high street outlets. But unions said the ongoing cuts to the 75,000-strong workforce risked having an impact on customers. The reductions are part of a three-year cost-cutting programme being implemented by the chief executive, António Horta-Osório, to cut 12,000 jobs and close 400 branches by the end of 2017. So far, 9,435 job cuts have been announced and 261 branches earmarked for closure. About 45,000 roles had already gone when Lloyds rescued HBOS during the 2008 crisis. Rob MacGregor, Unite union’s national officer, said: “It is alarming that Lloyds are continuing this programme of job cuts and branch closures. Unite have expressed to the bank that these ongoing cuts hurts our members and inevitably impacts customers.” Lloyds, which also operates the Halifax and Bank of Scotland brands, has argued that branch closures are necessary as their use has fallen 15% year on year. The key high street players – Lloyds, Barclays, HSBC, Royal Bank of Scotland and Santander – have closed 1,7000 branches in the past five years and more are expected. As a result, 1,500 communities have been left without a bank on their high street. Lloyds said it would put eight mobile branches on the road between March and April next year. Its Bank of Scotland brand already has eight mobile branches in Scotland. Other banks also have mobile branches, including Royal Bank of Scotland which said it had been operating in remote parts of Scotland for 70 years through its fleet which employs 80 people. As well as 22 RBS branches on the move, its NatWest arm in England and Wales has 15 mobile branches. Lloyds said the decision to make cuts was difficult but they were needed because of “changing customer needs”. Compulsory redundancies would be a last resort. It said the number of jobs lost would be 520 as it was creating 145 new positions. Branches were still important, the bank said. “As part of this, we have also announced today the introduction of a new mobile branch service for Lloyds bank to help ensure there is a continuity of branch banking services available in some of those areas affected by branch closures alongside other ways to access banking locally.” Philip Hammond, the chancellor, has continued to sell off the government’s holding in Lloyds even though its shares have fallen below the 73.6p average price at which taxpayers bought a 43% stake during the 2008 crisis. Last month the taxpayer shareholding fell below 9%. Hammond is expected to get rid of the remaining holding in the next 12 months.
Tackling mental illness early: the people being taught to spot warning signs Prevention is better than cure and that goes for mental health too, perhaps even more than other illnesses. So, up and down the country, more is being done to make people aware of the risks and of what they can do to develop the psychological flexibility that can help avert mental illness. Schools More than 15,000 people working in English schools have been trained as mental health first aiders. Their role is to spot the warning signs, provide initial support and comfort, and help children access professional treatment. The scheme is organised by Mental Health First Aid England, a community interest company that uses a programme first developed in Australia in 2001. The scheme was piloted in 18 schools, colleges and youth clubs in north-east England, training teachers and carers to recognise symptoms of mental illnesses such as depression and social anxiety. One young person in 10 is estimated to experience some form of emotional or mental health problem each year, and problems often start early. Half of young adults with mental health disorders first experience difficulties before they are 15. Prisons Some of Britain’s most dangerous prisoners are being offered meditation training to tackle their violent impulses as part of mindfulness-based stress reduction courses. A group of about 60 men in segregation units in the country’s eight highest security prisons have been offered access. It is estimated one in 10 prisoners suffer psychosis and two out of three have a personality disorder, so prisons focus on stopping these problems getting worse. The charity Centre for Mental Health is working with prisons in Staffordshire to improve prisoners’ mental health by giving them employment and housing support for when they are released. Hope about the future is a key factor in avoiding mental health problems, the centre believes. City Stress-related illness accounts for half of long-term sickness absence among white-collar workers, so some employers in the City of London, which has some of the most stressful work environments in the country, have formed an alliance to make staff mental health an issue at board level. Members include the Bank of England, the law firms Linklaters, Clifford Chance, and Slaughter and May, property firm Lend Lease and accountants KPMG. The prevention programme trains managers to spot signs of problems and to help employees get support. “Training staff in mental health awareness, particularly line managers, is a key part of creating a culture where mental health becomes normalised and reaches parity of esteem with physical health,” said Poppy Jaman, programme director for City Mental Health Alliance. Counter-terrorism Some police working in the national programme to tackle violent extremism, Prevent, have been trained to identify mental health problems in people who they fear are at risk of being drawn into becoming terrorists. Officers in the West Midlands counter-terrorism unit are among those trained to speed up diagnoses in situations in which an undiagnosed mental health problem could increase the likelihood of someone carrying out a terrorist act. The programme is based on the calculation that mental health problems are likely to increase the risk of radicalisation and terrorism in vulnerable people and that addressing those problems will reduce the risk. “Police officers in particular will say a person has ‘mental health issues’ but then fail to be able to specify which one,” a briefing on the programme reported. If they can identify the problem, they can arrange treatment faster. Emergency services People working for the police, fire and ambulance services are more likely than the general population to have mental health problems, so they are being offered resilience courses by the mental health charity Mind. The scheme is being funded by £4m from the fines levied on banks involved in rigging the Libor rate. The six-week course, taking a couple of hours a week, aims to equip workers with ways to cope with the “unique pressures” that come with their roles. Police officers who investigate fatal road crashes, paramedics and firefighters are among those who have undergone the course to better understand and cope with the stresses they face.
Human rights commission to investigate Westpac banning disabled man The Australian Human Rights Commission is investigating a complaint by a man with severe cerebral palsy who was banned from attending Westpac branches after staff complained he had been “violent”, despite him not being able to walk or talk. The Melbourne man, Brandon Tomlin, banked regularly at the Westpac branch on the corner of Collins and Swanston streets in the city centre until June, when he raised concerns with a manager about discriminatory treatment by bank staff. He then received a letter telling him his behaviour was “unacceptable” and that bank staff had a right to work without the threat of violence. When he went to the bank to discuss the letter, they called police. A spokeswoman from Westpac said the company took the complaint seriously and would cooperate with the commission’s investigation. “We understand that this is a very sensitive situation, and we are concerned to hear that this customer feels he was treated unfairly,” the spokeswoman said. “We had offered Mr Tomlin a range of banking alternatives to assist him to make his banking arrangements easier. “Westpac believes that all people are entitled to basic rights and freedoms regardless of where they are from, their religion, gender, race or any other status.” A disability advocate, Julie Phillips, is helping Tomlin with his complaint to the Human Rights Commission. She said Westpac’s response was ignorant and discriminatory. “What they have done is they have just reacted quite ignorantly to his disability,” Phillips told Australia. “It just seems like an extreme response which is quite inexplicable.” Phillips said she had known Tomlin for several years and it was “impossible for him to be violent”. Not only was it out of character but he didn’t have sufficient control of his limbs. “I don’t know how you could say that someone who is in a chair and can’t control their limbs and can’t get out of the chair ... I don’t know how it’s possible for there to be an issue [where the safety of staff is threatened],” she said. “I don’t know how he would strike someone, to be quite frank.” She said Tomlin had limited movement in his arms and legs, but his limbs did make involuntary movements if he was particularly excited or agitated. If someone was standing close to him – because they were speaking to him through his translator device, for example – they could get hit. “I have been accidentally kicked by him simply by sitting too close and he has got excited about something, and his leg will kick out and you might get hit, and that’s because that’s the nature of the disability,” she said. “If you are in the wrong place when those involuntary movements happen you might get hit, but that is just an involuntary spasm. It’s not like Brandon is able to hit someone.” Tomlin said he believed the bank had banned him because it was the “easy option”. He said he had never been violent to staff. “In relation to be ‘abusive’ or ‘violent’, I cannot speak, I cannot control my voice, I cannot control my limbs – particularly when upset – and I cannot leave my chair,” he told Fairfax Media. Phillips believed bank staff had misinterpreted Tomlin’s disability and misconstrued his actions as threatening. “I suppose that if you are quite ignorant, you could misinterpret something in all kinds of ways,” she said. Melanie Muir, chairwoman of Disability Advocacy Victoria, said complaints like Tomlin’s were common. “I think it’s more about how he is being received and what we understand, and the level of discomfort experienced by people who really don’t know what to do,” she said. “Unfortunately, people with disabilities are misunderstood and people are discomfited by behaviours and experiences that perhaps they don’t understand.” Muir said she hoped the publicity would prompt Westpac and other businesses to improve their disability policies and the disability awareness training they provide. Westpac said it would continue to review its practices to ensure it provided the necessary assistance to people with disabilities.
'I feel ashamed in a way I never did before': your stories of PIP assessment The government’s abolition of the disability living allowance (DLA) and its replacement with personal independence payments (PIP) means that people with disabilities – many of whom had been told their support would be for life – are being forced through a process of reassessment. But what’s the impact of this? It’s a topic that Frances Ryan covered in her Hardworking Britain series last week. She wrote: “The retesting of PIP claims means, in practice, blind people, paraplegics and those with Down’s syndrome will be put through reassessment: forced to provide information about their disability that the government already has and cannot possibly have changed.” We asked for your experiences of this. Here, five people share their stories. ‘It’s hard to understand why we have all had to go through this’ – Angelene Wright, 66, from Lincolnshire I’m a carer for my 64-year-old husband who is in the final stages of multiple sclerosis. My husband received a lifetime DLA award about 15 years ago. He is now unable to walk and we are dependent on our home carers for most of his personal care. I have lasting power of attorney as he can no longer sign his name. He can just about feed himself with special cutlery, as long as the food is soft and cut up small. He is totally dependent on others for all his needs. We went through the reassessment process earlier this summer. With the help of our social worker and rehabilitation consultant, my husband was granted the new benefit without having to go through a face-to-face interview – only a phone call for extra details from the assessor was required. The whole thing was very stressful. The initial letter, announcing that his DLA was to stop and telling us to phone the number within 14 days or face losing the benefit, was scary. I have to say that all of the people I had to speak to were extremely courteous and helpful. The 40-page form was a pain to contend with – I’m a retired teacher but it was formidable. Also my original registration of lasting power of attorney was required and was not returned – thankfully, I had it scanned. All they actually needed was our registration number. When you have been given a lifetime award it’s hard to understand why we have all had to go through this. If a person is incapacitated to the level that a lifetime award was thought appropriate, they are not going to get better. They clearly designed it to try to catch people out and it seems to have caught a lot of the wrong people. ‘Irreversible brain damage is irreversible. I don’t understand why I am being reassessed’ – Anonymous, 31, from Glasgow I have cerebral palsy, a visual impairment, dyspraxia and epilepsy. I’ve been on disability living allowance (high mobility and medium care), receiving around £450 a month, since I was 16. That’s all my adult life. I thought DLA would always be there and am profoundly shocked that it’s now changed and I am due to be reassessed soon. I am so scared of what this may bring that it keeps me awake at night. When my DLA money comes in each month, I am very relieved. I have had periods when it was my only source of income and I don’t know how I will manage if it goes away. I am profoundly shocked about being reassessed. I do not understand why this has to happen – cerebral palsy and epilepsy do not go away. They do not change in any way. My balance is as bad now as it was when I was 16 (in fact my joints are probably in a slightly worse condition). I still don’t have a lower field of vision. I’m still having fits. Irreversible brain damage is irreversible. Reassessment of lifelong conditions makes no sense to me. It is a waste of money and energy, and it is cruel. I know I will never get better. I’ve accepted that and am getting on with my life. I feel ashamed and helpless in a way I never did before. ‘The whole process was costly and demeaning’ – Anonymous, 38, from Staffordshire I am writing on behalf of my daughter who has a personality disorder and complex mental health needs classed as severe and enduring. She had been given a lifetime award, but last year we had to submit a claim for PIP, which meant reassessment. It was incredibly painful for her to go through this process again, and we submitted medical evidence for every question on the form. The enhanced living component was awarded, but the standard mobility component was taken away on the grounds that she could walk 10 metres unaided. However, eventually we challenged this and won. We were very relieved and pleased, but the whole process was costly and demeaning. What’s more, no one has actually met with my daughter and every decision has been made on paper. It feels like she has no voice. I am the one who has to pick up the pieces when ignorant bureaucrats treat a fragile, seriously ill person so badly. ‘The arbitrary nature of the system infuriates me’ – Charlie Saben Fox, 61, from Edinburgh My son has autism, global learning difficulties and epilepsy. He has been in receipt of DLA since he was two and was awarded an indefinite award at 16. He was “invited” to migrate to PIP, taking a paper-based assessment. After this he was awarded enhanced daily living and mobility components, but only for five years. I couldn’t understand the length of award as the assessor stated his condition might only change marginally. I called the Department for Work and Pensions to ask for a mandatory reconsideration and they weren’t very helpful. First they told me I couldn’t challenge the five-year award, but eventually I got it extended to 10 years. I’m pretty strong-minded and wasn’t scared of challenging it, but a lot of people might have been bullied into submission. I’m still angry when I think about it. The arbitrary nature of the system infuriates me most. How much help you get really is a lottery and many people seem to be losing out. ‘By the time I got into the room I was a nervous wreck’ – Catherine Hart, 36, from Sheffield I have serious mental health problems and my DLA was not a lifetime award, but a long-term one – after being assessed every three years it was extended to every 10 years. That changed under PIP. I had to fill in a very long form within three weeks, but it took them several months to tell me if I had been awarded PIP. This severely affected my mental health. I was starting to get myself back on track when I was told I had to go in for a face-to-face assessment. My care coordinator was off work ill so I had a stranger from mental health services take me, because I don’t do well getting out of the house on my own. By the time I got into the room I was a nervous wreck. The person I saw was very sympathetic, understanding and patient. He didn’t rush me for answers when I was struggling to speak, was delicate with his questions about my suicide attempts. He even told me he was sorry to be putting me through this. It took less than two weeks for the letter telling me that nothing had changed in my award. The letter itself was entitled “Changes to your personal independence payment”, which scared me, until I read further and found out that it would be the same. All the people I had contact with throughout the PIP process were kind and sympathetic. The problem I had was with the paperwork – there was a lot of it at all stages. To truly reflect how bad a mental illness can be, you have to talk about your darkest times, and this process takes you right back there.
Emma Thompson and Mindy Kaling to star in movie about late-night TV host Emma Thompson and Mindy Kaling are to co-star in a movie about a late night TV talk-show host. According to Variety, the as-yet-untitled film will be written by Kaling and will star Thompson as a veteran broadcaster in danger of losing her long-running series after she hires her first female writer, played by Kaling. Sources told the magazine to expect a cross between Broadcast News and The Devil Wears Prada. Kaling’s TV comedy, The Mindy Project, is about to start its fifth season; she is also attached to the female movie reboot of Ocean’s Eleven. Thompson’s latest project, Bridget Jones’s Baby, which she co-wrote and also performs in as an obstetrician, is currently topping global box-office charts. In a 2014 interview Kaling conducted with Reese Witherspoon, the comedian professed her fondness for Thompson by comparing Witherspoon to the British star. “Something about you reminds me of Emma Thompson,” she said. “She always plays intelligent characters.” Kaling also professed her admiration for Thompson’s way with words when it comes to discussing her private life.
A Patch of Fog review – Belfast thriller treads a well-worn but nicely acted path Michael Lennox is the Northern Irish director whose 2014 short Boogaloo and Graham was nominated for the short film Oscar, and won Bafta’s equivalent award for the same film. (Lennox also directed Awaydays, the Stephen Fingleton-scripted short that Fingleton himself expanded into the widely admired post-apocalyptic thriller The Survivalist.) Now Lennox is making his own feature film debut with this Belfast-set thriller, which treads a well-worn path as it investigates the symbiotic relationship between a celebrated author and TV personality, and his security-guard stalker. Game of Thrones’ Conleth Hill plays Sandy Duffy, a self-satisfied grump who is content to live well on the proceeds of his single novel (also called A Patch of Fog) while flapping his yap on a late-night TV arts programme and conducting an affair with the slinky host of the show (Lara Pulver). He is also a compulsive shoplifter and is detained by an affably creepy store detective played by Stephen Graham, who then has a purchase on his life. Graham first browbeats and then pals up with the novelist: in the time-honoured manner of movie stalkers, he calmly insinuates himself into his target’s life, showing up at his lectures, dragging him out to the pub, insisting on accompanying him to exhibitions. Afraid to call the police, Duffy goes along with it all but his resentment gradually builds to the point where an explosion is inevitable. Lennox’s film is carefully constructed, ballasted by sterling performances from his two leads – neither of whom you would call attractive or empathetic. Lennox appears to have dispensed with the idiosyncrasy and lightness of touch that made Boogaloo and Graham such an exceptional short. However, A Patch of Fog, with its emphasis on psychological issues and strong narrative lines, feels very much like a bid for a putatively commercial, more mainstream, type of film. It’s certainly a well-observed one, even if in some respects it resembles the Alan Partridge episode in which Partridge is kidnapped by an obsessed fan. Lennox’s preoccupation appears to be to create what you might call a post-Troubles film: apart from the occasional shot of a relic of the conflict – such as a fortified police station – it is conspicuous by its absence. Instead, this is a thriller that could in fact happen pretty much anywhere, allowing its central metaphor, the fog of the title, to take centre stage.
Revealed: Coutts managed tax haven firms for controversial clients Coutts, the taxpayer-owned bank, provided offshore services to controversial clients including a member of the Brunei royal family accused of stealing billions from his own country, and a banker charged with assisting the sons of Egypt’s deposed president, Hosni Mubarak, in financial crime. Known as the Queen’s bank after its most famous customer, Coutts is revealed to have managed secretive tax haven structures for the Sultan of Brunei’s younger brother, Prince Jefri Bolkiah, and the investment banker Hassan Heikal. The information was uncovered in the Panama Papers, a database of 11.5m documents leaked from the archives of the offshore law firm Mossack Fonseca. Emails between Coutts and Mossack show the law firm regarded these individuals as presenting a high risk under criteria designed to combat money laundering: Jefri was ordered by a UK court to repay an estimated $15bn taken from the Brunei sovereign wealth fund, which he chaired; Heikal was charged in 2012 and is awaiting trial for facilitating insider trading, which he denies. Both were clients of Coutts & Co Trustees in Jersey. Their offshore companies were active until at least the end of 2015. The bank would not confirm whether they remained on its books, saying it did not comment on individual cases. The revelations raise new concerns about controls at Coutts, which was fined just under £9m four years ago for major failures in its checks on high risk customers, including those with political connections. Regulators said at the time these led to an “unacceptable risk of Coutts handling the proceeds of crime”. While it is entirely legal to offer banking services to what are known as politically exposed persons (PEP) – politicians, state officials and their families and associates – these individuals must be subject to enhanced checks, in particular on their source of funds. Between 1986 and 1998, Jefri served as finance minister of the oil-rich state and chairman of its sovereign wealth fund. In a breathtaking spending spree, cash from the Brunei Investment Agency was funnelled into more than 500 properties around the world. Jefri amassed thousands of luxury cars, antique paintings by Renoir, Manet and Degas, five boats, and nine aircraft including a private Boeing 747 reportedly customised to carry polo ponies. In a settlement agreed in 2000, Jefri undertook to return the money to Brunei. Years of litigation in various jurisdictions followed, with Jefri challenging the repayment agreement, saying he had only acted on his brother’s orders, but the British courts upheld it. The legal battles ended in 2014 when Brunei accepted that the prince had honoured the original settlement. Records show Jefri remained a Coutts client throughout this period. Mossack Fonseca learned only last year that it was acting as registered agent for two British Virgin Islands companies of which Jefri was the ultimate beneficiary. Crescent Invest & Trade was incorporated in 1998, the year the prince resigned as finance minister. Taurus Estates Limited was set up the following year. Crescent had held shares but became dormant, while Taurus held a bank account with Coutts Zurich, a commercial property and seven residential apartments in London, Coutts explained in emails to Mossack Fonseca. The UK property register shows Taurus owns six floors of a building in London’s exclusive Dover Street, a stone’s throw from the Ritz hotel, acquired in 1999. It is in turn owned by a trust, called PJ Settlement. Jefri’s involvement was effectively masked, because Coutts and its sister companies supplied nominee directors and shareholders for Taurus and Crescent, and trustees to PJ Settlement. This is a common practice where offshore companies are concerned and is not illegal. When Mossack Fonseca learned of the prince’s involvement, it immediately resigned as agent, telling Coutts his companies “present a high risk to us”. “The proceedings between the Brunei Investment Agency and HRH Prince Jefri Bolkiah came to an end in 2014 when the Investment Agency acknowledged that he had complied with all the terms of the settlement agreement made in 2000,” said Jefri’s lawyer, David Sandy. Since 2008, BVI law has required company agents to supply information on owners to regulators “without delay”. In order to comply, Mossack began a housekeeping exercise with Coutts & Co Trustees in June 2014, writing to ask for a list of all its Jersey PEP clients with shell companies. The firm also wanted supporting information such as passport scans and proof of address. The email chain shows that thanks to delays on both sides, and a set of couriered documents that went astray, it took until September last year – a full 15 months after the initial request – for all the required information to be supplied. Coutts declared 11 PEP clients, including Hassan Heikal. Until 2013, he was co-chief executive of EFG-Hermes, one of the Arab world’s largest investment banks. Heikal is currently awaiting trial alongside Mubarak’s sons Gamal and Alaa. He is banned from leaving Egypt. In May 2012, following Mubarak’s overthrow, his sons were indicted for insider dealing in a case involving EFG-Hermes. Heikal, along with two colleagues, was named as a co-defendant, accused of “assisting in committing the crime of profiting”. Through its trusts division in Jersey, the channel islands tax haven, Coutts managed two BVI companies for Heikal – Mmoni Investments Limited and Eydon Limited, both of which had bank accounts in London in their name, at least one of them with Coutts. As with Prince Jefri’s shell companies, Coutts also provided nominees to hold the shares and act as directors. After Mossack raised concerns about Heikal in 2015, Coutts replied: “We are aware of the adverse information and are monitoring the situation, details of which are available in the public domain. The group [Coutts] is in regular contact with the client [Heikal] and we are comfortable at the present time to continue to provide our services.” Heikal, who resigned as co-chief executive of EFG-Hermes in October 2013, denies the charges against him. He is not accused of personally profiting from the alleged scheme. He forwarded a statement released in 2012 by EFG-Hermes, which asserted that its co-chief executives had “no personal dealings, interests or benefits in any transactions related to the trading on Al-Watany Bank of Egypt’s shares”. The Jersey trustees business was put up for sale by Coutts in October, and senior management of Coutts & Co Jersey are negotiating to buy it. The bank said: “We take our responsibilities under anti-money laundering (AML) and anti-corruption regulations extremely seriously and have policies in place to ensure compliance with the regulations in the jurisdictions where we operate. Our guidelines on working with politically exposed individuals are in line with AML regulations and we take a proactive approach to these issues, which impact all banks.” Eleanor Nichol, campaign leader at the anti-corruption group Global Witness, said: “It is startling that Mossack Fonseca – of all firms – immediately raised a red flag on its relationship with Prince Jefri but Coutts appeared comfortable with the level of risk. This is the Queen’s bank, after all – the case raises questions as to whether UK banks are applying high enough standards for screening their customers before they take their money.” Additional reporting by Mona Mahmoud and Juliette Garside
Tenth woman accuses Donald Trump of sexual misconduct A 10th woman accused Donald Trump of unwanted sexual contact on Thursday morning, just hours after the presidential candidate angrily renewed his denials of ever having inappropriate contact with women. Karena Virginia claims that Trump groped her breast and made sexual comments toward her at a random encounter outside the 1998 US Open tennis tournament in Flushing, Queens. Virginia was 27 at the time. The two had never previously met, she said. “I was waiting for a car to arrive to take me home,” she said, flanked by famous women’s rights attorney Gloria Allred, and facing a battery of clacking cameras. As she was waiting, she claimed, Trump approached her with a small group of other men. “I was surprised when I overheard him talking to the other men about me. He said: ‘Hey, look at this one, we haven’t seen her before. Look at those legs,’ as though I were an object rather than a person. “He then walked up to me and reached out his right arm and grabbed my right arm,” she continued. “Then his hand touched the right side of my breast. I was in shock. I flinched. ‘Don’t you know who I am? Don’t you know who I am?’ – that’s what he said to me. I felt intimidated and I felt powerless. When my car pulled up and I got in, after I closed the door, my shock turned to shame.” Virginia, who described herself on Thursday as a yoga instructor and life coach from the tri-state area, spoke in a midtown Manhattan hotel conference room just blocks away from Trump Tower. It was less than one week after Allred held a press conference with another Trump accuser. “Her allegations demonstrate how Mr Trump selects his victims at random,” Allred said. Within hours, the Trump campaign released an acid response, claiming Virginia’s press conference was the work of the Clinton campaign. “Discredited political operative Gloria Allred, in another coordinated, publicity-seeking attack with the Clinton campaign, will stop at nothing to smear Mr Trump,” said Jessica Ditto, the campaign’s deputy communications director. “Give me a break. Voters are tired of these circus-like antics and reject these fictional stories and the clear efforts to benefit Hillary Clinton.” On Thursday, Allred disclosed, not for the first time, that she is an avowed supported of Clinton and served as an elected delegate at this summer’s Democratic national convention. Allred denied that she had had contact with anyone inside the Clinton campaign regarding Virginia’s claims. Asked if Allred and Virginia could produce eyewitnesses of the event, Allred replied that Virginia had told her husband and several friends about the alleged encounter soon after it occurred. Virginia is the 10th woman to publicly accuse Trump of inappropriate sexual contact – the seventh since a 2005 tape revealed Trump bragging that his fame allowed him to grope and kiss women without their consent. In the second presidential debate, just days after the tape was published by the Washington Post, Trump denied that he ever acted on his words. He dismissed it as “locker-room talk”. Several of his accusers have said his denials are what spurred them to go public. The tape and the accusers have roiled the presidential election in its critical final weeks. And it has sent some members of Trump’s party scrambling to create distance from the candidate. Trump, meanwhile, has vehemently denied the accusations. At a recent rally, he suggested the women accusing him were not attractive enough to draw his attention. “Look at her,” Trump said, referring to a People magazine reporter who claimed Trump had pushed her against a wall and kissed her. “I don’t think so.” On Wednesday night, in the final presidential debate with Hillary Clinton, Trump suggested that the rush of accusations was either orchestrated by the Clinton campaign or the product of women seeking “10 minutes of fame”. He had previously called his accusers “horrible, horrible liars”. “Those stories are all totally false, I have to say that,” Trump said. “And I didn’t even apologize to my wife who is sitting right here because I didn’t do anything … Nobody has more respect for women than me.” Virginia on Thursday said she was motived to make her claims in public out of support for the other women whom Trump had called liars. “I have lost sleep over this,” said Virginia, holding down a sob. “I have been fearful about bringing unwanted attention to me and my loving family, which includes my husband, my daughter and my son. But in the end, I feel that it is my duty as a woman, a mother, a human being and an American citizen to speak out and tell the truth about what happened to me. “Mr Trump,” she continued, “your random moment of sexual pleasure came at my expense and affected me greatly.” Virginia described feeling shame about the alleged encounter and blaming herself for wearing a short dress and heels – an outfit she avoided for years afterwards “so as not to attract unwanted attention”. Virginia claimed that she met Trump one more time, about five years ago, at a business event. “He looked me up and down a few times in a lecherous manner. This time, mixed in with the feelings of shame, I felt disgust toward him. I had come to the realization that I was the victim and he had violated me.” “She has shown tremendous courage in coming forward today, especially in light of Mr Trump’s statements last night in which he called the allegations of the nine women who alleged inappropriate sexual conduct by him ‘lies and fiction’,” Allred said. “Mr Trump, you may have thought that you could violate women without consequences. But there are always consequences. There are consequences for the women that you have hurt and there are consequences for you as well.” Besides Virginia, nine other women have accused Trump, publicly and using their full names, of harassing them or touching them without their consent. A few, such as Jill Harth, who claimed in a 1997 lawsuit Trump tried to sexually assault her, made their claims long before the Washington Post published the infamous tape. Others came forward just days after the revelation of the tape and Trump’s subsequent denials. Jessica Leeds claimed in a New York Times article that Trump groped her on a plane while the two were seated next to each other. In the same article, Rachel Crooks, who worked in Trump Tower as a secretary, alleged that Trump would not let go of her hand after she introduced herself, and began kissing her. The two were in an elevator, she claimed. Virginia is the second woman to tell her story with the assistance of Allred. Last week, Allred held a similar press conference with Summer Zervos, a former contestant on The Apprentice who claimed that Trump used a meeting about a job opportunity as a pretense to grope her and make sexual advances. Neither woman has announced plans to take legal action against Trump.
Alicia Keys review – soul singer opens door to blistering basement bash In the four years since Alicia Keys’s last album, Girl on Fire, the Grammy winner has remained in the spotlight more due to her campaigning than her singing. In 2013, she started the We Are Here movement for social justice, and in May this year, her essay for Lena Dunham’s online magazine, Lenny, launched a million hashtags with her intention to resist pressure to conform by forgoing makeup. Keys herself has relented on her recent quest to stop mobile phones coming into her gigs and plenty of handsets capture her arrival to this Apple Music festival show, barefaced, beaming and clad in a shapeless T-shirt dress that looks like a souvenir from Camden market. She dives into her new song Gospel, a homage to her home town from her upcoming sixth album, inspired by the hip-hop of her youth, and it has her dancing joyously. Keys stands at her piano for the urgent rallying call 28 Thousand Days, her voice strong and determined. But since 2001 she’s honed a fine line in soft, love-scrutinising soul, her classic melodies and Motown-indebted sound casting her as the sultry, more introverted sibling to Beyoncé’s bold and experimental big sister. Approving of the intimacy of her surroundings, Keys offers to “throw you a basement party. A good place to grind and groove,” and her honeyed voice does just that with You Don’t Know My Name, along with Try Sleeping With a Broken Heart and Fallin’, two favourites adorned with big notes. She’s joined by London soul artist Sampha for Un-thinkable (I’m Ready) and he performs his new single Blood on Me, which, despite Keys’ harmonies and appreciation, goes on for too long, especially when her own new material is so intriguing. These songs see Keys in strident mood, with She Don’t Really Care and In Common mixing up spacey synths and Latin rhythms with stronger songwriting and focus. Keys acknowledges there’s been a change. “I feel like I’m back to life, back in my zone!” she says gleefully, as a sample of the Soul II Soul hit Back to Life kicks off her own, more introspective song of the same name. She precedes the impassioned, hymn-like Hallelujah with concerns about the refugee crisis, noting that the biological father of Steve Jobs, who “revolutionised our lives”, was a Syrian refugee. The song is an example of Keys’s gift for marrying global concerns to personal conflict, but she’s just as startling on the sweet pop of If I Ain’t Got You and the dramatic Girl on Fire. Despite confessing to sweltering in her garb (“Y’know if your arms are sweating its really good”) she segues into No One and ends with stirring singalong Empire State of Mind (Part II) Broken Down. “I love you so much, it’s indescribable,” Keys says. “But you might need a tiny bit more air-conditioning in the Roundhouse.”
Justin Bieber quits Instagram after feud with Selena Gomez Justin Bieber, the world’s sixth biggest Instagram user, has deleted his account and left the photo and video service. The Canadian singer had 77.9 million Instagram followers, followed only 75 users and had posted 3,779 images and videos, according to data from Social Blade, which made him one of the biggest draws for users to the Facebook-owned social media site. Bieber first turned his account to private, limiting access to his photos to those he manually approved, before deleting his account in its entirety leaving visitors to Bieber’s account page are greeted simply with a “Sorry, this page isn’t available” message. A row with ex-girlfriend Selena Gomez, 24, appears to have been the cause of Bieber’s Instagram disappearing act. He recently posted a series of photos with Sofia Richie, 17, daughter of Lionel Richie, with whom he is allegedly in a relationship. Fans reacted badly to the new photos, leading to Bieber threatening to shut them out. Bieber said: “I’m gonna make my Instagram private if you guys don’t stop the hate this is getting out of hand, if you guys are really fans you wouldn’t be so mean to people that I like.” Gomez then replied: “If you can’t handle the hate then stop posting pictures of your girlfriend lol - it should be special between you two only. Don’t be mad at your fans. They love you. They were there for you before anyone.” Bieber responded with: “It’s funny to see people that used me for attention and still try to point the finger this way. Sad. All love. “I’m not one for anyone receiving hate. Hope u all can be kind to my friends and each other. And yes I love my beliebers.” A social abuse problem Bieber is the latest in a long line of high-profile celebrities and public figures facing hostility on social media, with Twitter in particular being accused of failing to adequately deal with abuse. It has stepped up efforts to tackle the problem, with new reporting tools and a quality filter that aims to help keep out abuse from user timelines. It also embarked on an extension of its verification programme, which confirms users are who they claim to be, which was recently only available for public figures. But Twitter’s moves have been too late for some, including Stephen Fry, Alec Baldwin, Adele, Simon Pegg, Lady Gaga, Jack Monroe and others who have taken breaks or left the service entirely. Instagram and Facebook have faired better than Twitter. Rihanna took a six-month hiatus from Instagram in 2014 after the social network shut down her account in response to her posting of topless pictures. Should Bieber and other celebrities leave Instagram for good, the photo-sharing service may have a major problem on its hands. While many users share photos with their friends, high-profile characters are a major draw. Should celebrities decide to decamp to rival services such as Twitter, which recently improved its media sharing features, or to quit altogether, Facebook could gain users from Instagram. Bieber recently shut his Snapchat account too, and has retreated to using only Twitter and Facebook. He posted a photo of himself and dog Todd to Facebook last night. Why ditching Facebook feels like opting out of modern life Who were the first 10 people on Facebook?
Yannick Bolasie’s late goal earns Crystal Palace a point at Arsenal In a season in which Chelsea have imploded, Manchester City have been erratic, Manchester United have laboured and Liverpool have been in transition, Arsenal remain determined to finish in fourth. This was a microcosm of the club’s perennial frustrations – a game they largely controlled and would reasonably have expected to win but found a way to squander. Arsène Wenger had called for a flawless final six matches from his Arsenal players in an attempt to keep alive their slim Premier League title hopes but, after last Saturday’s skittish 3-3 draw at West Ham United, they once again fell short. The dream is over and the weeks ahead will feature anxious looks over shoulders, as much as anything else, as they seek to keep fifth-placed Manchester United at bay. Looking up, rather than down, Arsenal would love to reel in Tottenham Hotspur and a third-placed finish would be better than fourth, given that the latter comes with the requirement to pre-qualify for the Champions League. But there is the unmistakable sense of anticlimax. Alexis Sánchez brought urgency and he put Arsenal in front in first-half injury‑time with his 14th goal of the club season. The home team hogged possession and Mesut Özil was typically eye-catching but they did not create enough clear-cut chances, with Wenger lamenting the lack of accuracy in their final ball. He also noted how freedom and a change of pace was missing. Crystal Palace made them pay. Alan Pardew’s team created little in the final third but all three of his attack-minded substitutions made contributions and, eventually, the visitors made something happen. Bakary Sako, who came on at half-time, worked Petr Cech from a Yohan Cabaye corner in the 76th minute and the equaliser came shortly afterwards. Emmanuel Adebayor, another substitute and one who, predictably, was booed by the fans of his former club, got away up the left before he rolled the ball back to Yannick Bolasie. The forward drifted inside, waiting for the right moment, and shot low and sweetly for the near corner. Cech ought to have done better. The goalkeeper was slow to get down and across and, although he got his hands to the ball, he could not keep it out. It was not the way Cech would have wanted to mark his return to the team and it was Palace who might have nicked it. They have impressive pace and power on the counterattack and the final substitute, Wilfried Zaha, robbed a dawdling Laurent Koscielny but he could not release Adebayor in the middle. Pardew talked afterwards of how visiting teams could “exploit that last period of the game” if they were still in it, because of how Arsenal always push their full-backs high and wide. “They over-commit, at times,” the Palace manager said. “It gives you an opportunity.” Palace took theirs and Pardew could be pleased with the lift the goal gave to Bolasie. He was also relieved that the key defender, Scott Dann, who was hurt in a challenge with Gabriel Paulista, escaped greater injury. Palace have their eyes on the FA Cup semi-final against Watford at Wembley next Sunday and, particularly after this point, it is difficult to see them getting sucked into the relegation dogfight. They have won one and drawn three of their past four league matches. Arsenal were on the front foot for most of the game and, at the end an underwhelming first half, they went ahead, when Danny Welbeck expertly picked out Sánchez with a ball over the top. The Chilean got there before Wayne Hennessey to score with a looping header. The move had started when Dann played Mile Jedinak into trouble and he was robbed by Welbeck. Sánchez had laid on the clearest chance of the game previously, when he sent Özil through on 43 minutes but, under pressure, the playmaker could not get his shot past the goalkeeper, who blocked. Pardew had started with two up front but he would shuffle his pack. Sako replaced Jedinak and the formation went to 4-1-4-1, with Bolasie moved to the right and Jason Puncheon deployed off the striker. Pardew went on to swap Adebayor for Connor Wickham and, finally, Zaha for Puncheon and his team, belatedly, came to threaten. Arsenal had a number of half-chances when the score stood at 1-0 and it was Sanchez who went the closest, flicking a header from Özil’s cross past the far post. It was Palace, though, who finished the stronger. Man of the match Alexis Sánchez (Arsenal)
Trump New York co-chair makes racist 'gorilla' comment about Michelle Obama The co-chair of Donald Trump’s New York state presidential campaign has denied that comments he made about Michelle Obama “being a male” who should be “let loose in the outback of Zimbabwe” to live “in a cave with Maxie, the gorilla” were racist. Carl Paladino, a 70-year-old entrepreneur who ran for New York governor in 2010, made the inflammatory comments to Artvoice, an alternative paper in Buffalo. In response, Governor Andrew Cuomo condemned what he said were Paladino’s “racist, ugly, reprehensible remarks about the president and first lady”. Paladino visited Trump Tower earlier this month, telling the Buffalo News he spent an hour with the president-elect. Among key figures he met were the vice-president-elect Mike Pence, chief of staff nominee Reince Priebus, senior counsel nominee Stephen Bannon, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and nominated national security adviser Michael Flynn. “It was a wide-ranging conversation about all the people across the state who were on my team,” the newspaper reported Paladino as saying. “We talked about New Yorkers who might have a role, how we might structure appointments and who would get input. I think I will have an ongoing ability to make recommendations.” Artvoice included Paladino among a number of people asked what they wanted to see happen in 2017. “[Barack] Obama catches mad cow disease after being caught having relations with a Her[e]ford,” he said. “He dies before his trial and is buried in a cow pasture next to [senior Obama adviser] Valerie Jarret[t], who died weeks prior, after being convicted of sedition and treason, when a Jihady [sic] cell mate mistook her for being a nice person and decapitated her.” About Michelle Obama, he said: “I’d like her to return to being a male and let loose in the outback of Zimbabwe where she lives comfortably in a cave with Maxie, the gorilla.” Cuomo said Paladino had a “long history of racist and incendiary comments” and most New Yorkers knew not to take him seriously, as “his erratic behavior defies any rational analysis and he has no credibility”. But, the governor added, “his words are still jarring”. Amidst furious condemnation on social media and in the press, Paladino released an open letter in which he said his comments to Artvoice had “nothing to do with race”. “That’s the typical stance of the press when they can’t otherwise defend the acts of the person being attacked,” he wrote, accusing the first lady of having hated America before her husband won office in 2008. He also accused Barack Obama of being “a yellow-belied coward who left thousands to die in Syria”. Paladino confirmed to the Buffalo News that he made the original comments. “Of course I did,” he said on Friday morning. “Tell them all to go fuck themselves.” During the presidential campaign, Paladino described Trump supporters as people frustrated with government who “want the raccoons out of the basement”. He later spoke of ridding the US of “the Washington elite monsters”. At a political rally in 2015, he spoke about “damn Asians” and other “foreigners” attending university in Buffalo. This week, Paladino was criticized for introducing a resolution to mandate all Buffalo public schools display a picture of Trump. In his condemnation of Paladino’s remarks, Governor Cuomo said his latest outburst did not reflect “the sentiments or opinions of any real New Yorker”. “He has embarrassed the good people of the state with his latest hate-filled rage,” Cuomo said.
Northern England's Brexit voters need to be heard, says thinktank Establishment figures should stop sneering at northern England’s Brexit voters and instead work to understand their concerns, a leading thinktank will warn on Friday. Speaking at its annual State of the North conference in Leeds, the director of the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) North, Ed Cox, will argue that Brexit negotiations should focus on the needs of the areas that voted most strongly to leave the EU. “In June, the people spoke. But in the north, they shouted,” he will say. “It has made me very angry that since the referendum, when it has become clear that the northern economy could suffer significantly as a result of the Brexit decision, that some in the metropolitan media have presented northerners as foolish or simple. “We believe that Brexit is a cry of community outrage at the imbalances of wealth and power, played out in glorious technicolour within and between the regions of this nation. Scotland had already had its say, in June it was a chance for England to rise up against the wishes of the Westminster elite.” The thinktank’s report State of the North 2016 – described as an annual health check on the northern economy – finds that the parts of the north that voted most strongly to leave the EU are also the most vulnerable to the economic turbulence caused by Brexit. The study finds that Humber (which voted 65% to leave), Tees Valley (64%), and the Sheffield city-region (62%) had the highest percent of leave votes in the north of England, but are also the areas that have yet to transition fully from their industrial pasts. Cox will say that London is more insulated from the impact of Brexit than the north of England, as northern regions are more than twice as dependent on EU trade as the capital. The report urges the government to establish a northern Brexit negotiating committee so that the concerns of the region are heard during Brexit negotiations and argues for more attention to be paid to the areas that voted leave in June as well as the big cities of the north. Whereas the north’s biggest cities voted to remain on similar levels to London and Scotland – 61% of people in the city of Manchester voted to stay – the surrounding areas voted to leave, suggesting people in those areas have not felt the benefits of the ”northern powerhouse” project. The report makes the case for EU powers to be passed from the European level to communities and regions. “To conclude that the north’s vote to leave was an act of collective self-harm is to completely misunderstand what it is to be northern,” Cox will say, arguing that the north of England has “a rich history and tradition of taking back control”. “In simple terms, just like our Scottish neighbours, northerners have historically compromised short-term economic benefits for the sake of their wider freedom and autonomy. This I believe is what we are witnessing in the Brexit vote. The 80-year experiment with centralisation is over and it is little wonder the establishment are struggling to get it.” Giving the keynote speech at Friday’s conference, Andy Burnham, the former shadow home secretary and Labour’s candidate for mayor of Greater Manchester, will say that the Brexit vote was “a cry for change” from some of the most forgotten towns in the UK. “There is an idea that voters in the north were thick, xenophobic or they didn’t understand their vote. I know from my own constituency that is absolutely not the case. What people were calling for was fairness,” he will say. “The sneering tone from some commentators shows that there is a kind of elite in politics and the media that hasn’t listened to these voters for many years. There’s a feeling in some former industrial communities that free movement has been used by big companies to move people around like a commodity, driving down peoples wages.” Julia Unwin, the chief executive of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, said IPPR North’s report was a powerful reminder that swaths of the country had not shared in the country’s growth and had been left vulnerable to economic shocks. “While many northern cities have been a success story over the past decade, their revival has not spread beyond many city centres. That has to change,” she said. “We need a post-Brexit settlement for northern towns that have been left behind. The northern powerhouse is a welcome attempt to rebalance the economy, but this needs to work for all of the north.”
Deutsche Bank: five options as it faces the prospect of $14bn fine The markets are fixated on the possible options for Deutsche Bank as it faces the prospect of a $14bn (£10.5bn) penalty from the US authorities for mis-selling mortgage bonds a decade ago. A report has sparked speculation that the German government would step in if John Cryan, the Briton running Deutsche, fails to find a solution. Cryan has insisted Deutsche does not need help from the government and these are some of his options Talk down the fine Deutsche has insisted from the outset it would not pay $14bn to the US Department of Justice (DoJ), describing it as an “opening position” to resolve the mis-selling of bonds between 2005-07. Talking it down seems to be the main route being adopted by Cryan who told the German newspaper Bild on Wednesday: “The Department of Justice will treat us with the same fairness as American banks that have already agreed on a compromise.” Deutsche can probably afford up to €6bn (£5.2bn), while the German bank is likely to be budgeting on closer to half that sum. Cash call One of the reasons the shares have collapsed to a near 30-year lows is the concern of shareholders that they will be asked to back a cash call. They had to dip into their pockets to find €11bn between 2013-14. Christopher Wheeler, banks analyst at Atlantic Equities, points out that with share prices at this level any cash call would dilute the already diminished worth of existing shareholders. It might also become a target for the amount that the DoJ asks for in any settlement. Deutsche is not breaching rules as they stand but would need more capital to reach levels that are expected to be set in the coming years. Don’t pay bonuses Analysts at Autonomous have calculated the bank could save €2.8bn by restricting bonuses. “Being very tough on the 2016 bonus pool and requiring the forfeiture of unvested shares could be helpful,” Bloomberg reported Autonomous’s Stuart Graham as saying. Do another restructuring Cryan is asking for five years to carry out his turnaround plan, which includes selling off businesses as demonstrated on Wednesday when he sold Abbey Life and its 735,000 UK policyholders for €1bn. He wants to spin off the retail arm – Postbank – and sell down a stake in a Chinese bank. But the market is impatient and an enhanced strategy might buy him more time. Government help If all this fails, the according to a report in Die Zeit, the government might take a 25% stake and possibly facilitate a merger with Commerzbank. The idea has been denied at the highest level in Germany. If it was being hatched, under current EU rules, bond holders would have to take losses too in major test of the new regime, imposed only at the start of the year, intended to prevent taxpayers being on the hook for troubled banks.
Matron, Medicine and Me: 70 Years of the NHS review – more Miriam Margolyes, please ‘Let’s have the titles, shall we?” trills Miriam Margolyes as she prepares to embark on a celebrity “journey” into the history of the NHS. But in Matron, Medicine and Me: 70 Years of the NHS (BBC1), producers hit a seam of pure gold with the septuagenarian actress. Stripped over the week to coincide with the health service’s anniversary, five moderately well-known people with connections to the NHS are going behind the cubicle curtain to learn more about the everyday heroes we take for granted and the beginnings of free healthcare provision in the UK: a precious thing which seems increasingly under threat. Margolyes sets off for Scotland to visit her father’s old stomping ground when he started out as a GP in the 1940s, before the sainted institution was launched. Travelling around Glasgow and the surrounding countryside, she clasps hands and shows genuine interest in people with small stories to tell. An archive film shows the launch of the NHS and Margolyes has a cup of tea with some older residents who remember paying to visit the doctor before it came. “It’s so important,” she says to her fellow “oldies” sitting around, politely ignoring the biscuits, “that people know there was a time before the NHS. It makes them appreciate it more.” At a difficult time for doctors and patients in a service sliced and stretched by government cuts, the unalloyed gratitude of everyone concerned has all the more poignancy. She listens intently as a patient at one practice tells her about his wife’s breast cancer treatment and how he could never have afforded it. Tears bulge from her eyes and she rubs them away. Another man tells a now chuckling Margolyes that he was one of twins, born just before the introduction of the health service. The doctor was paid half a crown to attend the birth, but after his twin sister arrived, out he popped as a surprise and his poor mother didn’t have another half crown to pay. “I was born on tick,” he grins. Margolyes’ lovely, doughy face crumples as she sums up her visit to Scotland. She is undoubtedly moved by the dedication of the staff and the appreciation shown by the patients. If we must have this constant stream of famous types on a “journey” accompanied by touching piano music, then let it always be Margolyes. Her interviews are intercut with disarming reminiscences of her own dad. Sitting at a cafe table clutching a picture of the old man in his prime, she admits her relationship with him was never what she would have liked it to be. She recalls how disappointed he was to find out she was gay and how she regrets his reaction to the news. It changed things between them. She pauses. “Goodness me, that was emotional. It’s all getting rather Who Do You Think You Are? around here,” she says, snatching the sodden tissue from your hand and insisting you buck up. You don’t expect a documentary series broadcast just after breakfast news on a weekday morning to play with form or even try that hard to hold your attention but this episode is cut through with the trademark mischief of its presenter. In one sequence she visits the Scottish air ambulance team and stands next to the fine yellow flying beast as she quizzes its pilot on how the service got started. Then we cut to her, helmet squashing her ebullient grey curls down around her eyes, climbing into the co-pilot seat, ready for take-off. The Airwolf theme tune accompanies footage of the banana-coloured chopper swooping off into the blue. “This is the part of the programme where the celebrity, in this case me, gets in the chopper and goes for an all-action test drive across the Scottish landscape,” she grins. Beautiful dark green forests and silver lochs rush past as we get a Miriam’s eye view of the scenery below. Breathless, she says in voiceover, “Isn’t it wonderful? You get the feeling of just being so free out here”. Record scratch: we cut back to a beaming Miriam, still on the ground, admitting she’s terrified of helicopters and that there’s no way she’s getting inside. It’s a small thing but the veritable mid-air heel-clicking fun of it all had me skipping along next to her, hanging on every word. It feels like television has brought its games in on the last day of term whenever she’s around. Her eye-popping turns on Graham Norton’s sofa, shocking the bejeesus out of a gobstruck Will.I.Am with her x-rated stories, are unforgettable. And she alone made BBC2’s The Real Marigold Hotel essential viewing earlier this year as she sampled communal retirement on the Indian continent. More Miriam, please.
How social media can help charity leaders in an uncertain world Charity leaders face a unique set of challenges. Brexit means they will be operating in a volatile climate in the years ahead. And public trust in charities has fallen, with donors citing negative press stories and a lack of knowledge and confidence in how donations are spent. So what can charity leaders do? What can they control in a world of uncertainties? Leaders must use every instrument at their disposal to navigate the uncharted waters ahead. Social media can help them achieve many of their goals, whether it’s managing reputation, strengthening relationships with government or recognising fundraisers. We’re inviting nominations for the Top 30 Charity CEOs on Social Media Awards. Now in their fourth year, the awards reached 2.6 million people on Twitter in 2015, with chief executives Peter Wanless of the NSPCC, Jan Tregelles of Mencap and Frances Crook of the Howard League for Penal Reform among the winners. We want to recognise other charity leaders who are excelling on social media, so we are offering four individual awards including best trustee, best senior leader, best rising star and – new this year – leader with the most innovative social media presence. For the first time, we will also be announcing an overall winner from the top 30. Nominations are open to leaders of any registered charity, of whatever size or cause. We’re keen to encourage a diverse range of applications. So how could charity leaders use social media to tackle the challenges posed by Brexit? Creative approaches to fundraising Sector umbrella body NCVO has warned that Brexit may result in reduced income for the sector. When money is tight, creativity is everything. Paul Reddish, chief executive of volunteering charity Project Scotland, put on a tutu and filmed a series of dance moves for the charity’s #GivingTuesday 2015 campaign. He raised £790 to help young people and gained positive press coverage. Social media is also an excellent way for leaders to recognise corporate supporters and get their charity’s brand seen alongside. Leadership and expertise In uncertain times, people are hungry for answers. Charity leaders have the knowledge – and the platform – to provide this. As Simon Blake, our chair of judges, says: “Facts delivered in a personable manner by a senior leader can cut through in a unique way, adding value to other organisational communications.” Asking thought-provoking questions is powerful and, over time, will reinforce the chief executive and their charity’s status as thought leaders. Bringing communities together Brexit revealed how disenfranchised many people across the UK feel. As sector lawyers Bates Wells Braithwaite say in a Brexit briefing, charities have the power to bring people together in the communities in which they work. Who is better placed to connect with people in difficult situations who may be hard to reach? Deborah Alsina, chief executive of Bowel Cancer UK, uses social media to offer support to patients, which in turn raises awareness of her charity’s cause. She also uses these channels to liaise with stakeholders across the health service. And during a period when things are liable to change rapidly, such interactions offer insights for chief executives into what’s happening in real time. Alsina says: “I’ve found Twitter an incredibly helpful channel to engage and build relationships with a diverse range of stakeholders, from patients, to supporters to clinicians. It gives me the opportunity to hear a range of views and opinions and of particular importance to me to gain insight into the experiences of those closely affected by bowel cancer.” Increased scrutiny Brexit means seismic change, but the Charity Commission’s research shows that donors are still keen to know how charities work and what they are funding. As a leader, there will be natural curiosity about what you do. Use social media to invite them in. It’s a good way to pre-empt scrutiny, demonstrate the good work you are doing every day, and highlight how you are collaborating with others. By making what happens behind closed doors visible, chief executives can help critical relationships develop more quickly and show how committed they are to transparency. Charity leaders can also use social media to tell people about their charity’s impact and how proud they are of its work. While Brexit may feel daunting, the fact is that where there is change, there is opportunity. Social media is a fantastic way for charity leaders to show what they and the organisations they run are worth. Nominations can be made here. Nominees will be judged by a panel of voluntary sector leaders and the results will be announced on Friday 18 November. All entries must be received by midnight on Friday 30 September. The Voluntary Sector Network is a media partner for the awards. For more news, opinions and ideas about the voluntary sector, join our community - it’s free!
Tough prison sentences 'will not end FGM in Dagestan' A Russian journalist who reports on female genital mutilation says introducing prison sentences for perpetrators will not bring about an end to the practice, after a report released last week said that FGM was taking place in remote villages in the republic of Dagestan. Marina Akhmedova, based in Moscow, has recently returned from the North Caucasus region, where she interviewed survivors of FGM. She is calling for a programme of on-the-ground advocacy. Responding to a draft bill introduced by MP Maria Maksakova-Igenbergs last week that called for the criminalisation of FGM, with sentences of up to 10 years, Akhmedova said such strict measures would only be seen as religious persecution and could drive the practice underground. Speaking to the , she said: “It is really difficult to help these women as they don’t consider themselves victims. First you need to persuade them that they are victims. Targeting them will only drive them to do this in secret. If religious leaders say it is right for a girl to undergo circumcision, people will do it.” She suggested that Russia needed to adopt an “accurate and moderate” approach and work with religious leaders as well as doctors and teachers to persuade them to abandon FGM. A report published by the human rights group Russian Justice Initiative (RJI) said there was evidence that FGM of girls under the age of three was happening in remote, mainly-Muslim villages in Dagestan. It came to wider attention when two religious leaders responded with comments in support of the practice. Ismail Berdiyev, the mufti and chairman of the North Caucasus Muslim Coordination Centre, said FGM does not contradict Islam and is a “purely Dagestani ritual” that is necessary “to limit the unnecessary energy” of women. He also suggested in a radio interview that all women should undergo FGM to curb their sexual feelings, later retracting some of his comments. Vsevolod Chaplin, an Orthodox Christian leader, posted on Facebook in support of Berdiyev, saying that traditional practices should be allowed to continue without interference. Maria Baronova, an opposition activist, responded to the report by standing outside Moscow’s main mosque with a sign saying “cut sheep not women”. Akhmedova said Baronova’s protest amounted to an “incitement of ethnic hatred”. “The mosque she stood outside belongs to Moscow Muftiyat, which has officially rejected FGM,” Akhmedova said. “Not all Muslims practise circumcision, and there was nothing in her actions that showed a desire to help the women of Dagestan. “The opinion of religious leaders on the case in Dagestan is divided. The media made it out that this is a wholly Islamic problem, but this is not the case. Some of the women I spoke to themselves felt ashamed for not having a clitoris, but others suggested that it is a practice that they have done for years and will continue to do.” RJI found that FGM is carried out predominantly in five mountainous areas, where the procedure is usually performed on girls under the age of three, but also on some up to the age of 12. Vanessa Kogan, the group’s executive director, said: “The report would not have received nearly as much coverage if it hadn’t been for the outrageous statements made by Berdiyev and Chaplin. Their statements did not really contribute anything concrete to the questions surrounding the practice of FGM, but they spoke volumes about both Islamic and Christian religious leaders’ intentions to control women’s bodies and their sexuality. “We don’t want to give the impression that FGM is a religious practice, and we want to keep the focus on the fact that the procedure is a gross violation of women and children’s rights. These communities are among the last to have converted to Islam in the region, and many experts interviewed expressed the view that the practice is rooted in pre-Islamic tradition adat or customary law. “At the same time, we acknowledge that the support of religious leaders may be a key component in working to eradicate the problem.” Kogan added no further research was planned, saying: “There is no evidence that FGM is being practised anywhere else in Russia on a systematic scale. As far as we know, FGM is limited to Dagestan and within Dagestan the practice is limited to certain isolated communities.” Equality Now, an international human rights organisation, said the report was a concern and more research was needed to have a better understanding of the situation. Mary Wandia, who works for the group, said: “We are only starting to get information on the prevalence of FGM in Russia but it is very concerning that all 25 women interviewed for this report had undergone it. We need further investigation. “FGM can no longer be seen as a supposedly ‘African’ issue. It is a human rights violation which affects hundreds of millions of women and girls around the world. Recently, we have had better data from countries such as Indonesia, India, Pakistan, Singapore, Malaysia, Colombia, Yemen and others, which shows that FGM is a global issue and needs to be urgently addressed.” The United Nations warns that more than 200 million girls and women alive today have been cut, mostly before they reached puberty, and has recently classified it as child abuse. FGM is defined by the World Health Organisation as procedures that intentionally alter or cause injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons. FGM has no health benefits and is recognised as a violation of the human rights of girls and women.
These are scary times for people of colour. It’s time for a big conversation What can one definitively write about Britain voting to leave as this seismic event unfolds? As a person of colour, attempting to make sense of my country right now feels something like being disembodied. My thinking self is somewhere separate from my body. I am out of place. I am vulnerable. How could I not? When genuine anger and frustration are misdirected on to the body of migrants, then I and other people of colour have the right to feel threatened and exposed. Today – indeed, over the course of the referendum campaign – we have been made highly visible in our difference. Forgive the paranoia, but tell me, what else are we to think when the national dialogue of being at “breaking point” culminates in that notorious poster? When your fellow citizens resoundingly believe that you are the cause of their pain, then history tells you to heed that as a warning. I’d be foolish to not see myself as necessarily implicated in any command to “send them back”. The paradox of this referendum has been that those who have experienced the highest levels of migration turned out to be the least concerned about it. Fear of the unknown often underlines bigotry and xenophobia. We know that. This, ultimately, is why I voted to remain. The EU, with its refugee camps and border controls to the rest of the world is no utopian ideal for people of colour. And there are people of colour who voted to leave. Doing so, as we have seen, has been dependent on class, age and geographical location. People have very real concerns about precarious work that doesn’t pay enough to live on, housing that isn’t affordable, and a national health service functioning at its limits because it is indebted to private finance while being squeezed by cuts to social care budgets. The impulse to the apocalyptic is easy. I spent much of Friday thinking everything had gone irreversibly wrong. But to do so would be our biggest mistake. Now is not the time to buy into a narrative that simply says we are forever doomed. That Britain has racism embedded deep in its cultural DNA is no surprise. We’ve heard of slavery and colonialism. And, to quote Walter Rodney, “Oppression follows logically from exploitation, so as to guarantee the latter.” Racism enabled Britannia to rule those waves. What we have witnessed, though, is a mutation of this gene. There is no imperial might here, but fear and loathing born out of weakness. What else is the slogan “Take back control” alluding to, if not this? All of which is to say that the objectives of those of us on the left must remain the same: to create a fairer society in which the most vulnerable are protected. We can start to prepare ourselves for the work ahead by today finding others like us and attempting to feel safe and understood in their company. We must gather together and do so without demonising those who voted to leave, or labelling them racist or stupid. That kind of tone-deafness will get us nowhere. We must make it an imperative to reach out beyond our own circles to these voters, to listen to them properly. By that, I mean with no ulterior motives. Really listening means hearing what it is like to live in their not-so-Great Britain. That means feet on doorsteps and getting out of our moneyed boom cities and into the community centres of Sunderland, Bradford and Neath Port Talbot. It means not ceding territory on migrants and emphasising our duty to provide asylum for people seeking safety. We cannot blithely accept that we’ve lost the argument. In fact, we should be more vocal than ever that migrants are no drain and that it is morally right to provide sanctuary to people fleeing persecution and conflict. What is at stake if we don’t get up and on with this is far more frightening than Friday’s result. In the vacuum that our absence will create, Farage and co will move in. We can’t let that happen.
Security pours into Cleveland as Republican convention looms The city of Cleveland is braced for the Republican national convention, which will begin on Monday amid intense levels of security. The chairman of the party’s national committee and the Trump campaign, meanwhile, find themselves fighting fires over the presumptive nominee’s vice-presidential pick. Thousands of police officers, secret service agents and FBI swarmed the downtown area throughout the weekend. An expected 50,000 people will descend on the city, with large protests and rallies expected throughout the four days of events. On Sunday, the leader of Cleveland’s main police union called on Ohio’s governor, John Kasich, to declare a state of emergency and suspend open carry during the convention. “I don’t care what the legal precedent is, I feel strongly that leadership needs to stand up and defend these police officers,” union head Steve Loomis told Reuters. A third of Cleveland’s 1,500 police officers alongside more than 2,000 officers from departments around the country will police planned protests, while secret service officials will secure a “hard perimeter” around the Quicken Loans Arena, the convention’s main venue, where Donald Trump will accept the party’s presidential nomination on Thursday evening. At a press conference on Sunday morning, the Cleveland police chief, Calvin Williams, sought to assure residents that officers were fully prepared for the influx of protesters and any greater security threat, adding that the department had been planning for two years. “It’s game time and we’re ready for it,” he said. Police expect a large number of protesters to carry firearms, as is permitted under Ohio state law. Williams assured attendees their right to open carry would be protected, but warned: “People have a responsibility to handle those weapons, the law says, in a safe manner. And people have a responsibility not to menace people or threaten people with those weapons.” Officers from outside Cleveland who will fall under Williams’s command had been fully briefed on the state’s firearms laws, the chief said. No firearms will be permitted within the perimeter around the arena where a no-fly zone will also be in effect from Monday. On Monday, a rally in support of Trump, organised by a coalition of groups under the “Citizens for Trump” collective, is expected to draw thousands. A number of groups, including white nationalist organisations, extremist religious groups such as the Westboro Baptist church, and armed militias including the radical constitutionalist group the Oath Keepers, are also expected to have a presence in Cleveland. A counter-rally under the “Dump Trump” banner is also scheduled for Monday at a separate location in the city. Small protests and marches that occurred throughout Cleveland over the weekend remained peaceful, as judges in the city’s municipal courts prepared to work overtime in the event of mass arrests. The Republican National Committee chair, Reince Priebus, told Fox News Sunday security officials were “ready for anything” at the arena, which sits on the shores of Lake Erie, which he said was “a good place to lock in and secure”. He also told CNN’s State of the Union the candidate had “wanted to keep people guessing” when this week he appeared to prevaricate over the naming of the Indiana governor, Mike Pence, as his right-hand man. “He wanted to make it more suspenseful,” Priebus told State of the Union, perhaps pointing towards Trump’s need to promote a convention that will be missing a number of high-profile Republican speakers, its as yet unconfirmed roster featuring speakers from the worlds of media, sports and show business. Trump unveiled Pence in New York City on Saturday, with a bizarre and rambling presentation that did not paint a convincing picture of unity on the Republican ticket, which Trump said was a key reason for his eventual pick. The choice of the prominent social conservative was leaked to media on Thursday, then subject to uncertainty, then confirmed on Friday but its official announcement delayed by the terror attack in Nice. “Sources not really with knowledge can spin multiple, multiple places,” Priebus told CNN on Sunday, rejecting reports from the network and other outlets that Trump had sought to go back on the choice of Pence, up until the midnight Thursday deadline by which the governor had to commit or lose his eligibility for VP under Indiana state law. “And that’s not just … where Trump was at. I spoke to him, I mean, multiple times that day. I know what he was thinking. He certainly didn’t want to make an announcement on the heels of the disaster in Nice. And so he decided to announce on Saturday. And no time in between that was he skeptical of the Pence pick.” Trump’s campaign chair, Paul Manafort, spoke to Fox News Sunday. “I’m the one who was talking to Donald Trump on Thursday,” he said. “He was doing events in California and then he got on a plane. There was never any doubt on Thursday. What we were talking about was the tragedy in the world and postponing the event for Friday. “He made his decision, he called Governor Pence on Wednesday. Governor Pence was in New York – he wasn’t there to shop, he was there to be announced. The details were what we were talking about, not the decision.” Both men were also pressed on Pence’s contrary stances to Trump on issues including Muslim immigration, the Iraq war and the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal. Priebus told CNN: “Donald Trump is willing to be challenged. He’s not looking for yes people around him.” Manafort told CBS’s Face the Nation: “[Trump] wants the party to understand that he wants the party to be part of a team.” On trade, Trump has said would the TPP would be part of “a rape of our country” while Pence has said it should be implemented for the country’s good. Priebus said this indicated that trade was “a split issue in our party” – and one that Pence “was not as wildly crazy about … as you might think”. Trump and Pence, meanwhile, recorded an interview for CBS’s 60 Minutes that was due to be broadcast on Sunday evening. Excerpts featured questions – and awkward answers – about the difference between their campaigning styles as well as their policy positions. In his tour of the talkshows, Priebus seemed flustered under constant questioning about Pence, Republican unity and the RNC’s convention preparations. At one point in his CNN interview, he seemed to forget that the 2016 pick was Pence and not Paul Ryan, the House speaker who ran with Mitt Romney in 2012. As his Fox News Sunday appearance drew to a close, he was interrupted by test broadcasts over the arena PA. “Hey …” he said, turning towards the convention floor. “Guys?” The interruptions continued.
Riyad Mahrez says win at Manchester City gave Leicester belief in lifting title Riyad Mahrez has highlighted Leicester City’s win at Manchester City in February as the moment when Claudio Ranieri’s players started to believe that they were capable of doing something special this season. The Algeria international, who was named the PFA player of the year on Sunday, also revealed that a few weeks before the victory at the Etihad Stadium he spoke to N’Golo Kanté about what it would be like to win the Premier League title. Mahrez and Kanté were dreaming at that point and briefly allowing their imaginations to run wild, yet with three league matches remaining the prospect of being crowned champions is close to becoming reality for the Leicester players. The 4-0 win against Swansea City on Sunday and Tottenham’s draw with West Bromwich Albion puts the Midlands club in a commanding position, needing three points to be certain, from three game. Yet for Mahrez it was the triumph at City on 6 February – at the end of a week in which Leicester also beat Liverpool 2-0 – that made the biggest statement this season. “To score three goals at City is not easy. It was 3-0 and ended up 3-1. That was when we started doing something big,” Mahrez said, reflecting on a game in which he scored a wonderful solo goal. Before the Manchester City game, Mahrez and Kanté, who are close friends, had a brief conversation about what it would be like if Leicester, 5,000-1 outsiders at the start of the season, did the unthinkable. “In January we just said: ‘Imagine?’ We didn’t go into much more, we just said: ‘Imagine?’ But that was only for about 30 seconds and then we said: ‘No, let’s stay focused and let’s see.’ It was still a long way to go, maybe 15 games.” Mahrez, in a separate interview with the French magazine Onze Mondial, also offered an insight into the spirit within the Leicester side when he was asked the secret behind their success. “It is desire. We are fighters. And when I say to you ‘fighters’, I have never seen anything like this in my life. The guys are hungry like crazy and they let nothing go. You blast a shot straight into a guy’s face and he doesn’t even flinch. The defender’s job is to defend, that is it. They love that. You will never see our defenders out of line, trying to dribble and making a pass through the gap. “Next, we have real midfielders. The signing of N’Golo Kanté has put Danny Drinkwater in the limelight, because the pair complement each other superbly. And then I am doing well this year, Jamie Vardy too. And we have a good coach. It is a bit of all of that.” Mahrez is sure to be the subject of transfer speculation this summer, but the 25-year-old has ruled out joining Paris Saint-Germain and insisted that his future lies in England. “Even today I am not too excited about the prospect of PSG. It is my town, but I do not see myself going back. I don’t really want to go back to France. France does not really excite me, I love England.” Meanwhile Danny Simpson, Mahrez’s Leicester team-mate, has explained how Ranieri’s step-by-step target-driven approach has reaped rewards, right up to telling the players last week to seize the moment when it comes to the league title. “The manager keeps setting us goals,” Simpson said. “It was safety, get 40 points, then it was keep going, can we get into the Europa League? Can we get into the Champions League, then can we get into the Champions League group stages without playing a qualifier and then the next thing was: ‘Go on then, go for it now.’ “It is nothing that we didn’t expect. He said it [go for the title] for the first time last week, when we had our normal review after games. I think he had been saying all season that with three or four games to go he will tell us where we are. He said he believes in us and we believe in ourselves. He just said forget whatever else is going on it is all about us in this room. We will work hard this week and kick on and try and go for it.”
Britain to open refuges to support child victims of sexual abuse Child refuges for victims of sexual abuse are to be set up in the UK to cope with the public health crisis from the scale of offences against young people. Inspired by the Barnahus in Iceland, the child houses will provide young people with a supportive, child-friendly environment in which to talk about their experiences. Forensic examinations, criminal justice interviews and therapy will be provided under one roof in an attempt to increase the number of prosecutions of perpetrators, end the gladiatorial challenges of victims by defence lawyers, improve the quality of evidence and reduce the stress on children. The Hollywood actor David Schwimmer, who has spent many years supporting a similar service known as Stuart House in Los Angeles, has lent his support to the creation of the child houses in the UK. He said: “The general public and government has to accept that child sexual abuse is a national children’s health crisis. In most communities, sexually abused children are taken to numerous agencies in separate locations and at each place the child is interviewed by another adult in cold institutional settings like police stations, often by people who are not trained in best practice. They are shovelled from office to office, when this happens a young victim can shut down, they feel interrogated and disbelieved.” Speaking at the NSPCC annual conference, Schwimmer said in Stuart House, where he is a director, children were able to receive all the expert care they needed. “When a child is sexually abused the child’s body is a crime scene. When the children are ready they are examined in a way that feels routine, at the same time the nurses use state of the art equipment to scan their bodies for evidence,” he said. “Physical trauma is photographed and documented, becoming evidence to help prosecutors. Then the child has a forensic interview with police and prosecutors watching the interview from behind a one-way mirror.” Interviews are video-recorded and become evidence-in-chief in court, removing the need for young children to appear in person and be subjected to often gruelling cross-examination. Two child houses will be opened next year in London. There are plans to open three more in the capital. The mayor of London’s office for policing and crime and NHS England have secured £5m worth of government funding for the refuges. The NSPCC and NHS England hope to create more child houses across the country to cope with the growing scale of child sexual abuse, which the charity says is a public health emergency. In 2014-15 child sexual offences in England and Wales were at their highest for a decade, with more than 47,000 offences against children recorded. The increases are continuing, and in 2015 police investigated 70,000 reports of child abuse. In Iceland, child refuges have been established in every police district. The model has been copied in Sweden, where there are 30 childrens’ houses, and in Denmark. The aim in the UK is to provide better support for children, but also to create better evidence and increase the number of prosecutions. DCS Keith Niven, the former head of the child abuse command at the Metropolitan police, said the creation of child houses was “exciting and innovative”. “All partners work together to gather evidence from a child victim of sexual assault in the least intrusive way, providing a strong and accessible network of support to enable the child to move forward from such a traumatic incident,” he said. Anne Longfield, the children’s commissioner for England, who recently visited the Barnahus in Iceland, has held a meeting with police and crime commissioners to persuade them to provide funding to build a network of child refuges across the country. She said the interviews currently carried out with child victims of sexual abuse were multiple and were a complex, gruelling process that often broke down and could take months. Longfield said: “This can be incredibly traumatising to the child. There may also be a delay in them getting therapeutic support whilst the evidence is collected for fear that it may prejudice what they say. The Barnahus approach has proved to be incredibly successful at overcoming these hurdles where it has been introduced. I hope that it will be trialled in a number of police authorities around England.” The first two child refuges are to be opened early next year in London, with three more planned for the capital. Peter Wanless, chief executive of the NSPCC, said: “Children who have suffered sexual abuse are the most vulnerable in society … Our child’s house scheme will put the child’s care and recovery at its centre. By allowing the child to give their evidence remotely, we can minimise their suffering, improve the quality of evidence and ensure they get the justice they deserve.” • This article was amended on 22 June 2016. An earlier version said the NSPCC and NHS England were creating the London refuges. It is the mayor of London’s office for policing and crime and NHS England. This has been corrected.
Apple Pay stoush turns sour with ruling against Australian banks Customers of three of Australia’s four big banks will not have access to Apple’s electronic payment system, after the competition watchdog refused their application to bargain collectively. Commonwealth Bank, Westpac, National Australia Bank, and Bendigo and Adelaide Bank applied in July to negotiate as a collective over the use of Apple Pay, which allows touch-and-go payments on iPhones. The banks had argued that Apple Pay prevented them from developing their own integrated digital wallets for iPhones, which they said would increase competition and consumer choice in Australia. Restrictions on passing fees associated with Apple Pay onto customers were also a sticking point. But the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has rejected the application, meaning each bank will have to reach an individual agreement with Apple before its customers can use Apple Pay. The ACCC said it accepted that allowing the banks to negotiate collectively and potentially boycott Apple Pay would place them in a better bargaining position with Apple, but that the benefits for customers were “currently uncertain and may be limited”. Rod Sims, the ACCC chairman, said digital wallets and mobile payments were in their infancy and subject to rapid change. “It is therefore uncertain how competition may develop with the availability of mobile payments and possible future innovations. “Apple Wallet and other non-bank digital wallets could represent a disruptive technology that may increase competition between the banks by making it easier for consumers to switch between card providers and limiting any ‘lock in’ effect bank digital wallets may cause.” In an emailed statement provided by Apple to the ABC, it said the ACCC’s decision was “great for Australians”. The ACCC’s ruling is a draft decision with a final outcome expected in March 2017. The banks seemed to take heart from Sims’ description of the ruling as “finely balanced”, vowing to continue to work with the ACCC in a statement published on the Bendigo and Adelaide Bank’s website. Lance Blockley, the spokesperson for the applicants, said a ruling against them would mean “effectively … no competition against Apple for mobile payments on the iPhone”. “The application has never been about preventing Apple Pay from coming to Australia or reducing competition between wallets. It has always been about providing consumer choice and innovation.” ANZ, American Express and Cuscal, which represents 13 issuers, have reached agreements with Apple over Apple Pay in Australia.
The rush to blame Russia for the DNC email hack is premature Since WikiLeaks published the DNC’s hacked emails on Sunday, there has been a flurry of accusations – including from the Hillary Clinton campaign – that Russian president Vladimir Putin orchestrated both the hack and the leak, in an attempt to help Donald Trump win the presidency. First, it would certainly be disturbing if Russia is trying to affect our democratic process, but maybe we should wait until we see actual evidence before deciding, as some have, that Putin ordered hackers to help swing the US election on the eve of the Democratic convention? It’s amazing how quickly the media are willing to forgo any skepticism and jump to conspiracy-tinged conclusions where Putin is involved. He has been linked to everything from Brexit, Jeremy Corbyn, Greece and Spain. People treat him like an omnipotent mastermind who secretly and effortlessly controls world events. Here’s an idea: maybe we should stop giving him so much credit? Yes, there is some circumstantial evidence that the hack may have originated in Russia, but there are also many questions that haven’t been resolved. As Adam Johnson detailed, when you look closely, the evidence is shoddy and often contradictory. Even in the New York Times article that spent dozens of paragraphs speculating about Russian involvement concluded at the bottom: “It may take months, or years, to figure out the motives of those who stole the emails, and more important, whether they were being commanded by Russian authorities, and specifically by Putin.” The bulk of the “evidence” has come from the statements of cybersecurity firms FireEye and Crowdstrike, both of which have lucrative contracts with the US government. As FireEye’s CEO once made clear, his company has a financial stake in nation-state hacking tensions. If the allegations involving Russia are true, there are plenty more logical motivations besides evil genius-level electioneering, and the media should probably stop feigning shock that a country would stoop to this level. As Edward Snowden pointed out on Twitter with an accompanying NSA document, “Our government specifically authorized the hacking of political parties.” The US has also considered hacking and then releasing sensitive and embarrassing information in China in retaliation for cybersecurity attacks, as the New York Times reported last year. This is not to say people should not be angry or upset if Russia is trying to influence American politics, but if the US wants to place blame at the feet of the Russians, they should do so transparently and in public, without leaving it to anonymous officials and cybersecurity firms to make claims without providing hard evidence. The US started down this course during the Sony hack last year, and in this case, transparency might be the best deterrent in the future – which, by the way, is something both Snowden and the Snowden-hating national security blog Lawfare argued on Monday. Beyond the geopolitical implications, this whole affair also brings up another issue that has been greatly debated over the past year: end-to-end encryption. Possibly the most ironic of all the emails consisted of a DNC official calling a BuzzFeed article “the dumbest thing I’ve ever read”. The article suggested both parties’ national committees had no idea what they were doing when it came to cybersecurity. If politics led to logical conclusions, the disastrous hack of the DNC might encourage the party to take a much stronger stance embracing end-to-end encryption, which is a cybersecurity tool as much as a privacy enhancer. For example, if the DNC were communicating over WhatsApp – which is fully end-to-end encrypted so that anyone who breached WhatsApp’s servers would not have access to the content of the messages – they would have made it much harder for the hackers. In fact, Congressman Ted Lieu castigated his colleagues earlier this year for not using end-to-end encryption when communicating with staffers – for precisely the reason that it left them open to observation by foreign spies. But we don’t live in a logical world, so we can probably look forward to politicians continuing to stoke cybersecurity fears and escalating international tensions without doing anything effective about it.
The Faliraki challenge and other Life in the EU tests for post-Brexit Britons From time immemorial, any foreigner wishing to enter a city state had to prove they had earned the right to do so. Even Oedipus had to solve the riddle of the Sphinx before entering his – unbeknown to him – birthplace, Thebes. This has been a reality that most migrants have accepted too. But for the 3 million EU nationals residing in Britain who have for years enjoyed identical rights to those of British citizens, the prospect of having to prove their worthiness to go on living here has suddenly become a reality, after the Brexit vote. The process, when it comes, may be discriminatory – but for Brexiters, its appeal must be that it enables the creation of the national “us”, allowing the rightful citizens by birthright to distinguish themselves from the European “others”, those who have to petition to be allowed to enter the community. “But we have been contributing to the British community for years!” some EU nationals will cry. Yes, but as Helena Kennedy QC, Labour peer and chair of a House of Lords committee looking at Brexit, has helpfully advised: better start preparing a box file with bills, employment documents and anything else supporting your claim, now! Theresa May’s approach suggests that she wants to use EU nationals in Britain as a negotiating chip, but I would have expected Labour to put up a better political fight, frankly, than telling us how to prepare our petitioning letters. The logic behind May’s position may be based on the reciprocal principle, which social psychologists think shapes human behaviour. So far, however, there is scant evidence of any reciprocity from Britain. Consider, by contrast, the proposal from Guy Verhofstadt, the former prime minister of Belgium who is leading negotiations for the European parliament, that EU citizenship should be extended to all British nationals (not just those resident in other EU countries) who wish to opt in. This is a goodwill gesture that should put the British government to shame. May might be suspicious about the proposal from European commission lead negotiator Michel Barnier that EU citizens living in Britain after Brexit should be allowed to remain under the jurisdiction of the European court of justice. But her own approach has made EU nationals in Britain feel like hostages. Confused hostages, I may add. Let us imagine, in the interests of reciprocity, how the process of naturalisation now facing European nationals in Britain would feel to British citizens if they were allowed to apply for EU citizenship after Brexit. And before we start, it’s worth noting that permanent residence certification is now a requirement before applying for UK citizenship – and make no mistake: filling in the 85-page form is a tedious job. Nearly 100, 000 existing applications are currently under consideration. The citizenship process is even more onerous and expensive. So in my imaginary scenario, in order to demonstrate eligibility for EU citizenship, Britons would first need to prove that they actually voted for remain. This may be difficult but probably not impossible. The names of three witnesses who can verify you were positively inclined towards listening to the remain arguments during the referendum campaign would be needed. Britons will also have to take a test in a European language of their choice (other than English). If you do not speak one, do not despair: try Spanish or Italian, where you have a good chance of being in a position to master an everyday conversation after two intensive years (following a very optimistic Brexit timeline here). Don’t attempt German or Greek. My third test for Britons would be the equivalent of the Life in the UK test, covering European history and the EU institutions. Verhofstadt would personally oversee the content, eliminating trivial questions such as the ones in the UK test that ask: “Who brought curry houses and shampoo to Britain?” The process will be subject to a fee (obviously), the equivalent of the UK permanent residence and citizenship tests, so about €1,500. Although we cannot guarantee the exchange rate after Brexit, I think it may be wise to assume that the cost will increase. Finally, British people should be aware that anyone who has partied in Faliraki, Magaluf or Kavos will be automatically rejected (on good character grounds) – unless, maybe, they can sing the Marseillaise. Although this may be seen as targeting low-income Britons in search of a cheap holiday, you will find that the British test does something similar to those without a stable job. Rest assured, after you have successfully achieved EU citizenship status, most Europeans will be more than happy to welcome you as an equal. Now let me get back to my citizenship application, and ponder my oath of allegiance to the Queen.
Miley Cyrus confirms role in Woody Allen’s Amazon TV series Miley Cyrus has confirmed her role in Woody Allen’s forthcoming TV series. Following rumours regarding the director’s new venture, the pop star has said that she will star in the new 1960s-set show, which will air on Amazon Prime. In a post on Instagram, the 23-year-old entertainer announced that she would be working alongside Allen and the comic performer and writer Elaine May for half-hour episodes. Cyrus, who recently starred in Bill Murray’s Netflix special A Very Murray Christmas, said she was “stoked” to be hired for the job. According to Deadline, the as-yet-untitled series will start shooting in March. “Woody Allen is a visionary creator who has made some of the greatest films of all-time, and it’s an honour to be working with him on his first television series,” Amazon Studios head Roy Price said in a earlier press statement. “I don’t know how I got into this,” Allen said. “I have no ideas and I’m not sure where to begin. My guess is that Roy Price will regret this.” In recent years, Cyrus’ career has been built around her music and philanthropy, but she first rose to fame at the age of 11 as an actor in the Disney Channel TV show Hannah Montana, a series about a schoolgirl with a secret double life as a teen pop star.
Toronto film festival taps into Snowden and keeps it current with Denial and The Journey It was shunned by film studios and plagued by Pokémon, but now Oliver Stone will finally premiere Snowden, his biopic of the National Security Agency whistleblower, at the Toronto international film festival in September. The film, which stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Edward Snowden, is based partly on a book by the journalist Luke Harding and follows the former security analyst from his time in the US military to his exile to Russia after he leaked thousands of classified documents. Clips of the film were shown at San Diego Comic-Con last week, where the director said the major studios’ wariness over the film had “almost killed” the project. He also attacked Pokémon Go, criticising the level of data collection intrinsic to the world’s most popular mobile game by describing it as “surveillance capitalism”. Other high-profile films making their debut in Toronto also take their notes from news headlines: Deepwater Horizon, directed by Battleship’s Peter Berg and starring Mark Wahlberg, will tell the story of the 2010 oil rig disaster that lead to BP paying out the largest environmental fine in US history. Meanwhile, The Journey will focus on how an unlikely friendship developed between Northern Ireland’s late Democratic Unionist party leader Ian Paisley and his deputy Martin McGuinness. Colm Meaney is McGuinness, while Timothy Spall will play Paisley. Spall also stars in Denial, an account of American historian Deborah E. Lipstadt’s legal battle against writer David Irving who took her to court after she accused him of denying the Holocaust. With libel courts in the UK putting the burden of proof on the accused, it was up to Lipstadt to legally prove that the Holocaust happened. Directed by The Bodyguard’s Mick Jackson, it stars Rachel Weisz as Lipstadt. A fleet of UK films travel to Toronto this year. Among them is Adam Smith’s Trespass Against Us, which stars Michael Fassbender and Brendan Gleeson as two generations of a warring crime family. Also arriving will be Lone Scherfig’s Their Finest, previously known as We Happy Few. Set during the second world war, it follows a gang of film-makers (lead by Gemma Arterton) making a patriotic film to boost morale during the blitz. Another Brit in attendance will be Amma Asante, whose A United Kingdom tells the story of the 1948 interracial marriage between Seretse Khama (David Oyelowo), the first president of Botswana and Ruth Williams Khama (Rosamund Pike), who was an English bank clerk. Noel Clarke will bring Brotherhood, the culmination of his London crime trilogy, while Ewan McGregor will make his directorial debut with American Pastoral. Based on the Philip Roth novel of the same name, it stars Jennifer Connelly and Dakota Fanning, with McGregor himself as Seymour “Swede” Levov, whose life is thrown into turmoil when his daughter explodes a bomb to protest against the Vietnam war. Canadian director Denis Villeneuve, currently filming the Blade Runner reboot, will bring Arrival, a sci-fi adventure in which a team of linguists, lead by Amy Adams, must decipher the desires of visiting aliens. Meanwhile, Rob Reiner will bring LBJ, a biopic of Lyndon B Johnson, the 36th president of the United States. Woody Harrelson plays the man thrust into the highest office after the assassination of John F Kennedy. Violence comes to the fore in two of the other American offerings. Catfight will star Sandra Oh and Alicia Silverstone as members of a scrap-happy sorority, while Miles Teller will take to the ring as struggling boxer Vinnie Paz in Bleed for This. On the more sedate end of the scale, Eleanor Coppola, the wife of Francis, will introduce Paris Can Wait, a romantic comedy starring Diane Lane as the wife of an inattentive Hollywood producer (Alec Baldwin), who finds herself on a journey of discovery while driving from Cannes to Paris. It’s the 80-year-old documentarian’s feature debut. Classy kids fare headed for Canada includes Sing, director Garth Jennings’ musical comedy about a koala (voiced by Matthew McConaughey) who holds a singing competition in order to save his theatre from closure. Reese Witherspoon, Scarlett Johansson and Taron Egerton provide backing vocals as a warbling pig, an alt-rock porcupine and a soulful gorilla, respectively. Also for younger viewers, JA Bayona’s A Monster Calls will introduce Conner O’Malley playing a boy dealing with his mother’s terminal illness by confiding in a talking yew tree (voiced by Liam Neeson). Jonathan Demme, who famously caught a classic Talking Heads show on tape with Stop Making Sense, will press play on JT and the Tennessee Kids, a Justin Timberlake concert film. Also on rotation is The Rolling Stones Olé Olé Olé! – A Trip Across Latin America, directed by Paul Dugdale and following the veteran rockers on their recent tour. The Toronto international film festival runs from 8 to 18 September, opening with Antoine Fuqua’s remake of The Magnificent Seven and closing with The Edge of Seventeen, a high school romance in which Hailee Steinfeld’s awkward teen is mentored by Woody Harrelson.
Think Hinkley is an expensive white elephant? Not compared with HS2… It was a good day to query the government’s use of flimsy statistics to justify massive infrastructure projects. After Hinkley, we’re on to Heathrow’s third runway and HS2 – and Andrew Tyrie, chairman of the Treasury select committee, is unhappy on both fronts. On airports, he still hasn’t had a reply to five requests for more detailed disclosures of the assumptions used in the Airports Commission’s final report. But his bigger beef is with the high-speed railway. “HS2 has the weakest economic case of all the projects within the infrastructure programme, yet it is being pushed through with the most enthusiasm,” he says. He’s right. What’s more, the cost of HS2 almost puts the other two in the shade. Hinkley and Heathrow are both £18bn projects, or thereabouts. HS2 is a £42.5bn or £55bn adventure, depending on whose numbers you prefer, and could be hurtling towards £70bn or £80bn by the time incidentals, like new trains, are included. The case for review ought to be overwhelming. The momentum behind HS2, however, seems strong now that Chris Grayling, the new transport secretary, has come out in favour. Like some of his predecessors, Grayling has given up justifying HS2 on grounds of speed and instead relies on the argument that more capacity is needed, especially on the west coast mainline. But then Grayling makes the leap that any new capacity must automatically be of the high-speed variety. “Of course it makes sense, if we’re going to build a new railway line, for it to be a fast railway line, to reduce travel times from north to south,” he said in July. “That’s logical.” Is it really, though? Has the government approached the cost-benefit analysis with an open mind? A House of Lords committee last year urged the government to review options involving lower speeds, and Tyrie wants to see something similar. “The question of whether it is possible to improve capacity at lower speed and, consequently, at a lower cost, has not been comprehensively examined,” he told Grayling yesterday. It should be examined. So should smaller-scale enhancements of the road and railway networks that could deliver benefits more quickly. With Hinkley, prime minister Theresa May paused for thought and then failed, it seems, to consider costs. She must do better with HS2. Choppy waters jolt Next’s even keel For once, Lord Wolfson’s ingrained caution was fully justified. Next’s chief executive warned of tough trading conditions in his last City outing, and he was correct. Sales at Next rose 2.6% to £1.96bn in the six months to July, but pre-tax profits fell 1.5% to £342m. The punters come out for cut-price sales but it is harder to persuade them to buy new clothes at full price. In the circumstances, the 5% fall in the share price was understandable. Note, however, that Wolfson, who is admirably strict in providing forecasts of profits for the full year, didn’t tweak his projections one jot. He’s still expecting the final quarter to be strong compared with a year ago, when the country was basking in winter sunshine. That should serve as a reminder that the post-Brexit fall in sterling, though important for clothing retailers, is not the whole story. Next’s shares, at a shade under £50, trade at about 11 times earnings and carry a 3% dividend yield. Not bad for a company that hasn’t gone seriously off the rails for a couple of decades. Juncker talks the talk over Barroso’s Goldman affair “Personally I do not have a problem with him working for a private bank – but maybe not this bank,” says European commission president Jean-Claude Juncker, getting himself deeper into the row over predecessor José Manuel Barroso’s choice of Goldman Sachs as new employer. Loathing Goldman, as an icon of Wall Street’s power and greed, is a popular sport, and not only in Europe. But let’s hear Juncker’s definition of an unsuitable bank for a former Brussels bureaucrat. Goldman, says Juncker, was “one of the organisations that knowingly or unknowingly contributed to the enormous financial crisis we had between 2007 and 2009”. But dozens of banks could fit that description – certainly those that originated US sub-prime mortgages. Goldman, as it happens, did little origination, although it was up to its neck in the securitisation of financial junk. Should all banks in the sub-prime game be ruled offside? If so, shouldn’t the commission have drawn up a blacklist, which would include several European firms? Juncker has booted the Barroso affair to the commission’s ethics committee, but it’s hard to believe he intends to apply any actual sanctions. It would oblige him to draw up a few rules, which is harder than making airy statements.
'It was the end of a nightmare': Cherie Currie on putting the ghosts of the Runaways to rest The teenage patients in the substance abuse ward of North Hollywood’s Coldwater Canyon hospital may not have been aware of the past life of their counsellor. If they weren’t, they were missing out on quite the kick. At 16, Cherie Currie had prowled world stages in the Runaways, the 70s all-girl rock band that bowled out of the Sunset Strip, toppling tired teenage groupies in their wake. Trussed up in a corset, and snarling about being your ch-ch-ch-cherry bomb over fierce riffs, Currie was pregnant by one manager and allegedly emotionally abused by another. Currie had been the original Valley girl, a surfie chick living in her more popular twin sister’s shadow, and trying to contend with the sudden absence of her mother, who had moved to Indonesia to follow a new romance. At 15, following an alleged rape and having hacked off all her hair, Bowie-style – to escape, like him, into an alter ego – Currie was recruited by Svengali manager Kim Fowley. He thought her tough facade made her the perfect frontwoman for a band shaped by his comic-schlock lyrics and bubblegum bravado. To maintain that edge, she says, he pitted the bandmates against each other. “We just never had a break,” Currie recalls, of her stint with Joan Jett, Lita Ford, Sandy West and Jackie Fox. “Either we were touring, rehearsing or in the studio, and we were making no money at all. They were making a lot of money off of us.” Exhaustion wasn’t all the Runaways had to deal with. Last year, Huffington Post broke the story of the alleged rape of the then-16-year-old Jackie “Fox” Fuchs by Fowley after a New Year’s Eve gig, while she was incapacitated by quaaludes. Fuchs maintains – very eloquently – that this happened in front of Currie and Jett. In countless interviews since, Currie has given her version of events: that she did not witness anything that looked like rape. By 17, Currie was burned out on cocaine and quaaludes, and quit. Her bad fortune didn’t let up. Two years later, she says, she was kidnapped and raped by a stalker who had previously murdered six women in Texas. It was in the 1980s – having surrendered a nascent movie career to freebase cocaine – that Currie turned her life around and became a tech at Coldwater, working in both the drug and psych facilities. When she graduated to drug and alcohol counsellor it was “to be able to share my experience, strength and hope with other kids. “I was only 25 and a lot of these kids were the age I was when I was in the Runaways when I was introduced to drugs, so it was a good fit for me.” It’s not hard to imagine Currie in the role of counsellor – she’s basically your one-woman cheerleader, quite the opposite of the reticent Joan Jett. “I’m a big fan of the , I’m so glad you guys have a branch in Australia, congratulations,” she says energetically as our call is connected. When I drop in that I wrote a novel with her in mind (come on, you’d drop it in, too), she positively vibrates. “I’m very proud of you. That’s great. Because kids need that kind of thing.” Her own book, Neon Angel, was originally intended for teenagers. She’d gone to the publisher as an artist, hoping to illustrate children’s books – her actress mother was a good artist and her father was a cartoonist – and she wound up telling the head of the publishing company about her Runaways history. He urged her to write the imprint’s first young adult book, which later became a no-holds-barred adult memoir. Writing it might have allowed her to wrest back control of traumatic scenes, but when I ask if she’d in fact suffered post-traumatic stress syndrome, she says, “Not any more. “With Kim in particular, I really turned that around. Instead of dealing with the anger and resentment and even the hatred I had against him, I decided that that only hurt me.” Currie now juggles three careers as writer (her current project is a play), musician and chainsaw artist, and lives in the picturesque San Fernando Valley. It was there that – to the surprise of everybody, including herself – she wound up caring for her former tormentor Fowley, who was dying of bladder cancer. “He didn’t do it right,” Currie acknowledges of Fowley’s control of the band. According to Currie, this included giving the underage girls a sex education lesson with a live demonstration. “But he came from an orphanage,” she continues. “He had gone through polio, with no parental guidance of any kind.” Currie has mentioned her “experience, strength and hope”, which is a telltale expression of Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous. She’ll happily admit she “did the program hardcore for a number of years. Then I started to see some flaws in the system and graduated into my own spiritual type of the 12 steps.” The ninth step encourages making amends. A person “clears up their side of the street”, and refrains from casting blame at the other party. It’s designed to promote forgiveness and assuage the sense of guilt, resentment or victimhood that can keep a person using drugs. Currie doesn’t reference this step in our interview, but it’s interesting that she did initiate the ultimate reconciliation, with Fowley. “We spent countless hours talking through what I went through with him in the Runaways,” she says. “Had I not reached out I would have had a hole in myself the size of a basketball that I would have had to carry with me the rest of my life.” The Runaways came of age in what rock historians like to call a “permissive era”, when the line between sex and statutory rape, or rape, became ever more blurred. Teenage groupies skipped class to hang at venues such as Rodney Bingenheimer’s English Disco. David Bowie and Led Zeppelin are among those who famously enjoyed this smorgasboard. Underage sex has been openly immortalised by the musicians themselves, such as Iggy Pop who sings in Look Away: “I slept with Sable when she was 13”. On the one hand, police investigations such as Operation Yewtree are investigating the historical sex crimes of minors by entertainment-industry perpetrators including Rolf Harris, Jimmy Savile and Gary Glitter. On the other hand, Currie tells me, “We have to take responsibility for our actions.” But what responsibility does she possibly need to take for her teenage self? “I’ll give you an example of an exercise that I stumbled upon,” she says, “and this is something that I’ve even had friends of mine do, just to show them the power of it. If you turn around and say, ‘I take responsibility for everything that has happened in my life’…” She pauses. “If you just said that, out loud, right now.” More insistently: “Jenny.” Dutifully, I repeat it. She continues, “Do you feel something happening to you? Do you feel your chest opening up? When people refuse to take responsibility for anything, it allows you to continue to use. You’ve got to be a victim to be a drug addict.” It’s a dicey topic, as she knows well – particularly in the wake of Fuchs’ rape allegation. “I’ve been beat up a lot for taking responsibility for getting in the car of a kidnapper, a murderer,” she admits. “People have come at me with torches. The thing is, that voice in my head told me, ‘Don’t get in that car.’” She clarifies: “There are people that have no responsibility. I’m talking about when we make a conscious choice, when a part of our brain is saying, nuh-uh, and we choose to ignore it.” And as she’s also told LA’s Juice magazine, women take on rape “like it’s their fault, and it’s not”. It’s clear that Currie’s dogma has been her route to healing. She’s about to come to Australia for the first time, and she couldn’t be happier about playing the old hits that ought to hold bad memories. “I never get tired of doing those Runaways songs,” she insists. “My mind is still that young girl up on stage, only a lot wiser. I really enjoy it.” Before he died, Fowley collaborated with Currie one more time, on her 2015 solo album Reverie – which is as gleefully technicolour as you’d hope it could be. Also contributing was her musician son Jake – from her marriage to actor Robert Hays (who most famously played Striker on Airplane!) – and her old bandmate and nemesis, the fearsome Lita Ford. Fowley’s lyrics are unmistakable in tracks like Queen of the Asphalt Jungle: “From the fastfood grease pits to the back of a stolen car …” It’s the teenage dream of a man forever locked in arrested development. “For me, it was the end of a nightmare,” Currie says of her last months with Fowley. “I’m so grateful for that time. People can change. They can. Without him, Joan never would have happened, Lita and myself, so I owe him a great deal and I was very honoured to take care of him towards the end of his life. I would have done it again and again, and I’m sorry that I lost him.” Cherie Currie’s New Zealand/Australia tour begins in Auckland on 20 May
Rafael Benítez hopes to rouse sleeping giant Newcastle in Tyne-Wear derby There has been considerable talk about the break clause in Rafael Benítez’s three-year contract at Newcastle United, but it seems Sam Allardyce may have a similar arrangement with Sunderland. While no one expects Benítez to stick around on Tyneside should his new team be relegated, it had been thought that if Sunderland went down Allardyce would remain in charge at the Stadium of Light. That may indeed be the case but, unusually, he turned distinctly coy, refusing to be drawn when asked if his agreement included an exit clause. “My contract is none of your business,” said a manager aiming to increase Sunderland’s run of six straight wins against Newcastle, at St James’ Park on Sunday. With one north-east club almost certain to be relegated in May, and the cost of missing out on next season’s Premier League broadcast deal amounting to at least £100m, Benítez hopes to mark his first home game by ending that sequence. If his desire to put Allardyce, a long-time adversary, in his place, should not be underestimated, there are much bigger things at stake. “I decided to come here because I knew how big this club is,” said the former Liverpool, Chelsea and Real Madrid manager. “It’s a sleeping giant. If we stay up - and I’m sure we will - we can achieve things. We can improve a lot next season. I have confidence we’ll stay up and I’m sure everything will be fine. I’m sure next year we’ll do a great season.” Benítez - who has made it clear he will not countenance the lack of control over player recruitment experienced by Steve McClaren and Alan Pardew - has yet to speak to Mike Ashley, Newcastle’s owner, although victory on Sunday might change that. Conversely, defeat would puncture the new-found optimism at the club. Asked if it would be a disaster, Benítez’s reply was instructive. “It’s always a disaster if you lose, but especially against Sunderland it will be more difficult,” he said. “I don’t think that will happen but, if something goes wrong, we have to be ready for the next game [at Norwich].” Having inherited an imbalanced and injury-ravaged squad, low on defenders and strikers but full of attacking midfielders, he is effectively coaching with one hand tied behind his back. “We’re not scoring goals and we’re conceding a lot,” he said. “So we have problems everywhere. But we have quality, we have some good players - we have to coordinate the team more.” He is excited by Gini Wijnaldum, the Dutch creator. “He’s of the players that, as managers, we enjoy coaching; he has pace, he has ability,” said Benítez. “His best position is the problem - he’s so good he can play everywhere and do well. “We were thinking about where to play him and said: ’His best position could be behind the striker.’ But he can play on the right, on the left, in a deeper position or up front, too, because he’s so good. I think he’s best behind the striker, but his quality can help us in any position.”
Mark Noble penalty earns West Ham fortunate win over dominant Hull Hull City produced a display of scintillating passing and movement, created an endless succession of chances and lost to West Ham in a result that leaves Mike Phelan’s side bottom of the Premier League at Christmas. There was something inevitable about the result: a classic case of footballing sod’s law. Hull hit the post three times, squandered two one-on-ones and generally saw their positive, well-drilled endeavours founder at the final hurdle. West Ham were largely disjointed even after changing shape and personnel at half-time, but earned a soft penalty when Tom Huddlestone pulled Michail Antonio down and now have seven points in a week. “Were we lucky? Yes,” said Slaven Bilic. “For a long period of the game it looked like they deserved something. Through the first half, even to 60 minutes. Our start wasn’t good enough. “In the last half hour we had good composure, good balance in the team. We built pressure and from the pressure we got the penalty. I would like and love that we’d played better but we knew these two games [with Burnley in midweek] were all about the results. We got six points out of the games, the main object for us.” For Phelan, there was little comfort from what he felt was his side’s best performance of the season. “The game should have been out of sight before the penalty,” the Hull manager said. “Everything that could have gone against us did. “I should believe, being in charge of this group, that performances like that will eventually bring results. But you have to be clinical, you have to be ruthless. Teams in the past have come into the Premier League – a few spring to mind – and have been very good at attacking games, but have got relegated.” Robert Snodgrass had already scuffed his shot with only Darren Randolph to beat before Dieumerci Mbokani was presented with the game’s best opportunity in the 21st minute. Aaron Cresswell underhit a blind back pass into the path of Hull’s Congolese striker who intercepted the ball and dinked it over the advancing Randolph. He then watched helplessly as the ball hit the near post, bounced along the line and then out again. Within three minutes Hull had another chance as Harry Maguire connected forcefully with a Snodgrass corner, forcing Randolph to scramble the ball wide. Another five minutes later a sweet, smart break ended with Mbokani playing in Sam Clucas, who blazed the ball over the bar. In the second half the pattern continued. A powerful Andrew Robertson cross was turned on to his own post by Mark Noble’s diving header. Two minutes later Robertson’s 20-yard shot cannoned off the other post. Maguire had another header cleared off the line, Angelo Ogbonna made a last-ditch tackle to deny Clucas and Snodgrass landed a 25-yard curler on the roof of the net. West Ham did have the ball cleared off the Hull line, André Ayew’s header meeting Robertson’s right boot. The penalty came in the 76th minute, converted nervelessly by Noble for his second goal in two matches. After that, Hull wilted and West Ham came alive. Bilic hopes that back-to-back wins will finally ease the mental pressure on his side, who face Swansea next. For Phelan it is a case of hoping that luck will change and that reinforcements will arrive and make the difference in January. “It’s hard. Even some clubs at the top are wanting that player who will change their fortunes,” Phelan said. “We’re at the other end of the table and have to advertise ourselves to players who have got grit, determination, courage to battle it out. There are players out there who will do that. It’s the Premier League at the end of the day.”
'No time to waste': climate changes for films on global warming Rob Callender is talking about cheese. “My dad loves cheese, really loves it. So I’ve had to persuade him to cut down. Instead of leaping on every two-for-one in the supermarket, buy one really nice cheese once a week. Dairy farming is such a horrible industry.” Callender’s passionate advocacy of veganism has made him an object of fun and curiosity on film sets, but he is now turning his environmentalism into art. In just over a month’s time, he he will begin shooting a short crowd-funded feature film on climate change. The British actor, whose credits include Sherlock, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, and the Guy Burgess character in the National Theatre revival of Another Country, has been chiefly famous among online fans for his appearance in Game of Thrones earlier this year. A close-up of his penis - “no, it wasn’t a body double,” he says, blushing - as his character Clarenzo examined himself for genital warts caused a stir. Callender prompted the scene himself. Kidding around on set while filming a very different episode, he said it was about time for a male nude shot. Writers David Benioff and Daniel Weiss took him at his word, and the script was delivered soon after. “I thought it was quite amusing,” he says. “I don’t think we should be embarrassed about nakedness. And I had a wig, so no one would recognise me.” There will be no reprise of this scene in his climate change film, however. A thriller that takes a series of dams as its backdrop, The Incentive revolves around a “sort of Steve Jobs/Elon Musk” figure of an ambitious and charismatic entrepreneur taking on global warming. But is he all that he seems? Combining elements of action and disaster movies with spy conspiracies and flashes of comedy - including Simon Amstell in a “celebrity vegan cameo” -the film aims to portray the perils of climate change without preaching or bludgeoning audiences. It will be shown initially at film festivals, with the hope of a general release or a bigger budget remake if successful. Callender has been working on the script for two years, and is now in the final stages of raising funds for the production via Kickstarter. Shooting will be at the Cruachan dam in Scotland in November. This is a personal quest for Callender. A vegan who has converted all his immediate family to the cause, with the exception of his father’s cheese habit, he believes “in embodying the change you want to make”. Making a film about climate change was a natural fit because he believes the problem is now growing so urgent that we only have a few years, “a very short window”, to make the differences to the economy and our consumption patterns that are needed to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Winchester-educated Callender has an unusual perspective on the issue, having been born in Japan and brought up largely in Hong Kong and Los Angeles. His father was an executive at Cathay Pacific – “I think I have a deep guilt at having taken so many flights,” he says – and his experience of other cultures encourages him to think that if people can be persuaded there are different ways of living without our overweening dependence on fossil fuels, we can switch rapidly to those other modes. “Young people see this,” he says, as their exposure to the internet gives them a broader viewpoint of other cultures. “My grandfather doesn’t believe in it.” His sense of urgency has deeply personal roots as well. While Callender, now 25, was at the Guildhall school of drama, his motherdeveloped cancer in her early 50s and died. “She was incredibly healthy, she had no vices,” he says. “It showed me that you can’t wait around. There is no time to waste,. All the social worries just melt away… you’re not thinking about how you ‘should’ behave, you just show what you are thinking, very directly.” Films about climate change do not, in general, have a happy history. Al Gore’s 2006 An Inconvenient Truth won an Oscar, but was a documentary, beautifully paced and shot, but essentially the filming of an hour-long standup lecture. The Age of Stupid looked and sounded different, but underneath was much the same format, with Pete Postlethwaite narrating an impassioned polemic against rampant consumerism. Others have been less successful. The Day After Tomorrow employed conventional disaster movie tropes, while 1995’s Waterworld, starring Kevin Costner with gills, put paid to the genre for a decade. Arguably the best job was done by The Simpsons Movie. Callender believes turning climate change into watchable filmic form is vital if people are to be persuaded to change their behaviour. “It’s this massive issue, this huge part of our lives, and it is missing [on film],” he says. A documentary was out of the question, he says. The defining question of our times, that of whether we deal with climate change or fail to do so, must and should be a subject of art. “We are failing otherwise,” he says. Above all, Callender says, his film must work on its own terms. “I want people to be awake while they watch it,” he says. “I want them to be watching to see what happens next, just like any other film. It’s not a lecture.”
How to survive Thanksgiving if you’re a Good White Person A moment of silence, please, for all the Good White Millennials. Thanksgiving is going to be rough for many of them this year as it means a migration back to the suburbs to sit around a table with old, Trump-supporting relatives. There will be awkward conversations about politics; voices may be raised. They will be a long way away from Brooklyn and it will be extremely difficult to enjoy the non-artisanal food. Oh, don’t get me wrong – Thanksgiving is going to be tough for everyone forced to fraternize with the political enemy, no matter what color they are. But the only race that Trump got a majority of votes from was white people; 58% of white voters voted for Trump, while only 8% of black voters did. So you see, white people are statistically more likely to have a Trump supporter in the family; it’s good white people whose holiday is going to be ruined the most. Fortunately, many people are sparing a thought for good white people, and media outlets have churned out a heartening number of helpful “survival guides”. Vogue, for example, suggests simply ignoring all that nasty politics stuff – perhaps even having a fun game where anyone who brings up politics is subject to a $20 fine, with all proceeds going to charity, of course! Despite the plethora of good suggestions out there, I feel like we could do more. As a committed ally of Good White People (I count many among my best friends), I would like to ask: what can people of color can do to help our oppressed white friends through this difficult time? Is there, for example, something we can wear to show our support as you prepare to suffer through an awkward family meal? After Trump’s victory, a number of people wore safety pins to demonstrate their solidarity for minorities who were terrified about their future in an America where the incoming president has been endorsed by the KKK. Good white people selflessly ruined their clothes to help protect us; can we think of a similar gesture of solidarity? Here’s another thought: perhaps allies of color might like to consider organizing #notallwhitepeople Thanksgiving parties so that good white people can be together in a safe space over the holidays. Trump’s victory unleashed a worrying surge of anger from some people of color who felt let down that a majority of white people had looked at Trump’s racism and thought, nah, not a deal-breaker. This anger meant that some of them ignorantly lumped white people together, treating them as a monolithic racial entity rather than individuals with their own thoughts, feelings and political views. This was upsetting to many good white people who felt forced to remind the world: #notallwhitepeople. Let’s reassure good white people that we understand and we appreciate their exceptionalism. If all else fails and your good white friends are still feeling down, then cheer them up by explaining that, actually, white supremacy is kinda hot right now; it may well be the new kale. I mean, did you see that glossy profile of “dapper white nationalist” Richard Spencer in Mother Jones? He’s a virulent racist, sure, but his tastefully tailored suits are to die for. Fascism may be quite upsetting, but fashion is always something to be thankful for.
Co-op sells crematoria for £43m to boost funeral homes business The Co-operative Group is selling its crematoria to funeral services group Dignity and will plough the proceeds into improving its funeral homes business. The Co-op will receive £43m for the five crematoria. All staff will transfer to the new owner, which has more than 725 funeral homes and 39 crematoria. The crematoria are in Craighton, Glasgow; Emstrey, Shropshire; Grenoside, South Yorkshire; Lichfield, Staffordshire; and Stockport, Greater Manchester. These are areas where Dignity does not have crematoria at present. Richard Lancaster, the managing director of Co-op Funeralcare, said: “This agreement is key in allowing us to further invest in providing essential funeral services to our members and customers in communities across the UK as we have done for over 100 years.” The sale proceeds will be reinvested in the Co-op’s funeral parlours, to fund the rollout of new products and services. This forms part of a £1.3bn investment over three years to breathe fresh life into the 172-year-old mutual. There are plans to refurbish the funeral homes and supermarkets and to install new systems in its insurance business, as well as improving products and services. As part of its revamp, the Co-op is adopting a new blue logo with a cloverleaf-like design that is reminiscent of its 1960s logo. The group traces its roots back to the Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers in 1844, but came close to collapse three years ago when a £1.5bn black hole was discovered at its banking business. The bank’s former chairman, Methodist minister Paul Flowers, was engulfed in a sex and drugs scandal, and the Co-op group’s chief executive resigned after the size of his pay package – £6.6m – was revealed by the . Since then, new bosses have been brought in as part of a radical shake-up of the board, several businesses have been sold off, and the Co-op group’s stake in the bank has been reduced to 20%.
Bournemouth’s Eddie Howe says Jordon Ibe should target England call Eddie Howe believes he has assembled a stronger Bournemouth squad than last season in readiness for their second year in the Premier League. Howe has signed two exciting prospects – Jordon Ibe and Lewis Cook – from Liverpool and Leeds United respectively but admits they are still scouring the transfer market, with defensive reinforcements now a priority. “We need a balanced squad, players that are fighting for every position, so I think it’s obvious there’s an area we need to improve,” said Howe, who has only one recognised central defender, Steve Cook, at his disposal following the sale of Tommy Elphick to Aston Villa. The Liverpool defender Brad Smith could join his former team-mate Ibe at the club after Bournemouth had a bid in the region of £6m accepted for the Australian over the weekend. The winger Matt Ritchie joined Newcastle before Bournemouth recruited Ibe for a club-record £15m, after the England Under-21 player opted to end his four-and-a-half year association with Liverpool. Ibe scored his first Bournemouth goal in a 3-3 draw against Portsmouth in their second pre-season match on Saturday and Howe is hopeful the player can develop further and target a call-up to Sam Allardyce’s senior squad. “That has to be his aim and that is certainly my aim – to take all of these boys to new levels,” said Howe. “If that means the national team then so be it but my only concern is getting them playing to their full potential for Bournemouth. I think the standard is probably the highest it’s been in a Bournemouth squad, it’s a really talented squad and now of course we have to get results. “We have always traditionally brought in young talent, moulded them and worked with them and made them better. I am really excited by the group we have: it’s young, it’s dynamic and there’s a lot of potential for players to get better. We had a go last summer to try and make sure we could stay in the division. This summer we have sold a couple of key players but we’ve replaced them hopefully with players of huge potential. I think that is the beauty, from my perspective: to work with such young players and try to get the best out of them.” The striker Callum Wilson, who signed a four-year contract with Bournemouth until 2020 in July to end speculation surrounding his future, believes the summer activity reflects the rapid progress made by the club. “When I joined I think it was the record fee at £3m but now it’s been blown out of the water and it shows how far the club has come in two or three years,” said Wilson, who joined from Coventry City in 2014. Ibe became Howe’s fifth summer signing following the arrivals of Cook, the striker Lys Mousset from Le Havre and the midfield pair, Nathan Aké and Emerson Hyndman. Wilson added: “The club has grown so much in a short space of time and it will continue to grow. Buying players like that [Ibe] is only going to add strength to the squad. He looks a good player and he looks really sharp. He is good to play with and is a good addition to the team.”
Iceland Airwaves festival day three – Thunderpussy bring the boogie, King the glorious sonics Day three of Iceland Airwaves kicks off with the president. That’s not the name of the latest laptop wunderkind or an ironic moniker for a new synth duo. No, all of the journalists and assorted media types who have come to cover the festival are taken out on a coach for an official audience with Guðni Thorlacius Jóhannesson, newly inaugurated as the sixth Icelandic head of state, unless you count Björk, which you always should. “Welcome to Iceland,” Jóhannesson says, standing before us with the First Lady, Eliza Reid, in the grand drawing room of their house, which just happens to be white. He starts talking about the “Icelandic music scenery”, and how much Airwaves has done for the local economy. He even reads out some quotes from the world’s press, about how it’s “the hippest long weekend on the annual music-festival calendar” (courtesy of David Fricke of Rolling Stone, who is here), and how this year’s one “starts in a toilet”, a reference by yours truly to John Lydon’s inaugural address on day one at the converted public convenience that is the Icelandic Museum of Punk. He proposes a toast to “music, cooperation, and having fun” and tells us to either “clap or rattle our jewellery”. You can’t imagine Theresa May opening the Great Escape with a John Lennon gag. From the president to King. When I wrote about these three Los Angelenos back in 2012, they seemed mired, in the best possible way, in the 70s celestial soul of Minnie Riperton and her Rotary Connection. Tonight, they appear to have moved on a decade, the sound coming from Paris Strother’s panoply of keyboards and computers evoking the shimmering R&B of super-producers Jam and Lewis. It’s a very mid-80s electronic soul sound, with none of the murk or rhythmic idiosyncrasy of today’s avant-R&B. The actual songwriting could do with a bit of oomphing up – that’s an Icelandic phrase – but the sweetness of their female attitude, their dovetailing harmonies and the actual sonics are glorious. Helsinki musician Ringa Manner, who operates as solo laptop artist the Hearing, draws a big crowd with her quirkily bleak, oblique, electronic melancholia. It’s nice to see Dolores Haze, more alumni of the ’s new band of the week column, doing well with their girl-group goth-grunge. Dressed a little tardily for Halloween (one of them sports Elvira chic, another has on a skeleton mask), they cover all indie bases. Frontwoman Groovy Nickz whispers and screams as the band veer wildly between shoegaze and punk, emo and C86-style shambling indie. They even have a song named after Brit alternative rockers Placebo. But it’s all quite catchy and poppy. Axel Flóvent is an Icelandic singer-songwriter masquerading as a band, with a guitarist, bassist, drummer and female backing singer bolstering his derivative but effective voice. It must be effective because his songs – think a solo Chris Martin – are being synced all over the shop, from the Vampire Diaries to European TV commercials. One minute it’s soaring high like a choirboy’s, the next it’s evincing a light rasp to suggest this 20-year-old native of fishing village Húsavík has had his share of hard-won experiences. Lake Street Drive are a four-piece from Minneapolis configured like Abba (two male, two female); an Abba who play instruments: double-bass, guitar, drums, vocals, and play them well (they studied at the New England Conservatory of Music). And those vocals, courtesy of Rachael Price, are powerful and soulful, only utterly devoid of the intensity of someone like Amy Winehouse, but with a similar fondness for 60s R&B and Motown. Clearly, Price could go solo and have a career of sorts, but she would struggle because the world doesn’t need another big-voiced solo artist. But operating within a band context, one capable of such note-perfect homages to classic pop and soul, she stands out. Lake Street Drive are refreshingly unalternative, and accomplished on a variety of fronts. The highlight of the day – indeed, the highlight of the festival so far, give or take Dizzee Rascal on Friday night – are Thunderpussy. The Seattle band are a revelation, if not quite a revolution. That name suggests a near-novelty bunch of comedic pasticheurs, and there are references in their Airwaves brochure write-up to Madonna and Prince so I was expecting something pseudo-funky. But this is not that at all. An all-female outfit, the parts of their bodies not covered by tattoos are clothed in, variously, sparkly hot pants, tassly blouses, silver vests, black spandex pants and patent leather thigh- high boots. They resemble a glam Runaways, forgotten early-70s band Fanny, or the Lemon Twigs’ slightly older sisters. The music, though, isn’t glitter rock; they just have some of the fashion trappings – you can picture them hanging out, during the post-Woodstock doldrums, at a US rock festival circa 1972, as honorary hard-nosed female drinking buddies of Steppenwolf and Skynyrd, surrounded by Hells Angels dropping ’ludes. No, this is straightahead, no-nonsense, unreconstructed vintage hard rock and tightly-constructed boogie, with all the trimmings – orgiastic grimaces, dirty riffing, and lashings of solos. They writhe, they cavort, they strut - the whole lexicon of early-70s stage-craft. Meanwhile, lots of bearded men in the audience nod in appreciation – this could catch on. “If you don’t dance to this one, Molly might come and lick your face,” says guitarist Whitney Petty of frontwoman Molly Sides. Cue dozens of Icelanders shouting: “Nobody dance!” Frankie Cosmos won New York magazine’s pop album of the year award for 2014, and they’re another 50/50 male-female outfit purveying a neat line in tightly rhythmic indiepop. Greta Kline – the singer/guitarist who goes by the name of Frankie Cosmos – is so preppy and collegiate, New York and shy, laconic and cool, she should be in Girls (but then, her mum and dad are Kevin Kline and Phoebe Cates). And they get extra points because the bassist is called David Mystery and he is wearing a Pavo Pavo T-shirt. Minor Victories is a veritable indie supergroup, featuring Rachel Gosling of Slowdive, guitarists Stuart Braithwaite (Mogwai) and Justin Lockey (Editors), and filmmaker James Lockey of Hand Held Cine Club, who play blisteringly, beautifully loud set at the art museum. Finally, there’s American-Swedish band Fews, specialising in space/kraut rock and avant drones. Their motorik boogie, linear grooves and mantric repetitions – pure early-70s Detroit meets early-70s Düsseldorf – provide ample opportunities for wigging out in the early hours of Saturday morning. Paul Lester’s trip to Iceland was paid for by Iceland Airwaves
Government considers seven-day switching service for mortgages Homeowners could be given the right to switch their mortgage within a week, under government plans to make markets work better. David Cameron promised a range of consumer-friendly legislation in the Queen’s speech. The government is to announce on Wednesday a consultation on plans to force the providers of a range of services – from broadband to mortgages – to make it easier, and faster, for their customers to switch. Ministers believe consumers are missing out on the cheapest deals, whether in telecoms, energy or financial services, because the process of moving from one company to another is too onerous or complex. Sajid Javid, the business secretary, said: “I want to give consumers more power over switching providers for the services they rely on to make sure they are getting the best deals. “At the moment the time it takes to switch depends on which service you are switching. I want to hear what consumers and businesses think of making switching quicker and more consistent across all markets.” The government already imposes a time limit on switching of seven working days for some products and services, including current accounts and mobile phone contracts. It wants to examine whether a similar approach would work more widely, including with mortgages. “The new call for evidence launched today aims to understand the specifics of switching across different sectors, including what processes are in place to ensure a secure and reliable switch, how quickly that switch can take place, and what forms of redress would be appropriate to compensate consumers if a switch goes wrong,” said a statement issued jointly by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. Cameron is keen to show the government still has fresh ideas for reforming the economy, with his party deeply divided over Britain’s future in the run-up to June’s EU referendum. Once finalised, the plans will be enshrined in a better markets bill. A cap on energy prices was a central plank of Labour’s general election manifesto, as Ed Miliband sought to crack down on predatory firms exploiting their customers. But the Conservatives prefer to rely on consumers to penalise more costly providers by taking their custom elsewhere. Legislation announced in the Queen’s speech last week also included plans for broadband firms to be forced to compensate customers automatically for service failures; and for mobile phone providers to be prevented from charging customers to unlock their phones at the end of a contract. Alex Neill of consumer group Which? said: “Quicker switching will give people more power to force banks, energy suppliers and telecoms providers to up their game or lose their custom. “The government should swiftly implement these plans and introduce a new ombudsman to deal with air and rail passengers’ complaints.” John Whittingdale, the culture secretary, said he was also looking at plans to ensure broadband speeds for individual properties would be made public so that house-hunters can check whether they are about to move into an broadband dead zone. Whittingdale said: “We are more reliant on broadband and phone services than ever before. So we want it to be as easy as possible for consumers to spot the best deal for them, and switch providers quickly and easily if they want to.” The number of people switching their current accounts from one bank to another has increased significantly since seven-day switching was introduced in 2013. The latest figures from Bankers Automated Clearing Services (Bacs) showed that 124,615 people switched their current accounts in March, 10% more than in the same month last year. Labour’s approach to markets such as financial services and energy under Jeremy Corbyn is as yet unclear, but the shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, recently announced he was in favour of regulations to cap rents, suggesting the party may favour a more interventionist approach.
Is Bernie Sanders making a Trump presidency more likely? On Jimmy Kimmel Live on Wednesday, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, Donald Trump, was asked if he would be willing to debate the Democratic presidential hopeful, Senator Bernie Sanders. Trump said that if Senator Sanders was willing to donate money to charity to do it, then Trump would be willing to debate him. Bernie Sanders – via his Twitter account – quickly accepted the offer. It’s still not clear if the debate will actually take place. But Trump and Bernie Sanders on a stage together would certainly be a spectacle for many reasons, not the least of which is that Sanders is arguably Trump’s most potent weapon against Hillary Clinton. The Sanders-Clinton clash, which was once decidedly civil (Sanders even defended Clinton over her email scandal in an early Democratic debate) has now become white hot. Sanders’ chances of securing the Democratic nomination may still be remote, but his attacks against Clinton have become more and more intense. And the latest polls ahead of the important California primary show a serious narrowing of Clinton’s lead. These attacks are working. And while they might not bring Sanders within striking distance of the nomination, they are making it easier for someone else to defeat Clinton – namely Trump. On 23 March, Clinton led Trump in general election polling by an average of more than 11 points, according to the Real Clear Politics average of polls. Today, Clinton’s lead has evaporated – and, for a moment this week Trump actually led Clinton by a narrow margin. This is in part thanks to Bernie Sanders supporters. According to the most recent Washington Post/ABC News poll 20% of individuals who voted for Sanders in the Democratic primary intend to vote for Donald Trump in November – twice what it was in the same poll in March. Clinton supporters hope that these numbers are inflated and that the vast majority of Sanders supporters will vote for Hillary Clinton in November. That may be the case, but even this short-term bounce for Trump has had an election-altering effect – it has taken the wind out of the sails of the #NeverTrump movement. It was once considered almost a given that if Trump won the GOP nomination he would face not only Clinton in the fall, but also an independent conservative candidate running as a more “traditional” Republican. Trump’s dismal general election poll numbers provided encouragement to the #NeverTrump movement pushing for an independent candidate in the race. They argued that Trump could never win and that his inevitable landslide defeat would also lead to a disaster down ballot – threatening Republican control of the Senate, key governorships and possibly even the house. Fortunately for Trump, while his main rival Ted Cruz stepped aside the moment it became clear he had no path to the nomination, Bernie Sanders is refusing to go quietly. As Sanders savages Clinton, Trump’s poll numbers rise, and the most potent argument for a #NeverTrump independent presidential bid evaporates. Indeed, according to reports, Mitt Romney, the Republican standard-bearer in 2012 and the most outspoken #NeverTrump proponent, has abandoned efforts to recruit a conservative to run as an independent. It remains to be seen if Trump and Sanders will share that debate stage. If they do, I wonder if Trump will take the opportunity to thank his unlikely ally. Without the Vermont senator and his withering attacks on Clinton, this would probably be a very different race: one that would be much more difficult for Donald Trump to win.
Tony Abbott says no reason why he can't work well in Turnbull cabinet Tony Abbott says there is no reason why he couldn’t work well inside the Turnbull cabinet, because John Howard and Peter Costello worked well as a team, despite not being great friends. “You don’t have to idolise someone to be able to work with them,” he said. “Peter Costello and John Howard sometimes had difficult moments but they worked very effectively together.” Asked if he would work closely and effectively with Malcolm Turnbull if he retuned to cabinet, Abbott said: “One of the things that I’ve always said to my colleagues is the important thing is to focus on the job at hand. And to do that job as well as you humanly can, and that’s advice that I would be more than happy to take myself.” In the wide-ranging interview on Sky News he said the Coalition need not overreact to the threat from Pauline Hanson, but warned Turnbull must lead a strong, centre-right party to stop fringe parties becoming more popular in Australia. “This is exactly what John Howard did after the 1998 election when One Nation got a very strong vote,” he said. He said it was a good thing the government had stopped using language like “innovation” and “agility” in its daily messaging – words favoured by Malcolm Turnbull – because it did not inspire voters. “That frankly loses people, we have got to talk about the issues that they understand,” he said. However the finance minister, Mathias Cormann, said they were still a “very important part” of the government’s economic plan. “Obviously, for an open, trading economy like Australia it is critically important that we’re agile and innovative and always able to be as competitive as we possibly can be internationally,” Cormann told ABC television on Sunday. Abbott also said there needed to be a “big new push on budget repair”, and that should include looking at savings measures left over from his controversial 2014 budget. “This is where the government must be prepared to have that tough conversation with the Australian people,” he said. “I think we need to have another look at some of the issues from the 2014 budget because we can’t go on indulging in what I used to describe as a ‘cash-splash’ with borrowed money. He said Christian Porter, the social services minister, and Alan Tudge, the minister for human services, were thankfully starting to talk about tough, potential savings measures in the welfare portfolio. “You saw Alan Tudge pointing out in the last few weeks that not a single financial penalty in the last financial year was imposed on someone for breach of the job search rules,” Abbott said. “Now that’s frankly ridiculous. There have got to be consequences for bad behaviour.” Abbott also defended the immigration minister, Peter Dutton, who suggested last week that former prime minister Malcolm Fraser should not have let people of “Lebanese-Muslim” background into Australia in the 1970s because 22 people who had recently been charged with terrorist-related offences were from second- and third-generation Lebanese-Muslim backgrounds. “Could Peter have expressed himself a little differently? Of course he could have,” Abbott said on Sunday. “The problem is not what Peter said, the problem is the outrage industry which has been working overtime since then and fanning the very problem that they claim to be against. “Most Muslims, they want to be good Australians ... but we can’t avoid the fact that two thirds of those who have been involved in terrorism come from a particular community.” When asked about the legacy of Fidel Castro, who died on Friday, Abbott said no one would “get gush from me on this.” “Castro was a brutal dictator. He killed thousands of people. He reduced his country to abject poverty and frankly, his legacy is a bad one,” he said. “There’s no doubt that Castro has been an enemy of the United States, he’s been an enemy of western values, he’s been an enemy of human decency. “It’s a bad legacy, certainly not one that should be celebrated in any way.”
Donald Trump sweeps to victory in New Hampshire primary Donald Trump, once an object of mockery and scorn by many in the political establishment, has won the New Hampshire Republican primary. According to projections from the Associated Press, this is the first electoral victory for the real estate mogul in a 2016 election campaign he has so far dominated. Trump gave an unusually emotional speech to supporters in a hotel ballroom next to a Best Western hotel by the Manchester airport, starting by thanking his siblings and deceased parents. He also took a moment to mention Bernie Sanders, the winner of the Democratic primary. “Congratulations to Bernie,” he said. “We have to congratulate him, we may not like it. He wants to give away our country, folks. We’re not going to let it happen.” Trump then touched on familiar themes from his stump speech, including bugbears Mexico and China, concluding by promising attendees that once he is elected “we are going to start winning again. We are going to win so much, you are going to be so happy, we are going to make America so great again, maybe greater than before.” With two exceptions, every Republican nominee in the past 50 years has won the Granite State’s first-in-the-nation primary. Trump’s campaign, fueled by a blend of insurgent populism and unprecedented media attention, has turned every rule of politics on its head. Trump’s success in New Hampshire happened despite comparatively weak campaign organization in the state and a penchant for controversial remarks that would have sunk the campaigns of almost any other candidate. Trump has constantly courted controversy throughout his presidential bid. Among other incendiary statements, he has said that John McCain, a decorated Vietnam veteran and former prisoner of war, was “not a hero”, implied that Fox News host Megyn Kelly’s tough questioning during a debate was because she was menstruating and, most recently, effectively called Ted Cruz “a pussy” at an eve-of-primary rally in Manchester on Monday. Yet none of the controversies have affected Trump’s standing with his base of disaffected blue-collar white voters, who remain drawn to his pledge to “make America great again”. Many of Trump’s themes were familiar to a New Hampshire primary electorate that strongly supported Pat Buchanan in 1992 and 1996; but Trump added an aura of celebrity and drew in many who were entirely new to the political process. One typical Trump voter, Paul Porier from Manchester, told the on Monday night that he had never voted before. The middle-aged veteran, wearing a hat emblazoned with the name of the ship he had served on in the navy, said simply and insistently: “I’m voting for Donald Trump because he’s going to make America great again.” Porier said the end of America’s greatness coincided with Barack Obama taking office and that “once we get rid of Obama, things are going to change”. He was finally voting because while he thought all politicians are “in it for the money”, Trump wasn’t. “He doesn’t need the money,” said Poirier. Stephen Stepanek, a Republican state representative who boasted of being the first elected official in the country to endorse Donald Trump, said he felt “vindicated”. The loyal Trump supporter, who insisted that he never doubted Trump’s campaign after his second-place finish in Iowa, said: “This will be our Republican nominee who will ultimately be the president of the United States. He is going to make America great again.” He was planning on traveling to South Carolina eventually to campaign for Trump, but first wanted to enjoy the result on Tuesday night. “I’ve been through the highs, I’ve been through the lows and this is the best high right now,” he said. What remained less clear as the polls closed was how the pile-up of candidates vying to finish in the top tier behind Trump would perform. Early exit numbers showed a tight race between Ohio governor John Kasich, Texas senator Ted Cruz, Florida senator Marco Rubio and former Florida governor Jeb Bush. But with more than 80% of precincts reporting in the state’s Republican primary, Kasich – who as a relative moderate is in some ways Trump’s opposite – was declared second by the Associated Press with 16.2% to Trump’s 34.5%. “Maybe – just maybe – we are turning the page on a dark part of American politics, because tonight the light overcame the darkness,” Kasich told supporters in Concord. The fight over third place was too close to call as the evening wore on, but Chris Christie, the New Jersey governor whose last act ahead of the primary was to savage Rubio on the debate stage, seemed all but certain to suspend his campaign in the coming days. A stronger-than-expected showing for Kasich and Bush was crucial for a pair of candidates whose campaigns had failed to take off in earnest. Both governors dedicated a disproportionate amount of time and resources in New Hampshire, seeking to claim the so-called “establishment” mantle as party moderates. But the question looming over them now is whether they have the infrastructure to remain competitive in a drawn-out primary season. Kasich is largely viewed as lacking the organization to compete in the pending southern states where his brand is far less palatable to Republican primary voters. A positive result will be a far greater vindication for Bush, whose campaign was declared dead in the water amid a series of stumbles last fall. The son and brother of US presidents still faces an uphill climb, but third place might give him the necessary validation in the eyes of donors to continue with his beleaguered campaign. “The pundits had it all figured out, last Monday night, when the Iowa caucuses were complete,” Bush told a gathering of supporters in Manchester. “They said that the race was now a three-person race between two freshman senators and a reality TV star. And, while the reality TV star is still doing well, it looks like you all have reset the race, and for that I am really grateful.” He added: “This campaign is not dead. We’re going to South Carolina.” Bush holds a formidable ground game in both South Carolina and Nevada and will be joined there this week by brother George W Bush. The former president remains immensely popular in the state, even if once thought to be a liability for his younger brother’s campaign. The night seems to have been tougher for Rubio, who arrived in the state last week riding high on the momentum he gained from a strong third-place showing in the Iowa caucuses. The first-term senator appeared to be on the cusp of persuading donors and party elites to coalesce behind his candidacy, but was left reeling from an underwhelming debate performance on Saturday that played directly into his rivals’ attacks that Rubio is too scripted. Additional reporting by Paul Owen in Manchester and Matt Sullivan in Concord
Aziza Brahim: Abbar el Hamada review – languid and bluesy The Sahrawi refugee camps in Algeria are a bleak reminder of the plight of those displaced from what they have called “occupied western Sahara” since the Moroccan invasion in 1975. Aziza Brahim was born in the camps before moving on to Cuba and Spain, and her 2013 album Soutak, a deserved bestseller in Europe, matched powerful songs of Sahrawi defiance with laments for the refugees. She returns to the same issues here, but sounds unexpectedly laid-back. The opening Buscando la Paz may declare that “the hope for peace is fading”, but it’s a drifting, pleasantly languid song that sets the tone for much of the album. The best tracks are at the end, with the bluesy Mani, featuring the Malian guitar hero Samba Touré, followed by Los Muros, a meditation on the wall built around her homeland. Let’s hope she shows less restraint at Womad in the summer.
Aviva puts brakes on party bus whiplash claim When a Ford Fiesta collided with a double-decker party bus packed with revellers on a roundabout in Crewe it could have been a very nasty accident. Luckily the Fiesta was travelling at less than 10mph and there was just a small split in the car’s bumper and a £70 bill to fix the bus. Then came the real impact – a £250,000 insurance claim when every one of the 46 passengers said they had suffered a whiplash injury. The details of the huge insurance claim were released on Thursday by insurance group Aviva, which had insured the driver of the Fiesta. The accident happened as the Fiesta’s owner tried to overtake the doubledecker bus at low speed and was caught out as the bus turned onto the roundabout. Aviva accepted split liability for the accident with the insurer of the party bus. The car driver, described the impact as minimal. Most of the passengers on board were said to have been unaware of the collision at the time and none received medical attention before going on to spend the evening at a nightclub. But shortly afterwards each of them submitted a claim for whiplash. The injury, which can take hours to be felt and causes neck pain and headaches, happens when the head is suddenly thrown forwards, backwards or sideways. The UK has become known as the whiplash capital of Europe due to the high level of claims made by those involved in accidents. While in France just 3% of motor injury claims are for whiplash, in the UK the figure is 80%. Some insurers automatically pay out on all whiplash claims up to £3,000 because it is is cheaper to pay up than fight a case. Aviva, which has been an outspoken critic of the UK’s laws on whiplash payouts, decided to fight the party bus claim, saying it believed the injuries were inconsistent with the damage caused to the vehicles. But after the insurer rejected the claims, 23 of the partygoers then hired lawyers to fight their case and were able to supply medical evidence to lawyers in support of their claim. Aviva, however, didn’t give up, and eventually all the claimants dropped their claims before they went to court. Tom Gardiner, the head of fraud at Aviva, said: “This claim highlights the outrageous scale of whiplash fraud in the UK being driven by the current system, and which frankly has become a national disgrace. “We believe our customers are fed up paying for spurious and fraudulent injury claims through their premiums and they expect us to defend these claims on their behalf.” The incident happened in September 2012, but those who had their claims rejected had three years to seek legal representation and appeal, so Aviva has only now been able to close the case – and make it public. The insurance company said that for every £1 it pays out in compensation for whiplash it spends another 80p to cover lawyers’ fees. It has been lobbying the government to make claims more difficult,and wants the period people have to make a claim cut to 12 months from the date of an accident. The insurer uncovered the claim as part of an operation in the north-west focusing on staged accidents involving buses and multiple claimants. It described the claims as “opportunistic”, but said its fraud unit is dealing with more than 4,000 suspect whiplash claims linked to organised “cash for crash” claims - where people submit false claims for damage and personal injury related to staged car accidents. In November’s autumn statement the chancellor, George Osborne, announced a crackdown on claims, which could lead to the end of cash compensation and reduce drivers’ premiums by £50 a year. The Association of British Insurers sid that whiplash policies cost £2bn a year – an average of £90 for each motor insurance policy. A spokeswoman said: “When people suffer genuine personal injury they deserve help which insurers are committed to providing. “However, frivolous and exaggerated personal injury claims, especially for whiplash, create unnecessary costs which impact premium paying customers.” Matt Oliver, car insurance spokesperson at the comparison website Gocompare.com, said some of those making false claims view it as “a victimless crime, that only affects the insurance company”, but all motorists were paying for it. “A large part of the problem is due to some rogue claims management companies who cold call drivers following an accident to encourage them to make inflated injury claims under the promise of receiving a large pay out,” he said. “Tougher rules are needed to prevent these companies from turning minor accidents into major personal injury claims in the pursuit of profit.” Aviva has previously revealed details of other cases where it rejected claims, including the case of a semi-professional footballer who tweeted about playing a match 24 hours after an accident in which he said he had been injured. Recently, law firm Thompsons Solicitors, which specialises in personal injury claims, said insurers were exaggerating the levels of fraud to reduce the rights of consumers. It said Aviva’s own figures suggested that it was investigating just 5% of claims it received.
Human Nature: how Australia's first boy band wound up singing Motown in Vegas For a short, terrifying moment, I’m convinced that Human Nature have presented themselves for interview in matching outfits. The first two men who introduce themselves are wearing near-identical blue dinner jackets and the prospect of interviewing Australia’s quintessential harmony pop group in identical formalwear is briefly overwhelming. Thankfully, the wardrobe coordination is coincidental; telling them apart is hard enough as it is. All four hairdos are perfectly coiffed; all four sets of teeth are paper white and spirit-level straight. Even the creases on the rolled-up shirt sleeves seem somehow pre-prepared. It makes it a bit tricky to get all of their names right, at least until I can pin down some identifiers. Phil Burton is the tall one with a small gap in his front teeth. Toby Allen is the one with the eyebrow ring. Complicating matters is the pair of brothers, Mike and Andrew Tierney, who look so similar that I momentarily despair. Eventually I seize on the fact that Mike is a head shorter than everyone else. Andrew is the one left over. The four of them are holed up in the penthouse suite of Sydney’s Darling hotel in Pyrmont doing press for their new covers album, Gimme Some Lovin’: Jukebox Vol II. The Darling is a resident five-star hotel of the sprawling Star casino complex, where the group are performing the first Australian show of the album tour. Human Nature are no strangers to venues like this; it’s in casinos where, largely out of the Australian eye, they’ve found the career durability and coveted US platform that evades even the most successful homegrown outfits. Although they didn’t release their debut album until 1996, Human Nature formed as the 4 Trax in 1989, awarding them the tentative title of Australia’s first boy band. But, for domestic audiences, their peak came in the 1990s, when they were among the first of a global phenomenon of all-male vocal pop groups that would include the Backstreet Boys, Take That, NSYNC and Boyzone. They had a string of syrupy, extremely 90s hits such as Got it Goin’ On, Tellin’ Everybody and a cover of the Bangles’ Eternal Flame. There were multiple-platinum selling records, support tours with Michael Jackson and Celine Dion, and collaborations with John Farnham and Take That’s Gary Barlow. They had film clips like this: By the mid-2000s things were decidedly quieter: greatest hits albums, periodic appearances on reality TV shows, national anthem renditions at the State of Origin. But, instead of sinking into the comfortable post-fame twilight many once acclaimed Australian acts now dwell in, one of the world’s first boy bands found a new lease on life: performing Motown covers in Las Vegas casinos. 2005’s Reach Out: The Motown Record won Human Nature their first Aria and 15 nominations, and sales for their covers far outstripped those of the boy band years. Two follow-up albums in the same vein had further success and invited collaborations with the likes of Martha Reeves and Smokey Robinson, the frontman of the seminal Motown group the Miracles. The idea of a boy band who used to film their lo-fi music videos in Sydney’s The Rocks now spending their days singing Heard it Through The Grapevine to rooms full of middle-aged Americans gambling away their retirement savings is an eyebrow-raising one. The idea of four (very) white guys from western Sydney making a career from a genre of music inextricably tied to the black American experience and the civil rights movement is another matter altogether. The group acknowledge that their choice of source material has the capacity to “incense people” but maintain that they treat the music in its original spirit: as songs to be enjoyed by everybody. “We were worried that the original artists themselves might not like what we were doing with Motown but then we met people like Mary Wilson and the Temptations, and all of them have said that they really enjoy what we do,” Burton says. “Funnily enough, the anger seemed to come more from Australian music critics than anywhere else, which was a bit weird. “One night at the Imperial, Smokey [Robinson] brought Berry Gordy [founder of Motown records] along and the two of them were sitting in the audience. Berry once sat down and said, ‘We’re not making music just for black people. We’re making music for everybody.’ It was a bizarre experience for us and for them. This music’s come back to them from four white guys on the other side of the world. That’s kind of the fruition of a dream that Smokey and others had when they started.” Twenty-seven years since they first formed, Human Nature have parlayed that unlikely career turn into their current incarnation. The band have been a Vegas fixture for the past seven years, beginning a three-year residency at the Imperial Palace casino (now the Linq) in 2009 before moving to the Venetian at the start of 2013. Living and working in a gambling town where most people go for a weekend at most has a surreal, two-sided quality to it. Human Nature’s days now regularly veer between the lights and glamour of the Las Vegas Strip and the humdrum life of four shift workers who are raising kids on the city’s fringes. “It’s like living in the suburbs of Sydney,” Allen says. “We work on the Strip, so we drive in every day to do the show and then we go home again.” The Venetian residency itself has that same strange mix of the high end and the mundane. Scoring a regular spot on the Strip puts Human Nature in a select and legendary pedigree: Elton John, Jennifer Lopez and Mariah Carey all have current residencies at Vegas casinos. But the life of a band in residency is very different to that of one on tour. Shows begin promptly at 7pm each night and run for 90 minutes sharp, no exceptions. It’s regular, steady work as opposed to a series of one-off gigs – with all the repetitiveness that implies. All up, Allen estimates, they’ve played “close to 1,400 shows” in Vegas since 2009, with about 250 shows for each of the first two years when they would play six, not five, nights a week. “It’s not that you hate doing it,” Burton says. “It’s just that, you know, five nights a week you get a little tired and you’d rather sit on the couch and watch American Ninja Warrior.” Happily, the arrangement is well suited to the needs of four family men in their 40s. “We’re home by 10, most nights,” Burton says. “When we first started in Vegas we used to treat it more like a tour, go out and get on the drink, but seven years in we treat it a bit more respectfully. Us with families there, you just need that time away, or else it would be like a madhouse.” Besides building their profile outside of Vegas, going on tour allows the band to break out of the Vegas bubble somewhat. The importance of doing that is brought home by their slightly rose-coloured view of Sydney after such a long time away. “Here in Sydney the public transport is really good – in Vegas it’s absolute shit,” Burton says, clearly having not experienced Australian public transport in a great while. “There’s buses and taxis and that’s it. There’s no trains. “Coming back to Sydney, I had this romantic notion of the monorail,” Andrew Tierney says. “Seeing all the monorail stations down …” He trails off and looks out the window. A lot has changed since the band landed in Vegas and outside the immense Barangaroo project of the Star’s main rival, James Packer, is growing into the sky. Once it’s finished, Human Nature may well have another casino to call home. • Gimme Some Lovin’: Jukebox Vol II is out now through Sony; Human Nature’s Australian tour kicks off in Geelong on 2 February
Letter: Tania Rose obituary Tania Rose, along with her friend Marna Glyn, who died in 2012, was a regular volunteer for Charter 88 throughout its heroic period from 1989 to the mid-1990s. Both were longtime, disciplined and intelligent Labour supporters who helped the organisation argue for constitutional and electoral reform. Quietly and efficiently they managed all the press cuttings and helped in the office on one or two days a week. They were also stewards at meetings, always arriving on time, working together, and keeping a sharp, good-humoured eye on the organisation and its failings. They showed great dedication, friendship towards each other, and modesty.
How Donald Trump tried to assimilate into Earth culture and failed Donald Trump sure likes to pose for photos while eating, doesn’t he? It’s almost like he’s trying to prove that he eats regular human food rather than sucking the life-force energy out of hapless functionaries like the villain from the latest Star Trek film. Whenever he gets his picture taken with a plate of grub, he’s begging to be treated like one of us. But Donald Trump is not one of us. He’s a self-proclaimed billionaire who seems to enjoy talking about the sex appeal of his own daughter. He’s Beldar Conehead – hoping to fit in, while smoking an entire pack of cigarettes at once. I imagine he has some weird food fetish, like he slowly licks a cannister of the fish paste you get on your way out of an Ikea throughout the work day. Maybe he’s actually part feline, which would make him our second cat candidate for president (or cat-idate). Is the Kevin Spacey film Nine Lives is based on his life? This latest culinary social media campaign might actually be a giant subtweet, too. It’s not a huge leap of logic to see how Trump posing with various pieces of dead chicken might be a reference to this odious conservative meme. What I do know is that there’s no way he eats KFC. And yet, there he is, tossing out his patented “I done did a bad boy thing” smile and eating fried chicken with a knife and fork. As a human being, I can say that no normal earthling eats KFC with a knife and fork. There are plenty of fine dining establishments that serve an elevated version of fried chicken. In that case, knives and forks are A-OK and, in fact, preferred. This is not that time. This is not that place. This is a dude eating food out of a bucket – in a private jet. Let’s briefly look at all of the times when Trump tried to assimilate into Earth culture and failed miserably. Pizza with a knife and fork Here’s Donald Trump, New Yorker, eating pizza with a fork and knife. That’s like if I, a Los Angelino, threw a burrito in a blender and drank it. Perhaps his fingers are too short to adequately grasp the greasy, doughy treat. Still, there is no excuse for this. This is the commoner’s equivalent of pairing red wine with seafood. You’ll notice that to Trump’s right is the former Alaska governor Sarah Palin. Palin doesn’t eat much pizza, as she’s quite skeptical of exotic dishes from foreign nations like Italy, so she is understandably amazed by what she is witnessing. I’m not surprised that Mr Trump, a patrician dolt, would eat pizza with a fork, but I was a little shocked that he doesn’t eat his pizza crust-first. The taco bowl I’ve already spoken at length about Mr Trump’s Mexican adventure. It was an embarrassing attempt to curry favor with an ethnic group he has repeatedly maligned both before and during the 2016 presidential campaign. That he did it with a bastardized version of Mexican food invented in America should tell you all you need to know about his particular interest in their culture. KFC with a knife and fork Mr Trump, have you ever been to a cookout? Would you eat a hot dog with a knife and fork? How about a hamburger? If this guy got his baby hands on a bowl of potato chips, he’d probably reach for a soup ladle. If this really is a subtle dig at his opponent, then I’d suggest Mr Trump think a bit more about what his actual goals are in this campaign. If it’s to convince anyone with a brain to vote for him, he’s going about it the wrong way. If it’s to prove he eats people food and not lightbulbs, he’s doing a bit better. If he’s just hoping to inflame the passions of a portion of the electorate that finds Hillary Clinton to be the most detestable individual on the planet, he’s crushing it. No one else is going to look at a rich guy eating a bucket of chicken and connect it to Hillary Clinton, especially those of us not amused by a piece of sexist merchandise freely hawked all over GOP public events. Donald Trump is not going to win this election with passive-aggressive tweets. He’s certainly not going to win by posing for photos with his lunch.
Climate change 'most existential crisis civilisation has known', says DiCaprio Leonardo DiCaprio won his first Oscar on Sunday, after being nominated four times previously. The actor was expected to win after dominating the best actor race all season, winning a number of precursor awards including a Bafta. Still, he said the industry-wide support he’s received over the past few months “feels incredibly surreal”. “This year in particular I was overwhelmed by the support from fans and people in the industry,” he said backstage at the ceremony, shortly after winning his best actor Oscar for The Revenant. “I’m grateful, I really am.” DiCaprio took time to reminisce about his time spent growing up in east Los Angeles, “very close to the Hollywood studio system”. “I felt detached from it my whole life,” he said. “But to have parents who allowed me to be a part of the industry, and to be able to tell stories like this, has been a dream for me since I was four years old.” Speaking of The Revenant, DiCaprio called the survival thriller, which lost out on best picture to Spotlight, “exemplary”. Its director, Alejandro González Iñárritu, won the Oscar for best director. “This was a journey that I’ll never forget with Alejandro,” said DiCaprio. “It took up such a large part of our lives, but as a result we have a great film to look back on for years to come.” DiCaprio, who also heads the Leonardo DiCaprio foundation, “dedicated to the long-term health and wellbeing of all Earth’s inhabitants”, used a large portion of his acceptance speech to urgently address his cause. Asked to elaborate on his comments, DiCaprio said: “To not only talk about the film, but to be able to talk about climate change on a platform that hundreds of millions of people are watching ... to say this is the most existential crisis our civilisation has ever known – I wanted to speak out about that. The time is now. It’s imperative we act.” “I feel there is a ticking clock, there is a sense of urgency that we all must do something pro-active about this issue,” he added. “Certainly with this upcoming election, the truth is this: if you do not believe in climate change, you do not believe in modern science or empirical truths – and you will be on the wrong side of history. We need to all join together and vote for leaders who care about the future of this civilisation.”
Beware a boring Donald Trump. He’s more dangerous than a maverick one Donald Trump’s arrival in the UK, at a seminal moment in British history, may seem like Satan gatecrashing the Day of Judgment. But he is just opening a golf course. It’s a free country. More intriguing is the gradual de-monsterising of Trump the phenomenon. The US media have seen him as an outrageous buffoon, a menace, an incipient tyrant, a creation of the fascist Twittersphere. Yet the longer he occupies the political stage, familiarity seems to breed a sort of acceptance. The astute American novelist Dave Eggers reported last week in the on a Trump rally. To Eggers’ evident astonishment, he found those present “a broad cross-section of regular people … genial, polite and, with few notable exceptions, their opinions within the realm of the reasonable”. To them, Trump’s miserabilism was clearly comforting. The appeal was comedic, “the forbidden delight of hearing inappropriate things spoken into a microphone”. Trump was “crazy shit”, and people wanted to see and hear it, and drift back home. At another Trump rally, Mark Danner of the New York Review of Books “could feel the pull … enfolded in the warm grandeur of his narcissism”. The man was mesmerising, ranting against the establishment’s mistreatment of him to an audience who identified with that mistreatment. When Danner asked the rally-goers why they liked Trump, he heard, “time and again the word ‘honesty’”. The content, its lies and contradictions, were immaterial. The audience just want the thrill of seeing celebrity in the flesh. Amid all the noise there has been little on which to grip. Trump is not a conventional rightwinger. He dances to a populist tune. He was, after all, a child of liberal New York. His campaign music is not country and western, but Springsteen, the Rolling Stones and Elton John. His three marriages and his sexual boasts are hardly Tea Party material. He has been for gun control, as well as against it; for planned parenthood, as well as against it. “I love the poorly educated,” said Trump, bizarrely, in Nevada. In South Carolina he called George W Bush a liar and war criminal. He hates “the Republican donor class”. He supports public spending: “We’re gonna have new roads, bridges, all that stuff.” Trump claims to be always in search of a fight, which is why he recklessly attacked Mexicans and Muslims. He wants to fight Obamacare, but he also wants to “fight for social security and Medicare … fight unjust wars [such as Iraq] … fight unfair trade”. He is an opportunist in the round. Small wonder the conservative National Review calls him “a menace to American conservatism”. The protectionist cry on trade, one of Trump’s few policy specifics, is a gift to the dispossessed supporters of Bernie Sanders. A poll of 700 Sanders supporters in a callout last March found 500 ready to contemplate a switch not to Hillary Clinton but to Trump. Possible switchers liked Trump’s distaste for any sort of establishment. Like Sanders, Trump “understands problems facing me personally”. There was a synchronicity on “healthcare, war, campaign finance and trade”. Even on foreign policy, Trump hints at a make-up with Putin, an end to intervention in the Middle East, and no more “crazy” alliances with the Saudis and the Gulf. Some Sandernistas even liked the anarchist in Trump. One woman remarked that he might be “a horrible, racist, misogynist idiot … but I feel like he could at least inspire a revolution, even if it is against him. I prefer chaos to stagnation.” He might be a fascist pig, but he was her kind of fascist pig. The demographics of this “opening to the left” also run in Trump’s favour. In a CNN/ORC poll in February, Sanders and Trump both scored stronger with working-class “dispossessed” white voters than with richer ones. The one area where they diverged was age, the young being far more for Sanders. But Trump’s older voters were more likely to vote. Celebrity populism of the Trump variety is hardly new. Such demagogues have strutted their hour upon the stage, from Britain’s Oswald Mosley to America’s William Jennings Bryan and Huey Long. As the Long biographer AJ Liebling said, to understand America you sometimes need to think Latin America. Trump may be a creation of reality television and social media, but there is something pre-digital (or perhaps post-) in the appeal of his presence in the flesh. It is the appeal of a flawed authenticity, of the unreliable, the unexpected. It is the element of risk that makes Britain’s Boris Johnson appealing, and the lack of it that makes David Cameron dull. The nearer Trump gets to the seat of power, the more he is hedging and shaving. A former aide has revealed that he never expected his degree of success. He meant just to show off, a “protest candidacy” against the establishment. He would have been happy with 12% of delegate votes at the convention. Hence the disorganised airport rallies, the lack of policy back-up, the rambling, unprepared speeches. Trump is now clearly taking himself more seriously. He knows he needs senior Republicans – and their money – on board to have any chance of success. No candidate at this stage has ever had a smaller war chest: just $1.3m to Clinton’s $43m. He has just 70 staff against Clinton’s 700. He is trailing her by 38% to 44% in the polls. At Republican party instigation, Trump this week sacked his maverick campaign chief, Corey Lewandowski, author of “let Trump be Trump”, which has wowed the primaries. On Wednesday Trump spoke for the first time from a teleprompter. Gone were the past references to Mexican walls and Muslims bans. Appealing to Sanders supporters, he said he was for “jobs, jobs, jobs”. Clinton, he said, “has grown rich by making you poor”. At this rate, he may yet win a endorsement. The greatest danger to Trump’s project has to come when he seeks respectability at the expense of authenticity. The one-man freak show that appeals to the anarchist (even in me) will slither into the greasy maw of the US Republican party. Trump rampant was outrageous. Trump boring would be intolerable but, even worse, perhaps electable.
Standard Chartered faces sanctions over Hong Kong flotation Standard Chartered has become ensnarled in another regulatory problem after admitting it faced potential sanctions from the Hong Kong authorities over its handling of a stock market flotation. As the London-listed bank reported its third quarter results, it admitted that the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission had warned that it intended to take action against the bank in relation to an IPO in 2009. Standard Chartered, which is focused on emerging markets, said “there may be financial consequences” for its securities arm. The bank did not identify the company but it is thought to be the share sale for China Forestry, which is being liquidated. Last week, Swiss bank UBS also mentioned it faced an investigation into share listings in Hong Kong. The investigation adds to the list of regulatory problems which has been revealed by Standard Chartered, whose new chief executive, Bill Winters, is 12 months into a strategy to retreat from riskier businesses after bolstering its capital through a £3.3bn cash-call a year ago. The shares closed down 5.4% at 673p – the biggest drop in the FTSE 100 – after Winters admitted that revenue was not rising fast enough and said the Bank of England had ordered it to hold more capital. “We have made progress executing the strategic actions announced a year ago. We now have a stronger balance sheet, reduced concentrations and are becoming more efficient, but income and profit levels are not yet acceptable,” Winters said. “Market conditions are expected to remain challenging,” the bank said. Pre-tax profits for the nine-month period were $1bn (£816m) compared with $2.5bn a year ago. In the third quarter, the group produced an underlying profit of $458m compared with a loss of $139m a year earlier. Winters confirmed that Standard Chartered had told the US Department of Justice about allegations of bribery involving the Indonesian power group MAXpower, which has in the past declined to comment on the alleged bribery. There was no update on the ongoing UK investigation by the Financial Conduct Authority into the effectiveness of its controls against financial crime. In February, Standard Chartered reported its first annual loss since 1989 after it was knocked by restructuring costs and repricing of complex financial instruments. The shares dived to 385p at the start of the year and are below the 713p they traded at a year ago. It is a dramatic reversal of fortunes for Standard Chartered, which survived the 2008 banking crisis unscathed but started to experience problems in 2012 when the US regulators fined it for breaching sanctions. Winters was named chief executive in February 2015 during a boardroom shakeout. He is now focusing on closing risky operations.
Police investigate suspect packages after 42% rise in hate incident complaints Police recorded a 42% rise in complaints of hate incidents – more than 3,000 – in the weeks before and after the EU referendum, they revealed on Friday, while counter-terrorism officers investigated a series of packages containing white powder and racist messages sent to Muslim peer Lord Ahmed and others. A number of packages discovered since Tuesday were being linked to a suspected hate campaign targeting mosques and some non-Muslim targets including the Bank of England, the has learned. The white powder in the packages was harmless but may be meant to terrify those receiving it into believing it is a lethal biochemical weapon such as anthrax. Detectives are keeping an open mind as to what if any ideological motive is behind the packages. But the fact counter-terrorism officers are leading the investigation is a sign a hate motive is suspected. The package sent to Lord Ahmed caused an evacuation of part of the Palace of Westminster on Thursday and was one of six such packages reported to police in the capital that day, it has been established. The alert began in Sheffield, south Yorkshire, on Tuesday evening when several envelopes with white powder were found at a sorting office. By Thursday, police in London were called to a number of incidents where packages containing a white powder were found. In at least three cases, the white-powder packets were accompanied by hate messages. The investigation is being led by the north-east counter-terrorism unit, which covers Yorkshire. It comes at a time of rising reported hate crime in the aftermath of the campaign and vote that saw Britain elect to leave the European Union. The new figures released on Friday showed a large rise in reported incidents, averaging over 200 a day. Police said 3,076 hate crimes and incidents were reported to forces across the UK between 16 and 30 June; one week before and one week after the vote on 23 June. Police chiefs said the rise amounted to a 42% increase in reporting week on week, and an increase of 915 reports compared to the same time last year. Privately some police chiefs fear the real figure could be higher, with past studies suggesting just one in four hate crimes are reported to police. The most offences, some 289, were recorded on 25 June, the first full day after the result of the vote in favour of Brexit was announced. The counter-terrorism investigation into the sending of white powder to multiple targets comes amid growing concern about the effect the EU campaign and vote has had on hate crimes. The Met police said it was first called at 9.30am on Thursday to a business address in east London that had received a package. At 10.45am police were called to the Bank of England where chemical warfare specialists assessed a white powder as harmless that was sent in an envelope to the financial institution which has been mired in controversy over Brexit. At 12.30pm police were called by parliamentary officials after Lord Ahmed discovered the hate package sent to him. By 12.45pm a third alert that day saw police attend an east London mosque, and by 2.45pm they were called to a north London Islamic centre and mosque, called Muslim Welfare House, in Finsbury Park, north London. Its chief executive officer, Toufik Kacimi, said: “If a number of letters like this have been sent to different addresses, it is a campaign to spread hate and fear across different communities. It scared people, we had to evacuate.” Details of the package sent to Muslim Welfare House match those of the one sent to Lord Ahmed, a prominent Muslim peer. He told the : “It was intended to invoke fear and alarm. It was definitely part of a hate campaign.” On the rise in hate attacks, police said the main type of offence seen during the 16-30 June period was “violence against the person, which is primarily harassment, common assault and other violence (verbal abuse, spitting and ‘barging’)”. The second and third most prevalent incidents were public order offences, followed by criminal damage. Previous surveys have shown the vast majority of hate crime, some 85%, is race hate-related. National Police Chiefs’ Council lead for hate crime, assistant chief constable Mark Hamilton, said:“We now have a clear indication of the increases in the reporting of hate crime nationally and can see that there has been a sharp rise in recent weeks. This is unacceptable and it undermines the diversity and tolerance we should instead be celebrating. “Forces have been monitoring and managing hate crime more robustly since the attacks in Paris in 2015. We believe that greater awareness and confidence in the police response has contributed to this increase in reporting.” Police believe just one in four incidents are reported to them. Thus 52,000 hate crimes were recorded by police last year but a national crime survey suggested the real annual figure was nearer 225,000. Hamilton added: “Police forces across the UK have heightened their response to hate crimes over the last 10 days following these reports. We are working locally and nationally with partners to reassure communities and tackle offending. We will remain in close liaison with the CPS to ensure that the criminal justice system responds quickly and appropriately. “Everyone has the right to feel safe and confident about who they are and should not be made to feel vulnerable or at risk. The police service has no tolerance for this type of abuse but we need to be made aware that these crimes are taking place so that we can investigate.” Some forces, such as the Metropolitan police covering London, recorded sharp rises, as did Avon and Somerset and Greater Manchester. Others did not, suggesting a geographical variation.
Ken Loach comes clean about his McDonald's job The leftwing film director Ken Loach has confessed his embarrassment at having made a McDonald’s advert during a lean period in his career. The 79-year-old made a commercial for the fast food chain in 1990, featuring a bored man clothes shopping with his wife who perks up when he is allowed to go for a burger. “It sits really badly on my conscience,” said Loach in a new documentary about his life and work. In the documentary, called Versus: The Life and Films of Ken Loach, one of the director’s sons jokes that they are “forbidden” from talking about his brief foray into commercials, which included an advert for Caramac chocolate, made by Nestlé. “It was that or we had to move house,” said his son Jim, who has become a film director himself. Talking to journalist Simon Hattenstone at the Sheffield Doc/Fest on Monday, Loach said taking McDonald’s money was even more embarrassing than the revelation that he voted Tory at school. Asked which was worse, the director said: “Oh, the McDonald’s advert by far.” Loach, who won his second Palme D’Or at Cannes last month, took the commission in 1990 after Channel 4 and ITV had canned a series of documentaries he had made about the trade union movement and no one would pay him to make films. But he said he didn’t regret his allowing child actors to be caned during the filming of his breakthrough classic, Kes. Loach famously likes to keep his actors guessing about their characters’ fate. He did not warn the boys, including the young star, David Bradley, that they were going to be hit for real when their characters were summoned to the headmaster’s office. “We planned that they all got an extra ten bob for every strike, so they were literally crying all the way to the bank,” he said. Loach also revealed that he now sees faults in Cathy Come Home, his much-praised 1969 BBC TV drama about homelessness. “The characters are very thin, there’s no real characterisation. They are brought to life by brilliant people, by Carol White and Ray Brooks, but in the writing and the imagination of the project they are very token, very tokenistic,” he said, adding that he also made a bad film in the 1980s called Fatherland: “I made a real pig’s ear of it.”
Robert De Niro: 'Every day for 40 years someone has said: You talkin' to me?' Robert De Niro wasted no time in giving his fans what they wanted at Thursday night’s 40th anniversary screening of Taxi Driver at the Tribeca film festival in New York. “Every day for 40 fucking years,” he said in introducing the film, “at least one of you has come up to me and said – what do you think – ‘You talkin’ to me?’” The two-time Oscar winner then led a group chant of Taxi Driver’s most famous line before the screening got under way, followed by a discussion that reunited De Niro with director Martin Scorsese, writer Paul Schrader and co-stars Jodie Foster, Cybill Shepherd and Harvey Keitel. Thanks to a recently restored and remastered cut, Scorsese’s 1976 Academy Award-nominated classic looked as pristine as ever at New York’s Beacon Theater. Still, the film retains a grit that’s as unshakable as it was 40 years ago, when Taxi Driver first opened in theaters. The grimy and violent New York as depicted in the film is no longer recognizable, but Bickle’s twisted mission to “wash all this scum off the streets” is no less terrifying. Despite his character’s severely isolated nature, De Niro stressed that he “never had any existential discussions” with Scorsese before agreeing to take on the role. As for the infamous mohawk hairstyle Bickle adopts before the carnage begins, De Niro revealed that he never in fact shaved his head for the film. “I was about to do The Last Tycoon after, and my hair was all bushy,” said De Niro. “We decided to have [makeup artist] Dick Smith do a test, and it worked.” “I remember I was in the other room, and I had fallen asleep while we were working on your mohawk, and I just dozed off for a moment, and I felt a tap on my shoulder. I opened my eyes and you were there with this thing,” Scorsese recalled, seated next to De Niro. “It was terrifying.” The violent conclusion to Taxi Driver was shocking in its day. Foster, however, said the mood during the shooting of it was “fantastic”. “I remember Dick Smith having those wonderful gallons of Karo syrup with things floating around in them, and all the guys would teach me what they were doing,” recalled Foster, who was 13 years old at the time. “People always ask – and I’m sure asked all of us – how frightening that scene was and how frightening it was to shoot. Mostly it was just fun.” Scorsese meanwhile admitted that he never thought Taxi Driver was a film people wanted to see, explaining it was passion that drove him to make it. When he first read Schrader’s script, the film-maker was in post-production on his first collaboration with De Niro, Mean Streets, and looking ahead to Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore. As Schrader revealed, Scorsese was not the first film-maker to be offered the project. Brian De Palma was first approached but quickly turned it down. The year Taxi Driver was released, De Palma put out both Obsession and Carrie. Schrader, who also wrote the screenplay for De Palma’s Obsession, described writing Taxi Driver as a form of “self-therapy”. “There was a person I was afraid of becoming,” he said, referencing Bickle. “It really does show that art has therapeutic powers.” Bernard Herrmann’s jazzy score for Taxi Driver is justly revered. Yet the legendary composer almost didn’t do the project, which would turn out to be his last. Producer Michael Phillips recalled a meeting with Herrmann, where the musician sneered: “I don’t do movies about cabbies.” Scorsese then met with Herrmann, convincing him to give Taxi Driver a shot. “[Herrmann] liked it,” Scorsese said of the script. “Especially when Travis poured peach brandy on his cereal in the morning. He really liked that.” The funniest moment of the talk came when Keitel was prodded about a rumor that he spent time with a real-life pimp to prepare for his role as one in the film. “Is the statute of limitations over for that yet?” Keitel joked. Encouraged by Scorsese to divulge the story, the actor confirmed that he met with a “former pimp” before making Taxi Driver. “We improvised a couple of weeks together, me and this fellow,” Keitel recalled. “He taught what it was like to play the role of the pimp. I played the girl, he taught me what the pimp would do … We had a good business together.”
Polls suggest Brexit has (low) turnout on its side The consensus view on the forthcoming EU referendum is that it’s all going to be fine. The British are a cautious lot, goes the thinking, and in the end they’ll heed the prime minister’s warnings about taking “a leap in the dark” and stick with the status quo. The backdrop to this consensus view is the fresh memory of two elections – last year’s general election and Scottish independence referendum. In both cases, despite much hysteria and talk of nail-biting finishes, the dull-but-sensible option won the day. Why should this test, the third in a row, buck the trend? The polling evidence seems to support the consensus view. Recent polls conducted online tend to show the race neck and neck, while polls conducted by telephone show a substantial lead for staying – in of around 15 points. The latter number suits the gut narrative better, and even my esteemed colleagues Stephan Shakespeare and Anthony Wells prefaced yesterday’s YouGov poll for the Times (which showed the leave campaign one point ahead) with the guidance that “remain has notable advantages and we would expect the number to end up moving towards remain”. But while it is obviously true that certain fundamentals favour the remain campaign – risk aversion, and the might of the media–political establishment – there is one fundamental that has the power to trump them all and that seems to favour the Brexiteers: turnout. Turnout will decide this referendum. It’s not about how the country divides when talking to a pollster from the comfort of their living rooms. It’s about who cares enough about this issue to go and vote. The single most important driver of turnout is age. Put simply: most old people vote, most young people don’t, and so old people usually get their way in elections. In both the Scottish referendum and the general election, older people strongly favoured the no campaign and the Conservatives respectively. The young, flag-waving ScotNats and Milifans lost out to their more conservative parents and grandparents. This time it’s the other way round: in every poll taken this year, whether by phone or online, the oldest generations want out of the EU, while the youngest generations are overwhelmingly in favour of staying. We’re in the strange situation where the older generations are crying out for change and young people are arguing for the status quo. Underestimating the effect of the age-skew in turnout is thought to be a large part of why pollsters got the last general election wrong. Because there were too many politically engaged young people in the survey samples, and young people are more left-leaning, pollsters’ models were built on the expectation that more of them would vote than actually did. Although we’ll never know precisely how the different generations voted in 2015, best estimates suggest that about 43% of 18- 24-year-olds voted compared with around 78% of over-65s. With 6 million 18- 24-year-olds in the UK and more than 11 million over-65s, that means that the over-65s carry more than three and a half times more weight than the youngest cohort. In the EU referendum, turnout will not just be about age. There are other factors, such as social class and education that potentially help the remain campaign. But overall there is no doubt that the people most determined to vote are the Brexiteers. The polls agree about this, no matter where they put the overall state of play. In the latest YouGov poll, conducted online, the result among people “absolutely certain” to vote tilts seven points more favourable for leaving the EU (+7 compared with +1); in the latest Ipsos Mori poll, conducted by phone, the result tilts 11 points more favourable among the same group (-7 compared with -18). It’s not hard to see why. The country is overwhelmingly Eurosceptic: every survey from every source confirms that the European Union is a widely and deeply unpopular institution. As a rallying cry, “vote to stay part of a club none of us particularly like because, reluctantly, it’s the sensible option” is plainly less exciting than the alternative. “Hope” and ”change”, those atmospherics that always gather to one side or the other in elections, seem naturally to be the property of the out campaign. With this in mind, you could treat the contrasting numbers coming out of the telephone and internet pollsters as useful proxies for a high-turnout and lower-turnout referendum result. The phone pollsters don’t offer a “don’t know” option up front, and so push around 90% of respondents into choosing a side. As we know, the less people care about it, the more they naturally favour the status quo, so you end up with a healthy lead for remaining. But the UK has never in its history had an election with 90% turnout; around 30% of those people will not vote. Meanwhile, online pollsters like YouGov offer four options to click on – remain, leave, will not vote and don’t know – and around 25% of people choose one of these last two options. The headline numbers are, therefore, from people who have made up their minds. So we may actually have two ”accurate” estimates – the phone pollsters measuring the whole population when prompted to choose, and the online pollsters closer to a measurement of the voting public. The polls showing broad leads for staying are only helpful to the leave campaign. The more certain people are that the in campaign will win, the more complacent the mood, the less compelled they will feel to vote. The difference between success and failure for David Cameron and the remain campaign may be whether they can get their natural supporters – the busy, the young, the centrists of England – committed enough to make their way to a polling station when the sun is shining this Midsummer’s Day.
Agricultural fungicides are 'bad news for neurons', study suggests Modern fungicides that are sprayed on fruit and vegetables have come under fresh scrutiny after scientists found they caused similar genetic changes in mouse neurons to those seen in autism and Alzheimer’s disease. Researchers exposed dishes of the brain cells to more than 300 different pesticides and fungicides and found that one class of fungicides, the strobilurins, produced patterns of genetic changes often seen in the human conditions. Scientists at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill hoped the experiment might shed light on the kinds of substances in the environment that contribute to cases of autism. To their surprise, they found compounds that produced some genetic hallmarks of autism and neurodegenerative diseases at the same time. The strobilurins have only been approved for use in the past 20 years, more than half a century after the first individual diagnosed with autism was announced in the medical literature. Since the fungicides arrived on the market, they have been sprayed in increasing quantities to protect crops such as cabbages, spinach, lettuce, kale, tomatoes, apples, pears and grapes. While the fungicides produced autism-like and Alzheimer’s-like signatures in the way genes are expressed in mouse neurons, the relevance of the changes is unclear: the scientists have no evidence that the chemicals contribute to either condition. “The study was designed to try and identify chemicals that could cause autism, but we in no way say these things do cause autism,” said lead scientist, Mark Zylka, whose study appears in Nature Communications. “What this work provides is evidence that these chemicals are bad for neurons. They turn the same genes on or off that you see not only in autism brains, but also in neurodegeneration,” he added. Strobilurins work by disrupting mitochondria, the tiny structures that live inside cells and ensure they have enough energy to function properly. Tests on the mouse neurons revealed that the compounds dampened down the activity of genes involved in synaptic transmission, the mechanism by which neurons talk to each other. Meanwhile, the activity of other genes linked to inflammation in the nervous system ramped up. Further tests showed that exposure to the fungicides caused mouse neurons to churn out more free radicals, which are highly-reactive particles capable of damaging cellular machinery around them. The fungicides caused yet more disruption to structures called microtubules, changes that could affect the ability of mature neurons to communicate, and hamper the normal movement of neurons in the developing brain. “We don’t know what, if anything, exposure to these new chemicals will do for autism risk or neurodegeneration. There are lots of chemicals that are bad for neurons in a dish,” Zylka said. “The question is does it get into our bodies at levels that are sufficient to get into the brain and cause some of the effects we see in these cultures? It’s definitely on our food at pretty high levels.” Prior to starting the project, Zylka said he did not pay much attention to whether he was buying organic or conventionally grown food. But over the course of the study, his perspective changed. “These fungicides are bad news for neurons. So I now purchase organic whenever possible, and especially for my young kids. I would prefer not to be exposed to chemicals like this, especially after seeing what they do to neurons,” he said. Far more research is needed to learn whether the fungicides pose any risk to human health, but Zylka’s screening procedure could already help environmental agencies highlight potentially harmful substances for closer study. Jeannie Lee, a professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School, who was not involved in the work, said the study should serve as “a wake-up call to regulatory agencies and the medical community.” She added that the research had “wide-ranging implications, not only for autism and diseases such as Parkinson’s and cancer, but also for the health of future generations.” Carol Povey, director of the Centre for Autism at the National Autistic Society, said: “This new study confirms again that the causes of autism involve many complex and interacting factors, including genetics, the environment and the development of the brain. “We urge that the results of this study are digested thoughtfully, and that people do not worry unnecessarily. As the author has made clear, this study absolutely does not mean that chemicals cause autism, nor can we understand fully the risks that these chemicals may have for the human brain until further studies are carried out. “What is important for the more than 1 in 100 people on the autism spectrum is to make sure that they have access to the right support from people who understand autism. That’s why the National Autistic Society is launching the biggest ever autism awareness campaign this Friday to help the public learn more about the 700,000 autistic people in the UK.”
China hails Trump's appointment of 'old friend' Terry Branstad as ambassador Relations between the world’s two largest economies are “facing uncertainty as never before”, China’s international mouthpiece has warned, despite Donald Trump naming “an old friend of the Chinese people” as his ambassador to Beijing. After a torrid few days for US-China relations, Trump offered Beijing a gesture of goodwill on Wednesday by making Iowa governor Terry Branstad, who first met Chinese President Xi Jinping more than three decades ago, his top diplomat in China. “Governor Branstad’s decades of experience in public service and long- time relationship with President Xi Jinping and other Chinese leaders make him the ideal choice to serve as America’s ambassador to China,” Trump said in a statement. The move came less than a week after Trump upset China and broke with decades of diplomacy by taking a call from Tsai Ing-wen, the president of Taiwan – the first such top-level contact since 1979. China considers Taiwan to be a breakaway province. Beijing was quick to hail Branstad’s appointment. “Governor Branstad is an old friend of the Chinese people. We welcome him to play a great role in promoting the development of China-US relations,” foreign ministry spokesperson Lu Kang told reporters in Beijing. The Global Times, a Communist party-controlled tabloid, said Branstad’s appointment suggested “there may be another dimension to Trump’s desire to maintain communications and friendliness with China” and should be given “a positive response”. “China needs to always prepare for the worst and stay open to the good,” the stridently nationalist newspaper argued in an editorial, calling for military spending to be increased next year in response to Trump’s election. However, in an editorial published on Thursday the English-language China Daily newspaper warned that Washington-Beijing relations, reestablished under Richard Nixon and Mao Zedong in 1972, were entering a period of unprecedented uncertainty. China had shown “laudable prudence” in its response to “provocations” from the president-elect’s team, not least after Trump adviser Stephen Moore launched “a vulgar verbal attack against China”, telling a radio show: “I don’t care if we insult the Chinese!” But the state-run newspaper, which serves as an international platform for Beijing’s views, said China now needed to “prepare for the worst”. “Trump’s words are not necessarily more bark than bite,” it said, adding: ”Further provocative moves by the US president-elect and his team cannot be ruled out given the reckless and impulsive style of leadership that Trump displays”. Questions have been raised over whether 70-year-old Branstad’s CV is relevant to such a crucial posting. Isaac Stone Fish, a senior fellow at the Asia Society’s Centre on US-China Relations, said: “On the one hand, it’s good that Trump has appointed someone who is not a radical, not ideological, not controversial on one side or the other. “On the other hand, he’s going to be there for a while, so I hope it was thoughtful and about more than balancing the call from Taiwan. I liked a line in the Reuters report that said, ‘His many years running Iowa, the top US state for production of corn, soybeans and pigs, may not have prepared him for the more delicate tasks of diplomacy with Beijing.’” Branstad has known Xi since 1985, when Xi visited Iowa as a young regional government official leading an agricultural research delegation. Branstad was governor at the time, and the pair remained in contact. In 2011, Branstad visited Beijing and met with Xi at the Great Hall of the People; a year later, when he was vice-president, Xi stopped in Muscatine, Iowa, where he met his host family from the 1985 trip. Branstad, a champion of exporting Iowa’s agricultural products to China who has visited the country four times in the past seven years, said: “During our 30-year friendship, President Xi Jinping and I have developed a respect and admiration for each other, our people and our cultures. The United States-Chinese bilateral relationship is at a critical point. “Ensuring the countries with the two largest economies and two largest militaries in the world maintain a collaborative and cooperative relationship is needed more now than ever. The president-elect understands my unique relationship to China and has asked me to serve in a way I had not previously considered.” But Branstad’s brand of “cornfield diplomacy” could be tested to the limit by his new boss. The 10-minute conversation with Tsai, which followed efforts by the lobbyist and former senator Bob Dole on behalf of Taiwan, upended relations and forced the White House to provide reassurance. Then, on Monday, Trump wrote on Twitter: “Did China ask us if it was OK to devalue their currency (making it hard for our companies to compete), heavily tax our products going into their country (the U.S. doesn’t tax them) or to build a massive military complex in the middle of the South China Sea? I don’t think so!” He previously hammered China during the tumultuous election campaign, accusing the world’s second-biggest economy of currency manipulation – it keeps the yuan artificially low to make its exports cheap – unfairly taxing US exports, and militarising the South China Sea. He threatened to slap 45% tariffs on Chinese products, but Chinese officials warned that Trump was bound by World Trade Organisation rules. Branstad has overseen billions of dollars in Iowa agriculture sales to China – he was back in Beijing last month to push the state’s beef and pork exports – and established a sister-state relationship with China’s Hebei province in 1983. But he has little experience in international diplomacy. Downing Thomas, associate provost for academic affairs and dean of international programmes at the University of Iowa, accompanied him on a trade mission to China in 2013. “I was able to see first-hand that he had strong relationships and was able to build on those,” he said. “He met President Xi for an hour.” Thomas added: “Trump said many things during the campaign, but this appointment is a statement itself. It’s a strong opportunity to set the stage for productive relationships. The governor is a steady hand and will help in good times and help in bad times.” The US agriculture secretary, Tom Vilsack, a former Iowa governor, told the Associated Press: “He has been a tireless advocate for trade, we all know that. He obviously has relations with Chinese officials which are important. He’s tenacious and, trust me, with the Chinese you’ve got to be tenacious.” Branstad has previously expressed support for the Trans-Pacific Partnership, saying the trade deal would benefit Iowa’s agricultural industry. Trump opposed the agreement, which now appears dead in the water.
The 50 best TV shows of 2016: No 10 HyperNormalisation It’s difficult to know where to start with Adam Curtis’s latest film. At nearly three hours in length, HyperNormalisation contains a hyperabundance of images and ideas. There are montages of monster movies mixed with home video grabs and bits from BBC Breakfast. There are observations about the nature of reality, the limits of data and the dextrous nature of Jane Fonda’s career. It’s less a documentary than an experience. Curtis knows where to start, of course. He always does. There’s always one moment, one telling event that will go on to assume central significance in an argument that encompasses the globe and decades of history. In HyperNormalisation, that inciting incident is a local government meeting in New York City in 1975. The meeting was called with the purpose of restructuring an enormous public debt. Except the creditors never turned up. Instead, they demanded the city authorities restructure themselves. And put the creditors in charge. From that, Curtis argues, came a new fiscal policy – “austerity” – and a sense that politics was no longer the art of the possible but the art of the deal. Soon Donald Trump was buying up substantial slices of Manhattan on terms that were laughably favourable to the real estate developer, sorry, president-elect. From Manhattan, Curtis moves to Damascus, to Russia, to the Lebanon, to Libya, to cyberspace and back again. Along the way he constructs an argument that says, and I simplify wildly: a desire on the part of politicians to control events and their electorates led to a manipulation of reality which in turn fostered atomisation, cynicism and, ultimately, a loathing of the political class. Perhaps there have been some events this year that bore this theory out, I don’t know. Just my little joke there. Curtis’s film features a recurring Trump alongside the director’s normal motley crew of jihadis and Washington insiders. Also within his sights are the “technological utopians” of Silicon Valley, the creators of our filter bubbles and pedlars of fake news. When watching HyperNormalisation you can feel, as with much of Curtis’s work, that someone is explaining the true nature of the world to you for the first time. Shortly after that feeling passes, you start furrowing your brow and wondering if it wasn’t all a bit too simple or too broad to be convincing. This process doesn’t invalidate the experience and Curtis knows this is the way people view his films. It is an argument he is making, after all. Where else on television, or to be more accurate, in digital media do you get such provocation? I took 22 pages of notes watching the film again before I wrote this. Some of it was to place events in a linear order (he does jump about a bit – and perhaps a digression about LSD that suddenly leaps back 20 years isn’t entirely necessary) but mainly it was to record things I found interesting, shocking, touching or just odd. Like the Iranian fountains whose water ran blood red to commemorate a massacre. The “artificially intelligent” psychoanalyst that achieved wonderful results by repeating its patients’ remarks back to them. The way a hopeful Occupy Wall Street protester (himself a veteran of the Iraq war) resembled a naive young PLO soldier from the early 80s. A speech by Ronald Reagan that claimed “God has placed the destiny of an afflicted mankind” into America’s hands. David Frost rehabilitating Libya’s Colonel Gaddafi. Gaddafi will stay with me the most. Playing a major part in HyperNormalisation, Curtis argues he is a patsy Reagan’s America transforms into a global supervillain for their political messaging. Gaddafi is accused of atrocities he didn’t commit, bombed by way of punishment, subjected to sanctions and then, when the west needs someone to confess to holding weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East, is quickly rehabilitated. And 10 years later an American drone launches the missile that leads to his death. But Gaddafi is more than just a pawn. He comes over in this film in his full complexity; a dupe and a tyrant, yes, but also a conflicted individual concerned about what he felt to be injustice in the world. HyperNormalisation is not just provocation. It is a collection of insights into history and the human condition. Equally though, it is a piece of video art, each moment crafted to fit in a particular place among the run of images that precede and follow it. It has bravura moments, such as the captioning that suddenly dominates the screen during a tale of Trump to read: “But things didn’t go according to plan” (a knowing wink to Curtis’s penchant for grandiose declarations). It prompts you to think, not just about the argument being articulated, but of any number of apparently unrelated ideas and emotions brought into play through comparison and contrast. At the end of HyperNormalisation’s two hours and 45 minutes, the thing I felt most strongly was that I wanted to give Muammar Gaddafi a hug. I had not expected that. More best TV of 2016
Clinton seizes on Trump tweets for day of campaigning in Florida – as it happened Donald Trump was accused by the Clinton campaign of “unhinged” behaviour toward a former Miss Universe winner today after he fired off a tirade of personal attacks against her in the middle of the night. Launching the fourth day of a war of words against Alicia Machado that is causing consternation among Republicans, the party’s candidate accused Machado of having a “disgusting” past after she criticised his attitude toward women. In a deposition released on this afternoon, Donald Trump acknowledged that his infamous statement that Mexico was deliberately sending rapists into the United States was planned in advance. In testifying in June in an ongoing court case, prompted when restaurateur Geoffrey Zakarian pulled out of a lease in Trump’s Washington hotel after the presidential candidate’s remarks caused a national furor, Trump insisted his comments were not ad-libbed. However, he made clear that they weren’t scripted and said that he did not anticipate any damage to his brand. In a meeting with reporters, Clinton communications director Jennifer Palmieri ties Trump’s attacks on Alicia Machado following this week’s debate to his attacks on Fox host Megyn Kelly after a debate 14 months ago. Palmieri also denied Trump’s wild accusation that Clinton or her campaign had helped Machado gain American citizenship, and Palmieri said that Clinton would likely address Trump’s latest attack this afternoon at her rally in Coral Springs. “This is our opponent. This is who we’re running against. This is our reality,” Palmieri said. Onetime presidential candidate and former House speaker Newt Gingrich compared Hillary Clinton’s citing of Donald Trump’s history of racist and misogynistic comments toward a Venezuelan pageant queen to Clinton’s handling of the terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, in 2012. “This is the new Benghazi lie,” Gingrich told Sean Hannity on his eponymous radio show, first reported by Buzzfeed News. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s distaste for former Miss Universe Alicia Machado’s alleged appearance in a nonexistent sex tape appears to run counter to his own background, according to a report from Buzzfeed News: Trump appeared as himself in a softcore girl-on-girl pornographic film produced by Playboy in 2000. Trump’s (clothed) role in the Playboy Video Centerfold film features him opening a bottle of champagne and pouring its contents on a Playboy-branded limousine and welcoming a bevvy of Playboy playmates to New York City. Flashback: The Republican party’s platform declared pornography to be “a public health crisis that is destroying the lives of millions.” Trump may be trying to spin last night’s 3am Twitter meltdown as proof that he’s got the stamina to be president - “at least you know I will be there, awake, to answer the call!” he tweeted - but Twitter is providing some pretty hilarious rebuttals. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s distaste for former Miss Universe Alicia Machado’s alleged appearance in a nonexistent sex tape appears to run counter to his own background, according to a report from Buzzfeed News: Trump appeared as himself in a softcore girl-on-girl pornographic film produced by Playboy in 2000. Trump’s (clothed) role in the Playboy Video Centerfold film features him opening a bottle of champagne and pouring its contents on a Playboy-branded limousine and welcoming a bevvy of Playboy playmates to New York City. “Beauty is beauty, and let’s see what happens with New York,” Trump says in the film. According to Buzzfeed News, the rest of the film isn’t so PG: Other scenes from the film feature fully nude women posing in sexual positions, dancing naked, touching themselves while naked, touching each other sensually, rubbing honey on themselves, taking a bath, and dressing in costumes. The VHS cover of the video reads: ‘From luxuriating in a warm, soapy tub, to reveling at an exclusive night club, Carol and Darlene bare their sex appeal and lead you on a sensual journey of discovery.’ According to a hacked recording of a conversation with campaign donors at a private event in February, according to the Intercept, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton described herself as “center-left to the center-right” as far as how she fits on the political spectrum, a position that will likely not endear her to the liberal Bernie Sanders wing of the Democratic party ahead of the election. On the other side, there’s just a deep desire to believe that we can have free college, free healthcare, that what we’ve done hasn’t gone far enough, and that we just need to, you know, go as far as, you know, Scandinavia, whatever that means, and half the people don’t know what that means, but it’s something that they deeply feel. So as a friend of mine said the other day, I am occupying from the center-left to the center-right. And I don’t have much company there. Because it is difficult when you’re running to be president, and you understand how hard the job is - I don’t want to overpromise. I don’t want to tell people things that I know we cannot do. Donald Trump isn’t the only politician who’s gone on a tweetstorm today: In a deposition released on Friday afternoon, Donald Trump acknowledged that his infamous statement that Mexico was deliberately sending rapists into the United States was planned in advance. In testifying in June in an ongoing court case, prompted when restaurateur Geoffrey Zakarian pulled out of a lease in Trump’s Washington hotel after the presidential candidate’s remarks caused a national furor, Trump insisted his comments were not ad-libbed. However, he made clear that they weren’t scripted and said that he did not anticipate any damage to his brand. In the aftermath of the comments, which came when Trump announced his candidacy on 16 June 2015, the real estate developer saw a number of former business partners pull out of commercial enterprises with him including Macy’s and Univision. In addition to Zakarian, chef José Andrés also pulled out of a planned restaurant project in the same hotel. The multi-hour deposition was released by a court order on Friday after a number of organizations, led by Buzzfeed, sued to have the video unsealed. Trump insisted that his comments should not be controversial because “I’ve been making this statement for many years. This is not just new.” He also insisted that he thought his candidacy would draw more Hispanic customers than otherwise, insisting: “I think you will get more business. I think you’ll get more business,” although he acknowledged “it’s always possible” that some might not patronize his hotel as a result. Watch it live here: Onetime presidential candidate and former House speaker Newt Gingrich compared Hillary Clinton’s citing of Donald Trump’s history of racist and misogynistic comments toward a Venezuelan pageant queen to Clinton’s handling of the terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, in 2012. “This is the new Benghazi lie,” Gingrich told Sean Hannity on his eponymous radio show, first reported by Buzzfeed News. “What Hillary tried to set up and what they apparently spent months preparing is an ambush as false as Benghazi,” Gingrich continued. “It was as false as her claim she was under fire in in Bosnia. It was as false as the lies she told on her emails. The elite media, which is Clinton, I mean, they totally identify with her, they took it hook, line and sinker.” During Monday night’s debate, Clinton made Trump’s past remarks about Machado a centerpiece of their first televised clash, citing the name-calling – in particular, Trump calling her “Miss Housekeeping” in reference to her Latina origins – as a prime example of her opponent’s demeaning views about women. “They clearly had set it up to be triggered at the debate,” Gingrich continued. “At the last minute, Hillary suddenly realizes she hasn’t gotten it in yet, so you have this total detour to make sure she has gotten the story planted so all that all the news media that are lined up - all of it’s embargoed, all of it’s sitting there waiting.” Hillary Clinton, on her travel plans: I’ll be here in Florida so much you’ll get sick of me. Speaking in Coral Springs, Florida, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton told the audience that Donald Trump’s late-night tweetstorm encouraging American voters to watch a nonexistent sex tape of a Venezuelan pageant queen with whom he has been engaged in a feud is evidence that he is “unhinged” and temperamentally unfit to serve as president. “Who gets up at three o’clock in the morning to engage in a Twitter attack against the former Miss Universe?” Clinton asked incredulously. “Why does he do things like that?” she continued. “I mean, his latest Twitter meltdown is unhinged, even for him. It proves, yet again, that he is temperamentally unfit to be president and commander in chief. I have said it before and I’ll say it again: a man who can be provoked by a tweet should not be anywhere near the nuclear codes.” Watch it live here: If it’s an unnerving experience to have nine-time Grammy winner Mary J Blige close her eyes and sing directly to you about police violence from just a few feet away, Hillary Clinton didn’t show it. Clinton is the first guest to appear on the hip-hop soul singer’s new show The 411 with Mary J Blige – a reference to her 1992 debut album – now streaming on Apple Music, and it’s definitely a little different from a typical presidential nominee interview. “May I call you Hillary,” asked Blige, who had been calling her “Secretary Clinton” earlier in the interview. “Yes, you may,” replied Clinton. “OK Hillary, I want to share something with you I haven’t shared with anyone,” declared Blige, announcing that she was going to sing her a song: Bruce Springsteen’s 41 Shots, written about Amadou Diallo in 1999, an unarmed black man who was killed by four NYPD officers. “It means a lot to me just because of everything that’s taking place now,” said Blige, a reference to the recent high-profile examples of unarmed black men and women who have been killed by police. “I just want to share it with you because believe that so many women, African American women, feel like this when they’re sending their children off to school in the morning,” Blige said. Yet another reliably conservative newspaper’s editorial board has endorsed Hillary Clinton for president, on the heels of a historic anti-endorsement against Donald Trump by USA Today. The San Diego Union-Tribune, which has not endorsed a Democrat for president in its entire 148-year history, wrote in an editorial released this afternoon that Clinton “has the better temperament to be president - and the experience, background and relationships with world leaders that we need in a president.” But the lion’s share of the editorial space is reserved to lambaste Trump, who the editorial board calls “vengeful, dishonest and impulsive” who could be the American Hugo Chávez: We could see an administration that reneges on its treaty commitments to dozens of nations, throwing the world into turmoil and increasing tensions in regions that historically have relied on the United States to be a stabilizing force. We could see an administration that ruins US trustworthiness in international finance by seeking to refinance terms with debt-holders, putting a singular economic power in the same basket as Greece. We could also see an administration that launches a trade war by abandoning Republican tradition and abrogating international trade deals, destroying a framework that has greatly enriched our nation and the world, even if its benefits haven’t been as well-distributed as one would hope. While acknowledging the “lack of enthusiasm” for Clinton among many voters, the paper’s editorial board wrote that the former secretary of state has displayed a capability for “diplomacy, collaboration, patience,” qualities it lauded in Mitt Romney when the paper endorsed his candidacy in 2012. Trump, on the other hand, “is no Romney,” making Clinton “the safest candidate for voters to choose in a complex world.” Lin-Manuel Miranda, the Pulitzer-Tony-Emmy-Grammy-MacArthur Genius Grant-winning composer, star of the Broadway sensation Hamilton and also just a really nice guy, has composed a one-song musical about Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, inspired by a 272-word sentence Trump spoke at a rally in Sun City, South Carolina: It’s 3am - do you know where your president is? That’s the message of a July advertisement produced by pro-Hillary Clinton Super Pac Priorities USA Action, taking a nod from Clinton’s iconic “3 A.M.” advertisement in 2008 to criticize Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump as unprepared for and uninterested in serving as president. After Trump’s late-night tweetstorm in which he urged American voters to watch a nonexistent sex tape of a Venezuelan beauty queen who he has criticized for being overweight - a sentence we never thought we’d type and yet here we are - the advertisement has a new resonance. “The world is a dangerous place,” a narrator intones, as the camera pans over the White House at 3am. “At any hour, our president could be called on to act calmly, decisively, intelligently.” Inside the executive mansion, a red phone rings as a Trump sound-alike mocks his nemeses on social media. “How great is Twitter?” he says to himself. “Boom - just zinged another loser! Hit him with double exclamation, bam!” Trump continues mocking people on Twitter as the phone rings unanswered. “Will someone get the damn phone?” the actor finally says. “How annoying. Who is calling me at 3am anyway? Total loser.” Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s sole response to the barrage of criticism after a late-night tweetstorm in which he encouraged American voters to watch a (nonexistent) sex tape of a Venezuelan beauty queen who has criticized Trump for calling her “Miss Piggy” and “Miss Housekeeping”: BuzzFeed has obtained surreal videos of Donald Trump’s deposition in June in a case in which he sued a restaurateur for pulling out of his Washington, DC, hotel project because of terrible things Trump had said about Mexicans. Trump sued companies connected with restaurateur Geoffrey Zakarian, who pulled out of Trump’s hotel citing Trump’s comments about Mexicans. Trump launched his presidential campaign by saying that Mexicans were rapists bringing guns and drugs to the United States. A second chef, Jose Andres, also pulled out of the hotel project. Trump is suing him too. In his deposition, Trump implies the restaurateurs should not have been surprised by his comments because “I’ve been making this statement for many years.” Trump also said his comments could not have been “so bad” because, after all, a major political party nominated him for president: “I’m running for office. I obviously have credibility because I now as it turns out became the Republican nominee... so it’s not like, you know, like, uh I’ve said anything that could be so bad because if I said something that’s so bad they wouldn’t have had me go through all these people and win all of these primary races... Trump said illegal immigration “is a very big topic in this country. And which is a topic that led to my nomination... so it’s not a very out there topic.” Trump is asked details of the campaign announcement speech. Q: Was it written? A: No Q: Did you plan in advance what you were going to say? A: Yes Q: Did you give any thought to [potential brand damage]? A: No, no I didn’t at all. Complaining about losing The Apprentice, Trump also mentions that he thinks it is “unfair” that “I’m not allowed to do a show and run for office.” Hillary Clinton called Alicia Machado, the former Miss Universe under attack from Trump, to express her support, the Clinton campaign said. Spokesman Nick Merrill said Clinton made the call en route to the airport to fly to her afternoon event in Coral Gables, Florida, and he paraphrased the conversation: On the trip here, they connected. Clinton started by thanking her for all she had done and the courage she has shown, particularly as this became elevated through a war of some pretty unpleasant words.” Machado responded and said, ‘of course, I’ve supported you for a really long time, I’ll continue to support you.’ The secretary thanked her, Machado then said, ‘I’m voting for the first time in this election, I look forward to voting for you and you are an inspiration to young women all across the country. And I look forward to you being president.’ Where is everybody? Hello? Everybody? The presidential look. The New York Daily News has uncovered audio of a 1999 Donald Trump interview with Howard Stern in which Trump says, of his daughter Ivanka: She made me promise or swear to her that I would never date a girl younger than her. So, as she grows older, the field is getting very limited. Separately, here is a Trump tweet from 2013: Local ClickonDetroit reports: Donald Trump receive 0 percent support in the city of Detroit during a recent WDIV/Detroit News poll. The poll, run from Sept. 27-29, found 39 percent of voters across Michigan supported Trump, placing him roughly 7 points behind Hillary Clinton. In the Detroit poll, there are important caveats to the data. While the poll surveyed 600 likely voters across Michigan -- a large enough sample size to get meaningful data -- just 39 people were surveyed in the city of Detroit. The smaller sample size in the city increases the margin of error, and there’s almost certainly people living in Detroit who will vote for Trump in November. The Clinton camp marked the start of Rosh Hashanah Sunday with a statement reading in part: As the High Holiday celebrations begin, I send my best wishes for a Shana Tova – a happy and healthy new year – to Jewish families and communities in the United States, Israel, and around the world. Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are a time for prayer and contemplation. They are a time to recall our past year, take a hard look at what we’ve done and what we’ve said, and ask how we can do better in the year ahead. They challenge us to do the difficult work of self-reflection—key to becoming a better family member, friend, and neighbor. Our country must do this work as a national community, too. All Americans should question whether we’re doing all that we can to work on “Tikkun Olam”—repairing the world. That means asking ourselves if we could be doing more to help those who are hungry or in need of shelter. If we could be doing more to make sure everyone has access to health care. And if we could be doing more to build a brighter future where no one is left out or left behind. Trump has done an unexpected interview with Grand Rapids local ABC news, and reporter Andrew Krietz has tweeted key lines: Commenting on USA Today’s editorial warning readers not to vote for him, Trump disparaged the paper, which, in terms of print circulation, is the top newspaper in the country (and not known for having a political axe to grind). Trump ignored a question from his traveling pool of reporters about his bizarro overnight tweetstorm, however: (thanks @bencjacobs) Trump has stopped to pay his respects at the tomb of president Gerald Ford and Betty Ford: Trump visited the tomb after touring the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum, which is in town. Trump is not scheduled to appear onstage in Novi, Michigan – a Detroit suburb across the state – until 5pm. At least they have donuts? The numbers here are stunning. Polling averages have incumbent Republican senator Rob Portman up 12 points in his re-election bid against former governor Ted Strickland in Ohio. But the presidential appears to be tied: Here’s a new video ad from Trump hitting Clinton with footage in which she says, “Why aren’t I 50 points ahead? you might ask.” The ad brings up Clinton’s emails, Isis, and her “basket of deplorables,” to set up the punch line, “do you really need to ask?” What do you think? Does it work? Clinton proposes a national service reserve. People would be trained, and then in times of crisis would get the call. The network would be activated during a natural disaster, or to meet a public health need such as passing out drinking water in Flint, or to address another community crisis. Members of the service corps could still hold down full-time jobs, she says. It would be “a true, bipartisan, public-private partnership.” “Our goal is 5m people spread across all 50 states, and... we want to put a special focus on people under 30.” “There’s so much work to be done, and so many people who want to help do it.” Then Clinton elbows Trump: I don’t think you’ll hear anything about this from my opponent, and you know what, I think that’s a shame, because national service has always been a bipartisan goal... This should be something that we all can get behind. And when you listen to what’s being said in this campaign, it can be discouraging.. that makes it more important that we come together... This gets quite a cheer from the crowd: I’m well aware that candidates usually don’t focus on national service in the final stretch. .. Some people say, well why aren’t you out there beating up on your opponent... and all the rest of it? Well, I’ll do that, but... Clinton winds toward her conclusion: I’m trying to end this campaign focusing on issues that are really close to my heart. And this is one of them. She coughs. And grows hoarse for a second but talks through it and returns to full volume. Readers are much better at asking smart questions than I am, which is why I have been ending each of these articles with a request to get in touch with me. Earlier this week, Alan wrote me an email which asked: I would like to know more about what supporters of the Greens and Libertarians will actually do on US polling day. Do we expect them to vote for their own lost causes as a principled act of faith, stay at home or switch to a mainstream party? It’s a great question. For now though, I’m going to set aside what these individuals are going to do on November 8 - partly because I think predictive journalism is having a bad effect on democracy and partly because I haven’t seen enough data to give you a solid answer. Instead, I want to take one step back and consider just how many Americans are considering a choice that isn’t Democrat Hillary Clinton or Republican Donald Trump. There are a lot of them. Continue reading: Meanwhile... (thanks @bencjacobs) Clinton quote De Tocqueville on America’s “spirit of volunteerism.” Then she says as president she would “make a major push in support of national service.” She wants to: triple Americorps double scholarships Americorps volunteers earn set up program of college credits for service set up college loan forgiveness for service 2 grow the Peace Corps 3 expand service opportunities for people of all ages Clinton says that Americans are good at finding ways to give back to the country. She’s talking about the good-works group Americorps, founded by Bill Clinton, which she says will add its millionth member next month. Other examples of volunteerism she describes include tutoring students and working in the Peace Corps. “However you serve, it feels good, doesn’t it? To be part of something bigger than ourselves,” she says. “Service makes us happier, it makes us healthier, and there are studies proving that... it can also help us find our next job or our true calling in life... Too often Americans can become separated from each other. And I think a lot of people are feeling this way in this election... it magnifies our differences... there aren’t many places where people of all backgrounds... come together in common cause, but service is one of them. She quotes JFK: “Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country.” What if we made it easier for everyone to engage in service? She asks rhetorically. “What if we strengthened the culture of service in America?” We have a Trump sighting. His plane landed in Grand Rapids, Michigan, moments ago. The Trump reporting pool relays this scene: About a dozen white men in suits came down the stairs of the plane. Rudy Giuliani, Steve Bannon, and Steven Mnuchin were among them. At 12:04 pm, Trump came down the stairs and got into a vehicle. At 12:05, the motorcade started rolling. Clinton seems like she’s having an upbeat day. She’s smiling through this speech: “My opponent believes in what he calls a strongman approach... that in no way resembles the strong, vibrant America I know. ... He said, ‘I alone can fix it.’ I alone? Well, we’ve learned that that’s his way. One person getting supreme power and exercising it ruthlessly... but that is not how change happens in America.” Here’s Clinton. Excited crowd it sounds like. “We have to make every single day count,” she says, reminding the audience that only 39 days remain until election day. There’s a bounty of state polling out this morning showing Clinton with healthy leads in key places: Clinton’s Fort Pierce, Florida, program has just begun. The candidate plans to talk about the importance of national service, and to announce the formation of a national youth service corps. Eilean Clark, a retired nurse and campaign volunteer, is introducing the candidate. In a meeting with reporters, Clinton communications director Jennifer Palmieri ties Trump’s attacks on Alicia Machado following this week’s debate to his attacks on Fox host Megyn Kelly after a debate 14 months ago. Palmieri also denied Trump’s wild accusation that Clinton or her campaign had helped Machado gain American citizenship, and Palmieri said that Clinton would likely address Trump’s latest attack this afternoon at her rally in Coral Springs. “This is our opponent. This is who we’re running against. This is our reality,” Palmieri said. Here’s further, from the press pool report: It is a pattern with him. And after a bad debate performance, he blamed Megyn Kelly. Now after a bad debate performance, he’s attacking Alicia Machado. It is not apparent to us why he simply can’t stop attacking her. He’s had many opportunities to right the offense that she took to how she was treated 20 years ago... I certainly don’t think it helps him. I think it is distasteful to voters and backfires on him. ... This is our opponent. This is who we’re running against. This is our reality. We will do as we have done the whole time he has been the general election nominee, which is run our campaign on two tracks. There’s a positive message that she’s delivering but she’s also going to call him out. Where is he now? Is he awake? ... 5:30 AM it stopped. I don’t understand.” In addition to multiple stops in Iowa Monday, senator Bernie Sanders will head to Minnesota Tuesday to stump for Clinton, the campaign has announced: On Tuesday, Senator Bernie Sanders will campaign in Minneapolis and Duluth for the Clinton-Kaine ticket. Sanders will discuss Hillary Clinton’s plan to build an economy that works for everyone, not just those at the top, and Donald Trump’s plan, which would benefit himself and other millionaires and billionaires. As we wait for Clinton in Fort Pierce – here are three recent news lines from the Clinton campaign. President Barack Obama will campaign for Clinton in Miami on Wednesday and senator Bernie Sanders will campaign for her in Iowa on Monday. Meanwhile, Clinton has received the endorsement of the association of flight attendants. In a statement, Clinton said she was “honored” to have the endorsement: For over 70 years, the Association of Flight Attendants has helped raise wages, benefits, and working conditions for its members all across – and above – America. Over the decades, it has brought our nation’s attention to important issues like discrimination, outsourcing, and equal pay. Every American worker deserves an advocate like the AFA in their corner, and I’m honored to have earned their endorsement. This is not the first time Donald Trump has expressed an interest in sex tapes. In one Trump’s many appearances on Howard Stern’s radio show he said he had watched a leaked video of Paris Hilton having sex. The (particularly) creepy thing about this is that Trump said he had known Hilton since she was 12-years-old. Trump said her parents were family friends. From the Daily Beast: Now, somebody who a lot of people don’t give credit to but is in actuality very beautiful is Paris Hilton,” Trump told Stern. “I’ve known Paris Hilton from the time she’s 12, her parents are friends of mine, and the first time I saw her she walked into the room and I said, ‘Who the hell is that?’ At 12, I wasn’t interested… but she was beautiful.” Trump told Stern he had watched Hilton’s tape with his then girlfriend Melania Knauss. The conversation took place after Stern asked Trump to name the “three hottest chicks you’ve seen”. Trump named Hilton and Keira Knightly. He also named his daughter Ivanka, of whom Trump is a long-time admirer. The conversation took place in 2003. It is difficult to tell the exact date as the audio has been deleted from Youtube. But taking 2003 as a starting point, Hilton would have been 21 or 22-years-old, Ivanka Trump would also have been 21 or 22-years-old, and Knightley was likely 18 or 19-years-old. Donald Trump turned 57 in 2003. Here’s a live video stream of Clinton’s event in Fort Pierce, Florida, scheduled to start soon: Hillary Clinton assesses Trump’s early-morning tirade against former beauty queen Alicia Machado and registers a verdict of “unhinged”. This is quite a tweetstorm. We will, by the way, have live video of Clinton from Florida shortly. Machado has posted on Instagram that Trump’s attacks of this morning are both false and familiar to her: Running that through Google translate: The Republican candidate and his campaign team are again generating attacks, insults and trying to revive slanders and false accusations about my life. All this in order to intimidate, humiliate me and throw me off balance again. The attacks that have emerged are slander and lies cheap generated with bad intentions, which have no foundation that have been spread by sensationalist media. This, of course, is not the first time that I face such a situation. Through their hate campaign, the Republican candidate insists discredit and demoralize a woman, which is definitely one of the most terrifying features. with this, seeking to distract attention from their real problems and its inability to pretend to be the leader of this great country. When I was a young girl, the now candidate, I was humiliated, insulted me, I disrespected publicly, as he usually did privately in the cruelest way. as this happened to me, it is clear over the years that their actions and behavior have been repeated with other women for decades. Therefore, I will keep standing, sharing my story, my absolute support Mrs. Clinton on behalf of women, my sisters, aunts, grandmothers, cousins, friends and female community. My Latin and in general, I want to thank all the support, love and respect, my career, my person as a human being and my family. I became a citizen of this great country because my daughter was born here and because I wanted to exercise my rights, including voting. I will continue standing firm in my lived experience as Miss Universe and you with me supporting me. I’ve been so pleased with many kind words, for so much love. I’m focusing on my busy career, in my work as mother and I will continue taking positive steps for the Latino community, I will continue as activist for women’s rights and respect we deserve. I appreciate all your love and all your support again, thanks. “Thousands of blessings. Ari Fleischer was a George W Bush press secretary: Reid Epstein is a Wall Street Journal reporter: It kind of seems like Trump is wallowing in losing today? Or is this some kind of plan B? We won’t pretend to read the tea leaves but would appreciate your doing so. What do you make of this, Trump drawing attention to the abandonment of his campaign by Republican mainstays? The Arizona Republic and Dallas Morning News both endorsed Clinton this year, in each case an historic first for papers that only had endorsed Republicans. USA Today has chalked up its own first, by expressing an editorial preference in a presidential race for the first time in its (relatively short 34-year) history. The paper has not endorsed Clinton, but on Thursday the paper did, highly unusually, run a non-endorsement of Trump: In the 34-year history of USA TODAY, the Editorial Board has never taken sides in the presidential race... We’ve never seen reason to alter our approach. Until now. This year, the choice isn’t between two capable major party nominees who happen to have significant ideological differences. This year, one of the candidates — Republican nominee Donald Trump — is, by unanimous consensus of the Editorial Board, unfit for the presidency. From the day he declared his candidacy 15 months ago through this week’s first presidential debate, Trump has demonstrated repeatedly that he lacks the temperament, knowledge, steadiness and honesty that America needs from its presidents. [...] And don’t miss a take published today by a member of the Wall Street Journal editorial board, not known for its political moderation. Dorothy Rabinowitz warns Republicans that as much as they may hate Hillary Clinton, she’s the only thing standing between the country and disaster: Her election alone is what stands between the American nation and the reign of the most unstable, proudly uninformed, psychologically unfit president ever to enter the White House. The Chicago Tribune, meanwhile, has endorsed Libertarian party candidate Gary Johnson. The New Hampshire senate candidates, Republican incumbent Kelly Ayotte and Democratic governor Maggie Hassan, are holding a morning debate, which you can watch here. This is a very close race – polling averages have the candidates one point apart – which could determine whether Democrats succeed in their quest to swipe control of the senate from the GOP. After he exhausted himself on Twitter this morning on the topic of Alicia Machado, Trump attacked the use of anonymous sources, to the mirth/horror of anyone who’s been tracking Trump. The question is, of all the stories this week with anonymous sources saying damning things about Trump, which one got his goat? Or was it a kind of cumulative effect? Anonymous sources close to the candidate were cited as saying that Trump’s children are unhappy with the current campaign leadership and concerned about the impact on Trump businesses of the campaign, a report that the campaign denied sharply. Other anonymous sources were quoted calling Trump’s debate performance a “disaster”. What’s Trump reacting to here? Trump himself constantly cites nameless or made-up people to claim support for a product he’s selling one position or another he’s pitching the American public on. Exempli gratia: Trump’s tactic of refuting charges of misogyny by trying to shame a former beauty queen whom he publicly shamed 20 years ago for gaining weight... how effective, would you say? The actress Kate McKinnon will bring her Hillary Clinton impression to Saturday Night Live this... Saturday. Opposite McKinnon will be Alec Baldwin playing Trump. Here’s McKinnon this morning explaining what it’s like to impersonate Clinton: What’s the news that Trump is trying to cover up by tweeting wildly about beauty queen Alicia Machado? Could it be last night’s report by the Washington Post, citing state attorney general’s records, that the Trump foundation never obtained the registration required of charities that solicit more than $25,000 per year? If the state attorney general finds that Trump’s foundation raised this sum or more from public donations - likely, since Trump himself has not donated to the charity personally since 2007 - it could be ordered to cease fundraising activities, or even to refund the money it has raised. But there’s been so much bad news to come out about the Trump foundation, it’s difficult to understand how Trump’s nuclear media strategy might be triggered by one more negative headline. Maybe there’s not a strategy? Or maybe the Trump campaign is trying to get ahead of reports of an historic violation of the Cuba embargo, with Newsweek alleging that the Republican nominee spent at least $68,000 in the island dictatorship in 1998, while investigating potential business opportunities: Or maybe there’s not a strategy? The Clinton campaign does not seem too bothered: Hello and welcome to our live-wire coverage of the 2016 race for the White House. Hillary Clinton has two rallies scheduled in Florida today while Donald Trump is in Michigan. Trump has again attacked a former beauty pageant contestant introduced by Clinton at Monday’s debate as an example of a woman whom Trump has objectified and insulted. Trump has invited the country to watch a “sex tape” that he says involves Alicia Machado, who was crowned Miss Universe when Trump ran the pageant in 1996. It’s unclear whether such a tape exists. Machado, who is now an American citizen, has done a string of interviews this week describing how Trump publicly shamed her for gaining weight after winning the pageant. The Trump campaign has attacked Machado all week. This morning the candidate himself has taken up the attack. It has been a week of difficult headlines for the Trump campaign, with many he might like to distract from. Whatever the case, this is distracting: The ’s Lucia Graves spoke with Machado for a profile published this week: Thanks for reading and please join us in the comments.
Lloyds to axe 625 jobs and shut 21 branches amid cost-cutting Lloyds Banking Group is cutting 625 jobs and closing 21 branches as part of ongoing efforts by the bailed-out bank to cut costs. The job losses – which include moving some roles to India – mean 6,325 out of 9,000 post closures announced in 2014 have now been confirmed. Lloyds said it would be creating 195 new roles so the net job cuts would be 430. Union officials said the process of cuts was taking a toll on the remaining workforce, and published statistics that said 74% of Lloyds employees have reported symptoms of work-related stress, while 80% report having to work additional unpaid overtime every week just to keep up with the rising workload. John Morgan-Evans, Unite’s regional officer, also criticised the bank for wanting to pay IT workers in India less than their UK counterparts. “Unite has made it clear that ‘efficiency’ cannot simply mean axing more jobs while expecting the same work to fall on fewer shoulders. The bank forgets that these relentless cuts have a human cost. Unpaid overtime and work-related stress are already at endemic levels across the bank and this will reach a crisis point if Lloyds continue to swing the axe,” said Morgan-Evans. The branch closures are part of a plan to reduce the network by 200 as the bank increasingly offers digital services to customers. Lloyds, which is still 9%-owned by taxpayers, said it was committed to working through these changes with employees in a careful and sensitive way. “All affected employees have been briefed by their line manager today. Accord and Unite were consulted prior to this announcement and will continue to be consulted. “The group’s policy is always to use natural turnover and to redeploy people wherever possible to retain their expertise and knowledge within the group. Where it is necessary for employees to leave the company, it will look to achieve this by offering voluntary redundancy. “Compulsory redundancies will always be a last resort,” the bank said.
What the bank results tell us about their and UK economy's health Four of Britain’s biggest banks reported annual results this week and insisted they were robust enough to withstand another global downturn. But what did the results for HSBC, Standard Chartered and the bailed-out duo of Lloyds Banking Group and Royal Bank of Scotland tell us about the industry and the wider economy? Bankers’ pay and bonuses Bonuses have not gone away, despite considerable public and political anger over pay since the 2008 crash. When the pay disclosures of the four banks from their annual results are added up, 800 or so of their employees received more than €1m (£790,000) in 2015. Barclays will add to that tally when its annual figures are published on Tuesday next week. The four banks who have reported so far have cut their bonus pools for 2015, but that total still stands at £3.7bn. Chief executive pay was down at HSBC and Lloyds but their bosses still earned £7.3m and £8.5m respectively, while pay rose for the chief executives of RBS and Standard Chartered (in part because of a buy-out for its new chief executive) whose packages reached £3.8m and £9m respectively. Behaviour Despite years of damning inquiries and punitive fines, banks are still getting into trouble. Bankers are keen to point out that their problems relate to “legacy issues” – industry jargon for historical misdemeanours – but they are struggling to emerge from their shadow. The four banks’ annual reports contained a lengthy list of legal warnings of court cases and potential fines from regulators. Predictably, the payment protect insurance scandal has continued to dominate. The damage faced by the industry now tops £30bn after Lloyds admitted this week that its bill alone had reached £16bn. Lloyds, though, has signalled that the saga could be drawing to a close. Banks are also setting aside money in case they have to pay compensation for controversial packaged bank accounts – which charge a monthly fee and offer perks such as insurance, but in some cases were missold. Each bank has its own issues, too. RBS flagged a looming penalty from the US authorities over the way it sold bonds before the financial crisis – and the bill could run into billions of pounds. HSBC is still dealing with the consequences of a £1.2bn fine for money laundering offences in 2012, as it admitted that a monitor installed by the US in the wake of that scandal is concerned it is taking too long to tackle financial crime. Standard Chartered, meanwhile, revealed it was being investigated for potential failings in its defences against financial crime. The UK and global economy The UK economy is crucial for Lloyds and RBS, big lenders to British households and businesses. However, both are being held back from making bigger profits in their domestic businesses because interest rates are at a record low of 0.5%. Lloyds had expected the base rate to rise to 2.5% by 2017, but it revealed this week that it now believed borrowing costs would reach that level two years later – amid signals from the Bank of England that rate rises are not imminent. Despite that, RBS customers are anticipating a rate rise. Just 15% of its customers are on variable rate mortgages after they moved to fixed rate products in recent years. Both the bailed-out banks could be buffeted by a downturn in the global economy, but HSBC and Standard Chartered have the most exposure to a slump in China and emerging markets. “The current economic environment is uncertain,” said Stuart Gulliver, chief executive of HSBC. Worryingly for banks with global exposure, interest rates around the world are either low or – in the case of the eurozone, Japan, Sweden and Switzerland – turning negative. This makes it difficult for banks to make profits on loans or attract deposits from savers. However, the big question mark is over China, the world’s second largest economy, and whether its recent economic slowdown will become a crash. The prospect of a hard landing has rattled global stock markets and HSBC, which generates a significant amount of its income in Hong Kong, offered some reassurance. It said China was growing more slowly but it would still be the biggest contributor to global economic growth. Brexit Lloyds was determined not to give a view on the EU referendum on 23 June, but RBS, HSBC and Standard Chartered were clearer. HSBC, which earlier this month said it would keep its headquarters in the UK, has warned 1,000 roles could go to Paris if the UK votes to leave. Standard Chartered, London-based but with operations across the globe, said the UK should not break away from Brussels. RBS cited the referendum as a risk to its business and warned of economic uncertainty related to the vote. When will taxpayers get their money back in Lloyds and RBS? Lloyds is in sight of the finish line – much to George Osborne’s relief. The taxpayer’s stake is now 9%, from the 43% shareholding the government held in 2008. That stake was built when the Treasury pumped in £20bn in wake of Lloyds’ rescue bid for HBOS, the owner of Halifax and Bank of Scotland. But last month the chancellor temporarily abandoned a pledge to make £2bn of shares available to the public at a discount, citing market turmoil. Publication of Lloyds’ results on Thursday, however, put a rocket under the shares. They closed on Friday at 72.1p, just a whisker under the 73.6p at which taxpayers break even on their investment. Any sustained move above that level could allow Osborne to resume selling shares into the market, although any offering to the public seems unlikely until the outcome of the EU referendum is known. The finishing line remains distant for RBS, however. As it reported its eighth consecutive annual loss this week, it also admitted any hope of returning cash to shareholders had been kicked beyond its target of early 2017. Osborne sold off the first chunk of RBS shares in August, reducing the stake from 79% to 73%. The shares closed at 226.6p this week – below the 502p break-even point.
Pornography sites face UK block under enhanced age controls Pornography websites that fail to implement stringent age verification controls could be blocked from British users after MPs forced the government to strengthen planned measures to prevent children accessing such content. The culture secretary, Karen Bradley, said the move would protect children from “harmful pornographic content” and fulfil a Conservative manifesto promise. Ministers had previously said such a measure would be disproportionate. The move has widespread support from child safety campaigners and the general public. An ICM poll, commissioned by Durham University’s centre for gender-equal media and published last month, found 78% of respondents backed blocks on adult websites that allowed under-18s to access their content. Age verification had the backing of 86%. The rules, to be enforced by the British Board of Film Classification, will apply to all websites regardless of where they are based. The government says they comply with EU country of origin rules. Digital rights campaigners, however, say the measure has no equivalent in any other democratic country, while free speech advocates say it could be the start of a slippery slope towards ever greater censorship. Together with the online surveillance powers introduced by the Investigatory Powers Act this week, it constitutes a significant tightening of control over the internet. Bradley said: “We made a promise to keep children safe from harmful pornographic content online and that is exactly what we are doing. Only adults should be allowed to view such content and we have appointed a regulator, BBFC, to make sure the right age checks are in place to make that happen. If sites refuse to comply, they should be blocked. “In fulfilling this manifesto commitment and working closely with people like [MPs] Claire Perry and Kit Malthouse, who have worked tirelessly on internet safety issues, we are protecting children from the consequences of harmful content.” The measure will be introduced as an amendment to the digital economy bill. It comes after the Labour MP Louise Haigh introduced her own amendment in the bill’s committee stage, calling for non-compliant websites to be blocked. She withdrew the amendment in the face of ministerial opposition, but a new amendment was introduced by Perry, a Conservative, at the report stage. It was expected to be passed by a cross-party coalition of MPs after Perry threatened to split the Tory vote and defeat the government, Haigh told the . “[Perry] was obviously feeling a bit feisty and she told them that she was going to divide the house,” she said. “There was going to be a vote on Monday. She had enough Tory backbenchers to defeat the government.” According to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, the rules will give the BBFC the power to issue a notice to internet service providers, and those that cover mobile network operators, to prevent access to websites that have no or inadequate age verification for pornography. The details of the amendment are still being worked out. The original bill already gave regulators powers to issue fines of up to £250,000, or 5% of turnover, while websites outside British jurisdiction would have UK customer payments via services such as Visa and MasterCard cut off. Ministers were also seeking cooperation from other services that support websites, such as servers, to clamp down on those that fail to comply. Jim Killock, the executive director of the Open Rights Group, which has campaigned against the blocking of websites, said doing so for online pornography was an “outrageous” measure that put the UK in the company of countries such as Turkey and Saudi Arabia. “It’s clearly because they [the government] think they might suffer a defeat, not because they think this is a workable policy,” he said. “What it will lead to is the blocking of a large amount of legal content, and many of those sites will have little or no incentive to use the UK’s bespoke age verification system, with the result that large amounts of material will be blocked to UK adults, despite the material being entirely legal to impart and receive.” Killock said children, especially teenagers, were unlikely to find the blocks a barrier to viewing pornography because “they will find their own ways around it”. Jerry Barnett, a free speech campaigner whose book, Porn Panic!, details an increasingly illiberal attitude towards pornography in the UK, said he believed the censorship introduced by the bill would undoubtedly extend beyond its current remit, “partly because the language is very slippery”. “Sometimes they say ‘porn’, by which they mean all sex, erotica, etc; but sometimes they use ‘adult content’, which is a far broader term, and they start going on about knife sales or self-harm sites, drug information sites,” he said. “And if you look at the BBFC’s remit, what the BBFC believes it’s here to protect us from, porn is one of a number of categories. “Porn, sex and erotica is absolutely the first target, but I can’t see in any way, shape or form that they won’t extend it because both the BBFC, for video, and Ofcom, for TV, have given themselves an incredibly broad censorship remit when it comes to child protection, and porn is just one of the categories.” Research commissioned by the NSPCC and the children’s commissioner for England found that the majority of children are exposed to pornography by their early teens. Fifty-three per cent of 11 to 16-year-olds have encountered it online, of whom 94% saw it by the age of 14, according to the Middlesex University study. The NSPCC said a generation of children was at risk of being “stripped of their childhoods” through exposure to pornography at a young age.
Malaria scheme cuts child deaths during Sahel's rainy season A project that has cut death rates, reduced outbreaks and strengthened fragile health systems in Africa’s Sahel region by distributing anti-malaria drugs to millions of vulnerable children is facing a supply chain bottleneck, say health officials and experts. The innovative Access-SMC project, funded by Unitaid and run by the Malaria Consortium in partnership with Catholic Relief Services, involves scaling up the use of seasonal malaria drugs to children under five in seven countries along the arid belt of land that fringes the Sahara. The $67m (£45m), three-year project aims to deliver 45m treatments to about 10 million children by next year – and eventually up to 25 million children in the Sahel could benefit. Clinical trials have shown that the intervention can reduce the number of children falling sick or dying from malaria by 75%. The treatment consists of up to four monthly doses. Each month, community health workers deliver the first dose before parents administer the next ones. Town criers and radios educate people about the scheme. “This is massive, because a majority of these kids would have had malaria. So already we are talking about millions of children not having malaria, or not as severe malaria as they would have had before,” said Diego Moroso, Access-SMC’s project director. “I asked a mother in Chad how things were going and she said, ‘I can sleep this season’. I was thinking about the kids but it’s actually about her health also because she doesn’t have to take care of three or four kids who used to get sick a couple of times every month. That’s such a heavy burden.” Moroso was speaking on the sidelines of a symposium held in London to evaluate progress in scaling up the intervention. Last year, 3.2 million children received the drugs; the project hopes to reach more than 6 million this year. “It’s fairly inexpensive, it’s concentrated in a specific amount of time, it’s easily planned, it’s easily delivered with the right resources. When we look at Nigeria, for instance, even with $40m per year, we could have 11 million children treated,” Moroso said. Nigeria accounts for more than 25% of malaria deaths in Africa and, despite a recent drop in the prevalence rate from 42% of children under five in 2010 to 27% in 2014, the burden remains high during the short rainy season from July to October, according to health minister Dr Osagie Ehanire. He said the intervention has more than halved malaria deaths in children under five in the areas where it was implemented, and this translated into wider benefits. “There are less out-of-pocket expenses for the families involved, they can use the money for other activities. There is an improvement in school attendance. Parents can go to their work, go to the fields and don’t have to tend small children,” he said. Distributing the drugs remains challenging, although things have become easier, he said, thanks to military gains against Boko Haram insurgents since President Muhammadu Buhari took office last year. “Up to a year ago, 14 local governments were under the control of Boko Haram, and were totally inaccessible,” Ehanire said. “[Now] all 14 local governments have been set free.” Officials hope the project can be combined with other initiatives: health workers travelling to remote areas to administer malaria drugs could also distribute vitamins, measure children for malnutrition, or administer vaccines. Ehanire said Nigeria hoped to integrate the initiative into its universal health coverage. “International partners could do very well to assist us in this drive, to work with the ministry of health … and make technical and financial contributions,” he said. The main challenge is guaranteeing the supply of drugs, given that there is no private market and only one main manufacturer, Guilin, Moroso said. “Orders need to be timely and funding needs to be pledged and confirmed in time,” he said. “There were 71m funded treatments this year, [but] the manufacturer will only be able to produce 67m due to capacity constraints. We want to try to change that with better planning,” he said, adding that they are also hoping to persuade another company to manufacture the drugs. SMC is also being used in Burkina Faso where, according to Dr Yacouba Savadogo, director of the National Malaria Control Programme, malaria accounts for about half of doctor visits and 30% of deaths in health centres. “It is particularly widespread among the most vulnerable, notably in the rural population and in farmers, and that is around 90% of the population. Studies show that 40% of these people’s revenues are lost because of malaria,” he said. “In 2015, we have seen a reduction of 25% of the illness in the zones where SMC was carried out,” he added, although he noted that ensuring parents administer the drugs effectively remains a challenge. Another difficulty is funding, even though the government has secured a loan from the World Bank. “In 2016, we wanted to cover 70 districts, but we only had money for 56. So there are 14 districts that are not covered at a cost of around $1.6m. It’s not much, but it is missing,” Savadogo said.
Britain's meal ticket? Food and drink at heart of referendum debate The Cornish pasty has a habit of biting back at moments of political tension, and the EU referendum is no exception. When Boris Johnson launched his Vote Leave battlebus tour in Truro in May, he brandished the local meat pie and promised that Brexit would enable him to protect the best of British produce. Cornish pasty makers were not impressed. Although they had forced a sharp U-turn on George Osborne and his pasty tax in 2012, they now declared in favour of the chancellor’s position on Europe. “After working so hard to gain recognition for the Cornish pasty through the EU-protected food names scheme … the Cornish Pasty Association supports Britain remaining in,” they announced. It is no coincidence that food and drink is at the heart of so much of the debate about whether we are better off in or out of the EU. Worth £80bn a year and employing 400,000 people, it is our largest manufacturing sector and a big exporter and importer. Moreover, 38% of its workers are foreign-born, placing its demand for cheap labour at the centre of arguments about immigration. The common agriculture policy (CAP) swallows up nearly 40% of the total EU budget; it has reshaped not just farming but our landscape in the decades since Britain joined the European Economic Community in 1973. The free movement of goods, people and capital – enshrined in EU treaties – and EU common policies adopted on trade, fisheries and regional development, as well as agriculture, have been the framework through which the UK has globalised. Britain produces just more than half what it consumes and depends on Europe to provide more than a quarter of the rest, while the EU’s population of more than 500 million people provides the UK’s most significant export market for food. The referendum has therefore, perhaps not surprisingly, polarised ministers from the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra), and divided industry and political parties left and right. The Conservative food and farming minister, George Eustice, disagrees with his secretary of state, Elizabeth Truss, and is campaigning for a leave vote. He describes the EU rules affecting Defra as “all pervasive” and “stifling” and believes the UK could get better value subsidising its farmers itself rather than being part of a wasteful CAP. He said: “80% of legislation affecting Defra comes from the EU. When it comes to crucial things such as food labelling, food safety, then yes we would negotiate bilateral agreements with the EU, but there is a whole raft of other regulation – the maximum width of a gateway, the minimum width of a hedge – where frankly we could do better.” British traditional foods such as stilton, Jersey Royal potatoes and the Cornish pasty could be protected using international trademark law as they were before Britain joined the EU. As a former strawberry farmer who typically employed 300 workers, many of whom were migrants, Eustice nevertheless said Britain needed to “take back control of immigration by switching from freedom of movement to limited work permit visas. “I understand the challenge of labour but it’s very easy for us to put in place a work permit scheme for one year, say, or three,” he said. “Immigration causes problems when it becomes permanent resettlement.” Truss, on the other hand, has warned that a Brexit vote would be a “leap in the dark” that could put trade and farmers’ livelihoods at risk. Nearly three-quarters of the food and drink industry is on her side, according to its trade body, the Food and Drink Federation. Iain Wirght, the FDF’s director general, said: “71% of members believe the interests of their business will be best served by the UK voting to remain in the European Union “Members identified the single market, access to raw materials and the free movement of labour among key considerations.” The leading supermarkets, whose model depends on supply chains for fresh food stretching right across Europe and beyond, have been reluctant to express a view, no doubt for fear of alienating customers. On the left, the divide is as great. Critics say the EU has driven through a neoliberal vision of food and farming that subsidises richer landowners and the overproduction of industrial fats and sugars. It is a system that is unhealthy, environmentally destructive and captures profits for a small number of dominant corporate interests. For them, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) currently being negotiated behind closed doors between the EU and the US is just the latest alarming development in an undemocratic EU trend, they say. TTIP could result in the European market being opened to US beef produced with hormones, US poultry washed with chlorine, lower animal welfare standards and the lifting of restrictions on genetically modified organisms and threatens to allow companies to sue national governments if their policies cause a loss of profits. Jenny Jones, the former chair of the Green party, has articulated this view and wants out. “The most profound weakness of the EU is that it is a super-sized top-down dogmatic project of endless industrial development and growth,” she said. “It fosters the pointless carting of goods enormous distances, and it smashes local resilience. Often well-intentioned environmental policies are outweighed at every turn by the more fundamental drivers of its bid to turn the whole of Europe into a paradise for agribusiness and industry.” Green MP and former MEP Caroline Lucas is in the other camp, however, and a passionate proponent of staying in the EU. The EU is tired, damaged and in need of reform but without it the struggle against climate change would already have been lost, she says. She agrees with those on the right who say our sovereignty has been compromised but “we surrendered it not to the EU but to an anti-democratic market cult” that rightwing Brexiters would still promote if we voted to leave. Jeremy Corbyn’s pledge to veto TTIP may have helped win over some Labour voters who are alarmed by the trade deal but are otherwise instinctively in favour of greater international solidarity in Europe. The shadow environment and food secretary, Kerry McCarthy, thinks those hoping a leave vote might lead to a more local sustainable food system are deluded. “Everybody thinks CAP needs reform but some of the things blamed on CAP are the consequences of the market. The Brexit camp would negotiate a far more neoliberal trade deal with US or Canada than what can be achieved in EU,” she told us. On immigration, she insists that “migrant workers have kept the economy going”. The real issue, and a key driver of immigration in to the sector, she added is “low pay and zero hours”. Fundamentally, having lived through Labour wilderness years, she believes in staying in because “I see the EU as a more progressive force than most British governments I’ve seen in my lifetime.” The reality, according to Kath Dalmeny, the coordinator of Sustain, the campaign group for better food and farming, is that “you could create a good food and farming system in or out of the EU – it’s a question of values and political will. But it is naive to think we could set our own rules easily – we would be facing the same powers and institutions that control the food system whether we were in or out of the EU.”
Bank inquiry: NAB chief faces grilling and says mistakes not 'systemic' The NAB chief executive, Andrew Thorburn, has faced a more aggressive and disciplined House committee on the final day of the Turnbull government’s banking inquiry. Thorburn spent much of his time defending NAB and was noticeably uncomfortable at times. Asked about NAB’s poor financial advice since 2009, which led to $15m in compensation being paid to 750 customers, and the sacking of 43 of its 1,700 planners, Thorburn said the bank had made mistakes. But he refused to describe it as a “systemic issue” and said he didn’t think any senior executives had been fired over it. He admitted that NAB had not written to every customer of financial advisers who had been deregistered by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission. ANZ’s chief executive, Shayne Elliott, made a similar admission on Wednesday. Thorburn said he was happy that only 700 complaints were made about NAB to the financial ombudsman last year, down 64%. He also said credit cards were getting less profitable after margins halved over the past 20 years, and few customers had credit cards with the highest rate these days. He said NAB had stopped making political donations to all levels of government because it wanted to kill the perception that banks were conflicted or seeking favours from politicians. “It comes back to wanting to be respected as a bank and a company. And make sure that our customers don’t see a conflict,” Thorburn said. “In essence we felt the donations we were making to political parties were being misconstrued and misinterpreted incorrectly.” According to NAB’s policy statement on political donations, its board of directors resolved in May 2016 “that the making of any political donations would cease with immediate effect”. The decisions means the federal Liberal, National and Labor parties have lost a crucial source of political funding. Elliott had said on Wednesday that ANZ’s board was considering its own stance on political donations. “We are having discussions at our board about the role of political donations and what our position is on that,” he said. Thorburn argued that even though 43 financial planners had been dismissed from the bank, there were 1,700 planners and “the vast majority are doing the right thing”. He was challenged on that point by the committee chairman, Liberal MP David Coleman, who said one in 40 planners was hardly a “black swan event”. Thorburn disagreed, but said some executives had still had bonuses withheld as a consequence and harm had been done to the bank’s reputation. When asked about NAB’s the wealth management division that has paid over $25m in compensation to 62,000 customers in recent years, Thorburn played down the payments, noting the bank had $180bn in assets under management. Thorburn said his annual pay was $2.3m, but he received short-term incentive payments worth a similar amount and long-term incentives worth a similar amount. In the afternoon, Westpac’s CEO, Brian Hartzer, appeared before the committee. He revealed bank bosses had spoken to the treasurer, Scott Morrison, about a tribunal to regulate banks in April or May. He said in six years 22 financial planners had been referred to Asic and none of them were working at the bank anymore. He also said Westpac had “no plans” to change its political donations policy, which allows it to buy seats at fundraisers but not to give cash to political parties.
ECB refuses to help Italy's crisis-hit Monte dei Paschi bank Fears that the Italian government will have to prop up Monte dei Paschi di Siena (MPS) are mounting after the European Central Bank refused to give the world’s oldest bank more time to find major investors to back a €5bn (£4.2bn) cash injection. Trading in the troubled bank’s shares was repeatedly halted on the Italian stock exchange on Friday. The MPS share price closed 10% lower as the bank’s board held a meeting that had already been scheduled before the reports that the ECB had rejected its calls for an extension to the deadline to bolster its financial position. The ECB refused to comment and gave no formal confirmation to MPS but its decision may have closed the door to a private sector solution, under which major investors including the sovereign wealth fund of Qatar would pump billions into the bank. But MPS said on Friday night that its board would next meet on Sunday night and that it was pressing on with its private sector solutions Even so there were concerns that the Italian government would still have to embark on a “precautionary recapitalisation” of the bank and potentially impose losses on retail investors who hold €2.1bn of the bank’s bonds. Under new EU rules, taxpayer money cannot be used unless bondholders take losses first. A precautionary recapitalisation takes place before a bank becomes insolvent. ECB officials had told Reuters they hoped the refusal to extend the deadline would pave the way for similar support for other Italian banks which are struggling with €360bn of bad loans. It appeared to leave the Italian government with little option but to embark on a “precautionary recapitalisation” of the bank and potentially impose losses on retail investors who hold €2.1bn of the bank’s bonds. Under new EU rules, taxpayer money cannot be used unless bondholders take losses first. A precautionary recapitalisation takes place before a bank becomes insolvent. The bank has capital above regulatory minimums. ECB officials told Reuters they hoped the move would pave the way for similar support for other Italian banks, which are struggling with €360bn of bad loans. The long-running crisis appeared to be coming to a head just days after Wednesday’s resignation of Matteo Renzi, the centre-left prime minister, prompted by his defeat in a referendum on constitutional reforms last weekend. The fresh political uncertainty may have put off private investors who were crucial to the reform plan put in place after MPS was named the worst performer in annual stress tests on 51 major lenders across the EU. The Italian finance ministry said it would not provide detailed comment until MPS responded to the ECB decision and it still believed such a capital increase was an “option” and was “waiting to understand whether it can work or not”. Pier Carlo Padoan, Italy’s finance minister and a possible contender to replace Renzi, held a meeting earlier on Friday with the bank’s chief executive, Marco Morelli, and leaders of the banking consortium that have been working on the capital infusion for MPS. News of the ECB’s decision coincided with ongoing discussions between Italy’s president, Sergio Mattarella, and political leaders over the appointment of a new prime minister who could face the decision of whether to impose losses on MPS bondholders. With the recapitalisation deal in doubt, and a possible government rescue on the cards, the task of leading the country through a potentially contentious period may fall to Padoan, Paolo Gentiloni, the foreign minister, or even Renzi himself. New elections could be called as early as the spring. Amid the uncertainty, the price of MPS’s bonds plunged. Tomas Kinmonth, a fixed income strategist at ABN Amro, said: “The market is trying to second guess what the plan is. If it’s private sector, the bondholders are safe”. Some bondholders had agreed to a debt-to-equity swap, which was part of the private sector solution, and it was not clear what their status would be if the deal no longer took place. The Eurosceptic Five Star Movement, the second most popular party in Italy, said the government needed to step into the fray. “MPS can only be saved by state aid in order to avoid bail-in rules [that hurt] small savers, as happened a year ago,” the party’s MEPs said in a statement on founder Beppe Grillo’s blog. “This is not the time to fear the European Union and a possible infraction procedure. The consequences of a disordered bail-in would be disastrous to say the least, almost apocalyptic if one considers the size of MPS.” They added that it was time to “slam our fists at the table in Brussels ... while not giving a damn about the deficit”. The state of the banking sector will be crucial for any recovery in the Italian economy, which has an unemployment rate of 11% and where living standards have barely grown since the country became a founder member of the single currency 15 years ago. Analysts at Deutsche Bank said: “We believe that Italy made a major mistake in letting the banking sector slide into the current fragile condition without intervening while other euro area peers acted.”
Theresa May 'obsessed' with immigration control, says Vince Cable Theresa May was personally responsible for stalling talks on an EU free trade deal with India, because she was obsessed with controlling immigration, according to former business secretary Vince Cable. The prime minister will travel to India next month in a bid to lay the groundwork for developing a new trading relationship, after Britain leaves the EU. But Cable, who was closely involved in liaising with Brussels as business secretary in the coalition, said a key sticking point in years of unsuccessful negotiations between India and the EU was May’s refusal to compromise on immigration. Cable said India had been keen to expand “Mode 4” market access: the ability to bring in staff – Indian IT experts, for example – as part of trading in services. “What the Indians were asking for was very modest – and these are the kinds of people who, if we were being rational, we would want to have in the country,” he said. But he said May, then the home secretary, refused to compromise because “she was obsessed by her target” of bringing down immigration. Cable said there were other issues at stake in the complex trade deal negotiations, which began in 2007 but were never completed, including Britain’s desire to win better access to the Indian financial services market. But he said objections to migration were crucial to the failure of the talks’ progress. Cable said: “I and other ministers would come back and say, ‘the Indians want improved access on Mode 4,’ and the answer would be, ‘Not on your nelly, we’re not doing anything on this.’ The message would go back to the EU that the British were not willing to budge.” He added: “They [the Home Office] were very obstructive.” The former business secretary said post-Brexit Britain would continue to struggle to complete a trade deal with India, unless May was willing to take a more flexible approach on immigration. He said: “If you’re talking about trade in services rather than trade in goods, it involves people moving around – but they’re pathologically opposed to people moving around.” Some pro-Brexit ministers, including the international development secretary, Priti Patel, suggested during the referendum campaign that extricating Britain from the EU could eventually result in higher levels of migration from non-EU countries, including India. But May has made clear that she regards controlling all migration as a central benefit from leaving the EU. Prof Anand Menon, director of thinktank UK in a Changing Europe, said it was naive to think that once Britain has left new trade deals would be easy to strike. He said: “The fact of the matter is, in some circumstances, the EU’s not the stumbling block – we are.” Menon said a 2013 Home Office proposal to force migrants from some countries, including India, to post a £3,000 bond, had been bad for perceptions of the UK, although it was never enacted. “The mood music in the Indian press was: ‘These people want to do deals with us but they don’t like our people,’” he said. Announcing her visit to India, the prime minister said: “As we leave the European Union, we have the chance to forge a new global role for the UK – to look beyond our continent and towards the economic and diplomatic opportunities in the wider world.”
Catch-up and download: from Ripper Street to Haters Back Off Amazon Prime Ripper Street A fifth and final run for the BBC-turned-Amazon detective drama that used Jack the Ripper as a jumping-off point for all manner of grisly goings on in 19th-century Whitechapel. As another serial killer lurks, Reid, Jackson and Long Susan’s efforts to capture the bad ’un are hindered by the fact that they’re also on the run from the police themselves. Hopefully there be a sense of closure and comeuppance-getting at the end of these last six episodes, with the programme-makers promising that this is the logical conclusion of the tale rather than merely another axing. Available from 12 October Goliath There are shades of Better Call Saul in this new drama about a charmingly dishevelled lawyer investigating a suspicious death at sea. Inevitably, he ends up on the other side of the courtroom from his old firm – now a ruthless legal mega-corp that just happens to employ his ex-wife. Billy Bob Thornton is typically watchable as our roguish protagonist – also named Billy – boozing, shagging and issuing demand letters from his Santa Monica motel room. Everyone else, however, is a little bit 2D. Available from 14 October Podcast FiveThirtyEight elections podcast If you’re looking for a steer on the US election, FiveThirtyEight – the political site renowned for analysing the news using hard stats rather than hot-air punditry – is a good place to start. Its presidential race podcasts have been ramping up over the summer, investigating topics such as the candidates’ campaign spend and what makes a “tipping-point” state. The latest edition is the start of a miniseries on the electorate themselves, drilling down into the demographics to identify who is likely to vote Republican and why. Available now Netflix Haters Back Off “All the most famous people in the world started on the internet – Justin Bieber, Susan Boyle, that cat that fell off the table when it got scared.” So declares real-world online sensation Miranda Sings at the beginning of this new eight-episode series based on the so-bad-it’s-great YouTube channel. As well as following the talentless, nasal-voiced “singer” – portrayed by US comic and classically trained vocalist Colleen Ballinger – the show expands on the pop parody premise to incorporate Miranda’s fame-hungry dad, supportive but clueless mum and highly embarrassed younger sister into the mix. Strange, hilarious and – of course – tuneless in the extreme. Available from 14 October All 4 Framed Continuing his televisual world tour, Channel 4’s resident foreign-language selector Walter has nabbed three Dutch series to add to his collection. The first to hit UK screens is this pacy six-parter about a software consultant who – as the title suggests – finds himself framed for a string of wrongs. What begins as a tale of cybercrime, infidelity and embezzlement soon gives way to a murder mystery and a Europe-wide fundamentalist Christian conspiracy against protagonist Michael Bellicher. Quietly compelling. Available from 14 October
Daughter review – how to hit the sweet spot Sombre indie rock has pretty much been done to death, you might say. It’s hard to identify new places for the sound to go. Some years ago, Sigur Rós took it skywards, generating crescendos until the trick wore thin. Editors took wafty gloom to the mass market. The xx, by contrast, went radically minimal, deep into R&B. London trio Daughter – who have just finished off a UK tour with a triumphal sold-out gig at London’s nearly 5,000-capacity Brixton Academy – are two, rather good, UK top 20 albums into a career of running guitars through effects pedals to hit that big, sad, echo-y, sweet spot. Tonight’s first song, New Ways – which opens their second album, Not to Disappear – burbles in on a wave of atmospherics and monochrome lighting. For this celebratory gig, the trio – completed by drummer Remi Aguilella – have brought along their usual touring multi-instrumentalist Cathy Lucas, with Catherine Ring on percussion, and a brass trio. The guitar line here (and elsewhere) owes more than a little to the xx; a minority of critics have hit out at the band’s perhaps overpolite sound. Soon, though, singing guitarist Elena Tonra is contrasting her “washed out brain” with her “dirty mind”, and her need for something a lover is offering. Her disdain is compelling. Entire cities of little black boxes are laid at the feet of Tonra and fellow guitarist Igor Haefeli. He stamps on one of them, and everything gains in scope. It is fair to say that Daughter are not reinventing the wheel here, musically – sometimes Haefeli bows his guitar; even Tonra’s cool, cooed vocals are effects-laden – but as tonight’s gig attests, the wheel can stay as is: this trio are exceptionally good at pushing a design classic along. Theirs is a crowd that listens, rapt, for 90 minutes – probably because the quality of the writing here is so high. You could just quote reams of Tonra’s lyrics, which, by contrast, do actually find gripping new ways of talking about love and its discontents (first album) and other ties that bind (second album; not for nothing is this band called Daughter). For all their way with granular-level emotion, Daughter first made their name with a state-of-the-generation song called Youth, in which Tonra sings prettily: “And if you’re still breathing, you’re the lucky ones/ ’Cause most of us are heaving through corrupted lungs.” Someone thought this would be a good tune to advertise ITV’s coverage of the 2012 Tour de France, among other synchs. Judging from the huge singalong three-quarters of the way through the set, this is still Daughter’s defining anthem. But they have even better songs. No Care, for example. It’s one of the few songs in which, musically, Daughter dare to shrug off their spacious prettiness and actually threaten. Tonra is excellent on the minutiae of relationships – about “fighting over the way something was said” – and No Care describes a ghastly, drunken post-coital scene with bitterness; live, it spices up a regal set that can start to sound a little samey. Learning that Tonra and Haefeli are a real-life couple prompts more questions than it answers, of course. Even better is Doing the Right Thing, a majestic pop song about Alzheimer’s. The point of view is a kind of first-person omniscience – a very clever tactic, given the subject matter – in which the sufferer examines their own decline. She cries out for her own mother. Should her daughter tell her that she died long ago, and can’t help her now? This is ninja-level emotional subtlety, delivered tonight in a markedly altered form from the album version. Tonra tinkers with the melody, the arrangements following suit. Unimaginative indie bands get in string sections. Daughter’s choice of a brass trio shows more class. But for all their nous, Daughter actually miss several opportunities to send the audience home devastated by the nuclear winter that can be wrung from a stately trombone-trumpet one-two. Maybe it’s the notoriously soupy Brixton acoustics, but the trio merely add depth throughout. It’s a minor quibble; this is a set of great heft from a fine band on a satisfying narrative arc. Not to Disappear, released in January, would have charted higher than 17, their label avers, were it not for the death of David Bowie. “Albums sold” is an incomplete metric anyway; “tickets sold” is a better measure of net worth, and Daughter are exporting nicely: they have – once again – sold out at New York’s 3,000-capacity Terminal 5 this week.
25 texts and emails a day: how payday loan firms hound vulnerable borrowers Alex Jones* has to switch his phone off at work so the constant text messages do not distract him. He gets around 20-25 a day from payday lenders and brokers offering high-cost loans of up to £1,000 a time. “Need cash? We have reviewed your application …” a typical text reads. “A loan of up to £900 is ready to complete,” says another. “We’ve received your loan inquiry. Are you able to take our call? Reply YES …”. His email inbox is just as full, with spam messages from brokers and lenders arriving as often as every five minutes at some points during the day. The same lender might send messages at 10.59am and 12.39pm, while two for the same broker arrive one after another. Taking up any of these offers of credit would not be cheap – all the firms offer short-term high-cost borrowing, often at annual rates of more than 1,000%. Jones, who is in his early 40s and has a wife and young son, is upfront about the fact he opened the door to these lenders. A gambling addict, he took out short-term loans over a few years, his debts mounting up until he became insolvent in late 2014. Recent money worries saw him searching for loans this summer, and the floodgates opened. “Once you put the feelers out, as lots of people do, they start to show their true colours,” he says. “There are firms out there who have taken a lot of flak, but even with that negative press and extra regulation they are still happy to bombard and harass and even lend to someone who has a history of not being able to pay it back and is in insolvency.” He says he feels like a drug addict being constantly offered temptation. “Addiction is a very complex and difficult thing,” he says. “You have bumps in the road, and when you have those bumps the very last thing you need is temptation. My life would be immeasurably easier if my drug of choice wasn’t as readily available. If it wasn’t so in my face it would be less of a problem.” Jones may have fallen victim to what is known as a “ping tree”, whereby an application is made through a particular type of site that is itself not a lender but a “lead generator”. It passes (or “pings”) your request on to many other firms. Although the rules around payday loans have been tightened, it seems some lenders and brokers are still playing fast and loose with people’s contact details. It is not the first time Jones has fallen into this trap. Several years ago he was being similarly inundated with messages from lenders and brokers, but since then the industry has come under the stewardship of a new regulator, and Jones thought things had changed. Also, his credit record is worse. In late 2014 he and his partner entered into an IVA, an insolvency arrangement that allows borrowers to negotiate part-repayment of their debts over a set period of time. At the time the couple could manage to pay £380 a month into the IVA after bills and the cost of travelling to work, but this summer the rented home they had lived in for eight years was put on the market and they found that their monthly costs had fallen behind the market rate. Their new home, in a less nice part of town, costs them £1,200 a month, compared with the £800 they were paying, and as a result they are behind on the IVA. Despite the IVA Jones found he was able to take out new loans from two lenders, neither of whom asked him to disclose previous money problems. His terrible credit record proved no barrier. In the summer Citizens Advice said some payday lenders were still flouting the FCA’s guidance on responsible lending, with around a quarter of borrowers saying they hadn’t been asked, or could not remember being asked, about their situation. It cited the example of a client who was granted a payday loan following checks despite suffering from depression and alcoholism, having no permanent address, being previously declared bankrupt and having only benefit income. For Jones the emails and texts flood in, even as the lenders he is now behind with get in touch to ask for payments; the IVA company is also chasing him. He has considered changing his phone number, but at the moment just turns it off. He says he doesn’t think unsubscribing will make a difference. Meanwhile, the FCA reaffirms that under existing rules lenders are not allowed to send emails telling people that they have been approved for a loan. “Our rules require that firms do not state or imply to customers that credit is available regardless of the customer’s financial circumstances or status. We also require that all communications are clear, fair and not misleading. If a financial promotion is misleading it is likely to contravene our rules.” Jones says he wants people to know that lenders and brokers are still aggressively targeting borrowers, despite the new rules. “If you fill in your details, it doesn’t just go to the one company – it gets fired out to all of the sharks in the pool.” * Alex Jones is not his real name Charity urges ban The debt charity StepChange has called on the City watchdog to ban unsolicited calls for “high-risk financial products” such as payday loans. “Firms are contacting people who are financially vulnerable with offers of loans that can cause serious financial harm,” says the charity’s head of policy Peter Tutton. “The problem for many people is they have lost control of their personal data and do not know which organisations have or will use their information – and sometimes this can result in being bombarded.” In a report published on Wednesday the charity said that nearly two years on from the introduction of tough regulations, the payday loans market “continues to show signs of irresponsible lending and poor treatment of people in financial difficulty”. It said inappropriate lending was still occurring, people were still building up multiple loans, and affordability checks carried out by lenders were still not always effective. In the first six months of the year, StepChange helped 28,000 people with payday loan debts, with more than a third (37%) having three or more such debts. The average amount owed was £1,380 – just £17 lower than in 2014 before the regulations came into force. However, the proportion of people coming to the charity with payday loan debts has fallen from its peak of 23% prior to the regulations to 16% this year. A number of additional rules came into force in January 2015, including a requirement that interest and fees on all high-cost short-term credit loans are capped at 0.8% per day of the amount borrowed. If borrowers do not repay their loans on time, default charges must not exceed £15. In addition, the total cost (fees, interest etc) is capped at 100% of the original sum, which means no borrower will ever pay back more than twice what they borrowed. Tutton added that the government’s digital economy bill, currently going through parliament, was an opportunity to tighten the rules around firms selling and sharing personal data. If you are struggling with debts, there are many places you can turn to for free advice. They include: • StepChange Debt Charity Stepchange.org or call 0800 138 1111 • Citizens Advice Find your local bureau at Citizensadvice.org.uk • National Debtline Nationaldebtline.org or call 0808 808 4000 • PayPlan A service financed by the credit industry at Payplan.com or call 0800 280 2816
Is the biggest Batman v Superman smackdown between fans and critics? Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is hardly the first critic-proof movie. Michael Bay has spent most of the last decade churning out Transformers films that stink out the more fetid reaches of Rotten Tomatoes yet routinely zoom past $1bn at the box office. And none of the Twilight movies managed better than middling reviews, yet the vampire romance saga earned more than $3.3bn worldwide over its four-year, five-movie run. Yet something strange has happened with Zack Snyder’s latest superhero smackdown: the more scorn and derision professional reviewers pour on the Warner Bros movie – and there has been plenty of both – the more audiences are determined to see it. Critics have even been accused of taking bribes from rival studio Marvel to give the dark knight and caped crusader a good kicking, so convinced are some filmgoers that the movie cannot possibly be a load of old tosh. Might this be the first major fan v critics battle of the decade? If so, there’s little doubt that filmgoers have kicked reviewers’ supposedly gilded rear ends. Batman v Superman opened to a spectacular $424.1m (£299m) worldwide last weekend, including a staggering $170.1m in North America, the world’s largest box office. That’s the fourth biggest debut of globally, and the sixth biggest in the US and Canada. It also grossed more money at cinemas than Joss Whedon’s 2010 Marvel film The Avengers did from its first weekend. (That superhero team-up went on to take $1.5bn globally, at the time the third-highest haul ever.) Stars of forthcoming Warner Bros films based on the DC Comics back catalogue have even begun mocking critics. Jason Momoa, who will play Aquaman in a standalone film in 2018 and popped up in a five-second cameo in Batman v Superman, reposted a Ben Affleck meme on Instagram and suggested reviewers were “hypocritical” for writing about the movie when they were not actors or comic-book acolytes. Ray Fisher, whose solo Cyborg movie is set for 2020, posted another Batfleck meme on Instagram that asked: “How many good critics are left?” The trade industry bible Variety joined in with an article that pondered whether poor critical notices were redundant in the era of “declining newspaper and magazine subscriptions” when “many newspapers have already outsourced their reviews to wire services”. Might the same anti-establishment attitude that is encouraging so many Americans to consider voting for Donald Trump also be fuelling resentment towards the views of the critical hoi polloi, the magazine wondered. Comments from Warner Bros were even more worrying. “It doesn’t take itself seriously,” said the studio’s distribution chief Jeff Goldstein of Batman v Superman. “It’s just an enjoyable afternoon at the movies.” As if the level of joy a particular film generates was unrelated to its cinematic excellence. But there’s a problem with this vision of critics as detached, overpaid cynics – or Marvel shills – who are determined to beat the fun out of filmgoing. These same reviewers praised Star Wars: The Force Awakens to the heavens in December and tore Fantastic Four to strips in September. On those occasions, filmgoers largely agreed with their professional counterparts. In fact, nine out of 10 of the highest-grossing movies at the global box office in 2015 scored a “fresh” rating of 60% or above on Rotten Tomatoes, figures that dispute the idea of a major disconnect between reviewers and filmgoers. Critics have arguably become more wary of shooting down popular fare over the last few years, perhaps because studios are making movies that attract a kind of cult fandom that’s hard to argue with. Batman v Superman may be a case in point, though the CinemaScore service suggests opening-night audiences gave Snyder’s movie only a “B” rating (compared with an “A” for The Force Awakens). The movie’s box office may drop off dramatically in its second weekend – something similar happened last year to the critically lampooned Fifty Shades of Grey – as middling word of mouth hits home. In the meantime, those convinced reviewers should keep their stinkin’ thoughts to themselves ought to be careful what they wish for. Prior to the Rotten Tomatoes era, Hollywood treated comic book movies as money-making fodder that fans would lap up as long as any old A-list actor could be persuaded to dress up in a bit of spandex. If it turns out that we’re heading back to the dreaded era of Sylvester Stallone’s helmet-less Judge Dredd, George Clooney as Batman and Alec Baldwin as the Shadow, fans of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice may end up wishing this is one battle they had never won.
Brexit fallout – the business winners ... and losers The pound has plunged since Britain voted to leave the EU on 23 June and consumer confidence has taken a battering, but it hasn’t been all bad news for UK firms. Here are some of the winners and losers so far from Brexit. Winners Primark’s owner, Associated British Foods, said the clothing chain’s UK profit margins would be hit by sterling’s fall but this would be offset by fatter margins at its sugar business. Profits earned outside the UK will be better than expected because of the weak pound, it added. The group scrapped its earlier prediction that annual earnings would fall. Rentokil International has been one of the big gainers from the plunging pound. The pest control company makes 90% of its revenue outside the UK and if currency rates stay the same it will make up to £15m extra this year, it said. Pinewood Studios, home to the James Bond and Star Wars films, said that its international customers would benefit from the fall in the pound, which will make Pinewood’s services cheaper to overseas producers. Bookmakers had their biggest non-sporting event ever at the referendum, with punters placing £100m in bets. Most of that money went on Britain staying in the EU, suggesting the bookies did pretty well, at least in the short term. Accountants and law firms will be busy as companies caught off guard by the referendum result seek to rearrange their businesses. KPMG, one of the big four accountants, has appointed a head of Brexit while rivals have set up specialist teams. Aveva, the software maker, said the pound’s weakness against the euro and the dollar would increase the value of its overseas earnings if rates remain stable at current levels. Ocado is a potential beneficiary of the pound’s fall. The online grocer has been trying to do a deal with an overseas retailer to use its technology for more than a year. The company said the weaker pound could make such a deal more attractive to buyers. Losers Sports Direct has warned of a tough year ahead, made worse because of Brexit. Weakening consumer confidence is likely to hit sales and failure to insure against the pound’s fall will make products bought in dollars more expensive and incur losses on hedging contracts taken out on sterling against the euro. Foxtons shares plunged to a record low when the estate agent said the referendum result would depress property sales for the rest of the year in London, its main market. It had been hoping for a pick-up in activity after the referendum. Reporting its worst fall in clothing sales since the 2008 banking crisis, Marks & Spencer said consumer confidence had weakened as the referendum approached but that it had not noticed a further decline since 23 June. The retailer said it was forecasting a tough trading environment. Shares in Carpetright lost a fifth of their value when the flooring retailer said the referendum result had probably worsened tough trading conditions by increasing consumer uncertainty. The weak pound will also push up prices it pays for materials, analysts said. Banks have been affected by worries about the post-Brexit economy and a probable cut in interest rates. Royal Bank of Scotland said the government will have to wait two years or more to sell a further stake after its shares plunged. With the Bank of England expected to reduce rates from record lows, it will become still harder for banks to make money on lending. British Airways’ owner, International Airlines Group, said annual profit would be lower than expected because of weak trading caused by the referendum. EasyJet warned three days later that the vote to leave had added to existing problems such as cancelled flights and that short-term profit would be affected. C&C, the beverage maker, warned that the pound’s weakness could wipe out gains from improved trading and cost reductions so far this year. The Irish company, whose shares are traded in London, makes almost half its profits in sterling but reports in euros, leaving it exposed to the pound’s sharp fall.
Donald Trump predicts the election will be rigged Trump predicts election will be ‘rigged’ Donald Trump has labelled rival Hillary Clinton “the devil” at a campaign stop in Pennsylvania as he continued to weather a barrage of criticism following his controversial comments about the parents of a Muslim soldier killed in Iraq. At a campaign town hall in Columbus, Ohio, Trump said he feared that the election would be “rigged”, in an unprecedented statement for a major party nominee in modern history. In another gaffe, one unlikely to improve his standing with female voters (he trails Clinton by 57% to 34% according to a new CNN/ORC poll), the Republican candidate said he woulds advise daughter Ivanka to find “another career” if she was sexually harassed at work. Trump says if Ivanka was harassed at work she should ‘find another career’ Some Sanders supporters back Jill Stein Bernie Sanders may have endorsed Hillary Clinton, but some of his supporters are refusing to follow his lead and are turning to Green party candidate Jill Stein. Among them at the Democratic convention in Philadelphia last week was 23-year-old Floridian Vanessa Perez, who said Stein “has a lot of stances that are very similar to Bernie’s. And I just really strongly believe that you should always vote your conscience.” Sanders supporters turn to Jill Stein: ‘You should vote your conscience’ Arctic anthrax outbreak linked to climate change strikes dozens Seventy-two nomadic herders, including 41 children, were hospitalised in far north Russia after temperatures in the region reached 95F (35C) and reindeer began dying en masse from anthrax. Those affected include a 12-year-old boy who died from the disease. Five adults and two other children have been diagnosed with the bacteria, known as “Siberian plague”, which was last seen in the region in 1941. In addition, more than 2,300 reindeer have died. “We literally fought for the life of each person, but the infection showed its cunning,” the region’s governor, Dmitry Kobylkin, told the Interfax news agency. Anthrax outbreak triggered by climate change sickens dozens in Arctic Circle Aid workers accused of trying to convert Muslim refugees Christians working in Greece’s most notorious asylum detention centre have tried to convert Muslim detainees by distributing conversion forms inside copies of Arabic translations of St John’s gospel to people held at the Moria detention camp on Lesbos. The forms invite asylum seekers to sign a statement declaring: “I know I’m a sinner ... I ask Jesus to forgive my sins and grant me eternal life. My desire is to love and obey his word.” Aid workers accused of trying to convert Muslim refugees at Greek camp Human rights activists on trial in China China has has put on trial a number of detained human rights activists. On Monday, one prominent lawyer at the Fengrui law firm, Wang Yu, appeared in a videotaped interview, denouncing former head Zhou Shifeng and blaming “foreign forces” for the law firm’s activities. Human rights groups say Wang’s videotaped interview was clearly coerced and part of an attempt by the Chinese authorities to lend legal legitimacy to its yearlong crackdown on what it considers to be subversives. China puts human rights activists on trial US strikes Isis positions in Libya The Pentagon has confirmed airstrikes against Islamic State forces in Libya. Isis positions in the strategic port city of Sirte were hit by manned aircraft and drones on Monday, after a request from the UN-backed unity government. The initial strikes were made on positions around Sirte, which for the past eight weeks has been the site of fierce urban fighting between forces loyal to the unity government and entrenched Isis fighters. US launches airstrikes against Isis in Libya Free Facebook in Africa questioned The social media behemoth Facebook has signed up almost half the countries in Africa – a combined population of 635 million – to its free internet service as part of Mark Zuckerberg’s Free Basics, an initiative that considers internet access a basic human right. But some digital campaigners argue that Facebook’s expansion is a marketing ploy that could end up undermining, rather than enhancing, mass efforts to get millions more people connected. Facebook lures Africa with free internet – but what is the hidden cost? Gawker media boss files for personal bankruptcy Gawker founder Nick Denton has filed for bankruptcy in the wake of his news organization doing the same in June. Denton blamed Paypal billionaire Peter Thiel, the clandestine source of funding behind wrestler Hulk Hogan’s suit against the site that resulted in a $140m judgement in March. “It’s a disturbing to live in a world in which a billionaire can bully journalists because he didn’t like the coverage,” Denton wrote in a staff memo. Gawker Media founder Nick Denton files for personal bankruptcy The stoners’ vote. Who gets it? An unprecedented number of cannabis measures on the ballot in November, including in two swing states, could complicate turnout in the 2016 presidential election, bringing out more voters, but not reliably for any candidate. Libertarian candidate (and known pot enthusiast) Gary Johnson would seem to have the best chance since Ralph Nader to siphon votes away from a mainstream candidate, writes Josiah Hesse. With cannabis on the ballot, can Clinton and Trump cash in on the pot vote? In case you missed it ... The fact-checking website Snopes.com was launched to correct urban legends and false rumours. As the election season moves into high gear, co-founder David Mikkelson says “the bilge is rising faster than you can pump”. Still, it’s a good place to start with falsehoods including whether Hillary Clinton stole $200,000 in White House furnishings, or whether Donald Trump called Republicans the “dumbest group of voters”, or whether Black Lives Matter protesters chanted for dead cops, or whether Nicolas Cage died in a motorcycle accident … Can mythbusters like Snopes.com keep up in a post-truth era?
Interest in cupping therapy spikes after Michael Phelps gold win Michael Phelps’s first gold medal of the Rio Olympics was momentarily overshadowed by widespread interest the large purple circles across his back and shoulders. Viewers were taken aback by the perfectly circular marks that were revealed as Phelps shed his clothes to compete in the men’s 4x100m freestyle relay on Sunday, going on to win his 19th Olympic gold. While the guesses as to their origin offered on social media ranged from crop circles to tattoos to a symptom of the Zika virus, the real answer is they are the result of cupping therapy – a suction-based massage popular in the US Olympic team. In the ancient form of the therapy, believed to originate in Egypt or China, the air inside the cup is heated before being place on the skin, creating suction in that cupped area. The modern form of the therapy, and the one that Phelps has been photographed receiving, uses cups attached to suction pumps. The cup stays in place for between five and 15 minutes and is thought to draw blood to the treated area, allowing overworked muscles to heal more quickly, although there is some doubt about the efficacy of the treatment. Phelps’s fellow swimmer Natalie Coughlin has posted pictures on Instagram of her receiving the therapy, while the US gymnast Alex Naddour has been competing at the Games with a prominent cupping bruise on his shoulder. The interest in the mysterious marks was widespread. Google Trends reported a 2,100% spike in searches for “circles on Michael Phelps” on Sunday. For a short time that phrase was being searched for more than the term “Olympic medals”, while speculation was also rife on Twitter.
The world needs Star Trek's progressive sexual future, and gay Sulu proves it I think the world needs Star Trek, especially the Star Trek tradition of highlighting social progress, as typified by the revelation that the character of Sulu will have a husband in the new film Star Trek Beyond. Sure, it’s just a light, fantastical entertainment about ray guns and spaceships – characters die and come back to life, turn into lizard creatures, and have devious alter egos that sport intimidating goatees. But it’s also able to proudly wear the distinction of being the first TV series to feature an interracial kiss, to broadcast episodes about sexuality, gender roles, the cold war, race relations, and so many more issues that humanity struggles with every day. It’s a hopeful vision of a society that’s overcome prejudice and embraces knowledge and reason. That George Takei, the actor who first played Sulu, would be up in arms that the character could have a husband ignores the most progressive part of creator Gene Roddenberry’s vision of the future: that sexuality could (and should) be fluid. Progressive ideals and respect for diversity is built into the DNA of Star Trek. It was a part of the founding principle for the series. It’s why there was representation from numerous ethnic groups and nationalities on the USS Enterprise at a time when US television was starkly monochromatic. What Star Trek has never had was a regular gay character. Esteemed science-fiction writer David Gerrold proposed an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation that featured gay characters and an Aids allegory in the 1980s, but was rebuked at a late stage of development. Next Generation did eventually feature an episode entitled The Outcast, in which Commander Riker fell in love with a representative of an androgynous species. Of course, that role was played by a woman, so as not to freak out the average TV viewer of the 1990s. Later, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine’s episode Rejoined contained a same-sex kiss between Dax (an alien Symbiote that leaps from host to host, regardless of gender) and the alien’s ex-wife. But Sulu having a husband is uncharted territory for Star Trek. In the original series and the subsequent feature films, Sulu never had a girlfriend. An alternate universe version of Sulu pined over Lieutenant Uhura in the episode Mirror, and in a deleted scene from Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Sulu clumsily attempts to hide his interest in the Enterprise’s new navigator, Lieutenant Ilia – a member of the sexually voracious Deltan species. Mr Takei does a fine job of playing the horny guy presented with the 23rd century equivalent of a polyamorous co-worker. That said, I can see why it was cut. I’m sure depictions such as this are what fueled Mr Takei’s outrage over the reveal that Sulu, as played by John Cho in Star Trek Beyond, could be gay. Mr Takei even stated that he asked Roddenberry to create a gay character on Star Trek, but made it clear that Sulu was intended to be straight. But can we call Sulu or any Star Trek character truly straight or gay? Should we? We’re applying our 21st-century ideas of sexuality to a story that Roddenberry meant to be about the destruction of the walls that separate us from each other. In the novelization of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, written by Roddenberry himself, he includes a footnote that is meant to clarify the relationship between Kirk and Spock. Roddenberry, writing as Kirk, says: “I have always found my best gratification in that creature called woman. Also, I would not like to be thought of as being so foolish that I would select a love partner who came into sexual heat only once every seven years.” The composition of this passage is ambiguous, likely for good reason – the implication being that while he prefers women, he’s been with men. He never says “I have no sexual interest in men”, nor does he even use the term “gay” or “bi” or “homosexual”. Based on the reading of this particular passage (and the entirety of the occasionally frank, prurient novel) Roddenberry had a rather unconventional idea of sexuality that would be at odds with the simplistic notion that Sulu was just “gay”. If one feels the obligation to make this detail fit with the history of the character, it’s best to keep that in mind. This is not to say that the future will (or should) wash over labels and distinctions that human beings are rightly proud of. We choose to be in communities or to not be in communities. Who is Sulu? Well, he’s a fictional character in a sci-fi adventure series who has a minuscule, nearly non-existent backstory. He was created by a man with the explicit purpose of highlighting our infinite diversity in infinite combinations. That Sulu could love a man, or that any character from Star Trek could love someone of their same sex, should only be surprising because it’s still such a hot-button issue in our present day. In the future of humanity as imagined by Gene Roddenberry, it’s not surprising. It’s a natural part of existing. Love is the most natural emotion there is. The opposite is what takes real effort. Zachary Quinto, who plays Spock and is himself a member of the LGBT community, had this to say when asked about Mr Takei’s statements: “My hope is that eventually George can be strengthened by the enormously positive response from especially young people who are heartened by and inspired by this really tasteful and beautiful portrayal of something that I think is gaining acceptance and inclusion in our societies across the world, and should be.” Seeing the character of Sulu in a relationship with someone he loves – who happens to be a man – and raising a child should be seen as just as powerful and necessary as it was 50 years ago to see a heroic Japanese man on TV only two decades removed from the scars of the internment camps. Star Trek is not about canon and arcane details. It’s not about strict adherence to some dogma anymore than the US constitution should be applied literally in 2016. Star Trek is a guiding light that always points forward.
From Bayeux to Brexit: the Battle of Hastings' 950-year legacy Bayeux tapestry ( c.1070s) The tapestry, thought to have been made in England, is history written by the victors but sewed by the vanquished; the Anglo-Saxon seamstresses who made it compelled to embroider the end of the Anglo-Saxon era. Space is made before the battle to outline William’s dubious claim to the English throne, while Norman atrocities in its aftermath are omitted. King John by William Shakespeare (1594-96) As the earliest English (non-legendary) history play in terms of setting, King John is chronologically the nearest in time to the Norman invasion, yet it goes unmentioned, leaving a fascinating absence. It is almost as if Shakespeare is repressing the invasion, preferring to show England invading France. He makes no mention of William the Conqueror or the Battle of Hastings, even though the conquest shaped the reigns of the French-descended Angevin, Plantagenet, Lancaster and Yorkist kings he portrayed. But Henry V is pointedly referred to as “conqueror” three times, and in the same play a French courtier denounces “bastard Normans, Norman bastards”. As every schoolchild knows, William was illegitimate. Ivanhoe by Walter Scott (1819) Against a backdrop of the late 12th-century power struggle between John and his brother Richard I, Scott’s hit historical novel champions Saxon characters against the Normans, reflecting both the 19th-century’s enthusiasm for Anglo-Saxon culture and Napoleonic-era Francophobia. One of their allies was Robin Hood – Scott pioneered his deployment as anti-Norman insurgent, later copied by Hollywood. This was Tony Blair’s choice of book as Desert Island discs, presumably for the bits about the Crusades. Sibyl by Benjamin Disraeli (1845) Famous for its “two nations” speech inspiring one nation Toryism, the novel’s divisions are actually between Norman and Saxon as well as rich and poor (as Labour MP Tristram Hunt has pointed out). The future prime minister updates Scott’s theme of the “Norman yoke” for the Victorian era by portraying the exploiting class as descending from the usurping French aristocracy that still owns the property their ancestors stole from Saxons, whose descendants remain dispossessed. Hereward the Wake by Charles Kingsley (1866) The conquest itself is featured in Kingsley’s last work, rather than Anglo-Norman enmity that is said to have continued into the next century, as in Ivanhoe. Hereward leads resistance to the Normans after Hastings until defeated at Ely. 1066 and All That by WC Sellar and RJ Yeatman (1930) Arguably the best one-off humour book of the 20th century, this brilliant spoof-crib consolidated Hastings’ status as the watershed moment in British history by putting it in the title. Mocking the certainties and priorities of textbook and popular history, it informed its readers that: “The Norman conquest was a good thing, as from this time onwards England stopped being conquered and thus was able to become top nation.” The Conqueror by Georgette Heyer (1931) Though best-known for her Regency romances, Heyer ventured into other periods and ambitiously tackled the 11th century in this Normandy-centred portrait of William the Conqueror that culminates with the battle and inevitably features his courtship of Matilda. Jean Plaidy also went where Shakespeare seemingly feared to tread, depicting William in her 1970s Norman trilogy. Astérix and the Normans by Albert Uderzo and René Goscinny (1966) Wittily marking the conquest’s 900th anniversary, the comic book series tells the tale of a defeated Norman invasion. The Normans (here portrayed as Vikings, as they originally were) try to conquer France and are seen off by the plucky and ingenious Gauls. The Bruges speech by Margaret Thatcher (1988) The foundational moment for the Eurosceptic movement that triumphed 28 years later in the Brexit referendum. Echoing past warriors for sturdy British independence, Thatcher opposed another threatened French invasion by the regulations France’s Jacques Delors said he would impose on EU countries as European commission president. “Our nation was – in that favourite community word – ‘restructured’ under Norman and Angevin rule in the 11th and 12th centuries,” she noted, drily drawing a parallel between the conquest’s fallout and Euro federalists’ homogenising schemes. The Wake by Paul Kingsnorth (2014) A Man Booker-shortlisted novel that remakes Hereward the Wake. Its hero is another Anglo-Saxon resistance fighter battling against Norman rule. Unlike Kingsley, Kingsnorth wages his own war against the invaders’ biggest and most lasting bequest: the English language as multicultural mishmash. The vast French vocabulary the Normans introduced – suspected by proponents of a blunter, more Saxon English, including George Orwell and Kingsley Amis, of embodying alien ways of thinking – is banished from the prose of the first-person narrative, and told in a version of Old English.
Adele's 25 tops UK album sales for second consecutive year “I don’t want to get my hopes up,” the singer Adele said in 2015 – just ahead of the release of her latest album, 25. “You can’t make assumptions. This new one could sell 100,000.” She need not have worried. Her third studio album has outsold any other in the UK for the second year running, it was announced on Friday. More than 13 months after its release, 25 has passed the 3 million sales mark in Britain, giving it a place on the Official Charts Company’s 30 bestselling UK albums of all time. The album has also sold more than 10 million copies in the US. Coldplay’s A Head Full of Dreams, which was also released last year, was the year’s second bestseller. The group’s seventh LP reached number one in February – achieving the same lofty chart heights as its six predecessors, which date back to Parachutes in 2000. After claiming this year’s Christmas No 1, Michael Ball and Alfie Boe’s duets collection was named third most successful of the year, followed by Justin Bieber’s Purpose in fourth and Elvis Presley’s posthumous collaboration with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, The Wonder Of You, fifth. Released days before his death in January, David Bowie’s 25th and final album, Blackstar, was the sixth biggest of the year, selling 410,000 copies. The bestselling single of the year was One Dance by Drake, featuring vocalists Wizkid and Kyla. The Canadian artist’s first number one racked up sales of just under 2 million and was the most streamed song of the year. Second was Lukas Graham’s 7 Years, which was also the most purchased track of the year and spent five weeks at number one. Sia’s Cheap Thrills was the third biggest song, followed by Mike Posner’s comeback track I Took a Pill in Ibiza, with the Calvin Harris and Rihanna collaboration, This is What You Came For, in fifth. The rest of the 2016 top 10 was made up of Lush Life by Zara Larsson, Closer by The Chainsmokers featuring Halsey in seventh spot, Justin Bieber’s Love Yourself at eight, Work by Rihanna featuring Drake, and Can’t Stop The Feeling by Justin Timberlake in the 10th spot. Clean Bandit’s Rockabye – the Christmas number one after spending seven weeks at the summit of the singles chart – missed out on the year’s top 10 list.
Alaska may abandon criminal verdict behind longer sentences for mentally ill On 5 June 1990, the office of the Alaska state troopers in Fairbanks received a call from a man saying: “We have a stiff on our hands.” When the police arrived at the residence, they were met by John Monroe, a schizophrenic man with a history of delusions, and blood on his hands and shirt. Monroe led them to the body of his father, who had been stabbed to death. Monroe was charged with murder. David Sperbeck, the Alaska state psychiatrist who examined Monroe’s mental health at trial, noted that he suffered from “one of the most severe cases of schizophrenia that I’ve ever seen”, adding that on the day of the killing, Monroe had not taken the proper dosage of medication in five weeks and that he was probably suffering from psychotic delusions. Sperbeck testified that as a result of this mental state, Monroe did not understand that what he was doing was wrong, nor would he have been capable of stopping himself from killing his father. And yet Monroe was not acquitted on grounds of insanity. In April 1991, the court found Monroe “guilty but mentally ill” of second-degree murder, and the judge sentenced him to 60 years’ imprisonment without the possibility of parole – a longer prison term than a sane person convicted of the same crime would have received. Monroe’s harsh punishment is mandated by criminal justice reforms that Alaska implemented in 1982. After John Hinckley Jr was found not guilty by reason of insanity of the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan, many states rushed to limit the insanity defense – but Alaska’s reforms were the most severe. The state made it nearly impossible to invoke the not guilty by reason of insanity (NGRI) verdict. And it created the new “guilty but mentally ill” (GBMI) verdict, which is even harsher than a regular guilty verdict, for defendants who, like Monroe, are actually less culpable by reason of their mental disability, and who previously would have been acquitted and sent to a mental institution for treatment. “Guilty but mentally ill” inmates are not eligible for parole, which means that they are condemned to serve sentences of up to three times longer than “sane” defendants found guilty of the same crime – in a prison setting likely to only worsen their illness. The upshot of the 1982 reforms has actually been to deter defendants from even raising the issue of mental illness at trial, so that even as the Alaska courts have handed down few GBMI verdicts over the years, severely mentally ill offenders have also been denied the chance at acquittal and treatment. It is for these reasons that, for the first time since Alaska implemented its insanity defense reforms, the state is considering junking the GBMI verdict. “From the point of view of a rational criminal code, [GBMI] makes no sense,” says Stephen Morse, a professor of psychology and law in psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. For one, people who don’t deserve to be punished should not be punished, says Lawrence Fitch, who teaches mental health law at the University of Maryland Law School: “If the person meets standards for an insanity defense – did not understand what he or she was doing was wrongful and, thus, is morally blameless – putting the person in prison ... violates principles of a just society.” Violent, severely mentally ill people like Monroe should instead be placed in psychiatric facilities until they are no longer dangerous, says Josie Garton, an assistant public defender in Anchorage. Sperbeck says that even though GBMI patients will receive treatment in prison, their mental illness can be exacerbated by the social and physical isolation, and prison policies like strip searches and cell transfers. Mentally ill criminals are also more capable of reform than others because their crime stems from treatable illness, says Christopher Slobogin, a professor of psychiatry at Vanderbilt Law School. “If anything,” Slobogin adds, “people found GBMI should be more likely to get parole.” That pertains to offenders convicted of crimes as serious as murder, such as Monroe. If Monroe – who killed his father at age 28 – had been found straight guilty instead of GBMI, he would have received mandatory parole at age 68. Under the GBMI statute, he will remain in prison until he is 88, if he does not die before then. James Fayette, an assistant district attorney in Anchorage, argues that since it’s up to the judge to tailor sentencing to the individual defendant, it’s not automatic that an inmate with a GBMI verdict will receive the exact same sentence as a regular guilty person. But Slobogin says that Alaska’s GBMI statute is “probably unconstitutional”. The authors of a 2010 Georgetown Law Review article on insanity laws in Alaska argue that the statutes violate both the due process clause of the14th amendment and the eighth amendment’s prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment. By some estimates, there have only been a small number of GBMI verdicts. But advocates say that’s because the law is so unfriendly to mentally ill defendants that lawyers rarely raise the issue during their trials, according to a recent University of Nevada, Las Vegas report. Insanity acquittals are exceedingly rare. As the court in one high-profile GBMI case noted when it handed down its verdict, the state’s mental health requirement essentially abolishes the insanity defense. Only two defendants in Alaska have been found not guilty by reason of insanity since 1982. “Defendants who may have a meritorious mental health defense do not pursue the defense because the likely outcome is more punitive than a guilty verdict,” Garton says. Some of those defendants already serving GMBI sentences have seen sharp deterioration in their mental health. In 2007, Cynthia Lord was found GBMI on three counts of first-degree murder after she said a supernatural force known as “Evil” instructed her to kill her three sons, who she believed had turned into robots. When Sperbeck evaluated her a few years ago at the the Hiland Mountain correctional facility, he noted that life in prison was worsening her schizophrenia. “When [schizophrenic patients] are alone with their delusional thoughts, these thoughts are often cultivated, ultimately resulting in reality distortion and a magnification of the intensity of the thought disorder,” he wrote in a 2013 affidavit. “Being alone is particularly devastating for individuals such as Cynthia Lord.”
Department of Health may need emergency cash injection The Department of Health may need an emergency injection of extra money so it can pay its bills between now and the end of next month, Whitehall sources have told the . There is growing speculation at senior levels of the NHS that Jeremy Hunt’s department may have overspent its £116.3bn budget for 2015-16, despite having received £3.1bn more than last year. On Thursday the DH said it will cut around 650 jobs to reduce its running costs. Non-senior staff numbers will be slashed from 1,800 to between 1,200 and 1,300 by April 2017 in a bid to decrease its running costs by 30% in the next five years. It will also merge employees from the three London offices to premises at 39 Victoria Street. The Treasury and DH have been examining the possibility that the latter may need to have its departmental expenditure limit (DEL) for this year raised because the NHS’s deepening financial crisis means it can no longer balance its books, well-placed Whitehall sources with knowledge of the discussions said. In recent weeks the Treasury has been looking into giving the DH what one NHS finances expert called “an in-year bailout”. If the DH does receive extra cash it will prompt questions about its handling of the NHS at a time when, unlike most other government departments, it has enjoyed real-terms increases in its budget ever year since austerity began in 2010. Both the DH – which is responsible for health spending in England – and Treasury refused to answer detailed questions about health potentially receiving a bailout. The DH insisted that it was on course to balance its books for 2015-16. However, it refused to say if that was on the basis of its original £116.3bn budget or a revised, enlarged budget. A DH spokeswoman said only that: “We have regular conversations with the Treasury about NHS finances and our forecasts show we are on track to balance the books.” If the DH does need extra money Hunt would have to write to Greg Hands, the chief secretary to the Treasury, formally seeking a raising of its DEL, as Whitehall rules dictate that any cabinet minister whose department is facing an overspend must do. The DH is Whitehall’s biggest-spending department and gives NHS England its £101.6bn budget. If the department has exceeded the 2015-16 budget that parliament approved, that will be the first time that has happened since 2005-06, when the last financial crisis hit the NHS in England. That led to Nigel Crisp, the then-chief executive of the NHS, who at the time was a senior DH civil servant, losing his job. The DH has been struggling to tackle a sharp deterioration in the finances of hospitals, which are due to post a £2.2bn collective deficit after seeing the cost of hiring expensive agency staff hit £4bn a year. It has ordered trusts to spend less on agency staff and management consultants to hep restore the service’s financial health. Anita Charlesworth, chief economist at the Health Foundation, said: “Last year the Department of Health avoided an overspend by a hare’s whisker. This year it is increasingly difficult to see how they can pull off the same feat. Provider deficits have mushroomed and commissioners are beginning to struggle, with many more [GP-led] clinical commissioning groups now forecasting an overspend. “The Department of Health has held back large chunks of [its] capital investment funding to bail out the overspend [in its resource budget] but all the signs are that this is not enough and unless it gets very lucky the Department of Health as a whole will be in deficit in 2015-16.” Until recently the DH was so good at sticking to the money parliament gave it to perform its duties that it generated large surpluses, which it returned to the Treasury. As recently as 2012-13, for example, it underspent by £1.53bn or 1.5% of its budget. However, last year (2014-15) it spent all but £1.2m (0.001%) of its massive £110.5bn resource budget, which it uses to fund the running of the NHS. Any overshoot would constitute a serious breach of Whitehall protocol and would be likely to trigger an inquiry by the public accounts committee (PAC), the powerful cross-party group of MPs which scrutinises all government spending. The National Audit Office (NAO) said that in such a case the PAC could call the DH’s permanent secretary and senior officials to give evidence. And in addition, an NAO spokesman added: “The Treasury of course also have an interest in such instances, so there would be discussions with the department concerned regarding the size of the overspend, why it occurred and remedial action.” The Treasury’s expectations of spending by all departments is spelled out in great detail in its publication called Managing Public Money, which was updated most recently last August. It makes clear that money raised through taxes has to be spent “only within the agreed limits”. The document spells out the seriousness of any department ending up spending more than was originally permitted. If that happens, it explains: “The Treasury presents parliament each year with a statement of excesses to request retrospective authority for any unauthorised resources consumed above the relevant limits or outside the ambit of the [department’s] estimate. “Parliament takes these excesses seriously. The PAC or departmental select committee may call witnesses to account in person or ask for a written explanation.” The Treasury is getting together its final figures for what it expects every department to have spent during this year. It will become clear next week if it has been forced to increase the health department’s spending limit when it publishes its spring supplementary estimates in parliament. If the DH has overspent, that will have happened with the £15bn the department uses to fund health bodies other than NHS England and its own running costs. It also uses that sum to give cash-strapped NHS trusts extra financial assistance during the year to help keep them going. NHS England, which is run by chief executive Simon Stevens, expects to underspend its £101.6bn budget, although only by £145m – or 0.1% of its total income – despite the unprecedented financial pressures on the service. “NHS England is statutorily required not to exceed its allocated funding totals. We are on track to meet this obligation in 2015/16,” Paul Baumann, its chief financial officer, told its board last week. In all more than 190 of the 241 NHS trusts cross England which deliver acute, mental health, community and specialist services are likely to end 2015-16 in the red – by far the most ever. Almost three-quarters of them are already receiving individual bailouts from the DH, including 88% of acute trusts, recent King’s Fund research found. The DH’s financial planning has also been hit by it receiving £156m less than expected from drugs firms through the pharmaceutical price regulation scheme. Under it, the industry’s trade body gives back to the DH amounts it has made in profit from NHS drugs purchases over an agreed limit. It was expected to yield £796m for the DH this year but will now only generate £640m by the end of March. Heidi Alexander, the Labour shadow health secretary, said: “If Jeremy Hunt has been forced to go to the Treasury cap in hand to ask for more money, then the financial crisis in the NHS is far more serious than we have been led to believe. Patients are going to bear the brunt of Jeremy Hunt’s financial mismanagement of the NHS, as hospitals are forced to cut staff and services in an attempt to balance their books.”
Win (home) tickets to Manchester United v Watford in the Premier League This competition is now closed. The has teamed up with Barclays, proud sponsors of the Barclays Premier League, to give away a pair tickets to Manchester United v Watford on Wednesday 2 March, to thank one lucky home fan for the passion and support they show to their club. This season LifeSkills created with Barclays have teamed up with Tinie Tempah and the Premier League to give young people the chance to fulfil their passions and work at a range of famous football clubs and music venues. Your Passion is Your Ticket – with hard work and dedication young people can realise their dreams with a helping hand from Barclays LifeSkills. To apply for the work experience of a lifetime visit www.barclayslifeskills.com/work-experience-of-a-lifetime/. You can join the conversation throughout the 2015-16 Barclays Premier League by visiting facebook.com/barclaysfootball or following us on Twitter at @BarclaysFooty for exclusive content and the latest Barclays Premier League news. Terms and conditions 1. The competition is closed to employees of any company in the Media Group and any person whom, in the promoter’s reasonable opinion, should be excluded due to their involvement or connection with this promotion. Entrants must be 18 or over. 2. Answer the question correctly and complete your personal details on the online form and your details will be entered into a free prize draw. Only one entry per person. 3. Entries must be made personally. Entries made through agents/third parties are invalid. Entry indicates acceptance of terms and conditions. 4. The prize is one pair of tickets to Manchester United v Watford on Wednesday 2 March 2016. Travel to and from the venue is not included, nor is accommodation. 5. No purchase necessary to enter. Fill in the online application form with the necessary details, name and mobile number. 6. All entries must be received by 10am on Thursday 25 February 2016. 7. Winners will be notified before 10pm on 26 February 2016 by telephone or email. Prize winners’ details can be obtained by writing to Sport at News & Media Limited, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU, UK. 8. Stamped addressed envelope required. 9. Winners will be the first entry drawn at random from all qualifying entries by an independent judge on 25 February 2016. The judge’s decision is final. 10. There is no cash or other alternative to these prizes in whole or in part. Prize is not transferable in whole or in part. Prize is not for resale. 11. The winners will be required to participate in all required publicity, including any presentation ceremony. 12. The decision of the promoter in all matters is final and binding and no correspondence will be entered into. 13. The promoter is not responsible for any third party acts or omissions. 14. We cannot guarantee that the event will be free from disruptions, failings or cancellations. We are not liable for such disruptions, failings or cancellations unless they are caused by our negligence. Any requests for refunds or compensation arising from them should be sent to the operator of the event. We can provide you with their details on request. 15. The promoter reserves the right to cancel or amend this promotion due to events or circumstances arising beyond its control. 16. Prize tickets are subject to the terms and conditions listed above. 17. GNM accepts no responsibility for any damage, loss, liabilities, injury or disappointment incurred or suffered by you as a result of entering the Competition or accepting the prize. GNM further disclaims liability for any injury or damage to your or any other person’s computer relating to or resulting from participation in or downloading any materials in connection with the Competition. Nothing shall exclude the liability of GNM for death or personal injury as a result of either party’s negligence. 18. GNM reserves the right at any time and from time to time to modify or discontinue, temporarily or permanently, this Competition with or without prior notice due to reasons outside its control. 19. The Competition will be governed by English law. Promoter: News & Media Limited, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU, UK.
British women, please rally to support decriminalisation of abortion In Poland mass protests have forced the government to drop plans to tighten its already draconian abortion laws. Yet here in Britain most people are unaware that women still live under the threat of being sentenced to life imprisonment if they end their own pregnancies by buying pills on the internet. Doctors also face harsh penalties if they do not fill in the correct forms before terminating a pregnancy. Back in 1967 our law was changed to allow the legal ending of pregnancies if certain conditions were met. Otherwise the 1861 Offences Against the Person Act remained in place; and so it still is today – nearly half a century later. Soon, a ten-minute rule bill is to be introduced to the House of Commons proposing that abortion in Britain is decriminalised. To do so would not only allow speedier and much less bureaucratic use of modern medical procedures, but would save a huge amount of NHS money while bringing us into line with countries such as Canada where medical abortion was decriminalised nearly three decades ago. In Britain one in three women will have an abortion. Yet the views of the small but vociferous anti-abortion lobby garner most of the publicity and continue to dominate public argument. If only a small proportion of the millions of women who have benefited from the 1967 Act were to write to their MPs now asking them to be in the Commons on 24 October and to give support to this proposal, perhaps this punitive Victorian legislation would have a chance of being brought up to date. Back in the 1960s when I was an abortion law reform activist, the and its readers did much to facilitate the liberalisation of the law. They now need to mobilise again so that their children and grandchildren can benefit in the same way that they already have from the activities of my generation. Diane Munday Wheathampstead, Hertfordshire • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com • This letter was amended on 14 October 2016. An earlier version gave the date of the ten-minute rule bill as 24 October. It was scheduled for 26 October but has been postponed; it is now expected to be introduced to the Commons in November.
Bob Diamond's African business partner accused of hiding assets A business partner of the former Barclays boss Bob Diamond, who is reportedly Africa’s youngest billionaire, is facing a high court battle in London over alleged offshore assets he is accused of hiding from his estranged wife. Ashish Thakkar, 34, claimed he was worth less than £500,000 in an attempt to defend himself from a multimillion-pound settlement claim from Meera Manek, a travel and food writer. She claims Thakkar has concealed assets in the British Virgin Islands. But he told a high court hearing on Wednesday that the beneficiaries of the Mara Group, his IT, banking and property empire, were his mother and sister. His barrister told the court his assets were valued at £445,432. Manek has contested this and Mr Justice Moor ruled there should be a full trial to assess the truth of the competing claims. The high court on Tuesday heard of the “remarkable” story of Thakkar, whose family fled the Rwanda genocide in 1994 and resettled in Uganda. His family were evacuated to Hôtel des Mille Collines, which is featured in the film Hotel Rwanda. His parents had lost everything in the 1970s when they became Asian refugees of Idi Amin’s Uganda, and started again in Leicester where Thakkar was born. When they were financially secure they sold up and moved to Rwanda, a year before the genocide took place. It is this refugee past that Thakkar says drove him to drop out of school and become an entrepreneur selling computer parts. Twenty years after starting his business in a shopping mall in Kampala, Uganda’s capital, his company now employs more than 11,000 people across 25 countries. According to his skeleton argument, Thakkar’s “passion is to be a driving force for positive and economic change in Africa and not to make money for himself”. He is also chairman of the United Nations Foundation global entrepreneurs council and founded the Mara Foundation in 2009, which serves as an online mentorship portal for young African entrepreneurs. Three years ago he was appointed to the advisory board of technology company Dell. In 2013, he also became the first African to be named in Fortune magazine’s annual 40 under 40 list, with total assets said to be in excess of $1bn and employees across 21 African countries. In her skeleton argument, Manek claimed Thakkar was being dishonest and that documents showed a Panamanian foundation was formerly at the helm of the Mara Group structure, a structure of which he was the primary beneficiary. She was a secondary beneficiary, it was claimed. The foundation was dissolved shortly after she issued divorce proceedings in summer 2014, according to her argument in court. Moor said he “could not take as truth” any of the assertions on either side and ruled there should be a full hearing in which both parties should give evidence next February. “Trust structures, particularly offshore foundations, bearer shares and the like are notoriously difficult issues for the family court,” he said. One of the businesses he set up is Atlas Mara, which he recently started with Diamond, court papers showed. Manek, who was educated at the University of Warwick and whose work has been published in the Daily Telegraph and Conde Nast Traveller, was married to Thakkar for just under four and a half years.
Report strongly criticises NHS investigation into boy's sepsis death Hospital bosses and doctors have been strongly criticised in an ombudsman’s report for their “total unwillingness” to accept that any view apart from their own could have been correct following the death of a three-year-old boy from sepsis. The report concluded that those involved leapt to the conclusion that Sam Morrish’s death was rare and unfortunate rather than being open to what turned out to be the truth – that his death was avoidable. As well as criticising the NHS trust involved in Sam’s care and other bodies, the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) called for a “no-blame culture” to be built within the health service allowing leaders and staff to feel confident to openly investigate complaints. The ombudsman, Julie Mellor, is calling for a national accredited training programme for people carrying out NHS investigations to be set up. She said: “We hope that this case acts as a wake-up call for NHS leaders to support a no-blame culture in which leaders and staff in every NHS organisation feel confident to find out if and why something went wrong and to learn from it.” Sam, from Devon, died in December 2010 from sepsis following a catalogue of errors by GPs, hospital doctors and call handlers at NHS Direct, now replaced by the 111 service. NHS Direct call handlers failed to categorise Sam’s mother’s call as urgent, despite indications that his vomit contained blood. Even when medical staff at Torbay hospital, part of Torbay and South Devon NHS foundation trust, finally realised he was critically ill, there was a three-hour delay in giving him the antibiotics that could have saved his life. A review by the PHSO in 2014 found Sam’s death was avoidable and he would have survived with proper care and treatment. But Sam’s parents, Sue and Scott Morrish, called for a further investigation to find out more about what happened and how the boy’s death was investigated. In the latest review, the PHSO judged there was no attempt to cover up failings in Sam’s care but it strongly criticised the way his death had been investigated. The report, Learning From Mistakes, concluded those involved in the local NHS investigations were not sufficiently trained, aware of the relevant guidelines or sufficiently independent. It said: “We have found that those involved were not always suitably independent and that the organisations failed to co-ordinate and cooperate sufficiently with one another. “We have identified a failure to obtain appropriate information, a lack of timely statements being taken as part of any formal process and a lack of appropriate (and in some cases any) involvement and communication with both the family and the staff. “We believe a fundamental failure in this case was the organisations’ – in particular the trust – total unwillingness to accept that no view other than their own was the right one. “Those involved appeared to accept almost immediately the view that Sam’s death was rare and unfortunate rather than being open to other possibilities and, in doing so, asking open questions as part of a proper investigation that involved staff and the family. This was coupled with a general failure to accept that the questions the family were asking might have been reasonable ones.” It added: “Most importantly for the family, the organisations involved locally made no clear attempt to seek continuous improvement and identify lessons from this case together. Tackling the current defensive culture and fear of blame requires soul searching and bravery at every level from politicians to system leaders, organisational leaders, clinical leaders and frontline staff.” The report criticised the investigations carried out by NHS Direct, a GP’s surgery and an out-of-hours provider of GP services as well as the trust. It said: “Mr and Mrs Morrish complained that the NHS investigation processes are not fit for purpose, believing that they are not sufficiently independent, inquisitive, open or transparent, properly focused on learning, or able to span organisational and hierarchical barriers, and that they exclude patients, their families, and junior staff in the process. In relation to the investigations undertaken after Sam’s death, we agree.” The Morrishes welcomed the report. In a statement, they said: “When our son Sam died suddenly and unexpectedly we trusted that no stone would be left unturned in trying to understand what had happened and why. We were told that Sam had died of something rare, fast-acting, hard to spot and therefore very hard to treat. “In the months that followed we were shown kindness but we were simultaneously excluded from investigations. As questions accumulated, they were increasingly left unanswered. “When we asked why Sam had been sent to the wrong hospital, shoulders were shrugged. When we asked why, after five months, investigations hadn’t been completed, we were told ‘not to pick a fight with the NHS: you won’t win’. “We need to shift away from a culture that perceives people like Sam as unlucky, and the bereaved as a problem to be managed. It shouldn’t be left to patients, or grieving families to drive the process for learning.” Mairead McAlinden, the chief executive of Torbay and South Devon NHS foundation trust, said: “Sam’s death was a tragedy, and we have made many changes in the past five years to support staff in recognising and responding to signs of sepsis and to improve how we engage with patients and their families. “We have sincerely apologised to Sam’s family for our failings in his care and in our communications with them, and we owe it to them to demonstrate how we have learned from their devastating loss.” The health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, said: “The tragic death of Sam Morrish shows why it is so important we listen to patients and families – no other family should have to go through what they have, and we are determined to build the safest healthcare system in the world. “The launch of the new healthcare safety investigation branch [HSIB] earlier this year marks an important step in improving the quality of local investigations and raising standards, which will allow staff to speak up and improve care for patients.” Ombudsman Mellor said the HSIB was a step in the right direction, but would only investigate a small number of cases.
Lissie: My Wild West review – heartfelt songs of pain, solidarity and rural retreat Illinois singer Lissie’s third album My Wild West has a west-coast pop sheen to it, but touches of acoustic guitar and banjo suggest a country feel. This contrast mirrors the album’s theme: Lissie’s retreat to a rural life in Ojai, California, after becoming disillusioned with Los Angeles ( “You broke my heart just like I knew you would,” sings Lissie on Hollywood). Producers Curt Schneider and Bill Reynolds from Band of Horses have allowed a space and subtlety that add integrity to Lissie’s lyrics. Daughters is a simply-put but heartfelt assertion of female solidarity. And there’s real existential pain on songs such as Go for a Walk (“I want to feel my life”) and Stay, which finds her overwhelmed by insecurities (“Everyone just fades away”). Lissie’s voice in its lower register sounds husky and vulnerable – but when she lets rip on huge choruses, such as those of Hero and Wild West, it’s quite a fearsome instrument.
Labour says Murdoch's bid for Sky must be referred to Ofcom - as it happened Sir Vince Cable, the Lib Dem former business secretary, has spoken out against the prospect of Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox taking full control of Sky. Calling for a full review by the Competition and Markets Authority, Cable said: This deal may be acceptable to a majority of shareholders but that doesn’t mean it is in the public interest. The minister should now call in the takeover and start the process of independent investigation into the impact on plurality and competition. The National Union of Journalists also objected, saying the government should halt the deal until the second stage of the Leveson inquiry, the one that is supposed to investigate specific phone-hacking allegations at News of the World and elsewhere, has been completed. The NUJ general secretary Michelle Stanistreet said: It is vital that this deal is halted until part two of the Leveson Inquiry has taken place. Most of the British public do not believe that Rupert Murdoch is a fit and proper person to run BskyB, and whilst there are clear reasons of corporate opportunism that drive his desire to finally clinch this deal, there’s no benefit for the public in this takeover being given the green light. The Local Government Association has said today’s social care settlement from the government is “hugely disappointing”. (See 3.25pm.) Derek McKay, Scotland’s finance minister, has put an above-inflation increase in health spending at the centre of his draft budget for next year. He has also confirmed that he will not match Westminster’s tax cut for higher earners, meaning that from next year higher-rate taxpayers in Scotland will pay more income tax than in England. That’s all from me for today. Thanks for the comments. Here’s a video of Theresa May at the Brussels summit, including shots of her looking rather isolated. Ipsos MORI has released its December political monitor poll today. There is a summary here, and the full charts showing the figures are here (pdf). Here are some of the key points. The Lib Dems have gone up four points since last month and, at 14%, they’ve hit their highest figure since August 2011. The Conservatives continue to enjoy a healthy lead. It’s 11 points in this poll. Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn have both seen their satisfaction ratings fall over the last month - but May’s net rating is +15 and Corbyn’s is -32. May is more popular than Margaret Thatcher and Gordon Brown were at the same stage in their premierships, but less popular than John Major and Tony Blair at the same point. Corbyn is more unpopular than any opposition leader since 1997 at the equivalent point in their leadership. Until recently he was ahead of Iain Duncan Smith’s ratings at the equivalent point, but he has just crossed over. A majority of voters thinks the government is doing a bad job of handling Brexit - even though a majority also thinks May herself is doing a good job. David Prentis, the Unison general secretary, has put out a statement about the social care settlement. He says that councils need more money and that, instead of raising council tax, the government should be using “the growing surplus of centrally-collected business rates to ease the pressure on councils”. Lord Porter, the Conservative peer who chairs the Local Government Association, has put out a lengthy and fairly damning statement about today’s social care settlement on behalf of the LGA. Here are the key points. Porter said that today’s announcement was “hugely disappointing” and that it failed to address the social care crisis. Measures announced in today’s settlement will help in part but fall well short of what is needed to fully protect the services which care for elderly and vulnerable people today and in the future. Councils, the NHS, charities and care providers have been clear both before and since the autumn statement about the need for an urgent injection of genuinely new additional government funding to protect services caring for elderly and disabled people. Given this unified call for action, it is hugely disappointing that today’s settlement has failed to find any of this new money to tackle the growing crisis in social care. Bringing forward council tax raising powers will help some areas in the short-term but extra council tax income will not bring in anywhere near enough money to alleviate the pressure on social care both now and in the future. Increasing the precept raises different amounts of money for social care in different parts of the country and will add an extra financial burden on already struggling households. He said government cuts planned for next year would more than wipe out any extra revenue councils get from being allowed to increase council tax. Social care faces a funding gap of at least £2.6bn by 2020. Council tax rises will not be enough to prevent the need for continued cutbacks to social care services and very many other valued local services. Already planned further £2.2bn cuts to revenue support grant to councils next year will far exceed the benefit of any extra council tax income. He said reallocating money from the new homes bonuses would reduce the incentive to build new homes. Today’s announcement of funding for social care from New Homes Bonus reforms is not new money but a redistribution of funding already promised to councils. It is wrong to present this as a solution, given the scale of the funding crisis. This is money which was taken from councils in the first place and this move will see money taken away from councils which is designed to incentivise new homes at a time when the government has made boosting housebuilding a clear priority. He called for an “urgent and fundamental review of social care”. The government must recognise why social care matters and treat it as a national priority. There needs to be an urgent and fundamental review of social care and health before next year’s spring budget. Local government leaders, who are responsible for social care in their local community, must be part of that review. This is imperative to get a long-term, sustainable solution to the social care crisis that the most vulnerable people in our society deserve. He said services would be cut because of the impending cuts to council budgets. Next year will continue to be hugely challenging for all councils, who we estimate face an overall funding gap of £5.8bn by 2020. Further government funding cuts will result in local authorities up and down the country having to make significant reductions to the local services communities rely on, including filling potholes, collecting waste, maintaining our parks and green spaces and running children’s centres, leisure centres and libraries, to plug growing funding gaps. Here is a Politics Weekly podcast special - a recording of a live event in London, hosted by Anushka Asthana and Heather Stewart and featuring the remain campaign’s Ameet Gill, Vote Leave’s Paul Stephenson, the lead claimant in the article 50 case Gina Miller, the shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry and the Ukip MP Douglas Carswell. Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox has formally lodged its £11.7bn bid to take full control of Sky, as he looks to seal a deal to create the most powerful media group in Europe. As Mark Sweney reports, Murdoch will now need to gain regulatory approval for the deal, which values Sky at more than £18bn, which will give him control of pay-TV operations in the UK, Germany and Italy; in addition to ownership of the Times, Sunday Times and Sun, and radio group TalkSport. Karen Bradley, the culture secretary, now has 10 working days to decide whether the deal raises public interest concerns, specifically relating to media plurality. Tom Watson, the deputy Labour leader and shadow culture secretary, said the bid must be referred to Ofcom. He said in a statement: This bid was abandoned in the wake of the phone-hacking scandal, and now it’s back. The secretary of state must refer the bid to Ofcom, to assess whether it would result in too much media power being concentrated in too few hands, and whether Rupert and James Murdoch are ‘fit and proper persons’ to run a broadcaster. Fox is attempting to finalise this deal as the Christmas break approaches - but there is still time for the government to intervene. They must express their view to parliament before Christmas. When she stood on the steps of Downing Street this summer, the prime minister said to the people of this country that ‘when we take the big calls, we’ll think not of the powerful, but you’. This is a big call. The government needs to decide whose side it’s on. Lord Mandelson, the former European commissioner and former Labour cabinet minister, and Lord O’Donnell, the former cabinet secretary, have both backed the claim made by Sir Ivan Rogers, Britain’s ambassador to the EU, that negotiating a trade deal with the EU could take up to 10 years. (See 11.39am and 1.38pm.) Here is a Reality Check looking at this issue. Nick Clegg, the Lib Dem former deputy prime minister, has said a transitional deal with the EU after the article 50 process concludes is “completely inevitable” to avoid losing access to vital European intelligence databases. Council tax will be allowed to rise faster than expected by about £46 a year for an average home to bail out struggling social care services for the elderly and vulnerable in England, Sajid Javid, the communities secretary, has said. The vote for Brexit was fuelled by poorer voters feeling they had very little control over immigration, coupled with a more general mistrust of politicians and officials, according to new research into attitudes ahead of the referendum. Police are investigating after a female Labour MP, Louise Haigh, received “very explicit death threats” online. The BBC has just released extracts from an interview that Carolyn Quinn has conducted with Lord O’Donnell, the former cabinet secretary, for this weekend’s Westminster Hour on Radio 4. O’Donnell said there was no chance of Britain concluding all aspects of its Brexit negotiations within two years. We certainly won’t have come to any final arrangements in two years’ time. We might well get to a point where we can symbolically leave but all sorts of details will still remain to be sorted out. We’ll have got some arrangement whereby we can say, right, from now on we’re no longer going to be governed by the European court of justice. But it will still be unclear precisely what the deal will be for all sorts of parts of goods and services for our trade, and certainly may well be unclear about what access we might have to their markets. That was why a transitional deal was essential, he argued. Asked if he agreed with Philip Hammond, the chancellor, about “thoughtful politicians” being in favour of a transitional deal, O’Donnell said: I think that’s a statement of the completely blindingly obvious. I mean the idea that you can manage this carving out of a new relationship between the UK and the EU in 18 months let alone two years, there’s not a chance, there never was a chance. That’s not to say we can’t have symbolically left. But it means that we’ve got to get our heads round the idea that leaving may be a symbolic act and that lots and lots of the details will still remain to be sorted out, so the uncertainty will not have gone away. Asked how long it would take to negotiate a final post-Brexit settlement with the EU, O’Donnell replied: Years and years ... I can imagine it taking at least five years to get through all of the details. And I imagine some of the transitional arrangements may be longer than that. Teresa Pearce, the shadow communities secretary, has condemned the council spending settlement as “all smoke and mirrors”, saying it is not a solution to the crisis in social care. In a statement she said: This local government finance settlement is all smoke and mirrors – pushing numbers around but not offering any new money. Whilst we are glad that the government has finally acknowledged that there is a deep and spiralling crisis in social care, this settlement does not offer any solutions. Directing £240m from the new homes bonus to fund adult social care will barely make a dent in the funding gap, which is predicted to be at least £2.6bn by 2020. Nor does it compensate for the £4.6bn which has already been cut from adult social care since 2010. The council tax precept has already proven to be an inadequate and short-term sticking plaster for a problem which needs long-term answers. This will simply not meet existing need. Shifting the burden on to council tax payers creates a postcode lottery in social care services. The most deprived local authorities will be unable to raise the money they need through council tax. Wealthy areas will prosper whilst poor communities will struggle. Winter is already here and there is not a penny more for the 1.2m elderly people who are living without the care they need. What is clear is that the government have no new ideas on how to fund social care, and are just passing the buck to overstretched local authorities and council tax payers. The Green party says it has been told by the BBC that it will not get any non-election party political broadcasts in 2017. The BBC has told the Greens that, to qualify for PPBs, a party has to have “substantial levels of past and current electoral support” and that the BBC’s view is that the Greens don’t meet this criteria. With 1.1m votes at the general election, more than 150 councillors, two seats on the London assembly and the Green candidate coming third in the London mayor elections, the Greens think this is unfair. Jonathan Bartley, the party’s co-leader, said: This is our message to BBC officials who do not think the Green party should get a party political broadcast: we will not be silenced. 2016 has been a year marked by fear, insecurity and a rapidly warming planet. Green politics of hope and compassion are needed now more than ever. After overwhelming success in the London and local elections this year it is ridiculous for the BBC to say we do not have enough electoral support to present our message to the country. Fair is fair - we will continue to fight the BBC on this until they stop shutting us out. The BBC ruling only applies to general PPBs. The Greens should still qualify for PPBs allocated at the time of the local elections. A transitional deal with the EU after the article 50 process concludes is “completely inevitable” to avoid losing access to vital European intelligence databases, Nick Clegg has said. The former deputy prime minister said it had been a misjudgment for the government to make a transitional deal into a political issue. It is a measure of how contorted and constipated the debate is that it has become a headline issue. It’s an obvious inevitability, unless you are deluded enough to believe you can wrap everything in 18 months. In a rational world, there would be no politics about this at all. The government would say right from the outset that we will get to the Holy Grail of Brexit, but that is separate from the divorce process of article 50 and we will need a bridge. This is a self-inflicted controversy and the government could have taken all the heat out of this, and said ‘yes of course there will be a transition.’ Publishing the latest in a series of reports he has released on the challenges posed by Brexit, Clegg said Theresa May’s promise to cut ties with the European court of justice could a serious stumbling block in the UK’s leverage in EU negotiations on intelligence and defence co-operation, which the government believes is one of Britain’s key assets. The UK will have to agree to EU rules on data sharing, subject to the ECJ jurisdiction, in order to continue access to crime databases such as the Schengen information system which allows police forces to share real-time alerts on suspects, vehicles and firearms. In many ways, [the government] could use our co-operation on home affairs as an asset, and say ‘we know you didn’t vote to make us less safe, we don’t want to lower our guard so this is going to take a while.’ Theresa May could use this to buy time, but instead her interpretation of buying herself time is a silence. Meanwhile, back in Brussels, if this video footage is anything to go by, Theresa May seems to be short of friends at the EU summit. This tweet is from Sky’s Emily Purser. Huw Merriman, a Conservative, asks if Javid supports a system of national funding for social care. Javid says there should be a balance between national funding and local funding. And that’s it. The statement is over. The Local Government Information Unit, a local government thinktank, has dismissed today’s announcement as a “sticking plaster” which does not address the severity of the adult social care funding crisis. In a statement the LGiU’s chief executive Jonathan Carr-West said: Today’s statement contained some short term measures that will be welcome to local government. It was good to finally get some clarity on the roadmap towards 100% business rate retention. However, in many ways, this settlement illustrates exactly what is wrong with our over centralised political system as the secretary of state shuffled funding from one silo to another. Council tax rises cannot be the answer to the crisis in adult social care funding as many of the councils with the most pressing care needs have the lowest council tax base. In the end, this problem cannot be addressed while we continue to treat health and social care as separate systems and to protect the NHS at the expense of social care. After a decade of public debate all we have is a sticking plaster of increased council tax and no long term solution for the greatest public policy question of our age. Governments continue to protect the NHS without vital reform whilst demanding more and more from councils to reduce the national deficit. Using local authorities as the whipping boy of the Treasury will only go so far. Radical reform is long overdue and the Treasury should have the NHS in its sights in order to answer this crucial question. These are from Jim McMahon, the shadow local government minister and a former leader of Oldham council. These are from Nick Golding, editor of the Local Government Chronicle. Sarah Wollaston, the Conservative chair of the Commons health committee, has been tweeting about the settlement. Here is the Labour MP Anna Turley on Javid’s statement. Peter Bone, the Conservative MP, says he agrees with Sarah Wollaston and Clive Betts about the need for proper cross-party talks to address this. Javid says he would like to put party politics aside and find a long-term solution. Labour’s Diana Johnson says richer areas will be able to raise more than poorer areas using the increase in the precept. How is that fair? Javid says the money that would have gone into the new homes bonuses, which is going into care instead, will be allocated on the basis of need. Here is the start of the Press Association story about Javid’s announcement. Sajid Javid has claimed almost 900 million extra will be available to local authorities over the next two years to fund social care services. The communities secretary said up to £208m could be raised in 2017/18 and £444m in 2018/19 by plans to allow English local authorities to bring forward council tax increases totalling 6% over the next two years. He added a £240m “adult social care support grant” will be created for 2017/18 by reforms to an existing scheme designed to encourage councils to build extra properties, known as the new homes bonus (NHB). Labour said people face higher taxes but worse public services for their money. Norman Lamb, the Lib Dem former health minister, says this is “a feeble response to a national crisis”. He says lifting the precept is an “unfair way to raise additional money which will increase inequalities between rich and poor areas”. He challenges Javid to confirm that he will work with others to address this “real national crisis”. Javid defends the measures he has announced. Sarah Wollaston, the Conservative chair of the Commons health committee, says this announcement does not go far enough on social care. She urges Javid to start cross-party talks to find a long-term settlement to the adult social care crisis. Javid says the money he is announcing today is £900m of new money. He says he wants to talk to the opposition, and local leaders, about finding solutions to this issue. Joe Anderson, the Labour mayor of Liverpool, has used Twitter to say Javid’s announcement on social care does not go far enough. In the Commons Labour’s Clive Betts, chair of the communities committee, asks Javid to accept that this settlement does not fill the black hole in adult social care funding which is estimated to be worth more than £2bn. Javid says that, taken together, all the extra money announced today and announced previously for adult social care goes beyond what the Local Government Association was expecting. These are from Sarah Calkin from the Local Government Chronicle. Javid is responding to Thomas. He says Thomas is wrong to say there is no new money in the announcement today. Gareth Thomas, the shadow communities minister, is responding for Labour. He asks whether the government should be cutting corporation tax when council budgets are under so much pressure. He says this announcement will put council tax bills up. He says Downing Street is making it harder for families to manage. Council tax bills will have risen 17% by the end of this parliament, he says. Javid urges councils to show restraint when setting council tax figures. Javid says lifting the adult social care precept will only cost council tax payers an extra £1 a month. And, because it was always intended to allow council tax bills to rise by 6% by the end of this parliament, by 2019-20 bills will be no higher than they would have been. Javid says, taken together, his announcements will release almost £900m more for adult social care over the next two years. Javid confirms that the government will let councils bring forward the planned increase in the social care precept. Lifting adult social care precept to raise extra £208m for care in 2017-18, and extra £44m in 2018-19. Javid says adult social care is the biggest cost pressure on local government. The government has already set aside extra funding over this parliament. He says savings from reforms to the new homes bonus will be retained by councils to fund adult social care. A £240m adult social care support fund to be available for councils in 2017-18. Sajid Javid, the communities secretary, is making his statement on council funding and social care now. He says councillors can learn from best practice about how to improve efficiencies. Last year’s settlement was a “flat cash” one, he said. (That means it did not rise in line with inflation.) He says today he is publishing a paper that confirms the second year of the four-year spending settlement announced last year. Mandelson, who used to be the EU’s trade commissioner, also told the business committee that the forecast that it could take up to 10 years for the UK to negotiate a trade deal with the EU was “realistic”. Although Brexit could be negotiated more quickly, “the separate negotiation on what trade relationship replaces our membership of the EU will be harder and longer and will require the approval of all member states and their parliaments,” he said. He said it the government left the single market and the customs union, and had to negotiate a bespoke trade deal, that would be “a harder slog”. It will not be achieved simply or quickly. While we can’t be certain about how long it will take, a time-span of between five and 10 years seems to me realistic. Lord Mandelson, the former Labour business secretary and former European commissioner, was giving evidence to the Commons business committee this morning. He said that a “hard” Brexit could lead to a “very severe deterioration” in conditions for business. If in the long term, businesses are facing border tariffs, customs barriers, frictional costs and regulatory disruption and interruption of trade, we are risking a very severe deterioration in the UK business environment. This deterioration is not going to happen straight away. That was the mistaken impression given in the referendum. It will be a gradual, inexorable worsening of the conditions for business in the UK. That’s why those who say ‘It appears to be going OK so far’ are completely missing the point. It hasn’t even kicked in yet.” Lord Mandelson said he wanted a “soft” Brexit with “maximum continuity of trade between the EU and UK” and immigration controls that have “the least negative impact on business, as well as on communities, public services and universities”. You can read all today’s politics stories here. As for the rest of the papers, here is the Politics Home list of top 10 must-reads, and here is the ConservativeHome round-up of today’s politics stories. And here are three Brexit stories from worth reading. Alex Barker and George Parker in the Financial Times (subscription) say MEPs are worried about being shut out of the Brexit negotiations. An EU turf battle over Brexit negotiations burst into the open on Wednesday as the European Parliament warned that Britain faces the “very hardest” of exits if MEPs are shut out of talks. The threat of a potential veto was outlined by Martin Schulz, the parliament’s outgoing president, on the eve of an dinner of EU-27 leaders in Brussels to nominate negotiators and outline a process for Brexit negotiations. MEPs were furious after the Financial Times reported a draft text that nominated the European Commission as the union’s lead negotiator in talks, but gave MEPs no seat at the negotiating table or in key preparatory meetings. The Telegraph (subscription) says some EU countries are unhappy at the proposal from Michel Barnier, the European commission’s Brexit negotiator, to delay talks on a UK-EU trade deal until the exit negotiations are over. Natasha Clark in the Sun says a thinktank report says the government must give departments more information about the Brexit process and who will be involved, or she will risk being unprepared for leaving the EU. A new report from the Institute for Government says that Whitehall departments feel uncertain about what to do in the run up to the PM triggering Article 50 in March. A new report from the Institute for Government says that Whitehall departments feel uncertain about what to do in the run up to the PM triggering Article 50 in March. The think tank said that despite clear progress in preparing for negotiations, civil servants across Whitehall are uncertain of where to begin, and what to focus on. “Departments need to know how they are going to be involved throughout the negotiations so they can put the necessary people in place and tailor their preparation accordingly,” it said. You can read the full Institute for Government report here (pdf). British service sector exports could take a $35bn (£27.9bn) hit by 2030 if the UK loses access to the EU’s single market or faces protectionist US trade policies following Donald Trump’s presidency, the Press Association reports. Research conducted by HSBC and Oxford Economics warns that service exports could be knocked 4% lower to around $860bn (£686bn) by 2030 if tariff and non-tariff barriers are introduced in the years ahead. America’s global trade partners are looking for signs that Trump might back down from protectionist campaign rhetoric that could put international trade agreements at risk, while Britain’s financial services industry anxiously awaits news over whether the UK will pursue a so-called hard Brexit. It would see Britain give up tariff-free trade and EU passporting rights for financial services, in order to take control of immigration. Service exports - which include financial services, legal advice and consulting, passenger airlines, and IT - already accounted for 44% of total UK exports in 2015 at $345bn (£275bn), compared to 30% in 2000. The EU currently accounts for around 38% of total UK service exports. Liam Fox says the government has made no decision yet about whether or not to remain in the customs union. The decision will be informed by the evidence, he says. Barry Gardiner, the shadow international trade secretary, asks a question about arms sales to Saudi Arabia. But it was rather overshadowed by his tie. Replying, Liam Fox, the international trade secretary, said Gardiner’s tie made him glad to be colour-blind. (On Saudi Arabia, he just defended the government’s decision to sell them arms.) But John Bercow, the Speaker, spoke up for Gardiner’s neckwear. The tie was “beautiful ... tasteful ... attractive ... [and] not boring”, he said. Here is the Daily Mail’s Quentin Letts on Sir Ivan Rogers. And this is from the Sunday Times’ Tim Shipman. Labour’s Chris Leslie says we should thank Sir Ivan Rogers for giving us a reality check. Liam Fox, the international trade secretary, says we should be thanking the British people for voting to leave the EU. In the Commons international trade questions has just started. Bill Esterson, the shadow international trade minister, asks about Sir Ivan Rogers’ comments. Mark Garnier, the international trade minister, says the government will not provide a running commentary on Brexit. Rogers was reporting the views of “interlocutors”, he says. And he says it is incredibly difficult to know how long it will take to complete a trade deal. The US-Jordan one took just four months, he says. Theresa May has arrived at the EU summit in Brussels. On her way in, she delivered a short statement to reporters covering migration, Syria and the dinner tonight for the 27 other EU leaders, who are going to discuss Brexit without May or any British representatives being present. She said: What we will be discussing at this summit is how we work together to deal with the serious challenges that we face. So we will be discussing migration. I’ve always said from the outset on migration that Europe needs to do more to tackle the root causes. That means disrupting the smuggling networks, it means deterring more people from making the journey in the first place and returning those who have no right to be here. We also need to robustly condemn what is happening in Syria. President Assad and his backers in Russia and Iran bear responsibility for the tragedy in Aleppo. What we must be doing it ensuring that those who are responsible for these atrocities are held to account. We must also do all we can to ensure that a ceasefire is secured so the United Nations can help to bring to safety the innocent people of Aleppo. And finally I welcome the fact that the other leaders will be meeting to discuss Brexit tonight. As we are going to invoke article 50, trigger the negotiations, by the end of March next year, it is right the other leaders prepare for the negotiations as we have been preparing. We will be leaving the EU. We want that to be as smooth and as orderly a process as possible. It is not just in our interests. It is in the interests of the rest of Europe as well. Reporters tried to ask her about Sir Ivan Rogers’ comments, but she did not respond. This is what Number 10 is saying about Sir Ivan Rogers’ warning about the risk of it taking 10 years to negotiate a trade deal with the EU. It is wrong to suggest this was advice from our ambassador to the EU. Like all ambassadors, part of his role is to report the views of others. We don’t recognise this. The government is fully confident of negotiating a deal to exit the EU that works in the interest of both the UK and the rest of Europe. The BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg, who broke this story, has written a blog about this. She describes Rogers’ comments as “a reality check of just how hard these negotiations might prove”. Yesterday David Davis, the Brexit secretary, told MPs that he thought the Brexit talks, including negotiating a trade deal with the EU, could be concluded within 18 months. That sounded a tad optimistic at the time, but a revelation this morning illustrates quite how ambitious Davis was being with his forecast because it turns out that Sir Ivan Rogers, Britain’s ambassador to the EU, has told ministers that negotiating a trade deal with the EU could take a decade. Here is our story about Rogers’ warning. On the Today programme Dominic Raab, the Conservative MP and a prominent Vote Leave campaigner, accused Rogers of “gloomy pessimism”. Raab told the programme: Let’s not be consumed by Sir Ivan’s gloomy pessimism, let’s get behind the Government, let’s set out the case for a strong, post-Brexit relationship with the EU on trade, security, and other areas. Raab said it was reasonable for Rogers to set out “the very worst case scenario”. But he also said that Rogers’ judgment was questionable. [Rogers] was the diplomat who persuaded David Cameron to dilute his ambitions for the renegotiation, which was one reason the referendum was lost. So, he has been rather scarred, in fairness, by his own pessimistic advice in the past ... I respect the Foreign Office’s professionalism, but they have always been very pro-EU, and very anti-leaving the EU. Theresa May is in Brussels today for an EU summit, so doubtless she will get the chance to discuss this all with Rogers himself in person. I will be covering all the Brexit developments. And in the Commons we are getting the statement about letting councils raise council tax to help fund social care. I will cover that in detail. Here is the agenda for the day. 9.30am: Lord Mandelson, the former Labour business secretary, gives evidence to the Commons business committee on industrial strategy. 9.40am: Theresa May is due to arrive in Brussels for today’s EU summit. 10am: Liam Fox, the international trade secretary, takes questions in the Commons. Around 11.30am: Sajid Javid, the communities secretary, is due to announce the local government settlement, including plans to let councils raise council tax to fund social care. 2.30pm: Derek Mackay, the Scottish finance minister, announces his draft budget plans for 2017-18. As usual, I will also be covering the breaking political news as it happens, as well as bringing you the best reaction, comment and analysis from the web. I plan to post a summary at lunchtime and another in the afternoon. If you want to follow me or contact me on Twitter, I’m on @AndrewSparrow. I try to monitor the comments BTL but normally I find it impossible to read them all. If you have a direct question, do include “Andrew” in it somewhere and I’m more likely to find it. I do try to answer direct questions, although sometimes I miss them or don’t have time. Alternatively you could post a question to me on Twitter.
David Cameron promises Tory unity as pro-Brexit MPs consider coup David Cameron has insisted the Conservatives will join together and abide by the 23 June EU referendum result despite talk of a coup attempt against his leadership by MPs angry at the ferocity of Downing Street’s campaign against leaving. A number of the most passionately anti-EU Tories are privately pushing the idea of getting rid of the prime minister after the referendum, arguing that he cannot be forgiven for the tone of his campaign and must be replaced with a pro-Brexit leader to unite the party. However, Cameron insisted he was doing the responsible thing by highlighting Treasury warnings that leaving the EU would lead to a recession, job losses, lower wages and falling house prices. “What I am doing is I am doing my job. I said very clearly to the British people that if you vote Conservative … we will have a renegotiation of Britain’s terms of membership of the European Union, we will hold an in/out referendum and I will abide by the result,” he said while campaigning at Luton airport on Tuesday. “I believe I am doing absolutely what I said I would do at the time of the election. This is such a big issue that you do see arguments within the different political parties … There are going to be passionate arguments on both sides. Do I believe at the end of this we can all come together and accept the result? Absolutely, I do.” This view is not shared by a group of strongly pro-Brexit backbenchers, some of whom want Cameron to set a date for leaving after making clear he does not want to fight another term. Others are even floating the idea that they could get more than 50 MPs to trigger a vote of no confidence in the prime minister. There are claims that a slate of up to 12 leadership candidates are waiting in the wings with ambitions to succeed him. “It will need to happen. How on earth can he put Humpty Dumpty back together again after this?” asked one Tory. However, others in the Conservative party from both sides of the debate, especially newer MPs and those with marginal seats, are unconvinced that the group of hardcore Brexiteers is representative of the parliamentary party or has enough support to topple the prime minister. The pro-EU contingent is still in the majority among MPs and many of those who back leaving the EU still appreciate that Cameron won them the election last year. James Cleverly, the MP for Braintree, who is backing Brexit, said he did not see any prospects for a successful coup and believed the “vast, vast majority of Conservative colleagues” were on the same page. “He promised to fight to win the election and a referendum for the British people and delivered that. It wouldn’t make sense for people to start flirting with the idea of deposing the prime minister for making good on his promises,” he said.
Charles Koch: Trump plan for Muslims ‘reminiscent of Nazi Germany’ Republican superdonor Charles Koch shared scathing views on Sunday of the top two candidates in the party’s presidential nominating race, saying Donald Trump and Ted Cruz had presented policy proposals that were “reminiscent of Nazi Germany”, “monstrous” and “frightening”. In an interview with ABC News, Koch, the libertarian billionaire head – with his brother, David – of vast energy and manufacturing interests, was asked about a Trump proposal to temporarily ban Muslims from entering the US. Koch replied that a corollary Trump suggestion, to create databases of Muslims, was worse. “What was worse was this: ‘We’ll have them all register.’ That’s reminiscent of Nazi Germany,” said Koch. “I mean, that’s monstrous.” Koch held a slightly less dim view of a Cruz promise to carpet-bomb areas of the Middle East under Isis control. “Well, that’s gotta be hyperbole, but, I mean, that a candidate, whether they believe it or not, would think that appeals to the American people?” Koch said. “This is frightening.” The Koch brothers have spent untold millions over decades of efforts to reshape municipal and state governments, elect Republicans to congress, enact voter ID laws, combat gun control and discourage government regulation of all kinds. Early in the 2016 election cycle, David Koch predicted that Scott Walker, the governor of Wisconsin, would be the Republican nominee. The brothers backed Walker’s campaign, which did not survive 2015. Koch on Sunday said that he and David were displeased with the tenor of the Republican race this year, to the extent that he suggested, perhaps facetiously, that they might even support the Democratic nominee-in-waiting, Hillary Clinton. “We would have to believe her actions would be quite different than her rhetoric,” Koch said. “But on some of the Republican candidates we would – before we could support them, we’d have to believe their actions will be quite different than the rhetoric we’ve heard so far.” Koch said he could imagine Clinton as a preferable president over Trump or Cruz. “Let me put it that way,” he said. “It’s possible.” However, Clinton tweeted her rejection of any apparent support from that quarter: The Koch brothers, who once vowed to spend nearly $1bn in the 2016 election cycle, were not actively spending money against Trump, he said. “We read – I read, oh, we’ve given millions to this one, millions to that one, and millions to oppose Trump,” he said. “We’ve done none of that. We haven’t put a penny in any of these campaigns, pro or con.” He added, though, that he did not foresee a way of supporting Trump or Cruz. “These personal attacks and pitting one person against the other – that’s the message you’re sending the country,” he said. “You’re role models and you’re terrible role models. So how – I don’t know how we could support ’em.”
Banking inquiry: Westpac has 'no plans' to change political donations policy – live So concludes three days of hearings into the four big banks. It’s possible the Coalition-controlled committee will ask bank executives to return. Labor has demanded further hearings but will demand a royal commission either way. Here’s what we learned in the afternoon session on Westpac: Westpac’s chief executive, Brian Hartzer, revealed bank bosses spoke to the treasurer about a tribunal to regulate banks in April or May, but the function and powers of the proposed body are unclear Westpac has “no plans” to change its donations policy, which allows it to buy seats at fundraisers but not to give cash to political parties The chief executive said the concept of “passing on” an RBA cash rate reductions is “essentially an inaccurate statement” because banks get funds from many other sources The Westpac boss apologised for “operational errors” and the “trust gap” with consumers Hartzer said that in the past six years 22 financial planners have been referred to Asic and all of them are no longer at the bank after being sacked or resigning. Further in the bowels of the blog I wrote a summary of the morning’s hearing with NAB executives. My colleague Gareth Hutchens wrote a report that NAB’s chief executive, Andrew Thorburn, faced more aggressive and disciplined questioning but refused to describe the sacking of 43 financial planners as a “systemic” issue. These past three days have been my first spin on the live blog. I’ve lost my B-plates. Thanks for joining us. The main take-away from the afternoon session wasn’t about Westpac at all, but rather the lack of clarity around the proposed bank tribunal. The idea originated in a report in May from a Senate committee inquiry into customer loans that recommended the banking industry be required to fund a tribunal if financial institutions did not appoint independent experts to consider restitution for customers who feel they have been ripped-off. Liberal MP Warren Entsch latched on to the idea as an alternative to a royal commission, arguing the tribunal should be able to grant victims compensation for bank scandals. In her questioning this afternoon Liberal MP Julia Banks suggested the tribunal would be “under the auspices of Asic” and have “strong interventionist powers” to set benchmarks on sales, and mandate ethics and unconscious bias training. Not a word on compensation, but all kinds of other regulatory powers. Westpac’s chief executive, Brian Hartzer, revealed the heads of the banks had discussed the tribunal with the treasurer in April or May, before the election, then added it had been discussed only “in passing”. I’ve never had a long conversation about the tribunal. I’m not really aware of the details of what is recommended. Hartzer said he didn’t want more prescriptive regulation but supported the idea if it was the last step in the complaints framework: There may be occasions that people say they’re still not happy. It’s entirely appropriate to look at that appeal framework. I don’t have a strong view about whether that’s a tribunal or something else. Thursday’s hearing has just concluded, I’ll bring you a summary of the afternoon shortly. Brian Hartzer has clarified his earlier comment that a bank tribunal was discussed in a meeting in April or May with the treasurer, by adding the tribunal was mentioned only “in passing”. Labor’s Matt Thistlethwaite asks about whether “avoiding a royal commission” was also discussed. Hartzer said Westpac accepts whatever regulatory response the government chooses but would prefer to make changes now rather than wait for a royal commission and then make change. He said that was the essence of what he advised the treasurer. The deputy chairman, Matt Thistlethwaite, has asked about Asic action against Westpac over alleged manipulation of the bank bill swap rate and what review it ordered. Westpac’s chief executive, Brian Hartzer, said there was an external investigation: The conclusion of our investigation is that our people have not done anything wrong, and that’s why we’re defending that matter in court. Liberal MP Trevor Evans asks about small business lending rates and whether they will remain high. Brian Hartzer blames increased funding costs relative to the cash rate, requirements to hold more capital for small business loans, and the need to “price risk through the cycle”. When you look at small business lending over time, those loans are more likely to go bad, [and] you lose more when they go bad. Nationals MP Kevin Hogan has given a spiel against the deposit guarantee offered by Labor for the second time today. He argues it cost big banks 70 basis points to buy into the guarantee compared with 150 for smaller banks, although as the scheme’s official page makes clear that’s because big banks have a better credit rating. MP Craig Kelly has asked if a consumer with $500 of credit card debt misses a $25 minimum monthly repayment, how much they will be charged? $9. He then wants to know how much the lateness actually costs the bank, and the Westpac execs take it on notice. Hartzer says the bank has “no plans” to increase its fees now ANZ has won a high court case in defence of a $35 late payment fee. Kelly wants to know how high fees could go if $35 isn’t an unlawful penalty. Hartzer said it’s a “hypothetical” because Westpac had decreased its fee to $9. MP Craig Kelly has asked whether Westpac faced legal proceedings for late credit card fees. Its chief financial officer, Peter King, said the proceedings were discontinued after ANZ won a similar case in the high court. He takes on notice whether the bank asked for costs in the case. Adam Bandt has asked about a couple who banked with Westpac for more than 20 years and had an inflated income in a loan application. The chief executive, Brian Hartzer, said he could not go into detail but denied the bank was responsible for inflating their income. We have no incentive and no desire to lend people more than they can afford. Asked to rule out anyone else’s incomes being altered or inflated, Hartzer said: “I can’t say it’s never happened, but not to my knowledge.” Greens MP Adam Bandt has asked about $1.8m in donations in recent years by Westpac to the Labor and Liberal parties. Hartzer said its policy is “open and transparent”. We don’t give cash donations to political parties. We support political parties and the political process by attending conferences and the like. We disclose everything we donate fully to the [Australian Electoral Commission]. Asked about NAB’s answer that it wanted to avoid the perception of a conflict by stopping donations, Hartzer said it had “no plans” to change its donations policy. Liberal MP Scott Buchholz asked why credit card customers who never missed payments still paid interest rates up to 19%. Risk is assessed on a “mass basis”, Hartzer explains, because it’s not practically possible to assess individual risk for each business customer. He accepts Westpac could reduce credit card interest rates and still be profitable. Brian Hartzer has come up with the magic number of what an ATM transaction costs: 20 cents. He doesn’t have to hand a figure for how much a transaction by a customer from another bank costs. He said Westpac absorbed the cost of the ATM network for its customers, which explained why only customers of other banks pay a fee. The foreign fee “defrays the cost but comes nowhere near” paying for the whole network. It’s a “reasonable assumption” that the fee is higher than the marginal cost of the transaction by customers of other banks, Hartzer said. Matt Keogh has returned to asking about the UK’s new laws requiring individual accountability of executives. He suggests senior managers are responsible for training and systems around incorrect financial advice, not just the financial planners who give it. Westpac’s chief executive, Brian Hartzer, says risk is inherent in investing, and laws punishing innovation can have “unintended consequences”. When they’ve been poorly advised, absolutely there should be consequences. But if people feel you can’t take risk because you’ll blame me and I’ll get a criminal penalty, a normal person would be much more reticent to give advice. Labor’s Matt Keogh has gone on the attack claiming no part of the $2.7m short-term incentive Brian Hartzer is paid is for “customer satisfaction”. Hartzer said a net promoters’ score (customers’ willingness to recommend a product to others) is 10% of his score card and a number of other measures are about becoming a more service-oriented organisation such as technological innovation and people and culture. MP Matt Keogh has asked about consultation on a banking tribunal and when the idea was first raised. Hartzer said there was a meeting in April or May with the heads of the banks and the treasurer about resolution of complaints and the tribunal was raised there. I’ve never had a long conversation about the tribunal. I’m not really aware of the details of what is recommended. He supported consideration of gaps in accountability and improving the consumer complaints processes. Brian Hartzer said Westpac had unconscious bias training for the top four layers of its management and would “continue to look at everything we can from the customer interface point of view to make sure women are very welcome”. MP Julia Banks suggests the tribunal could mandate ethics and unconscious bias training to “provide benefits to consumers ... and ensure all employees across the bank are appropriately trained”. Hartzer has concerns with “more prescriptive regulation”. The more you prescribe what the bank does the more there are unintended consequences that have to be thought through carefully. Liberal MP Julia Banks has asked about a bank tribunal and has added the details that it would be “under the auspices of Asic” and have “strong interventionist powers” to set benchmarks on sales. It’s interesting that none of the MPs have said explicitly that the tribunal’s role would be to grant compensation, as Liberal MP Warren Entsch has advocated. Westpac chief Brian Hartzer says first, the bank tries to ensure customers don’t complain; second, it has a process to deal with complaints internally; then third, it is introducing an external customer advocate. There may be occasions that people say they’re still not happy. It’s entirely appropriate to look at that appeal framework. I don’t have a strong view about whether that’s a tribunal or something else. Matt Thistlethwaite asks about “rockets and feathers” - the theory that banks jack up rates quicker than they take them down in reaction to cash rate changes. He suggests Westpac is “the worst at passing on” rate cuts. In August 2016, Westpac took 20 days to reduce its rates. Thistlethwaite suggests this netted Westpac $28.2m in profit Westpac chief Brian Hartzer said mortgages are funded by a mix of long term savings from term deposits and offshore borrowing from bonds, not just the cash rate. If this was causing a significant distortion in our margins then you would see it in the net interest margin of the bank - and as I said in my opening statement our net interest margin has been coming down over time. The concept of “passing on” a cash rate reduction is “essentially an inaccurate statement”, he said. MP Matt Thistlethwaite said personal bankers have goals of two insurance sales a week, two home loan referrals, two wealth referrals, one BT or life insurance protection sale and other targets. Westpac chief Brian Hartzer replied: You’re referring there to a personal banker whose job is to have conversations with customers all day... Out of that we expect we would find opportunities - for mortgages, for insurance. We know for a fact most Australians are under-insured. He said referrals arise out of consideration of customers’ needs and products recommended are in the best interests of customers. The numbers are the measure of an expectation about what an employee having “high quality conversations” will achieve. Asked why the bank doesn’t wait for customers to ask for the products if they need them, Hartzer suggests some are “in denial”, “confused” or don’t have good financial literacy. We do not condone selling products to people that they don’t need ... We have made clear that is not what we are asking employees to do. Brian Hartzer says Westpac “probably sources some external data sources” when asked if it uses information from third parties to sell products to its customers, but their own transaction history is the most valuable source when considering their banking needs. He said Westpac spotting a transaction to pay off a credit card with a competitor and offering that customer a credit card would be a good example of “healthy competition”. Customers can tick a box to opt out of such offers, he said. Westpac chief Brian Hartzer said in the parts of the business that still have performance pay that bonuses for performance are less than 5% of a personal banker’s income and less than 2% for a teller. Matt Thistlethwaite has asked about refunds by Westpac of $9.2m in bank fees and $22m in credit card transaction fees. The chief executive says a large number of accounts were affected, including failing to give 150,000 students a waiver on fees and charging 800,000 accounts foreign transaction fees when they shopped on overseas websites. Westpac chief executive, Brian Hartzer, said that in the last six years 22 financial planners have been referred to Asic and all of them are no longer at the bank after being sacked or resigning. Hartzer said the bank audits all the files of planners referred to Asic, notifies all their clients and makes redress where appropriate. The Westpac chief executive says mortgages that track cash rate moves “appear attractive” and nothing stops them being offered. But rate-tracker mortgages are “fraught with risk” when the cost of funds spikes and a bank is not allowed to reprice its interest rates. Quizzed as to why banks in other markets offer them but not Australia, Hartzer says that other markets like the UK have deeper domestic capital markets and rely less on global funds to provide mortgages. Westpac chief executive, Brian Hartzer, tells the committee it wrote submissions to the Productivity Commission in favour of data portability to enhance competition. He declines to take a free kick offered to him by David Coleman about why the other big four banks resisted the idea. What are the odds? Committee chairman David Coleman said Westpac subsidiary Capital Finance Australia was required to pay $500,000 for breaches of consumer credit protection law. The financier failed to send out warning letters about repossession of cars. It appears we’ve hit our first operational error. Westpac chief executive Brian Hartzer said: That was purely and simply an operational error ... there was a break down in the collections practices of a business we acquired. There have been consequences, the chief executive of that business is no longer with us. Westpac chief executive Brian Hartzer has explained a refund it gave for charging customers a life insurance premium on a policy that was purchased at the same time as a loan. Hartzer said consumers had continued to get the benefit of the policies, but there was “a potential for confusion” about whether premiums would continue after the loan had been paid back. The bank agreed to a refund. Westpac boss, Brian Hartzer, and the chief financial officer, Peter King are up now. Hartzer’s opening statement notes that banks worldwide have to hold more capital, and he therefore blames global conditions for the price of its loans. Westpac’s return on investment has fallen “significantly” from more than 20% to 14%, he said. Profits are not “excessive” but banks need “strong balance sheets” when parts of the economy get in trouble, he said. Because of a “trust gap” that had opened up between the community and banks, Hartzer apologises for “operational errors”. He tables a document he says shows Westpac weeded out two planners then banned by Asic. The chief executive boasts Westpac was the first to remove sales as a component of base pay, and has shifted metrics for tellers’ performance towards service rather than sales. Labor’s Matt Thistlethwaite has been on Sky News and argued it was inappropriate for NAB to buy data from credit reporting company VEDA about when its customers approached other banks for a loan. Something I didn’t appreciate from this morning’s hearings is that this was more extensive than NAB simply looking at its own data to recommend products to its customers. In response to questions this morning NAB chief executive, Andrew Thorburn, said the bank would “cease immediately” if a customer indicated they did not consent to up-selling of that nature. After the third day of hearings it’s become apparent the committee has sharpened its questions about banks’ failure to stamp out misconduct. The NAB’s chief executive, Andrew Thorburn, has answered no less satisfactorily than his CBA and ANZ counterparts on Tuesday and Wednesday but has faced a slightly tougher grilling. What we’ve learned this morning: Thorburn said that the sacking of 43 financial planners at the bank over five years “was not a systemic issue” and he didn’t believe any senior executives’ employment had been terminated owing to the problems in that division He said NAB decided to stop political donations “to be clean, direct and decisive” and stop the perception that banks were conflicted or seeking favours from politicians NAB wrote to some but not all the customers of financial advisers who were deregistered by Asic Thorburn said that tellers were “hungry” to refer customers to other products when it was in their interest but claimed they would stop up-selling products using customer data purchased from third parties if they objected The NAB executives joined CBA and ANZ in expressing openness to a bank tribunal NAB rejected that its employees engaged in rate-rigging but won’t comment further as Asic has started a law suit over the allegation Unlike ANZ, the NAB executives did not suggest they would restructure credit card interest rates That concludes NAB’s evidence. Liberal chairman of the House of Representatives standing committee on economics, David Coleman, has suspended the hearing until 1.15pm AEDT when Westpac execs will give evidence. Stay with us as we summarise this morning’s hearing and scoop up further reaction. The deputy chairman, Matt Thistlethwaite, has asked about Asic action against NAB over alleged manipulation of the bank bill swap rate and why the bank hasn’t accepted liability and enforceable undertakings. NAB’s chief executive, Andrew Thorburn, said the bank had reviewed what happened and rejects Asic’s allegation. We have a disagreement with Asic and now it’s going through legal proceedings to resolve it. The opposition leader, Bill Shorten, has weighed into the bank hearings at a press conference in Broadmeadows. He said the chief executives are offering “ritual” apologies but want to return to “business as usual”: I think it’s pretty telling. Malcolm Turnbull and the big four banks want at the end of this week to go back to business as usual ... If all of these bank see CEOs keep saying we stuffed up, we got it wrong, we have caused problems for our customers, haven’t they just made the final argument in favour of a banking royal commission? Sorry doesn’t cut it. Nothing less than a royal commission cuts it. Malcolm Turnbull’s got to stop protecting the banks. Listen to the people of Australia, Malcolm, give the people of Australia what they want, which is a royal commission to improve our banking sector. The Finance Sector Union’s acting national secretary, Geoff Derrick, notes that three of the four major banks so far have backed the backbench MP proposal for a banking tribunal: Andrew Thorburn is crowing that just 700 complaints about NAB went to the financial ombudsman last year, down 64%. He accepts that it is difficult for small businesses to go to the supreme court to litigate disputes, and again suggests NAB is open to a simpler process: We would welcome with government and other parties to enhance that process. NAB’s chief executive, Andrew Thorburn, is defending small business loan rates of up to 15% for unsecured loans and as low as 5.59% for residentially secured loans. As has been discussed in previous hearings, small business loans are risky because many small businesses fail. Nothing to see here. MP Craig Kelly is asking about late fees on credit cards. NAB’s chief operating officer, Antony Cahill, says the late fee is a flat $9 and he believes that’s lower than the other banks. Happy days. Asked a very global question about why the committee is holding hearings into the banks, NAB chief Andrew Thorburn suggests it’s mainly about educating the public. He cites the discussion around home mortgage rates, and the fact a “long term conversation” had allowed facts to “breathe”, specifically, that banks don’t fund mortgages solely off the cash rate. Nationals MP Kevin Hogan asks about the increased spread between the cash rate and standard mortgage rate. NAB executives deny it is due to decreased competition in the mortgage market, and point to increased funding costs separate to the cash rate such as attracting global funds. Adam Bandt asks if banks are “inherently conflicted” because their wealth management arms want to make money at the expense of depositors, and whether investment needs to be separated from retail banking. The NAB’s chief executive, Andrew Thorburn, rejects the view that structural separation is required because financial planners don’t just recommend NAB products and the bank has a separate consumer advocate function. Our planners have a best interests duty of care to their clients ... that they get the proper advice. Asked if he’d be prepared to see that duty reflected in legislation such as restoring it to the future of financial advice law, Thorburn said it was good that the duty was “codified”, including in the Ethics Centre banking and finance oath. But I do think the moves to lift the expectations of planners in recent years are important. NAB’s chief executive, Andrew Thorburn, explains that the bank gave political donations “as part of involvement in wider democratic process” but the board decided to ditch them in May. Asked by the Greens MP Adam Bandt why it stopped, Thorburn says: It comes back to wanting to be respected as a bank and a company. And make sure that our customers don’t see a conflict. In essence we felt the donations we were making to political parties were being misconstrued and misinterpreted incorrectly. We felt to be clean, direct and decisive we decided to stop such political payments at the state, local and federal government levels. Thorburn acknowledged the perception that banks had made donations to receive “particular benefits”. The Liberal MP Scott Buchholz has asked if NAB has an appetite to decrease credit card rates and “if so when, and by how much”. On Wednesday Buchholz celebrated ANZ saying it would consider a restructure of credit card interest rates. Today, he wants a more specific commitment. NAB’s Andrew Thorburn says: “Very few people are paying the highest rate and if they are it is attached to a premium product.” He concedes credit cards are profitable, but says they are getting less so with a halving of margins over the past 20 years. It’s a very extensive, easy to switch, competitive market. The bank’s chief operating officer, Antony Cahill, says the interest rates are reasonable. He notes the cash rate is only 20% of the cost of cards and customers don’t pay the headline rate owing to interest-free periods and other complications. Buchholz is now quoting Wil Anderson, the host of The Gruen Transfer, to establish that banks would be very popular if they dropped credit card rates. He doesn’t get the commitment to restructure rates. Matt Keogh has returned to the fact that no senior executives were sacked after 43 financial planners lost their jobs for breaches of the code of conduct. He asks about the UK’s new laws requiring individual accountability of executives. Andrew Thorburn says it’s understandable given that there were bank collapses and public bailouts in the UK that they have “more specific and onerous requirements”. The Australian financial systems inquiry “basically concluded that our industry is strong”, he said. We should note that scheme ... But we have a good record, good checks and balances. Our banks have high capital ratios, and are unquestionably strong. I’m not saying we should be complacent, but transferring a scheme designed to solve a very different problem would not be wise. Addressing the concept of a housing bubble, NAB’s chief executive, Andrew Thorburn, says the problem exists only in Sydney and Melbourne. He explains that the bank doesn’t lend too much to individual customers because it checks they can afford to pay back principal and interest, and have a buffer for movements in rates. NAB’s average loan-to-value ratio is about 44% and just a few per cent of customers are able to borrow more than 90% of the value of their asset. The bank’s chief operating officer, Antony Cahill, says less than 2% of the total housing book is in inner-city postcodes, rebutting the idea it might be exposed to oversupply of apartments. Labor’s Matt Keogh is asking about how much it costs to run an ATM network, which is a line of questioning we haven’t seen so far on the first two days of hearings. He asks how much an ATM transaction costs, and how much it costs for the customer of another bank to use it. NAB execs have taken the questions on notice. Keogh attempts to land the punch by asking why NAB increased the “foreign transaction charge” from $1.50 to $2 in 2013. NAB’s chief operating officer, Antony Cahill, suggests the costs are reasonable and competitive. ATM use is down across Australia, so revenue is also down, he said. Customers of other institutions have access to their ATMs. Julia Banks asks about support for a proposal from the MP Warren Entsch calling for bank victims to be able to take complaints to and seek compensation at a special tribunal. NAB’s chief executive, Andrew Thorburn, says it is the bank’s role to deal with hardship or complaints but adds the bank will go along with the idea if the government pursues it: We have said that we’re absolutely prepared to work with parliament, and government, to make sure the highest standards are in place so that it’s easy for customers, when they have issues and grievances, for those to be dealt with, so absolutely we would. The Liberal MP Julia Banks is quizzing NAB’s chief executive, Andrew Thorburn, about statements he has made that it will take five to 10 years to get culture right in a large organisation. Thorburn rattles off measures to improve the bank, including compensation for victims, removing dodgy planners and providing incentives for the right customer outcomes. He sticks to his line that the bank has more to do but is heading in the right direction: I believe we’ve made that step. We’re making good progress on specific things but it will take time for us to fully have the culture we want. That’s an ongoing process achieved through leadership. The Liberal MP Julia Banks has asked about NAB’s corporate values, which includes “boldness”. Specifically, it says: Be bold – not being afraid to ask the tough questions and try something different. Andrew Thorburn denies that boldness has contributed to scandals at the bank, and explains it refers to being bold about raising problems. Executives everywhere should take note: don’t pad out your corporate values statements because you could be cross-examined on them by a parliamentary committee. NAB’s chief, Andrew Thorburn, is defending the incentives created by remuneration structures. He says 12% of staff have specific product targets but they are reviewed to ensure they are balanced and appropriate. He says pay is subject to safeguards including not giving staff bonuses immediately, but deferring them and scaling them back if sales were inappropriate. We do have a small proportion that are on direct sales targets, but we have a couple of very important checks and balances on that. Matt Thistlethwaite suggests tellers have a target of one home loan and one other product (such as a credit card, loan or insurance) a week. The chief executive suggests it’s necessary for competition, and growing a business requires “hungry” people. “Our tellers don’t do selling, they are there to process transactions and to refer customers according to their need,” he said. Thistlethwaite responds: You call it hunger but the Australian public might call it pushing products on them that aren’t in their best interests. Labor’s Matt Thistlethwaite asks how NAB uses customers’ financial data to sell them other products. Andrew Thorburn takes on notice the specifics of how it uses the information, then responds with generalities about doing the right thing by customers: Our goal and commitment is to understand their needs, to understand their circumstances and as bankers provide them the right advice and the right product. Thistlethwaite: “Call me cynical, but I think that’s a lot of spin. It’s an opportunity to sell a product ... ” The committee deputy chairman suggests Australians would think it’s wrong that banks use financial information, including “private transactions” with other parties and banks, to sell a product. Thorburn said it would “cease immediately” if a customer indicated they did not consent to the practice. NAB’s chief executive, Andrew Thorburn, says that since a 2015 Senate inquiry into the banks, NAB has committed to report all sacked planners to Asic, not just those who it believed committed a reportable breach. Of 43 planners sacked between 2010 and 2015 not all were reported at the time, but “Asic would know about them now”, he said. Asked if compliance had been inadequate, the NAB boss accepts that was “absolutely one of the reflections that [we] took”. He says there are more checks and balances, including reviews, now. Thorburn reveals that $892,000 has been paid in compensation to clients of five planners who were deregistered by Asic. He said $800,000 of that related to one planner. Andrew Thorburn is addressing a question about five planners who were deregistered, and boasts that NAB found four of them itself before notifying the regulator, the Australian Securities and Investment Commission. Thorburn takes on notice whether it has contacted every client of those financial planners. He then reveals in two cases it had contacted all clients, in two it had contacted only those it considered to be affected, and in one case it didn’t write to the clients because they weren’t financially affected. We’ve been more targeted ... where we feel there is any concern. We will be going back to clients again. The committee’s deputy chairman, Labor’s Matt Thistlethwaite, notes that the CBA and ANZ started with an apology but NAB didn’t. The bank’s chief executive, Andrew Thorburn, denies believing there is no need to apologise. I have apologised – to the customers, particularly in the financial advice division ... I have apologised and I do so again [today]. Andrew Thorburn says NAB would support efforts to make account switching easier, by having portable accounts and customer data. He predicts a new cross-industry payments platform will allow account portability by the end of next year. The committee chairman, David Coleman, wants NAB to commit to tying pay to delivering data sharing, the executives express “in-principle” support for data sharing and account portability. Thorburn takes the question on tying remuneration to the outcome on notice. NAB’s chief operating officer, Antony Cahill, says the bank could offer “rate-tracker” mortgages that move automatically when the cash rate moves. But he says the interest rate would “potentially be significantly higher than our standard variable rate” because the cash rate isn’t the only cost of funds for a mortgage. David Coleman has asked about the wealth management division paying more than $25m in compensation to 62,000 customers. Andrew Thorburn plays down the compensation, noting the bank has $180bn in assets under management. We have had these isolated cases, we have owned up to them, and we have addressed them. Responding to earlier questions about poor financial advice, the chief executive says: I’ve met some of these customers. Our advice was poor, wrong and not right. And I’ve apologised to them. Andrew Thorburn, asked about 43 planners dismissed from the bank, says it commissioned an independent review and concluded: We concluded that there was not a systemic issue. He says there are 1,700 planners in the bank and “the vast majority are doing the right thing”. The committee chairman, David Coleman, says one in 40 planners terminated is hardly a “black swan event”. Asked how many senior executives had been terminated owing to the problems, the chief executive replies: “I don’t think there’s any but I’ll take that on notice.” We didn’t think it was appropriate that anybody’s employment be terminated, apart from the planners themselves. Some executives have had bonuses withheld as result though, he adds, as well as there being harm done to the bank’s reputation. We’re now into the questioning stage. There was a large overlap between questions to the Commonwealth Bank and ANZ executives on the first two days. So let’s play big bank bingo and see how long it will take to hit these topics: Do you think a bank victims’ tribunal is a good idea? (A favourite of the committee chairman, David Coleman) Why are credit card interest rates so high? (A favourite of the Liberal MP Craig Kelly) Has anyone been sacked for [insert scandal here]? (A Labor favourite) Why does it take so long to pass on rate cuts? Will you continue to give political donations? Coleman has started by asking about 43 financial planners dismissed between 2010 and 2015 and $14.5m compensation paid to NAB customers. NAB’s chief executive, Andrew Thorburn, has quoted himself (in evidence given to an earlier inquiry) in his opening address: To our customers I acknowledge we have not always delivered as well as we could or should have, and we must do better. My responsibility is for improvement now, not later. He addressed the area of remuneration and the need for customers to be confident that they receiving products that best suit their needs. Andrew Thorburn has explained that the bank’s funding costs have fallen “but not as much as our lending rates”. This has caused a reduction in bank margins, which he says have been in gradual decline for two decades. Thorburn blames more competition for term deposits and international wholesale funding, which is set by global supply and demand, not the Australian cash rate. In his opening statement Thorburn says banking must be a profession based on trust and integrity. Thorburn’s formulation for describing the sub-optimalities in the industry is: However, there have been some issues in our industry, and at NAB, which we cannot be proud of. And I want to assure our customers and you that we are committed to facing into this so we can be a stronger bank and a stronger profession. “Facing into” must be the corporate speak for “muck in and fix it”. Precisely what the consumer issues are is the third dot point Thorburn will cover in his 10-minute address. And we’re off. First up is NAB. The witnesses at the table are its chief executive, Andrew Thorburn, and its chief operating officer, Antony Cahill. The live stream link is available here. Labor is preparing the ground to demand further hearings and a royal commission. The party’s financial services spokeswoman, Katy Gallagher, told Radio National Drive on Wednesday she expected chief executives of Westpac and NAB to “defend the indefensible” – the same as execs from ANZ and CBA had, in her view. She repeated Labor’s arguments that the committee process was insufficient, saying Timbercorp’s collapse received only eight minutes of questioning on Wednesday. Asked if the politicians’ questioning was too soft, Gallagher turned that into another argument for a royal commission: Again, there are areas, particularly on the more technical aspects where ... you would expect an expert would be much better … which is what a royal commission would allow. Pat Conroy, a committee member, told Sky News on Thursday a royal commission would grant time to hear from victims about how they have been affected by bank (mis)behaviour. We have to win committee support to bring [bank executives] back. To be frank I’m cynical about whether the government-dominated committee will allow us to have more regular hearings. In the end this is window dressing to avoid a royal commission. Welcome to the live blog for day three of committee hearings into the big four banks. Today we’ll hear from NAB and Westpac, kicking off at the same time as yesterday (9.15am AEDT). The new process for hearings into the banks requires them to occur at least annually so the banks may be off the hook for another year after today. But Labor has indicated it wants more time to grill the banks, calculating that if the Coalition-controlled committee refuses to grant extra hearings it will play into the opposition’s ongoing call for a royal commission. If it gets extra hearings, that’s more time to talk about bank misbehaviour. Win-win. Andrew Thorburn, NAB’s chief executive, and Brian Hartzer, Westpac’s chief executive, will face the 10-member parliamentary committee today. In my colleague Gareth Hutchens’ preview, Labor has indicated that in Thursday’s hearing it will ask NAB why the corporate regulator has banned five staff from working in the industry and pressure Westpac to explain why it is generally the slowest of the big four banks to pass on the Reserve Bank’s interest rate cuts. The Greens will ask about political donations, after NAB decided to stop giving them in May and ANZ indicated on Wednesday it was considering following its lead. Comments for the live blog are open so please contribute your take on proceedings below. You can contact me on Twitter @Paul_Karp.
The ups and downs of being an airline pilot The guy going through the US airport security gate looks like a successful financial director, nice glasses, mid-40s, borderline quite cool. The security guard lifts his carry-on bag from the machine. “Is this yours?” she barks. He confirms it is. “You got a knife in here?” He asks if she means a blunt butter knife – part of some airline cutlery he carries on work trips, for when he brews up a pot noodle late at night up in some godforsaken motel. She removes the butter knife and throws it in a bin. He points out that it’s airline cutlery, so he’ll just take another on the plane. A supervisor appears, and soon it’s one of those stand-offs with American officialdom that escalate swiftly to “Sir, I need you to…” level. But there’s a key difference between this airport scenario and most like it. The guy with the knife is a pilot in uniform, about to fly a 767 full of passengers. Yet his protest that he would hardly need a piece of silverware to hijack himself just racks up the officials’ dumb aggression further. He proceeds feeling thoroughly irritated. But Patrick Smith, unlike most other pilots, has somewhere to publicly vent his fury at such stupidity. He runs one of the world’s most popular blogs, AskThePilot, where, in a uniquely acerbic way, he answers passengers’ questions on anything from turbulence to airport security. Smith, a punk rock aficionado, is also the author of a bestselling book, Cockpit Confidential. And he is one of two working pilots with books about flying piled high in airport bookshops – and doing wonders for the rather boring image of modern airline pilots. As will the release in the UK next month of the Clint Eastwood-directed Tom Hanks film Sully – the story of US Airways captain Chesley Sullenberger’s heroics landing a suddenly engineless plane in the Hudson River in 2009. Smith never reveals who he flies for because, he says, it makes it easier for him to be opinionated. He has spoken out, for instance, at the glorification of Captain Sullenberger, explaining that while the pilot deserves the utmost respect, the water landing was a standard manoeuvre made possible by a major slice of luck – that the collision with a flock of geese took place right by “a 12-mile runway of smoothly flowing river, within swimming distance of the country’s largest city”. The second author aviator, currently at cruising altitude, Mark Vanhoenacker, a former management consultant who flies 747s, is open about being a British Airways first officer. His book Skyfaring has achieved even greater acclaim for its writing quality. He is regularly compared to the literary pilots of the past, such as Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (Wind, Sand and Stars) and Ernest Gann (Fate is the Hunter). Skyfaring is a series of essays on every aspect of the pilot’s job, from the physics of getting a plane off the ground to wonderfully detailed and acute observations of life in the sky. He has an eye for detail you imagine serves him well in front of a zillion instruments. Smith and Vanhoenacker have never met despite being admirers of each other’s work. “We often email, but I don’t even know which airline Patrick flies for,” says Vanhoenacker. “We nearly crossed paths in Ghana once. I was going to be in Accra the day after him. He left a signed copy of his book for me at the hotel. To nearly cross paths, but not quite, was a very pilot thing.” Both men, coincidentally, were brought up in Massachusetts; Smith in Boston, Vanhoenacker, who is half Belgian and partly British-educated, in Pittsfield, the town where Moby Dick was written. He now lives in New York and flies from London, while Smith commutes from his Boston home to his airline’s New York hub. It’s common, they say, for pilots to live far from their flying base. The two pilots’ writing style is different – Smith’s, iconoclastic and witty, Vanhoenacker’s, poetic, philosophical, erudite – and replete with Herman Melville references. But their view of life from the flight deck is similar. Both love flying, but are more in love with travelling. Both spend much of their time up-front just pondering their bizarre and wonderful life, as their passengers eat, read, sleep and dream. And both, even when not on duty, fly constantly as passengers just for the joy of it. Being an unashamed flying geek has led to at least one awkward moment for Smith. Boarding a BA flight to Nairobi once, he wandered into the still-open cockpit, and asked the crew, busy with pre-flight checklists, if they minded him popping in for a chat with his fellow professionals. “Yes, we do mind,” one of the pilots responded in a voice he recalls as being just like Graham Chapman’s in Monty Python. “They asked me to go away and slammed the door.” Smith laughs as he recounts this. He is speaking having just woken up from a snooze during a 24-hour stopover in a grim, west London hotel used by airlines. “There are aspects of flying I hate,” Smith says, motioning towards the soulless front lobby. “This, the security, the noise at airports, the crowded planes. But I see a bigger, more exciting picture. The fact that you can get on to this gigantic machine and fly half way around the world in a matter of hours, and you can do it in almost perfect safety for pennies per mile. How is that not remarkable?” Does he often have that thought, about the sheer wonder of air travel? “All the time. It’s why I love what I do and why I got into it. Flying’s a lot of fun, but to me it’s not the soul of the job. That’s the going places. “Sure, there are moments when I’m bored and annoyed. But then I think back to how it’s all worked out exactly how I dreamed it would as a kid. How many people can say that? If I’m stuck in a crappy hotel on a layover I was dreading, I can still on a deeper level be excited and happy about it.” If Smith has one overarching message to readers, it is on the extraordinary safety of flying – and that today, cramped seats and terrible food aside, represents a golden age of air travel because it is the safest it has ever been. He started out just after the least safe period, the 1980s, and has precisely one dodgy landing to recount, when a freak vortex at 200ft pitched his 19-seater plane up on one wing, at a 45-degree angle. He admits to being alarmed then. Oh yes, and to his captain being alarmed once when he insisted on flying bare chested because it was too hot for a pilot’s nasty polyester uniform shirt. Smith likes long haul international flights best. He opts for them over the domestic US routes many of his colleagues with children prefer. And in the off-duty periods he fashions from doing long trips to interesting places, he travels to still more interesting places, with or without his environmental consultant girlfriend. “For leisure trips, we’ve recently been to Malta and Mauritius. On the to-go list, there’s central Asia, New Guinea, Bolivia and Iran.” Is he different, then, more thoughtful, more contemplative, than other pilots? “Pilots are hard to categorise,” says Smith. “I always thought they’d be typecast – military, strong silent types. But the people I work with represent a really interesting cross section. I know a guy who’s a concert pianist and other pilots who studied music in college. The love of flying comes from different places. For me it was the grand theatre of air travel. Other pilots’ inspiration is the thrill of flying the plane. Whatever, I couldn’t imagine going in to the same office cubicle every day.” Vanhoenacker, however, does know what a regular job is like. He is speaking in a crew room at Heathrow’s Terminal 5 and, rather sweetly, is wearing his BA first officer’s uniform even though he doesn’t need to as he’s about to return to New York as a passenger. Quietly spoken with a light mid-Atlantic accent, he recalls his 9 to 5 days. “I’ve had an office job. I’ve done meetings. But I’d been dreaming of flying since childhood. In my management consulting days, I would occasionally load up Microsoft Flight simulator and start a flight in the morning, go off to meetings and then land the plane at Heathrow in the evening.” But is commercial flying not rather prescribed and regulated for someone you sense was looking for more freedom in his late 20s, when he changed career course for BA’s sponsored cadet course? Vanhoenacker is as keen as Smith on travelling for its own sake, as a passenger as well as a pilot, often with his banker partner. “I love flying as a passenger, always in a window seat. You can listen to music, to podcasts, watching the world go by and people bring you food. Actually, for me, the meditative feeling as a passenger is even better than flying. “But when I’m up there doing a fuel check and talking on the radios and we’re sailing above an open ocean and there are more stars than you’ll ever see, and maybe you see a ship down there, or the moon rise, I realise I could never now not be a pilot. “Maybe sometimes,” he continues, “at 3am over the ocean, you’d rather be in your own bed. But if I was given a month or two off, I’d soon be desperate to be up there all night looking at the stars.”
I’ve read the US constitution. Doesn’t mean I understand it It is a strange byproduct of Donald Trump’s terrible weekend that the constitution of the United States of America has become a bestseller. Days after Khizr Khan, father of a slain American soldier, appeared at the Democratic convention, asked whether Trump had ever read the document and then brandished his own personal copy, the constitution is currently ranked number two in books on Amazon, just behind Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. In fact it’s also ranked at number four in a different, more expensive edition. Other versions are ranked 110, 177 and 377. In addition to sales, the US constitution has earned an impressive number of customer reviews, not all of them glowing. What sort of American buys an actual copy of the constitution, and then slags it off? The bestselling edition – a pocket one – has so far garnered 68 one-star reviews, mostly from customers disappointed to discover that this annotated version is published by the National Center for Constitutional Studies, an organisation founded by W Cleon Skousen, “an end times Mormon conspiracy crank who merely inserts his personal delusions alongside”, according to one reviewer. But there were a variety of objections: “This one is fake, ordered and completely different then the original, Do not buy”; “Kids won’t find it interesting enough to read. Thumbs down from my end.” One edition of the constitution gathered a bouquet of one-star reviews because it opens with an alarming disclaimer: “This book is a product of its time and does not reflect the same values as it would if it were written today.” Another criticism, Trumpian in its one-word dismissal, said simply, “worthless”. A treasonous tangle I have my own pocket constitution – free of annotation and just 30 pages long. I bought it at the gift shop next to Appomattox courthouse years ago, and while I may have referred to it once or twice since, I don’t remember ever reading it through. But I have now. Ask me anything. Actually, don’t. Even at 30 pages the constitution is a bit of a slog. Among the familiar procedural nuts and bolts, the cherished freedoms and the shameful expediencies (the valuation of a slave as three-fifths of a person for the purposes of apportioning representation, say) was language I didn’t recall, or even understand. Like this, from article 3: “No attainder of treason shall work corruption of blood, or forfeiture except during the life of the person attainted”. Pardon? It may be the law of the land, but you’re never going to convince me that comma’s in the right place. But as any student of constitutional law knows, finding enlightenment these days is a mere matter of typing “corruption of blood wtf” into Google. I now understand that at the time in England, people guilty of treason could forfeit not just their lives, but their right to pass on property or title. I’m just glad it’s not my job to explain all this to Trump. How to escape email Two years ago I did a radio interview with the former Apprentice contestant Saira Khan. It was repeated last week, and a listener emailed and asked me to pass on how engaging and inspiring he found her. He forgot to mention how engaging I was, but never mind. I tracked down Saira’s address and forwarded the email. I received an immediate reply that said, “Unfortunately I am away and have no access to my emails until 1 September 2016.” I thought: where can she possibly be that she can’t get emails for a month? Can I go there? Four hours later I noticed that Saira was trending on Twitter, and turned on the TV in time to see her walk into the Big Brother house. I was thinking more along the lines of the moon.
Nate Parker deflects rape allegation question promoting Birth of a Nation in Toronto Nate Parker chose to evade questions regarding the 17-year-old rape allegation which has overshadowed his acclaimed directorial debut The Birth of a Nation while speaking to the press at the Toronto film festival on Sunday. Asked by a New York Times reporter why he hasn’t apologised publicly for his alleged actions, Parker said: “This is a forum for the film, for the other people sitting here on this stage. It’s not mine at the moment, it doesn’t belong to me. I really don’t want to hijack this forum. I want to make sure that we are promoting this film.” The 1999 rape case wasn’t directly brought up until well into the 50 minute discussion, when the press conference moderator asked Parker to address people wary of seeing The Birth of a Nation because of the furor surrounding the case. “I won’t try to speak for everyone,” he said, seated next to most of his primary cast, including Gabrielle Union, Armie Hammer, Colman Domingo and Aunjanue Ellis. “I would say, you know I’ve addressed it. The reality is there is no one person that makes a film. Over 400 people were involved in the making of this film. I would just encourage everyone to remember that personal life aside, I’m just one person. The way we ran our set, there was no hierarchy. We did our best to create the type of atmosphere where people felt included.” Before the subject explicitly surfaced in the panel, Ellis alluded to it while speaking about the role women play in The Birth of a Nation – in which Parker plays Nat Turner, a former slave who led a brutally violent revolt in 1831 to free slaves in Virginia. “As a woman, and as someone who believes strongly in social justice for everybody, it’s very upsetting to me when we have narratives that are so myopic and that exclude voices of women,” she said. “If you look at the canon of American heroism as it’s portrayed in American cinema, you would think that women did not exist. And what makes Birth of a Nation unique is it rejects that fallacy.” Penelope Ann Miller, who plays the wife of a plantation owner in the drama, was more direct: “This isn’t the Nate Parker story. This is the Nat Turner story.” Of the cast, Union, a rape survivor, has been the most outspoken in the wake of the firestorm. Prior to its Toronto debut, she penned an op-ed for the Los Angeles Times, in which she wrote: “As important and ground-breaking as this film is, I cannot take these allegations lightly.” “Every time I talk about sexual violence, I want to puke,” she said, speaking of the industry support she’s received since her piece’s publication. “But my personal discomfort is nothing compared to being a voice for people who are completely voiceless and powerless.” Union stressed that in making The Birth of Nation, the cast and crew were “creating a movement”. “That movement is inclusive,” she added. “It includes people who fight back against sexual violence. Any issue you have that is addressing an oppressive institution, this movie is for you too. A lot of heated conversation is the only way to have evolution. Nat Turner was rooted in a place of faith that helped to subjugate and oppress his people. But once he knew better, he did better. We implore you to join with us to create change. If you are a decent human being who wants to take part in a film, I hope you don’t sit us out.” Parker admitted to talking “extensively with Gabrielle about things,” and echoed her sentiments, saying: “For anyone that’s listening that is thinking this is only a film that can deal with the injury and trauma of people of colour – I don’t think that’s the case. The reality is we’ve all been traumatised. We’ve all been held back and scarred – we are oozing pus from the wounds we have not addressed.” “If you’ve got injustice, this is your movie,” he continued. “I want to be able to show this film to an Aboriginal community in Australia on mute – and them for them to be able to say in their language amongst themselves: I get this. I feel charged with the responsibility to do something within this drive. I will not deter from that path of dealing with injustice and eradicating it wherever it stands.” During his sophomore year at Penn State University, Parker and his roommate Jean Celestin, who shares credit with Parker for The Birth of a Nation’s story, were charged with raping a female student while she was unconscious. Her brother later said she was “afraid for her life” in an interview with Variety. Parker, who had had an earlier sexual encounter with the victim that both said was consensual, was acquitted of the charges in 2001, while Celestin was initially found guilty. He then appealed the verdict and was granted a new trial in 2005 – but the case never came to court. Court documents show that the woman said she was harassed by Parker and Celestin after she reported the incident to the police. She dropped out of college as a result, and later killed herself in 2012. Parker responded to her death on Facebook, saying he was “devastated.” “As a 36-year-old father of daughters and person of faith, I look back on that time as a teenager and can say without hesitation that I should have used more wisdom.” The Birth of a Nation made history at the Sundance film festival in January where it sold to Fox Searchlight for a Sundance record high of $17.5m. The Birth of a Nation opens 7 October in the US.
Chancellor says banks' payments to regulators are tax deductible Payments by banks to the City regulator are “a routine cost of doing business”, which means they can be deducted from their tax bills, according to George Osborne. The chancellor set out his view in a letter to Andrew Tyrie, who has been seeking clarity from the Treasury after changes in the budget stopped banks being able to deduct compensation paid to customers from their tax bill. That move, aimed at the billions handed out in compensation for payment protection insurance, is expected to add £1bn to banks’ tax payments in the next five years. Tyrie, the Conservative MP who chairs the Treasury select committee, had wanted to know whether fines and other payments to regulators such as the Financial Conduct Authority would be covered by the change. In a letter dated 4 April, Osborne wrote: “Payments made to regulators are generally deductible for corporation tax purposes. This applies to routine payments made by banks operating in the UK to regulatory authorities to cover the cost of their supervision and oversight.” The chancellor added that payments banks make to the regulators to cover investigations - often known as section 166s - are also deductible, so that banks which have not made any errors are not penalised. This is in line with the tax treatment given to law firms, accountants and those in the oil and gas sector when making payments to regulators. Tyrie, though, is on guard for the currently hypothetical situation that payments made by banks, which might be construed as fines, should create tax benefits for banks. “As long as regulatory payments are made by compliant and non-compliant alike, it is reasonable that they should be treated as a cost of doing business and therefore tax deductible. But in cases where such payments are tantamount to fines, they should not be tax deductible,” Tyrie said. In an earlier letter, dated 15 February, the chancellor had said that fines should not be able to offset tax bills. “I can confirm that fines imposed as a punishment by regulators are non-deductible for UK corporation tax purposes,” Osborne said. In the wake of the Libor rigging scandal, Osborne changed the way that fines were used. In the past they had gone back the regulator, but after the public outcry that followed the £290m fine imposed on Barclays they have have been used to fund a variety of things, including military charities.
Boris Johnson: Russian complicity in war crimes precludes Syria talks Russia is deliberately aiding the bombing of hospitals in Syria, committing war crimes that will make it impossible for peace negotiations to begin, the foreign secretary, Boris Johnson has said. Speaking to the Conservative party conference in Birmingham on Sunday, Johnson condemned the “continuing savagery of the Assad regime against the people of Aleppo”. He said the devastation continued with “the complicity of the Russians in committing what are patently war crimes – bombing hospitals when they know they are hospitals and nothing but hospitals – is making it impossible for peace negotiations to begin”. On Saturday, regime barrel bombs hit the largest hospital on the rebel-held side of Aleppo, a facility that was already out of action, having been subjected to heavy shelling in the week before, in an attack that the UN branded a war crime. In a speech that was light on policy, Johnson opened with an anecdote about meeting Sergei Lavrov, Moscow’s foreign minister, at the UN last month, who said to him: “It was you guys who imposed democracy on us in 1990.” Johnson said he had asked British diplomats and their foreign counterparts in the room for a show of hands in favour of democracy. “Much to my amazement, our opposite numbers just kept their hands on the table and gave us what we diplomats call the hairy eyeball, and of course they felt I was winding them up. And there is a sense in which my question was semi-satirical. “But the exchange was also deeply serious and revealing about the way the world has changed.” Johnson said he wanted a post-Brexit UK to be unashamed about promoting the values of liberal democracy and free markets around the world. “We have been winded and sometimes lacking in confidence in these ideals, and if you look at the course of events in the last 10 years, I am afraid you can make the case that it is partly as a result of that lack of western self-confidence – political, military, economic – that in some material ways the world has got less safe, more dangerous, more worrying,” he said. “Freedom of speech, freedom of association, freedom to practise whatever religion you want and to live your life as you please. These freedoms are not inimical to prosperity – they are in fact essential to sustained growth.” Johnson criticised what he said had been an “era of dithering and dubitation” and said Brexit should signal a new generation of global engagement. “We stick up for free markets as vigorously as we stick up for democracy and human rights, and when all is said and done, my friends, and I know that not everyone will agree with this ... I believe that vote on 23 June was for economic freedom and political freedom as well,” he said. Johnson gave a cautious signal that he would be prepared to back further military intervention in the right circumstances, citing the British action against the Somali pirates, during the civil war in Sierra Leone and during the Ebola crisis. “In spite of Iraq, it is simply not the case that every military intervention has been a disaster,” he said. “Of course we don’t want to wield our hard power; we think an age before we do so. “But when we give our armed services clear and achievable missions, we can still be remarkably effective, and with 2% of our GDP spent on defence, we will be the leading military player in western Europe for the foreseeable future.”
It is not ‘time to move on’ over Brexit: it’s time to fight Shortly before the fateful referendum, Lord Carrington, the Tory party’s most distinguished elder statesman, was at a Sunday lunch in the country, listening patiently to the younger element discussing the merits or otherwise of one Alexander (Boris) Johnson. When they eventually paused for breath, the great man spoke, and brought the conversation to a halt with the simple remark: “Anyway, he won’t do.” I recalled this episode last week when Ken Clarke, one of my favourite Tories of the generation after Carrington, and now in turn very much an elder statesman in his own right, was reported as saying something that could be paraphrased as “anyway, the referendum won’t do”. What Ken apparently wrote in an email to a constituent was that most politicians “paid lip-service to the supposedly democratic nature of the [referendum] exercise”, but he would do his best “to contribute to mitigating the disaster that this decision on 23 June might otherwise cause”. He said he would probably vote against any move to trigger, via the infamous article 50, the Brexit process, and noted the shambles the government has already got itself into over trying to square the circle of remaining in the single market and customs union while satisfying the anti-immigration lobby. Which brings us to an interesting revelation by Nick Clegg, who has just published his version of the coalition years that wrecked the Lib Dem vote in last year’s general election. Here we are, with the biggest housing crisis since the second world war, and Clegg tells us that either David Cameron or George Osborne (he can’t remember which, but that hardly matters since, to coin a phrase, they were “all in it together”) told him: “I don’t understand why you keep going on about the need for more social housing: it just creates Labour voters.” Clegg found Osborne’s behaviour “very unattractive, very cynical … Welfare for Osborne was just a bottomless pit of savings, and it didn’t really matter what the human consequences were.” This, from a recent interview in the , provides chapter and verse for the conclusion that my fellow critics and I came to about Osborne right from the start of his nasty austerity programme. Not only was the attack on the poor disgraceful, and out of keeping with the kind of Conservatism believed in by Tories such as the late Ian Gilmour (who was meant to be one of David Cameron’s heroes), but it must have contributed to the revolt against London and the establishment that was one of the factors behind the Brexit vote. In which context, the Oxford economist Andrew Graham – son of Winston Graham of Poldark fame – wrote in the course of the referendum campaign: “One of the more unedifying aspects of this campaign is observing Michael Gove and Boris Johnson, both members of a government that has been imposing cuts in public services, having the gall to blame [the pressure on public services] on immigration.” Now, for the moment Theresa May has ruled out not only a second referendum but even a parliamentary vote on article 50. But Tim Farron, the leader of the Lib Dems, made the point last week that, as the public wakes up to the realisation that leaving the EU is a “calamitous situation that our children will pay for”, the prevailing belief that a second referendum is out of the question may be challenged. I would add to Farron’s observation: yes, “the people have spoken”, but human nature is fickle, especially when faced with dawning reality, and the people may want to speak again. Indeed some of the people are already upset at reports that they may have to pay for visas to go to the continent. One of the more bizarre aspects of this rotten business is the title that has been bestowed upon my old friend and champion of civil liberties, David Davis. Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union. Pure Yes, Minister. You could not make it up. Many people seem to have forgotten that Davis could well have become leader of the Conservative party until he was upstaged by David Cameron, who is now reduced to saying that at least one promise he kept was the one to hold a referendum – in truth, the one promise he should never have kept. Davis backed what turned out to be Theresa May’s ultra-short-lived campaign, although he had often disagreed with her in the past. There is a mutual respect there, but it is already being sorely tested by May’s understandable desperation to maintain as many trading advantages as possible, while Davis is quite cavalier about the single market. He believes that the completion of the Uruguay round of multilateral trade negotiations in the 1990s was more important for the British economy than joining the single market (which latter move Mrs Thatcher, no less, initiated). One can agree to disagree on this, but what is especially absurd about Brexit is that the kind of regulations and tariff barriers that are in prospect for British business would make current complaints about “Brussels” look like a vicarage tea party. Yes, sorry: I refuse to accept the prevailing view that we must accept the results of the referendum and “move on”. Bully for Ken Clarke and Tim Farron: I am right with them, and I hope many others will join us.
José Mourinho encouraged by Paul Pogba’s form in draw against Arsenal José Mourinho believes Paul Pogba is finding his best form for Manchester United after the midfielder particularly impressed in their draw with Arsenal. The world-record £92.5m signing struggled in the opening phase of the season but he was a pivotal part of a display in a game United were unfortunate not to win. Pogba was involved in Juan Mata’s fine 68th-minute opener and, despite the disappointment of Olivier Giroud’s headed equaliser 60 seconds from the close of normal time, the manager is encouraged by the midfielder. Of the Frenchman, who operated in a box-to-box role, Mourinho said: “He is adapting much better in relationships, to the intensity of the competition, and he is much more confident. Obviously he plays with some guidelines over his position but at the same time with some freedom to occupy some attacking areas where he feels and thinks he can be important. He is comfortable on the pitch. That is the best way of saying it.” Mourinho lined up Michael Carrick and Ander Herrera alongside Pogba in a formation that had Marcus Rashford as the striker, with Mata and Anthony Martial on the right and left. Antonio Valencia, Phil Jones, Marcos Rojo and Matteo Darmian were the defence in what was United’s most complete display under Mourinho. “Midfield is playing very well,” the manager said. “Pogba, Carrick, Herrera, they are playing very well. The defenders – the way Jones and Marcos performed was so solid and confident. We defended high and we were compact when we had to be. It is a very good performance. I go home with the feeling that I lost against Arsenal in the Premier League.” This last comment was a quip about how the 53-year-old has never lost a competitive match against the Gunners. The draw leaves United sixth in the table, six points behind Arsenal, and Mourinho is encouraged regarding his side’s prospects. He said: “We had one transfer window and four months of work – we have lots of young players and older players. We need to do a lot of work. But if you see Burnley, Stoke, Arsenal [all draws], if you have six more points which we totally deserved, where would we be?” On Sunday West Ham United visit for United’s 13th league outing. “At least I want someone to come here and play better than us and beat us,” Mourinho said. “Then you can go home and say these guys were better than us. After the Arsenal match I go home and my feeling is that I have lost.” Wayne Rooney was a 63rd-minute replacement after starting the previous 3-1 win at Swansea City. Mourinho said the decision to drop his captain was because he lacked the pace required to exploit Arsène Wenger’s side. “I thought we were going to have the ball. Arsenal are a team who let the opponents play. I thought we would have space and the ball would arrive quite easily to the attacking players. I believed ones like Mata, Martial and Rashford were faster than Wayne, better attacking opponents one to one in the last line. I thought it was the best option.” Carrick has started the past two league victories after being ignored by Mourinho. The manager is now enthused enough to want him to extend his contract beyond next summer for another year. “Michael is 35 years old. With such an intense game he was having some cramps in the last period, which is normal,” the manager said. “It is very sad to know that time flies for every one of us. He is such a fantastic player and it is a pity. I always loved him but instead of being his manager when he was 24 I am his manager when he is 35. We have a good understanding. We know when he can play. We know when he is ready and when he needs a rest. I am still having Michael Carrick and probably for one more season.” Jones, 24, was making only a second appearance since 2 January because of a nightmarish spell out injured. “It is awful but as a footballer you can’t feel sorry for yourself, go into a hole and never come out of your home,” the defender said. “You have to go about your day as you would normally, work hard in training and I have worked to get back to where I am now. “I want to stay here and I want to play more games. I have worked hard on my fitness. It has been tough mentally for me and it has been so frustrating. I can’t put into words how frustrating it has been but that is behind me and I want to move forward to play as many games as I can.” Jones agrees with Mourinho that United were unlucky. “It is crazy. If we had won today, then we would have been three points behind Arsenal,” he said. “Arsenal have had a world-class season and we are supposed to have had an average season. That is just the way the Premier League works. But we are pleased with the performance. I thought we created chances and probably should have scored more.” Wenger said: “When you are 1-0 down and you come back to 1-1 with a minute to go, it feels more than a draw, that’s for sure.”
Moonlight sweeps Gotham awards, with acting honours for Isabelle Huppert and Casey Affleck Moonlight, the rapturously received story of a young gay black man at three stages in his life, has swept the board at the Gotham awards in New York. The ceremony, which took place on Monday, saw Barry Jenkins’s drama pick up best feature, best screenplay and the audience award, as well as special jury prize for best ensemble. Some have interpreted the win in these leading indie awards as lending momentum to Moonlight’s Oscars campaign; the last two winners of the Gotham feature prize – Birdman and Spotlight – progressed to best picture victory at the Academy Awards. The current frontrunner this time round is Damien Chazelle’s La La Land – but it may face competition from Jenkins’s up-and-comer, as well as from Martin Scorsese’s Silence. Casey Affleck won the best actor award for his role as a traumatised janitor in Kenneth Lonergan’s comeback film, Manchester by the Sea, while Isabelle Huppert was the surprise winner of best actress for her role in Paul Verhoeven’s controversial rape comedy Elle. “I’m breathless. I’m speechless,” said Huppert at the podium. “I didn’t expect that to happen, I promise. They told me it’s an American award: ‘You’re French, and you’ll never get it.’” Huppert triumphed over favourites such as Natalie Portman (Jackie) and Annette Bening (20th Century Women). Amy Adams was presented with a tribute prize by Cate Blanchett; Ethan Hawke also picked one up from Winona Ryder. Other winners included OJ: Made in America (best documentary), Krisha director Trey Edward Shults (best breakthrough), The Witch’s Anya Taylor-Joy (breakthrough actor), Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (longform series) and Her Story (breakthrough shortform series).
The Jezabels cancel tour as keyboardist undergoes cancer treatment Sydney band the Jezabels have cancelled a world tour due to keyboardist Heather Shannon undergoing treatment for ovarian cancer. Shannon was diagnosed with the cancer three years ago. A new round of treatment will require her to remain in Sydney. In a statement the band said they had decided as a group not to carry on with a scheduled world tour that was to support their upcoming third album Synthia. Since her diagnosis Shannon has continued to play with the band but said she must now take a “step back”. “I have preferred to not let this diagnosis get in the way of getting on with life. I feel a deep frustration at this new roadblock, as I now have to take a step back and undergo treatment. “The band means so much to me, and cancelling the tour has been a very sad decision. I am hopeful that in the near future we will be back on the road again playing music we love.” She said she felt “very lucky” to be the in care of Australia’s public health system and was receiving the “best treatment possible”. Fans posted messages of support on the band’s Facebook page. Nicky Stone wrote, “The fact you even made an album under this condition shows amazing selflessness and determination to get your incredible music to the people.” “Cancer sucks. Kick its arse Heather! We’ll all still be here when you win,” Daniel Slaughter wrote. The Jezabels were due to play Mountain Sounds festival on the New South Wales central coast on 20 February and dates in Melbourne, Adelaide, Sydney, Brisbane and Perth, before touring Europe and the US in March. Frontier Touring have posted details on how Australian ticket holders can receive refunds.
Arnold Wesker’s influences and time in prison Julia Pascal made reference to Arnold Wesker’s short spell at the London School of Film Technique (Obituary, 14 April). In a letter he sent me in 1968 he announced “the greatest impact came to me from the Italian and Japanese cinema which I discovered in my twenties”. He also recalled the movie of Clifford Odets’ Golden Boy, while his list of actors that made an impact included Spencer Tracey, Jimmy Cagney, Humphrey Bogart (especially) and Paul Muni. “Ah, Paul Muni, our Hungarian, my mother used to say.” Wesker is quoted in the obituary as feeling “frozen in the trilogy”. Yet that trilogy had the opposite effect on audiences, warming their hearts, not least when Beattie in Roots cried out: “Socialism isn’t talking all the time, it’s living, it’s singing, it’s dancing … It’s being concerned about people and the world.” Ralph Willett Sherborne, Dorset • I’m sorry to contradict Julia Pascal, but Arnold Wesker’s Shylock was actually seen in Britain, though only briefly. In October 1989, in the early days of my time as director of Riverside Studios in Hammersmith, we hosted a dramatised reading directed by Wesker himself, with Israeli actor Oded Teomi in the lead. It played for only a week, with Arnold hoping to arouse interest in a full production. Sadly, that didn’t materialise. My sole clear memory is a personal one: having to stop my over-insistent octogenarian father from endangering life and limb by lecturing Arnold on his treatment of the Shakespearian character. Jonathan Lamède London • Your mention of Arnold Wesker going to prison in 1961 makes light of the full, dramatic story. In fact he had been charged with 30 other members of the anti-nuclear Committee of 100, including Bertrand Russell, for being responsible for organising the planned mass civil disobedience demonstration in Trafalgar Square, on 17 September 1961. As a busy celebrity Wesker, to avoid prison, could have agreed to be bound over to keep the peace, as some “names” did, but to his credit he refused. He stayed the full month in prison despite his workload. He and the poet Christopher Logue entertained the other prisoners with readings from their writings. Ernest Rodker London • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
Barclays plans sell-off of African operations Barclays is preparing to scale back its global ambitions by selling off its once-prized African operations. The bank, under the leadership of its new chief executive, Jes Staley, is reported to have concluded that it is time to leave the continent where it once had major ambitions for growth. In 2005, Barclays spent £2.9bn on a 60% stake in local banking group Absa, 20 years after being forced out by anti-apartheid protesters. By 2012, the bank was boasting that it was making 20% of its profits out of the continent. But Staley is said to have concluded that, against a backdrop of a slowdown in Africa and the devaluation of the rand, it was time to consider a sale of the operations. According to the Financial Times, the board has asked a subcommittee to analyse its options – avoiding the need for an immediate announcement to the stock market. A sale of the business may not be straightforward but is likely to be discussed alongside Barclays’ 2015 results on Tuesday. Barclays is the last of the major high street banks to publish its figures and will be under scrutiny for signs of any deviation by Staley from the strategy set out his predecessor Antony Jenkins. When Jenkins was ousted in July 2015, chairman John McFarlane said it was not because of the strategy he had been pursuing of cutting 19,000 jobs and scaling back the company’s investment bank.
We need a country that works for everyone – EU citizens included I met Aleksandra a couple of weeks ago. A few days before, her friend had been beaten up in front of her home in what police are investigating as a suspected hate crime. As we were interviewing her about what had happened, a car pulled up and a group of youngsters shouted at her: “Fucking Polish grass.” Her reaction, one of shock and disbelief, was moving, and very personal – something that often gets lost in police and media reports of such events. Aleksandra spoke heartbreakingly about this new feeling of being unwelcome in Britain and about how important it had always been for her to belong to a group of people similar to her, to her community, to the country she had made her home. During her eight years in the UK, she has completed her education, picked up a West Yorkshire accent and joined the NHS to work in mental health care, becoming as close to a poster girl for successful integration as you can get. The sense of being rejected despite all these efforts was almost physically painful for her. Aleksandra’s story bears stark similarities to those of others I have spoken to around the UK affected by the rise in hate crime since the EU referendum vote. Europeans of different backgrounds have been telling me about the bubble of Britain’s tolerance bursting, with people turning their back on them. This was only too apparent at the Conservative party conference this week. On Tuesday the prime minister Theresa May said on BBC Breakfast that NHS employees, such as Aleksandra, would be allowed to stay “until the further number [of home-grown British doctors] are able to be trained”. Meanwhile, speaking at a fringe meeting, the secretary of state for trade, Liam Fox, described EU migrants in the UK as “one of the main cards” in Brexit negotiations. And home secretary Amber Rudd vowed to stop migrants from “taking jobs the British people could do”, suggesting that businesses would be shamed for employing foreign workers. These announcements coincided with the publication of a damning report by the Council of Europe’s commission on racism and intolerance (note: it has nothing to do with the European Union), which highlighted an increase in hate speech and racist violence in the UK since the referendum. The commission’s chair, Christian Åhlund, was clear in his analysis of the roots of the problem: “It is no coincidence that racist violence is on the rise in the UK at the same time as we see worrying examples of intolerance and hate speech in the newspapers, online and even among politicians,” he said. The report’s authors also issued a reminder about their previous recommendation, “that the authorities [should] take particular care when developing and explaining policies, to ensure that the message sent to society as a whole is not one likely to foment or foster intolerance”. But the disconnect between the report’s recommendations and reality was only made starker as senior government figures refused to guarantee the rights of the 3 million EU citizens in the UK, further fuelling fears that have arisen since 23 June. Whatever one thinks of the UK’s membership of the European Union, people who have invested their future in Britain do not deserve to be treated as mere bargaining chips in any future trade talks, nor be reduced to people “taking someone else’s jobs”. Rather they should be thanked for choosing to place their talents, skills and experience in the UK, contributing to the country’s success. Otherwise, this language of public debate only reinforces negative sentiments about migrants, artificially pitting “them”, foreigners, against the British public. If Britain is to make a success of Brexit, as the government promises, it genuinely needs to be a country that works for everyone. British sovereignty should not be mistaken for a freedom to discriminate against foreign-born people who have entrusted this country with their lives. Granting an unconditional and indefinite leave to remain to the EU migrants who already live in the UK would send the right signal to the 27 European partners before next year’s kick-off of Brexit negotiations, and play a role in closing the spiral of migrant scaremongering. The idealistic image of the UK that many Europeans have always had – a place of cultured and informed public debate, along with a trademark openness – has changed over the last few months, with a rather ugly face of xenophobia and anti-migrant sentiment dominating the picture instead. Maybe I am naive, but I still firmly believe that Britain is better than this. • This article was amended on 5 October 2016. An earlier version said Jeremy Hunt had told told delegates at the Conservative party conference that NHS employees would be allowed to stay until further British doctors were trained. The comments were not made by Jeremy Hunt, but by Theresa May speaking on BBC Breakfast.
Crystal Palace 2-4 Liverpool: Premier League - as it happened Peep peep! Liverpool stay in touch with Manchester City and Arsenal after a thrilling attacking performance in a highly enjoyable game. If they do win their first title since 1990, they are going to do it in style. Thanks for your company, goodnight. 90+2 min Liverpool make their final substitution, with Ragnar Klavan replacing Sadio Mane. 90 min There will be four minutes of added detail. 89 min Coutinho is replaced by Divock Origi. He played obscenely well. 88 min Coutinho almost gets the goal his wonderful performance deserves, sidefooting too close to Mandanda after a pass from Mane. 86 min Puncheon’s well-struck if optimistic shot from 30 yards goes a few yards over the bar. Karius had it covered. 85 min Fraizer Campbell replaces James McArthur for Palace. 81 min That Firmino goal knocked the stuffing out of Palace, and now the only issue is whether Liverpool get any more. 79 min Coutinho runs straight through two Palace defenders and hits a left-footed shot that is well saved by Mandanda. 78 min If I was a Liverpool fan, I would be inclined to book Monday 22 May 2017 off work. 76 min A Liverpool substitution: Georginio Wijnaldum replaces Adam Lallana. 74 min Palace bring on Jason Puncheon for Joe Ledley. 74 min Zaha’s rising shot from the right of the box is beaten away by Karius. 73 min The top three have all scored four away from home today. This could - could - turn out to be the best title race since 2001-02. Roberto Firmino seals victory for Liverpool with a fine goal. Henderson played a fast, penetrative pass down the middle to Firmino, who ran between the centre-backs and flipped the ball gently over the outrushing Mandanda from the edge of the box. 70 min Another appeal for a penalty by Palace, when Zaha goes over on the corner of the box after a challenge from Can. Nah. 69 min This is a good spell for Palace, who are having more of the ball than at any time in the match. 66 min A Palace substitution: Andros Townsend replaces the anonymous Lee. Replays show that Matip did just about get the ball with that tackle on Benteke, so Andre Marriner made the right decision. 62 min “Sturridge must be kicking himself (something I’d pay to see as it would of course be technically beautiful) as there is no way this is a match for him even as a substitute,” says Ian Copestake. “He should just read poetry.” I wonder if one of the other big teams - United or Arsenal in particular - might take a punt on him in January. 61 min This game is so open and could easily end 4-3 to Palace or 6-2 to Liverpool. Even Quasimodo has declined to predict what’s going to happen next. 59 min Palace have two penalty appeals turned down in one attack. The first looked a dive by Zaha, but the second, a clumsy hack by Matip at Benteke, was a much better shout. I’d like to see it again as Matip was just have got something on the ball. 58 min This, in the parlance of our time, could be anything. Both teams look like they will create a chance with every attack. 57 min Benteke misses a great chance! He headed a long ball down to Cabaye, who played a lovely return pass. Benteke was 12 yards out, to the left of the box; he tried to curl it across goal but didn’t around the ball enough and it was straight at Karius. 54 min Coutinho, who has played astonishingly well, weights a gorgeous angled through ball for Mane, who bursts beyond Kelly before hitting a low shot that is crucially saved by the outstretched leg of Mandanda. 52 min A corner to Palace on the left. Cabaye plays it short to Zaha, who loses it. What a bizarre decision to play it short with all those huge units waiting in the box. 51 min Palace, so cautious in the first half, have clearly determined to get in Liverpool’s a face a bit more, or indeed a bit. 49 min Karius makes a smart save from Benteke. A free-kick from the halfway line was won in the air by Dann on the edge of the box. His header bounced towards Benteke, who turned smartly to smash a shot towards goal from a tight angle. Karius’s positioning was good and the shot bounced off him. 48 min Can is booked for a late tackle on Cabaye. 46 min Peep peep! Palace begin the second half, kicking from right to left. Half-time reading That was a richly entertaining half. Liverpool played ridiculously well going forward, scoring three and hitting the post twice. Palace have done well to stay in the game because they’ve been battered. See you in 10 minutes for the second half. Liverpool have scored again from a set piece, against the team who were supposed to bully them at set pieces. Coutinho’s fast corner from the right dipped beautifully onto the head of the unmarked Matip, who bulleted a header through Mandanda. It was terrible defending from Palace, with Tomkins supposed to be marking Matip, but it was a great ball and a thumping header. That’s Matip’s first goal for Liverpool. 43 min Quasimodo predicts a 5-2 win for Liverpool. They have been sensational going forward. 41 min That Coutinho header actually hit the outstretched hand of Ward before it was saved by Mandanda, so Liverpool might have had a penalty. 40 min Yet another chance for Liverpool. It came after a blistering counter-attack. Lallana played the ball into Coutinho, who held the ball and then played a brilliant reverse pass to find Lallana on the left of the box. He was caught between crossing and shooting and ended up dragging the ball a few yards wide of the far post. 38 min Mane misses a sitter! Coutinho’s cross was blocked and came back to Clyne, who fizzed a precise pass across the box to pick out Mane. He was 10 yards out, unmarked, but somehow sidefooted his shot over the bar. 37 min Great save from Mandanda! Firmino scooted round the back on the right and stood up a fine cross towards Coutinho. He stretched to head towards goal, and Mandanda flew to his right to push it onto the post. 36 min “JR makes a good point about Karius’ attempt to block the ball for McArthur’s goal,” says Graeme Thorn, “but his thought process could have been that Lovren’s shanked clearance might have been misconstrued as a backpass had he handled it before McArthur touched it.” 35 min Not even Quasimodo predicted this. Liverpool have been completely in control of the game, and it’s 2-2. 34 min It’s fair to say McArthur doesn’t score many headed goals. He celebrated both by patting his head in joyous disbelief. James McArthur scores his second headed goal of the match! Benteke won a high ball, heading it across to Zaha on the right. He drove a flat cross towards the six-yard line, where McArthur got in front of Lovren and headed decisively past Karius. That’s an excellent finish. 29 min The overlapping Moreno blitzes a shot off the outside of the post from a tight angle. I think Mandanda had it covered but even so, some of Liverpool’s attacking play has been electric. 27 min Lovren has made a virtue of embarrassment - since Palace’s goal he has been on one, and now he goes marauding down the left wing like Lothar Matthaus! It doesn’t lead to anything of note but it was a great and vaguely comical run. 26 min This has been a hugely impressive performance from Liverpool so far, though I do wonder whether Palace have shown them slightly too much respect. Whatever the reason, around four-fifths of the match is being played in Palace’s half. 25 min “The cherry on top of that crap defending sandwich was Karius declining to use his hands to block that header by McArthur,” says JR in Illinois. “He tried to block it with his head even though he was yards inside his area. The replays are hilarious. Still chuckling about that one.” 24 min Firmino might have made it 3-1. Tomkins’ interception turned into a great through ball for Firmino, who scuffed his left-footed shot from 12 yards. It might have gone in nonetheless but for a superb block by Ward. 23 min I have bugger all to say, I just wanted to type an entry that wasn’t a goal. Lovren makes up for his error straight away! He muscled Dann aside at the far post to meet Coutinho’s left-wing corner and thump a header under Mandanda. That’s an outstanding response to a hideous error to give Palace their equaliser. Palace will be disgusted that Liverpool have scored from a set-piece against them. Palace are level thanks to an appalling mistake from Dejan Lovren! A long goalkick went through to Matip, who stooped to head it square to Lovren. I have no idea what Lovren was trying to do - I think he mistook himself for Franz Beckenbauer - but he lobbed it gently back towards his own goal and McArthur ran through to head past the outrushing Karius from 15 yards. As you were, with Liverpool on the attack - and now they’ve scored! They had a long spell of possession before Coutinho clipped a ball over the top for Moreno on the left of the box. He cushioned a volley infield towards Can, who arrived late and hit a low shot from 10 yards that deflected off Dann and past Mandanda. It was on target so it’s Can’s goal, though the deflection was decisive. 14 min “Yeah, I can see your point,” says Matt Dony. “I’m not one for ‘I’ve got a blacker dog’ games, but the next couple of decades didn’t work out too badly, though, did they? I miss that perch...” I miss it too. 13 min Palace enjoy the rarefied atmosphere of the Liverpool half for a minute or so. They had been under so much pressure before that. 11 min See 6 min. 8 min Coutinho runs at Ward on the left of the box before overhitting his cross. Liverpool have had 78 per cent of the possession so far. 6 min Liverpool look confident and authoritative in possession. Palace are working extremely hard defensively. This could be a long night for them. 4 min Liverpool have had most of the ball so far, as we expected. Palace’s gameplan was confirmed by their first attack, when Zaha drove a long cross towards Benteke at the far post. 1 min Peep peep! Liverpool, in yellow, kick off from right to left. Palace are in red-and-blue stripes. An email! “Yes, the title had realistically gone before that Palace game, unless Liverpool won by a truckload of goals,” says Matt Dony. “Goal difference was the factor at that time. Through the first half, it seemed like they could score at will. I remember getting the impression they got carried away, even subconsciously, with the thought of clawing back the difference. A season built on a gung-ho, reckless approach to attacking reached its natural conclusion, with a porous defence giving up goals on the counter at a crucial time. The upshot is, reading that a six-goal win will put Liverpool on top scares me. Those wounds are still tender.” All I’ve got to say to that is: 26 April 1992. Pertinent information for lovers of October league tables Manchester City won 4-0 at West Brom, so Liverpool won’t go top tonight unless they win by six. They’ll be happy with any shade of victory. “Liverpool are an incredibly predictable side as you can always tell from the first 30 seconds whether they will win or lose,” writes Ian Copestake. “If there is no foot on the gas then Benteke might get a hat full. But if the harrying begins from the off then this could be a massive score. 0-0 then. You’re welcome.” Crystal Palace (4-2-3-1) Mandanda; Ward, Tomkins, Danna, Kelly; McArthur, Ledley; Lee, Cabaye, Zaha; C Benteke. Substitutes: Hennessey, Fryers, Delaney, Flamini, Townsend, Puncheon, Campbell. Liverpool (4-3-3) Karius; Clyne, Matip, Lovren, Moreno; Lallana, Henderson, Can; Mane, Firmino, Coutinho. Substitutes: Mignolet, Randall, Klavan, Lucas, Sturridge, Origi, Wijnaldum. Referee Andre Marriner The government might not have a clue how to deal with Brexit – yep, the MBM has discovered politics, deal with it – but Liverpool know how to make a virtue of not being in Europe. There is an increasing sense that, as in 2013-14, the lack of European matches gives them a wonderful chance of winning their first title since 1990. A trip to Crystal Palace brings back darker memories of that 2013-14 season (even if, in truth, the significance of that 3-3 draw is completely overplayed – the title was gone by then). Palace are always tough opponents at home, and the law of sod suggests Christian Benteke will go into Beast Mode against his old club, but Liverpool will fancy their chances after their superb performances at Arsenal, Spurs and Chelsea already this season. Kick off is at 5.30pm.
Underfunded and overstretched – the crisis in care for the elderly ‘It’s like being at home,” was the verdict that one resident at West Hall, a care home in West Byfleet, relayed to inspectors. When you walk through the doors, you can see why. The first thing that strikes a visitor is its immaculate grounds and impressive architecture, which blends a beautifully converted old manor house with three eco-build residential lodges. But the impressive surroundings fade into the background when you start talking to the people who live and work in West Hall. The warmth and affection that characterise the relationships between staff and residents light up its smart interior, creating a comfortable, homely atmosphere. Arriving on a Thursday lunchtime, I’m introduced to several relatives visiting their parents: Nigel Allen, the home’s manager, stresses they are welcomed with open arms. There’s a huge range of activities to take part in: the day I was there, they included a sing-along, a lunch outing to the local pub and a Scrabble group. West Hall, run by the not-for-profit Anchor Trust, is not a typical care service. It is one of the few homes to have received an outstanding rating from the regulator. Data provided to the by the Care Quality Commission shows that there are just 91 outstanding care homes in England for the over-65s – less than 1% of those the CQC has inspected under its new regime. Almost one in three have been rated as requiring improvement or as inadequate. The quality of care provided to older people in their own homes is similarly variable. Another thing that sets West Hall apart is that it doesn’t seem particularly short of resources. Set in a leafy corner of Surrey, where very few older people qualify for state support with the costs of their care, all of its residents are privately funded. Its fees put it at the high end of the market. Walking through its excellent facilities, there’s a sense that money is no object, and there’s one carer for every four residents. Care homes and homecare agencies that rely at least in part on public funds face a far more straitened set of circumstances. Council funding for adult social care has fallen by 11% on average since 2010, and in some areas by as much as 30%. Cuts to local government funding, together with increasing demand as the population ages, and rising costs as a result of higher regulatory standards and the introduction of the “national living wage”, have created a perfect storm for councils. The government points to the introduction of the social care precept, a new measure allowing councils to charge an extra 2% on top of their council tax rates to pay for care services from this year. But new analysis by the King’s Fund exclusively for the shows the precept will raise just 3% of what councils are already spending on social care this year. The 10 most affluent areas will raise more than twice as much as the 10 most deprived areas, further widening inequalities in older people’s access to care. Another source of extra funding, the Better Care Fund, will not kick in substantially for another few years. “Services supporting our loved ones are close to breaking point”, says Izzi Seccombe, chair of the Local Government Association’s community wellbeing board. “The system with which we provide state-funded care to the elderly really is on the brink of financial failure.” As a result of funding cuts, councils have reduced the rates they pay care-home providers and homecare services for residents who get financial support. Some local authorities are now paying just £330 a week for a care-home place, which works out at less than £2 an hour. It’s becoming increasingly common for providers to cross-subsidise the fees of those who are council-funded using the fees of private funders: industry research suggests privately funded residents are paying up to 40% more for a like-for-like service. Councils have serious concerns about the sustainability of the care market. According to the Local Government Association, 48 councils have seen at least one home care provider cease trading in the past six months, and a further 77 councils have lost at least one residential or nursing care provider. The number of people getting state support to help with the cost of their care has also fallen by more than 25% in the past five years. Age UK estimates that there are now more than a million older people who struggle without the help they need to carry out everyday tasks, such as getting out of bed, going to the toilet and getting dressed. “Growing numbers of older people are going without enough care or, in some deeply worrying cases, no care at all,” says Caroline Abrahams, charity director of Age UK. “Ultimately this means many older people are living sadder and lonelier later lives, a tragedy for them and for our society.” Gary FitzGerald, chief executive of the charity Action on Elder Abuse, says a lack of support is having a knock-on impact on safeguarding referrals for neglect, which have increased by 24% in the past four years. “Someone is having to support them. Often it’s family and friends trying to do their best without the skills, knowledge and equipment to care for them securely and safely.” He remembers a case that emerged a couple of years ago of an elderly woman who tied her husband, a dementia sufferer, to a chair in order to go out shopping. “All the weight of criticism came down on her. But she couldn’t get any help with her husband’s care, so she couldn’t get out to shop. She was damned if she did, damned if she didn’t. That’s the sort of choice we’re forcing people to make.” Beyond the tragic human cost, the care funding crisis is having a severe impact on the NHS. A lack of state-funded care means thousands of older people are left languishing on hospital wards when they are well enough to be discharged, costing the NHS £800m a year. It also drives more older people to hospital: it is vastly more expensive to treat a broken hip than to prevent it by helping with washing and dressing. The funding crisis has been a long time in the making. “The need for action was recognised as long ago as 1997, when Tony Blair established a royal commission on the funding of long-term care,” says Richard Humphries, assistant director of policy at the King’s Fund. “There have been three significant reviews and commissions since then. The problem is not a lack of evidence or solutions.” Rather, the issue seems to be the lack of political willpower. “When the NHS is in trouble, we see the visual evidence,” Humphries adds. “Images of overflowing hospitals and queuing ambulances. The consequences of stretched care services are far less visible. Care does not resonate as a significant issue in MPs’ postbags and surgeries in the same way.” Many believe the solutions required are so long-term that they will only be delivered through a degree of cross-party consensus. Cross-party talks were started a few years ago, but broke down acrimoniously just before the general election in 2010. Andrea Sutcliffe, the chief inspector of adult social care, has warned that the funding predicament risks jeopardising quality of care. “The reduction in resources and the level of unmet need means adult social care is reaching a tipping point,” she told the . “There is a fragility and a lack of resilience in the sector which I am very concerned about ... It’s leading us into situations where we don’t have enough trained staff to deliver good care.” Many councils struggle to find good-quality care for their residents. “I’m worried about the quality of care homes available locally,” says Rebecca Lury, a Southwark councillor who chairs the authority’s health scrutiny committee. “Earlier this year the council was in a position where one care home announced its closure following an inadequate rating from the regulator. It had to move residents to another care home; it had also put in special measures.” Some councils are still commissioning 15-minute care visits, despite strong government guidance that such cursory visits are seen as wholly inadequate. John Kennedy, former director of care services at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, believes funding isn’t the only problem. He published a personal inquiry into the quality of care homes in 2014, and since then has spent time visiting outstanding care homes to find out what makes them different. Too many carers face poor pay and working conditions. But John Kennedy also believes the care system fails to support care-home managers adequately – a job often invisible to society at large. “This is a job with an immense level of responsibility,” he says. “In a home with over 50 residents, you might have a staff team of the same number, with turnover around the £2m mark. All care homes are 24/7 operations. The show must relentlessly go on.” Yet average pay for a care-home manager is just £27,700 a year. “I doubt you could find any other job in any other sector that requires this level of responsibility for that level of pay.” He believes government has placed too much emphasis on red tape and regulation as a way to improve care services. “We’ve created a system that makes it too difficult for any but the most skilled managers to deliver consistently good care,” he says. “Instead of valuing relationships, people and life, we concentrate on value, systems and processes. The system puts avoiding blame above ensuring people are having a good life. This attitude permeates and damages the culture of care.” Kennedy is worried that, given the relentless nature of their role, care-home managers are at risk of burning out: on average, one in four care managers leave every year. He argues that this makes quality in care homes fundamentally fragile, citing the example of one care home he visited that was rated outstanding by the regulator, but whose standards plummeted to inadequate after it lost its manager. If it’s great management that makes a great care home, it’s poor management that paves the way for the kind of abuse that has been periodically uncovered by the media, according to FitzGerald. “Where you see abuse situations in a care home, you’ll see bad leadership with 40 or 50 ordinary people working in an environment that’s abusive and neglectful, and not seeing anything wrong with it,” he says. FitzGerald doesn’t believe incidents of abuse are isolated or rare incidents that can be dismissed. He points to the fact that there has been no reduction in the use of antipsychotic drugs in care homes, despite a 2009 government review that concluded they were overused to the detriment of patients. His charity has raised concerns with the CQC that relatives who have complained about the quality of care have been banned from homes, or told they will have to move out their elderly relatives within 28 days. He doesn’t mince his words. “We’ve created an institutionally abusive environment in social care. It’s ageism in action.” Sara McKee, the founder of Evermore, agrees we have a problem with ageism. “Why is it considered acceptable to institutionalise older people when other forms of institutionalisation have been eradicated?” she asks. “Our fundamental model of care has not changed for over 40 years. Modern nursing homes look like they did decades ago, just with newer carpets.” McKee is setting up a new model of supported housing designed to be somewhere people can live their life out, regardless of how high their level of need escalates. “Many health and care providers see ageing as a condition that needs to be managed. We want to provide positive choices where growing older means doing what you love and feeling good, rather than managing declining health.” The Evermore concept is based on the Green House ageing project in the US, developed by geriatrician Bill Thomas, with whom she now works. She describes the Green House as an “anti-institutional” environment. “He has stripped away all the hospital-like paraphernalia you would find in many traditional care homes, such as nursing stations, uniforms and rigid schedules. In its place is a building designed like a family home, with self-contained residences for six to 12 people.” Unlike in traditional supported housing, the emphasis is on communal living, with meals prepared in an open kitchen and shared at a communal dining table. McKee says the staff are absolutely key to making it all work: she describes them as multiskilled and self-managed, with much more freedom to run the household according to the wishes of the residents, rather than top-down diktat from head office. It has taken McKee a while to find an investor for her project, but she’s now working with a developer to build the UK’s first Evermore community in Wigan. But won’t it only be wealthier baby-boomers who can afford this type of living? McKee doesn’t think so. “Most local authorities want to stop paying for grim and expensive nursing home beds,” she says. She believes joining up NHS and council budgets could enable money to be spent on more innovative ways of delivering care like Evermore, not necessarily at higher cost. Alex Fox is another person rethinking traditional models of care. He runs Shared Lives Plus, a network of local schemes in which paid carers share their home and family life with an adult who needs care or support. The goal is to share an ordinary family life, in which everyone contributes and benefits. This is a much more explicitly two-way relationship than in traditional professional care. It’s a model that was developed primarily for adults with disabilities, but there are now almost 2,000 older people with care needs using Shared Lives in England. “The Shared Lives carer makes a positive choice to share their home and family life with the older person, so it’s a real relationship which can last a lifetime, not just a service,” says Fox. “People who use Shared Lives tell us they feel ‘one of the family’, and their relatives often say they feel like there are two families working together now, whereas before they often felt on their own and struggling.” It might not be for everyone. But Fox believes that the rest of the care system can learn from it. “Shared Lives schemes spend time recruiting the right people, then giving them the space and freedom to be more human and flexible in their work. This isn’t just more cost-effective, it creates better care,” he says, pointing to the fact that, out of the 25 Shared Lives schemes rated by the CQC, 24 are good or outstanding. Is there any work that is more fundamentally human than caring for others? Little wonder then that, whether it’s West Hall, the Green House or Shared Lives, the golden thread that runs through successful care organisations is the quality of their staff. Perhaps this offers society a golden opportunity. From assembly-line manufacturing to book-keeping to driving a minicab, jobs that once required human endeavour are being replaced by technology. Jobs requiring uniquely human skills like empathy and care may take up a growing share of the labour market in the future. Older care falls into this category, especially given the needs of an ageing population. Yet care is not exactly a career destination of choice for many young people. Charlotte Whittaker, 22, is halfway through a five-month work placement at care homes in Surrey. It’s a career she’d recommend, but she doesn’t think young people tend to see it as fulfilling or enriching. “Partly it’s a misconception about what care involves. There’s not much understanding of the relational aspects, and the potential to make a difference to a lot of lives over a career.” But she says it is also partly the misperception of care as a low-skill job. “I’ve been incredibly impressed by the skills and diplomacy of the carers I’ve been working with.” Perhaps by investing more time, money and love in our care system, we can simultaneously improve the lot of both the older and younger generations. That’s an attractive proposition at a time when so much political debate seems to set the young against the old. But it’s not a job that can solely be left to the politicians. Nothing will change unless we face up to the reality that the way we as a society care for older people is just a mirror that reflects back our cultural attitudes towards ageing. THE MANAGER Karen Cooper runs Mount Ephraim House, a Greensleeves care home in Tunbridge Wells. “My job is demanding, incredibly demanding, but I adore what I do,” she says. “You get so much back from it. You wouldn’t do this job for the money, but because you care about making a difference at the end of the day.” It takes a high level of skill to care properly for someone with dementia, she says. “They might constantly ask you the same question day in day out, looking for a family member long passed on. You have to be careful how you respond, otherwise a person can go through the grieving process eight times a day.” It’s not a nine-to-five job. “You can’t really switch off. You’re on call 24 hours a day unless you’re on holiday.” She used to work for a standalone home, which she found more difficult than working for a care home group. “You’re on your own – you don’t have any backup.” While she loves her work, Cooper feels it’s sad the care sector has to fight its own corner because of the negative publicity generated by stories of abuse. “Sadly, the general public think all care homes are the same, when there are an incredible number of excellent care homes.” THE CARE WORKER Charlotte Whittaker, 22, is halfway through a five-month work placement as part of an activities team in two care homes in Surrey. She’s doing the work as part of Year Here, a postgraduate qualification in social innovation. Having seen both her grandmothers need care, she has a close personal interest in the subject. “Elder care is a big societal issue that isn’t necessarily very glamorous but needs a lot of thought and innovation”, she says. “The best thing about my work is the residents: getting to know them as individuals, finding out about their lives and what they like doing now. There are a lot of laughter moments, singing or doing arts and crafts.” But there are harder moments too. “Sometimes you have residents who are very upset, and it’s difficult to comfort them, because the person they’re missing isn’t around any more, or they want to go home but no longer have a house.” She has been overwhelmed by the emotional investment made by her colleagues in the people they care for: “They do it because they love doing it.” THE DAUGHTER Michele Simmons thought the small privately owned care home in London she carefully chose for her 77-year-old mother, Gilda, (pictured below) who has dementia, was a warm and welcoming place. However, neglect soon became evident in a number of ways. “My mother was someone who took great pride in her appearance and I took time labelling all her clothes,” says Michele. “But she was increasingly put in other people’s clothes, things that didn’t fit.” She recalls finding her mother in plastic shoes two sizes too small, her toes bent over. “Mum couldn’t speak, but her face conveyed the pain,” says Michele. One freezing winter morning, Gilda was sent to hospital in an ambulance. “She was in a thin nightie with no slippers, no blanket, no notes and no one went with her,” says Michele. “The manager said it was because there was a changeover of staff and no one was available. I eventually found her hours later, terrified, on a trolley in a hospital corridor.” Michele, who paid £3,500 a month for her mother’s care, talked to the manager many times but her complaints were brushed aside. “I became worried about making too much fuss in case they [the care home] took it out on mum. All I wanted was the best for my mum and for her to be treated with dignity and kindness – it was just a shame the home didn’t feel the same.” THE WHISTLEBLOWER “Witnessing the abuse and not being able to do anything about it was the worst thing I had to endure,” says Alex Matthews, a former care home worker who was shocked by what he saw during a year at an “expensive and luxury” home. “Rough handling by carers was evident on a daily basis,” he says. “Feeding was done in a hurry and people were often left dribbling porridge and other food over their clothes. Personal hygiene was terrible. ” But most of those he worked with were good people, he adds. “The neglect was to do with the heavy workloads and having too many people to deal with in a short space of time.” As bad as the physical neglect, he says, was the lack of care over patients’ emotional wellbeing. “We were always asked to move from one to the next as quickly as possible. This leaves you with a lot of guilt.” Alex Matthews (his pen name) has written a book about his care home experience; She’ll be Alright, Pavilion Publishing, £19.95.
GSK's wisdom is its dullness – there's no need for a break-up GlaxoSmithKline must be addicted to exciting succession scraps. Back in 2007, when the now departing Sir Andrew Witty landed the chief executive’s job, the affair was long and bloody. Three internal contenders were invited to pitch their ideas in a semi-public shoot-out. Witty, the youngest and most junior executive, won and the disappointed duo wouldn’t stay for love nor share options. They departed within months. It was a bracing experience and not one you’d think GSK would wish to repeat. There is every chance it will. Witty won’t leave until next March, which creates plenty of time for plots, intrigue and manoeuvring. Did finance director Simon Dingemans, when he quit Goldman Sachs in 2010 to do a real job, aspire to succeed Witty? It is even hard to say who is the leading candidate within the core pharmaceutical business. Is it Abbas Hussain, head of the division, or Patrick Vallance, head of research and development? And perhaps Emma Walmsley, boss of consumer healthcare, a bigger unit after being beefed via a shuffle of assets with Novartis, is a decent outside bet. This time around, external candidates will also have to be considered. Amid it all, the noisy shareholders will want a say. Lauded fund manager Neil Woodford wants GSK to be broken up and, presumably, a boss who is open to the idea. His campaign has started already. The best advice for chairman Sir Philip Hampton, hardened by his years at Royal Bank of Scotland, is to get the appointment done quickly to minimise the fallout. As for Witty’s legacy, it’s easy to forget that drug companies, rather than banks, were the chief corporate bogeymen a decade ago. One of Witty’s first acts was to make HIV drugs available at affordable prices in developing countries. He has also led the way on opening access to clinical research and stopped the indefensible practice of paying doctors to champion individual medicines. In an often unlovely industry, those were smart moves. The serious blemish on his watch was the corruption scandal in China in 2013, for which GSK paid a £300m fine and had to make a comically fawning apology. Witty had also been paid far too much – another £6.6m last year, for heaven’s sake – but the entire pharma industry works like that. As for GSK’s financial record under Witty, it is surely better than the share price – £11.20 to £14 – suggests. If the next 12 months run to script, GSK will have overcome a big patent cliff without cutting its dividend or resorting to big and risky purchases of drugs in development. The self-help strategy has also seen expansion into vaccines and consumer products. Those waters are less exciting than pharmaceuticals but relative dullness looks wiser with every passing month. Valeant, epitome of the new breed of deal-a-minute, price-hiking pharma firms, is currently imploding in spectacular fashion in the US. Its shareholders would love GSK’s side helping of toothpaste and hard-to-manufacture vaccines that bring solid cash flows. That is why the view here remains the same: on current form, there is no need to break up GSK. Being a boring miner is best for Rio Succession is cleaner at Rio Tinto. Chief executive Sam Walsh is retiring to spend more time with his milk jugs (he collects the antique variety) and Jean-Sébastien Jacques, who runs the copper business, has been named as the new boss. Easy. Walsh’s three-year spell has been a demonstration that digging holes in the ground is a simple business made complicated only by deal-doers. He has cut costs, avoided acquisitions and tried to make Rio boring again after the wild ride under predecessor Tom Albanese, who bet the balance sheet on a $38bn (£26bn) cash takeover of aluminium producer Alcan at the top of a bull market and then compounded his error by buying coal mines in Mozambique. Rio has not avoided financial pain in the current commodity downturn. It has just cut its dividend. But, in a race where all share prices have gone backwards, Rio has outperformed all its main London-listed rivals in the past couple of years. One assumes chairman Jan du Plessis, in the seat since 2009, will ease the new chief executive into position and then look to make his own exit. When he does so, he should hand his own successor a copperplated instruction: never, ever listen to anybody who thinks they can read long-term commodity prices. To ditch RBS cheap would be a bad deal A detail from the Office for Budget Responsibilty is worth noting: its figures assume the government will sell the entire stake in Royal Bank of Scotland during this parliament. Four years is an age, but chancellor George Osborne would surely hope to shed the shares for a lot more than the current price of 231p. Indeed, the first small batch went at 330p last August. RBS’s share price needs to return to those levels for Osborne to maintain his boasts about getting value for taxpayers. Don’t rush it, chancellor.
Health racket: tennis reduces risk of death at any age, study suggests If you want to stave off death for as long as possible, you might want to reach for a tennis racket. Scientists attempting to tease apart the benefits of different sports have found that regularly taking part in sports such as badminton or tennis reduces your risk of death at any given age by almost 50%, with swimming and aerobics also proving protective. By contrast, running and football appeared to have little effect, although the authors caution that this could be down to the nature of the study itself. “It is the first big scale population study to say ‘is participation in sport protective in terms of your long-term mortality?’The answer is yes, it does appear to be,” said Charlie Foster, co-author of the study from the University of Oxford. However, which sport you choose may make a difference. Published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine by an international team of researchers, the study incorporated responses from 80,306 adults aged 30 and over in England and Scotland who were quizzed on their health and exercise through national surveys conducted at various points between 1994 and 2008. Each participant was asked a series of questions about their lifestyle and exercise, including which sports they had taken part in during the previous four weeks and how frequently they did so, as well as the intensity of the exercise and its duration. The survival of the participants was surveyed, on average, nine years later, during which time 8,790 participants had died, with 1,909 deaths down to cardiovascular disease. The results reveal that fewer than half of the participants, just over 44%, met the national guidelines for the recommended levels of exercise of 150 minutes of moderate physical activity a week. The researchers then compared the risk of death among those who took part in a sport to those who did not participate in that particular activity, taking into account factors such as age, sex, whether they smoked, BMI, other exercise and education. The results revealed that cycling, for example, was associated with a 15% reduced risk of death. “We can tease out specifically that little extra difference between those who do cycle and those who don’t,” said Foster. When applied to the other five categories of sport explored, it was found that swimming was linked to a 28% reduced risk of death, while the figure was 47% for racket sports and 27% for aerobic exercise such as keep fit or dance. Neither running nor football – a category that encompassed both football and rugby – was linked to a reduced risk of death. When the team looked just at the risk of death from cardiovascular disease, they found that swimming reduced the risk by 41%, racket sports by 56% and aerobics by 36%. Running, cycling and football showed no protective effect. The reasons behind the differences, says Foster, are complex. “They all have different physiological demands, and they all have different physical, social and mental benefits,” he said. But those who run or enjoy football shouldn’t hang up their trainers, he adds. “We are 100% certain that we know participation in these sports is good for you, that is very clear, but what we haven’t seen yet is how well those benefits translate over the long-term into preventing death,” said Foster, pointing out that a number of factors relating to the study could be behind the apparent lack of protective effect. Among them, he says, there were very few deaths among runners and footballers, the number of footballers was small and it was possible that runners over-reported the time they spent pounding the road. Ulf Ekelund, a physical activity epidemiologist at the University of Cambridge and professor in physical activity and health at the Norwegian School of Sport Sciences, in Oslo, said the key message from the research was not that one activity was more likely to stave off death than another, but that sport in general is beneficial. “There is so much evidence that physical activity, including sports participation and all kinds of exercises, are associated with a reduced risk of both non-communicable diseases and the risk of death,” he said. “The take home message is that if [you] do sport, [you] should continue doing sport. If [you] don’t like to do sport [you] should try to find some other kind of exercise,” he added. “You shouldn’t stop running if you are running and start playing tennis – I don’t think that would be any better. I think you should continue doing what you are doing and what you enjoy doing.”
Premier League: 10 talking points from the weekend’s action 1) Liverpool’s wild ride towards a title challenge The splurge of title-winning questions after Liverpool’s breathless victory at Selhurst Park provoked a wonderfully enigmatic response from Jürgen Klopp. Can his team conquer the league playing in this wild fashion? “I’ve no idea,” he said. “It’s my first proper season in the Premier League. I have no idea what to do to win the Premier League. I’m pretty sure it was never decided at the end of October. We feel good in the moment, that’s all.” The notion that an experienced manager with 15 years on the job – who won the Bundesliga twice and has spent more than a year in England to immerse himself in its foibles – has no idea how to win the Premier League seems to be both endearing and a shrewd ploy. Playing it all down is a sensible approach, but will be difficult to sustain the longer Liverpool keep gathering results in their own inimitable fashion. It was an emotional game. Dejan Lovren felt such a maddening anger after his error led towards one of the Palace goals he admitted he wanted to leap into the crowd (where the Palace hardcore hang out, incidentally) when he scored. The home goalscorer, James McArthur, said he felt gutted at the end of it all. Dealing with emotional games is part of the ride under Klopp. Entertaining? Absolutely. But the manager also says the way they play is rational. “We don’t do it because we want to show something, we do it because it helps us, because the best kind of defending is keeping the ball,” he explains. “It’s quite logical.” Amy Lawrence Match report: Crystal Palace 2-4 Liverpool Klopp teaches Liverpool the art of filling space dynamically 2) Barkley delivering under Koeman’s tough love The evidence of Ross Barkley’s entire Everton career should caution against hyping the midfielder or inflating expectations until he produces performances like that against West Ham United on a regular basis, though Sunday was a welcome reminder of how valuable he can be to Ronald Koeman’s designs at Goodison Park. Koeman has not been slow to criticise the England international in public this season but his contribution to Everton’s first win in six matches, helping to create Romelu Lukaku’s latest goal against West Ham and scoring the second himself in a more composed yet decisive display, underlined why the coach is so demanding of a player in a key role. Everton’s front three behind Lukaku has lacked “productivity”, according to Koeman, who may well seek to strengthen in that department in future transfer windows. Whether Wayne Rooney fits that criterion remains to be seen, although it seems fanciful that the boyhood Evertonian’s advisers would consider the substantial pay decrease needed to facilitate a return. Koeman has done nothing to dismiss the prospect – “Rooney is very welcome at Everton,” he reiterated on Sunday – but if the tactic is to inspire a response from Barkley then so far so good. Andy Hunter Match report: Everton 2-0 West Ham Everton set to pay all staff living wage 3) Rashford must take centre stage for United Henrikh Mkhitaryan was again conspicuous by his absence from the matchday squad, as was any semblance of the wing play that used to be a Manchester United tradition. What is keeping the Armenian out remains a mystery, but José Mourinho expressed satisfaction at the start of the season that he had strengthened in four departments with a defender (Eric Bailly), a midfielder (Paul Pogba), a striker (Zlatan Ibrahimovic) and a quick winger in Mkhitaryan. For whatever reason the last has yet to properly start his United career, yet with other quick wingers at his disposal Mourinho has been playing Marcus Rashford out wide. It is not his best position, and with Ibrahimovic and Rooney unable to buy a goal and United held scoreless by Burnley, the time has surely come to restore Rashford to centre stage, which was where he made his breakthrough last season. Paul Wilson Match report: Manchester United 0-0 Burnley Mourinho behaving at United exactly as critics said he would 4) Ramírez and Traoré give Boro home lift-off If Middlesbrough are to retain their Premier League status then making the Riverside Stadium home again was a good start. Aitor Karanka’s side had to merely turn up in the Championship last season – taking 16 wins from 23 home games – but, until beating Bournemouth on Saturday, Boro had found home comforts anything but advantageous in the top flight. It was two unlikely lads, in many ways, Gastón Ramírez and Adama Traoré, who helped Boro to a first home win of the season. Ramírez arrived at Southampton from Bologna in 2012, yet only now is the Uruguayan beginning to feel at home in England. Traoré, meanwhile, is slowly reaping the rewards of a fresh start in the north-east after enduring relegation with Aston Villa last term. If the flair of Ramírez and Traoré, the 20-year-old former Barcelona B winger, can blossom in the north-east behind the often isolated Álvaro Negredo, then Karanka’s prospects of coaching Boro in the Premier League again next season will prove significantly enhanced. Ben Fisher Match report: Middlesbrough 2-0 Bournemouth Talisman Ramírez is Middlesbrough’s man for all seasons 5) Moses finally finding his feet at Chelsea In two weeks, Antonio Conte has gone from laughing off rumours of the sack to clearing a space on his shelf for a Manager of the Month award. October has brought four league wins, 11 goals and none conceded. If things have moved fast for the Chelsea boss, it’s a different story for Victor Moses, who has waited four years to become an overnight success at Stamford Bridge. Chelsea’s upturn in form has coincided neatly with Conte’s switch to a back three of Gary Cahill, David Luiz and César Azpilicueta. On paper, it doesn’t scream solidity, but the results speak for themselves. Amid the mayhem at West Ham, a back three shorn of the protection offered by Moses and Marcos Alonso at wing-back (and with John Terry shoehorned into it) looked far less secure. Moses didn’t feature on Wednesday, but has started each of the four league wins, and has earned repeated praise from Conte for his attitude and adaptability. Wingers on defensive duty are rarely as disciplined and assured as Moses was at St. Mary’s – dropping into a back five to repel Southampton in the first half, hugging the touchline to bypass the hosts’ narrow midfield, and getting upfield to set up Eden Hazard’s opener. It has been a long time coming, but Moses may have found his place in what looks a formidable Chelsea team. Niall McVeigh Match report: Southampton 0-2 Chelsea Conte’s adaptability is helping his Chelsea side to prosper Conte cautious on title chances after Chelsea extend winning run 6) Moyes unable to boost Wearside weariness Arsène Wenger did not mean to be patronising but he sounded it. “I feel pity for him,” Arsenal’s manager said when asked to reflect on Sunderland’s collection of two points from the first 10 Premier League games of David Moyes’s tenure. Ellis Short, Sunderland’s owner, has no appetite to sack the club’s seventh manager in five years but, should Moyes’s team stumble in their next two fixtures – at Bournemouth and home against Hull City – the Wearside crowd may ensure his position simply becomes untenable. That would be a shame as, in many respects, he seems Sunderland’s most impressive coach in years. Certainly no one should question Moyes’s integrity or industry. Short’s best policy would be to swallow the pain of relegation and allow him to rebuild in the Championship a lá Rafael Benítez and Newcastle but reality dictates a manager can take only so many defeats before being mortally wounded. Louise Taylor Match report: Sunderland 1-4 Arsenal Barry Glendenning: Sunderland escape act will be little short of a miracle Moyes refuses to panic despite record-equalling nadir 7) Musa puts body on the line to make mark On the ropes after conceding to Vincent Janssen’s penalty on the stroke of half-time, Leicester City’s renewed togetherness was encapsulated by the commitment Ahmed Musa displayed when he scored the equaliser that earned them their first away point of the season. Musa put his body on the line when he met Jamie Vardy’s cross and although he avoided a serious injury, the winger was eventually substituted. “He goes without fear of the tackle to score the goal,” Claudio Ranieri said. Leicester’s manager is hopeful Musa will be fit for the trip to FC Copenhagen on Wednesday. They could certainly do with him being available. The Nigerian is beginning to enjoy playing for the champions after moving from CSKA Moscow. “I want Musa to understand the spirit of the Premier League and now he’s getting better,” Ranieri said. Musa, with two goals in two games, looks like a smart signing. Jacob Steinberg Match report: Tottenham Hotspur 1-1 Leicester City Pochettino needs Spurs’ creative players to join hunt for goals 8) Phelan must draw on experience amid hard times Despite all that success as Sir Alex Ferguson’s right-hand man at Old Trafford, Mike Phelan has not always had it easy. No longer required as Stockport assistant when Gary Megson was sacked in 1999, the former midfielder ended up joining United’s academy and had to wait two years for his chance with the first team. Almost two decades later, Phelan is back in the real world of the Premier League’s basement boys having seen his side pick up one point since the end of August. “You get used to winning after being involved in it for 19 years, of course you do,” he said after the latest defeat, against Watford. “But you understand that while I have been at other end and winning, there are others who have lost along the way. I have to accept that is part of the game.” Hull could count themselves unfortunate after Michael Dawson’s late own goal handed Watford the points following some dogged defending by the visitors. But Phelan knows he will need his fair share of luck to ensure they do not return from whence they came in May. “I have stepped up to this role now in difficult circumstances,” he acknowledged. “I have to stress that. Those circumstances are always around but we have to deal with it – we are in the big league where things have to develop fast. But we are newly promoted. We are on a losing spell but we have to stick together and keep working at it.” Ed Aarons Match report: Watford 1-0 Hull City 9) What can make Agüero even better? In Pep Guardiola’s ideal world, Sergio Agüero would be a little more aggressive. The Argentina striker is too nice, according to his manager, and because of that needs to do more to convince people he is among the world’s best. “In the box he’s in that level with the best,” Guardiola said when asked where he ranks after he scored twice and provided an assist to end City’s six‑match winless run. Scarily for opposing defenders, the Manchester City manager also reckons “a club legend” could have a bit more self‑belief. “He has to convince because he is one of the nicest players I’ve trained in my career. He is a pleasure to work with but he has to believe how good he is. Without him we cannot achieve our targets, it’s impossible.” That is one way of extinguishing speculation that Agüero does not fit in his plans and is in line for a move away from City. He has 13 goals this season in all competitions and, away from the pitch, has been helpful to Guardiola as he settled in to life in the north-west. Alan Smith Match report: West Brom 0-4 Manchester City Agüero to start against Barcelona in Champions League, says Guardiola 10) Sánchez gives Arsenal the edge they had craved After Arsène Wenger declared that Alexis Sánchez’s best position was as a centre-forward last week, the Chilean seemed to take his words to heart. His two goals against Sunderland on Saturday were very ‘centre-forward’ goals: one a towering header (and Lamine Koné might want to reflect on how a man seven inches shorter than him managed to tower so) and the other a snaffled finish of an expert poacher. It was as if he decided: “Well, if I’m a centre-forward, I had better start acting like one.” Those two strikes were his seventh and eighth of the season (his 49th and 50th for the club), and his move to this new position has been one of the triumphs of the campaign so far, after a summer in which most people believed Arsenal needed another centre-forward. As it turned out that was true, it’s just that, as Wenger often says, buying another one wasn’t necessarily the answer. What’s also encouraging for Arsenal’s prospects this season is that now Sánchez represents Plan A, Olivier Giroud becomes the Plan B that he should probably always have represented. Options, depth and ruthless attacking: Arsenal look like a serious force this season. Nick Miller Match report: Sunderland 1-4 Arsenal Sánchez gives Arsenal belief they can avoid November slump Moyes refuses to panic despite Sunderland’s 4-1 loss to Arsenal
Dark Mofo 2016: Mike Parr to perform in an asylum ward for 72 hours A 72-hour performance in a 19th-century mental institution will headline the 2016 Dark Mofo festival in Hobart, Tasmania, while the producer ZHU will play the festival’s opening night. The Australian performance artist Mike Parr will be drawing for most of the 72 hours in the Willow Court’s Allonah ward, which was formerly known as the Female Maximum Security Ward for the Criminally Insane and dates back to 1827. Cost of admission is “a mirror, of any kind, to be left behind”. The Museum of Old and New Art on Friday announced the festival’s line-up, which will also include London-based United Visual Artists and their suspended grid of pendulums; Cameron Robbins with ephemeral LED light drawings that transcribe the patterns of the wind; and Nancy Mauro-Flude performing a piece described as “thirties-era DaDa cabaret crossed with cypherpunk internet cafe”. The Dark Mofo creative director, Leigh Carmichael, described the festival as “a strange merging of ancient ritual with contemporary culture”. “We hope there’s an excitement about being out at night in winter in Hobart that runs deeply through the festival,” he said. Headlining the Dark Mofo opening night party – which, festival organisers say, is “BYO glowsticks” – will be the deep house producer, ZHU. Also on Dark Mofo’s musical front will be the Songwomen of Black Arm Band, featuring the Indigenous singers Shellie Morris, Emma Donovan, Deline Briscoe and Ursula Yovich. In A Galaxy of Suns, star constellations are transcribed into scores and sung by the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra Chorus, with the lead artist Michaela Gleave, composer Amanda Cole and programmer Warren Armstrong at the helm. The festival’s film program taps into “our most primal, profane fears”, according to the festival description. Highlights include the Australian premieres of Tasmanian film-maker Sean Byrne’s The Devil’s Candy and the English director Jim Hosking’s The Greasy Strangler, which has been described as an “oasis of filth”. The festival’s crown jewel, the Winter Feast, returns with a communal “purging of fears”: festivalgoers are to write their fears down on paper and then sacrifice them to a resident giant demon. Also back is the mass naked swim in the bracingly cold waters of Sandy Bay on the winter solstice. Carmichael said the festival budget was now close to $9m, up from $5m in its inaugural 2009 event. “We are still exploring similar themes and ideas, so in that regard it’s more of an evolution, but I would say this iteration is by far the tightest curatorially. I guess we will see if that’s a good or a bad thing.”
EU is facing existential crisis, says Jean-Claude Juncker The European Union is facing an existential crisis, the president of the European commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, will say on Wednesday, as he announces a raft of economic and security plans in the search for common ground in the wake of the British vote to leave. In his annual state of the union address to the European parliament, Juncker will say commonality between EU member states has never been so low, with governments everywhere quicker to say what they don’t want from Brussels rather than work together. The EU executive hopes to find the elusive common ground with a plan to boost the EU’s infrastructure fund by increasing its value to €500bn (£425bn). Juncker will also press for speedy implementation of a recently agreed law to create an EU border and coastguard to ensure better control of migrants arriving from the Middle East and Africa. But a poisonous diplomatic spat between Luxembourg and Hungary over the treatment of asylum seekers underlined just how difficult it will be to find agreement on the migration crisis. At least 3,169 people died or went missing in an attempt to reach Europe during the first eight months of the year. Juncker’s speech, which was still getting the finishing touches on Tuesday night, comes just two days before EU leaders meet in Bratislava for a summit without Britain, aimed at charting a way forward for the EU after Brexit. Neither event is expected to result in detailed discussions on the EU27 strategy for dealing with the UK as it heads towards the EU exit. Juncker will, however, refer to the murder of a Polish factory worker in Harlow, Essex, as he speaks out against violence and discrimination. EU officials are increasingly resigned to the likelihood that the UK is unlikely to trigger article 50 in the near future, a fact that causes varying degrees of angst. Martin Schulz, the president of the European parliament, who will meet Theresa May in London next week, called on the British government to trigger article 50 by the end of the year to provide clarity and avoid “weakening” the EU. “To wait more than a year is completely counter-productive,” he told the and five continental papers. He dismissed the argument – advanced by some British government sources – that it would be better to wait until French and German elections are over, before triggering article 50 in late 2017. “This is not an acceptable argument. There are always elections in the European Union in some member states.” Waiting until after Germany’s elections in autumn 2017 could mean the UK would still be an EU member during the next round of European elections, throwing up complications for all sides. But the British government is unlikely to be face immediate pressure from other governments to trigger exit talks. In a letter to the 27 governments sent before the meeting, the man organising the summit, European council president, Donald Tusk, said it would be “a fatal error to assume that the negative result in the UK referendum represents a specifically British issue”. He writes that “it is true that the leave campaign was full of false arguments and unacceptable generalisations”, but the Brexit vote was also “a desperate attempt to answer the questions that millions of Europeans ask themselves daily”, citing border control and the fight against terrorism. “People in Europe want to know if the political elites are capable of restoring control over events and processes which overwhelm, disorientate, and sometimes terrify them. Today many people, not only in the UK, think that being part of the European Union stands in the way of stability and security.” The EU institutions are converging on the idea that Europe needs to concentrate on practical policies; both the nuts and bolts of deepening the single market and extending it to the internet through a digital single market will feature in Juncker’s speech. Brussels insiders share frustration that national governments are reluctant to defend EU policies and complain that ministers lack EU knowledge, sometimes unaware when they say “something must be done”, that a policy already exists, or is being discussed. According to Schulz, too many governments want to cherry pick the bits of the EU they liked, such as generous European funding for poorer regions, while ignoring the bits they don’t. If countries continued to take the advantages without fulfilling their duties, this would end in “destroying the European Union” he said. In his speech, Juncker will also mount a defence of trade policy, amid ongoing doubts about whether the controversial transatlantic trade deal (TTIP) can ever be agreed, as well as questions over ratifying the EU-Canada trade deal, which was seven years in the making. Tusk echoes this qualified defence of trade deal. “Failing to reach trade agreements ... will inevitably create an impression that Brexit has sparked a process of eliminating us from the global game,” he said. But future trade agreements can only work by restoring trust of workers, consumers and entrepreneurs.
The Conjuring 2 pulled from French cinemas after disorder during screenings A number of cinemas in France are cancelling screenings of The Conjuring 2 following troublesome occurrences of “loud laughter”, “hysterical yelling” and violent altercations. The French newspaper Le Parisien has reported that the majority of the 262 French cinemas initially planning to show the Enfield-set chiller have removed it from their programmes following disruptive conduct. Some Paris cinemas axed it on release day, according to 20 Minutes; the reason cited at Cyrano de Versailles cinema was to “ensure the safety of staff and customers”. An “altercation” at the MK2 Bastille cinema apparently escalated into a large-scale brawl after one group annoyed other audience members by “screaming at the slightest movement” on screen. Le Parisien reports that staff were unwilling to intervene, leading other cinemagoers to take action. One of the country’s major cinema chains, UGC, has opted not to show the film at all as part of an “editorial choice” to cut back on its genre content. The Conjuring 2 has exceeded expectations at the box office, having so far made $276m (£213m) worldwide – on course to beat the £246m of the original. Annabelle, a spin-off based on the unnerving dolly featured in the first film, made £198m. That film also provoked disturbances in screenings in France, with multiplex managers removing it from schedules “for security reasons”. Similar scenes of auditorium mayhem were also reported during French screenings of Paranormal Activity and Sinister.
Myanmar's leprosy village offers outcasts a place to call home At the entrance to the Mawlamyine Christian leprosy hospital (MCLH) in Myanmar’s Mon state, a poem, inscribed on a stone tablet, begins: “People are often unreasonable, illogical and self-centred.” None know this better, perhaps, than the patients inside the single-storey, colonial-era facility and those who live in a leprosy village that has sprung up around it. Ni Lar Win, 35, was 10 when she was diagnosed with leprosy. Sitting on the floor of her bamboo home, her hands – twisted by the disease – cradle her baby as she remembers the discrimination she faced. “My parents passed away when I was young and I lived with my auntie,” she says. “When I found out I had leprosy she kicked me out of my home. I felt like I had no future.” Her husband, Saw Mae Au, also had leprosy. They met at the hospital in Mawlamyine, about 300km south-east of Yangon. “No one wanted to be friends with me,” he adds. “I got serious depression, I didn’t know what to do. I just wanted to die.” Myanmar is one of the 16 countries still reporting more than 1,000 new cases of leprosy a year (pdf). About 3,000 people are diagnosed annually and more than 400 of these are “late stage”, meaning disabilities have already developed. Leprosy can be treated with multi-drug therapy, but people infected face significant stigma, says Dr Saw Hsar Mu Lar, a surgeon at MCLH. “If I open a shop, and then I get leprosy, I can no longer open my shop because people won’t buy from me,” he says. The doctor describes how, as a boy, he was taken to hospital and the patient before him had leprosy. When he got home his mother took all his clothes and burned them. Saw Hsar My Lar is one of the surgeons receiving guidance from medical volunteers with the Leprosy Mission at a week-long surgical camp at the hospital to learn reconstructive surgery techniques. The aim, he says, is to treat the patients’ disabilities and therefore reduce stigma. “We have a saying here: ‘No deformity, no stigma’,” he says. One of the patients receiving surgery is Saw Nyi Tu, a 75-year-old former rice farmer who faced discrimination and eventually fled his village when he was diagnosed with leprosy 40 years ago. He and his family have lived in the leprosy village outside the hospital ever since. “No one in my village had this. Everyone discriminated against me,” he says. “They would not eat with me.” An ulcer has developed on Saw Nyi Tu’s left foot and has turned septic. Local doctors, watched by one of the European volunteers, remove two metatarsal bones from his foot. “It feels like all my injuries have gone,” Saw Nyi Tu says after the operation. Now he will be able to walk again, he plans to buy chickens and set up a farm. Myanmar achieved the World Health Organisation target of eliminating leprosy in 2003, which means less than one in 10,000 people are infected. But since then the number of new cases has not fallen significantly. One of the problems, says surgeon Dr Willem Theuvenet – one of the European volunteers at the camp – has been ethnic tension between Myanmar’s Buddhist regime and people from the Christian Karen group who run the hospital. “It did not make them very popular in the eyes of the government,” he says. “We hope that referrals will increase now democracy has set in.” But there is still a lot of work to be done. Saw Hsar My Lar estimates there are 2,400 people in Mon state who have the most severe forms of leprosy, including blindness, ulcers and severe atrophy. In Ni Lar Win’s hut, separated from the hospital by train tracks, the mother of two describes how her hands and painful feet prevent her from working. “I would work as whatever,” Ni Lar Win says. “I just hope we can earn enough so my children can have an education. I want my daughter to be a doctor.” She is among hundreds of former patients who have made their home near the hospital rather than return to their villages. Ni Lar Win sometimes goes back to her old village but is not allowed to stay the night. The hospital provided the family with their home eight years ago and pays them to look after a neighbouring plantation while they wait, hopefully, for more complex corrective surgery. But the ideal outcome, Saw Hsar My Lar says, is to avoid people living in the colony in the first place. “We don’t want to send our patients there,” the doctor says. “It’s not their life. We want to cure their hands and feet and then they go back to their village, to their home, and then go back to their jobs, their life, get married, have children.”
Meryl Streep slathers on fake tan for convincing Donald Trump impression Meryl Streep’s latest physical transformation for a role has taken a red tie, a hairpiece, and a face full of fake tan. The three-time Oscar winner also donned a padded suit to impersonate Donald Trump at the annual Shakespeare in the Park Public Theater Gala in New York City on Monday night. The New York Times said Streep’s Trump was “more than credible ... down to the pursed lips and low-hanging belly”: “She got the braggadocio-inflected voice, too, even while singing.” Her performance was said to be something of a surprise even to organisers, with Oskar Eustis, the Public Theater’s artistic director, giving full credit to Streep. “Utterly her idea, beginning to end,” he told the Times. “There were skeptics, there were doubters, but one of those skeptics was not Meryl Streep. She was absolutely sure she could do it. None of us had seen her in costume or makeup till she walked out tonight.” Actor Kate Burton, who also performed at the gala, said Streep was demonstrating Trump’s mannerisms in their shared dressing room before the show. “He apparently does this thing, where he goes to close to his jacket but it doesn’t close all the way, and so he kind of goes for it and then he tries to close it again,” Burton said. “She treats this like she would her greatest roles: she’s working on it all the time.” Her surprise appearance at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park delighted audience members, many of whom shared the news on social media. Streep as Trump joined her Mamma Mia co-star Christine Baranski, dressed as Hillary Clinton, for the closing act of the gala benefit: a number from the 1948 Broadway musical Kiss Me, Kate – adapted from The Taming of the Shrew. The two performed the duet Brush Up Your Shakespeare, written by Cole Porter and most often performed by male gangsters giving advice on how to quote the Bard to woo women. Some lyrics of the original were changed, with the Boston Globe reporting that Streep “got bawdier as the song went on”: “Problem now with society, we’re all hung up on propriety ... She can sample my Measure for Measure.” Trump’s thoughts on the portrayal are not known, though he has previously expressed admiration for Streep, personally and professionally. “Meryl Streep is excellent,” he told the Hollywood Reporter. “She’s a fine person, too.” Streep issued a statement to the New York Times through a Public Theater spokeswoman on Tuesday afternoon: “I appreciate the interest, but this was a one-off, a once in a (last in a) lifetime appearance of this character.” The performance followed news Clinton, who Streep has expressed open support for, has become the presumptive Democratic nominee, making her the first woman to nab a nomination from a major political party. Michael Moore, the filmmaker behind Bowling for Columbine and Fahrenheit 9/11, last year suggested that Streep herself run for president on a Democratic ticket. “The Republicans knew Reagan knew how to talk to American people and get them to vote. In this case you have a beloved person who happens to be in the movies but is also smart and has a heart and is curious,” Moore said.
Son of Saul review – profoundly, soul-shakingly distressing Any film dramatising the unimaginable horrors of the Holocaust risks accusations of trivialising, misrepresenting or exploiting its awful subject matter. When László Nemes’s debut feature, a harrowing drama set in Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1944, premiered last year at Cannes, the New York Times critic Manohla Dargis dismissed it as a “radically dehistoricised, intellectually repellent” work in which “technical virtuosity” risked diverting the audience’s attention from “the misery on screen”. Focusing its tightly held, shallow-focus gaze on a single prisoner in whose face we see reflections of atrocities too hellish to depict, Son of Saul is indeed a stylistic masterpiece, a film of precise visual and aural design, executed with fearsome skill, precision and commitment. Yet far from being a “technical” triumph, the claustrophobic aesthetic that Nemes employs has a powerful moral raison d’etre, seemingly born out of a desire to address a subject that arguably has no place in dramatic cinema. Feature first-timer Géza Röhrig is astonishing as Saul Ausländer, a Hungarian-Jewish prisoner forced to work on the Nazis’ extermination production line as a member of the Sonderkommando, the special squad whose controversial legacy has inspired such narrative features as Tim Blake Nelson’s The Grey Zone (2001). We first meet Saul emerging from incongruously leafy woodlands (Nemes has cited Elem Klimov’s 1985 Come and See as a touchstone), shepherding new arrivals into the gas chambers where they will be poisoned, their bodies burned, their ashes shovelled into a river. Saul’s expression is one of mortified catatonia – a silent scream within this ninth circle of hell. But when a young boy survives Zyklon B inhalation only to be summarily suffocated by a doctor, Saul claims the body to be that of his son, whom he resolves to bury with dignity. His mission is desperate and threatens to endanger a planned uprising among his fellow prisoners. “We will die because of you,” one tells him, to which Saul replies: “We are already dead.” Even writing that brief synopsis feels almost obscenely prurient. Yet Mátyás Erdély’s camera consistently pushes the horrors that surround Saul to and beyond the edges of the film’s 4x3 frame, the narrowness of the image somehow broadening the scope of its impact. In several sequences set within the gas chambers and furnaces of Saul’s netherworld existence, only Röhrig’s face is in focus, the Boschian landscape of suffering and death in which he dwells remaining expressionistic rather than explicit. Yet even as our eyes are turned away from the abyss, an incessant soundtrack of screams, barks, orders, gunshots, cries and whispers evokes a cataclysmic landscape of evil unbound. The effect is utterly overpowering. Writing about the impossibility of representing the Holocaust in dramas such as Spielberg’s Schindler’s List, the great French film-maker Claude Lanzmann (whose monumental Shoah eschewed archive footage for eye-witness testimony) famously declared that “fiction is a transgression” and spoke of his own belief in “a ban on depiction”. Yet, after seeing Son of Saul, Lanzmann concluded that it gave “a very real sense of what it was like to be in the Sonderkommando”, in a manner that was “not at all melodramatic” and “done with a very great modesty”. Lanzmann’s most recent feature, The Last of the Unjust, revisited a 1975 interview with Benjamin Murmelstein, the last surviving president of the Jewish Council in Theresienstadt whom some had branded a collaborator, but whom Lanzmann found to be “extraordinarily courageous”. Although different in form, Nemes’s fictional film (inspired by the real-life accounts recorded in the “scrolls of Auschwitz”) shares with Lanzmann’s work a preoccupation with what Primo Levi called the Nazis’ “demonic crime” of attempting “to shift on to others – specifically, the victims – the burden of guilt”. Within the godless void of his enslaved existence, Saul’s desperate search for a rabbi to recite the Mourner’s Kaddish over the body of the child – who may or may not be his own (we are never sure and it never matters) – seems to represent an act of atonement, a cleansing ritual amid the stench of the Sonderkommando’s mephitic existence. Accepting the Oscar for foreign language film, Nemes stated that “the hope of this film” was to show that “even in the darkest hours, there might be a voice within us that allows us to remain human”. Those dark hours (the film takes place over two days and one night) are as vividly, devastatingly portrayed as anything I have experienced in the cinema; I struggle to remember the last time a non-documentary film proved so profoundly, soul-shakingly distressing. This is as it should be – anything less would be immoral and irresponsible. Yet, unthinkable as it seems, there is a glimmer of light in this appalling darkness, infinitesimal yet inextinguishable. Ultimately, it is that glimmer that makes Son of Saul so traumatic. Days after watching it I remain haunted by Saul’s face, his skin covered in the ashes of the dead, his eyes alert with anxiety and anguish, a recognisable trace of humanity in world beyond belief.
Hospital made patients 'wait two months to have their hair washed' Hospital patients had to wear incontinence pads overnight and wait two months to have their hair washed because hospital staff were too busy to help them, an inquiry by NHS inspectors has concluded. A&E patients were also being treated in corridors and in chairs because the Queen Elizabeth hospital in Woolwich, south-east London, was under such pressure when the Care Quality Commission (CQC) arrived on an unannounced visit in June. The watchdog said that the hospital “requires improvement” after encountering a series of problems, including the deterioration of a patient with the deadly infection sepsis during their inspection because of inadequate monitoring. Some staff were also observed speaking “sharply” and with a lack of kindness to patients, and children attending the A&E were not always given the full range of checks they needed. Patients also faced long waits to receive A&E care. “This deeply shocking case is yet another example of a health service stretched to breaking point due to underfunding by the Conservatives,” said the shadow health minister Justin Madders. The CQC’s report into the hospital’s A&E and acute medical units said: “We spoke with a patient on ward 18 who told us they had repeatedly asked staff for a bath or shower and had been told it wasn’t their job to provide this. Two other patients on this ward told us they would like to have their hair washed, but staff told them they were too busy. “The nurse in charge … said staff were often too busy to provide personal care and this meant some patients could go up to two months without having their hair washed,” it added. “In the acute medical unit one patient told us they had to use pads for incontinence because staff were too busy to help them use a commode. They said they felt very embarrassed because it meant they went to sleep with dirty pads. The nurse in charge … said patients were encouraged to wear pads because there were not enough staff for the volume of patients who would use commodes.” Ministers’ “incompetent” decision in 2010 to cut the number of nurse training places had helped create the staff shortages that are common across the NHS, Madders said. “Nurses have been consistently saying for several years that they are so stretched they often find they are unable to complete all the tasks on their shift.” Lewisham and Greenwich NHS trust, which runs the hospital, said: “We welcome the CQC’s report. The report does note that we have made progress since the last CQC inspection in February 2013, and we are pleased that our staff received a rating of ‘good’ for providing a caring, kind, and compassionate service. “We recognise there is more to do and we have a detailed programme of improvements to our emergency pathway, and care in our wards,” it added. The findings emerged as the Commons health select committee warned that hospitals could struggle to cope in the face of a winter that will be “substantially more difficult” than last year’s. So many hospitals now fail to meet the target of treating 95% of emergency patients within four hours that patient safety is at risk, the cross-party group of MPs warned in a report on how winter pressures affect A&E units. “The winter of 2015-16 was mild and the flu vaccine worked. We heard of a fear amongst leaders of acute NHS trusts that 2016-17 could be substantially more difficult,” the report said. Philip Dunne, the health minister, said: “The NHS is better prepared for winter than ever before, with plans in place to help hospitals cope with additional demand – and the NHS is performing well despite the pressure of an ageing population, with nine out of 10 people seen in A&E within four hours.”
Radiohead to headline Primavera as they announce first shows since 2012 Radiohead’s first live shows since 2012 have been announced. The group will headline at Primavera Sound festival in Barcelona, on 2-4 June, NOS Alive in Lisbon on 8 July and at the OpenAir St Gallen festival in Switzerland, where they will play on Saturday 2 July. Primavera has announced its other headliners for 2016: PJ Harvey and LCD Soundsystem. Among the other acts at the event will be Tame Impala, Suede, Sigur Rós, the Last Shadow Puppets, Animal Collective, Brian Wilson, Air and Kamasi Washington. Radiohead have not played live since their last world tour ended on 17 November 2012, with a show at the Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne, Australia. They are expected to release a new album soon. The most recent pointer to an imminent release was the discovery that the band had created a new company, Dawn Chorus LLP. They also created companies before the release of In Rainbows in 2007 and The King of Limbs in 2010. Fans waiting for more gig dates and the new album can console themselves with the one piece of music Radiohead have put out recently, their rejected theme tune to the James Bond film Spectre.
William H Macy: 'It was 104 degrees and I had on thermals, shirt, hoodie, jacket and muffler' It’s 98 degrees and William H Macy is melting. We’re in a cafe in Studio City, at the east end of California’s San Fernando Valley, and the actor is talking about coming towards the end of his yearly stint shooting Shameless, the US remake of the British show. “Yesterday I was in Pasadena,” he says, “and it was 104 degrees. We did three exterior scenes in a row. I was wearing sneakers and jeans, thermal underwear, then a flannel shirt, then a hoodie, then my jacket, then my big giant fake-wool muffler, right? Because it was supposed to be Chicago in the winter. It was brutal. I have a $100 bet with some of the crew that when we do the other half of those scenes in actual Chicago, it’ll be the hottest day in Chicago history. So I’ll burn alive – twice!” Macy looks well, though, much better than he did when I interviewed him in 1998. Back then, he was still the clean-shaven, nervous, only newly famous and newly married guy who’d just played Jerry Lundegaard in Fargo, the role that catapulted him to fame after years on stage and TV. We somehow ate and drank for four hours. Today, he has the raggedy, hairy look of his Shameless character Frank Gallagher, and it suits him, strengthening the famously awkward, jowly face that got him cast as so many “beautiful losers” (avoid that term in his presence) in the 1990s and beyond. Wearing a crisp white shirt over a white T-shirt, he looks the very picture of a trim and healthy Californian in his 60s. We’re here to talk about Blood Father, a violent Mel Gibson revenge drama in which Macy plays Mel’s trailer-park neighbour and Alcoholics Anonymous sponsor. Gibson is busy protecting his wayward daughter from gangsters she’s been associating with; there is, as one expects from a Gibson project, a good deal of bloodletting. Gibson looks terrifying, I say, pumped up and fully bearded, like he’s just stepped out of a wild west wanted poster. “I had a start when I first saw him,” Macy says, with widening eyes. “He’s built like a tank – he’s in such great shape, his eyes, arms all buffed like … he’s Mel Gibson, man! He’s the best Mel Gibson I’ve ever seen.” He laughs. “And by a lot! Nobody does it better!” Blood Father is a good, old-fashioned drive-in thriller and Gibson is amazing in it, raw, furious, burning with anger and vengeance. But he still manages to leave room for scene-stealer Macy, who has the kind of role that actors working in long-running TV dramas find they have to fight for during their down time. Macy has expressed disdain for serial character work in films: the chasing (though he has to do less of that these days) and just the sheer hassle of standing around miles from home, waiting an eternity for new camera set-ups and then delivering a few seconds of actual acting. “I’m not so rabid about getting something going in each hiatus any more,” he says. “First of all, I’m always knackered. I’m gonna need a long lie down after shooting all of this. It’s not nothing, shooting a lot of TV in a very short time, and Shameless has lots of drama, farce and energy. But really, TV has been such a blessing for me. The aforementioned staying at home. I’m pretty sure my family are happy to have me home.” He chuckles. “Uh, pretty sure.” He would even go as far as to say TV has been his salvation, especially at his age. Now 66, he’s been on Shameless since he was 58, and loves being able to drive his teenage kids to school every day. The uprooting process of heading to movie locations in different states, or even continents, is largely a thing of the past. He’s been married to fellow actor Felicity Huffman since 1997 and, every morning as he heads off to Shameless, she’s getting ready for her own TV show, American Crime, now shooting its third season (before that it was Desperate Housewives). Evidently, there is some serious life-work balance in the household. “I love the fact that I work every day,” he says, with that beatific look of his. “This may sound pretentious, but I am getting better at what I do every day. There is nothing like practice. In the feature film world, there’s so much waiting around and then it’s zero-to-60. Then you grind to a halt all, then it’s zero-to-60. But on TV I’m acting a lot, every day.” I wonder what it’s like to live with a character for as long as he has lived with Frank Gallagher, an indefensible monster half the time, a wayward alcoholic conman and professional layabout. “Well, first of all, I don’t have to defend Frank. Second, define ‘monster’.” Suddenly Macy has shaken off the torpor. “You see my drift? I could do this all day. I love him. He’s hard-working, let’s give him that. There’s a party wherever he goes. He’s never really hurt anyone badly – well, not too badly. He’s entrepreneurial, he’s living his passion. His raison d’être is to not work. It hasn’t been easy over the years, but he’s learned, and he has never worked.” A slightly menacing tone, straight from one of Frank’s crueller hangovers, has emerged. “I fuckin’ love him. I’m his best friend. He doesn’t have many friends, just me.” We talk a while about the US election, how Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump – though very different – might have finally broken the tradition of mealy-mouthed, say-nothing political rhetoric. “Sanders was so straightforward,” says Macy. “Ask him a question, he’ll answer it. And give Trump his due: when he talks, he does, unlike most politicians, reveal some of himself. I mean, there’s not much thought behind what he says – and it’s horrifying what he’s revealing – but I pray this changes the bar for conventional politicians, because nothing annoys me more than obfuscating speech and not answering a question, not copping to it honestly. Maybe that’ll be different.” Since Trump seems to wish upon us a return to some kind of an imaginary paradise from the past, I ask Macy, as we part, which era he would go back to. “I think 1971,” he says, and I expect him to mention his old theatre days with the likes of David Mamet and Joe Mantegna. But no, he doesn’t see the old gang much any more. “We’ve all gone our own ways,” he says. “For me, it would be all about what cars came out that year, no doubt about it.” Then he lowers himself into his nifty vintage Porsche and, with that big Macy smile, drives off into the sun. Blood Father is out now in the US, released in the UK on 7 October.
The death of neoliberalism and the crisis in western politics The western financial crisis of 2007-8 was the worst since 1931, yet its immediate repercussions were surprisingly modest. The crisis challenged the foundation stones of the long-dominant neoliberal ideology but it seemed to emerge largely unscathed. The banks were bailed out; hardly any bankers on either side of the Atlantic were prosecuted for their crimes; and the price of their behaviour was duly paid by the taxpayer. Subsequent economic policy, especially in the Anglo-Saxon world, has relied overwhelmingly on monetary policy, especially quantitative easing. It has failed. The western economy has stagnated and is now approaching its lost decade, with no end in sight. After almost nine years, we are finally beginning to reap the political whirlwind of the financial crisis. But how did neoliberalism manage to survive virtually unscathed for so long? Although it failed the test of the real world, bequeathing the worst economic disaster for seven decades, politically and intellectually it remained the only show in town. Parties of the right, centre and left had all bought into its philosophy, New Labour a classic in point. They knew no other way of thinking or doing: it had become the common sense. It was, as Antonio Gramsci put it, hegemonic. But that hegemony cannot and will not survive the test of the real world. The first inkling of the wider political consequences was evident in the turn in public opinion against the banks, bankers and business leaders. For decades, they could do no wrong: they were feted as the role models of our age, the default troubleshooters of choice in education, health and seemingly everything else. Now, though, their star was in steep descent, along with that of the political class. The effect of the financial crisis was to undermine faith and trust in the competence of the governing elites. It marked the beginnings of a wider political crisis. But the causes of this political crisis, glaringly evident on both sides of the Atlantic, are much deeper than simply the financial crisis and the virtually stillborn recovery of the last decade. They go to the heart of the neoliberal project that dates from the late 70s and the political rise of Reagan and Thatcher, and embraced at its core the idea of a global free market in goods, services and capital. The depression-era system of bank regulation was dismantled, in the US in the 1990s and in Britain in 1986, thereby creating the conditions for the 2008 crisis. Equality was scorned, the idea of trickle-down economics lauded, government condemned as a fetter on the market and duly downsized, immigration encouraged, regulation cut to a minimum, taxes reduced and a blind eye turned to corporate evasion. It should be noted that, by historical standards, the neoliberal era has not had a particularly good track record. The most dynamic period of postwar western growth was that between the end of the war and the early 70s, the era of welfare capitalism and Keynesianism, when the growth rate was double that of the neoliberal period from 1980 to the present. But by far the most disastrous feature of the neoliberal period has been the huge growth in inequality. Until very recently, this had been virtually ignored. With extraordinary speed, however, it has emerged as one of, if not the most important political issue on both sides of the Atlantic, most dramatically in the US. It is, bar none, the issue that is driving the political discontent that is now engulfing the west. Given the statistical evidence, it is puzzling, shocking even, that it has been disregarded for so long; the explanation can only lie in the sheer extent of the hegemony of neoliberalism and its values. But now reality has upset the doctrinal apple cart. In the period 1948-1972, every section of the American population experienced very similar and sizable increases in their standard of living; between 1972-2013, the bottom 10% experienced falling real income while the top 10% did far better than everyone else. In the US, the median real income for full-time male workers is now lower than it was four decades ago: the income of the bottom 90% of the population has stagnated for over 30 years. A not so dissimilar picture is true of the UK. And the problem has grown more serious since the financial crisis. On average, between 65-70% of households in 25 high-income economies experienced stagnant or falling real incomes between 2005 and 2014. The reasons are not difficult to explain. The hyper-globalisation era has been systematically stacked in favour of capital against labour: international trading agreements, drawn up in great secrecy, with business on the inside and the unions and citizens excluded, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) being but the latest examples; the politico-legal attack on the unions; the encouragement of large-scale immigration in both the US and Europe that helped to undermine the bargaining power of the domestic workforce; and the failure to retrain displaced workers in any meaningful way. As Thomas Piketty has shown, in the absence of countervailing pressures, capitalism naturally gravitates towards increasing inequality. In the period between 1945 and the late 70s, Cold War competition was arguably the biggest such constraint. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, there have been none. As the popular backlash grows increasingly irresistible, however, such a winner-takes-all regime becomes politically unsustainable. Large sections of the population in both the US and the UK are now in revolt against their lot, as graphically illustrated by the support for Trump and Sanders in the US and the Brexit vote in the UK. This popular revolt is often described, in a somewhat denigratory and dismissive fashion, as populism. Or, as Francis Fukuyama writes in a recent excellent essay in Foreign Affairs: “‘Populism’ is the label that political elites attach to policies supported by ordinary citizens that they don’t like.” Populism is a movement against the status quo. It represents the beginnings of something new, though it is generally much clearer about what it is against than what it is for. It can be progressive or reactionary, but more usually both. Brexit is a classic example of such populism. It has overturned a fundamental cornerstone of UK policy since the early 1970s. Though ostensibly about Europe, it was in fact about much more: a cri de coeur from those who feel they have lost out and been left behind, whose living standards have stagnated or worse since the 1980s, who feel dislocated by large-scale immigration over which they have no control and who face an increasingly insecure and casualised labour market. Their revolt has paralysed the governing elite, already claimed one prime minister, and left the latest one fumbling around in the dark looking for divine inspiration. The wave of populism marks the return of class as a central agency in politics, both in the UK and the US. This is particularly remarkable in the US. For many decades, the idea of the “working class” was marginal to American political discourse. Most Americans described themselves as middle class, a reflection of the aspirational pulse at the heart of American society. According to a Gallup poll, in 2000 only 33% of Americans called themselves working class; by 2015 the figure was 48%, almost half the population. Brexit, too, was primarily a working-class revolt. Hitherto, on both sides of the Atlantic, the agency of class has been in retreat in the face of the emergence of a new range of identities and issues from gender and race to sexual orientation and the environment. The return of class, because of its sheer reach, has the potential, like no other issue, to redefine the political landscape. The re-emergence of class should not be confused with the labour movement. They are not synonymous: this is obvious in the US and increasingly the case in the UK. Indeed, over the last half-century, there has been a growing separation between the two in Britain. The re-emergence of the working class as a political voice in Britain, most notably in the Brexit vote, can best be described as an inchoate expression of resentment and protest, with only a very weak sense of belonging to the labour movement. Indeed, Ukip has been as important – in the form of immigration and Europe – in shaping its current attitudes as the Labour party. In the United States, both Trump and Sanders have given expression to the working-class revolt, the latter almost as much as the former. The working class belongs to no one: its orientation, far from predetermined, as the left liked to think, is a function of politics. The neoliberal era is being undermined from two directions. First, if its record of economic growth has never been particularly strong, it is now dismal. Europe is barely larger than it was on the eve of the financial crisis in 2007; the United States has done better but even its growth has been anaemic. Economists such as Larry Summers believe that the prospect for the future is most likely one of secular stagnation. Worse, because the recovery has been so weak and fragile, there is a widespread belief that another financial crisis may well beckon. In other words, the neoliberal era has delivered the west back into the kind of crisis-ridden world that we last experienced in the 1930s. With this background, it is hardly surprising that a majority in the west now believe their children will be worse off than they were. Second, those who have lost out in the neoliberal era are no longer prepared to acquiesce in their fate – they are increasingly in open revolt. We are witnessing the end of the neoliberal era. It is not dead, but it is in its early death throes, just as the social-democratic era was during the 1970s. A sure sign of the declining influence of neoliberalism is the rising chorus of intellectual voices raised against it. From the mid-70s through the 80s, the economic debate was increasingly dominated by monetarists and free marketeers. But since the western financial crisis, the centre of gravity of the intellectual debate has shifted profoundly. This is most obvious in the United States, with economists such as Joseph Stiglitz, Paul Krugman, Dani Rodrik and Jeffrey Sachs becoming increasingly influential. Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century has been a massive seller. His work and that of Tony Atkinson and Angus Deaton have pushed the question of the inequality to the top of the political agenda. In the UK, Ha-Joon Chang, for long isolated within the economics profession, has gained a following far greater than those who think economics is a branch of mathematics. Meanwhile, some of those who were previously strong advocates of a neoliberal approach, such as Larry Summers and the Financial Times’s Martin Wolf, have become extremely critical. The wind is in the sails of the critics of neoliberalism; the neoliberals and monetarists are in retreat. In the UK, the media and political worlds are well behind the curve. Few recognise that we are at the end of an era. Old attitudes and assumptions still predominate, whether on the BBC’s Today programme, in the rightwing press or the parliamentary Labour party. Following Ed Miliband’s resignation as Labour leader, virtually no one foresaw the triumph of Jeremy Corbyn in the subsequent leadership election. The assumption had been more of the same, a Blairite or a halfway house like Miliband, certainly not anyone like Corbyn. But the zeitgeist had changed. The membership, especially the young who had joined the party on an unprecedented scale, wanted a complete break with New Labour. One of the reasons why the left has failed to emerge as the leader of the new mood of working-class disillusionment is that most social democratic parties became, in varying degrees, disciples of neoliberalism and uber-globalisation. The most extreme forms of this phenomenon were New Labour and the Democrats, who in the late 90s and 00s became its advance guard, personified by Tony Blair and Bill Clinton, triangulation and the third way. But as David Marquand observed in a review for the New Statesman, what is the point of a social democratic party if it doesn’t represent the less fortunate, the underprivileged and the losers? New Labour deserted those who needed them, who historically they were supposed to represent. Is it surprising that large sections have now deserted the party who deserted them? Blair, in his reincarnation as a money-obsessed consultant to a shady bunch of presidents and dictators, is a fitting testament to the demise of New Labour. The rival contenders – Burnham, Cooper and Kendall – represented continuity. They were swept away by Corbyn, who won nearly 60% of the votes. New Labour was over, as dead as Monty Python’s parrot. Few grasped the meaning of what had happened. A leader welcomed the surge in membership and then, lo and behold, urged support for Yvette Cooper, the very antithesis of the reason for the enthusiasm. The PLP refused to accept the result and ever since has tried with might and main to remove Corbyn. Just as the Labour party took far too long to come to terms with the rise of Thatcherism and the birth of a new era at the end of the 70s, now it could not grasp that the Thatcherite paradigm, which they eventually came to embrace in the form of New Labour, had finally run its course. Labour, like everyone else, is obliged to think anew. The membership in their antipathy to New Labour turned to someone who had never accepted the latter, who was the polar opposite in almost every respect of Blair, and embodying an authenticity and decency which Blair patently did not. Corbyn is not a product of the new times, he is a throwback to the late 70s and early 80s. That is both his strength and also his weakness. He is uncontaminated by the New Labour legacy because he has never accepted it. But nor, it would seem, does he understand the nature of the new era. The danger is that he is possessed of feet of clay in what is a highly fluid and unpredictable political environment, devoid of any certainties of almost any kind, in which Labour finds itself dangerously divided and weakened. Labour may be in intensive care, but the condition of the Conservatives is not a great deal better. David Cameron was guilty of a huge and irresponsible miscalculation over Brexit. He was forced to resign in the most ignominious of circumstances. The party is hopelessly divided. It has no idea in which direction to move after Brexit. The Brexiters painted an optimistic picture of turning away from the declining European market and embracing the expanding markets of the world, albeit barely mentioning by name which countries it had in mind. It looks as if the new prime minister may have an anachronistic hostility towards China and a willingness to undo the good work of George Osborne. If the government turns its back on China, by far the fastest growing market in the world, where are they going to turn? Brexit has left the country fragmented and deeply divided, with the very real prospect that Scotland might choose independence. Meanwhile, the Conservatives seem to have little understanding that the neoliberal era is in its death throes. Dramatic as events have been in the UK, they cannot compare with those in the United States. Almost from nowhere, Donald Trump rose to capture the Republican nomination and confound virtually all the pundits and not least his own party. His message was straightforwardly anti-globalisation. He believes that the interests of the working class have been sacrificed in favour of the big corporations that have been encouraged to invest around the world and thereby deprive American workers of their jobs. Further, he argues that large-scale immigration has weakened the bargaining power of American workers and served to lower their wages. He proposes that US corporations should be required to invest their cash reserves in the US. He believes that the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) has had the effect of exporting American jobs to Mexico. On similar grounds, he is opposed to the TPP and the TTIP. And he also accuses China of stealing American jobs, threatening to impose a 45% tariff on Chinese imports. To globalisation Trump counterposes economic nationalism: “Put America first”. His appeal, above all, is to the white working class who, until Trump’s (and Bernie Sander’s) arrival on the political scene, had been ignored and largely unrepresented since the 1980s. Given that their wages have been falling for most of the last 40 years, it is extraordinary how their interests have been neglected by the political class. Increasingly, they have voted Republican, but the Republicans have long been captured by the super-rich and Wall Street, whose interests, as hyper-globalisers, have run directly counter to those of the white working class. With the arrival of Trump they finally found a representative: they won Trump the Republican nomination. The economic nationalist argument has also been vigorously pursued by Bernie Sanders, who ran Hillary Clinton extremely close for the Democratic nomination and would probably have won but for more than 700 so-called super-delegates, who were effectively chosen by the Democratic machine and overwhelmingly supported Clinton. As in the case of the Republicans, the Democrats have long supported a neoliberal, pro-globalisation strategy, notwithstanding the concerns of its trade union base. Both the Republicans and the Democrats now find themselves deeply polarised between the pro- and anti-globalisers, an entirely new development not witnessed since the shift towards neoliberalism under Reagan almost 40 years ago. Another plank of Trump’s nationalist appeal – “Make America great again” – is his position on foreign policy. He believes that America’s pursuit of great power status has squandered the nation’s resources. He argues that the country’s alliance system is unfair, with America bearing most of the cost and its allies contributing far too little. He points to Japan and South Korea, and Nato’s European members as prime examples.He seeks to rebalance these relationships and, failing that, to exit from them. As a country in decline, he argues that America can no longer afford to carry this kind of financial burden. Rather than putting the world to rights, he believes the money should be invested at home, pointing to the dilapidated state of America’s infrastructure. Trump’s position represents a major critique of America as the world’s hegemon. His arguments mark a radical break with the neoliberal, hyper-globalisation ideology that has reigned since the early 1980s and with the foreign policy orthodoxy of most of the postwar period. These arguments must be taken seriously. They should not be lightly dismissed just because of their authorship. But Trump is no man of the left. He is a populist of the right. He has launched a racist and xenophobic attack on Muslims and on Mexicans. Trump’s appeal is to a white working class that feels it has been cheated by the big corporations, undermined by Hispanic immigration, and often resentful towards African-Americans who for long too many have viewed as their inferior. A Trump America would mark a descent into authoritarianism characterised by abuse, scapegoating, discrimination, racism, arbitrariness and violence; America would become a deeply polarised and divided society. His threat to impose 45% tariffs on China, if implemented, would certainly provoke retaliation by the Chinese and herald the beginnings of a new era of protectionism. Trump may well lose the presidential election just as Sanders failed in his bid for the Democrat nomination. But this does not mean that the forces opposed to hyper-globalisation – unrestricted immigration, TPP and TTIP, the free movement of capital and much else – will have lost the argument and are set to decline. In little more than 12 months, Trump and Sanders have transformed the nature and terms of the argument. Far from being on the wane, the arguments of the critics of hyper-globalisation are steadily gaining ground. Roughly two-thirds of Americans agree that “we should not think so much in international terms but concentrate more on our own national problems”. And, above all else, what will continue to drive opposition to the hyper-globalisers is inequality.
Middlesbrough v Swansea City: match preview With a tally of just 13 goals in 16 games, Middlesbrough are the Premier League’s lowest scorers and there will be reason for anxiety on Teesside should Aitor Karanka’s shot shy side struggle to break down Swansea’s generous defence. This latest relegation six pointer represents the start of a potentially season-defining run of, on paper at least, winnable games for Swansea whose next four fixtures pit Bob Bradley’s side against West Ham, Bournemouth, Crystal Palace and Hull. Louise Taylor Kick-off Saturday 3pm Venue Riverside Stadium Last season n/a Referee Neil Swarbrick This season G9, Y38, R0, 4.22 cards per game Odds H 7-6 A 3-1 D 5-2 Middlesbrough Subs from Guzan, Ayala, Da Silva, Leadbitter, Espinosa, Nsue, Downing, Fischer, Rhodes, Nugent, De Sart Doubtful Negredo (match fitness), Ramírez (foot), Rhodes (match fitness) Injured Stuani (foot, unknown) Suspended None Form DLDWLL Discipline Y33 R0 Leading scorers Negredo, Stuani 3 Swansea City Subs from Nordfeldt, Mawson, Kingsley, Dyer, Bastón, McBurnie, Barrow, Van der Hoorn, Ki, Cork, Fer, Naughton Doubtful Ki (toe) Injured Fernández (toe, unknown) Suspended None Form LDWLWL Discipline Y26 R0 Leading scorer Fer 6
Faced with EU migration panic, Britain makes for the rabbit hole More than a million migrants landed in Europe last year, the vast majority in Greece. There are more than 2m Syrian refugees in Turkey, more than a million in Lebanon, and maybe more than a million in Jordan. Some 250,000 Syrians have been killed since the civil war erupted four years ago. Isis is still on the rampage and now installed in Libya. The Iraqi economy is in a chronic state as a result of the sharp fall in the price of oil. Faced with burgeoning crises, at home and throughout the Middle East - its neighbour - Europe is weak, its voice muted. s not cocooned in the village of Westminster or EU chancelleries might be forgiven for asking why so much time and energy is spent arguing about such matters as transitional benefits in Britain for east European workers relating to a minute fraction of the number of displaced people threatening political stability throughout the continent. One (unidentifed) German policymaker told the Financial Times’ columinst, Gideon Rachman on Tuesday: “The European house is burning down and Britain wants to waste time re-arranging the furniture”. Would Britain be isolated from the crises facing Europe if it left the EU? What does “national sovereignty” mean in face of global multinational companies, data-sharing deals (such as the one just negotiated between the EU and US), or negotiations on environment protection or climate change? At least we should ask the question. On the security front, the support Theresa May, Britain’s home secretary, gave on Tuesday to David Cameron’s initial “new settlement” of the UK’s relations with the EU is significant. She knows that EU cooperation, including European Arrest Warrants, is crucial in the fight against crime and countering the threat from terrorists. As I have mentioned before, Britain’s security and intelligence agencies, including senior Scotland Yard officers, want the UK to remain a member of the EU. So does Nato’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg. “A strong European Union with a strong Britain is good for Nato’, he said on Monday, “For Nato it is important to have a strong Europe...A strong Britain in a strong Europe is contributing to stability.” Vladimir Putin would welcome Brexit, as it would weaken the EU and probably push its centre of gravity away from the US. It is time for a root and branch shake-up of the EU, a new across-the-board settlement, plugging its democratic deficit but also stepping up practical cooperation in areas such as countering terrorism, thrashed out in the interests of all of its 28 members. If it prompted a constructive debate about the EU’s internal workings and also its relations with the rest of the world - about its potential huge influence - then the debate over Brexit may have served a real purpose.
Campaign catchup: Labor tears into broadband boss It was a big day for news of the NBN, on pretty much every count except when and how we’ll get faster internet. Please, for the love of #auspol, let us get faster internet! Fairfax reported on Wednesday that Ziggy Switkowski, the NBN chairman, wilfully breached caretaker conventions during an election campaign. Following the AFP raids on Labor offices in May, he wrote an opinion piece for Fairfax in late May in which he made no apologies for calling in the feds. His comment piece was an apparent breach of civil service campaign impartiality and he was advised by the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet not to go public. He did anyway. In a letter to Labor’s Tony Burke, the department’s head, Martin Parkinson, said the caretaker conventions have no legal force – but the “apolitical and impartial nature of the public service” was a matter of the highest priority. Bill Shorten said that this was a “shameful breach” from “an otherwise respected businessman … Yet again NBN Co are doubling down on the cover-up, the denial”. He also pointed out that Switkowski was appointed chair by Turnbull, which he said left the PM in a bind. “On one hand if he doesn’t sack Dr Switkowski or take action, he’s condoning a breach of caretaker conventions. If he does, it confirms the game is up in terms of how NBN has been going in the last three years.” Mitch Fifield, the communications minister, had earlier answered questions on Adelaide radio about the NBN’s recruitment policy, following revelations that workers were being sought from Ireland. Fifield said individual subcontractors might have be seeking skills that they can’t “source domestically” but that are, it seems, rife in Ireland. “But NBN, for its part, are doing everything they possibly can to make sure that money is available to train Australians to work on the project.” Meanwhile, the executive appointed by Turnbull to run NBN Co appears likely to be called as a witness in legal actions under way in the US, flowing from one of the worst utility disasters in the country’s history. It’s a clear choice, says impartial commentator Turnbull took us back to where the campaign began with his talk of company tax cuts for businesses with turnovers between $2m and $10m in Swan, Perth. He said 15% of workers in Swan work for such businesses – significant because Labor opposes tax cuts for businesses with a turnover more than $2m, which it does not class as small biz. Turnbull seemed in quite high spirits that the process was under way, with pre-polls open as of Tuesday: “People are voting today. People voted yesterday.” Later, he said that he was backing the “wisdom” and “judgement” of the Australian people to elect the Coalition to another term. Except he didn’t say that exactly he said “the right choice, today and every day through to 2 July”. Essential Polling has the two-party preferred vote at Labor 51 to Coalition 49, compared with 50-50 last week. The only thing in the primary vote numbers that has changed is Labor is up one from 36% to 37%, off the back of independents/others, down one. “Others” do not include Xenophon who remains on 4% nationally. Shorten said he would “never be so arrogant” as to predict Labor would win: “Apart from any other reason, the election hasn’t been held.” That does seem to be the rub. Who’s afraid of the big bad treasurer? Scott Morrison’s really come into his own this campaign. It turns out the treasurer had a whole other skill set that we were previously unaware of, and that’s in demand this election: hyperbole. He has held another comical presser to unveil a new television commercial, “The Greening of Labor”: that’s right, another list of the mad things Labor would do to the economy in tandem with the Greens and the independents, because we’d gone a few days without a reminder. He said it was “hard-hitting” and “there for all to see”, and also a “truth campaign”, which is definitely not the same thing as a scare campaign. Australia’s Gabrielle Chan said it was the product of both parties’ figures being put in a blender and set to a rock’n’roll backing track. You be the judge: The Mad Hatter, a figure in #auspol Twitter, made this comparison. Shorten didn’t seem too bothered by Morrison’s material: “He’s proven he’s an even worse filmmaker than he is treasurer. That takes some beating.” Australia’s political editor, Lenore Taylor, pointed out that Morrison’s increasingly shrill tactics might yet come back to bite him. If there’s a chance the Coalition will have to govern with the help of independents – and there is! – it might be wise not to ramp up the rhetoric too high. And while we’re on new and unusual campaign ads, it would be remiss not to share this one, from Bob Katter. Not sure about his constituents, but it doesn’t seem to work for many of his political colleagues. Further reading • Mining minister used mining company email address but claims “filter” stopped conflict (Crikey, $) The former Tasmanian mining minister used an email account at his mining company while holding the portfolio. It’s fine, he says: he had a filter to stop him seeing things he shouldn’t. Is this a Google Labs feature we don’t know about? • Australian Christian Lobby: the rise and fall of the religious right (The Conversation) “We see their spokespeople quoted in the papers and their ads on TV, but beyond that we know very little about how Australia’s lobby groups get what they want.” This series looks like it will be worth keeping an eye on. • Tickets are still available for the Live election panel discussions with Lenore Taylor and Katharine Murphy. Sydney’s event is from 7pm tonight at Giant Dwarf on Cleveland St, while Melbourne is slated for next Tuesday. Meanwhile, in the rest of the world ... A two-year-old boy has been taken by an alligator in the Seven Seas Lagoon near Disney’s Grand Floridian resort in Orlando, Florida. The father waded into the water to attempt to wrestle his son from the animal’s jaws but was unsuccessful. The family of five – on holiday from Nebraska – was “simply relaxing” on the beach at the time of the incident, said Sheriff Jerry Demings of Orange County. Never miss another catchup: If you’re reading this in the app, tap on ‘Australian election briefing’ at the top or bottom of this page, then tap on ‘Follow series’ to get an app notification as soon as the Campaign catchup publishes every afternoon.
Notes on Blindness review: a beautiful, accessible and thoughtful one-off After theologian John Hull lost his sight in the early 1980s, he began to document his observations on blindness on hundreds of cassette tapes. An academic dedicated to deep thinking, he spent years recording vignettes in a melancholy Australian lilt. This does not sound like the stuff of era-defining documentary, but Peter Middleton and James Spinney have made a miraculous piece of work that combines lip-synced recreations of Hull’s verbal adventures with stagings of Hull’s vivid dreams of sightedness. Over 85 minutes, we dip in and out of the life of a man trapped in visual darkness, but whose imagination is ravishingly bright. Hull’s immaculately recorded tapes feature cameo appearances from his wife Marilyn and five children, documenting his gradual acceptance of blindness, understood through the comfort and routine of home and family life. The lip-syncing from Dan Skinner (Hull) and Simone Kirby (Marilyn) is naturalistic and immaculately performed, without the intentional artificiality of the same technique in The Arbor, the documentary to which it’s most usefully (if superficially) comparable. Where that was all anger and provocation, this is all poetry and love. You’ll quickly forget that this isn’t the real John and Marilyn in front of you – Middleton and Spinney have us rooting for them. A slow dance between them to Dedicated to the One I Love is a moment of tearjerking twilight-lit closeness, undercut by the following bizarre dream sequence of a flooded supermarket where the two lovers are unable to connect. Throughout the film we fear they could drift apart, but moments of closeness and love keep coming back. These aesthetic flourishes could take the film too close to fiction for documentary purists. But it’s Hull himself, who died in 2015, that is the documentary element here, a pioneer of selfies decades before the word was invented. Arguably Hull isn’t only the writer of every word we hear, he’s a co-director of the film. He offers moments of startling and sudden emotional rush, including a very funny and very beautiful scene where Hull outwits a faith healer and reflects on the experience, and a sad Christmas where Hull struggles to maintain his spirits as presents are opened. Hull’s son Thomas grows as a character, performing entertaining verbal shows for him, participating in a school gate farewell routine, and accepting Hull’s blindness with the confused indifference only a small child can. The documentary could take a turn for the saccharine but a trip to Australia halfway through the film offers a different path. We see Hull/Skinner retracing the steps of his youth in changed or abandoned locations, there’s a terrifying moment of family panic, and Middleton and Spinney turn up the dial on Hull’s sense of losing his visual memories. Goodbye not only to Australia, but to his parents and the details of decades of his life. Documentaries reliant on recreation can be embarrassingly literal, but the genius of the film is in allowing us to understand and visualise the world of blindness without having to be patronised. To that end, the documentary is touring in some locations with a magical VR experience that expands Hull’s limited visual world into an experience of ghostly figures and floating bodies. As documentary VR, this is a major leap forward in the form that’s exciting to see – seeing documentary without VR experience or vice-versa means audiences miss the complete experience of Hull’s blindness. Hull’s is a one-off story. It’s entirely appropriate that he’s got a one-off documentary treatment that pushes the form. This is a beautiful, accessible and thoughtful work of art.
Trump presents vision for creating 25m jobs in economic policy speech Donald Trump attempted to combat widespread criticism of his sketchy economic policies by setting out what he presented as a new vision for the country that he audaciously claimed would create 25m new jobs in a decade and put the American worker first. Addressing one of the country’s most august economic debating societies, the Economic Club of New York, the Republican presidential nominee sought to dispel the criticism that has dogged his campaign that his mathematics do not add up in balancing tax cuts and new spending. Sticking closely to a pre-prepared script – despite an initial malfunctioning of his teleprompter - he delivered a speech that was billed in advance by his senior advisers as the culmination of his thinking on how to get America back to work. “American cars will travel the roads,” he said, “American planes will soar the skies, American ships will patrol the seas, American steel will send new skyscrapers into the clouds, American hands will rebuild this nation, and American energy harvested from American sources will power this nation.” Despite the unapologetically populist tone, Trump tried to puncture criticisms that his plan lacked substance by putting figures to his ambitions. He projected 25m new jobs would be created broadly within the timeframe of a two-term Trump presidency, as a result of an average annual growth rate that would rise from current projections of about 2% to 3.5% through his tax-cutting and trade policies. The audaciousness of that boast is underlined by comparison with previous presidents. It would bring American job creation levels back to the golden days enjoyed by Bill Clinton in the 1990s when the dotcom boom and an expanding global economy saw 21m jobs created under his watch. By contrast, Barack Obama’s two terms in the White House have seen almost 10m jobs created within a sluggish recovery from the 2008 collapse. Even more audaciously, Trump said he could achieve such a boon to employment while keeping the national budget deficit neutral. “If we achieve 4% growth it will reduce the deficit,” he said. Buoyed by new polls showing him in effect tied nationally with his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, the real estate billionaire said he could pull off such a turnaround in the US economy through a combination of traditional conservative tax cutting and by tearing up trade deals and bringing jobs back to America from Mexico and China. His words were given added poignancy, though he did not make overt reference to the fact, by the setting of his speech in the ballroom of the Waldorf Astoria on Park Avenue, a legendary hotel bought by a Chinese insurance company in 2014. On taxes, Trump proposed to simplify the tax code into three brackets down from seven, and to take poor earners out of tax altogether with individuals with an income under $25,000 (£19,000) and married couples under $50,000 paying no tax. However, with his tax cuts applying to all earners, no matter how wealthy, they would have a regressive effect. The Tax Policy Center has calculated the richest 0.1% would on average see tax cuts under his plan of $1.3m in 2017 compared with just $5,100 for everybody else. Trump tried to counter that criticism that he was putting forward policies that would benefit the 1% by modelling how average families would fare under his vision. A married couple earning $5m a year with two children and $12,000 in child care expenses would only get a 3% reduction in their tax bill, he said, compared with a 35% reduction for a similar couple earning $50,000 and with $8,000 in child care. “People earning $5m will receive virtually no change in their tax bill at all,” he said. But in other parts of his address, he underlined reforms that would be to the advantage of wealthy Americans, including his proposed abolition of the estate tax that is only paid on inheritances valued at over $5m. He also repeated his promise to slash the business tax rate from 35% to 15%, earning a robust cheer from the many corporate leaders eating lunch on the ballroom floor in front of him. Trump’s economic manifesto has been widely criticized by analysts. This week the global firm Oxford Economics predicted that the US economy could shrink by $1tn by the end of a single term Trump presidency as a result of his proposed tax cuts, barriers to trade and mass deportation of undocumented immigrants. That would be the equivalent of 5% of US GDP, with knock-on effects for growth around the world. One of the specific sticking points with the Trump plan highlighted by experts has been how the sums add up. On the one hand, he wants to see massive tax cuts, greater he said than any time since President Reagan; but on the other he also wants to pump more money into the US military and to preserve spending on social security and medicare. Independent analysis has calculated that his tax cuts would bring down federal revenues by almost $10tn (trillion) over a decade, leaving even less fat in the system to cover his other ambitions. The point was raised in a question to Trump after his speech from Martin Feldstein, an economics professor from Harvard, who asked the Republican nominee what assets he would deploy to offset the sharp reduction in federal revenue from tax cuts. The candidate replied that he believed “eventually, over time it will work out. The big thing over neutrality is the amount of business we will generate, and how we will stop companies take jobs out of the country”. Despite the new figures that he peppered through his talk, the policy he outlined remained posited on faith that his strong leadership would bring about levels of growth and job creation that have eluded recent incumbents of the Oval Office. “This is what our new future will look like,” he said. “I’m going to lower your taxes, I’m going to get rid of regulation, I’m going to unleash American energy. We are going to put the American worker back to work.”
Marvel's hulking haul: studio's films have grossed $10bn since 2008 Banknotes assemble! With the box office success of Captain America: Civil War, Marvel Studios comic book adaptations have grossed a collective $10bn globally since the new wave of superhero powered movies began in 2008. Marvel has released 13 movies over eight years in its Marvel Cinematic Universe series, starting with the first Iron Man movie. The highest-grossing of the films is still 2012’s The Avengers, which raked in $1.5bn by itself, a figure nearly twice the average gross of the 13 films as of today – $769m each. Civil War registered the fifth-highest opening weekend in history when it opened in theaters on 6 May; by this past Sunday morning, it had already grossed $940.9m. The $10bn earned so far is entirely in the form of ticket dollars, without a penny accounted for among the capacious licensing, merchandising and home video deals associated with the series of movies. The Marvel movies are largely the brainchild of producer Kevin Feige, who has designed them to deploy in at least three “phases” over the course of the next few years, with films featuring the Black Panther, Captain Marvel and Doctor Strange added to the slate years ahead of time. The next film in a sequence threatening to catch up to the James Bond movies in sheer breadth is Doctor Strange, scheduled for a 4 November release. The multi-movie story arcs tend to climax around the Avengers films – the next one isn’t until 2019’s two-part summer film Avengers: Infinity War. The Marvel Comics theatrical films have proved such moneymakers in large part because they play well internationally, with China alone grossing nearly $400m for the new Captain America film, according to statistics provided by the company. It’s good news for Disney, Marvel’s owner, which is suffering along with its competitors in the traditional cable businesses – until recently viewed as a much more reliable revenue generator than theatrical films. Other films in the Disney stable are overperforming, as well – the company’s well-reviewed detective-themed cartoon Zootopia closed the weekend with just under $1bn.
UK cancer death rates to fall by 15% by 2035 due to advances in research Death rates from cancer in the UK will fall by 15% by 2035 thanks to advances in research, diagnosis and treatment, with more Britons living longer after their diagnosis, the charity Cancer Research UK predicts. Breakthroughs will prevent more than 403,000 deaths from the disease by 2035 that would have happened otherwise, according to an analysis from the charity. However, although the risk of death from cancer is likely to fall, the number of people dying from it will continue to rise, because the ageing and growing population will result in more people being diagnosed, the charity said. Those factors, and the rise in cancers linked to bad diet and alcohol, mean that a typical Briton’s chances of getting cancer have recently risen from one in three to one in two. Overall 331 people per 100,000 of population died from any form of cancer in July 2014. But improvements in doctors’ ability to detect, diagnose and treat cancer will see that fall to 280 people per 100,000 of population by 2035, CRUK estimates. “Thanks to research fewer people will die from cancer in the future. We’re resolute that, by 2035, three in four people will survive their cancer for at least 10 years”, said Sir Harpal Kumar, CRUK’s chief executive. “This will mean making more progress in breast, bowel and blood cancers, but also accelerating our effort in those cancers which are currently hard to treat.” Even though more people will die from cancer, the diminishing risk of death shows that cancer research and treatment are still yielding benefits and heading in the right direction, the charity said. For example, CRUK believes mortality rates from bowel cancer will fall by 23% over the next 20 years – from 32 to 25 deaths per 100,000 population – thanks to advances in surgery and chemotherapy and also better screening for the disease. Death rates from breast cancer, the most common form of the disease among women, are projected to drop by 26% to 31 per 100,000 women by 2035. Likewise, mortality rates from lung cancer will be 21% lower by then – at 58 deaths per 100,000 people – according to CRUK’s analysis. But deaths from pancreatic cancer are estimated to fall by only 3%, to 17 deaths per 100,000; and from brain and related tumours by just 2%, to ten deaths per 100,000 people, CRUK said. However, the risk of death will increase for some cancers. For example, the mortality rate for liver cancer is expected to rise by 58% by 2035. Simon Stevens, the chief executive of NHS England, which has made improving cancer outcomes one of its key priorities, said: “These figures underline how the NHS is successfully translating new research and targeted investment into dramatic gains in cancer care. Thanks to improvements over just the past year, an extra 2,400 families will be able to share this Christmas with a loved one who would not have survived cancer a year ago.” CRUK’s statistical information team arrived at their conclusions by applying the difference in the actual cancer mortality rates in 2014 and the projected age-standardised death rates for all cancers combined in the UK between 2015 and 2035 to the Office for National Statistics’ projections for the UK population over the study period. Kumar said that while survival rates for some forms of cancer had improved in recent decades, thanks to the development of new drugs and surgical techniques, the variation in death rates for different forms of cancer was still too wide. For example, mortality rates for brain cancer are likely to remain unchanged over the next 20 years, with just one in five patients surviving for five years. Similarly, just three in 100 people diagnosed with pancreatic cancer live for five years or more after diagnosis.
Weigh your words before mocking the overweight As it’s the new year, the “season to be fit”, perhaps it’s a good time to talk about a time I lost weight – amounting to two to three dress sizes (sorry not to be more specific but, fat or thin, I’ve never felt the urge to weigh myself like cattle are at market). For some people, the only interesting thing would be that I had gained the weight because of a family hypothyroid condition, then lost it with no dieting at all and moderate exercise (two to three hours a week gloomily flailing about on a cross-trainer). The weight gain was a surprise. After a lifetime of effortless skinniness, verging on outright scrawn, I blew up like a lilo. Bigger me was fine about it. I’d love to pretend that it was feminist defiance (“Sisters, hear my cry – I’m taking a holiday from skinny!”), but, in truth, I couldn’t care less. The weight gain seemed like nothing compared to waking up exhausted and shivering with permanent cold. Some days were like a terrible hazy dream of trudging slowly though a dark, labyrinthine ice world. I would walk around the house swathed in blankets like a medieval queen and mainline coffee just to get through the day. Another weird symptom was skin so dry and flaky that one day my entire palm just peeled straight off in a single crackling strip, like the shedding of a snake. Bizarrely, considering my family history, I didn’t suspect a wonky thyroid and was diagnosed by accident via an unconnected blood test (I am now on 125mcg of thyroxine a day). The good news: I got enough energy back to eventually start exercising. The bad news is that exercising sucks – I continue to hate every tedious, sweaty, stupid minute of it. Where art thou, mythical endorphin rush? The weight fell off embarrassingly quickly, considering my mournful predictions about my challenging medical condition. However, this doesn’t prove that other hypothyroid sufferers who say they can’t lose weight are lazy, delusional liars. The auto-immune problems of the thyroid (“hypo” and “hyper”), and the wider endocrine system, are myriad, bewildering, exasperating and far too complex to explain fully here. There’s an ongoing row about poor rates of diagnosis and treatment in this country (including a sidebar on natural versus synthetic treatments). There’s yet more confusion because the symptoms vary from person to person. Hypo symptoms can include extreme fatigue, weakness, weight gain, difficulty losing weight, dry skin, hair loss, muscle cramps, depression and more. Like me, a fellow hypo may suffer from unexplained weight gain. Unlike me, they might find it nigh impossible to lose the weight. Like most conditions, it’s a lottery of symptoms – you get some but not others. Why do some people have such immense trouble understanding this – and why is an overweight person’s insistence that it’s their glands still viewed as a pathetic excuse to be mocked and disbelieved? Certainly it makes me uneasy to think about how my own experience could be twisted to undermine a fellow sufferer (“They lost weight with exercise; why can’t you?”). Thyroid weight gain is real and medicine often doesn’t solve it; on thyroxine alone, I lost zilch weight. Some sufferers struggle to lose weight even though they medicate, exercise and follow rigid low-carb/anti-inflammatory diets. If you went to their online sites, read about the efforts they go to, the despair and confusion they feel, your heart would break in two for them. Just in terms of weight, their thyroid has trapped their metabolism in a flesh prison, with little chance of escape. And these are people it’s fine to mock and discredit? Well, the new year isn’t just about fitness, it’s also a time for resolutions, so here’s a thought. Unless you’ve had direct experience of this little-understood, oft-misfiring gland, how about gaining a little humanity and knowledge before going on the attack? Overkill? No, that was Lemmy’s way of living The death of Lemmy from Motörhead didn’t only upset heavy metal fans. Lemmy appeared to represent rock’n’roll infamy for a broad cross-section of humanity. If we must all be, as the Motörhead song said, “killed by death”, then Lemmy’s death was a “good” one, after a life unapologetically ill-lived. Elsewhere, there’s great excitement that Axl Rose and Slash are to reunite for a show. Some might describe both Lemmy and Guns N’ Roses as “cartoons”, in a way that is supposed to be reductive and derisive. Ozzy Osbourne is another one. It’s a criticism that many HM artists attract. What these disparagers don’t realise is that sometimes people want the cartoon, particularly during a musical era dominated by Coldplay-style, carefully inoffensive ear drool. In my opinion, Chris Martin isn’t good enough (loud, brilliant, funny enough) to be a cartoon – he’s fated to be a finessed corporate “word cloud”, encompassing all human emotion and therefore none. Faced with that, most would take a lively, colourful, charismatic cartoon any day. Which goes some way to explaining the widespread goodwill towards Lemmy and the hope that he’s rocking – wherever he is. So much for being an empty nester... Christmas is well known for throwing evolving family dynamics into sharp focus. One of these is how many grown-up children don’t feel stable enough to manage without their parents and still need help from the bank of mum and dad (from moving out, to bills, loans and food shopping). A new study from the Skipton Building Society puts the age of financial independence at around the mid-30s. I once used to marvel and scoff at such studies. In my youth, people couldn’t get out of the family orbit quickly enough, barely caring where (or how) they ended up – in my case, it was a squat with bin liners taped over holes in the wall. Now, continued “child dependence” has been rebranded as routine – just variations on a norm. Escalating rents and job insecurity are turning varying degrees of progeny dependence into The Everlasting Story. The extended family is starting to be less about extended numbers and more about extended time. Along the way, parents of adult children seem to have ended up cast as property-owning, over-privileged baddies. Excuse me? It’s more likely that these parents are being soaked left, right and centre as penance for this generational shortfall. Too many years of that and they won’t be looking so “privileged” any more. It’s not all grim, though. According to the study, the children make efforts to repay all the support and kindness later – from paying for parental meals and buying wine, to helping with bills and rent. So let’s get this straight – the parents go broke trying to help their children out and then the children go broke trying to help the parents out. Such is the cycle of family life in modern Britain. The really scary thing is that this sector of society counts as fortunate.
Just Eat online takeaway service pays £200m for UK rival Hungry House The online takeaway food service Just Eat is to spend up to £300m on a buying spree, swallowing up its smaller rivals Hungry House and SkipTheDishes. Just Eat is paying £200m upfront to buy Hungry House, its biggest UK competitor, from the German group Delivery Hero. It has promised to hand over another £40m if the company hits performance targets. “Through this transaction, we would extend our market presence in the UK and sustain high levels of growth given the considerable opportunity in this market,” said Just Eat’s chief executive, David Buttress. Just Eat, which listed in 2014, earns commission on restaurant orders placed via its website and apps. Hungry House, which is the second-biggest player in the UK market after Just Eat, operates a similar model. Just Eat said Hungry House would generate topline operating profits of £12m to £15m in 2017 excluding exceptional integration costs of about £1m. The Hungry House deal will have to be cleared by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). After initially touching a new high of 623.5p Just Eat shares were down more than 1% at 591.5p by lunchtime. The Jefferies analyst David Reynolds said consolidation was a good thing for online marketplace models, with the purchase of Hungry House removing the possibility of the rival combining with the likes of Deliveroo. “While it may be some time before the CMA bless this deal, the strategic imperative for Just Eat makes sense,” said Reynolds. “We do not underestimate the importance of Just Eat taking Hungry House off the table.” Separately Just Eat announced the acquisition of the fast-growing Canadian outfit SkipTheDishes in a cash and shares deal worth CAD$110m (£66.1m). The business, which has 350,000 customers, is expected to have sales of CAD$23.5m in 2016. It handled 1.6m orders in the 10 months to October, which was up 186% year on year.
M&S Bank asked me for personal details, but the letter looked like a scam My wife has had an M&S Bank credit card for more than 12 years and I am the second card holder. This week she received a letter asking me to provide photocopies of documents such as my passport, driving licence and tax details. Two had to include a photo, and they had to be notarised by a list of approved people. I rang M&S Bank to see if this was some sort of scam as the prepaid return envelope did not contain M&S in the address. I was assured it was officially an M&S request. I was also told that it had been getting a large number of calls questioning the request. I asked why this information was needed – I was told me it was to make the account more secure. I expressed my fears that sending such sensitive information through the post to what looks like a third party would reduce my security and I asked what would happen if I did not send it. I was told nothing would change and that the account would continue as before. Any chance of asking someone at M&S what is going on – it makes no sense to me. PDW, by email You were quite right to question the validity of this request – sending out those documents to an unnamed company would have been foolhardy in the extreme. We asked M&S Bank for an explanation and it has confirmed the request was legitimate. “In order to protect our customers from financial crime it’s important that the information we hold is as up to date as possible. This means that, from time to time, we may ask existing customers to update the information we hold.” It went on to say that this “helps protect customers and the financial system from financial crime”. We could understand this request if you were the main account holder, but this seems to be rather overzealous as you pay off your card in full by direct debit every month and have been customers for 12 years. M&S Bank services are provided by HSBC, which has been in all sorts of bother with the authorities over money laundering. This is most likely part of the resulting clean-up. Although M&S says it is looking to change the address on its return envelopes to make it clearer it really is M&S, my advice is to take the documents into your nearest branch. M&S has confirmed customers can do this. I suspect it won’t be long before fraudsters really do start sending out fake letters like this to get personal details. We welcome letters but cannot answer individually. Email us at consumer.champions@theguardian.com or write to Consumer Champions, Money, the , 90 York Way, London N1 9GU. Please include a daytime phone number
Crowdfunding medicine via Facebook is a lifesaver for sick children in Sudan A tea stall under a tree on one of Khartoum’s busiest roads doesn’t look like much to pin your hopes on when seeking to cure a sick child. But dozens of anxious parents and unrelated strangers rush to places like this across Sudan every day – the former to press prescriptions and the latter cash into the hands of volunteers managing a crowdfunding operation that saves children’s lives. The operation, set up in 2012, received donations of some $220,000 (£176,000) for medicines in 2014, and also collected $533,000 to open children’s intensive care units in two hospitals in the capital. “If these guys weren’t here I’d start to sell things from my home, like my bed, chairs and cooking utensils,” says Arafa Moussa, who has come from the Jaffar Ibn Ouf children’s hospital across the road to get help to pay for her son’s medicines. Since her husband had a heart attack and lost his job last November, they have not managed to pay the monthly 2,000 Sudanese pounds (£248) to manage their eight-year-old’s rare condition of aplastic anaemia. “If he didn’t get the medicine, he would bleed from his nose, eyes, ears and whole body,” says Moussa, wiping her tears as she talks about trying to sell the family home to pay for the bone marrow transplant he can only get abroad. It was seeing children with cancer in pain that led around 15 young Sudanese volunteers to establish the crowdfunding initiative, called Sharia’ al-Hawadith. It was named after a street lined with medical facilities, and which roughly translates as Accident Lane. It is now home to a small army of young volunteers who sit under a tree sipping endless cups of tea between racing off to get prescriptions for parents who turn up or call from hospital. Decades of conflict and the resulting sanctions against the regime of President Omar al-Bashir have crippled investment and development. International NGOs have struggled to operate in a climate of government suspicion and restrictions, which includes limiting the medical work of Médecins Sans Frontières‎ and the Red Cross. “Our government doesn’t want [NGOs] here … there were so many, but they were driven out,” says Hathim Ahmed, one of many pharmacists working with Sharia’ al-Hawadith to provide medicines that most insurance won’t cover. None of the volunteers are paid. The initiative does some preliminary means-testing by speaking to parents, and asks them to contribute between 10% and 50% for expensive medicines or to buy the cheap ones themselves. For those who can’t contribute, Sharia’ al-Hawadith bears the total cost. “About 25% of the people I see can’t afford to pay for treatment or medicines,” says junior doctor Leben Khair, who has volunteered for Sharia’ al-Hawadith since discovering that most insurance policies only pay for up to 10% of medicines and that “even private insurance doesn’t cover the expensive ones”. In Sudan, while NGOs have floundered, such online crowdsourcing models have prospered, allowing people to donate for medicines, books, blankets or food without going through an organisation that could be considered a political threat. “We publish the daily needs in the Facebook page … and we write the medicines or the cheques we need to do today,” says Ibrahim Alsir Alsafi, a journalist, who – like most other volunteers – spends a day or an evening a week sitting at the tea stall the street. Ayman Saeed, one of Sharia’ al-Hawadith founders, says not being an NGO has its advantages. “It gave us more room to move freely and expand as much as we can, and our [decentralised] management system … was a good strategy.” He says it gives people the chance to approach the concept in their own way. More than 100,000 people follow the Facebook page where the prescription requests and the whereabouts of sick children are posted. With volunteers working in all of Sudan’s 18 states, and most children’s hospitals, people can give money personally or send it through people they know living locally. “Sudanese people – most of them from outside Sudan – help us by transferring lots of money. We don’t have a bank account but they transfer it to their relatives here and they come to give it to us by hand,” says Alsafi. The initiative requires a level of trust between pharmacists and volunteers, who all keep accounts of what has been bought or given on credit per shift. Some people who donate, especially for chronic cases or for first-time donors and who want to see where their money’s going, meet the patients, and sometimes, like the volunteers, get to know their families quite well. Some pharmacists in Khartoum say that per shift they can give away anything from 200 to 2,000 Sudanese pounds’ worth of medicine, but that they trust the initiative and know they will be paid. “Sometimes people go to the pharmacy and they just pay our debts for the whole month,” he says. The largest donation received was from a wealthy Khartoum woman who didn’t have cash so turned up with her gold jewellery. When the dealer found out the money was going to charity, he paid double for it. People living abroad also respond to the regular calls for drugs that are not available in Sudan, or are extremely expensive imports, by sending them over. “Antibiotics, especially injectables, are very expensive, and cancer drugs per injectable dose can cost 900,000 Sudanese pounds. A course of 28 tablets can cost 1.5m,” says Ahmed. Since running his own pharmacy in the hospital district, Ahmed, like many other pharmacists, has worked with different charitable funds and given away drugs to needy customers for years. He now extends credit to Sharia’ al-Hawadith to reach increasing numbers of poor people who have been hit by inflation and a falling currency, which puts medicines imported from Europe or the US even further out of reach. “People are really getting poorer and poorer every day; things are getting worse, so we are trying to help,” he says.
Henry Rollins: 'Morrissey is no longer on my kill list' Hello Henry! Where are you and what can you see? I’m in my office. It’s dark outside, there’s nothing to see. You’re back in the UK for more spoken word gigs next year (1) — how will these shows differ from previous tours? Well, the material’s different … I should hope so! Well yes, but a lot of comedian types have routines and monologues that they do every time. And as a performer I can’t be bored up there – you’ll see it and you won’t like it. I won’t like it. I can’t dial it in. As your writing and performance is based so much on your experiences, can you ever simply enjoy what you’re doing and not think about books or stage shows? Absolutely. I become aware of my surroundings, and then when the day is over I write up my notes. I just spent two weeks on the Antarctic Peninsula, out among penguins and seals and icebergs. It’s so overwhelmingly beautiful that you get back to your cabin and you can’t even write anything – you’ve had so much beauty shoved down your throat all day that you’re gagged. But I have a camera with me and I was constantly taking photos. How does it feel to walk among penguins? They basically crap where they stand, and they all stand together … I know a few people like that. I think that pretty much describes Congress in America (2). But the first thing you’ll notice about penguins – I was warned: “Get ready for the smell.” They just stand around in it, they bellyflop in it. They’re covered in their own droppings and the droppings of their friends. It’s very pungent. Where were you – and what was your reaction – when you discovered you’d had a fossilised worm named after you? (3) I was approaching the Antarctic Peninsula, unable to open any websites, so all I could do was weakly reply to emails saying: “I’m a fossil in more ways than one.” Apparently it’s particularly muscular. I’m not all that muscular (4). But it’s interesting isn’t it? It’s OK. It’s an odd way to be noted. I mean who would see that coming? Who aspires to that when they’re very young: to have a fossil named after you? But now you’ve got it … YEAHHH!!!! Now I can rest easy! I’m lodged in the halls of academia as part of Latin nomenclature! If you could shut down one multinational company tomorrow, which would you go for? (Roars) GOOD QUESTION! Monsanto (5). They keep people on the edge of starvation. They’re perfectly diabolical. You have to give them compliments, to sort of be pitch-perfect evil … They design seeds that kill themselves off after a season! They try to limit food distribution in the world! They help the poor stay poor, and the rich stay protected from the poor who stay poor. It’ll be interesting trying to get that past the lawyers. It’s an opinion! Just say “Henry doesn’t like Monsanto”! That’s allowed, right? Did you dye your hair at all when you started going grey? Oh no! No. My hair, the state of my face and the state of my clothing are not what make me. I live by my ideas and my gut. My hair went from a couple of grey stands to grey all over in a year. It just WENT! But believe it or not I absolutely do not care. Men with dyed hair – does that not look really weird? When I was a punk rocker I dyed it black a couple of times, and I didn’t even like that. The only accoutrement I’ve ever done is tattooing! Have you ever fallen in a hole? Physically? It’s open to your own interpretation. Well, let’s see. Mental holes: yeah, as far as depression goes. Absolutely crippling depression where you physically feel like you’re underwater with the sea standing on every molecule of your body. Fiscally? Yeah, I’ve been in the red to the point where I look like a lobster in boiling water. As far as a real hole? Well, yeah! My legs have fallen into holes. But I haven’t been completely consumed. If they made a Better Call Saul-style prequel series featuring your Sons of Anarchy character (6), what would be the storyline? Oh, it’s a guy who got conned into being a bigot. A guy who was not a racist upon entering the world, but whatever circumstances twisted his mind to think that a different version of homo sapiens are somehow lesser than he is. It’s a de-evolution to become a racist. Do you view all bigotry as a con? It’s a con. Yeah. They’re basically saying: “Don’t buy a Sly & the Family Stone record.” I mean can you imagine? And that’s just bigotry of one stripe. There’s all kinds of prejudice. I grew up in Washington DC where black kids called me a cracker and hit me because I was white; it was like, I’m seven years old, what did I do to you? Who got to us? It’s like, someone told them something. All those foot-soldier neo-Nazi guys that get busted in America for shooting some poor Syrian guy on the bus, they’re getting played by guys who never get jail time. Talk about being conned. If earnings were capped for everyone in the music industry – let’s say $100K a year – how would that change music? Now that’s a really good question. I wonder if you should do that with CEOs and just people in the world. However, selfishly speaking, if that cap was lower than what I was making, I would holler. I wouldn’t want to earn “X” and for someone to say: “That ‘X’ is a little too ‘X’y for us.” If I earned that, I don’t think you’d get to take that from me. So I will have to side with the big rich bastards. (Laughs) On reflection, do you think it was harsh to say you wanted to make a house record out of the sound of Morrissey being burned to death? Well, I like the guy. I think he’s very intelligent and has real good taste in music. It’s nothing I’d say on stage now because I think it’s poorly meant, but that’s why we humans are allowed subtly evolve here and there. There are definitely some people I wouldn’t mind seeing burned to death – I absolutely have a kill list. But not good old Morrissey. I think the world is a much better place with him in it. Who is on the kill list? Just people who need to get got. And there’s two for sure. There are different grades. There are a few people who could do with losing a hand. And I’d happily carry the petrol can, the cleaver, whatever it takes. As far as the kill list goes, though, there are two who’ve REALLY gotta go. Every day I don’t get them I consider a partial failure. Footnotes (1) Henry’s Charmingly Obstinate tour hits the UK from Monday 11 January. (2) It’s highly possible that the interviewer inadvertently trampled over a joke Henry was hoping to make himself, in which case, apologies. (3) Two weeks ago a PhD student named a marine relative of earthworms and leeches Rollinschaeta myoplena, in Henry’s honour. (4) He’s quite muscular. (5) Monsato is an agrochemical and agricultural biotechnology corporation, based in Missouri. (6) Rollins played shouting neo-Nazi AJ Weston in the motorcycle-heavy drama.
Donald Trump hints at assassination of Hillary Clinton by gun rights supporters Donald Trump has been accused of a making an “assassination threat” against rival Hillary Clinton, plunging his presidential campaign into a fresh crisis. The volatile Republican nominee was speaking at a rally in Wilmington, North Carolina, about the next president’s power to appoint supreme court justices. “Hillary wants to abolish, essentially abolish, the second amendment,” said Trump, eliciting boos from the crowd. “If she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the second amendment people, maybe there is, I don’t know. But I’ll tell you what, that will be a horrible day.” The second amendment to the constitution protects the right of Americans to bear arms. Trump has accused his Democratic rival of wanting to abolish it, a charge that she denies. His extraordinary remark on Tuesday was swiftly condemned by Democrats. Robby Mook, Clinton’s campaign manager, said: “This is simple – what Trump is saying is dangerous. A person seeking to be the president of the United States should not suggest violence in any way.” Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut, where the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting took place in Newtown in 2012, went further in a tweet: “Don’t treat this as a political misstep. It’s an assassination threat, seriously upping the possibility of a national tragedy & crisis.” British novelist Salman Rushdie then weighed in, tweeting: “Of course the Trump flacks are now trying to confuse the issue, but Senator Murphy is clear about what Trump meant.” The claim was rejected by Jeff Sessions, a Republican senator from Alabama and longtime Trump supporter. He responded on CNN: “Totally wrong. I don’t believe that’s true. I don’t believe that’s at all what he meant.” But Sessions acknowledged: “It may have been awkwardly phrased.” Trump said later in reply to Sean Hannity on Fox News that he was referring to the political movement around the Second Amendment. Hannity asked: “You know, so obviously you’re saying that there’s a strong political movement within the Second Amendment, and if people mobilize and vote, they can stop Hillary from having this impact on the court. But that’s not how the media is spinning it. What’s your reaction to it?” Trump replied: “Well, I just heard about that, and it was amazing because nobody in that room thought anything other than what you just said. This is a political movement. This is a strong, powerful movement, the Second Amendment … there can be no other interpretation. Even reporters have told me – I mean give me a break.” Trump has been striving to show more discipline on the campaign trail after a string of gaffes in recent weeks. He remained in control in Detroit on Monday when a speech on the economy was repeatedly interrupted by protesters. But in Wilmington, he apparently could not resist going off-script. Campaigners for gun control expressed outrage at his off-the-cuff remark. Po Murray, chair of the Newtown Action Alliance, said: “Donald Trump continues to pander to the corporate gun lobby and the gun extremists who thrive on fear and rhetoric. “Any suggestion that gun violence should be used to stop Hillary Clinton from appointing supreme court justices is dangerous and reckless. It’s no surprise that 50 GOP national security experts have signed a letter making a pledge to not vote for him.” Mark Glaze, former executive director of Everytown for Gun Safety, said: “It may well be an incitement to violence, but understand it’s the basic theory on which the modern gun industry is built. Their core audience is people who hate the government and believe they’re going to have to take up arms against it. My guess is this is a deliberate dog whistle to that significant number of people. “There are people out there who hear this kind of thing in a certain way, and if they’re already inclined to hatred of government and Hillary Clinton and see guns as a public policy solution, who knows what could happen?” The concern was echoed by Paul Begala, a former adviser to Bill Clinton in the White House. “This is not something that should be joked about,” he told CNN. “I hope in the best case you could say he was joking. It didn’t seem like a joke to me. Tony Schwartz, the guy who wrote [Trump’s book] The Art of the Deal, says Trump never jokes. “I fear that an unbalanced person hears that in this inflamed environment and, God forbid, thinks that was a threat. I certainly take it as a threat, I really do, and Trump needs to apologise.” Michael Hayden, former director of the CIA and National Security Agency, said on the same channel: “Well, let me say, if someone had have said that outside the hall he’d be in the back of a police wagon now with the secret service questioning him.” As yet another controversy threatened to engulf him, Trump’s campaign insisted that his words had been misunderstood. Jason Miller, a spokesperson, attempted to explain the candidate’s comments. “It’s called the power of unification,” he said. “Second amendment people have amazing spirit and are tremendously unified, which gives them great political power. And this year, they will be voting in record numbers, and it won’t be for Hillary Clinton, it will be for Donald Trump.” National Rifle Association spokeswoman Jennifer Baker called the uproar over Trump’s remarks a “distraction created by the dishonest media.” “The NRA represents law-abiding gun owners and we support lawful behavior,” she wrote in an email. “The NRA and Donald Trump are calling for Second Amendment supporters to protect their constitutional right to self defense by defeating Hillary Clinton at the ballot box,” Baker said. “Second Amendment voters understand the stakes. They understand that the Second Amendment is on the ballot.” Clinton’s campaign went on the record in May saying that she believes the Supreme Court’s 2008 Heller decision, a key victory for gun rights, was “wrongly decided.” The 5-4 Heller decision struck down the District of Columbia’s handgun ban as unconstitutional, ruling that Americans have an individual right to own guns for self-defense in their homes. “If Heller is overturned, that paves the way for extreme gun control for decades,” Baker said. The official NRA Twitter feed compared Trump’s remarks to a 2008 comment from then-Senator Joseph Biden, who said “If [Obama] tries to fool with my Beretta, he’s got a problem,” and asked “Was Joe Biden…suggesting violence here?” Katie Pavlich, a prominent conservative writer who spoke at this year’s NRA annual meeting, also slammed the media’s coverage of Trump’s remarks, tweeting: “Media totally exposed itself (again) today by assuming Second Amendment supporters are assassins instead of voters.” But she added: “That said Trump is reason Trump has no credibility/isn’t given the benefit of the doubt when actually misunderstood.” She was referencing Trump’s remark in January that “I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters.” Pavlich wrote: “I’m not defending Trump or his comments, I’m defending Second Amendment supporters.” The supreme court has become a central election issue since the death earlier this year of Justice Antonin Scalia, a conservative who has not yet been replaced. Trump claims that liberal judges could threaten the second amendment. Progressive pressure groups that have been watching the process closely joined the condemnation of Trump on Tuesday. Michael Keegan, president of People for the American Way, said: “There has been no shortage of inexcusable rhetoric from Trump, but suggesting gun violence is truly abhorrent. There is no place in our public discourse for this kind of statement, especially from someone seeking the nation’s highest office.” Neil Sroka, communications director of Democracy for America, added: “Honestly, it’s a little unclear whether Donald Trump was calling for his supporters to assassinate a Clinton court pick or take up an armed insurrection against a government that allowed her to appoint one. Either way, the only thing more insane than electing someone president who blows this kind of violent dog whistle would be buying the furious spin coming out of his campaign trying to explain it away.” Trump has produced a shortlist of conservative justices that he hopes will appeal to the Republican base and deter those considering defecting to Clinton, who could set the court on a liberal trajectory for years to come. He told supporters on Tuesday: “I guess there’s a scenario in which this president could pick five supreme court justices, and if you pick two that are left, left, left, it’s going to be a disaster for our country.” The NRA had endorsed him early, he added. “We want to replace with justices very much like Justice Scalia and that’s going to happen, that’s so important. One of the most important elections for a lot of reasons, not just that,” he said. He also told the rally that Clinton is “dangerous” and could destroy the country from within because of her immigration policies. Trump was introduced by Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor, who brought up the case of Shahram Amiri, an Iranian nuclear scientist executed for spying for the US. Clinton received emails mentioning him on her controversial personal server when she was secretary of state. Giuliani said: “Remember Hillary told us there was no top secret information on her emails? Remember she told us that. Well, she lied! And I don’t know the connection between that and the death of Mr Amiri, but what I do know is it put a lot more attention on him when they found those emails. It certainly put him at great risk, even if they didn’t find them, and it shows you that when the director of the FBI said she was extremely careless, he was being kind.” But Giuliani repeatedly waved away chants of “Lock her up!” from the crowd. Lois Beckett contributed reporting.
Albums of the year 2016 – our readers respond “A jaw-dropping audiovisual work” by Beyoncé saw her top music’s list of their favourite albums of 2016, with Frank Ocean, David Bowie, Kanye West and Solange completing the top five. Right down to Shura’s emotional Nothing’s Real, at number 40, you can read the full list here, but now it’s our readers’ turn. As well as populating the comments with your own lists – naturally pretty much all of you were thoroughly in agreement and unquestioning of our rundown ... ahem – readers have been telling us why their favourite album was the best via a form launched alongside the main list. Below are some of the records that came up again and again in your suggestions, along with your mini reviews and justifications for picking them. Blackstar, David Bowie We’re not claiming there’s anything scientific about this roundup, or of the whole body of your contributions, but one thing was clear – David Bowie received by far the most nominations. Here’s what some of you said about Blackstar: While it might appear an obvious or even maudlin choice given its critical acclaim and Bowie’s untimely death, Blackstar is an extraordinary piece of work. It’s an art installation that forces a total reevaluation of how music is released and listened to. The electro-soaked jazz tone, the premonition in the lyrics and the constantly revealing vinyl cover, in a world of disposal streams of music, make this more than a collection of legacy tunes – it defines everything Bowie. It will watch over us all for decades. David Hodgson, Harrogate It’s funny, it’s sad, it’s sexy, it’s a farewell to old friends and an introduction to new. Tony Wood, London This would have been one of the most musically and lyrically arresting albums of the year even if Bowie’s death within days of its release had not brought a whole new dimension to the work, a whole new register of resonances to his very last lyrics, written in the knowledge that he was terminally ill. Bowie transformed his life into a work of art and did the same with his death. A true pioneer until the very end. Chris Hughes, Cambridge A difficult choice between two goodbyes. Bowie and Leonard Cohen’s leaving framed the year for me. Both left huge life legacies and also knowing farewell notes. In the end, forced to a choice, I have gone for Bowie’s majestic Blackstar for its typically Bowie yet entirely new, alien soundscape and often opaque lyricism. I’m still wondering what half of it is about, lyrically and musically – and that’s meant as praise. Ken Fletcher, China Lemonade, Beyoncé Many of you were in agreement with music’s favourite when asked for yours. The songs of Lemonade are fantastic in and of themselves – but the film and spoken word of the visual album make it soar. I would class it as one of the top three concept albums ever. Joanne Cook, Canada A Moon Shaped Pool, Radiohead Radiohead made number 10 in the music rundown – and in your responses were mentioned more than any other artist bar Bowie. The most accessible and melodic Radiohead album in years. A true return to form including the quite stunning Decks Dark and the haunting True Love Waits. A reminder of how significant this band is. Jonny Marshall, Leigh on Sea A brilliant and haunting record that describes Radiohead at their best. Maybe they don’t deliver a rock opera like Paranoid Android anymore or a Stanley Kubrick-esque track like Idioteque, but songs like Daydreaming and Identikit deliver the same magic that only Radiohead can bring. David Wahyu Hidayat, Jakarta, Indonesia Skeleton Tree, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds The ’s review at the time called this a “raw document of grief” – and it had a powerful effect on many readers. Whether it would have had the same emotional impact had I been unaware that Cave’s son died while the album was being recorded, I can’t say, but no other album has ever moved me in the same way before. It was around about halfway through the song I Need You, near the end of the album, that it finally broke me – it almost sounds like a guttural cry of pain, like Nick Cave was on the verge of tears throughout. Chances are I’ll never listen to Skeleton Tree again, but it will stick with me forever. A masterpiece. Chris, Bristol In the age of inauthenticity, Skeleton Tree is a beautiful, simple testimony to the rudiments of what is to be alive, in all it’s heartbreak and hope, and I’ve listened everyday for weeks. Ian Seddon, Wigan Hopelessness, Anohni Hopelessness is a fitting title for a year that has shocked the world to its core and an album that has stuck with me throughout. It’s lyrics reflect the state of the world, from drone strikes to execution, climate crises to surveillance. But through the bleakness and negativity there is hope; in hopelessness, Anohni’s songs invoke empathy in the listener. Hopelessness is a call to action that unites us in its despair. Jon Cornejo, London Viola Beach, Viola Beach Here, a review – one of many for the band – that speaks for itself. Death can often make you reassess an artist’s body of work, making you cherish it a whole lot more. However, I truly believe even without the tragic circumstances surrounding this album it would still be high on my list for album of the year. The songs are incredibly catchy and show how fun indie pop can be when done right. It’s impossible to remove the tragic context from your mind, which adds a bittersweet element to the joyful nature of the songs, but I’m thankful for the great pop songs they left rather than the ones we have lost. Luca Van Dresh, Brighton 22, A Million, Bon Iver Experimentalism abounds here, and many of you were impressed enough during the album’s short running time to give Justin Vernon your vote. When I read the reviews of this album I was expecting something really obtuse. When I heard it, it was 30-odd short minutes of pure syrupy vocal harmonic bliss. Lots of rising major 7ths and 9ths, sliced up saxophones and glitching pianos, it sounds like an early morning run on the beach, the sun cracking through the edge of the sky. Bren Collins, Liverpool Even if they (/he) were off their usual far-sighted creativity, Bon Iver still produce the most interesting music around today. Not afraid to experiment, to distort, to wrong-foot; the brilliance of this album is evident from the opening bars. There is not a trite idea or note on this collection of songs – the only disappointment is that it is too short. Joff Curtoys, York The Colour in Anything, James Blake Readers making the case for Blake’s third album might have been disappointed to see it at only number 29 on the list. A bold move away from the winning formula of Overgrown, this album really gets under your skin, and the more I listen to it the more I hear its beauty and depth. My favourite track keeps changing – today it is Choose me, tomorrow it could be I Hope My Life –as all are so strong. Blake is ahead of his peers with his unique sound, amazing vocals and depth of emotion, and there are some great guest vocals, particularly Justin Vernon on I Need A Forest Fire. Lizzie Reake, West Sussex Night Driver, Busted Finally – though this hasn’t been an exhaustive list of your suggestions of course – it turns out a lot of Busted fans who found our callout really liked the band’s return. I have been a fan of Busted since they first emerged onto the music scene over 14 years ago. Like most of their fans, I was heartbroken when they decided to split in 2005 and never imagined they would ever reunite, let alone create a third album. The album is completely different to Busted’s old sound, yet I think I prefer it. Night Driver will be on my playlist for years to come. Ellie, South Wales Honorable mentions for Suede, Kate Tempest, Bruno Mars, Iggy Pop, Sleaford Mods, Turin Brakes, Avalanches, Emma Pollock and Anderson Paak who all received multiple nominations or were well justified by readers. Many thanks for all your suggestions and justifications. You can continue the debate and add your own favourites in the comments, below.
Swansea City stun Crystal Palace as Fernando Llorente settles 5-4 thriller With six minutes remaining, Alan Pardew was celebrating on the touchline. At the final whistle, the Crystal Palace manager looked shellshocked and wore the haunted look of a man who knows that he is hanging on to his job by his fingertips after an extraordinary match delivered an improbable Swansea City victory. Palace had seemingly come back from the dead when they scored three times in nine minutes to take the lead after trailing 3-1, with Christian Benteke’s late goal prompting some Swansea fans to head for the exits, resigned to defeat as well as relegation. The cheers from afar moments later would have told them that something remarkable was happening as Fernando Llorente, who has struggled so much since his arrival from Sevilla in the summer, scored twice in injury time to breathe new life into Swansea’s season and inflict a sixth successive defeat on a Palace side that are now only outside the relegation zone on goal difference. Pardew looked a broken man, flabbergasted and furious with the way that his fragile defence imploded yet again. They have now gone 18 Premier League games without keeping a clean sheet and Pardew clearly underestimated their inadequacies beforehand when, alluding to their problems in that department, the manager talked about how he “couldn’t see us winning at Swansea unless we get two goals”. Little did he realise that they would need six. The question now is how patient the Palace board will be with a manager who is in charge of a club that has the worst record across all four divisions in the calendar year. Not only that, but he seems unable to arrest the decline. “That’s not my decision,” Pardew said when asked whether he thought the board would back him. “My decision is always the same; when you’re a football manager you’ve just got to try and address the problems and deal with it. I’m certainly strong enough and I’ve been here before. I know how it works.” How it works is that Pardew is now the odds-on favourite to be the next manager sacked and is under intense pressure from outside, never mind inside, the club. “That comes with the territory,” he said. “The goals that we conceded today don’t reflect well on us. I’ll do what I always do – reflect on this game and try and correct it for the next one. But six defeats, and a couple of defeats we shouldn’t have had – Burnley and this one – that’s what’s put us in this mess that we’re in. “The last 20 minutes was as crazy as I have ever seen. If we can’t defend at 4-3 with about six minutes on the clock, I’m afraid that’s not good enough. We just can’t seem to defend set-plays; that’s four today. All four of them I think we should do a whole lot better than we do. I’m going to have a look at that and possibly make changes.” With Pardew’s position under so much scrutiny and Palace in freefall, it was easy to overlook just what this result means to Swansea. It was their first victory since the opening day of the season and while their defending was every bit as calamitous as Palace’s at times the result was everything for Bob Bradley and his players, who showed tremendous courage to claw their way back into a game that looked to be beyond them. Gylfi Sigurdsson was outstanding, Leroy Fer scored twice and Llorente showed the sort of predatory touch in front of goal that has been so badly lacking up. At the other end of the pitch, however, Swansea were an accident waiting to happen, with Wilfried Zaha’s opening goal exposing familiar failings as the winger wriggled clear of Neil Taylor before drilling home. Sigurdsson then equalised with an exquisite free-kick and Palace started to lose their way, not helped by a potentially serious injury to Connor Wickham, who left the field on a stretcher. Fer struck twice in two minutes, stabbing home after Llorente’s header was cleared off the line and turning in again from close range after a Sigurdsson free-kick. Then came the Palace comeback. James Tomkins reduced the deficit from inside the six-yard box, Jack Cork headed Zaha’s cross into his own net in farcical circumstances and Benteke hooked home off the post after Scott Dann had won yet another header in the Swansea penalty area. Swansea looked finished, yet they were anything but as Llorente scored twice from close range, to delight of their manager. “It’s a turning point in many ways,” said Bradley, who now has his first win in six matches. “At the most difficult moment the players showed character and that’s going to pay off for them. Today has got to be something that we enjoy.”
My mother’s treatment in hospital opened my eyes to a policy of shameful neglect The first shock came when I found out my mother was dying. The second was when I discovered that she had been discharged from hospital without my knowledge. My mother was 89, and had dementia, lung cancer and secondary tumours on the brain. I had pleaded with the hospital not to take any decisions without first speaking to me, but they ignored me, as they had done since she was admitted as an emergency six days earlier. What happened to my mother is far from unusual, I’m sorry to say. Elderly people are being discharged from hospital too soon, according to an excoriating report from Dame Julie Mellor, the parliamentary and health service ombudsman. It describes the experience of nine patients and their families in harrowing detail, including the case of a woman in her 90s who collapsed and died in her granddaughter’s arms after doctors failed to diagnose an infection and sent her home. Dame Julie says these cases represent only a fraction of the total number. Last year the ombudsman investigated 221 complaints about patients being discharged too early. I am one of the people who complained. The ombudsman upheld several of my complaints against the NHS trust that runs the hospital, listing a series of failures in communication with my family. The report on my mother’s care, which was written jointly with the local government ombudsman, also criticised social services for failing to ensure that proper care plans were drawn up when my mother was admitted to a care home, seven months before her death. I was relieved when I read the ombudsman’s conclusions, hoping the recommendations might protect other elderly people from the catalogue of errors that affected my mother in the final weeks of her life. A key finding was that hospital records incorrectly recorded that she lived in a nursing home that had the facilities to look after her. She did not, and the staff of the care home were alarmed when she arrived back from hospital without a proper discharge letter. The paramedic who pushed her into the home in a wheelchair – she was too frail to walk – said that in his opinion she should not have been discharged from hospital. If you have not been through the gruelling process of trying to get proper care for an elderly relative, the errors around my mother’s discharge might not sound significant. But they go to the heart of the problem identified in Dame Julie’s report, which is that hospitals are sending people home without establishing what kind of care and support is available. Sometimes that results in someone who is confused and frightened being left in a flat or house entirely on their own. That is what happened to an 85-year-old woman with dementia who was sent home at 11pm and then discovered by her daughter the following morning with no food, drink or bedding. In my mother’s case, her complex medical needs meant that her discharge should have been planned by the hospital, social services and the care home, after discussion with the family. None of that happened, even though my mother was at high risk of malnutrition and dehydration. She should have been assessed and referred to a dietitian as soon as she was returned to the care home, but nothing was done for another week. When she was finally weighed, it became apparent that she had lost almost 12kg over the previous six months; she had lost another 5kg by the time she died the following month. I know that from reading the report of her postmortem, a chore I would not wish on my worst enemy. Coping with an elderly person who has dementia or cancer is difficult and upsetting, but I’m not convinced that the agencies involved are very good at taking the feelings of relatives (or indeed patients) into account. In my case, the situation was complicated by the fact that my mother lived at the other end of the country. She had moved to the north-east to be close to her sisters and brother after my father died, but it made everything immeasurably more difficult when her health began to fail. I can’t be the only relative who has had to deal with social services and doctors at a distance, but just getting anyone to return a phone call was a gargantuan task. This was a recurring problem but it became more acute when I found out from my aunt that my mother was in hospital in January 2014. I immediately called the hospital to find out what was wrong, and was asked to come to an urgent meeting that afternoon. I explained that was physically impossible – it is a drive of seven hours – and I was assured that a consultant would call me back. When I was given a code word that I would need to repeat to the doctor to establish my identity, I realised that something was seriously wrong. I waited hours for a phone call. Nothing happened. In a state of some agitation, I called the hospital again and managed to track down the consultant. Even now, it is painful to remember the shock I felt when he told me that my mother had late-stage lung cancer. I tried to gather my wits, asking about palliative care, and he promised that someone would call me before any decisions about moving her were taken. I never heard from him or the hospital again. It was left to me to make phone calls, find someone who knew about my mother’s case – not always an easy task – and establish how she was. I had no idea she was about to be discharged, and no one told me that a doctor had completed a “do not attempt to resuscitate” form, another failure that was criticised by the ombudsman. Now that people are living longer, many of us will go through the grim experience of witnessing the decline of a close relative. Until my mother’s health failed, I had a naive belief that we lived in a society where relatives could work collaboratively with professionals to get decent care for the elderly. Two years ago, my faith in that system was shaken to the core. Now Dame Julie’s report suggests that not much has changed.
Broadcasters tear up schedules in wake of Brexit Broadcasters tore up their schedules on Friday to cover the fallout from the British public’s vote to leave the European Union, including the resignation of David Cameron. Both BBC1 and ITV switched to rolling news on Friday morning, BBC1 simulcasting the BBC News channel and ITV pulling scheduled editions of This Morning and Loose Women to run with an extended ITV News bulletin. ITV was the first of the three broadcasters to call the referendum result at 4.35am, followed by the BBC at 4.39am and Sky News at 4.42am. ITV News political editor Robert Peston was among those who was first with the news, although unfortunately he had got it wrong - but not for long. BBC1’s 1pm news bulletin was extended to an hour, with a one-off special on BBC1 at 7pm presented by its former political editor, The Big Decision with Nick Robinson. BBC1’s News at Ten, fronted by Huw Edwards, will also be longer than usual, while BBC2’s Newsnight will be extended to an hour, beginning at 10.45pm. An extra Newsnight will be broadcast at 8.30pm on BBC2 on Saturday. ITV’s News at Ten, presented by Tom Bradby, will be given an extra 15 minutes to cover the day’s momentous events. Channel 4 broadcast a special 30-minute lunchtime edition of Channel 4 News at 11.50am with an hour-long special of the main Channel 4 News bulletin at 7pm. Radio 4’s Today programme was extended by 45 minutes to 9.45am and the World at One will begin an hour earlier, at midday, for a special two-hour edition. All of the day’s news bulletins on Radio 2 and Radio 4 were extended, with longer editions of The Week in Westminster and PM on Saturday. Radio 5 Live cleared its schedule to focus on Brexit on Friday, and will resume its coverage of Euro 2016 (there are no matches on Friday) on Saturday. The BBC predictably won the ratings battle of last night’s referendum coverage. BBC1’s EU Referendum – the Result, fronted by David Dimbleby, had an average of 3.9 million viewers, a 36.3% share, from 9.55pm. It was around three times the 1.2 million who watched ITV’s Referendum Result Live: ITV News Special, an 11.9% share. The ratings are the average audience for both shows until 2am, after which no further overnight data is available.
City seeks Swiss-style trade deal for EU access The City of London is working up plans to secure a deal that will allow its different sectors to keep trading with Europe after Britain leaves the EU. Senior officials are keen to ensure the UK maintains full access to the European Union through “passporting” deals that require the imposition of regulations at the same level as those in the EU. The deal would allow trade to continue from London through what will become the 27-nation bloc. “The banking sector unequivocally wants to maintain the current level of full access to the EU market, to ensure that businesses and customers across Europe can still be served by UK-based banks,” said Anthony Browne, the chief executive of the British Bankers’ Association. He issued his remarks after telling the Financial Times that a deal like the one adopted by Switzerland – whose life insurance business has access to the single market – could be a route to follow, although the model would be improved on. The practicalities of achieving access to the single market are still to be hammered out and the process could take years. A number of City bodies are working on ideas for the government to pursue, including the BBA, CityUK – another lobby group – and a panel of bank chairs, led by Shriti Vadera, chairwoman of the UK arm of Santander. While the Financial Times reported that City officials had given up on retaining universal access to the single market, Chris Cummings, chief executive of CityUK, said discussions were still under way. “At this stage, it is too early to be talking about conclusions for the Brexit negotiations. The financial and related professional services industry is working hard to prepare a detailed assessment of the priorities that matter most to our customers and clients so that we can help ministers and officials best prepare for the upcoming negotiations,” said Cummings. “Mutually beneficial trade and investment links that allow the UK to trade freely with the EU and vice-versa and continued access to skilled talent from the EU and the rest of the world remain very important for our industry. Our job is to ensure policymakers appreciate the importance of financial and related professional services to the UK economy.” An arrangement like the one secured by Norway, which has access to the single market and therefore must accept the free movement of people, is thought to be the least likely outcome.
Meet Kel Assouf and Imarhan, the new wave of Tuareg rock The Sahara is in a mess. It’s not just the terrorism, kidnapping, drug trafficking and other headline-hogging afflictions (the ones that tend to obsess western governments and analysts), it’s the vicious subsoil from which those headlines grow: the poverty, corruption, political indifference, underdevelopment, armed conflict and desertification. Those underlying calamities turn the daily lives of many Saharan people into a grinding struggle. The modern world has not been kind to them or to their old nomadic ways. “It’s tough, all that’s happening at the moment,” says Anana Ag Haroun, lead singer of the band Kel Assouf. “In fact, we’re a bit lost. I wish our homeland was a place of peace, as it once was. But it’s becoming a place where you live in fear.” A strange world – or “adounia tikounen” in Tamashek, the language of the Tuareg people. Tikounen is the title of Kel Assouf’s new album on the Belgian imprint Igloo Records. Its lyrics evoke much the same problems and feelings that Tinariwen sang about more than 30 years ago when they invented the style often referred to as “guitar” or “assouf” by the Tuareg themselves, and “desert blues” or “Tuareg guitar” by the rest of the world. The predominant emotion is assouf, meaning loss, longing, homesickness, or “the pain that is not physical”. It’s a word that encapsulates all that the Tuareg once had, but since have lost. No word is more prevalent in modern Tuareg music and poetry. The problems facing the Tuareg – or Kel Tamashek (“those who speak Tamashek”), as they prefer to be known – have changed little since the early 80s, when Tinariwen introduced their radical new sound. But the world itself has changed, at a dizzying pace that has left many desert-dwellers feeling bewildered and lost. Meanwhile, the enduring assouf of the Tuareg – for their homeland, their past, their freedom – has spawned a new generation of bands that are responding to those changes with youthful optimism and defiance. For reasons obscure, their names often begin with a T – Terakaft, Tamikrist, Toumast. But not always – Imarhan, Bombino, Kel Assouf, Mdou Moctar, Ezza. Some people call them “the children of Tinariwen”. “I don’t like that term much,” says Sadam Ag Ibrahim, lead singer of Imarhan, whose eponymous new album is one of the strongest releases the new Tuareg generation has produced. “The music of Tinariwen is the music of the ishumar,” he says, referring to the collective name for the generation of young Tuareg exiles who became synonymous with the guitar style in the late 70s and 80s. “Our music is more of a mix. It’s a bit more modern, more open to the world.” Breaking the Tinariwen mould is no easy task. Their political revolution (many of the original members of the band fought in the “great rebellion” against the Malian army in 1990-91) was matched by a musical and lyrical revolution that changed the musical landscape of the southern Sahara for ever. For younger Tuareg musicians, moving beyond Tinariwen would be the equivalent of a British or American musician trying to escape the domination of a band whose line-up included Lennon, Dylan, Marley and Brown (James, that is). The reverence for the founders of the guitar style – especially for Ibrahim AKA “Abaraybone” and Inteyeden, the two men who launched Tinariwen back in 1979 – is universal. “It’s a great honour even just to talk about them,” says Bombino, the most successful singer/guitarist of the younger generation, both at home in Niger and worldwide. “For me, Abaraybone is one of the best musicians in the world and one that I most admire.” Haroun from Kel Assouf doesn’t disagree: “Abaraybone is an icon. Inteyeden, too. They’re the people who opened the door, and woke the Tuareg people up.” Ibrahim took time out from Imarhan to stand in for Abaraybone for two years from 2014, while Tinariwen’s frontman took time off to look after his family and herds during yet another outbreak of armed conflict in northern Mali. “It was very, very difficult,” Ibrahim says. “Everybody was thinking, ‘Who is this little kid who’s come to take the place of Abaraybone?’ But then they understood I wasn’t really trying to take his place. There was a lot of responsibility, but it was a pleasure, too.” Tinariwen put the guitar at the heart of their revolution, adapting traditional Tuareg melodies and rhythms to this new and alien instrument. When they began to jam together in the late 70s, guitars were as rare as rain in the Sahara. Now every desert kid owns a beaten-up Chinese copy, or knows someone who has one. “Everyone’s in love with that instrument,” Bombino says. “It’s the joy of the entire youth.” But the guitar’s unshakeable hold on modern Tuareg music has also made it harder for the new generation to innovate. “I think for those who aren’t part of our [Tamashek] community, this guitar that dominates everything and this music that always stays in the orbit of Tinariwen can get boring at times,” admits Haroun. “It becomes repetitive. For me, music is like a quest. One has to seek, always, and not do something that has already been done before.” True to his word, the opening track on Tikounen is a leap forward in the modern Tuareg sound. Rather than taking the guitar as his point of departure, Haroun and his Tunisian producer, Sofyann ben Youssef, have gone right back to the rhythm of the tindé, the grain-mortar and goatskin drum that is traditionally played by women and gives the primal pulse of all Tuareg music. It’s been given a very 21st-century treatment, inspired by Haroun’s love of bands such as Led Zeppelin and Queens of the Stone Age. The result is a kind of techno-tindé trance, gilded by the rasping vocals of Toulou Kiki Bilal, the female star of Abderrahmane Sissako’s unsettling hit film Timbuktu. For well-seasoned ears, it sounds truly radical. In another great leap forward, Imarhan asked a fellow Tuareg, the bassist of Tinariwen (and Sadam Ag Ibrahim’s uncle), Eyadou Ag Leche, to produce their debut album. The result is a balance of raw edge, simplicity and mellow gentleness that producers from Europe or the US have never quite managed to achieve. Outsiders tend to empathise with and therefore accentuate the “rock” of Tuareg guitar music, rather than its “roll”. “Perhaps we’ll soon have our own sound engineers, too,” Ibrahim says. “Before there was none of that, but now we’re doing it ourselves, not just in music, but in other professions, too.” More radical than any musical innovation, it is the change in style, language and values that defines the younger generation. Unlike the old-timers from Tinariwen, most of them grew up in towns, and now live in cities, one step removed from the nomadic roots of their culture. Imarhan, who were born and grew up in the southern Algerian city of Tamanrasset in the early 90s, look more like a friendly bunch of stoner millennials, on and off stage, than the enrobed Tuareg nomad of western imagination. That’s intentional. They don’t feel they have to conform to an outsider’s view of what a Tuareg should look like. But that doesn’t mean the old values aren’t important to them. “You don’t let go of your own culture,” Ibrahim says, “but you can take the good things from other cultures. Before, there wasn’t much in the way of technology where we come from, but now there is. You have to function in the world of today and make use of the internet and all that, but you mustn’t let go of the fundamentals, of your ashak – that’s essential.” Ashak is another crucial Tamashek word, meaning dignity, hospitality, respect and consideration. How ashak can be preserved in what Haroun calls an “agitated world that’s crushing many values” is a subject that crops up constantly in Tuareg discourse. Haroun is hopeful. “When I look at groups of Tamashek students studying all over the world, chatting on Facebook, I really love their vision of things,” he says. “They’re not into that old tribal thing, all the internal conflicts, based on nothing at all, that have ripped our people apart. They have another vision of the world, where it’s work that counts, it’s knowledge.” The title of Bombino’s new album is Azel. Azel is the name of a tiny desert village where the first primary school in northern Niger was founded. Many future leaders were educated there. When I ask musicians from the younger generation what the priority is for the Tuareg people today, most of them answer “education”. It’s strange to see bands such as Imarhan, Kel Assouf and Bombino weaving their horizontal grooves and skeletal guitar riffs around the heads of young hipsters all over the world, while they sing about the importance of going to school. Not so much guitars and Kalashnikovs, as guitars and homework. “We have to consider every solution before we take up arms,” says Ibrahim. “The war of the TV, of the internet, is more important that the war of weapons. Everybody must go to school now.” Imarhan’s debut album is out now on City Slang. Kel Assouf plays Rich Mix in London on 1 July, and their new album, Tikoune, is out now on IglooMondo. Azel by Bombino is out now on Partisan.
James Milner plays Mr Dependable in Liverpool’s new era of unflappability Liverpool have so many attacking players of pace and quality they can make light of the absence of Philippe Coutinho and leave Daniel Sturridge on the bench for long periods. They would probably find it hard to be as effective without James Milner, though. The converted full-back is, as his spoof Twitter persona suggests, Mr Dependable. Now operating in a new position at the fifth Premier League club of his remarkable career, Milner will not have surprised anyone at the club he left to join Liverpool. The former Manchester City player is so much more than a fill-in at full-back. Tasked with keeping Raheem Sterling quiet in this game, no easy job even if the winger rarely shines against his old side, Milner still found time to get up in support of the players ahead of him and distribute the ball with his usual reliability. Milner’s unflappability under pressure set the tone for Liverpool’s early breakthrough, when they almost nonchalantly took the lead with their first attack of the game. Pep Guardiola cannot say he was not warned. The City manager had been waxing lyrical beforehand about Liverpool’s capacity for lightning strikes, pointing out that they were capable of creating danger in just three or four seconds, and after lulling their rivals into a false sense of security in the opening minutes that is exactly what they did. City were beginning to enjoy playing the game in Liverpool’s half when they were caught cold. Yaya Touré and his team-mates made a mess of a free-kick to surrender possession and from the moment the ball was effortlessly and elegantly transferred to Adam Lallana on the left wing, City were passive observers of a clinical strike. Of course Lallana found room to beat Pablo Zabaleta. Of course the cross was perfect, and of course Georginio Wijnaldum provided an authoritative finish with the sort of header that Claudio Bravo was never going to reach. City had begun the game looking as if they intended to put pressure on Milner at left-back, inviting Sterling and Kevin de Bruyne to take it in turns to see if they could spot any defensive weaknesses. Milner not only held out, within minutes of Liverpool going in front he too was skipping past Zabaleta to send over a cross from the left, and if Roberto Firmino had been able to take better advantage of his pinpoint pass through the heart of the City defence the home side would have been two up within half an hour. Lallana was the player causing the City backline most problems in the first half, yet Milner was usually at his shoulder, ready to occupy a defender with a run or provide an option with a short pass. The visitors’ own attacking options were slow to get going, with Touré playing deep and Sergio Agüero too isolated up front. Sterling, apart from providing width on the right, offered little penetration. De Bruyne and David Silva were not as influential as Guardiola would have wished. When the former went on a run towards the end of the first half, after finally making room for a shot he found Dejan Lovren in the way. Shortly after that Sterling managed to round Milner for the first time, only to find his route to goal blocked by Ragnar Klavan, who to the City player’s evident frustration did not need to do anything illegal to close the attack down without even conceding a corner. City now needed to find a response, as they had when going a goal down to Arsenal in their last encounter with a top-four team. Sterling kept having to drop deeper for the ball, and when he got it he was unable to get past Milner. Touré tried a more direct approach on the hour, hitting Sterling with a long ball for a volley that only hit the side-netting. City found themselves in better positions in the second half, largely because Liverpool lost some of their concentration and began giving the ball away, and when a break in play was occasioned by an injury to Jordan Henderson it was no surprise to see Milner regrouping his players and offering instructions even before he was obliged to take over the captain’s armband. City were offered a route back into the game as Liverpool reorganised but were unable to take it, De Bruyne wastefully sending a free-kick straight into the arms of Simon Mignolet. In the final 10 minutes, with both sides giving the ball away for fun, the players belonging to “the most attacking coach in the world” – copyright P Guardiola – could regularly all be found in their own half. If it was not the sort of second v third game to strike fear into the league leaders, at least Liverpool stayed in touch and passed a test of character. City under Guardiola were unable to improve on what has been a dismal record at Anfield over the years. No one’s title challenge is over yet, but City could do with some of Liverpool’s ability to impose themselves on difficult opponents.
Teddy Thompson and Kelly Jones: 'If musicians disappear, the music will too' If you play an acoustic guitar, and can draw a crowd of 300 or so, each of whom has a few dollars to spare, then the chances are that when you visit New York you will be playing at the City Winery. Which is where, on a bitterly cold April night, Teddy Thompson and Kelly Jones - not the one from Stereophonics – are on stage. It’s a curious venue. Not least because it’s also a restaurant. The crowd are all seated at tables, some finishing their dinner, others hoping against hope that at some point a member of staff might pass and they can actually order a drink. Everyone has to twist awkwardly to watch, or scrape their chairs against the floor to turn and face the stage. It’s against this backdrop that Thompson and Jones gamely press ahead with a set drawn largely from their album of duets, Little Windows, on which the pair sing songs, all written themselves, in the style of the pop of the late 50s and early 60s: think the Brill Building, the Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly. Jones seems cheery enough on stage – she chats away and teases her partner gently – but Thompson is mildly distracted, perhaps a little tense. It’s not the diners, though, but the fact that he’s not entirely happy with the sound – and that can be the difference between an adequate show and one that soars. “The way you hear yourself when you sing makes a tremendous difference to the way you perform,” he explains three weeks later, in company with Jones, in the top-floor bar of a hotel, overlooking central London. “Performing in a beautiful hall or an opera house, where you can hear the whole room, where you can hear someone 50 rows back go, ‘I love you!’ or even just ‘Yesssss!’” – that word delivered in a whispered hiss – “and you can hear every inflection of of what you’re doing … You play better.” Thompson and Jones are not hitmakers du jour. Their songs, as they admit, would sound out of time and out of place on pop radio, even though it’s a pop record. It’s not just that the songs hark back to the past – though Jones insists they are classic, rather than old-fashioned – but also that the recording eschews modern techniques. It’s not a Jack White-ish exercise in audio Luddism, recording straight to wax cylinder using only mics touched by Robert Johnson – but they did eschew digital technology, recording to tape, to get a warm, full sound. “It’s not easy these days, because people are out of practice recording that way,” Thompson says. “But once you get everything lined up in the way they made records before recording desks got big in the 70s, when there were less tracks, it’s all very simple – less microphones and everybody has to play together with dynamics. It’s a wonderfully simplifying experience, musically.” Both see themselves as existing in a lineage that has little to do with modern pop. Thompson says that, with a few exceptions, he’s not really interested in music made after the late 60s. “The way [modern] pop music sounds, and the way it is recorded and the frequencies involved, does not appeal to my ear,” he says. “I don’t really see myself putting something out that’s set to a hip-hop beat,” Jones says. “It just isn’t what I was raised with. Somehow it doesn’t connect with me at a soul level. It’s all about what you listen to and what you love. It’s in your memories and your DNA. Those are the places you are drawing from.” The songs eschew the personal writing of their previous records, aiming for something more universal, just as the Everly Brothers or Buddy Holly produced. But wasn’t it the case that a lot of the music they are referring back to was actually written from a personal standpoint – and that it has come to seem universal because of the great shift in songwriting perspective in the mid-60s, driven by Bob Dylan? “That’s true,” Thompson says. “That’s interesting. It was a simpler time, to coin a phrase. So the way Buddy Holly was expressing his sentiments was very, very simple, in a way that would now be considered hokey or childish, but then was just true and honest. That’s true. I hadn’t thought of it.” “They were probably listening to 30s Tin Pan Alley songs and early folk and R&B and blues,” Jones suggests. “And none of that was going too far into leftfield. And the singer-songwriter as we know it today didn’t exist. So they had very strong songwriting examples in the craft.” Thompson laughs. “Fucking Bob Dylan. What a hack.” Thompson and Jones have both been making music for years. Thompson – the son of Richard and Linda Thompson – might be the better known, but Jones has recorded a series of jolly albums, venturing around country and folk and 60s-styled pop. When they started writing together, along with Bill DeMain, it wasn’t with the intention of recording the songs – Thompson says he was idly dreaming of a Brill Building-style arrangement, where their songs were taken by other performers – but the further they went along, the more it became apparent that what they were writing suited the blend of their voices. For Thompson, too, the project became a necessary counterpoint to his previous album, Family, featuring not just Richard and Linda but most of the rest of the Thompson musical family, too. Which, given the strains of that family – Richard and Linda went through a bloody separation as their marriage collapsed during a US tour, when Teddy was just a small child – was not the easiest project to pull together. “I think this was a reaction in lots of ways,” he says. “It was hard work making that record, and it was difficult in lots of ways. So I was looking for something a bit more fun.” Jones reckons she supplies the optimism in their partnership – that bit more fun. “I bring out the cynicism in him,” she suggests. “I’m more of a people person.” This is Jones’s fourth album, and Thompson’s seventh, including Family. You would think, at this point, they were secure. That making a living from music was now a certainty. Not so. “It’s not easy at all to make a living,” Jones say. “That’s why I do a million and one things. I do as many things musically as possible. I sing on session for TV and film. I teach. I’ll do anything.” “Available for weddings and bar mitzvahs?” Thompson jokes. “I actually don’t do that. But if someone called me and said, ‘Will you do a bunch of Carly Simon songs?’ I’d probably do it.” There’s an endearing glumness about Thompson. Like me, he’s ginger, and after a burst of swapping stories about receiving ginger insults, he posits his suggestion for a Rihanna-like perfume line to boost his earnings. “Eau de Ginger. In the rest of the world, it would just mean ‘of ginger’. But here it would also mean Oh! De-ginger. Remove the ginger.” Thompson had a major deal with Verve before being dropped when gushing reviews failed to translate into album sales, and he thinks we will see the end of the musical middle class – the people who are neither superstars nor the aspirant twentysomethings on the toilet circuit. “We’re regular people, who make what regular people make in regular jobs. We’re travelling salesmen almost. We will disappear and the music will disappear. And is disappearing.” Nor is there any consolation in the fact that at least he’s doing the thing he loves. “People often say that. But how do you you know this is what I love? What makes you assume I love it with such a passion I’d be doing it anyway if it wasn’t my job? That’s not true of a lot of musicians. People think musicians are born with music spewing out of them, but it’s a job, too. How many musicians would be doing it if there was no pay involved? Not many. I love it sometimes, and sometimes I really don’t.” You get no hint of that when Thompson and Jones sing together. You don’t hear insecurity, money worries, concern about the place their music occupies in the world. You hear just the sound of two voices, a man and a woman, singing harmonies that sound as old as the sky and as fresh as the breeze. You hear the sound of music from a time when it sounded innocent. You don’t hear worry; you hear joy. Little Windows is out now on Cooking Vinyl. Teddy Thompson and Kelly Jones play the Apex in Bury St Edmunds on 5 May, then tour until 27 May. Details here.
Armed '3%' militia fights against proposed mosque in tiny Georgia town A Muslim congregation in central Georgia that wants to build a mosque faces opposition from an armed “3%” militia that has terrorized county officials and smeared the mosque as a training ground for the Islamic State. The militia’s actions have forced the cancellation of a county meeting meant to discuss the application to build the mosque, a move commissioners blamed on “uncivil threats or intentions [that] must be taken seriously”. Questioned by the , the county sheriff said investigations into the activities of the militia, which released a video in which the site of the proposed mosque appeared to be trespassed upon, had involved “limited conversations”. Another officer asked the to forward any information it had on the militia’s leader. The imam of the congregation issued a statement in which he called for all concerned to follow the example of the prophets, who he said “exercised patience and treated their neighbors well”. “This all started back in August,” Macrae Brennan-Fuller, spokeswoman for Newton County, told the with a sigh. The members of Al Maad Al Islami have worshipped for a decade at the home of imam Mohammad Islam in tiny Doraville, Georgia, but the congregation has now become big enough to need its own building. The members bought 135 acres about 40 miles south of Atlanta, in rural Newton County. The mosque would only require a small section of the land, which would otherwise be used for a cemetery, a park and possibly a school. Newton County is solid Trump country, however, and the presidential candidate’s suspicion of Muslim immigrants revealed itself in local reaction. On 11 August, county commissioner John Douglas asked in the Rockdale Citizen newspaper: “Would building those things make us a prime area for the federal government to resettle refugees from the Middle East?” Soon there was a Facebook page, called Stop the Mosque, alongside videos of armed and masked men firing weapons and setting off explosives in Georgia’s woodlands. The hashtags, the camouflage getup and clumsy maneuvers might have seemed silly, except the ammunition and demolition equipment were real. By mid-August, Newton County’s commissioners had enacted a temporary ban on building any places of worship, a reversal for a body that a few years ago passed a zoning ordinance designed to allow unimpeded construction of places described as “cathedral, chapel, church, synagogue, temple, mosque, tabernacle”. An opposing outcry arose in support of the mosque, and the US Department of Justice reviewed a complaint by the Council on American-Islamic Relations. Under pressure, the commission set a date in mid-September to lift the ban. But just before meeting day, a militia emerged, calling itself the Georgia Security Force III% (GSF). Three Percenters are a collection so-called patriot groups, scattered around the US and loosely affiliated. They draw their name from a claim that only a noble 3% of the American colonies’ population fought against the British in the American revolution. In reality, the colonies’ population at the time was about 2.5 million, of whom half were women, others were children, others old or infirm – and about 250,000 still fought. The Georgia group’s leader, Chris Hill, is a paralegal who also goes by the pseudonyms Bloodagent Hill and Chris Doberman. He did not return messages from the . But according to the group’s site and social media, its members hold a range of contradictory views. They are training to fight both the US government and enemies of the US government; they wave both the American flag and the southern Confederate battle flag; they say they support the US constitution but not the right of Muslims to express religious freedom. As the Newton County meeting approached, the GSF released a video set outside a church across the road from the mosque’s proposed site. In it the force’s members – some paunchy and gray, some teenage and waifish – stood in poses, holding up three-fingers like a misplaced street gang. But their guns were real and their rhetoric was incendiary. The video has since been taken down but Hill, a former US marine, claimed the proposed mosque had ties to Isis training, the September 11 attacks, the Boston marathon bombing, the Fort Hood shooting and more. Its members, he said, followed the antichrist. Another man hung an American flag on what appeared to be the mosque’s future site, an act which would have required trespassing. The posts shook the Newton County commission. It canceled the meeting and posted a notice on its website: “A self-made video circulated on social media of a militia group from a neighboring county, may have been trespassing on private property, and exhibiting harassing or violent behavior. “Unfortunately in today’s society, uncivil threats or intentions must be taken seriously.” Brennan-Fuller, the county’s spokeswoman, said the commission never met to lift the temporary ban, which expired on 20 September. “I hope that’s the end of it,” she said. That seems unlikely. After the GSF bullied the Newton County commission, Sheriff Ezell Brown pledged to investigate the group. Reached on Wednesday by the , he said: “I’ve had limited conversations about it.” Brown’s spokeswoman, Sergeant Courtney Morrison, said: “We don’t have any reports against the security force.” Hill, the GSF leader, lives in neighboring Henry County. Captain Joey Smith of the Henry County police said he had heard of the protests but did not know Hill lived in Henry County. He said someone in the department may know of Hill, and asked the to forward its information on him. “Anything you have would be helpful,” he said. The congregation, in the meantime, hopes to make peace with its new neighbors before breaking new ground. “As Muslims, we believe that God has commanded us to follow the teachings of the prophets Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Muhammad, who exercised patience and treated their neighbors well, even in the face of injustice,” Imam Islam said in a written statement. “For that reason, we consider building bridges with our neighbors far more important than immediately building a new cemetery and house of worship.”
The view on family planning: the unsung human right The most damaging aspect of the long referendum campaign has been the way the debate around immigration has been conducted. In among a legitimate airing of anxieties about overstretched public services, crowded GP surgeries and full entry classes at primary school, problems whose causes lie at least as much in austerity as in migration, there has been a crude and distasteful attempt in some quarters to undermine a compassionate response to the global humanitarian crisis and depict migrants as a threat, a kind of enemy at the gate. It is ironic that the same people who do this also criticise the British commitment to spending 0.7% of the UK’s national income on international development. This is money that properly spent will promote security and help economies to grow, building the essential foundations of global justice. Without it, life will remain so bleak and hopeless for hundreds of thousands of people that they will flee elsewhere. Many simply go to more stable economies in their neighbourhood or region. Some – often the better off or the better educated – take the terrible risk of getting into a small boat to cross the Mediterranean to try to reach Europe. Population growth is certainly not the only cause of the unprecedented movement of people around the globe, nor of the 65 million displaced people that the UN drew attention to on World Refugee Day earlier this week. War, climate change and corruption also contribute to sometimes catastrophic economic insecurity. But population pressures are an important part of the story. They can both drive development and be a barrier to it. Giving women and girls the power to choose for themselves when they get pregnant is thus not only a fundamental human right, but a big part of the solution. Next month marks the halfway stage of the Family Planning 2020 initiative, an attempt to get 120 million more women and girls in 69 countries using contraception, that was launched at a London conference in 2012. According to the UN’s population fund, there are twice that number who would like to be able to avoid getting pregnant if they could. But cost, availability and lack of knowledge as well as, in some countries, cultural taboos and social pressures that make pregnancy even for young teenagers a desirable objective, all contribute to making it impossible. Breaking down the barriers that stop women and girls having the right to choose should be at the heart of every development project. This is a vital aspect of women’s health; yet it often feels like the poor relation in development. In 2014, the Department for International Development’s total budget was more than £10bn. Of that, just £200m was committed to family planning. At the London conference, the prime minister pledged to provide 24 million additional girls and women with family planning by 2020, preventing hundreds of thousands of unwanted pregnancies and thousands of deaths. But the department’s main focus in women’s health tends to be on eradicating female genital mutilation and ending child marriage – important, of course, but only a small part of a much bigger story. The same is true in refugee camps, one of the least safe places in the world for girls and young women. An unwanted pregnancy is one more nightmare for a displaced woman; campaigners argue that contraception and access to safe abortion should be treated with the same urgency as water, food and shelter. On a day when it’s reported that drones are being used to deliver abortion pills to women in Northern Ireland, it is clear that an abuse of a human right that is not always easy to solve with money and resources alone, even in the developed world. There are many countries and many societies where the status of women allows men to feel entitled to deny them control of their own fertility. For those women who do have that control, it is easy to take it for granted. Conversely, the scale of the task of breaking down the barriers that stop it being a universal right is daunting. But for women and girls everywhere, it must become a development priority.
Mike Mignola: Why I'm ending Hellboy to go paint watercolors instead Mike Mignola’s Hellboy is one of the most widely praised and visually distinctive comics of the last three decades, spawning two critically acclaimed Guillermo Del Toro movies, several spin-off comic books and assorted paraphernalia from action figures to video games. Now, the character’s high-contrast, minimalist adventures are concluding with the hero ending his days where he began them: hell itself, where Mignola says he has found unexpected artistic freedom. The final issue ships this Wednesday, 1 June. Over nearly 22 years writing and drawing Hellboy – the first comic was published in October 1994 – Mignola has won virtually every major award in comics, some of them several times. Now, he says, he wants to narrow his focus still further. Mignola has cleared his schedule so he can take up watercolor painting, which is not a medium he’s used to. In conversation, Mignola is a good-humored pessimist, his dire expectations perpetually thwarted by what he calls an incredible run of good luck. He still speaks with amazement about being surprised by the best in the midst of preparing for the worst, whether he was creating a spare character in case everyone hated Hellboy or getting green lights for movies he was certain would fall apart. What made you decide to call it a day? Hellboy in Hell, as originally conceived, was radically different than what I ended up doing. My thing of getting him off the world into hell was just so I could do these stories where he rambles around. But even by the end of issue five, I started realizing: “There’s this one big story we’re telling.” I tried to do standalone stories, but I’d had him kill off Satan, which I somehow thought wasn’t going to be a big deal, but the weight of that thing took over the book. So originally it was going to go on forever, and then it was going to be four books, and then I replotted it so it was three … And I guess by the end of issue eight, which is out, he’s sitting under a tree and it just suddenly felt like, “Oh. This is the end of the series.” There’s one big thing he has left to do, or maybe two. I’ve been surprised at how pleasant hell is, in your comics. My version of the real world isn’t all that realistic – there aren’t all that many cars – but I wanted to throw Hellboy into a world that was entirely made of all the things I would draw if I had no job and could just draw whatever I wanted. Those cities, those people, those semi-transparent giant insects, all those sorts of things. So taking the year to do these paintings is a pretty natural transition. It’s kind of like stripping Hellboy out of it, stripping the storytelling out. That’s one of the things I’m really kind of looking forward to, just saying, “No, it’s a picture of a guy. We don’t have to know who that guy is. It’s a picture of a building. We don’t have to figure out what’s going on in that building.” Really, I’ve never done it. You’re a painter full-time now? Yeah, I’m painting and drawing. I think the drawing in the comic is fine, but none of the drawings get the kind of focus you would be doing if you were just doing a painting or a standalone drawing. Some part of me started saying, “You know, it’s been good that you’ve been able to do some stuff as a cartoonist writing and drawing your own stuff, but you always kind of wanted to be an artist.” And I just don’t think I’ve been doing artwork that’s up to what I could do if I focused all my energies on it. What do you want to do that you can’t do with that attention divided? I just want to see if I can be good at it. I’ve been doing roughly one painting a year. Generally they’ve been commercial – it hasn’t been painting for fun. With repetition, I’d like to think that I’ll get better at it. It’s been at least 25 years since I didn’t have jobs lined up, so the idea of waking up and saying, “What am I going to do new today?” is pretty exciting. Is gouache your medium now, like your cover paintings for the Hellboy novels? The paintings I generally do are a watercolor/gouache combination, so all these harsh, deliberate shapes I do in comics, that becomes blur and mush and transparency and accident. Watercolor is hard to control. At some point you’re putting color on to a wet piece of paper and that color is going to interact with the other colors and it’s going to do stuff with the water, and that’s scary but it’s also exciting. It’s the flipside of doing the really controlled black and white stuff. I’m looking forward to embracing that, and doing pictures of ghosts where there are places where you go, “I don’t know what I’m looking at! Maybe that’s an arm, but there also seems to be ivy there!” You can’t get that in black and white. Are there plans to do Hellboy in any other media? Occasionally there are still some discussions about film or TV, but I’ll believe it when I see it. There’s nothing I can do to make those things happen. I constantly get those people saying, “Are you going to make another movie? Make them do this! Make them do that!” I can’t make them do anything! Do people go crazy about the property, given how fondly the movies are remembered? Every time Ron Perlman does an interview and says, “Let’s do Hellboy 3!” I get bombarded with people who say: “Ron says it’s happening!” Ron has as much power on this thing as I do, which is none. I appreciate that level of enthusiasm, but please don’t anybody ever again talk to me about doing a Kickstarter. We’re talking about hundreds of millions of dollars; I don’t see raising it in nickels and dimes. “What do you mean you’re not making a third one? Those movies were so good!” They didn’t make a lot of money, and that’s one of the big things people look for. The fact that you got two of them was a miracle. You want $80m to make a movie starring Ron Perlman and it’s called Hellboy! How the hell did that thing ever get made? It shows the power of [Guillermo] del Toro. Back then, he was just a super enthusiastic guy who’d made a couple of pretty funky monster movies. But he was persuasive as hell and he fought like a dog to get these things made. So you’re happy whether or not there’s a Hellboy 3? It’s very good for book sales. I’d love for it to be in some way kind of faithful to the comic, and if it’s a horrific, complete departure, I won’t be thrilled, but you have to make peace with these things. Back when Dark Horse optioned it from me and put it into development, I thought: “This is the greatest scam I’m ever going to run! You’re going to give me money so you can maybe make a movie, but we all know you’re never going to make the movie, so you’re going to pay me money again, for nothing? That’s great!” [But] then when they actually made the movie, holy shit. Now it’s scary. When I signed the option deal for Hellboy, being me, I assumed the absolute worst. What if they do make it, and it’s horrible beyond anything I can possibly imagine? It’s going to make Howard the Duck look like Gone With the Wind. I thought: “Oh, no. I’ve just got Hellboy up and running, and this movie could completely sink the name Hellboy forever. There’ll be so much stink on it!” So I made up a new character and everything I had planned to do with Hellboy, I could roll over into this other character. What was the name of the new character? We eventually started doing it as a comic: Joe Golem, Occult Detective. I made up this golem character I was going to do as a comic, and then I was going to do it as a novel, but really it was sitting off to the side, waiting for Hellboy to tank huge. For a long time he was just sitting on the sidelines, as my lifeboat. And you never got to leap into him. No, I didn’t need to! When the movie didn’t destroy Hellboy, I was going to do Joe Golem as a comic, and I was living in New York. Two weeks before I started, I wanted to scout out all the locations and take photos, and I’m looking down 7th Avenue like, “That’s the establishing shot for the first page,” and 9/11 happens. Suddenly the idea of doing a book about a partially sunken New York City in ruins was really unappealing. I go: “Well, you’re going back on the shelf.” Where did the seed of Hellboy come from originally? I’d had a falling out with Marvel and I went to DC. I did a one-issue Batman story that I plotted myself. It was a straight-up Batman supernatural story and I had a lot of fun doing it. It really felt like a turning point. If I can do stories that really reflect me, do I continue to do these stories and try to shoehorn other people’s characters in? Really, if I’m going to make up my own stories, why don’t I make up my own guy? When will we get to see your paintings? If you come by the house, you can see them. I hadn’t given it any thought. Ideally, I’m working on this stuff for a year, and certainly if anything good shows up, I’ll post it on Facebook or I’ll put it on our website, because I’m not one of those guys that’s gonna be content to say, “Oh, they’re just for me,” which is apparently what you hear about [Calvin and Hobbes creator] Bill Watterson – he’s just painting for himself. If I do anything halfway good, I want everybody to see it.
The life lessons that Olivia de Havilland can teach us A lifetime is a fairly short span, the wise agree. And a clear-eyed understanding that the significance of individuals really does not “amount to more than a hill of beans in this crazy world” is shared not just by the fans of the last scene of Casablanca. The mature thing is to soberly accept our time on Earth is fleeting and that all our efforts will soon be forgotten. Yet occasionally somebody manages to buck the trend. Olivia de Havilland, renowned Hollywood beauty and double Oscar winner, was 100 years old on Friday and somehow appears to have quietly straddled the ages. Usually, when it comes to the lives of well-known personalities – politicians, performers or sports stars – our habit of consigning them to a particular era means we can keep up our faith in the brevity of human existence. So Henry Kissinger is the 1960s, Björn Borg is the 1970s and Simon Le Bon is the 1980s. These three celebrated names are kept in their own time-limited box, despite the fact they are still going strong. History will eventually preserve each of them to some degree or other, but we seem to want neatly to tie up their stories and then move on. It is both wonderful and pleasantly muddling then to be reminded that de Havilland, a film star who by rights belongs way back in a Technicolor world, wrapped in the arms of either Errol Flynn or Leslie Howard, is alive and well and comfortably set up in a Paris hotel suite. Those melting brown eyes, that quizzical brow and the soft, spherical face that made her feisty Maid Marian so beguiling in The Adventures of Robin Hood, and her Melanie Hamilton so meekly decorative in Gone With the Wind, is still observing global events in 2016, just like the rest of us. “I feel like a survivor from an age that people no longer understand,” she said recently. So the woman who played opposite James Cagney, the woman who fought the studio mogul Jack Warner of Warner Bros and won a chance to work elsewhere for all contracted stars, the woman who intrigued the press for years with her apparent disdain for her younger sister, Joan Fontaine, well, that same woman has also now heard about Brexit, possibly about the Welsh football campaign, and, yes, probably also about the Kardashians, as well as about everything else that has happened in between. We know, at least, that she has heard about Mark Rylance. “I am overwhelmed by his accomplishments,” she told the writer Roger Lewis. In a piece in the Times last week, Lewis also has de Havilland wryly complain that “anyone who has ever heard my name has the distinct impression I was put under the sod years ago”. Elsewhere, the actress has admitted that even at her great age there are things she has not had time to fit in. She wishes chiefly that she could go back in time and take up her college scholarship place, cast aside when she won her first film contract in order to play Hermia in Max Reinhardt’s 1935 film of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. De Havilland, who was born to British parents and is of the same family as the aircraft manufacturers, is one of the very few great survivors of the golden age of Hollywood. It is now really only Kirk Douglas, at 99, who can compete. The healthiest of us may reach our centenaries, but in the case of a creative talent, of course, they really can live on and on. Their books, films and plays will keep talking down the decades and their music goes forward with us, regardless of when it was composed. But the stories, paintings and sculptures also offer more than valuable entertainment and a distraction. Culture, both high and low, shows us what we were and how we have responded to what is around us. And happily, in the case of a film star such as De Havilland, we will still go on looking up at a lovely face on a screen, first captured on celluloid 80 years ago, for as long as we have the good sense to appreciate it.
US growth revised up; Iran rules out oil production cuts – as it happened OK, time for a brisk recap. 1) America’s economy is performing even better than expected; growth in the last quarter has been revised up to a 3.2% annual rate, from 2.9%. Consumer spending, investment and exports all helped to push GDP up. Analysts say the figures show the US is in fairly robust shape, making a December interest rate rise even more likely. 2) There’s deadlock in Vienna tonight, as Opec ministers struggle to make headway towards a deal to cut production. Iran has thrown down the gauntlet, saying it will not reduce its output and suggesting Saudi Arabia takes the hit itself. The oil price has slumped by 3.5% tonight, as the markets prepare for tomorrow’s Opec meeting. 3) Investors are bracing for volatility as Italy heads to the polls on Sunday to vote on PM Matteo Renzi’s constitutional reforms. ECB sources have hinted that they would use their QE programme to stabilise the markets on Monday, if the public vote No -- a move that could prompt Renzi’s resignation. Adam Chester, head of economics for commercial banking at Lloyds Bank, predicts turbulence if Renzi loses (as seems likely): Italy is being asked whether to accept a broad package of measures aimed at making the country’s gridlocked political system more efficient and its government more stable. It has had more than 60 governments since the Second World War, so one might think that measures to improve stability would be strongly welcomed. But a key implication of the proposed changes is that incumbents would have far more power, which is strongly resisted by opposition parties, and there is a clear risk that the people will vote against the government, particularly given the weakness of Italy’s economy. If the referendum is not passed – and the polls suggest a ‘No’ win – Prime Minister Renzi could step down, leading to early elections and boosting the anti-EU Five Star Movement (M5S), which has pledged a referendum on whether Italy should stay in the euro. If Italy votes ‘No’, the euro is likely to come under immediate downward pressure and contagion could also see government bond and credit spreads across much of Europe rise. 4) Companies have been teaming up with charities for Giving Tuesday: That’s probably all for today. Tomorrow will be extra-busy, with Bank of England stress test results released at 7am GMT, and Opec’s meeting running through the day. See you then. Goodnight! GW Italy’s stock market has defied worries about Sunday’s referendum to close 2% higher. The FTSE MIB index outperformed the rest of Europe, helped by that Reuters report that the ECB would step in to stabilise the markets next week, if needed. The German, French, and Spanish indices also finished the day higher, But the FTSE 100 lost 27 point, or 0.4%, to finish at 6772 - dragged down by energy companies including BP (-2.1%) and Shell (-2%). City traders haven’t been impressed by the lack of progress at Opec’s meeting in Vienna today: Joshua Mahoney of IG says: Despite an initial consensus, a deal feels as far away as ever, with members continuing to conduct an intricate game of political poker, utilising the media to further their cause. It is becoming increasingly evident that some of the more prominent OPEC members care more about holding on to market share than helping raise the price of oil. Hence despite agreeing to a production cut, we have seen the likes of Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Iran all continue to raise production. In another signal that America’s economy is solid, sales of recreational vehicles are on track to hit their highest level in four decades. Shipments of new RVs are expected to hit 419,500 this year, industry figures say, up 12% on last year. These whopping motorhomes and trailers are, apparently, popular with Millennials who want to get into the Great Outdoors in some comfort. But....these things don’t come cheap. A typical RV will cost six-figures,. You could even splash out one million dollars if, say, you want large beds, flat screen TVs and space for your own sports car.... Meanwhile in Greece... Athens has received an unexpected boost ahead of next week’s meeting of eurozone finance ministers (the eurogroup). Our correspondent Helena Smith reports. The Dutch finance minister and eurogroup head Jeroen Dijsselbloem has not always batted for Greece but today he came out firmly in favour of Athens’ longstanding argument that primary surplus targets set by international creditors in the years ahead are simply unachievable. Addressing the European Parliament’s economic affairs committee, the Dutchman suggested it would be counter-productive if Greece was given unrealistic fiscal targets once its current bailout program expires in 2018. “We need to be realistic” he said adding that it would be a big ask if Athens was made to pull off the herculean task of achieving a 3.5% primary surplus when its fiscal adjustment program was finally completed. Djisselbloem’s comments come in the wake of similar optimism expressed by visiting European Economic Affairs Commissioner Pierre Moscovici. Conducting a two-day visit to Athens ahead of next week’s euro group, the Frenchman also voiced support for the leftist-led government’s bid to secure debt relief saying reprofiling of the unustainable load should also begin by year’s end. At over €300bn, or 180% of GDP, Greece’s debt burden is the biggest in Europe and widely viewed as the root of its financial woes. But demands for more austerity still loom large and could threaten to overturn economic progress in the months ahead. Back in Vienna, the UAE’s oil minister has told energy reporters that Opec could still achieve a deal to cut output tomorrow. Suhail Mohamed Faraj Al Mazrouei said it was premature to assume that the cartel would fail, despite the clashes between Saudi Arabia and Iran behind the scenes. Amena Bakr of Energy Intelligence has the details (again): After the excesses of Black Friday and Cyber Monday, British business has been showing its charitable side today. For the third year running, voluntary bodies have been working with companies to encourage people to give money, or time, to good causes - from cancer charities to Syrian aid. Some 1,500 UK-based businesses and charities are taking part this year, including BT - which hosted an event at its iconic Tower this morning - Royal Mail, Royal Bank of Scotland, and several retailers including Morrisons, Sainsbury’s, and the Co-op. The idea started in the 2012 in America, and last year, it raised over $45m worldwide. The Charities Aid Foundation is co-ordinating it in the UK. They’ve sent some details over: A choir of MPs singing Christmas carols on College Green to raise money to support the work of doctors in Aleppo, as part of the Singing for Syrians appeal. MPs taking part included Victoria Prentis, Will Quince, Robert Buckland, Andrea Jenkyns and Eilidh Whiteford. Pictures are available on request. Great British Bake Off winner Candice Brown appearing in a video for Paypal, promoting its offer to add £1 to Cancer Research UK donations over £10 made using Paypal. Staff at Marie Curie UK writing personalised thank you letters to their supporters. Checkout staff at Morrisons wearing #givingtuesday stickers today and encouraging customers to top up their shop with a charitable donation. eBay launching a pop up #givingtuesday shop to raise money for a number of good causes. CAF’s Hannah Terrey has written about it for us here: And there’s a new-fangled Twitter Moment too.... An Opec source has now told Reuters that Iran want Saudi Arabia to cut its output to 9.5m barrels per day, from around 10.5m today. That means Saudi would be taking the entire one million barrel per day cut which was provisionally agreed in September in Algeria. That may be unacceptable to Riyadh -- both economically and politically.... The Opec situation in a brisk nutshell: These latest comments out of Vienna show that Iraq and Iran are at odds with Saudi Arabia over the proposed Opec output cut. The hardline stance from Iran’s Zangenah shows that Tehran is not willing to curb its own output. The situation is complicated; there’s no real agreement on how much Iran is actually pumping today! So Saudi Arabia are effectively being challenged to swallow the output cut themselves, while other cartel members would simply benefit from the resulting higher prices. Here’s Reuters’ latest dispatch from the Opec HQ: OPEC sources told Reuters a meeting of experts in Vienna on Monday failed to bridge differences between OPEC’s de factol eader, Saudi Arabia, and the group’s second- and third-largest producers over the mechanics of output cuts. “We will leave the level of production (where) we decided in Algeria,” Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh told reporters upon arrival in Vienna, effectively signalling he was not prepared to reduce output. OPEC, which accounts for a third of global oil production, agreed in September to cap output at around 32.5-33.0 million barrels per day versus the current 33.64 million bpd to prop up oil prices, which have halved since mid-2014. OPEC said it would exempt Iran, Libya and Nigeria from cutsas their output has been crimped by unrest and sanctions. The deal was seen as a victory for Iran. Tehran has long argued it wants to raise production to regain market share lost under Western sanctions, when its political arch-rival SaudiArabia increased output. In recent weeks, Riyadh offered to cut its own output by 500,000 barrels per day, according to OPEC sources, and suggested Iran limit production at around 3.8 million bpd - in line with or slightly above the country’s current output. But Tehran has sent mixed signals including that it wanted to produce 4.2 million bpd. Here’s a video clip of the scrum (or possibly rolling maul) which greeted Iran’s oil minister, Bijan Namdar Zanganeh, as he arrived in Vienna. Listen out for the breaking vase! There is high drama in Vienna, where Iran’s oil minister has declared that his country will NOT cut oil production. Bijan Namdar Zanganeh told a heaving throng of oil reporters that Iran would stick to the production levels set earlier this year, and would not accept any output cuts. That’s a blow to Opec’s chances of finalising a deal to cut production levels at tomorrow’s official meeting in Vienna. And Bloomberg is now reporting that Saudi will reject a deal, unless Iran and Iraq agree to a compromise These comments have sent the Brent crude oil price plunging by over 3% to 46.51 per barrel, down over 1.5 dollars. The press scrum also sent a vase flying to the floor of Opec’s hotel foyer -- the second broken vase in as many days! As we covered earlier, Indonesia’s oil minister had also told reporters that he’s not optimistic about a deal this week. FXTM Research Analyst Lukman Otunuga says traders aren’t confident either: Reports of Russia not attending the OPEC gathering has dented hopes of a meaningful deal while concerns of Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia failing to bridge their differences continues to encourage sellers to attack oil. The US Federal Reserve is now even more likely to hike interest rates next month, says Ian Kernohan, Economist at Royal London Asset Management: “Robust US GDP growth in the third quarter, driven by household demand, was a marked improvement on the first half of the year. “This should bolster the case for a rise in US interest rates in December. We think the Fed will wait until they see the scale and timing of any Trumpflation fiscal boost, before altering their language about gradual rate hikes.” Today’s growth figures are a sign that America has recovered from a slow start to 2016, says the FT’s Adam Samson. The data released on Tuesday confirm that the economy expanded in the third quarter at the fastest rate in two years, representing a sharp pick-up from the 0.8 per cent and 1.4 per cent pace logged in the first and second quarters, respectively. Consumption growth, a key element of US economic output, was revised higher to a 2.8 per cent pace, from the previous reading of 2.1 per cent. FT: US GDP revision confirms strengthening recovery The Wall Street Journal is impressed by the pick-up in corporate profits: Tuesday’s report also showed that a key measure of U.S. corporate profits increased for the third consecutive quarter. Profits after tax, without inventory valuation and capital consumption adjustments, rose 3.5% from the second quarter to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $1.694 trillion in the third quarter. Compared with a year earlier, after-tax profits rose 5.2% last quarter, the strongest annual reading since the fourth quarter of 2012. WSJ: US GDP Growth Revised Up to Strongest Expansion in Two Years Christopher Vecchio of DailyFX reckons growth will continue to accelerate in the current quarter. Breaking! America’s economy grew even faster than expected in the last three months. US GDP rose by an annualised rate of 3.2% in the July to September quarter, up from the first estimate of 2.9%, according to new data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). This is the fastest growth rate since the third quarter of 2014, thanks to stronger consumer spending, exports (especially soybeans!) and federal government spending. That equates to a quarterly expansion of around 0.8% - which means America comfortably outpaced Britain, which only grew by 0.5%, and Germany and France (which both grew by a mere 0.2%). The Commerce Department says: The acceleration in real GDP in the third quarter primarily reflected an upturn in private inventory investment, an acceleration in exports, an upturn in federal government spending, and smaller decreases in state and local government spending and residential fixed investment, that were partly offset by a deceleration in PCE (personal consumption), an acceleration in imports, and a deceleration in nonresidential fixed investment. Italian government bonds are strengthening, on the back of that report that the ECB would step in if the public reject Renzi’s constitutional changes on Sunday. The yield, or interest rate, on its 10-year debt has dropped to 1.97%, down from 2.06% earlier. That means investors see the bonds as less risky. And bank stocks are pushing higher too; up 2.4%. Eric Lascelles, chief economist at RBC Global Asset Management, argues that Sunday’s vote won’t trigger a major crisis. While there is the possibility of a slippery slope involving a snap election, a victory by the Eurosceptic Five Star Movement and then very real questions about Italy’s ongoing membership in the Eurozone, it is more likely that an election is averted, with a good chance that Renzi will be reappointed as Prime Minister. Even in the context of an election, it isn’t clear that the Five Star Movement would be able to govern by itself. In the less likely scenario that the referendum passes, this would enable the Italian government to move more briskly on many much-needed structural economic reforms. Insiders at the European Central Bank have told Reuters that they’d step in and buy more Italian bonds, if Sunday’s referendum leads to short-term market volatility. The ECB could use “flexibility” in its existing quantitative easing scheme to mop up extra Italian debt and prevent prices slumping, as investors digest the result of the vote. However, if Italy requires longer-term help, it will have to seek a formal bailout. Reuters says: The ECB could use its 80-billion-euro ($84.8 billion) monthly bond-buying programme to counter any immediate, further spike in bond yields after the vote, smoothing market moves and supporting bonds, according to four euro zone central bank sources who asked not to be named. The sources added the scheme was flexible enough to allow for a temporary increase in Italian purchases and that such a move would not necessarily need to be rubber-stamped by the ECB’s Governing Council, which is due to meet on December 8 to decide on whether to keep buying bonds after March. But they stressed this would be limited to days or weeks, to counter any immediate market volatility, because the asset-purchase programme was designed to shore up inflation and economic growth in the entire euro zone and was not intended to fight crises in individual countries. Newsflash from America: Jewellery chain Tiffany & Co has admitted that its flagship store in New York has suffered from being sited next to Donald Trump’s headquarters. Tiffany has told shareholders that it has suffered “some adverse effect on traffic”, due to “recent election-related activity” near its New York store. That store is on the corner of 5th Avenue and 57th Street, adjacent to Trump Tower, meaning access has been affected by the protests against the president-elect. Tiffany also warns that it can’t provide any assurance that sales won’t suffer in the crucial Christmas period, or beyond. However, it also emphasises that the store provides less than 10% of its net sales. Tiffany describes its New York shop as “simply the most famous store there is” -- partly thanks to the exploits of Ms Holly Golightly. But it now finds itself right next to a massive security operation. Concrete barriers have been erected outside Trump Tower, and armed police are posted outside, at a reported cost of $1m per day. Security is likely to be extremely tight on 5th Avenue throughout Trump’s tenure as president, depending how much time he spends at the Tower. His wife Melania, and son Barron, are expected to stay there until at least the end of the school year, and will require constant protection. The New York Daily News reported two weeks ago that the US secret service wants to close 5th Avenue down when the president is in situ, which would clearly be bad news for local shops. And the New York Post reports that local restaurants have suffered from falling sales. Willie Degel, founder of Uncle Jack’s Steakhouse on 56th Street and Sixth Avenue, fumed: “It has been a complete nightmare. Pedestrian foot traffic is down tremendously. Everybody in the area is suffering.” The good news for Tiffany’s is that worldwide net sales increased 1% in the last three months. Here’s its third-quarter results. Austria could also contribute to eurozone worries this weekend, when voters head to the polls to choose a new president. It’s a straight fight between far-right candidate Nobert Hofer, of the Freedom Party, and Alexander Van der Bellen, a former leader of the Greens Party. Van der Bellen is running on a pro-EU platform, saying voters have a choice between “a co-operative and an authoritarian style.” As we’re still in 2016, this may be tempting fate.... This vote was originally due to take place in September, but was postposed when the glue on some postal votes failed (very 2016!). Carlo Alberto de Casa, Chief Analyst at ActivTrades, says traders will be watching events closely: We are seeing a weight of pressure on the euro due to the Italian Referendum and the re-run of the Austrian presidential vote, both taking place this weekend. They could impact the euro significantly. The oil price is sliding as Opec members struggle to reach an accord before Wednesday’s make-or-break meeting. Indonesia’s energy minister has sparked the selloff, by telling reporters in Vienna that he’s “not optimistic” that the cartel will agree a supply cuts deal tomorrow. Brent crude is currently down almost one dollar per barrel at $47.37, a 1.8% decline. Indonesia are only a small player, but traders are clearly desperate for any smoke signals from the Opec HQ. The success, or failure, of Opec’s meeting appears to depend on Saudi Arabia, Iran and Iraq. Analysts reckon that the authorities in Tehran and Baghdad has hoped that Riyadh would swallow the proposed output cuts itself, allowing them to keep pumping. But Saudi are taking a harder line -- even though their economy is suffering badly from the low oil price. Veteran Opec analyst Yasser Elguindi of Medley Global Advisors dubs it a poker game: “The stakes are extremely high, and everyone seems to be upping the ante. The thing with poker though is you can win even if you have a weak hand. But right now its hard to know who is bluffing and who is holding aces.” Britain’s farming industry is facing a labour shortage as foreign fruit and veg pickers leave the UK following the EU referendum. The Financial Times reports that half the firms who supply workers to the horticulture sector couldn’t find enough labour in the July-September quarter. And the National Farmers Union is getting worried, the FT says: In a letter to Robert Goodwill, the immigration minister, dated November 10 and seen by the FT, Minette Batters, the NFU’s deputy president, warned: “There is a clear emerging labour crisis in the industry” and “a very real risk that British fruit and vegetables will be left to rot unpicked in British fields in 2017”. Rural areas saw solid support for Leaving the EU in June -- but perhaps farmers didn’t expect ‘taking back control’ to mean ‘no-one wants to pick our carrots’. Tax lawyer Jo Maugham points out that the slump in the pound means workers from the eurozone now earn almost 20% less. Anyone who likes a spot of Christmas pud faces further heartache -- the sugar, raisins and butter are now much pricier. The euro has dipped back below €1.06 this morning, down 0.2%. Caxton FX analyst Alexandra Russell-Oliver blamed ‘political risks’: The euro may have received some initial support as Fillon won France’s Republican Party’s presidential nomination, before coming under renewed pressure. Political risks remain a downwards pressure on the euro; attention at the moment has largely been on Italy’s constitutional referendum on 4 December. Boom! UK consumers are running up credit at the fastest rate in over a decade, before the credit crunch And people are taking out more mortgages too, in another signal that Brexit uncertainty isn’t hurting consumer confidence yet. Reuters has the details: Consumer credit increased last month by £1.62bn, up from £1.48bn in September and taking the annual growth rate to 10.5%- the strongest since October 2005, Bank of England data showed on Tuesday. Mortgage approvals for house purchases increased to 67,518 in October from 63,594 in September. Analysts in a Reuters poll had forecast 65,000 mortgage approvals were made in October. Over in France, statistics body INSEE has confirmed that the economy grew by a lacklustre 0.2% in the third quarter of 2016. That matches the provisional reading; we now also know that consumer spending was flat, investment crept up by 0.2%. Economists believe consumer spending will pick up in the run-up to Christmas -- that could be crucial, with the French presidential election due next spring. After a slow start, Italy’s banking shares have now rallied by 2% today. That may mean investors are a little more hopeful that Italy can ride out this crisis. Erik Nielsen, chief economist at Unicredit, says there’s no chance that the Italian referendum could trigger a Lehman Brothers-style collapse. Speaking on Bloomberg, Nielsen explains that thee Italian banks are too small, and they also have the European Central Bank waiting in the wings to help if needed. Nielsen says investors are anticipating defeat for Renzi on Sunday. Nobody really expects a yes vote, so it’s a question about how close it will be and if those opinion polls from way back are right or wrong. But whatever happens, Italy needs to tackle the under-performing loans that are clogging up its financial sector. As Nielsen puts it: The big, big question is, whichever scenario comes though, can Italy address the question of the medium-sized banks which everyone knows they’ve been dragging their feet on for too long. It’s too early to assume that the Italian people will reject Renzi’s attempts to reform the Senate, says Deutsche Bank. They point out that many voters were undecided last week (before we entered a polling black0out period). They might yet fall behind Renzi’s drive to concentrate political power in the lower house, making it easier to get legislation into law. True... but as Deutsche’s chart shows, the No campaign has been widening its lead for since the summer: Now this is interesting.... Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera is reporting that Matteo Renzi is considering resigning as prime minister even if he wins on Sunday. Under this strategy, Renzi would look to be re-appointed as prime minister with a new government, and broader support in the current parliament. Then he could push through more constitutional reforms, before holding general elections in 2017 and 2018. Here’s Correire’s piece. And here’s Bloomberg’s take: Most European stock markets have fallen in early trading, extending yesterday’s drops, as Italian referendum fears give traders an extra chill. However, the Italian FTSE MIB has actually risen a little after yesterday’s 2% slide (it may only be a cattus mortuus bounce, as the index has lost 28% in the last year). Kit Juckes of Societe Generale predicts nervousness until the weekend: Since we’ll hear no more about the Italian referendum until the event itself, I’m not sure what is supposed to provide clear direction in Europe today. It’s more a case of angst, which probably will, at some point, turn into nervousness sufficient to take the Euro back down. Writing in the Daily Telegraph today, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard warns that Italy could need a €40bn bailout to patch up its banks. He says markets are bracing for Renzi to be defeated on Sunday, triggering months of political turmoil. Sources in Rome say the Italian government may have to turn to the European Stability Mechanism for a bank rescue, a humiliating and painful course that must be approved by the German Bundestag. It would amount to a partial “Troika”administration under terms dictated by the EU. One senior Italian banker said: “We think the banks will have to raise €40bn in fresh capital. This is going to need an ESM bail-out. The problems in the banks are becoming an excuse to put Italy under an EU programme. “It won’t happen under Renzi because he won’t be there any longer after a ‘No’ vote. What we expect is a technocrat government that pushes this through.” More here: Global investors are becoming more concerned that the eurozone could break up, as fears over Italy’s future grow. German research form Sentix reports that almost 20% of investors expect Italy to leave the eurozone in the next 12 months - the highest level since they started polling four years ago. Investors are worried that Matteo Renzi will lose Sunday’s referendum, and concerned about the financial health of the Italian banking sector, says Julien Muller of Sentix. Overall, the chances that a single country leaving the eurozone has risen to 24.1%, well below the peaks over 70% seen at the height of the 2012 crisis. Global stock markets could be rocked next week if the Italian people reject Renzi’s reform plan, says Kathleen Brooks of City Index. She says: A no vote on Sunday is a major event risk for the European financial sector. Up to 8 Italian banks could fail, as Matteo Renzi’s bank bailout programme is likely to be scrapped if he resigns. It is not known what would replace it, or if the European authorities would step in to save the Italian financial system. If not, then the creditworthiness of some of the larger more systemic banks, such as Deutsche Bank, could be at risk. DB has plenty of risks of its own, if the European authorities don’t save Italy’s banking sector, then how could it justify saving Germany’s largest bank? Thus, we could see further declines in DB’s stock price before the week is out. Brooks also points out that referendum opinion polling has been suspended since November 18, creating extra uncertainty: This is likely to increase the tension and nervousness around this referendum, and could keep market volatility high for the rest of this week. The Vix, Wall Street’s fear gauge, started to rise on Monday, and we could see further advances in volatility in the coming days, putting pressure on stocks and causing safe havens like the yen and US Treasuries to rally. Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of the world economy, the financial markets, the eurozone and business. Eurozone crisis jitters are returning to the City this morning, as investors worry that the smouldering problems in Italy’s economy are about to burst into life. On Sunday, Italian votes head to the polls to vote on constitutional reforms - and many observers believe they will slap down prime minister Mattio Renzi’s attempts to curb the power of the Senate. That could trigger Renzi’s resignation, and potentially pave the way for radical, anti-Euro Five Star Movement to take power. That could scupper efforts to recapitalise Italy’s banks, which are weighed down by bad loans, and possibly require a full-blown bailout from the European Central Bank. As Laurent Frings, head of credit research at Aberdeen Asset Management, put it: “Italy’s banks are at a critical stage in trying to rebuild their finances and, if Renzi loses the referendum and quits, then those efforts are going to be in deep trouble.” Renzi’s departure isn’t guaranteed, even if he loses his referendum. He could potentially stay on as caretaker PM, but even this would leave Italy looking less stable. Renzi has insisted that political power needs to be more concentrated in the lower house of parliament, and the government, transforming the Senate from a directly elected upper house into a more consultative body representing Italy’s cities and regions. Italian bank shares slid by almost 4% on Monday, dragged down by referendum worries and fears that financial firm Monti Dei Paschi’s rescue plan might falter. Also coming up today... Things are getting frostier, literally and metaphorically, in Vienna ahead of tomorrow’s meeting of the Opec oil cartel. Yesterday, technical talks between Opec members failed to reach a deal on how to cut production. (non-Opec member) Russia has helpfully weighed in, with Vladimir Putin saying it’s important that Opec stabilises the market. In the UK, prime minister Theresa May will announce a crackdown on excessive pay at privately owned companies, to bring them into line with firms floated on the stock market. The announcement is due around lunchtime. Our City editor Jill Treanor has the story: Theresa May is to promise a crackdown on boardroom excess at large privately owned businesses as she unveils proposals intended to hold corporate Britain to account. The prime minister said the government would look at ways to bring privately owned companies under a regime that could mimic the one imposed on major stock market companies. While many private companies were performing well, “we have, however, seen an irresponsible minority of privately held companies acting carelessly – leaving employees, customers and pension fund beneficiaries to suffer when things go wrong. “So we will explore ways to improve and extend good governance across big business so that everybody plays by the same rules and we create an economy that works for everyone, not just the privileged few.” We get a new healthcheck on the French and American economies today. 7.45am GMT: Second estimate of France’s GDP for the third quarter of 2016 (first estimate was 0.2% growth) 1.36pm GMT: Second estimate of US economic growth in Q3 (first estimate was 3.0% annualised growth) Plus, entertainment group Merlin and sausage maker Cranswick are reporting results. And telecoms regulator Ofcom has announced it is “proceeding with a formal notification” to force BT to legally separate its Openreach arm, having been disappointed with progress to date. More on all that shortly...
Renée Zellweger: there is so much more to her than Bridget Jones When a barefoot Renée Zellweger was photographed in 2005 on a Caribbean beach, marrying the country singer Kenny Chesney, reaction in Britain’s popular media was straightforward. Chesney, said the Mirror, was “saving” the film star from “becoming a real-life Bridget Jones”. It was just a flip line, but it deliberately missed the whole point not simply of Helen Fielding’s resplendently resilient comic creation, but also of Zellweger’s own wildly successful life, as she pursued her lucrative and acclaimed career in the Hollywood Hills. That point: she really did not need saving. Zellweger, who is Texas-born but has since been almost adopted by Britain after portraying Jones on screen with such gusto and with such a good English accent, has endlessly been compared with the hapless “singleton” she played in two hit films in 2001 and 2004. Even Vogue, commenting this summer on the swift annulment of her marriage to Chesney and also on her split, five years ago, from actor Bradley Cooper, judged: “One gets the sense that, like Bridget, Renée may have had her fair share of Saturday nights in front of the television. And it makes her all the more lovable.” When an actor inhabits a part as well as Zellweger has, she cannot avoid being closely identified with it. Yet in truth, the only thing this fictional character seems to share with the woman who plays her is that public responses to both function like a monitor of our changing attitudes to lone women. The plots of the previous films, in which the gaffe-prone Bridget stumbles towards love and marriage with her ideal man, Mark Darcy (Colin Firth), have also been combed over for clues as to where modern heterosexual relationships may be heading. Now, 12 years later, Bridget and Renée are back, in a third film, Bridget Jones’s Baby, released on 16 September, and the fate of this fictional heroine, born to a witty columnist in the Independent in the 1990s, is being weighed once again against the social values of our times. Fielding’s Jones is lucky to be played by a performer as skilled and subtle as Zellweger, thinks Beeban Kidron, who directed the second film in the series, Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason. “Renée is not only a great comedienne but also a heartbreakingly touching actress. Which is why she is able to channel Bridget with all the impossible contradictions that she holds – contradictions that women all over the world identify with.” Zellweger’s real love life, rather like Jennifer Aniston’s, is still repeatedly targeted for analysis. Perhaps because they are both famous for playing friendly, approachable women, their relationship histories are cheerfully decoded by strangers, despite the ample supply of alternative single/divorced celebrities in the film business. In any case, since it is central to the Jones narrative, Zellweger handles all personal inquiries gamely and honestly. “I’m not single, I’m busy. That’s my line,” she was wont to reply when asked about her prospects of settling down. This summer, reportedly now happily dating an old Texan pal and musician, Doyle Bramhall II, she opened up once again, admitting to wondering at the maths of her parents’ long and happy union, in a way common to many other women of her generation. “They’ve been married 52 years!” she said. “Even if I’d have got married 10 years ago, it couldn’t happen.” Zellweger’s return to the role of Jones will be her first screen appearance since 2010 and she clearly feels warmly about the character, gaining “a few pounds” to fill Jones’s boots again. “Bridget is a perfectly normal weight and I’ve never understood why it matters so much,” she has said. “No male actor would get such scrutiny if he did the same thing for a role.” Two years ago, Zellweger’s face also came under intense scrutiny when she emerged from a period away from the celebrity merry-go-round. A suggestion that she had let surgeons ease her passage into her late 40s was kicked about between columnists and commentators on both sides of the Atlantic, although Zellweger denied it. Film stars often endure this kind of invasive, intimate inspection because their faces are the tools of their craft, but it is a study that borders on the tasteless, as well as speaking of the collective western neurosis about the ageing process. Born in the town of Katy in 1969, Zellweger was, she has said, an unadventurous child who had to wait until university in Austin to discover her love of performance. Her father, Emil, is Swiss and worked as an engineer in Britain for a while, living in Ealing, west London. Her mother, Kjellfrid, is from Norway, but she also spent time in England, working in Surrey as a governess and cook. The couple met on a ship sailing from Denmark to Norway. “She was with friends and he saw her going into dinner and asked her to have dinner with him. It was a shipboard romance,” Zellweger has said. The teenage Zellweger loved music and she and her brother would listen to records by Abba or the Rolling Stones that their older cousins in Norway brought over for them. As her acting career burgeoned, so did her love of music and, as an example of cause and effect, she became close enough to Jack White, lead singer of the White Stripes, to consider marriage. But independence was important to the young Zellweger, who has spoken of wanting to travel and “have her eyes opened”. “I wanted to be consistently challenged and I knew I needed to be creative in some way,” she said. Early walk-on screen roles, including one in Dazed and Confused, finally led to a big break when director Cameron Crowe cast the then 26-year-old opposite Tom Cruise in the 1996 hit Jerry Maguire. It is a film now known chiefly for two phrases still in popular use: Cruise’s “Show me the money!” and Zellweger’s sweet “You had me at ‘hello’”. The charisma of this relatively unknown actress shone through the dubious sexual politics of the plot. Acclaimed roles followed in quick succession, playing opposite Jim Carrey in the quirky Me, Myself & Irene (2000) and in Nurse Betty in the same year. She won a supporting role Oscar for Cold Mountain in 2003 and countless nominations and awards for Chicago. In Britain, she also won plaudits for her characterisation of Beatrix Potter in the 2006 biopic. Since then, she has tried writing and directing, but has also deliberately dipped out in order to live like a normal non-VIP. “I don’t think that, as a creative person, you have that much to contribute when your life experiences are limited to those you have while you’re emulating someone else,” she explains. The third Jones film, co-written by Emma Thompson, Helen Fielding and Dan Mazer, has been mooted since 2009 and when it was finally time to get on set again in front of director Sharon Maguire, who made the original film, Zellweger prepared by spending time with the production crew on ITV’s breakfast show, Good Morning Britain. Today’s Bridget is supposed to be working in television news, although the actress said the stint with ITV also really helped restore her English accent. Last month, a reminder of the old nastiness about Zellweger’s face reared its head in reactions to the release of the new film’s trailer. A few male film critics who have mourned the passing of the actress they recognise have been royally flamed online by feminists, fans and assorted outraged defenders. Optimistically, we might hope that Zellweger has just had to shoulder the burden of being part of some sort of group consciousness shift. Perhaps wider society is having a final feeding frenzy, before slowly moving on, with a sense of shared retrospective guilt, from its obsession with the changing nature of a woman’s face. As some actresses also begin to rebel against the pressure to field questions about their dresses on the red carpet and are even refusing to wear high heels at Cannes, maybe things are beginning to change. Born Renée Kathleen Zellweger, 25 April 1969, in Katy, Texas, to Swiss father, Emil, and Norwegian mother, Kjellfrid. She studied English at the University of Texas at Austin. Best of times She says her dreams came true when she got a job in a bar and lived independently, but her big film break was Jerry Maguire in 1996. She also won an Oscar for Cold Mountain. Worst of times A difficult and consuming early relationship with co-star Jim Carrey. An 82-day troubled marriage to singer Kenny Chesney. What they say “I saw in Renée a gift few people have – that she was able to straddle comedy and emotion.” Sharon Maguire, director of Bridget Jones’s Diary and Bridget Jones’s Baby on deciding to cast Zellweger. What she says “Making films is an insular experience, then you pop out and talk about it because that’s part of your responsibility, fly somewhere for 12 hours, put on your dress to teeter down a red carpet, before getting back on a plane a couple of hours later to learn your lines and get up and start shooting again at 4am. When you do a few projects a year, that spills over on itself; it becomes a cycle.”
Win (home) tickets to Newcastle United v Sunderland in the Premier League The has teamed up with Barclays, proud sponsors of the Barclays Premier League, to give away a pair tickets to Newcastle United v Sunderland on Sunday 20 March, to thank one lucky home fan for the passion and support they show to their club. This season LifeSkills created with Barclays have teamed up with Tinie Tempah and the Premier League to give young people the chance to fulfil their passions and work at a range of famous football clubs and music venues. Your Passion is Your Ticket – with hard work and dedication young people can realise their dreams with a helping hand from Barclays LifeSkills. To apply for the work experience of a lifetime visit www.barclayslifeskills.com/work-experience-of-a-lifetime/. You can join the conversation throughout the 2015-16 Barclays Premier League by visiting facebook.com/barclaysfootball or following us on Twitter at @BarclaysFooty for exclusive content and the latest Barclays Premier League news. To be in with a chance of winning tickets, simply answer the following question: Terms and conditions 1. The competition is closed to employees of any company in the Media Group and any person whom, in the promoter’s reasonable opinion, should be excluded due to their involvement or connection with this promotion. Entrants must be 18 or over. 2. Answer the question correctly and complete your personal details on the online form and your details will be entered into a free prize draw. Only one entry per person. 3. Entries must be made personally. Entries made through agents/third parties are invalid. Entry indicates acceptance of terms and conditions. 4. The prize is one pair of tickets to Newcastle United v Sunderland on Sunday 20 March 2016. Travel to and from the venue is not included, nor is accommodation. 5. No purchase necessary to enter. Fill in the online application form with the necessary details, name and mobile number. 6. All entries must be received by 10am on Thursday 17 March 2016. 7. Winners will be notified before 10pm on 18 March 2016 by telephone or email. Prize winners’ details can be obtained by writing to Sport at News & Media Limited, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU, UK. 8. Stamped addressed envelope required. 9. Winners will be the first entry drawn at random from all qualifying entries by an independent judge on 17 March 2016. The judge’s decision is final. 10. There is no cash or other alternative to these prizes in whole or in part. Prize is not transferable in whole or in part. Prize is not for resale. 11. The winners will be required to participate in all required publicity, including any presentation ceremony. 12. The decision of the promoter in all matters is final and binding and no correspondence will be entered into. 13. The promoter is not responsible for any third party acts or omissions. 14. We cannot guarantee that the event will be free from disruptions, failings or cancellations. We are not liable for such disruptions, failings or cancellations unless they are caused by our negligence. Any requests for refunds or compensation arising from them should be sent to the operator of the event. We can provide you with their details on request. 15. The promoter reserves the right to cancel or amend this promotion due to events or circumstances arising beyond its control. 16. Prize tickets are subject to the terms and conditions listed above. 17. GNM accepts no responsibility for any damage, loss, liabilities, injury or disappointment incurred or suffered by you as a result of entering the Competition or accepting the prize. GNM further disclaims liability for any injury or damage to your or any other person’s computer relating to or resulting from participation in or downloading any materials in connection with the Competition. Nothing shall exclude the liability of GNM for death or personal injury as a result of either party’s negligence. 18. GNM reserves the right at any time and from time to time to modify or discontinue, temporarily or permanently, this Competition with or without prior notice due to reasons outside its control. 19. The Competition will be governed by English law. Promoter: News & Media Limited, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU, UK.
From births to melons: perks and pitfalls of Facebook’s live video revolution Last week, a man in California streamed the birth of his son on Facebook, allowing hundreds of thousands of viewers around the world to watch the very first moments of a human’s life in real time. The broadcast made a prediction from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg just a month earlier - that “in a decade, video will look like as big of a shift in the way we all share and communicate as mobile has been” - look distinctly conservative. That shift towards video is receiving its biggest push from Facebook, which is aggressively promoting its streaming platform called, imaginatively, Facebook Live. But it is not alone: Twitter recently bought live video streaming rights for Thursday night NFL games (after going up against Facebook), while the company’s Periscope (which has just hired former CNET and Wired journalist Evan Hansen as its first editor in chief) and Meerkat kicked off the live video streaming trend via mobile in early 2015. Generally, in fact, video is hot for social media companies in 2016 as online consumption moves to mobile. Snapchat users are now watching 10bn videos a day, according to Bloomberg, Instagram announced plans in March to allow users to post longer videos (up to 60 seconds), while Vine has helped to make stars out of the likes of King Bach and Brittany Furlan. “Mobile video is the format that works best [for social media],” says Matti Littunen, research analyst at Enders Analysis. “It is engaging, immersive and gets shared a lot. By extension that makes it valuable.” Now this video gold rush is starting to move the media world, which has scented an opportunity to make money and engage their audiences in new ways. “When ‘the web’ first got into TV it was all about, ‘How do we get people back to TV?’” says Steve Noviello, a journalist for Fox4 in Dallas whose “Mermaid Pillow” video was a huge viral success. “That ideology has since changed. Now it’s all about understanding where people go to look for information and being there waiting when they arrive.” “Mermaid Pillow”, in which Noviello showed viewers a colour-changing pillow range discovered in a furniture store, was an early hit on Facebook Live. Initially only available to celebrity and media users, the company opened up Live to most users in January and it is now key to its expansion into video. Live has already found a receptive audience among publishers: the Live homepage includes videos (which remain archived after transmission) from the likes of BuzzFeed and Al Jazeera’s AJ+. But Facebook is ramping this up considerably by paying certain media companies a fee (around $250,000 for 20 posts per month over a three-month period according to BuzzFeed) to post videos to Live. BuzzFeed is one of these media partners, with the New York Times, the Huffington Post, Gawker Media, Vox Media and Sky reported to be among the others. The appeal of video for Facebook is simple: Zuckerberg revealed in the company’s first quarter 2016 earnings call that the average Facebook user already spends more than 50 minutes a day using Facebook, Instagram and Messenger. But video can boost engagement even further and that plays well with advertisers. “We’re seeing that people love engaging with live video,” a Facebook spokesperson says. “From initial data, we’ve seen that people comment more than 10 times more on Facebook Live videos than on regular videos.” That’s not to say there isn’t a downside to this technology: the recent case of a US teenager accused of using Periscope to live stream her friend’s alleged rape shows the difficulties of opening up live video streaming for public use. That the new father in California, Kali Kanongata’a, has since said he didn’t realise the video could be seen around the world also raises questions about what responsibility both Facebook and the media outlets that promoted the stream have towards the person filming and those in the video. But for media companies, working with the new live video platforms also creates dilemmas around control, and in the case of Facebook Live, handing even more of it to Facebook. “There is a danger for publishers if they lose some control over how they monetise their content,” says Littunen. “In many cases there is nothing to stop Facebook from re-setting any revenue sharing agreement they may have or of tweaking their algorithm to promote different content.” For media companies – like BuzzFeed – which specialise in sponsored content, where total video views count wherever they come from, this is not such a problem. And some Live videos are already enjoying the kind of audiences that may prove hard to resist, thanks to Facebook’s 1.65 billion active users. BuzzFeed has said that a Live video in which it blew up a watermelon attracted 800,000 live viewers (although viewers may have only watched for a short time)while Sky UK is using Live across news and sports, with around 100,000 people watching Mark Stone’s live report on the migrant crisis in Calais. Andy Dangerfield, BuzzFeed UK news social media editor, says interactivity is key to Live’s appeal. “You can reach out to your audience and ask them questions,” he explains. “Or you can ask for direction as well. We were live in a square in Brussels after the attacks there and the audience was asking questions about what was happening.” Live videos can also attract huge audiences when archived: around 1,000 people watched the “Mermaid Pillow” live stream but its real success came later when the clip went viral. The video has now passed 35m total views, while Noviello’s following on social media doubled in a week. But making compelling video content is not easy. The question now is whether media companies will be able to follow Noviello’s viral success with Facebook Live – and even make some money with it – or whether “premium content” such as live NFL proves more of a pull to social audiences. A great deal of money and effort could depend on it. And then there are the ethical challenges presented by such an immediate and quick way to broadcast. Noviello says it’s important to avoid thinking “that because this is a more casual format, the same rules don’t apply” as on TV. Dangerfield says the same, adding that it is crucial to avoid endangering either reporters or anyone else in breaking news situations, and guard against “unplanned events that could be viewed as inappropriate or offensive … The key is to think before pressing the live button.”
The view on Donald Trump’s election victory It is no use pretending. Donald Trump’s presidential election victory is a disaster for the United States and the world. It is, at least in part, a victory for prejudice and fear, for ignorance and spite. It represents the triumph of economic nationalism and introspection over internationalism and the global good. It is a victory built on fabrications. Because of this, Trumpism will ultimately fail, confounded by its contradictions and its immorality. It will be defeated. But correcting this deformation will not be easy. It will take time and the damage will be considerable. Many explanations have been offered for Hillary Clinton’s defeat last week. All have an element of truth. For some, she was an uncharismatic figure. The Democratic base was uninspired and many stayed at home. Doubts surrounded her past conduct, not least in respect of the Clinton Foundation. In many minds, she represented a discredited political establishment. There was about her candidacy an off-putting sense of entitlement. There was her husband’s inescapable, ambiguous legacy. And Clinton was a woman, reaching up to a place of power no woman has ever gone. A mostly unspoken misogyny undoubtedly played a part in her downfall. More broadly, the complacency of the Democratic party and America’s liberal left, too comfortable after eight safe years of Barack Obama, did Clinton a great disservice. The party and its elected representatives badly misread the mood of the nation. So, too, for the most part, did independent pollsters and the US media. They initially dismissed Trump as a clown and then proceeded, with honourable exceptions, to give him too easy a ride. All these factors contributed to Clinton’s demise. But they are not the whole story. Trump won because he successfully tapped the alienation and disillusionment of white voters, men and women who comprise 69% of the electorate and turned out for him in large numbers. As polling breakdowns show, the determining factors were not education or gender, not age, religion or geography, not Trump’s sexual predations or Clinton’s FBI entanglements – they were race and colour, linked to economic distress. Trump exploited a feeling among whites from all backgrounds, urban, suburban and rural, that Obama’s multicultural, multiracial, tolerant, inclusive and open, outward-looking America was not working for them. There were significant numbers of people who felt their grievances were no longer being listened to by a centrist party that had loosed itself from its blue-collar moorings. As Thomas Frank said in these pages last week: “The Democrats went from being the party of Decatur (a down-at-heel town in Illinois) to the party of Martha’s Vineyard (home of the ‘coastal elites’) and they did so at roughly the same time that the Republicans were sharpening their deadly image of the ‘liberal elite’.” Part of the constituency that switched to Trump was railing against a sense of being overlooked during eight years of President Obama. Race unquestionably played a part. When Trump shrieked his slogan “Make America Great Again”, what he was really saying was “Make America White Again”. When he spoke about curbing immigration and building a Mexican wall, when he demonised Muslims, minorities and people from foreign countries he does not know or trust, when he vowed to scrap international trade deals that he claims are destroying jobs in the midwest, when he railed against selfish allies who do not pay their way, the subliminal message was always the same: fear of the foreigner in America’s midst. Trump conjured the illusion of a return to a simpler, homogenous, monocultural society of secure employment, safe neighbourhoods and agreed values. No wonder African Americans, Latinos and other dark-skinned minorities are frightened. No wonder US relations around the globe are in turmoil and rightwing European populists and hard Brexiters are celebrating. No wonder observers speak of the end of the west and the demise of liberal democracy. Trumpism has stormed the shining city on a hill, betrayed the founding fathers who stood tall for human dignity and universal rights and now presages an isolationist America made in Trump’s image – a beacon of discrimination and malice. There are the peculiarities of the American electoral system to consider, too. Hillary Clinton won a majority of the popular vote but was handsomely beaten in the race for electoral college votes. And too little attention was paid to the effect of a decision by the supreme court in 2013 when it struck down a key part of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 by a five to four vote. What this did was allow nine states with long records of voting discrimination, such as Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, to no longer seek federal approval to change their laws. The effect was seen last week. As the New York Times explained: “Consider what has been happening in North Carolina, a battleground state with a history of racial discrimination in voting. Republican lawmakers and officials have gone to remarkable lengths to drive down turnout among black voters, who disproportionately favour Democrats.” There were numerous other examples across the country, including stringent voter ID rules that the federal government had stated earlier this year had a disproportionate effect on minorities. For the so-called leader of the free world to allow legalised voter suppression is beyond irony. What supporters and opponents alike are about to discover is that Trump’s appeal, like the blue-collar billionaire himself, is two-faced. Much of what he promised on the campaign trail will not be delivered or will be so watered down as to make no difference. Trump says he will cut taxes, raise public spending and slash the federal deficit. That’s impossible all at once. Trump says he will renegotiate or scrap Nafta and other free-trade treaties. But his conceit that this will help uncompetitive carmakers in Detroit or steel-makers in Ohio is implausible. He says he will slap swingeing tariffs on Chinese imports, but he knows the geopolitical and commercial realities mean he will not. He says he will make America strong and honour its friends, then kowtows to Vladimir Putin, the west’s most formidable strategic challenger, and undermines Nato. He says he will be Israel’s best friend. But his campaign was not above antisemitic signalling. If Trump voters really believe the Mexican border wall plan, they need a reality check. The power of US presidents to act unilaterally in this, or any other domestic matter, is extremely circumscribed. Trump would face endless legal challenges and he would need agreement and funding from Congress. The prospect that much of what Trump has promised or threatened will not happen is welcome. Perhaps the responsibilities of office will temper his worst instincts, producing a Trump-lite. Crucially, the incoherence and contradictory nature of his economic ideas for boosting growth and jobs and revitalising moribund industrial areas suggest his grassroots supporters are destined for disappointment. Economic performance is what will ultimately define the Trump presidency. Trumpism has plenty of other horrors in store, while Trump’s volatile personality and inexperience add extreme unpredictability, at home and abroad, to a host of other worries. Trump now has the opportunity to stack the supreme court with conservative reactionaries like himself. That will pose a direct threat to abortion rights, despite his earlier support for Roe v Wade. In his latest comments, Trump appeared to soften his hostility to Obama’s healthcare reforms. His pledge to abolish them outright was a central plank of his campaign. What he will eventually do remains unclear. Even as he postures as the champion of ordinary working Americans, Trump intends to cut corporate taxes and ease bank regulation. Who knows how he will react if a nuclear-armed North Korea challenges his will? Hypocrisy, narcissism and fabrications are the watchwords as Trump readies himself for power. He must – and will be – challenged.
Julie Adenuga's playlist: Drake, Hiatus Kaiyote and more Christine and the Queens – It Christine recently covered my Beats 1 show while I was away in New York. Little did she know I was cooking breakfast to her music in an apartment in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, every single morning. I’m completely mesmerised by this beautiful track from her album Chaleur Humaine. I don’t speak a word of French but Christine makes me feel like I do. She originally released this album in her native language and then blessed us (me) with a rerelease, with the majority of it translated into English. I’m still undecided on which version I prefer. I’m happy to see she’s playing quite a few shows worldwide over the rest of this year – gonna make it my aim to see her live at least once! Skepta ft A$AP Nast and D Double E – Ladies Hit Squad I was ever so fortunate enough to have sat upstairs while D Double E recorded his verse. For any D Double E fans – I’m sure you’ll understand the excitement of hearing him say “muuuu-eeeeeee muuu-eeeeee” or even just hearing him record the adlibs. I haven’t been able to stop listening to the track ever since. Even when [Julie’s brother] Skepta’s album Konnichiwa album was released, I still went straight to this track before checking out the rest of it . And if you’ve seen the video, you’ll get an even better idea of what emotions I’m going through as I sing “twerk f’me”. Jordan Mackampa – Same Faces This is my “drive to south London” song. The only thing I look forward to whenever I make the journey from Palmers Green, north London, to my friends’ houses. I stumbled across Jordan Mackampa online very randomly, which I think has contributed to my deep feelings for his soothing voice – sometimes I feel like I’m lucky to have him. One wrong click and I could have been back on Twitter retweeting my brother. But instead I got to hear (then eventually meet and have on my Beats 1 show) this talented young man, who also happens to be a chef, who has saved me from one-hour journeys of boredom. Now I’m singing non-stop as I cruise through the Blackwall tunnel. Thank you, Jordan. Drake – Controlla This track does one of my favourite things in the whole world. It loops seamlessly. Dear artists and producers: please aim for this (if your track is really good). This is a very hard track to walk away from. Sometimes, I carry my portable speaker out of the house with me because I don’t want the track to stop while I’m starting up my car. Obsessed much? I think so. It’s just so awesome! People keep calling this a summer song. This is my every season song. I also become a very different person when in a club dancing to this. Very, very different. Hiatus Kaiyote – Breathing Underwater Another one of my favourite things in the world is when I’m in love with a song and it’s more than five minutes long. It’s like the artist knew that the song was way too good to stop at three minutes and 30 seconds. Hiatus Kaiyote are outer-space aliens who breathe music (and also apparently underwater). The first track I heard from them was Laputa, and I had it on repeat until my producer saw them live, and has to this day never stopped talking about them. Driving at night time to this track is a completely different experience. London can be the perfect backdrop at night-time, and this track is the perfect accompaniment. Julie Adenuga’s show is on Beats 1 at 8pm, Monday to Thursday. Listen again on demand via Connect on Apple Music.
Amazon claims first successful Prime Air drone delivery Amazon says it has successfully trialled its Prime Air drone delivery service in Cambridge, UK, by delivering a TV streaming stick and bag of popcorn directly to the garden of a nearby customer. The breakthrough suggests that autonomous aerial delivery could become a viable business sooner than thought, albeit only for customers with huge gardens, who live close to the delivery depot, and want items weighing less than 2.6kg. Additionally, while deliveries will be available seven days a week, the drones can only fly in daylight hours and clement weather. Currently, the trial is only open to two customers, but Amazon says it hopes to expand that to dozens in the coming months. For those customers, Prime Air is available for no extra cost. The company says the delivery, which took place last week, involved fully autonomous flight, with no human pilot involved in the process. The success was announced by Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos, who tweeted: “first ever #AmazonPrimeAir customer delivery is in the books. 13 min—click to delivery.” Amazon released a video of the flight but no press were invited to witness the test. Amazon’s drone testing facility on the outskirts of Cambridge has been operating since summer 2015, according to documents revealed under a freedom of information request. That was when the company invited the Civil Aviation Authority to witness its first test flight. Government regulations in the UK are generally considered favourable to companies wanting to experiment with autonomous aircraft, but the restrictions still heavily limit what Amazon can test. The company is allowed to test drones that fly beyond line-of-sight in rural and suburban areas; flights where one person operates multiple largely autonomous drones; and sensor performance associated with sense-and-avoid technology. Amazon first announced its intention to deliver packages by drone in 2013, in a lavishly-produced special on US TV show 60 Minutes. At the time, Bezos suggested that the company would begin delivery in 2018, a timescale commentators called “hugely optimistic”, citing a number of concerns around theft, liability and safety. The latest limited trials suggest that Amazon still intends to hit that 2018 target, albeit by sidestepping many of the concerns through the limited nature of the rollout. Amazon isn’t alone in the field: Google’s experimental sibling, X, has a long-running drone delivery project of its own, Project Wing. Its prototypes use a fixed-wing drone, and are aimed at deliveries to particularly isolated rural customers.
Hard Tide review – likable low-budget British drama This low-budget British drama shot in and around Margate – about a low-level drug dealer (Nathanael Wiseman) compelled by circumstance to look after a young, suddenly orphaned but adorably feisty little girl (Alexandra Newick) – rarely fails to deploy a cliche. Star Wiseman and his co-writing, co-directing associate Robert Osman line them up neatly: the protagonist with a childhood spent in foster homes, a morally bankrupt best friend, a baddie (Mem Ferda) who runs a flower shop, even a mentor father figure who works at the local boxing gym. The kid even wears a cheap superhero costume, all the better to milk the irony of her powerlessness. But there are enough grace notes and felicitous bits of business to make this a reasonably likable effort. Naturalistic performances and a sense of place are the film’s strongest suit, along with a brisk approach to storytelling that propels things along to a predictable but not unsatisfying conclusion.
Battle of the 'bots: Why Westworld the film is superior to the TV series After helping his brother Christopher wring self-serious morality tales out of such seemingly upbeat subjects as space travel (Interstellar), magic (The Prestige) and a man who dresses up as a winged mammal (The Dark Knight), screenwriter Jonathan Nolan put his po-faced talents to further good use this year in Westworld, a prestige-baiting HBO saga sombrely detailing the day-to-day operations of a gargantuan theme park where millionaires go to shoot and shag costumed robots. Labyrinthine in plot, and packed with enough mysteries to see Nolan through at least half a decade of begrudging renewal orders, Westworld takes its goofy story of an android-populated wild west and plays it relentlessly straight, in order to probe the nature of free will, the meaning of life and other Big Questions. The result is a show so focused on the long con – and the demands of a hardcore fan base already theorising about next season – that it scarcely bothers to engage with the short-term goal of crafting a watchable TV show. Instead, each scene delicately lays the groundwork for a future reveal while rendering the present moment so vague as to be banal, baffling or both. In other words, the Westworld of today couldn’t be less like the Westworld of 1973, a zippy standalone feature film written and directed by Michael Crichton. Opportunistically added to the Amazon Video catalogue this week just as fans mourn the conclusion of its TV adaptation’s first season, the original film is less a lofty meditation on sentience and more a straightforward tale of human hubris and robot revolt. Unsurprisingly, it’s also twice as fun as the HBO version and 800% more rootin’ tootin’. In fairness, however, it does lack some of the nuance of Nolan’s drama. Where his Westworld reveals the details of its universe slowly and methodically, its source text quickly introduces us to a naive protagonist and then has the other characters bluntly explain everything to him. But as a result, the former takes 10 hours to reach anything that could be described as a climax, while the latter takes 58 minutes to arrive at the words, “Sir, we have no control over the robots at all.” From there, we’re treated to a half-hour set piece more gripping than anything the first season of HBO’s Westworld could muster. An extended showdown between man and machine, the sequence may lack the higher meaning of its more sophisticated cousin, but it doesn’t skimp on the kind of simple pleasures the show just hasn’t got time for.
Vicenza: dark heart of Italy's banking crisis where locals have lost millions From a distance, Vicenza does not look like a city engulfed in turmoil. On the elegant Corso Andrea Palladio, named after the Renaissance architect whose work defines this city, a finely dressed woman clutches a Chanel handbag during her evening passeggiata. Locals sit back and enjoy their Campari spritz cocktails in the July heat. A black Maserati rolls slowly down the street. But this apparent serenity belies an ugly truth. The regions of Veneto, where Vicenza is located, and Tuscany are the epicentres of Italy’s banking crisis, which has cost citizens hundreds of millions of euros. Even the city’s mayor, Achille Variati, was personally hit when shares in the city’s bank, Banca Popolare di Vicenza (BPV), tanked earlier this year. The mayor lost €25,000 (£20,904), money that he said he would never likely see again. The fear now is that the issues that gripped Vicenza will have damaging ramifications for all of Italy and the entire eurozone. The country’s third-largest lender, Monte dei Paschi di Siena, is expected to fail a stress test whose results will be released on Friday night, and a heated debate is under way between Rome and Brussels on how to save the bank. For waiter Francesco Bertolda, 43, the problem started two years ago, when a local BPV bank manager told him and his father that they would be eligible for financial assistance – loans for everything ranging from homes to cars and businesses – if they each bought a minimum of €6,000 in bank shares. Today, the combined €12,000 investment is worthless, but Bertolda – a father of three – tries to keep his troubles in perspective. “Many people, companies, have lost much more; they have lost millions,” he said. “Still, I do have my boys. That is money I could have used.” The story of BPV’s demise is similar to the story of banks across Italy. Banks like BPV were relatively resilient immediately after the financial crisis hit in 2008, said Silvia Merler, a fellow at Bruegel, a European thinktank. “But then they turned complacent,” Merler said. Italy’s economy stopped growing and banks like BPV became consumed by non-performing loans, tens of billions of euros that had been lent to small and large businesses that then failed under economic hardship. It was a burgeoning problem that politicians in Rome largely ignored. All told, Italy’s banks are now estimated to hold €360bn of non-performing loans. At the same time, BPV and other banks all shared similar problems: too many branches that were unprofitable. “There have certainly been issues with the governance of the banks that should have been prevented, like mis-selling products to clients,” Merler said. In an effort to shore up the banks’ balance sheet, regular bank customers were sold investments that they wrongly believed were ironclad. In April, the historic bank was rescued by a newly created Italian fund, Atlante (or Atlas in English) that was created to stop certain mid-size banks from collapsing. The problem has been politically toxic for Matteo Renzi, Italy’s prime minister, who is locked in a debate with Brussels over the potential rescue of other banks, including Monte dei Paschi. Under new EU regulations, any emergency bailout of MPS would see some holders of the bank’s junior debt – including tens of thousands of ordinary Italians – lose their investment. But there is also a potentially even bigger problem for Italy: that its tentative economic rebound is now under threat. Wealthy northern Italian manufacturing strongholds like Vicenza were the financial engine behind Italy’s postwar economic boom, and are critical for the country’s hopes today. About 30% of Vicenza’s 100,000 companies have a direct relationship with BPV, according to Variati, and those companies need lines of credit and support. “What I hope, as mayor, is that the bank stays as close as it can to the companies. Those 30% cannot be abandoned, they have to be supported if they are healthy. BPV will be able to survive over time if the territory is strong. There will be no future for the bank if the territory is poorer,” Variati said. While Variati acknowledged that some of the bank’s problems were the result of poor lending practices – with the bank not being prudent enough in its standards – he said the future of the city was nevertheless an issue that ought to be a priority for the entire country. “This is one of the richest territories of Italy. If this territory stops, there will be problems for all of Italy,” he said. It is also unclear, for now, what the extent of the economic fallout will be for the BPV shareholders – ordinary customers of the bank – who have lost everything. “Even here in the town hall, citizens come asking for help. They don’t have anything left and they need money to live,” Variati said. “Retirees, parents of students, people who can’t pay their gas bills, a parent who wanted to pay for a child’s wedding and now can’t. Life situations.” A retiree who would once have relied on his savings to pay for a nursing home was now looking to the state for assistance, he added with a sigh. While there have been a few bankruptcies so far, Variati said he feared more would be filed by the end of the year. The financial impact of BPV’s near collapse – even if the bank is now on much stronger financial footing after being rescued – is something that will only be understood in the next years, said Giovanni Bossi, chief executive of Banca Ifis. In Vicenza, locals are also concerned with seeing justice done, and the mayor has made a request from Rome for the city’s judiciary – prosecutors and judges – to be bolstered as shareholders lodge complaints of having been misled by the bank. Of roughly 118,000 BPV shareholders who have been wiped out, about 30% live in Vicenza, while about 56% live in the rest of the Veneto region. Last month, about 500 BPV affected shareholders participated in a funeral for Antonio Bedin, a 67-year-old pensioner who committed suicide, plagued by health problems and by the loss of his savings. In the town hall, Variati said the city would survive. “Is there shock? Yes, but us Vicentini are a tenacious people, used to working and resolving problems ourselves and rolling our sleeves up. In other parts of Italy, people would have cried and screamed. Here there is pain, but we want to go ahead. But we ask and expect justice.”
Girl Asleep review – as singular, enchanting and expansive as a young person’s mind The enchanting cinematic debut of Rosemary Myers, a stalwart of local theatre, is a sensory-swooning coming-of-age film. The sort of weirdly alluring experience that zaps viewers wide awake while lulling them into dreamy la-la land: the cinematic equivalent of No-Doz ground up with a bit of LSD, then baked into a birthday cake. What a fabulous addition to Australian cinema’s expanding arsenal of talent making the jump from stage to screen. Like recent feature film kick-offs from theatre maestros Stephen Page (Spear) and Simon Stone (The Daughter), who you might have expected to hand over dialogue-larded gabfests, Girl Asleep is intoxicatingly cinematic. The film has been making the rounds on the festival circuit for the better part of a year, since premiering last October in Adelaide. It seems no city has been able to refuse it: not cinephiles in Sydney, Melbourne, Perth or even Berlin. Girl Asleep finally opens in general cinemas this week, and by now Myers would no doubt be tired of comparisons, however just, to Wes Anderson. Even a teensy peek at the film’s trailer indicates the kind of Wes-isms and Anderson-anigans in store. Girl Asleep’s visual makeup is colourful, retro, kitschy and a little chintzy, with homemade-looking thingamabobs and a diamora-esque texture. A picturebook-like film that resembles a lovingly designed doll house, or a shoe box stuffed with handcrafted toys. But comparisons to Anderson, the king of twee quirk, only get us so far: in fact, to roughly halfway in the running time (a slender 73 minutes). This is when Girl Asleep, though consistently delightful to watch, really comes into its own. In one sense the script – by Matthew Whittet, adapting his own play – is dense and singular, building up to and revolving around the 15th birthday party of protagonist Greta (a wonderful Bethany Whitmore, whose default expression is a semi-startled look). In another it feels as wide and expansive as a young person’s mind, replete with the kind of emotions and conundrums we might expect of somebody this age. One is the question of whether Greta’s best bud, who befriends her on her first day at a new school, ought to be more than a platonic pal. He is Elliott (Harrison Feldman): a cute, fuddled redhead who is outspoken in a slightly theatrical way – as if he’s addressing an audience that’s just off-frame. The film has that vibe about it too, particularity in moments of choreographed dance, which impart the impression that Myers is sort of breaking the fourth wall and sort of not. Greta strenuously objects to having a birthday party but succumbs to the wishes of her parents, played by Whittet and Amber McMahon. She is warned that “weird shit can happen”. Thus the appearance of a monster-ish thing popping out behind the back fence, which looks like a creature from a Spike Jonze movie, sweded using paper mache. Presented in a restricted 4:3 format, like Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel, cinematographer Andrew Commis (who also shot The Daughter) relishes the 70s setting, with a colour palette seemingly inspired by a Hawaiian bar. The sort of film that feels like you can reach out and touch it, Girl Asleep’s slick, frilly, retro aesthetic helps impart a sense it’s taking place in a past that never happened, or a fantasy world a hop-skip to the left of reality. The film is funny quirky rather than funny ha-ha, but there’s also a sense of something brooding at the heart of it: the message that growing up isn’t easy, even in relatively blessed circumstances. When the second half spills into more fantastical, enchanted woods-type territory – Paul Jennings by way of the Brothers Grimm – Girl Asleep actually feels refreshingly original. With some heart-on-sleeve inspirations, and all those inevitable comparisons to Anderson, that’s quite an achievement. • Girl Asleep is in cinemas now
Bigots feel they have a mandate to hate. We have to speak out ‘We voted for you to go home.” Those were the words flung at 34-year-old Tinni Guha Roy, a former member of the GB rowing team, on a London train in the aftermath of Britain’s EU referendum. “I now feel sad at how naive I was to feel so proud to represent GB,” she tells me. A 20-year-old Essex University student tells me about his father, who owns a minimarket in Basildon. “After the referendum one of his usual customers came kicking things down at the front of the shop, yelling, ‘This place is ours now. Go back to your country.’” Towards the end of August, in central London, 21-year-old Kyam was called “a terrorist, al-Qaida scum, a Paki and …to go back where I came from”. No one intervened. “A whole line of white male black-cab drivers were watching from across the road, and found it amusing.” A week after the referendum, the mother of 17-year-old JJ Fadaka was told by a colleague that it was time for her “to get back to Africa”. Twenty-two-year-old Lewis, a Yorkshireman of Jamaican heritage, was abused by two white men on the streets of Leeds. “They repeatedly shouted: ‘We voted out and we get this? People like you should be out of here. We don’t need you n****** around.’” An Iraqi-born writer and performer, Amrou Al-Kadhi was on London’s underground system a few days after the referendum. He says: “A drunk elderly white man on the tube was looking in my direction throughout the entire journey, and as I was getting off the tube, he shouted ‘Brexit, Brexit, Brexit. Get out, get out, get out!’” These are just a handful of the stories I’ve been sent. These crimes are a matter of national shame. Figures released last week by the National Police Chiefs’ Council revealed that hate crime reports, after a jump of 58% in the week following the nation’s endorsement of Brexit, are still 14% higher than a year ago. But note: these are reported incidents. Almost none of the people who got in touch with me reported their abuse to the police. One said the process took too long; another said the police were “actively unhelpful” when they had previously reported mugging and homophobic abuse; another: “It was late, and I just wanted to get home and forget it had happened, to be honest.” Nineteen-year-old Fatima – whose attacker tried to rip off her hijab, yelling “You’re in Britain! Fucking take that shit off, here we get naked” – said she just felt ashamed, and that it would be wasting police time. We can only guess at the true scale of hatred on our streets. Some allegations have been far worse than those described here. In August Arkadiusz Józwik was allegedly beaten to death in Harlow, Essex, by a gang of teenagers  after being heard speaking Polish in the street. In Milton Keynes a 34-year-old pregnant woman was said to have been racially abused and then kicked in the stomach, losing her unborn child. Last Friday night a Polish man was violently attacked in Leeds. Discussing the post-referendum wave of racist and xenophobic abuse can provoke a rather dispiritingly defensive reaction. The issue is being politicised – so the retort goes – in order to undermine the referendum result. So let this column be clear: nothing of the sort is happening. The British people voted to leave the EU, their verdict must be respected and accepted, and the debate now focuses on ensuring a just Brexit. Another objection is that, by discussing this tidal wave of hatred, the motive of people like me is to smear leave voters as racists. This is completely untrue. Our quarrel is with those who led the leave campaign. They made a strategic decision: to transform a referendum on the EU into a vote on immigration. To win such a vote, they opted to use inflammatory rhetoric: portraying immigrants as potential rapists, murderers and terrorists; unveiling posters showing a line of dark-skinned refugees, and warning we were at “breaking point”; claiming leave was necessary to stop millions entering Britain after Turkey joined the EU (a lie), and that we would be consequently left at the mercy of Turkish criminals. Our new foreign secretary, Boris Johnson – a joke now lacking a punchline – suggested that Barack Obama’s opposition to Brexit was motivated by his Kenyan heritage. And here is what happened. The small minority of people in this country who believe it is acceptable to yell racist abuse at strangers getting on with their lives felt emboldened. Their intolerance now seemed to have official sanction. They believed that, given the politicians’ rhetoric, the British people had voted to drive foreigners out of the country – that, for the first time, they had a democratic mandate. This perceived mandate now has to be destroyed. Polling shows, for example, that 77% of leave voters believe EU migrants already living here should remain. We need a coalition of remain and leave figures to come together to confront this tide of racism and xenophobia. They need to make it clear that every shout of racist abuse, let alone act of violence, is a disgrace to this country. They need to appeal to the great traditions of British activists, led by minority ethnic people, who confronted racism in all its forms. They need to show their solidarity with minority Britons and EU migrants who now feel besieged. Of course, racism is not simply about sickening, random attacks. From the disproportionate stop-and-search of black people to the increased poverty and unemployment rates among ethnic minority Britons, racism is systemic, with a heritage that goes back centuries. Defeating it is a struggle that still has so far to go. But in the here and now, the security and safety – the lives, even – of our fellow Britons are imperilled. Pointing that out is not an attempt to subvert the democratic will of the British people. We all have a responsibility to speak out, however we voted in June. If we remain silent, the racists will treat this as tacit endorsement – and history will damn us for it.
Weyes Blood: Front Row Seat to Earth review – beautiful, unsettling songs Weyes Blood is Natalie Mering, who has been floating around the US counterculture for a while: singing with Ariel Pink, appearing on the unexpectedly lovely Drugdealer album earlier this year and taking a place in the acid folk collective Jackie-O Motherfucker, as well as having a solo career. None of which quite prepares you for the loveliness of Front Row Seat to Earth, an album on which Mering’s voice – rich and warm, but with phrasing that is precise and almost formal – is backed by instrumentation that manages to take the best bits of early-70s Laurel Canyon rock without sounding like a throwback. One wonders how many of the lyrics are truthful, and how much Mering is constructing a character – there’s a theme running through the songs, and it is that of someone declaring their love in a slightly terrifying way. It’s beautiful, unsettling and wholly compelling.
Leicester on track as Shinji Okazaki shines in win over Crystal Palace This was more like the stuff of champions. Claudio Ranieri said he did not recognise his team when they folded at Chelsea but his players reintroduced themselves to him with style against Crystal Palace. “This was our best performance of the season,” said the manager, who revealed he had demanded his players deliver a performance to kickstart their domestic campaign. “I said maybe this would be the basement of our Premier League season, so it was important to win. We won, we played well and the only thing I didn’t like was that Crystal Palace scored, but I have to recognise they deserved that.” Palace did deserve it, because they contributed to a vibrant contest, but Alan Pardew did not dispute the outcome was correct and Leicester look back on song. “I saw their game against Chelsea and they didn’t have the same verve and aggression they had here,” he said. “We weren’t far from our best but they were good. I think most teams are going to find it difficult here.” For a while Palace looked like they were on Easy Street, threatening in the first 20 minutes to become the first visitors for more than a year to leave the King Power with a Premier League win. That was despite the fact the Palace goalkeeper, Steve Mandanda, gifted Shinji Okazaki a chance to open the scoring in the second minute, miskicking straight to the Japan striker, whose lob dropped wide. Palace then took charge and nearly scored when Christian Benteke leapt above a motionless Robert Huth to meet a cross by Martin Kelly. The Belgian’s header bounced out off the bar. Leicester then reaffirmed the order of things. They began to outfight Palace all over the pitch and topped that off with flashes of class from Okazaki, Riyad Mahrez and Danny Drinkwater, in particular. Despite European commitments, Ranieri has tinkered only sparingly this season and Okazaki, starting instead of Jamie Vardy, was one of only two changes the manager made to the side who had edged closer to the Champions League knockout stages by beating FC Copenhagen on Tuesday. In the other change Ahmed Musa started in place of Marc Albrighton. Both alterations made a big difference. Musa started and finished the game’s breakthrough move. He cut in from the left wing and fizzed the ball to Islam Slimani. The Algerian and Okazaki then outmuscled Palace’s defenders to prolong the move and tee up Musa for a shot from the edge of the area. Kelly could have blocked it but was so distracted by the lurking Mahrez, who tormented him for most of the match, he merely watched the Nigerian lash a shot past Mandanda. It was Musa’s first goal since joining from CSKA Moscow in the summer. The storming of Palace continued after the break. Slimani almost scored with a diving header from a cross by Mahrez but his effort flew into the side netting. The brazen swagger with which Palace had attacked in the early stages had long since been replaced by defensive scrambling and they were lucky Okazaki reprieved them in the 58th minute with a bungled header after another cross from Mahrez. He made amends moments later when he thrashed a low shot into the net from the edge of the area after a desperate attempted clearance by Damien Delaney. Palace, though overrun, did not prostrate themselves in front of the champions. Yohan Cabaye signalled their defiance with a close-range stab at goal but was thwarted by Kasper Schmeichel. Danny Simpson had to clear a header from Benteke off the line. Benteke was busy at both ends and, moments later, thought he had done a useful job when he headed away a corner by Mahrez but Christian Fuchs ran on to the bouncing ball and walloped a splendid half-volley into the net from 25 yards. The Austrian’s first goal for the club came the day after he signed a three-year deal. “I’m very angry with him because he has this quality but he needed a new contract to score a goal!” Ranieri said, jokingly. Five minutes from time Cabaye flicked a cross by Wilfried Zaha into the net. It was a modest reward for Palace and a reminder Leicester still have more room for improvement, but this was definitely an encouraging step.
Household electromagnetic radiation doesn't make you ill or give you cancer. Here's why There are few phenomena as ubiquitous or vital to human existence as electromagnetic radiation (EMR). It permeates everything we experience, be it the visible light illuminating all we see, or the broadcast media transmitted across the globe by radio-wave. In medicine, X-ray and gamma rays have revolutionized both anatomical imaging and treatment for cancer. In the era of wireless communication, our phones and routers take advantage of microwave radiation to rapidly convey virtually the entire repository of human knowledge to our fingertips at staggering velocity. But while EMR is an inescapable part of our universe, there are many who worry about potential detrimental effects. In particular, the propagation of personal communication devices has been a source of concern to many. There is a vocal cohort who claim to suffer from a condition called electromagnetic hypersensitivity (EHS or ES), whose symptoms include everything from fatigue and sleep disturbance to generic pains and skin conditions. More still fixate on idea that our increasingly wireless offices and homes might amplify our cancer risks. Such narratives are common and understandably disturbing. But should we be concerned? To answer that question, it’s important to clarify a few potential sources of confusion. Radiation itself is a deeply misunderstood term, frequently conjuring up worrying associations with radioactivity in the public conscious. But radiation simply refers to transmission of energy through a medium. In the context of EMR this means radiant energy released by an electromagnetic process. This energy moves at the speed of light, characterised by its wavelength and frequency. The electromagnetic spectrum is the range of all possible frequencies of EMR, where energy is proportional to frequency. While we only see a tiny portion of the spectrum in the form of visible light, we can think of it as a range of light particles (photons) with different energies. Some of these even have sufficient energy to eject electrons from an atom or smash apart chemical bonds, which renders them capable of causing DNA damage. This is known as ionizing radiation, and this ionizing potential is exploited when X-rays are harnessed to kill tumour cells in radiotherapy. This fact can make people uneasy – if light can be used to destroy cells, could our heavy usage of wireless communications perhaps induce this kind of DNA damage and ultimately lead to cancer? This is reasonable to ask, but we have to keep in mind how unbelievably vast the electromagnetic spectrum truly is. Modern communications, from our Wi-Fi networks to phones, are firmly rooted around the microwave end of the scale, with frequencies between 300 MHz and 300 GHz. In the scheme of the EM spectrum, these photons are of relatively low frequency and low energy. To put this in perspective, even the lowest energy visible light (wavelength ~700nm) still carries roughly 1430 times the energy of the most energetic microwave photon (wavelength 0.1cm). Microwave radiation is undisputedly non-ionizing, and completely incapable of direct DNA damage. In spite of their low energy, microwaves are remarkably effective at heating certain substances through a process known as dielectric heating. Certain molecules, like water, have regions of partial positive and negative charge which in the presence of an electric field rotate to align themselves in direction of the field. Domestic microwave oven emit photons with a frequency of approximately 2.45 GHz, meaning their electric field changes polarity 2.45 billion times a second, causing these polar molecules to rapidly bump off each other as they try to align to the rapidly changing field. The friction from these rapid collisions is converted to heat, which is precisely why microwaves are so efficient at cooking our predominantly water-based food. This is unfortunately rife for confusion; an entire plethora of blogs and dubious websites assert that microwave cooked food is harmful by dint of being exposed to radiation. But this is wrong-headed: microwaves are not radioactive and do not “irradiate” food – they merely harness vibrational energy to heat it. Other lines of dubious reasoning rely on misguided extrapolation: if microwave ovens can cook meat, then our Wi-Fi routers and cell phones are therefore cooking us too. But while thermal effects are certainly possible with microwave radiation, the power output of our communication technology is many orders of magnitude below that of ovens, with typical home routers outputting less than 100mW . On top of this, ovens are designed to concentrate high power microwave radiation using specially designed waveguides, magnetrons and reflective chambers, a situation neither encountered nor desirable in our conventional communication technology. It’s important too to note that the intensity of an approximately spherical source of electromagnetic radiation has an inverse square relationship with distance . For example, the field intensity a metre from an EM source will be 4 times greater than the intensity 2 metres away, and 9 times greater than a measurement taken 3 metres away from the source. In practice, this means the strength of an EM source diminishes enormously even over modest distances. Of course, our cell phones by definition come into very close contact with our heads, and so avoiding thermal ill-effect is a major consideration. The heat energy absorbed by tissue exposed to an EM field is given by the specific absorption rate (SAR). In the European Union, the maximum exposure to EM fields is tightly regulated to a maximum of 2W per kilogram, averaged over the 10g volume receiving the most direct heating to circumvent thermal effects. Importantly, dielectric heating only increases tissue temperature and will not by itself cause any damage to DNA bonds, so SAR should not be taken as a proxy for cancer risk. To date, there is no evidence that mobile phone usage increases cancer risk – The World Health Organisation state that “no adverse health effects have been established as being caused by mobile phone use”. Even long-term studies of radar workers show no signs of increased lifetime cancer incidence, despite their exceptionally high levels of exposure to microwave radiation. Even so, with the huge uptake in phone usage over the last two decades, it’s pragmatic to keep a cautious eye on emergent trends. The 13-country INTERPHONE study concluded there was no apparent causal relationship between phone use and the rates of common brain tumours such as glioblastoma and meningioma. The dose-response curve did not betray any obvious signs of correlation: in some instances a decrease in risk was even seen, with the possible exception of heaviest users, where biases in the data made it impossible to ascertain any solid relationship. Similarly, a Danish cohort study did not reveal any obvious link between phone usage and tumour rates. American cell phone use increased from almost nothing in 1992 to practically 100% by 2008, yet studies thus far have indicated that glioma rates showed no apparent increase. This result has been replicated by numerous other studies, and while constant monitoring is laudable, the evidence to date certainly doesn’t support the hypothesis that cell phone usage results in increased cancer risk. But cancer fears are only one aspect – claims of allergic-like responses to EMR are commonplace, expounded on websites by dubious health gurus. Such is the extent of belief in EHS that there are numerous dedicated support groups, and inevitable legal action. In Santa Fe, activist groups tried to get public Wi-Fi hotspots banned. In 2014, a Massachusetts family filed a lawsuit against their son’s school contending that Wi-Fi there was making him ill. In 2015, a French court ruled that a sufferer of EHS should get disability benefit. EHS sufferers in the US have even migrated to areas where Wi-Fi signals are restricted for research and national security reasons. In a particularly tragic case, the parents of 15 year old Jenny Fry claim that EHS was behind her suicide last year, and are campaigning to remove Wi-Fi from UK schools. Yet despite the sincerity of these beliefs and the discomfort experienced by sufferers, the inescapable reality is that there is zero evidence supporting their position. In provocation trials, sufferers have been completely unable to identify when sources of EMR are present. Subjects also reported negative effects even when exposed to fake EM sources. These results have been replicated in a number of trials, strongly suggesting that the illness sufferers feel is psychological rather than physical, and that for some the belief one is allergic to EM radiation is enough to trigger an unpleasant psychosomatic reaction. Those struggling with EHS appear to be victims not of electromagnetic malaise but rather of a psychological quirk known as the nocebo response. The more familiar placebo effect is the observation that people given an inactive treatment tend to rate themselves as improving, provided they are unaware the treatment is inert. Less well known is the converse complement of this: the nocebo effect. In such instances, if subjects truly believe something to be harmful, they tend to report an adverse reaction when confronted with that thing. Subjects under the sway of the nocebo effect even report these reactions when the source is a sham. The WHO summation, while sympathetic, is unequivocally clear: “The symptoms are certainly real and can vary widely in their severity. Whatever its cause, EHS can be a disabling problem for the affected individual. EHS has no clear diagnostic criteria and there is no scientific basis to link EHS symptoms to EMR exposure.” While it might be tempting to dismiss EHS as a fake illness, it is vital to recognise that sufferers experience a very real discomfort. The fact that their illness appears to be psychosomatic rather than physiological in origin does not make it any less real to the afflicted, even if they are mistaken about the cause of their woes. The harrowing complexity of this has recently been portrayed sensitively in Better Call Saul, where the protagonist’s brother is severely afflicted by EHS yet remains convinced his illness is physical rather than psychosomatic, even when confronted with evidence to the contrary. That EHS sufferers might benefit more from psychological intervention than physical approaches does not detract from their evident pain. As always, we have to be wary, and beguided by best evidence rather than panic. Most EMR is invisible and inescapable, and apprehension over what we cannot see is completely understandable. But if we are to make informed decisions on health and technology, misplaced fear of the unknown or dogmatic convictions are simply no substitute for evidence and understanding. The headline on this piece was changed on 18 February to more accurately reflect the article.
Arsenal suffer ‘confidence issue’ as Petr Cech injured in Swansea defeat Arsène Wenger admitted his players were suffering from a confidence issue after Arsenal slumped to a 2-1 defeat by Swansea City that dented their Premier League title hopes in front of a baying home crowd. Arsenal failed to bounce back from Sunday’s 3-2 defeat at Manchester United, which had triggered a sense of crisis and it was easy to see how the nervousness of the players and their supporters made for a damaging combination. After last night’s defeat Wenger was in no mood to discuss Arsenal’s faltering push for the title. On his side’s prospects he said: “At the moment we don’t dream; we are realistic. We have to come back to positive results before we speak about championships. It’s very unpredictable. Tottenham lost tonight, Manchester City lost tonight. Everybody drops points. “We will not talk about titles tonight. I’m not in the mood. It’s a big disappointment. We have to swallow that and bounce back. The players are very down. We have to respond.” Wenger’s team led through Joel Campbell but they were reeled in by goals from Wayne Routledge and Ashley Williams, which allowed Swansea to celebrate a vital victory in their fight against relegation. “Was it a confidence issue? It looks a bit like that, yes,” Wenger said. “We have to focus on our job and come back to reminding ourselves that we have some quality. We have to take the fans on our side. They were ready to support us tonight. They were quite good but we faded in the game.” Jeers greeted the substitution of Campbell with Danny Welbeck but Wenger defended his decision: “Campbell has not played for a while and he started to tire.” Wenger will be without Laurent Koscielny (calf) and Petr Cech (groin) for Saturday’s derby at Tottenham Hotspur. Koscielny did not play here while Cech appeared to pull up after going forward for a last-minute corner. “Cech had a little groin problem before the game and I think he struggled a bit,” Wenger said. “I don’t know how bad it is. He will not play on Saturday. Neither will Koscielny.”
Mogwai: Atomic review – sunlit soundtrack to apocalypse How many records have Mogwai made by now? 25? 100? As many as can fit in an Ikea Expedit cubbyhole? Nine LPs, four live albums and 13 EPs, actually – or, to put it another way, one giant wave of crushing noise. And yet the Scottish post-rock veterans show no signs of slowing. Atomic is a reworked version of their soundtrack for BBC4’s Atomic: Living in Dread and Promise. As you might expect from the score to a documentary about nuclear panic – and also the healing power of technology – it’s futuristic and often dystopian. It’s hard to listen to the doomy industrial thud of SCRAM and not picture a nuclear reactor failing to power down, or on Pripyat, the ghostly remains of the Cherynobl disaster. But at the same time, Atomic feels lighter than usual: sunlit synths dapple Little Boy; minimal piano patters through the techno-edged U-235; and Are You a Dancer’s delicate, balletic strings are sublime. As pop culture continues to be obsessed with the end of the world, Mogwai make the perfect life-affirming doom-mongers. Long may they slay.
Trump called Alicia Machado 'an eating machine' on Howard Stern show – as it happened Ratings for the first presidential debate between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are starting to trickle in, and while 83 million Americans watched, viewership was not quite as “yuge” as anticipated. Still, the figures are enough to break the 80.6 million viewer record set by the Ronald Reagan’s debate with Jimmy Carter in 1980.Reagan and Carter had just a few channels competing for viewers, and no internet. The latest figure is all the more impressive given the number of digital streaming options available to viewers – CBS’s digital news division, CBSN, said it had logged 2.98m streams and 1.4 million unique viewers in total. YouTube said just under 2 million people streamed video of the debate from six news outlets that officially used its platform. Facebook, too, hosted live showings of the event contributed by multiple news outlets. The total audience across the largest broadcast and cable networks had been predicted to reach 100 million viewers – the low end of the range for a Super Bowl game. Among late-night TV hosts, the consensus on who won Monday night’s debate between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton is resoundingly clear: Clinton dominated the evening, with Trump emerging as the blustering loser. The Daily Show, Late Night with Seth Meyers and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert all opted to air live following the first of three presidential debates, to offer comedic and pointed roundups of the chaotic clash.Trevor Noah’s Daily Show was the first up, with the host opening by taking a swipe at moderator Lester Holt, who New Yorker humorist Andy Borowitz mocked in a piece titled “CNN Launches Manhunt after Lester Holt Vanishes from Debate”. After playing a montage of the debate’s most heated exchanges, Noah said: “At that point, Lester Holt wasn’t even moderating anymore, he was just eating popcorn like everyone else.” Hillary Clinton drilled into Donald Trump during Monday night’s presidential debate on his treatment of women after he called a Miss Universe winner “Miss Piggy”, but the Republican nominee didn’t back away from the comment, telling Fox and Friends on Tuesday morning that “she gained a massive amount of weight”. Alicia Machado from Venezuela won the Miss Universe contest in 1996, shortly after Trump became executive producer of the contest. She gained weight in her year as winner – CNN at the time reported a 60-pound increase; Machado says it was closer to 15 pounds – which Trump and the Miss Universe contest viewed as a significant problem.“She was the worst we ever had, the worst, she was impossible,” Trump told Fox and Friends on Tuesday. “She was the winner and she gained a massive amount of weight and it was a real problem,” said Trump. “Not only that, her attitude. We had a real problem with her.” Speaking to a crowd of 7,500 the day after his first presidential debate with Hillary Clinton, Trump claimed: “I was holding back. I didn’t want to do anything to embarrass her.” He still insisted that every poll showed him winning the debates but cited only internet surveys to prove this; every scientific poll taken in the aftermath of the debate showed a majority of viewers believing Clinton had won. The Republican nominee’s unhappiness with coverage of his widely panned performance showed. Three times in the course of the rally, Trump called out “the corrupt corporate media” and gestured towards his supporters to turn towards the press pen to boo, hiss and even, in one instance, shout “go to hell”. Trump constantly revisited different moments in the debate and told of how, before taking the stage, “I took a deep breath and pretended I was talking to my family.” He recounted what he felt were his best lines during the debate – like, “You are experienced but it’s bad experience” – and touted how he had done well on the issue of trade and exposed Clinton’s “real positions” on Nafta, which he described as “the single worst deal you’ll ever see”. He even bashed Lester Holt, the debate moderator, whom Trump described as “the emcee”, for challenging him when he praised stop and frisk, a controversial police tactic that involved New York police officers stopping pedestrians without a warrant, asking them questions and checking them for weapons. A federal judge ruled in 2013 that the practice was unconstitutional as it disproportionately targeted African Americans and Latinos. Trump insisted, “I also explained last night stop and frisk was constitutional. The emcee argued with me, taking up the time. Law enforcement does stop and frisk every day.” Trump also re-litigated his false claim that he had opposed the Iraq war from the beginning, asking the crowd for approval. “And does everybody believe me, I was against going into Iraq?” he asked the crowd. The Arizona Republic has endorsed Hillary Clinton for president, making her the first Democratic presidential candidate to earn the newspaper’s endorsement in its 126-year history. “Since The Arizona Republic began publication in 1890, we have never endorsed a Democrat over a Republican for president. Never,” wrote the editorial board of Arizona’s most widely read daily newspaper. “This reflects a deep philosophical appreciation for conservative ideals and Republican principles. This year is different. The 2016 Republican candidate is not conservative and he is not qualified.” The newspaper’s editorial board makes no bones about what it views as the temperamental deficiencies of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump: “Clinton has the temperament and experience to be president. Donald Trump does not.” Calling Trump’s antics on and off the debate stage “beneath our national dignity,” the Arizona Republic’s editorial board dismissed Trump’s stance on immigration as inflammatory and ineffective - a potentially consequential assertion in the border state. “Arizona went down the hardline immigration road Trump travels. It led our state to SB 1070, the 2010 ‘show me your papers’ law that earned Arizona international condemnation and did nothing to resolve real problems with undocumented immigration,” the editorial board writes. “Arizona understands that we don’t need a repeat of that divisive, unproductive fiasco on the national level.” Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has scored another endorsement from a Republican politician, this time from former Virginia senator John Warner, according to the Washington Post. Warner, an icon in the commonwealth with strong ties to the military community, joins a long list of Republicans who have avoided endorsing Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, instead attaching himself to a ticket that already features another Virginian: current senator Tim Kaine, Clinton’s running mate. “For 30 years, Virginians trusted John Warner in the senate, and for good reason: he has dedicated his life to defending our country, from serving in the Navy in World War II to chairing the senate armed services committee, where I had the honor of working with him to support our men and women in uniform and their families,” Clinton wrote in a statement. “I am proud to have John’s support, and to know that someone with his decades of experience would trust me with the weighty responsibility of being commander in chief.” Speaking to a campaign rally audience in Melbourne, Florida, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump declared that the only reason he didn’t get in more jabs in last night’s first presidential debate was that he “held back” because he “didn’t want to embarrass” Hillary Clinton. “For 90 minutes, I watched her very carefully and I was also holding back, I didn’t want to do anything to embarrass her, but I watched her and she was stuck in the past,” Trump said. “For 90 minutes on issue after issue, Hillary Clinton defended the terrible status quo, while I laid our plan, all of us together, to bring jobs, security and prosperity back to the American people.” “For 90 minutes, she argued against change, while I called for dramatic change. We have to have dramatic change. We have to get rid of Obamacare, we have to strengthen up our depleted military. It’s in such bad shape. We’re gonna do a lot of great things, folks. November 8, you have to get out there and vote.” Oh, hey there: Watch it live here: Actress Melissa Joan Hart - best known as Sabrina in Sabrina the Teenage Witch and Clarissa in Clarissa Explains It All - has joined Libertarian presidential nominee Gary Johnson’s campaign, under the title of Connecticut campaign chair. Hart has previously supported Republican candidates, tweeting in 2012 that she planned to vote for Mitt Romney: ...but has previously announced support for Johnson’s campaign earlier this year. “I want to break away from this two-party system and I think it’s important for people to know that there’s another candidate out there who really toes the line between Democrat and Republican,” Hart told People Magazine. “I mean, he’s libertarian, but socially he’s liberal, but fiscally conservative.” “Governors, I love, because they already ran their state as like a little president,” Hart continued, referring to Johnson’s service as the governor of New Mexico. “So he gets the way, you know, things run. The politics of it all. He was on a border state, so if you want to talk about immigration, he’s the guy.” Donald Trump’s rally in Florida, set to begin in five minutes, is being delayed by storms: Colin Kaepernick has hit back at Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s assertion that the quarterback “should find another country that works better for him” in response to his decision to kneel for the national anthem. Kaepernick, whose protest has sparked a national discussion over racial injustice and inspired dozens of other professional and collegiate players to follow suit, characterized Trump’s comment as a “very ignorant statement” during this afternoon’s media availability at the team’s practice facility. “It’s a very ignorant statement that, if you don’t agree with what’s going on, hearing that if you want justice and liberty and freedom for all, then you should leave the country,” Kaepernick told reporters in a video shared by the Bay Area News Group. “He always says make America great again. Well, America has never been great for people of color. And that’s something that needs to be addressed. Let’s make America great for the first time.” Kaepernick’s remarks came the morning after Monday’s first presidential debate, where Trumped doubled down on his call for the national introduction of “stop and frisk”, the controversial police tactic ruled unconstitutional in 2013 when a federal judge found it disproportionately targeted African American and Latino neighborhoods. Trump first addressed Kaepernick’s protest in an appearance last month on the Dori Monson Show, a conservative afternoon talk-radio program in the Seattle area. “I have followed it and I think it’s personally not a good thing,” the GOP candidate said. “I think it’s a terrible thing, and you know, maybe he should find a country that works better for him. Let him try: it won’t happen.” Ben Jacobs has more fashion reports from Donald Trump’s rally in Florida tonight: Former Vermont governor and onetime head of the Democratic National Committee Howard Dean defended tweeting that Republican nominee Donald Trump’s persistent sniffing during last presidential night’s debate indicated possible cocaine abuse, a sentence we never thought we’d have to type and yet here we are. “You can’t make a diagnosis over the television, but that is a signature of people who use cocaine,” Dean told MSNBC’s Kate Snow of Trump’s sniffling. “I’m not suggesting that Trump does, but ... I’m just suggesting that we think about it.” “He sniffed during the presentation, which is something that users do,” Dean continued. “He also has grandiosity, which is something that accompanies that problem.” “Something funny was going on with Donald Trump last night.” The former Miss Universe winner who was the subject of a Donald Trump tirade this morning about her weight and “attitude,” Alicia Machado, hasn’t held any punches in her war of words with the Republican presidential nominee. The Venezuelan pageant queen, who was cited by Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton during last night’s debate as an example of Trump’s misogyny, called Trump a “Nazi rat”. Yesterday, Machado started the hashtag #RataNazi, declaring in Spanish that “My freedom of opinion is what I most love about being a US citizen! My position is overwhelmingly and firmly: #NaziRat you won’t be president!” A real-time map of trending Twitter topics seems to show that the #TrumpWon hashtag - lauded by the candidate himself as the most popular hashtag on the internet this morning - appears to show that the hashtag’s starting location is in St. Petersburg, Russia. Granted, the campaign could just be hiding its virtual private network’s address by changing theirs in St. Petersburg - which would just mean that the campaign dropped a pretty penny on its Twitter advertising this morning - but given that hundreds of bloggers are paid by the Russian government to flood forums and social networks at home and abroad with anti-western and pro-Kremlin comments, it’s an interesting coincidence... In a 1997 interview with Howard Stern, Donald Trump called the Miss Universe winner Alicia Machado an “eating machine,” revealed audio unearthed by Buzzfeed. Machado, who won the Miss Universe contest in 1996, is in the news today after Hillary Clinton used Trump’s comments - he labeled her “Miss Piggy” and “Miss Housekeeping” (she’s originally from Venezuela) - to nail him on gender issues during last night’s debate. The new audio from Buzzfeed of the 1997 Stern interview shows exactly what the conversations around Machado were like at the time (remember, this is a 20-year-old woman who is being discussed by these men). Stern announces the issue: “The Miss Universe, it turns out, the woman who won last year, blows up to a fat pig. I mean, like obese.” Trump laughs in the background. Stern: “Most people would have fired her, because she broke the rules. Mr Trump goes in there and he says “listen you, I’m not going to fire you, but you better get skinny, you better lose some weight.” Stern adds: “You whipped this fat slob into shape. I don’t know how you did it. I see all these diet plans, everything else. God bless you. You whipped her into shape, and you held the whole pageant together. Congratulations.” Trump responds: “Well, that was an amazing one. She went from 118 to almost 170.” Stern: “And you got her right down again to 118, didn’t you?” Trump: “Well, she’s going to be there. She’s probably 145 or something.” Trump adds: “It was an amazing phenomena. She weighed 118 when she won... she was as beautiful a woman as I’ve ever seen. She gained about 55 pounds in a period of nine months. She was like an eating machine.” “What does a girl eat in less than a year to gain [that]?” Stern asks. “I think she ate a lot of everything,” replies Trump. This is what Machado looked like when Trump was arranging for the media to turn up at gyms to watch her work out in order to lose the extra weight. She’s now appearing in pro-Clinton ads, and spoke with the ’s Lucia Graves about how Trump weight-shaming impacted her life and affected her health and psychological wellbeing. Donald Trump surrogate Rudy Giuliani declared that Hillary Clinton was “too stupid to be president” for being unaware that Bill Clinton had cheated on her with Monica Lewinsky. The comments came after Giuliani was asked if Trump was a feminist, and Giuliani noted that Trump didn’t mention Bill Clinton’s affairs, but he thought he should hae. “I sure would’ve talked about what she did to Monica Lewinsky, what that woman standing there did to Monica Lewinsky, trying to paint her as an insane young woman when in fact Monica Lewinsky was an intern,” Giuliani said. “The president of the United States, her husband, disgraced this country with what he did in the Oval Office and she didn’t just stand by him, she attacked Monica Lewinsky. And after being married to Bill Clinton for 20 years, if you didn’t know the moment Monica Lewinsky said that Bill Clinton violated her that she was telling the truth, then you’re too stupid to be president.” Let’s just remember that Guiliani started dating his current wife Judith when he was mayor of New York City and still married to and living with his second wife, Donna Hanover. Around 81 million viewers tuned into to watch Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton battle it out in last night’s debate, making it the highest rated debate in history, according to new figures from Nielsen. Nielsen’s figures - which is based on viewers watching one of the 12 channels from home, and does not account for online livestreams, viewing parties in other venues or those watching PBS or C-SPAN - show on average 80.9 million people tuned in. Those additional viewers that were not counted means the number is significantly higher than the 80.9 million figure, noted Brian Stelter on CNN Money. Previously the highest ever watched debate was when 81 million watched Jimmy Carter take on Ronald Reagan back in 1980. In 2012, an average of 70 million voters tuned in to Mitt Romney and Barack Obama’s first debate, says Politico. In 2008, John McCain and Obama’s debate averaged 53 million. Clinton says she’s trying to prove that “love trumps hate,” as she thanks the crowd and walks off to the strains of Ain’t No Mountain High Enough. Clinton is attacking Trump in Raleigh abut his comments last night that seemed to insinuate he doesn’t pay federal taxes. “He actually bragged about gaining the system to get out of the paying his fair share,” notes Clinton. In last night’s debate, Clinton pushed Donald Trump on why he wasn’t releasing his tax returns, suggesting that perhaps he hadn’t paid any federal income taxes. “That makes me smart,” replied Trump. “If not paying taxes makes us smart, what does that make all the rest of us?” asks Clinton in Raleigh on Tuesday. “I think there’s a strong possibility he hasn’t paid federal taxes for a lot of years. And this is a man who goes around calling our military a disaster... he probably hasn’t paid a penny to support our troops, or our vets, or our schools, or our healthcare systems,” says Clinton . She says her and husband Bill always pay their taxes, because that’s what Americans should do. “We pay the highest marginal rate. We try and give 10% to charity. Because we believe in this country. And we believe with the blessings we’ve been given, we should do our part,” adds Clinton. Clinton is comparing her surrogate Mark Cuban to Donald Trump - “He is a real billionaire, by the way,” she quips. She talks about how Cuban has long used profit-sharing and shared the profits of his sale of his business and turned 300 of his employees into millionaires because of it. “That’s the kind fo business leadership I want to hold up,” she says, noting that Trump has built his business on the backs of little guys who didn’t get paid. “I’m glad my dad never had a contract with Donald Trump when he was running his small business,” says Clinton. Clinton’s speaks of her mother’s upbringing in severe poverty and how she was lucky to find someone that let her live in their house and attend high school. “When I talk about us being strong together, I’m not just talking about government, I’m talking about what each of us can do to contribute,” says Clinton. Clinton mentions last night’s debate, and gets huge applause from her audience in Raleigh. “I got a chance to say a few things,” she laughs, a clear reference to Trump interrupting her repeatedly. “I do have this old fashioned idea that if I’m asking for your vote, I should tell you what I want to do,” says Clinton. In Raleigh, Clinton speaks against the “mean-spirited” transgender bathroom law, House Bill 2. “Right here in North Carolina, the mean-spirited wrong-hearted decision to pass and sign House Bill 2, has hurt this state. And more than that it’s hurt people. It’s sent a message to so many people ‘well you’re not really one, you’re not really part of us. I think the American dream is big enough for everything,” says Clinton. Today is National Voter Registration Day, points out Clinton, calling on people to go to iwillvote.com and register to vote. She notes that North Carolina already has issues with voter suppression. “Everything they could to make voting harder. They were pretty blatant, make it harder for people of color, make it harder for the elderly and make it harder for the young. Some of that’s been rolled back, thankfully, because it was so wrong and i would argue, unconstitutional... we want everyone to exercise his or her right to vote,” she adds. Clinton takes to the stage in Raleigh, North Carolina, after a sweet speech from a local nurse and working mother who notes that she’s going to cry as she introduces Clinton to the stage. “You made me cry,” Clinton tells her, putting her hand on her heart as she thanks her. “Did anyone see that debate last night? Oh yes, one down, two to go,” declares Clinton to the audience. Failed presidential candidate and former Florida governor is heading back to school, after Harvard’s Kennedy School announced Tuesday that Jeb Bush will be a visiting fellow on education policy, reports AP. Bush - who last popped up in the public eye during a comic bit in the Emmy Awards - where he starred as an Uber driver - will be a guest speaker and teacher during the fall term. AP says it will begin with Bush delivering the Edwin L. Godkin Lecture at Harvard this Thursday on economic and social mobility. Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton campaigns in Raleigh, North Carolina, the day after the first presidential debate. A Republican super PAC unveiled a new ad, using Hillary Clinton’s comments from last night’s debate against her in a new attack ad. The new ad by Future 45 shows Clinton talking about how she has stamina to be president as proven by her years of Secretary of State travel to 112 countries. “But beyond the flight miles, what’s the Clinton record?” asks the voice-over, before referencing Russia, Libya, ISIS and the Benghazi attack. “Hillary has experience, but it’s bad experience,” replies Trump. Future 45 is funded by big GOP donors, the Adelson and Ricketts families. From the Clinton plane this morning, regarding Trump’s complaints from earlier today that his microphone wasn’t working during the debate. When Ted Cruz was in the race, Trump pushed a conspiracy theory that Cruz’s father was somehow involved in the assassination of JFK. But even with Cruz gone from the race, Trump hasn’t disavowed the claim - even pushing it shortly after the RNC in July. The Weekly Standard tried yesterday to get Trump surrogates to admit the argument was baseless, but to no avail. “I think really the fact that Senator Cruz came out and endorsed Mr. Trump I think really says a lot. I think it talks about how the party’s coming together, how it’s united,” said Trump senior advisor Jason Miller. But Ted Cruz’s chief strategist Jason Johnson took a dig at Miller, who was a former Cruz top spokesman before taking on the Trump role. Hat tip to Ben Jacobs. Comedian Rosie O’Donnell called Donald Trump an “orange anus” after the Republican nominee said in last night’s debate that she “deserves” his criticism, which includes him calling her a “fat pig,” “slob,” and “loser.” During the debate at Hofstra University, Trump was quizzed on his comments about women’s bodies. “Some of it’s said — somebody who’s been very vicious to me, Rosie O’Donnell, I said very tough things to her, and I think everybody would agree that she deserves it and nobody feels sorry for her,” said Trump. In response, O’Donnell tweeted a video from The View where she mocked Trump’s hair and pointed out his bankruptcies, failed marriages and called him a “snake oil salesman.” She says it was this moment that resulted in Trump’s vicious attacks against her. When one of Trump’s supporters tweeted at her that she was “burned” by “President Trump”, she replied: Pop star Madonna, who endorsed Clinton back in September, then came out in support of her friend: Ted Cruz, the former Trump foe turned reluctant supporter applauded Trump for his debate performance last night, telling a radio host he had his “strongest debate performance” so far and that the media is only saying Clinton won because they support her. Cruz was a top college debater and he was regarded as the toughest Republican debater of the primaries. “Anyone who is swooning at Hillary’s performance last night, that’s a pretty good indication that you’re a card-carrying member of the liberal media, especially in the first half hour. I think Donald very much had the upper hand over Hillary,” said Cruz in a radio interview with Hugh Hewitt on Tuesday. “And the biggest thing is her answers, they sound old and tired, and I don’t mean that in a comment on her health. It mean it on a comment on her ideas. Her ideas are rehashed 1960s Great Society, big government programs. And to me, they did not rise to the occasion remotely. Now of course the media is going to hyperventilate at how terrific she is, because that’s what they do,” said Cruz. Mic edited together a video of 28 times Trump interrupted Clinton in last night’s debate. But Vox says the total is actually higher, with their count showing Trump interrupted her 51 times, while she interrupted him 17 times. After the conventions back in July, Lauren Leatherby from the US interactive team, analyzed the post-convention bump Hillary Clinton was experiencing. She noted that debates also influence polls, writing in August: In the past, debates have had a big influence on the number of people who say they will vote for a given candidate. After the 2004 and 2012 convention seasons, both George W Bush and Obama were able to hold onto their convention bumps for a few weeks. (For Bush, his post-convention bump lasted about a month. For Obama, his numbers stayed high for two weeks.) But, in both cases, the candidates’ poll numbers took a hit after the first debate. Despite trailing Bush in the polls for much of the fall of 2004, a majority of viewers polled thought John Kerry won the first debate. The candidates sparred over the war in Iraq for nearly two-thirds of the debate, and Bush’s defenses appeared weak in the face of Kerry’s persistent criticisms. Bush subsequently lost around five points of his polling lead. A similar scene played out again in 2012, between another incumbent, Obama, and Republican challenger Mitt Romney. Despite trailing in the polls, Romney was well prepared for the first debate, and Obama – often glancing at his notes – didn’t perform particularly well. More than seven in 10 Americans told Gallup that Romney did a better job, which was reflected in post-debate polls when Obama’s lead decreased by around three points. If Clinton’s current lead holds up by the first debate in late September (which would be a very long post-convention bump indeed), her debate performance could once again change the balance of the race. Clinton’s post-DNC bump had disappeared almost entirely by yesterday, with the latest shows pre-debate showing the pair neck-and-neck. But largely favorable reviews across the board for Clinton’s debate performance may now affect polls - even if that may not reflect the eventual election winner. Hip hop queen Mary J Blige interviewed Hillary Clinton for a new show to be unveiled on Apple Music Friday, with a preview showing Blige questioning Clinton about race and singing to her. “A lot of people in my community think Obama was blocked in Congress because he was black. How are you going to do what he wasn’t able to do?” asks Blige, in an Apple music preview put on Instagram. The 411 with Mary Blige appears to be a new Apple Music show where the R&B star interviews people, the name taken from Blige’s 1992 album ‘What’s the 411’. In another 30-second preview available on iTunes, the camera focuses on Blige, who belts out a cover of Bruce Springsteen’s American Skin - which is about the police killing of unarmed black man Amadou Diallo in 1999 - to a rather awkward-looking Clinton. “It ain’t no secret/No secret my friend/You can get killed/Just for living in your American skin,” she sings as she sits in front of Clinton, reaching out to grab hold of her hand. “I just want to know where we go from here,” asks Blige. Clinton opens her mouth, and the camera cuts to show name and its September 27 release date. Just how bizarre will this interview be? Last night Lester Holt, the host from NBC Nightly News, moderated the debate, under a bright spotlight after his colleague Matt Lauer was criticized for going soft on Trump during a major interview and the Trump campaign declaring that Holt’s job was as moderator not fact checker. Holt pushed back on Trump’s claims that he did never supported the Iraq War and his argument that the stop-and-frisk policy in NYC was a big success, and news outlets including Washington Post and Think Progress applauded him for fact-checking. What did others think? Holt’s a registered Republican, but Dan Gainor wrote on FoxNews.com that Holt pushed hard for Clinton: Holt reminded viewers he’s liberal – from pushing the birther issue to harassing Trump about his tax returns to a wildly biased question about Clinton as “the first woman nominated by a party” not having “the look.” Clinton skated by with a 15-second response on her emails while Trump was asked repeated follow-up questions while Hillary was not. There was no “deplorables” question and Holt promoted the birther meme without noting its origin in the Clinton camp. Slate’s Isaac Chotiner reckons that Holt asked good, tough questions - just in time. Holt’s performance, like Hillary Clinton’s, was not a total knockout. But like Clinton’s, it was more than adequate. And in a year like this one, that counts as a victory for a beleaguered press corps. Holt was good to not get too involved with the debaters, said Michael Calderone in Huffington Post: The biggest critique of Holt one could make ― and some did on social media ― was that he was too hands-off. However, moderators try to avoid becoming the third debater on stage, and instead force the candidates to spar with one another. There were moments, especially early on, that Holt could have been more forceful in maintaining order. But he also wisely used his discretion to keep the debate going at times instead of sticking to the somewhat arbitrary 15 minutes allotted for each segment. At the New York Times, Michael M Grynbaum called him the “minimalist moderator”: He was silent for minutes at a time, allowing Hillary Clinton and Donald J. Trump to joust and bicker between themselves — and sometimes talk right over him — prompting some viewers to wonder if Mr. Holt had left the building. But his reticence as moderator also gave viewers an unfiltered glimpse of the candidates: their views, speaking styles, and reactions under pressure. Kyle Smith in the New York Post said Clinton got off easy compared to Trump: In the early going, it looked like it was going to be an ideal, Jim Lehrer-style performance from Lester Holt, the “NBC Nightly News” anchor. Lehrer was so boringly nonpartisan, so unwilling to play gotcha that he was always hotly in demand to moderate debates. For the first half or so, Holt gave simple, broad, open-ended questions and let the candidates go at it. He didn’t venture into live fact-checking, didn’t much quarrel with the nominees, didn’t ask persnickety questions... But in the last half of the show, Holt started going after Trump. Two of the country’s major publications are running campaign ads across their debate coverage this morning. On the website, I’m seeing a Microsoft ad, so I think that means journalism wins. Last night I monitored Red and Blue Twitter, noting how the same debate question and answer was viewed in two completely differently ways depending on what side the supporter was on. For example, Trump on trade: his supporters saw it as a dominant showing where he was able to get his message across, Clinton supporters saw him constantly interrupting her in a sexist way. Who do you think won the debate? Please share in the comments. On Fox and Friends this morning, Trump claimed that he won the debate because online polls showed it to be true - although those poll numbers may be a little dodgy. “I know I did better than Hillary and ever poll shows that,” said Trump. “I won Slate, I won Drudge, I won CBS, I won Time magazine. I won every poll apart from CNN and not many people are watching CNN,” he declared. Except, Major Garrett from CBS rebuked Trump’s claim: Ben Collins from the Daily Beast notes that the very polls Trump is claiming he won were gamed by Trump supporters on 4chan and Reddit. ...some users took time to attempt to game online polls soliciting opinions on who won the debate, imploring users to “abuse airplane mode toggling” to allow for more votes for Trump on websites like CNBC, Time, ABC News, and CNN. Trump then spent the night pointing his Twitter users to those same poll numbers, which had been brigaded by 4chan and Trump’s Reddit community r/The_Donald. Undecided voters pick Clinton as winner, reports Lauren Gambino from Philadelphia. In a clash between the two most unpopular presidential nominees in modern history, a group of undecided voters in the battleground state of Pennsylvania declared Hillary Clinton the clear winner of Monday night’s debate; but remained deeply pessimistic about their choices in November. “It’s like asking me to choose between a heart attack and a stroke,” said one of the 27 voters selected to participate in the focus group conducted by Republican pollster Frank Luntz in Philadelphia on Monday. ‘Clinton weaponized Trump’s words’: the reaction to the presidential debateJill Abramson, Steven W Thrasher, Christopher R Barron, Jamie Weinstein and Lucia GravesRead more The visceral electoral anger that helped fuel Trump’s rise was felt in the room at the National Constitution Center where the mood was perhaps best encapsulated by Luntz’s opening question: “How the hell did we get here?” The Pennsylvania voters shared some of the same entrenched views that voters across the country have expressed over the past 18 months. They described Clinton as a “liar”, “corrupt”, “secretive” and “self-centered”. They labeled Trump “scary”, “fake”, an “egomaniac” and a “shape-shifter”. The battleground state voters watched the debate from a room inside the National Constitution Center and recorded their snap reactions throughout the 90-minute debate. On display behind the voters were large, expressionistic paintings of an American flag, John F Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, Trump and Clinton by artist and GOP darling Steve Penley. At the end of the debate, 16 of the 27 participants agreed that Clinton had won while just six believed Trump had won the debate. In near uniformity, the voters said the outcome of the debate was the result of Trump’s failure rather than Clinton’s success. Read the rest here. Hello and welcome to our live-wire coverage of the 2016 race for the White House. Last night Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton battled it out at Hofstra University in the first 2016 presidential debate. This morning, we’re wading through the reviews, columns and analysis. First a look at some stories to check out: Our politics team - Dan Roberts, Sabrina Siddiqui and Ben Jacobs – covered the debate from inside the room, declaring that Clinton kept her cool while Trump lost his. Tom McCarthy summed up what we learned at the debate – and the importance of the line “Whew, OK!”. Alan Yuhas fact-checked, clarifying exactly which candidates’ arguments hold up to inspection. Trump defensive on Fox News this morning Trump has already come out on the defensive on Fox and Friends this morning, declaring that moderator Lester Holt asked him “hostile questions” but didn’t drill Clinton on her own scandals, and said his microphone suffered audio problems possibly “on purpose”. “I thought it went really well ... It was the debate of debates,” Trump declared at 7am. Trump said he thought the NBC Nightly News host did a “fine” job, although he argued that he got asked much tougher questions, including about his support of the birther conspiracy, his refusal to release his tax returns and former employees’ lawsuits against him. “He didn’t ask her about the emails. Didn’t ask her about her scandals. Didn’t ask her about the Benghazi deal she destroyed. He didn’t ask her about a lot of things ... Didn’t ask about her foundation,” said Trump. He also echoed his claim made after the debate last night, that after Clinton grilled him on his treatment of women, including former Miss Universe winner Alicia Machado, he wanted to bring up Bill Clinton’s extramarital affairs but didn’t out of respect for their daughter Chelsea Clinton. “I didn’t feel comfortable doing it with Chelsea in the room,” said Trump. But he said he might mention the affairs in the next debate. “I may hit her harder in certain ways. I really eased up in certain ways because I didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings,” he said. Trump admitted that Clinton’s comments about Alicia Machado riled him up, as he tried to explain his “Miss Piggy” comments about her: “She was the winner, she gained a massive amount of weight, it was a real problem,” said Trump. “Not only that, her attitude, we had a real problem with her.” He noted that the comments happened years ago and says the Clinton campaign “found a girl and talked about her as if she was Mother Theresa and it wasn’t quite that way, but that’s OK, Hillary has to do what she has to.” Trump gave both Clinton and Holt a C+ grade. #TrumpSniffles not true? Last night Trump appeared to sniffle his way through the debate, the #Trumpsniffles hashtag trending thanks to the irony of Trump having heath issues after he’s drilled Clinton so hard on her own. Except ... he claims it was a microphone issue and that he wasn’t sniffling. “I had a problem with my mic that didn’t work, I wonder if it was set up on purpose. In the room they couldn’t hear me, not exactly great ... I wonder if it was set up that way,” said Trump. He said his mic dropped in and out. “I don’t want to believe in conspiracy theories. But it was crackling. To me, it was a bad problem,” said Trump. When he was specifically asked about the sniffling, he replied: No, no sniffles. No, the mic was very bad, but maybe it was good enough to hear breathing. But no sniffles. No allergies. No cold. So this was just a microphone? Biden’s review Vice-president and Clinton supporter Joe Biden was on Facebook last night after the debate to criticize Trump over his bragging that he hadn’t paid federal taxes: Donald Trump all but admitted he hasn’t paid federal taxes on his income. He says that makes him smart. But what does that say to the factory worker or the nurse or the teacher earning $40,000 or $50,000 or $60,000 a year and paying almost 15% of their income to support our troops, keep our neighborhoods safe and clean, and rebuild our roads? Does he really think these patriotic Americans are not smart? He’s a guy who is proud of a phrase he made famous: “You’re fired.” In today’s campaign movements: Trump is off to Melbourne, Florida, for a rally tonight (reporter Ben Jacobs will be there). His VP pick Mike Pence was supposed to hold and event in Wisconsin, but that’s since been cancelled. Clinton’s hosting a rally in Raleigh, North Carolina, and has her surrogates out in force today. Her VP pick Tim Kaine has a canvass kickoff in Orlando, while husband Bill is hosting events in Ohio. Joe Biden will speak at a rally in Philadelphia.
My first time certifying a death taught me I still had a lot to learn as a medical student “Want to learn how to certify a death?” asks James, one of the junior doctors on the general medical ward I am attached to. “Yes please,” I respond, remembering the tick box in my medical school log book next to “certification of death and writing a death certificate”. I feel guilty, but although I’m sad somebody’s loved one has gone, all medical students know to take offers of teaching whenever they appear and an education in the rituals surrounding a patient’s death is no different. James leads me down the ward and into a side room. The lights are off, the room dimly lit by the dull morning sky. As I look down at an elderly woman dressed in her hospital gown, there is a stillness around us that I’ve never felt before. The radio on the bedside TV is still on: “It’s 10.30am and we’ve got more great tunes coming your way, plus another chance to win …” This station’s mood dial is set to upbeat happiness, and its presence now is utterly bizarre. “What do you think we have to do?” asks James. “I know we need to listen to her chest,” I reply. “Yes, that’s right, and there’s more too”. James walks me through everything, step by step. First, he gently touches a rolled-up piece of tissue to the woman’s cornea, the outer layer of the eye. “That would make me or you blink” James says, before shining a pen-torch in each of her eyes. Her pupils are still. The last reflex he tries is to apply pressure in the bony grooves above the eyes. Nothing. “Now you can listen to her chest.” I unwrap the stethoscope from my neck, and as I approach I really look at the woman in front of me for the first time. I am 22 and have seen death in many forms: the passing of a middle-aged father who couldn’t be resuscitated after more than an hour of chest compressions, the gory autopsy of an overweight man in the basement mortuary and the plasticised, formaldehyde-covered body parts on the tables of the dissection room. But this is different. She is dressed and positioned in bed like all the other patients. But at some point this morning, her body overcome with disease, she stopped. I pause, place my stethoscope on her chest, and listen. “Who will be in this week’s big top 40? Tune in to find …”. James steps round to the other side of the bed and turns the radio off. I listen again and hear noises. Confused, I realise that my hand is trembling and that this is generating interference that I hear in my stethoscope. I steady myself, and there is nothing. Stethoscope anchored on her chest, where my ears are used to the rushing in and out of whooshing air and the rhythmic lub-dub, lub-dub of the heart, the silence is deep and unsettling. To confirm death, doctors must listen to the chest for four minutes, and as I listen I briefly wonder who this woman was, where she called home and where she used to run around and play as a child. The time passes slowly, but it ticks by and I am done. James listens and then we carefully pull the sheet up to her neck, as though tucking her into bed, and exit the room. We emerge into the hustle and bustle of the main ward. James tells me she died of heart failure and pneumonia. The confirmation of death is documented in the patient’s notes, and then James is off, cracking on with the usual mountain of jobs. At the end of a long life, death needn’t be a defeat for doctors, more a natural result of medicine’s limitations and the inevitable march of disease. As I take out my log book, I reflect on how much more difficult confirming death might be if the patient were younger, or had died under different circumstances. This time I hadn’t met the patient in life, but doctors are required to confirm death for patients they’ve cared for over weeks or months or years. I tuck the log book back into my pocket. Learning to acknowledge death is going to take more than a tick-box. If you would like to write a piece for Blood, sweat and tears, read our guidelines and get in touch by emailing healthcare@theguardian.com. Join the Healthcare Professionals Network to read more pieces like this. And follow us on Twitter (@GdnHealthcare) to keep up with the latest healthcare news and views.
The Egyptian Lover: 'I only started singing so people would know the track names' Greg Broussard is explaining how he found his voice – a purr of a voice; a slick, calm invitation. It’s the voice of his musical alter ego, the Egyptian Lover, and he owes the voice to Prince. “On a long version of one of his songs, Controversy, he’s saying [Broussard goes into an impression here]: ‘People call me rude / I wish we all were nude.’ I liked that chant style, so I tried to be cool with it. I started lowering my voice, trying different things, and it just fit along with the songs. It wasn’t screaming or overpowering, more a seductive way of talking to women.” “Back then,” Broussard adds, laughing, “when we had actual real telephones, you had to have a good telephone voice – you had to do that in order to get women. Nowadays you can sound like Mickey Mouse and get a girlfriend because it’s all text messages.” Greg Broussard has the kind of easy, hearty laugh that bespeaks both amusement at life’s foibles and complete ease with where he’s at, perhaps because he helped shape the music of the future since his earliest singles in the 1980s. Call it groundbreaking hip-hop or call it the first wave of electro on the US west coast, but it’s something that resonates from then to now, attracting an audience that includes those who remember his early music and those who have discovered him via a more circuitous route. “I’ll do a show, let’s say, in Paris,” he says. “You’ll have a hundred old-school guys my age there, and the rest are all young guys and girls. It’s pretty crazy to see the young and the old listening to the same kind of music having a good time.” Now the Egyptian Lover’s past has been drawn together on a new collection, Anthology 1983-1988. Each cut showcases his trademark: a sleek, stark but always lively combination of electronic beats and minimal funk grooves, with his low-key calls and declarations to get down and get it on. Every song is a party; put them together and it’s the kind of party you want never to end. He was inspired at first by early electro – Afrika Bambaataa’s Planet Rock, Twilight Kingdom by Electric 22 – and by the records that inspired those artists (Kraftwerk’s Numbers was a key track) as well as Prince’s lithe dawn-of-the-1980s synth-funk. He set about building his tracks in layers, starting with “drum machine, maybe a beat programmed. And I could play it really loud in the studio, until I could get something I really liked. Then I started adding the keys, the bassline, the strings. I would let the record play over and over again, sit in the studio and write the lyrics to the record while it was being played. Then go on to the microphone, do the vocals and the song was done.” He learned how records work by spending time in clubs, which is why the vocals were the least laboured-over part of Egyptian Lover tracks. “I started out as a dancer,” he says, “and I used to go to the clubs to dance. Then I became a DJ, and I knew what records or what parts of the records to play. Everybody liked these certain parts, so I would extend the breakdowns, put more breakdowns over the breakdowns, then more breakdowns and beats, because that’s what I wanted to dance to. When I was watching the crowd dance to certain records, they’d love the beats, they didn’t need to have words. I put the words on there so people know the name of the song.” The Egyptian Lover character was inspired by the imagery from Earth, Wind & Fire’s releases, and from Broussard’s trip to see the treasures of Tutankhamun’s tomb when they toured the US in the late 70s. “I saw the King Tut exhibit, with this young king with his own empire, and that’s why I called my label Egyptian Empire.” And there was another singer who really fired Broussard up. “Dean Martin has inspired me more than anyone has ever known,” he says. “Dean Martin was that sexy, ‘I got women’ kind of guy. I was in love with that whole image, and that’s where a lot of the Egyptian Lover’s image came from. He had a song called Crying Time, and I took that and made I Cry (Night After Night). My dad had a collection of Dean Martin albums, and I could pick the very first one he made, one in the middle of his career and one at the end of his career, and every one of those albums sound the same. I said to myself, ‘If I ever became a singer’ – this was before rap – ‘I would do it exactly like that.’ Because now when you buy a Dean Martin album, you’re getting a Dean Martin album. So I’m not going to change my style.” He’s still pursuing that style – he talks about the 12in singles he plans to release from last year’s album 1984, and his hope to write a film script based on his life story. Whatever comes next, he’s still dedicated to his sound, and sure he’ll always find his audience. “When you feel that beat and hear that music,” he says, “it makes you want to dance, it makes you feel good and have a good time. To this very day, some people like this sound, some people looooove this sound, and they go way out in the field to hear it.” The Egyptian Lover plays the Jazz Cafe in London on 2 June. Anthology 1983-1988 is out now on Stones Throw Records.
Jamie Oliver begs public: don't let Boris Johnson become PM Jamie Oliver has pleaded with the British public to stop Boris Johnson becoming prime minister in the aftermath of the EU referendum. Johnson, a leading figure in the Brexit campaign, is the overwhelming favourite to succeed David Cameron when he steps down. But in an Instagram post, Oliver, who voted to stay in the EU, said that while he could live with the decision of the British public, he could not face Cameron’s fellow old-Etonian being handed the keys to No 10. “I beg you one thing Great Britain ???? Give me Boris fucking Johnson as our prime minister and I’m done. I’m out. My faith in us will be broken forever. So speak up people – let’s stop being spectators! We can not let this happen – share the shit out of this!! #BuggerOffBoris.” The message entitled “A thought for Great Britain” was posted on Instagram on Monday morning. It has already been viewed by more than 150,000 people. However, the ability of Oliver to stop Johnson may be limited as the next prime minister will not be chosen by the British public but by Conservative MPs and party members. Oliver had already hinted at his disdain for Johnson when announcing his intention to vote remain last week. He wrote: “I simply don’t have faith or confidence in the individuals heading up the out campaign to see this through. The EU isn’t perfect but I think we’re stronger together.” Despite Johnson being the bookies’ favourite, he will still face a battle to be the next Tory leader. A number of Brexit supporters in the Tory party have suggested that it would not be credible for someone who backed remain to become leader but others are believed to be worried that Johnson could be a liability in office, particularly given the complex negotiations Britain now faces. And many Conservatives who who voted remain are angry about the role he played during the bitter referendum campaign. The home secretary, Theresa May, who took a low-key role in the remain campaign, is seen as the most likely alternative.
Wazir review – a finely poised Bollywood policier Around the turn of the millennium, the venerable Indian writer-director-producer Vidhu Vinod Chopra was set to make his Hollywood debut with Chess – nothing to do with the musical, but a self-penned thriller about a traumatised cop that circled the studios with names such as Dustin Hoffman attached. The vagaries of 21st-century production meant Chopra had to wait until last year’s Broken Horses to take his American bow, but traces of Chess have apparently persisted into Wazir. Delegated to emerging director Bejoy Nambiar, this plan B arrives bearing the Big B: Amitabh Bachchan, who collaborated with Chopra on 2007’s fine Eklavya, assumes the chewy character part Hoffman would surely have been eyeing. Nambiar’s film begins as a no-nonsense Bollywood policier: the sappiest song goes up front to help define a family unit shattered forever by a moment of madness. The man responsible is Delhi detective Daanish (Farhan Akhtar), whose rash-to-poor decision-making in pursuit of a heavy directly results in the loss of his wife and child. Fate subsequently conspires to land this miserable figure on the doorstep of Pandit Dhar (Bachchan), the amputee grandmaster who coached Daanish’s daughter before her demise. Spying unprocessed pain in his visitor’s eyes – “the biggest enemy is time; it just doesn’t seem to pass” – Pandit proposes they play a game or two as a means of beating the clock. What follows proves intriguingly poised. The fear, at least early on, is that Wazir will devolve into a sentimental drama about chess’s capacity to still the mind and soothe the savage breast – the kind of project 1990s Hollywood had already done rather well by (Innocent Moves, Fresh). Yet Chopra and Nambiar are savvy enough to make us question who is playing whom. When Pandit dispatches Daanish to investigate the mysterious passing of his own daughter – found at the foot of a powerful politician’s stairs – it reawakens the detective’s numbed instincts, while prompting the audience to wonder what good this pawn’s errand is really going to do him. This inbuilt ambiguity – that Daanish’s second chance might just be Pandit’s power play – owes much to Bachchan’s ability to describe both a genial host and something more shaded; Hoffman would surely have struggled to summon a comparable hum of menace. Against him, Akhtar – perhaps better known as a blockbuster director (Don) – offers a very solid defence as a protagonist who realises he still has some fight left in him. And there’s another colourful part for the increasingly prominent Neil Nitin Mukesh (Prem Ratan Dhan Payo) as a cackling sociopath who willingly introduces himself as The Queen. (Any American version would have had to do a lot of explaining around him.) Nambiar gives their interactions a low-level, pulpy style, seeking out little felicities of framing that indicate a thoughtful image-maker doing his best to outwit his mentor and make this project his own: at one point, the chequered flooring of Pandit’s rec room allows Bachchan’s rookish grandmaster to position himself between the hero and his beloved. By the third-act relocation to Kashmir, Wazir has turned into something more distinctive than it might have become in California: if there’s something faintly absurd about the equation of characters to pieces, Chopra and Nambiar – wily teacher and keen student – move them around the board with dexterity and efficiency. It’s a fun game to watch.
Antimicrobial resistance a 'greater threat than cancer by 2050' Antimicrobial resistance to antibiotics will present a greater danger to humankind than cancer by the middle of the century unless world leaders agree international action to tackle the threat, according to George Osborne. The British chancellor will tell a panel of experts at an IMF meeting in Washington that 10 million people a year could die across the world by 2050 – more than the number of people lost to cancer every year – without radical action. Osborne will warn of an enormous economic cost, which could cut global GDP by 3.5%, a cumulative cost of $100bn (£70bn). The chancellor will say: “Unless we take global action, antimicrobial resistance will become an even greater threat to mankind than cancer currently is. “It is not just a health problem but an economic one, too. The cost of doing nothing, both in terms of lives lost and money wasted, is too great, and the world needs to come together to agree a common approach.” Dame Sally Davies, the chief medical officer for England, has warned of an “apocalyptic scenario” in the next two decades in which people die of routine infections during simple operations “because we have run out of antibiotics”. A government-commissioned review in 2014 by the economist Jim O’Neill, now a Treasury minister in the Lords, estimated that antimicrobial resistance would become the world’s greatest killer by 2050 unless a new generation of effective antibiotics are developed. In a article, the director of health and HIV at the UN Development Programme, Mandeep Dhaliwal, warned of a return to the era before Alexander Fleming’s discovery of penicillin. “We are on the road back to the days of people dying from common infections and injuries,” Dhaliwal wrote. The chancellor will tell the meeting in Washington, which will be attended by the director general of the World Health Organisation, Dr Margaret Chan, and the former US Treasury secretary, Larry Summers, that radical steps need to be taken to shift incentives for pharmaceutical companies to develop new antibiotics. Warning that the current reimbursement models for antibiotics and diagnostics are broken, Osborne will back a proposal from O’Neill to create “market entry rewards”, which will pay a premium to pharmaceutical companies that manage to bring a new antibiotic to market. The chancellor will say: “My message here at the IMF meeting in Washington is that we need the world’s governments and industry leaders to work together in radical new ways. We have to dramatically shift incentives for pharmaceutical companies and others to create a long-term solution to this problem, with new rewards, funded globally, that support the development of new antibiotics and ensure access to antibiotics in the developing world. “To achieve a long-term solution we also need better rapid diagnostics that will cut the vast amounts of unnecessary antibiotic use.” But Kerry McCarthy, the shadow environment secretary, accused the government of adopting a complacent approach to the looming crisis. In a speech to the Antibiotics and Farming Conference in London, McCarthy accused ministers of adopting a “negative role” in EU negotiations over calls by the European parliament to end the routine use of preventative antibiotics in farming. McCarthy said the government has rightly set targets for human use of antibiotics but has wrongly failed to set any targets for veterinary use of antibiotics when farm animals account for 40% of antibiotic use in the UK. The shadow environment secretary said: “Whilst GPs are increasingly urged to take action, antibiotic usage in farming tends to escape scrutiny. But farm animals account for almost two thirds of antibiotics used in Europe, and around 40% in the UK. “Lack of ambitious enough action in reducing their overuse in farming risks undermining any progress that’s made in human medicine. It seems illogical to set measurable reduction targets for human health – in the government’s five-year AMR strategy – but not in veterinary use. “GPs are being advised to apply vigorous tests on patients to see if drugs will be effective before prescribing them; and the health regulator, NICE, has even suggested that soft touch doctors should be sanctioned for over-prescribing. But routinely dosing healthy animals with close analogues of these drugs is still being permitted.” The warning by the chancellor follows a call by a group of City investors, who control more than $1tn in assets, to fast food, pub and restaurant chains to cut back on the use of antibiotics in their meat and poultry supply chains. The letter, signed by Aviva Investors, Strathclyde Pension Fund and Coller Capital, warned of a “significant risk of drug-resistant bacteria developing” in light of the fact that 80% of all antibiotics used in the US and 45% in the UK are given to farm animals.
Leicester’s woes continue as Hazard, Costa and Moses fire Chelsea to victory There was a moment just after the hour-mark here when frustration finally overcame Claudio Ranieri, prompting a comically exaggerated thumbs down as he spun on his heels in disgust on the edge of his technical area. His ire appeared to be directed at the referee, Andre Marriner, though he could have offered up the gesture to most of his side. The hangover from Leicester City’s title success is still pounding away. This was a fourth pointless game in succession on the champions’ travels and it should have ended as a defeat as emphatic as those already endured at Liverpool and Manchester United. What was such a tight unit last term, a side propelled as much by self-confidence as technical quality and tactical organisation, has fractured, with self-doubt creeping in. Maybe the prospect of having to heave themselves into another slog of a domestic campaign has diminished their hunger, particularly with the tantalising distraction of the Champions League. Perhaps they have just been found out. It cannot all be pinned on N’Golo Kanté’s departure to south-west London. A trio of first-choice players had admittedly been rested with one eye on Tuesday’s visit of Copenhagen, when victory would maintain progress at the top of their group and bring the knockout phase within sight, but that did not excuse the slackness of so much of this display. Chelsea enjoyed a similar breeze against promoted Burnley back in August, the ease of their victory summed up by the substitute Nathaniel Chalobah’s neat backheel into Victor Moses’s pass 10 minutes from time that was finished emphatically by the right wing-back. Antonio Conte’s team have made a habit of dispatching teams outside the division’s elite this term. Leicester currently fall into that bracket. The hosts had established their lead early, swarming all over limp opponents and swiftly exploiting a new-found fragility at set-pieces. This had felt a mismatch from the outset with Kasper Schmeichel overworked and increasingly exasperated by the manner that his backline wilted in front of him. Wes Morgan and Robert Huth, such rocks last term, were gripped by indecision and culpable for errors that set a troubling tone. Luis Hernández, secured under freedom of contract in the summer, looked out of his depth at right-back, constantly bypassed by the interplay mustered by Marcos Alonso and Eden Hazard down the hosts’ left. Chelsea were irrepressible, but Leicester never hinted at resistance. Schmeichel had already done well to deny a deflected shot from Moses, such an aggressive presence off the right flank, but Leicester consider dead-ball delivery an invitation for disaster these days. Hazard’s delivery was duly flicked on by Nemanja Matic with the loose ball allowed to run on to Diego Costa, untracked by a static Morgan, at the far post. The striker rammed in the seventh goal of a productive campaign from close range. It was the kind of concession that would have been unthinkable only a few months ago, but it was the fifth goal shipped by this side at set-plays already this term. No team has conceded more. The lack of concentration and confidence was startling. Panic had long since set in. Huth, booked for clattering Hazard, was fortunate to avoid dismissal after handling instinctively to choke another fluent Chelsea break. Within seconds Huth and Hernández, both hesitant, failed to cut out a slide-rule pass from Matic that a grounded Pedro Rodríguez hooked on for Hazard. The Belgian’s fortunate first touch took him away from Christian Fuchs and, having darted around Schmeichel, his finish was crisp and accurate. Throw in David Luiz’s free-kick, which thumped the top of the post, and the fact the visitors departed at the interval having been breached only twice actually felt a cause for moderate celebration. Dismantling the reigning champions would normally serve as a statement of intent at Chelsea, though this was all too easy. They could rejoice in Kanté’s busy presence, his every touched booed by the travelling support, with the Frenchman denied his first goal for his new club by Morgan’s desperate block. A midfield denied Willian and Oscar – both on compassionate leave back in Brazil – appeared to enjoy the leeway Conte’s 3-4-3 formation allowed them. Moses might have added a third after a blistering break from Kanté before the hour mark, a chance that had actually punctured a period of more persuasive Leicester pressure, but the Nigeria international would enjoy his own reward before the end. The closest Leicester came to a riposte was Luiz’s stretch to intercept Marc Albrighton’s centre, with the ball cannoning from the woodwork, but the visitors’ threat was only ever fitful. At present, their title defence is feeling forlorn.
We took down the Laura Kuenssberg petition to show sexist bullies can’t win It’s usually a cause for celebration in the 38 Degrees office when a petition started on our Campaigns By You platform hits the headlines. It tends to mean whoever started the petition, and all the people who have signed it, are starting to have an impact together. But this week, a petition started by a 38 Degrees member called Joe, questioning the impartiality of the BBC’s political editor Laura Kuenssberg, made the headlines for all the wrong reasons. A small number of people signing the petition were using it as a launch pad for sexist hate speech towards her on other platforms such as Twitter. 38 Degrees has always been a broad church. To give an example, 35,000 people recently backed Joe’s petition, extremely critical of a BBC journalist. Meanwhile a separate petition on our website holds nearly 400,000 signatures standing up for the BBC, calling for its independence and funding to be protected ahead of the publication of the government’s plan for the new BBC charter on Thursday. But while 38 Degrees involves people of many different viewpoints, political persuasions and occasionally competing agendas, some views are definitely beyond the pale. When I helped launch 38 Degrees seven years ago, it was on the principles of freedom, equality, respect and fairness. When I talk to our members about why they’ve got involved it’s these values – along with our political impartiality and commitment to people power – which they tell me matter to them more than anything else. So when we discovered that a petition on the 38 Degrees website was being linked to misogynist abuse, it was a shock – for me, the rest of the 38 Degrees office, and to Joe who’d started the petition. We all agreed that this was totally unacceptable. But we were faced with a dilemma about what to do. Should a campaign expressing a legitimate opinion be ended because of the actions of a small minority? On the other hand, should Joe, as the petition starter, or 38 Degrees, as a community of millions of people overwhelmingly opposed to sexism, allow ourselves to risk being associated with this abuse? It was a difficult decision – and it might not have been the right one – but we agreed to take the petition down. Joe put up a statement explaining why. Signatures already collected can still be delivered to the BBC, but no more names will be gathered. In the hours since we have taken down the petition, we’ve received many responses. All condemning the sexism but some cautioning against the approach that Joe and 38 Degrees have taken. One member who had signed the Protect the BBC petition, said “I very much hope that you will manage to rise above the fray and offer once more an opportunity for the expression of rational concerns about her [Kuenssberg’s] aptitude to be expressed”. Another man who called the office, said that he had examined the comments left beneath the petition before it had been taken down and had noticed one sexist comment which he said should have been removed, but that the petition didn’t need to go. By taking down the petition, we had removed a rallying point for those who were using it to abuse Laura Kuenssberg in a hateful manner. As one member put it on Twitter: “thank you for standing up to the misogynistic bullying”. I expect opinions will continue to be divided about our response. I hope 38 Degrees members will see it as a sign of a healthy democratic organisation that we can be open about this. 38 Degrees has always been a bit of an experiment – when we launched, we were aiming to bring together campaigning, digital technology and community building in a way which hadn’t really been done before in the UK. It still sometimes feels like we have to make things up as we go along. This week’s events raised some important questions about how to stop a small minority undermine participatory digital campaigning for the rest of us. I’m sure that there will be lots of suggestions for how we can improve our response in the future. But I know that the office team, and Joe the petition starter, are definitely glad we decided to take some kind of stand against sexist bullying.
AC/DC – thanks for everything, but it really is time to hang up the school uniform Six months ago, I wrote that AC/DC should call it quits. After the announcement that Brian Johnson was stepping down as singer, I argued – tetchily – that a group in which only Angus Young and Cliff Williams remained of the “core” AC/DC lineup should pack it in, and put dignity ahead of business. It turned out I was wrong, as I discovered when I saw Axl Rose’s first show fronting the band, in Lisbon. If anything, Axl/DC seemed like a band revived, the singer ceding centre stage to Young, now the undisputed leader of the group. The setlist, so long set in stone, was revived by the inclusion of Bon Scott-era songs left untouched for years. If You Want Blood (You’ve Got It), Rock’n’Roll Damnation and Riff Raff became mainstays once again; Touch Too Much made occasional appearances; on the Rock or Bust tour’s final night, in Philadelphia on Tuesday, Problem Child was brought out for the first time since 2001. Philadelphia was notable for something else, too: it was Cliff Williams’ final show as AC/DC’s bassist. That means that in the past couple of years, the group has lost Malcolm Young, its rhythm guitarist and driving force, to dementia; Phil Rudd, its drummer, to legal problems; Brian Johnson, its singer, to hearing problems; and now Williams, because he simply feels the time has come. Angus Young, for so long the face of AC/DC, is now all that remains of AC/DC. Whatever I said back in March, I think that this incredible band have handled their tribulations with great dignity. No replacement for Malcolm would be perfect, but his nephew Stevie kept things in the family. And while there was plenty of grumbling from fans about Chris Slade stepping in for Rudd, he had at least served with the group before: he represented continuity. The album Rock or Bust, made with Rudd but without Malcolm, was a perfectly reasonable effort at keeping the juggernaut going. Yes, one might wish it had been better, but it could have been a whole lot worse. And the ensuing tour – both with Johnson and then with Rose – proved AC/DC could still be one of rock’s most compelling experiences. But now, with dignity intact and millions of fans satisfied, it really is time for the show to end. It’s not that Cliff Williams’s basslines are impossible to replicate – in fact, you’d find it hard to locate a professional bassist who couldn’t play those repetitive, unyielding, four-to-the-floor lines. It’s that, Angus aside, he was the last remaining link to the Bon Scott years. I suppose they could go back to Williams’ predecessor, Mark Evans, if he wanted to return. But why? There’s now no tour to finish, no album to promote, just – if Angus does intend to carry on – the ritual five-year wait for something new to happen. By that time, who would be the singer? Rose was only ever billed as a short-term replacement, and while he spoke enthusiastically about the role, it’s hard to see him becoming a studio singer for a new AC/DC album. Who would be the bassist or drummer? We can assume Stevie would be the rhythm guitarist, but that’s only two members. And one original member, one respected stand-in, three hired hands – it’s not a band. Here’s a solution. Let Williams remain retired. Let Johnson tend to his hearing. Let Rudd work through his issues. But when or if either of the first two get the itch to take to the stage again, and if the latter can be forgiven by Angus, then let AC/DC reconvene on an occasional basis, but no longer as a formal working band, tied to a schedule. The odd festival show, the occasional one-off. No more two-year world tours with accompanying albums to justify them. No more custom-built stage spectaculars. No more keeping on with the show, whatever the cost. Just a band, playing rock’n’roll if and when they get the urge, making no commitments and demanding no favours. Maybe that means one festival in five years’ time; maybe it means a handful of club shows hardly anyone can get into. But it would preserve AC/DC’s legacy as one of rock’s purest spectacles. Maybe Angus might remember the words of one of AC/DC’s earliest anthems, Ride On: “I ain’t too young to realise / That I ain’t too old to try / Try to get back to the start.” At the start, musicians make music because they love it. If Angus loves it, let him make music. But, please, leave us with the happy memories of one of the greatest bands ever, unless you can find a way to ensure any future AC/DC is still a real AC/DC.
Bournemouth crash back to earth as George Boyd goal gives Burnley win Historic highs tend to be followed by anticlimaxes but for Bournemouth the deflation lay solely in the outcome. The 4-3 win against Liverpool last week was described as the greatest result in their 117-year existence and while the sequel contained similar levels of drama, the result will inspire fewer superlatives in Dorset. When asked if it was good to be back at Turf Moor, the former Burnley manager Eddie Howe simply said: “No.” His side illustrated their powers of recovery for a second successive week, rallying again after trailing 2-0 and 3-1, and scored another injury-time goal, but Charlie Daniels’s thunderbolt did not assume the same significance as Nathan Aké’s winner against Liverpool. Howe had further proof of the character in his group but cautioned: “We don’t [just] want to become a team that plays well when chasing the game.” Their conquerors are a side who can be relied upon to perform well at Turf Moor. Only Arsenal, Chelsea and Tottenham can boast more points at home, enabling Burnley to end a run of three consecutive defeats and take a step into mid-table. The win was rendered memorable by Jeff Hendrick’s opener. When Matt Lowton fed the ball forward, the midfielder took one touch to control the ball and his second was a stunning, dipping half-volley that flew past Artur Boruc. “It is just a shame we aren’t Arsenal so it won’t be shown 1,000 times, just four,” the Burnley manager, Sean Dyche, said. Burnley’s first goal was fantastic, their second altogether more prosaic but they had another Irish scorer within four minutes. Stephen Ward ended an 1,804-day wait for a Premier League strike after Boruc had clawed Ben Mee’s header off the line. “Criminal,” Howe said, annoyed that Mee was left unmarked. “We started well and found ourselves 2-0 down very quickly.” It is a familiar situation. The response was typical. Rewarded for his catalytic cameo against Liverpool with a start, Ryan Fraser was Bournemouth’s brightest player, mixing mesmeric runs with astute passes. Another Howe promotion also justified his selection. Benik Afobe marked his first league start of the season with a first top-flight goal since March, converting Simon Francis’s stoppage-time cross to conclude a move the quick-witted Fraser began and which Dyche clocked. “I don’t know where the time comes from,” he said. “One minute was added and my watch said 1.17.” The invigorated Afobe then missed a fine chance to level and had a goal disallowed and played with the hunger of a man desperate for an opportunity. Burnley, though, also showed appetite and intent. Their positivity was epitomised by their manager. Rather than being cowed by Liverpool’s inability to defend a lead against Bournemouth, Dyche went on the offensive, sending on two strikers and, albeit indirectly,sealing victory. Ashley Barnes almost scored with his first touch and could have had a brace within 10 minutes of his introduction. Andre Gray also proved profligate but redeemed himself with an inventive backheel to release George Boyd, who drilled in Burnley’s third goal. “We can be effective from the bench,” Dyche said. “I don’t think we had the depth two years ago. We do now.” And so Burnley, who mustered a mere 14 home league goals during their last stint in the Premier League, equalled that tally in early December. Dyche said: “I was really pleased not just with the amount of chances but golden chances.”
UBS and Deutsche Bank lose bonus tax challenge UBS and Deutsche Bank may have to pay tens of millions of pounds to HMRC after the supreme court ruled that bonus schemes operated by the investment banks are not exempt from tax. The judgment, which covers bonuses paid out as far back as 2004, is strongly critical of the banks’ sustained attempts to escape payments due to HMRC. “In our society, a great deal of intellectual effort is devoted to tax avoidance,” said Lord Reed, delivering the ruling. They are “sophisticated attempts of the Houdini taxpayer to escape from the manacles of tax”. The UBS and Deutsche Bank schemes, he added, were designed to “to avoid the payment of income tax on bankers’ bonuses”. The firms tried to exploit tax exemptions on restricted securities by awarding staff bonuses comprised of shares in offshore companies set up especially for rewarding employees. Reed said the UBS scheme “was completely arbitrary. It had no business or commercial rationale beyond tax avoidance.” Deutsche Bank’s “dark blue” share scheme, the judge said, was “equally artificial”. He added: “It had no business or commercial purpose, and existed solely to bring the securities within the scope of [tax exemption].” Both schemes avoided tax and national insurance liabilities. Commenting on the judgment, Justin McGilloway, a partner and head of pensions and employee benefits at Wedlake Bell law firm, said: “The judgment is potentially a reflection of the current economic climate and a win for HMRC is not a surprise. “It’s very bad news for the banks involved – they will need to pay the tax on employee bonuses which were delivered over a decade ago. This will run to tens of millions, not including the legal fees incurred in defending the scheme in the highest court in the land. “This success could open the door for HMRC to challenge other so-called tax avoidance schemes which were perfectly legal when they were originally implemented.” A spokesman for UBS said: “This matter concerns a disagreement over the interpretation of highly technical tax legislation and dates back to a one-off compensation plan for 2003.” The bank said it was “disappointed” with the outcome, but was grateful to the supreme court for its “careful consideration of the issues”. A Deutsche Bank spokesman said: “We note the decision and can confirm that all tax and national insurance due as a result have already been paid.”
#TheDress one year on – eight things we learned from the viral phenomenon It was #TheDress to end all dresses. It began as someone attempting to find a dress to wear to a wedding, and ended in millions of tweets, countless articles and even a copyright dispute. This time last year, everyone on the internet, on TV and in newspapers was arguing about the colour of a lace bodycon dress. From Tumblr, to Twitter, to BuzzFeed and beyond: #TheDress was everywhere. But what is a viral meme if not a lesson for us all? A year on, here’s what we took from it all: 1. Sometimes it doesn’t matter if it’s ‘not news’ Pre viral journalism, #TheDress would have stayed in its corner of Tumblr and weird Twitter as a curious oddity. Imagine going to an editor in a traditional newsroom pre-dress and trying to explain to them people on the internet couldn’t decide what colour this dress was and you really thought it was something huge. You can also imagine being laughed out of the room. One thing’s for sure, it never would have reached the stage it did without BuzzFeed’s Cates Holderness, who runs the company’s Tumblr, among other things. Speaking to Digiday, she explained how one of BuzzFeed’s followers had sent the official account of the picture, asking: “Can you settle this argument for us?” She said: I got so confused, because it’s clearly a blue dress. So I’m looking at the comments, and people on Tumblr were freaking out and basically just yelling at each other. I called a couple people over and asked them, and half thought it was blue and half thought it was white. We started freaking out. There was a crowd of people looking at this photo and yelling at each other. One of the things we go by at BuzzFeed is, if it makes you feel something, you should post it. The post, just a question asking “What colours are this dress?”, took five minutes. The rest is internet history. From there, it became news, because no one could stop talking about it. As tiresome as it may seem to some, a phenomenon such as the dress is pretty hard to write off for “you call this news?!” reasons. And spare a thought for BuzzFeed UK’s Robin Edds, who discovered, too late, his mum was at the same wedding as #TheDress and could have nailed the scoop of the year. 2. There’s a lot more to optical illusions than we ever thought possible Why did some people see black and blue and others white and gold? Why did it change for some people? Why were the two camps split almost neatly in two? WAS THIS SOME KIND OF SICK JOKE? Ahem. The short answer is: the brain is weird and it does strange things. While everyone else was freaking out and arguing with one another about the real colour of the dress, scientists came forward to try and explain this oddity. Marie Rogers wrote: Some people’s colour constancy is calibrated so that their brains tell them they are seeing gold and white, whereas some are led to believe they see black and blue. Of course, the colour constancy mechanism is always learning, and due to top-down information (eg reading others’ opinions) this calibration could change and lead to another experience. This may be the driving force behind people experiencing a shift from seeing white and gold to blue and black. Researchers in America even went ahead and did a whole study on it: Bevil Conway, a researcher at Wellesley College and MIT, asked 1,400 people, 300 of whom had never seen the picture before, to describe the dress. Overall, 57% said it had blue and black stripes, 30% saw white and gold stripes, and another 10% saw blue and brown. About 10% could switch between either colour combination. 3. People who create viral things by accident don’t usually get paid In January 2016, Joe Veix wrote a piece on how “the weird, unfiltered internet became a media goldmine”, which in part looked at the economics of #TheDress. Veix pointed out that while BuzzFeed was celebrating its traffic success with champagne, nobody else in the chain of production was getting paid. Roman Originals, the dress’s designers, also did well out of the furore. They only expected to sell about 200 of the dresses a week. But after millions of tweets, they ended up selling 3,000 a week. It sold out twice, and they even produced a one-off white and gold version, selling it at auction for £1,200 in aid of Children in Need. Meanwhile, Cecilia Bleasdale, the woman who took the photo that started the meme and therefore owns the copyright, has attempted to chase up royalty payments. In December last year, she told the the money collected so far hadn’t paid their solicitor’s fees. The issue around copyright of the image has been a little muddled – many places, including BuzzFeed, embedded the Tumblr post which included the image. But that post has since been deleted, leaving a gaping whole in internet history. 4. Traditional media didn’t know how to cover it #TheDress highlighted how difficult it can be for traditional media outlets to cover viral phenomena. It had clearly caused a lot of conversation online, but how on earth do you tell the story in print when the optical illusion disappears the minute the picture is printed? Several papers made a stab at it, some even splashing altered pictures of the dress on the front page. However, with print deadlines not being favourable to the timing of a story that had broken in the US, much of the coverage boiled down to: “A couple of days ago loads of people were talking about this dress on the internet because it was a fascinating optical illusion. To help you understand this, we’ve printed a picture that won’t change colour, because it is ink.” It was unclear what they were trying to tell their readers. If the reader had seen the dress online, they had no need to be re-informed of it. And if they hadn’t seen the dress online, then the description of it really yielded no insight. 5. People have continually looked for the next #TheDress Viral content comes and goes in a social media flash. A recent piece looking at the 15-year-old meme “All Your Base Are Belong to Us” described a world where it took months and months for one image to gain meme status on the web. But now, viral content can be found anywhere, and popularity is more of an explosion than a slow burn. As Veix noted of #TheDress: One of the biggest viral phenomena of the last decade started as a Facebook post with less than 20 likes. Have a gander on Twitter, and you’ll see people trying to have a stab at it with other memes and optical illusions: Nobody could have predicted that #TheDress would get so huge. It leads to people scrabbling around and publishing all sorts of things that might become the next big thing. Will it be German students printing out memes and posting them on a door? Or trying to decide if red cabbage or red onions have been thrown down a toilet? Or could it be Daniel, back at it again with his white Vans? Who knows. But we’re willing to bet you won’t see it coming. 6. Everyone will have something to say As with anything the media gets a little bit obsessed over, there was no end to the think pieces. You had essays on the science, on the viral internet, on the fashion ... and then there were the ones which went for a completely different angle, like Bevil Conway, who said she wasn’t in team white or gold or team blue and black. When I first saw the dress I thought it was orange and blue, and a Photoshop analysis of the colours of the pixels of the dress shows this to be the case. I am a visual artist, trained in painting. Painters generally try to be mindful of what the visual system does to colours; I always try to abstract colours from their surrounding context, where possible. This might explain why I see it differently than the two majority camps. One way or another, painters interested in capturing the colour of the natural world must learn how to do something rather unnatural: they have to learn to see the colour of light. 7. Tattoos of memes are a thing now Daniel Howland of Texas went one step further than arguing with strangers on the internet. He gave the meme a permanent home on his leg. Last year, he told BuzzFeed: “I pretty much got it because, I mean, I keep up with all the social memes and hysteria and whatever, and this is the only one that I really couldn’t wrap my brain around. So I just decided to do it.” And he’s still at it this year – just the other day, he got a tattoo commemorating 2016’s hottest meme so far, Damn Daniel. 8. It could happen all over again when you least expect it So beware.
Comment is free launched 10 years ago today – so here’s to you, the readers Ten years ago today, Comment is free launched with an article by the late, great Georgina Henry, its pioneering editor. This was to be the first collective comment blog by a British newspaper website, she wrote, a chance to expand and deepen the debate found in newspapers, to open it up to our readers, and to reinforce the and ’s place at the heart of the liveliest left-liberal discourse, with voices from across the political spectrum too. At the end of the project’s first week, Henry wrote that she felt like she’d been “riding a bucking bronco when you’ve never been on a horse before”. The site had run pieces by Sue Blackmore on religion, Michael White on republicanism in Australia, George Galloway on the prospect of election disaster for Tony Blair, and Tom Robinson on the global appeal of James Blunt (Robinson also mentioned Jamie’s School Dinners in this column - was all this really 10 years ago?). These were the days when Comment is Free posts were largely unedited, mainly just checked for libel. By Friday morning, that first week, wrote Henry, “104 contributors had posted 212 pieces and we had more than 800 comments from readers on the site”. By the end of the first month, 1,000 pieces had gone up. But the shape of Comment is Free changed quickly – posts were soon being edited and curated more carefully, to avoid too much thematic overlap – and these days, we average about 700 articles a month. If our volume of posts has gone down slightly, the volume of comments has, thanks to our brilliant, engaged readers, expanded exponentially. The posts that first week averaged a little under four comments each, by my calculation. Today, there are between 50,000-70,000 comments across the website each day, and it’s not unusual for a lively Opinion piece to attract 1,000, 2,000, sometimes even 5,000 comments. This reflects the fact that, today, we also have a huge audience around the world. Last year we changed the name of Comment is Free to Opinion, a name easily understood by global readers, but the Comment is Free ethos remains, with the words of the great editor CP Scott – “Comment is free … but facts are sacred” – at the top of our home page, and a continuing conversation about how to bring as many readers as possible into the conversation, in ways that deepen your enjoyment of it. This year, we’ve created a new area on the Opinion section page for readers’ views, and run projects seeking your views on everything from the teacher recruitment crisis, to life in a foster family, to what you think of health warnings, and an invitation to share your protest photos. At the moment, we’re running a new reader project or panel most days, and asking for your ideas for these – and for articles we might publish – on Twitter. There are new guidelines for how to pitch here. Readers are welcome to pitch on any subject at all; and we also have a number of weekly series that regularly include reader contributions, including The Secret Life, Mental Health Matters and A Moment that Changed Me. It’s impossible to condense 10 years, and millions of reader contributions, into one post, but below is a flavour of some of our favourite pieces over the past decade. I’d love to hear your thoughts below about how you’d like to see the site progress. What would improve your experience as a reader? Would you like more pieces each day, or fewer? A morning briefing on the big debates of the day? Would you be interested in seeing more video and audio on the site – along with our weekly Opinion video? Would you like to see any changes to the comment threads – is there anything you’ve seen on other sites that you’ve thought really added to the pleasure of those debating forums? Are there new series you’d like to see, featuring reader contributions? Let us know below, thanks so much for reading the site these last 10 years – and here’s to the next decade. 10 articles by readers and commenters • Michael Grant on being a stammerer – and how internet debate has proven a godsend • Cath Elliott on why she’d like to see the back of global capitalism • Samuel Palin called for a political party young voters like him could believe in • Montana Wildhack reflected on life as a “bad American” • Gordon Brown – not that one – wrote about the joys of the single life • Ally Fogg on why he was proud of the public’s fury about MP expenses • “Janet” wrote an open letter to Iain Duncan Smith, on the experience of living, for 15 months, on £30.50 a week • A reader described her life as a sexual health nurse, (“I’ve seen enough genitals now to know that we are all truly unique,” she wrote), as part of our The Secret Life series • Francis Davey is already on British Summer Time – and loves it • And finally, Sede Alonge wrote about how commenting on one of our articles led her to find love with the article’s author 10 open threads, with a comment from each • Did you protest against the Iraq invasion? “I marched in the February, and in the previous September. It was actually impossible to march the actual route, so we all fanned out and covered London, pretty much. I remember so many emotional things, but the one thing that stands out was a middle aged woman I saw in Piccadilly. Just an ordinary woman in an anorak amongst the anarchists and the students and the t-shirts. She was walking with 2 young kids, just old enough to understand, and in her hand she had a piece of cardboard sellotataped onto a length of cane. And written on the cardboard in biro were the words … ‘AUNTIE JOAN SAYS NO TO WAR’” – St1bs • Do you wear a poppy for Remembrance? “I wear an ID bracelet that was worn by a member of the polish brigade who was at Monte Casino, he survived to end up dying in a boarding house in Uxbridge. I cleared the house and the bracelet was among a lot of other no value stuff in the garage. I wear it to remember him. I know it may sound strange, but I think it was because he would not be remembered that made me wear it. I know no more about him than his name, number, and date of birth but that doesn’t matter. I remember him” - barryanderic • What’s your most memorable kiss? “My most memorable kiss had nothing to do with a woman I fancied. It was in a bar near Perpignan in 1988 and in the middle of the AIDS hysteria and the shameful shunning of those who had it. There was a 30-year-old woman at a table who, as all the regulars knew, had AIDS and with whom I was friends. She had been drinking and was crying and then she suddenly shouted despairingly “My life’s fucked and nobody will ever want to even kiss me on the cheek again!! Not even you lot!” Whereupon, and god knows why, I grabbed a hold of her and kissed her full on the open mouth. A long kiss. It obviously meant a lot to her, but it taught me a lot about life too …” – fripouille • What could Labour do to win you back? “Remove charitable status from private schools Tax the rich Worker representation on all company boards Abolish UK tax havens Build 1 million council homes That sort of thing …” – magnieboy • Does it take more than money to make a society wealthy? “Length and quality of free time, access to leisure, and proximity to nature because they are becoming increasingly linked with economic status. Leisure is a particularly problematic one in my view. If a city has 150 pools but all of them are privatised and member-only or 200 theatres where tickets start at a price half of the population cannot afford that city cannot be considered wealthy” – Elisabeth Victoria Lasky • What would you write to future generations? “I’m sorry that we didn’t know when to stop having so many children. I’m sorry that we didn’t know when to stop building higher and digging deeper. I’m sorry that we couldn’t take it back from the greedy. I’m sorry that we didn’t know when to put our guns down. But I’m glad that you’re here to read this. Learn from our terrible mistakes and make things better” – ColumnAColumnB • What is your biggest regret at work? “Not listening to myself when my heart was telling me ‘this is the wrong job for you’. Try not to do something you hate if it is possible. The longer you leave it the more difficult it gets to change” – Adetheshades • What are British values? “British values are indefinable and in that consists their value. We find it somewhat crude and tactless to be ‘defined’” – tittletattle100 • At what age did you start to appreciate your parents? “I have always been grateful to them and aware of the unconditional love, support and opportunities they have given me, but when they stepped in to evict an abusive ex-partner from my home (who was ex-Special Forces and more than a match for my aging parents), I can truly say I have never been more grateful to anyone in my life. I think they saved my life” – MariaAngela • Tell us how you proscrastinate “How do I procastinate? One word. Twitter” – dianeabbott 10 polls – your views in numbers • In June 2008, when Ben Bernanke, then chair of the Federal Reserve, gave a surprisingly upbeat assessment of the economic outlook, we asked if it was time to stop worrying about a possible recession. 72% of you opted for a prescient no. • As scientists geared up to spark the Large Hadron Collider in September 2008, we asked if the end was nigh. 72% of you were as upbeat as Ben Bernanke had been about the economic outlook, and said no. • Nick Clegg rebranded the Liberal Democrats in September 2008, and we asked if this would change the party’s prospects. It was a no from 74% of you. • Who is Labour’s greatest hero? In 2008, 39% said Clement Attlee, 34% Nye Bevan, 19% Keir Hardie and 9% Barbara Castle • Getting personal, we asked whether you’d rather live without sex or the internet. 45% of you said you needed sex more, but 55% of you would rather log on. • In May 2009, as speculation over Gordon Brown’s leadership increased, we asked who readers would prefer out of the two people who had emerged as leadership frontrunners: Harriet Harman or Alan Johnson? 90% backed Harman. • A survey in 2012 said having children made people happy, and 69% of you agreed. • After the White House released Barack Obama’s birth certificate in April 2011, we asked if Donald Trump should apologise for speculating that the president was not born in the US and 87% said he should. • As fallout from the MPs’ expenses scandal rumbled on, we asked readers if they felt our politicians had been let off lightly. 94% believed they had. • And in 2014, in we asked you an evergreen question – do you feel loved? 68% of you do. Comments for this piece will close at 5pm
Donald Trump has 'fascinating parallels' with Caligula, says historian He has not yet made a horse his running mate, but Donald Trump can be compared to one of the most notorious of all Roman emperors, Caligula, according to best-selling historian Tom Holland. Holland told the Hay festival there were fascinating parallels between the actions and success of Trump and what was going on in Rome 2,000 years ago. Caligula has gone down in history as one of the maddest and baddest of all Roman emperors, a name synonymous with the worst excesses of absolute power. But there was more to the story of Caligula, Holland said. He is not quite the psychopath of popular imagination and we can see similarities between what is happening now and then. What is known for sure about Caligula, Holland said, is that he had a great love of spectacle and dressing up; and he enjoyed hurting and humiliating people. The young Caligula spent six years on the island of Capri, where he often directed and appeared in spectacular pornographic tableaux for his great uncle, the emperor Tiberius – a man it was said, who enjoyed having swimming boys nibble at his private parts. When Tiberius died Caligua left for Rome where his excessive tastes “were translated on to the most public stage of all – the imperial capital.” He did things differently to his forebears, the polar opposite of Tiberius’s and, before him, Augustus’ moral strategy. “Caligula had no interest in, no stake in the traditional values of Rome. He despised them. And he despised them because he saw them as entrenching the prestige and status of the aristocracy.” Caligula wanted to rule as an autocrat and he was contemptuous of the pretence that the senate had any power at all. “What he did was to trample the dignity of the senatorial elite into the dirt and what he discovered in doing that was that the mass of the Roman people really enjoyed it.” Holland said there were parallels with what Trump has done to the Republican establishment. “Trump has said and done things that are utterly shocking by the standards of traditional political morality, but far from making him unpopular with the masses there is a sense in which he has become the toast of the people.” As well as trampling down the elite, Caligula was – like Trump – a conscious populist and sponsored chariot races and made a huge six-horse chariot for himself, which he would drive around Rome showing off. “He did all the things that the people thought an emperor should do … they loved him for it.” Treating the senate like dirt meant he was able to crush any conspiracy with ease. Caligula’s reputation has not been done any favours by his portrayal on TV and film. Different generations may remember John Hurt’s portrayal of him in the 1970s BBC TV series I Claudius and the shocking, invented, scene where he appeared with a bloody face after eating the foetus torn from his sister’s stomach. Or Malcolm McDowell’s performance in the semi-pornographic 1979 film Caligula, produced by Penthouse supremo Bob Guccione. The most famous story about Caligula, that he planned to make his horse his consul, is too often misinterpreted, said Holland. It should not be seen as Caligula being unhinged – he was saying even the consulship, the highest office in Rome, was in his power. “It is a bitter, cruel joke about the reality of autocracy,” said Holland. The knives were always out for Caligula but his downfall was entirely his fault, said Holland. “He just could not help himself.” Caligula told a captain in the Praetorian guard that he sounded like a girl. And the Praetorian killed him.
Female genital mutilation is about misogyny and violence against women Your editorial (Thought police are not the right answer to dangerous speech, 31 May) states that female genital mutilation “has nothing to do with ideologies that can inspire or justify violence”. In fact, it has everything to do with such ideologies, in the form of misogyny and vicious and violent expressions of patriarchy and sexism that lead to the psychological and physical injury of women, and often to their deaths. These ideologies of discrimination and abuse against women have a distinctive force and expression of their own but also form a powerful current in the overwhelming majority of human societies, cultures and religions, and are incorporated within them. It is not enough to recognise FGM as evil only to downplay the beliefs about women and socially embedded forms of domination and oppression of women that so egregiously violate their human rights, dignity and welfare, and rob them of freedom and legitimate power to self-determine their own lives. Noam Schimmel Visiting fellow, Kellogg College, University of Oxford • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
Leaving EU would undermine Britain's security – ex-MI5 chief The battle between Britain’s former intelligence chiefs over membership of the European Union intensified with the intervention on Wednesday of former chief of MI5 Eliza Manningham-Buller, who said the country’s security would be seriously undermined by leaving. Manningham-Buller, who was head of the domestic intelligence service between 2002 and 2007, lined up with her successor, Sir Jonathan Evans, and the former head of MI6 Sir John Sawers in support of remaining in Europe and at odds with another former MI6 chief, Sir Richard Dearlove. She went further than Sawers and Evans in her criticism of claims by Eurosceptics that the UK would be safer outside the UK, describing these as “nonsensical and spurious”. In a speech at London’s main foreign affairs thinktank Chatham House, she ran through a list of threats she saw facing the UK and Europe, from Islamist terrorism to Vladimir Putin. “Now is absolutely not the time to back away from the European Union,” she said. She said intelligence sharing between the UK agencies and their European counterparts would continue even if the UK was outside the EU, but expressed concerns that the UK’s influence would wane if it was no longer part of the major European forums. “To leave would present real risks to our security and safety,” she said. The main argument of those favouring exit from Europe is that the UK benefits chiefly in terms of intelligence-gathering from its close relationship with the US and receives relatively little from European agencies. She said it was in the UK’s interests to have good relations with both. Manningham-Buller, who sits in the Lords as a non-partisan member, said she felt an obligation to speak out in response of claims made about security. “I can’t remain silent in a Brexit debate where the leave campaign are making an entirely spurious and nonsensical claim that we would be safer out I was particularly provoked by the intervention of one junior minister who claimed without any foundation whatsoever that in the EU we do not have the freedom to form our own alliances or share intelligence with whom we wish.” She said this was untrue and decisions about which countries the UK shared intelligence with and how much remained entirely a matter for MI5, MI6 and the surveillance agency GCHQ, which were all independent of the EU. She did not name the Conservative minister. By being inside the EU, the UK would benefit from being able to raise the standards of some of the weaker intelligence agencies, she said. Earlier, speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Manningham-Buller said: “I’m sticking to what I know about. I believe strongly that we would be significantly less safe outside [the EU] because of all the networks, the relationships, the policy exchanges, the determining on data sets, things like fingerprinting, things like European arrest warrant, things like joint research on explosive detections on arms and so on. We are not going to be able to influence that if we are out.” Asked about Dearlove’s claim that Britain provides more intelligence to Europe than it gets back, she said: “Richard is talking from 11 years ago. I don’t think that is necessarily still the case. I believe we get a substantial amount of intelligence from Europe.”
‘The scene belonged to a disaster movie, not a family holiday’: the day my partner drowned Jamaicans have a word that can mean hello, goodbye or thank you. “Bless-ed,” they say. Our two sons picked it up within days of arriving on the island. In their English toddler accents, the patois sounded comical – but also unexpectedly true. It was May 2014, and my partner Tony and I were approaching our 10th anniversary together. Our boys, Joe and Jake, were two and four. A year earlier we had moved out of London to a new life, in a 16th-century farmhouse nestled between tumbledown barns and bluebells in rural Kent. And now here we were on holiday in Treasure Beach, a sleepy Jamaican fishing village we loved more than anywhere on Earth. As we sat on the sand, laughing at our boys yelling, “Yo, bless-ed!” I thought we were the luckiest family alive. Day 10 of the holiday started as peacefully as any other. Waking early on a cloudless Caribbean morning, Tony took a mug of coffee down to a sunlounger on the curl of deserted beach at the bottom of our garden. Jake paddled at the water’s edge a few feet away. Joe was playing in his bedroom, while I began yoga stretches on the deck of our beach cottage. When I spotted a child’s head bobbing in the ocean, it didn’t occur to me that it might be Jake’s. How could it be? He hadn’t yet learned to swim. I scanned the empty beach idly, wondering where the child’s parents could be. By the time I had realised it was Jake, and begun sprinting to the sea, Tony was already in the water and had our spluttering son in his arms. The momentary panic over, I sank on to the sand with relief, and waited for Tony to swim them back to shore. But why was Tony calling for help? Why were they drifting farther out to sea? Although choppy, the water wasn’t rough. Confused, I plunged in and was quickly beside them. Taking Jake from Tony, I flipped him on to his back beneath me, cupped his chin with one hand and began swimming for the shore. Only then did I register the power of the riptide that had swept Jake off his feet. Beneath an apparently benign surface, an undertow had gathered, like a gigantic magnet on the horizon sucking us out to sea. The force of the current took my breath away. But I am a strong swimmer, and sensed no cause for great alarm as we inched our way to safety. On my back, in the soundless calm, all I could see was blue sky. It didn’t even cross my mind to panic. Wading ashore with Jake in my arms, I turned, expecting to see Tony behind us. But Tony was nowhere near us, not even where I’d left him. He was farther out to sea, much, much farther – maybe 50 feet off shore – floundering in the waves. Three local fishermen were swimming hard towards him, and from houses on either side of our cottage people were streaming on to the beach, shouting for help, hurling life rings and floats towards the swimmers. How had this tranquil little beach assumed the sudden frenzy of emergency? It seemed surreal, almost ridiculous; the scene belonged to a disaster movie, not a family holiday. Even as I paced helplessly, I couldn’t quite take my own fright seriously. Emergencies in real life always turned out to be false alarms, didn’t they? And sure enough, a float reached the fishermen, and soon they had Tony in their arms. A neighbour and I stood in the surf holding the float’s rope, and together we hauled the exhausted tangle of swimmers ashore. The drama was over. In a minute or two Tony would sit up, complain about sand in his ears and ask for a Red Stripe. As the crowd gathered around him, I turned my attention to Jake, who’d not moved from the spot where I had left him. Pale and still, he was staring past my ankles at his father. “What’s that white stuff coming out of his nose?” And then I saw it. Two thin streams of foam, like whipped egg white, trickled from Tony’s nostrils. Cold dread wrapped itself around me. The commotion around Tony became frantic; men were pumping his stomach, someone screamed for a doctor, people were pouring on to the beach from every direction. But it was too late. He didn’t move; his eyes remained closed. Seawater had filled his lungs while he was gasping for air in the water. As we were pulling him ashore, he had died. *** Sudden death defies the laws of physics; the human mind cannot reconcile the velocity of the first word with the enormity of the second. It is literally incredible. It had taken less than 10 minutes for a fit 49-year-old man to become a corpse, but it would take months for me to accept that he was never coming back. For more than a year, Joe asked me every day to tell him the story again “about how Tony died-ed”; even when he knew the words off by heart, it still sounded as fantastical as Little Red Riding Hood. Even now, I sometimes wonder if I really believe he is dead. But within 24 hours, amid the chaos of shock and confusion, one fact had become incontrovertibly clear in my mind. I knew whose fault it was. Survivors’ guilt always used to baffle me. Why did people think someone else’s death was their fault; that if only they’d acted differently, they could have prevented it? The illogic seemed so self-evident, and the implicit self-importance rather alienating. But by the time my three brothers and two family friends flew in the following evening, I was convinced they were furious with me. We sat up late that first night, on the terrace of a friend’s beach house. I tried to explain how Tony had drowned, but kept breaking down, semi-hysterical with self-blame, deaf to all reason or reassurance. Why hadn’t I tried to swim Tony back to shore along with Jake? Why didn’t I swim back to him after saving Jake? How could I not have panicked, even when he was drowning before my eyes? The others’ astonishment at my outburst only made me angry. Why wouldn’t they see – I could have saved him? Come to think of it, if I hadn’t booked this holiday in the first place, he would still be alive. For that matter, he would still be alive if I had never met him. Whichever way you looked at it, if it weren’t for me, Tony would not be dead. I knew I was becoming increasingly irrational, but could not control the rampaging narrative of guilt – until one brother took my hand and said slowly, gently, as if addressing a small child: “Dec, there was literally nothing you or anyone else could have done to save Tony’s life.” And suddenly I saw that it was true. But instead of relief, what I felt was despair. I wasn’t, I realised, feeling guilty at all, but creating a parallel universe in which Tony did not have to die, for which taking the blame was a small price to pay. One cannot be a victim if one casts oneself as the culprit, and I suspect this psychological device may explain why Jake exploded three days later, screaming, “I made him dead! I walked into the sea, that’s why he’s dead. It’s all my fault.” To this day, he remains implacably wedded to this self-indictment. He says he likes believing it was his fault, because he would rather face the truth than fall for “a lie made up to make me feel better”. But I suspect it might be less frightening for a six-year-old to tell himself he killed his father than to live in fear of the caprice of bad luck. *** I recognised Jake’s choice, because I had made a similar one when I was only three years older than he is now. My mother died of breast cancer when I was nine, and in my mind I reframed her death as a stroke of extraordinary good fortune. I studied other people’s mothers, and pitied their children for being lumbered with such an insufferable intrusion, forever driving them about, cooking their food, helping them with homework, choosing their clothes. I couldn’t think how they could stand it, or believe my luck to be spared this interfering busybody. My own mother’s intense devotion to her four children had been legendary, and was posthumously much praised. To me it sounded intolerably meddlesome, and I thanked my lucky stars to be shot of it. There must be some truth in the old saying that you make your own luck, for having decided at nine to be lucky, it seemed surprisingly easy to make it true. Exam results were always As, university was a ball, and on graduation I moved into a career on a national newspaper. At 26, I fell in love with a wonderful man. Our wedding was magical, and everyone agreed we made a perfect couple. Even when our marriage went heartbreakingly wrong, I must still have believed I was lucky. If not, I could surely never have left my husband for an ex-con who wholesaled cocaine for a living. Tony was our neighbour, and a lifelong criminal who had spent much of his childhood behind bars; in his teens, he was sentenced at the Old Bailey to 14 years for gun crime. Loud, charismatic and good-looking, he was the kind of character anyone would want to have at their party. But to make a life with him? When I walked out of my marriage and we set up home together, everyone thought I must have lost my mind. In the early years of our relationship, I often thought they might be right. We made an absurdly unlikely couple. My world was media London, his a nocturnal demi-world of shady assignations in pub car parks. A difficult day in my line of work would involve an email argument with a publicist about a tricky interviewee. In his, a violent dispute about the purity of a consignment could wind up with someone in a car boot. Although I loved him with a fierce abandon, any future together looked a very bad bet. But according to Tony, he was the luckiest man he knew. The mixed-race son of a white 15-year-old girl in non-multicultural 1960s Yorkshire, he could easily have been aborted. The white suburban family who adopted him would have been well within their rights to reject him, after he began burgling houses aged just four (or so he claimed). But since his release from prison, he had not once been reconvicted. Didn’t that prove the gods would always smile on him? “You should write a book about me,” he used to say. “My life would make a wicked book. Come on, you know you’re going to write it one day.” He told me he would change his life for me and, believing himself uniquely blessed by serendipity, he did. With the haziest notion of what an essay or even a paragraph might look like, Tony enrolled in college, won a scholarship to university, graduated with a first and got a job with Kids Company, mentoring youngsters who reminded him of his old self. By the time he died, Tony and I made a perfectly plausible couple. But in the beginning, reckless faith in our good fortune was probably the one bond we shared. *** Eight days after Tony died, we flew home with his body in a coffin, to find a mountain of condolence cards and letters. Moved to tears by words from school friends I’d not seen for decades and from neighbours I barely knew, I wondered why so many people had felt compelled to write. A sudden death galvanises the emotions, but it is the horror of tragedy’s proximity to innocent pleasure we must find so haunting – because all of us can picture ourselves on holiday with our family. The possibility that one of us might not come home seems to evoke the primitive terror of a fairytale. Tony’s death had been widely reported, and was announced on billboards down our village high street: “Local Man Drowns Saving Son.” This spared me the need to keep breaking the news, but made me cripplingly self-conscious. When I realised I looked like a fright, I wanted to get my eyebrows waxed and do something about my hair. But if I went to the salon in the village, would I look unseemly? I pictured the beautician in the pub, gossiping with disapproving friends about my shocking sense of priorities. I was touched by the postman’s condolences when he delivered the mail, and grateful for his kind words. But then each time he knocked, I couldn’t tell how sad I was supposed to look. If I was always in tears, would my grief begin to look slovenly and unedifying? Perhaps I was expected to pull myself together – but then I fretted he would think me cold and indifferent. Able neither to bear nor escape my new role as the Dramatic Widow, I worried about getting it right. I thought I was being paranoid, but there were early clues that my self-consciousness was not totally irrational. In Treasure Beach, before the autopsy report confirmed death by drowning, a consensus had quickly formed that Tony had died from a heart attack; a tragedy, still, but reassuringly downgraded from freakish to inevitable. In England, people kept asking if Tony had been drunk when he drowned. The desire for a reason must be a universal longing. In its absence, it can be tempting to form an impression that misfortune was in some obscure way deserved. No one wants to feel sorry for someone who turns out to disappoint their expectations of widowhood, and by simply being myself I was afraid I might incur disapproval. I felt too vulnerable to risk it. The situation therefore required me to appear blandly virtuous and unobjectionable at all times. What people really wanted I discovered quite by accident, when one of my more Pollyanna-ish friends came to stay. Telling the truth about how broken I felt was, I soon saw, a mistake; her expression grew increasingly aghast and panic gathered in her eyes. “But of course,” I diverted hastily, “it could be worse. Jake could have drowned, too.” The panic faded a fraction. “And it was amazing that my brothers and friends could fly out.” Yes, this was definitely working. What else? “Um, and Tony would be so proud of how the boys are coping. When I think about it, this whole situation could be so much worse. We’re really very lucky.” She relaxed into a beam of approval, and I basked in its warmth. Already I could picture her reporting this conversation to others – “Isn’t she brave?” – and anticipated their awed admiration. I learned to reel my blessings off by rote, even if the idea that I felt fortunate was demonstrably farcical. It did, however, feel like a helpful pretence for two small, bewildered boys too young to know that parents do not routinely die at random. The only way I could see to help them make sense of their inexplicable loss was to impress upon them its rarity. Over and over, I assured Jake and Joe that the world was not normally like this. Nothing like this would ever happen to them again. I did not tell them that Tony’s death had plunged us into insolvency; that he had neglected to update the will he made in the 90s, which left everything he owned to his first wife. They had nothing to fear from the future, I told them; we were still a lucky family. When we reached the first anniversary of Tony’s death, everyone told me the same thing. There was no doubt in anyone’s mind. We had survived the worst year of our lives; whatever the future brought, nothing would ever be this bad again. *** Looking back now, my trust in some sort of mythical cosmic calculation seems almost childlike in its naivety. Luck, by definition, does not come with a quota. Yet I still believed in the inevitability of normality when I woke one morning late last June. A friend was throwing a summer party that evening, five days after the first anniversary of Tony’s burial, and the timing seemed serendipitous. After a year of mourning, there would be party dresses, and cocktails, canapes and laughter. I stepped into the shower and my hand brushed across my right breast. The lump was unambiguous. I froze. This wasn’t the day when the darkness would lift, but the day I discovered I had breast cancer. Dismantled by the diagnosis, lost in the unfamiliar vocabulary of oncology, I stumbled through weeks of test after test in a daze of disbelief. At first, there was talk of a lumpectomy, for the tumour was still small. But it proved to be grade three, the most aggressive kind, and closer scrutiny of my family history revealed a genetic inheritance that made a lumpectomy look like an enviable solution. If my mother had died young of breast cancer, and her only sister of ovarian cancer, the geneticists were unequivocal: the only prudent course of action was a double mastectomy. Still I clung to the desperate hope that I might yet be spared chemotherapy, until further tests extinguished this glimmer, too. Even a negative result for the BRCA gene transpired to be meaningless. Only a quarter of women whose breast cancer is hereditary carry the genetic mutation made famous by Angelina Jolie. My negative result meant only that I had inherited a faulty gene for which no test yet exists. The revelation that I had, quite literally, been born unlucky came as a curious kind of relief. I hadn’t eaten too much bacon, or too little kale, or drunk too much vodka. It wasn’t my fault. And yet, so irresistible is the allure of agency, I was still willing to blame myself for getting cancer if it meant the cure could also lie within my gift. What I could not have predicted was how many people would assure me this was absolutely true. When Tony died, no one knew what to say. When I told people I had cancer, everyone knew what I should do. Cannabis oil, I was assured, would magic it away. Failing that, green coffee enemas. Colonic irrigation was a popular suggestion. And had I heard about lemon juice? Someone offered me a rock from an Austrian spa. Just pop it under the warming plate on the Aga, he said, hold it to my skin, and I’d be cancer-free the very next day. Above all – and under the circumstances, this one felt like a tall order – it was imperative to Think Positive. We all want to believe there is a cure for bad luck. I resolved to try the lot. Then chemotherapy began, and simply getting dressed became laughably ambitious. I spent the large part of six months in bed eating KitKats, watching terrible TV, helpless while my children unravelled around me. Jake’s rage became ungovernable, Joe’s confusion unreachable. I think they used to enjoy a sense of mild difference from their friends; they were from London, they called their parents by their first names instead of Mum and Dad, their father was black. But they now felt exiled from the playground fraternity of shared experience: “I hate it when everyone else is laughing and playing,” Jake explained, “because how can I join in when they’re not thinking about any of the things I’m thinking about?” Jake’s teacher gave him a diary in which to write down all the things that were making him angry. His lists seemed to soothe him, but their poignancy undid me. “1 Joe calling me names. 2 Tony dying. 3 Having to tidy up. 4 Decca getting cancer.” The boys wanted to understand this mysterious thing called chemotherapy which was making a dead-eyed stranger of their mother, so I brought them with me to hospital for a session. The oncologist looked a little taken aback when Jake unfolded his list of questions and asked: “Where does cancer come from? Why does chemotherapy make my mum tired? Why did it make her hair fall out?” With heartbreaking care, she tried to answer each question, but the explanation the boys sought lay beyond the boundaries of medicine. They wanted to know why this had happened to their family. All I could say was that we were bitterly, unfathomably unlucky. “No one can believe how unlucky we are,” I told them. But when I overheard Joe tell a friend, “The thing about us is, we’re really unlucky”, I willed my words unsaid, and wept. What I had loved about their father, more than anything, was his dauntless optimism. I would rather die than raise his boys on self-pity, and I worry that a sense of relentless victimhood will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. I also worry that it will make us toxic. Having moved to Kent just 12 months before Tony drowned, there had been no time to establish an identity before becoming the Dramatic Widow With Cancer – and who would want to make friends with her? How to navigate social introductions has become a perennial problem. At Christmas, I ventured to a local pub with the boys for a Secret Santa gathering, and got talking to an appealing family who had recently moved to the village, too. The conversation seemed to be going quite well, until the inevitable question: “So how have you been finding life here, then?” If there is an appropriate tone to strike when answering this, I am yet to find it. I cannot bear to present myself as an object of pity before phone numbers have even been exchanged, and the instant imbalance of full disclosure compromises any prospect of a normal friendship evolving. I have tried trotting off a brisk synopsis, but synthetic breeziness makes it sound too far-fetched to be true. An affectation of wry gallows humour – “Well, you’ll never believe this, but guess what…” – might work for a comedy of errors featuring cowboy builders and nightmare new neighbours, but makes me look like a lunatic. An emotionally truthful account is therefore both imperative and impossibly elusive: even if I could work out how to word one, it would feel like bad manners. Casual chat at the school gate cannot be expected to bear its weight, and I don’t want to embarrass people away when I’m trying to make friends. I doubt I could have predicted a single one of these dimensions of misfortune before it struck. I would certainly never have guessed the greatest revelation the last two years have brought. Until everything goes wrong, one cannot possibly know the astonishing kindness of the universe. I have spent most of my life aspiring to perfect autonomy, but helplessness cast us on the mercy of others, without which we would not have survived. If my children have learned anything, it is that their world is full of people who love them, and perhaps this is a more precious lesson than any promise of good luck. Every day we have been the beneficiaries of generosity I never dreamed could exist. I always wanted to give my children a perfect childhood. Now I find myself asking why. If one common theme unites the most captivating people I know, it is a childhood conspicuous for its absence of mundane serenity. Tony was living proof of it. On the night of his funeral, I sat up late with an old friend. Her father, a West Indian musician and decidedly colourful character, had died recently, and as we swapped stories about the unexpected comedies of bereavement – the complicated caravan of multiple girlfriends at her father’s deathbed, the small cannabis factory I discovered in one of our barns after Tony died, the necessity of booking a discreet bouncer for his funeral in case a fight broke out – we fell about laughing. “But you know,” she reflected wistfully, “my children have a really lovely life. And sometimes I wonder if the spice of my own childhood isn’t something I’ll be sorry they never get to taste.” Perhaps there is a price to pay for vanilla perfection. Perhaps my family has been blessed, after all. Chemotherapy came to an end in November. In December I underwent a double mastectomy. The treatment is now complete, and the doctors tell me my prospects are good. Unless I am very unlucky, I will live. I hope, of course, to be lucky. But I’m not sure I would conjure my old assumption of good fortune back, even if I could, for it looks like hubris to me now. • All At Sea by Decca Aitkenhead is published by Fourth Estate at £16.99. To order a copy for £12.99, go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846.
Dark Territory review – how WarGames and Reagan shaped US cyberwar battle Ronald Reagan loved movies. One night in June 1983, he sat down at Camp David to watch WarGames. The film stars Matthew Broderick as a tech-wiz teenager who unwittingly hacks into the main computer at Norad, the North American Aerospace Defense Command. Thinking he has merely stumbled upon a new computer game, the hacker comes dangerously close to starting a third world war. Five days later, the president was in a meeting with the secretaries of state, defense and treasury, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff and 16 senior members of Congress. They were there to discuss a new nuclear missile and the prospect of arms talks with the Russians. When Reagan began to give a detailed account of the plot of WarGames, eyes rolled. Then the president turned to John Vessey, the chairman of the joint chiefs, and asked: “Could something like this really happen?” One week later, General Vessey returned with a startling answer: “Mr President, the problem is much worse than you think.” Thus begins Dark Territory, Fred Kaplan’s important new book about the history of cyberwar. “When Reagan asked Vessey if someone could really hack into the military’s computers,“ Kaplan writes, “it was far from the first time the question had been asked.” It turned out that there was a good reason WarGames was so accurate: for their research the screenwriters had interviewed Willis Ware, who wrote a 1967 paper called Security and Privacy on Computer Systems and for years headed the computer science department at the RAND Corporation, an Air Force-funded think tank. Reagan’s casual inquiry set off the first of many efforts by the intelligence establishment to figure out a way to bolster America’s defensive and offensive cyber capabilities. Each is described in extreme detail in Kaplan’s new book. Kaplan is the national security columnist for Slate, and he generally does a good job of making even the most technical subjects accessible to the layman. Sometimes the particulars of bureaucratic infighting can be almost numbing, but whenever the narrative threatens to bog down the author manages to revive the reader’s interest. Take the practice attack the US carried out on itself in 1997, which penetrated the entire defense establishment network in four days, including the National Military Command Center, the facility that transmits orders from the president during wartime. In Kaplan’s words: “Most of the officers manning those servers didn’t even know they’d been hacked.” It turns out cyber warfare has been playing an important role in American warfare for longer than many would suspect. When General Eric Shinseki, the general in charge of Nato forces in Bosnia, realized his troops were being attacked by demonstrators stimulated by Serbian television stations, he managed to install remote control boxes on five transmitters. After that, whenever a newscaster started to promote a demonstration, Shinkseki’s men simply turned the TV signal off. When Michael Hayden became director of the National Security Agency, he created the Office of Tailored Access Operations (TAO). It created tools resembling “something out of the most exotic James Bond movie”. These, Kaplan writes, included LoudAuto, which activated a laptop’s microphone to monitor all conversations in its vicinity; HowlerMonkey, which extracted and transmitted files via radio signals even if a computer wasn’t hooked up to the internet; MonkeyCalendar, which tracked a cellphone’s location; NightStand, which could load a computer with malware from several miles away; and RageMaster, which tapped into a computer’s video signal so a TAO technician could see whatever a target was watching. All of this escalating technological prestidigitation eventually merged with post 9/11 fears of terrorism to produce the spymaster’s dream, and what should have been the citizen’s ultimate nightmare – what Kaplan refers to a little too benignly as “a growing if somewhat resigned acceptance of intrusions into daily life”. This sea change was codified in the summer of 2007 by the passage of the Protect America Act, only eight days after George Bush proposed it in his weekly address. NSA director Keith Alexander was able to convince his colleagues it now made sense to “scoop up and store everything from everybody. NSA lawyers even altered some otherwise plain definitions, so that doing this didn’t constitute ‘collecting’ data from American citizens, which would be illegal: under the new terminology, the NSA was just storing the data, the collecting wouldn’t happen until an analyst went to retrieve it from the files …” These of course were the practices that largely remained hidden from view until, in June 2013, Edward Snowden performed the singular service of revealing “a massive data-mining operation, more vast than any outsider had imagined”. It turned out, as Kaplan writes, that “the active surveillance of a single terrorist suspect could put a million people, possibly a million Americans, under [the NSA’s] watch. The revelation came as a shock, even to those who otherwise had few qualms about the occasional breach of personal privacy”. But instead of increasing our security, such methods have simply created a new form of mutually assured destruction. Congress has been told that China and “probably one or two other countries” are definitely inside the networks that control America’s power grids, waterworks and other critical assets. And though no American official has said so in public, America is also inside the networks “that controlled such assets in other countries”. “Would burrowing more deeply deter an attack, or would it only tempt both sides, all sides to attack the others’ networks preemptively?” These, Kaplan writes, were the questions that “some tried to answer but no one ever did” during the nuclear confrontations of the cold war. Now we face exactly the same questions, with no good answers for them. Charles Kaiser is the author 1968 In America, The Gay Metropolis and, most recently The Cost of Courage.
‘We trusted the police with Jack. I wish I’d never called them’ Nine months to the day after A-level student Jack Susianta, 17, drowned in the river Lea in east London, after jumping into the water as police officers chased him, his close-knit family and friends spent Friday evening in prayer. Their service reflected the Hindu background of his father, Ketut, who came to London from Bali in the 1990s to be with Jack’s British mother, Anna. She described Jack as “hilarious, a joy, a person who always saw the light in people and brought a smile to their faces”. Komang Jack Susianta was bright, diligent and planning to go to university. “He didn’t know what he wanted to be,” said his brother Sam, 21, who is studying economics. “That’s the beauty of being young.” At other times, Jack had told friends his aim was to become prime minister of Bali, an island he had visited often, to tackle corruption there. “Jack had time for everyone,” said Anna, a former primary school head teacher and now a senior educational adviser. “He was a bridge between groups, and I think that was because he was mixed-race. Every night after his death, his friends gathered on the riverbank where he died. They are fundraising for a bench. They made a beautiful book. Jack’s spirit lives on in these inspiring young people.” Friday also ended two gruelling weeks for Anna and Sam as they sat through an inquest that concluded that Jack’s death was a drug-related accident. Police threw Jack a rope and a lifebuoy, but exercised their right not to put themselves in danger by entering the water. Members of the public were also deterred. One witness said Jack appeared exhausted. “It’s just a river … I believe this boy could have been saved.” Anna said: “We put our trust in the police when Jack was mentally very vulnerable, in the belief they would bring him back safe. Instead it ended in his death. I wish now I’d never called them.” Are they angry? “As a family we are too broken to be angry.” In their only newspaper interview, Anna and Sam talked with dignity and eloquence about Jack who, for the first time in his life, had become paranoid, psychotic and terrified as a result of taking MDMA at a festival. This summer thousands of teenagers will attend festivals, as Jack did with friends last year. He left London on Thursday, 23 July, and returned the following Monday, agitated, tearful and distressed. He told his brother, to whom he was close, that he had taken MDMA. Sam took Jack to play basketball to try to ease his distress. Jack aimed a shot at the basket and said that, if the ball went in, he’d be all right – but he missed. What unfolded over Jack’s final days offers important lessons for all the five institutions involved: the police, the ambulance service, the fire brigade – which was not called immediately when Jack jumped into the water – the East London Foundation NHS Trust and Homerton hospital, Hackney. The family believe that, at the inquest, instead of “finding better ways” to handle teenage mental health issues, the institutions tried to put the blame on Jack for his own death. “It was as if Jack had got lost,” said Anna. “It was hard to keep hold of him.” As that Monday evening drew on, Jack had become more paranoid. At one point he told Anna: “You are my mum but you are not my mum.” She made him lasagne, his favourite. Unusually, he asked to lie down with his mother and father in their bed. At around 8pm, shoeless and dressed in only shorts and a T-shirt, he walked out of the door. Police found Jack several hours later and took him to Homerton hospital as a place of safety under the Mental Health Act 1983. Jack refused to enter. “He wasn’t violent; he was just refusing to move,” said Anna, who was at the hospital. “He was scared, but instead of trying to coax Jack they told us they would have to use force. Jack was unwell. We thought it would be gentle restraint.” Two weeks ago the family learned that Jack had been subjected to a high level of restraint by a number of officers. CCTV shows one officer with his knee on Jack’s neck. Jack had a bruised face and a cut lip. He was placed in a cubicle, handcuffed with his hands behind his back. Anna said: “The police refused to removed his handcuffs even though Jack was distressed and crying.” A junior doctor treated Jack gently and calmly and won his co-operation. “If the police had tried a similar approach, we might have had a different outcome.” At 6am on Tuesday, a consultant psychiatrist diagnosed drug-induced psychosis, not emerging mental illness. Anna recalled: “She said, ‘I think he’s back in his right mind. Home is the best place.’ I was so relieved. I thought it was going to be all right.” At the inquest the coroner criticised the consultant for not advising the family what do if the crisis should return, and will make recommendations on this in an official report. The Independent Police Complaints Commission is investigating the circumstances leading to Jack’s death. The family’s solicitor, Tony Murphy, said: “During a mental health crisis, patients need a considered, caring approach – not to be restrained by police and released from hospital without proper advice.” On the Wednesday afternoon, psychosis did return. Jack broke a window at home and jumped through it, cutting himself. The family called the police. Minutes later, officers by the river Lea gave chase. Anna was on her way to the scene in a police car when they heard the radio message, “This one’s a runner.” The police said they should return home. “We thought that as we had passed care of Jack to the police they knew best,” Anna said. “So we came home. Ketut finds it difficult to trust now. He feels he wasn’t allowed to do what he wanted to do as a father, and be at the river to save his son. He is destroyed by being made powerless. “Jack will never be forgotten. We look as if we are coping,” Anna adds. “But as a family we are in pieces.”
North London's old workhouse turned modern hospital is failing its people The colourful banners that greet visitors after they come through the main entrance to North Middlesex hospital, past the WH Smith and coffee shop, seem designed to reassure and impress. “Great Care … It’s in our nature,” they proclaim. The north London hospital’s website is similarly upbeat. “These are exciting times at North Middlesex University hospital trust. We’ve modernised and grown, with over £200m of investment in our buildings and services over the last five years,” it boasts. It also promises “better, safer care every day of the week that meets the key NHS London quality standards”. Located on the site of a 19th-century workhouse built to serve the destitute of Edmonton, Enfield and Hornsey, the first hospital buildings were established in 1909. In 2009 most of the ex-workhouse buildings were demolished as part of a redevelopment that included £123m spent on a new A&E, critical care unit and outpatients department. Today it looks modern and inviting, in stark contrast to the peeling paint and ageing décor of so many other hospitals. Behind the scenes, though, North Middlesex is a hospital in crisis. Last week the Care Quality Commission slapped a warning notice on it after it staged an unannounced inspection in April. “It must make significant improvements in the quality of the healthcare it provides in the emergency department. The inspectors found that the treatment model for patients was not effective,” the NHS care regulator declared. Patients were not getting the care they needed, it added. The CQC’s full report, due by the end of June, is likely to make for grim reading. The 2,800 staff at the hospital, in Edmonton in the outer north London borough of Enfield, are used to bad publicity, especially over its A&E unit. In August 2014, David Burrowes, the MP for Enfield Southgate, gave the Mail on Sunday a detailed account of how, despite arriving with a burst appendix, he ended up being left on a trolley for 12 hours in the “chaotic” A&E before finally having the CT scan he needed so staff could diagnose the problem. “I now realise I could have died waiting so long to get my scan and operation. For six hours my wife, mother and a friend were being told ‘yes, yes, yes – he will be seen’. But they were being fobbed off. They found out I had not been booked in for a scan on the system. In the meantime I was on a trolley, in an A&E cubicle that doubled as a storeroom, curled up in pain,” the MP recalled. The hospital apologised to Burrowes and explained that he had arrived during a three-day period when it had faced unusually heavy demand for care, which had caused “exceptional challenges which resulted in delays in A&E treatment”. In February it made headlines again when the emergency department got so busy one Friday evening that, with more than 100 patients waiting to be seen, a PA announcement implored people to “please go home unless you have a life-threatening illness”. Most days about 500 people come to what is one of the biggest and busiest emergency departments in London. Last Friday at noon, seated around two vending machines displaying “out of order” signs, about 20 people from a cross-section of London society waited to be seen in the A&E. There were a few babies, though the average age was closer to 60. A television screen on the wall said the waiting time for all but the most urgent cases was three hours. Less than an hour later, the numbers waiting had more than doubled, leaving little space on the rows of plastic chairs before the traditional Friday night influx. A sign on the wall advised people to use the urgent care centre at nearby Chase Farm hospital for any medical treatment or advice that did not require them to be in A&E. The downgrading in late 2013 of what had been a fully fledged A&E unit at Chase Farm to an urgent care centre, despite a huge campaign of opposition, led to a 20% increase in the number of sick people seeking treatment at the North Middlesex. Many are from deprived and ethnically diverse parts of the boroughs on Enfield and Haringey, which brings particular challenges. Outside the A&E, a woman who had presented with her infant son said she had been happy with the facilities and conditions there, including a separate waiting area for people with children. But she added: “There was a man with his son who had been waiting for quite a while and he was told that he would have to make his own way over to Chase Farm instead because of some service that they lacked here. He wasn’t too happy.” Comments about patients’ experience at North Middlesex posted on the NHS Choices website show how care there can be excellent or very poor. One woman who had recently given birth there gave its maternity unit five stars, saying “everything felt very human and we were treated like more than just another number”. However, another gave the same unit just one star and complained that the midwives did not help to speed up her labour because they were close to the end of their shift, and that staff forgot to give her baby an antibiotic. While 91% of patients using any of the hospital’s services said they would recommend it to friends and relatives, only 49% of the 2,812 commenters who had used its A&E said the same. A poster called “Zoom77” related how he had arrived there one day last month with a broken foot, had to hobble over to collect a form to fill in, then waited three hours to see a triage nurse, and had to come back the next day to have an X-ray. After finally getting a moonboot and crutches, he was given no advice on how to use them. “Thanks North Mid, you’re crap,” he wrote. The hospital says its A&E problems are due to a chronic lack of doctors, which has led to some patients enduring with what the chief executive, Julie Lowe, admits are unacceptably long waits to be treated. “The key issue is the availability of consultants and their willingness to work in a busy A&E department that is not a designated trauma centre in a high-cost area of outer London,” a hospital spokesman said. But unpublished internal NHS briefing papers suggest the North Middlesex’s problems are more complex. They say there has been “a bullying culture” which has not yet been eradicated, despite various initiatives. A longstanding lack of proper education, training and supervision of junior doctors has prompted talented medical graduates to pursue their careers elsewhere. A spokesman for the hospital said: “Where concerns have been raised we always investigate full. We have recently adopted a bullying and harassment resolution pathway to support this important work.” The documents make clear a lack of belief among bodies such as the General Medical Council and Health Education England that the hospital can be turned around under its current leadership.
Céline: French literary genius or repellent antisemite? New film rekindles an old conflict It is 55 years since Dr Louis Ferdinand Auguste Destouches – better known as the writer Céline – died. For more than five decades French historians, intellectuals and politicians, among others, have struggled – and failed – to agree on his legacy. To some, the author who influenced writers such as Samuel Beckett, Henry Miller and Charles Bukowski is one of the greatest of France’s literary giants. Others revile Céline as an unrepentant Nazi sympathiser and antisemite who called for the extermination of French Jews. Now a new film is scratching the national sore that, half a century on, refuses to heal. The movie, Louis-Ferdinand Céline: Two Clowns for a Catastrophe is based on the real-life meeting in 1948 between the author and Milton Hindus, a young American literature professor, in Denmark, where the Frenchman was in self-imposed exile (he was later convicted of collaboration in his absence by a Paris court and sentenced to a year in jail). Hindus, who was Jewish, would later write of his shock and disappointment at the meeting and seeing a novelist he admired “drooling out of both sides of his mouth”. He had been invited to stay with Céline for two months, but left after three weeks. The film’s release comes just five years after France’s culture ministry was forced to scrap a tribute to Céline following outrage from the country’s leading Jewish organisations. The writer’s name was scratched from the list of 500 French cultural figures to be honoured that year because of his antisemitic writings. Director Emmanuel Bourdieu, son of the late Pierre Bourdieu, one of France’s most influential postwar sociologists, said his aim in the film was to show the paradox of literary genius and monster in one man. “This coexistence is what fascinates and disturbs and causes problems for us,” said Bourdieu. “We have his singularity as a writer who completely revolutionised the novel at the time and did so alone, a simple doctor who invented his thing. “At the same time he fell into this strange violence and extremism. Contrary to his genius, he became ordinary, trivial, vulgar … his antisemitism, his racism, all those reactionary and extreme thoughts invaded him.” Céline, who later trained as an obstetrician, won a medal for bravery during the first world war at Ypres, where he was shot in the arm delivering a vital message. He was hailed as one of France’s literary giants following publication of his first novel and best-known work, Voyage au Bout de la Nuit (Journey to the End of the Night) in 1932. The work’s style, rhythms, use of slang and colloquial language challenged traditional literary conventions and became one of the most acclaimed French novels of the 20th century. If the writing style was iconoclastic, and the book’s antihero Bardamu a nihilist, the misanthropic writer went even further. Céline produced three virulently antisemitic pamphlets between 1937 and 1941 so extreme that even the occupying German generals found them hard to stomach, dismissing them as “savage, filthy slang”. Philip Roth, who once declared “Céline is my Proust!”, summed up the ambivalence still felt towards the author, whom he still felt deserved recognition for his writing, when he said: “Even if his antisemitism made him an abject, intolerable person – to read him, I have to suspend my Jewish conscience, but I do it because antisemitism isn’t at the heart of his books.” Will Self also praised Céline’s work as an “invective, which – despite the reputation he would later earn as a rabid antisemite – is aimed against all classes and races of people with indiscriminate abandon”. In France, however, Céline polarises, leading readers to declare him either a literary maestro or racist monster, but rarely both. Even after his return to France in 1951, when he was spared prison, he never publicly recanted his racist views. It has made him symbolic of a continuing struggle to accept and digest the prevalence of widespread antisemitism in France before and during the second world war, and its resurgence in recent years. The July 1942 round-up of 13,000 French Jews by French police at the Vél d’Hiv cycle track, from where many were dispatched to Nazi death camps never to return, still haunts the French consciousness. As the “man-or-monster?” debate raged again in France last week, film-maker Bourdieu added he wanted to show that these forms of “intolerance, xenophobia and currents that ran against the rational and humanist” were still a threat. “They are deeply anchored in our culture, our subconscious, our religion. And they can get the upper hand because it’s a very strong current of thought and confronted with it reason can’t do much. Because it’s discourse that refuses dialogue,” said Bourdieu. “I hope the film shows this monster and shows how it threatens us all in a way … even the most singular and extraordinary among us. We see even someone like Céline can be seduced by this.” Inevitably some of Céline’s greatest supporters have emerged from France’s far right. The website Egalité et Reconciliation, run by Alain Soral, a former member of the Front National, accused Bourdieu of “assassinating” Céline. It said Bourdieu and leading lady Géraldine Pailhas, who plays Céline’s wife, Lucette Almenzor, were part of a “champagne socialist” set who control French cinema and members of a “band of leftwing intellectuals … a tribe whose members can be found in almost all César-winning films. They are trophy collectors.”“A half century after the disappearance of the biggest French writer ever, it’s not useful, that a film realised by the son of a self-righteous thinker... should reduce Céline to his antisemitism,” it said. Since Céline’s death in 1961, his widow Lucette has refused to allow the antisemitic pamphlets to be reproduced in France. Now 103 years old, she still lives at the family home in Meudon, where Céline is buried.
GCHQ boss calls for new relationship with tech firms over encryption The director of GCHQ has said it is time for a new relationship between US and British intelligence agencies and tech companies, which have been at odds over encryption. In a speech to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Robert Hannigan called for dialogue in a less “highly charged atmosphere” and disclosed that David Cameron would set out a process in the next few months that “can shed some really useful light. And, for my part, my promise today is to engage in that process with the tech industry openly, respectfully and in good faith”. In 2014 Hannigan said websites were becoming “the command and control centres of choice” for terrorists and criminals. Intelligence agencies in both the UK and the US have been trying to force tech companies to provide a key or backdoor into their encrypted services, which they say is necessary to combat terrorism, international criminal gangs and paedophiles. The issue has been highlighted by a standoff between the FBI and Apple. The bureau has been trying to force the company to create software to unlock an iPhone belonging to a gunman in a mass shooting in San Bernardino in December. Hannigan, in only his second public comments, said he was not in favour of banning encryption. “Nor am I asking for mandatory backdoors. I am puzzled by the caricatures in the current debate, where almost every attempt to tackle the misuse of encryption by criminals and terrorists is seen as a ‘backdoor’. It is an overused metaphor, or at least mis-applied in many cases, and I think it illustrates the confusion of the ethical debate in what is a highly charged and technically complex area,” he said. He told the audience it was a moral issue. “Defining what is reasonable and practical, of course, immediately engages proportionality. Does providing the data in clear endanger the security of others’ data? The unwelcome answer which dissatisfies advocates at both ends of the spectrum is: it depends.” A bill is going through the UK parliament. It makes no concessions to the debate begun by the disclosures of the whistleblower Edward Snowden n 2013 other than to acknowledge powers used in the past and kept hidden from the public. The UK approach contrasts with that of the US, where Congress last year passed the Freedom Act banning bulk data phone collection. Hannigan said the investigatory powers bill did not give the UK intelligence agencies new powers but put in one place powers that had been spread across numerous statutes.
Pinterest launches video ads in US and UK Pinterest has launched video advertising for the first time as it joins the likes of Facebook and Twitter in cashing in on the popularity of online clips. The visual sharing site has developed a product, Promoted Video Pins, that advertisers in the UK and US can purchase as premium, reserved ad inventory. The company, which earlier this year launched Promoted Pins in the UK to help advertisers promote their businesses, said its new product follows a huge surge in the amount of video content Pinterest users now save. “Over 100 million people around the world come to Pinterest every month to discover ideas to try [and] one of the best tools for helping bring those ideas to life is video,” the company said in a blogpost. “That’s why video has been so popular on Pinterest – we’ve seen a 60% increase in the number of videos saved in the last year alone.” The widely expected move is interesting for Pinterest, which has not traditionally been known as a video destination like Facebook and Twitter. Pinterest says that its video ad product will be powerful because it will be paired with featured pins from businesses to help drive purchases. “While other platforms primarily offer video views, we’ve coupled Promoted Video with featured Pins below the video to let people experience your brand and then go take action,” said Pinterest. “For example, bareMinerals is using Promoted Video to show how to apply their beauty products, and their featured Pins showcase the products used in the video.”
Chairlift: Moth review – slick but uninspired Beyoncé hooked up with Chairlift’s Caroline Polachek and Patrick Wimberly on her 2013 track No Angel. Some of her stardust seemed to have rubbed off when the New York duo resurfaced last autumn with Ch-Ching, its stabs of brass and R&B dynamics very much in the same vein as their A-list collaboration. As far as Moth goes, however, it’s a bit of a red herring: the other nine songs here stay frustratingly close to the 80s-indebted yacht rock sounds of 2012’s Something. And with the exception of Romeo, inspired by Greek mythology and possessing an irresistible chorus, too much of the album’s hinterland sounds slick but uninspired. Polachek deadpans her way through the pedestrian Ottawa to Osaka, while dreary closer No Such Thing only serves to show how long six minutes can seem.
Farewell Friends Reunited – the site that offered time travel and sexual infidelity It’s fundamental to human nature that what once seemed racy and modern eventually becomes quaint and pitiable. It was true of micro-scooters and the Spice Girls, and it’s equally true of the website Friends Reunited, which announced its imminent closure this week. When the site launched back in 2000, it was among the first coherent attempts at social media. It tapped into our innate curiosity, answering the question “whatever happened to … ?” for everyone who’d ever nurtured secret hopes that the school bully was mown down by a runaway lorry before their 30th, or that the perfect prefect turned to crystal meth and now lived in a mobile home with her seven feral offspring. Prior to Friends Reunited, these were only ever enjoyable fantasies, unless you were prepared to make the pilgrimage to the 20-year reunion, and spend an evening breathing in the smell of dying gym kit with people you didn’t even like when they were six. So it’s no wonder that despite its appalling site design and strange picture of elderly people in Reactolite sunglasses, the site provided an essential service we never knew we needed. I remember the first time I logged on (we still called it that). It was like instant time travel – the primary classmate whose Girls’ World styling head I’d so coveted was on there, working for a building society – “busy mum to two little ones!”, the sensible boy on whom I’d conceived an inexplicable crush at university was still making ponderous science jokes, everyone I’d ever snogged drunkenly at a party, or played catch with, or cried in the toilets over – they were all gathered, like a birthday party full of chain-rattling ghosts. I spent several months cruising through my fading memories, summoning past loves and hates from the ether to speak to me (“I’m now a lathe operator in my dad’s business, life’s pretty normal, haha!”), but once I’d satisfied my curiosity, and made sure that the biggest show-off in year 6 had never actually launched a stellar Hollywood career, I stopped going on there. By default, schoolmates aren’t necessarily people you’d choose to hang out with, you’re simply thrust together, like the characters in Lost, and forced to make the best of it. As the site grew in success, it became clear that it was not simply an aide-memoire. It was, in fact, a hotbed of infidelity. Unable simply to enjoy the Proustian scented memory of the Blue Stratos their sixth-form crush used to wear, the maritally dissatisfied went in search of their first loves – and often found them, equally dissatisfied and craving excitement with the person who first gave them a stubble rash. From being a gentle nostalgic diversion, Friends Reunited became a byword for romantic danger. In 2005, a lawyer warned: “If you value your marriage, do not visit this site,” as divorce rates peaked. It seemed that the allure of someone who knew you when you still wrote band names on your jacket could immediately top trump long-term marriage. But in the end, it wasn’t the glamorous potential to ruin lives that ruined Friends Reunited. It was Facebook. As soon as the new site’s portals swung open in 2004, despite its lumpen, early incarnation (where you could throw sheep at each other, and every status started with “X is … ”) it was clear that this was the senior prom to Friends Reunited’s infants’ sports day. For a start it was free – though Friends Reunited stopped charging after ITV bought it in 2005, it was too late. If you wanted to find a sexual partner, you no longer had to trawl through your primary school class for someone who’d grown up vaguely attractive; you could simply message the bloke you fancied at work, or stalk the profile of your sister’s hot friend. As Friends Reunited got more desperate, like teachers organising a fun day with a bowl of weak punch and some foil-strip bunting, the site lent its name to nostalgic CDs and books, and even attempted a TV ad campaign – but by then, the only people left were the oddballs nobody spoke to at school. The site had overlooked the obvious problem of its built-in obsolescence. We might all wonder what happened to our classmates – but once we’ve found out, there’s nowhere left to go. It either becomes a real-life rekindling – in which case, the site becomes redundant. Or it simply answers the question (“living in Yorkshire, selling drill bits”) and we move on. In its heyday, there were 10 million users. I’d bet every one of them knows exactly what happened to their classmates – and now they’re on Facebook, talking to their real friends.
How we made In the Heat of the Night Norman Jewison, director Not long after I finished In the Heat of the Night, I went skiing in Idaho and my son broke his leg. Sitting opposite me in the hospital was the then junior senator for New York, Robert F Kennedy, whose son had broken his leg too. I told him I’d been working on a film about a black detective in a southern town. He said it could be an important film. He told me timing was everything – in politics, art and life. It was 1966 and the US was going through traumatic times with the civil rights movement. Cities were being burned down. The Mirisch Company, who were middle men for United Artists, had asked me to adapt John Ball’s book – even though, being from Toronto, I had no connection to the tension on America’s streets. We reshaped the material, putting the focus on the relationship between Virgil Tibbs, the black detective from Philadelphia played by Sidney Poitier, and Bill Gillespie, the redneck sheriff played by Rod Steiger. Poitier refused to film below the Mason-Dixon line, in southern Pennsylvania, since he and Harry Belafonte had recently been harassed by the Ku Klux Klan in Mississippi. So we cut a deal. I found a little town called Sparta in Illinois, near the Mississippi river, the most southern location I could find. “If we film there,” I said, “you’ve got to give me a weekend in Tennessee for the scene in the cotton plantation.” When we got to Tennessee, only the Holiday Inn would accept blacks and whites together. The local sheriff said: “Keep your people at the hotel. I don’t want them around town.” The atmosphere fired up both actors. They ended up improvising a lot of the confession scene at the sheriff’s house, where they bond. We were sitting in the car outside, waiting to shoot, but the rain was so heavy on the roof we couldn’t record. So we just sat and rehearsed – and the scene got more and more intense. I’ll never forget Steiger turning to Poitier and saying: “Don’t get smart, black boy!” I didn’t know if Poitier was going to be offended, maybe ask Steiger not to say that. But we used it. I really lucked out with that rainstorm! The famous slap, where Tibbs retaliates against a racist landowner, wasn’t improvised, though, as has been suggested. I kept telling Poitier that Tibbs was a sophisticated detective, not used to being pushed around. I showed him how to do the slap. “Don’t hit him on the ear,” I said. “I want you to really give him a crack on the fatty side of his cheek.” I told him to practise on me. A black man had never slapped a white man back in an American film. We broke that taboo. Young black people in northern cities responded to the film in a much more visceral way than the whites did. This was the first time a black actor was wearing the fancy suit and being looked up to. In January 1968, I was given the New York Critics’ Circle award for best drama. And who was presenting but Robert F Kennedy? “I told you the timing was right,” he said. Six months later, he was dead – just after Martin Luther King’s assassination. I left America afterwards. I said to myself: “This is a country where they kill off their heroes. I’ve got to get out of here.” Walter Mirisch, producer United Artists were concerned. They feared the film might lead to unrest in the south, even riots. I said: “Suppose it never plays below the Mason-Dixon line? How much do you think we could afford to spend if we just limited the distribution?” They said $2m. I said to production: “How many shooting days will this buy us?” We came up with a schedule of 40 days. And Poitier signed on for $200,000, well under his usual rate. It was the same year he made To Sir, With Love and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner. He was the outstanding black actor in film , one of the biggest stars of the whole industry. The fact that he was on board helped tremendously. We didn’t just get film reviews, we got editorial comment – and all very favourable. Ultimately, of course, the film was released throughout the south and did reasonably well. It’s just as relevant today. I had hoped our country would have made more progress. My father died just before the 1968 Oscars. I was feeling very disturbed and wasn’t sure I’d go. The competition was daunting and I’d no idea if we were going to win. Then King was assassinated and the ceremony was postponed. My family convinced me to go when it was finally rescheduled. My father would have agreed with the movie’s politics, so winning the best film Oscar for such a labour of love was a huge moment for me. It still is. In the Heat of the Night has been rereleased as part of the BFI’s Black Star season.
Trust me, I’m a dentist. You have nothing to fear I take this as a great compliment. Half a dozen or so times a year, patients will spontaneously fall asleep in my dental chair during treatment. I don’t slip Valium in the mouthwash or use subliminal hypnotic techniques to induce compliancy, I promise. The patients just drift into the arms of Morpheus until I’ve finished the restorative procedure I’m performing. Nowadays, dentistry is more like grouting than surgery, so drilling is kept to a minimum and sleep is therefore, relatively undisturbed. The patients usually wake up embarrassed and profusely apologetic for having nodded off, while simultaneously wiping the local anaesthetic dribble and sleep drool from their chins. If only it were always like that. Some patients (particularly the middle-aged still haunted by the dreaded “school dentist”) still have to be coaxed into the surgery by prising their fingers off the door jamb with a reinforced spatula. Earlier this week a Dutch dentist, Jacobus van Nierop, was jailed in France for inflicting “horrific injuries” on “drugged” patients in the town of Château-Chinon. He had been found guilty of carrying out “useless and painful procedures” on patients. He apparently used to take “pleasure at causing pain”, according to prosecutor Lucille Jaillon-Bru. It’s redundant to point out that Dr van Nierop’s case will do little to allay the fears of the average dental phobic, but the fact is, modern dentistry is a world away from the boiling cauldron of biting on a stick and leather restraints some older patients conjure up in their minds before coming for a check-up. The reasons why patients are afraid to visit the dentist are manifold, but are usually based in myth – it is physically impossible to take a tooth out with a knee in the chest! I freely admit that I am a former dental phobic. I entered dental school late, as a mature student, after an inspirational dentist cured me of my fear with a gentle, almost cossetting approach. My personal worry was of choking on the instruments in my mouth, which resulted in an embarrassing tendency to retch, and many patients suffer from a fear of suffocating, or are frightened of “drowning” on the water sprays we use to cool our instruments down. Most dentists are kittens deep down and if patients just explain to their clinician about their fears, we will keep the instruments at the front of the mouth so that the tongue and palate aren’t stimulated and the airway doesn’t feel like it has been violated. By explaining your fear of impressions, we can warm up the impression so that it sets much more quickly. Chairside breathing techniques can also reduce problems with a fear associated with a compromised airway. The dreaded needle is also a big barrier to a patient seeking treatment, but can be easily overcome. Many dentists (like me) routinely use surface (topical) anaesthetic in the form of a gel before we begin the numbing procedure with the hypodermic. Together with delivering the anaesthetic very slowly, we can often introduce the needle with the patient not feeling entry at all. Some dentists now even use a method of delivering local anaesthetic electronically, maximising comfort. The fear of being hurt during treatment is also a barrier to a patient seeking help. Modern local anaesthetics are so good these days that providing a tooth is not very inflamed or infected, comfortable dentistry is guaranteed. Many new patients I see as emergencies in pain have usually not attended for treatment for years. They have almost always had a “bad experience” with a dentist many years previously. Some patients fear the loss of control in the chair, not surprising since the mouth feels a very vulnerable and sensitive part of the body. Most dentists will establish the use of hand signals with the patient at the start of treatment. If not, a lightning quick jab up the dentist’s nose usually halts procedures. For the very anxious, simple oral sedation can be provided in practice via Temazepam tablets prescribed by your dentist. If you are really lucky, some dentists can provide inhalation sedation (gas and air) or can refer you to specialist centres for intravenous sedation or in exceptional cases, for general anaesthetic. There really is nothing to be scared of.
Pro-EU group of MPs challenge Theresa May to protect employment rights A new cross-party group set up by pro-remain MPs from the EU referendum campaign has challenged the prime minister to provide commitments that employment rights provided for under EU law would be protected following Brexit. A range of those rights – including protections for young workers for annual leave and rest breaks – would be lost after Brexit unless the government draws up new laws to replace them, according to Labour MP Chuka Umunna, chair of the Vote Leave Watch group. He wrote to Theresa May after commissioning the House of Commons library to list the employment rights that currently arise due to the UK’s membership of the European Union, and which he said would “fall away” on departure from the union. “You owe it to the working people of Britain to make clear that the pledges made by your cabinet colleagues to retain EU legislation on workers’ rights will be delivered,” Umunna says in the letter. Vote Leave Watch said that the government could preserve workers’ rights by passing legislation to replace EU laws, such as the working time directive, that will cease to apply to the UK upon Brexit. It also called on the government to conduct an audit of all instances where decisions of the European court of justice have created greater legal employment rights for British workers, and then commit to enshrine these rights in law. John Hannett, general secretary of the USDAW union and a patron of Vote Leave Watch, said that British workers had been protected from “discrimination, unscrupulous bosses, and the worst excesses of Tory governments” as a result of Britain’s membership of the EU. “The prime minister came to office talking a good game about standing up for working people,” he added. “She now has to walk the walk – and the first part of that should be guaranteeing that every single right for workers delivered by the European Union will stay in place.” Commentators such as Philip Landau, an employment law solicitor, have said that there is unlikely to be a major shift in terms of employment rights and that most EU laws in the area would be retained. He argued in the in May that the level of protection afforded to workers is so woven into the fabric of the employment relationship that their wholesale removal would not only be unexpected by employers, but would be politically unthinkable for any government.
Did trolls cost Twitter $3.5bn and its sale? Twitter might have finally found some motivation to deal with its troll problem. Three and a half billion motivations, really. The company has spent the past few months courting potential buyouts from companies including Google, Disney, and enterprise software firm Salesforce. That last suitor came closest of them all to actually making an offer, apparently driven by the potential of Twitter to provide an in-house social network that could be mined for data, used as a casual communication channel between customers and corporations, and tweaked into a passable professional networking service. But in the end, it passed. And part of the reason, according to CNBC’s Jim Cramer, is the company’s long-running problem dealing with trolls. “What’s happened is, a lot of the bidders are looking at people with lots of followers and seeing the hatred,” Cramer said. “Twitter says ‘listen, we have a filter’. I mean, the filter filters out a very small amount of the haters, and I know that the haters reduce the value of the company.” And Salesforce isn’t the only one. A Bloomberg report suggests that Disney, which went so far in its exploration as to hire JP Morgan Chase to help evaluate the bid, was equally concerned. “Walt Disney Co. decided not to pursue a bid for Twitter Inc. partly out of concern that bullying and other uncivil forms of communication on the social media site might soil the company’s wholesome family image, according to people familiar with management’s thinking,” the news service reports. Twitter has long struggled to prevent abusive users from overwhelming discussion on the social network. In 2015, its then chief executive Dick Costolo famously told staff that the company “sucks at dealing with abuse and trolls”, after a article by the columnist Lindy West about her experience. But user perception is still that abuse is a low priority for Twitter, with new efforts at tackling misuse of the platform few and far between compared with features such as Moments, which allows users to curate shareable content, or expanded message lengths, allowing them to add more images to any given tweet. Now, Twitter has one final motivation to take the problem seriously. The company’s market cap is down $3.5bn from its peak at the height of the buyout rumours, and if what Cramer says is true, some portion of that multibillion collapse is directly caused by the perception that Costolo complained about over a year ago. Will Twitter take action to protect its value, even if it hasn’t to protect its users?
The election isn't just a vote. America's very soul is in the balance Barack Obama didn’t need to give a speech on the Orlando shooting Tuesday, having already addressed it in solemn voice the day before. But following a meeting with his national security team on the state of our country’s fight against Islamic State, he found he had something important to say. He was haunted by an ugliness – not overseas, but right here in America – that’s beginning to rear its head once again. It’s a darkness embodied not just in the horrific attack in Orlando on Sunday, which left 50 dead and 53 wounded, but more by how we as a society respond, and even who we become in its aftermath. The day after the attack, Donald Trump spoke, not to console us as a country, but to stoke fears and fuel unfounded hatreds. He sought to further terrify the American electorate by casting the act not as aberrant and extreme and the consequence of how readily available weapons of war are to all, but as the logical conclusion of our country’s immigration policy. He called, yet again, for a ban on all Muslim immigration, despite the fact that the shooter was born in the United States, and despite the fact that his motives remain unclear. “We cannot continue to allow thousands upon thousands of people to pour into our country, many of whom have the same thought process as this savage killer,” Trump said of any Muslim who would come to America. It was a frightening portrait of what America could become under a Trump presidency. “That’s not the America we want – it doesn’t reflect our Democratic ideals,” the president said Tuesday of Trump’s anti-Muslim stance. We are at a crossroads in this election, and the choices before us have perhaps never been more stark than they are today. Obama is right to be worried: it’s not just our safety that’s in question, but our country’s heart and soul. After all, we’ve seen this before from America. We saw it in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, when Muslims around the country were unfairly victimized and scapegoated for years. And we remembered it when authors like Alia Malek chronicled the stories of how Arab Americans were wronged. She did it so we would remember what not to do, and who not to be, and what doesn’t help us as a nation recovering from loss. But we are seeing it all over again anyway. And with Trump we’ve seen it not just with regard to Muslim Americans, but also in his treatment of women, when he calls us “fat pigs” and “animals” and treats us as less than human. We’ve seen it in the violence of his rallies and his failure to distance himself from overtures from former KKK leaders. And we’ve seen it perhaps most poignantly in the wake of the San Bernardino attack, when he first called for the introduction of a temporary ban on all Muslim immigration. He seemed to back off that ban when it went over poorly with the GOP establishment, just as he’s sought to have it both ways with regard to his misogynistic statements and embrace of campaign rally violence. But on Monday, the veil fell away. His moment of political opportunity had come, and Trump milked it for all the fear he could squeeze out. He called the terror attack a “strike at the soul of who we are as a nation”. That’s surely true. But as Obama noted, it’s Trump and what he stands for that’s threatening to rot us from the inside out. “This is a country founded on basic freedoms, including freedom of religion,” Obama said. “And if we ever abandon those values, we would not only make it a lot easier to radicalize people here and around the world, but we have betrayed the very things we are trying to protect, and then the terrorists would have won. We cannot let that happen. I will not let that happen.” But his time at the helm is winding down, and the question of who we will become as a nation after his presidency has never been more pronounced. Will we go down Trump’s path of bigotry and darkness? Or will we embrace Muslim Americans as the allies they are, mourn our dead and mobilize – not out of fear of what happened, but out of love and strength and determination to keep this great country a beacon? Will we manage to keep our soul?
The Assassin review – martial arts to die for Among this year’s most galling Oscar oversights is the absence of Hou Hsiao-hsien’s The Assassin from the foreign language film nominations. Hou’s first feature since 2007’s Flight of the Red Balloon (a couple of compendium contributions notwithstanding), The Assassin was several years in the making, and finds the acclaimed director of Dust in the Wind, A City of Sadness and The Puppetmaster taking a groundbreaking foray into ancient history. Yet despite garnering rave reviews at the 2015 Cannes film festival where Hou was named best director, Taiwan’s official submission for the 88th Oscars didn’t even make the nine-title shortlist from which the nominated films were chosen. If you needed proof that awards ceremonies in general – and the Academy Awards in particular – are nonsense, then look no further. Loosely based on a Tang dynasty tale of a young woman raised as a killer (to which Hou and his writers have added both historical detail and imaginative backstory), The Assassin centres on Nie Yinniang (Shu Qi), taken from her home and raised by her aunt, the Princess-nun Jiaxin (Sheu Fang-yi), who teaches her to cut down quarry like “a bird in flight”. In a black-and-white prologue (reportedly shot on a wind-up Bolex 16mm camera) we watch the hawk-eyed Yinniang swoop, a black-clad wraith who kills in silence before vanishing into the trees like the wind that rustles the leaves. But when Yinniang’s lethal edge is blunted by pangs of conscience, which prevent her from slaying a governor cradling his young child, her tutor is displeased. “You have mastered the sword but your heart lacks resolve,” Jiaxin declares before setting her a mettle-testing challenge – to kill her own cousin, Tian Ji’an (Chang Chen), the governor of Weibo, to whom she was once betrothed. What follows is a visually sumptuous tale of love and honour, politics and social ritual, interwoven with a talismanic narrative about a caged bluebird singing itself to death when presented with its own mirror image (doublings, twins and doppelgangers haunt the story, sometimes to the confusion of unversed audiences, to whom Hou makes few concessions). On one level, the film represents Hou’s first foray into the wuxia genre, replete with the traditional “martial chivalry” tropes of balletic fight scenes, flying wire-work, and a touch of dark magic. Yet such fantastical elements are balanced by a more down-to-earth realism that attempts to get behind the costumes and conventions. In fact, comparatively little of The Assassin’s compact running time is taken up with action footage (this is a world away from, for example, Zhang Yimou’s House of Flying D aggers) and the few fights we see are characterised as much by an eerie stillness as by fleet-footed choreography. Instead, Hou focuses on the watchful Yinniang as she surveys her prey. Like its protagonist, the film’s signature style is observational – lengthy wide shots allowing us to watch characters within their environment, camera movements slow and unobtrusively elegant. Time and again the camera finds its subject by gazing through a foreground of gentle mists, dense woods or candle flames. In one bravura sequence (which recalls images from Hou’s 1998 film Flowers of Shanghai), an entire scene plays out as diaphanous gauzes billow and blow before the eye of the lens, a shimmering haze of fabric and half-light. The result is magical and utterly mesmerising. Hou has spoken of scouting locations in Inner Mongolia and Hubei province, and finding “silver birch forests and lakes” which were like stepping into “a Chinese classical painting”, with “water and mountains evoked in a single brush stroke”. To my parochially British eye, the colours reminded me of Turner: green-brown moss on a thatched roof; the light-blue tinge of sun through a window; the rich burnt ochre of a smoky wood fire. Significant, too, that the film’s bordered frame, which appears to inhale and exhale as the movie shifts moods, eschews widescreen vistas for more painterly portraits, emphasising the relationship between mountains and plains, land and water, man and his environment. As for the sparse soundtrack, it’s a blend of birdsong and animal noise, diegetic drums and zither, with composer Lim Giong subtly blurring the lines between sound effects and score. “The way of the sword is pitiless,” Jiaxin tells her charge, but Yinniang has such sad music in her soul that her empathy cannot be obliterated or overcome. Like its subject, Hou’s breathtaking film is a beautiful mystery, matchlessly skilful, yet still hostage to human sentiments – and all the better for it.
Number of EU migrants working in UK to be revealed weeks before referendum The number of EU migrants working in the UK will finally be revealed just weeks before the referendum on Britain’s EU membership – in a move that could prove immigration has been seriously underestimated by official statistics. HM Revenue and Customs will provide figures on how many national insurance numbers are actively being used by people from the European Economic Area after MPs mounted a battle to gain access to the statistics. Earlier this year, the prime minister also agreed to push for the release after David Davis, a senior Tory MP, said he believed the number of NI numbers issued to EU migrants has been hundreds of thousands higher than the official immigration figures. “That implies that the official immigration figures may be a dramatic underestimate,” Davis told David Cameron in the House of Commons. “We can know the truth of the matter only if Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs releases its data on active EU national insurance numbers, but HMRC has refused to do so. Will the prime minister instruct HMRC to release those statistics immediately so that we can understand the truth about European Union immigration?” If Davis’s conclusions are confirmed, Brexit campaigners are likely to seize on the figures as evidence that EU immigration has been deliberately understated in government statistics. Official immigration data shows that about 800,000 EU migrants have settled in the UK in the last four years, a figure based on surveys of people entering Britain. However, about 2 million EU migrants have been given NI numbers over that time. The data requested from HMRC would show how many are actively being used. The figures are scheduled to be handed to the Commons Treasury select committee by the end of this month, after it requested the data last year. Downing Street confirmed on Sunday night that the figures would be released, while sources stressed they had not been published yet only because the work had not yet been done. A No 10 spokesman said: “The prime minister told the Commons last month that he would continue to ensure HMRC provide greater information on national insurance numbers. HMRC wrote to the Treasury select committee last week to confirm it will be working to provide the Office for National Statistics with additional data.” Lin Homer, the head of HMRC, confirmed the figures would be provided in a letter to the Treasury committee, saying it had been delayed because of the time needed to combine several datasets. “We are working closely with ONS and will be providing our data and analysis to them once it has been compiled, to allow them to combine it with their own data, analysis and quality assurance work and thereby produce a fuller picture. Our analysis will then be published either as part of the ONS’ publication or alongside it.” Andrew Tyrie, the chair of the Treasury committee, said he had received a firm commitment from HMRC in the letter and expected it to be published within weeks. “This has been obtained as a result of a good deal of persistence,” he said. “Since receiving it, I have pressed further, receiving an assurance that it should be possible to supply the information to the committee before the end of this month. Late, but a good deal better than never. I recognise that HMRC may have encountered some difficulties. So I am glad that they have found a way of resolving them.” The data was originally requested by Jonathan Portes, a former chief economist at the Cabinet Office, who now works for the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR). In a blogpost at the time, he said he expected it would show immigration has been underestimated in official statistics but he could not be sure without the actual figures. “My current expectation is that it would reveal there are actually considerably more such recent migrants than the official immigration or labour market statistics actually suggest. But I don’t know that and I’m quite willing to be proved wrong,” he wrote. Portes also suggested that refusing to release the information could feed “paranoia and mistrust in official statistics” such as myths about the country being “awash with millions of uncounted illegal immigrants”.
If elected, Donald Trump poses the greatest threat to all our futures Oliver Burkeman (The shadow he casts, 5 November) reveals the American Psychiatric Association (APA) has a self-imposed Goldwater rule, set up after 1,100 psychiatrists told a news magazine that they believed the Republican candidate in the 1964 presidential election, Barry Goldwater (who had advocated the use of atomic bombs in North Vietnam), was unfit for office. Goldwater went on to lose by 39% to 61%. How unfortunate that the APA prohibition – not to diagnose from a distance – has prevented what would surely be a far stronger assertion of unfitness for purpose in respect of Trump, who has repeatedly asked why the US does not deploy nuclear weapons. Attention has been drawn to the similarities in mannerism and message between Trump and another authoritarian and belligerent narcissist, Benito Mussolini (Down with Donald, Guide, 5 November). There seems little room for doubt as to how Trump, with his dysfunctional personality, would have reacted to the 1962 Cuban missile crisis and subsequent foreign policy flashpoints. If elected, he is arguably the greatest threat to all our futures that we have seen. Graham Stevens Crowborough, East Sussex • For readers of Philip Roth’s novel The Plot Against America, Donald Trump’s campaign for the White House may sound rather familiar. Published in September 2004, Roth’s novel centres on an alternative history in which aviation hero Charles Lindbergh is nominated as the Republican party’s candidate for president in 1940 and goes on to defeat Franklin D Roosevelt on the back of a strong tide of popular support. Lindbergh’s first act is to sign a treaty with Nazi Germany and Adolf Hitler, promising that the US will not interfere with German expansion in Europe. With Lindbergh as president, Jewish families increasingly feel like outsiders in American society. If you swap Russia for Germany, Putin for Hitler and Muslims for Jews, then Roth’s novel seems frighteningly prophetic. Scrape away at the surface of American society and there is something very nasty lurking underneath. Richard Fisher Saffron Walden, Essex  • You say police fended off Trump supporters who attacked a peaceable protester (Report, 7 November), but not whether they arrested the aggressors who had piled on him, kicking, punching, holding him on the ground and grabbing his testicles while he was choked by one man who had him in a headlock. Those familiar with fascism in Europe will recognise the technique. Adrian Betham London • I cannot help thinking a lot this past year of the pioneering American journalist Dorothy Thompson (expelled from Nazi Germany in 1934) who lamented that “No people ever recognise their dictator in advance … When our dictator turns up you can depend on it that he will be one of the boys, and he will stand for everything traditionally American. And nobody will ever say Heil to him, nor will they call him Führer or Duce. But they will greet him with one great big, universal, democratic, sheeplike bleat of “OK, Chief! Fix it like you wanna, Chief! Oh Kaaaay!” She didn’t say “Make America Great Again”, but you get the point. Emma Jones Oxfordshire • Jonathan Freedland (Opinion, 5 November) may be unduly optimistic to suggest that a victory for Clinton will end the nightmare of Trump. It may be only the beginning. Trump has indicated that he will not accept the result if it goes against him. It is not beyond possibility that with his “crooked Hillary” mantra, Trump will accuse the “liberal elite” of fixing the result and lead an armed insurrection. After all, the extreme right in the US is nothing if not numerous, paranoid and well-armed. Certainly such a prospect is a deep concern of many American liberals. Roy Boffy Sutton Coldfield • Jonathan Freedland fears that a Trump victory would endarken us all. Let’s hope instead that on Tuesday Americans remember the motto of Jebediah Springfield – “A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man” (although I imagine it is the women we will need to rely on). Jem Whiteley Oxford • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
I’m a survivor of female genital cutting and I’m speaking out – as others must too I was sitting in an anthropology seminar at the University of Texas cramming for a final, only half-listening to a fellow classmate describe her research project. “Female genital mutilation is the partial or total cutting of the external female genitalia for non-medical reasons,” she mechanically described. “The procedure typically take places when the girl is seven years old. The process is usually carried out by an older female relative. And once the ritual takes place, it is almost never discussed.” As she spoke, goosebumps began to form and I sat paralysed in my seat. Memories I had suppressed since childhood came flooding to the foreground. I was seven years old. My parents had sent my brother and me to visit family in India for two months. On a humid mid-summer afternoon, my dad’s sister decided to throw a party for my brother, celebrating his completion of the Qur’an. At the party, she pulled me aside, wielding a jumbo-sized Toblerone. She said that if I stayed on my best behaviour, I wouldn’t have to share it with anyone, including my brother. I was overjoyed. My aunt was a doctor. So when she led me downstairs to her clinic and instructed me to lie flat on my back on her operating table, I didn’t think to question her authority. With no anaesthetic and very little warning, she performed the ritualised cut. After it was over, we headed back to the party in silence. I remember sitting in a corner by myself, unable to open the chocolate bar bribe and feeling sick to my stomach. I blocked out the memory, until the day when I discovered that what happened to me had an acronym that could be found in the glossary of a medical anthropology textbook. When I confronted my parents, they were stunned. My aunt had carried out the ritual without their consent. My father felt a unique betrayal. This was the same little sister he encouraged to pursue medicine in the first place. He had no idea that female genital mutilation or cutting (FGM/C) was even practised within the Dawoodi Bohra community, a Shia subsect from India’s coastal state of Gujarat. As I learned more about the practice, I discovered that more often than not, men are oblivious and may not even know it is happening - or has happened - to their daughters, sisters and mothers. I learned that FGM/C dates back thousands of years, predating Islam and Christianity. It is a cultural practice that is neither rooted in religion nor bound by geography nor restricted to a socioeconomic class. Like other forms of gender-based violence, FGM/C is a manifestation of power and means of controlling the sexuality of women and girls. In recent years, many countries have passed laws to criminalise the practice of FGM/C. Yet, it is an extraordinarily difficult crime to prosecute. Laws alone are not enough. For there to be a sustainable end to this practice, there has to be a radical culture change from the ground up, that promotes zero tolerance to any and all forms of excision. As I have engaged with friends and family members who support the ritual, some will argue that it is not technically mutilation. They even go as far as asserting that “mutilation is what is done in Africa”, as though our community practises a more civilised, humane version. According to the World Health Organisation, all versions of FGM/C cause harm, both physical and psychological, which renders the “good FGC v bad FGM” debate meaningless. One of the greatest challenges in raising awareness on FGM/C is that many survivors are shamed into silence. If they voice dissent, their communities might socially ostracise them. Within the last few years I have noticed a shift. More and more FGM/C survivors are courageously speaking out. Male relatives who may have never even been aware of the practice are also taking a stand. From a recent Change.org campaign launched by over a dozen Dawoodi Bohra survivors in India, to Safe Hands for Girls “a youth-powered movement in Gambia”, communities are movement-building and speaking out against FGM/C in greater numbers. I encourage you to break the culture of silence around FGM/C by sharing this video containing testimonials of fellow survivors and advocates, and joining the global conversation to #endFGM.
The detective inspector leading the charge against cybercrime It’s hard not to imagine the A-Team theme tune playing when Detective Inspector Vanessa Smith explains how she assembled her crack unit of cybercrime-busting experts. She is West Yorkshire police cybercrime lead and when the job was created in 2015 she set out to round up top techies from across academia, specialist government departments and private industry. It’s hard to imagine a more cutting edge or hotly debated role in British policing. Home secretary Theresa May has just launched the controversial investigatory powers bill, which could give police more power to look at our web history and mobile phones. Computer-aided crime is one of the greatest challenges to 21st century policing and Smith knows the stakes are high. They couldn’t, actually, be higher. “Cybercrime is recognised as a tier one threat in the UK, on a par with terrorism,” she says. Too few women leaders in tech Smith’s cyber-unit has seven men and two women, which is better than The A-Team but still reflects both a male-dominated police service and technology sector. When Smith joined the police in the 1990s there were three women and around 40 men in her intake, and she sees that same gender imbalance in technology today. “When I go to cyber seminars the vast majority of people who attend are men,” she says. “My experience is there are too few women leaders in technology so in a way West Yorkshire police is leading on that.” This is not her first pioneering leadership role. She became one of the first detectives – and only woman – on the homicide and major enquiry team and later served as a detective inspector in intelligence, then child protection and safeguarding where her responsibilities included managing sex offenders. As a safeguarding chief she represented the UK at The Hague in European discussions about how to tackle human trafficking. She contributed to the influential report In The Dock by the Anti-Trafficking Monitoring Group and now uses her knowhow to tackle the cyber element of the problem. Smith left school at 18, working in a building society for eight years while also serving as a special constable. Her sole ambition was to be a West Yorkshire police officer. In 1994 she landed the job and was still a probationer when she started winning bravery awards. A woman had barricaded herself into a house asking for a female officer. “I went into the bedroom and she jumped on me from the top of a wardrobe,” Smith recalls. “I wrestled a large kitchen knife from her. She was mentally ill so we got her the support she needed.” A few months later her bravery was commended again, this time for climbing on to a snowy hospital roof near midnight and coaxing down a suicidal woman. Smith rose through the ranks doing the physical, frontline jobs. These included being on the drugs team, hurling herself on to suspects before they could swallow the evidence or smashing the car window with a glass hammer to stop the driver and secure the vehicle. ‘You don’t have to be Stephen Hawking’ Smith hates how the word cyber provokes blank looks or panic. The feeling that it’s just too complicated, that criminals reaching through our computers, phones and tablets to steal our money or identities or abuse and exploit us are too clever to foil. “Cyber is portrayed as something you have to be Stephen Hawking to understand,” she says. For her it’s very simple. It’s people using new technology to commit age-old crimes, from intimidation and kidnap to theft and child abuse. “The computer is just the new crowbar,” she says. “Criminals have evolved their methods, so police have to evolve how they catch them.” West Yorkshire police are at the forefront of tackling cybercrime in the UK with advanced skills, state of the art equipment and techniques but for Smith it’s simply about knowing where to look. “I don’t need to know how to take a computer apart I just need to know how to use it to protect vulnerable people and catch criminals,” she says. “If I went to a house and found blood and broken glass I’d know to get fingerprints and DNA. Now I need to know how to find the digital evidence too.” Digital detective Smith uses an online attack map to make her point on YouTube and kicks off presentations with an attention-grabbing look at the computer-aided crime wave happening in real time. “It looks like electronic battleships but unfortunately it shows live cyber-attacks,” she explains. “Straight away people who don’t think cyber is relevant to them can visualise what’s happening. It makes people sit up and think.” Once people are thinking 90% of cybercrime can be prevented. Usually with a few common sense measures including scepticism, security settings and strong passwords. Parents in particular need to stop feeling helpless. “Some [parents] are overwhelmed and just give up. These people give their child an iPad at nine years old but that ignorance means they can’t supervise them.” Smith is leading a raft of campaigns in 2016, including one in April targeting rogue traders who now sell dodgy goods through websites rather than their car boots. She set up the first cyber independent advisory group in the country where universities, banks, businesses, charities and victims’ organisations identify threats and how to respond to them. She’s also behind an anonymous child cyber-survey of 2,500 11- to 17-year-olds to find out what they really do online. It takes a while to winkle out the details of all the awards Smith has received across her career. Eventually she runs through almost a dozen commendations that speak volumes about a career spent getting complicated cases to court, staging huge drug busts, putting herself in danger to help vulnerable people and dogged investigations into difficult and serious crimes that resulted in convictions. “If it’s complex or difficult I’m up for the challenge. I don’t accept ‘no’ very easily. I am never overwhelmed because I am a do-er.” Talk to us on Twitter via @GdnWomenLeaders and sign up to become a member of the Women in Leadership network and receive our newsletter.
The NHS saved me from anorexia when I had no one to look after me My problems with anorexia began not long before my mother was diagnosed with cancer. When she became unwell, my issues with food just got worse. In 2010, while she was ill, I was admitted to the child and adolescent mental health services (Camhs) outpatient unit at the Royal Free hospital in north London. In March of that year, during my treatment, my mother died. In April, as a result of being estranged from my father, I was taken into foster care. At the end of 2010, at the age of 14, I was discharged from Camhs. But, sadly, my difficulties with eating didn’t end there. Two years later, I was admitted to the eating disorders unit at the Royal Free, where I stayed for six months, followed by a further seven months at the Ellern Mede Ridgeway clinic, which provides specialist treatment for children and adolescents with eating disorders. Early into my stay at the Royal Free, my foster placement broke down. For six weeks, until my new foster mum, Nina, and her son, Isaac, entered my life, I had no parental figure to look after me. During those six weeks, the love and care of the nurses and support workers helped save my life. Although I don’t remember the dosage of medication that gave me such severe side-effects I couldn’t go to the Paralympics, I do remember the nurse who had offered to take me there with her spare ticket. I remember the nurses stepping in to offer to do my laundry because I had no family to do it for me. I remember how they made sure to facilitate my brother Andrei’s visits. We had been living apart, ever since I went into care. Those visits meant we’ve kept a strong relationship to this day. I recall how the receptionist at the outpatient unit, who had remembered me from my time there a couple of years earlier, would come upstairs to the ward to see me. Then there were the support workers who would sit by my bed and read magazines when I had no one to visit me. One nurse at Ellern Mede came into work on her day off to take me on a day out. And when it came to meeting my new foster mum for the first time, they made sure I was there with my chosen member of staff. I am still struggling with mental health problems, but I have recovered from my anorexia. My “lightbulb” moment came on my first holiday with my new foster family, at a Buddhist retreat in France. I was sitting on a bench with my foster mum and started eating independently. From there, my recovery really started. I was eventually discharged from Ellern Mede in August 2013. Many important factors played a part in my recovery from anorexia, such as my friends, my social worker, my brother and my foster family. But without the NHS I probably wouldn’t be here. It is such a vital service. I worry when I think about all the cuts and the already extremely stretched mental health services and wonder what would have happened if it had all happened now. Would I even have been admitted? Or would the budget cuts mean I would have slipped through the cracks and been even sicker before I qualified for help? The NHS saves lives daily; we need to save it to save ourselves, our families, our friends, our neighbours and the most vulnerable in society. I am forever in debt to the employees of the NHS who not only saved my life physically but made me feel like I was worth something when I was adamant that I was not. Thank you.
Fancy buying Prince's wedding china? Start bidding at $50,000 Prince is famed for seeking both privacy and complete control over his output, so he’s not likely to be pleased about an online auction scheduled for 17 March. Nate D Sanders Auctions in Los Angeles is putting up 95 lots of Prince-related items – including unreleased music and personal possessions – from the collections of Prince’s first wife, Mayte Garcia, former manager Owen Husney and guitarist Dez Dickerson. For musical obsessives, there are two fascinating items. The first is a three-track demo tape recorded in winter 1976 and spring 1977, featuring Just As Long As We’re Together, My Love Is Forever and Jelly Jam – accompanied by a press pack, one of only 15 made. The starting price for that is $6,500. The second is a tape, from 1978, of six early songs, three unreleased and three that would later be recorded for official release, including an early version of Sometimes It Snows in April. You’ll need a minimum of $20,000 (£13,900) to bid for that. “Prince originally gave me the cassette in late 1978 because he wanted me to listen to a record he had recorded on side A, [with] a female-fronted funk band whose name I don’t remember now,” Dickerson said. “Some time during the next year or so, I used the A side to record some scratch bass and guitar parts for a rock/power pop demo, recording over the original content. You can still hear a snippet of the funk record at the end of the side. On side B, Prince had his work versions of six songs, which I had left intact for unknown reasons. Obviously, we now know it preserved a piece of musical history.” For those of a more prurient nature, the diamond engagement ring and handwritten marriage proposal Prince gave to Garcia are for sale with an opening bid of $100,000. The proposal takes the form of five handwritten notes on five pink, heart-shaped notes,“which Prince used to lead [Garcia] on a romantic journey to the ring”. Also for sale is an array of the musician’s clothing – more suitable for the small-figured man – jewellery, accessories (including a pair of handcuffs used during stage performances of The Most Beautiful Girl in the World), and 36 lots of tableware from Prince and Garcia’s wedding. If you’re scrabbling around to come up with cash for your Prince memorabilia collection, the cheapest of those items are the five saucers featuring a keyboard design; bidding starts at $1,000 each. If you are a little more flush, the opening bid on a 50-piece set of wedding china is $50,000.
Southampton v Liverpool, Crystal Palace v Man City and more – as it happened La Liga: A Leo Messi-less Barcelona have been held scoreless by Malaga at Camp Nou. Malaga finished the game with nine men! Earlier today Deportivo lost 3-2 at home to Sevilla. Kilmarnock 0-1 Celtic (result from Friday), Inverness 1-3 Aberdeen, Motherwell 2-0 Partick Thistle, Rangers 1-0 Dundee, St Johnstone 2-4 Ross County Accrington Stanley 0-1 Stevenage, Barnet 0-0 Crewe, Cambridge United 1-2 Wycombe Wanderers, Carlisle United 3-2 Exeter City, Cheltenham Town 1-1 Portsmouth, Leyton Orient 1-2 Blackpool, Mansfield Town 3-1 Crawley Town, Morecambe 0-2 Luton Town, Notts County 0-3 Newport County, Yeovil Town 2-1 Colchester United, Doncaster Rovers 2-1 Hartlepool United, Plymouth Argyle 0-3 Grimsby Town AFC Wimbledon 5-1 Bury, Bolton Wanderers 2-0 Millwall, Fleetwood Town 2-1 Chesterfield, Northampton Town 0-1 Peterborough United, Scunthorpe United 1-0 Oldham Athletic, Sheffield United 2-1 Shrewsbury Town, Walsall 1-2 Gillingham, Bristol Rovers 0-0 MK Dons, Charlton Athletic 2-0 Port Vale, Oxford United 4-1 Coventry City, Rochdale 4-0 Swindon Town, Southend United 3-0 Bradford City Premier League: Sunderland move off the bottom of the table after rare back-to-back wins. Jermain Defoe opened the scoring and Victor Anichebe bagged two in a match briefly interrupted by floodlight failure. Brighton 1-1 Aston Villa (result from Friday). Barnsley 0-0 Wigan (latest score), Birmingham City 1-0 Bristol City, Blackburn Rovers 3-2 Brentford, Cardiff City 3-2 Huddersfield Town, Derby County 3-0 Rotherham United, Fulham 1-1 Sheffield Wednesday, Preston North End 0-0 Wolverhampton Wanderers, QPR 2-1 Norwich City, Reading 3-0 Burton Albion. Ipswich Town v Nottingham Forest is a late kick-off. Premier League: Two bookings for Sunderland defender Papy Djilobodji have taken the gloss of Sunderland’s performance. They’re in added time up north after the second half was interrupted by floodlight failure. Premier League: Yaya Toure made a surprise return to Manchester City’s line-up and scored both goals either side of Connor Wickham’s effort for Palace. Premier League: Watford scored two quick goals and Riyad Mahrez’s consolation for the spot was no good to the struggling champions. Premier League: Dreadlocked Chelsea loanee Nathan Ake popped up with his first Premier League goal to win it for Bournemouth. Premier League: Gylfi Sigurdsson put Swansea ahead from the spot, but Seamus Coleman popped up with a late equaliser. Premier League: Liverpool missed several great chances to take the points, but rare profligacy in front of goal has cost them. Premier League: Jermain Defoe tees up Victor Anichebe to score his second of the game and give Sunderland a three-goal cushion at the Stadium of Light. There’s probably 10 minutes to play there after a floodlight failure early in the second half, but Sunderland look good for all three points. Premier League: Bob Bradley may have to wait another week for his first win as Swansea City manager, now that Everton have equalised at Goodison Park. Rampaging Irishman Seamus Coleman has popped up from right-back to put the sides level. Premier League: Sunderland hack two off the line after another good save from goalkeeper Jordan Pickford to maintain their two-goal advantage. Championship: Birmingham City have gone one up against Bristol City, while ten-man Norwich City have pulled a goal back against QPR through Steven Naismith. Premier League: It’s a fairytale return from the cold for Yaya Toure, who has just scored his second of the afternoon to give Manchester City the lead against Palace again. Kevin De Bruyne sent in a corner, which the Ivorian fired home. Scottish Premiership latest: Kilmarnock 0-1 Celtic (result from Friday), Inverness 1-2 Aberdeen, Motherwell 2-0 Partick Thistle, Rangers 0-0 Dundee, St Johnstone 1-3 Ross County Championship latest: Brighton 1-1 Aston Villa (result from Friday). Barnsley 0-0 Wigan, Birmingham City 0-0 Bristol City, Blackburn Rovers 3-2 Brentford, Cardiff City 3-2 Huddersfield Town, Derby County 3-0 Rotherham United, Fulham 0-1 Sheffield Wednesday, Preston North End 0-0 Wolverhampton Wanderers, QPR 2-0 Norwich City, Reading 2-0 Burton Albion. Ipswich Town v Nottingham Forest is a late kick-off. Premier League: Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Gooooal! Anichebe! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Anichebe! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Roland Gift! Alfred Gelder! Everything But The Girl! Sir Tom Courtenay! Can you hear me Everything But The Girl? Your boys are taking one hell of a beating. Premier League: Crystal Palace striker Connor Wickham scores his second goal in as many games to level terms for the home side at Selhurst Park. City goalkeeper Claudio Bravo got a hand to his rasping left-footed drive but was unable to keep the ball out. Premier League: Liverpool have missed three great chances against Southampton in a match you’d have staked your house on producing goals today. Roberto Firmino is the latest player to stand with his head in his hands after poking wide when scoring looked easier. Premier League: The action has resumed in Sunderland, where the home side lead Hull City by the only goal of the game so far. In the Championship, play has also resumed between Barnsley and Wigan, following their floodlight issues. League Two latest: Accrington Stanley 0-0 Stevenage, Barnet 0-0 Crewe, Cambridge United 0-1 Wycombe Wanderers, Carlisle United 1-2 Exeter City, Cheltenham Town 0-0 Portsmouth, Leyton Orient 0-1 Blackpool, Mansfield Town 2-0 Crawley Town, Morecambe 0-1 Luton Town, Notts County 0-2 Newport County, Yeovil Town 0-1 Colchester United, Doncaster Rovers 1-1 Hartlepool United, Plymouth Argyle 0-1 Grimsby Town League One latest: AFC Wimbledon 4-1 Bury, Bolton Wanderers 1-0 Millwall, Fleetwood Town 1-0 Chesterfield, Northampton Town 0-0 Peterborough United, Scunthorpe United 0-0 Oldham Athletic, Sheffield United 2-0 Shrewsbury Town, Walsall 1-1 Gillingham, Bristol Rovers 0-0 MK Dons, Charlton Athletic 2-0 Port Vale, Oxford United 3-0 Coventry City, Rochdale 1-0 Swindon Town, Southend United 1-0 Bradford City Premier League: The floodlights are coming back on at the Staqdium of Light, but in the Championship Oakwell is suffering similar problems. Kick-off for the second half between Barnsley and Wigan has been delayed after a bulb in one set of floodlights appeared to blow up. Premier League: In inappropriately named stadium news, there’s been a floodlight failure at the Stadium of Light, where Sunderland fans are attempting to illuminate the pitch with lights from their mobile phones. It’s not gone completely dark, but referee Lee Mason looks ready to take the players off the pitch. Play is expected to resume in 10 minutes or so, once somebody puts 50p in the meter. Sunderland lead Hull City 1-0. Premier League: Bojan won a penalty for Stoke City at the Britannia Stadium, picked himself off the ground to take it and struck the cross-bar with his left-footed effort. It remains Stoke City 0-1 Bournemouth. La Liga: Sevilla beat hosts Deportivo La Coruna 3-2 earlier today, while Barcelona are currently being held scoreless by Malaga at half-time. Kilmarnock 0-1 Celtic (result from Friday), Inverness 1-2 Aberdeen, Motherwell 2-0 Partick Thistle, Rangers 0-0 Dundee, st Johnstone 2-0 Ross County AFC Wimbledon 4-1 Bury, Bolton Wanderers 1-0 Millwall, Fleetwood Town 1-0 Chesterfield, Northampton Town 0-0 Peterborough United, Scunthorpe United 0-0 Oldham Athletic, Sheffield United 2-0 Shrewsbury Town, Walsall 1-1 Gillingham, Bristol Rovers 0-0 MK Dons, Charlton Athletic 2-0 Port Vale, Oxford United 3-0 Coventry City, Rochdale 1-0 Swindon Town, Southend United 1-0 Bradford City Brighton 1-1 Aston Villa (result from Friday). Barnsley 0-0 Wigan, Birmingham City 0-0 Bristol City, Blackburn Rovers 3-2 Brentford, Cardiff City 3-1 Huddersfield Town, Derby County 2-0 Rotherham United, Fulham 0-1 Sheffield Wednesday, Preston North End 0-0 Wolverhampton Wanderers, QPR 2-0 Norwich City, Reading 2-0 Burton Albion. Ipswich Town v Nottingham Forest is a late kick-off. Premier League: Amid all the excitement over Sunderland’s opener, I failed to notice that Yaya Toure has scored on his return from Manchester City exile to put his team a goal up against Crystal Palace. Championship: Brentford’s Harlee Dean scores into his own net to restore Blackburn’s lead in what seems a real ding-dong at Ewood Park. It’s Blackburn 3-2 Brentford. Premier League: Gylfi Sigurdsson scores past Maarten Stekelenburg to give Swansea the lead from 12 yards. Premier League: Attacking on the break, Swansea have earned a spot-kick against Everton after some good work by Gylfi Sigurdsson. Brentford have equalised against Blackburn to make it 2-2 at Ewood Park, while Cardiff City now lead Huddersfield 3-1, with Rickie Lambert extending the home side’s lead. Premier League: Having been allowed to play on with an obvious head injury, Vincent Kompany signals to Manchester City’s physio that he’s suffering from double vision and is taken off. When are football clubs going to start this kind of injury seriously? Premier League! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Jermain Defoe drills a left-footed shot past Hull City goalkeeper David Marshall to give his side the lead in this crucial game between two of the Premier League’s bottom-feeders. Championship: Blackburn have come from behind to lead Brentford 2-1, while Reading have gone two up against Burton Albion. Championship: Sebastian Polter extends QPR’s lead after 27 minutes against Norwich City, who have been down to 10 minute since the opening minutes of their game. It’s a dream start for new QPR manager Ian HOlloway, even if his side have missed a penalty. Premier League: Making his comeback from the latest in a long line of injuries, Vincent Kompany goes down in a crumpled heap after a collision with his own goalkeeper Claudio Bravo. After a spell of treatment, he’s passed fit to continue despite getting a bang on the head. Premier League: Nathan Ake has put the Cherries ahead against Stoke at the Britannia Stadium. Championship: Conor Washington has put QPR a goal up against 10-man Norwich City, while Reading have opened the scoring against Burton Albion. Latest scores: AFC Wimbledon 0-0 Bury, Bolton Wanderers 1-0 Millwall, Bristol Rovers 0-0 MK Dons, Charlton Athletic 0-0 Port Vale, Fleetwood Town 0-0 Chesterfield, Northampton Town 0-0 Peterborough United, Oxford United 1-0 Coventry City, Rochdale 0-0 Swindon Town, Scunthorpe United 0-0 Oldham Athletic, Sheffield United 2-0 Shrewsbury Town, Southend United 1-0 Bradford City, Walsall 1-1 Gillingham. Blackburn have equalised against Brentford courtesy of Danny Graham, while Cardiff City have opened a two-goal lead against Huddersfield Town at the Cardiff City Stadium. Sean Morrison and Junior HOilett with the goals there. Elsewhere, Derby have rat-a-tatted two goals past Rotherham, with Tom Ince opening the scoring before Darren Bent got his name on the scoresheet. Premier League: Riyad Mahrez smashes a penalty down the middle to pull a goal back for Leicester in what’s shaping up to be a thriller at Vicarage Road. Jamie Vardy was fouled in the area to earn a spot-kick for Leicester. Meanwhile at the Stadium of Light, Sunderland’s Duncan Watmore has had a decent shout for a penalty turned down in the mother of all six-pointers. Fulham 0-1 Sheffield Wednesday: Fernando Forestieri sends a low drive in off the post to give Sheffield Wednesday the advantage over Fulham. Premier League: Roberto Pereyra curls a wonderful shot into the corner to double Watford’s lead and leave champions Leicester in all sorts of bother down around the relegation zone. Sheffield United 1-0 Shrewsbury: Bramall lane is the venue, where Sheffield United have gone ahead against Shrewsbury. There seems to be some confusion over the identity of the goalscorer, who was either John Fleck or Billy Sharp. Meanwhile at Walsall, the home side are trailing against Gillingham. Blackburn Rovers 0-1 Brentford: Scott Hogan has travelling Bees fans buzzing at Ewood Park inside a minute. QPR v Norwich: Martin Olsson has been sent off after two minutes in Norwich’s match against QPR. A handball on the line earned him his marching orders, but the subsequent penalty is missed by Tjaronn Chery, who sends it wide of the upright. It’s scoreless at Loftus Road, where Ian Holloway’s latest stint in charge of QPR has got off to an interesting start. Premier League: Four minutes? Four minutes?!?!?!?! We didn’t need to wait one. Etienne Kapoue has put Watford ahead against the champions inside 60 seconds at Vicarage Road. The south London club have staged a minute’s silence for the victims of the recent tram disaster in Croydon. Several of them were Palace fans. May they all rest in peace. Play is underway in this afternoon’s 3pm kick-offs. I’m going with four minutes for news of our first goal. Footballers the length and breadth of the UK are click-clacking their way out of tunnels and on to the field of play in preparation for the 3pm kick-offs. Kolo Toure has just ambled past through the traditional guard of honour afforded to the teams by Crystal Palace cheerleaders The Crystals. Our chief football correspondent Daniel Taylor was at Old Trafford to see Arsenal rescue a scarcely deserved point against Manchester United and you can read his on-the-whistle report here. It’s finished all square at Old Trafford, where fairly abject Arsenal have got out of jail courtesy of a late Olivier Giroud equaliser to cancel out Juan Mata’s opener for Manchester United. Here’s how Scott Murray saw the action unfold and we’ll have report and colour from the ground very shortly. Substitute Olivier Giroud equalises with feeble Arsenal’s first shot on goal since the 39th minute to level the scores at Old Trafford. If they rescue a point out of this match, it will be one they scarcely deserve. Follow the final couple of minutes with Scott Murray. Stoke: Grant, Bardsley, Shawcross, Martins Indi, Pieters, Allen, Adam, Shaqiri, Krkic, Arnautovic, Bony. Subs: Muniesa, Johnson, Walters, Imbula, Given, Crouch, Sobhi. Bournemouth: Federici, Ake, Francis, Steve Cook, Daniels, Gosling, Arter, King, Wilshere, Stanislas, Callum Wilson. Subs: Pugh, Afobe, Brad Smith, Allsop, Fraser, Mings, Mousset. Referee: Roger East (Wiltshire) The big Ivorian, whose agent has caused him all sorts of problems this season, has finally been brought in from the metaphorical cold by Pep Guardiola and will now be sent out into the literal cold for his first Premier League start of the season. Crystal Palace: Hennessey, Ward, Dann, Tomkins, Kelly, Cabaye, McArthur, Townsend, Puncheon, Zaha, Christian Benteke. Subs: Speroni, Flamini, Lee, Wickham, Mutch, Sako, Delaney. Man City: Bravo, Sagna, Kompany, Otamendi, Kolarov, Fernandinho, Sterling, De Bruyne, Toure, Nolito, Aguero. Subs: Zabaleta, Fernando, Caballero, Jesus Navas, Sane, Silva, Iheanacho. Referee: Robert Madley (West Yorkshire) Everton: Stekelenburg, Coleman, Ashley Williams, Jagielka, Baines, Gana, McCarthy, Lennon, Barkley, Bolasie, Lukaku. Subs: Robles, Deulofeu, Mirallas, Cleverley, Valencia, Funes Mori, Holgate. Swansea: Fabianski, Naughton, Amat, Fernandez, Taylor, Barrow, Fer, Cork, Fulton, Routledge, Sigurdsson. Subs: Ki, van der Hoorn, Borja Baston, Dyer, Nordfeldt, Rangel, McBurnie. Referee: Martin Atkinson (W Yorkshire) Sunderland: Pickford, Jones, Kone, Djilobodji, Van Aanholt, Denayer, Anichebe, Ndong, McNair, Watmore, Defoe. Subs: Mannone, Khazri, O’Shea, Manquillo, Love, Januzaj, Gooch. Hull: Marshall, Tymon, Dawson, Davies, Elmohamady, Henriksen, Livermore, Mason, Clucas, Snodgrass, Mbokani. Subs: Maguire, Meyler, Huddlestone, Jakupovic, Weir, Bowen, Olley. Referee: Lee Mason (Lancashire) Southampton: Forster, Cedric, van Dijk, Fonte, Bertrand, Davis, Romeu, Hojbjerg, Boufal, Austin, Redmond. Subs: Yoshida, Clasie, Long, Rodriguez, Martina, Reed, Taylor. Liverpool: Karius, Clyne, Matip, Lovren, Milner, Wijnaldum, Henderson, Can, Mane, Firmino, Coutinho. Subs: Sturridge, Grujic, Klavan, Moreno, Lucas, Mignolet, Origi. Referee: Mark Clattenburg (Tyne & Wear) Watford: Gomes, Janmaat, Prodl, Britos, Kaboul, Zuniga, Amrabat, Behrami, Capoue, Pereyra, Deeney. Subs: Mariappa, Guedioura, Sinclair, Watson, Ighalo, Pantilimon, Okaka. Leicester: Zieler, Simpson, Morgan, Huth, Fuchs, Mahrez, Amartey, Drinkwater, Albrighton, Okazaki, Vardy. Subs: Hernandez, Musa, King, Hamer, Schlupp, Gray, Wasilewski. Referee: Neil Swarbrick (Lancashire) There’s 20 minutes of the game left at Old Trafford, where Juan Mata has just put Manchester United a goal up against Arsenal. Wayne Rooney has replaced Anthony Martial and Manchester United are well worth were their lead. Arsenal have been very tentative and listless. Follow the rest of the game here. Championship Brighton 1-1 Aston Villa (result from Friday), Barnsley v Wigan, Birmingham City v Bristol City, Blackburn Rovers v Brentford, Cardiff City v Huddersfield Town, Derby County v Rotherham United, Fulham v Sheffield Wednesday, Preston North End v Wolverhampton Wanderers, QPR v Norwich City, Reading v Burton Albion. Ipswich Town v Nottingham Forest is a late kick-off. League One AFC Wimbledon v Bury, Bolton Wanderers v Millwall, Bristol Rovers v MK Dons, Charlton Athletic v Port Vale, Fleetwood Town v Chesterfield, Northampton Town v Peterborough United, Oxford United v Coventry City, Rochdale v Swindon Town, Scunthorpe United v Oldham Athletic, Sheffield United v Shrewsbury Town, Southend United v Bradford City, Walsall v Gillingham League Two Accrington Stanley v Stevenage, Barnet v Crewe, Cambridge United v Wycombe Wanderers, Carlisle United v Exeter City, Cheltenham Town v Portsmouth, Doncaster Rovers v Hartlepool United, Leyton Orient v Blackpool, Mansfield Town v Crawley Town, Morecambe v Luton Town, Notts County v Newport County, Plymouth Argyle v Grimsby Town, Yeovil Town v Colchester United Scottish Premiership Kilmarnock 0-1 Celtic (result from Friday), Inverness v Aberdeen, Motherwell v Partick Thistle, Rangers v Dundee, St Johnstone v Ross County Manchester United are currently entertaining Arsenal in what is arguably the weekend’s most high profile match and we’re into the second half at Old Trafford, where it’s scoreless. Manchester United had what looked a decentish shout for a penalty turned down in the first half, although nobody seems to know whether or not they were hard done by. You can follow the action in that one with Scott Murray’s minute-by-minute report, we’ll keep you updated here too. We’ll be bringing you team news, build-up and updates from six different 3pm kick-offs in the Premier League, while there even busier cards of Championship and League One fixtures. We’ll also be keeping an eye on League Two, Scotland and elsewhere in Europe so stay tuned to keep yourself on top of all the goals as they go in around the UK and beyond.
Rihanna review – almost an emotional experience Rihanna is crying. Tears – actual droplets – are rolling down the 28-year-old’s cheeks as she fluffs the opening lines of the set’s second song, Love the Way You Lie (Part 2). It’s unclear whether the adoring screams of the Dublin crowd have moved this infamously inscrutable star. The vast bulk of Rihanna’s work is permeated by the singer’s deliciously bored approach: dialling it in as an art form. On the other hand, it could be the fact that this erstwhile glamour queen has been forced to attend the opening night of the UK & Ireland leg of her Anti tour dressed as the ghost of a sack of potatoes. Two crescent slices of her bum hang out of some chaps when she twerks. This highly irregular costuming matches her set’s highly irregular opening – a one-two of ballads, the sort of unctuous longueur normally reserved for the night’s middle eight. Moreover, “ghost of a potato sack” is just the first of an extraordinary sequence of costumes whose bronzed earth tones, lacings-up and flapping bits suggest the Star Wars Mos Eisley cantina scene, as updated by Kanye West for autumn/winter 2016. With not a sequin in sight, this is all very “anti” what a pop diva would wear on stage: purposely so, her stylist has said. Then again, it might well be that Rihanna’s tears are a response to the song itself. LTWYLII is the female reply to Eminem’s original Love the Way You Lie (2010) on which Rihanna guested. The tracks tell of a tempestuous relationship, viewed first from the man’s perspective (Em), then the woman’s (Rih). The parallels with Rihanna’s own troubles with rapper Chris Brown, black eye and all, aren’t hard to spot, although that was a long time ago and these tears are box fresh. Whatever the source, this unprecedented display of emotion from the gelid doyenne of numb&B swells the song inexorably. Dublin turns to mush in Rihanna’s taloned hand. The floor drops away when singer, band and crowd hit the none-more-masochistic chorus together. “Just gonna stand there and watch me burn,” Rihanna sings, “But it’s all right because I like the way it hurts.” It’s actually meta: after all, a not-quite-sold-out crowd is literally standing there, watching her cry, her pain mitigated by gratitude. This isn’t how Rihanna normally rolls. Granted, Rihanna’s eighth studio album, Anti, was meant to be different, a departure from the chart-seeking the Barbadian has been on since Umbrella, her first hit just shy of a decade ago. A grab bag of styles with few conventional hits on it, Anti has been wildly successful nonetheless; it was certified double platinum in May, the first US LP to do so this year. And this Anti tour breaks moulds: all-white staging, maximally minimal, in stark contrast to arena convention. Another strange costume – for this year’s islands-tinged mega-hit, Work – suggests a Wookie dipped in glitter. Ill-defined inflatables grow tumescent, like blobby onstage îles flottantes. A transparent gangplank, floating in mid-air on its way from the B stage to the main stage, rocks alarmingly when Rihanna simulates sex on it for Sex With Me, a song as single-entendre as any by AC/DC. Tours often seek to reimagine old songs in the light of the star’s latest mindset. And so it is that crass, menacing cuts like Pour It Up (synopsis: greed is good) are filmed in pensive black and white, a hip-hop gangster flick gone art-house. I might be wrong, but Rihanna’s canon is perhaps the only one in the upper echelons of diva pop with a substantial body count: Man Down, Needed Me, Bitch Better Have My Money, et al. Some of the star’s bigger guest spots are referenced in bite-sized chunks – Kanye’s thrilling All Of The Lights, and Drake’s magisterial Take Care, even more favela-party than usual. Surprising selections receive extensive airtime, however. One of Anti’s most left-field lurches was Rihanna’s cover of Same Old Mistakes (restyled as Same Ol’ Mistakes) by Australian rock band Tame Impala. Tonight, Rihanna pulls off several minutes of psychedelic brooding, while the TV screens render the star – now wearing giant specs – in wibbly fuchsia. The crowd doesn’t just tolerate it – it actively wigs out. What starts as an emotionally memorable gig soon settles into merely an aesthetically remarkable one. It is a shame that the electrifying simpatico of Love the Way You Lie (Part 2) isn’t sustained throughout. But for Love on the Brain – one of those rare tracks that Rihanna sings like singers are meant to sing – she reprises her recent, celebrated Billboard Awards performance. Rihanna’s inscrutability is once again transformed by jazz hands, and some scrunched-up jazz cheeks and jazz eyes.
My time with Carrie Fisher, a hurricane of energy, charisma and foul language About a year ago I approached Carrie Fisher to write a column for the . With other A-listers, it’s all too common to be rebuffed by several layers of management, publicists and protective naysayers. But somehow – all too easily – I found myself with an invitation to her house in Beverly Hills. And what a house it is. Huge neon arrows and signs hang from trees in the driveway. It wasn’t Christmas, but a fully lit tree was the centrepiece of her living room (it was there year-round). A giant moose head with a fez hung above the fireplace; snow globes depicting macabre murder scenes decorated the shelves and, outside in the garden, next to a life-size Leia stepping out of a British telephone box, was the back end of a lion attached to the wall, its raised tail revealing giant cat balls. Carrie was delayed, having spent the morning looking after her mum, Debbie Reynolds, whose house is on the same grounds: a big “Debbie” made of light-bulbs pointed the way to her property in their shared driveway. Reynolds had suffered two strokes; she and her daughter saw each other nearly every day. When Carrie finally appeared, she told me that Debbie, on hearing they had a visitor, had assumed I was there to speak to her, as Hollywood royalty, and declared: “I can’t see anyone.” Her daughter had kept up the fiction. I had been expecting maybe an hour of her time, but somehow we ended up spending the entire day together: I was pressed to drink bottles of wine she had picked for their rude or amusing names (she didn’t drink – saying she couldn’t trust her addictive personality). We shopped, ate homemade banana pudding out of the dish and plotted how we were going to get her a boyfriend (her desire for companionship and sex were to become a running theme). We began chatting in her bedroom, the walls and ceilings decorated by projections of fluttering butterflies. Gary – her French bulldog, whose tongue steadfastly refuses to stay in his mouth – lay snoring next to a Gary-themed gift director JJ Abrams had presented to Carrie at the wrap party for Star Wars: The Force Awakens. The film had just been released, and Carrie had quickly become everyone’s favourite part of the promotional tour. She shot down anyone who asked about her weight loss for the role and had recently asked, via Twitter, for everyone to stop debating whether or not she had aged well – as it hurt “all three of my feelings”. Like everything Carrie said or did, that tweet revealed a truth – she told me she hated the way she looked in that film and suddenly, unexpectedly, she was in tears. Minutes later she was in high spirits, plotting to tweet an old photo she had unearthed from the first set of Star Wars in which she was cupping C-3PO’s balls. “This is going to get me in trouble with the people at Disney,” she said, while I held the pic steady and she snapped, “but I don’t care.” She revealed that the resurrection of the franchise had been a huge financial boost – she had agreed to the “teeniest-tiniest percentage of a percentage of a percentage” of the backend profits and knew she never had to worry about money again. And she was beyond generous. She thrust presents on her staff and insisted we went shopping to find gifts for her mum, daughter and others. (When we eventually got around to talking about the column she asked to be paid in fun presents rather than money – an idea her agent sadly nixed when it was up and running.) I was gone so long that my husband texted to see if I was OK, in response to which she sent a video of herself riffing about how she was going to do bad things to me and make me vote for Donald Trump in the upcoming election. In every store we went into she was a hurricane of energy and charisma and foul language – and she was instantly loved. She swore loudly at the shop assistants that didn’t have the particular light she sought in stock and laughed hysterically at a bed we saw that was priced at over $100,000 – then made me pose comic-seductively across it while she took photos. The staff all took it in their stride. The column cast Carrie as an agony aunt and was a huge hit, but getting it out of her was like pulling teeth. She was in such high demand – filming Star Wars, the hit TV comedy series Catastrophe and writing a book – I often didn’t hear from her for weeks on end. Then suddenly, out of the blue, my phone would buzz multiple times. “I’m a giant asshole. It’s official.” “I’ll try to make it up to u.” “If it takes all our sad, exciting lives.” “It’s Carrie F gunning for contact.” “Will wait breathlessly and nude.” I read every problem she was emailed for the column, and a running theme was what an inspiration she was to so many people living with mental illness: the inbox piled up with the young, the old, the depressed and bipolar, all thanking her for how open she was about her own disorder. Recently, Carrie was interviewed by my colleague Simon Hattenstone and talked about how she hoped to find a boyfriend, relaying to Simon, as she did to me, how she wanted a “British professor who will be able to put up with me, so you can put the word out. Good sense of humour, intelligent, not hideously unattractive, and sort of confident without being arrogant.” Shortly afterwards, a reader wrote to offer himself as a potential suitor and I forwarded his message to her. She called me back to say she would meet him. She was impressed he had put himself forward, because “I’m not the kind of person you read an interview with and think: ‘I want to date her.’” Carrie asked me to visit her in London before she flew back to LA just before Christmas; I couldn’t. It was on that flight that she had a heart attack. We spoke two weeks before her death and she was in high spirits – funny, honest, open, without artifice. She talked at length about how much she liked her daughter’s new boyfriend and how proud she was of her. Carrie had just bought a house in London and wanted to spend more time in the UK but knew that she couldn’t leave her mum alone in LA. When she joined the as a guest for Barack Obama’s final White House Correspondents’ dinner the last thing she did before leaving the taxi was call Reynolds. “Mommy, I love you,” she said. Since Fisher’s death, emails for her have continued to pour in at the address. “Hi Carrie,” one reads. “I know you’re dead. But that shouldn’t stop you from continuing to respond to those who are sick and suffering, because come on, you were super-human in life – and in death you’ve become even more powerful.”
Cutting-edge theatre: world’s first virtual reality operation goes live Stretched out on a table in a large, bright operating theatre at the Royal London hospital, a patient is awaiting Shafi Ahmed’s first incision in a procedure that will remove cancerous tissue from his bowel. Around the table a team dressed in blue scrubs and face masks are gathered, exchanging the odd word, while cumbersome machines bearing bundles of wires hum gently in the background. Everyone is focused on the task in hand, getting ready to play their part. Except me. Scrubless and without so much as a scalpel to pass to the surgeon, I am a mere spectator to this intricate event, a bystander gazing around the room in fascination while others labour at a life-changing task. Not that the surgeons are bothered. Because although I feel like I am standing at the edge of the operating table, in reality I am sitting in my office chair. On Thursday afternoon I witnessed the world’s first operation to be streamed live in 360-degree video, allowing medical students, trainee surgeons and curious members of the public like me to immerse themselves in the procedure in real time via the Medical Realities website. A one-minute delay was incorporated into the broadcast in case of any complications in the surgery. A cancer surgeon at Barts Health NHS Trust, Ahmed said before the operation that he believed the approach could make healthcare more equitable, improving the training of surgeons worldwide. With internet connections becoming better, smartphones getting cheaper and only a pair of lenses and some cardboard needed to make a virtual reality headset, the costs, he said, paled in comparison to the expense of students travelling abroad to train. “It is actually quite cost-effective.” Shot using two 360-degree cameras and a number of lenses arranged around the theatre, the operation could be viewed through the “VR in OR” app, using a virtual reality headset that can be paired with a smartphone. Those who did not have a headset could watch the feed live online. It takes a while to get the app up and running so while I wait for the VR experience to start I watch the procedure begin via the website. The lights are dimmed and, wielding an intimidating device, Ahmed begins to remove a hernia. “This is called a harmonic scalpel,” he says as he gets to work. A hush descends, punctured only by beeping. Peering down I spot some odd-looking scissors I hope no one will ever use on me. Two large screens on either side of the table show views from the camera inside the patient – a device that resembles an enormous knitting needle. The team prepares to tackle the cancer. “OK let’s have a look, here we go,” says Ahmed. Fortunately the app boots up. And I am in the room too. “There is a tumour just here,” says Ahmed. “This is what cancer looks like in reality.” While videos showcasing surgical procedures have been around for years, Ahmed believes the new approach is more than a mere gimmick. The technology, he has argued, brings a valuable new feature to education, allowing viewers to focus not just on what the surgeon is doing, but also on what other members of the team are up to: “There will be noise, there will be the immersive factor – so that will add different layers of educational value.” George Hanna, professor of surgical sciences at Imperial College, London was cautiously optimistic about the benefits of the approach. “If this technology allows the transfer of knowledge and skills [over] a wider range and in an easier way that would be very beneficial,” he said. But he was quick to add that, compared with existing approaches for sharing scenes from the operating theatre, the new technology offered more of an upgrade than a revolution. “It is a good video and wide broadcast with interactive [opportunities],” he said, stressing that the operation itself was real rather than virtual. Back in the virtual world, there is a slight hitch – the quality of the video on my phone is good, but not good enough to see the video screen clearly. It looks like they are fishing about in a swamp of slimy undercooked sausages: I suspect a medical student would glean rather more. Frustratingly, 360-degree video is just that – you can look around the room in every direction, but you can’t move for a better view. The procedure continues. Despite my loathing of all medical TV dramas, I am hooked. Suddenly the entire theatre goes dark, except for a spotlight. Someone is making an incision. They pull out a pink, fleshy mass. “Scissors,” says someone. A bundle that I assume is the tumour is removed and dropped into a bowl. The operation has been a success. It was not the first time Ahmed had led the way in embracing modern technology in healthcare. He co-founded the healthcare company Medical Realities, which streamed the operation in partnership with Barts Health and 360-degree video experts Mativision. Ahmed said he believes virtual reality, augmented reality and games could all play a role in training medical students. Two years ago he streamed a live operation using the “augmented reality” system, Google Glass, allowing viewers to see the procedure from a surgeon’s point of view. But the new 360-degree video, Ahmed said, offered a new approach, allowing users to see beyond what the surgeon was looking at. Among future developments he has envisaged, Ahmed said he was keen to add graphics to the raw footage to provide additional information during the operation, as well as taking questions from those viewing the procedure. “[During an operation] I am teaching people, talking to them, there is communication going on – so it’ll be just an extension of that,” he said. In three to five years, haptic devices – which work off physical contact between the user and computer – could boost the experience further: “Companies are really working on various gloves or bodysuits and devices so that it can replicate touch and feel.” Such technologies, said Ahmed, could be a boon to healthcare. But, he added, the role of patients in agreeing to take part should not be forgotten. “Ultimately, it is about the operation, about [the patient], about his cancer care and that has to be the priority for everybody. “The fact that patients have agreed to do this before – with the Google Glass – and again, it is quite reassuring and quite humbling.”
Japan's $1m fertility gambit to help women become mothers Iwaho Kikuchi will measure his success in the number of babies born in his city. Not this year, or next year necessarily, but in 10 or even 20 years’ time. Kikuchi is the doctor in charge of a groundbreaking fertility initiative in Japan, in which public money will be used to pay for women to freeze eggs for use later in their life. Under a three-year pilot scheme at Juntendo University Urayasu hospital, state funds are to be used for the first time – in Japan and possibly the world – to cover 80% of the cost of freezing eggs for local women aged between 25 and 34, who have the option of using them until they reach 45. The women will pay only 100,000 yen (about £720) towards the procedure, including injections and medication, which usually costs 500,000-600,000 yen. Urayasu, a city east of Tokyo, plans to spend 90m yen on subsidies over the three years to March 2018 to preserve women’s eggs for use in future pregnancies. “The idea is to keep donated eggs that can be used when the woman is older, and hopefully it will improve the pregnancy rate for women in that older age group,” says Kikuchi, a senior associate professor at the hospital. With Japan’s low birthrate – currently 1.4 children per woman – unlikely to rise to the 2.1 level needed to ensure the stability of the country’s population, experts are predicting demographic meltdown. A quarter of Japan’s population, which peaked at 128.1 million in 2008, is aged over 64, according to last year’s census, while the number of children under 15 is at a record low. On current trends, the overall population will drop to 86 million in 2060, with the proportion of people aged 65 or over reaching nearly 40% of the total. The trend threatens to spark a crisis in health and social services for an older population dependent on a shrinking workforce, with the number of people in employment projected to fall by 7.9 million, or 12.4%, to 55.61 million by 2030. Urayasu and other cities have tried several schemes to raise the birthrate, including matchmaking parties, bans on working late to leave time for procreation and shopping vouchers for bigger families. Proponents of egg freezing cite evidence that Japanese women are marrying and having children later in life than ever before. “This is a huge problem for Japan, so freezing their eggs when they’re younger is a good idea,” says Kikuchi. Japan is no stranger to fertility treatment. About 370,000 women undergo IVF every year, and the treatment is responsible for one in every 24 live births, putting Japan high up on the global success index. But in women over 40, the rate is less than one in 10 live births – a dip that experts blame on a government policy, under which women lose their right to subsidised fertility treatment if their annual household income rises above 7.3m yen. “Now that more women are working, they’re too busy to have children when they’re younger, and then suddenly they find that they are too old [and have too high an income] to receive government funding,” says Kikuchi. Most of the 15 women who have signed up for the programme are in employment, and a third are married. About two-thirds decided to take part because they or their partner have health problems that could cause complications during pregnancy. The rest were encouraged to take part by older female friends and colleagues who had taken part in egg-freezing schemes at private clinics. Egg freezing is not a complicated procedure, but it is time-consuming. “It takes about 10 days, and a lot of women who work simply can’t take that amount of time off,” says Kikuchi. Some experts point out that there are no guarantees it works. The Japan Society of Obstetrics and Gynaecology says the success rate is 17% when a woman is aged 35, and drops to below 1% once she reaches 45. Urayasu’s mayor, Hideaki Matsuzaki, says the birthrate is so low that the scheme is necessary. “In general, pregnancy and childbirth is an individual issue. But when the situation has got to this point, I think using public money is the right thing to do.” But Angel Petropanagos, a bioethicist at Dalhousie University in Canada, says Matsuzaki is naive to think the programme can avert a demographic crisis in Japan. “It is a technological approach that benefits some women, not all. What’s really needed are social and structural changes to make it easier and preferable for women (and men) to have children and to do so when younger,” Petropanagos writes in an op-ed piece for the New Scientist. The Urayasu initiative has also divided Japan’s medical community, with the gynaecology society among those who have cautioned against egg freezing as an option for women, regardless of their age. The society said last year that women who undergo the procedure risk developing conditions such as hypertension, while not enough is known about the possible effects on the health of babies born from frozen eggs. “Pregnancy and birth should be conducted at an appropriate age,” the society concluded in a study. “[Egg freezing] is not a technology that should be used in place of that.” Kikuchi says the society’s stance is evidence of a form of sexism that is contributing to Japan’s low birthrate. “It sends out the message to working women that getting pregnant when they are older is something that won’t be tolerated,” he says. The programme’s architects have set themselves a benchmark for success. “If, say, between six and 10 women out of 20 get pregnant, then you could say it’s been a great success,” Kikuchi says. “Of course, some of them might become pregnant without the egg freezing.” The involvement of Urayasu authorities has given the programme a legitimacy that egg-freezing programmes run by private clinics lack, he says, adding: “Until now women in Japan have been made to feel guilty about their sexuality. Urayasu has made it clear that this is not just a decision by an individual, but a project that is supported by the community.” Japanese media have touted the initiative as a possible panacea for population decline, but Kikuchi dismisses suggestions that his pilot programme could mark the start of a new baby boom, spearheaded by older couples. “It’s too late for what we’re doing to have that kind of impact,” he says. “I don’t think Japan’s birthrate will increase – it will take ages for that to happen. “We need to do more to educate boys and girls about the optimal age to get pregnant, and when it becomes more difficult to get pregnant. At the moment we only teach them about sexually transmitted diseases and contraception.” Despite his pessimism over the birthrate, Kikuchi believes the Urayasu programme could bring about a sea change in attitudes toward childbirth. “Getting pregnant is an individual’s right, so if that person feels the need to go to the state for help, then the state should be in a position to help them,” he says. “I think this could be the catalyst we need for women to start thinking more positively about their sexuality and reproductive health.”
UK banks vulnerable to global shock, economist warns Britain’s banks are vulnerable to a global financial shock despite efforts to shore up their finances, according to the official who led the inquiry into the safety of UK banks following the 2008 crash. Sir John Vickers, who led the Independent Commission on Banking, said: “The Bank of England proposal is less strong than what the ICB recommended.” Vickers, a former Bank of England chief economist, said Threadneedle Street had watered down the proposals put forward by the ICB, leaving it without the necessary financial buffers to continue operating when avenues to fresh funds dried up. The warning came as China’s financial authorities were poised to spend billions of pounds propping up the Shanghai stock market after a week in which fears of a 2008-style banking crash resurfaced. The Shanghai exchange, which will reopen on Monday following a long shutdown for Chinese New Year, will come under pressure from nervous traders amid concerns that a steep fall in stock market values this year is a harbinger of a broader global economic slump. Investors fear that low inflation and the waning power of central banks to generate growth could push the eurozone back into recession and damage several of Europe’s biggest banks. In what appeared to be a coordinated move ahead of the Chinese market’s reopening, the chief of China’s central bank, Zhou Xiaochuan, played down concerns over the state of the country’s finances, which he said remained robust and plentiful enough to withstand economic shocks. A senior official at the European Central Bank also issued a statement reassuring investors that Greek banks were secure from the turmoil following their rescue by the ECB last summer. Political unrest in Greece and the possibility of a re-run of last year’s eurozone crisis, when Athens was almost pushed out of the euro, have played a role in destabilising stock and bond markets. Falling oil prices and persistently low inflation have also signalled that the global recovery is petering out. Central banks have responded by cutting interest rates to spur bank lending and growth. Some, including the Swedish and Japanese central banks, have brought in negative interest rates, in effect charging commercial banks to deposit money with them in a desperate attempt to make them lend it to businesses and households. Vickers, who is now the warden of All Souls College, Oxford, told the BBC that more capital is needed, because the nature and scale of the next financial shock is uncertain. “A good way to think about it is as an insurance policy,” he said. “You do have to pay a premium to insure your house and you hope nothing bad will happen. But if it does, you are much better off in paying that premium, and for full coverage. “If banks run out of capital, all sorts of havoc could ensue. We want to be in a position where there’s enough of a buffer to take any losses that might occur.” He said the Bank of England should rethink its recent announcement about the amount of capital that banks need to hold. Vickers was referring to a recommendation by the ICB that banks should hold a 3% buffer for so-called systemic risks, while, he said, the Bank’s recent proposals were not requiring this. Earlier, in a comment piece for the Financial Times, he said: “Given the awfulness of systemic bank failures, ample insurance is need­ed, and equity is the best form of insurance. The recent volatility in banks underlines the importance of strong capital buffers. The BoE should think again.” The Bank would not comment on Vickers’ warning, although Martin Taylor, the former Barclays chief executive who sat on the ICB inquiry panel, recently told MPs he was happy with the rules. Now a policymaker at the Bank, Taylor said: “There is still a heck of a gap, as you rightly point out, between 13% and the Vickers commission’s 18%, but the Vickers commission was operating on the assumption that there would not be bail-in-able debt, if I can put it that way, which we now have or shall shortly have.” Bank shares have plunged following concerns that they will find it difficult to generate profits while interest rates remain low, or turn further into negative territory. Increasing competition among banks for new business over recent months has combined with the increasing cost of raising funds, squeezing profit margins. Much of the focus has been on Deutsche Bank, which tried to reassure investors about its financial position last week, including a move by its chief executive, John Cryan, to declare that the bank is “rock solid” and embark on a £3.7bn buy-back of its debt. Although stock markets bounced back on Friday, they remain markedly lower in the year. Shares in UK banks are down: Standard Chartered is at 25-year lows and HSBC is at 2009 levels. The Federal Reserve chair, Janet Yellen, told senators on Capitol Hill this week that the path to higher interest rates in the US may be less steep than previously thought, given the broad market sell-off. She also refused to rule out a reversal of policy and a move back to near-zero rates should the US economy, which has stalled in recent months, suffer a longer period of low growth. Mario Draghi, the head of the ECB, has hinted that he will extend the current negative interest policy at a meeting of officials in Frankfurt next month. The UK is expected to report on Tuesday that inflation remained near zero and well below the Bank’s 2% target. Canada, China and the US will also report inflation figures this week, setting the tone for the global economy.
Kiki review – flamboyant and uplifting look at New York's ballroom scene At last year’s Sundance there was a screening of Paris Is Burning, Jennie Livingston’s landmark film detailing the world of New York’s ballroom or voguing scene. It sparkled at the festival but also reignited a debate around who got to tell the story and who ultimately benefited from the film. Almost 25 years on from the debut of Paris Is Burning, Kiki tells the story of the modern scene in New York and takes a deep dive into the world beyond the ball. Sara Jordenö, the Swedish documentary filmmaker and visual artist, is behind the camera this time and focuses on Kiki, which is a scene within the greater ballroom scene in New York which is run by LGBTQ people of colour. There are houses such as Juicy Couture, Unbothered Cartier and Pink Lady, which are run by house mothers and fathers such as one of the film’s writers, Twiggy Pucci Garcon. Twiggy along with other house matriarchs like Chi Chi Mizrahi lead us through the world of ballroom much as Livingston’s protagonists did. This time though there’s a focus on the impact the houses can have on the lives of LGBTQ youth outside the dances, at times when they are more vulnerable and in need of assistance. Mizrahi is an outspoken leader who overcame his own drug issues to become one of the most famous and respected members of the scene. We take a trip to Virginia to see where Twiggy grew up and how his coming out affected his relationship with his parents. There are impassioned pleas to support Barack Obama’s presidential bid because of Republicans’ penchant for defunding the social initiatives that the dancers depend on. It’s a kaleidoscopic and vivid rendering of a world that is larger than life, flamboyant but ultimately fragile. There are portrayals of transitioning and the complexity that surrounds that process, especially for young people of colour. The discrepancy between the dancers who are homeless and sleep on the Chelsea Piers, and the more affluent middle class LGBT community in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood, is discussed and unpacked, and Jordenö goes way beyond the glitz and gusto of the balls themselves. Indeed, dancers are shown struggling to cope with life outside the balls and that is where houses become crucial to their survival. Young people are kicked out of home, forced into sex work and routinely harassed by the police, and it’s this world as much as the voguing one that Jordenö fixes her camera on. It’s an ultimately uplifting film and one that doesn’t patronise or placate: the ballroom is shown for what it is, complex, flamboyant and a place to express yourself.
Premier League must fight the tide of increasingly quiet crowds The Premier League returns this weekend and with it the question of which adjective describes the competition most accurately. Is it the “best” league in the world, the “most competitive” or simply the “richest”? One description often applied, perhaps because it’s suitably non-specific, is the most exciting league in the world. Step into a ground on match day, however, and you may be forgiven for doubting this was the case. Television montages remain full of crazy crowds and foreign pros continue to talk up the atmosphere at Premier League grounds but fans know this does not match up with reality. Most matches at most grounds are not rocked by a cacophony of passionate fans. They are largely quiet, frustrated places, enlivened only by goals or perceived malfeasance on the part of referees. Away fans regularly out‑sing home support but even they are getting tired. “Is this a library?” is the most common chant at grounds I’ve visited this season. Not all stadiums are the same and neither is every match but the decline in supporter participation is real and, for many, a concern. Most importantly it’s a problem for fans. The songs, the chants, the noise that supporters produce are fun in and of themselves, and I challenge anyone who has participated in a quick “oooooooooh … you’re shit aaaaaahhh” when a keeper takes a goalkick to disagree. They are much more than that, though. They are an oral history of the club (like Manchester United’s Twelve Days of Cantona), they are an expression of tradition (like Swansea’s Hymns and Arias). Perhaps most important, they are a contribution to the success of their club. A loud, partisan atmosphere helps a team on the pitch. Why has the hush descended? Any explanation would have to start with money. The Premier League recently revealed the average Premier League ticket price to be £31. That’s not cheap. It may not be that expensive either but the cost is more comparable to that of the theatre than the cinema and it affects people accordingly. When people pay more money, they want to be entertained. Commenting on this, the league’s chief executive, Richard Scudamore, acknowledged just this point: “The two biggest factors governing attendance,” he said, “are the quality and entertainment of the football and ticket prices.” As the relationship changes and fans become consumers, it’s only to be expected they don’t feel obliged to bring the noise with them. Increasingly, in fact, the loudest noise you’ll hear is when the customers are displaying their dissatisfaction with the product and booing a team off the pitch. Furthermore, the increasing tendency for grounds to empty early or take time to fill up after half-time can also be ascribed to people feeling they’ve paid their money and they’ll take their choice. Money plays another, unintentional role. Season tickets account for 71% of all match tickets sold in the Premier League (up from 68% last year). They are cost effective, but require a lump sum payment and prioritise those who hold tickets already. This is great for keeping grounds full, and they are at record attendance levels, but bad for bringing new fans to the game. New fans who might be excited to attend a match. New fans who might be young and, you know, noisy. Money isn’t everything. The shape of modern stadiums that lets noise drift up into the open air rather than bounce between the terraces. There’s the absence of actual terraces; the distraction of your phone; natural human inhibition, undiluted by easy access to alcohol; the paucity of decent chants (and adapting the Dmitri Payet one for your own club doesn’t count). And that’s without even acknowledging the idea that the last thing on earth you might want to do is sing up for the millionaire snowflakes on the pitch. There are a lot of reasons why things have gone quiet. What is certain though is hush is not good for the Premier League brand. The bedlam is a key factor in marketing the game abroad and there’s only so long you can jiggle around with the sound levels before TV subscribers start noticing something’s up. Take the £30 away ticket ruling and this week’s upcoming discussion on safe standing as a sign the league realises something needs to be done. The same applies to clubs – notably Tottenham – looking to create new homes shaped like old stadiums with steep stands close to the pitch and therefore better for generating noise. Or the match-day strategies of Leicester City with their season-long cardboard clappers and Stoke City’s deliberate appeal to children and an under-11s season ticket. Most importantly there are the moves by fans themselves, like Crystal Palace’s Holmesdale Fanatics Ultras, widely credited with making Selhurst Park one of the best atmospheres in Britain.
Khizr Khan mourning ​at Arlington cemetery – the story behind the picture In 2007 I was in Arlington National Cemetery [the US military cemetery] with my wife, Janine Altongy, to take photographs for my book War Is Personal, about Americans affected by war. We were there to photograph Paula Zwillinger, a New York resident who had lost her son, and a young girl named Kayley Sharp, who was visiting the grave of her father. At the time, section 60 – where Afghanistan and Iraq veterans are interred – was growing. As I wandered about those stones, there was no way to escape the crushing weight of the grave markers, row after row, line upon line of them, running to the horizon, rising and falling with the land. Without exaggeration, this cemetery is awe-inspiring, beautiful and kind of frightening. It was a lovely day, but I found it oppressive. Depending on your political point of view, these endless hills of the same stones show either democracy or the cost of war – because everyone is rendered equal, but not by the best of circumstances. That morning, there was a slender, stern-looking man in section 60. At first, from a distance, I thought he was a Protestant priest because he was dressed so somberly. From the side of the headstone I was on, you could only see a number, not the crescent moon and star that showed it was the grave of a Muslim soldier. It was only when I saw the man’s posture that I realised what his faith was. I suspect from looking at the picture now that I took it before I spoke to him. I would have watched him to ascertain whether he would mind – if there is a sense of discomfort, you don’t take a picture like this in a cemetery. Afterwards, I remember he didn’t give me his name, but just said his son was buried here. All the people we met that day would do that – they would not speak about themselves, only the person they were here for, often as though the person was still alive. He was a very subdued, almost fearsome-looking man, so I didn’t know what to expect. When he spoke, he was very kindly and quiet. You could tell he was a very private man. I didn’t know who his son was then – Humayun Khan, an army captain who was killed walking towards a suicide bomber after ordering his men to “hit the ground”. We didn’t include him in the 15 stories – the picture of him was more of a melody for the piece we were doing, not the central focus. Later that day, I took pictures of the headstone but I didn’t use them. It felt too easy to make the point that there are all kinds of people buried at Arlington. It sounded trite – a stupidly obvious thing to say. But I guess now it needs saying. Last week, when I heard Khizr Khan’s speech, the memories of that day came back. It was a shock to see him on the stage, but it wasn’t a surprise because he had exuded intelligence. His incredible dignity had rung a bell in my mind. When we posted it on Facebook, we didn’t realise people would be drawn to a simple photograph of a quiet man in mourning. What did I think about Trump’s comments [the Republican candidate claimed Clinton’s speechwriter was behind Khan’s speech, and that his wife, Ghazala, did not address the convention because she was “not allowed to have anything to say”]? Khizr Khan’s presence was so informed, and Trump’s comments so uninformed, that it was frightening. What a lousy election this is. It’s so exasperating that Trump can say these things, and that they bounce off so many of my fellow Americans – they should be mortified by them. The fact Trump made remarks about Ghazala Khan’s silence being tantamount to subservience is so wrong. Her husband might be hyper-articulate, but not many of us could get up on a stage and talk about our sons if they had died – I sure as hell couldn’t. I wrote another post on Facebook about how grief silences us. Kayley, the young girl I photographed at Arlington the same day I photographed Khizr Khan, didn’t emit one single sound that November day when crouched down by her father’s grave. And there were no tears; in my picture, her eyes are downcast, partly shrouded by windblown strands of her hair. Hers, one could see, was an internal, unspoken, unspeakable grief. I would come to learn later from Jen Henderson, Kayley’s mother, that Kayley pretty much stopped speaking to anyone but her, upon learning that her dad, Sgt First Class Christopher Henderson, wouldn’t be coming home from the war in Afghanistan. As for Ghazala Khan, the question to ask is not why she was silent, but where she found the strength to go out on to that vast convention stage, in front of millions of viewers, while feeling the way she felt about her much-loved son, her fallen son. When she is still in mourning. This picture is so simple it shouldn’t even be remarked upon; it’s a guy mourning his son who happens to be a Muslim American. I have been disappointed in my country’s propensity for being involved in other people’s wars. But in its best form – maybe in the idea more than reality – there is an American spirit that has helped the world. Away from the ugliness and rhetoric of the election campaign, we are still holding together, and I hope this little picture speaks to that. As told to Homa Khaleeli
Getty Images files antitrust complaint against Google Photo agency Getty Images has filed a formal complaint with the European commission against Google over its alleged abuse of the company’s search dominance. Google is accused of distorting search results in favour of its own services, including Google Images, Shopping, Maps and several others, affecting competitors from media companies such as Getty to travel sites and price comparison companies. Getty’s latest complaint, following its registration as an “interested third person” in June, revolves around Google Image search, which displays images from across the internet in response to picture or word search terms. The image company’s complaint specifically calls out changes made to Google’s Image search in 2013, which it says created “captivating galleries of high-resolution, copyrighted content” and “promoted piracy, resulting in widespread copyright infringement”. “Because image consumption is immediate, once an image is displayed in high-resolution, large format, there is little impetus to view the image on the original source site. These changes have allowed Google to reinforce its role as the internet’s dominant search engine, maintaining monopoly over site traffic, engagement data and advertising spend,” Getty said. Google has rebutted the anticompetitive claims, which form part of the growing unease over the dominant position of US technology firms within Europe. The US company holds a 90% search share across Europe, and is facing several antitrust investigations from the EU. Yoko Miyashita, general counsel for Getty, said: “Artists need to earn a living in order to sustain creativity and licensing is paramount to this; however, this cannot happen if Google is siphoning traffic and creating an environment where it can claim the profits from individuals’ creations as its own.” Google is not the only tech firm currently under the spotlight. Facebook is facing several investigations and lawsuits over its privacy practices across Europe. But recent action by EU competition chief Margrethe Vestager has thrown Google back under the spotlight. The company is accused of using Android, which is the most popular mobile operating system in the world running on billions of mobile devices, to “protect and expand its dominant position in internet search”. Google declined to comment. Europe v Google: how Android became a battleground EU accuses Google of using Android to skew market against rivals
Bovis Homes shrugs off 'Brexit blip' as house sales rise Sales of new houses dipped in the weeks after Britain voted to leave the EU but potential buyers have come back to the market, Bovis Homes reported. Announcing results for the first half of its financial year, Bovis said it sold one house every fortnight on each of its sites since the start of July, down from around 1.2 in the first half. David Ritchie, Bovis’s chief executive, said the figure reflected a sharp drop in sales soon after the vote for Brexit on 23 June and a recent pickup. “The first two or three weeks were quite difficult … Whilst we should not judge a year by a six-week period, it’s by no means a disaster. In the last two or three weeks it’s looked like a normal summer market.” Ritchie said potential buyers still visited Bovis’s sites but sales rates fell as people digested the referendum result amid political and economic uncertainty. The government has provided enough reassurance for potential buyers to get back to making purchases, he said. “There was a sense of uncertainty over whether [buyers] should move forward … We’ve all gone through a rollercoaster of emotions over the last six weeks. There was a bit of a blip but as things stabilised they got back on with their lives and that is what we are seeing.” Bovis, which concentrates its building in the south of England outside London, reported a 15% increase in pre-tax profit to £61.7m for the six months to the end of June. It sold a record 1,601 homes in the period and average prices rose 14% to £254,500. Shares of Bovis and other housebuilders fell heavily after the referendum result was announced, with fears that a resulting economic slowdown would cause a property crash. Estate agents have issued a string of profit warnings but sales of new homes appear to have held up better than for secondhand properties. Ritchie said Bovis had assured its contractors that it intended to stick to its plans for building new homes. After plunging by more than a third on the day after the vote, Bovis shares remain about 20% below their pre-referendum level. The company’s shares fell 2.4% to 816p.
Nicola Sturgeon plans to strengthen Scotland’s trade links with EU Nicola Sturgeon is to unveil a four-point plan for building stronger independent Scottish trade links with the EU in a further challenge to Theresa May’s Brexit strategy. The first minister will announce plans on Saturday for a permanent trade base in Berlin, and to double the staffing of Scottish Development International, an agency that promotes exports and investment deals overseas. This will be matched by a new board of trade and a new network of trade envoys using prominent Scottish business people, Sturgeon will tell the Scottish National party’s annual conference. An “open for business” message to “our European friends” is in stark contrast to the rightwing, xenophobic rhetoric from the UK government and its dithering over its Brexit strategy, she will say. “Make no mistake, the growth of our economy right now is threatened not just by the prospect of losing our place in the single market – disastrous though that would be,” Sturgeon will say, according to extracts of her speech. “It is also the deeply damaging – and utterly shameful – message that the Tories’ rhetoric about foreign workers is sending.” Her strategy will significantly strengthen the trade promotions that the Scottish government currently runs overseas with the help of the Foreign Office and follows her threat this week to stage a second independence vote if May’s Brexit package is too restrictive. After her attacks on Thursday on the xenophobic rhetoric from some Tory ministers, Sturgeon is expected to say: “Let me be crystal clear about this – Scotland cannot trust the likes of Boris Johnson and Liam Fox to represent us. “They are retreating to the fringes of Europe, we intend to stay at its very heart, where Scotland belongs. To our European friends, we say: Scotland is open for business.” Sturgeon is betting that the increasing signs the UK is heading for a hard Brexit, by leaving the single market, ending freedom of movement and reintroducing customs borders and tariffs on EU exports, will strengthen support for Scottish independence. Repeated opinion polls show Scottish voters are still unwilling to back an early second referendum, and are waiting to see exactly what the Brexit deal for the UK will look like. Sturgeon also knows that the Scottish economy is showing slower growth than the UK’s as a whole, particularly with the slump in North Sea oil profits, while overall government public spending in Scotland is running a £15bn deficit, or a structural deficit of 21% of GDP. Scotland also has a more rapidly ageing population and lower per capita earnings – issues the extracts of Sturgeon’s speech issued overnight did not directly address. Earlier on Friday, John Swinney, Scotland’s deputy first minister, pledged that EU students would still receive free tuition at Scottish universities after Brexit, at a potential cost of £300m, matching a similar pledge from the UK government for students at English universities. But Swinney, who is also Scotland’s education secretary, said that UK ministers had not yet guaranteed that EU students would be granted visas to allow them to stay for the full duration of their courses, which can last up to five years. He added that EU students should also have access to post-study work visas – a policy scrapped by the previous Tory-Lib Dem coalition in London but which is now being reassessed in a pilot project for short-term post-study visas at a handful of English universities. The future of EU students is seen as under direct threat after Amber Rudd, the home secretary, outlined plans for two-tier systems for less prestigious universities and courses. Other UK ministers have suggested that EU citizens’ rights after Brexit would depend on how UK citizens who live in the EU were treated. “They are not ‘cards’ to be played,” Swinney told the Scottish National party’s annual conference in Glasgow. “They are human beings. To use them as negotiating chips is obscene and we will have no part of it.” • This article was amended on 19 October 2016 to clarify that Scotland has a structural deficit of 21% of GDP.
Occupational therapists' role: 'We save money and improve quality of life' When the College of Occupational Therapists commissioned a survey about the image of the profession, the answer came back that it was seen by decision-makers as “nice to have” rather than essential. Its leaders are determined to change that. In a major new campaign, called Improving Lives, Saving Money, the college is aiming to demonstrate the key roles that occupational therapists (OTs) can play in a changing and increasingly integrated health and care system. More to the point, it will spell out what cash the system can save by making better use of their skills. “It’s a two-year campaign that’s about enabling our members to position themselves in front of commissioners [of services] and make the case for return on investment,” says Julia Scott, the college’s chief executive. “We have to prove upfront that we save money as well as improve people’s quality of life.” This is bold and unusual language for a professional body, and the emphasis on saving money has not gone down well with all OTs. But Scott is unapologetic: with the NHS in England mandated to make £22bn “efficiencies” by 2021, and English social care budgets already slashed by 31% in real terms since 2010, with worse to come, she insists that you have to engage commissioners on their terms. “We have to be able to prove the effectiveness of what we do,” says Scott. “But that’s not a matter of setting up complicated double-blind trials to run over several years; it’s being in a position to say now, with confidence, what it means to the bottom line.” What do occupational therapists do? Occupational therapy, which next year celebrates its 100th anniversary as a profession, is a growing force which reaches into many corners of the health and care system. Its 30,000 UK practitioners have the “people skills” and training in multidisciplinary team-working that make them attractive to all sectors seeking to develop more personalised, joined-up services. What is standing in the way of a really big takeoff for the profession is that lack of enough hard, monetised evidence of impact and a lingering sense that people do not know what OTs do. Sheila Hollins, a crossbench peer and professor of the psychiatry of learning disability at St George’s, University of London, is the college’s new president. She suspects that the term “occupational therapy” still conjures up outdated images of basket-weaving rather than the modern reality – of which she has personal experience through members of her family – of sensitive, collaborative work with people to help them make lifestyle adjustments and access the support they need after illness or injury. “I’m sometimes not sure if OTs themselves understand how important and significant their contribution is,” Hollins says. “Because they move seamlessly between health and social care, they are an essential part of the way the system needs to be going.” Hollins wants to see more OTs rising to prominent leadership roles in the health and care system and has plans to help create clear pathways for them to do so. She intends to make a start this week at the college’s annual conference, in Harrogate, which will have a record attendance of more than 1,100. Twelve times that number are expected at the American OTs’ conference in Philadelphia next year, when the profession marks its centenary in the land of its birth, the US. Scott thinks that British OTs could take a leaf out of their US colleagues’ book when it comes to promoting their role and their impact. “Because it’s an insurance-based health system, they can’t just assume that the work will come to them; they have to make a case. We can learn from that: we have to make our case; we have to make waves.” Join the Social Care Network to read more pieces like this. Follow us on Twitter (@GdnSocialCare) and like us on Facebook to keep up with the latest social care news and views.
Pumarosa review – short, sweet and deliciously bleak The missing link between Joy Division and Pendulum? If pop required such a thing, Pumarosa would fit the bill. The London-based five-piece have a foot in both camps: Isabel Munoz-Newsome is the haunted frontwoman/guitarist, unravelling stories about the disintegration that comes of being with the wrong person, and the other members produce cacophonous electro-rock that mimics the sound of a multi-vehicle pile-up. Tipped at the end of last year as a band to watch, they’ve haltingly worked their way up to headline status, and it’s only right that this London bill-topper should be in a cheerless brick-lined warehouse. (Munoz-Newsome blinks at her surroundings and manages: “This is nice.”) The purple stage lighting does its job of transforming the band into looming silhouettes, although occasionally the clouds part to reveal the backing foursome hunched over guitars and a keyboard, while the singer, in a white leotard and black skirt, clutches her guitar in a stranglehold. In her right hand is a drum mallet, which finds itself swiped up and down the frets to create a scree of protest. It’s scant surprise that Munoz-Newsome was once a dancer and a theatre-set designer. Her body is part of her armoury of performance tools, making for moments when her limbs drift in a post-rock version of Kate Bush’s interpretive dancing, or protectively curl into themselves. During the night’s penultimate song, Priestess, a sepulchral seven-minute buildup to a saxophone-honking, industrial-funk climax, stick figures on a screen show how to copy her movements. They don’t look hard to do, but the singer pours into them a tightly harnessed fury that probably makes all the difference. When her guitar piles into the melee, a percussive wave breaks across the room. Pumarosa, who have not yet made an album, have only nine songs in their setlist. They should consider keeping future gigs equally brief: every minute is accounted for with dark, knotty grooves, dramatised by Munoz-Newsome’s raw vocals. A song tersely introduced with “Now, The Witch” seems to reveal the source of her bleakness. “Teach me how to learn. Tell me I’m an animal and without you I’d be lost,” she sings, as drummer Nick Owen and bassist Henry Brown sketch out a deceptively languid rhythm. “Teach me dependency. ‘Only shame can save you now,’ you whisper in my ear.” By now, she’s almost recoiling from the lyric, which is so near the knuckle that even the crowd ceases its indie-disco shuffle and stares. This is a big, ambitious sound that also calls to mind the fellow emotional-electro travellers London Grammar and Chvrches, who’ve been feted by US college radio. It is easy to imagine Pumarosa’s borderless angst being welcomed on to those playlists (in Britain, Radio 1 has taken a punt by giving them a live session). Munoz-Newsome seems to be girding herself for the ordeal – on the showstopping Lion’s Den, she cries, with mounting dread: “It’s a lion’s den, and they treat you rough.” • At the Louisiana, Bristol, on 27 October. Box office: 0115-896 4456. Then touring.
Lin Homer, Dame Disaster, puts in a classic display before MPs Just imagine the rewards for success. Lin Homer, the chief executive of HMRC, was made a dame in the New Year honours list after a year in which her organisation was accused of letting HSBC get away with systematic tax evasion and providing abysmal levels of service to the public. This on top of a career in which she resigned as chief executive of Birmingham city council following a vote rigging scandal, and accidentally allowing more than 100,000 asylum seekers to stay in the country when she was head of the UK Border Agency. “Welcome Dame Lin,” said Meg Hillier, chair of the public accounts committee (PAC), as Dame Disaster prepared to face what should be her last hearing before disappearing into the sunset with her £2.2m pension. “Thank you,” replied Dame Disaster, looking only moderately surprised not to have been made a countess for her contribution to public life. The PAC is a much tamer affair now that Margaret Hodge has stood down as its chair, but it does still have its own pet rotty in the bullet-headed Stephen Phillips who manages to fit in his work as MP with a £750,000 day job as a QC. There’s nothing Phillips likes more than raw meat, and in Homer he has easy prey. What did Dame Disaster think about the fact the Financial Conduct Authority wasn’t going to pursue criminal charges against HSBC? Dame Disaster had no real feelings about it one way or the other. Hadn’t HMRC failed to provide the FCA with evidence because the French wouldn’t like it? Dame Disaster said she wouldn’t put it quite like that but, basically, yes. Hadn’t the French long since said they would have been quite happy for HMRC to share their data with the FCA. Dame Disaster agreed that was one possible interpretation of the French saying, “Oui”. “So HSBC have got away scot-free,” Phillips concluded. Dame Disaster merely shrugged. What else did he expect? Wasn’t it for exactly that kind of incompetence she had been made a dame? Phillips sat back theatrically and let the others have a go. Dame Disaster visibly relaxed and returned to her default setting of saying nothing very much in as incomprehensible manner as possible to make it look like she was on top of her brief. To be fair to Dame Disaster, she’s a marginally sharper pencil than her sidekick, Jennie Granger, HMRC’s director general of fraud and compliance; though the bar is admittedly very low. Granger’s method of answering questions on why £16bn of tax remains uncollected each year, either through fraud or evasion, was to start her answers in an almost inaudible whisper and to end them mouthing random words. By which time, no one – not even her – was any the wiser. Fortunately Dame Disaster was on hand to help her out. What the committee should really be looking at was how well HMRC was doing to limit the tax gap to just £16bn. For some reason, the committee was reluctant to see her point of view. “Can we stay on this topic?” asked the Conservative MP Nigel Mills. “What is this topic?” replied Dame Disaster. That’s what she gets the big bucks for. Mills tried another tack. That extra £7.2bn the chancellor had assured everyone in his autumn statement would come flooding into the Treasury coffers by cracking down on tax fraud and the black economy: how certain was she of that money materialising. “Oh, that money!” replied Dame Disaster. “I’m not at all certain really.” Getting money out of tax cheats was very tricky and we were lucky to be getting as much as we were. Somewhere over in the Treasury, George Osborne let out a loud howl of anguish. He’d put her name forward for an honour and she’d repaid him by dumping him in the mire. Dame Disaster has promised not to embarrass the government by taking a compromising job in the private sector when she leaves. It will make a change from doing a job in which she embarrasses herself.
What is Brexit and why does it matter? The EU referendum guide for Americans On Greek holiday beaches and in remote but pretty French villages this summer British visitors have faced similar questions from anxious fellow citizens of the European Union. A month ago it was: “Your referendum, it will be OK, yes?” But a run of opinion polls showing the campaign to leave ahead of opponents who want to stay in by up to 10%, has forced a change of tone as the 23 June ballot looms. The more reproachful version has become: “Why are you doing this to us?” Washington’s Capitol Hill legend, Tip O’Neill, once said “all politics is local”. True enough, but rarely the whole truth. The campaign for Brexit – British exit – feeds on decades-old, homegrown resentments. Real or imagined, they include nostalgia for imperial certainties and for pre-globalised jobs for life, plus resentment of immigrants and of rules imposed by “unelected” courts and commissions in Brussels. Such are the demons said to restrain national “sovereignty” or (for some) free market spirits. “ Take back control” is Brexit’s catch-all slogan, designed to appeal to both social isolationists and blue-water buccaneers. Does that sound familiar? It may well do to jobless Portuguese teenagers, unemployed blue-collar workers in the American Rust Belt and hedge fund managers chafing at “over-regulation”. The visitor to Greece or rural France tries to tell questioners: “It’s bit like Syriza or Golden Dawn,” rival populist insurgencies challenging the status quo in Athens. Or “it’s a bit like your Marine Le Pen or America’s Trump. A lot of people are angry. Some have much to be cross about.” Industrial unrest amid persistent economic malaise in Europe, the refugee crisis and terrorist attacks have all contributed to a deep and urgent sense of foreboding across the continent. Unseasonal floods and storms have reinforced it. So did the senseless murder of Jo Cox, a popular British MP, in her Yorkshire constituency this week, days after a police officer and his wife were slaughtered in a Paris suburb. And what about that aggressively nationalistic and authoritarian government recently elected in Poland, what does that mean for EU unity? So the basic reason why British voters may be about to “do it” to their neighbours and sever an uneasy 43-year relationship with the 28-nation European Union (EU) of 500 million citizens is because they are fed up and can show it. Like a ballot proposition in California or one of Switzerland’s frequent referendums (Swiss recently rejected a basic minimum income for all adults), 23 June gives frustrated voters a chance to kick the government, more broadly to kick political elites who are judged to have let them down. The history How could that happen in a country whose most charismatic modern leader, Margaret Thatcher, endorsed the view of most respectable politicians with memories of inter-war fascism, calling referendums “a device for dictators and demagogues”? No referendums on Mrs Thatcher’s watch. But the referendum virus had already infected Britain’s constitutional software. Back in 1975 a divided Labour government had deployed one to legitimize Britain’s recent entry into what was then the “Common Market” of just nine nations. After a token “renegotiation”, prime minister Harold Wilson’s position prevailed by a convincing margin of 2 to 1 and Britain remained part of the club. At the time Conservative British politicians deplored Wilson’s shortsighted act of domestic party management as dangerous and divisive. Forty years on and for similar reasons of party expediency ahead of Britain’s 2015 general election, the Conservative prime minister, David Cameron, embraced a near-identical strategy. Harried by his irreconcilable Eurosceptic right wing, he finally promised the In/Out referendum on Europe for which they had long clamoured. He even deployed Wilson’s transparent “renegotiation” device, pledging to work out a new relationship for the UK and its European partners within the union. It was a gamble in every sense. Cameron almost certainly assumed that the pro-EU Liberal Democrats, his coalition partners in governing Britain since Labour lost office in 2010, would still be around to veto such a move in a renewed coalition. But the seismic shift towards nationalism and populism helped decimate the piously internationalist Lib Dems. To his own surprise on 6 May 2015 Cameron found himself with a small overall majority in Britain’s House of Commons. Restored to Downing St, Cameron could have spun out the timetable he had devised until 2017, as originally indicated. But he seems to have sensed, probably rightly, that the political mood was moving against him. Europe’s tide of war refugees and economic migrants from Africa and the Middle East were stoking economic tensions arising from seven years of recession and austerity budgets. German chancellor Angela Merkel’s generosity (all German families acquired refugee stories in the collapse of 1945) took the main burden of escapees from Syria with decidedly mixed political dividends. But wary Britons felt they had already seen this movie. More than a million workers from the EU’s “Accession 8” – ex-Soviet bloc countries that joined the union in 2004, notably Poland – had arrived in Britain in search of jobs. That was far more than anticipated, not least because other EU magnet states invoked “transitional” restrictions on what they perceived to be the threat to their workforce from the “Polish plumber”. As the eurozone’s recession deepened and Britain’s more lightly regulated economy recovered they were joined by Spaniards, Italians, even by French professionals and entrepreneurs escaping bureaucracy and leftwing taxes at home. Free movement of goods, services capital and people are the cornerstone of Europe’s single market. Instead of a lengthy “renegotiation” of Britain’s already semi-detached relationship with the EU, Cameron opted for a quickie in the winter of 2015-16 followed by a rapid campaign towards next Thursday’s date with destiny on 23 June. Germany’s Merkel is keen to keep Britain on board – stable, open market ballast against the Latin block (“Don’t leave us alone with the French,” they say) and seems to like young Cameron, 12 years her junior. But she has domestic political management worries too, a restless coalition, an election next year and rising Euro-scepticism, something new for the EU’s well-behaved paymaster. She couldn’t help him much, not wishing to encourage either bargain-hunting or resentment from other EU countries. Cameron watered down his demands and got agreement to restrict welfare payments to newcomers, protection for the City of London, Europe’s financial HQ, from EU meddling, a promise that sterling would never be required to join the eurozone it rejected from the start, plus a device to make it slightly easier for member states to keep Brussels regulation away. (“Brussels” is often used in British political discourse in the same contemptuous way many Americans refer to “Washington”.) The players It was thin stuff which Cameron’s allies found hard to big up. Not that he has too many. All the main British parties, including Celtic nationalists (except the fiercely British Protestant tribe in Northern Ireland), are pro-EU and campaigning for Remain. But Labour’s leftwing leader, Jeremy Corbyn, a Bernie Sanders without the gravitas or drive, is an old critic of the EU, viewing it as an essentially capitalist vehicle. He is halfheartedly campaigning for Britain to stay in because his MPs will revolt if he doesn’t. The Scottish National party (SNP) leader and first minister of Scotland, the formidable Nicola Sturgeon, is on the stump too, but warning that, if Britain leaves the EU, Scotland will demand a second independence referendum to leave the 309-year-old United Kingdom. Her party lost the last vote to leave the UK by just ten percentage points in 2014. That leaves Cameron, George Osborne, his unpopular finance minister or chancellor of the exchequer, plus their charisma-lite cabinet and business allies, to do most of the heavy lifting. This is the point where the domestic rivers and streams of political loyalty, disaffection and regional grievances – richer south v poorer deindustrialized Rust Belt north or global London v the Rest – flow into the big river of voter discontent across the western world. All western societies are struggling with the economic re-emergence of China and the cultural wars which pit secular liberalism against social conservatism and religious fundamentalism. In Europe they seem more worried by Turkey as a refugee gateway than by the destabilising ambitions of Vladimir Putin, which contribute to refugee flight in Syria. The poisonous word that unites all those grievances is “elite”. But here too Britain’s experience is part of a wider current, despite parochial assertions to exceptionalist circumstances. It is part of a wider paradox too. Facing David Cameron, Eton and Oxford-educated child of upper-middle-class privilege, and his well-heeled metropolitan network, on the other side of the referendum campaign are very similar people. The Vote Leave campaign and its less reputable sidekick, Leave EU, which has less scruple about playing the immigration card, are financed by hedge fund managers and gamblers, literal and metaphorical, people whose own lives will not be much damaged if a win for Brexit delivers the recession and worse that Cameron predicts. At their head is Boris Johnson, tousle-headed blond Tory MP and former mayor of London, also Eton and Oxford, fellow ex-member of the university’s Skull and Bones-style Bullingdon Club. He is anti-elitist in the way George W Bush was. The difference is that Cameron’s smooth PR skills make him look a dull dog by comparison. Johnson has the Houdini knack of escaping from his own mistakes (calling Barack Obama “half-Kenyan” sparked recent controversy) and follies (the EU is Hitlerism by other means, he has said), and is as vague as Ronald Reagan, as personally lax as Bill Clinton, and as charming in a very British way as either. He makes people laugh, a priceless asset. Even though everyone knows he wavered between Leave and Remain and opted for the path he felt would benefit his personal ambition, he is the two campaigns’ “most trusted” politician. Win or lose, he could soon get Cameron’s job, many pundits predict. It has been a sour and dispiriting campaign on both sides. Cameron and Osborne have tried to frighten voters with a flood of scary official predictions about the economic cost of Brexit in terms of jobs, investment, interest rates, exports, public spending, and the house prices so dear to Britons’ hearts. There would have to be an emergency budget if markets panic, Osborne warned last week. Brexiteers deride such stuff as Project Fear, but have their own slew of figures to show how much money would be freed up by the return of Britain’s £8bn a year contribution to EU funds, a figure much disputed and already spent many times over by the Leave campaign. Experts in every field from City giants and economists to university researchers and public health officials, are overwhelmingly for Remain. Barack Obama said it as clearly as he decently can. But who needs experts in a populist era? “The people of this country have had enough of experts,” said the prime minister’s personal friend and justice secretary, Michael Gove – now one of five cabinet members ranged against the PM and campaigning for Brexit – in one of many bad-tempered TV debates. As Remain’s economic case was trumped by Leave’s use of the immigration card, both sides called each other liars. These Conservative politicians are men and women who will, in theory, reunite behind their own prime minister whatever the referendum outcome. The choice No wonder Brexit MPs who hate Cameron predict he will not last until Christmas. Australians may feel they have the most raucous politics, Brazilians may deplore their presidential scandal, and sensitive Americans hang their heads in sheer embarrassment over the billionaire braggart and buffoon that is Candidate Trump. But Brits are having a pretty crude year too, one in which rich men campaign against “elites” for the votes of the poor but angry, who have the most to lose. Newspapers which supported EU membership in 1975 are mostly on the other side in 2016, partisan even by Fleet Street’s mendacious standards. Often owned by wealthy men not much UK-resident for tax purposes too, incidentally. Sensible people try to point out that most speculation about what will happen if Britain votes for Brexit is just that. Will the Europeans punish London for its desertion, or does the EU need British markets too much to dare, as insouciant Brexiteers insist? Will Britain have to leave the single market for goods and services in favour of a looser Canadian-style free trade deal rather than the Norwegian EU treaty, one of several offered by Leave campaigners who do not seem to share a map? Norway’s deal requires free movement of people, anathema to Brexit’s blue-collar foot soldiers who compete with newcomers for jobs and healthcare. What abour Nato and other already fragile international institutions ? Or the City of London’s envied status? What about that unruly refugee camp at Calais where the French police help keep desperate young men from getting to Britain through the Channel Tunnel in smugglers’ lorries? Will Paris still cooperate or wash its hands of Britain and its lax work and benefit rules? Britain will boom, says Leave. Quite the reverse, warns Remain. No one knows for sure and expert opinion is not what it was. Leave or Remain, many British voters seem to be drifting towards a decision more casually than they watch football’s Euro 2016 tournament in France, from which English hooligans may succeed in Brexiting their national team as a punishment for their disorder. As in much else the symbolism is obvious to everyone except the miscreants. Strange then that this week’s dreadful murder of Jo Cox, an impressive MP with a bright future and a young family, by a loner with apparent far-right links, jolted the dystopian nightmare just enough to let voices be heard asking: “Is this who we are, is this our future, can’t we rise above all this?” Five days to go. Michael White is a former political editor and Washington correspondent of the .
Leave campaigners accuse David Cameron of abusing honours system Leave campaigners have accused David Cameron of abusing the honours system after awards were given to supporters of Britain’s EU membership. Gisela Stuart, the Vote Leave chair, denounced the move as a “shabby stitch-up” and accused the prime minister of stooping to “a new low” in his drive to secure a remain vote in the 23 June referendum. Remain campaigners have described Stuart’s language as “extraordinary” and point out that at least one prominent donor of the leave campaign has been given a knighthood. The leave campaign said a total of 22 prominent remain supporters were named in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list, including Britain Stronger in Europe deputy chair Richard Reed, the founder of Innocent Drinks, who received a CBE. Other awards went to financial donors to the remain campaign as well as people who put their names to a series of joint letters from businessmen, entrepreneurs, scientists, doctors and the creative industries backing continued EU membership. The honoured individuals made up only a tiny fraction of the hundreds who signed the letters warning of the dangers of EU withdrawal. Actor Brian Blessed, who signed the creative industries letter, received an OBE; financier Damon Buffini, who reportedly gave £10,000 to the remain campaign, was given a knighthood; and hedge fund partner John Armitage, who gave £15,000 to the remain campaign, was awarded a CBE. Stuart, a Labour MP, said: “David Cameron and George Osborne have used every single ounce of their power to try to bully and frighten the British people into backing their campaign to keep us in the EU. “But abusing our honours system to reward campaign cronies and donors is a new low. People in this country are sick of the establishment doing these shabby stitch-ups and will view this as bordering on the corrupt. I think the British people are sick and tired of it and I am astonished that the Labour party are happy to be associated with this conduct. She continued: “Enough is enough. This clique of over-privileged and out of touch men need to wake up to the change that is happening across the country. The British people simply aren’t going to tolerate being told what to do any more by Brussels, by Cameron, or by his newly-honoured accomplices.” The honours list included three out of the 198 business leaders who signed a pro-remain letter to the Times in February, including Weir Group chief executive Keith Cochrane (CBE), Ocado CEO Tim Steiner (OBE) and Love Home Swap founder Deborah Wosskow (MBE). An OBE went to Trevor Garlick, the regional president of BP, whose CEO Bob Dudley signed the business letter. Along with Blessed, awards went to a further three out of the 282 signatories of a pro-EU letter from the creative industries in May – Punchdrunk artistic director Felix Barrett (MBE), artist Michael Craig-Martin (knighthood) and theatre producer Sonia Friedman (OBE). Six of the 60 signatories to a remain-backing letter from entrepreneurs were given awards, with an OBE going to Zoopla co-founder Alex Chesterman, MBEs to the co-founders of Entrepreneur First, Alice Bentinck and Matthew Clifford, an OBE to LoveFilm founder Saul Klein and an MBE to Hassle.com CEO Alexandra Depledge. Harriet Fear, CEO of One Nucleus, who was one of 92 scientists to sign an open letter warning of the risks of Brexit, was given an MBE, while one of around 200 signatories of a health professionals’ letter in April – Dr Ingrid Wolfe – received an OBE. Vote Leave also highlighted the award of a CBE to Simon Blagden, UK chairman of Fujitsu and an MBE to Morna Cook of Universal Music, whose companies have voiced support for the UK remaining in the EU, as well as MBEs for Blue Skies chairman Anthony Pile, who has expressed personal backing for remain, and James Watt, co-founder of BrewDog, another of whose co-founders has questioned the need for a referendum. Remain say that at least one of the leave campaign’s most prominent backers has also received an honour. Paul Marshall, a close associate of Michael Gove who has reportedly given a six-figure donation to the leave campaign, was given a knighthood. One remain supporter said: “Stuart’s statement is over the top and out of order.” A Downing Street source said the claims of favouritism by No 10 were “desperate” and pointed out that names for the list were selected by independent committees in February, before many of those honoured had declared they were supporters of remaining in the EU. The honours list includes pro-Brexit MPs Desmond Swayne and Jeffrey Donaldson and hedge fund manager Paul Marshall who have been knighted, the source said.
From paramedic to academic: why I left the NHS frontline I’ve always had a nagging feeling that there must be a better way to do things and that we could do more for patients. It started almost immediately as I began my career as a student paramedic. I tried to suppress it; it wasn’t really the done thing. Everyone talked about what was wrong with the way things were but no one talked about how we could make them better. At first it was easy; my mind was awash with all the new experiences of daily ambulance life, busy learning how to fit in, to be a paramedic – doing the things paramedics did. And I loved it, flying through the streets of London with blue lights flashing, responding to calls and patients. However, as I rolled through my days, that nagging feeling began to return, and now it seemed harder to ignore. It was hard to explain to those around me and at times it felt like we were speaking different languages. People talked about how we could “never be wrong for taking someone to hospital” and “what did we know?”. Even my colleagues, who agreed that at times it didn’t feel right, would feel powerless – crippled by a fear and belief that making a mistake would cost them their job. Managers felt just as powerless as the rest of us and were under pressure to keep response times down. The pressure they were under was tangible and communications between frontline staff and managers seemed to hit a brick wall. I grew frustrated and tired; at times it felt claustrophobic, surely if we keep doing what we’d always done then nothing would ever change? The real breakthrough came when I was invited to take part in a collaborative project on frailty. We explored ways in which we could work differently to improve the patient care for the people we had so often responded to by ambulance, setting up a falls response service with community nurses. We shared our skills and experiences to meet the needs of the patients that we would have previously taken to hospital and helped them in their own homes instead. The lead for the project was a Darzi fellow, a GP who had taken a year out of her training to develop herself and her leadership skills. The fellowship is an initiative that benefits both participants and their employing organisations. Over the past seven years, Darzi fellows have led major service improvements, implemented numerous safety and quality initiatives, and made substantial financial savings for trusts. I applied for clinically relevant posts advertised on the NHS jobs website and was invited to interview with a number of trusts across London. I am spending the year working on a project helping people manage their chronic joint pain. Unlike my job as a paramedic the pressure here is different, less immediate, and less obvious but still very much there. It lurks in the background – no one here will die or lose a limb as a result of a mistake I make, but what I do here could play a part in what is the practice of the future. It’s hard to see if what I do will make a difference and often I won’t know for months or even years to come. I find myself stuck between two worlds and constantly explaining what it is I do. I feel I am no longer considered a clinician by my former colleagues and yet I don’t consider myself to be a manager. My former colleagues joke about my office hours and weekends off but equally I am overwhelmed by the words of support and encouragement I have received from them – they enthusiastically ask about my work and are proud of what I, “the paramedic”, have achieved. Despite bridging these two worlds, I feel that I have the best of each – my insight into the clinical frontline as a paramedic and the constant challenge of being a Darzi fellow involved in quality improvement work. The meeting of these two worlds puts me in the privileged position of being able to implement real change for colleagues and the patients we look after. This is an edited version of a piece that orginally appeared on the writer’s personal blog. If you would like to write a blogpost for Views from the NHS frontline, read our guidelines and get in touch by emailing sarah.johnson@theguardian.com. Join the Healthcare Professionals Network to read more pieces like this. And follow us on Twitter (@GdnHealthcare) to keep up with the latest healthcare news and views.
VP debate night: will second fiddles shine? Democratic vice-presidential nominee Tim Kaine will face Republican VP pick Mike Pence tonight in their first and only debate. The stakes are … kind of meh, although all agree that if something wild unfolds, tonight could matter. What to expect at VP debate Pence, a governor and six-term member of Congress, and Kaine, a senator and former governor, are both long-term elected public officials with sharply divergent world views, and so we may be in for … a policy discussion? Two Catholic-inspired visions But the real opponent for each man tonight will be the invisible top of the opposite ticket. Can Kaine succeed in pressuring Pence to explain Donald Trump’s behavior? Can Pence get Kaine to answer questions about Hillary Clinton’s emails? Tune in at 9pm ET! The 2016 election in 15 Big Lebowski quotes It might take just a minute to catch up on the latest campaign news. But good journalism takes time and costs money. If you like the ’s unique politics coverage, please consider joining us by becoming a member for only $4.99 a month. Thanks for reading! Become a member An impassioned Joe Biden called out Trump for passing remarks Monday about PTSD and personal strength. “I don’t think he was trying to be mean,” the vice-president said. ”He is just so thoroughly, completely uninformed.” Donald Trump’s net worth fell $800m in Forbes magazine’s annual roundup of rich people. Trump fell from $4.5bn to $3.7bn, into a tie for 156th richest, with Steven Spielberg and others. Trump net worth falls $800m The Libertarian candidate seemed to say that knowledge of geography leads to war. “The fact that somebody can dot the i’s and cross the t’s on a foreign leader’s geographic location then allows them to put our military in harm’s way,” he said. Johnson is a ‘pro-pot Trump’
There's a reason Trump's rigged election claims resonate. Here's why For a campaign that started with a promise to round up and deport 11 million people, Trump’s bid for the White House has taken a still darker turn in recent days. As his support slips amid scandal, the Republican nominee has been warning his supporters that the election will be “rigged” by Democratic operatives. Trump’s campaign is promoting a sign-up sheet to help him “stop Crooked Hillary from rigging this election,” an estimated 73% of Republican voters now think the election could be stolen. Many are unwilling to take no for an answer. “If she’s in office,” one Trump fan told the Boston Globe recently, “I hope we can start a coup. She should be in prison or shot … We’re going to have a revolution and take them out of office if that’s what it takes. There’s going to be a lot of bloodshed.” Another described his poll watching plans bluntly: “It’s called racial profiling. Mexicans. Syrians. People who can’t speak American. I’m going to go right up behind them. I’ll do everything legally … I’m going to make them a little bit nervous.” Trump is setting America up for something that looks an awful lot like dystopia come 9 November. That said, he is tapping – uncomfortably – into something more than his supporters’ most racist and violent urges: American democracy isn’t working for most Americans, and Trump voters’ threats are an ugly reminder that we need to fix it. Nearly 90% of Trump supporters agreed with a Rand Corporation survey statement that “people like me don’t have any say about what the government does.” The irony here is that Trump voters are historically some of the most enfranchised, with some of his strongest support coming from white protestant men. A study done during the primaries also found that Trump backers make an average of $72,000 per year, compared with a $61,000 average among likely Clinton voters. Most election rigging, of course, is done by Republicans through gerrymandering and restrictive voter ID laws, aimed at making it harder for poor people and people of color to get to the polls. On the whole, then, Trump voters are some of the least likely to find their ballots fall victim to foul play. Still, that doesn’t mean the threat posed by his fear-mongering is any less real, or that his supporters aren’t responding to legitimate flaws in American politics. Corporate citizens – as defined by Citizens United – now have an easier time getting a hold of their elected representative than just about any other American. In other words, money talks in Washington, and Super Pacs have spend just under $795m this election cycle. Because lobbying money courses through every level of politics, the most successful candidates are the best at making friends in the Fortune 500. Meanwhile, just six in 10 Americans are confident their votes will be accurately cast and counted. And unlike in systems based on proportional representation, our winner-take-all electoral model creates some of the highest barriers to entry for political outsiders of any democracy on earth. Americans’ distrust of politics is about more than just elections, though. Congressional approval ratings have declined steadily since 2009, and now sit at just 20% – a high in the last few years. Unions – which used to cudgel Democrats into representing working people’s interests – are at their weakest point in decades, and lack the sway they once held at the highest levels of government. Declines in organized labor have been paired with the disappearance of steady and well-paid work, either succumbed to automation or shipped overseas by free trade agreements. A jobless recovery from the financial crisis has left many adrift in the economy, while executives from the firms that drove it got golden parachutes courtesy of the Obama administration and the Federal Reserve. On the table now are to very different responses to these crises. Using an apocryphal quote from Frederich Engels, Rosa Luxemburg once wrote: “Bourgeois society stands at the crossroads, either transition to socialism or regression into barbarism.” The path Trump has chosen is clear: scapegoating immigrants and people of color for white political and economic woes – a script that sounds eerily similar to both 1930s Germany and the far-right’s European resurgence today. Another path, though – Bernie Sanders’ Democratic Socialism – garnered 12 million votes in the primaries, and continues to find voice in the social movements that helped make his campaign possible. Railing against the 1% in Washington and on Wall Street, Sanders offered an egalitarian populism to those who felt left out of the political system, not a reactionary one. The fight over vote rigging in 2016 is a proxy war for a much deeper crisis of legitimacy in American democracy, pitting the country’s political elite against just about everyone else who lives here. Our democracy is in sore need a revolution, one that – with any luck – will be a far cry from the violent and xenophobic coup Trump’s supporters are promising to bring about.
'When I joined the NME in the 70s, Bowie was an obsession' Among the first tributes paid to David Bowie after the announcement of his death last Monday morning was that by David Cameron, who spoke of Bowie as “a genius who provided the soundtrack of our lives”, citing his own days at Eton listening to a friend’s copy of Hunky Dory. Putting aside the unlikely image of the prime minister rocking out to Queen Bitch, Cameron was shrewd enough to recognise that someone very special had checked out, and that the nation’s collective heart would face the working week sorely bruised. It made quite a contrast to the silence with which Margaret Thatcher greeted the assassination of John Lennon a generation earlier. If Cameron’s remarks show how deeply assimilated into our culture pop has become, Bowie’s death highlights how far pop’s powers of subversion and invention have atrophied. Over the tempestuous decade of his 1970s glory years, Bowie illuminated popular culture in a way unequalled since, and which is unimaginable in the X Factor era. Bowie didn’t just entertain, he intrigued and provoked, cross-pollinating his music with painting, literature, film, fashion and stage. From the outset he maintained that he was an artist who just happened to be working in pop, and when he told the in 1986 that “Of all the art forms, rock is the living art form”, he was the proof of his words. As Ziggy Stardust he became the first sci-fi rock star, his androgynous “alien” guise a metaphor for taboo sexuality – or simply for being a teenager. When he put his arm round guitarist Mick Ronson during a 1972 Top of the Pops performance of Starman, he beamed the sexual revolution direct into the nation’s living rooms. This week’s deluge of tributes, tweets, anecdotes and street shrines attest to the depth of Bowie’s impact, the public sense of loss made pungent by a last album, Blackstar, released two days before his death, on Bowie’s 69th birthday, and showcased by a racked, haunting video (for the single Lazarus) that made a jaw-dropping finale to a dazzling career. In retrospect, it’s mildly shocking to recall that even as he cut his fearsome trajectory through 70s pop – shape-shifting between Ziggy, Aladdin Sane, Diamond Dog, Young American, Thin White Duke and the “Berlin trilogy” of Low, Heroes and Lodger – Bowie’s career was largely off the radar of the mainstream media. Cracked Actor – Alan Yentob’s BBC documentary of the 1974 US tour, revealing a frail, coke-addled Bowie on the edge of dissolution, as weird and remote as his role in The Man Who Fell to Earth – was very much the exception. Mostly, it was left to the music press to chronicle Bowie’s dizzying pirouettes. Here he was a fixture, an obsession: when I joined NME in the mid-70s, Bowie, Roxy Music and the Stones took it in turns to own the cover. Any excuse would do – a record, a concert, a poll-win – while in writer Charles Shaar Murray, the paper had a personal hotline to Bowie that extended to hanging out at recording sessions. When Bowie’s fractious mother, Peggy, fell out with her famous son over his alleged negligence, it was in the pages of NME, not the tabloids, that she waged war. And when Bowie returned to Britain from the US in May 1976, it was NME that published a photo (under the headline “Heil and Farewell”) suggesting that Bowie, standing in a Mercedes convertible at Victoria station, had given a fascist salute. Eyewitness accounts suggest he didn’t, but remarks he had recently made to the Swedish press – “Britain could benefit from a fascist leader… I believe very strongly in fascism” – had made him a marked man. With the National Front on the march, and protest reggae booming in Brixton and Birmingham, pop was becoming politicised and twitchy. Eric Clapton’s unsavoury observations on immigrants and the formation of Rock Against Racism were just a few months down the line. Bowie apologised many times for his remarks, blaming drugs for bringing him “to the edge of calamity” – but absolutist notions had long haunted his work. On Hunky Dory he had warned “Gotta make way for the Homo Superior” (Nietzsche’s ubermensch) while casting a disdainful eye on the masses (“the mice in their million hordes”). An occult dabbler (“dressed in Crowley’s uniform”), Bowie clearly relished the role of “superbeing”, living on the edge, pushing himself ever harder. 1976’s awesome Station to Station found him in Wagnerian mode, imperiously gazing over mountains and oceans, declaiming “the European canon is here” while “driving like a demon” between the stations (sephiroth) of the Kabbalistic Tree of Life, “from Kether to Malkuth”. In reality he was an emaciated, snow-blind wreck, cowering in his rented Beverly Hills home in terror of psychic attack from Hollywood warlocks, exorcising an unwelcome demon from his swimming pool. Small wonder that Station to Station also included the fervent Word on a Wing, aptly described by its creator, a former Buddhist, as “a prayer”. It’s easy to view the rest of Bowie’s career as a long retreat from the excesses and dark currents of that time. Assessing Cracked Actor in 1987, Bowie expressed amazement that he was still around. “When I see that now I cannot believe I survived it; I came so close to throwing myself away, physically.” His move to Berlin in late 1976 was an attempt to put distance between himself and his demons. Here, living in a flat above a car parts shop in grimy Schöneberg, he planned to clean up and get healthy, a mission hopelessly compromised by the arrival of an old cohort, Iggy Pop. Berlin proved good for Bowie nonetheless. Gradually, the powders were edged out, to be replaced by booze; there was a final split with his wife, Angie; and his formidable creativity surged back. Low, released in early 1977, was a startling change of direction, its bleak electronica the product of an alliance with Brian Eno. Ever obsessive, NME ran two opposing reviews of the record, the late Ian MacDonald finding it “stunningly beautiful…the sound of Sinatra reproduced by Martian computers”. Hot on its heels came Heroes, yoking Eno’s experimentalism to more conventional songcraft in its evocation of life on the cold war’s front line. Bowie’s monochrome edginess meant he sailed through the insurrections of punk. Where other titans became “Old Farts” overnight – “No Elvis, Beatles or Rolling Stones in 1977” as the Clash had it – Bowie stayed revered. He watched as post-punk acts like Joy Division and New Order borrowed Low for their template, and New Romantics like Culture Club, Duran Duran and Spandau Ballet borrowed his clothes. Bowie’s children all. His musical career interrupted by forays into stage and screen – The Elephant Man on Broadway, the campy first world war drama Just a Gigolo, described as “all my 32 Elvis movies rolled into one” – by the early 80s Bowie needed to reassert his authority, his brand. A label change helped him to do so, with 1983’s Let’s Dance, a calculatedly commercial offering cut with Chic’s Nile Rodgers and based on Chubby Checker’s Let’s Twist Again. The accompanying video, shot in the Australian outback with a storyline about native Australians, repositioned Bowie from spooky alien to mature humanist, the message reinforced by his tanned, healthy appearance. Let’s Dance remains Bowie’s bestselling album. He would have other creative peaks, but not before a series of chronic, justly overlooked albums – Tonight, Never Let Me Down, Tin Machine – that found him floundering for relevance and even a decent song. His tours, for all their technical innovation and theatricality, hinted that serial experimentalist Bowie was being superseded by recycler-of-old-hits Bowie. It was surely no coincidence that his return to form, on 1993’s Black Tie White Noise, came alongside marriage to Somali supermodel Iman Abdulmajid. Their relationship marked the start of what Bowie called his “real life”, one that saw him happy to renounce his claim to any pop crown. Speaking to the in 1997 he put it this way: “You have had an extraordinary life, one a boy from your background could never dream of, so you might as well decide you are now going to have a real, real life.” His interviews from this era have a delightful quality, full of self-deprecation and jaunty humour. “There’s no mystique left now, not even a tattered raiment,” he told a baffled Jeremy Paxman in 1999, “and frankly, I’m a lot better for it. Mystique is not very good for one’s personal life.” Bowie met the Britpop era with a sartorial nod – a distressed union jack frock coat by Alexander McQueen – and a wave of dismissal in the shape of a new album propelled by drum’n’bass rhythms. “I thought, it’s the end of the millennium and we’re still playing like we’re the Rolling Stones,” said collaborator Reeves Gabrels of the shift, with 1999’s Hours as the post-rave chill-out album. Bowie had other calls on his time. An early enthusiast of the internet – “an alien life form” – he launched his BowieNet platform in 1998, flushed with funds from leasing the rights to his back catalogue the previous year. The arrival of his daughter, Alexandria, in 2000 opened a joyous new dimension, though he kept working, delivering 2002’s Heathen, a dreamy confection of old and new material, and 2003’s Reality, a crafted call to “face the music and dance”. And then silence. A heart attack during a 2004 tour of Europe required major surgery and effectively shut down public Bowie for the best part of a decade. His previous few albums had been streaked with intimations of mortality that now became more alarming. There were occasional bursts of activity – recorded duets, final onstage performances with Alicia Keys in 2006 and David Gilmour in 2007 – but mostly it was silence. Bowie retreated into the family apartment in New York, to be occasionally spotted in anonymous garb on Manhattan’s streets. There were rumours about his health, but he and Iman (who has her own cosmetics business) removed themselves from public life. Bowie broke the silence in 2013 with The Next Day, a gnarly rock album spitting anger at warmongers, zombie celebrities and The Reaper with equal venom, as he prepares to “stumble to the graveyard and lay down by my parents”, adding archly, “just remember duckies, everybody gets got”. So this week has shown. Few fans of The Dame would choose his last 20 years as their favourite chapter from a famously diverse career, yet for Bowie himself it was his truest era, his “real life”, partly because he was no longer obliged to be David Bowie. “I married David Jones, a totally different person,” said Iman. Bowie kissed goodbye to David Jones at 18, changing his name partly to avoid confusion with the Monkees’ Davy Jones. In part, one suspects, he also wanted to shed the psychic burdens that weighed on his mother’s side of the family. His mother Peggy had two sisters who were sectioned, one confined after ECT treatment, another lobotomised for “nerves”. The treatment of mental health was a primitive practice back then. Bowie’s older half-brother Terry, to whom he was close (he was the subject of Jump They Say, and perhaps The Bewlay Brothers), suffered from schizophrenia and was also confined, just as Bowie was making his mark with Space Oddity in 1969. Madness became a recurring theme in Bowie’s work, providing him with the character of Aladdin Sane. Bowie’s stage name was also part of showbiz, which had besotted him from boyhood. Like most of his generation, he became infected by the mutant spores of rock’n’roll – Buddy Holly and Little Richard were favourites – but he also loved the tinsel, glamour and artifice of old-time show business. He conceived Ziggy Stardust as a musical before realising he had to sing it himself, and would later shed his estuary yelp in favour of a neo-operatic baritone; his Presley-like cover of Nina Simone’s Wild Is the Wind became a signature song. Those influences persisted until the end. Did David Bowie know that Elvis Presley (with whom he shared a birthday) had recorded a song, Black Star, for a 1960 western? Of course he did (the song, never issued, became Flaming Star). Is it relevant? Oh yes. “When a man sees his black star/he knows his time, his time has come/ Black star don’t shine on me… Give me time to make a few dreams come true.”
Faeces linked to gastroenteritis outbreak that hit thousands in New Zealand town Thousands of residents of a small New Zealand town in the North Island are seriously ill after the local water supply was contaminated - possibly by animal faeces. On Thursday afternoon hundreds of residents of Havelock North in the Hawke’s Bay (population 3,000), began reporting severe symptoms of gastroenteritis such as vomiting and diarrhoea. Many schools in the area were closed on Friday and over the weekend local medical centres, doctor’s surgeries and pharmacies were besieged with sick residents. All schools have now been shut in Havelock North for the next two days, on the advice of the Ministry of Education. A spokeswoman for the Hawke’s Bay Distict Health Board (DHB) said thousands were affected by the outbreak, although most people were treating themselves at home. However, more than 50 people presented to the emergency department at Hawke’s Bay Hospital, and 18 people were hospitalised. Two elderly people were in intensive care, both as a result of the water contamination. The death of a rest home resident in Havelock North from a gastro-like illness was also being investigated, Radio New Zealand reported. The Hastings District Council was criticised for not informing residents of the contamination soon enough. It said in a statement that the contamination and resulting sickness was “very serious”, and the water supply was found to be infected with Campylobacter – most likely a result of animal faeces finding its way into the bore. Nick Jones, a Hawke’s Bay DHB medical officer, told Radio New Zealand the council had no idea how the faecal matter entered the water supply, but they were investigating. The water supply has since been chlorinated but the council were advising residents to continue to boil their water until given the all-clear. Medical centres in the area said they were prioritising caring for the young and elderly, as they were most severely affected by the bug. The DHB and the local council were encouraging the community to check on their neighbours and any vulnerable people who may not be able to access medical help. Andrew Lesperance, of the Hastings Health Centre, said they had tripled the number of staff working over the weekend, and set up an IV station at the clinic for rapid hydration. Liz Dixon, co-owner of Gilmours Pharmacy in Havelock North said the community had pulled together over the weekend and organised groups of volunteers to visit elderly people living alone and bring them essential supplies - such as packets of electrolytes, water and toilet paper. The local supermarket - New World - sold 12,000l of bottled water and were selling bottled water at the discounted price of NZ$5. The supermarket also noted a “significant increase” in the sales of toilet paper and hand sanitiser since the outbreak.
Jeremy Hunt: MPs' plan to avert junior doctors' strike is opportunism Jeremy Hunt has dismissed as “opportunism” the Labour-brokered proposal to dissuade junior doctors from the first all-out strike in NHS history. A cross-party group of MPs urged the health secretary to limit the new junior doctors’ contract to a pilot scheme before introducing it across England. The proposal, which Labour negotiated with the British Medical Association (BMA), also called for an independent audit of the impact of the new weekend working contract before its wider introduction. The move is designed to avoid the unprecedented all-out strike set for Tuesday and Wednesday. The shadow health secretary, Heidi Alexander, suggested the BMA would consult its members about calling off the walkout if Hunt agreed to the plan. Hunt, however, responded to the move on Sunday morning by describing it as opportunism. Writing on Twitter, the health secretary said: “Labour ‘plan’ is opportunism - only 11% of junior docs go on to new contracts in August. We’re staging implementation to ensure it works as intended. Any further delay just means we will take longer to eliminate weekend effect.” Hunt has said he will impose the contested contract, whether or not it has BMA support. Alexander, the Conservatives’ Dr Dan Poulter, the Lib Dems’ Norman Lamb and the SNP’s Dr Philippa Whitford told Hunt in a letter that they wanted an independent evaluation of the so-called “weekend effect”, in which mortality rates are higher for patients admitted at outside the standard working week. The letter says concerns have been raised about the impact of the contract, if imposed, and that the MPs believe the BMA would not go ahead with next week’s strike if the government agrees to the proposal. The home secretary, Theresa May, suggested the Labour-backed plans echoed Hunt’s existing proposals. Speaking on The Andrew Marr Show on BBC1 on Sunday, she said: “The intention has always been to introduce the new contract in phases, and as I understand it, fewer than 20% of doctors will have the new contract in August, so that’s always been part of the plan. “And as I understand it Jeremy Hunt has written to the BMA and asked them to come round the table and discuss it with him.” Hunt has written to Mark Porter, the chairman of the BMA council, asking for a meeting on Monday to address other issues of concern that junior doctors have raised. In a letter published by the Department of Health on Sunday, Hunt asks Porter to call off the strike and instead to meet him to discuss workforce requirements for seven-day services, and improvements in training and work-life balance for junior doctors. His letter says: “The extreme action planned will be deeply worrying for patients, and place enormous additional strain on our NHS at a time of intense pressure. “I therefore appeal to you one final time to call off strike action that will see doctors withdraw potentially life-saving care, and to meet with me on Monday to discuss a better way forward.” In the cross-party letter, the MPs say: “You will be aware that medical leaders, royal colleges and patient groups have said the imposition or unilateral introduction of the contract is the wrong approach and risks permanent damage to the future of the medical workforce. “If it remains your intention to introduce this new contract, we believe it should be piloted in a number of trusts/across a number of deaneries and for its impact on patients, staff and the ‘weekend effect’ to be independently evaluated.” An evaluation would lead to a “real understanding of the problem”, the MPs say, allowing targeted changes to be made. Clare Marx, the president of the Royal College of Surgeons, said the dispute was a “lose-lose situation” for all parties and that the college strongly backed the proposal as a possible way out of the current impasse. “Patients must come first. The dispute must come to an end,” she said. The government said it had held 75 meetings with the BMA and three years of talks, and delaying reform further would mean not taking an important step in improving weekend care. A government spokesman said: “We have always said that we want to introduce this contract in a phased way – for around 11% of junior doctors from August – precisely so any initial problems can be ironed out. That’s why this is simply ill-informed political opportunism from the same Labour party responsible for the flawed contracts we have now.” Lindsay Hoyle, the Commons deputy speaker, meanwhile said he had requested the help of the army to support a chronically-understaffed A&E department in Lancashire. Chorley hospital temporarily closed its A&E unit last week and downgraded to an “urgent care service” after Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS trust said there was a shortage of doctors. Hoyle, whose Chorley constituency includes the hospital, said on Sunday that highly-trained military medics should be considered nationwide as a temporary support for A&E departments struggling to cope. “A&E across the country is on the edge. This is a domino effect and you can bring the whole of A&E down if you allow the situation at Chorley to continue elsewhere,” he said. “One of the avenues I suggested was to get the armed forces in Preston just for a temporary period until you can find an alternative over the critical period. It would have kept the A&E open and taken the pressure off the rest of Lancashire.” Speaking a day after a 200-strong protest outside Chorley hospital, Hoyle said the closure would have a worrying effect on hospitals in Wigan, 12 miles away, Blackburn, 14 miles away, and in Preston, which he said had waiting times of up to eight hours last week.
Ryley Walker: Golden Sings That Have Been Sung review – patchily brilliant psychedelic Americana Ryley Walker’s third album opens with one of the best songs of the year. The Halfwit in Me manages to be urgent and mellow simultaneously, repeatedly peaking in an ecstatic acoustic guitar hook that sounds both completely fresh and as if it has been around for ever. It sets the bar high for the rest of the album, which never manages to reach that level of invention, instead turning back – as on this album’s predecessor, Primrose Green – to mood, conveyed by psych-folk guitar, jazzy drums and subdued bass. None of it bad, just a disappointment after that phenomenal opening. When the music gets a bit samey, Walker pulls out a gently startling lyric to grab your attention back – “Naked ladies in the sunlight, they adore me,” he offers on Sullen Mind. He needs an editor, though: eight minutes of Age Old Tale? Why, you spoil us: the first two minutes are redundant. Three stars seems harsh, but there’s greatness in Walker, if he can blow away the dust.
Julie Delpy on Hollywood: 'I sometimes wish I were African American' Two-time Oscar-nominated writer Julie Delpy said that sometimes she wished she was African American, saying “there’s nothing worse than being a woman in this business” at a panel organised by the Wrap at the Sundance film festival. Delpy, a writer, director and actor who was nominated for two Academy Awards for her writing in the films Before Midnight and Before Sunset, said: “Two years ago I said something about the academy being very white male, which is the reality, and I was slashed to pieces by the media.” “It’s funny; women can’t talk,” France-born Delpy continued. “I sometimes wish I were African American because people don’t bash you afterward.” The statement elicited this reaction from co-star Kieron Culkin: “It’s the hardest to be a woman. Feminists is something people hate above all. Nothing worse than being a woman in this business. I really believe that,” she went on. Her comments come at an extremely sensitive time for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which has come under fire for the second year in a row for a lack of racial diversity in Oscar nominees. For the second year in a row, no actors of colour have been nominated for best actor or best actress awards. Several high-profile actors and directors, including Jada Pinkett-Smith, Will Smith, Spike Lee and Michael Moore, announced they would not be attending the Oscars in light of the lack of diversity, while Oscar-nominated actor Charlotte Rampling received intense criticism on social media for saying the row was “racist against white people”. On Friday, the academy announced what it called a “sweeping series of substantive changes” designed to address problems of diversity.
Morgan Stanley to pay $3.2bn over mortgage-backed securities Morgan Stanley will pay $3.2bn to settle federal and state charges that it misled investors in residential mortgage-backed securities during the financial crisis, New York’s attorney general announced on Thursday. The deal comes a month after Goldman Sachs agreed to pay $5.06bn to resolve civil claims related to the firm’s securitization, underwriting and sale of residential mortgage-backed securities from 2005 to 2007. The Goldman Sachs settlement included $875m in cash payments and $1.8bn in consumer relief. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are two of the last big banks to pay up for their role in the 2008 economic crisis. Bank of America agreed to pay the largest of the settlements, at $16.6bn, in 2014. A year prior, JPMorgan Chase paid about $13bn. “Today’s agreement is another victory in our efforts to help New Yorkers rebuild in the wake of the financial devastation caused by major banks,” said attorney general Eric Schneiderman. “Today’s settlement will deliver resources to the families and communities that need them the most, while helping New Yorkers avoid foreclosure, and spurring the construction of more affordable housing units statewide.” Schneiderman said the resolution would require Morgan Stanley to provide significant relief to New Yorkers, including loan reductions to help residents avoid foreclosure, and funds to spur the construction of more affordable housing. New York will receive $550m of the $3.2bn settlement- $400m worth of consumer relief and $150m in cash. The Department of Justice also announced on Wednesday its $2.6bn portion of the settlement. As part of the DOJ settlement agreement, Morgan Stanley acknowledged in writing that it failed to disclose critical information to prospective investors about the quality of the mortgage loans underlying its residential mortgage-backed securities and about its due diligence practices. On Thursday, Morgan Stanley stock was down almost 40% over the last three months. In January, the Wall Street bank reported a fourth quarter net revenue of $7.7bn, exceeding expectation. Its earnings were $753m, compared to a loss of $1.75bn the year before. “We are pleased to have finalized these settlements involving legacy residential mortgage-backed securities matters. The firm has previously reserved for all amounts related to these settlements,” Mark Lake, a Morgan Stanley spokesman, said in a statement. During the press conference announcing the settlement, Schneiderman implied that there might be more settlements in the works. The settlements with the banks have stemmed from investigations by the residential mortgage-backed securities group, a joint federal and state task force. “The focus of our working group continues to be investigating and pursuing financial institutions that contributed to the crash and working as smartly as we can and try and see that the resources are directed from those institutions to help the people who are still suffering,” he said. “Our work is far from done.”
Nick Clegg says Brexit chaos can help Lib Dems back to power Nick Clegg holds out hope that the Liberal Democrats could play a role in a progressive cross-party government within a few years as he predicts that chaotic Brexit negotiations will gradually destroy support for Theresa May’s government. Speaking before the Lib Dem conference, which opened in Brighton on Saturday, the former party leader and deputy prime minister said that, while the landscape might look bleak for Lib Dems, with just eight MPs, they should not think they will necessarily “be out in the wilderness for a generation”. “Politics is so volatile these days and this government is so rudderless when it comes to Brexit negotiations that Liberal Democrats should not dismiss the possibility that we might once again need to play a role in putting the country first sooner than people think,” he told the  . Clegg’s conference message to the faithful is that if their party, working together with progressive elements of Labour, the SNP, the Greens and even some on the left of the Conservatives, can offer alternative visions to young people and policy ideas on how to address issues such as intergenerational unfairness, the environment, constitutional reform and Britain’s place in the world, then public support will develop for something other than uninterrupted, Brexit-dominated Tory rule. Brexit, says Clegg, will “paralyse the government over the next few years” as ministers discover they cannot “have their cake and eat it” by negotiating favourable trade arrangements with the EU without bowing to its rules. The likely result, he says, will be that the Conservatives, urged on by their members and the rightwing press, will force May into a “panic Brexit” – a hard Brexit that will involve the UK turning its back entirely on Europe – before the next election in 2020, which will severely damage the country. “I think at that point, particularly if investors start taking fright, and it starts dawning on people that the government does not have a road map, I think that then the public appetite for other parties to provide an alternative will grow. “It does not necessarily need to be a new amalgam party overnight. It could be. If that gridlock were to lead to a real sense of drift and malaise, it could be a government of national unity of some description, where parties of different persuasions say they will act together for a period of time, in order to get the country out of the corner the Tories have got it into.” Rather than being dead in the water after five years in coalition with the Conservatives and the resulting mauling by voters at last year’s election, Clegg insisted that the Lib Dems were in some ways in better shape than the deeply divided Labour party. Labour, he argued, had yet to accept “that it will never be able to govern on its own again”. “We need to get bigger and we are getting bigger,” he said. “Even at the nadir of our fortunes [at the last election], 2.5 million voted for us – it is a million more than voted for the SNP. It is just because of our crackers electoral system that they get 56 seats and we get eight. We are winning byelections.” He added: “Of course there is a future. There is a huge amount of energy in the country, there is a search for progressive, thoughtful, compassionate, internationalist politics. That energy will go somewhere. It doesn’t dissipate. Any country in my view that takes a massive decision about its own future such as that to leave the EU against the explicit stated wishes of those who will inhabit that future – in other words, the young – is taking a huge wrong turn in the road. They did vote in this referendum in very large numbers. It is their future which we have told them they cannot have. That is a powerful source of energy.” Opening the conference, Clegg’s successor as leader, Tim Farron, defended his Christian beliefs, saying he did not understand why some people found his continued refusal to say whether he believes gay sex is sinful a concern. “I think people look at my liberalism, my desire to support people’s rights to make whatever choices they want, and I kind of also expect in the same way people – maybe it’s a naive expectation – to respect my beliefs as a Christian,” he said.
Hillary Clinton to Aipac: Trump is dangerous for the security of Israel Hillary Clinton drew battle lines against the Republican frontrunner, Donald Trump, during a major speech to a pro-Israel lobby group on Monday, attacking his central boast that he is a great deal-maker. Without mentioning him by name, the Democratic presidential hopeful left little doubt that she was challenging Trump’s qualifications to be commander-in-chief, portraying him as dangerously malleable and lacking firm convictions. “We need steady hands, not a president who says he’s neutral on Monday, pro-Israel on Tuesday, and who-knows-what on Wednesday because ‘everything’s negotiable’,” Clinton told the annual policy conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac), which draws top Jewish leaders from across the world. “Well, my friends, Israel’s security is non-negotiable.” Trump has previously earned criticism for suggesting he would be “sort of a neutral guy” on Israel and seek to negotiate peace with the Palestinians, describing himself as best placed to make “probably the toughest deal in the world right now”. The New York billionaire has a commanding lead in the Republican primary race and is expected to win in Arizona on Tuesday, while rival Ted Cruz appears strong in Utah. Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders, bidding to become the first Jewish candidate to win a major party’s presidential nomination, skipped the Aipac meeting to campaign ahead of primaries in Arizona and Utah and a caucus in Idaho. In a sign that Clinton already believes she has one hand on the Democratic nomination, she used Monday’s speech in Washington to concentrate her fire on Trump, contending that he falls short on a crucial principle. “I’ve sat in Israeli hospital rooms, holding the hands of men and women whose bodies and lives were torn apart by terrorist bombs,” she said. “I’ve listened to doctors describe the shrapnel left in a leg, an arm or even a head. “That’s why I feel so strongly that America can’t ever be neutral when it comes to Israel’s security or survival. We can’t be neutral when rockets rain down on residential neighborhoods, when civilians are stabbed in the street, when suicide bombers target the innocent. Some things aren’t negotiable – and anyone who doesn’t understand that has no business being our president.” The former first lady also zeroed in on some of Trump’s most controversial proposals: encouraging violence at campaign rallies; “playing coy” with white supremacists; calling for 12 million immigrants to be rounded up and deported; demanding that the US turn away refugees because of their religion; and proposing a ban on all Muslims entering the country. “Now, we’ve had dark chapters in our history before. We remember the nearly 1,000 Jews aboard the St Louis who were denied entry in 1939 and sent back to Europe. But America should be better than this. And I believe it’s our responsibility as citizens to say so.” Clinton said: “If you see bigotry, oppose it. If you see violence, condemn it. If you see a bully, stand up to him.” The former secretary of state has a long history in the Middle East, including overseeing Barack Obama’s first attempt to broker Israeli-Palestinian peace. Her stance against Jewish settlements on land claimed by the Palestinians has been criticised by some in the pro-Israel community, but she has been received warmly by pro-Israel groups in the past. During the gruelling election contest with Sanders, however, she has aligned herself closely with the president. Obama has had a difficult relationship with the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, particularly over issues such as the Iran nuclear deal which has seen some sanctions lifted. “We will never allow Israel’s adversaries to think a wedge can be driven between us,” she said, renewing promises to provide sophisticated defence technology to Israel and to quickly invite the country’s prime minister to the White House. “We must take our alliance to the next level.” Clinton also defended the nuclear accord, telling the 18,000-strong gathering in a sports area: “Today, Iran’s enriched uranium is all but gone, thousands of centrifuges have stopped spinning, Iran’s potential break-out time has increased, and new verification measures are in place to help us deter and detect any cheating. The United States, Israel and the world are safer as a result.” Advocating an approach of “distrust and verify”, she added: “Tonight you will hear a lot of overheated rhetoric from the other candidates about Iran, but there’s a big difference between talking about holding Tehran accountable and actually doing it.” Trump, Cruz and former Ohio governor John Kasich, the three remaining Republican candidates, were due to address the conference – a traditional stop for politicians keen to demonstrate their foreign policy credentials – on Monday afternoon. Trump in particular was under pressure to provide substance instead of his usual practice of speaking off-the-cuff without notes. The reality TV host was using a rare day in the US capital to meet nearly two dozen top Republican officials, consultants and members of Congress before a press conference at Washington’s Old Post Office Pavilion, the site of a future Trump hotel, almost within sight of the White House on Pennsylvania Avenue. His rise has dismayed establishment Republicans whose best hope of derailing his insurgent candidacy is to stretch the contest out and deny him the 1,237 delegates needed to formally win the party’s presidential nomination, leaving its convention in Cleveland to decide. Meanwhile Sanders has scored a big win in the Democrats Abroad global primary. Among 34,570 US citizens living abroad in 38 countries, Sanders received 69% of the vote to earn nine of the 13 delegates at stake. Clinton won 31%, picking up four delegates.
Man jailed over Libor seeks 'miscarriage of justice' review Tom Hayes, serving 11 years for rigging Libor rates, has hired a high-profile lawyer to take his appeal to the Criminal Cases Review Commission, which investigates suspected miscarriages of justice. The 36-year-old’s attempt to have his conviction overturned failed although three senior court of appeal judges reduced the sentence from 14 years. He has now hired Karen Todner – who led Gary McKinnon’s case against extradiction to the US on charges of computer hacking – to present a case to the CCRC. Todner, head of crime, regulatory and extradition at Kaim Todner, said: “Because Tom has already appealed his conviction and sentence, the Criminal Cases Review Commission is now Tom’s only hope of achieving justice. “Tom’s family are now in possession of fresh evidence. We believe Tom has a strong case, which our submission to the CCRC will demonstrate,” said Todner. In August, Hayes was found guilty of eight counts of conspiracy to defraud. He was diagnosed with mild Asperger’s syndrome shortly before his 10-week trial last May. Hayes’s family said: “Karen has longstanding expertise in the areas where Tom’s case needs urgent review in order to right this wrong. Tom knew from the moment he met Karen that she understands him and the way he thinks, and that is the single most important thing to him.” It was not immediately clear what fresh evidence had been found but Hayes and his supporters are seeking to raise up to £150,000 via crowdfunding. So far £2,135 has been raised on FundRazr. Hayes, who is in Belmarsh prison, has been ordered to pay £878,806 after a ruling in the Old Bailey that the money was the proceeds of crime. The Serious Fraud Office was seeking up to £2.45m from Hayes.
Brexit vote reignites the debate on Britishness in Northern Ireland When Britain voted for Brexit, a strange thing happened in North Down, an affluent, unionist-dominated area of Northern Ireland with a strong sense of British identity. As the results came in it became clear North Down had other affinities: European. The area voted in favour of staying in the EU, as the majority of people in Northern Ireland did. The outcome of June’s referendum triggered a summer of speculation. Had attitudes changed? If unionists saw EU membership as important, might they reconsider their ancient hostility to reunification with Ireland? Some asked if there should be a “border poll”, a referendum on whether Northern Ireland should stay in the UK or join the Irish Republic. Others feared a push by Scotland towards independence could fatally undermine unionist confidence in the unity of the UK. But passions quickly cooled. Politicians, among them Bertie Ahern, the former Irish prime minister, said the time wasn’t right for a reunification vote. In unionist strongholds voters stress that pro-remain is not the same as a pro-reunification. Even diehard loyalists say they are opposed to any “hard border” with the Irish Republic post-Brexit. In the North Down seaside town of Bangor, at her home overlooking the mouth of Belfast Lough towards the Irish Sea beyond, remain voter Jill McGimpsey says she never once thought about giving up on the UK even after the Brexit vote. “The reason I voted to remain was because of all the economic warnings over a possible downturn in business if we left the EU,” says the 56-year-old estate agent. “For me that meant the impact on the local housing market and fear that it would be adversely affected. “I never thought for one minute after the UK overall voted for Brexit that I would change my mind about Northern Ireland’s constitutional status. Brexit was and is irrelevant when it comes to my Britishness.” She and her pro-Brexit neighbour Carl McLean stress that they are opposed to a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic – the UK’s only land frontier with an EU state. McLean, who has just returned from Brussels on business, says: “Unionists as well as nationalists enjoy the benefits of an invisible border and cross-border cooperation. We don’t want to be stopped at checkpoints or have our vehicles held up at customs posts. “It might come as a surprise to some people on the mainland but we unionists like travelling and doing business down south in the republic. Many of us commute there on a daily basis, spend weekend breaks in the south and watch Ireland in the rugby internationals in Dublin. We would hate a hard border as much as any nationalist would.” For many unionists with links to Scotland, the big Brexit fear is that it might prompt a second referendum resulting in Scottish secession from the UK, leaving Northern Ireland in an odd rump state comprising England and Wales. In the staunch unionist constituency of Lagan Valley, Scotland is on the minds of two loyalists who belong to Orange flute bands in the town of Lisburn. “My sister works in a big bank in Edinburgh and was like many people in the Scottish financial sector very worried about the impact of Brexit and how jobs might be lost if the UK voted out,” says Graham Kenny. “She convinced me to vote for remain. “There was also the worry about Brexit pushing the Scots towards another referendum vote. Given the family, cultural, political and social ties between Northern Ireland and Scotland the last thing I wanted was to see the Scots walk away from the other union.” The 43-year-old, who is a member of the Ulster Political Research Group, the party that grew out of the loyalist paramilitary Ulster Defence Association, adds: “Even if Scotland walked away from the UK, which I think is not going to happen now, Brexit would never push me towards supporting a united Ireland. Our unionism is rock solid.” His friend and fellow loyalist bandsman Gareth Walker voted for Brexit. Walker says: “I work on a community project here in Lisburn that integrates immigrants into our community. We work on the Old Warren housing estate to ensure our large Polish population feel welcome and fully integrated with the locals. In the past we have had lectures and films teaching our young people about how Polish pilots fought in the Battle of Britain to save our country. So for me voting for Brexit was never about being anti-immigration. It was about taking control of our own affairs and not being bossed about by Brussels.” Walker says he too is opposed to any hard border with the Irish Republic. “I try to follow the Northern Ireland football team everywhere around Europe and often that means driving to Dublin airport to get to games abroad. I love the idea of no restrictions on the way down and I like visiting Dublin too. I have made friends with Republic of Ireland fans from the south at the airport on our way to games including Euro 2016 in France. “I want those good relations north and south to continue even though, Brexit or no Brexit, I am still British.” A BBC poll in September found that eight out of 10 people in a survey of 1,000 voters said Brexit would not change their views on the union with Britain or a united Ireland. The same poll said 63% would still back remaining within the UK. A majority in the poll – 52% – were opposed to holding a border poll on Irish unity. Among those who oppose a border poll is Ahern, the three times Irish taoiseach and Tony Blair’s key ally in the negotiations leading up to the 1998 Good Friday agreement. He said: “Nobody should be talking about border polls. Border polls should only come into account when there is a realistic opportunity down the road, when I’ll be probably long gone, when there is a realistic chance of one succeeding.” Ahern, who built up a deep friendship with the late Rev Ian Paisley in the discussions leading to the establishment of a devolved power sharing government in 2007, said any all-Ireland negotiations about Brexit’s impact should be only under the institutions set up via the Good Friday agreement. “That should almost be the gospel. So I don’t think anyone should go off floating other ideas but keep strictly to that agreement which was underpinned by the European Union and is a recognised international treaty.” Additional reporting by Stephen Collins, political editor, the Irish Times
Brexit campaigner Michael Gove defends NHS funding pledge Michael Gove, a leading Brexit campaigner, has renewed his argument that economic experts need to be challenged and defended the Vote Leave slogan from the referendum campaign, saying that the NHS will get £350m a week after the UK leaves the EU. Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Gove expanded on his controversial claim during the Brexit campaign that the public had “had enough of experts” from economic bodies known by their acronyms. In a debate with Stephanie Flanders, the economist and former BBC journalist, he even cited an expert professor to support his argument that expert economists were not good at making predictions. “Sometimes we’re invited to take experts as though they were prophets, as though their words were carved in tablets of stone and that we had to simply meekly bow down before them and accept their verdict,” he said. “I think the right response in a democracy to assertions made by experts is to say ‘show us the evidence, show us the facts’. And then, if experts or indeed anyone in the debate can make a strong case, draw on evidence and let us think again, then of course they deserve respect.” He mentioned an academic study that showed experts in a range of fields were more susceptible to groupthink, and that other experts besides economists could be treated as more reliable guides for future trends. He added: “The people I was singling out for scepticism were those such as the economists from organisations like the IMF, who’ve got big issues like the wisdom of joining the euro wrong in the past. “The IMF didn’t just get the arguments wrong over the single currency, they called the EU referendum wrongly too.” However, he agreed with Flanders that the views of experts should not be dismissed out of hand. “We need to make sure the taking back control and exercise of democratic restoration doesn’t descend into iconoclasm and a distaste for elites and experts simply on the basis of their expertise or success in the past,” Gove said. “But what I believe in is radically challenging them but not attempting to overturn them out of sheer distrust or distaste.” Flanders, a former BBC economics editor who now works for JP Morgan, agreed that economists had a long record of being wrong on direct forecasts, while expressing concerns about the consequences of expertise being dismissed out of hand. “I think we’ve seen over the last few years economists and indeed the elite, the technocrats, can be wrong in some pretty big areas,” she said. “They were wrong in their assumptions about certain financial instruments and developments, which helped contribute to the financial crisis. “You get groupthink, you can certainly get elites being out of touch, and we’ve seen all of that and that’s why I think, in a sense, Michael had captured something with that phrase.” The former justice and education secretary was also asked about his use of statistics during the referendum campaign, when Vote Leave claimed £350m a week would be spent on the NHS. Gove said the figure was robust and argued it could not yet be proved true or false because the UK had not yet left the EU. “The money is there and it’s for the government to decide how to spend it once we leave,” he said. Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow health secretary, was not convinced, tweeting: Gove also got into a spat on Twitter after he was asked to defend a report by Change Britain, a successor group to Vote Leave, which argued this week that withdrawing from the single market and customs union could save even more – at least £450m a week. The report’s figures have been called “meaningless” and “junk” by Jonathan Portes, a former chief economist of the Cabinet Office, and “fantasy figures” by the Lib Dem leader, Tim Farron, as they add together benefits from trade deals and government savings from stopping contributions to the EU budget. Asked about the £450m and £350m claims by Portes and David Blanchflower, a former member of the Bank of England’s monetary policy committee, Gove suggested remain supporters should be showing “humility” in the face of defeat. “Guys! You all backed Remain. Has that prompted any humility? Interested to hear if so,” he tweeted. Portes said he was neutral in the referendum and asked for a retraction.
Flores’ last game as Watford manager ends in draw with Sunderland Two goals wrongly disallowed, one questionable penalty conceded and Sam Allardyce still ended the game with a smile and a wave. This was a world removed from the great majority of Sunderland’s season, a day in which the sun shone, the fans sung incessantly and the manager could make nine changes, give debuts to three promising young players, leave the man credited with single-handedly saving their top-flight status, Jermain Defoe, on the bench and still enjoy a convincing, and very nearly match-winning, performance. Allardyce was too relieved to criticise the match officials furiously, although he did appear tempted. “We’re very glad those decisions had no bearing on where we finished in the league,” he said. “If we’d needed three points today we’d have been in serious trouble, with offsides we didn’t think were offside and a penalty we didn’t think was a penalty.” He explained his team selection by saying: “The players who worked so hard to get us safe had no need to come out and exert themselves any more, and put themselves through the mill.” However, the decision to field a starting XI featuring a left flank, in the left-back Tom Robson and the winger Rees Greenwood, populated entirely by 20-year-old debutants, carried with it a risk that a wildly promising conclusion to the season would end on a slightly downhearted note. Instead, they offered only further encouragement. “These were 11 players who don’t play on a regular basis, yet they matched a Watford side that was at full-strength on their own ground,” Allardyce said. “If you consider we averaged two points per game over the last six games, that’s top-six stuff. If we can start where we’ve left off, we can have a better season than this one. Next season let’s get 12 points from the first six games, not the last six.” Watford’s season, on the other hand, ended precisely as it began: with a 2-2 draw. For all their reliance on the match officials, they fashioned many more opportunities than their opponents, ending with a 21-6 advantage on shots taken, although many of them were sent from distance either into the hands of Jordan Pickford or, more frequently, into the crowd. Quique Sánchez Flores ended his final match as Watford manager “completely happy” – both with the game and his single season in charge. “I think the first year [after promotion] is the most difficult year,” he said. “To build a squad in pre-season was completely difficult because players want security and Watford was new in the division. Watford is now established in the Premier League, so next year is coming more players, more quality.” The home side made the better start, with Almen Abdi, Sebastian Prödl, Odion Ighalo and José Manuel Jurado coming close in the opening half-hour, but Sunderland proved much more clinical, scoring from their first significant opportunity. Prödl’s slip on the halfway line allowed Dame N’Doye to run unhindered down the left before passing inside to Jeremain Lens, whose drive was well saved. The ball was immediately worked back to Lens and this time his low centre was turned into a now totally exposed goal by Jack Rodwell. From there, Sunderland could have had the game won by half-time. Two minutes later Duncan Watmore had a goal disallowed, even though Nathan Aké appeared to have played him onside, and two minutes after that N’Doye was denied a fine chance by Prödl’s last-ditch challenge. Three minutes after the break Watford equalised, Prödl heading in Adlène Guedioura’s corner, though he appeared to shove his marker, John O’Shea, out of the way first. When Watford won another corner two minutes later O’Shea wasn’t taking any chances, with both arms around the giant Austrian defender as the ball came in. It was cleared, Sunderland broke and moments later Watmore played in Lens, who turned inside Aké and scored from 10 yards. Sunderland might have felt those two incidents evened themselves out but eight minutes later they were cursing. Sebastian Larsson’s right-wing free-kick was headed in by a diving Lens at the far post – but again it was disallowed for an extremely marginal offside. Watford took the free-kick, sped up the other end and promptly won a rather soft penalty, after O’Shea and Lamine Koné simultaneously ran into Jurado, the referee blaming the former as he blew his whistle. Deeney swept in the spot-kick as Pickford dived the wrong way. Man of the match Duncan Watmore (Sunderland)
Where is Bana? Fears for Syrian girl who tweeted from Aleppo Bana al-Abed, a seven-year-old girl whose Twitter postings have offered the world a glimpse into the deprivation and violence in the besieged city of Aleppo, sparked worldwide concern about her safety when her account was abruptly shut down on Sunday night. The account, which is managed by her mother, Fatemah, appears to have been restored but the latest message, posted on Monday night, suggested that the family was still in danger. Fears remain over the fate of the family if they are captured by forces loyal to the Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad, whose troops and allied militias are pressing their advantage after three months of siege in Aleppo, in an attempt to recapture the divided metropolis. Attempts to contact the family have not been successful. Hours before the account was shut down, mother and daughter tweeted a farewell message saying forces loyal to Assad were bearing down on their neighbourhood. “We are sure the army is capturing us now. We will see each other another day dear world,” read Sunday night’s tweet. The mother and daughter, who were interviewed last month by the in a video call over Skype while planes flew overhead and machine gunfire raged, had apparently received death threats in the days preceding the account’s closure. Their current location is unknown, but they had published images appearing to show the destruction of their home days earlier. Bana’s tweets had amassed more than 100,000 followers, among them JK Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter series, who sent the girl ebooks of her novels after Bana said she liked to read “to forget the war”. After the closure of the account, the British author retweeted several messages asking after her, using the hashtag “Whereisbana?” Syrian government forces have taken control of more than half of Aleppo’s rebel districts in an offensive launched in November that on Monday led them, along with an array of Iranian-backed militia fighters from Iraq and Lebanon, to push further into al-Shaar, a district in the eastern part of the city. The pincer movement was meant to further split rebel-held territory in Syria’s former industrial capital, divided since 2012. Thousands have been displaced so far in the fighting, with reports emerging of forced disappearances in the aftermath of the capture of former opposition-controlled districts. Monitoring groups say hundreds of civilians have been killed or injured in the weeks since the latest offensive was announced. Residents told of great deprivation in the remaining, besieged opposition areas, with relentless bombing by warplanes and artillery shelling amid cuts in basic services, such as water and electricity. Few people have access to clean water and food and medical supplies have been exhausted in the campaign. “No words for describing the situation now,” said Abdulkafi al-Hamdo, a teacher based in east Aleppo who said in a text message that many of those who fled the fighting had ended up in his neighbourhood. “Bombs, bombs, bombs. Regime is advancing from many places and the fear of genocide is what people think of. “We want the children to leave,” said one nurse in east Aleppo, whose hospital was destroyed by airstrikes. “The children have nothing to do with anything. It’s not their fault that they should bear the burden of crimes that they have nothing to do with. We will be accountable for their blood.” But there was little sign of any respite even as Russia, a staunch backer of the regime that has continued to target opposition areas with fighter jets, said it would hold talks this week on the withdrawal of all rebels from east Aleppo. The Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, told a news conference on Monday that any opposition fighters who remain in Aleppo after such a deal is reached would be treated as terrorists by Moscow. “We will treat them as such, as terrorists, as extremists and will support a Syrian army operation against these criminal squads,” he said. On Monday, Russia and China vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution which called for a seven-day truce in Aleppo. Russia said that the ceasefire would allow rebels to regroup. It was the sixth Security Council resolution on Syria that Russia has vetoed in the five years of the conflict. In doing so.. they have also held to ransom the lives of hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women and children currently enduring hell in Aleppo,” Matthew Rycroft, the UK ambassador to the UN said. He also criticised China for adding its veto, easing Moscow’s isolation on Syria. “Despite repeated pronouncements against politicisation and in favour of dialogue, China has decided to side with Russia, a party to this conflict,” Rycroft said. Russian officials held talks with rebel groups last week in Ankara. At an initial meeting on Monday, they offered a ceasefire with full access for humanitarian aid to eastern Aleppo in return for the departure of fighters from the al-Qaida-linked Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (formerly al-Nusra Front). However, the Russians claimed there were 3,000 JFS fighters, whereas the Aleppo opposition and most observers say there are a few hundred at most. On Sunday, the Russians stepped up their demands further, according to an opposition source, demanding the rebels inside the eastern Aleppo enclave guarantee a ceasefire on behalf of the armed opposition in the western outskirts of the city, where JFS are much stronger. It was a guarantee the Aleppo rebels were unable to give. According to Charles Lister, an analyst at the Middle East Institute who has been in touch with opposition delegates in Ankara, the Russians called for all fighters to leave the besieged districts. Lister wrote: “Representatives of Aleppo’s armed opposition met secretly with Russian officials in Ankara on Monday and according to one source in the room, the talks made some progress. However, Russia’s offer of full aid access and a transfer of control of eastern Aleppo to an opposition civil council in exchange for the full withdrawal of al-Qaeda-linked militants and a full ceasefire was reversed several days later. On Sunday, Russia insisted on a withdrawal of all of mainstream opposition fighters, as well as the identification and surrender of all al-Qaida members.” According to Lister, Turkey convened a secret meeting with Russia late on Sunday to try to salvage the talks, but that no new negotiations were planned. “Should war trump talks, Aleppo will fall; extremism will flourish and Syria’s war will enter a new, dangerous and likely intractable phase,” Lister said. When the Kremlin intervened in the Syrian war last year, it had advertised its aim as the elimination of Islamic State. Rebels in east Aleppo had evicted Isis from the city in early 2014, losing about 1,500 fighters in the battle. Isis militants still in the province of Aleppo are sequestered in al-Bab, a town north of Aleppo city that is under siege by Turkish-backed fighters. So far, few rebel fighters have indicated a willingness to abandon the city, whose fate has long been seen as a bellwether for the state of the conflict, now in its sixth year. A regime victory would relegate the rebellion into a rural insurgency, with east Aleppo being the last major urban area under opposition control. Assad and his allies appear bent on completing the recapture of the city before the swearing in of the new American president in January. The UN security council was expected to vote later on Monday on a proposed ceasefire resolution that includes aid deliveries into the besieged districts of Aleppo, but Russia is likely to veto it.
The future of nursing: bursaries versus loans When the chancellor, George Osborne, announced in last autumn’s spending review that bursaries for nursing students in England would be scrapped and replaced with loans it sparked demonstrations, an online petition signed by more than 150,000 people and a special parliamentary debate. Thousands of student nurses and midwives marched through London, Manchester and Newcastle in January protesting that the new system would put off potential students, causing serious knock-on effects for the future of the health service. But other healthcare professionals have welcomed the changes, arguing the current system is unsustainable. “The NHS bursary is lower than students would receive from a university maintenance loan and health students increasingly face hardship trying to manage on the bursary, so this is a better option for them,” says Dame Jessica Corner, chair of the Council of Deans of Health, which represents UK university health faculties. Under the current system, nursing and midwifery students can apply for non-repayable bursaries of up to £4,191, of which £1,000 is not means-tested. They also receive loans of up to £3,263, depending on whether they are living in London and living away from home. Other loans of up to £1,008 are also available; tuition fees are paid by Health Education England. Under the new system, from September 2017, these students will be treated like most other undergraduates in England. They will pay tuition fees of up to £9,000, which will be covered by loans administered through the Student Loans Company, and will no longer be eligible for grants. Instead, they will need to take out loans to cover the entire cost of their maintenance. However, these loans, which are means-tested, will put between £1,528 and £3,304 extra in their pockets. They will start repaying them once they start earning more than £21,000 per year. The Council of Deans of Health estimates that a newly qualified nurse will pay back around £5.20 per month – and if they stop earning at any stage of their careers, they will stop paying. The loans are written-off after 30 years. Graham Ross, marketing and recruitment coordinator in the school of health and social work at the University of Hertfordshire, says his university is likely to consider offering scholarships if its competitors do. Corner says NHS trusts are also being encouraged to offer help with loan repayments, perhaps in return for students working for them after graduation. A spokesman for NHS Employers says this is “all in the mix”, particularly for areas in which there are nursing shortages, but no decisions have yet been made. A consultation is expected to begin in the spring on the details of the new scheme, which should also make it clearer how the cost of uniforms and travel to placements will be covered. The government’s aim is for the changes to release more cash to subsidise more training places. This means prospective students could find it easier to be accepted on to a course, although there is likely to be extra pressure on places this year because of a rush to get in under the present system. Steve West, vice-chancellor of the University of the West of England and a trained podiatrist, says: “If someone is interested in healthcare professions they should absolutely follow their dream and apply to university and not let the change interfere with their future aspirations. It’s a fantastic career choice for someone who wants to make a difference, and a profession that has huge amounts of opportunities.” Funding for nurse training across the UK England From September 2017 student nurses are eligible for maintenance loans of up to £12,054. They will also need to apply for a tuition fee loan of up to £9,000. Scotland Changes likely in 2017. Currently students receive a £6,758 annual bursary. Wales Decision yet to be made. Join the Healthcare Professionals Network to read more pieces like this. And follow us on Twitter (@GdnHealthcare) to keep up with the latest healthcare news and views.
Arsène Wenger fires back at fans as Arsenal’s civil war heats up Truces are rarely as temporary. As the most comfortable of victories secured Arsenal a five-point cushion to fifth place, this seemed a restorative day but the final whistle was still a few minutes away when the club’s civil war resumed. If the first shots were the loudest, in the form of a chorus from the visiting fans, the principal Gunner returned fire with interest, pleading for peace yet risking escalating the conflict. After supporters, with choice words, repeatedly told the absentee majority shareholder, Stan Kroenke, to “get out of our club”, Arsène Wenger defended other allies from not-so-friendly fire. The Arsenal manager’s gripe was that the pressure on his players, and the perception they were failing, is amplified by their own followers. He was particularly aggrieved that their north London derby draw, which followed three successive defeats, was not received more favourably. “What hurts me is that at the important moment of the season we played in a sceptical environment,” he said. “I think after the Tottenham game where we played a very good game with 10 men against 11 and came back to 2-2, I couldn’t understand why – at the moment when you need everyone behind the team – we had to hit that storm. From the media, OK. From our fans? It is a bit more difficult to take.” More placatory comments followed. “I never complain about critics, especially when they are turned against me,” Wenger added. “But we have to get the fans behind us with our attitude, and make sure that they stand behind the team until the end of the season.” It was a call for unity, even if the rival camps’ positions seem more entrenched. Supporters are disenchanted – some used Kroenke as a proxy for Wenger and one banner proclaimed “Time for change, Arsenal FC not Arsène FC” – and the club’s establishment feel their arguments betray an ingratitude. The masses want prizes, the manager talks about pounds. “I built this club over 19 years with the quality of my work, not with resources from outside,” said Wenger. “Not with big sponsorship but by caring about every pound that I spent.” A game notable for fiscal prudence and footballing excellence was a typically Wenger-esque occasion. He can see victories as vindication. Rather than ploughing much of Arsenal’s vast cash reserves into the January transfer market, he acquired Mohamed Elneny for £7.4m. The busy Egyptian exerted an influence. Otherwise Wenger found the answers within. He can be a master of mid-season improvisation, even if the way his initial plans unravel means he sometimes has to be, and he looks for renewal and rejuvenation from his own. Last season Francis Coquelin was catapulted from obscurity. Now Alex Iwobi made an auspicious first league start, garnished with a goal. Wenger has long resisted entreaties to buy a world-class centre-forward and instead reiterated his faith in Danny Welbeck, the other scorer. Arsenal’s seasons invariably end with the question of what might have been if only key players had stayed fit. Welbeck’s campaign began on Valentine’s Day. “You cannot say you don’t miss a player of that stature for eight months,” Wenger said. “He can make a real difference in the final eight games.” He has an instinctive preference for continuity, on the playing staff and in the backroom team alike. He is on course for a 20th consecutive top-four finish; the accusation is that Arsenal are in a state of stasis, the reality that Wenger is, to paraphrase José Mourinho, a specialist in averting failure. The Frenchman’s belief is that they are progressing. “The club has moved forward a lot,” he said. “I just want to continue that.” While a growing faction urge him to leave Arsenal, he has rejected offers from many another club to stay. Would he care to put a number on it? A manager whose grounding in economics gives him a famously good grasp of the figures affected an ignorance. “No,” he said with a knowing smile. Man of the match Alex Iwobi (Arsenal)
Newt Gingrich has turned Islamophobia into an art If you missed Newt Gingrich’s speech at the Republican National Convention then this was the gist of it: ‘Be afraid of the Islamists. Be very, very, very afraid. Thought September 11 was bad? Hah! You ain’t seen nothing yet.’ The former speaker had something of a tough spot; squeezed in between Ted Cruz, who sort of stole the show by refusing to endorse Trump, and Mike Pence, who formally accepted the VP nomination. But, you know, when life gives you lemons, you’ve just got to go ahead and invoke a bloody apocalypse, backed with some spurious statistics. As someone on Twitter pointed out, an anagram of “Republican National Convention” is “Con vulnerable nation into panic” and Gingrich did just that in a way that only Gingrich can really do. Over the decades he’s turned speech-making into not so much an art as a sort of Newtonian science. In 1994 the political action committee he ran, Gopac, distributed a memo called “Language: A Key Mechanism of Control”, to the Republican party. This instructed Republicans to learn to “speak like Newt” by using a laundry list of “contrasting words” and “optimistic positive governing words” when describing Democrats and Republicans. This black/white, good/evil approach to language was very much in evidence on Wednesday night as Gingrich delivered a textbook example of language as a means of control. Gingrich started with a roll call of all the disasters in the last 37 days that he believes Muslims were responsible for. There were a lot of disasters. After setting up the problem (imminent death and destruction) he zeroed in on the culprits. Ah, but wait a second before you get hysterical with your Islamophobic accusations news-media! The culprit he was very careful to point out, is #notallmuslims. A few days ago, of course, Gingrich caused some outrage when, responding to last week’s terrorist attack in Nice, he proposed that the government should “test every person here who is of a Muslim background and if they believe in sharia they should be deported”. After the media reported his exact words he quickly backtracked by saying that “the news media went into a hysteria overnight in trying to grossly exaggerate what I was saying.” Not wanting a repeat of this, Gingrich did some Googling and found some statistics about how, while not all Muslims want to kill you, a sizable proportion of them do. “Pew Research finds that just 9% of Muslims in Pakistan support Isis,” Gingrich said. “Unfortunately, that 9% is 16 million people. And that’s just one country.” So there you go. He did the math and it proves that he isn’t Islamophobic thank you very much. Just maybe slightly creative when it comes to the interpretation of data, seeing as that study said 9% of Muslims had a favorable view of Isis, not that they would support it. And, more importantly, the same 2015 Pew report found that Pakistan was an outlier; views of Isis were “overwhelmingly negative” in 10 Muslim-majority nations. Which Gingrich didn’t feel was important to mention. Gingrich’s speech sounded suspiciously like he was auditioning to be the next secretary of defense. If that scares you then take some consolation from the fact that Gingrich dismissed that idea in an earlier speech on Wednesday. “I think [Trump] thought I was going to say I would like to be secretary of state or secretary of defense, but those are real jobs and I’m at a stage in my life where I would really just like to be creative,” Gingrich said. And if, in turn, this disappoints you then take solace in the chance that, perhaps, despite his protestations, Gingrich might find a way to combine creativity and a “real job”. After all, it’s become abundantly clear that creativity, particularly when it comes to facts, is one of the traits most valued in a Trump administration.
Donald Trump lends name to new hotel so near – and so far from – White House It was once a brand synonymous with gold and marble; a sign of guaranteed opulence if not necessarily good taste. Instead, the taint of sexual assault claims and alleged racism hung over the formal opening of the latest building to bear the Trump name: the Republican presidential candidate’s newest hotel in Washington DC. Just 723 short steps along Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House, this may be the closest Donald Trump comes to the heart of political power this year, but the glitzy launch was meant to be the highlight of his business calendar. Rooms during inauguration week in January were marketed at up to $500,000 each. During a soft launch in September, Trump ensured wall-to-wall media coverage by using the occasion to finally admit he had been wrong to doubt Barack Obama’s right to American citizenship. But weeks of political scandal appear to have taken their toll on the brand. During the recent IMF meetings in Washington, usually the busiest week of the year for luxury hotels in the city, rooms could be found online at a significant discount compared to its sold-out rivals. While Trump was boasting of the building’s 5ft-thick walls during Wednesday’s ribbon-cutting ceremony, the sound of political protest out on the street could be heard from inside the lobby. Overnight, Trump’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame was destroyed by a vandal with a sledgehammer and pickaxe. The candidate sounded wistful and unusually subdued as he took a break from the campaign trail to attend the launch. “With the notable exception of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, this is the most coveted location in DC. The best location,” said Trump. Even the struggling campaign’s slogan, “Make America great again”, was watered down, perhaps succumbing to criticism that it implies the country is no longer at its best. ‘The United States is great. Its people are great,” said Trump, during brief political remarks that followed the launch. “My theme today is five [sic] words: ‘under budget and ahead of schedule’,” added Trump. “You don’t hear those words too much within government, but you will. This is what I want to do for our country.” Ivanka Trump, whose name has been attached to both the hotel’s spa and its flagship suite over two floors of the bell tower, also sounded worn down by the steady stream of attacks. “This political season has been one of the most interesting journeys of my life,” said Trump’s daughter. “Each day I have heard critics attempt to deride my father’s business. But one of the most telling things is the thousands of people who have worked with him who continue stand by his side.” Eric Danziger, chief executive of the family’s hotel business, insisted the group was still meeting internal projections. “This has been a very rewarding year for Trump hotels. Our business continues to exceed our targets,” he said. But he somewhat spoiled the attempt to put a brave face on signs of commercial backlash by confirming recent reports that the next hotel venture would not bear the family name and would instead be called “Scion hotels”. In Manhattan, the many buildings that bear Trump’s name have become a magnet for middle fingers from passing motorists, with reports of dumped dog excrement and hurled eggs. Management of one apartment complex has refused requests from residents for Trump’s name to be removed, citing cost and the risk of being sued. The election had already been costly for the Trump brand. Early on, NBC severed ties over Trump’s immigration remarks. Macy’s dumped his menswear line. There have been attempts to remove his name from hotel projects from the Middle East to Canada. But the combination of weeks of sexual assault allegations – all vigorously denied by Trump – and plummeting poll numbers mean the hotel launch comes at a particularly bad time. “We’ll build a wall against racism and bigotry,” read a banner on display outside the main entrance as an army of political reporters descended beforehand. “This is not really a hotel; this is a symbol of Trump’s political ambition,” claimed Eugene Puryear, a protester with the Answer Coalition. “This is another opportunity for Trump to create this myth about his so-called business prowess.” Washington is not a Republican city. Trump received just 391 votes in the DC primary convention and could come third in the city in November’s general election. The hotel launch was boycotted by the city’s Democratic mayor and local restaurateurs. But hotels are aimed at visitors. A characterful building on a national thoroughfare neglected by commercial developers, the Old Post Office could have provided a bit of harmless glitz to a city where opulence typically tends toward understatement. Instead, the acres of marble, chintzy carpet and gleaming gold taps on the inside feel like any other US luxury hotel, while the giant Trump sign on the outside simply invites uncomfortable associations. How many reporters would have been here for any other hotel launch is hard to tell, but the press pack easily exceeded the 225 seats laid out for invited guests. Several of these were filled by family members: Melania, Donald Jr, Eric and Ivanka. Officially, it was not a campaign event, but two of the handful of prominent Republicans still prepared to be associated with the candidacy were there as well, in the former House speaker Newt Gingrich and Alabama senator Jeff Sessions. Gingrich rejected criticism that the event was a distraction from the campaign: “That’s because they don’t understand the message,” he said, before echoing Trump: “It’s under budget and ahead of schedule … it tells you what a Trump administration would be like.” “Washington will never be the same” is the defiant slogan of the hotel’s management, which seems determined to milk the waning political connections. What John F Kennedy would make of the 713 sq ft room in his name is harder to judge.
Eyeing open convention, Trump turns to man who helped win the last one Donald Trump has turned to one of the most experienced Republican political fixers in a bid to get his campaign across the finish line in first place and secure the party’s nomination. Defeat in the Wisconsin primary this week made increasingly difficult the Republican frontrunner’s prospects of reaching the 1,237 delegate threshold needed. So he has looked to one of the few backroom dealmakers with hands-on experience of successfully navigating a contested convention. Paul Manafort, 67, has worked in Republican politics for 40 years. The last time there was a contested convention in 1976, he played a key role in securing Gerald Ford’s nomination, helping run the convention floor and woo delegates for the incumbent president.. He also worked on President Ronald Reagan’s 1980 campaign and has been an adviser to other Republican candidates such as former president George HW Bush and Bob Dole. Manafort has also become a powerful Washington lobbyist and has consulted for controversial international political figures such as Viktor Yanukovych, the pro-Russian president of Ukraine overthrown in the Orange Revolution. His emergence on the Trump campaign comes as a brokered convention – where no candidate arrives in Cleveland with a majority of delegates – has become likely. Trump seems to have realized that he needs an organized, methodical effort to woo delegates, who are often the types of party activist that the New York billionaire’s campaign has long scorned. Manafort will help steady the ship in that regard – but with a campaign scrambling to catch up organizationally, the question is whether it will be too little, too late. On the campaign trail, Trump has repeatedly complained about his operation being out-organized in Louisiana in particular, a state where he won the primary but tied with Ted Cruz in the delegate count. An embarrassing example of Trump’s organizational flaws were revealed in a district convention in Colorado on Thursday where the campaign handed out glossy literature to urge attendees to vote for delegates who weren’t on the ballot. Manafort, a longtime lobbying partner of Trump’s political consigliere Roger Stone, has seen a rather dramatic rise in Trump world in recent weeks and the veteran operative is still working for Trump on an unpaid volunteer basis. The New York real estate developer’s top aide, Corey Lewandowski, has seen his role on the campaign diminish in favor of Manafort. Lewandowski had become an increasingly controversial figure after being charged with committing misdemeanor battery against a female reporter for conservative news site Breitbart.com. In a separate incident, Lewandowski accosted a protester in a crowd at a rally. Despite Trump’s willingness to unabashedly stand by Lewandowski, the candidate’s growing issues with delegate selection and preparing for a contested convention have put Lewandowski increasingly in the line of fire. In an interview on Friday, Manafort further asserted his independence from Lewandowski, saying: “I work directly for the boss.” “I listen to everybody, but I have one man whose voice is louder than everybody else’s,” he told CNN. Strikingly, Manafort, who has known Trump for decades and owns an apartment in Manhattan’s Trump Tower, referred to the candidate as “Donald”. Other staffers on the campaign call him “Mr Trump”. Lewandowski rose to his prominent role on the campaign by enabling Trump. Longtime political confidants of the billionaire – men such as Roger Stone and Sam Nunberg, a Stone associate – were pushed out of the way as Lewandowski took control of the levers of the campaign in the summer of 2015. His borrowed campaign motto from the West Wing, “Let Trump be Trump”, was viewed by someone familiar with the campaign as turning being a yes man into a strategic imperative. Before joining Trump’s team, Lewandowski had not managed a campaign since 2002. However, the operative, who spent a long stint with Americans for Prosperity, the linchpin of the political groups that comprise the controversial conservative Koch network, is still widely respected among his peers. Lewandowski will maintain his role as the campaign manager, but Manafort will now be in charge of planning for the convention in Cleveland and dealing with long-neglected tasks of outreach to party activists and organizing in internal Republican contests.
Cult heroes: the Sound – critical darlings who were crowded out by kings of angst Some bands rack up hit after hit and enjoy fame and fortune. Others never reach the top 20 but amass a following substantial enough to sustain a decades-long career. Then there are those who – if they don’t fail entirely – amass an array of glowing reviews that never translate into large-scale public recognition, and end up with that poisoned chalice of a tag, the “critics’ favourite”. So it was for the Sound, who blazed forth in the post-punk years alongside the likes of Joy Division, the Cure and Echo and the Bunnymen. They left behind five terrific studio albums and one in particular – 1981’s From the Lions Mouth – as great as virtually anything in the canon. As Melody Maker’s Steve Sutherland put it at the time: “Lions Mouth could be the end of the line for me and ‘rock’ records – it’s that good.” The Sound’s second album had the raw intensity (and brooding basslines) of Joy Division, the majesty of the Bunnymen and the tender mournfulness of the Cure, but its own identifiable sound. In Adrian Borland, the band had a frontman every bit as driven, compelled (and compelling) as Ian Curtis. Just why it never quite happened for them is one of those mysteries that baffles fans to this day. Maybe it was that with so much great music flooding out in the early 80s, the Sound were simply crowded out. Maybe it had something to do with them being on the same label – the Warners subsidiary Korova – as the already successful Bunnymen, meaning they received less of their label’s attention than they should have done. Maybe it was because Borland didn’t have the otherwordly good looks of, say, the young Ian McCulloch, or that the band dressed more like office workers than trailblazing kings of angst. Ian Curtis’s suicide in 1980 catapulted Joy Division to national attention. When Adrian Borland killed himself 19 years later, his equally tragic loss went virtually unnoticed. The Sound emerged from the ashes of the Outsiders, a little-remembered London band whose 1977 debut, Calling on Youth, was the first self-released punk album, just months after Buzzcocks’ Spiral Scratch EP, Britain’s first DIY punk single. The band didn’t last, but Borland took bassist Graham Bailey (later surnamed Green) into the Sound, searching for something deeper and longer lasting than three-chord tirades against the government. I saw the Sound before I heard them, chancing upon the sleeve of their debut album, Jeopardy, in the racks of Leeds HMV. It featured a moody monochrome illustration, and I knew instinctively that I’d like them. Even so, in those far-off schooldays when an album purchase was a significant investment, I put off buying it, unaware of the five-star reviews comparing it to Joy Division, the Bunnymen and the Teardrop Explodes. Some time later, I finally got to hear what they sounded like via a killer John Peel session containing songs from Lions Mouth. I rushed back to HMV and that second album became my Sound first. Like, say, Joy Division’s Closer, time hasn’t blunted its intensity. If anything, it sounds even more powerful now, because so little rock music sounds so audibly, desperately real. In 1981, Borland’s emotional lyrics confronted his troubled crossing from teenage years to early adulthood, but today those concerns are universal: they’re the anguished cry from the heart of someone finding himself consumed by all around him, always swimming against the tide. In From the Lions Mouth’s anthemic opener, Winning, Borland turns this on its head, Max Mayers’s hypnotic keyboard riff propelling the singer’s roar of defiant positivity: “I was gonna drown … I was going down, and then I started winning.” The second track, Sense of Purpose, is a similar call to arms – “a call to the heart, a call to have a heart”. The exquisite Contact the Fact is an unconditional but seemingly unrequited love song of almost painful vulnerability: “Hate it when I’m crazy. It’s a side of love, you never wanted to see.” By the driving Skeletons, the demons have reappeared: “There’s a gaping hole in the way we are, with nothing to fill it up any more.” The early-80s pop scene was certainly not short on moody types – and every fifth teenager (this one included) would perfect a sullen pout, grow their fringe over their eyes and carry a Joy Division album (or Russian novel) under their arm, to try to look enigmatic and mysterious. But listening to From the Lions Mouth as an adult, it sounds like an album that has been inspired by genuine, deep depression. Borland’s troubles are laid bare in A Fatal Flaw – “I’ve made a strange disappearance, one that no one can see. You can’t reach me any more, turn to face the fatal flaw.” Possession finds him fighting his demons: “A war being waged, that can never be won.” The sense of futility in the closing track, New Dark Age – “Scratched away at the walls for years, and all we’ve got to show is the dust on the floor” – is almost completely banished by the percussive, raw, primal scream of the music, in which Borland sounds ready to kick down the doors and take on all comers. “This was going to be it then. The BIG IMPORTANT second album,” writes drummer Michael Dudley, in the sleevenotes of the reissued album. It wasn’t it. Although From the Lions Mouth shifted 100,000 copies worldwide, Dudley observes that the Sound made much more of an impact in Germany and the Netherlands than in the UK. “And every time we came back, it felt like the cell door clanging shut behind us.” Under record company pressure to deliver a more successful follow-up, the Sound instead turned in their Metal Machine Music. All Fall Down isn’t as impenetrable as Lou Reed’s raised finger to RCA – and it is adored by fans - but it was so brutally intense that Warners dropped them afterwards and reviewers turned. The six-song EP Shock of Daylight (1984), Heads and Hearts (1985) and Thunder Up (1987) appeared on independent labels, and the last was another magnificently brooding effort. But there were fewer takers every time, which was the story of the Sound. Borland went on to minor European success, produced albums for others and made several fine, accomplished solo albums. His last single, Over the Under received rapturous reviews. Borland sang: “I want to live, at least I’m going to try, but I’m over the under.” Then suddenly he was gone. It transpired that he’d had schizoaffective disorder for many years, developed a drinking problem and had made several failed suicide attempts before killing himself at Wimbledon railway station in the early hours of Boxing Day, 1999. He was 41. Perhaps, had Borland – and Mayers, who died of Aids in the early 90s – lived, the Sound would have reformed and, with ever more acclaim being showered on their reissued catalogue and more exposure via YouTube than they ever dreamed of during their original existence, would be touring these songs to the appreciative audiences they deserve. My big regret is that I never saw them live, but I did meet Borland once, in the mid 90s, when I was introduced to him in the audience at the Marquee in London. He was lovely, hugging me and shaking my hand again and again as he thanked me for my wonderfully glowing Sounds review of a Sound gig that had been recorded for the live album In the Hothouse, which he proceeded to quote, almost in its entirety. “If I’ve seen a more intense gig this year, I’d appreciate being told,” he recited. He was so visibly and movingly thrilled that I hadn’t the heart to tell him that he was mistaking me for the writer Chris Roberts. I just wanted to let Adrian Borland enjoy a moment of glory and what looked like real happiness. The tragedy of the Sound is that there really should have been so many more.
Hillary Clinton calls Trump 'temperamentally unfit' to lead after Machado spat Hillary Clinton took another swipe at Donald Trump’s mental stability on Friday, declaring at a campaign stop in South Florida that the Republican nominee is “temperamentally unfit” for the White House. “Why does he do things like that?” Clinton demanded at a rally in Coral Springs, referring to Trump’s early morning social-media assault on former beauty queen Alicia Machado, which dominated the day’s political debate. “Who gets up at three o’clock in the morning to engage in a Twitter attack against the former Miss Universe?” Trump sent a string of tweets between 5.14am and 5.30am ET, alluding to unproven accusations against Machado, who became Miss Universe in 1996 when Trump owned part of the contest and who Clinton cited in an attack regarding Trump’s treatment of women during Monday’s first presidential debate. Trump also claimed Machado, originally from Venezuela, had been helped to become a US citizen so Democrats could use her against him. “I mean, his latest Twitter meltdown is unhinged, even for him,” Clinton said. “It proves, yet again, that that he is temperamentally unfit to be president and commander-in-chief. “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, a man who can be provoked by a tweet should not be anywhere near the nuclear codes.” Trump used Twitter on Friday to reply to criticism of his tweets and the hours at which they were sent by saying such nocturnal activities represented his willingness to work round the clock, writing: “For those few people knocking me for tweeting at three o’clock in the morning, at least you know I will be there, awake, to answer the call!” By Friday evening, Trump’s false accusations that Machado had a “sex tape” had already returned to haunt him, when Buzzfeed found that Trump had a cameo in an explicit video made in 2000. A Clinton campaign spokesman, Nick Merrill, told reporters: “There’s been a lot of talk about sex tapes today and in a strange turn of events only one adult film has emerged today and its star is Donald Trump.” In two rallies in Florida, Clinton blended her attacks on Trump with new policy priorities, proposing at an earlier address in Fort Pierce a new national service reserve program for young Americans that appeared to be an attempt at winning back support among millennial voters. With recent polls showing the Democratic presidential nominee losing the confidence of voters under 30, and more than one in three planning to vote for a third-party candidate, Clinton offered students a pathway to paying down college debt in return for public service. “If you do national service, we will begin a program to forgive your loans because you are giving back to your country,” Clinton said, touching on themes of civic responsibility and renewing a “culture of service” among Americans of all ages, as well as declaring her intention to massively expand the AmeriCorps volunteer program. “I want to find more ways for more students to get college credit for service,” she said, “because I know too many talented, committed young people who pass up serving with AmeriCorps because, with their student loans, they can’t afford it. So let’s lighten that burden.” Clinton, who was introduced in Coral Springs by a middle school civics teacher, also repeated a campaign pledge from earlier in the week, for free college tuition for children in middle-to-low-earning families. “If you are a family that makes less than $125,000 you will not pay tuition to go to public college,” Clinton said, to cheers from a crowd of 2,400 inside a small municipal gymnasium. “A college degree should not lead to being mired in debt.” Students at the rally praised the new proposals. Emily Beth, 24, and Stav Berlin, 23, studying education management together at Palm Beach State College, said they were worried about taking on debt to finance their master’s degree studies in two years’ time, once their current course ends. “It’s a brilliant idea,” Berlin said. “Instead of paying back big corporations the money, we can pay it back by giving back to the community, rather than the Sallie Maes of the world that take and take and take.” Beth, who will be voting in her second presidential election, said she liked that the volunteer work she already does tutoring children through the Literacy Coalition of Palm Beach could help pay off her college loans. “This country is drowning is student debt,” she said. “It’s a brilliant idea because the paying back is in the form of community service that’s positively going to impact our entire country.” Another student, Mia Ulrich, 18, of Pompano Beach, said she hoped to study anthropology at Florida International University in Miami, but admitted: “I’ve been worried about how I’m going to pay for school. I like the community service aspect because then I’ve given back in an active way, not only to get what I need.” In a part of her speech that resonated with the audience, Clinton demanded answers from Iran over the fate of Bob Levinson, 68, a Coral Springs resident, former FBI agent and private investigator who disappeared in 2007. The Levinson family believes he is being held hostage by or with the knowledge of the Iranian government. “My heart goes out to Bob’s family,” Clinton said. “It’s time for Iran’s regime to provide information about his whereabouts.” She also mentioned the death of Miami Marlins pitcher José Fernández, a popular Cuban-born baseball star who was killed in a boating accident last weekend. She did not revisit a controversy from Thursday, in which her campaign seized on a Newsweek report that said Trump conducted business in contravention of the Cuba embargo in 1998. In a 30-minute address in Coral Springs, Clinton touched only briefly on several familiar policy themes, such as helping small businesses and equal pay for women. She did mentioned Monday’s first presidential debate. A post-debate poll by Mason-Dixon released on Friday showed her edging ahead of Trump in Florida, 46% to 42%. With 29 electoral college votes Florida is a key swing state, potentially pivotal on 8 November. Clinton promised many more visits in the 38 days left before the election. “I’ll be here in Florida so much you’ll get sick of me,” she said at the conclusion of her speech. The Clinton campaign announced on Friday that President Obama, who won Florida by less than 75,000 votes from Mitt Romney in 2012, will campaign in Miami next Wednesday. Vice-President Joe Biden will make appearances in Orlando and Sarasota on Monday. With the 11 October deadline for voter registration in Florida looming, Democrats are ramping up efforts to ensure a high turnout. In Broward County, of which Coral Springs is part, Clinton’s campaign has opened 10 field offices in recent weeks, to Trump’s three. Despite Broward being the “bluest” of Florida’s 67 counties, with 578,000 registered Democrats to the 252,000 Republicans, party strategists say every vote is crucial to counter the wide margin of victory Trump is expected to score in more rural counties, where populations are overwhelmingly white.
Ed Balls: Europe must impose controls on economic migration Europe needs to restore borders and impose controls on economic migration if it is to stop extremist political forces exploiting anti-refugee prejudice, the former shadow chancellor Ed Balls has said. Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Balls said David Cameron had achieved “the helpful goal” of limiting benefits paid to migrant workers, but that it was only a matter of time before European leaders revisited the rules on free movement of labour across the EU. “If Europe does not eventually agree to restore borders and impose controls on economic migration, the initiative will pass to populist forces on the far left and right whose aims are not to manage globalisation fairly, but to exploit prejudice and rig markets in favour of homegrown producers,” he said. Balls’s comments come on the day the prime minister is to make a speech at the annual St Matthew’s Day banquet in Hamburg setting out the wider agenda behind his renegotiation of Britain’s membership of the EU before a national referendum. Cameron will attend a crunch summit in Brussels next Thursday and Friday to further those negotiations. Balls, who lost his seat in May’s general election, said: “Those necessary EU changes will not come quickly enough for Britain’s referendum, but that is all the more reason why Britain must retain its influence in Europe to fight and win these arguments in the years to come.” The scale of migration by east European workers had been the biggest driver of anti-EU sentiment in the UK and the refugee crisis was “pouring fuel on that fire”, said Balls, who was economic secretary to the Treasury in Tony Blair’s government. He is currently a senior fellow at Harvard University’s Kennedy school. The “woeful failure of the European single currency” had made it understandable that some people wanted to leave the EU, he said. “As the eurozone lurches from crisis to crisis, many British voters understandably – but wrongly – think Britain would be better off leaving the EU entirely. “Leaving the EU would both weaken Britain’s voice on the big global issues and damage the nation’s economy. With half of UK trade tied up in Europe, and many US and Asian multinationals currently basing their European headquarters in London, walking away now would cost us investment, jobs and income, as well as influence.”
Trump puts Republicans in awkward spot again with Saddam comments Republicans were again forced into awkward criticisms and defenses of Donald Trump on Wednesday, after the party’s presumptive nominee praised Saddam Hussein for killing terrorists “so good”. “He was a bad guy. Really bad guy,” Trump told a crowd in Raleigh, North Carolina, on Tuesday night. “But you know what? He did well? He killed terrorists. He did that so good. They didn’t read them the rights. They didn’t talk. They were terrorists. Over. Today, Iraq is Harvard for terrorism.” Trump’s would-be allies in the Republican party were forced to react, yet again, to a statement that defied not only party orthodoxy but basic tenets of American society, including the right to due process. Before the US invasion of 2003, Saddam’s Iraq was listed as a state sponsor of terrorism. The House speaker, Paul Ryan, who belatedly endorsed Trump, seemed to distance himself from the comments during an interview with Fox News on Tuesday night, though he condemned only Saddam and not the candidate. “He was one the 20th century’s most evil people. He was up there. He committed mass genocide against his own people using chemical weapons,” Ryan said. “Saddam Hussein was a bad guy.” Earlier on Tuesday, Ryan made similarly careful criticisms about an image Trump tweeted showing Hillary Clinton, cash and a six-pointed star – a graphic found to originate from a Twitter user who posted white supremacist ideas. “Look, antisemitic images, they’ve got no place in a presidential campaign,” Ryan told a radio show. “Candidates should know that. The tweet’s been deleted. I don’t know what flunky put this up there. They’ve obviously got to fix that.” The campaign for Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee, denounced Trump for his praise of Saddam. It released a statement from Jake Sullivan, a senior policy adviser, on Wednesday morning. Citing Trump’s previous statements on China’s Tiananmen Square massacre, Kim Jong-un and Vladimir Putin, Sullivan said Trump’s “praise for brutal strongmen seemingly knows no bounds”. “Trump’s cavalier compliments for brutal dictators, and the twisted lessons he seems to have learned from their history, again demonstrate how dangerous he would be as commander-in-chief and how unworthy he is of the office he seeks,” he said. At least two Republican members of the House defended Trump on Wednesday. “His comment was just a factual comment that Saddam Hussein did not have a terrorist problem,” Chris Collins, a New York representative, told the Washington Post. In February, Collins became the first member of Congress to endorse Trump, who has struggled to win the backing of established politicians and tried to make a selling point of it. “I think it would be better if [the party] were unified,” he said in May. “And I think there would be something good about it. But I don’t think it actually has to be.” Darrell Issa, who made a more tepid endorsement of the party’s presumptive nominee, argued that Trump’s statement was more about nonintervention than Hussein personally. The California congressman told the Post that Trump’s position was akin to Barack Obama’s opposition to the Iraq war, and that they were “saying the same thing, effectively: that we shouldn’t have gone in”. During the rally on Tuesday, Trump also denounced the FBI’s decision not to pursue criminal charges against Clinton before making his remarks on the former president of Iraq. The Raleigh event was not the first time Trump had praised the dictator. In the past, he said the world would be “100% better” if Saddam or Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi were still in power. Despite his claims to have opposed intervention in Iraq and Libya, Trump publicly supported military action in both countries. Before the invasion of Iraq in 2003, he told a radio host “I guess so” when asked about whether he supported war, and he told Fox News that George W Bush was “doing a very good job”. In 2011, he said on a video blog that the US should depose Gaddafi: “We should go in, we should stop this guy, which would be very easy and very quick. We could do it surgically, stop him from doing it, and save these lives.” Trump has made false claims that he opposed the wars for months. His praise for authoritarian leaders has drawn only occasional rebukes. After Trump made similar comments in October, Steve Russell, an Oklahoma Republican congressman and retired army lieutenant colonel whose unit aided in the capture of Saddam, spoke out against him. “He is wrong. Regardless of what people think about the Iraq war, human rights advocates worldwide believe that the one silver lining that came out of the war was the demise of Saddam Hussein,” Russell told CNN. “Are we kidding? This just demonstrates a complete lack of the facts and a complete lack of understanding of foreign policy.”
Paterson review: Adam Driver's poetic bus driver proves safe pair of hands Jim Jarmusch’s new film in competition here in Cannes is a delight: a prose-poem of gentle comic humility and acceptance of life. It is about that rarest of things in art as in life — a completely happy marriage. As so often in the past, Jarmusch shows that, like Richard Linklater or John Sayles, he is a film-maker who is intensely American, without being Hollywood. The two are different. Adam Driver plays a bus driver and unpublished poet called Paterson, who works in Paterson, New Jersey, musingly listening to snatches of his passengers’ conversation on his bus and writing verse on his lunch-break. The coincidence of the names has given him a sense of quiet civic pride in his hometown, a sense of identification and ownership, and also a lively sense of cosmic connection and karmic coincidence. Paterson was apparently once in the military, a former existence which is never explicitly discussed, but which has evidently prepared him for a certain act of heroism at a late stage in the movie. As ever with Jarmusch, his towns are not crowded with people exactly: they often seem almost eerily deserted, but individuals can pop out at any time and chat to the protagonist: it is rather like his Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (1999) in that way. Paterson wife’s Laura is played with enormous, unaffected charm by the Iranian star Golshifteh Farahani — who has appeared in films like Asghar Farhadi’s About Elly and Atiq Rahimi’s The Patience Stone. The couple has an English bulldog, Marvin, who wheezes in the corner. There is no backstory about how Paterson and Laura got together. Their relationship just appears on screen fully formed. Laura is a stay-at-home wife but she has many artistic interests, and she is cheerfully and confidently aware of her career options. She paints, designs, decorates the house, bakes cupcakes which she sells at the farmer’s market and is learning the guitar with a view to being a country singing star. And importantly, there is nothing foolish or ironic about any of this: her cakes are delicious; her designs are great, and after just a day’s home tutorial, her guitar strumming sounds very good. Paterson himself is very different. Unlike Laura, he has no conception of making a career out of his poetry, or even showing it to anyone other than her: he doesn’t participate in poetry-slam readings or send his stuff off to magazines, or blog or promote his work on social media. Laura says he should give his poems to the world, but envisages only Xeroxing them to hand out copies. The traditional problem with fictional poets or painters or composers in films is that if the point is that they are genuinely good, the audience may be unconvinced by their supposed masterpieces if any are riskily shown on screen, especially as this audience has already, in some sense, been asked to put its trust upfront in the genuine creative talent of the film itself. Irony is therefore the safest, and almost irresistible default option here. But we are not tested by Paterson’s writing in this way. His poems themselves appear up on screen as squiggly handwriting as Paterson thoughtfully writes them in his notebook: homey, folksy, local newspaper verses, perhaps inspired by Paterson’s famous poet William Carlos Williams and the short poem which is rightly or wrongly his most well-known: This Is Just To Say, about eating the plums, which Paterson actually reads aloud to his wife. Jarmusch handles the tonal difficulty with Paterson’s work with matter-of-fact calm and ease. At first, it might seem as if the joke is that the poems are awful, and that Paterson’s commitment is a tragicomic delusion. That is not the point at all; the film doesn’t patronise or make fun of his efforts, but neither is it reverent. For Paterson, his poems are just a part of his life, like doing his work, loving his city and loving his life: they do not stand apart from life, transforming it or presenting themselves as brilliant artefacts which will make him rich and famous. The poems are just part of his life’s fabric, part of the quietly but richly inhabited existence which includes a nightly walk with Marvin to the local bar, where he chats with the owner Doc (Barry Shabaka Henley) and takes an interest in a couple of young people Marie (Chasten Harmon) and Everett (William Jackson Harper) who are going through a painful breakup. This is not to say he does not take his poetry seriously: he is a committed reader, with a den in his cellar packed with books, including work by Frank O’Hara and David Foster Wallace. He believes in his poetry’s worth, and there is pathos when he realises that his job-description and life-description is bus driver — with poet coming in second. When something terrible happens to Paterson’s life work, it is devastating. Paterson and Laura do not have children, and Jarmusch allows us to register this issue indirectly, with a very funny and subtle recurring gag, one of those universe-patterning flourishes that Paterson is always noticing. Laura says one morning that she has had a dream that they had twins, and from that moment on, Paterson is always noticing twins all over town. The question of children is left open, part of the couple’s untroubled faith in the future. What a lovely film Paterson is.
Let’s make attending Davos as shameful as running a sweatshop • This article is the subject of a legal complaint. Davos has just finished. You know, the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum. What, didn’t you get your invitation? Oh dear, looks like you don’t really matter. Sorry about that. It’s easy to mock Davos – so I will. It’s the annual schmooze fest where rich white men debate inequality and diversity. Where fleets of carbon-gushing private jets fly in philanthropists to pontificate about climate change. Where the world’s biggest corporations earnestly set out footling “strategies” and “action plans” to give the impression they’re addressing the social and environmental problems that they caused in the first place. You could go one step further than mockery and work up a decent amount of hostility towards Davos. For example: how can we take seriously its utterly vapid slogan – “committed to improving the state of the world” – when for years there was no discussion of gay rights or transgender issues. But I think it’s time we went beyond mockery, further than hostility. I think we should be outraged by Davos. We should condemn it, oppose it, blow the whole thing up. I don’t mean literally, of course. After all, some of my oldest and dearest friends are regular attendees. Not to mention my wife. It’s nothing personal. It’s not the fault of the people there (not the fault of most of them, anyway). It’s the system that’s to blame – and that’s what we should attack. Yes: we should be tough on Davos, but more importantly, tough on the causes of Davos. Tough on Davos means discouraging people from being there. It’s the worst kind of racket: everyone goes because everyone else goes. Well, we should break the spell by massively increasing the costs of attending. I don’t mean the financial costs – they’re already astronomical for gullible businesses that pay a fortune to share a fondue with Shimon Peres or George Clooney or whomever. I mean the social costs. There should be protests, boycotts, public shaming of brands that buy into Davos. If you’re a business, attending Davos should be as damaging to your reputation as running a sweatshop with child labour. At this point, I should probably acknowledge that I have been to Davos. And just to pre-empt some smart aleck bringing it up on Twitter, yes, it’s true that on the one occasion I went, I was manhandled and nearly arrested for walking on the road. But the authoritarianism of the Swiss police really isn’t the reason I hate Davos. I hate Davos because it represents almost – note I’m not being too sweeping here! – everything that is wrong with the world. The clue lies in what those who go actually say about it. They all give you some version of the same script: “Yes, I know it’s terrible… of course the whole thing is kind of embarrassing… but the thing is, Davos is so efficient. You can see so many useful people in one go.” There you have it: the reason Davos is so grotesque is not the event itself or the people who go there. It’s the underlying cause. Davos reveals, with devastating clarity, the concentration of economic and political power today. The fact that business and political leaders can, over the space of a couple of days, meet “everyone who matters” is exactly what’s wrong with it and with the world. It’s wrong that a handful of finance companies control so much of the global economy that they, their regulators and central bankers can hang out with each other so easily. It’s wrong that political power is so centralised that businesses can go to Davos and do deals with heads of government. It’s wrong that media giants (new or old) are courted for their massive global reach. Davos should be a call to arms to break up big companies that abuse their market power and political access to keep competitors down and out. We should champion real entrepreneurs, not grey corporate bureaucrats. In More Human, I described a world run by an “insular ruling elite”. Davos is its purest expression. It should be impossible for CEOs and presidents to meet “‘everyone that matters” because, well, everyone should matter. So let’s not only mock Davos when it comes around. Let’s use it as the impetus for radical democratisation: to put the levers of power in everyone’s hands, not just a few thousand in an Alpine resort. Steve Hilton is CEO of Crowdpac, a political fundraising and ratings site, and David Cameron’s ex director of strategy This article was amended on 30 January 2016
How to overcome your inhibitions Is there someone you’d love to ask out this Valentine’s Day? Do you regularly imagine how you’d declare your feelings, but shy away at the last moment? As we play out secret desires in our heads, our brains start rehearsing the actions necessary to make them a reality. So when you’re dreaming of how you would ask someone for a coffee, the bits of your brain that directly drive your mouth to speak and eyes to make eye contact are all busy functioning. Usually, this is at a level which is easily suppressed by your inhibitions. With a magnetic brain-stimulating device, it’s possible to temporarily zap the cells responsible for inhibition. Your body would then enact your hidden desires as soon as you thought about them. This avoids the need to pluck up the courage to ask, but unless your love interest is your lab partner, wearing such a device is probably a bit of a mood-killer. While some may choose to turn to alcohol to lower their inhibitions, disruptions from the norm, like Valentine’s Day, can offer the perfect opportunity for your subliminal desires to make themselves known. Dr Daniel Glaser is director of Science Gallery at King’s College London
Arsenal’s mettle faces test in Premier League’s hectic January schedule Just past the halfway stage in the Premier League campaign many of the questions posed by a topsy-turvy first five months remain unanswered. It is still hard to work out, say, whether Louis van Gaal is the solution or the problem at Manchester United. Is this going to be Arsenal’s season at long last or are Manchester City going to get their act together in time to take the title back to the north? Leicester City are not being mentioned as possible champions with quite the same earnest incredulity now they have been knocked off top spot but can they keep up enough momentum to make it into the Champions League? And is Chelsea’s decline terminal or will there be a swift ascent of the table under Guus Hiddink now that John Terry has admitted the team has recovered its memory of how to play? All these questions and more, including whether Jürgen Klopp and Sam Allardyce are going to live up to their reputations as saviours at Liverpool and Sunderland, and whether Steve McClaren, Alan Curtis and Rémi Garde are going to have time to make reputations for themselves before the relegation net closes in, should start to be resolved in the next month. There are FA Cup weekends at the beginning and the end of January but three full rounds of Premier League fixtures in between, beginning with some extremely tasty games in the next few days. By the end of the month the overall picture should be much clearer. It is even possible a semblance of normality may have returned. The poor old FA Cup has been rather overshadowed by the round of midweek league games that follows so shortly in its wake. Anyone who imagines this is accidental, and not deliberate policy on the part of the Premier League, has clearly not been paying attention. If there is a space the Premier League can occupy to ensure even higher visibility than before, any greensward of tradition that can be trampled over, Richard Scudamore and his team are ready to pull on their boots. Of course the FA Cup has been devalued but it is not Scudamore’s job to worry about it. No one else does, apart from broadcasters tasked with polishing it up and presenting it to a sceptical public as if it were the sporting equivalent of Aladdin’s lamp. The magic, or at least all the gold and gleaming riches, are in the Premier League now, and it was not difficult to sympathise with Allardyce when he insisted Sunderland’s game at Swansea on Wednesday had to be his priority. A glance at the table shows why. Sunderland are in the bottom three and would stay there even with a victory in Wales. But lose that game and Swansea, one of the two or three sides Allardyce might hope to climb above eventually to survive, would open a seven-point gap and Sunderland would begin to look stranded. For exactly the same reasons Swansea have to be looking at taking three points from opponents beneath them in the table. It would not be an exaggeration to suggest Curtis’s first league game since being confirmed as Swansea’s manager for the rest of the season could hold the key to all that follows. This week also brings Newcastle against Manchester United, always a tough game whatever the situations of the participants, and this time undoubtedly a pointer to McClaren’s future on Tyneside. Van Gaal’s United have to be regarded as beatable – perhaps not easy to beat, not exactly there for the taking, but nothing to be frightened of either. Newcastle showed their resolve with huge results against Liverpool and Spurs before Christmas, only to falter against Aston Villa and West Bromwich. If McClaren is looking for a statement result to set up the second half of the season, this could be his opportunity. What Van Gaal is looking for is less clear but with an away game at Liverpool to follow next weekend he will be hoping to avoid any more crisis management. Before Liverpool get to play Manchester United they take on Arsenal on Wednesday. Given Klopp’s well-publicised injury problems, the league leaders might feel this is a good time to visit, though assuming Liverpool can raise a team, their record against top sides under their new manager is encouraging. Perhaps wins against José Mourinho’s Chelsea ought to be regarded as devalued currency – something one would not have envisaged saying a few months ago – but the manner in which Liverpool demolished Manchester City in November rightly had people talking of a title challenge. Tottenham are now regarded as the best outside chance, along with Leicester, and the sides with the fewest defeats meet at White Hart Lane on Wednesday in a game that could establish which of the pretenders keeps up the challenge longest. Also this month Stoke v Arsenal is every neutral’s favourite game and Arsenal v Chelsea can hardly fail to be significant. Arsène Wenger, having broken his duck against Mourinho in the Community Shield, knows he will have to carry round his woeful league record against his arch-antagonist for the rest of his days, though a victory against Hiddink’s Chelsea would go a long way to help compensate. If Arsenal can come through against Liverpool, Stoke and Chelsea, people will have to stop making jokes about their ability to stay on top of the table. They do not have to travel to Manchester City until May so their best plan might be to try to put some distance between the two clubs by then. While this will be their most demanding month, January is not just about top-of-the-table issues. What about Aston Villa v Leicester next weekend, or Swansea v Watford? Villa and Swansea might have had those down as winnable games at the start of the season. Sunderland would definitely have fancied their chances against Bournemouth five months ago, little knowing that the Cherries would embarrass Chelsea and Manchester United before long, not to mention the mid-September 2-0 victory that played its part in Dick Advocaat’s departure a couple of weeks later. Now, 23 January pits Big Sam against Plucky Eddie, pragmatism v romance, world-weariness in one corner, heart-warming optimism in the other. The manager no one thought would go down taking on the one no one thought could stay up. With due respect to the FA Cup’s unofficial new slogan, it is the Premier League where anything can happen.
The bond between cancer survivors is strong. That's why it's so hard when we lose each other I’m taking a weekend trip to Canada next month. While I’m there, I’m staying with my friend who has cancer. I was supposed to have lunch the other day with a writer I work with this week who canceled because of cancer. Last week, on my way to meeting my grandfather for dinner, I stopped en route to visit another friend with cancer. There hasn’t suddenly been a sudden spike in US cancer cases – in fact, deaths have been dropping for decades. But fewer deaths mean more survivors – and longer survival times – and since my own cancer treatment nearly five years ago, I have found that the cancer veterans always manage to connect. I have yoga friends, writer friends and online friends who are also cancer friends. This is not by design, but it happens. And when a disproportionate number of friends and acquaintances have a life-threatening illness, the odds of avoiding grief aren’t in your favor. Part and parcel of surviving cancer is knowing, and loving, far too many people who won’t be as lucky. This makes some kind of sense: people go to support groups in the hope that those who share their experiences can empathize on a profound level. And anyone with experience close to major illness and trauma knows that there’s life before, and life after, and they’re pretty much skewed lines. This may be especially true for cancer, which leaves a psychic scar that, inscrutable to the uninitiated, lingers years past the diagnosis and treatment. It’s all starker in the young adult cancer community – we’re often younger than our waiting room comrades by decades, our friends and lovers have little personal experience with confronting mortality, and we have to consider how treatment might impact fertility. That’s why I’ve gone to young adult cancer social outings, on a young adult cancer surfing trip, and it’s why I’ve been known to spend Breast Cancer Awareness month snarking with my online cancer pals, railing against the ubiquity of pink ribbons. What, from the outside, can look like a morbid fixation on death, excessive gallows humor and a lack of passion for quotidian happenings is, those on the inside know, just rejiggered priorities and lingering trauma. Many of us get a lifelong sentence of scans and doctor visits. Civilians have a strange urge to relate every single cancer tale they stumble across, as though we all want to hear about other people’s cancer woes all the time once we’ve had it. So I’m constantly worried about losing the people who best empathize with me, and when I’m not worried about them, I’m expected to worry about strangers, or about the possibility of a recurrence. I feel trapped in some pink hamster-wheel cancer hell greased with heartbreak. And there’s no exit. But there’s a flip side to the grief cycle of survivorship: everyone who gets sicker instead of better needs empathy more than I don’t need pain, because I’m the lucky one – I’m healthy, and I’ve had wonderful, caring friends encouraging me the whole time, including people I’ve only known digitally, and people who live far away. Returning the love is the least I can do. But it’s hard to explain this cumulative, ongoing anguish to non-cancer folks, who don’t necessarily understand the stakes of the whack-a-mole game we’re all playing from our first moments on Earth. And honestly, the longer it takes people to develop that empathy, the more peaceful their lives will be, so I don’t hold it against them. So we carry each other in our parallel cancerverse. And if fellow travellers die, it becomes my responsibility to live for them, too. So while living with impending sorrow can make it tempting to decide that nothing matters, that’s no longer my call. I experience joy and love and ice cream not just for myself, now, but for Cait, and Jody, and for Karen. As their cancers advanced, all of them continued to support and reassure me about my own far more trivial anxieties. On days it’s just too hard to live for myself, I go on for them.
David Oyelowo calls for radical reform of the Oscars to tackle diversity deficit David Oyelowo has called for “radical and timely” reform of the Oscars within months, rather than years, after Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences president Cheryl Boone Isaacs’ vowed to take “dramatic steps” to tackle a drastic escalation in the row over this year’s all-white list of nominees. Selma star Oyelowo, who famously missed out on a best actor nomination for his role as Martin Luther King Jr at last year’s Oscars, said the current Academy “doesn’t reflect me, and it doesn’t reflect this nation”. He compared the battle over diversity at the world’s most famous film ceremony to the 1960s campaign for African American voting rights. “When Dr King said we need the Voting Rights Act to be passed, LBJ said it’s too soon, it can’t be done,” recalled Oyelowo, who was speaking at a gala honouring Isaacs on Monday night in Los Angeles. “People were losing their lives. People weren’t allowed to vote. Dr King said [we cannot] wait. What was done was done not in years but months.” Added Oyelowo: “The Academy is an institution in which they all say radical and timely change cannot happen quickly. It better happen quickly. The law of this country can change in a matter of months. The Oscars is on February 28. Cheryl needs us to pray that by that date, change is going to come.” Boone Isaacs on Monday described herself as “heartbroken and frustrated” by the lack of diversity in this year’s Oscar nominations – all 20 acting nominees are white, and there are no individual nominees from ethnic minority backgrounds in any of the major categories. “The Academy is taking dramatic steps to alter the makeup of our membership,” she promised. “In the coming days and weeks we will conduct a review of our membership recruitment in order to bring about much-needed diversity in our 2016 class and beyond.” Earlier, director Spike Lee had expressed frustration with this year’s “Lilly White” [sic] nominees on Instagram. He said he and his wife Tonya Lewis Lee would not be attending the February ceremony. Jada Pinkett Smith, whose husband Will Smith missed out on a best actor nomination for his role in the NFL drama Concussion, said she would not be attending the ceremony in a video posted to Facebook. The Matrix Revolutions and Magic Mike XXL star had previously tweeted her “deep disappointment” with the lack of diversity. By contrast, the first ever African American nominee for best director, Boyz n the Hood’s John Singleton, said he was unconcerned at the absence of non-white faces among this year’s Oscars hopefuls for the second year running. “There are a couple of movies that may have [warranted attention] but … it’s all subjective. It’s almost like the lottery,” Singleton told Variety. “To me, I’m not surprised. I’m not disappointed either, as much as other people are disappointed. “As my friend Sidney Poitier told me when Boyz n the Hood came out, just because a film doesn’t get recognised when it first comes out, does not mean it’s not a great film,” added Singleton. “Singin’ in the Rain was not lauded when it first came out, but Singin’ in the Rain became a classic.” A former co-star of Will Smith, Janet Hubert, went even further on Monday by lambasting Pinkett Smith for talking up a boycott of the Oscars over diversity failings. Hubert, who starred as Aunt Viv on the long-running sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, posted a video to YouTube encouraging the Men in Black star to speak for himself on the issue. “First of all, Miss Thing does your man not have a mouth of his own with which to speak?” she said. “The second thing, girlfriend, there’s a lot of shit going on in the world that you all don’t seem to recognise. People are dying. Our boys are being shot left and right. People are starving. People are trying to pay bills. And you’re talking about some motherfucking actors and Oscars. It just ain’t that deep.”
Twitter's US users fall by a third in two years - report Twitter’s American userbase may have fallen by a third over the past two years, according to figures from third-party analytics firm 7Park Data. The figures contradict Twitter’s own numbers, which report a 25% growth over the same period. 7Park says that Twitter’s second social network, Vine, has also suffered falls, declining to less than three-fifths of its April 2014 install base. In that month, Twitter was installed on 36.1% of US mobile devices, according to 7Park, while Vine was installed on 5%. Today, that has fallen to 25% and 2.9% respectively. The company’s weekly active users, the number who open the app each week, has fallen too, from 15% to 10.5% for Twitter and 1.7% to 0.8% for Vine. The situation is just as bad when worldwide users are taken into account, with Twitter’s penetration falling from 30% to just over 22%. Twitter itself reports that 80% of its active users are on mobile, which suggests the mobile decline could be broadly representative of the company’s overall usage. It also, however, says that 79% of its accounts are outside the US. According to the company’s own figures, its count of monthly active users has risen over the period that 7Park records a decline. In April 2014, Twitter reported 255m monthly active users, while in its most recent quarterly results, in September 2015, it reported 320m users. There are a number of potential explanations for the discrepancy. One is that Twitter’s growth in monthly active users could have come from real users who have declined to install the mobile app. These users would not show up in 7Park’s data, which is drawn from a panel of mobile users who have agreed to share app usage data. Another possibility, which bodes less well for Twitter, is that the growth in Twitter’s monthly active users comes, not from a sizeable increase in real people logging into twitter, but from an increase in bots and other automated accounts. It could also be that 7Park’s data is less than representative, as it is dependent on the demographic of people who will agree to share information about their app choices in exchange for free data-usage apps. We’ve asked Twitter whether any, or none, of these interpretations are correct. It has yet to respond. Byrne Hobart, the lead internet analyst at 7Park, said: “There’s a core set of Twitter users who remain passionate about the product, but Twitter’s efforts to grow their audience – through apps like Vine and Periscope, and through new features like Moments – have largely fallen flat.” Twitter has been battered in the stock market for its stagnating user figures, which have officially hovered around 300m for the past year, disappointing investors who hoped that the company would someday grow to a Facebook-toppling, billion-plus members. In response, the company has attempted to change the narrative, focusing instead on its large number of non-logged-in visitors, who come to the site to passively browse the feeds of celebrities, find out about news events and, Twitter hopes, use products such as news service Moments.
The digital upstarts offering app-only banking for smartphone users They are the new breed of digital banks for people who live on their smartphones and want something that looks more like Netflix than NatWest. They typically have snappy, quirky, one-word names – Starling, Mondo, B – and make claims such as “we’re redefining what a bank should be”. And they tout themselves as genuine alternatives to the big high street players. These new entrants are all trying to plug into our rapidly increasing use of digital technology as branch visits decline. But what’s in it for us as potential customers? Do they offer enough in financial terms to tempt us to ditch our existing bank? What are the downsides? Since these banks typically have no costly branch networks or vast call centres to maintain, it’s all about the app. However, many aren’t fully up and running, and some have quite a substantial sting in the tail in the form of charges for ATM withdrawals or for simply holding the account. All of them that have banking licences are covered by the £75,000 limit offered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme, except Fidor which comes under Germany’s €100,000 scheme. In addition, there are a few that are not technically banks, even though they offer what are, to all intents and purposes, current accounts. Here’s Money’s guide to who’s who in the world of digital banking. Atom Bank What it says: “The future of banking, available today” The basics: Durham-based Atom opened its virtual doors last month to people who had registered an interest. You can sign up to get an invitation to join Atom. The app is available for iPhone and iPad users, with an Android version due within weeks. What’s on offer: A one-year fixed-rate savings account paying 2%, and a two-year version paying 2.2% – close to the top of the best-buy tables – and loans for small businesses. A current account, credit cards, mortgages and instant access savings will be launched “by the end of 2016”. Downsides? Too early to say. However, it is not planning to offer cash switching incentives to lure people to its current account. And everything must be done within the app – there are no plans to provide banking services on a website. Fidor Bank What it says: “Banking, made especially for you” The basics: Fidor is an online-only bank founded in Germany in 2009. It launched in the UK in September 2015last year. It won’t disclose customer numbers. What’s on offer: A revamped current account, with a contactless MasterCard debit card, was launched in January. The account is free to open and run, does not require any credit checks and pays 0.3% interest. However, it doesn’t currently have an overdraft facility. The debit card allows customers to withdraw cash worldwide and make purchases in the normal way. Your first three ATM withdrawals each month are free, but after that there is a £1 charge per withdrawal, whether the card is used in the UK or overseas. There is also a 1.5% foreign exchange fee on all non-sterling transactions. Fidor also offers fixed-rate savings bonds paying between 0.8% and 2.45%. Downsides? The ATM charges if you use a cash machine more than three times in a month, and the lack of an overdraft. Tandem Bank What it says: “We are a good bank” The basics: Tandem has a banking licence and is launching later this year – probably October. It is currently in “friends and family testing” mode. It will be mobile-focused but have a UK call centre. It has a 5,000-strong community of “co-founders” who have a share in the business and help to decide what products are offered. You can only become a co-founder if you’ve been referred by someone else. Tandem is launching a crowdfunding campaign on Friday 20 May to raise £1m, with the public able to invest a minimum of £15. What’s on offer: Nothing yet. Credit cards, savings accounts and loans will come first, with current accounts in around January 2017. Downsides? Too early to say. B What it says: “B puts you in charge” The basics: B is a digital brand built around an app. Launched by Clydesdale and Yorkshire banks, it went live on 3 May. What’s on offer: B has a current account and instant savings account, with other products “in the pipeline”. The current account comes with a contactless MasterCard debit card, pays 0.5% on balances up to £2,000 (you get nothing above that amount), and its overdraft rate is 12.5% (equivalent annual rate). You get two working days each calendar month before a fee is charged if you go overdrawn. The savings account pays 1% on all balances. Downsides? The current account is free for the first 12 months, but after that you’ll be charged £2 a month. Mondo What it says: “Finally, a bank as smart as your phone” The basics: Mondo is well into the application process and hopes to get its banking licence later this year. What’s on offer: It says it would love to start offering full current accounts to customers by early next year. It is running a test of its prepaid MasterCard, which is open to members of the public – anyone can sign up via the website. There is a long waiting list but Mondo is trying to send out 1,500 cards a week to everyone who wants one. There are no fees and charges for using thcard, including abroad. Mondo also says its full current account will not have fees for everyday usage. The bank will make money by lending “in a fair and transparent way”. Downsides? Too early to say. Starling What they say: “A smarter bank for an ever-changing world” The basics: It’s in the process of applying for a banking licence and is hopeful of getting one over the summer. The plan is to launch later this year. Anne Boden, the chief executive, is a former Allied Irish Bank executive. What’s on offer: It is focusing on its planned current account, for which there are no details yet. There will be an emphasis on tools for money management. Downsides? Too early to say. There are also a number of players that don’t hold a banking licence, but instead fall under the “electronic money” regulations. They offer products that are similar to current accounts, though there is usually no overdraft. Many of these products and companies are not directly covered by any compensation scheme. Some of these, such as Pockit and Monese, are targeting the millions of people whom the traditional banks either don’t want or struggle to cater for, such as those with a poor credit history. Former Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson has invested some of his own cash in Pockit, which has been fully up and running for about 18 months and has about 70,000 users. Getting a Pockit account costs 99p, and there is then a 99p fee for ATM withdrawals in the UK. Meanwhile, Monese says “people from all over Europe” can open its UK current account, which costs £4.95 a month. The thinkmoney personal account has about 100,000 depositors, though it carries a monthly management fee of £17.50. Similarly, the eccount money current account costs £12.50 a month. Another player, Ffrees, offers a choice between no monthly fee and pay-as-you-go charges (eg, 75p for an ATM withdrawal, 15p for using your card to buy something), or a range of monthly fees (the maximum is £10, which means no transaction charges). Meanwhile, Loot is a banking service aimed at students. It charges 75p for an ATM withdrawal but says its “version two” product coming this summer will be free to use.
Anti-Trump campaign sparks civil war among Anonymous hackers The ripple effects of Donald Trump’s presidential candidacy have led to a civil war in the Republican party. But they have also had the unexpected consequence of leading to a subterranean civil war within Anonymous, the mysterious hacking collective. Most of the political operations targeted by Anonymous – including the Church of Scientology, Isis and the KKK – have instigated some level of internal dispute among people claiming to be part of Anonymous. But when the group announced their next target would be the Trump campaign, it set off the most heated debate yet within the movement – which has no leader and no specific set of aims. Many disavowed the anti-Trump operation as being counter to Anonymous’s tradition of not taking sides in political contests. (A previous operation against Trump was similarly derailed, albeit on a smaller scale, when another hacker calling himself Black Mafia wrested control of the Twitter account.) Others have even alleged the movement is being hijacked by either campaign operatives or activists trying to co-opt Anonymous for their own political ends. On 15 March, a video was released. “We are feeling deeply concerned about an operation that was launched in our name – the so-called Operation Trump,” says the video, which, in classic Anonymous style, is narrated by a disembodied computerised voice. “We – Anonymous – are warning you about the lies and deceits pushed under our banner,” the voice continues. But a user named Beemsee posted a message to a site called Ghostbin to defend the operation. “There has been large amounts of opposition to this operation as many think that OpTrump aims to censor Donald Trump’s free speech,” said Beemsee, who is linked to the Twitter account OpTrumpHQ. “This is not the case. We do NOT stand for a specific political ideology,” Beemsee continued. The Twitter account YourAnonCentral is one of the longest-standing nodes for Anonymous communications. Its administrator, who has been involved in the movement since its inception around 2006 on the anarchic image-board 4chan, said that the Trump and Sanders campaigns had been seen “actively attempting to subvert and misuse Anonymous for their own gains”. “They are both using Anonymous as a prop in their ‘war’ and it is a lie,” the administrator said over Twitter direct message. “Anonymous comes from every part of the political spectrum, the only things we could be all (mostly) aligned on are against the censorship of candidates by the media or against human rights violations or similar,” adding that mimicking the style of Anonymous would be “really easy” for anyone motivated to do so. Some personal information on Trump has been released as part of the operation, but many in the movement have derided it as including only information that was already in the public domain. OpTrumpTruth was one of the early Twitter accounts associated with the purported action against Trump. The operator of the account said that she had joined Anonymous nine months ago, and had been part of previous operations against SeaWorld and campaigns in support of Chelsea Manning. She described herself as politically independent but said, also over Twitter direct message, that “we believe Mr Trump is a blatant hateful racist with enough money to buy his way to power that’s something that we in good conscience can’t allow”. Asked about the schism in the movement, she said that many of the major Anonymous accounts – including YourAnonCentral – were opposed to the anti-Trump operation because “they say Anonymous is against the whole system not just one man.” She also said that there were many Trump supporters within Anonymous and “those people will not want to see anything that brings him down.” On the message-board for OpTrump – which is open and, of course, anonymous – users have been engaging in fiery debate as to the veracity, and the advisability, of taking sides in the presidential election. “So what decision should we make, not choosing doesn’t help anything,” said a user who had taken the nickname EverythingBerns. “Well, you’ve got to pick someone,” one user replied. “DON’T CHOSE [sic]” said another. Another account using the visual lingua franca of Anonymous, called OpWhiteRose, also agitates against Trump. After several messages, the operator of that account admitted that they had no involvement or affiliation with Anonymous. Instead, the operator said they were “a small group of like-minded people who want to stop Trump’s politics from destroying the US.” Asked why they were using the Anonymous logo on their account, and the signifiers of a true Anonymous operation, OpWhiteRose replied with a question. “Have you ever thought to ask Anonymous why they use an image of a Guy Fawkes mask?” “It’s a powerful symbol,” OpWhiteRose said, “and it goes hand in hand with its history that ‘the people’ would use it, freely, in acts of righteous rebellion when the times call for it.”
You Must Remember This: the woman spilling Hollywood's long-held secrets I’m having lunch with Karina Longworth in an old cinema in Notting Hill when a man taps her on the shoulder. “I’m sorry, but do you do You Must Remember This podcast?” he asks. She nods. “Oh my god, I love it!” he screams. “I’m obsessed with the Charles Manson series. It’s such a pleasure to meet you!” It’s a strange kind of fame when your voice is recognisable enough for you to be stopped, half way through a hotdog, to discuss one of the 20th-century’s most notorious murderers. But it’s still a long way from the semi-celestial celebrity Longworth explores in her radio show, which tells the secret or forgotten stories of Hollywood’s first century. The show, which sounds like a dreamy mix of film noir voiceover, 1940s gossip column and Pathe news broadcast, looks at the now lesser-known figures of Hollywood’s Golden Age; women like inventor of “the vamp” Theda Bara, whose agents claimed she was the daughter of an Arab sheik, born in the Sahara and growing up in the shadow of the Sphinx when in fact, she’d been born in Cincinnati, Ohio; or inventor of grunge Frances Farmer, an alcoholic communist committed to several mental health institutions who later became the subject of the Nirvana song Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge on Seattle. There are also men like B-movie actor-turned-president Ronald Reagan, who used the McCarthy communist witch-hunts to propel his own career, or Val Lewton, who wrote a string of now-cultish horror movies including I Walked With a Zombie and The Leopard Man after losing his job as a society reporter when it emerged that a story he wrote about a truckload of kosher chickens dying in a New York heatwave was a total fabrication. Then there’s the Charles Manson mini-series. “I thought I was just going to do one episode,” says Longworth, who came to the figure of Manson through his association with Doris Day’s son Terry Melcher, the record producer and eventual target of Manson’s murder conspiracy. “Then I realised there was a really interesting story there about Hollywood decline. Manson was one of these characters who comes to California to become famous, but in the late 1960s, when Hollywood was basically falling apart.” One of the series’ most arresting images is of Manson hiding out in the caves and sheds of the abandoned film set, Spahn Ranch, surrounded by the dirty-haired, sexually-exploited girls known as The Manson Family who he collected as followers in the late 1960s, after a childhood spent in various correctional institutions. “He was a master manipulator, which he learned in prison,” says Longworth. “But I think the more fascinating part of it was that these women, well girls really, were teenagers. They were high on drugs and looking for someone to tell them what to do. It’s amazing that this whole counter-culture, which became mainstream for a while, was about men tricking women, having all the sex they want, then shrugging off all responsibility.” Longworth grew up in Los Angeles and turns up to meet me dressed in a gold cardigan and full skirt, like something straight out of a 1950s edition of the Hollywood Reporter. For her, it was completely normal to see stars like Madonna, Sean Penn, John Travolta and Lauren Bacall on the front page of her local newspaper. But it’s the stories that didn’t make the front page – that have been hushed up, forgotten or suppressed by the industry – that most interest Longworth and her millions of listeners. To find her stories, she reads endless old books, biographies, interviews and newspaper reports, and watches hours of long-forgotten movies and retrospective documentaries. One of the topics that runs through the podcast is the idea of women as commodities. “It’s not all that different from how it is now,” says Longworth, “but today it’s just less obvious.” Partly, of course, because the women’s liberation movement of the 1960s made female sexuality more widely accepted, and partly because a woman’s earning power is now less strictly tied to her so-called “moral calibre”. I ask her about the myths of the casting couch – the women who slept their way to the top. “I read more stories of women who got involved with a powerful man but it didn’t make them a star,” she says. “Marilyn Monroe may have got involved with a series of men and slowly moved her way up, but you can’t deny that thing she had when she got in front of a camera. I don’t know how much using sex is a successful strategy, but it says a lot that people still talk about it as though it is.” Instead of merely making an episode about the legendary aviator, director and millionaire eccentric Howard Hughes, Longworth uses him to talk about many of the age’s leading ladies with whom he was involved, from Katharine Hepburn to Jean Harlow. “It’s a rubric to tell the story of a lot of fascinating women,” says Longworth. “He arrives in Hollywood in 1925 and starts to disappear in the 1950s, so you can use him to tell the story of Hollywood in that era.” Which is precisely what she’s doing in her upcoming book, which will chart the love affairs of the enigmatic film-maker and pilot who once used his understanding of aeronautical engineering to design Jane Russell a more supportive bra. As well as the Manson episodes, You Must Remember This has run several other miniseries. There was The Blacklist, which looked at the way several of Hollywood’s most successful stars were ruined by accusations of communism by the House Un-American Activities Committee. These included the legendary wit Dorothy Parker, the actor Humphrey Bogart and Charlie Chaplin, who was banished from the US in 1952 for being “sympathetic to the communist cause” – accusations based on little more than Chaplin refusing to cross picket lines in the 1940s, speaking out about the suffering of the Russian people in the second world war and being “prematurely anti-fascist”. Then there was MGM Stories, which told the stories of 15 people who worked in the studio as it went from silent movies to talkies, including Elizabeth Taylor (who once described her 18-year contract as being “MGM chattel”) and the legendary “sweater girl” Lana Turner who burned through seven husbands and countless affairs before becoming embroiled in one of Hollywood’s most shocking scandals after her 14-year-old daughter was accused of killing Turner’s boyfriend Johnny Stompanato. And Star Wars looked at the efforts Hollywood stars went to support the war effort – such as Bette Davis and John Garfield’s founding of The Hollywood Canteen, where servicemen could get served pie by, and even dance with, some of the era’s most famous actors, and where Lena Horne was drafted in as the only African-American pinup and therefore the only famous woman deemed appropriate to dance with black servicemen. “I’d like to do a whole series about black Hollywood,” says Longworth, who has already looked a little into the way major studios tried to obscure their stars’ ethnicity: Rita Hayworth was made to dye her hair and change her hairline to “cover up” her Spanish roots, while Fox Pictures changed Theodosia Burr Goodman’s name to Theda Bara supposedly because it was an anagram of Arab Death. I ask Longworth who she would invite to her dream dinner party. The list, of course, is jewelled with the era’s most sparkling characters: “Dorothy Parker, [Gone with the Wind producer] David O Selznick, Judy Garland ... and Frank Sinatra. He’d be moody but he was probably fun at a party,” she says. Any Brits, I wonder? “Oh and Liz Taylor,” she adds quickly. “Of course Liz would be there.” Listen to You Must Remember This here
Full uptake of cervical cancer screening could save hundreds of lives Hundreds more women’s lives could be saved every year if every woman invited to come for NHS cervical cancer screening turned up at their appointment, experts in the disease have revealed. New research has found that screening for cervical cancer is so effective that it prevents an estimated 1,827 deaths a year from it in England alone. However, if all women aged between 25 and 64 who were invited for screening attended, an extra 347 deaths a year there – almost half the 2014 total of 726 in England – could be avoided, researchers said. The study, published in the British Journal of Cancer, is the first of its kind to establish the impact that screening has had on deaths from the disease by examining screening information from women who have been diagnosed with it. “Thousands of women in the UK are alive and healthy today thanks to cervical screening,” said Prof Peter Sasieni, the lead researcher, who is based at Queen Mary University of London. “The cervical screening programme already prevents thousands of cancers each year and as it continues to improve, by testing all samples for the human papilloma virus, even more women are likely to avoid this disease,” he added. Sasieni and his team reached their conclusions after studying the records of more than 11,000 women in England who had been diagnosed with the disease. Women aged 50 to 64 who come for screening, usually at a GP’s surgery, benefit the most. There would be five times more women of that age dying from cervical cancer if screening did not exist. Screening for cervical cancer was introduced across the UK in 1988. Women aged 25-49 are invited to come every three years and those aged 50 to 64 every five years, though in Scotland it is offered to females aged between 20 and 60. But there is concern that the falling numbers of women attending screening appointments may leave some at risk. Overall, between 70% and 73% of all eligible women turn up and the numbers have been falling since the surge in attendance sparked by the death of the reality-TV star Jade Goody from the disease in 2009. Dr Anne Mackie, Public Health England’s director of screening, said: “It is of concern that a smaller proportion of women are being screened. This is particularly evident in younger women, with 63.5% of women under 30 being screened every three years. “We are working hard to address this with academics and local services to investigate and use new ways of improving screening uptake among younger women,.” The latest data for England showed that 73.5% of eligible women came to cervical screening appointments in 2014-15, down from the 74.2% seen the year before, added Mackie. Nicola Smith, a senior health information officer at Cancer Research UK, said discomfort and embarrassment deterred some women from attending. “Most women who are invited for cervical screening do take up the offer but it is a personal choice. Cervical screening saves many lives but no test is perfect and treatment for abnormal cells can have risks. “If you have concerns about the procedure, for example you find it uncomfortable, it’s a good idea to speak to the practice nurse as there may be things they can do to make you more comfortable. “Some women may be embarrassed by the test but nurses do tests like this all the time so there’s no need to be worried and you can ask to see a female doctor if you’d prefer,” said Smith. Older women may not see the point of coming, Smith added. “Older women may not think this type of screening is relevant to them, but while cervical cancer is unusual in that it affects women at younger ages than most cancers, older women also develop the disease”, she said.
Laura Anderson-Ford obituary My daughter, Laura Anderson-Ford, who has died aged 39 from breast cancer, was an effortless enjoyer of life. This continued during just over four years of intensive chemotherapy. If an adventure, a show, or a meeting with friends was in the air, she would set off. But she also campaigned for breast cancer charities, becoming one of Coppafeel’s “boobettes” and taking her experience to schools and businesses. She was determined that her body be used for research after her death and became part of the pioneering Royal Marsden hospital’s legacy project analysing diseased organs to help understanding of secondary breast cancer. Laura was the second of four children, born to Henrietta, a dance teacher, and me, a radio producer, in June 1976, in the middle of the hottest heatwave since records began. I kept up a regular supply of expensive Häagen-Dazs ice-cream to keep Henrietta cool in the hot maternity ward. Most of Laura’s childhood was spent in Twickenham and Teddington, west London, where she went to Teddington comprehensive and then Twickenham sixth form college, before going to the University of Kent, where she graduated with a BA in French and English. Never a career-builder, Laura worked in different areas of the media. In the late 90s she joined BBC TV’s morning Vanessa Show as a runner. She rustled up audiences for that early shift, no easy task, but rewarded herself with the perk of the job – BBC croissants. She later went to Mentorn Media, before returning to the BBC, where she worked for executives such as Glenwyn Benson, the former editor of Panorama, and Richard Klein, a former controller of BBC4. Laura was a no-fuss traveller, glimpsing Russian outdoor living from the windows of the Trans-Siberian Express, or heading for the orangutans in Borneo. Travelling for her was just as much fun as arriving. She spent two years teaching English in a small town north of Tokyo, making many English friends, but learning enough of the language to accomplish a GCSE in Japanese on her return – quite to her surprise. Acquiring friends was in her nature, and they stayed close during her four and a quarter years of treatment. When marriage to Dan and motherhood arrived at the same time as her diagnosis, she interrupted her new life only for the scans and hospital visits, her commitments to Coppafeel and other charities. She spent her last days, as calmly and bravely as she had spent the previous four years, with Dan and her beloved daughter, Grace. She knew “her card was marked”, but she wanted all her friends and family to remember “happy days and good things”, as she had had so many of these. Laura is survived by Dan and Grace, her mother and me, and by her siblings Alastair, Chloe and Jack.
Yahoo is not alone: six failed tech companies and how they fell Yahoo on Monday joined the elephant’s graveyard of fallen internet giants. While the company is officially still alive, now merged with fellow faller AOL and owned by Verizon, it lives on as a shadow of its former self with an uncertain future. The internet has proven a ferocious testing ground for tech companies. Here are some of the other once white-hot companies that have failed to adapt and survive. AOL How the mighty have fallen: the company that taught millions about dial-up internet and introduced them to email was the hottest name in tech when it merged with the media powerhouse Time Warner in January 2000. That deal proved one of the worst in history. AOL, once worth $226bn, was acquired by Verizon last year, for $4.4bn. AltaVista The reigning internet search company before Google, AltaVista ping-ponged around the tech sector over five years and had as many owners. It attempted a share sale in 2002, after the dotcom bubble had burst, but was forced to cancel due to lack of interest. Its final buyer? Yahoo. Yahoo closed Altavista in 2013. Netscape Once upon a time, there were two browsers locked in an eternal battle for market share: Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator. Both are gone now, Microsoft having announced a new browser – Edge – that will supersede Explorer. For its part, Netscape was the scrappier, savvier, open-source browser, the brainchild of Marc Andreessen, now a billionaire investor, who had also co-authored the very first wide-use web browser, Mosaic. AOL bought Netscape in 1998 and eventually shut down the company but its spirit survives in Mozilla, which develops the current leader in open-source browser software, Firefox. Myspace The billionaire Viacom chairman, Sumner Redstone, fired the company’s CEO, Tom Freston, for failing to acquire Facebook’s major competitor ahead of Redstone’s nemesis, Rupert Murdoch. He should have given Freston a bonus. News Corp paid $580m for the less adroit social network, then approaching 100m users, in 2005. In 2011, News Corp sold Myspace for $35m and it is now largely a music site. Napster In an era when CD sales ruled the music world, Napster offered a preview of the future: digital music for free. The record industry decided to sue just about everyone involved in the online music sharing site and eventually “won” with a court injunction in the A&M Records v Napster case in 2001. But the damage was already done. The music industry’s golden days of high-profit music sales have given way to a leaner, meaner digital future. Pets.com Plenty of companies on this list are victims of failing to adapt quickly enough to technology or the law, but Pets.com may be the only one that was almost purely a creation of the stock market. Given the outsize valuations of tech startups at the moment, Pets.com’s $300m infusion of cash before its disastrous IPO seems almost quaint by comparison (Snapchat is supposedly worth $20bn), but at the time it was unprecedented. The company went public in February 2000 at $11 per share; by the time it announced its liquidation in November of the same year, the price had fallen to 19 cents.
Chronic review – clumsy film, great Tim Roth performance It’s not a Michael Haneke film, but it’ll do till one gets here. Mexican writer-director Michel Franco gives Tim Roth his best role in aeons as a touchy-feely care nurse whose no-questions-asked compassion is made to feel eerily suspect. Yes, this palliative prince goes all out to make sure his patients experience a comfortable transition into death, but why is he always on that treadmill, what’s with all the Facebook stalking and why is he taking on all those extra shifts? Franco, sadly, methodically answers all these questions, turning a cool, anthropological study of what it means to take another person’s life into your own hands, into a clumsy screed on how unremittingly awful and ugly existence is. Shot with the uncomfortable precision of an amateur science experiment, it’s little more than arty scaremongering for hypochondriacs, which is a crying shame, because Roth is stellar as the lead.
Blaming the Swedish festival rapes on migrants isn't just wrong – it's dangerous Over last weekend, more than 50 cases of sexual assault were reported across two Swedish festivals. At one – Bravalla – five women said they had been raped and another 12 reported sexual assault, while at the other – Putte i Parken – there were a further 35 reports of assault, the youngest from a girl aged 12. In a statement on the Värmland regional police’s website, the Putte i Parken assaults were attributed to “foreign young men”. “There is no doubt,” the statement said plainly, “about who takes these liberties”. Except it turned out that there was doubt. Within a few hours the statement had been taken down. The police later admitted that only two of the seven men or boys arrested for the Putte i Parken incidents were from HVB homes – residential homes for young people, often refugees without parents. There’s even less evidence to suggest the rapes at Bravalla were carried out by immigrants – but the two were instantly lumped together. “The wording was unfortunate,” read a second statement, “and we will take that to heart.” It was too late by then, of course. The buzzwords had already been unleashed, seized and extrapolated upon until they had become the main story. Reporting from the UK, the MailOnline’s news story cited authorities as identifying the perpetrators of the assaults as “young men, who are foreigners.”; the Telegraph’s headline warned of “reports of rapes by ‘migrants’”. And so an inaccurate, retracted police statement, and one victim’s speculation that they were “probably immigrants” turned into fact. However much the media (and sometimes the police, it would seem) like to suggest otherwise, the threat of rape and sexual assault at festivals does not simply come from some easily pigeonholed “other”. It’s wrong to lay the blame, as we do for so many of the world’s problems, on a faceless foreign mass. To do so is to derail an issue that badly needs addressing. Because it’s not as though these were isolated incidents, confined only to Swedish festivals where foreigners are present. Far from it. In 2009, a woman was raped at Reading festival. In 2010, a 16-year-old boy was found guilty of attacking a 12-year-old girl at Secret Garden Party and two women were raped – in unrelated incidents – at Latitude. In 2013, two women were assaulted at Wilderness festival. Last year, a man was arrested on suspicion of raping a woman at V festival. In the early Swedish news reports, Patricia Lorenzoni, a researcher and lecturer at Linköping University, was one of the few dissenting voices. Does she feel migrants were disproportionately blamed for crimes such as these? “Yes,” she says, “and there is plenty of statistical data showing this. Racist and rightwing populist groups have for years tried to create a climate of fear around the image of the ‘immigrant’ rapist. What is worrying now is that this language is becoming part of more general media reporting.” If we allow this trend to continue, then we fail to examine our own culpability when it comes to rape culture. A Swedish police report on sexual assault in the country, for example, referred to the damage caused by ideas of “masculinity”, as well as the normalisation of sexual harassment in schools. But these nuanced analysis and deep-rooted causes don’t make for quite such exciting headlines. To paint the perpetrators of sexual assault as some monolithic, easily identifiable group also makes it easier to continue the victim-blaming. Because it should be easy to avoid being assaulted at a festival, right? Just avoid the men who have “attacker” practically written on their foreheads. In 2010, after the attack at Reading, festival organiser Melvin Benn spoke of a plan to “inform young girls in particular about the danger of sexual predators”. There was no mention of how the festival planned to deal with the sexual predators themselves. The same year, Hop Farm festival founder Vince Power said a festival was essentially a small town, “and in a town you wouldn’t leave your door open”. In doing so, he painted the women who’d been assaulted as victims of nothing but their own carelessness. As long as we continue to put the onus of responsibility on the victims in this way, and paint the perpetrators as a foreign threat miring what could otherwise be some festival utopia, that door will remain open. In a more measured statement following the weekend’s attacks, Swedish police admitted that “the descriptions [of perpetrators] are diverse”. There is, they said, just one common denominator: “These are all young men.” However much we try and twist the narrative, there is no homogenous, easily recognisable perpetrator of violence – least of all at festivals. The sooner we realise that, the sooner we might be able to stop it from happening.
‘My family resisted the Nazis’: why director had to film Alone in Berlin In 2009, Alone in Berlin was a little-known German novel describing an act of wartime defiance against the Nazi regime. But when its harrowing pages were translated into English six decades after it was written, Hans Fallada’s book became an international publishing phenomenon. Now the rediscovered 1947 masterpiece – a chilling portrait of courage and fear – has inspired a film that will receive its world premiere on 15 February at the Berlin International Film Festival. The cast is headed by Emma Thompson, who won an Oscar for Howards End, and Brendan Gleeson, who received an Emmy for his portrayal of Winston Churchill in Into the Storm. They play Otto and Anna Quangel, an ordinary working-class couple who resist Nazism. When their only son is killed in action in 1940, the pair are shocked out of their quiet, apolitical existence into an extraordinary act of defiance. Using the power of the written word, they leave anonymous postcards attacking Hitler across a city paralysed by terror, facing certain death if caught. The novel was based on real-life heroes Otto and Elise Hampel, who secretly distributed anti-Nazi postcards following the death of Elise’s brother in action. Denounced and arrested, they were beheaded in 1943. Fallada – the pen name for Rudolf Ditzen, the son of a judge – saw the couple’s Gestapo file after the war. He did not live to see his novel published, dying from a morphine overdose in 1947, aged 53. It was a tragic end to a tragic life blighted by mental illness and incarceration in an insane asylum. Refusing to join the Nazi party, he was denounced as an anti-Nazi conspirator. The film is directed and co-written by Vincent Pérez, the son of a Spanish father and German mother, whose own German family resisted the Nazis and lost an uncle to the gas chambers. His Spanish grandfather was shot for resisting fascism. “I read the book and I got addicted to it,” he told the . “It was obviously a very cinematic story.” In making the film, he felt “the energy, the strength, the fight, the struggle” of his own family members and other wartime heroes who “nobody talks about … People did tiny things and lost their lives, and we never talk about it. We’re telling the story of those people.” One of the film’s challenges was to convey the “fear in the air” for ordinary people living under Nazism, Pérez said: “How it was just to buy some bread, to live in the street or to know that anyone could sell the other one to the Nazis. The book shows it really well.” Fallada’s novel was rediscovered by Dennis Loy Johnson, founder of Melville House Publishing, an American independent company, which had it translated into English by Michael Hofmann. Johnson was astonished to discover that it had not been translated before, particularly as Primo Levi, the Jewish-Italian writer and survivor of the Nazi concentration camps, once described it as “the greatest book ever written about the German resistance to the Nazis”. Johnson said: “Before the war, Fallada had been a bestselling author in the US and England. His Little Man, What Now? was made into an American film, which led to his blacklisting at home because it was made by Jewish producers. The international perception of him was that he’d stayed in Germany so he had to be a Nazi, and that he ended up in East Germany, so he must be a Communist. So nobody looked at those last books and they allowed the earlier ones to go out of print. By the time I rediscovered him, it had been 60 years or so that nobody talked about Hans Fallada.” The UK rights of Alone in Berlin were licensed to Penguin, and it sold an astonishing 400,000 copies. The film version is a British, German and French co-production. One of its UK producers is Paul Trijbits, whose acclaimed films include Saving Mr Banks, which also starred Thompson. Trijbits described the Fallada adaptation as “very faithful”. Although about a third of the film was shot in Berlin, so much of the city was destroyed in the war the producers went to Görlitz, a town close to the Polish border, to get the right look. “It is now sadly a half-empty town, but it is a brilliant replica. You feel you really are in that world,” said Trijbits. “I’m not saying that this is not some enormous allegorical story, but clearly we live in uncertain times. There are many places in this world where people are oppressed and where there are acts of defiance. This is a story that gives you hope. Ordinary people can make a difference.”.
Europe's big banks remain wary of doing business with Iran A week after the lifting of sanctions against Iran, major European banks are still reluctant to handle Iranian payments as they remain wary of being the first to test the reaction of US authorities. Despite guidance issued by the US treasury aimed at reassuring Europe that it was permissible to do business with Iran, excluding a number of entities and individuals that remain blacklisted, the continent’s big banks still err on the side of caution. The approached 10 banks this week to see if they would process Iranian payments. The majority were unwilling to disclose whether they had plans to deal with Iran, a few said there was no change in their existing policy, and the London-based Standard Chartered, which was fined £400m by the US authorities in 2012, issued a statement to make clear it was not dealing with anyone or any entity that had anything to do with Iran. This contrasts with the desire of European companies and European governments to increase trade with Iran from the current €7.6bn (£5.8bn) to the pre-sanctions figure of almost €28bn. An unprecedented number of EU business delegations have already visited Tehran and the Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, is expected in Rome on Monday and then Paris on Wednesday to revamp Iran’s relations with Europe. “I am yet to find one tier-one European investment bank that wants to go back into Iran,” said a senior European banker who did not want to be named. Sanctions compliance departments in big banks are busy digesting a 50-page guidance provided by the US treasury’s office of foreign assets control (OFAC) – some say the text is so complicated it may deter businesses from returning to Iran, while others fear it may be open to interpretation. The visited an HSBC branch in London last week to see if it was possible for an Iranian resident in the UK to open a personal bank account. It was not still possible but that was likely to change in two weeks’ time, a branch officer said. HSBC later issued a statement, saying: “There are a number of factors we take into consideration when opening a new account and we judge each application on an individual basis.” Barclays, Société Générale, RBS, Citi, Commerzbank and Deutsche Bank declined to say if an Iranian national unrelated to the Iran government, such as a student, was able to open a personal account with their banks. “Deutsche Bank will, for the time being, stick to its decision of withholding from doing business connected to Iran,” said a spokesperson. The general mood is to wait and let the others risk first. Smaller European banks or those in China and Russia that are not concerned about the US market, however, are more likely to lead the way. Banks are particularly worried about US primary sanctions related to terrorism and human rights violations that remain in place. “We know the Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) are sanctioned as a terrorist entity. They own a vast amount of economy through bonyads [trusts], ownership schemes which we can’t fathom, so it’s very difficult to operate in Iran without hitting the Revolutionary Guards or somebody else who is sanctioned by the Americans, and you are extra-territorially sanctioned by the Americans if you do deals with IRGC-linked elements,” the senior banker said. “Moreover, the FATF [an inter-governmental body combating money laundering and terrorist financing] stills views Iran as a non-compliant jurisdiction of money laundering, as we all know corruption is rampant, so it’s not just worth the candle at the moment.” Citing the case of BNP Paribas, which was heavily fined last year over sanctions violations involving Iran, the senior banker said European banks were worried that the US could ban them from dollars in the US capital market. “Sanctions are still in place in the US really. It’s only nuclear-related sanctions that have been relaxed, even if you even open an office in Tehran and you’re using Microsoft operating system, you can still be in trouble,” said the banker. “It’s not just OFAC, you’ve got other regulatory authorities in the US, which are not as transparent about their guidelines, particularly New York department of financial services, which doesn’t offer FAQs and won’t meet non-American entities to discuss issues about sanctions. You’ve got the Federal Reserve, you’ve got a lot of agencies out there which can punish you for the same offence, so it’s not just OFAC. “There’s also a reputational risk, whoever goes in first they’re going to be watched like a hawk by those who oppose the deal, the Israelis, Saudi Arabians, Republican American entities,” the banker said, saying that his bank was particularly under pressure from the US pro-Israel lobby, AIPAC. “I can’t see any movement for at least six to 12 months.” The banker added: “Most banks in Europe and UK have been sanctioned for transgression on Iran, and some of them have entered agreement with OFAC, what’s called the deferred prosecution agreement, where they’ve said they won’t do any deals with Iran, so do they break that agreement, has that agreement changed?” Iran’s Middle East Bank said this week it has requested to be linked up with 40 international banks through the Swift global transaction network. “My feeling is it is going to take a couple of weeks or so before we start to see proper re-engagement. It will be slowly, slowly,” the bank’s head, Parviz Aghili, told Reuters. Many services are denied to Iranians not because providers are legally bound to refuse them but because they err on the side of safety for fear of running foul of the policy. At least one Iranian said his account was closed down recently after 10 years. “I know six other ordinary Iranians in the UK who’ve had their bank accounts closed abruptly,” he told the . A businessman from Switzerland who visited two major Swiss banks this week said he was told they were waiting for other banks to try first and see the reaction of the Americans. “Banks are worried about interpretations of these guidances, so they’re still waiting for others to test the water.” Emil Dall, an analyst at the Royal United Services Institute who has read the guidance, said European companies still fear being caught up in what remains a complex US sanctions web. He said while the US treasury has offered substantial clarifications, they reveal a number of possible practical complications for EU companies. “One complication is the matter of the definition of ‘US control’ or ‘US ownership’. US-owned or controlled entities will still be bound by the US trade embargo on Iran if a US person holds a 50% or greater stake or ‘otherwise controls the actions, policies or personnel decisions’ of the entity,” he said. “Exactly where the lines of control will be drawn and how the definition will be enforced remains to be seen, but EU companies with a US parent will need to ensure that their business is conducted without US involvement – whether that be in terms of decisions, materials or support.” However, Dall said EU banks can rest assured that they will not be subject to US penalties for their relations with Iranian banks, even if those Iranian banks conduct business with still-sanctioned clients. “This clarification is highly noteworthy. It was feared that the financial sector would be one of the slowest moving in terms of re-engagement with Iran. This clarification may now alter the calculations of banks, in the process increasing the likelihood that other sectors are less inhibited by their inability to find methods of financing for Iranian trade.” “All of the clarifications provided by the US and EU authorities make one thing clear: companies looking to re-engage with Iran face a monumental due diligence task in ensuring that their Iranian business does not have a sanctioned beneficiary.”
BBC websites dominate the market in online news views A survey reveals that the top 10 biggest media publishers are responsible for nearly two-thirds of the news consumed by British people online. An analysis, based on the desktop and mobile page views in the UK in 2015, shows that they generated 65.1% of the traffic share compared to the next 140 biggest publishers. And the study, conducted by the digital market intelligence company, SimilarWeb, found that the BBC dominated digital news last year by generating a 30% market share. The corporation’s two sites, bbc.co.uk and bbc.com, secured 18.9bn page views, more than three times the traffic of its nearest competitor, msn.com, with 5.6bn. In third place was DMG Media, whose sites include Mail Online, generated a 6.6% market share (4.1bn page views). Fourth was Trinity Mirror, which has 31 news sites, and in fifth place was theguardian.com. The rest of the top 10 were the Telegraph, Sky, Polish publisher Wirtualna Polska’s wp.pl, another Polish site, onet.pl, which is published by Germany’s Axel Springer, and the aggregator NewsNow. At 11 was BuzzFeed, with the Independent in 12th place and the Express at 24th. The Times, because of its paywall, was in 109th place while the Sun, which also had a paywall until the end of November, was in 33rd place. The Financial Times was 52nd. Regional sites appear in the rankings too. The most popular was Trinity Mirror’s Manchester Evening News in 39th place, followed by the Liverpool Echo (43rd) and London Evening Standard (57th). The Daily Record was the biggest Scottish newspaper (55th). SimilarWeb executive Pavel Tuchinsky said the survey showed that traditional media organisations remain the UK’s dominant news source but “of these, the BBC remains in a different league.” Similarweb obtains its data, as explained here, through blending several different data sources. It should also be noted that it aggregates (aka buckets) sites for publishers, hence Trinity Mirror’s high ranking.
Dark Places review – Charlize Theron in a middling to dull thriller adaptation The success of Gillian Flynn’s mystery novel Gone Girl, filmed with Rosamund Pike and Ben Affleck, has now given us this middling screen adaptation of her cold-case thriller Dark Places. There are moments of macabre horror here, and interesting nods to Capote’s In Cold Blood, as well as America’s satanic abuse scare and the Robin Hood Hills case. It also, incidentally, brings in a child molestation sub-plot accompanied by Joan Jett’s cover of Gary Glitter’s Do You Wanna Touch Me on the soundtrack: it’s difficult to tell if the provocation is deliberate. All in all, its contrivances might have been indulged more satisfyingly in a TV miniseries. Producer-star Charlize Theron plays Libby Day, messed up and unemployed: the now grownup survivor of a mass slaying that happened 30 years earlier, which we periodically see in flashback. Theron’s natural glamour and style is suppressed, unconvincingly, by her wearing a baseball cap. Her mum (Christina Hendricks, now in danger of typecasting) was slaughtered at their Kansas farmhouse, along with her two sisters, and her then teen brother is now serving a life jail term for this, having claimed to be a satanist, confessed to the crime and relished his moment of notoriety in court. Three decades on, a true-crime murder buff (Nicholas Hoult), offers Libby a lot of money to help him reopen the case. Writer-director Gilles Paquet-Brenner made the decent French wartime drama Sarah’s Key. This is just dull pulp.
Why violence against women in film is not the same as violence against men Whenever you mention that a piece of art shows violence against women, you can be sure that the comments section will reply, with confused gusto, “What about the men?!” Men get shot in movies too, after all; why doesn’t anyone complain about that? Hurting men, the argument goes, should negate hurting women. As long as everyone is being treated with equal violence, gender is irrelevant, and we can go back to enjoying murder and mayhem untroubled by conscience, or, indeed, thought. So goes the argument. Earlier this week, I pointed out that the treatment of Batgirl in The Killing Joke is sexist. Barbara Gordon, AKA Batgirl, in the original 1988 comic by Alan Moore and Brian Bolland, is gut shot, stripped naked, and photographed by the Joker as part of his plot to terrorize her father. Sexualized violence against women as a way to motivate men is a wearisome misogynist trope – only compounded in the recently released Bruce Timm cartoon version by further “character development”, which presents Batgirl as emotionally unstable and incompetent. Inevitably, some folks leaped to defend gut-shooting as egalitarian entertainment. After all, Barbara is not the only person killed or humiliated in the original comic. The Joker casually kills numerous men over the course of the story, as the Joker is wont to do. He strips Gordon naked and forces him to view pictures of his nude daughter with a gaping wound in her stomach. Men are killed; men are tortured. The brutal violence against Barbara Gordon is, therefore, simply par for the course in a brutal comic book world. It doesn’t have anything to do with gender. It’s certainly true that The Killing Joke, and pulp entertainments in general, are replete with instances of violence against men. Batman and Superman spend most of Batman v Superman beating the crap out of each other. A 38-minute supercut of all of James Bond’s murders shows him slaughtering his way through bad guy after bad guy, punning cheerily all the while. In the shark attack film The Shallows, numerous men are bloodily devoured. And so forth. Men dying: audiences love it. Violence against men and violence against women are both common in genre entertainment. But – as The Killing Joke demonstrates – that doesn’t mean that the violence is the same. When women are targeted for violence, that violence is overwhelmingly sexual. The Joker doesn’t just shoot Barbara; he strips her and takes nude, voyeuristic photos, transforming the violence into a symbolic rape. In the cartoon version, the main male antagonist of the first half hour keeps up a steady stream of sexual remarks directed at Batgirl. As a result, their physical confrontations are suffused with sexual threat – a threat almost never present when male heroes like Batman fight villains. Sexualization makes violence against women exciting, important – and motivating. The Joker violates Barbara to humiliate her father. Batman, in the cartoon, becomes protective when the villain sexually threatens Batgirl – and not just protective, since the villain’s lewd comments lead, not very indirectly, to Batgirl and Batman having sex. Women are sexual objects; violence against them creates conflict between men, because men have an interest in controlling women’s sexuality. That’s a good thumbnail definition of patriarchy. Violence against men works differently. When men are the target of violence, the violence is not generally sexualized, and, indeed, it’s mostly not even emotionally fraught. Heroes or villains kill other men casually, as a way of showing how tough they are. And heroes and villains suffer violence stoically, also as a way of showing how tough they are. For women in media, violence is sexual, exciting, and defines them – as when Barbara is shot and permanently crippled. For men, violence is nonsexual and establishes their strength – as when Commissioner Gordon endures horrific punishment, only to emerge unbroken and unbowed, his commitment to law and morality unshaken. Violence in The Killing Joke is directed at both men and women. But the violence is not equal. Instead, it is apportioned out according to gender stereotypes. Women are the victims of sexualized violence, which means they’re seen as innately vulnerable and unheroic. Violence is done to them and for them. They are the erotic stimulus to someone else’s story. Men, on the other hand, are not victims – even when they are on the receiving end of violence. They have to be stoic and strong. Gordon can’t break down under torture, because he’s a guy and a hero. The Joker, before he is the Joker, does break under mental strain – but when he does so he becomes a monster, more unmanageably violent than ever, piling up bodies like cordwood to affirm him as tough guy male villain. Meanwhile, men who aren’t the protagonists die without comment or fuss. Even when they’re superheroes, women aren’t allowed to be heroes, only victims. Even when they’re violently murdered, men aren’t allowed to be victims – only heroes or nonentities. The sexist distribution of violence hurts women, who are told, over and over, that they are first and foremost sexual objects, that they are constantly endangered, that they must rely on men for protection, and that they aren’t able to be heroes on their own account. But the sexism also hurts men. Onscreen, men are rarely allowed to be vulnerable; they’re always supposed to great violence with indifference, and/or with greater violence. Men are told, over and over, that violence, by and against men, is natural, and not to be remarked upon. Men die, onscreen and in war, and that’s just the way of things. Men, if they’re men, don’t protest. Women can’t be heroes; men can’t be anything but heroes. That’s the logic of The Killing Joke, and not just of The Killing Joke. Throughout popular culture, gender reinforces violence, and violence reinforces gender. Representations of violence against men don’t negate representations of violence against women. Rather, they compound and enable each other. The sensational, sexualized violation of Barbara makes the violence by and against men in the rest of the comic natural, necessary, logical. The punchline is always the same: gender is the joke that can kill.
Jon Snow apologises for Victor Meldrew joke about Rickman death Jon Snow has apologised for making a joke about the death of Alan Rickman in an interview with fellow actor Richard Wilson on Channel Four news. The presenter asked Wilson, who was friends with Rickman and is best known for his portrayal of Victor Meldrew in One Foot in the Grave, whether news of the death inspired that character’s famous catchphrase “I don’t believe it”. Reacting to criticism on Twitter, Snow said on Saturday the comment was a “mistake in the heat of a sad moment” and that he apologised unreservedly. On Thursday night’s programme, Snow asked his guest whether he knew Rickman was dying, to which the actor replied: “I did.”. Snow then joked: “So it wasn’t a case of ‘I don’t believe it’ then?”. Wilson did not appear to take offence at Snow’s quip, but some viewers reacted angrily. After Snow’s apology, however, there were numerous supportive responses on Twitter. Snow, 68, who has been the main presenter of Channel 4 news since 1989, is known for his colourful ties and socks and a willingness to participate in segments for the broadcaster’s annual Big Fat Quiz of the Year. In last month’s quiz he deadpanned the lyrics to the Drake hit Hotline Bling before going on to emulate the rapper’s unique dance style. Wilson and Rickman worked together on stage in 1980 when the former directed the latter in a play called Commitments. Rickman, 69, had been seen on stage and screen for three decades, and won many new fans with his role as Professor Snape in the Harry Potter films. The Harry Potter author, JK Rowling, led an outpouring of tributes to the late actor, saying she was shocked and devastated at his death from cancer. Daniel Radcliffe, who played Potter in the films, described Rickman as “one of the loyalest and most supportive people I’ve ever met in the film industry”.
José Mourinho hails Ibrahimovic’s form for Manchester United José Mourinho hailed Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s display as the Swede scored both goals in Manchester United’s victory against Southampton and the manager was also clear that his side could not have begun the season any better. Friday night’s victory followed the 3-1 win at Bournemouth on Sunday to give United a maximum six points from their opening games. Ibrahimovic, who was making his home debut, scored a 36th-minute header and a 52nd-minute penalty to take his tally to three. Mourinho said: “He is very good in the air but he is very good with his feet. He holds the ball better than anyone. When he drops back he gives the team another option, to keep possession of the ball. I am very happy with his performance.” Ibrahimovic is now the penalty taker, taking over from Wayne Rooney. “I designate three: Paul [Pogba], Wayne and Zlatan and sometimes I like the players to have the feeling it is for me,” Mourinho said. “But Wayne and Paul they told Zlatan, you are the first so when a penalty comes you are the first option, if you don’t want to take then we are here.” Of his performance Ibrahimovic said: “If the team does good, the individual does good. I tried to do what I am best at, create chances, help my team-mates and then scoring goals. So far three goals in total and I’m happy for the team, two games, two wins. We are becoming better and better. “It was the first game at home and we won it. And it was a good start. We need to get used to winning because the mental part is always important as well as the physical part. So we’re happy for the three points and for the first game for Paul [Pogba]. He needs to settle in, and the rest will come by itself. We need to put the puzzle together and then work on it.” On his full debut for United Pogba impressed. “He was fantastic,” Mourinho said. “His first action was bad, he loses an easy ball and gives a counterattack and a free-kick to the opponent. You can see even more the ego, the personality, he is so comfortable as a star.” Pogba said: “It was great. My debut and we won so I am very happy for that. I am very happy for the team. I came back home. I hope to continue like this and get better and keep winning. That is all we can do.” Mourinho is happy at how the fans are relating to his players. He pointed to Marouane Fellaini as one illustration. “The crowd was magnificent. They are creating a good relationship with the team, with the players, even players I could feel the relationship was [previously] not the best, the players are growing that. Fellaini was a clear example … it is changing completely. “Maybe a simple phone call can make a difference [for Fellaini]. A player that was feeling not loved. A player that when the market opened, everybody was saying he was leaving and was not a player for me. “Maybe a simple phone call the day after my presentation as manager changed a lot because I told him, forget everything you read. For me you don’t leave for sure. “Then I think the more organised the team play, the easier for the players to feel confident. He is playing well, with [Michael] Carrick, with Ander Herrera, with Paul. I think he is full of confidence but I have so many good players”
Sturgill Simpson: A Sailor’s Guide to Earth review – hard-hitting country soul Sturgill Simpson has found a novel way to rebut all the claims that he is the future of Nashville. His third album takes a sharp turn away from the questing, metaphysical country of his second record, bringing on board the Dap-Kings to transform his songs into hard-hitting country soul. Simpson spends much of A Sailor’s Guide to Earth pondering his responsibilities to his young son, but not in a cloying way. The opening Welcome to Earth (Pollywog) is the wonder of new parenthood, but it doesn’t take long for the fear to kick in: “Just stay in school / Stay off the drugs / And keep it between the lines,” he advises over crunchy, funky horns on Keep It Between the Lines, “it don’t have to be like father, like son.” It’s hardly a revolutionary album, but its melding of styles – pedal steel is draped across the songs like Spanish moss, and Estonian guitarist Laur Joamets takes solos off in deliciously unexpected directions, sometimes veering towards space – gives it a fresh, unsullied feeling. Simpson’s writing, too, is fantastic: the eight originals here are all top-notch, not overshadowed by the unexpected and sympathetic cover of Nirvana’s In Bloom.
Danny Dyer discovers he is related to two kings and Thomas Cromwell The actor Danny Dyer has discovered he is related to two English kings, but said he feels a closer affinity to another blood connection unearthed by researchers, Henry VIII’s adviser and fixer Thomas Cromwell. Dyer is to appear in an episode of BBC’s Who Do You Think You Are? next week in which his ancestry is traced back to both William the Conqueror and Edward III. “It’s crazy. But the fact of the matter is that I am a direct descendant of royalty,” the EastEnders actor told the Radio Times. Dyer is not the first person appearing on the programme to find he is related to William I. Researchers on previous instalments of the show found that rower Matthew Pinsent, comedian Alexander Armstrong and the BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner can all trace their routes back to William I, who had nine children. However, Dyer is the first to find a bloodline stretching back to Cromwell and the native of London’s Canning Town said he has more in common with the cunning Tudor statesman than his blue-blooded ancestors. “He came from a slum, I come from a slum. Cromwell left the country at 14, I started acting at 14. He was a self-taught lawyer. I’m a self-taught actor,” said Dyer. “Cromwell had two daughters and a son. I’ve got two daughters and a son. Cromwell wrote his last letter to Henry VIII begging for his life, on 24 July, which is my birthday … And I drink in the Anne Boleyn pub.” Cromwell was recently brought to the small screen in BBC2 drama Wolf Hall, played to critical acclaim by Mark Rylance. Dyer said Rylance was a mentor to him at 17 when they both appeared in 1996 BBC2 comedy Loving. “I felt invincible at the time. I thought I knew it all. Then I met Rylance and I went, ‘I know bugger all.’ He’s not somebody you ask questions. You just watch, soak it all up.” Though he saw early critical success in films such as Human Traffic, and worked closely with Harold Pinter in the 2000s, much of Dyer’s later output has been widely panned by critics. But he told the Radio Times that his award winning role in EastEnders, in which he has played landlord Mick Carter since Christmas 2013, saved his career. “There’s only so many times people are going to forgive you for making a shit film,” said Dyer. “It has saved me ... I would never have been looked at for stuff like Who Do You Think You Are? otherwise. I’d become a laughing stock. I had no money. I couldn’t get work. I was on my arse, but the show was on its arse, so it was a perfect marriage. They said: ‘Danny, we want you to save EastEnders.’” Dyer added that posher actors would be unable to pull off his performance in the soap, saying that Benedict Cumberbatch would be “useless”. He continued: “Could he do a cockney accent? Of course he couldn’t. But then I can’t do what Benedict Cumberbatch does. We all do what we can do, whether you’re Idris Elba, whether you’re me. No one else can do what Damian Lewis does, which is why he’s got a career. And no one can do Danny Dyer like I can do Danny Dyer.”
Be afraid, Donald Trump. We're about to see the best of Barack Obama What do you say about a man who first questioned your birth and then your allegiance to your country? How do you respond to someone who thinks the best way to get your job is to accuse you of being weak and suggest you’re on the side of your nation’s enemies? For Barack Obama and his senior aides, these are not abstract questions. Donald Trump may trigger a widespread sense of disbelief and disgust among Democrats. But inside the White House, they don’t have the luxury of expressing those feelings in public. So when the moment came for speaking out loud last week, the US president’s response was both highly personal and intensely measured. It was a counterpunching argument against a street-fighting candidate that mixed one-liner rebukes with nuanced policy. It also pointed the way to how this president – enjoying his final months in office and positive approval numbers – intends to interject in an election dominated by a reality TV star who represents the total repudiation of everything he stands for, in style and in substance. It was late on his first full working day after the Orlando shootings when Obama let his speechwriters know that he wanted to do something different. For months, he and his aides had traveled around the nation’s capital to stage security briefings at different agencies and departments to explain their efforts in the fight against Isis. He didn’t need to travel to get briefed, but he did want the media and the public to pay attention. Less than three days after the Orlando carnage, Obama was scheduled to make the short walk to the treasury to talk to his own national security council. This time he wanted to do more than update a grieving and fearful nation about his counter-terrorism strategy. He wanted to talk about another battle, a uniquely Washington one, about a single phrase: “Islamic extremism”. Obama’s obvious reluctance to say those two words had become the single biggest Republican critique of his war against Isis. Whether his opponents were for or against military action in Syria, they could all agree on the talking points that suggested the commander-in-chief could not wage war against an enemy he could not name. After the murder of 49 Americans at a nightclub, it was time to respond to the political point-scoring. Obama took the speechwriters’ draft and extensively reworked the sections that mattered to him most: on Trump’s proposal to ban Muslims entering the United States, and the question of tolerance and diversity in general. So he was pumped when he entered the formal treasury room after his national security meeting. He walked through the usual updates on Isis losing territory, and he berated Congress for failing to confirm a Treasury counter-terrorism official for more than a year. But the real passion came at the end of his remarks: There has not been a moment in my seven and a half years as president where we have not been able to pursue a strategy because we didn’t use the label ‘radical Islam’. Not once has an advisor of mine said, man, if we really use that phrase, we’re going to turn this whole thing around. Not once. So if someone seriously thinks that we don’t know who we’re fighting, if there’s anyone out there who thinks we’re confused about who our enemies are, that would come as a surprise to the thousands of terrorists who we’ve taken off the battlefield. Obama explained how US forces – including “the Special Forces that I ordered to get bin Laden and are now on the ground in Iraq and in Syria” – understood who they were fighting. “They know full well who the enemy is. So do the intelligence and law enforcement officers who spend countless hours disrupting plots and protecting all Americans, including politicians who tweet and appear on cable news shows.” So why not use the words “radical Islam”, like the tweeting politicians have urged him to? Obama explained he wanted to avoid echoing the propaganda of Isis and al-Qaida that would turn their terrorism into a religious war. “If we fall into the trap of painting all Muslims with a broad brush and imply that we are at war with an entire religion, then we’re doing the terrorists’ work for them.” This was more than just a response to the Republican nominee’s latest outburst on Twitter. “The leader of the Republican party and many Republicans – it was about much more than Trump – were using this phraseology debate as a fig leaf for their lack of alternative plan, or a strategy that was different from the president. The characterization of his strategy was not only inaccurate but also absurd,” said Jen Psaki, communications director at the White House. “Clearly he felt very personally about speaking to this. Gun violence has impacted him very personally in general, almost more than any other issue in his presidency. But also there’s this false debate about language going on at this moment.” Beyond the terrorism debate, Obama wanted to talk about American values. In his view, the election is no longer about national security policy but about an even more fundamental question – the identity of the United States. “We’re starting to see where this kind of rhetoric and loose talk and sloppiness about who exactly we’re fighting, where this can lead us,” he told the cameras at Treasury. “We now have proposals from the presumptive Republican nominee for president of the United States to bar all Muslims from emigrating to America. We hear language that singles out immigrants and suggests that entire religious communities are complicit in violence. Where does this stop? The Orlando killer, one of the San Bernardino killers, the Fort Hood killer: they were all US citizens. Are we going to start treating all Muslim Americans differently? Are we going to start subjecting them to special surveillance? Are we going to start discriminating against them because of their faith?” This is how Obama will fight the 2016 election: not by trolling Donald Trump directly but by arguing that he is undermining American values. In other words, his response to a candidate who questioned his citizenship is to argue about the nature of American citizenship. “He isn’t going to do the hit of the day against Trump. Hillary will probably do that, and Obama did that when he was a candidate in 2008,” said Jon Favreau, Obama’s former chief speechwriter. “But as president he will make the case that there’s something worthwhile defending about our democracy, as big and messy as it is; that our pluralism is important; that Trump’s vision is antithetical to everything we believe and that the founders of this country believed; and that it’s damaging to our position in the world. He is attacking Trump but in a way that makes him bigger than Trump.” “He truly believes that the danger that Trump poses is bigger than if Mitt Romney was on the ticket. He’s going to make this case not just because he’s competitive, but because this is the final chapter of the case he has been making since he stood on stage in 2004.” That was the breakthrough speech at the Democratic convention in Boston when the young state senator said there was no black or white America: there was just the United States of America. As patriotic as that speech was, it’s hard to imagine Donald Trump delivering the same words while also proposing to ban Muslim travel and to torture terrorist suspects. Then again, it’s hard to imagine Trump responding to a personal attack – like the one he fired at Obama after Orlando – in anything other than a personal way. What separates these two men isn’t just a worldview, it’s a question of temperament. It was Joe Biden who warned back in 2008 that when the world tried to test Barack Obama, “they’re going to find out this guy’s got steel in his spine”. Now, as Trump is testing him, the response from Obama is as cold and clinical as Trump is hot-headed. “This is a country founded on basic freedoms, including freedom of religion. We don’t have religious tests here,” said the president whose Kenyan grandfather converted to both Christianity and Islam. “Our founders, our constitution, our bill of rights are clear about that. And if we ever abandon those values, we would not only make it a lot easier to radicalize people here and around the world, but we would have betrayed the very things we are trying to protect – the pluralism and the openness, our rule of law, our civil liberties – the very things that make this country great; the very things that make us exceptional. And then the terrorists would have won. And we cannot let that happen. I will not let that happen.” The commitment is clear from this hyper-competitive president who still has six months in office. Even though he couches his argument in principled terms, this contest against Trump goes deep. Even though he’s not on the ticket, this one is personal.
Mexicans to burn Donald Trump effigy to celebrate Easter Around this time of year, Leonardo Linares likes to get hold of a contentious politician or venal public official, stuff him full of explosives and set him alight. This year, the honour will be granted to Donald Trump. Linares, like four generations of his family before him, is an artisan in Mexico City who specialises in making papier-mache “Judas” figures to be burned in an Easter weekend tradition enacting Jesus Christ’s victory over evil. Generally his effigies portray prominent Mexicans, but this year, Linares decided to look north: Donald Trump’s anti-Mexican comments made him “an ideal candidate” for Judas, he said. “With all of the stupid things he has said about Mexicans, I thought people would like to see him burning as Judas,” said Linares. “I think he’s just saying these things to become famous. Who knows if he actually believes it.” Mexicans have mocked Trump with cartoons, memes and piñatas to be beaten at parties. But over the Easter weekend, his effigy will hang in a public square as a representation of Judas Iscariot – who the Bible says betrayed Christ for 30 pieces of silver and subsequently hanged himself. Although its roots are religious, the burning of Judas also offers a rare chance to convey discontent with politicians and public officials in a country where frank expression of political opinions is not always safe. The tradition arrived in the New World from Spain and became part of the Easter vigil mass. “Blowing away a figure of evil was a way to represent the aim of defeating evil,” said Rodolfo Soriano Núñez, a Mexico City sociologist, who studies the Catholic church. The tradition is fading in Mexico (though still practised widely in other parts of Latin America) as explosives permits are harder to obtain and the Catholic church focuses on more mainstream Easter celebrations. But the choice of Judas is widely seen as a good barometer of social discontent in Mexico and an indicator of the issues that most infuriate the country’s population. In the wake of his comments about migrants and promises to build a border wall, Trump tops the list in 2016. “I think his [Judas] figure would outsell that of any Mexican politician at the moment,” Linares says. Linares is not not the only one planning to lampoon Trump. The western city of León has also announced it will burn Trump in effigy. The selection of a foreign figure is rare, though Linares says that figures resembling the former US president George W Bush and ex-Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein sold well in 2003. s say the interest isn’t unexpected since Mexico, traditionally an inward-looking country, hasn’t come under such a sustained attack as Trump’s in more than a century. “People have come to attack Mexico, [but] it’s the first time someone outside the country has launched an anti-Mexico campaign, culturally speaking,” says Ilán Semo, a political historian at the Iberoamerican University. This year, Linares said he also planned to ignite a second polemic figure: a masked Isis fighter with devil horns – something he said was inspired by the attacks in Brussels. When asked how the group compared to Trump, he responded: “They’re the same.”
Digital artist Ann Hirsch on why her ‘singing vagina’ empowers women – and terrifies men I’ve seen more of Ann Hirsch than I have of possibly anybody else on the planet. To be specific, I watched her one-minute film of her vagina “singing” I Feel Pretty, which is brilliant and hilarious and joyful, and makes you feel sad and angry about all the other vaginas on the internet which are shaved, penetrated and exploited. But we’ll get to Hirsch and her vagina later. We meet at the Zabludowicz Collection gallery in north London, where Hirsch, a digital and online artist, is creating a new installation of Playground, her 2013 play, as part of a group show. There are no vagina videos here. Playground is far less playful but touches on the same issues: how to be female and in an online space, and how and when women can express their sexuality, and at what cost. It is a biographical work – as a pre-teen in the 90s, Hirsch discovered AOL chatrooms which were, at first, a way to talk to new friends. When she was 12, she started an online relationship with a man in his late 20s, which quickly became sexual (although they never actually met). At the time, she says, she didn’t see it as exploitative – but she was the one who felt ashamed in the years afterwards. “Obviously now that I’m older, I can see this guy preys on young girls so he can manipulate them. As I started to think more about that, I thought: this makes a lot of sense. This is why some men like younger women. There is this idea that [it’s because they’re supposedly] prettier but I don’t think it’s that at all – I think some men like younger women because they can manipulate them and use their power, and they prefer to be in a relationship in which they are dominant.” Hirsch grew up in Baltimore and now lives in LA. She describes her family background as “conservative”, and says that at the Jewish school she attended, “any girl who was sexual or flirty at all would be shamed by teachers and students”. She was intrigued by her emerging sexuality but says, “I didn’t feel like I could be a sexual person. AOL was a way for me to do that, but in a shameful, secretive kind of way.” At high school, she says, she didn’t spend much time online, but after studying sculpture at university, then video art, she was drawn back to the possibilities of the internet. Hirsch is one of a number of female artists asking similar questions about what it means to be a woman online. They include Amalia Ulman, whose performance via stereotypical Instagram images (including motivational quotes and selfies in her underwear) lasted for several months, and Angela Washko, who goes into “hostile” spaces such as the online game World of Warcraft and stages feminist conversations. Jennifer Chan’s videos take on gender, Tabita Rezaire is a video and new-media artist whose work looks at power and oppression, and Faith Holland uses porn as a way to look at sexuality and women. One of Hirsch’s first big projects was Scandalishious – a YouTube channel she set up in 2008 featuring a character (played by Hirsch) called Caroline – and was her attempt to look at two types of women who had emerged on what was then a relatively new site. “There was the woman whose face you never saw, she wouldn’t speak, and all she did was booty dancing for the camera; she was a sexual object with no identity. Then you would have the girls who would talk to the camera but they would never be sexual. My idea for that online identity was to combine those two things, be a person you could see and also dance and be sexual for the camera, which at that time you didn’t really see.” Caroline, a cutesy hipster who liked to perform sexualised dance routines, became a bit of an internet sensation, picking up hundreds of thousands of views. Was Hirsch surprised? “I was. I was making the videos compulsively and not really knowing why I was doing it. But most of the attention I got was very negative and very scary. It was an intense thing to go through.” Comments – left by viewers who were unaware Hirsch was putting on a performance – were mostly gendered, remarking on her appearance and whether or not she was attractive. “If I was a woman of colour, there would have been so many racial stereotypes as well. That’s how the internet operates at its most base; people want to tear you down and silence you. But then I got a lot of positive feedback as well. And I started to get all these young female fans, and that’s what scared me the most, [the idea that] young women are going to want to be like me. But then I was like, so what? I think we want to deny young women their sexuality, but we shouldn’t. The problem isn’t that young girls want to be sexual, it’s that people want to exploit them for it.” By 2010, Hirsch was fascinated by reality TV and the way young women in particular were often portrayed in a way that reinforced stereotypes while also providing fodder for viewers who liked to shame such women. She managed to get herself on A Basement Affair, a show in which a group of young women moved into a house with reality star Frank Maresca and his parents, and tried to win his affections. Hirsch was cast as the “nice girl” by producers, though scuppered that by performing a filthy, highly sexualised rap in front of Maresca and his parents in the “singing round” of the competition. In both projects, the YouTube channel and the reality show, Hirsch says she wasn’t doing a parody – it was important to her to really become those women. “Empathy is important in my work and a lot of my pieces have involved me becoming the things that I have grown up going, ‘Tsk tsk, you shouldn’t do that.’ And so, instead of continuing with that feeling, I’ve become that person that the old me would have shamed, and understand what it is to inhabit those roles. With both projects it doesn’t make sense for me to say, ‘I’m above that, I’m an artist.’ No, I’m not, I’m the same. They want to show their bodies [on] the internet, I want to show my body on the internet. But I’m trying to show it in ways that I, personally, don’t see.” What does she think of Kim Kardashian’s “nude selfie”, which the reality star posted earlier this month? “It wasn’t even nude,” Hirsch laughs. “It had black [censor] bars on it. Don’t give me this clickbait with this ‘nude selfie’ and it’s not nude! I want to see a vagina and nipples. I felt very misled by that.” What sets Hirsch apart from the young women who are doing it for “real” is that she places herself in the gaps she sees – in Scandalishious, it was the disconnect between the sex object and the human, in the reality show it was subverting the role of the “good girl”. In her most recent work, last year’s Horny Lil Feminist project, comprising a series of short videos, it was putting her vagina on an internet full of vaginas (not all the videos are of Hirsch’s vagina). “The dominant way women are viewed on the internet is through pornography. I wanted to present an alternative way to look at a woman’s body other than through oppressing her, degrading her, having her look a certain way, act a certain way. There’s a lot of humour in these videos; it’s a vagina in the context of me as a human being. You get a real person.” She has been told that men have run screaming from a gallery in New York that was showing one of her videos. “They can’t deal with it because they want it to serve them. I think it goes back to this idea of power and dominance, and if a man can’t have a vagina on his terms he doesn’t want it at all. It’s not shaven, it’s not pornified and he doesn’t want to see it because that means it belongs to the woman it’s attached to and not to him.” In 2008, when Hirsch was making her YouTube videos, she believed the blossoming selfie and vlogging culture would be a chance for all kinds of women to express themselves. “I had these utopian notions that now women can broadcast ourselves instead of relying on TV and film, we can portray ourselves and this is going to be great for women and minorities – we get stereotyped all the time. But the reality of what happened isn’t what I thought.” The “like” economy, where some people get huge amounts of attention on sites such as YouTube and Instagram, mainly by being young, thin, white and perceived as attractive (and often showing themselves in a “sexy” way) reinforces many of the more negative ideals, says Hirsch. “Now, as a woman, how do I show myself online [in a way] that feels like it’s moving a conversation forward, doing something new and showing women in a way that they’re not normally seen?” She smiles. “I’m sure that in five more years, everyone will be showing their vagina on the internet.” Emotional Supply Chains is at the Zabludowicz Collection, London, from 24 March–17 July 2016
Harry Kane: ‘We’ve got to keep fighting for title at Spurs until the end’ Harry Kane fears that Tottenham Hotspur’s lack of ruthlessness might have cost them their first league title since 1961. The striker said that his team’s 1-1 home draw with West Bromwich Albion on Monday night was a “gutting feeling” and it has left them seven points behind the leaders, Leicester City, with three games to play. It was a game of tight margins, with Tottenham having hit the woodwork twice at 0-0 and once more after they had taken a 1-0 lead. Had Erik Lamela’s 58th-minute effort gone in for 2-0, rather than come back off the far post, Tottenham might have succeeded in maintaining the pressure on Leicester. Instead, they were reeled in – Craig Dawson heading the equaliser for West Brom in the 73rd minute – and it was not the first time this season that Tottenham had squandered points at White Hart Lane from winning positions. They threw away a 2-0 lead to draw 2-2 with Stoke City; they lost 2-1 against Newcastle United, having been in front, and they conceded an equaliser to Arsenal in the 2-2 derby draw. “We’ve got to put teams away,” Kane said. “We’ve had a few games like that this season where teams have come back to bite us. It’s disappointing. All we can do is move forwards and see what happens this weekend. We felt we did enough to win the game, especially in the first half. We had a lot of chances and had a couple come off the post. But that’s football.” There could be worse to follow for Spurs should Dele Alli be charged with violent conduct after allegedly punching the West Brom midfielder Claudio Yacob in the stomach. The England midfielder, who was voted PFA Young Player of the Year at the weekend, could face a retrospective three-match ban if found guilty, putting him out for the rest of the season. It was easy to say after the event but these are the kind of matches that champions win – the narrow ones against opponents who compress the space and turn it into a battle, on mental and physical levels. It was niggly at times on Monday and questions could be asked about Tottenham’s composure. “We’re becoming a very good team and teams below us want to come here and get a result,” Kane said. “They want to waste time, they want get into the referee, but that’s football. We’ve got to learn how to cope with that. We’re a young side and we’ve still got to learn. “Maybe teams are trying to get under our skin. It seems everyone puts in 110% against us. But if you want to be a top team in this league, you have to be able to cope with that. We feel we are. We feel we have done well over the last few months coping with that. Monday was just one of those games. West Brom are a side that if you give them a chance and don’t put them to bed, they will come back to bite you.” Tottenham visit Chelsea next Monday night but the title race will be over on Sunday if Leicester win against Manchester United at Old Trafford. United, though, need victory to keep alive their push for a Champions League finish and Kane wants to believe that it is not inconceivable there could be another twist. “I don’t think it’s over,” Kane said. “There are still three games left. If Leicester lose the next game, you just never know, with the pressure. Obviously, it is now going to be a lot, lot harder, and it’s not in our hands. It’s in Leicester’s hands. If they win, they win. We’ve just got to go out and win our remaining three games. “They would have to lose one and draw two and we’d have to win all three. It’s not impossible but it looks unlikely the way the season has gone so far. We can’t control it but we haven’t been able to control it for the last few weeks. They have been going out and doing their jobs, as have we. It was a shame we couldn’t get the three points against West Brom. “The manager doesn’t say a lot after games, win or lose. Of course, we are all disappointed. We knew what was riding on it. But it’s done now. We can’t do any more. We played very well in the first half but the second half wasn’t up to our usual standard.” Tottenham need two more points to be sure of a top-three finish; Manchester City host Arsenal on the penultimate weekend, meaning that one or both of them will drop points. Tottenham’s goal difference gives them a bit of breathing room – certainly with Arsenal. If they failed to pick up two points, there is the slim chance that they could finish in fifth. “We have to dust ourselves off and try to win our last three games,” Kane said. “We want to finish as high up and with as many points as we can. It’s been a fantastic season so far, and we can’t get too down about the West Brom result. It’s a gutting feeling. We wanted to win the game but there are still three games left, and we can’t just fold it in. We’ve got to keep fighting until the end.”
Replace House of Lords with elected senate, urges Gordon Brown Gordon Brown has called for the House of Lords to be replaced by an elected senate and far greater powers handed to the UK’s devolved parliaments in the wake of the Brexit vote. The former prime minister said the decision to leave the EU meant the UK needed to have a fundamental rethink of its constitutional structures. It would bring the UK much closer to a federal system, and weaken the case for a fresh Scottish independence referendum, he said. In a speech at the Edinburgh book festival, written in collaboration with Scottish Labour leaders and policy staff, Brown said Holyrood should be given powers currently controlled by the EU. Those could include control over all territorial fisheries, agriculture and social rights, as well as the European convention on human rights and EU academic programmes such as Erasmus. At the same time, a UK-wide constitutional convention was needed to investigate new structures, including a UK senate for the nations and English regions. His speech deliberately echoes similar remarks by Kezia Dugdale, the Scottish Labour leader, over the weekend, when she told the Sunday Post there was an obvious case for Holyrood to have full control over international fisheries and agriculture after a Brexit, strengthening its devolved powers in both areas. In extracts released before his speech, Brown said those reforms would require the carefully constructed deal by the Smith commission to give Holyrood extra tax and policy powers after the 2014 independence referendum would also need to be ripped up. Brown couched these proposals as the most sophisticated alternative to two entirely competing stances: the unchanging support for the union of the Tories, and the quest for Scottish independence, which first minister Nicola Sturgeon is due to rekindle later this week. “We enter autumn with two entrenched positions which are polar opposites: the UK government wants Scotland in Britain but not in Europe and the Scottish government wants Scotland in Europe but not in Britain,” Brown’s statement said. New circumstances require a constitutional breakthrough that transcends the sterile standoff between a non-change conservative unionism and an unreconstructed nationalism, both of which would cause Scottish unemployment to rise, he said. “Now is the time for fresh thinking and not a replay of the tired old arguments and slogans. [I] believe that we should examine a way forward that offers a more innovative constitutional settlement, more federal in its relationship with the UK than devolution or independence and more akin to home rule than separation.” Brown said that overhaul would also include the Treasury sending up to £750m more to Holyrood: his advisers estimate the EU programmes, including agricultural subsidies, academic grants and regional funds, are worth £750m in Scotland. But Labour sources admit that giving Holyrood more money and far greater political autonomy from Westminster would provoke a fresh battle with English MPs over Scottish funding. The Scottish government’s official fiscal data last week confirmed Scotland has a huge public spending deficit of £15bn, equivalent to 21% of all UK and Scottish public spending there and equal to 9% of Scottish GDP. While Brown has been edging towards this pro-federal stance for months, having resisted it for much of his political career, his allies in Labour insist this more radical viewpoint is driven by the crisis forced on the UK by the unexpected vote in June to leave the EU. They acknowledge that the political gulf between Scotland, where the Scottish National party is now dominant and voters heavily supported an EU remain vote; and England, where the Tories are now dominant; has strengthened the case for greater autonomy for Holyrood. Ian Murray, Scottish Labour’s only MP, said some form of federalism was now the most logical middle way. “It’s quite clear from a Scottish Labour perspective that independence is broken as a realistic prospect for Scotland, and the Tories just want to defend the status quo. That is also now broken.” Similar measures were suggested in July by the cross-party constitution reform group and former Tory cabinet minister Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, who said the UK should be entirely remodelled on a federal system, with a UK senate at Westminster and a new English parliament. Meanwhile, Charles Falconer, former Labour lord chancellor, has been drafting proposals for a quasi-federal structure backed by Scottish Labour to feed into UK Labour review on the UK’s future shape and structure after Brexit, under John Trickett. Brown’s open backing for Holyrood to control fisheries out to the UK’s 200 nautical miles limit, have control over agriculture funding, and to repatriate human and social rights laws from Europe, also echoes the campaigning position of Scottish Brexit campaigners during the referendum. Although Scottish Labour insists the SNP are fixed on using Brexit as the justification for a second independence vote, there are growing signals from Sturgeon that she now believes the Brexit vote has to be accepted and dealt with by her government in the near term. There are reports she could call a new referendum as early as next spring but the new pro-independence initiative being shown to her MSPs and MPs this Friday is expected to be cautious and longer-term. Popular support for Scottish independence has risen slightly since the EU referendum but not substantially enough to risk a second referendum while potential yes voters want to see the results of the UK’s Brexit talks. Instead Sturgeon last week appointed one of the SNP’s toughest and most experienced operators, Michael Russell, as her minister for Brexit. She admitted Scotland’s difficult finances presented a major challenge.
Anglo Irish Bank's former CEO granted bail on strict terms The head of the bank that almost bankrupted Ireland has been granted bail under strict conditions including the surrender of his passport and having to report to police twice a day. David Drumm appeared in Dublin district court on Monday morning to face 33 charges relating to the now defunct Anglo Irish Bank. Drumm fought a four-month battle against extradition from the US to Ireland. He dropped his legal challenge against extradition in February. Within hours of Drumm arriving back in Dublin from Boston, the 49-year-old former chief executive of the bank was formally charged at Ballymun Garda station in the north of the city. Drumm was accused of forgery and false accounting for loans in 2008 designed to rescue Anglo Irish Bank’s share price. The Dublin-born banker denies any wrongdoing. The charges carry prison sentences ranging from five years to an unlimited term. In 2009 Anglo Irish Bank was nationalised, with the Irish taxpayer having to pay €30bn (£23bn) to rescue a financial institution that was once the preferred bank of builders and property speculators. During the hearing, which began at 11am on Monday, the Garda Síochána said they opposed bail due to, they said, Drumm being a flight risk and due to the seriousness of the charges and potential penalties. But court judge Michael Walsh agreed to bail once Drumm surrendered his Irish passport and gave assurances he did not possess a US one. He was also ordered to sign on twice a day in Balbriggan Garda station in north county Dublin. The judge instructed Drumm to offer up two independent sureties of €50,000 each; €25,000 must be lodged in cash and the other €25,000 must be shown in a bank account. After the bank bailout Drumm left Ireland for the US and refused repeated requests to come home and be questioned over the bank’s affairs. During the extradition hearing Drumm was moved from his home in an upmarket area of Boston to the Plymouth county correctional centre which his lawyers described as “unrelentingly harsh” and “uncomfortable”. After the rescue of Anglo Irish Bank, it was nationalised and renamed the Irish Banking Resolution Corporation. The sharp practices at the bank during the Celtic boom, when it became the major financier for over-stretched Irish developers and investors playing the global property market, caused national outrage in Ireland.
As Trump backers praise Brexit, UK and US are nations united in rage Donald Trump’s noisy, shambolic and furious convention in Cleveland broke every rule in the US campaigners’ handbook – including the relatively esoteric one that says British politics never, ever gets a mention. Deemed both obscure and irrelevant, the affairs of the UK have been reliably invisible in the US political argument since 1945. But not this week. Alongside a speech from a would-be first lady rapidly exposed as plagiarised and a primetime address from a US senator drowned by boos from the convention floor, the Republican gathering in Cleveland also recorded another first. It made room for interest in Britain. Or rather in last month’s decision to leave the European Union. In fringe meetings and from the podium, the vote for Brexit was regularly cited as a source of inspiration for Republicans. As one pro-Trump T-shirt spotted in Cleveland put it, showing the two nations’ flags alongside each other: “1st the UK. Now, the US. Take back America.” For some Republicans, the 23 June decision offered heartening proof that a cause once dismissed by pollsters, reviled by elites and written off as a reactionary embarrassment can nevertheless prevail. Trump may be trailing Hillary Clinton now, they said, but leave once lagged behind remain. The Trump-backing pollster Kellyanne Conway told a panel that, just as there had been shy leavers in Britain, she believed there were “hidden Trump” supporters – Americans cowed by the “social desirability” of being seen to oppose the reality TV star in polite company. Others drew ideological comfort from the Brexit precedent. Before he was booed off the stage, Trump’s defeated rival, the Texas senator Ted Cruz, told the convention: “Something powerful is happening ... We’ve seen it in the United Kingdom’s unprecedented Brexit vote to leave the European Union. Voters are overwhelmingly rejecting big government.” But while the former Ukip leader Nigel Farage enjoyed his trip to Cleveland, milking the applause of admiring US conservatives on the fringes of the convention, the arresting parallel between the current politics of the two countries is one far less comfortable. For what was most visible this week in Cleveland was a raw, pulsing anger. If 2008 was hailed by Barack Obama as the year of hope and change, 2016 is turning into the year of fear and rage, a mood captured by the long, dark address delivered – or rather shouted – by Trump himself on Thursday night. Among the Republicans, some of that wrath is directed at their own. The party’s leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, was booed before he had even opened his mouth, presumably damned for being too slow to back Trump – or perhaps just for being a face of the Republican establishment. As Cruz came to his peroration on Wednesday night, and as it dawned on the crowd that he was going to offer no formal backing of the party nominee, delegates began to shake their fists as they chanted, “Endorse Trump! Endorse Trump!” and “Keep the pledge”, urging Cruz to honour the promise all Republican presidential candidates had earlier made to support the eventual winner. Trump-backing delegates were spitting with anger as they booed Cruz, several of them telling me that Cruz was an embarrassment, that he was “done”, that he would never be forgiven, that his career was over. In turn, Cruz supporters said they were appalled by the “level of disrespect” they had faced at the convention. One, Selena Coppa from Washington state, said she regarded Trump as “a bigot and a proto-fascist”. All this was astonishing to witness in a US convention, which for decades have been tightly controlled, stage-managed shows of unity. Such was the atmosphere in the hall that night, security personnel had to escort Cruz’s wife, Heidi, away for her own safety. But that was a brief diversion. The chief target of the ire that coursed through Cleveland this week was the woman who was never there, but whose name appeared in platform speeches more than any other: Hillary Clinton. Of course, all parties seek to tear down the opponent they hope to defeat in November. But one analysis showed Clinton was mentioned far more frequently than previous Democratic candidates at previous Republican conventions. And the venom directed at Clinton was of a different order. The slogan of the week, the one that erupted spontaneously night after night, was “lock her up!”, the chanted accompaniment to the placards that stated baldly: “Hillary for prison.” This was a new departure for a US political party, presenting the actions of a rival not as policy decisions but as crimes. And it came not just from random hecklers in the crowd, but was validated – even incited - from the platform. Admittedly, Trump played the responsible adult on Thursday, stilling the “lock her up!” chants that interrupted his speech with the calm instruction: “Let’s defeat her in November” – as if he were the voice of restraint, rather than the man who has been stoking this anger for months, as if he were the fireman rather than the arsonist. Others showed no such reticence. The New Jersey governor, Chris Christie, cast his speech in the manner of a prosecutor seeking a conviction, presenting Clinton’s record as secretary of state as if it were a rap sheet: the nuclear deal with Iran, the thaw with Cuba and, crucially, her use of a private email server, a practice which the director of the FBI condemned last month as “careless” with US secrets. At the end of each paragraph Christie asked his audience to render their verdict: “Guilty!” they roared. When they bellowed their sentence – “Lock her up!” – Christie replied: “We’ll get there.” Later in the week, Florida’s attorney general, Pam Bondi, said: “Lock her up ... I like that.” In this, the Republicans inside the hall were merely echoing the noise that had long been throbbing outside. Around town, there were signs depicting Clinton behind bars, some showing her in the orange jumpsuit of a convicted felon. On sale were T-shirts bearing the slogan “Hillary sucks – but not like Monica” or badges with Clinton’s face above the words: “Life’s a bitch – don’t vote for one.” At a rally organised by the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and the long-time Trump backer Roger Stone, Jones branded Clinton “a foreign agent” working for the Saudis and the Chinese, while Stone called her “a short-tempered, foul-mouthed, bipolar, mentally unbalanced criminal”. (A heckler added: “She’s a reptile.”) On Wednesday the Trump delegate and adviser Al Baldasaro suggested that Clinton “should be put in the firing line and shot for treason”. Watching, the American novelist, Joyce Carol Oates, warned that “witch-hunts never ended with one witch”. One comedian, nodding to Monday’s revelation that Melania Trump had stolen words from a speech delivered in 2008 by Michelle Obama, quipped that the rest of the Republican convention had plagiarised from the Salem witch trials. (Some Israeli commentators have compared the mood in the US to the demonisation of Yitzhak Rabin in 1995 – a wave of fury that culminated in Rabin’s assassination.) For decades, all this seemed an ocean away from the gentler combat of British politics, the stuff of condescending TV documentaries about the craziness of those crackpot Americans. But as Republicans were gathering in Cleveland, Labour’s Angela Eagle announced that she would no longer be holding advice surgeries for constituents, following police advice. She had received too much abuse and too many threats after she declared herself a leadership candidate against Jeremy Corbyn. The day after Eagle mounted her challenge to Corbyn, a brick came through a window of the building that houses her constituency office. That had come in the context of many Labour MPs and activists, especially women, complaining of bullying and intimidation as well as death and rape threats. And all this a matter of weeks after the murder of Jo Cox (an event mentioned rather less often by the Brexit admirers gathered in Cleveland). Of course the current tension in the US, like everything else, is on a far bigger scale. That’s inevitable in a country where people routinely bear arms and in a party where the demonisation of opponents has long been sanctioned from the top. But there are some striking common currents all the same. For one thing, it cannot be ignored that it is women who are facing most of this rage. The misogyny poured on Hillary Clinton is cruder and more lurid than much of what’s been seen in Britain, but the echo is distinct. The same is true of the climate in which these fevers have been incubated. In Cleveland the talk was of immigration that had to be stopped, of the need to take back control of the country’s borders, of a process of globalisation that had gone too far and was depriving hard-pressed, native-born workers of their livelihoods. Indeed, this is the wave that has brought Trump to the brink of the White House. It’s not the same as the Brexit campaign. The accent is different. But in the hot, bitter summer of 2016, Britain and America can look like two nations united in rage.
Muse win best rock album award at Grammys 2016 Muse have won the best rock album award at the Grammy awards for the second time. Having previously picked up the prize for their 2011 album, they have now picked it up for their seventh studio album, Drones. The trio, originally from the British seaside resort of Teignmouth, are noted for their everything-including -the-kitchen-sink approach to music and singer Matt Bellamy’s fascination with conspiracy theories and the nature of power. Bellamy said of Drones: “To me, drones are metaphorical psychopaths which enable psychopathic behaviour with no recourse. The world is run by drones utilising drones to turn us all into drones. This album explores the journey of a human, from their abandonment and loss of hope, to their indoctrination by the system to be a human drone, to their eventual defection from their oppressors.” The album was a huge commercial success, topping the charts around the world, including in the US. In a four-star review for Rolling Stone, David Fricke wrote: “Drones is a truly guilty pleasure, like watching The Daily Show and knowing Jon Stewart’s best jokes start with someone else’s colossal error or hurt. The concept here is even darker than Muse’s 2012 planet-death treatise, The 2nd Law: the long-distance killing of modern warfare and the collateral damage in conscience and ideals. The other nominees were: James Bay – Chaos and the Calm; Death Cab for Cutie – Kintsugi; Highly Suspect – Mister Asylum; Slipknot – .5: The Grey Chapter.
Taxpayers saved the Royal Bank of Scotland. Now it’s time we owned it Every month there are new headlines about the Royal Bank of Scotland’s wrongdoing. The chief executive, Ross McEwan, puts the best spin on things, but his bank is still failing; most recently it failed the Bank of England’s stress test. Trying to privatise the bank hasn’t worked and state ownership hasn’t been a rip-roaring success either; but worse, its very size and dominance means together with the other big banks it is stifling competition. Now is the right moment for a different approach. Together as taxpayers we saved the Royal Bank of Scotland – now we should each be allowed to own it. It should become a people’s bank, which every tax-paying British citizen would have the right to become a part-owner of. The Royal Building Society of Scotland, with an iron lock on its assets, would be a final, decisive break with the Fred Goodwin era. It would conserve the strength and credibility of one of our major financial global players while injecting a much needed dose of competition and diversity into British banking. More than £45bn of taxpayer funds have been injected into the Royal Bank of Scotland. This was the right thing to do, but neither keeping it as a state bank nor a fully privatised bank offer the same advantages as turning it into a mutual. Its sheer size means it risks being captured again by narrow shareholder interests or those of its senior executives, or both. Turning it into a mutual with its assets protected from the so-called carpet-baggers who championed building society demutualisation in the 1990s would substantively change the culture at RBS and, crucially, make banking more competitive. In strong mutuals it is member expectations rather than shareholder interests that help to ensure more competitive products and services are prioritised by managers. Despite new entrants to the banking market and the many reforms to regulation, the structural problem in Britain’s banking market – a lack of competition – is as bad now as it was at the time of the financial crash, and is arguably worse following the banking mergers that the crash precipitated. Anyone tempted to think that banking is now a wholly reformed and properly functioning market would find the Competition and Markets Authority investigation into retail banking, published in August, disturbing reading. The CMA described the personal banking market as being concentrated, that concentration levels have increased since the crisis, and that competition is not working well. It went on to note that for lending to small and medium-sized businesses, the four largest providers, RBS, Lloyds, Barclays and HSBC, together had a combined market share of over 80%. They underlined the adverse effects on competition in personal banking, basic current accounts and SME lending caused by the combination of persistent concentration in the market and barriers to entry and expansion. Full private ownership of all the big banks, the stated aim of both the last two governments, is only likely to exacerbate the lack of competition. In 2014, of the top 10 banking groups by market share for personal current accounts, only two could reasonably be described as mutual, and only one had a market share of 5% or higher. State ownership of RBS has steadied a sinking ship, but it has not changed the critical weakness in British banking: the lack of competition between different types of banks or building societies. Across Europe, the United States and Australia, mutual banks play a critical role in challenging traditional shareholder-owned banks in financial services markets. Rabobank is a Dutch co-op bank – one of the world’s top 30 banks. Navy Federal is a $50bn mutual bank serving the American military and Crédit Mutuel is one of the biggest French banks. Indeed, part of the reason for the lack of competition in British banking is that many of the biggest building societies in the 1990s demutualised and were gradually bought up by the big banking groups. The suspension of the sale and reprivatisation of shares in RBS offers a new opportunity to put in place an alternative to either state or private ownership. No one thinks the government will get its money back from the sale of RBS shares in full for the foreseeable future. Indeed, the small number of RBS shares that were sold resulted in a net loss of £1bn to the taxpayer. It’s time to return RBS to the people who saved it, and create a competitor to the traditional shareholder-led bank. Indeed, it is the only sustainable way to inject a serious dose of competition into arguably Britain’s most important industry.
Film-makers demand inquiry into 'targeting' of people who record police A group of more than 40 documentarians, including eight Oscar winners, has called on the justice department to investigate the “harassment” and “targeting” of citizen journalists who record episodes of police violence. Noting that the citizens who filmed the deaths of Alton Sterling, Philando Castile, Freddie Gray and Eric Garner were all subsequently arrested, film-maker David Sutcliffe wrote in an open letter to the documentary community that it is “vital we defend the rights of these individuals to use video as a means of criticizing unjust police activity”. The undersigned film-makers include Going Clear director Alex Gibney, Citizenfour director Laura Poitras, Cartel Land director Matt Heineman and The House I Live In director Eugene Jarecki. “Mainstream media has paid ample attention to the images captured by these citizen journalists. Largely, it has ignored the methods in which they were recorded and distributed, and the penalties for those involved,” the letter states. As with other high-profile police killings from the last two years, the cases of Sterling and Castile, which inspired nationwide protests throughout much of July, both gained attention largely through the release of bystander video. After Sterling was shot by Baton Rouge police officers during a struggle, the two men who posted viral video of the incident, Chris LeDay and Abdullah Muflahi, were both detained by police. LeDay did not record the video but was one of the first people to post it to Facebook and was arrested and shackled the day after posting the video for “fitting a description”, according to the 34-year-old air force veteran. He was later released after paying more than $1,200 in fines for an earlier traffic violation. Muflahi, the proprietor of the convenience store where Sterling was killed on 5 July, was detained for four hours in the back of a police car while officers searched his store. Muflahi uploaded the second video that depicted Sterling’s death. Diamond “Lavish” Reynolds, the fiancee of Castile, who was killed by an officer during a traffic stop just days after Sterling was shot, was also detained by police after the fatal shooting. Reynolds broadcasted the immediate aftermath of the incident on Facebook Live from the front seat of the couple’s car as she spoke with the Minnesota police officer who fired at Castile, who was legally carrying a concealed weapon in the vehicle. Reynolds was held overnight by police for questioning, sparking outrage on social media, with activists using the hashtag #whereisLavishReynolds to call attention to her detention. “They treated me like a prisoner,” Reynolds said the following morning, after being released. The letter, which is attached to a statement directed at the DoJ, calls actions such as this “evidence of a pattern of systemic and vindictive targeting by law enforcement”, adding that the efforts “reveal an intention to suppress footage, intimidate witnesses, control narratives, obscure brutality and punish”. Citizen journalists such as Reynolds and Muflahi “have made it impossible for white Americans to continue ignoring a truth our leaders have spent centuries obfuscating: black lives matter,” the letter says. In 2015, Kevin Moore, who filmed the Baltimore police tackling Freddie Gray and pulling him into a police van, was also arrested, and released without charges. Moore alleges that police continue to harass him. “They ride past me taunting me with their phones up,” Moore told Vice News in an interview. Ramsey Orta, who filmed the fatal chokehold arrest of Eric Garner in Staten Island in 2014, also faced repeated interaction with police after the incident, culminating in an arrest on weapons charges. Orta begins serving a four-year sentence on a plea deal in October. He claims police targeted him, and, like Moore, approached him with their phones out on one occasion as a taunt. The letter calls for more people in the documentary community to join the case, declaring that while “the nature of documentary truth may be slippery”, “the one captured by LeDay, Muflahi, Reynolds, Moore, Orta and so many many more is immutable”. The justice department did not return a request for comment on whether it would answer the film-makers’ call for investigation. This item was amended on 12 August 2016 to correct details about Ramsey Orta’s sentence.
EU researchers must be allowed to stay in UK after Brexit, MPs tell government EU researchers who have come to Britain must be allowed to stay, according to a cross-party group MPs who are calling on the government to offer an immediate commitment to those who have already made Britain their home. The MPs on the Commons science and technology committee want EU scientists and other researchers exempted from wider immigration controls that will be up for discussion in the UK’s negotiations with Europe over its departure from the union. A clear signal on the future security of those now working in Britain would reduce the uncertainty for EU scientists and engineers who may be tempted to leave for more secure jobs in other countries, where international collaborations are not under threat, the MPs believe. “There are about 45,000 EU students and researchers in the UK. Not all will want to stay, but if we reassure them that their status will be maintained whatever happens, that may give them the security they need,” said Stephen Metcalfe, the committee chair. “The government could reassure researchers right now and it would not undermine our negotiating position,” he added. “It doesn’t change the fact that we have some tough negotiations ahead, but it does help to protect something we are very good at, which is our science base.” Sir Paul Nurse, director of the Francis Crick Institute in London, supported the call for such a commitment as a “sensible and significant step.” He added: “There is a need for stability to stop people wondering whether they ought to look for posts elsewhere.” Lord Rees, the astronomer royal, said that since the Brexit vote, skilled people from overseas feel less welcome in Britain, their families less secure. “Researchers and technologists are mobile, like those in finance, or sport. The chancellor has assured international bankers of special treatment, but there’s no comfort for other sectors,” he said. “Many already here will feel they’d be better off abroad. Ambitious young people will wonder whether science is a career where they can do the best work in this country.” In a major report on the implications of Brexit on science, the MPs argue that government should boost its spending on research to 3% of GDP, a level that would bring the UK in line with other countries such as Germany and the US. But as Nurse points out, following withdrawal from the EU, British research may need an extra £500m a year just to make up for EU grants that now flow into the UK. In evidence given to the MPs, the Royal Society of Biology said that work on cancer, mental health, imaging, neurodegenerative disease, tissue engineering, bioinformatics, and conservation would all be “heavily and negatively affected” if the UK was unable to maintain involvement in centralised EU-wide initiatives.” The report goes on to criticise the Department for Exiting the European Union (DExEU) for failing to appoint a chief scientific advisor to ensure science has a voice in the Brexit negotiations. In the course of the committee’s inquiry, DExEU minister Robin Walker said the post had already been advertised, but later withdrew the statement and said the department had not decided whether it would establish the role. “Science is one of those things we’re very successful at and it will be at the heart of our industrial strategy for moving forward. And yet the department for negotiating our exit from the EU doesn’t have a chief Science Advisor,” Metcalfe said. “If they were to advertise the post and quickly appoint someone it would send the message that DExEU is serious about protecting the interests of science as we go into these negotiations.” Nurse said that since science plays a crucial role in improving the quality of our lives and driving the UK economy, it must be included in Brexit discussions. “There are so many interlocking issues affecting many sectors that the scientific research community cannot fight or lobby on each point separately from outside. It needs scientists present – or some representation for science, research and innovation – who can contribute to wider discussions in a more complete way,” he said.
Peaches review – joyous, gender-mashing cabaret By any measure, Peaches has an enormous penis. Looming out over the audience like a semi-translucent windsock, it is 11m long, requires its own burly wrangler to deploy and is wide enough for her to clamber inside. There, held aloft by the crowd, the Canadian art-pop provocateur born Merrill Nisker sings Dick in the Air, a stripped-back, tightly drilled rebuttal to a thousand R&B booty anthems, before leading her fans in a rising chant of “dick, dick, dick”. Is performing inside a giant bobbing phallus the strangest thing Peaches has ever done on stage? It actually feels like gender-mashing, boundary-pushing, genre-busting business as usual. In recent years, she has toured a one-woman version of Jesus Christ Superstar, taken the (usually male) lead in a German production of Monteverdi’s opera L’Orfeo and directed her own audacious rock-opera concert film Peaches Does Herself. Last September, there was also a new album, Rub, her first in six years, featuring cameos from Feist, Kim Gordon and – in the memorable music video for Light in Places – a laser pointer butt plug. The slippery beats and reconstituted trap rhythms of Rub provide the skeleton for Peaches’s current show, a dazzling mix of lo-fi ingenuity and high drama. With the help of two tireless backing dancers and an endless parade of eye-popping outfits, she transforms the rather unpromising confines of a dark, draughty warehouse into a transgressive cabaret: a lo-fi Cirque du Soleil, albeit with considerably more mooning. The costuming is often jaw-dropping – giant papier-mache masks of genitalia, day-glo post-apocalyptic S&M gear, a hairy Chewbacca-style bodysuit in hot pink – but what is perhaps even more striking is her vocal control, particularly amid the swirl of licentious choreography. Peaches hits every note, even while sustaining tricky yoga poses or – during the frazzled arcade machine stomp of Talk to Me – tightroping along the top of a security barrier. Her voice is digitally bounced down an octave for Free Drink Ticket: suddenly, she’s Pazuzu from The Exorcist throwing some extraordinary shade. “Congratulations on being the most evasive person I have ever known,” she intones, over dread electronica that moves with the trudge of a firing squad march. Otherwise, the mood is overwhelmingly joyous. As well as songs from Rub, she resurrects the swooning synth of I Feel Cream, a winking I Feel Love pastiche, and Boys Wanna Be Her, a swaggering electro-glam stomp. After almost 15 years, her signature track remains Fuck the Pain Away – a staple at Optimo, Glasgow’s legendary, much-missed, genre-dissolving club night – and the crowd sing it back to her word for word, even as she simultaneously sprays two bottles of champagne over the front rows. It is a suitably immersive climax to a remarkable show by perhaps the only artist who has the metaphorical balls to match a gigantic inflatable penis. Peaches will celebrate her 50th birthday later this week with a gig in Liverpool. On this form, it will be a hell of a party. At Oval Space, London, 8 and 9 November. Box office: 0333-321 9990. Then touring.
Nicole Kidman to join Colin Farrell in Lobster director Yorgos Lanthimos' thriller Nicole Kidman is in talks to join Colin Farrell in the new psychological thriller from Yorgos Lanthimos. The Greek film-maker, who made his English language debut with dystopian dating satire The Lobster, has also co-written the project, titled The Killing of a Sacred Deer. According to the Hollywood Reporter, Kidman is set to star as the wife of Farrell’s character, a surgeon who is compelled to make a sacrifice after a teenager he has brought into his family starts exhibiting sinister behaviour. There is also reported to be a supernatural element to the film. The Lobster became an arthouse hit in the US last month and has already made over $5m (£3.5m) after receiving positive reviews at last year’s Cannes film festival. Lanthimos is also set to make The Favourite, a period drama starring Olivia Colman, Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz, which will focus on Queen Anne during the end of the 17th century. Kidman was recently seen opposite Chiwetel Ejiofor and Julia Roberts in thriller remake Secret in Their Eyes and with Colin Firth and Jude Law in literary biopic Genius. Later this year, she has roles with Dev Patel in Lion and Elle Fanning in How to Talk to Girls at Parties as well as dark HBO comedy Big Little Lies with Reese Witherspoon and the second season of Jane Campion’s Top of the Lake. This week has also seen news that she is set to reprise her role of scientist Rosalind Franklin in the big-screen adaptation of the acclaimed play Photograph 51.
More than half of GPs say the quality of their service has deteriorated Family doctors have warned that the service patients get from their local GP surgery is getting worse because they cannot cope with “an avalanche of workload”. In a new survey of 2,837 GPs, 55% said the quality of the service they provide has deteriorated in the last year. It shows that too many patients are no longer getting the appointments, treatment and range of services they need. The survey, which covered 35% of all England’s 7,962 GP practices, also found that 68% of family doctors regard their workload as unmanageable some or all of the time. “These figures clearly show that general practice is in a state of emergency, with the majority of GP practices across England registering a deterioration in the quality of care being delivered to patients,” said Dr Beth McCarron, a member of the GP executive team at the British Medical Association (BMA), which undertook the research. “Behind these figures is the real impact on a GP service that is being starved of resources and staff. I share the frustration of patients who can’t get the appointments, treatment and services they deserve.” She identified the growing number of frail and older people who often have several things wrong with them as a key driver of pressure on GPs. “But the problem we face is that an overworked, overstretched GP workforce is being buried under an avalanche of workload, including pointless paperwork generated by a box ticking culture and the sheer number of older patients coming through the surgery door who need intensive, specialised care,” said McCarron. “This is having a direct impact on the services that patients are seeing at their local GP practice and it cannot go on.” The findings come weeks before the health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, plans to unveil an emergency package of measures to relieve the growing strain on family doctors. He is keen to tackle what GPs say are the rising and unsustainable pressures on them, which are also caused in particular by hospitals giving them ever more responsibility for the medical management of patients who have been treated and then discharged back home. Two-thirds of GPs in the south of England said service had deteriorated in the last year – the highest proportion of any part of the country. The east Midlands had the lowest proportion, at 51.3%. The West Midlands had the highest proportion of GPs – three in four (74.7%) – who said they could not keep up with their workload. Among those, it was “unmanageable a lot of the time” (58.7%) or “unmanageable all of the time” (16%). Another 30% said it was “generally manageable, but too heavy at times” and only 2% said it was “low” or “generally manageable”. The Department of Health sought to play down the findings and stressed that they were not representative of GPs as a whole because they were based on the views of only one in three of them. “General practice is at the heart of the improvement we want to see in the NHS,” said Alastair Burt, the health minister. “We recognise absolutely that it is under pressure, which is why we are delivering record investment, with funding for the sector increasing by about 5% every year for the rest of the parliament, as we commit to 5,000 more doctors in general practice [in England by 2020]. “The health secretary will shortly announce further support for GPs, which should assist in meeting the pressures doctors are reporting.” Local medical committees, which represent GPs across the UK, held an emergency meeting last weekend to demand urgent action to reduce the burdens under which they find themselves. Dr Chaand Nagpaul, the chair of the BMA’s GPs committee, told delegates that the government’s drive to introduce a fully fledged seven-day NHS could potentially undermine patient safety by deflecting family doctors from seeing patients during normal weekday hours. The BMA’s survey also found that 92% of GPs had seen demand for appointments grow over the last year. More and more surgeries are closing because GPs feel they can no longer cope with their increasing workload. Last week the Queens Road medical centre in Leicester announced that it would close on 1 April. Dr Jonathan Lenten, who helps run it, said: “We have been a family practice in Leicester city since the 1920s and have been privileged to provide caring and personal medical services to generations of patients. “Unfortunately, in the current healthcare environment, small practices are becoming unviable, as the workload has reached an unsustainable level and access to funding is becoming more and more difficult for practices which are set up like ours in the traditional way.” NHS Leicester city clinical commissioning group, the local GP-led NHS organisation that funds care in the area, has advised patients affected by the closure to register with one of 23 other surgeries which are within one and a half miles of the Queens Road practice. Meanwhile, leaked figures appear to show that the number of young doctors applying to become trainee GPs has fallen to a record low. Data obtained by Pulse, a website for GPs, cast fresh doubt on the government’s pledge to increase the GP workforce in England by 5,000 by 2020. Health minister Alistair Burt said: “The health secretary [Jeremy Hunt] will shortly announce further support for GPs, which should assist in meeting the pressures doctors are reporting.”
Skylanders Academy: Activision prepares for Netflix assault with game-TV crossover Inside a converted flower warehouse off a scruffy street in Paris’s 18th arrondissement, the world’s largest computer games company is preparing its latest assault on the world’s screens. On Friday, Skylanders Academy, a CGI animation based on a $3bn (£2.5bn) combined video game/toy franchise aimed at pre-teens, will hit Netflix. It is the first release from Activision Blizzard Studios, a division of the gaming behemoth behind titles including Call of Duty, World of Warcraft and Destiny, set up last year to take games to TV and screen. Activision animation partner TeamTO have 160 people working on the project at its headquarters in the French capital and a second site in the south of France. The TeamTO director general and founder, Guillaume Hellouin, says the resources were roughly equivalent to those needed for a CGI film. “It’s probably the most ambitious TV series we have had the chance to work on,” he said. “It’s close to feature film quality in terms of image sophistication.” Skylanders has signed up a cast of high-class voice actors. The lead, a purple dragon called Spyro, who first appeared as a video game character in 1998, is voiced by Justin Long, best known for starring in Dodgeball, and one Spyro’s best friends, a walking pile of rock and magma called Eruptor, is played by Breaking Bad’s Jonathan Banks. Oscar-winner Susan Sarandon voices a villain called the Golden Queen. The crossover between video games and TV and film is nothing new. From DuckTales on the NES console in the early 1990s, via Bob Hoskins in the movie Super Mario Brothers in 1993, to the forthcoming Assassin’s Creed film starring Michael Fassbender, traffic between the mediums has been busy. There are even plans to make a series of films based on Tetris. But what is new is the way in which Activison is bringing overall control inside the business, rather than licensing others to do the work and take most of the risk. Coco Francini, the vice-president of development at Activision’s studio and Skylanders producer, says: “I think that a lot of companies licence out their intellectual property, and obviously we are not doing that. “We are accountable to the standards of excellence of the entire company ... and we work with the people who make the games, we know the DNA of what makes them successful by talking to those people and meeting with those studios.” Activision has brought in big names to oversee the project. The co-president, Stacey Sher, has produced critically acclaimed films including Erin Brockovich and Matilda, and worked alongside Francini, whose credits include Django Unchained, with Quentin Tarantino. Her co-president Nick van Dyk is a former Disney executive who played a key role in acquiring Pixar, Marvel and Star Wars for the studio. The approach suggests a desire to avoid the mistakes of the past, which Sher acknowledges. “People are always looking for great intellectual property. And I think coming from my background in film and television that the places where I’ve imagined people don’t always get it right is also investing in character. “Character is the thing that puts you into the best of filmed entertainment, character and storytelling.” Those mistakes are reflected in the more miss than hit record of computer game adaptations. World of Warcraft, based on Activision’s online role playing game, was critically panned and lost a reported $15m on a budget of $160m. It was only saved from complete financial failure by a strong showing in China. But there are other reasons to want to be more directly involved. Prof Ian Bogost of the Georgia Institute of Technology says: “You could say they are doing this to maintain better creative control. Exert more creative force. They might also be doing that so they can own more of that profit chain. Especially since the mechanics of Hollywood deals are so backwards and complicated.” Activision’s next project after Skylanders is a film version of the Call of Duty franchise, which has made more than $10bn worldwide. Despite the success of titles such as Call of Duty and wider penetration of gaming into the mainstream, Bogost thinks Activision will still have difficulty escaping the snobbery that stops it going beyond a core audience, in part because the games that have truly broken into the mainstream do not lend themselves to linear narratives. “There’s still a kind of handicap at work. The biggest cultural shift is [in] the number of people who play rather ordinary games,” he says, citing the likes of Candy Crush and Flappy Bird. “You can imagine an argument that games are widespread enough to justify, for the first time, a broad slate of adaptations of games. But I’m still not sure that’s likely to produce the kind of mainstream success even of the kind [that has come from] comic books, which took 50 years to make it to mass market. “History seems to show us that it hasn’t been successful doing that. We’ve been trying to do that for decades. Is there reason to believe it’s different now?” But Activision’s Van Dyk is targeting exactly that kind of breakout hit with the games it chooses to adapt. “We will look for intellectual property that has passionate following, but I think we want to make programming for everybody. That respects and celebrates players of the game, but also makes this content as broadly appealing as it can be. “If you look at Marvel, they make a Thor movie not just for people who read Thor comics. It needs to be a great film for everyone.”
Former Mexican president blasts Trump, says he will not pay for wall Former Mexican president Vicente Fox has given an uncompromising response to Republican frontrunner Donald Trump’s plans to make Mexico pay for a wall along the US border with Mexico. “I’m not going to pay for that fucking wall. He should pay for it. He’s got the money,” Fox told Jorge Ramos on Fusion. “Are you afraid that he’s going to be the next president of the United States?” Ramos asked the former Mexican president. “What would that mean for Mexico?” “No, no, no, – democracy can not take that, crazy people that don’t know what is going on in the world today,” Fox said. “This worries me, the last caucus in Nevada ... he won 44% of Hispanics. I’d like to know who those Hispanics are, because they are followers of a false prophet,” Fox said. “He’s going to take them to the desert, and if they think that they will benefit with an administration led by Donald Trump, they’re wrong. They must open their eyes. Please, you Hispanics in the US, open your eyes.” “It is not to defend our race, it is not to defend our creed, but to defend the same nation that is hosting you,” Fox implored. “This nation is going to fail if it goes into the hands of a crazy guy.” Meanwhile, Vice-President Joe Biden said he felt “almost obliged” to say sorry for verbal attacks on Mexico in the presidential campaign, in which Trump has labeled Mexican migrants rapists and drug runners. Speaking alongside Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto during a visit to Mexico City, Biden never mentioned Trump, who nonetheless loomed large over the proceedings. “There’s been a lot of damaging and incredibly inaccurate rhetoric, and I would argue, I feel almost obliged to apologize for some of what my political colleagues have said ... about Mexico, about the Mexican people,” said Biden, a Democrat. Property mogul Trump, who has built up a big early lead in the race to become the Republican nominee, has vowed to make Mexico pay for a wall to seal off the US from its southern neighbor, prompting widespread criticism in both countries. “I just want you to know, Mr President, that the most heated rhetoric you’ve heard from some of the competitors for the nomination for president, is not who we are as the American people ... It’s the exact opposite,” Biden added. Without naming Trump, Peña Nieto also weighed in, saying: “building walls is just isolating oneself”. • The subheading on this article was changed on 26 February 2016, correcting the spelling of Vicente Fox’s first name.
Police and tech firms are failing to tackle trolling, says Stella Creasy Trolling is still not being taken seriously enough by police and technology companies who already have the tools to take action against internet abusers, the Labour MP Stella Creasy has said. Creasy, who was targeted three years ago by one of the most high-profile Twitter trolls to be jailed, said the key to dealing with online abuse was challenging the underlying inequality, misogyny and prejudice that fuels the problem. But she also raised concerns that the authorities and internet firms are still not treating online crimes in the same way as they would do offline or realising that trolling amounts to harassment. The senior Tory MP Maria Miller earlier this week called for an overhaul of internet legislation to stop online abuse, warning that it may be creating a “nightmare” for society in future. But Creasy, a former shadow crime prevention minister, argued the laws already exist to tackle trolling and said police must examine such allegations as harassment, rather than solely looking at whether they are malicious communications offences. “We do have legislation and it was very frustrating for me as a victim of this stuff who had worked on harassment legislation ... I am particularly frustrated with the police and CPS because I still don’t think they get it in terms of making it a harassment issue, not a malicious content issue. “If someone sends you flowers, if it’s someone you’ve asked never to contact you again, that’s really creepy. But online, unless they’ve said they want to rape or murder you, the police and CPS don’t get it.” Speaking to the , Creasy said a culture change was needed to make sure victims of online abuse were taken seriously. Telling victims of harassment to stop feeding the trolls or remove their online presence was comparable to asking women to dress differently or stop going out at night, she said. “At the heart of this, it’s not the technology, it’s the inequality. Just as 40 years ago people wanted to define when women could walk the streets, what they could wear and where they could go, it’s exactly the same online. It’s not about the streets, or the technology, it’s about society,” she said. “We have law that could be used but we have to change the frame of reference about it. It is still very much a case of when this stuff happens to you, you get told: ‘Don’t feed the trolls.’ Why is it up to me to find a way of dealing with it rather than them to stop doing it? Why should I not enjoy these types of communication? Just like you wouldn’t say to somebody: ‘Oh just don’t go out at night.’” She also warned that technology companies would kill their own business models if they did not take online harassment more seriously, as people being targeted would retreat to other more private platforms. Creasy is working with Yvette Cooper, the Labour MP and former shadow home secretary, on the campaign Reclaim the Internet, echoing the Reclaim the Night movement that has challenged the notion that female victims of violence should change their behaviour. Creasy said the root of the problem could only be tackled by treating the online world the same as the offline world. “It is a pressure and backlash against the freedom that the internet offers people to speak, communicate and organise, which unfortunately an old-fashioned, endemic form of misogyny, discrimination and prejudice is trying to kill,” she said. Creasy was personally targeted in 2013 when she came to the defence of Caroline Criado-Perez, a freelance journalist who received up to 50 rape threats an hour on Twitter in an avalanche of abuse after leading a campaign for women to be featured on banknotes. Other cases of high-profile women being trolled include: Kate Smurthwaite, a comedian who received 2,000 abusive tweets for objecting when a men’s rights activist called her “darling” in a TV debate; the historian Mary Beard, who received hundreds of messages attacking her appearance; and Emily Grossman, a scientist who took a break from social media after receiving so many hostile tweets when she talked about sexism in her profession. Cooper and Creasy have also highlighted the less publicised plight of online abuse against some female social media users who are not public figures, citing teenagers who have stopped going into college, and women who have withdrawn from social media or have been forced to change their work after being bombarded with online attacks. On Thursday, two Conservative MPs spoke in parliament to raise the issue of trolling, asking what measures are being taken to raise prosecution rates for cases of online abuse. Michael Fabricant, the MP for Lichfield, spoke of the 16-year-old son of a friend who had been trolled on Twitter, adding that “the poor boy has harmed himself, which is a serious matter”. In response to their questions, Robert Buckland, the solicitor general, said the CPS was revising its social media guidelines and agreed that trolling could take a toll on mental health, especially that of young people. He said: “Online abuse can sometimes be worse than face-to-face abuse, because it is all-pervading and does not end at the school gates or allow for privacy at home. The director of public prosecutions has met several social media providers, and the CPS will continue to work with them on measures to improve the reporting and prosecution of such abuse.”
Andrea Leadsom faces questions over Wikipedia profile edits Andrea Leadsom faces questions over her Wikipedia entry after it emerged that embarrassing media stories had been removed from the page. The changes appear to have been made from Towcester, where the Conservative leadership contender’s constituency office is located. In 2015, references to media reports about the Leadsom family’s use of trusts to own a buy-to-let company and details of financial donations from Leadsom’s brother-in-law, Peter de Putron, were deleted from Leadsom’s profile on the website. The changes were made by an unregistered user, with an IP address in Towcester, which is in Leadsom’s constituency of South Northamptonshire. The deletion was accompanied by a note stating: “The allegations by Private Eye, the and the Independent are false and designed to be politically damaging. No laws have been broken and Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs can confirm that Mrs Leadsom’s tax status is perfectly legal.” The next day the alteration was reverted by a different user on the basis that the correction constituted an “apparent” conflict of interest. Asked to comment on whether or not she or her team had deleted the passage in question, a spokesperson for Leadsom did not respond to requests for comment.
Farage’s ‘breaking point’ posters were indefensible – but I’m glad we voted leave This was not supposed to happen, according to almost all the politicians and pundits. Remain was going to win. From the Bank of England to the Church of England, our leaders all seemed to agreed on what the outcome ought to be. But the people did not see it that way. By a clear million-plus majority Britain has voted to leave the European Union. What happens now? Ever since I fell into a conversation with Daniel Hannan over lunch almost a quarter of a century ago, I have campaigned for this moment. I have been prepared to stand for election, change party and stand in a byelection to get us here. Yet I would be the first to point out that a very sizable minority – 48% – did not vote to leave the EU. Our first task has to be to reassure. Yes, we are going to leave the EU. But we need to try to find a new consensus that brings as many of the 48% with us as possible. During the campaign, I listened to plenty of decent, honest remainers, making some sensible points that need to be accommodated. Having spent the past 20-odd years arguing about the EU, let’s get this right so we do not spend the next 20 years bickering. For most of the past two decades, commentators gleefully reported on Euroscepticism as if it were merely a disease that afflicted the Tory party. Many are now shocked to discover those that those beastly backbenchers speak for the country. Only now, therefore, is the commentariat beginning to familiarise itself with the intricacies of Vote Leave’s case. The commentariat is playing catch-up. This does not mean that the leave side does not have a clear plan. Some serious people within the Vote Leave team have given some serious thought to the process of disengagement that will now follow. It’s not only the media elite that have been caught off guard. This referendum campaign has brutally exposed how those who lead the established political parties in Westminster have more in common with each other than they do with the people they are supposed to represent. How on earth did the party of Keir Hardie end up defending the role of unelected EU commissioners? How did a party that once stood up for the interests of working people join forces with a remain campaign bankrolled by Goldman Sachs? “Remain rage” prevents some from seeing what has just happened. Some will be tempted to try to discount the result of Thursday vote. “The people were misled,” shout some on Twitter. “It was all about immigration,” others are insisting, as if concern about immigration is somehow not legitimate. Please do not make the mistake of dismissing the vote to leave the EU as nativism. Nigel Farage’s “breaking point” posters were morally indefensible. Those Syrian refugees fleeing war had nothing to do with Britain’s borders. Far from winning support for Vote Leave, that poster handed the remain campaigners, keen to cast aspersions on the leave sides values and motives, ammunition. It cost us votes. But Vote Leave prevailed precisely because we did not campaign as an extension of Ukip, but as an upbeat, optimistic insurgency for change. Across the western world we are seeing the emergence of an anti-elite insurgency. What fuels it is not nostalgia, but new technology. The death of political deference is more a product of Netflix, and the expectation of control that comes with it, than of nativism. Britain will leave the EU. But our exit will be part of a wider process of change that is on the way. For too long, small elites have sought to govern human social and economic affairs by grand design. The EU, with its grand currency project and regulations for everything, exemplifies such conceit. But this kind of gigantism is doomed. For those on the left, and the patrician right, who are in the business of politics in order to tell the rest of us what to do, this truly is an existential challenge. Brexit is only part of it.
eOne shares plunge as first-half profits tumble Increased spending on high-profile films including The BFG and Now You See Me 2 have hammered first-half profits at Entertainment One, sending shares in the owner of Peppa Pig tumbling more than 11%. Entertainment One – maker and distributor of films and TV shows including the Steve Jobs biopic, the Hunger Games and Twilight franchises, Grey’s Anatomy, Rookie Blue and Oscar winner Spotlight – reported an 80% year-on-year slump in pre-tax profits to £3.7m in the six months to 30 September. The company, which rebuffed a £1bn offer from ITV in the summer, blamed the profit fall on “increased theatrical investment” at its film division which it expects to recoup in the second half of its financial year, with high-profile releases such as sci-fi film Arrival and The Girl on the Train. Adjusted pre-tax profits came in at £24m, well short of City expectations of £37m to £40m, which sent the company’s shares down 11%. Entertainment One, which is headquartered in Toronto but listed on the London Stock Exchange, increased total revenues by 19% to £401m. The company’s TV division, which includes the Mark Gordon Company, maker of shows such as Ray Donovan and the newly launched Kiefer Sutherland series Designated Survivor, saw revenues rise by 34% to £144.5m. Revenues at the family division, which includes the $1bn Peppa Pig franchise, rose by 16% to £37.9m. “Whilst theatrical investment has impacted profitability in the period, we will see the financial benefits of this investment delivered in the second half of the financial year,” said Darren Throop, chief executive of eOne. “The group remains on track to deliver full-year financial performance in line with management expectations.” The company also announced the departure of chief financial officer Giles Willits, who has been at the company almost a decade. He will be replaced by Joe Sparacio, who recently stepped down as finance chief at Imax after nine years.
Picture the fear: how an illustrated book helped me come to terms with my anxiety I first came across Catherine LePage’s illustrated book browsing the aisles of my local bookstore. I do this most days, as a way to get myself out of bed, out of the house. After months of holding down temporary and contract jobs, I’d recently landed a full-time job, quit after a week in a fit of panic, and now found myself unemployed, unsure and more anxious than I’d been in my entire life. I found it propped up in the small self-help section, tucked away in the back corner of the store. On approach, a young woman, flicking through a book on self-esteem, averted her gaze: a sign of mutual respect, sympathy or occasionally fear that I’d become accustomed to in frequenting this section over the past months. Among titles on self-compassion, mindfulness and personal transformation, LePage’s book caught my eye: a small hardback with an illustration of a porcupine trapped in a sea of hovering red balloons. I picked it from the shelf, opened the first page and read the opening line: “Are you anxious?” I turned the page. “I am.” What follows is a kind of illustrated guide to the everyday experience of living of anxiety. With her delicate sketches and personal observations, LePage seeks to capture our traits and thought patterns, our weaknesses and habits, and lay them bare on the page. On one page she maps out the Periodic Table of the Elements of Response: a tangled flow diagram of the word “If” linked in sprawling arrows in every direction. “Making a simple decision becomes impossible,” she writes. “I always simultaneously see two sides of the same coin. And sometimes find even more sides.” An illustration of two coins, one reading “the good side” and the other “the bad side” are joined in pencil to depict a pair of spectacles, looking out into the world. LePage illustrates the habits that trigger her anxiety – accruing fatigue, repressing emotions, setting too-high goals, accumulating responsibilities – and asks the question: “since I know the causes of my anxiety, why do I keep repeating unhealthy behaviours?” Like a storybook unfolding, she depicts the rise and fall of those with recurring anxiety, drawing the reader into a world where tiny figures jump and twirl and play with fire until, like a wind-up toy, they slump and fall. “It always ends up the same, and I have to face my biggest fear. Emptiness.” A girl cast overboard from her row boat tries to keep going but can only tread water. A lone figure stands trapped in a house of cards, living through other people’s eyes, afraid of judgment. An ice hockey player is captured mid-skate, frozen by indecision. We reach the emotional peak in the form of a confessional. “I’ve spent so many years repressing my feelings that I’ve lost touch with my emotions,” LePage writes. “I would like to change but I don’t know how and so I feel guilty for not being well. Me, the privileged one who has everything in life. Health, love, everything.” Like the experience of anxiety itself, the revelation does not offer release, and the book ends a few pages later: “I’m never satisfied. Finally, I’m only human.” Standing in the self-help aisle, I committed the first sin of bookstore browsing: I read the whole book. And, further insulting bookstore etiquette, I found myself crying. In a world where “worries” about money, relationships and success are normal markers of experience – where mental health is as best misunderstood and at worst stigmatised – it’s incredibly rare to find others who understand the experience of generalised anxiety. Trying to explain to friends that I’m cancelling dinner plans because I physically can’t muster the confidence to leave the house. Trying to hide my exhaustion at work, depleted from sleepless, worried nights. Physically drained from the constant wringing of hands and feet, the grinding of teeth, the constant racing heart. It’s almost impossible to explain the pervasive feeling of all things – all decisions, all possible outcomes, past, present and future – cascading through my mind, folding into themselves, forming a tighter and tighter ball until it feels as though all room to move or act or breathe has been squeezed out. And on top of it all is that paralysing guilt of being anxious, being miserable and wanting, despite my privilege and comfort in life. Explaining that is hard. But somehow, through her simple words and pictures, LePage has found a way. The back cover of the book reads: “Thinly sliced and illustrated emotions are much easier to digest”, and perhaps LePage is onto something. You can find dense academic texts on the wiring of the anxious brain, and instructional tapes on breathing and mindfulness – but the power of LePage’s book lies not just in capturing the psychological condition, but the emotional experience that goes with it. To break down the everyday thoughts and moments of generalised anxiety – to lock them down on a page, to colour them in – somehow makes them feel a little less overwhelming. Before long, I’d passed the book on to my partner, my family, a few close friends, as a way of explaining myself and how I was feeling. They recommended it to others, started conversations, flipped through the pages and said, “Talk to me about this one”. And this, I thought, is all I was really looking for, browsing the self-help aisle that day. A book that not only helped me understand myself, but helped others understand me – and that, even for a moment, made me feel a little less alone. • Thin Slices of Anxiety by Catherine LePage is out now through Chronicle Books, distributed in Australia by Hardie Grant
Peaches webchat – your questions answered on Trump, feminism and being yourself Here’s a clickable link to Peaches’ tour details: peachesrocks.com Nettie Boivin (Nazarbayev University Kazakhstan) asks: I love your stuff – I always loved your voice, even back in the York days when you were singing Janis Joplin songs. Do you ever get back to Toronto? (Come visit the Steppes) Vovonne asks: Hi Peaches, I was wondering if you’d ever considered doing some work with Rebekah Warrior from French band Sexy Sushi? A collaboration between you too would be so epic! PS: thank you for being on here, it’s brilliant parsivalmontde asks: Peaches, do you fully embrace your star sign of Scorpio? Are you a true Scorpion Peach? NeilC500 asks: Hey Peaches. What do you think of the both candidates in the upcoming US election? If Trump does become president can we expect you to write a song or name an album after him like you did with Impeach My Bush, which is one of the best album titles ever! James Leadley asks: I got my first Peaches experience at SXSW this year. You were ace. The champagne was flowing, the beats were dropping and you were dressed like a beautiful shimmering vagina. I’m seeing you in Manchester next week. Can i expect more of the same? And if you don’t mind answering two questions. Do you party as hard now as you used to? Bottle asks: How best are we to disassemble the patriarchy? Hogangi asks: Hey Peaches, just wondering if Claude Cahun influenced you in any way? I discovered her while doing my thesis on queer politics and she was a big influence on me, much like yourself, thanks for keeping me (in)sane, you rock xxx twoheadsbetter asks: I love the new record and there is a particular line in DITA which made me smile, so my question is whose jizz WAS it? micaela27 asks: Wanna hang out in Brighton on Saturday? sbmfc asks: Do you think the internet and increased media attention has changed the way music scenes form and artists create their songs? curbahn asks: Being a musician seems like such a satisfying and dynamic life … you can express yourself through many different mediums to many people and (hopefully) have some kind of impact. What do you enjoy most about your art? Performing live? Having a respected (and heard) voice? mucking around with lyrics? Collaborating? NewTech_News asks: Can feminism still be classed as “progressive” in 2016. Or is it’s focus on one specific group not the antithesis of being progressive? wutheringshiite asks: Is there hidden meaning to Dick in the Air, such as an early influence by an aviator named Richard? parsivalmontde asks: Peaches, do you have a hard, nutty interior underneath your soft outer shell? camillandersen asks: Can you confirm your moniker came from a Nina Simone song: Four Women? If so, the stars have aligned without me even realising it when I named my daughter Nina Peaches. Di Version asks: Do you have any pets? Non-human companion animals? Love your music and your vision! vammyp asks: How does it feel to live in the shadow of the far superior Haribo Peaches? ste137 asks: I love your angry poem Free Drink Ticket. Is it about anyone in particular? Coldsman asks: Hi Peaches! I moved to LA from NYC 3 years ago and I still don’t really like it here. Any thoughts/advice on adjusting to LA life? PS: I used to play Teaches of ... on the stereo when I worked at an architecture office in Brooklyn back in the day. I did not get fired, oddly. Peaches-friendly environments are the best! Sigma66 asks: Big fan, via my love for Chilly Gonzales, who introduced me and my now-wife quite by chance. Tell us a story about you and him. Fruitbatty asks: Will you ever do a duet with Susan Boyle? Tim Looney asks: I admire your music and your message so much. Your message is so empowering. I consider your art as political activism. Do you see yourself as an activist and if so what is it that politicized you? texavery asks: How exactly does one fuck the pain away? Teaches of Peaches btw is a timeless album that still sounds superb. Spluuuuurgh asks: I remember seeing you at Reading festival (I think) and at ATP, 10 years ago, or maybe more. Around the time of Teaches of Peaches. You had a big red strap-on dildo and there was another lady performing with you. My memory is hazy but I remember thinking you were ace. Can you tell us a bit about the ideas behind your performances at that time? AbstractClown asks: Do you prefer to be juiced or split down the middle? timo123 asks: Did you ever meet Peaches Geldof? cookiejar asks: Can women over 50 ever look good in denim? Vickersone asks: Iis there a part of you that wants to release a big, crowd-pleasing, lighters-in-the-air ballad like Beautiful or Against All Odds? condorkelly asks: Peaches, been a fan for years and finally getting to see you in Liverpool. My wife is coming as well and when she said to friends about it, they asked; “Are you a lesbian???” What I am asking is, we need an official Peaches comeback answer... TuskGeorge asks: What does “Brexit means Brexit” actually mean, and is withdrawing the best method of population control? Aureliano81 asks: Peaches, I have been a fan for years however I have young children now and there’s not much suitable for them is there! Is there any chance you could clean your act up. 35 Kanyon asks: Is MTV dead? Stephen Crowe asks: Which Prince song do you prefer - Tambourine, Sex Shooter or something else..? vammyp asks: How did you feel about Castor Troy’s reference to yourself in the opening sequence of Face/Off? Nepthsolem asks: If sex didn’t exist, what would you sing about? MelonMouse asks: David Attenborough once told the Monty Python team to “use shock sparingly”, which John Cleese says is the best advice he has ever been given. Do you ever feel that you are your own worst enemy when it comes to having a gimmick overtake the art? deltajones asks: Would you like to appear at our festival? (We don’t really have any money.) Rattner asks: Hi Peaches, do you actually like peaches or are there more superior fruits? daftbell asks: Can you understand why feminists are often misjudged fo men haters? Have you ever been a man hater? All my best wishes for your career dazeoftheweak23 asks: a. Is there any tangible evidence, in your opinion, to suggest that the Large Hadron Colider, (LHC), in Switzerland could cause a Black Hole to form and destroy some/all of the Earth? b. Will a my tin foil clothing protect me from any such occourence? c. Is it possible to split the atom utilising only ordinary household items? d. Is feminism just another excuse to get out of doing the washing up and other housework? Jenna Montfaux asks: I recently heard Shary Boyle give an artist talk during which she spoke about working with you and Leslie Feist early on in all of your careers. Is it fair to say that you are a part of a generation of Canadian women who have found success in creating provocative and influential (feminist) work? Peaches has been unleashing her brand of sexually liberated pop on the world for more than 15 years. Songs like Fuck the Pain Away, Tent in Your Pants and Vaginoplasty are paired with videos where Peaches dresses, say, in a woollen penis-enhanced jumpsuit and fellates herself alongside Margaret Cho. She’s duetted with Christina Aguilera, Iggy Pop, REM and Kim Gordon; appeared in a film directed by John Malkovich; and fronted productions of Jesus Christ Superstar and Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo. As the tour for her new LP Rub reaches the UK, she’s joining us to answer your questions in a live webchat from 1pm GMT on Thursday 3 November. Post them in the comments below, and she’ll take on as many as possible.
London has its 'left behind' Brexiters too It may never be proven by social science or opinion polls, but the feeling endures that the Brexit vote across England was in part an anti-London vote. That is to say, it demonstrated a revolt against a version of London that resides in the minds of many who don’t live in the capital: a London of bankers in gleaming towers, of self-satisfied liberals, of the establishment, of Westminster “elites” and of “the rich”. Londoners’ choice to remain in the EU by a margin of 60% to 40% - the largest “In” win of any English region and not far behind Scotland - could be taken as confirming such a view, underlining the belief that the nation’s capital is out of touch with the nation as a whole. For many, the capital is seen as a place of opportunity and possibility. For others, it is a place to hate. In London itself there is, it’s fair to say, a certain pride being taken in cementing a reputation as a cool, cosmopolitan, Europhile metropolis, at ease with diversity and all of that. Quite right too - it is a good way to be. And yet, as pro-remain London mayor Sadiq Khan has pointed out, the 40% of Londoners who wanted to dump the EU - around 1.5 million people in all - must have their preference respected. And with the national outcome of the referendum revealing chasms between the young and the old, between the higher educated and the less so, and between the affluent and the “left behind”, London must not forget that such divides exist within its border too. For one thing, “rich London” has its “poor London” counterpart, and some of that is very poor. According to Trust for London’s most recent Poverty Profile, 2.25 million Londoners are living on low incomes, which is more than the entire populations of Manchester, Liverpool, Sheffield and Leeds combined. This isn’t only about worklessness. Increasing numbers of Londoners defined as being “in poverty” are part of households where someone has a job. One third of low income households contain children. Don’t assume that London’s voting poor all wanted Brexit: on the contrary, some of the boroughs where the remain vote was strongest contain large numbers of people who aren’t at all well off, including some that are synonymous with gentrification, such as Lambeth, Hackney and Islington - Inner London territories where the remain vote was over 70%. But don’t assume either that unhappiness with rapid social change, sometimes taking the form of resentment of inward foreign migration, doesn’t partly explain the London leave vote. Though only five boroughs out of 32 wanted out, the size of remain’s triumph was generally smaller in Outer London, where the percentage of poorer people has increased and the ethnic mix in some suburbs is very different from 15 years ago. How and how far such demographic change played into the leave vote is hard to know, but is surely a part of the story. That story will be as varied and complex as London itself. At times during the referendum campaign it seemed as if the broadcast media had set up a permanent base in Romford market, there to capture white fiftysomethings near the Essex border complaining in old-fashioned London accents about being ruled over by Brussels. Yet experience has shown, and not for the first time, that some ethnic minority Londoners too voted leave, citing pressure on health services, like the east London-born Sikh Uber driver I wrote about here, or the young black shop worker who told a friend on that Brexit Friday morning about Polish newcomers driving down wages and taking all the jobs. The particular character of London - its youthfulness, its high number of graduates and its cultural mix - seems to explain why it is the most pro-EU part of the UK outside Scotland. But that doesn’t mean the discontents that fuelled the victory of leave don’t exist in London too, albeit sometimes in a distinctively London form.
Josef Salvat: Night Swim review – smooth debut of a lovelorn crooner Australian singer-songwriter Josef Salvat came to prominence in Europe with his polite, advert-ready cover of Rihanna’s hit, Diamonds. It’s that song’s narrative of giving yourself completely to someone that permeates much of Salvat’s own songwriting, specifically on the gorgeous, radio-friendly sunburst of Open Season. In fact he has quite a knack for dynamics – his rich croon launching the Years & Years-esque Paradise skywards, or exploding Shoot and Run’s twitchy electronic textures into a widescreen epic. As the album glides prettily along you hanker for a slight tear in the silk, but then the lovelorn closer Better Word flutters down like a feather and all is forgiven.
Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls is 'dream' Kickstarter success “Once there was a Mexican girl whose name was Frida,” begins one of the 100 fairytale reinventions included in Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls. A new children’s book that sets out to confront gender stereotypes, it has quickly raised more than $600,000 (£409,000) on Kickstarter. Created by Elena Favilli and Francesca Cavallo, co-founders of children’s media company Timbuktu Labs, the book tells the stories of 100 great women, from Kahlo to Elizabeth I to Serena Williams, illustrated by female artists from around the world. Favilli and Cavallo launched their Kickstarter a month ago, with the goal of making $40,000, and printing their first 1,000 copies. With hours to go before closing to further pledges, their fundraising total stands at $624,905. “It’s insane. We were expecting the project to be successful but not at this level,” said Favilli. “It’s beyond any possible dream.” The pair have now added a series of “stretch goals” to their Kickstarter, including a week of workshops in Rwanda about female leadership in January 2017. They estimate that they will be printing more than 10,000 copies of the book and are also planning an edition for general distribution, once the fundraiser ends on Wednesday. “We chose to write the stories in the style of a fairytale – lots of them start ‘once upon a time’,” said Favilli. “We are really thinking of the book as a modern fairytale that children will read at bedtime before they go to sleep.” On their Kickstarter page, Favilli and Cavallo explain that part of the inspiration for the book was their own journey as entrepreneurs, which “made us understand how important it is for girls to grow up surrounded by female role models”, because “it helps them to be more confident and set bigger goals”. They also realised “that 95% of the books and TV shows we grew up with lacked girls in prominent positions”. Pointing to a study of 6,000 children’s books published between 1900 and 2000, which found that just 7.5% had female protagonists, they add that not much has changed since. “We know children’s books are still packed with gender stereotypes,” said Favilli. “And we’re both in our early 30s, we’re female entrepreneurs, and we know first-hand how hard it is to succeed, to be considered, to be given a chance.” The idea for the book, she said, “didn’t happen overnight, it was more of a process. We started to send pieces of content out with our newsletter, short stories about extraordinary women, and at some point we realised that the response we were getting just from sending the newsletter was so great, so intense. This doesn’t happen often with you send a newsletter; usually people don’t open it. So it became clear this was a book we had to make.”
Festival watch: BoomTown – review The vibe A 50,000-strong crowd attended the notoriously wacky four-day event on the Matterley Estate’s steep hilltops. Back for its eighth and biggest year, the makeshift shanty town hosted countless stages, seedy dives and pop-up sound systems playing everything from jungle and bassline to folk and funeral marches. Arts and crafts workshops, flash-mobbing actors in costume and spoken-word performances were also to be found in the BoomTown’s nooks and crannies. A few courageous parents, with their children in tow, stayed safely tucked away in KidzTown, while other festival-goers placated themselves with Hooch, hula-hooping and trance. Unfortunately there were also serious issues. On Friday, 80 cars were damaged in a car park fire. On Monday, tragedy struck when an 18-year-old woman found in her tent was pronounced dead. The crowd An assortment of old-school ravers, fairylight-clad students and lads with fish bucket hats and painful-looking sunburn. Some culturally insensitive get-ups left a bad taste, including one “Chinese rice farmer” in stereotypical garb. Random celebrity spot: Outnumbered’s Ramona Marquez. Best act Fans in their thousands flocked to the Lion’s Den stage to catch an exhilarating performance by Sunday’s headliner Damian Marley. His rendition of his own songs, including Beautiful, Patience and Road to Zion, proved popular, but it was his heart-warming tribute to his famous father that had the biggest impact. The sight of endless lighters and phone torches waving along to Exodus and Get Up, Stand Up was a highlight. And the worst So Solid Crew’s haphazard set of garage, drum’n’bass, Atlanta hip-hop, Drake and Justin Bieber featured too many mismatching genres. At least 20 of the crew were on stage at any one time, so it was never really clear who was MC-ing. Frankly, the only thing the crowd really wanted to hear was their timeless hit 21 Seconds . Best discovery Tribe of Frog, just one of many hidden forest stages, was a visual delight. Rapturous, sand-covered dancers moved nonstop to the sounds of pulsating trance under dappled sunlight and a torrent of bubbles. Best dressed Among the sequinned gowns, Halloween costumes and inappropriate onesies, one woman’s T-shirt, emblazoned with a supermarket logo, stood out: “Tesco - Everyone’s a c**t”. Overheard “Those boys need their mothers,” said one middle-aged woman in response to two young men spitting, complaining and playing music from their phones in the box-office queue. Best tweet Simon Says rapper Pharoahe Monch following his performance:
Trump backers play to fears of America on opening night of convention Donald Trump sought to assert control over a fractured Republican convention on Monday with a slate of speakers who emphasised his unabashed appeal to the fears of Americans. Appearing on stage for the first time, the once improbable candidate who will now be confirmed as the party’s nominee after quashing an earlier rebellion, simply declared: “We are going to win so big.” He spoke briefly to introduce his wife Melania as “the next first lady of the United States” and watched as she painted a picture of the values they would bring to the White House, some of which were later revealed to have been plagiarised from a previous speech by Michelle Obama. But it was the fiery performances of earlier speakers that helped set the tone for a staunchly nationalist campaign message in the coming days. “The vast majority of Americans don’t feel safe,” claimed former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, who said there had been five major Islamist terrorist attacks on the US and its allies in the past seven months. “You know who you are. And we’re coming to get you,” he warned terrorists, drawing the biggest cheers of the night. “If they have committed themselves to war against us then we must commit us to unconditional victory against them.” “The world outside our border is a scary place,” added former Navy Seal Marcus Luttrell in an emotional address. “America is the light,” he added. House homeland security chair Mike McCaul claimed America was “in the crosshairs”. “Our own city streets have become the battleground,” he said. “Let’s cut through the suffocating political correctness and call the threat what it really is: the enemy is radical Islam.” Speakers were repeatedly interrupted by chants of “USA, USA” from the crowd as they described military raids abroad or the deaths of Americans. “I let loose with a 10 round volley and he dropped,” boastedBenghazi veteran John Tiegen to wild applause before describing how attackers on an embassy compound in 2012 fell “like a sack of potatoes”. “We unleashed some hell on them,” added his marine colleague Mark Geist. But it was not just external threats that were paraded before the convention; there were also a series of speakers who told of deaths caused by undocumented immigrants living inside the US. “It’s time that we had an administration that cared more about Americans than illegals,” said Mary Mendoza, the mother of police officer killed by an undocumented immigrant driving over the legal speed limit. Jamiel Shaw prompted loud boos when he said his son had been killed by an “illegal alien gangbanger from Mexico”. “God bless America, God bless Donald Trump,” added two relatives of a murdered border control agent. Delegates were also encouraged to fear Hillary Clinton. There were repeated calls from the podium for the imprisonment of Trump’s election opponent. “Lock her up, lock her up,” chanted the crowd, to the encouragement of speakers on the podium. Pat Smith, the mother of one of the four Americans killed in the Benghazi attack in 2012, a now-infamous rightwing touchstone, even said she “blamed her personally for the loss of my son”. “That night we lost four brave Americans and the American people lost the truth,” Smith said. “She lied to me and then called me a liar. Hillary for prison. She deserves to be in stripes.” The Clinton campaign issued a statement to journalists responding to the repeated attacks. “In their continued quest to politically damage Hillary Clinton, Republicans have falsely claimed that Clinton told former secretary of defence Leon Panetta and US military personnel to ‘stand down’ in the wake of the Benghazi attacks,” it said. “This unfounded allegation has been widely debunked.” But Democrats reserved their strongest criticism to respond to the RNC’s attempt to shut down a mini-rebellion earlier in the day, when anti-Trump delegates sought to force a vote on rules that could have given them one last chance to block his expected nomination on Tuesday. “Donald Trump lost control of his own convention before it even started,” Clinton said. Nonetheless, the evening session appeared far more unified than the earlier votes had been, with only two small protesters disrupting proceedings. A long list of speakers meant some such as Iowa senator Joni Ernst were forced to address an emptying hall as the evening wore on. Delegates gave a warm welcome to the heavily-accented keynote address from Slovenian-born Melania Trump, who regaled them with a homily about her husband’s character values. “If you want someone to fight for you and your country, I can assure you, he’s the guy. He will never ever give up, and most importantly, he will never let you down,” she said. “He’s tough when he has to be but he’s also kind and fair and caring. This kindness is not always noted ... that is one reason I fell in love with him to begin with.” Mrs Trump also claimed: “Donald intends to represent all of the people, not some of the people,” including Muslims and Hispanics, she said. Outside the convention centre, protests throughout the city of Cleveland remained peaceful on Monday as authorities reported only one arrest by the late afternoon. A spokesman for the city of Cleveland said police had arrested only one individual by late Monday afternoon. The individual, a white woman, was arrested in the city’s public square on an outstanding warrant. Police made one arrest on Sunday after, they said, a protester at another march, reached for an officer’s gas mask. Additional reporting by Oliver Laughland in Cleveland
Leicester’s fans get in the title spirit as Wes Morgan earns draw In the end the Leicester City supporters decided to have a party anyway. “We’re gonna win the league” seemed to be on a loop in the far corner of the stadium, where just over 3,000 travelling fans were bouncing up and down long after the players had left the pitch. The engraver has not yet been commissioned to start work on the Premier League trophy, but it looks like a matter of when and not if Leicester will be crowned champions and that moment may well arrive just before 10pm tomorrow. Trailing by eight points with three games remaining, Tottenham Hotspur now know they have no margin for error at Stamford Bridge and it is easy to imagine Chelsea, their bitter rivals, relishing the chance to twist the knife. Leicester can sit back and relax, knowing even if Spurs win at Chelsea the stage is set for a memorable evening at the King Power Stadium on Saturday, where a win over Everton would complete the fairytale. What a night that promises to be. The Manchester United supporters, showing a touch of class after the final whistle, clearly felt they had just watched the champions. As the Leicester players made their way along the front of the Sir Bobby Charlton stand and towards the tunnel, those United fans who had remained behind – and there were plenty of them – rose to applaud them in a gesture that was clearly appreciated, as Wes Morgan and his team-mates clapped in response. Moments later Jamie Vardy emerged from the tunnel, walked on to the pitch, shared a brief word with Fabio Capello – the now 29-year-old was playing for Stockbridge Park Steels when the Italian took England to the 2010 World Cup – and soaked up the atmosphere as he looked towards the sea of blue at the other end of the stadium. By now Leicester fans were going through their full repertoire of songs, including “Jamie Vardy’s having a party”. Vardy is back for the Everton match, after serving a two-match suspension following his sending-off against West Ham, and it says much for Leicester’s spirit and resolve that they have collected four points without the services of the Premier League’s second-highest goalscorer. In a game of musical chairs, Danny Drinkwater will now have to take Vardy’s seat in the stand after his late dismissal here, which will almost certainly open the door to Andy King, perhaps fittingly given the Welshman is the longest-serving player at the club. In many ways a 1-1 draw at United was a strange scoreline for Leicester to try to digest and there was a moment at the end when Ranieri turned on his heel in the technical area and looked like a man who was not quite sure where to go and what to do. He had stood with his shoes within six inches of the pitch for the entire match, occasionally showing flashes of emotion, in particular in the frantic final minutes, when United were pressing for a winner. “Be strong, come on!” bellowed Ranieri, clenching his fists. Time and again this season his players have showed their resilience and never-say-die attitude, and this was another one of those occasions, especially after Leicester found themselves in the unfamiliar position of conceding first. United, for once, had started like a house on fire and, when Anthony Martial gave them the lead after only eight minutes, it was interesting to see how Leicester, with the eyes of the world watching them, would respond. Morgan, once of Dunkirk FC in the Midland Football Alliance and a former business student at South Notts college, provided the answer with a close-range header that exploited the weak link in United’s defence. Marcos Rojo never looked equipped to deal with Morgan, who is built like a nightclub bouncer, and it showed every time the two came up against one another. As Morgan wheeled away to celebrate, Rojo had his face down in the turf and Leicester, in one perfectly executed set piece, had pulled the plug on United’s electric opening. Alongside Robert Huth, Morgan has been outstanding this season and if there was a moment against United that summed up the value of that partnership to Leicester it was in the 71st minute. Stretching every sinew, Morgan managed to just about cut out a pass that threatened to release Marcus Rashford on goal. The United striker still pounced on the loose ball and thumped a right-footed shot that Huth, reading the danger, managed to get in position to block. At that point the Leicester fans were biting their nails in between breaking into chants of “we shall not be moved” – a song that could easily be applied to Leicester’s position at the top of the table.
Pete Burns obituary Originally best known for his 1985 chart-topper You Spin Me Round (Like a Record), made with his band Dead Or Alive, Pete Burns later became a reality TV star, coming fifth in the final of Celebrity Big Brother in 2006, as well as a living advertisement for the dangers of plastic surgery. Burns, who has died of a heart attack aged 57, claimed to have undergone 300 surgical procedures, many of them in an attempt to repair previous botched efforts. His heyday as a pop star in the mid-1980s coincided with the rise of the “New Pop” epitomised by Boy George and Culture Club, Wham! and Frankie Goes to Hollywood. With his ambiguous sexuality, androgynous look and spectacular fashion choices, Burns, after several years of trying, found himself in the right place at the right time. “Everything goes round in circles and luckily we’ve got the current sound of the moment,” he commented in 1984, a remark pointing to his inherent scepticism about fame, fashion and pop music. Dead Or Alive’s first album, Sophisticated Boom Boom (1984), had paved the way for the group’s success by reaching the UK Top 30 and yielding a Top 40 single with a cover of KC & The Sunshine Band’s That’s the Way (I Like It). The following year they released Youthquake, which was produced by the upcoming hit-makers Stock, Aitken and Waterman and not only contained You Spin Me Round but also gave them a No 9 album in the UK and reached 31 on the US Billboard chart. However, despite further hits with Lover Come Back to Me, In Too Deep and Brand New Lover, the huge success of You Spin Me Round was not to be repeated. Dead Or Alive continued through the 80s, but by the end of the decade had been reduced to the core duo of Burns and the drummer Steve Coy. Their album Nude (1989) gave them a belated chart fling by delivering a No 1 hit on the US dance charts with Come Home With Me Baby, while Turn Around & Count 2 Ten reached No 1 in Japan. Burns was born in the model village of Port Sunlight in Bebington, Cheshire (now in Merseyside). His mother, Eva – Evelina Maria Bettina Quittner von Hudec – was a German aristocrat who had been born in Heidelberg but fled to Vienna because of her Jewish background. There she met a British soldier, Francis Burns, who became her husband. The young Pete grew very close to his mother, speaking only German and a little French until he was five, and though she developed addictions to alcohol and tranquillisers, he recalled that: “I was brought up with an incredible amount of freedom and creativity.” He dropped out of his Liverpool boys’ school at the age of 14, after his red-dyed hair and huge earring provoked official outrage, and got a job at a record store, Probe Records, where he met numerous local musicians. He was briefly a member of the Mystery Girls alongside future Liverpudlian stars Julian Cope and Pete Wylie, before forming the Goth-influenced Nightmares in Wax in 1979. Their sole recording was the EP Birth of a Nation, including the track Black Leather, which incorporated That’s The Way (I Like It). The latter was reworked by Dead Or Alive, which was the new name Burns gave to an overhauled line-up of Nightmares in Wax the following year. During the 90s, Dead Or Alive released several albums in various territories outside the UK, with limited success. In 1994 Burns sang and co-wrote the single Sex Drive for the Italian techno act Glam, and that same year Burns and Coy recorded David Bowie’s Rebel Rebel, calling themselves International Chrysis. Fragile (2000) was Dead Or Alive’s final album of new material, though some tracks were remixes and cover versions. The new century brought the compilations Evolution: The Hits (2003) and That’s The Way I Like It: The Best of Dead Or Alive (2010). Burns’s decision to embrace reality TV came after he had spent years protesting that he would never do it (“I still have a career, and I don’t really do reality,” he said in 2003), but his outsized personality and caustic manner made him a natural. The sight of him dancing with the politician George Galloway, both of them dressed in lycra leotards, on Celebrity Big Brother was unforgettable for any number of reasons. Burns triggered further controversy on Big Brother when he claimed to be wearing a coat made of illegal gorilla skin, though tests proved it was made from the skin of the colobus monkey, using pelts that pre-dated legislation outlawing their use. In 2007 Burns appeared on Big Brother’s Big Mouth and Celebrity Wife Swap, where he swapped places with Leah Newman, partner of the footballer Neil “Razor” Ruddock. Also on the show was Burns’s husband, Michael Simpson, whom he married in 2006 after his divorce from the stylist Lynne Corlett whom he had married in 1978. The three remained on good terms. In the series Pete’s PA, on Living TV, contestants competed to become Burns’s assistant. In 2015, Burns was evicted from his London flat after running up £34,000 in rent arrears. Last month, Burns appeared on Channel 5’s Celebrity Botched Up Bodies and talked frankly about his horrific experiences with cosmetic surgery, which had given him near-fatal blood clots and pulmonary embolisms as he underwent further procedures to try to correct mistakes. He is survived by Michael. • Peter Jozzeppi Burns, musician and television personality, born 5 August 1959; died 23 October 2016
Leicester’s Claudio Ranieri hails ‘unbelievable’ Jamie Vardy goal Jamie Vardy celebrated agreeing a new three-and-a-half year contract with Leicester City in style as the England striker scored twice – the first an absolute beauty – to defeat Liverpool and maintain the Midlands club’s three-point lead at the top of the Premier League table. With Roy Hodgson watching from the stands, as well as Adrian Butchart, the screenwriter who plans to make a Hollywood movie about Vardy, the Leicester striker could not have picked a better night to produce one of his best performances of the season. His pace troubled Liverpool throughout and it was a special moment when the 29-year-old thumped a first-time volley from 25 yards beyond Simon Mignolet to set Leicester on their way to a deserved 2-0 victory. Claudio Ranieri, the Leicester manager, was full of praise for Vardy and also Riyad Mahrez, whose fine pass released the England forward in behind the Liverpool defence. “It was an unbelievable pass from Mahrez and unbelievable what Vardy did,” Ranieri said. “He watched the ball arriving, watched the opponent and watched the keeper. He looked at the keeper out of the goal and hit it. It was unbelievable, amazing, fantastic. That goal opened the match.” It is shaping up to be quite a week for Vardy, who has been given an extended and much-improved contract to reflect his superb form and his status as an England international. The revealed earlier in the day that he is ready to sign a deal that will replace his existing £40,000-a-week contract and tie him to Leicester until the summer of 2019. Leicester will feel that he is worth every penny if he maintains the level of performance that he showed against Liverpool. Even Jürgen Klopp, Liverpool’s manager, could not help but be impressed by the striker’s opening goal. “It’s nice to be in a stadium where Jamie Vardy scored goal of the month but in an ideal world not when you’re manager of the other team,” Klopp said. Liverpool never looked like getting back into the game and any faint hopes they had of salvaging a point were extinguished when Vardy scored his second, this time with his left foot and from close range, to take his tally for the season to 18 in the league. Ranieri believes that the 29-year-old, who had a minor groin operation last month, is back to his best. “Now it is one month more or less since he restarted training. Before that he didn’t train. He played matches without training and that’s not easy,” the Italian said. “He continued to score but slowly he slowed down. Now he is refreshed, he is a new Vardy, he presses a lot and he scores goals. He is good.” With the first of three tricky fixtures successfully negotiated, Leicester now travel to Manchester City on Saturday to face their nearest rivals before taking on Arsenal at the Emirates on Sunday week. Ranieri continues to maintain that he is not thinking about winning the title but the question is not going to go away as long as his team keep playing with such confidence. “We have to think about what a great performance we did against Liverpool. It was amazing,” Ranieri said. “We beat a very good team who were very well organised. Klopp has done a very good job so far and I’m sure next season will better. But we made a fantastic performance. We pressed everywhere and didn’t give the Liverpool players time to think.” Klopp, whose team have dropped to eighth in the table, sounded deeply frustrated. “The longer the game went on we didn’t get cooler and the decisions didn’t get better, that’s the problem,” he said. “We had the ball in their box and didn’t shoot – one second later Vardy scored from 25 yards and the ball was in the net. That says everything about the game.”
Leighton Baines finds right chemistry to fire Everton past Bournemouth Even an innate optimist such as Roberto Martínez should be in no doubt about the depth of the feeling against him now. Any notion a first win in eight games would ease the pressure on him was swiftly disabused. More than an hour after the final whistle, a hardcore of perhaps 200 supporters remained in Goodison Park, chorusing for the Spaniard’s dismissal. One Evertonian had come to the manager’s aid, that fan turned full-back Leighton Baines delivering the decider, but others stayed steadfast in their opposition. The final whistle was the cue for some in the Gwladys Street End to unveil four flags reading “Martínez out”. Martínez did his best not to take it personally. “Football is a game full of passion and emotions and I understand what comes when you have not won enough games,” he said. The afternoon’s change of tone, from unity to dissent, mirrored feelings during his three-year reign. Evertonians had weightier issues than the Spaniard’s future to consider before kick-off. They have spent 27 years displaying solidarity with those affected by the Hillsborough disaster and, in the week a jury ruled the 96 victims were unlawfully killed, Everton again paid their respects. The cover of the matchday programme pronounced it “the biggest victory in the history of football” and the words “truth” and “justice” appeared on the big screen as members of the victims’ families were applauded on to the pitch. A sign proclaimed: “Justice at last, 96 brothers in arms.” Under the circumstances, it would have felt crass to unveil others calling for the manager’s head and his critics within the ground duly waited. Those above it did not, a plane trailing a message that read: “Time to go, Roberto.” He refused to accede to their wishes. “My intention is to be successful and that doesn’t change,” he said. A putative successor was quick to rule himself out of the reckoning. “I am absolutely committed to Bournemouth,” said their manager, Eddie Howe. “I will be staying at the club.” Martínez’s prospects of continued employment are altogether cloudier. If he is going, he is doing so his way. One who has plotted an idiosyncratic path was quixotic in his choices. His top scorer, Romelu Lukaku, and preferred goalkeeper, Joel Robles, were benched, forgotten men installed at either end of the pitch. Oumar Niasse’s belated first start, three months after his £13.5m signing and following only 19 minutes’ league football, was an undistinguished affair, save only for an audacious attempt to divert a Baines corner in with a backheeled volley. Otherwise, he cut a hapless figure. The recalled Tim Howard, who wore the captain’s armband on his 413th and penultimate Everton appearance, fared better. Greeted with sarcastic cheers towards the end of his long reign as first choice, he met with warmer applause and made a fine save from Callum Wilson. The departing American is heading for Colorado Rapids and Everton began swiftly, albeit with a microcosm of Martínez’s reign as their fine work in attack was undone by a needless concession. Tom Cleverley, an ally from his Wigan days, capped a slick passing move by drilling Everton ahead. Yet, deprived of an entire back four by injuries and suspension, their frailty was apparent. Hurriedly brought back from a loan spell at Walsall, the league debutant Matthew Pennington eventually acquitted himself commendably. But he started badly when Wilson was too streetwise for the newcomer, who was left arguing he was fouled when the striker centred, Josh King miscued and Marc Pugh drilled a shot in off the diving Howard. “We felt very hard done by,” said Martínez. Such feelings were alleviated by a winner. Baines had suggested Everton lacked chemistry earlier in the month but illustrated why he is one of the School of Science’s prize pupils. Aaron Lennon’s cutback eluded everyone until he reached it at the back post to lift his shot into the roof of the net. The crowd had spent the previous 20 minutes calling for a full-back to shoot: just not Baines. Tony Hibbert, who has never scored in a 15-year career, came on for his first appearance since 2014. Probably wisely, the veteran did not listen to the supporters. While indicating he will try to defy them, even Martínez may not be able to ignore them.
After Tesco fraud, are other banks vulnerable to cyber-attacks? Consumers worried about falling victim to online banking fraud should consider banks that give customers card readers and avoid those which rely on text messages, according to leading security expert Graham Cluley. He was speaking as Tesco Bank continued to deal with the fallout from the “systematic, sophisticated attack” that resulted in £2.5m being taken from around 9,000 current account holders. Meanwhile, another expert says that the Tesco attack last weekend could be the first of many, and banks should be forced by regulators to up their game. The bank was forced to suspend online banking for all its 136,000 customers after money – in some cases several thousand pounds – was stolen from accounts. It is thought much of it ended up in Spain and Brazil. Although the number of customers affected was later downgraded from the original 20,000, Tesco has declined to reveal how the money was taken. It did say that personal data had not been compromised, leading some experts to suggest that the fraudsters had gained debit card details, or found a vulnerability in its app. The National Crime Agency is investigating, but questions are already being asked about levels of security. It has emerged that Tesco Bank used to issue customers with card readers – small devices that generate a unique passcode when you insert your card and key in your pin. These typically authorise your login and certain transactions. But the bank later moved to mobile phone verification, where it sends a code to your handset. Cliff Moyce, global head of financial services at technology firm DataArt, told Money that the financial regulators need to take a stronger line if further incidents are to be prevented. Moyce, who has worked in financial security for more than 25 years, says Tesco Bank customer losses were “almost certainly” not the result of a TalkTalk-style outside hack, but were more likely caused by a failure of its IT security and data protection processes. “No bank can ever claim to be 100% secure and attacks by fraudsters are a fact of life. The problem is that the banks need to do a lot better – the regulators need to be forcing them to adopt the best practice… unless this happens it will only be a matter of time before there is another similar episode at another bank,” he says. One line of investigation is likely to focus on the possibility of an “economic hack”, says Moyce, whereby an offshore employee is offered multiples of their annual salary in return for a tranche of customer data. One thing that might raise eyebrows is that the bank’s staff were seemingly encouraged to use their own smartphones and tablets for work, a trend commonly known as “bring your own device”, or BYOD. In a 2015 interview Tesco Bank’s then chief information officer, Chris Brocklesby, revealed how he had “championed” BYOD, adding: “A trial has been successful and we will fully roll out in 2015. The initial release will be for phones and tablets.” Moyce, who admits he has no idea if this was taken up at Tesco Bank, says such a move would be controversial. “BYOD always brings risks, especially in the areas of breaches of the UK Data Protection Act, as it is too easy for confidential and sensitive information to end up in a personal device that may be lost, sold or taken to another employment. There is also a risk of introducing malware into a secure network.” He suggested good BYOD policies, implemented rigorously, can reduce the risks to the same level as any company-supplied devices. The question is whether your bank is operating good policies and practices. Professor Alan Woodward, banking security expert at the University of Surrey, says he was surprised Tesco has been so coy about what actually happened. “The fact they have said that customers’ personal data was not compromised suggests that the hackers may have harvested customers’ debit card details and then used them in an automated mass attack. They really need to come out and give more details.” He says this is the first successful attack on a bank itself. Previously, fraudsters have targeted individual customers. He also predicts that security will become one of the ways some banks sell themselves in the future. Last month the consumer group Which? criticised some of Britain’s biggest banks for failing to invest in security systems that would better protect their customers from fraudsters. It tested the UK’s 11 biggest banks and building societies and found that the security at five was not good enough. It said Halifax, its sister brand Bank of Scotland, Lloyds, Santander and TSB had “consistently scored poorly” over the four years it had been analysing their security measures. None offered “two-factor authentication” at login, despite having the technology to do so. This combines two different types of ID checks – typically something you know, such as a password or pin, with something you have, such as a card reader or a mobile phone on which to generate or receive a single-use passcode. Tesco Bank, which was not tested by Which?, is a leading challenger bank – the new entrants trying to topple the domination of the traditional players – mostly appealing to younger customers with the promise of a user-friendly, hi-tech approach. On a Tesco Bank web forum in 2015, a bank employee wrote: “It is hard to get the balance of security and convenience right for everyone using our online banking service. We used to have a card reader to protect online banking; however the overwhelming feedback from customers was that they didn’t like this method and they wanted something more portable. This was why we implemented a solution that allows our customers to receive a security code to their mobile phone.” Some people, reading that now, may wonder whether the bank was right to make such a change. Nationwide, which is one of the providers that still uses card readers, says on its website that it “provides an extra level of security when banking online... your card reader helps to prevent fraudsters from trying to log in as you, and transferring your money.” Tesco Bank is not alone in shunning readers. Cluley says consumers can continue to trust online banking – for now. “Clearly this is not good news, but at the moment this is one incident. However, if it happens to a second bank then this would be a major source of concern that could result in a loss of trust.” He says he is still happy to bank online as the risks are still outweighed by the convenience. However, he suggests that consumers should be looking for a bank that avoids the use of text messages as a way of identifying their customer when logging on or making a payment. “The banks are moving away from these as they are open to exploitation.Card readers that produce a code are much more secure.” He adds: “I always use a made-up mother’s maiden name. Only I know what I have picked and, unlike the real one, it’s not publicly available information.” Tesco Bank told us that “robust security measures” are in place to protect customers. It says that as a security measure, to add a payee, customers are required to enter their unique security code, following which they will be sent a text confirming the new payee. However, it adds: “To access the app, customers need to enter their unique security code.”
Mark Zuckerberg appears to finally admit Facebook is a media company Facebook’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, appears to have finally conceded that the social network is a media company, just not a “traditional media company”. In a video chat with Facebook’s COO, Sheryl Sandberg, Zuckerberg said: “Facebook is a new kind of platform. It’s not a traditional technology company. It’s not a traditional media company. You know, we build technology and we feel responsible for how it’s used. “We don’t write the news that people read on the platform. But at the same time we also know that we do a lot more than just distribute news, and we’re an important part of the public discourse.” While commentators have long suggested Facebook is a media company, disseminating news and exercising editorial judgement, Zuckerberg has previously steadfastly stuck to a line calling Facebook a technology company. Concerns over Facebook’s influence have come into focus recently due to fake news appearing on the site and the suggestion that this had an impact on the US presidential election. Other incidents, such as the removal of a famous Vietnam war image have seen its decisions questioned. Facebook recently employed editors to curate its trending news feed – a small box that contains headlines and a small summary of current affairs being discussed across the platform. Those editors, which numbered around 30, were unceremoniously cut in August and replaced with an algorithm after accusations of rightwing news censorship. The algorithm failed to discern real news from fake, amplifying false reporting to an audience of 1.79 billion monthly users. Around two thirds of Americans say they get news from social media. Facebook is currently attempting to deal with the fallout. It is now working with fact-checking companies in an attempt to inhibit the flow of fake news. Zuckerberg said: “When we think about what Facebook is doing in trying to give people a voice, one of the things that we are spending a lot of time reflecting on this year, and I think going forward, is that we have a big responsibility to make sure that these tools are used to create the most benefit for people around the world.” EU charges Facebook with giving ‘misleading’ information over WhatsApp
Manic Street Preachers release their Euro 2016 song Together Stronger The Manic Street Preachers have finally revealed their official Euro 2016 anthem for the Wales national team, Together Stronger (C’mon Wales). The song, with a video featuring the Wales football squad pogoing along behind the band, pays tribute to the former Wales player and manager Gary Speed, gripes about Joe Jordan’s handball playing for Scotland against Wales in a decisive qualifying match for the 1978 World Cup finals, and namechecks large chunks of the current squad, with special attention paid in the chorus to Gareth Bale and Aaron Ramsey. “Nick [Wire] had written lyrics for a song during previous campaigns, but of course, they’d all bitten the dust,” singer James Dean Bradfield told Wales Online. “It was the Belgium home game where the cogs in Nick’s head started whirring when we knew it was game on and we had a great chance of qualifying.” He added: “You always wonder if you can actually pull off a football song, because let’s face it there have been so many bad ones out there. We’ve got to admit that the benchmarks are Three Lions and World In Motion – they are two great football songs.” But is it a World in Motion, or more of a Come on You Reds? Watch the video and decide for yourself.
Manchester City 1-1 Southampton: Premier League – as it happened City can console themselves with the thought that not many teams are going to find it easy against Southampton, but they need to improve, and quickly. They travel to Manchester United on Wednesday and West Brom on Saturday, then Barcelona turn up the following midweek. Southampton, meanwhile, could do with backing their manager financially. Even at this early stage, it’s obvious that in the summer there’ll be interest in Redmond, Van Dijk and others. Just say no. Anyway, thanks all for your company and comments - sorry I couldn’t use them all. Bye. What a good game that was. Southampton were organised, inventive and enterprising, while City were much improved in the second half. They go top, though haven’t won in five, while Southampton stay 8th. 90+5 min Bravo picks out Sterling and he runs hither and yon, looking for space, before Boufal clatters it clear. That’s pretty much it. 90+4 min Niall Quinn’s man-of-the-match is Romeu, a fair choice. Tadic was the best player on the pitch in the first half, and Iheanacho has been very good in the second, but Romeu, along with Van Dijk, are the two who’ve been consistent through the 90 minutes. 90+2 min Aguero wriggles and twists on the left by-line, and Van Dijk holds him up at the cost of a corner, then presses Iheanacho when it comes over, conceding another. This one is cleared as far as halfway, and when it’s switched to Silva, by that same left by-line, his balance gives out and he slips. Goalkick. 90+1 min City win a corner on the right, headed away and smelted over the bar from distance by Fernandinho. Again, Forster hangs onto the ball, and this time is booked. 90 min There shall be five added minutes. 89 min Everyone’s favourite player named after a district of Manhattan comes on, Nolito replacing Sane. 89 min Forster hangs onto the ball for as long as is possible without being booked, then boots it straight to Bravo. He’d have done better to send it out for a throw, as all this does is invite pressure. Quickly, City are inside the Southampton box, but a succession of desperate slides and lunges, some of which block, some of which tackle, and most of which do nothing, are enough to foil the various shooting opportunities. But too many of them, and eventually Southampton will concede a penalty. 88 min Southampton quite fancy their draw now, getting as many men behind the ball as they can to City’s intense frustration. 85 min Lovely break from Southampton, working the ball clear adroitly in their right corner, and sweeping crossfield thanks to a clever PASS from Ward-Prowse, drawing the challenge and moving possession on. Eventually, it ended up on the left wing, where Boufal stood up a cross that forced Kolarov to head behind. The corner came to nothing, but when Redmond loitered in front of the ball, Bravo shoved him in the back but without the subsequent set-to would all love to see no one wants to see. 84 min Boufal dawdles in centrefield and Sterling does very well to nip in, Gundogan then picking up the loose ball and feeding Aguero. From there, only one thing is ever happening, Aguero nashing through the middle lusting after a goal and dragging a cross-shot only just wide. 83 min Final change for Southampton, Ward-Prowse replacing Austin - he’s run hard but played poorly. 82 min Sane has improved in the second half and he makes an important intervention to prevent McQueen’s crossfield pass finding Hojbjerg. Southampton have a throw, deep inside the City half, but can’t make anything of it. 80 min Iheanacho does very well to keep moving a bouncing ball on, bundling through two tackles in the process. Eventually, he’s stopped by McQueen, but this is the best I’ve ever seen him play - he’s looked a footballer as well as a finisher. 78 min Navas replaces Kompany, so that’s Fernandinho into the back three - perhaps. 77 min This has been a really good game. Sterling again pulls away from McQueen, is fed immediately, and crosses flat to the near post where Ageuro can’t quite crane his neck sufficiently to divert it at goal. 75 min Redmond finds space in the box and looks to feed Davis, arriving on the edge. He shoots and it’s hectares wide, but that’s another warning. 74 min These last couple of minutes have been better from Southampton, and Boufal shrugs off Fernandinho moving from left to right across the box, Stones chugging along in front of him, then stretches to prod a pass for Austin, in space and with a sight of goal. He needs to pick a side, but instead just smacks it as hard as the situation allows - not really that hard at all - and Bravo saves easily enough. But that’s a warning for City. 72 min And Southampton break, a swarm of five or six charging forward. But Martina, in possession down the right, switches play and delivers the ball behind the various runners and the chance disappears. 72 min First time ball from Gundogan to Silva, inside the box on its left, and he drills a shot sternum-high at the near post, which Forster beats away. 70 min The change is made after all. Boufal, who is meant to be a tremendous talent, is on for Tadic. 69 min City are coming again, Gundogan and Iheanacho - he’s been superb since he came on -exchanging passes. This takes Gundogan into the box, and he digs out a shot looking for the Henry finish, but can’t get requisite power or angle. Then Silva finds Iheanacho down the left, who plays him back in, but there’s just too much on the ball. 68 min Perhaps Tadic is knackered - he’s certainly made a lot of sprints, and lengthy ones at that - but I’m surprised Puel is thinking to bring him off. The midfield change is entirely understandable. 66 min Aguero slides a pass down the line for sane, cut out by Martina, which allows Southampton to make two chances: Hojbjerg replaces Clasie, and Boufal replaces the superb Tadic. Except they don’t - Tadic is ushered back on the pitch, perhaps because Van Dijk isn’t moving freely. 64 min And they very nearly go behind when Sterling again takes possession down the right and a great run in behind by Iheanacho allows him to slide a diagonal ball towards the byline. Iheanacho then swivels to drills a cross to the near post, but it hits Silva and drips wide. 63 min City have been much better after the break, though they could scarcely have been worse. Southampton need to do something, or else they’re going to loe. 60 min Van Dijk hurts his face, so there’s a little break. Southampton probably needed that. 58 min This game is not going to finish 1-1. City are playing with intensity now, Ageuro charging around after Redmond who does brilliantly to escape down the left before finding Austin. But Ageuro won’t be denied, clattering him instead and earning another booke-ing. 57 min Southampton break for the first time in time, Tadic finding Van Dijk just left of the centre-circle. Whereupon Vincent Kompany absolutely leathers him, earning a yellow card. 57 min That was coming. City haven’t exactly peppered the goal, or even created any chances, but Southampton have barely had a kick these last seven or eight minutes. He’s got the knack! A wonderful ball from Fernandinho, flat and forty yards, from out on the right touchline to inside the box on the other side, finds Sane. He shows exceptional composure to realise he can’t shoot, wait, and snap a low cross to the near post, where Iheanacho wants it more than anyone else, contorting his body to flick hard past Forster. 54 min Much better from City, Sterling pulling away from McQueen and measuring a low cross that’s between keeper and back four. Silva and Aguero both strain to attack it, but the pace defeats both, just. 53 min Revenge is served steaming, Romeu tanking into a challenge with Gundogan and flattening him but in a non-snide way. He’s booked. 52 min We’re shown a replay of Gundogan jumping onto Romeu’s ankle, directly in Clattenburg’s phizog. For reasons known best to himself, he does nothing, when he might have flourished a red card; a yellow at least. 51 min Silva to Aguero to Sterling, and some space ... but Sterling’s cross is very well blocked by McQueen, who has been exemplary so far. 50 min Austin loses control of the ball and Kolarov bumps into him, for which he is harshly booked. 49 min Romeu, who’s been very solid, overhits a ball for Davis and Sane interjects, nipping it away and immediately making the opportunity for a shot. But he decides he can force a better angle, instead running away from goal and out of space. 48 min Another Southampton break led by Tadic, who snaps a low square ball to Davis, on the edge of the box. Whereupon he dithers, allowing Fernandinho to rob him from behind. 47 min A little flash of Sterling, feeding a ball for Iheanacho to run onto, who then tried a clever pass to the near post - but Forster arrived at it first. 47 min Iheanacho is on the 30-strong shortlist for African player of the year. I wonder how he’ll do in this situation, though - he’s an excellent finisher, and more than that, has the knack, but City’s problem so far has been the bit before that. 46 min Beginagain. Change for City: Iheanacho replaces De Bruyne, who has a knock. I’ve no idea how Guardiola will configure things now, perhaps a 3-1-4-2? Half-time entertainment of no relevance to football whatsoever, but of every relevance to those availed of ears: City have prompted plenty, but the’ve been reliant on Silva for penetration. Without full-backs to help, their wingers are isolated, so Southampton have been able to outnumber them in both wide and central areas. And, on the break, they’ve been a constant threat, Tadic and Redmond sprinting, moving and interchanging with purpose, imagination and conviction. Guardiola needs to have a think. 45+1 min Niall Quinn says he can’t remember the ground ever being as quiet as this, saying that it’s “eerie”. And though I’m not sure about this, the gist is unarguable: as they were at West Ham a few weeks ago, Southampton have been perfect. 45 min There shall be two additional minutes; a minimum of. 45 min Clasie stretches in pursuit of the ball as Fernandinho comes back at a perpendicular angle. Clasie wins the race, but follows through into Fernandinho’s ankle, for which he is booked. 43 min A quiet period, so here’s JR: “I would think John Stones holds the all-time record for people saying ‘He’s going to be a great player’ about him every time he makes an epic blunder. At what point does he become a player who is just considered prone to making epic blunders? I feel like we’re approaching the point where people should start referring to crap back passes that lead directly to goals as ‘a Stones’.” He’s got a way to go before he supersedes Rio Ferdinand, who, er, was a great player. My worry for Stones is that Ferdinand was a monstrous physical presence who could dominate and in the air and beat almost anyone for pace, and the greater he became, the less clever football he played. On the other hand, I’d not worry too much about the silly errors at this point, though of course it’d be better if he stopped making them. 41 min City are huffing and puffing, but Southampton are boxing them off all over the show. They finally get the ball into Aguero, 20 yards out and central, for him to deliver one of those patented from behind the bum shots, but it whistles wide. 39 min “I am reintroducing myself to British life after some time away,” emails Poorian Copestake, “and wonder if your other English-speaking reader can advise me whether six toasts is sufficient.” Is this to the Queen, or for breakfast? 38 min “The problem with City is they always try to walk it in,” emails Mike Phott. “Why don’t they just shoot? Aguero earlier now De Bruyne should have shot not trying to do something more clever...” Hmmm. I’d say City are struggling to break down a confident, well-drilled side - that’s understandable and almost expected. On the other hand, their defence looks a real problem. 36 min De Bruyne loses the ball on the right and Tadic feeds Redmond ahead of him. The attack comes to nothing, but Southampton’s decisiveness on the break, and, in particular, Redmond’s roving, is causing City all sorts. It’s far too dynamic for a back-three, especially this back-three, in mine. 35 min Things appear to have livened up. 34 min Yep, Aguero was offside from the initial free-kick - great decision and splendid swingers from the officials. We think. There was surprisingly little commotion, given how everyone went about their business as though the goal had been scored and awarded for quite some time. De Bruyne swings the ball out, Aguero misses his header in the middle and then at the back post, a highly relieved Stones sidefoots in! 31 min Silva allows the ball across his body in that gracefully brilliant way, and McQueen clatters him. Free-kick, 30 yards out, close to the right corner of the box. 31 min 27 min “The words ‘sedate’ and ‘sedan’ are indeed related,” emails Kári Tulinius, “but cousins rather than parent and progeny. Both ultimately derive from the latin verb “sedeō”, which means: ‘to put on a compact disk’ (actually it means ‘to sit’).” Excellent. 29 min Well, what about that? The difference, so far, is that between a team absolutely certain about what it’s doing and one finding it’s way. What an almighty mess this is! City knock is across the back four like 1980s Liverpool but Southampton press like 2016 Southampton and eventually Stones plays a blind ball for Kompany who’s stepped up at the wrong second, accordingly playing in the hyperactive Redmond. There’s still plenty to do though, which he does with minimum fuss and maximum prejudice, rounding Bravo to screw an expert’s finish high into the net. Consider the cat pigeoned. 26 min Tadic is looking lively as, and he wins a corner off Stones when no such thing looked likely. It comes to now, headed clear by Kolarov at the front post. 24 min A lovely low, long pass from Kolarov finds De Bruyne, just outside the box, and though Van Dijk is blocking the route to Aguero, suare to his right, he tries to find him anyway rather than go on the outside. The attack breaks down, but seconds later, Sane isolates McQueen for the first time, who stands up well and sees him behind. 22 min Southampton are pressing a little harder now. But City attack with Silva through the middle and he finds Sterling on the left of the box - we’ve hardly seen him so far. He attempts a return chop but can only find Fonte, and Southampton break again. Eventually, Tadic takes the ball away from goal on the left, in order to swivel and slide a reverse pass into the stride of Redmond. He’s broken the line, but the linesman incorrectly signals offside. 21 min “I wish Kompany was not playing,” emails Ian Copestake. “As the most liked person in football I could not bare to see him trudge off again with a curtailed future not realising his dreams etched on his face. He is like a walking version of I, Daniel Blake.” In several languages. 20 min Southampton break again and Clasie clips one over the top and left-to-right for Redmond, who pulls it down and larrups over the top. 18 min De Bruyne goes down the right and crosses low, Aguero reaching the ball first and taking a touch away from Van Dijk before falling over, anticipating the challenge. But the challenge never arrives - that’s excellent defending - and though there are muted appeals, Mark Clatteburg points for a goalkick. But not as beautifully as Mike Dean. 17 min Southampton are denying City space, sitting off them and sitting deep. On the one hand, it’s allowing them to be dictated to - on the other, it’s giving them space into which they can break. And that’s exactly what they do when Tadic wins possession, the low cross he produces at the end of it well-taken by the diving Bravo. 15 min Mootch be’oh from Citeh, Gundogan snapping a short, seemingly nondescript but actually very clever ball into Fernandinho’s path, right of centre and ushering him around the outside. Not much happened thereafter, but the home side are beginning to hum. 14 min Silva intercepts a poor ball from Clasie insdie the centre-circle and immediately releases De Bruyne on the left. He sees Sane making a run across the face of goal so tries a low cross, only for Van Dijk to stab behind for a corner which comes to nowt. 12 min Or, put another way, this is as sedate as a sedan. Did one beget the other? 11 min Lovely ball in from Tadic on the left, torso-high and arcing across the face of goal. Feeling the bristle of Redmond’s beard on the back of his neck, Kolarov deftly chested back to Bravo, who dribbled out and around 539 Southampton players before volleying home the opener with his right clavicle. 10 min Southampton win a free-kick down the right, swung out by Davis and clunked away by Sane on the edge of the box. The visitors regain possession and patiently send it back to Forster. 8 min Earlier this week, Claude Puel compared Nathan Redmond to Thierry Henry, a player he helped develop at Monaco. He reckons Redmond will end up playing through the middle, and tangentially, though it’s fashionable to moan about the lack of talented English players, I’m not at all certain it’s the case. A decent, enterprising manager, and there’s an eleven good enough to cause any team problems. 7 min This has been a quiet start, City pushing the pace but Southampton standing strong. I think we’ll be enjoying a fair few fouls in centerfield. 6 min “Sky’s yet to be broadcast interview with Jamie Carragher,” emails Is Murray unkindly. You can probably see where this is going, but to avoid any accusations of subtlety, he proceeds: “How many languages do you speak? ‘Fluently, none.’” Burrrrrrnnnnnn. 4 min A flash of Aguero, racing onto Daivd Silva’s headed flick-on! before twisting inside and out and chipping a cross too close to Forster. 3 min “As a big supporter of Argentina, I am continually surprised how, with all the flack Messi received practically carrying the team on his back to within inches of the cup, Aguero who was completely invisible and contributed nothing,” emails Odysseus Yacalis. “Escaped all criticism... Pep knows what’s up... He has talent, obviously, but leaving him on the bench is far from a sin...” Hmmm - Guardiola can only really judge him based on what he sees at City. I can see why he left him out - against Barcelona, you need numbers in midfield. As an outsider, I just thought he was putting a nose out of joint trying to win a game he was always going to lose. But he can’t proceed on that basis. 1 min Off we go! Southampton are huddling. Not sure there’s any coming back from that. “Is it wrong to hope the arrogant Pep way will fail?” asks Ezra Finklestein. “I know Joe Hart feels the same way...” I don’t know if Guardiola’s way is necessarily arrogant. He’s good at what he does and knows it, so he backs himself. Seems to have worked well so far. But no, it’s not wrong - we can all hope as we please. The ball is deplinthed! I can literally taste the importance. The players are tunnelled. Vincent Kompany is issuing John Stones with a few orders, then he claps he hands and off they go. That City top is almost indigo. That jaw is eternal. I remember reading an interview with Peter Reid after the 1986 World Cup. He said that he’d had grey highlights done in Mexico, before allowing it to return to its natural colour - “jet black”. In the studio, Souness and Henry would’ve picked Aguero in the Nou Camp. Carragher reckons City had to try something different, given the opponent. Guardiola is happy to have Kompany back and says it was an easy decision to reinstate Sergio Aguero, but stipulates that maybe he’ll be left out again - “I’m here to take decisions.” He thinks his team played really well against Everton, and against Barcelona when it was 11 v 11. They won’t win or lose the title today. Sky are showing an interview with Ilkay Gundogan, who seems a remarkably nice man. His heroes are his parents and he has a lovely manner and smile. How many languages do you speak? “Fluently, three.” Best goal? “I don’t score many goals, not even nice goals, to be fair.” Best friend in football? “Shinji Kagawa. Although he played for our rival, he’s a very nice friend.” He can’t pick a best manager from Klopp, Tuchel and Guardiola. He said he’s trained hard, but he’s got to be slightly feart of how his body will hold up. And I also wonder if there’s any trepidation as regards his role today. Sam McQueen has earned his first league start following an excellent midweek effort at San Siro and Puel is looking forward to seeing what he’s got. He feels Southampton ought to have beaten Inter and hopes his team has recovered well after just two days’ rest. He is not asked any interesting question about how to combat City’s XI, or how he wants his to play. Looking again at the City side, Gundogan, Silva and De Bruyne in the middle of the pitch is a lot for Davis, Romeu and Clasie to cope with. Do they get in among them or sit off? And how will they fare when the ball goes wide to Sterling and Sane? Martina and McQueen will have plenty to do. On the other hand, if Southampton can get at that back three, it’s hard to fathom a way they don’t score. Kolarov will be hoping to switch play a lot more than he’ll be hoping to defence; Kompany will not want much possession; Stones would rather one of his mates dealt with Austin. “He’s bringing calmness in the club ... on the pitch he likes to be close to the group. He’s very vocal ... very clever” says Virgil van Dyk of his manager. And then, for balance, enjoy Jacob Steinberg on Pep Guardiola. So, how is Claude Puel doing it? To find out, read this excellent piece from Paul Doyle. That City team, then. Well, there’ll be three at the back, one of them Vincent Kompany, and there’ll also be a dizzying array of attacking talent. That aside, we’re guessing. Southampton, on the other hand, are entirely as expected. Manchester City (an incomprehensible 3-2-4-1): Bravo; Stones, Kompany, Kolarov; Fernandinho, Gundogan; Sane, Silva, De Bruyne, Sterling; Aguero. Subs: Fernando, Nolito, Caballero, Jesus Navas, Clichy, Otamendi, Iheanacho. Southampton (a cohesive 4-3-3): Forster; Martina, Fonte, van Dijk, McQueen; Clasie, Romeu, Davis; Tadic, Redmond, Austin. Subs: Yoshida, Rodriguez, McCarthy, Ward-Prowse, Boufal, Hojbjerg, Stephens. Hunk: Mark Clattenburg (Tyne & Weary) As anyone with any experience of being a human can confirm, it’s not at all easy to know what’s going on. Are we etched in stone or just sketched in the sand? It is ice lolly or lolly ice? Are we living or dying? Alternatively, consider Manchester City. Third in the table, a point off the top, with a game in hand; rinsers of Manchester United; midweek threateners of Barcelona, the best side in the world; home to Kevin de Bruyne, David Silva, Ilkay Gundogan and Sergio Aguero; employers of Pep Guardiola, generally regarded as a footballing visionary and the finest coach in the world. Sounds simple? Well, consider Manchester City as singed at Celtic and terrorised at Tottenham as part of being generally found out, who were marmalised in midweek, whose goalkeeper is already an hilarious joke, whose novice manager is ill-prepared for a league where opponents try hard, whose team is yet to win a game in the month of October. What an unfathomable state of affairs! It’s just so confusing! Well, you know what they say: class is temporary but form is permanent. Southampton, on the other hand, are a simpler case: they’re a really good side, playing really well. They’re balanced, solid, consistent, and know what they’re doing; they’re also in fine form. Roughly, we’re in for a treat. Kick-off: 1.30pm BST
UK’s ‘hidden disgrace’: mental health problems can lead to 42% pay gap People suffering from mental health problems such as depression and panic attacks earn up to 42% less than their peers, prompting the government’s equalities watchdog to brand the pay gap “a disgrace”. Evidence collected by the Equality and Human Rights Commission has exposed stark differences between the earnings of those suffering from psychological illness and those who are not. For every pound that a non-disabled man earns, men who have conditions such as phobias or panic attacks earn only 58p. Similarly, men with anxiety or depression are paid only 74p for every pound earned by their contemporaries those who have no such troubles. The commission has found a similar but less pronounced pattern with women: those suffering from anxiety or depression earn 10p less for every pound earned by their non-disabled peers, according to research to be published next month which the commission has passed to the . “We must do more to tackle the injustice in our society of this mental health pay gap,” said David Isaac, EHRC chair. The figures revealed “the hidden disgrace of British society’s pay gap for men and women living with depression and panic attacks”, he added. The watchdog’s findings have prompted claims of discrimination in the workplace against people with mental health problems. “These findings are really shocking,” said Martin Tod, chief executive of the Men’s Health Forum. “Our research shows that men with mental health difficulties are very concerned about how their employers will perceive them. This research shows they’re absolutely right to be.” The commission has been taken aback by the scale of some of the differentials uncovered during its research into gender, ethnic and disability pay gaps. Isaac urged ministers to narrow the gaps as part of its promise to improve mental health support. “Business leaders and government must get together to understand why this is happening and ensure that employers have the right policies and culture to protect and support people with mental health issues at work and help them develop in their chosen careers,” he said. Commission analysis of men who suffer from mental impairment, including learning difficulties and mental health problems, has concluded that they are more likely to earn less as a result of working part-time, being in low-paid jobs or having few educational qualifications. Notwithstanding that, however, “there is still a large and unexplained gap and the impact of discrimination and stigmatisation as underlying factors should not be underestimated”. The findings come days after the latest British Social Attitudes Survey found evidence of perceptions of prejudice in the workplace. For example, few people believe that a person with depression (17%) or schizophrenia (8%) that is well controlled by medication would be as likely as others to be promoted. And about one in three think that the medical history of someone with either condition should make a difference to their chances of gaining promotion. NatCen Social Research’s study also found that while 71% of people would be willing to move next door to someone with depression, just 45% said the same about a person with schizophrenia. Similarly, just 36% are happy to have someone with depression marry into their family, and fewer than 20% would want someone with the condition providing childcare for their family. Emma Mamo, head of workplace wellbeing at the mental health charity Mind, said: “Fortunately, employer attitudes towards recruiting and supporting people with mental health problems are improving, with many employers now putting in place measures to support staff wellbeing. “It’s unacceptable that people with mental health problems earn less than those without mental health problems.“Staff who have a mental health problem can and do make a valuable contribution to the workplace,” said Mamo: “People with mental health problems face barriers in getting into, and staying in, work. Many employees don’t feel comfortable disclosing a mental health problem to their employer, often fearing they’ll be perceived as weak, incompetent or unable to cope.” The EHRC has found that people with mental health conditions wanted three things from employers: flexible working, more supportive managers and understanding from colleagues. However, almost none of them had been offered those things.
Philip Hammond: EU leaders happy to hold informal Brexit talks European leaders have already proved happy to hold informal talks on Brexit despite “strident noises” from Brussels banning such discussions, Philip Hammond, the foreign secretary, has said. The senior Conservative said his talks with other foreign ministers at a Nato summit in Brussels had been completely dominated by informal exchanges about Britain leaving the EU and its consequences. Hammond said the talks were about “smelling the atmosphere”, especially around the willingness of countries to guarantee reciprocal rights for Brits abroad and EU citizens in the UK. It was about “reassuring and exploring the art of what is possible”, he added. He made the remarks after the EU ordered that no negotiations with the UK should start until article 50, the formal notice to leave, is triggered. “I don’t think anyone is pretending that means bilaterally we won’t be discussing all of these issues with member states,” Hammond said. “It is probably not an exaggeration to say that there is almost no other subject on the table when I get together with my colleagues. We are in a Nato meeting, but most of the discussions have not been about Nato issues, they have been about the outcome of the referendum and the consequences of that.” He added: “Whatever noises might be coming from Brussels, which may be quite strident noises, that is not the mood in their national capitals. In the national capitals, there is an understanding of the political realities, that what is done cannot be undone and there is a genuine desire to explore the way of Britain and the EU working closely together even as Britain ceases to be a member.” Hammond also reiterated that the UK wants to get a move on with agreeing the rights of EU and British citizens abroad. His position is in line with that of Theresa May, the home secretary and Conservative leadership candidate, who has said EU citizens cannot definitely be allowed to stay without similar guarantees for Britons in other parts of the EU. This is in contrast to her rival, Andrea Leadsom, who has confirmed she would ensure all EU citizens have leave to remain. Hammond said: “We absolutely understand that there are a lot of people who have become nervous and concerned, both British people living in the EU and Europeans living in the UK. I hope we can get very soon to a reciprocal agreement which is fair to both the European Union nationals living in the UK and the British nationals living in the European Union. “From our side we would be prepared to sit down with European Union counterparts immediately and talk about this particular issue on a reciprocal basis on the grounds that there is concern both by EU nationals in the UK and UK nationals in EU member states. But of course that conflicts with [the position of] the EU institutions, which is that there are to be no negotiations, discussions of any kind until after the article 50 notice is served.” Hammond’s comments come after he said last week that the issue was likely to be “a big moving part” in the UK’s Brexit negotiation, and would be one of the most politically sensitive issues. The UK government has been under intense pressure from Conservative backbenchers and others to give a unilateral guarantee that the rights of EU migrants in the UK will not be damaged at the end of the Brexit talks. Giving evidence to the foreign affairs select committee, Hammond again said he could not give such a commitment and blamed “Brussels bureaucrats” for declaring there could be no informal negotiations until the official notice to leave was given. In practice, a total ban on informal talks is unenforceable, but the UK will have to tread carefully not to overstep the commission’s attempt to block such talks.
The six speeches Trump should borrow from at the Republican convention Donald Trump understands that sometimes authenticity and originality are best expressed through the language of well-known statements made by other people. His wife Melania snuck in a few pre-loved phrases in her convention speech earlier in the week, and that went well, so perhaps Donald can too. As he sets out his inclusive, dynamic, modern vision for America, he would do well to pay gentle homage to other – lesser – figures over whom his majestic hair and his mahogany-tanned head stands, begging to be carved into Mount Rushmore. It isn’t theft, so much as a gentle nod to some less wealthy, untalented people who Trump wants to make famous. Here are some options: Martin Luther King OK sure, so we all go to sleep at night, Dr King. There’s nothing unique about that. Donald sleeps in an opulent Manhattan penthouse. When you close your eyes on 24-carat gold and marble features in a Louis XIV style, frankly, you have a better class of dream. The Don could try: “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and be huge: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident; that crooked Hillary should be in jail.’ I have a dream that one day the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at a table in Trump Tower and enjoy one of my fabulous steaks. Best Trump-branded steaks on the market. Fabulous. I have a dream that my little children will one day live in a nation that I am in charge of, in which people will be judged both by the color of their skin and by their sinister religious convictions. I have a dream today.” Franklin D Roosevelt Roosevelt died three months into his fourth term. A classic quitter. Probably lied to America about his health the way Hillary lied about Benghazi. A lot of people are saying she should be in jail. Probably should be, don’t you think? Donald’s take on FDR’s line is a knockout: “The only thing we have to fear is Islam, and Mexicans.” Ronald Reagan Ronald Reagan helped end the separation of East and West Germany, and famously at the Brandenburg gate called upon his opposite number in Russia to tear down the Berlin Wall. What a great wall that was. A top wall, it brought real status and class to the place. Germany, China, even Britain has a wall somewhere up north. Trump knows the importance of walls, and should proclaim: “Mr [President of Mexico – check who that is] build up this wall.” J Robert Oppenheimer A pointy-head scientist whose work gave America the first nuclear bomb. Trump’s fearless strategy is to eradicate the extended families of terrorists. Thank God almighty that America never took the coward’s approach of submitting to the jurisdiction of the international criminal court. With his finger on the nuclear button, the Donald will have the ultimate lever to ensure America always gets a great deal. Trump can stir the base with: “Now I am become your candidate for president, the destroyer of worlds.” Richard Nixon Dickie knew America, he understood America, and he represented the entrepreneurial, can-do attitude that Donald Trump is all about. Nixon had a slight image problem, just a bit of a sweaty face in TV debates, whereas Donald knows how important it is to look slick and professional. This one’s about drawing a direct link between Nixon’s qualities as a president and Donald’s own character: “I am not a crook.” Abraham Lincoln Many people say Abe Lincoln was one of the top three US presidents, but he got shot. Trump likes the people who don’t get shot. If Lincoln had been carrying a suppressed MAC-10 at Ford’s Theatre, John Wilkes Booth would’ve tasted the sweet freedom of a 32-round clip of 45-cal hollowpoints to the abdomen. As it is, Lincoln ended up a loser. Still, he gave a half-decent speech once. “This nation, under the Christian God not the Muslim one, shall have a new birth of freedom – and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall remember that if Hillary isn’t even good enough for Bill, how can she be good enough for America?”
Amazon says 'business as usual' with plans to hire 1,000 extra staff Amazon is planning to hire 1,000 more people than previously expected in the UK this year as the online retailer rolls out its one-hour delivery operation and extends its web services. The company will now create 3,500 permanent full-time jobs in the UK in 2016, taking Amazon’s total workforce to 15,500 as its Prime Now fast-delivery service, launched a year ago, reaches more than a third of the UK population. Doug Gurr, Amazon UK’s new chief executive who officially took up his role this week, said the company was continuing with “business as usual” after the country’s vote to exit the EU last month. Gurr said: “There are a lot of details to work out and as it stands today we don’t know exactly what the impact will be or what the regulatory environment will be. Right now we are single-mindedly and solely focused on keeping our heads down and doing what we are doing. “As far as we are concerned nothing changes. We are still part of the EU. We’ll deal with [a change in] situation as it arrives.” Gurr said Amazon was not about to change its plans and had continued to see “sales in line with expectations” after the Brexit vote, and while there had been short-term changes around events such as the England v Iceland football match these evened out over the longer term. He said Prime Now was “rolling fast and we’re very pleased with the progress we’ve made”. Gurr said the company was also “encouraged” by customers’ response to its food delivery service, Amazon Fresh, which launched in the UK last month, but would not comment on any future expansion plans. Amazon Fresh initially delivered to 69 London postcodes but last week extended that to a total of 128, including in the south of London for the first time.
Donald Trump strikes muddled note on 'divisive' Black Lives Matter Donald Trump has accused the Black Lives Matter movement of “dividing America” amid renewed tensions surrounding police brutality and race relations, while suggesting he identified with African Americans who felt as though the system was stacked against them. The presumptive Republican nominee addressed the fallout from deadly police shootings of black men in Louisiana and Minnesota, and the killing of five police officers in Dallas, during both an interview with Fox News and a rally in Westfield, Indiana. But even as he expressed concerns over the police killings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, describing videos of the encounters as “tough to watch”, Trump blamed Barack Obama and Black Lives Matter as primarily responsible for divisions over race. “I think it’s certainly, it’s very divisive and I think they’re hurting themselves,” Trump told Fox News host Bill O’Reilly in reference to the phrase “black lives matter” and the eponymous movement leading national demonstrations for criminal justice reform. “The first time I heard it I said ‘You have to be kidding,’” said Trump. “I think it’s a very, very, very divisive term. There’s no question about it.” Asked what he would say to African Americans who feel as though the system was biased against them, Trump drew an analogy with his own campaign. “Well, I’ve been saying, even against me the system is rigged,” Trump told O’Reilly. “When I ran for president I could see what is going on with the system, and the system is rigged. “I can really relate it very much to myself.” Trump criticised the killings of Sterling and Castile as “a terrible, disgusting performance” by police. He struck a similar note while taking the stump in Indiana on Tuesday evening. “The two people killed in Louisiana and Minnesota, it was tough to watch,” Trump said. “I hated watching it.” “We have to figure it out what’s going on,” he added. “Was it training, was it something else? Could’ve been something else. “We have to take care of everybody … but we also have to get to the bottom of things. We have to.” The conflicting remarks were indicative of Trump’s struggle to soften his tone as his campaign insists he is capable of pivoting to the general election. Despite raising concerns over criminal justice, his rhetoric against Black Lives Matter remains more in line with his aggressive posture on the subject during the Republican primary. Through most of his campaign Trump has vehemently defended law enforcement and even shared misleading and racially charged crime data over his Twitter account. He also suggested at a rally in November that a Black Lives Matter protester “should have been roughed up”. Trump, overwhelmingly unpopular among African Americans in the polls, has declined an invitation to address the NAACP’s annual convention next week. Previous Republican candidates have addressed the gathering of the nation’s oldest and largest civil rights organisation. Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee, will speak before the group on Monday. On Tuesday in Indiana, Trump used most of his remarks on police dealings with minorities to reiterate his support for law enforcement. “The police are not just part of our society. The police are the best of our society,” he said. “We have to remember that. They represent our highest ideals, our greatest values and our most noble characteristics.” Trump was joined at the rally by the Indiana governor, Mike Pence, a top contender for the vice-presidential nomination. Trump is expected to announce a running mate within days and is also eyeing Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker and 2012 candidate for the Republican presidential nomination. Auditioning for the role on Tuesday, Pence praised Trump as “a fighter, a builder and a patriot”. “We will not rest, we will not relent, until we make this good man our president,” Pence said. Returning the praise moments later, Trump asked the governor’s hometown crowd about his performance as Indiana’s chief executive. “Good? I think so,” he said. “I think so.” As Trump and Pence previewed a possible Republican ticket on the stump, House Speaker Paul Ryan weighed in on what qualities he hoped Trump would consider while vetting contenders. “I would like a conservative,” Ryan, who was chosen as Mitt Romney’s running mate in 2012, told CNN during a town hall event on Tuesday night. “I would like someone to assure conservatives that the conservative principles will be adhered to and maintained throughout not just the campaign, but throughout his presidency.” Ryan also called for “mutual respect” on the issue of relations between police and minority communities. The speaker said it was important to show support for law enforcement and to acknowledge that “they take their lives at risk” each day. “I also think it’s important that we acknowledge that the fact that there are people in this country who believe that because of their color of their skin, they’re not as safe as everybody else,” Ryan added. “And the fact that people think that and feel that is a problem in this country.”
GreatFire activist urges western firms to help end Chinese censorship Western companies need to end their hypocrisy over free speech in China, and start helping to end censorship in the country, a leading anti-censorship activist has told the . One of the three co-founders of GreatFire, an organisation dedicated to fighting the so-called Great Firewall of China, the technological heart of state censorship in the country, said it hurts to see companies such as Apple citing Chinese censorship in their battles with western governments, while co-operating with authoritarian state in order to earn money from its burgeoning middle classes and take advantage of its enormous manufacturing base. Speaking in London shortly before winning a Freedom of Expression award from campaign group Index on Censorship, the activist, who goes by the pseudonym Charlie Smith due to the threat to his safety if the Chinese government discovers his identity, listed Apple and LinkedIn amongst his personal villains. Technology firms, including Apple, often cite China when arguing with western states about repressive internet restrictions. But Smith accuses them of not backing their words up with actions, and instead working hand-in-glove with the Chinese state o profit from the country’s vast internal market. In contrast, he praised Wikipedia and Github for their principled stands against censorship. He also praised Google for their decision in 2010 to stop censoring search results and pull out of mainland China. The praise for Google was tempered with caution, however, due to reports that the company might be re-entering the Chinese market to sell smartphone apps through the Play Store. “What is that going to involve?” Smith asked. “I think people are going to be very wary and attentive to how Google goes back into China. And hopefully they’re going to show us that there is a way to go back in without having to censor. “It would be a shame to see that,” he added. “I would be disappointed, and I know that a lot of other people would be disappointed, if Google went back in and said ‘we’re going to censor our search results again’, because they’ve made that mistake already, and they should understand that the situation hasn’t changed. But they did take a very public stand, and they’re one of the few companies to take a very public stand.” The Play Store is particularly sensitive, because it’s one of the primary outlets through which GreatFire works, releasing anti-censorship tools such as FreeBrowser, FreeWeibo and the recently announced FreeWeChat. The group was founded in 2011 to raise awareness about the Great Firewall of China, primarily through cataloguing which sites were blocked internally In recent years, however, it has pivoted to more direct action. Smith explains that the change was borne out of a serendipitous discovery. In January 2013, a White House petition was created calling on the Obama administration to deny entry to the architects of state censorship. The petition was backed up by a long list of such architects, hosted on the code sharing site GitHub. And so, on January 18 2013, Github was blocked in China. Unlike most previous sites censored by the state, Github is not just a news site or a social network: it is crucial to the working lives of a significant proportion of the programming community, as well as being a host for a number of important repositories required to make the internet work. And so, five days later, the site was unblocked in a rare event, and one that led to GreatFire’s concept of “collateral freedom”. “There are sites that are too valuable for the authorities to block, mainly for economic reasons,” Smith says. “So that’s when we started to work on this strategy of collateral freedom. And that strategy was basically leveraging the, for want of a better phrase, global internet infrastructure, to deliver uncensored content back in to China.” GreatFire used the collateral freedom approach to develop apps, as well as post uncensored content on cloud services such as Amazon’s AWS, where it could not be blocked by the Chinese authorities without taking down vast swathes of the net. But other companies weren’t as eager as Github and Amazon to help GreatFire. In October 2013, the group finished its FreeWeibo app, which archives posts that have been removed from Weibo, China’s Twitter. “We figured out a way to make it censorship-proof,” Smith said. “It was available on the app store, people could download it and the app could be updated. And we kinda got round all the restrictions that the authorities put in place there. But then the authorities just called Apple, and said ‘can you remove the app?’ and Apple said yes. And it was gone and that was it.” Responses such as Apple’s are why Smith says he has an issue with companies citing China when arguing against repressive government measures in the west. For instance, in its battle with the FBI over whether it could be forced to weaken the security on its own hardware, Apple repeatedly brought up China. Tim Cook specifically singled out China when he said that the governmental request was so unprecedented that no other country had asked for similar access. In the UK, arguments against the “snooper’s charter”, a bill that gives the British government huge power to eavesdrop on encrypted connections, have also been made with regard to China. The bill, some worry, would embolden the country to demand its own repressive changes. Smith scoffs at that scenario, saying: “China doesn’t need that precedent. It does it anyway.” More generally, he finds it hard to square tech firms’ pleas in the west, positioning China as unacceptably authoritarian, with the fact that they happily work in China, aiding government censorship. “I’ve been involved with China for a long time. This discussion’s been happening for a long time,” says Smith. “Post-Tiananmen Square, a lot of companies left. But at that time, it was different. There wasn’t this rich middle class willing to buy your goods. It was a lot easier for companies to make the morally correct decision to pull out. “But then, when they started coming back, they started saying ‘it’s better to have this conversation’. The world’s biggest internet companies, when they go there, they say that too. And I’d say to them, well, what have you accomplished? What improvements have been made? What has changed since the time you came in and said ‘engagement is better’? How have you improved the human rights situation? How have you improved the internet freedom situation? How have you improved access to information?” Some things, at least, have changed in the three years GreatFire has been chipping away at the Great Firewall. Not always for the better: In 2015, the censorship authorities, apparently realising that the collateral freedom approach was bearing fruit, switched tactics, turning on what was described as the “Great Cannon”. This is a modified version of a conventional hacking tactic known as a “distributed denial of service” attack. By redirecting the connections of millions of Chinese internet users, the authorities were able to make the firewall into an offensive weapon, overloading the connections of those they had been unable to take down by more conventional means. That cannon was pointed at Github and at GreatFire’s Amazon hosting. Although it failed to fully knock the sites offline, it cost the cash-strapped organisation a fair amount of money. But the emboldened tactics give Smith hope that, one way or another, the fight will be over soon. “No way do I want to be talking to you in five years,” he says with a sigh. “We don’t want to continue doing this. It’s hard to live a double life.” That said, “over soon” doesn’t necessarily mean China dropping its web censorship. Smith sees two ways the standoff can end: one possibility is that the state eventually gets over its fear of what the people would do if they saw the real internet, and drops the firewall. “That’s not going to have a revolutionary outcome though,” he says. Unlike many internet freedom campaigners, he’s sanguine about the actual change that will be wrought. If the censorship is dropped, he says, “most people will probably just sign up for Facebook and then carry on with their lives”. The other possibility is that the “collateral freedom” approach fails, and the country drops the firewall still further, blocking sites such as Github and Amazon. But even that would be a victory of sorts, pushing the country into a direct standoff with its people, and forcing its ruling class to decide between authoritarianism and economic success. Whichever it is, the status quo can’t last. “Technology is this enabling thing,” he says, “helping people to right wrongs. And it’s moving so fast. Something has to change.”
Sleaford ​​and North Hykeham voters express impatience over Brexit Zac Goldsmith and Stephen Phillips were Tory MPs with two of the most comfortable majorities in the country until they triggered shock parliamentary byelections this autumn. But the similarities between their seats – Richmond in south-west London, and Sleaford and North Hykeham in Lincolnshire – end there. While Goldsmith was ousted by Liberal Democrats riding a wave of anti-Brexit sentiment last week, voters in Sleaford, who go to the polls this Thursday, appear far from desiring a revolt against Theresa May’s march out of the EU. In fact, many in the largely rural Lincolnshire seat seem to want a hard Brexit, and they want it now. That means the main candidates are fighting a battle to appear the most anti-EU, with Ukip leaflets relentlessly painting the Tories as “Brexit backsliders” and Labour’s candidate keen to highlight his willingness to trigger article 50 despite having voted to remain. Only the Lib Dem candidate is concentrating on the 40% of voters in the constituency who backed remain last June. The Conservative choice, Caroline Johnson, appears to have all the right credentials to appeal in a true blue Tory heartland. She is a paediatrician, lives locally with her family and, crucially for the party, keeps stressing that she voted to leave the EU. But she has been left a tricky legacy by Phillips, who was elected for a second time in 2015 with a 24,000 majority. Although the barrister also voted leave, he resigned, citing irreconcilable differences with the prime minister, particularly over her reluctance to give parliament a bigger say in the Brexit process. “Stephen has his reasons, but that’s happened now and we need to look forward to the future,” Johnson says. “I voted to leave the EU and we’re committed to leaving the EU. Theresa May has said we’re going to leave and it now comes to negotiating the terms of that process.” It would clearly take a seismic change to turn Sleaford off a long habit of Tory voting since its creation as a seat in 1997. But the lack of progress on leaving the EU six months after the vote is clearly causing some restlessness. Mary James, 81, shopping in the marketplace in Sleaford, said she would vote Conservative because she “always has and always will”, but added that she was not entirely happy with May, and not keen on Phillips. “I do like Ukip and I am pleased about Brexit, except everyone is trying to destroy it. May started off wonderful and could be another Maggie Thatcher, but she really has to go for it and quickly as well before people get despondent,” James said. Robin Beever, 78, said he had always been a Conservative supporter, but he did know a few people who were turning to Ukip. “I think there is a little frustration about Brexit and people would like to get on with it, but we all know we’re in negotiations and it does take time,” he said. Victoria Ayling, a county councillor standing for Ukip, believes this argument will not wash with voters, and accuses her Tory opponent of not wanting a quick enough Brexit. At the same time, she dismisses the Labour candidate for voting remain and Jeremy Corbyn for “slagging off our armed forces and coming over like a complete traitor”. Her election material is targeted solely at the 60% of the Sleaford and North Hykeham electorate who want to leave the EU, telling those who are “devastated, angry and disappointed” about the referendum result to join the Lib Dems, while the “positive, proud and patriotic” should come to Ukip – the “popular movement that putting Britain back on its feet”. Ayling says: “It’s not just migration, it’s how much the EU is costing us. These latest figures of 650,000 or so migrants in July has gone down like a wet balloon. All this talk from Theresa May on Brexit means Brexit, all the delays, nothing’s changed. “Every day we are not out of the EU, not out of the single market, how many hundreds of thousands more are coming here and how many more billions are we paying into this corrupt system?” Ayling claims to be confident that she can run the Conservatives close, but no such thing happened in 2015, when she was beaten into third place in nearby Grimsby by Labour and the Tories, which she blamed on a smear campaign. She had previously run into trouble in the Mail on Sunday in 2013 over a video of her saying “Send the lot back”, which she later argued was about illegal immigration. Senior Ukip insiders have acknowledged that it is extremely unlikely that the party could repeat what the Lib Dems achieved in Richmond. Its efforts may also have been undermined by former leader Nigel Farage standing in front of a sign misspelling the name of the constituency as Sleaford and North Hykenham. However, Ukip still holds out hope of securing a second place and nudging Labour into third. Back in 1997, Labour was only 5,000 votes off winning, with 34% of the vote, but its share has declined ever since, slumping to just 17% last year. That decline puts the pressure on its candidate, Jim Clarke, a local refuse collector and long-time party supporter, who has just led a rally against the overnight closure of the local A&E. Clarke says the NHS is the big concern of voters in the area, but is also keen to stress that he would like May to get on with leaving the EU. “The Tories are taking the seat for granted, and we are making in roads,” he says. “The A&E, NHS and waiting times for doctors, regeneration are all coming up on the doorstep.” He adds: “Impatience about Brexit is a big issue in some people’s eyes as well. They want Theresa May to sort it out. I voted remain because my concern was local jobs and the economy. But politicians should respect how people have voted. [As an MP,] I would now vote for article 50 without a shadow of a doubt.” While Labour embrace the journey out of the EU, some remainers in Sleaford and North Hykeham appear to be confused about which party to choose, potentially creating space for the Lib Dems to increase their share of the vote. One teacher, who did not want to give her name because of her job, said she was worried about public services and Brexit, so would probably go for the independent candidate, as she said she had in the past. Meawhile, Marcus Hrubesch, owner of the Solo Bar in Sleaford’s market place, said he voted Ukip at the election as a protest, but actually wants to remain in the EU and now does not know who to vote for. “The Conservatives will win, obviously, but I’m very much undecided,” he says. “I voted to stay in, but I’m not bothered that we’re coming out. I voted Ukip as a protest vote. Theresa May – she’s just another puppet.”
Without the power of kindness, our society will fall apart If there is an irrepressible human trait it’s the determination, against all odds, to reconnect. Though governments seek to atomise and rule, we will keep finding ways to come together. Our social brains forbid any other outcome. They urge us to reach out, even when the world seems hostile. This is the conclusion I draw from touring England over the past few weeks, talking about loneliness and mental health. Everywhere I have been so far, I’ve come across the same, double-sided story: stark failures of government offset in part by the extraordinary force of human kindness. First the bad news: reminders of the shocking state of our mental health services. I met people who had waited a year for treatment, only to be given the wrong therapy. I heard how the thresholds for treatment are repeatedly being raised, to ration services. I met one practitioner who had been told, as a result of the cuts, to recommend computerised cognitive behaviour therapy to her patients. In other words, instead of working with a therapist, people must sit at a screen, using a programme to try to address disorders likely to have been caused or exacerbated by social isolation. Why not just write these patients a prescription instructing them to bog off and die?At least then they wouldn’t have to wait a year to be told to consult their laptops. I heard of children profoundly damaged by abuse and neglect being sent to secure accommodation – imprisoned in other words – not for their own safety, or other people’s, but because there is nowhere else for them to go. These are not isolated cases. It is a systemic problem. There has been no child and adolescent mental health survey in this country since 2004 (though one is now planned). Snapshot studies suggest something is going badly wrong: figures published last week, for example, suggest a near quadrupling in the past 10 years of girls admitted to hospital after cutting themselves. But there are no comprehensive figures. Imagine the outcry if the government had published no national figures on childhood cancer for 12 years, and was unable to tell you whether it was rising or falling. Of children referred for treatment for mental health disorders, 60% do not receive it. The recently published a mother’s account of how her child had been treated. Despite a severe mental health disorder, it was only after the child attempted suicide that she received the care she needed. The treatment consisted of sending her to the other end of the country: the only available bed was 300 miles from home. You don’t need to be a psychotherapist to imagine what that might do to a distressed and vulnerable child. But when the beds don’t exist, the health service has no choice. Embarrassed into a semblance of action, the coalition government promised another £250m a year for children’s mental health. It will scarcely touch the sides. But amid the rubble of a collapsing state, I kept stumbling into something wonderful. Performing with the musician Ewan McLennan, using music and the spoken word to explore these subjects, has brought me into contact with groups that restore my faith in the human spirit. In Leeds we ate in a cafe run by the Real Junk Food Project, whose meals are made from waste or donated food. Seeing people of all ages, from all stations of life, who had never come together before, yakking away over dinner like old friends, I realised that the project is addressing not only the waste of food but also the waste of social opportunity. Breaking bread together: this is still the best and simplest way of reconnecting. In Sheffield I met a man creating safe spaces for people experiencing manic or psychotic episodes: using woods, allotments and – if his project gets planning permission – cobb houses like hobbit holes to create a place of comfort for those whose minds are reeling. In Durham I saw how people whose poor mental health and isolation exclude them from work are being gently introduced to the social skills and creativity that might allow them to re-engage. In Bristol I met someone from the Happy City initiative, which is finding ways to measure wellbeing and discovering the best means of enhancing it. Across the country, groups such as the Campaign to End Loneliness, Age UK, Independent Age, Community Network, Young Minds, the Transition Network, the Network of Wellbeing and the forthcoming Jo Cox Commisssion on Loneliness are trying to provide a coherent response to the troubled times that lead to troubled minds. Everywhere I look, I see the kind of enterprise and innovation with which business is credited, but which seems to be found most often in the voluntary sector. But what has struck me with greatest force is this. At the end of every gig, we ask people in the audience to turn to someone they don’t know and say hello. I tell them they needn’t do any more than that, but they can keep talking if they wish. On the first night I made the mistake of mentioning the idea before we had wrapped up the show. That was all it took – the conversation flared up immediately, and it was a long time before I could direct people’s attention back to the stage. After every concert the talking has continued long into the night, in the venue’s bar or the nearest pub. It’s as if people have simply been waiting for permission to speak to the strangers who surround them. Britain, according to government figures, is the loneliness capital of Europe, but even – or perhaps especially – here, the urge to connect is overwhelming. This reattachment, I believe, holds the key to both our psychological and political transformation. Connected, engaged and happy people do not allow themselves to be trampled into the dirt. It is when we are estranged both from each other and from our political environment that we are easiest to manipulate, as the rise of demagoguery in Europe and the US seems to attest. Neither state provision nor community action is a substitute for the other: we need both. But the more effective community groups and voluntary initiatives become, the harder it is for governments to disregard their duties. By talking together, we find our voice. • You can catch up on our discussion on this article in our Your Opinions thread.
Never mind the Botox: meet the men opting for non-surgical treatments The office of plastic surgeon Dr Yannis Alexandrides, on the second floor of his clinic at 111 Harley Street, has a reassuringly expensive air. The ceiling is high, the desk large and the decor includes an artwork featuring a pair of full-size seated skeletons that the doctor, for obvious reasons, would prefer not to be photographed with. Dr Yannis, as everyone in the practice calls him, is himself very reassuring, calm and precisely spoken. If he concurs with what you’ve just said, he looks over his clasped hands and says “correct”. And he broadly agrees with my assertion that plastic surgery is a costly option (his prices for a facelift start at £6,500). “It’s expensive because it requires very high expertise to be performed well,” he says. “It requires some kind of hospitalisation, usually, so it comes attached with this cost. And also follow-up, so it’s not just about having an operation.” According to figures released by the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons (Baaps), there were 51,140 cosmetic surgery procedures in the UK last year, up a whopping 13% on the previous year. Of those, 4,164 procedures were performed on men. This is almost twice the number of men who had cosmetic surgery a decade ago, remaining at about 9% of the total. The broader figures chime with the numbers at 111 Harley Street. “Funnily enough, we’ve seen a small decrease in surgeries for men last year,” says Dr Yannis, “but we’ve seen a big increase in non-surgical treatments.” And that’s where the real uptake in male vanity seems to be occurring. Cosmetic procedures also break down into surgical and non-surgical: a facelift is the former; among the latter are “injectables” (Botox, dermal fillers etc), laser treatments, facials and prescription skincare regimes. At 111 Harley Street, they provide all this in addition to – or, increasingly, in place of – surgery. According to the clinic’s managing director, Agata Podwika, while surgery has seen a small decrease, the number of men having non-surgical treatments has risen by 50% year on year. David, 50, a client who has had regular Botox treatments since 2001, has also had filler injected into his lips and “laser lipo” on his jaw and neck (“Really chuffed with that one,” he says). He’s a big fan of the subtle effect of skilfully deployed non-surgical treatments. “You’re not gonna look like the ‘Bride of Wildenstein’,” he says (I believe him, but can’t confirm; we spoke on the phone). He claims that acceptance of these treatments has risen sharply among men since he started. “Back then, Botox wasn’t widely known about, it wasn’t marketed at guys,” he says. “Men have caught up massively with the options that are out there.” When Daniel Smith had his first Botox treatment last June, he was 34. Although he had been concerned about some wrinkles that he felt aged him beyond his years, he was apprehensive about what he calls “that frozen look” and only had a small dose. He has a picture on his phone from his most recent treatment, in December, with 13 dots drawn on his forehead and round his eyes, to indicate where the injections were to go. “I’ve lost quite a deep vertical and horizontal frown line, but I’ve kept some subtle age lines,” he says, “Personally, I saw a dramatic difference in the effect round my eyes, so I’m happy with that. I’d definitely do it again.” If he wants the effect to persist, he’ll have to do it again, in about three months’ time. Smith doesn’t see cosmetic intervention as a brave new world for his gender, because he already works in skin care (he also has an interest to declare; he does brand consulting work for 111Skin, Dr Yannis’s range of products). But he does perceive a growing openness about anti-ageing procedures for men. “I think, a few years ago, people had Botox and didn’t talk about it. I tell everyone. If people say: ‘Hey, your skin looks great’, I’ll show them the photo and say: ‘This is where I had it.’” Smith has no interest in graduating to plastic surgery, but he doesn’t rule out other procedures in the future. “If you were asking what I’m thinking of next,” he says, “it wouldn’t be filler. It would be a Silhouette lift.” The Silhouette, or “soft thread” face lift is one of several procedures marketed as a non-surgical counterpart to classic plastic surgery (Liposonix is a proprietary, noninvasive alternative to liposuction; a “non-surgical nose job” involves the strategic injection of fillers to minimise bumps or irregularities). With the soft thread lift, a needle is used to pull filaments under the skin of the face to tighten the neck and jawline. If that sounds horrible, try watching a YouTube video. The effect lasts between three and four years. When it comes to cosmetic surgery, it seems that dissuasion is often part of the consultation. A 2008 Baaps survey found that half of plastic surgeons turned away 10% of their patients in the course of a year, and that one in five surgeons had turned away 30%. Reasons for refusing patients included unrealistic expectations, preexisting medical conditions and people wanting procedures that weren’t warranted. I put it to Dr Yannis that lots of his patients must come with preconceived notions of what plastic surgery can achieve for them in terms of wellbeing. “Correct,” he says. “I think it’s important to understand the psychology of a patient who seeks plastic surgery. That’s paramount, at the end of the day, because it’s an elective surgery. We remind patients that this is for them to become happier, more confident, to boost the morale. If you feel, even beside the fact that you can technically perform a successful operation, that the patient wouldn’t be happy, would not be more confident, or might actually have more problems, then, in my book, you shouldn’t go ahead.” This raises the thorny question of what precisely is a legitimate frame of mind in which to seek cosmetic surgery. “A lot of people come in,” says Dr Yannis, “and they say: ‘Look, I’m not really bothered, but everywhere I go everybody says, Oh, you look so tired.’” This runs counter to my experience of British life, where everyone goes round telling everyone else how tired they feel. It sounds like an excuse. “People don’t retire as early as they used to,” says Dr Tammy Manning, Dr Yannis’s surgical nurse. “You will see gentlemen come in for anti-ageing procedures because they’re in the workforce a lot longer. You’ve got younger people you’re competing with.” For what it’s worth, the very existence of this pressure is denied by both the male clients I spoke to. “No pressure at all,” says David. “I do it personally for myself. I like to look as good as I can. There’s no need to look like an old knacker.”
13 Hours: Michael Bay's Benghazi movie and 'the American Way' Toward the end of last night’s 523rd Republican presidential debate, Senator Ted Cruz, whom you might remember as the demonic spirit from the movie It Follows, suddenly turned into the Moviefone guy and reminded America that a very, very important motion picture is set for release on Friday. “Tomorrow morning a new movie will debut about the incredible bravery of the men fighting for their lives in Benghazi,” he said. “And the politicians that abandoned them.” He was referring to 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi, which you might know better as “The Benghazi Movie”. I honestly haven’t heard many people actually refer to the film by its official title. Ask someone on the street if they’ve seen 13 Hours and they might respond with: “Oh, you mean the Spike Lee movie?” No, that’s the 25th Hour. “Is that the movie about the Cuban missile crisis?” Negative, that’s Thirteen Days. So, I just call it The Benghazi Movie. Sorta like The Lego Movie, but replacing Batman, Lord Business and Wyldstyle with a series of sitcom actors wearing identical beards and some sheep. Senator Cruz is still pretty hung up on the events of 11 September 2012, an assault on American diplomatic and espionage bases in Libya. To be fair, so was everyone else on the stage last night. Chris Christie promised that Hillary Clinton, secretary of state during the Benghazi attack, would “not get within 10 miles of the White House” because of her perceived crimes were he to become president. That seems kind of harsh. After all, she used to live there. What if she left her sunglasses in the Lincoln bedroom? But that pointed rhetoric is indicative of the conservative view of Clinton and the tragedy in Benghazi. They want someone punished, preferably Hillary, since she’s actively running for the highest office in the land. Four Americans died, plus those who lost their lives on the other side of the conflict. The people who survived the siege of the American outposts had their very existence changed irrevocably. No one should have to experience such a horror show. Except you can right now, for a price. It only cost me $14, plus the cost of two Uber rides, to experience said horror show – well, at least Michael Bay’s multimillion-dollar fictionalized, shaky-cam approximation of a horror show. After Ted Cruz’s call to arms, I knew that it was my duty as an American to swallow a bucket of popcorn like a baby bird while watching the truth about Benghazi’s heroes on the largest screen available. I needed to join my fellow patriots and do my duty. Plus, I had no other plans and no one was answering my phone calls. I was seeing the film at the Americana at Brand, an outdoor mall-slash-consumerist pleasure palace that resembles a quaint, small-town American main street. There’s a trolley that ferries shoppers from one end of the mall to the other, which takes much longer than just walking. I suppose it’s great for tourists who want to take pictures. “Look, honey,” they might say. “There’s the Apple store! And a Cheesecake Factory! And a Sephora! Wow, this really is the greatest country in the world.” In that moment, as I take in the capitalist splendor, I feel grateful that I was seeing 13 Hours at the Americana. It reminds me what our boys in Libya were fighting for. The mall has a theater – a generic monstrosity called the Pacific Theaters 18 – in the middle of the complex. I walk in a half-hour before the 9.05pm screening is set to begin. The clerk at the front of the house asks me to pick my seat – LA is civilized, so most multiplexes have assigned seating now. I have a litany of options, as the theater is maybe 30% full, if I’m being generous. I deliberately choose a seat close to the screen, because if I’m going to get the truth about Benghazi, I want the whole truth. As I enter the auditorium, I scan the crowd for the purposes of assessing the demographics. There’s only one woman I can see, and she’s on a date. I wonder what kind of sadistic creature considered 13 Hours an acceptable date movie. It’s not quite Love, Actually, people. It’s more like Death, Eventually – a grisly, jingoistic tale of noble beards fighting for survival. I suppose that’s kind of romantic. John Krasinski’s character has a wife and children (with another one on the way) that motivate him to survive certain peril at the hands of cruel, nihilistic terrorists. Maybe Ted Cruz will take his wife to see this on Valentine’s Day and declare that he would also gladly eviscerate another human being to see her face again. Hold me, I’m swooning. All thoughts of romance leave me once the lights dim and the ominous music kicks in. This film is very dumb, very bleak and very graphic. I laugh when the squirrelly guy from Breaking Bad screams: “I don’t want to hear it, Tyrone,” as though he’s the surly chief from a bad 80s cop movie. Toward the middle of the picture, Toby Stephens – the English actor best known as the villain from James Bond movie Die Another Day – turns to camera with a straight face and requests “a bag full of money and a flight to Benghazi”, which is the kind of thing that only sounds clever and significant in hindsight. I guarantee you, no one knew that the word “Benghazi” would matter one bit to Americans back home almost four years later. Still, Stephens delivers the line as though he’s talking to an audience in 2016 rather than the character he’s sharing the scene with in the imaginary version of 2012. After a bit of banter and some exposition, the violence begins. One of the lead beards gets his arm shot in half and spends a good portion of the third act with his forearm and hand dangling from the rest of his body like a sausage hanging in a deli window. Bay is sure to frame the broken arm for maximum viewing disruption. It’s so hideous – what with the dripping blood and exposed bones and what not – that you can’t help but pay rapt attention, albeit through the spaces between your fingers as you shield your face from the simulated mutilation. I can’t help but wonder if the couple who came to see this film are regretting their decision as much as I am. Dawn breaks and the cavalry arrives to save our heroes, and the film wraps up with our remaining beards escaping the hellish war zone and returning to their families. Nicky Sobotka from The Wire asks John Krasinski what they get for their trouble. Krasinski says: “We get to go home.” In that moment, I felt like he was speaking for me. Granted, I just watched the movie. I didn’t even act in it. I certainly didn’t live it. All the same, I took great comfort in knowing I was about to go home too. Just like John Krasinski, I was about to see my long-suffering, lonely wife. I just hoped she wasn’t also pregnant. The brave souls who ventured to the outdoor mall in order to watch a fake version of a real war exit the theater peacefully. Hardly anyone speaks to each other, presumably because of the sheer gravity of the art they’ve witnessed, or maybe just because they’re really, really exhausted at midnight on a Thursday. The lone couple makes some small talk, none of it about the movie, from what I can tell. Two men walk out in front of me. They’re also whispering, but I can definitely make out one of them saying the word “crap”. I don’t know if that’s in reference to 13 Hours, the current state of the Los Angeles Lakers basketball team, or just life in general. Some mysteries should never be solved. My Uber driver on the ride home is named Lavrent. He speaks with an accent, but I don’t dare speculate on its origin for fear of mislabeling him. “Pretty cold out,” Lavrent says in an attempt to make small talk. “Yup, though it could be worse. It could be snowing,” I respond. He goes on to tell me how he once witnessed 20 minutes of snow in Burbank, a town not far from Glendale. His obligatory anecdote complete, we sit in silence for a bit until I venture to ask him how his night is going so far. “I just started,” he tells me. My question is nothing more than a clever way to ask him what he thinks about 13 Hours. “That’s cool. I just saw the Benghazi movie,” I say. From there he shuts down, like I just pressed a button on Data from Star Trek’s neck and deactivated him. “Yeah, it was really bad. I don’t know why I bothered seeing it,” I continue, hoping he’ll have an opinion or really any response at all. Nothing. I realize then that I either offended him or made him think I was about to commit a hate crime. We get to my apartment, I thank him, he mumbles, and I leave. I rate him five stars to apologize for our awkward moment – a minor penance for my social faux pas. It’s clear to me that collectively, and individually, we don’t want to talk about Benghazi. Granted, neither did Hillary Clinton, but she did, for hours, more than once, with cameras trained on her the entire time. Hillary probably doesn’t want to talk about it because it’s a roadblock in front of her path to the presidency. The average citizen might not want to talk about it because it’s a divisive, politically charged topic with a tinge of xenophobia on the side. Conservatives badly want to talk about it, though, because it’s politically advantageous for them in a presidential election year. In all cases, our response to Benghazi is self-interested, predicated on our political leanings and our tolerance for tragedy. Right or wrong, I don’t think most Americans understand or care about Benghazi. The rest have moved on. A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll from November of last year found that only 38% of Americans found Hillary Clinton’s response to the Benghazi attack unsatisfactory. That it is still a throbbing, raw nerve in the gladitorial pit of our democracy is surprising. That it’s now a form of escapist entertainment is depressing. I’m sure the intention of Michael Bay and the other film-makers behind 13 Hours was to honor the fallen of Benghazi, but at least with the audience I saw the film with, the end result is a mind-numbing sensory assault that’s barely coherent. It’s a movie that’s no more political than a Transformers sequel, probably because Michael Bay is less interested in politics than he is in social hierarchies and class warfare. Like in any Michael Bay movie, bureaucrats, intellectuals and upper-class snobs are benign, arrogant foils for the true heroes – the muscle-bound oaf or the horny teen. If that’s a political statement, then I guess Caddyshack belongs in the same Netflix category as Bowling for Columbine. Regardless, Ted Cruz and his fellow candidates will surely try to use this motion picture for their own personal gain for as long as possible. That’s what we do with tragedy in this country, after all. We build a memorial, complete with a gift shop stocked with all the cheaply made junk imaginable. We crank out corny movies based on the true story in the hope that enough people will drag their significant other to the theater to experience the sadness first-hand, with the explicit goal of making a sorry buck off the misery. And we try to score political points whenever possible. That’s the American Way.
Turkey should not be an issue in EU referendum, says foreign minister Turkey’s status as a candidate to join the European Union should not be an issue in the UK referendum since the country has never been a burden on the EU, the Turkish foreign minister has said. “It is not right that the issue of when Turkey will become a member of the EU is used in the Brexit campaign. Turkey has never been a burden on the EU,” Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu told a news conference in Ankara. He said Turkey would like Britain to stay in the EU for a stronger bloc. His remarks are the latest sign of tensions between Turkey and the UK over David Cameron’s insistence that Turkey should not expect to join the EU until the year 3000. During the campaign Cameron has put various timeframes on Turkey’s possible membership of the EU but for diplomatic reasons has refused to declare whether the UK would use its veto to block Turkey. Although the EU has said it will shortly open talks on the next chapter of the lengthy Turkish accession process, the move is seen as largely symbolic due to the overwhelming opposition to Turkish membership across the European Union. It takes only one EU member state to block an accession. Even if Britain chose not to veto Turkish membership, a host of other European countries say they are willing to reject Turkey. The French Socialist government, for instance, has said it would not agree to the Turkish membership of the EU without holding a referendum. Speaking on LBC on Wednesday, Cameron said the issue of Turkish membership of the EU was the “reddest of red herrings”. Asked to rule out Turkish membership of the EU, he said: “We want Turkey to be a democracy. We want it to lean towards the west. We want it to have a market economy. But the idea of it joining the EU is decades away.” Sir John Major, the former UK prime minister, said on Wednesday that Turkey would not join the EU for a decade or two, a shorter timeframe than Cameron’s. The leave campaign, arguing that the referendum will be the last on the issue of UK relations with the EU for decades, says it is legitimate to raise the prospect that Turkey will join the EU at some point in the foreseeable future. It points out that the British Foreign Office has a dedicated team in Ankara working to prepare Turkey for membership. Since the 1990s the UK has been one of the leading advocates of Turkey’s membership of the EU, but the growing repression by the president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, including the arrest of journalists and his call for greater executive powers, has put the Turkish case for membership backwards. The issue remains extremely sensitive diplomatically, as Turkey’s cooperation is required to stem the flow of refugees from Syria, as well as to act as an opponent of President Bashar al-Assad inside Syria. İlnur Çevik, chief adviser to the president, told theBBC’s Newsnight: “We thought that Cameron was our chief supporter in our quest for European Union membership. We are really, really flabbergasted, let’s put it that way. “Turks felt that the British were the driving force behind our EU membership and that they were driving us right to the hilt. The way Mr Cameron put it, we feel really, really taken in. The way he’s saying it, ‘they were never going to get in anyway, we just said we’ll go along with them’, that kind of attitude is deeply hurting the Turks.” Iain Duncan Smith, a prominent leave campaigner, said: “David Cameron has repeatedly claimed that Turkey is not going to join the EU despite it being government policy. Now the Turkish government has confirmed that he is the ‘chief supporter’ of their bid to join the EU. “Cameron also said that Turkey will not join until the year 3000 but Sir John Major has let the cat out of the bag - Turkey could be in the EU in 10 years’ time.” The EU and Turkey signed a refugee deal on 18 March, which aimed to discourage irregular migration across the Aegean Sea by taking stricter measures against human traffickers and improving the conditions of nearly 3 million Syrian refugees in Turkey. The deal allows for the acceleration of Turkey’s EU membership bid and visa-free travel for Turkish nationals within the Schengen area, on the condition that Ankara meets 72 requirements set by the EU. The visa-free aspect of the deal has been delayed until October.
Trump picks budget 'hawk' Mick Mulvaney to lead budget office President-elect Donald Trump has nominated Mick Mulvaney, a conservative Republican congressman from South Carolina who is known as a budget “hawk”, as director of the Office of Management and Budget. In a statement issued on Saturday morning – shortly after Trump tweeted an inflammatory comment about China’s seizure of a US navy drone in the South China Sea – Trump called Mulvaney a “very high-energy leader with deep convictions for how to responsibly manage our nation’s finances and save our country from drowning in red ink”. Trump also said that with Mulvaney as his budget director, his administration would make “smart choices” and “renew the American taxpayer’s trust in how their money is spent”. Mulvaney said he would help restore “budgetary and fiscal sanity … after eight years of an out-of-control, tax-and-spend financial agenda” under Barack Obama. Like other Trump nominations, the budget director’s job requires Senate approval. Mulvaney’s nomination follows a pattern of Trump turning to individuals with records apparently hostile to the agencies they are nominated to lead. For example, the Oklahoma attorney general, Scott Pruitt, a leading critic of climate change theories, has been nominated to lead the Environmental Protection Agency. In other such moves, the billionaire and charter schools advocate Betsy DeVos has been nominated as education secretary and the Alabama senator Jeff Sessions, a critic of voting rights legislation, has been nominated as attorney general. The announcement about Mulvaney was made as Trump, who takes office on 20 January, began his holiday vacation at Mar-a-Lago, his oceanfront club in Palm Beach, Florida. Mulvaney, 49, was an outspoken critic of the former House speaker John Boehner, who resigned in 2015 amid opposition from fellow Republicans who were members of the House Freedom Caucus. His selection points to a strategy by Trump to cut government where he can. The president-elect has recently railed against what he has called a far too expensive new version of the Air Force One aircraft he will use, which Boeing is supposed to build. “With Mick at the head of OMB,” Trump said in his statement, “my administration is going to make smart choices about America’s budget, bring new accountability to our federal government, and renew the American taxpayer’s trust in how their money is spent.” Mulvaney said: “Each day, families across our nation make disciplined choices about how to spend their hard-earned money, and the federal government should exercise the same discretion that hard-working Americans do every day,” he said. On Friday night, Trump vowed to seek approval from Congress for $1tn in new spending to rebuild the country’s crumbling network of roads, bridges, airports and other infrastructure as a way to create jobs and make some needed repairs. “We are going to fix our country. It’s time. We have no choice. It’s time,” Trump said at a rally in Orlando, Florida.
Debate duets: Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump serenade each other The second US presidential debate was characterised by levels of vitriol never before seen on the US political stage. But while millions of viewers across the world watched in horror as the Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton bloodied themselves over the Trump tapes, Clinton emails, tax, Syria and Obamacare, others saw the opportunity for humour. Enter the memes. The combination of microphones and roaming candidates, aided by the town hall-style of the debate in St Louis, proved fertile ground for imagining an alternate reality – one where Clinton and Trump were serenading each other. As the debate ground on the #debatesongs hashtag spawned memes of the pair singing along to duets from Frozen, Grease and – probably most memorably – Dirty Dancing. In others, images of Trump and Clinton clutching their microphones were juxtaposed with lyrics sung by Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers or Bing Crosby and Doris Day. Suddenly, partisan politics evaporated and was replaced by a large dollop of romance. But where some saw love and understanding, others only found animosity.
My brother, Bernie Sanders, has got it right on healthcare This week my brother, Bernie Sanders, won the Wisconsin Democratic primary – which is great news. But it is also great news for a central and defining issue in his campaign, which is the shambles that is American healthcare. The strangest thing about the debate over healthcare in the US is that it is still going on. The system’s failure is glaring. Millions have inadequate care and tens of thousands die unnecessarily. Average life expectancy is lower than that in dozens of poorer countries, and more children die and more people have chronic diseases than in other rich countries. People pay vastly more than in any comparable economy, and their lives are dominated by the fear of falling ill, of being unable to protect their children, of having to choose between buying insurance and having enough for rent or mortgage. And then, when serious illness develops – often because early treatment was not affordable – they face grinding financial worries on top of the illness itself. A million people a year are bankrupted by health debts. It is not difficult to see why the beneficiaries of this failing system support it, as astonishing amounts of money can be made. The chief executive of United Healthcare, the largest insurer, for instance, was paid $66m in 2014. But why do so many people vote for politicians, including Hillary Clinton and Ted Cruz, who argue that the US cannot have a high-quality universal system? Much of the reason comes from the normal working of a very unequal system. Wealthy executives and shareholders can finance intensive lobbying and contribute to election campaigns. The founding principle that “all men are created equal and are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights” could have led to good healthcare being available to everyone. This is what my brother argues: that “healthcare must be recognised as a right ... regardless of their income”. The belief in equality is deep in American society, but it is challenged by a conviction that government support is morally dangerous for the individual and an assault on the rights of those whose taxes pay for the benefits. In fact, while over 60% of the healthcare budget is provided from taxes, the problem is how little of it actually pays for care. The private insurance industry siphons off hundreds of billions of healthcare dollars for overheads, profit and administration. It has little incentive to control costs because higher costs allow it to increase charges proportionately. Pharmaceutical prices are much higher than in systems with powerful centralised purchasers. Reducing these prices to European levels would save more than $100bn a year. Patients with inadequate or no insurance are given expensive care in emergency rooms, having failed to get timely attention. The high cost is not due to more doctors and hospital beds: there are far fewer of both per capita than in most other rich countries, and they are used less frequently. Expensive technology is employed much more often as competition means providers must appear to be up to date. There is also a perverse incentive for profit-makers: the more they sell, the better they do – two procedures are better than one. The National Academy of Medicine estimates that unnecessary care given to well-insured patients cost $210bn in 2009. The entire system is riddled with waste of this kind. It is hard to see a solution that is not a publicly financed, universal and not for profit. Obamacare, though an improvement, is an inadequate alternative. It helps some people get insurance but it doesn’t guarantee coverage: 20 million people have been able to get insurance; 30 million are still not covered for healthcare. Insurance companies are still allowed to limit benefits, medical providers and care; they can (and do) increase patients’ co-pays (the fee paid each time treatment is accessed) and other out-of-pocket costs. The system adds further layers of administration to the current mess, and increases the scope for profiteering. A truly universal system would be financed by progressive taxation, but under Obamacare costs continue disproportionately to be paid by middle-and lower-income Americans and those facing acute or chronic illness. The struggle between profit and good quality healthcare for all cannot stop. Too much money and a decent society are at stake. British people notice that we have too few doctors in the UK and too few nurses and hospital beds. Britain too squanders billions on administration and privatisation. But many Americans are fighting for what the UK has. We must campaign to preserve and restore the NHS, which despite its challenges works well as a service and helps bind us together as a society.
Bank customers' overdraft fees could be capped, say regulators Regulators have warned banks they could cap charges they levy on customers who dip into an unauthorised overdraft. The warning from the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) came as it extended its investigation into the retail and small business banking sectors. The inquiry was due to end in May but has now been pushed back to 12 August, after the publication in October of a provisional report that was criticised as an inadequate response to the dominance of the so-called big four. Lloyds Banking Group, Royal Bank of Scotland, Barclays and HSBC have a 70% share of current accounts. Their dominance has not been cracked by challenger banks, which have taken only a 5% market share in 10 years. As the CMA announced the three-month extension, it highlighted possible additional measures to make overdrafts fairer for customers. “These include measures to help customers better understand and manage their use of overdrafts, requiring banks to offer grace periods during which customers can take action to avoid unarranged overdraft charges, requiring banks to give PCA [personal current account] customers a choice on whether to have an unarranged overdraft facility or not, and measures to limit maximum unarranged overdraft charges each month,” the CMA said. It said it needed the extra time after taking into consideration “the further work required to develop the analyses, and the further work required to develop a suitable package of remedies that is reasonable and comprehensive in addressing any findings of adverse effects on competition in the retail banking markets for PCA customers and SMEs [small and medium sized enterprises]”. This was not enough to placate Which?, the consumer group that has been calling for radical changes to the sector. Its chief executive, Richard Lloyd, said: “This inquiry is now looking like a lost opportunity to deliver better banking for consumers.” Comparing accounts offered by different current account providers is notoriously difficult because of the complex charges linked to overdrafts and other facilities. The CMA has been looking at ways for a price comparison service to be set up for small business customers. It said it favoured a move by Nesta, a charity backed by the National Lottery, to set up a fund to encourage the creation of a price comparison service for small businesses. The investigation was announced in July 2014 at a time of heightened political scrutiny of the sector and when the Labour party was calling for two new challenger banks to be set up.
John Singleton: police brutality 'goes all the way back to slavery' John Singleton, whose 1991 film Boyz N the Hood depicted police prejudice in South Central Los Angeles, has attacked the current state of law enforcement in the US, saying it shows “inherent, systemic racism”. Singleton, speaking ahead of the premiere of The Talk, a PBS documentary about police violence towards the black community in which he is among those interviewed, said the current status quo was the legacy of slavery. Singleton said he feels parents often encourage their offspring to adopt a submissive attitude toward law enforcement as a result of America’s segregated history. “I’m not [talking about] being confrontational,” said Singleton. “Just asking questions of the people who are supposed to be protecting you and serving the community. But you can’t even ask them questions. “That’s inherent, systemic racism to me. Because it goes all the way back to slavery for me, of a whole system trying to control black men. If a white man says something, he’s always right. Never question a white man.” Boyz N the Hood made Singleton the youngest ever best director Oscar nominee – as well as the first African American to be up for the prize. In 2014, he criticised Hollywood studios for “refusing to let African Americans direct black-themed films” as well as black genre film-makers for not pushing artistic boundaries. “They want black people to be who they want them to be, as opposed to what they are,” he told the Hollywood Reporter. “The black films now – so-called black films now – they’re great. They’re great films. But they’re just product. They’re not moving the bar forward creatively.”
Deakin university journalism professor suspended without pay over tweets A journalism professor remains suspended without pay from Deakin University after a Twitter exchange led to the university accusing him of serious misconduct and suspending him. Martin Hirst was suspended on 19 April for three tweets he posted on his private Twitter account @ethicalmartini, which does not identify him as a Deakin University employee. It’s the latest run-in with the authorities at Deakin for Hirst, who narrowly escaped losing his job in 2014 after the columnist Andrew Bolt drew attention to his Twitter account by posting a series of his tweets on his blog. This time, the university received a complaint about one tweet – which they allege was threatening towards a Deakin student – and after an investigation it identified two other tweets and accused Hirst of breaching the code of conduct for academics. News Corp columnist Rita Panahi said Hirst was a “rent-seeking simpleton full of bitterness & bile” because Hirst had called her “unstable” when he jumped in to defend someone she had insulted. Then a Deakin university student, Lachlan McDougall, said: “I’m glad I’m a commerce student and not subject to this man’s [Hirst’s] stewardship.” McDougall’s Twitter profile identifies him as a Deakin University student. Hirst replied: “so are you happy to fail commerce?” McDougall: “If that’s a threat, you’re utterly ridiculous. If it’s not, my academic record is satisfactory.” The university received a complaint about Hirst’s comment which alleged it was threatening and inappropriate but has declined to identify the complainant or give Hirst a copy of the complaint. “Your comments are inappropriate, unprofessional and involved an implied threat to compromise this students’ academic progression,” the university said in its letter to Hirst. Hirst denied any threat, saying he did not know who McDougall was at the time and was questioning his intelligence given that he followed Panahi and he had made a derogatory remark about his teaching abilities. “I am not in the same faculty as Mr McDougall and have no control over his marks for any unit,” Hirst told the university in his official response. “It is ridiculous to infer that I have either the intent or the capacity to impede the academic progress of this student.” The second tweet contained a photo of a knitted beanie on which the words “fuck it” are printed, with the caption: “Back to work after the Easter break? You need this beanie. I’ve got mine on today, it’s a subtle hint to your boss”. A third was a retweet of a comment by ABC host Mark Colvin about Andrew Bolt’s relatively small audience on Sky News, Hirst had added the words “reassuring, masturbating chimps”. Deakin’s school of communication and creative arts told Hirst his Twitter use constituted “repeated instances of misconduct” because the content was “offensive and/or disrespectful and/or threatening and had the potential to damage the reputation of the university”. “Please be advised that due to the very serious nature of the allegations which have been detailed in this letter, the university may ultimately take disciplinary action which may include, but is not limited to, termination of your employment,” the letter of 19 April said. The university told Hirst in light of disciplinary action taken against him in 2014, his Twitter use was a “gross breach” of the academic code of conduct. Hirst told Australia he was shocked the university had interpreted his remark as a threat. “To say that those tweets are offensive is just ridiculous. I can’t believe that Deakin would accuse me of threatening a student. I’ve been there for five years, I’ve been an academic for 20 years and I’ve never had a student complaint. “I love teaching, I love researching I’m good at it. I haven’t been paid for seven weeks and I haven’t heard from them for a month. “All I was doing in that [McDougall] tweet was suggesting he wasn’t very smart. I didn’t even know he was a Deakin student ... Deakin won’t tell me who complained. It could be vexatious and they’re relying on that complaint for the basis of their charge. The Victorian division secretary of the National Tertiary Education Union, Colin Long, wrote to Deakin on Tuesday to demand Hirst be reinstated and his salary backdated because the allegations were not of a “serious enough nature” to warrant suspension under the university’s enterprise agreement. “The university has been in receipt of Professor Hirst’s response to the allegations for a period of four weeks and still has not advised him of what, if any further action, will be taken in report of this matter,” Long wrote. In 2014 Hirst was accused of bringing the university into disrepute and suspended without pay for three months after an increasingly vituperative exchange with various people on Twitter. The discussion began when the Daily Telegraph columnist Tim Blair posted on his blog a photo Hirst had taken of himself at Karl Marx’s grave in London. Some of the tweets were subsequently posted on Bolt’s blog. Hirst’s job was saved after 150 academics and PhD students sent a letter to the university. “It is scandalous that Andrew Bolt and the Murdoch press should have such control over Deakin university’s hiring and firing policies,” the letter said. A Deakin university spokeswoman said: “It is the university’s practice not to comment on individual staffing matters. All staff are expected to comply with their employment obligations and the university’s code of conduct. “Deakin University respects academic freedom and has clear policy on the protection afforded its academic staff in this regard.”
How a network led by the billionaire Koch brothers is riding the Trump wave Despite deciding not to back Donald Trump financially with ads during the presidential election, the sprawling donor and advocacy network led by the multibillionaire Koch brothers is emerging as a winner in the transition. Longtime ally Mike Pence is leading the transition team, and several veteran Koch network donors, operatives and political allies are poised to join the Trump administration when the new president takes office in January. While Charles Koch and some network officials had tough words for Trump for some of his incendiary campaign rhetoric and positions this year, several mega-donors who back Koch-linked advocacy groups poured millions into Super Pacs and other fundraising efforts to boost Trump, and some of these donors have not been shy about flexing their muscles during the transition. The Koch network, which says it spent about $250m this election cycle on politics and policy efforts, comprises several hundred donors who help underwrite numerous free-market, small-government advocacy groups. The network is spearheaded by Charles and David Koch, the libertarian-leaning brothers who control the $115bn-a-year energy and industrial behemoth Koch Industries. Several Koch network donors who backed Trump, such as Robert Mercer, Joe Craft, Doug Deason, Harold Hamm, Diane Hendricks and Stan Hubbard, have reason to be pleased that his early cabinet picks align with their views on expanding fossil fuels, spurring charter schools, repealing and replacing Obamacare, and slashing government regulations and taxes. One of Trump’s early cabinet selections, for instance, was Betsy DeVos as education secretary: DeVos is part of a multibillionaire family that have long been hefty donors to advocacy groups linked to the Kochs and championed charter schools and school choice, both popular causes in Koch world. Further, Trump’s key energy adviser for months has been fracking multibillionaire Hamm, who has been mentioned as a potential energy secretary. While Hamm is expected to keep running his oil and natural gas company Continental Resources, two transition sources say he has pushed for Oklahoma governor Mary Fallin to be named interior secretary, and the state’s attorney general Scott Pruitt to run the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which he has sued to block climate change curbs. Rebekah Mercer, the daughter of billionaire hedge fund executive Robert Mercer, who ploughed $2m into a pro-Trump Super Pac that she ran, is on the transition’s executive committee. Mercer has talked with chief White House strategist Stephen Bannon about having an outside group hire the big data firm Cambridge Analytica, which her father is a key investor in and Bannon sits on the board of, for messaging and communications drives to boost administration goals, according to a digital strategist familiar with the firm. “I think most of the network is pretty pleased” with the cabinet selections to date, said Texas investor Doug Deason who, in tandem with his billionaire father Darwin Deason, poured almost $1m into the Republican National Committee to help Trump and other GOP candidates. “They’re pleased Trump has softened his rhetoric.” Deason, who said he is “passionate about school choice”, also said that he spoke to Pence for a half hour around Thanksgiving – and then followed up with texts – to tout Rudy Giuliani for secretary of state and, as Hamm did, Pruitt to head the EPA. Giuliani is a partner of Deason’s at Giuliani Deason Capital Interests, a private equity firm. The early moves by Trump and his transition team have also pleased Hubbard, a billionaire media owner. “I’m feeling a lot better about him than I did earlier,” Hubbard told the . “Trump’s picked good people for his cabinet.” Hubbard and other donors are also betting that Pence, who some Koch network donors once hoped might lead the GOP ticket, will be a powerful force in the administration. “My guess is that Pence will be a lot more active than most vice-presidents,” said Hubbard. Besides overseeing the transition, Pence has been working closely with House speaker Paul Ryan, whom he served with in the House before he was Indiana governor, to coordinate plans for Obamacare’s repeal, a hugely controversial and risky effort, but a top priority for the Koch network and many Republicans. Still the Koch network, which spent $42m on ads to help GOP Senate candidates, is expected to have some dust-ups with the Trump administration: Trump’s protectionist trade stances and some of his policy goals, such as a massive infrastructure spending program, pose potential conflicts with Koch world’s free-market views. But Koch network officials sound cautiously upbeat about the incoming Trump administration. “We are encouraged by the Trump administration’s stated commitment to reduce corporate tax and regulatory burdens and make America more competitive,” James Davis of Freedom Partners, the network’s financial hub, said in an email. Davis added that the network would “try to find areas to work together” with the new administration.
Junior doctors angered by suspension of strike Saturday’s decision by the BMA (Junior doctors suspend strike plans due to ‘patient safety’ concerns, theguardian.com, 24 September) has angered junior doctors throughout the country. It was unexpected and, seemingly, unaccountable; despite about 100,000 doctors paying £400 annually to the union that represents us, no one has yet been informed of the breakdown of the vote. In line with nationwide concerns by junior doctors, consultants and other healthcare practitioners, the Junior Doctors’ Alliance pressure group (JDA) has reaffirmed its commitment to raising public awareness about the dangers to patients in particular, and the NHS as a whole, of the new contract. In the wake of the decision to suspend the strike, it is now more vital than ever to engage in public discussion and affirmative action to ensure this contract is not imposed by health secretary Jeremy Hunt. We aim to put pressure on the BMA to pursue new action to block the imposition of this contract, and to act as advocates for both doctors and patients alike; to seek transparency and accountability from the BMA to its members; to garner support for further negotiations with the government, and to provide our patients and the wider public with accurate information on how this new contract will devastate the NHS. We urge doctors to support us via our JDA Facebook page. Dr James Crane, Dr Aislinn Macklin-Doherty, Dr Julia Patterson, Dr Mona Kamal Ahmed, Mr Rishi Dhir, Dr Moosa Quereshi, Dr Benjamin Janaway of the Junior Doctors’ Alliance (JDA) • To determine the extra funding needed for the NHS (We can afford the NHS. The question is whether we are willing to pay for it, theguardian.com, 22 September), we’d have to know what state it’s in, and we don’t. We need to collect and use data for the running of public services like the NHS in the public interest, rather than to support political rhetoric. When data is collected selectively by the Department of Health, and it no longer describes the collective experience of those using and working in the NHS, this is not in the public interest. If we want to have an intelligent conversation about the NHS, the politics must be taken out of it. We need an independent national audit to determine the actual state the NHS is in. Only then can we begin balancing the healthcare that we, as a country, want provided and the amount we will have to pay to make it so. Amanda Harris Shrewsbury, Shropshire • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
West Brom give Tony Pulis solace with breezy win over 10-man Watford At the end of a costly week, Tony Pulis can at least take solace from a three-point gain. This win will not offset his heavy loss in the high court, where, as the written ruling published on Monday explained, the Albion manager was ordered to pay his former club, Crystal Palace, £3.77m for the manner of his departure from Selhurst Park in 2014. But beating Watford extended a good run of results for Albion and left home fans smiling at the Hawthorns. That counts for a lot. Sixth place in the Premier League, for a start. “I haven’t taken my eye off the ball and it hasn’t affected the club,” said Pulis of his legal woe, after a game in which Albion fans delivered their own verdict on their manager. Earlier this season regulars at the Hawthorns were losing faith in Pulis’s ability to foster entertaining football but recent performances have infused new belief and he was serenaded after just 37 minutes here, by which time Albion were 2-0 up. As Pulis granted the crowd’s melodious request for a wave, his Watford counterpart, Walter Mazzarri, seethed at the fact that the visitors were trailing despite dominating. His anger would deepen before the end, as Albion quashed a second-half fightback and Roberto Pereyra was sent off . “The referee was terrible,” said Mazzarri, who claimed that the official, Graham Scott, “was the first cause of the result”. Watford were not blameless. Albion’s most potent weapon is no secret so the visitors should have been ready to defend set pieces. But, in the 16th minute, Chris Brunt delivered a corner from the left and Jonny Evans outjumped Christian Kabasele with ease and headed into the net. Mazzarri said that the ball would not have reached Evans if the goalkeeper, Heurelho Gomes, had not been blocked by an opponent. The goal came from Albion’s first attack after a strong start by Watford, Nordin Amrabat forcing Ben Foster into a terrific save in the second minute. The visitors’ clever movement was making the hosts look stodgy and, after Albion scored against the run of play, an equaliser would have been a good bet. But chance went against Watford in the 34th minute, when James Morrison rolled a free-kick to Brunt 25 yards out and the Northern Irishman’s shot deflected off Camilo Zúñiga and into the net. “You should have gone Christmas shopping!” the jubilant home crowd advised the travelling fans. But Albion had not wrapped up victory yet. Amrabat hared down the right and presented Deeney with a chance in the 49th minute but the striker’s shot was blocked and Stefano Okaka could not poke the rebound into the net. Watford were looking stronger and halved the deficit on the hour, Kabasele atoning for his first-half mistake by stabbing the ball into the net from close range after Deeney re-routed a long corner by José Holebas. With Watford on the up there was no telling how the match would end. Matt Phillips tried to clarify the matter but his curling shot flew inches past the post. Then Watford went close again, but Foster saved at the feet of Pereyra. It was an ardently fought contest – literally so in the 84th minute, when Pereyra and the recently introduced James McClean clashed near the sideline and triggered mass jostling and a couple of token kicks. Scott, after consultations with the fourth official, deemed Pereyra the worst offender; the sentence a red card. McClean was served a yellow. “It was absolutely unfair,” said Mazzarri. “It is normal a player gives a small push, especially after a rival was pushing him the whole time. If there was someone to be sent off it had to be the other person.” Pulis was not so sure. “I was right in front of it,” he said. “I think the kid [Pereyra] kicked out, I was more concerned about James than anything else and trying to get him away from the incident, not that I think he did anything.” Phillips inflicted further punishment in stoppage time, firing into the net from 20 yards after a one-two with Darren Fletcher.
12 ways to get even more of Generation Y voting Young people don’t vote. That’s what we’ve been hearing in the aftermath of the EU referendum. Those members of Generation Y who did vote largely voted to remain – in the case of 18- to 24-year-olds, overwhelmingly so – and so the result, determined as it had been by mainly older voters who would not have to live so long with the consequences, enraged and saddened much of that cohort. But it’s our fault, we are told. We do not vote. We are lazy, and selfish, too busy Snapchatting pictures of our genitals to strangers. We can’t be arsed, basically. This is a crisis of our own making. We shouldn’t be blaming the boomers, but ourselves. Time to take responsibility, pull our socks up, and maybe get ourselves some national service. Many of the people who made this argument cited a Skydata statistic that claimed turnout among 18- to 24-year-olds was a pathetic 36%. These figures were jumped on by those who wanted to beat young people with the stick of their own supposed apathy, but in fact the statistics were based on young people’s uncertainty on turning out for the general election last year. Dr James Sloam, from the department of politics and international relations at Royal Holloway, told me that the actual turnout was much higher – his research estimates it at 62% using a YouGov survey of 18- to 30-year-olds co-commissioned by Bite the Ballot and Hope Not Hate, and adjusting for over-reporting. Over the weekend detailed polling put the figure at 64%. So it seems that young people turned out in much larger numbers than they did in last year’s general election (where turnout was 43% among 18- to 34-year-olds), but, as Sloam explains, “were outnumbered by older voters who prioritised migration as an issue (especially the over-65s)”. So while political engagement among young people is not in as dire a state as commentators have suggested, there is clearly still some work to do if Generation Y, especially the younger section of it, is to hold political sway. Here are some measures that could ensure that happens: 1. Better political education in schools If young people barely understand the structure of government, the legislative process, or the first-past-the-post voting system, let alone the EU, then how can they be expected to engage with it? By not having politics on the curriculum, the government is failing to properly educate future voters. Some argue citizenship classes in their current form are sufficient, but I certainly never found them useful, and Sloam tells me that none of his politics students did either. If young people lack confidence in their knowledge and understanding, then they are less likely to engage – hence the attitude of “I don’t know enough to vote about this issue”. 2. Improve critical media literacy Younger voters told UKandEU that they experienced information overload, and struggled with biased reporting in the runup to the referendum. It’s clear that we are not currently being taught in formal education to critically analyse the media that we are presented with in any meaningful way, hindering decision-making. Furthermore, if the bombardment of conflicting information in the run-up to the referendum taught us anything, it’s that we don’t have enough trusted media sources, rendering the current post-truth “don’t trust the experts” narrative all the more terrifying. 3. Major constitutional reforms It’s time for proportional representation, where each vote counts. Our electoral system is not fit for purpose. Nor is the resultant model of party politics, which does little to engage young people in politics because we have so little political choice. Sloam contrasts the UK with Germany, where young people have a range of options, and so are less likely to feel that they are wasting their vote. Devolution of power to local areas could make young people feel less disconnected from politics. 4. Make voting compulsory An option mired in controversy, but one that would certainly get young people into the ballot box. 5. Simplify voter registration The new system has been a disaster, with millions of people, especially the peripatetic young, dropping off the register. Why not have same-day voter registration, as they do in some US states? Or online voting? And why not text young people to remind them to vote? A Demos/Vinspired report focused on last year’s general election found 66% of young people were more likely to vote if they could do so online, and almost 40% were more likely to vote if they got a text reminder on the day. We also need more campaign groups such as Bite the Ballot and the Democratic Society to urge voters to sign up. 6. Weekend elections And while we’re at it, why not hold them in term time, when younger people are more likely to be at their addresses? 7. Return to a politics of ideology Young people prefer issue-based politics to party politics, yet there are hardly any ideological politicians left, and those that do act out of principle or ideology are mercilessly mocked by the press. 8. Make the voting age 16 “I can’t impress enough how young people’s contact with representative democracy is crucial to their future engagement,” Kelly McBride from the Democratic Society says. Plus, we know from the Scottish referendum that 16- and 17-year-olds are perfectly capable of involving themselves in important political decisions. 9. Improve trust in the system Many young people feel let down by politicians, who they view as distant and unrelatable. When they do engage politically – whether formally (by, say, voting for the Lib Dems in 2010 because of their commitment not to raise tuition fees) or informally (by protesting against their broken promises) – they usually find themselves ignored; then, in a vicious circle, they stop turning out, so are ignored and so on. Younger people need to feel they are listened to and respected by politicians. 10. Have more people from diverse backgrounds in political positions Mhairi Black has shown that youth is not a barrier to being a good politician, but we are still in desperate need of a more diverse politics when it comes to gender, race and class (according to Tune in Turn Out, 56% would be more likely to vote if there were more local working-class MPs). 11. More engagement from politicians We need politicians who engage with the issues that matter to us, such as tuition fees, housing, living costs and jobs. Sloam suggests that each MP should commit to holding surgeries at every school and university in their constituencies over their five-year term. 12. Foster community stability When your housing is precarious, your job is unstable, your youth centre is closed and your area is in economic decline, you’re going to start feeling disconnected from your community, and that, in turn, makes you less likely to engage with politics.
Donald Trump accuses China of 'unpresidented' act over US navy drone President-elect Donald Trump has risked further inflaming US relations with China, after he used Twitter on Saturday to accuse China of an “unpresidented [sic] act” in its seizing of an unmanned American submarine this week. “China steals United States Navy research drone in international waters – rips it out of water and takes it to China in unpresidented act,” Trump said, misspelling “unprecedented”. The tweet was later reissued with the correct spelling of “unprecedented”. The tweet containing the error was deleted. His message – itself without precedent given his status as a president-elect commenting on an international incident before assuming power – was likely to worsen fears of increased US-China tensions under his presidency that have grown over his rhetoric on trade and policy towards Taiwan. Hours later, Trump suggested the US tell China it no longer wants its property returned. Trump’s initial tweet was issued shortly after China’s foreign ministry said it was negotiating with the US over the vehicle, a “glider” used to collect unclassified scientific data. A Pentagon spokesman said it was being operated by civilian contractors when it was seized on Thursday in international waters, about 57 miles north-west of Subic Bay, near the Philippines, in the South China Sea. The unmanned vehicle was deployed by the USNS Bowditch, an oceanographic and surveillance ship. A diplomatic complaint was issued by the US after its seizure, and its return demanded. The area in which the submarine was taken is claimed by China virtually in its entirety. China has been building islands, and this week it was reported to have installed “significant” weaponry on them – including anti-aircraft and anti-missile systems. On Saturday, the Chinese foreign ministry said that American “hyping up” was not conducive to a smooth resolution of an incident that began when a Chinese naval vessel discovered a piece of “unidentified equipment” and checked it to prevent any navigational safety issues, before discovering it was a US drone. “China decided to return it to the US side in an appropriate manner, and China and the US have all along been in communication about it,” a statement on the ministry website said. “During this process, the US side’s unilateral and open hyping up is inappropriate, and is not beneficial to the smooth resolution of this issue. We express regret at this.” Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook later said in a statement: “Through direct engagement with Chinese authorities, we have secured an understanding that the Chinese will return the UUV [unmanned underwater vehicle] to the United States.” On Friday, in a press conference at the White House, Barack Obama cautioned Trump against allowing relations with China to slip into “full conflict mode”. Trump took a congratulatory phone call from the Taiwanese president earlier this month, breaking with nearly 40 years of US foreign policy orthodoxy, and then used a Fox News interview to question US “one China” policy on Taiwan, a breakaway island state which is not recognised by Beijing. “The idea of ‘one China’ is at the heart of their conception as a nation,” Obama said, “and so if you are going to upend this understanding, you have to have thought through what are the consequences. “Because the Chinese will not treat that the way they will treat some other issues. They won’t even treat it the way they treat issues around the South China Sea, where we have had a lot of tensions. This goes to the core of how they see themselves and their reaction on this issue could end up being very significant.” On Thursday, Bonnie Glaser, director of the China Power Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told the the seizure of the drone looked “like signalling from the Chinese in response to Trump’s Taiwan call”. “It is in China’s interest to send signals before Trump is inaugurated,” she said, “so that he gets the message and [will] be more restrained once he is office.” s have suggested that both during the presidential campaign – in which Trump offered belligerent rhetoric against China over trade – and after his election victory, he has used outlandish statements on Twitter as a means of distraction when under pressure from the media and opponents. He is currently facing the belief of the White House, the CIA, the FBI and other intelligence agencies that Russia sought to influence the election in his favour – claims he has rejected and ridiculed – and questions about his business holdings and conflicts of interest that will arise when he takes office. Trump has also failed to stage a press conference since winning the election, instead embarking on a “thank you” tour of rallies in states which voted for him. The electoral college, in which Trump beat Hillary Clinton 306-232 despite losing the popular vote by more than 2.8m ballots, meets on Monday to decide the election victor. Some electors have indicated an intention not to vote for Trump, but not the 38 Republican electors it would take to send the decision to the House of Representatives. Also on Saturday morning, Trump’s transition team released a statement announcing the nomination of the South Carolina congressman Mick Mulvaney, a budget “hawk” who has advocated deep federal spending cuts, as director of the Office of Management and Budget.
A plea to my fellow Tories: don’t turn the EU vote into another circular firing squad The prime minister has concluded his negotiations and the starting gun has been fired. It is now for each of us to make up our minds as to what is best for Britain. For the Conservative party this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reach a momentous conclusion to a fratricidal debate. For while Britain has never had an easy relationship with the European Union, it is the Conservative party that has an uncanny ability to form a circular firing squad whenever the word “Europe” is mentioned. For Britain it has been 43 years of edgy unease. For the Tories it has been an excuse to take to the hills. No other political issue has had the ability to animate people beyond reason. I remember the Maastricht treaty debates in parliament. I was a government whip from 1992-1995; photographs show that this experience turned my hair white. Night after night I watched the destruction of the Conservative parliamentary party as we paralysed ourselves arguing about how many European angels could balance on the head of a pin. Voting at 3am and securing a majority of four was regarded as a landslide. In those days the whips had real power, and they used it. Under Richard Ryder’s leadership the whips kept John Major’s ship of state afloat, until in the end it sank, not to be refloated for 18 years. In the small hours of one night a senior Conservative whip was hailed by a leading Eurosceptic from the end of a long Commons corridor. Unable to face him he turned through an adjacent door to discover himself in a broom cupboard. It took 20 minutes to find the strength to come out. Yet I remember when John Major privately set out his Maastricht vision with the two critical opt-outs at a meeting of the One Nation Conservative group of MPs. We thought it so masterful we nearly gave him a standing ovation. Now David Cameron has an agreement with Europe. I watched from a front seat Britain’s negotiations with the EU undertaken by Margaret Thatcher, Major and Cameron – and to a lesser extent Tony Blair. Cameron’s talents of forceful charm and forensic affability have made him the most successful of these four British negotiators with our EU partners. He has delivered fully on our manifesto promise of an in/out referendum by the end of 2017. But no-one could accuse him of bringing home the crown jewels. If we want to remain a member of the EU club then we cannot have our cake and eat it. The decision to go or stay is inevitably finely balanced. Since the 1800s one of the guiding principles of British foreign policy has been to prevent a coalition against us from continental Europe. If we leave we will have turned our backs on this strategic foundation stone – to the dismay of our American allies and continental friends, and much to the delight of Putin’s Russia. And the EU would have to show its existing members that there is a price to pay for leaving. Yet Britain would survive outside. We would govern ourselves without constant petty interference from a European political elite that, like all political elites, is forever seeking greater power and authority. The world is moving to a freer trading regime, and protectionism is declining and discredited. Our security comes from Nato and our borders, not the EU. If we had known how it would all develop we would probably not have signed up in 1973. Furthermore, the EU has never looked less attractive: facing inwards, and unable to address searing issues outside – not to mention the failures over Greece, the euro and migration. But we need this referendum to be transparently free and fair so that it reaches its climax with no-one crying foul. That would be a shame for our country, but an ocean-going disaster for the Conservative party. If on 24 June there are senior Conservatives saying that the contest was rigged with the cards stacked against an out vote, and that the government had abused the strength of its position, then disaster will have been wrested from the jaws of victory. It would open the door to years more infighting and splits over the EU. The great gain for both the country and the Conservative party from this referendum will be that it ends the European debate for a generation. So within the party, let us see an end to inflammatory emails – and indeed any emails by Conservative MPs seeking to suggest how colleagues should behave. Let every Conservative MP, every minister, decide for themselves their view on Europe unfettered and unthreatened, and let us all express our views with courtesy and integrity. Those who are passionate about leaving – the likes of Gove, Duncan Smith, Davis, Jenkins, Fox and Cash, and now Boris Johnson – let them have their say loud and clear. Let us hear equally from the Osbornes, Greens, Grieves, Soames, Herberts, Clarkes and Heseltines, with respect and integrity. As for my election pledge on Europe to my electorate, it will be delivered: I have promised to organise a debate with leading protagonists on both sides for a thousand of my constituents to come to, to listen and to decide. And when the debate is over, the votes are cast and counted, and the result has been announced, let us all shake hands, accept the result and get on with delivering the modern, socially mobile and outward-looking Britain for which the Conservatives were elected.
War for the Planet of the Apes: first trailer released Like the original 1968-73 series, the new Planet of the Apes films are building into a franchise of quietly significant proportions. War for the Planet of the Apes is the third of the sequel-reboots that followed the Tim Burton remake in 2001: Rise of the Planet of the Apes emerged in 2011, and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes in 2014. As its title suggests, War for the Planet of the Apes continues the ape-human conflict that began in Dawn: the trailer footage shows it to be extremely heavy duty, with lots of high-grade weaponry in use. The war looks to be personalised in the forms of Caesar (Andy Serkis again, in motion capture) and the shaven-headed Colonel played by Woody Harrelson. The trailer also shows us a kid riding with the apes – presumably played by 12-year-old Amiah Miller – who, making a wild stab in the dark, may be something to do with the photograph the Colonel lays down at one point. Hostage? Runaway? Who knows? Directed by Matt Reeves, returning from Dawn, this looks like it’s going to be a sombre, hardware-heavy affair. War for the Planet of the Apes is scheduled for release on 14 July in the US and UK.
Confident Donald Trump tells his West Virginia supporters: don't bother voting Becoming the presumptive Republican nominee has not changed Donald Trump at all. In a rally in Charleston, West Virginia, in front of roughly 13,000 screaming attendees, the newly minted presumptive Republican nominee took a victory lap. Trump proclaimed “I wish the primaries would keep going but I am the only one left” and celebrated by repeatedly urging his supporters to not even bother voting in West Virginia’s upcoming primary and instead “save your vote for the general election in November”. Two days after Ted Cruz suspended his campaign, effectively ending the Republican primary, Trump was in high spirits as he briefly wore a hard hat on stage and mimed the work of a coalminer. In a state where coalmining is still an important industry, Trump repeatedly emphasized his commitment to the industry. He told the crowd, “I’ll tell you a little secret. I’ve always been fascinated by the mines,” speaking in front of a backdrop of uniformed coalminers holding signs that read “Trump digs coal”. In lieu of his typical attacks on primary opponents – calling Cruz “lyin’ Ted” and criticizing the way John Kasich eats food – Trump pivoted his vitriol toward Hillary Clinton, the likely Democratic nominee. He made veiled reference to former president Bill Clinton’s liaison with Monica Lewinsky in the White House and said of the Clinton Foundation, “the whole thing is a scam”. Trump made no mention of the criticism that he is receiving from inside his own party. Just hours before he took the stage, the House speaker, Paul Ryan, told CNN that he was not ready to endorse the real estate mogul’s candidacy. “I’m just not ready to do that at this point” said the 2012 vice-presidential nominee. In response, Trump blasted out a statement. “I am not ready to support speaker Ryan’s agenda,” he said. “Perhaps in the future we can work together and come to an agreement about what is best for the American people. They have been treated so badly for so long that it is about time for politicians to put them first!” One introductory speaker, pastor Mark Burns, an African American preacher who has long been a Trump supporter, did mention Ryan’s remarks. He inaccurately said that “Paul Ryan said I will never endorse Donald J Trump”. The packed crowd immediately burst into boos for the Republican speaker of the house. But the skepticism of a wide variety of party leaders, including the only two living former Republican presidents, George HW Bush and George W Bush, went unmentioned at the main event. Trump did spend a significant amount of time discussing his disappointment with hairspray made without CFCs. The presumptive Republican nominee decried the fact. “You’re not allowed to use hairspray any more because it affects the ozone. Hairspray used to be real good,” Trump said. “In the old days, you put the hairspray on and it’s good. Today you put it on, it’s good for 12 minutes.” The ban on products that contain CFCs, including hairspray, is considered to be one of the most successful global environmental initiatives of all time. The crowd ate up the presumptive nominee’s rhetoric and was wearing an unusual amount of Trump merchandise even by the standards of a typical campaign rally. Appalachia has long been a Trump stronghold, and the real estate mogul has won demographically similar areas to West Virginia by huge margins even when the Republican field was far more crowded. The rally at the Charleston Civic Center, a brutalist hunk of concrete, started to fill up hours before Trump arrived and an orderly line outside dissolved into a horde of people desperate to make it into the event. Greg Bonecutter Jr, a former nurse on disability from Letart, West Virginia, was an avid Trump supporter wearing a Make America Great Again hat and a shirt that proclaimed “Hillary sucks but not like Monica”. He was a longtime Trump supporter who backed the nominee because he was someone with whom “you knew where you stood” and was sick “of politicians, big money scams and cover-up lies”. A registered independent, he said he thought Obama was “sucking Muslim tail and an apologist to terrorist actions” and “if it was up to me we’d bring back public execution and there’d be several trap doors on the White House lawn”. Bonecutter warned darkly that if Clinton was elected there might be another civil war. Sandra Riddle of North Charleston shared his pessimism. She was worried about the supreme court and that if Clinton was elected “we might lose freedom of speech and assembly” as well as the second amendment. She wasn’t a gun owner but noted “we have to protect guns … because of people coming from Isis”. Yet others simply liked Trump for his populist appeal. John Spence, a retired construction worker from Wayne County, was a former Democrat who still voted for the party at the local level but last voted for Bill Clinton at the top of the ticket. He bemoaned the end of when Democrats were more conservative and “used to be called Dixiecrats”, he said. Now, he continued, the party was for the “political machine and the more powerful” and “less for the common man”. The party “had forgotten where they came from” in his opinion, and he was now steadfastly behind Trump. Trump pledged to come back to the Mountain State and praised its state song “Take Me Home Country Roads” by John Denver as “a great song” by “a friend of mine and good guy”. But he probably won’t need to – the deep red state is as safe as any for him in a general election. The question is whether the presumptive GOP nominee can do as well with his own party’s elected officials as with blue-collar former Democrats in West Virginia.
To protect oceans from microplastics the UK must work with Europe From the shallowest coastal waters to the depths of the oceanic trenches some 10,000 meters beneath the sea, our oceans are home to a vast amount of life on earth. Covering over two-thirds of the world’s surface, they provide food and support tourism and leisure in every part of the world. Our oceans are under pressure from warming and acidification, and on World Oceans Day, the environmental audit committee, which I chair, will be hearing about microplastic pollution. Microplastics are small abrasive beads which wash down the drain. They are found in facial scrubs, toothpastes, washing powders, household cleaners, and the fibres of clothes made from synthetic materials. Did you know that washing a fleece can release 1m microfibres, which go down the drain, pass through filters and into the sea? It is estimated that up to 8,000 tonnes of microbeads from cosmetics products wash into the sea from Europe every year. They accumulate there, and are eaten by fish, shellfish and other marine life. As a result, over a third of fish in the English Channel are now contaminated with microplastic particles. And they could end up on our dinner plates. Scientists estimate if you’ve eaten six oysters then you have probably eaten around 50 particles of microplastics. And we have no real idea what impact this could have on human health. The impact of microplastics on fish are better understood. Microplastics accumulate in the stomachs of fish, harming their ability to digest food and stunting growth. They are harmful to the tiny creatures that fish eat. And the costs to our fishing industry are totting up, costing an estimated £2.2m per year to the UK’s shellfish industry. They also affect seabirds. Studies have shown that 80% of seabird species eat them, and that a typical seabird carries up to 10% of its bodyweight in plastic in its stomach. One suggested solution is to improve filtration systems in our water treatment plants, although no system is perfect, and we would have to dispose of a microplastic-filled waste sludge. President Obama recently passed a law banning the use of microplastic beads in cosmetic products in the US. Canada has also banned them, and the Netherlands is in the process of introducing a ban. Representatives of the cosmetics industry have said they want an industry-wide voluntary phase-out by 2020. We invited Proctor & Gamble, Reckitt Benckiser, L’Oreal, Unilever, and Johnson & Johnson, but not one of them accepted the committee’s invitation to give evidence, which in itself speaks volumes. The invention of plastic has revolutionised so much in our lives, and we find it everywhere from paperclips to spaceships. But its durability and versatility make it a difficult waste product to manage. We must become a more resource-efficient society, re-using, recycling and remanufacturing as much of our plastic waste as possible. That is the thinking behind the EU’s ‘circular economy package’, which is under discussion in Brussels. The theme of this year’s World Oceans Day is ‘healthy oceans, healthy planet’. Aside from the wildlife that lives within and around our oceans, people all over the world depend on them for their lives and livelihoods. As an island nation we should take the problem of microplastic pollution seriously. But microplastic pollution does not respect borders, and we need to find solutions by working with our neighbours and partners in Europe, which is another reason for us to vote remain in the EU on 23 June.
Latino students win battle to wear Dump Trump shirts to school For months, 16-year-old Angelina Alvarez of Costa Mesa, California, has heard the message loud and clear from Donald Trump: Mexicans are rapists and criminals; illegal immigrants should go home; infectious diseases are pouring across the border from Mexico. It’s a message of xenophobia that has been drilled home not just from Trump’s pulpit on the campaign trail, but closer to home for Angelina at Newport Harbor high school. Since last fall, Newport Harbor students who are Trump supporters have worn their politics on their T-shirts at school, which is 38% Latino and 52% white. But Angelina and her friends became particularly alarmed last week when anti-immigrant, anti-Mexican, derogatory graffiti was chalked throughout the campus including the words “fuck illegal aliens”, “wetbacks” and a heart drawn alongside Trump’s name. “With Donald Trump, [students] are more open about their hate and the things they say,” Angelina said. After the anti-Trump protests last week, where one of Angelina’s 13-year-old friends was choked and punched, the Latino students had had enough – she and half a dozen of her friends wore Dump Trump T-shirts to school on Friday to make their feelings known. But the school was not happy. At the end of her math class a security guard showed up. The principal, Sean Boulton, wanted to see Angelina in the main office – and he wanted her to change out of the Dump Trump shirt. Boulton insisted that they remove the shirts for their own safety. But that argument didn’t make sense to the students, who felt they were being held to a double standard. After all, their Trump-supporting classmates had worn their pro-Trump shirts on campus since the start of the school year. “They’ve worn the shirts all this time, and we wear a shirt for one period and we get called up right away,” Angelina said. “It’s not like we’re doing anything violent. We’re just standing up for ourselves.” For Angelina and her classmates, the issue went beyond T-shirts. They told administrators that the derogatory graffiti, some of it still visible on Friday, and other incidents on campus, such as verbal harassment, had made them feel like they were under attack. Boulton said the school had addressed the graffiti by removing it but was unaware that other students had targeted and harassed Angelina and her classmates with racial slurs. “There’s certainly a lot of things that go on on campus that are inappropriate … and as information surfaces we don’t just ignore it. We react and we’re proactive in trying to resolve it,” Boulton said. Newport Harbor high school is not alone in dealing with this heightened tension on campus. A national school survey conducted by the Southern Poverty Law Center and released last month found that teachers have encountered a spike in “the bullying, harassment and intimidation of students whose races, religions or nationalities have been the verbal targets of candidates”. As the Poynter Institute’s media and medical ethicists pointed out last year: “Such speech is a classic ploy to sow divisiveness and generate fear. That his message finds a home at all should be alarming. It’s one thing [to] argue about immigration policies. It’s a completely different thing to condemn an entire ethnic group.” Brendan Hamme, a staff attorney with the ACLU of southern California, explained via email that students’ free speech protections are robust under California’s education code, even more so than the US constitution. “Simply wearing T-shirts that say Dump Trump is quintessential protected political speech, and nothing about it incites others to break the rules or disrupt the campus,” wrote Hamme, who focuses his work on civil rights and civil liberties. The students are now allowed to wear the T-shirts. But had they not taken a stance, the girls believe that those who felt threatened or harassed by Trump supporters would have remained silent. “We opened up a lot of eyes and we showed people that they can have voices too.”
The terror of swatting: how the law is tracking down high-tech prank callers The first 911 call came at 4.30pm. The caller told dispatchers that a man, woman, and boy had been shot and another child was being held hostage. Police responded in force, sending more than half a dozen cruisers and emergency vehicles to a sprawling house in the affluent Atlanta suburb of Johns Creek. But when they arrived there were no signs of a shooting; inside, police found a nanny with two small children. When the mother returned from shopping she found her home surrounded by emergency vehicles. The father, who had been on a plane, landed at Atlanta’s international airport to see his house on TV, with news reports declaring that his wife and children had been shot. They were victims of a swatting attack, a malicious form of hoax where special weapons and tactics (Swat) teams are called to a victim’s home under false pretenses, with potentially deadly results. Just more than a week later, on 25 January 2014, someone launched a second swatting attack on the same home. This time the Johns Creek police were prepared: they responded with two cruisers to make sure everything was OK. DS Ben Finley was assigned to the case and was told to do whatever it took to find the people who did this. It would take him on a circuitous voyage that lasted nearly a year and involved dozens of local law enforcement agencies, the FBI, and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. It’s a case that demonstrates just how difficult it is to track down and prosecute online harassers, thanks in part to the ease with which malicious individuals can operate anonymously on the internet, and a legal system that is still playing catchup to 21st century technology. A year-long investigation “When I started out I had never worked one of these cases and had no idea what to do,” says Finley, an amiable man with a buttery Georgia drawl. “I called anyone I thought might know anything about these types of investigations. I would just take each piece of the puzzle and see where it led me. I was baptized by fire.” Finley started by tracing the numbers the swatters used to call the Johns Creek emergency hotline. Because calling 911 only connects to local emergency services, swatters in distant locations call non-emergency lines and ask to be transferred. To mask their true locations, they use voiceover-IP (VoIP) numbers that appear to be in the same area code as their intended victims. In late January 2014, Finley issued subpoenas to a half dozen major VoIP providers, obtaining the numbers the swatters had called, logs detailing when each call had been made, and the email addresses and websites swatters used when signing up for VoIP services. Over the next few weeks, Finley scanned the list of numbers looking for those characteristic of public police lines – such as 877-ASK-LAPD – and talked to the dispatchers in each city. Sure enough, they had received emergency calls on the dates and times in question. Finley then went to the victims of the swatting attacks, some of whom were already working with local law enforcement, and obtained their details. Over the next year he filled a conference room at the Johns Creek station with boxes of police reports, victim affidavits, and audio recordings. “A lot of the IP addresses that were generated through the subpoena and court order process were from virtual private networks and proxy sites all over the world,” Finley says. “Tracking them down was a hell of a task.” Canadian police knew exactly who the hoaxer was At first, Finley says, he was looking for a single perpetrator. But the paths he followed kept diverging – the first call pointed toward a person in New York, the second indicated a swatter in Canada. As it turns out, the second attack was a copycat of the first, which had received broad media attention. Finley caught a break when he traced the calls from swatter No 1 to a cloud services firm in New York, to whom the swatter had given his real name and address. When Finley contacted local police, he discovered this individual had been linked to similar crimes in the past. He was a 16-year-old active in online gaming circles, where swatting is a common malicious prank. Finley doesn’t know why swatter No 1 targeted that family in Georgia, but he believes it was a mistake – the location was the former address of another teenager who was a highly visible gamer on YouTube. The Fulton County district attorney agreed to transfer prosecution of the case to the swatter’s local jurisdiction, where it is still pending. Finley used an email address associated with one Skype account to uncover a personal website for the second swatter, whose online handle was Obnoxious. Using that email, he found a page on the text-sharing website Pastebin where one of Obnoxious’s enemies had revealed his name and address. According to that page, Obnoxious was a minor living in Coquitlam, British Columbia. When Finley called the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) in Vancouver, they knew exactly whom Finley was talking about – the youth was already on probation for similar crimes. With the help of the FBI, Finley pored over the mountains of evidence, eventually connecting Obnoxious to more than 40 incidents. (He was also the subject of a New York Times magazine profile, The Serial Swatter, in November 2015.) “This kid was unbelievable,” Finley says. “He was calling everyone and everything – schools, businesses, private residences, law enforcement, the FBI’s weapons of mass destruction hotline, even Disneyland. Nothing was sacred to him.” In November 2014, the RCMP asked Finley to send him evidence for the strongest 10 cases he had built against Obnoxious so they could obtain a search warrant for his home. Then Obnoxious decided to take his act public. On 1 December 2014, he live-streamed swatting two homes in Ohio on YouTube, boasting about it first on Twitter. The parents of one previous swatting victim saw it and called Finley, who then notified the RCMP. Four days later, the 17-year-old was arrested. In May 2015 he pleaded guilty to 23 counts of extortion, public mischief, and criminal harassment; he was later sentenced to 16 months in youth custody and was due to be released in April 2016. ‘A different perspective when you’re the mom in the doorway’ One of the problems with pursuing swatters is that, in most jurisdictions, swatting itself is not a crime, though the act might violate other local laws such as abuse of emergency response services. Another is that law enforcement agencies usually lack the expertise or the resources to investigate such crimes. In November 2015, around the same time that reports about Obnoxious became public, congresswoman Katherine Clark, a Democrat from Massachusetts, introduced a bill that made swatting a federal crime. (The bill has been referred to the House subcommittee on crime, terrorism, homeland security, and investigations.) Finley has been working with state officials to introduce a similar bill in the Georgia state legislature. On 31 January 2016, the second-term congresswoman was the victim of a swatting attack on her home in Melrose, Massachusetts – an attack she believes was directly related to her bill. “I’d heard all about swatting and have talked to the victims,” she says. “But you get a different perspective when you’re the mom standing in the doorway, with your family in the house behind you, looking at a full police response with long guns drawn on your front lawn. It gave me an idea of how frightening and dangerous this could be. And it made me more determined than ever to do something about it.” In March, Clark addressed the second part of the problem – the lack of law enforcement expertise – by introducing the Cybercrime Enforcement Training Assistance Act, which would allocate $20m a year to train local police departments on how to investigate and prosecute cybercrime. “I’ve heard from many victims of severe online threats who say police departments want to be helpful but aren’t sure how to protect someone who’s been harassed online,” she says. “It’s not from a lack of will or compassion, they just don’t know how best to proceed.” Anonymity is being misused The third, much more difficult problem, is the relative ease with which individuals can operate relatively anonymously on the internet, using free VoIP numbers, encrypted communications, proxy servers that obscure internet protocol addresses, and similar technologies. As Finley demonstrated, it’s not impossible to hunt down suspects who use these technologies – it’s just extremely time-consuming and resource-intensive. Finley estimates he spent more than a thousand hours tracking down those two teenagers, neither of whom will spend much time behind bars, yet this is a crime that can cost police departments as much as $100,000 per incident and could result in fatalities. It’s a crime they’re far more motivated to solve than, say, threats issued via Twitter. Despite all this, there are some who argue that the ability to remain anonymous on the internet is essential, and a sign of a healthy government. “The ability to speak anonymously enables people to express minority opinions,”said Greg Norcie, staff technologist for the Center for Democracy & Technology. “We’re not going to have a situation where we always solve every crime. If you create a situation where society is without crime and risk, it ends up being very totalitarian.” As a result, successful prosecution of online harassers is likely to remain relatively rare, with only the most egregious offenders being pursued. “Technology changes every day, and it’s hard to stay on top of it, along with all the other things we have to stay on top of, like terrorism and people shooting things up,” says Finley. “The internet is like the Wild Wild West. People think they can do whatever they want there, but every now and then the marshal comes to town to restore the peace and get the troublemakers.”
All Sky subscribers to get some Premier League matches for free Sky is to launch a new TV channel that will make live games including Premier League matches available to non-sports subscribers for the first time. The new channel, Sky Sports Mix, is aimed at encouraging a higher proportion of the broadcaster’s 12 million-plus subscribers to add its sports packages to their monthly TV plan. “We are giving millions more people access to great moments from some of the world’s biggest sporting events at no extra cost,” said Sky Sports managing director Barney Francis. “It is a fantastic way for all Sky customers to be able to enjoy some of the great content that has made Sky Sports the first choice for sport. Our aim is to offer sport in a way that can engage, encourage and excite everyone even further.” About 5 million to 6 million Sky customers have a sports package, which costs about £25 a month, with subscribers on the cheapest tier paying about £20. Sky said the new channel will offer a “select number” of live Premier League and Football League matches, as well as regular live football from competitions including Spain’s La Liga, the US’s MLS and the Fifa 2018 World Cup qualifiers. The channel also promises to include live sport including golf and international cricket, alongside documentaries, sports entertainment shows and kids’ content such as the new live Saturday morning show, Game Changers. There is also the suggestion that the channel may be a way to win back viewers who have gravitated to pay-as-you go sport via Now TV, which allows viewers to pay for a day’s access to Sky Sports without an expensive TV subscription. However, Sky is understood to see Now TV customers as completely different consumers of media to traditional customers and the company is not aiming to win them over to a full package. It sees Sky Sports Mix as a way of offering more value to existing customers to stop them thinking about defecting to rivals such as BT Sport, Virgin Media and TalkTalk TV. Sky’s churn rate, the proportion of customers who leave the service for a rival, is running at 10%, which is considered a low level. “Sky Sports Mix will bring sport to more people and provide many different ways of enjoying our coverage, from high-profile live events and fascinating documentaries to clips of incredible moments,” said Francis. Sky stressed that the only way to watch “every minute” of the sport to which it has TV rights – 60,000 hours a year – is to take a full subscription.
Gong co-founder Gilli Smyth dies, aged 83 Gilli Smyth, the co-founder of the eccentric and influential space-rock-cum-prog-cum-psychedelic band Gong, has died aged 83, the Planet Gong website reports. Smyth had been admitted to Byron Bay hospital in Australia on Monday with pulmonary pneumonia. On admission, her son Orlando Allen said on Facebook, she had been given a 30% chance if surviving the night. Planet Gong reported that she died at noon on 25 August. Smyth, who was English, founded the band with Daevid Allen – Smyth’s husband and Orlando’s father – in 1967 in Paris. She often performed as Shakti Yoni, and described her style of singing as “musical landscaping”. In a 1971 interview, Allen said her style – which the band called “space whispers” – was “a totally original form of singing. In the end, Gilli is the only person in the band that is without precedent.” “Her unique stage presence and vocals manifested and determinedly represented a vital, deeply fundamental feminine principle within the Gong universe,” Planet Gong said. “She last performed with the band in 2012.” As with so many aspects of the Gong story, Smyth’s involvement with the group was – for outsiders, at least – confusing. She left Gong in 1974, releasing a solo album in 1978, and then forming a new group, Mother Gong, who at one point opened for Bob Dylan. Allen himself was delighted that Gong generated satellite splinter groups – he was responsible for Planet Gong, New York Gong and Gongmaison himself. Gong itself reunited in 1992, with Smyth rejoining in 1994. In addition to that, she embarked on two techno side-projects, Goddess Trance and Goddess T. Smyth’s death follows that of Allen, who died in March 2015.
The playmate and the rabbi: unlikely bedfellows fighting internet porn They make unlikely bedfellows, the Playboy playmate and the rabbi, but they have found a common belief and mission: that pornography is harmful, and we – by which they mostly mean men – should be consuming much less of it, or at least not fuelling the demand for the viler, more degrading parts of it. On Saturday, Pamela Anderson, the most enduring sex symbol of recent times, and Shmuley Boteach, self-styled as “America’s Rabbi”, will talk about this at the Oxford Union. It follows a month of campaigning, which kicked off with an opinion piece they wrote for the Wall Street Journal. They described porn, and its ubiquity online, as “a public hazard of unprecedented seriousness” that leads to the implosions of marriages, families and careers. Children, they said, are being “raised in an environment of wall-to-wall, digitised sexual images … [becoming] adults inured to intimacy and in need of even greater graphic stimulation. They are the crack babies of porn.” They met when Anderson was being honoured by an organisation run by Boteach. “We celebrate and promote universal values and [people] who are attached to the state of Israel,” he says, when we speak on the phone set while he and Anderson are being driven through London to a TV studio. “Pamela has been a very laudatory and complimentary spokesperson about Israel. We gave her an award.” They became friends, and began talking about their feelings on relationships – and pornography’s effect on them. Boteach is known in the US for his books on sex and relationships and appearances on TV. Together, they decided to launch what they are calling the “sensual revolution”. Some may recognise Boteach. He has been criticised within the Jewish community, and by many fellow rabbis, for his work on sexuality and theology alike, been investigated for the way his organisations use funds, and his seemingly immense appetite for self-promotion is not to everyone’s tastes (he had his own reality show and has made numerous appearances on shows such as Oprah and Dr Oz; his book Kosher Lust was serialised in Playboy). And he has appeared at the Oxford Union before, in 2001, where he spoke alongside his friend Michael Jackson, to whom he acted as “spiritual adviser”. Anderson wasn’t put off by Boteach’s controversial, colourful past, she says. “I love Rabbi Shmuley and everything he stands for. I’ve learned a lot from him. He’s very outspoken and he’s in a position to do that and make powerful change. I respect him immensely.” Since the WSJ piece, Anderson has been accused of hypocrisy, given that her entire career has been built on nude shots for Playboy, most recently in December, which was Playboy’s last issue to feature naked women. “Porn even killed Playboy,” she says, though not everyone will weep. But Anderson has always been clear about the distinction. According to the artist Marilyn Minter, who worked with her in 2006, she is “the opposite of Anna Nicole Smith and Marilyn Monroe – she owned her own sexual power”. Anderson refuses to consider that Playboy is pornographic: “I think it was titillating, innocent,” she says. “It was highbrow – there was art and culture. “When I went to the Playboy mansion I met great artists, intellectuals, people who were into philanthropy, art, music. I look at that as a fond memory but I understand … ” She pauses. “There are people who eat meat and become vegetarian – that doesn’t make them hypocritical, that makes them a growing, evolving human being.” But she says she doesn’t regret her work for Playboy, because she views it as different from what is available online today. “I do believe that internet porn is addictive, getting weirder and weirder, and darker, and I think it does lead to violence against women.” Does she not think that something such as Playboy paved the way? “It might have, it opened the door, but we’ve gone down this rabbit hole of dark pornography and it’s getting worse and worse.” Boteach joins in: “Some people might try to disqualify her from this conversation, saying, ‘You are someone who has been part of this culture and now you’re criticising it’, but the truth is who would know about the impact of that culture better than Pamela?” Not that we should assume Anderson has had some kind of radical feminist epiphany (she has always refused to call herself a feminist), but she is undergoing something of a reinvention in other ways. Born in Canada, she was spotted at a football game in Vancouver and became the face of a beer company, before Hugh Hefner, the Playboy founder, asked her to move to LA and become a model. In 1992 she joined the hilariously good-looking cast of Baywatch, the successful show about Los Angeles County lifeguards, and Anderson became a global star. During the 1990s and early 2000s Anderson did a few films, but mainly appeared naked in Playboy and other men’s magazines; in the tabloids she was better known for her turbulent marriages. Later, launching her own charitable foundation, she would talk about the sexual abuse she suffered as a child and young teenager. Now she is known as an activist as much as anything else. She has supported Peta for more than 20 years, and runs her own foundation. Presumably, like anyone hurled into celebrity at an early age, she has spent a lot of time since then figuring out how to carve something meaningful out of it. Luke Gilford, a young independent filmmaker, was struck by exactly this when he persuaded her to be in his short film, Connected, recently. “I was interested in capturing this moment in time for her where she’s this ageing sex symbol trying to find deeper meaning in her own life,” he says. “She has a lot of ideas, a lot she has to say and a lot she has experienced. People don’t realise how much there is to her.” However curious her partnership with Shmuley, no one can deny that they’re making their point at an opportune moment. Look at the tone of the US presidential campaign, Anderson says. “There is this culture of men who speak this way about women.” Shmuley adds: “There are men who are marinating in a culture of our portrayal of women. “We have to take a deeper examination of [that].” Porn, he says, “trains men to see women as a means to an end. The idea of pornography is to portray women as a walking male orgasm, that women are there to stimulate men for sexual climax. This is part of addressing it. Not through censorship, but an honest conversation.” This has become a subject Anderson feels strongly about. “I think we should really look at ourselves and think is this affecting our relationships and causing a lack of intimacy? Because I’m talking about having better sex, better loving relationships and more respect for women. I have two teenage sons and I want them to experience loving relationships and sensual experiences.” In the past, she says, “people assume, because of who I am, that I want [sex which is] wild, crazy, slapped around, called a whore. What is going on? I’m here and telling people you can have beautiful, loving sex without the demeaning side of it.”
Why don’t bankers go to jail? You asked Google – here’s the answer Ask Kweku Adoboli why bankers do not go to jail, and he would no doubt look surprised. A London-based trader at the Swiss bank UBS, Adoboli was jailed in November 2012 for what police described as the biggest fraud in UK history. He racked up £1.2bn of losses through secretive trades – and at one point those trades could have forced UBS to take a £7bn hit, enough to bring down the Swiss bank. He is not the only banker to have been incarcerated. Nick Leeson – jailed in Singapore for bringing down Barings in 1995 – is now on the after-dinner speaking circuit. In August, he announced free trading programmes intended, he said, to “help people not make the same mistakes I did”. Tom Hayes is behind bars, serving 11 years after being convicted for rigging Libor interest rates. Four former Barclays bankers have also been jailed for conspiring to fraudulently rig global benchmark interest rates. But those who ask why bankers have not gone to jail are probably thinking of the 2008 banking crisis and, with the anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers approaching (15 September 2008), the question may once again be at the front of people’s minds. After Lehmans collapsed, more than £65bn of taxpayer funds were pumped in to Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and Lloyds Banking Group and a rescue package put in place for Bradford & Bingley. Northern Rock had been nationalised earlier in 2008. Kenneth Peasnell, distinguished professor of accounting at Lancaster University management school, suggests that this question “is driven by a sense of unfairness, there being one rule for the rich and powerful and another for the rest of us … The wealthy seem to get a slap on the wrist for not paying their taxes while the single mother gets locked up for cheating on benefits”. As the banking crisis was unfolding, the main focus of the policymakers appears to have been keeping the banks afloat rather than trying to apportion blame. The official report into what went wrong at RBS, published in 2011, concluded that “multiple poor decisions” were at the root of its collapse. None of those “multiple poor decisions” were crimes. At the time of the publication of the report, Lord Turner, then the chairman of the now defunct Financial Services Authority, said: “The fact that no individual has been found legally responsible for the failure begs the question: if action cannot be taken under existing rules, should not the rules be changed for the future?” He was not necessarily talking about criminal prosecution but more about the City regulatory regime under which individuals are authorised to work in certain financial roles and can be banned from holding particular positions or fined. Eventually prosecutors examined RBS, and in May this year – eight years after the bank was bailed out – concluded that there was insufficient evidence of criminal behaviour to bring charges against the bank or former employees. In situations where there have been attempts to launch criminal proceedings against banks, there is evidence that politicians have become anxious about the possible impact on financial markets. In July, a US congressional report revealed that George Osborne, when he was chancellor, warned the US government that criminal charges against HSBC could lead to global financial disaster. His intervention, on which he has not commented, took place four years ago when HSBC – the UK’s biggest bank – was being investigated by the US authorities for allowing terrorists and drug dealers to launder millions of dollars. Some countries have jailed bankers for cases arising out of the crisis. In Ireland – which pumped €64bn into its banks and later had to be bailed out itself – three bankers were sentenced in July: former Irish Life & Permanent chief executive Denis Casey; Willie McAteer, former finance director at the failed Anglo Irish Bank; and John Bowe, former head of capital markets at Anglo Irish Bank. In the wake of the crisis, Iceland appointed a special prosecutor, Ólafur Hauksson, to examine the collapsed Kaupthing, Landsbanki and Glitnir banks. He has been bringing charges of market manipulation, fraud, embezzlement and fraudulent loans. Robert Jenkins, a former Bank of England policymaker who is now a senior fellow at Better Markets said: “During the crisis, [there was] a misplaced judgment on the part of authorities that prosecution would undermine further confidence in the banking system.” The UK did not set up a special commission or appoint an Icelandic-style prosecutor after the 2008 crisis. But in 2012, following the outrage caused by the Libor rigging scandal, Conservative MP Andrew Tyrie chaired the parliamentary commission on banking standards. The MPs and peers who sat on the commission were charged with looking at the culture of the UK banking sector and seeing if lessons could be learned about corporate governance. Peasnell argues that public outrage is not enough to send bankers to jail. “A crime has to have been committed. Making a reckless or stupid investment decision does not in itself qualify,” Peasnell said. Tyrie’s parliamentary commission on banking standards led to the prospect of a seven-year jail term for reckless misconduct. It is yet to be tested – and there is scepticism about whether it would put any bankers behind bars in the future.
Trump dodges question over whether any past partners had abortions The controversy over Donald Trump’s stance on abortion took another turn on Saturday, when a New York Times interviewer wrote that the Republican presidential frontrunner appeared to avoid a question about whether any woman he had been involved with had undergone such a procedure. Maureen Dowd referred to Trump’s suggestion this week that women who have abortions should be punished – a comment he swiftly retracted – when she wrote: “Given his draconian comment, sending women back to back alleys, I had to ask: When he was a swinging bachelor in Manhattan, was he ever involved with anyone who had an abortion? ‘Such an interesting question,’ he said. ‘So what’s your next question?’” Trump made his initial remark on Wednesday, in an interview with MSNBC host Chris Matthews. Controversy ensued, highlighting the candidate’s extremely poor ratings with female voters of all political stripes. Having retracted the remark, on Friday he rowed further back, telling John Dickerson of CBS: “The laws are set now on abortion and that’s the way they’re going to remain until they’re changed.” Speaking to Dowd, he explained his suggestion that women having abortions should be punished by saying: “This was not real life … this was a hypothetical, so I thought of it in terms of a hypothetical. So that’s where that answer came from, hypothetically.” Dowd also asked Trump about his controversial remarks about women including Heidi Cruz, the wife of his closest challenger for the Republican nomination; Hillary Clinton, the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination; Fox News host Megyn Kelly; and the comedian Rosie O’Donnell. “I won’t comment on Rosie,” Dowd quoted him as saying. “I wish her the best. See? In the old days – tell your sister, I’m making progress.” Trump – who answered a question about his divisive rhetoric on the campaign trail by saying “I can be as presidential as anybody who ever lived. I can be so presidential if I want” – also disputed the extent of women voters’ dislike for him. Dowd wrote: “I pressed, how he could possibly win with 73% of women in this country turned off by him? “He chose another poll, murmuring, ‘It was 68%, actually.’” The Trump campaign did not immediately return a request for comment.
The Radio Hour with Richard Dawson - listen to the show Richard Dawson won’t be a household name just yet – but he is one of the UK’s most gifted musicians. His unhinged ditties, as on his 2014 album Nothing Important, have been described by the ’s Michael Hann as the “distinctly English folk equivalent of Captain Beefheart’s deconstruction of the blues” and are often-discordant takes on traditional 18th-century poems or 19th-century Tyneside yarns. Dawson’s live performances, meanwhile, are a lo-fi marvel, intense – and hilarious – enough to make your jaw drop despite it being just one man, his guitar and his grandpa’s cap on stage. There’s a reason why he’s a Fat White Family favourite (the band expressed their desire to tour with him on last week’s show and played The Vile Stuff from Nothing Important). For this week’s Radio Hour – our 10-week live radio series on east London radio station NTS – Dawson joined the Guide’s Kate Hutchinson to explore “the naked voice”. Richard delivered with some easy listening (OK, properly leftfield) choices from around the world, spanning Canadian bird calls, Laos love ballads, Tuvan throat singing, polyphonic choirs, jaw harps and much more. Listen to the on-demand version of the show above or subscribe to our Music Weekly podcast, where can get an abridged version of the show, too. There are more shows to explore and you can watch the behind-the-scenes video from the Radio Hour with Neneh Cherry below. The Radio Hour is produced by Alannah Chance.
Diane Kruger: ‘I truly believe the best is yet to come’ Some reviews stick around and Diane Kruger had the misfortune to receive a memorably withering one when she was starting out as an actress. “Too beautiful to play a role of any substance,” was the offhand dismissal from the New York Times critic, Manohla Dargis, in 2006. The comment was mostly a judgment on Troy, the eye-wateringly expensive Iliad adaptation in which she was cast opposite Brad Pitt and Orlando Bloom as a blond, blue-eyed Helen. The film-makers wanted an unknown for the part and Kruger, a German ex-model, beat more than 3,000 women to be the face that, in Christopher Marlowe’s words, “launch’d a thousand ships”. Ten years – and around 30 films – on, the New York Times line still irks Kruger. “What an ignorant and stupid thing to say!” she exclaims, on the phone from Paris; she splits her time between there and New York. “But it really affected me at the time because I thought, ‘Why is she talking about the way I look? Why isn’t she talking about what I do in the movie?’ And so that really taught me to a) not read critics. And b) to just toughen up. So I was like, ‘Fuck that!’ Or, ‘Fuck them!’ It made me really want to just dig deeper and show them I could do other things.” Kruger, now 40, has made a committed effort to change the public perception of her – and the project continues. She is perhaps best known here and in the States for playing kick-ass double agent Bridget von Hammersmark in Quentin Tarantino’s second world war epic Inglourious Basterds or as Sonya Cross, a detective with Asperger’s syndrome, in the American version of the Scandi thriller The Bridge. But mostly she works in France, leaning towards parts for strong women in darker, independent films, some of which she produces. She’s been Marie Antoinette (Farewell, My Queen), Abraham Lincoln’s stepmother (The Better Angels) and a Bosnian immigrant taxi driver (Unknown). Kruger is in demand on magazine covers and never seems to make a misstep on the red carpet, but it’s clear that’s not where her heart lies. And Kruger’s new movie, The Infiltrator, continues to make her case. It tells the true story of a customs official in 1980s Florida called Robert Mazur (played by Breaking Bad’s Bryan Cranston) who went undercover to bring down a Colombian drug cartel and the banks that supported it. Kruger is a rookie special agent, Kathy Ertz, who comes in on the sting as Mazur’s wife. It is a superior thriller, tense and twisty, and Cranston is predictably excellent, but Kruger is sharp and spirited, more than holding her own in a role that could easily have just been arm candy. Kruger, it turns out, is not what you would expect in a few ways. Her perfect, accentless English is more sweary than you might imagine and her co-stars are often surprised she is an excellent joke teller. She’s winningly honest about her career and personal life. And it’s hard not to warm to someone who, when I ask why she gave up modelling, says: “The third time the 1960s came around I was like, ‘Are we really taking this picture again? I’m really, really bored.’” Before modelling, there was ballet. Kruger grew up as Diane Heidkrüger, in a village in the heart of Germany, not far from Hanover. Each summer from the age of 11, she was shipped off to London on her own for intensive training with the Royal Ballet School. It sounds quite full-on, Black Swan-esque, but Kruger has fond memories of those trips: “My home was a little chaotic and I always loved getting away,” she recalls. Her father was an alcoholic and frequently absent; her parents went through a messy divorce when she was 13. A knee injury around this time derailed her ballet aspirations, but, from puberty onwards, Kruger had already secretly feared the worst. “I don’t think I had the talent to be a prima ballerina,” she admits. “I was really depressed for a good year, but now I’m older, [I see] it was a really great life lesson: you don’t always get what you want. And I think it actually led me, through very mysterious ways, to acting. Because I had such a tumultuous childhood, I was able to express my emotions dancing or being on stage. It’s so much about getting it out and putting that passion or frustration into your performance and then being rewarded for that.” Kruger started to model, aged 15, after being chosen to represent Germany in the Elite Model Look competition that has also launched the careers of Cindy Crawford and Gisele Bündchen. When it was suggested that she move to Paris, no one was more dubious than her family. “I did not grow up in a household where that was even a subject or encouraged,” says Kruger. “My mother was very much into making sure that I did OK in school because she wanted me not to be dependent on a man, because her life had been turned upside down. She was very loving but very strict and, if anything, she was incredibly disappointed when I chose to do modelling. She was like, ‘Why would you do that? You don’t look like a model.’” Kruger laughs. “Not that she was condescending and not encouraging, but she was like, ‘You’re crazy!’ basically. Again, now I’m older – and I could have a daughter the age I was when I left home – I can only admire her faith in me, because there’s no way I’d let my 16-year-old daughter go to Paris for a year.” The jump to acting in her mid-20s was, again, partly personal choice and partly Kruger’s hard-headed realism. Although she booked covers for Paris Vogue and featured in ads for Chanel and Giorgio Armani, she often felt like the swan whose legs whir incessantly to stay afloat. “I really don’t look like a model,” she insists. “I’m only 5ft 7in; I’m not like your 5ft 10in obvious model strutting down the street, so I always felt insecure about how I looked and I put so much pressure on myself. The minute I decided, ‘Why am I doing this to myself?’ my life got a lot better.” The role of Helen in Troy, which Kruger won almost immediately after the switch, was, she says now, a mixed blessing. “It was hugely daunting, because I knew they didn’t necessarily hire me because I was Julia Roberts,” she says. “But it was the biggest thing to get at that time in Hollywood. I’d never even been to Hollywood, it allowed me to get an agent. I went from doing literally one movie to being known, or my face at least, throughout the world.” Kruger has become more circumspect about the parts she takes, especially in American films. For The Infiltrator, the draw first and foremost was Cranston. “I was fan-girling a lot, just because of the show,” she says, meaning Breaking Bad. “It’s an embarrassing thing to say, but you’d be hard pressed to find any actor in Los Angeles, or even in England, who wouldn’t want to work with Bryan Cranston. He’s a character actor who became a movie star and that doesn’t happen very often. You forget who he is, his face just changes. In fact, so much so, I ran into him in the Vanity Fair party, after we wrapped The Infiltrator, and I walked past him without recognising him. Definitely one of the best actors I’ve ever worked with – ever.” The Infiltrator has had a decidedly odd journey to the cinema. The director is Brad Furman (who had success with The Lincoln Lawyer) and the screenplay – in a possible movie-history first – is by his mother, Ellen Brown Furman, a former lawyer who has turned to writing in her 60s. “That was an interesting dynamic to say the least, but I kind of loved it,” says Kruger. “Brad is such a good and nice Jewish boy who adores his mom.” Meanwhile, despite the story playing out in tropical Florida, the film, for budgetary reasons, was mostly shot in the UK in rainy, cold springtime. Locations included a bowling alley next to Heathrow and Dunsfold Aerodrome, home of the Top Gear racetrack. Did Kruger see the Stig? “No, what is that?” she replies. Kruger turned 40 in July, but celebrations were rather muted. Shortly after the big day, it was officially announced that she and Joshua Jackson (Pacey from Dawson’s Creek) were splitting after more than 10 years together. “It wasn’t the most fun time; my partner and I separated so it was a transitional time in my life,” she says with a wry snort. “But a very positive one.” Was there a sense that, as a new decade loomed, Kruger found herself assessing her personal and professional happiness? “You know, if you’d have asked me that a year ago, I’d have said absolutely not, it doesn’t matter,” she replies. “And it kind of didn’t. And it kind of doesn’t. But there is a sense that I don’t have any time to waste. Like, I want to do what I want to do or I want to be with who I want to be with. I’ve got to put myself first, no more excuses. I’m going to live in the now.” Career-wise, at least, Kruger is on a hot streak. And as she talks you sense that she is almost relieved to be entering a phase of her life where her looks will be less commented on. “Around 70% of my career is in France, which is an amazing place for women who are getting older,” she says. “I’m not daunted. I feel and I truly believe that the best is yet to come. I have felt better this year about where I am in life and who I am as a person than I have in the past 10 years.” Next up, Kruger plays Catherine Deneuve’s daughter in Tout nous sépare: “It’s a really fucked-up movie and I loved every second of it.” But the one she’s really excited about is the new project from Fatih Akin, a German director of Turkish descent whose films, notably Head-On and The Edge of Heaven, often focus on the identity problems of immigrants. Kruger collared Akin at the 2012 Cannes festival, where she was a judge, and the new movie, In the Fade, which starts shooting this autumn, was written with her in mind. “I don’t want to give too much away, but my character is very far from what people physically think of who I am,” she says. “It’s a transformation and I’ve never been more scared about a film than this! Like truly scared. For the last month or so, I’ve dreamed about it every night. I can’t wait to get started, but I’m dreading the emotional toll of it. “I’m really scared!” she repeats, but she’s giggling too. Perhaps, after this, no one will dismiss her as just a pretty face any more. The Infiltrator opens on 16 September
US cinema chain might introduce 'texting-friendly' screens The head of a major US cinema chain has suggested that ‘texting-friendly’ screens could soon become a reality. Adam Aron, the newly appointed CEO of AMC, has spoken to Variety about a need for the industry to keep up with younger moviegoers. “When you tell a 22-year-old to turn off the phone, don’t ruin the movie, they hear: please cut off your left arm above the elbow,” he said. “You can’t tell a 22-year-old to turn off their cellphone. That’s not how they live their life.” But Aron is also aware that not all audiences want to be in a phone-friendly environment at the cinema. “We’re going to have to figure out a way to do it that doesn’t disturb today’s audiences,” he said. “There’s a reason there are ads up there saying turn off your phone, because today’s moviegoer doesn’t want somebody sitting next to them texting or having their phone on.” He went on to detail that this could result in “specific auditoriums” that are made “more texting friendly”. He later elaborated on his comments in a series of tweets to say it would only become standard if AMC was “TOTALLY confident” that all cinemagoers would be satisfied. In 2014, some cinemas in China experimented with “bullet screens”, which were introduced to allow audience texts to appear alongside the film. Texting in cinemas is something that not all chains are comfortable with. Alamo Drafthouse CEO Tim League expressed his distaste for the idea at 2013’s CinemaCon. “Over my dead body will I introduce texting into the movie theatre,” he said. “It’s our job to understand that this is a sacred space and we have to teach manners.”
Jeff Goldblum: ‘I’m like one of those yogis who wanders the Earth with a diaper’ In a chic Los Feliz dinner club in old East Hollywood, Jeff Goldblum is where he is every Wednesday night: onstage, at a piano, with his face covered in lipstick marks from female punters. Like Woody Allen, the actor enjoys the regular irregularity of headlining his own freestyle jazz night, which is held together by his colleagues the Mildred Snitzer Orchestra, while Goldblum flies by the seat of his very tall pants, ad-libbing and scatting. He dances between tables, doing bad impressions of political figures and cinematic icons, then tries to keep up with his band’s improvised takes on Thelonius Monk and Miles Davis. “I’m always surprised by what they’re playing!” he shouts at the audience, genuinely stunned, his face widening like a cartoon character. Goldblum is very personable for an actor of such omnipresence. “Let’s talk about every little thing,” he says when we first meet. He probes on details: where you’re from, how many kids you have, what your relationship with your mother is like. But according to his former colleague in the jazz club, a writer for CBS television, it’s a one-sided kind of intimacy. Goldblum himself is “Unknowable, bizarre,” he says. “Isn’t he?” I had formally interviewed Goldblum some weeks before, at a hotel where he was promoting his latest film, Independence Day: Resurgence. The sequel sees Goldblum reprise his role as David Levinson, the geek who saves the planet from alien interlopers, a whole hair-greying 20 years on from the original. When I ask why there was a call for a sequel now, he refers me to its creators, director Roland Emmerich and writer Dean Devlin: “Have you met them? They’re very nice fellows.” He sounds like he’s just glad to have been brought along for the ride; changes the subject to how two decades have flown by: “When you get older, a summer is bomb-ding bomb-dang. Then it’s September, and bam-dat sca-dat, you know?” At 63, Goldblum seems to be ageing backwards. He has an almost childlike energy; you hear him before you see him, his voice wafting through walls. He’s a man of vocal flourishes and copious hand gestures, all “Dah-dah-de” and “Do-de-dums”. Despite being best known for his roles in 90s blockbusters Jurassic Park and Independence Day, he remains one of Hollywood’s most offbeat performers. One critic wrote that in The Fly he spoke his lines “as if queries were piling up in his head”. On set he was rumoured to have carried around a real fly in his pocket. “No!” he corrects me now. “I put it in a plastic bag and stuck it to a wall in the trailer. I’ve always been highly conscientious.” In his self-described “ecstasy-making” YSL leather jacket, doused in cologne, Goldblum still bears the trademarks of his unique style: the brainiac posing as a rock star with medallions and a thick mane of curls. For years he played the approachable nerd in the ads for Apple’s original iMacs – “What’s email?” he’d shrug, “It’s as easy as lickin’ a stamp” – but recoils at the thought of being mistaken for a nerdish character in real life. “Do you know what the original definition of geek was?” he says now. “A geek was a circus freak who would bite the heads off chickens. I am not a geek.” In fact, he struggles at times to operate his iPhone. The enthusiasm is all there, though. For Independence Day he was excited about finally being filmed in 3D: “I saw Avatar, didn’t I? I felt like a child on LSD. Wow-oh-wow-oh-wow… I could touch it! I liked that.” His own creative suggestions were not, however, taken up by his director. “I kept asking Roland, ‘Shouldn’t I throw something at the audience?’” He jumps up to demonstrate then shakes his head. “He said, ‘No Jeff, not how it works.’” Goldblum is – or perhaps cultivates the idea of being – a “normal guy”, the type of actor you see out and about doing ordinary things. (Before we first met I’d seen him more than once at my local Rite Aid in LA.) Born to a doctor-father and a mother in broadcasting, he grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania with a sister and two brothers, one of whom died tragically of kidney failure at 23. Goldblum refuses to talk about this time (“I won’t bore you with the details”) but at 19, he already had a career mapped out. He remembers his parents taking him to the theatre for the first time when he was nine. “There was something in me that was just intrigued. I remember thinking, ‘Who are they?’” he says of the actors. “‘Where do they come from? What are they doing? What goes on backstage?’” From there, Goldblum began to toy with the idea of a life in the arts. He’d write the words “please God make me an actor” on the shower door every day, then erase them before his parents could notice. “I was nothing if not hygienic,” he jokes now. Goldblum’s first child, Charlie, was born, coincidentally enough, on 4 July, Independence Day, last year. Charlie’s middle name is Ocean (“We like the water,” he shrugs). It was Goldblum’s therapist who convinced him to have a child at 62. “My wife and I said, ‘Let’s have a baby’ about a year before, and I thought, ‘That’s a serious thing,’ so we went to the therapist together and she said, ‘I’m not telling you what to do, but…’ and she helped me process it,” he laughs. “Then my therapist, delightful woman, officiated at our wedding, too.” Charlie’s mother, his third wife, whom he refers to as Emilie Livingston as though he’s in a Jane Austen novel, is half his age (33) and a former Olympic gymnast. He summarises his relationships with women (he was previously married to co-stars Patricia Gaul and Geena Davis) as “a mysterious course of study”. His house in LA has been a home for 28 years, but it’s only recently that he’s found full use for it. “I used to have a recurring dream where there’s an aspect of a house that I’ve left undiscovered, with a witches’ coven on the other side of the door. The thing I like about nesting and Charlie is that more of the house, my life and my person is getting used,” he says, before switching back to carefree bachelor mode. “But if the house burned down, I wouldn’t miss anything. I’m like one of these yogis who wanders the Earth with a diaper and a loin cloth, a bowl and a spoon. I like not to be attached to anything.” He takes his wedding ring off, he puts it on again. The ring is engraved. “Should I tell you?” he teases. “Oh, it says, ‘Peaches + Patches = Eternal Love’. I call her Peaches, she calls me Patches. See, I have this asymmetrical patch here on my torso and Emilie says, ‘Don’t trim that – I love it.’” He whips out his phone and shows me his Instagram feed. “Here she is! That’s my wife planting our dried-up umbilical cord underneath a tree a couple of days ago. It’s a little New Agey but the idea is that this is a place where Charlie will always feel grounded.” He continues with another photo. “And there’s us!” he says. “There’s our dog Woody Allen – we’re interested in a parenting approach to dogs instead of ownership… I guess that’s quite yogic of us.” Although he denounces religion, he admits he has something of a carpe diem philosophy. YOLO, I offer, if he were hashtagging. At this suggestion Goldblum looks taken aback; he’s never heard the phrase before. “You Only Live Once? That’s great. I have no faith in an afterlife and you never know when it’s gonna end,” he says. “There’s so much that’s delicious, precious, magnificent, mysterious and infinitely enjoyable that it would be foolish not to make every day an adventure.” The day we meet he has just heard of his friend Garry Shandling’s death. “I’d been meaning to get together with him,” he says sadly. “He was a sweet guy. I found my therapist through him. And I’d go to his house. He built it. And he’d say, ‘But I don’t like it. I prefer yours.’” Goldblum has more celebrity stories to share. He mentions a boat trip he’s just taken with Stevie Wonder, Quentin Tarantino and Tom Stoppard, among others (“We were singing songs at night with Julian Lennon, how fun.”) He reminisces on his date last week at the White House, where he took pictures with the Obamas. President Obama revealed himself an Independence Day fan, although Goldblum takes that with a pinch of salt. More importantly: “I hugged Michelle,” he says. “Didn’t Stanislavsky say: love the art in yourself, not yourself in art? Bit highfalutin but the idea is to be interested in the human aspect of all stories. Start to love that and then all the chips will fall into place.” At the end of the interview he invites me to Rockwell, where he’s returning to host jazz regularly. “Come!” he says. “Tap me on the shoulder! We’ll be the best of friends.” It sounds like the kind of pretence a celebrity establishes to seem more like the rest of us. Still, I go to the jazz club, where he’s surrounded by fans. I don’t tap him on the shoulder. The next day he phones and apologises for missing me. “Did you get much sleep last night?” he asks. “I’m sorry I never saw you. Were you all jazzed up?” He asks about my family again, life in LA, tells me about a recent trip to Comic Con in Las Vegas, then another private holiday with his family. He talks about teaching Charlie piano at home. He shares so much, in fact, that I wonder out loud about Jeff Goldblum the enigma and, at this, he chuckles again. “Oh, there’s nothing intentional I’m doing to cause mystery,” he says. “I’m open, I’m accessible and I like to be intimate and thoroughly, thoroughly exposed, you know? What’s certainly true is that I’m interested in other people.” He tells me to come and tap him on the shoulder some other time. Independence Day: Resurgence is released on 23 June
Michael Caine: 'I used to drink a bottle of vodka a day' Michael Caine has revealed that he drank a bottle of vodka a day early in his career. The Oscar-winning actor spoke about his problems with alcohol during his early career in an interview with Radio Times. “I was a bit of a piss artist when I was younger,” he said. “I used to drink a bottle of vodka a day and I was smoking several packs a day.” Caine claimed his job led him to extremes. “I wasn’t unhappy, but it was stress,” he said. You know, ‘Am I going to get another picture? How am I going to do this part? How am I going to remember all those lines? I’ve got to get up at six in the morning and I hope the alarm works.’” He believed that his second wife, Shakira, saved him from death after they were married in 1973, saying she “calmed him” down. “Without her, I would have been dead long ago,” he said. “I would have probably drunk myself to death.” In an interview with the Telegraph last week, Caine said now he only drinks wine with dinner. The actor is promoting his role as a retired composer in Paolo Sorrentino’s film Youth. It won him the best actor trophy at the European film awards in December. After the ceremony, he reflected on his career and his personal mistrust of advice from other actors. “I always say to any actor: don’t listen to advice from actors, especially if they’re older than you,” he said. “Because when I was very young, I asked lots of older actors for advice and every single one of them said to me, ‘Give it up. You can’t act and you’ve got a rotten accent.’” Caine will appear in the forthcoming thriller about magicians Now You See Me 2 and the crime comedy Going in Style.
Petrol prices to rise, plus government to act on ground rent abuse Hello and welcome to this week’s Money Talks – a roundup of the week’s biggest stories and some things you may have missed. Money news Petrol prices set to rise after Opec deal Government promises to stamp out abuses of new-build ground rent Banks act to stop transfer scams and errors Plans for ‘simpler, more modern’ UK train fare system to be announced NS&I bond raises hopes of greater savings competition Feature Handcuffed in Waitrose: the innocent man in search of justice In pictures Homes for hermits Consumer champions GWR fails to deliver on the final cost of online special offer rail tickets Calling John Lewis about my Partnership card ... is there anybody out there? Parcel Monkey delivers customs duty bill to Filipino children instead of gift In the spotlight Budget utility provider GB energy has folded. Miles Brignall looks at what happens next for gas and electricity customers. Money deals Get competitive exchange rates and free online currency transfers from moneycorp, providers of the money transfer service, provided by Moneycorp. Save time and money with the ’s annual travel insurance, provided by Voyager.
David Cameron: being in the EU gives Britain key counter-terrorism information David Cameron has said that membership of the European Union gives the UK vital information about “terrorists and criminals moving around Europe”, demonstrating that he intends to place security issues at the heart of his referendum campaign. The remarks by the prime minister on Monday came hours after Downing Street warned that thousands of refugees could cross the Channel overnight and claim asylum in southern England in the event of a UK exit. Cameron said: “You know that we have that vital information when terrorists and criminals are travelling around Europe ... The people who want to take a different path, they have to start answering some questions about what it would look like if we are not in that organisation and not party to those rules. And I know they fear that, that the time will come pretty soon when they have to start answering some of those questions.” The prime minister’s comments are understood to refer to Hussain Osman, one of the failed 21 July 2005 bombers, who was rapidly extradited from Italy to the UK under the European arrest warrant. The warrant was one of 35 EU justice and home affairs measures that the home secretary, Theresa May, opted into after previously opting out of all 133 measures. Leading Eurosceptics, who have warned that pro-Europeans will seek to ape the so-called “project fear” tactics of the Scottish referendum, accused the prime minister of scaremongering after No 10 raised the prospect of the refugee camps in northern France moving across the Channel. Liam Fox, the former defence secretary, said he was “sad and disappointed” by the prime minister’s words after No 10 suggested France could rescind the right – under the Anglo-French 2003 Le Touquet treaty – of UK border guards to be stationed in northern France if Britain left the EU. The No 10 spokesman said: “We currently have these juxtaposed controls with France that, should the UK leave the EU, there is no guarantee that those controls would remain in place. If those controls weren’t in place then there would be nothing to stop thousands of people crossing the Channel overnight and arriving in Kent and claiming asylum.” He added: “We have an arrangement in place with France. We are both EU partners. Should we leave the EU there is no guarantee that the relationship, in terms of the controls we have in France at the moment, would continue. If those controls didn’t continue then there are thousands of people there who are there specifically because they want to come to the UK who would then come to the UK.” Fox and David Davis accused the prime minister of scaremongering because the Anglo-French treaty was agreed outside the EU. Fox tweeted: “Sad and disappointed to see our prime minister stoop to this level of scaremongering ... especially as he knows the Calais agreement is nothing to do with the EU and agreed between the two governments.” The Downing Street arguments echo the points made by former deputy prime minister Nick Clegg during the last parliament when he pressed the prime minister and home secretary to opt back into a large proportion of the EU security measures. The prime minister hopes that highlighting the benefits of cooperation on fighting terrorists will force anti-EU campaigners on to the defensive. The exchanges gave an early taste of No 10’s tactics – and the response of the anti-EU campaigners – when the referendum campaign is launched if Cameron secures agreement at the EU summit in Brussels next week. The prime minister wants to place security – in a narrow financial and wider strategic sense – at the heart of the pro-EU campaign. Pro-EU Tories will intensify the pressure on the anti-EU camp with a warning that a UK exit from the EU would mark a “leap in the dark”. Nick Herbert, the former justice minister who chairs the campaign group Conservatives for Reform in Europe, will say: “The personality differences on the leave side are clear for all to see. But they also have serious policy disputes. Despite years of campaigning for Brexit, they can’t even agree among themselves what the alternative to EU membership should be.” Herbert will say that the Brexit campaigners cannot agree whether Britain should follow the example of Norway, Switzerland or the so-called “clean break” option in which the UK severs its ties altogether with the EU, and negotiates a trade deal through the World Trade Organisation. Norway has access to the EU single market but has to pay and has no say in drawing up its rules. Switzerland has a free trade deal with the EU but some of its financial services are excluded. The former minister will add: “They’re inviting the public to take a giant leap into the dark, gambling Britain’s economic success on an alternative which they can’t begin to spell out. If even Brexit campaigners can’t agree what the future holds, why should the British public take the risk of leaving?” The pro-EU camp believe they are on strong ground because the anti-EU camp cannot guarantee what deal the UK would sign with the EU after a vote to leave. Under the terms of the Lisbon treaty a country leaving the EU loses its seat on the European Council and has to negotiate within two years with two member states appointed by the remaining 27 EU leaders.
French presidential favourite says UK needs to leave EU quickly Alain Juppé, the favourite to win the French presidential election next year, has said Britain needs to leave the European Union as quickly as possible, arguing that a long period of uncertainty would be damaging to the markets and economic growth. On a visit to London on Monday, Juppé, who is tipped to win a centre-right primary against Nicolas Sarkozy later this year, said procrastination on Brexit would not be permitted. “When you get divorced, you do not get to stay at home,” he declared. “You have to leave the common house”. The French politician, seen as most likely to succeed president François Hollande in May, reiterated his demand that the Le Touquet accords – under which the UK border force is allowed to operate in Calais – be torn up. He did not rule out a deal that allowed the UK access to the EU single market, even if it rejected the free movement of workers, but said he did not want to set out the results of a negotiation before it had started. The two options, he said, were for the UK to join countries such as Norway in the European Economic Area or to sign a bilateral agreement such as the Swiss has with the EU. Neither agreement, however, allows for restrictions on free movement. With his remarks on the speed of the Brexit negotiations, Juppé added his voice to the chorus of those calling for Britain to start the process quickly. The mayor of Bordeaux and former prime minister warned that the UK faced hard choices: “You cannot be outside and inside. Britain has chosen to be outside so we now have to negotiate an agreement to organise the relations between a country that is outside the EU.” He insisted that although there was no desire to punish the UK, there was an urgency since the markets detested uncertainty. The German government, led by chancellor Angela Merkel, has taken a more relaxed approach to the timetable, with her chief of staff, Peter Altmaier, saying on Monday: “Political respect for our British friends means we should not interfere and we should give Great Britain the time it needs.” An even more divergent view came from the Austrian finance minister, Hans Joerg Schelling, who said he did not believe Britain would leave the EU at all. “Britain will remain a member of the EU in the future,” he was quoted as saying in the German newspaper Handelsblatt, predicting there would “still be 28 member states” in five years’ time. Juppé, who was in London in part to hear the concerns of the large French community about Brexit, including their worries about future employment and residence status, showed more flexibility than the UK government by suggesting it would be possible for the UK and the EU to reach a temporary agreement on the status of migrants in each other’s jurisdiction before the full agreement was complete. “British people are welcome in France. I do not see a difficulty there,” he said. “We want to keep them. They are part of the life of the little villages. They are very well integrated in our daily lives.” In perhaps his clearest challenge to the existing bilateral agreement with the UK, he said the Le Touquet agreement would have to be renegotiated. Juppé made this call months ago, but said Brexit gave the French government a fresh reason to end “an unsatisfactory agreement”. His comments raise the prospect – rejected by the current French government – of the refugee camp at Calais being relocated to Britain. “We cannot continue with a system in which on French territory the British authorities decide the people that can be welcomed and can be rejected. That is not acceptable,” he said. Juppé described his vision for a new chapter in EU history, setting out how it needed to be reformed in light of Brexit, culminating in a referendum in all the member states willing to take the next steps to integration. “It would be a mistake for EU to continue as if nothing has happened,: he said. “Many in EU see the EU as bureaucratic, undemocratic, far from the daily concerns of and powerless to solve major issues such as migration.” His new chapter included stopping “any further enlargement of Europe – we have to say to Turkey it will not be possible to welcome this country into the future.” He added: “We need to find a new distribution of power between the union and member states. The union needs to implement the famous principle of subsidiarity, not just talk about it. We need to enforce and strengthen the eurozone by greater convergence of tax and social systems. It is not possible to have common borders which are inefficient”, suggesting this may require a new elite Schengen area representing only the states that “could prove they could control their borders”. • This article was amended on 5 July 2016. An earlier version said an option for Britain was to join Sweden in the European Economic Area. That has been corrected to refer to Norway; Sweden is a member of the EU.
Thousands more NHS operations cancelled than figures show, report claims Tens of thousands more operations were cancelled at the last minute in English hospitals than official figures suggest, an investigation has claimed. About half of English NHS trusts admitted in response to Freedom of Information requests that they had cancelled nearly 42,000 operations between one and three days before patients were admitted. It comes after official figures in May showed the number of hospital operations in England cancelled at the last minute because of a lack of staff or beds rose to 74,086, its highest in 15 years. However, that statistic only records cancellations on the day of admission. The BBC, which carried out the investigation, says the new figures give a picture more in line with official figures published in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, where the definition of last-minute cancellations is wider and is taken over several days. FoI requests were submitted to all 156 NHS trusts in England, asking them to provide figures for operations cancelled one to three days before patients were due to be admitted. Data from the 74 trusts which replied suggested they cancelled 41,474 operations within the period. May’s official figures marked the worst record of cancellations for the NHS in England since 2001-02, when 81,743 patients had procedures cancelled on the day they were supposed to happen. Experts warned that the data was a sign of the pressures on the health service. At the time, Clare Marx, president of the Royal College of Surgeons, said that pressures on A&E units, staff shortages, and bed shortages due to a lack of social care for discharged patients were contributing to the problem. An NHS England spokesperson said: “The proportion of patients seeing their operations cancelled at the last minute remains under 1% in spite of record numbers of operations being scheduled. “Our national data collection rightly requires trusts to focus on monitoring the number of last-minute cancellations, as this is where the most distress is caused for patients. “Hospitals should continue to ensure that every effort is made to reschedule cancelled operations as soon as possible.”
Yorkshire Ripper: tribunal rules Peter Sutcliffe can be sent to mainstream prison The Yorkshire Ripper, Peter Sutcliffe, who murdered 13 women, may be released from the secure psychiatric hospital Broadmoor and sent to a mainstream prison after a tribunal concluded that his mental illness was under control. Sutcliffe was given 20 life sentences when he was convicted in 1981, but was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia in 1984 and transferred to Broadmoor in Berkshire. On Thursday, a mental health tribunal ruled that he no longer required clinical treatment and could therefore be moved back into the mainstream prison system. He is serving a whole-life tariff and will die in jail. The Ministry of Justice must now decide whether or not to approve the tribunal’s decision on Sutcliffe, now known as Peter Coonan. An MoJ spokeswoman said: “Decisions over whether prisoners are to be sent back to prison from secure hospitals are based on clinical assessments made by independent medical staff. “The high court ordered in 2010 that Peter Coonan should never be released. This was upheld by the court of appeal. Peter Coonan will remain locked up and will never be released for his evil crimes. Our thoughts are with Coonan’s victims and their families.” Sutcliffe killed 13 women, many of whom were prostitutes, and injured seven more in West Yorkshire between 1975 and 1980. He was finally captured by police after he was pulled over with a prostitute in his car while driving with false number plates. At his trial in 1981, he pleaded not guilty to 13 counts of murder, but pleaded guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility, and claimed that he had heard the voice of God telling him to kill people. The judge dismissed this defence and insisted that the case be heard by a jury, who found him guilty on all 13 counts of murder. Sutcliffe applied to have a minimum term set to his sentence, but in 2010, the high court ruled that he would spend the rest of his life in prison. A psychiatric report submitted to the high court said he had been given anti-psychotic medication since 1993, which had successfully contained his mental illness. In December, a report by medical experts recommended that he be moved from psychiatric hospital to prison. This article was amended on 12 August 2016 to clarify that Peter Sutcliffe pleaded not guilty to 13 counts of murder, but guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility.
Theresa May to tell G20 UK is ‘open for business’ despite Brexit vote Theresa May has said the UK will be a global leader in free trade after the vote to leave the European Union, as she headed to Hangzhou in eastern China for the G20 summit on Saturday. May also declared it a “golden era” for UK-China relations despite the impending row with Beijing over the delayed decision on the Hinkley Point C power station. She suggested she wants to use her first major global summit to prove the UK remains dependable in the wake of the June referendum result. Speaking at Heathrow before boarding an RAF plane, May said: “The message for the G20 is that Britain is open for business. As a bold, confident, outward-looking country we will be playing a key role on the world stage.” The prime minister will have a meeting with the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, on Monday, after the two-day summit. “This is a golden era for UK-China relations and one of the things I will be doing at the G20 is obviously talking to President Xi about how we can develop the strategic partnership that we have between the UK and China,” May said. “But I will also be talking to other world leaders about how we can develop free trade around the world, and Britain wants to seize those opportunities. My ambition is that Britain will be a global leader in free trade.” May is due to hold talks with leaders including Barack Obama, Vladimir Putin and Narendra Modi. But despite a face-to-face meeting with Xi, she is not expected to make an announcement on the Hinkley Point C project, which is backed by Beijing’s state-owned nuclear firm. Although a decision on whether the project in Somerset will go ahead is expected this month, UK officials indicated it would not be announced on Monday – fuelling speculation the plan would be scrapped or significantly altered. “We have set out the government’s approach to Hinkley. We are currently considering all the component parts of that,” a UK source told the Press Association. “We have said we will make a decision this month – that remains the plan. I don’t expect one in the next few days and I don’t expect our Chinese or French partners are expecting one in the next few days.” The French energy company EDF, with support from China General Nuclear, had expected to build the £18bn plant, but in a surprise move May’s administration delayed a final decision on the project amid reports of security concerns about Beijing’s involvement and the high cost of energy from the power station. The former security minister Pauline Neville-Jones said on Saturday that reassurances were needed from China before a decision could be made. “The issue, I think, is much more day-to-day security implications of having an investor of that kind who isn’t an ally – not an enemy – but isn’t an ally in the way most investment hitherto in to this country has been from the west,” she told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme. Any final decision on Hinkley Point is expected to have major diplomatic implications for relations between the UK, France and China. May’s talks with Obama follow his warning that the UK would be at “the back of the queue” for a trade deal if it voted to leave the EU. But amid reports that the planned US-EU trade deal TTIP has stalled, the UK hopes for talks on a transatlantic agreement of its own with Washington. During Sunday’s summit May is also reported to want to push for action on tackling terrorism, including stopping the flow of money and foreign fighters to extremist groups such as Islamic State. She will press for action to make sure that Isis fighters are not able to find new safe havens in areas such as sub-Saharan Africa once they are forced out of strongholds.
There’s always an excuse to hack into our lives So the FBI has backed off – at least for the time being – in its bid to force Apple to write a crippled version of the iPhone operating system in order to enable the bureau to unlock the phone used by a terrorist. Last Tuesday government lawyers asked a judge to postpone the scheduled hearing because FBI investigators believe they may have found a way to hack the iPhone’s security without forcing Apple to help. The judge readily agreed, thereby putting on the back burner an epic confrontation between an irresistible force and an immovable object. If you wanted a case study that illustrates the challenges posed by digital technology for the modern state, then this battle between the FBI and Apple is it. The story began on 2 December with an attack by two terrorists that left 14 people dead and 22 seriously injured at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, California. Four hours after the shooting, the two killers (a married couple) were shot dead by the police. The man – Syed Rizwan Farook – had an iPhone provided by his employers, which survived the raid. Like most iPhones, Farook’s regularly backed up its data to an iCloud account but there was a period between the most recent backup and the day of the massacre when it hadn’t synced with the Apple server. In a cock-up of Olympic proportions, the iCloud password was reset by Farook’s employers (the owners of the phone) with the explicit consent of the FBI. If this hadn’t been done, the phone could have been left plugged in and would have eventually uploaded the fresh data to the cloud. But once the reset had happened, the phone would only do it after its user’s passcode had been entered. And the Feds didn’t know the passcode. In normal circumstances, the FBI could have hooked up the phone to a computer, which would then have spent a day or two trying every passcode combination until it hit on the right one. But the security provisions built into iPhones since version 8 of its operating system precludes that. After 10 unsuccessful guesses the phone automatically destroys its data. No problem, thought the Feds: we’ll just get a court order forcing Apple to write a special version of the operating system that will bypass this security provision and then download it to Farook’s phone. They got the order, but Apple refused point-blank to comply – on several grounds: since computer code is speech, the order violated the first amendment because it would be “compelled speech”; because being obliged to write the code amounted to “forced labour”, it would also violate the fifth amendment; and it was too dangerous because it would create a backdoor that could be exploited by hackers and nation states and potentially put a billion users of Apple devices at risk. The resulting public furore offers a vivid illustration of how attempting a reasoned public debate about encryption is like trying to discuss philosophy using smoke signals. Leaving aside the purely clueless contributions from clowns like Piers Morgan and Donald Trump, and the sanctimonious platitudes from Obama downwards about “no company being above the law”, there is an alarmingly widespread failure to appreciate what is at stake here. We are building a world that is becoming totally dependent on network technology. Since there is no possibility of total security in such a world, then we have to use any tool that offers at least some measure of protection, for both individual citizens and institutions. In that context, strong encryption along the lines of the stuff that Apple and some other companies are building into their products and services is the only game in town. Of course this will provide difficulties for law enforcement and surveillance at times, and we therefore need some to devise rational and legal ways of dealing with genuine life-or-death cases. But the San Bernardino iPhone case isn’t one of those. From the very beginning the tech community has been saying that there were various options available to the FBI other than leaning on Apple. The reason for postponement offered to the court on Tuesday by government lawyers – which was that they believed a way had been found to hack the iPhone’s security without forcing Apple to help – confirms that technical consensus. Which leaves us with two questions. Why did the Feds take this approach in the first place? Answer: they saw a way of harnessing (understandable) public outrage at the San Bernardino massacre to pressure a technology company into providing an encryption backdoor for government. Secondly: why have they suddenly backed off? Could it be that the agency couldn’t face the prospect of having its technical incompetence dissected in open court? As Francis Urquhart in House of Cards would put it: you might think that; I couldn’t possibly comment. But it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that the FBI has been playing politics with our security.
Moocs to earn degree credits for first time in UK at two universities Two major UK universities are to offer massive open online courses – or Moocs – which for the first time will earn credits that count towards a final degree, it has been announced. In what is being billed as an important step towards widening access to higher education, students will be able to take part of a degree through an online course and gain formal accreditation towards their final qualification. While Moocs offering credits have become a familiar part of the US higher education market, in the UK until now only basic certificates of participation have been available at the end of an online course. Among those taking part are the University of Leeds, which is a member of the elite Russell Group of universities, and the Open University, which specialises in distance and open learning for undergraduate and postgraduate courses and qualifications. Mooc enthusiasts believe the courses will revolutionise higher education, but early enthusiasm in the US has been dimmed by some poor products and low completion rates. However, supporters in the UK claim Moocs will unbundle UK higher education and give more control to students, enabling them to trial undergraduate and MBA courses before paying for them and then fit study around work if they decide to go ahead. The online courses are being made available by FutureLearn, a social learning platform owned by the Open University whose current 3.6 million users are primarily based outside the UK. To take a programme learners must complete a series of short open courses and buy a certificate of achievement for each. To complete programmes that attract an academic credit or offer a qualification, students may have to pay and pass an assessment module. Universities will award credit against the grade achieved which will then count towards a degree. In the Leeds offering, for example, each course certificate will cost £59 and there are five taught courses; the sixth assessment course, which leads to 10 credits, is priced at £250 – making a total cost of £545 – which will also cover access to online library content. Sir Alan Langlands, the university’s vice-chancellor, said: “The University of Leeds is very proud to be the first Russell Group university to launch a credit-bearing online course on the FutureLearn platform. “It signifies our ongoing commitment to widen access to higher education, desire to offer flexible and inclusive education and showcases our excellence in research-based learning.” Peter Horrocks, the vice-chancellor of the Open University, said: “This innovative offer of credit is a clear demonstration of the disruptive potential of Moocs in offering more efficient, competitive and learner-focused study options.” FutureLearn is the first major British venture into Moocs. Its chief executive, Simon Nelson, said: “Allowing people to take part of a degree course with the flexibility offered by our platform means that they can achieve meaningful qualifications whilst still being able to work and manage other important parts of their lives.”
Benefits system ‘a cruel bureaucracy’, says Ken Loach after Cannes win Film-maker Ken Loach has called the benefits system a “cruel bureaucracy” that makes users feel inferior and desperate in an interview after winning his second Palme d’Or at the Cannes film festival. Loach clinched the festival’s highest honour for his welfare state drama I, Daniel Blake, about a carpenter struggling with the inanities and indignities of the benefits system. Loach, who will turn 80 next month, came out of retirement to make the movie, saying he hoped it would influence welfare policy in the same way one of his very first films, Cathy Come Home, had changed political thinking on homelessness. “I think we have to look again at this whole cruel sanctions and benefit system, which is out to tell the poor that it’s their own fault and if they don’t have a job it’s because they are incompetent or useless,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Monday. “There’s a despair and anger with people who are facing this and those trying to support them. The fact that we now accept food banks as part of our national scene, this is actually unacceptable.” When asked by presenter Sarah Montague why he thought there was such a groundswell of public support for welfare measures such as the benefits cap, Loach said that was an opinion of “people who listen to the Today programme too much”. “If you actually get out amongst the food banks and the people supporting people there, people who would not eat unless if it weren’t for the charity, who have to choose between heating and food, I think you’ll find there’s a great disgust and despair about that in this country now,” he said. Despite being a realist drama about the British welfare system, I, Daniel Blake was praised by the Cannes jury for its universally relatable story, with jury member Donald Sutherland calling it “an absolutely terrific movie that resonates in your heart and soul”. “I think dealing with a cruel bureaucracy is something that crosses borders and people understand the frustration of being constantly trapped by call centres, by people who won’t give you the help you need and facing a bureaucracy that is out to deny you what you feel is your right, is something we all understand,” Loach said. The recognition for the film, he said, was down to “finding a theme and a story that people can identify with and take something from and has some connection to the world that we’re living in”.
'I fell asleep at the wheel': the dangers of doctors driving home Steven Best was on his way home from work when he crashed and wrote off his car. The GP, who at the time was a junior doctor working in obstetrics, had just finished his shift at 5pm after starting work at 9am the day before. He was in the fast lane of the dual carriageway when a car in the slow lane crossed into his line of vision and he hit it. “I don’t remember falling asleep at the wheel but I’ve always thought I was pretty tired. I thought that might have played a part in it,” he says of the incident 32 years ago. You might think this was an unlucky one-off but new research suggests the opposite. Two in five UK doctors (41%) have fallen asleep at the wheel while driving home after a night shift, according to an online survey of 1,135 doctors from Doctors.net.uk. The survey respondents also said they knew, on average, six colleagues who had fallen asleep at the wheel. More than one in four knew a doctor who had died in a road traffic accident after a night shift. One doctor who answered the survey said: “I lost two very good friends within weeks of each other ... both had car accidents driving home after a night shift. One on the motorway with no one else involved – the inquest [revealed that she] fell asleep at the wheel … [They were] super people who had so much more to give and so much more life to live.” The results come soon after the inquest of Dr Ronak Patel that found he fell asleep at the wheel when driving home after his third night shift in a row. Last week, Michael Farquhar, a paediatric consultant sleep specialist, told the British Medical journal that the NHS needs a sizeable culture shift in its attitude to doctors sleeping during night shifts. Falling asleep while driving isn’t just an issue limited to doctors and there have been reports of nurses dying in road traffic accidents too. The nature of certain jobs in healthcare means that professionals’ working lives are made up of an ever-changing variety of night shifts, day shifts and rest days. The issue is perhaps more pronounced among junior doctors who change hospital every three to four months, often leading to a lengthy commute home. The average distance reported by respondents to the survey was 25 miles. Night shifts can be incredibly stressful, especially for a doctor just out of university who is faced with having to make life or death decisions. Driving home afterwards can be equally as worrying, as Thomas Bewerley knows only too well: “When I first qualified and was working near London, some of those journeys home were scary as hell. I’ve never had a near miss but have momentarily fallen asleep at the wheel.” He added: “The experiences were horrible. You’ve got the windows down and you’re trying to sing along to your favourite songs and it’s not working. You’re on a busy road and it’s not easy to find somewhere convenient to stop. These episodes came out of nowhere. Starting the journey I’d be fine and within five or 10 minutes, I’d be in trouble. I was doing my utmost to stay awake but couldn’t.” Although the issue is commonplace among the medical profession, the subject remains taboo. Helen Peterson, a junior doctor in psychiatry in the Midlands, said: “It’s known that everyone feels absolutely shattered driving home. In terms of people having fallen asleep at the wheel, it’s not as openly talked about. People worry that it might get around and they will be asked if they should be driving home or that the police might get involved.” So what’s the answer? The doctors interviewed said they would like to see employers take responsibility. They complained that there were no rest facilities for staff to go when they’re tired. In response to their survey, Doctors.net.uk has launched an e-petition calling on trusts and deaneries to make some provision for on-site accommodation. Peterson continues: “If a lot of people are raising issues, then employers need to look at what’s happening. I’ve never been asked if this is an issue by my employers. None of my colleagues would bring it up because of the fear around how it might reflect on you. We just suck it up and get on with it.” All names have been changed Has anything happened to you after a night shift? Does this need to be talked about more? What would you like to see happen? We want to hear from any healthcare professionals – nurses, paramedics, doctors, healthcare assistants etc – who feel this is an issue. Please comment below the line or email sarah.johnson@theguardian.com Join the Healthcare Professionals Network to read more pieces like this. And follow us on Twitter (@GdnHealthcare) to keep up with the latest healthcare news and views.
Sarah Polley adapting Margaret Atwood crime novel for Netflix series Netflix has teamed with Sarah Polley (director of Away From Her) and Mary Harron (American Psycho) for a new true-crime series, based on a novel by Canadian author Margaret Atwood, about convicted murderer Grace Marks. Polley, who last directed the acclaimed documentary Stories We Tell, will write and produce the six-hour miniseries, with Harron on board as director. Alias Grace, bearing the same title as Atwood’s 1996 book, will tell the story of Grace Marks, a young Irish immigrant and domestic servant in upper Canada, who along with stable hand James McDermott, was convicted of the brutal murders of their employer and his housekeeper. Marks was eventually exonerated after 30 years, while McDermott was hanged for the crimes. Much of the novel takes place in 1859, when Marks was incarcerated in a women’s penitentiary. At the heart of the book are the stories Marks tells to a young doctor, Simon Jordan, a fictional character who researches the case and falls in love with Marks. He’ll also play a prominent role in the Netflix adaptation, reports the Hollywood Reporter. In a statement, Polley called Grace Marks, “as captured by Margaret Atwood”, “the most complex, riveting character I have ever read”. Alias Grace marks Atwood’s latest book-to-TV adaptation following The Handmaid’s Tale, which was picked up straight to series at Hulu with Top of Lake’s Elisabeth Moss attached to star. It debuts in 2017. True-crime series are currently all the rage: FX’s American Crime Story: The People v OJ Simpson is considered a key player at this year’s Emmys, while Netflix’s Making a Murderer and HBO’s The Jinx proved extremely popular. The podcast Serial is also being turned into a TV show. No premiere date has been announced for Alias Grace, a co-production between Netflix, Halfire Entertainment and Canadian broadcaster CBC. The cast has also yet to be revealed.
Whoever wins, the EU vote has been a disastrous diversion This is all absurd; yet it is also very important, with serious implications for the future of the UK and the rest of Europe. Yes: in or out, we shall still belong to the continent of Europe. Moreover, given that the rest of the world also seems to be taking an interest, the outcome of the 23 June referendum can hardly be invested with too much importance. Apart from anything else, a Brexit vote would almost certainly add to the growing dissatisfaction with the EU in many continental countries. There are even fears of a domino effect. Regular readers will be aware that, while always being opposed to suggestions that we should ever put the pound into the eurozone, I am a passionate believer in the importance of our remaining within an EU that successive predecessors of David Cameron spent decades trying to join, and which, for all its faults, is better than the alternative. For some time I have been extremely nervous about the outcome. I keep meeting the most surprising people who say they intend to vote Leave. It is also worrying that for cynically political reasons the Conservatives, under the coalition, made it more difficult for 18-year-olds to register to vote. Given that the young are much more strongly European than many of their elders, David Cameron and the Cabinet Office are now desperately encouraging them to register, an act which the prime minister, no doubt himself a master of new technology, promises can be carried out in three minutes on the government website. The worry is that the older, generally pro-Brexit people will turn out in force. Which brings us to an interesting point made at London University last week by that doyen of pollsters, Sir Robert Worcester, at a symposium entitled Brexit – Then and Now, organised by the Institute of Commonwealth Studies. The “then” was the June 1975 referendum, held shortly after we joined what was then the European Community in 1973. Worcester pointed out that from January 1975 until June the polls consistently showed that the probable outcome would be what we now refer to as Remain: by the impressive margin of two thirds to one third. Those polls were as good as spot-on when the day came. By contrast the polls have been much closer in recent months – indeed, from the Remain camp’s point of view, perilously close until the last week or so, when there appears to have been a shift towards staying in, even among older voters. The betting market is interesting, but not entirely reassuring. William Hill tells me that the odds are now 6-1 on for our voting to remain in the EU. So Remain is apparently a racing certainty: so much so that the big gamblers are prepared to put down £60 in order to win £10 – something, I have to say (after a salutary experience at Ascot many years ago) I myself would never risk. On the other hand, far more individual bets are being placed on a Brexit outcome. Thus, although almost four fifths of the money has been put on Remain, two thirds of the individual, and obviously much smaller, bets have been for Brexit. One’s overall impression is that while nothing can be taken for granted, the truly abysmal failure of a divided Brexit camp to present anything like a coherent case for leaving is beginning to affect marginal voters. But if there is indeed a shift of opinion in favour of Remain, things could still go awry if there is another terrorist attack and/or the subject of immigration becomes an even bigger issue. Meanwhile, it has to be said that, while historically significant, the referendum is a serious diversion from the underlying economic and political problems facing both the UK and Europe generally. The Treasury, the Bank of England and assorted international institutions and domestic thinktanks have been doing their level best to frighten the electorate with doom-laden prophecies of what lies in store if the nation votes for Brexit. But, as John Llewellyn and Russell Jones of Llewellyn Consulting remind us in their latest weekly comment: “In or out of the EU, the country is confronted by major economic challenges and the political environment is likely to remain fraught and unsettled.” They point to the huge current balance of payments deficit – at 7%, much higher than the deficit that brought such problems in 1976, once the 1975 referendum was out of the way. This and problems such as the housing crisis and the lamentable structural weakness of the British economy will resurface, come what may, on 24 June. But a positive outcome is surely a necessary condition for a serious economic recovery plan. I agree with such respected commentators as Roger Bootle, Gerard Lyons and Larry Elliott that there is much wrong with economic policy in the EU (Elliott’s stimulating new book with Dan Atkinson is called Europe Isn’t Working) but am surprised that they all want to take the Brexit route. Who knows? A Remain vote could set a good example to other member nations where the commitment to the EU is wearing thin.
Making NHS data public is not the same as making it accessible – we can and should do better Knowing your child needs heart surgery is daunting for any parent. Being able to reassure yourself that survival rates at your child’s hospital are in line with UK’s very high standards could help ease at least some of the anxiety. But would parents know where to look and if they did find them, how easy are the statistics to understand? The NHS is increasingly publishing statistics about the surgery it undertakes, following on from a movement kickstarted by the Bristol Inquiry in the late 1990s into deaths of children after heart surgery. Ever more health data is being collected, and more transparent and open sharing of hospital summary data and outcomes has the power to transform the quality of NHS services further, even beyond the great improvements that have already been made. But making data public can only drive accountability and improvement if it is also understandable. There are many ways to present surgical results that may make perfect sense to statisticians but are far from easy for anyone else to understand or interpret. For instance, how many people could tell you what a “Standardised Mortality Ratio” is, let alone what its (many) pitfalls and advantages are? Yet this is a key measure used to assess hospitals in the UK. Over the past year, encouraged and funded by the National Institute of Health Research, we have both worked with the charity Sense about Science and psychologists at King’s College London and Mike Pearson, University of Cambridge, to develop a website that aims to make the information about survival statistics after children’s heart surgery available and accessible to everyone from parents to professionals and the media. Children’s heart surgery Children’s heart surgery is one of the most complex specialties: there is a wide range of potential problems with the heart at birth, and children with more severe heart conditions often need an operation in the very first weeks or months of life. Families of children diagnosed with a heart condition face a stressful and emotional experience. There have been regular high-profile events involving hospitals carrying out children’s heart surgery, beginning with the Bristol Inquiry in the late 1990s, and these have been driven by data about children’s survival. But understanding survival data is not straightforward. Because children and their heart conditions are so different, one hospital could easily treat many more children with particularly complex problems in any one year compared to another hospital. This means that it is not appropriate to simply compare the percentage of children who survive at each hospital. So what to do? We need to take into account how ill the children were that each hospital treated. Statisticians consider the percentage of children who survive to 30 days, known as the raw survival rate,. Factors that affect a child’s chance of survival include: the age and weight of the child (other things being equal, the bigger and stronger a child is, the safer the surgery is); what problem in the heart the surgery is trying to fix (some hearts have more complex problems than others); other health problems a child might have (e.g. a genetic syndrome); the complexity of the surgical procedure. Knowing these factors for each child allows us to predict the percentage of children within a group that will survive, even though we cannot predict exactly whether individual children will survive. The NHS uses a statistical formula known as PRAiS (Partial Risk Adjustment in Surgery) to combine data on these risk factors for all the children a hospital has treated over the previous three years, to give a predicted range for the overall proportion of survivors. The NHS then compares the survival rate achieved by a hospital with its own predicted range, as calculated by the formula, and acts if there is good evidence the survival rate is lower than predicted. However, although this statistical interpretation of the previous three years’ survival data is published every year by the National Congenital Heart Disease Audit, these reports are hard to find, and not necessarily accessible or understandable for everyone. What we learned I (Christina) was part of the team that developed the statistical formula used by the NHS and I believe that my responsibility as an academic doesn’t end with “handing over the formula”. I also have a responsibility to communicate how it works and what it can and can’t do — which is why I started a project to build a website to do just that. Listening to parents, professionals and the media We both wanted to do more than just explain that we cannot simply rank hospitals by their raw survival rates – we also wanted to explain how we can learn from hospital survival rates and to make it easy for people to explore the statistics in an intuitive way. With Sense about Science’s help, we listened to parents and other users from the very start of the development process, before we put a single thing online, and this continued right up until we finalised the website. From listening and talking to users, we continually updated the content, navigation, language and look of the website. Our web expert Mike Pearson observed the workshops and was on hand to offer potential solutions to layout and navigation problems. The psychologists at King’s College London, led by Dr Tim Rakow, tested different versions of the language and layout on large groups of volunteers in a formal way to help us decide between options where there were different suggestions. These statistics were not just numbers. They represented the fears and worries of parents whose children have had to undergo heart surgery. Parents’ stories were very moving and how they approached the statistics was very different to how professionals or the media would look at the numbers. The impact of the feedback from the workshops cannot be underestimated; it was meaningful, real and important. It resulted in a complete overhaul of the content and wording. For example, all mentions of percentages in the site were carefully edited to become framed in terms of the proportion of children surviving, rather than dying. It also showed the necessity to highlight that the UK has extremely high survival rates after children’s heart surgery (over 97%) – among the highest in the world. Parents also told us we needed to emphasise key messages, which we then developed from their suggestions and that we needed to be clear about what the website cannot do and signpost to charity and support networks for further family resources. A final word from Christina I started off trying to build a website because I felt it was my responsibility, but I didn’t really know what I was doing. I still think it was my responsibility and it turns out I really didn’t know what I was doing! But, for the first time in a website like this, we’ve managed to integrate the maths (me and David) with the psychology of how people interpret charts and explanations (the King’s College team) and, most importantly through Sense about Science, with the thoughts and worries of real people. The enthusiastic and committed response of parents and other users also confirmed the core reason for doing this - an accountable NHS is one where we can all understand how it is performing. A final word from David This has been a humbling and invaluable experience. I thought I knew something about communicating statistics, but sitting listening to enthusiastic users struggling to understand concepts made me realise my inadequacy. For example, we spent months trying to choose a term to describe the unavoidable unpredictability of the number of survivors in a group of children experiencing surgery: standard technical terms such as ‘random variation’ are clearly unacceptable in this context. We finally arrived at the phrase ‘unforeseeable factors’, and after appropriate testing this has been adopted. If we want to genuinely communicate statistical evidence, I am now utterly convinced that users have to be involved from the very start. And there are so many other areas that could benefit from this approach, which might help dislodge the obsession with simplistic league tables. The new website can be found here. Christina Pagel is a Reader in Operational Research at University College London. She uses maths to help the NHS make the most out of the data it collects, particularly in children’s intensive care services. Christina has been working with several UK hospitals and National Audit to understand data about survival and complications after children’s heart surgery since 2010. Find her on twitter @chrischirp. David Spiegelhalter is Winton Professor for the Public Understanding of Risk at the University of Cambridge. He works on risk and evidence communication, and led the statistical team at the Bristol Royal Infirmary Inquiry. Find him on Twitter @d_spiegel.
Support Act’s £1 challenge: how music lovers in London can help refugees We launched Support Act last Thursday. You might remember that day: it was the day of the EU referendum. It happened to fall during Refugee Week, and a group of us in the music industry wanted to say to those people who had to flee their country, who were desperate enough to leave their homes in search of safety, that we were trying to help in some small way. Whatever you feel about the result of the vote, it seems undeniable that the morning after, things were different, something had shifted. We knew a lot of people woke up feeling a lot less welcome in this country. Much of the rhetoric used during the referendum campaign risked causing long-term damage to the work done to help refugees. Let’s make no bones about it, there’s a refugee crisis. It feels like we’re told daily on the news of another horrific tale, another disaster. There are currently 21.3 million refugees in the world, and close to 34,000 people a day forced to leave their homes because of conflict or the risk of persecution. This number includes an estimated 126,000 refugees living in the UK. Last year alone, the British government received more than 38,000 asylum applications. Those huge numbers can make it hard to remember we’re talking about individuals. It can be equally hard to know how you can even begin to make a difference. Hearing about the amazing work Plus1 were doing in Germany was a turning point. Nightclubs there have been asking for just a mere €1 donation from those lucky enough to be on a guest list at gigs, and the initiative had already raised €40,000 (£33,000). What a simple idea, what an easy way to contribute. A group of music journalists, show promoters and others in the industry wondered if we could make this work in London for the shows we were putting on, reviewing or attending. So that’s what we’re hoping to do. A fantastic team of people from across all areas of music have launched Support Act, the UK equivalent to Plus1, which will raise and donate funds to two incredible charities, Road to Freedom and Refugee Action. It’s built on what we think makes the UK a great place: tolerance, helpfulness, generosity; being inclusive, open and patient to all people, regardless of age, gender, race, demography or location. It’s also meant to recognise the incalculable contributions those coming to Britain have made to the economy, as well as their social and cultural impact. By asking people on guest lists at music venues across London to donate £1 for their entry, we want to tap into the power music has to inspire and transform lives. We know that those on guest lists are in a relative position of luxury to make this small donation – and it will hopefully make a massive difference. When we came up with the idea, we didn’t know how receptive people would be. We’ve been overwhelmed by the support of promoters and venues across the capital – from Eat Your Own Ears to Village Underground, Bird on the Wire to the Shacklewell Arms, there have been so many people keen to get involved. We believe that together we can create change, foster compassion and be proactive about getting aid to those in need and, in whatever small way, help provide better, safer, fairer lives for millions of people. So if you’re on the guest list for a gig – or at a show and want to lend your support – drop a pound in when you see our collection tins on the door. Support Act will be launched at Kamio in Shoreditch on July 14th, with Dagny and Dream Wife playing live. All tickets are £1.
FGM spreading to minority groups in Sudan, say campaigners Female genital mutilation is spreading among minority groups in Sudan despite widespread efforts to eradicate the practice, say campaigners. Women from communities which previously shunned FGM have told the they are being pressurised to undergo the procedure as adults to avoid being ostracised in a country with one of the highest FGM rates in the world. The latest Unicef report estimates that 87% of Sudanese women and girls aged between 15 and 49 have been cut. Some women from minority groups said they had agreed to FGM because of pressure from their husbands. “I wished I had been circumcised when I was a child,” said Fatima Abdullah, 35, a mother of two, who was subject to FGM at 31. She said almost all the women of her age and ethnicity had now undergone the procedure, although none had had FGM as children. Campaigners had hoped that attitudes towards FGM were changing, with some signs of a drop in the number of girls under 14 being cut. But the experience of women such as Abdullah suggests that there is still a lot of work to be done. Nahid Gabrellah, director of the Seema centre which campaigns against FGM, said the organisation was aware that the practice was spreading to minority groups. “[The women] want to be accepted in the mainstream culture that stigmatises women who were not subjected to FGM,” she said. “I remember many South Sudanese women who lived in north used to be circumcised as a sign of integration into the mainstream culture, and to feel that they are accepted – even though the FGM was also not part of their culture.” Alison Parker, the head of communication office at Unicef, said that living in a country with one of the highest FGM rates in the world was bound to have an impact. “There are strong social norms that influence behaviours of communities,” she said. “Families that would like to acculturate to others around them will adopt their practices to adhere to their identity. This has been the case for some IDPs, refugees and other displaced groups.” Sudan has the fifth highest FGM rate in the world, according to the latest estimates. The government has spoken out against the practice, and supports the work of groups such as Saleema, but has failed to legislate against it. A bill that would prohibit FGM and introduce a 10-year prison sentence for parents of girls who die after being cut was introduced to parliament in 2007 but has not been passed into law.
Why has the UK film industry been making waves worldwide? According to Isabel Davis, BFI head of international, now is a great time to be an ambitious small UK film production business, especially if you want to sell to overseas customers. “The sector enjoys a first-class reputation internationally and it’s the unique combination of our world-class talent, crews, facilities, studios and diverse locations that is the key to that success,” she explains. “Tax reliefs for film also enables the UK to remain competitive. They generate additional spend of more than £12 for every £1 of tax relief, while Lottery investment for films such as Suffragette, Brooklyn and 45 Years helps to reinforce the UK’s reputation for filmmaking excellence.” The UK film production industry has been growing in strength and reputation since the late 1990s, Davis observes. “Long-term strategic investment in talent and high-end production facilities have made the UK the destination of choice for big international productions such as Spectre, Star Wars and the new Bourne film.” Growth markets The US remains the UK’s biggest export market, but as Davis explains, sales in China could soon grow significantly. “English becoming ever more widely spoken will boost sales. France and Germany remain key, but Latin America and Asia are important growth markets.” The BFI has been working with the government to encourage co-production relationships, recently organising trade delegation visits to Brazil and China. “We also fund UK film presence at international festivals and work with partners such as Film Export UK, UKTI and the British Council, and these support British film sector businesses of all sizes seeking to sell to customers overseas. “Our support also means British independent filmmakers can attend festivals to promote their films to gain international distribution,” says Davis. International film festivals “We develop audiences for UK films and filmmakers, ensuring that when people think of ‘UK film’ they don’t stop at Bond and Downton Abbey, but understand that there is more diversity and range in what we have to offer,” says Briony Hanson, British Council director of film. “We work with premiere international film festivals to arrange preview screenings of the best new UK feature films. We also run programmes designed to create opportunities for the UK film industry to collaborate with international partners. Recently, for example, we organised UK film industry delegations to Russia, Argentina and China, to facilitate an in-depth understanding of how each market works.” Dressed for success Owned and managed by award-winning costume designer John Bright since he set up the business in 1965, North London-based Cosprop is a leading costumier to film, television and theatre productions. “Cosprop first supplied overseas productions in the 1970s after British designers who’d worked with us were hired to design productions outside the UK,” explains general manager, Chris Garlick. “Our reputation spread and was greatly enhanced by John’s own career in the 1980s, with the huge international success of films such as A Room With a View, for which he won an Oscar with Jenny Beavan, and the Merchant Ivory films that followed.” In 2015, more than 40% of Cosprop’s turnover came from overseas sales. “Mainly to customers in the US and France, but also Spain and Germany,” Garlick adds. “International sales are a vital source of revenue. We’ve worked on some very large budget productions, too, including all of the Pirates of the Caribbean films.” Knowledge and expertise But why has Cosprop been so successful? “The period costume world is relatively small. Not many costume houses can provide quality garments internationally,” Garlick replies. “Budgets are tight, so designers prefer to hire high-quality stock rather than make new garments. “We’ve built up our stock over 50 years, mostly made in-house. We have our own reference collection of more than 7,000 original costumes and an extensive library of costume-related books that designers can use.” Garlick says the success of the Merchant Ivory films internationally in the 1980s and 90s and more recently the “Downton Abbey effect” have cemented British costume designers’ international reputation for excellence. He adds: “For us it’s all about providing the right product – high-end stock for hire and couture-quality ‘makes’ – as well as expertise, good customer service and value for money.” Special effects Tim Caplan co-founded Soho-based boutique visual effects facility Union VFX in 2008. Having previously worked on Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and Gladiator, his more recent credits for Union include Everest, Suffragette, Steve Jobs and The Theory of Everything. “When Adam [Gascoyne] and I started Union we’d been in the industry for 15 years, so existing relationships enabled us to win work. Our first big contract was on 127 Hours, directed by Danny Boyle, whom Adam had worked with previously. It was a Fox Searchlight Pictures production, a US company, and then we worked with them on several other films. We also worked on the last Harry Potter film for Warner Bros.” Caplan estimates that about half of his business revenue now comes from overseas, mainly US customers. “Many of the contracts we win are linked either directly or indirectly to US studios, we couldn’t sustain the business purely on UK sales. We’ve always supported independent UK productions and enjoy being involved, even though some provide little or no margin.” Open and collaborative Union’s growing reputation means it is now approached to pitch for work, reveals Caplan. He believes that being a British film production business offers competitive advantage. “We’ve a long tradition of collaborating across borders and have the expertise and flexibility. You only have to look at the number and quality of films made here in the past 60 years and the studios that have flourished as a result. The concentration of talent here has been a constant and we’re very well positioned to contribute to the best international projects.” So, what advice does Caplan offer to other UK film sector businesses that want to start selling overseas? He replies: “Always know and play to your key strengths. As a small business you can be flexible and give direct access to your senior team members. And you must approach producers in an open, collaborative way, rather than assuming you know what they need.” Sign up to become a member of the Small Business Network here for more advice, insight and best practice direct to your inbox.
Martin Fry on ABC’s comeback: ‘Lexicon of Love II is a kind of Godfather Part II’ Martin Fry has done his time on the comeback circuit – and in unexpected ways, too. Ten years ago, he trekked through the rainforest to the top of Mount Roraima, the flat-topped mountain in South America that inspired Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World. He went not with Bear Grylls, or Ed Stafford, but with Spandau Ballet’s Tony Hadley and Richard Drummie from Go West, in aid of charity. Fifty or so fans came along to share the trip; 3,000 metres high, barriers were broken down. Still, Fry drew the line at sharing a tent with Hadley; they are both 6ft 3in. One night, camping in a car park in Venezuela, he awoke to hear his old 80s pop rival performing Gold on someone’s karaoke machine. That might have been a sufficiently close brush with the foreign-travel-and-reunited-bands circuit: Fry is not sure he could manage a full-on 80s nostalgia cruise with other groups. But, given that time has a strange way of making old music sound new again, he probably won’t have to. We meet just before the release of The Lexicon of Love II, the most anticipated record Fry has made in years. It’s the sequel to the album that broke his band ABC 34 years ago and featured songs that came to epitomise the music known as New Pop – The Look of Love, Poison Arrow and All of My Heart. Fry, the only permanent member of ABC, is still blond, with a tanned and lived-in look to the face that first entered the public consciousness under a straw boater and an 80s cowlick. He admits that veteran ABC fans have queried the album’s ballsy title – “I’ve had a lot of people on Twitter saying, who the hell do you think you are?” – but it’s obviously a companion piece to the first record, he explains. “It’s a kind of Godfather Part II. What has happened to these characters? Are they older, wiser, stupider, happier? I genuinely wanted to make a sequel with me as I am now, as a 57-year-old man.” The new album is an eerie experience, grabbing you by the throat for 11 tracks cracked straight from a time capsule of New Pop songwriting – luxuriant chord-changes, big emotive statements (“I fly like a condor to the heart of the new day sun”) and the plushest strings you’ve heard since ELO – or early ABC, for that matter – courtesy of Anne Dudley of the Art of Noise, who scored the original Lexicon of Love. Fry’s voice is pretty much unchanged: he has found a few tricks to avoid the high notes – there are no yippee-yi-yippee-yi-yays – but there is one of his famous spoken word breaks on Kiss Me Goodbye. He wrote the record with, among others, Rob Fusari, who discovered Lady Gaga (“and has consequently spent a lot of time in court”). He had 40 new songs in total, and persuaded Virgin Records to listen to a couple of them on his phone while attending a meeting about one of his “numerous compilation albums”. Shortly after, he was invited back and found himself “further up the building”. He couldn’t wait for Trevor Horn, who worked on The Lexicon of Love, to be available, so he produced the record himself, with Go West producer Gary Stevenson. Time was of the essence, after all. “I’m a man out of time till the stars realign,” as he says on Brighter Than the Sun. Fry says the “contrary, stubborn bastard side” of his nature served him well in the early days of ABC, in Sheffield, when disco, funk, soul, Rodgers and Hammerstein and Sinatra came together in a perfect storm. When he watches himself on early Top of the Pops clips, Fry wonders if he was truly as imperious as he looked. “I used to obsess about ABC,” he says. “I didn’t even know there was a Falklands war on. I was obsessed with the minutiae, the back of the record sleeve, the fact that the 12in needed redesigning. Is that healthy?” After ABC’s initial success, however, he veered away from the music that had brought him three Top 10 singles, turning to dour college rock for the band’s second album, Beauty Stab, described by Simon Reynolds as “one of the greatest career-sabotage LPs in pop history”. The third ABC album, How to Be a … Zillionaire, was a slightly confusing satire about money, in which the band were trying to style themselves as cartoon characters, Fry explains. He thinks it was ahead of its time; his record company didn’t care. “I walked into the Phonogram office and our poster was on the wall, and they had drawn moustaches on it,” he says. “This is the label! The record wasn’t even out yet!” ABC’s chart presence continued to diminish, and in the late 80s Fry was out of action for a time, fighting Hodgkin lymphoma, a rare form of cancer. In 1992, his long-time musical accomplice Mark White left the band to pursue a career in alternative therapies (he is now a reiki master in London) and Fry was dropped by EMI as a solo artist and “came out the exit door” of his career. “I went from having a Haçienda and Shoom card in my wallet to an Ikea one,” he says. He chews over the words “flatpack furniture assemblage”. He was still in his early 30s and his future was already behind him. “It was terrifying. I toyed with the idea of opening a boutique hotel-cum-sanitarium for anyone from the 1980s who had had a hit in the Top 40. My thinking was, you would be able to sit in the bar going: ‘Remember when my record was in the charts?’ I could have made a fortune. I salute anyone who has been through that process, from the Libertines to any of the bands on Eurovision. It takes a real survival instinct to get back on the stage.” It didn’t take him long to do it himself. Fry had taken ABC’s hits from Dubai to Ghana to the Albert Hall with a 72-piece orchestra long before the 80s was offficially a thing again. In 1999, he got himself on an arena package tour with Culture Club and the Human League and was thrilled to see the venues selling out. He loved the experience, loved the ready-made audience and the way you could “recreate the moment of the record’s inception with smoke and mirrors”. “But I started wondering, at what point do you start to become your own tribute act, do you start to caricature yourself?” The old days were like boxing, he says: “Spandau Ballet were the Islington heavyweights. New Order, Dexys, Duran Duran – there were loads of us all seethingly jealous of each other, if they would admit to it.” Being on the revival circuit got him used to not being at the top of the Christmas tree. The advent of acid house helped, too, he says, “because suddenly you were out in a field”. (ABC had flirted with house music on their fifth album, Up.) While the competition is still fierce among the golden oldies on the victory lap, as he likes to call them, the pressures of performing in the modern industry setting are much greater than they were. He compares New Pop and the New Romantics to Kabuki theatre: “You had the makeup, the masks and everyone was miming. Now, everyone needs to be able to play live – on Jools Holland or at Glastonbury. Only the repertoire you’ve built up provides a wall of protection.” The Lexicon of Love II is a concept album about love in middle age, an unusual subject in itself. Many of Fry’s friends in the business have a succession of young girlfriends, he says; he credits his wife of 30 years, and his two children, with preserving his sanity. “Men over 50 gradually become invisible,” he says. “No one really listens to what they are saying. I’ve done my midlife crisis. Some of the people who’ve come to my shows, they’ve been through some crazy shit. Divorces, health issues, the failed companies they set up. I figured that was more interesting – that stuff is the real rollercoaster of life.” There will be no gold lamé suit this time around. It doesn’t feel right, he says; he prefers a more subtle Ozwald Boateng number. He says Mrs Fry has warned him about “going down the hall of mirrors, the palace of Versailles”, which is the couple’s shorthand for the self-obsession and preening that comes with a life in pop. “It’s an attention-seeking, narcissistic thing, being a lead singer,” he says, “no matter what age you are.” He has to go: he has an early cycling trip in the morning, although he has to be careful not to overdo the pedalling when he has a gig that night. Before he disappears, I ask him about a rumour that the album was originally going to be called The Lexicon of a Lost Ideal. “That was a statement asking, why the hell would you want to make an album in 2016?” he explains. “But then I realised it’s actually a pretty good time for albums after all. It’s like the art form is coming back. People do care, don’t they?” He has a gentle way of probing you for your opinion. That leads him on to David Bowie’s Blackstar, which he thinks of as a unique double album. “There is the one you got on Friday 8 January and had the weekend to enjoy. And there is the album you got on 13 January, when he had died, which was his tombstone.” Bowie, of course, was a crucial figure to the New Pop generation. Fry had hitchhiked down to London to see him as a teenager, and the young Fry was coloured in shades of Bowie – the theatricality, the voice, the Englishness, even the sharp cut of the chin. “I never thought my parents would outlive him,” he says. “I’ve heard Nick Rhodes and Gary Kemp say it, too – that he was like a father, somehow.” There will be festival shows over the summer, and then a full-on ABC tour in the autumn, including one show with an orchestra, the Southbank Sinfonia, at the Royal Festival Hall, conducted by Anne Dudley. It’s a big band – nine of them onstage with a three-piece brass section. The other day, Fry was travelling up north on a train with his bandmates and the champagne came out at breakfast. The younger members of the band were amused by this flash of a former, more hedonistic, era in pop. And so, in a way, was Fry. “No one in their 50s should really be having this much fun,” he says. “Do you know what I mean?” The Lexicon of Love II is out now on Virgin EMI.
Congress's failure to fund Zika bill fuels fears virus will continue to spread Congress left town on Thursday without funding any emergency preparations against the Zika virus. Frustrated vaccine researchers predicted clinical trials would grind to a halt by August. Local mosquito control departments, without federal resources, will maintain wildly disparate resources, leaving some cities and towns with world-class virology laboratories and others with part-time, one-man operations expected to spray for a mosquito less susceptible to the controls which dominated the past two decades. Already, more than 1,300 travelers infected with Zika have been diagnosed in US states. In Puerto Rico, where local mosquitoes acquired the disease, more than 2,900 infections have been confirmed. Dr Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said up to 50 pregnant women per day are infected with Zika in Puerto Rico. Nine American children have been born with birth defects. Politicians did attempt to fund public preparations. An Obama administration request for $1.9bn pittered out, though Florida’s senators supported it. A bill to provide $1.1bn for emergency preparations died in the Senate. And a House bill for $622m sank, loaded with partisan amendments. The failure to fund the viral threat stands in stark contrast to Republican criticism that fueled a $5.4bn Ebola response before the 2014 mid-term elections. The virus, primarily spread by mosquitos, was discovered in the eponymous Ugandan forest in the 1940s. The disease leapt to international prominence in January after it was connected to a dramatic increase in birth defects in Brazil. By February, the virus was declared a global public health emergency by the World Health Organization, as epidemiologists confirmed Zika caused microcephaly. Children with microcephaly are born with abnormally small heads and experience severe, lifelong developmental problems. In four out of five cases, individuals infected by Zika show no symptoms, and the mosquito that transmits the disease is endemic along the American Gulf coast. There is no vaccine or quick diagnostic test for Zika, but researchers are working to develop one. “Vaccines are just one of the things that will be impacted,” said Dr Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, of the failed congressional funding bills. Fauci warned government vaccine trials will grind to a halt after money raided to fight diseases such as tuberculosis runs out by the end of the summer, even though it is scientifically feasible for the second phase of trials to begin in early 2017. “I have enough money that we’ve moved around from other areas to create the Phase I trial,” Fauci said. “We will run out of money by the end of August, the beginning of September.” Mosquito control experts, meanwhile, said they are relying on a wait-and-see approach, hoping the south’s widespread use of air conditioning and window screens will tamp down on potential outbreaks. “I don’t feel as threatened as a lot of other people, and the reason for that is that we didn’t see it with Dengue, and we didn’t see it with Chikungunya,” said Mark Latham, director of the Manatee County mosquito control program in Florida, about two more viruses spread by the same mosquito as Zika. The Manatee County program is relatively well funded, though like many other communities it will not surveil for the Zika virus in the mosquito population. “We live in air-conditioned and screened houses. The majority of people are not exposed in the same way 24 hours a day” as many are in the Caribbean, Latham said. “The chances of local transmission occurring are much much less here.” Congress’s failure to pass funding is likely to have an international impact. All three proposals contained cash for the US Agency for International Development global health programs, ranging from between $100m (House) to $325m (administration), according to the Congressional Research Service. The US funds 45% of global biomedical research. In Florida, one of the states most vulnerable to the spread of Zika, mosquito control experts said they would continue to work with the varying resources available to them. Depending on the town, city and county, mosquito control can range from full-scale catch-and-test virology labs to a side duty assigned to a single public works employee. “There are other programs that come under general, county government that are very poorly funded, that don’t have our power to respond,” said Latham, about other Floridian mosquito control. “They’re the programs that would really suffer.” In Puerto Rico, the CDC has spent months begging Puerto Rican officials to control the mosquito population with pesticide sprayed from planes, and Frieden called local officials’ failure to spray a question of “negligence”. Protests against the fumigation drew hundreds of protesters, fueled in-part by anger with a Congressional plan to deal with the island’s debt crisis. “We’re walking a fine line, and so is CDC,” said Joe Conlon, a spokesperson for the American Mosquito Control Association, “about being prudent in mosquito control and preparing for the eventual arrival of Zika and being alarmist. We don’t want to be either.” “If we spin up all of this concern and nothing happens with Zika, are we going to run into the boy who cried wolf syndrome?” asked Conlin.
Hatebreed: The Concrete Confessional review – vital, ferocious heavy music Having walked a straight and narrow musical path for 22 years, Hatebreed might reasonably expect to find that their brutish metallic hardcore formula has succumbed to the law of diminishing returns. There must be, one assumes, only so many ways to bellow motivational slogans and snarling threats over crunching, low-slung riffs before the whole scowling shebang starts to wear thin. But as they have consistently proved over the past two decades, Jamey Jasta and crew are an irresistible, unifying force in heavy music, and they sound more vital and ferocious than ever here. The Concrete Confessional makes occasional detours from the expected myopic forward charge: Looking Down the Barrel of Today is pure, knowing Slayer worship; From the Grace We’ve Fallen features the rare sound of Jasta singing an actual tune; and The Apex Within is slow burning thrash with Misfits trimmings. But the whole point of Hatebreed has always been to pulverise willing participants with simplicity, power and positivity. In that regard, the furiously precise likes of Seven Enemies and Dissonance amount to jolting shots of pure musical adrenaline.
You may hate Donald Trump. But do you want Facebook to rig the election against him? While the prospect of a Donald Trump presidency is a terrifying one, perhaps this is scarier: Facebook could use its unprecedented powers to tilt the 2016 presidential election away from him – and the social network’s employees have apparently openly discussed whether they should do so. As Gizmodo reported on Friday, “Last month, some Facebook employees used a company poll to ask [Facebook founder Mark] Zuckerberg whether the company should try ‘to help prevent President Trump in 2017’.” Facebook employees are probably just expressing the fear that millions of Americans have of the Republican demagogue. But while there’s no evidence that the company plans on taking anti-Trump action, the extraordinary ability that the social network has to manipulate millions of people with just a tweak to its algorithm is a serious cause for concern. The fact that an internet giant like Facebook or Google could turn an election based on hidden changes to its code has been a hypothetical scenario for years (and it’s even a plot point in this season’s House of Cards). Harvard Law professor Jonathan Zittrain explained in 2010 how “Facebook could decide an election without anyone ever finding out”, after the tech giant secretly conducted a test in which they were able to allegedly increase voter turnout by 340,000 votes around the country on election day simply by showing users a photo of someone they knew saying “I voted”. Facebook repeated this civics engagement experiment on a broader scale during the 2012 election. While the testing did not favor any one candidate, the potential for that power to be used to manipulate voters became such an obvious concern that Facebook’s COO, Sheryl Sandberg, said, in 2014, “I want to be clear – Facebook can’t control emotions and cannot and will not try to control emotions.” She added: “Facebook would never try to control elections.” Her comments came right after a controversial study conducted by Facebook became public. It showed that, in fact, the company had secretly manipulated the emotions of nearly 700,000 people. Some 78% of Americans have a social network profile of some kind. The dominance of Facebook in Americans’ daily lives, and the fact that more people get their news from it than any other source, means the influence of the company in elections has never been greater. With each year that passes, the potential that an internet giant could swing an election gets greater. Earlier this year, the reported on the treasure trove of data Facebook holds on hundreds of millions of voters and how it is already allowing presidential candidates to exploit it in different ways: Facebook, which told investors on Wednesday it was ‘excited about the targeting’, does not let candidates track individual users. But it does now allow presidential campaigns to upload their massive email lists and voter files – which contain political habits, real names, home addresses and phone numbers – to the company’s advertising network. The company will then match real-life voters with their Facebook accounts, which follow individuals as they move across congressional districts and are filled with insightful data. And in a Politico Magazine piece entitled “How Google could rig the 2016 election”, research psychologist Robert Epstein described how a study he co-authored in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that “Google’s search algorithm can easily shift the voting preferences of undecided voters by 20% or more – up to 80% in some demographic groups – with virtually no one knowing they are being manipulated.” As Epstein says, much of this manipulation is unintentional: search results on Google are influenced by the popularity of other searches, algorithms are changed all the time for various reasons, and some tweaks that affect what people see about politics may not be the result of malicious engineers bent on changing the country’s political persuasions. However, the potential for that to happen is there – and the same risks apply to Facebook. To be sure, many corporations, including broadcasters and media organizations, have used their vast power to influence elections in all sorts of ways in the past: whether it’s through money, advertising, editorials, or simply the way they present the news. But at no time has one company held so much influence over a large swath of the population – 40% of all news traffic now originates from Facebook – while also having the ability to make changes invisibly. As Gizmodo reported, there’s no law stopping Facebook from doing so if it desires. “Facebook can promote or block any material that it wants,” UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh told Gizmodo. “Facebook has the same First Amendment right as the New York Times. They can completely block Trump if they want. They block him or promote him.” To those disgusted by Trump’s xenophobia, his boorish and erratic behavior, this might seem like a welcome development. But one organisation having the means to tilt elections one way or another a dangerous innovation. Once started, it would be hard to control. In this specific case, a majority of the public might approve of the results. But do we really want future elections around the world to be decided by the political persuasions of Mark Zuckerberg, or the faceless engineers that control what pops up in your news feed?
Hinds: Leave Me Alone review - ragged lo-fi charm What the debut album from all-female Spanish quartet Hinds – known as Deers until a year ago – might lack in sophistication is more than made up for with charm. Their modus operandi is shambling, unhurried garage rock projected through a lo-fi filter and topped with ragged harmonising. In the age of Auto-Tune, there’s a freshness to this ramshackle approach, even as the likes of Fat Calmed Kiddos and San Diego threaten to collapse in on themselves. They peak with the surf-influenced Warts, which sounds like nothing so much as a riot grrrl take on Bossanova-era Pixies. Elsewhere, the meandering lack of focus can grate, as on forgettable instrumental Solar Gap.
The view on Theresa May’s conference speech: actions not words will decide The one thing that cannot be said about Theresa May’s debut leader’s speech to the Tory party conference is that it was the voice of the “same old Tories”. David Cameron was given a brief tribute but he might as well have moved to Paraguay. This was a speech and a conference shaped at every turn by the Brexit vote in June. Mrs May has to make a reality of that convulsive decision. She will be judged by how she handles it. She gave little away on the EU today that she had not already signalled on Sunday. Migration law will be the priority. The economic consequences remain unclear. But Mrs May’s real aim this week was to get her party behind her. She succeeded in that. Yet this was also a speech that went a long way to revealing what makes Mrs May tick, whether you agree with all, some or none of what she said. The woman who was scorned as “submarine May” by David Cameron’s circle surfaced today to make some big public declarations. This was not the speech of a liberal, either in economics or in social policy. But it was the speech of someone who thinks government can do genuine economic and social good. It was a speech of ambitious claims, some of them nasty but many not, which, if she turns the words into deeds, may possibly reset the dials of British politics. At the heart of Mrs May’s speech was the reclamation of the role of the state in ensuring fairness and security. The Conservative tradition always had a place for good government. In the 19th century Joseph Chamberlain, now fashionable in Tory circles, believed that the moral purpose of his adopted city of Birmingham lay in the hands of the local council. In the 20th, Harold Macmillan, in his prewar Middle Way writings and as postwar housing minister, helping to rebuild Britain, had no doubt that government was a force for good. Yet ever since the ascendancy of Margaret Thatcher, most in the Tory party, whether at the top or the grassroots, have seen government as a problem to be shrunk and moved out of the way. Many in Mrs May’s own cabinet still think that way. Nevertheless her speech could be said to mark the end of that era. Whether that proves so will depend on something that the speech completely skated over – the policies, measures and specific actions by which Mrs May intends to make good on her claim that there is more to life than individualism and self-interest. She talked at length about protecting British working-class families, about employment rights and the importance of paying taxes. Not so long ago, these priorities were those of Ed Miliband rather than the government of which Mrs May was a part. Yet now Mrs May praised the NHS and even referenced Clement Attlee as one of the great prime ministers. There is no reason to suppose that this explicit pitch for the centre ground is anything except serious. Mrs May has Labour and Ukip voters in her sights. Jeremy Corbyn and whoever emerges as Ukip’s next leader in the wake of Diane James’s shambolic 18-day tenure should be very concerned. Yet if parts of the speech owed something to Mr Miliband, and others to the legacy of Chamberlain and Macmillan, some parts owed something to the Daily Mail’s shouty populism. The party may already be rowing back from the unsavoury proposal to make firms disclose how many foreign workers they have, but when Mrs May addressed working-class voters whose “dreams have been sacrificed in the service of others”, she was not talking about bankers, tax avoiders and overpaid executives (though she could have been); instead she talked only about the impact of low-skilled immigration. If she is determined to make border controls the red line of the post-Brexit settlement, she is going to have to be much more honest about the likely bad economic consequences, which will hit working-class families in particular. Mrs May’s speech was an attempt to fuse several traditions, none of them liberal in any of the many senses of that word. But it was not all a lurch to the right, and Mrs May’s opponents should recognise the ambition of what she is doing. British voters seem to approve of Mrs May as prime minister, not least because they dislike the alternatives (and think what kind of speech Andrea Leadsom would have made today if she had become Tory leader). Today will have reinforced that approval. Yet British voters are not in love with the Conservatives. An interesting speech provides much to discuss and debate. But words are the easy bit. Policies and actions will define whether the change which Mrs May promised is a real possibility or not.
The Cyber Effect by Mary Aiken – review Note the doctorate after the author’s name; and the subtitle: A Pioneering Cyberpsychologist Explains How Human Behaviour Changes Online; and the potted bio, informing us that “Dr Mary Aiken is the world’s foremost forensic cyberpsychologist” – all clues indicating that this is a book targeted at the US market, another addition to that sprawling genre of books by folks with professional qualifications using pop science to frighten the hoi polloi. This is a pity, because The Cyber Effect is really rather good and doesn’t need its prevailing tone of relentless self-promotion to achieve its desired effect, which is to make one think about what digital technology is doing to us. At this stage, there can’t be many people who haven’t, at one time or another, fretted about this question. After all, the technology has invaded every aspect of our lives; it is changing social and private behaviour, having a disproportionate impact on our children and facilitating types of criminal and antisocial behaviour that are repulsive and sometimes terrifying. And it is now also changing democratic politics: the most interesting thing about Donald Trump is how his narcissistic personality has found its perfect expression in Twitter – which is how we come to have an internet troll running for president. But at the same time our public discourse about technology remains depressingly Manichaean – with enthusiasts (and a formidably powerful global industry) extolling its wonders, while critics focus only on its manifest downsides. But this isn’t a proper debate: we are like two drunks in a bar arguing about whether oxygen is, on balance, a good or a bad thing. The reality is that digital technology (like most technologies) is both good and bad. And, as with oxygen, it’s not going to go away. So the only rational way forward is to figure out how to live intelligently with it. But in order to do that we need to understand it. The industry and its boosters have done a pretty good job in explaining the advantages. What we lack is an informed understanding of the problems, dangers and pathologies to which it gives rise. This is the gap that Dr Aiken seeks to fill. As a psychologist, her prime interest is in the scientific understanding of online behaviour. “If I seem to focus on many of the negative aspects of technology,” she writes, “it is in order to bring the debate back to the balanced centre rather than have one driven by utopian idealism or commercialism. My job is just to provide the best wisdom possible, based on what we know about human beings and how their cognitive, behavioural, physiological, social, developmental, affective, and motivational capabilities have been exploited or compromised or changed by the design of these products.” Her book has to cover a lot of ground. She begins with fetishes and addiction and leaves one in little doubt that the old boast of the now defunct News of the World (“All human life is here”) is definitely fulfilled by the internet. Aiken’s point is really just that the network provides unprecedented opportunities for personalities that are warped in particular ways to follow their inclinations, harmless or otherwise. But in a way, we knew much of this. Where Aiken really hits her stride is in three central chapters covering the impact of digital technology on children and young people. Here she makes a powerful case for the view that our society has been criminally negligent in the way it puts children in the harm’s way of digital technology. This is partly about the usual dangers of pornography, paedophilia, cyberbullying etc, but it’s just as much about the casual laxity of parents, and the way in which the technology industry continues to avoid responsibility for the perils that it facilitates and the damage that its products can do. For example, Aiken finds it alarming (as I do) that parents of babies mistakenly believe that it’s good for infants to have access to the technology from very young ages. As I write, I’m looking at the Fisher-Price iPad Apptivity Seat, which Amazon.com is selling for $57.99. It shows a tiny baby cheerfully reclining under an iPad which is held in an “adjustable removal toy bar” above it. The parent can download free apps for the iPad which have been “created with child development experts”. Or then there’s Facebook’s apparent reluctance to enforce its rule preventing children under the age of 13 from opening an account. Yet it turns out that between 23% and 34% of kids under that age have Facebook accounts. When asked why the company doesn’t enforce its own rules, a spokesman shrugged. “We haven’t got a mechanism for eradicating the problem,” he said. For a company with the technological resources of Facebook, this is simply not a credible response. The real reason must be that keeping underage users out is not a corporate priority. Other areas covered by Aiken are online dating, cyberchondria and cybercrime, but the real strength of this book is the persuasive case it makes for taking seriously the potential damage to children. This is partly – but only partly – a matter of regulation, which in relation to the internet is always a tricky problem. But it’s mainly a problem of the cognitive dissonance which afflicts us all in relation to digital technology. Most of us love it and value the ways it enhances our lives and augments our capabilities. (What is the web, after all, but a memory prosthesis for humanity?) But, deep down, as we see what digital technology is doing to behaviour, relationships, crime and politics, we’re also aware that it’s becoming increasingly dangerous and problematic – and that it’s our grandchildren who will really reap this whirlwind. If nothing else, The Cyber Effect should enable us to have a more sophisticated conversation about it. The Cyber Effect is published by John Murray (£20). Click here to buy it for £16.40
Premier League 2016-17 fixtures: full club-by-club list for the season Dates subject to change due to live broadcast selections and to accommodate European and domestic cup matches. Arsenal 13 Aug 2016 Liverpool (H) 20 Aug 2016 Leicester City (A) 27 Aug 2016 Watford (A) 10 Sep 2016 Southampton (H) 17 Sep 2016 Hull City (A) 24 Sep 2016 Chelsea (H) 01 Oct 2016 Burnley (A) 15 Oct 2016 Swansea City (H) 22 Oct 2016 Middlesbrough (H) 29 Oct 2016 Sunderland (A) 05 Nov 2016 Tottenham Hotspur (H) 19 Nov 2016 Manchester United (A) 26 Nov 2016 AFC Bournemouth (H) 03 Dec 2016 West Ham United (A) 10 Dec 2016 Stoke City (H) 14 Dec 2016 7:45pm Everton (A) 17 Dec 2016 Manchester City (A) 26 Dec 2016 West Bromwich Albion (H) 31 Dec 2016 Crystal Palace (H) 02 Jan 2017 AFC Bournemouth (A) 14 Jan 2017 Swansea City (A) 21 Jan 2017 Burnley (H) 31 Jan 2017 7:45pm Watford (H) 04 Feb 2017 Chelsea (A) 11 Feb 2017 Hull City (H) 25 Feb 2017 Southampton (A) 04 Mar 2017 Liverpool (A) 11 Mar 2017 Leicester City (H) 18 Mar 2017 West Bromwich Albion (A) 01 Apr 2017 Manchester City (H) 04 Apr 2017 7:45pm West Ham United (H) 08 Apr 2017 Crystal Palace (A) 15 Apr 2017 Middlesbrough (A) 22 Apr 2017 Sunderland (H) 29 Apr 2017 Tottenham Hotspur (A) 06 May 2017 Manchester United (H) 13 May 2017 Stoke City (A) 21 May 2017 Everton (H) Bournemouth 13 Aug 2016 Manchester United (H) 20 Aug 2016 West Ham United (A) 27 Aug 2016 Crystal Palace (A) 10 Sep 2016 West Bromwich Albion (H) 17 Sep 2016 Manchester City (A) 24 Sep 2016 Everton (H) 01 Oct 2016 Watford (A) 15 Oct 2016 Hull City (H) 22 Oct 2016 Tottenham Hotspur (H) 29 Oct 2016 Middlesbrough (A) 05 Nov 2016 Sunderland (H) 19 Nov 2016 Stoke City (A) 26 Nov 2016 Arsenal (A) 03 Dec 2016 Liverpool (H) 10 Dec 2016 Burnley (A) 13 Dec 2016 7:45pm Leicester City (H) 17 Dec 2016 Southampton (H) 26 Dec 2016 Chelsea (A) 31 Dec 2016 Swansea City (A) 02 Jan 2017 Arsenal (H) 14 Jan 2017 Hull City (A) 21 Jan 2017 Watford (H) 31 Jan 2017 7:45pm Crystal Palace (H) 04 Feb 2017 Everton (A) 11 Feb 2017 Manchester City (H) 25 Feb 2017 West Bromwich Albion (A) 04 Mar 2017 Manchester United (A) 11 Mar 2017 West Ham United (H) 18 Mar 2017 Swansea City (H) 01 Apr 2017 Southampton (A) 05 Apr 2017 8pm Liverpool (A) 08 Apr 2017 Chelsea (H) 15 Apr 2017 Tottenham Hotspur (A) 22 Apr 2017 Middlesbrough (H) 29 Apr 2017 Sunderland (A) 06 May 2017 Stoke City (H) 13 May 2017 Burnley (H) 21 May 2017 Leicester City (A) Burnley 13 Aug 2016 Swansea City (H) 20 Aug 2016 Liverpool (A) 27 Aug 2016 Chelsea (A) 10 Sep 2016 Hull City (H) 17 Sep 2016 Leicester City (A) 24 Sep 2016 Watford (H) 01 Oct 2016 Arsenal (H) 15 Oct 2016 Southampton (A) 22 Oct 2016 Everton (H) 29 Oct 2016 Manchester United (A) 05 Nov 2016 Crystal Palace (H) 19 Nov 2016 West Bromwich Albion (A) 26 Nov 2016 Manchester City (H) 03 Dec 2016 Stoke City (A) 10 Dec 2016 AFC Bournemouth (H) 13 Dec 2016 7:45pm West Ham United (A) 17 Dec 2016 Tottenham Hotspur (A) 26 Dec 2016 Middlesbrough (H) 31 Dec 2016 Sunderland (H) 02 Jan 2017 Manchester City (A) 14 Jan 2017 Southampton (H) 21 Jan 2017 Arsenal (A) 31 Jan 2017 7:45pm Leicester City (H) 04 Feb 2017 Watford (A) 11 Feb 2017 Chelsea (H) 25 Feb 2017 Hull City (A) 04 Mar 2017 Swansea City (A) 11 Mar 2017 Liverpool (H) 18 Mar 2017 Sunderland (A) 01 Apr 2017 Tottenham Hotspur (H) 04 Apr 2017 7:45pm Stoke City (H) 08 Apr 2017 Middlesbrough (A) 15 Apr 2017 Everton (A) 22 Apr 2017 Manchester United (H) 29 Apr 2017 Crystal Palace (A) 06 May 2017 West Bromwich Albion (H) 13 May 2017 AFC Bournemouth (A) 21 May 2017 West Ham United (H) Chelsea 13 Aug 2016 West Ham United (H) 20 Aug 2016 Watford (A) 27 Aug 2016 Burnley (H) 10 Sep 2016 Swansea City (A) 17 Sep 2016 Liverpool (H) 24 Sep 2016 Arsenal (A) 01 Oct 2016 Hull City (A) 15 Oct 2016 Leicester City (H) 22 Oct 2016 Manchester United (H) 29 Oct 2016 Southampton (A) 05 Nov 2016 Everton (H) 19 Nov 2016 Middlesbrough (A) 26 Nov 2016 Tottenham Hotspur (H) 03 Dec 2016 Manchester City (A) 10 Dec 2016 West Bromwich Albion (H) 13 Dec 2016 7:45pm Sunderland (A) 17 Dec 2016 Crystal Palace (A) 26 Dec 2016 AFC Bournemouth (H) 31 Dec 2016 Stoke City (H) 02 Jan 2017 Tottenham Hotspur (A) 14 Jan 2017 Leicester City (A) 21 Jan 2017 Hull City (H) 01 Feb 2017 8pm Liverpool (A) 04 Feb 2017 Arsenal (H) 11 Feb 2017 Burnley (A) 25 Feb 2017 Swansea City (H) 04 Mar 2017 West Ham United (A) 11 Mar 2017 Watford (H) 18 Mar 2017 Stoke City (A) 01 Apr 2017 Crystal Palace (H) 05 Apr 2017 7:45pm Manchester City (H) 08 Apr 2017 AFC Bournemouth (A) 15 Apr 2017 Manchester United (A) 22 Apr 2017 Southampton (H) 29 Apr 2017 Everton (A) 06 May 2017 Middlesbrough (H) 13 May 2017 West Bromwich Albion (A) 21 May 2017 Sunderland (H) Crystal Palace 13 Aug 2016 West Bromwich Albion (H) 20 Aug 2016 Tottenham Hotspur (A) 27 Aug 2016 AFC Bournemouth (H) 10 Sep 2016 Middlesbrough (A) 17 Sep 2016 Stoke City (H) 24 Sep 2016 Sunderland (A) 01 Oct 2016 Everton (A) 15 Oct 2016 West Ham United (H) 22 Oct 2016 Leicester City (A) 29 Oct 2016 Liverpool (H) 05 Nov 2016 Burnley (A) 19 Nov 2016 Manchester City (H) 26 Nov 2016 Swansea City (A) 03 Dec 2016 Southampton (H) 10 Dec 2016 Hull City (A) 13 Dec 2016 8pm Manchester United (H) 17 Dec 2016 Chelsea (H) 26 Dec 2016 Watford (A) 31 Dec 2016 Arsenal (A) 02 Jan 2017 Swansea City (H) 14 Jan 2017 West Ham United (A) 21 Jan 2017 Everton (H) 31 Jan 2017 7:45pm AFC Bournemouth (A) 04 Feb 2017 Sunderland (H) 11 Feb 2017 Stoke City (A) 25 Feb 2017 Middlesbrough (H) 04 Mar 2017 West Bromwich Albion (A) 11 Mar 2017 Tottenham Hotspur (H) 18 Mar 2017 Watford (H) 01 Apr 2017 Chelsea (A) 05 Apr 2017 7:45pm Southampton (A) 08 Apr 2017 Arsenal (H) 15 Apr 2017 Leicester City (H) 22 Apr 2017 Liverpool (A) 29 Apr 2017 Burnley (H) 06 May 2017 Manchester City (A) 13 May 2017 Hull City (H) 21 May 2017 Manchester United (A) Everton 13 Aug 2016 Tottenham Hotspur (H) 20 Aug 2016 West Bromwich Albion (A) 27 Aug 2016 Stoke City (H) 10 Sep 2016 Sunderland (A) 17 Sep 2016 Middlesbrough (H) 24 Sep 2016 AFC Bournemouth (A) 01 Oct 2016 Crystal Palace (H) 15 Oct 2016 Manchester City (A) 22 Oct 2016 Burnley (A) 29 Oct 2016 West Ham United (H) 05 Nov 2016 Chelsea (A) 19 Nov 2016 Swansea City (H) 26 Nov 2016 Southampton (A) 03 Dec 2016 Manchester United (H) 10 Dec 2016 Watford (A) 14 Dec 2016 7:45pm Arsenal (H) 17 Dec 2016 Liverpool (H) 26 Dec 2016 Leicester City (A) 31 Dec 2016 Hull City (A) 02 Jan 2017 Southampton (H) 14 Jan 2017 Manchester City (H) 21 Jan 2017 Crystal Palace (A) 01 Feb 2017 8pm Stoke City (A) 04 Feb 2017 AFC Bournemouth (H) 11 Feb 2017 Middlesbrough (A) 25 Feb 2017 Sunderland (H) 04 Mar 2017 Tottenham Hotspur (A) 11 Mar 2017 West Bromwich Albion (H) 18 Mar 2017 Hull City (H) 01 Apr 2017 Liverpool (A) 04 Apr 2017 8pm Manchester United (A) 08 Apr 2017 Leicester City (H) 15 Apr 2017 Burnley (H) 22 Apr 2017 West Ham United (A) 29 Apr 2017 Chelsea (H) 06 May 2017 Swansea City (A) 13 May 2017 Watford (H) 21 May 2017 Arsenal (A) Hull City 13 Aug 2016 Leicester City (H) 20 Aug 2016 Swansea City (A) 27 Aug 2016 Manchester United (H) 10 Sep 2016 Burnley (A) 17 Sep 2016 Arsenal (H) 24 Sep 2016 Liverpool (A) 01 Oct 2016 Chelsea (H) 15 Oct 2016 AFC Bournemouth (A) 22 Oct 2016 Stoke City (H) 29 Oct 2016 Watford (A) 05 Nov 2016 Southampton (H) 19 Nov 2016 Sunderland (A) 26 Nov 2016 West Bromwich Albion (H) 03 Dec 2016 Middlesbrough (A) 10 Dec 2016 Crystal Palace (H) 14 Dec 2016 8pm Tottenham Hotspur (A) 17 Dec 2016 West Ham United (A) 26 Dec 2016 Manchester City (H) 31 Dec 2016 Everton (H) 02 Jan 2017 West Bromwich Albion (A) 14 Jan 2017 AFC Bournemouth (H) 21 Jan 2017 Chelsea (A) 31 Jan 2017 8pm Manchester United (A) 04 Feb 2017 Liverpool (H) 11 Feb 2017 Arsenal (A) 25 Feb 2017 Burnley (H) 04 Mar 2017 Leicester City (A) 11 Mar 2017 Swansea City (H) 18 Mar 2017 Everton (A) 01 Apr 2017 West Ham United (H) 04 Apr 2017 7:45pm Middlesbrough (H) 08 Apr 2017 Manchester City (A) 15 Apr 2017 Stoke City (A) 22 Apr 2017 Watford (H) 29 Apr 2017 Southampton (A) 06 May 2017 Sunderland (H) 13 May 2017 Crystal Palace (A)21 May 2017 Tottenham Hotspur (H) Leicester City 13 Aug 2016 Hull City (A) 20 Aug 2016 Arsenal (H) 27 Aug 2016 Swansea City (H) 10 Sep 2016 Liverpool (A) 17 Sep 2016 Burnley (H) 24 Sep 2016 Manchester United (A) 01 Oct 2016 Southampton (H) 15 Oct 2016 Chelsea (A) 22 Oct 2016 Crystal Palace (H) 29 Oct 2016 Tottenham Hotspur (A) 05 Nov 2016 West Bromwich Albion (H) 19 Nov 2016 Watford (A) 26 Nov 2016 Middlesbrough (H) 03 Dec 2016 Sunderland (A) 10 Dec 2016 Manchester City (H) 13 Dec 2016 7:45pm AFC Bournemouth (A) 17 Dec 2016 Stoke City (A) 26 Dec 2016 Everton (H) 31 Dec 2016 West Ham United (H) 02 Jan 2017 Middlesbrough (A) 14 Jan 2017 Chelsea (H) 21 Jan 2017 Southampton (A) 31 Jan 2017 7:45pm Burnley (A) 04 Feb 2017 Manchester United (H) 11 Feb 2017 Swansea City (A) 25 Feb 2017 Liverpool (H) 04 Mar 2017 Hull City (H) 11 Mar 2017 Arsenal (A) 18 Mar 2017 West Ham United (A) 01 Apr 2017 Stoke City (H) 04 Apr 2017 7:45pm Sunderland (H) 08 Apr 2017 Everton (A) 15 Apr 2017 Crystal Palace (A) 22 Apr 2017 Tottenham Hotspur (H) 29 Apr 2017 West Bromwich Albion (A) 06 May 2017 Watford (H) 13 May 2017 Manchester City (A) 21 May 2017 AFC Bournemouth (H) Liverpool 13 Aug 2016 Arsenal (A) 20 Aug 2016 Burnley (H) 27 Aug 2016 Tottenham Hotspur (A) 10 Sep 2016 Leicester City (H) 17 Sep 2016 Chelsea (A) 24 Sep 2016 Hull City (H) 01 Oct 2016 Swansea City (A) 15 Oct 2016 Manchester United (H) 22 Oct 2016 West Bromwich Albion (H) 29 Oct 2016 Crystal Palace (A) 05 Nov 2016 Watford (H) 19 Nov 2016 Southampton (A) 26 Nov 2016 Sunderland (H) 03 Dec 2016 AFC Bournemouth (A) 10 Dec 2016 West Ham United (H) 13 Dec 2016 7:45pm Middlesbrough (A) 17 Dec 2016 Everton (A) 26 Dec 2016 Stoke City (H) 31 Dec 2016 Manchester City (H) 02 Jan 2017 Sunderland (A) 14 Jan 2017 Manchester United (A) 21 Jan 2017 Swansea City (H) 01 Feb 2017 8pm Chelsea (H) 04 Feb 2017 Hull City (A) 11 Feb 2017 Tottenham Hotspur (H) 25 Feb 2017 Leicester City (A) 04 Mar 2017 Arsenal (H) 11 Mar 2017 Burnley (A) 18 Mar 2017 Manchester City (A) 01 Apr 2017 Everton (H) 05 Apr 2017 8pm AFC Bournemouth (H) 08 Apr 2017 Stoke City (A) 15 Apr 2017 West Bromwich Albion (A) 22 Apr 2017 Crystal Palace (H) 29 Apr 2017 Watford (A) 06 May 2017 Southampton (H) 13 May 2017 West Ham United (A) 21 May 2017 Middlesbrough (H) Manchester City 13 Aug 2016 Sunderland (H) 20 Aug 2016 Stoke City (A) 27 Aug 2016 West Ham United (H) 10 Sep 2016 Manchester United (A) 17 Sep 2016 AFC Bournemouth (H) 24 Sep 2016 Swansea City (A) 01 Oct 2016 Tottenham Hotspur (A) 15 Oct 2016 Everton (H) 22 Oct 2016 Southampton (H) 29 Oct 2016 West Bromwich Albion (A) 05 Nov 2016 Middlesbrough (H) 19 Nov 2016 Crystal Palace (A) 26 Nov 2016 Burnley (A) 03 Dec 2016 Chelsea (H) 10 Dec 2016 Leicester City (A) 14 Dec 2016 8pm Watford (H) 17 Dec 2016 Arsenal (H) 26 Dec 2016 Hull City (A) 31 Dec 2016 Liverpool (A) 02 Jan 2017 Burnley (H) 14 Jan 2017 Everton (A) 21 Jan 2017 Tottenham Hotspur (H) 31 Jan 2017 7:45pm West Ham United (A) 04 Feb 2017 Swansea City (H) 11 Feb 2017 AFC Bournemouth (A) 25 Feb 2017 Manchester United (H) 04 Mar 2017 Sunderland (A) 11 Mar 2017 Stoke City (H) 18 Mar 2017 Liverpool (H) 01 Apr 2017 Arsenal (A) 05 Apr 2017 7:45pm Chelsea (A) 08 Apr 2017 Hull City (H) 15 Apr 2017 Southampton (A) 22 Apr 2017 West Bromwich Albion (H) 29 Apr 2017 Middlesbrough (A) 06 May 2017 Crystal Palace (H) 13 May 2017 Leicester City (H) 21 May 2017 Watford (A) Manchester United 13 Aug 2016 AFC Bournemouth (A) 20 Aug 2016 Southampton (H) 27 Aug 2016 Hull City (A) 10 Sep 2016 Manchester City (H) 17 Sep 2016 Watford (A) 24 Sep 2016 Leicester City (H) 01 Oct 2016 Stoke City (H) 15 Oct 2016 Liverpool (A) 22 Oct 2016 Chelsea (A) 29 Oct 2016 Burnley (H) 05 Nov 2016 Swansea City (A) 19 Nov 2016 Arsenal (H) 26 Nov 2016 West Ham United (H) 03 Dec 2016 Everton (A) 10 Dec 2016 Tottenham Hotspur (H) 13 Dec 2016 8pm Crystal Palace (A) 17 Dec 2016 West Bromwich Albion (A) 26 Dec 2016 Sunderland (H) 31 Dec 2016 Middlesbrough (H) 02 Jan 2017 West Ham United (A) 14 Jan 2017 Liverpool (H) 21 Jan 2017 Stoke City (A) 31 Jan 2017 8pm Hull City (H) 04 Feb 2017 Leicester City (A) 11 Feb 2017 Watford (H) 25 Feb 2017 Manchester City (A) 04 Mar 2017 AFC Bournemouth (H) 11 Mar 2017 Southampton (A) 18 Mar 2017 Middlesbrough (A) 01 Apr 2017 West Bromwich Albion (H) 04 Apr 2017 8pm Everton (H) 08 Apr 2017 Sunderland (A) 15 Apr 2017 Chelsea (H) 22 Apr 2017 Burnley (A) 29 Apr 2017 Swansea City (H) 06 May 2017 Arsenal (A) 13 May 2017 Tottenham Hotspur (A) 21 May 2017 Crystal Palace (H) Middlesbrough 13 Aug 2016 Stoke City (H) 20 Aug 2016 Sunderland (A) 27 Aug 2016 West Bromwich Albion (A) 10 Sep 2016 Crystal Palace (H) 17 Sep 2016 Everton (A) 24 Sep 2016 Tottenham Hotspur (H) 01 Oct 2016 West Ham United (A) 15 Oct 2016 Watford (H) 22 Oct 2016 Arsenal (A) 29 Oct 2016 AFC Bournemouth (H) 05 Nov 2016 Manchester City (A) 19 Nov 2016 Chelsea (H) 26 Nov 2016 Leicester City (A) 03 Dec 2016 Hull City (H) 10 Dec 2016 Southampton (A) 13 Dec 2016 7.45pm Liverpool (H) 17 Dec 2016 Swansea City (H) 26 Dec 2016 Burnley (A) 31 Dec 2016 Manchester United (A) 02 Jan 2017 Leicester City (H) 14 Jan 2017 Watford (A) 21 Jan 2017 West Ham United (H) 31 Jan 2017 7.45pm West Bromwich Albion (H) 04 Feb 2017 Tottenham Hotspur (A) 11 Feb 2017 Everton (H) 25 Feb 2017 Crystal Palace (A) 04 Mar 2017 Stoke City (A) 11 Mar 2017 Sunderland (H) 18 Mar 2017 Manchester United (H) 01 Apr 2017 Swansea City (A) 04 Apr 2017 7.45pm Hull City (A) 08 Apr 2017 Burnley (H) 15 Apr 2017 Arsenal (H) 22 Apr 2017 AFC Bournemouth (A) 29 Apr 2017 Manchester City (H) 06 May 2017 Chelsea (A) 13 May 2017 Southampton (H) 21 May 2017 Liverpool (A) Southampton 13 Aug 2016 Watford (H) 20 Aug 2016 Manchester United (A) 27 Aug 2016 Sunderland (H) 10 Sep 2016 Arsenal (A) 17 Sep 2016 Swansea City (H) 24 Sep 2016 West Ham United (A) 01 Oct 2016 Leicester City (A) 15 Oct 2016 Burnley (H) 22 Oct 2016 Manchester City (A) 29 Oct 2016 Chelsea (H) 05 Nov 2016 Hull City (A) 19 Nov 2016 Liverpool (H) 26 Nov 2016 Everton (H) 03 Dec 2016 Crystal Palace (A) 10 Dec 2016 Middlesbrough (H) 14 Dec 2016 8pm Stoke City (A) 17 Dec 2016 AFC Bournemouth (A) 26 Dec 2016 Tottenham Hotspur (H) 31 Dec 2016 West Bromwich Albion (H) 02 Jan 2017 Everton (A) 14 Jan 2017 Burnley (A) 21 Jan 2017 Leicester City (H) 31 Jan 2017 7.45pm Swansea City (A) 04 Feb 2017 West Ham United (H) 11 Feb 2017 Sunderland (A) 25 Feb 2017 Arsenal (H) 04 Mar 2017 Watford (A) 11 Mar 2017 Manchester United (H) 18 Mar 2017 Tottenham Hotspur (A) 01 Apr 2017 AFC Bournemouth (H) 05 Apr 2017 7.45pm Crystal Palace (H) 08 Apr 2017 West Bromwich Albion (A) 15 Apr 2017 Manchester City (H) 22 Apr 2017 Chelsea (A) 29 Apr 2017 Hull City (H) 06 May 2017 Liverpool (A) 13 May 2017 Middlesbrough (A) 21 May 2017 Stoke City (H) Stoke City 13 Aug 2016 Middlesbrough (A) 20 Aug 2016 Manchester City (H) 27 Aug 2016 Everton (A) 10 Sep 2016 Tottenham Hotspur (H) 17 Sep 2016 Crystal Palace (A) 24 Sep 2016 West Bromwich Albion (H) 01 Oct 2016 Manchester United (A) 15 Oct 2016 Sunderland (H) 22 Oct 2016 Hull City (A) 29 Oct 2016 Swansea City (H) 05 Nov 2016 West Ham United (A) 19 Nov 2016 AFC Bournemouth (H) 26 Nov 2016 Watford (A) 03 Dec 2016 Burnley (H) 10 Dec 2016 Arsenal (A) 14 Dec 2016 8pm Southampton (H) 17 Dec 2016 Leicester City (H) 26 Dec 2016 Liverpool (A) 31 Dec 2016 Chelsea (A) 02 Jan 2017 Watford (H) 14 Jan 2017 Sunderland (A) 21 Jan 2017 Manchester United (H) 01 Feb 2017 8pm Everton (H) 04 Feb 2017 West Bromwich Albion (A) 11 Feb 2017 Crystal Palace (H) 25 Feb 2017 Tottenham Hotspur (A) 04 Mar 2017 Middlesbrough (H) 11 Mar 2017 Manchester City (A) 18 Mar 2017 Chelsea (H) 01 Apr 2017 Leicester City (A) 04 Apr 2017 7.45pm Burnley (A) 08 Apr 2017 Liverpool (H) 15 Apr 2017 Hull City (H) 22 Apr 2017 Swansea City (A) 29 Apr 2017 West Ham United (H) 06 May 2017 AFC Bournemouth (A) 13 May 2017 Arsenal (H) 21 May 2017 Southampton (A) Sunderland 13 Aug 2016 Manchester City (A) 20 Aug 2016 Middlesbrough (H) 27 Aug 2016 Southampton (A) 10 Sep 2016 Everton (H) 17 Sep 2016 Tottenham Hotspur (A) 24 Sep 2016 Crystal Palace (H) 01 Oct 2016 West Bromwich Albion (H) 15 Oct 2016 Stoke City (A) 22 Oct 2016 West Ham United (A) 29 Oct 2016 Arsenal (H) 05 Nov 2016 AFC Bournemouth (A) 19 Nov 2016 Hull City (H) 26 Nov 2016 Liverpool (A) 03 Dec 2016 Leicester City (H) 10 Dec 2016 Swansea City (A) 13 Dec 2016 7.45pm Chelsea (H) 17 Dec 2016 Watford (H) 26 Dec 2016 Manchester United (A) 31 Dec 2016 Burnley (A) 02 Jan 2017 Liverpool (H) 14 Jan 2017 Stoke City (H) 21 Jan 2017 West Bromwich Albion (A) 31 Jan 2017 7.45pm Tottenham Hotspur (H) 04 Feb 2017 Crystal Palace (A) 11 Feb 2017 Southampton (H) 25 Feb 2017 Everton (A) 04 Mar 2017 Manchester City (H) 11 Mar 2017 Middlesbrough (A) 18 Mar 2017 Burnley (H) 01 Apr 2017 Watford (A) 04 Apr 2017 7.45pm Leicester City (A) 08 Apr 2017 Manchester United (H) 15 Apr 2017 West Ham United (H) 22 Apr 2017 Arsenal (A) 29 Apr 2017 AFC Bournemouth (H) 06 May 2017 Hull City (A) 13 May 2017 Swansea City (H) 21 May 2017 Chelsea (A) Swansea City 13 Aug 2016 Burnley (A) 20 Aug 2016 Hull City (H) 27 Aug 2016 Leicester City (A) 10 Sep 2016 Chelsea (H) 17 Sep 2016 Southampton (A) 24 Sep 2016 Manchester City (H) 01 Oct 2016 Liverpool (H) 15 Oct 2016 Arsenal (A) 22 Oct 2016 Watford (H) 29 Oct 2016 Stoke City (A) 05 Nov 2016 Manchester United (H) 19 Nov 2016 Everton (A) 26 Nov 2016 Crystal Palace (H) 03 Dec 2016 Tottenham Hotspur (A) 10 Dec 2016 Sunderland (H) 13 Dec 2016 8pm West Bromwich Albion (A) 17 Dec 2016 Middlesbrough (A) 26 Dec 2016 West Ham United (H) 31 Dec 2016 AFC Bournemouth (H) 02 Jan 2017 Crystal Palace (A) 14 Jan 2017 Arsenal (H) 21 Jan 2017 Liverpool (A) 31 Jan 2017 7.45pm Southampton (H) 04 Feb 2017 Manchester City (A) 11 Feb 2017 Leicester City (H) 25 Feb 2017 Chelsea (A) 04 Mar 2017 Burnley (H) 11 Mar 2017 Hull City (A) 18 Mar 2017 AFC Bournemouth (A) 01 Apr 2017 Middlesbrough (H) 04 Apr 2017 7.45pm Tottenham Hotspur (H) 08 Apr 2017 West Ham United (A) 15 Apr 2017 Watford (A) 22 Apr 2017 Stoke City (H) 29 Apr 2017 Manchester United (A) 06 May 2017 Everton (H) 13 May 2017 Sunderland (A) 21 May 2017 West Bromwich Albion (H) Tottenham Hotspur 13 Aug 2016 Everton (A) 20 Aug 2016 Crystal Palace (H) 27 Aug 2016 Liverpool (H) 10 Sep 2016 Stoke City (A) 17 Sep 2016 Sunderland (H) 24 Sep 2016 Middlesbrough (A) 01 Oct 2016 Manchester City (H) 15 Oct 2016 West Bromwich Albion (A) 22 Oct 2016 AFC Bournemouth (A) 29 Oct 2016 Leicester City (H) 05 Nov 2016 Arsenal (A) 19 Nov 2016 West Ham United (H) 26 Nov 2016 Chelsea (A) 03 Dec 2016 Swansea City (H) 10 Dec 2016 Manchester United (A) 14 Dec 2016 8pm Hull City (H) 17 Dec 2016 Burnley (H) 26 Dec 2016 Southampton (A) 31 Dec 2016 Watford (A) 02 Jan 2017 Chelsea (H) 14 Jan 2017 West Bromwich Albion (H) 21 Jan 2017 Manchester City (A) 31 Jan 2017 7.45pm Sunderland (A) 04 Feb 2017 Middlesbrough (H) 11 Feb 2017 Liverpool (A) 25 Feb 2017 Stoke City (H) 04 Mar 2017 Everton (H) 11 Mar 2017 Crystal Palace (A) 18 Mar 2017 Southampton (H) 01 Apr 2017 Burnley (A) 04 Apr 2017 7.45pm Swansea City (A) 08 Apr 2017 Watford (H) 15 Apr 2017 AFC Bournemouth (H) 22 Apr 2017 Leicester City (A) 29 Apr 2017 Arsenal (H) 06 May 2017 West Ham United (A) 13 May 2017 Manchester United (H) 21 May 2017 Hull City (A) Watford 13 Aug 2016 Southampton (A) 20 Aug 2016 Chelsea (H) 27 Aug 2016 Arsenal (H) 10 Sep 2016 West Ham United (A) 17 Sep 2016 Manchester United (H) 24 Sep 2016 Burnley (A) 01 Oct 2016 AFC Bournemouth (H) 15 Oct 2016 Middlesbrough (A) 22 Oct 2016 Swansea City (A) 29 Oct 2016 Hull City (H) 05 Nov 2016 Liverpool (A) 19 Nov 2016 Leicester City (H) 26 Nov 2016 Stoke City (H) 03 Dec 2016 West Bromwich Albion (A) 10 Dec 2016 Everton (H) 14 Dec 2016 8pm Manchester City (A) 17 Dec 2016 Sunderland (A) 26 Dec 2016 Crystal Palace (H) 31 Dec 2016 Tottenham Hotspur (H) 02 Jan 2017 Stoke City (A) 14 Jan 2017 Middlesbrough (H) 21 Jan 2017 AFC Bournemouth (A) 31 Jan 2017 7.45pm Arsenal (A) 04 Feb 2017 Burnley (H) 11 Feb 2017 Manchester United (A) 25 Feb 2017 West Ham United (H) 04 Mar 2017 Southampton (H) 11 Mar 2017 Chelsea (A) 18 Mar 2017 Crystal Palace (A) 01 Apr 2017 Sunderland (H) 04 Apr 2017 7.45pm West Bromwich Albion (H) 08 Apr 2017 Tottenham Hotspur (A) 15 Apr 2017 Swansea City (H) 22 Apr 2017 Hull City (A) 29 Apr 2017 Liverpool (H) 06 May 2017 Leicester City (A) 13 May 2017 Everton (A) 21 May 2017 Manchester City (H) West Bromwich Albion 13 Aug 2016 Crystal Palace (A) 20 Aug 2016 Everton (H) 27 Aug 2016 Middlesbrough (H) 10 Sep 2016 AFC Bournemouth (A) 17 Sep 2016 West Ham United (H) 24 Sep 2016 Stoke City (A) 01 Oct 2016 Sunderland (A) 15 Oct 2016 Tottenham Hotspur (H) 22 Oct 2016 Liverpool (A) 29 Oct 2016 Manchester City (H) 05 Nov 2016 Leicester City (A) 19 Nov 2016 Burnley (H) 26 Nov 2016 Hull City (A) 03 Dec 2016 Watford (H) 10 Dec 2016 Chelsea (A) 13 Dec 2016 8pm Swansea City (H) 17 Dec 2016 Manchester United (H) 26 Dec 2016 Arsenal (A) 31 Dec 2016 Southampton (A) 02 Jan 2017 Hull City (H) 14 Jan 2017 Tottenham Hotspur (A) 21 Jan 2017 Sunderland (H) 31 Jan 2017 7.45pm Middlesbrough (A) 04 Feb 2017 Stoke City (H) 11 Feb 2017 West Ham United (A) 25 Feb 2017 AFC Bournemouth (H) 04 Mar 2017 Crystal Palace (H) 11 Mar 2017 Everton (A) 18 Mar 2017 Arsenal (H) 01 Apr 2017 Manchester United (A) 04 Apr 2017 7.45pm Watford (A) 08 Apr 2017 Southampton (H) 15 Apr 2017 Liverpool (H) 22 Apr 2017 Manchester City (A) 29 Apr 2017 Leicester City (H) 06 May 2017 Burnley (A) 13 May 2017 Chelsea (H) 21 May 2017 Swansea City (A) West Ham United 13 Aug 2016 Chelsea (A) 20 Aug 2016 AFC Bournemouth (H) 27 Aug 2016 Manchester City (A) 10 Sep 2016 Watford (H) 17 Sep 2016 West Bromwich Albion (A) 24 Sep 2016 Southampton (H) 01 Oct 2016 Middlesbrough (H) 15 Oct 2016 Crystal Palace (A) 22 Oct 2016 Sunderland (H) 29 Oct 2016 Everton (A) 05 Nov 2016 Stoke City (H) 19 Nov 2016 Tottenham Hotspur (A) 26 Nov 2016 Manchester United (A) 03 Dec 2016 Arsenal (H) 10 Dec 2016 Liverpool (A) 13 Dec 2016 7.45pm Burnley (H) 17 Dec 2016 Hull City (H) 26 Dec 2016 Swansea City (A) 31 Dec 2016 Leicester City (A) 02 Jan 2017 Manchester United (H) 14 Jan 2017 Crystal Palace (H) 21 Jan 2017 Middlesbrough (A) 31 Jan 2017 7.45pm Manchester City (H) 04 Feb 2017 Southampton (A) 11 Feb 2017 West Bromwich Albion (H) 25 Feb 2017 Watford (A) 04 Mar 2017 Chelsea (H) 11 Mar 2017 AFC Bournemouth (A) 18 Mar 2017 Leicester City (H) 01 Apr 2017 Hull City (A) 04 Apr 2017 7.45pm Arsenal (A) 08 Apr 2017 Swansea City (H) 15 Apr 2017 Sunderland (A) 22 Apr 2017 Everton (H) 29 Apr 2017 Stoke City (A) 06 May 2017 Tottenham Hotspur (H) 13 May 2017 Liverpool (H) 21 May 2017 Burnley (A) Full fixtures, week-by-week 13 August 2016: Bournemouth v Manchester United, Arsenal v Liverpool, Burnley v Swansea City, Chelsea v West Ham United, Crystal Palace v West Bromwich Albion, Everton v Tottenham Hotspur, Hull City v Leicester City, Manchester City v Sunderland, Middlesbrough v Stoke City, Southampton v Watford 20 August: Leicester City v Arsenal, Liverpool v Burnley, Manchester United v Southampton, Stoke City v Manchester City, Sunderland v Middlesbrough, Swansea City v Hull City, Tottenham Hotspur v Crystal Palace, Watford v Chelsea, West Bromwich Albion v Everton, West Ham United v Bournemouth 27 August: Chelsea v Burnley, Crystal Palace v Bournemouth, Everton v Stoke City, Hull City v Manchester United, Leicester City v Swansea City, Manchester City v West Ham United, Southampton v Sunderland, Tottenham Hotspur v Liverpool, Watford v Arsenal, West Bromwich Albion v Middlesbrough 10 September: Bournemouth v West Bromwich Albion, Arsenal v Southampton, Burnley v Hull City, Liverpool v Leicester City, Manchester United v Manchester City, Middlesbrough v Crystal Palace, Stoke City v Tottenham Hotspur, Sunderland v Everton, Swansea City v Chelsea, West Ham United v Watford 17 September: Chelsea v Liverpool, Crystal Palace v Stoke City, Everton v Middlesbrough, Hull City v Arsenal, Leicester City v Burnley, Manchester City v Bournemouth, Southampton v Swansea City, Tottenham Hotspur v Sunderland, Watford v Manchester United, West Bromwich Albion v West Ham United 24 September: Bournemouth v Everton, Arsenal v Chelsea, Burnley v Watford, Liverpool v Hull City, Manchester United v Leicester City, Middlesbrough v Tottenham Hotspur, Stoke City v West Bromwich Albion, Sunderland v Crystal Palace, Swansea City v Manchester City, West Ham United v Southampton 1 October: Burnley v Arsenal, Everton v Crystal Palace, Hull City v Chelsea, Leicester City v Southampton, Manchester United v Stoke City, Sunderland v West Bromwich Albion, Swansea City v Liverpool, Tottenham Hotspur v Manchester City, Watford v Bournemouth, West Ham United v Middlesbrough 15 October: Bournemouth v Hull City, Arsenal v Swansea City, Chelsea v Leicester City, Crystal Palace v West Ham United, Liverpool v Manchester United, Manchester City v Everton, Middlesbrough v Watford, Southampton v Burnley, Stoke City v Sunderland, West Bromwich Albion v Tottenham Hotspur 22 October: Bournemouth v Tottenham Hotspur, Arsenal v Middlesbrough, Burnley v Everton, Chelsea v Manchester United, Hull City v Stoke City, Leicester City v Crystal Palace, Liverpool v West Bromwich Albion, Manchester City v Southampton, Swansea City v Watford, West Ham United v Sunderland 29 October: Crystal Palace v Liverpool, Everton v West Ham United, Manchester United v Burnley, Middlesbrough v Bournemouth, Southampton v Chelsea, Stoke City v Swansea City, Sunderland v Arsenal, Tottenham Hotspur v Leicester City, Watford v Hull City, West Bromwich Albion v Manchester City 5 November: Bournemouth v Sunderland, Arsenal v Tottenham Hotspur, Burnley v Crystal Palace, Chelsea v Everton, Hull City v Southampton, Leicester City v West Bromwich Albion, Liverpool v Watford, Manchester City v Middlesbrough, Swansea City v Manchester United, West Ham United v Stoke City 19 November: Crystal Palace v Manchester City, Everton v Swansea City, Manchester United v Arsenal, Middlesbrough v Chelsea, Southampton v Liverpool, Stoke City v Bournemouth, Sunderland v Hull City, Tottenham Hotspur v West Ham United, Watford v Leicester City, West Bromwich Albion v Burnley 26 November: Arsenal v Bournemouth, Burnley v Manchester City, Chelsea v Tottenham Hotspur, Hull City v West Bromwich Albion, Leicester City v Middlesbrough, Liverpool v Sunderland, Manchester United v West Ham United, Southampton v Everton, Swansea City v Crystal Palace, Watford v Stoke City 3 December: Bournemouth v Liverpool, Crystal Palace v Southampton, Everton v Manchester United, Manchester City v Chelsea, Middlesbrough v Hull City, Stoke City v Burnley, Sunderland v Leicester City, Tottenham Hotspur v Swansea City, West Bromwich Albion v Watford, West Ham United v Arsenal 10 December: Arsenal v Stoke City, Burnley v Bournemouth, Chelsea v West Bromwich Albion, Hull City v Crystal Palace, Leicester City v Manchester City, Liverpool v West Ham United, Manchester United v Tottenham Hotspur, Southampton v Middlesbrough, Swansea City v Sunderland, Watford v Everton 13 December: Bournemouth v Leicester City, Crystal Palace v Manchester United, Middlesbrough v Liverpool, Sunderland v Chelsea, West Bromwich Albion v Swansea City, West Ham United v Burnley 14 December: Everton v Arsenal, Manchester City v Watford, Stoke City v Southampton, Tottenham Hotspur v Hull City 17 December: Bournemouth v Southampton, Crystal Palace v Chelsea, Everton v Liverpool, Manchester City v Arsenal, Middlesbrough v Swansea City, Stoke City v Leicester City, Sunderland v Watford, Tottenham Hotspur v Burnley, West Bromwich Albion v Manchester United, West Ham United v Hull City 26 December: Arsenal v West Bromwich Albion, Burnley v Middlesbrough, Chelsea v Bournemouth, Hull City v Manchester City, Leicester City v Everton, Liverpool v Stoke City, Manchester United v Sunderland, Southampton v Tottenham Hotspur, Swansea City v West Ham United, Watford v Crystal Palace 31 December: Arsenal v Crystal Palace, Burnley v Sunderland, Chelsea v Stoke City, Hull City v Everton, Leicester City v West Ham United, Liverpool v Manchester City, Manchester United v Middlesbrough, Southampton v West Bromwich Albion, Swansea City v Bournemouth, Watford v Tottenham Hotspur 2 January: Bournemouth v Arsenal, Crystal Palace v Swansea City, Everton v Southampton, Manchester City v Burnley, Middlesbrough v Leicester City, Stoke City v Watford, Sunderland v Liverpool, Tottenham Hotspur v Chelsea, West Bromwich Albion v Hull City, West Ham United v Manchester United 14 January: Burnley v Southampton, Everton v Manchester City, Hull City v Bournemouth, Leicester City v Chelsea, Manchester United v Liverpool, Sunderland v Stoke City, Swansea City v Arsenal, Tottenham Hotspur v West Bromwich Albion, Watford v Middlesbrough, West Ham United v Crystal Palace 21 January: Bournemouth v Watford, Arsenal v Burnley, Chelsea v Hull City, Crystal Palace v Everton, Liverpool v Swansea City, Manchester City v Tottenham Hotspur, Middlesbrough v West Ham United, Southampton v Leicester City, Stoke City v Manchester United, West Bromwich Albion v Sunderland 31 January: Bournemouth v Crystal Palace, Arsenal v Watford, Burnley v Leicester City, Manchester United v Hull City, Middlesbrough v West Bromwich Albion, Sunderland v Tottenham Hotspur, Swansea City v Southampton, West Ham United v Manchester City 1 February: Liverpool v Chelsea, Stoke City v Everton 4 February: Chelsea v Arsenal, Crystal Palace v Sunderland, Everton v Bournemouth, Hull City v Liverpool, Leicester City v Manchester United, Manchester City v Swansea City, Southampton v West Ham United, Tottenham Hotspur v Middlesbrough, Watford v Burnley, West Bromwich Albion v Stoke City 11 February: Bournemouth v Manchester City, Arsenal v Hull City, Burnley v Chelsea, Liverpool v Tottenham Hotspur, Manchester United v Watford, Middlesbrough v Everton, Stoke City v Crystal Palace, Sunderland v Southampton, Swansea City v Leicester City, West Ham United v West Bromwich Albion 25 February: Chelsea v Swansea City, Crystal Palace v Middlesbrough, Everton v Sunderland, Hull City v Burnley, Leicester City v Liverpool, Manchester City v Manchester United, Southampton v Arsenal, Tottenham Hotspur v Stoke City, Watford v West Ham United, West Bromwich Albion v Bournemouth 4 March: Leicester City v Hull City, Liverpool v Arsenal, Manchester United v Bournemouth, Stoke City v Middlesbrough, Sunderland v Manchester City, Swansea City v Burnley, Tottenham Hotspur v Everton, Watford v Southampton, West Bromwich Albion v Crystal Palace, West Ham United v Chelsea 11 March: Bournemouth v West Ham United, Arsenal v Leicester City, Burnley v Liverpool, Chelsea v Watford, Crystal Palace v Tottenham Hotspur, Everton v West Bromwich Albion, Hull City v Swansea City, Manchester City v Stoke City, Middlesbrough v Sunderland, Southampton v Manchester United 18 March: Bournemouth v Swansea City, Crystal Palace v Watford, Everton v Hull City, Manchester City v Liverpool, Middlesbrough v Manchester United, Stoke City v Chelsea, Sunderland v Burnley, Tottenham Hotspur v Southampton, West Bromwich Albion v Arsenal, West Ham United v Leicester City 1 April: Arsenal v Manchester City, Burnley v Tottenham Hotspur, Chelsea v Crystal Palace, Hull City v West Ham United, Leicester City v Stoke City, Liverpool v Everton, Manchester United v West Bromwich Albion, Southampton v Bournemouth, Swansea City v Middlesbrough, Watford v Sunderland 4 April: Arsenal v West Ham United, Burnley v Stoke City, Hull City v Middlesbrough, Leicester City v Sunderland, Manchester United v Everton, Swansea City v Tottenham Hotspur, Watford v West Bromwich Albion 5 April: Chelsea v Manchester City, Liverpool v Bournemouth, Southampton v Crystal Palace 8 April: Bournemouth v Chelsea, Crystal Palace v Arsenal, Everton v Leicester City, Manchester City v Hull City, Middlesbrough v Burnley, Stoke City v Liverpool, Sunderland v Manchester United, Tottenham Hotspur v Watford, West Bromwich Albion v Southampton, West Ham United v Swansea City 15 April: Crystal Palace v Leicester City, Everton v Burnley, Manchester United v Chelsea, Middlesbrough v Arsenal, Southampton v Manchester City, Stoke City v Hull City, Sunderland v West Ham United, Tottenham Hotspur v Bournemouth, Watford v Swansea City, West Bromwich Albion v Liverpool 22 April: Bournemouth v Middlesbrough, Arsenal v Sunderland, Burnley v Manchester United, Chelsea v Southampton, Hull City v Watford, Leicester City v Tottenham Hotspur, Liverpool v Crystal Palace, Manchester City v West Bromwich Albion, Swansea City v Stoke City, West Ham United v Everton 29 April: Crystal Palace v Burnley, Everton v Chelsea, Manchester United v Swansea City, Middlesbrough v Manchester City, Southampton v Hull City, Stoke City v West Ham United, Sunderland v Bournemouth, Tottenham Hotspur v Arsenal, Watford v Liverpool, West Bromwich Albion v Leicester City 6 May: Bournemouth v Stoke City, Arsenal v Manchester United, Burnley v West Bromwich Albion, Chelsea v Middlesbrough, Hull City v Sunderland, Leicester City v Watford, Liverpool v Southampton, Manchester City v Crystal Palace, Swansea City v Everton, West Ham United v Tottenham Hotspur 13 May: Bournemouth v Burnley, Crystal Palace v Hull City, Everton v Watford, Manchester City v Leicester City, Middlesbrough v Southampton, Stoke City v Arsenal, Sunderland v Swansea City, Tottenham Hotspur v Manchester United, West Bromwich Albion v Chelsea, West Ham United v Liverpool 21 May: Arsenal v Everton, Burnley v West Ham United, Chelsea v Sunderland, Hull City v Tottenham Hotspur, Leicester City v Bournemouth, Liverpool v Middlesbrough, Manchester United v Crystal Palace, Southampton v Stoke City, Swansea City v West Bromwich Albion, Watford v Manchester City
If referendums are the answer, we’re asking the wrong question Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive? I don’t think many will feel the same way that William Wordsworth did about the French revolution when they look back on June 2016 and our referendum on Europe. For this was no springtime of peoples, no logical debate in Plato’s republic, and no political Glastonbury either. And it has not produced the national catharsis that some hoped for. No one is snatching a few hours’ sleep this evening thinking, wow, that was just what we all needed, give us more of it. This referendum was about Britain and Europe. But it was also a disturbing revelation of the way we now do politics. As such it cannot help but be a reflection on David Cameron. This was his show, prepared over years, not weeks. He produced, designed, directed and starred in it. It reflected his way of governing, his model of leadership, his priorities, his politics and his attitude to Europe. And it has been a shabby muddle for which he must take responsibility. Those of us who have not lived through all-out war should be hesitant before drawing the parallel that follows. But this has been the first occasion in my life when I have experienced a peacetime moment more normally associated with war, in which you realise that everything you know may soon and suddenly disappear, the good along with the rotten. In my view the responsibility for that lurching doubt about the future lies not just with Cameron but sits squarely at the door of the referendum process itself. Perhaps some on the leave side of the argument, like the poet Rupert Brooke when war broke out in 1914, have thanked God for matching us with the referendum’s hour. Perhaps too it is useful, from time to time, to be reminded of how close we still live to a state of nature, amid all our consumerist and technological hubris. Nations are not eternal. But the two simple words that have come increasingly to mind over the past month are those that were used so often by the generations who emerged intact from war in 1918 and in 1945. Never again. Referendums have insinuated themselves into our politics in the last half-century. Like the banker’s bonus, the xenophobic tabloid, the cold call, the urban fox and a lot of the other unwelcome aspects of modern Britain, no one ever positively invited them into our lives. But they have gained a foothold among us now and, like the bonuses, the xenophobes, the calls and the foxes, it’s time we drew the line much more tightly around them. It is not too late. Cameron has simply been too weak to do this and, being weak, has made the problem worse for his successors. His whole approach to the referendum has been ad hoc, because he has shown himself to be, in the final analysis, an essentially ad hoc politician. His dominant view of the world does not go far beyond the view that Britain is, on the whole, better governed by the Conservatives. Europe, and everything else, is seen through that prism. Cameron has never, even now, resolved his own position on Europe. For 24.9 of the past 25 years he has thought three incompatible things about the EU: that he dislikes it, that we should be part of it, and that there must be a referendum about it. A better leader would have sorted these competing instincts into order, would have chosen between his dislike of Europe and his desire to be part of it and made the referendum subordinate to that decision. Instead Cameron almost drifted into the referendum. He appeared to think until the campaign actually started that it would be a repetition of the first EU vote in 1975, in which majority opinion would endorse the overwhelming consensus of the ruling class in favour of remaining on the terms he had negotiated. It didn’t work out that way for many reasons: among these, I suspect, was a feeling among post-crash voters that economic warnings do not really apply to them but only to the distant rich and corporate. Either way, the referendum became more of an angry act of payback than a measured act of democratic participation. This was far from being an isolated referendum. The referendum is now the weapon of choice for populist parties of left and right. The European Council on Foreign Relations pointed out today that populist parties around Europe now propose a total of 32 referendums on issues ranging from EU membership to refugee quotas. A vote for Brexit, says the council, could be the advance signal of a “political tsunami”. Since the survey makes no mention of the Catalonia independence referendum that may emerge from a victory for the left in Spain’s election on Sunday, the figure of 32 is probably an underestimate. The fact that populists like referendums is not necessarily an argument against them. But it is certainly a reason to reflect much more carefully about the place of referendums in our systems of representative government. Every referendum concedes the argument that parliament is not always sovereign. For a political system such as Britain’s, which is centred on a feudal concept of sovereignty, that is a slippery slope. Over the past half-century, Britain has drifted into a system of referendums that has few common rules or strict criteria. We talk about referendums being reserved for major constitutional issues, but without defining what such issues are. Sometimes a referendum is binding, sometimes not. We say referendums are special, but we have few special rules to govern them. We are inconsistent about their use. In the UK devolution sometimes involves a referendum and sometimes not. European treaties can be subject to referendums but other treaties are not. The alternative vote was put to a referendum but proportional representation in European elections was not. We do not specify that a referendum cannot override fundamental rights. There may, in certain circumstances, be an argument for referendums in our politics. But the argument has to be better than that we have had some referendums in the past or that a lot of the public would like one. People will always agree they want a say. Yet it is far from obvious that a system of referendums strengthens trust in democracy. Neither Ireland nor Switzerland, where referendums are more common, seem to vindicate that. Germany’s constitution is strongly rooted in the opposite view. And if an issue is major enough to require a referendum, why is it not major enough to require a high level of turnout or an enhanced majority of those voting, as should be the norm? Cameron has just put Britain through a stress test of the proposition that a major issue can be best resolved by a referendum. Politically, perhaps he had no choice. But the result actually means Britain’s place in Europe is messier, not clarified. The referendum has conferred less legitimacy on politics, not more. It has pushed the nations and communities of Britain apart, not brought them together. It has allowed a bad press to behave even more irresponsibly. After what we have experienced in the past month, we need political reform more than ever. But the verdict on referendums should be a ruthless one. Never again.
Our broadband can’t cope with teenage usage – is fibre worth paying for? Every week a Money reader submits a question, and it’s up to you to help him or her out – a selection of the best answers will appear in next Saturday’s paper. This week’s question: Any answers? Our basic but fast-ish home broadband has started groaning under the strain of teenage children, and I’m wondering if we need fibre? We currently pay only £3.75 per month, but fibre costs more like £19 per month. Do I just have to suck it up and pay? Is it worth the extra money? Do you have a problem readers could solve? Email your suggestions to money@theguardian.com or write to us at Money, The , Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU.
BT must install business broadband more quickly, Ofcom says Britain’s telecoms regulator has demanded better broadband services for businesses from BT, the owner of the UK’s biggest fixed-line network. Ofcom said BT must install high-speed business lines more quickly and “significantly” reduce the prices it charges rivals for the lines. The regulator noted on Tuesday that since 2011, the average time between a customer’s order and the line being ready had increased from 40 to 48 working days. Its new proposals will require BT to install high-speed lines for businesses in 46 working days by the end of March 2017, and 40 working days the following year. It would also have to reduce prices for the lines, and propose prices and terms for rivals to install their own equipment to use its fibre connections. Vodafone said that for the UK to catch up with other countries, , Ofcom must apply strict price controls on access to BT’s dark fibre, or high capacity, network. BT said it accepted that “there is more to do on service” but argued that “ethernet provision can be complex and the need for street works and wayleaves [consent to work on private land]mean delays are often beyond our control”. “We are doing all we can to overcome such challenges,” it insisted, but noted that the price cuts would not help to underpin service improvement. Ofcom’s demands come less than a month after it said it would impose higher service standards on BT’s networks division Openreach as part of its review of the communications market. The new rules will be finalised at the end of April and need the nod from the European commission. The regulator has already told BT to help rivals use its infrastructure to lay fibre cables that are faster than its own copper network, but has stopped short of recommending that BT be forced to split off Openreach, the division that owns the broadband infrastructure. TalkTalk and Sky said last month that Ofcom had not gone far enough. Vodafone said on Tuesday that a potential spin-off of BT Openreach should remain on the table. “We believe it is vital that the structural separation of BT Openreach remains an option Ofcom is actively considering as it could effectively address all of the current problems the regulator has identified in the UK telecoms market.” BT criticised dark fibre as a “flawed piece of regulation” and a “cherry pickers’ charter benefiting those who don’t invest in networks at the expense of those who do including BT, Virgin Media, City Fibre and Zayo.” BT also said that competition had been growing in the business market and said there was a “strong case for less, not more, regulation”. Jonathan Oxley, Ofcom’s competition group director, said: “All of us depend on high-speed, fibre optic lines. Businesses use them to communicate, and they also underpin the broadband and mobile services used by consumers at home and on the move. “BT is relied on by many companies to install these lines, and its performance has not been acceptable. These new rules will mean companies across the UK benefit from faster installation times, greater certainty about installation dates, and fast repairs if things go wrong.”
Brexit would leave UK farmers up to €34,000 worse off, study finds Farmers will lose out by as much as €34,000 (£27,400) a year if the UK votes to leave the EU, unless new national taxpayer subsidies are put in place to bolster farm incomes, a new study has found. The agricultural sector will face a mixed picture, according to the report, which projects its post-Brexit future. Some farmers, such as those specialising in cereals and dairy, are likely to see steep falls in the price of their goods but businesses less dependent on the EU, including poultry and pig farmers, could benefit. The prices of some key commodities such as beef, lamb and wheat could fall for consumers, but the effects are likely to be volatile as farmers lose EU subsidies worth about €3bn a year at current levels. The study, commissioned by the National Farmers’ Union from the University LEI Wageningen UR, examines three likely post-Brexit scenarios - one in which a free trade agreement is struck with Europe, another in which the World Trade Organisation’s rules are paramount and a third in which trade is fully liberalised between the UK and other nations. Under the first scenario, the study found that farmers’ incomes would fall by an average of €24,000 if farmers were to lose all subsidies. The other scenarios would cost €17,000 and €34,000 respectively.. Politicians campaigning on the issue have given no guarantees that farmers would continue to receive subsidies in the case of Brexit. It would be highly controversial for the UK government to continue to subsidise farming at current levels. George Osborne was forced into a U-turn over proposals to cut £4bn from government budgets for people with disabilities and targeting farmers could prove similarly contentious. The environmnent secretary, Liz Truss, told farmers earlier this year not to take a “leap in the dark” by voting to leave the EU. The NFU has so far refused to take a stance on whether or not to advise its members how to vote. Its governing council, made up of representatives from all its regions, will meet on 18 April to decide on whether to take a public position. An NFU official said, however, that even if the council decided to take a position, the union would not campaign on the issue overtly. One reason is the difference in the effects Brexit would have on various types of farm. Recently reformed EU subsidies go to landowners based on the acreage they farm rather than the amount they produce, which distorts earnings in favour of the biggest landowners. When the asked farmers at the NFU’s annual conference earlier this year whether they favoured Brexit, many said yes. This was in stark contrast to previous informal polls at the event, which found the vast majority in favour of remaining. The NFU has refused to undertake formal polling of its members or the wider farming community on the issue. Martin Haworth, the union’s director general, said: “Some of the scenarios appear to suggest that there could be serious risks to farm income from leaving the EU, while the results of others suggest there could be a more favourable outcome. “It comes down to a matter of judgement as to which of the scenarios appears the most likely. This in turn will depend on the policy position adopted by the UK government. In the past, our government has been a strong advocate of open and free trade. “The real questions are political rather than economic. What would the UK government’s position be on international trade and its impact on the consumer price of food? How would it ensure British farmers are treated fairly?” George Eustice MP, the farming minister, who supports the campaign to vote to leave the EU, told the the report was wrong: “Economic exercises of this sort always say more about the assumptions of the model than real life, and not all of the assumptions are plausible. The report ignores the fact that we would have lower burdens of regulation and better, more effective policy design if we took back control.” The Vote Leave campaign said that scenarios in which the UK failed to negotiate free trade agreements with key partners were unlikely, and that such agreements would allow for more favourable treatment of farm exports. The campaigners also argue that support will become available to farmers in the event of an exit, as the savings they argue can be made by leaving the EU could be directed towards the farming sector. Eustice added: “What the report does show is that after we Vote Leave and conclude a free trade agreement while continuing to support UK farming, farm incomes actually increase. We send Brussels £350m every week - we should spend our money on our priorities, like UK farming.” The effect of Brexit on farming is likely to be of greater concern to the Conservatives than other parties, given the reliance of many Tory MPs on rural votes.
Beyond the Wizards Sleeve: The Soft Bounce review – 60s psychedelia goes acid house Seven years ago, the interviewed Beyond the Wizards Sleeve. They were a curious musical pairing. Erol Alkan was best known for founding, aged 22, the hugely influential noughties indie/electro club night Trash; it had hosted early performances from LCD Soundsystem, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Bloc Party. Richard Norris’s long and fascinating career, meanwhile, had encompassed everything from working at the pioneering psychedelic reissue label Bam Caruso in the 80s, via co-authoring the first British acid house record and co-writing and producing tracks with Joe Strummer’s Mescaleros, to his time as half of techno duo the Grid, who both dallied with the top 10 and collaborated with Sun Ra. Norris and Alkan were bonded by a mutual love of 60s psychedelia, playing eight-hour DJ sets together and releasing visionary, eccentric “reanimations” that left the Chemical Brothers sounding like a single from 1968, or set Tracey Thorn’s voice adrift on a sea of mellotron. They informed the that Britain was on course for a third Summer of Love: “They happen every 21 years,” said Norris hopefully, adding that they’d had some badges made to promote the idea. Perhaps stung by how wildly erroneous this prediction turned out to be, promotional badges or not, Beyond the Wizards Sleeve went on hiatus shortly afterwards. It has taken the best part of a decade for their debut album to arrive. It finally appears at a time when Britain looks closer to civil war than to the beatific peace and love of flower power, but the duo’s devotion to a lysergically altered vision of music remains strong as ever, as evidenced by The Soft Bounce’s concluding track: Third Mynd features critic and cultural historian Jon Savage reading out chopped-up, scrambled excerpts from vintage descriptions of people’s experiences with hallucinogens over a head-spinning, beatless backdrop of reversed sounds: “The eye pulsated and shot rays of burning, sweet-sounding light into my body,” intones Savage, his voice shifting from speaker to speaker or rendered alien with electronic effects. “It did more than just rattle my cage, it made me let go of a certain sort of structure.” The texts Savage reads are old, but mangled beyond repair, which in its own way is a neat encapsulation of Beyond the Wizards Sleeve’s approach: fascinated by the psychedelic past, but not slavishly in thrall to it. The problem with a lot of 21st-century psychedelia is that it treats old records like listed buildings, refusing to do anything that isn’t perfectly in keeping with the original architects’ plans. Of course, this English Heritage methodology in fact takes it about as far from the architects’ original plan as it’s possible to get: there’s something deeply weird about taking music that was once the most boundary-breaking, future-facing thing going and preserving it in amber. By contrast, BTWS’s earliest releases were re-edits of old psych classics – the Beatles’ Hey Bulldog, the Hollies’ King Midas in Reverse, the Factory’s Path Through the Forest – that treated them not as sacred ancient artefacts to be venerated, but as material to be manipulated, warped to the duo’s own ends. They do something similar throughout The Soft Bounce. You can hear plenty of knowing echoes of the past, from the churning riffs of Hawkwind on Iron Age, to the hypnotic bassline of Can’s Mother Sky on opener Delicious Light, to the explosive, phased drum rolls of Black Crow, teleported in from Music, a 1968 epic by Acton’s leading purveyors of kaftan-clad whimsy, Kaleidoscope. But it never sounds old-fashioned. The nods to the 60s and 70s are sampled and misshapen, and pitched against 21st-century electronics, menacing slabs of industrial noise and rhythms underpinned by the pulse of the dancefloor: the album wears its roots in dance music as proudly as its vintage paisley finery. You’re always very aware that this is an album made in 2016, not 1966: Diagram Girl floats a wall-eyed, androgynous vocal from Hannah Peel on a relentless, Moroderesque synthesiser throb; Door to Tomorrow features Euros Childs singing dolefully about scented fields and girls called Emily, with luscious sunshine-pop harmonies and baroque string arrangement over a hip-hop breakbeat. Both tracks point to perhaps the most arresting thing about The Soft Bounce. There are great instrumental tracks here – not least the simultaneously gorgeous and unsettling fusion of Eno-like ambient tones and doomy noise that constitutes Tomorrow Forever and the title track’s assemblage of percussive thunder, crashing guitars and a hint of whispered vocal – but what’s striking is how well-written the songs are. Creation’s update of Brazilian Tropicália is sonically fascinating, but the vocal melody that weaves through the chaotic, amphetamine bossa nova lifts it on to a different plane. Black Crow was partly inspired by Lynsey de Paul’s Sugar Me, according to Alkan, clearly a man with impeccable taste when it comes to forgotten 70s oddball pop hits: the best compliment you can pay it is that its tune is as compulsive as that of the strangely addictive song that inspired it. In 2009, Richard Norris said his musical career was fuelled by a single idea, born out of discovering 60s psychedelia shortly before immersing himself in the acid house explosion: “I’ve been trying to fuse the two ever since.” On The Soft Bounce, he and Alkan have honed that idea into an album that uses a deep knowledge of the past to find its own unique niche in the present: “You throw the sticks up in the air and they come down in a different pattern,” as Jon Savage puts it, summing up the duo’s ethos. Maybe it’s not enough to provoke that long-delayed Third Summer of Love we’ve heard so much about, but it’s still an impressive feat.
George Michael's songs were more than simple tales of lust and longing There was supposed to be a third act; a new album, a tour — both rumoured for 2017. There was meant to be a point at which George Michael was reclaimed from the tiresome reputation of high-living, glamorous, homosexual recluse to be recognised as one of our most consummate artists; a moment when the cruder memories of Swiss rehab centres, entanglements on Hampstead Heath and crashing into branches of Snappy Snaps faded into the sound of Faith or Freedom or Club Tropicana. This year has not been kind – Bowie, Prince, Leonard, stand among our many musical losses. But the sadness of Michael’s death feels particularly discombobulating; while it had been evident for some time that Michael had been unwell, and that his willingness to be a recording artist had waned, it seemed inevitable that at any moment soon he might resurface – as red-blooded and vibrant as ever. George Michael was a rare star – an artist who succeeded in transforming what might’ve been a fleeting pop flirtation into a serious music career. In the 1980s he was a pretty boy pin-up, permatanned and highlighted. In a remarkably short time he was duetting with Elton John and Aretha Franklin, adopted, somehow, by the upper echelons of the music industry. For many who followed he suggested a route: a way to graduate from boyband pop hits to respected musicianship. The interesting element to Michael’s rise was how for all the more mature material he retained a pop sensibility, as if his songs grew out of sensation, were proved on the pulses, rather than the contained logic of professional musician. Much of the sorrow of Michael’s passing lies in the fact he wrote and sang so exquisitely about the marrow of life, about the vital, corporeal things: he was the pop star who wrote about lust — in all its extraordinary, variegated, beautiful forms, long before it became fashionable to be risque. He gave us the liberating thrill of I Want Your Sex, the sweet hedonism of Outside, all those songs that pushed popular music’s boundaries to a place where it was acceptable to publicly discuss our particular mores and desires. But Michael’s often sexually charged songs were more than simple tales of lust and longing; long after he had abandoned the heterosexual frisson of his early pop years Michael pushed public boundaries too. In song, he discussed not only his own sexuality, and his personal predilections, but, notably, in his cover of Queen’s Somebody to Love at the 1992 Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert, he began a normalisation of homosexuality, a feeling that at this low point we should at long last and for heaven’s sake just accept love in all its forms. To celebrate George Michael now is to recognise the pure heart-pulse of the perfect pop tune — of Freedom, or Faith, or Club Tropicana, the impeccable smooch of Careless Whisper, A Different Corner or Jesus to a Child, but also to recognise that he was never quite playing by the rules, that he was in so many areas of his life questioning the limits. If we want to pay tribute to George Michael today I think our response should be visceral, heartfelt, rebellious: let’s congregate outside Hampstead Snappy Snaps. Let’s perform lewd acts in Beverly Hills parks, cavort on Hampstead Heath, stuff shuttlecocks down our shorts. And if all of that fails let us do this: grab the person you love and tell them how much you relish them, love them, desire them. In that small way, make the world a better place.
Twitter, I love you. Please don't go changing Dear Twitter, I have to admit that it was not love at first sight when we first met a decade ago. Frankly, I couldn’t figure out what you were about. You were like some nerd hippie who only spoke in Zen koans. Intriguing? Sure, for maybe 15 minutes. I didn’t stick around. But something made me come back. Maybe it was the time that the American student James Karl Buck got detained by Egyptian security forces but managed to tweet a single word – “arrested” – before he was taken into custody. A few hours later, his followers were able to contact the authorities to get him released. I was captivated. That’s when the media woke up and said “What is this ‘Twittering’ the kids are doing?” Another memory: when Chesley Sullenberger ditched his Airbus 320 into the water moments after taking off from LaGuardia, saving the lives of 155 passengers, and you carried the first picture of the “Miracle on the Hudson”. Back then, the possibilities seemed limitless. Forget the New York Times – you would be the social network of record. Even the Library of Congress took notice and decided to squirrel away everyone’s tweets for posterity. (Personally, I think whoever decided to do that was probably high at the time, but that’s a story for another day.) The early days of the Arab spring may have been our best time together. And getting blocked by most of the dictators on the planet only raised your street cred. Give us 140 characters and we can change the world. The revolution will be Twittervised. Remember that? God, we were young, full of hope and naive ambition that social media could change the world. There were other memorable moments. Together, we celebrated the first tweets from space and mourned the death of Michael Jackson. We watched as a 34-year-old Pakistani man named Sohaib Athar accidentally live-blogged the raid that killed Osama Bin Laden, and we stared in rank disbelief as Katy Perry amassed 84,583,956 followers. Then something happened. After you got popular, you started to attract the worst kinds of people. For a while it was nothing but social media gurus, food pornographers, and webcam girls. It was like being trapped at a party at Chris Brown’s house. You launched promoted tweets and promoted accounts, introducing ads into our lives without ever asking if that was OK. And when reports came out that Kim Kardashian was being paid $10,000 a tweet to promote Carls Jr chicken salads, I decided to start seeing other microblogs. (I still have a soft spot in my heart for Plurk.) We hit bottom with Gamergate. You really screwed the pooch on that one. It turns out that building a free-speech platform without adult supervision creates the perfect playground for anonymous jerks to run wild. Whatever. You forgot the Peter Parker Principle: With great power comes great responsibility. You waited too long to respond and did too little to stop the abuse. By then, though, it was too late – I couldn’t quit you. I was a journalist with an addiction to social media; you were, well, Twitter. There was no going back. So I sat there silently as you launched Vine micro-videos (shortening our national attention span to six seconds), acquired Periscope (turning every boring life event into a boring live stream), and publicly mulled expanding the text limit to 10,000 characters (enhancing Donald Trump’s ability to inject the word “loser” multiple times into every tweet). Now, almost every day, another article appears pondering the future of Twitter, and asking just how long any company can keep going without an actual business plan. But the fact is, if you disappeared tomorrow, I would miss you terribly. You fill a void in my life, 140 characters at a time (117 with a picture). That may not be love, exactly. But it sure feels like marriage. Happy anniversary.
Dangal review – crowdpleasing wrestling drama keeps its eye on the big picture Bollywood’s three King Khans have adapted to changing times and mores by recasting themselves as protectors of the nation’s daughters. Action man Salman Khan played chaperone in 2015 blockbuster Bajrangi Bhaijaan; Shah Rukh Khan provided therapeutic guidance to a mixed-up Alia Bhatt in last month’s Dear Zindagi. Here, Aamir Khan’s latest composes a study in flexibility around the real-life figure of Mahavir Singh, a champion wrestler turned potbellied clerk who secured his sporting legacy with a rethink on realising his girls Geeta and Babita had more fight in them than any male heir might have. As with most of this Khan’s crowdpleasers, it’s acutely attuned to wider realities: beyond the mat, the Singhs encounter superstition, child brides and institutional slackness, each sidebar reflecting a social struggle. If the sports-movie framework ensures Dangal takes fewer risks than PK, Khan’s religion-razzing megahit of Christmas 2014, it provides a foursquare showcase for both the star, radiating paternal devotion beneath a stern exterior, and the fiercely supple actresses: the match-ups grapple appreciably with wrestling tactics, aware their outcomes have long been on the record. Very solid, very sound entertainment, with thumpingly good Pritam songs that make Eye of the Tiger seem like pipsqueakery.
Shooter Jennings: Countach (For Giorgio) review – keeping it weird with a Moroder tribute The ninth studio album by Shooter Jennings begins in very much the way you might expect an album by the son of country legend Waylon Jennings to begin. Country stars have always been big on flaunting their dynastic connections – not for Nashville the don’t-ask-about-my-parents approach favoured by rock star offspring who enter the family business – and Jennings Jr has been no exception. He has toured with his late father’s backing band the Outlaws; his last album release consisted of archive recordings of him performing with his father eight years before the latter’s death. It isn’t a huge surprise that the first voice you hear this time around belongs to his old man: what better way for Shooter Jennings to pledge undying fealty to the credo of outlaw country – the roughhouse sub-genre his father helped define 50 years ago – than by kicking off proceedings with a burst of his old hit Don’t You Think This Outlaw Bit’s Done Got Out of Hand? But a minute in, things start to go wildly off-piste. The sound of Waylon Jennings wryly recounting the saga of a late-70s drug bust is gradually joined by a selection of euphoric electronics: a burbling arpeggio, gusts of reverb-drenched noise, stammering EDM breakdown synths. Within two minutes, they’ve consumed the track entirely: the drums have relaxed into a dancefloor pulse, there are vocoders and an old-fashioned analogue synth picking out the kind of melody you might expect to hear on a late-70s Jean Michel Jarre album. Three minutes later, the track has turned into a cover of Giorgio Moroder’s wistful 1977 disco smash From Here to Eternity. Welcome to the world of Shooter Jennings, a man who gives every impression of being on a singlehanded mission to keep country music as weird as possible. His discography is a bizarre alternate universe in which songs called things like Daddy’s Farm and This Ol’ Wheel rub shoulders with Nine Inch Nails- and Pink Floyd-inspired dystopian concept albums about eugenics and the new world order that feature horror author Stephen King playing a character called Will o’ the Wisp; where the aforementioned collaborative album with his father was released simultaneously with a single of Jennings reading short stories about the occult; and where you can follow up a tribute to the late country star George Jones with a tribute to Giorgio Moroder. As you might expect, Shooter Jennings parted company with Nashville’s major-label mainstream some time ago, but even ensconced on his own label, Black Country Rock – its name nicked from David Bowie, apparently a big influence – the Moroder project proved difficult to get off the ground. His label’s distributor somehow arrived at the conclusion that a country star recording a tribute to the Italian electronic music pioneer – in which songs from Moroder’s oeuvre are interspersed with inexplicable snatches of film dialogue and ruminations on virtual reality, and which involves cameo appearances from septuagenarian outlaw country singer Steve Young, Marilyn Manson and video game developer Richard “Lord British” Garriot – was, as Jennings ruefully put it, “a dumb idea”. In absolute fairness, you can see why they thought that. On paper, the album’s cocktail of country rock, electronica and the unmistakable influence of Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories – the album’s version of 1978 instrumental The Chase is overlaid with Garriot discussing his work in Giorgio By Moroder style – looks like a disaster waiting to happen: a latterday equivalent of Neil Young’s ungainly attempt to scrabble aboard the 80s electro-pop bandwagon Trans. But the most bizarre thing about Countach isn’t its concept or its supporting cast list but how well it works. One might argue that’s largely down to Moroder himself: his legendary reputation might be founded on his electronic innovations, but he was also a fantastic songwriter, who came up with melodies that could withstand pretty much anything you might throw at them. But it’s not as simple as that. To Jennings’ immense credit the album’s core sound genuinely works. It’s muscular and potent in a glossily undeniable 80s AOR anthem way, its elements seamlessly melded: the lonesome whine of the pedal steel guitar fits neatly among the panoply of vintage synth noises, as does the fiddle, which is frequently required to play motifs that sound more Middle Eastern than country. Moreover, Jennings genuinely reinterprets the songs he’s chosen. He strips the vocals on From Here to Eternity and I’m Left You’re Right She’s Gone of their vocodered artifice: he sings them dead straight, managing to get some emotion out of the former – not, by any stretch of the imagination, a lyric of such complexity and depth that anyone’s going to devote their life to unpicking it in the style of a Dylanologist – and pointing up the similarity between the latter and a classic country heartbreak ballad. His take on The Never Ending Story replaces Limahl’s featherweight voice with that of alt-country singer Brandi Carlile, who sounds infinitely more careworn: suddenly the song’s words sound wistful and strangely moving, rather than daft. Curiously, the one collaboration that doesn’t work is Marilyn Manson’s version of Catpeople, because it doesn’t take the song any distance from its original incarnation. His voice sounds like a slightly gothier version of David Bowie’s, and the arrangement isn’t radically different to the original. It was doubtless fun to record, but it’s attended by a faint sense of pointlessness. More often, though, Countach (For Giorgio) is attended by the pretty thrilling sense of a man shoving forcefully at the boundaries of the musical genre in which he works: whatever else he may be driving at here with the weird Athena poster artwork, the Lamborghini-referencing title, the snippets of dialogue and the stuff about virtual reality, Countach leaves the listener pretty clear about that. You can hear it even on the most ostensibly straightforward track. Having unearthed an ersatz country number in Moroder’s back catalogue, Jennings gives the 1974 single Born to Die to Steve Young to sing, and arranges it in the way his father might have done: not a synthesiser or nod to Daft Punk in sight. But then, midway through, Jennings wrenches control and drives the whole track off-road: a wind tunnel of electronic effects leads to a burst of weirdly disembodied-sounding Nirvanaish angst. It’s both bizarre and bizarrely effective, a neat summary of Countach as a whole.
Ministers would need full act of parliament to trigger Brexit, court told A full act of parliament – rather than merely a motion – would be required to give ministers authorisation to trigger Brexit, the supreme court has been told. Concluding his arguments to the court, Lord Pannick QC, who represents the lead claimant, Gina Miller, said legislation by both houses of parliament would be needed before the government could formally give notification of the UK’s intention to leave the European Union. “Only an act of parliament can lawfully confer power on the [government] to give notification under article 50 [of the treaty on European Union],” Pannick said. “The law is not altered by a motion in parliament. A motion in parliament cannot effect the legal issue in this case.” On Tuesday the government’s QC, James Eadie, had indicated that any bill put before parliament would only contain a “one-line” statement. Pannick ran into stronger judicial resistance on Wednesday when he began to assess the legal significance of the 2015 referendum legislation in terms of whether it gave the government new powers. “It would be a bit surprising if the referendum act and the referendum had no effect in law,” Lord Neuberger, the president of the supreme court, suggested. The act may have been enough for the government to say it had ceded power to the people, he added. But Pannick replied: “The 2015 act is entirely neutral on the issue before this court: whether or not a minister has the power to notify [Brussels that the UK intends to leave the EU].” Dominic Chambers QC, who represents Deir Dos Santos, the second main claimant, told the court’s 11 justices that if Theresa May triggered Brexit without proper parliamentary approval she would be acting “unlawfully”. “Parliament is supreme,” Chambers said. “No person or body can override or nullify legislation. These EU law rights [acquired through the 1972 European Communities Act] are enshrined in parliamentary legislation. “By triggering article 50 these statutory rights will be nullified and overridden. The absence of parliamentary authorisation for the executive to override primary legislation ... will be contrary to the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty and therefore it will be acting unlawfully.” Chambers said that the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty was “forged on the battlefields of the 17th century in the [English civil war] between crown and parliament”. Parliament’s victory and sovereignty was finally enacted in the bill of rights which, Chambers reminded the justices, declared that “suspension of [parliamentary] powers without authority is illegal”. The hearing continues.
Iggy Pop: Post Pop Depression review – an indifferent shrug of a 'final' album Iggy Pop has said Post Pop Depression is to be his final album. Whether that’s true or not remains to be seen, but it feels like an odd note to go out on. There isn’t an air of finality or grand statement about it – either of his French-themed albums, Préliminaires or Aprés, would have seemed a more fitting end. Instead there’s a sense of stepping slightly off to the side. It has been compared to his David Bowie collaborations of the late 70s, but in its dry, rock-that-isn’t hard sound, it more closely resembles the 1979 album New Values. At times the dryness draws attention to Pop’s shortcomings: his voice sounds almost like a caricature of itself now, and his lyrics aren’t always the sharpest: Vulture is a metaphor about corporate men (“His evil breath / Smells just like death / He takes no chances / He knows the dances”) that would make a 14-year-old proud. Collaborator Josh Homme, who couldn’t walk past an empty crisp packet without laying down a couple of tracks with it, offers backing tracks that shine only occasionally – the shimmering Gardenia, the insinuating American Valhalla, the funky Sunday. It’s never poor, but never quite scales the heights you want. It’s a shrug, and Iggy Pop should never incite shrugging.
We planned for Brexit at Football Manager. So why did no one else? At Sports Interactive we’ve been making football management games for more than 20 years. We aim for Football Manager to be not only the best simulation of its type, but to create a world to escape into. People play the game for a long time – on average 240 hours a year. That takes them far into the future of their parallel universe. Brexit is going to affect football. So we had to have it in the game. Before the referendum, I made sure my business had a plan for all the possible outcomes. And, unlike our politicians, I was happy to go public with it. As part of this I started talking about how it could affect football. There had been a claim during the campaign that 200 players at top flight clubs in the UK wouldn’t get work permits under the current football system if we left the EU. I worked it out to be closer to 150, but it included the likes of France’s N’Golo Kante and Dimitri Payet, both of whom were among most people’s players of the year last season. It also included most of my beloved Watford’s squad. When the referendum result came it was a shock – not because pollsters got it wrong. That’s not unusual. But this time the bookmakers got it wrong – and I’m yet to meet a poor bookie. What shocked me even more was the “What do we do now?” coming from the government. The Brexiters didn’t have a plan – it wasn’t their job apparently. Yet I’d spent the months leading up to the vote researching what could happen either way. Making games is fun. But it’s also a business that requires highly skilled people who are not paid as much as they would be for similar roles that are less fun. The shortage of computer programmers in the UK, in particular, is due to a lack of investment in education. Thankfully, because of the work of Ukie (the games industry trade body) and industry veteran Ian Livingstone, programming was added to the national curriculum in 2014. Which means in 10 years’ time, we might not have a shortage any more. But 10 years is a long time. So games developers scour the world for talent. Roughly one-third of our most skilled team members are from inside the EU and outside the UK. There have been indications from Iain Duncan Smith that software engineers will have a “softer” route to getting work permits than some others. If true, then that will make things easier on the senior level, but likely not on a junior level. And in all probability our employees will be able to stay in the UK after the negotiations. But early indications are that some won’t want to, and some may not be able to. Many are in relationships – and just because their jobs are safe it doesn’t mean their partners’ jobs are. And, in any case, some don’t feel welcome in this country any more – the worst outcome I’ve seen first-hand of the referendum. But we had planned for all this. That meant that after the result attention turned to the one thing I hadn’t prepared for – how are we going to represent Brexit in our game? We couldn’t simply ignore it. None of us knows exactly what is going to happen. Football is a huge industry in the UK that generates enormous amounts of revenue for UK plc. If the current work permit system stays, but includes EU countries, it will affect the quality of players in the Premier League. And those who might normally come here will go elsewhere, making those leagues more attractive, particularly to the foreign broadcasters that provide hundreds of millions in revenue per year to the Premier League and beyond. So I had to try to work out every possible Brexit scenario. How long would it take? What work permit system would be implemented? With the current rules meaning so many players wouldn’t be able to play here, could it still be kept in place? If so it would force clubs to play more homegrown players, which could be good for the international teams – as young players find their route to the first team has been cleared of talented foreign stars. But the current rules could also be relaxed. We may negotiate freedom of movement for workers as part of the Brexit negotiations. Or government could decide a special exemption for footballers. And that could be the case even if it isn’t negotiated the other way – we could end up with as many EU players still being able to come here as possible, but UK players being classed as foreign elsewhere. All of those possibilities have percentage chances of happening in the game, as does the time it takes for the negotiation to happen. It is even possible for Brexit to be repealed – although the chances are pretty slim. But other questions came up too. Both Scotland and Northern Ireland voted to remain in the EU. So even though the likelihood is very small, we had to add in the possibility of Scotland deciding to leave the UK, while trying to stay in the EU. Northern Ireland is more tricky – but, in theory, should no one come up with a decent plan that keeps both Irelands happy regarding the border there could be calls for independence there. I was recently called “foolish” by the DUP for even bringing up the possibility – although this is the least likely scenario in the game. It was only a few weeks ago that we announced that Brexit would be a factor in the game. I woke that day to Marina Hyde retweeting the Telegraph news story: “When you just KNOW Football Manager has more of a Brexit clue than Liam Fox”. While flattered, surely she was wrong? Surely politicians had thought all of this through, but were just keeping their cards close to their chest? What we’d done was far from rocket science, but it was being treated as though it was. Media requests flew in. I ended up on the Daily Politics, explaining what we’d done to a Tory and Labour MP. Other politicians got in touch. And then I was invited by Ukie to speak to a bunch of MPs behind closed doors. Why had a game developer seemingly put more preparation into this most important of decisions than our government? In my own current “save”, Brexit kicked in at the end of season three. Unfortunately I got one of the hard options, where all non-homegrown players are now going through a work permit system, albeit one that’s slightly relaxed. It means I can no longer bring in that 19-year-old Italian keeper I’d been eyeing up as one for the future. Instead I have to wait for him to break into the Italian squad, and play 30% of their fixtures over the next two years. Then he’ll be mine. Meanwhile, my TV revenue has just dropped by a few million. Let’s hope that doesn’t continue, or I won’t even be able to afford him.
Iowa caucus results: Sanders and Clinton 'in virtual tie' as Cruz beats Trump - as it happened The Iowa result doesn’t mean that Hillary Clinton won’t win the nomination, but she is too reliant on older “creaky-kneed” voters, writes John Cassidy in the New Yorker. Although she seems likely to lose again in New Hampshire next week, she remains a strong over-all favorite: on betting sites, even today, to win twenty dollars on Hillary emerging as the Democratic candidate, you would have to bet a hundred dollars. But for Clinton to unite her party and galvanize it for what could be a tough fight in the fall, she needs to find some way to appeal to the young, who have fastened onto Sanders’s anti-establishment message. The age gap between Clinton supporters and Sanders supporters was huge. According to the entrance polls, which wrongly predicted a Clinton victory, Sanders got eighty-six per cent of the Democratic vote in the seventeen-to-twenty-four age group, eighty-one per cent in the twenty-five-to-twenty-nine group, and sixty-five per cent in the thirty-to-thirty-nine age group. Clinton, by contrast, was largely reliant on the middle-aged and the elderly. Among forty-something voters, she won by five percentage points. Among the over-fifties, she won by more than twenty per cent. He came second in Iowa, but the New York Post reckons Trump has been “Cruzified” Clinton was given the fright of her life by the effective tie in Iowa, according to the ’s updated wrap on the results. The virtual tie in Iowa represents “a jolting psychological blow to the Clinton campaign”, according to Amy Chozick in the New York Times: She writes that it left “volunteers, donors and aides confused throughout the night, and then crestfallen.” They had hoped that the former secretary of state would garner a decisive victory here and put to rest any doubts about her strength as a candidate. Instead, they now head to New Hampshire, where Mr. Sanders is heavily favored in the polls, and brace themselves for another loss before they reach more hospitable states like Nevada and South Carolina ... The question the Clinton campaign confronts is whether the first two states are simply demographically unfriendly to Mrs. Clinton, as many analysts believe, or whether her lack of connection so far in Iowa and New Hampshire indicates a deeper shakiness underlying her candidacy. Whistleblower Edward Snowden quips that money decided the Iowa election after all... Clinton won all six coin tosses used to decide the vote. The Telegraph reckons the chances of doing this are around 1.6%. The historical origin of coin flipping is the interpretation of a chance outcome as the expression of divine will, Aisha Gani notes. Here’s how Iowa’s Des Moines Register summed up the vote on its front page. Gary Younge’s picks out three similarities between the the Democratic and Republican Iowa results: First, they are an undeniable and unequivocal rebuke to the party establishments. Cruz, an ideologically driven pious Texas senator, whose grandstanding in the senate has irritated his colleagues, is far more loathed by the Republican leaders than Trump. Add the 52% they got between them to the 9% who backed Ben Carson – the brain surgeon who claimed pyramids were for grain storage and called Vladimir Putin a “one-horse country” – and you have almost two-thirds of Iowans rejecting anything close to a consensus candidate who could unite the party. Clinton had name recognition, money, a former president-husband, a previous presidential run and virtually the entire party machine on her side. This was supposed to be a coronation in which Sanders was cast as the jester: if there was a female equivalent of regicide, this would be it. Second, the insurgent wings of both parties are redefining the contours of American politics. In 1999, after the release of his film Bulworth, I asked Warren Beatty if he was a socialist. He wouldn’t go near it. “Ideology seems to be so unfashionable,” he said. “So why not take advantage of it and not name oneself with a term that has become particularly problematic.” A poll earlier this month showed that 43% of Iowa Democrats defined themselves as socialists. We have no idea what to compare that with because it’s simply not a question anyone would have asked before Sanders came on the scene. Among Republicans Florida Senator Marco Rubio, a young, telegenic candidate whose unexpectedly strong third place showing will make him the establishment favourite, has been cast as a moderate. That’s true if you compare him to Trump and Cruz, although judged by that yardstick Ronald Reagan and George W Bush would be moderates, too. But Rubio, an anti-abortionist and foreign policy hawk, was the Tea Party choice for Mitt Romney’s running mate just four years ago. Third, we are now set for two long races stretching well into spring. The Republican race is fairly evenly split three ways between Trump, Cruz and Rubio; now that Sanders has proved himself viable some will now take a second look.The polls have not served us well thus far, but they predict that both Sanders andTrump will win New Hampshire next week, resetting the dial and recalibrating expectations. It is unlikely that either party will have settled on a nominee by Super Tuesday. Summing up he adds: Last night’s results lay bare the scale and depth of the realignment that has been taking place within the country for almost a generation: a polarisation of left and right that has made elections more volatile, politics more gridlocked and discourse more shrill. A socialist is in the running for the Democratic nomination; Donald Trump could be president. If these are the things we are saying in February, imagine what we might be saying come the Democratic and Republican conventions in July. Heads of tails? Here’s footage of a coin toss used to decide the tight Democratic caucus in Iowa. “We just got in from Iowa, where we astounded the world. And now in New Hampshire we’re going to astound the world again” Sanders told supporters at an impromptu early morning rally. Dan Roberts filmed the moment on his phone. Sanders is talking to supporters in New Hampshire who have been waiting to welcome him in a freezing parking lot for the last three hours, Dan Roberts reports. Dan Roberts, who was on that Sanders plane to New Hampshire, has more on his call for the Democratic party to release a raw vote count in Iowa. Speaking to reporters on a chartered plane flying directly from Des Moines to their next showdown in New Hampshire, the leftwing senator said his shock performance in the Iowa caucus was a signal that the American people were hungry for more radical change than that offered by establishment candidates. “Tonight is a wonderful start to the national campaign,” he said in a packed gangway on the late night flight heading east to beat an incoming snowstorm. “Tonight shows the American people that this is a campaign that can win.” Sanders threw little light on an unfolding controversy over certain Iowa precincts that did not have enough Democratic party volunteers to report delegate totals for each candidate, but called on officials to take the unusual step of revealing underlying voter totals too. “I honestly don’t know what happened. I know there are some precincts that have still not reported. I can only hope and expect that the count will be honest,” he said. “I have no idea, did we win the popular vote? I don’t know, but as much information as possible should be made available.” Sanders’ campaign director, Jeff Weaver, told reporters he did not “anticipate we are going to contest” specific results but hoped there would be an investigation into what happened. The Republican result is neatly summed up in a limerick from Anthony Lawton. With the Democratic result almost too close to call, Sanders has not ruled out putting in a challenge. The race was so tight that several precincts were forced to decide whether Clinton or Sanders got the winning votes - and one more delegate - by a coin toss, following the state Democratic Party’s advice. After flying into New Hampshire, Sanders told MSNBC’s Kasie Hunt that he didn’t know whether his campaign would contest the result. On the plane he told reporters that raw vote details should be released. What just happened in Iowa? The ’s video team has put together a two-minute guide ... MPs in the UK have been expressing relief at Donald Trump’s failure in Iowa. Labour moderate Chuka Umunna, who was briefly a party leadership candidate, said he was pleased by the result, sarcastically adding it “couldn’t happen to a nicer man”. Albert Owen, MP for the Welsh seat of Ynys Môn, expressed similar sentiments. But actor and comedian, David Schneider, cautioned against leftwing relief at the result of the Republican caucus, by pointing out the rightwing credentials of the winner Ted Cruz. Meanwhile, the unexpectedly strong showing of Bernie Sanders in the Democratic caucus is being seen as boost for Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. Jon Trickett, shadow secretary of state for communities and local government, describes Sanders’ performance in Iowa as “more remarkable” than Trump’s failure. Are you sensing a pattern here? asked former MP George Galloway. But Jamie Reed, the Labour MP who resigned as a member of the shadow cabinet as soon as Corbyn was elected leader, predicts that the Clinton team will use Corbyn’s record as leader as a warning to Democrats not to back Sanders. This blog isn’t going into cold storage. We’ve decided to keep things simmering over from London while our US team takes a break. Mona Chalabi and Alberto Nardelli report on how the polls failed to predict the Iowa caucus results. It looks like Marco Rubio, who was expected to take around 17% of vote, will have actually walked home with 23% by the time all votes are counted. And the Hillary Clinton victory by a four percentage point margin ahead of Bernie Sanders failed to materialise – instead, the two candidates appear to have finished neck and neck. In the end, even turnout was a bit of a surprise; 5.6% higher than in 2012 according to exit polling from Edison Media Research. But it’s premature to forecast the demise of polling accuracy based on those errors. For one thing, general election polls tend to perform better while caucuses are notoriously difficult to predict – there are just so many uncertainties about everything from weather (would snow keep people at home?) to the effect college term dates might have on turnout. With little hope for a result yet tonight in the Democratic race in the Iowa caucuses, we are going to put this blog in cold storage. We’ll continue our coverage shortly – in a few hours’ time – with updates on whether the Iowa Democratic party sorted out their reported staffing shortage SNAFU, and what came of it. Meanwhile we’re already chasing the vote in New Hampshire, with the ’s Dan Roberts in the air with Bernie Sanders and multiple reporters on the ground in the Granite state... and yet more to come. It was a disappointing night for Trump, a vindicating night for Cruz, and a rather meek show of power from the Clinton machine. Sanders goes home with a proud tie, after trailing by double digits in Iowa just weeks ago. Rubio has reason to crow, and the rest face the challenge of making their cases for remaining in the race. See you in the (later) morning! The results are in, and the Associated Press calls it for... nobody: Have you visited www.loser.com? The Washington Post expands on the many people Donald Trump has deemed a “loser” and the number of times he has done it: RedState’s Erick Erickson is a total loser who “has a history of supporting establishment losers in failed campaigns,” according to Donald Trump, who didn’t want to go to Erickson’s stupid meeting anyway and is probably glad he got banned, just as he’s glad that Macy’s ended its relationship with him. Trump has no time for losers like Erickson, and like the thousands of other losers he has identified over the last few years. Like Rosie O’Donnell. Rosie O’Donnell is a true loser and a total loser. George Will is also a loser. Beauty queen Sheen Monnin is a loser. People without egos are losers. Seriously. The online magazine Salon is a loser, as is the Huffington Post and the Patch. Read the full piece here. (h/t: @monachalabi & @popovichn) Let’s brace ourselves and take another gander at the results on the Democratic side in the Iowa caucuses. 99.41% reporting, it looks like. Still that same two-tenths-of-one-percent spread, with Clinton at 49.8 and Sanders at 49.6. And now there’s a tarmac standoff? Both Democratic candidates are trying to get out of Iowa and leave this star-crossed caucus behind. But who goes first? The winner? Who would that be? The ’s Dan Roberts, aboard the flying Sanders bus: Here’s full-length footage of the only speech in favor of former Virginia governor Jim Gilmore, the longshot-doesn’t-capture-it Republican presidential candidate, that we’ve been able to dig up from the 900-some Republican caucus sites in the state of Iowa this evening. N.B.: Gilmore did not receive any votes as a result of this nevertheless rousing speech. (h/t: @bencjacobs) Say what you will about Hillary Clinton, she apparently can’t lose a coin flip. Does that alone qualify her to be president? Seems like. Read the Des Moines Register’s reporting on this quaint solution to apparently quite a few hung precincts: Unable to account for that numerical discrepancy and the orphan delegate it produced, the Sanders campaign challenged the results and precinct leaders called a Democratic Party hot line set up to advise on such situations. Party officials recommended they settle the dispute with a coin toss. Now in Iowa, on the Democratic side: 99.05% reporting. By our math that leaves less than 1% outstanding. And the tally is Clinton 49.8%, Sanders 49.6%. Which, there are enough votes outstanding to close that gap. So let’s not call this thing prematurely, shall we? The pageant of democracy, a rapt audience, empowered collegians and what sounds like a big time hot mess in certain precincts in the Hawkeye state: Why is the Democratic count taking so long? There’s talk tonight of staffing issues... ... which were the subject of a report a couple weeks ago by Ben Jacobs, who told us on 23 January that “things are looking grim for the Iowa Democratic party’s efforts to mount a successful caucus on 1 February”: The has learned the party is still lacking a temporary chairman to run the caucuses in up to 300 locations across the state with just over a week to go before caucus night. These officials preside over caucuses when they first convene. Caucuses can then elect a permanent chair but invariably the temporary chair is chosen. The chair ensures the Democratic party’s complex rules are followed and that an accurate vote is taken and then reported to state Democratic party. There are 1,681 caucus locations in the state. The first reported in November that the Iowa Democratic party was unprepared for the first caucuses in the nation and Time magazine reported Saturday the state party lacked at least 200 temporary chairs. Read the full report with a click-through below. Lucky it’s not a close one! Ben Carson, the retired neurosurgeon, secured 9.31% of the vote in Iowa this evening, for a fourth-place finish roughly in line with pollster predictions. The Carson campaign made the baffling announcement earlier this evening that the candidate would return home to Florida tonight, instead of proceeding to campaign in the ensuing state to vote, New Hampshire. Then Carson will visit Washington, DC, the campaign said. Now the Carson camp is out with a press release touting his favorability rating among Republican voters – and accusing rivals of “lies and dirty tricks.” “Regardless of how the media has attempted to marginalize me and my campaign, I still have the highest favorability rating and have remained among the leading candidates in every major survey,” Carson’s statement says: For months, my campaign has survived the lies and dirty tricks from opponents who profess to detest the games of the political class, but in reality are masters at it. Even tonight, my opponents resorted to political tricks by tweeting, texting and telling precinct captains to announce that I had suspended my campaign - in some cases asking caucus goers to change their votes. One of the reasons I got into this race was to stop these deceptive and destructive practices, and these reports have only further steeled my resolve to continue and fight for ‘We The People,’ and return control of the government back to them. The Carson statement concludes with thanks for his Iowa staff, which he says will “provide the momentum needed to move forward to the next state contests, in New Hampshire, South Carolina - and beyond.” (h/t: @bencjacobs) Pollster woes. The gold-standard Des Moines Register / Bloomberg News poll of Saturday had Trump winning by 5 points and Clinton winning by 3 points. Polling averages had Trump up 4.7 points and Clinton up 4 points. But: Cruz won by 4 points and the Democratic race appears to have concluded in a virtual tie. Sanders is already fundraising off of his come-from-behind tie in Iowa: Even in a much simpler contest like the Democratic race, there are no easy answers. When it comes to Berniementum, here’s all you need to know: he’s totally winning, except he isn’t – not yet. As it stands, it looks like Iowa will be an all-but even split between Clinton and Sanders. That’s what the results of the democratic process look like, and you could be forgiven for thinking that the mathematics of elections begin and end with the delegate count. But of course, like the endless drag that was the 2008 contest, Clinton leads Sanders in wrapping up “super delegates”, which will pose a problem for him as time goes on. That said, most people don’t know about the super delegates in the Democratic nominating process so, to the average voter out there, Sanders really does have some momentum going. Fighting Clinton to a draw in Iowa counts as a victory compared to where he came from – nowhere, with no press attention, no money and no establishment support (as he noted in his speech). When you couple tonight’s results with what could be a rout of Clinton in New Hampshire, it’s possible that Sanders could go into South Carolina with the buzz and name recognition that can start to make inroads with minority voters and eat away at the polling advantage that Clinton has largely by dint of familiarity, not policy. There are plenty of reasons for Sanders supporters to be optimistic about this outcome, next week’s New Hampshire primary and a change in perception about Bernie with voters who largely aren’t too familiar with him. But if they want to win, they’d better hold the champagne and commence a couple more months of door-knocking. If you’re just joining the party, here’s a summary of where things stand: Texas senator Ted Cruz won an outright victory in the Iowa caucuses on the Republican side, while the Democratic side remained locked in a virtual tie between former secretary of state Hillary Clinton and Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, with nearly all votes counted. Donald Trump came in second to Cruz by between three and four points. The New York businessman and reality TV star delivered a gracious concession speech and looked ahead to New Hampshire, where he seems to have a solid lead in the polls. The practical result of the night was that Iowa’s 44 Democratic delegates were split down the middle, and the 30 Republican delegates were split roughly in thirds. (At this stage all delegates are awarded proportionately as opposed to winner-take-all.) The night gave the lie to polls that had shown Clinton a few point ahead of Bernie Sanders, and Trump beating Cruz by five points. Both Clinton and Sanders gave victory speeches of sorts. “It looks like we are in a virtual tie,” said Sanders. “I stand here tonight, breathing a big sigh of relief,” said Clinton. Florida senator Marco Rubio, who came in a close third behind Trump, about a point behind Trump, also claimed victory for having bested expectations. “This is the moment they said would never happen,” Rubio said. The candidates were immediately off to New Hampshire, which votes on 9 February. Trump and Sanders both hold double-digit leads in their respective races. Two candidates suspended their campaigns following the caucuses: former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley on the Democratic side, and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee on the Republican. Hang on... it’s coming to me... it was only like two hours ago... I know this... The Atlantic’s Yoni Appelbaum notes a first for Sanders, who appears to have split Iowa’s 44 Democratic delegates almost exactly 50-50 with Clinton: Sticker kid. If you don’t know, get to know. At 32 minutes and counting, even the Fox News feed cut away from the Ted Cruz victory speech. At 37 minutes, he was apparently still going. Whether it worked was entirely dependent on your point of you. If you don’t subscribe to Cruz’s particular blend of nativist Christian apocalypse, it varied at best between torpor and weirdness. Cruz kept the crowd amped down with his delivery, going through his normal steps of breathless whispering (either in regret or awe), greater intensity (whether in ardor or anger), and suddenly squaring up and de-liv-er-ing with par-tic-u-lar emphasis. Just when you’d have thought he was reaching a crescendo, he reset. There wasn’t a rising tide of energy but rather something nearly mechanical. As for the weirdness, Cruz put the focus on his family by turning to them and telling him that he loved them, which is a human expression that humans use. He turned his back to the crowd, grasped his mother’s hand and said that he campaigned with “the knowledge that whatever I might do that whatever I might say, my mother loves me”, which makes one wonder what he worries about doing or saying. He then turned to a cousin, who he said he loved like a sister, which is also a human expression that humans say, and called her “Beebs”. In keeping with the tone of modern conservatism, this was less a victory speech than an iteration of resentments and victimizations. What victory occurred was that “the next president of the United States will not be chosen by the media … the Washington establishment … the lobbyists.” That, to quote scripture from (I dunno) Seven Corinthians, “weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning ... and Iowa has proclaimed to the world: morning is coming, morning is coming.” The invocation was Reaganesque in that, like much of Cruz’s pitch, it echoed familiar Reaganisms – in this case, “morning in America.” But after that enjoyment, he plunged the crowd into marketable dread. Washington, he told them, is scared of them and of the old Reagan coalition, which he believes somehow dissolved between 1988 and today (instead of being the revanchist core of the Republican Party ever since). And he would need them to change the country from this state of disorder that besieged them, from “an Attorney General who sides with the criminals and looters instead of the brave men and women of law enforcement”. Criminals and looters! It’s 1968 in America, whatever time of day it is. Enjoy this moment and then get back to work, because everything is burning. Carly Fiorina is a no-show at her own caucus party, according to a local TV reporter. :/ (h/t: @jonswaine) With 95% reporting on the Democratic side, Clinton and Sanders are back to a two-tenths-of-one-percentage-point gap. And some professional counters are starting to say we won’t know “tonight” -- or this morning – how this comes out: “I have been criticized in this campaign for many, many things, every single day,” Sanders says. “That’s OK. That’s OK. But let me repeat what I believe. I believe at a time when every major country on earth guarantees health care to people as a right – I believe we should do the same thing in the USA” Let me tell you straight up: I believe that health care is a right, not a privilege. Big cheers. Let me conclude by saying what no other candidate will tell you... no president will be able to bring about the change [we need].. because the powers that be are so powerful that no president can do what has to be done alone. That is why, what Iowa has begun tonight is a political revolution. A political revolution.. “Enough is enough!” Sanders concludes, and the crowd goes wild, again. Sanders says he has a “radical idea”: create an economy that “works for working families and not just the rich classes!” Sanders says he’s moved that the campaign has received 3.5m individual contributions. And the average contribution was “TWENTY-SEVEN DOLLARS!” We do not represent the interest the interests of the billionaire class, Wall Street or corporate interest. We don’t want their money. And I’m very proud to tell you that we are the only candidate on the Democratic side without a super Pac. Sanders says he’s doing well because “the American people are saying ‘no’ to a rigged economy.” Sanders says, as Cruz did, that tonight the people of Iowa have sent a message to the establishment: And while the results are still not complete, it looks like we’ll have about half of the Iowa delegates. More cheers. He congratulates Clinton and her organization. He thanks O’Malley. “It’s never easy to lose. I’ve lost more than one campaign ... He won the respect of the American people.” As I think about what happened tonight, I think the people of Iowa have sent a very profound message, to the political establishment, to the economic establishment and by the way to the media establishment. And that is, given the enormous crises facing our country, it is just too late for establishment politics and American economics. What the American people have said ... is we can no longer continue to have a corrupt campaign finance system. Thank you! Sanders says. “Iowa, thank you!” He says months ago “we had no organization, no money, no name ... and we were taking on the most powerful political organization in the USA. And tonight, while the results are still not known, it looks like we are in a virtual tie.” Wild, wild sustained cheering. “Bernie! Bernie! Bernie!” Watch Bernie Sanders here: That’s a pumped-up crowd, the most excited of the night. “Bernie! Bernie! Bernie!” He is smiling ear to ear. Bernie Sanders is to speak at his Des Moines rally soon. Washington bureau chief Dan Roberts is in the room. “As the numbers close again to just 0.2% they put on Bernie’s fight song,” Dan writes. “They’ve all come to look for America,” they sing. With 93.58% reporting on the Democratic side, Sanders is trailing Clinton now by only seven-tenths of a percentage point. (h/t: @claire_phipps) Here’s video of Marco Rubio’s victory speech – he came in third – earlier: As Iowa heads towards a near dead heat between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, a video on Twitter from earlier tonight shows how a toin coss decided the destiny of one delegate in an Iowa basketball court. “Tails ... Our official delegate for this precinct is Hillary Clinton.” We’re still waiting on results from Polk county, the largest in Iowa - by a long way. With a population to close to half a million, one in seven Iowans live here. This is not exactly a victory speech from Clinton. She says she’s “excited” about her upcoming debate with Bernie Sanders. Clinton says: It is rare that we have the opportunity we do now. TO have a real contest of ideas. To real think hard about what the Democratic party stands for and what we want the future of our country to look like. I am a progressive who gets things done for people. I am honored to stand in a long line of American reformers. ... Then she turns to stump speech points about health care, education, climate change and affordable college education. She’s loud and booming, calling for “women’s rights. Gay rights, voting rights. Immigrant rights, worker’s rights.” I know too we can stand up to the gun lobby and get common-sense safety measures. Her crowd is excited. She says she looks forward to debating Sanders further. “I congratulate my esteemed friends and opponents. I wish governor O’Malley the best... and I am excited about really getting into the debate with SEnator Sanders about the best way forward in the fight for us and America.” She calls their debate “substantive.” “I know that we may have differences of opinion... but I believe we have a very clear idea that the Democratic party and this campaign stand for what is best for America.” As I stand here tonight, breathing a big sigh of relief – thank you Iowa! As Cruz speaks, Clinton takes stage to a Rachel Platten song – to declare victory? She’s up by nine-tenths of a percentage points, with 92.8% reporting, according to AP returns. Cruz: “Our rights come from our creator.” Then he starts to lay on the rhetorical mayonnaise pretty thick: “And the federal government’s role, the federal government’s responsibility, is to defend those fundamental rights, to defend us.” “I want to remind you of the promise of scripture. Weeping may endure for a night. But joy cometh in the morning. “Tonight, Iowa has proclaimed to the world, Morning is coming. Morning is coming.” Cruz: “God bless the great state of Iowa.” Let me first of all say, to God be the glory. Tonight is a victory for the grassroots. Tonight is a victory for courageous conservatives across Iowa and all across this great nation. Tonight the state of Iowa has spoken. Iowa has sent notice that the Republican nominee and the next POTUS will not be chosen by the media. [wild applause] Will not be chosen by the Washington establishment. WIll not be chosen by the lobbyists. But will be chosen by the most incredible powerful force, where all sovereignty resides in our nation, by We the People, the American people. He says he got 46,608 votes. “To put in perspective your incredible victory.. that is the most votes for any Republican primary winner.” He says. He omits: “In Iowa.” Watch Ted Cruz’s victory speech here: Cruz is onstage in Des Moines. There’s Rep. Steve King. Where’s Phil Robertson? There is a lot of backslapping going on and clapping. The usual country music. Here he comes. With 91.73% reporting in the Democratic race, Hillary Clinton leads Bernie Sanders by nine-tenths of a percentage point. Just gonna leave this (admittedly old) tweet right here and not say anything. Oh no, wait, he was so committed to this quote, he said it again six months later. Martin O’Malley has been gone for months, but he’s made it official, in one of those solemn foregone rituals that you only see on political campaigns. It’s fundamentally bizarre to make a man get on a stage on national television and force him to acknowledge his failure (beyond all the ways that votes and donors and access have made him acknowledge it already), but we still do it. It feels a little like interviewing the losing team just seconds after the game ends. Then again, watching it is probably enjoyable to plenty of people, especially if you had a family member in Baltimore who was caught up in the drug war. O’Malley’s last debate performances telegraphed this end: they were likely meant to make him seem like he was more determined than ever, but instead devolved into something alienatingly desperate. Grasping for relevance in a two-person race, he started turning against each potential frontrunner, taking one side against the other, and then reversing himself, repeating, nipping at their heels. O’Malley’s willingness to switch allegiances in the span of minutes and take, at best, petty swipes, helped him trivialize himself. It’s easy now to just turn him into a joke about a guy without a shirt or a guy with a guitar. In a different election, O’Malley might have had a great, wide lane to sit in, but he couldn’t run to the right of Clinton or anywhere to the left of Sanders. Instead, in an election that became dominated by transformative politics – either about identity or class – he was another slightly left-of-center white dude. Washington bureau chief Dan Roberts is at a raucous watch party for Bernie Sanders in Des Moines. The crowd is cheering every blurp from the TV, which is tracking Sanders climb from a mere 3-point second-place position to a straight-up tenths-of-a-percentage-point-tie. “They both can claim victory,” says David Axelrod, the former top Barack Obama political adviser, on CNN. “This is a good night for Bernie Sanders.” Dan reports: Late Monday night in Des Moines, a crowd was watching Sanders push ahead from 0.2% points down, to a tie on the television overhead and finally a stunning push ahead as the final precincts called it for the declared socialist. “Bernie,” roared one side of the room. “Sanders,” roared the other. “Bernie,” they yelled. “Sanders,” came the response of a self-proclaimed revolution vindicated. Maybe, in the grand scheme of things, Iowa doesn’t count. Politicos are forever reminding us of all the candidates – from Ronald Reagan to George HW Bush to Bill Clinton– who lost in Iowa but still went on to become president. But tonight matters, because it could prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that Bernie Sanders really could be a viable alternative to Hillary Clinton. If he were to only win in New Hampshire next week – polls show he very well might – it could be chalked up to regional favoritism. An Iowa win, though, would look like momentum, like the beginning of a political force that has been sorely underestimated. Ever since he declared an interest in the presidency, Sanders been alternately derided and fawned over for his long shot status but what both reactions had in common were that nobody took him seriously or saw the potential explosiveness of his campaign. He was mocked for his age and accent and eccentric mannerisms, but the irascible senator from Vermont has known his value all along. “Way back when, I don’t know if you heard it, I said: ‘Don’t underestimate me. Don’t underestimate me,’” he told NBC in a segment on his surprise success. Well we shouldn’t be surprised anymore. And if Hillary is defeated in an upset in Iowa, she just lost her most powerful argument for the presidency: pragmatism. Wow. Two tenths of a percentage point on the Democratic side, with 89.53% reporting. We believe that’s known as a nail-biter. Ted Cruz’s plan worked. He was never supposed to be the party front-runner; that mantle was supposed to fall to Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio or another establishment pick. But Cruz saw something that the establishment missed – namely that the voter anger into which Donald Trump had tapped is powerful and real. So, too, is the the xenophobia, and Cruz found a way to reach those voters and make himself the politically-adept alternative to Trump. The wonder is that Trump ever held his punches against Cruz, only finally deigning to attack him in earlier debates in exchange for similar treatment from Cruz. Trump finally did go negative, but in a rare political miscalculation, he may have waited too long. Another possible misstep: GOP insiders are saying Trump alienated voters by skipping out on the Republican debate last week, calling the move “petulant” and “whiny.” It’s the rare case where the pundits may have been right all along in saying that Trump’s fall was only a matter of time, despite his seemingly inevitable rise the polls. Cruz, in swooping in like he did, may have seen not only what Trump’s voters saw in him, but what the party establishment and pollsters could not. Trump gives a consummately gracious speech: On June 16, when we started this journey, I was told by everybody, do not go to Iowa. They said don’t do it, I said I have to do it. And, we finished second, and let me tell you something, I’m honored, I’m just honored. I want to congratulate Ted, and I want to congratulate Mike Huckabee, who’s become a really good friend of mine. We’re just so happy with the way everything’s worked out. Then Trump turns to the topic of his polling strength in New Hampshire, and he predicts he will be the nominee: I don’t know who’s going to win between Bernie and Hillary. Hillary’s got other problems, maybe bigger problems than the one she’s got in terms of nominations. We will go on to easily beat Bernie, or Hillary, or whoever the hell we throw up there. We will be back many, many times. In fact, I think I might come here and buy a farm. Thank you. Trump takes the stage in Des Moines with wife Melania, daughter Ivanka and assorted others. “Thank you very much, I love you people, I love you people,” he begins. That would be a half-point race on the Democratic side, with 88.64% reporting. Clinton 49.9-Sanders 49.4. Low whistle. Florida senator Marco Rubio is delivering a victory speech in Iowa – after coming in third. A strong third, about a point behind runner-up Donald Trump. “They told us it couldn’t be done,” Rubio says, of his third-place finish. The crowd claps and cheers and otherwise behaves appropriately for the start of an inspirational medley video culminating with Rubio’s imagined nomination. Third! “They told me my hair wasn’t gray enough or my boots were too high,” Rubio says. But tonight Rubio has shown them up: Third! In his defense, he did knock the polling averages off their block and staged a rocketing rise in the polls in closing weeks. Credit where it’s due. “Tonight we have taken the first step, but an important step, toward winning this election,” Rubio says. He thanks the “all-powerful and almighty God.” He congratulates Ted Cruz and tips his hat to Huckabee, who’s pulled out tonight. No words for Trump, the erstwhile frontrunner. Meanwhile, among the Democrats, with 85.9% reporting, Sanders has pulled to within seven-tenths of a percent of Clinton. West Coast bureau chief Paul Lewis is at the Donald Trump party wake in Des Moines. The mood is grim after the Ted Cruz victory in the state – but they haven’t yet heard from their candidate. Texas senator Ted Cruz has claimed victory in the Iowa caucuses, besting polling frontrunner Donald Trump by four points, according to AP projections. Trump barely stayed ahead of a hard-charging Florida senator Marco Rubio. Cruz had led Iowa by double-digit margins in December, according to polling averages, but that lead had dwindled in recent weeks, and an influential Des Moines Register poll Saturday had Trump taking the state by five points. Instead, Trump has been handed a loss. Note that the 30 Republican delegates at stake in Iowa are rewarded proportionally, and so the practical difference between first and second is slim. But what’s the difference between being the winner – and whatever you’d call the runner-up? We’ll bring you the reaction from inside the Donald Trump party this evening.. If Cruz does take Iowa, as he’s now predicted to, maybe this song will be playing in Republican homes across America tonight. Then again, maybe not. Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, the victor in Iowa in 2008, has suspended his campaign for president, he tweets: Huckabee claimed 1.75% of the Republican caucuses vote in 2016 – more than 2012 winner Rick Santorum and... former Virginia governor Jim Gilmore put together. With better than 83% of the Republican results in, Texas senator Ted Cruz is holding a 3.3-point lead over mogul Donald Trump. It’s looking good for Cruz. The story so far isn’t just about Donald Trump under-performing, it’s also about Marco Rubio exceeding expectations. The last time I looked at polling averages, Rubio was supposed to be trailing well behind in third place with just 17% of the vote. So far though, Rubio has 22% of the vote and has a real chance of taking second place. And with only two thirds reporting so far, there’s still a chance - albeit a very slim one - that he might even still take Iowa. So we’ve already seen the fall of Martin O’Malley, the last challenger to Hillary Clinton not named Bernie Sanders. Will this be the night that the establishment rises? Or do Sanders and Donald Trump have fight left in them? From the look of it, things are looking up for a historic night for Clinton ... and the introduction of Donald Trump, loser. First up, US opinion editor Megan Carpentier: In her final campaign speech of 2008, Hillary Clinton thanked her voters for putting 18 million cracks in the glass ceiling, even though they all came up short of breaking it. But it was in Iowa where Clinton and her supporters first failed to swing that hammer hard enough to break through, and it has been in Iowa where her advisers have sworn that they learned the lesson of that first, difficult loss. So while it’s true that a win in Iowa doesn’t electorally guarantee the nomination – Bill Clinton famously lost there first – that doesn’t mean that a loss there tonight is meaningless. There will be a certain confidence boost from Clinton if she ekes out a win where she once came in third – and a comeback-kid narrative that will be almost as irresistible to the media as the inevitable “it’s happening again” narrative that will take over if she loses. Clinton doesn’t have to win Iowa to win the nomination; but after the debates, the Sanders surge and the latest email news, she almost does have to win Iowa to win the media narrative (if not to win over the media). Here’s an early look of what we’ll become a momentous stage in less than a few hours’ time, from my colleague Sabrina Siddiqui: Meanwhile, from Camp Trump, here’s a quick dispatch by way of West Coast bureau chief Paul Lewis, who’s been tracking the Republican frontrunner for the last few days and has reached the finish line: a party for a winner loser? There is a tense mood at Donald Trump’s victory rally at the Sheraton Hotel in West Des Moines. CNN’s coverage, suggesting Trump trails Cruz by a few points, is making for an awkward silence. The only time the crowd became excited was after a reference to potentially record turnout – which conventional wisdom says would play well for the billionaire. So that’s Officially Worried Trump News. Hate to say we toldya so, but we did ask earlier in the day: Yeah, but will the Trump fans vote? Here’s a quick video from Paul, with the would-be first-time Trump voters ... There’s a tightening on the Democratic side – a 1-point race with 78% reporting. Tight! It looks like a huge turnout night on the Republican side. Such a scenario was meant to play to Trump’s favor, on the theory that a large share of the excitement attached to the Republican race – the yuge debate viewership, the crowded rallies – was in fact excitement attached to Trump. That may still be the case – Trump is running a very strong second, with 62.34% reporting on the Republican side and big precincts yet to report. He may yet catch Cruz. Martin O’Malley, the former governor of Maryland, will suspend his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination tonight, the has confirmed. “We never had to apologize for anything,” a source close to the campaign said. “We ran a good race.” Multiple sources told the that O’Malley – long a distant third behind Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders – was prepared to drop out from Wooly’s in Des Moines at 9:30pm local time. O’Malley was overwhelmed by massive surge of turnout across Iowa. The campaign had built a strong base among Democratic activists but was never able to translate that support into voter excitement. He spent the race with single digits in the polls, trailing Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders in a near-invisibly distant third. O’Malley had racked up 0.56% so far tonight. With 69.19% of results in on the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton is holding a 50.7-48.6 lead over Bernie Sanders in Iowa. The state awards its 44 Democratic delegates proportionally. On the Republican side, with 62.34% reporting, it’s something of a three-way race, with 1/Cruz (28.3) 2/Trump (25.0) and 3/Rubio (21.9). Follow results atop the blog and on our comprehensive Iowa caucus results page. One reader was curious about why we’re talking about Iowa tonight - why isn’t some other US state the one to kick off the presidential election? This is a hotly contested question but it’s one that has never really been definitively answered since 1972, when Iowa first won this honor. And it’s an honor that the state tried to ensure that it would keep. Section 43.4 of the Iowa Code, the codified record of the state’s legislation, states that: The date [of the caucus] shall be at least eight days earlier than the scheduled date for any meeting, caucus or primary which constitutes the first determining stage of the presidential nominating process in any other state, territory or any other group which has the authority to select delegates in the presidential nomination. Just because it’s law though, doesn’t mean it’s not reversible and it certainly doesn’t mean it’s not contentious. Writing in the Washington Post, Timothy M. Hagle, a political scientist at the University of Iowa argues that the intimate setting in Iowa allows candidates to really engage with voters. The Iowa caucuses provide advantages that other systems or starting in bigger states would not. One is that starting in Iowa, a relatively small state in which it is less-expensive to run a campaign, allows candidates who are not as well-known or who do not have a large warchest to still be competitive and get their start. A second advantage is that the caucus campaign process gives candidates the opportunity to meet and interact with a wide variety of average voters in ways they would not be able to in a large or expensive state. Candidates have the opportunity to find out what people outside their usual political bubble think about the issues. This week, National Public Radio looked at five different factors to measure which other states might be better suited for the role. When they looked at median age, household income, religiosity, education and racial makeup, the most all-American state in America was in fact Illinois. According to exit polls being reported by NBC news, some of the predictions have proven true (so far at least). Bernie Sanders is a runaway winner among Iowa’s youngest Democrats, for example: Want to track the results in a more granular way, county-by-county, with colorful interactive maps? We imagine you do, and that’s why we’d direct you to our comprehensive Iowa caucus results page. Here’s what the maps look like at the moment: With Donald Trump only 4.6 points down, in second place, behind Ted Cruz, in first place, in the Iowa Republican caucuses with 47.23% reporting, we have a hard time understanding why this would be the case, via West Coast bureau chief Paul Lewis: It turns out “We Don’t Know What’s Going To Happen” is, for the most part, the same show no matter who’s directing and who you cast in it. Fox News does not know what is going to happen, but is very excited about that thing, whatever it is, happening. CNN does not know what is going to happen, but they are watching it happening or not happening very closely. MSNBC keeps wanting to hold a roundtable discussion of political history and keeps getting dragged back to field reports and the absence of results, and the actual caucus is the worst part of it. Why they don’t just have Steve Kornacki and Rachel Maddow talking about whatever they think is interesting is beyond me. If CNN has a standout message, it’s that Bernie Sanders is not a credible longterm candidate. (I’ve watched them for hours today, and you couldn’t roll more thumbs onto that scale if you were lopping off a bunch of bros’ hailing digits in a frat slaughterhouse.) There’s a longer discussion we could have here about how media “analysis” creates a self-fulfilling narrative, but in the meantime let’s just write this off as network that, in the absence of certainty, runs home to Beltway hack wisdom. John King has his graphs, as ever, and Wolf Blitzer is speak-shouting strings of words in every direction like an under-medicated man who is ruining your bus ride. Typically, Jake Tapper is bringing momentary relief from the madness before it gets thrown to the panels and results. There is not enough Jake Tapper. You’d think Fox would be unbearable, but they usually do well when it comes to moving the camera around to different people and results. (Their data appears to be lagging behind CNN’s, but it doesn’t matter.) As soon as the to-do list gets big enough, it crowds out their opinions, and you can see why these people originally were given jobs. Perversely, Fox seems to be treating Sanders with the most respect of all (even the “lefty” MSNBC is mostly Clintonista in outlook and tends to return to “viability” questions pretty often), but then Fox would most likely prefer to have Sanders to run against, so going the CNN route and trivializing him only undermines potential future “HAMMERS AND SICKLES!” narratives. The most obvious narrative to which Fox keeps returning is the Rubio SurgeTM! He was up in a recent Quinnipiac poll, so this could be his night! (It’s not.) A three-way race is more exciting and Fox, like the rest of the Republican establishment, would probably prefer not to have any more Trump headaches or deal with the nearly-universally loathed Cruz. Rubio is still the most telegenic not-establishment establishment candidate, and he would make the party’s (and Fox’s) job much, much easier. As ever, the best thing the average person can do is just watch C-SPAN, where you can watch neighbors try to cajole each other into switching their votes. You can pick a Democratic or a Republican feed, if you want. (For those new to the political news biz, that split is not telling.) Either one is great. Results on the Republican side from major counties remain unreported, Ben Jacobs points out. Dallas Co. is Des Moines, Linn Co. is Cedar Rapids and Dubuque Co. is ... Dubuque: Here are those counties, left to right: Dallas, Linn, Dubuque: What a tight couple of races. Almost half reporting on the Democratic side and it’s a three-point race. A quarter reporting on the Republican side and it’s also a three-point race. Follow real-time results right up there atop the blog. We’re about 90 minutes in on Iowa caucus night! The results are coming in thick and fast. So far, Ted Cruz and Hillary Clinton are ahead according to Iowa state’s official sites for Republican and Democratic contests. But where you see white, results haven’t been counted yet - so it’s still all to play for. Somewhere in Iowa, a lone voice is heard for Jim Gilmore, the former Virginia governor who is making an unlikely insurgent bid for the nomination. And if the praise is faint, it issues self-evidently from the heart: Continuing their blitz of Des Moines-area caucus sites, the ’s Paul Lewis and Ben Jacobs report on the hotly contested race: From Valley Church in west Des Moines, Paul Lewis said that Clinton had a roughly 2-1 advantage over Sanders: Meanwhile, Ben Jacobs is at a Democratic caucus across town, where Sanders and Clinton tied each other – not just with delegates but in actual voters: They both received 4 delegates from precinct 31 but each ended up having 73 supporters. Sanders benefited from the fact that of the 6 O’Malley supporters present, 4 backed him. The other two just left. We’re up to 34.27 reporting on the Democratic side and 15.35% reporting on the Democratic side. Clinton has about 4 points on Clinton and Cruz has a point-and-a-half on Trump. Rubio appears to be running nicely. But the fish get bigger as the night goes on: Now why might that be the case? The ’s Ben Jacobs continues his blitz of Des Moines-area caucus sites: Dan Roberts has just returned to a Bernie Sanders campaign party in Des Moines, where ... there’s no one there yet. The caucus I went to around the corner was a fascinating glimpse of how close his battle with Clinton may turn out to be later tonight though. In what appeared to be a swing precinct - a suburb of Des Moines that voted for Obama in 2008 but with an older demographic that appears to favour Clinton - the voting went to Bernie by a whisker. After O’Malley and undecided voters mostly switched to Sanders, he ended up with 69 votes against 68 for Clinton. The precinct chair attempted to split the seven delegates in half, awarding 3.5 each, but after protests from the Sanders camp and a phone call to party officials, he relented and awarded 4 delegates to Sanders and 3 to Clinton. Storms are brewing in Iowa tonight and not just politically. An epic blizzard is due to hit from Arizona to Wisconsin, and the National Weather Service released a statement earlier today warning of snow in Iowa. “Blizzard conditions and heavy snow to impact Iowa late tonight through early Wednesday morning,” it reads. There were concerns that bad weather would keep potential voters away tonight - or force them to leave early - but so far that doesn’t seem to be a big issue. Weather.com predicts light snow in southern and western Iowa tonight, with heavy snow to hit tomorrow morning. Currently in Des Moines it’s 35F (2C) and cloudy. Here’s a good example of how squishy these early numbers are: with additional Republican precincts reporting – 4.05% now – Ted Cruz has squeaked ahead of Trump for a 31-30% lead. You might ignore these numbers for another half hour or so. But if you’d rather experience caucus night as a rollercoaster series highs and lows, instead of a gradually coalescing vector pointing toward one winner on each side – by all means keep a close eye on the results tracker at the top of this blog. Marco Rubio, the Florida senator, gets a boost from the junior senator from South Carolina, the third state to vote for a nominee (via National Journal): “We think it’s going to very close,” Bernie Sanders senior adviser Tad Devine says on TV. How close? We’ll turn it over to our editor-at-large Gary Younge inside the Des Moines state historical society in Des Moines: Final tally here: Clinton has 83 delegates ... and Sanders has 84. Must have been luck for this Bernie supporter at left, who tried to woo an uncommitted (there have only been a handful across town) by explaining the Sanders record of fighting terror. Still, every hand up counted here tonight for the Sanders momentum machine. What happens when someone on the fence turns for Sanders? Paul Lewis sends this – because this is what happens when someone starts to Feel the Bern: The ’s Dan Roberts found an exciting caucus site in suburban Des Moines, where a single voter separates Sanders and Clinton. See Dan’s video of persuasion in action from inside the caucus here. With a mere 7.85% reporting on the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton holds a 53-46 “lead” over Bernie Sanders. And with only 2.32% reporting on the Republican side, Donald Trump holds a 33-32 edge over Ted Cruz. A note of caution: These reports are extremely preliminary, with key, highly populous counties in central Iowa yet to report. Don’t judge too soon, but stick with us. We’ve got live reports from on the ground suggesting that Sanders is pulling precincts by a single vote. We’ll know more momentum shifts in this next hour. Here’s word from on the ground, via US head of news David Taylor: At the media center in downtown Des Moines, where Microsoft is powering a real-time vote tally, the first precinct results are in ... and for what it’s worth this early, Hillary Clinton is at 52.9% and Bernie Sanders at 46.3% – but massive health warning: Only 10% of the precincts results are in. O’Malley is barely on there, at 0.6%. In the Republican race, Trump and Cruz are neck-and-neck – Cruz has 30.8% and Trump 30.6% – but only 4% of precincts have reported (62 out if 1682). The Republicans actually report every vote in their race Cruz has 1,139 Trump has 1,136 Marco Rubio is currently third at 16.7% Ben Carson at 9.5% Rand Paul at 4.1%. Poor ole Jeb (!) has 113 early votes, amounting to just 2.3% ... so far. The ’s Ben Jacobs is at a Republican caucus site for precinct 31 in Des Moines, and reports a story of big turnout and an influx of new caucus participants: Remember, the Republicans in Iowa use a secret ballot, unlike the Democrats, who use the scrum method. They also use steam tables: Ben with results from the district, where Trump has carried the day: Update: Florida senator Marco Rubio tries a little last-minute, in-person suasion: Washington bureau chief Dan Roberts is inside a Democratic caucus site in suburban Des Moines. Bernie Sanders appears to be edging Hillary Clinton at the site, in the early counting. Dan sends this video, of a Clinton precinct captain counting votes: And here’s a snapshot in miniature of the drama playing out across the state at Democratic caucus sites tonight: rival precinct captains attempting to sway undecided voters: If you’re doing the whole two screen thing, you might be watching news reports talking about “heavy turnout”. That could well be true (and might have a big impact on results if so) but I’d exercise a little bit of caution on this. Often those reports are from TV journalists who are eyeballing the number of Iowans sat in various locations. How well can you tell the difference between a room with say, 200 people, and one with 300? In some places, that difference is the difference between average and historically high turnout. Let’s cast about from the caucuses, where our political reports are reporting HIGH TURNOUT ... From editor-at-large Gary Younge: I’m at the state historical society in Des Moines, which is a caucus site for a number of precincts. Situated near Drake University, it should be a Bernie stronghold. But I’ve just been told they’ve run out of registration papers, which suggests a bigger turnout than expected. They’ve just told the delegates to line up for their candidates. “Hillary is the revolution,” says one supporter. Unconsciously channelling Trump, an underdog supporter says “O’Malley will make America great again.” Bernie’s folks beckoned their comrades by yelling, simply, “Feel the Bern!” So far, it could hardly be closer: Hillary at 79, Sanders at 77, O’Malley at right, and two non-committed. More Bern-mentum by way of Washington bureau chief Dan Roberts: I’m at a school hall in southern suburb of Des Moines – Democratic Precinct No 81 –where we’re at 63 for Sanders, 62 for Clinton, six undecided, five for O’Malley ... and shuffling: And here’s political reporter Ben Jacobs: I am in a precinct on the east side of Des Moines. This is, as precinct chair Dave Edwards described, “a working class, blue-collar area”. Attendees have long, flowing beards and fading tattoos on their arms in a neighborhood that is normally a Democratic stronghold in general elections. Tonight there are more than 70 people crammed into a grade school cafeteria, most of whom have never caucused before. One attendee, Deborah Humphrey, in a Trump shirt, said she had last voted in 1968, for Richard Nixon. Republicans were running out of ballots and Edwards’ wife had to run home to make more copies of voter registration forms. What does that mean? Here’s US data editor Mona Chalabi: In Polk, Iowa’s most populous county, officials have published a list of where residents can go to vote – all 177 caucus locations. They offer an insight into where local politics is happening in 2016. The list includes 79 locations which are the gyms and cafeterias of local elementary schools in addition to nine churches and one sports complex. Maps? You want maps? We got maps: Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson will return from Iowa to his home in Florida Monday night, instead of heading to campaign in New Hampshire, CNN’s Chris Moody reports: From Florida, Carson will reportedly proceed to Washington, DC – still not New Hampshire. Carson’s extremely unorthodox movements – every other serious candidate is either already in the Granite State, which votes on 9 February, or heading there overnight – have raised new questions about his campaign intentions. Carson still appeared competitive in the last Iowa polls before voting, having landed in fourth place in Saturday’s Des Moines Register poll. However, the Republican candidate had dropped to his lowest support since May. We all know that Ben Carson is no good at doing passion, or anger. He’s not even that good at opening his eyes properly. Oh, and he also sounds like Winnie-the-Pooh. But what you might not know is that his Twitter feed is arguably even more underwhelming than listening to him speak. The days before the caucus are the time to use your social media presence – Carson has more than 1m followers – to urge people to vote for you. To hammer your message home. But Carson’s efforts to get people to vote are almost heartbreakingly wretched. Look at this tweet, for example. I had to read it three times before I realized he was talking about himself: This is along the same lines. Carson isn’t even asking people to vote for him. He’s asking people to consider voting for him. Just consider it, please. Just tell me you’ll at least consider it. Please. I get it: he isn’t a blood and thunder candidate. His tweets reflect that. It’s just ... surely they don’t have to be so upsettingly benign. Snapchat offers a little insight into how candidates spent the final day leading into the caucus and also a little insight into the inane world of campaigning and bored social media editors. From Trumpville, here’s an interview with Donald Trump Jr, who hasn’t spoken to his father today but did just speak with West Coast bureau chief Paul Lewis about evangelicals, turnout and more in West Des Moines. “We’re just going to wing it and see how it feels,” Trump’s son told the . “It could be a total disaster – it could be horrible, but I doubt it.” Watch a quick clip of our chat here: There were lines outside the evangelical church, and when proceedings began, the temporary chair of the caucus, George Wood, said there had been an “extra large number of on-site registrations”. He didn’t say it, but that is especially good news for Trump, who polls suggest has the highest proportion of first-time caucus-goers. Not enough Trump family for you? Check out Paul’s weekend adventures hunting alongside the Trump sons in Iowa – with more video ... Thank you for joining us for our Iowa caucuses coverage. If you like what you see here, we’d invite you to sign up for our quickie politics newsletter, the Campaign Minute, which we’ll deliver once a day to your inbox. The Minute collects the top headlines from the day in politics and delivers them with sharp images and wit, for consumption on the run. If you’ve got a minute, sign up here! Here we go! We are on the ground across Iowa as voters congregate at caucus sites to begin to pick the 2016 presidential nominees. The caucus activity has just begun, at 7pm local time. At 1,100 locations across the state, Democrats are gathering to begin the political horse-trading they use to choose a nominee. Republicans will cast secret ballots at 900 locations. Early turnout appeared to be heavy in the populous precincts around Des Moines, notwithstanding a blizzard warning in effect for much of the state later tonight. In a matter of moments, we’ll start to bring you live results all night long. (It’ll be right there at the top of the blog. Stick with us.) Meanwhile our political team on the ground – Ben Jacobs, who is partying with Texas senator Ted Cruz; Sabrina Siddiqui, who will report from Hillary Clinton’s nightcap event; Gary Younge, who will take us inside a caucus event; Paul Lewis, who will skip from a caucus site to Donald Trump’s planned celebration; Dan Roberts, who’s tracking Bernie Sanders; and David Taylor, roving linebacker – will be contributing continuous blocks of reportage and smarts to this blog, backed by commentary from opinionators extraordinaire Megan Carpentier, Lucia Graves, Jeb Lund and Richard Wolffe, who’s with Jeb Bush in New Hampshire. Does the Iowa result matter? If you’re a Democrat, it sure feels like it, based on recent elections’ results: Recent past Republican winners in Iowa, however, have gone on to somewhat lesser glory (and both Huckabee and Santorum are candidates once again tonight): Thanks for joining us for the most exciting night (so far) in the 2016 race for the White House. And as always, we invite you to join us below the line – and let us know who you think will win, in the comments! On the Hillary Clinton beat this evening – and possibly until November, though we’ll see about that – is US political reporter Sabrina Siddiqui. Here’s her first dispatch of caucus night, from Des Moines: With the countdown to the Iowa caucus having begun, Leanne Dilornzo burst through the door. This was one of dozens of organizing stations across the state, with thousands of volunteers hustling for Hillary Clinton – and ready to spring into action. “I just got here from Portland, Oregon,” she said, catching her breath, to the local staffers who were checking in volunteers at the door. “How can I help?” It was but one glimpse of the frenzied scene on the ground in Iowa on Monday evening, as precious time slipped away to ensure that voters would head out to caucus for Clinton. Dilornzo, who runs a nonprofit, said she was supposed to get in on Sunday, but she almost didn’t make it due to flight complications. Her travel was rebooked at least three times, but she was determined to get there. A longtime fan of Clinton’s and supporter of her 2008 run, Dilornzo nodded to the tight race between the former secretary of state and Vermont senator Bernie Sanders. “I was just a little worried and wanted to do something,” she said. At this particular office, tucked inside the second floor of a strip mall just outside downtown Des Moines, volunteers were doing many things beyond worrying: putting together packets containing instructions for caucus-goers, working the phones one last time. An array of snacks were scattered along the tables to keep them fueled: sandwiches, fruits and assorted pastries. Posters and drawings on the walls served as motivators: The words “Energize. Organize. Win,” strewn across one wall, and the pledge “I will give my all for Hillary today” on another. Rebecca Lipson, one of the campaign’s Iowa organizers, said volunteers began flowing in from 9am on this all-important day. “We’re making sure that everyone knows where their caucus is, that they have a ride to get there, and that they’re ready to caucus for Hillary,” she said. Most of the help came from locals, but in the final days people had descended upon Des Moines from Chicago, New York and even China. A 16-year-old student from China, who identified by his English name Steven Jefferson, was in the state as part of a visiting youth leadership tour. He and some of the other people in his group, who had come to observe the Iowa caucuses, had an opportunity to choose to volunteer for a candidate. Jefferson said he chose Clinton because of what he said was unparalleled experience. “After I heard her speak, I knew she was confident enough for the job,” he said. “I think she’s powerful and she cares about her citizens through her policies – to treat women equally, raise incomes and decrease taxes.” Yuyan Liu, the chancellor who was leading the student group, sat a few feet away dialing a phone from a list of names. Liu said he recalled fondly the Bill Clinton presidency and was particularly impressed by Hillary Clinton’s advocacy as first lady. “I think it would be really positive to have the first woman president of the United States,” added. More from US data editor Mona Chalabi on the data dynamics underlying tonight’s caucus process: Shy Trump voters? When polls spectacularly failed to predict the outcome of the UK election, one explanation was that there were “shy Tories” who were reluctant to tell polling companies of their true voting intentions. I know, I know, you might expect Trump’s diehard supporters to be the shy type, but images from rallies can be very misleading. There will no doubt be some Americans who feel sympathy for the policies being advocated by the businessman but are reluctant to make those views known. Yet again, everything comes back to the demographics of turnout. If those voters stay at home in Iowa, then their silent support won’t make a difference. Back after a break of 48 years – a Trump supporter arrives to caucus in Iowa: Here’s part 2/3 (see earlier) of US data editor Mona Chalabi’s pre-caucus observations and admonitions: If polling is correct, this will be an exciting night Looking at polling averages, Hillary Clinton is three to four percentage points ahead of her nearest rival, Bernie Sanders. For Republicans, it would seem Donald Trump has a more comfortable lead - he’s five to seven percentage points ahead of Ted Cruz. Whether or not those victories materialize will depend on how many people turn out and which demographic groups they belong to. Both Sanders and Trump tend to be more popular among first-time Caucus goers. Those aren’t necessarily the most reliable people to actually show up on the night. The latest polls provide a slightly confusing last minute picture of what Iowa is thinking. An Emerson College Polling Society poll suggests that Trump and Cruz are actually neck and neck with only one percentage point between them, but another one from Quinnipiac University suggests that Trump actually leads by seven percentage points. Quinnipiac is generally regarded as a more reliable pollster - but still, both sets of numbers have that all-important margin of error (+/-5.6 percentage points for Emerson, +/-3.3 percentage points for Quinnipiac). How many people participate in the Iowa caucuses? Not that many, considering the intense national focus on the vote, and its potential influence on nominee selection. Here are some recent caucuses turnout figures, via Drake University’s Iowa Caucus project: Democrats in 2008 (Obama): 239,872 Democrats in 2004 (Kerry): 124,331 Republicans in 2012 (Santorum): 121,503 Republicans in 2008 (Huckabee): 119,200 Will tonight be a 120,000-voter night – or a 240,000 voter night? (Iowa population=~3m.) And who stands to benefit? Iowans backing Bernie: “He’s off the charts, he’s off the grid, I think he’s going to surprise a lot of people” – Servant of the Moon We asked and you answered. And here’s a sampling of what you answered: For the commenter below, thank you! But we will resist admitting how fun this feels. Washington bureau chief Dan Roberts rubs wings with the jet set in Des Moines: If you’re like a lot us, you can’t get enough explanatory material when it comes to the Iowa caucuses. Fortunately, politics reporter Ben Jacobs has your back: What time do the caucuses start? The caucuses start at 7pm local time on Monday, but campaigns encourage their supporters to show up half an hour early. How do the caucuses unfold? Very different rules govern the Democratic and Republican caucuses: Republicans have a relatively straightforward process, in which they cast secret ballots in their precinct caucuses – church halls, school buildings. By contrast, Democrats vote publicly in a two-stage election where candidates must get support of 15% of caucus-goers in each individual precinct to be viable. If they fall below that threshold, their voters need to choose another candidate or go home. After that redistribution, votes are counted and from those totals, delegates are assigned. Can unregistered voters take part?Any Iowan over the age of 18 can participate. Attendees can register on the night at the caucuses and can switch their party affiliation there as well. This means a Democrat can go to the Republican caucuses and vice versa. Four years ago, 121,503 people showed up to the 2012 Republican caucuses. Democrats have traditionally had higher turnout and, in their last competitive caucus in 2008, 239,872 people attended. What happens then? The caucuses are political party-run processes with no state involvement, so the reporting of results doesn’t happen through state election officials. Instead, local volunteers at each caucus location across Iowa’s 99 counties report them. This means there can potentially be many hiccups: For Republicans, the ballots are tallied and counted at each caucus site and reported to the state party. Under the Democratic system, only the actual number of delegates pledged to each candidate is reported and not any actual vote counts. Barring reporting issues, a clear idea of the results should emerge by around 9.30pm local time. There more where that came from: We’re about to get the first numbers of this election that aren’t hypothetical, writes US data editor Mona Chalabi: Which is great timing because I’m already getting tired of polls that are all about what people say they might do and getting very curious about what Americans are actually going to decide when it comes down to it. Here are some things you should know before those results start rolling in (part 1/ 3): Does Iowa matter? The state is not representative of US politics as a whole, not least because it’s a whole lot more white than the rest of the country: What’s more, the complex procedures for voting in a caucus mean that people who bother to show up in Iowa are probably a little more politically enthusiastic than your average voter. But most commentators are pretty convinced that what happens in this caucus has big consequences for the rest of the election. That ranges from the very concrete possibility that some candidates might drop out once these results are declared (Martin O’Malley, I’m looking at you), to more subtle effects - things like the fact that results here could well affect the media narrative about candidates. And media narratives could in turn affect voter choices. The count won’t be perfect Hopefully we won’t see a repeat performance of 2012 when a truck containing a bunch of votes simply went astray and held up the count. But even if all vehicles stay on route, counting will invariably be affected by some degree of mechanical and human error - so, as Hayley Munguia at FiveThirtyEight cautions, remember that the final results won’t be perfectly accurate. Campaigns are urging supporters to pop up at caucus sites with time to spare before the 7pm (local, 8pm ET) starts. That’s early enough that the blizzard warning scheduled to go into effect in Iowa later tonight may not be dissuasive for voters still deciding whether to devote hours of their Monday evenings to nominee selection. But potential voters visiting the National Weather Service web site out of Des Moines might not be encouraged to get in their cars and drive out into the night– or is it just the caps lock that makes it sound exciting?: BLIZZARD CONDITIONS AND HEAVY SNOW TO IMPACT IOWA LATE TONIGHT THROUGH EARLY WEDNESDAY MORNING... TIMING...SNOW WILL SPREAD ACROSS SOUTHWEST IOWA LATE TONIGHT AND BLOSSOM OVER THE AREA DURING THE OVERNIGHT HOURS THROUGH LATE TUESDAY MORNING. A PERIOD OF VERY HEAVY SNOW IS EXPECTED TO OCCUR DURING THE TUESDAY MORNING COMMUTE WITH SNOWFALL RATES OF 1 TO 2 INCHES PER HOUR. THE STRONGEST WINDS ARE THEN TO DEVELOP LATE TUESDAY MORNING INTO THE EVENING. * STORM TOTAL SNOW...ACCUMULATIONS OF 8 TO 12 INCHES For the countervailing point of view, the Washington Post’s Robert Costa seeks out former longtime Des Moines Register reporter David Yepsen, who thinks “Republicans are going to have a good turnout”: Just catching up? Here’s a liveblog of everything that happened on the final day of the Iowa campaign: Welcome to Iowa. Tonight is going to be terribly exciting, by which I mean tonight is going to be no good at all at being exciting. American politics are like American football — three hours of broadcast, and only 11 minutes of action. Even the announcers are the same: former stars who took too many blows to the head. I was tempted to say, “Let’s start this journey together!” before I realized that metaphor is no good. Tonight isn’t so much a journey as it is a plane flight. You wait weeks for the day to arrive and then drive to the airport only to wait to check in. Then you wait to go through security. Then you wait to board, and then (finally!) you’re on board. It’s happening! And now you get to wait to leave the gate, only to wait to take off on the runway and then wait to get there. And now you’re there! At your layover. We’ve taken months to get to Iowa, gone through tremendous expense and effort, and we’re still nowhere near the end. For all intents and purposes, we’re all wandering around Atlanta’s Hartsfield–Jackson International Airport looking for a place to plug in our iPhones for the next few hours before the next leg. My fellow Americans, CNN ran a countdown clock today. I watched it tick down for four hours to the ... you know what? I don’t even remember now, because there’s another countdown clock ticking down to when the caucuses begin. I think the original countdown was to their opening. ONLY THREE MORE HOURS TO INCREDIBLE DOORBUSTER SAVINGS ON MARTIN O’MALLEY. And here’s the thing: even when everything is done tonight, we’re still just finished with day one. There’s a long way to go after this. Thank God CNN has all those clocks, because they’re going to need them. Hello! and welcome to our wire-to-wire coverage of Iowa caucus night, as the US begins to choose the next leader of the free world. In just a couple hours (it’s going to be a long night – but not too long), Iowans will start to show up at caucus sites to begin to pick the 2016 presidential nominees. In past elections, both the Republican and Democratic races have come into radical focus after the first vote in Iowa and the ensuing New Hampshire primary, which happens in just over a week. The Iowa process is a little weird – if pretty thrilling – so here’s a quick breakdown before you see a bunch of people running across a room: Big questions tonight: Will Donald Trump, a candidate once written off as a non-starter, end up winning the first state in the Republican nominating contest? The smart polls look good for him. Will Hillary Clinton strike gold in Iowa, eight years after falling short to the upstart Illinois senator named Barack Obama? Or will she succumb once again to a populist cascade, this time behind Vermont senator Bernie Sanders? The caucuses officially open at 7pm local time (8pm ET); barring reporting issues, a clear idea of the results should emerge by around 9.30pm local time. Between now and then, we have lots of reportage, data and commentary in store for you, including a look at key Iowa counties in a state that contains multitudes. Or, if you need to begin with an even wider angle – behold, Iowa: journalists deployed in Iowa throughout the evening include Ben Jacobs, who is partying with Texas senator Ted Cruz; Sabrina Siddiqui, who will report from Hillary Clinton’s nightcap event; Gary Younge, who will take us inside a caucus event; Paul Lewis, who will skip from a caucus site to Donald Trump’s planned celebration; Dan Roberts, who’s tracking Bernie Sanders; and David Taylor, roving linebacker. At the ready we’ve also got opinionators extraordinaire Megan Carpentier, Lucia Graves and Richard Wolffe, who’s with Jeb Bush in New Hampshire. My blogging colleagues Scott Bixby and Adam Gabbatt will be stopping by as well, watching Fox News Channel so you don’t have to. Who will win the night? Cast your vote in the comments! And as always thank you for playing along.
A ‘go it alone’ Britain will turn the clock back for disabled people For the first 18 years of my life I learned the true meaning of being left out, excluded from the wider society of education, social interaction and discovery. Then I left segregated education and hospital and went to a mainstream college. Finally, I had joined the real world where my life could begin. Millions of disabled people just like me experienced the same. Now, we are in danger of being left out again if the UK votes to leave the European Union on 23 June. A “go-it-alone” Britain is one that will turn back the clock for disabled people. Weaker protection from discrimination will keep us out of the workplace. We will be grounded by watered-down rules on transport accessibility. Many products and services will be off-limits. This is because go-it-alone Britain views the promotion and protection of human and civil rights as un-British. It believes workers’ rights are a regulatory burden. Laws and standards concerning accessibility are cast as irritating red tape. It is a Britain that would regard the equal rights of disabled people not as an aspiration, but as a problem. Where Britain once inspired the development of disability rights across the EU, over time it has become more a follower. Our Disability Discrimination Act arrived before EU law required such measures, but it did not apply to most employers – only to those with more than 15 employees. It was as a result of the EU employment equality directive of 2000 that all employers finally came within the scope of Britain’s disability discrimination law. The rights of Britain’s six million unpaid carers to protection from workplace discrimination was only recognised following a judgment by the European court of justice in 2008. EU rules also require transport providers to provide assistance from trained staff to disabled passengers travelling by air, rail, bus and coach, and ships. It’s hard enough securing these rights now. It won’t be better without EU backing. The current proposal for an EU directive on public-sector website accessibility will help address the exclusion of disabled people from the online world. The EU Accessibility Act will ensure that manufacturers and suppliers of a wide range of products including computers, phones, ATM and ticketing machines comply with agreed accessibility standards. Taking account of disabled people’s history, how confident can we be that a Britain going it alone would unilaterally implement measures that would improve disabled peoples lives in the UK and protect them from discrimination? We can’t. Nigel Farage has argued that Britain’s anti-discrimination law should be scrapped altogether. We are already witness to the pain of austerity, which has done great harm to the wellbeing, independence and opportunities of disabled people and their families. The Institute of Fiscal Studies has said that the economic impact of leaving the EU would force ministers to extend austerity for a further two years. The choice for disabled people is a stark one: vote remain for continued progress towards becoming equal citizens of the EU and the wider world, or vote for Britain to go it alone and face the consequences of being left out in the cold again.
The view on broadband Britain: take internet infrastructure away from BT “Access to the internet shouldn’t be a luxury; it should be a right – absolutely fundamental to life in 21st-century Britain,” said David Cameron last November. He went on: “Just as our forebears effectively brought gas, electricity and water to all, we’re going to bring fast broadband to every home and business that wants it.” Quite right, too. In the 21st century, not to have a speedy internet connection is to be cut adrift from the mainstream. Going without it is the kiss of death for a business, a handicap for any student and a penalty for any family. Fast internet allows Britons to access public services, to find information quickly, to hear from foreign countries and loved ones. So how well wired is Britain? The good news: it’s either the best or among the best in the European Union for standard, superfast and mobile broadband coverage. The market offers plenty of choice and in certain blessed regions the connections can be very speedy indeed. Now the bad news: it all depends on where you are. Draw a map of broadband Britain and you see patches of superfast availability around London and its immediate hinterland, Manchester and other major cities. Then there’s the rest. Superfast Cardiff gives way very quickly to superslow valleys. There are villages in West Yorkshire where half have superfast broadband – and their neighbours do not. Given the opportunities that superfast broadband opens up, this is a sharp and brutal form of inequality. Instead of spreading prosperity more evenly around the country, our broadband system concentrates it in the same old hotspots. That this should be the case despite the £1.7bn of taxpayer money invested in evening up access speaks of a major failure not in resources but in policy. Tuesday’s report from MPs on the culture and media select committee is precise in its targeting of the main body responsible. It is of course BT, which takes the lion’s share of that public money to provide rural Britain with decent broadband. Not content with taking well over £1bn from the taxpayer, BT offers lamentable service. It bars local authorities from disclosing information on speeds and coverage, so that homes are told they are receiving a fast service even when they’re struggling to watch a bit of YouTube. It has cherrypicked the easiest areas to wire up. The MPs describe as “clearly unacceptable” how BT “have been allowed to get away with using such commercial secrecy” – which is unfair both to users and BT’s rivals. Perhaps the most damning charge is that BT is systematically underinvesting in Openreach, its unit to roll out broadband – by “potentially hundreds of millions of pounds a year”. That money is instead being spent on things like broadcasting football matches on BT Sport. It is using the public utility of Openreach “to cross-subsidise riskier activities elsewhere in the Group, while significantly under-investing in the access infrastructure and services on which a large part of the public rely”. It is short-changing the public in order to throw money at shareholders and executives. The fault partly lies with the regulator, Ofcom. Mainly it rests with the government for pretending that a natural monopoly like internet infrastructure can be run as a competitive, commercial enterprise (see also: railways). Let’s drop the pretence, take Openreach away from BT and make it a public service. Let’s end broadband apartheid.
Mediterranean diet 'could prevent 19,000 deaths a year in UK' Thousands of deaths from heart disease and stroke could be prevented if everybody ate a Mediterranean diet, a major study of the UK’s eating habits has shown. The health benefits of the Mediterranean diet, rich in olive oil and fruits and vegetables, are well-known, but the study is the first to look at it in the real world of the UK. Gathering data about eating habits among nearly 24,000 people in Norfolk over an average of 12 to 17 years, the researchers found that 12.5% of heart attack and stroke deaths that occurred could have been prevented. In the context of the UK as a whole, that would be 19,000 deaths averted out of the 155,000 that occur as a result of heart disease every year. Dr Nita Forouhi, lead author from the Medical Research Council epidemiology unit at the University of Cambridge, said: “We estimate that 3.9% of all new cardiovascular disease cases or 12.5% of cardiovascular deaths in our UK-based study population could potentially be avoided if this population increased their adherence to the Mediterranean diet.” In spite of the name, the Mediterranean diet does not have to feature squid, anchovies, hummus and pitta bread. It is descriptive, not prescriptive – taken to mean a diet that includes a lot of fruit and vegetables, olive oil, nuts, legumes, some fish and dairy and little red and processed meat. It usually includes a small amount of red wine. The difficulty for the researchers was in pinning down how much of the diet of the participants in the study, which began in the 1990s, qualified as “Mediterranean”. After a considerable amount of work searching the literature, and with reference to the Mediterranean diet pyramid produced by the Mediterranean Diet Foundation, they worked out a way to score the food families consumed. The top possible score would be a diet with 15 Mediterranean elements. They found the maximum score among their participants was 13.1 and the lowest score was 3. They found that those with higher scores – more elements of the Mediterranean diet in their daily meals – were less likely to get heart disease and to die as a result of it after taking into account other problematic factors such as smoking, weight and physical activity. Forouhi said one of the messages from their work was that the “superfoods” approach often promoted by society, advocating kale or certain types of berry for greater health, was not the answer. Nor was a focus on reducing single dietary elements like sugar or fat. “It is very much more a balance across the range of foods available to us,” she said. People who have have heart disease are already recommended to follow a Mediterranean diet in the UK. The new study shows it is helpful for everyone else as well, said Forouhi. Dr Louis Levy, head of nutrition science at Public Health England, said: “The Mediterranean-style diet in this study is in fact similar to official UK advice, as shown in the Eatwell Guide. We also recommend cutting back on sugary, fatty and salty food and drinks and being mindful of calories to help protect your heart and general health.”
John Waters brings back Multiple Maniacs: 'Of course I went a little too far' Hi, John! Where are you? I’m in Provincetown. This is my 52nd summer I’ve been here. (1) You’re about to rerelease a restored version of your second film, Multiple Maniacs, into cinemas to shock a whole new generation. It stars Divine as the crazed impresario of a depraved freak show. How do you feel it plays now 46 years after it originally opened? (2) Maybe it works better now than it did then. I don’t know! We’ll see. I’ve seen it with one audience and it seemed to play pretty well. People seemed startled by it, and it was an audience that had seen everything. This was my trainer wheels for Pink Flamingos (3). This was when I finally got my voice – even though it was too loud and too long. It’s making fun of hippie rules of the era, the same way that I make fun of political or gayly correct rules today. I think it’s exactly like what all my work has been like from the very beginning, really. How did hippies react to your gonzo vision back in the day? They liked it! Who came were bikers though. And crazy gay people. And speed freaks. People on LSD. They were all radical within their own community and they responded to it very well. This was in the peak of peace and love, but it was also at the peak when everything fell apart like crazy. There was such a war going on then between the hippies and the straight world; and straight didn’t mean heterosexual … it meant you didn’t smoke pot or you didn’t think the revolution was going to happen. I read the original negative of the film was kept in your closet before being moved to your attic. Had you even wanted to rerelease it and have it restored? I’ve been trying to get this released for a long time. Basically when the Lincoln Center had a big retrospective of my work and they showed the last 60mm print, the people from Criterion were there and they called (4). I had no idea what they could do with restorations – what they could make it look like. They asked if I wanted to keep it exactly as is, with every mistake in there. I said, “Are you kidding me? I never purposely had mistakes in there! I don’t want the splice marks to show, I don’t want the dirt in the lens! Make it look good!” Now it looks like a bad John Cassavetes movie. What do you make of Multiple Maniacs returning during the Trump-era? Let’s hope that it’s not the era of Trump. That would mean he wins. OK – an era during which a reality star can get this far in the race to become president. Oh, I lived through Nixon. I lived through Reagan. They were all horrible. [Laughs] Would Trump be offended by Multiple Maniacs? Probably not. Why’s that? It’s gleefully blasphemous, and would likely inflame his voting base. Believe me – I am certainly for Hillary [Clinton] 100%, and always was. But what I’m saying is he doesn’t mean it, the shit he says. At least he’s met a gay person! The other Republicans never even met a gay person. Do you know if Trump has ever seen a movie of yours? I don’t care. I’ve never met him and I hope I never do. I always said as a joke that Bill [Clinton] probably did see Pink Flamingos – and Hillary probably did not. At the time, Bill seemed a little bit more adventuresome, maybe on wanting to see weird stuff. I could be wrong! Divine chows down on raw flesh in the film’s climax, before [spoiler alert] being raped by a giant lobster. What did you make her eat? It was a cow’s heart that I got from the butcher. It was two-days old, refrigerated. It was pretty rancid. You could see Divine gag there. But that was the trainer wheels for eating shit [at the notorious conclusion of Pink Flamingos]. It organically grew from there. And all the vomit in the film – was that real? Alka-Seltzer! You just put some in your mouth, swish it around, and you’ll foam. How did you film the explicit lesbian scene in the church? Churches in the 60s had demonstrations. It was very common for churches to have leftwing activity – anti-war things. So it was not so odd. Our movies premiered in churches. Maniacs premiered in Baltimore in the Unitarian church. But someone knew the priest and asked if we could film there – we didn’t tell him what. My friend who was a hippie and a political activist, he went in there and talked to the priest about Vietnam and stuff, while we shot the scene. The priest then he came to the premiere. I felt really bad for him because he was almost crying. To this day I have never told where that church is. I’m not so sure I completely remember any more. Watching Multiple Maniacs today, are there bits where you go: maybe I did go too far? Of course I went a little too far! What I should have done was cut some things. Does Divine have to break every window in the car? I did look at that rosary sex scene, at the people around me, and I could see the young audience in disbelief. At the same time, I did startle myself. I think, how did I get away with this? How did any of this happen? Part of it was a time capsule. A very accurate picture of what my sense of humor, and what my friends were like at the time, which might scare some people. And in some ways, they should actually be scared of us. What shocks you now? What shocks me now is stupidity and racism, and all the things that are not funny. And in film? I felt Spring Breakers (5) shocked me in a great way. Your parents fully funded Multiple Maniacs. Did you let them watch it? No! I paid them back. I’m glad they didn’t see it. I think it’s the only one my mother didn’t see. They never wanted to see any of them! They were usually horrified. The only time I could say they weren’t was when Hairspray (6) opened on Broadway. Even with A Dirty Shame (7) my father said after, “It was funny but I hope as hell I never see it again!” That’s a pretty good quote! You haven’t made a movie since A Dirty Shame. What gives? I’ve had three development deals for movies that never happened. The last two movies I made didn’t make money. It’s always been like that – plain and simple, 100%. I accept that. Hollywood was completely fair to me. Is revisiting Multiple Maniacs bittersweet, with Divine no longer with us? (8) It certainly is. The creative community is always hit, the whole history, by sexual diseases, suicide, drugs. My world is no different, but it is certainly sad. I have lots of old friends. I have many friends I’ve known for 50 years now – and that is the key to whatever mental health I have now. I think that if you don’t have old friends, you’re probably unhappy. Footnotes (1) Waters owns a studio attic apartment overlooking the beach in Provincetown, a gay-friendly New England town located at the extreme tip of Cape Cod. (2) First released in 1970, Multiple Maniacs heralded the arrival of the Baltimore-based film-maker, who had yet to make his defining cult classic, Pink Flamingos. Long out of print, the film, about a traveling freak show fronted by Waters’ muse, the drag queen Divine, is now receiving a rerelease courtesy of Janus Films. (3) Pink Flamingos (1972), reunited Waters with Divine for a fabulously grotesque comedy about a sleazy married couple’s attempts humiliate the drag icon, jealous of her reputation. It’s part of what Waters has labeled his Trash Trilogy, which also includes Female Trouble (1974) and Desperate Living (1977). Like Multiple Maniacs, it features a series of profane scenes, culminating in Divine eating freshly laid dog faeces, proving, as the narrator states, that she is “not only the filthiest person in the world, but is also the world’s filthiest actress”. (4) The Criterion Collection, the celebrated home video distribution company that licenses and sells classic films, supervised the restoration of Multiple Maniacs. New York’s Film Society of Lincoln Center, hosted a Waters retrospective in 2014, titled Fifty Years of John Waters: How Much Can You Take? (5) Waters voted Spring Breakers, Harmony Korine’s neon-hued, girls-gone-wild caper, his favorite film of 2013. Waters once said of Korine: “He’s the only director that ever made me leer after naked female Disney stars.” (6) Hairspray, the stage musical based on Waters’ 1988 film, won eight Tony awards in 2003, including one for best musical. It’s since been adapted into a second film, starring John Travolta and Michelle Pfeiffer, released in 2007. (7) A Dirty Shame (2004), Waters’ most recent directorial effort, stars British comic Tracey Ullman as a repressed housewife, who after getting smacked in the head by a passing car, becomes a ravenous sex addict. (8) Divine (real name: Harris Glenn Milstead) died in his sleep in 1988 of an enlarged heart aged 42. Multiple Maniacs opens in New York on 5 August at the IFC Center before opening in select cinemas nationwide.
Steven Defour inspires determined Burnley to victory over Watford It required a relentless pursuit and Sean Dyche’s powers of persuasion to convince Steven Defour to leave Belgium for Burnley in the summer but the effort, and the club-record £7.5m paid to Anderlecht for a player once coveted by European heavyweights, has paid early dividends. Defour, desire and determination shaped Burnley’s second Premier League win of the season. Watford were second rate in every respect. The Belgium international still has the letter he received from Sir Alex Ferguson shortly after injury ruined his hopes of Champions League football with Standard Liège and, as it later transpired, a move to Manchester United. Now 28, he still possesses the ability and energy to punish teams as weak as Watford – unrecognisable from the side that triumphed over United last time out – and a quality Burnley lacked on their last appearance in the Premier League. The midfielder’s assists for Jeff Hendrick and Michael Keane brought Dyche’s team deserved victory and means he has been involved in four of his new club’s five goals this term. “He is still learning and adapting to the Premier League but he is definitely a good player otherwise we wouldn’t have brought him here,” the Burnley and former Watford manager said. “He, Jeff and Johann [Berg Gudmundsson] have all been brought in for a reason. We haven’t got the budget to bring in players, move them on and have a squad of 30. Every player we have brought in is important. Steven has that extra belief from playing for Belgium and in big games. He has a strength of character and that rubs off on others.” Burnley were again solid defensively at Turf Moor, where they have conceded five goals in 17 home matches and became the first team this season to shut out Walter Mazzarri’s side. They were also confident and strong in midfield – “They bullied us,” Troy Deeney admitted – and just needed an attacking threat to complement a dominant first-half performance. Hendrick’s headed breakthrough was just reward for their efforts and patience. Dyche’s side have struggled in front of goal on their return to the top flight and their attacking options were reduced by the absence of Andre Gray, starting a four-match ban for making homophobic comments on Twitter four years ago. “We know the tweet was unacceptable,” the Burnley manager said. “But we are very disappointed with the four-game ban. Andre was the first one to come straight out and apologise. He misses 12% of our games now. It is a hard one to take, simple as that.” Watford were overrun in midfield and had problems from the outset with the quality of Defour’s set pieces, his vision and the power of Gudmundsson on the right. Their strangely subdued response was a poor return for the 1,415 in the away section for a Monday-night fixture and Mazzarri vowed to hold talks with his players in training on Tuesday. George Boyd had almost opened the scoring from a Defour corner, Heurelho Gomes producing a fine save, when more weak defending enabled Burnley to profit from the same source shortly before the interval. Watford were incensed at the referee Mike Jones’ decision to award the corner, arguing for an offside in the build-up and that the ball was out of play when Dean Marney crossed from the right. José Holebas picked up a booking for dissent but the officials appeared to call both correctly. It was Holebas’s job to mark Hendrick when Defour’s corner sailed into his penalty area but he allowed the Republic of Ireland midfielder a free header which he sent into the far corner. The Republic assistant manager Roy Keane’s decision to attend the game was vindicated. Mazzarri introduced Camilo Zúñiga for Craig Cathcart at the interval but the visitors’ defence continued to afford Defour too much space and struggled against his precise crosses. Deeney hinted at an overdue show of urgency from Watford when he broke into the Burnley box and forced a decent save from Tom Heaton, but the recovery did not materialise. Burnley responded immediately to Deeney’s show of intent and forced a corner on the left. Watford dealt with the initial cross from Defour but were found badly wanting when he gathered the loose ball, looked up and swept a perfect delivery towards Keane. The former Manchester United graduate, a member of their FA Youth Cup-winning team in 2011 alongside Paul Pogba and Jesse Lingard, simply wanted it more than any player in white and Mazzarri looked aghast as Keane headed beyond Gomes in the absence of one meaningful challenge. “This was a game that had to prove we could do better than we played against Manchester United,” the Watford coach said. “We wanted continuity and we didn’t get it so I will speak with my players.”
Davos 2016: George Osborne says Google tax deal is a 'major success' - as it happened Let’s end on a heartwarming tale from Davos. One of the most impressive delegates this year was Mark Pollock, the first blind man to race to the South Pole who was later paralysed. Pollock’s wheelchair just broke, leaving him in a serious jam. But he was rescued by a technician who trudged through the snow to find him, and fix it. And he only charged 20 francs. Quite a bargain, and proof that the world isn’t all bad. Delegates are streaming away from the WEF conference all, with a lot to think about. Philip Jennings, head of the UNI Global Union, says this Davos was about “Beauty and the Beast”. We started the with Oxfam saying that 62 people are as wealthy as the poorest half of the world, prompting warning about inequality and distribution. We ended it with JP Morgan’s Jamie Dimon putting two fingers up to the world, and taking a 30% pay rise. It’s been a funny old Davos this year. The wild swings in the stock markets reminded us that the global economy remains fragile, dominated by emerging market woes and fears of a new global slowdown. But that was trumped by the awful news that at least 45 people drowned yesterday fleeing the Middle East for Europe. The worst January on record for refugee deaths could herald a grim 2016. Davos is nearly over - and delegates are tucking into lunch. It’s quite a menu - including deer, veal ragout, soup, a *huge* swiss cheese , and pancakes (or Crêpe Suzette for posher readers). There’s also a rather large chocolate fountain... We know that George Osborne is a big China fan. And he concluded the session on the Global Economic Outlook by urging global leaders to support Beijing. “The world has not been very good over previous centuries at accommodating rising powers,” the chancellor warned. “It is massively in our interests that we bring China into the multilateral institutions of the world.....and make it feel part of the global system.” China really has dominated this year’s World Economic Forum (along with the refugee crisis). Osborne’s words may fall flat, though, if policymakers fumble the move to a more domestic-driven, consumer based economy. Especially if the credit bubble that has swelled over recent years bursts badly. Bank of Japan governor Kuroda’s suggestion today that China should impose capital controls highlights the pressure on Beijing. Chris Giles of the FT explains: The subject of capital controls is very sensitive for the IMF because late last year it recommended the renminbi be admitted into the fund’s elite basket of currencies, including the US dollar, euro, yen and sterling, on the grounds that it was now “widely used” and “freely usable”. Capital controls would undermine both conditions. George Osborne’s comments won’t spare Google from a grilling in parliament over the tax deal. There is plenty of concern that £130m in back taxes is a rather meagre sum, for a company of Google’s size and importance. And the Public Accounts Committee is determined to dig into it. Meg Hillier MP, chair of the PAC, said overnight that she was “shocked” by the workaround methods used by multinationals. It doesn’t reflect well on the tax officials, either: “HMRC now needs to assure taxpayers that it will keep up the pressure to tackle whatever the next emerging issue is in real time, rather than years later. “It is effectively admitting it pulled in too little tax from Google for nine out of ten years. “This is not a great success rate and the Public Accounts Committee will be calling in HMRC and Google to explain. George Osborne has told the that the £130m tax deal announced with Google overnight is a “huge step forward” Speaking to my colleagues Larry and Jill just after his panel debate in Davos, the chancellor said he regarded it as a major success for the government. He told us: This is a major success of our tax policy. We’ve got Google to pay taxes and I think that is a huge step forward and addresses that perfectly legitimate public anger that large corporations have not been paying tax. I think it’s a really positive step. I hope to see more firms follow suit and of course I’ve introduced a diverted profits tax which will require this going forward. So I think it’s a big step forward and a victory for the government”. Overnight, the search giant announced that it will pay £130m to the UK - a decade’s worth of tax. It will also pay more taxes in the UK in future, as part of a shake-up of the way the multinational pays tax. Osborne’s comments at Davos come after Labour shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, criticised the deal. My colleague Kevin Rawlinson reports: People will be “sceptical” about what he said looked like a “sweetheart deal”, he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Saturday, adding that HMRC seemed to have settled for a “relatively trivial amount of money.” McDonnell will be asking HMRC to publish full details of what it believed Google owed. He said he would raise the issue in Parliament next week as the issue needed “wider scrutiny”. The session ended with Christine Lagarde calling for a new way of measuring economic success: I’ll do a more thorough wrap-up in a minute. Tidjane Thiam, head of Credit Suisse, reckons we are not on the brink of another banking crisis despite the recent market turmoil. Q: Does Christine Lagarde think China needs capital controls? Lagarde replies that it wouldn’t be a particularly good idea for Beijing to burn through all its reserves propping up the yuan. China needs to give clarity, certainty and one message on exactly how the exchange mechanism works, and what the yuan is being measured against. Onto China, which has been eating into its foreign exchange reserves in an attempt to support the yuan. Kuroda says that Beijing faces a tough battle, and may need consider new restrictions to prevent money leaving the country. He says: China’s authorities have been struggling to avoid excessive depreciation or appreciation of its currency while also maintaining an accommodative monetary stance. My personal view, which may not be shared by the Chinese authorities is that in this somewhat contradictory situation, capital controls could be useful to manage the exchange rate as well as domestic monetary policy in a consistent and appropriate way. Japanese central bank governor Kuroda says that inflation, currently around zero, could strengthen significantly if the oil price recovers. And if not, he’s prepared to do more. Echoing the famous pledge from ECB chief Mario Draghi, Kuroda says: The Bank of Japan is fully committed to achieving the price stability target of 2% and will do whatever it takes to achieve that target, at the earliest stage. We don’t believe there are any limits to our policy tools, he adds. Japan’s central bank chief, Haruhiko Kuroda, says he doesn’t believe China’s economy will crash. Markets have been volatile this year, against heightened uncertainty over China’s economy and oil prices, he says. But he does not share the pessimistic view about the implications. China’s slowdown is due to the challenge of rebalancing its economy. Q: Will Britain be in the EU in a year? Osborne says he is optimistic of getting a good deal for Britain and the European Union. And he insists that Europe needs to reform itself. I don’t want my continent priced out of the world economy. And if the British people see we are delivering that change across Europe, they will vote to stay in a reformed EU. Osborne says that Europe likes to cut a deal at the 11th hour, because the Greek banks need to open or a bond needs paying. But we aren’t behaving like the greek government. We have taken a much more measured approach, approaching Europe as friends, colleagues and allies. Osborne says that in “a mature and measured way” we can get that agreement, maybe at the February meeting. If it’s not a good deal, Britain won’t sign. But given all the challenges in the EU, I think it’s in Europe’s interests to give us a deal that works for all member states. W Q: Is there any chance of a deal in the next few weeks that will satisfy the huge eurosceptical forces in the UK? There will be people who want to leave Europe, come what may, and some who want to stay, George Osborne replies. But if David Cameron can come back with a creditble reform packate, we can make a case for staying. There is goodwill out there, we now have to make it happen. Britain has three priorities through our EU renegotiation, says Osborne: We want to create a more competitive European union, to create more jobs and growth Want to address concerns about migration. Mainstream governments should not ignore these pressure, but should address the legitimate concerns that can fuel them. Thirdly, we need a better working relationship between euro and non-euro countries, and the fact that large countries such as the UK will not be in the eurozone. There is a remorseless logic that the eurozone needs ever-closer union, and Britain does not want to be part of it, Osborne concludes. Now George Osborne speaks, saying his ‘clear economic plan’ has given the UK a pretty secure footing going forwards. But we don’t duck big decisions - the Scottish referendum, for example, has “checked a move towards the break-up” of the UK. And with the EU referendum, Britain is seeking a more competitive EU. I have sat on panels for five years, hearing people talk about creating more competition. Now we need to do it, says Osborne. And he cites an old Chinese proverb: Talk does not cook rice. On Europe, Lagarde says the economy is in better shape than a year ago,. But the IMF has two big concerns: One is Brexit, and whether there is a deal between the United Kingdom and the rest of Europe. We hope very much [there is a deal], as it would really be conducive to more stability and a more cohesive economic zone. The second is the refugee crisis, which Lagarde calls a ‘make-or-break’ issue for Europe, Lagarde adds. If it is well-handled and the integration process is handled well, it will be an upside for the eurozone, boosting growth particularly in Sweden and Germany. So do you agree that the refugee crisis is ‘make or break’ for the Schengen area? Speaking personally, not as MD as the IMF, Yes, I think so, Lagarde replies. Lagarde says there are four key risks: China’s economic rebalancing, as it moves from industry to service, export to domestic market,and investment to consumption. Commodity prices, where the fall has accelerated in the last 18 months. Asynchronous monetary policies around the world, creating capital flows as money returns to the US, depreciating the currencies of some emerging markets. And emerging markets - Lagarde says India and China are performing much better than Brazil or Russia. [Is this the death of the BRICS idea?] Christine Lagarde says the IMF believes the world economy will grow at a faster rate, even though it cut its growth forecasts this week. From 3.1% in 2015, the IMF expects growth of 3.4% in 2016 and 3.6% in 2017. Credit Suisse CEO Tidjane Thiam says the financial markets have had their worst start to a year ever. Fears over China’s economy are a prime factor, prompting market turmoil and concerns that we could be heading into a global recession. Massive outflows from asset managers, some from sovereign wealth funds, as they face losses on their And there is a shortage of liquidity in the market, which means shares and bonds are more volatile. But investors are over-reacting, and should remember that the fall in the oil price is good for consumers, good for Europe, and good for 5 billion people who are net importers of oil. The FT’s Martin Wolf is chairing the debate, and spending several minutes running through the state of play today. And it’s not great - world stock markets are in turmoil, everyone’s worrying about China, emerging economies face a tough year, the US economy may be slowing too, the migration crisis is threatening European Union, populism is on the rise, and Britain may be heading towards Brexit. What on earth is going on, he demands? Reminder, the panel are UK chancellor George Osborne, Japanese central bank governor Haruhiko Kuroda, IMF managing director Christine Lagarde, Indian finance minister Arun Jaitley, and Credit Suisse CEO Tidjane Thiam. Cowbells are ringing across the Davos conference centre (yes, really), signalling that the debate on the Global Economy is starting now. This year, the ’s Davos bureau is a prime table at the heart of WEF, just outside the office of founder Klaus Schwab. And from there, we’ve seen a string of senior politicians and top central bankers emerge from a meeting. That includes the IMF’s Christine Lagarde, Bank of England governor Mark Carney, Finland’s finance minister Alex Stubb, and Axel Weber of UBS. It’s not a crisis meeting, though, but an IGWEL - an informal gathering of world and economic leaders. Stubb has helpfully tweeted from the meeting. Gideon Rachman, the Financial Times’s top foreign affairs writer, reckons that this year’s World Economic Forum has been dogged by the “shadow of populism”: Davos delegates shouldn’t be surprised that the public are looking at the state of the world economy, and the political landscape, and decide that a change is needed. But the sort of populism promoted by Donald Trump is rather alien, and alarming, for those at WEF. Gideon writes: The shadow of Donald Trump has loomed over Davos this year. So has the prospect that refugee flows into Europe will undermine centrist leaders such as Angela Merkel, the German chancellor. More broadly, those at Davos are aware that they increasingly represent the “unpopular” — the business and political elites that are the targets of public anger and disillusionment. Sooner or later, most corridor conversations in Davos have turned to the US presidential election. It is gradually dawning on people in the Swiss resort that either Mr Trump or Ted Cruz, the Texas senator, will probably win the Republican nomination, and that the “unthinkable” — a Trump or Cruz victory in November’s presidential election — could happen. Our economics editor Larry Elliott has been coming to Davos for two decades. And he writes that this year’s meeting has been particulary dominated downbeat. For Justin Welby, mulling over the state of the world in Davos has been easier than the previous week spent trying to hammer out an Anglican church compromise over gay marriage. The Archbishop of Canterbury even cracked one of the better jokes at the World Economic Forum. Asked whether god is in cyberspace, Welby replied: “I think he must be because every time I am on the underground or a bus I see people looking at their computer or mobile phone saying ‘oh god, why won’t this work’.” Humour has been in short supply at this year’s Davos. The optimism of a year ago that the global economy was on the up after the deep slump of 2008-09 has disappeared fast.... Here’s the full piece: So, what have we learned from Davos this year? In a nutshell, the so-called ‘global elite’ are worried about a range of problems, and struggling to make much progress in solving them. There’s been no end of talk about refugees, market turmoil, oil, the risk of a new pandemic, and gender inequality. But no real sign that we’re close to a breakthrough on any of it. As one senior delegate put it, 2016 is going to be a year of shocks. Some delegates might be heading for the ski slopes but there still signs of work being done. It’s all go in the main Congress centre this morning. We’ve spotted Bank of England governor Mark Carney, Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Tidjane Thiam, chief executive of Credit Suisse and WPP’s Sir Martin Sorrell coming from one direction. From another direction there’s been a string of top bankers. To name a few: Ana Botín of Santander, António Horta-Osório of Lloyds Banking Group, Bill Winters of Standard Chartered, Axel Webber of UBS and Stuart Gulliver of HSBC. A drugs scandal has hit Davos this year, in a serious embarrassment for the Swiss authorities. It’s not the delegates who have been puffing and snorting, though, but a dozen of the soldiers who patrol the ski resorts roads. They’ve been sent home, and may face criminal charges. The AFP newswire has the details: Twelve on-duty soldiers had tested positive on Tuesday for cannabis and five of them had also used cocaine, army spokesman Stefan Hofer told the ATS news agency. The twelve, among some 4,500 soldiers brought in to ensure security at the World Economic Forum this week, had been tested after others in their unit raised the alarm. Using drug-sniffing dogs, military police had also discovered that one of the soldiers had more than three grammes of cocaine in his possession, according to the report. Guten Morgen. Just like the wicked, there’s no rest for the world’s global elite. So world leaders, CEOs, union chiefs, economists and journalists are gathering for the final act of the 2016 World Economic Forum. There’s a different feel in Davos today. Partly because it’s Saturday, which means this gorgeous ski resort actually has some skiers here today, trudging through the snow alongside delegates. And partly because after three days discussing the problems of the world economy, everyone’s a bit shattered and ready to go home. But not before the final big event, a debate on the world economy. On the panel: UK chancellor George Osborne, Japanese central banker Haruhiko Kuroda, IMF managing director Christine Lagarde, Indian finance minister Arun Jaitley, and Credit Suisse CEO Tidjane Thiam. It begins in an hour’s time, at 10.30am Davos time or 9.30am UK time. You should be able to watch it here. We’ll cover it in this liveblog, along with any other major developments at Davos, and try to work out what (if anything) has been achieved this year....
Keir Starmer: UK should guarantee EU citizens' rights before talks begin Theresa May should unilaterally pass legislation to secure the rights of up to 3 million European Union citizens to stay in Britain or risk souring the tone of the Brexit talks, according to Labour’s Keir Starmer. The shadow Brexit secretary said May should act immediately and abandon her increasingly controversial position of refusing to make any concession over the rights of EU citizens in the UK without securing equivalent guarantees for the 1.2 million UK citizens living elsewhere in the EU. “It’s becoming increasingly apparent to me from my discussions in Brussels with those that are likely to be involved in the negotiations that they are very concerned about the fact that we are not giving comfort and status to their citizens,” he told the . “They have said to me, pretty well in terms, the UK should sort this out before March, and that would ensure that the article 50 negotiations got off to a much better start than they will otherwise do.” Relations between the UK and the rest of the EU have become increasingly heated on the topic. On Tuesday the European council president, Donald Tusk, published a strongly worded letter to a group of Conservative MPs saying the issue would have to wait for formal negotiations to begin and appeared to blame the British electorate for causing the uncertainty in the first place. Starmer described Tusk’s letter as unhelpful, but said it “points to the need to act unilaterally now, and is further evidence of the unhelpful atmosphere that has been created in the lead-up to the negotiations”. In his letter Tusk added: “The only way to dispel the fears and doubts of all citizens concerned is the quickest possible start of the negotiations based on article 50 of the treaty.” But Starmer, the MP for Holborn and St Pancras in London, said the government should take more urgent action as a goodwill gesture before formal talks begin. “Everywhere you go there is a mounting sense of very real injustice. I think everybody feels it; it’s across parties, and it can’t be left unresolved any longer.” At prime minister’s questions on Wednesday, May defended her approach. She said: “I think the reaction that we have seen shows it was absolutely right for us not to do what the Labour party wanted us to do, which was simply to give away the guarantee for rights of EU citizens here in the UK. As we have seen, that would have left UK citizens in Europe high and dry.” The government has suggested the vast majority of those EU citizens already living in the UK are likely to be entitled to apply for permanent residence, because they have been here for more than five years. But Starmer said that could be a bureaucratic and unwieldy process and could overwhelm the resources of the Home Office. He added that “permanent residence” was an EU concept, which would be expected to fall away when Britain leaves. Instead, he suggested the government could “pass a domestic law, dealing with the status of these individuals, and it would get cross-party support, and could be passed very swiftly”. He added: “At the very least there ought to be clarity for those who were already here on 23 June.” The bad blood between London and Brussels over the future of EU citizens was indicative of a wider problem with the tone the government had adopted as it approached the coming negotiations, Starmer claimed, warning about “mixed messages” from London. He contrasted May’s Conservative party conference speech, widely interpreted as signalling she favoured hard Brexit, with reassurances subsequently given to Nissan about continued access to the single market. “It’s very difficult to suggest that what [May] said at conference and the Nissan assurance are the same thing, and so mixed messages are being received in Brussels. That is not healthy.” He added that the sometimes jocular tone of the foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, risked offending his EU counterparts. “They perceive an arrogance on behalf of the UK, and Boris Johnson may think he’s very amusing in his approach, but my perception is our EU partners are not in the mood for that kind of amusement.” He added: “We need to make sure that the tone is right.” With just four months to go until May’s self-imposed end-of-March deadline for triggering article 50, Starmer said he believed there was still a tussle within the government about what kind of relationship with the EU it wanted to aim at when negotiations began. “I think they haven’t come to a final view, and that is because the argument about Europe that has been going on for years in the Tory party has broken out like never before,” he said. “It’s become an argument about the very future of our country.” Labour’s own stance on Brexit has sometimes appeared less than unanimous, and senior party figures have told the that Starmer himself – one of the highest profile promotions when Jeremy Corbyn refilled his frontbench after the summer leadership challenge – is being “man marked”. He underlined Corbyn’s insistence that the party would not seek to block the triggering of article 50 – but did not rule out amending any legislation the government brings to parliament, to force May to reveal more about her negotiating stance. “We won’t frustrate the process, but we do want to put some grip and grit into the process, to ensure that parliament and the public know the prime minister’s starting position,” he said. Asked if that could mean Labour tabling amendments to any bill, he said: “So long as it doesn’t frustrate the process, then it is important to look at options.” Asked whether Brexit presented “enormous opportunities”, as the shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, recently said, Starmer replied: “I think there are huge risks in Brexit; and I see the task of the Labour party as being to ensure that we get the best possible outcome that works for everybody in the UK.” He also struck a somewhat different tone from the shadow home secretary, Diane Abbott, on how Labour should tackle voters’ concerns about immigration. Starmer crisscrossed the country earlier this year as shadow immigration minister – a job Abbott has not taken on herself alongside the home affairs brief. Abbott used a recent interview to insist that Labour must champion the benefits of immigration, or risk becoming “Ukip-lite”. Starmer said it was right to praise the contribution of migrants to Britain’s economy and society. But he said hundreds of conversations across the north-east, north-west, east and Wales had convinced him that “Labour needs to have a better answer for those that are concerned about immigration”. “I don’t think we can hide from that, and don’t think frankly it was just the referendum. I think this has been a growing issue for five or 10 years, and it’s an issue on which Labour needs to get on the front foot, and off the back foot, and that means we have got to listen to what people are telling us are their concerns.” Abbott and the shadow business secretary, Clive Lewis, have suggested that boosting trade union rights to enhance workers’ bargaining power and prevent wages being undercut could help allay voters’ concerns. But Starmer insisted the party should also develop new policies on integrating different ethnic groups – an issue likely to be tackled in a forthcoming review by Louise Casey. “There is a big labour market element to it of course,” Starmer said, but he added: “I do think there is a wider piece about how our communities live together, and we ensure that integration works in a way that benefits everybody, and by that I mean as much those arriving as those who are already here. “That’s a debate that Labour have not engaged in at all really over recent years. And we shouldn’t be scared of this territory. In a sense, we don’t want to hear what people are saying to us; we just sort of move the conversation on. And my concern is Labour are not seen to be listening on this, and we need to be.”
Disney princesses contribute to 'body esteem' issues among young girls, finds study It’s official: Disney princesses reinforce “limiting” gender stereotypes in young girls, and contribute to “body esteem” issues. A study published by Brigham Young university’s Sarah M Coyne, titled Pretty as a Princess, examined the effects of the pervasive “princess culture” that revolves around the Disney Princess marketing brand – concluding that it is not as “safe” as many parents suppose. “We know that girls who strongly adhere to female gender stereotypes feel like they can’t do some things,” Coyne said. “They’re not as confident that they can do well in math and science. They don’t like getting dirty, so they’re less likely to try and experiment with things.” Coyne based her study on a set of almost 200 pre-school children, both boys and girls, and how much their behaviour appeared affected by their consumption of Disney Princess material. The study also showed that, over time, girls with body esteem issues were more likely to “engage more with the Disney Princesses over time”. According to Coyne: “Disney Princesses represent some of the first examples of exposure to the thin ideal. As women, we get it our whole lives, and it really does start at the Disney Princess level, at age three and four.” Coyne also suggested she was supportive of the 2013 protests against the “glam” version of the Merida character from Disney’s Brave, which saw the company hit with a petition when it issued a redesigned image of the Scottish princess. “What drives me crazy is when you get a princess who’s not gender stereotyped, like Merida from Brave. I took my daughter to see it, and afterward we had a great conversation about how strong, brave and independent Merida was in the movie. And then in the marketing, Disney slims her down, sexualises her, takes away her bow and arrow, gives her makeup – feminises her.” Disney debuted its Princess brand in 2000, and through the sale of toys, games, figurines and multiple fashion accessories, has made an estimated revenue of more than $5.5bn for the company. However, it has come in for repeated criticism since Peggy Orenstein’s celebrated 2006 New York Times article, What’s Wrong with Cinderella?
BBC ‘fairness and balance’ won’t woo the young to vote Phew! “So far we’ve stayed out of trouble,” said one of my BBC friends the other day. He meant that neither side on the Brexit trail had yet blamed our beloved corporation four-square for some gross presentational infringement or bias blunder. Keeping out of trouble seemed the height of his ambition. But talk to people – especially young people – and trouble comes running. The great enemy, you’ll soon gather, is apathy. At a moment when voting on your future has never been so important, millions may stay in bed. And, of course, that’s supposedly the campaigners’ fault: too cautious, negative, non-inspirational. But the next time you reach for a remote, put our old chums Fairness and Balance into the scales. For every Gove, there must be an Osborne. For every Dave, a Nigel or Boris. For every Obama, a Marine Le Pen. Early morning starts on Today? The answer’s a Liam, no charge ever knowingly under-answered. And it’s excruciatingly tedious because (a) you never get a clear case delivered without interruption; (b) Nick, John, Justin and co are always ritually sceptical towards whoever they’re interviewing, so that everyone sounds querulous or shifty; and (c) F and B is in any case a self-cancelling routine. True fairness and balance might factor in the unbalanced power of Project Calm Rationality. It could even extend to supplying a little background about those “experts” it fields. (Has the ubiquitous Daniel Hannan, for instance, ever negotiated a trade deal, as opposed to writing leaders for the Telegraph?) And why pretend that the accumulated weight of the IMF, OECD, Bank of England, White House, NFU, TUC, CBI and IFS can somehow be wiped away when Chris Grayling demands his rebuttal moment? Fairness – a pretty dodgy concept anyway when you try to refine it – includes context and transparency, not merely he-says-she-says. But, then, it also needs to be balanced against a quiet life.
What I’m really thinking: the person in therapy There are certain topics of conversation that will stop anyone in their tracks. Admitting to having a weekly therapy habit is, in my experience, the pinnacle of ending small talk. Brits tend to frown upon therapy as a weekly expenditure – £40 an hour, if you must know. I get that. However, I don’t understand people who spend £40 on their nails once a week, so let’s call it even. Therapy is, to most, the Freudian movie version. A bespectacled, bearded, German-accented old man in a wing-backed chair, pipe in mouth, asking me (lying on a sofa, like a damsel) how that makes me feel. However, my therapist is young, with a beard (in a hipster way, not a Gandalf way), and I can assure you I have never lain down on a sofa, although I do sit on one. There is no suggestion that every thought I have can be traced back to my mother or my father, or phallic analogies. We talk about the things that keep me awake at night, the flashbacks to my past that happen in the middle of my day-to-day life. Freud has never been mentioned. I have seen nine therapists and psychiatrists to get to this point, and it hasn’t been easy. What we talk about now isn’t easy, either. It’s not meant to be. I don’t know that it matters why I spend 12% of my monthly income paying a stranger to listen to my dark confessions. I find huge relief in talking to someone who has no stake in my life and who can help me work out why some days are harder than others. So, if I mention therapy to you, please don’t balk. Just smile and nod while you admire your £40 manicure. • Tell us what you’re really thinking – email mind@theguardian.com
ITV’s EU referendum debate with Cameron and Farage draws 4 million ITV’s referendum debate between David Cameron and Nigel Farage drew an average of 4 million viewers, making it the most popular current affairs show so far this year. The showdown between the Ukip leader and the prime minister, who answered questions in turn from a live studio audience, was the most watched programme at 9pm hitting a five-minute peak audience of 4.6 million. Interest in the primetime standoff, in which Farage was accused of racism, matched the audience for the BBC general election debate last April, although it was still some way short of ITV’s leaders’ debate with all seven party leaders. All the major broadcasters, along with other media sites such as Facebook and BuzzFeed, have planned debates in the run-up to the 23 June referendum. The ITV debate with Farage and the prime minister attracted double the audience of the BBC’s first debate hosted by Victoria Derbyshire on 26 May. How should I vote? The EU Debate, aimed at younger voters, attracted an overnight audience of 2 million. However, the first of a four-part series of Andrew Neil interviews on BBC1 on Monday night attracted an audience of 2.3 million to watch the relatively low-profile Hilary Benn. Neil’s second interview with chancellor George Osborne airs at 7.30 on BBC1. The BBC has two more Question Time specials planned with the prime minister and prominent Leave campaigner Michael Gove after Cameron refused to appear against his Conservative colleagues. There will also be a live debate at Wembley arena on 21 June, although the panellists have not yet been confirmed. Tuesday night’s Brexit debate, hosted by Julie Etchingham, saw each leader face half an hour of questions on the economy, immigration, security and sovereignty from the 200-strong audience. The programme drew a 20% share of all TV viewers between 9pm and 10pm, beating the final of BBC1 drama In the Club. ITV said the debate hit the top trending topic worldwide on Twitter during the broadcast.
First modern Olympic Games marked by Google Doodle Google has marked the 120th anniversary of the first modern Olympic Games with its latest sporting doodle. The doodle – four versions designed by Olivia Huynh, each featuring a different event from the Games – honours the 1896 Games of the I Olympiad in Athens, which involved nine sports in the Panathenaic Stadium. Two-hundred-and-forty-one men, representing 14 countries, competed in a total of 43 events, in tennis, fencing, weightlifting, track and field, cycling, shooting, swimming, wrestling and gymnastics. Google’s previous sporting efforts have included a World Twenty20 themed doodle linking to the search term “cricket score”, the blue, red, orange and green effort for the Canada 2015 Women’s World Cup final, one for its Indian and Pakistani sites during the 2015 Cricket World Cup, and another celebrating the start of the 100th Tour de France in 2013.
Amanda Knox review – intriguing but flawed Netflix documentary Film-makers Rod Blackhurst and Brian McGinn got a scoop in persuading Amanda Knox to speak for the first time on camera. This was the US foreign-language student in Perugia, Italy, who with her boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito was wrongly convicted of murdering her British flatmate Meredith Kercher in some supposed kinky sex game fantasised by the prosecution. The 2007 judgment was finally overturned after years of appeals. But slightly exasperatingly, the film never gets round to much more than stating – or implying – the obvious: the Italian police and judiciary were guilty of grotesque incompetence, panic, misogyny and misplaced national pride in all but overlooking the obvious culprit in favour of believing that photogenic foreigner Knox was an evil witch. This film could have looked harder at the authorities’ murky and compromised mindset, and made that the focus of their film – along the lines of Nathaniel Rich’s invaluable essay for Rolling Stone in 2011. Instead, they do a steady job of interviewing most of the main players, keeping a deadpan if spurious air of mystery, as Knox says some faintly melodramatic stuff about being perceived as a “psychopath in sheep’s clothing”. Interviewees include the smug nincompoop of a prosecutor and the journalist who made most of the running in the press pack, the Mail’s Nick Pisa. He sounds crass and insensitive sometimes, but the media bear only negligible guilt, compared to the bizarre and contemptible behaviour of the legal authorities. Knox was a naive 20-year-old when this nightmare happened, deprived of proper legal advice and in a state of shock which was wilfully misinterpreted. Her ordeal is over; the Kercher family’s continues.
Back in black: car fan finds lost British star of La Dolce Vita In one of Italian cinema’s most famous moments, a daring Anita Ekberg wades into Rome’s Trevi fountain with actor Marcello Mastroianni in her wake. The couple, the stars of La Dolce Vita, arrive at the scene after driving through the city in a British sports car – the Triumph TR3. More than half a century later, that Triumph has been rediscovered in Italy by a former senator with a passion for vintage cars, and is now set to return to Rome. “For about a year I searched for a Triumph TR3. Because it’s a fascinating car – an English car,” said Filippo Berselli, surrounded by the paper trail that helped him discover the vehicle’s past. The black number plate was the first hint of something special, he added. “Out of every 100 Triumphs in Italy, 98 arrive from the US and have a white number plate. One or a maximum of two were kept in Italy.” Berselli traced the Triumph’s ownership back through the decades and found it was once owned by Riama Film, a Rome-based production company. A certificate from the British Motor Industry Heritage Trust shows it was built on 6 February 1958 as a pearl white model, with red trim and a black hood, and shipped to Italy. By the time it appeared on the set of Federico Fellini’s La Dolce Vita, which won the 1962 Oscar for costume design and the Palme d’Or at Cannes two years earlier, the car had been painted black. “It was the most important and beautiful of Fellini’s films, and the most well-known Italian film in the world,” said Berselli, who regards Mastroianni as the best-loved Italian actor. Berselli found the Triumph in Pesaro, central Italy, where he bought it for €30,000 (£24,700). After its film stint it had been sold in 1963 to a buyer in nearby Viterbo, before being bought in central Forli six years later, only to be sold on in Pesaro in 1970. Now Fabrizio Pompilio, the owner of Racing Color mechanics near Rimini, has been charged with restoring the TR3. Its colour has been changed back to black from white, a task that involved removing three layers of paintwork. “I stripped away everything I could to bring her back – perfect, beautiful, marvellous – to how she was in the years the legendary maestro Fellini used her,” said Pompilio. After about a month of work the car body is now gleaming but was still in pieces on the garage floor when the visited this week. New electrics have been installed and red upholstery has been ordered from the UK in keeping with the 1950s original. Pompilio said: “I’ve done all the work in the old-fashioned way … The new way is excellent, it works well, it’s just that she – the Triumph TR3 from La Dolce Vita – is something else. She’s from another planet.” The Italian mechanic, who has spent 35 years in the trade and also has a 1930s Balilla and two Fiat 500s waiting to be restored, added: “It’s in my DNA, to bring old cars back to how they were when they were born.” He is working on the Triumph for free with separate experts brought in for the tyres and electrics. Pompilio has until 14 July to complete the work before the car is taken to Rome and put on display until the end of the month. This time, the Triumph will not be driven along Italian roads by an actor posing as a hedonistic journalist, as Fellini had it. Instead, rather more prosaically, it will be placed in a truck. Pompilio says the risk of an accident is too high to allow the TR3 on the road, adding: “It’s as if we’re bringing something that doesn’t have a price; a piece of history that no one can touch.”
Teething problems: why brain scans are as inaccurate as dental records for checking age The media furore over dental checks to establish the ages of child migrants arriving from Calais has raised the question of how we define – and prove – adulthood. Dentists have said the checks would likely be inaccurate, not to mention unethical. Brain imaging wouldn’t be much use either, as recent research has shown the brain continues developing right up until the mid-20s and beyond. Growth of grey matter is very rapid from around the age of 12, but peaks a few years later. What follows in later adolescence is a pruning and sculpting of the many connections that have sprouted during puberty. It could be argued that experiences in this period are as important as earlier ones, and in some ways more significant, as they affect the brain’s frontal lobe which deals with the development of character and morality. Insurance companies seem to have realised this, as car insurance premiums change depending on your age right into your 20s. And since 2013, child psychologists have worked with under 25s, not just under 18s. It’s just a shame that this is not currently reflected by our asylum policy. Dr Daniel Glaser is director of Science Gallery at King’s College London
Jeremy Hunt on the NHS: 'This decade needs to see the quality revolution' On the railings of Richmond House in Whitehall hangs a lopsided strip of cardboard that reads, in multicoloured letters, “You just failed the NHS, JH, not us.” In his spacious ministerial office, two floors above, Jeremy Hunt, currently a hate figure among junior doctors for imposing on them a contract he says they will come to appreciate in time, is explaining that vilification comes as no surprise to a health secretary. “I was talking to Ken Clarke yesterday and he was saying how he was pursued by nurses to the airport when he was going on holiday with his family – the BMA put up posters of him all over the country. I had a similar conversation with Norman Fowler and someone was telling me yesterday how Patricia Hewitt had the mums of junior doctors pursuing her everywhere she went,” he says. Had he been pursued? There had been “one or two incidents, but it goes with the territory,” he says, with a polite smile. It is early in the morning the day after the contract has been imposed, to widespread condemnation and warnings from doctors that they will leave the UK. Hunt, in his trademark immaculate white shirt, is willing to talk about the junior doctors as part of a wide-ranging interview at the close of the ’s four-week series, This is the NHS. The series has been great, he says, and “really human”. He wants to explain his thinking on the NHS and move beyond the “fairly repetitive debates” on fraught political issues like privatisation. “One of the challenges I have as health secretary is that everything I do is automatically controversial because I am a politician and it’s automatically seen through the prism of ideology of party politics,” he says. “About a year before I became culture secretary, I had a BCC [basal cell carcinoma], which is a small mole, removed from my head. I was lying flat on my back in Chelsea and Westminster, the surgeon had his knife out and I’d had the local anaesthetic put in and the nurse in the operating theatre looked at me and said, ‘By the way, Mr Hunt, what is it you do for a living?’ “And I froze. I thought – my goodness, is this the moment when I confess to being a Conservative cabinet minister?” Hunt is laughing at the memory, but turns serious as he takes on the critics who think he wants to sell off the NHS. In unequivocal terms, he pledges his loyalty to a tax-funded health service, free at the point of delivery. He has had “fantastic care from the NHS all my life”, he says, including during the birth of his three children. “My admiration for the NHS has gone up since becoming health secretary because – despite the many problems – what I think is special in this system is the relationship between doctor and patient where there is no conflict of interest caused by money,” he says. He references the US, where there are pockets of extraordinary innovation and use of technology, but: “The problem is there is always that question in the back of your mind about whether or not the reason you have been given this advice is to bring in extra revenue for the hospital or for the physician involved – and you know that’s part of the reason why there is a big tradition of consulting two or three doctors in America about every medical ailment.” What we have, with the NHS free at the point of care, is pretty special, he says, and he would not change the way it is funded. “A single payer system which removes that conflict of interest with respect to money and profit is actually something that has the potential to give us the safest and highest-quality healthcare in the world. I think there is a journey we have to go on, but it has that potential.” Hunt is from a “true blue family”, he says, the son of an admiral, with aristocratic antecedents, brought up in the picturesque Surrey village of Shere on the North Downs. He was head boy at Charterhouse school and graduated with a first in politics, philosophy and economics from Magdalen College, Oxford. It is an unmistakably privileged background, but, he says, he was taught to value the NHS at his father’s knee. The NHS “remains the single biggest reason why most people are proud to be British”, he says. “Because we were the first country in the world to say it doesn’t matter who you are – rich or poor, young or old, north or south – you should have access to excellent healthcare and it should never be a question of your bank balance. “I think that resonates with something we think is deeply British and I do think people on the left completely wrongly assume that no Conservative could ever feel pride in that. We do.” But the clash with the junior doctors, whose cause was supported by their consultant colleagues and much of the public, has been damaging. Relations with the GPs and consultants are also strained and Hunt will struggle to make his critics believe the NHS is safe in his hands. He says there was “no risk-free option”. They were in deadlock and Sir David Dalton, the chief executive of the Salford Royal NHS foundation trust, who was chief negotiator, “clearly advised that there is no negotiated settlement available”, says Hunt. The alternative, as he saw it, was to back down and renege on the government’s manifesto pledge to deliver seven-day working in the NHS in England (the contracts have been imposed on junior doctors in England only) “despite the overwhelming evidence we have of higher mortality rates at weekends”. He cites 15 international studies since 2010 – eight in this country. “You can argue about individual statistics and there’s been plenty of debate about that,” he says, obliquely referring to accusations that he had misrepresented the figures for stroke deaths, but “I don’t think you will find any doctors disputing the fact there are higher mortality rates at weekends.” He claims he has made a big compromise over the junior doctors’ contracts, agreeing that anyone working one in four Saturdays or more would get paid at a higher rate. “Right now it’s going to be very difficult for a health secretary to say anything at all that is given a warm round of applause by junior doctors,” he says, but he thinks the mood will change. He believes the doctors will come to realise that the imposed contract is different from the original offer, “substantially closer to what the BMA were asking for”. Morale has improved in those hospitals that have already introduced seven-day working, he says. “Doctors are happiest in their jobs when they are able to give the best care to patients,” he says. “I think one of the reasons morale is low in junior doctors is because if you go and work at weekends now as a junior doctor – which they do in abundance – it is very tough. There are half the number of consultants working in A&E departments on a Sunday as there are in the rest of the week, despite it being one of the busiest days of the week. “You might well end up having to work for longer than you planned, you might end up being called in when you weren’t expecting to go in at the weekend and you know in that situation it is tough.” The junior doctors are angry because “they are probably the hardest-working people in the NHS, working the most evenings, the most weekends and therefore they feel very stressed”, and because the old training structure, where they learned from following and doing the bidding of a consultant, collapsed when the European working time directive limited the hours they worked. “So I think those two things meant that when there was a contractual dispute – which started with the BMA wrongly telling everyone that the government wanted to cut their pay by between 30 and 50% – it lit a touch paper and I think that is what caused it.” Hanging on the wall in a corner of the office is the famous whiteboard listing “never events” – mistakes such as a surgeon removing the wrong kidney that should never happen. Seven incidents have been recorded on there from the previous three weeks. It is not a stick to beat the NHS with, says Hunt. “I want to normalise openness and transparency.” Shortly after he moved into the office, installing a director’s chair with HUNT in white capitals on its black canvas back and a photograph with Sylvester Stallone from his days as culture secretary, he had to deal with the scandal at the Mid Staffordshire NHS foundation trust. Nurses were accused of neglecting patients and falsifying data to make it look as though they were meeting waiting-time targets. There were tragic stories of suffering patients and investigations into deaths. The Francis inquiry report found very serious failings at the trust. It was a watershed moment for the NHS and profoundly influenced Hunt’s thinking. Bracketing together Mid Staffs and Winterbourne View, the care home where vulnerable residents were abused by staff, Hunt spoke in 2012 of “a kind of normalisation of cruelty where the unacceptable is legitimised and the callous becomes mundane”. Some in the NHS felt Hunt was using these shocking examples of bad practice to attack the entire system. He says he is on a mission to improve the quality of care. International studies say the NHS is the best in the world, he says, with the smallest gap in healthcare available to rich and poor, but we have tended to think that what matters is access in the shape of waiting times. “I think we were right to do that in the 2000s under the Blair government,” he says. “I think that government deserves credit for bringing down waiting times and we must make sure, despite the pressures in the NHS, that we don’t compromise that legacy. “But actually, for the promise of equity to be delivered, we also have to have the highest-quality care. So I think if the first decade of this century was the access revolution, I think the second decade needs to be the quality revolution.” He credits Lord Ara Darzi, the world-renowned surgeon brought into the Blair government as a health minister, for kickstarting the quality agenda that he is now determined to advance. The first step is complete honesty over where care is not up to scratch, he says. Since he has been in post, 27 hospitals have been put into special measures and 11 have been removed from the list. “I think even my harshest critics would acknowledge that programme has been an extraordinary success and the quality of care in those trusts – though not all of them – has improved dramatically,” he says. He claims they are doing for hospitals what Ofsted did for schools when it was set up in 1991 and put failed schools into special measures. He cites the recent story, which showed that affluent parents were now choosing state schools over private. The second step is to make sure that what is being measured is the actual quality of care – not just the performance of a hospital or mental health trust. And the third is to end the blame culture and make it much easier for nurses and doctors to speak out when mistakes are made. We need, he says, “a supportive learning culture” if quality is to improve. “In our NHS at the moment, we have stillbirth rates that are too high, neonatal death rates that are too high and too many never events … We have got to learn that we can’t vilify doctors every time something goes wrong. We have to recognise that the most important thing is to learn from what went wrong; that is what every patient says who has had a bad experience or a tragedy.” Hunt, lean, fit and drinking water, is aware of the need to prevent people becoming patients if the NHS is not to be overwhelmed. He does not suggest, unlike some in his party, including the prime minister, have done in the past, that obesity is a personal responsibility. “The question is whether we are going to do something about it – and I think we have to,” he says. It is “incredibly worrying” that one in 10 people will have type 2 diabetes within a couple of decades. He will not be drawn on the chances of a sugar tax, which chef Jamie Oliver is campaigning for, other than to say that nothing is off the table. “We are absolutely clear that it is essential that we end up with children consuming less sugar and we are looking at all the options, but we want to do it and we want to do it quickly,” he says, in spite of the delay in the childhood obesity strategy, which was originally supposed to be published in December. Is the government prepared to get tough with the food and drink manufacturers? “I think that is a choice for the food industry. They could be a positive force in this or they can be obstructive,” he says. Things will move faster if they cut the sugar in their products, “but we aren’t going to have a strategy that relies on them being cooperative. It’s too important and they need to understand that they have to do the right thing.” He admits the NHS needs more money, but the answer is not a social insurance model, as some European countries have, he says. He was the co-author with a group of Tory MPs of a policy pamphlet in 2005 entitled Direct Democracy: an agenda for a new model party, which called for the NHS to be replaced by health insurance and access to the private sector, but has since denied he wrote that chapter. Eleven years on, he says the tax-funded NHS is admired for its cost control and he is categorical that insurance is a bad idea, saying that car insurance premiums inflate because nobody has an incentive to keep the costs down. “The biggest risk to a single payer model when it’s coming through taxation is if the government screws up the economy,” he says. “If you have a strong growing economy, governments always have a choice to put more money into the NHS. It’s what Tony Blair did in the early 2000s. It’s what George Osborne did in the last spending review. “And as we eliminate the deficit, providing the economy continues to grow, we will have that choice again in the future. I, for one, think we will have to put more money into the NHS, going forward, because of the pressures of an ageing population.” He could see, he says, “a period of substantial above-inflation increases providing the economy grows” in decades ahead. But for now, he says, they have given the NHS what it asked for and insists it is a good deal. And with that, the health secretary heads out of the door to catch a train to the south coast for one of his weekly trips to see what is happening on the ground in the NHS. This time it is to a children’s hospice. He may hope that by the time he encounters junior doctors in a hospital again, some of their hostility will have evaporated. That could take quite a while.
Marco Rubio's broken record blunder costs him New Hampshire debate Marco Rubio found himself stuck on repeat while fending off debate attacks from his Republican rivals on Saturday night, stumbling in his effort to claim the mantle of establishment presidential alternative ahead of New Hampshire’s crucial primary. The Florida senator, who gained momentum with a third-place finish in the Iowa caucuses and a wave of endorsements, has focused on a second-place finish in this less stridently conservative state in hopes of muscling rivals like Jeb Bush, Chris Christie and John Kasich out of the race. Instead, in a fiery final debate before Tuesday’s crucial vote, Rubio had one of the worst nights of his entire campaign – and may have inadvertently offered a more mellow Donald Trump a clearer path toward victory in New Hampshire and perhaps even crowded the field all over again. During a prolonged exchange that quickly went viral on social media, he repeated himself three times as he struggled to defend himself against Christie, the New Jersey governor who brought out the knives over Rubio’s relative inexperience. The second-term senator quickly pivoted to vice-president Joe Biden, who, Rubio said, “has been around for 1,000 years” and would not be fit to be commander-in-chief himself. Rubio then made the case that Barack Obama, to whom he is often compared by his opponents, was not as unsuccessful as critics suggested in terms of pursuing his own agenda. Christie, who in seeking his own opening in New Hampshire has condemned Rubio as “scripted”, interjected. “Marco, you shouldn’t compare yourself to Joe Biden,” he said, before pointing out Rubio named as an achievement passing sanctions against Hezbollah despite skipping the vote on the actual legislation. Rubio sought to fight back by going after Christie’s record in New Jersey, a state that has undergone several credit downgrades. But the Florida senator quickly pivoted to his talking points, going on to repeat the same answer three times in a row in a brutal back-and-forth. About half an hour later, he repeated the same talking points yet again. “There it is, there it is,” Christie said. “The memorized 25-second speech. There it is, everybody.” Even Rubio’s camp acknowledged the repetitive moment was a difficult one on a night when his rivals sought “to utterly destroy Marco Rubio, knock him out and leave him dead on the floor”, according to Rubio aide Todd Harris. “We had a tough exchange with Governor Christie,” he told the after the debate, “but Marco continued to get stronger and stronger throughout the night.” Mike DuHaime, a top Christie strategist, was more blunt: “If you’re not ready for a human exchange with another person on stage,” he told the , “you’re not ready to be president.” Bush, the former Florida governor who has avoided explicit attacks on Rubio, chimed in to curse his erstwhile protégé with faint praise. “Marco Rubio is a gifted, gifted politician, and he may have the skills to be president of the United States,” Bush said. “But we tried it with Barack Obama.” The Rubio barrage came relatively early in the debate, which sprawled nearly three hours with blustery exchanges on torture, immigration and abortion, but not before a bumbling start to the debate that included Ben Carson missing his cue to walk on the stage after being announced by the ABC moderator. The retired neurosurgeon was left standing awkwardly backstage, but Kasich, the Ohio governor, was not even introduced. Ted Cruz, who won in Iowa but is trailing Trump in New Hampshire, took more heated criticism from Carson over the accusation that the Texas senator’s campaign had spread a false rumor that Carson was dropping out of the race. Cruz then promptly reiterated his apology but tried to blame CNN, which had reported that Carson would be going home to Florida for a day or two on Iowa caucus night. Trump, who has been at the center of the storm for the Republicans’ previous seven debates before what pundits are calling a historically “self-destructive” night for Rubio, did not take too many direct assaults onstage. But he did react shakily to a question about eminent domain, the power of the government to seize property for “public use”. While its use is not controversial for government projects like roads or bridges, eminent domain is a hot-button issue here in New Hampshire for economic development projects led by private-property owners. The mogul has been accused of trying to have an elderly woman’s house in Atlantic City seized for a limousine parking lot for one of his casinos. Bush used the opportunity to draw blood, insisting to Trump that “a limousine parking lot for his casinos is not a public use”. Trump once again mocked Bush as “a tough guy”, holding a single finger to his lips, setting off a cascade of boos from the audience, which Trump welcomed. Instead of rebutting Bush on the facts, Trump used the opportunity to play the villain to the crowd as if he was a heel in professional wrestling. “All of his donors and special interests, you know has tickets,” the real estate mogul said. “The reason they are not loving me is because I don’t want their money”. The audience of 1,000 at St Anselm College, which the Republican National Committee said consisted of 75 donors, kept booing. Moments before the debate began, North Korea launched a long-range rocket, offering Rubio a moment to seize on foreign policy. Trump pivoted to trade: “We have – tremendous – has been just sucked out of our country by China. China says they don’t have that good of control over North Korea. They have tremendous control. I deal with the Chinese all of the time. I do tremendous – the largest bank in the world is in one of my buildings in Manhattan.” The back-and-forth left Cruz in an awkward position in a series of pointed questions about whether waterboarding constituted torture or whether the seven candidates onstage would reinstitute it: “I would not bring it back in any sort of widespread use,” he said. The debate marked Bush’s strongest showing to date, after tepid performances last year that dogged his flailing presidential campaign. His growing confidence comes at a time when the former governor is looking to New Hampshire to salvage his bid to become the third in his family to serve in the White House. Immigration reform was also discussed again in a state with a long history of supporting candidates such as Pat Buchanan who have been staunchly opposed to such reform. In particular, Rubio was targeted for his role authoring a comprehensive immigration reform bill in 2013, which he later disavowed after conservatives revolted over its inclusion of a pathway to citizenship for the roughly 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the US. Asked by debate moderators if he “cut and run” from his own bill, Rubio said the legislation “has no chance of passing” and laid out how he would address immigration reform as president. Christie again stepped in to note that Rubio had not answered the essence of the question – over whether he had shown effective leadership on the issue of immigration. “It is not leadership to continue to try something that has no chance of happening,” Rubio said. Kasich sounded a comparatively dovish note as well on the issue. “Americans would support a plan like this,” he said. “I think Congress would pass a plan to finish the border, guest worker, pay a fine, a path to legalization, and not citizenship.” Trump was relatively quiet on what has become his trademark subject, telling voters he would “build a real wall and not a toy wall” with Mexico. Ironically, in New Hampshire, a state known for its socially moderate electorate, the candidates had the most extended discussions about reproductive rights in the campaign so far. Rubio doubled down on his social conservative credentials, reiterating his opposition to abortion even in cases of rape and incest. “I would rather lose an election than be wrong on the issue of life,” the Florida senator proudly proclaimed. While that social conservative message may help him in the nominating fight, concerns about Rubio’s viability in a general election may be more academic than they were heading into the weekend. With strong showings from both Bush and Christie, Rubio’s grasp on second place in the Granite state appeared less clear after a night that could alter the momentum he so meticulously gained less than a week before.
Keeping Up With the Joneses review – the Mad Man next door A pair of staid suburbanites find their dull life stirred by the arrival of impossibly glamorous neighbours. It’s as if Don Draper and Wonder Woman moved in next door – and, indeed, they’re played by Jon Hamm and Gal Gadot. The treatment for this action spoof could have been written on the back of a matchbox – of a single match, even. Galifianakis and Fisher have fun being flustered, Gadot plays it wryly self-mocking, and Hamm alternates between his patented wolfish grin and a frown that can only be called the “is-there-really-life-after-Mad Men?” look.
Deutsche Bank shares fall to lowest level since mid-1980s Deutsche Bank has been scrambling to reassure investors it has enough cash to pay a multibillion-dollar fine for alleged wrongdoing a decade ago as its shares crumbled to new lows and knocked sentiment across the banking sector. Shares in Germany’s biggest bank lost more than 7.5% to €10.55 on Monday despite attempts by its senior executives to insist the bank would not need help from Angela Merkel’s government with the potential fine for mis-selling mortgage bonds. Deutsche, run by Briton John Cryan, had taken a pounding on markets even before the threat earlier this month of a $14bn (£11bn) demand from the US Department of Justice for mis-selling of the bonds between 2005 and 2007. The shares have more than halved this year on mounting concerns about its financial position. They have dropped to a level not seen since the mid-1980s and are at a record low, according to some calculation methods. Deutsche’s woes were a focus in the markets when investors were already rattled by the prospect of a “hard Brexit” by the UK – which could be denied access to the EU single market – and the political situation in the US ahead of the debate between presidential candidates Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. The FTSE 100 index dropped 1.3% – its biggest one-day fall since the immediate aftermath of the 23 June referendum – with shares in just seven companies up on the day. Banks’ shares were down, including Lloyds Banking Group, Barclays and Royal Bank of Scotland, which is awaiting settlement talks with the US authorities along similar lines to those in which Deutsche is embroiled. Some analysts warn RBS, which is 73% owned by taxpayers, could face a £9bn penalty. “Talk of a hard Brexit has not been welcomed by the market,” said Nicholas Hyett, equity analyst at financial firm Hargreaves Lansdown. In other parts, Europe’s stock markets were also lower and Wall Street was down ahead of the key presidential debate. Monday’s drop in the Deutsche share price came after Germany’s Focus magazine said Merkel had refused to intervene in the bank’s dispute with the US justice department and that the German chancellor had ruled out state assistance before the national election in September 2017. Jörg Eigendorf, head of communications at Deutsche, told CNBC: “[At] no point [in] time has John Cryan asked the chancellor for support in the negotiations with the Department of Justice and he doesn’t intend to do that. He’s very strong in that position.” Asked whether Deutsche needed to raise capital – the fine is around 80% of its stock market value – Eigendorf said: “This is just not a question for us right now. We fulfil the capital requirements. We have time to fulfil future capital requirements and that’s what we are working on.” The potential penalty from the DoJ – which Deutsche is contesting – is more than twice the €5.5bn (£4.8bn) that the bank has set aside for litigation costs. Even a fine some way below the £11bn demanded could strain Deutsche’s fragile finances and further dent investor confidence. It faces other potentially expensive inquiries into alleged currency manipulation, precious metals trading and billions of dollars of funds transferred out of Russia. Steffen Seibert, Merkel’s spokesman, also tried to play down the situation facing Deutsche. “There is no reason for such speculation as presented there and the federal government doesn’t engage in such speculation,” he said. Deutsche’s shares have been under pressure since early this year when the bank became the focal point of fears over European banking’s financial strength and profitability. In June, the International Monetary Fund said Deutsche was a bigger risk to the global financial system than any other bank because of its intertwined relationships with other international lenders. One investor expressed doubts about whether Germany would really stand aside. Andreas Utermann, chief investment officer of Allianz Global Investors, told Bloomberg television: “I don’t buy at all what’s coming out of Germany in terms of Germany not wanting to step in ultimately if Deutsche Bank was really in trouble ... It’s too important for the German economy.”
Sending fat smokers to the back of the queue is a betrayal of NHS values The Vale of York has been granted permission this week by NHS England to put fat people and smokers to the back of the queue for operations. Starting in January, their treatments will be delayed a year; the obese must lose 10% of their body weight, and smokers give up for at least two months. The Royal College of Surgeons says it is “very disappointed that NHS England and No 10 seem to be backing this arbitrary policy”. It’s always good advice to live healthily, but this crosses a new red line. The clinical commissioning group (CCG), which buys services for people in York and Selby, is the first to be given official permission, agreed by Downing Street, to discriminate against particular patients – something forbidden in the (non-justiciable) NHS constitution. But the CCG is in trouble, in July judged “inadequate” and put into special measures and prescribed a “financial turnaround” for its debts. Rationing will always be a part of the NHS social contract. Every system in the world rations: just look at the strict limits in US health insurance policies. There never was, or can ever be, an instant, ever-open door – however much politicians pretend, with their impossible seven-day pledges on no extra money, that there can be. But the UK system is judged one of the most efficient in the world, getting the biggest bang for its modest bucks, spending less than similar countries. The key is its unique gatekeeping GPs who dispense the great bulk of treatment, while the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice), devised by the last Labour government, judges which drugs and treatments are good enough value for money for the NHS. The rule of thumb is to spend up to £30,000 for an extra year of good quality life. Right from 1948, when the NHS was first set up, waiting lists were the traditional rationing mechanism. When governments tightened spending, waiting times grew, which was good for surgeons’ private practice. For the first time in history, the last Labour government all but abolished waiting lists, something seasoned NHS experts never thought possible. With a spending increase of 7% a year, new targets saw waiting times drop from sometimes two years to just 18 weeks maximum, and two weeks for suspected cancers. Surgeons’ incomes plummeted, as did payments for private healthcare. But in the present crisis, rationing is tightening everywhere. You get only one cataract fixed where CCGs think one eye is enough. The list of treatments being struck off is lengthening, and the postcode lottery of what your CCG pays for produces injustices. I reported recently on a podiatry clinic treating severe diabetics that can give some patients a cast that cures ulcers in eight weeks. Those in other CCG areas get a cheaper bandage, which means healing takes 52 weeks. In the past, old people were often denied many life-enhancing treatments. All such rationing may be unfair, but at least it was never personal. The abiding principle was that the NHS treated people in order of medical need, according to resources available. Minor complaints went to the back of the queue. Urgent cases were treated first, followed by those people likely to be rendered wheelchair-bound and needing social care if they did not get surgery on hips or knees – as will many of these obese patients. The system was blind to everything but medical priority, a founding NHS principle that treated viscount and vagrant according to urgency, priest and sinner in next-door beds regardless of rank or virtue. But once a patient’s personal failings can be taken into account, where does that lead? More people on low incomes are obese and smoke, and therefore already suffer worse health. This is for a host of psychosocial reasons, including the sheer stress and hardship of being at the bottom. (See Michael Marmot’s work, or the irrefutable evidence from Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, authors of The Spirit Level, on the link between low status and poor physical and mental health.) The poor often get worse NHS treatment, having less sharp elbows, and living in areas where the best doctors are harder to recruit. Undoubtedly most will have tried to lose weight and quit smoking, but public health budgets for obesity and smoking programmes have been cut, and are set to shrink again. This blaming of the individual conveniently shuts out social context. Don’t they have free will, these people? Politically, they will be easy to cast to the back of the queue, shamed into silence for their fatness and addiction. They will make much less fuss than local campaigners against any closures to hospital units. This opens up new horizons: how much easier rationing becomes when we can blame the patients. Hey presto, waiting lists can be pared right down, targets hit, leaving only the virtuous on the lists. But who are they? Let’s weed out anyone in any way responsible for the burden they put on the NHS. Away with the boy racers smashing themselves up with their first motorbikes and cars. Out with the extreme sports addicts – the climbers, potholers, boxers, base jumpers paragliders, skiers and F1 drivers, who get their adrenaline kicks at the NHS’s expense. Forget all sports injures. Away with my own age group, too: drinking too much wine of an evening, slowly corroding our livers: a host of cancers are caused by drink and diet. And what about people bitten by their own horrible, fierce dogs? Or idiots tripping over while texting on smartphones? As Hamlet said, use every man after his desert (or perhaps desserts) and who shall ‘scape whipping? Until now, in the NHS, the service may have creaked under the strains of the worst funding crisis in its history, but the quality of mercy was not strained. That has been the NHS’s great moral strength, as with the Red Cross or Médecins Sans Frontières, or indeed the Hippocratic oath itself. In treating the sick, let there be no discrimination over their moral worth.
Five of the best gigs this week 1 Bad Breeding Stevenage doesn’t exactly scream “punk rock”, but Bad Breeding’s furious songs about boredom and an “age of nothing” could only ever emerge from a place situated away from the action. They’ll be playing the Pork & Beans NYE party, which also features piano-house sad lads the Rhythm Method and DJ sets from Palma Violets and Childhood. Lock Tavern, NW1, New Year’s Eve 2 The Charlatans If getting sweaty to some good-time underdog Britpop was good enough to see in 1997 then there’s no reason why it can’t be good enough for 2017, too. Also on the lineup at the Edinburgh Hogmanay will be Paolo Nutini, who’ll play the Concert In The Gardens, and – surely what everyone needs after the year we’ve had – a band who perform a fusion of Scottish folk and salsa. Hogmanay Street Party, Edinburgh, New Year’s Eve 3 Fortuna Pop! Winter Sprinter For seven years now, the Fortuna Pop! label has been offering hair of the dog to new year hangovers with its none-more-indie festival. This year will apparently be the last, but it’s going out with a politely volumed bang: Velvets-esque strummers Ultimate Painting, DIY rockers Martha and Derbyshire instrumentalists Haiku Salut headline a night each. The Lexington, N1, Tue to Fri 4 Robbie Williams A Robbie Williams gig on New Year’s Eve might send you scurrying for the theatre listings, but come back! Robbie Rocks Big Ben Live will, if nothing else, be big and brash enough to live up to the grand London fireworks display it accompanies. Better still, it will be on BBC1, which means you don’t even have to leave the house to see it. Westminster Central Hall, SW1, New Year’s Eve 5 Pharoahe Monch Sadly the Queens MC will not be rapping Auld Lang Syne anywhere boozy but is instead doing a perfectly normal show to kickstart a sleepy 2017; whether your brain will have recovered the ability to handle his complex rhymes by then is anyone’s guess. The Jazz Cafe, NW1, Fri
Las Vegas, the home of grotesque showmanship, is Trump's ideal stage If voters get the leaders they deserve, then Donald Trump’s fans in Las Vegas have found an almost perfect match. Along with their orange tans and sagging plastic surgery, the throng of several thousand Trumpiacs looked and behaved uncannily like their leader, the night before voting began in Nevada’s Republican caucuses. Some people have bad hair days. And some people just have bad hair dyes. The bulk of Trump’s supporters at the South Point Arena tended towards the latter. They were overwhelmingly old and unhealthy, with a love of thuggery and a disdain of education. They adored their candidate adoring himself, pausing to take several selfies before walking out of the arena early. When their candidate grew aggressive, they did too. When he spat out his resentment at a world passing them by, they screamed their abuse too. Senators, governors, business executives, Fox News anchors, protesters, Muslims: the long list of enemies was just a call and response in the Vegas chapel of Trump. They say the 80s are back in fashion, but for Trump and his fans, they never really went away. Other candidates talk of a return to the Reagan style of government. Trump doesn’t need to return: he seems to have slumbered with Rip van Winkle until this moment. That may explain why the great orange hope entered the arena on a catwalk to the sound of Van Halen, lumbering above his fans on the arena floor like the brash promoter of a cage wrestling match. The world he celebrates is the one that came before – a kinder, gentler Republicanism; before Nafta; before political correctness; and before anyone objected to police brutality. When Trump wasn’t trashing his main rival Ted Cruz for lying, he was mocking him. In particular, Trump singled out Cruz for fumbling his way through a debate question about waterboarding. Then he admitted that he too had a problem with waterboarding: “I think it’s great, but I don’t think we go far enough,” he said, becoming the first presidential candidate to embrace a platform of war crimes. “It’s true. It’s true. Right? We don’t go far enough. We don’t go far enough.” The arena erupted with joy and chants of “U-S-A”. Trump will surely be thrilled that Barack Obama announced his plans to close Guantánamo Bay on the day of the Nevada caucuses. He can promise to turn back the clock to happier days when torture was commonplace. Vegas is the spiritual home for this kind of grotesque, late-career showmanship. Some performers come to Vegas to belt out their hits; some come to stage magic shows. Trump has come to Vegas for a prizefight, and he could deliver a knockout blow to more than one rival today. But before that, he was ready to punch the lights out of anyone who walked by. Especially any protesters who were smiling. “I love the old days, you know? You know what I hate? There’s a guy, totally disruptive, throwing punches. We’re not allowed to punch back any more,” he complained, as the guards frog-marched one protester out. “I love the old days. You know what they used to do to guys like that when they were in a place like this? They’d be carried out on a stretcher, folks. I love our police. I really respect our police. The guards are very gentle with him. He’s smiling, laughing. I’d like to punch him in the face.” It’s safe to say that Trump has abandoned his miserable pretense at being Iowa-nice. What little self-restraint he employed in the first voting states has now collapsed. This kind of leadership is less like a presidential campaign and more like a lab experiment in the psychology of crowds. One protester, standing behind the stage, unfurled a small banner that read: “Veterans to Mr Trump: End hate speech against Muslims.” When some in the crowd pointed at the old man protesting silently, other Trump fans began to hurl abuse at the pointers. The rest just started shouting for the sake of it. Back in the early days of Vegas, this would have turned into a saloon brawl. The sight of Trump in his natural environment has all the spirit and subtlety of a hippopotamus taking a mud bath. “The other night we had 12,000 people. Bernie had 3,000 people,” Trump explained, determined to compare the size of his huge turnout. “I turned on the television – because I do like watching myself, to be totally honest – but I turned on the television and they’re saying, ‘Bernie Sanders had a massive crowd of 3,000 people. Blah, blah, blah.’ “Then they go to Trump. ‘And Donald Trump spoke before a crowd today.’ I had 12,000 people. So he had a massive crowd with three. Twelve, they don’t mention. This is really bad. These are the most dishonest people I think I’ve ever met. Baaaaaad people.” Fired up by this searing sense of injustice, his baying fans turned to hurl abuse at the press, caged behind them in a metal pen. Being Trump, the Donald takes his abuse to the kind of gaudy and giddy heights worthy of one of his own casinos. Unique among candidates, he threatens to abuse the voters sitting in front of him. “I’m going out to all the caucus sites, by the way. I’ll be at a lot of them. And you better be there,” he told his fans. “If you’re not there, I’m going to be so angry. I don’t want to turn on the television and say, you know, Trump has the biggest crowds, the highest popularity, everybody loves the job he’s going to do, but his people were too damn lazy to go out and caucus. Don’t do it. Don’t do it. Don’t make me have a miserable evening.” Many voters in Vegas have a better reason to be angry. The economy was hit hard by the collapse of the housing market, and unemployment remains far higher than the national average at 6.4%. The political system is gridlocked and many voters, not least in Nevada, want to blow it up. But if Trump wins convincingly in Nevada, his campaign will go nationwide next week on Super Tuesday with more braggadocio and an increasingly aggressive spirit. What happens in Vegas will not stay in Vegas.
Philip Hammond to test water for deal on rights of EU citizens in UK The UK foreign secretary, Philip Hammond, says he will hold informal talks with EU foreign ministers next Sunday to test whether a deal is possible on guaranteeing reciprocal rights for EU citizens in the UK, and UK citizens in the EU. But he also warned the issue was likely to be “a big moving part” in the UK’s Brexit negotiation, and would be one of the most politically sensitive issues. The UK government has been under intense pressure from Conservative backbenchers and others to give a unilateral guarantee that the rights of EU migrants in the UK will not be damaged at the end of the Brexit talks. Giving evidence to the foreign affairs select committee, Hammond again said he could not give such a commitment and blamed “Brussels bureaucrats” for declaring there could be no informal Brexit negotiations until the UK had triggered article 50, the formal process by which it notifies the EU of its intention to leave. In practice a total ban on informal talks is unenforceable, but Hammond will have to tread carefully not to overstep the commission’s attempt to block such talks. “I would not recommend a unilateral commitment by the British government before we have received any reassurance of a reciprocal approach to UK nationals in other EU countries,” he said, adding: “It’s Brussels that has said until article 50 is served, we can’t start discussions. “If the bureaucrats in Brussels would say today we are happy to sit down and talk to the UK government about a deal that assures the mutual rights of citizens in each other’s countries, I’m sure the UK would be happy to engage in this process.” Crispin Blunt, chair of the committee, told the foreign secretary his position was “wholly misconceived” and called on ministers to give immediate assurances to EU nationals resident in the UK. Conservative committee member John Baron said Hammond seemed to be driven by a “Project Fear in denial” attitude which prevented any optimistic view of Britain’s future. Hammond said he did not expect article 50 to be triggered until the end of the year at the earliest, and, like the Cabinet Office minister Oliver Letwin, said it was a matter for the prime minister and not parliament to trigger Article 50. Hammond exasperated Blunt by revealing that no contingency planning for Brexit had been undertaken across government, apart from a plan to deal with a crisis in the financial markets. He said there had been a conscious decision not to undertake any planning because there were fears any such plans might leak and then be seen as unwarranted interference. He also confirmed discussions were under way about the UK abandoning its planned presidency of the EU in the second half of the year. The UK still wanted to appoint a new UK commissioner for the EU, but this was unlikely to start until the autumn, and it would be necessary to nominate someone who was not provocative for the European parliament.
Donald Trump proclaims himself 'law and order' candidate at Republican convention Donald Trump stoked the fears of an angry Republican convention on Thursday as he declared himself the law and order candidate in an acceptance speech that took a sharply authoritarian turn. Promising supporters that “safety will be restored” once he becomes president, Trump sought to harness concern over terrorism and domestic crime to challenge Hillary Clinton on territory that has long proven a reliable rallying cry for parties of the right. “In this race for the White House, I am the law and order candidate,” he claimed, encouraging and directing loud chants of “U-S-A, U-S-A” like the conductor of an orchestra. “Our convention occurs at a moment of crisis for our nation. The attacks on our police, and the terrorism in our cities, threaten our very way of life. Any politician who does not grasp this danger is not fit to lead our country,” he added. The four-day convention in Cleveland has seen repeated cries of “lock her up” when Clinton’s name is mentioned, but Trump waved these chants aside as if granting mercy with his hands and urged instead: “Let’s defeat her in November.” The 75-minute speech pushed familiar buttons. “Illegal immigrants are roaming free to threaten innocent citizens,” Trump told the booing crowd, which responded by chanting “build the wall”. Another theme of the week in Cleveland has been loud cheers whenever speakers replace the “black lives matter” slogan with “blue lives matter” to signify sympathy for police over African American shooting victims and Trump received a standing ovation when he declared: “An attack on law enforcement is an attack on all Americans”. The interruption of a protester 23 minutes in prompted Trump to ad-lib: “How great are our police?” as the cries of a woman being removed could still be heard dimly in the distance. But as the giant Quicken Loans Arena eventually filled with thousands of red, white and blue balloons to signify the end of what has been something of an awkward convention, the party’s once unthinkable nominee sought to strike a message of unity too. Drawing a contrast with Clinton’s campaign slogan “I’m with her,” he declared: “I am with you.” “I am your voice,” he pledged, stressing each word carefully as if claiming the popular will as his own. Introducing Trump, his daughter Ivanka also sought to reach out to female voters – a group who rate the Republican nominee particularly poorly in opinion polls. In a polished and warmly received speech, she rejected repeated suggestions of Trump’s sexism, insisting: “My father is colour blind and gender neutral.” “He will focus on making quality childcare accessible and affordable to all,” she added, arguing that motherhood, not sexism, was “the greatest factor in gender pay discrepancy”. Trump said his business experience had given him the skills to fix a rigged country. “Nobody knows the system better than me,” he shrugged with smirk. “Which is why I alone can fix it.” And he painted a bleak view of the US economy, promising “Americanism not globalism” and seeking to convert Democratic-leaning Bernie Sanders supporters with his opposition to free trade deals. “I have seen first hand how the system is rigged against our citizens, just like it was rigged against Bernie Sanders – he never had a chance,” said Trump. “But his supporters will join our movement, because we will fix his biggest issue: trade deals that strip our country of its jobs and strip the wealth of country.” The Republican nominee echoed Clinton’s former Democratic challenger by promising to create millions of new jobs by building “the roads, highways, bridges, tunnels, airports, and the railways of tomorrow”. He also pointed out that Sanders had questioned Clinton’s foreign policy judgment and expressed sympathy with him over Democratic electoral rules said to favour its establishment, much as Trump struggled against the party leadership in the Republican primary. But tactical appeals to Democrats were limited compared with the unabashed message of security. “There can be no prosperity without law and order,” intoned Trump. He stuck to his controversial campaign promise to build a wall on the Mexican border but slightly adapted his equally inflammatory proposed ban on Muslims entering the US. “We must immediately suspend immigration from any nation that has been compromised by terrorism until such time as proven vetting mechanisms have been put in place,” he said. “We are going to build a great border wall to stop illegal immigration, to stop the gangs and the violence, and to stop the drugs from pouring into our communities,” added Trump. In his warnings of “crime and violence” and his solemn pledge that “I am the law and order candidate”, Trump sounded notes eerily similar to Richard Nixon’s campaign rhetoric in 1968. Then, in the aftermath of consecutive summers of widespread riots across the US, Nixon ran as the candidate of “law and order”. Ed Cox, the chair of the New York state Republican party and Nixon’s son-in-law, noted some similarities. “Certainly Donald Trump calls his supporters the silent majority unapologetically,” said Cox. “Now that was not a part of [Nixon’s] acceptance speech in ’68, that was November ’69, the Vietnam speech. “But Donald Trump has captured that silent majority completely for the first time since Reagan, and maybe even better than Reagan. But certainly like my father-in-law.” Amid a backdrop of terrorist attacks and police shootings, the celebrity billionaire seized on the theme of law and order as a potential rallying cry for a party bruised by internal feuds and a chaotic convention. The torrent of violent news flooding into American TV screens in recent months was used to boost his own campaign at the expense of Democrats. “Americans watching this address tonight have seen the recent images of violence in our streets and the chaos in our communities. Many have witnessed this violence personally, some have even been its victims,” he said. “America is far less safe – and the world is far less stable – than when Obama made the decision to put Hillary Clinton in charge of America’s foreign policy,” added Trump. He took to the stage behind a specially installed gold and black lectern, with the Shakespearean opening line: “Friends, delegates and fellow Americans: I humbly and gratefully accept your nomination for the presidency of the United States.” The text of the speech had been leaked three hours earlier, capping a week in which his wife’s opening address plagiarised Michelle Obama and a call for unity was torpedoed by Ted Cruz’s refusal to endorsee the nominee. He was also forced to try to explain controversial comments on the future of Nato delivered in a New York Times interview, stressing his loyalty to traditional US allies. “We must work with all of our allies who share our goal of destroying Isis and stamping out Islamic terror,” Trump said. “This includes working with our greatest ally in the region, the state of Israel.” He concluded by claiming his political philosophy was unified by the theme of putting Americans first. “To all Americans tonight, in all our cities and towns, I make this promise: we will make America strong again. We will make America proud again. We will make America safe again and we will make America great again,” said Trump, shortly before the room was filled with the sound of popping balloons that sounded eerily like gunshots. As Trump’s family joined him on the stage, the crowd looked expectantly to the rafters as the first bars of Free’s All Right Now started playing in the arena and the first few scraps of confetti started floating down. Section by section, red, white and blue balloons floated down from the sky. The RNC had inflated 120,000 of them, many standard size, some much larger. Some delegates on the floor were buried waist deep as they thrashed about the kaleidoscopic scene. They hugged, danced and embraced. Some had even smuggled alcohol on to the floor. Al Baldasaro, a New Hampshire state representative who supported Trump since he launched the campaign and has had a penchant for controversy, was euphoric. “It feels awesome,” said Baldasaro. “We worked our butts off. Donald Trump is the real deal. The people spoke and we’re there. Now on to Hillary and we’re taking the hill.”
Mel Gibson to present an award at the Golden Globes Mel Gibson will present an award at Sunday night’s Golden Globes ceremony, organisers at the Hollywood Foreign Press Association have reported. The star, infamous for his drunken, antisemitic tirade at an LA police officer in 2006, as well as a series of furious recorded rants against an ex-girlfriend, and screenwriter Joe Eszterhas, will appear alongside the ceremony’s host, Ricky Gervais, at the Beverly Hilton hotel in Beverly Hills. The pair last shared a stage at the 2010 Globes when Gervais, introducing Gibson, said: “I like a drink as much as the next man, unless the next man is Mel Gibson!” Gervais greeted the news that Gibson will be reappearing at the Globes with glee. “Mel Gibson is presenting an award at the Golden Globes. Thank you Jesus,” he wrote on Twitter. The comedian, who recently wrapped on his The Office spin-off film Life on the Road, will host the ceremony for the fourth time this weekend, after a successful three-year run by co-hosts Tina Fey and Amy Poehler. His previous appearances, which took place between 2010 and 2012, and saw the ratings of the televised ceremony climb, were notable for Gervais’s bracing material, which made jibes about Scientology, the HFPA top brass and Robert Downey Jr. The Iron Man star, who in 2011 Gervais introduced by referencing the actor’s stint in rehab, was reportedly angry at Gervais for the joke, calling his wisecracks “mean-spirited”. It was later revealed that he was in on the joke. Gervais, who told the Hollywood Reporter this week he was shocked that anyone found his Globes material shocking, has said that he will avoid jokes that cause “collateral damage”. “I wasn’t trying to bring anyone down, I wasn’t trying to undermine the moral fabric of America. I was making jokes,” he said of his previous appearances. “I suppose they weren’t used to it being a bit of a tease and a bit of a roast. But I made the decision: do I pander to 200 fragile egos in the room or 200 million people watching at home?” Meanwhile, Gibson’s appearance will likely be read as another step on the actor and director’s long road to career rehabilitation. He made a directorial comeback with the second world war drama Hacksaw Ridge, which began shooting in Australia last September. That project followed acting roles such as the nefarious gun-for-hire Stonebanks in The Expendables 3 and as a depressed executive who talks through a hand puppet in Jodie Foster’s The Beaver. Foster, alongside Downey and Gary Oldman, has been among the Hollywood stars calling for Gibson’s return.
The view on big data: segmentation feeds discrimination Everything on the internet gets paid for, one way or another. If you’re not paying yourself, you’re some other player’s currency. The customer is the advertiser, and you, your friendships and your beliefs are what is being very profitably sold. This is why Facebook and Google and all the rest are so keen to track you on screen and off. This is how they know or make very well-informed guesses at your sex, age, location, relationships, ethnicity and sexual preference, and that is how Facebook in the US has been caught offering real estate ads that discriminate against named ethnic groups. The American investigative journalism site ProPublica was able to place an ad targeted very precisely at people in New York who were looking for housing, but not black, Asian or Hispanic. Facebook defended itself by saying that “ethnic affinity” was not the same as race, which the company does not ask about directly: it is instead a measure derived from looking at what stories people like, who they are friends with, and which websites they visit. There’s no reason to suppose the company intended to facilitate or condone illegal discrimination. But the story remains a chilling illustration of the power and reach of big data. Imagine what will happen when this is bent to political ends.
‘Like doctors in a war’: inside Venezuela’s healthcare crisis Dr María Gonzales cannot recall the exact moment when she realised Venezuela’s health crisis had enveloped her hospital, the Luis Razetti in the Caribbean coastal city of Barcelona. It may have been during a surge in cases of scabies, a skin infection that ought to be easily prevented with soap, water and disinfectant. It could have been her first sight of an emaciated child, something she had only previously seen in medical books or documentaries about famines in Africa. Or perhaps it was when she found herself prescribing a 40-minute cold shower because the pharmacy had run out of anti-fever drugs. But the severity of the situation was certainly clear earlier this month, when a patient came in with a suspected case of diphtheria – a disease that Venezuela was supposed to have eradicated more than 20 years ago. “It’s like we have returned to the last century,” she says. “Everything is going backwards.” The refrain is increasingly common among medical professionals in Venezuela, where acute shortages of food, drugs and sanitary products threaten to reverse decades of health gains. Despite its immense oil wealth, the country is in the midst of devastating economic, social and health crises. It has the world’s steepest economic decline, the second highest murder rate and the sharpest-rising inflation (forecast to reach 2,200% by the end of next year, according to the International Monetary Fund). These problems all converge in the nation’s hospitals, where doctors report rising levels of mortality thanks to a dire shortage of medical supplies, shutdowns of operating theatres, staff declines and violent crime, including gunshots during surgery and mugging in corridors. For years, among the proudest boasts of the Bolivarian Socialist administration was that it eradicated hunger, reduced poverty and improved healthcare for the poor. But the trend now appears to be moving in the opposite direction at an alarming speed. Reliable data is hard to find. The government has acknowledged that maternal mortality – a key healthcare indicator – has doubled in the past year. The opposition says the deterioration is five-fold – and that death of newborns increased 100-fold. The Venezuelan Health Observatory, a research centre at the Central University of Venezuela in Caracas, estimates that fewer than 10% of operating theatres, emergency rooms and intensive care units are fully operational. It says 76% of hospitals suffer from scarcity of medicines, 81% have a lack of surgical materials and 70% complain of intermittent water supply. “We are seeing a collapse in the public health system.” said Maritza Landaeta, a senior member of the Health Observatory. “Venezuela is witnessing a miracle, a miracle of destruction.” Her concerns were echoed by 10 physicians interviewed in three cities across the country. Without exception, they expressed alarm and anger at the deterioration they see. “Sometimes I cry. It is so frustrating,” said Carlos Menezes, who recently qualified as a doctor after training at Luis Razetti. “People are dying because of this crisis.” Menezes, and every staff member interviewed at Luis Razetti, asked to be identified with a pseudonym for fear of repercussions in the current tense climate. Earlier this year, the president of the Venezuelan Association of Clinics and Hospitals in the state of Carabobo, was detained by police and questioned for three hours after he went on TV to complain about medical shortages. Two doctors smuggled the past security guards for a tour of their hospital, where the scale of deterioration was evident. In the basement, the radiography room was permanently closed; patients were sleeping on dirty beds in the corridors. On the ground floor, doctors were staging a protest over shortages of drugs and medical equipment. In the second-floor trauma ward, some patients have been waiting for six months to have bones reset because there are no rods, pins and plates. In the paediatric ward, impoverished mothers of malnourished children were soliciting donations of food and medicine that the hospital could not provide. The eighth-floor psychiatric ward was perhaps the most disturbing. “We have zero psych drugs so instead we use sedatives. The patients have been sedated for the past three months,” said Pablo Álvarez, another doctor at the hospital. “This is extremely bad because their pathologies are worsening the entire time and we are just masking the symptoms. The damage is irreversible.” Luis Razetti is supposed to be the anchor hospital of the entire eastern region. As a level four medical institution, it should be able to deal with every form of treatment. The reality, however, is that it can barely cope with many of the basics. In the orthopaedic department, there are no weights for traction devices, so nurses used Coke and Pepsi bottles filled with water. Two dangle at the foot of the bed of Daniel Usman, whose femur was broken in a gang shootout. He says has been waiting two months for surgery because the blood bank does not have his type. Considered a suspect, he is permanently handcuffed to the hospital bed and has to buy his own painkillers. Staff say they have to reuse surgical gloves unless patients bring their own. There used to be six working radiotherapy machines; now there are none. Of the 10 operating theatres, only two are in use, though only sporadically because it is often hard to find anaesthetics. The air conditioning is out of order. Only one lift works. The x-ray is functioning, but there there are no printing materials, so doctors have to diagnose and operate based on mobile phone photos of the screen. “We have to improvise like doctors in a war,” says Álvarez who has been at the institution for more than five years. The battlefield analogy is made all the more appropriate by the ever-present fear of violence: staff and patients have been mugged in the hospital corridors. Five of the 10 doctors interviewed by the reported receiving death threats. “The insecurity in the hospital is worse than outside,” said one. “Gangs have entered during surgery and started shooting. They said if the patient cannot be saved, then we will be killed,” said another. “Two months ago, I was threatened with a grenade,” says a third. But this pales in comparison to the dangers faced by the most seriously ill patients: children who cannot get adequate food, or cancer patients who are unable to get the appropriate chemotherapy treatments. Nationwide, the Health Observatory believes malnutrition is the biggest worry, causing 29 child deaths every day and stunting of 35% of poor rural infants. Until recently, the hospital in Barcelona only had a few cases of kwashiorkor (a deficiency of proteins, which leads to distended stomachs), but now for the first time, they are also seeing children with the more serious marasmus (starvation that causes emaciation and diarrhoea). “It has become much worse in the past year. I have seen about 20 cases of marasmus in the last few months. We are also seeing dozens of cases of extreme weight loss,” said Álvarez. Doctors have also accused the government of downplaying the threat of the Zika virus. While neighbouring Brazil and Colombia publish weekly updates of confirmed cases, President Nicolás Maduro has largely kept quiet about the virus. And while other countries in Latin America have reported hundreds of cases of Zika-related microcephaly, Venezuela has not acknowledged a single one. Diphtheria is making a comeback, although Venezuela had been the first country in Latin America to eradicate the disease. The first few fatalities from the disease were confirmed in Bolívar state earlier this month. Since then, there have been between 17 and 22 deaths, according to local media. Another suspected case is under observation in Luis Razetti. The situation is only a little better in Caracas. Thanks to its charitable foundation, the José Manuel de los Ríos hospital is one of the best-resourced medical institutions in the country, but it is also chronically short of drugs, staff and equipment. Since 2005, the number of paediatricians is down from 10 to three, oncologists down from eight to four and there are 30% fewer nurses Augusto Pereira, the head of the oncology department, said the mortality rate of patients had increased 5% in the past year. Infection rates are also creeping up due to shortages of staff, medicine and sterilisation equipment. Only one elevator is working. Two cats wander the corridors. “Technically, our hospital should be closed. In other countries, we would be shut down. But in Venezuela, we are the best,” Pereira says. Due to a shortage of anaesthetists and operating theatres, there are only 15 to 20 paediatric operations a month, down from 100 in the past. Doctors are forced to argue with one another whose patients deserve priority. “People are dying every day because of the delays,” said paediatric surgeon Alejandro Ferrer. “We have to wait until the patients get enough money for the examinations, then we do the diagnosis, then we have to wait for at least three weeks for an chance to do surgery. If you delay the treatment of a cancer patient, they are going to die.” Others suffer a collapse in quality of life. Fifteen-year old Jaidiluz Pastrana was born with neurological problems, severe spina bifida and a cleft palate and is also now suffering hypertension and urinary infection because the hospital has run out of diuretics and catheters. “I’ve lost count of how many drug stores I have been to in the past week, but there is nothing,” her mother Luzmery Hurtade laments. “A year ago, I could have found what I needed, but not now.” Her daughter shares a room with José García, a five-week-old baby who has meningitis, hypertension, asthma, allergies and convulsions. The infant’s mother, Ana Blanco has a thick wad of prescriptions from the doctors to treat these ailments, but the hospital can provide nothing but a bed. “I’ve spent more than a month looking for medicine. The doctor says it is important, but I can’t get it,” she says. The public security problem has added to her woes. The previous Saturday, she was robbed at gunpoint outside the hospital on her way to a pharmacy. The assailant stole 6,000 bolivares, equivalent to $6 – or two days’ worth of her husband’s salary. Faced by this combination of crises, medical staff feel powerless to help as they would like. “Nine thousands doctors have left the country and the exodus is continuing,” says one of those who stayed, Yamila Battaglini. “I go to work worrying about broken elevators, supply shortages, staffing problems, and only then can I think about how to treat the patients,” she says. “We arrive exhausted even before we start surgery.” Those who remain do not do so for the money: a doctor with more than 20 years’ experience gets paid less than 10 pence (12 cents) an hour in the public system. Ferrer says his commute costs more than this wage, though with private work, he can bump his income up towards $1,000 per month. Even then, he finds it difficult to make ends meet, particularly when – like many doctors – he finds himself dipping into his own wallet to pay for medicines or exams for poor patients. His hope is for political change. “We have two options: leave or be part of the change,” he said. “I hope this bad stimulus can make us want something better.” Doctors have staged hunger strikes, medical associations have taken to the streets. Earlier this year, a group of 78 civil society groups jointly signed an open letter to the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, demanding the situation in Venezuela be recognised as a humanitarian crisis. The opposition is also using the health crisis to score points against the government. Its expatriate supporters in Miami, Bogotá and Panama have gathered tonnes of medical supplies, but the authorities have blocked the supplies from entering the country. It has also rebuffed offers of help from international charities and neighbouring countries . Maduro insists it is not needed. “I doubt there is anywhere in the world, with the exception of Cuba, with a better health system than this one,” the president said earlier this year. Such reassurances provoke grim laughter among doctors. “We are back in the dark ages in this country. Every day there is a tragedy. Every day children die,” Battaguni says. “We are facing a humanitarian disaster, no matter what the government claims.” Additional research by Mariana Reyes This article was amended on 20 October 2016. A previous version incorrectly identified Alejandro Ferrer’s occupation as paediatrician.
Manchester United overpower Swansea with Zlatan Ibrahimovic double Maybe José Mourinho should watch from the stand more often. Serving a touchline ban, the Manchester United manager savoured the sight of his team registering their first Premier League victory in five matches as well as Zlatan Ibrahimovic rediscovering his touch in front of goal on an afternoon when Swansea City capitulated and the simmering frustration among their supporters started to boil over. Ibrahimovic struck twice – his first goals in the Premier League since 10 September – after Paul Pogba had opened the scoring with an exquisite shot from distance that set the tone for an embarrassingly one-sided first half in which Swansea were outplayed. United were 3-0 up inside 33 minutes and it felt like a trick of the mind that Mourinho’s team had come into this game short of confidence and facing so many questions about their form. Swansea’s frailties were brutally exposed as United played with the belief and freedom that has been so badly missing of late. Michael Carrick, who was making his first Premier League start of the season, was excellent in the midfield holding role, Wayne Rooney thrived on the left and Ibrahimovic looked as if he was enjoying playing football again. It was, in short, just what United needed after that chastening defeat against Fenerbahce in the Europa League on Thursday night and all the more satisfying for Mourinho given that he was forced to name such a makeshift defence. Phil Jones made his first appearance since January, Ashley Young was deployed at right-back, Marcos Rojo featured as an auxiliary centre-half and Matteo Darmian played out of position on the left. That the four of them barely broke sweat when it came to their defensive duties in the first half says everything about Swansea’s inept and listless performance. Second from bottom in the Premier League and having picked up only two points from a possible 30 since their victory at Burnley on the opening day, Swansea are sleepwalking towards the Championship. The lack of commitment in the first half, when United had so much space and time on the ball, was arguably more worrying than the shortage of quality. Bob Bradley, who has picked up only one point from his first four games in charge, admitted he was angry. The fans felt the same way, although their fury was directed more at the directors’ box than the players. “We want our club back” and “You greedy bastards, get out of our club” sang a section of supporters during the first half, with the board members who made millions out of the summer takeover the target of their ire. Huw Jenkins, the club’s chairman and a man who could do no wrong at one time, was also singled out for abuse on a day when Swansea were booed off at half-time and full-time. “There’s only one way for us to win the support of the fans and that is to play better and take points,” Bradley said. “I know there’s some back and forth going on but from our side, the players and coaches, professionally we’ve got to focus on the only part we control, and that’s how we compete and fight for points. The fans were angry with us at half-time and I understand. The first half we did not do enough to win them over in any way and, with a 3-0 scoreline at half-time at home, they have every right to be angry at that point, and we have to be honest about the work that needs to be done.” United’s first-half blitz started after 14 minutes and it was a quite brilliant goal that got them on their way. Mike van der Hoorn’s headed clearance was poor but Pogba, loitering about 22 yards from goal, showed wonderful technique to get over the top of a bouncing ball and send it arrowing into the top corner with his right boot. Swansea looked shellshocked, United were moving the ball around with ease and it was no surprise when the visitors added a second. After a long period of United possession Rooney laid the ball back and Ibrahimovic, in an abundance of space, sidestepped Ki Sung-yueng’s half-hearted attempt to close him down before drilling a low shot from just outside the area that Lukasz Fabianski should have saved. Instead the ball slipped inside the Swansea goalkeeper’s near post and Ibrahimovic celebrated ending a run of 609 minutes without scoring in the Premier League. The Swede soon had his second and United’s third. Linking well with Rooney in the centre of the pitch after neatly controlling David de Gea’s long ball upfield, Ibrahimovic traded passes with the United captain, shrugged off Àngel Rangel and lifted the ball beyond Fabianski. It was to all intents game over with almost an hour remaining. Van der Hoorn reduced the deficit in the second half when he headed in Gylfi Sigurdsson’s free-kick and Modou Barrow was later denied by De Gea but there was never any prospect of a Swansea comeback and Juan Mata, expertly set up by Rooney, could easily have added a fourth.
How will the autumn statement change Britain? Our panel’s views Matthew d’Ancona: Grim forecasts against bleak Brexit backdrop Two forces bore down implacably upon Philip Hammond’s first autumn statement: the legacy of George Osborne and the prospect of Brexit. There will be no end to the austerity that defined the last chancellor’s tenure, no doctrinal rejection of fiscal conservatism. Having ditched their pledge to restore the public finances to surplus by 2020, the Tories have simply shifted the target date to 2025. Yet the grim forecasts presented to Hammond by the Office for Budget Responsibility amount to a bleak backdrop for the EU negotiations: growth down by 2.4%; borrowing up by £122bn (according to the Resolution Foundation’s instant sums); and national debt climbing to 90.2% of GDP in 2017-18. Small wonder that the chancellor has awarded himself “fiscal headroom” to cope with the unknowable pressures that will attend and follow Britain’s departure from the EU. His head is already grazing the ceiling. There were a handful of measures aimed foursquare at those “just about managing” – the so-called Jams: the increase in the National Living Wage, the continued freezing of fuel duty, a renewed commitment to raise the personal tax allowance to £12,500, the promise of more affordable housing, the amendment of the universal credit taper. But Hammond’s passion is productivity, which he believes holds the key to economic prosperity, equitably spread, in the decades ahead. Whether he will have the fiscal scope to realise this supply-side vision depends in large measure upon the transformative impact of Brexit. But one thing the chancellor does not have to worry about – at least for now – is Labour. John McDonnell’s response was no more than a litany of aggressive soundbites (“six failed years”, “no answers”, “no vision”). It underscored the core reality at the heart of contemporary politics: that the government faces supremely testing times, and that the government will continue to be Conservative. Martin Kettle: It’s complicated – and it’s bad news Philip Hammond is absolutely right to abolish the autumn statement. It has always been a superfluous event in the parliamentary calendar. And it has always been much more of a political event than an economic one, unlike the budget, which is both. In 2013 I set out the history and the detailed reasons for getting rid of it. Now it’s going. Good riddance. Paradoxically, however, today was just about the one day when something like a budgetary statement was in order from the chancellor. That’s because of one thing alone: Brexit. Hammond’s statement was a chance to make a first big assessment of the impact of Brexit on the UK economy. The verdict is, without question, bleak. Growth is down, borrowing has to rise, and the dream of a surplus has been deferred to “as soon as practicable”, ie never. Hammond’s other big problem is that the tax take is falling. All those references in his speech to sustaining the tax base are Treasury code for the fact that Britain has continued to become a low wage, tax avoiding and increasingly unequal economy since 2010, in which there’s not enough public money to pay for public spending. That demands either more taxes or less spending, or both. Hammond has allowed himself to be boxed in on both options. But he gave a very important signal that pensions – and, less importantly in budgetary terms, the aid budget – will be cut after 2020, and the pension triple lock will be broken. But this was an autumn statement all about Britain’s uncertain future after the dreadful decision to leave the EU. Hammond doesn’t know where this will end up, and nor does anyone else. He is sailing in the dark. The immediately apparent price tag is perhaps £122bn, but that’s just for starters. At one stage in his speech, Hammond made the light-hearted remark that what he was saying was “complicated, but it’s good news”. In terms of Brexit, the situation is the exact reverse: it’s complicated, but it’s bad news. Gaby Hinsliff: Nothing for those barely managing Philip Hammond has never been about the showbiz. If chancellors traditionally aim for the reassuring qualities of an old-fashioned bank manager, his manner is more management consultant brought in to shut their old-fashioned branches down and move everything to a call centre. But boring, he is not. He’s already proved too exciting by half for many Tory Brexiters, infuriated by his refusal to pretend that life outside Europe will be the breeze they claimed. (You could feel them tensing even as he told the Commons that Brexit had changed the course of history; these days they take every downbeat economic forecast as a personal insult bordering on treason). If his speech glossed tactfully over the worst of it, the bald figures don’t lie – and they were enough to make you long for good old boredom, for the days when nothing much happened in politics. Borrowing up, growth down, public spending shrunken and a “Brexit black hole” of £122bn. That’s a lot of things, but boring ain’t one of them. Hammond dutifully did his bit for the “just about managing” average earners Theresa May promised to help – softening Osborne’s cuts to universal credit, freezing fuel duty, raising the minimum wage and hammering middle-class workplace perks to help fund it – but there was nothing for those barely managing at all thanks to a threadbare social care system and creaking NHS. Austerity may have been ditched, with the increasingly mythical goal of a budget surplus booted into the distant future, but the pain associated with it may simply be moving elsewhere. In response, John McDonnell started confidently enough; his line that the so-called Jams are just an electoral demographic to vote-grubbing Tories but are Labour’s “friends, our neighbours, the people we represent” had real sting. But before long, MPs’ attention was wandering. These may once have been Labour’s people, but it remains unclear what Labour can offer them now besides an anguished critique. Aditya Chakrabortty: 2017 will be particularly painful Two big things have been revealed this afternoon that will shape all of our lives for years to come. The first is the cost of Brexit. The second is how economically different Theresa May will be from David Cameron and George Osborne. The short take is that Brexit Britain is going to be a poorer, more heavily indebted country than even the experts believed even a few weeks ago. Yet faced with that horrible prospect May and Philip Hammond will carry on with nearly all of the spending cuts planned by Osborne. Austerity was originally meant to be over within a single parliament of five years. It will now last for up to 15 years. It will certainly carry on into a third parliament. I will come on to figures in a second, but the big political question I have to ask after watching Hammond’s speech is how long he will stick it out as austerity chancellor. Either the austerity will go, or he will. Some of the numbers you’ll know: a Brexit black hole of £122bn. That will not be because of Whitehall profligacy but because our national income will simply not be growing as fast as predicted before 23 June. Taxes will drop. However you voted in that referendum, Brexit constitutes the second major economic shock that Britain has suffered within a decade. It will not be as dramatic as the banking crash of 2008 – but then look at how that played out economically and politically and imagine what the consequences of this slowdown are likely to be. One thing is clear: 2017 will be particularly painful. Growth sharply down, employment and wage increases tailing off, the price of food and fuel shooting up. Put all that next to the fractious politics: the arguments over Brexit (led by none other than Nigel Farage, for heaven’s sake) and the abuse already being heaped on ethnic minorities, people with disabilities, anyone judged to be “different”. The puzzle here is how Hammond and May have chosen to respond. Because what they’ve given us is Continuity Osborne. All right, so the fiscal rules have been dropped. No surprise there, since Osborne had already ditched or missed all three of the fiscal rules he set himself in 2015. But Hammond’s replacements do head in the direction. He will aim to balance the books, even if by some unspecified date. As we saw today, any giveaways will be tiny. And the vast majority of the cuts will carry on just as Osborne intended. Even before Osborne got the boot, it was clear that austerity had not worked – delivering a low wage, low-productivity workforce and an economy almost starved of investment, debt levels remaining high and a recovery reliant on house prices. Yet Hammond is sticking to it. Is that what the 17 million people who voted for Brexit really wanted? Is that what May promised with her repeated pitch of “I get it”? And why will it work this time against an economic backdrop even more uncertain than the one Osborne inherited? My bet is, it won’t. Polly Toynbee: The chancellor is a fantasist or a faker on spending Project Fear was project truth. There it is, in that £122bn black hole suddenly opened beneath our feet, with grim news in the autumn statement of slower growth, higher inflation, weaker tax take and soaring borrowing. That’s what Brexit really means, before it’s even begun. The chancellor’s tombstone aspect is well suited to warning the country of the path we have set out on. This is the day history books will mark Britain’s self-inflicted downward trajectory, as the Office for Budget Responsibility says the referendum decision is causing 2.4% lower growth. But within that wretched prognosis, within the fiscal straitjacket the government has chosen, politics continues as usual. Never forget the multitude of tax-and-spend choices a government can make, whatever the circumstances. The choices of the last six years are unchanged, the brunt borne by the bottom half, while the top half – more likely to consist of Tory voters – is protected. Expect to hear less about the Jams from Theresa May, who promised: “When it comes to tax, we’ll prioritise not the wealthy but you.” Who? The £4.5bn income tax thresholds go almost entirely to higher earners. Cuts in universal credit have been only slightly eased. The size of the state continues to shrink. Despite his sombre demeanour, the chancellor is either a fantasist or a faker on spending. No more for the NHS or social care? He will get a rude awakening as both services implode for lack of beds and staff as units and homes close. Ill-timed new NHS re-disorganisations around the country will see outbreaks of protest, not least from Tory MPs. Imagine what some of Hammond’s £12bn cut in corporation tax might have done to ease the pressure. The great political question is whether this financial squeeze and eruptions within health and social care remind people of the big red bus lie of £350m a week for the NHS? There may be a wave of indignation against the Brexiters, who lied about what the impact might be.
Hammond's £400m for venture capital funds is no joke – unfortunately The best joke in Philip Hammond’s autumn statement was the line about how he is injecting £400m of venture capital funding into the British Business Bank “to tackle the longstanding problem of our fastest-growing technology firms being snapped up by bigger companies, rather than growing to scale”. A day later, one such UK pioneer, Edinburgh-based Skyscanner, is being bought by large Chinese travel group Ctrip for £1.4bn, a sum that makes Hammond’s £400m fire-fighting fund look like a water pistol. The Treasury might argue that it has smaller, earlier-stage companies in mind for its £400m and that Skyscanner, boasting 60 million users a month for a service that scans the internet for cheap flights, had already achieved scale. That objection would be fair only in part. Skyscanner had indeed achieved profitable success, but one can assume the Chinese are willing to pay 80 times top-line earnings only because they think much more lies ahead. They may be right. Skyscanner has expanded into the hotel and car-rental markets and others could follow. In time, the business could emerge as a serious competitor to the likes of Expedia. In the end, of course, the government can hardly stop entrepreneurs selling their businesses if they wish. Gareth Williams, Skyscanner’s co-founder and chief executive, may also have been tempted by more than a high sale price. The deal brings the opportunity for his firm to tap Ctrip’s deep pool of Chinese tourists in search of international travel. From outside, however, this takeover feels like another lost opportunity for a British-owned company to pursue global leadership under its own steam. Each case is different, but Hammond may discover that the biggest obstacle is cultural. Horizons in the UK are increasingly set to the short-term, and the City’s influence is strong. There are honourable exceptions: note how Baillie Gifford, a Skyscanner investor since last year, said it would have been happy to support further growth of the firm as an independent company. Unfortunately, such an appetite for long-term adventure is rare. The remedy to the problem Hammond correctly identifies is not obvious. But his £400m, though welcome, is unlikely to be it. Real estate is used to feast or famine, but not like this Forget the government’s plan to ban letting agents from charging fees to tenants. Estate agents’ real troubles are more basic: housing transactions are plunging – or “running significantly below 2015”, in the more restrained language of Countrywide, the UK’s largest operator. Feast or famine is a normal state of affairs in estate agency, but, even in that context, change has come swiftly. The share price tells the story. Countrywide floated at 350p in 2013, raced to 650p within a year and was still as high as 600p as recently as May last year, when George Osborne’s help-to-buy schemes were in full swing. Now the shares stand at 170p, down another 12% on Thursday. London, where Countrywide reports exchanges down 29% in the latest quarter, is the group’s biggest headache, but its nationwide volumes for 2016 are still expected to be 6% lower, with a further fall on the cards for 2017. The catch-all “Brexit uncertainties” take some of the blame, but in London the bigger factor seems to be former chancellor George Osborne’s hikes to stamp duty on higher-priced homes in December 2014, and again April this year. Fewer people can afford to buy £1m-plus homes, or they are deterred by the tax bill. In the absence of a U-turn on stamp duty rates by Hammond (no sign so far, despite the hit to the Treasury’s coffers), Countrywide and its peers will just have to wait for wealthy Londoners to accept that their houses may be worth less than they thought. It will happen – but slowly. No one knows what Brexit means, not even the OBR Give Robert Chote a break. Or, if you prefer, attack the chairman of the Office for Budget Responsibility for the right reasons. In recent years, the fiscal watchdog has generally been too optimistic in its forecasts of how the UK economy would perform. So it is bizarre for hard-line Brexiters now to declare loudly that the OBR is somehow infected by “doom and gloom” in thinking growth will slow to 1.4% next year. These predictions are always best estimates, compiled in the face of uncertainties. This time the uncertainties are greater than ever. Nobody can say with much confidence how the economy will perform in the run-up to an event as significant as exit from the EU. An estimate of growth of 1.4% seems as good as any. The irate Brexiters should calm down: the real outcome will be revealed soon enough.
13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi review – Michael Bay plays politico for the Fox News crowd Midway through Michael Bay’s 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi, interrupting its bizarre mix of war pornography and dour isolationist posturing, there’s a shoehorned moment of mawkishness. Jack (John Krasinski) is one of the ex-armed forces contractors taking a babysitting job as security to CIA specialists halfway around the world. He’s Skyping with his wife and daughters, and if that doesn’t telegraph what motivates him to stay alive, he learns he’s going to be a father again. This most human moment in the 144-minute film raises the stakes, and does double duty as product placement, set as it is at a McDonald’s drive-thru, Happy Meals references flavouring the wholesome family sentiment. 13 Hours is as American as microwaved apple pie. Detailing the 2012 attack on a US diplomatic (and, later, espionage) compound in Benghazi, Libya, in all its thudding, bloody brutality, 13 Hours is an extraordinary artifact, a film that makes you long for the subtlety of something like Black Hawk Down. It stars a half dozen interchangeable bearded, buff men with names like Boon, Tig, Rone, Bub and Oz. One looks a bit more like Metallica’s James Hetfield than the others and another is black, but the rest are a clone army. They are guns for hire for a secret CIA base run by pansy twerps from Harvard and Yale who barely know how to wipe their own asses without checking a rulebook. The nasally egghead chief (David Costabile) explains to newcomer Jack that flexing too much muscle where the natives can see isn’t a good idea. But just outside the window, one of the boys is yawping and dragging enormous blocks of concrete around in his short shorts like this is some kind of Steve Reeves picture. Behind him, a bleating pen of sheep, defenceless to slaughter. An off-the-books facility in an unstable country means the enemy is everywhere. Benghazi is a shithole where they sell RPGs in the street. “They’re all bad guys until they’re not”, and “you can’t tell the good guys from the bad”, we’re warned. Muezzins lead the call to prayer and shifty-looking brown people scowl from behind their glasses of tea. But listen, we already know they hate us. The real enemy in 13 Hours is more insidious – those half-assed pencil pushers. If they’d just get out of the way and let a soldier do his job, we’d finally accomplish something and make America great again. Don’t tell me this movie isn’t political. Michael Bay’s Benghazi bonanza is timed for release just before the Iowa caucus and the New Hampshire primary. It’ll hit DVD in time for the general election. There are approximately 400,000 instances in this not-very-subtle screenplay where Fox News viewers are cued to hiss at a phantom Hillary Rodham Clinton, the right wing’s scapegoat for the missteps that kept the Benghazi outpost fighting so long without backup. As these brave men take fire, their inquiries about air support become a clear indictment against a perceived US policy of pussification. While the boondoggle portrayed in 13 Hours may be based on fact, this is movie is fuelled by paranoia and hate. Paranoia about a culture too foreign to grasp except as a bunch of mindless monsters, and hate against a government that won’t let us destroy them. Abhorrent politics aside, it’s also a terrible movie. The dialogue is atrocious, the performances rote. One could make the case that its incoherence is a grand meta-narrative statement about the fluidity of combat, but I don’t think that’s the case. It’s impossible to tell who anybody is. Instead, we’re told what to feel by the music and booms. Our boys fall asleep when “true believer” Christopher Stevens, the US ambassador to Libya at the time of the attack, gives his speech about common ground between two nations, but they will risk it all to save his hide from the swarm of “bad guys” surrounding his quarters, as in Cy Endfield’s Zulu. They don’t save him, however, and that’s only because the chief won’t grant them authority to act in time. They eventually take their own initiative, leading to an awful lot of shooting and chasing. From an action-adventure point of view, all but a sequence inside an armoured car are pretty standard. Any emotion turns to guffaws when a family snapshot happens to float into frame just as a particularly destructive mortar hits. “Your country’s gotta figure this shit out,” one of the bearded good guys says to his translator as he rides away, and Bay plays it without a shred of irony. The most interesting aspect of 13 Hours is its low esteem for interventionism. Honour in service comes from interacting with your fellow soldiers, but the service itself is pointless and the leaders are idiots. This bloody, explosive love letter to soldiers of fortune ends up, in a twisted way, as a call for pacifism. Maybe Michael Bay is a genius after all.
Rachel Maddow: Donald Trump chose to visit cities with recent racial unrest A video by MSNBC host Rachel Maddow proved popular this weekend on the web. Much like a recent video by HBO host John Oliver, Maddow’s target is Donald Trump, although she does not attack the Republican frontrunner with humour. Maddow attacks him with barely contained anger. Speaking on Friday night, over footage of the violence that broke out around a Trump rally in Chicago when it was infiltrated by protesters and postponed, Maddow says: “This has turned out to be a night that may go down in history as one of the darker moments in American major politics. “I think we got here by deliberate means,” she says. “I don’t think we got here by accident.” Maddow notes recent unrest over police killings of African Americans including Michael Brown, Laquan McDonald and Tamir Rice, pointing to the cities where they happened. She says: “So the St Louis area, Chicago, Cleveland. Those are not the only American cities that have proven to be real tinderboxes around issues of race and racism and policing and violence. “But those three happen to be the three most recent stops on the itinerary of Republican presidential contender Donald Trump, whose rallies have featured racially charged incidents of violence for months now.” Trump spoke in St Louis on Friday, postponed a rally in Chicago on Friday night and then spoke in Cleveland on Saturday. Speaking to the camera, Maddow accuses Trump of stoking “bloodlust” with “half-serious calls for a tougher America where there are more beatings and anti-Trump protesters should fear for their lives”. “As he heads into these tinderbox cities,” she continues, “I just want you to watch how that part of candidate Trump’s rhetoric has escalated.” Maddow then presents a chronological, date-stamped sequence of utterances by Trump which she says represent “a deliberate act which created what happened tonight in Chicago”. “It really is like nothing we’ve ever seen in mainstream American politics before,” she says, comparing Trump’s rhetoric and the behaviour of crowds at his rallies to “skinhead events” in the 1980s. The video sequence begins with Trump in Cedar Rapids, Iowa on 1 February, asking fans: “If you see someone getting ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of them, would you?” It ends with footage from the Fayetteville, North Carolina, rally this week in which a protester being led out was sucker-punched by a Trump supporter. Maddow then shows Trump speaking in St Louis at a rally he was advised by local officials to cancel due to the threat of protests, but did not. Scuffles broke out around the Peabody Opera House, where he spoke, and racial epithets were exchanged. “There are no consequences to protesting anymore,” Trump says from the podium, as protesters are taken out. “Our country has to toughen up, folks, we have to toughen up. These people are bringing us down … these people are so bad for our country, you have no idea, folks. You have no idea.” To a raucous reception, he adds: “Go home to mommy. Go home and get a job.” Maddow, speaking four days before the “Mega Tuesday” primaries which could consolidate Trump’s hold on the Republican nomination, continues: “If you want to know what led up to Chicago today, that was Donald Trump’s display of leadership and calming the waters.” Over more footage of the violence in Chicago, she adds: “This is the work of an American presidential candidate who deliberately made this happen. “And the Republican party is going to nominate this man for president.”
Europe's first ruling on Brexit: it's masculine, unless you're Italian The EU may be agreed on its response to Britain’s vote to leave, but on one key question it remains divided: is Brexit masculine or feminine? In French, Britain’s decision to leave the European Union is known as le Brexit, either – although the Académie Française has yet to rule on the question – because new words in French are almost invariably masculine, or because nouns ending in “t” mostly are (with a few exceptions: la nuit, la forêt, la plupart). Germany, also, appears to have pretty much decided that der Brexit is a male thing. This might seem odd since several German nouns ending in “it” (das Fazit, meaning conclusion, das Dynamit, dynamite) are neither masculine nor feminine, but neuter. But as any German learner knows, what makes a noun feminine, masculine or neuter in German is somewhat less clear than in Latin languages. Der Brexit may be inspired – perhaps unwisely – by the equally masculine der Profit, or more likely by the fact that the German word for exit, der Austritt, is masculine. Spain, too, has plumped for el Brexit, like most English loan words that become masculine by default in Spanish. That’s because they rarely end in “o” (generally masculine) or “a” (generally feminine) like most Spanish nouns, and given the choice, Spain, being a Latin country, opts for male. Italy, for the time being at least, is resisting the trend – and its language police, the Accademia della Crusca, has published a fabulously lengthy explanation as to why. Debating whether Italians should say plain Brexit (without a preceding article), il Brexit or la Brexit, the academy finds firmly in favour of the last. “It seems preferable to make Brexit feminine,” it said, “since etymologically, the component exit has a corresponding Italian noun, ‘uscita’”, which is feminine. Moreover, it adds, use of a preceding article would be in line with other loan words describing “real or hypothetical events ... indicating complex scenarios”, such as la perestrojka and il global warming. As with most things in Europe, France and Germany, once agreed, are likely to end up on the winning side in the Brexit gender war, as the former Labour Europe minister Denis MacShane observed in a tweet. Britain, for its part, will doubtless hope for more disunity once the real Brexit battle starts.
Philippe Coutinho clinches win over West Brom but Liverpool miss top spot Steven Gerrard seems homeward bound having posted what reads as a farewell message to LA Galaxy on Instagram and who can blame the former Liverpool captain for swapping the California sunshine for autumn on Merseyside? He must long to be part of what Jürgen Klopp has created at Anfield in his absence. One year to the day since Klopp’s first home game as Liverpool manager his side moved level on points with Premier League leaders Arsenal courtesy of an unnecessarily hard-fought win over West Bromwich Albion. The stadium announcer declared Liverpool top after the full-time whistle. A mistake but his excitement was understandable. Liverpool required victory by a two-goal margin to go top of the Premier League for the first time since May 2014 but another set-piece goal against put that ambition on hold. Another win is what counts and another impressive attacking display provided it, Sadio Mané and Philippe Coutinho scoring two excellent first-half goals before Gareth McAuley reduced the arrears and Liverpool’s league position. “Who wants to be on top in October?” said Klopp, exuding the calm assurance he will get there eventually. “That was a little bit of a joke. We have 20 points. It was not possible that we get any more tonight. When you play like this, it is really difficult to be kind of satisfied with football games. 2-1 keeps you more awake than 4-0. “Maybe we are not experienced enough in a situation like this to feel it could be easy. It is not easy. You need luck, the players fit. I have absolutely no problem with the goal we conceded. I would like to have it that nobody can score against us but first we have to have it that nobody can create chances. We have improved that.” Liverpool overcame an assured Albion start and some wayward passing of their own to take a commanding lead at the interval. They were utterly dominant for the first 25 minutes of the second half too only for Tony Pulis’s side to haul themselves back into the contest and unnerve Anfield through McAuley’s goal. Even then Firmino and substitute Georginio Wijnaldum went close to restoring Liverpool’s two-goal advantage but, despite missing out on top spot, there was no blot on Klopp’s landscape. “In dreamland you always win four- or five-nil and the crowd can go earlier and people can do something more serious. But this game created one of the best atmospheres because it was exciting towards the end.” The breakthrough left Klopp celebrating with right hand uppercuts in front of the main stand and stemmed from an innocuous source. The commanding Coutinho was about to receive a pass inside his own half from James Milner when, with an exquisite dummy, he took Darren Fletcher and Claudio Yacob out of the game and sent Emre Can into a dangerous attack. “They had runners and we didn’t want to let that happen,” said Pulis. Can released Firmino down the left, he floated an inch-perfect cross over the head of Allan Nyom and there was Mané to volley home his fourth goal of the season. It was another example of the collective threat that Klopp cherishes in his teams, as his manic reaction testified. Can was inches away from making it two when he stretched to meet Nathaniel Clyne’s inviting low cross from the right. The two-goal advantage that Liverpool sought was not long coming, however, as the visiting defence went into meltdown. Fletcher instigated the problems with an awkward back pass towards Ben Foster that his goalkeeper sliced skywards. The former Manchester United midfielder was beaten by Can in the air as he attempted to clear up the mess and Mané set Coutinho free on the left. Liverpool’s No10 had plenty to do but, with another telling drop of the shoulder, he sent Craig Dawson and McAuley sliding out of the equation and drilled a fine finish inside Foster’s near post. Firmino, Dejan Lovren and Can all came close to a third in the second half, Foster denying the Brazilian and the Croat and Jonas Olsson thwarting the German international with a full body block. Albion’s unlikely comeback should have started with 20 minutes to go but Nacer Chadli sliced horribly wide with the goal at his mercy from a Chris Brunt corner. Pulis’s introduction of Brunt and James Morrison eventually paid dividends as the visitors forced Liverpool back and, with nine minutes remaining, the Northern Ireland international’s corner dropped for McAuley to volley beyond Loris Karius at close range. Liverpool responded well and the merits of victory were not in dispute. “Their front five is as good as any in the league,” said the Albion manager. “With no Europe this year they have a free run at it. They’ve got a great chance this year.”
Leonard Cohen's son Adam pays heartfelt tribute to his father Leonard Cohen’s son Adam has paid tribute to his late father with a heartfelt Facebook message. The Canadian songwriter died on 7 November, with the news made public four days later following a private funeral in Montreal. Stars including Bob Dylan, Lana Del Rey and Chris Martin have all paid tribute to the iconic musician, and now Cohen’s son has released his own message. Writing on Facebook, he said: “My sister and I just buried my father in Montreal. With only immediate family and a few lifelong friends present, he was lowered into the ground in an unadorned pine box, next to his mother and father. Exactly as he’d asked. As I write this I’m thinking of my father’s unique blend of self-deprecation and dignity, his approachable elegance, his charisma without audacity, his old-world gentlemanliness and the hand-forged tower of his work. There’s so much I wish I could thank him for, just one last time.” Cohen went on to thank his father for providing comfort, wisdom and “dazzling wit and humour”. As a musician himself, who released the album We Go Home in 2014, Adam also thanked his father for inspiring him to pursue songwriting: “I’d thank him for music; first for his music which seduced me as a boy, then for his encouragement of my own music, and finally for the privilege of being able to make music with him. Thank you for your kind messages, for the outpouring of sympathy and for your love of my father.” Cohen, who was 82 when he died, had hinted that his time was approaching in a recent New Yorker profile by David Remnick. He said: “I am ready to die. I hope it’s not too uncomfortable. That’s about it for me.”
Catfish and the Bottlemen: The Ride review – no messing Much like fiction boils down to a few archetypal stories framed by genre strictures, rock albums have recurrent motifs. The Ride, Catfish and the Bottlemen’s second album, finds this foursome – surprise winners of a Brit for breakthrough act, against far more house-trained opposition – at a tipping point. Having sold 250,000-odd copies of their debut, 2014’s The Balcony, these north-westerners (plus token Geordie guitarist Johnny Bond) are on a quest – to become the new Oasis, this generation’s purveyors of everyman tales, written to be hollered back by the hordes. Catfish have an authentic, anthemic edge over the landfill indie rock that blighted the 00s, and a natural star in singing guitarist Van McCann, a man who exudes self-belief without the douchebag-ness that often accompanies it. Interestingly, there’s also a Beatles to Catfish’s Stones: the 1975 are not dissimilar in age, “overnight sensations” a decade in the making, sharing the same dedication to the idea of being a rock band. The 1975’s recent take on ambition involves the 80s, R&B and long titles. By contrast, Catfish and the Bottlemen are almost comically one-dimensional, keeping things tight. As with Catfish’s debut, The Ride boasts one-word song titles and tunes that don’t fanny about. “She tends to obfuscate, when it’s black and white,” spits McCann on Oxygen. He’s half-appalled, but half-intrigued. The song’s chorus, meanwhile, owes a debt to Noel Gallagher’s “route one” approach. Naturally, our protagonists head off to America to get the widescreen treatment, this time courtesy of producer Dave Sardy (Oasis, Primal Scream). Subplots unfold. “New York surprised me,” begins McCann on Emily, unwittingly summarising the plot of the 1975’s album to boot: “I must admit, I think I lost my way a bit.” This is, then, the well-worn tale of a band on the up, retold with slightly different detailing: of getting confused about the time difference, of being in love, “but I need another year alone”, as McCann sings on 7. Of racing from soundcheck to catch a girl on her fag break, of picking someone special up from Heathrow, of love trouble. On Glasgow, McCann is plucking an acoustic guitar, being propped up on Sauchiehall Street, falling for the girl that makes him “do the shit that I never do”. There is little original here. But McCann has his moments. The way he tinkers – as though off-handedly – with repeated lyrics belies attention to craft. Twice is a particularly likable high point. “Christ!” McCann sings on the chorus, “I ain’t ever going back to thinking straight.” He’s uncomfortably sober – regretting arguments, calling in sick on Mondays and mourning “every ex I didn’t treat right”. Bond’s guitar solo on Anything, meanwhile, is an object lesson in pithy eloquence – this unadventurous but crowd-pleasing album’s strongest suit.
Scotland’s offer to give abortions to Northern Irish women shames Stormont Scotland and Northern Ireland are separated by just a few short miles of sea. But when it comes to access to abortion, they are divided by more than 150 years of history. While Scots women are able to access abortions on the same basis as their counterparts in England and Wales, Northern Irish women still face a near-total ban on the termination of pregnancy. In 2014-15, only 16 women were able to have lawful abortions in Northern Ireland. By contrast, 833 Ulster women travelled to England or Wales and paid for terminations at private clinics. And despite being full and equal taxpayers, Northern Ireland-resident women have been barred from accessing free abortions in NHS hospitals in England, Wales and Scotland. It was into this breach that Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, stepped last week when she told the Scottish parliament that she would explore the possibility of women and girls from Northern Ireland being able to access terminations through NHS Scotland. Her intervention has enraged the deeply conservative Democratic Unionist party (DUP), Northern Ireland’s largest party of government, but been welcomed by pro-choice and human rights campaigners in the region. While healthcare has been a devolved matter in Scotland since the creation of the Scottish parliament, it was only in May this year that abortion law was handed over to Holyrood. It is against this backdrop that Sturgeon’s intervention has demonstrated leadership on behalf of Northern Irish women sorely lacking both at Stormont and Westminster. There is near unanimous support in the Holyrood parliament for keeping abortion provision for Scotland in line with the 1967 Abortion Act. The picture couldn’t be more different across the water. As recently as February this year, the Northern Ireland assembly voted to keep the region’s abortion law as it is, refusing to legislate for abortion even in cases of rape, incest, or where the foetus has no chance of survival outside the womb. This was despite a Belfast high court finding, just two months previously, that Northern Ireland law breaches the European convention on human rights. Meanwhile, the UK health secretary Jeremy Hunt has determined that the NHS in England must operate a residence-based system so that women who live in Northern Ireland are barred from accessing NHS abortion services in England, despite being UK citizens. This position is currently the subject of a legal challenge at the UK supreme court taken by a Northern Ireland teenager and her mother. They want women and girls from Northern Ireland to receive free abortions on the NHS in England. The young woman at the centre of the case was 15 in 2012 when she and her mother travelled from Northern Ireland to Manchester and were asked to pay for a private termination. It is estimated that, with private clinic charges as well as the cost of travel and accommodation, a Northern Ireland woman needs to find anything between £400 and £2,000 to obtain a lawful abortion across the water in Britain – NHS care available for free to women in every other part of the UK. Stephen Cragg, who is acting as QC for the mother and daughter, told the supreme court at a hearing earlier this month that women and girls like his client are “second-class citizens” who “live in the UK, but – unlike all other women and girls in the UK – they are at risk of the most serious criminal penalty if they procure an abortion in their own area”. In Northern Ireland, any woman or girl who has an abortion deemed unlawful is liable for prosecution and could face a sentence of up to life imprisonment. Earlier this year a woman who had induced her own miscarriage by taking abortion pills obtained over the internet was found guilty under the 1861 Offences Against the Person Act and given a three-month suspended sentence. There are a number of other similar cases poised to come before the courts in Northern Ireland, including the prosecution of a mother who obtained the pills on behalf of her pregnant teenage daughter. Despite all this, a majority of Northern Ireland’s politicians have set their face against reform. Comfortable in their self-designation as “pro-life”, they appear to be immune to criticism – even from the UN, whose human rights committee recently ruled that this part of the UK’s laws prohibiting and criminalising abortion constitute a human rights violation. But, increasingly, Northern Ireland’s politicians are being left behind by the people. Independent polling published recently by Amnesty International showed that seven in 10 people want to see Northern Ireland’s harsh abortion laws changed, while more than half want to see abortion decriminalised altogether. The tens of thousands of people who are calling for abortion to be decriminalised also speak to that shift. Sturgeon’s offer of possible help to Northern Irish women and girls should be a matter of deep embarrassment to ministers in Northern Ireland. Theresa May should match Sturgeon’s offer to stand up for Northern Irish women abandoned by their own politicians. When it comes to the human right to healthcare, lines on a map should be no barrier.
Eurotrash is back! ‘We have a guy who paints portraits with his penis’ Antoine de Caunes is a novelist, actor, film director and television presenter. His greatest talent, however, may well be his ability to keep a straight face. It’s a skill he’s making use of as he lists the guests appearing in a special edition of his show Eurotrash. “There is this guy named Human Nature who transforms himself into different animals, and he will transform himself into a unicorn,” he says, his face betraying no glimmer of smirk. “It’s very spectacular, it’s not just a guy in some makeup. Really spectacular.” After some thought, Antoine continues: “We have the Spanish psychic that can read the future in vegetables and fruits…” At this point, the face of the man sitting next to Antoine, his co-host, the fashion designer Jean Paul Gaultier, lights up. He has remembered another guest: “We have a guy who does something, not sex, with his dick …” “Voila: Pricasso!” says Antoine, triumphantly. “He is the most brilliant artist, who is doing some portraits with his dick. He’s painting a portrait of Jean Paul.” The EU referendum has brought us its share of heated debate about the economy, immigration and trade. As of next Friday, it also brings a reprise of a gaudy, wry and very human television show: Eurotrash. First shown on Channel 4 in 1993, the programme was part of a lurid flowering in broadcasting – see also music show The Word – that became known as “post-pub TV”. From singing dogs to the Schrobenhausen Asparagus Queen, erotic performers to chefs, Eurotrash combed the continent (and occasionally the world) for the outrageous, the eccentric and the entertaining. A mix of studio guests, location reportage and bits to camera, the show had an air of spontaneity, a risque humour and a bright, DIY aesthetic. It cost a lot to make – reportedly £500,000 per hour – but then, as Dolly Parton memorably said, it takes a lot of money to look this cheap. Nor was it money ill spent; at its peak the programme secured a 20% audience share for its timeslot. The show had some favourite characters in its 16 series. Lolo Ferrari and Eddy Wally will both be remembered in a retrospective segment of this week’s EU referendum-themed show. Wally, who died this year, was a Flemish singer who wouldn’t stop singing (“A nightmare to interview,” says Antoine). Lolo, a French dancer, was a “sweet, beautiful” character, encouraged by her husband to have dramatic breast augmentation; she killed herself in 2000. Both also fondly remember Mr Penguin, a man from Belgium who so loved the flightless birds that he dressed as one. Beyond the stories, it was the partnership of De Caunes (screen persona: twinkling, cynical wit) and Gaultier (wide-eyed ingenue) that elevated the show into something special. “Banter” is now a debased concept, but the infectious humour that still passes between 62-year-old Antoine (brown leather jacket, jeans) and 64-year-old Jean Paul (black suit, black-and-white polka-dot tie) is the product of a natural, long-standing rapport. Friends for nearly 40 years, they socialised on the Paris club scene of the early 1980s. A favourite haunt then was Le Palace, a club that broke the rules of what the pair remember as an inflexible Parisian social order. “It was a nice, creative time in Paris in the 1980s,” remembers Jean Paul. “The Palace was the only club that was a little like English clubs, with the mixing of different social classes.” (It also provided the theme of Jean Paul’s 2016 couture collection.) As their careers developed, the pair kept up a friendship. When Channel 4 sought a new magazine programme after De Caunes’s success on pacy music show Rapido, producer Peter Stuart, an American living in Europe, tapped into their chemistry. “He said: ‘Why don’t we do something about all these strange characters that would show the Brits that Europe is an interesting place?’” remembers Antoine. “And because he has a very sick mind he came up with this idea.” For Gaultier, the proposal came at a transitional point in his life. “My partner died,” he says. “This became like a recreation, like going back to school, doing stupid things. For me, it was like therapy because I’m shy, though maybe it doesn’t look like it. It gave me confidence and I was having fun.” The scene in the studio today suggests that still holds true. Despite brutal deadlines (the show is being shot in one day), high spirits remain intact as the pair shoot their links and sketches. In principle, this one-off special attempts to help the viewer decide their position on the EU: whether to leave (represented by the cynical De Caunes persona) or remain (enthusiastic Jean Paul). In practice, we watch as Ukrainian pop stars NikitA and six back-up dancers perform a dance routine based on the video of their 2011 hit Verevki, in which the pair walk naked around a supermarket. Later, Antoine and Jean Paul reprise popular roles as Prince Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles (Jean Paul: “She is a style inspiration”) and Eddie Izzard pops by to deliver some surreal recommendations on where to visit in Europe. More serious comment comes with a discussion of European member nations. It is illustrated by a map, as Antoine points out, “painted on the body of a semi-naked contortionist. Just to keep things interesting …” A dancer dressed in marabou feathers walks across the set with a card promising a “European fun tax”. It’s all entertaining stuff, the pair regularly corpsing, and occasionally being reprimanded by Stuart (on directing duties) for sounding too French. But does Eurotrash – birthed in the pre-internet era – still have a place, now eccentricity and titillation are accessible to anyone? Times have changed to the point where dogs doing tricks and people with “unique talents” are the stuff of primetime TV. Antoine doesn’t deny the world has changed, but maintains that Eurotrash has a part to play. “You can get anything now,” he says, “except without the point of view. With Eurotrash, we are the editors. We care for these people, their stories are interesting. It’s not just freaky, showbizzy.” De Caunes – these days the anchor of French news and talk show Le Grand Journal – doesn’t like the idea of trash and doesn’t watch TV. Still, he says Eurotrash operates in a different world from, say, TV talent shows. “I don’t like the idea of exploiting what people have, or putting them on show,” he says. “I know it is a goofy show, but the point of Eurotrash is not to make fun of them but to have fun with them. I don’t look at people as circus animals.” Both Antoine and Jean Paul are adamant that, while Eurotrash works in England, it would never be tolerated in their native France, a “very, very serious” place where self-mockery is inadmissible. “Brits have an irony about themselves which the French don’t have,” says Jean Paul. “Maybe that’s it! You like yourselves, so you can criticise yourselves. But at the same time you have a view of what is funny about you, and cultivate it.” The same might equally be said of Antoine and Jean Paul, fluent in a very British line in self-deprecation. They have no difficulties with celebrity, they explain, or with being recognised, as they enter their own very strange spotlight once again. “Perhaps people look at Jean Paul because he is blond,” says Antoine. “People look at him because he is good-looking,” says Jean Paul. “We have been around for a while,” decides Antoine, “and people look at us like something that has been around. Like a piece of furniture…” Jean-Paul hoots with laughter: “Like an antique!” Eurotrash airs on Friday 17 June at 9pm on Channel 4
Ian Ayre to step down as Liverpool chief executive in 2017 Ian Ayre will step down as Liverpool chief executive when his contract ends in May 2017 with the owners, Fenway Sports Group, to start the search for a successor “in the near future”. The decision is not connected to the criticism Ayre received from Liverpool fans regarding the planned ticket price of £77 for next season. The move has since been abandoned, with FSG issuing a public apology. The understands that, privately, the owners take full responsibility, viewing Ayre as being more in line with the supporters’ stance. Ayre first informed FSG of his plan to leave the club in December, two months before the February protests which included the mass walk-out after 77 minutes of Liverpool’s Premier League match against Sunderland. Ayre joined the club as commercial director in 2007 and became CEO after FSG bought Liverpool from Tom Hicks and George Gillett Jr three years later. Ayre said: “The time and the commitment over what will be 10 years, I think not that you walk away from being responsible or committed but you reach a point where you feel do you want to make that level of commitment and hold that level of responsibility 24-7 forever. And if you don’t or if you reach a point where you start to question that, then for me not just as CEO but a Liverpool fan then that is the right time to be passing the baton to someone else to take up the mantle. “In the remaining 15 months I have as CEO I will continue to provide FSG, Jürgen [Klopp], the players and all the brilliant staff at Liverpool ongoing strategic leadership and a smooth transition.” Ayre believes Klopp has made a real connection with fans and the city. “Jürgen is absolutely fantastic. If I had three goals in my mind, it was the transformation of the commercial and operational side of the business, stadium and football. “Jürgen is well capable but that is not detrimental to managers that went before. He is outstanding to work with, he is infectious and he has had an effect on this football club, the supporter base, the city, everything. “Historically the most successful managers at Liverpool have cracked that nut. He has not been here long but he is showing brilliant signs. Talk about me being from Liverpool and what does that mean for the role? I think the most important thing is to have a connection not just with the fans but with the whole thing and Jürgen has got that very quickly.”
Premier League: 10 things to look out for this weekend 1) Fellaini may suffer as Van Gaal’s search for style goes on Having looked every bit the carefree entertainers against Newcastle United it was a surprise to see Manchester United struggle to muster only one shot on target (albeit a very telling one shot on target) in the victory at Liverpool. With Marouane Fellaini seeing far more of the ball than either Jesse Lingaard or Anthony Martial did, United’s approach play suffered and their forward movement regressed to the slow and predictable style we have seen from them so often this season, lacking the thrust of their attacks during the thrilling 3-3 draw at St James’ Park. Fellaini was a useful outlet when Liverpool were on top, an easy get-out ball for under-pressure defenders, and able to pluck the ball out of the air and ease pressure. But his selection helped only from a defensive viewpoint. Against a Southampton side who come into Saturday’s match on the back of two wins without conceding but who have a poor away record, the onus will be on United to break down potentially obstinate opponents who will likely look to utilise Shane Long’s pace on the break and perform their own smash and grab job. If United hope to avoid another stultifying afternoon at Old Trafford, Van Gaal may have to consider axing the easy option. GB • Manchester United lead Premier League assault on football’s rich list • Adnan Junuzaj ready for recall against Southampton 2) Arsenal must prevent being drawn into Chelsea’s discord Back in 1979, Arsenal won this fixture 5-2 to basically condemn Chelsea to relegation. The stakes aren’t quite that high for the men in blue this time round, but they could do with getting themselves in gear soon if they are to steer clear of trouble. José Mourinho may be gone, off now involving himself in the politics of a whole country after being voted out of Stamford Bridge amid “palpable discord”, but problems persist under Guus Hiddink. Petr Cech no doubt feels more safe behind a defence featuring Per Mertesacker than he would have done behind a Chelsea rearguard playing as they have this season, and Chelsea aren’t looking too clever up front these days either. Eden Hazard may return and it will be interesting to see how he performs if he does; it will also be interesting to monitor Diego Costa’s interaction with his old muckers in the Arsenal defence. Get suckered into sendings-off and Arsenal will lose this; otherwise, everything points to a home win, especially with Alexis Sánchez back in the frame. PD • Wenger tells Arsenal: expect a battle with Chelsea’s Diego Costa • Jonathan Wilson: Even after José’s exit, numbers are not looking good 3) A bit more swash and buckle from Swansea? Despite the absence of goals September’s corresponding fixture at the Liberty Stadium was a belter and four months later the teams meet again with both sets of fans almost certainly feeling frustrated by their underachieving sides. For Swansea City, the threat of relegation remains very real, but the appointment of the experienced Francesco Guidolin, winner of Italy’s Panchina d’Oro for manager of the year in 2012, as head coach will give their supporters grounds for optimism. Having amazed many by steering Udinese to fourth (2010-11) and then third (2011-12) in Serie A during his most recent of two spells at the club, the 60-year-old is clearly very capable and it will be intriguing to see how he sets up his new team for what’s likely to be a very tricky away game against one of the division’s more entertaining teams. With goal-getter Antonio Di Natale as their focal point, speed and muscle were the hallmarks of an attack-minded Udinese side that often played three across the back with a pair of wing-backs flanking two energetic, scurrying enforcers in midfield. On their day, they were an absolute delight to watch. More, please. BG • Swansea’s derailment slows one of football’s most impressive rises • Defender Tabanou hits out at Swansea after rejoining St Etienne 4) Allen to be rewarded for improving form? Joe Allen’s past three Liverpool appearances have involved a man-of-the-match display against Stoke City in the Capital One Cup, a late equaliser as a substitute against Arsenal in the league and an energetic, goalscoring performance against Exeter City in the FA Cup. Yet, despite these displays, the Wales midfielder has drawn more mirth than praise from the casual observer. His recent Andrea Pirlo styling probably hasn’t helped but since returning from injury he has looked like a player with a point to prove to Jürgen Klopp. His intense pressing, accurate passing and pickpocketing of opponents cannot have gone unnoticed. A stuttering Liverpool career to date and ill-timed injuries this season can’t have helped Allen’s cause much. His only league start came in the disappointing 2-0 defeat at Newcastle United. But in recent away games, when Liverpool have failed to match the intensity of opponents, Allen’s new-found energy could have helped immensely. With Liverpool’s league form patchy at best – and Swansea apparently showing an interest in Allen – it would seem odd not to hand at least one more chance in the league to a player who is making all the right noises at a time in his career when it is make or break for him. His improved engine could be useful against a Norwich City team hoping to reverse a run of four defeats that will be boosted by the availability of the ever-industrious Steven Naismith, who has joined from Everton for £8m. GB • Liverpool make £24.6m bid for Shakhtar forward Alex Teixeira • Norwich complete signing of Steven Naismith from Everton 5) West Ham will take heart from Man City’s wobbles on the road West Ham were jolted by Newcastle’s aggressiveness when losing at St James’ Park last week but will take some encouragement from the fact that Manchester City have looked incapable of asserting themselves in that way on the road in recent months, their late comeback at Watford notwithstanding. Sergio Agüero and David Silva may have suggested last weekend while tonking Crystal Palace at home that they have regained their sharpness but Manuel Pellegrini’s men need to demonstrate that they are prepared to do that at grounds such as Upton Park, against a team that has only conceded six goals in their last nine league games. West Ham can also take heart, of course, from their victory at the Etihad in October, although their scorers that day, Diafra Sakho and Victor Moses, may not be fit enough to start this weekend. But with Dmitri Payet about, the hosts could still test City’s suspect defence. PD • Zárate completes move to Fiorentina from West Ham for £1.6m • Patrick Vieira interview: ‘I’m here at New York City FC to win’ 6) Misfiring strikers against Spurs rearguard spells trouble for Pardew Palace have not scored in their last five league games so it is difficult to see them beating a Tottenham Hotspur side exuding confidence and boasting the meanest defence in the league. Christian Eriksen had been the one Tottenham player under-performing in recent weeks but he showed clear signs of revival against Sunderland and Leicester, so everything is looking rosy for Spurs. That is usually when they are at their most vulnerable. But Tottenham seem to have developed more mettle under Mauricio Pochettino. Victory at Selhurst Park would strengthen that feeling. PD • Crystal Palace consider six-month deal for Emmanuel Adebayor • Bale’s agent demands inquiry after details of £85m transfer leaked 7) Sunderland set for an away performance at home Having been tonked by Tottenham Hotspur last weekend, Sunderland entertain Bournemouth in their third six-pointer out of four Premier League games and can at least take solace from the knowledge that, if nothing else, they are at least capable of beating the teams around them at the foot of the table. Sunderland’s home form is dismal, but definitely improving. Bournemouth make the long trek to Sunderland having kept clean sheets in three of their past five Premier League games and lost only one of their previous five on the road. Having put three without reply past Norwich last weekend, they’ll be hopeful of inflicting similar damage on the most porous defence in the Premier League. A bet on them bagging a goal within 15 minutes might be worth your while; they’ve done it seven times already this season – more than any other team. Against a back four as brittle as Sunderland’s, expect them to come roaring out of the traps to put their hosts on the back foot immediately. This could be another extremely uncomfortable afternoon for Big Sam and his troops. BG • Blame me for Kirchhoff’s dismal debut, says Allardyce • Reading complete signing of Bournemouth striker Kermorgant 8) Mitrovic to show his worth for Newcastle With Newcastle linked with a move for Saido Berahino, Aleksandar Mitrovic must be feeling a little concerned about his future at St James’ Park. The barrell-chested old-fashioned No9 appears to have all the attributes to be a complete centre-forward. All except one: goals. When Newcastle’s forward-play clicks, his ability to draw defenders towards him and make space for more creative attacking players such as Moussa Sissoko, Georginio Wijnaldum and Ayoze Pérez, is key. They often benefit as a consequence of his hard work. It’s also easy to forget that he is only 21 years old, his burly demeanour and characterful style often giving the false impression that he is a seasoned performer. “I’ve played some of the best football in my life [this season], the difference is in Belgium I played well and scored goals,” he said this week. “Here, I play good but the goals don’t come – but I will keep working and hopefully one day it will come.” For Newcastle’s mini-revival to continue, Mitrovic should focus on the things he is doing well and not fear for his place in the team due to a lack of goals. If Steve McClaren’s side continue their mini-revival at Watford, whether Mitrovic scores or not, you can be rest assured he will have played his part. GB • Pantilimon leaves Sunderland to join Watford • Newcastle ready to end interest in Andros Townsend 9) Another treat from two surprise packages? Have Jamie Vardy and Riyad Mahrez suffered a slump in form or merely reverted to fatigued type after a quite extraordinary start to the season? Neither can be faulted for their effort (although Mahrez can be faulted for two penalty misses), but whatever the answer to this perplexing conundrum the goals have certainly dried up for Leicester. They have scored only twice in their past five Premier League excursions, compared to the 12 they plundered in the preceding five games. For all this new-found reticence in front of goal, they remain right up there at the Premier League summit, neck-and-neck with Arsenal and this weekend take on a Stoke City team that have only lost three matches on their travels in the Premier League this season. Earlier this season, Stoke blew a two-goal lead to let Leicester rescue a point at the Britannia. As we approach the end of January, Leicester continue to harbour genuine title hopes while Stoke are far from out of the race for a top-four finish, so we can probably expect a cagier affair. Now there’s a sentence we didn’t expect to have to type after that entertaining draw in September. BG • Leicester City striker Kramaric moves to Hoffenheim on loan • Coates condemns Stoke fans’ chants about Ramsey 10) Garde can salvage Villa pride in derby Of the 11 players who started Aston Villa’s 1-0 home defeat to West Bromwich Albion in September, only two (Ashley Westwood and Carles Gil) will start Saturday’s match at the Hawthorns if Rémi Garde redeploys the side that took four points from the last six available in the Premier League. From a mishmash squad the French manager has gradually formed something resembling a decent team and it looks nothing like the one that floundered in the earlier part of the season. Big holes remain and it is almost certainly too late to save Villa from relegation, but players such as Idrissa Gueye, Jordan Veretout and Jordan Ayew have shown in recent weeks that they are more likely to uphold Villa pride in this Midlands derby than the likes of Gabriel Agbonlahor, Jack Grealish and Alan Hutton. PD • Paul Wilson: relegation battlers brace themselves for a telling weekend • Rondón’s goal for West Brom ends Bristol City’s FA Cup dream
Facebook v Adblock: the anti-ad empire strikes back Update: Facebook and Adblock have taken turns unblocking and reblocking ads on the social network. This is likely to continue until one of them cries uncle. Check back with us in a month or two for more updates. (Just kidding.) Two days ago, Facebook announced it had implemented changes to its site that would thwart ad blockers. Users who wanted to enjoy the world’s largest social network would continue to pay by seeing ads keyed to their Likes and web-browsing habits. Now popular browser plugin Adblock Plus has returned fire, issuing a filter update that restores its commercial-killing powers to the world of Zuckerberg. Game on. In a blog post dated 9 August, Facebook vice-president Andrew Bosworth announced that ad blockers would no longer make “sponsored posts” disappear on desktop and laptop computers. However, in an apparently magnanimous gesture, Facebook would allow users more control over the types of ads they would see. Said Bosworth: If you don’t want to see ads about a certain interest like travel or cats, you can remove the interest from your ad preferences. We also heard that people want to be able to stop seeing ads from businesses or organizations who have added them to their customer lists, and so we are adding tools that allow people to do this. Adblock Plus vowed its community of ad-loathing users would not take those changes sitting down. In a blog post on Thursday, it announced an update to its filters that would restore the plugin’s ad-blocking powers to the world’s biggest social network. Users can either update the plug in by clicking a button or manually add the filter code to the software. According to the Adblock blog: As many of you know, the filter lists that ‘tell’ Adblock Plus what to block are in fact the product of a global community of web citizens. This time that community seems to have gotten the better of even a giant like Facebook. Facebook claims the Adblock plugin also blocks non-advertising posts from users’ friends. “We’re disappointed that ad blocking companies are punishing people on Facebook as these new attempts don’t just block ads but also posts from friends and Pages,” says a Facebook spokesperson. “This isn’t a good experience for people and we plan to address the issue. Ad blockers are a blunt instrument, which is why we’ve instead focused on building tools like ad preferences to put control in people’s hands.” The social network also takes exception to Adblock’s policy of taking money from some of the web’s largest advertisers – including Google – to “whitelist” adverts that follow its guidelines for “acceptable ads”. (This setting is turned on by default, but can be changed by people who wish to see no ads at all.) One of the rules advertisers must follow is that “ads must not disrupt the user’s natural reading flow”, and be placed to the side, above or below the “primary content”. Another is that ads can be clearly distinguished from non-ad content. Sponsored content features prominently in the center of Facebook’s newsfeed, which would hamper the network’s ability to adhere to those guidelines, if it chose to. An estimated 198 million netizens use some form of ad blocker, according to Page Fair. That number is expected to triple over the next five years. Adblock is under no illusions that its respite from Facebook’s ire will be anything more than temporary. “[T]his sort of back-and-forth battle between the open source ad-blocking community and circumventers has been going on since ad-blocking was invented; so it’s very possible that Facebook will write some code that will render the filter useless – at any time ... But for this round of the cat-and-mouse contest, looks like the mouse won.”
Tom Hiddleston: I doubt I'll play James Bond Tom Hiddleston has said doesn’t believe he will be the next James Bond. The actor is the popular favourite to take over from Daniel Craig, who starred in the last film, Sceptre. “I don’t think that announcement is coming,” Hiddleston told a rowdy audience at the Wizard World Comic Con in Philadelphia last weekend. “I am very gratified to hear the enthusiasm. Your guess is as good as mine, to be honest.” Hiddleston was first linked with the role after his appearance in The Night Manager, the BBC spy drama based on the novel by John le Carré. The show, in which the actor played an MI5 operative who wears a tux and orders martinis, was directed by In a Better World’s Susanne Bier. She is one a handful of directors rumoured to be taking over from Sam Mendes on the 25th Bond film. While Craig has not officially left the franchise, he told Time Out magazine he would “rather slash my wrists” than play Bond again. Other actors linked to the role include Idris Elba, Tom Hardy and Damian Lewis. Hiddleston, while expressing enthusiasm about the prospect, has repeatedly shot down rumours that he has signed on to play the spy. ‘The thing is, the position isn’t vacant, as far as I am aware. No one has talked to me about it,” he told Graham Norton in May. “I think the rumours have all come about because in the Night Manager I play a spy and people have made the link.” Mendes, who directed Skyfall and Spectre, both box-office successes, has said that the next Bond will not be someone the audience expects. “It’s not a democracy,” he said at the Hay literary festival last month, after announcing his retirement from the franchise. “It’s not The X Factor, it’s not the EU referendum, it’s not a public vote. [Producer] Barbara Broccoli chooses who’s going to be the next Bond. End of story.”
Into the woods: how walks are improving mental health The Scottish are keen woodland-goers, with 78% visiting woods for recreation compared with 56% across the UK, according to the Public Opinion of Forestry survey. Now, walks are being used by Scottish health services as an aid for those with mental health conditions. Since 2007, Forestry Commission Scotland has been putting the calming effect of woodlands to good use in courses for groups of adults with long-term mental health conditions. Branching Out consists of 12 three-hour sessions of conservation work, art creation and bushcraft, followed by a graduation ceremony. Healthcare professionals accompany their patients and take part, with specially trained woodland experts acting as leaders. Participating healthcare professionals include occupational therapists and community psychiatric nurses. They come primarily as supporters rather than carers. “It’s de-medicalised. Everyone dresses the same,” says Kevin Lafferty, the commission’s access, health and recreation adviser, who adds that it can change relationships significantly. “It allows both the healthcare worker and the patient to be more open so they can speak more freely to one another. Being in a woodland itself creates a positive environment for recovery and healing.” The commission has trained more than 70 course leaders who have prior experience in outdoor skills. Often these are countryside rangers from councils or voluntary organisations, who go on a three-day training programme and a two-day mental health first aid course. In case of disruption, they are able to call on the healthcare professionals the patients know for assistance. However, those who would be unable to take part in group activities due to their mental ill health or who have blood pressure or heart problems are generally deemed unfit for courses. The first courses were run by the commission with NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, Glasgow city council and other local organisations at Cathkins Braes Country Park on the south-east edge of Glasgow. The operation now runs more than 200 courses. “The focus was to look at the mental health benefits of woodlands and green space for mental health patients,” says Hugh McNish, social programme manager for the commission. As well as being Scotland’s largest city, Glasgow has other advantages as a course location. “Glasgow is well served with access to green space, but people don’t always know where it is,” says McNish. “We have access to good quality woodland within half an hour.” Nine of Scotland’s 14 health boards now use Branching Out, with NHS Grampian planning to join. The courses are open to patients with conditions including psychosis, schizophrenia, anxiety and mild depression, and accepts those living in the community and in mental health hospitals. While the commission and health boards approach individual units with offers to take up the courses, patients have the final say in whether or not they attend. “It’s self-selection for the participants rather than a medical referral,” says McNish. Participants generally take part with other people from the service. Following an initial briefing a week or two before the first session, groups of up to 12 are taken from a central pick-up point by bus to the woodland. Participants set up a camp area and are taught bushcraft skills, including how to light fires using natural materials, how to prepare food and how to build shelters. The sessions also involve conservation work, removing invasive species such as sycamores and rhododendrons, and planting native ones including Scots pines, oaks and birches. “All the different sights and sounds and smells are very different from the hospital environment that I’m used to, and I’ve really enjoyed being out in the countryside,” says one participant. As well as practical skills, the courses incorporate arts and crafts activities, with participants engaging in photography, sculpture using leaves, acorns and clay, and tree-dressing – wrapping trees in natural materials such as wool. “It’s like an art installation, it creates an interest,” says Lafferty. The art is displayed at the course’s graduation ceremony, which can be attended by friends and family. Many participants also complete the John Muir Award, which they receive at the ceremony along with certificates of attendance and skills learned. “For some of the participants, that’s the first qualification they have ever received,” says Lafferty. “That can be quite a big deal for them.” Local voluntary services such as the John Muir Trust, the RSPB and Glasgow’s Coach House Trust attend the ceremonies, enabling participants to volunteer for further outdoor work, increasing their independence. Some have developed skills learned on the course into formal qualifications for employment. An evaluation of the scheme’s first year found that it cost less than £50 per person per day, with 70% of those starting the course completing it and participants reporting improvements in physical and mental health. Soon-to-be-published research is expected to confirm its cost-effectiveness when assessed against National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) guidelines. McNish says the commission has seen interest from outside Scotland, including from the Irish Forestry Service. “It’s a model that can happen elsewhere quite easily,” he says, adding that the commission is happy to share its experience with other authorities. He believes the courses could also hold benefits for people with other conditions. “We’ve focused on the mental health population, but equally it could work with dementia patients, rehab or obesity.” Join the Healthcare Professionals Network to read more pieces like this. And follow us on Twitter (@GdnHealthcare) to keep up with the latest healthcare news and views.
#ThanksObama: president's greatest legacy may be Trumping of the GOP Republicans have blamed the current president for so much that a satirical meme was born. Flat tire? Broken fingernail? “Thanks, Obama.” But as the Grand Old Party faces a genuine existential crisis this weekend over how to handle Donald Trump as its presumptive presidential nominee, many are wondering if #thanksobama is once again an appropriate response to the turmoil of the last few days. Trump’s shock ascendancy can be attributed to many factors. Obama himself likes to blame the celebrity-obsessed media. “This is not entertainment. This is not a reality show,” he chastised reporters on Friday. “This is a contest for the presidency of the United States.” A self-flagellating Republican establishment accuses other candidates for the nomination of failing to take Trump’s populist threat seriously. “I think Donald Trump is going to places where very few people have gone and I’m not going with him,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, once a candidate himself, in the latest anti-Trump outburst to stretch party unity. Yet one thing Trump supporters and Democrats agree on is the extent to which the party of Lincoln has been twisted out of recognition by its loathing for the current occupant of the White House. Amid bitter recriminations over Trump’s successful exploitation of this mood, many are wondering if the president’s greatest legacy may be the desolation of the Republican party, which did so much to frustrate his own time in office but may take decades to recover once he leaves. ‘Deliberation is hesitancy, patience weakness’ The roots of Trump’s political flowering can be traced to Obama’s election to the White House in 2008. After a successful career as a property developer and reality television host, Trump found his political voice as the mouthpiece of the “birther” movement – questioning the president’s right to hold office as a natural-born American citizen in a way many felt was a dog whistle to those who felt uncomfortable having someone called Hussein in the Oval Office. Once Obama produced his birth certificate, the hints and innuendo ran out of steam. Instead, Trump’s second flirtation with running for president sprang from Obama’s controversial immigration policies. After narrowly failing to reach an agreement on comprehensive immigration reform with Congress, Obama pursued executive actions to shelter families from the threat of deportation. He found himself blamed for encouraging new immigration with offers of “amnesty”, especially when a rush of child migrants from Central America began overwhelming officials on the southern border. Anyone looking to understand the popularity of Trump’s controversial proposals to build a wall and deport all undocumented immigrants need only go back to Obama’s policies of 2015. Many Republicans, particularly figures such as Arizona senator John McCain, fear a backlash among Latino voters. They wish the party had settled the issue when Congress was considering comprehensive immigration reform. Yet there is no doubt that by continuing without support from lawmakers, Obama skillfully forced the Republican party to decide between electability and following the wishes of angry activists attracted to the likes of Trump. To some extent, though, Trump’s emergence as the anti-Obama is part of the natural swing of the pendulum that replaced Eisenhower with JFK and Nixon and Ford with Jimmy Carter. The “Obama theory of Trump” was first identified in January, by former White House adviser David Axelrod. He recalled how he had written to then Senator Obama in 2006 to tell him: “The most influential politician in 2008 won’t be on the ballot. His name is George W Bush.” “[Obama’s] deliberation is seen as hesitancy; patience as weakness,” Axelrod wrote in the New York Times, explaining what attracted Republicans to Trump instead. “His call for tolerance and passionate embrace of America’s growing diversity inflame[s] many in the Republican base, who view with suspicion and anger the rapidly changing demographics of America. The president’s emphasis on diplomacy is viewed as appeasement. “So who among the Republicans is more the antithesis of Mr Obama than the trash-talking, authoritarian, give-no-quarter Mr Trump?” A shock to the system The ruthlessness with which Trump was able to swiftly tap into this mood, and the extent, perhaps, to which Obama has been able to exploit it, has still come as a shock to many conservatives. Reince Priebus, chairman of the Republican National Committee, revealed on Friday that he and most senior leaders had expected the battle for the presidential nomination to continue until the convention in July. This week, with his phone buzzing relentlessly with messages informing him of the capitulation of Ted Cruz and John Kasich, Priebus was caught unprepared and forced to try to patch up the rift that widened when House speaker Paul Ryan said he could not yet support Trump. The bombastic New York billionaire could, of course, still surprise everyone by beating the Democratic nominee – almost certain to be Hillary Clinton – in November’s general election. Were that to happen, there may be a few red faces among Republican opponents like Ryan and former presidents George W and George HW Bush, who have vowed not to support him. But power would heal many party rifts. What figures like Ryan worry more about, though, is that Trump will not only lose in a landslide to Clinton but bring down the Republican-controlled House and Senate with him. The queasiness of moderate Republican senators such as Kelly Ayotte and Susan Collins this week was a direct manifestation of this concern about Trump’s unpopularity among the general electorate, and also a sign of how wide the rift now is between different wings of the party. Even conservative senators such as Ben Sasse of Nebraska are calling for a third candidate to emerge, to rally voters appalled at the choice between Clinton and Trump. Priebus insists this scenario remains almost inconceivable. Throughout this, Democrats have acted as if they cannot believe their luck. Clinton has issued attack ads against Trump that consist of little more than a string of Republicans voicing their concerns about the man. Unleashing this toxic maelstrom may prove to be Obama’s greatest gift to his party and most lasting legacy, especially if Clinton is able to win back Congress. For now, the president also recognises that having set the wheels in motion, the best thing he can do is sit back and silently watch. In his speech at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner last weekend, he cut short a barrage of jokes about Trump, seemingly aware that looking too smug would only help his opponents. On Friday, in a briefing with reporters, he passed up repeated opportunities to revel in Republican discomfort. “With respect to the Republican process and Mr Trump, there’s going to be plenty of time to talk about his positions on various issues,” said a relaxed-looking president. Any thanks offered by the Republicans were sure to be of the sarcastic variety.
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot: why Tina Fey turned my life as a war reporter into a comedy In 2004, journalist Kim Barker began working as the South Asia bureau chief for the Chicago Tribune. She covered the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan for the paper until her return to the US in 2009 when she wrote a memoir – The Taliban Shuffle – about the experience. Unlike many book narratives by war reporters, Barker’s pushed through the tragedy and conflict by teasing out the absurdities of covering such a fraught beat. So much so that her story caught the attention of Tina Fey and Saturday Night Live producer Lorne Michaels, who turned her book into the film Whiskey Tango Foxtrot. The film’s main character is a fortysomething TV reporter (Fey) stuck in a rut when she is recruited to Kabul (unlike Barker, who had volunteered for the job in her early 30s), but it still deftly nails the book’s key themes, from dealing with corrupt leaders to the challenges of dating as a journalist in a conflict zone. Unfortunately, not everyone gets it. One American critic recently referred to the film as “Eat, Pray, Love but with war (and Tina Fey)”. Incensed, Barker took to Twitter and posted a rapid-fire list of counterpoints, clarifications and corrections (the critic also referred to Afghans as Middle Easterners), including: “I deliberately wrote anti Eat, Pray, Love. Nothing wrong with that narrative. It’s not the movie’s. How condescending to women to say that.” “Why are women only allowed one narrative?” she asks me, seated on the sofa of her Brooklyn apartment. “We have one overseas adventure and that’s supposed to be Eat, Pray, Love. It’s supposed to end in a man. And this is not that. It’s not that in the movie, and it’s not that in the book. It just goes to show the limited span that we’ve got for women and adventure stories.” Barker, 45, was raised without “gender expectations” by her parents, an architect and a nurse, in Montana. “I wasn’t allowed to have dolls or anything like that,” recalls Barker, who has a younger brother. “There was this movement to raise girls just like you raise boys. I was very comfortable being a tomboy.” This month, her book made it into the top 10 New York Times bestseller list for paperback non-fiction, coinciding with the US release of the film. The success has lent itself to even more real-life comedy for Barker, now an investigative reporter for the New York Times. First, there was the red-carpet premiere. “Normally, I would go to TJ Maxx,” says Barker, sitting cross-legged in jeans and a T-shirt bearing the words: “Shhh … nothing to see here.” “But I didn’t want to look like I was a journalist going to the prom and wear some sequined dress because I don’t know what to wear, right?” So she showed up in a designer dress, but when paparazzi asked her who made the dress, she says: “I was like: ‘Fuck, I forgot to look at the tag.’ So I just go: ‘I don’t think you’re supposed to ask women that any more.’ Because I read the Oscars controversy where women were like: ‘It’s all about my art, it’s not about the designer I’m wearing.’” Next, her lacklustre dating life despite being the basis of a star-studded Hollywood film. “If I was a dude, I’d be doing pretty well right now,” insists Barker. “But I think it’s different when you’re a woman who’s a former war correspondent and an investigative reporter who has now had a movie made about her book where Tina Fey is playing her. There’s a certain kind of guy who’s going to find that attractive, and I think there are a lot of guys who are going to be like: ‘Nah.’” (She clarifies: “Honestly, I’ve been so busy, I haven’t had time to even think about it.”) And finally, there’s the reality of not being able to enjoy the fanfare with your colleagues. “It’s simply a blip,” says Barker. “Lots of people have been foreign correspondents. Lots of people have this experience of coming back, so it’s a little bit of a crack-up. Anybody in the [New York Times] newsroom would be like: ‘Whatever. I’ve written three books and won four Pulitzer prizes.’” Despite her triumphs, Barker says she doesn’t necessarily advise young women to follow in her footsteps. “The job I had doesn’t exist any more,” she says. “Journalism is a hard field. It’s hard to make a living. If there’s something [else] you think you’d like to do, you should probably do it. But if this is it for you, the way it has always been for me, then suck it up and live with that. You can cobble together a way to make a living overseas – it’s just dangerous.” When Barker first went to South Asia, she didn’t worry about the risks. “My thought has always been leap first, figure it out six months later,” she says. “If you think about those things, you’ll never be a foreign correspondent because you’ll be nervous about everything.” “I remember I was angry from day one after 9/11,” she says. “I was like: ‘I want to go to New York.’” Instead, her bosses tasked her with researching Chicago gas prices and contacting the relatives of the terrorist attack victims. But then, in 2003, she heard a rumour that the paper was interested in trying out more female foreign correspondents, as the majority had been male. “That’s when I volunteered,” says Barker. She went to the foreign editor and, as she writes in the book, said: “I have no kids and no husband, so I’m expendable.” A lot of the male correspondents sought out the frontlines, says Barker, but, she adds: “I wasn’t that reporter – maybe because I was more of a chicken.” Rather, she was more interested in telling stories about how people lived through war than how they died. “I definitely covered the war, but I really liked the smaller stories about what happens in a country when the west rushes in there after being kept out for so long.” In 2009, the Tribune called Barker back to Chicago, moving her a job on the metro desk. She turned it down because she wasn’t ready to leave Afghanistan. She interviewed at Amnesty International and considered going into consulting, as some of her peers had. But, she says, “When I thought about actually leaving [journalism], I realised I wasn’t done yet.” Four months after turning down the Tribune job, she decided it was time to go, and finally moved to New York, to start a press fellowship at the Council on Foreign Relations. She writes: “I had turned into this almost drowning caricature of a war hack, working, swearing, and drinking my way through life and relationships ... After the running, the bombs, the death, the downward spiral, I had a choice – I could choose life, or I could choose to keep hopping from one tragedy to the next.” But, back in America, she had trouble leaving behind the intensity of life in a war zone. She couldn’t stop talking about “AfPak” and writes that she “constantly felt uneasy, like I should be doing something else. I angered easily. I could not relax. I could not sit still. I could not connect. I had more in common with many US soldiers than I did with my family.” Her friends called her out on it. She attended one session with a therapist, decided that writing a book about her experience would be better therapy and got a job reporting on campaign finance at ProPublica. It was her editor, Stephen Engelberg – who had been a correspondent in Bosnia for the New York Times – who may have been the key to her sanity. “He had known too many people who tried to come back and couldn’t leave it,” she says. “You need to go cold turkey, otherwise you’re always thinking about going back and you only see the stories coming out of there – you don’t move on.” After two years in NYC, she finally felt “normal” and “less jagged”. Now, she just feels lucky. “I have a great job and I’ve been able to stay in journalism,” she says. “I just want people to read the book, and I’m just grateful to Tina and [screenwriter] Robert Carlock and Lorne Michaels for giving this book a second life.” •Whiskey Tango Foxtrot is released in the UK on 22 April. Barker’s latest edition of the memoir is published by Scribe Books on 14 April
Rose Byrne: 'Arthur Miller’s A View from the Bridge took my breath away' It was one of those experiences where you remember everything: who you were with, what you were wearing, what time of day it was. It was my first Arthur Miller. I was 16 years old. I’d been a nerdy drama student for about eight years, but I hadn’t seen that much live theatre and I’d never seen any of Miller’s plays performed. I was with one of my oldest and best friends, Nadia Townsend. We were passionate acting students, in year 11 at Bradfield College, and she was my partner-in-crime for all things dramatic. I wore a short, second-hand 60s dress with lemon and lime flowers and capped sleeves, and Blundstone lace-up boots – it was the 90s. It was a matinee performance, we were 16, we were out by ourselves and there was a feeling of tension and fever in the audience because the production was so good. I was very naive. I didn’t know anything about the story of A View From the Bridge, so I went in blind. Although the play is set in 1950s New York, it’s essentially a Greek tragedy. Eddie Carbone is an Italian-American longshoreman married to Beatrice. He’s a good man but he has an unhealthy obsession with his wife’s niece, Catherine, who lives with the couple. When the brothers Marco and Rodolpho arrive, his obsession starts to bleed into the rest of his life, with tragic consequences. This production was directed by Adam Cook at Company B, with an extraordinary cast. Essie Davis played Catherine. She was 23, had just graduated from NIDA and was this stunning ingenue. Marshall Napier played Eddie Carbone. Justin Monjo and Gillian Jones were also in it. It made me uncomfortable in the best possible way. There were so many moral lines in the sand that I was conflicted about. I had never felt that before. I felt empathy for Eddie but I was scared of him; I was worried for Essie as Catherine but I also wasn’t sure if I trusted her. As the complexity of the story built and built and built, my heart was in my throat as I wondered what was going to happen. It was electric, and when the lights went up for half time everyone was holding their breath. There was also a true sense of company on stage, of everybody bouncing off each other, everyone passing the baton; there was a dance of tension and fear and love, hot in the air. But it was the exploration of the greyness of the moral boundaries which I had never really felt before. The play was the beginning of my journey of searching for those sacred experiences that you have in the theatre, and wanting to be a part of that. It’s like lightning in the bottle, trying to capture that thrill that can come on stage, and it’s very rare. I can count on two hands the number of plays I’ve seen where I’ve felt like that, but this was the first one. It’s like the first time you fall in love, the first time you have your heart broken – these are the seminal moments in our lives. For me, this was the first time that theatre crossed over the boundaries of just being entertainment, to become something far greater, more complex, more confronting and profound. As best I can, I’ve sought out work like this – with those shifting moral boundaries – throughout my career. And as I’ve got older, I have returned to touchstones like this. Like when I first saw Sam Shepherd’s True West, or Tracy Letts’s August Osage County, or when I first heard a Cat Power ballad when I was 21. These are the touchstones of art that really changed me; that’s what great art can do. And those first experiences are special, so I return to them when I’m feeling slightly despaired or uninspired, all of those things that can come with time and age in this business. A View From the Bridge is an emotional touchstone for what’s in my gut and in my heart. It’s still my favourite Arthur Miller play. The playwright explored the grey areas of life in all his works, including Death of a Salesman and The Crucible, but for me this play encapsulates the ambiguity best. It was first performed in 1956, and like many of his plays it stands the test of time. And just like any great work of literature or theatre or film or music, it still makes us laugh or cry or think or be inspired. As told to Alexandra Spring • Rose Byrne will appear in David Mamet’s Speed-the-Plow at Sydney Theatre Company from 8 November to 17 December
Doctors' political views can affect advice given to patients, says survey Doctors’ political beliefs can skew the advice they give patients on sensitive issues such as abortions and cannabis use, according to new research. A survey of more than 200 doctors found that those with conservative views were more likely than others to discourage patients from having an abortion in the future. They also handed out more stern warnings over the legal and health risks of using cannabis. The results suggest that doctors’ political leanings can spill over into the guidance, and even the treatments, they offer to patients under their care. The findings build on previous work that has highlighted gender and race biases in the medical treatment different people receive. “Doctors need to think through these kinds of issues, because if they are dealing with politically sensitive issues, this is unavoidable,” said Eitan Hersh, a political scientist at Yale University. “If we can get this out to physicians, they can be more aware of it.” “If you’re a patient and you are choosing a new doctor, you might want to know their views beforehand,” Hersh said. Writing in the journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Hersh and his colleague Matthew Goldenberg, describe how they linked more than 20,000 primary care doctors in 29 US states to their political party affiliations using public voter databases. From these they selected more than 200 doctors, half Democrat, half Republican, to receive a survey from Yale medical school, rather than their own Institution for Social and Policy Studies, to disguise the political nature of the study. In the survey, the doctors were asked to rate the seriousness of nine scenarios presented by patients. The vignettes included references to drinking too much alcohol, smoking cigarettes, using marijuana, being depressed, visiting sex workers, riding a motorbike without wearing a helmet, storing guns in a house where there were children, and having had two elective abortions in the past. The doctors more or less agreed on the seriousness of the less politically-charged issues, such as alcohol abuse and not wearing a helmet. But they differed substantially in their reaction to more sensitive issues, such as cannabis use, elective abortions and having guns in the home. The Republicans were more concerned than Democrats about patients having future abortions and using cannabis. Meanwhile, Democrats were more vexed than Republicans at patients having guns in the home. A similar split emerged when doctors proposed how they would treat each patient. The survey found Republican doctors were more likely to warn patients about the health risks of using too much cannabis. They raised the legal risks of the drug too, and urged patients to cut down. They took a stronger line on abortions, too, the researchers found. “As a patient, it’s useful to ask ‘is my doctor telling me this because it’s what the medical evidence says, or is it because of their world view?’” Hersh said. “Doctors sometimes say they think of themselves as mechanics, that whatever patient comes in they will treat them the same way. But it’s obvious that’s not true. It’s never the textbook scenario.” Hersh says the findings point to a need for greater transparency. With that in mind, he is considering setting up a website that links doctors to their political affiliations, an idea he said did not appear to be popular among doctors he had spoken with. “There’s a strong economic incentive for them not to close off half of their business because they are with what patients might regard as the wrong party,” he said.
MPs question appointment of former bankers' lobbyist in senior tax role George Osborne’s decision to appoint a former bankers’ lobbyist as an independent tax adviser has been questioned by an influential parliamentary committee. The Treasury select committee expressed concerns on Tuesday over Angela Knight’s previous role as chair of the British Bankers’ Association (BBA) during the Libor scandal, her lack of tax knowledge and potential conflicts of interest with current directorships. Knight, a former Tory MP, was appointed chair of the new Office of Tax Simplification (OTS) by the chancellor in December. The office’s remit is to reduce complexities in the tax system, which have been blamed for allowing corporate tax avoidance. Knight is also an independent director at the City firm Tullett Prebon, holds the same position at the financial management firm Brewin Dolphin, is a board member at Transport for London and is a member of the advisory board of the economic consultancy Oxera. One member of the committee said that her appointment, which has been approved but with qualifications, looks suspiciously like another job for “the Tories’ friends”. Labour MP Wes Streeting said: “The qualified endorsement of her appointment does raise questions about the judgment of the chancellor and the seriousness with which he views his responsibilities to make appropriate appointments to important roles.” The report has been released as Osborne comes under increasing pressure over the government’s attitude towards tax transparency and simplification. On Monday, the government denied that Google’s deal to pay £130m in taxes owed over the last 10 years amounted to a “lower special rate” for the internet giant. In the report, MPs questioned whether Knight’s role could still be described as independent because it is outside proper parliamentary scrutiny. The committee said it had concerns about Knight’s leadership, based on her role at the BBA, her previous engagements with the previous Treasury committee and her interactions with the parliamentary commission on banking standards. MPs also voiced fears over her independence from the Treasury and described her knowledge of tax issues as “limited”. They also questioned whether she was able to fulfil the role without personal conflict, given her other positions as a non-executive directors of several firms. Earlier this month, Knight repeatedly told MPs on the committee she was sorry that she ended up at the lobby group at the time of banking crisis and the Libor rigging scandal. Knight, who ran the BBA between 2007 and 2012, said: “I am so sorry I ended up at the BBA during the banking crisis. I’m so sorry it chose me to be its target. I’m so sorry it took a trade association into a different era. I’m so sorry I never persuaded the authorities to take over [setting] Libor [rates] earlier and I’m so sorry the banks brought about [the] financial disaster they did.” The BBA was responsible for setting the Libor rate under Knight, but was stripped of its role in 2012 after the multi-billion rate-rigging scandal was uncovered. Knight admitted that she wished she had been stronger in dealing with the problems that were uncovered with Libor, the regime for inter-bank interest rates, which the BBA administered at the time. Knight had wanted the Bank of England to have observer status to oversee Libor. Andrew Tyrie MP, the Conservative chair of the committee, said: “The committee is content to approve Ms Knight’s appointment and wishes her every success in her new role. But the committee had concerns about Angela Knight’s suitability as chair of the OTS, stemming from her role at the BBA during the Libor-rigging scandal in 2008. “Ms Knight’s experience at the BBA represented a small, but important, part of her career. The committee’s concerns will be kept under review.” A Treasury spokesman said: “Angela Knight has a breadth of experience from a career spanning 43 years, including roles as an MP, businesswoman, Treasury minister and head of three industry bodies. This makes her a strong candidate for this part-time role providing recommendations on how we can make the tax system easier and simpler for taxpayers.”
What’s showing at Chester Film Society I just read Tim Barlow’s letter about the lack of cinemas in Chester (Letters, 2 September). We’ll gladly send him a copy of our new programme of films being shown by Chester Film Society, which was established in the city way back in 1970 and has offered a selective season of world cinema and arthouse movies ever since. As a community cinema we can’t boast the really big screens, but we offer an intimate surrounding to watch films with an appreciative and discerning audience. This season starts on 13 September with the Estonian anti-war film Tangerines, then we follow up with the Lily Tomlin film Grandma. Other highlights in our 19-film programme include the Turkish film Mustang and the sumptuous Tale of Tales. And we round off our season next April with Love and Friendship. All this and an international film festival in March, too. Since the last city cinema in Chester closed in 2013, Chester Film Society has been the only permanent cinema offering in the city. Rachel Cross Secretary, Chester Film Society • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
Roberto Firmino rounds off Liverpool’s goal rush at Crystal Palace On a day when all three of the Premier League’s pacesetters flexed their attacking muscles, Liverpool relied on their own lust for goals to turn a potentially awkward contest into a celebration of blistering intent. Crystal Palace contributed to a captivating encounter, twice pegging back Liverpool as they endeavoured to contain the surges from the away team – no mean feat – but Jürgen Klopp’s team were in one of those moods where they ooze goals. Philippe Coutinho and Roberto Firmino showcased bewitching skills. Sadio Mané should have helped himself to a strike or two himself. There was so much forward momentum it was not unreasonable to forget they even had Daniel Sturridge back waiting in those familiar wings. As it was, the selection comprised a team goal based on slick passing, two set pieces and a sumptuous lob. All very tasty from Klopp’s perspective. He might well wonder about eradicating some of the defensive wobbles. But that is a poser for another day. Playing like this, Liverpool can be confident that if the opposition score, they will simply outscore them. They extended their dazzling run, picking up their sixth win from their last seven Premier League games and had verve to burn. “Sorry for this boring performance,” Klopp quipped at the end of it all. Then he acknowledged that while the inherent characteristics of his team help them to overcome defensive deficiencies he would sooner have a little more cool control. “We cannot strike back every day, but we are good enough to find a solution in situations like this,” he said. “But since I am at Liverpool I am happy with the character of my boys.” It still seems unfeasibly early to be stoking up a title-chase narrative before Halloween, but such is the bunched-up nature at the top, all eyes turned to Liverpool after Arsenal and then Manchester City swept to three emphatically won points earlier in the day. What ensued, in a helter-skelter match, was extraordinary. Goals always seemed likely given the encouragement Klopp gives his forwards to raid in a high-energy pack coupled with Crystal Palace’s clean sheet allergy this season. From the 16th to the 21st minute it rained goals. Liverpool went ahead when the vibrant Coutinho’s scooped pass fell to Alberto Moreno, who hooked the ball back across goal. Emre Can arrived unmarked and his shot ricocheted in. Perhaps some of smoke from the firecrackers hurled from the away end got in Dejan Lovren’s eye, as there was no obvious explanation for the undercooked back pass which gifted Palace a route back into the game. James McArthur was on hand to score with a clever header, nudging the ball instinctively over the onrushing Loris Karius. The irresistible law of making up for painful mistakes ensured Lovren took centre stage again three minutes later. When Liverpool won a corner he was on point to beat his marker Scott Dann, thumping his team back into the lead with a header. Liverpool’s threat bubbled constantly. The thirst for goals throughout the team is obvious and there could have been more as Firmino’s attempt was blocked by Joel Ward, Moreno struck a post and Mané scooped over with a free shot. In the spirit of the goal glut, Palace responded. Christian Benteke glanced the ball to Wilfried Zaha, whose inviting cross was met by none other than McArthur. Having already patted his head in astonishment after his first goal, he was at it again after nipping ahead of Lovren to steer in another equaliser. The heading contest was far from over. The crowd were almost confounded by disbelief as yet another looked goalbound – this time from Coutinho – only for Steve Mandanda to scramble the ball superbly on to the frame of the goal. It came as no surprise when Liverpool duly did the deed again. Just before half‑time Coutinho delivered a corner for Joël Matip to meet with full power. Pardew lamented that the game was “a bit too open for us against a side as good as they are”, which was an honest enough appraisal. Coutinho was at the heart of so much that was positive about Liverpool. Klopp rightly enthused about how much effort he puts in: “He is 24. His work rate is outstanding. You cannot be a genius every day so you have to be a proper football player. That is how the boys are.” Palace returned after the restart intent on coming back into it again. Benteke was dominant (Klopp intriguingly described his performance as “warm”), taking aim at Karius’s goal on a number of occasions. Zaha looked plaintively at the referee as he bid for a couple of penalties but Andre Marriner was unmoved. Pardew gave a diplomatic answer when quizzed about Zaha’s appeals but was steadfast in defending his player’s need to avoid an obstacle at speed. After one of the penalty shouts, the game swung suddenly, brilliantly, down to the other end. Jordan Henderson spotted Firmino’s run and found him with a superb forward pass. The Brazilian lobbed Mandanda with beautiful precision. The shirt twirling celebration was worth it.
Deutsche needs a convincing case to win over investors, says IMF Deutsche Bank needs a convincing business case to attract investors, senior officials from the International Monetary Fund have said amid fears Germany’s biggest bank will need to raise funds to avoid being crippled by a $14bn (£10.5bn) penalty from the US for a decade-old scandal. The officials from the IMF – which has described Deutsche as the world’s riskiest bank – also denied suggestions that European banks were facing tougher punishments from the US authorities than domestic ones. Peter Dattels, IMF deputy director, said Deutsche was being monitored by both the German and European authorities to ensure it remained resilient. Deutsche’s shares dropped to 30-year lows last week amid fears any settlement with the US Department of Justice for mis-selling residential mortgage backed securities between 2005 and 2007 would drain its financial resources. John Cryan, chief executive of Deutsche, will be in Washington for the annual meeting of the IMF this week. Many speculate he could negotiate the cost. News agency AFP has reported that the settlement will be $5.4bn and Deutsche has made clear it has no intention to paying the $14bn suggested by the DoJ. Dattels described three sorts of problem banks: those with a legacy of non-performing loans, those that that had been recapitalised and restructured but were still struggling, and investment banks moving away from a business model based on huge balance sheets. “Deutsche Bank is in the third bucket. It needs to continue to adjust to convince markets that its business model is viable and it is dealing with operational risks resulting from litigation. I’m sure these challenges will be met.” Matthew Jones, IMF assistant director for monetary and capital markets department, said fines were because misconduct had been identified and to “create a culture of responsible finance”. “A number of decisions have been taken against institutions which have affected their share price because of the effects on profitability. If you look at the magnitude of the fines in the US it is not the case that non-US institutions have suffered more. US institutions have suffered more fines relative to other countries.” Although Deutsche has not yet announced any settlement with the DoJ, its shares have risen from below €10 to above €12 on Wednesday. Analysts at Berenberg said it seemed inevitable Deutsche would need fresh funds. But they questioned whether the bank had an attractive investment case for investors. “A capital raising seems inevitable, but core profitability is weak and it is unclear what return investors could earn on any new capital. Exposed to an industry in structural decline, it is hard to see Deutsche delivering a [return on equity] above 5% and is one of many banks to avoid,” Berenberg analysts said. Cryan is in the early stages of a five-year turnaround programme which includes selling off businesses, cutting workforce and reducing the risks the bank takes. The Briton who has been running Deutsche for 15 months last week reassured staff that the bank met all its regulatory capital requirements and blamed “forces in the market” for trying to destabilise the bank.
Libyan investment fund loses $1.2bn dispute with Goldman Sachs The Libyan Investment Authority has lost its $1.2bn lawsuit against Goldman Sachs in the high court. The judgment was handed down in London on Friday by Mrs Justice Rose who presided over the high-profile case that began in June with allegations of Goldman bankers paying for prostitutes, private jets and five-star hotels to win business from the Libyan sovereign wealth fund set up under the Gaddafi regime. The LIA was claiming $1.2bn (£846m) from the Wall Street investment bank for losses on nine complex share trades between January and April 2008. The LIA had argued that the case involved “abuse of trust, undue influence and unconscionable bargain”, alleging that the investment bank exploited its limited financial experience. But Goldman disputed the claim, which was filed in 2014, as a case of buyer’s remorse. The LIA left open the prospect it might appeal. “The Libyan Investment Authority is naturally disappointed with the judgment … Time will be needed fully to digest the judgment and all options are being considered at this time,” the $60bn fund said. Goldman described the result as “a comprehensive judgment in our favour”. Rose heard evidence from the LIA that Goldman had lavished hospitality on its staff to win business from the cash-rich fund – but rejected the contention that this meant the bankers could exert influence over the fund. In her judgment, she said: “I find that there was no protected relationship of trust and confidence between the LIA and Goldman Sachs. Their relationship did not go beyond the normal cordial and mutually beneficial relationship that grows up between a bank and a client. Goldman Sachs did not become a trusted adviser or a ‘man of affairs’ for the LIA.” Nor, she said, did Goldman take advantage of the LIA’s misunderstanding of the complexity of the trades. “I find that the key people in the LIA who needed to understand the trades did discuss and agree the structure of the trades with Goldman Sachs,” she said. “Although the disputed trades may be regarded as unsuitable for a sovereign wealth fund, there were other reasons why the LIA wanted to enter into them and, if they were unsuitable, they were no different from many other investments that the LIA made over the period in that regard,” she said. She also said that a Goldman internship offered to Haitem Zarti – the brother of Mustafa Zarti, the LIA’s former deputy chief – had not had an influence in LIA’s decision to enter into the trades.
Revered and lording it over the internet Oh no! Please don’t ban obligatory internet titles (Letters, 9 January). They provide me with endless hours of harmless fun. Whenever I am required to provide one, I just choose the least appropriate for the site or company in question. Having long since exhausted Dr and Prof, I’m now a Sir to one of my banks, and have been a Lord to another, with a chequebook to that effect. I’m also a Dame and a Father elsewhere. Having long since used up all of the offered titles, I now go for the Other option and create my own, much to the amusement of my postie. My favourite is The Reverend, accepted by a company that now calls me “The Revered”. But I’ve never knowingly benefited by my self-elevation within our class- and status-fixated society. J Brian Harrison-Jennings Huddersfield, West Yorkshire • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
Leave campaign set to argue that staying in EU jeopardises Britain's security The Leave campaign will this week bolster its argument that remaining in the European Union would jeopardise Britain’s security, as justice minister Dominic Raab gives a speech on Thursday arguing that the “unyielding principle” of free movement makes it impossible to turn back criminals at the border. Vote Leave, the pro-Brexit campaign group, was accused of scaremongering earlier this week after publishing a list of 50 crimes, including murders and rapes, committed by migrants from EU member states. But Raab’s speech underlines the fact that campaigners for Brexit believe voters’ fears about the risks of unchecked EU migration play strongly for them. “The elephant in the room is the unyielding principle of free movement across Europe’s borders and its impact on Britain’s security,” Raab will say in Westminster. He will add that opting out of the Schengen passport-free travel area doesn’t help, because European court of justice rulings limit the UK’s ability to deport suspects. “Yes, we have checks at the border because we’re not in Schengen. But what good are checks if we can do so little to act on them?” “It is EU rules on free movement which force us to import risk into the UK only to find that the fetters imposed by the European court of justice make it increasingly difficult to deal effectively with that risk, in order to protect the public.” That argument was dismissed on Tuesday by the shadow home secretary, Andy Burnham, who insisted that EU-wide intelligence sharing, and mechanisms such as the European arrest warrant, make it easier to deal with foreign criminals. He criticised the Leave campaign for stressing crime and security so heavily. “They know what they’re doing when they’re raising these kinds of issues; it’s playing to prejudice, and what they’re saying frankly isn’t actually right. In the same way that we made a decision not to join the euro, we made a decision not to join Schengen: that’s just a fact.” Burnham added that his own experience as a Home Office minister suggested the fight against terrorist groups such as Isis was more likely to succeed in cooperation with the EU. “This is a global threat, so the idea that we pull up the drawbridge and that makes us better able to deal with this is a nonsense.” Keir Starmer, the former director of public prosecutions and now Labour MP for Holborn and St Pancras, agreed, citing the case of Hussain Osman, one of the failed 21 July bombers, who was apprehended by Italian police after a request from the UK authorities. Starmer said the arrangements in place before the enhanced EU cooperation on policing and security that followed the Lisbon treaty were “slow and creaking”. “It took years to return suspects to the UK from Europe; evidence from abroad could rarely be used in court; time consuming and cumbersome negotiations were needed to persuade judicial authorities in other EU countries to release documents and records to the UK; and in many areas there simply were no arrangements.” Raab’s concerns echo those voiced by Sir Richard Dearlove, the former head of MI6, last week. Dearlove said the risks created by the obligation to allow the free movement of people outweighed the benefits Britain gains from sharing intelligence with other EU member states, which he suggested were “leaky ships”. That argument was dismissed as nonsense by the former security minister, Dame Pauline Neville-Jones, who insisted free movement meant the right to work in fellow EU member states – not the right to come and go unchecked.
Harry Kane to start for Tottenham against Arsenal after injury layoff Harry Kane will start for Tottenham in Sunday’s north London derby at the Emirates, with the striker’s return from a long injury hiatus a huge boost for Mauricio Pochettino’s side. The striker has been absent with ankle ligament damage since the middle of September and had been expected to make his comeback against Arsenal. That Kane will be among the starting XI is a distinct positive for a side without a win in six games in all competitions and who have scored just three times in that barren spell, two of those goals coming from the penalty spot. Pochettino is also hopeful that Mousa Dembélé will be fit enough to be among the starters after the midfielder twisted his ankle in the midweek Champions League defeat to Bayer Leverkusen at Wembley. Harry Winks had been on standby to make to make his first Premier League start but the richly promising 20-year-old midfielder is now expected to be among the substitutes. Kane returned to full training on Thursday and his manager has clearly decided that if he is fit enough to be in the squad, he is fit enough to start. Kane has scored in each of the previous three league derbies against Arsenal, including two in the 2-1 home win in February 2015. Kane will be hoping for a recall when Gareth Southgate names what could be his final England squad today and only an adverse reaction to his comeback against Arsenal would prevent him returning.
Craig David: Following My Intuition review – a welcome return Stuck in self-imposed exile in Miami having been turned into a punchline by Bo’ Selecta!, Craig David seemed destined to be a curious footnote of UK pop. In the six years since his last album, however, music has come full circle, with David’s garage-tinged pop and slick R&B ballads back in favour. Following My Intuition wastes no time cementing his new-found relevance, the opening three songs racing through EDM, garage and drum’n’bass, while 16 is an energised mash-up of Fill Me In and Jack Ü’s Where Are Ü Now. David’s appeal has always been broad, and the collaboration-heavy bangers are augmented by a clutch of honeyed ballads, including highlight Louder Than Words. It’s good to have him back.
YouTuber, Bama and Brexit among new words in Oxford English Dictionary Brexit may mean Brexit to Theresa May, but the Oxford English Dictionary has come to the aid of those who wish for a less opaque definition. The word is among 1,500 new words added to the dictionary this week. OED editors steered clear of political controversy by defining the process of Brexit rather than its consequences or implementation. The definition reads: “The (proposed) withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union, and the political process associated with it. Sometimes used specifically with reference to the referendum held in the UK on 23 June 2016, in which a majority of voters favoured withdrawal from the EU.” Fiona McPherson, senior editor on the OED, told the the word had been one of the fastest to move from coinage to definition and listing. “It is very unusual for a word to take hold of the language so quickly,” she said. The word, she added, had filled “an empty space in our language, and the growing importance of the phenomenon it described”. She added: “It has gone from a new word a couple of years ago to being on the front pages of foreign language newspapers used, which shows it is now a global word, not just one used here.” As Grexit – Greece’s hypothetical exit from the EU – has also been added to the OED this month, it is expected that should momentum grow for EU membership referendums elsewhere Nexit (Netherlands), Frexit (France) and Oexit (Austria) will follow Brexit into the dictionary. The influence of social media is visible in many of the new coinages. YouTubers, defined as “frequent user of the video-sharing website YouTube, especially someone who produces and appears in videos on the site” is included in the dictionary for the first time. Anyone who stands up to internet trolls can now legitimately call themselves an upstander – “a person who speaks or acts in support of a cause, especially one who intervenes on behalf a person being attacked or bullied”. A number of newly listed words and phrases have migrated from pop music, notably “get your freak on”: defined as “US slang (chiefly in African-American usage) 1) to engage in sexual activity, especially of an unconventional or uninhibited nature. 2) To dance, esp. in an uninhibited, wild, or exuberant fashion”. The phrase gained prominence in 2001 as the title of a Missy Elliott song. Singer Beyoncé had a hand in the listing of Bama, originally a 1920s abbreviation of the US state of Alabama. It evolved to become slang for a person from the rural American south, but was reclaimed this year by the singer in Formation, a track from her latest album Lemonade. The lyric says: “My daddy Alabama / Momma Louisiana / You mix that negro with that Creole / make a Texas Bama.” Words are admitted to the OED, McPherson said, according to their usage. “Once a word goes in, it doesn’t come out. We have to have examples of it having passed into common usage or within a specialist area.” Among the latest technical terms to have been added are examples of surfer lingo for wave types and surfing techniques. As usual, a raft of management speak makes it into the dictionary, led by out-strategise: “a verb by to outmanoeuvre (an opponent, rival, etc.); to outdo in strategising”. Though many additions to the 829,000 words in the dictionary arise from young people and social media, others reflect the ageing population. Leading the way for Baby Boomers is glam-ma: a glamorous grandmother, especially one who is comparatively young or fashion-conscious.
Brexit could cost poorest countries £320m a year, warn economists The world’s poorest countries could lose more than £320m a year if their existing trade agreements with the UK market are not maintained in the event of Brexit, a new series of essays published by the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) and the UK Trade Policy Observatory has warned. The authors said emerging markets in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific are at similar risk, and could lose up to £172m annually once the UK leaves the EU, as developing countries currently benefit from preferential access to the British market through the EU’s trade policy. Under the EU’s generalised scheme of preferences (GSP), developing countries pay little or no duty on their exports to Europe, while the Everything But Arms treaty gives the world’s least developed countries (LDCs) duty- and quota-free access to all products except arms and ammunitions. The director of the UK Trade Policy Observatory, Professor Leonard Alan Winters, who authored one of the essays, said a failure by the UK to maintain preferential trade deals could have unfavourable consequences for both trade and foreign policy. “A number of developing countries – take Kenya, for example – have got serious export industries who sell to the UK,” Winters said. “If suddenly they ended up with some tax bill of an extra £2m in order to sell their current amount in the UK, they’d search out [sales] to other markets.” The devaluing of the pound has already had an impact on developing countries, as remittances – estimated by the World Bank at $9.3bn (£7bn) in 2015 – are now worth considerably less than before the referendum. This devaluation, coupled with lower GDP in the UK, has already cost LDCs $500m in trade (pdf), according to ODI estimates. Other economists, including the Brookings Institution’s Homi Kharas, worry that a sluggish UK economy and weak currency will result in developing countries struggling to find the resilience to cope, as “they have fewer instruments at their disposal to cushion some of these shocks”. Britain has spent the past four decades in a soft power approach, using market-friendly trade policies as a means of broader policy leverage, including using aid to help countries diversify their trade. But the UK could be in for a difficult adjustment post-Brexit: despite being the fifth-largest economy in the world, the country is little more than “a small open economy”, said Winters, the result being that “trade policy will become trade policy, not foreign policy”. Yet Britain could boost its economy by more than £5bn if it negotiated free trade agreements with major emerging markets – including Azerbaijan, Brazil and China – which the EU has not yet negotiated, argued Dirk Willem te Velde, head of the International Economic Development Group at the ODI. “Developing countries also gain through cheaper imports [under this scenario], assuming there is no trade diversion,” writes Te Velde in the report. As the UK will be expected to invent an entirely new trade policy over the next few years, it would be in Britain’s interest not to overlook developing countries and the role they have in the UK market, said Winters. He recommended a transitional period of four years following Brexit, during which poorer countries would receive the same market access they have now (or better). As Brexit closes some doors – potentially on hundreds of thousands of European labourers who pick fruit and work in dairy farms – it could very well open others for the developing world, said Winters. “We will need labour for horticulture and agriculture, and one of the things we could do is think about this as a tool for development,” he said. “Britain could decide it could select a few developing countries – just a few – [for labour purposes] and that could bring quite serious potential benefits to those countries.”
The areas and demographics where the Brexit vote was won The decision for the UK to leave the European Union was overwhelmingly supported in parts of England with low income and education levels. Average educational attainment, median income and social class in English local authorities were the strongest predictors of how residents in that area voted in the referendum. The results indicate that the greater the proportion of residents with a higher education, the more likely a local authority was to vote remain. Wandsworth, Richmond upon Thames, and Cambridge, where around half of the population has a higher education qualification, all gave over two-thirds of their votes to remain. Just 14.2% have an equivalent qualification in the Norfolk seaside town of Great Yarmouth, which delivered one of the biggest leave votes of 71.5%. Scotland proved the exception to this trend: people there voted to remain in the European Union regardless of their education and income. For example, just 17% hold a higher education qualification in North Lanarkshire but the voters there came out strongly for remain. The median annual income in Comhairle Nan Eilean Siar is £19,340, way below the national average of £22,487. While most English towns with a similar average incomes delivered strong leave votes, the local authority in the Scottish islands gave a near 10-point victory for remain. We examined six key demographic measures for each voting area and mapped them against the results in each location. While the measures demonstrate a strong correlation between a leave vote and education, income and class they are by no means the direct cause of a Brexit. However there are also a number of outliers. Although the average age of an area wasn’t the best predictor of whether it would opt to leave or remain, it’s clear that densely populated urban areas with a lot of young people such as Hackney and Islington in London voted overwhelmingly to remain in the European Union. Local authorities with a high proportion of people born outside the UK, typically in London, also voted to remain in the UK.
Scott Morrison says banking industry needs a culture shift, not an inquiry Scott Morrison has said a culture shift in banking is required and suggests bankers should serve their clients the way good doctors care for their patients. As the government comes under sustained pressure for an inquiry into bank scandals involving allegations over financial planners, rate rigging and life insurance, the treasurer said the Coalition had already acted to address problems. The government had strengthened the powers and resources of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (Asic) to deal with “direct failures and malfeasance” within the banking system – as recommended by David Murray’s financial systems inquiry. “I agree with those in the banking sector who have said they believe the key to making this cultural shift is to restore banking as a profession,” Morrison said. “A professional banker should serve their clients like a doctor cares for their patients. Now the medical profession is not perfect either. But I agree that such an approach is a good place to start.” He said calls for a royal commission from Labor (as well as Nationals senator John Williams, LNP MP George Christensen, the Greens, the Nick Xenophon Team and Pauline Hanson’s One Nation) had been raised with then assistant treasurer, Kelly O’Dwyer, at a meeting of the International Monetary Fund. “The then assistant treasurer, Kelly O’Dwyer, was in Washington for IMF meetings, where she was approached and asked what is wrong with Australia’s banking system,” Morrison said. “Labor’s careless approach and cynical politics on this issue is a genuine risk to broader confidence in our banking and financial system which can only weaken the system.” Rather than engage in “cynical politics” the government was working to strengthen the banking system for borrowers, depositors and shareholders in a practical way. He named recommendations from the financial systems inquiry which saw banks raise their capital ratios, the implementation of unfair contract laws in November and moves to strengthen the crisis management powers of the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (Apra) as examples of government reforms. The pressure continues to build for a royal commission into the banks. The senior parliamentary adviser, the clerk of the Senate, Rosemary Laing, advised Greens senator Peter Whish-Wilson that a commission of inquiry was possible if the government refused to establish a royal commission. Labor is cautious about any form of inquiry apart from a royal commission, because of the powers and funding afforded to a royal commission. As Laing’s advice stated, a parliamentary commission of inquiry would depend on the Coalition to fund it. Its powers could be contested in a court. The constitutional lawyer George Williams said a commission of inquiry was unlikely to pass the parliament without government support. “It’s very hard to see it would pass both houses, or be funded by the government,” Williams said. “These issues as set out in the clerk’s advice make it clear why this is unlikely to be viable. Any such inquiry needs government support.” The Labor leader, Bill Shorten, said although he understood the Greens were trying to get a compromise from Turnbull, Labor would persist with its calls for a royal commission because under pressure the prime minister would “give in”. “What Australians want is not a system that goes after banks once they have ripped people off,” he said. “What Australians want is to stop the rip-off in the first place. “Labor will persist with its calls for a banking royal commission and we think that is the right way to go. We are not going to give up merely because Mr Turnbull doesn’t want to do it. “My experience of Malcolm Turnbull is that if you put enough pressure, this guy gives in.”
Ikea considers bamboo and new materials to keep prices low Ikea UK is considering using different materials including bamboo in its furniture to keep prices down after Britain’s vote to leave the European Union. Gillian Drakeford, the UK manager of Ikea, said the furniture retailer is exploring the use of new materials as shops face up to the slump in the value of sterling since the referendum in June. Several leading high street names, manufacturers and economists have warned that Britain faces a sharp rise in inflation next year as businesses are forced to pass on an increase in cost to consumers. Drakeford declined to promise that Ikea will not increase prices, but said the Swedish company “will do the best we can to make sure the customer gets the best price”. This includes looking at the price of installing products for customers as well as the materials it uses. Ikea already uses bamboo in some products, including a desk from the Lillasen range, the Rimforsa range of kitchen wares, and Ragrund bathroom accessories. Drakeford said: “Prices are set against a number of factors and the value of the pound is something we follow, but it is very uncertain. Low price is one of our cornerstones. “We are always looking for new materials in order to make sure we can give low prices for customers. At the end of the day, we are about the best price for the customers and we will do the best we can to make sure the customer gets the best price.” She was speaking as Ikea announced a 8.9% year-on-year increase in sales in the UK to £1.7bn for the 12 months to the end of August. This is the fifth year in a row that Ikea has increased its British sales, securing its position as the biggest home furnishings retailer in the UK with a market share of 8.2%. Drakeford said the company is “extremely proud” of the performance and has not changed its investment or expansion plans in the UK since the EU referendum and the drop in the value of sterling. Ikea has opened four small order-and-collection shops in the last year, including a site in Westfield Stratford City shopping centre in east London and in Norwich city centre. The company also opened its first full-size UK store for seven years in Reading in July and will open another in Sheffield next year. “We will always stand by the decision made by people in the country,” she said of Brexit. “The UK is a very important market for Ikea. It is the fourth biggest market and with only 8.2% market share there is a huge opportunity to double our market share and get closer to people in the market. “We are a long-term company so we really do see the opportunity in the UK. We are continuing with our expansion.” Drakeford also defended Ikea’s tax policy after claims by the Green/EFA group in the European parliament that it may have underpaid taxes by €1bn (£853m) between 2009 and 2014 due to aggressive strategies. She said Ikea had paid £97m of corporation tax in the UK since 2012 and had not received any requests from the European commission for information about its tax payments. “We are a responsible company and we pay our taxes,” she said.
Toxic air pollution particles found in human brains Toxic nanoparticles from air pollution have been discovered in human brains in “abundant” quantities, a newly published study reveals. The detection of the particles, in brain tissue from 37 people, raises concerns because recent research has suggested links between these magnetite particles and Alzheimer’s disease, while air pollution has been shown to significantly increase the risk of the disease. However, the new work is still a long way from proving that the air pollution particles cause or exacerbate Alzheimer’s. “This is a discovery finding, and now what should start is a whole new examination of this as a potentially very important environmental risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease,” said Prof Barbara Maher, at Lancaster University, who led the new research. “Now there is a reason to go on and do the epidemiology and the toxicity testing, because these particles are so prolific and people are exposed to them.” Air pollution is a global health crisis that kills more people than malaria and HIV/Aids combined and it has long been linked to lung and heart disease and strokes. But research is uncovering new impacts on health, including degenerative brain diseases such as Alzheimer’s, mental illness and reduced intelligence. The new work, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, examined brain tissue from 37 people in Manchester, in the UK, and Mexico, aged between three and 92. It found abundant particles of magnetite, an iron oxide. “You are talking about millions of magnetite particles per gram of freeze-dried brain tissue - it is extraordinary,” said Maher. “Magnetite in the brain is not something you want to have because it is particularly toxic there,” she said, explaining that the substance can create reactive oxygen species called free radicals. “Oxidative cell damage is one of the hallmark features of Alzheimer’s disease, and this is why the presence of magnetite is so potentially significant, because it is so bioreactive.” Abnormal accumulation of brain metals is a key feature of Alzheimer’s disease and a recent study showed that magnetite was directly associated with the damage seen in Alzheimer’s brains. Magnetite particles are known to form biologically in human brains, but these are small and crystal-shaped, unlike the larger, spherical particles that dominated the samples in the new study. “Many of the magnetite particles we have found in the brain are very distinctive,” said Maher. “They are very rounded nanospheres, because they were formed as molten droplets of material from combustion sources, such as car exhausts, industrial processes and power stations, anywhere you are burning fuel.” “They are abundant,” she said. “For every one of [the crystal shaped particles] we saw about 100 of the pollution particles. The thing about magnetite is it is everywhere.” An analysis of roadside air in Lancaster found 200m magnetite particles per cubic metre. Furthermore, said Maher: “We also observed other metal-bearing particles in the brain, such as platinum, cobalt and nickel. Things like platinum are very unlikely to come from a source within the brain. It is a bit of an indicator of a [vehicle] catalytic converter source.” Other scientists told the the new work provided strong evidence that most of the magnetite in the brain samples come from air pollution but that the link to Alzheimer’s disease remained speculative. “This is a very intriguing finding and it raises a lot of important questions,” said Prof Jon Dobson, at the University of Florida and not part of the research team. But he said further investigation was needed: “One thing that puzzles me is that the [particle] concentrations are somewhat higher than those previously reported for the human brain. Further studies [are needed] to determine whether this due to regional variations within the brain, the fact that these samples are from subjects who lived in industrial areas, or whether it is possibly due to [lab] contamination.” The researchers said they had gone to great lengths to avoid contamination. Air pollution was linked to a significant increase in the risk of Alzheimer’s disease by a major study published in 2015, while other research showed brain damage related to Alzheimer’s disease in children and young adults exposed to air pollution. Air pollution has also been linked to dementia in older men and women. “We have not demonstrated a causal link between these particles and Alzheimer’s disease but when you consider that magnetite has been found in higher concentrations in Alzheimer’s brains and you know that magnetite is pernicious in its effect on the brain, then having a direct [air pollution] source of magnetite right up your olfactory bulb and into your frontal cortex is not a great idea,” said Maher. Prof David Allsop, an Alzheimer’s disease expert at Lancaster University and part of the research team, said: “There is no blood-brain barrier with nasal delivery. Once nanoparticles directly enter olfactory areas of the brain through the nose, they can spread to other areas of the brain, including hippocampus and cerebral cortex – regions affected in Alzheimer’s disease.” He said it was worth noting that an impaired sense of smell is an early indicator of Alzheimer’s disease. “Knowledge is power,” Maher said. “So if there’s at least a possibility that exposure to traffic pollution is having even worse health impacts than were previously known, then take the steps you can to reduce your dose as far as you can.” “What this is pointing towards perhaps is there needs to be a major shift in policy and an attempt to reduce the particulate matter burden on human health.” Maher said. “The more you realise the impact this is having, the more urgent and important it is to reduce the concentrations in the atmosphere.” Dr Clare Walton, research communications manager at the Alzheimer’s Society, said: “This study offers convincing evidence that magnetite from air pollution can get into the brain, but it doesn’t tell us what effect this has on brain health or conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease. Further work in this area is important, but until we have more information people should not be unduly worried. There are more practical ways to lower your chances of developing dementia such as regular exercise, eating a healthy diet and avoiding smoking.”
In at the death: the art of the celebrity obituary David Bowie, Alan Rickman, Harper Lee, Ronnie Corbett, Victoria Wood, Prince, Muhammad Ali, Caroline Aherne – 2016 has already seen so many high-profile deaths that the number has become cause for comment. It is the job of the ’s obituary desk to respond quickly to those deaths that need to be marked publicly. Deaths of significant figures are increasingly big events, not least because the internet gives readers a chance to respond to the news, involving us in a rite of passage. Bowie’s death, for instance, sparked not just a global outpouring of grief, but also led to a great appetite for stories about his life and work. In these circumstances the obituary holds together all of our coverage, serving as the record of who the person was and how they got there. Before the internet, the stories of people such as Lee, Ali, Rickman or Wood would have been told by specialist writers, with the aid of specialist reference books that few others would have. Now that anyone can query anything from their phone, we have to maintain hundreds of obits to an ever-higher standard. And, while 2016 has certainly not been a kind year, the increased flow of notable departures is not likely to slow. The 1960s saw more people becoming famous, and more television for them to become famous on. Film and TV actors were joined by rock and pop musicians and then sports stars, and many are now reaching their 70s and 80s. People often imagine that the obits desk have inside information on the health of celebrities that allows us to plan ahead. In fact we hardly ever know more about the health factor than is available to anyone else who uses the internet. Similarly, the widespread assumption that we have stock obits on file for all famous people is very wide of the mark. Of course we have some commissioned in advance on the basis of celebrity, age and what is known about their health. But predicting the future is so difficult that such judgments are very arbitrary. The unexpected death of a big figure clearly presents the biggest challenge for the obits desk, especially when there is no piece on file and we want to run something in the next morning’s paper. For the RMT trade union leader Bob Crow, we were lucky that the transport expert Christian Wolmar could write immediately for us. The Labour MP Jo Cox is only the most recent of the many political figures covered on the day by the political journalist Julia Langdon. The news can come at any time, not respecting London office hours or our absence on Saturdays. Then we have to work out how quickly we can update material, and work with night-team colleagues in London, or those in New York or Sydney, to see how soon we can launch it online, while providing the added value and factual accuracy that our large and expectant readership will want to read. Obits subjects fall into two broad categories: those figures whom most people have heard of, and those they haven’t. For the better-known ones, a friend and/or colleague can be very good, as recently with Robert McCrum on Matthew Evans (Lord Evans of Temple Guiting) of Faber & Faber, Lisa Markwell on the magazine editor Sally Brampton, or Adam Zeman on his fellow neurologist Oliver Sacks. But, particularly when a death comes unexpectedly, a specialist writer may be best placed to assemble an overview rapidly, as with Adam Sweeting on the musicians Prince and Keith Emerson, or Ryan Gilbey on the film figures Robin Williams and Michael Cimino. For the less well known, we’re almost bound to be looking for someone who knew the person well, and we may need to support their efforts in celebrating the life without producing a eulogy. It’s not always easy to find the right perspective: writers close to their subjects sometimes need to be reminded of how little – if anything – most readers will already know of them. Our Other lives pieces, voluntary submissions about people less in the public eye by their family, friends or colleagues, all appear on the website, with about 40% going on to find space in print. They represent true “citizen journalism” and have a considerable following. Limited space in print not only restricts the number of Other lives pieces we can run, but means that we cannot operate as a medium of record in the way that many who contact us would like to see. These days we have to think carefully about featuring former backbench MPs, and choose few figures from, for instance, the civil service, the military or religious institutions. A good obituary is aimed towards a general readership rather than those who will probably be familiar with much of a person’s life story. It’s a chance to offer a momentary glimpse of a previously hidden world, in a way that Melvyn Bragg’s In Our Time on Radio 4 does much more fully. Through that glimpse, the subject of the obituary will already have become more memorable. Obituary writers often use terms such as world famous, eminent, distinguished or influential about their subjects – but those can prove counter-productive if readers have little knowledge of their particular discipline. Far better than asserting that they were a patriot and aesthete is to get straight into telling how they got over the ravages of working with the resistance through dedication to oil painting and playing the saxophone. And describing them as a witty raconteur is far less striking than reporting something they said that was funny. Just saying what the subject did clearly, simply and directly, makes the value of their contribution shine through far more effectively. In obits, less is definitely more. It should also be able to fill in the early years and other less obvious parts of the story, deploying traditional newspaper values to produce a substantial celebration. For instance, describing the huge paintings created by the architect Zaha Hadid of imaginary buildings with no commission in sight, or the magic shows put on in Hong Kong by Paul Daniels during his national service. And it needs to be a story rather than a monument. The best way an obituary can respectfully reflect its subject is by presenting an informative account that pulls readers through to the end before they even know it. It takes a lot to capture and keep readers’ attention. A salutary image for writers and editors to bear in mind is one of television’s more excruciating pleasures, the red chair moment on The Graham Norton Show. If the teller of the tale lets interest flag, then the seat is sent tipping backwards. Or in our case, the page gets turned.
Kings of Leon go back to their roots – and back to their potent best Kings of Leon’s music has always expanded to fill the dimensions available to it. As their albums Because of the Times (2007) and Only by the Night (2008) turned them into a festival headliners, so their sound billowed outward from their roots in wiry garage pop to embrace huge, ponderous sections of desert-noir bluster. The results weren’t always welcome, unbalancing their sets to the degree that they often felt like the equivalent of dropping a professional darts player into leg three of an Olympic relay team. So when the band told me during an interview in August that they hoped to return to club gigs while touring their upbeat return-to-form seventh album Walls, I pictured ferocious country punk half-hours ripping up Old Blue Lasts the world over. That’s some way from the truth. Playing the pristine, mid-sized student hall 229 is hardly like KOL rocking up and plugging in unannounced on a wet Tuesday at the Dublin Castle, but packed with 600 pumped-up punters who thought they’d be watching Married at First Sight tonight – Prince-style, the gig was announced this morning and sold out in 20 minutes – it has the intended buzz of the hottest ticket in town. As the band take to a stage adorned only with a pair of wrinkled red lips on the backdrop and launch straight into their best song The Bucket, signs are we’re in for a slack-free charge back to the days when the Kings were horny young southern Strokes styled like a bunch of Kentucky farm boys burning disco records in 1978. Having lost their band-of-brothers bond and almost split after Caleb Followill’s onstage meltdown in 2011, surprise club shows like this feel like the Kings reaching out for the reason they played rock music in the first place. We don’t get a frantic half-hour of ferocious country punk. We get the most perfectly paced and emotionally connected KOL London show in damn near a decade. Clearly revelling in the novelty of being mere feet from the front row and each other, chopping around the setlist to take in an audience request for Arizona, and joking that “we were afraid no one was gonna show up”, the Followill cohorts give their first indication in years of cutting loose; witness Caleb cheerfully flicking picks at the crowd during prom-punk album track Mary, the slow dance that Carrie never had. Showcasing the bulk of the upbeat Walls helps rattle the show along too. It might be about the harrowing experience of being stalked by a ghost, but the Tango in the Night tones of Find Me slot slickly between the garage rumba of Taper Jean Girl and Milk, a song that sounds like a lonesome Alabama bluesman being regularly interrupted by the mail train rumbling past his shack. Likewise, the spiralling Reverend acts as the euphoric counterpoint to Fans, the sound of mountains line-dancing. The gig’s closeness allow atmospheric wail-alongs like Pyro, often wind-whipped into a sapless mush at festivals, to envelop and overwhelm the way they were always intended to, and even when Knocked Up crushes a pillow over the set’s face, it’s swiftly resuscitated by jubilant recent single Waste a Moment, the new Sex on Fire. Talking of which, the appearance of their biggest hit at the show’s climax suggests that, even when going this far off-piste, KOL can’t fulfil their ambition of not having to play it. Otherwise, from the southern samba of Around the World to the brace of crowdpleasing first album tunes in Molly’s Chambers and Trani, tonight – like Walls itself – is an act of recharge and realignment, setting KOL up for a period of all-cylinders-firing rejuvenation. “This is the most fun I’ve had playing a show in many years,” Caleb grins, revived by a low roof and the splatter of lager dregs. The feeling’s mutual.
These Brexiters will grind our environment into the dust The more urgent the environmental crisis becomes, the less we hear about it. It exposes the economic policies of all major parties – whether neoliberal or Keynesian – as incompatible with the times in which we live. To remark on what we are doing to the living planet is to fall into cognitive dissonance. It is easier to ignore it. This is the spirit in which our new prime minister has engaged with our greatest predicament. Climate change clashes with the economic model, so let’s scrub it from the departmental register. Wildlife is collapsing and, at current rates of soil erosion, Britain has just 100 harvests left. So let’s appoint an extreme neoliberal fiercely opposed to constraints on industry as secretary of state for the environment. When the model is wrong, adjust the real world to make it fit. I do not see the European Union as a lost Avalon. It brought us much that is good, such as directives that enable us to hold our governments to account for their environmental failures. But the good things it has done for the living world are counteracted – perhaps much more than counteracted – by a few astonishing idiocies. They arise from remote, unresponsive authority that is accessible to corporate lobby groups but not to mere mortals. In some respects the Brexit campaigners were right – though generally for the wrong reasons. One of these policies is the rule that only bare land is eligible for most farm subsidies. This perverse incentive for destruction has obliterated wildlife and natural beauty across hundreds of thousands of hectares. It threatens millions more. The failure of politicians and environmental groups to campaign against this perversity – or even to mention it - is both mystifying and shameful. Then there is the European insistence that much of our transport fuel be replaced by biodiesel. I’ve been inveighing against the manufacture of biodiesel from crops since 2004, and have often been mocked for it. Now we know not only that it causes much greater greenhouse gas emissions than the fuel it replaces, but also that it’s a major cause of perhaps the greatest environmental disaster of the 21st century so far: the mass obliteration of the rainforests of Indonesia and Malaysia, driven in large part by palm oil production. Leaked figures released in June suggest biodiesel now accounts for 45% of the palm oil used in Europe. With one thoughtless policy – which was designed, under a lobbying onslaught, to avert the need for tougher rules on car manufacturers – the European commission has annulled all the environmental good it has ever done. So amid the multiple dangers of Brexit there are opportunities for a government that cares about the natural world. The obvious first step is fundamental reform of farm subsidies. At the moment, paid by the hectare, they transfer vast sums from the pockets of ordinary taxpayers into those of dukes, sheikhs and bankers while wiping the land clean of wildlife. For this service we pay £3bn in Britain: roughly the same as the NHS deficit. I can think of two legitimate purposes for subsidies. The first is a rural hardship fund. But there is no obvious reason why farmers should be the main recipients. In England they account for 1.4% of the rural population. While many suffer from low incomes, they tend to have greater capital, skills and opportunities than most other people with small earnings. There is no more reason to favour their profession with public charity than there is to provide a fund for distressed solicitors or plumbers. Money should be disbursed according to need, not occupation. The second is an environmental protection fund that pays for wildlife and habitats to be restored, floods to be prevented and children and adults to be brought back into contact with nature. I would have no objection to farmers living off such subsidies. We would be paying for public services rather than public harm. Both the environment secretary, Andrea Leadsom, and the farming minister, George Eustice, were members of the Fresh Start project, which seeks reform of the EU’s common agricultural policy. It has some good ideas and some frightening ones – including a policy that would lead to the most productive areas of the country being, in effect, designated free from wildlife, while environmental subsidies are concentrated in other places. Both Leadsom and Eustice have endorsed this approach in public statements. Are the people of the lowlands (where almost all of us live) to be surrounded by nothing but agricultural desert, without trees, hedges, birds, mammals or insects? Are our children to encounter rich wildlife only on distant holidays – if at all? It is also clear that they are inclined to torch environmental protections. With neither incentives nor rules constraining their behaviour, the least responsible farmers will thrive while the more careful will struggle to compete. These matters are not peripheral to our lives: without soil, there is nothing. Leadsom’s leadership campaign was characterised by incompetence, grandstanding and vacuity. Her record in government is dismal. One of her officials told the Financial Times she was “the worst minister we’ve ever had”. What does this say about the prime minister’s priorities? The living planet – the biggest and most important portfolio of all – is treated by May as the government’s Craggy Island. So here is the fix we’re in. We have an environment secretary whose ideology urges her to see the environment as an impediment to profit, a communities secretary whose every fibre rebels against the planning system, and an international trade secretary who used his previous post in government to connect with US corporate lobby groups. We no longer have a climate change secretary, of any description. We have a government that treats the Earth’s systems, upon which our survival depends, as an afterthought, or not a thought at all. When these people say they are defending British sovereignty, what Britain do they have in mind? A country of famous and peculiar beauty, or the same bleak monoculture that you can see from Kansas to Kazakhstan? What lovers of the nation are these, who seem prepared to scrub its features from the map? • A fully linked version of this article can be found at Monbiot.com Twitter: @georgemonbiot
Boris Johnson says 'no need for haste' to start EU exit negotiations Boris Johnson has said Britain should not immediately trigger article 50 to start exit negotiations with the EU after the momentous referendum verdict. In sombre tones and accompanied by fellow Brexit campaigners Gisela Stuart and Michael Gove, the former mayor of London said there was “no need for haste” and “nothing will change in the short term” in his first press conference since the vote. His statement contradicted demands from senior EU representatives who said the UK should implement Brexit “as soon as possible, however painful that process may be”. The downbeat press conference reflected a decision by the victorious Vote Leave campaign to try to calm the collapse of the financial markets as the magnitude of the political and economic repercussions unfold. A government must trigger the article by officially notifying the EU of its intention to leave. Once triggered, there is a two-year period in which the terms of the leaver’s exit are negotiated. Once it is triggered, Britain would no longer be able to take part in any EU decision-making, and any exit agreements must be approved by all 27 remaining EU nations and the European parliament. After Britain’s formal exit, fresh negotiations can begin on any new trade deals. There is no timescale or mention of when to trigger article 50 after a referendum, leaving many politicians worried about a long period of uncertainty. Johnson, the favourite to become the next prime minister, paid tribute to David Cameron as “one of the most extraordinary politicians of our age” and praised his “bravery” for supporting the referendum vote. Johnson said: “Some people are now saying that was wrong and that the people should never have been asked in this way. I disagree. I believe it was entirely right and inevitable and indeed that there is no way with dealing with a decision on this scale except by putting it to the people. “In the end, this question is about the people, it’s about the right of the people of this country to settle their own destiny, it’s about the very principles of our democracy. “The rights of all of us to elect and remove the people who make the key decisions in their lives. And I think that the electorate have searched in their hearts and answered as honestly as they can.” After eight years as mayor of London, Johnson has frequently been tipped as the next leader of the Tory party and is the bookies’ favourite to succeed Cameron. His political ambitions will have been buoyed by the public’s decision to vote leave. Earlier, Johnson was protected by police as he left his home in Islington in a blacked-out people carrier. Reporters had been expecting some triumphant words from the leave campaign’s most high-profile figure but Boris dashed from his front door and into the car before driving off. A large crowd shouted “scum” and “traitor” at Johnson and banged on the windows of his car as he sped away. In a joint statement, the president of the European council, Donald Tusk, the president of the European parliament, Martin Schulz, the Dutch prime minister, Mark Rutte, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the council of the EU, and the European commission president, Jean-Claude Juncker, made clear they expected swift progress. They said: “In a free and democratic process, the British people have expressed their wish to leave the European Union. We regret this decision but respect it. “We now expect the United Kingdom government to give effect to this decision of the British people as soon as possible, however painful that process may be. Article 50 of the treaty on European Union sets out the procedure to be followed if a member state decides to leave the European Union.”
Campaigners criticise UK government’s response to air pollution warning Campaigners have attacked the government for rejecting calls by MPs for greater action on air pollution, as severe pollution episodes were predicted for parts of the UK this week. MPs warned in April that dangerously high pollution in British cities was a “public health emergency”, and told ministers to take further measures, including more clean air zones and a diesel scrappage scheme. In its formal response on Tuesday, officials claimed that the government was already spending heavily on cleaner transport and that it plans to consult on a framework for clean air zones later this year. “We will introduce new, tougher targets which will drive down air pollution from all sources, reducing transboundary pollution and significantly reducing the number of premature deaths across the EU caused by poor air quality,” said the response. The MPs had wanted all cities to be able to charge polluting vehicles instead of just the five which government is planning to allow. But officials responded: “Local authorities can take action as and when necessary to improve air quality and we encourage them to do so.” “[The government] has established the UK as a global leader in ultra low-emission vehicles. We are one of the largest and fastest growing markets in Europe and last year around one in five battery electric cars sold in the UK was built in the UK”. It also flatly rejected the idea of a diesel scrappage scheme: “We have considered the use of scrappage schemes ... and have concluded that this may not be an appropriate and proportionate response.” The publication came as the environment department warned of “very high” air pollution – the worst on the scale – in and around Hull on Wednesday, and “high” pollution across much of northern England. The health advice for very high episodes is for the entire population to reduce physical exercise outdoors, and for asthma sufferers and other vulnerable groups to avoid any exertion. Health and environment groups reacted angrily to the government response, saying plans to reduce UK pollution were “inadequate” and “in disarray”. “Despite the mounting evidence of the dangers people face having to breathe our illegally dirty air, the government is refusing to take the bold action needed to cut the 40,000 early deaths from air pollution each year in the UK,” said a spokeswoman for Friends of the Earth. Bridget Fox, transport campaigner at Campaign for Better Transport, said: “It’s clear that the government’s rhetoric on tackling lethal and illegal levels of air pollution is still not matched by action.” In mid-October, judges at the high court will consider a legal challenge against the government’s pollution action plan by the environmental law firm, ClientEarth, which last year won a victory in the supreme court against the government on its failure to meet EU air quality limits. But David Cameron’s former energy and environment adviser said continuing legal action was unhelpful. In an article on the Green Alliance thinktank’s blog, Stephen Heidari-Robinson said that: “[court action] focuses on compliance with EU standards for just one pollutant, rather than addressing the problem holistically to save lives”. “Worse, it encourages the belief that Brexit can simply sweep away the problem (it can’t). Second, it sets up a zero sum game – ban cars, save lives – when, to solve the problem with the consent of the population, we need to improve air quality and maintain mobility. And, third, it scares the hell out of officials who might end up in court and diverts their attention towards feeding the legal document monster.” In a statement ClientEarth chief executive, James Thornton, said court action was a last, but necessary, resort. “It is necessary ... particularly when tens of thousands of lives are at risk because an intransigent government persistently fails to comply with the law, which is where we find ourselves on air pollution in the UK. “What sort of democracy would we be living in if we as citizens have to comply with the laws put in place by government, but ministers can ignore them when they feel like it? Many autocrats enjoy such an ability to ignore the law. But since Magna Carta, we have committed to live under the rule of law, government and citizen alike.”
Corey Lewandowski: Trump stands by campaign manager amid battery charge Donald Trump has stood by his campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, who was charged with battery on Tuesday over an incident involving a reporter during a campaign rally earlier this month. Although he initially denied that he had ever touched Michelle Fields, then a reporter for conservative news site Breitbart.com, footage released by police in Jupiter, Florida from Trump’s hotel shows Lewandowski forcibly grabbing her arm. In a press conference on his plane on Tuesday afternoon, Trump defended his top staffer. “I think it’s a very, very sad day in this country when a man can be destroyed over something like that.” The reality television star, whose catchphrase on his show The Apprentice was “you’re fired”, nevertheless insisted, “I don’t discard people.” The Republican frontrunner also questioned the claim that Fields was physically hurt by Lewandowski. He said of the bruises on her arm, “how do you know those bruises weren’t there before? I’m not a lawyer. But, she said she had a bruise on her arm. I mean to me, to get squeezed, don’t you think she would have yelled out and screamed? Take a look at her facial expression, her facial expression doesn’t change. You say there are bruises on her arm? How did they get there? Who put them there?” The police report states: “Lewandowski grabbed Fields’s left arm with his right hand causing her to turn and step back.” Fields showed police her left forearm which “appeared to show a grabbing-type injury”, according to the investigating officer. Soon after the incident, Lewandowski tweeted that Fields was “delusional” and insisted that he had never touched her. He backed up this claim in an interview with Benny Johnson of IJ Review last week, to stand by his statement and insist he didn’t know anything about a police investigation. At a town hall meeting in Janesville, Wisconsin, Trump invited the crowd to pass judgment on the tape, pivoting a question from an audience member on discipline in schools into a heated defence of Lewandowski. “What did you think?” He asked the 1,000 assembled supporters inside the Janesville Convention Centre, calling for their opinion on the video. “She’s a liar,” one woman shouted back to applause. Another woman shouted: “I watched it on the widescreen and there was nothing!” “I can’t destroy a man’s life,” Trump said. “He’s got a beautiful wife and children and I’m not going to destroy a man for that.” In a statement shortly after the incident, Trump initially said, “I did not witness any encounter. In addition to our staff, which had no knowledge of said situation, not a single camera or reporter of more than 100 in attendance captured the alleged incident” and questioned whether “this is part of a larger pattern of exaggerating incidents”. In addition to being witnessed by Ben Terris, a reporter for the Washington Post, there was also contemporaneous audio of the incident. Earlier on Tuesday afternoon, Katrina Pierson, a Trump spokeswoman, appeared on CNN to insist that Lewandowski would remain as campaign manager even if he was found guilty of the misdemeanor charge. “Yes, absolutely,” she said when asked by CNN. Pierson also suggested that campaigns “should begin to change the rules of the type of access the press gets from here on” after this incident. Trump and Pierson both continue to insist that Fields, who declined to comment to the , changed her story, a claim the reporter has denied on Twitter. The incident occurred when Trump was leaving an election night press conference at his hotel in Florida. Fields attempted to ask Trump a question when Lewandowski forcibly grabbed her in front of Terris. Two days later, she wrote her account of the incident in a post on Breitbart. Trump acknowledged the question, but before he could answer I was jolted backwards. Someone had grabbed me tightly by the arm and yanked me down. I almost fell to the ground, but was able to maintain my balance. Nonetheless, I was shaken. Trump read an excerpt of this account aloud at his rally in Janesville, Wisconsin on Tuesday in a mocking voice and claimed “her statement changed big league”. Lewandowski is scheduled to appear in court on 4 May, one day after the Indiana Republican primary.
'I completely despise this man': young Republicans assess Trump The debate watch party hosted by the New York Young Republican Club on Wednesday night was quite disconcerting. For one thing, it was the first Donald Trump-oriented event I’ve been to where nobody was wearing a novelty hat, or a pin-badge accusing Hillary Clinton of war crimes. There was no one shouting “build that wall” at the television. People even shushed each other when cheers or chatter threatened to drown out the candidates. But the lack of Trump accoutrements, and the genteel atmosphere, didn’t mean the young Republicans were liberal. “I can never see myself voting for a pro-abortion candidate,” said Steven Ridge, 31. He had been whooping as Trump professed his opposition to Roe v Wade, the US supreme court ruling that established a woman’s right to an abortion. Ridge, who said he was “born and raised” in Brooklyn, described himself as a libertarian, but conservative on social issues. “There were 6,000 troops killed in Iraq. That’s the number of babies aborted in two days,” Ridge said. “Is there anything more important than human life?” Ridge said he supported the death penalty. “Those two positions are not in conflict. They are consistent,” he said. “It means we respect life and we’re prepared to give the death penalty to stop people killing each other.” Despite supporting Trump on abortion, Ridge, who said he worked in the media, described the Republican nominee as “a jerk”. “I completely despise this man,” he said. Ridge said he was voting for Trump because he believed the supreme court was “a major issue”. He said he believed Trump would nominate more socially conservative justices. The New York Young Republican Club had hired out the Katra Lounge, in Manhattan’s Lower East Side, to host the watch party. Katra Lounge, which has a 2.5-star average rating on Yelp, seemed to be more of a dance spot than a forum for political debate. On its Facebook page the bar was marketing an event on Friday night where women were entitled to free vodka between 11pm and midnight. There was no free vodka on Wednesday. A bottle of Stella Artois cost $9, according to a man I asked. About 60 young Republicans – the club defines young as between 18 and 40 years old – had gathered at Katra Lounge. Rachel Olson, who said she was in her late 30s, was among the attendees. As we watched the middle part of the debate she said she wanted to see more focus on the issues. “I think we all know what their characters are at this point,” Olson said. Like Ridge, she said she was a “social conservative”. She said she liked that Trump had provided a list of potential supreme court nominees, and that they were all pro-life. Olson, a marketing manager, said she was conservative on fiscal matters too. We watched Clinton talk about raising the minimum wage. Olson was not in favor. “My mother goes to a gym in San Diego that is threatening to shut down because of higher minimum wage laws. So ultimately it cuts jobs,” she said. A little later, Trump criticized the media, as is his wont. It earned a few boos – swiftly shushed – but Olson said the criticism was valid. “I absolutely agree with that,” she said. • This article was amended on 20 October 2016 to remove quotes from a person who later said on social media that he had deceived the reporter.
Calm down, FBI – there’s little danger of the web ‘going dark’ The Apple v FBI standoff continues to generate more heat than light, with both sides putting their case to “the court of public opinion” — which, in this case, is at best premature and at worst daft. Apple has just responded to the court injunction obliging it to help the government unlock the iPhone used by one of the San Bernadino killers with a barrage of legal arguments involving the first and fifth amendments to the US constitution. Because the law in the case is unclear (there seems to be only one recent plausible precedent and that dates from 1977), I can see the argument going all the way to the supreme court. Which is where it properly belongs, because what is at issue is a really big question: how much encryption should private companies (and individuals) be allowed to deploy in a networked world? In the meantime, we are left with posturing by the two camps, both of which are being selective with the actualité, as Alan Clark might have said. Apple is staking a claim to the high moral ground: this is not just about one phone, it says, but about the security and privacy of millions of citizens everywhere. Agreeing to the FBI’s request to write a special version of the phone’s operating system that would disable its in-built blocking mechanism against automated password guessing would set a very dangerous precedent that governments everywhere would exploit. True, especially in China, where, coincidentally, Apple sells more iPhones than it does in the US. The FBI, for its part, is trying a two-pronged approach. One is the soothing tone: don’t worry about a precedent, they say, we just want to get the data off this one phone. The FBI should tell that to the marines, or at any rate to prosecutors all over the US who have iPhones that they want Apple to unlock. The Manhattan district attorney, to name just one, has 175 of the darned things. So if Apple is forced to concede in the end, it’ll find a long queue at its door. The other part of the FBI strategy is also to stake a claim to the high moral ground. James Comey, its director, has been sounding off for ages that cyberspace is “going dark” (ie invisible to law enforcement) because of encryption and that this is intolerable. Over here, the same line has been energetically peddled by David Cameron. “In extremis,” he said recently, “it has been possible to read someone’s letter, to listen to someone’s call, to mobile communications… The question remains: are we going to allow a means of communications where it simply is not possible to do that? My answer to that question is: no, we must not.” This species of moral panic has a long pedigree, reaching back to the 1990s or earlier. In the past, official fears about “going dark” have proved overblown. Is that likely to be the case now? In order to find out, the Berkman Center at Harvard convened a group of experts to ponder the problem. The title of the report of their sober deliberations, Don’t Panic, just about sums it up. Sure, the report says, smartphone encryption is a pain for law enforcement, but most online activity will remain unencrypted (and therefore visible either by surveillance or warrant) for two simple reasons: one is that some kinds of electronic data (for example, metadata) will remain unencrypted because networked systems couldn’t function otherwise; the other is that “the majority of businesses that provide communications services rely on access to user data for revenue streams and product functionality”. And the forthcoming internet of things will provide lots of opportunities for spooks to observe people without worrying about breaking encryption. So the FBI and Cameron should calm down: the surveillance-based business model of the web will ensure that the world won’t go dark on them just yet. Just to emphasise the point, an intriguing investigation by Cambridge University scientists published last week illuminated how the mainstream web is becoming hostile to even modest attempts by users to protect their privacy. The researchers conducted a large-scale automated survey to determine what proportion of mainstream websites routinely reject or ignore access requests from people who use the Tor system to anonymise their browsing activity. They found that, already, around 3.67% of the top 1,000 sites do so. My hunch is that this proportion is likely to increase. Comey and Cameron can sleep easy in their beds.
RBS to cut almost 450 investment banking jobs in UK Royal Bank of Scotland is cutting 448 investment banking jobs in the UK, moving two-thirds of them to India. The bank, 73% of which is owned by the taxpayer, said it would cut back- and middle-office roles in its investment bank, including a small number of technology jobs. Under its chief executive, Ross McEwan, RBS has been shrinking the division to focus on its personal and small business operations in the UK and Ireland. About 300 jobs will go offshore, to an existing RBS operation based in Gurgaon, near Delhi, and Chennai in southern India. London and Newcastle-under-Lyme will bear the brunt of the cuts, along with Manchester. The layoffs will happen by the end of next year. The move comes just days after RBS announced it would lay off 550 investment advisers, replacing them with an automated system that will offer advice based on customers responses to a series of questions. The bank, which was bailed out during the financial crisis, reported a £2bn loss for 2015, its eighth annual loss in a row. John Morgan-Evans, regional officer of the Unite union, said: “Unite is disappointed that despite RBS’s promise to build a UK-focused bank, we continue to see jobs shipped out of the UK. It was inevitable that RBS’s talk of ‘technology simplification’ would come down to yet more job cuts as that remains the bank’s go-to solution whatever the problem. “Once again placating shareholders with short-term savings is being prioritised over the long-term future of the bank and the employees who keep RBS running.” The bank said: “As part of RBS’s drive to be a stronger, simpler and fairer bank, we have been restructuring our corporate & institutional bank, as well as reducing its size, to focus on our core customers and products. “As this process continues our frontline staff need a simpler, clearer, more efficient relationship with our middle – and back-office functions to better serve customers, so we’re reshaping our services business accordingly. Unfortunately the changes will result in some job losses.” RBS added that it would try to “redeploy staff into new roles wherever possible”.
Halifax’s new advert: Fred Flintstone comes out of retirement There used to be a time when Hollywood stars, in order to pay off a divorce or an Ecuadorian drug lord, would accept clandestine advertising gigs in obscure parts of the world. The idea was that the star would schlep out to some hell-hole – the UK, say – boost a brand of toilet cleaner, then get paid without any harm to their precious reputation. That time is long gone, thanks to the internet but also a cultural shift that means it’s OK to shill for any corporation on Earth, unless they’ve made some faux pas on social media. No doubt Fred Flintstone sensed which way the wind was blowing before making his decision to come out of retirement and, in the company of his wife Wilma, pretend to live in Britain and be desirous of changing his bank account. The ad sees Fred enter a branch of the Halifax and, with the assistance of a Friendly Geordie, accept £125 to jump bank. Fred promises to spend the windfall on his car, which is as British as it gets. But in what can only be described as another manifestation of our post-truth era, the punchline reveals that, actually, the money has gone on trainers. So what if the car is foot-powered? I bet Fred voted for Brexit.
'The vote made people just explode': Polish centre reeling after graffiti attack Throughout Monday the reception desk at the Polish Social and Cultural Association (POSK) in west London has been inundated with flowers and cards from locals expressing solidarity and well-wishes. “After yesterday I felt very upset, but this is nice,” a receptionist muses. “English people coming in and apologising for one person’s stupidity.” On Sunday, after Britain’s vote to leave the EU, xenophobic graffiti was found scrawled across the doors of the centre, which sits on a busy high street in Hammersmith. The message has since been washed off. The receptionist shows me the cards, one of which reads: “Dear Poles, I am so sorry to hear about what happened yesterday. We the Brits are grateful to you for fighting alongside us in the war and now for the enormous contribution you make to our society. We love you.” Another starts: “Dear Polish friends, we wanted to let you know how very sorry we are to hear about the abusive messages graffitied on to your building. It’s depressing enough that the UK (or part of it) will be leaving the EU. That the result of the referendum seems to have been interpreted by some as a licence to express their racism and xenophobia is truly horrifying.” Founded in 1967 at the initiative of a Polish engineer, Roman Ludwik Wajda, to promote Polish culture and art, the centre houses the library of Poland in London, several theatre studios, a gallery, bookshop and cafe. In the foyer, where posters advertise ballroom dancing classes, jazz performances and karate lessons for children, employees gather to reassure each other after the events of recent days. Joanna Ciechanowska, director of POSK’s gallery says: “I hoped by a very small margin we’d stay in. But of course the hope was dashed. I think there was not enough clear information in the referendum campaign. All the broadcasts and the two main parties were appealing to people’s emotions. It was all about immigration.” Ciechanowska has been running the gallery voluntarily for 10 years and has lived in the UK for 35. Pointing to a wall adorned with a list of nearly 2,000 funders of the centre, including the Society of Polish Fighters, a choir, Polish combatants and a rugby team, she says they would be disgusted at what happened on Sunday. “I am absolutely disgusted too,” she adds. “The founders that put their own money into the centre were mostly people displaced after the second world war, fighters like my father, who stayed in Warsaw and went to prison there. He was a broken man after that because the communist system imposed on us by the Russian regime at the time decided people who fought for Poland were traitors. As you can see, all these so-called traitors founded the centre out of their own pocket. “It’s just awful. My son, who is half English, was born here 28 years ago, he texted me yesterday morning saying: ‘Did you see Mama what is happening?’ He’s a musician and comes to the centre often. He is quite British, and he felt awful too about it. Everyone here thinks it’s awful. You start to wonder what is going to happen. Clearly the vote was in favour of out by a very narrow margin. It almost seems completely unfair.” Hammersmith and Fulham voted by 70%-30% to remain in the EU, and now some locals’ worst fears have been confirmed. Ciechanowska says she does not think the graffiti incident would have happened before the referendum, but “all of a sudden a small group of extremists feel empowered”. She continues: “The margins of society all of a sudden feel that they can do it, they think they have the support of half of the nation. It’s sad because living here for so many years and being married to an Englishman, I have never actually encountered any racism in this country, and this is the first time it happened straight in my face. It’s out of character for this area because I frequently engage with Hammersmith council, our recent exhibition of Polish and Russian art was embraced by them, we attend various things they organise. Whoever did this was an ugly person who saw a window of opportunity.” The library in the centre is filled with old manuscripts and first editions of books including those of Joseph Conrad. On a table stands part of the ship Conrad captained before he left Poland. The adjoining Joseph Conrad study centre, home to books that date back to the 15th century, is decorated with drawings and paintings of the writer on the wall. Elżbieta Pagór, the librarian, says: “This centre has been here since the 60s, so why now? The referendum made people just explode. Me and my family came here in 1983. My eldest son was born in Poland and my younger one was born here and is married to an English girl. He says he knew something like this would happen if we voted to leave the EU. That the reaction would be toxic. “I see this, and the way some football fans have been acting in the Euros in France, and it reminds me of history. How can people be ignorantly nationalistic? It’s like people don’t have enough knowledge of history, their country, Europe, eastern Europe. We have to share culture and knowledge, it enriches us as humans.” Ciechanowska adds: “When I first came to England after finishing art college in Warsaw, I thought London was paradise. When I came here I realised what freedom was, I could breathe. It was the first time I properly learned about democracy. “Coming back to this referendum, of course we have to accept democracy and this is a democratic vote, but what I’m afraid of is that some who voted out did not realise what they were voting out for. “You don’t have to tell a lie to mislead somebody. You only have to not tell certain things and focus on others, and this is often what politicians do.”
Theresa May urged to reshape welfare with 'social insurance' Theresa May is being urged to consider reviving the principle of social insurance to help struggling low-paid workers, as she prepares to flesh out her vision of “a country that works for everyone”. The prime minister, who will hold the first cabinet meeting since the summer break at Chequers this week, is keen to show that social reform and tackling “burning injustice” remain a priority, despite the urgent need to clarify what the new government hopes to achieve from Brexit. May is under pressure, not least from her own back benches, to give a clearer signal as to what kind of deal her government hopes to negotiate with the other EU member-states as the government moves to implement the voters’ decision to leave the European club. Ministers appear to have taken distinct stances on the best deal Britain can hope to strike with the chancellor, Philip Hammond, stressing the importance of retaining access to the single market, including for financial services firms, while Brexiters Liam Fox and David Davis, both of whom will have key roles in the negotiation process, are thought to prefer a go-it-alone approach. Another knotty issue in May’s back-to-work inbox is Hinkley Point C, the nuclear reactor due to be built by state-owned French firm EDF with Chinese backing, in a complex deal signed by Osborne. The prime minister has launched an inquiry into the project before giving it the go-ahead, amid concerns about security and value for money. But the Chinese ambassador has warned that a decision to cancel it could affect diplomatic relations between the two countries. The new business and energy minister, Greg Clark, is also known to be keen to scrutinise the details of the deal and one potential option is to try to separate agreement on Hinkley from a second reactor, at Bradwell in Essex, that China hopes to build. A decision on Hinkley is expected in September. May will visit China next weekend for her first major international summit – a G20 leaders’ meeting in Hangzhou, in the east of the country, where she is expected to hold her first face-to-face meetings with Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin. Her fellow leaders are likely to urge her to push ahead with the Brexit process, to minimise the risk that a prolonged period of uncertainty saps economic confidence. The International Monetary Fund recently warned that the referendum result had thrown a “spanner in the works” of the global economy. A decision on whether to back a third runway at Heathrow – or other options for expanding airport capacity in the south-east such as increasing the size of Gatwick – is also expected in the autumn. Meanwhile May will chair the first meeting of her social reform cabinet committee this week – a gathering of relevant ministers – in a bid to show that improving the lives of those she described in her first speech in Downing Street as “just managing” is high on her agenda. One option thought to be under consideration is to shift the focus of welfare policy from the cost-cutting approach of George Osborne, which many Conservatives believe reached its limit when reductions to tax credits and disability payments were rejected by his own backbenchers during a public outcry, to a self-help system. May’s new director of policy, John Godfrey, is a keen advocate of what in his last job, at financial services giant Legal and General, he called “Beveridge 2.0”: using technology to introduce new forms of social insurance. Godfrey told a campaigning group, the Financial Inclusion Commission, last year that the systems used to deliver auto-enrolment, the scheme that ensures all low-income workers have a pension, could also be used to help the public insure themselves against unexpected events. “There is a clear lesson from auto-enrolment that if you have a plumbing network or an infrastructure that works, that auto-enrolment infrastructure could be used for other things which would encourage financial inclusion: things like, for example, life cover, income protection and effective and very genuine personal contributory benefits for things like unemployment and sickness,” he said. “They can be delivered at good value if there is mass participation through either soft compulsion or good behavioural economics.” As an example he suggested that a worker earning £27,000, who paid in 0.5% of their earnings, or £11 a month, could then be entitled to claim 40% of their income for 12 months if they fell sick – perhaps two to three times what they might get on the existing contributory employment support allowance. Such new social insurance products would not replace universal credit, the means-tested welfare system championed by Iain Duncan Smith, which is currently being rolled out across the UK – but they could supplement it. Politically partly restoring the link between contributions and receipts in the welfare system could help tackle the perception that some get “something for nothing” and sharpen May’s appeal to the “just managing” households she has said she wants to help. Ryan Shorthouse, director of a Conservative thinktank, Bright Blue, said: “Thanks in large part to the proposed cuts to tax credits and the personal independence payment, there is a danger that the Conservatives have developed a politically unhelpful and one-dimensional reputation on welfare reform: namely, they are simply cost-cutters. Theresa May’s government has a real opportunity to change this. “There are a growing number of leading centre-right policymakers inside and outside of government who believe the next stage of welfare reform should be to offer more contributory benefits. The public overwhelmingly believe that it is fair that those who have worked longer – who have put more into the system – deserve more support in testing times.” Governments have found it hard to adapt the welfare state to a labour market in which many jobs are transient and a growing proportion of the workforce are self-employed. Nest, the national savings scheme behind auto-enrolment, allows workers to continue paying in when they move jobs, or while out of work. May is also expected to make an autumn announcement on expanding grammar schools – perhaps at Tory conference, where grassroots members are likely to be cheered by it – though she is likely to opt for something more modest than a nationwide edict to bring back selection. • This article was amended on 1 September 2016 to correct the spelling of Hangzhou.
Morrissey rages at management after US tour cancelled Morrissey has cancelled all remaining dates on his US tour, while placing the blame squarely with his management. The December dates had already been rescheduled once due to Gustavo Mazur’s health problems – the keyboardist collapsed backstage before a show in Boulder, Colorado. Writing on fansite True to You, Morrissey said that 360 Management were to blame: “There was apparently not even enough money to transport the touring party to the next scheduled city, and 360 Management faded out as quickly as they had faded in.” He added: “We expect no further chances in Detroit, Chicago, Cleveland, Houston, Dallas or San Antonio.” Saying they were “nights destroyed by the ephemeral damagers … who do their worst … and slip away.” In an arguably bizarre move, Morrissey went on to rank his favourite audiences in 2016. That was good news for Philadelphia, which topped the list, but rather less welcome for fans in Tokyo and Tel-Aviv, who were placed bottom of his list. His hometown Manchester came in at eighth place. Morrissey wrote: “This year, the mobilized strength of our ragingly loyal audiences were most appreciated, by me, at: 1. Philadelphia, USA. 2. Brooklyn, USA. 3. Hong Kong, China. 4. Adelaide, Australia. 5. Melbourne, Australia. 6. Santa Barbara, USA. 7. Helsinki, Finland. 8. Manchester, England. 9. Gothenburg, Sweden. 10. Chicago, USA. 11. Newcastle, Australia. 12. Berlin, Germany. 13. Salt Lake City, USA. 14. Tokyo, Japan (first night). 15. Tel-Aviv, Israel.”
Donald Trump questions Clinton’s health at rally in Ohio: ‘You think this is easy?’ Donald Trump publicly raised questions about Hillary Clinton’s health for the first time since the former secretary of state was forced on Sunday to leave a ceremony for the victims of 9/11. Speaking in an air-conditioned minor league basketball arena in Canton, Ohio, Trump made his most direct reference to Clinton’s recent diagnosis of pneumonia and her campaign saying she left the event in New York because she felt “overheated”. “You think this is easy?” Trump asked. “In this beautiful room that’s 122 degrees. It is hot, and it is always hot when I perform because the crowds are so big. The rooms were not designed for this kind of crowd. I don’t know, folks. You think Hillary Clinton would be able to stand up here and do this for an hour? I don’t know.” The Republican nominee later went on to add of his Democratic rival, “Now she’s lying in bed, getting better and we want her better, we want her back on the trail, right?” Sounding like the classic unscripted Trump, the Republican presidential nominee often deviated from his teleprompters in a 40-minute speech that ranged from Clinton’s health to the water crisis in Flint, Michigan. The issue of candidate health and medical records has come to the forefront after the Clinton campaign revealed on Sunday – eight hours after she abruptly left the ceremony at the National September 11 Memorial – that the former secretary of state had been diagnosed with pneumonia two days earlier. The Democratic nominee had to be helped into a van while leaving. Afterward, Clinton cancelled all public events for three days. Clinton has since released more detailed medical information from her doctor describing her as “healthy and fit to serve as president”. In contrast, Trump has yet to share further medical information to the public besides a brief letter written in December that said he would be “the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency”. However, in an interview with controversial TV doctor Dr Oz, set to air on Thursday, the 70-year-old Trump reportedly said that he would like to lose 15 pounds, doesn’t exercise and is fond of fast food. Trump also addressed the water crisis in Flint, a former car manufacturing hub that has seen tens of thousands of jobs disappear in recent decades. “It used to be cars were made in Flint and you couldn’t drink the water in Mexico,” the Republican nominee said. “Now the cars are made in Mexico and you can’t drink the water in Flint.” Ford said on Wednesday that it was moving all its small-car production to Mexico. Earlier in the day, Trump had visited the city and ended up in a confrontation with a local pastor. Trump was visiting a church that serves as a water distribution center for residents when he started critiquing Clinton. The pastor, Faith Green Timmons, interrupted and made clear: “Mr Trump, I invited you here to thank us for what we’ve done in Flint, not give a political speech.” Later in Ohio, Trump, buoyed by recent polls that showed him taking the lead in that crucial swing state, was in high spirits in front of a cheering crowd. His supporters, many of them wearing Trump-themed apparel, ate up applause lines such as when Trump asked who would pay for his famous border wall. He received loud shouts in return of “Mexico”. The crowd also booed and hissed when Trump told them, “President Obama just announced a 30% increase to refugee admissions coming into this country.” Trump added after the loud chorus of boos subsided that “that was hard to take”. The Republican nominee added of the proposal: “It’s bringing the total to 110,000 refugees in just a single year, and we have no idea where they come from, it’s a great Trojan horse.” Looking ahead to history’s judgment, Trump noted, “I don’t want be known in 200 years for having created a Trojan horse by a different name.” The uncharacteristic return to his unscripted rally style comes the day before the Republican nominee is scheduled to make a major economic policy speech at the Waldorf Astoria in New York. There, the Republican nominee will introduce a tax reform proposal. Trump has previously introduced two other tax reform plans. First, in 2015, where he emphasized that half of Americans in lieu of paying taxes would simply mail a card to the IRS saying “I win”, and more recently in August where he proposed to reduce the number of tax brackets to three while drastically cutting rates. The speech on Thursday is expected to be a more expansive elaboration of the August proposal. • This article was amended on 19 September 2016 to clarify when Hillary Clinton was diagnosed with pneumonia.
Learning to Drive review – life lessons Following the collapse of her marriage, Manhattan-based literary critic Wendy (Patricia Clarkson) decides to learn to drive. Her Sikh instructor, Darwan (Ben Kingsley), offers her the benefit of his wisdom on parallel parking and road rage, while she gives the newly married Darwan some insight into the workings of the female heart. It’s a gentle ride through this tentative connection between two damaged souls. However, while the film refrains from following the obvious romantic route, the life lesson symbolism of Wendy’s driving tuition is signposted a little too glaringly. Still, it’s a pleasure to watch two actors of the calibre of Clarkson and Kingsley sparking together. Clarkson, in particular, is spot-on; her character unfolds gradually into the serenity that comes with hard-earned self-sufficiency. And the gentle, low-key humour belies some spiky observations about multicultural America.
Action to combat UK air pollution crisis delayed again Action to combat the UK’s air pollution crisis has been delayed again after the government rejected a proposal to deliver an effective action plan within eight months. Environmental lawyers ClientEarth inflicted a humiliating legal defeat on ministers last week – its second in 18 months – when the high court ruled that ministers’ plans to tackle illegal levels of air pollution in many UK cities and towns were unlawfully poor. The court gave the parties seven days to agree on the next steps, but the government rejected the proposal from ClientEarth. The case will now return to court at a future date when the judge will determine what happens next. Air pollution causes over 40,000 early deaths and at least £27.5bn in costs every year in the UK, according to the government’s own estimates, and was called a “public health emergency” by MPs in April. An earlier government plan to tackle air pollution was declared illegal in April 2015 and ministers were ordered then to produce a new strategy, which it did in December. But that new plan was also found to be illegal last week. “We are disappointed that we have been unable so far to agree on the timetable for the new plan, or on the future role for the court in overseeing compliance with the order,” said ClientEarth lawyer Alan Andrews. “We have made our written submissions and await the court’s decision.” Aaron Kiely, at Friends of the Earth, said: “How many times must the government fail? And how many deadlines do they need? There is a simple and deadly fact underscoring this case – 40,000 people are dying early from the harmful effects of our illegally dirty air. If this isn’t enough to get the government to do whatever it takes, including really drastic measures to reduce traffic, what is?” After the most recent court defeat, prime minister Theresa May said: “There is more to do and we will do it.” A spokeswoman for the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said on Wednesday: “Our plans have always followed the best available evidence. We have always been clear that we are ready to update them if necessary and we will set out further measures next year. We cannot comment on ongoing legal proceedings.” In last week’s judgment against the government, Mr Justice Garnham said it was “remarkable” that ministers knew they were using over-optimistic pollution modelling, based on flawed lab tests of diesel vehicles rather than actual emissions on the road, but proceeded anyway. The existing government plan is for clean air zones – in which polluting diesel vehicles are charged to enter city centres – in just six UK cities. A new plan that meets the legal requirement to cut illegal levels of nitrogen dioxide pollution in the “shortest possible time” is very likely to involve clean air zones in many cities and towns across the country. NO2 has been at illegal levels in 90% of the country’s air quality zones since 2010 and stems largely from diesel vehicles. ClientEarth also argued in court that an effective plan would require other measures including a scrappage scheme for older diesel vehicles, retrofits of HGVs and more funding for public transport and cycling and walking schemes. Documents revealed during last week’s high court case showed the Treasury had blocked initial government plans to charge polluting diesel vehicles for entering 16 towns and cities blighted by air pollution, due to concern about the political impact of angering motorists. Both the environment and transport departments also recommended changes to vehicle excise duty rates to encourage the purchase of low-pollution vehicles. But the Treasury also rejected that idea, along with a scrappage scheme for older diesels. ClientEarth is running a billboard campaign across London from Thursday, carrying the message: “Welcome to London – the UK’s most polluted city”. A similar campaign is taking place in Glasgow. ClientEarth chief executive James Thornton said: “We need urgent action from governments and politicians across the UK who have failed morally and legally in their duty to protect people’s health.”
Brexit supporters have unleashed furies even they can’t control The clutch of England fans in Marseille were unequivocal. “Fuck off Europe, we’re all voting out,” they chanted. I’ve spent the week listening to much the same, politer, but just as fingers-in-the-ears adamant. No fact, no persuader penetrates their certainty – and these were Labour voters. Will Labour’s campaign week, kicked off by Gordon Brown in the face of a dire new poll, shift many outers? Inside Labour’s London HQ, I joined young volunteers manning the “Labour In” phones with every fact at the ready. We had sheets of Labour-supporting names to call in Nottinghamshire – and the results were grim. “Out”, “Out” and “Out” in call after call, only a couple for remain. “I’ve been Labour all my life, but I’m for leave,” they said. Why? Always the same – immigrants first; that mythical £350m saving on money sent to Brussels second; “I want my country back” third. And then there is, “I don’t know ANYONE voting in.” Try arguing with facts and you get nowhere. Warn these Labour people what a Johnson/Gove government would do and they don’t care. Warn about the loss of workers’ rights and they don’t listen – maybe that’s already irrelevant to millions in crap jobs such as at Uber or Sports Direct. “We’re full up. Sorry, there’s no room for more. Can’t get GP appointments, can’t get into our schools, no housing.” If you tell these Labour voters that’s because of Tory austerity cuts, still they blame “immigrants getting everything first”. Warn about a Brexit recession leading to far worse cuts and they just say, “Stop them coming, make room for our own first.” Here were the two irreconcilable faces of Labour, eager young London graduates on the phone making scant headway with older traditional voters of Nottingham, impervious to love letters from Der Spiegel or heartfelt warnings that Labour people, Labour areas, would pay the price for Brexit self-destruction. Every week in Barking the MP Margaret Hodge invites a whole ward for coffee and biscuits to air whatever’s on their minds. When the BNP shockingly won 12 council seats, those open-door meetings dealing with everyday grievances saw her make the case and beat them off, so the BNP lost every seat. On Friday about 50 voters came, wanting to talk about ordinary things – parking, fly-tipping and houses in multiple occupation crammed with migrants by rogue landlords. Hodge and her volunteers went from table to table recording everyone’s issues, writing to them later with resolutions. But at the end when she asked the hall about the referendum, the mood changed. “We didn’t come to talk about that!” one angry woman said, others agreeing. “We came about parking!” But Hodge insisted, making an eloquent remain case: shrinking services are caused by Tory austerity that halved their council’s budget, more than migrants. The room bristled with antagonism. “Do you want to be governed by Brussels?” one shouted out. “You’re being sold a false prospectus, a bunch of lies,” she said, to no avail. One said: “When I get out at the station, I think I’m in another country. Labour opened the floodgates.” They like her, a well-respected, diligent MP, but they weren’t listening. She demolished the £350m myth, but they clung to it. She told them housing shortages were due to Tory sell-offs and failure to build but a young man protested that he was falling further down the waiting list, with immigrants put first. Barking’s long-time residents come first, she said, but she was not believed. I found just two remainers. This is Labour London, supposedly remain’s stronghold, though the Barking and Dagenham Post finds 67% for Brexit. Jeremy Corbyn is under fire for half-heartedness, but I doubt he, Brown or any Labour figure could budge them. Roused by anti-migrant leavers, will they ever revert to Labour? Their neighbourhoods have changed beyond recognition, without them being asked. Children emerging from the primary school next door, almost all from ethnic minorities, are just a visible reminder for anyone seeking easy answers to genuine grievance. As high-status Ford jobs are swapped for low-paid warehouse work, indignation is diverted daily against migrants by the Mail, Sun, Sunday Times and the rest. “Fury over plot to let 1.5m Turks into Britain” was Monday’s latest from the Daily Mail. This is the sound of Britain breaking.Here ends our “moderate, tolerant” self-image. Imagine Brexit wins and two years later prime minister Boris Johnson is still embroiled in quarrelsome EU exit talks. These Barking and Nottingham people will see no change, same migrants, same sense of powerlessness. Recession-hit, facing worse cuts, voters won’t blame themselves for their own folly. Old problems are unresolved – an economy reliant on City and property bubbles, low skills, low productivity, atrophied public services, hopes raised and dashed. Gove and Johnson risk losing control of the furies they have unleashed. That moment is fertile for some yet-worse demagogue who calls for throwing out migrants already here. Expect the volume to be raised against “elites” – anti-parliament, anti-politics, bored of democracy itself. Ignite hatred against Europe, blame Brussels for deliberately impoverishing us in revenge, stirring centuries-old enmities. Blend all that with a little nationalistic leftish populism, not all of it bad: nationalise our utilities and rail, eject foreign owners from key industries and property, pump up armed forces and national pride. These are potent ingredients for militant majoritarianism, blaming minorities and minority opinions. The Human Rights Act is abolished and the BBC absorbed into government. National socialism will no doubt carry a new name – but it’s there in the making. If remain scrapes in, David Cameron may urge the other 27 EU members towards some brakes on migration. After our near-death experience, with France’s Front National leader Marine Le Pen advancing, Poles and Hungarians screeching right and even worse threatened, some change looks necessary. Social democratic values, sharing within a community, both are threatened by an entirely open door. Surely this can’t happen here? We’ll wake up from the nightmare on 24 June remembering we’re a moderate nation, unseduced by Pied Pipers of far right or left. Don’t count on it. We know how civilised democracies can be inflamed by racism and xenophobia. And whatever the result, where does all this anger go next?
David Cameron points to risk of Scotland leaving UK after Brexit David Cameron has reminded voters that a vote to leave the EU may lead to a second Scottish independence referendum and increase the UK’s instability, in a fresh effort to bolster support for the remain campaign. The prime minister told a live referendum debate on ITV on Tuesday night that he worried about the prospects of a further Scottish vote, saying: “You don’t strengthen your country by leading to its break-up.” There was a “deeply patriotic” case for the UK remaining intact and within the EU, he insisted. Cameron’s remarks contradicted his assertion last year that there was no case for a further Scottish referendum, but also raised a crucial question for Scottish voters: what will the vote on 23 June mean for their future? If the leave campaign wins on 23 June against the wishes of a majority of Scottish voters – dragging Scotland out of the EU “against its will”, in the words of Nicola Sturgeon and her predecessor as first minister, Alex Salmond – that in turn would trigger substantial demands from nationalists for a second independence referendum. That raises huge questions about Scotland’s economic security, and how the country would manage the competing and challenging demands of the EU and the UK and it would threaten to plunge the Scottish National party’s government in Edinburgh into crisis. Even so, the EU referendum campaign in Scotland is only now starting in earnest, even while the rest of the UK has been immersed in Brexit and remain events, battle-bus tours and high-street hustings. The contrast with the Scottish independence campaign in 2014 is striking. That was vigorous, combative and live; there were impassioned public meetings that spilled out on the street; open-air rallies colonised central Glasgow; Yes Scotland pop-up shops on numerous high streets and a flurry of outspoken celebrity endorsements for both yes and no. The ambivalence this time is due partly to fatigue. The parties have just fought their fourth national campaign in little over two years (there was a European election in May 2014; the Scottish referendum in September 2014; a UK general election last May and this May, a Holyrood election). Until this week, Scotland’s political leaders have been preoccupied by domestic debates on fracking, policing sectarianism in football, cutting air passenger duty and lengthening first minister’s questions from 30 to 45 minutes. “It really isn’t a subject that is the talk of the steamie. We’ve been so subsumed by the Scottish election and making sure we’re properly performing our role in the Scottish parliament,” said one senior party official. Unlike most other parts of the UK, Scotland’s result is widely assumed to be a comfortable win for “in”. The Scottish EU polls show a consistent, if slightly shrinking, lead for remain of 20 to 50 points, depending on the pollster. The latest EU poll in Scotland, by TNS on Tuesday, showed a substantial lead for remain, at 51%, with 21% voting to leave. A full 29% did not yet know. Scotland is more Eurosceptic than those headline figures suggest, but softly so. There is a pervading sense that this is not Scotland’s fight. Even so, the SNP is now taking the most visible, proactive stance of Scotland’s mainstream parties, if only for the final weeks of the campaign. Sturgeon is taking part in the live ITV UK-wide debate on Thursday as part of the remain team; Salmond is embarking on a pro-EU speaking tour at Oxford University, Wales and Northern Ireland. Its activists are already out leafleting, its ministers speaking at pro-EU hustings and photocalls. The Scottish Tories are unable to take part formally since its deep splits on Europe leave it officially neutral. Scottish Labour and the Lib Dems are diminished, cash-strapped and bruised, both ceding the referendum campaign to the official UK-level remain and party organisations. The UK Independence party, which sits on the fringes of Scottish politics, has very little traction or reach, unlike in its English heartlands. The SNP’s very active presence in the final stages of the campaign will be influential, for both sides. The wealthiest and most popular Scottish party, its ranks also include the largest cohort of pro-Brexit voters in Scotland measured against the size of the SNP vote. So Sturgeon and Salmond’s intervention matters. Up to a third of SNP and pro-independence voters favour leaving the EU: they see it as wholly consistent with wanting full Scottish sovereignty. Sturgeon cannot alienate that loyal SNP vote but she is in a far more comfortable position than Cameron, she has no pro-Brexit ministers campaigning for the other side and no open rebellion in her party’s ranks. With that in mind, Sturgeon knows she would face intense pressure to call quickly for a second Scottish vote in the event of Brexit. She has repeatedly said a leave vote – against the wishes of a Scottish majority– would be one of the “material changes” in circumstances needed to trigger a fresh independence referendum. But she also knows the economics of Scottish independence are the worst in decades: the global oil crash has left a putative Scottish chancellor with a £15bn black hole in the country’s day-to-day finances. Scotland’s unemployment figures are above the UK’s and its GDP is far weaker, with a £15bn trade deficit with the rest of the UK. So would a Brexit vote strengthen public support for Scottish independence? Voters would be torn between the strong emotional desire to quit a British union dominated by English Tories – most probably those like Boris Johnson who led the Brexit campaign – against fear of the risks of quitting the UK, with its financial safety net and deeply enmeshed social, economic and cultural ties. And then Scots must confront the huge complexities of designing an independent state that may need to use the euro, and would need to negotiate new relationships with two competing entities – the UK and EU – with conflicting interests. The remain camp is nervous. With polling in England now neck and neck, and since the UK is voting as a single constituency, not region by region, every pro-EU vote counts.
The return of Yello: ‘America thought we were black guys rapping’ Dieter Meier is apologetic. We have to be quick with the interview, he says, because he is leaving Zurich for Cuba later today. “I’m going to buy some cacao beans,” he explains. “I’m starting a chocolate factory here in Zurich.” I’m sorry? A chocolate factory? “Based on a new patented process of a cold extraction from the cacao bean,” he explains. “Normally, the cacao is toasted, then ground, and you lose 90% of the aroma from all these heat processes.” And then he’s off. How normal chocolate is full of artificial aromas. How his chocolate is so flavoursome you can tell whether the beans that made it came from Java or Grenada or Cuba. How the Swiss chocolate industry attempted to buy the patent process of cold extraction from the scientist who invented it in order to stop anyone from using it. How the scientist contacted him because Meier has a “little coffee situation” in the Dominican Republic where the ripe coffee berries are harvested by hand, not industrially, “which makes my coffee quite expensive, but gives it a totally different flavour”. How he recently turned up at a chocolate convention and started handing out leaflets about his revolutionary new process, “like a communist”. “But,” he says eventually, “we don’t want to talk about chocolate, right?” Indeed. I am supposed to be in Zurich talking about the new Yello album, Toy – “a return to the roots of Yello”, as Meier’s musical partner Boris Blank puts it – and their forthcoming gigs in Berlin. These will be the first time the duo have performed live, unless you count a performance at a multimedia art event in a Zurich cinema weeks after they formed in 1978, at which Blank declined to appear on stage. Instead, he lurked in the orchestra pit (“In case it was a huge disaster,” notes Meier, “then people would think there was only one idiot involved”). There was also a 15-minute “presentation” at New York’s Roxy Club in 1983. Meier is hugely excited about their belated return to the stage, enthusing about the “opera-like” qualities of their music and the gigs he played recently with his side project Out of Chaos (“To be an entertainer on stage – I truly love it”). Blank, on the other hand, still carries the distinctly cautious aura of a man who might be happier hiding in an orchestra pit. “I was never a big ‘shake your head and move your ass and pretend to play a synthesiser’ guy,” he offers. “Now it’s a bit different, we have other musicians on stage. But,” he frowns, “I am still afraid to do this.” The thing is, while my interview with Blank proceeds relatively normally – albeit punctuated by the sound of the Yellofier, an iPhone app he recently invented and is keen to demonstrate at considerable volume – my conversation with Meier keeps getting sidetracked. He proudly describes himself as a dilettante (“A very positive word; someone who did not systematically learn something and starts with their own personality”). As well as being the frontman of Yello – and indeed the pioneer of a revolutionary new cacao extraction process and owner of a little coffee situation in the Dominican Republic – he is variously: a winemaker and a producer of organic beef (he owns a vineyard and cattle ranch in Argentina – his malbec-cabernet sauvignon-cabernet franc is apparently to die for); a restaurateur; an actor and film director; a former professional gambler; a celebrated performance artist; an author; photographer; designer of watches, silk scarves and sports cars; a former leading Swiss golfer (that one is hard to verify, it should be said); and one of the developers of “the first fully digital mixing console for music and film”. He says that if he had to do one thing, “of course, I would always try to work with Boris”, but when he talks, all the other stuff he does keeps coming up. The way a poker game is “a macrocosm of life – every new hand is your fate and you can play with your fate”. How the first fully digital mixing console for music and film got a bad press in the US when an engineer using one at CNN inadvertently broadcast the sound of two miked-up female reporters having “a very intensive sex talk” in a lavatory, instead of a George W Bush speech, and blamed the equipment. He talks about Beethoven, Goya and El Greco, and at one juncture uses the word “epigone”, which I subsequently have to look up in a dictionary. It goes without saying that this is both pretty fascinating and not the normal kind of conversation you have when you interview a musician. But then, even without Meier’s plethora of outside interests, Yello would still seem nothing like a normal kind of band. With their suits and cravats and moustaches, Meier and Blank look less like pop stars than two men you might see on the deck of a yacht, champagne flutes in hand. Their history is deeply odd. They seem to have formed by mistake. A mutual acquaintance introduced Meier – who had graduated from “making noises with my voice when I presented my experimental movies” to a brief career as a punk vocalist – to Boris Blank, a TV repair man and fan of Throbbing Gristle who was making experimental electronic music with a friend called Carlos Perón. Meier had no plans to pursue a career as a singer or form a band; Blank hated punk and didn’t want to work with a vocalist. Their meeting, Meier says, was “a double disaster for Boris. He felt as if he was a sound painter, doing electronic music, and even a brilliant singer would be putting extra brushstrokes on his work. And I was a very bad singer.” Still, they kept working together, discovering a shared sense of very dry, oddball humour that percolates throughout their oeuvre, from track titles to album sleeves to videos: “It’s not like we say ‘we’ve got to do some humour, people will like this’,” notes Blank, “it’s just what happens when both of us are around together.” Their intention was to be a very arty, leftfield entity – their first two albums were released on Ralph, the label run by legendary San Fransciso avant-gardists the Residents – but quickly became something else entirely, again seemingly by accident. Their 1981 single Bostich, a confection of relentless synthesiser, disco beats and Meier’s “percussive” vocals, became a huge hit on black radio in the US. “They thought we were two black guys rapping,” says Blank, still bemused, “not music from the cheese-and-chocolate land.” Weirder still, Yello next became proper pop stars, without intending to. They had a string of admittedly unlikely hit singles. 1985’s Vicious Games made the US dance/club top 10; The Race reached No 7 in the UK in 1988; they worked with Shirley Bassey on 1987’s The Rhythm Divine; the deathless Oh Yeah wasn’t that big a hit, but became almost omnipresent in 80s cinema and TV, “used,” as one critic noted, “when a movie or TV show or commercial wanted to underline the impact of a hot babe or jaw-dropping car”, a state of affairs that led to a long-running joke about the song in The Simpsons, where the phrase is Duffman’s catchphrase. This was all clearly a long way from hanging around with the Residents. “It was a rather strange experience,” Meier says. “It was the experience of two children who were playing on a beach, sculpting things with sand or whatever they can find, but then, when success kicked in, it was like those two children suddenly being taken into a public space. We signed these contracts with many zeroes after some figures, when no one would have spent a penny to promote Yello at the beginning. We ate the sugar of success, but also the sugar of responsibility. Suddenly, we had these contracts and we were a racehorse, competing at the derby. We lost our childhood as musicians, so to speak. “Only later, we realised we were artistically running in circles a little bit. It’s quite a process to open a new door, to allow yourself to become a child again, to really let yourself fall, to be allowed to make a fool of yourself again.” True to form, that leads him on to talking about the time he meticulously sorted 100,000 bits of metal into bags of 1,000 as a piece of performance art: “if you do something that empty, if you just present a beautiful nothing, a meaninglessness, it takes courage, because you’re a total idiot when you do this, right?” And with that, he heads off to the airport to source some cacao beans, leaving Blank in the studio, planning their live performances. “This is why Yello still works, after 35 years,” Blank says. “We are two totally different characters. He’s now on a plane to Cuba, I don’t like to travel. I close my eyes when I listen to music and travel in my mind.” He returns to his computer and his meticulously planned timeline for the forthcoming live shows, which seems to be assuaging his doubts about shaking his ass behind a synthesiser. “I think I can imagine that I will have some fun,” he mutters. Toy is out on Universal on 30 September.
Arsenal celebrate Wenger’s birthday but ride luck to hold Middlesbrough Arsène Wenger’s having a party: bring your vodka and your DVD of Fortuna Köln versus Paderborn. The Arsenal manager is no hell-raiser and he has long had his leg pulled about his idea of a big night, which – according to legend – has to feature German third division football. One thing was plain after this anti-climactic comedown from Wednesday’s 6-0 Champions League win against Ludogorets. His 67th birthday bash would have been the dampest of squibs. Wenger’s moods are entirely dependent on the results of his team and this was one of those that they throw in every now and then – sometimes when they are least expected. Arsenal had entered the game as the form team in England, having won seven on the spin in all competitions, while Middlesbrough had never had so few Premier League points after the first eight matches of a season. But Arsenal could not find their fluency – they were slow and flat, and it was surprising to see how few clearcut chances they created. It was Middlesbrough who distinguished themselves and if anybody deserved to win then it was them. Aitor Karanka got his tactics spot-on and, with the right-winger, Adama Traoré, showcasing his pace and power, they had the opportunities to take more than the one point. Petr Cech saved Arsenal three times in the first half and he would be worked again by Traoré in the second period. Wenger admitted that Arsenal “could have lost the game in the first half” and he lamented his team’s lack of pace, creativity and sharpness in the combinations. He also felt they had paid “a little price” for their exertions against Ludogorets, even if it had not looked like a particularly taxing evening. “I have a frustrated face,” Wenger added. “But, at least, we were intelligent enough not to lose.” Arsenal dominated possession but they struggled to outmanoeuvre Karanka’s reworked midfield. Instead of using his usual 4-2-3-1 formation, the Boro manager asked Adam Clayton to anchor a central midfield trio, with Adam Forshaw and Marten de Roon either side of him. In the absence of a No10, Gaston Ramírez started off the left. Middlesbrough’s problems had been well-documented – the dismal run of results, the lack of creativity and goals – but they made light of them. If nobody could have predicted how disjointed Arsenal would have looked, then it was still a surprise to see the visitors as the more dangerous team, particularly in the first half. They had chances and they were glorious ones – particularly the third of them, when Traoré crossed, Álvaro Negredo and Laurent Koscielny challenged for the ball and it looped up to the unmarked Ramírez at the far post. His header packed a punch but it was too close to Cech, who blocked instinctively. Karanka’s team had first carved Arsenal open in the 19th minute, following Negredo’s flick from Daniel Ayala’s high ball forward. Koscielny moved across to deal with the loose ball but he was robbed by Traoré, who blasted away from him and made for the area. Confronted by Cech, his shot was saved and, when the ball broke to Negredo, the goalkeeper saved again. Negredo ought to have done better. Middlesbrough could also point to Ramírez’s whipped free-kick moments later, which came back off the crossbar. Arsenal flickered – they always do – but there was no one chance that they could look back upon with particular regret. It was Alexis Sánchez who was central to what they did muster. The centre-forward went close with two free-kicks while he twice forced Víctor Valdés into smart saves in open play. There was also the moment shortly after half-time when Valdés, the former Barcelona goalkeeper, failed to claim a high ball and Sánchez chipped it back into the middle for Koscielny. The cross was over-hit. Like the Swansea City winger Modou Barrow here last weekend, Traoré had plenty of joy; there was worry among the home support whenever he tore forward on the counterattack. He went close on 59 minutes, after a surging run and low shot for the far corner – Cech tipped it around the post – and, with time almost up, he drove again and played in Negredo. Koscielny stretched to make the saving challenge. “We deserved to win,” Karanka said. “Our concentration was good throughout. The fact that Cech was Arsenal’s best player says that we did a really good job. Now, we have a very important home game against Bournemouth next Saturday.”
In their hunt for misspent EU cash, even rare birds are fair game for Brexit camp For Brexit campaigners trawling for examples of apparently badly spent EU cash to hold up for public opprobrium, a project that involves leaving plaster models of birds on beaches may have seemed easy to mock. The RSPB-run conservation programme is using the avian decoys in an attempt to lure the UK’s remaining 1,900 pairs of little terns to safe breeding beaches. Pairs of faux-terns stand facing each other, mimicking the behaviour of breeding birds and advertising the site to passing terns. Slightly comical perhaps, but all in a good cause argue conservationists who say the approach appears to be working (and is in fact a bargain by professional science standards). But the Potemkin birdy bacchanalia attracted the ire of Matthew Elliott, Vote Leave’s chief executive, who told the Sunday Telegraph that the partly European-funded Little Tern Recovery Project was “for the birds”. “If you asked most people whether they’d rather spend money on aphrodisiacs for birds or the NHS, I think I know what they would choose,” said Elliott. “If we vote to leave on 23 June we’ll be able to spend our money on our priorities again.” The £2.6m programme – whose partners include the National Trust and three local councils – receives only half of its funding from the EU. The other 50% comes from partners, including some that are directly funded by the UK government. Susan Rendell-Read, the manager of the little tern project, called Elliott’s intervention “completely odd”. Just 200 plaster models, which were painted by school children, have been made at a cost of roughly £1 each. Rendell-Read estimated total cost of producing and placing the models was around £500, including staff costs. Yet for such a small outlay, the strategy appears to be having an effect, she said. Birds seemed to prefer beaches in Northumberland and Norfolk populated by the models. The models were trialled last year in Suffolk, where the species has declined by 88% in the past 20 years. The use of the models coincided with the most successful breeding season ever recorded in the county with 180 fledglings. Like many birds that nest on Britain’s beaches, the little tern has suffered from the mass disturbance of the coastline and its breeding success is down as a result. “It’s a really important part of the project,” said Rendell-Read. “A lot of the money is actually going to recreating and restoring habitat for little terns. If we are to make that successful we need a way to encourage the birds into those new, safer areas. So it’s something which has captured the public’s imagination, but is a also a conservation technique.” Elliott’s focus on the most eye-catching aspect of the project – the models – ignores the fact that the vast majority of the project’s funding was spent on more mundane conservation measures. Staffing the beaches and erecting temporary electric fences around nesting sites has cost £902,000. Another £620,000 has been spent on habitat restoration. The project has created 15 entry-level seasonal jobs for beach wardens, which Rendell-Read said could be a stepping stone to a career in conservation work. The use of models is considered to be a successful, low-cost way to attract certain bird species to secure breeding sites. The strategy is used by conservationists across the world and has been used in Britain for osprey conservation. Puffin models set up on Ramsey Island in Wales, encouraged the establishment of an entirely new breeding colony. Another such project has been established on the Isle of Man. The piece came just two days after the Sunday Telegraph’s sister paper ran an op-ed written by the chief executives of the RSPB and WWF warning that leaving the EU risked undermining the protection of Britain’s environment. They concluded that, “Leaving the EU would put much of what has been achieved at risk. The evidence shows that nature has been well served by our membership of the European Union.” By choosing to ridicule an innovative and successful conservation project because it spent £500 on making and placing some plaster models, the leave camp has inadvertently helped to bolster the RSPB and WWF case.
No spires required for our community broadband Kim Stoddart’s report (Living in a broadband ‘not-spot’? Try using the church spire to get a signal, 12 November) highlights a variety of local attempts to solve this problem but bemoans the fact that Ceredigion in west Wales is seventh from the bottom out of 650 UK constituencies for connectivity. Oh really? Not in our part of Ceredigion. We have a mast supplying 4G signals from all four major mobile network operators and we buy, and distribute 40Mbps broadband from a small technology company. We are currently looking at extending our service by using “whitespace”, spare bandwith capacity on TV wavebands. This is a community achievement. Six years ago four of us in our seventies and eighties formed a not-for-profit company, raised £243,000 from grant sources (including European money) and the cost of our unpaid time. We had contractors build the mast on a small piece of land leased to us by a local farmer. It was not always easy: fighting bureaucracy at local, Welsh and Westminster government levels took a lot of time and energy but with help from our friends in the community, including our local MP, we did it. He tells us we have better communications here than he has in Westminster. It can be done but needs a community to commit its resources of members’ time and energy. And forget the church spires: Welsh chapels don’t have spires. Bill Messer Authorising officer, Ger y Gors Projects • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com • Read more letters – click here to visit gu.com/letters
Plucky Britons have slain the Brussels dragon – but it's all just theatre The curtain of the referendum drama rises on a plucky little beer-drinking island folk, deferential to their Eton-educated betters but beset by the fire-breathing dragon of Brussels, which forces them to straighten their bananas and chuck away perfectly serviceable Hoovers. Enter stage right Boris Johnson and Michael Gove wearing the armour of St George. What a cheek, forcing clean beaches and breathable air on us. We must take back control! Their props – Nigel Farage’s traditional pint, Johnson’s ruffled hair, but not for some reason Jeremy Corbyn’s rumpled suit – identify them as lovable anti-establishment rebels. They promise us “sovereignty”. No one knows what that means in this globalised world. But it sounds like the Queen, so that’s nice. Cautious economic “experts” are led on in shackles. The audience is invited to lob bricks at them. This is a great nation. We will succeed alone – like Norway, like Switzerland, like Australia. They also have immigrants? Nobody told us that. Like Albania? Yes, Albania is very nice too, and soon it will be the model for our economy. The drama enters a new act, as the islanders face another threat – “swarms” of migrants. There are too many foreigners in my GP surgery, the islanders cry. Even my GP is a foreigner! Of course, it’s mainly smokers, obese people, the poor and especially us oldies who overburden the NHS, while many of the “foreigners” are our carers. Exit stage left a “swarm” of foreign people in blue uniforms. The islanders look around in shock. Who will look after us now? “There are too many foreigners undercutting wages,” they moan. But leaving the EU won’t stop employers looking for cheaper labour. What we need is trade unions. Enter stage right the prime minister, with a cunning wheeze to strip them of their cash flow. The knights of St George nod and wink. The leavers say money must cross borders freely, seeking out investment opportunities, leaving the grotty superfluous people behind. The EU should be about trade, they say, not sticking its nose into “our” society. That’s freedom. Not creepy state-sponsored freedom that protects the likes of pregnant women, agency workers or jobless people, but muscular freedom, the sort that RHTawney meant when he said: “Freedom for the pike is death to the minnow”. If we stayed in the EU, we were warned, millions of Turks would arrive. Women would be molested. The NHS would collapse. Here in Sheffield, some nice Indian families, themselves refugees from Uganda, voted leave because they couldn’t stand the Slovaks. My Polish plumber, settled here, wanted Britain to leave Europe because of too many Pakistanis. (Yes, I know, but he doesn’t.) Soon the stage is seething with people who hate one another. The Brexit press enters the fray: in its feeding frenzy, it doesn’t distinguish between refugees and migrants , between the poor people huddled in Calais trying to hitch a ride to Britain and job-stealing Polish plumbers. I don’t remember much about being a refugee myself, I was not quite two, but I remember my Ukrainian parents talking about the kindness with which we were made welcome when we arrived here from a refugee camp in Drachensee, Germany, after the second world war, as part of the largest displacement of humans in the world’s history, only recently eclipsed by the present misery of Syria. By the time they were in their mid-30s, my parents had lived through the first world war, the Russian revolution, the ensuing famine and civil war, the Stalin purges in which my grandfather died, the Ukrainian famine (Holodomor), the second world war, deportation into Germany, the forced labour camps and the blitz of German cities. When they arrived in Britain in 1948, they must have thought – phew! My parents loved Britain – though they never stopped loving Ukraine. What they loved was that the Yorkshire people were so nice, the authorities left you alone, and there was always enough food. Britain, they said, is a country where people could live their lives without interference, where everyone could work hard, get rich, and pay taxes (they didn’t know that if you got very rich, the government wouldn’t even bother to collect them). Meanwhile, on the far right, an auction seems to be taking place. A little cabal of Brexiters are hurrying to flog off treasures such as the NHS, the Land Registry, the BBC, universities. After the economic panic, they are short of cash. The sound of haggling is drowned out by a chorus of mournful violins and the nostalgic sighs of older islanders. The audience reach for their tissues. Don’t we all long to turn the clock back to the days of our youth, to a Britain that was kinder, more equal, less complicated, bathed in the after-glow of postwar consensus (though also noticeably poorer, less tolerant and duller)? It’s easy to blame foreigners for the changes that have made us more unequal, more insecure, more anxious. Because you can’t smell neoliberalism, filling the air we breathe like a suffocating gas. You can’t hear the sound of tax-revenues draining quietly away offshore. “It’s a victory for decent people!” cries Farage. Cue Neil Hamilton, slithering on to the stage like a cash-for-questions crocodile. Those of us who are not decent shudder. It’s difficult to argue that the EU nowadays is great or even progressive – it’s only as good as its component governments, with whom we still need to cooperate to solve some of the messes of the last century, including the migration crisis, runaway tax corruption and climate change. But how dull is that? Much better to put our energy into bashing migrants, taking to the beaches, to the seas and oceans with gunboats, shooting off salvoes at any leaky rubber dinghies that get too close. In the end, it’s all just theatre. Johnson will surely go bald one day, Farage will drain his cheeky pint. But as the curtain comes down, alas the body on the stage is all too real. The audience shuffles home, but we – and our children and grandchildren – are stuck for ever on an isolated, sinking and declining little island, wondering how we let this happen.
Bournemouth 4-3 Liverpool: Premier League – as it happened So there you go. Liverpool’s 15-game unbeaten run is done, and the reason they might be a bit unsuitable for a proper title bid is exposed and then some. That defence is just too brittle. Anyway, now it’s over to Simon Burnton with Everton v Manchester United. Thanks for reading. What a game! What a game! Liverpool looked like they had it won, but in big part thanks to the impact of substitute Ryan Fraser, Bournemouth stormed back with three goals in the last 15 minutes. Liverpool remain in third place, behind Chelsea and Arsenal, while Bournemouth move up to tenth. What a game. Peeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep! 90 mins + 3: My days! Oh my effing days! Brilliant effort from Bournemouth, who have surely won it now. Cook shoots from the edge of the area, Karius can’t hold on and Ake is there, like a young Ian Rush, to smuggle the rebound over the line. Remarkable. What scenes! 90 mins + 1: Liverpool win a corner, Lovren gets up for the header, nods it down to Origi who controls, spins and shoots, but doesn’t quite get hold of the important bit and it loops over the bar. Then, shortly afterwards, Lallana advances on the edge of the area, shoots left-footed but skews it wide. 90 mins: Both teams pressing for a winner now. And they have five minutes of added time in which to get it. 88 mins: “Could do with Moreno coming on to give us some defensive stability.....” japes Robert Blackwell. I assume. 87 mins: Ooof, nasty one, as Can flings his boot into Fraser’s sternum. Yellow card, unlike Neil Taylor yesterday... 85 mins: Thing is now, like after the first goal, Bournemouth are sitting off a bit again, allowing Liverpool back into the game. They paid for it then... 82 mins: From that corner, Wilshere skews a shot well wide, and is furious with himself. Which is a pretty funny sight. 81 mins: Chaos in the Liverpool defence! Afobe is allowed to break through into space and is clean in on goal, but his shot is just a bit too close to Karius who does well to throw up an arm and batter the ball clear. 79 mins: Extraordinary scenes! Fraser involved again, clipping a cross into the middle from the right and Cook produces some outrageous skill to pluck the ball from the sky, spin and fire into the bottom corner, through a thicket of legs, and level the game. Remarkable! My days! 76 mins: Quite the impact, Fraser’s had. Bournemouth counter after a Liverpool attack breaks down. Fraser feeds Wilson, whose cross is missed by Afobe, but the ball breaks to Fraser just inside the area and he arrows a shot into the bottom corner, via perhaps a slight flick off Karius’s hand. Now then... 75 mins: 2005 bantz. 74 mins: Sub for Bournemouth, as Benik Afobe comes on for Dan Gosling. 73 mins: In fact, it was closer to 97%. Boruc must have been twitching. 72 mins: Milner curls over a corner that Boruc catches, but both he and about 90% of the ball went over the goalline. But, that extra 10% means no buzz on the ref’s watch thing, so no goal. 71 mins: Minefield. 70 mins: Fraser has certainly been lively since coming on - he stings the palms of Karius with a rasper of a shot from just inside the area, and he was actually a little lucky that his attempted save didn’t burst through his hands and into the net. 69 mins: And Mane is withdrawn, replaced by the returning - in a couple of senses - Adam Lallana. 68 mins: Henderson wafts his arm somewhere in the direction of Smith, who goes down as if he’s stepped on a landmine. Wilshere’s clipped free-kick is half-cleared, back out to Arter, but he hoofs a terrible shot nearly over the stand. 66 mins: Mane chases a ball down the right but pulls up. The last thing Liverpool need with their forward injury issues at present. He’s trying to run it off, but not moving comfortably at all. 64 mins: A belter puts Liverpool two goals in the lead again. Mane drives down the right, is probably allowed to amble a bit too far for comfort, then lays it back to Can who fairly pings it into the top corner from about 20 yards. No fault of Boruc that time. What a strike. 62 mins: Clyne lines up a shot (Clynes up a shot?) from the right corner of the box, but that sails wide, high, and wide again. 60 mins: Bournemouth not exactly pressing that advantage after the goal. Liverpool have been on the attack since, though they haven’t created much. Anyway, here’s Joe Fagin with ‘That’s Livin’ Alright’. 57 mins: Madeley now the man at the centre of everything, as he gives Klopp a firm ticking off for something or other. The Liverpool manager looks baffled, but is having the whole thing explained to him by the fourth official. Wilson slides it right, Karius dives left, game on. 56 mins: And the first thing Fraser does is get clattered by Milner in the box! No complaints this time, penalty. 54 mins: Actually doesn’t look great for Stanislas, this. He’s being carried off by a couple of physios, although it looked like he turned his ankle, rather than the damage being done by Henderson’s foul. Ryan Fraser comes on for Bournemouth in his place. 53 mins: Ref Madeley has the taste for bookings now - Henderson gets the third yellow in five minutes for clipping the heels of Stanislas. 51 mins: Milner hoys over the cross from the resultant free-kick, but Cook gets his head to the ball and flicks it wide. 50 mins: Milner burst down the left, is taken out by Francis, who tries to get out of a booking by pointing in an animated fashion at the ball. No dice. Yellow card. 49 mins: “How could Divock Origi have been named the worst player in Ligue 1?” wonders Johnathan. “Was it this Divock Origi? Are there multiple Divocks?” Maybe Divock Origi is the Belgian equivalent of Mous(s)a Dembele. 48 mins: Somewhat inevitably, Jack Wilshere has received a booking for dissent. The referee then gives Bournemouth skipper Simon Francis a long talking to, about the behaviour of his troops, one assumes. 46 mins: Bournemouth start the second half in rather more positive fashion, running at the Liverpool defence in a manner they didn’t quite manage to in the first half. We’re back. Bournemouth have made a change, as Jordon Ibe replaces Josh King. Liverpool absolutely deserve their 2-0 lead, having been dominant for at least 35 minutes, with Mane and Henderson particularly impressive. But Bournemouth really should have at least had a penalty, after Ake tumbled over Firmino’s leg. Fine margins, this game. Peeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep. 45 mins: A rare misstep by Mane, who tries to jink his way to the byline, but actually jinks the ball over it. Olé! 44 mins: Bournemouth are inching their way back into this, but are still struggling to create much by way of a direct chance. King chips into the area but it’s over a lot of heads, and Karius can claim without too many problems. 42 mins: Arter does brilliantly to spin a couple of times then exchange passes with Wilshere, but he lacks support and eventually Lucas glides in to take the ball off him. 39 mins: Bournemouth still stewing about that non-penalty. Ironic cheers go up when they are given a free-kick shortly after. 37 mins: Huge penalty shout for Bournemouth - Ake skips around Firmino in the area then tumbles. The referee says no, but a closer look at that suggests he should’ve said yes. Bournemouth go mad, and they have every right to do so. 36 mins: And Bournemouth go close. Stanislas speeds through on the right of the box, slides a low cross in which Karius palms straight at Lovren, and the ball nearly rebounds off him and into the net...but goes just wide. 34 mins: Francis tries to lay the ball back to Wilshere as Bournemouth try to create something, but the pass is about two yards away from where it should’ve been and Liverpool counter. They’re not helping themselves. 32 mins: Liverpool are running rings around Bournemouth here. Firmino slices a left-footer from about 25 yards well wide, but not for want of opportunity - Bournemouth stood off him criminally, and just watched him line the effort up. 31 mins: “I’ve seen teams be second to everything but never third. Klopp for leader of the free world!” writes Nick Smith. He needs a Twitter account and significantly more narcissism first. 30 mins: Henderson lollops down the right, booms a cross over that’s too deep for Origi, and Boruc catches, receiving the customary ‘ironic cheers’. It’s cruel old world. 28 mins: Ooof. Can takes a blow to the swingers. Eyes water all round, Can counts to two. 26 mins: Splendidly efficient stuff this, from Liverpool. They’ve dominated the game and taken a couple of early chances, if those chances were rather donated to them by Boruc. 23 mins: Well, having been too reticent about coming out for the first goal, Boruc over-compensates. A ball down the right side of the box looks 60-40 in Origi’s favour, but Boruc charges outside his area anyway, and doesn’t get there in time. Origi takes it quite wide, but has the skill and composure to whip a fine finish into the far corner. Splendid stuff from the young man. And another! 20 mins: Simple goal really. Can plays a ball over the top which Mane chases, out-paces and out-muscles Nathan Ake for, then gets there just before a slightly hesitant Artur Boruc in nets to poke home. That was rather inevitable. 19 mins: This is all very well, but there’s been three goals in 2 mins 43 seconds in Curzon v AFC Wimbledon in the FA Cup. Simon Burnton and his cramping fingers have the last few minutes here. 17 mins: Liverpool make a frightful balls of a free-kick in the corner, as Milner slips it back to Henderson to shoot, but seemingly neglected to warn his captain, who simply watches the ball skuttle past near where he was. 14 mins: One, two, three, four corners on the spin to Liverpool, out on the right and all delivered by Henderson. Three are headed straight back behind by assorted defenders, but the last is eventually smuggled clear. 12 mins: “Are they playing with a Mouldmaster today?” writes Colin Mackay, in reference to Mane being struck on the cranium. Stinger. 10 mins: Oh! What a chance! Clyne makes tracks down the right, then slides a low, perfectly-judged cross to the back post where Origi is waiting to complete the formalities, but he gets his leg all in a tangle and in the end only just even gets a touch on it. 9 mins: King breaks forwards as they try to build something approaching an attack, but Milner spots his chance and puts in a firm, clean-as-a-whistle challenge and heads it off at the pass. 8 mins: Liverpool continue to press hard, but they still cannot split the backline. A clearance welts Mane on the back of the bonce. That’ll sting on a crisp December day. 7 mins: Liverpool pressing Bournemouth back now, although they’re struggling slightly to break through. Firmino tries to find Origi twice - once with a cross, once with a short pass into the area from the left - but both are intercepted. 5 mins: Origi has had a couple of touches but they’ve both more or less bounced off him, like one of those square net things on a frame you used to practice your first touch with when you were a kid. No? Just me? What do you mean you were ‘playing footy in the park with your friends’? 3 mins: Not much has gone down so far...but here comes James Milner, barrelling down the left, then slipping the ball inside to Roberto Firmino, whose slipped through-ball is intercepted. 1 mins: We’re away. Football! The teams are prepped, pumped and out on the pitch. Bournemouth in their usual red and black striped jerseys, black knickerbockers and black stockings with red trim. The less said about Liverpool’s ‘fire attendant yellow’ number the better. “Highlight of the game so far for me has been Tyrone Mings getting startled by a sprinkler in the warm-up,” reports Christopher Vaughan. Can only go downhill from here. Back to the present day, John Lappin is concerned. “Liverpool will miss Courtinho today,” he writes, “but for me the worrying news is the absence of Matip. He’s been immense this season.....it will be interesting to see how the defence copes.” These two haven’t faced each other much down the years - the games last season were their first in league matches, and before that there was a League Cup tie the previous season. And before that, it’s back to 1968 when Bill Shankly’s Liverpool travelled to the side then known as Bournemouth and Boscombe Athletic, who that season would finish 12th in the old Third Division. Despite Liverpool being second in the first division at the time, the Cherries held them to a 0-0 draw in the first game, and maybe should have won it: Keith East had a goal disallowed in disputed circumstances. “I think looking back on it, that goal should have stood,” Bournemouth full-back David Stocks said last year. “That was a disappointment, in that we had that one big chance to knock Liverpool out of the cup. “Our game plan had worked well though. We were crucially aware of the threat Liverpool’s wingers Ian Callaghan and Peter Thompson carried. Terry Gulliver and myself, as the two full-backs, worked a lot in the week in the build up to the game, working out ways to get as close to those wingers as possible and preventing them getting crosses into the box. It was pleasing to have done that.” Alas, Liverpool handed out a hosing in the replay back at Anfield, goals from Tony Hately, Peter Thompson , Roger Hunt and Chris Lawler sealing a 4-1 win. Liverpool went out to West Brom, after two replays, in the quarter-final. So, no Lallana, only deemed sprightly enough for the bench, while Joel Matip misses out with a groin twang, replaced at the back by Lucas. Phil Coutinho is obviously missing, so Divock Origi starts up top, with Daniel Sturridge still missing. For Bournemouth, Jack Wilshere returns after missing the Arsenal game for obvious reasons, replacing Brad Smith, so that will presumably mean Adam Smith back in defence. Other than that, as you were. Bournemouth Boruc; Adam Smith, Francis, Cook, Ake; Arter, Gosling; Stanislas, Wilshere, King; Wilson. Subs: Pugh, Afobe, Brad Smith, Fraser, Mings, Ibe, Federici. Liverpool Karius; Clyne, Lucas, Lovren, Milner; Henderson, Can, Wijnaldum; Firmino, Mane, Origi. Subs: Klavan, Moreno, Lallana, Mignolet, Ejaria, Woodburn, Alexander-Arnold. Referee: Bobby Madeley (West Yorkshire) Hello, and welcome to the Adam Lallana derby. If you really, really want to stretch a point, you could say that Lallana’s transfer to Liverpool is the reason these two teams are playing each other in a league fixture. When Liverpool snapped Lallana up from Southampton a few years ago, Bournemouth - where he started his career and who had the foresight to stick a sell-on clause in the deal that took him to St Mary’s - bagged a very tidy £5.75million in the deal. That summer they spent £3million on Callum Wilson, who scored 20 goals, made the loss of Lewis Grabban to Norwich much more palatable and was a big reason for their promotion. They also signed Junior Stanislas, Dan Gosling and Andrew Surman, who all remain at Dean Court (or whatever we’re calling it now) and remain, to various extents, fairly key players. Of course, that’s not really how things work, and they would not have exactly used the money they got from Lallana to purchase Wilson, plus Grabban’s sale presumably pumped up their financial tyres rather, but it’s quite a nice theory. Lallana might not even be playing today, what with him just coming back from an injury and so on. This we will find out shortly. That’ll be one strand of the old narrative dissolved, anyway. How about another: the managers. In this season where the managers are probably bigger stars than a lot of the players, Jurgen Klopp and Eddie Howe are among the most feted and highly-thought of. Howe has been tipped to ruin his career at some point with either the England job or taking over from Arsene Wenger when the old boy eventually takes his carriage clock. Klopp is the established title winner who is working on another, and who likes to talk. Sometimes you have to work through things and give it a bit of thought before you work out exactly what he’s talking about, but he’s usually a pretty engaging speaker. “We are starting our history now because this is our first full season,” he said this week. “History does not always work in your favour anyway. Leicester were champions last season but it is not helping them much this time. If you are still around with a chance of the title with 10 games to play, maybe you have to deal with some pressure but you should still fancy yourselves to win more than lose. My feeling at this stage is that we can win everything. We have nothing to lose in each game, so we might as well go for it.” Should be goals in this one. Couple of teams who play nice football but who have iffy defences. Step right up and enjoy. Kick-off: 13.30 GMT Nick will be here shortly. In the meantime you can read Jürgen Klopp’s warning to any teams hoping to get their hands on Liverpool’s players …
Tortoise: The Catastrophist – exclusive album stream Experimental rockers Tortoise are back with a new album inspired by the jazz scene of their native Chicago. You can hear it below. We were going to tell you all about it, but then we had a better idea: why not let the group’s Doug McCombs do that instead? Here are his thoughts on The Catastrophist ... “About one-third of The Catastrophist originated from a commission for the City of Chicago. The idea was for us to write a new set of material that would work in collaboration with musicians from the jazz community in Chicago. When we decided to work some of this material into our new record we re-evaluated what was interesting about the songs and added and rearranged parts accordingly. Basically, in the absence of the extra musicians, we found the material needed more detail to become ‘Tortoise-like’. We have been a band for 25 years and it works because we’re friends and have respect and admiration for each other’s abilities. I’ve seen great bands that are ‘led’ by one person, but often those bands dissolve in animosity, jealousy and squabbles about money. We want to make money but we try to stay focused on pushing ourselves to make the most interesting music we can. It helps keep us grounded.” Have a listen to the album using the player below, and let us know what you think in the comments.
Pound and shares rally after two days of record Brexit losses – as it happened The volatility suffered by stock markets in recent days is unlikely to ease in the near future. The day saw a rebound following the sharp declines which came in the immediate aftermath of the Brexit vote, but the City is reluctant to bet too strongly on where markets go from here. Laith Khalaf, senior analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said: It would be premature to call the bottom of the market, prices are still adjusting to the post-Brexit world, and it would be foolhardy to rule out further price swings. The bounce in the Footsie does show there are buyers out there who are swooping in when prices fall sufficiently, but markets neither go up, or down, in a straight line, and things may yet have to get worse before they get better. Valuations on the UK stock market look in the middle of their historical range, which suggests it’s a reasonable time to put money in the market if you are a long term investor. But given the current volatility, you need to be willing to stomach further price falls, if you are dipping a toe in. The final scores showed: The FTSE 100 finished up 2.64% or 158.19 points at 6140.39 Germany’s Dax added 1.93% to 9447.28 France’s Cac closed 2.61% higher at 4088.85 Italy’s FTSE MIB rose 3.3% to 15601.62 Spain’s Ibex ended up 2.48% at 7835.0 In Greece, the Athens market added 3.72% to 538.65 On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is currently up 148 points or 0.87%. As for the pound, it is now up 0.9% at $1.3342 after climbing as high as $1.3418. Against the euro it is 0.68% higher at €1.2075. On that note, it’s time to close up for the day. Thanks for all your comments, and we’ll be back tomorrow. ECB president Mario Draghi has said Brexit could reduce European GDP by up to 0.5 percentage points, according to a document seen by Bloomberg. Here’s the full Reuters report on the meeting between business leaders and government minister Sajid Javid: Britain appears a long way from developing a clear plan on the country’s future trading relationship with the European Union, the head of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) said on Tuesday after a meeting with government. CBI Director-General Carolyn Fairbairn said some firms were putting investment on hold after Britain’s vote to leave the EU last week, and that they needed a clearer sense of what the government intended to do. “It’s incredibly early days. I don’t think anybody’s coming out of these meetings feeling great, but they are coming out with a sense of resolve,” she told reporters. “We’re a long way off having a plan and leadership and that is still where we will be continuing to make (the point) that this is what businesses need,” she added. Fairbairn said businesses expressed very high levels of real and genuine concern to business minister Sajid Javid, who had called the meeting, and that the government also needed to address the fears of EU migrants employed in Britain. At the meeting between business leaders and the government, there were high levels of real concern following the Brexit vote according to the CBI. Reuters reports the CBI saying that the government needed to develop a plan on the country’s trading relationship with the EU very quickly. Businesses also wanted the government to get on with major infrastructure projects which are already underway. There were also concerns about rising prices, housing, and the insecurity being felt by migrant workers in the UK. The CBI director general said a number of firms had put investment on hold, said Reuters, and said the meeting did not feel great but there was a sense of resolve. After two days of panic leading shares have regained a little of the lost ground. Joshua Mahony, market analyst at IG, said: Today has seen a welcome reprieve from the incessant fear and risk aversion that has dominated financial markets since Friday’s unexpected referendum result. The question on everyone’s lips is whether we have seen an end to the selling, with many seeing current prices as an opportunity to buy their favourite firms at a temporary discount. [But] this selloff is unlikely to be over and perhaps the only thing that will truly raise risk appetite for good will be a faint glimmer of hope that we could see a second referendum. Despite the binary nature of Friday’s referendum result, far from providing a definitive answer to the markets, we now find ourselves in the eye of a political and economic storm. We have moved from a position of security and stability, to one where we do not even know who will lead the two main political parties in a year’s time. David Cameron may have said that there is no way to go back on the referendum result, but Jeremy Hunt’s suggestion that he would hold a second referendum reminds us that crucially the decision is no longer Cameron’s to make. UK business secretary Sajid Javid says maintaining single market access will be his number one priority in negotiations with the EU. He says British access to the single market may not take the same form as other non-EU countries. He says the UK economy remains strong and over the past few days investors have reaffirmed their commitment to the UK. Javid also said that a package of support for a potential buyer of the Port Talbot steel works was still available. US banks with significant UK operations are likely to act sooner rather than later to shift their operations, according to ratings agency Fitch. It said: The UK’s decision to leave the European Union will be disruptive for US global banks with significant operations in the UK and will weigh on their profitability in the short to medium term, Fitch Ratings says. However, the impact is likely to be moderate as we believe they will be able to operate through other EU legal entities. US global banks are likely to start strategically implementing parts of their contingency plans rather than wait for trade and service arrangements to be agreed. Resolution planning for US global systemically important banks was constructive for their Brexit contingency planning because of the requirement to rationalize and understand their global legal entity structure and activities. Restructuring operations will depend on license status in various jurisdictions, as well as establishing operational scale, potentially reallocating capital and relocating where trades and clients are booked. Relocation of staff is likely to follow; for example, ahead of the referendum, JP Morgan had announced that as many as 4,000 of its UK roles could be shifted out of the country. Management will have to decide where to focus its European operations, depending on language requirements, staff expertise and incentives offered by these countries. Flexible labor laws will be important for US firms, so this may favor countries like Ireland and the Netherlands, rather than Germany and France. After cutting the UK’s credit rating from AAA to AA, Standard & Poor’s has said it had no plans to downgrade any other EU country in the wake of the Brexit vote. But it said it would decide whether any UK bank ratings should be cut in the coming weeks. Reuters reports: “This does not lead to mechanical changes (in bank ratings),” S&P banking sector analyst Giles Edwards said on a webcast. “But equally this (Brexit scenario) was not our base case... where we see a need to change ratings we will do so in the coming weeks.” On other EU sovereign ratings, S&P’s global sovereign chief Moritz Kraemer said: “We have no intention of downgrading any other EU sovereign.” S&P chopped the UK’s credit rating by two notches to AA and kept it on a ‘negative outlook’ on Monday in the wake of last week’s vote to leave the European Union. It was the first time it had ever made such a deep cut to a top-rated sovereign. Here’s a link to video of Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras arriving earlier at the European Council, warning the Brexit vote was a wake up call for Europe: More Brexit fallout. Siemens is putting new wind power investment plans in the UK on hold due to uncertainty caused by last week’s Brexit vote, the Germany energy company has told the . Arthur Neslen reports: A £310m manufacturing hub in Hull that employs 1,000 people will not be affected by the decision, and should still begin producing blades and assembling turbines next year. But Siemens, one of the few firms to openly back a Remain vote, will not be making new investments until the future of the UK’s relationship with Europe becomes clearer. Juergen Maier, the firm’s UK CEO, said that an existing blueprint to export offshore wind turbine machinery from the Hull hub was now up in the air. Sign up to our EU referendum morning briefing Read more He said: “Those plans were only beginning to happen and I expect that they will stall until we can work out exactly what the [new government’s] plan is, how we can participate in EU research programmes, and until all the issues around tariffs and trade have been sorted out.” The full report is here: After higher than forecast US GDP figures, comes a better than expected consumer confidence number. According to the conference board, the consumer confidence index came in at 98 in June, compared to 92.4 in the previous month and an expected 93.3. (This was before the outcome of the UK referendum of course.) But there was a weaker manufacturing survey from the Richmond Federal Reserve: Earlier UK chancellor George Osborne suggested taxes would have to go up to address the economic damage caused by Brexit. So what taxes would they be? VAT could be one, according to tax specialists at Eversheds. The law firms partner Ben Jones said: If tax rises are required, ironically VAT (the only real European tax and a prerequisite for EU membership) could be the tax most likely to increase. VAT is a huge source of tax revenue and relatively easy to increase, both practically and politically. Indeed, during the financial crisis of 2008 and after, VAT was increased from 17.5% to 20% as part of measures to tackle the fiscal deficit. Increases to income taxes, national insurance contributions or business taxes would most likely be far more publically unpopular and politically undesirable. And here’s the Greek prime minister on the lesson from Brexit as he arrives at the European Council: Back with the European parliament: In tandem with other global markets, which have recovered a small part of the hefty declines seen in the wake of last week’s Brexit vote, the US has moved higher in early trading. The Dow Jones Industrial Average - down almost 900 points since the referendum outcome - has gained 144 points or 0.8% as bargain hunters dip their toes into the market. The S&P 500 has opened up 0.7% and Nasdaq 1.1%. Representatives of several industries are due to meet business minister Sajid Javid MP this afternoon for a summit on the potential impact of the Brexit vote on UK firms, writes Rob Davies. Food and Drink Federation director general Ian Wright will warn Javid that the industry faces a huge staffing shortfall if EU citizens are blocked from working in the UK. “The UK food industry has almost 100,000 workers from the rest of the EU. We have an emerging gap of up to a further 130,000 workers as our ageing staff retire over the next decade,” he said in a prepared statement. “While we as an industry continue to take many steps to develop home-grown talent through ambitious graduate and apprenticeship programmes, EU workers also provide a highly valued solution to our skills gap. “The UK food industry benefits from bringing in skilled labour from the EU and we urgently need assurances from UK Government that EU nationals working in the UK will be granted leave to remain. UK Government must now develop a new migration policy that ensures food and drink manufacturers have continued access to the workers we will need to address a looming skills gap and the drive for future innovation to support our UK competitive advantage.” Here’s a video of Richard Branson discussing his Brexit concerns on Good Morning Britain: Lloyds Banking Group is the latest to try and reassure on the consequences of Brexit, following rival Royal Bank of Scotland earlier. Lloyds chief executive Antonio Horta Osorio has written to staff telling them the bank had “robust plans in place for either outcome”, according to Reuters. He said its strategy would remain unchanged and its low risk lending approach and historic brands put it in a position of strength to “weather turbulence in our sector and the wider market.” The pound is accelerating higher. It’s now gained almost two cents to $1.341, a jump of 1.5% today. Shares in London are also pushing higher, as the City recovers some poise following two days of Brexit panic. The FTSE 100 index is now up 175 points, or almost 3%, at 6157. That means it has clawed back ALL of Monday’s losses. Investors are piling back into financial stocks, perhaps reassured that banks only took £3bn in liquidity from the Bank of England this morning Connor Campbell of SpreadEx says: The main change from yesterday to today seems to be the performance of the banks. Accepting around £3 billion in a Bank of England liquidity auction this morning, the UK’s banking sector is looking a bit rosier after having the colour completely drain from its face at the start of the week. Barclay, Lloyds and RBS are the key stocks here; the trio suffered the most in the aftermath of Friday’s Brexit announcement, diving up to 30% in the last 2 days of trading. Today, however, they have risen anywhere between 4% and 6%; a long way off from recapturing all of their losses, but a start nevertheless. But given the political turmoil in the UK, and the uncertainty over when (or indeed ever?) Britain will trigger Article 50, there may be more volatility ahead.... Newsflash from America: The US economy grew faster than expected in the first three months of this year, in some much-needed good news. US GDP grew at an annual rate of 1.1%, a little faster than expected, and means a quarterly rate of almost 0.3%, It’s up from a previous forecast of just 0.8% annualised growth (or 0.2% quarter on quarter). Over in Brussels, European leaders are gathering for a summit dominated by Britain’s Brexit bombshell. Prime minister David Cameron just arrived, telling reporters outside that he is seeking the “closest possible relationship” between the UK and the EU. He also insists that the leaving process must be constructive; European countries are still our friends, our neighbours and our allies. Cameron was followed into the EU headquarters by Mark Rutte, the Dutch prime minister, who had a scathing verdict on the UK: Our Politics liveblog will be tracking the action in Brussels: After two days of heavy falls, Wall Street is expected to rally today. Trading begins in 90 minutes. Ireland isn’t the only European country which would suffer from Brexit. Fitch says that: The most exposed countries are Ireland, Malta, Belgium, the Netherlands, Cyprus and Luxembourg, all of whose exports of goods and services to the UK are at least 8% of GDP. And if Britain does well outside the EU, other member states could follow, Fitch adds... Brexit will create a precedent for a country leaving the EU and we believe it increases political risk in several ways. It could boost anti-EU or other populist political parties, and make EU leaders more reluctant to implement unpopular policies that would have long-term economic benefits. Ireland’s finance minister, Michael Noonan, says he hopes that the Republic can avoid being hurt by Brexit..... Rating agency Fitch has issued a warning that the Republic of Ireland could be downgraded because of the economic cost of Britain leaving the EU. It warns that Ireland is ‘highly exposed’ to the UK economy, given the strong trade links, so any Brexit slowdown could have a serious impact. However, the Irish credit rating is probably safe in the short term, at least. Here’s the full statement: The UK vote to leave the European Union is negative for Ireland, raising risks to growth and creating uncertainty around future relations with Northern Ireland, Fitch Ratings says. It is unlikely to have any immediate implications for Ireland’s sovereign rating in the near term, but a medium-term rating impact would be possible if the economic dislocation of Brexit were to prove severe. Ireland’s economy is highly exposed to Brexit. According to the Central Statistics Office (CSO), the UK accounted for 12.6% of Ireland’s total goods exports in January-April 2016, and 24% of total goods imports. The UK also accounted for 20% of total services exports in 2014. Total goods and services exports to the UK are equivalent to around 17% of GDP. There could be significant sector-specific fall out. For example, the UK accounts for 49% of Irish agricultural exports. A UK slowdown, sterling depreciation and potential future trade barriers between Ireland and the UK would weigh on Irish exports, economic growth and employment; although the full impact will only become clear as EU-UK negotiations develop. We think the most important near-term impact will be through reduced domestic confidence. In the medium term, Ireland could gain from a shift of some foreign direct investment from the UK to the EU or from international businesses relocating from the UK, but this is highly uncertain. Fitch also warns that political tensions between the Republic and Northern Ireland could rise (on Saturday, Sinn Féin’s Martin McGuinness, deputy first minister for Northern Ireland, called for a poll on reunification) Brexit would represent a symbolic moving apart of the UK and Ireland that could weaken confidence in the peace process in Northern Ireland and potentially impair cross-border relations and trade. Ireland’s minority government, which was formed in May after February’s inconclusive election, has outlined its ‘Contingency Framework’ that will guide its policy response. This identifies priorities including UK-EU negotiations, UK-Irish relations, trade and investment, and Northern Ireland. It remains to be seen how effective this will be, and some domestic political uncertainty persists given the relatively loose agreement between Fine Gael and Fianna Fail. Lower economic growth would reduce the tax intake, reducing the medium-term fiscal space that the government identified in its recent Summer Economic Statement. Ireland’s commitment to fiscal consolidation during and after its EU-IMF programme leads us to think an increase in fiscal risks would be met with a policy response to continue meeting fiscal targets and limiting the impact on public debt dynamics. Our upgrade of Ireland to ‘A’ from ‘A-’ in February reflected the marked fall in government debt to 93.8% of GDP in 2015 from 120% in 2013 driven by strong and broad-based growth and fiscal consolidation. While negative, Brexit is unlikely to undermine the progress that Ireland has made in these areas. Fitch expects debt/GDP to fall in the medium term, helped in part by lower nominal interest rates. The pound is clinging onto its early gains this morning, as stability returns to the City. Sterling is still up around 1.1 cents today, at $1.3334 against the US dollar. That’s still close to yesterday’s 31-year low, and a long way from the pre-referendum levels: Caxton FX analyst Nicholas Laser-Ebisch warns that sterling’s problems aren’t over: Today will see the very first EU summit where leaders of all of the EU’s 28 member states will meet in Brussels for a first exchange about the British referendum and the consequences involved. We can expect the pound to remain under pressure for the time being as markets come to terms with the result of Friday’s referendum vote. Stephen King, HSBC’s chief economist, also sees the pound falling: Newsflash: UK banks have taken £3bn of liquidity from the Bank of England in a special auction. That money is meant to help them handle the repercussions of the Brexit vote last week. This is the third such auction - last week, banks only took £370m, and the previous week they took £2.4bn. If there were massive stresses in the City now, presumably banks would have asked for rather more money. The BoE says that it received bids for over £6bn, but banks were offering relatively low-quality assets as collateral, so many bids were turned down. Virgin tycoon Sir Richard Branson has warned that Chinese business partners are already pulling investment from the UK after the EU referendum. Speaking to The , he warned that last week’s historic vote will cost “thousands of jobs”. Branson told my colleague Rob Davies that: “I met with a group of Chinese businessmen yesterday morning who have invested heavily in England and who are now going to stop investing and withdraw investments they’ve already made.” “I’m afraid that based on misinformation, people voted for Brexit, which is basically voting for a way of shooting themselves in the foot. The last 2 days has been absolute pandemonium worldwide in the markets, the pound crashing, the stock markets crashing, and we are heading rapidly towards a recession again. It’s just too sad, so so sad. Branson also laid into the Leave campaign for misleading voters during the referendum campaign, saying “thousands and thousands” of workers will pay the price. “Businesspeople do not want politicians to completely and utterly wreck the hard work they’ve done for years and years and that is effectively what happened. Thousands and thousands of jobs will be lost as a result of this. Thousands of jobs that would have been created will be lost and the knock-on effect will be so dire. “The sad thing is I really think Brexiters were misled and did not realise. People said it was scaremongering. It wasn’t scaremongering and the last 48 hours have proved that.” As mentioned at 8.50am, Branson is pushing for a second referendum vote. Branson’s Virgin Money challenger bank has been badly hit by the referendum result, with shares tumbling by 40% since Friday morning. The boss of Royal Bank of Scotland has written to staff, warning that the EU referendum decision has created “short, medium and longterm” economic uncertainties, according to Reuters. New Zealand-born Ross McEwan told staff that RBS was well-prepared, and also urged them to support diversity in the workplace: “As someone born outside the UK, I see one of this country’s biggest strengths as its openness to the rest of the world, and the people of it. As a major employer and backer of the economy we have a duty to ensure that we reflect that.. “The diversity of those who make up this bank at every level is key to our success. In uncertain times I want to ensure that everyone understands that.” Shares in RBS have risen by 3% this morning, but are still down by roughly a quarter since the referendum polls closed. At 180p, they are far from the 502p level where the taxpayer would sell its 72% stake without making a loss. George Osborne has also ruled himself out of becoming the next prime minister. There has been speculation that he could back Leave campaigner Boris Johnson, perhaps in return for becoming foreign secretary. Home secretary Theresa May is also seen as a frontrunner, though. Chancellor George Osborne has predicted more market turbulence, as Britain faces up to life outside the European Union. Speaking on Radio 4’s Today programme this morning, he said: We are in a prolonged period of economic adjustment … it will not be as economically rosy as life inside the EU. It’s very clear that the country is going to be poorer as a result of what is happening to the economy. Osborne also warned that Britain faces higher taxes, and lower spending, to address the economic damage caused by the Brexit vote. Our Politics Liveblog has full details: Two major British companies, engine maker Rolls-Royce and the insurer Legal & General, have tried to shareholders that the UK referendum result won’t sink their operations. Rolls-Royce told the City this morning that its outlook is unchanged, while L&G argues that the long-term trends in insurance are unchanged.... Germany’s financial newspaper, Handelsblatt, is predicting a surge of banking jobs into Frankfurt from the City. Online grocer Ocado has warned that the recent slump in sterling is likely to sent supermarket prices soaring. Chief executive Tim Steiner said the weaker pound may lead to “inflationary pressure”, but also told shareholders that he doesn’t believe Brexit will cause a sudden crash in the UK retail market. Samuel Tombs, chief UK economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, predicts that inflation will hit 3% next year, over the UK’s 2% target. That’s because it will cost more to import goods from abroad. Kit Juckes, currency expert at French bank Societe Generale, isn’t impressed by the pound’s small rally this morning (to $1.335 from $1.32 last night) He is still worried about the political vacuum in Britain: Markets are bouncing, and can bounce further but the clouds on the horizon are dark, and they’re real. Sterling can bounce to $1.35 for example- but the UK has no Government and no plan for the future. Billionaire businessman Sir Richard Branson has called for a second EU referendum this morning. Speaking on ITV’s Good Morning Britain, he also revealed that his Virgin Money operation has abandoned a deal, since Britain voted for Brexit.... Is a second referendum possible? Well, it’s not unprecedented in European politics. And this morning, government minister Jeremy Hunt suggested that the next Prime Minister must be allowed to “negotiate a deal” with Brussels and “put it to the British people” by either calling a general election or having another referendum. However, Brexit supporters are unlikely to welcome the idea of a rerun... One rally doesn’t mean the Brexit crisis is over, remember.... It may seem curious that shares in London are rising, hours after Britain lost its AAA credit rating. But Tony Cross, market analyst at Trustnet Direct, reckons S&P’s downgrade may actually be encouraging investors back into the market. It still seems as if we’re a long way from the dust settling, but the FTSE-100 is starting Tuesday’s session with a triple digit bounce. Yes we’ve seen three ratings downgrades for the UK overnight, but taking a glass-half-full perspective, this also means that just a little of the uncertainty is starting to ebb away. Some stocks have taken a while to clear the auction, but this is a case of bargain hunters clamouring to get in. And there could be bargains on the table, if you think Brexit won’t cause economic mayhem. Take housebuilder Persimmon, for example. Its shares are up 7% at £14.07. Last Thursday, they cost £21 each.... The French and German stock markets are also up by around 2% this morning, matching the recovery in London. European stock markets are rallying at the start of trading, after two days of big falls. In London, the FTSE 100 has jumped by 125 points, or around 2%, to 6,109 - recovering some of yesterday’s losses. Every share has risen, led by builders – who endured the brunt of the Brexit backlash. Mike van Dulken and Augustin Eden at Accendo Markets reckon that the markets may be calming down, pointing to the small recovery in the pound overnight. Sterling is strengthening for the first time since Friday’s surprise referendum result on hopes policymakers are working to limit the economic fallout Over in Asia, governments are considering whether to launch new stimulus packages to protect their firms from the consequences of Brexit. From Toyko, Justin McCurry explains: Japan’s economy minister, Nobuteru Ishihara, said on Tuesday that stimulus measures were likely to include assistance for small businesses. “There are concerns about lessening the impact of the British referendum on Japan’s small and medium-sized companies,” Ishihara said. “Taking steps to provide liquidity to small firms could be a big factor in economic stimulus steps that we compile.” The Brexit shock has left UK companies worried about losing sales from overseas clients. Our North of England editor, Helen Pidd, flags up that one small business is already seeing demand dry up: After two days of intense pummelling, the British pound is clambering off the mat this morning. Sterling has gained almost one cent against the US dollar so far today, to $1.3303. Yesterday it hit a 30-year low of $1.3118, so it’s a small recovery (given the pound was worth $1.45 last week). Global stock markets have suffered their biggest two-day rout ever, thanks to Britain’s shock decision to vote to leave the EU. Yesterday, $930bn was wiped off the world’s stock markets, in a fresh bout of selling. That followed the rout on Friday, which destroyed $2.03 trillion of value. Howard Silverblatt, senior index analyst at S&P Dow Jones Indices, explains that American investors are increasingly worried about the crisis, and its impact on their economy. “Friday was seen as a U.K. – E.U. problem, with the U.S suffering some damage on the side lines – Monday’s global declines paint a more involved U.S. participation.” The bottom-line is we may still be in the knee-jerk reaction phase, but continued deterioration can feed on itself.” S&P’s Global Broad Market index, known as the BMI, has fallen almost 6.9% since Thursday night, its biggest loss in cash terms ever. The scale of the loses shows how unprepared investors were for the Leave campaign’s surprise victory in the early hours of Friday morning. In Britain, the FTSE 100 has fallen by over 5% over the last two days, with bank shares sliding to their lowest levels since the 2008 financial crisis. America’s S&P 500 index, the broadest stock index, has lost 5.37% -- in its worst two-day decline since last August. Good morning. Like the average England football fan this morning, the financial markets are in a gloomy and dejected mood. The shock of seeing the UK vote to leave the European Union last week continues to reverberate around the global economy, with economists fearing that global growth will take a hit. Last night, Standard & Poor’s and Fitch both downgraded Britain’s credit rating to AA, two notches below the top AAA rating, warning that growth will be significantly weaker than previously expected. That only adds to worries about the UK economy, which have sent shares in banks and building companies reeling since Friday morning. After two days of heavy falls, European stock markets are expected to claw back some losses this morning. The FTSE 100 is predicted to rise by around 1%. But investors should be cautious in the current climate; there is just too much uncertainty around The Bank of England is doing its bit to stem the crisis. Later today it will offer UK banks the chance to stock up on liquidity to help them through the Brexit crisis, in a special liquidity auction. That will show how worried the City is about financial conditions. It’ll be a busy day in politics too, with David Cameron slinking off to Brussels to face fellow leaders for the first time since his referendum gamble backfired - taking his career with it. He’ll leave behind a cabinet full of scheming ministers, wondering who might become the next prime minister. But the opposition Labour party is doing its best to match the Tories in the shambles stakes, with scores of MPs trying to dislodge their leader. Jeremy Corbyn is gripping his seat tightly, though, and promising to go nowhere. Our Politics Liveblog will have all the action in Westminster and Brussels:
America's Azteca: how a small Columbus stadium became a fortress for US soccer Welcome to the heart of the midwest and Mapfre Stadium: America’s Azteca. In 2001, on a cold February night in Ohio’s capital, more than 24,000 fans packed what was then called Columbus Crew Stadium to witness the beginning of a new era for US soccer. Bruce Arena and the men’s national team were about to face Mexico in the final round of qualifiers for the 2002 World Cup. As kick-off neared, Mexican players were so fazed by the unforgiving temperatures that they decided to warm up inside their locker room. “It was a different climate than what we were used to,” said defender Alberto Macías after the match. “The way the people backed them surprised us, and the cold was tremendous.” Mexican media labelled the match La Guerra Fría (The Cold War) and USA won 2-0, mainly thanks to forward Josh Wolff, who scored one goal and set up the other, earning him the man of the match award. “It was brutally cold,” said Wolff after the game. “We had a fantastic crowd and there was a lot to play for. I think we were excited about the idea of playing in front of our fans on a nice cold night where we could take advantage of it.” The win was the first for the US in a World Cup qualifier against Mexico since 1980. It was also a third successive victory for the US against their border rivals, a feat they had never achieved before in their history. The victory was the culmination of a plan to combine fan support and a hostile climate and transform the stadium into a nominal home ground for the USA’s biggest matches. The team had already played Costa Rica in Columbus in October 2000, and despite the fact that the match ended 0-0, the atmosphere was electric. Once the 2002 World Cup qualifying schedule was set, Columbus Crew floated the idea of hosting the game against El Tri. According to the New York Times, Jim Smith, the Crew’s general manager at the time, had put together a pitch on how they could sell out the stadium against Mexico in the middle of a Midwestern winter. It included a detailed strategy on ticket sales for several groups such as the American Outlaws, Crew season ticket holders and local soccer academies. The results ended up being a packed stadium for a crucial fixture, a victory and the start of a proud tradition. Since La Guerra Fría, the US has opted to stage every home World Cup qualifier against Mexico in Columbus. And the US have won each game 2-0, coining the famous term Dos a Cero. In fact, the US are undefeated against all opponents in Columbus, with seven wins and two draws. Jamaica are the only team to have scored against the US in Columbus. America’s domination in Columbus is down to several reasons and it’s not as black and white as one may suspect. For one, when comparing it to the colossal Estadio Azteca in Mexico City, the stadium’s current capacity of approximately 20,145 is not exactly intimidating – to put that into perspective, it’s the sixth smallest stadium in Major League Soccer. Size, however, is irrelevant compared to the crowd’s energy. The ground’s design allows supporters to be so close to the action, similar to an NHL game. In addition, sound travels much more effectively as the stadium is more compact than many others, so when a player enters the field they may get the feeling there are 100,000 as opposed to 20,000, introducing an inimitable intimidation factor. A powerful energy also exists outside of the stadium: the ground is located at the edge of the city and nothing much surrounds it with the closest building being a Lowe’s home improvement store, so when you approach the ground in the evening, the stadium lights stand alone in the middle of darkness providing a great atmosphere. One particular Crew fan described walking up to the ground as a euphoric feeling, where supporters can feel the energy and get more excited as they walk towards the light. There is also a demographic advantage as Columbus, in the heart of the Midwest, is nicely located for local home fans and terribly difficult for Mexican supporters to travel to, so matches at Columbus are largely dominated by the US crowd. According to 2010 US Census data, the city – with an approximate population of 850,000 – has a Hispanic population of approximately 5.6% and approximately 32,000 Mexican residents in the county. Despite the growth, it’s a small number compared to hosting cities that are closer to Mexico or with larger Mexican-American communities such as Pasadena’s Rose Bowl (2015 Concacaf Cup and 2011 Gold Cup Final) or New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium (2009 Gold Cup Final) – USA lost all three. Columbus, in the end, is a much harder place for Mexican fans to travel to. The fact is, however, that US Soccer’s decision to host World Cup qualifiers at Columbus is no different than El Tri maximizing their chances and taking advantage of Mexico City’s heat and altitude. In the end, the US know that in Columbus they have a city they can call home and a ground with a passionate fanbase and an electric atmosphere. On Friday, Mexico will enter the field knowing full well what’s in store for them: a fortress that relies on the support of the thousands who are ready to transform into the 12th man if need be. For Juan Carlos Osorio, El Tri’s head coach, this will mark his first ever encounter against the United States. Still trying to shake off the memories from the 7-0 destruction against Chile during this past summer’s Copa América Centenario, the Colombian knows a win against their strongest rivals will go a long way in order to solidify the fans’ confidence in him. As for Mapfre Stadium’s atmosphere? If it’s anything like Estadio Azteca, he knows what’s coming.
Mobile operator Three to introduce adblocking Mobile company Three is to introduce adblocking across its UK and Italian networks, making it the first major European operator to do so. Three has struck a deal with Israeli company Shine that will see the mobile adblocking technology introduced in the UK and Italy, followed by a “rapid roll-out” across its operations in other countries. The move is cause for serious concern for digital publishers and advertisers, which are already dealing with a rising number of people who block advertising when they use their phones. Three said its move to implement network-wide adblocking is not an attempt to “eliminate” all mobile advertising, but to “give customers more control, choice and greater transparency over what they receive”. The company, which has 9 million UK customers, said a network-wide adblocking strategy is better than relying on apps because it “reaches a broader range of mobile adblocking”. “Irrelevant and excessive mobile ads annoy customers and affect their overall network experience,” said Three UK chief marketing officer Tom Malleschitz. Malleschitz said that the company has three core reasons for introducing the technology. Customers pay data charges so they should not then receive ads, costs which the company says advertisers should be made to pay. Some advertising aims to elicit customer data and information without them knowing. Customers should only receive relevant advertising and not have their mobile experience “degraded by excessive, intrusive, unwanted or irrelevant ads”. “These goals will give customers choice and significantly improve their ad experience,” said Malleschitz. “We don’t believe customers should have to pay for data usage driven by mobile ads. The industry has to work together to give customers mobile ads they want and benefit from.” Three said that it will now engage with the advertising community to “deliver a better, more targeted and more transparent mobile ad experience to customers”. The Internet Advertising Bureau warned that Three’s move could result in publishers being forced to charge users for content they currently enjoy for free. “The IAB believes that an ad funded internet is essential in providing revenue to publishers so they can continue to make their content, services and applications widely available at little, or no cost,” said Alex Kozloff, the IAB’s acting marketing and communications director. “We believe adblocking undermines this approach and could mean consumers have to pay for content they currently get for free.”
Man of Steel 2 set to fly into cinemas Man of Steel 2 has been put into active development at Warner Bros, according to a source involved with the project. The news of a sequel to Zack Snyder’s 2013 Superman outing arrives after a record-breaking opening weekend for Suicide Squad. Despite negative reviews, the film, which exists within the same DC cinematic universe, made $133m in the US, the biggest ever August debut. According to TheWrap, a source revealed that the studio is making Superman a top priority and they’re keen to get the character right after this March’s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice was met with a toxic reception. The film scored just 27% on Rotten Tomatoes and suffered a steep drop-off at the box office after poor word of mouth. “I think if we could get a good script it would be great to have a standalone Superman movie,” Snyder said to IGN back in April. “I think that would be fun to do. Part of the reason we haven’t announced the standalone Superman movie was to support some of the events of (Batman v Superman).” If confirmed, the sequel would join a busy DC slate that includes Wonder Woman and Justice League in 2017 and Aquaman in 2018. Man of Steel kicked off DC’s revamped set of films, seen as a rival to Marvel’s cinematic universe. With a 55% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, it’s the best-reviewed film of the series.
Victor Wanyama strikes late for Tottenham to see off Crystal Palace Sometimes the writing is on the wall from the start. There will be 18 further home league games at White Hart Lane but already the old stadium is diminished – the north-east corner gone, revealing girders, scaffolding, Portakabins, a wooden fence and a dark hut on which was scrawled the words “LIVE SUB”. Sure enough, it was the liveliness of the substitute Dele Alli that turned a game that had seemed to be slipping away from Tottenham. He was not directly involved in the winner, nodded in from close range by Victor Wanyama with seven minutes remaining after Harry Kane had headed on Érik Lamela’s corner, but his sharp pass had initiated the move that won the corner and it was his energy and sense of purpose that dragged Tottenham out of a mire of diffidence and self-doubt. Alli had been ill during the week and did not train on Tuesday or Wednesday but his omission was at least partly tactical as Mauricio Pochettino Kane behind Vincent Janssen. “We cannot play with 12 or 13 players,” Pochettino said. “If we want to play with two strikers it’s impossible to play with everybody. We have a lot of games ahead.” Pochettino said he was happy with Janssen’s performance, although he did skew a glorious chance wide after 70 minutes after he had been put through by a deft flick from Alli, the substitute’s first touch. Having a squad that allows him to play two strikers is “an important option for the future”, Pochettino said. That Spurs got the job done and found a way to win can be taken as a major positive – a reminder of how much Pochettino has done to eradicate the Spursiness that has afflicted the club for so long – but there will need to be significant improvement if Tottenham are to repeat last season’s title challenge. There was a disjointedness about them, a lack of fluidity, for which Palace are due some credit for their discipline and organisation. “I was happy with the performance,” Pochettino said. “We created a lot of chances in the first half and was disappointed because we didn’t score. It was a game where there’s not much to correct at half-time. It was a good thing that the team fought to the end, never gave up and always believed it was possible to win.” There was some misfortune for Palace in the goal, with Damien Delaney forced off with an ankle injury sustained in conceding the corner. He clearly wanted to stay on after receiving lengthy treatment but he would not have been allowed on the pitch for the corner anyway. James Tomkins came off the bench and, as Alan Pardew put it, was “cold”, finding himself blocked in. “It was a sickener really,” Pardew said. “A corner when we were really being stretched because they were good at corners today. The players gave everything. There was a bit more verve and bit more industry in our play. We had a good spell and, when you come to places like Tottenham, you’ve got to score in that spell.” That is what he hopes Christian Benteke, whose signing was not completed in time for him to play, will bring. “There’s one thing that always impressed me about him,” said Pardew. “He gets the goals you expect but every now and again he gets a rabbit out of the hat – just one moment that can change the course of a game.” It is true, of course, that solidity plus a high-class striker can take a side a long way. The worrying aspect for Palace, though, is Pardew’s habit of leading his team into slumps from which they cannot escape. He took 1.68 points per game in his first 37 matches at Palace but is averaging 0.52 in his last 21. A sense of drift can be contagious. If Spurs had started the season with two draws, they might have been similarly afflicted but Alli and Wanyama saved them. It may not look much yet but the foundations have been laid.
Sunflower Bean review – sweet ferocity of celestial indie and 90s grunge “Push the camera guys in the front row,” chuckles Sunflower Bean singer-guitarist, Nick Kivlen, as photographers beat a hasty retreat. Moments later, the audience is a heaving mass of grunge-era hair flailing, and one young lad is carried so high over the audience’s heads he can touch the venue’s ceiling. The New York trio have made quite a splash this year with their effervescent mix of 90s indie (grunge rock and something more ethereal) and 60s psychedelia. As songs from their debut album, Human Ceremony, veer off into cosmic jams, they sound like an unlikely mix of celestial 90s indie kids Lush and summer of love-era Jefferson Airplane. Much of the former comes from lead vocalist/bassist Julia Cumming, whose ferocious performance contrasts with the pastoral sweetness of her singing. Her new blond crop gives the sometime model a hint of the young Billy Idol, while Kivlen – all curly moptop and patterned shirts – could have stepped straight from a 60s Cream gig at the Roundhouse. With drummer Jacob Faber thrashing away behind, the threesome make a spectacle as Cumming prowls around her bandmate, grins at the crowd and often leaps into the throng while playing. “This is such fun,” she yells as their set flits from the beautiful guitar shapes of Human Ceremony to Easier Said’s euphoric pop. Such firecrackers aside, there’s still room for sharpening in the songwriting department, but with shows like this, they will win a lot of friends. • At Brudenell Social Club, Leeds, 8 September. Box office: 0113-275 2411. Then touring until 15 September.
What's in store at the Marrakech climate talks – and will Australia still back coal? The Australian government takes a delegation to the United Nations climate change talks in Morocco starting Monday – two weeks that are sure to be dominated by, well, who knows? Because, during the first week, the United States will go to the polls to pick a new president – an event that will act like a giant weapon of mass distraction in Marrakech. The Republican candidate, Donald Trump, has pledged to pull the US out of the UN process on climate change and cancel the global deal agreed at the last talks in Paris. Like other high-profile Republicans, Trump is not even convinced that humans cause climate change in the first place. Let’s just say he’s wrong. But whether a Trump administration could follow through with the threat to “cancel” the agreement is questionable. Todd Stern, who was the lead negotiator for the US delegation in Paris, has written that Trump has no power to cancel the deal because more than 190 other countries signed it. A withdrawal from Paris, Stern has written, would attract “almost universal condemnation” from other nations. China, the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases after the US, launched a sort of pre-emptive strike this week with public comments criticising Trump’s climate stance. But aside from the distraction of US politics, what else for Marrakech – a meeting known as COP22 (so called, if you must ask, because this is the 22nd meeting of the conference of the parties to the UN framework convention on climate change)? And what about Australia’s position? Since the Paris agreement was gavelled last December, the process to ratify the deal has been ongoing. This process, known as “entry into force”, required at least 55 “parties” representing about 55% of global greenhouse gas emissions to ratify the agreement. This threshold was met on 5 October and the deal will enter into force right about … now! This rapid entry into force (the Kyoto protocol took almost eight years) is another reason why, from the outside at least, the focus of the Marrakech talks feels unusually fluid. But the first meeting under the new Paris agreement (known as CMA1 – yeah, I know) will be looking to tie down some of the rules about transparency – that is, how and what each party needs to disclose to the convention. Australia has still not ratified the Paris agreement but there are reports this could happen before the talks close on 18 November. Before the Paris talks, countries around the world submitted their plans to cut emissions – these were known as intended nationally determined contributions (you gotta love the UN’s gift for language). They’re now just NDCs (because they were all accepted as part of the Paris agreement). Australia pledged that by 2030, it would cut emissions between 26% and 28% below where they were in 2005. While the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade stands by the target as being ambitious and fair, there are many critics who say it’s anything but. On this, one diary point in Morocco will be the middle Saturday, when developed countries get to publicly question each other about their plans and ambitions. Close watchers of the UN climate processes are characterising the Marrakech talks as the “action and implementation COP” because it’s seen as the chance to start acting on the promises made in Paris. A big push from campaign groups will be to pressure the talks to get on with a fair and just transition away from a world mostly powered by fossil fuels (the decision by the French company Engie to close Australia’s dirtiest coal power station, Hazelwood, is such an example of this transition in action, and the need to plan for it). Perhaps the most important element of the talks, though, will be about a part of the Paris deal known as the ambition – or ratchet – mechanism. When scientists have analysed all the targets that countries have put on the table, they have found they are not even close to achieving the agreed aim of keeping global warming “well below 2C”. Without further ambition, we could see warming of 3C or more. The ratchet mechanism is designed to push countries to become more ambitious over time, setting in place stocktakes, reviews and deadlines for new targets. How this will all work in practice will be a key part of COP22. Australia remains an influential country in the talks, owing in part to its position as chair of the umbrella group of countries – one of many negotiating groups. As yet there has been no formal announcement from the Australian government on who will attend, but there is an expectation among some that the foreign minister, Julie Bishop, will be there for the “high-level segment” that starts in week two. The Australian delegation will also have a new diplomat in charge. Replacing Peter Woolcott as climate change ambassador is Patrick Suckling, who took over the role in February after serving as Australia’s high commissioner in India. During his time in New Delhi Suckling made several statements supporting the controversial Carmichael mega-coalmine project in Queensland, being proposed by Indian company Adani. “This project will drive economic growth and create more than 6,000 jobs in Australia,” he said in 2014. “It will also boost India’s development by providing electricity to 100 million Indians.” In one report in the Economic Times, Suckling was quoted as saying the Australian government was trying to tighten legal rules around who could and could not challenge coalmines through the courts (a theme that has re-emerged in recent weeks). “We are actively thinking of possible ways to limit the scope of litigation to only those with a real standing in a project,” he was quoted as saying. Language like this tends not to go down well with the army of NGOs, campaigners and civil society groups who attend the climate talks and have given Australia more then a fair share of “fossil” awards over the years. The perception among many has been that Australia has sought to defend the coal industry too many times at UN meetings. Will Australia stake its reputation on coal again?
CQC to investigate as mental health detentions hit 10-year high The health and social care watchdog is to launch an investigation after government figures revealed the number of detentions for mental health treatment had risen to its highest level in at least a decade. Patients were detained in England for treatment under the provisions of the Mental Health Act 63,622 times in the year to April 2016, the statistics from NHS Digital showed, a rise of 47% since 2006, the year comparable records began, when there were 43,361 detentions. Dr Paul Lelliott, the deputy chief inspector of hospitals and lead for mental health at the Care Quality Commission, said the figures were concerning, particularly given a national commitment to reduce the number of mental health detentions. “The causes of the rise in the use of the act are likely to be complex, but the increase in detentions needs to be examined carefully,” he said. “We do not know, for example, the extent to which the rise is due to repeated detentions, it could signal a lack of support in the community for people with serious mental health problems or if people are being detained repeatedly, it could be a sign that some services are operating ‘revolving door’ admissions. “To get to the bottom of this, we are launching an investigation into the reasons why detentions under the Mental Health Act in England continue to rise. We expect to publish our findings from this next year.” Much of the rise in detentions came recently, with a 31% increase in the past five years, the statistics showed. Detentions under section two of the Mental Health Act, which allows for people to be held against their will for up to 28 days for diagnosis and treatment, were up 36% over that period. Detentions under section three, which allows for patients to be held for up to six months of compulsory treatment, were up 7%. A snapshot figure, taken on 31 March, found 20,151 people were being detained under the act, 30% of whom were being held in private hospitals. Peter Kinderman, the president of the British Psychology Society, said the figures were “tragic and shocking, but not terribly surprising”. Cuts to health budgets, combined with widening inequality, social turmoil and economic austerity were leading to an ever tighter squeeze on the poor, he said. “If there are pressures on the service from cutting community support, various forms of psychotherapeutic support or social support for people, you could see how the pressures would build up and the people who are on the edge of coping might be pushed into feeling as if there was no support for them and feeling as if they might want to take their own lives,” said Kinderman. “It doesn’t take much of a threat to social support for people in crisis for them to feel like there’s no point in carrying on living, and at that point you need to step in and take quite drastic action to help them.” Marjorie Wallace, the chief executive of the mental health charity Sane, speculated that the rise could be the result of situations where patients or their doctors felt detention was the only way to get proper mental health treatment. “We know that community mental health services are overstretched and in many cases unable to provide the early treatment that could prevent people becoming so desperately ill,” she said. “Moreover, without available local psychiatric beds, doctors are being forced to use the act in order to obtain an inpatient bed for treatment, which may involve sending patients to unfamiliar hospitals where they cannot be easily visited by professionals they know, let alone their friends and family. It is a scandal that you have to be sectioned in order to get treatment. What we need is more rather than fewer beds, so that those who need sanctuary and healing can receive help without having to be deprived of their liberty.” A Department of Health spokesperson said: “People with mental illness need the best possible care and local areas are investing £693m more to make sure the right services are in place. Decisions about detention under the Mental Health Act are clinically led but the Care Quality Commission will be looking into the rise in cases.”
From YouTube to the blockchain: how music and tech are colliding in 2016 The music industry and technology? To borrow Facebook’s lingo, the relationship is complicated. File-sharing service Napster’s emergence in 1999 was the cue for more than a decade of fear, loathing and ill-fated decisions from major music companies, and perceptions of a gulf between the worlds of music and tech that linger to this day. That’s not the whole story. Even in 1999, there were plenty of music executives excited about digital disruption rather than panicked by it – even if many were too junior to influence their bosses’ strategies driven by the latter emotion. In 2016, the two worlds are more intertwined, culturally, than ever before. Anyone in tech peddling claims that “the labels” are a homogenous group of digital dinosaurs is as blinkered as anyone in music suggesting that “tech people” just want to enrich themselves and their investors at the expense of musicians. The fact that you’ll still hear both views shows that for all the bridges that have been built between the music and tech industries, tensions still bubble below the surface. Or, as happened with 2016’s bitter war of words between labels and YouTube, explode into the open. The annual Midem conference, which turned 50 this year, used to be a glamorous affair where more than 10,000 music execs gathered to strike deals and flaunt their (large) expenses budgets in the hotel bars of Cannes. In 2016, Midem is much smaller – “4,400 or so” delegates according to its organiser – and with many fewer high-rollers in the bars, but a lot more discussion on conference stages about the digital present and future for music. New kids on the blockchain 2016’s buzz-panel of choice for any music conference is blockchain technology. The industry is getting its head around how the idea of a decentralised database of music rights could solve some of its pressing problems. One of the biggest: knowing which labels and publishers (and, at the next level down, which performers, songwriters and producers) own the rights to songs and recordings, and what their split of the royalties is. The blockchain might even sort out the payments of those royalties: supporters of the technology foresee a world where every time a song is sold or streamed, the royalties are divided up and paid immediately. “Amazon Prime can deliver an object to your house in an hour. We ought to be able to process a music payment in less than two years,” said Vinay Gupta, release coordinator and general strategist for blockchain firm Ethereum. Musician Imogen Heap, who has launched a blockchain-based platform called Mycelia to experiment with the technology, compared a database of “permanent records of who did what” to another entertainment industry’s most famous website. “The film industry did this with IMDB … if you were going to redo iMDB today, you’d do it on the blockchain,” she said. “The core model is something kinda like iMDB that handles payments as well as information about who did what,” added Gupta. YouTube solution in sight? Meanwhile the anger of many music industry companies about YouTube in 2016 cannot be underestimated: they genuinely see the company as determined to destroy their business. Many of those critics are hoping for new legislation to strip YouTube of its “safe harbour” protection, putting it in a much weaker position when striking licensing deals with music firms. At Midem, one well-connected industry exec – Daniel Glass of Glassnote Entertainment – suggested that this year’s attacks may have stung YouTube enough to change its tune already. “By the end of the summer we’ll see a settlement. They can’t be deaf to what’s going on,” said Glass in a panel on the future for music. “The revolution always begins at the bottom. The little guy, the indie artist, the country singer or that rapper who’s going to be upset. They galvanise revolutions, and I think there’s a mini-revolution building in the world with people who are upset about compensation,” said Glass. “By the end of the summer I think you’ll see a new system or monetary compensation package that people will be much happier with.” Playlists are powerful – but who controls them? According to various estimates at Midem, around 20% of plays on the big streaming services like Spotify and Deezer come from the playlists created by their in-house teams of editors. Spotify recently said that its playlists are generating 1bn streams every week. These playlists have growing clout when it comes to breaking new songs and artists. Spotify’s Today’s Top Hits playlist now has more than 8.5 million followers, and according to industry analyst Mark Mulligan, generates 120.4m streams a month. Mulligan’s company Midia Research recently ran a survey that found that “the percentage of people who make their own playlists on streaming has dropped by 10 percentage points in just one year”. It’s a sign that many of the new users added by Spotify in that last year are happy to turn to its Today’s Top Hits, Afternoon Acoustic and Your Favourite Coffeehouse playlists rather than make their own. Mulligan talked about two possible effects. One: globalisation, where the popular playlists mean the biggest (invariably American or British) stars rack up the most streams around the world at the expense of local artists. Two: internationalisation, where those local artists can find new fans outside their home countries if they make it on to those popular playlists. “The playlist curators are the ones who will ultimately decide whether streaming is about globalisation, or internationalisation,” he said. Labels want to be friends with startups. Don’t they? It’s also true that a number of people in the tech world still perceive labels’ attitudes towards startups as either not understanding them, or wanting to squeeze money out of them until the pips squeak. “It’s been a really shitty industry to work with for years,” said Sitar Teli, managing partner of VC firm Connect Ventures, whose past investments include SoundCloud. She suggested that the music industry’s experience with filesharing had created distrust. “The reaction to that was to be distrustful of technology companies … There’s a lot working against startups that’s related to the structure of the industry, and to the concentration of power.” Teli later clarified that music companies are more willing to strike deals with startups than they used to be, and that was mirrored by Mark Piibe, digital boss at major label Sony Music, who (slightly awkwardly) was sitting next to Teli throughout her comments on how difficult his industry has been to work with. Piibe said labels want to see startups as partners, not enemies or cash cows to be milked. He cited the latest crop of social music apps like Flipagram and Musical.ly as examples. “We do have deals with a lot of the companies,” said Piibe. “Typically, these things end up in licensing relationships rather than litigation.” Streaming losses and fear of big tech The final key theme of Midem was something that’s being talked about more openly within the music industry: whether music-streaming services that aren’t backed by a technology giant (namely Apple, Google or Amazon) can survive in the long term. Spotify made £1.5bn in 2015, but lost around £140m that year – and has racked up more than €566m of losses since the start of 2009. Its fellow “pureplay” rivals are a similar story. Pandora? Losses. Deezer? Losses. Many Midem attendees were chattering about Australian streaming service Guvera which claims 14 million users and has just filed to go public, yet whose revenues of just $0.87m in its last financial year saw it post a $58.9m net loss. In her Midem panel, Teli described Spotify as “massively unprofitable” and said she judges the health of companies by whether they can be independent and profitable. “I actually can’t think of a music-tech company that has done that. Which is very worrying,” she said. “Even the largest, most successful company in this sector is Spotify, and it lost a couple of hundred million dollars last year, so it’s still not there.” Veteran entertainment industry lawyer Joel Katz expressed similar sentiments in another Midem panel. “The record companies made a bet that streaming was going to be the future, but unfortunately we have seen that so far, no streaming company has ever made a dime,” he said. “They don’t report profits and they have very little ability to make profits.” The prospect is of a digital-music world dominated by the big tech companies. A prospect that’s already being raised by some of the streaming services trying to figure out the economics. “The music industry is going to be a miserable world if your only path to your fans is via Apple or Facebook or Amazon or Google, because those are not music services,” said Pandora’s chief operating officer Sara Clemens. Her point was that those companies’ bigger priorities are not how to make money for musicians and the music industry, but rather selling devices (Apple), selling advertising (Google, Facebook) or selling memberships (Amazon), with music likely to be a loss-leader. Then again, the music industry spent much of the downloads era complaining about the dominance of just one company: Apple and its iTunes store. Perhaps three (or four, if and when Facebook makes a music move – many of the people who gossip about Spotify’s long-term future think it will follow WhatsApp, Instagram and Oculus Rift into Mark Zuckerberg’s arms at some point) tech giants competing in the music-streaming world is a better prospect.
Barroso hits back at Brussels over inquiry into Goldman Sachs role The former president of the European commission has hit back against criticism about his new role at Goldman Sachs by insisting he will act with integrity and discretion. José Manuel Barroso, who was president of the commission for 10 years until 2014, was in July named chairman of Goldman Sachs International, the bank’s UK and European operations, in a move that sparked anger among commission staff. A petition criticising Barroso’s “morally reprehensible” behaviour, has attracted almost 140,000 signatures, and this week the EC president, Jean-Claude Juncker, launched an investigation into whether any EU rules had been broken by Barroso. In a letter to Juncker, Barroso said he was not being employed as a lobbyist or adviser on Brexit and that the bank had intended to appoint him before the vote to the leave the EU. “I have not been engaged to lobby on behalf of Goldman Sachs and I do not intend to do so,” Barroso said. Barroso also took issue with the warning from Juncker that he would not be received in EU institutions as a former president, but as an “interest representative”, subject to the same rules as other lobbyists. “I have never sought a privileged position but I would not expect to be discriminated against,” Barroso said in his letter, adding that he wanted to know how a decision about his position had been made. “Not only are these actions discriminatory but they appear inconsistent with decisions taken in respect of other former members of the commission.” A former prime minister of Portugal, Barroso said he had been careful to comply with the commission’s rules, adding that he had joined Goldman 20 months after his period office, longer than the 18-month cooling off period imposed on him. “I am very clear about my ongoing responsibilities to the European institutions and naturally I will maintain my commitment to act with integrity and discretion,” he said. “It has been claimed that the mere fact of working with Goldman Sachs raises questions of integrity. While I respect that everyone is entitled to their own opinion, the rules are clear and they must be respected. These claims are baseless and wholly unmerited. They are discriminatory against me and against Goldman Sachs, a regulated company operating in the internal market.” EU rules stipulate that commission officials have a duty to “behave with integrity and discretion” once they have ceased to hold high office. Barroso’s role at Goldman sparked controversy in France, from the far-right leader Marine Le Pen and also the country’s Europe minister, Harlem Désir, who said the EU’s conflict of interest rules needed to be tightened.
Harry Kane at the double as five-star Tottenham saunter past Swansea The comedian Michael McIntyre was in attendance, while the White Hart Lane PA announcer referred to the Swansea City substitute Fernando Llorente as Fernando Morientes on more than one occasion. But for the biggest laugh of the afternoon, nobody needed to look any further than the referee, Jon Moss, whose decision to award Dele Alli a penalty on 39 minutes for what was a swan dive broke Swansea City. Alli seemed to tumble in slow motion under Kyle Naughton’s non-challenge and when Moss blew for the penalty it was the catalyst for Tottenham Hotspur to surge to a much-needed win. Harry Kane scored from the spot and he would get another one after the interval to take his tally to seven in six appearances for the club. Son Heung-min scored a beauty on 45 minutes, while Christian Eriksen helped himself to two more in the second half, and it meant that Mauricio Pochettino could exhale after a trying sequence. His Tottenham team had entered the game having won only one in 10 in all competitions. “We needed this after our defeats against Monaco and Chelsea,” Pochettino said. Swansea’s performance was the other joke. Bob Bradley described the penalty as a “game-changer”, which he was entitled to do, and he felt that Moss “was not in a very good position”. The manager went on to say it was just “a wrong decision”. But his team had done nothing in a proactive sense before the award and the way that they folded after it bodes badly for the battles ahead. Swansea had no answer to Tottenham’s pressing and, once they were behind and the onus was on them to come out and play, they looked vulnerable. Yet again, the brittleness of their defence was a worry. Bradley did not pull his punches and he has work to do before next Saturday’s home fixture against Sunderland. “We were not good enough,” the American said. “We were not able to play the first pass after the press and we cannot concede the number of goals we are conceding. We are frustrated and angry. But there was confidence after the draw at Everton and the win over Crystal Palace and it’s not all lost today.” Tottenham were on the front foot from the first whistle but, although Kane and Kyle Walker worked Lukasz Fabianski, the home side felt a little one-paced and the atmosphere was flat. However, the penalty changed everything and no matter how many times you watched the replay, it was impossible to conclude that Alli had been sent tumbling by Naughton. The Swansea full-back saw Alli steal in on his blind side and he actually pulled out of making a challenge. The Tottenham midfielder was already going down when he initiated what little contact there might have been and, quite simply, Moss bought it. Swansea were left to nurse a sense of injustice, with Fabianski booked for his protests and the coaches Paul Williams and Alan Curtis moved to confront Moss as the teams left the field at half-time. By then, Tottenham were two to the good, and what an excellent second goal it was from Son. After Eriksen had seen an effort blocked, the ball looped over towards Son who, on the half turn, leapt into an acrobatic side-on shot that flew high past Fabianski at his near post. It was Tottenham who were forcing the issue, with Walker, in particular, seeing a lot of the ball in the buildup to moves, after he had recovered from the shock of being caught in the head with a ridiculously high boot from Neil Taylor in the early running. It drew blood, while Walker also needed a strapping to his hand, having raised it to fend off the blow. Remarkably, Moss did not book Taylor. Bradley introduced Morientes – sorry, Llorente – at half time and he would also send on Borja Baston and Wayne Routledge in a further attempt to inject attacking spark. Nothing worked for him. Swansea were bankrupt in a creative sense and Hugo Lloris was a virtual spectator in the Tottenham goal. Swansea were cooked when Alli fed Son on the breakaway and, when he was held up by Taylor, Kane arrived to sweep low past Fabianski. Tottenham were soon looking as though they could score with every forward thrust, so dishevelled were Swansea, and Eriksen twisted the knife. The Denmark midfielder bundled in his first goal after Alli’s shot had looped up off Fabianski and his second was a neat touch and low finish from the substitute Moussa Sissoko’s pass.
PMQs verdict: Cameron’s real feelings start to show Key points The Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, questioned the prime minister on what he and the chancellor, George Osborne, were doing to reassure businesses that might be considering relocating, on the increase in hate crimes since the referendum and whether inequality had led to the result. Considering the political heat around both leaders in the wake of last week’s vote, it was an oddly low key but quietly revealing debate. There was one new policy announcement and a memorable line when David Cameron called on Corbyn to follow his lead and resign. Corbyn asked the prime minister about monitoring hate crimes. Cameron responded by revealing plans for a new action plan, which will be published soon to help police forces and local communities tackle hate crimes. He said he had reassured the Polish, Romanian and Czech prime ministers at the EU summit that his government was dealing with this. Snap verdict It was one of Corbyn’s best PMQs performances for some time. There was some irony in hearing Corbyn ask about the economic damage caused by the Brexit vote – because during the campaign he suggested that George Osborne’s warnings about the economic impact of Brexit were exaggerated and implausible – but he asked direct, pertinent questions and obtained relatively informative, interesting replies. It was only towards the end that Corbyn broadened it out, and asked two questions attacking Cameron’s record more generally. At this point Cameron’s real feelings started to show. He criticised Corbyn for not doing enough to campaign for a remain vote (echoing a point made by many in the Labour party) and then he let rip at the end with a soundbite with vague echoes of Leo Amery in the Norway debate that led to the resignation of Neville Chamberlain (quoting Oliver Cromwell’s speech dissolving the Rump parliament): “You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go.” (That was Amery, of course; Cameron’s was a diluted version.) In light of the fact that Corbyn was better than usual today, this pre-cooked barb was a little undeserved, but that won’t stop it sounding effective when he appears on the TV news. Memorable lines Cameron to Corbyn: For heaven’s sake man, go.
Mr Smith goes to Washington: election lessons on the path of the 'Acela primary' Baseball fields, sweeping coastlines, highways and scrapyards, graffiti-coated concrete, rows of yellow school buses, stars and stripes flying from flagpoles, clapboard houses and deep forests as painted by Edward Hopper, boarded-up redbrick terraced houses as filmed by The Wire’s David Simon, skyscrapers in New York as framed by a million camera clicks. I grew up in Britain but such is America’s cultural reach: these images have always felt familiar. On Thursday I saw them all, and many more, from that seemingly most un-American means of transport, in the land where car is king: the train. The Acela Express, Amtrak’s high-speed business class service, runs 457 miles (735 km) from Boston to Washington and along the way takes in five states – Rhode Island, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland – that will have their say in the US presidential election on Tuesday. In what has been dubbed the “Acela primary”, Democratic and Republican frontrunners Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are expected to prosper. The trip from Providence, Rhode Island, to Washington, the city that all the candidates are striving to reach, may not help us discover America, the sentiment of the Simon and Garfunkel song deployed to such effect by Bernie Sanders. Let’s just make do with looking for Acela; a single, elite train journey down the north-east corridor might tell us something about the presidential election. It’s a short walk from the Rhode Island state capitol, boasting the fourth biggest self-supported marble dome in the world, to the modest railway station in Providence. This is America’s smallest state, only 48 miles long from north to south and 37 miles wide from east to west. It votes overwhelmingly Democratic and its former governor, Lincoln Chafee, made a quixotic bid for the 2016 nomination. I boarded the Acela Express at 9.50am to a surprise announcement: all 304 seats across six carriages had been sold. So much for the slow death of the American railroad. As people struggled to wrestle luggage into nooks and crannies above the blue leather seats, I walked the aisle observing men in shirts and khakis, women in trouser suits – the Acela dress code appears to be smart casual – and an array of earphones, iPhones, iPads and laptops making use of onboard Wi-Fi and power sockets. Later I would find former Republican candidate Carly Fiorina expensively attired and playing a card game on her phone; she declined to be interviewed for this article. I thought back to my first day as the ’s Africa correspondent in 2009, when I was the lone white passenger on a metro train from Johannesburg to Pretoria, a painfully slow and crowded service used by the black working class. People had warned me I was in danger of getting mugged but I encountered the kindness of strangers. On Acela’s New England leg, the demographic was almost exclusively white and affluent, except for train staff, and nobody talked about mugging. Like South Africa, America has preoccupations with inequality and race and a healthy thirst to talk about them. During the six-hour journey south, I interviewed 18 passengers, many of whom said this was the wackiest and worst election in their lifetimes, with a dearth of viable candidates leaving them short of choices. None complained about their fortunes during the past eight years under Barack Obama. Among this highly unrepresentative sample, Clinton enjoyed a narrow lead over Sanders on the Democratic side; one passenger said he would vote for Trump, while Ted Cruz polled zero. Most of the passengers heaped praise on Acela – “There is absolutely no better way to travel in this country,” said one – but bemoaned the government’s neglect of public infrastructure in general and railways in particular, and the candidates’ failure to pledge fresh investment. Their comments could have stood for America as a whole; it’s OK, but it could be a lot better, and just look at how we’re falling behind the rest of the world. Similar to Uber, which captured a market that previously never used taxis, Acela’s branding has struck a nerve with business travellers and is competing hard with airlines. Dan Lovy, 55, a Sanders voter, takes it three times a month. “There’s a class aspect to railroad,” he said as ravishing Atlantic vistas sped by the window. “The north-east regional service doesn’t have the cachet that Acela does. Before Acela, I would never consider taking the train; I would fly or drive.” But like much else that frustrates Americans, it’s good but not great, reaching speeds of up to 150mph. Lovy reflected: “If the service ran an hour faster, I’d use it more. I look at the Europeans and Japanese who can do it faster by force of will. It’s frustrating how we can’t work out the economics or the will to make it happen. Japan has 300mph bullet trains; the north-east corridor would benefit from that.” Pointing through the window towards a naval submarine base in Groton, Connecticut, he went on: “You can work out the infrastructure to build nuclear submarines but you can’t build a high speed train. You can build a billion-dollar aircraft carrier but you can’t lay new track. Is this the way we want to organise ourselves? You can’t have this conversation because you’re seen as weak on defence. You can’t go there.” Becky Juchnik, 40, spent the journey from Providence to New York alone in the cafe car, her blond hair falling over a tight-fitting blue dress, her right arm displaying a tattoo – “RIP Deven” – in tribute to her six-week-old son who died in 1996. The fitness model, cleaning company owner and single mother was on her way to a studio photo shoot. “It’s the most comical election I’ve ever seen in my life,” she said. “The bashing of each other is the worst I’ve ever seen. It’s over the top.” How will she vote? “I agree with a lot of what Donald Trump says but there are things I don’t agree with as well. I do like Bernie Sanders but I do not agree with taking away from people who are successful. They got there for a reason.” The trees that raced past the window were spindly, not yet the glorious riot of coppers and reds that comes in the fall. Connecticut was won by Barack Obama at the last election. At 11.13am, in New Haven, Bob – a fiftysomething banker who did not wish to give his surname – boarded Acela for the first time in his life. “I didn’t feel like driving,” he explained, dragging two suitcases and bound for Washington on business. “But I’m disappointed I didn’t find a seat.” He intends to vote for Trump, explaining: “I like the way he is not owned by anyone. He’s paying for his own campaign and is not beholden to special interests. It’s unusual that someone like him could get this far without the backing of the establishment.” Bob espoused rugged individualism and self-reliance that has become a conservative touchstone. “I imagine I’ll be fine either way, whether it’s Hillary or Trump. I don’t rely on any handouts or that bullshit.” Forty-five minutes later at Stamford, Connecticut, new passengers included Nate Luce, 34, an IT consultant on his way to Washington. “It’s the most pleasant commuting experience I have,” he said. “I fly as well but this beats it by several measures. It’s a civilised form of travel.” The railroad was once dominated by Gilded Age tycoons whose private carriages boasted mahogany interiors, glass skylights and copper-lined showers. Presidents have used the train as a symbol of power – Lincoln toured the country by rail ahead of the 1861 inauguration. But operator Amtrak makes huge losses every year and relies on congressional subsidies. The rail network has fallen behind other parts of the world, including on safety: 10 people have been killed in two separate incidents near Philadelphia within the past year. Luce would like to see more investment in railways nationwide. “Infrastructure is a huge problem that will come to bear in the next one or two decades,” he said. “It’s a budget issue and people are just sticking their heads in the ground rather than dealing with it.” Married with a four-year-old daughter and another child on the way, Luce feels that he has done well during the Obama years and will probably vote for Clinton. As for Trump: “Personally, I just think he’s an idiot but his success in this election is a product of the Republicans alienating a midwestern Christian base that 15 or 16 years ago they decided to capitalise on but did nothing for. People on the Republican side are furious and Trump embodies that fury quite well and plays up to it.” Carolynn Baker, 61, an artist travelling from Providence to New York, said: “Donald Trump is a train wreck, since we’re on a train. I’ve loathed him ever since he built Trump Tower. As soon as his name comes on, I tune out. There are amazingly stupid people in this country. If you ask them why they support him, including Hispanic people who support him, they say he speaks his mind. I don’t really know what’s happened in America. I don’t think it’s bad that it needs to be made great again. I think it’s pretty darned good.” She added: “This is the worst election I’ve ever witnessed. It’s appalling because of the Republican candidates: they’re being pretty true to what Republicans are. I never really felt proud of America until Obama became president. I felt pretty embarrassed really. Now I’m one of the old women who likes Hillary Clinton.” At 12.49pm, the train pulls into that divine symphony of chaos, Penn Station, New York. More people pile off here than at any other station on the route, and more pile on because many have business in Washington. After 10 minutes or so we set off to New Jersey and then on to Pennsylvania, birthplace of James Stewart, star of Mr Smith Goes to Washington, and another Democratic-leaning state that votes next week. The city of Reading, which in 2011 was ranked the poorest in America, having seen manufacturing jobs wither, would appear to be fertile territory for Trump. Jim O’Connor, 53, a barrister travelling to a social reception for lawyers in Washington, admitted: “I think of myself as astute politically and yet I know absolutely nothing about politics: that’s what the Trump experience has shown me. I can’t explain the Trump phenomenon but I also can’t ignore it.” Trump has scored well among white working-class voters who lack a college degree. O’Connor said: “Maybe they don’t look like me or sound like me, or have the same educational background or social background as me, but they are engaged in the process. I think that’s a good thing. He’s not my guy but I admire him for it. “I think we would all be foolish to ignore the fact that folks who otherwise feel disenfranchised feel engaged by Trump’s candidacy for right or wrong reasons. He is not my cup of tea and yet at the same time I am amazed and admiring how he has jumped into a system where he’s not a professional and had the success he’s had. I don’t like his message but I can’t ignore that fact there are a lot of people out there – my neighbours – who do.” With the train so full because of school holidays, several passengers congregated in the cafe carriage. Beers flowed and conversations started. “Did you hear Prince died?” one woman asked of the cafe manager. It was a different experience from the atomised one of commuting alone by car every day. By the time we reached Philadelphia – the former capital city where the Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776, and where a statue of fictional boxer Rocky was erected – the train’s racial diversity had gradually increased. Among the African American passengers was Rodney Elliott, who disembarked there, and Lanette Reese, who boarded there on her way to Washington, where she lives. Both intend to vote for Clinton. For Elliott, 47, the key issues in this election are the economy, foreign policy and race relations. “I don’t think Obama was able to improve race relations and that wasn’t really his assignment,” said Elliott, who himself works for Amtrak as a train master. “It has to be a collaborative effort. That’s not the president’s job; that’s the people’s job.” Asked what she thinks of Trump, Reese, 39, an educational consultant, replied: “I don’t think about him at all. I don’t spend energy on him. People are fed up with the party and the way government operates but what he is saying are things that are democratically impossible. Now, if he wins, that would terrify me.” The train pushed on through Delaware – second smallest state and home of Vice-President Joe Biden – and along low bridges with vast and gorgeous expanses of water on both sides, dotted with cottages and boats on the shore. But further on, into Maryland, the imagery became less serene. The line runs through bleak inner-city Baltimore, where cramped terraced houses have boarded-up doors and windows and some structures that are cracked, crumbling and abandoned. These largely black neighbourhoods endure sky-high rates of poverty, unemployment and crime, including murders. America’s inequality rhymes with South Africa’s. Tom Zayko, 71, who retired from financial services company Citibank a month before the financial crisis hit in 2008, said: “I’ve been lucky, I did not lose. But we know many wealthy families and it just amazes me they don’t have a clue how difficult getting on with it is for many people. My daughter is a social worker and she deals with families who are financially strained and emotionally strained.” Clinton and Trump lead the polls in Maryland, birthplace of The Star-Spangled Banner, and appear poised for victory there. And so the final stretch to Washington. Electricity pylons and trees whizzed by. A redbrick school. A multi-storey car park. A junkyard. The Days Inn and the Marriott. Cash-and-carry stores. The golden arches of McDonald’s. Then the beaux-arts Union Station, the biggest railway terminal in the world when it opened in 1907. For many, at 3.47pm, it was just the end of a routine commute. But not for Erin Barry’s children, aged eight and six, here for the first time in their lives. “Why are we going to Washington?,” the 34-year-old speech pathologist asked. “To show the children the nation’s capital because it’s important, especially during an election year when there’s a lot on the news and they’ve expressed interest to see the White House.” Barry added: “I find it inspiring. That’s why it’s sad what’s going on. It’s depressing. It’s turned into a circus. It’s not what the country was built on. I think Abraham Lincoln and other great presidents would be disgusted.” But the optimism was undimmed for her son, whom Erin did not wish to be named. “I’m excited because we get to see the president’s house and do a lot of fun stuff,” he said. “The Washington Monument, the Air and Space Museum.” In this handsome city of monuments, the Rome of the modern world, there is a cast-iron dome that surpasses the spectacle in Providence. The US Capitol is another of those American artefacts that we all grow up knowing from afar. It was built in Lincoln’s time, like the transcontinental railroad, which he intended to unify a divided nation. Come January, it will witness the inauguration of the 45th president and, whoever that is, a grand unifying project would seem like a good place to start. This is a country whose citizens still like to think big, even when its politicians don’t.
Beauty and the Beast trailer beats Fifty Shades as most viewed in 24 hours The second trailer for Beauty and the Beast has put Disney back at the top spot in the chart for most-viewed promo over its first 24 hours of release. The two-minute trailer, whose scenes reference equivalents in the 1991 cartoon, was viewed 127.6m times following its release on 13 November. The figure does not include views in China. Fifty Shades Darker racked up 114m views earlier this year; Star Wars: The Force Awakens had 112m last year. These figures mimic how Beauty’s teaser trailer knocked Star Wars’s equivalent off the No 1 spot in May, taking 91.8m views, over Star Wars’s 88m. Views of the trailer on Emma Watson’s Facebook page alone accounted for 27m views. The film will be released worldwide on 17 March.
The power grid's greatest enemy has four legs and a bushy tail Across the world blackouts are happening and power grids are being shut down. From Europe to America, and across Asia and Africa, we’re losing the cyberwar. But the enemy is not who you might think: it is squirrels. While we’re busy worrying about hackers and rogue states, squirrels scamper into electricity substations and chew through power cables. They’re the kamikaze troops in nature’s war against national infrastructure. To underscore just how dangerous these furry villains are, CyberSquirrel1 has been collecting all the examples of successful cyberwarfare from these rodents – as well as other animals, from birds to beavers and rats to snakes and racoons. To date, they have verified 623 power outages which can be directly, publicly attributed to squirrels, as well as a further 347 that can be blamed on other animals. They add, though, that “there are many more executed ops than displayed on this map however, those ops remain classified”. The site also tracks successful cyberwarfare carried out by nation states. It counts one: the Stuxnet computer worm that took out Iran’s nuclear facilities in 2009 and 2010, believed to be created by US and Israeli computer scientists. There have been other reported cyberattacks on national infrastructure, including one in Ukraine over Christmas, but the site’s creator points out that those can’t be verified as coming from nation states. “Of all the claimed nation state cyber attacks that have impacted critical infrastructure that we have been made aware of such as the Brazil Blackouts, German Steel Plant event, and the Ukrainian power outages only the US-led Stuxnet operation can be confirmed at this time.” Squirrels 623 – Nation states 1. The point, of course, is not that we should declare war on rodents, but that cyberwarfare remains a slightly overblown fear. State-sponsored hackers are out there, but for the most part they are content with going after softer and more valuable targets such as identity databases and financial information. The site’s creator, an anonymous information security professional, said that their motivation for creating it was to flesh out what had already become longstanding observation among infosec circles. “There is tons of hype about how we are at so much risk from a devastating cyber attack, and yet we can’t even protect our infrastructure from squirrels, or birds or snakes. “I decided to take it to the next level, and a few years ago created this account to document just how prevalent the squirrel menace actually was to illustrate the point”. And rodents aren’t just a humorous comparison: the site’s creator points out that there’s a very real problem with lack of coverage of squirrel attacks, as well as over-reporting of cyberwarfare. For instance, one article they cite “claims 560 outages in 2015 in Montana alone caused by squirrels. I have news articles for two of them.” The threat is real, and hidden. If there’s one point to take home, it’s that fears about cyberwarfare shouldn’t keep you up at night. “Of course there is some risk there,” CyberSquirrel1’s creator says. “Cyber security of the electric grid is important, but not at the levels that the cyberwar hawks have been preaching.” Squirrels, though. Those guys are dangerous.
Film critic Philip French honoured in Baftas 2016 in memoriam section The late film critic Philip French has been remembered in this year’s in memoriam montage at the Baftas. French, who died at the age of 82 last October, worked at the for 35 years and was known as one of the country’s foremost film journalists. He was made an honorary member of Bafta in 2008 and was appointed OBE in 2013. Among the stars who were also included in this year’s segment were Alan Rickman, Wes Craven, Sir Christopher Lee and James Horner who all died in the last 12 months. Last year, Bafta was under fire for omitting Bob Hoskins in the place of Hollywood stars such as Robin Williams and Lauren Bacall. The organisation said in a statement: “Bafta features individuals in televised obituaries only once, sadly due to the number of people we’d like to recognise at any one time, and that means difficult decisions have to be made as to which ceremony they should be included in. As Bob died in April last year, just before the television awards, we felt it was right to remember his wonderful career then, rather than wait until last night’s film awards.”
Wall Street bonuses fell 9% in 2015 to average of $146,200 after profits decline Wall Street bonuses fell 9% to an average of $146,200 in 2015, driven down by a “challenging year in the financial markets” and new regulations, according to New York state comptroller Thomas DiNapoli. The decline in the banking bonuses was the result, in large part, of a 10.5% decline in profits on Wall Street to $14.3bn in 2015, according to the report from the watchdog. The figures reflect a steady decline in bonuses since the financial crisis in 2008 and the implementation of new controls on how bonuses are awarded. “This was the third consecutive year of lower profits,’’ DiNapoli said of the financial industry, a major driver of New York’s economy. According to the DiNapoli, Wall Street’s total bonus pool for 2015 came to $25bn, down 6% from 2014 and 27% lower than the peak in 2006, when the average bonus hit $191,360. The falls reflect the added number of employees banks have taken on related to compliance requirements and signal the costs of higher capital requirements and boosting returns to shareholders. The entire financial sector is reporting tougher trading environments as the slowdown in China and drop in commodity prices take their toll. “Because of the markets being down, we have to assume that some of those options being exercised now are of less value than they were a year or two ago,” DiNapoli said. Last year, five of the six major Wall Street banks saw their stock prices sink – with Morgan Stanley falling the furthest, down 18%. Many banks are implementing deeper than usual culls on underperforming workers, and moving backroom jobs from metropolitan areas such as New York and New Jersey to regional cities such as Salt Lake City and Dallas, or offshore altogether. The fall is bad news for New York. Some 17.5% of state revenue, or $12.5bn, comes from the financial industry, mostly through income taxes. The real estate and luxury goods markets, which typically enjoy an uptick in business at bonus time, will also be nervously watching to see how the fall will impact their businesses. DiNapoli said he did not hold out much hope of improvement this year, given “ongoing weaknesses in the global economy and market volatility”.
Black Friday deliveries may be hit by packaging workers' strike action Parcel and pizza deliveries could be hit over the busiest online shopping weekend of the year after thousands of cardboard packaging workers voted for strike action over pay. Workers at about 40 corrugated packaging factories operated by DS Smith, Saica and Smurfit Kappa have rejected a 2% pay rise, claiming their rewards have fallen behind as the companies increased profits. The GMB and Unite unions, which represent about 2,500 of the 3,000 workers at the factories who are all covered by a national pay agreement, said they planned an overtime ban from Saturday 26 November and a day of strike action on Monday 28 November. The action could affect parcel deliveries during Black Friday and Cyber Monday, the busiest online shopping days of the year. Amazon and Domino’s Pizza are major clients of the factories. Stuart Fegan, the GMB national officer, said: “We don’t want to cause problems for peoples’ Christmas shopping – but if we have to, we will. “Our members are clearly fed up of seeing their employers make increasing profits in this sector while their wages fall behind in real terms. “We urge the employers to get back around the negotiating table and make an offer to our members in respect of their pay claim which recognise the profits these companies are making and the contribution of our members towards those profits.” Packaging companies have benefited as the volume of parcels sent out by retailers has risen. This year 12% more parcels are expected to go through the system as online sales rise 16% to £1.27bn, according to the online retail industry body IMRG. Ian Tonks, Unite’s national officer, said: “Clearly these are profitable companies and our members recognise their contribution towards that profitability and their efforts need rewarding.” DS Smith, Saica and Smurfit Kappa were unavailable for comment.
EU referendum: top economic thinktank warns of post-Brexit shocks The pound would plunge 20% immediately after a Brexit vote in June, according to a leading economic thinktank. The National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) has also forecast that prices will soar and Britain’s growth rate will be 1% lower next year if there is a vote to leave the EU. The thinktank said: “Inflation would jump dramatically as sterling depreciates, investment would plummet and consumer spending would be hit by lower real incomes.” The loss to average UK households could be as much as £2,000 over the longer term in the institute’s worst-case scenario, which involves a loss of preferential trade links with the EU and a fall in productivity linked to declines in business investment. “The longer term impact of leaving the EU could reduce GDP by anything between 1.5% and 3.7% by 2030 depending on the subsequent relationship between the UK and the EU, as well as the rest of the world. “But in all possible scenarios, our simulation exercises show a substantial loss of export trade.” Under the worst outcome, the fall in demand for UK goods and services leads to an almost 10% decline in wages by 2030 relative to remaining in the EU. NIESR, which is widely seen as Britain’s longest-established independent research institute, also argued it would be “extremely difficult” to cut immigration sharply should the UK leave the EU. However, in a separate report, a group of leading economists took an opposing view to NIESR on trade, arguing that free trade with the rest of the world would flourish should the UK leave the EU. The Economists for Brexit argued that outside the EU, the UK would no longer be tied into the protectionist trade agreement that EU membership amounts to. Growth and productivity would rise, and consumers would benefit from a fall in prices. One of the reports’ authors, Prof Patrick Minford, a former economics adviser to Lady Thatcher and professor of economics at Cardiff University, dismissed George Osborne’s claim that Brexit would damage trade and the UK economy as “a load of complete nonsense”. In a scathing review of the Treasury’s Brexit analysis, he added: “Mr Osborne is very proud of it. It’s dishonest and condescending. It treats us like fools and aims to terrify us. There’s absolutely no reason to believe any of the stuff in the Treasury report. It’s completely riddled and raddled with basic problems of economic logic.” Minford said key figures including President Barack Obama and the Bank of England governor, Mark Carney, were part of the “establishment view” that remaining in the EU would be better for the UK. He said the view was partly driven by a fear of change. “There is a tendency to favour the status quo. This is a disruptive change, free trade is disruptive. I think there is a natural bias among government bodies and international bodies to favour the status quo over disruption. Disruption means change and it could mean change to their own positions. It’s what you’d expect.” Minford said the US was opposed to Brexit because “they like to have their UK dog in the fight”. The chancellor claims the government would lose £36bn in net tax receipts in the event of Brexit, equivalent to 8p on the basic rate of income tax or 7p on VAT. He said each UK household would be poorer to the tune of £4,300 a year. The Treasury also estimated that under a World Trade Organisation model, Britain’s GDP would decline by 7.5%. The Economists for Brexit reject this, arguing that leaving the EU would improve GDP by 4%. The group of eight economists have also calculated that consumers would benefit from an 8% fall in prices. They estimate that over the longer term, the pound would fall in value by about 8%, which they describe as a positive change. A weaker pound makes UK goods cheaper abroad but imports more expensive. Minford conceded that market volatility would likely follow a vote to leave the EU, but said: “This economy can take it. It has a lot of resilience.” He added that the UK economy would look different following a possible Brexit, with a quickening decline in manufacturing and an even greater reliance on the services sector, which already accounts for about three-quarters of the UK economy. “Manufacturing has contracted from 30% of GDP in 1970 to 10% or so today. That’s the long-run trend, it’s contracting anyway. Hi-tech manufacturing, which is really like services, will not disappear. “That is the future of manufacturing in the UK. What’s going on in this model is that the unskilled labour-intensive manufacturing is going to contract. That’s a long-run trend and [Brexit] will hasten it.”
Black tie and Brexit: Osborne takes the Remain case to Mansion House George Osborne’s critics sense that his reputation as a master tactician is unravelling. His “omnishambles” budget of 2012 was a clue to the limits of his powers. More recently, he entered the battlefield in the EU referendum with all guns blazing, only to run out of ammunition weeks before the vote. Analysts were bemused that the chancellor and the prime minister had fired all their shots before most people had woken up to the fact that a referendum was even taking place. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development waded back into the debate earlier this month to remind voters that its calculations, and those of all economic forecasters, were that Britain would suffer badly from leaving the EU. Angel Gurría, the Paris-based organisation’s boss, repeated the warning last week, though he had nothing new to say. On Thursday the chancellor has the opportunity to resurrect the Remain camp’s faltering campaign to keep Britain in Europe when he takes the podium at the Mansion House to make his annual speech to City grandees. Without any extra cards to play, he will attempt to demolish Boris Johnson’s claim that money used to fund the EU can be diverted to the NHS and other vital public services. He will repeat the Treasury’s own calculations that households could lose £4,300 on average by 2030 from a cut in the UK’s likely growth rate of 6%. “The conclusion is clear for Britain’s economy and for families – leaving the EU would be the most extraordinary self-inflicted wound,” he has said. Only he will need to go further. Taking the forecast from the Institute for Fiscal Studies that Brexit could generate a £40bn black hole in the government’s finances, he will tell the massed ranks of City executives that the impact of such a shortfall will be disastrous for the NHS. How, he will ask, when he has already cut all other services to the bone, can the ringfenced NHS and schools budgets now survive intact? It will be Project Fear writ large. But that is essentially a message for wavering Labour voters, fearful that a vital public service will be threatened by a Brexit vote. City bankers, on the other hand, will probably be more interested to hear the night’s other speaker, the Bank of England governor Mark Carney. He is a staunch supporter of the chancellor’s anti-Brexit campaign on the basis that the Bank’s research shows it will undermine the UK’s recovery. Worse, the immediate aftermath of a Brexit vote will test the bank’s powers to keep the financial system from going into meltdown. Carney has secured a reputation as much the most trusted among the custodians of the UK’s financial system. Purdah rules will prevent him from saying more on the subject before the vote, but Osborne will want to project an image of the governor standing next to him both physically and in the fight against a Leave vote that would launch a voyage into the unknown. There are plenty of hedge-fund managers and private-equity investors, most of them based in London’s Mayfair, that welcome any chance to cut regulations and bureaucratic red tape. They see Brussels as out of tune with their concerns relative to the more accommodating UK Treasury. It is this group Osborne will be under pressure to address. Unfortunately, he can’t threaten that a post-Brexit Treasury would be no more compliant than it is now – because he almost certainly would no longer be chancellor.
Summertime review – potent romance There’s a lovely moment, right at the beginning of this romantic drama, where farmer’s daughter Delphine (Izïa Higelin) climbs off her tractor, grabs a handful of hay and appreciatively buries her nose in it. Later, she talks excitedly of the feel of the soil in the south of France compared to the waterlogged Limousin, where she was raised. It’s little character details like these that sharpen the edges of this 1970s-set love story between Delphine and Parisian teacher and feminist campaigner Carole (Cécile de France). And it’s Delphine’s deep connection with the countryside that eventually forces her to make an impossible choice, between her love and the land. Although it lacks the in-your-face intimacy of Blue Is the Warmest Colour, there is a sensuality here that is no less persuasive. Carole and Delphine luxuriate in each other’s company. It’s a symbiotic relationship, which combines a sexual awakening for Carole and a political awakening for Delphine. Although the brisk narrative is less sprawling and unpredictable, the film shares something of the piercing sense of time and place of Olivier Assayas’s Something in the Air. Both films capture those precarious moments in which the balance of a life can change for ever on the strength of one fateful choice. The film’s main failing is the highly conventional and melodramatic score, which seems discordant with the rebellious spirits of the characters.
The view on EU migration after Brexit: May must tell us what she wants There are plenty of reasons why Theresa May’s press conference in Hangzhou, while perfectly competent in most ways, was not the most assured performance of her two-month premiership. She was, after all, attending her first top-level international summit with a group of more practised peers. She had arrived to find many of the G20 leaders in hostile and sceptical mood over Britain’s Brexit vote. She was about to have a sticky encounter over nuclear power with China’s president, Xi Jinping. She had not faced the British press since becoming prime minister. It would have taken someone with the rhinoceros hide of a Keith Vaz not to display a few nerves in such circumstances. Yet the main reason why Mrs May found herself on the back foot on Monday was wholly political not personal. On her way to China she had told the travelling press that the points-based immigration system promoted by the Vote Leave campaign during the EU referendum might not work. On Monday in Hangzhou, speaking from bitter experience from her time as home secretary, she amplified her sceptical view, saying that the trouble with points-based systems is that they take away migration control from governments by allowing people who meet the criteria to have automatic rights of entry. This stance was important for two reasons. First, it marked a clear break from the position adopted by the Vote Leave campaign, which had put a points-based system at the core of its immigration argument. This therefore puts Mrs May potentially at odds with Leavers in her own cabinet and party, including the trade secretary, Liam Fox, and Brexit secretary, David Davis, who campaigned for such a system. It also drew Nigel Farage back in front of the radio microphones and TV cameras – hasn’t he retired to get his life back? – to accuse her of betraying Brexit voters. Second, it marked the conclusive arrival in the Brexit argument of a phrase that will soon start to haunt Mrs May unless and until she can deliver on it. The electorate voted to leave the EU, she said, because they wanted “some control” over migration from within the EU into the UK. Later, she varied it a little: “an element of control” which could be delivered in “various ways”. Faraway in the House of Commons on Monday, Mr Davis, in a generally anodyne statement on Brexit, confirmed it yet again. If politics was a respectful process in which voters allowed a government the luxury of honing its positions on big issues over time, a phrase like this might not matter too much. Since politics does not work like that, however, and since immigration is a toxic issue, the phrase matters. By rejecting the points system Mrs May puts pressure on herself to define the alternative. This will matter to Brexit voters, many of whom cast their votes because of immigration, real and imaginary. Their wish was for a lot of control, not some. And it will matter to pro-Brexit press campaigners, full of self-confidence now, who know weasel words when they hear them. They will press the issue until Mrs May reveals how much control is some. Mrs May has made her own luck this year, with spectacular rewards. She had another piece of luck on Monday, when junior doctors called off the first of their new waves of industrial action, in a dispute on which Mrs May has been unbending. But she will need to tell a lot of people very soon what she means by “some control” if she is not to become a hostage to the ambiguity of the phrase. Mrs May said she would look at all forms of immigration, presumably including non-EU, before reaching a decision, while Mr Davis hinted that existing EU nationals in the UK would be able to stay. Nevertheless, a government that has staked its credibility on delivering Brexit, and that has put migration control at the top of its Brexit goals, is running a serious political risk if it does not come up pretty quickly with a solution that will satisfy its voters and activists. Important though it is, immigration is not the only issue here. Brexit is not a tactical issue. It is as large a strategic issue for the country as can be imagined in peacetime. As Mr Davis told MPs on Monday, even remain supporters have an interest in the government doing as good a job as circumstances permit. The increasing worry now, from both sides of the Brexit argument, is that Mrs May doesn’t actually have a plan at all, and that she is pressing forward into the fog without a clear enough idea of her detailed goals. “You don’t know what you’re doing” is a chant from the political terraces that would spell bad news for Mrs May.
Why stuntwomen are in more danger than men They perform mind-blowing stunts dressed in clothes as flimsy as paper doilies and are forced to meet Hollywood’s demands for ever-shrinking waistlines without losing the muscles they depend on for work. Meet cinema’s small but dedicated community of stuntwomen: because of the skimpy clothes they have to wear, they put themselves in more danger than their male colleagues. But it’s all part of their day job. Tammie Baird is Hollywood’s go-to stuntwoman for car hits. She’s appeared in Fast & Furious, Chris Brown’s Next 2 You music video, and NCIS: LA. She’s been smashed into windshields, bounced off bonnets and slammed into the tarmac – more often than not wearing a tight dress and heels. When Baird got her first role, in Mr & Mrs Smith, she went shopping for stunt gear “like a guy”. “I bought the biggest, bulkiest pads, and thought, ‘Yeah, I’m protected, nothing’s gonna get me.’ Then I saw my wardrobe – I was wearing a miniskirt.” Straight away, she says, she realised this was the deal. But there was never any question of it being a setback. She researched athletes who risk injury to their knees: female figure skaters turned out to be the best role models. Figure skaters perform pirouettes on one of the hardest, most slippery surfaces in the world, while balancing on thin blades and wearing minuscule dresses. Baird discovered they use crash pads made with gel to protect their hips, shoulders and knees from smashing against the ice. By dipping them in tea she matched the gel pads to her skin tone to make them invisible on screen. The idea has now spread throughout the stunt community. Detailed statistics comparing the on-set injuries of stuntwomen and men are not kept. Andy Armstrong runs one of the biggest stunt facility companies in the world and has created gravity-defying sequences in some of the top action films of the last 25 years, including Total Recall, Charlie’s Angels and Thor. “There are a lot more men performing stunts than there are women,” he says. “It’s very disproportionate: on any movie you’ll end up with mostly men doing the action. You won’t get many movies where there are lots and lots of women.” Studios are wary of discussing the specifics of injury rates, but Armstrong stresses they employ safety officers whose job it is to make sure actors don’t fly around in cherry pickers without a harness. They recognise the extra risks women face because “unless they’re playing athletic nuns, they’re going be less covered than men”. Baird says she was lucky to have veteran stunt performers mentor her. Take Dayna Grant, a leading stuntwoman from New Zealand who has doubled for Charlize Theron twice (in Mad Max: Fury Road and Snow White and the Huntsman), Tilda Swinton (The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe), and Lucy Lawless (Xena: Warrior Princess). Throughout her 22-year career she never questioned the fact that men have the benefit of being fully padded while she’s flung off galloping horses in a tight leather skirt. “It’s just what needs to be done for film. It’s not life-threatening; it just hurts a lot more,” she says. Grant once did have a serious accident, caused largely by her footwear. “They were very slippery, feminine shoes. I slipped on a hill and I got impaled by a dagger, through my head. I ended up going into cardiac arrest and I was a bit of a mess.” The dagger went through her cheek, both nasal cavities, and fractured the back of her left eye socket. It wasn’t anyone’s fault, but as a stunt co-ordinator herself she makes sure her crew are able to work with the shoes they’re given, otherwise they’ll get special footwear. The pressure for women actors to inhabit a figure that’s only sustainable in Photoshop trickles down to their stunt doubles too. Crash dieting is common if they’re needed to double a particularly twig-like performer at short notice. Baird says: “It breaks my heart whenever I hear someone’s starving themselves, whether to double an actress or just because a bully wants them to be thinner.” She says she wouldn’t take a role to double for someone who’s suddenly lost a drastic amount of weight. Unfortunately for those with less choice over parts, such weight loss can have a damaging effect on their ability to perform. “If we lose our muscle tone then we’re no good to the actress,” Baird says. Melanie Wise, founder of the Artemis Women in Action film festival, devotes her career to supporting empowering female roles in action movies. “All the stuntwomen I’ve personally met are beautifully built. They’re athletic, they’re muscular, but they don’t look like women on steroids. They’re very fit and trim, and I’m sitting here thinking: ‘OK, they want them to be thinner?’” Stunt performers’ acting skills also go largely unnoticed. For each job, they have to study the body language of the actor they’re doubling and look for quirks in their movements so they can copy them exactly: you should never notice them, after all. It’s precisely because of these talents that they haven’t earned much recognition historically. Olivia Munn, starring in X-Men: Apocalypse, released last month, enraged the blogosphere when she seemed to claim she’d done all her own stunts while Julia Rekaikyna is listed as her double. But Baird says that she may well have done all the stunts she was asked to do, rather than every single physical feat her character Psylocke performs. Neither Baird nor Grant are bothered when actors take the credit for their stunts. In fact they categorically say their job is simply to make them look good. But it does ruffle feathers among some members of the stunt community, and Grant believes this is happening more and more because newer generations want their work to be recognised. Stunt co-ordinators are campaigning for an official category at the Oscars, while the Taurus world stunt awards have been honouring stunt performers since 2001. At least the gender pay gap doesn’t apply to stuntwomen. Men and women get paid the same daily rate, and on top of that they get “adjustments” for the more dangerous scenes. When Baird is hired she discusses how much she gets per car hit for example, and if she thinks the rate is too low she negotiates. New Zealand goes one better, paying women more than men because they take into account their lack of protection – as do a few stunt co-ordinators around the world, including Armstrong. “I think women are amazing,” says Baird. “There’s nothing a woman can’t do hands down.” Men get hurt too – “Even a man who’s doing a stunt with big bulky clothes, I guarantee that if he’s doing a stair fall, the pointiest part of the stair will find the one spot that he does not have padding on” – it’s just that they’ve been given the luxury of protection. Women have had to seek it out themselves.
Are you the person to run the Queen’s Twitter account? Name: @BritishMonarchy. Appearance: Stuffy-chic. Age: Seven years. I’m no historian, but I’m pretty sure I remember there being a British monarchy more than seven years ago. Oh, it’s more than 1,000 years old, dear boy. What we’re talking about, however, is @BritishMonarchy, the Queen’s Twitter account, which was started in April 2009. Ah. I thought she was @Queen_UK? No, that’s what’s known as a parody account. Some comedian pretends to be the Queen in order to crack jokes and sell T-shirts. I see. Actually, that explains quite a lot. Is @BritishMonarchy obsessed with gin as well? Not really. It’s more obsessed with the royal family visiting dull things. Ah yes. I’ve just checked. At the moment, it seems to be obsessed with bandstands and commemorative plaques. Yeah, that’s about right. Although it could all change soon. How come? The palace is advertising for a new head of digital engagement. What’s that? It’s someone to run its website, YouTube channel, Facebook page and Twitter account. The job pays an annual salary of £45,000-£50,000. I’m their man! I’m great at the Facebook. Really? Can you find “new ways to maintain the Queen’s presence in the public eye and on the world stage”? Instagramming corgis? Spat with Kanye? Sex tape? Um ... Are you at least “a natural communicator, influential and with a genuine user focus”? Oh, definitely. People are always saying how genuine my user focus is. “You’ll liaise with a broad spectrum of stakeholders on a daily basis and will drive change through collaboration.” Are you sure you can handle that? Where’s the joy in liaising with stakeholders if you can’t do it every day? I suppose. One thing: I have a gender and an ethnicity, which I’m worried may go against me at the interview stage. That won’t be a problem. The monarchy are “proud to champion diversity throughout the organisation”. They say: “Our approach to recruitment and selection is fair, open and based purely on merit.” A hereditary monarchy that is committed to recruitment purely on merit? Is there a problem with that? Not that I can see. Excellent. Do say: “Where does one see oneself in five years’ time?” Don’t say: “Any chance of the House of Lords?”
From Super Furry Animals to Avicii – the best (and worst) Euro 2016 singles At last the day has come when Europe gets to treat itself to several weeks of unremarkable group games, before erupting into two rounds of cagey knockout games, before a dull final crowns the whole affair. Yes, it’s Euro 2016 time and, as with every international football tournament, there were a load of people who thought it would be a really good idea to record a single for it. Or, even worse, an “official anthem”. But who fares best? We’ve listened to some of the pre-tournament favours – and this is the verdict. Wales: Manic Street Preachers – Together Stronger (C’mon Wales) Rock music and football stadiums go together. It’s just a fact. Otherwise we wouldn’t have stadium rock. And Manic Street Preachers, as a Welsh band who play football stadiums in Wales, were a natural fit for the official Welsh anthem for Euro 2016. What we like about Together Stronger (C’mon Wales) is that it manages to include all the Manics’ traditional songwriting tricks into an official football song. Lyrics shoehorned into bars that don’t quite contain them? Check. Randomly inserted list? Check. References to history? Check. And injustice? Check. Possibly obscure to many listeners? Check. “Joe Jordan won with his hand / Russia was Giggsy’s last chance / Paul Bodin’s penalty miss / That ’85 night was so tragic.” That’s the Manic Street Preachers and football, right there. Verdict: finalists France: Skip the Use – I Was Made For Lovin’ You (My Team) In 1979, Kiss disgusted their hardcore fans, the Kiss Army, by discarding clunky rock guitars and lyrics about slowly robbing you of your virgin soul and recording a disco song, I Was Made For Lovin’ You. In 2016, the French FA disgusted their team’s hardcore fans by recording exactly the same song, though the disgust was caused for different reasons: the song is sung in English, by the group Skip the Use, who apparently used to play punk. Not that you can tell from this. The greater sin, though, is what they’ve done with the song. Which is: almost nothing. Except change the word “baby” to “my team” and “girl” to team. Hence the alarming opening verse: “Tonight I want to give it all to you / In the darkness / There’s so much I want to do / And tonight I wanna lay it at your feet / ’Cos team, I was made for you / And team, you were made for me.” Which all makes it sound like Skip the Use are planning the kind of event you can find on extremely specialist websites, rather than going to a football match. Verdict: group stage Wales: Super Furry Animals – Bing Bong Wales might have only one world-class player, in the form of Gareth Bale. But they have by some distance the strongest squad in the musical tournament, with Super Furry Animals providing the flair alongside the solid workrate and commitment of Manic Street Preachers. Not only that, but they emerged with their first new music in seven years for the Euros. “It’s not the most obvious song, but it kinda hits the nail on the head – it’s got the chants, it’s got the tempo changes like you get on the terraces, it’s got a singalongability,” said the group’s Cian Ciaran. “You never know, but sometimes the most unlikely songs make it onto the terraces.” Now, we suspect – from decades of going to football – that this is unlikely to be sung by 30,000 people at a match any time soon. Unless the lager has been dosed with acid. But it doesn’t stop Bing Bong being the only one of these songs you’ll want to listen to once Euro 2016 has ended. Verdict: champions England: Four Lions – We Are England Leaving aside the unfortunate coincidence of the group name being the same as that of Chris Morris’s black comedy about some hapless Islamic fundamentalists, there’s something grimly predictable about this collaboration between Shaun Ryder, Kermit, Paul Oakenfold and Goldie (with a bit of Bez in the video). What’s grimly predictable is the bullishness of its version of being an England football fan – “We’re England ’til we die, until we die, until we die” – and the fact that it sounds as if it recorded in 1996, when Ryder and Kermit were making the Euro 96 song England’s Irie with Black Grape. Except England’s Irie, even 20 years on, still sounds a whole lot fresher and more forward looking than We Are England (“My wife’s lactating and I’m spectating, it’s a football thing,” remains the unlikeliest lyric ever in a football song). Nevertheless, it’s recognisably a record made by people who actually like music, so it get plus points for that. Verdict: knockout stages Uefa: David Guetta featuring Zara Larsson – This One’s For You The official song of the entire tournament unites the French automaton of dance pop with this year’s breakout Scandi sensation. And opens with: “We were born to fly / So let’s start living / ’Til it all falls down.” Those are not reassuring words for those concerned with stadium safety. Aside from that, the Uefa “anthem” is exactly what you’d expect: self-consciously uplifting, full of nonsensical but sort-of relevant lyrics. And then, for no apparent reason, it has a weird chipmunk-voiced section after each chorus. It sounds like it took a good 10 minutes to write, another 15 to record – exactly like every other self-consciously uplifting “anthem” ever composed for a sporting event, in fact. Verdict: group stages Northern Ireland: DJ Kenno – Will Grigg’s on Fire This one isn’t an official track. In fact, it’s an oddly heartwarming story. A Wigan fan called Sean Kennedy made up a chant for the club’s striker, Will Grigg, based on Gala’s 1995 hit Freed from Desire. The chant transcended England’s northwest, becoming a staple of the Northern Ireland supporters. Then it became a meme, with the song dubbed on top of footage of others clubs’ players celebrating. Or ants circling. And then the production duo Blonde and singer Zak Abel stepped in, turning the chant into a single, which was No 51 in the midweek charts this week. Sadly, the eventual record lacks the charm of the backstory, and the joy of supporters singing the chant. Verdict: group stages Republic of Ireland: Seo Linn – The Irish Roar It’s perhaps germane to tell you that the Irish band Seo Linn’s breakthrough was scoring a YouTube hit with a Hibernification of Avicii’s Wake Me Up. And so the official Irish song for Euro 2016 is as doggedly Irish as Four Lions’ effort is doggedly English: all swirling fiddles and pipes amid the peat bogs, even as they proclaim: “And now we’re on our way down the Champs Elysée / The Euros gonna hear the Irish roar.” We’re a little concerned about their reference to driving down the autobahn to watch Ireland’s games in the 2012 Euros in Poland and Ukraine, which suggests an approach to European politics popular in Berlin in 1939. Aside from that, utterly inoffensive. Verdict: group stages Coca-Cola: Avicii v Conrad Sewell – Taste the Feeling It’s not only football teams and sporting kleptocracies who have official tournament anthems these days. So, to, do tournament sponsors. And so Coca-Cola in March revealed that Avicii, in company with the unknown Australian singer Conrad Sewell – would that it could have been Brian Sewell – would be fronting Taste the Feeling, the soft drink giant’s official tournament anthem. It gets better. The project was put together in conjunction with a company called Deviant Ventures, who help identify the right songs for Coke campaigns. Never heard of them? “Deviant Ventures is an innovation incubator … We like to think we are agents of deviance and strive to help others take a measurable step away from the norm … We like chasing the rabbit of curiosity to make what seems impossible a possible business venture … Think of deviance as an innovation virus, one that infects the status quo, changing traditional thinking at a cellular, primal level.” The job title of the man who announced this song was “chief of possibilities”. If you even want to hear the track after reading that, look at your soul. Verdict: disqualified before the tournament because Deviant Ventures are so up themselves Germany: Felix Jaehn und Herbert Grönemeyer – Jeden für Jeden On the bright side, it’s not identikit four-to-the-floor eurodance. In fact the skittering rhythm makes it seems oddly unlike a football anthem. You can’t bounce up and down to this at all. You can stand to attention, and that’s about it. It’s possible Google Translate isn’t the best tool for working out what the lyrics mean, but please, oh please, let the translation of the chorus be correct, for who could resist: “And the quake, which you entrain where happiness pulsates / This is called life and the head turns to euphoria.” Quite, dear boy, quite. Verdict: Knockout stages
Raleigh Ritchie's playlist: Laura Mvula, Hozier, Sarah Blasko and more Tiggs Da Author – Run (feat Lady Leshurr) Tiggs has managed to make what could essentially have been a retread of Tequila by The Champs and made it this effortlessly cool and joyful song. It’s not a disposable song either; I particularly like the line: “You can call me pussy / pussy is power.” Hozier – Work Song Hozier’s a good writer. I think he’s more interesting than most of the other contemporary semi-blues artists around at the moment. I guess it’s melodically similar to Take Me to Church, but it’s still very theatrical and evocative. Louis the Child – It’s Strange (feat K Flay) This is wavy. It makes you bop your head, and all comes alive at the 1m18s point. Laura Mvula – Overcome (feat Nile Rodgers) I love how undefinable Laura Mvula’s music is, and this single is no exception. It doesn’t sound like anything else. Even the inclusion of Nile Rodgers doesn’t feel tired because of how she uses him. The track doesn’t sound like a disco song at all – it’s much subtler and sparser than the recent slew of Chic-a-likes. Sarah Blasko – I’d Be Lost This is a proper funky little toe-tapper with really pretty synths. I don’t even know what the wuh-wuh sound is in the verse but I want to be friends with it.
Hillary Clinton's message to Republicans: 'You reap what you sow' Hillary Clinton has a message for Republicans bemoaning the rise of Donald Trump: “You reap what you sow.” In a speech on Monday, the former secretary of state blamed Republicans’ obstructionism, which she said fomented Trump’s incendiary campaign. “Donald Trump didn’t come out of nowhere,” Clinton said in a speech at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “What Republicans have sown with their extremist tactics, they’re now reaping with Trump’s candidacy.” “Once you make the extreme normal, you open the door to even worse,” she added. In the speech, Clinton asked voters to consider – “as scary as it might be” – who Trump might pick to fill the supreme court vacancy after the death of Justice Antonin Scalia in February. The president has nominated Judge Merrick Garland, but Republican leadership has refused to even grant him a hearing. Clinton singled out Senate judiciary committee chairman Chuck Grassley of Iowa who, along with Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, have committed to keeping Garland from having a hearing. The Republicans have argued that the next president should pick Scalia’s replacement on the bench. She quoted Grassley, who has said that allowing Obama to pick the nominee is in effect denying voters a voice in shaping the supreme court. “As one of the more than 65 million Americans who voted to re-elect Barack Obama, I’d say my voice is being ignored,” Clinton argued. Then, she said: “I’m adding my voice to the chorus asking Senator Grassley to step up and do his job. He should hold a hearing.” In the speech, Clinton articulated why she believed Democrats should make the supreme court vacancy a voting issue, noting that the next president will likely make two or three more additional nominations to the bench during the next four years. Clinton invoked the seminal 1965 supreme court case Griswold v Connecticut that effectively decided a woman’s right to use birth control. A young high school student at the time, Clinton said the case underscored the role the nation’s highest court played in expanding – or restricting – the rights of America’s most vulnerable and marginalized people. “For a long time now the ideological bent of the court has led our country in the wrong direction, stacking the deck in favor of the wealthy and powerful,” Clinton said. She promised to appoint justices who would expand civil and human rights, and cited the supreme court’s role in legalizing same-sex marriage. “That decision is the latest reminder of what the court can do when it stands for equality, or against it. When it makes America a fairer place, or rolls back the progress we’ve worked so hard to achieve,” she said. “It depends on what the court decides, and it depends on who’s deciding.” Clinton is campaigning in Wisconsin ahead of the state’s primary on 5 April, where she will try to end Bernie Sanders’ hot streak. The senator from Vermont has picked up momentum after winning five out of the past six Democratic nominating contests. His string of victories over the weekend has erupted into a testy exchange between the Democratic rivals, whose campaigns held dueling press calls on Monday, over whether Sanders has a viable path forward. “While Hillary Clinton is the clear frontrunner … she has emerged as a weak frontrunner,” Sanders’ strategist Tad Devine told reporters on a conference call on Monday. Hours later, Clinton’s top strategist, Joel Benenson, told reporters that the former secretary of state’s lead was “nearly insurmountable” and that there “simply is not enough real estate left” for Sanders to close the pledged-delegate gap.
Terence Davies' Emily Dickinson biopic to premiere at Berlin film festival The Berlin film festival has announced that A Quiet Passion, the much-anticipated biopic of American poet Emily Dickinson, directed by Terence Davies and starring Cynthia Nixon, is to receive its world premiere at the festival. Davies had already finished shooting A Quiet Passion before the release of Sunset Song, the Lewis Grassic Gibbon adaptation that re-established the British auteur as a major creative force. Nixon, best known for her role in Sex and the City, plays Dickinson, who wrote hundreds of poems but saw only seven published during her lifetime. Dickinson died in 1886 aged 55, in Amherst, Massachusetts, the town where she had spent almost all her life. A Quiet Passion’s world premiere is one of a series of gala screenings Berlin has recently announced, which include world premieres of Japanese thriller Creepy (directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa) and Swedish romantic drama A Serious Game (directed by Pernilla August), as well as the international premiere of the Don Cheadle-directed Miles Davis biopic Miles Ahead. The Berlin film festival opens on 11 February with the already announced screening of the Coen brothers’ Hail Caesar!
The playlist: Billy Bragg and Joe Henry’s favourite travel songs Billy Bragg’s choices 2-4-6-8 Motorway – Tom Robinson Band One for anybody who has ever sat in the back of a transit van driving home from a gig 100 miles away, following their dreams down the M whatever. Willin’ – Little Feat If you live on the road, you better be willing. And like the best travel songs, the lyrics to this make you want to visit these exotic-sounding places: “Tucson to Tucumcari, Tehachapi to Tonapah.” Promised Land – Johnnie Allan Chuck Berry wrote this tale of the “poor boy”, crossing America from Norfolk, Virginia, to Los Angeles by Greyhound bus, train and jet plane. Johnnie Allan’s Cajun-flavoured version gives us a taste of that epic swing through the south. Talk to Me of Mendocino – Kate and Anna McGarrigle Some travel to work, some to play and some to find a new beginning. The McGarrigles fall into the latter category, packing their bags and heading west in the hope of better times. Roadrunner (Once) – Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers This hymn to the joys of driving around all night says it’s not the destination that is important, it’s the journey. Especially if you have the radio on. Joe Henry’s choices Come Fly With Me – Frank Sinatra The ultimate travel song, perhaps, from the freewheelin’ Francis Albert Sinatra, who envisions that it matters not where he and his lover go, as long as they get gone together. Pony – Tom Waits One of the saddest songs in the American songbook, sung from the perspective of the vagabond whose life has taken him so far away from all that informs him, he can’t imagine his way back. He’s clinging to blind faith and circumstance, and it may yet lead him on. This song is just pitiful – and gorgeous. Wanted Man – Johnny Cash Rangy and lusty, this song – written for Johnny Cash by his young acolyte Bob Dylan, and performed at his seminal live show at San Quentin State prison – makes being on the run from the law (and a concerned mother or two) seem sexy and liberating. As a bonus, it contains one of the best lines of the era: “Got sidetracked in El Paso, stopped to get myself a map / Came the wrong way into Juárez with Juanita on my lap.” Sail Away – Randy Newman Wherein a ship’s captain pitches to African natives on the pleasures of the new world. Bitterly revealing of this nation’s darkest impulses, and all in under three minutes. The same might have taken Herman Melville 300 pages to express. Leaving on a Jet Plane – Peter, Paul and Mary A confection from my youth. It has been easy to shrug off John Denver as a significant songwriter, given how soft-focus he remained while Rome was burning and Mr Jones was playing sword-swallower at Warhol’s Factory. Nonetheless, this is tender and deftly rendered. • Shine a Light: Field Recordings from the Great American Railroad is released on 23 September via Cooking Vinyl. Billy Bragg and Joe Henry tour the UK in November.
Iowa state senator is first elected official to leave Republican party over Trump The Iowa state senator David Johnson became the first elected official to leave the Republican party over Donald Trump on Tuesday, likening the presumptive nominee’s campaign to the rise of Adolf Hitler. Johnson announced that he was changing his registration to No Party after Trump levelled accusations of bias at Judge Gonzalo Curiel, an American judge of Mexican heritage who allowed the release of some unflattering documents from a case against Trump University. “I haven’t supported Mr Trump at any point along the way but what I am calling his racist remarks and judicial jihad is the last straw,” Johnson told the . Johnson compared Trump’s run for the Republican nomination to the rise of Hitler and said Trump won “by reducing his campaign to reality TV and large crowds and divisive language and all the trappings of a good show for those who like that kind of approach, and that’s what happened in the 1930s in Germany”. He added: “I think that’s all I need to say, but certainly the fascists took control of Germany under the same types of strategies.” Johnson also condemned Trump’s proposed ban on Muslims entering the US. Referencing his own father, who was in the first American unit to liberate a Nazi prison camp, Johnson said: “I was raised without hearing any racial slur, any racial epithet. It’s something that if we’re going to exclude Muslims from traveling to the United States, who’s next? Are we going to come down on Jews? ... He’s not fit to be president.” Johnson also expressed his concern that there was “definitely an innate bigotry” among a large share of Trump voters. “It really hurts for me to say that, but it’s true,” he said. The former Republican was still hopeful that the GOP would “dump Trump” at the convention in Cleveland. “I want to be among those in the party who are willing to live up to Republican principles,” Johnson said. He also echoed other anti-Trump Republicans in their frustration with the choices presented in the election. “With Mr Trump and Secretary Clinton, is this really the best the country can do?” Johnson asked. “Is this where we are at, and what does that say about where we are as a people and where we are as a republic, not even 250 years from our founding?” Johnson also condemned his former fellow Republicans such as Paul Ryan, who, he said, were willing to denounce Trump’s comments as racist, but who would still vote for him. “That’s insanity,” Johnson said. “I don’t know how else you put it. I don’t understand what people don’t see happening here.” Johnson, who has served 18 years in the state legislature, was first elected to the state senate in 2002 after two terms in the state house. He first supported Rick Perry and then Carly Fiorina in this year’s Iowa caucuses, and expressed comfort with his decision to leave his party. Johnson said he didn’t know how his constituents were going to react to his decision, but he said he thought he had a responsibility to them to show “leadership and statesmanship” and “take that first big step”. “I am taking a stand and feel good about it,” he said.
Housing needs will be pushed to one side in the confusion over Brexit As results of the EU referendum unfolded, the areas that had voted to leave caught my eye. Not for the numbers returned – but because I’d visited so many of them in recent years, notebook in hand, writing about poverty. Coastal towns, former steel and mining areas, now desolate villages stacked with rows of small family homes, almost entirely jobless. The coastal towns in particular, including once-popular holiday destinations Blackpool, Torbay and Tendring, are now suffering extreme poverty and their own housing crisis, with far more people in private rented accommodation claiming housing benefit than those in social housing. In housing terms, two claims jumped out for me during the campaign. The argument that house prices would fall if the country exited the EU presumed that all voters would consider this a terrible occurrence: not everyone is a home-owner, and many people, myself included, believe some correction to the market is both necessary and desirable. But the old tabloid adage that because of immigration people struggle to find or afford housing, as well as to get a GP appointment, seemed to be foremost in many people’s minds. If there are more people sleeping on the street in your area, that’s because of cuts – to the public sector, to housing departments, to homelessness shelters and services. If you struggle to get a medical appointment that’s because the NHS is stretched to the limit thanks to “restructuring”, not because of EU migration. The areas most likely to benefit from EU structural funding voted predominantly to leave: Wales, Cornwall and the post-industrial north have seen millions of pounds of investment targeted in the most deprived wards and towns. The argument that EU membership costs more than the amount injected into areas of high deprivation only rings true if you believe the Conservatives would happily spend money on Rotherham rather than a Tory safe seat. Nigel Farage hasn’t even had time for a post-result nap, yet is already disowning the Leave campaign claim, emblazoned on buses and billboards, that the purported £350m a week spent on EU membership will be spent instead on the NHS. With the poorest councils already suffering disproportionate cuts, and the pound collapsing, we may well have driven our economy into a wall – and as in 2008, the poorest will suffer. So what happens now? Britain withdraws and becomes more insular in outlook. With 12% of those working in construction migrants from the EU and with the construction industry already struggling to keep up with demand, any drop in skilled migrants will hit Britain’s ability to build. As the pound tanked to a level not seen since 1985, private developers saw their share prices hit: worrying given the focus on private rather than social building in recent budgets. Britain is now in freefall, with the prime minister having resigned, a shock withdrawal from the European Union, and nothing certain aside from the fact the coming months will yield endless negotiations on the exit, and the coronation of a new Tory leader. Meanwhile, housing will be pushed to one side in terms of political attention. Those who voted to “take back control” may find increasingly there’s very little to control in their lives. Analysts are already predicting a drop in supply of new homes, due to market volatility, predicted slowdown on skilled migration flows and share price drops for developers. At this stage, it seems unlikely that the government’s target of one million new homes built by 2020 will materialise, putting further strain on the UK’s housing system – the needs of people outside of the south east, where empty homes are a problem, as is affording rent, are likely to fall by the wayside in the pursuit of easy profit from house-building. In 1981, Margaret Thatcher was encouraged to evacuate Merseyside, believing the area to be beyond saving: EU funding played a huge part in the slow regeneration of Liverpool. Visiting the centre now, it is transformed: there are still problems in Toxteth and the north of the city, but the improvement has been vast. A Britain that goes it alone, especially under the Conservatives, is far less likely to invest in areas where council funding has already been cut and that means that when it comes to housing, health and public services, those towns voting Brexit may well find the idea to cut areas of high deprivation loose is floated again. Join the Housing Network to read more pieces like this. Follow us on Twitter (@ Housing) and like us on Facebook to keep up with the latest social housing news and views.
Brexit, the judiciary and the royal prerogative When the high court ruled on the use of the royal prerogative in relation to triggering article 50 we saw an unprecedented attack on the judiciary. Independent judges were labelled “enemies of the people” by the Daily Mail, and publicly lambasted for simply doing their job. It is the duty of judges to impartially interpret the law, and it is the duty of the lord chancellor, Liz Truss, to unequivocally defend the law. As the supreme court ruling on the use of the royal prerogative approaches, we hope the lord chancellor will not be so shy this time around to vocally defend the independent judiciary. The people of the UK voted to leave the EU, and this process must be carried out with integrity. Crucially, in exiting the EU we must not undermine our existing democratic structures, or inadvertently weaken the checks and balances on government. An independent and transparent judiciary is a cornerstone of our democracy, acting as an essential check on power – in this case the very matter at hand is where decision-making powers lie. If our judicial system becomes subject to the whims of politicians and those who shout the loudest, we risk constitutional chaos. The supreme court’s judgment will no doubt be controversial. If the government once again fails to convincingly defend the independent judiciary an alarming precedent will be set, and it will be hard to ignore the damage done to our democracy. Alexandra Runswick Director, Unlock Democracy, Stephen Bowen Director, British Institute of Human Rights, Simon Burall Director, Involve Foundation, Professor Graham Smith Director of the Centre for the Study of Democracy, University of Westminster, Professor Dibyesh Anand Head of the Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Westminster, Professor Andrew Le Sueur Professor of constitutional justice, University of Essex, Geoffrey Payne Barrister at law, 25 Bedford Row Chambers, Antony Hook Barrister at law, Great James Street Chambers • It is deeply discouraging to see Simon Jenkins (Opinion, 8 December) of all people joining the populist element currently engaged in bashing the judiciary. The supreme court in the Brexit case will not, as he says, be giving a judgment “about the utility of a one-clause bill”. They will be deciding the important constitutional question of whether the executive has the legal power to trigger article 50 or whether the law requires that it be done by parliament by statute. To go on to say that leavers “would be correct” in suspecting that “they are up against a London mafia of bad-loser judges … out to use every trick in the book to cheat the public of its decision” is a calumny. As it happens, whichever way it goes, the decision in this case will have no effect on implementation of Brexit. Michael Zander QC Emeritus professor, LSE • Simon Jenkins makes the dangerous assertion that Brexiters would be right in suspecting that “they are up against a London mafia of bad loser judges” saying that “What the judges should do instead is turn the case back on parliament”. But that’s exactly what they’ve done. Judges hear the cases brought before them. The government agreed that this was a case the courts should hear. There was no dispute that the court should decide on this tricky point of law. The government then pursued its right of appeal. So the issue is back with the supreme court. This is our system: an independent judiciary reminding parliament how legally to exercise its sovereignty – not telling MPs how to vote, just saying do it legally. It is time that Simon Jenkins, the Mail and the Telegraph realised that vilifying the judges and seeking to undermine judicial independence is a very dangerous step. The UK has a precious reputation for the rule of law and access to justice. We must not abandon that vital protection for all citizens. Diana Good London • We must not confuse democracy with mob rule. David Cameron’s commitment to enact the referendum verdict was democratic, if reckless, only because he was the prime minister. His decision does not imply that sovereignty has been transferred from the Queen-in-parliament to public opinion. If our present parliament thinks Brexit is against the national interest, it must dump it without hesitation and at the next election the public can vote accordingly, if it is still unpersuaded that parliament was right. Whatever certain journals may wish it to be, that is our democratic system. Rod Tipple Cambridge • After more than 300 years of asserting parliamentary supremacy, the ghost of royal tyranny returns to haunt us. The supreme court considers a royal prerogative to leave (Report, 6 December), but what about when we’ve left? The element of “repeal” in the misnomered great “repeal” bill will take the form of a Henry VIII clause, named for the king who, with the Statute of Proclamations 1539, made his word have the force of law. The clause will enable government ministers to repeal or amend primary legislation through a secondary act with limited or no further parliamentary scrutiny. Ministers will be handed the axe and given the chance to divorce, or behead our rights based on EU law. The Statute of Proclamations was repealed with Henry VIII’s death. This country decided that no man, not even a king, should have the power to make, amend or repeal primary legislation without parliament. Now I fear we’ll be haunted by another royal ghost even if the supreme court dismisses the current one. Joelle Grogan Department of Law, Middlesex University • You say the “urgent job” is to press for a soft Brexit, but that implies premature defeatism about the possibility of averting Brexit altogether, a challenging but still not impossible task (Editorial, 3 December). The demand for parliament or the electorate to have the final say on any agreement with the EU27 (the rest of the EU) negotiated after article 50 has been triggered is incompatible with article 50. The government’s summary of its legal case in the supreme court says “an article 50 notification is irrevocable and cannot be given conditionally”. So when the two years for negotiations are up, we’ll be out of the EU, either with an obviously unpalatable agreement, or, if our government or parliament rejects whatever agreement’s on offer, without any agreement at all – the worst possible outcome. There will be no option after the trigger to reject any agreement and remain in the EU under the existing terms. The choice between hard and soft Brexit will be made for us by the EU27 once article 50 is triggered. The task now is to convince public opinion that on the emerging evidence, mostly unavailable at the time of the referendum, any kind of achievable Brexit will be worse for ordinary working Britons than remaining in the EU and urgently tackling the grievances that led millions to vote to leave. Once Theresa May triggers article 50, it will be too late. We need to do everything possible to ensure that the trigger is postponed long enough for the British people to exercise their democratic right to change their minds and call off Brexit altogether. Brian Barder London • Simon Jenkins is mistaken in stating that “the judges should tell the MPs they caused this mess”. Our problems with the EU have longer, more deeply rooted origins than sloppy work in parliament but we are where we are and now need all the wise counsel we can get. We need it from judges, from businessmen, from social workers, from scientists – in short from the whole of the society that this decision will affect. To allow such a serious matter to be reduced to a quarrel between the nationalist and the business wings of the Tory party is a grave mistake. That is why it has been so disturbing to see the Labour party flunking its duty as an opposition and not exposing all these questions to consideration. Dr Martin Rosendaal London • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com • Read more letters – click here to visit gu.com/letters
Eleanor Friedberger: New View review – plenty of wit and mischief Eleanor Friedberger wears her creativity lightly these days. Where the output of her original band, the Fiery Furnaces, was stuffed with ideas, a mellow simplicity holds sway on her third solo record. Its musical touchstones are Neil Young and George Harrison and Friedberger’s voice is set to simple arrangements for acoustic, bass, drums and Wurlitzer organ. But if that sounds rather sedate, it shouldn’t; there’s some great hooky indie pop here and plenty of wit and mischief in the lyrics. Friedberger picks over love and relationships in ways that keep you guessing: strange flights of fancy are balanced by offbeat humour and there are startling moments of emotional directness that bring you up short.
What I learned about Europe from watching Dicte - Crime Reporter Britain will soon be going to the polls, and between the pamphlets, the rolling news, and the shoehorning of referendum debate into that most sacred of TV institutions, Countryfile, it’s clear that the British public haven’t yet had their fill of EU chatter. It’s a difficult time whichever side of the debate you find yourself on. Looking to our western and central European cousins, their quirks and foibles – which at one time seemed so exotic, so cosmopolitan, so continental – are now dry and tired. Oh Europe, your trade agreements and farming subsidies, which once may have stirred up passion, now bear down like the asthmatic wheeze of a sleeping lover on a stuffy night. The European identity has never been in greater danger, so in this special edition of The Other Side, we break new ground, and take a look where no other TV critic has before: at a Nordic crime procedural. Dicte – Crime Reporter (Friday, 9pm, More4) is currently halfway through its run, part of the Walter Presents strand of world imports. Unsurprisingly, it’s about divorced Danish crime reporter Dicte Svendsen, a woman with an amazing knack for solving the crimes she’s reporting on. Dicte has moved back from Copenhagen to her home town of Aarhus with her teenage daughter after a messy breakup. Dicte also has two female friends, Anne and Ida-Marie, who are known to meet with her and drink wine. I don’t know about you, but I haven’t quite had my fill of grey dramas about the exhausted life of a crime-solving woman. If you’re the sort of person who’ll watch any old claptrap with a strong female lead and are keen to learn the Danish for “The body is still warm” (spoiler alert: “Kroppen er stadig varm”), then Dicte really comes into her own. Dicte’s backstory is set out in the opening episode so it can be slowly picked at later in the series. As a teenager, she gave her baby up for adoption at the insistence of her religious parents, and occasionally pauses from her sleuthing to have a traumatic flashback. Not only does this arc mix nicely with the show’s themes of family and motherhood but also with the plot of this week’s double bill, as Dicte tries to bust an illegal surrogacy ring. Speaking as a woman, Dicte’s sense of injustice resonates. As a woman, people are always telling me what to do as well (“wear heels”, “be nice”, “pay taxes”, ugh). Also, as a woman, I’m biologically capable of popping a baby out of my body. So you can imagine how relatable it feels when the Aarhus police discover a dead baby in a river as Dicte looks on with her notebook and several ideas about how it got there. This river baby is only one in a long line of murky crimes to trouble Aarhus. Dicte’s ends are a veritable hotbed of nasty crimes. But for those in the throes of a Brexit-inspired identity crisis, don’t think of this as a reason for estrangement. The series began with Dicte discovering a body while having a wee round the back of some bins. An overworked single mother crouching in a dank gutter, her trail of urine leading to a corpse. There are only two places this could work. The flat, well-lit streets of Luxembourg? An-extra wide cycle path in Den Haag? No. A rough corner of Denmark and a side-street of the Bigg Market, Newcastle. It might not be pretty but, in this moment, the connection to our Viking sisters is pure and true. Union or no union, we’ll find a way; just bring your hand sanitiser and some chunky knits.
Business borrowing falls for first time this year Business borrowing dropped for the first time in 2016 last month, as UK companies delayed investment decisions because of uncertainty created by the EU referendum. Mortgage borrowing also fell between May and June, in a sign that consumers were feeling less confident as the vote approached at the end of last month. Borrowing by British companies outside the financial sectors fell by £526m last month to £262.4m, according to the latest monthly survey of high street lending by the British Banking Authority. Net mortgage borrowing fell to £1.4bn in June from £1.7bn in May. The number of mortgages approved for house purchase – excluding remortgages – fell by about 1,700 to 40,103. Rebecca Harding, chief economist at the British Bankers’ Association (BBA), said: “Business borrowing in June dropped for the first time in 2016, signalling that investment decisions were being delayed until after the vote. “Mortgage lending and approvals also fell back in June but remain above the low levels seen in April following the introduction of the stamp duty surcharge.” Harding said it was still too early to assess what impact the Brexit vote would have on bank lending and the wider UK economy. “Overall, business confidence was clearly fragile in anticipation of the outcome of the vote, but these results are not a verdict on the health of the economy post-Brexit. We won’t start to see that data come through until the autumn and any trends before then should not be over-interpreted.” Samuel Tombs, chief UK economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, said the latest survey evidence on house price expectations, as well as profit warnings issued by estate agents since the vote, suggested mortgage demand had fallen further in recent weeks. He said that although the Bank of England was expected to cut interest rates at its policy meeting next week, the lower cost of borrowing was unlikely to be fully passed on by high street banks. “Although the monetary policy committee likely will cut interest rates next week, probably to 0.25% from 0.50% currently, banks likely will increase lending spreads to account for the higher risk of borrower default, due to the much weaker economic outlook.”
José Mourinho tells Manchester United players: feel good and fight hard José Mourinho strolled to his seat, offered a smile, and said: “First of all, good morning to my friends from the media.” This was a breezy start and mischievous reference to his critics – “Einsteins” as he calls them – who have offered analysis of why Manchester United have lost three of their last four games. Two of these matches have been in the Premier League and, as United are six points behind Manchester City, the need for the under-fire Mourinho to beat Leicester City in the early kick-off at Old Trafford on Saturday is clear, but he was, in the main, in relaxed mood. There was a joke about him being “the worst manager in the history of football”, and a humorous expansion on the Einstein theory: “The Einsteins need money to live, they can’t coach, they can’t sit on the bench, they can’t win matches. They can speak, they can write, they can criticise the work of other people, but I am a good man. I am a good man of goodwill. I do lots of charity, I help so many people, so why not also feed the Einsteins? That’s fine.” Wednesday’s 3-1 win at Northampton Town in the EFL Cup offered some relief and Mourinho was happy to discuss the public criticism of his players. A clear message was sent to Jesse Lingard, Luke Shaw, Eric Bailly, Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Daley Blind, all of whom have been criticised during United’s poor run of form. He agreed that footballers can be overly sensitive to negative words in public and they should be able to handle criticism – “it’s their job” – though he acknowledged each individual may adopt a varying approach. “Everyone is a different person. Everyone analyses things in a different way,” said the manager. “Some read every word [that’s said about them], some don’t read [at all]. It depends. Some are affected by it. Some are not. Many times you – when I say you, media and Einsteins – you forget there are family and kids and parents and wives and girlfriends [around these players]. People forget that and people react in different ways. The way they react can also affect the way the player reacts. “I can’t be in their heads to try and analyse what they feel and the way they feel it. I just feel that [criticism] is part of the job and you have to look at in this way. It’s part of the job and it’s part of your culture and part of the culture of this country.” Mourinho believes the level of negativity his and other teams attract is partly due to the national side’s poor record at major tournaments. “I know this, in spite of not being English, I have been here many years, I know one of the reasons of the English disaster over the years in the Euros and in the World Cups,” he said. “But I still think it’s part of the job. You have to cope with it, you have to realise you are very lucky to be in our position.” The only point when Mourinho’s breezy manner disappeared came when he was forced to answer questions about claims in a new book that the Portuguese once said he wanted to “break [Arsène] Wenger’s face”. When asked if this was true Mourinho became terse and tense. “I am happy. He [the author] made his money, that is fine for me,” he said, meaning, of course, the precise opposite. Pressed about the quote, Mourinho said: “Well, I met Arsène Wenger a couple of weeks ago and like civilised people we shook hands, we sat on the same table, we had dinner together with other people, we exchanged ideas. We were speaking because we are civilised people and I don’t think the book will be in the gallery of the Shakespeares and so on and I prefer just not to comment. It is my last word about it and again I repeat: he is making his money. That’s fine by me.” The Portuguese is the subject of a new biography, José Mourinho – Up Close and Personal, which is being serialised in the Daily Mail and earlier in the day Wenger had been his usual urbane self when asked about the alleged comments. “Look, I haven’t read the book and I certainly won’t read it,” he said. “I cannot comment on that. I talk about football and that’s all I do. I’m not in a destructive mode, ever. I’m more constructive and I cannot comment on that because I’m focused on tomorrow’s game and how we want to play football.” After the uncomfortable moment discussing the book Mourinho was again at ease and, like Wenger, keen to focus on football and the challenge before him and his players. Despite the disappointing league form and the defeat at Feyenoord in the Europa League the sense was of a man supremely confident he will turn United around. Mourinho was most impressive when, in full command of the room, he reminded himself and everyone at the club of how fortunate they are. “You must be very lucky to be Manchester United manager, Man United player, Man United physio, Man United doctor, Man United kit man,” the 53-year-old said. “You have to be very lucky, so feel good and fight hard.” The positivity here was reflected in Mourinho’s view of the challenge before him: that of winning United a 21st championship. “I always said since day one that my title ambitions were also a motivational factor, a way of living,” he said. “I don’t understand how to be in this club and give a different message.”
White Denim: Stiff review – southern rockers lack cohesion Despite the departure of half the Texan band to work with Leon Bridges, White Denim’s sixth album largely picks up where they left off. Corsicana Lemonade, released in 2013, was heavily indebted to 70s southern rock, and Had 2 Know (Personal) and the breakneck Holda You (I’m Psycho) once again look to the Allman Brothers for inspiration, although the overall effect comes closer to a less-dancefloor-filling Black Keys. Variety comes in the form of a gently funky soul interlude midway through that highlights the versatility of James Petralli’s voice. But rather than complementing the rest of the album it betrays Stiff’s lack of cohesion.
Five of the best... rock & pop gigs 1 Skepta 2016 has clearly been the year of Skepta, which makes a change from 2015 which was clearly the year of, erm, Skepta. With the grime star’s ascent seemingly unstoppable of late, you can put your house on the fact that he will shut down Ally Pally with this gigantic end-of-year show. Alexandra Palace, N22, Fri 2 Hinds If you think guitar music is about as relevant as a Gangnam Style oral history dictated on to MiniDisc, make your way to the nearest Hinds show immediately. These four women make a clattering, freewheeling racket that sounds like the Shaggs covering the Shangri-Las, while unapologetically enjoying themselves in the process. Manchester, Sat; Glasgow, Sun; Dublin, Tue; Bristol, Thu; London; Fri 3 The Lemon Twigs While most teenage brothers are busy giving each other dead arms and a beating on GTA, Michael and Brian D’Addario have been busy channelling the likes of Supertramp, Big Star and Todd Rundgren. Their live shows – which involve an impressive amount of high kicks – have been leaving fans dazed but amused. London, Mon & Tue; Birmingham, Wed; Leeds, Thu; touring to 5 Dec 4 Blossoms Is swaggering northern indie on the rise again? Stockport’s Blossoms certainly believe so, conjuring psychedelic indie that’s somewhere between Arctic Monkeys and Echo And The Bunnymen on their recent debut record. They’re not ready for a tour in the shape of rabbit ears just yet, but watch this space. Leicester, Wed; Hull, Thu; Manchester, Fri; touring to 14 Dec 5 PC Music The London-based art collective find themselves at a tricky crossroads. Are they radical pop subversives? Or increasingly problematic art-school wallies? You suspect a degree of reinvention is needed if they’re to sustain their early hype, which could mean shaking things up a bit for this show, featuring AG Cook and Danny L Harle among others. Heaven, WC2, Wed
Watchdog puts 'unsafe' Cornwall care homes in special measures Elderly people have been living in “grim, shoddy and unsafe” conditions in four care homes run by a private company in Cornwall, the health and social care watchdog has found. Residents of the Morleigh Group homes lay in urine-soaked bedclothes, sat in chairs for hours with plates of unfinished food in front of them and waited weeks to receive medical attention, the Care Quality Commission said. Publishing reports on the four homes on Friday, the CQC said all the homes had been rated inadequate and placed into special measures after separate inspections. Andrea Sutcliffe, the chief inspector of adult social care, said: “These reports make horrifying reading – people in distress being ignored by staff; a person lying in a urine-soaked bed for two hours; people sat in the same chair all day with uneaten meals in front of them, and no help to eat or drink; someone needing medical attention waiting weeks to be referred to their GP. “These and so many other examples show why we have rated each of these homes as inadequate and are taking further action to protect the safety and welfare of the people living there.” Clinton House nursing home, in St Austell, closed earlier this month after an undercover investigation by BBC’s Panorama. The CQC reports concluded: At Clinton House, there were not always enough staff on duty. Inspectors noticed one person in distress and crying for 90 minutes while staff walked by three times without speaking to the person to find out if they needed anything or to comfort them. The management of medicines was not robust. One person had not been given one of their prescribed medicines for three days. Inspectors had to intervene when one person – who had previously been assessed as being at risk of falls – was left unattended and nearly fell out of their wheelchair. At Elmsleigh care home, in Par, inspectors found one person who suffered from incontinence and was at risk of pressure sores, but was not routinely turned or checked by staff. Records showed that for several days the person often received no personal care – exposing them to the risk of urine burns to their skin. People sitting in the same seat all day, with their meals left in front of them uneaten, even though most needed encouragement to eat. Some appeared not to realise it was mealtime. Some people had sustained substantial weight loss but it was not clear what action had been taken to help them maintain a healthy weight. At Collamere nursing home, in Lostwithiel, inspectors witnessed people with dementia calling out repeatedly for some time with no response. One person shouted throughout the day and night. It was only after the inspection that their GP was asked to review their pain relief – and then they appeared to sleep without signs of distress. At St Theresa’s nursing home, in Callington, inspectors identified one person who had pressure sores, but had not been repositioned for eight hours. There had been a delay of five days in seeking appropriate specialist advice. Medicines were not being managed safely, the premises and equipment were not being maintained, and the collection of soiled laundry from bedrooms and cleaning procedures did not ensure suitable standards of cleanliness. Sutcliffe added: “These services were providing grim, shoddy and unsafe care – the sort that no one should ever have to put up with. I am sorry that people have had to endure this poor level of care.” The CQC said the Morleigh Group, which is family owned, had been supported by Cornwall council and the NHS Kernow clinical commissioning group to make improvements. But it said the company had failed to listen. CQC inspectors visited Collamere on 10 October in response to concerns about the service. They visited Elmsleigh on 25 October to follow up on improvements required by a previous inspection. Planned inspections of Clinton House and St Theresa’s were brought forward following information received from Panorama. The BBBC investigation included undercover filming showing one nurse threatening to give morphine to a resident “to shut her up”. Cornwall council has apologised to residents of the homes and said what had been uncovered by the BBC was “shocking and utterly unacceptable”. Devon and Cornwall police confirmed it was involved in a multi-agency investigation and no arrests had been made. Patricia Juleff, owner of the Morleigh Group, apologised for the distress that residents, families and staff had felt. She said: “Over the past few weeks, the group has undertaken a detailed review of our systems. Early in that review, staff numbers were increased in all of our homes and dismissals were made both since and prior to being notified by the producers of the Panorama programme. “Our review has found inconsistencies in medicine control, maintenance, DBS [disclosure and barring service] checks and staff training that are now being addressed and we are stepping up our efforts and resources across all of those areas to improve the level of our service.”
Kristen Wiig: five best moments Since the majority of the buzz surrounding Paul Feig’s new female-led Ghostbusters has focused on the man-babies angry about gender, we haven’t spent enough time praising the choice of leads. Kristen Wiig has mostly stuck to indie-based supporting roles since breaking out in 2011’s Oscar-nominated Bridesmaids, but playing the awkward academic with a paranormal past in this week’s big budget sci-fi comedy takes her back to the multiplex. The film might underwhelm in parts but she remains a winning comic presence throughout. But what have been her greatest roles? Knocked Up (2007) Wiig had been part of Saturday Night Live for two years when she made her first memorable big-screen appearance. It’s a minor role in Judd Apatow’s engaging romantic comedy, but in a small amount of screen time she emerged as an effortless scene-stealer. As the snippy E! employee with limited social skills, she turned every glance into a punchline. Bridesmaids (2011) Her magnum opus arrived in 2011 with a film that finally gave her the lead she deserved. The Paul Feig-directed comedy, which Wiig co-scripted, still stands out as a game-changer. It’s a smart, beautifully observed, painfully funny film about female friendship and difficult-to-admit selfishness that made more money than any other offering from the Apatow stable. Wiig’s excellent performance teeters on mania throughout. The Skeleton Twins (2014) Post-Bridesmaids, Wiig has largely avoided big-budget fare, with mixed success. Her first smart choice came in 2014 when she teamed up with her ex-SNL co-star Bill Hader. They played siblings who reconnect after years apart and, thanks to the history between the pair off-screen, there’s a genuine lived-in chemistry that brings an added dimension to the modest drama. Welcome to Me (2014) Her next lead role provided a rather difficult challenge: playing a woman with borderline personality disorder who uses her lottery winnings to fund a talk show. The film itself is uneven and could be accused of using mental illness for laughs, but Wiig is tremendous throughout, playing on her inherent awkwardness for both humour and pathos. The Diary of a Teenage Girl (2015) While she might have the least screen-time of the central trio in Marielle Heller’s impressive debut, Wiig still leaves her mark in this 70s-set drama. She plays the hard-partying mother of Bel Powley’s titular teen, and paints a tragic figure of a woman disappointed with how her life has turned out.
Clinton's southern 'firewall' of support no sure thing come general election Her husband was called the first black president. Her former boss actually was the first black president. Now it’s Hillary Clinton’s turn to claim overwhelming support from AfricanAmerican Democrats, with her trouncing of Bernie Sanders in South Carolina last week, and what look likely to be similar victories across the southern states in today’s Super Tuesday primaries. Does that mean Clinton is well on her way to rebuilding the Obama coalition that could take her to the White House? That’s not so clear. For Clinton’s appeal to African American Democrats is both rooted in – and limited by – her husband’s presidency. In Georgia, where Clinton is polling between 30 and 50 points ahead of Sanders, the lopsided numbers do not tell the full story of a generational split among black voters. “Hillary Clinton has nearly 100% name recognition among African Americans here, and additionally she enjoys the establishment blessing, which is largely the group that benefitted from her husband’s policies. They rose in affluence and prominence in his administration,” says Francys Johnson, state president of the Georgia NAACP. “But younger people who came of age during or after his administration have suffered the most from his policies. They gave rise to the prison-industrial complex, the breaking of the safety net in so-called welfare reform, and the conditions that set the stage for a global race to the bottom when it comes to wages in this country, in terms of his free trade agreements, which largely eviscerated the manufacturing economy of this country.” Name recognition may be enough to carry Clinton convincingly through the primaries, but that will not mean much against a man who has built his business around his personal name: Donald Trump, who is campaigning against the same free trade agreements. Clinton will need to do more than just win the lion’s share of the African American vote. Barack Obama won re-election four years ago with 93% of the black vote, 71% of the Latino vote, and 39% of the white vote. While minority turnout hit a record high, it only represented one quarter of the total electorate. To win in the solidly Republican states of the south, Clinton will need to drive high turnout among minorities and hold a larger share of the white vote than Obama. Neither of those scenarios is clear-cut, not least with a likely opponent as unpredictable as Donald Trump. On the other hand, if Clinton can maintain high minority turnout and peel away white women from Trump, she may find a path to sweeping victories in states such as Georgia, where the politics have shifted along with the population. Obama took the once reliably conservative states of Virginia and North Carolina in 2008, and, in the final days of the first campaign, his aides suggested Georgia might also come into play. Demographic projections suggest that minorities will represent a majority of the state’s population in less than a decade. Still, Obama lost Georgia twice, and the last Democrat to win here was Bill Clinton in 1992. “To what extent can Hillary Clinton pull together this Democratic coalition? Can she get the turnout and the numbers that Barack Obama had in this state?” asked Merle Black, political science professor at Emory University in Atlanta. “The big Democratic problem in Georgia – and this is true through the deep south states – is that they can’t get more than 23% of the white vote. I think among white males in Georgia, Hillary Clinton is going to find it hard getting out of the 20s and she’ll also lose white women. Although – what is Trump’s appeal among white women?” Turnout in the Democratic primaries has been notably smaller than in the Republican contests in the same states so far this year. In South Carolina, the number of GOP votes – driven by Trump’s candidacy – was twice that of the Democratic votes. That dynamic may well change as the Clinton campaign seizes on Trump’s offensive positions and statements to drive Democratic turnout as much as they drives his own. Both Clinton and Trump’s main GOP rivals have expressed their dismay at the Republican frontrunner’s mixed statements on support from former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke. Marco Rubio’s biggest southern supporter, South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, linked Trump’s KKK support to the Charleston church massacre last year. “The KKK came to South Carolina from out of state to protest on our statehouse grounds. We saw and looked at true hate in the eyes, last year in Charleston,” Haley told a rally in Atlanta on Monday. “I will not stop until we fight a man that chooses not to disavow the KKK. That is not a part of our party. That is not who we want as president. We will not allow that in our country.” That may be a rallying cry for the GOP establishment, but even for black voters supporting Rubio, Trump’s positions are not necessarily a turnoff. “I know what he was doing. I expected that. I don’t think he’s racist,” said a retired real estate manager from Lithonia, who declined to be identified because of family disapproval of her politics. So would she vote for Trump in the fall, if Rubio fails to win the nomination? “I’ll have to think about it,” she said. “I really have to think about it. I just don’t know.” Those conflicted feelings may point to a lower, not higher, turnout among minorities in the general election. Georgia’s NAACP reports a spike in hate group activities: suspicious church burnings, property damage and leafleting, including white-hooded KKK images alongside Trump’s name and slogan. “If it’s Hillary versus Trump, then it’s going to be a matter of fear versus pandering. Donald Trump majors in fear and Hillary Clinton majors in pandering,” said Johnson. “That doesn’t speak well for a presidential election where we are electing the leader of the free world and setting the tone for the next generation in this country. I am concerned about that. It’s testimony to where we are in politics in this country.”
Gloom in Hollywood as reports indicate top blockbusters lost $1bn this summer That the summer of 2016 wasn’t a classic season for quality mainstream cinema is widely acknowledged. But the full extent of the financial losses sustained by studios for those films has been detailed in a new report by Bloomberg. Using figures and projections from movie industry site the Numbers, they estimate the loss at around $1bn (£700.48m), and blame blockbusters flopping at cinemas rather than smaller films failing to attract larger audiences. Their projected deficit – $915.6m – dwarfs last year’s, which was $546.3m. “Overall it was pretty awful,” Doug Creutz of Cowen & Co told Bloomberg. “We have been talking about the increasingly bad ecosystem that we see theatrically, and I think it definitely played out this summer.” “People aren’t going to the box office as much as they used to,” he added. “The only way out of this problem for Hollywood is [to have] fewer studios, and that ain’t going to happen.” The worst-hit film was Ben-Hur, which had a projected loss of around $120m (though some dispute this figure, putting it closer to $75m). Studio Paramount also saw disappointing returns for Star Trek Beyond ($75m loss) and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows ($65m). Although Disney had three flops in the Top 10 (The BFG, which lost $115m, as well as Alice Through the Looking Glass and Pete’s Dragon), the success of Finding Dory and Captain America: Civil War (at the moment the two best-performing films of the year) meant it is currently around $521m in the black. Other notable disappointments include Kubo and the Two Strings ($80m) and the rebooted Ghostbusters ($58m), although this is another title whose figures are disputed). Flatlining figures are said to be attributed to a variety of factors, including sequel fatigue, the rise in popularity of streaming and small-screen programming, and bad reviews. Critical response is belied by the success of films such as Suicide Squad, which has so far earned $300m (and more than that overseas) despite lukewarm notices. Warner Bros films The Conjuring 2, Central Intelligence and Me Before You also made it on to the Top 10 list of best performers.
Cameron returns to parliament for another round of deja EU In the US, Groundhog Day is celebrated on 2 February. Over here, it happens a day later. Another day; another dose of Europe. Having fluffed his best lines in Chippenham the day before, David Cameron was forced back to Westminster to see if he could deliver them more convincingly. MPs were not impressed that the prime minister had chosen to inform Siemens staff about the brilliance of his EU negotiations before them, and the speaker duly gave Dave a punishment beating. Ministerial statements usually last an hour at most; this one was dragged out for two and by the end Dave was on his knees. There was no slight intended to the Commons, Dave assured MPs. The only reason he had nipped off down to Wiltshire the day before was to give MPs more time to read the draft proposals. He knew how much interest there was in the EU referendum and he wanted to make sure MPs were fully in command of the facts before they had a chance to question him. The facts, of course, were the last thing any MP really wanted. Partly because there were almost none to be had and partly because there isn’t a single member in the Commons who has yet to make up their mind about where they stand on Europe. Apart from possibly a few Cabinet ministers and junior Tories with a keen eye on their own preferment. “Yes, there are gaps in the text. Yes, there are some details to be pinned down,” Dave said, just as he had the day before. By some, he meant all. “But I believe I have negotiated a deal that gets to the heart of people’s concerns.” Or a deal that gets to the heart of what might be negotiable. It was almost word for word the same text as he had used in Chippenham, only with slightly less arm-waving and more hammering of his fingers on the dispatch box. It’s how Dave nails things down. There was slightly more verve and conviction second time around, but not much. The most compelling case Dave could make for staying in Europe would be to point out how much we need the other EU leaders; the idea that Dave might be left to run the country entirely by himself is terrifying. For the second time in as many days, Jeremy Corbyn also stood up to repeat himself. Corbyn’s outrage at Cameron’s non-appearance the day before seemed to have been mitigated at the pleasure of witnessing the Tory party tearing itself to pieces yet again. The EU is the Conservatives’ very own psycho-drama: Who’s Afraid of Angela Merkel? The Labour leader muttered a few words of introduction that no one listened to, before letting the Tories eat themselves. All too predictably they obliged. Ken Clarke stood up to declare the reason the Eurosceptics were so angry was because Dave had delivered so much more than expected. Hegelian logic at its most suspect. Europhile Dominic Grieve suspended disbelief still further by referring to the “remarkable specificity” of the document. Dave must have wondered if Grieve knew something he didn’t. Then came the Eurosceptic torrent. Bill Cash, John Redwood et al got up to say they were angry because … because they are only happy when they feel marginalised. Steve Baker tempered his “polishing the poo” to “polishing the deal” and even the usually polite Jacob Rees-Mogg was roused to near incivility. “Thin gruel has been further watered down,” he said. “The prime minister has a fortnight to salvage his reputation as a negotiator.” Throughout all this the opposition’s contributions were helpfully anodyne. The most telling came from Alan Johnson who was keen to flush out his Conservative namesake. His father and his brother were committed to staying in Europe, he observed. Could the prime minister say if Boris was also going to join the Johnsons for Europe? Dave couldn’t. Nor could Boris. When John Bercow initially offered Boris a chance to speak, the London mayor stayed silent. Sensing his hesitation had been interpreted as cowardice, Boris made a move 10 minutes later. His question was dull, vague and not thought through; spoken more from a need to speak than a need to think. “Let me tell the house,” concluded Dave. “No ministerial careers will be threatened. Members must vote for what they believe; they have no need to fear deselection or boundary changes in their constituencies or deselection.” By which he meant the opposite. Boris and the Tory rebels were on a warning.
Pauline Hanson and Derryn Hinch argue over Trump's 'sexual predator' scandal Pauline Hanson and Derryn Hinch have publicly clashed over the recording of US Republican candidate Donald Trump bragging about using his fame to grope women without their consent. Their argument began in a Parliament House television studio before spilling into the hallways of the press gallery after their interview had finished. The One Nation leader and independent senator had taken part in a dual interview with Channel Seven on Monday. Their interview became heated when Hanson appeared to downplay the public backlash against Trump, saying Trump’s recorded comments about women were said off camera, and were a private recording. “Let’s be honest, there are a lot of men out there that say horrific things, probably up to the same standard,” Hanson said. Hinch interrupted, saying “No Pauline! “A normal man in a private conversation would not talk about this. A normal man, Pauline, would never consider invading a woman’s space so much that, in his mind, or to his mates would say, I mean that is sexual assault.” After the interview had finished, Hanson tried to justify her comments to waiting journalists. “It was vulgar,” she said of Trump’s recording. “It wasn’t said publicly, [it was] said behind the scenes in a tape recording. That was 10 years ago. I do believe that the people of America are fed up with the major political parties of Republicans and the Democrats and the way the country has been. “I know Trump is standing as a Republican. The whole fact is they are looking for change. They have seen the destruction of their country, their way of life, the standard of living and want someone who will fight for them. It is up to the people.” But Hinch then started arguing with Hanson again, with television cameras following. “How you as a woman can make any justification for what he has said and what he has done, is just [unbelievable],” he said. Hanson replied: “Well I didn’t condone what he said, Derryn.” Hinch continued: “No, you said the people of America will decide. If you are even slightly right then God help the country and God help the world. The man is a sexual predator and he is a disgrace.” Hinch then got into a lift and Hanson took the stairs. Donald Trump’s campaign for the White House continues to reel after a tape emerged of him bragging about using his fame to try to “fuck” women and sexually assault them without waiting for their consent. “When you’re a star they let you do it,” he says in the recording, which was obtained by the Washington Post and released on Friday. “You can do anything.” Trump, in a 2005 conversation with a television host that was caught on a live microphone, describes a failed seduction, saying: “I did try and fuck her, she was married,” and says that when he meets beautiful women he feels able to “grab them by the pussy”. The TV host was Billy Bush, a cousin of George W and Jeb Bush. On Monday, Australian prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, condemned Trump’s comments, saying they were “loathsome and deserve the absolutely universal condemnation they have received”. The employment minister, Michaelia Cash, also criticised Trump’s comments, saying they were “demeaning, disappointing and wrong full stop”. Trump is expected set to use Monday’s second presidential debate to apologise again for the comments he made in the recording about women.
The night shift in A&E: a hellish blur where my best is never enough It’s the start of my night shift in the district general hospital as the medical registrar. I’m on my own and I know it. Like every night shift, I have no idea how I’m going to function effectively and people’s lives are in my hands. These thoughts are not new – I expect them – but each time they feel painfully new and unwelcome. I push down feelings of panic and remind myself that I have experience and training. I have done this, I can do this. There is a long line of people waiting in A&E. They must experience only one thing: reassurance. It isn’t a convenient time to feel the anxiety that threatens to overwhelm me, so I ignore it. These people are sick and worried, and they deserve the best. After putting on scrubs, I sit down with the team of doctors and nurses who’ve been on the day shift and listen to their handover. Half them haven’t eaten that day. It’s been a busy one. Things started to go wrong after 5pm so at least 10 people have not yet seen a doctor and two of them are so ill they are being monitored in resuscitation. Someone jokes: “It’s OK though, A&E is closed now”. If only. I need to prioritise but there are distractions. A family member is kicking off on the acute medical ward about their mother not getting appropriate feeding time that evening. Important but not life threatening, they will have to wait. The surgical team wants the medical team to take over a patient who, they’ve found, “doesn’t have appendicitis”. This patient, too, is de-prioritised – I have two adults about to die in the resuscitation bay. It’s 10pm and we have already spent far too long talking about the patients from the day – I need to crack on. I’m told there are no critical care beds available, so if one of my patients needs intensive care, we’ll need to send a patient in an ambulance to another hospital to create space. This is not a new scenario. I tell the bed managers this is “exactly what I want to hear”. Another joke. Without this attitude, we wouldn’t be able to get through the night. A lot of people will be unhappy with how long they’ve spent waiting by the time I get to see them. Although I won’t rest, it will never be enough. I thank the stars for the nurses. They are masters of everything and seem to be everywhere in the hospital at night, roaming the wards, expertly identifying sick patients. They can put in cannulas blindfolded, and support you with tea and banter. All six beds in resuscitation are full. Two patients require machines to breathe: one is alert, the other is already anaesthetised. Anyone who can’t talk, as a general rule, needs to be seen immediately. However, these sick people cannot be moved from their temporary beds in A&E – there are no beds free in the hospital. It’s going to be a long night. I see the exasperated paramedics in a queue; they can’t drop patients off. My juniors, just two of them for 150 patients, get to work, but it is hard. There is nowhere private to see people. They are reduced to clerking patients on trolleys and chairs – it’s not dignified. The unsung heroes of A&E – the technicians – efficiently take blood and perform basic but critical investigations such as urine dipstick and electrical heart traces. In a moment of clarity, at 1am after I have barely stopped to breathe and an elderly lady has died in my arms, I ask myself: “Is this not supposed to be a developed country? Do we not care for our people? Do we really accept that this is the way it needs to be? Doesn’t anyone out there care that there are no beds?” The night starts to blur. At 4am I anticipate a huge drop in my performance as my mind sleeps while my eyes remain open. I attempt and fail to get 20 minutes’ sleep – the bleeper doesn’t stop. But before I know it the porters, domestics and secretaries start turning up in the corridors, usually the earliest to start, and I know that this hellish night shift is almost done. I hand over my patients to the day team and the consultants. I get changed. I leave. For a moment it feels like I am a kid again, carefree, outside, letting a warm downpour wash over me, soaking my clothes, removing the things that happened overnight. Relief. I have a brief, pointless cry in the driver’s seat. And then it’s forgotten. It has to be, because in in a few hours, I’ll do it all over again. If you would like to contribute to our Blood, sweat and tears series which is about memorable moments in a healthcare career, please read our guidelines and get in touch by emailing sarah.johnson@theguardian.com. Join the Healthcare Professionals Network to read more pieces like this. And follow us on Twitter (@GdnHealthcare) to keep up with the latest healthcare news and views.
Marco Rubio on his attacks against Trump: 'If I had to do it again, I wouldn’t' Marco Rubio has expressed regret over his decision to make personal attacks against rival Donald Trump, saying if given a chance he wouldn’t do it again. The Florida senator drew criticism in recent weeks for a series of lowbrow taunts, including over the size of Trump’s hands, his tan and even the Republican frontrunner’s face. During a town hall hosted by MSNBC, Rubio acknowledged he had gone too far. “That’s not something I’m entirely proud of. My kids were embarrassed by it,” he said. “If I had to do it again, I wouldn’t.” Rubio offered a similar response when asked about the episode in a separate forum with Megyn Kelly of Fox News. “I’m not telling you he didn’t deserve it, but that’s now who I am,” Rubio said. The mockery was indeed uncharacteristic of the senator, who for much of his presidential campaign sought to stay above the fray. But following his shift in tone toward Trump, Rubio told reporters he felt it was necessary to punch back at someone who spent most of his time bullying others. Rubio reiterated that point on Wednesday, telling MSNBC that Trump “basically offended everyone for a year ... a disabled journalist, a female journalist, every minority group imaginable, on a daily basis”. “I don’t want to be that,” Rubio said. “If that’s what it takes to become president of the United States, then I don’t want to be president.” He drew a distinction, however, in his criticism of Trump’s business record –including the mogul’s now-defunct eponymous university. “I think that is legitimate, and the people need to know that what they are electing is not who he says he is,” Rubio said. He shot down an emerging dream among conservatives looking to deprive Trump of the nomination: a union between him and rival Ted Cruz. In the wake of a series of dismal performances by Rubio in recent primary contests, a growing number of influential conservative commentators have called on the senator to drop out of the race and endorse Cruz. In exchange, the thinking goes, Rubio could be the Texas senator’s vice-presidential pick and this unity ticket would be the only way to stop Trump. But during the town hall, Rubio dismissed the proposal as “House of Cards stuff” – a reference to the popular political show on the inner workings of Washington. “It looks good on TV. It doesn’t ever work that way,” Rubio said. “[The] bottom line is, this process is going to play itself out.” Rubio also said at another point in the forum that he would “absolutely” turn down an offer to be Trump’s vice-president. The town hall, held in Miami, comes less than a week before Florida’s 15 March primary – a critical contest for Rubio that will likely determine the fate of his presidential ambitions. Rubio’s personal attacks against Trump have been regarded as a key turning point that may have contributed to, if not led to, his collapse. Rubio said his struggles in Florida have to do with the state’s reliance on national media, which has been dominated by Trump. “The national media has given Donald Trump 10 times as much coverage as every other Republican candidate combined,” he said.
Remain camp deploys secret weapon: a Cable and Rudd double act It could have been the real threat of hypothermia blowing through the open factory floor. It could have been that the few dozen apprentices and employees of GKN Aerospace had no idea why they were there or who was talking to them. It could even have been everyone was totally unprepared for a discussion about the EU that bordered on the intelligent and came with no promises of catastrophe. Whatever the case, there were few signs of life either during or after the visit. Vince Cable and Amber Rudd aren’t exactly A-list politicians. Cable still looks shell-shocked to find himself both out of government and out of parliament; and while Rudd, the secretary of state for energy and climate change, is one of the sharper minds on the government frontbench, she isn’t a household name and could easily pass unnoticed in the smallest of crowds. Yet for reasons that were never made entirely clear Cable and Rudd were sent out as the remain campaign’s headline act for the day. It was almost as if everyone else fancied a day off. Having shuffled his way to his lectern alongside Rudd and the three CEOs of GKN, Airbus and Siemens, Vince kicked things off, though it took a while for anyone to realise he had started because of the mumbling. His voice has become as dissociated as the rest of him. Where there was once passion and certainty, there is now only self-doubt. “It’s good to be back here,” he said, though it didn’t sound like it. “There are clouds on the horizon.” And in the room. Vince struggled to regain his sense of self. “I was secretary of state for five years,” he continued, as much as an affirmation as information. It didn’t help. Neither he – nor anyone else – appeared any the wiser. He then tried to cheer himself up with a passing reference to Boris’s obsession with undersized condoms and straight bananas, but that didn’t work either. Lowering the tone to the level of his opponents was never his style. Vince mumbled on about jobs being lost were Britain to leave the EU before fading out mid-sentence. The three CEOs were almost as downbeat about being upbeat as Vince was. They weren’t there to offer scare tactics or to tell people how to vote, they assured everyone. They were merely there to say that, on balance, the future of the widget on the wings of an Airbus A380 (extra-wide body) was better guaranteed by there being a single unified widget on the wings of an Airbus A380 (extra-wide body) than 28 different widgets on the wings of an Airbus A380 (extra-wide body). You could only admire the lack of hyperbole. Sensing that the event was in danger of fizzling out, Rudd tried to up the tempo with a rather more passionate defence of the EU and the economic consequences of leaving. But either she is not yet sufficiently on message or just has too much integrity to go for overkill. “The IFS, the WTO and the OECD,” she said stridently, apparently unaware that talking in initials and acronyms is not the best way to keep the attention of what was already a small audience. “So there we have it,” she concluded. “The right thing to do is to vote remain on 23 June. Now, do we have any questions?” Silence. More silence. As much out of politeness as anything else, I put my hand in the air. “Yes,” yelled Rudd, ecstatic to have got a response. I felt like pointing out that if a sketchwriter gets the first question then a political event is officially dead in the water, but that somehow seemed a bit cruel. Instead, I asked about immigration. It hadn’t just been the lack of world war three threats that had felt out of time; the content had also been out of time. By about two days. The leave campaign appears to have accepted it has lost the economic argument and has settled on immigration as its big vote winner. Given that the government has missed every immigration target it has set itself, how was the remain camp going to deal with the subject. “We are not complacent,” insisted Rudd. “David Cameron has managed to renegotiate some excellent terms with the EU.” So excellent that he hadn’t bothered to mention them in weeks. Still, there is always tomorrow.
NHS England stalls plans for HIV prevention method known as PrEP Charities and campaigners have reacted with anger and disbelief that plans to roll out a widely anticipated HIV prevention programme have been stalled by NHS England. The sector had been waiting for the announcement of the first ever public consultation on the use of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) in the UK, now overdue by a month. Instead today NHS England announced it was not their responsibility to commission the drug. The PrEP prevention method, usually prescribed in the form of the HIV treatment pill Truvada, can be taken on a daily basis – in a similar way that women take the contraceptive pill – by men who have sex with men to dramatically reduce the risk of HIV transmission. In February 2015, a Proud (pre-exposure option for reducing HIV in the UK: immediate or deferred) study reported that PrEP had effectively reduced the risk of HIV infection by 86%. Terrence Higgins Trust, the largest provider of HIV and sexual health services in the voluntary sector, expressed shock and disbelief as structured plans for introducing PrEP were shelved. Over 2,500 men who have sex with men are diagnosed with HIV each year in the UK, according to the trust. Ian Green, chief executive officer of the charity said: “This figure has not changed in a decade. It is quite clear that although we have had some huge advances in HIV treatment, HIV prevention is something that we are still struggling with.” PrEP has been described as a “HIV gamechanger” and is already available in the US, France, Canada, Israel, and Kenya. In the UK, the process of public consultation would have been one of the final steps before a decision is made on NHS availability. The consultation response forms part of a submission to the clinical priorities advisory group, the body that it had been thought would make a decision on PrEP at its next meeting in June. Instead, and despite its insistence that it holds no responsibility to commission HIV prevention services, NHS England said it would provide £2m over the next two years to run a number of early implementer test sites for 500 men “most at risk”. Green said this will have very little impact compared to what had been planned. “By denying full availability of PrEP, we are failing those who are at risk of HIV. Today’s decision by NHS England to depart with due process, and, instead, offer a tokenistic nod to what has the potential to revolutionise HIV prevention in the UK, is shameful.” Deborah Gold, chief executive of the National Aids Trust (NAT) agrees: “The decision is not informed by any due process; the amount of money is arbitrary; the claim that more ‘testing’ of PrEP is needed is disingenuous. 500 does not remotely cover the number of gay men at high risk of HIV nor meet the needs of heterosexuals at risk.” Gold also said there was no clarity within the Department of Health, NHS or Public Health England as to who long-term is responsible to commission and fund PrEP and this was “simple maladministration” that would have “serious consequences”. She said: “Over 5,000 gay men will get HIV over the next two years – very many of whom would not have done so if PrEP had been delivered as proposed. “NAT share the anger and distress felt by many thousands of people across the country at NHS England’s decision to abandon its work to provide [the drug], near the very end of the process.” Gay men, campaigners and healthcare professionals reacted with anger on Twitter after NHS England released their shock statement. Jake Bayley, a sexual health and HIV consultant at Newham University Hospital, Barts NHS Trust said the announcement was a “bitterly disappointing decision.” He told the : “As a healthcare professional who sees patients who are newly diagnosed HIV positive every day, I witness the distress this causes both physically and emotionally. “PrEP is the most revolutionary prevention tool we have had in the last 10 years. The current prevention tools we have - condoms, risk reduction - just aren’t enough.” Describing the £2m funding as a short-term fix given the life time cost of one HIV infection can be up to £500k, Bayley said that “a long term, sensible and well funded solution is needed, not this meagre short sighted solution. “NHS England is meant to protect and advocate for the population’s health. PrEP needs to be made available to all those who are high risk immediately.” This article was amended on 22 March 2016 to clarify that PrEP is a protocol, not a drug.
This shaken baby syndrome case is a dark day for science – and for justice On Friday, I witnessed something akin to a reenactment of the trial of Galileo, precisely four centuries after the original. Dr Waney Squier faces being struck off by the General Medical Council (GMC) for having the temerity to challenge the mainstream theory on shaken baby syndrome (SBS). For years, the medical profession has boldly asserted that a particular “triad” of neurological observations is essentially diagnostic of SBS. Since the Nuremberg Code properly prevents human experimentation, this is an unproved hypothesis, and there has been rising doubt as to its validity. I am convinced that Squier is correct, but one does not have to agree with me to see the ugly side to the GMC prosecution: the moment that we are denied the right to question a scientific theory that is held by the majority, we are not far away from Galileo’s predicament in 1615, as he appeared before the papal inquisition. He dared to suggest that the Bible was an authority on faith and morals, rather than on science, and that 1 Chronicles 16:30 – “the world is firmly established, it cannot be moved” – did not mean that the Earth was rigidly lodged at the epicentre of the universe. It was not until 1982 that Pope John Paul II issued a formal admission that the church had got it wrong. Shaken baby syndrome is almost unique among medical diagnoses in that it is not focused on treating the child. If an infant has bleeding on the brain (a subdural hematoma), the doctor wants to relieve the pressure – it is of little relevance how the infant came about the injury. SBS is, then, a “diagnosis” of a crime rather than an illness, and when a brain surgeon comes into the courtroom and “diagnoses” guilt, the defendant, mostly a parent, is likely to go to prison – or worse. I have defended a number of emotionally charged capital cases where doctors have opined that a child had to have been shaken by an angry parent because it was “impossible” for the triad of neurological sequelae to result from an accident – it “had” to be caused by shaking. Many American doctors adhere to a bizarre notion that an infant cannot suffer a fatal head injury from a fall of less than three storeys. While we cannot drop a series of infants on their heads to test this, it would appear to be plain folly. The velocity of a five-foot fall means a child’s head can hit the ground at roughly 15mph, which is faster than most people – short of Usain Bolt - can sprint. I invited a series of neurosurgeons to run headlong into a hardwood wall in one courtroom, so we could see what happened to them. They politely declined, and stuck to their silly theory. Squier has now been branded a “liar” by the panel, and found “guilty” of paying insufficient respect to her peers. Dr Michael Powers, perhaps the eminent QC in the area of medico-legal practice in the UK, believes that the GMC tribunal – made up of a retired wing commander, a retired policeman and a retired geriatric psychiatrist – was not qualified to understand the complex pathology of the developing brain. “It is therefore sad, but not surprising, that they have reached the wrong conclusion,” he said. “The proper forum for debating these issues is the international neuroscience community.” Powers has a point: Michele Codd, the chair of the panel, was a general duties officer in the RAF for 32 years. One might doubt whether Stephen Marr, a retired Merseyside police officer, would hold up a constable’s hand to a prosecution theory that has sent so many people to prison. Nisreen Booya was the sole person with any meaningful medical qualifications on the panel, but in a rather different area: she is a retired psychiatrist specialising in geriatric issues such as Alzheimer’s, an illness that, like infant head trauma, is “poorly understood”. She is quoted as saying that she “made a career of trying to provide innovative services” in her field – and yet she condemns Squier for thinking outside her own rigid box. All three are doubtless honourable people, but they are simply wrong to hold SBS up as the fifth gospel. At the risk of being diagnosed with “I told you so” syndrome, I wrote an article 20 years ago questioning whether forensic hair analysis was really science. I was pleased therefore when, in 2015, the FBI admitted that they had got it wrong for decades – but this came after thousands of men, women and children had been convicted on the basis of latter-day snake oil, and scores had been sent to death row. Those deemed to be blasphemers often suffer a gruesome fate. Although Squier may be struck off, at least she will not be burned at the stake. But the impact on medical science will be immense, because what other doctor will be prepared to question the prosecution theory if it means the end of a career? This is a very dark day for science, as it is for justice.
The One Dance phenomenon: why Drake could be No 1 for eternity When this week’s charts are revealed, Drake’s One Dance could be one week away from Wet Wet Wet’s Love Is All Around as the second-longest consecutive stint held by a single at No 1. Add one more week, and it’ll be joint top alongside Bryan Adams’s (Everything I Do) I Do It For You. Wet Wet Wet might have stayed there longer had they not intervened – worried that it become an albatross over their career – and deleted their single, meaning that when copies ran out, there would be no new CDs to restock. For artists fearing a similar fate, that’s impossible in the digital age: theoretically, One Dance could be No 1 for all eternity. It’s top of the US charts for a ninth week, and is getting about 460,000 streams on Spotify a day in the UK alone – 100,000 more than the song in second place (which is Too Good, also by Drake). Last week, One Dance had been streamed 79m times in the UK across all platforms. How has the Canadian artist installed himself so firmly at the top? Sales of downloads count for more than streams, but the market is eroding – and buying a series of intangible files for your hard drive rather than subscribing to millions of intangible files online will soon be seen as a bonkers blip in the music industry. Instead, it’s instructive to look at Spotify’s chart for a glimpse at the future – it tends to be centred on a relatively small number of tracks that hang around for weeks on end. The inclusion of One Dance on 1.3m Spotify playlists, which listeners return to again and again, gives it an energy source that powers it up the charts and keeps it there. But that doesn’t entirely explain its popularity. First of all, it’s catchy, and sits at the heart of a listening-activity Venn diagram: it works for jogging, for driving, and at any point on a night out, from pre-drinking to straight-up smashed. It also followed Drake’s huge single Hotline Bling. Before that he was, in the UK’s popular imagination, a rapper who sang pop songs, that guy who sweetly skulked around Rihanna in the milk aisle. Only his crooner tracks (Take Care; Hold On, We’re Going Home) made it into the charts previously. Hotline Bling’s ubiquity changed the dynamic – he was now a pop singer who rapped, a concept Britons are much better at swallowing. One Dance moved into its slipstream, and a renewed relationship with Rihanna, following the track Work, added a tabloid boost. The female vocal on One Dance comes from UK singer Kyla, sampled from her track Do You Mind, a cult hit amid the UK funky craze of the late noughties. Nigerian producer and singer Wizkid also appears, his voice scrunched with static, and there are licks of highlife guitar and tuned percussion; the beat straddles the Atlantic, with one foot in west Africa, the other in dancehall syncopation. Its singer is a mixed-race Jewish Canadian who has been embraced by the US rap scene, using London-via-Jamaica slang such as “ends”. At one of the most isolationist moments in its history, Britain is, in the charts at least, championing multiculturalism. You could argue that, with this globalised sound, Drake is trying to cynically build an audience outside rap’s core demographics. Others might accuse him of diluting UK funky and Afrobeats, just as he turns the furiously sexual “bounce” style of New Orleans into more Galaxy-advert silk on album track Child’s Play. Critics have been unimpressed with his most recent album, Views – “A suffocating echo chamber of self,” said Pitchfork, fairly representative of those who found it too solipsistic. More fundamentally, the scansion and narrative logic in one couplet of One Dance (“But I never run away, even when I’m away”) are on a pre-school level. His impressive chart run shows that none of this matters. In building One Dance from sounds he’s found online, Drake creates a microcosm of the way many of us listen to music now: a cherry-picked, hyper-personal blend. We’re totally individual in our tastes, but paradoxically that makes us all the same – Drake is the leader of this new global mono-tribe. And where critics hear solipsism, listeners hear themselves – a key element of Drake’s success. “Soon as you see the text, reply me / I don’t want to spend time fighting” is a typical Drake lyric, fixated on romantic squabbles mediated by modern technology. One Dance’s blithe chorus is as relatable as it gets, too: one of life’s greatest pleasures is, after all, dancing with a drink in your hand. Of those streaming One Dance on Spotify, 66% are under 25; for anyone on Tinder with disposable income ring-fenced for frozen margaritas, Drake is, in the millennial parlance, your spirit animal. It would be churlish to suggest that Drake, and everyone playing One Dance on repeat, is blind to the issues of today. In fact Drake himself, using – what else? – Instagram, gave an eloquent response to the recent spate of police brutality in the US, and One Dance’s popularity should be seen not as brain-dead but as a necessary bacchanal. The record-breaking power ballad No 1s of the 90s were their own kind of luxury; a boom-times indulgence of undistracted love. The world of One Dance – tense, interconnected, hedonistic – reflects a more fraught moment in time. This article was updated to correct the chart record for Wet Wet Wet’s Love Is All Around.
Southampton 1-0 Everton: Premier League – as it happened! Charlie Austin’s 41st second goal is enough for a good three points. It wasn’t the easiest game on the eye, despite promising otherwise but that’s a well earned win for Claude Puel’s team. Everton and Ronald Koeman have much to do. 90 min +2: Gareth Barry, on his 800th senior appearance, hits a tame half volley at Forster. That should be it. 90 min +1: Mirallas is played in by Lukaku but scuffs his shot wide. That was a decent glimpse for Everton. 90 min: There will be three minutes added time. 89 min: Enner Valencia gets in front of Van Dijk and almost finds the target with a header from Deulofeu’s cross. 89 min: Shane Long is on for Charlie Austin. 88 min: Van Dijk clears a threatening cross from the left and then asks the Saints fans to make some noise. They are suddenly sitting very deep. 84 min: Sims comes off to a standing ovation. McQueen, another highly-rated Southampton academy product, is on for the final six minutes plus added time. 82 min: Coleman goes close for Everton after Mirallas squared for him from the right. It is blocked by Fonte but you sense if it was Lukaku the end result would have been different. Everton’s last change sees Baines sprint off and Enner Valencia come on in his place. 80 min: Soares sends in yet another brilliant cross from the right. Ward-Prowse chests the ball down and shoots but is denied by Stekelenburg. Jagielka then gets rid for a corner. 79 min: Redmond is replaced by Romeu. 77 min: Sims sends a teasing cross in from the right, where Baines clears. But Southampton come back on the attack right away and Ward-Prowse shoots at Stekelenburg. The keeper spills it into the path of Austin, who then squares back to Ward-Prowse – but he cannot finish. 76 min: Hojbjerg, the best player on the pitch today, commits a foul on Bolasie about 30 yards from Southampton’s goal and slightly to the right. Baines is eyeing it up but opts for a cross … where Williams almost connects only to be denied by Fonte, who turns the ball out for a corner. That ends up being cleared. 71 min: Ten minutes after saying the game was opening up, Everton’s performance level has dropped again. 69 min: Mirallas is on in place of Barkley, who was again ineffective, seconds after Bolasie found the roof of the net with a curling effort from about 25 yards. 68 min: Sims races down the right, beating Baines and then Williams but he cannot compose himself upon reaching the final third and is unable to find Austin with a pass. 65 min: Deulofeu comes on from Lennon, who I don’t think was given a single mention in 65 minutes. He was anonymous. 64 min: Bolasie connects brilliantly with an overhead kick, but Forster saves well with his feet. In any case the linesman’s flag goes up for offside. 62 min: Hojbjerg tries to find Sims after the latter cleverly ran behind Baines but there’s a little too much on the through ball. 61 min: The game is opening up now. I’d be very surprised if there is not another goal in the remaining half hour or so. 58 min: Austin almost doubles Southampton’s advantage. Soares picks him out with a wonderful outswinger and the striker rises to powerfully head goalwards only for Stekelenburg to react quickly and palm the ball away. That’s a great save. 56 min: Bolasie shoots high and wide but Everton are certainly improving here. 53 min: Lukaku hammers a free-kick well over. Dreadful. 50 min: Sims forces Stekelenburg to save again with a drive from outside the area. 48 min: Bertrand wins a corner after a rampaging run down the left. We’re back underway again. Everton can hardly be any worse, but will they be able to improve enough to get back into this game? Charlie Austin’s 41st second goal gives Southampton a deserved lead at the interval. 45 min: … and Baines’s delivery is half cleared, reaching Gueye. He blasts well over again. Koeman looks in pain on the touchline. There will be one minute added on. 44 min: Bolasie wins a corner off Redmond. Williams and Jagielka are coming up … 43 min: Sims is caught out for the first time and Bolasie picks out Barkley with a great cross from the right. The midfielder’s effort has plenty of power, but no accuracy. It goes about 20 yards wide. Poor. 43 min: Austin and Williams square up to each other near halfway. But tempers cool quickly. 42 min: Koeman, one senses, will hammer his players at the break. This is a dismal performance and they are lucky to be only a goal behind. 39 min: Hojbjerg has been excellent in midfield. Soares finds the former Bayern man at the back post with a cross from the right but his header goes wide. 37 min: Redmond earns a corner for Southampton but Gueye eventually hacks clear after Van Dijk knocked down Ward-Prowse’s delivery. 36 min: A pretty unanimous response from all four of you about Van Dijk, though Matt Loten rightly points out that Fonte may feel a tad hard done by. 30 min: Everton are showing some signs of improvement but, really, Forster could have been sleeping throughout this game so far. 27 min: Van Dijk has been smothering Lukaku so far. A question for the floor: is Van Dijk the best centre-half at a non-title threatening team? 26 min: Everton finally put a decent move together. Barry’s through ball picks out Coleman, who squares to Gueye. But the former Villa midfielder shoots well over. It’s the type of poorly executed shot that leaves opposition fans to bellow “Wahey!” 24 min: Austin is picked out by Hojbjerg but scuffs his shot a tad and Stekelenburg makes the save. 23 min: I’m not being lazy, it’s just there are only so many ways to describe Southampton patiently passing the ball without Everton putting them under nowhere enough pressure. 18 min: Southampton are bossing this and Everton look so sluggish. Hojbjerg shoots way over from range but that is already Saints’ fifth attempt at goal. Everton have not had a single sniff. 17 min: Sims is left all alone in the middle of the box but cannot get enough behind his header to beat Stekelenburg following Redmond’s dinked cross. 14 min: Coleman is penalised for a shove on Redmond. Ward-Prowse’s delivery from the left is punched away unconvincingly by Stekelenburg and Hojbjerg’s follow up attempt is well over. 10 min: Southampton are so compact here, making it very difficult for Everton to feed Lukaku unless he drops so deep he is unable to have any genuine impact. 7 min: The visitors finally settle and enjoy some time in possession. Coleman motors forward down Everton’s right and centres to Lukaku, who had dropped deep to get involved in the game. 5 min: Sims is really making things difficult for Baines down Southampton’s right. Meanwhile, the home fans are chanting rude things about their former manager. 3 min: And now Saints have a corner, won by Sims. Barkley heads clear. Everton appear shell-shocked by the early concession and the hosts look hungry for a quick second. 1 min: It’s only taken 41 seconds. Soares crosses from the right and Sims, the debutant, bundles the ball into Austin’s path from four yards. The striker finishes with ease. What a start for Southampton and the 19-year-old Sims! 1 min: Everton begin, playing from left to right as we watch. Koeman is warmly embraced by members of Southampton’s technical staff. The teams are out. We’re moments away, and it promises to be a cracker. Prediction: Southampton 1-1 Everton. “What are the rest of the MBM’ers up to this afternoon that you have to pull a double shift?” asks Matt Loten. “Not that I’m disappointed to see you back or anything; I’m just worried that there’s a cracking party going on at HQ or something and you don’t get to attend.” It’s just that I love MBMs so much, Matt (or, er, maybe there are just not enough bodies to cover all this live sport!). But there is definitely no party. This is a fun free zone. Sport is Serious Business. Southampton: Forster; Cedric, Fonte, Van Dijk, Bertrand; Hojbjerg, Romeu Ward-Prowse; Redmond, Austin, Sims. Subs: Yoshida, Clasie, Long, Rodriguez, Reed, Taylor, McQueen. Everton: Stekelenburg; Coleman, Jagielka, Williams, Baines; Gana, Barry; Lennon, Barkley, Bolasie; Lukaku. Subs: Robles, Deulofeu, Mirallas, Cleverley, Valencia, Funes Mori, Holgate. Referee: Craig Pawson (South Yorkshire) Hello. There was no time to write a preamble for this game because Arsenal v Bournemouth is ongoing. But rest assured, once that finishes I’ll be here with all the team news for Ronald’s Return. Meantime, here’s Paul Wilson on Koeman
Tina Fey working on Mean Girls musical adaption of hit teen comedy Tina Fey said she’s hard at work on a musical adaptation of her hit 2004 teen comedy Mean Girls, on Tuesday night at the Tribeca film festival. The 30 Rock creator had previously previewed the show in March on Bravo’s late night program Watch What Happens Live. But during a talk as part of the festival’s storytellers lineup, moderated by TV Guide writer Damian Holbrook, Fey revealed that the summer gap, in between shooting seasons of her Netflix show Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, has given her time to complete the musical with her husband, composer Jeff Richmond, and lyricist Nell Benjamin. As for the original film, which made stars of Rachel McAdams and Amanda Seyfried (Lindsay Lohan was already popular at the time), Fey said her role as a high school teacher was originally supposed to be much bigger. Initially the comedy was supposed to center on Fey’s character, who was originally envisioned as a counselor who traveled the country holding “relational aggression” workshops for high schoolers. “The more I started working on the script, the smaller and smaller my part got because the girls were more interesting,” Fey said. The discussion was broad. Fey was asked to comment on a wide variety of topics including who makes her laugh (“Maya Rudolph, Martin Short, Andrea Martin, my children and my husband”), her thoughts on social media (“not into it”), and whether she’ll ever one day direct (“never say never”). Speaking about Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, a show made for NBC before Netflix swooped in to acquire it, Fey said she felt freed shooting the second season knowing that it was a Netflix property. A half-hour show on “NBC is 21 minutes and 15 seconds after you take out the commercials”, she explained. “On Netflix, they really want you to make the episodes as long as possible for the amount of time you have.” She also expressed delight at having the opportunity to go “darker” and “edgier” in the new season, which recently debuted on the streaming platform. Fey, famous for parodying Sarah Palin on Saturday Night Live, also weighed in on this year’s election, admitting to “yelling at my TV every morning” over all the developments. “I feel like, looking back at 2008, it’s like an episode of The Andy Griffith Show. Now, it’s like ‘Ryan Murphy brings you Horror Election!,’” Fey said. “It feels darker.” Speaking of Murphy, Fey praised the show-runner’s new series, American Crime Story: The People v OJ Simpson. Fey loved the show so much that she admitted to calling the Television Academy, responsible for the Emmys, for the first time in 10 years, to revise her membership so she can vote in the acting categories of the awards show. “I did it just so I could vote for Sterling K Brown and Sarah Paulson.” Fey meanwhile shot down hopes that she’ll one day pair with frequent collaborator and friend Amy Poehler on a series. “We’re actually both alphas,” she reasoned. “So it works in short spurts, but I don’t know if we would make a real dynasty.” The two most recently starred as siblings in the comedy Sisters. The oddest reveal of the evening came when Fey admitted to auditioning for the role of the baker’s wife in the recent film musical, Into the Woods. The role initially went to Emily Blunt. “I tried to beg my way into that movie,” she said. “That was in my weird year off between TV shows. I realized that when people say they’re gonna ‘stretch themselves’, it just means they’re gonna annoy people.” Asked if there’s footage of her audition to be found, Fey said: “I’m sure it’s gone by now.”
Crystal ball gazing is for mugs – just ask me about Leicester City Niall MacSweeney, a Dublin-based Sunderland supporter and long-standing reader, has been in touch with a suggestion. “It would be great if you could predict from one to 20 the finishing places in the new season’s Premier League,” he writes. “Always good fun to compare with my own and others.” It might pass for fun in your house, Mr MacSweeney, the long winter evenings must fly by, though presumably when you get something spectacularly wrong, like tipping Chelsea for the title and Leicester for relegation – guilty on both charges here – you have the luxury of keeping the incriminating evidence to yourself. No one else need know. Football correspondents on the other hand have their laughably inaccurate predictions splashed all over the newspapers and, these days, onwards around the world via websites and the tittering of social media. There was a time not long ago when what you suggested in August was mere fish and chip wrapping by September and completely forgotten by Christmas, save for the odd sad person who would send you a clipping in May he had been keeping under his bed for nine months for just such a purpose. But now the Nostradamus game has changed utterly. For a start the Premier League has become much more competitive and unpredictable. We can all agree on that, even before the eye-popping events of last season. Then there is the annoying fact these previews have to be written almost a month before the transfer window closes, with every chance of key players being bought or sold in the next few weeks to upset the most careful calculations. Finally there is the consideration that anything committed to the internet becomes immortal, unkillable, imperishable. Ill-considered opinions no longer die a quiet and lonely death but take on a life of their own. With a couple of keystrokes whole articles can be instantly relaunched and sent on their travels again, finding entirely new audiences among below-the-line commentators who happily add a few snorts of derision of their own to speed them on their way. Even now, years after the event, I am continually reminded of the time I noted Steve Kean was doing well to keep playing morale high at Blackburn Rovers when the new owners were floundering and the fans were in open revolt, going as far as to suggest that if he managed to avoid relegation in such circumstances (he didn’t) he ought to be recognised in the end of season awards. Every so often, apropos of almost anything, some discussion thread will be interrupted by a poster providing a link to the article and a comment along the lines of: this writer knows nothing about football, he voted for Steve Kean as manager of the year. But let’s not complain. Let’s give Mr MacSweeney his fun instead and throw a few more boomerangs in fortune’s direction. There are probably a couple of reasons why he would like to see a full rundown. First, the big guessing game this summer is where to put Leicester in such a list. Champions again? Unlikely. But as we all know it was unlikely last time. Relegation material? Doubtful. Mid-table security seems most probable, an outcome that would have been joyously welcomed 12 months ago, though despite the steep learning curve that coming to terms with the Champions League will represent, at the time of writing Leicester have kept the bulk of their squad, their manager and their sense of adventure, so it remains possible they could do a little better than that. A Europa League finish may be attainable. Second, our correspondent is probably fed up of his own club being glossed over at this time of year and would like something a bit more specific than “will stay up narrowly”. So how about 16th place, Mr MacSweeney? David Moyes is probably as sound a bet as Sam Allardyce at making teams hard to beat; it is when tasked with going beyond that he has tended to come unstuck. Also it was possibly revealing that his opening remarks to Sunderland supporters paid tribute to Allardyce for the fantastic job he had done in keeping the club up. Hard to disagree, though Sunderland supporters would have preferred to hear something a little more upbeat, perhaps the suggestion that with the players at the club they should never have been in such trouble. Fanciful, of course, but fans would still have liked to hear it. Moyes has also talked about bargain-hunting in the Everton mode, so top 10 dreams on Wearside may have to go on hold for a few more seasons yet. The fight for top-four places promises to be more bonkers than ever, though most bookmakers seem to agree the two treble-winning coaches installed in Manchester will take the top two places. They might, but keep your eye on Jürgen Klopp’s Liverpool, who have brought in a few new players for the German’s first full season and, very much like Leicester last time, have no European distractions to worry about. Liverpool could be this season’s gatecrashers – their rather pallid eighth place last season was due in part to reaching two finals and giving the Europa League their all – although, for the same reasons, so could Manchester United. Assuming José Mourinho can find a diplomatic way to shove the Europa League on to a back burner – not that diplomacy and the erstwhile special one are often seen hand in hand – United too can give themselves a clear run at the league this season. The boldness of their spending indicates they intend to hit the ground running, and though Manchester City have also been splashing out, for this season Pep Guardiola is the new kid in town. Mourinho is the one with Premier League experience, the one with English titles in the bag, and coupled with the lack of Champions League commitments that could give United the advantage. When City commence their Champions League fixtures, assuming they make it through their qualifying ties, Guardiola will be under quite a lot of pressure to put up a good show. Even though they reached the last four last season City have long imagined Guardiola to be the coach to take them to the next level in Europe. They would like him to win domestic titles as well and he quite possibly will, though it may be a mistake to expect everything to come together in his first season in a new country. The final top-four place should go to London. Exactly where in London is a more vexed question. Chelsea still have a strong squad, a smart new manager and no European commitments, though Arsenal have money to spend, finished second last season, and never seem to miss out on the Champions League despite all the noises off. One cannot keep playing safe in these matters, August predictions are all about sticking your neck out, and the feeling here is Chelsea will be back, Arsenal will be pushed out and Tottenham and West Ham will not quite manage to hit the heights of last season. At risk of sticking my neck out further than is wise, the bottom of the table looks set to be less fluid this season. Hull are already in all sorts of trouble with no manager, no budget for new players and seemingly no hope, and unless Burnley strengthen very quickly it appears they too are ready for another single-season visit to the top flight. Of the three promoted teams Middlesbrough seem to be the only ones with plans to extend their stay, and while it remains possible all three promoted clubs will go straight back down it is more fun in these situations to posit a more established side sliding down the table. In various ways Bournemouth, Crystal Palace, West Brom, Swansea, Sunderland and even Southampton may be considered at risk but Watford look most vulnerable, particularly if they fail to hang on to their goalscorers. Sorry, Hornets fans, but if it is any consolation, vulnerable was exactly the word used here about Leicester 12 months ago. See you on the open‑top bus. PAUL WILSON’S FINAL 2016-17 TABLE 2015-16 final places in brackets 1 Manchester United (5th) 2 Liverpool (8th) 3 Manchester City (4th) 4 Chelsea (10th) 5 Arsenal (2nd) 6 Tottenham (3rd) 7 Leicester (1st) 8 Everton (11th) 9 West Ham (7th) 10 Stoke (9th) 11 Swansea (12th) 12 Crystal Palace (15th) 13 Southampton (6th) 14 Bournemouth (16th) 15 Middlesbrough (2nd, Championship) 16 Sunderland (17th) 17 West Brom (14th) 18 Burnley (1st, Championship) 19 Watford (13th) 20 Hull (4th, Championship)
How Europe is fighting to change tech companies' 'wrecking ball' ethics Facebook, Google, Amazon and other internet behemoths are involved in a form of technological innovation that is acting as a “wrecking ball”, the president of the European parliament declared in Brussels this week. “The aim is not just to play with the way society is organised, but instead to demolish the existing order and build something new in its place,” said Martin Schulz. “The internet lost its innocence long ago.” Digitisation brings undoubted benefits, but if we want to prevent becoming “remote-controlled ‘data cows’ who live in a world ruled over by a handful of multinational companies,” he said, “we cannot leave debating ‘internet issues’ to the nerds. It is a debate in which all must have their say.” Schulz’s challenge is profound. What is at stake is pluralism, autonomy and choice. It’s about democracy in the face of “intelligence and businesses’ insatiable appetite for information about every single aspect of our lives”. It’s about ensuring that “not just the happy few benefit from the digital revolution”, and that “those who want to stay off-grid are also protected”. Culture and ethics beyond law But Schulz’s challenge also risks being lost. He was preaching to the choir: an annual festival of data protection and privacy experts; people steeped in the increasingly discomfiting reality of trying to control data online – bits in a tornado. How could his message resonate more widely? European politicians want the new General Data Protection Regulation – the most-debated piece of EU legislation ever – to be part of the solution, along with the remainder of Europe’s pioneering fundamental rights framework. But law is not, and cannot be, the whole. Mostly, it’s about culture and ethics. One European institution wants to seize this broader challenge. The European data protection supervisor, or EDPS, is the EU’s smallest entity but also one of its most ambitious, and immediately followed Schulz’s address by announcing a new ethics advisory group. EDPS hopes this group will lead an inclusive debate on human rights, technology, markets and business models in the 21st century from an ethical perspective. Six individuals have been selected to spearhead what is initially a two-year investigative, consultative and report-writing initiative: iconoclastic American computer scientist and writer Jaron Lanier; Dutch data analytics consultant Aurélie Pols; and four philosophers, Peter Burgess, Antoinette Rouvroy, Luciano Floridi and Jeroen van den Hoven, who bring experience in political and legal philosophy, logic, and the ethics and philosophy of technology. Technology needs a moral compass Bringing ethics into the data debate is essential. And EPDS, which oversees how European institutions apply data rules and provides global vision and intellectual leadership on this subject, is an apt steward. However, there are two caveats. First, ethics is a discipline of rigour – not a marketing tool. Second, the frame of reference must not conflate the possible with the inevitable: despite media saturation with drones, driverless cars, artificial intelligence and smart cities, the world of data is very much up for grabs. Our compass must clearly be about more than keeping data miners and data protection authorities in business. In fact, our compass must be moral. So what is ethics and what should we expect this group to do? A common misconception is that ethics is only a matter of opinions. Certainly, we all have intuitions about what is right and wrong, and anyone can contribute to moral debates. But ethicists bring clarity and richness in argumentation, distinctions and nuance – they go beyond the generic “right” and “wrong” to explore what is permissible or impermissible, obligatory or supererogatory (desirable but beyond the call of duty). Ethicists bring knowledge, impartiality and experience that increase our chances of making better decisions. Because opinions are one thing, but ethical consequences bite: some choices make the world a better place by enhancing people’s wellbeing, and others do not. Making wrong ethical choices can create much unnecessary suffering. The first step for any ethics committee is diagnosis: identifying possible moral problems that might be overlooked if seen from other perspectives, whether legal, economic, security-focused, or otherwise. Next, ethicists must establish what the stakes are for different interest groups and for the common good. From this, the most viable courses of action can be explored, tracking consequences and implications, putting them in a balance, and recommending alternatives that will help build the kind of society we would like to live in. One may wonder if an ethics advisory group can have a tangible impact – whether anyone will listen to them. Medical ethics provides a reason for optimism. Ethical recommendations such as the Nuremberg code, the Declaration of Helsinki, and the Belmont report have been fundamental in shaping the medical profession. Debated and resolved by experts from around the world, they have inspired action and laws and introduced crucial standards that we now take for granted, such as informed consent and respect for autonomy. Ethics is an antidote to technological determinism As opposed to other kinds of reasoning, which typically appeal to what is, moral reasoning appeals to what should be – it’s all about counterfactuals. Ethics is about having the vision to imagine the many possible worlds we could bring to life with the decisions we make. As such, ethics can work as an antidote against technological determinism. Recourse to fatalism – the idea that we are heading towards an unavoidable future – is powerful. It tempts us to embrace what is advertised as unavoidable, to surrender before the fight begins; it subsumes us into passivity. But we must never forget that what was once thought to be inevitable has turned out not to be so. The proletariat revolution was not to be, the Titanic did sink, cinemas did not disappear with TVs, Google Glass did not become mainstream. Technology enthusiasts and corporate giants want us to believe that their vision of the future is not a mere wish but a foretelling. Nowhere is this more true than in projections about our data-driven future, and in the spectacular narrowing of imagination about innovation to a suite of smartphone and sensor-mediated services. Ethics is here to insist that the future is full of open possibilities, that we are free to reject those technologies or processes that will worsen our lives, and that if we do reject them, they will fail. The new European data rules and ethics initiative represent a tremendous opportunity. The message for ethicists, politicians, businesses and all of us is that we must be bold: nothing is inevitable, but everything is at stake.
Muse review – entertainingly bombastic At the start, the security staff appear like menacing cyborgs, fanning out in the photographers’ pit. At the end, after Knights of Cydonia – Muse’s portentous, gleeful set closer – singer Matt Bellamy’s grand piano is swallowed up by the ground, along with him. This is Muse, winners of umpteen best live band awards, in their natural habitat – a wide bowl, for the third of their five London dates. All told, their Drones world tour gives impeccable arena. A long, horizontal stage sets Muse up in the round, circumnavigating drummer Dominic Howard (and touring member Morgan Nicholls on keyboards). Bellamy and bassist Chris Wolstenholme prowl hither and yon on the two runways as lights strafe them. During The Handler, a malevolent puppet-mistress projection controls them with strings. The songs are meaty, precise and loud, recalling Queen to U2 to Marilyn Manson (the glam stompers, chiefly). The riffs from Led Zeppelin’s Heartbreaker and AC/DC’s Back in Black are quoted. Wolstenhome bats a giant confetti-filled balloon away with his bass. All is as it should be, apart from one detail. Having written an entire album about drone warfare – well, 2015’s Drones was partially about that, and partially about how heartbreak feels like an assault by hostile forces – the Teignmouth band have not been permitted to fly any actual drones over the heads of their audiences on the Drones world tour. Grumbling about health and safety legislation is usually the habit of swivel-eyed little Englanders, not sophisticated opera-rock nuts. In this case, however, you are tempted to swivel your eyes. After all a 12-year-old can pick one up on the internet. You can’t help but feel, though, that given the opportunity and the subject matter, Muse might have tried to terrify us a little more with their aerial display. Instead of actual drones, we have translucent hovering orbs. Dancing around the sky, they are far more pretty than sinister, like Zen zorbs designed by Steve Jobs. The band themselves veer between affecting moments of profundity, and the kind of arena rock theatre that adds a floor or two to the measure “over the top”. Matt Bellamy’s interest in defence procurement isn’t merely geeky, metallic or paranoid; it’s also fiercely compassionate. Album and tour open with a polyphonic choir of Bellamys singing “My son and my daughter/Killed by drones/Our lives between your fingers and your thumbs/Do you feel anything?”, the arrangement drawn from Sanctus et Benedictus by Palestrina. This is the kind of thing PJ Harvey gets MBEs for. The gig ends with a tin-rattle for Médecins Sans Frontières. Songs like Reapers have it all: tangled cat’s cradle guitar from Bellamy, monstrous heaviosity from the rhythm section, and an extended metaphor in which the parallels between remote aerial bombardment and a controlling relationship are wrung satisfyingly dry. If themes of control run wild through this album and this tour, they’ve sashayed through Muse’s work previously. Science and its applications have long held sway in Muse’s concerns, as have totalitarianism and rebellion – witness the operatic, Orwellian feel of The Uprising from their 2009 album, The Resistance, a song that packs a nod to Blondie’s Call Me. You could add a Unesco prize for the popularisation of science to the list of awards Muse ought to have won. I was recently passing through the Institute of Astronomy in Cambridge, where an advertised lecture on “Selection bias in dynamically measured super-massive black hole samples” got me humming the riff to Supermassive Black Hole. Given these themes of control versus freedom, of encroaching science versus human vulnerability, there’s a pleasing symmetry in Muse’s actual music tonight. (Muse like symmetry.) The often threatening, machinistic work of Howard and Wolstenholme allows Bellamy to smear his soaring vocal and widdly guitar solos over the top – a process that highlights the play of individualistic ecstasies against the monolithic grid patterns beneath. Like the perennially funky Supermassive Black Hole, Madness is one of those songs that provide a glimpse of the come-hithering Prince tribute act Muse might have been, had they not cast their lot with the hard rock confraternity. As it is, their bombast is a lot of fun – with the faint whirr of a missed opportunity to unsettle hovering just out of sight.
Elizabeth Banks bows out of directing Pitch Perfect 3 Elizabeth Banks will not be returning to the Pitch Perfect director’s chair for the third installment in the hit musical franchise. The actor made her directorial debut with the first sequel, which performed like a blockbuster in the summer of 2015, earning $285m worldwide, including $183m domestically. She had signed on to direct the third installment, but according to Variety, Banks’ packed schedule has forced her to part ways with the project as director. She will, however, continue to serve as producer, and will reprise her role as Gail, the snarky commentator for the International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella. Franchise stars Anna Kendrick, Rebel Wilson and Brittany Snow are all signed on to return. Banks’ directorial follow-up could either be the Charlie’s Angels reboot that she’s agreed to direct for Sony, or the film adaptation of Victoria Aveyard’s popular YA novel Red Queen, which she’s rumoured to be circling for Universal. As an actor, Banks will next be seen as Power Rangers villain Rita Repulsa in the upcoming reboot of the hit children’s franchise, set for release March 2017. Pitch Perfect 3 was initially set to open 21 July 2017, but will now open 22 December 2017 in the US.
Don’t let the news get you down – things will get better, they always do Hope is a slave to news; we should never forget it. And news has always been bad. Its currency is unspeakable horror, with hatred and doom darkening every horizon. News defies us to peer through the gloom and ever see light ahead. The answer lies not in downgrading hope, it lies in downgrading news. For it is not what it purports to be – the real world – but an edited, selected, distorted reality, designed for vicarious public consumption. Media organisations receive periodic complaints that they should “cover more good news”. The result is usually unreadable. A successful plane takeoff is not news, only a crashing one. Famine is news, plenty is not. War is news, peace is not. News is the evil we do each other, seldom the good. Hope lies not in headlines but in the more tedious realm of statistics. Five years ago, the American scientist Steven Pinker wrote a book The Better Angels of Our Nature, seeking to compute the gains and losses of humankind over recent centuries. His sum was overwhelmingly positive – and despite “miserabilist” critics has stood the test of time. Violence, said Pinker, has vastly diminished. Both inter-state and civil conflicts are less common, and less deadly, than at any time in history. The chance of dying a violent death is a tenth of what it was just half a century ago. Starvation and plague have almost been eliminated and indeed make headlines when they occur. Life expectancy has soared, along with female emancipation, literacy, health, access to water, power and electronic communication. How can that not be a source of hope? Any fool can open a newspaper and cry. Just look at Syria or Yemen or the Democratic Republic of the Congo or Isis or climate change or the risk of a revanchist Russia and a “primitivist” America. People are dying of cancer and suffering from mental illness. On every side is evidence of man’s inhumanity to man. Since homo sapiens first walked the planet it did unspeakable things, but there was no internet to tell every tale. The recourse to cruelty, personal, communal and international, seems ingrained in the human condition. But for all the backsliding, hope lies in the fact that this recourse is plainly diminishing. In just a century, democracy has gone from being a foible of a few western states to ruling a majority of the world’s population. The chief agencies of progress have been economic. The industrial revolution and the advent of global trade have brought prosperity, comfort and happiness beyond the dreams of our ancestors. The proportion of people living in what is defined as poverty has declined in two centuries from 94% to 10%. We take this so much for granted that we struggle to deny it to a few Amazonian tribes still beyond its reach – as if guarding the memory of our former selves. The ubiquity, the sheer unavoidability, of bad news is like George Orwell’s boot, stamping on our faces over and over. In many countries, democracy may seem to be passing through a difficult phase. The restless exhortation to change, to disrupt, to intervene in other people’s business appears undimmed. When I hear MPs stand up in parliament to demand “something be done” about the world’s ailments, my instinct is to reply: “For God’s sake, no.” But even such ambition is fuelled by hope, the everlasting spur to progress. It is the engine of improvement. It motivates science and charity alike. So turn off the news. Turn on history. Believe that things will get better, for the excellent reason that they have always done so.
Breaking good: the takes over Beats 1 Radio with new music show For the next four weeks, the is taking command of the streaming station Beats 1 on Apple Music with the show Breaking Good, where special guests from the forefront of music will play tunes by artists they think are getting it really, really right now. In the first episode, the ’s Kate Hutchinson is joined by two heavyweights from British dance culture, Andrew Weatherall and David Holmes. Weatherall is the man who produced Primal Scream’s seminal album Screamadelica and helped kickstart the UK’s acid house movement with his Boy’s Own collective, laying some of the groundwork for modern clubbing culture. A true DJ’s DJ, Weatherall is as respected for his sets of techno bangers as for his penchant for playing rockabilly, post-punk and slo-mo house. Holmes is an electronic music producer, superstar remixer and award-winning film composer. He has twisted up tracks by everyone from U2 to Ice Cube and soundtracked the Oceans 11 trilogy and Steve McQueen’s Hunger. Most recently, he wrote and directed his first short film, the critically acclaimed I Am Here, and has worked with studio artists such as John Lennon’s drummer Jim Keltner, Wayne Kramer (MC5) and Tommy Morgan (the Beach Boys, Elvis). Weatherall and Holmes have recently released lauded new albums – Weatherall, the post-punk and dub-tinged Convenanza, named after his festival of the same name; Holmes, Guilty of Love by his smouldering project Unloved, inspired by the sounds of 60s girl groups and classic film scores. They’ll be playing the artists that they think are smashing it in 2016, from London duo Cat’s Eyes to Under the Skin soundtrack svengali Micachu, among a sprinkling of their own remixes and tracks by British newcomer Gaika and classical composer turned techno wizard Anne Meredith. Plus our roving reporter Ben Beaumont-Thomas will be zooming in on breaking music trends from around the world. Breaking Good starts Saturday 5 March at 7pm GMT on Beats 1 on Apple Music, with shows at the same time every Saturday for the rest of March. All shows will be available to hear on demand.
Clinton is in danger of seizing up in Rust Belt after Michigan result It’s been a good season for candidates who can channel the anger of the electorate and we saw that again on Tuesday night, when exit polls continued to turn up in favor of Donald Trump, while Bernie Sanders pulled off a surprise victory in Michigan. Trump’s victory in Mississippi was so decisive that he was declared the winner in that state moments after the first polling reports came in, and he was declared the winner in Michigan soon after. Ted Cruz netted a win in Idaho, keeping a firm grip on second place in the overall GOP race. Trump’s continued winning streak – despite talk of a lull in his candidacy – wasn’t the biggest victory of the night. That belonged to Sanders, who managed to pull off something he’s been trying to prove throughout his campaign: that he can compete with Hillary Clinton in states like Michigan, where African American voters make up roughly a quarter of the electorate. Clinton won fewer than two-thirds of African American voters in the state, significantly down from the 80-90% support she’s enjoyed elsewhere. The victories for Trump and Sanders come after a week when both men’s chances were being played down. Sanders’ campaign had been all but left for dead after he failed to make significant inroads with minority voters on Super Tuesday. Trump faced attacks from the party establishment (most notably Mitt Romney) and scorn from the media establishment for his habit of asking people to raise their hands and pledge allegiance to him at rallies, something Cruz quickly seized upon. “We’ve had seven years of a president who thinks he’s an emperor,” he quipped. For a fleeting moment on Tuesday, it looked like Trump’s star might finally be fading. After all, on Saturday he only won by a few percentage points in Louisiana and Kentucky, while Cruz won handily in Maine and Kansas. But winning by less is still, to put it in Trump terms, #winning. And Tuesday’s results suggest the weekend was merely an ebb in the candidate’s current. Trump’s win in Mississippi, in particular, is an embarrassment for Cruz, whose plan was to win over the south – something that, as a devout conservative from Texas, he should have been able to do. But that strategy didn’t work for Cruz last month in South Carolina, where he lost southern evangelical voters to Trump by a landslide, and it didn’t work for him on Super Tuesday, either. Mississippi was, if anything, an unwelcome reprise of what’s beginning to sound like a familiar story for Cruz. But Trump’s win in Michigan is arguably even more significant, and not just because he squelched John Kasich’s improbable hopes for a win there and by extension Ohio. Michigan is especially valuable politically because it embodies America’s manufacturing industry and is a potential bellwether for the all-important Ohio. The state is just as valuable in a general election. While Michigan is expected to go blue in a general, Trump’s strong performance there (and Hillary Clinton’s difficulty in running against Sanders there) suggests Trump’s talking points on trade and the perils of outsourcing jobs overseas are resonating. Sanders spent a lot of time campaigning in Michigan and it’s apparently paid off – he’s performed far better in the state than anyone predicted. And it’s somewhat telling that he’s focused single-mindedly on trade. After all, the negative effects of the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta), Bill Clinton’s signature trade deal, are still felt acutely here. And Hillary Clinton was slow to come out against the Trans-Pacific Partnership and voice criticism of Nafta. Those are trade positions Sanders has long held, and Clinton’s slowness to adopt them gave him another chance to paint her as politically opportunistic. Clinton thought she had finessed the trade issue, by focusing on other problems in Michigan, like Flint’s lead-poisoned water, and by skewering Sanders over his vote against the auto bailout (his campaign said it was part of a bigger vote against a bailout for Wall Street). But clearly she hadn’t. And that’s a troubling finding for anyone worried about a Trump presidency: it suggests the Democrats’ likely nominee could have a problem in crucial manufacturing states. A majority of Democrats and Republicans in Michigan have reported that recent trade deals have given people like them the shaft. On the Democratic side, six in 10 Michigan voters thought trade takes away jobs and the majority of those voters supported Sanders; on the Republican side, four in 10 thought trade costs the country jobs, and the majority of them supported Trump. Sanders’ and Trump’s big wins in Michigan tonight, and those polling numbers in particular, should have Clinton very, very afraid.
EU referendum morning briefing: the aftermath The big picture It was an early morning for the chancellor, George Osborne, who broke his post-vote (mostly) silence on Monday to issue a dawn statement intended to calm the markets and set out his plans to stabilise the economy and the surrounding jitters. He wasn’t too keen to be reminded of that £30bn black hole budget that once upon a time – perhaps as long as a fortnight ago – he had thundered about. Now all that can wait till the autumn, when a new prime minister (who might even have a plan for that article 50 business) will decide how punishing the punishment budget will need to be. He did issue a little jab: I don’t resile from any of the concerns expressed during that campaign. But for now all is well. The roof is fixed, the contingency plans for the thing that was never meant to happen are dusted down, and Osborne has made calls to every finance minister, bank boss and Facebook friend. The City might be hoping for a large dollop of reassurance on its breakfast muesli, with news that some firms are preparing to leave the UK amid uncertainty over the post-Brexit financial landscape. The reports this morning: A survey by the Institute of Directors (IoD), which found that the majority of businesses believed Brexit was bad for them, comes amid fears that investors will wipe billions more pounds off share values on Monday morning, and signs that the pound, which hit a 30-year low on Friday, was coming under further pressure from trading in Asia. Sterling was down more than 1% as the Asian markets opened late on Sunday. The IoD said a quarter of the members polled in a survey were putting hiring plans on hold, while 5% said they were set to make workers redundant. Nearly two-thirds of those polled said the outcome of the referendum was negative for their business. One in five respondents, out of a poll of more than 1,000 business leaders, were considering moving some of their operations outside of the UK. The European Central Bank’s annual summit begins in Portugal on Monday, but it’s now thought the Bank of England governor, Mark Carney, might skip it, due to worries about expected turmoil in the markets. Officials in Japan and China have already issued warnings today as the pound continued to fall and Asian markets struggled to recoup heavy losses. Ahead of the start of a two-day Brussels summit on Tuesday – to which David Cameron is still invited but which he will leave early to allow the 27 other leaders to talk about him without him having to pretend he can’t hear them – the European council president, Donald Tusk, on Monday meets Angela Merkel, François Hollande and Matteo Renzi, and the US secretary of state, John Kerry, heads Europe-wards too. The likely agenda? Can EU leaders push Britain into the process of negotiating its exit by refusing informal talks ahead of the official triggering of article 50? What if the UK never gets round to triggering article 50? Will Iceland boot England out of Europe quicker than expected? The Times front page reports that Osborne’s purdah has also been spent mulling whether to back Boris Johnson to succeed Cameron as prime minister, as the Vote Leave frontman – and the home secretary, Theresa May – look set to launch bids for the keys to No 10 this week. But an ally of the chancellor told the : No he hasn’t made any decisions at all – he has been totally focused over the last 72 hours on talking to counterparts and investors across the world to try to ensure a period of stability. Johnson, it seems, has spent at least some of those 72 hours penning what is presumably his first draft at a prime ministerial manifesto for his regular Telegraph column (so handy and time-saving to be able to multitask!). Those who voted to remain aren’t a bad lot, he declares: They are our neighbours, brothers and sisters who did what they passionately believe was right … We who are part of this narrow majority must do everything we can to reassure the remainers. We must reach out, we must heal, we must build bridges – because it is clear that some have feelings of dismay, and of loss, and confusion. Dismay, loss and confusion: not a bad summing-up of where Labour finds itself on Monday morning, reeling from 11 shadow cabinet resignations – and one sacking – over the weekend, and with the threat of more to follow. Here’s the latest standings on who’s in and who’s out. Make sure your F5 button is working today. An embattled Jeremy Corbyn will hold talks on Monday with Tom Watson – still scraping the mud off his Glastonbury wellies – after Labour’s deputy leader pointedly omitted to back Corbyn on Sunday. Watson issued a statement saying he was “deeply disappointed” by the sacking of Hilary Benn and “equally saddened” by the resignations that followed: The nation needs an effective opposition, particularly as the current leadership of the country is so lamentable. It’s very clear to me that we are heading for an early general election and the Labour party must be ready to form a government. There’s much work to do. Pressure on the Labour leader has grown, with the latest voice to chime in belonging to Phil Wilson, who chaired the Labour In For Britain parliamentary group. Writing in the , Wilson says: It was clear last summer that Jeremy was only ever partially interested in keeping Britain in Europe and an honourable leader would bear the responsibility for the failure to persuade Labour voters to vote remain. Corbyn has made it clear that there will be no Jexit for him (sorry, I didn’t start that one): I was elected by hundreds of thousands of Labour party members and supporters with an overwhelming mandate for a different kind of politics. I regret there have been resignations today from my shadow cabinet. But I am not going to betray the trust of those who voted for me – or the millions of supporters across the country who need Labour to represent them. Those who want to change Labour’s leadership will have to stand in a democratic election, in which I will be a candidate. Corbyn said he would announce a new top team “over the next 24 hours” – but many observers expect more resignation letters to come fluttering on to his mat before then. He also has a meeting of the parliamentary Labour party to look forward to at 6pm. Confusion is abounding elsewhere too. For example, here’s prominent Brexit campaigner Iain Duncan Smith in front of a Vote Leave bus linking the £350m in EU “savings” to more money for the NHS: And yet here too is Iain Duncan Smith telling the BBC on Sunday: I never said that during the course of the election … What we actually said was a significant amount of it would go to the NHS. It’s essentially down to the government, but I believe that is what was pledged and that’s what should happen. There was talk about it going to the NHS, but there are other bits and pieces like agriculture, which is part of the process. That is the divide up. It was never the total. It’s not the only pledge that leave campaigners have inched back from since Thursday. Perhaps some things really are politics as usual. You should also know: A spate of racist incidents are thought to be linked to the Brexit result. Heathrow’s chief executive says Brexit may delay a third runway. The 3m signature petition for second EU referendum may have been manipulated. Diary The US secretary of state, John Kerry, flies to Brussels and London for urgent talks. The European council president Donald Tusk meets with the French president, François Hollande, German chancellor Angela Merkel and Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi. Wales’ first minister Carwyn Jones has called an urgent meeting of the Welsh government cabinet to discuss the implications of the Brexit vote. Parliament at Westminster is back today, too. At 6pm on Monday there’s a meeting of the parliamentary Labour party; grassroots group Momentum has called for supporters to rally in support of Jeremy Corbyn as it happens. Read these Bagehot in the Economist says “a vacuum yawns wide” at the top of British politics: Mr Cameron has said nothing since Friday morning. George Osborne, the chancellor of the exchequer, has been silent … The prime minister’s loyalist allies in Westminster and in the media are largely mute. Apart from ashen-faced, mumbled statements from the Vote Leave headquarters on Friday, Boris Johnson and Michael Gove have also ducked the limelight … Neither seems to have the foggiest as to what should happen next. Today Mr Gove’s wife committed to Facebook the hope that ‘clever people’ might offer to ‘lend their advice and expertise’. And Mr Johnson’s sister, Rachel, tweeted: ‘Everyone keeps saying “we are where we are” but nobody seems to have the slightest clue where that is.’ In Politico, Tom McTague and Alex Spence rate the chances of the six different ways Britain might just stay in the EU: Could the UK negotiate ‘associate status’, outside the EU but with devolved powers for Scotland to maintain free movement and other EU benefits? … The ‘associate’ option, which would be decried as a sell out by hardline Brexiters, would see the future prime minister try to keep Britain in the EU single market, accepting large tracts of EU law, but with autonomy over agriculture, fishing and trade deals … [Nicola] Sturgeon is key to making this happen. If she can go back to Edinburgh claiming victory – protecting Scotland’s access to the single market and getting back fishing rights – the UK could be saved. But the UK as a whole would lose its seat at the EU table and be firmly more Out than In. It would be powerless, but sovereign. It is a hard sell in the long term. And Zoe Williams – a Corbyn supporter – writes in the that it is time for Labour to move on: I don’t agree that his time as leader has been a disaster – leave would have won the referendum regardless. It would always have turned the debate into a conversation about immigration and hammered out its racist cant, whoever opposed it. A more centrist Labour leader would have made more concessions – offered bogus and unworkable migrant caps – but the more strident voice would still have won. Corbyn has been a one-man Occupy movement, squatting in the office of Labour leader on behalf of the people (of whom I was one) who felt the party’s high command was lifeless and intellectually spent. The point has been made, and the apparatus now has to be put to better use. Baffling claim of the day I think we’ve gone past baffling, really, so suggestions for a new title are very welcome. Anyway, here’s Sky News political editor, Faisal Islam, revealing that a prominent leave campaigner had told him there was no post-Brexit plan. If today were a board game... It would be Guess Who? If you’ve got blue eyes and are wearing a hat, you could be in the shadow cabinet by tea-time. And another thing Would you like to wake up to this briefing in your inbox? Sign up here.
Bob Bradley says Swansea job a 'special opportunity' for US football Bob Bradley has said his appointment as Swansea City coach is a special opportunity for him – but also for US football. Bradley, 58, will become the first American to coach in the Premier League when it was confirmed on Monday he would replace Francesco Guidolin in south Wales. Bradley took charge of Ligue 2 Le Havre for the final time on Monday night, and admitted he’d have preferred to wait until the end of the season to make the move. The lure of the Premier League, however, proved too strong. The former USA and Egypt boss was asked whether he had any hesitation in making the move to Swansea. “Honestly, no,” he replied. “In a perfect world, I would finish this season, go right to the end just like last year. But in football, you don’t control timing. “At this moment, the opportunity to go to the Premier League – on many levels – is special. I’m sorry to leave, especially at this moment, but it’s still an opportunity for me, my family and American football. That’s important.” Bradley took over at Le Havre in November last year, and missed out on promotion to Ligue 1 on goals scored: his side finished level on points with third-placed Metz, with the same goal difference, but scored two fewer goals and had to settle for fourth. He leaves Le Havre in fifth in Ligue 2 currently, three points off top spot. “I told the players before the match I’ll never forget the feeling of watching the team in the final game of last season. To miss out by one goal … to see a team playing with passion, commitment to go to Ligue 1,” Bradley said. “That picture is part of my football memory and will never go away.” Jürgen Klinsmann, the man who replaced Bradley as USA coach in 2011 – despite Bradley leading his side to the last 16 of the 2010 World Cup and a runners-up spot in the Confederations Cup a year earlier – said he was thrilled for his fellow coach. “I think this is super exciting, because he’s the first American coaching in the Premier League, and this is huge,” Klinsmann told fans in a Q&A on Facebook Live. “Huge compliment to him, and big congratulations to him and to Swansea City. We keep all our fingers crossed that things go well for him in his new adventure. I think he totally, totally deserves that opportunity.” USA forward Jozy Altidore described Bradley’s appointment as a “great moment” for soccer in America. “I think it’s terrific,” Altidore said from training camp, where the US national team are preparing for friendlies against Cuba and New Zealand. “Anybody that’s been a part of US Soccer for the past 10-20 years, I think you see from the inside how hard everybody has worked, and to have a coach now who I think paid his dues, he’s done well, he’s kind of climbed the ladder, so to speak … I think it’s a great moment for US Soccer, it’s a great moment for him, and we all hope he does a great job there.”
Olympic sponsorship and alcohol don’t mix As medical bodies and charities who support children and young people through sport, we are writing to express our concern that Strongbow is an official partner of Team GB at the 2016 Olympic Games. Our children and young people look to our Team GB athletes as role models and heroes. They are right to do this – we should be proud as a nation of our athletes, who represent a fine example of what one can achieve through hard work and dedication. Yet this also means that Team GB, as an organisation, has a responsibility to consider what messages it is sending to our children and young people. By partnering with an alcoholic drinks company, the message received by our children and young people will be that sport and alcohol go hand in hand. We are concerned that children will be encouraged to drink as a result. There is strong evidence that exposure to alcohol marketing leads young people to drink at an earlier age. A study of school children aged 13-14 from four EU countries found exposure to alcohol sports sponsorship through viewing a major football tournament was linked to a 70% increased chance of underage drinking. We know from the research that exposure to alcohol messages increases the likelihood that non-drinking young people will start to drink, and increases the likelihood that existing young drinkers will drink more alcohol, and in a more risky fashion. This exposure also leads to more positive beliefs among young people about alcohol. The later we can delay the uptake of drinking among young people, the better. We know that the younger people start to drink, the more chance there is that they will become dependent drinkers, with all the harm that causes to individuals, their families and society. This is why it is crucial that Team GB does not do anything that may promote the idea of drinking to young people. We urge Team GB to make a commitment that, for future events, it will not partner with the alcohol industry. Sir Ian Gilmore Chair, Alcohol Health Alliance Matt Stevenson-Dodd Chief executive, Street League Katherine Brown Director, Institute of Alcohol Studies Joanna Simons CBE Chief executive, Alcohol Concern Colin Shevills Director, Balance Shirley Cramer CBE Chief executive, Royal Society for Public Health Alison Douglas Chief executive, Alcohol Focus Scotland Sarah Toule Head of health information, World Cancer Research Fund Eric Carlin Director, Scottish Health Action on Alcohol Problems Modi Mwatsama Director of policy and public health, UK Health Forum Linda Harris CEO, Spectrum Community Health CIC, medical director substance misuse and associated health, RCGP Dr Clifford Mann President, Royal College of Emergency Medicine Prof Frank Murray President, Royal College of Physicians of Ireland Andrea Crossfield Chief executive, Healthier Futures Andrew Langford Chief executive, British Liver Trust Professor Jonathan Shepherd CBE Director, Violence Research Group Kate Knight Public Health Action Professor Graeme Alexander British Association for the Study of the Liver Kieran Moriarty British Society of Gastroenterology Linda Bauld UK Centre for Tobacco and Alcohol Studies • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
How I connected with my autistic son through video games My son was seven when a paediatrician diagnosed him on the autism scale – but really, we had known for years. There was his limited vocabulary – a handful of words by the time he was three, and a habit of mixing up letters or relying on stock sentences. He found it hard to get on with other children at his nursery, and later, when he went to a much bigger school, it was obvious the experience was terrifyingly loud, hectic and incomprehensible to him. Meanwhile, if there was something he was interested in, whether it was Peppa Pig or Superman, he would fixate on it to the detriment of absolutely anything else. We knew where all the signs were pointing. When you get this diagnosis, there are a lot of things you worry about: what will happen to their education; will they make friends; how independent will they be when they grow up? But a key element beneath all that is a basic human need: self-expression. Often Zac would try to tell us about things he liked, or stuff he had done at school, but his vocabulary would let him down, and he would get impatient. We tried to help, guessing what he wanted to tell us, but this frustrated him even more. It was heartbreaking. But, one day, when he was three or four, I was playing video games and I loaded up a PlayStation title called LittleBigPlanet; it’s a kind of platform leaping game, like Super Mario Bros, and the hero is this cute little doll called Sackboy. PlayStation 3 has motion detectors in its controller, so when you tilt it in your hands, Sackboy nods his head in time. I let Zac play and he was amazed and delighted; when Sackboy responded to his commands, he fell about laughing. It was an instant connection. We played together. LittleBigPlanet has an editor that lets you create your own levels, but Zac would just have fun selecting objects then dropping them on to the screen. He learned all the correct buttons very quickly. He seemed to have an innate understanding of what the game required. We played a lot of games after that, especially ones such as Lego Batman and Lego Star Wars, which let us play together cooperatively, completing missions and exploring. At first, I would solve the puzzles while his character smashed things up, but slowly our roles reversed. These games provided us with an uncomplicated space to just be together, to have fun. We did other stuff together, of course – we read, we played in the park – but games were something that we genuinely collaborated on. His autism was not a barrier. It felt like it was liberating to him. Two years later, the building game Minecraft, which was already a huge hit on PC, was released for consoles. In Minecraft, players are free to do what they want: the game provides a huge natural environment, where you can build houses and castles, plant seeds or dig mines and search for buried treasure. Zac was immediately engrossed. To him, this was a vast playground, just brimming with new experiences and experiments. But it was also safe and bright and, once again, he understood the rules. He played with me and his younger brother Albie, and although he has never been patient enough to construct really elaborate buildings, he understands the systems, the way that day and night bring different challenges, and how to combine different elements to create useful new tools and items. While he finds it difficult to sit down with some felt-tip pens and a blank piece of paper, he can spend hours crafting objects and building strange huts and twisting castles in Minecraft. We would work on projects together, taking part as equals, building little farms, or exploring vast caverns. As we played, he learned all the names of different things you could build or mine, and he wanted to talk and talk about the game. He found it difficult to express himself in the real world, but in Minecraft, all the tools and systems made sense. It was joyous to watch it happening. And that’s what led to my novel, A Boy Made of Blocks, which is about how a dad and his autistic son learn to build a relationship through Minecraft. I wanted to write something positive about the role video games can play in modern families; how they provide a permissive space in which to chat, play and be creative. One thing I have discovered is that Zac is far from alone – many autistic children love video games. It’s not hard to see why: they provide a very rich, compelling audio/visual experience that demands and rewards your full attention. A video game is a discreet world with very clear rules and boundaries – everything has a logic that doesn’t change; these are properties that a lot of children on the autism scale seem to crave and respond to. But within these logical and comprehensible environments the player is also free to explore and mess about – you have agency and power. These are things all children lack to a certain extent, but it seems children with ASD can feel even more helpless and buffeted by the world around them. Since I have been writing about this, I have heard from hundreds of game developers and parents about their own experiences. There are now dozens of autism-friendly Minecraft servers, such as AutCraft and SafeCraft, where people on the spectrum can go online and play together, without being bullied or insulted. There is a growing range of games that provide organised creative environments, from the huge Roblox community, where people make and share their own simple games, to Nintendo’s wonderful Super Mario Maker, which lets kids and adults create their own levels for Mario to play. Simulation titles, such as Kerbal Space Program (build your own space stations) and SimCity (build your own town), also provide truly sophisticated tools for children to learn about science, architecture and lots of other stuff. Best of all, parents can learn too, and sitting down as a family to craft a rocket booster or an industrial zone is just such a different experience, where it’s often the kids who take charge and adopt a leadership role. Of course, there are lots of issues with video games and autism; studies have shown that children on the autism scale are more drawn to screen-based media, especially games, and that excessive play can lead to an increase in oppositional behaviours. As with everything else in parenthood, it’s about setting and managing limits, and being engaged in what your kids are doing. One thing I know is that when I wrote about Minecraft and autism for the , I had so many comments and emails from parents of autistic children who raved about their own experiences – who watched in surprise as their kids built elaborate mansions and rollercoasters and fortresses. I think games provide a form of interaction and creative exploration that are, almost by accident, fine-tuned to how some people on the spectrum see the world. I’ve found out so much about my own son through playing Minecraft with him, and watching him play with his brother, and listening to them plan and chat. My next step is to try to help him learn to code, maybe using the simple scripting language Scratch. The line between playing and making games is crumbling. All play is, in essence, creative, but I think Zac discovered, on that first interaction with LittleBigPlanet, that games were going to be his medium of choice. I guess the theme of my novel is that, as parents, we need to meet our kids in the places they are comfortable and then we can really get to know each other – it’s just that sometimes those places exist on a screen, and we have to let ourselves go a little to find them. A Boy Made of Blocks is published on 1 September 2016. Pre-order for £10.39 at bookshop.theguardian.com
The Blue Room – when an illicit affair turns bad A lean little erotic thriller, The Blue Room leads us on a dance of misdirection; an unfolding police investigation leaves us guessing until the final moment just what exactly happened when an illicit love affair turned bad. Mathieu Amalric both directs and stars in a sleek mystery that creates a sense of claustrophobic suspense with a Hitchcockian score and framing that constantly puts its characters in boxes. The blue room itself, the hotel suite where the assignations between Amalric and his lover, Stéphanie Cléau, take place, informs the colour palette of the film – the chilly tones leach out into the interrogation room and the court. However, for all its style, the film’s eventual conclusion seems a little cursory and abrupt.
Stark warning for Labour as party slips to fourth in Sleaford byelection The Conservatives were always going to hold this true blue corner of rural Lincolnshire. But the vote in Sleaford and North Hykeham tells us more about a dangerous squeeze on votes for Labour in middle England in the aftermath of the EU referendum. The party’s candidate, Jim Clarke, a refuse collector, put in a valiant effort but Labour slipped embarrassingly from second place at the general election to fourth place in Sleaford. His big argument was protection of the NHS and a campaign against the closure of a local A&E unit, but the minds of voters appeared firmly still fixed on the EU referendum, the dominant issue in politics affecting the direction of the country for decades to come. Clarke had been a remain voter on account of jobs and the economy but spent much of the campaign stressing his commitment to triggering article 50, in tune with the frustrations of the local electorate anxious for May to get on with Brexit. But why would a leave supporter opt for the remain-voting Labour candidate and his party’s nuanced position on the EU over his full-throated Brexit-loving rivals? Caroline Johnson, a children’s doctor who won for the Tories, reminded everyone how she had always wanted to leave the EU and that her prime minister was in a position to carry it out. Likewise, diehard Brexiters will have plumped for Ukip, which accused Theresa May of being a “Brexit backslider”, although the party – like others – actually lost votes compared with 2015 amid a very low turnout. It was certainly nowhere near a Ukip surge, with voters seemingly still willing to offer May a chance to carry out her Brexit plan instead of giving Nigel Farage’s party credit for forcing the referendum in the first place. It left little room for Labour as it scrabbled around for votes along with the Tories and Ukip among the 60% of the constituency who voted to leave the EU. That was good news for the Lib Dems, who had the pick of the 40% of remain voters and almost doubled their share to come third. Looking at the numbers, it is clear many people who voted Labour at the general election, putting the party in second position, simply stayed home. Labour has acknowledged that this was not the result the party was seeking. But together with its loss of its deposit in the Richmond byelection, this should be a warning klaxon about extreme electoral danger for the party in England if May decides to call a snap election.
Tottenham 0-1 Leicester City: Premier League – as it happened That’s all for now. Apologies to all whose comments we couldn’t get to. Clearly, we’ve a cracking few months in store. Thanks for following along with us. And there’s the final whistle! Robert Huth’s routine goal off a Fuchs corner seven minutes from time gives Leicester the three points. And just like that, thanks in no small part to a Joe Allen last-gasp equalizer at Anfield, Leicester move level with Arsenal atop the table with 43 points. 90+3 min: Lamela gives it away cheaply before conceding a free kick. Excellent pressure from Kante to force the miscue. Spurs running out of time here. 90+2 min: (Meanwhile at Anfield, Liverpool have seconds ago equalized against Arsenal – a detail of no small interest to Leicester supporters.) 90 min: Nathan Dyer, whose hand ball on Sunday gave Tottenham their last-gasp escape, enters for Leicester’s Riyad Mahrez. For Spurs, Onomah on for Dier. Four minutes of stoppage time coming. 88 min: A third change coming for Leicester. And also for Spurs it would seem. No substantial chances for either side since the goal. 86 min: Spurs throwing bodies forward but Leicester shrewdly burning time and keeping it in the Tottenham half as much as possible. Leicester win a corner. It’s sent into the area where it finds the conspicuously unmolested German centre back Robert Huth, who calmly deposits it into the top of the goal with a clinical header. Not sure who was marking him there – rather, who was assigned to be marking him there – but Leicester are within touching distance of a precious three points thanks to the gaffe. 80 min: A sub for Tottenham, their second, as Son Heung-Min enters for Tom Carroll. 79 min: Dier shown yellow for a clattering challenge on Ulloa. A bit of a lull in the action here. Surely feels like the calm before the store. 77 min: Leicester makes a second sub as Andy King is on for Okazaki. 76 min: A longball from Schmeichel is played into the area and it’s one, two, three point-blank chances for Leicester, all of which deflect off fortuitously placed Tottenham players. How near they came to breaking through there! 75 min: Lamela sprints onto a cross from Walker, beating a lackadaisical Fuchs to the spot, but his one-time volley sails over the crossbar. 74 min: Leicester win a corner and play it short again, a gambit that hasn’t been working for them today. Again, quickly dispossessed. Spurs quick to counter-attack. 71 min: For Leicester, Vardy exits and Leonardo Ulloa comes on. Also, Christian Eriksen exits for Spurs in favor of Mousa Dembele, who is making his 100th Premier League appearance. 70 min: Walker drops it back to Alli to the right of the area, whose cross deflects out for another corner attempt. Erikson takes it but it’s dealt with by Simpson, who clears it easily. Now it appears Leicester will make their first swap of the match. 68 min: A ball is slipped into Lamela after he’s drifted into the area, but it’s swept away by Albrighton. Moments later Spurs win a corner. When the Spurs Go Marching In echoing through White Hart Lane. What an atmosphere. 65 min: Lamela’s effort is out off Vardy and Tottenham will have another go, but after a light fracas outside the area, a free kick is given to Leicester. 64 min: Both sides really going for it now. Tottenham win a corner. 62 min: Harry Kane is slipped in by Lamela and very nearly makes it 1-0, but is thwarted by the crossbar amid roars from the crowd. I’m talking thisclose. Seems like either side is on the verge of a breakthrough here. 61 min: A defensive blunder by Walker leaves Vardy all alone with Lloris in the area, but the keeper is magnificent in sprinting off his line to break up the play without fouling the attacker and giving the penalty. Well played. 60 min: One hour in and scoreless still. Tottenham have won a free kick but Lamela’s attempt from distance is cleared by Kante. 58 min: Simpson muscled down from behind by Kane and Leicester will have a free kick from 40 yards or so. Mahrez takes it but it’s deflected wide for a Leicester throw-in. 56 min: Lamela very nearly makes it 1-0! The sequence started with Davis sprinting with the ball up the left side before centering to Lamela, who nearly dumped it into the back of the goal but missed wide. Groans from the crowd. A corner to Tottenham but it’s easily cleared. 54 min: Eriksen’s free kick is fired squarely into Leicester’s three-man wall and out for a throw-in. A wasteful attempt, that. Particularly given Spurs’ height advantage in the area, which was apparent. 53 min: Kane surging up the right with the ball and fouled from behind by Morgan. The contact appeared incidental but the call is fair. Free kick to Tottenham from a dangerous area. 52 min: Now it’s a fourth corner in three minutes for Leicester. The ball is sent to the far post, but ultimately cleared. Tottenham now on the counter-attack. 51 min: Leicester plays it short again: Albrighton to Vardy to Okazaki, whose close-range shot is deflected out for yet another corner. 50 min: The corner is played short: Fuchs to Drinkwater, whose right-footed attempt is deflected off a Tottenham player and out for another corner. 49 min: It’s the left-footed Fuchs who takes it, but it’s cracked directly into the wall. Seconds later it’s out past the goal line and Leicester will have a corner. 48 min: Mahrez blows past Kane but Kane drags him down from behind and is rightly whistled for a foul. Leicester with a free kick here. 47 min: The ball is played toward the far post where it falls into a patch of unoccupied space. A gaggle of players close on it quickly but it’s Fuchs whose there first to clear it. 46 min: Another rapid start by Spurs. Alli with a quick run with the ball up the left side, but his cross is deflected out by Simpson. Moments later Tottenham win a corner. The players are back out on the pitch. Tottenham set to kick off and get the second half underway. That’s all for the first half, a taut affair between two evenly matched sides. A quick look at the stat sheet would give the edge to Spurs, yet only one category truly matters at the end of the day. Tottenham v Leicester City 30min Possession 16min 10 Shots 3 7 Shots on target 1 7 Corners 2 5 Tackles 12 2 Offsides 1 5 Fouls 4 0 Yellow cards 0 0 Red cards 0 45 min: The fourth official signals for one minute of stoppage time. Pace has slowed a bit over the past few minutes. 44 min: Tottenham have kept possession nicely over the last few minutes but haven’t quite figured how to crack the Leicester back four. Walker tries up the right flank but he’s run out past the goal line and possession is returned to the visitors. 41 min: Mahrez hacked down near midfield and Leicester will have a free kick, Albrighton to take it. Easily cleared. 40 min: Another corner for Spurs, Lamela to take it. Morgan tries to head it clear but it winds up going the other way, giving the hosts another crack at it. This one is cleared by Okazaki, but kept in the final third by Eriksen. Tottenham with possession, but they’ve played it back for a moment to reevaulate the situation. 39 min: Vardy ruled offside as Leicester look to attack. Both sides have become a bit sloppy with possession as the tempo has picked up over the past five minutes, yet the crowd appear to be loving it. 36 min: Tottenham pressuring here, a Lamela cross targeting Kane just missing the mark, and from the remains Leicester move rapidly into counter-attack, a hallmark of their charmed campaign. Cracking end-to-end action here even if there haven’t been a whole lot of concrete chances to show for it. 33 min: Lamela with the cross into an onrushing Kane but it’s play too high. Strong, evenly matched stuff from both sides here as half-time approaches. 31 min: Alli tripped by Morgan near the half-way line and Spurs will have a free kick. 30 min: Spurs work it up patiently from the back and, following a speculative shot from distance, win another corner. From there it’s deflected out to Eriksen, whose shot on goal demands Schmeichel’s very best to keep it 0-0. 26 min: And it’s Drinkwater with a well struck volley off a throw-in that very nearly makes it 1-0! Only the outstretched arm of Lloris keeps matters scoreless. Leicester really looking to get forward here. 25 min: Drinkwater hacked down by Eriksen near the front of the Tottenham technical area. A foul is given and Leicester will have a free kick. 23 min: Best chance of the match for Leicester off a brilliant counter-attack. Ball played to Kante surging up the right flank, who centers it to Okazaki in the six-yard box, whose attempt to muscle it into the goal falls flat. 21 min: A foul is given and Leicester will have a free kick from 35 yards. Albrighton’s attempt is curled into the area but it’s corralled without much difficulty by Lloris. 18 min: Now, this! A Spurs throw-in near mid-field is bottled badly and Leicester suddenly have a chance off a gifted possession. Within seconds the ball is played into the area, where Okazaki’s attempt skids left of the post. What a turn that might have been. 17 min: Leicester showing a bit more attacking verve over the past few minutes, but nothing resembling the sustained attack of Tottenham. 15 min: Ball played wide to Vardy up the left flank, but Walker closes in quickly and the Leicester forward can only watch as the ball veers out for a Spurs goal kick. Well defended, that. 13 min: Eric Dier’s long-distance attempt sails harmlessly over the post, but Spurs have remained fairly relentless early. 12 min: A third corner is finally cleared by Leicester, but Spurs are very quickly on the attack once again. They’re really clicking here even if they’ve nothing yet to show for it. 11 min: Lamela takes the corner and finds Alderweireld, whose header demands a Schmeichel save. Another corner, this one booted past the goal line by a Leicester player. 10 min: Spurs win another corner. 9 min: After nine minutes Leicester have finally brought their attack in the final third. But the spell is brief: after a Spurs tackles forces a throw-in, it’s quickly cleared past the half-way line. 6 min: A surging run up the right side by Eriksen, who picks out Alli in the middle of the pitch and uncorks a shot on goal that skids wide right of the post. More incisive stuff from Spurs early here. 4 min: Tottenham working it nicely up the left flank. An apparent hand ball by Mahrez prompts roars from the crowd, but play continues as the ref must not have thought it was deliberate. The ball is crossed and played through to Kane, who was offside by inches. A brisk start for the hosts. 2 min: Eriksen breaks free with the ball and has a go on goal from 30 yards but it’s easily corralled by Schmeichel. Moments later Spurs win the first corner of the match. 1 min: And we’re off! Spurs attacking from right to left in traditional home kits, Leicester from left to right in all-blue strips. A truly electric atmosphere here with so much at stake regarding Champions League places. The sides trade possession several times early before Spurs play it backward and begin to build up from the rear. The players are emerging from the tunnel. John Williams’s Duel of the Fates blasts on the stadium p.a., a White Hart Lane staple. Not much longer now. These sides are hardly strangers. Next week’s FA Cup replay will mark their seventh meeting in the past two seasons. Prognostication time. Here’s one via email from presumptive Tottenham supporter Michael: Most Spurs devotees wanted to lose, what a disaster…now, this game we want to win and handily…4-0 Spurs Here’s a look at tonight’s teams. Tottenham manager Mauricio Pochettino has left his side unaltered from their last Premier League outing, a 1-1 draw against Everton, while Leicester counterpart Claudio Ranieri has made one change from his team’s 0-0 draw with Bournemouth, plugging in Shinji Okazaki in place of Leonardo Ulloa. Tottenham XI: Lloris, Walker, Alderweireld, Vertonghen, Davies, Carroll, Dier, Lamela, Eriksen, Alli, Kane Subs: Vorm, Rose Trippier, Wimmer, Dembele, Onomah, Son Leicester City XI: Schmeichel, Simpson, Morgan, Huth, Fuchs, Mahrez, Kanté, Drinkwater, Albrighton, Okazaki, Vardy Subs: Schwarzer, King, Gray, Wasilewski, Inler, Dyer, Ulloa Hello and welcome to tonight’s Premier League match between Tottenham and Leicester at White Hart Lane. It’s the second time these sides have met in four days, after Spurs’ controversial escape on Saturday in the FA Cup, with a third to come in seven days’ time. Tottenham, currently sitting fourth with 36 points, will look to move within one point of the second-place Foxes, who can return top with a win. Plenty more to come, including the team information, with kick-off just over a half hour from now. Bryan will be here shortly. In the meantime why not have a look at Simon Burnton’s match report from the last time these sides met – only four days ago in the FA Cup third round. This was often frustrating but never less than intriguing, a game of swinging fortunes in which a Leicester side that were, as promised, largely unfamiliar – they made eight changes to their starting XI, one more than Spurs – initially seemed likely to be outplayed but were ultimately unfortunate to be denied victory. In the 88th minute Danny Rose cut in from the left, thought better of it and jinked outside again. As he did so the ball flicked off Nathan Dyer’s boot and into the air, hitting the Leicester winger’s arm on its way back down. As he spun to track Rose’s run Dyer seemed to have little idea of the ball’s whereabouts and Leicester’s opinion of Robert Madley’s decision was obvious from their furious reaction to it. “It’s not important what me or my players say, it’s the referee who’s the boss,” said Ranieri. “Of course we’re frustrated because our second half was very good, very calm, and we defended very well. But it’s OK, we’ll play another match and I’m so glad to give another chance to my eight players.”
Janet Jackson: 'The rumours are untrue. I do not have cancer’ It’s round two in pop stars v the rumour mill this week. First, Beyoncé’s representatives reportedly debunked rumours of the singer’s involvement in a film about Saartjie Baartman, the South African woman displayed in 19th-century European freak shows. Then on Wednesday night, Janet Jackson stated on social media that, contrary to gossip site reports, she does not have cancer. “Remember … believe it when you hear it from my lips,” the message read, on the singer’s Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts. “The rumours are untrue. I do not have cancer. I’m recovering.” Jackson made her point with a short video featuring a snippet of song The Great Forever, off recent album Unbreakable. The song includes the lines: “Sources say but where you gettin’ it / Don’t create the truth you like.” On 24 December 2015, Jackson shared a statement on social media about needing to postpone upcoming tour dates to undergo surgery. She wrote at the time that “there will be no further comment”. Gossip website Radar Online then published a report on Tuesday, quoting an anonymous source saying that “doctors found a growth on Janet’s vocal cords”. The article made inferences to throat cancer, and included speculation about what a tumour could mean for Jackson’s health and career. Jackson’s message dismissed the rumours and went on to state that the European leg of her Unbreakable world tour was due to go on as planned, starting in the UK in March. Her postponed US dates, due to begin on 9 January in Denver, are to be rescheduled. The planned dates would give UK fans outside Dublin and London the chance to see Jackson play live for the first time in almost 18 years.
Jeff Lynne’s ELO at Glastonbury – review The rain might be lashing down in stair rods over Worthy Farm, but on the Pyramid stage in Glastonbury’s traditional legends slot Mr Blue Sky has broken out. As Jeff Lynne’s ELO launch into the bouncy chords of that inescapable prog pop hit, umbrellas come down and hands go up. You almost expect people to start putting out the beach towels. In truth the festival needs a bit of sunshine. This has been a tumultuous Glastonbury, for reasons both natural – the worst rain and mud seen at the festival in 46 years, according to Michael Eavis – and man-made. To suggest the EU referendum has cast a pall over the festival is overegging it – certainly the hordes having it large in the Silver Hayes dance village don’t seem that concerned with the implementation of article 50 – but there’s no doubting that it has had an impact: just ask the many people who formed a human procession on the hill overlooking the festival site on Sunday afternoon and held up the 12 stars of the European Union around the Glastonbury sign. While some sought to make statements, others were happy just to take in a day of music that proved engagingly eclectic. On the Park stage the pretty, multipart harmonies of the Scottish bedroom pop act C Duncan soothed sore heads, while over at West Holts the saxophonist Kamasi Washington drew a huge crowd with a sound that recalled Miles Davis in his bad-ass mid-1970s period. On the Other Stage, Bat for Lashes belted out ballads in a manner that would give Adele a run for her money. At the other end of their careers to those artists but making their debut are ELO. Or Jeff Lynne’s ELO, to give them their full title. Not that anyone seems interested in semantics as the familiar piano chords for opener Evil Woman play up. Sporting sunglasses rendered entirely redundant by the grey skies above the Pyramid, Lynne is flanked by original member Richard Tandy and an opera house worth of orchestral figures. Given the vast numbers on stage, there might be a danger of things toppling over into excess, but here the symphonic chamber pop of Living Thing and Sweet Talkin’ Woman sounds preposterously tight and polished. It wouldn’t be unfair to say that Lynne and ELO don’t quite match previous legends slot artists Dolly Parton and Lionel Ritchie in the fame stakes, and the crowd here is significantly smaller than for those sets. Many of those who have turned up seem curious rather than devotional, nodding along politely to songs that by and large they are unfamiliar with. In that sense, ELO often seem like a band airbrushed from history, deemed chronically uncool in the 1980s and largely ignored in the years since. You suspect that in some parallel universe the likes of Turn to Stone, Party All Over the World and the driving boogie of Roll Over Beethoven would prompt mass festival singalongs. In the event there is only one thing everyone is here for. As Mr Blue Sky makes an appearance, you wonder if the clouds above the Pyramid might take the hint and part, but they stay stubbornly in place. No matter, the communal sing-song that follows is enough to lift anyone’s spirits. “You were fabulous,” Lynne tells the audience. He wasn’t too shabby himself.
Trump and Russia critics fear Rex Tillerson will upend European relations The surprise pick of Rex Tillerson as Donald Trump’s nominee for secretary of state has led to excitement in Moscow – and trepidation in other eastern European capitals – at the prospect of a “friend of Putin” becoming America’s top diplomat. US allies meanwhile reacted anxiously to the news, but many diplomats said they would wait for Tillerson’s Senate hearings to discover whether he would make the conversion from oilman to statesman. Tillerson’s nomination is likely to add further fuel to the issue of alleged Russian intervention in the election in favour of Trump. Tillerson, the outgoing ExxonMobil chief, has a warm relationship with the Russian president. He also counts Igor Sechin, considered the second-most powerful man in Russia, after Vladimir Putin, as a personal friend. In the month since the election, both hopes in Moscow and fears in central and eastern European capitals were tempered by an expectation that Trump’s key nominations would follow a more conventional policy on Russia than the president-elect had espoused. Two weeks ago, when the leading candidates for secretary of state appeared to be Mitt Romney, David Petraeus and Rudy Giuliani – all of whom had spoken critically of Russia and Putin – a Ukrainian official told the there was “no need for doom and gloom” around the Trump administration, stressing that Republican administrations were traditionally tougher on Russia than Democratic ones. Tillerson’s nomination changes all that. Vladimir Milov, a Russian opposition politician who was briefly deputy energy minister during the early Putin years, said Tillerson’s appointment was “100% good news” for Putin. “This is a clear sign that US foreign policy will move from principles, values and strategic partnerships towards a more transactional approach,” said Milov. Tillerson, 64, has spent much of his career working on Russian deals and has known Putin since 1999. His work in Russia culminated in a 2011 agreement giving ExxonMobil access to the huge resources under the Russian Arctic in return for giving the giant state-owned Russian oil company, Rosneft, the opportunity to invest in ExxonMobil’s operations overseas. As a result of the deal, Tillerson became close to Rosneft’s chief, Sechin, a hawkish hardliner who is feared even by many Russian government officials. Sechin was believed to have been behind the carving up of the private oil company Yukos and the jailing of its owner, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, then Russia’s richest man, in 2003. Milov said Tillerson was known in Russia as a pragmatist willing to do business with Rosneft and Sechin even after the Yukos saga. “I heard personally from top managers of American companies that after Yukos, Russia was not worth investing billions of dollars in, because the risks that came with it were too great. But not Exxon.” Tillerson referred to him as “my friend Mr Sechin” at an economic forum in St Petersburg earlier this year, while Sechin has said that one of his ambitions is to “ride the roads in the United States on motorcycles with Tillerson”. The 2011 Exxon-Rosneft agreement was frozen when sanctions were imposed on Russia in 2014, following the annexation of Crimea and covert military intervention in eastern Ukraine. ExxonMobil estimated the sanctions cost it $1bn and Tillerson has argued strenuously for the measures to be lifted. “We always encourage the people who are making those decisions to consider the very broad collateral damage of who are they really harming with sanctions,” he said, at a shareholders’ meeting. Maxim Suchkov, an analyst at the Russian International Affairs Council, said: “Tillerson’s ties with Sechin and Putin were predominantly driven by lucrative oil deals rather than personal warmth.” “As a head of an oil giant, he was preoccupied with making profits for his company –even if that involved growing cosy with people that are critically assessed in the US. Secretary of state position demands a different set of drivers – safeguarding national interests. “Right now, Russians expect the personal chemistry Tillerson seems to have with Putin might be helpful in switching the relationship with Washington from a confrontation to a cooperation mode,” Suchkov, who is also the Russia and Middle East editor for Al-Monitor, added. “Americans fear this ‘chemistry’ will make Tillerson trade US interests for Moscow. Both are somewhat fractured expectations, in my view. Tillerson may have more empathy for Russia’s position but that will be unlikely to change the systemic differences between the two countries.” European diplomats in Washington cautioned against the presumption that Tillerson would bring his outlook as head of the world’s biggest publicly traded oil company to his new job. “Secretary of state is a different job, with a different set of priorities,” said a senior diplomat. “You only know how he is going to approach being secretary of state when he goes before the Senate and answers questions on the key issues.” US allies in Europe will be watching the confirmation hearings in particular for Tillerson’s views on Russia, western sanctions over Moscow’s intervention in Ukraine, and most of all his expression of his view of Nato – whether he sees the alliance primarily as a counterterrorist force, or as the guarantor of European security right up to Russia’s borders. Tillerson will not take over the state department with a free hand to rewrite policy, however. He is likely to face a striking culture clash with the institution, the bastion of foreign policy orthodoxy, which would have an ally in the secretary of defence nominee, the retired general James Mattis, who is likely to oppose any erosion of Nato solidarity in the face of Moscow’s assertiveness in Europe. However, the nomination as head of the state department of a man who knows Putin better than most western politicians, and who appears sympathetic to Kremlin talking points, has the potential to radically shake up US policy on Russia. “Of course people in the Kremlin would prefer to deal with people they know for a long time, and people they know positively,” said Konstantin von Eggert, a journalist and foreign policy analyst who from 2009-2010 was a vice-president of ExxonMobil Russia, but left before its deal with Rosneft. By extension, it will lead officials in Ukraine and other eastern European countries to worry that Trump and Tillerson will end the sanctions regime and do a “big deal” with Moscow that throws them under the bus. “Trump’s choice of Rex Tillerson suggests he wants to make good on his promise to cut deals with Russia instead of containing it,” said Thomas Wright, who has written extensively on Trump’s foreign policy at the Brookings Institution. “Tillerson has a relationship with Putin and he opposed the sanctions imposed on Russia after the annexation of Crimea. This will alarm those worried about Russian intentions in Europe.” In a series of Twitter posts on Tuesday, the former ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul, questioned Tillerson’s nomination. “US & our allies sanctioned Russians because of Putin intervention in Ukraine. Will Tillerson lift sanctions without Russian policy change?” McFaul wrote. He also suggested Tillerson’s personal links to the Kremlin inner circle could affect his decision-making: “Tillerson closest business associate in Russia, Igor Sechin, is on sanctions list. Can he separate personal from national interests?” Even before Trump announced his decision on Tuesday, leading Democrats were painting Tillerson as a Moscow stooge. With a slim 52-48 majority in the Senate, it would only take three Republicans in revolt to cast Tillerson’s job in doubt. He would face aggressive questioning from Republican foreign policy hawks, led by John McCain. “I have, obviously, concerns about his relationship with Vladimir Putin, who is a thug and a murderer, but obviously we will have hearings on that issue and other issues concerning him will be examined and then it’s the time to make up your mind on whether to vote yes or no,” the Arizona senator told CNN on Saturday. McCain’s former chief of staff, Mark Salter, was far more blunt on Twitter. “Tillerson would sell out Nato for Sakhalin oil and his pal, Vlad,” he wrote. “Should be a rough confirmation hearing, and a no vote on the Senate floor.”
Braids’s Companion, the best of this week’s new music TRACK OF THE WEEK Braids Companion Less is more. Well, except with curry, obviously. And money. And safety checks on aeroplanes. And – OK, less is occasionally more. Here’s one case in which it is: the beautiful minimalist synth backdrop of Companion, over which Raphaelle Standell’s remarkable voice flutters between Elizabeth Fraser on Massive Attack’s Teardrop and Björk when she’s feeling an emotion really hard. Which is about the highest praise it’s possible to give a vocalist. If you don’t get chills, you must have killed before, and you probably will again. Taylor Swift New Romantics Taylor Swift Review Template: say she’s the biggest pop star in the world yet also “so down to earth”. Mention how she’s a positive role model. Move on to how going from country to pop may seem calculating, but when it’s done this well, who cares? End with the suggestion that if you don’t “get” Taylor, it’s you that’s wrong. Don’t mention the fact that her music is objectively terrible, unless you’re 12. Give it four stars. Weep. Future ft the Weeknd Low Life Appreciating hip-hop while ignoring some of its more odious content can be tricksy but here, Future and the disastrously barnetted Weeknd cover the usual yawnsome cliches – “hos”, “bitches”, “Molly” – while wryly toying with the tropes. “Yeah, they stereotyping,” snarls Future over a spectral, skittering drum line and oozing bass. It’s self-referential, and really quite good. Goo Goo Dolls So Alive Saying Goo Goo Dolls are, generally, a bit bland is like saying some of the Westboro Baptist Church’s views are “slightly iffy”. So fans of Iris may prepare to have their minds well and truly unblown by this – odourless pop-rock guff that, if anything, has removed what few rough edges Goo Goo Dolls everhad. An achievement, that – like sanding air. Blossoms Getaway There’s something commendable about a band who so shamelessly court the mainstream dollar you can almost hear the Veuve Clicquot corks a-popping in the mix. Early releases Cut Me And I’ll Bleed and Charlemagne suggested a thrilling psych-indie outfit with a bloodhound’s nose for a chorus hook; Getaway sees Blossoms abandon any lingering pretense of “indie” and settle snugly into “One Direction B-side with a Harry co-writing credit”. A lucrative future in X Factor montage soundtracking awaits.
The week in TV: Westworld; A World Without Down’s Syndrome; The Apprentice; Real Time With Bill Maher Westworld (Sky Atlantic/Now TV) A World Without Down’s Syndrome? (BBC2) | iPlayer The Apprentice (BBC1) | iPlayer Real Time With Bill Maher (Sky Atlantic/Now TV) The much-vaunted Westworld, HBO’s grandiloquent bid to sew our carcasses ever more tightly into a cocoon of weekly fantasy – Game of Thrones officially runs out of breasts and dying heroes some time in 2018 – arrived with low-key splendour. Muted title sound, yet an opening sequence of such technical magnificence it looked as if it had been beamed back to us from about 2048. The fetlocks of horses were being 3D-modelled with filigree’d and granular precision, as were the noses of crooked barmen (as if there’s any other kind) and doughty sheriffs, and the very ivories of nags’ teeth and of pianolas, and suddenly we were into Westworld, a panorama of haughty big skies, aching beauty and spitefully small human dreams. A world, in case you missed all the media hype (and where on earth were you? Possessing a life?), in which guests will pay handsomely for a week or so in a wild west in which they can go riotously tootsie: sleep with every perfumed whore, gut-shoot every sweaty dog-breath hoodlum. Even, if addled and bourbonned enough, shag the bandit and gun the girl. They’re all robots, programmed to hurt and bleed like us, but also to wake the next day mended and with no memories. It’s an intriguing premise, of course, and, of course it will all go wrong: a sudden aberrant line of source code will risk not only the lives of the guests but, more crucially, the psyches of the androids in the park, who suddenly have twitches of memories. For the moment, we care more about the robots, who seem more human than the visitors, who cannot be physically harmed in the park: a depressing number have chosen to go all black hat with their moneyed freedom, murdering and fornicating at any whim: be advised that this is often nasty viewing. It could have been just another tricksy CGI fantasy. But it came from the pen of Michael Crichton, responsible for Jurassic Park, which also asked pertinent questions about humanity and technology. I would happily class Crichton with Ray Bradbury and Philip K Dick, because they also wrote wisely about ourselves: even when it might have been spuriously about robots, or dinosaurs, it was always about us. What might we do? Are we happy with discovering the people we truly are or only happy with the people we want to be? And if you can’t tell the difference between the humans and the androids, should it matter? This is existentially and morally mired, in that it raises questions not of the narrative in itself but of us, the reader/viewer. This opener was tremendously, deliberately confusing: the good guy is a robot, the bad guy (a tremendous Ed Harris, playing the part he was born to play) a veteran vicious tourist on the hunt for darker levels, to assuage all he lacks in real life, which is shaping up as a howdy-doody lot of a lack. It’s all rather scintillating, not least because if features Borgen’s Sidse Babett Knudsen as the searingly blue-eyed head of quality assurance, off stage and chain-smoking high on the controllers’ gantry, intent not on money but simple control: of robots, the “livestock”, but also of every human around her. Could it be a worthy successor to GoT? Absolutely. HBO has another global heavyweight on its hands, thanks to the authors: I’m hooked, in a way I never was with early Thrones. Again: this is not about robots: it’s about us. Yet every time I am tempted to worry about robots taking over the world any time before about 2416 I simply think of self-service tills. Smile my usual smile. Most winning programme of the week was undoubtedly A World Without Down’s Syndrome?, in which Sally Phillips, with quizzical wit and just the right salting of lip-trembling anger, asked whether we’re right to hail with such a blizzard of approbation a new non-invasive test for pregnant mothers. Some of the statistics were frightening. In Iceland, where they have had the test for a while, every positive diagnosis for Down’s has resulted in termination: 100% in the past five years. There are now fewer than 40,000 people with Down’s in Britain. Phillips, whose dear son Olly is one, made a passionate yet refreshingly unsentimental case for the right to have Down’s extant in this world. It’s not a disease, it’s a set of characteristics (and ones that, actually, genetically predispose the child to happiness). Hugely set against this comes the understandable set of fears of any mother: of an inability to cope, of a child’s being bullied, even of their own prejudices. Yet Down’s remains the one disability it has become socially acceptable to “cleanse” and Sally was more than troubled (as was I) by medical professionals’ universal embracing of one and only one tenet: Down’s is always bad, choice is always good. This lucid and strangely uplifting programme should be only the very beginning of a debate we should have been busily having for about 30 years. “I’m the business equivalent of a diamond. I can sparkle, and light up a room, but if you’re not careful I can cut you.” Was this contestant perhaps confusing “a diamond” with “scissors”? I can’t think of anyone in the history of ever who has actually been cut by a diamond. Just by the people who wear them. Yes, The Apprentice is back, complete with ol’ Lord Bearded Man-Stoat and the usual basket of deplorables. And back this year to guys v gals, an intriguing reversion that shouldn’t in an ideal world work, but does. It might be my imagination but some of the candidates seem a little more sympathetic than in recent years. Some, and it’s all relative, of course, and they managed as usual to turn a whelk stall into a pig’s ear with their first task. The women called back into the boardroom made a masterclass only of being able to turn viciously, wheel and blame each other, and regroup in nanoseconds to re-blame another other: bitchy death by scuffed Louboutin heels. Bring it on. For those not yet driven forlorn by attemping to make sense of America, I cannot recommend highly enough Real Time with Bill Maher. Like a Democrat version of PJ O’Rourke, Maher is suave, angry, pithily funny and possessed of a fine foul mouth when necessary. He makes no secret of his loathings for Mr Trump, the most badass black hat of this and most other years. “Welcome to another week of ‘yes, this is really happening,’” he began a more than usually confrontational show. It’s not perfect: some humour strains in the translation and I wish these shows wouldn’t always rely on visual gags that always flash up for about six seconds longer than it has taken to get the often negligible “joke”. Yet Maher, and John Oliver, proves that there’s space to manage both satire and deadly serious within the very same hour, and I wonder anew why we don’t quite have the equivalent here: a TV version of Private Eye. Eddie Mair for the job.
Ronald Koeman focuses on Everton rather than his return to Southampton Ronald Koeman pauses for a moment to think of a succinct answer to the question that has been bothering Southampton supporters since his summer departure and is already hovering over his return to St Mary’s with Everton on Sunday. Are the prospects at his new club really that much better than at his old one? Southampton are already in the Europa League, after all, and that seems to be the limit of Everton’s realistic aspirations, always assuming they can regain consistency after almost falling to an unexpected home defeat against Swansea last week. “Everton is a big club but not an easy project,” he admits, before going on to outline the reasons why. One is that for all the club’s history and stature it is surrounded by bigger, wealthier neighbours. It used to be just Liverpool and Manchester United but, now Manchester City have joined in, it is hard to see what Everton can do to be anything other than fourth best in the north-west. Then there are the London clubs to consider. Chelsea are back in contention along with Arsenal this year while Tottenham are finding out just how hard it is to break into the Champions League echelon and stay there. A second consideration is that a club of Everton’s grandeur, however faded, sets high standards for itself. “There is more criticism here,” Koeman says. “People expect more and they want results more quickly. Southampton was different because everyone understood that, if players were sold, and a lot of players were sold, you need time to get new players in and adapted to the team. “I think we once went without a win for seven games and everyone was still happy because basic stability in the Premier League is a big achievement that has come along only in the last few years. You can see the difference between Everton and Southampton in that respect and that’s why I made my decision to come here. You have to deal with high expectations but I have always had that in my career as a player and a manager.” After a promising start Everton have reverted to type to some extent in recent weeks and Koeman has been subject to criticism, whether for his honest, bordering on undiplomatic, appraisals of Romelu Lukaku’s future and Liverpool’s title chances, or for the way his team has performed. Boos were heard around Goodison last week when Everton turned round a goal down to Swansea. “If you have expectations as a club, then coping with criticism is part of your job,” he says. “I don’t have any problems with criticism. We all like being part of the Premier League. There is a lot of attention and we enjoy that but football is always the same. If you win, you have friends. If you don’t win, you are looking for friends. That’s the game.” All the same if things do not go well this afternoon, Koeman is in danger of getting it in the neck from both sets of fans. He claims the Southampton board did not offer him what he wanted when talks had commenced on an extended contract whereas fans formed the less charitable impression that he strung the club along before accepting a more lucrative offer. “I think I still have some friends at Southampton. I certainly enjoyed my time there and there are some good people behind the club,” he says. “But I am Everton manager now and my job is to prepare the team for a difficult match. “My focus is not about what the reception will be on my return. I can’t change what the fans do. Why should I have a bad sleep worrying about what will happen when I go back? I am concentrated on my job and, if the fans whistle, they whistle. It’s no problem for me. I understood the Everton fans whistling against Swansea last week because I wasn’t happy with the first-half performance either.” When Koeman suggested Lukaku might have to look elsewhere to realise all his ambitions last month, the backlash highlighted the basic difference in approach between Everton and Southampton. The latter have moved on so many top-quality players in recent seasons it is a wonder they have managed to stay in the Premier League, let alone reach Europe. Their supporters might not have been delighted to see the exodus of Adam Lallana, Nathaniel Clyne, Sadio Mané, Luke Shaw and many others but they remain realistic. Everton have difficulty regarding themselves as a selling club. They might part with a Wayne Rooney or a John Stones once in a while but, when they break their transfer record for a striker such as Lukaku, they want to feel that is the end of a narrative and not an intermediary chapter. Southampton were not offended by the suggestion that players might wish to join clubs with Champions League credentials; they see it as a natural progression. Everton supporters still harbour Champions League ambitions of their own. It is a distant prospect, granted, though not one that will come any closer by selling their leading goalscorer. “It is difficult,” Koeman accepts. “Look at Tottenham and what they are trying to do. It is not so easy to turn yourself into one of the big clubs in the Premier League and also the Champions League. Southampton are finding it difficult playing in Europe as well as the Premier League this season. They are having to rotate a lot. “What we need to show to the players is that there is a big future at Everton to stay for and European football is the next step to make the club interesting. Nobody knows what will happen in the next two years or so. We just have to try to get stronger. As long as I am here as Everton manager I will try to do everything to keep the players but, if there is a big Champions League team knocking on the door, that is not so easy. I understand the ambition of players.” And what of Koeman’s own ambition? In the heated debate that followed his Lukaku comments it was rather unkindly suggested that the manager himself was only treating Everton as a stepping stone to greater things. “I don’t have any grand plan sketched out,” he says. “I don’t think you can in football. It is a bit different for a manager than a player. Players always want to reach the highest level possible and there is a time limit to their careers. “As a manager I signed a three-year contract with Everton and I am very happy to have done so. My only plan at the moment is to do my best for the club, to try to get everyone happy because they like the way the team is playing. What actually happens you cannot plan. In football nobody knows.”
Let's make retirement great again – by bringing back a pension system Here’s a thought about how to make America great again: bring back pensions. If Donald Trump really is intent on turning back the clock to the glory days of an America before globalization knocked the stuffing out of the US manufacturing sector, why stop at trade? Part of what is making all but the wealthiest Americans feel so economically vulnerable today isn’t just that incomes have been eviscerated. It’s the fact that when we retire, those of us without pensions – a growing proportion, especially if we’re not public sector employees or union employees – are perched atop very, very tiny nest eggs. Last year’s report from the nonpartisan US government accountability office (GAO) reminded us of the perils. Half of all households headed by Americans 55 and older had no retirement savings at all. While some long-term savers may have retirement accounts with as much as $251,600, Fidelity reported that the average amount in a 401k – the replacements to pensions that companies began rolling out during the 1980s – was little more than a third of that amount. Experts suggest you should have a nest egg that is at least 12 times your income in your final year of employment. So, if you’re making $50,000, an appropriate nest egg would be somewhere around $600,000 – tremendously in excess of even the balances that Fidelity cites. Even if you throw the value of a house and some savings accounts in the mix, it’s clear that most Americans haven’t been able to save enough and/or invest well enough using 401k plans The switch from the old-fashioned pensions to the newfangled “defined contribution” retirement plans did benefit companies, unsurprisingly. Under the pension system, the company was on the hook for managing the pension (a cost) and was responsible for paying out the benefits, come hell or high water, a major strain as life expectancies grew longer. One of the largest pension defaults was that of United Airlines in 2005. After the airline underfunded its pension while operating under bankruptcy protection, a court agreed to United’s request to turn responsibility over to a federal agency. Since federal regulations cap what can be paid to beneficiaries, this resulted in pension payments that were substantially less than what employees would have received under the old system. But even profitable companies are rushing to shed pension obligations, in order to reduce the prospect of having to guarantee retirement payments to their employees. The favored trend in recent years has been to sell the retirement obligations to an insurance company, essentially transforming those pension payments into an annuity for the plan beneficiaries. The potential downside? Companies also can offer retirees a one-time cash payout: tempting for the recipients, but financially imprudent. There’s the potential for a big tax hit, and the recipients likely don’t have the skills to develop an asset allocation plan, pick an investment portfolio and manage it, if they haven’t been doing so up until that point. But even as companies are mishandling the last stages of their relationship with defined-benefit plans (AKA pensions), their replacements, the 401ks, really aren’t working out very well for Americans, either. Hillary Clinton inadvertently reminded us of one of the risks of the 401k when she commented in a speech last week that in a single day, “Americans lost $100m from their 401k plans.” She went on to add that “we are resilient and we will bounce back” and, sure enough, that is precisely what has happened. But the fact remains that periods of market volatility are particularly harmful to investors in defined contribution plans. For instance, selloffs can last longer, and overlap with someone’s scheduled retirement date. At that point, they’re no longer earning and contributing to their nest eggs; instead, people have to start taking withdrawals from a pot that is much smaller than it was only a year or two ago. Volatility can hurt investors in these self-directed plans in other ways. The plans force unexperienced investors to shoulder the responsibilities of the market as if they were trained to react to market events. And as countless behavioral economists have demonstrated, responding in knee-jerk ways to either panic or greed can be the worst thing to do – and the hardest to resist. Meanwhile, companies have an incentive to keep the costs of managing a pension low. When it comes to the fees associated with a 401k, however, there have been relatively few such incentives. Only recently have a flurry of class-action lawsuits, involving companies like Lockheed Martin and Boeing, begun to put pressure on businesses to ensure that fees don’t drag down 401k returns. As the Economic Policy Institute has noted, there’s another peril with 401k plans. Not only do some employers not offer them at all, but those who fail to put plans in place, or whose benefits are less generous (for instance, companies that don’t match employee contributions), are more likely to be those that hire low-income workers. That, the thinktank notes, magnifies inequality. For the most part, the 401k has been a cash-generating machine for investment firms and a source of extra stress for employees. The latter have to find a way to fund them from their paychecks – when incomes have stagnated – and max out what an employer will match. Then they have to puzzle their way through the investment options, wrestling with what often feel like complex questions regarding asset allocation, risk tolerance and the best investment products. If they want professional advice, they have to pay for it. Fans of the 401k point out that employees have full control of their retirement assets, which is great until it isn’t. If they make poor investment decisions (remember that data about the inadequate retirement savings?) or simply fail to invest, who’s on the hook? Will the US stand by and watch an entire generation starve to death in poverty as a lesson to millennials and the next generation to take retirement saving seriously? I suspect not. That means we could face a need for a kind of retirement savings bailout, the likes of which will make the bank bailout look like loose change. Corporations realize that if we’re living longer, it’s in their financial interest to make us responsible for our own retirement. Only a few Americans at the top of the income pyramid have ability to take full advantage of the new retirement savings structure. We’ve had a 30-year experiment with this idea, in some of the most robust bull markets for bonds and stocks ever recorded. The stock market has recovered since the financial crisis and bond investments did well; if 401k plans were working, Americans should have improved their retirement position, logic suggests. In fact, the opposite happened, according to the National Institute on Retirement Security: they were further behind in 2013 than they were not only in 2007, but also in 2010. I doubt that it’s possible to return to the days of the original corporate pension plan, especially in the 21st-century world of a highly mobile workforce that comprises hundreds of thousands of contract workers or freelancers. (And certainly, pensions weren’t perfect.) But nor is the defined contribution model – which also relies on the traditional employer/employee relationship – working out well, if the goal is to ensure that Americans have healthy retirement accounts. Clearly, it’s time to devise a new approach.
Client Liaison: Diplomatic Immunity review – immaculate dance pop washed in parody and kitsch How can you tell if an artist means it in 2016? Independent pop has grown so referential that it can be hard to tell deference from critique. For a while, Melbourne group Client Liaison seemed an amusement belonging to the second category. They wear flamboyant curls and dress like an RSL Wham! cover band. Their music sounds like Video Hits circa 1989: club-indebted, fossilised chart pop both dreamy and assertive, aspirational and relaxed. The video used to promote this debut album is a laboured parody of 1980s corporate-chic, goading the amusement of a generation who thought American Psycho was funnier than it was alarming. So yeah, Diplomatic Immunity sounds a bit crap on paper. Like many of their contemporaries, Client Liaison trades in an outmoded pop idiom and, typically enough, that idiom originates from the late 1980s. It’s a popular period to parody because it threw up the likes of Rick Astley, George Michael and hundreds of tracks from the Stock Aitken Waterman production line. This ilk can’t help but evoke Reagan and Thatcher: the looming inevitability of immaculately groomed neoliberalism, the way it painted the world a peculiar shade of corporate blue. Chart pop of this era recalls these regimes, making it an attractive period for modern artists to revisit and repurpose. Sadly, it’s no longer 1988 – and Client Liaison isn’t really a group from the past. Opening track Canberra Won’t Be Calling Tonight samples a 2014 exchange between the former immigration minister Scott Morrison and the Labor senator Kim Carr during a Senate hearing into withheld documents related to Operation Sovereign Borders. Carr’s pummelling of Morrison is deliberately foregrounded, but its presence at the beginning of the album seems to preface a direction the duo never really travels in. Instead, the present is kept at a safe distance throughout: the liner notes are festooned with drawings of Fosters cans, water coolers and giant wireless telephones, as well as a botched-up letter from former governor-general Bill Hayden granting the duo diplomatic immunity. Juxtaposed with its backdrop of a cheerful late 80s house, that Senate hearing sample is an interesting choice. In Australia, our 1980s were different – and with the benefit of hindsight, utopian. We operated under a prime minister still mythologised as an authentic schooner skolling alpha-bloke – indeed, one half of Client Liaison has described Bob Hawke’s famous beer skolling incident, perhaps in jest, as a big influence on the group’s music. In the 1980s, at the height of our short-lived cultural export boom, we were somebody. We were Crocodile Dundee, Yahoo Serious, Kylie, Merv Hughes, Scott and Charlene. These are exemplars of our charm to many of the era. Client Liaison evokes that period relentlessly. Tracks such as Wild Life and A Foreign Affair – the latter featuring Tina Arena – bulge with a faintly sad optimism, an elusive hope borne of less complex times. Molding their songs from the soft focus ambience of late 80s club and house palettes, Client Liaison is capable of producing very beautiful pop music, suffused with a powerful combination of dancefloor vigour and bittersweet nostalgia. But the kitsch veneer can become distracting, even annoying. The duo’s affectations threaten to bury the genuine, earnest pleasures these songs have to offer; to have to stop and wonder whether they’re serious during a track like Home – a lusciously smooth jam recalling Pet Shop Boys’ moodier material – makes it harder to love. And while there are no stinkers on Diplomatic Immunity, one begins to wonder whether Australia’s independent music scene will ever tire of revisiting our past as salve for its present identity crisis – whether it be the antiquated pub rock of Bad Dreems, the new wave aping Shining Bird or the carefully channeled 1990s grunge of Violent Soho, to name just a few examples. Settler Australians may find little to love about themselves in the modern age, but this reflexive pillaging of the past for remnants of an uncompromised self does not bode well for our mental health, nor the longevity of our art. Of course, that may sound like a thoroughly neurotic hang up to you, in which case Diplomatic Immunity is among the best pop records Australia will get this year. Client Liaison is great without the retro window dressing, and a strange dilemma with it. Either way, the songs are undeniable. • Diplomatic Immunity is out on 4 November through Remote Control
Two women climb 162m Melbourne Arts Centre spire to fly #LetThemStay banner Two women have climbed the 162 metre tall Melbourne arts centre spire as part of a Let Them Stay protest action opposing the deportation of asylum seekers to Nauru. Police were called to the arts centre on St Kilda Road at 3.30am and attempted to negotiate with the two women, according to Fairfax Media. The pair eventually unfurled a #LetThemStay banner, in reference to the 267 asylum seekers facing deportation to Nauru after the high court found Australia’s offshore detention regime was legal. Last week, Whistleblowers Activists & Citizens Alliance (Waca) activists Katherine Woskett, 25, and Hannah Patchett, 22, suspended themselves from a Melbourne bridge as part of a Let Them Stay protest against the possible deportation of 267 asylum seekers to Nauru. The #LetThemStay slogan has become the rallying cry to keep the asylum seekers in Australia, with protests across Australia. Most of the group of 267 have been brought to Australia from Nauru for their own, or a family member’s, medical treatment. The group includes 37 babies born in Australia, as well as 54 children, more than 30 of whom are now attending Australian schools. On Friday morning, Waca posted a tweet asking their followers to “stay tuned” for direct action. Waca then confirmed on Twitter that “Kat & Hannah” were the pair unfurling the banner.
Rightwing firebrand Dinesh D'Souza takes aim at Hillary Clinton in latest documentary Its trailer flags up the US Democratic party’s roots in slavery and accuses Hillary Clinton of trying to steal the upcoming presidential election. Now rightwing director Dinesh D’Souza is hoping his new film, Hillary’s America, will derail the former first lady’s chances of becoming the first female leader of the United States. D’Souza’s latest polemic will be released this July in US cinemas, ahead of the November election. The Indian-born US neo-conservative commentator is known for his previous films 2016: Obama’s America – a 2012 documentary that imagined a terrible future under Barack Obama – and 2014’s America: Imagine the World Without Her, which also focused on Clinton. The trailer for Hillary’s America has proven controversial for its use of racist imagery, including fictionalised footage of the Klu Klux Klan, to paint a picture of the Democratic party’s early roots in opposition to abolitionism. But producer Gerald Molen told the Hollywood Reporter such narratives were entirely justified “to show exactly where the Democratic party came from”. He said: “Democrats don’t want to talk about it. They like to say racism was the fault of Republicans. That is pure bullshit ... They don’t teach the history of Democrats and slavery. Students know nothing about history, nothing about America. They don’t know 600,000 people died in the civil ar, most of them trying to protect black Americans from Democrats who supported slavery.” The trailer also presents D’Souza – who was convicted of illegal contributions to a New York Republican candidate’s failed US senate bid in 2014 and sentenced to eight months at a confinement centre near his home in San Diego – as a victim of political bullying. The film-maker is seen in a fictionalised prison-style environment, complete with musclebound cons and tattooed gang members, telling his audience: “It all began when the Obama administration tried to shut me up.” After detailing the Democratic party’s past and claimed present crimes, including references to Clinton use of a private email account during the presidential hopeful’s time as US secretary of state, the trailer finishes with a doom-laden orchestral flourish as D’Souza asks: “What if the goal of the Democratic party was to steal the most valuable thing the world has ever produced? What if their plan was to steal America? Who will stop them now?” Molen admitted the images of D’Souza in jail were also fictionalised, but described them as vital to show the Democratic party’s hypocrisy over the director’s incarceration. He referenced the Democratic US senator Harry Reid, who escaped censure in 2006 after offering to reimburse his own campaign fund for $3,300 which had been used as contributions to a staff Christmas fund. Introducing the trailer to an audience of conservatives at the weekend, D’Souza said: “Four years ago I made the film 2016: Obama’s America, which kind of upset the thin-skinned narcissist in the White House ... if that film got me eight months in the slammer, this new movie is going to earn me life in prison. This film is a sordid history of the Democratic party from the beginning all the way through Hillary.” While it ultimately failed in its stated aim to prevent a second Obama term at the White House, 2016: Obama’s America was the top documentary of 2012 in North America with $33.4m in receipts. It remains in the top five highest-grossing documentaries of all time at the US box office, despite scathing reviews from most mainstream critics.
Asic chief: Coalition's cuts reduced our capacity to investigate The head of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission has admitted budget cuts enacted by the Coalition have compromised the corporate watchdog’s ability to engage in proactive investigations. Asic suffered a cut of $120m over four years in the 2014 federal budget. The chairman of the commission, Greg Medcraft, said the cuts had “absolutely” resulted in less surveillance. “Seventy per cent of our resources are devoted to surveillance and enforcement and when you have cuts in the budget what happens is actually you reduce the level of proactive surveillance because proactive surveillance is discretionary,” he told ABC Radio. “What it means is that we see people less than we may have in a proactive setting.” Lower-order surveillance missions were dropped when cash was restricted, Medcraft said. “That is a matter for government and it’s a matter of determining what level of resilience you want in the financial system,” he said. “If we look at the area where there have been problems – the area of responsible lending, financial advice, of life insurance – there’s three for a start where clearly we could do more surveillance.” Asic has been criticised for only taking action against financial institutions after problems occur, making the issue of proactive investigations a critical one. “Asic never seems to act unless there’s carnage,” the independent senator John Madigan told Australia. The regulator is at the heart of a discussion about whether a royal commission into banks and the financial system is needed. Labor last week said it would initiate a royal commission if it wins government at the next election but the prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, said it was unnecessary as existing regulators have the same powers as the commission. The idea of a royal commission had divided the Coalition, with a number of government MPs throwing their support behind the idea, which has been ruled out by senior cabinet members including the prime minister. “Asic has all of the powers of a royal commission plus much more,” Turnbull said on Sunday. “It has the ability to initiate prosecutions, to take action, to issue fines, to ban people from trading, from operating as company directors or in financial services so what we have already is a very serious, very comprehensive regulatory structure.” On Tuesday, he said: “We are giving our regulators greater power and we will continue to do that”. The other regulators in this space are the Reserve Bank of Australia and the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority. Medcraft refused to weigh in on the need for a royal commission, saying it was a matter for government. But he acknowledged that trust in the banking system “has been somewhat dented” by numerous scandals. The shadow treasurer, Chris Bowen, said the Coalition had cut Asic “to the bone”. “They deserve no thanks and no credit for reversing that, if indeed they do,” he told reporters. “Some small increase in Asic’s funding will not be enough to deal with the systemic issues in Australia’s financial services industry.” Saying Asic has the same powers as a royal commission was “factually incorrect”, Bowen said, noting that the regulator cannot examine structural and systemic problems in the sector, nor can it assess if laws aimed at addressing the problems are working. “One of the things that the royal commission would examine is the power and the ability of the regulators,” Bowen said. “Is Mr Turnbull really suggesting the right way of determining the resourcing and ability of Asic is to have Asic conduct an inquiry into themselves?” A 2014 Senate inquiry into Australia’s financial system found that Asic was “a timid, hesitant regulator, too ready and willing to accept uncritically the assurances of a large institution that there were no grounds for Asic’s concerns or intervention”. Medcraft admitted the regulator had had problems before he started his term as chairman but said it had made inroads to fixing them. Asic wins 95% of its cases and has undertaken 6,500 surveillances in the last five years, Medcraft said.
Experience: IVF gave me a heart attack I was 15 when I was diagnosed with severe polycystic ovarian syndrome, a condition that means cysts grow on your ovaries. I hadn’t started my periods and was told it was unlikely I ever would. The gynaecologist said I’d need intervention when the time came to have a family, and put me on the pill to stop the cysts growing. It didn’t bother me at the time – I think my mum was more upset than I was. At 21, I fell in love, and when we got married four years later, we went to a fertility clinic that claimed high success rates. They put me on stimulation drugs to induce ovulation – the same drugs as for IVF, but without the need for the egg collection. We were so hopeful it would work first time that I bought baby toys and clothes. When it didn’t, we felt devastated, but the clinic said doubling the dose should do the trick. I expressed concerns because my family has a history of blood clots, but they said it was fine. I was more closely monitored the second time, but again I didn’t get pregnant. Soon after, I started getting bad abdominal pain, wincing whenever I moved. The clinic scanned me and said there was a cyst, but assured me it would go down within two weeks. Later that week, I sat bolt upright in bed, suddenly unable to breathe. The most excruciating pain started in my chest and settled between my shoulder blades: it felt as if I was being stabbed. When my left arm started to go numb, I suspected a heart attack, but I was only 25, so decided I had to be overreacting. The pain became unbearable, and my husband called an ambulance. The paramedics gave me glyceryl trinitrate spray, for heart problems. When that didn’t work, they tried dissolvable aspirin, and when that failed they blue-lighted me to hospital. That’s when I started to think, this is what it feels like to die. I was rushed into the resuscitation unit, where morphine eased the pain and I was given a clot-busting drug. I was warned there were serious risks and, unbeknown to me, my family was told I might not make it. The next morning, I was transferred to a bigger hospital, where I had an angiogram that confirmed the heart attack was caused by a clot. The doctors concluded it must have been caused by the IVF drugs. I was relieved to know the reason, but distraught to be told I’d never be able to undergo IVF again. Three weeks later, when I came out of hospital, I looked into adoption, but found that you have to wait two years after fertility treatment. It was around then that I became breathless and ended up back in hospital, where doctors discovered I had a hole in my heart: either the heart attack had caused it, or it had always been there, and been made bigger by the heart attack. Either way, it was surprisingly good news, because closing it up would mean I could come off my medication and safely undergo a very low dose of IVF. By the time they’d operated four months later, I’d found Professor Dr Geeta Nargund, a fertility expert who pioneered natural and mild IVF after witnessing a patient die as a result of a reaction to the same drugs I’d had. Her method uses a dramatically reduced dose, which removes the risks. But there was yet more disappointment when the first cycle didn’t work, nor the second. We decided to give it one last go. I hardly dared believe I could be pregnant, but seeing a heartbeat in week seven made it real. Molly was born in November 2006 and, incredibly, 10 months later I started to ovulate naturally for the first time in my life – kickstarted by my pregnancy, the doctors say. I had my daughter Ruby two years later. For a long time, I felt angry with the original clinic, but then decided to channel my anger. I now work to raise awareness of the dangers of high-stimulation IVF. I’ve also discovered that the UK is well behind other countries in reporting adverse reactions to IVF. This means that if I’d died from my heart attack, the real cause would probably never have been found. I feel so blessed not only to have survived, but to have had two wonderful little girls. I want to do everything I can to protect other women. • As told to Kate Hilpern Do you have an experience to share? Email experience@theguardian.com
Now we're supposed to embrace clean sleeping. How tiresome You thought sleep was the last refuge. You thought sleep was the one thing that couldn’t be packaged or pressed or juiced or diced or Instagrammed and made nice. You thought sleep was safe. You were wrong. Where were you when Arianna Huffington invented sleep? How many courses into a dinner party does Huffington get without telling the story of how she woke up in a pool of blood after falling asleep at her desk and hitting her cheekbone? Do her friends text the 💤 emoji under the table? Probably. Huffington has set up Thrive Global, to help people to go from “surviving to thriving” and, in part, to train them to get better sleep. Except, this isn’t just sleeping better: the movement is known as clean sleeping. #cleansleeping. #sleptclean. Meanwhile, the Mail this week published an article by Gwyneth Paltrow from her new Goop Clean Beauty book on the “biggest health trend of 2017” – sleep. Paltrow writes: “Sleep plays such a powerful role in determining your appetite and energy levels, and I believe it should be your first priority.” Let me first say that I like and agree with Paltrow, and Huffington, too. Sleep is incredibly important and, as someone who suffers from chronic insomnia, I know this only too well. I am glad that the importance of shuteye is being recognised. But why does it have to be a trend? It is quite something that being practically unconscious can be monetised. Just as the Brits and Americans turned hygge into A Thing, rather than us all just agreeing that, yes, mulled wine in front of a fire in your socks is quite nice. But the dominant narrative of sleep has undoubtedly changed. It used to be that people boasted about how much they could achieve on how little sleep. Colleagues spoke of how few hours’ sleep they had – the adult version of talking about how little revision you did before a test. The presentation you did on three hours’ sleep is in the same family of “What? This old thing?” when complimented on a £300 Marant sweater. Or the “I’m so bad at drawing!” before turning the easel to reveal a Picasso. Now it’s out with the Thatcher-like four power hours and droning on about how CEOs and Silicon Valley entrepreneurs such as Jack Dorsey rise at 5am after a couple of hours because you can sleep when you’re dead. The new boast is all about turning in at 10pm. If there’s one thing more boring than someone talking about their dreams, it’s someone talking about their sleep. (And, of this, I am guilty.) I have always struggled with sleep. I have tried and tested countless sleep gadgets in my work as a tech journalist. I have trialled glasses that attempted to reset my circadian rhythm by shining blue light into my eyes. I have drowned my pillows in lavender spray and endured the brassy aftertaste of zopiclone. I have grabbed daytime slumber in my boss’s office, at Prague airport, on the floor of a Russian army barracks and the 214 bus. Sometimes I woke up in such bizarre positions or places it was amazing that someone hadn’t drawn chalk around me. For a few weeks at the beginning of 2016, I slept. Hours. Regularly. “THIS IS WHAT IT FEELS LIKE TO BE HUMAN” is something I genuinely wanted to shout each morning. I think I had more sleep in that month or so than in the whole past decade. People spoke to me and, for once, their words weren’t bits of bread entering the soupy exhaustion of my brain that I would somehow have to digest and respond to. Sleep made me sharp. Sleep was wiping a misty window. An ice cube on the neck. I could take out three defenders and lob the keeper before breakfast, no problem. But soon I was back to 1am snatches of Twitter, late nights and stress. It may be that sleep is a luxury that only the wealthy can afford. People not working, say, three jobs. Or not having to get up at ridiculous times for long commutes into cities they cannot afford to live in. Or not lying awake at night stressing about bills and rent. But Huffington and Paltrow are right – we can all make changes. I would just say that the eye mask you buy doesn’t have to cost £20, nor do you have to rest among seven pillows on the bed of a luxury hotel to get some rest. So, here are a few basic, non-lux, sleep tips: It is important to have your bedroom as dark as possible. You don’t even need to invest in thick curtains – just think about the state of the world today. Leaving your phone outside of your bedroom is a good idea; Trump’s tweets will still be there in the morning, and they will still be as terrifying then. Keep a sleep diary if you must. Never mention it. And that’s it. The perfect night’s sleep, all without an Instagram filter in sight. Well, one can dream.
Farmers and migrant workers: how has Brexit affected you? We’re interested in hearing from farmers who are concerned about the effect losing seasonal workers from Europe could have. If you are a seasonal worker or a farmer who employs overseas workers we’d like to hear from you. How has Brexit affected you? If you have travelled from Europe to work on a farm in the UK we’d like to hear your experiences too. You can share your stories with us by filling in the form below. We’ll use some of your contributions in our ongoing reporting.
Chelsea’s Antonio Conte accuses defenders of targeting Diego Costa Antonio Conte has claimed defenders are targeting Diego Costa and seeking to provoke the Spain forward, with the Chelsea manager praising his player’s refusal to react in the fractious 2-2 draw at Swansea City. Costa took his season’s tally to six goals in five appearances for club and country but his two here were not enough to prevent Conte shedding his first points as manager. Chelsea were further unnerved by the sight of the captain, John Terry, departing on crutches after sustaining an ankle injury in stoppage time. That will render him a major doubt for Friday’s visit of Liverpool to Stamford Bridge and will potentially hand David Luiz his second debut for the club. Yet, while Terry’s fitness will be a concern, it was Costa who dominated this occasion. A trio of Swansea players were booked for fouls on the forward, with Jordi Amat having set the tone two minutes in with an elbow to the small of the back that went unpunished. “The defenders know him and, sometimes, try to provoke him,” Conte said. “I was a footballer and this situation is normal. They know Diego is a player with passion and they tried to provoke him. The referee must see and allow Diego Costa to play his football. “If you ask me if the defenders deserved a second yellow card [for fouls on the forward], I don’t want to reply on this. I want to say, only, that after every game the press ask me about the passion of Diego Costa. Today I can say Diego Costa showed fantastic behaviour to control the situation. He took a lot of kicks from the first minute until the end of the game. Today I’m pleased because he showed me, he showed his team-mates, he showed everyone that he has fantastic behaviour. Fantastic behaviour. It wasn’t easy, it wasn’t easy. It’s incredible the defender didn’t finish [get sent off] before the end of the match.” That appeared to be a reference to Amat. Costa was booked for a foul on Leroy Fer, and Swansea players suggested he should have been shown a second after going to ground easily in a challenge with Lukasz Fabianski. Yet it was Chelsea who ended the more frustrated after the referee, Andre Marriner, failed to penalise Fer’s foul on Gary Cahill before squeezing the home side ahead just after the hour-mark. “It’s a clear foul, so I’m frustrated,” Cahill said. “Come on, seriously … You could be sat on the moon and see it is a clear foul. I took the touch away from him, he came through the back of me. It was clear as day and seeing it back has made me even more angry. It’s all fun and games for the fans, isn’t it but it’s the players who suffer. That kills me and kills my team. We have dropped two points which is massive in this league. Look at my face. It’s incredible. I said to the referee there’s three of you that can see that. There were two fouls, and between the officials they have said that they couldn’t see it. For me that is incredible.” Conte, who backed Cahill, reiterated Cahill’s assertion that the referee had made “a great mistake”, was just as infuriated his team did not capitalise on their dominance over the first hour, urging them to learn from their profligacy. “The players showed a fantastic reaction but we had the possibility to kill the game and, if you have that possibility, you must kill the game. We must learn from this.” On Terry, the manger will await the result of a scan. “He is a warrior, so I’m not worried,” he said. The point, so unlikely while Swansea were outclassed for an hour, provided a welcome fillip for Francesco Guidolin who had been forced to abandon his team’s initial formation before the interval. That change came at the expense of Neil Taylor, who made his disappointment at being substituted very clear as he retreated four minutes before the break. “I think it’s the first time in my career I’ve done that,” said the manager. “I made a mistake. I could … I can … I should have waited three minutes and made the change at half-time, but Mo Barrow had been ready to come on for five minutes and I decided to do it this way. I said sorry to him in the dressing room. There is no problem between me and Neil.”
HSBC embarks on boardroom overhaul HSBC has begun the process of overhauling its senior management team by announcing that its chairman, Douglas Flint, will be replaced next year. The move to replace Flint, who was finance director before becoming chairman in 2010, came as the UK’s biggest bank signalled it was preparing for a new chief executive to take over from Stuart Gulliver. The bank has previously promised investors it will break with tradition and appoint a chairman from external candidates. The prospect of boardroom changes has been in focus since the bank announced last month that it would keep its headquarters in the UK, where it has been based since 1992 after buying Midland bank. Headhunters have been retained by the bank and the process will be led by board members Sam Laidlaw, the former chief executive of British Gas owner Centrica, who heads the nominations committee, and Rachel Lomax, former deputy governor of the Bank of England, who is the senior independent non-executive director. Flint and Gulliver are in the middle of a three-year strategy, which will end in 2017, aimed at repairing HSBC’s reputation after a £1.2bn fine imposed by the US authorities for money-laundering, and the scandal exposed by the and other publications involving the tax affairs of its Swiss banking arm. HSBC is axing 25,000 jobs to help save £3.3bn a year. In the notice sent to shareholders before next month’s annual general meeting, Flint said the nominations committee “had turned its attention to formulating a succession plan for my own role as group chairman, so that the incoming group chairman can lead the process for selecting the next group chief executive in due course”. He added: “The board aims to nominate my successor during 2017 but the exact timing is dependent upon identifying and securing the appropriate candidate. My own commitment is to remain as long as necessary to ensure a smooth transistion,.”
The Flaming Lips – 10 of the best 1. Five Stop Mother Superior Rain There’s a tendency, in 2016, to think of the Flaming Lips as rather soft-bellied beasts – glitter cannons, confetti explosions and laser-shooting hands. They’ve struggled in recent times to produce anything more striking than some by-the-numbers wackiness with Miley Cyrus. At their very best, though, Oklahoma’s finest have produced wonderful and strange pop music that, for all its oddness, is littered with sublime little truths. Witness the sweet spot they hit on this ramshackle alt-country stomp, from 1990’s In a Priest Driven Ambulance. “I was born the day they shot JFK / The way you look at me sucks me down the sidewalk / Somebody please tell this machine I’m not a machine,” babbles frontman Wayne Coyne, before suddenly turning into a psych-rock savant who’s stumbled upon some deep, dark secret. “You’re fucked if you do, and you’re fucked if you don’t,” he howls. He would later explain the Flaming Lips ethos: “We wanted to sing about shit that we truly didn’t understand, but then we would come up with these lines that cut right to the heart of things.” That was their essence: to find pockets of meaning in the most peculiar places. 2. The Sun The Flaming Lips were always blessed with the type of origin story that could have been lifted from a comic book – it’s easy to imagine flipping through the pages of The Adventures of Young Wayne Coyne, the tale of a normal kid from Oklahoma whose life was turned upside down when he spied some musical instruments in a church hall and, on a whim, decided to pinch them and start a band. But it took some time before the music lived up to the creation myth. The band’s first studio three albums were patchy, their line-up was constantly chopping and changing, and they had to wait seven years and four records for their first great LP, In a Priest Driven Ambulance, to arrive. By 1992’s major label debut Hit to Death in the Future Head, though, Coyne and his bandmates – including Mercury Rev guitarist Jonathan Donahue – had learnt to marry the odd flights of fancy with canny pop nous. The Sun, in particular, is a splendid little thing, with its wicked, misshapen strings bending this way and that as guitars bloom and burst. “It’d be so kind to see your face in my door,” sings Coyne sweetly, and even though it’s a line stolen from Carole King’s So Far Away, it’s used to make something entirely their own. 3. Moth in the Incubator She Don’t Use Jelly didn’t do for the Flaming Lips what Smells Like Teen Spirit did for Nirvana, or Creep did for Radiohead, but it came close: in 1993 it became their biggest hit and an unlikely success, eventually peaking at a career-high No 9 in the Billboard chart, and introducing them to a new cluster of fans. It’s hard to know what those same newbies would have made of the album from which it came, though. Transmissions from the Satellite Heart is one the Flaming Lips’ best albums; it’s also one of their strangest and most ambitious, where throwaway ditties about girls who think of ghosts are scant but there’s plenty of sonic weirdness, from the pop-crunch of Turn It On to the dizzy heights of Oh, My Pregnant Head. Moth in the Incubator is a brilliantly trippy triptych that comes on like three songs cut-and-pasted together: it starts with a hazy acoustic strum, then it explodes into a nasty intergalactic jam with Coyne droning “I’ve been born before, I’m getting used to it,” like a reincarnated zombie, and finally finishes with a grand flourish of soaring noise, like magical sparks of sound whizzing overhead. 4. Christmas at the Zoo One of the Flaming Lips’ most charming songs, from 1995’s noise-pop spectacular Clouds Taste Metallic, with a premise so cosy and heartwarming it could be turned into a children’s picture book. It’s Christmas Eve, and a young Coyne decides to spread some Yuletide cheer to the local zoo by freeing all the animals. There’s just one snag: the critters don’t want his charity because, even though they’re miserable, they’d rather organise their own jailbreak and save themselves. “The elephants, orangutans / All the birds and kangaroos,” sings Coyne, over a sweet Beach Boys-like melody, underpinned by fuzzy, sludgy guitars and the sound of cymbals crashing like Christmas bells. “All said, ‘Thanks but no thanks, man / But to be concerned is good’.” In some parallel universe, listening to it every year on 24 December is as cherished a part of the Christmas ritual as watching The Snowman. 5. Thirty-Five Thousand Feet of Despair Guitarist Roland Jones quit the Lips a year after the release of Clouds Taste Metallic. When he left, he took the idea of a traditional, guitar-driven sound with him, leaving the rest of the band to find a new purpose. Their solution was Zaireeka. Inspired by the band’s old Parking Lot Experiments, in which Coyne had fans blast 40-odd cassette tapes from their car stereos at different times to create one long, perfectly-synced symphony, it’s one of the grandest follies ever: a single album split over four separate CDs, designed to be played simultaneously on four separate stereo systems. NME hailed it as a “work of genius” in its 10/10 review; it’s also still just one of a handful of albums to get a 0.0 score from Pitchfork. Look past the outlandish concept and you can find the first roots of the new Flaming Lips beginning to take shape, largely thanks to drummer Steven Drozd slowly shifting into the role of multi-instrumentalist. Thirty-Five Thousand Feet of Despair, for example, is still fantastic: a majestic mixture of throbbing strings, trembling piano and the terrifying roar of a jet engine as Coyne laments a pilot who’s “gone insane” and hangs himself in a bathroom mid-flight. 6. Race for the Prize The Soft Bulletin, released in 1999, still stands as a pinnacle of what pop music can be at its most magical and inventive, an album rattling with wondrous sounds and ideas you’ll want to hold on to forever. On one hand, it’s their most sonically breathtaking work, built on otherworldly noises and instrumentation that sound as if they’re being beamed from a future disco in an orbiting space-station; on the other, it’s their most moving and vulnerable, too, with Coyne finding more frailty than ever before in his outlandish ideas. Race for the Prize, a touching tale of two scientists prepared to sacrifice themselves and find a cure that will save the world, is a belter: just listen, now, to the giant crack of those distorted drums, that giddy piano riff, the rush of those shrieking synthesised strings that fizz in your synapses like sherbert being poured on your brain. And then Coyne, somehow, touches looks past the HG Wells-like set-up to hit just the right nerve and bring you back down to Earth. “Theirs is to win / If it kills them,” he yelps. “They’re just humans with wives and children.” It’s four-odd minutes of glorious, perfect psych-pop, and a bittersweet sci-fi masterwork to boot. 7. Feeling Yourself Disintegrate The Soft Bulletin has so many special moments it could easily half-fill a 10 of the Best on its own. But on an album where nearly every song’s a gem, from the brittle beauty of The Spiderbite Song to The Spark That Bled’s gorgeous six-minute symphony, Feeling Yourself Disintegrate feels particularly precious. Here, Coyne floats high above the everyday muck and, cushioned by soft pillows of celestial synths and strings, realising that his body’s been slowly breaking apart ever since he was born; that all life is destined to die. “Love in our life is just too valuable / Oh to feel for even a second without it / But life without death is just impossible / Oh, to realise something is ending within us,” he sings gently, and for just a fleeting second, he’s grabbed hold of nirvana. In slightly grubbier fashion, The Soft Bulletin helped Warners see the light, too: after years of bemoaning the band’s lack of commercial success, they suddenly had a mainstream breakthrough act on their books. Their next project would be even bigger. 8. Fight Test By 2002, The Flaming Lips weren’t cult weirdos anymore. If The Soft Bulletin had ended their status as beloved indie fuck-ups by turning them into a mainstream band, then Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots helped establish them as a legitimate big deal. As ever, strangeness abounds, and the album’s quasi-concept gives a sci-fi bent to plenty of the songs: the first instalment of the two-part title track is bubblegum sci-fi, a catchy-as-hell ode to a young Japanese girl who brings down some killer androids; elsewhere, One More Robot/Sympathy 3000-21 finds those same machines developing pangs of human emotions, like a trippier take on Isaac Asimov’s short story I, Robot. But, as with The Soft Bulletin, there’s a real heart to Coyne’s lyrics that stops it from ever feeling too trivial. Fight Test takes the the melody of Cat Stevens’ weepy Father and Son but, courtesy of some splendid squelchy synths and lovely acoustic guitar, turns it into a meditation on self-respect and standing up for what’s right, as Coyne regrets not duffing up his ex’s new beau. “For to lose I could accept,” he sings. “But to surrender? I just wept and regretted this moment.” The prettiest space-rock endorsement of throwing down fisticuffs you’ll ever hear. 9. Do You Realize?? It’s previously been said that Do You Realize?? is quite similar to John Lennon’s Imagine, which in turn is like saying a T rex is a bit like a chicken: they might share some DNA, but that’s about it. Because while Imagine clucks around in its coop preaching soppy sanctimony over a hum-drum piano, Do You Realize?? is tilting back its big, beastly head and roaring magnificently at the sky above. It’s an anthem for the atheist generation: there’s no afterlife and we’re all going to be food for the worms eventually, but that doesn’t stop any of this from being beautiful. “Do you realize that everyone you know, someday, will die?” asks a wide-eyed Coyne, like a man who’s just clocked what carpe diem really means after chugging down some hallucinogens, and then suddenly there’s a giant wave of woozy noise that’s engulfing him and everything else, as bells chime and strings soar, and an angelic choir materialises out of thin air. Coyne has since described it as one of his proudest creations, stating: “A part of you makes it and you don’t really think that much of it. Then someone comes up and says ‘We used that song at my mother’s funeral.’ You can say it’s just a dumb song, or you can say, ‘I understand.’” 10. Watching the Planets What’s really strange about last year’s Miley Cyrus & Her Dead Petz experiment, a 23-track album of wafty psych on which Coyne served as co-writer and co-producer, is just how drearily banal it is: there are songs about lactating nipples (Milky Milk Milk) and odes to smoking weed (Dooo It!), but it all sounds so safe. There have been other spots over the past 10 years, too, when the Lips have felt in danger of turning from fearless freaks into cuddly crusties; a group who have grown wacky in such a predictable, mild-mannered way you half-expect to see Coyne onstage sipping from a “You don’t have to be mad to work here, but it helps!” mug. But you doubt their capacity to still make something thrilling at your peril. 2009’s Embryonic is the Flaming Lips at their darkest and most dangerous: an album of evil noise and terrifying visions. Even the pop singles are odd: on I Can Be a Frog, Yeah Yeah Yeahs singer Karen O ribbits, growls and meows her way through a series of creepy animal impressions that’ll stop you from sleeping. She’s also one of the angry mob on the eerie din of Watching the Planets, on which Coyne makes like a cult leader waiting for the rapture. “Oh oh oh, burning the Bible tonight!” he chants manically, backed by spooky piano and pounding war-drums, as he spurs his followers on in some demented Wicker Man-like ritual. A nightmarish reminder that you should never get too close to The Flaming Lips; even if they’re tamer than they once were, they’ve still got teeth.
'Spontaneity at the expense of truth': why it's time for a new debate format If Donald Trump’s candidacy has taught us anything, it’s that the debate format is easily gamed, and – the man’s many shortcomings as a potential commander-in-chief notwithstanding – he is a master of it. Sunday night’s town-hall-style event at Washington University in St Louis was no exception to this rule. Seasoned moderators Anderson Cooper and Martha Raddatz, who had clearly prepared with an eye toward not letting Trump get away with as much nonsense as usual, repeatedly allowed him to pivot away to areas he was comfortable in. Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton, sometimes a bit too eager to defend herself or display her foreign policy knowledge, enabled Trump by engaging him wherever he went. Asked for an opinion on the way forward in Aleppo, Trump, who clearly had nothing to say about the war-torn city, merely repeated the word a couple of times, before redirecting the conversation entirely with a non sequitur, “Let me tell you about Mosul.” A similar diversion happened with questions regarding Hillary Clinton’s private email server, which Trump always manages to make a centerpiece of debates. Trump’s threat to use the power of the presidency to prosecute his political rival – “because there’s never been so many lies, so much deception” – wasn’t strong enough of a statement. He also had to threaten her with incarceration, quipping, when Clinton replied with a comment about how it’s a good thing someone with his temperament is not currently in charge of the law in our country: “Because you’d be in jail!” When the conversation finally did move on from Clinton’s email scandal, Trump reprimanded the moderator for not following up about the emails, a topic that already dominated the commander-in-chief forum in September, an event nominally about foreign policy. As for his repeated insistence that there’s “never been so many lies”? That isn’t true, according to Politifact, which finds Clinton is an unusually truthful candidate. Not that that’s much of an advantage in our current debate climate. Pithy redirections of substance and reason have resurfaced again and again over the course of the election cycle. It’s become endemic to the way we do debates, as Trump’s rise in the primaries has proved, and it is deleterious to our democracy. We punish the candidates who are honest about what they don’t know (Gary Johnson’s “what’s Aleppo” moment comes to mind here), and reward the best bullshitters. In the internet era, and the rise-of-Trump era, society must be able to do better. While it’s important for a potential president to be able to deftly pivot away from uncomfortable questions and set the course of conversation on their terms, these are also the skills of a master propagandist. They are not the most important skills in a leader, who should be able to identify what they don’t know and, in the right context, occasionally admit it. Trump doesn’t bother. Rather he draws blanks in huge areas of policy but he’s never held to account for it, because in debates, as in politics everywhere this year, authenticity is king, even Trump’s authentic disregard for the truth. So it’s hard to say what anyone learned from the second debate, not because it was conspicuously less substantive than previous ones, but because it was presidential debates as usual. The truth, and knowledge specifically, is simply not that valuable in a debate format as it exists; voters are simply unable to evaluate it in the framework provided. Experts and the media learned nothing, but that’s less of an indictment of the system – they’ve heard it all before. But low-information voters could have learned worse than nothing. As in previous debates and pre-debates, they might have come away from thinking Trump was against the war in Iraq (he wasn’t), that Clinton should have done more to reform healthcare (she never had the relevant job description), and that Clinton was somehow the reason Trump was able to dodge paying federal taxes (everyone who can do it does do it). Why should our democracy’s debate system put an emphasis on spontaneity and authenticity at the expense of truth and knowledge? There has to be something better than this at this late date, whether it’s a real-time fact check displayed on screen, a sidebar of data-informed commentary, prepared videos that are vetted for accuracy and submitted in advance. I doubt that authenticity-loving Americans will go for it, but perhaps the public should reconsider. It’s a format that could benefit Trump as much as it would benefit Clinton – he would have the advantage of not having a meltdown on stage, as he’s constantly in danger of having. Meanwhile Clinton and the rest of us would hear a whole lot fewer lies. We already know enough about Trump’s temperament from the way he uses his Twitter account, and it would certainly be an improvement on the current situation, which seems to be an exercise chiefly in spreading voter misinformation. But don’t expect Trump to lead the charge to reform presidential debates. As his campaign manager Kellyanne Conway put it shortly after the town-hall style debate drew to a close, it’s “a great format for him”. The entire 2016 presidential election thus far is the proof that she’s right.
DNC 2016, day three: emotional Obama passes baton to Clinton – as it happened The sun has set on day three of the Democratic national convention in Philadelphia. Here’s what happened: In a wildly applauded appearance interrupted a couple times by various people shouting “four more years!”, Barack Obama took the stage to ask the country to “do for Hillary Clinton what you did for me”. At the end of the speech, Clinton joined the president onstage – her first appearance in person at the convention. The two hugged and audience cheered a lot. Obama said he disagreed with a pessimistic vision of the country’s prospects laid out at the Republican convention last week. He framed Donald Trump as neither a Republican nor a conservative but as a throwback to political doomsayers of old. In listing threats to the country, Obama put alongside fascists communists and jihadists “homegrown demagogues”, certainly a reference to Trump, whom the president said was “not really a facts guy”. “Does anyone really believe that a guy who’s spent his 70 years on this Earth showing no regard for working people is suddenly going to be your champion?” Obama said. Senator Tim Kaine, Clinton’s running mate, introduced himself to the country and tried out a Trump impression with the refrain: “Believe me!” Everybody said it wasn’t that good but seemed to forgive him for it. Vice president Joe Biden made a case that Trump wouldn’t look out for the middle class: “He’s trying to tell us he cares about the middle class. Give me a break. That’s a bunch of malarkey!” A few unruly delegates remained. People chanted “no more war” as former defense secretary Leon Panetta spoke. But when Obama tipped his hat to Bernie Sanders, no hand was left unclapped. The night saw wrenching testimony from families of victims of gun violence, from Newtown to Orlando. Gabby Giffords gave a heartily cheered speech. The night featured Republican criticism of Trump – eg video of Mitt Romney – and a well-received speech from Republican-turned independent Michael Bloomberg, who told the world that Trump is a con man. Multiple speakers hit Trump for asking earlier in the day for Russia to hack Clinton’s emails, in an extraordinary press conference summarized here. Award for surprisingly strong performance goes to former candidate Martin O’Malley, who said: “It’s time to put a bully in his place, and a tough woman in hers [pause] - the White House!” (He used to write them): The top-tweeted moments of the night, courtesy of Twitter: Here’s some video from earlier this evening: Here’s a statement released by the Trump campaign: What’d everyone think of the speech? Here’s some Twitterati: What did you think of the president’s speech? Clinton’s appearance? Biden’s turn onstage? Tim Kaine? Was Biden better than Kaine? Was that a top-ten Obama speech? The pastor says Amen. Representative Marcia Fudge comes back out. She entertains a motion to recess till 4.30pm tomorrow. Everybody likes the idea. She gavels. And then walks rather slowly backstage, considering who’s back there to hang out with. Here was the Obama welcome: A pastor comes out and the crowd figures out what to do. A lot of them start walking out. Many listen respectfully! Especially the ones parked upfront. But many are beating the parking lot traffic jam. Good luck, delegates – that thing is gnarly. The pastor says “bedrock of love,” which reminds us we’ve failed to embed Signed Sealed Delivered. Apologies for the delay: Clinton and Obama hug. It’s a bear hug. The crowd screams, it’s deafening. Arm-in-arm they walk to the front of he stage. Thumbs up. The crowd is high. It’s her first appearance on this stage of the week. The crowd exceeds its maximum capacity to cheer and then ebbs a bit and then comes roaring back. They walk around some more and wave some more. That was a lot of hugging. Then they head backstage. The crowd is temporarily stunned-seeming, milling, turning in their seats. What do they do now? Just... leave? Obama gets a lot, lot of applause. The DJ finds some Stevie Wonder, Signed sealed delivered. The crowd sings along. The president takes that stroll up to the far end of the stage. And here comes Clinton. Obama rolls out a familiar phrase that is applauded with gusto: Time and again, you’ve picked me up. I hope, sometimes, I picked you up, too. Tonight, I ask you to do for Hillary Clinton what you did for me. I ask you to carry her the same way you carried me. Because you’re who I was talking about twelve years ago, when I talked about hope – it’s been you who’ve fueled my dogged faith in our future, even when the odds are great; even when the road is long. Hope in the face of difficulty; hope in the face of uncertainty; the audacity of hope! America, you have vindicated that hope these past eight years. And now I’m ready to pass the baton and do my part as a private citizen. This year, in this election, I’m asking you to join me – to reject cynicism, reject fear, to summon what’s best in us; to elect Hillary Clinton as the next President of the United States, and show the world we still believe in the promise of this great nation. Thank you for this incredible journey. Let’s keep it going. God bless the United States of America. Obama winds toward a close: And that’s why I have confidence, as I leave this stage tonight, that the Democratic Party is in good hands. My time in this office hasn’t fixed everything; as much as we’ve done, there’s still so much I want to do. But for all the tough lessons I’ve had to learn; for all the places I’ve fallen short; I’ve told Hillary, and I’ll tell you what’s picked me back up, every single time. It’s been you. The American people. It’s the letter I keep on my wall from a survivor in Ohio who twice almost lost everything to cancer, but urged me to keep fighting for health care reform, even when the battle seemed lost. Do not quit. It’s the painting I keep in my private office, a big-eyed, green owl, made by a seven year-old girl who was taken from us in Newtown, given to me by her parents so I wouldn’t forget – a reminder of all the parents who have turned their grief into action. It’s the small business owner in Colorado who cut most of his own salary so he wouldn’t have to lay off any of his workers in the recession – because, he said, “that wouldn’t have been in the spirit of America.” It’s the conservative in Texas who said he disagreed with me on everything, but appreciated that, like him, I try to be a good dad. It’s the courage of the young soldier from Arizona who nearly died on the battlefield in Afghanistan, but who’s learned to speak and walk again – and earlier this year, stepped through the door of the Oval Office on his own power, to salute and shake my hand. It’s every American who believed we could change this country for the better, so many of you who’d never been involved in politics, who picked up phones, and hit the streets, and used the internet in amazing new ways to make change happen. You are the best organizers on the planet, and I’m so proud of all the change you’ve made possible. Obama here seems to group Trump, a “homegrown demagogue,” perhaps, though not named, with threats to the country including “fascists or communists or jihadists”: America has changed over the years. But these values my grandparents taught me – they haven’t gone anywhere. They’re as strong as ever; still cherished by people of every party, every race, and every faith. They live on in each of us. What makes us American, what makes us patriots, is what’s in here. That’s what matters. That’s why we can take the food and music and holidays and styles of other countries, and blend it into something uniquely our own. That’s why we can attract strivers and entrepreneurs from around the globe to build new factories and create new industries here. That’s why our military can look the way it does, every shade of humanity, forged into common service. That’s why anyone who threatens our values, whether fascists or communists or jihadists or homegrown demagogues, will always fail in the end. That is America. That is America. Those bonds of affection; that common creed. We don’t fear the future; we shape it, embrace it, as one people, stronger together than we are on our own. That’s what Hillary Clinton understands – this fighter, this stateswoman, this mother and grandmother, this public servant, this patriot – that’s the America she’s fighting for. Obama tells his granparents’ story: And it’s got me thinking about the story I told you twelve years ago tonight, about my Kansas [Kansas delegation: YAY] grandparents and the things they taught me when I was growing up. They came from the heartland; their ancestors began settling there about 200 years ago. Obama throws in a line for run: I don’t know if they had their birth certificates” Obama returns to his story: They were Scotch-Irish mostly, farmers, teachers, ranch hands, pharmacists, oil rig workers. Hardy, small town folks. Some were Democrats, but a lot of them were Republicans. My grandparents explained that they didn’t like show-offs. They didn’t admire braggarts or bullies. They didn’t respect mean-spiritedness, or folks who were always looking for shortcuts in life. Instead, they valued traits like honesty and hard work. Kindness and courtesy. Humility; responsibility; helping each other out. That’s what they believed in. True things. Things that last. The things we try to teach our kids. And what my grandparents understood was that these values weren’t limited to Kansas. They weren’t limited to small towns. These values could travel to Hawaii; even the other side of the world, where my mother would end up working to help poor women get a better life. They knew these values weren’t reserved for one race; they could be passed down to a half-Kenyan grandson, or a half-Asian granddaughter; in fact, they were the same values Michelle’s parents, the descendants of slaves, taught their own kids living in a bungalow on the South Side of Chicago. They knew these values were exactly what drew immigrants here, and they believed that the children of those immigrants were just as American as their own, whether they wore a cowboy hat or a yarmulke; a baseball cap or a hijab. The president acknowledges that Clinton has her critics. But we all make mistakes, he says: Look, Hillary’s got her share of critics. She’s been caricatured by the right and by some folks on the left; accused of everything you can imagine – and some things you can’t. But she knows that’s what happens when you’re under a microscope for 40 years. She knows she’s made mistakes, just like I have; just like we all do. That’s what happens when we try. That’s what happens when you’re the kind of citizen Teddy Roosevelt once described – not the timid souls who criticize from the sidelines, but someone “who is actually in the arena…who strives valiantly; who errs…[but] who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement.” That Teddy Roosevelt quote somehow gets a huge cheer. “Hillary Clinton is that woman in the arena. She’s been there for us – even if we haven’t always noticed,” Obama says. The crowd is outdoing themselves applauding. But they really flip when they hear Obama say “yes we can”: America isn’t about “yes he will.” It’s about “yes we can.” And we’re going to carry Hillary to victory this fall, because that’s what the moment demands. You know, there’s been a lot of talk in this campaign about what America’s lost – people who tell us that our way of life is being undermined by pernicious changes and dark forces beyond our control. They tell voters there’s a “real America” out there that must be restored. This isn’t an idea that started with Donald Trump. It’s been peddled by politicians for a long time – probably from the start of our Republic. The president uses the old trick of saying the magic words “Bernie Sanders” and, sure enough, the entire arena freaks out: So if you agree that there’s too much inequality in our economy, and too much money in our politics, we all need to be as vocal and as organized and as persistent as Bernie Sanders’ supporters have been. [Pause for applause] We all need to get out and vote for Democrats up and down the ticket, and then hold them accountable until they get the job done. If you want more justice in the justice system, then we’ve all got to vote – not just for a President, but for mayors, and sheriffs, and state’s attorneys, and state legislators. And we’ve got to work with police and protesters until laws and practices are changed. Another applause line from Obama: “”the American Dream is something no wall will ever contain”: Hillary knows we can insist on a lawful and orderly immigration system while still seeing striving students and their toiling parents as loving families, not criminals or rapists; families that came here for the same reasons our forebears came – to work, and study, and make a better life, in a place where we can talk and worship and love as we please. She knows their dream is quintessentially American, and the American Dream is something no wall will ever contain. Scanning ahead in Obama’s prepared remarks (we have them now), he appears to be done with Trump. All Clinton praise from here on out. Obama says that acknowledging racial tension isn’t making it worse – “it’s creating the possibility for people of good will to join and make things better”: She knows that this is a big, diverse country, and that most issues are rarely black and white. That even when you’re 100 percent right, getting things done requires compromise. That democracy doesn’t work if we constantly demonize each other. She knows that for progress to happen, we have to listen to each other, see ourselves in each other, fight for our principles but also fight to find common ground, no matter how elusive that may seem. Hillary knows we can work through racial divides in this country when we realize the worry black parents feel when their son leaves the house isn’t so different than what a brave cop’s family feels when he puts on the blue and goes to work; that we can honor police and treat every community fairly. She knows that acknowledging problems that have festered for decades isn’t making race relations worse – it’s creating the possibility for people of good will to join and make things better. Obama has a nice short sentence that connects big with the audience: We are not a fragile or frightful people. Our power doesn’t come from some self-declared savior promising that he alone can restore order. We don’t look to be ruled. Our power comes from those immortal declarations first put to paper right here in Philadelphia all those years ago; We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that together, We, the People, can form a more perfect union. From Obama’s mouth, the declaration of independence is applauded wildly. That’s who we are. That’s our birthright – the capacity to shape our own destiny. That’s what drove patriots to choose revolution over tyranny and our GIs to liberate a continent. It’s what gave women the courage to reach for the ballot, and marchers to cross a bridge in Selma, and workers to organize and fight for better wages. America has never been about what one person says he’ll do for us. It’s always been about what can be achieved by us, together, through the hard, slow, sometimes frustrating, but ultimately enduring work of self-government. And that’s what Hillary Clinton understands. Now Obama brandishes Reagan against Trump: In fact, it doesn’t depend on any one person. And that, in the end, may be the biggest difference in this election – the meaning of our democracy. Ronald Reagan called America “a shining city on a hill.” Donald Trump calls it “a divided crime scene” that only he can fix. It doesn’t matter to him that illegal immigration and the crime rate are as low as they’ve been in decades, because he’s not offering any real solutions to those issues. He’s just offering slogans, and he’s offering fear. He’s betting that if he scares enough people, he might score just enough votes to win this election. That is another bet that Donald Trump will lose. And the reason he’ll lose it is because he’s selling the American people short. Obama says Clinton is going to keep the country safe: And if you’re concerned about who’s going to keep you and your family safe in a dangerous world – well, the choice is even clearer. Hillary Clinton is respected around the world not just by leaders, but by the people they serve. Then Obama adds an ad-libbed line, not in the teleprompter: I have to say this. People outside the United States don’t understand what’s going on with this election. The line gets a laugh. He continues: She’s worked closely with our intelligence teams, our diplomats, our military. And she has the judgment, the experience, and the temperament to meet the threat from terrorism. It’s not new to her. Our troops have pounded ISIL without mercy, taking out leaders, taking back territory. I know Hillary won’t relent until ISIL is destroyed. She’ll finish the job – and she’ll do it without resorting to torture, or banning entire religions from entering our country. She is fit to be the next Commander-in-Chief. Back to Trump: Meanwhile, Donald Trump calls our military a disaster. Apparently, he doesn’t know the men and women who make up the strongest fighting force the world has ever known. He suggests America is weak. He must not hear the billions of men, women, and children, from the Baltics to Burma, who still look to America to be the light of freedom, dignity, and human rights. He cozies up to Putin, praises Saddam Hussein, and tells the NATO allies that stood by our side after 9/11 that they have to pay up if they want our protection. Well, America’s promises do not come with a price tag. We meet our commitments. And that’s one reason why almost every country on Earth sees America as stronger and more respected today than they did eight years ago. “Four more years,” somebody in the crowd yells, drawing more laughs. America is already great. America is already strong. And I promise you, our strength, our greatness, does not depend on Donald Trump. The president now turns his attention to Clinton’s opponent. He says Trump left people feeling they were cheated, and asks, “Does anyone really believe that a guy who’s spent his 70 years on this Earth showing no regard for working people is suddenly going to be your champion?” And then there’s Donald Trump.” Boooo! “Don’t boo,” Obama says. “Vote!” Applause. Obama: The Donald not really a plans guy. Not really a facts guy, either. He calls himself a business guy, which is true, but I have to say, I know plenty of businessmen and women who’ve achieved success without leaving a trail of lawsuits, and unpaid workers, and people feeling like they got cheated. Does anyone really believe that a guy who’s spent his 70 years on this Earth showing no regard for working people is suddenly going to be your champion? Your voice? If so, you should vote for him. But if you’re someone who’s truly concerned about paying your bills, if you’re really concerned about pocketbook issues, and seeing the economy grow, and creating more opportunity for everybody, then the choice isn’t even close. If you want someone with a lifelong track record of fighting for higher wages, better benefits, a fairer tax code, a bigger voice for workers, and stronger regulations on Wall Street, then you should vote for Hillary Clinton. Here Obama moves into a section that was released earlier: “Hillary’s been in the room” (ad-lib bold): You know, nothing truly prepares you for the demands of the Oval Office. Until you’ve sat at that desk, you don’t know what it’s like to manage a global crisis, or send young people to war. But Hillary’s been in the room; she’s been part of those decisions. She knows what’s at stake in the decisions our government makes for the working family, the senior citizen, the small business owner, the soldier, and the veteran. Even in the middle of crisis, she listens to people, and keeps her cool, and treats everybody with respect. And no matter how daunting the odds; no matter how much people try to knock her down, she never, ever quits. That’s the Hillary I know. That’s the Hillary I’ve come to admire. And that’s why I can say with confidence there has never been a man or a woman – not me, not Bill, nobody - more qualified than Hillary Clinton to serve as President of the United States of America. Obama: “Now, eight years ago, Hillary and I were rivals for the Democratic nomination.” Somebody yells out: “Four more years!” People laugh. Obama continues: We battled for a year and a half. Let me tell you, it was tough, because Hillary’s tough. She was doing everything I was doing, but just like Ginger Rogers, backwards and in heels. Every time I thought I might have that race won, Hillary just came back stronger. But after it was all over, I asked Hillary to join my team. She was a little surprised, but ultimately said yes – because she knew that what was at stake was bigger than either of us. And for four years, I had a front-row seat to her intelligence, her judgment, and her discipline. I came to realize that her unbelievable work ethic wasn’t for praise or attention – that she was in this for everyone who needs a champion. I understood that after all these years, she has never forgotten just who she’s fighting for. Obama says “we are stronger together.” Is that the line he was up till 3am writing? But he gets the crowd on its feet and cheering a lot, by listing all the different American groups who come together in his vision of unity. Then this part gets a Hillary! chant going: That’s the America I know. And there is only one candidate in this race who believes in that future, and has devoted her life to it; a mother and grandmother who’d do anything to help our children thrive; a leader with real plans to break down barriers, blast through glass ceilings, and widen the circle of opportunity to every single American – the next President of the United States, Hillary Clinton. Hillary! Hillary! Hillary! “We’re not done perfecting our union,” Obama says. Or living up to the creed, we’re all created equal. “I think it’s fair to say, this is not your typical election,” Obama says. People laugh. He says there’s a “fundamental choice about who we are as a people.” The parties have always had differences, he says, but there’s nothing wrong with that. “But what we heard in Cleveland last week wasn’t particularly Republican, and it sure wasn’t conservative. What we heard was a deeply pessimistic vision...there were no solutions. Just the fanning of resentment and anger and hate. And that is not the America I know.. the America I know is decent and generous. “Sure we have real anxieties about caring for sick parents... racial divisions.. the madness in Orlando or Nice. There are pockets of America that never recovered from factory closures.” Here a delegate stands up and starts yelling about TPP. “We are challenged to do better,” Obama says. “To be better.” As he travels the country, he says, what he sees more than anything is “what is right with America.” Obama says change is never easy. Texas is standing up and maybe it’s someone in Texas who is trying to say something. No Hillary No? Is that what the Texas person is saying? Obama says back in 2004 in Boston, when he made his name at the DNC, he was filled with faith in the country. Somebody is yelling something but they are shushed. Obama continues: “I am more optimistic about the future of America than ever before.” He is, he explains, because the economy has recovered, job creation is healthy, health care is now an American right, because we’re weaning from foreign oil, troops are coming home, and “we delivered justice to Osama bin Laden.” The “success” – in his opinion – list continues: Iran, Cuba, Paris climate deal, student loans, consumer protection, combat veteran homelessness, and marriage equality. Marriage equality gets a big cheer. “By so many measures, our country is stronger and more prosperous than it was when we started.” Obama says his girls were young then, now “amazing young women.” And he mentions “my brilliant wife and partner Michelle,” and the crowd cheers like crazy. She “somehow hasn’t aged a day,” Obama says. “I know, the same cannot be changed for me. My girls remind me all the time. ‘Wow you’ve changed so much daddy.’ Then they try to clean it up. ‘Not young, but more mature.’” The crowd all has stick signs reading Obama. He’s announced. He walks out. He waves. Must be some Democrats in here by the sound of it. The president’s looking casual. Strides over to the lectern. Forgoes the trip up to the far end that Kaine and Biden took. Dang is that Coldplay? There’s all kinds of clapping and cheering. In addition to the Obama signs there are rainbow flags and some TPP signs. Thank you, Obama says. A few times. The clapping continues. We’ll have video of this for you shortly. “Thank you so much everybody.” The crowd chants: Yes we can! Yes we can! Yes we can! “Thank you so much everybody!” Person: I love you! President: I love you back! They’s darn excited. Here now they let him start. So “twelve years ago tonight...” Any second now... The crowd here in the DNC is singing along to the video of Obama singing Amazing Grace after Charleston. This is true. Pressure’s on, Obama: Trump’s doing his best to distract from the president, revving up his Twitter account and coming up with a country full of “poverty, violence and despair.” Belkofer is still introducing. “I wish every American could hug president Obama, so they could see the good in his eyes and the warm in his heart. This is our president!” She cruises away from the podium and the crowd has to stand up quickly to get their standing ovation in before he gets offstage. Now the video rolls. Here’s what’s left: Sharon Belkofer, to introduce a film about the president. “You’re all probably wondering, who the heck is this sweet little old lady.” The crowd laughs. She says she’s a mom to three who served in the military, a retired nurse, grandma of 10 and now a great grandma. The DNC bio has this: Sharon Belkofer is the mother of fallen Lt. Col. Thomas Belkofer. Her son was killed when a suicide bomber detonated a minibus in a convoy carrying Belkofer and three other high-ranking officers in Kabul, Afghanistan. Here’s the film: The president is next. In fact he is in the building, according to the White House press pool. Kaine is nearing the finish line. He says Clinton is ready. “And when I say ready, I use ready for a very specific reason. When I lived in Honduras I learned that the best compliment you could give someone was to say they were “listo” ... prepared, battle-tested, rock-solid, up for anything... and friends, Hillary Clinton is lista!” He closes: Hillary is ready. She’s ready to fight, she’s ready to win. And she is ready to lead. God bless. Happy cheering for that. The podium disappears again. Kaine walks around and says hi to everyone. His wife Anne comes out and waves to. The camera goes to Chelsea Clinton who’s clapping. he delegates all wave their Clinton-Kaine signs. There’s syncopated clapping. The Kaines are still wandering about the stage and waving. Now they wind down and exit. Kaine points out that Ohio governor John Kasich refused to attend the Cleveland convention “because he thinks that Donald Trump is such a moral disaster.” “Is there anyone in this building who believes him?” No! Kaine keeps it up hitting Trump. “Folks, you cannot believe one word that comes out of Donald Trump’s mouth.” It becomes a chant: Not one word! Not one word! Not one word! Kaine: “To me it seems like our nation it’s just too great to put in the hands of a slick-talking, empty-promising, self-promoting, one-man wrecking crew. “Don’t take it from me. Take it from former first lady Barbara Bush. She said she didn’t know how any woman could vote for him after his offensive comments.” Kaine says Clinton was not afraid to step up against thugs and dictators. Kaine says Americans trust Clinton to protect them and to help solve their problems, “and on a personal level, as he’s serving our nation abroad, I trust Hillary Clinton with our son’s life.” That’s a pretty dramatic line that gets good cheers. He continues: “You know who I don’t trust? I wonder? Donald Trump! DOnald Trump. Trump is a guy who promises a lot. But you might have noticed. He has a habit of saying the same two words right after he makes his biggest promises. You guys know the words I mean? “Believe me.” Now Kaine rolls out a Trump impression, listing promises Trump has made – the wall that Mexico will pay for, the fast destruction of Isis, “there’s nothing suspicious in my tax returns” – believe me! Kaine’s Trump impression boils down to making himself sound stupid when he says Believe Me. Kaine: Does anybody in this massive auditorium believe that Donald Trump’s been paying his fair share of taxes? Crowd: NO! Kaine: “Hey Donald, what are you hiding? And yet, Donald still says, ‘believe me.’ Believe me. Believe me? Believe me? Most people, when they’re running for president, they don’t just say “believe me.” They respect you enough to tell you how they’ll get things done. Kaine now takes a dig at Trump. “Hillary has a passion for kids and families. Donald Lump – Donald Trump has a passion too. It’s himself!” Kaine says that “I spend a time with a lot of Republican senators who, once the’ve made sure nobody’s listening, will tell you how fantastic a senator Hillary Clinton was.” How many times has that happened? Kaine keeps going. And then he gets his first real big applause of the speech. “We must love our neighbors as ourselves,” he says. Sounds plagiarized. “Hillary Clinton and I are compañeros de alma,” he says. “We share this belief: Do all the good you can. Serve one another. That’s what I’m about. That’s what you’re about. That’s what Bernie Sanders is about. That’s what Joe Biden is about. That’s what Barack and Michelle Obama are about. And that’s what Hillary Clinton is about.” ¡Si se puede! someone yells. Kaine repeats the phrase, and it turns into a big chant. Kaine describes his work as a civil rights lawyer. We’re at the top of page two now. He describes winning a Richmond city council race “by a landslide margin of 94 votes.” He started in politics at the local level. (Who’s that in contrast to?) Then he became mayor, lieutenant governor and governor. “I was a hard-times governor,” he says. “But hey, tough times don’t last, and tough people do.” Who’s that standing to cheer down front? Virginia, of course. Kaine turns to the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting. “We shed tears and held each other up, but afterwards we rolled up our sleeves, and fixed a loophole in our background check system to make us safer.” Kaine is now a senator on the armed services and foreign relations committees, and on the budget committee with... Vermont’s Bernie Sanders. Saying “Bernie Sanders” is all it takes to get this crowd to cheer their heads off. The camera moves to Sanders, in the audience. He smiles a bit. Kaine: “WE all should feel the Bern, and we all should not want to get burned by the other guy.” Kaine continues his biography, making some political points along the way. He describes himself in the 1970s as “this goofy guy who had been off teaching kids in Honduras.... Well, Anne and i have now been married for almost 32 years.” The camera now moves to Anne’s parents, Lin and Jinks, “90-plus and going strong.” “Lin’s still a Republican. But he’s voting for a lot of Democrats these days,” Kaine says. “If any of you are looking for that party of Lincoln, we’ve got a home right here for you in the Democratic party.” “I humbly accept my party’s nomination to be vice president.” He was born in Minnesota. Grew up in KC. His dad ran a union ironworking shop. His mom was dad’s bes salesman. He learned about hard work and faith. Jesuit boys’ school. “Men for others.” Where his “faith became vital.” Then he went to Honduras. He switches to Spanish. The crowd cheers that. A standing ovation even, for some. ¡Somos Americanos todos! There’s a big anti-TPP chant breaking out in Missouri. Those rabble-rousers are recognizable as some of the strongest Bernie-backers. Kaine has committed the mortal trespass, for the Sanders wing of the Democratic party, of supporting free trade. Adding to the distraction is some strange mic business, where we hear someone talking technical talk. That goes away. The lectern that pops up and down does not pop up for Kaine. We spoke too soon, there it is. Kaine walks the lip of the stage as they play some exciting 70s cop drama theme music and the delegates stand and clap. Kaine thanks his family. Notes his son Nat deployed with his Marine battalion two days ago “to protect and defend the very NATO allies that Donald Trump says he now wants to abandon. Semper Fi, Nat!” We have an advance copy of Tim Kaine’s remarks and they’re three full pages, when most speeches have been running one page or less. Get comfortable, America. You’re about to meet Tim Kaine. Scott announces Tim Kaine, and everyone claps for Tim Kaine, but it turns out they’re just clapping for a video, because no essential points are entrusted simply to speakers anymore, because the way people intake information is by watching TV. It’s a tribute video to Tim Kaine. “They still live in the same house they moved into 24 years ago.” Stuff like that. “Virginia was named the best state in the country to raise a child.” Instead of more Kravitz we’re going to watch that Fight Song video we saw last night again. Now here’s Rep Bobby Scott from Virginia. He’s not on the speaker’s list. But he’s here to introduce the running mate. Wikileaks released its latest disclosures on Wednesday – 29 voicemails mined from the emails it leaked over the weekend, writes Adam Gabbatt: But whereas the Democratic National Committee emails rocked the Democratic party, revealing bias against Bernie Sanders and forcing DNC chair Debbie Wasserman-Schultz to quit, the voicemails are much, much, much less interesting. The voicemail with the most potential to be juicy is from the film producer husband of a Democratic operative. But there is no juice. The film producer leaves a message saying he and his wife could speak to the recipient later that day. The voicemails appear to have been sent as audio files to recipients’ email addresses, which is likely how they were obtained by Wikileaks. Three of the messages relate to a reception for ambassadors at the White House. But there is nothing scandalous. The messages are essentially RSVPs. Four of the leaked voicemails are from the same female voter. The woman, who identifies herself as a Democratic party member, leaves a series of angry messages regarding the party apparently being too soft with Bernie Sanders. The Vermont senator is “getting way too much influence” in the party, she says. “I don’t understand it. You guys are losing me,” she warns. Many of the other voicemails are very short – people leaving a phone number and requesting a callback. Among the longer messages is an invite to a parents’ meeting at a school. “All parents are invited Friday morning at 8.50am,” the message leaver says. “We’ll be discussing ways to help students navigating change. Specifically around change to our buildings.” The woman leaving the voicemail mentions the name of a school in Washington DC, before urging parents to attend the meeting. “There’s also free babysitting available,” she says. Kravitz starts out with a slow jam version of Let Love Rule. The crowd seems into it. But all anybody does at concerts anymore is stand there and film it on their iPhone so they can not watch it later. Kravitz plays his guitar a bit and someone in the band knows their way around the saxophone. “Please welcome Lenny Kravitz.” The crowd complies. Wow that’s a lot of backup singers. Here’s the Daily News front page tomorrow: The Twitterati liked the Biden speech: No matter what you might think of Clinton, Bloomberg says, she understands that “this is not reality TV - this is reality!” The presidency is the most powerful office on earth, he says. “And so I say to my fellow Independents: your vote matters now. Your vote will determine the future... Tonight, as an Independent, I am asking you to join with me – not out of party loyalty, but out of love of country... Together, let’s elect a sane, competent person with international experience.. let’s elect Hillary Clinton! Bloomberg is just wildly applauded. What a scene. More from Bloomberg: I’m a New Yorker, and I know a con when I see one! Trump says he’ll punish manufacturere sthat move to exico or China, but the clothers he sells are made overseas in low-wage factories. ... Truth be told, the richest thing about Donald Trump is his hypocrisy. He wants you to believe that we can solve our biggest problems by deporting Mexicans and shutting out Muslims... I understand the appeal of a businessman president. But Trump’s business plan is a disaster in the making.... The bottom line is: Trump is a risky, reckless and radical choice. And we can’t afford to make that choice!... Bloomberg says whatever his disagreements with Clinton may be, “we must unite around the candidate who can defeat a dangerous demagogue.” He continues: I believe we need a president who is a problem-solver, not a bomb thrower... Most of us who have our names on the door know that we are only as good as our word, but not Donald Trump. Throughout his career, Trump has left behind a well-documented record of bankruptcies, thousands of lawsuits, angry shareholders and contractors who feel cheated, and disillusioned customers who feel ripped off. Trump says he wants to run the nations like he’s run his business. God help us. Here now is Bloomberg. We have a copy of his prepared remarks here. He thanks the crowd for welcoming an outsider – “I am not here as a member of any party.” “I am here for one reason. To explain why I believe that it is imperative that we elect Hillary Clinton the next president.” Here now is Atlanta mayor Kasim Reed. After him, in case you need to plan around an impossible-to-delay-because-it’s-already-been-awhile transfer of laundry to the dryer, it’s Michael Bloomberg, Lenny Kravitz and Tim Kaine. Then Obama. Biden is hot now. “Americans have never ever ever let this country down,” he says, by electing someone who sows fear. We do not scare easily. We never bow, we never bend,... no, we endure, we overcome, and we always move forward. He says he has “absolute conviction” that the 21st century is going to be the American century. “We are America. Second to none. And we own the finish line. Don’t forget it. ‘Protect our troops. Come on. We’re America.” Biden steps away from the lectern as every hand in the hall, it seems, flies up with its Joe sign, and Biden might as well pump his fist, for how well that went, although he does not. Jill Biden comes out to retrieve him. They make a tour of the stage. Biden stops to blow the crowd a kiss. And there he goes, he’s out. Bet that moment looked good on TV. Biden says that the country had never considered a candidate with so little knowledge as Trump, who stokes fear and “has no plan whatsoever to make us safer.” Biden says Trump “seeks to sow division in America for his own gain.” “We simply cannot let that happen as Americans. Period.” Meanwhile, the ’s Ben Jacobs captured this footage today in Biden’s hometown of Scranton: Biden attacks Trump: His cynicism is unbounded. His lack of empathy and compassion can be summed up in the phrase he made famous: you’re fired. Think about that. Think about that. ... How can there be pleasure..? He’s trying to tell us he cares about the middle class/ Give me a break. That’s a bunch of malarkey! That sets off an immense cheer. Biden: Whatever he thinks, and I mean this from the bottom of my heart.. I know why we’re strong.. why we are united.. it’s because there’s always been a growing middle class. This guy doesn’t have a clue about the middle class. Not a clue. “He has no clue about what makes America great. Actually he has no clue, period. The crowd chants: Not a clue! Not a clue! Biden has the crowd in thralls. “If you live in the neighborhoods like the one Jill and I grew up in... then there’s only person in this election who will help you... who’s always been there for you. “And that’s Hillary Clinton’s life story! She always there. And so is Tim Kaine.” He says thanks. Eight years ago, he says, he was onstage in Denver to accept the veep nomination. “And every single day since then has been the honor of our lives for Jill and me. Every day we’ve been grateful to Barack and Michelle.” “We’ve become friends,” Biden says of the Obamas. “We’re now family. Folks, you’ve all seen... what president Obama means to this country. he is the embodiment of honor, resolve and character. One of the finest presidents we have ever had.” Big applause. And Michelle? I don’t know where you are, kid. But you’re incredible. I was talking to Barack today. It’s no longer who can give the best speech. We already know who did that. As they say in Delaware, Barack and I married way up. Way up. Biden comes out to the Rocky thing. Good times. Everybody now has red Joe signs. The veep paces the staged like an uncaged tiger (whatever). He walks the length of the stage to say Hi to everyone. The crowd – the whooole crowd – chants Joe! Joe! Joe! It’s a truly effusive Biden tribute video. Now here’s Dr Jill Biden, introducing her husband. Who is then introduced by a tribute video. Now the chant becomes USA! USA! USA! They’ve turned the lights down on the section where most of the chanting was coming from – but the delegates, some of them, have turned on their phone flashlights. Panetta leaves and they turn the lights back on. That was Washington state and Oregon, mostly, it appears. Here’s Leon Panetta, the former defense secretary and CIA director: In this election, there is only one candidate for president who has the experience, temperament and judgment to be commander-in-chief, and that is Hillary Clinton. Panetta credits Clinton with supporting the decision to go after Osama bin Laden. “Hillary was clear: we have to go after Bin Laden.” That’s applauded. Panetta says Clinton is determined to defeat “Isis al-Qaeda, Boko Haram, al-Shabaab, terrorists who pervert the teachings of Islam to kill innocent people.” “Meanwhile, Donald Trump says he gets his foreign policy experience from watching TV and running the Miss Universe pageant. If only it were funny. It is deadly serious. Donald Trump asks our troops to commit war crimes, endorses torture, spurns allies from Europe to Asia, suggests more countries to have nuclear weapons, and praises dictators from Saddam Hussein to Vladimir Putin.” Panetta refers to Trump’s call for a Russian hack on Clinton. Panetta is interrupted by a chant: No more war! No more war! He pauses and smiles. There’s general noise and confusion. Then Panetta continues, saying Trump “took Russia’s side.” The line is booed. “Think about that for a moment. Donald Trump, who wants to be president of the United States, is asking one of our adversaries to engage in hacking or intelligence efforts against the United States to affect our election.” Panetta calls it irresponsible. The No MOreWar! chant continues, but it’s temporarily drowned out when Panetta says, “Donald Trump cannot become commander-in-chief.” “We cannot put an erratic finger on our nuclear weapons,” he says. “This is no time to roll the dice and gamble.” Here’s the lineup of speakers on deck: Remarks Kristen Kavanaugh Kristen Kavanaugh is a graduate of the United States Naval Academy and a former Marine Corps Captain who deployed to Iraq. She later co-founded the Military Acceptance Project, a California-based social justice organization dedicated to promoting acceptance of marginalized populations within the military. Remarks Former Congressman and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta Remarks U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown (Ohio) Introduction of Speaker Dr. Jill Biden Remarks Vice President Joe Biden Hutson s interrupted – is that the California delegation? – it’s a chant. “I can’t hear what they’re saying,” Hutson says. We can’t either, they’re on the other side of this big arena. He goes back to his speech, which now concludes: “When you’re a citizen you have the responsibility to choose the commander-in-chief who will keep us safe, strong and secure. Choose Hillary.” And now the 2016 Democratic convention is applauding the 2008 Republican nominee. Hutson on Trump: He even mocks our POWs, like John McCain. I served in the same navy as John McCain. I used to vote in the same party as John McCain. Donald, you’re not fit to polish John McCain’s boots! They like the line. Next up is retired Admiral John Hutson. “Unlike Donald Trump there are two things I know an awful lot about: law and order,” he begins. He was 30 years in the navy and a judge advocate general. “Donald Trump calls himself the ‘law and order candidate’ but he’ll violate international law... this morning, this very morning, he personally invited Russia to hack us! That’s not law and order. That’s criminal intent.” Hutson isn’t an electrifying speaker, but he enjoys a crowd deeply sympathetic to the argument he’s making: The real disaster is what would happen if we let Donald Trump become the face of the country we love. Now they’re screening a video titled Solemn Responsibility, featuring a great number of national security figures, from right and left, saying Trump is not fit to be commander in chief and definitely not to have the nuclear codes. Here’s the video: Onstage is unfolding an extraordinary musical number. A tremendous line of recording artists doing a rendition of What the World Needs Now Is Love – lyrics by Hal David, composed by Burt Bacharach. The crowd is overwhelmed with the vibe. When they wrap, the cheer exceeds any yet on the night – maybe the whole convention. Long lines of delegates were clasping raised hands and swaying. Now they chant: Love trumps hate! Love trumps hate! Love trumps hate! As survivors and family members of victims from four different mass shootings speak in support of Hillary Clinton tonight, the National Rifle Association is preparing to release a new Clinton attack ad claiming that “you right to own a gun for self-defense is at risk in this election.” The ad features Kimberly Corban, a rape survivor and gun rights advocate. “The thought of owning a handgun terrified me, until one morning, a stranger broke into my apartment, and raped me. He had evil in his eyes, and I was helpless,” Corban says in the ad. “My fear of firearms disappeared when I got my second chance at life.” “Self defense is your right. Don’t let it be taken away,” Corban says. The NRA ad will air starting on Thursday on national cable, and will also run digitally in battleground states. Corban was one of the gun rights advocates who questioned the president during Obama’s CNN town hall on guns in January. “As a survivor of rape, and now a mother to two small children -- you know, it seems like being able to purchase a firearm of my choosing, and being able to carry that wherever my -- me and my family are -- it seems like my basic responsibility as a parent at this point,” she told Obama. “Why can’t your administration see that these restrictions that you’re putting to make it harder for me to own a gun, or harder for me to take that where I need to be is actually just making my kids and I less safe?” “Well, Kimberly, first of all, obviously -- you know, your story is horrific. The strength you’ve shown in telling your story and, you know, being here tonight is remarkable, and so -- really proud of you for that,” Obama responded. “I just want to repeat that there’s nothing that we’ve proposed that would make it harder for you to purchase a firearm.” More Giffords: In Congress I learned a powerful weapon. Strong women get things done.... In the White House she will stand up to the gun lobby. That’s why I’m voting for Hilary. Speaking is difficult for me. But come January, I want to say these two words: Madam president. Thank you very much. The crowd can’t clap enthusiastically enough. And Giffords walks off and waves the whole way. The audience applauds until she disappears. Kelly introduces Giffords, “someone who has taught me to deny the acceptance of failure. Someone who doesn’t give up. And someone who believes, like Hillary does, that we are all Stronger Together.” My wife, my wife, the awesome congresswoman Gabby Giffords. The delegates are on their feet. Giffords walks out slowly, unaided. She smiles and waves, smiles and waves. The crowd cheers and cheers, it gets louder and louder when Giffords arrives at the lectern. Fellow Democrats! she says. Huge cheer. What a crowd! We have work ahead of us. Work that will determine the future of our country. Are you ready? Yeah! Are you ready? Yeah! Are you ready? Yeah! I’m ready. Kelly notes he’s a son of two cops and a veteran of dozens of combat operations, and a former astronaut. He says from his unique perspective he has scene the country at its best and worst. “From orbit, I saw our planet as a perfect blue marble.. but I also saw expanding deserts and shrinking rain forests.” Just as Hillary is prepared to defeat Isis... Hillary is ready to take on one of our country’s greatest moral failures here at home, and that is the gun violence that is tearing so many of our communities apart. We have to do better. And Hillary knows we can. Here’s Angela Bassett, the actress, who names the victims of the mass shooting inside Charleston AME church in South Carolina. I visited Charleston this year, and I can tell you that city’s soul is on fire. It burns with resilience... it brought down the confederate flag and it brings the Charleston community closer together every day.” Basset introduces Felicia Sanders & Polly Sheppard, survivors of the Charleston shooting. Sanders says she rejects hate: “It destroys those who harbor it. I refuse to let it destroy me.” “No one should feel what I’ve seen. No one should feel how we feel. How we suffered. The Bible tells us... turn from our wicked ways. .. Let us heed God’s word, and in turn may God heal our nation. Sheppard: Amen. The shooter in Charleston had hate in his heart. Orlando and Dallas too. So much hate, too much. But as scripture says, love never fails. I choose love. And in this election, I choose Hillary Clinton. Here now is astronaut Mark Kelly, husband of Gabby Giffords. We haven’t heard the audio files yet. Developing... Now here is former Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey, who served on the president’s special police reform commission, to talk about the need to stop violence against police officers. The lineup to follow forges more and more deeply into the theme of the country’s failure to get gun violence under control: Remarks Actress Angela Bassett Remarks Felicia Sanders & Polly Sheppard Felicia and Polly are two of the three survivors of the Mother Emanuel Church shooting in Charleston, SC. Remarks Gabby Giffords & Mark Kelly Smegielski says she should be watching at home on TV, with her mom. “But, my mom was murdered, so I’m here.” “I’m here alone, without my mother, while too many politicians cower behind the gun lobby instead of standing with American families.” The crowd stands to applaud. “What we need is another mother who’s willing to do what’s right, whose bravery can live up in equal measure to my mom’s. What we need is to elect Hillary Clinton... so that no other daughter ever has to say, I would give every single day that I have left for just one more day with my mom.” The crowd applauds, but the speech is a gut-punch. There’s a downbeat muted quality to the clapping. Murphy gives a pretty fired-up speech. Enough, he says. “We have had enough.” The crowd chants with him too. Next up is Erica Smegielski, whose mother, Dawn Hochsprung, was the principal of Sandy Hook Elementary and was killed while trying to protect her students. There’s a video to introduce her: “We waited and waited and waited. And they told us, if you’re in this room, it’s because your family member’s not coming out.” “Hillary Clinton is the only candidate that has what it takes to take on the gun lobby” – the line is applauded. “There’s finally someone who can change things.” Here’s Connecticut senator Chris Murphy to talk about the massacre in Newtown and efforts to advance gun safety legislation. “I am furious,” he says. “I am furious that in three years in Sandy Hook... the Republican congress has done absolutely nothing to prevent the next massacre. It stokes inside me a sense of outage that I’ve never felt before. And that’s what drove me to stand on the floor of the United States senate for 15 hours to demand change.” Murphy says that Clinton “held firm” against the gun lobby, “stood up to the NRA.” Leinonen: Christopher was a big Hilary supporter. That’s why I’m here. So I can tell you about the day he was born. At the time she was a Michigan state trooper. When she went into labor, the hospital put her gun in a safe, she says. I didn’t argue. I know that common sense gun policies save lies. The weapon that murdered my son fires 30 rounds in one minute... one minute for a gun to fire so man shots. Five minutes for a bell to honor so many lives. I’m glad common sense gun policy was in place when Christopher was born. But where was that common sense the day he died. I never want you to ask that question about your child,” she says. “That’s why I support Hillary Clinton. She’s hugged by her son’s friends. Lee Daniels is still onstage and hugs them. They leave the stage arm-in-arm to a great wave of applause. Now here is Christine Leinonen, Brandon Wolf and Jose Arraigada. The crowd, which had been loud, is shushed. Christine Leinonen is the mother of Christopher “Drew” Leinonen, who was killed in the Pulse attack in Orlando. She is speaking on the verge of tears, with a hard twist in her life. “Christopher was my only child. As I used to tell him, you can’t do better than perfect.” Brandon Wolf and Jose Arraigada are survivors of the attack at the nightclub in Orlando. Leinonen says that in high school, her son won the Anne Frank award for starting a gay-straight alliance. His paternal grandparents met and fell in love in a Japanese internment camp, so it was in his DNA that love always trumps hate. This line is applauded for a long time. Director Lee Daniels (Precious, The Butler) is next. He talks about a number of family members who have been to jail, and his father, a police officer shot dead in Philadelphia. He says, in part: Hillary has stood with families of people who have died due to gun violence... I wish she was around for me when my father died. Hillary understands our right to bear guns, but wants to stop guns from getting into the wrong hands... This is the most important election of our lifetime. Come November, vote for her. Now here’s Jerry Brown, the California governor. What is it that the California delegation is chanting? We can’t quite make it out. Is that Jerry! Jerry! (?) “That sounds good,” he says. “But I only got five minutes. I got to get going here.” His remarks focus on climate change. He describes a “world imperative to take action.” “But you wouldn’t know it by listening to Donald Trump,” Brown says. He notes that Trump never once mentioned climate change or global warming at the Republican convention. Some strong lines: Trump says global warming is a hoax. I say Trump is a fraud. Trumps says there’s no drought in California. I say Trump lies. So it’s not surprising that Trump chose as his running mate a man who denies evolution. He says the Republicans and Trump “have strayed into sheer ignorance and dark fantasy.” “While Trump talks and talks and talks,” Brown says, “Trump says stuff.” For all the talk of unity in the hall and streets, the fact remains that there is an ugly undercurrent – at times it surfaces – of antipathy directed at the first woman to be nominated for president by a major party. One example is right downstairs from the press risers, in a men’s restroom. Sigourney Weaver is next, but the Hollywood actress simply cannot equal the undiluted star power of Martin O’Malley. O’Malley: Unlike that immigrant-bashing, carnival barker, Donald Trump... Hillary Clinton understands the enduring symbol of the United States of America is not the barbed wire fence... it is the Statue of Liberty! And then O’Malley gets the biggest applause of the night so far, with a line about Trump being a bully: It’s time to put a bully in his place, and a tough woman in hers (pause) -- The White House! Hillary Clinton, Tim Kaine -- Forward together -- Stronger Together! The crowd roars and everybody waves whatever’s in their hands, in many cases Clinton signs. O’Malley positively gleams. Then he does a jig as he walks offstage! Make ’em laugh, knock ’em dead and dance ’em home. Who is this guy? More yuks from O’Malley: He says, and I quote: “The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese.” I’ll tell you what: if the Chinese were really capable of designing some kind of diabolical farce to hurt America, they wouldn’t invent global warming … they’d invent Donald Trump! O’Malley: I say to hell with Trump’s American nightmare. We believe in the American Dream! Then he scores a total cheer from the crowd with a joke about Trump, whom he quotes as having said that wages are too high: Wages are too high??? I’ll tell you what’s too high:... College tuition is too high. The cost of child care is too high. The number of American children who live in poverty is too high. Donald Trump’s opinion of himself... that’s way too high!! They love the line. Now here’s O’Malley. A nice warm welcome for him. He introduces himself “as a man who knows Hillary Clinton well.” “I’ve worked alongside her,” he says. “And I’ve competed against her.” Let’s be honest. Sort of competed. Filled out the debate stage threesome, at least. A pretty solid line out of Detroit mayor Mike Duggan then: Unlike Donald Trump, Detroit is only going to do bankruptcy once. Here’s the next tranche of speakers, in case you need to plan around your dinner hour or water your plants or grab a snack or pick up the dry cleaning: Remarks Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan Remarks Former Governor of Maryland Martin O’Malley Introduction of Film Actress Sigourney Weaver Remarks California Governor Jerry Brown Remarks Director Lee Daniels Next to speak is Jamie Dorff, whose husband, Patrick Dorff, was an Army helicopter pilot from Minnesota who died while on a search and rescue mission in northern Iraq. Dorff is speaking to highlight Clinton’s work to highlight the gratuity paid to family members of fallen veterans from $12,000 to $100,000. She’s introduced by a video in which she talks about the pain and difficulty of losing her husband, and facing the challenge of raising her daughter. “What Hillary has done for my family, and other military families, words can’t even describe it,” Dorff says on the video. Sanders tweets footage of his brother, Larry Sanders, a UK resident, casting a vote for him Tuesday as a member of the Democrats abroad coalition: Here now is Gavin Newsom, lieutenant governor of California. As mayor of San Francisco, he issued licenses, contrary to the law, for same-sex couples to marry. Newsom singles out Mike Pence as one of the country’s most regressive governors when it comes to LGBTQ issues. He says the Republican ticket is attempting a “hostile takeover of the American dream.” Reid tells “new Americans” that the Democratic party supports them: “New Americans risking everything to get here, and then fighting to make it here – we’re in your corner. “You’re the ones fighting the hardest fights. You’re the ones who need leaders in your corner... Reid concludes: In a few months, I’ll be stepping out of the ring, one last time. But Democrats will always - always - be in your corner. So together, let’s keep fighting, together; fighting the good fight! Reid is applauded appreciatively. He has to wait at the lectern for his wife to come out and walk him backstage. He’s limping a bit. He suffered debilitating injuries in January 2015 from an accident with an exercise band. We’re scanning Reid’s prepared remarks. He gives “never-ending tribute to our next president, Hillary Clinton.” He plans to call majority leader Mitch McConnell “craven”: “I’ve never seen anything more craven... [than] what he has done to our democracy.” Further: His Republican Party decided that the answer to hard-working Americans’ dreams is to slander our African-American president, stoke fear of Muslims, sow hatred of Latinos, insult Asians and of course wage war against women. In other words, the only thing Republicans like Mitch McConnell have accomplished is setting the stage for a hateful con man, Donald Trump Reid gets a good round of warm applause. Appreciative crowd. There’s even a cheer: Harry! Harry! Harry! Harry! Here’s Reid. We have a copy of his prepared remarks here. He starts with a joke: “I spend a lot of time in the Republican senate, so it’s nice to be in a room that respects reason and facts!” Here now is a tribute video to Harry Reid, the senate minority leader. Bernie Sanders is one of the talking heads: “He is often criticized for being very blunt,” Sanders says. “I like that.” Elizabeth Warren recalls Reid calling her at home and asking her to run for senate. But the best anecdote is from Chuck Schumer, who says that Reid bugs him about not signing shoes. “He says, here, here’s $20, because he knew I was cheap,” Schumer says. “Go shine your shoes.” Reid talks in the video, too. He gets choked up when he remembers how he took a job in a service station so he’d have enough money to buy his mother a set of false teeth. “If I do nothing else in my life, I got my mother some teeth,” Reid says. Here’s Emily’s list’s Stephanie Schriok of Emily’s List, which helps elect pro-choice women to government: “Hillary Clinton may be our first woman president, but she may not be our last. Once that barrier falls it will never, ever, ever be put back up.” Here are the next four speakers in case you need to step out for a workout or to grab some groceries or walk the dog: Remarks President of EMILY’s List Stephanie Schriock Remarks Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid (Nevada) Remarks California Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom Remarks U.S. Representative Ruben Gallego (Arizona) Donald Trump is about to begin a reddit Ask Me Anything. Scott Bixby is going to cover it. Something tells us he is going to be doing a lot of typing. Start time is 7pm ET. Now comes to the stage the congressional black caucus. Caucus chairman GK Butterfield of North Caraolina to speak. He’s greeted warmly. “Donald J Trump, your words have been hostile” he says. “They’ve been bigoted and insulting... you are not qualified to serve as president of the United States. ... you use your celebrity status to paint a picture of gloom and doom... “You want to know why your polling numbers are so dismal with African Americans? We know that your wealth has come at the expense of other people.” Weaver says in 2014 the state switched our water source to a polluted river to save a handful of dollars... poisoning a whole community and leading to health impacts that may last for more than a generation. The problems in Flint aren’t over, she says. “There are many more Flints across the country where environmental issues are hurting our kids and families,” she says. “I am a voice for Flint,” she says. And “we need your help.” They’re now screening a new video about the water crisis in Flint, Michigan. It features Flint residents praising Clinton for her advocacy on behalf of their city and residents. Speaking next is Flint mayor Karen Weaver. Star Jones, the View host, who appeared on a season of Trump’s Celebrity Apprentice and came in fifth, is next. “We are all with her, because she has always been with us,” she says. Jones alludes to her time inside Trump-world, contrasting Democrats with “race-baiting folks on the other side that I also know. Shame, boy bye.” Well that wasn’t in his prepared remarks. Jackson finishes by saying “it’s healing time, it’s hope time, it’s healing time, it’s hope time, it’s Hillary time” and permutations of orders of those three phrases for quite a while. The crowd joins in a bit but Jackson varies the order and confuses them. Here’s Jesse Jackson, the civil rights leader, pioneering African American politician, Rainbow / PUSH coalition founder and Barack Obama frenemy. He gets a good hurrah there, especially from the New York delegation. We have Jackson’s prepared remarks here. He endorses Clinton firmly right out of the box. He congratulates Bernie Sanders “for energizing this campaign season.” “The Bern must never grow cold,” he says. That’s not in his prepared remarks. Jackson, 74, recalls Clinton’s long fights on behalf of impoverished children, “the marginalized and defenseless.” “Hillary understands the historic dimensions of the agony, hope and promise of Black Lives Matter,” Jackson plans to say. “The shooting of young black men must stop.” “It’s Super Bowl time,” Jackson says of the general election. Jackson concludes his speech by quoting himself from his 1984 presidential run, when he won primaries in four states and Washington, DC. If blacks register and vote in great numbers, progressive whites win,” he says/said. “It’s the only way progressive whites win. If blacks vote in great numbers, Hispanics win. When blacks, Hispanics, and progressive whites vote, women win. When women win, children win. When women and children win, workers win. We must all come up together.” “It’s healing time, it’s hope time, it’s Hillary time.” Here’s a musical number, billed as “our America musical performance.” It’s extremely easy-listening; the backdrop of fluffy cumulonimbus is perfect. You’d take it for one of the lazier offerings from the Christian lite genre, if they didn’t sing “America” so many times. (You still might.) Sample lyrics: America Let’s celebrate the good times. America I’ll honor and defend you America America America Bolo tie count so far this evening, by the way: two (2). Let’s hope that number climbs like Trump’s poll numbers. (That’s not to say we wish for Trump’s poll numbers to climb, only to acknowledge that they have, steeply.) Here’s the slate of upcoming speakers, if you’re trying to plan upcoming beer runs / bathroom breaks: Remarks Civil Rights Leader Reverend Jesse Jackson Remarks Actress Star Jones Remarks Flint Mayor Karen Weaver Congressional Black Caucus Chair, U.S. Representative GK Butterfield (NC) The ’s Adam Gabbatt and Laurence Mathieu-Léger set out to gauge excitement among Clinton supporters for the Democrats’ historic nominee. They say they’re very excited - if “not always as loud.” The White House has released excerpts of the president’s speech tonight. From these passages it appears the president will seek to articulate an optimistic view of the national crossroads and prop Clinton up, as opposed to tearing Trump down. The key lines from the excerpts are familiar: You know, nothing truly prepares you for the demands of the Oval Office. Until you’ve sat at that desk, you don’t know what it’s like to manage a global crisis or send young people to war. But Hillary’s been in the room; she’s been part of those decisions. Obama also plans to say, as he has before, that “there has never been a man or a woman more qualified than Hillary Clinton to serve as President of the United States of America.” Here are the excerpts in full: As Prepared for Delivery “The America I know is full of courage, and optimism, and ingenuity. The America I know is decent and generous. Sure, we have real anxieties – about paying the bills, protecting our kids, caring for a sick parent. We get frustrated with political gridlock, worry about racial divisions; are shocked and saddened by the madness of Orlando or Nice. There are pockets of America that never recovered from factory closures; men who took pride in hard work and providing for their families who now feel forgotten. Parents who wonder whether their kids will have the same opportunities we have. “All that is real; we’re challenged to do better; to be better. But as I’ve traveled this country, through all fifty states; as I’ve rejoiced with you and mourned with you, what I’ve also seen, more than anything, is what is right with America. I see people working hard and starting businesses; people teaching kids and serving our country. I see a younger generation full of energy and new ideas, unconstrained by what is, and ready to seize what ought to be.” --- “You know, nothing truly prepares you for the demands of the Oval Office. Until you’ve sat at that desk, you don’t know what it’s like to manage a global crisis or send young people to war. But Hillary’s been in the room; she’s been part of those decisions. She knows what’s at stake in the decisions our government makes for the working family, the senior citizen, the small business owner, the soldier, and the veteran. Even in the middle of crisis, she listens to people, and keeps her cool, and treats everybody with respect. And no matter how daunting the odds; no matter how much people try to knock her down, she never, ever quits. “That’s the Hillary I know. That’s the Hillary I’ve come to admire. And that’s why I can say with confidence there has never been a man or a woman more qualified than Hillary Clinton to serve as President of the United States of America.” Sounds like De Blasio’s speechwriting team included Dr Seuss: Hillary Clinton: she’s smart, she’s steady, she’s right and she’s ready. Donald Trump is reckless, he’s risky, he’s wrong and he’s scary. De Blasio: We know that Trump is one of the great pretenders. But how can he pretend to be for American workers when he didn’t even pay his own workers what he owed them? He calls Trump a “truly little man.” Hello from inside the Wells Fargo Center. Here’s New York City mayor Bill de Blasio. Some members of the New York delegation, which is parked right at his feet, stand up to applaud. Quite a few stay seated, however, and a couple seem to glare. As slow as de Blasio was to endorse Clinton, he’s speaking effusively about her now. He says her heart led her to public service instead of a lucrative law career. The contrast is with Trump, “one of the least generous billionaires our country has ever seen.” The Democratic National Convention Committee will release a video tonight titled “Protect,” highlighting Hillary Clinton’s record of standing up for military families. The video features Jamie Dorff whose husband Patrick Dorff, an Army helicopter pilot from Minnesota, died while on a search and rescue mission in northern Iraq. While Democrats rock out in Camden, New Jersey, tonight to the musical stylings of Lady Gaga, Lenny Kravitz and DJ Jazzy Jeff, members of the media will be stuck inside overheated tents in a South Philly parking lot. According to Philly.com – and confirmed by Gaga-affinitive members of the staff – reporters are banned from attending tonight’s sold-out “Camden Rising” concert in an official capacity. Officially, the reason for the media blackout is that “the artists have requested that the concert be closed to media as part of their contracts,” but PhillyVoice – a local publication whose executive editor happens to be the daughter of the co-host of the concert – will be in attendance. The likelihood of non-Gaga-related breaking news out of Camden remains unlikely, although the list of invitees includes the president and the first lady, as well as Hillary Clinton herself – although it’s uncertain whether she will attend on the eve of her big night. Guess we’re viewed as nothing more than ... paparazzi. Erica Smegielski, daughter of Sandy Hook elementary school principal Dawn Smegielski, is set to address the Democratic National Convention tonight, and will be accompanied by this video. Titled “My Mother”, Smegielski describes finding out about her mother’s murder in a school shooting, and Clinton’s platform on gun issues. Rudy Giuliani, on electronic tags for Muslim terror suspects: I would think that’s an excellent idea. If you’re on the terror watch list, I should you know you’re on the terror watch list. You’re on there for a reason. Center for American Progress CEO Neera Tanden addressed the afternoon session of the Democratic National Convention, speaking of the importance of Democratic commitment to welfare, and also speaking to Clinton’s character as an employer. “I know firsthand that the decisions our leaders make, make all of the difference in peoples’ lives. That’s why I chose a career in public policy, and that’s why I am so very proud to support Hillary Clinton,” Tanden said. While Tanden worked in Clinton’s Senate office, she ensured a climate where “childcare, paid leave [and] equal pay” were part of the office culture. “She walks the walk,” Tanden continued. “I know because I worked for her as I was starting my own family.” “No matter how busy Hillary got, she always made family flexibility a reality for her staff,” Tanden said. “Once, she flipped her entire travel schedule so I could make it to my daughter’s pre-K graduation. In fact, Hillary was the second person to call me in the hospital when my first child was born, and the first person to call me when my second child was born.” “That matters in Washington. What you do - not just what you say - matters.” Never a dull moment in Philadelphia. Video: Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump had a terse exchange with a female reporter at a press conference in Florida this morning, during which he told NBC’s Katy Tur to “be quiet.” Tur had been questioning Trump on his previous comments inviting Russia to hack rival Hillary Clinton’s emails in order to acquire and release thousands of exchanges which are said to have been deleted prior to an investigation After the Trump campaign requested copies of Politico magazine with his face on it, editor Kristin Roberts was happy to oblige - although she did include a note requesting that the campaign reinstate the outlet’s press credentials: We hope Mr. Trump enjoys reading it in his spare time. In the spirit of open communication, perhaps this would be an appropriate time to ask when you will deliver to our reporters the credentials that we have requested for his many events. I know they would greatly appreciate it. Chelsea Clinton has launched an impassioned attack on Republicans who support conversion therapy for gay and lesbian people, describing it as tantamount to “child abuse”. Bill and Hillary Clinton’s daughter, now 36, told LGBTQ Democrats in Philadelphia that she feels this is the most important election in her lifetime, in part because it is the first in which she will vote as a mother. “Everything I care most about is at risk in this election,” she said, citing last week’s Republican national convention in Cleveland. “I’ve thought about what I found most offensive last week. It’s hard to pick just one. The Republican rhetoric which was divisive, degrading, demeaning, or the Republican party platform that was the anthesis to all that Chad [Griffin of the Human Rights Campaign] has celebrated for us as Democrats here. It was the most regressive, least inclusive platform in modern political history. “But I think what I actually found most offensive really again ties to me as a mom. The open embrace of conversion therapy in the Republican party platform – in other words, child abuse – to me is the clarion call for all us to do everything we can to elect my mom but also to elect Democrats up and down the ticket.” Clinton, who will speak on behalf of her mother at the convention on Thursday, added: “We need to ensure we are electing people who reflect our values so that my mom can finally pass the Equality Act, so that my mom can finally federally ban conversion therapy, my mom can restore the military records of everyone who has served their country.” Retired US Navy admiral James Stavridis, a former supreme allied commander of Nato, told the ’s Spencer Ackerman that Donald Trump’s comments regarding Russian hacking of DNC emails are “shocking and dangerous” and will undermine American efforts abroad. “These comments are shocking and dangerous,” Stavridis said. “In addition to the obvious domestic political implications of essentially inviting interference in our election, they will further undermine European confidence in the reliability of the US as an ally - particularly in the face of Russian adventurism.” Edit: This post originally suggested that Stavridis was planning on speaking at the DNC tonight. That was incorrect. The Trump campaign’s senior communications adviser, Jason Miller, has declared on Twitter that the candidate “did not call on, or invite, Russia or anyone else to hack Hillary Clinton’s e-mails today,” despite widely recorded and disseminated comments made by the candidate at a morning press conference that stated exactly that. Trump, speaking at a press conference in Florida this morning, incited Russia to hack into and release Hillary Clinton’s emails from the personal server she used whilst she was secretary of state. “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 e-mails that are missing,” Trump said. “I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press. Let’s see if that happens. That will be next.” The Republican nominee added: “They probably have her 33,000 e-mails that she lost and deleted ... I hope they do ... because you’d see some beauties there.” Florida senator Marco Rubio floated the possibility that Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump will learn on the job once he is elected president in a radio interview today, saying that it was his “sense” that the Senate will act to curb his most kneejerk impulses. “I view the Senate as a place that can always act as a check and balance on whoever the next president is,” Rubio told WGN Radio. “I also think there’s something to be said for - once you’re actually in that position, once you’re actually working at this thing, and you’re in there, and you start to have access to information that perhaps you didn’t have before, especially for someone that’s never been in politics - I think it starts to impact your views a little bit.” “That’s my sense of it, as he settles into this role as the nominee and ultimately the president, access to these issues is going to begin to, in some ways, kind of shape some of the policy positions given reality versus perhaps what you might read about on a blog somewhere” Rubio continued. “So I think that’s gonna be a real factor.” During the Republican primary, Rubio called Trump “an embarrassment” to the Republican party and vowed that they would pay for his nomination in November. As delegates mingle in downtown Philadelphia, four miles north a “shanty town” called Clintonville has been set up by activists in protest against the Democratic National Convention. The community is set up on an empty plot of land in Kensington, a working class neighborhood heavily impacted by de-industrialisation in the middle of the last century. Clintonville was organised by local activist Cheri Honkala. “The focus this week is on Hillary becoming the first woman as the candidate, and I’m supposed to be happy that there’s a first woman president but Hillary doesn’t represent any of the women I know,” Honkala said. “[Because of] her policies around the poor, and the fact that women and children have been killed as a direct result of Hillary.” Honkala said Clintonville was based on the Hoovervilles of the 1930s – shanty towns built during the Great Depression – and was also protest against “$60m being spent on a convention and parties and $43m on security”. Ahead of the convention activists had promised Clintonville would be a “tent city”, buton Wednesday it appeared that the turnout had been disappointing. There were six tents – seven including a tipi – and three buses at the site. Interestingly, there is actually a town called Clintonville in Pennsylvania. It is situated in the north-west of the state and had a population of 528 as of the 2000 census. The median income is $22,083. In non-hacking news, Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager told a group of reporters at a lunch sponsored by the Wall Street Journal that they campaign is more than happy with Donald Trump’s stated plan to win over traditionally blue states. “I absolutely encourage Donald Trump to spend time campaigning in Connecticut, New York and New Jersey,” Robby Mook told reporters, according to the Hill. “I wholeheartedly endorse that strategy,” Mook continued. “I would be happy to support him if he wants itineraries or schedules. I will have staffers at his disposal to assist him campaigning in those markets.” Trump has vowed to be competitive in traditionally left-leaning states, including California, Pennsylvania and his home state of New York. Donald Trump’s suggestion that Russia hack Hillary Clinton’s email servers is not the first time he’s pushed for digital vigilantes to sabotage his political opponents: The ’s Dan Roberts and Sabrina Siddiqui have more on Donald Trump’s assertions that the Russian government should hack into opponent Hillary Clinton’s email servers to release her private communications: Asked if he would handle Putin as a friend or an adversary, Trump said he would treat the Russian president “firmly” but expressed a desire to improve relations. “There’s nothing I can think of that I’d rather do than have Russia friendly, as opposed to the way we are now, so we can go and knock out Isis together with other people and with other countries. Wouldn’t it be nice if we actually got along with people?” Trump, who has faced questions about whether his business empire has been supported by funding from wealthy Russians also claimed he could not release his tax returns because they were under audit. “I’ll release them when the order is completed,” he said, while insisting there was no evidence to support claims of his ties to Russia. “But zero, I can tell you right now. I have nothing to do with Russia.” Trump’s campaign manager Paul Manafort, asked directly whether Trump denied having any financial links to Russian oligarchs, said: “That’s what he said – that’s what I said – that’s, that’s obviously what our position is.” As news of Trump’s apparent incitement reached the Clinton camp, Sullivan issued a statement denouncing his remarks, adding: “This has to be the first time that a major presidential candidate has actively encouraged a foreign power to conduct espionage against his political opponent. That’s not hyperbole, those are just the facts. This has gone from being a matter of curiosity, and a matter of politics, to being a national security issue.” John Kasich is trying to split the difference between Donald Trump’s comments on Russian state-sponsored hacking and Hillary Clinton’s email servers: Video: The Republican nominee said allegations of Russia hacking the Democratic National Committee emails to help him are “ridiculous” at a press conference Wednesday morning. Referring to Hillary Clinton’s emails that underwent a federal investigation, Trump said: “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing.” After Donald Trump’s comments at his press conference today, Hillary for America senior policy advisor Jake Sullivan following statement: “This has to be the first time that a major presidential candidate has actively encouraged a foreign power to conduct espionage against his political opponent. That’s not hyperbole, those are just the facts. This has gone from being a matter of curiosity, and a matter of politics, to being a national security issue.” Donald Trump, doubling down: Bernie Sanders told delegates yesterday that Hillary Clinton “must become the next president” in his speech at the Democratic national convention. But away from the Wells Fargo Arena, his supporters have been holding anti-Clinton demonstrations. So has Sanders managed to convince diehard fans to vote for Clinton? The went to a #BernieOrBust rally to find out. In a whirlwind press conference from Doral, Florida, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump told reporters that he had a message for Vladimir Putin and the Russian government: Please hack into rival Hillary Clinton’s email servers. “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 e-mails that are missing,” he said. “I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press. Let’s see if that happens. That will be next.” In an apparent bid to distance himself from Donald Trump’s assertion that Russia should hack Hillary Clinton’s private email servers, Indiana governor Mike Pence has issued a separate statement following Trump’s press conference this morning to “ensure there are serious consequences” for whoever hacked the Democratic National Committee’s email servers. “The FBI will get to the bottom of who is behind the hacking,” Pence wrote. “If it is Russia and they are interfering in our elections, I can assure you both parties and the United States government will ensure there are serious consequences. That said, the Democrats singularly focusing on who might be behind it and not addressing the basic fact that they’ve been exposed as a party who not only rigs the government, but rigs elections while literally accepting cash for federal appointments is outrageous. The American people now have absolute and further proof of the corruption that exists around Hillary Clinton. It should disqualify her from office, if the media did their job.” House speaker Paul Ryan’s chief communications adviser has distanced the speaker from Donald Trump’s comments encouraging Russia to hack Hillary Clinton’s emails and release them. “Russia is a global menace led by a devious thug. Putin should stay out of this election,” Brendan Buck told the . Closing line of Donald Trump’s press conference: “I think it’s time for Hillary Clinton to do a press conference.” Donald Trump has cited Hillary Clinton’s close adviser, Huma Abedin, as a reason why it is not “safe” to brief Clinton on topics relating to national security. “Uma,” Trump called her, is married to “Anthony Weiner, who’s a sleazeball and a pervert. Add that’s recorded history, right? I don’t like Uma going home at night and telling Anthony Weiner all of these secrets? How can Hillary Clinton be briefed on this unbelievably delicate information when it was just proven that she lied?” Abedin has been targeted by conservatives who have accused her of being a Muslim Brotherhood fifth columnist, without evidence. Trump also declared that his son, Donald Trump, Jr., has no interest in running for mayor of New York City, a prospect that prompted Weiner to declare that he would come out of political retirement to beat him. Donald Trump, on President Barack Obama: I think that President Obama has been our most ignorant president in our history. His views of the world, in his words, don’t jive. Donald Trump has apparently endorsed the idea of Russian hackers targeting American citizens. Trump, when press by NBC’s Katy Tur whether he has any qualms about a foreign government like Russia employing hackers to find opponent Hillary Clinton’s emails, he declared: “No.” Watch it live: Advocated for a $10 federal minimum wage, and for states to push it even higher. Declared that he had never met Vladimir Putin, despite previously winking at the possibility of meeting with him during a 60 Minutes interview. “I am a person who believes in enhanced interrogation. And by the way - it works.” Mistook the role of Hillary Clinton’s running mate Tim Kaine, a former governor of Virginia, with that of Chris Christie, the governor of New Jersey. Instructed the Russian government to find the 30,000 “missing” emails from Hillary Clinton’s personal email servers. Accused Putin of using “the N-word” against President Barack Obama but told reporters that Putin will respect him. (Trump is mistaken - the reference is apparently related to blogs that commented on Putin’s willingness to use nuclear weapons.) Promised to release his tax returns once a federal audit is complete, and denied any business with Russia. “I’ll release them when the order is completed,” he said. “But zero, I can tell you right now. I have nothing to do are Russia.” Noted the historic nature of Clinton’s candidacy: “I would love to see a woman become president of the United States, but she would be so wrong.” No words. Video: Former president Bill Clinton portrayed his wife, Hillary, as a dynamic force for changeand a longtime fighter for social justice as he made a case on Tuesday for her historic 2016 bid for the White House. Clinton’s speech looked at both his wife’s personal and professional achievements, and touched on many stories about their life together. Donald Trump, on the minimum wage: The minimum wage has to go up - at least $10, but probably more, but it has to go up. Speaking near Miami, Florida, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump held a rare press conference, berating reporters for not forcing opponent Hillary Clinton to conduct more press conferences. “It’s been 235 days since Crooked Hillary has had a press conference,” Trump said, his voice severe. “I put myself through your news conferences often - not that it’s fun.” “Despite the police platitudes, she’s been a mess,” Trump said. “They don’t have an American flag on the dais until we started complaining... Her great disloyalty to the person that rigged the system for her - DWS - she totally rigged it. Bernie Sanders never had a chance. Total disloyalty.” “Just ask yourself why she doesn’t have news conferences. And honestly, the reason is that there is no way that she can answer questions, because the job she has done is so bad.” After opening up the floor to questions, Trump took numerous questions regarding his relationship with Russian president Vladimir Putin. “It is so farfetched, it’s ridiculous,” Trump said, of the notion that Russia hacked the Democratic National Committee’s email servers in a bid to aid his presidential run. “I’d love to have that power, but Russia has no respect for our country - if it is Russia, nobody knows, it could be China. It shows how weak we are, it shows how disrespected… it’s a total sign of disrespect for our country. Putin and the leaders throughout the world have no respect for our country anymore and they certainly have no respect for our leader.” “I never met Putin,” Trump said, when asked about his relationship with the Russian strongman, something that he has deflected when asked previously. “I would treat Vladimiar Putin firmly, but there’s nothing I can think of that I’d rather do than have Russia friendly,” Trump said. “Wouldn’t it be nice if we actually got along with people?… And let’s go get Isis!” A North Korean propaganda outlet has officially endorsed Donald Trump’s presidential bid, calling Trump “a prescient presidential candidate” who can solve issues on the Korean peninsula through “negotiations and not war.” The piece, published in state-sponsored DPRK Today, characterized the United States as “living every minute and second on pins and needles in fear of a nuclear strike,” according to Reuters. “It turns out that Trump is not the rough-talking, screwy, ignorant candidate they say he is, but is actually a wise politician and a prescient presidential candidate,” Korean scholar identified as Han Yong Muk wrote, before deriding “thick-headed Hillary” as unsuitable for the office. The piece might just make the cut at the Democratic national convention this evening, where Turmp’s relationship with “dictators and strongmen” will be emphasized, according to Clinton advisor Jake Sullivan. “Articulate.” In a delayed press briefing at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in downtown Philadelphia, senior Clinton campaign staffers told reporters that following last night’s history-making nomination of Hillary Clinton, tonight’s program at the Democratic National Convention will build on that momentum by highlighting Clinton’s strengths as a potential commander-in-chief. “We were all struck by the history-making moment of her becoming the first female nominee of a major party,” Clinton campaign press secretary Brian Fallon said. “We’re looking to build on that tonight.” Campaign chair John Podesta, after taking credit for the Pitch Perfect video, said that tonight’s program “will focus and spotlight the different between Hillary Clinton’s strengths” compared to those of Republican nominee Donald Trump. “The convention will also spotlight Clinton’s commitment to reduce gun violence,” Podesta said, including speakers who have survived mass shootings in Orlando and Newtown, and former congresswoman Gabby Giffords. “The evening will be topped off, of course, with speeches from Vice President Biden , from vice presidential designate Tim Kaine and, of course, from President Barack Obama,” Jake Sullivan, Clinton’s foreign policy adviser, told reporters that national security issues will “really come into focus” during tonight’s program. “We will have a number of people who served in uniform... speaking about what it takes to be commander-in-chief and why Secretary Clinton has what it takes.” That list includes former secretary of defense Leon Panetta and an Iraq combat veteran who has been on the front lines in “advancing change” in the Pentagon. “They will talk about why Hillary Clinton has the unique combination of attributes to successfully carry that job.” At the same time, Sullivan said, the speakers will address Trump’s “bizarre and occasionally obsequious relationship with dictators and strongmen” to hammer down the point that “this person should not be placed in command of America’s armed forced, he should not be given the nuclear codes, and he should never be given the title of commander-in-chief.” Donald Trump, criticizing the lack of flags at the Democratic National Convention: Good morning, and welcome to the ’s live coverage of the Democratic national convention’s third day, coming at you live from sauna-esque Philadelphia, where the onetime US capital has been turned into a hub for Democratic leaders, politicians, delegates and hangers-on - plus thousands of journalists and protesters, naturally. At 6:38pm EDT, Democrats officially crossed the roll-call vote threshold and nominated former secretary of state Hillary Clinton as their presidential pick last night, making Clinton the first female presidential candidate from a major party in American history. Moments later, former rival Bernie Sanders called for a nomination by acclamation, a bid towards party unity that prompted some of his supporters to walk out of the arena to occupy the nearby media tents. The capstone of the evening - the theme of which revolved around Clinton’s long history of working with women, children and the disabled - was the keynote address by former president Bill Clinton, who made the case for his wife’s election in deeply personal terms framed around the arc of their long and storied relationship. Beginning with the simple line, “In the spring of 1971, I met a girl...” the former president and would-be first gentleman spent nearly an hour humanizing the Democratic nominee, with the apparent goal of allowing American voters to see Clinton through his eyes. “Hillary will make us stronger together,” Clinton said. “You know it, because she spent a lifetime doing it. I hope you will do it. I hope you will elect her. Those of us who have more yesterdays than tomorrows tend to think more about our children and grandchildren.” Today’s program: The third day of the DNC will gavel in at 4:30pm EDT, and although the complete speakers’ list is still forthcoming, will include the daughter of the principal of Sandy Hook Elementary, two of the three survivors of the Mother Emanuel Church shooting in Charleston, South Carolina, and the widow of an Iraq War helicopter pilot. The keynotes tonight will be delivered by Vice President Joe Biden and President Barack Obama, who will seek to protect the legacy of their administration by citing their work with Clinton as proof of her suitability to assume the role of commander-in-chief. We’ll have more on the full schedule once it’s released - until then, on with the show...
S&P predicts hard Brexit and fresh downgrade for UK Britain is in store for a hard Brexit that will hit the UK economy and lay bare the deep divisions in British society, a leading ratings agency has warned. In a bleak assessment of the UK’s prospects following the EU referendum, Standard & Poor’s said Britain was a diminishing global economic power on the verge of losing the ability to freely export goods and services to the EU. S&P said the UK was at risk of a further downgrade, following its unusual decision to slash the rating by two notches from the top AAA rating to AA, following the 23 June referendum. Moritz Kraemer, S&P global ratings chief sovereign credit officer, described that downgrade as “an extraordinary rating action, underlining the unprecedented step that is Brexit”. He added: “Far from healing festering wounds, as was then Prime Minister David Cameron’s intention, the referendum has deepened and laid bare the schisms in British society. “Most of the economic impact will hit Britain itself. The second-round effect on the world economy is likely to be more limited, as the UK economy accounts for a small and shrinking share of global GDP.” The agency cited data from the International Monetary Fund, which suggested the UK’s share of the world economy will shrink from about 5% in 1980 to just over 3% in 2020. Kraemer said: “It is hard to fathom how a rather hard Brexit can be avoided unless both sides become much more flexible than they appear today. Nothing today suggests that a common quest for compromise will overcome the gulf that now looks as wide as the English Channel.” S&P said the “negative” outlook on the UK’s sovereign rating reflected the multiple risks associated with the decision to leave the EU, exacerbated by Britain’s diminishing ability to respond to those risks. “This assertion is based on what we view as the UK’s weaker institutional capacity for effective, predictable, and stable policymaking.” S&P was the last of the three main ratings agencies to strip the UK of its prestigious triple A rating. Moody’s and Fitch delivered the blow in 2013.
After Mark Carney, the Brexit Bolsheviks have a new target If Mark Carney tires of governing the Bank of England he could always try celebrity ballroom dancing. It doesn’t matter that he is not famous beyond Westminster and the City of London. Ed Balls toiled at the unglamorous coalface of politics and finance, bravely overcoming the handicap of Oxford and Harvard degrees in economics to make it as a comedy hip-jiggler on prime time television. Or Carney could keep his job but the format could change. The BBC could broadcast Strictly Come Quantitative Easing, in which Carney, dressed in white tie and tails, explains the finer points of monetary policy, after which Theresa May steers him to a panel of self-appointed Tory judges who pick apart his performance. “Leaden, flat-footed – your interest rate is still too low,” says William Hague. “This is meant to be a Brexit dance,” tuts Daniel Hannan, “but your posture says remain.” “That emergency lift after the referendum was far too independent,” opines Michael Gove. A key difference between this show and the original would be that the roles of expert and amateur are reversed. The real Strictly judges can dance. On the Brexit channel expertise is a real turnoff, the timid shuffle of a wallflower establishment. To identify technical obstacles on the path to freedom is to counsel continuing captivity. Don’t study the steps, feel the beat! Delicate understatement is the signature move of central bankers, who can spook markets with a mistimed turn. That is why Carney’s intervention on the morning of 24 June was bold and controversial. To recap: the country had just voted to leave the European Union, defying warnings by pretty much every democratically elected leader and serious financial institution in the world that doing so risked economic turmoil. The pound tanked. David Cameron, who had promised not to resign if the vote went against him, resigned. The leaders of the leave campaign faced the nation with the solemn indignation of children whose Christmas present arrives in fiddly parts, batteries not included. Years of pester power had delivered a cherished gift to the Tory right, but they wanted someone else to make it work before they could play with it. In the absence of British leadership, it fell to a Canadian technocrat to calm nerves. Carney told the world the UK economy was “resilient”, but that “a period of uncertainty and instability” could be expected. The Bank of England was making £250bn of funds available to cushion the shock. As the first grownup on the scene, Carney made the Brexiteers look small and weak on their special day. He strode across the fragments of their brittle campaign boasts, and they hate him for it. Some hate him also for having been recruited by George Osborne. The former chancellor occupies a demonic role in the cult of Brexit. He deployed the power of the Treasury to make the case for remain. He activated his network of allies in parliament and brandished his power of patronage to the same end, hinting at preferment for those who stayed loyal to what was, after all, the official government position. The present government is and isn’t the same one that sought to keep Britain in the EU. It has not been supplanted in a general election, but its purpose has been overwritten by plebiscite. So the prime minister has a misshapen mandate. She is constitutionally entitled to the job as the anointed Tory leader in command of a parliamentary majority, but that majority was won by a predecessor whose political project has burned to the ground. And May was a remainer. To overcome the structural insecurity built into her position, May is embracing not just the goal of Brexit but its revolutionary ethos: the idea that 24 June was Day One of Year One of the New Era. Cameron has removed himself from the purgative line of fire. Osborne has not, which means that his legacy as chancellor – and his friends – are viewed with suspicion in No 10. That is partly why May took a casual dig at the Bank of England in her party conference speech, fretting about the harmful consequences of low interest rates and quantitative easing, adding – in the tone of ominous imprecision that is becoming her trademark – that “change has got to come”. I doubt she realised that this would be taken as a licence to kill by Carney’s would-be Tory assassins. She may not even have grasped how brazen a departure from protocol it was for a prime minister to tread on the Bank of England’s independence. She has no Treasury veterans in her immediate entourage to flag the danger. Her target was simply the past: the old order, Osborne’s shadow. But for Brexit Bolsheviks, bent on total revolution, the Treasury itself is untrustworthy – a redoubt of obstructive pro-Europeanism that can mesmerise Philip Hammond with evidential hocus-pocus. John Redwood urges the chancellor to resist any fiscal stimulus based on “nonsensical” forecasts of a Brexit-related downturn predicated on “wacky figures”. Those figures are produced by the independent Office for Budget Responsibility. But that too is a pillar of the Osbornite architecture, ripe for demolition. Liam Fox tells Hammond that his forthcoming autumn statement must not resemble a “George Osborne-style emergency budget”. Downing Street issues tepid statements of support for the chancellor, making it clear that her preferred position is enigmatic equidistance between the Treasury’s economic pragmatism and the ideological urgency of its enemies. This is a natural continuation of the strategy that saw May rise stealthily to the top. She wanted to be prime minister long before she wanted Brexit, but she must now want Brexit all the more if she is to function as PM. She wants the referendum to be her mandate because it is fresher than the one on which she was elected. As for how that mandate is to be fulfilled, she is happy for cabinet rivals to spin themselves breathless in competition over the detail, unconcerned if evidence and expertise are trampled underfoot while she hovers above the fray. In this bizarre game of Strictly Brexit, May wants to lift the glittering trophy but she doesn’t want to dance for it. • You can catch up on our discussion on this article in our Your Opinions thread.
How wartime Britons were easily persuaded by the propagandists In war, according to the cliché, truth is the first casualty. In fact, as the EU referendum campaign illustrated, truth can also be a casualty in peacetime. But there is something about the wartime suppression of truth in favour of propaganda that makes it especially fascinating. And, as a corollary, analysing it helps us to understand its continuous use. So the forthcoming publication of a book about the propaganda employed in the second world war* can be read as both a history and a contemporary media study. Several questions haunt its lavishly illustrated pages. Were the Britons who lived through that dark six years from 1939 really duped by the all-pervasive propaganda, or did they see through it? Did it affect the outcome of the war? Was it worth the effort and resources devoted to it? David Welch’s book, Persuading the People, highlights the way in which Winston Churchill’s government unashamedly manipulated the British population in order to ensure victory over “Hitler’s evil Nazi regime”. Those previous four words were, of course, a classic propagandistic formulation of the time, and remain so to this day. Little was left to chance by the ministry of information, the government’s weapon of choice to exhort the country to pull together and maintain a stiff upper lip. It appears that the people were open to persuasion and the ministry’s slogans, promulgated through posters and in compliant newspapers, became part of the nation’s conversation. Britons did “dig for victory” (to improve agricultural output). They did “make do and mend” (to preserve clothing). They did acknowledge that “ploughing on FARMS is as vital as ARMS.” Even if they didn’t really believe it, they appeared happy enough to say to each other “careless talk costs lives.” Many thousands of women responded to the call for “Eve in overalls” to take up factory work, just as they did to join the forces (“Eve in khaki”). Welch, professor of modern history at Kent university, has shown how the ministry’s stream of propaganda managed to boost morale by encouraging a sense of community at local level while, at national level, reinforcing a patriotic ethos. He records how, running in parallel, there was a ready acceptance of propaganda that demonised the enemy through crude national stereotypes - the brutality of the Germans, the cowardice of the Italians and (to a lesser extent, because the truth had yet to emerge) the barbarity of the Japanese. In 1941, the BBC took the lead in promoting the “V for victory” campaign in which listeners in Nazi-occupied Europe were urged to scrawl the letter V wherever possible. It then took off in Britain after Churchill adopted it. One of the most interesting sections is devoted to the creation of myths, such as the “miracle” of the Dunkirk retreat, the Battle of Britain fought by “the few” and the supremacy of Bomber Command. They remain part of the British story. The credit for the success of the lengthy propaganda war goes to the ministry of information and to the wisdom of politicians who realised that it was more effective to bend the truth - to spin it, to employ the modern term - rather than suppress it. Along the way, the truth was often concealed because the propagandists found ways to turn reverses into triumphs (Dunkirk, for example). Yet there was no single person, a Svengali figure, at its helm. Journalists, such as the Daily Mirror’s columnist Cassandra, did occasionally rail against the subtle censorship by mocking the ministry. But, like their readers and the overwhelming majority of the population, they largely accepted that the greater good was served by accepting the restrictions. The ministry was staffed by a shifting cast of people who churned out an astonishing range of material in order to fulfil the war cabinet’s objective “to help sustain public morale and to stimulate the war effort.” As Welch points out, one key reason for Britain’s morale remaining high even after the fall of France was “due to Churchill’s leadership and his indomitable bulldog spirit.” In a sense, Churchill proved to be a walking, talking propagandist. He created his own image and played up to it. And it endures, of course, to this day. *Persuading the people: British propaganda in world war ll by David Welch (15 September, British Library, £25)
The view on the high court ruling on Brexit and parliament It has become painfully clear since June’s vote to leave the European Union that Theresa May’s government and its supporters have little or no idea where the country is heading. Lacking a plan or a shared philosophy, they are united by an arbitrary and destructive rush to the exit. Their hysterical reaction to last week’s unanimous high court ruling that Britain cannot quit the EU without parliament’s consent also reveals extraordinary ignorance about where we, as a country, have come from. It is dismaying that those who campaigned so passionately to reclaim British sovereignty appear not to have the first idea about their country’s long-established constitutional arrangements. It is a fundamental principle of British democracy that parliament is sovereign. Not the government. Not the executive or a self-selecting clique within it. Certainly not this prime minister, who lacks a personal mandate. Sovereign power resides with our elected, representative parliament. This state of affairs did not come about by chance. A power struggle between the crown and its subjects raged almost unceasingly in the centuries following Magna Carta. The proposition that the monarch cannot rule without parliament’s consent lay at the heart of England’s serial 17th-century civil wars. The question was settled by the parliamentarians’ victory at the battle of Worcester in 1651. Parliament’s ascendancy was legally established in the Glorious Revolution of 1688, which spawned the landmark Bill of Rights. It is also a long-established fact of British constitutional life that the country’s senior judges do not make domestic law. Their independent role is to interpret laws agreed by parliament, say what they mean and how and if they may be legally implemented. When Britain joined what was then the EEC, the European Communities Act, passed by parliament in 1972, incorporated many European laws into domestic law. Thus it is both illogical and ignorant to castigate the high court for doing its job and stating the constitutionally obvious: that having passed the act, only parliament can override it by consenting to activate article 50 of the Lisbon treaty. Yet castigating the judges and by extension, anybody who has the effrontery to agree with them, is exactly what the hard Tory Brexiters and their accomplices in the lie factories of Fleet Street have resorted to with a venom, vindictiveness and vituperation remarkable even by their standards. The will of the people has been thwarted by an “activist” judiciary. These bewigged, closet Remainers, members of the fabled “well-heeled liberal metropolitan elite”, are “enemies of the people”, they shriek. Some of these sleaze-peddlers even dipped into homophobia, highlighting the sexual orientation of one of the judges. Inexcusable. This is mendacious bile. It wilfully misunderstands the relationship between parliament, government and the judiciary. Partisanship is understandable, but this level of stupidity is unforgivable. It misleads and distorts – either deliberately or out of ignorance. As Hilary Benn pointed out yesterday, the high court judgment has nothing to do with defying the “will of the people”. As he explained, “the judgment is not to do with the fact that we will be leaving the European Union. It was a ruling on who starts the process, who fires the starting gun and in upholding the principle of parliamentary sovereignty… the judges said that since it was legislation that took us in, it should be parliament that takes the decision to start that process and not the government.” Or here is Conservative MP and ex-attorney general Dominic Grieve speaking on Newsnight on Friday: “I was horrified at the newspaper coverage, which reminded me of Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe. The judges did exactly what was asked of them – they highlighted that our constitution does not allow you to overturn statute law by decree.” The judiciary are at the heart of our commitment to the rule of law and those who question their legitimacy (because they disagree with their view) threaten to undermine a critical institution vital to our democracy. Yesterday, the Bar Council took the extraordinary step of asking the lord chancellor, Liz Truss, to condemn the “serious and unjustified” attacks on senior judges over the Brexit court ruling. Senior judges having to appeal to the lord chancellor to defend them from unjustified attacks, in Britain, in 2016? Since 23 June, the country has loosed itself from tolerant, civil discourse - on both sides. The world has often looked to Britain as an example of a pluralist, inclusive democracy and a cultured, ordered and civil society. But that is changing. As the world looked at the response of politicians and the popular press to last week’s court judgment, many will have concluded that it had more in common with Sisi’s Egypt or Erdoğan’s Turkey than the Britain they thought they knew. A country that hounds, demonises and implicitly threatens its independent judiciary is one that toys menacingly with the very tenets of democracy. We noted in these columns some weeks ago that Theresa May, who coined the phrase the “nasty party” to describe the Conservatives some years ago, was threatening to turn Britain into the nasty country. That is increasingly the message being sent across the world. It is also the message being sent to foreigners living here, including long-resident EU nationals now afraid to speak openly for fear of rebuke or worse. Many more reasonable Brexit supporters have rightly distanced themselves from campaign to demonise the judges responsible for last week’s ruling. But the government’s ill-advised decision to appeal to the supreme court means judges sitting on England’s highest bench, who will consider the matter next month, may now also be subject to overt political pressure and similarly contemptuous, intimidatory invective. In Turkey or Burundi, such tactics by the state and its surrogates might not be considered surprising. But here? What sort of country is Britain becoming that this sort of menacing behaviour is not only tolerated but implicitly encouraged by senior government ministers who fear, correctly, they are losing the argument? As has been repeated ad nauseam, the issue is not about reversing or somehow sabotaging the referendum result. It is about ensuring proper democratic scrutiny of the government’s negotiating positions, about ascertaining whether its approach advances the national interest rather than sectional, business and City interests. It is about getting the best deal for Britain. The concerted assault on the judiciary comes in the context of wider institutional vandalism indulged by the hard Tory Brexiters and their international sympathisers and emulators. They would recklessly tear up nearly 45 years of carefully navigated British relationships with our European neighbours. The resulting damage to the economy and living standards is mounting fast. Much worse is to come. In America, Donald Trump runs a presidential campaign based on fear, prejudice, ignorance and xenophobia, which he claims represents change, not abject regression, and threatens to reject the election outcome if it goes against him. The dire cost of Trumpism to America’s national unity and cohesion is already plain. Across Europe, iconoclastic extremist and nationalist parties compete to demonstrate who is most intolerant, most hateful and best at scaring people. In France, their vile message may be working as presidential elections approach and the Front National gains ground. But hard Tory Brexiters do not see the link, deny any crossover, cannot understand how their institutional dumpster fire stokes nihilism and chauvinism. They dwell in their Little England bubble, detached from the real world or, as the high court said of their article 50 arguments, “divorced from reality”. Anybody who disturbs their narrative, such as Stephen Phillips, who resigned as a Conservative MP on Friday, is shunned as a blood foe. Nick Clegg, for daring to add his voice to the democratic debate over Brexit, is ridiculed. Will these people who hound reasonable public figures ever understand what a mature democracy involves? Formidable, robust, intelligent and reasoned debate. As Dominic Grieve said: “Debate helps outcomes, suppressing it destroys it.” Would they rather our public discourse – and hence, public life – be characterised by childish slurs, homophobia, distortions and vicious rhetoric? That is where Britain is being driven by a new hard Brexit elite. It behoves any sensible, reasonable public figure to recognise that a 52-48 referendum result is one where national cohesiveness matters. And while it delivered a mandate to exit the European Union, it did not give sweeping powers to brush aside challenges on the nature, timing and texture of that exit. There is a lack of reason on both sides of this debate and there is a danger that the public fissures that have opened up since June 23rd become wider still. We all have a responsibility to ensure that does not happen. As Iain Martin says elsewhere on these pages, “Neither set of extremists is representative of, nor has a majority in, parliament or the country. What becomes ever more apparent over Brexit is that there is a need for an alliance between moderate (of which there are many) Leavers and moderate Remainers, those who regret the result on 23 June but accept it.” The truth is, hard Tory Brexiters are fearful of losing the argument. The truth is there is little confidence that May can keep her head and rein in the irresponsible fantasies of her more wild-eyed colleagues. The truth is, May has already shown a talent for wrong-headedness, an instinct for the bad call, as seen with Hinkley Point, grammar schools, child obesity and Nissan subsidies. She appears unable to grasp the EU’s blunt insistence that access to the single market cannot be divorced from freedom of movement. The disdain, scepticism and bewilderment of Britain’s EU partners is wounding. At last month’s Brussels summit, her first, May was kept waiting until the early morning before being allowed to deliver a short statement on Brexit. She was listened to in silence. Nobody deigned to respond. On Friday, her calls to Germany’s Angela Merkel and the commission president, Jean-Claude Juncker, when she tried to persuade them, implausibly, that her March deadline for article 50 still stood, were embarrassingly brief. Few in Europe now believe Britain’s government has a roadmap. In such circumstances, it is imperative that parliament, now given its chance – and reminded of its duty – to shape Britain’s future course by the high court, steps up to the mark. For too long, too many MPs who support continued EU membership (a majority overall) have been cowering in silence, fearful that any expression of unease over the Brexit process will be misrepresented as a bid to overturn the referendum result. No one disputes the result of the referendum, or the social, cultural and political tensions that delivered it, but it is right that the manner of our exit are properly scrutinised. That has yet to be decided. And parliament, rightly, has a role to play. To be worthy of its sovereign status, both Houses of Parliament should now inject themselves into the Brexit process. This means cross-examining ministers and demanding a green paper on the government’s plans. It means proposing alternative strategies. It means amending and, if need be, discarding wrong-headed approaches. And it means the holding of binding votes not only on when article 50 should be triggered but also on the final terms of any eventual exit agreement. In short, parliament must be ready to exercise veto power over any Brexit deal that does not ultimately serve the national interest – because this government simply cannot be trusted not to deliver serious economic self-harm on the altar of blind ideology. It is a tall order. The growing prospect of an early general election, should May continue to trip, fumble and flop, presents many MPs with an existential dilemma: whether to vote with their conscience and uphold the democratic rights of parliament and their constituents or be pushed and pulled along by a populist tide, propelled by lies. Most Labour MPs, for example, represent constituencies where a majority voted Leave. It is still likely that last week’s ruling proves a pyrrhic victory, by provoking an early election that, with the current dire state of the Labour party, will give May an enhanced majority. Thus, we will have a parliament with fewer teeth and providing less scrutiny or push-back than is required. Perhaps prodded by the shadow Brexit minister, Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, could be stirred from his lethargic ambivalence over Europe. If the Liberal Democrats and Scottish Nationalists add their voice, as Nicola Sturgeon suggests they will, in opposition to any hasty Brexit “plan”, and if the House of Lords finds the courage, as it has in the past, to challenge unwise and overweening executive power, it is possible a sensible path forward acceptable to the country as a whole – and to Europe – can yet be found. Last week, independent judges courageously stood up for constitutional governance in Britain and, defying the bullies, did their job. Now parliament must follow suit.
The Thai billionaire whose gamble on Leicester just paid off The origins of Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha are largely opaque – opening his first business, a modest duty-free shop, during 1989 in downtown Bangkok. Today, the Thai billionaire’s retailer, King Power, has a near-monopoly in the country’s major airports. And the £39m he paid for Leicester City in 2010 looks, in retrospect, to have been a steal. It is not clear if Vichai is a gambler but, even if he did not bet on his team, the businessman has won big. Leicester could now be worth more than £436m – 11 times what he bought the club for according to the New York‑based research firm Private Company Financial Intelligence. Not unlike the Foxes, Vichai’s rise was hard to predict but his growing wealth has mirrored Leicester’s success. Forbes puts the 58-year-old – who is worth an estimated £1.9bn – at fourth place in Thailand’s rich list in part due to the recent influx of Chinese tourists to the country. He is seen to have balanced support from both sides of Thailand’s political establishment, who despise each other, and, importantly, the powerful monarchy. His name “Srivaddhanaprabha” was bestowed to him in 2012 by King Bhumibol, the world’s longest serving monarch, for his success and charity work. And the Thai king’s portrait has also been raised at the King Power Stadium. Despite operating for nearly two decades, it was only in 2006 that King Power managed to secure the exclusive rights to duty-free stores in Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport, now the 12th busiest in the world. The contract was blessed by the Thai telecoms tycoon turned prime minister and former Manchester City owner, Thaksin Shinawatra. “Vichai has made his money by being close to politicians, that’s how you have to do it,” said a member of the Bangkok business community, who asked for anonymity. “Before that he was an average businessman.” Although Thaksin was later ousted in a coup, Vichai survived and his business is still going strong under the current junta run by Thaksin’s foes in the military. King Power continues to open new stores around the country. The virtual monopoly is so strong that when a Korean competitor recently tried to enter the market, it was allowed to start building a duty-free store in Bangkok but was later blocked from opening pick-up counters at the capital’s two major airports. Without the pick-up counters, customers cannot receive their tax-free purchases. “They almost finished the building but they can’t operate,” the source said. Vichai’s prestige among Thailand’s elite has been bolstered by his promotion of the nation abroad. The billionaire, who owns a Gulfstream business jet, has flown Buddhist monks to England to bless the stadium and the players. His son and club vice-chairman, Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha, said this year that Thai values had rubbed off on the club. “It’s the Thai culture. We give our time to the staff, the players and to the manager. We try to manage it like a family, to listen to the problems of every single member of staff,” he said. Vichai promised in 2014, following the club’s promotion to the Premier League, that he would spend £180m to reach the top five within three years. Two years later and with only a third of that money spent, Leicester have won the league. Aiyawatt, also know as “Top”, has a more public presence. He has played polo on the same team as Prince Harry and makes appearances at the King Power headquarters in Bangkok, where weekly games are streamed live. “We have 600 people come to celebrate and enjoy to watch Leicester, the team that maybe seven years ago no one knew,” said Aiyawatt at King Power headquarters after Leicester’s 4-0 win against Swansea City. Vichai is not one for media shows — his team declined requests for interviews — but he does arrive at the King Power Stadium in a blue helicopter. He has given free beer and donuts to supporters at the stadium and ticket prices rose only marginally after their promotion two years ago. He also subsidised buses to away games, capping tickets at £10. The Foxes Trust chairman, Ian Bason, has applauded Vichai saying it “would be hard to criticise him at all”. “Other than what the club has actually achieved, [the owners] have always listened to the fans,” Bason, whose supporters group was a former part-owner of the club, said. “Vichai has always respected the heritage of the club.” Yet King Power has made money in other ways, not least by its global brand status, exploiting the club’s fame by placing video adverts in Thai airport terminals showing the striker Jamie Vardy running around a duty-free shop in full kit while picking up gifts. The club’s Thai-language YouTube channel has videos showing the Foxes emblem with “Pride of Thais” underneath and the company sells collectable gift cards with photos of Kasper Schmeichel and Riyad Mahrez. Official shirts for the team, known locally as the “Siamese Foxes”, have sold out in Bangkok, though there are a few fakes still available on street stalls.
Port Talbot is a big problem. But so is Hinkley Point At Port Talbot the government appears to have assumed, even at the eleventh hour, that Tata would not dare to walk away from its UK steel business. It was a bad bet, thus the undignified scramble to get the business secretary back from Australia to explain what government intervention in the steel industry might mean, and cost. But let’s not ignore the other industrial drama involving vast sums, thousands of jobs and a key plank of government strategy. Yes, it’s Hinkley Point, where the UK’s energy policy for the 2020s rests on the premise that French state-backed outfit EDF really will build a £18bn nuclear station in Somerset that will open in 2025 to supply 7% of our electricity. This bet is looking weaker with every passing week. In the latest instalment, a group of EDF engineers have written a paper arguing that 2027 is the earliest “realistic” opening date. Meanwhile, EDF’s board has not been able to bring its rebellious unions to heel. As we report, Christian Taxil, an employee board member representing the CFE-CGC union, has called for the project to be postponed. EDF can – and did – dismiss these tales as fluff. The engineers’ paper was not taken to the board, the company argues, and unions’ opposition to Hinkley is long-standing. The UK government, on the other hand, cannot afford to be so blasé. EDF’s ability to give a final thumbs-up on Hinkley rests on the French government’s willingness to refinance the company. French ministers may not be so relaxed about the latest outbreak of dissent in EDF’s ranks. Come May, the latest “deadline” for a final investment decision, nobody can be truly confident about what will happen. If the result is abandonment, the UK government cannot plead it wasn’t warned. Hinkley’s chief obstacle has always been simple and formidable – the fact that its European pressurised reactor design is unproven and similar projects in Normandy and Finland are years behind schedule. It would not be surprising if the project expires from exhaustion. The key requirement for the UK is to have a plan B. The good news is that it should not be difficult to design an alternative energy strategy to meet the capacity crunch in the 2020s; it could be more gas-fired stations, or smaller and proven nuclear reactors. The bad news is that there little to suggest ministers are on the job. McCormick’s offer adds spice In theory, adding a mere £40m to a takeover offer worth £1.5bn should make no difference. In practice, it has persuaded Mr Kipling, or parent company Premier Foods, to start the formal flirtation with McCormick, the Schwartz spice maker from the US. The Kipling camp reckons the latest 65p-a-share proposal still isn’t enough but it will open its books in hope of seeing a better price. Very sensible, too. Two of Premier’s big shareholders, Standard Life and Paulson & Co, spluttered on their French Fancies last week when Japanese noodle-maker Nissin bought a 17.3% stake in Premier from private equity outfit Warburg Pincus. That purchase, only days after Premier and Nissin had signed a commercial co-operation agreement to deliver Ambrosia rice pudding to deprived foreigners, seemed to raise the risk that McCormick might walk away. The shareholders’ mood, one suspects, will not have improved when Premier chief executive Gavin Darby gave a weekend interview that required a formal clarification that he was not aware of any talks between Warburg Pincus and McCormick. Still, the US firm’s revived interest should calm tempers. The £1.5bn notional value is misleading, it should be said. It is an “enterprise value” figure that includes Premier’s debt (almost £600m) and the deficit in the pension fund (£390m, according to one calculation of liabilities). The part that most interests shareholders is the value of the equity. On that score, McCormick is offering 65p for shares that were trading at 32p before the fun started. Add a few more pennies and one suspects a recommendation from Premier will be forthcoming. Then it’s over to the trustees of the £4bn pension fund to ensure their charges get a large slice of the takeover cake. Bankers’ pay only goes one way: up The TUC is right: it is “staggering” that almost 3,000 people in UK banks earned more than €1m (£800,000) in 2014. But prepare to be flabbergasted this time next year when the European Banking Authority catches up with the earnings data for 2015. In theory, the number of top earners should plunge because last year was rotten for the investment banking business, which is where the big bucks are made. In practice, it safe to speculate that the decline will either be small or non-existent.
Football clockwatch: Swansea v Man City, Middlesbrough v Spurs – as they happened Celtic 6-1 Kilmarnock Hearts 0-0 Ross County Inverness 3-1 Dundee Partick Thistle 1-1 Motherwell View the Scottish Premiership table Brighton 2-0 Barnsley Derby County 1-2 Blackburn Rovers Fulham 0-4 Bristol City Leeds United 1-0 Ipswich Town Norwich City 3-1 Burton Albion Queens Park Rangers 1-1 Birmingham City Reading 1-0 Huddersfield Town Rotherham United 1-2 Cardiff City Sheffield Wednesday 2-1 Nottingham Forest Wolverhampton Wanderers 3-1 Brentford Aston Villa v Newcastle United a 5.30 kick-off View the Championship table Manchester United 4-1 Leicester Bournemouth 1-0 Everton Liverpool 5-1 Hull City Middlesbrough 1-2 Tottenham Hotspur Stoke City 1-1 West Brom Sunderland 2-3 Crystal Palace Swansea City 1-3 Manchester City Arsenal - Chelsea a 5.30 BST kick-off View the Premier League table BOOOOO! A chorus of boos echo around the Stadium of Light as Sunderland blow a two-goal lead to lose 3-2 at home to Crystal Palace. Christian Benteke popped up with the inevitable injury time winner for Palace there. Premier League: Minute-by-minute reporter swears at the top of his voice, frightens his colleagues and slumps headfirst into keyboard HINO;/LDGV`KBHJJNSDVjkn/ASLCKJNHqw9r782-†¨¥ª 78¡+}WDSQ3PROJ. Liverpool 5-1 Hull City Stoke City 1-1 West Brom Swansea City 1-3 Manchester City At Hillsborough: Sheffield Wednesday were a goal down, but now lead Nottingham Forest 2-1 thanks to a Kieran Lee double. Scottish Premiership: Tom Rogic makes it a half-dozen for Celtic, who are now spanking Kilmarnock 6-1. Premier League: Salomon Rondon scores in added time to snatch an equaliser for West Brom. Stoke have now failed to keep a clean sheet in 16 Premier League games. Finland Cup final: “SJK from Seinäjoki have just beaten HJK from Helsinki in the Finnish Cup final after a penalty shootout,” writes our man on the spot, Kári Tulinius. “This is SJK’s first cup title, to go with their first ever league title which they won last year. SJK, who play in a stylish black and gold strip, are managed by Simo Valakari, once of Motherwell and Derby County.” Arsenal: Cech, Bellerin, Mustafi, Koscielny, Monreal, Coquelin, Cazorla, Walcott, Ozil, Iwobi, Sanchez. Subs: Gibbs, Lucas Perez, Giroud, Ospina, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Holding, Xhaka. Chelsea: Courtois, Ivanovic, Cahill, Luiz, Azpilicueta, Kante, Matic, Willian, Fabregas, Hazard, Costa. Subs: Begovic, Alonso, Oscar, Pedro, Moses, Batshuayi, Chalobah. Referee: Michael Oliver (Northumberland) Scottish Premiership: Having been a goal down, Celtic now lead Kilmarnock 5-1, with Scott Sinclair continuing his fine run of goalscoring form with his seventh of the season. Elsewhere: Hearts 0-0 Ross County, Inverness 3-0 Dundee and Partick Thistle 1-0 Motherwell. Having gone a goal up, Derby County now trail Blackburn Rovers 2-1. Elsewhere in the Championship: Brighton 2-0 Barnsley, Derby County 1-2 Blackburn Rovers, Fulham 0-3 Bristol City, Leeds United 1-0 Ipswich Town, Norwich City 2-1 Burton Albion, Queens Park Rangers 1-1 Birmingham City, Reading 1-0 Huddersfield Town, Rotherham United 1-2 Cardiff City, Sheffield Wednesday 1-1 Nottingham Forest, Wolverhampton Wanderers 2-1 Brentford. Premier League: Raheem Sterling’s fine run of form continues. He’s got a goal for Manchester City to almost certainly put the game beyond Swansea City. Let’s hope he doesn’t ruin all his hard work by doing anything ostentatious and showy like buying a nice house for his mum. Premier League: Crystal Palace come from two goals down to equalise against Sunderland. James McArthur does the honours for the side from Sarf Lahndan in the 76th minute. Premier League: Andrew Robertson fouls Daniel Sturridge in the penalty area to give Liverpool a spot-kick that’s converted by reliability’s James Milner. Premier League: Joe Allen puts Stoke ahead against West Brom in a bid to rain all over Tony Pulis’s 1,000th-game-in-charge party. Championship: Matej Vydra puts Derby County ahead against Blackburn, only for Marvin Emnes to equalise almost immediately there. At Molineux, Wolves now lead Brentford 2-1: in the wake of a Joao Teixeira brace, Sulley Kaikai has got Bees fans buzzing. Bristol City are thrashing Fulham 3-0 at Craven Cottage, while Rotherham lead Cardiff City 1-0. Premier League: Ben Gibson puts Middlesbrough back in the game at the Riverside Stadium. Premier League: Mike van der Hoorn it was who was penalised for handball in the penalty area and Sergiuo Aguero takes full advantage with a deft Panenka down the centre. Premier League: Manchester City have a spot-kick at the Liberty Stadium and sound like they were lucky to get it. Premier League: Straight from the kick-off, Crystal Palace boot the ball long and Joe Ledley puts them back in the game with a shot that takes a deflection so wicked it should be a green-faced witch in a movie about a little girl from Kansas and her dog getting marooned in the land of Oz. Bah! Premier League: Jermain Defoe scores his second of the game (from an offside position) to double Sunderland’s lead against the Palace. James Forrest has made it Celtic 3-1 Kilmarnock at Celtic Park, while Inverness lead Dundee 3-0. At Firhill Stadium, it’s Partick Thistle 1-0 Motherwell. It remains scoreless between Hearts and Ross County. Premier League: You wouldn’t let it lie, David Meyler! You wouldn’t let it lie! Affronted by the impertinence of their supposedly dead-and-buried rivals, Liverpool follow up David Meyler’s goal with another of their own. Philippe Coutinho does the honours to make it 4-1 to the home side. Championship: Glenn Murray grabs his second to make it to Brighton 2-0 Barnsley. Premier League: They’re down to 10 men, but that hasn’t stopped Hull City pulling a goal back against Liverpool courtesy of David Meyler. Norwich 1-1 Burton Albion: Lucas Akins restored parity for Burton Albion immediately after the restart, only for Jacob Murphy to restore Norwich City’s lead almost straight away. Elsewhere, Joao Teixeira has given Wolves a one goal lead against Brentford. Premier League Bournemouth 1-0 Everton Liverpool 3-0 Hull City Middlesbrough 0-2 Tottenham Hotspur Stoke City 0-0 West Brom Sunderland 1-0 Crystal Palace Swansea City 1-1 Manchester City Championship Brighton 1-0 Barnsley Derby County 0-0 Blackburn Rovers Fulham 0-1 Bristol City Leeds United 1-0 Ipswich Town Norwich City 1-0 Burton Albion Queens Park Rangers 1-1 Birmingham City Reading 1-0 Huddersfield Town Rotherham United 0-0 Cardiff City Sheffield Wednesday 0-1 Nottingham Forest Wolverhampton Wanderers 0-0 Brentford Click here for the rest of today’s latest scores Meanwhile in the Championship: QPR have equalised against Birmingham courtesy of Steven Caulker, while Leeds United have gone ahead against Ipswich Town. Reading lead 10-man Huddersfield, while Nottingham Forest are one up against Sheffield Wednesday. Scottish Premiership: Moussa Dembele scores his second to give Celtic the lead against Kilmarnock, who appear to be paying for poking the bear, so to speak. Premier League: Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal!Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Joe Ledley oops-i-o! Jermain Defoe pounce-io! SUNDERGOLLLLLLL!!! Premier League: Somebody throw a blanket over Hull City, who are three goals behind and down to 10 men against rampant Liverpool. Scottish Premiership: Moussa Dembele equalises with his ninth goal of the campaign for Celtic. It’s 1-1 at Celtic Park. Elsewhere in the Scottish top flight, Inverness lead Dundee 2-0, while Partick Thistle are one up against Motherwell. No score yet between Hearts and Ross County. Scottish Premiership: Dorus De Vries has been beaten from almost 40 yards by a shot from Kilmarnock striker Souleymane Coulibaly, which means Celtic trail at home. Meanwhile in the Championship: Norwich have taken the lead against Burton Albion, with Martin Olsson getting his name on the scoresheet. Premier League: Boom! James Milner slots the ball into the corner to give Liverpool a 2-0 lead against 10-man Hull City, who look doomed. They’ve never won in 10 visits to Anfield and have shipped three or more goals in six out of those 10 games. Some prescient genius predicted a similar hiding this afternoon and it looks on the cards. Hull City full-back Ahmed El Mohamady has been sent off for deliberate hand-ball. Liverpool have a penalty. Meanwhile in the Championship: Huddersfield midfielder Rajiv van La Parra has just been sent off after picking up a second yellow card in quick succession in his side’s match against Reading. At Loftus Road, Lukas Jutkiewicz gave Birmingham City a 23rd minute lead against QPR. Premier League: Son Heung-min curls one past Victor Valdes after 23 minutes to score his second of the match and fourth of the season. Premier League: Everton goalkeeper Martin Stekelenburg gets beaten by the swerve on Junior Stanislas’s effort from 25 yards. The Cherries lead the Toffees. League One latest: AFC Wimbledon 1-0 Shrewsbury Town, Fleetwood Town 0-1 MK dons, Millwall 2-1 Rochdale, Oldham 0-1 Swindon Town, Peterborough 0-1 Walsall. It’s scoreless in all the other games. Premier League: James Milner picks up the ball, gallops down the left and passes to Philippe Coutinho, who drives towards the box and picks out Adam Lallana. He finishes superbly for his fourth goal of the season. Meanwhile in the Championship: Glenn Murray has put Brighton ahead against Barnsley. Sunderland v Crystal Palace: Sunderland midfielder Steven Pienaar has gone off injured and been replaced by Duncan Watmore. Premier League: Manchester City’s lead lasts less than five minutes against Manchester City, where Fernando Llorente has scored his first goal for Swansea to restore parity, with Gylfi Sigurdsson providing the assist. Fulham 0-1 Bristol City On loan from Chelsea, Tammy Abraham has put Bristol City a goal to the good against Fulham at Craven Cottage. Premier League: Sergio Aguero blasts the ball through Lukasz Fabianski’s legs to give Manchester City an early lead against Swansea City at the Liberty Stadium. Elsewhere, Liverpool and Everton have both gone close against Hull City and Bournemouth respectively. Artur Boruc has saved brilliantly for Bournemouth from a Romelu Lukaku header after the striker got on the end of a Ross Barkley free-kick. Premier League: Son Heung-min has put Tottenham Hotspur a goal up against Middlesbrough with his third goal of the season. Seven minutes is all it took for the deadlock to be broken, due in no small part to some atrocious defending by Middlesbrough. Victor Valdes got a hand to the ball, but couldn’t keep out Son’s shot. Scotland League One: The first goal of the 3pm kick-offs goes to Alloa’s Paul Willis, whose side have gone a goal up against Airdreonians courtesy of a Paul Willis strike after two minutes. Elsewhere in that division, Alloa have taken an early lead against Stenhousmuir. As referee Robert Madley leads Bournemouth and Everton out on to the Vitality Stadium pitch, Phil Jagielka claps his hands together three times and shouts “C’mon boys!” - a clarion call currently being echoed in tunnels the length and breadth of the United Kingdom. Kick-off is just moments away. Despite his side being bottom of the table and having conceded four goals in three of their five PRemier League matches this season, Mark Hughes looks relatively unperturbed ahead of his team’s match against West Brom. He’s dropped Shay Given to the bench and called goalkeeper Lee Grant up for his Premier League debut. His opposite number, Tony Pulis, has had to contend with a number of his players suffering from stomach bugs and colds during the week, as a dose of the lurgy swept through the West Brom dressing room. It’s all over at Old Trafford, where Manchester United have beaten champions Leicester 4-1, courtesy of first half goals from Chris Smalling, Juan Mata, Marcus Rashford and Paul Pogba. Demarai Gray scored the goal of the game by way of consolation for Leicester early in the second half, but the main talking point of the day will inevitably be the omission of Wayne Rooney from Manchester United’s starting line-up. He put in an appearance for the final seven minutes. That’s Leicester’s third defeat of the season, the same number they recorded en route to winning the last campaign. Sunderland: Pickford, Manquillo, Kone, Djilobodji, Van Aanholt, Cattermole, Ndong, Kirchhoff, Pienaar, Januzaj, Defoe. Subs: Anichebe, Denayer, Khazri, Mika, Watmore, O’Shea, McNair. Crystal Palace: Mandanda, Ward, Tomkins, Delaney, Kelly, McArthur, Ledley, Puncheon, Cabaye, Townsend, Christian Benteke. Subs: Hennessey, Lee, Fryers, Wickham, Mutch, Sako, Wynter. Referee: Anthony Taylor (Cheshire) Liverpool: Karius, Clyne, Klavan, Matip, Milner, Lallana, Henderson, Wijnaldum, Mane, Firmino, Coutinho. Subs: Sturridge, Grujic, Moreno, Lucas, Mignolet, Can, Origi. Hull: Marshall, Elmohamady, Livermore, Davies, Robertson, Diomande, Clucas, Huddlestone, Mason, Snodgrass, Hernandez. Subs: Maguire, Meyler, Maloney, Jakupovic, Mbokani, Keane, Henriksen. Referee: Andre Marriner (West Midlands) Swansea: Fabianski, Rangel, van der Hoorn, Amat, Naughton, Britton, Cork, Sigurdsson, Fer, Routledge, Llorente. Subs: Taylor, Ki, Mawson, Borja Baston, Nordfeldt, Barrow, Montero. Man City: Bravo, Sagna, Stones, Otamendi, Kolarov, Fernandinho, Sterling, Gundogan, Silva, De Bruyne, Aguero. Subs: Zabaleta, Fernando, Caballero, Jesus Navas, Sane, Clichy, Iheanacho. Referee: Neil Swarbrick (Lancashire) Stoke: Grant, Johnson, Shawcross, Martins Indi, Pieters, Allen, Whelan, Cameron, Shaqiri, Arnautovic, Bony. Subs: Bardsley, Adam, Diouf, Imbula, Given, Crouch, Krkic. West Brom: Foster, Nyom, Dawson, McAuley, Evans, Fletcher, Yacob, Phillips, McClean, Chadli, Rondon. Subs: Olsson, Morrison, Gardner, Myhill, Robson-Kanu, Leko, Field. Referee: Martin Atkinson (W Yorkshire) AFC Bournemouth: Boruc, Adam Smith, Steve Cook, Francis, Daniels, Stanislas, Arter, Wilshere, Surman, Ibe, Callum Wilson. Subs: Gosling, Ake, Afobe, Gradel, Brad Smith, Federici, Mousset. Everton: Stekelenburg, Coleman, Jagielka, Ashley Williams, Oviedo, Gana, Barry, Bolasie, Barkley, Mirallas, Lukaku. Subs: Robles, Deulofeu, Lennon, Cleverley, Valencia, Funes Mori, Holgate. Referee: Robert Madley (West Yorkshire) Middlesbrough: Valdes, Barragan, Gibson, Chambers, Friend, de Roon, Clayton, Stuani, Ramirez, Downing, Negredo. Subs: Ayala, Rhodes, Fischer, Guzan, Nsue, Forshaw, Traore. Tottenham Hotspur: Lloris, Walker, Vertonghen, Alderweireld, Davies, Wanyama, Sissoko, Alli, Eriksen, Son, Janssen. Subs: Lamela, Vorm, Nkoudou, Trippier, Wimmer, Winks, Carter-Vickers. Referee: Graham Scott (Oxfordshire) Manchester United 4-1 Leicester City: Demarai Gray, a halftime substitute for Jamie Vardy, has prompted a rousing rendition of “we’re going to win 5-4” from Leicester City’s travelling support at Old Trafford with an absolute screamer just before the hour mark. That was a wonderful goal. Follow the final half-hour here. Some interesting matches in the Championship today, including a potential goalfest between Sheffield Wednesday and Nottingham Forest, while table-toppers Huddersfield will be hoping to put an end to Reading’s seven-match unbeaten run. At Loftus Road, QPR will be hoping to put the horrors of their most recent home League defeat, a 6-0 reverse at the hands of Newcastle United, behind them. We’ll keep you posted throughout the afternoon and bring you team news from Villa Park ahead of the early evening kick-off between Aston Villa and Newcastle. You can read more about these and the weekend’s other fixtures in our weekend previews. The weekend’s Premier League programme is already under way at Old Trafford, where a Wayne Rooney-less Manchester United are slaughtering Leicester City 4-0 with eight minutes into the second half. Compared to last season, champions Leicester have been an uncharacteristic shambles at the back, conceding three of their four goals from corners. You can follow the conclusion of that with Rob Smyth’s minute-by-minute report, but we’ll keep you posted here while bringing you team news and build-up to the day’s other fixtures from around the grounds. We’ll also be keeping tabs on the Championship, bring you any notable updates from the lower leagues and Scotland, where Celtic take on Kilmarnock, Hearts entertain Ross County, Inverness play Dundee and Partick Thistle host Motherwell.
New band of the week: The Pheels (No 106) Hometown: Atlanta. The lineup: Curtis Fields and Phil Jones. The background: “Pheels”, according to the Urban Dictionary, are related to “intense emotion centring on the character of agent Phil Coulson in the Marvel cinematic universe”. Or, as the same august online info-bible claims, a Pheel is “a dork, a nobody”. To Brian Wilson, meanwhile, “feels” were specific rhythm patterns, fragments of ideas, sketches of pain given musical shape and form. Well, that all works because the Pheels are a duo from Atlanta making spacey, woozy soul music for bedroom-bound geeks which vaguely sounds like the Beach Boys if they were an R&B band on Venus. Or imagine if Prince followed through on his devotion to Cocteau Twins and recorded an album whose cherry-coloured funk was equal parts Purple Rain and Pink Orange Red. Their miasmic reveries are boudoir slow jams worthy of Barry White at his most Stone Gon’ remixed by Washed Out, or Neon Indian set adrift on memory bliss with PM Dawn. Curtis Fields and Phil Jones might come from Atlanta but they don’t make trap. Of their hometown heroes, they obviously have more in common with original R&B nerd, Andre 3000. Turns out Jones has played keyboards and percussion for Ernest Green AKA Washed Out and toured with fellow chillwave artist Toro Y Moi as part of his own band Dogbite. He also records as Haunted, a name whose eerie ethereality matches his output with the Pheels. From their excellent likeWise EP, Turn Me Up starts as the duo mean to go on, “from the darkest outreaches of the galaxy”, and on to a more disconsolate note on RnS, which nods to Bone-Thugs-n-Harmony both lyrically (“It’s the first of the month”) and in its mood of somnolent reflection. The Heartbreaker posits the Pheels as dejected castrati sighing sorrowfully (“You don’t really want my love, all you wanna do is fuck”) . You’ll either warm to Cannonball’s wobbly lo-fi charms or keep checking your speakers for dodgy wiring. French Toast is a Pharrell-alike and a moment of relative levity, a song about cooking breakfast after a hard night’s clubbing with your new paramour. Then the EP ends as it began, with the dolorous, downbeat Don’t Play Yourself. This is rap’s braggadocio inverted: not badder but sadder than the rest. The buzz: “Hazy, narcotic stoner-R&B jam” – Gorilla Vs Bear. The truth: Woozy does it. Most likely to: Be your pet sound. Least likely to: Bite a dog. What to buy: Turn Me Up is released on 8 June. The Cannonball single and likeWise EP are released on 20 June. File next to: OutKast, PM Dawn, Me Phi Me, Neptunes. Links: pheels-world.tumblr.com/ Ones to watch: Rumours, Jain, Kelsey Lu, Boyboy, Mail the Horse.
The difficult delivery of Nate Parker's The Birth Of A Nation As with its notorious, KKK-celebrating 1915 namesake, the history of Nate Parker’s The Birth Of A Nation is almost more interesting than the movie itself. Written and directed by Parker, and starring him as the 1831 slave-rebellion leader Nat Turner, it was feted at Sundance, and subject of an intense bidding-war. A movie many felt was needed in the post-Ferguson Black Lives Matter cultural moment, it was consequently overrated by a hungry audience, reflecting the hopes and desires of the viewer more than the real qualities of the movie. On the eve of its release, however, with high expectations for its profitability, the details of a long-forgotten rape case against Parker re-emerged. He had been acquitted, but the accuser took her own life many years later. It was ugly. And there in the movie was a critical moment based on a rape that had been invented for dramatic purposes. This time round, the movie was underrated and scorned for completely different reasons, and on release it was considered a box office bomb. Parker went from hero to villain in less than nine months. Artists take on Nat Turner and his rebellion at their peril. Sophie’s Choice author William Styron found himself pilloried by black intellectuals for his bestselling 1967 novel The Confessions Of Nat Turner; the white author was accused of rejecting historical evidence and trespassing on aspects of the African-American experience. And Turner’s story is strong stuff, not uplifting at all, and so incendiary that it’s rarely taught in schools. Turner and his band killed around 60 white people – mainly with hatchets and hammers – before being annihilated themselves, amid maximum bloodshed. Parker’s Turner is a saintly figure driven to his limits by murders, rapes, whippings and omnipresent cruelty. When his childhood companion, assuringly played by Armie Hammer, inherits Nat from his father, he learns that lifelong friendship cannot survive one man’s ownership of another. Away from the controversies surrounding it, The Birth Of A Nation is an often impressive rendering, resting on solid performances and painterly cinematography, if a little plodding and prone to kitschy adornments (Strange Fruit plays over hanging corpses; there’s a duff moment with an angel). But in the final moments the screaming, vengeful, twisted white faces that rain down blows on the captive Turner en route to the scaffold speak almost directly to the vile historical moment we now find ourselves in. I wasn’t completely convinced by the movie, but that moment chilled my blood. The Birth Of A Nation is in cinemas from Friday 9 December
Kenyan journalists win first pan African award for reportage on female genital mutilation The first pan African award for reportage on female genital mutilation was awarded in Abuja, Nigeria, on Tuesday for a powerful film made by two Kenyan journalists about five young women who sought to flee mutilation in western Kenya. The winning team – Diana Kendi, 29 and Jane Gatwiri, 24 who worked for the Nation media group – made the nine-minute film for the UNFPA/ award despite hostility from some local people. “The villages elders even refused to speak to us because we were uncut women”, Kendi said. The film features five survivors whose faces were covered because they did not want to be identified. The five girls had fled to a rescue centre to avoid being cut – but two had already been mutilated, Kendi said. “I’ve known girls in some communities who have died because of this – that’s why I am doing this, to stop it”, she said. Female genital mutilation was banned in Kenya in 2011 but there have been only two prosecutions, with one of those prosecuted serving a seven-year prison sentence. FGM is the mutilation of the female genitalia – it can range from the cutting off of the clitoris with a razor blade, scissors to the use of a traditional “cutting” knife to remove the entire labia and the sewing of the vagina, leaving only a small hole to pass urine. It is estimated that at least 200 million girls and women alive in the world today have been cut. The practice predates all religions, with one of the earliest recorded incidents being in the tombs of the pharaohs’ princesses. Kendi has been a journalist for five years and started reporting on the subject because of the stories she heard from survivors. “It was a woman who was mutilated while she was giving birth in a public hospital, because in her village they believe that women who have not been mutilated are prostitutes. I was so shocked that I decided this was something I am going to highlight” said Kendi. The Efua Dorkenoo award for reportage on FGM, sponsored by the UNFPA, was announced by UN secretary general, Ban Ki Moon, at the launch of the Global Media Campaign in Nairobi in 2014 and the ceremony was part of the formal launch of the UNFPA/Unicef joint campaign against the practice in Nigeria this week. More than 300 dignitaries and politicians attended the event, hosted in the presidential palace. Nigeria banned FGM in May 2015 and to date there have been no prosecutions. However the choice of venue and attendance of government ministers at the first national conference is thought to signal a growing movement against the practices. The award, which attracted almost 100 submissions from across Africa, was named after Efua Dorkenoo, an early global pioneer against FGM. Based in the UK, she worked for more than 30 years across the world on her campaign and founded Forward UK. She died in October 2014. The winner was awarded with a handmade sculpture by Nigerian artist Godfrey Williams-Okorodus who has dedicated a large part of his work to campaigning against FGM. In 2015, Nigeria, because of its population of more than 175 million has reportedly the biggest number of cases of FGM in the world, accounting for about 15% of all women cut in the world. Submissions for the next Efua Dorkenoo award will open in September.
Readers recommend playlist: songs about spying Below is this week’s playlist – picked by a reader from the comments on last week’s blog. Thanks for your suggestions. Read more about the weekly format of the Readers recommend series at the end of the piece. I had no idea what was expected from me as I turned up for duty on Thursday armed only with enthusiasm and a clear weekend ahead of me. “You’re to track down spies, round up 12 of the best and send them to my office by Wednesday morning,” I was told. Love was a theme running through suggestions this week. Or was it just sex? It seemed pretty grubby at times, what with the “And in a bathroom stall off the National Mall/How we kissed so sweetly/How could I refuse a favor or two/For a trist in the greenery” of the Decemberists’ The Bagman’s Gambit. Or Aidan Moffat’s seeming stalker obsession and video for Arab Strap’s Love Detective. Even the Cadillacs’ sweet-sounding doo-wop in Peek-a-Boo has a sinister ring to it: “When ya do the thing you shouldn’t do/Peek-a-Boo a-watching you”. Mistrust and suspicion fill the air in Was (Not Was)’s Spy in the House of Love as well. Jamo Thomas is pretty upfront about his spying activity, something that reminds me of an old drunk I used to know. “Don’t mess with me,” he had a habit of saying, “I’m in the Secret Police.” “Not so secret now, old fellah,” I’d return. Jamo’s blown his cover too with I Spy (for the FBI), I fear: One whose cover wasn’t blown until a lot of damage had been done was Rory Gallagher’s Philby, who we’re told little of except that he’s an alcoholic loner who seems to fit a pattern that has been repeated over the years. Another real-life spy, James Jesus Angleton, is the subject of the Fatima Mansions’ Brunceling’s Song: a retired CIA spymaster reduced to selling sunlamps door-to-door and ranting drunkenly at his driver, the song’s narrator. Loneliness is also central to the narrative of Lori and the Chameleons’ Lonely Spy. A cold, lonely snowbound existence seems to await them behind the iron curtain. Another one on his own is the Superjesus’s Secret Agent Man. But he’s happy: home alone is the way he likes it. It was a nice slice of 1990s indie from Down Under that stood out for me this week. And where would spies be without their gadgets? Hidden under the dashboard Bauhaus have found the unseen mechanised eye, the Spy in the Cab. King Creosote’s Spystick deals with “inappropriate internetting” according to Shoegazer’s nomination. I’ll take his word for it. I’m never really sure with Kenny’s lyrics. And now I’m out of here. Make like you haven’t seen me, please. I’m catching a Night Train to Munich in the company of one of music’s greatest storytellers, Al Stewart. I can see the smoke swirling on the platform as I write, a man in a dark homburg peering over my shoulder. Just as well I’m using invisible ink! New theme The theme for next week’s playlist will be announced at 8pm (UK time) on Thursday 5 May. You have until 11pm on Monday 9 May to make nominations. Next week’s playlist will be compiled by a reader who posts in the comments as chippiparai. Here’s a reminder of some of the guidelines for RR: If you have a good theme idea, or if you’d like to volunteer to compile a playlist from readers’ suggestions and write a blog about it, please email matthew.holmes@theguardian.com or add it here via Witness. There’s a wealth of data on RR, including the songs that are “zedded”, at the Marconium. It also tells you the meaning of “zedded”, “donds” and other strange words used by RR regulars. Many RR regulars also congregate at the ’Spill blog.
Jim Kerr's playlist – Neil Young, Lou Reed, the Dubliners and more Neil Young – Rockin’ in the Free World I could have picked an endless number of Neil Young songs. When the Freedom album was released it featured two versions of Rockin’ in the Free World, one acoustic and one with a full band. One recorded live, the other in the studio. One with full-on bombast, the other radiating from the heart of a troubadour, the guts of the song laid bare. I loved both while noticing that great songs can be performed in various formats. Different but still excellent. I had no preference, no need to compare. I accepted both just as they were. In fact, I was delighted to have different versions of a song that I instantly loved – because of its directness, because of its utter simplicity. The words, the melody, the soul of Neil Young was evident regardless. That is what I care about in songs. As with life, as with anything, it is what goes on at the core that really counts. With the election taking place today in America, a country we love, Rockin’ in the Free World is as poignant now as when it was released in 1989. Bruce Springsteen – Youngstown I could have picked so many of Bruce’s epics, but I particularly relate to “grainy” songs that depict the hardship of many American blue-collar workers. This song also strikes a chord with many in Scotland who remember the devastation that occurred through the closure of Ravenscraig steelworks in 1992. It signalled the end of large-scale steelmaking in Scotland, leading automatically to the direct loss of 770 jobs, and another 10,000 jobs linked to the plant. The Dubliners – Rocky Road to Dublin Growing up in the south side of Glasgow in the 60s meant I was exposed to almost as much Irish culture as my natural Scots. I came to identify with both and do so to this day. Frankly, I love both. Most of the songs I learned as a kid belonged to the Irish. Those were the ones that I heard most and was most familiar with. Along with many American country artists, the Dubliners featured heavily in my dad’s record collection. And, although by the time I had become a teenager I had turned my back on all that “Irish stuff”, many of the songs were the beginning of my appreciation of how melody and words could create powerful and beautiful emotions. I love Rocky Road to Dublin particularly. I know the words to every verse – which may seem strange when I can barely recall most of my own lyrics. The song is ingrained deep in me. It also means something more because my great grandfather was himself a Dubliner. That stuff matters more to you when you get older. Lou Reed – Dirty Blvd Simple Minds took their name from a Bowie tune. However, it was Lou Reed who made it possible for us and so many others to dare think that we could start our own band. I clearly recall Charlie Burchill and me desperately trying to scrape money together for tickets to see him when he performed in Glasgow in 74. I also recall over a decade later both Charlie and me in heaven as we stood stageside in Madrid, watching Lou Reed perform as our opening guest during our Street Fighting Years tour. Having Lou sing on our track This Is Your Land will always be a career highlight, and the story of how the rest of the night panned out after that recording session in Paris is still one that merits disbelief. One day I will get round to telling it. Chrissie Hynde – I Go to Sleep I knew of Chrissie before she made records. She was one of the original mouthy journalists at NME in the mid 70s. Word got out that she (of all people) was putting a band together. I clearly recall the reaction from many to that news was: “This should be a laugh.” After all, not many women were in successful rock’n’roll bands in those days. Well, few were laughing after they’d heard the Pretenders’ first album. Most were mesmerised. I was one of them – and remain so. Simple Minds Acoustic is released on Caroline International on 11 November.
Putin applauds Trump win and hails new era of positive ties with US Russian president Vladimir Putin called for a new era of “fully fledged relations” between his country and the US yesterday after a surprise victory which was applauded in the Russian parliament and prompted speculation that US-imposed sanctions could be lifted. After an election campaign in which Russia was openly accused of interfering in favour of Donald Trump, Putin congratulated the president-elect on his victory and said Russia was ready to work for better ties. “We understand that it will not be an easy path given the current state of degradation in the relations,” he said, speaking in the Kremlin. “And as I have repeatedly said, it’s not our fault that Russian-American relations are in such a poor state. But Russia wants and is ready to restore fully fledged relations with the United States.” Earlier, Putin became one of the first world leaders to congratulate Trump, sending him a telegram expressing hope for an era of positive ties. Many Russian politicians welcomed the news, both because Trump has spoken of his admiration for Putin and because he represents a blow against the US “establishment”. Relations between the US and Russia have reached a post-cold war low over the past two years, due to differences over Syria and Ukraine. Moscow’s involvement in the latter’s conflict led the US to impose sanctions. “Clearly the chances of sanctions being lifted on Russia have risen substantially,” Charles Robertson, Renaissance Capital’s global chief economist, said of Trump’s victory. “That would improve the investment climate for Russia.” Sergei Markov, a pro-Kremlin political analyst, was jubilant at the result and said a Trump presidency would make it more likely the US would agree with Russia on Syria, where the two powers back different sides and Moscow has intervened decisively on behalf of the president, Bashar al-Assad. Markov also said it would mean less American backing for “the terroristic junta in Ukraine”. He denied allegations of Russian interference in the election, but said “maybe we helped a bit with WikiLeaks.” The Obama administration accused Russian authorities of hacking Democratic party emails that were leaked to WikiLeaks. Putin has previously dismissed as “nonsense” claims of Russian interference. Alexei Venediktov, the editor-in-chief of Russia’s liberal Echo of Moscow radio, said that while some in the Kremlin were probably celebrating, other “more serious” people realised there were unpredictable times ahead. “Putin doesn’t like unpredictability and Trump is the definition of unpredictability,” he said. “They celebrated Brexit and then Boris Johnson became foreign secretary and they thought, ‘Oh God, what is this?’” Elsewhere in the region Trump’s victory was met more warily. Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko offered his “sincere congratulations” to the Republican “and to the friendly American nation on democratic expression of will.” Officials in Ukraine had expressed fear prior to the vote that a Trump presidency could see them thrown under the bus in favour of improved ties with Russia. The three Baltic states were similarly tentative in their welcome to the newcomer on the world stage. Trump has previously suggested his administration could be less committed to Nato and would not automatically defend a Nato country under attack, statements that have worried leaders in the three Baltic nations – Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia – who fear a newly assertive Russia. Lithuania’s president Dalia Grybauskaite said the US remained “our firmest and closest ally”. But the country’s incoming prime minister Saulius Skvernelis said that he hoped Trump’s remarks on defence and Russia were campaign rhetoric. He added bluntly: “I hope the election campaign is now over and it is not yet time to panic.” The mood in Latvia was also anxious. Latvian MEP Sandra Kalniete said the result showed the US embracing isolationism, which would weaken American involvement in Nato. In Estonia, meanwhile, the government collapsed yesterday, after prime minister Taavi Roivas lost a no-confidence vote in parliament. This could see a pro-Russian party join the ruling coalition. On Wednesday morning, as Trump was edging ever closer to the White House, the US ambassador in Moscow held a breakfast reception at his residence. Shellshocked European diplomats and Russian liberals watched as the chances of a Clinton victory evaporated. Evgenia Albats, the editor of the opposition New Times magazine, said: “I cannot believe it. There will be absolutely no constraints on Putin now at all. This will be a disaster.” The ambassador, John Tefft, reminded visitors that diplomats were unable to give personal opinions on elections. He added: “Whether you’re happy or not, one of the key things here is to understand that our institutions in America will continue.” He also spoke about the importance of a free media in providing checks and balances to government power, something that sounded hopeful rather than declarative given Trump’s attacks on the media during the campaign. Privately, many US diplomats in the country will be wondering whether a President Trump means a total reversal on Russia policy. Tefft’s predecessor in the role, Michael McFaul, has been extremely critical of Trump’s campaign and wrote on Twitter as the results came in: “Putin intervened in our elections and succeeded. Well done!” He later deleted the tweet. The mood of policymakers around the Russian president was one of cautious optimism. A source close to the Kremlin said: “The political space for every US president is quite narrow because a lot of the momentum is in the mentality of military people, secret services and politicians around the president. But it is obvious that Trump, as a former businessman, will be much more pragmatic and won’t be a hostage of the mistakes previously and generously made by Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama.” However, even Trump’s biggest cheerleaders recognised that, despite Trump’s pre-election praise for Putin, the reality could be different. “Putin is a macho, Trump is also a macho. Maybe it could be a problem,” said Markov, the pro-Kremlin analyst.
Win (home) tickets to Newcastle United v West Brom The has teamed up with Barclays, proud sponsors of the Barclays Premier League, to give away a pair tickets to Newcastle United v West Bromwich Albion on Saturday 6 February, to thank one lucky home fan for the passion and support they show to their club. This season LifeSkills created with Barclays have teamed up with Tinie Tempah and the Premier League to give young people the chance to fulfil their passions and work at a range of famous football clubs and music venues. Your Passion is Your Ticket – with hard work and dedication young people can realise their dreams with a helping hand from Barclays LifeSkills. To apply for the work experience of a lifetime visit www.barclayslifeskills.com/work-experience-of-a-lifetime/. You can join the conversation throughout the 2015-16 Barclays Premier League by visiting facebook.com/barclaysfootball or following us on Twitter at @BarclaysFooty for exclusive content and the latest Barclays Premier League news. To be in with a chance of winning tickets, simply answer the following question: Terms and conditions 1. The competition is closed to employees of any company in the Media Group and any person whom, in the promoter’s reasonable opinion, should be excluded due to their involvement or connection with this promotion. Entrants must be 18 or over. 2. Answer the question correctly and complete your personal details on the online form and your details will be entered into a free prize draw. Only one entry per person. 3. Entries must be made personally. Entries made through agents/third parties are invalid. Entry indicates acceptance of terms and conditions. 4. The prize is one pair of tickets to Newcastle United v West Bromwich Albion on Saturday 6 February 2016. Travel to and from the venue is not included, nor is accommodation. 5. No purchase necessary to enter. Fill in the online application form with the necessary details, name and mobile number. 6. All entries must be received by 10am on Thursday 4 February 2016. 7. Winners will be notified before 10pm on Friday 5 February 2016 by telephone or email. Prize winners’ details can be obtained by writing to Sport at News & Media Limited, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU, UK. 8. Stamped addressed envelope required. 9. Winners will be the first entry drawn at random from all qualifying entries by an independent judge on 4 February 2016. The judge’s decision is final. 10. There is no cash or other alternative to these prizes in whole or in part. Prize is not transferable in whole or in part. Prize is not for resale. 11. The winners will be required to participate in all required publicity, including any presentation ceremony. 12. The decision of the promoter in all matters is final and binding and no correspondence will be entered into. 13. The promoter is not responsible for any third party acts or omissions. 14. We cannot guarantee that the event will be free from disruptions, failings or cancellations. We are not liable for such disruptions, failings or cancellations unless they are caused by our negligence. Any requests for refunds or compensation arising from them should be sent to the operator of the event. We can provide you with their details on request. 15. The promoter reserves the right to cancel or amend this promotion due to events or circumstances arising beyond its control. 16. Prize tickets are subject to the terms and conditions listed above. 17. GNM accepts no responsibility for any damage, loss, liabilities, injury or disappointment incurred or suffered by you as a result of entering the Competition or accepting the prize. GNM further disclaims liability for any injury or damage to your or any other person’s computer relating to or resulting from participation in or downloading any materials in connection with the Competition. Nothing shall exclude the liability of GNM for death or personal injury as a result of either party’s negligence. 18. GNM reserves the right at any time and from time to time to modify or discontinue, temporarily or permanently, this Competition with or without prior notice due to reasons outside its control. 19. The Competition will be governed by English law. Promoter: News & Media Limited, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU, UK.
Could an algorithm replace the pill? IUDs, implants, condoms and the ever-present pill: for years, contraceptive methods have remained run-of-the-mill while the search for a new alternative that could revolutionise the industry has come up short. Recent headlines have focused on the negative aspects of traditional hormonal birth control: the pill causes depression and gender mutation in freshwater fish, while a clinical trial for a male contraceptive jab was abandoned when the subjects began suffering side-effects already well-known to women. But 50 years since it first became available, the pill remains the default option, and women still shoulder the responsibility for preventing pregnancies. Could software be the solution? Elina Berglund Scherwitzl, founder and chief technical officer of mobile fertility app Natural Cycles thinks so. Using a sensitive thermometer and sophisticated mathematics, Natural Cycles is an old-fashioned period tracker, with extra features. The app, which launched in 2014, asks users to take their temperatures in the morning, preferably before getting out of bed, then input that into the app, which tells them where they are in their menstrual cycle. Days when a woman can get pregnant become red; “safe” days are green. So far, so low-tech. What makes Natural Cycles unique, though, is the algorithm developed by Berglund. The 32-year-old from Malmö in Sweden holds a PhD in particle physics and was a member of the team that discovered the Higgs boson at Cern, before developing her life-changing formula. Through daily use, the algorithm learns not just how to map an individual’s ovulation but to predict it, too. That allows the five days prior to ovulation to be identified in real time, alerting women to the fact that male sperm can linger for that long in their bodies, ready to pounce on an egg when it is released. The app fills a gap in the market, spotted by Berglund when she felt fed up with the limited options on offer other than hormonal contraception. She devised the algorithm and started mapping her own cycle, as well as those of female colleagues at Cern. It proved so succesful that Berglund and her husband, fellow physicist and Natural Cycle’s CEO Raoul Scherwitzl, decided to devote more time to the app. Berglund has hired a team of researchers that includes Kristina Gemzell Danielsson, a professor in obstetrics and gynaecology at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm. Their most recently published clinical study showed that Natural Cycles, when used correctly, is as efficient in preventing pregnancies as the pill. Unlike the pill, though, it doesn’t offer any cover for fertile days, which means that comparing the app to medical contraception can be tricky. Asking women to put faith in their phones to protect them from getting pregnant is a complicated business. In Sweden, the app was criticised for targeting young lifestyle bloggers and their impressionable readers. One example was Blondinbella, by Isabella Löwengrip, who is now a Natural Cycles investor. (Löwengrip says that the average age of her 1.3 million weekly readers is just over 30 – two years older than the typical Natural Cycles subscriber.) In December last year, the Swedish Medical Products Agency also banned the app from calling itself a preventivmedel – the Swedish word for “contraception”, which is associated with purely medical birth control. As a result, it’s now marketed as a “fertility monitoring device” that “can be used to avoid pregnancies”. Berglund doesn’t seem too worried, though. “What we do is track fertility, right? And then women can use it how they want – it’s a tool for them to use this information either to prevent or plan a pregnancy.” Plus, she says, the company’s research shows that younger women are more disciplined in using contraception on red days; their pregnancy rates were much lower than those of users above the age of 35. The ideal app user, Berglund says, is a woman in a stable relationship who is planning to have children at some point, and who would like a break from hormonal contraception ahead of trying. Gemzell Danielsson points out that it’s not a good option for women who absolutely want to avoid a pregnancy. Nor does she recommend it for anyone who has what she describes as “an irregular lifestyle”, irregular menstrual cycles or lacks the motivation to stay on top of their cycles. The latter of these categories might account for the 45% drop-out rate that the app is currently experiencing; women who sign up but fail to keep to their thermometer schedule. The most important thing about Natural Cycles, Berglund and Gemzell Danielsson argue, is that it adds an alternative method to the mix. “I’m still surprised that there hasn’t been such a product before,” Berglund says. “I have been thinking about this since I was a teenager, because I didn’t feel well from taking the pill.” Berglund is critical of the conveyor-belt style in which young women are prescribed it, and the fact that birth control is still very one-sided within relationships. “Sweden is supposed to be the most gender-equal country, but I think when it comes to contraception … the burden is very much on the woman.” Natural Cycles, she insists, is “more of a couple’s thing – the woman measures her temperature and the man sometimes has to wear a condom.” ” The most important thing for the company, Berglund says, is to gain trust. “That’s why we keep performing clinical studies and why we try to achieve a higher ISO class of medical device status.” But before Natural Cycles can become as trustworthy a contraceptive option as hormonal methods, larger-scale, independent studies will need to prove its efficacy. So while the app hasn’t killed the pill just yet, it is a welcome addition.
Kim Gordon on Sonic Youth's first acoustic set: 'It was a nightmare' Former Sonic Youth bassist Kim Gordon has told an Australian audience about a nightmarish acoustic show the band played for a charity event to raise funds for children with severe disabilities. In a keynote address at Brisbane music industry conference Bigsound on Wednesday, the musician and visual artist said Sonic Youth, which relied on the fiery interplay between guitarists Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo, had never played acoustically before and were performing for a mainstream rock audience at a 1991 benefit concert for Neil Young’s the Bridge School. Fearing disaster, Gordon had brought along a guitar ready-made to destroy. “I had a feeling things were doomed to fail,” she told a packed theatre on Wednesday. The band could hear their guitars at soundcheck, explained Gordon, “but when we went out to play, we heard nothing ... it was a nightmare”. Halfway through a cover of New York Dolls’ Personality Crisis, a frustrated Gordon swore into the microphone, smashed the waiting guitar and walked off. She went backstage to find children in wheelchairs looking horrified. “I felt terrible,” said Gordon. “I had forgotten about them being there.” But Neil Young’s then-teenaged son Ben, who has cerebral palsy, rolled up to her: “Everyone has a bad day sometimes,” he said. Gordon repeatedly told the Brisbane audience that her keynote address was a poem or incantation, not an essay. In a series of vignettes, she questioned the codependent relationship between artist and audience, based on a premise by critic Greil Marcus: that artists who only give fans what they want are only able to confirm, not create. It was a portal into the approach of Sonic Youth who, after emerging from New York’s No Wave scene, slowly built their own bridges to pop through the 1980s. The video for Kool Thing saw the band flirting with mainstream acceptance while subverting it. It was a song that had Sonic Youth on the brink of stardom, but which they refused to build on as bands they encouraged and inspired, such as Nirvana, rushed past them. Gordon’s Bigsound address began in the hippie dream of the 1960s, describing how the relationship between artist and audience was punctured by race riots, the Rolling Stones’s disaster at Altamont and the Manson murders. The corresponding emergence of a more challenging generation of performers including the Doors, the Velvet Underground and Iggy and the Stooges, deconstructed the idea of popular music as entertainment, she said. “[Iggy Pop] walking out on to the audience, breaking glass, smearing peanut butter on himself – was this a stage show? Was this rock music or real life? His estrangement of the audience’s expectations created something new. He gave people something they had never seen.” Gordon also spoke of an infamous Public Image Ltd concert she attended at New York’s the Ritz in 1981. There the band played behind a screen on to which images were projected, obscuring the “stars” as shadowy figures. The audience rioted, throwing chairs at the screen and forcing the band to flee. “For whatever reason, PiL fucked with our heads,” she said. “We were there because of their audacity, but then couldn’t accept what they were offering: it was [either] too much or too little.” An audience’s need to be entertained was an artistic dead end, Gordon said. “What is a star? Suspended adulthood? A place beyond good and evil? Someone who you want to believe in? A daredevil? A risk-taker, going to the edge and not falling off – for you?” Was a performance, she asked, “transcendence, or just a distraction from daily life, humdrum, pain, humdrum, boredom, humdrum, aloneness? A nice transition that doesn’t end? A day at the beach, a trip to the mountains? An unending kiss, leading to nowhere – or somewhere you never dreamed of?” “That’s what I want to feel when I go see someone play,” she said. “Something fall apart – until it becomes something else.”
Wayne Rooney commits to seeing out Manchester United contract to 2019 Wayne Rooney is determined to stay at Manchester United until his contract ends in summer 2019 despite losing his place in the first team. The 31-year-old believes he has a lot of football left to play at the highest level and is enjoying life at Old Trafford even after being dropped by José Mourinho. Rooney plans to retire from the international game following the 2018 World Cup in Russia should England qualify and it is understood he believes he can still perform for United for at least another year following the tournament. In the summer, the Rooney, who has been linked with a move back to Everton, stated he would be willing to sign an extension to stay with the club beyond 2019. His stance has not changed despite no longer being an automatic pick in Mourinho’s starting XI and Rooney has no interest in moving before then to Major League Soccer or to sign a lucrative deal in China. Rooney last started a Premier League game on 18 September, when United lost 3-1 at Watford. Since then he has only started games in the EFL Cup and Europa League and has managed a meagre two goals all season. The England captain is aware his place in Gareth Southgate’s side is under threat due to his lack of first-team football. Yet Rooney is confident he can fight his way back into favour under Mourinho and become a regular once more. His strike in Thursday’s 2-1 defeat at Fenerbahce took his total for United to 247, three short of Sir Bobby Charlton’s record for the club. As with his status as England’s record goal-scorer he is keen to pass Charlton’s mark and become the first player to register 250 goals for the club. Paul Pogba’s potential absence due to a leg injury for Sunday’s trip to Swansea City may pave the way for a first league start in five matches. The Frenchman has been fielded recently in the No10 berth favoured by Rooney, though Mourinho could choose Juan Mata if Pogba is unfit. The manager’s other selection is issue is whether to drop Zlatan Ibrahimovic. The Swede has scored once in 11 games and last managed a league goal on 10 September – in the 2-1 derby defeat to Manchester City. Mourinho hinted he may consider leaving the 35-year-old out after he drew his latest blank at Fenerbahce. Of Ibrahimovic, the manager said:”He’s creating a lot of chances and missing a lot of goals. If I remember Stoke, Liverpool, Chelsea, Burnley, he missed a lot of goals but he was fantastic in his dynamic, his working, his building up for the team, he was fantastic.” If Mourinho does leave him out this could allow Rooney another route back into the XI, as the No9, though United could field Marcus Rashford or Anthony Martial there instead.
This week’s new live music Massive Attack, On tour Even with a genre-shattering band such as Massive Attack, there still exists the notion of a definitive lineup. However, the group that made their first two classic albums – comprising 3D, Mushroom, Daddy G and Tricky – were destined for greatness but, given their volatile personalities, possibly never longevity. Since their mid-1990s heyday, though, the band have gained a monumental stature, embracing guest vocalists and political issues, becoming a kind of Newsnight version of Gorillaz, and lately working with film-maker Adam Curtis. The band have also attempted a rapprochement with Tricky, who has recorded for their new album – material from which may well be aired here – only to then apparently abruptly end the association. Evidently, like a dangerous country, Massive Attack is interesting to visit, though you wouldn’t want to live there. Olympia Theatre, Dublin, Tue & Wed; O2 Academy, Glasgow, Fri; touring to 5 Feb JR Cheatahs, London Noisy but diffident, shoegaze seemed an unlikely candidate for revival. Yet since its heyday, distinct waves of bands have emerged to swell the congregation of the “sonic cathedral” (as contemporary critics dubbed the sound). Cheatahs, a London-based band from all over the place, have been pretty fervent in their worship of the scene’s major players; their sound a blend of My Bloody Valentine wow and flutter and Ride’s vaporous vocals, with a hint of Dinosaur Jr attack. Received wisdom on this kind of music cites its vagueness of songwriting, but Cheatahs have timed their return with a good-quality second album, Mythologies, at such a time that their emphasis on texture, noise and abstraction seems like a breath of moderately fresh air. XOYO, EC2, Tue JR Jason Isbell, On tour Once a member of Drive-By Truckers, the 21st century’s most southern and most rocking southern rock band, Jason Isbell has expanded his brief to rock the whole of the US. A songwriter who understands the alternative country audience of romantically disappointed ex-servicemen, heavy-drinking manufacturing workers and long-estranged high-school sweethearts, Isbell is increasingly able to address them in songs with strong tunes. He is undoubtedly releasing records into an environment where particular hospitality is being extended to musicians telling rugged stories in an artful way, but Isbell’s also producing strong work. His current album, Something More Than Free, has its share of widescreen Springsteen-style narratives, yet also offers perky Bakersfield country and Neil Youngy moments of melancholic insight. Concorde 2, Brighton, Tue; O2 Academy Bristol, Wed; O2 Forum Kentish Town, NW5, Fri; touring to 24 Jan JR Craig Leon, London Craig Leon put the reverb in Martin Rev and Alan Vega’s Suicide. He also produced Blondie, the Ramones, Richard Hell & the Voidoids and the Fall, as well as having a hand in the emergence of many seminal New York bands from the 1970s and beyond. In 1981, he released his first solo album, a synthesizer record called Nommos, on John Fahey’s label Takoma. A concept album based on the creation myth of the Dogon tribe of Mali, it became something of a cratediggers’ classic. Bootlegged a few times, and eventually reissued by Superior Viaduct (without Leon’s blessing), Nommos was ahead of its time technologically: its kraut-like motorik rhythms used a very early version of the LinnDrum. Originally, Leon wanted to record with a string section, but couldn’t get the money or resources together to do it at the time. Now, more than 30 years later, he’s begun to perform Nommos live with a string quartet; for this date, he’s joined by the Silk Street Sinfonia. Cafe Oto, E8, Sun JA Nikki Iles & Norma Winstone’s Printmakers, Shoreham-by-Sea The presence of four of Britain’s best jazz singers at the South Coast jazz festival (Thu to 24 Jan) – Anita Wardell, Christine Tobin, Claire Martin and Norma Winstone – bears witness to Martin’s appreciation of the vocalist’s art in her role as co-programmer. In picking the Printmakers sextet, she reminds audiences of the world-league gifts of Winstone, but also brings a jazz group who count the English countryside among their inspirations. The Printmakers, with co-leading pianist Nikki Iles and guitar star Mike Walker, mingle covers of Joni Mitchell with jazz, Latin and country, expressed in vaporous harmonies evoking a soft-hued rural England. Ropetackle Arts Centre, Fri JF Dutilleux, Poole & Cardiff For much of his career Henri Dutilleux did not receive the attention his shining, beautifully crafted works deserved. It was only in the last decade or so before his death in 2013 that he was finally recognised internationally as a voice whose stylistic descent from Debussy, Ravel and Roussel was just as valid as the modernist line through Messiaen and Boulez. The centenary of Dutilleux’s birth falls on Friday, and there are concerts to mark it across the UK. In Poole, this includes cello concerto Tout Un Monde Lointain; the BBC National Orchestra of Wales has two of Dutilleux’s own works; while the Wigmore Hall (W1, 24 Jan) places his music alongside that of Debussy and Ravel. Lighthouse, Poole’s Centre For The Arts, Wed; St David’s Hall, Cardiff, Fri AC
Trump is right: Nafta is a disaster. But US workers aren’t the big losers Bullies have a habit of blaming their victims. So the American alt-right has blamed poor Mexicans for stealing US jobs with their cheap labour and illegal immigration, and Donald Trump won votes by promising to rip up Nafta – the North American Free Trade Agreement – which has been so damaging to hard-working families. As with so much about this post-fact era, there is some truth in the argument. The problem is that it has been turned on its head. Nafta was introduced in 1994 and was the first trade agreement to merge the markets of two rich economies – the US and Canada – with a poor one: Mexico. By 2004 it had become clear that it was a disaster for many poor Mexicans and was driving them to emigrate. The country saw an overall decline in employment in both agriculture and manufacturing and a rapid increase in inequality. This is where you have to look if you really want to understand the drivers behind the spike in illegal immigration to the US over that decade. There was growth initially in “assembly” manufacturing in Mexico – the sector that has been blamed so much for undermining US factories – in which foreign companies were allowed to import materials duty- and tariff-free for processing in factories near the border with the US, before re-exporting them back to their originating country. It made, and still makes, substantial profits for US corporations using the cheap labour, as the free trade agreement intended, but wages for those employed to do the work were insufficient to support a family. By 2001 Mexico was losing manufacturing jobs to China, with its even lower wages. It could only benefit if its own people’s wages remained impossibly low. As with subsequent bilateral free trade agreements, this one was rigged in favour of American and Canadian business. An Oxfam analysis warned of this at the time. When Nafta was signed, around 18 million Mexicans depended on corn production for their livelihoods. Tortillas, made from corn flour, are the country’s staple food. In the two years after Nafta, imports of corn from the US doubled. The US continued to support its agribusiness heavily, with corn production alone accounting for about $10bn a year in government payouts and subsidies. Free trade as negotiated by powerful developed countries has a habit of being lopsided like this, and not quite as free as it claims. So US exporters, dominated by a handful of giant grain traders, were able to sell corn on the newly liberalised Mexican market at artificially low prices, decimating three million local producers. In theory the fall in prices should at least have helped the mass of urban poor; but it didn’t. In fact tortilla prices went up sevenfold – as part of the agreed liberalisation the Mexican government was required to remove some of its supports that kept tortilla prices cheap in government stores. The biggest beneficiaries of the fall in corn prices were the two large processors that dominated the Mexican market. American transnationals and local Mexican elites got richer. The poor got poorer. If the new trade had generated much greater tax revenues for the Mexican government, or indeed for the US government, they might have been able to mitigate the effects, but transnationals park their profits offshore in tax-haven subsidiaries. An estimated 1.3 million Mexicans were driven off the land by Nafta. The flow of illegal workers to the US increased dramatically. It is a bit rich, in other words, to attack Mexico and Nafta for one of the effects it was predicted it would have on poor Mexicans and migration. This being the real world of complex social and economic interactions rather than Trumpland, the story has another side. The Mexican government was supposed to prepare for the shock of liberalisation on smallholders over a 10-year period, but failed. Mexico’s debt crisis and the devaluation of the peso played their part. Large-scale migration from Mexico to the US of course began before Nafta. Some US sectors, such as agriculture, depend on it. Most US retailers, for instance, source significant volumes of fruit and vegetables from California. The state has used undocumented workers from Mexico for decades. There was a spike in numbers in the 2000s post-Nafta, however, so that by the end of that decade, 70% of California’s agricultural workforce was foreign-born, most being from Mexico and half of them having arrived illegally. They work for poverty wages in conditions local Americans will not tolerate. If Trump’s famous wall and deportations come to pass, US farm companies will struggle to harvest their produce. Brexit Britain’s East Anglian farmers, dependent on EU migrants, fear a similar labour crisis. Nafta has brought some gains: Mexican mega-farms that live on exports have done well; cities in central Mexico with new manufacturing have seen an emerging new prosperous middle class. The flow of migration to the US slowed dramatically after the 2008 financial crisis. But as a development model it has failed. The poor remain poor. And, yes, ordinary American workers have lost out too. But if there is to be a settling of bills, Mexicans would have cause to throw one the way of the US. For post-Nafta, its transnationals flooded Mexico with their calorie-dense, nutrition-light, processed foods and drinks, exporting their obesity epidemic too. Rates of diabetes associated with it have soared, just as the free trade agreement restricted the introduction of generic drugs and extended the patents of pharmaceutical companies, straining the health budget. Similar free trade agreements have been pursued aggressively by the US and the EU in the last two decades as an alternative to the endlessly stalled World Trade Organisation talks. They give greatly increased intellectual property rights and patents to corporates, so that they may collect what amounts to a private tax on transactions. The balance of power in negotiations is always with the richer countries and with transnational corporations and elites. People are angry, but they have been steered to the wrong target. Trump is right that the rules of trade need to be rewritten. They need to be recast not to give more power and money to tax-dodging big business, but to share profits more equitably to those pushed to the bottom of the pile, on either side of the border. Sadly nothing Trump has said in his rabid attacks on Mexican migrants suggests that, as he heads for the White House, he has any intention of doing that.
When I was a footballer, Europe became my home country As a young boy in a remote area of Denmark called Thy I learned that I had a talent. Long legs and speed gave me the opportunity to become a professional football player. In Denmark in the 1990s it was very common to pack a bag and travel for half a year in Asia between school and university. For me that wasn’t a possibility as I already was on the path to becoming a professional at Danish club AaB. So my girlfriend and I made an agreement. Football was to be our opportunity to see Europe and experience different cultures. After two years with Ajax in Amsterdam, the capital of diversity and tolerance, I arrived at Chelsea in 2000 and stayed there for two years. I was part of the movement the club made from being an ambitious, underachieving one to regular participants in the latter stages of the Champions League. Off the pitch I was astonished by British football culture. The football fan on the street knew everything there was to know about the team’s current results, as well as their performances going back 10 years. He knew everything about Everton’s back four, even though he supported Chelsea or Manchester United. They knew all about the Danes in the Premier League, past and present: Peter Schmeichel at Manchester United, of course, but also John Jensen with Arsenal and even Mikkel Beck at Middlesbrough. I always took the opinions of these fans seriously, even though they could be harsh and without justification. Both because they knew their football and because they appreciated their players. When I revisited Chelsea in the 2010/11 Champions League with FC Copenhagen I was welcomed with open arms, and I’m sure I would be today. The British attitude towards continental football also said a great deal about the people. In short they were totally indifferent towards football and countries abroad. They did not know the difference between Denmark and Norway. Were they part of the same country? And what about Scandinavia? The Bundesliga and all of the Spanish league, apart from Real Madrid and FC Barcelona, did not matter. I was astonished about the gap that existed between the patriotism surrounding British football and the scepticism about continental football. Football was to be played the British way and the game on Saturday became such a focal point for friends, family and pints that other, European football cultures were almost frowned upon. But I was fine with it. I just thought it was the way British football culture had evolved. This approach was just an expression of a great love for your own way of during things. I also experienced other cultures, German and Spanish, and what football meant to them. In Germany, where I spent a year with Stuttgart, everything was incredibly decent, organised and precise. Spain still intrigues me. I played for Atlético Madrid in 2005 and did not understand how on the surface people could be so happy, seemingly unworried, despite high unemployment rates and other economic difficulties for the country, and at the same time feel such a great passion for their football club. It was like those two things did not correlate. I ended my career in the Danish capital. We won championships and established perhaps the greatest Danish club team ever, in 2010/2011, when we made it to the last 16 of the Champions League, a feat no other Danish team has ever managed. Even though Copenhagen was very different from Thy, where I had grown up, Denmark was my safe harbour, as I returned for my retirement. But I – and many others like me – had made Europe my workplace.
What Black Mirror, Her and the near-future genre tell us about tomorrow “It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking 13.” The first line of George Orwell’s 1984 immediately places you in a world that is different – but not too different. Everything up to the end of the sentence is completely normal; it’s an everyday April, bright and cold and the clocks are ringing. The only unusual touch is that last word, “13”. The future, Big Brother and all, isn’t far from us. Only about an hour, in fact. 1984 is an example of near-future science fiction – narratives that extrapolate from current technology and society to think about what life could be like in 10 years, or a year, or an hour. Television shows including Black Mirror, Orphan Black and Humans and films such as Her, Ex Machina and High Rise (which was adapted from near-future master JG Ballard) don’t take warp-speed flights to distant stars. They just take a step or two into the screen we’re already looking at. Part of the reason that the near future is enjoying such a boom at the moment is that the present looks more like the future than ever, according to Gerd Leonhard, futurist and author of Technology vs Humanity. “Basically what’s happening is that science fiction has caught up with us, so what seems like science fiction is now possible,” he told me. He said the central conceit of Her, in which a man falls in love with a computer operating system, “depicts what’s pretty much already here, in that we can consider the computer a friend”. The Black Mirror episode San Junipero, in which people live inside a simulation, Leonhard says, is also quite close to fruition. “That is in a way already happening. We use mobile devices as a kind of second external brain, which we’re using to escape from our own reality. But it’s still outside our bodies. So I think we’re five or seven years away till we get to the point where we can create a fake reality using augmented and virtual reality and holograms.” The director of San Junipero, Owen Harris, was a little more skeptical than Leonhard. The episode imagines a future in which people can upload their consciousnesses into a computer-simulated reality, either temporarily while they’re still alive, or permanently after death. “In terms of how much I believe this can happen,” Harris told me, “I think it’s impossible to know. It’s quite difficult to make that leap into trying to imagine how this could work. But then, that’s not to say that it couldn’t. Because things that we struggle to perceive at one point in time, they can come to pass.” For Harris, the fun of Black Mirror isn’t predicting the future so much as the tantalizing possibility of what might be. “I like that sense of tipping point that that creates, which is sort of that you could quite literally wake up tomorrow, and you wouldn’t be completely blown away if you were to read about this piece of technology being trialled or used for the first time.” San Junipero, in particular, is a love story, just like Her. For Harris, the near future provides a perfect place for romance. “When you’re dealing with relationship tales, there’s still a familiarity about them and a truth to them even though the technology that they’re dealing with is largely science fiction.” Near-future fiction can be a way to forecast possibilities, and it can be an enjoyable narrative device. But it’s also a commentary on what’s happening now, according to Carl Freedman, author of Critical Theory and Science Fiction. “I think science fiction is rarely in any important way about the future, in the sense of trying to predict the future,” Freedman said. “Its record in trying to do so is very mixed at best.” Instead, Freedman says, the interesting thing about Black Mirror is the way that it examines the present, echoing JG Ballard’s maxim that “the future in my science fiction has never been more than five minutes away”. One common theme in the majority of episodes, he notes, is “spectatorship, how we like to watch things”. In the first episode of Black Mirror’s first season, a terrorist threat forces the fictional British prime minister to have sex with a pig on live television. The terrorist message is sent through YouTube; pressure on the prime minister to save the kidnapped people’s princess explodes via social media. Mass popular demand creates a visual event, to be consumed with horror and delight – not unlike the way in which the reality television career of Donald Trump has led to the ultimate reality television: the Trump presidency. Spectatorship and life have become inseparable – not in the future, but now. “An awful lot of our life is devoted to looking at electronic screens,” Freedman points out. “That’s a very recent thing; go back 30 years and except for television, we didn’t spend a lot of time looking at electronics, we didn’t live through electronic screens. Generally, the television was at home in your living room or bedroom, but now of course we have screens with us wherever we go.” Near-future sci-fi is a way of gaining perspective, not on what might be soon, but on what is, right now. Orwell wasn’t (just) writing about a future Britain, but about the contemporary Stalinist Soviet Union – and for that matter about authoritarian tendencies in Britain and the west, which he experienced first-hand while fighting in the Spanish civil war. Similarly, the Black Mirror episode Men Against Fire is ostensibly about a future in which computer programs in soldiers’ heads lead them to see their enemies as subhuman monster “roaches”. But it’s also a parable about how propaganda justifies ethnic cleansing, which seems quite relevant to the near future in which America could institute a Muslim registry. More even than most science fiction, near-future sci-fi offers a kind of dialectic between what is right now and what might be. Shows such as Black Mirror look at the present to imagine the future, and then examine the future to think about what’s happening now. Near-future is a reminder that the present is teetering on the precipice of tomorrow. That 13th hour is always about to strike.
George Osborne postpones sale of last publicly owned Lloyds bank shares George Osborne has postponed the sale of the last taxpayer-owned tranche of Lloyds Banking Group shares, blaming “market turbulence”. The chancellor pledged in last year’s election manifesto to sell the remaining stake in the bank – just under 10% of the company – to the public this spring. However, he decided to delay the sale following the sharp sell-off in stock markets in recent weeks. The sale will not happen until after Easter, it is understood. Osborne said: “I want to create a share-owning democracy. It’s also my responsibility to ensure economic responsibility, so with these turbulent financial markets, now is not the right time to have that sale. “We will sell Lloyds to the British people, but we will do so when the time is right.” Several indices, including London’s leading share index, entered bear market territory last week. There was panic selling as crude oil prices fell to fresh 13-year lows and investors fretted about China’s economic slowdown and the state of the global economy. The FTSE 100 index has recovered this week and hit a three-week high of 6012.4 on Thursday before falling back again; global equity markets remain volatile. The Lloyds share price has fallen to 64p, well below the government’s average purchase price of 73.6p, above which it would make a profit. In October, when Osborne set out details of the Lloyds sale, the shares were trading at nearly 78p, but the price fell towards the end of the year as investors became concerned about the global economy. A successful sale of the shares at a 5% discount to the reduced price, as planned, would have been criticised as a politically unacceptable giveaway to those with money to invest. But if the shares fell sharply after the sale due to rocky markets, that could also have proved politically damaging for Osborne. The cut-price sale, to hundreds of thousands of retail investors, was expected to raise £2bn and was billed as the “biggest privatisation for 20 years”. In the 1980s, BT and British Gas were sold for nearly £4bn and £5.6bn. Laith Khalaf, a senior analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said: “This will be a big disappointment for the hundreds of thousands of investors who had queued up for a chunk of Lloyds, but taking a big loss on selling shares when markets are low was always going to be a bridge too far for the chancellor. “The fall in the Lloyds share price has left them about 10p below what the government thinks it needs to break even, and together with the planned 5% discount and bonus share scheme would have meant the chancellor putting his hand in his pocket, so now he looks to be pinning his hopes on a recovery in markets later in the year.” The planned sale appeared in question when Lloyds shares ended 2015 at 73.07p after dipping as low as 68p in December, although they traded above the break-even point at certain times during the month. The postponement is yet another reversal on a manifesto pledge, following Osborne’s change of heart over tax credit cuts in the autumn statement. Lloyds Banking Group noted that the government had progressively reduced its stake in the group from 43% to 9%, returning more than £16bn to taxpayers at a profit. A spokesman said: “This reflects the hard work undertaken over the past four years to transform the group into a simple, low-risk and customer-focused bank. “The timing of any future retail sale is a matter for the government. Our focus is on moving the group forward so that it can continue to be profitable and deliver sustainable returns to all our shareholders.” Russ Mould, an investment director at AJ Bell, said: “[The chancellor] won’t want any issue that was aiming for substantial involvement from private investors to be a flop. That would damage already fragile sentiment and make it harder for any future privatisations to do well. “Investors will also note that it is not just Lloyds’ share price that is struggling – all banks are floundering. Bank sector indices in the UK, Europe and USA are all trading at their 12-month lows.”
WhatsApp asked by European regulators to pause sharing user data with Facebook WhatsApp has been warned by the pan-European privacy watchdogs over its sharing of information with Facebook and asked to pause the transfer of personal data. The gathered European Union data protection authorities, collectively known as the Article 29 Working Party, said they had serious concerns over WhatsApp’s recent privacy policy change and the sharing of user phone numbers with its parent company Facebook. Article 29 said that it had “requested WhatsApp to communicate all relevant information to the Working Party as soon as possible and urged the company to pause the sharing of users’ data until the appropriate legal protections could be assured” in a letter sent to the messaging service. A WhatsApp spokesperson said: “We’ve had constructive conversations, including before our update, and we remain committed to respecting applicable law.” The data protection authorities also wrote to Yahoo over its massive data breach that exposed the email credentials of 500 million users in 2014, as well as its scanning of customers’ incoming emails for specific information provided by US intelligence officials. Article 29 requested information on all aspects of the data breach, that Yahoo must notify users its “adverse effects” and commanded it to cooperate with all “upcoming national data protection authorities’ enquiries and/or investigations”. In a statement regarding the company’s email scanning for US intelligence agencies Article 29 said: “Yahoo was invited to provide information on the legal basis and the compatibility with EU law of any such activity.” The Working Party will discuss the Yahoo and WhatsApp privacy cases in November. The letters come as European nations express concern over WhatsApp’s changes and Yahoo’s mishandling of its hack and the revelations over US intelligence operations. Germany recently ordered Facebook to stop collecting WhatsApp user data, and to delete any that it had already acquired, while the United Nations warned that Yahoo’s actions raised serious human rights concerns. WhatsApp to give users’ phone numbers to Facebook for targeted ads
Public awareness of link between alcohol and cancer 'worryingly low' Only around one in 10 Britons knows that drinking too much can cause cancer, according to new research that has provoked calls for cans and bottles of alcohol to carry health warnings. Health campaigners said the widespread ignorance of the link between alcohol and cancer was very worrying and called for public information campaigns to raise awareness of the danger. The finding emerged from a survey of a nationally representative sample of 2,100 people conducted last July on behalf of Cancer Research UK (CRUK). When asked which health conditions they thought could result from drinking too much alcohol, just 13% of adults mentioned cancer. Research shows that drinking is implicated in seven different forms of cancer, including liver, breast, bowel, mouth, throat, oesophageal and laryngeal cancer. Four in five people (80%) did know that alcohol raises the risk of liver cancer but only 18% knew it heightened the risk of breast cancer. Drinking causes 400 cases of liver cancer a year and 3,200 cases of breast cancer, according to CRUK. “It’s concerning that so few people know that alcohol increases the risk of seven types of cancer,” said Alison Cox, the charity’s director of cancer prevention. Health experts hope the new official guidelines on safe drinking limits published in January, which reduced the amount men should consume to no more than the 14 units a week already recommended for women, will lead to a fall in consumption and less drink-related illness. “If the new guidelines are to make a difference and change drinking habits in the UK, national health campaigns are needed to provide clear information about the health risks of drinking alcohol,” Cox added. Sir Ian Gilmore, a liver specialist and chair of the Alcohol Health Alliance (AHA), said: “The lack of public awareness of the link between alcohol consumption and cancer is extremely concerning. It is not just heavy drinkers who are at risk. Any amount increases the risk.” The AHA is urging ministers to put health warnings on the labels of all alcohol products and launch mass media information campaigns to alert the public to the health risks of alcohol intake. Launching the planned new guidelines in January, Professor Dame Sally Davies, the government’s chief medical officer for England, caused controversy by warning that “drinking any level of alcohol regularly carries a health risk for anyone, but if men and women limit their intake to no more than 14 units a week it keeps the risk of illness like cancer and liver disease low.” Sarah Toule, head of health information at the World Cancer Research Fund charity, said the widespread ignorance revealed by the survey was “very worrying considering drinking alcohol increases the risk of a number of cancers, including bowel, breast and liver”. WCRF advice is that people should avoid drinking as much as possible because even minimal consumption increases cancer risk. “Around 24,000 cancer cases could be avoided every year if no one drank in the UK,” she added. It urges drinkers to reduce their alcohol intake by, for example, ordering a bottle of beer instead of a pint, having a glass of water in between alcoholic drinks and having several drink-free days a week. Dr Penny Buykx, a senior research fellow at Sheffield University and lead author of the report, said recognition of the link was “worryingly low … People link drinking and liver cancer but most still don’t realise that cancers including breast cancer, mouth and throat cancers and bowel cancers are also linked with alcohol, and that risks for some cancers go up even by drinking a small amount”. Professor Kevin Fenton, Public Health England’s national director of health and wellbeing, said CRUK’s report “helps us better understand the public’s awareness of the links between alcohol and cancer. Alcohol-related problems continue to be widespread in England with 10.2 million adults drinking at levels that increase their risk of diseases.”
Elton John: 10 of the best 1. Your Song Sir Elton Hercules John might be considered a balladeer, but in 1970 there was surprise at his label, DJM, that his breakthrough song was a slow, whimsical serenade. Those who’d followed his fledgling career perceived the Elton John Band to be a rocking affair, incorporating gospel, honky-tonk and elements of psychedelic folk. In the US, the pretty Your Song, with a naively romantic lyric by Bernie Taupin, was the B-side to the more uptempo Take Me to the Pilot, but it was promoted to the lead track after radio stations persisted in plugging it. It made the Top 10 on both sides of the Atlantic, and was the beginning of a run of bestselling singles and superstardom (especially Stateside) that would make John the biggest pop star on the planet for five years. He went on to sell more than 100m singles, but his first hit is still one of his defining moments, and its opening line – “It’s a little bit funny / This feeling inside” – remains instantly recognisable. 2. Rocket Man John’s 11th single, taken from the album Honky Château, is arguably his best-loved. The 1972 track didn’t quite make it to No 1 in the US – he’d have to wait until Crocodile Rock later that year for that – but it has endured as one of the key songs of the early 70s, thanks in part to its wonderful production. With Gus Dudgeon on board, it’s not hard to see where inspiration for the space epic might have come from. Dudgeon had produced Space Oddity by David Bowie in 1969. (Bowie’s regular producer Tony Visconti had refused to work on the track, calling it a “cheap shot”.) Dudgeon repeated the trick with John, imbuing a song about space travel with an otherworldly ambience. (There’s also a druggy subtext: lines include “And I’m gonna be high as a kite by then.”) Bowie and John might have seemed destined to become kindred spirits, but the former said they had little in common. In a Playboy interview, Bowie made some catty comments, referring to John as “the Liberace … the token queen of rock”, adding: “I’m responsible for a whole new school of pretension. They know who they are, don’t you, Elton?” John would bide his time before hitting back. 3. Bennie and the Jets As with Your Song, it was radio play that turned Bennie and the Jets into a smash hit – against John’s will (he thought the song was too strange to succeed). CKLW in Windsor, Ontario, aired it first, then Detroit radio stations and Top 40 stations across the US followed suit. Bennie (Benny on the single sleeve, Bennie on the album) was not only a No 1 in America, but it also became John’s first crossover hit, landing him on the R&B chart for the first time. An invitation to appear on Soul Train followed, and John became the first white British artist to be accepted on black radio a good year before Bowie and the Bee Gees. At this point in his career – the song came from the double album Goodbye Yellow Brick Road – John could do no wrong. Nor could his producer: Dudgeon bookended the track with whistles from a live concert and vocal loops to give it a vitality that still stands up. The slow staccato tension of the grand piano and Taupin’s bombastic lyric about a fictional glam-rock band combine to stunning effect on one of their most inspired collaborations. 4. Philadelphia Freedom John needed a suitable number to back his performance of Bennie and the Jets on Soul Train in 1975. He opted to perform a song he hadn’t yet released. Philadelphia Freedom was inspired – in name at least – by Billie Jean King’s Philadelphia Freedoms tennis team, even if the Bernie Taupin lyric had little to do with tennis and everything to do with emancipation; there’s also a line about flag waving, which tapped into the US bicentennial celebrations. John – an avid record collector with a staggering library that he still maintains, apparently – has never been afraid to use contemporary musical trends in his music, so it wasn’t surprising that he set about re-creating the Philly soul sound. The song failed to reach the Top 10 in the UK, but it landed John his fourth No 1 in three years in the US. 5. Dan Dare (Pilot of the Future) In 1975, John was sitting on top of the world, becoming the first artist to have an album debut at No 1 on the Billboard 200 with Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy. Its follow-up, Rock of the Westies, was subpar, however, and John’s hot streak began to cool. But there was still room for another US No 1 single: the nauseatingly upbeat Island Girl, which reached only No 14 in the UK (a placing too generous by half). John had wanted to lead with the fabulously funky Elton John single-that-never-was, Dan Dare (Pilot of the Future), and in retrospect his instincts seem correct. Dan Dare is a cornucopia of vocoder, funky bass, honky tonk piano and irresistible slabs of Clavinova. John is at his best when he is consumed by a groove, and few tracks have more groove than Dan Dare. It may not be his best-known song, but it was used as the soundtrack for an animated film of the same name in 2001. 6. Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word Relentless touring, substance abuse and the production of two albums a year were beginning to take their toll in the mid 1970s. Despite all of his success, John’s lifestyle was making him unhappy – a feeling manifested in the mood of his 1976 album Blue Moves, a funereal double record. After it was completed, he parted with Gus Dudgeon. (They would resume their working relationship a decade later.) The mood on Blue Moves might have been macabre, but the lead single Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word is a tour de force of raw, plaintive emotion and tender, deceptively clever keystrokes. In the video promo, a tearful-looking Elton sits at a giant white grand piano on an uncharacteristically nondescript set; gone are the wacky glasses and the hairpiece, the giant shoes and the Donald Duck costumes. 7. Ego By 1978, sales in the US had, relatively speaking, dropped off a cliff. Whether that was to do with an artistic slump or John’s admission to Playboy magazine that he was bisexual, or both, isn’t clear. Ego was infused with camp and a high-octane nervous energy, but it struggled to No 34 in the US and the UK. The disappointment for Elton was palpable, and the strain showed. He decided to retire from playing live – not for the last time – and his working relationship with best pal and lyricist Bernie Taupin was paused – at least until John signed a new deal with Geffen Records in the 80s and the label put the dream team back together. Ego was the last song the pair worked on before parting, and it’s a fitting conclusion to the first phase of John’s career, even if the public didn’t wholly agree. While Ego could easily be about Elton’s own megalomania, some listeners believed the track was aimed at David Bowie. According to biographer David Buckley, it apparently stuck in John’s craw that Bowie had come out as bisexual while in a heterosexual marriage, while he felt he’d had to conceal his sexuality. It also didn’t help that the critics fawned over Bowie’s art-school pretensions while John – the entertainer – was disparaged by many of the same tastemakers. 8. Are You Ready for Love? The late 70s were difficult; John wasn’t accepted by the punks, and his half-hearted bandwagon-jumping disco album Victim of Love was rightly panned by critics, disappearing without a trace. Intriguingly, he had recorded some more Philly soul-inspired numbers in 1977 with lyricist Gary Osborne and producer Thom Bell. (For some reason, MCA didn’t release the Thom Bell Sessions EP until 1979.) The public clearly weren’t ready for Are You Ready for Love? It was pushed on a B-side and largely forgotten until 2003, when an Ashley Beedle remix was used in an advert for the Premier League. Suddenly, a lost classic got its moment in the sun, and Are You Ready for Love? catapulted to No 1 in the UK. It would become Elton’s biggest hit since the revival of Candle in the Wind in 1997. Are You Ready was such an ebullient song that it’s hard to understand how it could have been so neglected in the first place. 9. Nobody Wins Lyricist Gary Osborne may not have written as many words that passed into pop’s vernacular as Bernie Taupin, but he had a special skill that came in very handy for 1981’s Nobody Wins. John heard Janic Prévost’s J’Veux d’la Tendresse in 1980, when he was living in France; falling in love with the track, he decided to record it himself. Osborne, it transpired, not only wrote his own words, but also translated songs from foreign languages, a talent that had kept him remunerated during his late teens. Jean-Paul Dréau’s original French lyric, about a once passionate but now loveless marriage, must have resonated with Elton. It epitomised his feelings about his own parents’ frosty relationship, something he wasn’t afraid to talk about in numerous interviews. Alas, it was perhaps too “European” for the UK market, charting outside the Top 40, which seems criminal in hindsight. 10. I’m Still Standing John rediscovered commercial success in 1983, with tracks including I Guess That’s Why They Call It the Blues and I’m Still Standing reaching the Top 10 on both sides of the Atlantic. Where so many of his albums had begun to feature a few good singles and an awful lot of filler, his 17th LP, Too Low for Zero, became his most consistent offering since his 70s heyday. I’m Still Standing, in particular, was a bullish testament to survival, and one in the eye for those detractors who’d assumed Reg Dwight was finished. The song is an invigorating slab of high camp, and it was the one time John made an effort for the video, even pulling off a few choreographed moves. He would had further success in the 90s (including the bestselling single of all time), but the schmaltzy ballads he peddled then are more shadows compared with his greatest material. Nothing can touch the explosion of creativity that made him such a massive star in the early 70s.
Europeans: what do you like about living and working in the UK? Ahead of the EU referendum economists have been scrutinising how jobs will be affected if the UK was to leave Europe, and what Brexit might mean for employment rights. There’s been much said recently over the effect of a Brexit on UK jobs and industry. While economists say the two industries most likely to be scaled back if we leave the EU are the automative industry and financial services, leading to a loss of up to 950,000 jobs, others are more optimistic about our chances if we leave the European Union. If you’re an EU national we’d like to hear all about your life in the UK. Why did you first come to the UK - for family or to work? What do you enjoy most about working and living here? Do you feel you’ve contributed and what do you think a Remain or Leave result will mean for you? We’d also like to hear about what you do for a living. How long have you been working in that position and why do you enjoy it? Whether you’re a lawyer, a waiter, a cleaner or an engineer, regardless of which sector you work in you can share your stories with us by filling in our form below. We’ll feature some of your contribution in our ongoing reporting.
Manuel Pellegrini insists Manchester City’s style of play is ‘unpredictable’ Manuel Pellegrini has insisted Manchester City are “unpredictable” in their style of play despite the manager stating his team always enter games with the same attacking ethos. On Wednesday evening City drew 0-0 with Everton at the Etihad Stadium. This was the first occasion the team had failed to score at home in nearly a year and City have failed to score in six of their last 19 in all competitions while a general criticism of Pellegrini can be of tactical inflexibility. The Chilean manager said: “One of the things this team is not is predictable – we have so many ways of playing,” he said. “We continue being the highest scorers in the Premier League for the last three seasons. Not only at home, but away we also try to be an offensive team. “Teams are always waiting with eight or nine players behind the ball, waiting for us to play. We always try to play with a high tempo – it’s not always easy against eight or nine players near their box. It’s not tempo you need, you need accurate passes in the final third. If we don’t have possession, that can be a matter of pace but we normally have possession in games.” Real Madrid’s transfer ban means the Spanish club may have only this window to sign players but Pellegrini would not be drawn on whether Real may try to prise Sergio Agüero away this month. “I don’t talk about those things as you never know what will happen,” he said. Pellegrini is clear that City’s ambition is to attract the same level of elite players. “I think it’s a club that wants to be at the same level,” the Chilean said. “I think that we are improving every year in achievements, in the way the club is growing in every department. Real Madrid has a long and important story, of being a big club for so many years, but I’m sure that this club is in the correct way to try to do it.” Of those players unavailable for the visit of Crystal Palace on Saturday, Pellegrini said: “The injuries are exactly the same from the last game, we continue with the same five players, [Eliaquim] Mangala, [Wilfried] Bony, Fernandinho, Vincent [Kompany] and Samir Nasri. All the other players are fit. Patrick Roberts also was injured in the last game.”
Tribeca film festival: Tom Hanks and Michael Shannon in 2016 lineup New films starring Tom Hanks, Viola Davis and Michael Shannon are set to premiere at the upcoming Tribeca film festival. In its last big film slate announcement, the New York event has added 55 features to its lineup, of which 43 are world premieres. Hanks heads the most anticipated addition: A Hologram for the King. Based on the Dave Eggers novel, it reunites Tom Hanks with one of his Cloud Atlas directors, Tom Tykwer. Hanks plays a desperate American salesman waiting an eternity to meet a Saudi Arabian billionaire. Katie Holmes will also be on hand to premiere her feature directorial debut, All We Had, a mother-daughter drama based on Annie Weatherwax’s popular novel. The film boasts a script by The Fault in Our Stars director Josh Boone, and it co-stars Holmes and Luke Wilson. Other highlights include the drama The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, starring Jason Sudeikis as an introverted architect who bonds with a homeless teen (Maisie Williams) following the death of his wife (Jessica Biel); Custody, from Into the Woods screenwriter James Lapine, about three women (Viola Davis, Hayden Panettiere and Catalina Sandino Moreno) whose lives are changed after crossing paths at a New York family court; Youth in Oregon, starring Frank Langella as an ailing man traveling to Oregon to be legally euthanized; and Wolves, which sees Michael Shannon playing a troubled father whose addiction to gambling threatens to derail his son’s aspiration to go to Cornell on a sports scholarship. Shannon also stars as Elvis Presley in the festival’s centerpiece screening, Elvis & Nixon. The Amazon Studios release follows the star in 1970, when he visited the White House seeking to be deputized into the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs by the president himself (played by Kevin Spacey). The 15th edition of the Tribeca film festival will take place from 13-24 April in New York City.
Heart attacks kill thousands each year because of poor NHS aftercare, study says Thousands of people a year are dying unnecessarily after a heart attack because NHS follow-up care is so poor, a study says. Six in seven of the 40,000 heart attack patients a year miss out on at least one of the treatments that have been proven to reduce their risk of having another one and dying, it found. Those failures and an “unacceptable deficit in care” led to 33,000 avoidable deaths between 2003 and 2013 in England and Wales, according to researchers. Although things have improved, an estimated one in three heart attack patients have a lower chance of survival because they are not getting a key medical or lifestyle intervention. “This study shows that many people in the UK are receiving suboptimal care after a heart attack and that lives are being lost as a consequence. Applying clinical guidelines in heart disease costs little and in the long-term saves money and, most importantly, saves lives”, said Prof Peter Weissberg, medical director at the British Heart Foundation. It co-funded the study with the National Institute for Health Research, the NHS’s research arm. The findings, by academics from Leeds University and University College London, are published on Tuesday in the European Heart Journal: Acute Cardiovascular Care. They involve the 40,000 people a year who have the most common form of heart attack, a non-ST elevation myocardial infarction (NSTEMI). “What we’ve highlighted here is the unacceptable deficit in the care being given to people after they’ve had an NSTEMI heart attack. We calculate that roughly one patient per month per hospital in England and Wales is losing their life as a direct consequence of this deficit”, said Dr Chris Gale, an associate professor of cardiovascular health sciences at the Leeds Institute of cardiovascular and metabolic medicine and the lead author. Researchers looked at data from the national heart attack register to examine what treatment was received in 389,057 cases of NSTEMI in 247 hospitals in England and Wales during 2003-13. They found that 87% of patients did not receive at least one of the 13 treatments or pieces of advice that care guidelines say they should. The most commonly missed interventions were dietary advice (68%), advice on stopping smoking (88%) and receipt of drugs called P2Y12 inhibitors and coronary angiography surgery (43%). Minorities of patients also did not receive cardiac rehabilitation or were not put on statins. “If all eligible patients in the study had received optimal care at the time of guideline publication, then 32,765 (28.9%) deaths may have been prevented,” the authors say. Following international good practice care guidelines has been proven to improve such patients’ chances of survival but the researchers said: “Even so, a large proportion of patients fail to receive appropriate care.” The authors blame a lack of heart specialists and equipment for the shortcomings. While substantial improvements in care occurred during the decade studied “in the latter years of study a third of NSTEMI still did not receive treatments for which they were eligible. Addressing these cumulative care gaps will save lives”. “Such deficits in care, cumulatively, were significantly associated with many premature cardiovascular deaths when compared with patients who were eligible for and received guideline-indicated care,” the authors add. Prof Jane Dacre, president of the Royal College of Physicians which represents non-specialist hospital doctors in England, urged hospitals to take action to improve aftercare. She said: “The NHS has already been very successful in saving the lives of people who have a heart attack. Now we have the opportunity to save even more lives if we fully implement the guidelines for treatment following heart attack. “The NHS must address the organisation of follow-up care to ensure patients don’t miss out on life-saving scans, treatments and advice.” NHS England, which is trying to reduce premature deaths through improved care, said hospitals must do better. Prof Huon Gray, its national clinical director for heart disease, said: “Immediate and long-term survival rates after a heart attack are improving thanks to advances in treatment and aftercare, but this study shows there are opportunities to improve outcomes further. National and international guidelines are clear, and these findings should act as a reminder to providers and commissioners of care that best practice should always be followed.”
The 1975 review – rock that’s big and clever Ambition is a slippery concept. Often, it is sneered at in rock circles; held to be the enemy of integrity. Every now and again, though, a band like the 1975 come along and blow the gaff open as a false binary. Tonight, the 1975 prove that you can be very clever indeed – the traditional domain of the hair shirt indie act – and prance about alongside throbbing pink neon rectangles, while a lurid sax solo just about holds its own above the screaming. The 1975 are British guitar music’s young lions rampant. Having begun 2016 as the band most-likely-to, they have since topped the charts in most anglophone countries with their second album, I Like It When You Sleep, for You Are So Beautiful Yet So Unaware of It, released in February. They finish 2016 as stars: this first of two shows at the O2 Arena sold out within three hours; it comes after a huge homecoming show at Manchester Arena, the venue where singer Matt Healy recently confessed he spent much of his teens, dreaming of the big time. For the occasion, Healy is wearing a crumpled suit, Gucci slippers and an oversized, floppy black cravat. When he is not jitterbugging around, he cradles a goblet of red wine – part Michael Jackson, part Michael Hutchence, part floppy-fringed indie fop. He times his moves not just to the beats, but to subtle feints inside the music. Tonight, the 1975 prove they can have their integrity and eat ambition too. They create heady, non-linear electronic soundscapes more than once, and slot them confidently between cuts of crowd-whipping 80s funk. The second album’s title track is a trickly, skittery interlude that you would not imagine would work live. Healy, guitarist Adam Hann and bassist Ross MacDonald bob over keyboards while George Daniel’s drum pads gather pace alongside some loops for six minutes or so – and still they hold the crowd’s attention. People who remember the 80s first-hand may balk at big, brazen tunes such as Love Me, a maximalist conflagration of Duran Duran and INXS on a yacht afloat on a sea of excess. But the zealous attention to detail with which the 1975 execute these songs fairly takes the breath away. Even better is another single, Somebody Else – a mid-tempo 80s synth heartbreak anthem that should provide a lull, but instead prompts a call and response of the song’s bitter kiss-off: “Get someone you love? Get someone you need? Fuck that, get money.” You would think that not even the 1975, with all their versatility, could pull off a digital gospel soul track about atheism. But they go all Bon Iver in the encore, with strobes linked to the crescendos of four backing singers. So: they are big and glossy and vacuous – and nuanced too. Healy addresses the election of Donald Trump from the stage about two-thirds of the way through his band’s accomplished set, regretting that young progressive voices were drowned out. He builds, though, to a plea for compassion for those who voted Trump and Brexit: “These people are disenfranchised by political systems,” Healy emphasises, before launching into Loving Someone, “a song about some of those things”. It is a huge singalong – one that references the migrant crisis, and cultural theorist Guy Debord. (Not long after, Healy shoves one of the cameras filming the show hard into his crotch.) Yes, it is all – from the neon visuals, to the sax solos by additional touring member John Waugh – immensely studied and slick. This is a band who have been going under one name or another for a decade, the years of not being able to get arrested providing plenty of time for reflection and retooling. You do get the impression that Healy in particular has been rehearsing for this moment – the one where he greets a sold-out arena with the words “fuck me!” – since puberty. But there is also room for spontaneity in the 1975’s precision-executed masterplan. In an arena that could double as a phone showroom during most songs, Healy makes the assembled millennials put away their handsets. “Technical people!” yelps Healy, “I’m adding a song!” – not the sort of thing most bands would attempt in an arena. It is fallingforyou, a slow-burning track off their fourth EP, accompanied by some place-holding visual static. So there’s also room for spontaneity in the 1975’s precision-executed masterplan.
Donald Trump: money raised by Hillary Clinton is 'blood money' – as it happened Hillary Clinton delivered a blistering assault on Donald Trump’s business record this morning, warning that his reckless economic policies would trigger a financial crisis worse than the one in 2008. “You might think that because he has spent his life as a businessman, he’d be better prepared to handle the economy. Well it turns out, he’s dangerous there, too,” Clinton said. “Just like he shouldn’t have his finger on the [nuclear] button, he shouldn’t have his hands on our economy.” Meanwhile, Trump’s campaign has renewed his support for the United Kingdom leaving the European Union, stating “America is here because of its own little Brexit”. Spokeswoman Katrina Pierson, a longtime Trump aide, did not specify whether she was referring to the American revolution or whether she saw a modern parallel between the US political situation and the European Union, where the issue of immigration has become a political lightning rod. In an interview with Sky News, Pierson noted that the presumptive Republican nominee is “very much in favor of countries doing what is best for them” and thought that in the current global situation, “countries do need to re-evaluate their own standings and what is best for them”. Voters don’t know “anything about Hillary in terms of religion”, Trump warned a meeting of evangelical leaders this afternoon. In a closed-door meeting at Trump Tower, the presumptive Republican nominee talked about his faith and tried to consolidate his support among social conservatives. Trump said of Christianity, “I owe so much to it in so many ways,” while warning darkly about the consequences of electing Hillary Clinton. “It’s going to be an extension of Obama but worse,” said Trump. “Because, with Obama, you have your guard up and with Hillary you don’t and it’s going to be worse.” Trump also said ominously: “All of your leaders are selling Christianity down the tubes, selling evangelicals down the tubes.” Lastly... Donald Trump’s new website - LyingCrookedHillary.com - is still blank. In celebration of National Selfie Day - yes, it’s a thing - the first lady has officially joined Snapchat. Fans of Michelle Obama can officially follow FLOTUS on the popular messaging app, which allows users to send ephemeral photos and videos that disappear after watching. Obama joined the app to promote her upcoming trip to West Africa and the Iberian Peninsula, where she will be pushing her “Let Girls Learn” initiative to increase access to education for young girls in Liberia, Morocco and Spain. In a White House press release, the account - MichelleObama, for those wishing to follow - will give “young people everywhere a fun way to follow her trip.” The first lady will be joined by daughters Malia and Sasha Obama and her mother, Marian Robinson, on the visit to Margibi County, Liberia; Marrakech, Morocco; and Madrid, Spain from June 27 to July 1. It’s not the only major media opportunity being taken by FLOTUS - Obama announced on the account that she had taped an appearance of “Carpool Karaoke” with Late Late Show host James Corden: Former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski predicted in a speech on Tuesday night that the campaign would at least double the size of its staff in the next month, and said the Republican candidate would try to be the first to win New York since Ronald Reagan, according to a person who was present in the room. Lewandowski, who was fired by Trump on Monday, told attendees of a fundraiser for the New York State Republican party that the Trump campaign would probably hire between 100-150 staffers in the next month, and would campaign in New York “just like Ronald Reagan in 1984”. The Trump campaign has long planned to scale up for a general election but the statement from Lewandowski hints at the most concrete plans yet by the Republican candidate to bulk up his undersized campaign team. Trump allies have grown increasingly concerned about the presumptive Republican nominee’s rather skeletal organization, which is outnumbered ten to one by the Clinton campaign. As one source familiar with the Trump campaign told the recently: “You think we can really win a general election with 70 people?” However, Trump’s campaign has drawn some skepticism over its stated intent to campaign in deep blue states like New York and Connecticut. Lewandowski’s remarks, while acknowledging the difficulty of the electoral map, made clear that the presumptive Republican nominee was serious about his intent to campaign in what his strategists called “steal states” to Republican National Committee members in April. Donald Trump’s overture to the evangelical Christian community today failed to convert at least one supporter. Deborah Fikes, the executive advisor to the World Evangelical Alliance, dubbed Trump “un-Christian” and officially endorsed his general election rival, Hillary Clinton. “Mr. Trump’s proposals are not just un-Christian,” said Fikes, the World Evangelical Alliance’s representative to the United Nations. “They’re un-American and at odds with the values our country holds dearest.” Instead, Fikes endorsed “Sister Hillary,” who she called a “trustworthy” leader “embraced by many Evangelical sister churches.” “Hillary Clinton is the leader who people of faith are looking for and we are praying that Sister Hillary and not Mr. Trump will be elected in November,” Fikes said. Fikes specifically cited Trump’s “troubling” positions on potentially banning foreign-born Muslims from entering the United States as a key component in her endorsement. “It troubles me deeply to see abuse of the vulnerable and intolerance toward religious minorities on the rise,” Fikes said. “As someone who has fought hard to counter China’s recent persecution of Christian minorities, I worry that allowing religious and ethnic intolerance here in American will undermine our ability to have a prayer of fighting it around the world.” Bernie Sanders’ spokesperson appears to be #WithHer. Voters don’t know “anything about Hillary in terms of religion”, Donald Trump warned a meeting of evangelical leaders today. In a closed-door meeting at Trump Tower, the presumptive Republican nominee talked about his faith and tried to consolidate his support among social conservatives. Trump said of Christianity, “I owe so much to it in so many ways,” while warning darkly about the consequences of electing Hillary Clinton. “It’s going to be an extension of Obama but worse,” said Trump. “Because, with Obama, you have your guard up and with Hillary you don’t and it’s going to be worse.” Trump also said ominously: “All of your leaders are selling Christianity down the tubes, selling evangelicals down the tubes.” The meeting came as Trump continues his courtship of what has been a key part of the Republican base for decades. Many social conservatives and evangelicals have viewed the thrice-divorced Trump skeptically as a casino mogul who previously supported abortion rights and prone to off-putting remarks such as his statement that he had never asked God for forgiveness. His courtship in recent weeks included a visit to the Faith and Freedom Summit earlier in June where he pledged to “protect and defend Christian Americans”. However, while Trump rolled out an evangelical advisory board after the meeting featuring longtime supporters such as Jerry Falwell Jr as well as former presidential candidate Michele Bachmann, many attendees remained skeptical. Tony Perkins, the head of the Family Research Council who has yet to endorse Trump, told MSNBC after the meeting that it had simply been the beginning of “a conversation between Trump and evangelical community”. He added that he was waiting to see Trump take further steps such as selecting a running mate with a “conservative track record” before committing to support the presumptive Republican nominee. In an interview with CBS This Morning co-host Norah O’Donnell, presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said that he is not concerned with rival Hillary Clinton’s massive financial lead, dismissing the money she has raised as “blood money.” “When she raises this money, every time she raises this money, she is making deals,” Trump said. “Saying, ‘Can I be the ambassador to this, can I do that. Make sure my business is being taken care of.’ I mean, gimme a break - all of the money she is raising is blood money. That’s blood money is blood money [sic].” “Look, she is getting tremendous amounts from Wall Street,” he continued. “She is going to take care of Wall Street. She is getting tremendous amounts from lots of people. She’s going to take care of those people.” Trump is hosting a fundraising dinner in New York next week featuring “a who’s who of the financial world,” according to the New York Times. A spot at the dinner starts at $50,000 a plate. Donald Trump’s campaign has renewed his support for the United Kingdom leaving the European Union, stating “America is here because of its own little Brexit”. Spokeswoman Katrina Pierson, a longtime Trump aide, did not specify whether she was referring to the American revolution or whether she saw a modern parallel between the US political situation and the European Union, where the issue of immigration has become a political lightning rod. In an interview with Sky News, Pierson noted that the presumptive Republican nominee is “very much in favor of countries doing what is best for them” and thought that in the current global situation, “countries do need to re-evaluate their own standings and what is best for them”. Apparently “CrookedHillary.com” was taken. In one of many press released issued by Donald Trump’s presidential campaign today, the real estate tycoon announced the launch of LyingCrookedHillary.com, “which will showcase some of Clinton’s most disastrous lies to the American people.” Supporters are instructed to text TRUMP to 88022 to receive early access to the content, which leads to subscribing to a text-message alert system from the campaign. “As we proceed forward with the general election, it is more important than ever for America to realize how dishonest Crooked Hillary really is,” the release states. “At every stage of Clinton’s career, she has deceived the public to enrich herself and family at the expense of Americans. Crooked Hillary has continually placed Washington D.C. special interests’ priorities over the interests of everyday Americans. Four years of Crooked Hillary in the White House is not a risk Americans can take.” In a release, Donald Trump’s troubled presidential campaign has detailed a “staff expansion,” likely in the hopes of reassuring supporters worried about the vast disparity between Trump’s financial and infrastructural setup and that of presumptive general election opponent Hillary Clinton. “Today, Donald J. Trump announced that he has hired several staff members to expand his campaign operations and focus on the general election in November,” the release states, before detailing the hires: Jim Murphy as national political director, Lucia Castellano as director of human resources, Brad Parscale as digital director and former Bush administration staffer Kevin Kellems as director of surrogates. “I continue to build a team of great people that will ensure we win in November,” Trump stated in the release. “I have received more votes than any Republican in the history of the party and I am confident that, along with my team, we will take our movement to the White House and Make America Great Again.” Murphy, who runs consulting outfit JLM Consulting, was a senior adviser to then-senator Bob Dole’s presidential campaigns in 1988 and 1996. Castellano is a headhunter who ran human resources for Hispanic-oriented television network HITN. Parscale co-founded a San Antonio digital agency, and Kellems served as a communications aide to then-vice president Dick Cheney in 2003. “The campaign has also added staff to the Communications Division to expand its research and rapid response capabilities,” the release states. Video: Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton picked apart Donald Trump’s economic plan and financial record this afternoon, saying that if elected president, he would bankrupt America “like one of his casinos.” Clinton also poked at Trump’s refusal to release his tax returns, suggesting the real estate mogul “isn’t as rich as he claims.” Speaking to NBC News, Tennessee senator and Donald Trump supporter Bob Corker said that the firing of Trump’s campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, yesterday is “pretty exciting” in terms of the direction of the ailing campaign. “What is kind of exciting is that it appears to me that they, y’know, are moving in a very different direction than they’ve been moving in, and I gotta say, that’s pretty exciting to think about,” Corker said. When asked whether he was speaking specifically about Lewandowski’s departure from the campaign, Corker agreed. “Yeah,” Corker said. “I mean, I don’t know him personally and I don’t know what the internal issues were regarding that, but it seems that they understand that taking a different direction with the campaign is a more beneficial place for them to be. And I gotta say, last night when I was reading that and this morning - pretty exciting. And if they can begin to focus solely on issues ... economic issues, fiscal issues, how our country is gonna relate to the rest of the world, that can be a very exciting development, relative to how they’re going about doing what they’re doing” Corker, the chair of the senate foreign relations committee, has been rumored as a potential running mate choice for Trump, but told NBC News recently that he was“discouraged by the direction of the campaign and comments that are made,” after Trump reiterated his call for a Muslim ban after the terrorist attack on an LGBT nightclub in Orlando that killed 49 people. Katrina Pierson, national spokesperson for Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, defended the campaign’s comparatively massive expenditures on things like T-shirts, mugs, stickers ($694,000) and hats ($208,000), telling CNN’s Wolf Blitzer that “everyone loves the hats.” Notice the Playboy magazine cover in the background. One of the members of Donald Trump’s new evangelical advisory committee was not a big fan of the candidate in November: The post has since been deleted. A disturbing scene from Donald Trump’s rally in Phoenix, Arizona, where clashes between pro- and anti-Trump protesters devolved to racist attacks by a Trump supporter sporting white-nationalist tattoos. The ’s Lauren Gambino has more on Hillary Clinton’s economic speech today: Hillary Clinton delivered a blistering assault on Donald Trump’s business record on Tuesday, warning that his reckless economic policies would trigger a financial crisis worse than the one in 2008. Returning to the important swing state of Ohio on Tuesday, Clinton, the Democratic party’s presumptive nominee, castigated Trump for his proposals on trade, taxes and immigration, claiming that his policies, if enacted, would throw the US back into a recession. “You might think that because he has spent his life as a businessman, he’d be better prepared to handle the economy. Well it turns out, he’s dangerous there, too,” Clinton said. “Just like he shouldn’t have his finger on the [nuclear] button, he shouldn’t have his hands on our economy.” To support her claims, Clinton seized on a report released on Monday by Moody’s Analytics that suggested Trump’s economic policies, if enacted, would trigger a “lengthy recession” and lead to the loss of 3.5m jobs. “We can’t let him bankrupt America like we’re one of his failed casinos,” Clinton said. “We can’t let him roll the dice with our children’s futures.” Hope Hicks, the 27-year-old press secretary for Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, recently got the star treatment in a must-read GQ profile, but it isn’t the first cover story for the Connecticut native and former model. As revealed by Cosmopolitan, (bear with us), Hicks was also a cover model for the Gossip Girl spinoff book series The It Girl, gracing the series’ cover as prep-school prima donna Jenny Humphrey. XOXO... In an email addressed to “Friend,” Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren has put out a personal(ish) ask for money on behalf of presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton - a big indicator that Clinton sees the progressive darling as a powerful asset to her general election campaign. “For 25 years, she’s been on the receiving end of attack after attack,” Warren wrote of Clinton. “She didn’t whimper. She didn’t whine. She’s always fought back with grace and determination – and no matter how many punches she took, each time she came out fighting stronger.” Calling Clinton “a fighter” who will take on Wall Street, student-loan debt and fight for minority rights, Warren highlights Clinton’s “progressive agenda” in a likely bid to warm the left wing of the Democratic party to the candidate, after a bitter primary campaign against democratic socialist Bernie Sanders. As Warren has done on numerous occasions, the email ends with a broadside against presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, who Warren states has “built his campaign on racism, sexism, and xenophobia.” Decrying Trump as “a small, insecure, moneygrubbing bully who doesn’t care who gets hurt, so long as he makes a buck off it,” Warren juxtaposes Clinton, who is “smart as a whip, and she’s a tough cookie.” Not unrelatedly, the Associated Press reports that Warren is one of the few potential running mates who has been moved into full vetting mode. Film star Salma Hayek wondered what would happen if Donald Trump had Latino heritage. The results are... a little eerie: Bloomberg reports that the Russia-linked hackers behind an attack on the Democratic National Committee also targeted the Clinton Foundation, according to “three people familiar with the matter”: The Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation was among the organizations breached by suspected Russian hackers in a dragnet of the U.S. political apparatus ahead of the November election, according to three people familiar with the matter. The attacks on the foundation’s network, as well as those of the Democratic Party and Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, compound concerns about her digital security even as the FBI continues to investigate her use of a personal e-mail server while she was secretary of state. A spokesman for the foundation told Bloomberg that he wasn’t aware of any breach. It’s unclear what the hackers may have accessed. Opposition research on Donald Trump was removed in the attack on the DNC. These hacks are (as far as we know) separate from concerns about possible hacker attacks on the private email server Clinton used as secretary of state, an arrangement that is the subject of an FBI investigation. “The FBI has been careful to keep [the Clinton Foundation] investigation separate from the review of Clinton’s use of private e-mail, using separate investigators, according to the person briefed on the matter,” Bloomberg says. After a poll last week showed Hillary Clinton neck-and-neck with Donald Trump in Utah – which John McCain won by about 30 points and favorite son Mitt Romney won by about 50 – a new poll, proudly disseminated on social media by the Trump campaign’s director of social media, shows Trump nudging into the lead: A neighbor of Donald Trump’s golf course in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, has hoisted a Mexican flag to protest the candidate’s views on immigration, the Scotland Herald reports: David Milne, whose land is surrounded by Mr Trump’s golf course at Menie, said he raised the banner in support of those who had been “intimidated and insulted” by the Republican presidential candidate. In light of the latest FEC filings, Commentary editor John Podhoretz takes Trump to task for failing to perform the humdrum hard campaign work of making calls to raise money and taking calls to raise money and speaking in living rooms to raise money and attending dinners and cocktail receptions to raise money. Key bit: Trump’s decision to sit in his skivvies in Trump Tower and phone into the Fox News Channel when he’s not on the road at big rallies making jokes about how Elizabeth Warren is or is not Pocahontas is, to people who take the art of practical politics seriously, definitive proof that he is a dilettante who has managed to bluff his way into the highest-stakes political game in the world. Podhoretz’s conclusion: “These numbers are so disastrous that they mean it would be nothing less than malpractice for Republican delegates not to consider seriously the possibility of ditching Trump at the convention.” Read the full piece here. In a talk before evangelical leaders in New York Tuesday, Donald Trump questioned Hillary Clinton’s faith, asserting that voters don’t know “anything about Hillary in terms of religion” despite a long public record of Clinton’s adherence to Methodism (see for example this report from June 2007). “And she’s been in the public eye for years and years, and yet there’s no, there’s nothing out there,” Trump said, according to remarks taped and posted online by conservative faith leader EW Jackson. “There’s like nothing out there.” Trump went on to say that politicians “ are selling Christianity down the tubes”. Trump sent an email Monday afternoon announcing a new group of advisers “on those issues important to Evangelicals and other people of faith in America.” Advisers include Michele Bachmann, James Dobson, Jerry Falwell Jr. and Ralph Reed. (h/t: @bencjacobs) Update: Revealed: Clinton on faith: The topline findings from a poll released today by CNN/ORC aren’t all that surprising - Hillary Clinton has 47% of the vote while Donald Trump has 42%, figures that are broadly in line with polling averages right now, writes US data editor Mona Chalabi: But because the survey put so many questions to the 1,001 respondents they spoke to between June 16 and 19, there are lots of interesting nuggets of information that might shed light on what the US electorate is thinking right now. Of course, this is only one poll (albeit one from a pretty respected polling company) so these numbers should be treated with caution, especially because we’re still months away from election day. But here are seven things that stood out from the report: Former candidate Bernie Sanders is currently more popular than other candidates if favorability ratings are anything to go by. In this poll, 59% of respondents said they had a favorable opinion of the Vermont Senator - only 41% said the same of Clinton and 38% said the same of Trump. This is in line with other polls which have found that Sanders has a net positive favorable (meaning more respondents have a favorable view of the candidate than an unfavorable one) while Trump and Clinton have net negative ratings. A sizable chunk of Clinton and Trump supporters could change their minds between now and November. In this poll, 10% of respondents said they were voting for Clinton but “could change mind” and 9% said the same about supporting Trump. But Trump and Clinton supporters appear to be very different people. In this poll (and others), women were more likely to support Clinton and men were more likely to support Trump: While 71% of non-white voters said they would support Clinton, 51% of white voters said they were planning to vote for Trump. And those who were under 45 were much more likely to say they’d choose Clinton (49%) over Trump (34%). There are more than two presidential candidates in this race, and they’re frequently forgotten by journalists (I’m including myself among the guilty). When this poll gave a longer list of candidates to respondents, 9% said they’d vote for Gary Johnson, the candidate for the Libertarian party and 7% said they’d vote for Jill Stein of the Green Party. But those numbers may overstate support - both of those candidates also ran in 2012 and between them managed to secure less than 1.5% of the vote. Most voters think Clinton will win the race according to this poll. CNN/ORC asked “Regardless of who you support and trying to be as objective as possible who do you think will win the presidential election this November?” and 55% checked the box marked Clinton. Party popularity appears to have fallen. Only 44% of respondents said they had a favorable opinion of the Democrat party (the lowest level of enthusiasm CNN/ORC has seen since 2014) and just 34% said they had a favorable opinion of the Republican party (the same percentage as in March of this year, which was the lowest level since 2013). Consistent with a theme we’ve underscored before, levels of enthusiasm for this election are low. Only 29% of respondents said they’d be “excited” if Clinton wins the election, and 27% if Trump wins. In what could be a preview of his speech tomorrow on the failings of Hillary Clinton, Trump is tweeting attacks on Clinton over her legacy as secretary of state, donations made to the Clinton Foundation and, inevitably, Benghazi. The tweets lack Trump’s distinct diction, punctuation, tone. They’re flat, declarative and on-point. More effective this way? If you want to know about Hillary Clinton’s honesty & judgment, ask the family of Ambassador Stevens. Hillary defrauded America as Secy of State. She used it as a personal hedge fund to get herself rich! Corrupt, dangerous, dishonest. Trump’s campaign seems to be already shifting gears in the day since campaign manager Corey Lewandowski was fired, writes politics reporter Ben Jacobs: During Hillary Clinton’s economic speech Tuesday afternoon, the presumptive Republican nominee sent out over a half-dozen rapid response emails, blasting “the catastrophic economic record under Clinton-Obama policies” and labeling his opponent “unstable, erratic, violent.” While rapid response emails are a traditional tool used by communications staffers on presidential campaigns to blast out their message to reporters, it is one that Trump’s campaign had never before used until Tuesday. As Clinton spoke, Trump tweeted away: Hillary Clinton surged the trade deficit with China 40% as Secretary of State, costing Americans millions of jobs. How can Hillary run the economy when she can’t even send emails without putting entire nation at risk? Hillary Clinton’s open borders immigration policies will drive down wages for all Americans - and make everyone less safe. Obama-Clinton inherited $10T in debt and turned it into nearly $20T. They have bankrupted… https://www.instagram.com/p/BG7IYzumhZw/ Clinton concludes with a thought experiment. Imagine Trump as president when “your jobs and savings are at stake”. Clinton: We can’t let him bankrupt America like we are one of his failed casinos. We can’t let him roll the dice with our children’s futures. Just imagine if you can, Donald Trump sitting in the Oval Office, the next time America faces a crisis. Imagine him being in charge when your jobs and savings are at stake... someone thin-skinned and quick to anger, who’d likely be on Twitter attacking reporters, or bringing the whole regulatory system down on critics? Would he even know what to do? Donald Trump believes in the worst of us. He thinks we’re fearful not confident. ... He thinks the only way forward is to go back to a past prosperity... In fact the only way forward is forward. Clinton’s done. Cue Rachel Platten. Clinton says he intentionally ran up debt, bankrupting his companies four times, and defaulting. “I play with bankruptcy,” Trump has said. Clinton quotes him and replies: Everything seems to be a game with him... in Atlantic city, he put his names on buildings, his favorite thing to do... when his casino and hotel went bankrupt because of how badly he mismanaged them, he still walked away with millions. She quotes him again: “Atlantic City was a very good cash cow for me for a very long time.” Clinton replies, “remember that the next time you see him on TV. He’s doing the exact same thing he’s been doing for years. This is his one move. He makes over-the-top promises... and then everything falls apart, and people get hurt. Those promises you’re hearing from him at his campaign rallies, those are the same promises he made to his customers at Trump university. The same people he’s trying to get to vote for him are the people he’s been exploiting for years... It’s working people. He’s been involved in more than 3,500 lawsuiots in the last 30 years... a lot of them small businesses.. that never got paid. Not because he couldn’t pay them, but because he could stiff them. Sometimes he offered them 30 cents on the dollar... hundreds of liens have been filed against him. Clinton gives voice to the “painters, plumbers” working people stiffed by Trump: “I worked for him. I did my job. He wouldn’t pay me what he owed me.” Clinton continues: No this is not normal behavior. There are great business people here in Ohio, in America... they want to build something that lasts. They’re decent, they’re honest... and they would never dream of acting the way Donald Trump does. In America, we don’t begrudge people being successful, but we know people shouldn’t do it by destroying other people’s dreams. Clinton cuts loose a line: “He’s written a lot of books about business. They all seem to end at Chapter 11.” Clinton grants Trump his nickname “king of debt”: The king of debt has no real plan for making college debt payable back... he has no credible plan for rebuilding our infrastructure apart from the wall he wants to build. Personally I’d rather spend the money rebuilding our schools... he has no ideas on how to strengthen Medicare or expanding social security..he has no real strategy for creating jobs... But then maybe we shouldn’t expect better from someone whose most famous words are ‘you’re fired’. He has not clean energy plan..he just says climate change is a hoax invented by the Chinese. Well... it is a lot easier to say a problem doesn’t exist than it is to actually try to solve it. She also says he has no plan to address generational poverty in rural and urban communities. In the heat of a campaign... it is tempting to give simple answers to complex problems. Believe me I have been tempted. But I am not going to do that. I think Donald Trump has said he’s qualified to be president because of his business record... Let’s take a look at what he did in his business. He’s written a lot of books about business. They all seem to end at Chapter 11. Go figure. “Trump’s own products are made in a lot of countries that aren’t named America,” Clinton says. She lists Trump ties, Trump suits, Trump ties, Trump picture frames, Trump barware. I’d love for him to explain how that fits with all his talk about America first. I honestly believe that the difference between us is not just about policy. We have fundamentally different views about whether America is strong or weak... Donald Trump never misses a chance to say that Americans-- he’s talking about us – are losers, and the rest of the world is laughing at us. Just the other day, he told a crowd that America quote ‘is not going to survive’. I don’t know what he’s talking about. In her travels as secretary of state, she says, she saw envy of America around the world. Fifth, Trump on trade. Clinton says “we should renegotiate trade deals that aren’t working” and reject new deals such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership.” And here Clinton sounds like Trump: When China dumps cheap steel.. or manipulates currency, we need to respond forcefully. Clinton runs through what she says are the main weaknesses of Trump’s economic plan. First, there’s his plan for Wall Street. He says he wants to wipe out the tough rules we put on banks... he also wants to repeal the consumer financial protection bureau [Senator Warren’s watchdog agency]. Trump would take us back to where we were before the crisis. He’d rig the economy for Wall Street again. Well that will not happen on my watch, I can guarantee you. Clinton says she would veto any effort to roll back financial regulations and seek to strengthen them. Second, his approach to the national debt. He calls himself the king of debt and his tax plan lives up to the name. Clinton cites a study showing Trump’s tax plan would drive up the debt by trillions. She quotes him saying, “I would borrow, knowing if the economy crashed, you could make a deal.” The full faith and credit of the United States is not something we just gamble away. That could cause an economic catastrophe. And it would break 225 years of ironclad trust that the American economy has with AMericans and with the rest of the world. Alexander Hamilton would be rolling in his grave. You see we pay our debts. She quotes Ronald Reagan about America’s reputation. Maybe Donald feels differently because he made a fortune filing bankruptcies and stiffing creditors. But the United States of America doesn’t do business Trump’s way. And it matters when a candidate talks like this.... even suggesting that the United States would default would cause a global panic. She says Trump’s plan to print money is like Germany in the 20s or Zimbabwe in the 90s. “It drove inflation through the roof and crippled the economy. The AMerican dollar is the safest currency on the planet. Why would he want to mess with that? We can’t let these loose careless remarks get any credence.” Third, Trump’s tax plan. Clinton starts playfullly: You know when I was working on this speech... I’d have my researchers send me information, and then I’d say, really? He really said that? And they’d send me all the background... so here it goes. Clinton says Trump would give millionaires a $3t tax cut. Corporations would get $2t more dollars. Before releasing his plan, Trump said hedge fund-ers would pay more. But his plan “makes the current loophole even worse,” Clinton says. Trump would get a tax cut under his plan, Clinton says: But we don’t know exactly how much because he won’t release his tax returns. Every major presidential candidate in the last four decades has shown the American people their taxes... You have to ask yourself, what’s he afraid of? Maybe that he hasn’t paid taxes on his huge income? ... Or maybe he isn’t as rich as he claims? Or that he hasn’t given away as much to charity that he brags about. Whatever the reasons, Americans deserve to know before you cast your votes this November. Fourth, Trump on jobs. Clinton says Trump’s deportation and wall-construction policy could cause a recession. “This policy is not only wrong-headed and unachievable, it is really bad economics.” She says expelling 11m people would cost a lot and shrink the economy. Economists of all political stripes agree, Clinton says: “Trump would throw us back into recession.” She says a former McCain economic adviser estimated Trump’s policies would increase unemployment and debt and tank the stock market. Clinton: Every day we see how reckless and careless Trump is. He’s proud of it. Well that’s his choice. Except when he’s asking to be our president. Then it’s our choice. Donald Trump actually stood on a debate stage ....and said that wages are too high in this country... he said and I quote, having a low minimum wage is not a bad thing for this country... Back in 2006... Trump said... “I sort of hope that the housing market crashes” because he’d make money off of all the foreclosures. ...He has said all kinds of things about women in the workforce. [Calling women employees “an inconvenience”.] He clearly doesn’t know much about how we have grown the economy over the last 40 years, which is largely thanks to women getting into the workforce and adding to family incomes. Clinton says that abolishing Obamacare, as Trump wishes to do, would hurt families and the economy. Clinton: Today I want to talk about what Donald Trump is promising to do to the economy. After more than a year it’s important that he be held accountable for what he says he’ll do as president. A few weeks ago I said his foreign policy proposals and reckless statements represent a danger to the national security... it turns out, he’s dangerous [in business and the economy] too. Just like he shouldn’t have his finger on the button, he shouldn’t have his hands on our economy. Clinton takes a swipe at Trump. She says her web site summarizes her economic plan, and: I do admit, it is a little wonky, but I have this old-fashioned idea that if you’re running for president, you should say what you want to do, how you’re going to pay for it and how you’ll get it done. I actually sweat the specifics because they matter. Clinton says that people are working harder to stay ahead of “everyday costs” while college is getting more expensive, wages are too low and inequality is too great. She says that America can overcome the problems together. “We are stronger and better positioned than anyone in the world to build the future that you and your children deserve.” Clinton notes it’s her first speech as a grandmother of two. “It was an exciting weekend,” she deadpans. “Chelsea and Mark had a little boy and we are just truly over the moon.” Aidan Clinton Mezvinsky was born on Saturday. Here’s Clinton in Ohio, now at the lectern: Mark Cuban, the Dallas Mavericks owner and media mogul, whose skepticism about Trump’s fortune we cited in the previous post, has served up a new round of Trump-doubt. Cuban, a bona fide billionaire, does not think Trump is as rich as Trump claims he is. (Trump claims he is worth $10bn; Forbes last fall said $4.5bn; but there are at least 10 reasons to doubt that Trump is indeed a billionaire.) Update: former top Obama adviser David Axelrod is a rich-man-Trump heretic too: The Donald Trump campaign has released a statement explaining FEC filings that showed the campaign raised only $3m in May and has just $1.3m on hand, compared with Clinton’s $42.5m cash on hand. Trump recapitulates an explanation he used Friday to explain his slumping poll numbers. Basically, he says, he hasn’t started yet: The month of June represents the first full month of fundraising activity for the campaign and this will be reflected in the June FEC report,” the statement says. “The campaign held its first campaign fundraising event on May 25th, 2016. To date, the campaign’s fundraising has been incredible and we continue to see a tremendous outpouring of support for Mr. Trump and money to the Republican Party. In an addendum to the statement, Trump promises that he “would put up my own money” for the general election, implicitly claiming a personal liquidity and willingness to spend big that critics have questioned, for example: Trump said: If need be, there could be unlimited “cash on hand” as I would put up my own money, as I have already done through the primaries, spending over $50 million dollars. Our campaign is leaner and more efficient, like our government should be. Hillary Clinton is scheduled to begin her remarks on Donald Trump and the economy in Columbus, Ohio, shortly. Here’s a live video stream: The Quinnipiac University poll of the swing states of Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania we mentioned in the intro bears further examination, if only because it’s a great excuse to have a look at the electoral map. The best news in the poll for Hillary Clinton is in Florida, where she leads Donald Trump by eight points, 47-39, compared with a one-point lead, 43-42, in the same poll on 10 May. Florida is very important. If Clinton wins the 18 states (plus Washington, DC) that Democrats have won in every presidential election going back to 1992, and then wins Florida, she wins the presidency with 271 electoral votes. Here’s a map of the stronghold states (WHICH, one should note, can and will change, but here’s how it’s been going): Can Clinton count on those 18 states to hold in 2016? Trump has vowed to flip his home state, New York, and other states such as California and New Jersey to the Republicans. The idea bespeaks wild optimism crossing over into the “delusional”, to borrow a word from keen elections observer Stuart Rothenberg. Clinton could well build on those 18 states, starting with New Mexico, with its large Latino population, and Colorado, ditto, and Virginia, which Obama won twice and which is currently governed by Clinton best friend Terry McAuliffe who this spring returned the right to vote to as many as 200,000 former felons in the state. But say Clinton must keep those 18 plus DC. Which brings us to Pennsylvania, with its 20 electoral votes. The Quinnipiac poll finds the race virtually unchanged from a month ago, at 42-41 Clinton-Trump. Can Clinton hold Pennsylvania? Dave Wasserman of the Cook Political Report and others have identified the state as a possible surprise pickup for Republicans, based on the growth of Republican-leaning, former mining and steel territory in the west, versus Philadelphia and its suburbs, which are bedrock Democratic territory. Wasserman wrote last month: As it turns out, Colorado and Virginia are among the top 10 fastest Democratic-trending states in the nation — they are, respectively, getting about 0.9 percentage points and 1.2 points more Democratic-leaning compared with the country every four years. By contrast, Pennsylvania has gradually migrated in the opposite direction. It’s gotten about 0.4 percentage points more Republican every four years. Projecting this trend forward another four years from 2012’s results would reorder the existing battleground states on the 2016 electoral map. If Clinton did lose Pennsylvania, it would have serious electoral implications (not least owing to what such a loss would imply about the strength of her campaign in general). She would have much more need for Florida, in addition to a couple other swing states. So let the argument over Pennsylvania commence. Rothenberg notes that “Republican strategists begin almost every presidential election talking about snatching Pennsylvania and Wisconsin from the Democratic column, and each time they have failed.” Maybe this year’s different? Former Barack Obama campaign manager David Plouffe throws a little cold water on Clinton’s Florida lead in the Quinnipiac poll – but outright dismisses the notion of a close Pennsylvania race: Finally, a reminder: it’s one poll and the election is more than four months away. The Trump campaign has announced a speech tomorrow in Manhattan in which the candidate will describe the failings of his all-but-certain-general-election opponent, Hillary Clinton. Trump originally planned to deliver the speech last week but shelved it after the Orlando shooting, his campaign said. In an effort to goose fundraising, Donald Trump has vowed to match donations in the next 48 hours up to $2m, “personally”. The email is goofy bordering on self-parodic in the Trump way. The email boasts that it is the first fundraising email the Trump campaign has ever sent and predicts that it will be “the most successful introductory fundraising email in modern political history”: Update: heh. Hello, and welcome to our live-wire coverage of the 2016 race for the White House. Hillary Clinton plans to attack Donald Trump’s business record and policy plans in a speech in Columbus, Ohio, today. “If you put Donald Trump in the steering wheel of the American economy, he is very likely to drive us off a cliff,” Clintons plans to say, according to senior policy adviser Jake Sullivan (quoted in Bloomberg). Clinton may also choose to dwell on the startling revelation from FEC filings on Monday evening that the Trump campaign is basically a pauper campaign, with only $1.3m cash on hand, which stacks up miserably next to Clinton, who reported $42.5m cash on hand, and to past campaigns (in May 2012, Mitt Romney raised $23.4m and had more than $17m in the bank). More disturbing for Trump supporters, perhaps, was the amount of money flowing directly from the campaign to Trump companies and family members. Trump’s single biggest campaign expense in May was a payment of $423,371.70 to Mar-a-Lago, his Florida resort. More than $1m went to his companies or to his family, out of less than $7m spending total. Viz: Trump defended his balance sheet on Tuesday morning, reported NBC’s Mark Murray: Trump says he *might* dip into his wallet for the general-elex: I have a lot of cash and I may do it again in the general election Meanwhile, Trump said on the @TODAYshow that replacing Corey Lewandowski as campaign manager was a matter of moving from the primaries to the general election. “We are going in a different direction.” Clinton up in new polls A new CNN/ORC national poll, conducted 16-19 June, had Clinton ahead of Trump 47-42. A new NBC/Survey Monkey poll on the same dates had Clinton ahead by six points, steady from the week before, but among Republican and Republican-leaning voters, Trump’s support “grew two points this week from last week, from 84% to 86%”. Clinton had opened up a lead on Trump in the key swing state of Florida, meanwhile, according to a new Quinnipiac poll, and the candidates were in tight races in Ohio and Pennsylvania: Gun safety measures fall in Senate Republicans voted down four gun safety measures in the Senate on Monday evening. In reply, Clinton issued a one-word statement: “enough”. Benghazi panel misses deadline Video: British man arrested at Trump rally ‘after trying to seize police gun’
Green Man review – from fusion to folk in the misty mountains Pedalling a static bike to recharge your phone as motivational David Bowie blasts from big speakers. Charlotte Church smashing pop songs with her monster soprano at late-night live karaoke. A restorative hot tub in the drizzly open air. Any of the above in isolation would be things to tell colleagues about whenever you wander back in to work post festival, still bleary-eyed. Package all of them up together with warm, witty Welsh hospitality, serene scenery and great food, a craft-brewed growler in hand at any given point (save for in the hot tub where they serve champagne), and you’re talking a strange, funny, indulgent, nigh on utopian weekender that’s almost too much to describe. You could spend a whole week at Green Man – and some do, with a settler’s pass – and still fail to absorb all of its multi-sensory pleasures. Its ongoing success lies in a solidly discerning and richly varied booking policy favouring folk, electronic, psychedelic and global sounds, and subtle refinements to their offering each year sufficient to prove that they never take their generations-spanning audience for granted. Reusable pint cups, for instance, which at a stroke make this one of the tidiest festival sites you’ve ever trudged (mud notwithstanding). All that and one of the most picturesquely placed and designed main stages in all of festivaldom, nestled in a natural ampitheatre with verdant hills and tall trees as a backdrop. James Blake, Laura Marling and Belle and Sebastian headline consecutively from Friday through Sunday, though much of the best stuff occurs away from Green Man’s Instagram-perfect centre up in the Far Out tent, where Friday ends with thumping acid techno from Factory Floor. As the sun fights a valiant and mostly losing tussle with the rain each day – the pair occasionally shaking hands on a rainbow – memorable moments range from Yorkston/Thorne/Khan’s cosmopolitan droning fusion songs to the Unthanks getting the crowd singing in three-part harmony then stomping the stage in a triumphant clog dance and Songhoy Blues’ party-starting Malian desert blues. Suuns, Beak and Battles each present entrancing variations on involved krautrock-inspired jams, but one of the godfathers delivers the masterclass. In the weekend’s soaraway highlight on Saturday evening, Michael Rother – a Neu! sticker proudly stuck on the lid of his laptop – scatters transcendent buzzsaw fuzz guitar and starbright synth instrumentals as silver-haired drummer Hans Lampe holds down rhythms so clinically steady you can picture him beating his eggs with the same motorik intensity. Karusselland Flammende Herzen suddenly lift tired souls out of their festival halfway point upwards past the place where the mist hangs on the Black Mountains. Truly magical. Belle and Sebastian’s closing set restores primacy to the main stage, as the Glaswegians embellish their life-affirming chamber pop with a touch of rock-star flourish. Singer Stuart Murdoch clambers on to his piano and mounts the crash barrier. A stage invasion by invitation to the skipping Boy With the Arab Strap threatens to descend into chaos as hundreds of bodies flood past security and envelope the band, one girl grabbing Murdoch’s mic to shout: “Fuck Brexit!” The customary ritual burning of the Green Man and accompanying fireworks show that follow feel like an almost unnecessarily beautiful adjunct to a festival that had already offered so much.
Google and eBay refuse to ban ads offering to remove car pollution filters Google, Gumtree and eBay have refused to ban adverts for a service which removes crucial pollution filters from the exhausts of diesel cars, sending toxic emissions soaring. Over a thousand diesel car owners have already been caught after removing the filter, though experts warn the problem may be far more widespread. Campaigners are now complaining to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) that such adverts break its code, which bans motoring “practices that condone or encourage anti-social behaviour”. The service exploits a loophole in the law which means that driving a diesel car without a filter is an offence, but the act of removing it is not. Air pollution is a “public health emergency”, MPs said this week and particulate pollution causes 40,000 to 50,000 early deaths every year in the UK. But garages across the country are offering to remove diesel particulate filters (DPF), a practice ministers have labelled “unacceptable” and “clearly detrimental to people’s health”. DPF filters can become clogged, especially for diesels driven mostly in cities, and replacement can be expensive, leading garages to offer to remove the filters completely. Google and Gumtree say they accept the adverts for the service because removal itself is not illegal. Since 2014, cars missing DPF filters automatically fail the MOT test and, earlier this month, the revealed that 1,188 vehicles had been caught so far. But some garages boast on their websites that they can beat the visual MOT check. Friends of the Earth (FoE) is now complaining to the ASA over adverts for DPF removal services. Oliver Hayes, at FoE said: “Air pollution is a public health crisis of breath-taking proportions. We’re asking the ASA to clamp down on those advertising these dubious practices and help prevent more deadly pollution hitting our children’s lungs.” “But we’re also calling on the government to make it illegal to remove these pollution filters in the first place,” he said. “Unless they do, the absurd loophole remains.” The House of Commons environment audit committee is currently investigating diesel emissions and air quality and its chair, Mary Creagh MP, said: “The removal of DPF filters by rogue garages is another diesel test dodge which cheats the public out of clean air. The Department of Transport did the right thing in introducing visual checks into MOTs. But it should now look at tightening up MOTs and outlawing the removal of pollution filters altogether.” “Our changes to the MOT test are helping cut harmful emissions and are taking hundreds of polluting vehicles out of circulation,” said a spokesman for the Department for Transport. “We are also investigating the latest technology so garages can carry out tougher, smarter tests that will act as a deterrent and keep these cars off the road.” Google said it did not comment on individual cases and declined to take down DPF removal adverts. A spokeswoman said: “Our policies require advertisers to comply with all applicable laws and local regulations. If we discover sites or services that are in violation of this policy we take appropriate action.” Hannah Wilson, from Gumtree, said: “Our policy for posting adverts on Gumtree is based on compliance with English law. As there are sometimes legitimate reasons for the removal of diesel particulate filters, and the removal of the DPF is not an offence, then these services can be offered by advertisers via Gumtree. If the practice of removing DPFs was outlawed, then we would immediately ban and remove these listings from the site.” Repeated requests for comment from eBay received no reply. DPFs can be removed, cleaned and replaced, and there are many advertisements for this legitimate service, but other garages advertising “DPF removal” services make clear the filter is not replaced.
The view on Donald Trump: only one way to stop him now After Mitt Romney lost the 2012 US presidential election to Barack Obama, his Republican party conducted a detailed post-mortem. The review of what had gone wrong was asked to “dig deep”. It proved unsparing in its conclusions. The Republicans had lost the popular vote in five of the previous six presidential elections, the report said. “Public perception of the party is at record lows,” its authors wrote. “Young voters are increasingly rolling their eyes at what the party represents, and many minorities wrongly think that Republicans do not like them or want them in the country. When someone rolls their eyes at us, they are not likely to open their ears to us.” And they concluded: “We sound increasingly out of touch.” Older but clearly not much wiser, this same party is now about to choose as its presidential candidate Donald Trump, a man of whom 67% of Americans in a recent poll said they had an unfavourable opinion, as do 75% of American women and 81% of Hispanic voters. Mr Trump’s victory became all but certain this week after he took the Indiana primary convincingly on Tuesday. Indiana had been cast as the last-ditch stand for Mr Trump’s opponents. But it proved to be merely the latest opportunity for them to display their own serial ineffectiveness against the billionaire populist insurgent. In a manufacturing state that had been hard hit by the recession and in which economic issues are always crucial, the doctrinaire conservative Senator Ted Cruz showed he had little idea of how to appeal to Indiana Republicans and withdrew from the contest after his defeat. John Kasich quickly followed suit. Mr Trump is now the last man standing. It is important to understand how a man with a vast portfolio of private homes, including a three-storey penthouse, decorated in the manner of the palace of Versailles, in New York, a vast Citizen Kane-like estate in Florida and about 40 other apartments and mansions all across America, has successfully forged an apparently rock-solid bond with white Republicans, many of them direct or indirect victims of the housing finance crisis that triggered the 2007-8 crash. At its core is a mix of at least three things. The first is the potency of Trump’s confrontational racial politics, against which the Republican party is peculiarly badly armed because of its own recent history, exemplified among many things by its attitude to Mr Obama. The second is the more than 50-year preoccupation of parts of the party, dating from the Barry Goldwater campaign of 1964 to the present day, with turning it into the vehicle of the conservative religious and cultural movement, a process of which Mr Cruz was merely one of the latest and one of the more inflexible advocates, which has made anger its stock-in-trade. And a third, not fully acknowledged, is the media-driven agenda of the celebrity era. A mesmerised media, as one writer put it this week, has gorged on the Trump story and has failed to subject his candidacy to the critical interrogation that it has spent decades applying, to take a topical example, to Hillary Clinton. Why so? “The money’s rolling in and this is fun,” is how the head of CBS has put it. “It’s a terrible thing to say,” he continued, “But, bring it on, Donald. Keep going.” And Donald keeps going. Can he go all the way? In practice that question now resolves into whether he can beat Mrs Clinton. According to a new poll, Mrs Clinton, who lost again in Indiana, leads Mr Trump by a 13-point margin, 54% to 41%. That lead is consistent with Mr Trump’s well-established high levels of unpopularity among women and minorities, as well as voters more widely. It helps to imply that the Trump candidacy could wreck not just the Republicans’ White House chances but their control of both houses of Congress. Mrs Clinton has weaknesses as well as her many strengths, and this contest has barely even begun. But it is a plain fact that there is only one way to stop Mr Trump now, and that is by electing his opponent.
What does Brexit mean for you? Holidays, homes and jobs Britain has voted to leave the EU. Some ramifications will take time to become apparent, but many of the implications are already becoming clear. So what does the Brexit vote mean for you, and where will you see the effects first? Will my summer holiday be more expensive? Sterling’s overnight collapse pushed it down to a low of €1.20 against the euro, or 15% less than the €1.42 rate enjoyed by holidaymakers last summer. However, it recovered slightly in mid-morning trading, pulling back to €1.25, meaning the one-day fall is closer to 4.5%. Against the US dollar it is down more, by around 6.5% In terms of spending, that means a family who last year got through £500 while on holiday will this year need to find around £65 more. More immediately, holidaymakers trying to change their money into euros are finding it tough; Thomas Cook has temporarily suspended some dealing over its online travel money website. Tesco also called a halt to travel money services this morning but has since resumed. Thomas Cook has also placed a temporary £1,000 limit per customer on purchases of foreign currency in its High Street shops. “We have temporarily suspended our travel money website following unprecedented customer demand for foreign currency overnight and this morning,” it said. “We apologise to all customers affected. Our immediate priority is to ensure that we have enough currency in store to fulfill outstanding orders.” Most currency commentators say that holidaymakers should in any case hold off from buying euros for now. Ian Hughes, of financial researcher Consumer Intelligence, said: “We would strongly advise anyone planning to buy foreign currency this weekend to hold off. And anyone, including small business owners, who has to make foreign currency payments should also delay if possible. “The margins charged by banks and payments bureaux are likely to peak over the weekend if they are still quoting rates. By the middle of next week it should have settled down, although consumers may still lose out on euros.” As for freedom to travel, Britons will in all probability be able to enjoy visa-free travel to EU countries for the foreseeable future. Travellers in the coming months will continue to queue with EU passport holders when going to Europe, but be prepared to switch to the “All other passports” lane when we’ve left. Is it a bad time to buy a house? This morning there are signs that nervous buyers are pulling out of transactions, fearing that the result may push prices down and leave them in instant negative equity. One buyer, who wanted to remain anonymous, said: “I started the process of buying a house months ago when the possibility of Brexit seemed a bit distant and not of huge concern. “Now it’s actually happened and the effect it’s already having on financial markets makes me hesitant about continuing with the purchase.” Henry Pryor, a respected independent property market expert, took to Twitter this morning to predict that UK house prices will fall by 15%, with transaction volumes down by 20%, while at KPMG they are predicting a 5% fall in prices across the regions. Housebuilders quickly emerged as among the most vulnerable to Brexit Construction companies and estate agents were among the worst hit in the first minutes of trading. Some London developers have inserted Brexit clauses, promising to refund buyers in the event of a leave vote, but others may also find that investors are trying to escape deals. If sterling continues to plummet there may, however, be a buying opportunity for overseas investors. Peter Wetherell, a Mayfair estate agent, has predicted a “Brexit bubble” as buyers rush in to snap up property in London’s priciest neighbourhoods. “For overseas buyers, a big drop in the value of sterling will effectively offset the stamp duty and tax adjustments, and make prime London property a lucrative investment,” he said. “Dollar-based Middle East and Asian investors in particular will look at short-term buying opportunities in central London.” How will it affect my mortgage? All eyes were on official Bank of England movements, with governor Mark Carney speaking soon after David Cameron on Friday morning to reassure the markets. He stopped short of a hike in interest rates to defend the pound, which would have hit millions of households on tracker-style mortgages. Around 700,000 people are on Nationwide’s 2.5% standard variable rate, for example, and they would have been hit badly. If the base rate goes up by 0.5%, it will take the cost of a £100,000 mortgage to £474 from £449. There was no immediate announcement on interest rates and it is just as possible that they could fall to provide liquidity and restore order to markets. Each half-point change in rates adds or subtracts around £25 a month to most people’s repayment mortgages. Those with interest-only mortgages see steeper changes – around £42 a month for every 0.5% rate change. Already there are signs that new fixed-rate mortgage deals could drop – with many more coming in below 2% – in response to changes in the bond markets. Ray Boulger, of mortgage broker John Charcol, said a fall in gilt yields on Friday morning would reduce the cost for lenders of longer-term funding “and hence open the door for even cheaper fixed-rate mortgages”. He advised those thinking about taking out a fixed-rate mortgage to hold off for a week or so. What does it mean for the price of petrol? As with so many seismic political decisions, it’s going to hit the price at the pumps so get ready for the cost of petrol to rise in the next few days. Crude oil is priced in dollars, and once that figure is converted into today’s lower sterling rate, the price is likely to increase. The AA warned on Friday morning that petrol and diesel prices were set to creep up as a result of the 6%-7% fall in the pound. However, the leave vote sent crude prices falling 3.7% to $49 – offsetting the pound’s fall for UK drivers. Currently, unleaded petrol and diesel both cost around £1.11 per litre, substantially down from the £1.50 per litre seen in 2012. Edmund King, president of the AA, said: “Fuel prices will be the biggest immediate concern of drivers with the weaker pound and the chancellor’s prediction that leaving the EU would lead to fuel duty increases. We will oppose duty increases and continue to monitor the situation on behalf of our members.” It may make sense to fill up this morning at garages that have not raised their prices. Note that fuel duty is 57.95p a litre for both petrol and diesel, and remains the biggest component of the price we pay. Motorists also pay 20% VAT on fuel. Should I move my savings? Many cash Isas already pay only 1% interest or less, and could fall to near-invisible levels if base rate is cut in the coming weeks. Some fixed-rate Isa deals were on Friday morning paying rates of 2% (over three years) or 1.5% (fixed for two years). These will inevitably soon be withdrawn and replaced with worse rates. Will the stock market freefall hurt my pension? When the FTSE opened on Friday morning, the initial collapse was huge, wiping more than £100bn off the value of shares in the top 100 companies in a matter of minutes. Stock markets around the world have reacted with shock: the Tokyo market was down 7%, Hong Kong down 5% and Sydney is off 3.5%. In Europe, the German market dropped nearly 8%, as did the French. If you have a “defined contribution” type of pension fund where the value is dependent on market movements, you’ll be worst hit. But these days pensions are only around 50% invested in shares, with the rest in bonds, so the immediate impact will not be as bad as the FTSE numbers suggest. Financial advisers were out in force this morning telling small investors to keep calm and carry on. Neil Woodford, Britain’s most highly respected fund manager, said: “Markets are clearly shocked by the decision but, in our view, it is not as negative a development as the market’s initial reaction appears to imply. “As I have said on a number of occasions recently, the global economic backdrop will continue to be challenging, regardless of our membership of the EU. Many of the greatest economic challenges that we face now and in the future, in my view, dwarf the economic issues associated with today’s outcome.” He added: “Nevertheless, in the near term it is likely that UK GDP will be lower over the next 18 months or so than if we had voted to remain. But, because inflation will (temporarily) be higher following the fall in the pound, nominal GDP could well be little changed. Growth in consumer cash flow will be marginally lower, principally because fuel prices will be higher but of course exporters will enjoy something of a windfall.” Is my job safe? It is difficult to know exactly what impact on jobs leaving the EU will have. Much will depend on whether a recession will be triggered by the referendum result, as many international financial organisations have warned, and what deal the UK can negotiate with EU member states. Experts have warned that those most likely to be affected by leaving the union will be those employed in the service sectors that trade with the EU, and forecast that those working in financial services, tourism and car manufacturing will be major losers as these industries struggle post-Brexit. International companies previously warned that the UK would become a less attractive place to set up shop if it left the EU, meaning potentially fewer companies will now come to Britain and offer work to UK nationals. If a recession is on its way, there may also be fewer jobs on offer from UK companies. A study by PathMotion surveying HR managers and senior executives of 75 top UK graduate employers, released last week, revealed that 49% of employers said they were likely to lower their intake of graduates if Britain left the EU. A leave vote will almost certainly make it more difficult for Britons to get work overseas. As part of the EU, UK citizens are allowed to live and work anywhere within the 28 member states, but this will probably change now the UK has opted out and Brits might be required to obtain visas to live and work in Europe. A key argument of the leave campaign was that a drop in immigration as a result of Britain leaving the EU would decrease competition, making it easier for Britons to find work in the UK. The PathMotion survey bore this out, finding that if UK companies were unable to freely hire EU graduates as a result of Brexit, 25% of employers said they would be likely to increase recruitment of British graduates. However, given that many European workers are employed in minimum wage work, the reduction in EU immigration may mean more UK nationals in London coffee houses and picking carrots in Lincolnshire. Given the low wages of these jobs, it is a shot in the dark as to whether consumers will pay more for goods, which would see wages for this work increase, or whether farmers and cafe owners will be priced out of business.
Coming up: the gigs and albums not to miss in February and March The Prettiots Bubbling under for more than a year, NYC ukelele grrrl duo the Prettiots finally release their debut album, featuring great songs about ex-boyfriends and suicidal tendencies. “On a scale of one to Plath, I’m like, a four,” sings Kay Kasparhauser. Funs Cool is released on 5 February on Rough Trade Elton John The rumour mill is spinning like a wonderful, crazy top for this upbeat 32nd Elton album; media reports suggest many in the singer’s close circle have departed and that Elton’s now-former label, Capitol, passed on it. Wonderful Crazy Night is released 5 February on Mercury Records Foxes She has already won a 2014 Grammy for a guest spot on a Zedd tune, and on a No 1 album with Rudimental. Last seen in an H&M ad campaign, homegrown pop starlet Foxes makes a concerted bid for her own big time with her second album, All I Need. Out 5 Feb on Sony; Foxes’ UK tour starts 26 Feb Money tour Dour Mancunians Money have just released a new album, Suicide Songs, more expansive than their debut – strings, brass and the Indian dilruba combine to leaven the emotive payload. They’re around all month. Tour starts 10 Feb, ends 23 Feb Tame Impala tour TI’s recent album, Currents, only magnified the Australian psych band’s appeal: adding tunes that stirred glistening funk into the band’s heady swirl. Even groovier live than on record, the five-strong touring band drop by for three shows in Manchester and London. Tour stars 11 Feb, ends 13 Feb Rokia Traoré Malian superstar Rokia Traoré tackles the anguish of refugees caught up in the conflicts in west Africa in the company of producer John Parish, John Paul Jones, Toni Morrison and Devendra Banhart. Né So, the title of her sixth album, means “home”. Né So is out on Nonesuch on 12 Feb Halsey One of 2015’s most intriguing pop revelations, Ashley Frangipane, brings her New Americana to these shores; Ed Sheeran and The Weeknd are fans. Tour starts 19 February, ends 23 February Animal Collective Their kaleidoscopic November single, FloriDada, recently spawned a video that risked triggering photosensitive epilepsy. Hopes are high for AnCo’s new record, Painting With, which features three core members and collaborations with John Cale and sax player Colin Stetson. Released 19 Feb on Domino Cavern of Anti-Matter Having released a number of below-the-radar cuts in years past, COAM – alias Tim Gane of Stereolab, cult drummer Joe Dilworth and Holger Zapf on synths – have a whole album’s worth of warm analogue loveliness. Void Beats / Invocation Trex is out 19 Feb on Duophonic Records Prince Rama Wayward psychedelic Brooklyn duo Prince Rama – sisters Taraka and Niami Larson – are readying a new album, Xtreme Now, which mixes extreme sports, art and “time dilation” (as you do). Released through Carpark Records on 4 March
Viral video: Kanye West, Taylor Swift and Kim Kardashian This week kicks off with a couple of unexpected encounters. When the TV host Conan O’Brien offers to help one of his employees to learn to drive, she doesn’t expect his wacky road sense and disrespect for other drivers. The road trip gets even more bizarre when they pick up two passengers - Ice Cube and Kevin Hart. Viewers of a sensitive nature should look away … Meanwhile the judges of American Idol were surprised when Kanye West turned up at the auditions in San Francisco with his pregnant wife Kim Kardashian. West rapped an a capella version of his hit song Gold Digger, which included a name drop for Jennifer Lopez. Lopez and her fellow judges Keith Urban and Harry Connick Jr gave him a golden ticket through the first round. A newly released video of Taylor Swift celebrates her attendance record-breaking exhibition at the Grammy Museum with a performance of Wildest Dreams, from her fifth studio album 1989, at the Clive Davis Theatre in September. With Game of Thrones returning to the screen in April, it’s all ears to the ground for plot and character secrets for season six. Natalie Dormer talks to Jimmy Kimmel about her role as Margaery Tyrell and reveals she avoids spoilers by only reading the parts of the script that involve her character. Finally, there’s nothing like a big finish and when rockers Mötley Crüe played their last show at the Staples Centre in Los Angeles audience members made plenty of recordings to capture the long goodbye, including Nikki Sixx says goodbye. Our chart features the moment when Tommy Lee’s Cruecifly fails, leaving him stranded and drumming upside down. Great musicians never miss a beat … 1) Ice Cube, Kevin Hart And Conan Help A Student Driver - CONAN on TBS The wrong steer 2) The Kanye West Audition - American Idol Rapping it up 3) Taylor Performs “Wildest Dreams” at the Grammy Museum Swift success 4) Jack Sock v Leighton Hewitt. Sportsmanship at its absolute best Serves as a lesson 5) President Obama cries during gun violence speech Barack’s tears 6) Natalie Dormer Talks Game of Thrones Season 6 Plotting but giving little away 7) Craig David ‘Love Yourself’ Justin Bieber cover Live Lounge Garage pumped up 8) Samuel L. Jackson Tries Out Some New Catchphrases I say! 9) Tommy Lee’s Cruecifly Fail on Final Show 12/31/15 - Stops Working During Drum Solo Motley Crue Stick-y moment 10) Come Dine With Me Bad Loser Leaving a sour taste
'The only problem is the weather': Poles eye up Ireland after Brexit vote Poles working in Ireland are expecting an influx of their compatriots over the coming weeks and months as Britain becomes an increasingly uncertain and hostile destination after the Brexit vote. Wojciech Białek, 40, who runs a charity for eastern Europeans in Cork, says he has fielded a growing number of emails and calls recently from Poles in the UK wondering whether Ireland might prove a better bet. “It is clear that Poles in the UK feel the security and safety are greater in Ireland,” says Białek, the founder of support group Together-Razem. Białek, who specialises in mental health and addiction issues, says the EU referendum and subsequent mood in Britain have had a ripple effect. “There are new anxieties in the community. In Britain, people are thinking of moving to Ireland or Scandinavia,” he says. “I am even getting inquiries from Poles in Ireland who want Irish citizenship. Maybe they are afraid of a total breakdown of the EU.” Ireland’s economic growth, the stability of the euro and 1990s Polish pop song Kocham cię jak Irlandię (I love you like Ireland) are cited as draws by some of the estimated 118,000 Polish nationals living in the country. There are more than seven times that number of Poles in the UK according to the latest ONS estimates, but people like Artur Sadowski, a butcher, believe the gap will narrow. “There is a new economic boom in Ireland,” says Sadowski, before taking a flight from Warsaw to Dublin. “Britain’s loss will be Ireland’s gain. My boss is now importing more meat for his money thanks to [the] fall of sterling. This means more jobs for Poles.” At Modlin, Warsaw’s airport for budget carriers, blue tailfins with yellow harps dwarf the trees. Aer Lingus and Ryanair operate 126 flights a week between the Polish capital and Dublin and Shannon airports. They also serve regional emigration hotspots such as Rzeszów in south-east Poland. “I heard Britain is less friendly than Ireland, especially since the referendum. I made the right choice,” says Dublin-bound Marcin Raganowicz, 34, checking in with his five-year-old daughter, Maya, who was born in Ireland. “Poles in Britain are afraid they will be thrown out. People in Ireland are really friendly. You do not hear anyone complain about Poles. The only problem is the weather.” After nine years in Ireland, Raganowicz earns €500 (£423) a week stacking shelves at grocery store SuperValu. An equivalent job in Poland would pay €500 a month. Studies of Polish migration intentions show that the UK has become a less attractive destination since the EU referendum debate began. The previous half-yearly survey published in May by Polish employment agency Work Service found that Germany had overtaken Britain as a favourite destination among Poles planning to leave. Andrzej Kubisiak, a press officer for Work Service, says even though Ireland has a far smaller Polish population than Britain, it is in the top three most-liked countries, with 34% of Poles in Ireland saying they would like to remain there permanently. Białek blames U2 and Polish rock band Kobranocka. “Every Pole knows the song ‘I love you like Ireland’ and the line ‘for her tender whispers and white arms, I would give up my dull life’. There is no doubt that Ireland holds a special place in the Polish imagination and in Polish hearts,” he says.
The growing popularity of performance poetry is a boost for mental wellbeing Spoken word (or performance poetry as it’s also known) has been creeping into the public consciousness of late. Thanks to sites such as YouTube and SoundCloud, artists have found a digital platform on which to share their voice and their work. Performers such as Kate Tempest, George the Poet and Jess Green, and festivals such as Glastonbury and The Last Word, have also helped. Performance poetry is fast becoming a staple of the entertainment circuit. Aside from the obvious entertainment spin that spoken word puts on this traditional form of literature, it’s now being (rightly) recognised for its positive impact on the mental wellbeing of performers. I often hear about new and inspiring ways that the poetic voice is being used to achieve this, engaging with people from all walks of life, across a range of sectors. I lecture at Bath Spa University. In 2005 we introduced the first ever performance poetry module in the UK. We’ve seen a pattern emerge in terms of the reasons why students choose to study with us – and it’s not simply to further their poetry careers. In many cases it’s to relieve stress, boost confidence or deal with a variety of mental health problems. One of my students, Kate Jeanes, credits performance poetry for helping her cope with her extreme anxiety disorder. Performing under the name Kathryn O’Driscoll, she tackles her issues head on with her poem, Don’t look at my legs. There are other great examples of this. The Spoken Word Education Programme, run by Goldsmiths University and leading performance poetry organisation, Apples and Snakes, uses poetry to raise children’s confidence, self-expression and leadership skills. The spoken word educators – a group of established performance poets – have been running the programme across six London schools for three years. Increased confidence has been noted as one of the key changes among participants. Perhaps, rather than for just a few chosen schools, the practice could be rolled out on a national level. We’re now seeing many performance poets openly advocating spoken word and how it has helped to transform their lives. As Robert Garnham writes on his personal blog, in a post entitled, How Spoken Word Changed My Life: I feel incredibly confident now with who I am as a person and how I conduct myself in life, because the experience of going on the stage and performing has seemingly validated the person I am. As recognition of this value spreads, so does the range of sectors embracing the idea. Complementing conventional medical practices, Brighton Health and Wellbeing Centre now offers performance arts therapy. It’s one of the first NHS practices in the UK to integrate complementary therapies and healing arts. Spoken word is expressive and free, enabling performers to speak openly and honestly about issues in a controlled and safe environment. The link between the arts and mental wellbeing is by no means a new phenomenon; it has long been recognised. But that’s why it’s so encouraging to see a rise in popularity of spoken word – opening up opportunities for many more people to benefit. Other universities have followed in our footsteps by setting up performance poetry modules, so together we’re reaching a greater number of young people and helping them to overcome anxieties, fears and barriers. Long may this growth continue, because if performance poetry continues to heal souls as well as entertain, it will always be a success. Lucy English is reader in creative writing at Bath Spa University Join our community of arts, culture and creative professionals by signing up free to the Culture Pros Network.
Lou Rhodes: theyesandeye review – a fresh flavour for modern flower-children Though she is also the frontwoman of the trip-hop outfit Lamb, Lou Rhodes belongs to an earlier, kinder age when songs in praise of nature were crooned around a campfire and it was de rigueur to wear flowers in your hair. Lyrically, then, her fourth album is hippy-dippy (“Just as if the earth had spoken in a voice so real - ‘come to me, children, for we are all one’”), but the music, mostly played on piano, harp and cello, is quietly dramatic and never less than fresh. Hazy and mellifluous, theyesandeye possesses a Nick Drake-like attention to detail, from All the Birds, which starts with the sound of seagulls, to the innocent, sinuous Hope & Glory. Full marks, too, for the cover of the xx’s Angels, which indicates her desire to extend folk’s reach.
Kanye West: The Life of Pablo review – 'You can see why his immodesty rubs people up the wrong way' The 21st century offers a panoply of options for the pop star wishing to launch their new album. They can do it in time-honoured style: working the interview circuit, touring hard, keeping their fingers crossed for good reviews. They can go for the surprise approach and suddenly plonk it online without fanfare. Or, if they’re Kanye West, they can hire Madison Square Garden and charge people $160 a ticket to come and watch him play new songs off a laptop; show his new clothing collection in a presentation directed by contemporary artist Vanessa Beecroft that turns out to involve a lot of models just standing there for over an hour; give a couple of his famous speeches about the world’s failure to fully recognise his polymath genius and announce a video game that appears to entail the player piloting an avatar of West’s late mother Donda through the gates of heaven. West protested the games industry had proved strangely unenthusiastic about this latter idea, a state of affairs about which he sounded more surprised than perhaps he should have. The whole thing was beamed to umpteen cinemas around the world and streamed online: 20m people apparently tuned in. It was at turns, rambling, chaotic, deeply underwhelming, impressively audacious, and completely infuriating, which, whether by default or by design, made it a perfect match for The Life of Pablo, an album that’s also all of those things. Its release marks the end of a lengthy journey. Over the course of the last two and a half years, the album has undergone four name changes and been through at least two almost entirely different iterations. At various junctures, its supporting cast has included everyone from P Diddy to Paul McCartney. Indeed, it was still evidently in a state of flux during its world premiere: West subsequently spent another two days alternately tinkering with it and leaving messages on Twitter: at one juncture announcing “I am consumed by my purpose to help the world,” at another posting a series of gnomic Tweets about St Paul, who you got the sinking feeling was being added to the ever-expanding list of historical figures Kanye West thinks he’s not unlike. But you don’t need to have been keeping close watch on West’s social media feeds to know that The Life of Pablo is an album that’s been faffed about with over a long period of time: it sounds like it. In place of the stylistic coherence of Yeezus, with its distorted electronics and overriding air of screw-you fury, there’s a record that’s audibly undergone endless revisions. It appears to have had ideas thrown at it until it feels messy and incoherent: over the course of four minutes, the two-part Father Stretch My Hands endlessly changes its tempo and mood, stopping and starting, its sound heaving from crackling old gospel samples to pop chorus to a stark mesh of bass, drums and snarling to a hushed vocoder interlude. The problem is that it doesn’t really have a cumulative effect: it just sounds confused and scattered, which may well reflect its author’s state of mind. Feedback features West finally doing what the rest of the world has been doing for the last few years and wondering aloud whether he’s actually gone round the twist: in the background, a sparse loop, apparently made from the titular noise, thrillingly spins out of tune, then starts to cut out, supplanted by sudden bursts of atonal screeching. Elsewhere, Ultralight Beam and Low Lights/High Lights don’t feel episodic so much as fractured, and a track as great as the simultaneously euphoric and elegiac Waves turns up alongside the sparse, self-pitying collaboration with the Weeknd, FML, which lasts under four minutes but still contrives to feel like it’s dragging on forever, despite the fact that it features the deeply improbable sound of West duetting with a sample of the late Larry Cassidy, who probably never imagined he would be cropping up on one of the world’s most talked about albums when he recorded his vocal line as a member of the second-string post-punk band Section 25 in the early 80s. 30 Hours, meanwhile, starts out beautifully judged – its alternately rueful and boastful lyrics backed by ghostly samples of avant-garde disco innovator Arthur Russell and a writhing synthesised bassline – but it’s allowed to meander until it’s about twice as long as it needs to be, dissipating its impact in the process. Occasionally, you fancy you can hear the influence of music that wasn’t even released when West began making the album. If the album’s scattergun sound – gospel, 70s soul, old Chicago house, post-punk, electronica – might conceivably be a response to Kendrick Lamar’s kaleidoscopic To Pimp a Butterfly (albeit with substantially less to say about the state of the world, beyond a token “pray for Paris” and what could conceivably be a passing reference to the shooting of Michael Brown, the state of the world being substantially less fascinating to Kanye West than the state of Kanye West) then the mournful Real Friends definitely feels like a track inspired by Lamar’s U. The big difference between them seems pretty telling. On U, Lamar flagellated himself to the point of tears over the way fame and self-absorption had distanced him from his roots; West’s initial expressions of remorse are quickly supplanted by the loudly expressed belief that it’s actually everybody else’s fault for failing to fully appreciate how busy and important he is. Indeed, while there are great lines and verses here, not least the funny, smart No More Parties in LA – which features Lamar – you’re occasionally struck by the sense that West doesn’t really have that much to say this time around, or at least not much that he hasn’t said before, unless you count the moment on Wolves where he appears to compare Kim Kardashian to the Virgin Mary, the similarities between his wife and the mother of Jesus having curiously escaped everyone else. Mostly West sticks to the fairly well-worn topic of how talented and successful he is. Complaining about a rapper being self-aggrandising feels a bit like complaining about someone who works at an all-night garage pushing Rizlas and Snickers through a metal flap at 4am: it’s what they do. Ever since the first hip-hop MC lifted a microphone to their mouth in the mid 70s, self-aggrandisement has rather been the point. Even so, something about Kanye West’s brand of immodesty seems to rub people up the wrong way, and listening to The Life of Pablo, you can see why. Famous is a flatly fantastic piece of music that may be the best thing on the album: there’s something clever, dextrous and irresistible about the way it weaves a brilliantly warped sample of Sister Nancy’s ebullient reggae classic Bam Bam around a mournful snatch of Jimmy Webb’s Do What You Gotta Do, first sung by Rihanna, then sampled from Nina Simone’s 1968 recording of the song. But you don’t have to be a huge Taylor Swift fan to find the lyrics spectacularly disingenuous to the point of being a bit unpleasant. “I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex – I made that bitch famous,” he raps, curiously neglecting to point out that before he interrupted her acceptance speech at the 2009 MTV VMAs Swift’s second album had already sold 5m copies in America alone, gone platinum in 10 countries and enjoyed the decade’s longest run at the top of the US. He then goes on to equate her with “all the girls that got dick from Kanye West” but aren’t as rich and successful as him. The charitable assessment here is that West is just trolling, which, with the best will in the world, is still hardly the most edifying sphere of human activity for an apparently time-pushed polymath to indulge in. If he is possessed of the kind of self-awareness occasionally suggested by TLOP’s lyrics (“I love you like Kanye loves Kanye” he offers on a brief a cappella freestyle), he might take a minute out of his pressing schedule to consider that one thing setting him apart from the kind of geniuses he compares himself to is that Picasso, Galileo, Steve Jobs and Leonardo da Vinci seem to have had better things to do with their time than waste it going “yeah, your mum LOL”. The uncharitable assessment is that he’s a deluded pillock who actually believes what he’s saying. Listening to Famous, you do find yourself wondering if anyone else has ever managed to seem so brilliant at what they do and such a thundering cock and balls of a man at exactly the same time. The Life of Pablo ends with one of its unqualified successes. Fade woozily interleaves two house classics – Fingers Inc’s Mystery of Love and Barbara Tucker’s Masters At Work-produced Beautiful People – with a snatch of barked vocal from Rare Earth’s psychedelic cover of the Temptations’ (I Know) I’m Losing You to startling effect: proof that when The Life of Pablo is good, it’s very good indeed. What it isn’t is consistent. Perhaps it’s the sound of a man over-reaching himself. Perhaps it’s a document of a mind coming increasingly unglued: you can find plenty of evidence here to support that interpretation. Or perhaps it’s something more prosaic. One of the weirder side effects of the Madison Square Garden event was to make his music seem like a secondary consideration to his fashion range. The focus seemed to be on the clothes, which might well explain the distinct lack of focus on the album.
Donald Trump cements frontrunner status after big win in Nevada Donald Trump triumphed in the Nevada caucuses on Tuesday, in a resounding win that cemented his position as the Republican presidential frontrunner with a lead that could soon be unassailable. The billionaire reality TV star has now won three of the four early nominating states, after other convincing wins in South Carolina and New Hampshire. The Nevada result was called at 9pm local time by the Associated Press. By 2.30am, when all precincts had reported, Trump had a remarkable 45.9% of the vote. Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, the two senators best placed to challenge Trump, battled it out for second place, with Rubio on 23.9% edging Cruz, who got 21.4%. However, their race for second place was overshadowed by the magnitude of Trump’s victory, which exit polls indicated was predicated upon a sweep of virtually every single demographic in the state, including those previously considered loyal to his rivals. At his Las Vegas victory party at the Treasure Island Hotel & Casino, Trump described the diversity of his supporters. “We won the evangelicals. We won with young. We won with old. We won with highly educated. We won with poorly educated. I love the poorly educated. We’re the smartest people, we’re the most loyal people.” He got the loudest applause when he pointed out exit polls that showed he won close to half the Latino vote. The exit data, from CNN, was based on a small sample of Latino voters, but it was nonetheless a surprising figure for a candidate who has called Mexicans “rapists” and “criminals”. “Number one with Hispanics,” Trump said. “I’m really happy about that.” Looking ahead to Super Tuesday The Republicans now look ahead to Super Tuesday on 1 March, when 11 states are due to hold contests that could have a decisive impact on the race. Trump appears to have a lead in all the states in which recent surveys are available, except Arkansas and Texas, Cruz’s home state. In a sign of the breadth of his support, Trump is ahead of the pack in deeply conservative Super Tuesday states such as Alabama, Georgia and Alaska, and Democratic-leaning states such as Minnesota. In Massachusetts, another left-leaning Super Tuesday state, Trump leads by 50 percentage points, according to a recent poll that put Rubio at 16%. Trump’s commanding victory in Nevada was expected even before the caucuses closed, amid complaints about caucus volunteers – those who distribute and count the ballots – wearing official Donald Trump apparel. The Nevada GOP said it was “not against the rules” for volunteers to wear candidate hats and T-shirts. There were also reports of voter registration mistakes at some sites, and long queues at others that may have been struggling with high turnout. Both Cruz and Rubio needed a win in Nevada to gain the momentum required to mount a meaningful challenge to Trump, who has confounded the political establishment with a presidential campaign that some are equating to outright demagoguery. At an eve-of-caucuses rally in Las Vegas on Monday, one of Trump’s most extraordinary to date, the businessman appeared fearless and unencumbered by the normal rules of politics. He lampooned Cruz as “sick”, said that banned torture techniques did not go far enough, and reacted to a heckler by saying: “I’d like to punch him in the face.” Although the Republican race is still at an early phase, and Trump – with 81 delegates to Cruz and Rubio’s 17 each – is a long way off from the 1,237 delegates needed to secure the party’s nomination, he is now the clear and dominant frontrunner. That is partly due to a change in the nominating rules introduced by the Republican National Committee (RNC) following the long and drawn-out race of 2012 that Mitt Romney eventually won. The 2016 nominating contest was truncated, meaning a candidate can now secure the party’s backing more quickly. In another rule change, designed to prevent GOP outsiders from mounting long-shot challenges, a nominee must score clear victories in at least eight states in order to be nominated at the convention as opposed to five states. That change is also likely to benefit Trump. What’s next for Trump’s Republican rivals Currently, Rubio and Cruz are essentially vying for second place, before either can emerge as a challenger to Trump. However, for that to happen, many experts believe one of them would need to pull out to make way for the other. That seems highly unlikely for candidates who come from opposite wings of the party. And even in the unlikely case it happens, it is not clear that Trump would not simply absorb many of their voters. The evidence in Las Vegas, as elsewhere in the country, points to this being an election year in which Republican voters – disaffected with conventional politics, angry and fearful about a quickly changing world – want to gamble on Trump. It is remarkable how many people lured to his mega rallies say they are not partisan Republicans, but the kind of voters who dip in and out of elections during once-in-a-generation contests. Patrick Cress, a 61-year-old businessman at the Trump rally, said that the last time he voted in an election was 1972, for Democrat George McGovern. “I was a kid in California and we wanted them to legalize marijuana,” he said. (McGovern never actually supported flat-out legalization, although many of his younger supporters thought he did.) “You don’t have to say, ‘Who is this Trump guy’. You’ve been seeing him on the TV for years and years and years,” Cress said, adding that the frontrunner stands for “jobs, money, [not] getting ripped off by other countries”. Cress, who owns a fireworks business in New Mexico and imports his stock from China, was unperturbed by Trump’s promise of tariffs on imports from the country. “I’m willing to pay for it. I want to see my country winning again,” he said. “Trump is a winner. And I’m sick of losing.” Perhaps the final deadline for Rubio or Cruz to throw a meaningful wrench in Trump’s path would be 15 March, when candidates enter the phase when the winner takes all of a state’s delegates. But even in those big-prize states, Trump maintains a lead over rivals who should have a home advantage. They include Rubio, who trails Trump in Florida, and John Kasich, the governor of Ohio who came second in the New Hampshire race but is trailing Trump in his own swing state. In Nevada Kasich, who skipped campaigning in the state, won 3.6% of the vote. The only other Republican left in the race is retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, who had 4.8%. Even though Rubio appeared to be on course to come in second or third in Nevada, the results were arguably most disappointing for him. The senator from Florida spent part of his childhood in Las Vegas when his father worked behind a bar and his mother was a hotel maid. He was also baptized as a Mormon, a key voting demographic in the state that his campaign had pursued relentlessly. Rubio was also hoping for a boost after a slew of senior Republican figures reacted to ex-Florida Jeb Bush exiting the race on Saturday by endorsing Rubio. If Rubio received a lift from his former mentor’s withdrawal, it did not show in Nevada. Sensing defeat, Rubio did not even stay in Nevada to see the results come through. Cruz, who had a torrid campaign in Nevada, and was forced to fire his national campaign spokesman over a scandal involving false accusations he promoted about Rubio’s commitment to the Bible, did stay to deliver remarks after the results. Drawing on his victory in the first-in-the-nation caucuses in Iowa, Cruz stressed he was the only candidate to knock Trump off his perch. “The undeniable reality the first four states has shown is the only campaign that has beat Donald Trump, and the only campaign that can beat Donald Trump, is this one,” Cruz told supporters. The Iowa contest, which took place just three weeks ago, seems in the distant past now that the race has been commandeered by the former host of The Apprentice. ‘Winning, winning, winning’ Michael Steele, a former chairman of the RNC, acknowledged Trump’s rise was “dismaying” to political elites. “There’s a lot that makes you shake your head, but you cannot take away from him the absolute enormity of coming in completely from the outside, with no political experience, and he has just cut through this process like a hot knife through butter,” he said, speaking hours before the Nevada result. “You go into Super Tuesday and the worst case scenario for Donald Trump right now is winning 10 out of 14 states. At what point do you start treating him like the nominee?” Trump was already behaving as such during his victory speech. On the day Barack Obama sent his final plan to close the detention facility on Cuba’s Guantánamo Bay, to the US Congress, Trump made clear he would make a very different commander-in-chief. “Gitmo, we’re keeping that open,” he said. “And we’re gonna load it up with a lot of bad dudes out there. We’re gonna have our borders nice and strong, and we’re gonna build the wall,” he said, referring to his flagship policy of building a giant wall between the US and Mexico. Luxuriating in his decisive victory, he noted how his campaign was “winning, winning, winning” and reflected on the states ahead. Overstating his strength in Texas and Arkansas where, technically, he is trailing Cruz, the general thrust of his optimism was well-founded. “We’ve had some great numbers coming out of Texas. And some amazing numbers coming out of Tennessee, and Georgia, and Arkansas. And then a couple of weeks later, Florida. We love Florida. We’re going to do very well in Ohio – we’re beating the governor; it is always nice to be beating the governor. And Michigan. The whole thing. It is going to be an amazing two months.”
Trump dumps presidential style, repeatedly calling Elizabeth Warren 'Pocahontas' Donald Trump’s general election pivot didn’t last very long. After giving two speeches with teleprompters this week, Trump returned to his unscripted style in a rally in Richmond, Virginia on Friday. In a barely one-third-full arena, he repeatedly called Elizabeth Warren “Pocahontas”, attacked former rival Jeb Bush and complained “New York City is going with the Norwegian form of education”. After a week where Trump strained to appear more presidential, it all went out the window in a vintage performance, which even featured a handful of protesters being arrested outside the event. Trump has been mired in controversy after asserting that the federal judge presiding over a lawsuit against him is biased because he is “Mexican”. The comments have been called racist by many in his own party, including House speaker Paul Ryan and led to Illinois senator Mark Kirk withdrawing his endorsement of his party’s nominee. While Trump has been trying downplay his comments, saying earlier on Friday “freedom of any kind means no one should be judged by their race or their color or the color of their skin”, he reopened the controversy by repeatedly calling Warren “Pocahontas” in an attempt to insult her for saying that she has Native American heritage. The epithet was accompanied by Indian war whoops from the crowd. Several minutes afterwards, Trump then insisted he was “the least racist person”. The event, the first rally that he has held since the primary campaign ended, was textbook Trump. He spent the first five minutes bragging about his vineyard in the Old Dominion and then went on to deliver a meandering account of his win in the Republican presidential primary. It featured a long detour about his relationship with legendary Indiana basketball coach Bobby Knight as well as his pledge to have a “winners’ evening” at the Republican National Convention filled with star athletes like Tom Brady and Ben Roethlisberger. Trump, who has vocally tried to appeal to Bernie Sanders supporters, probably set his efforts back by referring to the Vermont senator yet again as “Crazy Bernie”. He also yet again expressed his confidence that he can win California in a general election, relating a conversation with an unnamed friend who told him “every liberal in Los Angeles will vote for you”. The presumptive Republican nominee also returned to familiar themes with his pledge to build a wall on the Mexican border, a topic which went unmentioned in his Tuesday night victory speech after winning the last five Republican presidential primaries. Trump said of his signature initiative: “It’s going to be a very beautiful wall, as beautiful as a wall can be.” It marked a contrast from a more restrained Trump, speaking jerkily from a teleprompter at the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s annual summit in Washington earlier in the day. There, Trump tried to appeal to a conservative bloc of voters who have looked skeptically at the New York billionaire. Trump insisted “we will protect and defend Christian Americans” and boasted about how, in the Republican presidential primary, he won with evangelicals and “religion, generally speaking”. Trump hit key talking points, saying “we want to uphold the sanctity and dignity of life” and asserted “marriage and family is the building block of happiness and success”. He also emphasized the current vacancy on the supreme court, arguing Clinton will “appoint radical judges who will legislate from the bench and the will of the people will mean nothing”. It was a brief moment where Trump sounded like a traditional presidential candidate rather than the brash bombastic insurgent who has become the Republican presidential nominee. It didn’t last. After all, why be pro-life when you can be anti-Pocahontas?
Jamie Vardy scores to help Leicester beat Stoke and reclaim top spot Claudio Ranieri has likened Leicester City’s pursuit of the Premier League title to a horse race and said he was prepared to “whip them” in March and take a bit of advice from Sir Alex Ferguson. On this evidence there will be no need for the Italian to get off his saddle, or call Ferguson for that matter, as Leicester, playing like thoroughbreds, returned to the top of the table. Perhaps more significantly, they have opened up a 10-point lead over fifth-placed Manchester United with 15 games remaining. Without wishing to put any extra pressure on Ranieri and his players, it is starting to look as though it would take a Devon Loch-style collapse for Leicester to miss out on a place in the top four. While it is true that Leicester have some particularly tricky fixtures coming up, starting with an unpredictable Liverpool side at home on Tuesday week and followed by back-to-back trips to Manchester City and Arsenal, the run-in looks much more benign once those games have been negotiated. This turned into a vintage Leicester performance, one of those days when everything went right for them on an afternoon that finished with their supporters singing: “We’re gonna win the league”. It was only the second game that Leicester have won since beating Chelsea in the middle of December, the first time that Jamie Vardy has scored in eight matches and Riyad Mahrez also looked much like his old self. Three big boxes were ticked in that respect. Danny Drinkwater also deserves more than a passing mention. An unsung hero in this Leicester team, the former Manchester United midfielder opened the scoring with his first Premier League goal and also played the through ball that released Vardy for their second. By that point Stoke were as good as raising the white flag and when Leonardo Ulloa slid in Leicester’s third, following a lovely piece of skill from Mahrez, their misery was complete. It was certainly not much of a way for Mark Hughes to celebrate his 500th game in management and tempting, given how poorly the visitors performed, to think that Stoke’s players had one eye on Tuesday’s Capital One Cup semi-final second leg against Liverpool. Hughes hopes that Ryan Shawcross, who limped out of this game in the first half with a back problem, could be fit to play at Anfield and also backed his players to bounce back. Ranieri, in contrast, is able to switch off for a few days and has encouraged his players to put their feet up while he goes back to Italy. “It was very important to be top of the Premier League at the end of January because now comes a very tough February, with Liverpool, Arsenal and Manchester City to come,” the Leicester manager said. “It is unbelievable but it is good. We are ready to fight. Now the players will have three days off so they can clear their minds and then they will come back and we start to work hard again. This league for us is very exciting.” So much about Leicester’s display gave Ranieri pleasure, including Drinkwater’s goal. He has been encouraging the 25-year-old to shoot more often and that advice paid off three minutes before half time. Philipp Wollscheid only half cleared Marc Albrighton’s corner and Drinkwater, loitering on the edge of the area, drilled a 20-yard shot that took a deflection off Marc Wilson, Shawcross’s replacement, before beating Jack Butland. Although Joselu’s free header from a Glen Johnson cross finally forced Kasper Schmeichel into a save in the 61st minute, that was pretty much Stoke’s only attempt on goal. Shortly after that chance Leicester doubled their lead when Vardy, running on to Drinkwater’s lofted pass, skipped around Butland and tapped into an empty net from an acute angle. With Mahrez becoming more and more influential, Leicester were starting to enjoy themselves and added a third three minutes from time. Ulloa flicked on Schmeichel’s punt upfield and Vardy, gambling on the Argentinian winning that header, chased the ball into the inside right channel before picking out Mahrez. After a lovely nutmeg of Wollscheid, Mahrez was able to tee up Ulloa and Leicester were rampant. Hughes had long seen enough. “It wasn’t a great day for us. We didn’t produce anything of note, to be honest,” the Stoke manager said. “From our point of view we’re looking to bounce back quickly. We’ve got a huge game on Tuesday and I back my team to respond.”
Government policy offers UK universities’ competitors a rosy future Prior to email, how did you get in touch with a colleague at another university? You phoned the general switchboard and the operator would put you through. Typically this would involve several return trips while a misheard name was corrected through a process of elimination. A direct line was, at that time, simply out of the question, owing to the national phone number shortage. You may think I’m making this up but I’m not. When you moved house you often had to wait months for a phone number to become available. On one memorable occasion I called a university in a modest-sized town to be greeted with: “The university”. As I was making numerous calls that day, this gave me less reassurance than I sought. Yet I was, and remain, very struck by the response. This was clearly someone who, for much of the day, answered the phone to students wanting to know the time of a lecture or to ask for an essay extension, or to a friendly local trader following up an invoice. It was not a voice expecting, say, an offer of an exciting new opportunity, not that this was what was on my mind either. The mix of local civic pride and narrow horizons left a deep impression on me. And it is an impression that has returned in post-referendum, immigration-control Britain. Having done so much to build up the international standing of the UK’s universities, are we on a tipping point to proud insularity yet inevitable decline? Take, for example, the government’s intention to reduce the number of visas for overseas students. This, alone, is virtually guaranteed to lead to a fall in the UK’s standing in at least those of the international league tables for which the proportion of international students is one of the factors taken into account. Rankings, though, matter much less than reality. Consider staff recruitment. Whether or not there are formal restrictions, the changing atmosphere will not be good for attracting the international staff that characterise highly successful departments. Universities often talk about bringing in the “world’s best” but that can’t really be the aim. After all, there are not enough of the very best to go round. What we need is to bring in staff who are both excellent and rather different from what we already have, to refresh the gene pool and protect against complacency. At the moment we reap the benefit of having one of the most open academic job markets in the world. Internationalisation of UK universities over the past few decades has been staggering, especially at postgraduate student level. To give a sense of the proportions, in 2014-15, 71% of full-time master’s level students and more than half of PhD students came from overseas. This now makes it impossible to sustain our present university system on the basis of demand from home students alone. Falling demand will mean course closures, and perhaps even the closure of universities, most likely in those parts of the country that can least afford it, where the university is a major employer. And if the overseas students cannot come to the UK, where will they go? Well, as they tell you at business school, today’s customer is tomorrow’s competition. Universities around the world, especially in the EU, have significant numbers of staff who were educated in the UK, and are fully capable of providing an innovative curriculum in English. In time UK universities would have felt this pressure in any case, but government policy promises our competitors a rosy future. The apparent silver lining, I suppose, is that slackening of demand will make it easier for the rising generation of UK students to get the place of their choice. The cloud, though, is that when they get there, they will find even the best universities to be less interesting, diverse and dynamic places than they may have been expecting.
Arsenal: Arsène Wenger spends – but only on time in his own defence Amid the fallout from that chastening home defeat to Liverpool in their opening game of the season, when Arsenal’s fragile and callow defence was brutally exposed, came the accusation that Laurent Koscielny should have stepped forward and bailed Arsène Wenger out. The Arsenal manager was also criticised for not telling Koscielny that, with only two young centre-backs at his disposal, it was a case of needs must. Whatever the rights and wrongs of that decision – and Wenger said he has questioned whether he should have taken a gamble – Koscielny proved he was willing to put his body on the line six days later, when he declared himself fit to play against Leicester despite pulling out of training 24 hours before the game with a back problem. Koscielny’s injury was just about the last thing Wenger needed and prompted the Arsenal manager to travel to Leicester with an extra player – Krystian Bielik, an 18-year-old Polish centre-back – in case the France international failed to make it and another place needed to be filled on the substitutes’ bench. The doomsday scenario of Calum Chambers once again partnering Rob Holding at centre-half was avoided when Koscielny agreed to start, and the significance of that decision was not lost on Wenger, who admitted Arsenal would have been staring at back‑to‑back defeats without the 30-year-old’s calming presence at the heart of defence. “We look a different team straight away and he gave us stability,” he said as he reflected on the decision to play Koscielny. “I saw that we were a bit too young and I have no real solution at central defence at the moment, and in fairness he had a big back problem – on Friday he came out of training. We came with 19 players and on the morning of the game we decided that he could play and I think it saved us this point.” Many Arsenal fans will feel the outcome could have been different against Liverpool if Koscielny had been thrust into the XI. Others will question why Wenger did not recruit a top-class central defender – something that was arguably needed before Per Mertesacker and Gabriel Paulista picked up long-term injuries – and hope he addresses that area before the window closes, whether that means signing Valencia’s Shkodran Mustafi or someone else. Wenger, clearly annoyed that a familiar debate was being aired, claimed that identifying the right player, rather than a reluctance to reach for the cheque book, is the reason for the lack of transfer activity at Arsenal. As for the argument about Koscielny and the Liverpool match, Wenger gave the impression he has wrestled with whether he made the right call, yet ultimately feels that he had little option. “I think, should I have taken a gamble or not? But because we lost already two defenders, if I lost another one for two or three months we have a massive problem. He [Koscielny] was not ready. He had only four days training [before Liverpool] and it is too short after having four weeks off. I think he was very brave today.” Holding, making his second Premier League appearance, played well alongside Koscielny and it was a source of frustration to Wenger that the post‑match questions centred on how the manager will placate the travelling Arsenal supporters who urged him to “spend some money”, rather than focusing on the performance of a 20-year-old Englishman. Yet Wenger, who has allowed Joel Campbell to join Sporting Lisbon on a season-long loan, knows how the industry works and there is no escaping the fans’ unrest among Arsenal fans. On another day the contribution of Alexis Sánchez might have come under greater scrutiny. Deployed as a centre-forward in the absence of Olivier Giroud, who Wenger said will be up to full speed after the international break, Sánchez looked like a square peg in a round hole. Wenger said last week that the Chilean “did not have the most convincing game” as a striker against Liverpool and, on the back of another wholly ineffective display up front, it seems likely we have seen the last of this experiment. Quite what the solution is without Giroud in the team is unclear, other than possibly playing Theo Walcott in the role that Wenger hoped Jamie Vardy would fill when he pursued the Leicester striker in the summer. But there is no escaping the fact that Arsenal are short in that department and, once again, the question is whether Wenger will put that right in the coming weeks.
Conspiracy Files: The Trump Dossier review – a film about the power of cynicism Last night two documentaries each made a particle contribution to a conclusive explanation of precisely what the hell is going wrong in the land of my birth these days. The first, Conspiracy Files: The Trump Dossier (BBC2), set out to explore some of the conspiracy theories Donald Trump has deployed over the course of his campaign. One could argue that in these dark times we have great need for programming dedicated to debunking conspiracy theories, but nobody who believes the moon landings were faked is going to be swayed by anything as straightforward as evidence. Conspiracy Files went one better – shedding light on the motivations of the theorists themselves. Somewhere behind all the paranoiacs and numbskulls are a group of people – for lack of a better term, let’s call them bad guys – who propound and promulgate conspiracy theories for their own ends. People for whom facts are an inconvenience. People like Donald Trump. Trump rose to political prominence as a leading light of the birther movement, a long and thoroughly disreputable campaign to de-legitimise America’s first black president by insinuating that Barack Obama wasn’t born in the US. Though he had nothing to add to the theory beyond publicity, he stubbornly maintained its validity until it stopped helping him, at which point he unceremoniously abandoned it. One wonders how such disloyalty is viewed by hardcore birthers. Moldovan dentist Orly Taitz thinks Obama’s birth certificate is an anachronistic forgery, because it lists Obama’s father as “African” instead of “Negro”. She seems to view this as a cover-up undone by political correctness gone mad. “This is so bad, it’s like it’s done by a retarded five-year-old,” she says. You hear this a lot in conspiracy theorist circles: the people who secretly perpetrated the biggest fraud in history are total morons. Later on, a handwriting expert who claims a suicide note written by Vince Foster (the Clinton associate who killed himself in 1993) was fake derided it as “amateurish, sloppy; I’ve seen better by kids”. Throughout his campaign, Trump has been aided, directly or indirectly, by people who have, at best, a tangential relationship to the truth. There is Trump adviser and former Nixon dirty trickster Roger Stone, for whom “History is a set of lies agreed upon” is a motto. There’s the National Enquirer editor who, faced with one of his own headlines, says, “‘Ted Cruz’s Father Linked to JFK Assassination’ – what’s wrong with that?” This wasn’t really a documentary about the triumph of paranoia and fear, but of cynicism. We’ll have to wait until Tuesday to see if it has taken charge. If you did fancy a documentary about the triumph of paranoia and fear, The Gun Shop: Cutting Edge (Channel 4) fits the bill. It was, if anything, an even more disheartening look at the present state of American affairs. Focusing on the staff and customers of a single premises in Battle Creek, Michigan, The Gun Shop was almost entirely populated by people who believe the solution to America’s gun epidemic is way more guns. Freedom Firearms sells weapons, operates a shooting range and offers tuition. The proprietor tracks the popularity of guns by “how many people take part in my concealed carry class”. Here he schools people in the “21 foot rule”: apparently if someone within that range fancies stabbing you, you won’t be able to draw your gun in time to save yourself. “So don’t let people get too close,” he says. His clientele were all nice people who just happened to share a worldview that was irrational, fearful and bolstered by wrongheaded slogans (“An armed society is a polite society”). Folks really do respond to news of gun crime by going straight out to purchase a gun. Single mum Courtney bought a handgun because “my social media has just blown up with all the craziness that’s going on in the world”. Then she taught her nine-year-old son to use it. In the midst of this chilling portrait of everyday gun-shopping, I thought I detected some reasons to be faintly hopeful: nobody seemed consumed by hate; everybody seemed to take the responsibility of gun-ownership seriously, even if they didn’t seem to give much consideration to the idea of killing another human being; there wasn’t much in the way of right-to-bear-arms pontificating. But I gave in to despair as the shop owner walked staff through an armed robbery scenario. He wasn’t so worried about the 21ft rule. “I’ve got other employees who’re gonna smoke him,” he said. “He’s gonna be in a circular firing squad.” The notion of a circular firing squad is about as apt a metaphor for the US’s relationship with guns as I’ve heard, and it’s not remotely encouraging.
West of Eden: An American Place by Jean Stein review – snakes in the Hollywood hills When John Steinbeck relocated the story of our expulsion from paradise to California, he called his novel East of Eden. Jean Stein’s moral compass points the other way, but her oral history of Hollywood – a saga, like Steinbeck’s version of Genesis, about family squabbles and sins passed down, along with money, from one generation to the next – is also set outside the happy, innocent garden. The Pacific sunset on the cover of Stein’s book looks hellish, and the Hollywood sign, seen from behind, might be starting to spell the word “hollow”. Southern California has its own myth of origins, which is less about tending God’s earth than redesigning or ravaging it to extract wealth. Stein’s assembled witnesses therefore begin by recalling two predatory capitalists, the “twisted godfathers” of Los Angeles. William Mulholland irrigated the desert by stealing water from neighbouring states, and Edward Doheny planted derricks to suck up oil on vacant lots all over the city. Doheny’s fortune placed him above the law – a bribery scandal was hushed up, as were the suspicious deaths of his son and a male friend – although he remained afraid of infernal retribution: a Catholic church built with his donations was nicknamed “Doheny’s fire escape”. This piratical tycoon was gruesomely reincarnated by Daniel Day-Lewis in Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood and, true to that biblical prophecy, there is gore aplenty in the tales of dynastic might and hereditary guilt that Stein goes on to tell. One anecdote concerns a deranged heiress who appeared with blood dripping between her feet. “Holy shit,” gasped her minder, “she’s jammed something up her vagina.” No, she had merely jabbed an ice pick through her wrist and watched it emerge from the other side. One of the Hollywood star Jennifer Jones’s sons, fathered by the actor Robert Walker, shot himself in a closet above his marital bedroom, ensuring that his blood oozed down on to the sheets. Across town, a daughter born during Jones’s later marriage to the ketchup magnate Norton Simon hurled herself off a skyscraper. Her psychiatrist, sent to reclaim the body, was told by a gruff morgue attendant, “Lady, wake up, she fell 22 storeys. How much do you think we have?” The families examined here are as dysfunctional as Adam and Eve, who after their eviction from Eden, begot the first murderer. Stein’s ditzy mother was usually to be found, when not in the cocktail lounge at the Beverly Hills hotel, “in her mirrored bathroom, which was a bad replica of the hall of Versailles”. Among her drinking chums was the multiply married mother of Gore Vidal, who neatly sums up life in the baronial mausolea these monsters built for their broods. “She was one of the most horrible people that ever lived,” Vidal says of his unmaternal mum. “All I wanted to do was murder her, and I never got around to it.” At least Cain only killed his brother; Vidal wishfully cast himself in a Greek version of the family romance, and mentally rehearsed the role of Orestes slaughtering Clytemnestra. Stein’s subtitle describes Hollywood as “an American place”, but it is populated by Americans who envied and mimicked the worst of Europe, recreating the iniquities and inequalities that the pilgrim fathers wanted to leave behind. The studio boss Jack Warner, whose “vanity and gross vulgarity” Arthur Miller decries, is treated by his underlings “like he was the king of England”. Monarchical pomp often tips over into homegrown fascism. Warner favoured rounding up American commies and shipping them to Russia. His brother Harry advised President Roosevelt that refugees from Hitler could be accommodated in Alaska, a somewhat frostier Palestine. “Let the Jews settle there,” he shrugged, “they can adapt to any kind of weather.” Why are we surprised by Donald Trump’s embargo on migrant Muslims, or his plan for a fortified wall along the Rio Grande? Eventually Stein lays bare her personal history. Her father, Jules Stein, founded the monopolistic talent agency MCA, and discreetly relied on mobsters with crooked noses to run interference; he and his partner, Lew Wasserman – a “yeller” whose angry rants caused an underling to suffer a heart attack – finessed Ronald Reagan’s transition from showbiz to politics. Her parents expected Jean to purify the clan’s pedigree and launder its crassly gotten gains by marrying a European prince. Instead she settled down with the son of an immigrant worker in a New York mustard factory, and has diverted her inheritance to support arty, liberal causes on the east coast. She took over the literary magazine Grand Street in 1990, and her daughter Katrina vanden Heuvel edits The Nation, a self-proclaimed “antidote to Murdochisation”. As it happens, that’s an ironically futile mission statement, because Rupert Murdoch now owns Jules Stein’s estate in the Hollywood hills. Having bought the house and contents wholesale, Murdoch displays the Stein family’s photographs as though to suggest – providing you don’t look too closely – he himself were a descendant of the old-time moguls. Outdoors, ground staff conscientiously keep up the pastoral pretence: every three weeks they plant a fresh crop of flowers, only to grub them out and replant others. But this small eden is under siege. Murdoch’s security guards are armed, in preparation for “hordes coming up the mountain, like the pillagers in Frankenstein”. Mountain lions snarl at the fences, and an irate owl recently gutted the patio chairs with its beak. Rattlesnakes wriggle through the shrubbery, to the delight of the Mexican workers, who take them home for dinner. Hollywood, like the America on whose western edge it lies, is an imaginary garden with real reptiles in it. West of Eden is published by Jonathan Cape (£20). Click here to buy it for £16
Premier League clubs should cap away ticket prices at £10, says Tony Pulis Tony Pulis has called for Premier League clubs to cap away ticket prices at £10, and urged the industry to stop “milking” supporters. The West Bromwich Albion manager, reacting to news that Liverpool have responded to protests by lowering their prices, told the BBC English football must act to restore the atmosphere in grounds, and to avoid pricing out young fans. “With all the money coming in, I’d love to see that atmosphere come back,” said Pulis. “I’d love away supporters to only pay £10 a ticket: whatever ground you go to, make it £10. “You can give 5-6,000 tickets to the away support, they’d sell them and we’d get back to the atmospheres we used to have. That’s one thing the Germans have got over us at the moment: every ground you go to the atmosphere is absolutely fantastic. It’ll help the supporters as well. “Clubs are getting enough money to subsidise and help the public. We’ve got to do more for the youngsters, to keep the youngsters involved. This is the greatest football nation in the world, we produce great players because of our systems, the way we work, the way we are – but we’ve got to make sure we’re not milking, milking and milking. We’ve got to give something back.” Liverpool’s owner, Fenway Sports Group, performed the U-turn on its planned ticket price rises on Wednesday, issuing a public apology to supporters who felt compelled to walk out of their game against Sunderland. The compromise that the manager, Jürgen Klopp, had called for resulted in general admission prices being frozen at 2015-16 levels for the next two seasons, and the number of £9 tickets being increased. An estimated 10,000 fans left Anfield in the 77th minute of last Saturday’s match amid chants of “You greedy bastards, enough is enough”. It prompted swift discussions between the Boston-based owner and senior management, leading the club to abandon the most contentious features of the new ticket-price structure. Reacting to the rethink, the former Liverpool defender Jamie Carragher said it had restored his faith in the club. Carragher wrote in the Daily Mail: “Pride: it’s the one thing we all want as supporters. Put results and performances to one side and what truly matters is having faith in the club you follow. “Rarely in life do you find people who will admit they have got something wrong, so it was bold of FSG to hold their hands up and apologise. “My hope now is that Liverpool have created another snowball, one that takes in the rest of the Premier League. What an advert it would be if there was now a unanimous decision among all clubs to review ticket prices. Then we would all have reason to feel proud.”
Up to four people treated for Zika virus in Northern Ireland Up to four people have been treated for the Zika virus in Northern Ireland. The Public Health Agency (PHA) confirmed to the BBC that fewer than five patients were infected with Zika, with one being treated last week. The virus is spread by bites from the Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus species of mosquito, but it can also spread through sexual intercourse. It is not clear where the cases in Northern Ireland originated. The World Health Organisation has described the Zika virus as a global health emergency. The mosquitoes carrying the virus are common in South America, Africa and Asia. Zika is linked to thousands of babies born with underdeveloped brains. There have been 117 confirmed cases of the Zika virus in the UK over the past 12 months. A PHA spokesperson said there was no specific treatment for Zika, other than hydrating patients with the symptoms. The agency said it was not its policy to give out the exact number of diagnosed Zika cases, because the figure was fewer than five and doing so could identify those affected.
Bob Diamond could face grilling by shareholders over Barclays Africa bid Bob Diamond is expected to face questions on Tuesday about his ambitions to mount an offer for the African arm of Barclays, the bank he used to run until 2012. The former Barclays chief executive, who was forced out of the bank in the wake of the Libor rigging crisis, is expected to address shareholders in his existing banking venture in Africa, Atlas Mara, when it publishes its results on Tuesday. Diamond has secured backing from the private equity firm Carlyle to help table an offer for Barclays’ African operation. The business is expected to fetch about $5bn (£3.5bn). The American banker is said to be aiming to mount an offer through his New York-based investment vehicle Atlas Merchant Capital, rather than Atlas Mara, which is listed on the London stock market. Barclays is understood to have some contact with Diamond about his ambitions, which would also likely require him to link up with other investors. Among those reported to be likely backers are Ashish Thakkar, founder of the Mara conglomerate – which has operations in varied business lines across Africa – and Diamond’s partner in Atlas Mara. This would raise questions about the relationship with Atlas Mara, which has a stock market value of about £250m and is worth a third of what it was when it was floated in December 2013, and whether it could be subsumed into the bigger operation. The day-to-day operations of Atlas Mara are run by John Vitalo, who is a former senior executive at Barclays Africa. He is likely to end up with a key role in any enlarged business. Barclays will ask its shareholders for approval to proceed with the sale of the African business in a meeting that is being convened immediately after its annual general meeting on Thursday. In the circular to shareholders to explain why it wanted to sell Barclays Africa it said the “current intention of the board is to retain a meaningful stake”. The chief executive of Barclays, Jes Staley, surprised the City by announcing last month that he wanted to scale back in Africa and reduce the 62.3% stake the bank owns in Barclays Africa Group Limited, which is listed on the Johannesburg stock market. The African operation is a complexly structured business with stakes in a number of banks, including Absa, the South African bank Barclays bought a stake in 10 years ago. Barclays is due to publish its first quarter results on Wednesday, the day before the AGM. Barclays, Atlas Mara and Atlas Merchant Capital declined to comment.
Carrie Fisher dies at 60: actor and acclaimed writer best known as Princess Leia Carrie Fisher, the actor best known for her portrayal of Princess Leia in the Star Wars films and her unflinching self-honesty that contrasted with the artifice of Hollywood celebrity, has died in Los Angeles. She was 60 years old. Her death came days after she was reported to have suffered a heart attack on a flight from London to Los Angeles last Friday. The news was confirmed in a statement released on behalf of her daughter, Billie Lourd, who said Fisher was “loved by the world” and “will be profoundly missed”. Fisher’s career was characterized by her willingness to acknowledge, challenge and satirize the stereotypes of her upbringing and privilege. As the daughter of two Hollywood stars, Debbie Reynolds and the late singer Eddie Fisher, she brought awareness and humor to her work, whether in film or in numerous books that tracked and reviewed her fortunes in life – or what she herself had termed “what it’s like to live an all-too-exciting life”. Paying tribute to her daughter, her mother described her as “amazing”. Reynolds, 84, wrote on Facebook: “Thank you to everyone who has embraced the gifts and talents of my beloved and amazing daughter. I am grateful for your thoughts and prayers that are now guiding her to her next stop. Love Carries Mother”. Fisher’s Star Wars co-star Harrison Ford, 74, said in a statement: “Carrie was one-of-a-kind ... brilliant, original. Funny and emotionally fearless. She lived her life, bravely. My thoughts are with her daughter Billie, her mother Debbie, her brother Todd and her many friends. We will all miss her.” Among the first to react to her death was Mark Hamill, who starred as Luke Skywalker alongside Fisher in the Star Wars films. He tweeted “no words #Devastated” and a photograph of them together in character. Earlier, announcing Fisher’s death in Los Angeles, Billie Lourd’s publicist said: “It is with a very deep sadness that Billie Lourd confirms that her beloved mother Carrie Fisher passed away at 8.55 this morning. She was loved by the world and she will be missed profoundly. Our entire family thanks you for your thoughts and prayers.” She had experienced medical trouble during a flight from London on Friday and was treated by paramedics immediately after the plane landed in Los Angeles, according to reports. The celebrity website TMZ, which first reported Fisher was unwell, had cited anonymous sources claiming the actor suffered a heart attack. Todd Fisher, her brother, said over the weekend that many details about her condition or what caused the medical emergency were unknown. “We have to wait and be patient,” he said. “We have so little information ourselves.” Fisher had shot to stardom in 1977 upon the release of the original Star Wars, a movie that changed Hollywood and a franchise that continues to captivate new audiences around the world. She revisited the role as the leader of a galactic rebellion in sequels, including last year’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Fisher was also celebrated for her comedic accounts, sometimes semi-fictionalized, of life in the celebrity fishbowl of Hollywood and her personal struggles. Her screenplay Postcards from the Edge, which dealt candidly with issues of mental health and addiction, was adapted into a 1990 film starring Shirley MacLaine and Meryl Streep. More books followed, including Delusions of Grandma, Surrender the Pink, The Best Awful, Shockaholic and this year’s autobiography, The Princess Diarist. Earlier this year, Fisher was honored by an association at Harvard, which awarded her its annual outstanding lifetime achievement award in cultural humanism in recognition of her “bravely honest” literary career. Ever ready to satirize herself, she has even played “Carrie Fisher” a few times, as in David Cronenberg’s dark Hollywood sendup Maps to the Stars and in an episode of Sex and the City. In the past 15 years, Fisher also had a somewhat prolific career as a television guest star, recently in the Amazon show Catastrophe, as the mother of Rob Delaney’s lead, and perhaps most memorably as a has-been comedy legend on 30 Rock. Her one-woman show, Wishful Drinking, which she performed on and off across the country beginning in 2006, was turned into a book, made its way to Broadway in 2009 and was captured for HBO in 2010. Little was off-limits in the show. She discussed the scandal that engulfed her superstar parents (her father ran off with film star Elizabeth Taylor); her brief marriage to the singer Paul Simon; the time the father of her daughter left her for a man; and the day she woke up next to the dead body of a platonic friend who had overdosed in her bed. “I’m a product of Hollywood inbreeding. When two celebrities mate, something like me is the result,” she said in the show. At another point, she cracked: “I don’t have a problem with drugs so much as I have a problem with sobriety. “People relate to aspects of my stories, and that’s nice for me because then I’m not all alone with it,” she said. “Also, I do believe you’re only as sick as your secrets. If that’s true, I’m just really healthy.” Fisher’s own romantic life was characterized by drama. Her marriage to Simon in the early 80s ended after 11 months. She later married the Hollywood agent Bryan Lourd. They had a daughter, Billie. That union ended with Lourd leaving Fisher for a man. “I turn people gay. That’s what I do. It is an unusual superpower,” she told the Baltimore Sun in 2012. Her latest book, The Princess Diarist, was well-received, and made news when she disclosed that she and Ford had had an affair on the set of Star Wars. She told People magazine: “It was Han and Leia during the week, and Carrie and Harrison during the weekend.” Fisher had bipolar disorder for which she received electroshock therapy. She chain-smoked, confessed to a love of LSD and her compulsions led to addictions to cocaine and painkillers. Fisher had also recently started writing an advice column published in the . One reader wrote to her seeking advice for dealing with bipolar disorder. Fisher commended the reader for asking for help and said: “You reached out to me – that took courage. Now build on that.” Fisher was born in Beverly Hills, California, in 1956, to her Hollywood royalty parents. When Fisher was two years old, her father left the family for Taylor, the widow of her father’s best friend, Mike Todd. The following year, her mother married Harry Karl, owner of a shoe store chain. Fisher made her film debut in the 1975 comedy Shampoo, starring Warren Beatty, Julie Christie and Goldie Hawn. Two years later she was picked to play Princess Leia in Star Wars. Other roles followed, but none came close to matching the attention she received for the sci-fi series. Additional reporting by the Associated Press
Theresa May’s holiday is almost over. She must now define herself In high politics mystery is an asset subject to the law of diminishing returns. As Theresa May’s holiday draws to a close, she contemplates a groaning in-tray, and the more numinous challenge of defining herself more fully to the country she now leads. Future historians will study her stealthy ascent to the premiership as a masterclass in the power of discreet efficiency. Even as home secretary, occupying one of the great offices of state, she shunned theatricality, rarely strayed outside her policy portfolio, and spent much less time than her colleagues cultivating the media. Instead, her strategy was to let the boys fight it out among themselves in a murderous version of the Eton wall game, and then to step over their political corpses and into No 10. That strategy was perfectly suited to the collective psychosis of the EU referendum and its aftermath. As the farce of fragmenting leadership campaigns descended into Shakespearean tragedy, May seemed to glide into Downing Street, frictionless and unopposed. At the very start her composure and poise were sufficient – a signal that the government was in the hands of a grown-up. Now she needs to introduce herself more fully to the public, unveiling the pith behind the “one-nation” slogans and the type of society she aspires to nurture. Naturally, her team is focused on her speech at the Conservative party conference in Birmingham. But that is some way in the future. The challenge of self-definition cannot wait until October, or the autumn statement later in the year. Like Gordon Brown, May is not the sort of politician to whom public introspection comes easily. Nor does she share David Cameron’s inclination to declare himself up to date with digital fads like Angry Birds, or smash-hit television dramas like Game of Thrones. By her deeds shall ye know her. She will use the brush of strategy and policy to fill in the blanks of her political self-portrait. Looming over all else, of course, is Brexit and the form its enactment takes. Already there has been an unseemly turf war between Liam Fox, the international trade secretary, and Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary, over the international commercial function of HMG. Fox’s land grab was thwarted by Johnson, whose officials are well-used to departmental jealousy. The PM let it be known that she was “distinctly unimpressed” by the squabble. What she cannot be is surprised. Having appointed Fox to his new role and David Davis to be Brexit secretary, May was setting the scene for a three-way battle for control of Britain’s departure from the EU. As if to dramatise the struggle, she has asked Johnson, Fox and Davis to share Chevening, the grace-and-favour country house that is generally allocated to the foreign secretary (William Hague spent many happy hours in its fabulous library). In practice it should be Davis, reporting to the PM, who calls the shots. Small wonder that he is reluctant to move out of the Brexit unit’s current home at 9 Downing Street – though he accepts that 250 or so of his civil servants will have to find accommodation elsewhere in Whitehall. Daily proximity to the centre of power is a huge asset in the Westminster jungle and one he will not easily surrender. May and Davis are an unlikely duo, and his appointment suggests that this PM is more imaginative and flexible in her approach to team-building than might have been supposed. They have, so to speak, history: she replaced him as party chairman in July 2002, after Iain Duncan Smith sacked him while he was abroad. More recently Davis, as the leading civil libertarian or Runnymede Tory on the backbenches, was a thorn in her side at the Home Office, constantly challenging her anti-terror and surveillance measures. Indeed, Davis almost missed his own appointment to the cabinet. On the day itself, 13 July, he was ensconced in the Commons, debating the Chilcot inquiry, and turned his phone off. Later, over a drink with his former chief of staff, Renate Samson, he became aware that something was going on – and turned his phone back on to discover a series of ever more frantic messages urging him to call the Downing Street switchboard. As secretary of state for exiting the European Union, Davis has developed a strategy that is sensibly cautious and resists the demands of IDS and others for a hasty departure. According to Davis’s timetable, there must first be six months of detailed research and stress-testing, with particular attention paid to the likely impact of Brexit upon the service economy. He faces institutional hostility in both houses of parliament, and is basing his calculations upon the assumption that our soon- to-be former EU partners do not want a trade war. It is a daunting challenge that will require all his streetfighting and cerebral nous. Those who know May tell me that she wants to be remembered as more than the steersman of Brexit, important though that is. She has already signalled a belief in an industrial strategy more comprehensive than, say, George Osborne’s championship of the “northern powerhouse”. Greg Clark, the business and energy secretary, told theSunday Times today that the success of Team GB in Rio should be an inspiration for “a long-term strategy for our industrial and commercial future. Recognising our strengths – from science to the creative industries – and making sure they are nurtured and encouraged.” What precisely does this mean? Subsidising successful sectors of the economy at the public expense, just as lottery cash has been pumped into sports that reach their medal targets? Or something else? The answer, I suspect, lies at the heart of May-ism, if there is such a thing. Of the new cabinet committees she has established, attention is drawn by her allies to the social reform group and its centrality to her thinking. In her first statement as prime minister, she promised to fight the “burning injustice” of poverty, racism, and gender inequality and to alleviate the struggle of families that are “just managing”. No Tory leader has ever expressed such fundamental ambitions to reconfigure society. No Conservative moderniser has marched so boldly into the terrain vacated by Labour as it busies itself with a carnival of cannibalism. The May era begins in earnest this week. It is much too early to say how it will be judged by posterity. Her reach may exceed her grasp. But those who dismiss this prime minister as a dull technocrat are in for a big surprise. She is not afraid to dream.
David Cameron and Sadiq Khan plan pro-EU joint appearance David Cameron is to appear alongside the new Labour mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, at the launch of a Britain Stronger in Europe battlebus on Monday, in an unusual act of reconciliation intended to underline the strong cross-party support for remain. The two men will also launch a five-point remain pledge card highlighting benefits from EU membership that they say will be protected if Britain votes to remain in the EU. Khan was elected despite Cameron repeatedly using prime minister’s questions to highlight Tory claims that he was too close to extremists – tactics widely condemned by senior Conservatives as unpleasant, counterproductive and racially offensive. But on Sunday, Khan said this would not stop him from appearing alongside the Conservative leader because making the case for continuing EU membership was so important. Speaking on ITV’s Peston on Sunday, Khan said: “Is it in London’s interest for me to hold grudges? Is it in London’s interests for the mayor of London to be at permanent war with the Conservative prime minister? “We’re never going to be best friends, but what is important is that the mayor of London argues the case for London and for Londoners to remain in the European Union. This debate is far more important than David Cameron or me. It’s about our city’s future and country’s future.” Cameron and Khan will unveil a pledge card that will be be distributed around the country in the name of Britain Stronger in Europe, which lists five things that will be guaranteed in the event of Britain voting to remain in the EU. The five promises are: full access to the EU’s single market; workers’ rights protected; keeping the European arrest warrant; a special status for the UK in Europe; and economic stability. Cameron will say: “These guarantees – from safeguarding our economy to protecting our security – show the positive case for remaining inside the EU. Whenever Leave campaigners are asked what Britain will look like outside the EU, all they can say is: ‘we just don’t know’. Cameron has already attended pro-EU campaign events with Harriet Harman, the former Labour deputy leader, and Tessa Jowell, the former Labour culture secretary, but a joint appearance with Khan – arguably the most powerful Labour politician in the UK – is an important coup. Labour supporters are much more inclined to vote to stay than Conservative supporters, and the remain campaign knows it has to mobilise the Labour vote if it wants to win on 23 June. Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader, and Alan Johnson, chair of Labour In for Britain, have ruled out sharing a platform with Cameron, mindful that Labour’s decision to campaign alongside the Tories in the Scottish independence referendum was subsequently cited as one reason why its vote collapsed in the 2015 general election. But Khan, whose links with Corbyn were highlighted prominently in Tory election leaflets during the mayoral campaign, is anxious to differentiate himself from his party leader, and a joint appearance with Cameron will boost his standing as a pluralist willing to work with a range of people in London’s interests. In his Peston interview, Khan was also surprisingly positive about George Osborne, the chancellor, whom he has met since the mayoral election. “[Osborne] understands why it’s in the country’s interests for London to do well,” Khan said. “He cares about devolving power away from Whitehall, and to give him credit he’s given more power to SNP Scotland, more power to Labour Wales, more power to a Labour Greater Manchester, and I believe genuinely he’ll give more power to London as well.” In a separate development on Sunday, Vote Leave claimed that leaving the EU would enable a UK government to tackle the problem posed by wealthy foreign investors buying up London property and leaving it empty. Citing figures highlighted by the showing that almost 100,000 properties in England and Wales are owned by offshore companies, a Vote Leave briefing said European court of justice rulings stop EU member states imposing residence requirements on property ownership on the grounds that this would amount to interference with the principle of free movement of capital. Michael Gove, the pro-Brexit justice secretary, said: “At the moment we are powerless to stop offshore companies buying property in the UK because of EU rules. This drives up the cost of housing, which is fast becoming unaffordable for all but the super-rich. “If we vote leave and take back control we would be able to introduce curbs that would help British families to get on the housing ladder.”
MIA accuses VMAs of 'racism, sexism, classism, elitism' MIA has accused the MTV Video Music Awards of “racism, sexism, classism, elitism” after the video for her single Borders was not included on this year’s nominee list. The self-directed video makes a statement on the refugee crisis, portraying groups of men packed on flotilla boats, while others scale vast border fences topped with barbed wire. The VMA shortlist, announced earlier this week, is dominated by Beyoncé’s Lemonade, an artist MIA condemned this year for not being vocal about issues beyond Black Lives Matter. “Is Beyoncé or Kendrick Lamar going to say Muslim Lives Matter? Or Syrian Lives Matter? Or this kid in Pakistan matters?” she told the Evening Standard in April. Posting a series of messages on Twitter today, the Sri Lankan rapper writes: Her reference to “allowed’ voice v excluded voices” alludes to MIA’s original comments surrounding the Black Lives Matter movement, which eventually led to her being dropped from the bill of London’s Afropunk festival. “After discussing the situation with the artist and the community, a decision was agreed upon by all involved that MIA will no longer headline Afropunk London,” a statement from the festival read last week, after ticketholders threatened to boycott the event. “A key part of the Afropunk ethos has always been educating one another, breaking down boundaries and sparking conversation about race, gender, religion, sex, culture and everything that makes life worth living.”
When Muddy Waters met my Last Waltz I was very happy to read Laura Barton’s lovely piece on the dual 40th anniversaries of The Last Waltz and Jim Szalapski’s Heartworn Highways (G2, 16 September). However, when I came to the paragraphs devoted to my old friend and producer Jonathan Taplin, I could feel my eyebrows furrowing: slightly, but furrowing nonetheless. I owe Jonathan a great deal: if it weren’t for him, I would never have been able to make either Mean Streets or The Last Waltz. Yet, it seems our recollections of the shoot on the latter film differ on one important point. When the time came to plan the production, we had to make some decisions about what and what not to shoot - as Ms Barton points out, we filmed in 35mm (unheard of at the time), which meant that the magazines for every camera had to be changed every 10 minutes and that mechanical failure was likely. So, if some performers were scheduled for one number or two numbers, a choice had to be made. When that great, pounding rhythm on Mannish Boy started up, I certainly did go into a panic. As Jonathan remembers, I didn’t know the song’s alternate title: like a lot of people my age, I was still learning my way through the blues by way of rock and roll. It was indeed fortunate that one of the cameramen kept on shooting, for whatever reason, and doubly fortunate that the cameraman happened to be the great cinematographer László Kovács. Jonathan and I concur on every detail but one. My producers, Jonathan included, guided me in the selection of which songs to shoot. It was decided that we would shoot Caledonia and sacrifice Mannish Boy. Since I knew the second song only as I’m a Man I deferred to their expertise. Forty years later, we can all agree on one crucial, all-important factor: we were blessed to have a rogue cameraman. Martin Scorsese New York • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
It's a great time to be a journalist, says Channel 4's Jon Snow It is the most exciting as well as the most frightening time to be a journalist, says Channel 4 News presenter Jon Snow. Exciting because of the amount of news stories around at present and because of the willingness of enthusiastic young people to report on those events. Frightening because of the threats to journalists who are trying to report from arenas of conflict, notably the Middle East. Snow, in addressing a Policy-UK Forum on the new economics of news on Wednesday, spoke of his optimism about journalism in an age of digital media, but was clearly less enamoured with newspapers. He revealed that the Channel 4’s Facebook page was enjoying “virtually unbelievable” numbers of visitors. “It has received 1.3bn hits since the beginning of the year,” he said. And it has been Syria that has been “the most hit element of what we provide online”. Part of the reason appears to have been the material provided to C4 News by people in Aleppo. Snow said: “They’ve been producing amazing content. It shows that citizen journalists can be authoritative information providers. They exhibit integrity, capability and honesty.” He praised young people who, unlike him, are multi-skilled: “They blog, which means writing, they take pictures, still and video film, and then they edit.... I still can’t edit film myself”. C4 News’s Facebook page is loaded with segments from its TV output, but Snow noted: “There’s no money in it... we’re talking to key elements of online community about how to make it pay... I’m certain we will be attracting investors”. He was scathing about newspapers, referring to them as having a “snooty attitude about being the bastions of truth” when “quite a lot of them, the mass-market ones, are in the business of lies. “They needed to wither away. I’m sorry for people who work there, of course, but I don’t mind them [papers] going. People are looking for quality”. He thought the media, papers and broadcasters, failed in their coverage of the EU referendum debate that led to Brexit because editors did not recognise the motivation of people who felt alienated. They voted to leave, he said, as “a kind of fuck you” to the establishment.
The face of American fascism? Decoding sheriff Joe Arpaio’s anti-bestiality video Is this the face of American fascism? Whiter than white – his hands skeletally pale – and showing all his 83 years, Joe Arpaio, the minority-persecuting sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona, warns the public against yet another enemy in its midst. First it was Barack Obama, who Arpaio insists is not a true-born American. Then it was anyone who looks to his officers like they may potentially be an illegal immigrant. In February he was rebuked by a US district court for ignoring orders to cease his policy of arresting people simply on suspicion of illegal immigration. Here he denounces America’s latest nightmare – not migrants, not even Muslims, but zoophiles. Arpaio is leading a campaign against bestiality, dedicating resources to rounding up people who abuse animals. In this video he presents it with the grimmest severity as a national crisis that he alone has the courage to face. He seems gripped by Jesuitical fury. This is a campaign for the national soul. Arpaio wrings his white hands repeatedly, kneads and unkneads his fingers, as he denounces dog abusers with all the dramatic intensity of senator Joe McCarthy going after communists. Arpaio is seeking re-election, and his self-publicising mission is as brazen as that of his spiritual comrade Donald Trump. Not only did Arpaio endorse Trump in the Arizona primary but there is even speculation that he might become Trump’s running mate in a “nightmare ticket”. Arpaio himself has reflected on their similarity: “He’s somewhat like me. Or I’m like him. I don’t know which way it goes.” In this strange address, it is plain that their affinity is that of two unashamed hucksters. Even as Arpaio adopts the tones of a dedicated public servant warning of a national emergency, a sombre moralist with no thought for anything but the country’s good, behind him are prominently placed copies of his autobiography. The book in which he proudly styles himself “America’s toughest sheriff” and boasts about the “concentration camps” – as he has called them – he has created to expand prison space. This totally unapologetic mixture of authoritarianism and commercialism – if you like this tough policy, buy my book, and vote for me too – is indeed a mirror of Trump’s gleefully transgressive flouting of decencies. Yet Arpaio in this televised address is more like a parody of Trump, revealing the absurd and fictional nature of the demons they pursue and the emergencies they promise to resolve. Arpaio comes on like a president rather than a sheriff, speaking with the grandeur of high office and promoting his anti-bestiality campaign as something that extends far beyond Maricopa County. Well, it would be strange if the phenomenon were uniquely serious there. Yet the surreal nature of this campaign – singling out a particularly marginal group whose actions cannot possibly factor on any realistic scale as a pressing political or social issue – reveals the nothingness of the fear of migrants, too. If he can get this cross about people who love their pets too much, what does that say about the supposed harm illegal immigrants are doing to America? What does it say about Trump’s wall? That’s my cosy liberal opinion. The comments on the Facebook page where this video can be watched tell another story. Arpaio’s fans line up to praise his courage and zeal. More than one of them compares this supposedly empowered group of deviants with the transgender lobby and other contemporary liberal causes. Arpaio, to his followers, is not an absurd posturer. He is exposing yet another symptom of a liberal society gone mad. In his classic work Europe’s Inner Demons, the historian Norman Cohn showed how a terror of illusory enemies hidden in their midst caused medieval Europeans to persecute women for the fictional crime of witchcraft. The parallel with Nazi Germany and its demonisation of Jews is intended by Cohn. Whenever a country or continent fabricates enemies and invents dangerous, cancerous presences within the social body, persecution beckons. Zoophilia exists, but as a serious threat to American society, it is up there with witchcraft. The same can be said of illegal Mexican migrants and Muslims, but once delusory dangers take hold of the political imagination we’re not in Kansas any more. We’re in Arpaio’s Arizona, Trump’s America, and reason weeps. So, is this the face of fascism coming to an America near you? The signs are not good.
Kate Mosse speaks up for European literature in face of Brexit The bestselling novelist Kate Mosse has warned that “we stand at the moment in Europe in perilous times” as she opened a celebration of European literature at the British Library on Wednesday night. As the UK stands on the brink of the EU referendum in June, Mosse spoke of how some politicians are encouraging people “who have been neighbours for years … to see ourselves only as people in conflict rather than … all Europeans. We all have connections and love and long shared common histories and goals and stories that go all the way back to the earliest words written. “There are many, for whatever reason, who would like to emphasise the things that separate us, whether we are men or women, whether we are white, black, whatever colour that we define ourselves as, whatever ethnicity we are, wherever we were born, whatever language we speak, whatever religion we follow or none,” said Mosse, author of the thriller Labyrinth, set in south-west France. In England, particularly, “the fundamental building blocks of this country you could say come from the nature of translation,” according to Mosse, who pointed to the Magna Carta, “written in Latin not translated into English until the middle of the 16th century”, and the King James Bible, which finally appeared in English in 1611. “So all of us here, wherever we come from, have grown up with this sense of other voices, other languages, in our head. But sometimes we forget that,” said Mosse. The novelist was speaking as part of the European literature festival, opening a British Library event celebrating these books, where Rosie Goldsmith interviewed the authors Gabriela Babnik, Alek Popov, Dorthe Nors, Burhan Sönmez, Jaap Robben and Peter Verhelst. Mosse spoke of how literature can break down barriers, paraphrasing Shelley’s 1821 essay A Defence of Poetry to call writers, rather than just poets, “the unacknowledged legislators of the world”. And she said that although translation has risen in prominence over the last decades – a new report from the Man Booker International prize found this week that sales have almost doubled over the last 15 years in the UK – things have not changed enough. She urged her audience to read contemporary writers in translation as well as the classics, also calling for more works to be translated “so we can continue to think about what connects us … what makes us the people, as Shelley said, who can change the world, change the narrative of the way sometimes it goes. “Those of us who are relatively limited in our language in that we speak maybe only one or two or three, how much we would miss without the incredible efforts of the publishers, the translators, the agents in all the countries who make sure we get the opportunity to share voices that would otherwise be closed to us,” said Mosse, also echoing the late American poet Adrienne Rich in The Dream of a Common Language. “[Rich] didn’t mean that everyone should speak the same language or read the same language but that we should celebrate every language to draw the fact together that the way that we feel is the same, our hearts beat the same, regardless of the words that come out of our mouths or the things we hear in our heads.”
Frank Ocean producer Malay explains Boys Don't Cry delay Frank Ocean’s producer Malay has offered an explanation as to why his much-anticipated Boys Don’t Cry album has been delayed. In a Reddit AMA interview, Malay said the follow-up to Channel Orange was yet to emerge because “art cannot be rushed”. The producer, whose real name is James Ho, worked heavily on many of Channel Orange’s tracks and has signed up to work on Boys Don’t Cry. However, the album has missed several possible release dates, from July 2015 when it was first expected to a date this month that coincided with a live stream placed on Ocean’s website. Answering fans’ questions on Reddit, Malay said: “It’s about making sure the perfect aesthetic for the situation has been reached, to do that takes constant tweaking, trial and error ... That goes for any creative [situation].” Malay, who said Ocean was “very focused and persistent” on the project, also claimed there had never been an actual release date for the record. He said: “Never heard of an actual date ... Then again I don’t pay attention to a lot of stuff.” None of this will stop the rumours, and this weekend it was alleged that Apple was preparing for a release in a couple of days. While the delay drags on, interest in Ocean has increased to the point that Channel Orange has re-entered the US charts, with a 40% sales spike. Maybe this was his cunning plan all along.
Can the internet reboot Africa? You can buy sunlight with your phone, conduct an eye test on someone 100 miles away and attend a church service on your iPad. There are apps for investing in cows, for sending parcels and for mapping unrest. And soon you’ll be able to deliver blood and medicines by drone. There’s free Facebook, mobile banking, and the promise of cashless societies and digitised land records. And from Accra in the west to Kigali in the east, a spray of “tech hubs” talk about “leapfrogging” technology and incubating start-ups. Such are the giddy promises of Africa’s “fourth industrial revolution” – a giant step forward into the digital world which the is reporting on for the next two weeks. Some are salivating that it will amount to the renaissance of a marginalised continent, while others soberly warn of the hype. By 2020 there will be more than 700m smartphone connections in Africa – more than twice the projected number in North America and not far from the total in Europe, according to GSMA, an association of mobile phone operators. In Nigeria alone 16 smartphones are sold every minute, while mobile data traffic across Africa is set to increase 15-fold by 2020. Twenty per cent of the continent already have access to a mobile broadband connection, a figure predicted to triple in the next five years. The mobile industry will account for 8% of GDP by 2020 – double what it will be in the rest of the world. And internet penetration is rising faster than anywhere else as costs of data and devices fall. Sparks of inspiration Millions in Africa have simply bypassed traditional infrastructure stages such as landlines and branch banking, skipping straight to cellular telephony and mobile money. The potential for further great leaps forward in business, medicine, education and public administration is high. In other respects however, it is clear that whole segments of the population are struggling to embrace the fourth industrial revolution, with many yet to see the benefits of the first three. Only about a third of people in sub-Saharan Africa have access to grid electricity, for example. “If you can’t have electricity you can’t drive any industrial development,” says Akinwumi Adesina, president of the African Development Bank. “Electricity drives everything, so until we fix that problem Africa faces huge challenges.” He told the that the bank is trying to leverage $150bn dollars over the next 10 years to connect another 130 million people. “It’s the most critical issue holding back Africa’s development.” But with a young population that is increasingly technology-aware, enthusiasm burns brightly even if the lights don’t always. “The phone has gone beyond being a luxury item,” says Bob Collymore, chief executive of mobile operator Safaricom, east Africa’s largest company. “In the UK if you forget your phone, you can always use a card, but here it’s an essential tool for generating income, finding jobs.” How did it happen? Africa’s great leap forward sprang from prosaic beginnings. Half a dozen deep sea cables were draped along the continent’s eastern and western seaboards at the turn of the decade. These high-bandwidth undersea conduits hit landing points in almost every country they passed, and those states then acted as corridors to landlocked nations behind them. Improved fixed and wireless connectivity quickly followed, with telecommunications providers in many countries upgrading from 2G technologies to 3G, and now in some urban centres to 4G. “For almost 40 years, Africa had wanted to link to the rest of the world,” says Dr Bitange Ndemo, former permanent secretary for information and communication in Kenya. “It kept on failing until 2009, when we first got the undersea cables which lowered the cost of broadband.” Internet penetration in Africa jumped from very low levels in 2009 to 16% of individuals in 2013 and over 20% in 2015. But the proportion of people online is still far behind the global average – 17.4% of individuals have access to mobile broadband, while fixed broadband connections remain very low. Countries will have to keep up with rising demand for bandwidth in order to drive innovation and enable the shift to digital across all sectors. Major infrastructure expansions are under way – from upgrading and installing submarine cables and backbone networks to various experiments to get rural and peri-urban Africa online. The world’s major technology companies – including Microsoft, Google and Facebook – are deeply interested in last-mile connectivity across the continent, with its billion-plus population. “I don’t see us having problems with capacity from the undersea cables on both sides of the continent for the next five years. It’s capacity inland that is of concern to me,” says Mteto Nyati, chief executive of MTN South Africa, the country’s second largest telecoms company by market share. “If we’re talking high-speed, we need to be going LTE [long-term evolution] and in the future 5G – the digital migration to free up other frequencies needs to happen in Africa, otherwise we’ll have bottlenecks. “We need partnerships between governments and mobile operators to help them with this migration if they can let the resources become available.” Just as mobile telephony has had a massive impact on economies in Africa, the hope is that the internet will also have a transformative impact. In 2013, McKinsey estimated that the internet’s contribution to Africa’s GDP was 1.1%, just over half the levels seen in other emerging markets. But the same report – taking into account the magnified impact of mobile in emerging economies – projects that the internet could potentially contribute 10% of GDP – $300bn – to the African economy by 2025. Digitisation efforts include bringing businesses of all sizes online, bringing government and its services online, public-private partnerships, and the development of enterprises that are pure internet players. “Those who are already online – whether in healthcare or agriculture, in services, in e-commerce – they have a faster uptake around technology adoption,” says Amrote Abdella, regional director of Microsoft4 Afrika, an initiative founded to help bring SMEs online. “What is still missing and this is what we are trying to understand, your average mom and pop shop that is completely invisible and is working and functioning in the informal market,” she adds. “How do we bring them to get online and how do we formally create the channel that allows them to access finance, to bring their business online, to access new markets?” International investment By 2012, investors, some of them overseas, were starting to take an interest in this economic potential. People like Mbwana Alliy, a Tanzanian who was working in Silicon Valley. He raised a small fund in 2012 to look at promising tech companies. And the spread of investment says something about where the promise lies. Of 22 companies that Alliy’s Savannah Fund invested in, 10 are in Kenya, four in Nigeria, three in South Africa, two in Ghana, two in Uganda and one in Zimbabwe. “Nigeria wins on market size,” he says over a beer in a restaurant in the Rwandan capital Kigali. “It’s massive, it’s a great place to work with consumer products – Nigerians are culturally wired to consumer more than others. “South Africa has the best infrastructure and education, while in Kenya mobile money is a big deal, and it has good policies for tech,” he adds. Some investors pinpoint financial services as an attractive, albeit risky, area, following on from the way that technology like M-Pesa mobile money has opened up banking to millions of people who could never have hoped to own bank accounts in the past. According to GSMA, there are 223m registered mobile money accounts in sub-Saharan Africa. More than $5bn moved through mobile accounts in December 2015 alone. E-commerce is another story showing promise, particularly in large markets such as Nigeria, where Jumia Group has just been valued at over $1bn, making it Africa’s first tech “unicorn”. The group, which encompasses multiple digital ventures from shopping to classifieds to taxi apps, operates not only in the continent’s most populous market but in 22 others as well. “The entrepreneurs behind Africa’s digital economy are trying to build for the future – and it’s hard, brutally hard,” says Jason Njoku, chief executive of Nigeria’s iROKOtv, which has raised over $35m from international venture capitalists. “Most are chasing international investment, because the vast majority of African investors largely ignore tech and prefer to fund agriculture, oil, gas and other more traditional sectors. “So what now? We need to get our own, homegrown investors on board, to understand the opportunities that are right under our noses.” “It’s a tricky market – there is political risk, it’s a very young sector,” adds Manuel Koser, founding partner of Silvertree Capital, which invests in tech companies in emerging markets. “A lot of investors are still unsure if this is a good asset class.” Rwanda looks ahead If Kenya, South Africa and Nigeria are the big three in the sub-Saharan tech world, then Rwanda is styling itself as something of a poster child for digital: small, nimble, open for business. “Rwanda, where ICT is the future,” an airport billboard declared recently. A cynic, regarding an agrarian economy where some people still don’t have running water, might say, “Yes, indeed, because it certainly isn’t the present”. But that would be unkind. As technology minister Jean Philbert Nsengimana explains, Rwanda has spent 15 years digitising its economy, its healthcare and education. And now it has eyes on becoming Africa’s first cashless society – at least where the public sector is concerned. “There is a limit to how much a government can engineer a cashless society,” he says, “but government itself will be cashless by the end of next year.” Innovation is often more bottom-up than top-down, though. “What’s interesting now among African startups is that they’re less about something really innovative in a specific app itself, but rather they are thinking about innovative ways to solve real problems in the market,” says Ory Okolloh, a well-known technology commentator. Or they are trying to solve a social problem. For example, Africa has barely one doctor per 1,000 people – low by international comparisons – and its vast geography makes home visits a poor use of time. One initiative set up by a British ophthalmologist, Andrew Bastawrous, trains local people to use diagnostics on smartphones to conduct eye tests. Clinical data is collated for experts to assess who needs treatment. A number of startups, including one by young women called Sigestes in Senegal, are engaged in digitising land records, which may sound banal until you realise that not knowing who owns what is a recipe for tax evasion, corruption and even violence. Then there is Cameroonian Churchill Nanje who set up a pan-African jobs search site from his bedroom, and has served more than 2 million users in 11 countries since. Obstacles to progress But there are buts. Many of them. Parts of Lagos still run on generators for 18 out of 24 hours. Even in tiny, top-down Rwanda, just 25% of households are connected to the grid. Sneha Shah, Thomson Reuters managing director for Africa, says: “It’s not just that they don’t have the ability to generate power; they don’t have the ability to distribute the power.” And infrastructure problems don’t stop there. Poor roads and the absence of formal address systems make logistics arduous and costly for online retailers. Connectivity in the hinterland can be non-existent, and connecting the very last mile out in the wilds does not always make economic sense. “There are access issues in rural parts,” says Ndemo. “These are places where the cost of deployment may not be recovered in a short space of time and so those places get marginalised. In Kenya, we had introduced an infrastructure-sharing policy in such places – there would be one mast and other networks could use it.” Then there is the affordability issue. When the cost of the average smartphone fell below $100 last year, it was hailed as a breakthrough moment. But that doesn’t take into account the cost of data. “Young people are very conscious of how apps on their phones are using data,” says Mnikelo Qubu, head of digital at Kenya’s Well Told Story, which produces a popular multi-platform storytelling project targeted at young people. “They’ll go online, download messages and then go offline again. I still consider SMS as very necessary in terms of on-the-ground reach.” There are shortcomings both of local education and local content. Millions would be far more engaged in the internet if there was more material in their local language. That’s a tall order given the 2,500 languages and dialects spoken across the continent. And as pointed out by Josiah Mugambi, executive director of Nairobi’s iHub, training consumers in how to use technology is also essential. “In some parts of Kenya, there are people who will struggle to use a smartphone, at least at first,” he says. “You need to address all of these levers to address internet penetration,” says Hans Kuipers, a Johannesburg-based partner at Boston Consulting Group. Worse still, local talent is still relatively thin on the ground, at least compared with western levels. For every African whizz-kid with an app and seed funding to match, there are millions who don’t have the basic practical education to make the most of the internet revolution. “We are sitting in a good space but we may not have the necessary skills to move beyond the space we’re in,” says MTN’s Nyati. “The good thing is that we are a young continent – these are people who are open to learning and they are familiar with technology. “They have great ideas but are lacking the infrastructure to do software development, for example. We need to transform our education system into one that is more practical than what we have today.” Another concern is that Africa’s tech economy will become dominated by non-local players. Already dominant western operators such as Uber, Netflix and even Amazon are poised to exploit opportunities that local competitors cannot. Facebook has already rolled out its Free Basic offering of giveaway data packages in more than 20 countries, prompting howls from net neutrality advocates. “Facebook is not the internet, and limiting it doesn’t give people the agency, political power or control,” says Timothy Karr from the Save the Internet campaign. A related trend in recent years – which also demonstrates the power of the internet and mobile connectivity – has been the shutting down of networks, or certain sites, during elections or moments of crisis. Well documented during the Arab spring, shutdowns have taken place already this year in Uganda, Chad, Republic of Congo, and Ghana, often seen as a democratic role model in Africa. “For Ghana to suggest that they will turn off the internet, in addition to other countries that have done it like Uganda, Zimbabwe, DRC, Burundi, Chad and others, that’s worrying,” says Okolloh, who co-founded Ushahidi, a crowd-sourced crisis-mapping tool that first tracked the violence that followed Kenya’s 2007 election. “Now, when it comes to critical moments, you can’t arrest everyone in order to keep the story from getting out – so governments figure they will just shut the internet down. The telcos just shrug their shoulders. Many are powerful enough to do so, but I’ve not seen an attempt to put up a fight.” Additional reporting by Murithi Mutiga in Nairobi and Maeve Shearlaw
ID cards and wider issues of voter engagement It is far too easy to impersonate someone at a polling station and claim their vote (Voters in local elections will be required to show ID in anti-fraud trials, 28 December). But there is little evidence that the problem is widespread. The Electoral Commission found that there were 19 allegations made following the EU referendum relating to personation at a polling station (some of which resulted in no further action decisions), while a total of 33,577,342 votes were cast. A far greater problem, according to the government’s own estimates, is that levels of electoral registration have declined from around 95% in the 1950s to around 82/83% in recent years. Most polling stations in the 2015 general election turned away people who may well have been entitled to vote. The government should therefore be taking steps to make sure that every person entitled to vote is actually included on the electoral registers. Much more could be done very easily and at minimal cost to include those people who will soon reach the age of 18 and those registering at colleges etc. People should also be able to check online whether or not they are currently registered. Chris Rennard Liberal Democrat, co-chair, all party group on democratic participation, House of Lords • The government is correct to ignore some of Eric Pickles’ more retrograde recommendations such as banning selfies and non-English languages at polling stations. It is also correct to seek to address the current lack of voter verification we see throughout elections. However, the government risks isolating communities by ruling out the possibility of introducing a separate voter identity document for those without traditional forms of ID. A real pilot scheme would test all viable options, including a separate voter identity document. Rather than tackling voter fraud, the minister responsible, Chris Skidmore, should be focusing on how to boost voter engagement. Estimates show that 95% of the UK’s 19,000 elected politicians were voted in on turnouts of less than 50%. In the EU referendum, 13 million people did not vote. On top of that, voters with vision impairments, voters with disabilities and voters abroad are virtually locked out of the voting system. Rather than tinkering with a broken system of the past, we should instead look to the future of elections and create a system fit for the 21st century. Areeq Chowdhury Chief executive, Institute for Digital Democracy, London • Yet again we are being told Brits don’t need ID cards. So to show we are entitled to vote, open a bank account, get NHS access etc, we will still have to fiddle around with passports, driving licences, utility bills. Why? One piece of ID is all anyone needs. National insurance numbers are automatically issued at age 16. Why not start at birth or when naturalised or given right of residence? A simple way to prove who you are. Or am I the simple one? Teresa Gautrey Wokingham, Berkshire • As important as the identity of the voter is the secrecy of the ballot (Voter IDs could disenfranchise millions, 28 December). The present system allows checking on how you voted by the simple method of the polling clerk issuing voting slips from a cheque-book-like arrangement, with the left-hand stub on which your polling number is recorded bearing an identifying number corresponding to the same number in the corner of the counterfoil which is torn off for you to vote on. So any voting slip deemed suspicious can be traced back to the relevant stub book. It may be less contentious to issue a national identity card, as in the second world war; less contentious now that a majority has voted in a referendum for more “control”. It may yet be a small price to pay for a proper secret ballot. DBC Reed Northampton • The crowd may want its money back judging by the analysis applied to arrive at the conclusion “the US presidential election outcome was correct”, after “a crowdfunded recount of key states”. One of the election result reviewers (‘My students could hack the US election’, 29 December) claimed “… my undergraduate security class could have changed the outcome of the presidential election”. And previous research having “demonstrated security vulnerabilities in every model of voting machine”, allowing “an attacker to silently rewrite the electronic record of how many votes each candidate received”, surely undermines the reviewer’s claim that “the state can prove statistically that the vote has not been tampered with [by] counting a small but statistically significant, randomly selected sample of ballot papers”. No matter how significant or random the sample, rubbish in means rubbish out. He also concludes that an “auditable paper-trail for electronic voting” is important but it is shocking “how unlikely states are to look at any of the paper”, opening the clear possibility that irregular electronic voting would not have been discovered, so might possibly have been part of a sample. Who can possibly imagine that, once Trump is president, such clearly flawed, “checks and balances” will improve? David Murray Wallington, Surrey • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com • Read more letters – click here to visit gu.com/letters
Chelsea’s Eden Hazard and Diego Costa turn on style to sink Southampton Chelsea’s title challenge under Antonio Conte seems more persuasive with every passing week. This was arguably a more impressively constructed victory than that handed to them so obligingly by Manchester United the previous Sunday, a win chiselled out against one of the form teams in the division and a side who had not lost here since February. Southampton ended up feeling forlorn. Given the hosts’ underlying qualities to win this comfortably was remarkable. Chelsea, then under Guus Hiddink’s interim stewardship, had been the last team to prevail at Southampton’s expense on the south coast, but that had been a success squeezed late and improbably from an even contest. This, in contrast, was a masterclass in how to exert almost complete control despite the home side hogging the ball for the majority of the play. Conte’s side, so expertly drilled, kept their opponents at arm’s length throughout. Their celebrations in front of the away support at the end, with the manager barely able to contain his delight, reinforced the impression the collective is suddenly strong. This was a show of new-found strength. So much has been made of the Italian’s three-man defensive block – a system adopted out of desperation back when Chelsea had been exposed too often as vulnerable – but they seamlessly morphed into a five when required, with wing-backs working feverishly at both ends of the pitch and a midfield crammed with energy and industry. They have adapted superbly to the change in formation and have not been breached in 410 minutes of Premier League football, all but five of which have been with a trio of centre-halves blunting their opponents’ intent. A team that had appeared so fragile against the fluid movement offered up by Liverpool and Arsenal in recent weeks have unearthed steel. Picking passage through these resolute massed banks of blue must feel an onerous task. It was one utterly beyond Southampton. Thibaut Courtois made one save of relative note, from a Dusan Tadic free-kick, and watched Charlie Austin head over the bar and have another effort ruled out for offside, but a team who had been on the charge up the table over recent weeks would have expected to inflict more damage than that. Claude Puel cited fatigue as a contributory factor, but figuratively thumping your head against a brick wall for 90 minutes can presumably have that effect. “It is so difficult to play against,” added the Frenchman through a sigh. Stubborn, well-marshalled defence alone would not have been enough to prevail here, but Chelsea boast sufficient spark in forward areas to capitalise on such solidity. Those wing-backs, and particularly the revived Victor Moses down the right, offer pace and width while the trickery of Eden Hazard and Pedro combines thrillingly with Diego Costa’s brute strength. The goal the Spain international curled so gloriously beyond an exposed Fraser Forster from just outside the penalty area 10 minutes into the second half, as Cuco Martina limply hung out a leg in a half-hearted attempt to block, was his eighth this season and 40th in only 64 top-flight outings, a record all the more staggering given his own rather fitful contribution through last season’s toils. Costa may not always see eye-to-eye with a manager every bit as intense on the touchline as the striker is out on the turf, but a player whose temperament has so often left him open to sanction has led the line through four league wins without accruing the fifth yellow card of term that will see him serve a ban. The 28-year-old has effectively played on the edge of suspension for well over a month, retaining his snarl but ensuring his infamously physical and inflammatory approach has not crossed the line. At some point the yellow will come Costa’s way but, at present, it is more appropriate to acknowledge the goalscoring contribution he is making to the team. Then there is Hazard. It had been the Belgian who eased the visitors aheadat St Mary’s, a cleverly delivered move upfield culminating in Moses slipping a return pass round Ryan Bertrand for the winger, evading Steve Davis, to collect. He took his time to tease out Davis’ sliding tackle before cutting inside and ripping a low shot through Forster’s legs at his near post. It was the third successive game in which Hazard had scored, swelling his season’s tally to five. He has managed more goals in 10 games this season than he mustered in all 31 last time round and feels less of an indulgence when he contributes like this. “He has come back to a good level after last season’s difficulties,” said Puel, who had handed Hazard his first-team debut while at Lille. The 25-year-old was a constant threat here, as he has been all season, and was denied further reward only by Forster’s excellence and a timely José Fonte interception. Southampton should not wallow in this mismatch overly long. They have Internazionale to come here on Thursday in the Europa League, when Puel will seek an immediate response. They are more than capable of claiming that tie so impressive has their own recent form proved, but here it was Chelsea who imposed themselves more coherently. It took them 20 games and into the new year to gather this many points last season. This time round theirs is an unnerving presence hovering on the leading trio’s shoulder.
Dare to Be Wild review – growing pains Inspired by the real-life story of the Irish landscape designer Mary Reynolds, who in 2002 won a gold medal at the Chelsea flower show, this film captures the essence of wild spaces about as effectively as a plug-in air freshener. It’s a herbaceous bore of a movie which trades in twee Oirish cliches and features a male romantic lead who has all the charisma of a shrub.
Bargain hunting and how the brain understands numbers If you are among the lucky ones returning from a summer holiday this week, you might have brought back some souvenirs from markets where you bargained hard to get a good deal - or so you thought. Even if you think you’ve got a brilliant price, the brain can easily be influenced to pay more – even by as little as a random number. In a study based on work by the psychologist Daniel Kahneman, a scientist went for a walk with a bottle of champagne in one hand and a bag full of ping-pong balls in the other. He told passers by that the balls had random numbers on, and asked them to pick one, which said 10 on it. When he asked the most they’d pay for the champagne, they said around £25. In fact, while the subjects believed the balls were random, they weren’t: every ball had 10 on. When the experiment was repeated with balls saying 65, the maximum amounts raised to around £45. This is called anchoring, and occurs because the brain works with relative amounts rather than absolutes. It’s why the start of bargaining is so important, and why even keen bargain-hunters can be persuaded to pay above the odds. Dr Daniel Glaser is director of Science Gallery at King’s College London
Suicide Squad still supreme at the UK box office The winners: mature titles It’s no change at the top of the UK box office as Suicide Squad, Finding Dory, Jason Bourne and The BFG all retain their lock on the top four places. Suicide Squad suffered by far the biggest decline, down 62%, but was nevertheless the clear winner, with weekend takings of £4.24m. After 10 days, the Warner/DC release has grossed an impressive £22.2m here. That compares with £25.9m for Deadpool after two weekends of play – but that was a 12-day figure for Deadpool, thanks to its previews strategy. Another apt comparison might be Disney/Marvel’s s of the Galaxy, which stood at £13.8m after two weekends. Finding Dory added another £7m, bringing its 17-day total to a robust £27.3m. Last summer’s big Pixar movie Inside Out had reached £22.9m by the same stage of its run, and it ended up with an impressive £39.1m. Jason Bourne and The BFG both added about £3.3m. With £23.5m, The BFG is now the eighth highest-grossing release of 2016, behind The Jungle Book, Deadpool, Captain America: Civil War, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, The Secret Life of Pets, Finding Dory and Zootropolis. The latter is on £23.9m, so The BFG will soon overtake it. Rounding out the Top 10 for the year so far are The Revenant and Suicide Squad. Battle of the new releases Raunchy comedy Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates is the top new release, landing in fifth place with £1.07m, including previews of £370,000. That’s a fair bit down on Dirty Grandpa, in which Zac Efron teamed up with Robert De Niro, and which began in January with £2.05m, including £605,000 in previews. This time, Efron’s co-stars are Adam DeVine, Anna Kendrick and Aubrey Plaza. The real winner: Pete’s Dragon With an opening gross of £844,000, Disney’s Pete’s Dragon was the box-office winner among the new releases, if previews are left out of the Mike and Dave number. With family films enjoying consistent returns every day, Disney can be confident of a sustained run for the well-reviewed Pete’s Dragon until the end of the school holidays. Battle of the genre pictures: Nerve v The Shallows Just behind Pete’s Dragon are two high-concept thrillers – Nerve and The Shallows –neck and neck with £803,000 and £801,000 respectively. Again, preview numbers are skewing the true picture. Strip them out, and The Shallows wins convincingly with £710,000 against £608,000 for Nerve. The Shallows offers the simple proposition of bleeding, bikini-clad surfer Blake Lively and a circling shark. Nerve delivers a teenage Emma Roberts sucked into a game of escalating dares decided by a mobile phone app. The indie hit: Wiener-Dog There hasn’t been much in the box-office charts for the past month to challenge mainstream Hollywood. Indie cinemas have been crying out for fresh titles, with many of them turning to the blockbusters that are occupying multiplexes. So the release of Wiener-Dog was certainly timely – the Todd Solondz comedy opened in 38 cinemas, a decent number for the director. Debut box office of £86,000 resulted, including £2,000 in previews. That’s the biggest opening for a US indie since The Neon Demon and Maggie’s Plan over a month ago. Solondz’s biggest UK hit remains Happiness (1999) with £648,000, which Weiner-Dog has little chance of matching. The future The lack of a big blockbuster release at the weekend meant that takings are 34% down on the previous session. But it’s not all bad news: box office is 15% up on the equivalent weekend in 2015, when Pixels debuted at the top spot. The coming session sees the release of Ricky Gervais’ David Brent: Life on the Road, belatedly continuing the adventures of The Office’s man-child narcissist, and Swallows and Amazons, adapted from the Arthur Ransome children’s classic with an adult cast led by Kelly MacDonald, Rafe Spall and Andrew Scott. Hollywood alternatives include horror Lights Out, already a $61m hit in the US, and the poorly reviewed Nine Lives, in which businessman Kevin Spacey finds himself trapped inside the body of his family’s cat. Also due: much-buzzed documentary Tickled, investigating the bizarre sport of competitive tickling, and Belgian urban drama Black, winner of the Discovery award at the 2015 Toronto film festival. Top 10 films, 12-14 August 1. Suicide Squad, £4,241,598 from 587 sites. Total: £22,214,243 2. Finding Dory, £2,567,085 from 638 sites. Total: £27,313,178 3. Jason Bourne, £1,471,495 from 602 sites. Total: £17,462,208 4. The BFG, £1,10,536 from 607 sites. Total: £23,510,073 5. Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates, £1,068,522 from 452 sites (new) 6. Pete’s Dragon, £844,090 from 562 sites (new) 7. Nerve, £803,457 from 372 sites (new) 8. The Shallows, £800,963 from 379 sites (new) 9. Star Trek Beyond, £477,079 from 400 sites. Total: £14,218,018 10. The Secret Life of Pets, £286,076 from 421 sites. Total: £33,058,018 Other openers Mohenjo Daro, £176,770 from 141 sites Rustom, £115,267 (including £8,027 previews) from 32 sites Wiener-Dog, £86,423 (including £1,817 previews) from 38 sites Valley of Love, £27,438 (including £10,466 previews) from 23 sites The Idol, £19,857 (including £16,991 previews) from five sites The Wave, £13,064 (including £9,808 previews) from five sites The Confession, £9,557 (including £4,395 previews) from 13 sites My Best Friend’s Wedding, £6,033 from 13 sites Ingrid Bergman in Her Own Words, £3,960 from two sites Karinkunnam 6’s, £2,611 from 30 sites ID2: Shadwell Army, £2,262 from 16 sites Wagah, £1,310 from three sites Babu Bangaram, £876 from four sites • Thanks to comScore. All figures relate to takings in UK and Ireland cinemas.
The 'latte libel' is a brilliant strategy. The left cannot counter it with facts alone Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign was superior to Donald Trump’s in almost every way. But Trump won because he had a stronger, more emotive and relevant narrative. Trump’s campaign borrowed its narrative strategy from the story shaped by conservatives in the United States over the past couple of decades. It’s called the “latte libel”. Despite having had a profound effect on public discourse in the US and here in Australia, the latte libel is poorly understood. But conservative strategists get it, and they love it. Tony Abbott’s Liberals used it with similar vigour in their campaign against Australia’s first female prime minister, Julia Gillard. It has proved a very effective tool in attacking women in politics. The original latte libel goes something like this: “Folks, we know working people like you have suffered. Like you, we have had enough of those big-city elites who are not listening. That multi-ethnic cabal of feminists, refugee-loving environmentalists, nanny-state lovers, chardonnay socialists, ungodly pro-abortionists, homosexuals, big-city Jewish bankers, and cosmopolitan latte-sipping liberals look down on authentic, hardworking people. Their environmentalism destroys our jobs, their family values are about legalising pot and same-sex toilets. We are the real America/Australia [insert country of choice]. They are not. We are angry. We have not forsaken you.” The latte libel is how Republican strategists persuade Democrats on low incomes to vote against their interests and support the likes of Reagan, Bush and, now, Trump. Here is how it’s done. First, the latte libel narrowly redefines the category of working Americans (class) into white people living outside the big cosmopolitan cities – the victims. It then confects a new category, the latte-sipping ruling Democratic elite containing the plurality of categories of progressive identity politics including, notably in an election like this, women. It might also include the equivalent of the ABC in Australia, ie somewhat moderate journalists, and, of course, readers. Meanwhile, in this fictitious narrative, the actual Republicans escape any responsibility for their actions. They are the narrators posing as the champions of the working people, lambasting this many-headed “elite” for its indifference to the hardships of the same neoliberalism that Republicans themselves have championed. The story is wildly theatrical and deliberately emotive. It is an invitation to vent against refugees, women, the LGBTQI community, environmentalists, the left, the centre, and any identity or ethnicity that isn’t white. With a narrative like this, Hillary Clinton becomes a bigger target, as did Gillard: blame this feminist symbol of the new “elite” for all your ills. In Trump’s case, he didn’t just give permission to vent against your preferred identity, he said it was OK to really enjoy it. That won him support, and encouraged Clinton-hating in ways that were reminiscent of the Gillard experience. There is, of course, more than misogyny at play. There is truth in parts of the latte libel accusation levelled against the Democrats in the US, and the Labor party in Australia. Both are out of touch and have played pivotal roles in creating neoliberalism and social inequality. It is both their legacies. But the Republicans and Australian Liberals have distinguished themselves with their efforts to pose as champions of middle- and low-income folks, combining this with their playful, brazen use of misogyny and bigotry to engage voters’ emotions and win elections. The term latte libel was coined in 2004 by the Democratic commentator Thomas Frank in his book What’s the Matter With America? Despite Frank shining a light on the strategy, the latte libel – and narrative strategy in general – continues to be misunderstood or ignored by many progressives in Australia and the US. After all, rather like those empty “three-word slogans” Abbott used to win power, why should such a load of nonsensical waddle be taken seriously? Because it works, and because it’s not met with an effective counter-narrative, we find conservatives in the UK, in Australia, in New Zealand and – most emphatically – in the US, flogging variants of the same strategy and winning. Democrats in the US, and Labor and the Greens in Australia, don’t often campaign the same way. Instead of a story (crazy or otherwise) that voters can identify themselves in, they offer more of a shopping list of policies or solutions to fix problems. HillaryClinton.com is a classic example of this. The “vision” is in fact a list. Swinging voters find this kind of rationalist offering less emotionally relevant. When presented with the option – “Will I conflate my rage against the machine with my prejudices and support the outspoken firebrand, or will I embrace the intellectually rigorous policy prescriptions of the uber-educated woman who has been at the head of the circle of power for a decade?” – they say, stuff the “elite”. This should not be news. George Lakoff and other political communications experts in the Democratic establishment have made it very clear that you can be smarter, more articulate and have a better set of policies, but if you don’t communicate to voters in a narrative they can relate to, you will crash and burn. Despite this, many key strategists and journalists passionately believe, contrary to all the evidence, that people make rational decisions in elections based on policy debates. This is nonsense. Our brains don’t work like that. Your policy is only as good as the narrative or public discourse you have hung it on. For these reasons, the latte libel works against progressives in general, but it gains extra momentum when the contest is also structured around gender. Women leading political parties are attacked because they are symbols of social change. They are made scapegoats for the social insecurity caused by neoliberalism, particularly where the decline of traditionally male industries is concerned. Cast your mind back to Abbott – leader of the party of “big business” as they call it in focus groups – striding the floor of factory after factory, hard hat, orange vest and factory workers in tow. He painted the Liberals as the champions of working families, and refugees and the Clean Energy Act (carbon tax) were invoked as their enemies. And he scratched the misogynist itch, addressing a crowd in front of a banner calling Gillard “Ju-Liar, Bob Brown’s bitch”. It was a powerful invitation and added momentum to the vitriol. After the election show was over, Abbott’s Liberals promptly tried to enact the real austerity through the parliament. Women like Gillard, Clinton and the former Greens leader Christine Milne, who are in a contest against a conservative man, are especially susceptible to the latte libel for a number of reasons. As Kerry-Anne Walsh noted in The Stalking of Julia Gillard, there are plenty of men who are prepared to try to bring them down because they are women. Equally importantly, university educated women in politics will often be more measured and less theatrical because in their professional experience, women venting is seized upon as a sign of weakness. This can leave women on the centre and left – who find themselves in a tussle against an entitled man firing off the latte libel rhetoric – looking either somewhat disarmed, as in the case of Gillard, or looking more clinical, as in the case of Clinton. For women to lead parties like Labor and the Greens and be successful, they’ll need to challenge neoliberalism, do it with a powerful narrative, and to have the support of a large enough cohort of their colleagues and the media to withstand the shitstorm of hostility. Gillard lacked a narrative, did much that was neoliberal, lacked good advice and the proper support of her colleagues. Milne had a good narrative and a critique of neoliberalism, and more support from her colleagues than Gillard had, but the animosity towards her was still disproportionately ferocious and persistent from the media and some men inside her party. For women to become more successful in winning elections – and we need them to be – the party strategists and the women leading the party need to be cognisant of how the latte libel strategy operates, and to fortify against it. Perhaps most of all, they must have a candidate with the gift of the gab, who is predisposed to tell stories about life in a systematic and compelling way.
Niall Horan's This Town: a strangely retrogressive step into the stagnant past It’s been a significant week for fans of former pop group Goliath One Direction. First Another Man magazine revealed its three separate covers for their latest issue, each of which features Harry Styles styled magnificently: as a 60s sweetheart, an androgynous, choker-clad model, a fluffy jumper-wearing boy next door (also in a choker, or possibly on a leash). Now, on the opposite end of the artistic spectrum is the debut single from Niall Horan, produced by Greg Kurstin, who has worked with Adele and Sia, and co-written by songwriters Jamie Scott, Mike Needle and Daniel Bryer, all of which penned tracks for Horan’s former boyband. It takes lot of blokes sat in a studio to channel simplicity and sincerity so authentically. Given the weight of expectation surrounding each of the boyband members’ careers, their opening offering has to quickly define their intentions. While Zayn Malik’s Pillowtalk ensured that his music would be very much aligned with the current crop of moody modern R&B stars – and also hammered home the fact that, as a grownup with a beard, he frequently enjoys sexual intercourse – Horan’s This Town instead promotes his guise as an acoustic balladeer. In all honesty this is no surprise, Horan has been hauling around his acoustic guitar for many years; since when Mumford and Sons’ gravelly, wholesome aesthetic became the blueprint for all pop music. Their legacy lives on; and even X Factor contestants can be seen arriving at auditions with their guitars and self-penned songs. Seven thousand series’ into the show and its judges are still staggered at the concept of someone capable of strumming an instrument. So to reinforce the earnestness of his new direction, Horan, who has signed a deal with Universal, has released a black and white live video – thus reinforcing the authenticity of his future career as a credible artist with skills beyond being adorable. There’s something oddly old fashioned about his approach – even if its reference points are more set in 2014 acoustic era rather than the 1960s. Even Sheeran, who brought the one man busk to Wembley arena, tends to play with the boundaries of the singer-songwriter genre. This Town, however, is haunted in part by the classic stripped-back storytelling of James Taylor, but mainly echoes the sound of every hard grafting pub singer across the planet. Perhaps This Town is a slight misfire, or just a suggestion of what’s to come. But its likely there are more ambitious forces at work. The modern music world can be discombobulating for those opposed to gender fluid pop stars or auto-tuned trap. At a time of political and societal upheaval perhaps this is what the people want: there’s safety in a an acoustic ballad, the stagnant dregs of the past.
Brits chairman Max Lousada's playlist: Adele, Kanye and Jarvis' s stage invasion Adele – Someone Like You (2011) It’s the performance that fired the starting gun on Adele’s race to global success and changed pop culture in the process. Unforgettable. Snoop Dogg and Pharrell – What’s My Name / Drop It Like It’s Hot (2005) I remember how the room went wild for this performance: two consummate showmen delivering an absolute masterclass in this awards show mashup. Spice Girls – Wannabe (1997) This Brits performance captured an era, a mood and a spirit like no other has before or since. It’s hard to remember the optimism, bravado and playfulness of it all without smiling. Michael Jackson – Earth Song / Jarvis Cocker stage invasion (1996) For me and for so many others, this is what the show is all about. It was both bizarre and brilliant, a genuine “what just happened?” moment in an increasingly shockproof world. Kanye West – Gold Digger (2006) Brilliant concept and delivery from an artist at the top of his game, one who continues to create controversy and conversation but is never complacent. Follow all of our Brit awards 2016 coverage.
Clashtag: British Olympians 'steal' #GBR from Nebraska Huskers football fans On the wind-swept plains of Nebraska, the abbreviation “GBR” means a specific thing to supporters of the University of Nebraska football team. The Cornhuskers, so named in honor of the home state’s agricultural heritage, have won five collegiate national titles and 880 games since being founded in 1890, the fourth-most of any top-level university in the United States. They’re a big deal in the land of cows, corn and college football. And when a fan of the team roars “Goooo Biiiig Reeeed” – on the way into Memorial Stadium on a fall Saturday, at a pancake breakfast in a church basement, at the gas station or really anywhere in or around Lincoln, the state’s capital – she expects to hear a quick “Go Big Red” in response. This is the cadence of a football season in Nebraska, and on Twitter, in Cornhusker circles (fans refer to themselves as Huskers), that traditional chant gets shortened to #GBR. Lately, however, Nebraska football fans using the hashtag have noticed something new popping up in their social media feeds as the Olympics get under way in Brazil. A Union Jack. That’s because #GBR is accompanying tweets about the British Olympic team at the games in Rio. Using #GBR on Twitter now conjures up a “hashflag”, a small, emoji graphic deployed for big events. The Uefa Champions League final in May had a small depiction of the European Champions Clubs’ cup, and February’s Super Bowl had a tiny Vince Lombardi trophy. Understandably, the hashflag has ruffled the feathers of Cornhusker fans. As sports blogger Husker Mike lamented on Tuesday: “... all of a sudden, the #GBR now has the British Union Jack attached to it. Wait ... didn’t we win two wars against the British so that we were free of England, her Majesty and that flag?” It has also caused some consternation as fans mourn the loss of beloved 22-year-old kicker Sam Foltz, who died in a car accident on 23 July. Kyle Hobbs, a Lincoln resident, was at a nearby casino when he learned of Foltz’s death and tweeted out his support, only to see a British flag accompany his words. “I tweeted so fast I thought maybe I accidentally hit a flag emoji.” Perhaps no one in America monitors the GBR hashtag as closely as Kelly Mosier, the University of Nebraska athletic department’s director of digital communications. One of his duties is to manage an official university Twitter account with more than 278,000 followers. Mosier first recalled Cornhusker fans first noticing a British flair accompanying their tweets during the EuroVision Song Contest 2015. He wasn’t surprised when the flag popped up again this month. “There’s literally nothing we can do. It’s the Olympics. It’s not like we’re going to call Twitter and say, ‘Hey, you’ve got to stop doing that,’” Mosier said. “It’s a big world. There are lots of people talking about lots of things.” That hasn’t stopped Nebraska fans from proposing some good-humored ideas as to how to handle the great #GBR conundrum of 2016. Lance Knapple, an investigator for the state of Nebraska, tweeted at the official Nebraska athletics Twitter account that a football match should be organized between the Cornhuskers and Great Britain with the winner taking ownership of #GBR. An American football match. “If they want to cobble together a football team and bring it over here, we can get this set up right now,” Knapple said. “We can take care of it.” Joking aside, Knapple admitted that he’s an Anglophile at heart. “It’s a great country full of wonderful music and writing,” he said. “BBC TV is by far better than American television.” Mosier, who has made a few trips to London in his lifetime, also expressed his love for all things British, particularly the tiny, blue-and-red image he’ll have no choice but to see thousands of times in the coming weeks as he monitors Nebraska’s social media feed. “It’s Britain,” Mosier said. “It’s a cool-looking flag.” Still, sporting allegiances die hard. But that, too, was said mostly in fun. Two days earlier the Huskers account sent out some qualified support to its hashtag mate of the next few weeks.
I was happy living as a Briton in Germany – but then came Brexit In recent days I have been called a traitor by some, and given words of encouragement by others. There have been recommendations about poems by Schiller and Goethe I should now be able to recite, and jibes that I may never be able to jaywalk again. When I sat on the press benches of the Bundestag last Friday to hear a debate about enabling Britons to become German citizens in the wake of Brexit – for which precisely 77 minutes had been scheduled – it was as if I was being personally urged to take a long, hard look at my motivation for acquiring German citizenship. Did I, as the CDU member for North Saxony, Marian Wendt, suggested, adopting a tongue-twister, merely want to avoid being a “nicht-Schengen Schlangen Steher” – a non-Schengen queue stander? Or was I driven by a deeper sense of conviction that I wanted to be a German? His CDU colleague, Barbara Woltmann, might have been talking to me directly when she told the house that acquiring citizenship “is not like putting a piece of clothing on which you can later take off … it’s not arbitrary, it’s a clear statement to the country you’re living in”. Post-Brexit, my much-treasured Irish passport, which I’ve held since 2002, will ensure I remain an EU member. But I am still left in the sorry situation that, having worked abroad as a foreign correspondent for the best part of 20 years, I have lost the right to vote in the UK. (The length of time that a UK citizen can vote after moving abroad is limited to 15 years.) Quite painfully, that meant I was unable to vote in the Brexit referendum. But neither, despite being a taxpayer in Germany and having children in the education system, am I eligible to vote in national elections in Germany. “So I am disenfranchised unless I give up my job and move back to the UK, which is why I’d like to take on German citizenship,” I told the bureaucrat at my local town hall when I went to pick up the citizenship application papers at the start of the summer. “That is fully understandable,” she said to me over her half-rimmed spectacles. “But can you prove to me you speak German?” she asked, a half hour into our introductory chat, in German, which had already covered issues such as my willingness to declare my “verfassungstreue” (loyalty to the constitution) and confirmation that I harboured no “verfassungsfeindliche Bestrebungen” (anti-constitutional ambitions). “No evening school certificate?” “No,” I replied, before it struck me. “But I do have a German degree!” “Ah super!” she exclaimed. “From what university?” “Leeds.” Adding in response to her puzzled expression: “It’s in the north of England.” Sadly my degree did not count, so earlier this month I found myself among a roomful of other hopeful applicants for German citizenship. We came from Ukraine, Japan, Russia, Mozambique, Pakistan, India and the UK, and were spending a whole day being tested to level B1 (threshold or intermediate) at a cost of €116 (£100). “This is proof that Germany is getting more and more international!” said the invigilator, a woman in her 60s with a Merkel-style haircut, who appeared more excited than alarmed. For the concluding conversation test I was paired with one of the two other Britons in the group. Ed from Ilford was an archaeologist turned embalmer who had lived in Germany for 28 years. He was from “Brexitland”, he explained, and wanted to secure his German citizenship so he could retain his residency and worker’s rights as a member of the EU. Together, under adjudication, we had to discuss the finer points of internet shopping which concluded with everyone – us and the erstwhile stern-faced examiners – collapsing about laughing because we were far better than they had expected. At a separate citizenship test, on another day, there were at least six Britons among the 17 candidates in the room. “Are you all here because of Brexit?” the examiner asked us, saying she’d never seen so many Britons taking the exam before. “Ja,” we all replied. If anecdotes shared on Twitter and Facebook are anything to go by, similar scenes have been witnessed in exam rooms across Germany – as well as elsewhere in Europe – over the past few weeks. On social media there have also been accusations of treachery. “Have you forgotten who bombed us?” asked one person when I mentioned I was doing the test. Clearly he hadn’t. In fact the 33 multiple-choice questions left me in no doubt of the historical and moral burden that I will potentially be taking on. “When were the National Socialists with Adolf Hitler in power?” asked one. “Who built the Berlin Wall?” was another. “27 January is an official day of remembrance … what do we recall on this day?” (Answer: the victims of National Socialism.) Other questions such as “To how many partners can you be married at the same time?”, or “Can a 13-year-old live in a relationship with a 25-year-old?” offered an insight into some of the challenges Germany continues to face. My watermarked citizenship test certificate arrived a few days ago. I passed with full marks – as I should have done, having worked here for over 10 years. I’m now waiting on the language test results. But even then I’ll still need to provide a raft of officially-translated documents – from birth certificates to work contracts – for everyone in the family, tax returns, evidence I have a regular income, and that my partner’s income could also cover me, as well as proof I have a pension and even nursing care insurance. It’s good to know they take a long-term approach to this. A British acquaintance, a teacher, who came here in the Spring of 1989 before the fall of the Berlin Wall and fell in love, was smart enough to secure her citizenship ahead of the post-referendum rush. She described how at her recent citizenship ceremony a string trio played the German national anthem, followed by the European hymn, Beethoven’s Ode to Joy. “One man spontaneously started humming and gradually everyone in the room joined in,” she said, visibly moved by the recollection. For some Germans, as for many Britons, the idea that Britons should be applying for German citizenship is ludicrous.“The British are British!” said one respondent on Twitter. The Greens have been calling on the government to make the procedure easier and quicker. Bearing in mind that many Britons do not qualify because they have not lived here long enough, and the two-year window between Article 50 being triggered and Britain’s exit from the EU – within which time Britons, as EU members, can keep their UK passports as well as obtaining German ones – there is some need for urgency. Some members of the Bundestag see an opportunity, citing all the British talent – such as the many entrepreneurs and scientists – who live in Germany. But the phrase “Zwangsgermanisierung” or “forced Germanisation” was also doing the rounds during the Bundestag debate. My view is that very few of us intended for this to happen. Much as I like and respect the Germans, I was quite happy being a Briton living on mainland Europe. But, as Ed the embalmer wrote to me in a WhatsApp message after our joint language test: “It’s a bit of an all-hands-to-the-lifeboats feeling.” We agreed to a reunion with the other Britons we’ve met during the process, once we’ve officially been, as Ed put it, “Deutschified”.
'You can WhatsApp the prime minister' – what tech means to Trinidad Trinidad is a country of avid social media users with a well-established tech and telecommunications infrastructure, made possible by its small geographical size and strong economy. According to World Bank statistics, 65% of the population are internet users (compared to 62% in Italy) and fixed broadband subscription is higher per capita than in Russia. Google has servers in Trinidad, and Fujitsu has managed a tech park on the island for the past decade. There’s no Silicon Valley equivalent and no visible community of coders and tech startups but this doesn’t mean Trinis, as the population are known, aren’t interested in the sector. Universities offer courses and developers do exist but there is less demand for tech-driven solutions on a small island where businesses market themselves adequately on Facebook. “It’s only in recent years that digitally savvy people have begun to look at entrepreneurship rather than employment as a way to leverage their understanding of technology,” says Mark Lyndersay, tech columnist for the Trinidad . Lyndersay feels that the pockets of genuine local innovation deserve better resources and more progressive approaches. “Too many ideas are either shipped abroad for development or die on the vine, neither of which does anything for a local ecosystem of internet technocrats trying to make an independent presence viable.” Facebook is an even bigger social phenomenon in Trinidad than in Britain. The difference in population (1.3 million compared with 64 million) means real-life social networks overlap far more. This manifests itself on Facebook where you commonly find people you’ve never heard of but have hundreds of mutual friends with. The boundaries of privacy are less rigid in Trinidad. It’s completely normal to have 600 Facebook friends who you don’t know and will never meet. Friend requests and messages pop up from total strangers and it’s considered normal, even good etiquette, to accept them. Add a stranger and they are likely to accept within seconds. Local gossip stories, videos of public incidents, fights and sex scandals on Facebook can easily become national news stories in Trinidad arousing vigorous online discussion, especially amongst social commentators who achieve fame through politically-charged, thought-piece posts. Politics is omnipresent in Trinidad. You won’t find anyone who doesn’t know the political news stories of the day. This has been intensified by social media which has become the go-to platform for consuming news and engaging in vigorous, intense and heartfelt political debate. While the two main newspapers have websites, e-editions, apps and even paywalls, Facebook is where news is publicly dissected. Politicians were early adopters in using social media accounts. Refreshingly, they don’t employ social PRs to share their opinions for them. Many are even active on WhatsApp. As a reporter you can contact the prime minister on WhatsApp and he will respond. I’ve been added to WhatsApp groups where cabinet ministers, social activists and opposition MPs have argued and lobbied in message form. Activism also harnesses digital networks. Womantra, a women’s rights organisation use social media to mobilise online communities in the form of public protests and educational campaigns around issues like domestic violence, homophobia, rape and victim shaming. Online shopping and banking have recently arrived in Trinidad. Both function reasonably well, but holding back the e-commerce revolution is the fact that banks are reluctant to issue debit and credit cards to many customers. Most provide ATM cards only. TriniTrolley.com with its slogan, “delivery to your door” is Trinidad’s answer to Amazon, selling DVDs, books, CDs, electronics, toys and even food and groceries. “TriniTrolley has carved out a fine niche by meeting consumer needs out on the fringes of traditional shopping,” says Lyndersay. “There is also a thriving used vehicle market on TriniTuner.com.” Lower down the food chain, small businesses use Facebook to sell products and to advertise their shops, bars, hairdressers and beauty and cosmetics services. Carnival is a huge business in Trinidad. People save all year to spend hundreds of (US) dollars on costumes. Marketing begins six months in advance. Tens of thousands of costumes are manufactured then sold online. Lyndersay describes how digital and real-life intertwine to produce a compelling sales strategy: “While the costumes are widely promoted using social media and sold online to cater to audiences abroad, much of the excitement and decision-making associated with costume choices happens in a live interaction [at huge fashion show launches]. Streamed launches, online discussions and TrinidadCarnivalDiary.com play a big part in raising issues.” With a large diaspora living in North America, Skype is vital for maintaining family links and other kinds of relationships among this migratory population. UCL professor Danny Miller, who co-wrote a book of digital ethnography called Webcam in 2014 says, “Many couples employ Skype as a kind of ‘always on’ mode where they don’t have to talk with each other but because the camera stays on they can reproduce something more like living together. Skype is seen as a viable basis for a proper relationship. Even in commerce actually being able to see something and talk with someone is increasingly seen as central to establishing relationships of trust. Often when children are absent for long periods Skype establishes a connection that is strong but also allows for autonomy and distance. It’s good for getting parents to acknowledge they are growing up.” Digital could have been designed for Trinidad. It’s a country preoccupied with visual aesthetics and it celebrates extroverts, which means technology is used in a polar opposite way to the stereotype of the loner sat at home in front of their computer. Above all, it’s a country that embraces new things wholeheartedly and is desperate not to be left behind. It wants to move forward, away from the colonial past. As Miller told me when we met on the island, “I see Trinidad as the vanguard of modernity. Trinis are modern because they will take things and run with them, play with them, see what they can do with them. They’re not scared of the modern.” To get weekly news analysis, job alerts and event notifications direct to your inbox, sign up free for Media & Tech Network membership. All Media & Tech Network content is editorially independent except for pieces labelled “Paid for by” – find out more here.
Seven-day NHS plans fail to address staffing needs, say MPs There has been “no coherent attempt” to assess how many staff will be needed to ensure that a seven-day NHS can function, parliament’s spending watchdog has found. A report by the public accounts committee says the Department of Health (DH) has not yet worked out if the current supply of staff can adequately meet demand in the health service in England. “National bodies need to get a better grip on the supply of clinical staff in order to address current and future workforce pressures,” it concludes. The report will be seized upon by critics of the health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, whose long-running dispute with junior doctors is based on claims that there needs to be more staff working on weekends to ensure patient safety. MPs add that the DH has failed to assess the staffing implications of the Tories’ pledge for a seven-day NHS. Hunt wants to change the hours for which junior medics can claim premium rates of pay, turning 7am to 5pm on Saturday into a normal working day, but the report states: “The department has not adequately assessed the impact on the clinical workforce of implementing seven-day services and so does not know if there will be enough clinical staff with the right skills.” The group of MPs are calling for an urgent review of NHS clinical staffing in England. Meg Hillier, the chair of the committee, said there were serious flaws in the government’s approach to staffing the NHS. “This poor workforce planning means patients face the possibility of longer waiting times and a greater cost to the public purse,” she said. “At the same time, taxpayers are being asked to accept uncosted plans for a seven-day NHS – plans which therefore present a further serious risk to public money. “It beggars belief that such a major policy should be advanced with so flimsy a notion of how it will be funded. If the government hopes to reassure the public it has credible plans for staffing and service delivery, we urge it to demonstrate leadership.” MPs point out in the report that there was a shortfall of about 5.9% of clinical staff working in the NHS in 2014, equating to a gap of about 50,000 staff. They warn that this shortfall inhibits the health service in providing an efficient and effective service. In recent years, NHS trusts have been forced to reduce staff to meet efficiency targets, the report suggests, pointing out that the NHS meets the staffing need by using more costly agency staff, “thereby increasing the financial pressure on the NHS”. The report criticises the DH for “ineffective leadership and support, giving trusts conflicting messages about how to balance safe staffing with the need to make efficiency savings”. Dr Mark Porter, chair of council at the British Medical Association, said: “This report further underlines the government’s failure to consider how it will staff and fund additional services when the NHS is struggling to provide existing services. “Despite what ministers claim, NHS funding has not kept up with rising patient demand and the increased cost of delivering care. This situation is only set to get worse, not least because the government’s handling of the junior doctor contract, which has alienated a generation of doctors. This is disastrous for the delivery of patient care in the long term.” The DH said the report did not take into account an increase in the number of staff or plans to increase capacity to deliver a seven-day NHS. “By 2020, we expect to have 11,420 more doctors working in the NHS, coupled with 10,000 nursing, midwife and allied health professional training places through our reforms. By March next year, we will provide a quarter of the population with 7-day care,” it said.
George Osborne says UK would lose £36bn in tax receipts if it left EU George Osborne has said the British government would lose £36bn in net tax receipts, equivalent to 8p on the basic rate of income tax or 7p on VAT, if the UK leaves the EU and negotiates a bilateral trade agreement with the bloc. The chancellor said a 200-page Treasury analysis of the impact of Brexit showed it would make British families poorer, and he accused leave campaigners of believing that was a price worth paying. But out campaigners said that the chancellor was talking down the British economy in an unpatriotic way. The study concluded that a Canadian-style model, in which the UK negotiated a new trade deal with the EU that did not require freedom of movement, would reduce Britain’s GDP by 6.2%. “Under any alternative, we’d trade less, do less business and receive less investment, and the price would be paid by British families,” Osborne said. “Wages would be lower and prices would be higher. “The most likely result is that Britain would be poorer by £4,300 per household. That is £4,300 worse off every year, a bill paid year after year by the working people of Britain.” Osborne pointed out that a net loss of £36bn a year was the equivalent of a third of the annual budget for NHS England. He said the study showed that whatever model Britain opted for after Brexit would result in significant barriers to the country’s most important export market, with 500 million consumers. A Conservative minister said the analysis was unfair and biased, and argued that the government ought to provide both sides of the story if it wanted Britons to have a truly free vote. Andrea Leadsom, the energy minister, said remain supporters were talking down the economy in an unpatriotic way. “This Treasury report is extraordinary,” she said. “For a start, it is only looking at one issue, which is their thesis on what happens if we leave. A Treasury report that is a genuine choice for the people should look at the impact if we remain.” Howard Archer, economist at the consultancy IHS Global Insight, said nobody knew how the UK economy would fare post a Brexit-vote. He said that the “meaningful approach is to focus on the factors that will most influence how the UK economy will perform and to highlight the issues”. He added: “To this end, the Treasury’s report does bring useful analysis to the table, and it steps up pressure on the campaigners for the UK to leave the EU to come up with more rigorous economic analysis that supports their case.” The Treasury’s study is published as opinion polls point to an uncomfortably tight referendum for the chancellor and the prime minister. A new /ICM telephone poll, conducted over the weekend, puts remain on 54% and leave on 46% once the don’t knows are excluded. In parallel, ICM released a second poll conducted online that points to a dead heat, with 50% of respondents plumping for remain, and 50% for leave. Prof John Curtice calculates a weighted average of all published polls, and says the new data from ICM is very much in line with what he is seeing elsewhere. Remain had been running at around 54% overall in his series at the start of the year, and has now dropped to 51%, a figure that means “this referendum is now an awful lot closer than it was meant to be”. The tightening, Curtice explains, is entirely explained by movement in telephone surveys. “Whereas internet polls have for months been suggesting a country that is split down the middle, until recently this was offset by the surveys done over the phone, which were recording a far higher share for Remain, sometimes approaching 60%”. But with the last few telephone polls, this proportion has dipped below 55%, a trend confirmed in Monday’s survey. The government analysis also looked at the potential impact of a Norway-style model that would require freedom of movement, and signing up to a World Trade Organisation model. It concluded that the WTO option would lead to a £45bn drop in tax receipts, and a 7.5% drop in GDP, a position Crabb described as extreme. Even the Norway model would mean a £20bn drop in receipts and a 3.8% hit to the economy. Osborne said the EU was Britain’s most important trading partner, and that under the Norway model free movement would still have to be followed. “We are not Canada,” he said, pointing out that the deal would not include services. He said British families would pay a heavy price and would be poorer if the UK left the EU. Asked whether the government was abusing its power by producing the Treasury document, David Cameron’s official spokeswoman said: “In response to the debate in parliament as the EU referendum bill was being taken through in order to become an act, we committed to producing this. “In the debate in parliament, which MPs and peers were involved in, a number expressed an interest in hearing more about the economic consequences of our membership and we committed then to doing this.” Gisela Stuart, a Labour MP and chair of the Vote Leave campaign, called for the government to speed up the publication of a report on the impact of migration on school places, after allegations it was being delayed until after the referendum. “I’m deeply concerned to hear of yet another example of the government seeking to sway the debate by hiding inconvenient facts from the British people,” she said. “This has become a clear pattern of behaviour, and it is ill befitting of a government that claims to want to have an open and honest debate. “It is vital this report is released before the referendum so people can make an informed decision, and I urge Nicky Morgan to publish without further delay.” The former chancellor Norman Lamont described the Treasury predictions as “spurious and entirely unbelievable”. “They say economists put a decimal point in their forecasts to show that they have a sense of humour,” Lord Lamont said. “The chancellor has endorsed a forecast which looks 14 years ahead and predicts a fall in GDP of less than 0.5% a year, well within the margin of error. Few forecasts are right for 14 months, let alone 14 years.” Vote Leave, the leading out campaign, claimed that the £4,300 figure was based on the assumption that the government would break its promise of reducing net migration to the tens of thousands. It claimed that if migration did fall there would be no additional cost for families, and said the Treasury had failed to account for savings from lower regulation if Britain were to leave the EU. It also accused officials of failing to look at potential benefits from trade deals with other non-EU countries. Matthew Elliott, Vote Leave’s chief executive, said: “The headline figures in this report are deeply flawed. It is not credible to make these claims without showing your workings or the alternative you are comparing it to. It also ignores the Treasury’s own analysis that EU regulation costs the UK economy much more, a staggering £125bn a year.” He said Britain was the fifth biggest economy in the world. “If we vote leave we will also be able to do deals with growing countries like China and India, which will help businesses to grow, create jobs and make our economy stronger.” Another group, Grassroots Out, argued that the £4,300 figure amounted to 21p a person a day in return for national sovereignty. For general election voting intention, ICM’s telephone poll puts the Conservatives on 38%, Labour on 33%, Ukip on 13%, the Lib Dems on 7%, the Scottish Nationalists on 5%, the Greens on 3% and Plaid Cymru on 1%. Monday’s five-point lead for the Tories comes after a difficult couple of month for the government since the budget, and contrasts with some other recent polls, which actually put Labour ahead. It is, however, in line with ICM’s online voting intentions, which the company publishes for the first time on Monday. These figures put the Conservatives on 36%, Labour on 31%, Ukip 16%, the Lib Dems 7%, the SNP 4%, the Greens 4%, Plaid Cymru 1% and others on 1%.
The news isn't good: doctors, patients, and the confronting conversation about terminal cancer In the years that we have known each other, she has never asked me an opinion about her brother’s cancer, so when she finally asks if I will talk to him, I can’t help but say yes. I have heard about his trajectory over several months – how he has tried one chemotherapy after another, how he is becoming increasingly fatigued, and worryingly, how much time he has spent in hospital lately, fighting one or the other complication of treatment. “I wish we knew what the future holds,” she says, overcome by emotion. My heart melts at her predicament. Her brother calls me. “The oncologist has put chemotherapy on hold while the lung specialist treats my pneumonia,” he says uncertainly. “That’s a good thing,” I reply. “Does my chemo sound right to you?” “I can assure you it’s what most oncologists would use.” “I just can’t seem to hold my own - there’s always some problem.” “I can see, and I am sorry.” He goes through a charge sheet of ill-controlled symptoms, chief amongst them pain. The knowledgeable way in which he touches on targeted therapies, clinical trials and also his evident frailty tells me he is more educated than many other patients, yet he can’t seem to see that four lines of failed chemotherapy, each bout of weight loss and each unit of blood transfusion add up to a serious downturn in his prognosis that needs considering. A discussion about his prognosis would be the entry point to a range of conversations about the futility of further aggressive chemotherapy, the value of palliative care and his wishes for care at the end of life but although he is receiving the best drugs on offer, what seems to be missing is an articulation of the goals of care at this last stage of his illness. Having seen many patients die under a cloud of misinformation or worse, no information, I find the revelation upsetting but I recognise my bystander status. Also, I don’t know what serious news his oncologist might have shared. So in the end my growing concern manifests as a mild injunction: “Talk to your oncologist about the big picture – ask him to help you understand the future because it will help you make important decisions.” His answer leaves me speechless: “He is not that kind of an oncologist.” The authors of the influential Support study concluded as far back as 1995 that “the most fundamental choice that patients with incurable cancer face – the decision between life-extending therapy and comfort care – may be highly influenced by their understanding of their prognoses.” Other studies have followed, including one in the New England Journal of Medicine showing that more than two-thirds of patients with advanced, incurable, cancer mistakenly believed their chemotherapy was being given with curative intent. In the author’s blunt but memorable conclusion, “a focus on chemotherapy was the instrument that facilitated prognostic misunderstanding.” In other words, when oncologists shift the conversation from one of prognosis to that of drug options and treatment schedules, there is a missed opportunity to provide holistic care. That study changed my thinking, but as a new study in JAMA reveals, the vexed matter of oncologists and their discussion of prognosis shows little sign of being settled. In the study, 236 cancer patients were asked: “What do you believe the chances are that you will live for two years or more?” Their 38 oncologists were asked: “What do you believe are the chances that this patient will live for two years or more?” Some 68% of patients rated their two-year survival discordantly from their oncologist. A staggering 89% of these patients were not aware that they and their oncologist held different opinions of their prognosis, and nearly all were more optimistic than their oncologist, despite the oncologist believing that a “completely thorough” discussion had occurred. Most patients with an inaccurate estimation of their prognosis said that they desired palliative care input when they neared the end of life but if they didn’t appreciate their prognosis, they might easily miss the opportunity and keep receiving aggressive treatment. I found this study elegant, brave and, to be honest, worthy of the headlines it will probably never make as long as a new drug discovery waits in the wings. The patients deserve credit for answering a confronting question about their mortality and discovering that they were mostly wrong. The oncologists deserve praise for participating in a study they probably expected to highlight a failing that they share with the wider profession. In the wake of such studies, oncologists are left to rue many things, including poor communication, denial by the patient and collusion, where the oncologist and patient have an unspoken agreement to avoid certain topics. Tellingly, there is also evidence to suggest that patients perceive oncologists as better communicators when they deliver optimistic news. No one doubts that each side faces its own challenges to discussing prognosis and then, its consequences, but if medicine is to make good its promise of patient-centred care, the barriers must be broken. Seven million people die of cancer each year, the majority in the developing world. Unfortunately, some things in medicine change so slowly that many more will die while doctors debate the best way to deliver bad news. Where chemotherapy is unavailable and you need connections to get morphine, communicating prognosis seems an even lower priority. Elsewhere, in spite of the rhetoric, communication skills training is typically a low institutional priority. But to a great many oncologists around the world, getting communication right is becoming personally significant. Most say they don’t deliberately withhold bad news or worse, fabricate good news, but if our patients claim they’re in the dark, we all have some soul-searching to do. Patients themselves shouldn’t underestimate their power to nudge change. No doctor doubts the imperative to keep up with the science of medicine; a stronger individual and community expectation is required to finesse the art of medicine. Patients are entitled to honest, prognostic information that is delivered with sensitivity and empathy – it should be no less an expectation than informed consent about surgery or open disclosure of a medical error. But patients who want to know the truth must be prepared to hear the truth, and not conflate bad news with an incompetent doctor, which is the fear that sets many doctors back when it comes to giving any kind of bad news. Importantly, patients should know that misconceptions regarding prognosis transcend the boundaries of age, gender, education and income. You can be educated, wealthy and conversant with your oncologist but still be unaware of your prognosis. And if you happen to be non-white or non-English speaking, you are especially likely to be in the dark. The desire for a dignified and peaceful death is natural and universal but we know that there is substantial disparity in how people experience end of life care - this is something we can collectively change. Since we are just as likely as the next person to not know our prognosis, it must be our common mission to improve truth-telling in medicine.
Rightwing parties are on the rise – but they won't win power without women Support for the rightwing anti-immigration party Alternative for Germany (AfD) has hit a record 13%, according to a poll by Insa for newspaper Bild, making it the third most popular political party in Germany. The party has averaged 10.5% in polls carried out this year, more than doubling its popularity since the 2013 general election, when it failed to pass the 5% threshold needed to enter parliament. Support for the AfD is driven primarily by men; only 37% of its supporters are women. No other German party has such a wide gender divide among its voters. The trend is even starker among AfD’s 20,120 members, 81% of whom are male. The party’s support base also tends to be younger than the wider electorate. The average age of members is 47, making the AfD the second youngest party in Germany after the Pirate party. The AfD is most popular with men under 50, with an approval rating of 19%. The party’s lowest approval rating is among women over 50, with 7%. These demographic trends are not unique to the AfD. Relatively new populist parties in Germany have recently been more popular with younger men, and similar trends are taking place elsewhere. Further north, the popularity of the Sweden Democrats has continued to increase since they won a record 49 of the Riksdag’s 349 seats in 2014. The Swedish party has hit 20% in several polls, on a par with the country’s two main political forces, the Social Democrats and the Moderate party. At the last election, the Sweden Democrats won the votes of 10% of men and 6% of women, according to exit poll data. In France’s recent regional elections, the Front National (FN) won 34% of the male vote compared with 27% of the female vote. Voters over 65 were the only age group with which the FN did not come out on top, winning only 23% of the vote compared with 31.5%-35.7% among all other age groups. The same trend is evident in presidential polls, which the FN leader, Marine Le Pen, currently leads. Nationwide support for Le Pen is about 27%, but this ranges from less than 20% among over-65s to more than 30% with 35- to 64-year-olds. The same polls show that support for the FN leader is 30% among men, but 24% among women. Rightwing populist parties also lead the polls in the Netherlands and Austria, while in Italy support for the Five Star Movement (FSM) and the Lega Nord remains strong. Beppe Grillo’s populist FSM movement is the second largest political force in the country and the most popular among voters under 50. Meanwhile in the US, support for the current Republican frontrunner Donald Trump is particularly strong among angry, frustrated, white, less-educated men in their 40s. Comparing different countries is complicated. Every nation has a different political system and electoral dynamics. And in order to win an election, parties and candidates need to bring together a diverse coalition of voters. Ultimately, parties with a narrower and skewed appeal will always struggle to win elections. There are two common challenges that many of these parties and candidates face. First, older voters tend to be more influential in shaping electoral outcomes because a greater proportion of them tend to cast ballots compared with the rest of the population. Second, in western Europe, where figures are available – in Sweden, Germany and the UK – data shows there is no significant difference in turnout between men and women. Indeed, in every US presidential election since 1980, the proportion of eligible female adults who voted has exceeded the proportion of eligible male adults, while the actual number of female voters has exceeded the number of male voters in every election since 1964. At the last German election, more than a third of voters were aged 60 and over – more than twice the number of those aged under 30. If only men voted, the AfD would have entered parliament – it won 5.5% of votes among men in west Germany, and 7.1% among those in the east. But among women the party won only 3.4% and 4.7% of the vote respectively – and ultimately failed to enter parliament. Young, angry white voters may be on the rise – but without the votes of women and older people they will always hit a ceiling.
Trump slams Clinton after FBI opens fresh inquiry into her emails – as it happened We’re going close our rolling coverage of the 2016 presidential campaign, with a few hours and 10 days before election day. You can read a summary of the day’s events here, about Hillary Clinton’s subsequent remarks on the new FBI review here, and about a falsehood strewn speech by Donald Trump in Iowa here. “We’re a divided nation but we are fighting to bring us all together, like here tonight. There’s love here. There’s love,” Trump says. “We will make America wealthy again. We will make America strong again. We will make America safe again. And we will make America great again. God bless you.” With that Trump closes out his rally. “We have the highest murder in this country in 45 years,” Trump says, very falsely. Trump is distorting an FBI statistic into a false claim: in September the agency reported that murders and non-negligent manslaughter rose in the US by 10.8% in 2015, the largest single-year increase since 1971. That is not the same as saying there are more murders in the US than at any point since 1971: 15,696 murders were reported in 2015, down from 1991 and 1993 highs of 24,703 and 24,526. There were more murders in 1971 (17,780) than in 2015. The murder rate declined 42% from 1993 to 2014, even though the population increased by a quarter. During this week’s debate Trump almost cited the statistic accurately, saying: “We have an increase in murder within our cities, the biggest in 45 years.” The FBI figure is a national one, not restricted to cities. “You don’t hear that from these people,” he adds, gesturing toward the press. “They don’t want to talk about it.” You can read our report on it, from the day of the release and before Trump remarked on it, through the link below. “When I am elected president I am going to keep radical Islamic terrorists out of this country,” Trump says, without details. “And yes, we will build the wall. And yes, Mexico will pay for the wall. 100%. 100%.” “The cost of the wall is peanuts compared to what we’re talking about,” Trump says. Nonpartisan analysts estimate the wall would cost at least $25bn. The US goods trade deficit with Mexico is about $58bn, which is offset by the US surplus in services of $9.2bn. “If not for the open border policies of this administration,” Trump says, “countless Americans would be alive today.” The US does not have “open borders”, and Barack Obama has deported more than 2.5 million people, a record – as Trump himself noted at hte final presidential debate. “Hillary has pledged open borders,” Trump says, “and supports sanctuary cities.” Clinton does not support open borders but does support sanctuary cities and reform to let people pass background checks and pay back taxes in order to stay in the US, and she supports Obama’s executive actions to shield some migrants, such as people who were brought to the US as children. Like Obama, she supports deportation for people with criminal records. “We are going to have the biggest tax cut since Ronald Reagan.” This is only true if you’re in the wealthiest bracket of American earners. Half of Trump’s tax cuts would go to the top 1% of earners, according to the Tax Policy Center, and most families below the top 20% of earners would have income gains of less than 1%. Trump doesn’t linger long on the Affordable Care Act though. He leads the crowd in a chant of “drain the swamp”, his new catchphrase for taking on corruption in Washington. “Forty-five percent of African American children under the age of six” are in poverty, Trump says inaccurately, citing outdated data. Per Politifact: The poverty rates in question were as high as Trump says they were at the depths of the Great Recession, but they have since eased, to somewhere between 20 percent and 37 percent, depending on which income threshold you use. Still, the rates for African-American children are disproportionately high, so Trump has a point even if his statistics are too old and exaggerate the scale of poverty in that age group. On balance, we rate the statement Half True. “Another two million Hispanic Americans have fallen into poverty under the Obama administration,” he says, also falsely. Per the ’s own fact check: Trump’s use of “two million” is misleading on two points: he starts counting from 2008, when George W Bush was still in office – and from right before the financial crisis’ peak – and he ignores that the Hispanic population has grown dramatically in the eight years since then. Almost 1.4 million Hispanic people fell below the poverty line between 2008 and 2009, Census poverty numbers show, but the number of Hispanic people in poverty has decreased during the recovery. In 2015 it fell to 21.4%, down from 25.2% in 2009. “It will be very hard to leave your farm to your children and your heirs,” he says, alluding to the so-called “death tax” on inheritance, though the estate tax actually only affects wealthy families and not the majority of Americans. Trump then moves on to saying that he’s “really moving” in the polls, and that he’s leading in many of them. This is not true, as election models and poll averages show. “I don’t know what’s going to happen now,” Trump continues. “So much is at stake in this election.” When we win in November we are going to have honest government once again. Hillary Clinton destroyed 33,000 emails. Destroyed 13 iPhones.” He then says, without evidence, that Clinton “put her office up for sale” to corporations and foreign donors. Hacked emails show concerns within the campaign that Clinton’s husband, Bill, was too close with various donors, but no one has found evidence of a favor returned in exchange for donations to the Clintons’ charitable foundation. Trump moves on to reminiscing about how, last June, he came down an elevator with his wife to announce his presidential campaign. He abruptly segues into saying how “we’re going to be the smart country once again,” and saying “we never win anymore” abroad. He correctly says that the White House has admitted healthcare premiums will increase by as much as 25% next year, but then misleadingly says that the true number is twice that. Premiums will increase by varying amounts according to each state: some will be quite high, as Trump warns, others will be far lower. Trump then correctly notes that Obama misled Americans about whether they could keep their doctor under the Affordable Care Act. “Repealing and replacing Obamacare is one of the single most important reasons we must win on November 8,” Trump says. Donald Trump appears on stage in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He thanks everybody. “As you’ve heard, earlier today, the FBI after discovering new emails” – the crowd cheers – “is reopening their investigation into Hillary Clinton.” This is not technically correct. Comey said the emails are part of a new review “pertaining to” the prior investigation. “Lock her up,” the crowd chants. “The investigation is the biggest political scandal since Watergate, and it’s everybody’s hope that justice at last can be delivered. In the very brief remarks tonight Hillary Clinton tonight tried to politicize this investigation,” Trump continues, “by attacking and falsely accusing the FBI director of only sending the letter to Republicans. “Another Clinton lie. As it turns out it was sent to both Republican and Democratic leaders.” Trump says that the FBI “would never have reopened this case at this time unless it were a most egregious criminal offense”. “I give them great credit for having the courage to right this horrible wrong. Justice will prevail.” Trump has suggested for months that the FBI has acted politically to hide alleged corruption. Someone is back at the podium after more than 45 minutes of waiting. It’s not Donald Trump, but he praises the candidate, who is reportedly en route. “He’s put his finger on a deeply underappreciated body of people,” the man at the podium says. “He is going to be the next president of the United States of America.” Then the man leaves the stage. “Let’s get the next president up here.” As of 6.45pm PT, Trump has an 18.5% chance of winning the election and Hillary Clinton has a 81.5% chance, according to FiveThirtyEight’s election model. Far from the podium in Cedar Rapids, vice-president Joe Biden was asked by CNN about the new FBI review and the role that disgraced congressman Anthony Weiner plays in it. Meanwhile, the Republican candidate has at last landed in the correct state. Trump is now an hour and 15 minutes late to his own rally, but reporting continues to trickle out from Washington on FBI director James Comey’s decision to announce a review into emails of unknown significance. Officials speaking on condition of anonymity have told the Washington Post that he sent a cryptic letter today because of politics within the agency and with Congress. FBI Director James B. Comey decided to inform Congress that he would look again into Hillary Clinton’s handling of emails during her time as secretary of state for two main reasons — a sense of obligation to lawmakers and a concern that word of the new email discovery would leak to the media and raise questions of a coverup. The rationale, described by officials close to Comey’s decision-making on the condition of anonymity, prompted the FBI director to release his brief letter to Congress on Friday and upset a presidential race less than two weeks before Election Day. It placed Comey again at the center of a highly partisan argument over whether the nation’s top law enforcement agency was unfairly influencing the campaign. In a memo explaining his decision to FBI employees soon after he sent his letter to Congress, Comey said he felt “an obligation to do so given that I testified repeatedly in recent months that our investigation was completed.” “Of course, we don’t ordinarily tell Congress about ongoing investigations, but here I feel I also think it would be misleading to the American people were we not to supplement the record,” Comey wrote to his employees. Blum talks about John Boehner, the former speaker of the House. Blum brags that he voted against Boehner, a veteran Republican leader, for that position. “I reminded Mr Boehner, in his palatial office, that I do not report to you,” Blum says. “I report to the good people of the first district of Iowa!” The office of the speaker belongs to whomever wins the title. Republican Paul Ryan, a close ally of Boehner’s before the former speaker’s retirement, currently works there. Blum enthusiastically endorsed Ryan, a nine-term representative from Wisconsin. “My friends, deplorables, the time is now. The time is now or never. The time is November 8 or never,” Blum says, before moving on to abysmal monsters. “We are staring into the abyss. I’ve been in the belly of the beast for two years. We are staring into the abyss. “I need your help. Will you help me?” He says he needs the audience to “tell them about Blum”. He begins talking about how his father fought in the second world war with a 10th-grade education. Trump is nearly an hour late. A mustachioed man named Jeff addresses the crowd before Trump, who is approximately 40 minutes late to the Cedar Rapids rally. The man is shouting, and praising various Republican candidates. He says that voters are going to terrify Democrats. “Make them shiver and shake, cause there’s a change a-coming, and I can feel it in the air!” “What Hillary Clinton did with those emails, I know it’s politically advantageous, but you know what folks, we had a secretary of state put our national security, that’s your children, that’s your grandchildren at stake. Folks, I’m a history professor, I’m going to tell you right now the history of our country, the history of our country, we don’t have a precedent for what’s going on.” Jeff doesn’t actually say anything about FBI agents’ July conclusions that Clinton was “extremely careless”, or that they found no evidence that her server had been hacked, though they thought it at risk. Goetz returns. “I’m glad Jeff got that out of his system.” A congressman, Rod Blum, appears on stage. “Hello-o-o-o, deplorables!” He says he represents Iowans in Washington DC, which he then says is “infested” and “a swamp”. “We are fed up with the lying, we are fed up with the corruption, we are fed up with people who go there to serve themselves,” he says. Still waiting for Donald Trump, Tana Goetz, a former Apprentice contestant, comes out onto the stage to pep up the crowd by dismissing Hillary Clinton “just across the river”. Then someone holds a moment of prayer for Donald Trump and Mike Pence. Then Goetz introduces a man to lead the crowd in the pledge of allegiance. A Cedar Rapids music teacher takes the lead for the national anthem. Goetz says that Trump “took a chance on me, a woman, an Iowan, and an entrepreneur”. “What he showed me was enough to put my successful careers on hold,” she says, to campaign for Trump. He’s got a huge heart, she says. “I know this man’s heart and it is good. And he genuinely loves people. You can’t live in New York City and not love people.” This last statement is not true. But Goetz goes on to say that she knows “how much this man loves this country”. “He doesn’t need this job.” “Donald Trump’s gonna win this thing in a landslide. And it’s gonna happen. I predicted it and it’s gonna happen.” She then says the FBI “is re-opening the case”, alluding to the new review into a new batch of emails related to Hillary Clinton, and the crowd chants “lock her up”. As we wait for Trump to speak in Iowa, the state has reported its third suspected case of attempted voter fraud in a Donald Trump supporter, according to the Des Moines Register. Terri Lynn Rote, 55, was booked into the Polk County Jail about 3.40pm Thursday on a first-degree election misconduct charge, which is a Class D felony. Rote, a registered Republican, reportedly cast an early voting ballot at the Polk County Election Office, 120 Second Ave, and another ballot at a county satellite voting location in Des Moines, according to a Des Moines police report. It’s the first time in 12 years that Polk County Auditor Jamie Fitzgerald can remember ever having to report potential voter fraud, he said Thursday morning. The other two suspects are accused of casting mail-in ballots and also voting in person, according to police reports. As of Friday morning, neither of those suspects had been arrested. The case is under investigation by Des Moines police. “I think it shows that our voting system works in Iowa, that we’re able to catch it,” Fitzgerald said. “Tensions are running high on both sides” as election day approaches, the county auditor said, but the cases of double voting could also have been simple mistakes. “That’s not for me to decide,” he said. Rote was held in jail on a $5,000 bond, but she had been released as of Friday afternoon. Her next court appearance was scheduled for Nov. 7, court records show. Trump has repeatedly and falsely claimed that voter fraud is rampant throughout the electorate, and especially in largely black precincts of Philadelphia and Chicago. It is not. The businessman has also suggested that he would not mind voter fraud perpetrated in his favor, saying at a rally last week, “Well, if they’re gonna vote for me, we’ll think about it, right?” Donald Trump is due to speak at a rally in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, at 5pm local time, just under a two hour drive from Des Moines, where Hillary Clinton just held her press conference. Clinton is on her way back to her New York headquarters, though, while Trump will carry on to Golden, Colorado, and Phoenix, Arizona, for campaign stops on Saturday. The former secretary of state will make her own stop in the latter state, which was not long ago thought to be securely Republican, on Wednesday. Adam Schiff, ranking member of the House intelligence committee and a Democrat from California, has released a mild rebuke of the FBI. Throughout the investigation into Secretary Clinton’s emails, which resulted in a finding that no reasonable prosecutor would bring charges, Director Comey and the FBI have provided unprecedented transparency. While I have at times disagreed with the extent of the Director’s departure from DOJ’s sound policy of declining comment on pending or closed investigations, I recognize that this investigation presents unique challenges for the FBI. Nevertheless, the deliberately ambiguous nature of the Director’s most recent disclosure -- the emails could be significant or insignificant, relevant or irrelevant -- contributes nothing to the public’s understanding. When coupled with the acknowledgment that more information will take an indeterminate period of time, it is difficult to see how this latest departure from Department policy has served the public interest. Schiff has tried to strike out a middle ground between outrage, which his Senate colleague Dianne Feinstein has expressed, and a slightly baffled willingness to hear the FBI out, as some Republicans in Congress have done. Texas senator John Cornyn, for instance, tweeted out some of his questions earlier Friday afternoon. Blomberg’s Jennifer Epstein catches Clinton in a falsehood during her extremely short press conference, which lasted less than four minutes: the letter went to Republicans and Democrats on intelligence committees. Senator Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat who is usually a staunch ally of the security agencies, rebuked Comey in a statement this afternoon, saying she was “shocked” to read his letter. This is particularly troubling since so many questions are unanswered. It’s unclear whether these emails have already been reviewed or if Secretary Clinton sent or received them. In fact, we don’t even know if the FBI has these emails in its possession. Without knowing how many emails are involved, who wrote them, when they were written or their subject matter, it’s impossible to make any informed judgment on this development. However, one thing is clear: Director Comey’s announcement played right into the political campaign of Donald Trump, who is already using the letter for political purposes. And all of this just 11 days before the election. Director Comey admits ‘the FBI cannot yet assess whether or not this material may be significant.’ He cannot predict how long the investigation will take. And we don’t know if the FBI has these emails in hand. It’s too bad Director Comey didn’t take those gaping holes into consideration when he decided to send this letter. The FBI has a history of extreme caution near Election Day so as not to influence the results. Today’s break from that tradition is appalling. Clinton said she was “confident” that the new inquiry would not affect any of the FBI’s findings from its long investigation into her private email server. Compared to his brief letter Friday, Director James Comey explained in far greater length the methods and conclusions of that investigation, which cleared Clinton and her aides of intentional wrongdoing but called them “extremely careless”. In that explanation, Comey also contradicted several of Clinton’s past claims about her email practices. Clinton says that she first learned of the new emails and review when James Comey sent a letter to members of Congress. “The first we knew about it is I assume when you knew about it.” A reporter asks about what could be on these emails, and Clinton says she doesn’t know. “We don’t know the facts, which is why we are calling on the FBI to release all the information that we have.” Another asks about how this might influence the decisions of undecided voters. “I think people made up a long time ago their minds about the emails,” Clinton replies. “Now they’re choosing a president.” She urges people to vote early, and concludes the press conference without taking another question. “I have now seen Director Comey’s letter,” Clinton tells reporters. “We are 11 days out from perhaps the most important national election of our lifetimes.” “Voting is already underway,” he adds. “So the American people deserve to get the full and complete facts immediately. The director himself has said he doesn’t know whether the emails referenced in his letter are significant or not.” “I’m confident whatever they are will not change the conclusion reached in Juliy,” she continues, alluding to the FBI’s conclusion that they found no evidence of intentional wrongdoing in Clinton’s use of a private email server while she was secretary of state. “Therefore it’s imperative that the bureau explain this issue in question without delay.” Hillary Clinton is due to deliver remarks to reporters in Des Moines, Iowa, on the FBI’s announcement that it will investigate new emails recovered from their inquiry into Anthony Weiner, the disgraced former congressman and estranged husband of a Clinton aide, Huma Abedin. The FBI is investigating newly discovered emails related to Hillary Clinton’s personal server, its director has announced. The FBI had announced in July that its investigation into the Democratic presidential candidate’s private email server had concluded with a recommendation of no criminal charges in the matter, although James Comey, the FBI’s director, criticised Clinton as “careless.” But in a letter sent to members of Congress today, Comey said new emails had been discovered in an “unrelated” case. “In connection with an unrelated case, the FBI has learned of the existence of emails that appear to be pertinent to the investigation,” Comey wrote. “I am writing to inform you that the investigative team briefed me on this yesterday, and I agreed that the FBI should take appropriate investigative steps designed to allow investigators to review these emails to determine whether they contain classified information as well as to assess their importance to our investigation.” That unrelated case? Anthony Weiner v. The World. The FBI seized electronic devices belonging to Clinton aide Huma Abedin and her husband, disgraced former congressman Anthony Weiner in an unrelated investigation into explicit text messages Weiner sent to a 15-year-old girl. Weiner was being investigated after he allegedly spent several months this year in highly explicit exchanges with the 15-year-old girl. Speaking in Lisbon, Maine, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump told a room full of supporters that Clinton’s use of private email servers when she served as secretary of state is “the biggest political scandal since Watergate.” “The FBI, after discovering new emails, is reopening their investigation into Hillary Clinton,” Trump said, inaccurately. “I have great respect for the FBI for righting this wrong. The American people fully understand her corruption and we hope all - all - justice will finally be served. This is the biggest political scandal since Watergate, and I’m sure that it will be properly handled from this point forward.” Here’s a statement on the FBI move by House speaker Paul Ryan: Yet again, Hillary Clinton has nobody but herself to blame. She was entrusted with some of our nation’s most important secrets, and she betrayed that trust by carelessly mishandling highly classified information. This decision, long overdue, is the result of her reckless use of a private email server, and her refusal to be forthcoming with federal investigators. I renew my call for the Director of National Intelligence to suspend all classified briefings for Secretary Clinton until this matter is fully resolved. Mike Pence, the Republican vice-presidential nominee, emerged unscathed after his plane skidded off the runway while landing at LaGuardia airport in New York in heavy rain last night. The Boeing 737 carrying Donald Trump’s running mate coming in for a landing and went off the runway at about 7:40pm local time (23.40 GMT). The plane was stopped by a crushable type of concrete runway that halted the aircraft’s movement, the Federal Aviation Administration said. It finally came a standstill on an area of grass. Illinois senator Mark Kirk seemed to suggest the Asian American heritage of congresswoman Tammy Duckworth, an Iraq war veteran, somehow diminished her family’s long service to the US. “I had forgotten your parents came all the way from Thailand to serve George Washington,” Kirk said of Duckworth. The third-term congresswoman, who was born in Thailand, is the daughter of a Thai woman of Chinese descent and an American father who traced his roots to the Revolutionary War. Members of the Duckworth family have served in the American armed forces since the revolution. And one more thing: The FBI is not, for the record, “re-opening” the case against Hillary Clinton: Whatever doubts gnaw at Donald Trump at dead of night, his hardcore supporters will not allow him to give up the dream of the White House. All 18 people interviewed by the at a Trump campaign rally in the battleground state of Ohio on Thursday night challenged the basic premise that he is losing. If anything, they seemed even more convinced than he is that opinion polls and mainstream media cannot be trusted so he should not throw in the towel. Trump, channelling the mix of vexation and continued hope, said: “I’ve been saying if we win ‘cos I want to be nice, right, but the people are getting angry at me so we’ll just say when we win on November 8.” But the omens are not good. As Hillary Clinton dominates opinion polls and gets positive signs from early voting, Trump has stopped formal, major donor fundraising events for the Republican party. He has reportedly cut back on transition plans and taken time off the campaign trail to open his new hotel in Washington. Recently Trump dolefully asked supporters whether they were glad he ran, adding: “I’ll let you know on the evening of November 8 whether I’m glad.” The candidate’s rally at a sports complex in Geneva – his third in Ohio on Thursday – drew an estimated 7,000 people but was far from full, in contrast to his swashbuckling early campaign. It was overwhelmingly white, including many retirees. But those who did attend waved “Trump/ Pence” and “Make America great again” signs and chanted “Lock her up!” and “Build the wall!” with the usual gusto. They nodded approvingly when Trump described his opponent as “unstable” and jeered when Trump reeled off a list of State Department expenditures during Clinton’s tenure as secretary, including $79,000 on Barack Obama’s books, $630,000 to try to make State Department Facebook pages more popular and $88,000 to send three comedians to India. They whooped with delight when the showman made reference to Vice-President Joe Biden’s recent comment that he would like to take him behind the gym. “You know what you do with Biden? You go like this.” Trump turned to one side and blew a puff of air from his mouth. “And he’d fall over.” He added: “I dream about Biden. Boy, would that be easy. That would be an easy function.” Tomorrow morning’s New York Post cover: Watch it live here: An Iowa woman has been arrested on suspicion of committing voter fraud by voting twice in the general election, according to the Des Moines Register: Terri Lynn Rote, 55, was booked into the Polk County Jail about 3:40 p.m. Thursday on a first-degree election misconduct charge, which is a Class D felony. Rote, a registered Republican, reportedly cast an early voting ballot at the Polk County Election Office, 120 Second Ave., and another ballot at a county satellite voting location in Des Moines, according to a Des Moines police report. This is Rote: Vice president Joe Biden has responded to the rumor that Hillary Clinton’s campaign is considering him as a possible secretary of state in a hypothetical Clinton administration, saying that he’s flattered by the consideration but doesn’t want to remain in the administration. “I’ll do anything I can if Hillary’s elected to help her, but I don’t want to remain in the administration,” Biden told CNN affiliate KBJR. “I have no intention of staying involved. I have a lot of things to do, but I’ll help her if I can in any way I can.” Politico reported yesterday that sources within the campaign had tipped their hats toward Biden as a secretary of state, a nod to his widely acknowledged foreign-policy acumen. Eleven. More. Days. Eighteen months and 30 miles away from where Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign began, the issue that has dogged the Democratic candidate from the start caught up with her on Friday, when director James Comey announced the FBI was reviewing newly discovered emails relating to her personal server. We know from leaked emails that even Clinton’s closest friends thought it was “insane” to secretly communicate via a private computer server while working as secretary of state. “Do we actually know who told Hillary she could use a private email?” wrote close aide and transition team member Neera Tanden in a July 2015 note recently revealed by WikiLeaks. “And has that person been drawn and quartered? Like [this] whole thing is fucking insane.” Fortunately for Clinton, in July the FBI eventually decided to let this potentially illegal evasion of security protocol pass with a sharp wrap on the knuckles. There was an audible intake of breath among campaign followers in the summer, when Comey criticised her for being “extremely careless” in her handling of classified information, but his decision not to recommend criminal chargesbrought to an end the one threat deemed capable of preventing her from becoming president. That was, at least, until Comey dropped a fresh bombshell. The three-paragraph letter he released to Congress on Friday revealing the existence of potentially significant new evidence may or not have any legal bearing on whether charges are again possible. It certainly had a political impact. Clinton was in the air when the letter leaked. An onboard Wi-Fi outage meant she may not have discovered its existence at all until her plane landed in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, for a campaign stop just down the road from her very first event as a candidate on 14 April 2015. There was a long delay in her leaving the plane as aides urgently gathered onboard to discuss the issue. A planned photoshoot with Annie Leibowitz had to be cut short. Her opponent wasted no time pointing out that it is never a good look for a presidential candidate to be under criminal investigation by the FBI. “Hillary Clinton’s corruption is on a scale we have never seen before,” was Donald Trump’s predictable hyperbole at a rally minutes later in New Hampshire. “We must not let her take her criminal scheme into the Oval Office.” Democrats rushed to downplay its significance on Friday, as campaign chairman John Podesta suggested Comey may have been “browbeaten” by aggressive Republicans into announcing a relatively minor wrinkle for the sake of transparency. The investigation had still not officially been closed, so it is also oversimplifying to say, as many initially did, that it has been “reopened”. The fact that the evidence in question reportedly comes from separate investigation into a sex scandal engulfing Anthony Weiner, the estranged of husband of Huma Abedin, one of Clinton’s key aides, should make it less relevant to her security case, not more. Speaking in Lisbon, Maine, nearly an hour after he was scheduled to appear - there was an issue with the stairs on his plane - Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump told a room full of supporters that Hillary Clinton’s use of private email servers when she served as secretary of state is “the biggest political scandal since Watergate.” “The FBI, after discovering new emails, is reopening their investigation into Hillary Clinton,” Trump said, inaccurately. “I have great respect for the FBI for righting this wrong. The American people fully understand her corruption and we hope all - all - justice will finally be served.” “This is the biggest political scandal since Watergate, and I’m sure that it will be properly handled from this point forward.” “Now, getting back to things that don’t sound quite as exciting, but they’re so important, right?” Watch it live here: And former governor Mike Huckabee goes there. Ted Cruz has released a statement in response to the latest Clinton email mishegas: Americans already know Hillary Clinton’s lifelong pattern of corruption. It is abundantly clear that her handling of classified information on a private email server was grossly negligent, as the FBI admitted this summer. The question is whether our top law enforcement agencies will ever act to hold her accountable. For decades, the FBI has earned a reputation for fair and impartial enforcement of the law, free of partisan influence. Director Comey’s previous half-hearted investigation of Hillary Clinton did serious damage to that reputation, and this latest revelation affords the FBI the opportunity to begin to repair that damage. The FBI has yet to provide access to the information that was used in its previous decision, as requested by me and other Senate Judiciary members, including Chairman Grassley, and it should do so. Whatever new evidence has been found should be thoroughly investigated, and I hope that - unlike with the prior investigation - Director Comey will demonstrate the courage to uphold the law and restore the integrity of the FBI. Elected officials, no matter how high their position, should be held accountable for criminal conduct. The rule of law matters, and it should apply equally and fairly to us all. Hillary for America has a new video pairing Donald Trump’s own words with the experiences of contestants in his numerous beauty pageants: “This is a man who relishes making women feel terrible about themselves, in every possible way,” Clinton said in Iowa today, before the video’s launch. “Someone who thinks belittling and objectifying women makes him a bigger man. He goes after dignity and self-worth of women, and I don’t think there’s a woman anywhere who doesn’t know what that feels like.” Realtalk: Gary Johnson has released a statement: With just days remaining before the election, the Democratic and Republican parties are offering a choice between a candidate under FBI investigation, and Donald Trump. Voters deserve a lot better than that. America deserves better than that. Integrity, honesty and treating all Americans with dignity are actually important. Is it too much to ask that our President should possess those minimum qualifications? Every ballot in every state and the District of Columbia has a third option, and that option is a ticket with two former Governors, each a Republican elected and reelected in a Democratic state. If ever there is a time when voters should have such a third choice, it is now. And they have one. Hillary for America Chair John Podesta has released a statement in response to news that the FBI is reviewing new emails related to Hillary Clinton’s use of private email servers during her tenure as secretary of state: Upon completing this investigation more than three months ago, FBI Director Comey declared no reasonable prosecutor would move forward with a case like this and added that it was not even a close call. In the months since, Donald Trump and his Republican allies have been baselessly second-guessing the FBI and, in both public and private, browbeating the career officials there to revisit their conclusion in a desperate attempt to harm Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. FBI Director Comey should immediately provide the American public more information than is contained in the letter he sent to eight Republican committee chairmen. Already, we have seen characterizations that the FBI is ‘reopening’ an investigation but Comey’s words do not match that characterization. Director Comey’s letter refers to emails that have come to light in an unrelated case, but we have no idea what those emails are and the Director himself notes they may not even be significant. It is extraordinary that we would see something like this just 11 days out from a presidential election. The Director owes it to the American people to immediately provide the full details of what he is now examining. We are confident this will not produce any conclusions different from the one the FBI reached in July. This is uncomfortable. According to a New York Times report based on anonymous sources within the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the “new emails” being reviewed by the FBI related to the closed investigation of Hillary Clinton’s private email servers were discovered after the FBI seized electronic devices belonging to Clinton aide Huma Abedin and her husband, disgraced former congressman Anthony Weiner. The FBI seized the devices in an unrelated investigation into explicit text messages Weiner sent to a 15-year-old girl. Weiner was being investigated after he allegedly spent several months this year in highly explicit exchanges with the 15-year-old girl. The FBI had announced in July that its investigation into the Democratic presidential candidate’s private email server had concluded with a recommendation of no criminal charges in the matter, although James Comey, the FBI’s director, criticised Clinton as “careless.” But in a letter sent to members of Congress this morning, Comey said new emails had been discovered in an “unrelated” case. “In connection with an unrelated case, the FBI has learned of the existence of emails that appear to be pertinent to the investigation,” Comey wrote. “I am writing to inform you that the investigative team briefed me on this yesterday, and I agreed that the FBI should take appropriate investigative steps designed to allow investigators to review these emails to determine whether they contain classified information as well as to assess their importance to our investigation.” Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton ignored the news that the FBI is investigating newly-discovered emails related to her use of personal email servers during her tenure at the State Department at a campaign rally in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, this afternoon, instead focusing on down-ballot candidates and recent local flooding. Republican rival Donald Trump’s negative turn in recent weeks, Clinton told the audience, is a craven attempt to turn off voters and minimize turnout. “His strategy is to get women to stay home, get young people to stay home, get people of color to stay home,” Clinton said. “It’s all part of his scorched-earth campaign - the last refuge of a bankrupt candidate. And it goes against everything we stand for in America.” Watch it live here: Trump has released a statement on the FBI inquiry which turns out to be just what he said at the top of his New Hampshire speech. The statement is inaccurate in a couple ways. Clinton has not been found to have engaged in any “criminal” or “illegal conduct.” And the FBI has not announced any “reopening” of a “case.” Comey announced they are looking at newly discovered emails: “I need to open with a very critical breaking news announcement. The FBI has just sent a letter to Congress informing them that they have discovered new emails pertaining to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s investigation, and they are reopening the case into her criminal and illegal conduct that threatens the security of the United States of America. “Hillary Clinton’s corruption is on a scale we have never seen before. We must not let her take her criminal scheme into the Oval Office. “I have great respect for the fact that the FBI and the DOJ are now willing to have the courage to right the horrible mistake that they made. This was a grave miscarriage of justice that the American people fully understand. It is everybody’s hope that it is about to be corrected.” –Donald J. Trump The Republican national committee has released a statement saying the timing of the FBI decision to look at additional Clinton emails – just 11 days before the election – indicates it’s serious. “This stunning development raises serious questions about what records may not have been turned over and why, and whether they show intent to violate the law,” the statement says, continuing: What’s indisputable is that Hillary Clinton jeopardized classified information on thousands of occasions in her reckless attempt to hide pay-to-play corruption at her State Department. This alone should be disqualifying for anyone seeking the presidency, a job that is supposed to begin each morning with a top secret intelligence briefing. Trump tells a story about a rally with so many people that safety and fire officials grew concerned about a dangerous stampede. “It’s a stampede of love,” Trump said. Yesterday he said: “Love can kill, too.” “They said, we have very strong people, but Mr Trump, they’re not nearly as strong as 45,000 people.” That’s a made up number – Trump has not had a rally that big. “It might not be as rigged as I thought.” “Today I wrote a $10m check,” Trump says. He says he’ll have spent $100m “or close to.” We’ll know in two days whether he’s telling the truth about the $10m. What if all Donald Trump’s claims of a rigged everything turn out to be gaseous fantasies? Trump keeps interrupting his stump speech, which is all about corruption in Washington including in the justice department and at the FBI, to mention the new FBI inquiry, which he then takes credit for. “I’m very proud that the FBI was willing to do this, actually,” Trump says at one point. Earlier, he said: But real change means getting rid of the corruption in Washington. And wow, maybe that’s happening. I won my first primary in New Hampshire. And now [this news]. This is bigger than Watergate. At another point: “Right now that takes care of itself. I think.” Here’s a statement on the FBI move by House speaker Paul Ryan: Yet again, Hillary Clinton has nobody but herself to blame. She was entrusted with some of our nation’s most important secrets, and she betrayed that trust by carelessly mishandling highly classified information. This decision, long overdue, is the result of her reckless use of a private email server, and her refusal to be forthcoming with federal investigators. I renew my call for the Director of National Intelligence to suspend all classified briefings for Secretary Clinton until this matter is fully resolved.” Trump: “That being said, the rest of my speech is going to be so boring. Should I even give the speech?” The crowd applauds. Trump takes the stage in New Hampshire and says that the FBI is “reopening the case into her criminal and illegal conduct that threatens the security of the United States of America.” The crowd chants, “Lock her up!” “We must not let her take her criminal” schemes to the White House. I have great respect for the fact that the FBI and the department of justice are now willing to have the courage to right the horrible mistake that they made. This was a grave miscarriage of justice that the American people fully understood. And it is everybody’s hope that it is about to be corrected. So that is a big announcement that I heard 10 minutes ago.” The crowd is cheering, excited. Donald Trump will campaign in Michigan on Monday, where internal polls show a “dead heat,” according to Trump communications adviser Jason Miller in an interview. Trump’s internal polling operation is not known for its strength. Recent FEC reports showed the campaign spent just $1.8m on polling through September of this year, versus $3.2m on hats. The Michigan city where Trump will campaign was not named, and no Michigan date yet appears on Trump’s schedule. Miller spoke with WABC Radio Host Rita Cosby. “For all of the talk of Hillary Clinton supposedly going on offense with Red States, she’s campaigning in Blue States, and we’re making a play for Blue States,” Miller said, inaccurately. In fact Clinton is campaigning in traditionally red-leaning and battleground states such as Arizona. “Both in New Mexico and in Michigan we’re showing dead heats in those states,” Miller said. Retired lieutenant general Michael Flynn, who has been speaking at events just before Trump, is onstage now in Manchester, New Hampshire. We’re waiting for the candidate: Here are some transcripted excerpts (for legibility) from Comey’s letter to Congress: “Due to recent developments, I am writing to supplement my previous testimony,” FBI director Comey writes. “In connection with an unrelated case, the FBI has learned of the existence of emails that appear to be pertinent to the investigation... the FBI should take appropriate investigative steps... “Although the FBI cannot yet assess whether or not this material may be significant, and I cannot predict how long it will take us to complete this additional work, I believe it is important to update your committees about our efforts in light of my previous testimony.” After concluding an investigation earlier this year of Hillary Clinton’s email practices with a recommendation of no criminal charges in the matter, the FBI has reopened the investigation discovered new emails it will investigate. NBC News has an FBI letter to Congress describing the development: Developing.... Update: the headline for this block has been changed. It’s unclear whether the investigation of the new emails represents a reopening of the previous emails investigation. Clinton looks a lot like a candidate on offense: Here’s a map of bad outcomes for Clinton that seem plausible in which she still wins the race. Give Trump New Hampshire and that last clause disappears. Trump is late to his New Hampshire event. A man has just advised the crowd that Trump’s plane has just landed in New Hampshire. He’s supposed to hit Maine then Iowa after this. He better throttle up. After campaigning in the swing state of Iowa today, Clinton and Trump will both set their sights on the battleground state of ... Arizona? Trump has announced a Phoenix event for tomorrow afternoon. Now Clinton says she’ll be in town next week. Arizona is always Republican in presidential years except when it’s before 1948 or Bill Clinton is running for reelection. There’s not even a senate race there for Clinton to win, assuming that John McCain is as safe in reelection as he seems. Is she just trolling Trump? Or do the Clinton polls show Arizona to be as competitive as it seems it might be? The Clinton event will be in Phoenix on 2 November. We’re about to hear from Donald Trump in Manchester, New Hampshire: Hillary Clinton lectures Republican senator Mark Kirk of Illinois that “it’s really not that hard to grasp” the service of the family oh his opponent, Representative Tammy Duckworth. At a debate Thursday, Kirk seemed to suggest the Asian American heritage of congresswoman Duckworth, an Iraq war veteran, somehow diminished her family’s long service to the US. “I had forgotten your parents came all the way from Thailand to serve George Washington,” Kirk said of Duckworth. Eleni Demertzis, spokesperson for the Kirk campaign, issued a statement Thursday: Senator Kirk has consistently called Representative Duckworth a war hero and honors her family’s service to this country. But that’s not what this debate was about. Representative Duckworth lied about her legal troubles, was unable to defend her failures at the VA and then falsely attacked Senator Kirk over his record on supporting gay rights. Update: Kirk apologizes: Read further: Donald Trump will hold a rally in Phoenix, Arizona, tomorrow, according to his updated schedule: Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia’s most recent forecast features the legendary tossup states of Iowa and... Utah: Maine’s second district is also a tossup in this formulation, while Nebraska’s second leans toward Clinton. Keeping an eye on Nevada: It just became “we’ll see what’s needed.” But he’s going to write a $10m check to his campaign today, Trump tells Fox News. We’ll believe it when we see it. (h/t @teddyschleifer) The director of congressional outreach on the Trump campaign has asked House Republicans to publicly declare their support for the nominee and to CC: him on any social media posts or other outreach they do to that end, the Washington Post reports. The call came after weeks of Trump publicly trashing Republicans in Congress, starting with the leadership. From the Trump campaign memo: “That means we need your direct, strong support for the Trump/Pence ticket,” [outreach director Scott] Mason added. “Now is the time. No waffling, no week [sic] knees. Hillary Clinton has given us, and continues to give us — and the country — every reason on earth that she is not worthy of winning this election. We strongly urge you today to make a statement — take a stand — and step out for the Trump/Pence ticket.” “Please cc me on any social media posts, tweets, releases, etc. We are anxious to share these with Mr. Trump. Thank you to those that have already done so,” concluded Mason. “We can win this thing. We need your help.” Examining a county map of early votes returned so far in Florida, we can see that early voting participation was especially strong in – looks like everywhere: John Podesta, Clinton’s campaign chairman, gave up his email password to scammers out of a diligent attempt to protect his email password from scammers, Jamie Dupree writes in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. What’s worse - two Clinton staffers apparently were fooled by the phishing scheme as well: “This is a legitimate email,” wrote Charles Delavan, who is identified as a worker on the HFA (Hillary For America) Help Desk. “The gmail one is REAL,” added Sara Latham, another employee with a hillaryclinton.com email address. Can you identify which movies these 10 fictional candidates are from? It’s multiple choice! Have a go: And let all this go to waste? The running mate of a guy running for president based on his supposed business acumen has explained away atrocious fundraising numbers with this line: “the strength of this campaign is not dollars and cents”: The Trump campaign has argued that the polls do not reflect an invisible upswelling of support for the Trump candidacy – and now fundraising numbers don’t matter either. Speaking with Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly Thursday night, Trump accused the polls of “tremendous dishonesty”: I think we’re winning, but Bill you look at some of these polls it’s absolutely ridiculous. “AP treats me very badly and by the way ABC had me down at 12 which was ridiculous now I hear at ABC we’re down by very, very little because complaints were made by a lot of people. Now it’s much lower than that. How do you go from 12 down to 2 and three in a day or two? The only ones I really like are the ones that I’m winning. Bill, something is going on with the polls and what they do is called suppression.” On whether he thinks speculation about where polls are fair can erode credibility in elections: “I think it’s very unfair. Whether it’s polls for the debates where I won the debates or if it’s polls for something else. There’s tremendous dishonesty in the polls, I’ve never seen anything like it. Tremendous dishonesty.” Hillary Clinton entered the final phase of her presidential bid with a resounding campaign cash advantage over Donald Trump, the AP reports. New fundraising reports show her campaign and joint accounts with Democrats had $153 million in the bank as of last week. That’s more than double the $68 million Trump’s campaign and partnership committees had on hand. The Trump campaign itself has only $16 million cash on hand for the final two weeks of the campaign compared to $62 million for Clinton. Clinton’s continued fundraising advantage helps ensure the Democratic nominee can keep her sprawling political operation at full strength in the frantic final days of the race. She maintains a staff of more than 800 — several times larger than Trump’s — and has spent more on advertising than the Republican has every single week of the race. Over the course of the primary and general elections, Clinton’s campaign has hauled in $513 million, roughly double what Trump’s has. She outpaced him again in the first 19 days of October, the new reports show, when her campaign reaped $53 million as his brought in about $30 million. While Trump, a New York businessman who says he is worth $10 billion, typically makes a personal contribution of about $2 million each month, he had not done so yet in October. The latest contribution reports, up to date as of Wednesday, show he had given only about $33,000. Trump said Wednesday, “I’m gonna be in for over $100m.” Anybody think he’s bullshitting sorry family newspaper anybody think he’s smokescreening? Hello and welcome to our live-wire coverage of the 2016 race for the White House. Donald Trump is blitzing through three must-win (for him) states (or parts of states, at least) today. He begins in New Hampshire, proceeds to Maine’s second district (where, owing to unusual state rules, he might pick off one of its four electoral votes) and ends in Iowa. Barack Obama heads back to Florida for Hillary Clinton today, while the candidate herself has two Iowa stops. Tim Kaine is in the Florida capital of Tallahassee, and Bill Clinton is making three stops in Pennsylvania. Trump’s running mate Mike Pence has one event in Pennsylvania today and one in North Carolina. But it’s a great relief that Pence is going anywhere, after what happened to his plane last night. Pence plane overshoots runway Pence emerged unscathed after his plane skidded off the runway while landing at LaGuardia airport in New York in heavy rain. The Boeing 737 carrying Trump’s running mate came in for a landing and went off the runway at about 7.40pm local time. The plane was stopped by a crushable type of concrete runway that halted the aircraft’s movement, the Federal Aviation Administration said, finally coming a standstill on an area of grass. None of the estimated 30 people on board, including Pence’s wife Karen and daughter Charlotte, was injured. Flights out of LaGuardia were halted for at least an hour. Pence pledged to hit the campaign trail again on Friday although he canceled his appearance at a fundraiser scheduled for Thursday night at Trump Tower in Manhattan, MSNBC reported. Read further from passengers aboard. Senator makes racially charged remark at debate A Republican senator struggling in his re-election race made a racially charged remark about his Democratic opponent in a debate last night. Illinois senator Mark Kirk seemed to suggest the Asian American heritage of congresswoman Tammy Duckworth, an Iraq war veteran, somehow diminished her family’s long service to the US. “I had forgotten your parents came all the way from Thailand to serve George Washington,” Kirk said of Duckworth. The third-term congresswoman, who was born in Thailand, is the daughter of a Thai woman of Chinese descent and an American father who traced his roots to the Revolutionary War. Members of the Duckworth family have served in the American armed forces since the revolution. Trump’s campaign manager gloated on Twitter. Kirk, who is trying to stay in office in a Democratic-leaning state in a presidential election year (when a lot of Chicago Democrats will turn out to vote against him), was one of the earliest Republican senators to begin criticizing Trump: Read further. Did Trump say ‘ghettoes’? You be the judge: Thank you for reading and please join us in the comments.
Angel Olsen: indie's dark star tackles 'the complicated mess of being a woman' Of all the artists you’d never expect to find yourself interviewing in a bikini, Angel Olsen is up there with singing nuns the Siervas. A former vocalist for canonical alt-country artist Will Oldham, she made her solo breakthrough with the 2014 album Burn Your Fire For No Witness, which recharged old-time country with grunge and cloaked folk melodies in reverb. Her lyrics spotlighted angst with the intensity of soliloquies. Her song structures circled like incantations or climbed to dramatic catharses. Her voice, once praised by Oldham for rousing “a mixture of apprehension and satisfaction”, sounded like a seraph on day release. The indie world had itself a new dark lady. Yet here we are, in Asheville, North Carolina, sunbathing at a municipal pool while eating pickles from a jar. From time to time, the 29-year-old adjusts a baseball hat that reads “Too gruesome to show”. If the tortured artist cap fits, Angel Olsen likes to wear it at an angle. “When Burn Your Fire turned out so dark and fucked up, I became a magnet for weirdos,” she says of her last album. It’s a role she’s uneasy with. “How do I wrap my mind around connecting with people who are that lost? I myself am lost. I don’t want the responsibility of being the answer. So part of the new album was about saying: deal with the fact I’m not always fucking sad!” That new album, My Woman, still has its share of echoey seven-minute meditations on love and isolation. But they increasingly coexist with simple, throwback grunge-pop, as on Shut Up Kiss Me and Give It Up. It’s the sound of an artist who still has a bookshelf bulging with the existential novels of Paul Auster, but has recently reacquainted herself with her rollerskates (the music video for Shut Up Kiss Me was even filmed at her local rink). The resulting tone is appealingly untidy. Perhaps this is down to the fact that My Woman is the first time Olsen has written direct from real life. “The last album was where I picked up my first Kierkegaard novel and wrote a report,” she says of her literary, often anguished style, “and this is where I actually loved and lost and came through the crazy storm.” Many of the songs engage with the “complicated mess of being a woman”, including the dilemma of loving unreconstructed men. The title is deliberately ambiguous: is it possessive, degrading, or a reference to being her own person? Olsen resents people zeroing in on the word “woman”. “I’m constantly being ambushed by it,” she says, fishing out another pickle. “It’s like I’ve used a naughty word. People roll their eyes; male journalists ask if I’m afraid of losing male fans. And I’m down to talk about women’s struggle, but I get a little pissed when people say I’m talking about these things only. Because, down to the bottom of the sea, it’s bigger than gender and sex.” Well, quite. And yet. I tell her the most striking moment, for me, comes half way through the seven-and-a half minute track Woman. “I dare you to understand what makes me a woman,” she cries, the last word breaking with the force of a 12ft wave. What if to connect with the word “woman” on the cover isn’t to belittle the record? What if it’s to recognise its power and scope? Olsen’s response takes us back to her childhood. When she was little, she remembers, “wishing I could grow up so I could have a woman’s voice”. Adopted aged three, she grew up in St Louis, Missouri, the youngest of eight who’d mostly left home. She credits her ageing adoptive parents with her love of 50s music, and her mother with her talent for “saying dark shit and then smiling”. Her birth uncle, meanwhile, had given her a little Yamaha keyboard at the point of adoption. She’d take it into the bathroom with her cassette recorder. “I was always waiting for my voice to change,” she says. “I wanted to be able to sing like it was the last thing that was going to happen before I died – to sing with all of my body, like the soul singers in the Baptist churches, sing-screaming with passion for something bigger than themselves. But I was just a tiny body with very little experience in life.” When Olsen was 20, she moved to Chicago and embraced the DIY alt-rock scene. She played the free pianos at Harold Washington Library. She ran Everly Brothers records through a reverb pedal while getting stoned on her apartment roof. She “got into weird relationships”. In the distance from home, she felt her voice grow. A debut EP, released on cassette (“true to my roots”), found its way to Will Oldham. He was creating a conceptual covers band called the Babblers, and had thought of Cat Power or PJ Harvey to co-front it. Olsen got the part. It was a baptism of fire and, as it turned out, fur, as the Babblers performed in animal print onesies. Olsen spent much of her early 20s touring with Oldham, singing his Bonnie “Prince” Billy material and covers of cult cow-punks the Mekons. She went in “the only female, young and shy, knowing nothing about being a professional musician”. She emerged, in 2012, with a voice capable of “multiple characters, like Meryl Streep” and a determination to “always give my opinion, to defend my vision”. Three years ago, Olsen settled in Asheville, a hippy enclave of the American south. (She’s recommended Carrie Brownstein visit if she ever runs out of ideas for Portlandia.) We visit the record store, and the bench overlooking the Blue Ridge Mountains where she likes to read. She asks if I want to see the graveyard where author Thomas Wolfe is buried, and points toward the psychiatric hospital where Zelda Fitzgerald burned to death. Again and again we return to Olsen’s fear of being trapped. Trapped by a “tagging culture” that can’t compute creative complexity. Trapped by the emotional intensity of her fans’ responses. Trapped by the album title, and the silvery wig she wore in her last two self-directed videos, “just because I thought it would be funny and didn’t have a stylist – and now it’s all people ask about”. She also muses about the “interesting predicament” of being an independent modern woman who sometimes just wants to be her traditional southern mum. “I keep thinking, could I adopt a child one day, could I be maternal? Could I learn to take care of a man? Should I be ashamed for liking it when a lover refers to me as theirs? I keep pushing myself into the box that I’m trying to get out of.” Above all, Olsen fears being “trapped by my own art”. It’s a concern she’s recently found comfort in sharing with the musician Sharon Van Etten, and which has lasted us the morning coffee run. “Music is a wonderful thing to do with your life,” she concludes. “But it’s a fucked-up thing to do to your psyche. So I have to make fun of myself being sad and bummed out sometimes, and invite listeners to do the same.” Now, she says, as we reach her porch – did I want to visit the graveyard, or shall we go get our bikinis on? My Woman is out on Friday via Jagjaguwar
Nigel Farage would be great UK ambassador to US, says Donald Trump The US president-elect, Donald Trump, has suggested that the Ukip leader, Nigel Farage, should be the UK’s ambassador to the US. “Many people would like to see [@Nigel_Farage] represent Great Britain as their Ambassador to the United States,” Trump tweeted on Monday evening. “He would do a great job!” In a brief call with BBC Breakfast, Farage said he had been awake since 2am UK time when the tweet was first posted. The Ukip leader said he was flattered by the tweet, calling it “a bolt from the blue” and said he did not see himself as a typical diplomatic figure “but this is not the normal course of events”. But a Downing Street spokesman said: “There is no vacancy. We already have an excellent ambassador to the US.” Farage said he had not been expecting Trump’s tweet, but said it was a signal that Downing Street needed to change its thinking about him. “I can still scarcely believe that he did that though speaking to a couple of his longtime friends perhaps I am a little less surprised,” he wrote in an piece on Tuesday morning for rightwing site Breitbart. “They all say the same thing: that Trump is a very loyal man and supports those that stand by him.” Farage said personal relationships were key to how the former business tycoon operated. “Sadly, the cesspit that is career politics understands nothing of this,” he said. “In their world the concept of trust is transitory.” Farage said it was further evidence a shakeup was needed at the top of politics, with a barely veiled dig at the prime minister. “Those who supported remain now hold senior positions,” he said. “Worst still, those who were openly abusive about Trump now pretend to be his friend. It is career politics at its worst and it is now getting in the way of the national interest.” Repeating his offer of help, which had been rejected by Downing Street on multiple occasions, Farage said: “The world has changed and it’s time that Downing Street did too.” Farage, an MEP and on-again-off-again leader of Ukip for a decade, recently suggested he could launch an eighth bid to become an MP. Seven previous attempts were unsuccessful. It is unprecedented for an incoming US president to ask a world leader to appoint an opposing party leader as ambassador, and the statement puts May in a difficult position. Speaking in the House of Commons, foreign secretary Boris Johnson said Darroch was a “a first rate ambassador in Washington doing a very good job with the current administration and the administration to be, and there is no vacancy.” Johnson said it was important to be “as positive as we possibly can be about working with the incoming US administration, it is incredibly important to both our country and the world. Judge that new administration by their actions in office, which we hope to shape and to influence.” Fellow Conservative MP Dan Poulter asked Johnson to stress that those with a character such as Farage’s would not make good ambassadors. “Diplomats require diplomacy,” he told the House. “There should be no place for anyone who expresses inflammatory and what sometimes can be considered to be borderline racist views in representing this country in discussions with the United States.” Johnson said he thought Poulter “captures the mood of the House” on the issue. “We have already settled that question, there is no vacancy.” The role of UK ambassador to the US is among the most prestigious in the diplomatic service. Sir Kim Darroch, formerly the UK’s national security adviser and permanent representative to the European Union, took over the role in January. The Ukip leader has previously said it was “obvious” that Darroch should resign, calling him part of the “old regime”. But he told Sky News at that time he did not see himself as Darroch’s replacement: “I don’t think I will be the ambassadorial type. Whatever talents or flaws I have got I don’t think diplomacy is at the top of my list of skills.” Raheem Kassam, the editor-in-chief of Breitbart London and a former aide to Farage, tweeted that he had woken the Ukip leader to tell him the news: “Safe to say he was enormously flattered.” Sir Christopher Meyer, the former British ambassador to Washington, said he was baffled by the tweet. “UK ambassador in DC exists to defend UK interests in US, not US interests in UK,” he tweeted. “Can’t have foreign presidents deciding who our [ambassador] should be.” David Davis, the Brexit secretary, reiterated Downing Street’s line, telling the BBC: “People can say what they like but the simple truth is there’s no vacancy. The ambassador there is very, very good, as we’ve seen.” Farage has no diplomatic experience but worked hard to align himself with Trump during the US election campaign. However, one ally of Farage suggested May could solve a political problem for her party by appointing the Ukip leader, saying it would be an effective way of ending Ukip as a force in British politics. Trump took to comparing his campaign to that behind the successful call for the UK to leave the EU, often mentioning Farage at his rallies and referring to himself as “Mr Brexit”. The two met again recently at Trump Tower in New York, and Farage tweeted a picture of the two of them, adding: “It was a great honour to spend time with [Trump]. He was relaxed and full of good ideas. I’m confident he will be a good president.” At the meeting, Farage spoke to the new president-elect about putting the bust of Winston Churchill back in the Oval Office, while Trump encouraged Farage to oppose wind farms, which he felt marred the views from his Scottish golf courses. Andy Wigmore, a communications officer for one of the groups campaigning to leave the EU who was at the meeting alongside Farage, told the Daily Express: “We covered a lot of ground during the hour-long meeting we had. “But one thing Mr Trump kept returning to was the issue of wind farms. He is a complete Anglophile and also absolutely adores Scotland, which he thinks is one of the most beautiful places on Earth. “But he is dismayed that his beloved Scotland has become over-run with ugly wind farms, which he believes are a blight on the stunning landscape.” Farage is expecting an invitation to Trump’s inauguration in January, sources have told the , which increases pressure on May to give him a role in UK-US diplomatic relations. The prime minister is already on the back foot after Farage claimed Trump’s team had raised concerns with him in their meeting about hostile comments made by Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary, and May’s joint chiefs of staff about his campaign. Farage was the first foreign politician to meet Trump after his shock win and offered to act as a go-between for the British government and the US – a suggestion swiftly knocked back by Downing Street, which insisted there was no need for a “third party” in the special relationship.
War and Peace star Jack Lowden confirmed to play Morrissey in biopic War and Peace star Jack Lowden will take the lead role in Steven, a biopic about the early life of the Smiths singer and solo artist Morrissey, producers have confirmed. Lowden, who played soldier Nikolai Rostov in the BBC’s hit adaptation of Leo Tolstoy’s classic novel, will perform songs including Smiths single This Charming Man in the biopic, according to reports. The 25-year-old actor described Morrissey as a “massive icon” in an interview with the Daily Mail and revealed the film will deal with the singer’s sense of disenchantment while working in a Manchester tax office after leaving school. “He did a whole bunch of jobs while he figured out who he was,” said Lowden. “He came from a working-class background, and felt out of place there. He wanted to get out and escape into that explosion of music that was in Manchester around that time. It was exhilarating, and everyone was trying to find their place.” Titled after the singer’s first name, the biopic was announced in 2014 with writer-director Mark Gill, who was nominated for an Oscar in 2014 for his short film The Voorman Problem, taking charge. The film’s producer, Orian Williams, previously worked on Control, Anton Corbijn’s acclaimed biopic on the life of Joy Division frontman Ian Curtis. “It’s as much a film for non-Morrissey fans as it is for die hard devotees,” he said in 2014. “But I can’t deny that this is a love letter to Steven Patrick Morrissey and the dark satanic mills of Manchester.” Gill, who grew up near where Morrissey was raised in Urmston, Manchester, will start shooting the film in April, reports say. So far, no other details have been announced. It is not clear whether Steven will feature actors playing the other members of the Smiths, but it has been described by production company Honlodge Productions as “a portrait of Morrissey’s early life prior to forming a legendary songwriting partnership with Johnny Marr”.
Monte dei Paschi bailout: what you need to know – the briefing The Italian banking system now poses the biggest risk to the financial security of the eurozone and its most venerable institution is at the heart of the problem. Here is what you need to know. Why is Monte dei Paschi di Siena in trouble? The world’s oldest bank has become the focus of the market’s concerns about the health of the Italian banking sector, which is weighed down by €360bn (£305bn) of bad debts. Monte dei Paschi was the weakest performer in the annual health checks performed on 51 EU banks in July. The European Banking Authority found its capital base would be wiped out if the global economy and financial markets came under strain and it was instructed to take preemptive action to bolster its financial strength. Why did it need an extension from the European Central Bank? The European Central Bank issued MPS with a deadline of the end of the year to implement a plan to make it more resilient. The Wall Street bank JP Morgan has been leading efforts to revive the bank by spinning out problem loans and raising €5bn from investors. It was always going to be a race against time, especially as the sum being raised is almost 10 times its current stock market value. So what’s gone wrong? The result of the Italian referendum on Sunday made the task even harder. The resignation of Matteo Renzi – credited with efforts to clean up Italy’s banks – has caused fresh political uncertainty. Investors in Italy are accustomed to upheaval as the country has had more than 60 governments since the second world war. But, the latest bout of turbulence comes at a crucial juncture, just when bankers to MPS was trying to convince major investors to stump up billions of euros. What are the consequences for MPS if it fails? Once again, the clock is ticking towards the year-end deadline imposed by the ECB. Time is short if private investors - notably Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund - are to be convinced to buy shares in the Italian bank. If the private sector solution fails, the expectation is that the Italian government will orchestrate a “precautionary recapitalisation” – a state-supported cash injection for the bank. What would the Italian government’s involvement entail? Under new EU rules, government funds cannot inject money into banks if bond holders have not taken losses first. The move is intended to avoid a re-run of the tax payer bailouts of 2008 but was targeted at major City investors. In Italy, though, small investors could get hit. Some €2.1bn of MPS bonds are owned by retail investors – people, rather than financial institutions – who face taking losses. Depending on how the recapitalisation is structured, bond holders might be able to avoid these losses. What are the repercussions? It is the first major test of the EU’s new rules for bank rescues. If Italy is allowed to deviate from them, it could undermine the whole system. But failing to find a solution to MPS could further destabilise the Italian banking system, especially at a time when rival Unicredit is thought to be preparing to raise €12bn.
Kamasi Washington review – cosmic jazz star continues to skyrocket The title of Kamasi Washington’s debut album, The Epic, is no overstatement. The triple disc set – featuring the Californian saxophonist, bandleader, composer and cosmic jazz adventurer pictured on the cover stood superimposed over two planets – is so extravagantly long he couldn’t have fitted much more than half of it into his 90-minute set tonight. One of the most critically acclaimed records of 2015, surveying spiritual, funk, R&B and fusion styles, it’s caused Kamasi’s stock to skyrocket. Meanwhile, his key contribution to rapper Kendrick Lamar’s seminal album To Pimp a Butterfly is an association that has helped unlock a large and not naturally jazz-centric audience judging by the proportion of young baseball cap-favouring fans among the crowd. And yet for all of Washington’s rising star quality, what stands out most about the opening date of his first UK headline tour is his generosity in sharing the spotlight with his bandmates, a tight-knit and equally talented unit that he’s known and played with for so long they’re practically family. Quite literally in the case of his guest soprano sax player dad Rickey Washington, “the man who taught me everything I know”, who stands dwarfed beside his nightclub bouncer-proportioned son to help lay down some creamy horns with trombonist Ryan Porter over the mellow opening strains of Re Run. Between John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Sun Ra and Herbie Hancock referencing longform cuts such as Change of the Guard and The Next Step, time is made for a number from mad scientist-like keyboardist Brandon Coleman’s solo album, a Frankensteinian hunk of funk that takes in a Zapp and Roger-style talk box interlude and concludes with a psychedelic Moog keytar freakout. Even the standard cue-for-a-visit-to-the-bar bit at a jazz show, the drum solo, becomes a thing of wonderment styled as a long and involved rhythmic “conversation” between eloquent players Ronald Bruner Jr and Tony Austin (Washington favours a pair of powerhouse drummers where one would typically suffice). With other artists such as Canadians BADBADNOTGOOD and Los Angeles bassist and sometime Washington collaborator Thundercat also playing their parts, jazz’s centrality to American music and its still vast potency is being acknowledged by a left-of-mainstream audience in a way that it hasn’t in years. It remains patience-testing at times, but done with as much colour, vibrancy, exuberance and inventiveness as this – warped with guitar effects pedals, Miles Mosley makes an upright bass sound like you’ve never heard it before – there’s never a dull moment. A lush Latin-inflected R&B and soul song with a 70s Stevie Wonder flavour, The Rhythm Changes gives patiently sashaying singer Patrice Quinn her chance to slay a soaring vocal, before Washington’s raised and then slowly sinking fist brings its frenetic final instrumental flourishes to a regimentally ordered halt. The sight of his bandmates hanging around to take photos of the crowd cheering them wildly at the end suggests just how much their inwards journey from jazz’s outer rim matters to these overqualified but still under-recognised sonic explorers. Their trip may only be yet beginning. • At Manchester Academy, on 28 June. Box office: 0161-832 1111. At O2 Institute2, Birmingham, on 29 June. Box office: 0844-477 2000. Then touring the UK until 3 July. Glasgow jazz festival continues until 3 July
Misfits recruit Slayer drummer Dave Lombardo for reunion dates The Misfits have recruited a new band member for their forthcoming reunion shows. The influential punk rock group will be joined by former Slayer drummer Dave Lombardo for their festival dates in September. The original lineup of Glenn Danzig, Jerry Only and Doyle Wolfgang von Frankenstein will perform for first time since 1983 at this year’s Riot Fest in Denver and Chicago, with the world famous drummer joining them on stage. “The Misfits created the horror punk attitude and had a massive influence on modern rock, punk and metal,” Lombardo told Rolling Stone. “It was an easy decision for me to join them for these monumental shows. I was honoured to be asked, and am very excited to be playing with the band.” Lombardo first met Danzig in 1988, when Glenn’s band Danzig played four shows with Slayer in the US. “Dave is one of the best drummers around, and I can’t wait for everyone to see him pounding Misfits songs live for these special shows,” Danzig said. Billed as “The Original Misfits,” the first show is scheduled for 4 September at Denver’s Riot Fest and Rodeo. The group first split up in 1983, with bassist Only reviving the name for his band in 1995. Glenn has not ruled out more tour shows after the Riot Fest shows, explaining: “We’ll see how it goes. It may lead to some other work, but who knows how it’s going to turn out? I mean, I don’t think it’s going to be a disaster; I think it’s going to be incredible.”
Red alert: why is scarlet fever spreading across Britain? The stuff of Victorian nightmares is marching through the country once again: cases of scarlet fever have hit a 50-year high. After barely 2,000 annual cases of the highly contagious illness in recent years, there were 17,586 in England and Wales in 2015. Particularly bad outbreaks have hit London, Yorkshire and the Midlands, and a “peak season” is expected over the next few weeks. Near my home in Norfolk, school classrooms have been disinfected after outbreaks, which most commonly affect two- to eight-year-olds. The reason for its return is baffling scientists, but the fever has taken an interesting journey since the 19th century. “The scarlet fever that would have been around in the Victorian era is a completely different beast to what we see now,” says Dr Theresa Lamagni, Public Health England (PHE)’s head of streptococcal infection surveillance. “It was a very severe infection that led to a lot of childhood deaths, but over the course of the last century its virulence diminished hugely.” The theory is that a bacterial pathogen evolves to become weaker over time because it will not be passed on if it rapidly kills its host, and scarlet fever was diminishing in force before the advent of the modern antibiotics that treat it today. There have been no recorded fatalities during the current outbreak. PHE’s analysis of the data has found that every four years or so there is a higher-than-average year for scarlet fever, but this “natural cycle” does not explain the current outbreak, according to Lamagni. There is no sign that the fever has developed an increased resistance to antibiotics, nor is it a virulent new strain. Scientists have analysed more than 400 “isolates” of the disease recorded by hospitals during the latest outbreak and found that they are the same as in previous years, and quite diverse (in other words, there is no dominant strain). “That was a bit of a surprise for us,” says Lamagni. “It doesn’t seem that the bugs themselves are giving us any clues as to what is happening.” So, is it us? Could the spread of scarlet fever be down to us forgetting about this infection and failing to diagnose it quickly enough to stop to spreading? Lamagni thinks this is unlikely, because most parents wouldn’t ignore its distinctive sandpapery, red rash, which usually first appears on the chest and stomach, alongside a fever and a swollen tongue. The current outbreak remains a mystery, but it has left me convinced of one thing: that my children will catch it just in time for the Easter holidays.
Swansea’s Modou Barrow: ‘People living near me in Gambia die on that route’ The tragic story that Modou Barrow turned over in his mind this week felt depressingly familiar to the Swansea City winger. It concerned the news that Fatim Jawara, the goalkeeper of the Gambia women’s team, had drowned in the Mediterranean after the boat she was on board was hit by a sudden storm. The 19-year-old had been trying to cross from Libya to Italy to chase her dreams in Europe and build a better life. “I found out about it on Thursday. It’s very sad,” says Barrow, who is the only Gambian to have played in the Premier League. “The area I lived in, where I was brought up in the Gambia, some of the houses next to me have people who died on this route. A lot of people have passed away this way. But this was in the newspaper, maybe because of sport and she’s a footballer. “Some of the people, they see that their parents are struggling, so they want to take the opportunity to go to Europe and maybe get a job where they can help their parents and brothers and sisters back home. I know that’s what [Jawara] was trying to do. She couldn’t get a visa and nobody could help with passports, so she thought: ‘Let me take this way.’ A lot of Gambians have done it.” Barrow knows all about the hardship that fuels such desperation. He nods when it is put to him that 60% of the population in the Gambia live in poverty and goes on to explain how he tries to do all he can to make a small difference whenever he returns to his homeland, where every trip is poignant because of the opportunity it gives him to visit the grave of his mother, who died when he was a child. “Back home it’s not easy and that’s why always when I’m there I’m trying to do my best to help,” he says. “When I go back I buy bags of rice with onions and oil – big bottles – and I share it to each house. Last year I donated rams and this year my father did it. When people have food, it keeps their mind out of that kind of thinking [risking their lives by making a hazardous journey]. Some of the other guys in the national team who play in Europe are doing the same as me, but even if they do that it’s not going to help everybody.” Although born in the Gambia, Barrow lived in Sweden for more than a decade. His parents separated and when his father, a plumber, took a job in Sweden, Barrow moved there with the elder two of his four brothers. It was a huge change and made all the more difficult when he was given the most devastating news. “I was nine years old, almost 10, when my mum passed away,” Barrow says. “I had just come to Sweden, I was young and so my Dad didn’t want to tell me at first, so I didn’t find out for a couple of months. “My mum was ill for one day only. She woke up and was happy – my sisters and my [younger] brothers told me because they witnessed everything. But then all of a sudden she was complaining of a pain in the chest, which is not normal because none of our family had that before.” Barrow, not surprisingly, struggled to cope. “When I was at school in Sweden I used to be angry, I used to fight a lot, they had to call my dad and get him to take me away – it was because of my mother passing away. I was sad and a bit lost, because she was my best friend. I was always with my mum, so I was closest with her. “My mum suffered a lot for me. She would spend her own money in the market on buying football boots, so that I could use them to play. There’s nothing I can do now, but I wish she was here, so that with everything I get now I could buy her things that she could enjoy.” The one thing that helped Barrow to make friends and adapt to his new life in of Vaxjo was his football skills. In the Gambia, Barrow remembers how he used to come home from school, drop his bag inside the door and dash to the makeshift pitch on the beach until the sun went down. “I didn’t have a lot of time to think about poverty or being hungry – the only thing I cared about was taking the ball,” he says. Those hours of practice showed in the playground in Sweden, where the father of one of Barrow’s school friends was manager of a local team and “came to my dad’s house and begged him for me to join them”. Through playing football as well as taking language lessons at school, Barrow’s Swedish became better – he describes it now as “good but not excellent” – while his speed and trickery on the wing caught the eye of a club called Mjolby Sodra, who offered him a scholarship. After spells with a couple of other Swedish teams, Barrow’s career took off at Ostersund, where he thrived under the management of Graham Potter, who made eight Premier League appearances for Southampton in the mid-1990s, and his assistant Billy Reid, who had been in charge of Hamilton Academical and Clyde. “They believed in what I had,” Barrow says. With pace to burn, Barrow attracted serious interest from Bolton Wanderers and in August 2014 was offered a trial at Swansea. “I was going to be there for three days, but after the first session I was told that Swansea wanted to offer me a contract. I think Garry Monk [the manager at the time] saw something. He knew that maybe I’d find it difficult in the beginning, but perhaps if he kept me for a year, with my pace and technique, he could help me learn.” In a whirlwind first few months, Barrow swapped Sweden for Wales, became a father for the first time when Alice, his daughter, was born in Swansea that September and in November, almost two years ago to the day, made his Premier League debut in a 2-1 victory over Arsenal, when he had a hand in Gylfi Sigurdsson’s equaliser. For the people in the Gambia, it was a landmark moment. “They used to watch the Premier League and see players from different nationalities but never see a Gambian playing,” Barrow says. “So they’re happy and proud because I’m one of their own.” By the end of that first season, Barrow had made 17 appearances, including four on loan at Nottingham Forest, and found himself at the centre of a tug of war between Sweden and the Gambia. “I was going to play for Sweden at the European Under-21 championship finals in 2015, which they won, but the Gambia was calling me as well,” Barrow says. “It feels better for me to play for the Gambia because every time I’m there I can have the opportunity to go to my mum’s grave, to visit her and pray for her, and I have family there. So I chose with my heart.” Lean, quick and direct with the ball at his feet, Barrow has showed flashes of real promise over the past 12 months or so, not least in the 3-2 defeat at Arsenal last month, when he tormented Nacho Monreal in Bob Bradley’s first game in charge. The Swansea manager said: “Mo’s just scratching the surface. My gosh, this is a player with talent.” Barrow, who turned 24 last month, smiles as he listens to those comments. “He saw that if I get one against one, it’s hard for the defenders. Monreal is a very good full-back, there is not a lot of people who have the opportunity to run around and pass him every time.” The missing ingredient at the moment is consistency, as Monday’s match at Stoke highlighted, when Barrow had an off night and Swansea fell to a 3-1 defeat that leaves them second from bottom and without a win in nine league matches. “You could see how bad everyone felt after Stoke, we were so depressed and angry,” Barrow says. “But if we keep playing like we did in the two previous games, I think we can change things.” A victory at home against an out-of-sorts Manchester United side today would be worth more than three points in terms of the psychological lift it would give everyone at the club. Barrow is looking forward to coming up against Zlatan Ibrahimovic – something he could never have imagined when he first moved to Sweden – and hoping that his father will be in the mood to chat and tuck into some food afterwards. “My dad’s back in the Gambia now and he never misses a game,” says Barrow. “We chat every day but when I called after the matches against Liverpool and Stoke, he was not in the mood to talk so I spoke to his wife. She told me: ‘Since the game finished, your dad is not eating anything’. When we lose he doesn’t have any appetite.” Another voice in the room suggests that his father must be starving, given the results this season. “He’ll eat a lot if we win against Manchester United,” says Barrow, smiling.
George Osborne’s ‘cocktail of threats’ will leave us with a hangover George Osborne yesterday warned us about a “cocktail of threats” brewing in the world economy. All the ingredients are there for a noxious brew. The emerging markets debt bubble. The ongoing stock market turmoil in China. Recession in Brazil and Russia, and the slowdown in India. The collapse in global commodity prices. I’ve warned about the danger signs elsewhere before. But curiously, Osborne didn’t talk up these “threats” in last year’s autumn statement. He didn’t raise them at the summer budget. They were hardly a centrepiece of his election campaign. Quite the opposite. He’s spent a fair few years now talking up how clever he has been, and how good everything is going to be. This was a result of his “long-term economic plan”. But there’s never been a “long-term economic plan”. Just the short-term politics of austerity. The result is Osborne serving up a rather unpleasant domestic cocktail of his own making. The chancellor claims Britain is “living within its means”, but our borrowing from the rest of the world rose to record levels. We have to borrow because we buy far more from the rest of the world than the rest of the world buys from us. And because we’ve borrowed so much money, and sold off so many assets, the payments due to the rest of the world are astronomical. We are borrowing more from abroad than any other developed economy. If Osborne’s “march of the makers” had ever got out of the parade ground, this deficit with the rest of the world – our “current account” deficit – might have been shrunk. Instead, manufacturing exports have slumped and manufacturing output is decreasing, with manufacturing output still below its level of seven years ago, before the crash. Far from “rebalancing” the economy, Britain has become more dependent on services, and we’ve shrunk manufacturing, which is the bedrock of any modern economy. And while employment in London is up nearly 12% since 2010, it’s up just 0.3% across the rest of the country. Even then, far too many new jobs are poorly paid and insecure, with pay still down on 2008. The increase in poorly paid, insecure jobs means British households can’t “live within their means” either. After years of paying back their debts, households are being forced to borrow once more. Unsecured borrowing, covering credit cards, store cards and (alarmingly) payday lending is now rising at the fastest rate since before the crash. The centrepiece of Osborne’s much-hyped “plan” is his effort to bring down the government’s own borrowing, while hoping he can increase household debts. And with tremors in China, it’s Britain that, thanks to its overstretched banks, has the largest single exposure to Chinese debt of any major western economy. When Osborne first arrived in office, he promised us that 2015 was the year that government borrowing would hit zero. The figures, out just before Christmas, speak for themselves. Not only is government borrowing running at £67bn for the financial year to date, borrowing in November alone was the largest since 2013. Osborne has spectacularly failed to meet his own targets. In addition, he’s letting the financiers off the hook with a return to a soft-touch approach to bank regulations. Last summer, he kicked out the head of the watchdog he set up, the Financial Conduct Authority, which is charged with keeping bankers in line, for being a little too good at his job; meanwhile he stayed silent as the FCA watered down its vital inquiry into banking culture. And on top of all this he’s also slashed taxes for mega-banks, despite recent revelations showing some banks are not paying any tax. As a result, it’ll hardly be surprising if the bankers are getting back to their old tricks. I doubt even Osborne believes his own stories any more. That’s why he’s getting his excuses in first. His austerity programme is leaving our economy more unbalanced, with rising debts, and overexposed to risks elsewhere in the world. But, incredibly, he wants more of the same failure – more austerity. Instead, we need real investment in science, skills, and infrastructure, made for the long term across the whole country, not excuses and spin. Without this, George Osborne offers warnings but no solutions to a domestic cocktail that he made that will leave the rest of us with the hangover.
You mourned David Bowie, but you mock Glenn Frey. Why? I am not an Eagles fan. I know little of their output beyond the omnipresent Hotel California, Take It Easy, One of These Nights, Tequila Sunrise, and so forth. Their delivery is too laidback for me, too easygoing. Give me Neil Young any day. I do not deny their popularity, however – the album Their Greatest Hits (1971-1975) alone has sold more than 42m copies – nor the fact that their music clearly means a great deal to a great many people. Like all music that has grown in stature over time, their songs come laden with associations – emotional, personal and communal – for the individuals concerned. A few days ago, their founding member Glenn Frey died. It is the third (or fourth, depending on how you view it) high-profile death to hit the rock world in the last few weeks. To a community mourning the passing of Motörhead’s Lemmy, David Bowie and Mott the Hoople’s Dale Griffin, it feels like a particularly hard blow. Not for me, personally, but I certainly empathised with others’ sense of loss. Like a great many people, I suffered a profound feeling of shock and bereavement when Bowie died last week. Indeed, my Facebook feed has been swamped with talk about little else since. This grief has gone far beyond that of a “normal” star’s death; so much so that a few commentators have suggested it is in some way false, or that to cry in public is unseemly, which in turn prompted an outcry against this callousness and lack of empathy. This week, I have come across a new form of mourning. My Facebook feed has been peppered with jokes and comments from friends gloating over the death of Glenn Frey, rejoicing that the karmic balance of the world is being restored somehow. God took Bowie, but this is OK because God has also taken Frey. That strikes me as hypocritical and grossly insensitive. Many of these jokes came from the same people who were so worked up over a handful of others criticising their mourning of Bowie. What is it about social media that brings out the mob mentality in people? What is it about social media that can make someone credibly claim to be distressed at being mocked for their (very public) grief, and then only a few days later turn around and mock others for feeling precisely the same about someone different? Your taste is your own, but that does not give you a licence to claim it is superior to someone else’s. Nor does it give you a licence to mock a sense of bereavement. Perhaps such “music fans” should remember the John Peel axiom of popular music: there is no such thing as good or bad music, only good and bad listeners. Frey wasn’t a Donald Trump or a Margaret Thatcher. He was a musician and songwriter, whose songs brought comfort and hope and dreams and solace to millions. The same as the songs of Lemmy and David Bowie and countless others did. You might not have liked these songs, but you could at the very least show the same respect towards his grieving fans as you have demanded from others.
Co-op bank says bonus rules could mean higher salaries and costs The Co-operative Bank has warned it faces rising costs because it is looking for ways to top up the pay of staff while it is blocked from paying bonuses by the Bank of England. The bank, no longer 100% owned by the Co-operative Group of supermarkets and funeral homes after a rescue deal three years ago, admitted that its costs would go up as a result of its inability to pay bonuses as long as it has not met targets set by the Bank of England for its financial strength. Pay rises could be one option, although decisions have not yet been made about how the bank will tackle the problem. “To remain competitive and to enable the attraction and retention of employees, the bank will need to change its remuneration structure and this is likely to increase costs,” the Co-op bank said. The bank, bailed out in 2013 by the hedge funds that owned its bonds, said in April that a string of charges for conduct matters such as payment protection insurance and prolonged low interest rates would mean it would take a year longer than expected to reach the goals set by the Bank of England’s Prudential Regulation Authority. Its revised plan, stretching to 2020, has been approved by the regulator. The bank’s crucial regulatory capital – as measured by a ratio of earnings and equity against its assets – is 14.1%, down from 15.5%. But the Bank of England also sets a top-up buffer of capital too, individual to each bank. The Co-op bank said it did “not now meet its individual capital guidance and combined buffer. As noted in our annual report and accounts, under the PRA rulebook, not meeting the combined buffer prevents the bank from creating an obligation to pay variable remuneration during the period of non-compliance.” Niall Booker - the chief executive who is expected to leave at the end of the year after joining in May 2013 when the bank was on the brink of collapse, - warned that conditions for his turnaround plan “remain challenging”. However, he pointed out that the core part of the bank had returned to profit in the first three months of 2016. “Market conditions for asset sales meant that the pace of deleveraging in non-core slowed during the first quarter and macroeconomic conditions remain uncertain, which may affect the bank’s operating environment during the course of the turnaround plan,” said Booker, as the bank issued a first quarter trading update. Co-op bank - now 20% owned by the mutual Co-op Group of supermarkets and funeral homes - was regarded as a major challenger to the big four high street banks before it was plunged into crisis and had to pull out of taking over the TSB branches now owned by the Spanish bank Sabadell. In the first quarter, the number of current account customers fell slightly, by 6,000, to 1.425 million although it launched a new £150 switching offer in May. The Co-op said that despite the fall in the number of accounts, balances held by customers had gone up doing the period. It is closing 54 branches to cut costs. Booker said there had been improvement in the way customers assessed the bank through what are called net promoter scores (NPS). “We have seen an increase in our current account NPS scores which further emphasises the consistently strong service levels being delivered in our contact centres and branches alongside continued improvement in our digital channels.” The trading update was entitled “viable core bank franchise continues to emerge” - a theme being developed by Booker who is trying to dispose of risky loans housed in a non-core operation to focus on activities such as current accounts and mortgages. In April, Booker, who is leading the turnaround team at the bank, admitted the bank’s annual losses for the previous year had more than doubled to £611m. He is expected to be replaced by Liam Coleman, who became deputy chief executive in May. He took over, following a career at HSBC, at a time when the Co-op bank was in turmoil after the credit rating agency Moody’s had slashed the bank’s rating by six notches. Paul Flowers, the former chairman of the bank, was later exposed buying illegal drugs and pleaded guilty to possession.
Swansea City v Liverpool: match preview Swansea performed well in defeat to Manchester City last weekend but Francesco Guidolin is still living on borrowed time. The Italian could badly do with a result against Jürgen Klopp’s Liverpool, who have at times been exhilarating in attack. Guidolin says he could “maybe” lose his job with another loss but “if we win, for the international break you don’t speak any more about my position”. No pressure, then. Alan Smith Kick-off Saturday 12.30pm Venue Liberty Stadium Last season Swansea City 3 Liverpool 1 Live Sky Sports 2 Referee Michael Oliver This season G5, Y24, R0, 4.80 cards per game Odds H 6-1 A 4-9 D 4-1 Swansea City Subs from Nordfeldt, Fulton, Barrow, Taylor, Kingsley, Mawson, Fernández, Ki, Montero, McBurnie, Bastón Doubtful Fernández (g roin) Injured Dyer (ankle, Nov) Suspended None Form WLLDLL Discipline Y10 R0 Leading scorer Fer 3 Liverpool Subs from Mignolet, Manninger, Can, Klavan, Sturridge, Moreno, Lucas, Ings, Stewart, Randall, Grujic, Brannagan, Origi, Ejaria Doubtful Origi (foot) Injured Gomez (achilles, 29 Oct), Ojo (back, unknown) Suspended None Form WLDWWW Discipline Y12 R0 Leading scorers Coutinho, Lallana, Mané, Milner 3
HSBC insists Birmingham staff move is on track HSBC has been forced to insist its plan to install more than 1,000 key staff in Birmingham is on track, after the process was reportedly described as “in crisis” by an official monitor at Britain’s biggest bank. The monitor – who is overseeing the bank’s attempts to overhaul its systems after a £1.2bn fine for money laundering offences from the US in 2012 – is reported to have been concerned about the number of staff willing to move from London to Birmingham, which the bank has selected as the headquarters of its main UK operations. However, the monitor, Michael Cherkasky, is reported to have been convinced by the bank to eventually change his assessment of the operation as “in crisis”. HSBC refused to comment on the monitor’s work while Cherkasky would not comment either. But the bank responded to the report in the Times (£) by insisting that the aim to move 1,000 staff to a new head office in Birmingham was not behind schedule. The Birmingham move has been prompted by rules requiring UK banks to ringfence their high street operations from their investment banking arms, as outlined by Sir John Vickers in his report on banking in 2011. Dame Clara Furse, the former chief executive of the London Stock Exchange, is to become chair of the operation. Other banks are also racing to comply with the rules which comes into force at the start of 2019. Nigel Hinshelwood, head of HSBC’s UK bank, said: “We always knew that moving more than 1,000 roles from London to Birmingham was going to be a major undertaking. We also understood that not everyone would want to or be able to move due to personal commitments. That’s why we have phased this over three and a half years. We’re ahead of where we planned to be by this point in the project and by the end of this year, more than a quarter of the roles will already be based in Birmingham.” By the end of the year, the remaining 700 or so London-based staff will have to inform the bank whether they intend to move. Those who decide not to do so could face redundancy. Last year only 13% of those staff earmarked for relocation had indicated they were ready to take on the move, although that figure is said to be increasing. A report by estate agents Knight Frank published last week said Birmingham was enjoying a renaissance, fuelled by manufacturers and the arrival of big banks and professional services firms, as well as the planned HS2 rail link. The monitor makes an annual report to regulators in the UK and US, and HSBC admitted in February – when it published its results for 2015 – that “significant concerns” had been raised about the slow pace of change to its procedures to combat crime.
Private investors vow to take RBS to court over £1.25bn claim Royal Bank of Scotland has been told by a group of private investors that it will be taken to court over a £1.25bn claim related to its 2008 cash call. The RBoS Shareholder Action Group, which represents 27,000 retail investors, issued its warning after a report that other shareholders were considering settling out of court. The group, one of at least three bringing claims related to the rights issue in 2008, said: “We look forward to seeing Fred Goodwin and RBS in court in March.” The group said it was the only one suing Goodwin, who was chief executive of RBS at the time of its £45bn taxpayer bailout, and three of the bank’s former executives. The legal action is said to be “on behalf of thousands of investors, both private and institutional, who lost money by subscribing for shares during the 2008 RBS rights issue”. The announcement was made ahead of RBS’s third-quarter results, which will be scrutinised for any further provisions relating to the case. In August, RBS set aside £700m for the case after an attempt at mediation talks in July failed to reach a settlement. The total claim by all the investors involved comes to £4bn. The court action by disgruntled investors is one of many factors that could feature in the bank’s results on Friday, when it is expected to pile up more losses on top of £52bn already incurred since the bailout. An update on the potential spin-out of 300 branches – which were going to be rebranded Williams & Glyn – is expected, while the bank is also likely to face questions about the alleged mistreatment of small-business customers. RBS has also told investors it faces a hard-to-quantify settlement with the US Department of Justice (DoJ) over the way mortgage bonds were sold in the run-up to the 2008 financial crisis. Philip Hammond, the chancellor, said earlier this month that he could not sell off any of the 73% taxpayer stake for now. “It’s clear that the disposal of RBS shares at a price that recovers taxpayers’ investment is not practical at the moment,” he said at the time, citing the problems over the spin-out of Williams & Glyn and the ongoing case with the DoJ. RBS shares trade at about 190p, below the 502p average price paid by taxpayers during the financial crisis.
Alexis Sánchez and Theo Walcott ensure Arsenal sink 10-man Hull Alexis Sánchez scored twice but Theo Walcott and Alex Iwobi were the real masterminds behind this deconstruction of Hull City. Heavily involved in Arsenal’s first three goals – and scoring the second himself – Walcott looked very much a winger in form on an afternoon when, despite Sam Clucas’s impressive efforts in Mike Phelan’s midfield, home hopes were wrecked by Jake Livermore’s 40th-minute dismissal. “A convincing performance,” said a beaming Arsène Wenger, celebrating a third straight Premier League win. “At the start of the season we weren’t physically ready, we are now.” After Wenger had rightly lauded Iwobi’s “exceptional quality” and Walcott’s “efficiency,” a sunny Phelan revealed some good news of his own. “My future’s quite bright, I think,” said Hull’s interim manager, explaining that he has been offered a new contract that would remove the interim aspect of that job title. “I’ll discuss it further on Monday,” he said. “Once we’ve sorted out the details I’ll make a decision but I’m getting an opportunity to be the manager.” Starting deceptively slowly, Wenger’s side barely had a chance before Sánchez gave them a 17th-minute lead when Eldin Jakupovic’s weak parry of Walcott’s cross fell conveniently to Iwobi, whose shot took a hefty deflection off Sánchez’s heel. Until then it had been very much the Curtis Davies show, with Phelan’s centre-half looking England class as he ran through an impressive repertoire of blocks and interceptions. Encouragingly for Phelan, Hull at times manoeuvred the ball every bit as adroitly as Arsenal, with Clucas, not so long ago a lower division journeyman, appearing anything but out of place. When Arsenal endeavoured to up the tempo, Tom Huddlestone proved extremely adept at slowing it right back down and, up until the goal, Jakupovic rarely found himself under threat. Inevitably, the balance of power shifted following Sánchez’s opener and it would have tilted even further against Hull had Mesut Özil not squandered an excellent chance to make it two in the wake of Jakupovic performing wonders to repel Iwobi’s shot. For all the home side’s pleasing passing they rarely succeeded in getting behind Wenger’s defence. It did not help that Robert Snodgrass, so often their inspiration in recent weeks, seemed in danger of suffocation, so tightly was he being marked by Nacho Monreal. When the winger did finally escape Monreal’s clutches he shot straight at an otherwise under-employed Petr Cech. In contrast, Jakupovic was increasingly busy, showing his calibre by saving a Sánchez penalty shortly before half-time. Awarded after Livermore was shown a red card for handling Francis Coquelin’s goalbound shot –created by yet another Walcott cross – it was far from a copybook 12-yard kick but Jakupovic still reacted superbly. “I don’t think it was a deliberate handball,” said Phelan as Arsenal fans wondered why Santi Cazorla, Wenger’s first-choice penalty taker, had not stepped forward. “I think it was ball to hand.” Arsenal initially made heavy weather of capitalising on the numerical advantage but, emphasising that this was very much his afternoon, Walcott eventually ensured Wenger could relax a little. Connecting with Iwobi’s fabulous backheel flick the winger unleashed a clipped, rising, angled, shot that was helped on its journey by Harry Maguire’s head. Attempting a last-ditch clearance, the substitute ended up in despairing mode but, even without his intervention, it would surely have gone in and was claimed by Walcott. Creditably, Hull refused to fold and Snodgrass reduced the deficit courtesy of an assuredly struck left-footed penalty given following Cech’s felling of Dieumerci Mbokani after his connection with his fellow substitute Ryan Mason’s fine through pass. Phelan felt a little hard done by to see Cech merely booked but accepted the referee was conforming to the latest laws. Hull briefly looked capable of snatching a point only for Walcott – who else? – to shatter such illusions as Jakupovic could merely push his shot in the direction of the hovering Sánchez, who responded by lashing the ball high into the net. It was the Chilean’s sixth goal in five games against Hull. Last but not least, Granit Xhaka sent a 90th-minute, 30-yard, left-foot shot dipping and swerving viciously into the top corner. Wenger’s critics should count themselves well and truly pacified.
Major parties spend more than $11m on TV ads before blackout kicks in When the television and radio advertising blackout came into effect at midnight on Wednesday, the major parties had spent more than $11m in the seven weeks of the election campaign on broadcast ads alone. The estimate is put together by an advertising analytics company, Ebiquity, which monitors the spending across TV and radio. The final estimate will come in on Saturday. The election advertising blackout kicks in three days before polling day and is designed to provide a “cooling off” period in the lead-up to voting. But the ban has been slammed as outdated and a joke by the commercial TV lobby, which loses millions in revenue as the parties turn to print, digital and social media to get their message out. The law was passed by parliament in 1992, and predates the digital revolution and even pay TV. Election ads can still be run on news websites with accompanying videos, making the television ban seem redundant. The Liberals have topped the list with $6.08m, Labor spent $4.71m and the Greens’ spending is tiny in comparison, $492,304 at last count. Election night on the ABC is going to be missing something this time around. Kerry O’Brien, a fixture of the ABC election panel for decades, will not appear as he no longer has an official role with the national broadcaster. O’Brien, a six-time Walkley Award winner, left Four Corners last year after five years as its presenter, marking an end to his more than 40 years with the national broadcaster. O’Brien and his familiar green pen have been fixtures on federal and state election nights since 1987. At the end of the 2013 telecast O’Brien told the nation that after 10 elections he had called his last but “the sun will still rise tomorrow”. His swan song in 2013 led to Leigh Sales stepping back so she wouldn’t overshadow his last night. This time it’s Sales who will take centre stage as the anchor for the first time, alongside Chris Uhlmann, Barrie Cassidy, Sabra Lane, Fran Kelly, Marius Benson, Louise Yaxley, Greg Jennett, Annabel Crabb, Michael Rowland, Virginia Trioli and Julia Baird. Sky News will be live from 5pm. When the polls close on the east coast, political editor David Speers will reveal the results of the Sky News exit poll, conducted by Newspoll. Commentators include Peta Credlin, Michael Kroger and Australia columnist Kristina Keneally. On Insiders on Sunday morning you can analyse the results with Cassidy and his guests: the AFR’s Laura Tingle, the Australian’s Niki Savva and the Courier Mail’s Dennis Atkins. Food for thought as Cornish returns Earlier this month Melbourne-based food writer Richard Cornish announced that his column, Brain Food, which appeared every Tuesday in the Age’s Epicure section and the Sydney Morning Herald’s Good Food section, had been axed. Readers were outraged and let the editors know, writing hundreds of emails and letters expressing their dismay. Under pressure from readers cancelling subscriptions, Fairfax backflipped and announced that due to “an overwhelming reader response” the column would be reinstated. This week Brain Food returned and Cornish tweeted that “society wins”. No such luck for arts writer Philippa Hawker, who was made redundant by the Age despite a petition to save her and a letter signed by actor Geoffrey Rush, writers Helen Garner and Christos Tsiolkas, comedian Magda Szubanski and broadcaster Phillip Adams. But good news this week as Hawker was picked up by rival newspaper the Australian and is now the News Corp broadsheet’s film writer. Another victim of the widespread Fairfax cost-cutting is artist Glen Le Lievre, whose Saturday Review illustration accompanied SMH favourites Mike Carlton, John Birmingham and Wendy Harmer before they too disappeared. Carlton resigned after he was suspended, and Birmingham and Harmer were also victims of cost-cutting. Le Lievre will still be seen in other parts of the SMH and the Sun-Herald. Case shut on defunct Tully Times The Australian Press Council published an adjudication on Thursday in which the Tully Times was found to have breached four of the general principles in two articles about the NBN published last year, one headlined “No Brains Network”. Tully Times is a north Queensland newspaper owned and edited by John Hughes that had been in print for 50 years and employed two journalists. The NBN had complained that the articles were misleading and not fair or balanced because they relied entirely on the opinion of one local businessman and cable technician, and contained no input from NBN Co. But the adjudication was published several weeks after Hughes died suddenly in May and the paper had shut down operation. We asked the press council why the adjudication was necessary given the paper had closed. The council said it was aware Hughes had passed away but any complainant would expect the process to be concluded “fully and properly”. Cuts in the west Ahead of a possible merger of the West Australian, owned by Kerry Stokes, and the Sunday Times, owned by News Corp, the West Australian is set to cut as many as 30 jobs from the newsroom floor. Stokes’s Seven West Media is cutting costs in preparation for the purchase. Chief executive Chris Wharton told staff a new organisational structure would strengthen the business, but that meant staff cuts. “An unstable economic environment and changes to the media industry have presented many new and greater challenges for our organisations,” Wharton said in a staff email. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission is examining the proposal.
Bournemouth sign Liverpool defender Brad Smith on four-year contract Bournemouth have completed the signing of the Liverpool defender Brad Smith on a four-year contract. The 22-year-old underwent a medical on Wednesday after leaving Liverpool’s pre-season tour of the United States and flying into Heathrow on Monday, after Bournemouth had a bid in the region of £4.5 million accepted over the weekend. Smith, who can operate at full-back and on the wing, becomes the second player to swap Liverpool for the south coast inside two weeks following the club’s signing of Jordon Ibe on a four-year contract. “I’m really looking forward to the opportunity here,” said Smith, speaking to the club’s website. “It all happened quite quickly. I knew there was a bit of interest and then they put the bid in, Liverpool accepted and we went from there really. “Hopefully I’ll do well, learn a lot and progress in my career. Bournemouth did really well last season and I think the club can be a great team in the Premier League for many years to come. They’re just getting started really.” The Australia international made 10 appearances in all competitions for Jürgen Klopp’s side last season, scoring one goal, away at Exeter City in the FA Cup. Smith has been capped nine times by his country. “We need a balanced squad, players that are fighting for every position, so I think it’s obvious there’s an area we need to improve,” said the Bournemouth manager Eddie Howe on Saturday. “We are working behind the scenes to bring new players to the football club. We don’t feel we are done yet. We have areas we need to strengthen so we will wait and see.” Howe still only has one recognised central defender in the squad, following the sale of the captain Tommy Elphick to Aston Villa. Meanwhile, the Bournemouth winger Max Gradel committed his long-term future to the club on Tuesday, signing fresh terms on a new four-year deal.
Third-party presidential candidates fight for 15% in polls – and a spot in debates The former Republican, marijuana-smoking, Everest mountaineering ex-governor of New Mexico and presidential nominee of the Libertarian party has a problem: he’s barred from the presidential debates. To appear on stage with Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump this autumn, Gary Johnson needs to boost his national polling numbers to 15% from around 8% now. Without that national exposure, and the blockbuster ratings the three scheduled Clinton-Trump dust-ups are likely to produce, it’s hard for anyone to see how Johnson, 63, or either of two other minor-party candidates, the Green party’s Jill Stein or even Evan McMullin, a 40-year-old former CIA counterterrorism officer, could ever become more than mere electoral curiosities. But the emergence of three independent candidates, during a year of record dissatisfaction with the major party candidates, may still make for an unpredictable twist to the story. Polling data suggests libertarians on both sides of the political divide are giving independent candidates a second look, and in Las Vegas on Friday, Johnson and Stein spoke before a gathering of Asian American and Pacific Islander voters to press their cases. Soft-spoken and wearing Nikes, Johnson presented a platform of social libertarianism, fiscal conservatism and non-interventionism in foreign affairs. He argued at the gathering that in this, “the craziest election of all time”, he had a chance: “I might be the next president of the United States.” A just-released WSJ-NBC poll gave Johnson 15% in the crucial swing state of Colorado, and Stein 6%. In Las Vegas, he was asked repeatedly if a vote for him or any third-party candidate was somehow wasted. “A wasted vote is voting for somebody you don’t believe in. That’s a wasted vote,” Johnson said. “Vote for the person you believe in – that’s how you bring about change. I hope after having made my pitch today that you’ll realize, if you want to waste your vote on Clinton or Trump, have at it.” Stein, who spoke separately at the event, similarly argued that many Americans were looking for an alternative to Trump and Hillary Clinton, whom she dubbed as “the most disliked and untrusted” major-party nominees in US history. “Democracy needs a moral compass,” she told a gathering of Asian American and Pacific Island groups. “It’s not just about who you don’t like the most or who you are most afraid of.” Stein, who like Johnson represented her party in 2012, has outlined policy positions that include a “Green New Deal”, focused on renewable energy jobs and aimed at making the United States transition to 100% renewable energy complete by 2030. Stein has also proposed a reduction in the military budget by a third and the creation of a regional food systems based on sustainable organic agriculture. On the Republican side, Evan McMullin, a beneficiary of the grounded “Never Trump” movement, failed to get on the ballot in 26 states before he’d even sent out his first campaign release. McMullin nonetheless tried to give disaffected conservatives an alternative to the Republican nominee who, he says, has tapped into “people’s darkest prejudices and deepest fears”. McMullin’s best hope – and likely his only one – to make an electoral dent would require Trump’s departure from the race, though the nominee has made no overt sign that he wants to quit. “Like millions of Americans, I had hoped this year would bring us better nominees who, despite party differences, could offer compelling visions of a better future,” McMullin said in his announcement. “Instead, we have been left with two candidates who are fundamentally unfit for the profound responsibilities they seek.” But can they begin to make a difference? Only once in recent election cycles have third party candidates had any significant influence, when in 1992, Texan businessman Ross Perot took 18% of the vote, carving into the support for incumbent Republican George HW Bush and helping Arkansas governor Bill Clinton to victory. Some Democrats blamed third-party candidate Ralph Nader for delivering George W Bush the election in 2000, but the third-party candidate won a paltry 2.74% of the vote, and his supporters were split between Republicans and Democrats. Johnson’s running mate, former Massachusetts governor William Weld, said he’d seen interest and fundraising pick up as Trump’s campaign has floundered. Their campaign recently reported a $1m one-week fundraising haul and has reported that more than 40,000 people have pledged to donate at least $15 to his campaign on 15 August. But that was in a relatively tight race. With Clinton now leading Trump by double digits in some key battleground states, the impact of any third-party candidate could be limited. “At the moment it doesn’t look like they can have much impact at all,” said Hank Sheinkopf, a veteran Democratic adviser. “But if the race gets closer, they could throw it either way.” Sheinkopf reasoned that this election has become more about personalities and less about what party leaders want. The long-term impact may be a significant shift in how people view Democrats and Republicans, he said. As it now stands, Stein, Johnson and McMullin could act as a convenient parking spot for voters disgusted with both candidates. Earlier this month, a federal judge rejected a challenge brought by Johnson and Stein arguing that the bar for inclusion is set artificially high. Yet there are signs the ground could be shifting. Mike McCurry, now co-chair of the Commission on Presidential Debates and a former press secretary for Bill Clinton, hinted that a third podium might be needed. “Some of our production people may have said, ‘Just in case, you need to plan out what that might look like,’’ McCurry told Politico. “We won’t know the number of invitations we extend until mid-September.” Ron Faucheux, president of Clarus Research Group, a nonpartisan polling company, said there was broad support for including even minor candidates. “Polls show that voters think third party candidates should be included,” he said, “and in an election like this, where polls show a majority of voters dislike both main party candidates, there is a good reason to give them the opportunity to at least look at other options.” But even Johnson and Stein were somewhat wistful about their prospects, casting themselves as agents of change who, at best, could represent the beginning of a break with the current two-party system. “The biggest message is ‘consider us’ as a very, very viable alternative to this two-party system that has become so polarized that they’re not able to do anything,” Johnson has said. Stein advanced a similar argument. “We’re having a political reorganization in this election because the Republicans are kind of falling apart,” she said, “and the Democrats have kind of split with a lot of the Bernie Sanders supporters just not happy with the alternative.” She argued that it was by elections about “the lesser of two evils” that the country inherited many of its problems. But first, the two have to get on TV. “There’s no way I’m going to win the presidency if I’m not in the presidential debates,” Johnson said. “I do believe anything is possible given that right now, arguably the two most polarizing figures in American politics today are running for office.”
Sweden leads the race to become cashless society In 1661, Stockholms Banco, the precursor to the Swedish central bank, issued Europe’s first banknotes, on thick watermarked paper bearing the bank’s seal and eight handwritten signatures. Last year – as Britain did last week – Sweden launched a new series of notes, cheery affairs featuring 20th-century Swedish cultural giants such as Astrid Lindgren, the creator of Pippi Longstocking, Greta Garbo and filmmaker Ingmar Bergman. But like its Nordic neighbours Norway, Denmark and Finland, Sweden is fast becoming an almost entirely cashless society. “I don’t use cash any more, for anything,” said Louise Henriksson, 26, a teaching assistant. “You just don’t need it. Shops don’t want it; lots of banks don’t even have it. Even for a candy bar or a paper, you use a card or phone.” Swedish buses have not taken cash for years, it is impossible to buy a ticket on the Stockholm metro with cash, retailers are legally entitled to refuse coins and notes, and street vendors – and even churches – increasingly prefer card or phone payments. According to central bank the Riksbank, cash transactions made up barely 2% of the value of all payments made in Sweden last year – a figure some see dropping to 0.5% by 2020. In shops, cash is now used for barely 20% of transactions, half the number five years ago, and way below the global average of 75%. And astonishingly, about 900 of Sweden’s 1,600 bank branches no longer keep cash on hand or take cash deposits – and many, especially in rural areas, no longer have ATMs. Circulation of Swedish krona has fallen from around 106bn in 2009 to 80bn last year. “I think, in practice, Sweden will pretty much be a cashless society within about five years,” said Niklas Arvidsson, an associate professor specialising in payment systems innovation at Stockholm’s Royal Institute of Technology (KTH). Arvidsson argues that the country’s head start in the field began in the 1960s, when banks persuaded employers and workers to use digital bank transfers for wages as a matter of course, with credit and debit cards receiving a boost in the 1990s when Sweden’s banks started charging for cheques. Cards are now the main form of payment: according to Visa, Swedes use them more than three times as often as the average European, making an average of 207 payments per card in 2015. More recently, mobile phone apps have also taken off in spectacular fashion. Swish, a hugely popular app developed jointly with the major banks including Nordea, Handelsbanken, SEB, Danske Bank and Swedbank, uses phone numbers to allow anyone with a smartphone to transfer money from one bank account to another in real time. “Swish has pretty much killed cash for most people, as far as person-to-person payments are concerned,” said Arvidsson. “It has the same features as a cash payment – real-time clearing, the same as handing over a banknote. And it’s now making inroads into payments to businesses, too.” Adopted by nearly half the Swedish population, Swish is now used to make more than 9 million payments a month. (A similar Danish app, MobilePay, was used by over 3 million Danes – in a country of 5.6 million – to make some 90 million transactions last year.) Street salesmen, from hotdog vendors to homeless magazine sellers, have enthusiastically adopted iZettle, a cheap and easy Swedish system designed to allow sole traders and small businesses take card payments via an app and mini card-reader plugged into their phones, with many reporting sales increases of up to 30%. Even Swedish churches have adapted, displaying their phone numbers at the end of each service and asking parishioners to use Swish to drop their contribution into the virtual Sunday collection. One Stockholm church said last year only 15% of its donations were in cash; the remainder were all by phone. There are, obviously, concerns: cases of electronic fraud have more than doubled in the past decade and several critics – including the inventor of iZettle, Jacob de Greer – have asked whether an entirely electronic system in which every single payment is recorded is not a threat to privacy. Old people’s organisations also fear that those who prefer cash, out of a reluctance to use new technology or simply because they find it easier to keep track of their spending, will be disadvantaged, while educators worry that young people will be tempted to spend money they do not have. For these and other social reasons, Arvidsson said, cash is not dead quite yet. “Even if, in the next few years, Swedes use almost no cash at all, going 100% cashless needs a political decision,” he said.“The idea of cash, even in Sweden, remains very strong.”
Thomas Cohen: Bloom Forever review – sensitive response to living with grief There is a terrible sadness at the heart of the first solo record by Thomas Cohen, formerly of London art rockers SCUM. It was written over four years, and charts a range of life experiences, but it is unavoidably the songs about the death of Cohen’s wife, Peaches Geldof-Cohen, that form the album’s emotional core. The largely acoustic Country Home is especially powerful, addressing the subject with such candour that you feel caught between applauding its courage and looking away. The intensity diminishes elsewhere, and there is some respite in the poppy, piano-assisted chorus of New Morning Comes, but no trite redemptive arc: this is a sensitive and subtle response to living with grief.
Trash Fire review – queasy genre mashup loses its spark One of the most difficult tricks to pull off in film-making is mixing genres. Pushing boundaries and testing audience expectations is a lure for many directors, but it takes bona fide geniuses (like the Coen Brothers) to pull it off regularly. What so frequently happens, as is the case in Trash Fire, is one finds oneself adrift mid-picture, completely unable to determine if what’s happening onscreen in meant to be taken seriously. Writer-director Richard Bates Jr brought his marvelous, hallucinatory body horror debut Excision to Sundance in 2012, and Trash Fire’s first half shares that film’s sense of audacity. Adrian Grenier’s Owen is a misanthrope with a drinking problem, vituperative tongue and a girlfriend, Isabel (Angela Trimbur), who mothers him despite his complete inability to care for her emotionally or sexually. He also suffers from seizures, one of which arises as the quibbling couple try and engage in some intimacy. (Isabel ought to have known something was up; for a moment she was actually enjoying herself.) Watching Owen and Isabel tear one another apart – be it in the presence of her religious brother, at their disinterested therapist’s or at a trainwreck of a couples’ dinner – is, for those who like their comedy blacker than night, quite a thrill. The dialogue is sharp and Trimbur is a natural comedian. Grenier is maybe not the best casting, but he puts an interesting spin on the material. The obvious choice would be to go the neo-Nicholson route (indeed, there’s more than a bit of Five Easy Pieces in Trash Fire) but Greiner uses his pouty look to be something of a “nice guy”-style bastard. If nothing else, it’s unique. Then it all goes to hell when Isabel announces her pregnancy and the pair go to his grandmother’s house to try to reconnect with his family. You see, years ago, Owen’s parents died in a fire, and his younger sister Pearl (AnnaLynne McCord) was horribly burned. Out of guilt he hasn’t seen them since, as it was his negligence that caused the deadly blaze. Grandma’s house isn’t decorated like a Dark Shadows-style house of horrors, but the fatalistic vibe (and hammy performance by Fionnula Flanagan) is reminiscent of that level of believability. That’s fine when Trash Fire is about shocking gags (everyone is masturbating! there’s a snake in the toilet!) but when we’re asked to care about the characters caught up in some generations-old gothic tragedy, all the air leaks out of the balloon. The remainder of the picture is a slow march toward a violent conclusion, as half-assed story obstacles keep Owen and Pearl from their big moment of redemption. As the second half meanders, each additional, uninteresting scene just feels like more kindling on the fire, in the hopes of padding this out to feature length. Richard Bates Jr is still “one to watch”, as those who attend festivals are wont to say about talent that hasn’t quite connected with the ball. There’s a darkness and humor in his films (and an eye for framing, especially during what could otherwise just be straight over-the-shoulder dialogue) but Trash Fire is too quick to burn through its ideas.
Eagles of Death Metal: wrong place, wrong time, wrong, er, opinions? Infuriating times for people of rectitude, who have discovered that Eagles of Death Metal frontman Jesse Hughes wasn’t the right sort of person at all to have been involved in a terrorist massacre. Hughes, whose band was playing when 90 concertgoers were murdered in a sustained attack at the Bataclan theatre in Paris last November, prefaced his return to the French capital this week by coming out strongly in favour of universal gun totin’. Arguably not the most nuclear of shocks, given that his easily searchable earlier positions include NRA membership, supporting Donald Trump for president, being an ordained minister in some weirdo church and thinking “it’s sexist to me to talk women into killing their babies”. Don’t even start me on the fact he’s got a journalism degree. For many internet liberals, though, the news that Jesse is not One of Them has hit desperately hard. A significant percentage of reactions to the gun stuff ran the full gamut from “What a shame” to “Such a pity”, with the sense of personal betrayal anything but amusing, as evidenced by repeated statements along the lines of: “I had no idea he was like this.” (Didn’t you? Not even YOU? I’m appalled that you weren’t notified in advance, and I insist on a wholesale review of protocols so this never happens again. In the meantime, I’m sorry for your loss.) All in all, it seems the Fates have made a terrible mistake, and selected completely the wrong guy to have borne witness to mass murder. What next? Rich theft victims? Casualties of police brutality with criminal records? Whatever form the next poorly plotted episode of real life takes, it’s clear that some need to prepare themselves for further disappointments in this vein. It shouldn’t be on them to have to adjust – of course it shouldn’t – but, given the ungrateful obduracy of people such as Hughes, perhaps it will fall to them to make the sacrifice. They’ll know best how to begin – knowing best is what they do – but on the off chance they are short of ideas, they may want to consider how many of them come across as being just a few keystrokes away from wondering how Hughes would have liked it if he had been shot himself. And, in some cases, only a few more from wondering whether that may, perhaps, have been the best outcome in the circs.
Gertrude Bell’s wartime history was less than benign Yes, Gertrude Bell was “extraordinary” in terms of her interests and impact but this isn’t the total picture (Gertrude of Arabia, G2, 9 August). She also had friends in high places in the military and political spheres; and was not averse to using these contacts for less than benign purposes. During the first world war she suggested that the recently formed Royal Flying Corps use Iraq to refine its bombing technique on the country’s small, isolated villages as this might prove to be an ideal training ground away from inquisitive eyes. She made a similar suggestion to the military elite with regard to practising the battlefield use of chemical gas which had been difficult to control on the western front. These facts need to be placed alongside other features of her life. On a more positive note, Red Barnes, her childhood home, could certainly become a memorial but one exists already in the small estate village church of East Rounton where the Bells had an impressive country mansion (since demolished, like most of Iraq). Gus Pennington Stokesley, North Yorkshire • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
If there is a fresh banking crisis, taxpayers deserve to be protected One benefit of the current panic over banks’ capital is that bankers – finally – may stop whining about the supposedly onerous requirements imposed on them by wicked regulators with an over-developed sense of safety. Cast your mind back a few years and the Bank of England was being accused of operating as a “capital Taliban”. It was an absurd phrase for the equally ridiculous idea that Threadneedle Street was being too tough in insisting that capital buffers should be reinforced quickly. That row climaxed in a showdown in 2013 with Barclays, which didn’t like being prodded to go to shareholders to plug a capital shortfall. The regulators insisted, thankfully, and the bank raised £5.8bn via a rights issue. A good thing too: Barclays shares in those days were 270p, rather than the current 156p, which made the capital-raising smoother than it would be today. No regulator, of course, can guarantee in advance that a required level of capital will be sufficient to survive all storms, which is one reason why Deutsche Bank’s contingent convertible bonds – or “cocos” – are causing so much anxiety. On that score, though, the fault surely lies with investors who swallowed the bankers’ line that capital cushions were so plump that nothing could go wrong. Come on, the clue was on the label. Cocos are convertible bonds and convertible instruments sometimes convert, in this case into equity. Deutsche, for all we know, may indeed be “absolutely rock-solid”, as its co-chief executive maintains, and able to keep paying the coupons, or interest payments, on its cocos. But, if it is not, those bondholders can’t say they weren’t warned: the cocos offered a juicy yield because they came with risks. There is a separate debate about whether cocos – which are designed to absorb losses and add to capital when required – actually end up creating panic when there is even a whiff of danger of conversion. That is how the plot is running at the moment. But, if we are heading towards a fresh banking crisis (still unlikely, but you never know with businesses as opaque as banks), there are far bigger worries. In the UK, one central reform is ring-fencing, the separation of the retailing banking units from investment banking activities. The theory is sound: in a crisis, it should be easier to remove the critical pieces of a failing bank, and thus avoid a repeat of the fiasco at Royal Bank of Scotland, which had to be nationalised in its gruesome entirety in 2008. But here’s the problem: banks have been given until 2019 to erect their ringfences. That is why Mark Carney, governor of the Bank of England, had to concede last year that taxpayers could still be on the hook. “We have many more options in terms of what would happen were an institution to fail, but I can’t sit here today and tell you that the largest banks are resolvable today,” he said. Nobody took much notice at the time, but they should now. Why on earth were too-big-to-fail banks given so long to get their houses in order? The standard answer – restructuring is complex – was always feeble. It’s now fair to expect Carney, and the politicians, to answer the question fully: if the worst were to happen, what would you actually do to spare taxpayers? It’s easy, Stelios: dividends are better than shares Some people are never happy. Shares in easyJet have quadrupled in the past half-decade, but founder Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou, who owns 34% with members of his family, prefers to see a glass half empty. Over the past two years, he grumbles, the shares have “stagnated”, falling 12% while Ryanair’s have improved 87%. His arithmetic is correct but did he really think easyJet could sustain the steep ascent seen in 2012 and 2013? On a five-year view, easyJet is still ahead. Haji-Ioannou’s real beef is that he would like easyJet to pay out 50% of its post-tax earnings as dividends, rather than the current 40%. It’s a point of view, but 40% seems about right given the inevitable volatility in the airline business and easyJet’s need to invest. As for his claim that excess cash over his 50% ratio should be returned by share buyback because it is “a better way to maximise shareholder value”, he should get out more. Yes, it’s worked OK for Ryanair, but the world is awash with companies who thought their shares were cheap just before they got considerably cheaper – Glencore and Rolls-Royce, for example. Nine times out of 10, dividends are better. Thiam doesn’t need any more credit – he’s got Credit Suisse The applause for Tidjane Thiam, new-ish chief executive of Credit Suisse, for requesting a cut in his bonus is bizarre. Nobody has explained why the former Prudential boss will get a bonus in the first place. The Swiss bank has just plunged to a huge annual loss and its share price has halved in six months. This shouldn’t be a moment for dishing out prizes, even ones where the recipient is volunteering to hand back between a quarter and a half. Maybe Thiam is being given a bonus for promising to tackle his predecessor’s failure to address Credit Suisse’s inflated bonus culture. But, if that’s the case, you can understand why the bank is in such a pickle. Rewards for success should flow after the job has been completed, not when there is merely a plant. “Mr Thiam has shown real leadership,” proclaimed Royal London Asset Management. Really? You don’t even know yet how much, in hard francs, he has asked to surrender.
'Mitt, drop to your knees!': Trump's locker-room banter is simple homophobia Donald Trump looked like nothing more than a high school bully when he claimed before a crowd in Portland, Maine, that Mitt Romney would have exchanged sexual favors for Trump’s endorsement back when he was running for president in 2012. This was in response to Romney’s speech in Utah, in which he declared Trump unfit for the presidency. He said the Republican frontrunner was a misogynist and a threat to America’s prospects for a “safe and prosperous future.” “Mitt is a failed candidate. He failed. He failed horribly,” Trump said to throngs of his supporters. “That was a race – if I have to say, folks – that he should have won.” He then claimed Romney had begged for his support in 2012. “You can see how loyal he was,” Trump said. “He was begging for my endorsement. I could have said, ‘Mitt, drop to your knees!’ and he would have dropped to his knees.’” Donald Trump making inflammatory remarks about people who criticize him is nothing new. Indeed, ad hominem attacks are becoming the norm for other candidates as well. Marco Rubio has taken the gloves off, calling Trump a con artist, making fun of the spelling of Trump’s tweets, calling him “orange”. But there’s a quality to Trump’s locker room-style harassment that has largely gone unaddressed: his insults come from a mindset that’s never more than a stone’s throw from homophobia. Today it arrived there. Aside from promising he would “strongly consider” appointing supreme court judges who would overturn marriage equality, Trump hasn’t made many outright anti-gay statements on the campaign trail, perhaps because he’s been busy with every other minority community under the sun. But emasculation has long been his preferred method of humiliating his opponents. Let’s overlook the obvious example of his unceasing, relentless bullying of Jeb Bush for a moment. Trump has repeatedly referred to Marco Rubio as a lightweight and recently called him “little Marco Rubio”. Rubio shot back with an insult about Trump’s hands and an allusion to his penis size, saying: “You know what they say about men with small hands?” The tone of the back-and-forth is clear: these are men who worry about their masculinity. Otherwise, why compete so hard to out-macho one another? If adolescence has taught me anything, it’s that when you put a bunch of insecure men in a room, you’re going to eventually end up at homophobia. Romney “getting on his knees” for Trump is about oral sex, which, according to the rules of Trump’s masculinity, is shameful. The association with gayness is meant to embarrass Romney, to paint him as weak and passive and to portray Trump as dominant and in control. It’s the same strategy he has been employing for months. He associates his male running mates with femininity so as to humiliate them. Homophobia and sexism go hand in hand. From calling Fox News’s Megyn Kelly a “bimbo” to his disparaging remarks about Carly Fiorina’s appearance, it’s probably safe to say that Donald Trump is a misogynist. The fact that he has embraced its cousin, homophobia, should come as no surprise. Donald Trump appears to be conducting this race from inside a frat house. After his sweep on Super Tuesday, bristling with manly pride, we’ll doubtless hear more emasculating put-downs. But now, the anti-gay sentiment at their heart won’t be so easy to hide.
If you value the 's coverage of Brexit, please help to fund it The last few days have been seismic and historic for Britain, the greatest political crisis since the second world war with reverberations felt around the world. We’ve been working non-stop to try to make sure that the journalism you find in the and the properly reflects these extraordinary and complicated times. Whichever side of the Brexit debate you were on, we are entering a period of great political and economic uncertainty, and the ’s role in producing fast, well-sourced, calm, accessible and intelligent journalism is more important than ever. Which is why I want to ask you, our readers, to help fund that journalism – through a monthly payment – so we can continue interrogating exactly what has happened, and why, and what needs to happen next. I want to make sure that the ’s excellent journalists – from our political team and other reporters to Europe experts, opinion editors, commentators, leader writers, news editors, picture editors, subeditors, audience, video and visuals staff – along with our support and technology teams, continue to work 24 hours a day, seven days a week, across the world, to provide the answers that people desperately need at this time of anxiety and confusion. Readers are turning to the in greater numbers than ever before. On Friday alone, more than 17 million people visited the ’s website for our coverage of the referendum, viewing 77m pages, and smashing all records. Readers posted 131,000 comments – double the usual number. In the UK on Saturday, we sold more than 70,000 additional copies of the newspaper compared with usual sales, and we’re hugely grateful to our print readers and subscribers for their ongoing support. The – like the rest of the media – is operating in an incredibly challenging commercial environment. Producing in-depth, thoughtful, well-reported journalism is difficult and expensive. But supporting us isn’t. You can do so through a monthly contribution. If everyone chipped in, our future would be more secure. These are perilous times for progressive politics – and at moments like these the world needs the more than ever. Thank you. Katharine Viner Editor-in-chief News and Media Support us with a monthly contribution If you would like to send a payment by cheque, please make it payable to News and Media, and send it to William Tee, The , 90 York Way, London, N1 9GU
Mary Pickford: America's first screen megastar The first thing to know about America’s sweetheart is that she was Canadian. It’s not so remarkable for a young actor to move to the States to seek work on Broadway, and eventually an undreamt-of place called Hollywood, nor for that person to change their name as soon as they find success. But the career of Mary Pickford, born Gladys Smith in Toronto in 1892, has been so often misrepresented that it is best to begin with the facts of the case, and not secondhand impressions. Mary Pickford was an actor of great, unrivalled skill, a producer and a businesswoman. She emerged from poverty and a broken family to become a star who was loved by millions but also powerful behind the scenes. And contrary to many misapprehensions, she was capable of playing a wide range of roles, not just the little-girl parts she is most often associated with. The Smith family were struggling before Gladys’s alcoholic father skipped town, only to die a few days later, after which his widow and three children were completely skint. The stage was their chosen route to security, and for a while the family lived a tough, unrewarding life, travelling the US by rail with cut-price theatre troupes. Aged 15, Gladys had her big break in a Broadway play called The Warrens of Virginia, produced by David Belasco, who prompted her to search through her family tree for a new name. Mary Pickford was borrowed from her English ancestors on her father’s side, and the rest of her immediate family soon adopted the new surname, too. When The Warrens of Virginia came to the end of its run, Pickford demonstrated remarkable determination and chutzpah by looking for work in a film studio – Biograph, where DW Griffith gave her a screen test. Pickford negotiated herself an enviable salary, for a teenager, of £40 a week. The reason for the hard bargaining was not just that Pickford had the rest of her family to support, but that the young movie industry was held in such low esteem, she might never work on the legitimate stage again. As it was, Pickford’s Biograph stint was brief but legendary. Under Griffith’s direction, she honed a naturalistic style of acting perfectly suited to closeup photography, making her the world’s pre-eminent cinematic actor. And she made many, many films, sometimes almost one a week. Although she was young and pretty, she was not limited to ingenue roles. “I made a film in which I was the mother of several children, the eldest of whom was five years younger than I,” she remembered. “I played scrubwomen and secretaries and women of all nations. I noticed rather early that Mr Griffith seemed to favour me in the roles of Mexican and Indian women.” During this period, in 1911, she also picked up a husband, Owen Moore, a mean drunk who worried her mother. He was a fellow actor, but rather sniffy about Pickford’s work, telling screenwriter Frances Marion that his wife had an “expressive little talent. Hardly what one would call cerebral.” The marriage was marred by Moore’s drinking, his violence and his insecurity over Pickford’s growing fame. In 1912, Pickford left Griffith’s supervision. According to her, they had a row that resulted in her rashly declaring she would return to Broadway, and Belasco; Griffith harrumphed that they wouldn’t have her now she was in movies. Pickford made good on her promise, returning to the stage for a play called A Good Little Devil, and then, after making the incomparable The New York Hat, left Biograph for Adolph Zukor’s Famous Players studio. Now Pickford’s fame really began to soar, especially in 1914, after she made Tess of the Storm Country. She used her celebrity to (adopted) patriotic effect during the first world war by touring the country and making promotional films for Liberty Bonds, but two more important things happen in this period. First, in 1916, she began to take control of the films she was making, to oversee the production entirely, from script to shooting to distribution. “So many things can ruin fine work,” she lamented. Pickford went from producer to mogul in 1919, when along with Griffith, Charlie Chaplin and the man who was to become her second husband, Douglas Fairbanks, she started a new studio, United Artists, which planned to give creative control to actors and directors. Second, it was at this time, in her mid-20s, that Pickford first began regularly to play children. In films including The Poor Little Rich Girl, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, The Hoodlum and Little Lord Fauntleroy, Pickford unpinned her long, fair curls and performed as a child. Or not quite a child, as her audience well knew who she was: a grown woman of great glamour and charm, married and about to be divorced. The child roles that Pickford played weren’t silent simperers either, they were mostly working-class, either street urchins or bonny farm kids who threw punches and tumbled out of trees. When Pickford played upper-class characters, they were disconsolate brats itching to get out into the yard and have some proper fun. In Stella Maris, for example, she got to play both the bed-bound and mollycoddled title role, and Unity Blake, a working-class maid who comes to rescue her from her gilded cage. Frances Marion, Pickford’s friend and confidante, wrote characters for her that showed off her strength as an actor, and as a woman – the plucky young Gladys who had the nerve to make a career of her own. When Pickford divorced Moore and married Fairbanks in 1920, her fame reached another level again: as the most popular couple in Hollywood, they entertained royalty at their lavish home, nicknamed Pickfair, and toured the world. For Pickford, a reluctant traveller, that meant meeting their far-flung fans, and finding new cinematic inspiration. When the couple watched Battleship Potemkin in Berlin in 1926, Pickford was reduced to tears, telling the director Sergei Eisenstein later: “[H]ow my hand had frozen to the umbrella I was holding, and how I had to pry it away with the other hand when the picture was over.” When Pickford had hired Ernst Lubitsch to make a film a few years earlier, she became the first producer to lure an established European director to Hollywood. While the film they made together (Rosita) was not a success, his subsequent American career justified the long journey. The free camerawork and dramatic lighting Pickford saw in German films also inspired her masterpiece, Sparrows. In a nightmarish southern gothic world, seen through the eyes of children, as in Night of the Hunter or To Kill a Mockingbird, Pickford plays the eldest of a group of orphans doing indentured labour on a “baby farm”, surrounded by an alligator-infested swamp. The gruesome dangers represented by the swamp, and the vicious overseer (played by Gustav von Seyffertitz) throw the maternal virtues of Pickford’s “Mama” Molly and the enjoyably boisterous antics of the other children into relief. Charles Rosher, Pickford’s cinematographer of choice, and art director Harry Oliver created a horror landscape in a film suitable for children, which also includes a breathtaking pastoral vision of Christ. It’s often a grim watch, but always engrossing, and far away from the image of Pickford as a sugary child-sweetheart. In fact, aged 33, Pickford decided this would be her last juvenile performance. Pickford’s final silent film was My Best Girl, a romantic comedy with Buddy Rogers, who would become her third husband, after the sad and messy end of her marriage to Fairbanks. The sound era saw Pickford retreat from film-making after a few misfires – more because her carefully controlled career was founded on playing kids, not adults, than because she failed to rise to the challenge of the microphone. “I left the screen,” she told Kevin Brownlow. “The little girl made me. I wasn’t waiting for the little girl to kill me.” In the decades that followed, Pickford lapsed into the heavy drinking that many in her family had succumbed to, but continued to be a face in Hollywood, mentoring Shirley Temple’s career while the younger star remade many of her own films. When she was given an Oscar for lifetime achievement in 1976, she received it on camera, at home in Pickfair, and with a tear visible in her eye. She died three years later. This profile was written in response to a request in the comments by TheKevster. If there is an aspect of silent cinema you would like to see featured in Silent but deadly! let me know below.
Eight in 10 middle-aged Britons 'are overweight or exercise too little' Eight out of 10 of middle-aged people in the UK weigh too much, drink too much or do not exercise enough, analysis from Public Health England (PHE) shows. Modern life is harming the health of the nation, according to the organisation, which has launched a campaign, One You, aimed at the 83% of 40 to 60-year-olds – 87% of men and 79% of women in this age bracket – who are overweight or obese, exceed the chief medical officer’s alcohol guidelines or are physically inactive. Obesity is one of the biggest problems for this group: 77% of men and 63% of women in middle age are overweight or obese. Obesity in adults has risen by 16% in the past 20 years. Research shows that many people cannot identify a healthy body, suggesting being overweight has become the new normal. Prof Sir Muir Gray, a clinical adviser to One You, said: “The demands of modern day living are taking their toll on the health of the nation and it’s those in middle age that are suffering the consequences most, as their [ill-]health reaches worrying new levels. “More than 15 million Britons are living with a long-term health condition, and busy lives and desk jobs make it difficult to live healthily. But just making a few small changes will have significant benefits to people’s health now and in later life.” Many more middle-aged people are being diagnosed with diabetes, with the rate among the 40-60 age group doubling in the past 20 years. Obese adults are more than five times more likely to develop type 2 diabetes, which 90% of adults with diabetes have, than those who are a healthy weight – have a body mass index of between 18.5 and 24.9. Dan Howarth, the head of care at Diabetes UK, said: “We know that people often bury their heads in the sand when it comes to their general health, but the consequences of doing nothing can be catastrophic. “There are an estimated 11.9 million people at increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes in the UK because of their lifestyle and more than one million who already have the condition, but have not yet been diagnosed. “Type 2 diabetes can lead to serious complications such as amputation, blindness, heart attack, stroke and kidney disease. We know how hard it is to change the habits of a lifetime, but we want people to seek the help they need to lose weight, stop smoking and take more exercise.” People are being urged to consider their health and the simple steps they can take to improve it in the run-up to the new year. The online quiz “how are you?” helps participants assess their health and offers advice on how they can eat better, be more active, stop smoking and consider their alcohol consumption. After receiving an individual’s lifestyle information, the website provides a health score and links to free and personalised information, apps and tools. More than 1.1 million people have taken the quiz so far and been directed to download apps including Couch to 5K, Alcohol Checker and Easy Meals, where appropriate. Prof Kevin Fenton, the director of health and wellbeing at PHE, said:“People are busy with work, with families and with the daily grind, and sometimes their own health is the least of their priorities. “The how are you quiz will help anyone who wants to take a few minutes to take stock and find out quickly where they can take a little action to make a big difference to their health.”
EU referendum: EU nationals have 'wrongly received polling cards' David Cameron has been urged to stop EU nationals voting in the referendum in a letter from Iain Duncan Smith complaining of “deeply disturbing” reports that some have wrongly received polling cards. The leading leave campaigner wrote to the prime minister, the Electoral Commission and the head of the civil service on Thursday to say he had “serious concerns about the conduct of the European Union referendum and its franchise”. Writing jointly with the Tory MP Bernard Jenkin, he said the campaign to leave the EU had been contacted by a number of concerned electors saying ineligible EU citizens have been told they have a vote on 23 June. The House of Commons ruled last year that the franchise for the referendum should be the same as for general elections, with the addition of peers of the realm and citizens of Gibraltar. This excludes EU citizens resident in the UK, who can only vote in local and European elections. The exception to the rule are citizens of Ireland, as well as those from Malta and Cyprus, which are Commonwealth countries, who will be allowed to vote. Duncan Smith and Jenkin said they felt the Electoral Commission had tried to “shrug off this highly concerning development”. “There are no checks conducted to make sure anyone applying to vote is indeed eligible,” they said. “We have seen an email from the electoral services officer at Nottingham city council to one of our supporters, which confirms this in clear and shocking terms: ‘If an elector lies during their registration, we are not able to check to see if the nationality is correct or not. We have to assume that the elector is submitting their correct nationality.’” They said the British public “will be as shocked as we are to discover that the integrity of the franchise for this long-awaited referendum with profound consequences for the future of our nation is being protected in such a lax manner”. The MPs asked Cameron to correct the problems and estimate the scale of the issue. They called on him to make clear to EU nationals that they were not allowed to vote in the referendum and that doing so could be a criminal offence. The letter is one of a number of attempts by the leave campaign to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the referendum process. It has previously complained about millions of pounds of government money being spent on setting out the case for remain and pro-EU material being available on the government’s website during the neutral purdah period. The Electoral Commission this week confirmed that EU nationals cannot vote and would be guilty of a criminal offence if they have provided false information on their registration form. In a statement, the watchdog said: “As part of the registration application process, all applicants are asked to give their nationality. It is an offence to knowingly give false information on a registration application. A person who knowingly provides false information could, in England and Wales, face an unlimited fine and/or up to six months in prison. If anyone has evidence that an offence has been committed, they should contact the police.” It also pointed out that polling cards do not entitle someone to vote. “In order to be able to cast their vote, a person must appear on the electoral register and be shown on it as being eligible to vote. A person’s eligibility is always checked by polling station staff before issuing a ballot paper and if they are not eligible, no ballot paper will be issued,” it added. Matthew Elliott, chief executive of the Vote Leave campaign, called for an urgent inquiry by the cabinet secretary to discover “who is responsible for illegally giving EU migrants the vote and undermining the foundation of our democratic process”. “Cameron has broken all his promises to get immigration under 100,000,” he said. “He is spending our money to get Turkey, Albania, and Serbia to join the EU as soon as possible and he says he wants to ‘pave the road’ from Turkey to here. Now we find out that EU migrants who should not be allowed to vote in this referendum are actually being given a vote. This is totally illegal.”
Where are all the women, Wikipedia? It is often said that women have been written out of history. We have all heard of Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Edison, but few are familiar with their contemporary, Margaret E Knight, a prolific Amerian inventor who held over 20 patents and was decorated by Queen Victoria. Knight created her first device, a safety mechanism for textile machines, after witnessing a factory accident aged just 12. She later invented a machine that created the flat-bottomed paper bags still used in grocery stores today. When she died in 1914, an obituary described her as a “woman Edison”. Somewhat dispiritingly, she has also been described as “the most famous 19th-century woman inventor”. But how many of us know her name? If you were to try and research Knight’s life and work, you might struggle. Her Wikipedia profile is just under 500 words long; Edison’s is more than 8,500. Of course, Edison’s contribution to the development of the electric light warrants a significant write-up, and his legacy deserves a lengthy profile. But his Wikipedia page also contains minute detail about his early life, diets and views on religion. By contrast, information on Knight’s page is scant, though she too invented an item still widely used today. Her profile lacks many details (including any mention of her first invention), which are available elsewhere online, particularly on websites dedicated to commemorating the work of female inventors. That such resources exist says a lot about the erasure of women such as Knight from more mainstream information sources. This week, it was revealed that only around 17% of notable profiles on Wikipedia are of women. While we bemoan the sexist bias that prevented many historic female figures from being rightly commemorated and celebrated, there is a risk that history may be repeating itself all over again. Perhaps the disparity is unsurprising given that only around 15% of Wikipedia’s volunteer editors are female. Reasons suggested for the gender gap have ranged from the elitist nature of the “hard-driving hacker crowd” to the overt harassment and misogyny faced by female editors on the site. When one editor suggested a women-only space on Wikipedia for female contributors to support one another and discuss online misogyny, other users vowed to fight the proposal “to the death”. The trouble with Wikipedia having such a vast gender gap in its notable profiles is that it is one of the most commonly used information sources in the world. A 2011 study found that 53% of all American internet users look for information on Wikipedia, increasing to almost 70% of college-educated users. According to web-traffic data company Alexa, it is currently the fifth most visited website in the world. For such a popular source to present millions of students, researchers and journalists with a hugely gender-biased roster of articles could have a real impact on everything, from young people’s career aspirations to which high-profile figures are invited to speak at conferences and events. There are ongoing efforts to solve the problem, such as this week’s BBC 100 Women edit-a-thon. Meanwhile, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales has called for a more inclusive and diverse community of editors. Wales has pointed out that the process by which Wikipedia editors decide collectively whether a particular topic deserves its own article could lead to biased outcomes when those editors are overwhelmingly male. Various projects have been launched to try and address the problem, but progress seems slow. Knight probably wouldn’t have been surprised by the disparity. In her own lifetime, she faced sexism and discrimination from men – in particular from Charles Annan, who spied on her paper-bag-production prototype and tried to steal the patent, even arguing in court that a woman could never have invented such an innovative machine. But she might have imagined that the gender gap would have improved rather more significantly by 2016.
Miami Beach protests against use of Naled to fight Zika-carrying mosquitos Aerial spraying to kill Zika-carrying mosquitoes in Miami Beach is set to begin on Friday despite growing protests over the use of the controversial insecticide Naled, which is banned across Europe because of concerns over its safety. Health officials in Florida ordered the spraying as the number of locally acquired cases of the disease continued to rise, with new figures from the state’s department of health on Wednesday recording 56 non-travel-related infections, mostly in Miami Beach and the nearby Wynwood neighbourhood. But the decision to use Naled, a potent neurotoxin that kills mosquitoes on contact, which opponents claim can cause birth defects and which was blamed for the deaths of millions of honeybees earlier this month following aerial spraying in South Carolina, has prompted fiery protests in Miami Beach. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says that Naled is safe. Several hundred demonstrators, some wearing gas masks and carrying placards denouncing the use of Naled as “lunacy”, attended a lively public debate at Miami Beach city hall on Wednesday. At the meeting, county officials agreed to postpone spraying for 24 hours until Friday, but said it would be followed by another early-morning round on Sunday and others in each of the two following weekends. “I don’t particularly want to do this, we tried everything not to get to this point,” said Carlos Giménez, the mayor of Miami-Dade County, to jeers from many in the audience. Testing earlier this month showed that adult mosquitoes collected in Miami Beach were found to be carrying the Zika virus. The county, which has jurisdiction over Zika-fighting efforts, has until now sprayed at street level using the organic larvicide bacillus thuringiensis israelensis (BTi), which does not kill adult mosquitoes. “We need to do this to knock down this population of mosquitoes and knock down the occurrence of Zika in Miami Beach, and stop this problem here right now,” Giménez said. He repeated earlier assurances from Dr Celeste Philip, the Florida surgeon general, and from officials of the CDC that Naled was safe. A CDC information sheet about aerial spraying says the insecticide has been used “extensively” in the US since the 1950s, and has already been effective in countering Zika in Miami’s Wynwood district. But Naled opponents, including elected officials in Miami Beach, are outraged at the use of an organophosphate banned by the European commission in 2012 and sent back to the mainland by Alejandro García Padilla, the governor of Puerto Rico, in July when the CDC sent a shipment to the Caribbean island to combat the escalating Zika outbreak in the US commonwealth. “It’s a powerful neurotoxin and the risks associated with it are unknown,” Miami Beach commissioner Michael Grieco, who hosted the public forum on Wednesday, told the . “I don’t care if it’s been used for one week, one decade or 50 years, it means nothing when there are studies out there and the jury’s still out on whether even a low dose of Naled can be harmful to animals, children or adults. People just don’t want it. “A lot of people are pulling their kids from school on Friday and going away for the weekend; a lot have left town and don’t plan on coming back until October. It’s a shame that people have to flee from their own homes.” The meeting also heard from Wynwood residents, who said they had been affected by aerial spraying in Miami’s arts and design district, which is also a designated “Zika zone”. “I’m not a scientist and I’m not a doctor, but I know that when I go in my backyard and my tongue is shaking for four hours and I am ready to rush myself to the emergency room, something in that chemical is not right,” said Evo Love, an artist with a Wynwood studio. Further protests took place at city hall on Thursday as demonstrators stepped up their opposition to the spraying. “If I was the county mayor, I would listen to the residents that are most directly affected,” Grieco said. “If I was using the cover, as Giménez is, that the Florida governor is going to do it anyway, I would call the governor and stand up for my people. “I’m speaking for a lot of people and they are very unhappy. What happens if these four doses are ineffective and they want to turn this into a long-term project? I can tell you right now that this will be publicly and repeatedly readdressed if there is any inclination to go beyond the four rounds they are claiming they are going to do. The residents and myself are not going to take this lying down.”
Metallica announce their first studio album for eight years Metallica have announced their first studio album for eight years. Hardwired … to Self-Destruct, their first record since parting company with Warner Bros, will be released on their own Blackened Recordings label on 18 November. The album, which comes as a double CD or double vinyl set, was produced by Greg Fidelman, who produced and engineered its predecessor, Death Magnetic. We’re obviously beyond psyched to share new tunes with all our friends out there,” said drummer Lars Ulrich. “We’ve been rockin’ along in the studio with Greg on and off for the last 18 months firing up the creative engines again. Putting new music out there, getting in your faces once again and all that comes with it is what we love to do more than anything else, so strap yourselves in.” The band also released the video for the first single from the new album, Hardwired. Metallica’s recording career has been sporadic over the past 20 years. Since releasing Reload in 1997, they have put out only two studio albums: St Anger in 2003 and Death Magnetic in 2008. There have been other projects, though. In 2013, they released the concert film Metallica: Through the Never, which combined live footage with a confusing storyline about a young roadie adrift in an apocalyptic city. The film was a commercial failure, taking only $3.4m at the US box office. That same year, they also played a 10-song gig in Antarctica, performing to competition winners, research scientists and ship crew at Carlini base, the Argentinian outpost on King George island. The tracklisting for the new album is: Disc one 1 Hardwired 2 Atlas, Rise! 3 Now That We’re Dead 4 Moth Into Flame 5 Am I Savage? 6 Halo on Fire Disc two 1 Confusion 2 Dream No More 3 ManUNkind 4 Here Comes Revenge 5 Murder One 6 Spit Out the Bone • This article was amended on 19 August 2016. The original stated St Anger was released in 1997. This has been corrected.
Trump uses speech to defend defunct brands – and brandish thick slabs of steak Presidential candidates are often asked to defend their records. But that does not usually result in a 20-minute infomercial promoting the candidate’s own branded products. After decisive wins in Mississippi and Michigan, Donald Trump took the stage at a news conference at his golf course in Jupiter, Florida, on Tuesday evening. On either side of the podium, Trump-branded items were on display: rows of Trump red, white and rosé wine bottles, cases of water bottles, and thick slabs of steak. “I don’t think I’ve ever had so many horrible, horrible things said about me in one week,” Trump said. Earlier in the week, Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican presidential nominee, delivered a scathing indictment of Trump, calling him “a phony, a fraud” and highlighting what he painted as the billionaire’s many failed business ventures. “Whatever happened to Trump Airlines? How about Trump University? And then there’s Trump Magazine and Trump Vodka and Trump Steaks, and Trump Mortgage,” Romney said. “A business genius he is not.” On Tuesday night, Trump sought to set the record straight. “I brought some things up,” Trump said, gesturing to the products, “because, he said, ‘Water company is gone.’ I said, ‘It is?’ I didn’t know that. I have very successful companies. I’m going to do this in two seconds.” Several minutes later Trump was still defending his products. “There’s the water,” he said, pointing to cases of Trump-branded natural spring water. Romney did not actually refer to Trump Ice, the discontinued bottled water brand the businessman once sold in national grocery stores. “Trump steaks, where are the steaks? Do we have the steaks?” he said. “We have Trump steaks. And by the way, you want to take one, we charge you about, what, 50 bucks a steak? Nah, I won’t.” Trump Steaks, which were sold exclusively by the Sharper Image, a consumer electronics store, and billed as the “world’s greatest”, are no longer available for purchase. Some reporters have questioned whether the steaks Trump brought on stage were in fact from a company called Bush Brothers, the butcher that supplies the club, according to the Associated Press. Trump continued. “We have Trump Magazine,” he said, picking up a magazine. “I said, ‘It is?’ I thought I read one two days ago.” He tossed the copy to someone in the audience. But it was not a copy of his eponymous magazine, which was shut down in 2009 after just two years in print. It was instead the Jewel of Palm Beach, an annually produced pamphlet distributed at his golf clubs. He also defended Trump University, the online education company which is the subject of at least three pending lawsuits. “So I wanted to put that to rest,” Trump said. “You have the water, you have the steaks, you have the airline that I sold. I mean, what’s wrong with selling? Every once in a while you can sell something. You have the wines and all of that. “And Trump University, we’re going to start it up as soon as I win the lawsuit.”
US election war chests: why cold, hard cash matters How much does it cost to become the leader of the free world? Not much if you’re Donald Trump – but the Republican party is reportedly dismayed by their presidential nominee’s apparent aversion to that key propellant in American politics: cold, hard cash. New figures show that Hillary Clinton’s war chest – $42.5m (£28.8m) – beats Trump’s – $1.3m – by 32 to 1. If Clinton is holding a briefcase of notes, Trump could stuff his loose change into the pocket of a Trump-branded blazer (made in China, obvs). Does it matter? That big spenders don’t always win should be clear to Bernie Sanders. According to the Federal Election Commission, Sanders has received total contributions of $207.6m, compared with Clinton’s $204.3m. Trump? $57.7m, which, even now, remains less than his long-since vanquished Republican rivals Ted Cruz and Ben Carson. Trump cites his frugality as a good thing, but that he has so little left to spend is adding to a sense of chaos in his camp. No candidate has turned a discrepancy of such scale into victory. In 2008, Obama raised $747.8m to John McCain’s $351.5m. The gap was slightly narrower in 2012 (Obama: $722.4m, Romney: $449.9m). The last time a Republican raised more cash, he won. In 2004, George W Bush received $367.2m. As he did at the polls, John Kerry trailed only slightly behind with $328.5m. To find the last presidents who spent significantly less and won (it was pretty even in 1996, when Bill Clinton beat Bob Dole), we have to go back to 1976, when Jimmy Carter spent $10m less than Gerald Ford. The 1960s were the golden age of the small spenders: Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon all did more than their rivals with less. If Trump does lose, there will be solace in the knowledge that not all of his funds will go to waste. Last month, more than $1m of his campaign spending went on his own companies, including $423,000 on facility rental and catering at Mar-a-Lago, his Florida resort.
EU bank stress tests: vulnerability of Barclays and RBS under scrutiny Analysts are scrutinising the potential hit Royal Bank of Scotland and Barclays could take to their financial strength at times of market turbulence following the publication of EU-wide health checks on the financial sector. The Bank of England said the stress tests, which were overseen by the pan-European banking regulator, showed the UK banking sector was resilient enough to cope with downturns in the economy and the markets. Barclays, however, which on Friday had reported profits of £2bn for the first half of 2016, ends up with a 7.3% capital ratio - about a four-percentage-point knock - at the end of 2018 under the regulator’s three-year test conditions. RBS takes a seven-percentage-point hit and its capital ratio falls to 8%. Of the 51 banks tested, one – Italy’s Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena – had its entire capital base wiped out under the imaginary scenario of a big drop in economic growth. Policymakers and investors had been on alert for a poor performance by the Italian bank. It announced a package of measures to shore up its financial position, a move it will hope prevents a meltdown in the Italian banking sector, which could send shock waves through the markets. Banks from Italy, Ireland, Spain and Austria fared worst in the tests. None of the four UK banks – Lloyds and HSBC were also tested – dropped below the legal minimum of 4.5% capital ratios. The European Banking Authority did not set a pass or fail level as it did in 2014, when it last conducted tests and set a minimum of 5.5%. Analysts at Bernstein said the drop in the capital levels of Barclays and RBS – which is 73% owned by the government – was a surprise, and forecasted a bigger knock than had been predicted during separate assessments conducted in previous years by the Bank of England’s regulation arm, the Prudential Regulation Authority. “The adverse results on these two as compared to the PRA stress tests from last year definitely came as a surprise to us,” they said. “The EBA stress tests are an input into the capital process for the UK banks but the key test of the banks will actually be in the Bank of England stress tests later this year.” The tests are set on each bank’s financial position at the end of 2015 and projects how they would fare by the end of 2018 without taking any steps to sell off businesses or other management efforts to raise capital. The analysts at Bernstein said it “puts to bed any dividend hopes for the [RBS] till at least the end of next year”. The government is finding it tricky to sell off its stake because the share price is trading lower than the average 50.2p it paid. RBS shares are trading at about 190p. Their view is that for Barclays the disposal of businesses such as those in Africa instigated by its new chief executive, Jes Staley, would be important. Barclays said the stress tests result did not take account of these sell-offs. “The stress test has been carried out applying a static balance sheet assumption as at December 2015, and therefore does not take into account subsequent or future business strategies and management actions. It is not a forecast of Barclays’ profits.” RBS’s finance director, Ewen Stevenson, said the results showed the bank’s “continued progress towards transforming the balance sheet to being safe and sustainable”. He said: “We are confident that in delivering our strategy, we will transform RBS into a low risk, resilient bank.” HSBC’s capital falls to 8.7% under the scenarios and Lloyds Banking Group, which is 9% owned by the taxpayer, to just above 10%. “These results are significantly above the group’s minimum capital requirements,” said Lloyds. HSBC said: “Today’s results demonstrate HSBC’s continuing capital strength.” No banks from Cyprus, Greece or Portugal were big enough to fall within the scope of the test, which looked at four main risks: a rise in bond yields; rising public and private sector debt; weak profits at banks; and stresses from outside the banking sector. The cost of possible fines and legal action for wrongdoing was also included, and David Strachan, a partner at Deloitte, said 15 banks estimated an impact of so-called conduct risk of more than €1bn (£840m). “Analysts are likely to pore over the results for some time. Differences in capital positions between two banks could be superficial,” he said. “What matters more is to understand the full regulatory capital requirement for each bank, and its capacity and flexibility to take actions to respond to the shock. This complexity may add difficultly in initially understanding the results.”
If Sean Parker has his way, opening night for movies will be in your living room A gathering this week of Hollywood stars, studio bosses and cinema owners will climax with “big screen achievement awards”, but the focus will probably not be on achievements or awards – or even the big screen. Most of the attention at CinemaCon, an annual film industry jamboree, will instead be on a controversial plan to enhance the small screen by beaming new film releases into homes on the same day they open in cinemas. The gathering’s setting – Las Vegas – is apt because the proposal represents a high-stakes bet by Sean Parker, the Napster founder, plus Hollywood luminaries such as Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson who have decided to back his venture, called Screening Room. “There is no doubt Screening Room is going to be the talk of the town at CinemaCon,” said Jeff Bock, a box office analyst with Exhibitor Relations, a Los Angeles-based firm which tracks the film industry. “This could be a massive game-changer.” Parker, a mercurial Silicon Valley force, and Prem Akkaraju, a former SFX Entertainment executive, have teamed up to create a startup which could upend film distribution and eviscerate the multiplex. The service would let customers view new films at home for $50 on the same day they hit cinemas, undermining one of the main reasons people line up at multiplexes. “With the film industry in so much flux right now, is this type of seismic uplift the right move for Hollywood at the present time? We’re about to find out,” said Bock. Parker and Akkaraju, who did not respond to an interview request, are expected to pitch Screening Room to industry players in private meetings on the sidelines of CinemaCon, a five-day convention which starts Monday at Caesar’s Palace. In addition to Spielberg and Jackson, they have in recent weeks lined up powerful advocates such as Ron Howard, Martin Scorsese, Brian Grazer and, reportedly, JJ Abrams. Their logic: viewing habits are changing – cinema attendance is stagnating while Netflix and handheld devices command ever more eyeballs – so the film industry must adapt. Screening Room works through a $150 set-top box which for an additional $50 beams a film into a home for 48 hours. Invite family and friends to watch, goes the argument, and it works out cheaper than everyone paying for a cinema ticket, not to mention for transport, parking and overpriced nibbles from concession stands. Jackson, the Lord of the Rings director, used to defend the “theatrical window” separating cinema release dates from home video debuts but he has embraced Parker’s venture, saying it will attract new punters, not cannibalise existing ones. “Screening Room will expand the audience for a movie – not shift it from cinema to living room. It does not play off studio against theatre owner. Instead, it respects both and is structured to support the long-term health of both exhibitors and distributors – resulting in greater sustainability for the wider film industry itself.” However, other film-makers – including Christopher Nolan, James Cameron and M Night Shyamalan – have assailed the sofa-led model as an affront to the essence of cinema: a communal, sensory experience on a big screen. “Both Jim (Cameron) and I remain committed to the sanctity of the in-theater experience,” Jon Landau, who collaborated with Cameron on Titanic and Avatar, said in a statement. “We don’t understand why the industry would want to provide audiences an incentive to skip the best form to experience the art that we work so hard to create.” Such disagreements will play out during CinemaCon, which will trail upcoming films and honor actors like Susan Sarandon and Keanu Reeves. Studios and cinema chains will determine Screening Room’s fate in the short run. Disney has reportedly rejected Screening Room, but according to Variety, Universal, Fox and Sony are showing “serious interest”. Cinema chains will be a tougher sell since they potentially have more to lose. Parker and Akkaraju have wooed them by offering a slice of the pie – $20 of the $50 fee. They also plan to offer couch-potato customers two free tickets to the cinema to encourage treks to the multiplex – and splurges on snacks and soft drinks – at later dates. The National Association of Theatre Owners said its members would decide individually whether to back Screening Room. The association made its own hostility plain: “The exclusive theatrical release window makes new movies events. Success there establishes brand value and bolsters revenue in downstream markets.” Cinema chains and studios did not need a “third party” to come up with any new distribution model, it added. According to Variety, however, Screening Room is “close to a deal” with the chain AMC, which would splinter multiplex resistance. Bock, the analyst, suspected other cinema chains would balk. If studios sign up, there will be a “tug-of-war”. An additional concern, he said, was piracy, because hackers will surely try to hijack such high-value content. “It would essentially be like gift-wrapping the films for those individuals that wish to exploit them on the virtual superhighways of the internet.” An industry up in arms and piracy concerns: it may seem like Parker, 36, has turned full circle. In the 1990s artists and music labels denounced him as a thief and wrecker for allowing free downloads on Napster. After the file-sharing service was shut down, Parker helped Mark Zuckerberg steer Facebook to global dominance, burnishing his wunderkind reputation. With Screening Room, however, Parker and Akkaraju are courting the industry they propose to disrupt, a courtship boosted by fears of stagnation and red ink unless the industry adapts. In contrast to auteurs who exalt the “sanctity” of the theatre experience, some film critics welcome the prospect of watching new releases at home as an escape from the raucous, odorous reality of some multiplexes. “I’m talking about the low-born apes who munch smelly junk food – cheese nachos, red licorice, hot dogs covered with mustard and jalapeños – check their cell phones during screenings, take their smelly sneakers off, talk back to the screen, etc,” said Jeffrey Wells, a blogger. “I never go to see new movies on Friday and Saturday because of these people. I always go during afternoons or on weeknights. This is why I’d like to see Screening Room become an option ... IF they drop that $50 price.”
'I don’t like this election': will millennials, the biggest generation, turn out to vote? Alicia Giles is a poster child for Hillary Clinton’s plan to help college students graduate debt-free. She is also exhibit A for Donald Trump’s outreach to a pinched and worried working class left behind by the economic recovery. For both, she represents headache and opportunity. Giles is 19 years old. She registered to vote the day she got her driver’s license, 13 May 2016, about a month before graduating from North Valleys high school. She works two full-time jobs so she can afford to go to college next year. So what does this nonpartisan Reno resident – a Pizza Hut assistant manager who hates pizza, a JC Penney sales clerk who wants to be a lawyer, a young millennial who works 90 hours a week – plan to do on election day? Nothing. “I don’t like this election,” said Giles, decked out in a football jersey and headed for the bleachers to watch the North Valleys Panthers take on the Galena Grizzlies. “It’s super crazy. I don’t want to be part of it. I don’t like anything about it. I don’t like either candidate.” This election year, millennials like Giles have surpassed baby boomers as the largest living generation; there are almost as many eligible voters among the 18-to-35 set as there are among 52-to-70-year-olds. But they are less likely to vote than their dutiful parents and grandparents, and they are even less likely to identify with a political party. Nevada is a case in point – and a battleground state where Clinton and Trump are neck-and-neck and need every voter they can persuade. The spoke with dozens of young voters in Reno, people who could affect politics for decades but whose first foray into a presidential race features the most disliked candidates in history and some of the nastiest rhetoric ever spewed in an election. Only 5% of eligible young citizens in Nevada took part in the 2008 and 2016 caucuses, according to Tufts University’s Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning & Engagement. That’s the lowest participation rate by youth voters nationwide. A whole 28% of millennials who are registered to vote in Nevada declared themselves nonpartisan as of August, according to the secretary of state’s office. That’s double the percentage of nonpartisan voters older than 55 and significantly more than the state as a whole, which weighed in at 20%. Tyler Gentry, who manages the North Valleys football team, will turn 18 on 1 November. He’s a guard on the basketball team, runs relays, wants to go to a military academy, be an officer in the air force. He’s a wing commander in North Valleys’ junior ROTC. He has until 18 October to register, and he is torn. He’s still trying to figure out “which candidate is the better for the country”, he said, as the Panthers and Grizzlies left the field at halftime, with Galena ahead, 14-10. “I don’t want to not vote. Then I don’t have the right to talk.” If Gentry registers, it will probably be as a Democrat. He likes the party’s foreign and economic policies, but he parts company on gun control. The Democrats are for it; he is not. Top of mind for this serious son of a retired police officer is just how dysfunctional US politics are these days, a time when the Republican nominee derides women as “disgusting” and “animals” and the Democrat slams a swath of GOP voters as “a basket of deplorables”. “It’s kind of a hectic time, scary,” Gentry said. “I feel like I missed out my first time with more decent candidates.” He would like to see a race that resembled “a Kennedy-Nixon debate, more classic, well-rounded candidates” than those running this time around. For the past 25 years, the political scientist Fred Lokken has had a front-row seat for young Nevadans’ voter ennui. He teaches political science 101 at Truckee Meadows Community College in Reno. This semester he is teaching five sections of the politics class, which is a general education requirement. That means 200 students between 16 and about 60, with an average age of 23. He would be surprised, he said, if 40 of them actually voted in November. Because nobody at any age votes much in Nevada, which is usually in the bottom 10 states for voter turnout. “Nevada has been one of the fastest-growing states,” Lokken said en route to class one recent Thursday. “No one is from here. Voter registration disappears in those moves. It’s not a priority. There are new politicians, new players. Sometimes people don’t know where or how to register.” Other factors depressing turnout? Nevada, he said, was “in the cynical part of the country where people don’t trust government”. More than a third of residents between 18 and 24 are Hispanic, “a population that may be either undocumented or unengaged”. And high school graduation rates are among the lowest in the country. “The ones who don’t graduate,” Lokken said, “are even less likely to vote.” Nevada has among the highest percentages nationwide of Hispanics registered to vote: 24% of the electorate is of Hispanic origin, according to the US census bureau. There is little hard data here on whether Trump’s anti-immigration stance has caused an uptick in Hispanic registration. But a recent survey by Latino Decisions shows that young Hispanics in Nevada are deeply interested in casting a ballot in 2016. A total of 87% of Hispanics younger than 39 who were polled said they would most likely vote, with immigration reform their top issue. It is 12.30pm, and students in Lokken’s second class of the day is milling in the hallway of the Red Mountain building, waiting for their professor to unlock room 412. Two weeks earlier, Hillary Clinton was in the same building, rebuking Trump for “taking hate groups mainstream”. Her appearance on campus was a testament to the importance of Washoe County – the “swingiest” county in a critical swing state. What that means is the number of registered Democrats and Republicans is relatively equal, and, come election day, anything could happen. For 30-some students ranging in age from 17 to 33, Lokken’s class was angry and cynical. The nine students who said they would not cast ballots will stay away from the voting booth because the choice of candidates is just so awful. Those who say they will vote agreed with the assessment. “On the one hand, you’ve got someone who’s lying,” mourned Ilana Barry, 18, who will not vote. “On the other is someone who’s probably going to destroy the country. They’re both lying. They’re both going to destroy the country.” Jaiden Bornt, 18, plans to cast her ballot for Clinton despite the lack of truthfulness in campaign 2016. “Hillary likes to draw attention away from herself when she lies,” Bornt said. “Donald Trump likes to draw attention to himself when he lies.” Said Trump supporter Christopher Osgood, 21: “This is a crazy election, a joke ... They both lie. I don’t like Hillary’s lies.” A few things were clear throughout Lokken’s classes, with about 70 students total that day: both candidates are deeply unpopular. When asked who likes Clinton, just one student raised a hand. Fifteen said they like Trump. Not a single person thought it was important that the US could elect a female president for the first time in its 240-year history. And insults are no way to woo millennial voters. Give them something to believe in or go away. “People are desperate,” said Michael Des Roches, 27. “They see the candidates for who they are, reaching the bottom of the barrel ... Through social media, both sides jab at each other. Hillary’s e-mail. Trump’s wall. “It’s a boxing match,” added the registered Republican, who plans to vote for Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson. “People see through that. It’s a bunch of baloney.” Tuesday is National Voter Registration day. To find out how to register in your state, click here.
Warriors coach Steve Kerr: election result tough for 'respect and dignity' Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr has never been a man to immerse himself solely in basketball. While some players and coaches talk only about the game, dodging greater social topics, Kerr has created an atmosphere around his team where players are encouraged to explore themselves as people and not just athletes. He wants them to have voice and personality. And so he did not stay silent when Donald Trump was elected president. Before the Warriors beat Dallas on Wednesday night, Kerr used a section of his pregame press conference to criticize an election that ran out-of-control, saving his harshest words for Trump. “The man who’s going to lead you has routinely used racist, misogynist, insulting words, that’s a tough one,” Kerr said. Mostly, Kerr spoke about the previous few months during which the election seemed to sink to a low of insults, comparing the process to “the Jerry Springer Show.” “I have no idea what kind of president he’ll be because he hasn’t said anything about what he’s going to do,” Kerr said. “We don’t know. But it’s tough when you want there to be some respect and dignity and there hasn’t been any and then you walk into a room with your daughter and your wife who have basically been insulted by his comments and they’re distraught. And you walk in and see the faces of your players, most of them who have been insulted directly as minorities, it’s sort of shocking. It really is.” He added that the team had discussed the election. “We talked about it as a team this morning. I don’t know what else to say. Just the whole process has left us feeling disgusted and disappointed. I thought we were better than this. I thought The Jerry Spring Show was The Jerry Springer show,” said Kerr. “Watching the last debate, Trump would make a crack at Clinton, and you’d hear the fans in the stands ‘Oooooh, oh, no, he didn’t.’ ‘Oh, yes he did. This is a presidential election, not The Jerry Springer Show.” After the Dallas game, Warriors forward David West also attacked Trump’s election calling it disappointing. “It’s been in the past that the whole idea around what it means to be a president and the esteem of that office is supposed to bring – all that is out the window,” West told ESPN. “You just tell your kids that you basically have to look in a different space in terms of what it takes to be successful because this guy just proved that everything we teach our kids about manners and etiquette, all that’s out the window,” West continued. “It’s a very difficult pill to swallow.”
Savers’ trusted champion has a positive message: ‘This isn’t a Lehman moment’ Martin Lewis, the man most trusted by the British to inform them about their personal finances, is shocked by Brexit but calm about the consequences. After all, on his own assessment he was only ever 55% in and 45% out. “I don’t see any reason why financial products, apart from mortgages and savings, should change that much now. I don’t believe this is a Lehman moment. Mark Carney has stepped in to stop that. There are much better capital requirements for the banks; Basel III has done its job. There is a much better system in place.” His consumer website, MoneySavingExpert.com, with 15 million users a month, is a barometer of the financial concerns of Britain’s low- and middle-income workers. On Brexit day the site’s forums were alive with speculation – and the safety of the financial system was at the forefront. Lewis says: “We are being asked a lot about the £75,000 safety net for savings. Is it going to take a hit from leaving the EU? It is true that the limit is set by the EU, but it’s run by the British Financial Services Compensation Scheme. It’s not about to disappear.” As the FTSE fell, at one stage by nearly 500 points, Lewis said that the “initial shock can be overcome”. Later in the day on Friday it recovered to a fall of just under 200 points, with sterling off 5% against the euro but by more against the dollar. The longer-term impact of EU withdrawal worries Lewis most. “In 2018-19, when we leave the EU, what will our trading situation be like?” More immediately, he thinks that savers could be hit because interest rates are more likely to fall than rise. Intense pressure on sterling would normally force the Bank of England into raising interest rates, says Lewis, but with sentiment so battered by Brexit the next move could be down. In a message to his site users issued soon after the result, Lewis said: “Overall, my suspicion (and this is pure guesswork) is that interest rates will remain roughly similar to as they are now, or perhaps be cut a touch if things go wrong.” In the wake of the vote, the Bank of England said it was prepared to inject an additional £250bn into money markets to ensure that financial institutions did not run short of cash. Bond yields fell, which may translate through to more sub-2% fixed-rate mortgages appearing in the coming days, but Lewis is not so sure. “Though there’s a chance things could get even cheaper, the safer option is to bag a cheap deal right now, rather than playing the markets.” Flooding the money markets with cash also spells problems for savers, warns Lewis, as banks will be less bothered about attracting deposits by offering good cash Isa deals. When it comes to the question uppermost in the minds of many young adults – should I still go ahead and buy a home, given the concerns about house price falls – Lewis says: “A number of people have been asking if they should complete on the house they’re in the process of buying. If it’s the house that’s right for you, it’s within your budget and you’ve got a decent mortgage that you can afford, then I think the best human decision, if not financial, is to carry on and go for it.” One positive from Brexit could be the end of the EU mortgage credit directive, which Lewis has been campaigning against because, he says, it results in “ludicrous lending decisions”. The directive has forced affordability criteria on borrowers who are remortgaging that make little sense, says Lewis. But while he welcomes the prospect of the UK no longer being bound by the directive, he wonders if the problem was the Financial Conduct Authority’s interpretation of the rules as much as anything else. Before the referendum, a YouGov poll found that Martin Lewis was trusted equally by both sides of the Brexit debate, and well ahead of any politician or celebrity. Some of his more fervent supporters now want him to replace George Osborne as chancellor, or even stand for prime minister. “After David Cameron said he was standing down, there were lots of people on Twitter asking me to stand. I would rather have my nipples attached to electrodes, and not in a good way. I never want to engage in party politics.” Despite being so much in the public eye, Lewis says he was burnt by the response to his personal assessment 55/45 in favour of remaining. “I had people attacking me as a traitor to my country, and some were even mooting violence. It was horrible.” The lesson for politicians from the referendum result is that they have lost their connections with the people, says Lewis, who reveals that he is now starting on a big project to help. “High on my list is how to get politicians reconnected with people. MoneySavingExpert connects with people, and we need to be able to find ways that politicians can better connect as well.”
All Tomorrow’s Parties events company announces closure ATP Festivals has announced its administration. As well as the cancellation of its forthcoming strand in Iceland owing to a lack of funds, the festival and events company has confirmed that its entire live division will now be shut down. Founded in 2001 by Barry Hogan, All Tomorrow’s Parties survival has long been shaky. In 2012 the company was put into liquidation, leading to its directors setting up a new firm, which similarly faced financial difficulties and accrued significant debts. Most recently, Drive Like Jehu’s ATP festival was cancelled, with Grizzly Bear and sister festival Jabberwocky each being axed at the last minute. There was also confusion surrounding Stewart Lee’s recent stint as festival curator. A post on ATP’s Facebook group reads: It is with deep sadness we are announcing that ATP Festivals and live promotions are closing down. After months of speculation, our funding for Iceland has been pulled and we are no longer able to continue so will be closing down the entire live side of ATP Festivals and live promotions with immediate effect and going into administration. ATP Iceland festival is no longer happening, but all our other UK shows will have new promoters appointed and tickets transferred (all purchased tickets remain valid with the new promoter). We will post details of the administrators and what to do for festival ticket refunds over the next week. We are very sorry we could not make this work and have tried to survive throughout all our recent losses but we are no longer able to trade and have to accept we cannot go on. Thank you to all our loyal customers who have supported us and incredible artists who have performed or curated for us over the years and made ATP so special while it lasted. The festival, named after the Velvet Underground song, quickly cultivated a cult following throughout the 00s for its avant garde lineups curated by music’s most discerning artists. Inspired by the Bowlie Weekender, an event organised by Belle and Sebastian at the Camber Sands Pontins in Sussex in 1999, ATP hosted its first festival, curated by Mogwai, at the same venue. Speaking to the in May, Stuart Braithwaite of the rock group said the festival “arrived at a time when festivals were becoming increasingly corporate and sterile and I believe that they have provided a fantastic alternative to that world”.
Erotic stories by Anaïs Nin consigned to Amazon's adult content 'dungeon' A new volume of lost writing by the author Anaïs Nin has been consigned by online retailer Amazon to its “adult content dungeon” – which is not as kinky as it sounds. Instead it means that Amazon has effectively made the new book, Auletris: Erotica, invisible on its platform to anyone who searches for it under an “All Departments” filter. The publisher of the book, American independent outfit Sky Blue Press, calls Amazon’s decision “unbelievable”. Editor Paul Herron, whose detective work is to thank for the discovery of the manuscript, says that Auletris: Erotica exceeds in its “boldness and variety” Nin’s well-known – and still easily available – erotic works Delta of Venus and Little Birds. “Auletris breaks many taboos. There are tales of incest, sex with children, rape, voyeurism, cutting, sadomasochism, homoeroticism (both male and female) [and] autoerotic asphyxiation, to name a few,” he wrote on the Anaïs Nin blog. “The characters are deliciously decadent, and the themes are largely based on Nin’s own experiences, recorded in her unexpurgated diaries. This book comes along just as interest in both Nin and the genre of erotica is booming,” Herron told the : “Amazon has essentially blocked viewers from knowing Auletris exists by placing it in what is known as the ‘adult content dungeon’, which means that it does not show up when one searches for the title, unless the search is refined – and very few potential readers know this.” If readers go, therefore, to any of the company’s platforms and search “Auletris” under All Departments, the book does not show up. If they change the search filter to Kindle Store or Books, then a message appears saying that the results are adult content and they have to click through to see the product. “That extra step is the difference between buying or not buying,” Herron says. “Everyone I know in the erotica business tells me that, when Amazon places a book in the dungeon, it kills sales.” Herron says he has been met with “stiff, mindless opposition” in his appeals to Amazon to have the book removed from the dungeon, and has been told by five different people at the company that “rules are rules” and that “what gets a book rated adult is what you would expect”. Amazon said that for them to bring the book back into the normal storefront, the cover would have to be modified to remove any bare nipples. The cover image is currently based on an erotic French postcard found in Nin’s possessions. In addition, the content of the book would have to be toned down. “This is impossible,” Herron says, “because it is, after all, erotica. When I pressed on, using every bit of logic I could muster – for instance [that] Fifty Shades of Grey is searchable, as are Nin’s Delta of Venus and Little Birds – not only was I given the brush-off, I was told that they were considering rating the other Nin erotica as ‘adult’, thereby rendering them as invisible as Auletris. This has yet to happen, but there was at least that threat. Note there is no such threat for Fifty Shades of Grey, which has made them a whole lot of cash.” The stories that form Auletris were discovered by Herron in the papers of Gunther Stuhlmann, who was Nin’s literary agent and who died in 2002. Correspondence mentioned them and the papers included photocopied pages from the proposed book. It appears the stories had been written specifically for an unnamed patron in the 1930s, at a pay rate of one dollar per page, and were later published with a print run of just five copies in 1950 by Press of the Sunken Eye, prompting Herron to try to track down a surviving copy. He did, and it was republished by Sky Blue Press on 20 October this year. Herron says: “The reason I believe Auletris is an important addition to Nin’s canon is that it is pure Nin – not to mention the fact that most of the book has never seen the light of day. I did not tinker with the contents – did not refine, cut, rearrange, change the phrasing, etc – but only tended to grammatical and spelling matters. I want the reader to experience exactly what the mysterious collector, for whom Nin wrote at a dollar a page, did.” Nin, who died in 1977 aged 73, was no stranger to brushes with prudishness. The publication in 1961 of her lover Henry Miller’s novel Tropic of Cancer led directly to obscenity trials in the States. At the time of publication, Amazon had not responded to a request for comment.
Apple stops making wireless routers and shuts division Apple has closed the division responsible for designing its wireless routers, reassigning the employees within the company and putting an end to its 17-year-old AirPort product line, sources close to the company have confirmed. The iPhone-maker currently sells three router devices developed by the division: the £99 AirPort Express, a small wireless access point, the £199 AirPort Extreme, a larger wireless router, and the Time Capsule, a wireless router with an in-built hard drive for backups, which is available in two sizes for £299 and £399. But none of the devices have been updated since 2013, after years of near-annual alterations to support the latest wireless networking technologies. Bloomberg News reports: “Apple began shutting down the wireless router team over the past year, dispersing engineers to other product development groups.” Beneficiaries include the Apple TV division, which saw a major boost in importance last October when the fourth generation of its hardware was released. The shutdown of the AirPort division is an attempt to “sharpen the company’s focus on consumer products that generate the bulk of its revenue”, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman. The overwhelming bulk of Apple’s revenue comes from its iPhone division, with Macs and iPads reported as separate units in its financial statements. Every single other piece of hardware, including the Apple Watch, Apple TV, and all of Apple’s accessories, is bundled into an “Other Products” category, which brings in less than 5% of Apple’s overall revenue – less than the amount Apple makes from “services” like the iTunes Store and iCloud. As a result, Apple has apparently been discontinuing numerous hardware products. When it launched the new MacBook Pro in October, it demonstrated the device with a premium 5K monitor made by LG. Until that month, Apple had made its own high-end monitors, which were quietly removed from sale after the press conference. Years ago, Apple used to have a much larger accessory division. Over its history, the company has made printers, digital cameras, and external modems, but slowly killed all those divisions as it honed its core business. Of those accessories it does still sell, some, such as the company’s Pencil, can’t be provided by third parties for technical reasons. But Apple does still compete directly with accessory manufacturers in a few areas, including cases, cables and keyboards, as well as mice, headphones and adapter dongles. iPhone ‘prank’ video crashes Apple smartphones
Rémi Garde unable to steer sinking Aston Villa away from the rocks Rémi Garde could well go down as one of the worst managerial appointments in Premier League history, though to be fair to the Frenchman it is hard to divine what Aston Villa were looking for when they persuaded the former Lyon coach to try his hand in England after they had ditched Tim Sherwood in November last year. Presumably Garde was aware at the time that Villa were in deep trouble – deeper than is normal when a club part with a manager barely three months into a season – having sold or parted with four of their best players in the summer transfer window and failed to even try to recruit convincing replacements. As a former Arsenal player, Garde certainly ought to have been aware; he was rated highly enough by Arsène Wenger to have been suggested as a possible director of football nine years ago and is believed to have sounded out his former mentor about the advisability of taking on the Villa job. It would be interesting to know precisely what advice he was given on that occasion, though perhaps even Wenger could not have told him that Villa would have no money to spend on strengthening in January and that a grim situation would simply get worse on a weekly basis until the club scrapped their internal management structure and began preparing for life in the Championship next season. “I am not a fool, I can see the situation we are in,” was something Garde said on a regular basis during his short-lived term in the Midlands. To his credit he always kept his composure and behaved with admirable discretion, something his players could not always claim when they embarrassed him by partying in public or tweeting pictures of flash cars in the immediate aftermath of heavy defeats. But Garde might have been foolish for agreeing to join a club already at the bottom of the table after several seasons spent fighting relegation, especially if he failed to tie down his new employers to agreements about money for new players or what might happen in the event of relegation. Villa are not actually relegated yet, and ironically Nigel Pearson, one of the replacements currently being touted, was still in bottom place with Leicester City this time last season before engineering one of the most remarkable recoveries (still ongoing, of course) in recent memory. But Villa are not Leicester, as has been pointed out repeatedly in the past few months. They have neither the squad depth, the appetite nor the animation. Even Pearson, unless he wears a Superman costume under his tracksuit, could not turn around Villa from this situation. Ostensibly a bigger club than Leicester, and with a far more impressive history, Villa would be nowhere near the top of the table at this point had Claudio Ranieri headed west from Birmingham airport instead of east. That reality seemed to dawn on Garde quite early in his five months at the club. Though he spoke of “extremely positive” meetings with the owner and chief executive before Christmas, even hinting at ambitious plans for the club that he was excited to be a part of, by the new year the tone had changed to something more downbeat. “Maybe [the plan for the future] is not as clear as when I signed, but it is something I don’t want to discuss too much,” he said in February. By the end of that month Villa were thumped 6-0 at home by Liverpool, the limpness of the home display more a factor in the result than any particular brilliance on the part of the visitors, and Garde confessed to feeling humiliated. “I am sorry for the fans who came,” he said. “This is a bad feeling, we did not fight enough.” There will be those who suggest Garde himself did not fight enough, did not administer the hairdryer treatment, the collective kick up the backside or the internal discipline necessary to impose himself and his values on an under-performing team, though had Villa wanted a shouty British manager from central casting they had a number of choices. They could have had Tony Pulis, before he joined West Bromwich Albion. They could have had Pearson, instead of looking abroad. They could have had almost anybody in the game, such is the size of the club and the obvious potential, before it became too late. Now it is too late, and though Garde was palpably a poor fit for an ailing side, he should not carry too much of the blame. That rests squarely on the shoulders of Randy Lerner and his henchmen for a series of questionable managerial appointments, although it could also be argued that Villa were thrown out of kilter by Martin O’Neill’s decision to resign five days before the start of the 2010-11 season. That sort of unforeseen contingency would upset any long-term planning, though perhaps it is not without significance that O’Neill’s decision to leave was believed to hinge on lack of transfer funds for incoming players. While that has become a familiar refrain since, what is unarguable is that the managers Villa appointed after O’Neill do not amount to a succession of names likely to restore the club to its former glory. Gérard Houllier, elderly and out of touch even before being invalided out. Alex McLeish, now managing in Egypt. Villa fans could just about stomach a manager with Birmingham connections, but why appoint the man who had just got City relegated? Paul Lambert was more understandable, based on his success at Norwich City, though it was quickly apparent Villa were going nowhere fast under his stewardship, while Sherwood was the type of suck-it-and-see gamble that perennial relegation battlers can ill afford to make. Garde simply joins the end of that list now. Nice bloke, well mannered, good connections; unable to keep the tanker off the rocks and in danger of being scarred for life by the experience. Doubtless he will eventually recover, five months counting for little on an overall managerial CV, and he said only a few weeks ago that he was certain of his abilities and it was just the situation that was wrong. Which is true. The situation at Villa has been very wrong for some time now. Garde may or may not be a manager of the future, but at Villa he was just a patsy. What the Villa fans will want to know, once relegation is confirmed, is what logic lay behind the club’s recruitment policy, both of managers and of players, and whether anything can be changed quickly enough next season to avoid heading straight for the bottom of the Championship.
A Twitter love story: the woman who wed @WstonesOxfordSt Books have always brought people together. My first love grew during lunch breaks in the sixth-form library, whispering over a copy of The Dharma Bums. For Victoria and Jonathan O’Brien, it was the Twitter feed of the Oxford Street branch of Waterstones bookshop. He ran it, she followed it, and 10 days ago they got married. As with all the best plots, however, there were impediments to love. In 2012, when Victoria kept noticing the @WstonesOxfordSt account, she knew nothing of its author. All she knew was that she felt compelled to keep checking the tweets: “I was actually searching for it.” Jonathan used to publish a zine called The Rooting Tooting Times – jokes, short stories, that kind of thing – and his Waterstones tweets struck an idiosyncratic, non-corporate tone. (Sample tweet: “BOOK FACT. Cheetahs can type faster than any other land animal but, sadly, their works are often poorly plotted and/or emotionally naive.”) After Waterstones dropped the apostrophe from its name, he storyboarded its new life in a retirement village. This was a provocation too far. “I’m in love with whoever’s manning the Waterstones Oxford Street Twitter. Be still my actual beating heart,” Victoria tweeted. “Book nerds are not that dreamy,” Jonathan replied. “Book nerds are > dreamboats,” Victoria retorted. But there was only silence. Maybe this was because Jonathan was inured to advances. Victoria later learned that “the marriage proposals came from all over the place”. “I usually had stock responses. ‘Sorry, I’m already married to the books.’ That sort of thing,” Jonathan says. What, he never bothered to check out the person’s profile? “Not really, no. It would be unprofessional.” He was roused into action only after Victoria implied in an exchange with a friend that she had met him for gin in Bloomsbury. “From my personal account, I asked what she was talking about,” he says. They followed each other, chatted a bit, and when Victoria, a circus performer, was on a tour break, she noticed Jonathan tweeting a hankering for doughnuts. She had time to spare, so she bought a bag and went to the shop. “My legs were taking me and my head was going: ‘What are you doing?’” Upstairs, she worked out who he was. “And he was so much taller than I thought he would be. I’m only 5ft. I stood in the queue waiting. He went: ‘Hi, how can I help you?’ and I just said: ‘There you go, there’s a doughnut. As requested.’ Then I bottled it and ran away.” Three days later, her phone pinged with a DM. Jonathan was going on lunch: was she nearby, did she fancy hanging out? They walked around Oxford Street, talking so much they didn’t actually buy lunch. That was three and a half years ago. “We haven’t stopped talking,” Jonathan says. Twitter has already changed their lives – they are married, of course. Jonathan has stopped being a bookseller and become a social media writer for Innocent drinks. They have matching Twitter handles and there have been a thousand new followers for Victoria overnight. But this is not necessarily the start of a married life lived out on Twitter. “It’s how we started,” Victoria says. “But it’s not integral to anything.”
The real reason shops want you to sign up for e-receipts For decades, the high street has remained a refuge for digital refuseniks. Sure, you’re now able to 1-click a multipack of quilted two-ply from the comfort of your loo seat using an Andrex Amazon Dash button. But, offline, in an actual shop, you hand over the money and you’re done. Receipt in the bag? Yes, please. No more. As if the threat to paper were not grave enough, the old-fashioned till receipt is in trouble. How much you care probably informs your response to the increasingly familiar checkout refrain: “Can we email you your receipt?” Shops including Gap, Topshop and Mothercare now routinely offer e-receipts. Apple stores have been doing it for ages. The benefits are plain: an email can’t end up in the wash. Better for online tax returns and trees. But to what extent are retailers motivated by more than marginal convenience – and what else is in store? That e-receipts are important to retailers became clear to a friend who politely requested a paper one – rather than hand over his email address – last month. He had gone to buy an emergency T-shirt at Nike after a coffee spillage. The shop assistant seemed surprised and disappointed, and had to go to a different till. Seconds were wasted, but my friend, who paid cash, appreciated his anonymity. A Mothercare e-receipt shows why stores don’t like anonymity. It comes as an attachment, but the email includes an online survey request, a plug for a Dutch buggy brand and, right at the top, an invitation to download the Mothercare app. E-receipts are the low-tech tracer round in a coming barrage. The response of the high street to the threat of online-only stores is to deploy the same ammunition. Shops, which have always been glorified warehouses, are blurring the lines between online and offline consumption in an attempt to get to know us so that they can sell us more wherever we are. Mothercare’s app is part of this bricks-and-data approach. You can shop on it but it also encourages store visits, with a finder function and a way to pull up reviews of the really expensive car seat in front of you. Scan receipts straight from your phone to return an item. A lullaby player brings the brand into your life as well as your bank statement. It’s not just an app, it’s a “companion”. “Retailers are trying to move to a long-term relationship with customers because loyalty as we once thought of it is pretty much dead,” says Colin Strong, head of behavioural science at market research group Ipsos and author of Humanizing Big Data. The internet has helped consumers take power away from retailers. We compare prices and try stuff on in store before ordering it online for less. “Servitisation” is one way brands win back loyalty. “I call it the Nespresso effect,” Strong explains. “It’s buying into an ecosystem and not having to make decisions while the brand learns more about you.” In a clothes shop, that means using your data to personalise shopping. “They want to bring the functionality and experience that people have online into the store,” says Dan Hartveld, who helped build Ocado’s shopping systems. He is now head of tech at Red Ant, whose clients include Halfords and Topshop. Emails mean stores can gather your online and offline shopping history. “This single-customer view has been the holy grail for about five years but now we’re going further,” adds Hartveld. Red Ant provides Topshop with iPads so that assistants can pull up a customer profile right on the floor, and check you out. For now, the assistant still needs an email address, but Red Ant is working with a luxury retailer on a more sophisticated system (he can’t say who); customers who have the store’s app on a phone in their pocket will be sensed as soon as they walk in the door. Assistants will be able to greet them and present the shoes, say, that they were looking at online before they left the house. US retailers are a step ahead. Department store Nordstrom’s “innovations lab” can track the movements of consenting customers within the store. The marketing team finds trending products on Pinterest and updates in-store promotions. At clothing brand Rebecca Minkoff, shoppers can go all Minority Report on giant mirrored touchscreens, calling up items to be sent to a changing room, throwing in a drink order for good measure. Cute, but what does this all mean for my coffee-stained friend and his small-data instincts? “The problem is that shop assistants aren’t yet explaining what the nature of the email request is,” says Renate Samson, chief executive of data guardian Big Brother Watch and member of the government’s privacy and consumer advisory group. “‘Will you be retaining my address for marketing, or sharing it with third parties?’ It must be clearer.” Nike did not respond to questions about its e-receipt policy. Topshop said it introduced them last year and that there is no obligation. Customers must opt in to receive marketing emails, a statement goes on. New EU data laws due to come into force in 2018 will, Brexit permitting, demand a more direct opt-in approach (no more “untick this box if you don’t want to receive a million emails”) and clearer information. But resistance is futile; the privacy-aware will need become ever more vigilant if they want to stay under cover.
New band of the week: Harvey Sutherland & Bermuda (No 127) Hometown: Melbourne. The lineup: Mike Katz (synths), Graeme Pogson (drums), Tamil Rogeon (electric strings). The background: Just imagine, right, that in a couple of days’ time someone with risible hair was the de facto leader of the free world, in charge of the nuclear codes, and, according to most objective assessments, a dangerous sociopath. (“But enough about Hillary Clinton.” Arf.) You might want to obliterate your senses with some good old-fashioned Swedish death metal. Alternatively, you might opt for something more lightly escapist: some heady, twinkling jazz-inflected disco-funk, perhaps, redolent of happier times – the early 80s, say, when the cold war was on. Anyway, if you are in a pre-apocalyptic mood, gripped by panic and dread, you need to hear what Melbourne DJ/producer Mike Katz does as Harvey Sutherland & Bermuda. It’s the sound of Rhodes piano, “electric” (ie, synth) strings, real drums, and party-till-the-bomb-drops handclaps, all deployed in the service of some of the most mesmerising instrumental passages and sublime melodies you’ve heard since Arthur Russell teamed up with Kool and the Gang, which he didn’t but he didn’t need to because now we’ve got Sutherland and his two associates (that’ll be Bermuda) doing it for us. Sutherland calls this live-band offshoot of his studio-based electronic work “lounge-room disco burners”. There are echoes here of Hercules and Love Affair. That is, real musicians locking together – getting “in the pocket”, to use the parlance of the day. In fact, Sutherland’s homage-paying to his beloved golden age of club music extends to his own use of funk vernacular. “Pocket is essential,” he says when asked whether he is trained in muso proficiency or if you have to have a degree to play with Harvey Sutherland and chums. “I have no formal training, just a bit of time spent learning my minor 9ths,” he , explaining his forays as a solo artist versus his setup with Bermuda. “Playing solo, it’s more programmed drums and 808 club tracks, with improvised synthesiser loops and solos. But the band is a heavy disco excursion with a one-man electric string section and deep-pocket live drums. I just hold on for dear life behind a couple of keyboards.” Whatever, it works. The song Bermuda – like all of Sutherland and his eponymous outfit’s output, an instrumental and one of Spotify’s Top 10 viral tracks last year – is a shimmering gem. It’s a lattice of lush, jazzy keyboards, burbling bass and funk-tional groove, with an upwards-spiralling synth motif reminiscent of rappers’ delight Summer Madness by the aforementioned Kool. Things take a turn for the cosmic on Bamboo. If you didn’t know, you might assume this stuff was recorded back in the day. Priestess has a bleep and polish that makes it sound more recent - more late- than early-80s, with a Detroit techno sheen and some Chicago house piano. Nine minutes long and languorous, it evolves slowly, with a hypnotic quality that is positively psychedelic. Melody is key: Katz is more into George Duke than he is George Clinton. Meanwhile, his keyboard lines dovetail magnificently with drummer Graeme Pogson’s relentless four-on-the-floor rhythms and Tamil Rogen’s sky-caressing strings. Bravado could be a lost Isley Brothers B-side from the 70s, while Nexus sounds like the backing track to Patrice Rushen’s 1982 postdisco classic Forget Me Nots. Like a lot of disco music designed ostensibly for the dancefloor, Sutherland’s compositions strike an unexpected wistful note, capturing – as New Order and Pet Shop Boys did with their best music – the ineffable sadness of this social ritual. New Paradise is full of moments – a dancing, playful synth pattern here, a wash of keyboards there – that seem to acknowledge the irony (or is that poignancy?) of such goodtime music being tinged with melancholy. Still, there’s nothing sad about Australia’s neo-disco-funk scene. We mention Harts and Flight Facilities to Katz, and he gets competitive: “Raise you Krakatau, Sui Zhen and Sampa the Great,” he says. “There’s a lot happening out here.” And now here’s Katz as alter ego Harvey Sutherland, whose superhero power is generating heat on the dancefloor. “When I play solo, it’s a gamble,” he says, assessing the effects of his lovely music on audiences. “Crowd engagement is the difference between a good and a great show, so when they’re connected with what you’re doing, you can take improvisational risks and enjoy the experience a lot more. I can’t usually see the couples from the front, but there were some beautifully sweaty, shirts-off dancefloor moments in Tokyo.” When asked who his most famous fan/Twitter follower/celebrity stalker is, he replies, “Dam Funk,” adding: “Like him, I’m not interested in fame. Just beautiful chords.” The buzz: “A pitch-perfect homage to jazzy disco-funk.” The truth: He’s the new wizard of Oz. Most likely to: Party like it’s 1979 or thereabouts. Least likely to: Damn the funk. What to buy: The Priestess/Bravado 12-inch double A-side is out now on Clarity Recordings and Above Board Distribution. File next to: Hercules and Love Affair, Metro Area, Harts, Flight Facilities. Links: Listen on their Soundcloud Ones to watch: Sirma, Known to Collapse, Freak, World Radio, The Altar of Black Ash.
Liverpool owners open to selling stake in club amid Chinese interest Liverpool’s owners have said the club is not for sale, but they are willing to consider proposals from outside investors amid speculation that a Chinese-backed consortium wants to buy a stake. The stance was restated following reports that financial conglomerate Everbright was working with an investment company to buy a substantial stake in Liverpool, valuing the club at more than £700m. The consortium, which may bring in other investors, wants to work with the current owner, John W Henry, rather than buy the entire club, according to Sky News. An agreement would be one of the biggest investments by a Chinese company in a Premier League club and comes after a surge of interest from investors in China. The 18-time English champions and Fenway Sports Group, which owns Liverpool, are said to have received no offer for a stake and are not in active talks with a potential investor. But an informal approach has not been ruled out from the consortium, which is yet to finalise plans, or its advisers. Everbright, which is backed by the Chinese state, is said to be working on its offer with PCP Capital Partners, an investment company known for brokering deals for Middle Eastern clients. PCP is headed by Amanda Staveley, who helped arrange the sale of Manchester City to Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan, a deal that helped the former leapfrog Liverpool to become one of England’s wealthiest football clubs. Sheikh Mansour sold a 13% stake in Manchester City to Chinese investors last year. Staveley helped Barclays raise more than £3bn in funding from Sheikh Mansour during the financial crisis and is suing the bank for £721m of what she claims are unpaid fees. She has been involved in a bid for Liverpool before. In 2009, Staveley was the conduit between the club and a Kuwaiti group that considered buying it from the then owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett. Fenway, which also owns the Boston Red Sox baseball team, bought Liverpool for £300m in 2010 and pledged to return the club to the top of English football, following what was then a 20-year gap since the club last won the top flight. However, despite heavy spending on players, Liverpool’s form has been erratic and they finished eighth in the Premier League last season. Everbright’s interest in Liverpool surfaced a day after one of the club’s co-owners said Fenway had no intention of selling the club. “We’ve said it before and I’d like to say it again: this club is not for sale. If someone wants to write us a letter saying they want to buy the club, then it will get put in the garbage,” Tom Werner told the Liverpool Echo. But Werner said he and Fenway’s co-founder John Henry were prepared to consider approaches about taking a minority stake in Liverpool. “We actively pursue commercial opportunities, which in turn helps us invest in the squad and win football matches. These commercial discussions can be complex and we’ve said in the past, under the right conditions and absolutely with the right partner, we could look at some small investment stake in the club,” he said. Chinese businesses have been busy investing in European football clubs since the president, Xi Jinping, said he wanted China to become a world footballing power. West Bromwich Albion, Aston Villa and Wolverhampton Wanderers have been bought by Chinese investors in the past few months.
Cameron won’t purge his Brexit rebels, but there will be a reckoning A month tomorrow voters will decide whether this country is to remain in the European Union – a decision that, as the prime minister told Robert Peston this morning, “is more important than a general election”. Whatever you think of Cameron, allow that this was a moment of authentic statesmanship. On 23 June we should play the ball, not the man. How bizarre, then, that this national argument about our collective future has been conducted for months as little more than a Tory party board game, a psychodrama involving a comparatively tiny number of privately educated protagonists. Labour has no cause for complaint, having barely decided whether it wants to play with the boot or the thimble before it passes “go”. There have been honourable exceptions, notably Gordon Brown (responsible, let us never forget, for keeping us out of the euro) who directly addressed the UK’s 9 million Labour voters at the Fabians’ summer conference on Saturday with “Labour reasons” to back remain. But the party he once led is not yet fully engaged. In unhealthy contrast, Conservatives cannot get enough of the EU row. If Toryland were an independent state, then “banging on about Europe” would be its national sport. Why so? As a proxy argument about the future trajectory of the party, it does not fit precisely. Not all Tories who want to leave the EU are reactionaries, followers of Ayn Rand or doctrinally hostile to public services: Michael Portillo, the godfather of Conservative social liberalism and modernisation, is also a spirited Brexiteer. So the correspondence is not exact. But the split over the EU is still the biggest, boldest bifurcation of the inner Tory map, dividing one vision of the party’s future from another. Put it this way: when one thinks of the many members of the Tory right who have opposed Cameron’s reforms of the party and his campaign to make Conservatives shake hands with modernity – while enjoying the electoral benefits of this strategy, naturally – one struggles to think of even a handful now supporting him in the greatest trial of his 11 years as leader. Cameron, at any rate, is in no doubt that he is engaged in a battle for the soul of the party. Last week’s Queen’s speech asserted his preoccupation with social reform as never before, explicitly reclaiming the “one nation” terrain that Ed Miliband tried to colonise but Jeremy Corbyn has so helpfully vacated. In his Peston interview, as in private, the PM made clear his intention to serve a full second term. When he first revealed this objective in an interview with me in January 2013, he insisted that the words “full term” were not euphemistic as they were in the case of Tony Blair – who left No 10 only two years after the 2005 election. Cameron will not quit voluntarily unless he is confident the party has put down deep roots in the centre ground. In his book Free Speech, Timothy Garton Ash describes Europe as “the second biggest dog in the west … not really a single dog but rather an intercanine league”. For the electorate, this referendum is a decision that will shape the nation’s prospects for decades. For the dissenting rump of the Tory party, it is a means of getting rid of Cameron. The Treasury’s final estimates of the cost of Brexit, published this week, are an opportunity for thoughtful voters to assess the remain case. For Brexiteers, the document will be another chance to call George Osborne “Pinocchio”, as Iain Duncan Smith did at the weekend. Notice that attacks on Osborne are central to the leave strategy. In a recent Spectator interview Boris Johnson spoke thus of Osborne: “I am delighted to hear he’s principled … That is a major, major development.” Do you remember the days when Boris and George were supposed to have sealed a great and durable friendship? Not so durable, it transpires. The Brexiteers have decided that Osborne should be destroyed, that this most resilient of politicians must be removed from Johnson’s path for good: Georgius delendus est. Will Cameron let them get away with treating his closest ally like that? He is a natural conciliator, a self-styled broker of agreements within his party, rather than a Thatcher, content to divide and rule. The joint announcement of prison reform by the PM and Michael Gove on the eve of the Queen’s speech suggested powerfully that the lord chancellor, though a passionate Brexiteer, is safe in his job. Cameron’s allies do not dismiss the possibility of a “reconciliation reshuffle” after the vote, though they emphasise that Cameron is not taking victory for granted – a wise position in these volatile times. What has certainly not been decided is who gets what – the widely disseminated speculation that Gove will be made deputy prime minister and Johnson appointed home secretary being premature at best. Still: it frames a dilemma that Cameron should be thinking about. There is a difference between magnanimity and surrender. Where would the sense be in moving Theresa May, who has remained loyal, and replacing her at the Home Office with a politician who vacillated until the very last moment, accused the PM of “demented scaremongering”, and then invoked the spectre of Hitler himself? My conversations suggest that there is no consensus in Cameron’s circle about what to do with the former London mayor if remain prevails. As one senior source puts it carefully: “There will have to be an extent to which people are held to account for what they’ve done.” Another Cameron ally sees different priorities: “The quote about the rebel being better inside the tent rather than outside is such a cliche, but in Boris’s case it may be depressingly true.” This adviser, in fact, is angrier with Gove. The correct answer to these questions will be found by doing what clubbable Tories like least: forgetting the ties of friendship and the blisters of resentment, and acting dispassionately. Assume for the sake of argument that Cameron wins on 23 June. If he wants to govern successfully for more than three years with only a small Commons majority, he must show an almost unleadable party that actions have consequences. No post-referendum purge, therefore. But no universal amnesty either. So, prime minister: who’s for the chop?
On my radar: Alice Lowe’s cultural highlights Born in Coventry, Alice Lowe studied classics at Cambridge, where she became involved in theatre and comedy. She starred in the Perrier award-winning Garth Marenghi’s Netherhead at the 2001 Edinburgh fringe, thereafter appearing in its 2004 Channel 4 incarnation, Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace. She has also starred in Black Books, The Mighty Boosh, The IT Crowd and CBBC’s Horrible Histories. Her big-screen credits include Hot Fuzz, Locke and Ben Wheatley’s 2012 film Sightseers, which she also co-wrote. She is currently working on her directorial debut feature, Prevenge, about a pregnant woman who goes on a killing spree, and stars in comedy Black Mountain Poets, which is released this week. 1 | Music Grimes Grimes is on tour at the moment and I think she’s brilliant. I got into her a couple of years ago when I was writing a film, and I find her music quite atmospheric – I’d love to collaborate with her on a film soundtrack. I really admire someone who generates a kind of creative world: she does her own album artwork, directs her own videos, makes all her own music electronically. I find her creatively really inspiring, the fact that she’s really young and has the courage to seize what she wants and take control of it. I like that she draws on lots of different influences: she reminds me a bit of Björk, but she’s also influenced by pop, there’s no snobbery. 2 | Film Couple in a Hole This is coming out in April and I’m really excited about it. I love Kate Dickie, she’s one of those mesmerising people. People are saying this film is sort of an instant classic – I think it’s going to be very stripped down, just a couple in a hole. I love those films where it’s just a very intense story with maybe just two actors. Paul Higgins is a great actor as well. So I’m looking forward to that, if I can actually get out to the cinema to see it. A lot of this is stuff I’d like to see if I didn’t have a two-month-old baby, so it’s a bit of a wishlist that may never be fulfilled. 3 | Book They All Love Jack: Busting the Ripper, by Bruce Robinson I’m reading this book about Jack the Ripper at the moment. Normally I’d think, these were genuine murders, it doesn’t seem like entertainment to me, but I’d be interested in anything Bruce Robinson wrote about. It’s written from a very personal perspective; it’s almost like you’re sitting in a pub with him. It encompasses lots of different things: London history, political context. His approach is to strip away all the mythology of Jack the Ripper, putting him in a modern perspective. He’s sort of saying that the Victorian era was really ruthless, so it’s not surprising there would be someone like him. A symptom of the age rather than one deviant, crazy person. It’s just a theory but really fascinating I think. 4 | Theatre Scene & Heard This is an organisation in north London that runs workshops, getting disadvantaged children in the local area to write plays that are then put on and produced by adults. They’re short playlets, about 10 minutes long. They’re often surrealist and absurd and very funny, but also profound and beautiful. In one there was a traffic light that was in love with a pram or something, and it was really tragic because it was saying, I’m red at the moment so I can’t do anything, I can’t go. It felt quite existentialist. It’s an astonishing thing for these kids, who might not think they’re particularly academic, to see their work come to life. 5 | Exhibition V&A: You Say You Want a Revolution? I’m really excited about this exhibition, which is going to be about counter-culture in the late 60s. I love the V&A anyway because it’s an extraordinary place: I always think they have the best exhibitions. I could just spend every day there. But I particularly love 60s and 70s music and psychedelia, so it sounds right up my street, basically. They’ve given a few hints of what will be on show. I think it’s artwork by musicians and artists, a few pictures of the Rolling Stones, that kind of thing. They’re keeping it close to their chest, but I’m sure it’s going to be hugely popular. 6 | TV Neil Gaiman’s Likely Stories (Sky Arts) I love Neil Gaiman. I read loads of his stuff, and there’s lots of exciting people collaborating on these. I think it’s four parts, all based on Neil Gaiman stories. They’re directed by Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard, who did the Nick Cave documentary 20,000 Days on Earth, and Jarvis Cocker is doing the music. As soon as you get Neil Gaiman attached to something there’s a load of really interesting people who want to work with him, so you get this brilliant melting pot of collaborators. 7 | Talk Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies This is a degree-level series of lectures and talks about horror. It’s at the Horse Hospital in central London, which is this strange, very atmospheric building. They do a variety of different talks: they’re about to do one about electronic music expressing evil in film, whether it’s an evil robot or Satan. They do screenings as well, and discussions, intellectualising horror, which is really interesting if you’re a massive horror nerd. I love all that kind of stuff.
The Cinema Travellers review – intimate documentary is ode to enduring power of film The ever-increasing importance of global box office (this year will see China top the US as the world’s highest-grossing country for the first time) has shone a light on both the similarities and differences of movie-going around the world. Shock news to the industry: people in non-English speaking countries go to the cinema as well. A lot. Maybe even more. In Shirley Abraham and Amit Madheshiya’s understated documentary, we’re given intimate access to a unique experience: two travelling cinemas that travel across rural India sharing films with people who would otherwise have limited access. It focuses on the lives of the men who put the show on the road, faced with a changing medium and a demanding audience. Shot over five years, we follow a set of men with different key roles in the process of the two companies. There’s the easygoing manager trying to provide for his family while on the road, the 70-year-old projector mechanic whose weathered hands have helped bring the joy of cinema to thousands and the many serious-minded cineastes who work around them. It’s refreshing to see a documentary where those on camera remain so undisturbed by the presence of the camera. There’s not a moment that feels forced or tweaked to ensure an emotional beat gets checked off, which results in both immersion and authenticity at every stage of the film. There’s a timeliness too as we see a tradition that’s existed in India for over seven decades change beyond recognition with technology and an audience ever-reliant on the small screen causing a mini-revolution. The film contains a handful of bittersweet moments as the crumbling projector is finally put to rest and more modern equipment takes over. The prints are cast aside, their importance suddenly diminished. At one particularly poignant moment the elderly mechanic examines some water-damaged films, asks: “Where are those images now?”. The changing nature of film also leads to some genuine moments of joy as the ungainly enormity of the old-fashioned projector is replaced for a smoother process that has the beleaguered team thankful for progress (“I’m as happy as a man on his wedding day”). Having seen the fervent excitement surrounding the unwrapping of a compact digital projector, I now fully understand the appeal of unboxing videos on YouTube. An evocative, subtle and heartfelt snapshot, it also refrains from sentimentality. For all the fondness for the old, there’s equal thrill of the new.
Hollywood beckons for whistleblower who risked jail over Iraq ‘dirty tricks’ Before Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, and Edward Snowden, the intelligence whistleblower, there was Katharine Gun. Not so many people remember the unassuming British woman who once risked it all to take a stand against the US war machine, but that is about to change. The former GCHQ employee will be played by Natalie Dormer, star of The Tudors and Game of Thrones, in a film that continues the big screen’s love affair with spies and journalists. Gun was a young Mandarin specialist at the British government’s eavesdropping agency in Cheltenham. In early 2003 she received an email asking her and her colleagues to help the US government spy on UN security council delegations in New York. It was a critical moment, as Washington was seeking UN backing for its invasion of Iraq. Gun decided the world had to know, whatever the cost to her life and career. She leaked the memo to the and was arrested, lost her job and faced trial under the Official Secrets Act. Thirteen years later, as bloodshed continues in Iraq, the almost forgotten story is to be brought to a new audience in Official Secrets, a movie co-starring Paul Bettany and Martin Freeman as journalists who reported the dirty tricks scandal, along with Anthony Hopkins as a retired general and Harrison Ford as a veteran CIA agent. It will chart Gun’s unlikely bid – courageous self-sacrifice to supporters, treachery in the view of critics – to block George W Bush and Tony Blair’s march to war. “It’s really surreal,” Gun, 41, who was born in Taiwan and studied Mandarin and Japanese at Durham University, said last week. “It already feels like such a long time ago, like almost a different person, but to have it brought to the big screen – it will still be really weird.” For director Justin Chadwick, whose credits include The Other Boleyn Girl and Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom, there will be the challenge of turning spycraft and journalism into drama. Film-makers keep trying, but some are more successful than others. The Watergate-inspired All the President’s Men is still widely regarded as the gold standard depiction of investigative reporting, while Spotlight, about the Boston Globe’s exposé of priests involved in sexual abuse, is nominated at this year’s Oscars. But The Fifth Estate, which starred Benedict Cumberbatch as Assange, was a flop in 2013, costing $28m to make and taking only around $6m worldwide. Oliver Stone’s biopic of Snowden, played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, was meant to have been released by now but has been pushed back. Unlike many whistleblowers who leak thousands of documents after the event, Gun was intervening in an active operation and trying to stop a war with just one email. The US National Security Agency memo told employees of GCHQ to gather “the whole gamut of information that could give American policymakers an edge in obtaining results favourable to US goals or to head off surprises”. This included a focus on the “swing nations” on the security council: Angola, Cameroon, Chile, Bulgaria and Guinea “as well as extra focus on Pakistan UN matters”. Gun did not hesitate. She printed off the memo, put it in her handbag and took it home. “I saw the email and my gut reaction was pretty instantaneous, that it was highly explosive information and that it should be out in the public domain,” she recalled. “Everybody would agree that at the time – the build-up to the invasion – the public mood across the globe was very much against an invasion, and that’s how I felt as well. There were no grounds for it, and I really felt that people needed to know what was going on behind the scenes to get a really clear picture of where our governments were taking us.” The had controversially declared its support for the war, but it verified the leak and published the story on 2 March 2003, causing an international storm. The US and UK had to give up on securing a direct UN mandate for attacking Iraq and instead launched airstrikes on 19 March, with far-reaching consequences that included a chaotic insurgency and saw the rise of Islamic State. Gun reflected: “I think the film is important because the issues still haven’t gone away and it’s a good opportunity to focus people’s minds not only on that specific period in time but also on the ramifications of that invasion and how the ripple effect has carried on to this day. The violence, the refugee crisis, Isis – they’re all intertwined in many ways.” Intriguing questions remain over who ultimately authorised the NSA’s request and whether it was carried out by GCHQ staff. Based on Marcia and Thomas Mitchell’s bestselling book, The Spy Who Tried To Stop A War: Katherine Gun and the Secret Plot to Sanction the Iraq Invasion, the film will try to fill some of the gaps and trace the political forces that led to the conflict. Gun said: “There was certainly something going on at very senior levels. We know that Tony Blair was principally concerned about his reputation, about the legality of the war. The whole thing stinks to high heaven. I know people have tried to make citizens’ arrests on Tony Blair and so on, but really it’s time the international criminal court has some guts and charges white war criminals. They need to face justice just like other war criminals. I would support Bush and Blair being impeached.” The personal cost to her was immense. After the story broke, she owned up to her bosses and was arrested. The government’s decision to charge her came as a “shock”, she recalled, and she faced a possible jail term. But as she sat in the Old Bailey awaiting the first day of her trial in 2004, the case was suddenly dropped after the prosecution withdrew its evidence. Some believe the government was anxious to avoid the embarrassment of a lengthy court case as, in the absence of weapons of mass destruction, its argument for going to war was beginning to unravel. Gun has since kept a low profile and now lives in Turkey with her husband and seven-year-old daughter. She applauded Assange and Snowden for resisting an ever-worsening climate of official secrecy and has never regretted what she did. “It most certainly did change my life completely, but of course you don’t know how things would have panned out otherwise because I didn’t travel down that road. It’s been a completely different trajectory from what I envisaged, but I’m still here and just trying to lead a relatively normal life.” This will also be a newspaper film. Bettany, whose CV includes A Beautiful Mind, Iron Man and Wimbledon, plays Martin Bright, the journalist who came into possession of the NSA memo after meeting a contact in a cafe. Bright, now 49, from north London, said: “I was, I have to admit, sceptical. It was essentially just a sheet of paper with some words typed on it, but I had a feeling that it looked like it wasn’t made up.” So he and two colleagues, Ed Vulliamy and Peter Beaumont, worked their contacts for a long time to stand the story up. “By the time we published we were 99% sure, but we were still having some steers from official sources that this might be a sophisticated Russian forgery, and you have to remember the time this was happening was extremely fraught ... There are a lot of risks involved and if you get something like this wrong, and if it had been a forgery or attempt to discredit the , it would have been terrible for all of us.” Bright, now a political commentator and founder of a youth employment charity, admires Gun’s determination to expose wrongdoing. “I’ve always felt it was an act of immense bravery for a young woman to take the decision to leak a document of such intense sensitivity,” he said. “This was, at the time, the highest-level leak ever.” Screenwriters Sara and Gregory Bernstein, a California-based husband and wife, said they were drawn to the story by the courage of people like Gun and Bright and his colleagues. “Of course, once we started investigating further, we knew we had not only characters, but an explosive story. The facts here demonstrate how vulnerable we are when government officials knowingly twist information to satisfy an agenda they may sincerely believe is important.” The script had circulated in Hollywood for years, but producer Elizabeth Fowler is confident that shooting will begin in April or May, with 33-year-old Dormer in the role of Gun. It is, she believes, a tale that needs to be told. “It is ultimately a very heroic story about a young woman who finds the courage and has the moral compass to do the right thing, solely at risk to her,” she said. “Risk only: no gain. I think that’s a tremendously inspiring thing. She said, ‘I’ve only ever followed my conscience’. Every time I hear that, tears spring up.”
Mum's List review – sweet and sad story of life after loss Heartfelt and utterly committed performances from Rafe Spall and Emilia Fox are the bedrock of this sweet and desperately sad British film, taken from the autobiographical first novel by Somerset paramedic St John Greene, about the loss of his wife, Kate, to breast cancer, right after their young son had himself recovered from a tumour. An unthinkably cruel blow. It is a movie with big scenes and it did get under my guard: the sheer emotional candour from Spall and Fox carries the drama, whose action turns on the fact that St John has created a list of the texts his wife sent him in her final days, each intended to remind him what he should do with their two sons after she was gone, how they should remember her and how he should find a new partner so that they have a strong female presence in their lives. And yes, that is a bit of a weepie staple. But it is managed with honesty, dignity and conviction, and there are very real moments of personal pain. Spall and Fox are excellent, and so are Ross McCormack and Sophie Simnett, playing their younger selves.
I'm a new junior doctor and I already hate my job I’m scared, I’m exhausted, and I hate being a doctor. This was not the plan. Sat on the kitchen floor of our flat, tears poured down my face as my partner looked on, stunned and worried. My third day on the wards was over, and I never wanted to go back. I’d certified the death of my first patient – examining the cold body of a woman I had cared for, trying to forget that this was also my first time in a mortuary. I’d struggled to draw blood from patients who didn’t deserve my trembling, wide-eyed persona stuttering towards them with a needle. I’d welled up with tears as I sat in front of a computer trying desperately to remember how to prescribe a drug, paralysed with the knowledge of the harm that could befall my patients if I got it wrong. Throughout medical school, I had been told that my foundation years – the first two years of a doctor’s career – would be totally different to my training. I expected to be thrown in at the deep end, but I expected to be supported. I expected a well-oiled team around me, keeping an eye on me, never leaving me feeling alone. Sat at that computer – the only doctor on the ward on my second day in the job, praying no one would ask me anything – I was clueless, exhausted, and had no idea what to do about it. On our first day on the wards as new doctors, the more senior doctors were also new to the hospital. This was also the case on the second day. The well-oiled team was not there – it hadn’t even been created yet. After years of scribbling in notes, and learning to prescribe on neatly laid-out forms, I was faced with a computer system I’d never used, on which I was expected to request every test and order every drug. I barely spoke to any patients as I followed my consultant on the ward round. I then sat at the computer, and wished, as I ham-fistedly hit the keyboard, that I had learned to type properly as a child. I tried not to think about how the patient who had reduced fluid intake was still taking in more water than me that day. After finishing my jobs, which was only achieved two (unpaid) hours after I was supposed to end for the day, I did a quick walk round the ward, to make sure I hadn’t missed anything with my patients, to reassure myself that it was ok to leave them to the similarly overstretched night team. Patients and relatives seemed glad to see me, asking questions about their care, commenting on my having been there for 12 hours already (though none of them seemed surprised). That walk-around was probably the only reason I made it back in the following day. Having the chance to speak to the people I was trying so hard to care for, I was able to glimpse the reasons why I’d started my training – that I would help people, that I would learn from my patients, that I would make a difference. That night, my partner arrived home to find me passed out on our bed, still wearing my coat, my microwavable supper still in the fridge. I received my rota for this job three days before it started. Only then was I able to confirm whether I could attend my oldest friend’s wedding at the end of August. A week in, I still have no contract, and no one can tell me how much I can expect to be paid. My parents and partner are keeping me in food and rent until the end of August and my first payday, and I have no idea when I’ll be able to start paying them back. I hope and pray it will get better. We already know that gaps in rotas caused by understaffing are bigger than ever. The whole NHS seems to be teetering on a precipice, with everyone ploughing on, but unable to ignore that this is unsustainable without proper funding and better staffing. Many of my patients don’t need to be in hospital. They need to be in the community, where they are less likely to be stuck in bed for hours, less likely to contract the infections that, despite our best efforts, will always populate hospitals full of sick people. But social care is in even worse shape than the NHS, so we’re having to pick up the slack (and the cost). “It’s always a baptism of fire,” people tell me. “That’s how you learn.” But I don’t want to risk people’s health for the sake of my own education. I’m scared. I’m already exhausted. I’m not sure I want to be a doctor anymore, and I’ve only just begun. If you would like to write a blogpost for Views from the NHS frontline, read our guidelines and get in touch by emailing sarah.johnson@theguardian.com. Do you work in the NHS? Please take our survey and tell us whether bullying is a problem and how it affects your work Join the Healthcare Professionals Network to read more pieces like this. And follow us on Twitter (@GdnHealthcare) to keep up with the latest healthcare news and views.
Alan Pardew’s plans disrupted as Crystal Palace head for Spain camp This was not how Alan Pardew had planned it. With Sunday’s FA Cup fifth-round tie at Tottenham Hotspur on the horizon, the Crystal Palace manager was supposed to take his players to Spain this week in a bid to replicate the conditions that helped Steve Coppell’s side reach Wembley in 1990 with their Premier League future already in the bag. Yet after failing against Watford to add to their grand total of one point from seven games in 2016, Pardew and his staff know they have a major job on their hands. Despite Emmanuel Adebayor’s first goal in a Palace shirt, this latest defeat has left supporters fearing the worst. “It might have changed the mood a little bit,” Pardew said. “But it’s not changed what we were going to do because it’s a training camp for Spurs and going forward. In a way it might turn out to be a good thing for us to get ourselves away. “There’s no doubt we need to work on the team and find a formula that is going to work for us with the injuries that we’ve had, because we’ve been disrupted and keep getting disrupted.” Already without a raft of first-team regulars through injury, Pape Souaré’s red card in the dying moments at Selhurst Park after Troy Deeney had scored twice to pinch the points for Watford will have only compounded Pardew’s frustration. The Senegal left-back is likely to miss three matches for his reckless studs-up challenge on Valon Behrami and even with Yannick Bolasie poised to return after six weeks out, it will be a patched-up Palace side that travel to White Hart Lane. How Pardew, who famously headed the winner in the 1990 FA Cup semi-final victory against Liverpool, must be desperately hoping he can summon some of the spirit that was a hallmark of Coppell’s side. “That run we had to the Cup final we used to go away for a week before – a change of scenery to lighten the load,” he recalled. “It was a good experience for us and hopefully it will be the same for my players. It would have been nice to have gone into that game on the back of a win and we could have just settled everyone down and been a bit freer at Tottenham. Now we know we’re under a little bit of pressure but it’s still a one-off game and we’ll do our best to try and get through.” His Watford counterpart, Quique Sánchez Flores, has no such concerns. Their points tally has surpassed the amount that saw Hull relegated last season after finishing in 18th place and another victory will surely confirm their Premier League status for next season. That means Flores can focus on Watford’s push to repeat their own run to the FA Cup final under Graham Taylor in 1984 when they were defeated by Everton at Wembley. A home game against Leeds awaits on Saturday, although the manager hinted he will consider leaving out some of his star men such as Deeney and his strike partner, Odion Ighalo. “We have to focus on the FA Cup because I know the fans want to follow their dreams,” Flores said. “I respect a lot the players in the squad – anyone who deserves to play I will put in the first XI. We have 25 players and not all of them can play every week so the rest have to show me they are worthy of a place in this team.” Man of the match Troy Deeney (Watford) This article was amended on 15 February 2016. Watford play at home against Leeds on Saturday, not away. This has been corrected.
Prince in his own words: 'You have to live a life to understand it' On whether white people understand his art “No, of course they don’t. How many black people understand? White people are very good at categorising things – and if you tell them anything they’ll remember it, write books about it. But understand? You have to live a life to understand it. Tourists just pass through.” To Carol Cooper, the Face, June 1983. On Ronald Reagan “Thank God we got a better President now, with bigger balls than Carter. I think Reagan’s a lot better. Just for the power he represents, if nothing else. Because that also means as far as other countries are concerned.” To Chris Salewicz, NME, June 1981 On the art of performance “You can’t go out there unless you’ve got the show completely in shape. It can look pretty wild onstage, but everyone knows exactly where they’re supposed to be. That was a lesson I had to learn from when I was starting out. When we first went out behind 1999, The Time, who were opening for us, beat us up every night. They would laugh about it; it was a joke to them. Our show wasn’t together. I had to stop the tour and get things tightened up. Now me and the band have a certain relationship with each other, and every night we make the audience part of that.” To Anthony DeCurtis, the Word, June 2004 On his mother’s aspirations for him “She wanted me to go to school, go to college – she sent me to a bunch of different schools. I always had a pretty high academic level, I guess...She always tried to send me to the best schools, but that was pretty much my second interest. I didn’t really care about that as much as I did about playing. I think music is what broke her and my father up, and I don’t think she wanted that for me...Musicians, depending on how serious they are, they’re really moody. Sometimes they need a lotta space, they want everything just right sometimes, y’know. My father was a great deal like that, and my mother didn’t give him a lotta space. She wanted a husband per se.” To Andy Schwartz, New York Rocker, June 1981 On seeking control of his music from his record company “One time in London I walked up to Michael Stipe. I said, ‘Do you own your masters?’ No, I didn’t say hello. He looked scared. He started stuttering. He said, ‘I don’t know.’ I said, ‘You need to and you should help me get mine.’ He just said, ‘Have a nice day.’ That was it.” To Phil Sutcliffe, Q, September 1988 On Islam “It’s fun being in Islamic countries, to know there’s only one religion. There’s order. You wear a burqa. There’s no choice. People are happy with that.” To Dorian Lynskey, the , June 2011 On the music of the future “In the future, I might be interactive. You might be able to access me and tell me what to play.” To Adrian Deevoy, Q, June 1994 On critics “I love critics. Because they love me. It’s not a joke. They care. See, everybody knows when somebody’s lazy, and now, with the internet, it’s impossible for a writer to be lazy because everybody will pick up on it. In the past, they said some stuff that was out of line, so I just didn’t have anything to do with them. Now it gets embarrassing to say something untrue, because you put it online and everyone knows about it, so it’s better to tell the truth.” To Alexis Petridis, the , November 2015 On himself “I’m no different to anyone. Yes, I have fame and wealth and talent, but I certainly don’t consider myself any better than anyone who has no fame, wealth or talent. People fascinate me. They’re amazing! Life fascinates me! And I’m no more fascinated by my own life than by anyone else’s.” To Sylvia Patterson, NME, 1996 On the internet “The internet’s completely over. I don’t see why I should give my new music to iTunes or anyone else. They won’t pay me an advance for it and then they get angry when they can’t get it. The internet’s like MTV. At one time MTV was hip and suddenly it became outdated. Anyway, all these computers and digital gadgets are no good. They just fill your head with numbers and that can’t be good for you.” To Peter Willis, Daily Mirror, July 2010 On working in private “It’s a way of cutting the chaos off, cutting off the outside voices. I heard ‘Prince is crazy’ so much that it had an effect on me. So one day I said, ‘Let me just check out.’ Here there is solitude, silence – I like to stay in this controlled environment. People say I’m out of touch, but I’ll do twenty-five or thirty more albums – I’m gonna catch up with Sinatra – so you tell me who’s out of touch. One thing I ain’t gonna run out of is music.” To Details magazine, November 1998
Immigrants fear Trump deportations: ‘This election changed my optimism' Ivy has lived in the US for most of her life, but with Donald Trump now president-elect, she’s gathering her belongings in one safe place in case she is abruptly deported. The 26-year old is one of the more than 741,500 people the government granted temporary deportation relief to, through Barack Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca) policy, and who are now wondering: will I be deported by Trump? “There’s no time for us to just feel, we have to act,” she said. “The bottom line is here and this is it.” Ivy asked for her full name not to be used because of the influx of hate mail she has received since Trump’s victory. It was not clear how Trump would implement many of his campaign promises, but one of his clearest targets for destruction as president was Daca. He promised to “immediately terminate President Obama’s two illegal executive amnesties” and to ensure that “anyone who enters the US illegally is subject to deportation”. It is assumed that he is referring to Obama’s 2012 and 2014 executive actions to extend temporary deportation relief to people such as Ivy, who was brought to the US as a child from Macau, the place where she was born, but that she hardly knows, having not returned there in 20 years. Daca recipients are able to go to school and work in the US for two years. After that, they can re-apply for the program, paying a fee each time. “It’s been like a dream,” said Ivy, whose family is in the US legally. Ivy is grateful that she was raised in New York City, where immigrants have long been the backbone of the city. But that feeling of appreciation is harder to cling to when faced with the reality that 59.8 million Americans voted for Trump, whose campaign was defined by anti-immigrant sentiments. “I think this election has changed my optimism,” Ivy said, before adding: “The system doesn’t work for you, you have to work the system.” This is the same message being pushed by immigration advocates such as Marielena Hincapié, executive director at the National Immigration Law Center (NILC). “Trump’s election must serve as a wake-up call for everyone who shares our vision for a more inclusive America that treats everyone with dignity and fairness,” Hincapié said. National Council of La Raza president and CEO Janet Murguía felt similarly a day into America’s new political reality. “We want to reassure our community and our fellow Americans that if the new administration continues to be steeped in the politics of division and blame, then we will continue to stand up and defend the 58 million Latinos in this country, along with the values our nation holds dear: tolerance and inclusion.” Advocates have been critical of Obama’s immigration policy, which saw 2.4 million deportations between 2009 to 2014 – more deportations than under any other administration in this country’s history. But Trump presents a new, uncertain threat. His policy plans won’t be clear until he is in office, but people are already worried about what will happen to Daca recipients’ personal information. When the program was first introduced, many were reluctant to join because they thought it was an easy way for the government to collect the personal information of undocumented immigrants. That fear had eased, until election night. “One of the things we’re going to be urging the government to do is to not release those records,” said Thanu Yakupitiyage, senior communications manager at the New York Immigration Coalition. “Those records are private, those records are from individuals who gave their trust to the government and the Obama administration, and that needs to be respected.” But until Trump’s plans become more clear, Yakupitiyage said the focus is on making sure undocumented immigrants know their rights and prepare for scenarios that could play out during Trump’s time in office. Oliver Merino, who has been living in the US undocumented since he was 10, began by protesting in his home of Charlotte, North Carolina, and meeting with activists from other communities that were threatened during Trump’s campaign. “We don’t necessarily have control of what he does but we have control over how we will react,” said Merino. He said Daca, which he has had for three years, helped him get a job as a museum educator. While he is concerned about losing his Daca protections, he is more concerned about how Trump’s immigration policies could impact his family. “I’m worried more about people who have been forgotten in this [Daca] narrative – people like my mom, my dad, who did not qualify for deferred action,” Merino said. They would have been protected under the other executive action Trump is expected to strike – November 2014’s Dapa, which sought to extend deportation protections to more people, including the parents of those who qualified for Daca. This action was effectively blocked by the supreme court in June and has little chance of surviving a Trump presidency. Merino thinks Trump’s victory has placed greater urgency on people to apply for programs such as Daca, which he is helping his brother apply to for the first time. “It is a fear that maybe the government has your information, but what I always tell people is don’t let fear prevent you from seeking what you’re looking for and to paralyze you and make you go back into a clandestine life,” Merino said. This was the message being sent on social media in the immediate aftermath of Trump’s victory, where undocumented immigrants rallied around #HereToStay to express their opposition to Trump’s deportation promises. “Even though this is a setback, this is not the end for us,” Merino said. “We’re here, we’re not going anywhere.”
Monte dei Paschi bailout shouldn't be seen as a done deal, says ECB member A bailout of struggling Italian bank Monte dei Paschi should not be seen as a done deal, a key European Central Bank policymaker has said. Jens Weidmann, president of Germany’s Bundesbank, said the Italian government ought to consider whether it should rescue the bank if it is in a bad financial state. “For the measures planned by the Italian government the bank has to be financially healthy at its core,” he said in an article published German newspaper Bild. “The money cannot be used to cover losses that are already expected. All this must be carefully examined,” added Weidmann, a member of the ECB’s governing council. The ECB has taken a tough line with Italy’s third-largest bank, refusing to give it more time to find private investment. The Italian government approved a state bailout plan last Friday after the Siena-based bank, which can trace its roots back to 1472, failed to convince investors to fund a €5bn (£4.25bn) cash injection. It plans to dip into a €20bn fund approved by the government earlier this month for the purpose of propping the bank up if no rescue plan could be secured elsewhere. The bailout plan was spurred by Monte dei Paschi’s poor results in ECB “stress tests”, a system set up by the European Union after the financial crisis to measure banks’ resilience to unexpected economic shocks. Stress tests are intended to ensure that taxpayers are not asked to pick up the tab for multi-billion pound bailouts, such as those that the British government orchestrated to save Lloyds and Royal Bank of Scotland. Fears about the strength of Monte dei Paschi began to mount after it came last out of 51 European banks in the ECB’s latest round of tests in July. The bank was told to shore up its finances by the end of the year or face being wound down. “These (rules) are meant especially to protect taxpayers and put responsibility on investors. State funds are only intended as a last resort, and that is why the bar is set high,” Weidmann told Bild. Monte dei Paschi’s problems have piled up since the 2008 banking crisis, when it paid €9bn (£7.6bn) for Banca Antonveneta. The deal doubled its size and turned it into Italy’s third largest bank behind UniCredit and Intesa Sanpaolo. It bought Banca Atonveneta from Santander, which had acquired the Italian bank during the three-way bid for Dutch bank ABN Amro, a deal that was a key factor in the taxpayer bailout of Royal Bank of Scotland. Three years ago Monte dei Paschi’s problems escalated. The Sienese bank asked the government for €4bn amid a scandal over loss-making derivatives contracts and alleged fraud. It has gone back to the the government for funds after talks with private investors failed, with Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund thought to have scuppered the plan by refusing to take part. The Italian government already has a 4% stake in Monte dei Paschi.
Security experts: 'No one should have faith in Yahoo at this point' Experts have attacked Yahoo’s weak security after the revelation it suffered a hack in 2013, which exposed the personal data of 1 billion users, just months after revealing a 500-million-user data breach from 2014. The hack saw the potential theft of login details, personal details and any confidential or sensitive information contained within email correspondences. Yahoo provided the email services for BT and Sky customers, as well as other services. Bruce Schneier, a cryptologist and one of the world’s most respected security experts, said: “Yahoo badly screwed up. They weren’t taking security seriously and that’s now very clear. I would have trouble trusting Yahoo going forward.” Not only did Yahoo fail to prevent the breach, it also failed to detect the breach when it happened in 2013, only realising the intrusion and data theft after recently being notified by a third party. That left users unknowingly compromised for at least three years, vulnerable to identify theft among many other potential criminal uses of their personal data and passwords. John Madelin, CEO at RelianceACSN and a former vice president responsible for the Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report, said: “We thought the previous breach of 500 million user accounts was huge, but 1 billion is monumental.” Tyler Moffitt, senior threat research analyst at Webroot, said: “All of the data stolen, including emails, passwords and security questions, make a potent package for identify theft. The main email account has links to other online logins and the average user likely has password overlap with multiple accounts.” Moffitt takes little comfort from Yahoo’s efforts to secure user accounts. He said: “These accounts have been compromised for years and the sheer number of them means they have already been a large source of identity theft. No one should have faith in Yahoo at this point.” Failing to prevent a breach is just one aspect of Yahoo’s fiasco. Given the sheer number of user accounts and the volume of data each one contained, data security was crucial. Unfortunately Yahoo’s disregard for the safety of user data led to the use of out-dated security techniques. For instance, Yahoo stored user passwords using a hashing algorithm called MD5, which was first published in 1992 but has inherent weaknesses that meant it was discounted as an effective method for security data from the mid–2000s. Jonathan Care, research director at analysts Gartner, said: “MD5 hashing is vulnerable to an attack type called ‘collision attacks’ which means that an attacker can find a string of characters that will resolve to the same hash as a hashed password. MD5 is strongly deprecated and this points to troubling software development security practices in Yahoo or its suppliers.” The latest data breach revelation from Yahoo – after a 500-million-user-account hack from 2014 revealed in September – paints a picture of an ageing, creaking company, failing on all counts. And with its acquisition by Verizon looming on the horizon, yet another failure on this scale will surely impact the deal in cost at the very least. Madelin said: “If Verizon were seeking a billion-dollar discount from the agreed $4.8bn takeover [as a result of the last breach], then logically a breach twice the size should shave off a further $2bn. The extensive list of hacks and data breaches revealed this year points to a worrying trend. Hackers are no longer targeting corporate networks for gain, instead going after sensitive data hiding in plain sight within personal information and correspondence. “Think about all of the highly sensitive files that could be lurking in these breached Yahoo email accounts: incredibly sensitive tax or financial statements, personal healthcare data, even banking or credit card information,” said Kevin Cunningham, president and founder at identify firm SailPoint. Cunningham said hacks of this nature, particularly of firms with weak security but obvious data stores such, will likely feature heavily in 2017. Millions of BT and Sky Broadband customers could be affected by Yahoo hack Eight things you need to do right now to protect yourself online
Pop lyrics aren't literature? Tell that to Nobel prize winner Bob Dylan The permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy Sara Danius struck a slightly curious note as she announced that Bob Dylan had been awarded the 2016 Nobel prize in literature. It wasn’t apologetic, exactly, but she certainly seemed to be qualifying the committee’s decision in a way that you suspect she wouldn’t have felt the need to had the award gone to Haruki Murakami or Don DeLillo, writers also rumoured to be in the frame. She even offered the press a brief guide on how to approach Dylan’s work, advising them to start with 1966’s Blonde on Blonde, as if afraid people might not have come across it before, a slightly weird way to address one of the most celebrated albums in rock history. It’s hard not to wonder if she would have done the same thing had Ngugi wa Thiong’o got the nod instead. Of course, Danius was trying to pre-empt criticism of the decision. There’s doubtless an editor on the phone to the stuffiest writer they can think of as we speak, keen to commission 1,500 words on why this means the absolute desecration of everything Alfred Nobel held dear and the collapse of literature as we know it – potential headline: JUDAS! – but, leaving the fulminating wingnuts aside, there’s a sense in which Dylan winning the Nobel prize in literature isn’t surprising at all. If any rock star was going to win it, it was pretty obviously going to be him. In 2008, he won a special citation at the Pulitzer prize. His lyrics have been the subject of academic study for decades. Even before that, he was being feted by poets and authors as their equal or more, as he is to this day. If the former professor of poetry at Oxford University Christopher Ricks’s interest in Dylan has been treated with a certain bemusement, it might have less to do with its subject than the fact that his books on Dylan occasionally seem a bit barmy. Anyone who’s dutifully struggled through the bit in Dylan’s Visions of Sin where he spends four pages dissecting the lyrics of All the Tired Horses, which consist in their entirety of “two lines of words followed by a musing hmmm sound that might be one line or two”, will concur. There’s a wider point here. At the risk of sounding like the kind of English teacher who insists on first-name terms and keeps saying Great Expectations was the EastEnders of its day, why shouldn’t lyrics – or rather the best lyrics – be treated as literature? Pretty much everyone who really loves rock and pop music can quote at least a handful of lyrics that genuinely bear comparison to poetry, in their incisiveness, or power, or the richness of their imagery. Occasionally they lose something by being written down rather than sung – “the music does what the words alone cannot do,” as Germaine Greer put it when complaining about this kind of thing – but equally there are others that, to repurpose another of Greer’s phrases, carry their music with them. When, at the end of his celebrated 1979 essay on Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks, the critic Lester Bangs quotes the title track’s opening lines next to lines from Lorca’s Ballad of the Small Plaza, it doesn’t look like affectation. The notion that not a single word that’s been set to pop music over the last 60 years is worthy of mention in the same breath as literature is clearly nuts. Indeed, a more compelling counter-argument might be that pop music, lyrics and all, is an art form in itself and doesn’t need validating with a pat on the head from the literary establishment. What lyrics stand up as literature? Let us know in the comments below
The view on the UN climate change treaty: now for some action The danger of gala events like the official signing of the climate change treaty at the UN in New York on Friday, crowned with a guest appearance from Leonardo DiCaprio and with 60 heads of state in attendance, is the impression they create that the job is done. It was certainly a spectacular demonstration of global intent to get more than 170 signatures on the deal agreed in Paris in December at the first time of asking; but what matters is making it legally binding. For that, it must be not just signed but ratified by at least 55 countries, and it must cover 55% of emissions. Nor does the Paris deal go far enough. It was only a step on a long, hard road. The targets that each country set themselves do not go nearly far enough. Now the gap between reality and the ambition of holding global warming below 2C needs addressing. In Churchillian rhetoric, this is not the end, nor the beginning of the end, but it is the end of the beginning. There are powerful reasons to pursue the Paris summit objective. According to the Japan Meteorological Agency, each of the past 11 months was warmer than the 20th-century average. Nasa statistics showed that 2015 was even hotter than the previous record-setting year of 2014. Yet despite the way the evidence is stacking up, political leaders in polluting countries continue to argue about whether and how fast they need to act. In the US, President Barack Obama’s climate plan has hit trouble in the supreme court, where the regulation of emissions from coal-fired plants has been blocked. Hillary Clinton, the likely Democratic candidate for the presidency, is pledged to continue Mr Obama’s commitment to tackling emissions, but her probable rival, Donald Trump, is certainly not. The US and China are committed to ratifying the climate change treaty, but for others, such as India, it may be more complicated. In the UK, 10 years after David Cameron hugged that husky, his record is in tatters. Not only has “the green crap” been whittled back by big cuts in subsidies and incentives that have left solar power, onshore and even offshore wind all less attractive, but policies to limit emissions have been repeatedly portrayed as harmful to the economy. High energy costs have been widely blamed for the crisis in British steel. Yet, while it is true that energy prices are higher than elsewhere in Europe – partly because of climate change programmes and partly because of the fragmented nature of the privatised industry largely beyond government control – they are mitigated by compensation. As fact-checkers point out, for steel, the actual costs of energy policy amount to around just 1% of total manufacturing costs. The double whammy of an uncompetitive currency and a slump in global demand are the real problems that Tata and other steelmakers are facing. Energy costs get the blame because that’s where the government might have real traction. As divestment lobbies chalk up triumph after triumph, there are signs of parallel trends. In the past few days, Norway’s sovereign wealth fund has pulled out of scores of companies for being over-reliant on fossil fuel, and the Rockefeller Foundation has divested from fossil fuel entirely. Yet governments still resist the commitment to greening their economies that will turn the Paris deal from an exercise in global cooperation to a watershed for global warming. This article was amended on 25 April 2016. It originally stated that energy costs amount to around just 1% of total manufacturing costs for steel. That 1% figure relates specifically to the costs of energy policy. This has been corrected.
From FGM victim to teacher: ‘You are always running from it. But you get tired. You have to confront it’ Hibo Wardere had not been a teaching assistant at her youngest daughter’s primary school for very long when the headteacher asked her to sit in on a meeting. It was 2012, and a 10-year-old pupil, Halima, was about to be taken out of school and sent to Somalia. Wardere wasn’t sure why she had been asked to be there, other than the fact she had grown up in Somalia and might be able to persuade the parents to let their daughter stay at school. The thing the head suspected, and which soon became apparent to Wardere, was never mentioned – the fear that Halima would be subjected to female genital mutilation (FGM) during this trip. The girl, and her parents, left the country and never returned. What the headteacher didn’t know at that point, but may have suspected, was that Wardere had also been a victim of FGM. “I wish I’d been more vocal,” she says. “Had the courage to say: ‘You need to stop this.’” She had heard rumours in the London Somali community about girls going to be cut, “but I chose not to get involved with them. I knew that if I heard about it, it would drag my emotions up and I wasn’t ready to tackle that. I stayed away from the community and concentrated on raising my kids, being busy. Until that 10-year-old, I wasn’t ready to face what was happening here.” We sit outside a cafe in Walthamstow, east London, near where Wardere lives and works as FGM mediator for the borough, educating police, social workers, healthcare professionals, teachers and children. The sun bounces off the sequins on her hijab; the effect is like bursts of red and gold fireworks going off around her face. That meeting marked the point Wardere became a campaigner against FGM. Before, she didn’t want to talk, or think, about it. “You are always running from it,” she says. “It is there, but you don’t want to face what happened. For millions of women just like me, we ran. We didn’t want to confront it, we normalised it. But sometimes you get tired and you stop and take a deep breath and have to confront it. For me, that came in the shape of a 10-year-old girl.” As part of her training, Wardere had been asked to write an essay about abuse, and that night, when she went home, she knew she had to write about FGM. It wasn’t something that she had heard talked about, and wasn’t on the school’s recently revised child protection policy. She scoured the internet, looking for the stories of survivors she could use until her husband said: “Why are you looking for stories? What is it that is blocking you from writing about yourself?” And so, tentatively, she started writing. She didn’t finish writing until 5am, eyes red with tears. She has repeated the account in her new memoir, Cut. When she was six, the rituals she had seen performed for her cousins and sisters – the feasts, the presents, the attention, the erection of a small canvas hut at the end of the garden of their house in Mogadishu – were performed for her. She had no idea what would happen in that hut, only that her mother and aunt who led her there early one morning told her she had to be “brave”. What happened was this: she was pinned down by three women, her dress was lifted and another woman, a “cutter” employed by her family, slashed at her vagina with rusty, blood-caked razors. Her clitoris and labia were removed, and the raw wound was stitched up using a thorn and thick thread, leaving only a small hole where her vagina had once been. She remembers the cloying smell of her own blood, being exhausted by her screams and convulsing in shock. Her legs were tightly bound together in rags that quickly became blood-soaked and she was left, virtually alone, for 10 days in the hut to “heal”. Wardere had become one of the estimated 200 million girls and women alive today living with female genital mutilation, which ranges from removal of the clitoral hood to the complete excision of genitalia before the wound is sewn up. It is usually performed on girls under 15, sometimes on babies, usually to “protect” a girl’s virginity – and therefore her family’s “honour” – and is a cultural, rather than religious, tradition. In Somalia, where Wardere was born, 98% of women have been cut; it is most commonly practised in west, east and north Africa. It is also practised in parts of the Middle East and Asia, particularly Indonesia, but, with migration, girls in any country can be at risk. It is estimated there are 170,000 women and girls in England and Wales who have been affected by it, and 63,000 who are at risk. Even if a girl survives such butchery – and many don’t – the torture of the initial mutilation is only the start of it. “They decided that my life was going to be filled with pain,” says Wardere. The childhood pleasures she had enjoyed, such as running and skipping, were off-limits, as they caused too much pain. Going to the loo several times a day was agony – the opening to the urethra had been covered by skin, and urine would have to find its way down inside the wound to trickle out. It would take about 15 minutes to empty her bladder; many women, Wardere included, have almost constant urinary infections. She came to dread her period, which caused intense pain. “You know you’re going to have sex and it will be painful and you’re going to have a baby and it’s going to be worse. I thought: when is the pain going to end?” Just sitting down for long periods is uncomfortable; other FGM survivors report difficulty walking years after the mutilation. “You normalise it as part of your life, you have no choice but to do that,” she says. If you want to see the potential that is lost when girls are not encouraged to achieve much, look at Wardere. Dazzlingly bright, she constantly asked questions at school and was punished for it – the teachers caned her or made her stand in the sun for hours. What did she want to do? And before I’ve even finished the question, she says: “Doctor. I found it fascinating that you could fix a human body.” But she adds that she knew it was impossible for her. She wouldn’t have continued at school past 16, and would have been married off to a cousin by the time she was 17. “They just wanted women to be able to read and write and that’s it, they didn’t want you to get anything more.” It was the civil war that erupted in Somalia in the late 1980s that provided an unexpected escape route from all this – marriage, brutality, the probability that any future daughters she had would suffer FGM, however much she would have protested. Wardere’s father sent her and other family members to Kenya, where they stayed illegally, moving from friends’ houses every day or so, and paying off policemen who came to arrest them. When Wardere was 18, and there was no hope of returning to Somalia, she decided to claim asylum in London. In her book, she writes of arriving at Heathrow with tears in her eyes, overwhelmed by what it would mean for her. “I have described it as a freedom, I don’t know what other word there is,” she says. “I just felt that I began, and for me it meant that I could take decisions for myself and I was in charge of my life and I could decide what I did with it. It was an amazing feeling.” She met her husband, Yusuf, who had also come to London as a refugee from Somalia, three months after she arrived. Before they got married, they both agreed that if they ever had daughters – they have gone on to have three – there was no way they would be subjected to FGM. Yusuf has always been extremely supportive and understanding, but although Wardere enjoys the closeness, intimacy is still painful. It is not uncommon for women who have suffered FGM to experience domestic violence; some are simply left by their husbands, who are frustrated by the woman’s inability (physically or psychologically) to have a sexual relationship. “It’s crazy,” says Wardere, voice rising. “To think that this has been done to her for you, and then you decide that you can’t cope with her because she doesn’t want to have sex. Most men are quiet about FGM, they don’t say anything about it. But why? It affects them, it affects their little girls. What are they frightened of? They say it’s a women’s issue, but it’s a human issue and a parenting issue. Where is the humanity? You know your wife is suffering – why would you want that for your daughter?” When she came to the UK, Wardere had never heard of female genital mutilation, and it was only after the birth of her first child that she saw the letters “FGM” – they were written at the top of her maternity file, although nobody had explained what it meant. Eventually, after teaching herself English using her son’s children’s books, she found a book on it at her local library. “It was such a relief,” she says. “Other people knowing ... I felt relieved that it wasn’t only our pain. I saw other countries were involved. Reading about that was like reading about myself.” It took her a year to translate the book, line by line. “I was determined to know what was in that book. It was just a revelation to me. It was like: I’m not alone any more. There was a flicker of light in my head. There are millions of us out there. I was thinking: there must be so many girls out there, how are they living, how are they coping?” But it was years before had a conversation about FGM with anyone other than her husband. It wasn’t talked about among the other Somali women she knew in London, except for vague references to pain and infections. Even throughout the births of her next six children, none of the medical professionals asked her about it – she would look away when a midwife or doctor examined her so she wouldn’t have to see the horror on their faces. It wasn’t until after that meeting at school, when the parents of the 10-year-old girl had gone home and Wardere asked the headteacher what he suspected, that she heard the words FGM out loud. She was amazed he had heard of it. The next day, he read the assignment she had written, and asked her to give a talk on FGM to the other teachers; she was soon in demand to talk to teachers and pupils in schools all over the borough. Within months, she was giving talks to local councillors, police officers, social workers, midwives and doctors. A new educational role of FGM mediator was created for the borough, and Wardere got the job. Best of all, she says, was speaking to young boys and girls about the practice and being able to step in when children at risk approached her. Only yesterday, she says, it emerged that a young girl was at risk and social services intervened. Not everyone has been pleased about her work, particularly in the Somali community. “When I started talking about it, the community thought I was a traitor. My argument was: I love my culture, but this was an evil part of it and they all know it. They chose not to discuss it; I chose not to ignore it.” Four years on, she says, attitudes are improving. “They are coming to my events, they are supportive, women are calling, asking for help. There are women who didn’t know where to go for help, or connect that the [physical] problems they have every day come from FGM. They are starting to understand the laws of this country, that they have rights. This country offers beautiful freedom as a woman, why are you not being part of society, why are you not integrating, why are you here 30 years and can’t say a word of English? So it’s not only about FGM, it’s about empowering women.” She is furious whenever anyone suggests FGM should be tolerated as a cultural tradition, as part of a multicultural society. “Are you going to tell me you’re going to ignore child abuse because it’s not happening to somebody from your culture? You should get involved. It’s everybody’s fight. Some [professionals] think if they talk about this they will be seen as a racist. I always say this is child abuse and they need to look at it as that. It is a child protection issue.” She says she is “really proud” of the UK’s recent response to FGM. This has included increased training, the introduction last year of protection orders – which can prevent girls from being taken out of the country – and the requirement of health and social care professionals and teachers to report cases of FGM in under-18s to the police. On Friday, the government put this on a statutory footing. “The one wish I have is to make [FGM education] mandatory in schools as part of PSHE [personal, social and health education]. Here in Waltham Forest, we are ahead of the whole of the UK, because I go to every school and teach the students. Knowledge is the best way to eradicate FGM.” Is education really enough? How does she feel about prosecutions? “No girl wants to prosecute her mother, because they know her mother didn’t do it out of hate or abuse, they did it out of a misguided notion of love and protecting her. But it is child abuse and people should face the legality of the UK.” Prosecuting parents, she says, “doesn’t help, but [it is the law] of this country. So what should you do? Avoid that by not abusing your children.” Having come so far in just a few years, Wardere has no plans to ease off. Talking about FGM has changed her life, she says, and helped her come to terms with what was inflicted on her – to an extent. “I’m an extremely proud woman and I never felt like that before,” she says. “It has been a healing process for me, talking about it and knowing I can help somebody else. I am never going to stop. As long as FGM exists, I exist to fight it.” Cut by Hibo Wardere (Simon & Schuster, £12.99) is published on April 7. Click here to buy a copy from the bookshop for £10.39
Hillary Clinton holds slight edge on Donald Trump in new Quinnipiac poll A new poll of a hypothetical general-election matchup between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton aligns roughly with recent polling awarding a slight edge to Clinton, while exposing a stark gender gap that could represent the most forbidding obstacle standing between Trump and the presidency. Women preferred Clinton to Trump 54-30 in the poll, conducted by Quinnipiac University from 24 to 30 May. Men went for Trump to a slightly lesser degree, 51-35. With women expected to make up as much as 54% of the electorate in November, Trump’s challenge is to display either a greater lead on Clinton among men – or to correct his numbers with women. Women both constitute more than half the US voting population and are more likely to vote than men. Any one polling result, particularly 159 days in advance of election day – and especially with the Democratic nominating race yet to be resolved – properly is valued only as part of a larger data set. Furthermore, Americans elect presidents not by national referendums but via the electoral college, in which clean national numbers succumb to individual state dynamics. The polling average maintained by HuffPost pollster is tracking Clinton as leading Trump by 1.9 points, while the polling average maintained by RealClearPolitics is tracking Clinton as leading Trump by 1.5 points. The Quinnipiac poll released on Wednesday had Clinton leading Trump 45-41 in a general election matchup. The poll had a margin of error of 2.5 percentage points. Caveats aside, an excursion at this stage in any direction away from the top-line national number and into the underlying demographics would seem discouraging for Trump. Analysis of the 2012 presidential election between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama suggests that one challenge for the Republican candidate this year is to either maintain Romney’s dominance among white voters (he won 59%, according to exit polls) and men (he won 52%) while correcting Romney’s weaknesses among women (44%), black (6%) and Latino (27%) voters; or to inspire a significantly remade electorate to turn out to the polls, as Obama did in 2008. With this comparison in mind, the new Quinnipiac poll holds ominous news for Trump, who performs not quite as well as Romney among men, with 51% support. Trump also appears to be performing much more weakly than Romney among white voters, with 50% support in the new poll. Trump’s numbers among non-white voters in the latest survey are even worse than Romney’s result. Black voters told Quinnipiac they would go for Clinton over Trump by a 93-4 margin; Hispanic voters said they preferred Clinton 65-18. Recent polls of a Clinton-Trump race measured a less dramatic split between men and women. A YouGov/Economist poll from 20-23 May found men going for Trump 45-39, and women going for Clinton 45-38. An NBC/Survey Monkey poll published on 24 May gauged men for Trump at 54-36 and women for Clinton at 51-41.
Indoor and outdoor air pollution 'claiming at least 40,000 UK lives a year' Air pollution both inside and outside the home causes at least 40,000 deaths a year in the UK, according to new report, which estimates the cost of the damage at £20bn. The major health impact of outdoor air pollution is relatively well known but the report, from the Royal College of Physicians and the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, also highlights the less understood impact of indoor pollution, as well as the growing evidence of harm to children’s health and intelligence. Sources of indoor air pollution include smoking, faulty boilers, gas cookers and heaters, as well as irritant chemicals from new furniture, air fresheners and household cleaning products. House-dust mites, mould and dander from pets can also damage health, according to the report. Outdoor pollution, much of it from vehicles, causes 40,000 deaths a year in the UK but the number linked to indoor pollution is not known. However, indoor air pollution is estimated to have caused or contributed to 99,000 deaths across Europe in 2012, the report states. The report found unborn and young children were particularly susceptible to air pollution. “The developing heart, lung, brain, hormone systems and immunity can all be harmed by pollution,” the report said. “Research is beginning to point towards effects on growth, intelligence, asthma, and development of the brain and coordination. Harm to babies and children will have an impact that lasts far into the future.” “When our patients are exposed to such a clear and avoidable cause of death, illness and disability, it is our duty to speak out,” saidProf Stephen Holgate, an asthma expert at Southampton University who led the report. “We now know that air pollution has a substantial impact on many chronic long-term conditions, increasing strokes and heart attacks in susceptible individuals. And now there is compelling evidence that air pollution is associated with new onset asthma in children and adults.” Dr Andrew Goddard, at the Royal College of Physicians, said: “Taking action to tackle air pollution in the UK will reduce the pain and suffering for many people with long term chronic health conditions, not to mention lessening the long term demands on our NHS.” Many people in the UK are currently exposed to illegal levels of air pollution. The UK government lost a supreme court legal battle in 2015 and was forced to produce an action plan. If successful, this will cut air pollution to legal levels by 2020 in most cities and 2025 in London. The new report found that, although the government and the World Health Organization set “acceptable” limits for air pollution, there is in fact no level of exposure that can be seen to be safe, with any exposure carrying a risk. The report called for a wide-ranging set of measures to tackle the problem, including tougher regulations to limit air pollution such as reliable testing of emissions from vehicles. Whilst Volkswagen actually cheated emissions tests, most manufacturer’s diesel cars produce far more pollution on the road than when being tested. On 3 February, the European parliament failed to veto loopholes in air pollution limits on new diesel cars. Another measure demanded by the new report is for local authorities to have the power to close or divert roads to reduce the traffic, especially near schools, when air pollution levels are high. The issue of indoor air pollution also needs more research, said the report: “We must strengthen our understanding of the key risk factors and effects of poor air quality in our homes, schools and workplaces.” It noted: “The drive to reduce energy costs, by creating homes with tighter ventilation, could be making the situation worse.” National action to fight climate change will also help to cut air pollution, according to the report, which said meeting the UK’s carbon emissions target would lead each year to 5,700 less deaths and fewer hospital admissions for lung and heart problems. The public can play a part in cutting air pollution too, said Prof Jonathan Grigg, from the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health: “We ask the public to consider using public transport, walking and cycling, and not choosing to drive high-polluting vehicles.” Dr Penny Woods, chief executive of The British Lung Foundation, said: “This landmark report lays out in the starkest terms yet the devastating impact air pollution is having on our health, our children’s health, our economy and society as a whole. [In particular, children] should not have to pay the price for what has happened to the air they breathe.” Prof Anthony Frew, a respiratory medicine expert at the Royal Sussex county hospital and not involved in the research, said: “While this report is interesting, its findings have to be seen in the context that on average we live longer, healthier lives than we did in previous generations, and that much of this is due to falling pollution levels. Furthermore, the ‘deaths caused by air pollution’ are generally considered to be deaths that are brought forward, rather than deaths that would not have happened.”
Donald Trump settles fraud lawsuits relating to Trump University for $25m Donald Trump has settled fraud lawsuits relating to Trump University for $25m, removing a legal headache despite having pledged to fight the cases to the bitter end. Lawyers for the president-elect settled the three lawsuits on Friday, averting the prospect of him testifying in a courtroom showdown which threatened to reveal more troubling details about the now defunct real estate course. New York’s attorney general, Eric Schneiderman, claimed vindication and victory for those “swindled” by the course. “Donald Trump fought us every step of the way, filing baseless charges and fruitless appeals and refusing to settle for even modest amounts of compensation for the victims of his phony university,” Schneiderman said in a statement. “Today, that all changes. Today’s $25m settlement agreement is a stunning reversal by Donald Trump and a major victory for the over 6,000 victims of his fraudulent university.” Every victim will receive restitution and the president-elect will pay up to $1m in penalties to the state of New York for violating state education laws, Schneiderman said. “The victims of Trump University have waited years for today’s result and I am pleased that their patience – and persistence – will be rewarded by this $25m settlement.” Trump’s attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Under the deal the president-elect will reportedly not admit to any wrongdoing. Former students who filed the suit said they were lured by false promises to pay up to $35,000 to learn Trump’s real estate investing “secrets” from his “hand-picked” instructors. The casino owner-turned-Republican candidate denied the allegations and said he relied on others to manage the business. Trump’s lawyers negotiated the settlement with Schneiderman, in New York, and law firms that brought two separate class action lawsuits regarding Trump University in California. Of the $25m some $21m will help reimburse those involved in the California suits. Some $3m will go to those in New York not covered by the California lawsuits. Trump catapulted the case into the election this summer by assailing Judge Gonzalo Curiel, the federal district court judge hearing the case. Trump called him a “hater”, a “total disgrace” and “biased”. “He is not doing the right thing … [He] happens to be, we believe, Mexican,” he told a rally in San Diego. For a White House hopeful to attack a federal judge in such a way was unprecedented. And inaccurate. Curiel has Mexican heritage but is a US citizen born in Indiana. GOP primary opponents, and later Hillary Clinton, used the lawsuits to bash Trump as a huckster. Stung, he vowed in tweets, speeches and interviews to not settle. “I don’t settle lawsuits,” he told a rally in Arkansas. “Probably should have settled it, but I just can’t do that. Mentally I can’t do it. I’d rather spend a lot more money and fight it.” However, his unexpected election victory put pressure on the president-elect, who is busy forming a cabinet, to end the distraction before his inauguration in January – and before the possible emergence of further damaging revelations. The opening of 400 pages of the Trump University “playbook” to public scrutiny in June shone a light on the ruthless business practices the real estate mogul used to build his business empire. Employees were told to get people to pile on credit card debt and to target their financial weaknesses in an attempt to sell them the high-priced real estate courses, especially the $34,995 Gold Elite three-day package. The documents contained an undated “personal message” from Trump to new enrollees at the school: “Only doers get rich. I know that in these three packed days, you will learn everything to make a million dollars within the next 12 months.” Staff were told to spend lunch breaks in sign-up seminars “planting seeds” in potential students’ minds about how their lives would not improve unless they joined the program. Staff were also told to ask them personal questions to discover weaknesses that could be exploited to help seal the deal. Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond, said the settlement appeared to be a substantial victory for the plaintiffs. “Especially because Trump suggested that he never settled cases and derided others who did settle them.” The looming move to the White House ratcheted up pressure, Tobias said. “It was not inevitable, but it would have been very difficult to create a new government and conduct this litigation, particularly if Trump had to testify. Merely postponing it until he was president would not have helped much as the job will consume him.” In an unrelated case, Trump’s lawyers on Wednesday dropped a lawsuit he was pursuing in Florida about commercial air traffic over his Mar-a-Lago estate.
A mother's world was transformed – and so was my career – all by a baby's birth Under my hands were the hands of a midwife with years of experience, and under hers the head of a baby about to be born. I had never met the woman lying in the bed in the delivery room before, but she gave me the opportunity as a student nurse to experience childbirth with her. I was in my mid-twenties and had worked in hospital administration for a number of years. At this point I had completed the first year of my general nurse training: modules in care of elderly people, acute medical and surgical, and time in the operating theatre. It should have been nerve-racking but I knew my hands would be shadowing the midwife’s, and fear turned to astonishment. I could sense through her hands the movement of the advancing baby. The midwife enabled this progress using just the right amount of guiding control. I had no fear, only anticipation. The labour was at an advanced stage – a small tuft of dark hair was visible. There was no time to discuss anything other than that this was her second pregnancy and her labour had been quick. The birth seemed more of a spiritual experience than anything I expected. The midwife gently encouraged the woman, with no sense of urgency but calmly and knowledgeably. You only heard a slight change in her tone and saw a hint of a nod to the labouring mother when effort was required. The midwife cradled the head of the child as he was born, while I stood at her side. It was a defining moment for me to feel the baby part from his mother and take that first gasp. It was as if I had delivered him myself, a moment forever etched in my heart and mind. Nothing else I could do would match the privilege of helping bring another human being into the world. It would be a number of years after this experience before I would deliver a baby by myself. I’ve never forgotten how much this gentle birth helped influence my career path. That experience in a small rural midwifery-led unit was when I decided to become a midwife. The first day there sealed my future, and not only because I witnessed the birth of a baby. It was because the delivering midwife asked me to step forward. I had no idea what she was going to ask me to do. Having done my theatre experience I knew how to scrub up at least and that was all she asked of me. She was a natural mentor. Once the baby was born I was allowed to hand the infant to his mother. We were left in awe in the hushed silence of the room. She gently felt him all over counting along with the midwifery sister the tiny toes and fingers. It was as if nothing else in the world existed other than mother and child. The mother cradled her son in her arms as he took his first feed from her. It was a scene of completeness and contentment. The usual depiction of a baby crying out was not so. The mother murmuring sweet words to her newborn son were calming and no one wanted to break the sense of wonder. Such hands-on experience changed my world as much as it did that mother’s. Some 30 years on, she is likely to be a grandmother and that baby, a parent himself. To have been a part of that is profound. I went on to become a midwife in more clinical, acute hospital settings in bustling towns and larger cities. Yet I endeavoured to keep that gentle birth at the forefront of my practice. For in all we do, in our administering to the sick or healthy, there is no greater honour than stepping into another’s life. If you would like to contribute to our Blood, sweat and tears series which is about memorable moments in a healthcare career, please read our guidelines and get in touch by emailing sarah.johnson@theguardian.com. Join the Healthcare Professionals Network to read more pieces like this. And follow us on Twitter (@GdnHealthcare) to keep up with the latest healthcare news and views.
Senior adviser on Trump's diplomacy: 'I can't keep up with the tweets' One of Donald Trump’s senior advisers on national security has admitted to being baffled by the president-elect’s attempts to conduct diplomacy via Twitter, saying: “I can’t keep up with the tweets.” Former CIA director James Woolsey made the remark on Sunday morning, in an appearance on ABC’s This Week. Early on Saturday, Trump tweeted a comment on the seizure this week by China of an unmanned US naval vessel in the South China Sea, an act which has contributed to rising tension between the US and China and which Senator John McCain told CNN’s State of the Union was a “gross violation of international law”. “China steals United States Navy research drone in international waters,” Trump wrote, “rips it out of water and takes it to China in unpresidented act.” The tweet was reissued with the correct spelling of “unprecedented” and the tweet containing the error deleted. On Saturday evening, after China said it would return the drone, Trump used Twitter to say: “We should tell China that we don’t want the drone they stole back – let them keep it!” On ABC, Woolsey was asked about Trump’s tweets and one by his communications director, Jason Miller, who wrote on Saturday: “Donald Trump gets it done. China says it will return US drone it seized.” “I don’t know,” Woolsey said. “I can’t keep up with the tweets. I don’t do the social media myself, so who knows.” The Pentagon said the drone, also described as a “glider” or unmanned underwater vehicle, was deployed by civilian contractors aboard the USNS Bowditch, a scientific research ship. A Chinese defense ministry spokesman, Yang Yujun, said in a statement late on Saturday that a Chinese navy lifeboat had discovered the device on Thursday. “In order to prevent this device from posing a danger to the safe navigation of passing ships and personnel,” he said, “the Chinese lifeboat adopted a professional and responsible attitude in investigating and verifying the device.” The Pentagon spokesman, Peter Cook, said in a statement the US had “secured an understanding” for the return of the drone, after a formal diplomatic complaint. The Chinese statement said it would be returned “through appropriate means”. Trump’s intervention could extend one of the most serious incidents between the US and the Chinese militaries in years. “China will continue to maintain vigilance against the relevant US activities,” Yang said, “and will take necessary measures to deal with them.” The drone was seized about 57 miles north-west of Subic Bay near the Philippines in the South China Sea, which China claims virtually in its entirety, the navy captain Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, said on Friday. “It is ours,” he said. “It’s clearly marked as ours. We would like it back, and we would like this not to happen again.” Davis said the drone cost about $150,000 and was largely made of commercial, off-the-shelf technology. On CNN, McCain said he did not know what Trump was aiming to achieve with his tweets, but said he did know “the Chinese are able to do a thing called reverse engineering where they are able to, while they hold this drone … find out all of the technical information, and some of it is pretty valuable”. “But the fundamental here,” the Republican senator said, “is that the Chinese have taken an American vehicle in international waters in gross violation of international law. “Maybe they saw the success that the Iranians had after they captured two American vessels [in January] and put American sailors on their knees, and then when they returned them the American secretary of state [John Kerry] thanked them for that. “Look, there is no strength on the part of the USA. Everybody is taking advantage of it and hopefully that will change soon, but it’s almost unheard of for American vehicles [or] ships in international waters being taken by another Iranian, or in this case Chinese, ship in gross violation of international law. They are flaunting it.” Davis said the USNS Bowditch came within 500 yards of the Chinese ship that took the drone. The US boat carried some small arms, he said, but no shots were fired. Bonnie Glaser, senior adviser for Asia at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the seizure occurred inside the exclusive economic zone of the Philippines, not China, and thus appeared to be a violation of international law. Davis said it could be the first time in recent history that China had taken a US naval vessel. Some observers called it the most significant dispute between the sides’ militaries since an April 2001 collision between a US navy surveillance aircraft and a Chinese fighter jet, about 70 miles from China’s Hainan island. US-China relations are tense. China has been building artificial islands in the South China Sea. It was reported this week that anti-aircraft and anti-missile weapons had been installed. Beijing was also angered by Trump’s decision to talk by phone with the Taiwanese president, Tsai Ing-wen, on 2 December. The president-elect subsequently said he did not feel “bound by a one-China policy” regarding the status of Taiwan, unless the US could gain trade or other benefits from China. China considers the self-governing island its own territory, to be recovered by force if it deems necessary.
Barack Obama: don't blame me, blame the GOP for the rise of Donald Trump Barack Obama poured scorn on the notion that he was responsible for the rise of Donald Trump and the “crack-up” of the Republican party on Thursday, insisting that its wound was self-inflicted. “I have been blamed by Republicans for a lot of things, but being blamed for their primaries and who they’re selecting for their party is novel,” he said with a laugh during a joint news conference at the White House with Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau. Some political commentators and Republicans have floated the theory that Obama created a uniquely polarized climate that the outsider Trump was able to exploit. Columnist Ross Douthat wrote in the New York Times last month: “It isn’t an accident that this is the way the Obama era ends – with a reality TV demagogue leading a populist, nationalist revolution.” On Thursday the president made reference to his last state of the union address in which he acknowledged that partisanship had accelerated rather than waned over the past seven years. “I do all kinds of soul-searching in terms of: are there things I can do better to make sure that we’re unifying the country?” he said. “But I also have to say that, objectively, it’s fair to say that the Republican political elites and many of the information outlets – social media, news outlets, talk radio, television stations – have been feeding the Republican base for the last seven years a notion that everything I do is to be opposed; that cooperation or compromise somehow is a betrayal; that maximalist, absolutist positions on issues are politically advantageous; that there is a ‘them’ out there and an ‘us,’ and ‘them’ are the folks who are causing whatever problems you’re experiencing.” Obama recalled the so-called “birther movement”, which pushed wild conspiracy theories over his birthplace and in which Trump was a prominent figure, earning the president’s mockery during the White House correspondents’ dinner in 2011. “I don’t think that I was the one to prompt questions about my birth certificate, for example,” he said. “I don’t remember saying: ‘Hey, why don’t you ask me about that?’ Or ‘Why don’t you question whether I’m American, or whether I’m loyal, or whether I have America’s best interests at heart?’ Those aren’t things that were prompted by any actions of mine. “And so what you’re seeing within the Republican party is, to some degree, all those efforts over a course of time creating an environment where somebody like a Donald Trump can thrive. He’s just doing more of what has been done for the last seven and a half years.” Obama went on to echo analysts who argue that Trump, despite his outlandish statements and lack of politician’s polish, is not an anomaly on policy when compared with his rivals for the Republican nomination. “It’s not as if there’s a massive difference between Mr Trump’s position on immigration and Mr [Ted] Cruz’s position on immigration. Mr Trump might just be more provocative in terms of how he says it, but the actual positions aren’t that different.” The billionaire businessman’s surprise insurgency at the expense of establishment figures such as former Florida governor Jeb Bush has raised fears that the Republican party could tear itself apart. Media commentaries abound with phrases such as “civil war” and “existential crisis”. Crucial primaries will be held in Florida and Ohio on Tuesday. Pledging to continue to bridge divides across America, Obama added: “What I’m not going to do is validate some notion that the Republican crack-up that’s been taking place is a consequence of actions that I’ve taken. “There are thoughtful conservatives who are troubled by this, who are troubled by the direction of their party. I think it is very important for them to reflect on what it is about the politics they’ve engaged in that allows the circus we’ve been seeing to transpire, and to do some introspection.” Asked what impact a Trump victory might have on US-Canada relations, Trudeau swerved past the question. “I have tremendous confidence in the American people and look forward to working with whomever they choose to send to this White House later this year,” he said.
After wave of anti-abortion laws, US sees signs of women taking drastic measures “I came across your instructions on the abortion pill and decided to use it for an at home abortion after finding pills online. I took the pills 2.5 weeks ago and am still cramping and bleeding sometimes mildly sometimes heavily, please I would like some advice on what I can do to help me heal faster.” Peg Johnston estimates that her abortion clinic receives an email such as this once every month. This one, which arrived 11 May, reads the same as so many of the others. “You can often hear that desperation when you talk to them,” Johnston said. “Women who are pregnant and don’t want to be are desperate. They will do pretty much anything.” Five years into a wave of anti-abortion legislation that is without historical precedent, Johnston is not surprised. In fact, she is part of a rising chorus of abortion providers and activists who wonder if they are witnessing, as a direct result of those laws, a spike in women who are attempting to take matters into their own hands. In the south, abortion providers frequently encounter women who have tried taking misoprostol, an abortifacient that is only available in abortion clinics in the US but is available and inexpensive in most Mexican pharmacies. Myths circulate online about the ability of herbal extracts or over-the-counter products, some of which pose a health risk, to cause a miscarriage. Emily Rooke-Ley, who operates a hotline for minors seeking an abortion in Texas, recently spoke to a teenager who couldn’t pay for her abortion and tried drinking “loads of vitamin C” instead. There are phone calls about substances that carry warning labels for pregnancy: “‘What if I drank a whole bottle of this-or-that?’” said Sue Postal, who recently closed her clinic in Toledo. Others take more drastic measures, such as the young woman in Postal’s clinic whose boyfriend had punched her in the stomach as hard as he could – at the woman’s insistence. Until recently, abortion rights activists treated stories like these as harbingers of the future if states continued to erode abortion rights. Thirty-eight states have passed more than 300 new abortion restrictions since 2010, laws that have shuttered dozens of abortion clinics across the south, west and midwest. But a growing number now reject the idea that these anecdotes represent the worst-case scenarios. And a small body of research has emerged to support them. Among the most eye-catching is a report, released in November, projecting that anywhere from 100,000 to 240,000 women of childbearing age in Texas – the site of the nation’s most bruising abortion fight – have at some point attempted to induce their own abortions. “These are stories of desperation, not empowerment,” said Sarah Roberts, a University of California at San Francisco researcher who, in studying the effects of abortion clinic closures in the south, has come across a small proportion of women who tried to do something to end their pregnancies. One tried to cause a miscarriage by taking a huge dose of ecstasy. “These are stories of women going into their medicine cabinets and using things that are in there, or stories of women using illegal drugs, in the hopes that it will end their pregnancies.” Seven states make it explicitly against the law for a woman to attempt her own abortion and 37 states require people administering abortion drugs to be licensed doctors. Where self-inducing an abortion isn’t illegal, prosecutors have leveraged all sorts of laws – against child abuse, practicing medicine without a license, drug possession, abuse of a corpse or even homicide – to go after women who self-induce their abortions. Altogether, a woman who tries to end her own abortion may be violating any one of 40 different laws, said Jill Adams, a researcher who oversees the Center on Reproductive Rights and Justice at Berkeley Law. That there are dozens of state laws technically barring self-abortion speaks to the wide variety of methods – not all of which are actually effective. But most providers and activists, and many researchers, suspect that the greater proportion of women who try to end their own pregnancies attempted to obtain drugs that will cause a miscarriage. The internet effect June Ayers, who operates a clinic in Montgomery, Alabama, says in bygone days women would call to ask if they could douche with Sani-Flush – a toilet cleanser – but that those questions had now given way to queries about pills bought online. “I had someone yesterday insist on my telling her what was out there on the internet that she could use,” Ayers said. “You could hear the desperation in her voice. She just absolutely wanted me to tell her that whatever she was looking at on the internet was something she should get.” In March, Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, an economist who produces research by analyzing Google searches, reported that online queries about abortion were steady from 2004 to 2008, then leapt during the recession. They jumped again, by 40%, in 2011, when the number of new abortion restrictions began to crest. In 2015, there were 160,000 searches for ways to obtain abortion-inducing drugs outside a clinic setting, alongside tens of thousands or searches for home remedies. Websites that retail the drug say they are seeing the impact. One top search result is safe2choose.org. The nonprofit does not ship to the US, but in April, a fifth of the site’s traffic originated inside the US, a site administrator said. California supplied 8% of that traffic, while Texas, a state two-thirds the size, made up 13%. At safe2choose.org’s sister site, howtouseabortionpill.org, the top five counties for web traffic are Iran, Vietnam, Nigeria, the US and Kenya. Women on Web, a nonprofit that ships drugs to countries where the procedure is illegal – so, not the US – received 620 emails from the US in 2015 alone. The group’s founder, Rebecca Gomperts, said most of them appeared to come from women who are too poor to afford an abortion. There is no data on how many women obtain the pills. But they reach out to providers such as Johnston for instructions, forcing them into an ethical dilemma. When drugs come from illicit sources, there is no guarantee they are as advertised. Johnston is in the camp that believes if a woman is desperate enough to order drugs online and take them, there is no use withholding information. “At that point we feel like we should have them go to the best source of information that they can get.” The National Network of Abortion Funds, a group of nonprofits giving financial assistance to poor women for their abortions, hosts a webpage explaining how US women can obtain misoprostol in Mexico and what the pill should look like. (The drug is sold throughout Central America as a stomach ulcer medication.) The page also links to step-by-step instructions for taking the pills at home. Other women have turned to unproven methods. Blair Cushing, a doctor who rotated through a busy family planning clinic in Texas in 2014, recently testified in the state capitol that the clinic had seen a spike in self-attempts after Texas passed one of the harshest clinic regulations in the country. As one of her very first patients, Cushing tended to a 15-year-old girl who had tried to cause her own abortion. Cushing examined the girl and saw signs of sexual abuse. Then Cushing’s instructor removed a clump of organic material that was blocking his instruments. “It essentially looked like a ball of dirty grass,” she said. The girl had been told, mistakenly, that she could miscarry by inserting certain herbs into her vagina. Unanswered questions As much as abortion rights advocates and providers believe they are witnessing a surge in self-abortion attempts, questions about who tries to end their own abortions, how many women and with what kind of success remain unanswered. Daniel Grossman, one of the authors of the Texas report that found up to 240,000 women had attempted their own abortions, has been conducting research for years to try to fill in those blanks. He has found that many women attempting their own abortions know they can’t afford an abortion or assumed they could not. Other women attempt their own abortions not out of poverty, but because of a preference for home care, a mistrust of doctors, or culture: that’s simply how all the other women in their community end their pregnancies. Immigrants are more likely to report having attempted to self-induce an abortion, not just in the border states but across the country. The existing research has limits. The Texas report offers no insight into how many women attempt their own abortions in a single year, or whether those numbers have shifted over time. And it is by no means a concrete figure – the study drew on a survey that asked women if they knew someone who had tried to end her own pregnancy. “These are incredibly difficult questions to answer with any precision,” says Liza Fuentes, a researcher at Ibis Reproductive Health who oversaw the study. “We don’t know their stories, and we don’t know how successful they are.” The reality may be that self-abortion attempts are not on the rise because women have always taken matters into their own hands in large numbers, said Grossman and Fuentes. Right now, the holy grail for researchers is a number – the share of women in the general population who have ever attempted to end their abortions themselves. One national survey of abortion clinic patients, for example, found that 1.2% of patients in 2008 and 1.3% of patients in 2014 had taken misoprostol outside a clinic setting. But the survey, by the Guttmacher Institute, a thinktank that supports abortion rights, only includes women who actually went to an abortion provider. Grossman’s Texas study found that up to 4.1% of women had ever attempted to cause their own abortion. A survey he helped conduct in 2008 and 2009 of women in primary care clinics in New York, San Francisco and Boston found that the rate was about 4.5%. But it wasn’t a representative sample, Grossman said – “just a convenient sample”. In Louisiana, Roberts’ ongoing project suggests that the rate could be in the high single digits. Roberts is conducting a years-long study to determine if abortion restrictions actually force some women to continue their pregnancies, rather than simply delay them from having the procedure. She cautions that the number of women she has recruited for her research is tiny. But her work so far suggests that 2%-8% of the women she will interview will have made at least one attempt to end their pregnancies. Roberts’ past work is part of a body of evidence suggesting that women who want an abortion aren’t deterred by abortion restrictions. “We’re not finding anything that would turn that assumption completely on its head,” she said. “Women who really want an abortion, for the most part, will figure out how to get one.”
Farage’s poster is the visual equivalent of Enoch Powell’s ‘rivers of blood’ speech If you are thinking of voting to leave the EU, if you want Britain to take back control, if you believe the Brussels oligarchs are throttling our democracy, and, yes, if you think immigration has to be regulated and that can best be done if we have proper national borders again, look at this poster, for it is very informative. A crowd is flowing towards us. Face after face, an apparently unending human tide. The nearest faces are in sharp focus, the furthest a blur of strangers. They are not just strangers but they are, perhaps, alien. For this poster makes plain what is commonly fudged in all the heated talk about free movement within the EU. The long snaking line seems to deliberately quote the queue of unemployed people in the famous Labour Isn’t Working poster in 1979. Nigel Farage has been photographed in front of this new poster from Ukip, released a week before the referendum, and he’s not messing around. His party’s poster tells it like it is. This vote is not just about Polish foods having their own shelves at Tesco or Italians working in Caffè Nero. Farage’s poster boldly draws attention to the collision of two things: the principle of free movement within the EU, and the refugee crisis in the Mediterranean. The photograph shows refugees in Slovenia in 2015, many fleeing a murderous civil war in Syria. Well, that’s the story behind it, but this poster is not telling a complicated backstory. It is graphically emotional, as only visual images can be. It portrays an oncoming tide of outsiders at our gate – and they are not European faces. To put it more bluntly they are not white faces. Offended? You should be, because with this picture and its huge caption –“BREAKING POINT” – Farage gives the lie to the claim that his concerns about immigration are in no way connected to racism. That’s not to say that it’s racist to worry about immigration, but rather that Ukip’s poster is in effect saying it is. This truly nasty image claims Brexit on behalf of racists and it reveals what they will be boasting the morning after a leave vote. If you are indeed concerned about our ability to control our borders and yet are horrified by racism, please keep looking at those faces. The way they are being used shows that some of the people you will be siding with next week really do think the immigration issue is a race issue. And they want it to be just that. This poster is the visual equivalent of Enoch Powell’s “rivers of blood” speech, which ended his mainstream political career in 1968. In the speech Powell sided with a constituent who told him excessive immigration was destroying Britain: “What he is saying, thousands and hundreds of thousands are saying and thinking – not throughout Great Britain, perhaps, but in the areas that are already undergoing the total transformation to which there is no parallel in a thousand years of English history. We must be mad, literally mad, as a nation to be permitting the annual inflow of some 50,000 dependents, who are for the most part the material of the future growth of the immigrant descended population. It is like watching a nation busily engaged in heaping up its own funeral pyre …” Powell foresaw an unchecked inflow of black immigrants creating civil war; this poster tells us absolutely the same thing about the people headed our way, it claims, across borderless Europe. This tide of faces summons up exactly the same swarms and rivers and hordes of otherness and racial difference that Powell spoke against in 1968 and that so many have tried to evoke since – the National Front and the BNP among them. I don’t think this Ukip poster creators would be insulted by the Enoch Powell comparison. But look behind these faces, into the minds of the people who created the poster, and you will find those who assume we all share their unease with racial diversity. Do the great and generous British people that fought against the Nazi creed of race hate really want to give such types their day of triumph?
Mary Meeker: voice-controlled tech set for exponential rise in next few years In the future, you probably won’t use your keyboard to get to this website. So predicts of one of the internet’s top oracles, Mary Meeker, a partner at the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. On Wednesday Meeker, a long-time investor and financial analyst, unveiled her annual predictions of the technology industry’s future at a conference in southern California. The two big takeaways: people will do more talking to their computers and less typing on them. Oh – and the technology sector’s days of easy, red-hot growth may be behind it because an increasing percentage of the Earth’s population already owns a smartphone. Meeker isn’t the first person to make either of these declarations. Apple, Google, Amazon and Facebook are all rolling out more voice recognition products and the slowing growth rates have been on display in corporate earnings. But Silicon Valley has been on enough of a wild ride during the past two decades that investors and entrepreneurs here crave any authoritative take on what’s happening. In the past, Meeker has correctly spotted moves toward mobile video, messaging apps and China’s dominance – though how ahead of the curve she was is debatable. In this year’s presentation, Meeker’s most sweeping predictions involve the way in which humans interact with their machines. As voice recognition technology has improved dramatically, she says, humans will spend and less and less time telling their computers and phones what to do through a keyboard. Meeker predicts that by 2020, 50% of all web searches will be made through voice and image search. Google’s word accuracy rate rose from below 80% in 2013 to above 90% in 2015. At the company’s developer conference last month, executives said they have made more gains in the past year. Meeker also pointed to the success of Amazon.com’s Echo smart-speaker, a device powered by artificial intelligence that is “always listening” for voice commands. Later in 2016, Google plans to start selling a similar device called Google Home that will let users dim the lights, turn up the heater, check their diaries and also act as a stereo. But even as technology companies bring the world closer to a talking-speaker future, they may find it harder to continue to add users at the clip they have in the past few years, Meeker said. This is for two reasons. First, the world population is graying, global debt is rising and the world’s GDP is growling more slowly. And secondly, technology has become a victim of its own success as it has brought more and more people online, especially in India. In short, it’s running out of markets to tap. Global smartphone users grew by 31% year over year in 2015, compared to 21% in 2016, Meeker said.
Last Tango in Paris rape scene claims 'not true at all', says cinematographer Vittorio Storaro, the Oscar-winning cinematographer who supervised the filming of the “butter” scene in Last Tango in Paris, has stoutly defended the film’s director Bernardo Bertolucci, saying “nothing happened” during the shoot. Speaking to the Hollywood Reporter, Storaro said that the recent storm over the scene – which showed Marlon Brando’s character Paul anally raping Maria Schneider’s Jeanne – was based on claims that are “not true at all”. Storaro said: “I was there. We were doing a movie. You don’t do it for real. I was there with two cameras and nothing happened. … Nobody was raping anybody. “I think the journalists are making an issue that is not really an issue. I read that there was a kind of violence made on her but that’s not true. That’s not true at all.” Acknowledging that the controversy had arisen from Bertolucci’s suggestion that he had not mentioned the use of butter “as a lubricant” to Schneider before shooting the scene, Storaro said: “Probably Bernardo felt that maybe he didn’t explain it completely to Maria from the beginning and that’s why he felt a little guilty and nothing more than that. What Bernardo said later was he would like to apologise to Maria, only because he probably didn’t explain to her at the beginning what was discussed with Brando. Nothing happened during the shooting.” He added: “[Maria] knew perfectly well what she was doing. She knew pretty well what was happening in every scene. She was an actress and had no problems with this. It was an acting job, not something else.” Storaro, who also worked with Bertolucci on The Conformist and The Last Emperor, said the director would meet with Brando every morning while filming Last Tango to discuss the day’s work because “Brando wanted to add his own opinion”. “Everything was written down, but every morning Bernardo loved to add something … We knew the script and we knew what we wanted to do, but every morning you come up with different ideas.” Describing the shoot as a “fantastic period”, Storaro also said that “like everybody in this wonderful atmosphere, [Schneider] was so sorry that the movie was ending.” In later years, however, Schneider (who was 19 at the time of filming and who died in 2011) recalled a very different experience, describing Bertolucci as “very manipulative” and that she “felt a little raped, both by Marlon and by Bertolucci”. In recent days a string of actors, including Jessica Chastain and Chris Evans, have lined up to condemn Bertolucci’s methods, but the director himself hit back, calling the controversy “ridiculous”.
South Park spoofs the US election result: 'What have you done? You maniacs!' If you thought your day was ruined by the unexpected use of the phrase “President-elect Donald Trump”, just imagine being a South Park writer: they had to rewrite their election night episode at the last minute because it initially featured a Clinton win. Though South Park had election-themed episodes in 2000 and 2004, the 2008 election episode was completed after the results were in. In 2012, they captured the results correctly but completed the episode in advance – which, apparently, had been the plan for this year’s episode, necessitating the new scenes. The episode, originally titled The Very First Gentleman and then retitled Oh Jeez, is the seventh in South Park’s election-themed 20th season. It has featured the boys’ school teacher, Mr Garrison, newly spray-tanned and running for president with Caitlyn Jenner, trying to throw the election for Hillary Clinton by saying incredibly offensive things about everybody. Garrison and Jenner have been stymied in their efforts in part by Member Berries, talking fruit that whisper nostalgic things at those who eat them (“’Member when there weren’t so many Mexicans?” they asked in the first episode; their meaning and history is explained in episode five, and they escaped an effort by Randy Marsh to destroy them in episode six) and completely mellow the consumers out to external stimuli. There are four intersecting plot lines in the episode: the election results, the war between the town’s boys and girls, Cartman’s conversion to a caring boyfriend and the escalating problem with trolls. This episode opens outside South Park’s election night viewing party, where we see residents stumbling drunkenly outside and puking on the sidewalk. Inside, people watch the results with horror as a news anchor calls the election for Mr Garrison. Randy Marsh, Stan’s dad, runs to the center of the room and screams: “What have you done? You maniacs!” Behind him, a man pulls out a handgun and kills himself. The anchor cuts to Mr Garrison’s acceptance speech, in which he says: “The people have spoken. Just like JJ Abrams did with Star Wars, I will make America great again.” (A running gag is that the new Star Wars reboot wasn’t very good, a topic with which Randy is obsessed and Garrison had agreed, and the Member Berries often spout Star Wars trivia in between racist sentiments, as seen in episode six.) “This isn’t how this was supposed to happen,” Randy says, back in South Park. “All my efforts the past week have paid off,” says Mr Garrison, as ominous music swells. “And now let’s begin … fucking them all to death!” (One of his campaign’s central pledges, often applauded by his audiences, has been to fuck all his enemies, including immigrants, to death.) Later in the episode, Randy pounds on Mr Garrison’s door. “Garrison, what the fuck have you done?!” he shouts. Caitlyn Jenner answers, but Randy barges right past her. Garrison, in orange face, sits stiffly on his sofa. “Garrison, do you have any idea what you’ve done to our country?” “Yeah,” Mr Garrison replies in a daze. “Fucked them all.” Randy says he thought they had an understanding that Mr Garrison wasn’t supposed to win, and that the Star Wars reboot sucked and we should leave great movies alone, but Garrison says he changed his mind. Caitlyn Jenner sidles up and tells Randy that some people like the comfort of nostalgia and he ought to accept that; she then vomits Member Berry remains all over his face, and Randy, in a daze, agrees to watch the reboot again. In the last third of the episode, Randy, under the influence of Caitlyn Jenner’s pre-masticated Member Berries, is having dinner with his family. “I don’t know about you guys, but I sure am excited. America’s going to be great again,” he says. Shelly Marsh is, to say the least, not excited. “It sucks, dad. This country’s going to suck for four years!” she yells. Randy says he’s happy, and his wife, Sharon, doesn’t understand what’s going on: she says he’s been trying to convince her that the country was voting for Garrison because of misplaced nostalgia embodied by the new Star Wars. When she refuses to watch it, Randy vomits masticated Member Berries on both of them. The other plotlines are more complicated: while Randy and Mr Garrison have been (mostly) obsessed with the election this season, rest of the town in up in arms about online harassment. Kyle Broflovski’s father, Gerald, is a prolific anonymous online troll who targets the town’s girls and celebrities for his own amusement. Earlier this season, he harassed a Danish former Olympian and breast cancer activist Freja Ollegard to the point that she killed herself, and Denmark vowed revenge and invented Troll Trace, a program that will reveal everyone’s internet history and connect it to their real identities. Troll Trace was unleashed on the Colorado town of Fort Collins as a test run in the last episode; this one revealed that murders and suicides are up in the town, the divorce rate is 100% and the US military has built a huge, beautiful wall around it to prevent anyone else from being exposed to the full truth of the internet … and to keep Fort Collins residents from revealing to anyone else what they’ve learned. Gerald, then, gets a visit from federal agents, who take him to a remote location where Hillary Clinton appears, reveals that she knows he’s a troll and gives him an assignment: he has to infiltrate Troll Trace in Denmark and plant an EMP, in order to salvage the election by destroying their servers. (It’s unclear how destroying Troll Trace will make her the winner and not Mr Garrison; one suspects they have a few more plot points to rewrite.) Gerald suits up and heads to Denmark, but when he arrives and is shown the Troll Trace server rooms, he doesn’t find servers at all: he finds his one-time troll ally turned enemy, Dildo Schwaggins, also wearing a suit and carrying the same briefcase. Schwaggins reveals that Clinton recruited all the trolls involved in the Freja Ollegard incident and sent them to Troll Trace as part of some deal the US government made with the Danish. They are all shown, in the same suits with the same briefcases, hanging out just behind Dildo. Then, at the moment they were all told the EMP would be unleashed, their briefcases open and a screen appears: Rick Astley, singing Never Gonna Give You Up. They’re all been rick-rolled. Gerald’s fate remains up in the air. Cartman, of course, was the main suspect in the trolling of the town’s girls. But though he’s innocent, Cartman’s friends destroy his electronics to keep him off the internet, and with nothing else with which to amuse himself, he gets together with a girl, Heidi, and, totally in love, becomes a changed boy who acts as a feminist ally. Cartman spends this episode trying to figure out how to keep Heidi from discovering mean things he’s said about women on the internet, and eventually alights on a plan: they’re going to Mars to avoid the violent fallout when Troll Trace goes global. The episode ends as the two lovers arrive at SpaceX headquarters, as Cartman’s plan to find a place without Wi-Fi may be to commandeer a rocket. The attacks on Cartman’s technology had other consequences: the girls of the town all dumped their boyfriends for not understanding them, causing Butters to start a protest movement called “Wieners Out” in which the boys walk around with their genitals out to protest against the girls’ desire to have them be nice. The bro-tastic PC Principal calls a post-election assembly in the gym and declares it’s time to end the divisions in the school, and introduces Bill Clinton. He invites the boys to join Bill Clinton’s Gentlemen’s Club and then brings out … Bill Cosby. They do a little softshoe, and Clinton invites Cosby to join his gentlemen’s club, too. Clinton’s first recruit is, apparently, Stan, who wants to get his girlfriend, Wendy Testaburger, back. Bill and Bill coach him through an apology and then explain he’ll have to convince her that he’ll be less selfish. They’re interrupted by Butters and a group of boys outside, calling Stan a traitor for trying to make up with Wendy. Butters smears his genitals on the window. Butters, who has been grounded for “pressing pickle at the nail salon again”, later gets a visit from Clinton, who finds him “smushing snake” on his bedroom window. Clinton ascertains that Butters is persisting in his pickle-pressing because he’s sad that he got dumped, and gives a speech. “I know. I know how hard they can be,” he tells Butters of women. “But something’s about to happen that you aren’t aware of. You see, hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. And, trust me, my wife is a crazy bitch. She and all the other women in the world are about to get payback, and we are all completely fucked. “It’s my fault, really. I’ve done things my whole life that gradually broke her spirit. And now that’s she’s lost everything, let me assure you, she is pissed. Now, our only chance is to keep our heads low and act like we’re changed men. Because we’re very close to the end.” He continues: “Women are sick of our shit, son. And soon, they’re going to know everything we’ve said and done online. Unless we start kissing their asses, we’re all going to be put in a big chamber underground and milked for our semen.” The fate of the world’s men remains up in the air, at least until next week.
Opec meeting to focus on Donald Trump amid fears of falling oil prices When the Organization for Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) meets on 30 November in Vienna, expectations are that the cartel will finally, finally come to some sort of agreement on a production cut. Whether they cut or not, one thing is certain. The main topic of conversation will be Donald Trump. The meeting will mark the second-year anniversary of Opec’s decision to forego setting crude-oil prices and let the market set values, all in a bid to crush non-Opec output, specifically by US shale-oil producers, which was contributing to elevated global supply. Opec succeeded in drastically curbing US production as oil prices plummeted to under $30 by February 2016, but they severely wounded themselves in the process. Member states such as Venezuela are in economic ruin, and Saudi Arabia itself has come to the international bond market for funds. Now that Trump is president-elect after campaigning to free the US oil industry of the burdensome regulations he believes have held back US oil production, Opec must grapple with the possibility of increased production and another price fall. “The Saudis have come to a realization of: ‘Let’s declare victory and find a way out of this because it’s not working,’” said Scott Roberts, head of the high-yield team for Invesco Fixed Income, and an expert on oil markets. Hopes for cohesion in Opec sent crude oil prices higher this week, with the global benchmark Brent crude oil settling the week at $47 a barrel and the US West Texas Intermediate price closing at $45.9. Opec is pumping at record levels, so if it agrees to cut production, expect oil prices to rally on the headline news, said Rob Thummel, portfolio manager at Tortoise Capital, which focuses on energy markets. “I think Saudi Arabia has lost patience for these low oil prices … $50 to $60 is a sweet spot for them,” he said. Whether prices stay elevated depends on the details of a production curb, Roberts and Thummel add. News reports suggest Saudi Arabia may have the support from key members such as Iraq and Iran, and even support of non-Opec member Russia to cap production. Trump’s support for US oil production will hang over talks. “I think they [Opec] are terribly concerned about it,” Roberts said. “The biggest concern the Saudis have is: what if the US encourages these companies to drill too soon and that puts another 500,000 barrels on the [already oversupplied] market, say 12 months from now? That could really weigh on prices.” Michael Cohen, analyst at Barclays, agreed that Trump’s election put Opec in a tough spot. It may make it harder for the cartel to come to an agreement because of Trump’s campaign rhetoric on scuttling the Iran nuclear deal and pledges for US energy independence. “One must question how willing Iran will be now to participate in limitations on its output given that its path to economic success just became more challenging. If Iran is not going to be willing to negotiate, neither will the Saudis,” Cohen said in a research note. “The Saudis too were not pleased with Trump’s rhetoric during the campaign. Even if his campaign promises will not be carried out, Trump’s pledge to wean the US off Gulf oil is not a message that the royal family wants to hear at this stage. If the Saudis feel that market management of any kind gives US producers an edge in cutting into their US market share, they would likely not intervene in the market.” Thummel and Roberts said there were a lot of unknowns about Trump’s domestic energy policy aside from generalized comments about opening federal lands for drilling and rescinding the Clean Power Plan to help coal producers. But price, not policy, will likely drive shale-oil production decisions, they said. Just because Trump opens more federal lands for drilling doesn’t mean companies will automatically throw up new rigs. “The economics never lie. The economics still say the line of demarcation in the US is $50 [a barrel]. Below there we will not see much production growth,” Thummel said. Michael Hsueh, analyst at Deutsche Bank, concurred: the concerns about Trump’s influence on US and global energy might be overstated. He noted changes from current US energy policy might not be great considering other “broader and more durable trends in place”. Hsueh said net crude oil imports had been falling for the past 10 years and plans for offshore oil and gas leases for the 2017-2022 time frame were already being developed. Opening lands currently sheltered from drilling, such as Alaska’s Arctic national wildlife refuge or on the Atlantic coast, would have a stronger impact, but that is a longer-term consequence. Even the Iran nuclear deal may not be in jeopardy, Hsueh said. “President-elect Trump’s well-known disapproval of the … agreement on Iran’s nuclear program could well have the greatest impact, as a reimposition of sanctions would reverse Iran’s export gains and assist Opec in achieving its new output target. But even here cooler heads may yet prevail given the low likelihood of an improved alternative deal,” he said in a research note.
Honey, I'm home: Melbourne buzzes as Courtney Barnett plays gig for native bees “My name is Courtney and I live around the corner,” says Courtney Barnett, but we know this already. It’s Saturday afternoon and the global rockstar is performing with her partner, the singer-songwriter Jen Cloher, at Melbourne’s Northcote Social Club. She is back on her home turf and she’s here to help the blue-banded bee. Yes, an actual bee. It might be the most charming gig I’ve ever attended. There’s no mosh pit. Instead, toddlers sit crosslegged at the front. The crowd are relaxed; the small gig feels like a house concert and Barnett is greeted like an old mate just returned from travelling. 2016 has been a big year for Barnett, but also for bees. While Barnett has appeared on Saturday Night Live and played high-profile music festivals around the world, the plight of bees has been highlighted in global environmental campaigns. Remember those poignant photos of polar bears on melting icecaps? Well, bees are the new polar bears. The blue-banded bee is an Australian native and while it is not endangered – yet – many of the wildflowers and grasses that it helps to pollinate, like the matted flax-lily, are. And, owing to habitat destruction, the bee is struggling to get from one place to another. The gig has been organised by Friends of Merri Creek, a low-key environmental group which care for the waterway that trickles through Melbourne’s northern suburbs. The much-loved green corridor has been painstakingly revegetated over the past 30 years and the group received a publicity boost when Barnett and Cloher joined and began attending planting days. Bee pollination isn’t the sexiest of causes but a genius crowdfunding campaign spearheaded by Cloher led to the Blue-Banded Bee Band – comprised of Barnett, Cloher, the Orbweavers and Steph Hughes – committing to playing an intimate gig for the campaign’s top supporters. The combination of native bees and Melbourne musicians proved marketing dynamite and the campaign exceeded expectations to raise $25,073. This will be matched by $15,000 from Victoria’s Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning and the funds will help establish pollination “stepping stones” between matted flax-lily populations along the creek. At the Northcote Social Club, the beer and bee puns flow. The artists and organisers are given jars of local honey to thank them for volunteering their time and a toddler dressed as a bee periodically ambles on to the stage to rapturous applause. “I hope you’re tipping the bar staff,” Barnett quips. She used to serve pints here before her music career took off. No wonder it feels like a house concert. Melbourne – and its bees – are lucky to have her back.
US election result is a sharp lesson from globalisation’s losers I woke up with sad news as if someone had died. How could a civilised nation go uncivil? How could Americans with sane minds trust a belligerent man like Donald Trump who hates everyone who isn’t white? What did you just do, oh America? I have never felt worried and sad as I did today. I thought people were going to act with some civility and sanity and vote with their minds and intellect. I am not a diehard supporter of Hillary. My motto was “anyone but Trump”. Anyone but a man filled with anger and hate. May God save us all. It will certainly be four years of turbulence and uncertainty. How could anyone trust a man with such a temperament? I would be terrified if I was living in America today. He will certainly make America un-great again. Let us hope and pray. Abubakar Kasim Toronto, Ontario • You can’t blame Trump. Cometh the hour, cometh the man. He was conjured from the uncomfortable mess that many people have to live in. Trump, like the Tory Brexit hard right here, merely saw the opportunity to exploit that mess and get to power. More to blame is a smug, complacent upper middle class. More to blame still is a greedy financial and commercial elite making the most of globalisation and new technology. That lot will no doubt continue to do well. When the mass of people do worse, the only way out for that elite will be a much more explicit scapegoating of immigrants and of course “intellectuals and experts”. Merkel and Hollande will be shaking; their day is done. We are in a new age. Ian Bishop Sheffield • There is enough evidence from Hungary, Poland, Turkey, the UK and now, tragically, the US that pluralism and its institutions are under deeply destabilising attack. Whether this constitutes the start of a paradigm shift away from liberal democracy I do not know, but liberals and progressives have a choice. We can wring our hands for being out of touch and yield to the raw and dirty energy of the demagogues, or we can fight to defend the hard-won gains of our civilised societies. We must try to coalesce around a new and inclusive narrative that doesn’t shy away from difficult debates around inequality, globalisation and immigration but that fearlessly exposes the false promise of rabble-rousers and firelighters who do not care about anyone – including the working classes they have courted – except themselves and power. Dominic Brett London • The US election result has delivered a sharp lesson to the liberal elite. The most important debate is always between the rich and the poor – not between intellectuals. Clinton is still wealthy. Trump is still wealthy. Whether Clinton or Trump was elected, a poor and unemployed person is still poor and unemployed. Those without power and privilege have diminished agency in our globalised world. A vote costs nothing. Go figure. Alison Hackett Dun Laoghaire, County Dublin • Unless Donald Trump surprisingly reveals competences that have remained hidden over the last 25 years, it is predictable that within a year or so he will have stood down, overwhelmed by his inability to understand, let alone resolve, the many complex questions crowding his in-tray every day. On this scenario the US should be ready for the succession to the presidency of Vice-President Mike Pence. Either that or Trump would become a lame-duck president merely acting as the frontman for decisions effectively taken by his advisers. Robin Wendt Chester • 230 years ago the founding fathers decided upon an electoral college to temper the popular vote if they felt a person was too extreme. The electoral college voters were not legally obliged to follow their state’s popular vote. Trump received just under 48% of the popular vote, as did Clinton, and the third candidate 5%. Thus those opposing Trump totalled 52% (a figure equal to those supporting Brexit). With Congress now also continuing with Republican majorities, and with a supreme court vacancy likely to be filled by a Trump nomination, surely the views of the founding fathers should be considered, especially as senior Republicans opposed Trump. Tim Bornett Old Buckenham, Norfolk • Dear Mr President of the United States of America, We hope the role you want to play now as a new musketeer, uniting all Americans, can fix what you have injured in your campaign. We hope that your warfare to be elected was just a shocking marketing trick. We hope that you are ready to face the world America helped shape and that you relate your international strategies accordingly. As a businessman and a smart person, we hope you deal with your new, unexpected position in a fair and diplomatic way towards your people and the world. May you unite and cooperate instead of divide and exclude. Good luck! Congratulations for your success in becoming the next US president. Diana Guerra Pinto Rosersberg, Sweden • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com More readers’ letters on Donald Trump’s election victory Brexit Britain and Trump’s America: two nations divided by a common politics Barack Obama must fulfil his pledge to close Guantánamo Bay now Voters crave politicians who actually stand for something The rule of law and a reboot for democracy Media and politicians are out of touch The man who’ll make America grate again
FA and Premier League to hold fresh talks over winter break The prospect of a January break has moved a step closer after it emerged the FA and Premier League are to hold talks on the issue. Debate about the benefits of a winter hiatus is nothing new but, with fixture congestion back on the agenda in a week when Champions League and Europa League fixtures are quickly followed by FA Cup ties, there is a renewed appetite to fit a two-week break into clubs’ schedules each January and the possibility will be discussed soon. According to a report in the Daily Mail, one solution would see a fortnight gap inserted into the January schedule, with the FA Cup third round moved to a later weekend in the month. There are considerations, though, around FA Cup replays, which could be under threat in any reorganisation, and the League Cup, whose semi-finals take place in January. A lengthening of the domestic season could be one answer that keeps all parties content. Manchester City are among the top-flight sides expected to field a weakened team in the FA Cup this weekend. Their match against Chelsea on Sunday precedes Wednesday’s Champions League game with Dynamo Kyiv and, four days later, the League Cup final against Liverpool at Wembley.
Jill Stein raises over $4.5m to request US election recounts in battleground states Jill Stein, the Green party’s presidential candidate, is preparing to request recounts of the election result in several key battleground states. Stein launched an online fundraising page seeking donations toward a multimillion-dollar fund she said was needed to request reviews of the results in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. The drive has already raised more than $4.5m, which the campaign said would enable it to file for recounts in Wisconsin on Friday and Pennsylvania on Monday. The fundraising page said it expected to need around $6m-7m to challenge the results in all three states. Stein said she was acting due to “compelling evidence of voting anomalies” and that data analysis had indicated “significant discrepancies in vote totals” that were released by state authorities. “These concerns need to be investigated before the 2016 presidential election is certified,” she said in a statement. “We deserve elections we can trust.” Stein’s move came amid growing calls for recounts or audits of the election results by groups of academics and activists concerned that foreign hackers may have interfered with election systems. The concerned groups have been urging Hillary Clinton, the defeated Democratic nominee, to join their cause. Donald Trump won unexpected and narrow victories against Clinton in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin earlier this month and may yet win Michigan, where a final result has not yet been declared. Stein and her campaign made clear they were acting because they wanted to ensure the election results were authentic, rather than because they thought she had actually won any of the contests. Several states allow any candidate who was on the ballot to request a recount. Friday is the deadline for requesting a recount in Wisconsin, where Trump’s winning margin stands at 0.7%. In Pennsylvania, where his margin is 1.2%, the deadline falls on Monday. In Michigan, where the Trump lead is currently just 0.3%, the deadline is Wednesday 30 November. The previously disclosed that a loose coalition of academics and activists concerned about the election’s security is preparing to deliver a report detailing its concerns to congressional committee chairs and federal authorities early next week, according to two people involved. “I’m interested in verifying the vote,” said Dr Barbara Simons, an adviser to the US election assistance commission and expert on electronic voting. “We need to have post-election ballot audits.” Simons is understood to have contributed analysis to the effort but declined to characterise the precise nature of her involvement. A second group of analysts, led by the National Voting Rights Institute founder John Bonifaz and Professor Alex Halderman, the director of the University of Michigan’s center for computer security and society, is also taking part in the push for a review. In a blogpost on Wednesday, Halderman said paper ballots and voting equipment should be examined in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. “Unfortunately, nobody is ever going to examine that evidence unless candidates in those states act now, in the next several days, to petition for recounts,” he said. Clinton’s defeat to Donald Trump followed the release by US intelligence agencies of public assessments that Russian hackers were behind intrusions into regional electoral computer systems and the theft of emails from Democratic officials before the election. Curiosity about Wisconsin has centred on apparently disproportionate wins that were racked up by Trump in counties using electronic voting compared with those that used only paper ballots. Use of the voting machines that are in operation in some Wisconsin counties has been banned in other states, including California, after security analysts repeatedly showed how easily they could be hacked into. However, Nate Silver, the polling expert and founder of FiveThirtyEight, cast doubt over the theory, stating that the difference disappeared after race and education levels, which most closely tracked voting shifts nationwide, were controlled for. Silver and several other election analysts have dismissed suggestions that the swing-state vote counts give cause for concern about the integrity of the results. Still, dozens of professors specialising in cybersecurity, defense and elections have in the past two days signed an open letter to congressional leaders stating that they are “deeply troubled” by previous reports of foreign interference, and requesting swift action by lawmakers. “Our country needs a thorough, public congressional investigation into the role that foreign powers played in the months leading up to November,” the academics said in their letter, while noting they did not mean to “question the outcome” of the election itself. Senior legislators including Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Congressman Elijah Cummings of Maryland have already called for deeper inquiries into the full extent of Russia’s interference with the election campaign. Wednesday’s announcement by Stein, who had previously been hesitant to get involved, also shields Democratic operatives and people who worked on Clinton’s bid for the White House from needing to overtly challenge the election. Some senior Democrats are known to be reluctant to suggest there were irregularities in the result because Clinton and her team criticised Trump so sharply during the campaign for claiming that the election would be “rigged” against him. But others have spoken publicly, including the sister of Huma Abedin, Clinton’s closest aide. “A shift of just 55,000 Trump votes to Hillary in PA, MI & WI is all that is needed to win,” Heba Abedin said on Facebook, urging people to call the US justice department to request an audit. Alexandra Chalupa, a former Democratic National Committee consultant who during the campaign investigated links between Moscow and Trump’s then campaign manager Paul Manafort, is also participating in the attempt to secure recounts or audits. “The person who received the most votes free from interference or tampering needs to be in the White House,” said Chalupa. “It may well be Donald Trump, but further due diligence is required to ensure that American democracy is not threatened.” In a joint statement issued last month, the office of the director of national intelligence and the Department for Homeland Security said they were “confident” that the theft of emails from the DNC and from Clinton’s campaign chair, John Podesta, which were published by WikiLeaks, was directed by the Russian government. “Some states have also recently seen scanning and probing of their election-related systems, which in most cases originated from servers operated by a Russian company,” the statement went on. “However, we are not now in a position to attribute this activity to the Russian government.”
Live-bets loophole to be closed as part of online sports betting review A loophole allowing punters to place bets online during sporting events will be closed by the federal government as part of a comprehensive review. Gambling-safety advocates have broadly welcomed the recommendations of the O’Farrell review into the online sports-betting industry, released on Thursday, including the establishment of a national self-exclusion register for problem gamblers and a ban on bookies offering punters lines of credit. But it was criticised by the peak body for online bookies, which accused the government of flinching in the face of industry innovation and doing too little to quash the use of illegal offshore websites. Online wagering is the fastest-growing segment of Australia’s gambling market, worth about $1.4bn of a total $21bn national spend and increasing by about 15% a year. Up to $400m of Australians’ total gambling expenditure is thought to be spent on illegal offshore sites, which can sometimes offer more exotic deals and leverage their tax savings to offer better odds. Community groups have also raised concerns that regulation of the online sports-betting industry is insufficient and has not kept up with technological advances. Among the recommendations delivered by the former New South Wales premier Barry O’Farrell on Thursday was closing a “live betting” loophole exploited by bookies such as Sportsbet and William Hill, the UK owner of the Tom Waterhouse brand. Bets during sporting matches are banned online but permitted over the phone and in person. William Hill was investigated by the Australian federal police last year for its “click to call” function, which enables a computer or phone microphone when punters place live bets from its website or app, technically fulfilling the “phonecall” requirement. Live bets are considered by gambling safety advocates to be a particularly risky form of gambling, encouraging more frequent betting and chasing of losses. The review found the rate of problem gambling was three times higher among those who gamble online compared with gamblers in general. It also suggested bookmakers be banned from offerings customers lines of credit, the “urgent” recommendation of an August report by Financial Counselling Australia (FCA). The FCA welcomed the review’s finding on Thursday but said bans should be extended to include bets using credits cards. “Racking up thousands of dollars on your credit card for gambling is a really dangerous practice, regardless of whether it is for illegal offshore gambling or for legal gambling,” the association’s policy director Lauren Levin said. “The same for payday loans. A debt is a debt when the debt collectors come knocking, and this happens really quickly.” The federal government accepted virtually all O’Farrell recommendations, stopping short of committing to a French-style system of blocking internet service providers from accessing offshore illegal websites. Instead, it pledged to publish “name and shame” lists of illegal sites and their directors, whose travel to Australia could also be disrupted. Samantha Thomas, an associate professor at Deakin University who investigates the impact of gambling advertisements, said the recommendations were “really good and have been really needed”, particularly the establishment of a national self-exclusion register funded by bookies. But she criticised the lack of focus on gambling advertising, other than a recommendation to subject social media marketing to the same regulations as traditional advertising. “We know that marketing is a huge issue, it’s the issue of most community concern, and is having a significant impact on kids’ gambling attitudes, but also young men’s gambling behaviours,” she said. “It’s a really big missed opportunity that is almost negligent, given how many experts have raised this as a very serious issue. “We’re in an election year and I wonder if the government was cautious about upsetting the broadcasters, because they make a huge amount of money from wagerers, who are one of the biggest advertisers in the country,” she said. The Australian Wagering Council (AWC), which represents Sportsbet and William Hill, among others, said technology was rapidly changing the industry and Australia had “flinched” at the chance to be a market leader. “Offshore operators will be delighted. Nothing announced today will stop those determined to flout the law,” said the AWC’s chief executive Ian Fletcher. Banning live bets would “penalise Australian licensed wagering operators, while keeping the back door open for illegal offshore operators to target Australian customers,” he said.
Labour can still survive, but only if it abandons hope of governing alone Is Labour finished? Is the collapse of the party that turned this country from an enclave of aristocratic power into a functioning democracy inevitable? I wouldn’t bet against it. The MPs trying to bring down Jeremy Corbyn seem unable to understand that, in the volatile new politics, Labour can sustain itself only by becoming the grassroots movement it once was, driven by the unruly but determined energies of its members. This transformation – from the opaque, corrupt bureaucracy created by Tony Blair, to a party owned by and responsive to its members – is Corbyn’s great achievement. Yes, his opponents in the party want to win elections. But it is not clear why they want to win. If they possess a political programme (and most of the time it is unintelligible), it amounts to a slightly modified version of Tory neoliberalism. Lacking anything resembling an inspiring vision, their chances of success (if somehow, they manage to install a new party leader) are even smaller than his. Those who support Corbyn seem unwilling to understand that the Labour party will fail unless its leaders launch devastating attacks against established power. A kinder, gentler politics is a wonderful thing – until it allows the government and financial elite to get away with murder. Without a visible and effective demolition of the dominant political narrative, and the thrilling and voluble creation of a new story, his party cannot generate the excitement required to turn the vote. The lords of misrule will not be overthrown by mumbling. But to blame the collapse of the party on its immediate difficulties would be unfair to both sides. Labour’s problems run much deeper than the current struggle between members and representatives. The party rose on what JB Priestley, in 1929, called the “grey-green tide of cloth caps”: a coherent, organised industrial labour force, with common goals and common means of achieving them. This coherence was destroyed not only by deindustrialisation, but also by powerful and ineluctable social change, much of which pre-dated industrial collapse. As Tony Judt noted, the New Left in the 1960s rebelled against both the injustices of capitalism and the constraints of collectivism. “Individualism – the assertion of every person’s claim to maximised private freedom and the unrestrained liberty to express autonomous desires … became the leftwing watchword of the hour.” The result was an astonishing liberation: from millennia of social, gender and sexual control by powerful, mostly elderly men. But the flowering of identities that began 50 years ago led inevitably to a decline in the sense of common purpose. Identity and autonomy, championed at first on the left, were soon co-opted by the neoliberal right. Liberating individualism was transformed into exploitable atomisation, creative self-expression replaced by a depoliticised, desocialising consumerism that enabled the rise of a new oligarchy. The most enduring political legacy of the New Left is not to be found in leftwing movements, but in the radical right’s institution-smashing insurgency. In none of its incarnations has Labour produced a credible response. It has, at different points in the past half-century, either burrowed back into the lost world or abandoned its core principles to deliver a slightly less toxic version of the Tory assault. It has not been able to find a place of comfort on the spectrum between dreary and frightening, perhaps because this is the wrong spectrum. It has failed to articulate what must be the core project of a new progressive politics: discovering the common purpose in diversity. Nothing demonstrates this more clearly than its repeated refusal (which is now beginning to soften) to support demands for proportional representation. Our first-past-the-post electoral system served the old party well. It is disastrously mismatched to the fragmented and emergent politics that replaced the grey-green tide. As Jeremy Gilbert, one of the crucial thinkers charting a new direction for the British left, points out, by placing general elections in the hands of a few middle-income voters in market towns, our system grants inordinate power to the corporate media, which needs only to influence them to capture the nation. A combination of a media owned by billionaires, unreformed political funding and first-past-the-post elections is lethal to democracy. Unless something drastic and decisive happens, the next election threatens to become a contest between the Tories and Ukip: in other words, between rightwing technocrats owned by the banks and rightwing demagogues owned by Arron Banks. What is this drastic something? A progressive alliance. This means Labour, the SNP, Liberal Democrats, Greens, Plaid Cymru, Sinn Féin and other parties agreeing to field just one candidate between them in every constituency. Whether that means a unity candidate representing all parties (perhaps chosen in an open primary, as the political innovator Paul Hilder has suggested), or making way for the party representative most likely to capture the progressive vote is a question that needs to be debated. The Greens and Lib Dems seem ready to play. What about Labour? Joining such an alliance means giving up Scotland and giving up its hopes of a majority in England and Wales. You could see that as a lot to ask, or you could see it as accepting the inevitable. Here’s where the kinder, gentler politics is required: to abandon tribalism and strike generous bargains with old opponents. It’ll be hard, but the urgency of the task, as we confront an elite that is now empowered to tear down the remains of postwar social democracy, should be apparent to everyone. By giving up hopes of governing alone, Labour could be offered a last chance of survival – but only as part of a wider alliance. Combined, these forces can win the next general election, whenever that might be. Apart, they will inevitably lose. A progressive alliance need win only once, then use that victory to reform our electoral system, to ensure that the parties of the left and centre never again engage in destructive competition. After submitting this column, I jumped on a train to attend a mass meeting in London. The topic? Building a post-Brexit alliance. It brings together senior figures from the Lib Dems, the Greens, the SNP and, yes, Labour. Did hope die on 24 June? Or was it perhaps reborn?
Bernard Jenkin smells a trade union bill conspiracy Bernard Jenkin glanced to his right. Two Tory MPs were deep in conversation inside the House of Commons. They were definitely talking about him. He could tell. Not only that, but they were also definitely talking about how best to get the EU to do him over. He could tell that, too. Jenkin took a deep breath and assumed the lotus position. It was all very well his therapist telling him he was paranoid; sometimes the bastards really were out to get you. Take the concessions the government had made to its trade union bill. Surely they would never have been made unless the trade unions promised to give £1.7m towards the remain campaign? “This stinks,” he said, having been granted an urgent question by the Speaker. “It reeks the same as cash for questions. This shows that this government really is at the rotten heart of the European Union. It, it…” It was a conspiracy on such a scale – bigger even than the Da Vinci Code – he couldn’t even complete his sentence. With business secretary Sajid Javid up before a select committee to explain why he went on holiday when Tata pulled the plug on British Steel, it was left to a junior minister, Nick Boles, to try to talk Jenkin down. “It’s OK, Bernie,” he said. “Everything’s going to be OK. The drugs the Brussels bureaucrats have put in your water are going to wear off soon and the hallucinations will get better. There is no conspiracy. Just a long list of coincidences. Trust me, Bernie. Trust me.” Bernie didn’t look as if he was in the mood to trust anything anyone said and stared sulkily straight ahead. Boles tried to explain himself a little better. It was like this. The government had come up with a trade union bill and the Lords had suggested a few amendments. It was just normal parliamentary ping pong and when you came to go through the party’s election manifesto with a fine legal tooth-comb, as he had that very morning, then the Conservatives had more or less delivered on their commitments. In fact, when you thought about it the amended trade union bill was beyond everyone’s wildest dreams. Discussions between the government and the trade unions had been extremely wide-ranging and if the unions had now decided to spend some money on urging their members to stay in the EU, then it was just one of those things. This wasn’t quite the outright denial that Bernie had been seeking, and other Eurosceptics were keen to press Boles harder. “What election commitments will the government not abandon in order to secure a remain vote in the referendum?” snarked Liam Fox, urged on by Philip Davies, Cheryl Gillan and Philip Hollobone. Boles twitched nervously, caught between the understandable desire not to mislead his colleagues and explaining the facts of ministerial life. He tried giving them that special look. The look that said: “Of course governmental policy is up for sale at the the right price. But £1.7m is just loose change and we would never water down a bill for that little. If it was just a question of getting the unions to print a few leaflets, we’d have been been happy to dig into the departmental slush fund; £1.7m wasn’t even significant enough to register as an accounting error. Move along. There’s nothing to see.” Bernie still didn’t get it and was still muttering “conspiracy” when John Bercow summoned the paramedics. But Labour’s Dennis Skinner did. “How much does the Tory party want to drop the entire trade union bill?” he asked. Boles paused. He was tempted to come up with a figure but didn’t want to put his foot in it. This was all above his pay grade. He’d get back to him.
How £14m investigation snared Deutsche Bank insider trading ring Nobody would have noticed anything odd had they been walking along the rear security wall of Buckingham Palace on 23 October 2008. Yet all around there were hidden eyes and ears trained on the activities taking place in a small office located on nearby Grosvenor Place. For a year, a team led by the Financial Services Authority (FSA) alongside colleagues from the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca), had been tracking a suspected insider trading ring as part of Operation Tabernula. While they had gleaned many fascinating details, they were flummoxed by some major questions. Despite receiving a series of suspicious transaction reports about the fabulously prescient share deals the targets had placed, the officers had no idea where the trader’s information was coming from. Who was the inside source giving this trading ring the confidence to bet £50,000 on each penny movement of shares in the brewer Scottish & Newcastle? Where had the £4.4m of profits from that trade gone? But then, the Buckingham Palace stakeout produced the breakthrough. A bug planted in the office of a day trader called Ben Anderson – located barely 50 metres from the rear wall of the Queen’s London residence – picked up on his conversation with Iraj Parvizi, a well known City trader who had risen to prominence after working in a Kent kebab shop. Parvizi was on a rare trip to the UK and the pair were discussing an individual who was “working at Deutsche Bank” and had “done his bollocks. Financially. That’s why he says he’s hungry ... Because you know he worked for Morgan? … he went to Lehmans, he says he got fucked on Lehman’s shares as well”. While the pair did not name this insider, the subject of that conversation was referred to as “Hind’s man”. As the surveillance team observed Parvizi leaving Anderson’s office, he climbed into a silver BMW sports utility that belonged to one Andrew Hind, a Manchester University maths graduate and accountant nicknamed “Nobu”. He had worked at PwC and for Arcadia Group between 1997 and 1998. One of Hind’s closest friends turned out to be a top City financier called Martyn Dodgson. Everything was now clearer. Dodgson had been a well known figure in the City since he had advised the government on its stakes in the Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group taken as a result of the credit crunch. A graduate of Lancaster University with a first class degree in economics, he was a corporate broker at Deutsche Bank and had previously worked at Morgan Stanley and Lehman Brothers – meaning he was privy to large amounts of price-sensitive information about companies whose shares were listed on the London Stock Exchange. This stellar career was now effectively at an end. On Thursday Dodgson, 44, was sentenced to four-and-a-half years, after being convicted three days earlier at Southwark crown court of insider dealing, thus becoming perhaps London’s highest-profile insider trader to date. Hind, 56, received three-and-a-half years for his role as the middleman. The previous longest sentence handed down for being convicted of insider dealing in the UK was four years given to Richard Joseph in 2013. Three other alleged participants were all acquitted, including Anderson, 71, and Parvizi, 50, as well as Andrew “Grant” Harrison, 46, who also worked in corporate broking and who was alleged to have played a similar role to Dodgson. Anderson and Parvizi admitted adding their own funds to investments carried out on behalf of Hind, but both insisted they had no reason to suspect his stock picks were based on price-sensitive insider information. In order to be convicted of insider dealing in the UK, the jury has to be satisfied that defendants were aware they were trading on inside information. When arrested six years ago, Dodgson, who was paid £601,000 a year as a managing director at Deutsche Bank, repeatedly denied to FSA officers that he was involved in personally trading shares. Yet the evidence they had gleaned suggested otherwise. On Dodgson’s keyring investigators found the key for a red metal petty cash box, which had been discovered stashed under Dodgson’s bed at his home in Hampstead, north London. Inside the box was a specialist encrypted storage drive called an IronKey, which its makers boast is “military grade”. Dodgson said he had not used the device in years and could not unlock it. But by cross-checking other passwords the banker had used elsewhere, investigators were able to discover that the drive was opened by the password “Lamborghini55”. The court was told the drive contained incriminating evidence including a spreadsheet that listed coded references to the trades. From these files investigators were able to match the trades to Dodgson, but the task was far from simple. The total cost of Operation Tabernula – which has also resulted in the convictions of three other men – came to almost £14m. The joint investigation by the FSA and Soca was continued by the organisations that replaced them in 2013, the Financial Conduct Authority and the National Crime Agency. The effort involved about 40 staff at its peak, 485 applications under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act - the law governing the use of covert techniques by public authorities - plus analysis of more than 500,000 lines of telecoms data, 120 trading accounts and more than 600 digital devices, including pay-as-you-go mobile phones that were routinely discarded. Investigators also discovered Hind had bought six encrypted USB sticks, with three found in a wall safe at his home. When asked for the passwords, he declined to provide them. Investigators never found the key. So, like its owner, the data is locked away. Investigation statistics Investigation period of eight-and-a-half years over all four ‘strands’ Total cost of £13,958,737 (internal and external costs) 10-12 ‘core’ permanent staff Peak of about 40 staff (permanent and non-permanent) 485 RIPA applications (Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, which regulates the use of and access to surveillance by public bodies) 500,000+ lines of telecoms data 120+ trading accounts identified 200,000+ lines of trading data 35,000+ recorded calls (over 560 hours) obtained from brokers 600 digital devices / machines examined 10 million+ individual digital items 10.5TB of storage required Approximately 320 hours of probe recording received and reviewed 26 live witnesses (6 FCA staff, 3 experts) 46 lever arch files (statements and evidence) 11 tranches of served evidence 195 witnesses produced 452 witness statements and 1,958 exhibits 80,000 unused items on evidence review system (Introspect) 22,000+ unused documents in electronic folders
Scotland faces an NHS crisis – another reason the SNP needs a ‘successful’ Brexit Audit Scotland has issued a strong warning about the state of the NHS in Scotland. It says the NHS is underfunded, has been unable to reform and faces unprecedented savings targets. Opposition parties have attacked the Scottish government for this, cutting into the SNP’s reputation for competence. Nicola Sturgeon responded at first minister’s questions by defending the SNP’s nine-year record (much of which with her as health minister) and suggesting that the NHS will always be in crisis until some fundamental changes are approved cross-party. The row is likely to run on and on because it is about the NHS – no politician ever failed by posing as a defender of it. Sturgeon’s reaction is interesting because it suggests she is rethinking her own strategy on how best to provide care. As the health thinktank the King’s Fund reports, the UK as a whole spends less than many other nations on healthcare. The level is between 8-9% of GDP – it varies from year to year. The King’s Fund expects this to fall by 2020. Given the demand for more money from healthcare professionals, and reports such as that from Audit Scotland, it will not be enough. The Scottish government copied the UK in 2010 when the Tories promised to protect the NHS budget. This pledge resonates with voters, but is not wholly relevant – the point is the NHS needs lots more money. It is a need driven by demographics – we are living longer, and the last 10 years of our lives may well require intervention from the NHS. Other factors pushing up costs are the price of drugs and the effect of lifestyle decisions like bad diet and heavy drinking. The irony in Scotland is that the SNP came to power in 2007 on a promise to reverse proposed NHS reforms. The health minister in the Labour/Liberal Democrat coalition government of 2003-2007, Andy Kerr, argued for the closure of community health units. One of Sturgeon’s first acts on succeeding him was to lift the threat to those hospitals. Hindsight says Kerr was right all along – Scotland cannot afford an unreformed NHS. Sturgeon’s “moment of truth” statement in the Holyrood chamber suggests she now recognises this. As she has changed, so has Labour, which is now accused of blocking reform plans set out by the Scottish government. The issue gets to the heart of devolution. Holyrood’s founding father, Donald Dewar, echoed Irish nationalists when he said that Scotland’s new parliament should find “Scottish solutions for Scottish problems”. In the 17 years since it first sat in 1999, there has been very little in the way of original policy making. Social policy north of the border is dominated by people trying to protect existing institutions and self-interests. One of the great conservative forces has been the SNP. It is held back by not wanting to scare people away from independence and also a fear that if devolved powers are used to their maximum, people might think independence isn’t necessary. Traditionally, the SNP does not like to test voters, preferring to go with the popular. Sturgeon is from the party’s left and a genuine social reformer – her time as first minister has been spent flirting with more radical policies. The Audit Scotland report may prove the catalyst for real action. She knows that her predecessor left office with little in the way of a legacy apart from a university tuition fee policy which has since been discredited as a tool of social mobility. Sturgeon would not want to be the first minister known for failing the NHS. As with all things in Scotland, the determining factor is the constitution. Sturgeon says she is genuinely seeking a workable Brexit deal, and during her conference she rowed back from any automatic independence referendum if Scotland is taken out of the single market. The government has put out to consultation a new referendum bill, but that is not the same as wanting another vote. If Scotland gets enhanced devolved powers and a Brexit deal which the SNP can fudge into success, then all of Scottish politics will refocus on social policy, and the NHS in particular. On the other hand, if Brexit rumbles on in the comedy manner it has adopted to date, and Scotland is seen to be irrelevant to London, then Sturgeon will be forced into seriously considering another vote. If that were to happen, she will not want to tell Scots that they either have to accept a diminished NHS, or pay higher taxes.
Wellness programs at work: could your boss be spying on your health? No one wants a sick colleague, least of all their employer. Little wonder then that a host of companies are springing up to keep employees as healthy as possible. Workplace wellness is a $6bn industry in the US, according to the Rand consultancy. But the latest generation of tech-intensive wellness companies are bringing with them a host of privacy problems alongside their promises of health. In an effort to cut healthcare costs, large employers have started data mining their workers to assess their health status and target them in ways that might head off trouble. Health information company Castlight Healthcare, for example, recently developed a “new product that scans insurance claims to find women who have stopped filling birth control prescriptions, as well as women who have made fertility-related searches on Castlight’s health app, according to Wall Street Journal. The data mining was designed to pinpoint women who might be attempting to get pregnant, according to Jonathan Rende, Castlight’s chief research and development officer. The Castlight app would then send her emails or in-app messages geared towards pregnancy-related services like obstetricians or other pre-natal care. The news of an employer-sponsored program being able to determine that employees are trying to get pregnant alarmed privacy activists worried that employers would be able to obtain this information. “We strictly maintain complete employee confidentiality, and are fully compliant with all Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act [HIPAA] security and administrative protocols governing protected health information,” Castlight spokesman Jim Rivas said. “Castlight is 100% compliant with all federal privacy laws governing the handling of employee data. Moreover, employers that use our system never, under any circumstance, see individual employee data from Castlight Action.” According to Rivas, employee data “is anonymized, aggregated, and all the employer ever sees is the size of the group of employees at risk for certain conditions”. Castlight said it imposes a minimum on the size of the group with the intention of making it difficult to identify individual employees. Yet privacy experts still worry that such information is out there. What does your boss know? “The big worry here is: even if the data broker reports aggregate data, a) it has this information on an individual level – how else might it use it? and b) if you get granular enough, it’s pretty easy to figure out who exactly the top-level data is referring to,” said Frank Pasquale, a law professor at the University of Maryland, who studies health privacy. Pasquale’s fears are backed by probably the most well-known example of this. AOL’s CEO, Tim Armstrong, announced in early 2014 that “two AOL-ers that had distressed babies that were born that we paid a million dollars each to make sure those babies were OK in general”. While he did not name names, it was easy to figure out who the two employees were. Deanna Fei’s husband Peter Goodman was one of those two employees. Since then, Armstrong had apologized for his comments and Fei has written a memoir, Girl in Glass, about her prematurely born daughter Mila. By default, Fei has become an advocate for health privacy. “It’s now two years after my family’s public ordeal with AOL, and I still hear from people all the time who were targeted by their employers because they needed medical care. Sometimes the targeting is well-intentioned, but the consequences are still disastrous,” Fei said. “For example, a woman with a high-risk pregnancy who received mailings from her company that alerted her co-workers, her neighbors, and her in-laws to her condition before she even decided whether to continue with the pregnancy.” If information gathered through a wellness app was obtained by the employer and had an adverse effect on the employee, the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) would assume it is sex discrimination. “You are being demoted. You are denied a promotion. You are not getting a certain kind of assignments. All these kind of employment practices – those would be covered,” said Mary-Kay Mauren, senior attorney adviser at the EEOC. “The issue is what the employer does with the information,” said Corbett Anderson, assistant legal counsel from the EEOC office of legal counsel. According to him, the EEOC is currently working on two different rule-makings related to wellness programs. The rule-makings do not specifically address this issue, he said. Mailings like those mentioned by Fei or other communications have to be authorized by the employer, but come directly from companies like Castlight. According to the Castlight spokesman, such communications “encourage certain preventive or assistive actions to be taken where they might not otherwise think to look for care”. If such communications – phone calls or mailings – can be intercepted by other family members or others, it raises issues about privacy, said Dania Palanker, senior counsel at the National Women Law Center. Other privacy experts have pointed out that employers do not have access to employees’ medical histories. Unless, they are provided to them by the employees through the company’s wellness program. Such wellness programs have the potential to become surveillance programs, according to Ifeoma Ajunwa, who teaches law at the David A Clarke School of Law at University of the District of Columbia. “I don’t think all employers employ them that way,” she said. “I am not saying that all wellness programs are surveillance programs, but what we are seeing with the current status of the law, they do have that potential for unscrupulous employers to use them as a way to check on their employees and investigate the health of their employees.” Optional versus affordable The employers and the various companies behind the wellness programs point out that all wellness programs are optional. Yet when tied to financial incentives that can make a significant difference in the price tag of one’s healthcare, optional becomes … well, not so optional, experts argue. These programs are often connected to “large financial incentive that either makes your health insurance much more affordable or less affordable depending on whether you participate,” said Palanker. “You could have an employee that doesn’t really want to sign up for this, but they in a way have no choice, because it’s the only way they can afford your healthcare.” According to Deborah Peel a physician and founder of Patient Privacy Rights, the high deductibles and co-pays have contributed to deterioration of the relationship between people and their doctors. “Why don’t we encourage people to see the person that really will take responsibility for their health and help them? What they have done by demonizing patients and cutting their access to effective treatment is they have created this whole new industry of profits” said Peel. “So now instead of a doctor, what are you going to get? An app. Instead of a doctor! Give me a break.” Financial incentives linked to wellness programs are extortion, Peel said. “If bosses really care about their employees’ health, why don’t they give them greater health insurance benefits and no deductible so they can go see their doctors and caretakers? How many millions are they paying to these wellness companies? Why not give the money to the employees and make it possible for them to see doctors, buy healthy food and exercise? Why not invest in the employees in a way that supports them and does not violate them?”
Diversity, millennials and Trump: big issues dominate Australia’s screen conference Screen Forever – an annual industry event presented by Screen Producers Australia – enjoyed its fair share of back-slapping along with no small amount of hand-wringing this week, as screen content professionals wondered how to position themselves for the next stage of the national industry. Here are five takeaways from the annual three-day Melbourne conference, which wrapped up on Thursday. The industry is spooked by Trump The orange spectre of the US president-elect haunted proceedings, as the industry sought to understand the uncertainties of the new Trump era. Speaking with US producer Graham Yost – writer of Speed, Justified, and The Pacific – ABC Radio’s Virginia Trioli indulged in the age-old journalistic error of prosecuting a foreign nation’s political follies against a single helpless resident of that country. (Yost protested that he is actually Canadian, but that didn’t help him.) The amount of times the issue arose spoke to broader industry anxieties, not just about the international mood for storytelling (in the US, the producer of Quantico has suggested a more “hopeful” direction for the show in the aftermath of the election), but about possible changes to the terms of trade between Australia and the rest of the world. The media is in an existential panic The Trump effect has also made itself felt in the media’s general identity crisis. After traditional and mainstream news outlets (and pollsters) in America and the UK failed to accurately predict the outcome of Brexit and the US election, many in the Australian media are also wondering whether they really understand – and effectively communicate to – their audience. Speaking on 7:30 recently, the prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, insinuated that the ABC, and an “elite media”, spends too much attention on narrow issues rather than those of broader concern to the electorate. The recently appointed managing director of the ABC, Michelle Guthrie, rejected that characterisation, in a session with the Australian’s media editor on Wednesday. Acknowledging the existential crisis in journalism “is an issue”, she suggested the problem affects the ABC less than commercial media, which may be under economic pressure to withdraw from regional areas. Guthrie has been visiting regional ABC centres as part of her orientation, and praised the public broadcaster’s “depth and breadth” of coverage and its ability to focus on “bread and butter issues” in a range of communities. Producers love diversity, but aren’t yet sure how to get it The challenge of reflecting the Australian community on-screen aligned with a broader conversation weaving through the conference: the issue of diversity. In a week that saw Screen NSW announce a Diversity Action Plan, debate at the conference touched on the economic incentives for diverse productions – not just from funding bodies but from advertisers and audiences. It suggested a new understanding that the issue is not only morally worthy, but financially beneficial. At a panel discussion on Wednesday, some speakers seemed firmer on the notion that lack of diversity is a problem than on any practical solutions. Foxtel CEO Peter Tonagh spoke persuasively about the responsibility of businesses to take a lead in diversity issues – the pay TV broadcaster internally advocates for marriage equality, for instance – but he was conspicuously silent on what concrete measures could be pursued to ensure that screen productions are diversely staffed and cast. Co-panellist Courtney Gibson, chief executive at Screen NSW, later won applause for her organisation’s refusal to fund projects that lack women in key creative roles. Panellist Keli Lee, a managing director at the ABC Television Group in the US, and moderator Darren Dale, managing director of Blackfella Films, both said internships offered key opportunities for them early in their careers. But the Australian screen industry is marked by competition and precariousness, with creators often working project to project and fighting for limited funding. A foot in the door becomes less appealing if it’s followed by a long solitary climb to a glass ceiling – particularly for those from low socioeconomic backgrounds. The Australian Film and Radio School (AFTRS) used the panel as an opportunity to launch a new study, which outlines some steps that might be taken towards maintaining a diverse screen industry. But a glance at the delegates at the conference suggests real change will only happen when current screen professionals admit they need to make sacrifices. Millennials are feared, misunderstood and needed This theme cropped up in the head-scratcher event of the week, a panel titled The Millennials – WTF Do They Want and HTF Do We Work With Them? At one point in the discussion, moderator Paul Walton from Princess Pictures (the company behind much of Chris Lilley’s TV work) remarked that the industry needs a diversity initiative for millennial talent. Facetious or not, the suggestion reflects a growing awareness that employment structures have hardened not just against marginalised groups, but against a new generation of creatives with a surfeit of ambition and no clear pathways for advancement. There’s a sense older workers don’t even know how to talk to young employees, much less capitalise on their skills. Karla Burt, a producer at Princess, described a lucky intuition she had about one young production assistant. “Are you any good at making memes?” she asked – and on learning that the woman had a successful blog, promptly transferred her from dishwashing duties to meme production. Toward the end of the panel, a young producer from Vice Media stood up from the audience and explained that respect is a two-way street, and that older workers need to break down their own culture of entitlement – but it’s unclear whether anybody really listened. Local creators are getting rorted The minister for communication and the arts, Mitch Fifield, launched the Screen Currency report at the conference on Tuesday. The research from Screen Australia highlights the economic benefits the screen industry brings to the country, including a $3bn contribution to the GDP, 25,000 jobs, and 230,000 tourists. Screen Australia CEO Graeme Mason, speaking to a roomful of producers on Wednesday, praised the high quality of Australian screen content, and called it “arguably our best soft diplomacy tool internationally”. But he had harder words for this audience of professionals, and in a sometimes combative address seemed frustrated at the number of times Screen Australia has been expected to lend a hand to projects that are doomed to creatively disappoint. “Poor content doesn’t work on any meaningful level,” Mason said. “Especially in today’s funding and viewing environment.” Chief among his concerns was an the quantity of disadvantageous deals being presented to Screen Australia. Referencing some of the arcane procedures of Australian screen funding, Mason claimed that a few local producers, in their quest for funding, are letting international screen financiers muscle in on income from Australian productions, which should properly be kept within the local screen economy. “[A] lot of money is flowing in from international,” Mason said. “But please don’t sell the farm to get it.” That’s one of several ways in which Mason said local creators are allowing themselves and their local industry to get rorted, and putting well-established funding mechanisms such as the Producers Offset at risk through misuse. It’s also suggestive of the broader tensions in the local landscape. In an era marked by a glut of screen content and production – and more distribution channels than a consumer can shake a stick at – Australia still needs a “giant market manipulator” like Screen Australia to keep the industry on its feet, one whose focus on the national interest often overrides the needs of individual makers, the audience heard. But Screen Australia now has less money for more funding requests, and producers are abandoning opportunities to build a firmer economic foundation for their work – one of several ways in which this industry is lurching towards a future full of discomforting changes.
Michael Eavis urges Glastonbury fans to use their vote on Europe Michael Eavis, the Somerset farmer who runs the world’s biggest music festival, Glastonbury, has appealed to fans converging for this year’s event (from 22 to 26 June) to vote in the European Union referendum. Eavis and his festival have been the subject of concern from some political quarters – notably former Labour leader Neil Kinnock – because the gates for Glastonbury open the day before the referendum on Thursday 23 June, with music under way on the Friday morning. Lord Kinnock, who became a European commissioner and was vice-president of the European commission until 2004, said it would be a shame if young people were “rocking instead of voting”. The festival was arranged for its usual weekend, close to the summer solstice, long before the referendum date was chosen. “It has been like that for 47 years,” said Eavis. “Even Neil Kinnock should know that.” He added: “The people coming to our festival have to make sure they vote. The result of this referendum strongly affects their future – it’s so important for them and they’ve got to ensure they’re part of it. I do believe that the kids who come here will want to be involved. We have said it until we’re blue in the face: if you come, vote.” Eavis knows which box he would like voters to put their mark in. “It’s so important that we vote to remain in the EU,” he said. “They need to get out there, get stuck into this, and vote to stay part of Europe.” There will not be a polling station at the festival, so Eavis and the festival organisers are strongly encouraging ticket holders to vote by post or by proxy if they plan to leave home before polling stations open. “The show doesn’t start until Friday morning, so most people, coming after work on Thursday, have got a day,” said Eavis. “Many of the people travelling here on Thursday to catch the opening will have time to vote earlier in the day. But those coming from farther away will have to make other arrangements – and they need make sure to get their postal vote organised.” As with every other year in the weeks before the festival, fences go up, stages are built and Worthy Farm’s rolling meadows become fields of scaffolding, cranes and bustle. And when it comes to voting in or out, Eavis has also addressed the matter of the “thousands of people who are already here getting the whole thing together”. In Goose Hall, the pre-festival catering site for staff and crew, Eavis has set up an information desk to help people already on site to register for a postal vote – the deadline is 3 June – and get their votes into the mail. If they fail to do this, however, there is still hope. “We’re going to need to organise buses to ship [those] people from here to the polls on referendum day, if they’re registered within reasonable reach of the site,” said Eavis. “That’s something we’re going to look at more closely. We’re going to do all we can to accommodate people needing assistance to vote.” Eavis, the son of a Methodist minister, grew up on Worthy Farm. He was inspired to launch Glastonbury after going to the Bath music festival in 1970, where the line-up included Jefferson Airplane, the Byrds and Led Zeppelin. His first “Glastonbury Fair” brought David Bowie, Traffic, Hawkwind and other artists to the farm. Since then, Eavis has become a national institution – and a local one. He is at ease in the town of Glastonbury, four miles from his Worthy Farm at Pilton, often calling at Knight’s Fish and Chips restaurant – regularly voted “best in the west” – opposite the festival office, for a chat with townsfolk and music fans. Speaking of his own position on the referendum, and glad to urge his festival fans to agree with him, Eavis said: “I’m deeply for ‘In Europe’. In with both feet. It’s not for my sake – I’ve nearly finished; I’ve been on the go at this for 50 years – it’s for them. “I think most people who come to our festival are reasonably intelligent. And as such, they must realise that our future must be part of this European ideal. “I can understand the OAP – with a little house in Margate and a picture of the Queen on the mantelpiece – wanting to be little England again. I accept all that. But it’s the past: that’s just rainy old windswept Margate talking. This referendum is about the future, in which we have to be part of the bigger picture, a continent of opportunities, languages, colours, excitements and exchanges.” With direct regard to the job he does for the rest of the year, Eavis added: “I also need to vote for Europe as a farmer. Farming would be dead in the water if we left the EU. We’d be flooded even more with rock-bottom cheap stuff from Singapore and all over. For farming, this is a serious moment. “And my God, I need the Poles I have working here,” he added. “There are about six of them, and they’re fantastic. Up when we have to be at half-past three in the morning, on time, no problems, no fagging out in the barn. I don’t know what I’d do without them. No – we’ve got to vote, and we’ve got to stay in.”
GPs should not worry about offending obese patients, finds study GPs who raise the issue of their patients’ obesity in the surgery will not offend them and are likely to help them reach a healthy weight, a new study has shown. Doctors are notoriously nervous of telling people they are overweight and worry that initiating any discussion will lead to a long, fruitless conversation about failed diets and eating habits that will go on long beyond a 10-minute consultation. But a trial of a 30-second intervention in which the GP suggests the patient’s weight may be affecting their health and offers them a place on a weigh-loss programme reveals advice can make a major difference, according to research published in the Lancet medical journal. More than 130 GPs who took part in the trial, involving more than 1,800 patients, were asked to start a conversation that might go like this: GP: While you’re here, I just wanted to talk about your weight. You know the best way to lose weight is to go to [a weigh-management programme such as Slimming World or Rosemary Conley] and that’s available free on the NHS? Patient: Oh? GP: Yes, and I can refer you now if you are willing to give that a try? The patients were randomly assigned to be offered either an NHS-funded place on a 12-week weight-management programme or advice to lose weight. The researchers found that 77% of those offered a weight-management programme said yes, and 40% went to all the sessions. At the end of a year, those people had lost 2.43kg (0.38 stone) on average, while those given advice by the GP had also lost weight, but less, at an average of 1.04kg. Prof Paul Aveyard from the University of Oxford, who is a practising GP, said GPs do not talk to patients about their weight unless that is the reason they have come to the surgery. “We weigh people and that’s it. Whereas with smoking, every time we see them, once a year, we have to tell them effective ways to stop smoking,” he said. Trials from the 1970s had shown that if GPs tackled people about smoking, they were more likely to quit. But this is the first study to see whether it works in obesity too, he said. “GPs worry a lot about offending people. It is a very personal thing. Secondly, they do worry that the conversation will go on a long time and not actually lead anywhere,” he said. There was also the wish not to take on one more of society’s ills, Aveyard said. “The GP might easily say this is more than my job is about,” he added. Although weight management programmes can be prescribed for free for those who need them on the NHS, patients are usually left to make their own arrangements. In the trial, patients left with a voucher and an appointment for the first of their 12 free sessions. More than half went to practically all of them, said Aveyard. The average BMI of those in the trial was 35 – a BMI of over 35 is considered severely obese – which meant that people needed to lose 20 to 30 kilos to get down to a healthy weight. Obesity can lead to type 2 diabetes, heart problems, stroke and cancer. Even losing a few kilos can make a difference to people’s health. Slow and steady progress in bringing weight down is the goal of programmes which aim to change people’s attitudes to food as well as what they eat. The rapid weight-loss from most conventional diets is short-lived and people tend to put it on again once the diet ends. Dr Iain Turnbull, a GP in Swindon who took part in the trial, said one of the main reasons they do not mention weight when somebody arrives with a cough or a chest infection is constraint on time. “We don’t really have the opportunity to talk to them about weight management on top of everything else,” he said. “The reality of modern GP practice is that it is a terrifically high-pressured and time-intensive specialty.” But the study enabled him to keep the discussion brief and his patients were not offended. “I didn’t have any negative feedback from patients. They seemed quite pleased that I’d brought up the issue.” Paul Cooper from Northampton weighed 96 kg when his GP brought up the issue as part of the trial. “I couldn’t see my feet,” he said. In his case it was easier, as he was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes at the consultation. He chose not to go on a weight-management programme, but tackled his diet using a fitness app instead and is now 84 kg and continuing to lose weight in what he hopes is a sustainable manner. He was not angered by the GP telling him his weight was a problem. “Personally I think the doctor is the only person you would accept it from,” he said. Boyd Swinburne and Bruce Arroll from the University of Auckland in Australia have said the study calls for a rethink of how obesity is tackled in primary care everywhere. “It is surprising that this is the first study in primary care to investigate a brief intervention for obesity, perhaps reflecting the nihilism about weight loss that pervades medical care,” they write. Tam Fry, spokesman for the National Obesity Forum, said: “The paper effectively runs a coach and horses through the excuses that GPs in general have trotted out when challenged to talk to their patients about losing weight. Their principal argument has been that it’s pointless since no good weight-loss programmes exist. Nonsense. They do and have done so for years. “Now that the evidence is out in the open, family doctors should take action to prevent obesity and weight-related health problems that clog up their waiting rooms.” Dr Alison Tedstone, the chief nutritionist at Public Health England, said: “It’s important that GPs talk to their overweight and obese patients about losing weight and help them to find further support, as many do already. An extra 30 seconds could make all the difference; it doesn’t take long and can be raised in a supportive and sensitive manner.”
Premier League 2015-16 review: flop of the season Welcome to theguardian.com review of the 2015-16 Premier League season. Now that the campaign has ended we would like you to help us choose your favourite goal, the best referee and the best manager, and other winners in a total of 10 categories. We have nominated some contenders but this is just to get the discussion going: we would like your suggestions so that we can compile the best into final polls that you can vote on. The polls will be published at midday on Tuesday 17 May, so please tell us what you think. Thanks Memphis Depay Signed for £25m in the summer to inject Manchester United’s left wing with pace and incision, the Dutchman has done little to justify either the price tag or the No7 on the back of his shirt. It started reasonably well: two goals against Club Brugge in the Champions League, followed by another against his old club PSV, suggested he could continue the form that led to him scoring 22 goals in 30 league matches in the Netherlands. But two Premier League goals in 16 starts has meant he is rarely now named in the starting lineup. Often underwhelming, frequently a liability – the back-header to David de Gea which gifted Stoke their opening goal in their 2-0 win, for example – he has been put in the shade by Anthony Martial and the emergence of Marcus Rashford. Paul Scholes has urged for Depay to be given another season at the club, but he will have to step up if he is to justify it. Nicolás Otamendi Raheem Sterling’s form might have garnered more attention than his Manchester City team-mate Nicolás Otamendi, but the defender has struggled more than the forward. Compare Sterling’s season to, say, a success story like Martial and it suggests he has not been quite the flop it has been assumed. He and Martial were signed for similarly exorbitant fees (£49m for the former, £58.8m for the latter), are similar ages (21 and 20) and are broadly comparable in most pass completion, assist and key passes stats this season. Martial has 11 league goals to Sterling’s six, but has often been played as a striker while Sterling has not. Instead, leaving aside the performance of Yaya Touré this season, it is Otamendi who has most disappointed at Manchester City. In a season in which Vincent Kompany has frequently been absent with injury, Otamendi has entirely failed to step into the breach or live up to his £34m fee. Outpaced, outclassed and outplayed, he has never looked like touching the form he showed at Valencia. Cesc Fàbregas Last season, Cesc Fàbregas topped the stats charts for touches of the ball and assists, making him a vital component in Chelsea’s title win. This season, he has been a shadow of his former self. Signed in 2014 ostensibly as a replacement for Frank Lampard, Fàbregas lacked his predecessor’s dynamism but had far greater creativity. Last season, the dominant Nemanja Matic and hard-working Oscar provided the energy Fàbregas lacked in midfield, allowing the playmaker time and space to pick out passes. This season, Matic has lumbered, Oscar has been erratic or absent, and Mikel John Obi has been inconsistent, putting pressure on Fàbregas to work harder in defence and pick passes more quickly in attack. Neither suits his game. He has not been helped by Diego Costa’s attitude up front. The striker found arguments with defenders more regularly than space in between them, making Fàbregas’s job as his goal-butler harder. His decline in form in the build-up to José Mourinho’s sacking meant Chelsea fans made him a scapegoat for the dismissal of a favourite manager and the crowd’s reaction to his presence on the pitch cannot have helped his game. Eden Hazard Alongside Fàbregas and Costa, Eden Hazard was the other “rat” fingered by Chelsea fans post-Mourinho. Certainly Hazard and Mourinho have come to blows in the past, but, under the Portuguese in 2014-15, the Belgian still put in his best season, winning the PFA and Football Writers’ Player of the Year as well as being named Chelsea’s player of the year for the second season in a row. Though Pedro has underwhelmed, Falcao has been scandalous, and Costa has struggled, Hazard has been by far the most disappointing of Chelsea’s attackers this season. A hip and thigh injury have not helped, but Hazard’s displays have been strangely impotent, the fizz and pace his game relies on lacking. It took him nearly a year to follow his strike against Crystal Palace in May 2015 with another Premier League goal (against Southampton at the end of April) and though he has picked up in the final games of the season, his impressive performance from the bench during the fiery Chelsea v Tottenham match in May served only to remind what has been missing. Gabriel Agbonlahor Christian Benteke has been rotten for Liverpool, Seydou Doumbia dire for Newcastle, but Gabriel Agbonlahor has been the epitome of Aston Villa’s dreadful season. Despite being the club’s captain and an influential voice in the dressing room, the striker allowed himself to become so unfit he could not be selected, having already faced a club investigation for being pictured smoking a shisha pipe on holiday in Dubai. His return of one goal in 18 appearances in all competitions is bad enough, but for him to finish the season training in the reserves, having quit the captaincy and with the side relegated, makes him pretty much the personification of the Randy Lerner era at Aston Villa: potential and power left to waste by neglect. Check out the other categories: Player of the season Manager of the season Goal of the season Match of the season Signing of the season Gripe of the season Pundit of the season Referee of the season Innovations for the future
Hillary Clinton has delegates to clinch nomination, AP reports – as it happened “Let’s go forward and win this election in November,” she finishes - her second speech in a row not to address Sanders directly. But that line - “we welcome everyone to be a part of this campaign just as we welcome everyone to be a part of this administration” could well be read as a peace-offering to the Sanders campaign on the eve of the California primary. “We are going to run a grassroots campaign, a broad base campaign, where we reach out and welcome everyone to be part of this campaign just as we welcome everyone to be a part of this administration, to make sure we have a Democrat following Barack Obama,” she says, as perhaps an oblique offer of an olive-branch to Bernie Sanders. “It is not an overstatement for me to say that we have a really important election ahead of us now,” she says, her tone victorious. “California is really important, California is going to help us ... and were going to come out of the primary even stronger to take on Donald Trump.” She’s striking out at Trump. Just mention of her speech last week in San Diego gets a cheer. “Enough with the fear, enough with the anger, enough with the bigotry, enough with the bullying.” “Donald Trump is not qualified to be president of the United States of America.” FIveThirtyEight’s Harry Enten puts the percentage of delegates Clinton needs to win tomorrow to finish with a majority of pledged delegates at 31%, well below her average. How do you argue with a majority of pledged delegates? If you’re Bernie Sanders, you make the case that you’re the better candidate to take on Donald Trump in the general election, and as long as superdelegates are required to call it one way or another, a call for Sanders would be as valid as a call for Clinton. But it’s conceivable that Clinton, and the millions of people who voted for her (millions more than Sanders), might not go for that result, which does not appear to be happening anyway, in terms of any observable superdelegate movement away from Clinton and towards Sanders. Hillary Clinton’s primary eve party at the Greek Theatre in Hollywood was star-studded, writes the ’s Nicky Woolf: Chloe Grace Moretz posed for photographs inside the entrance. John Legend has sung; Eva Longoria just introduced Ricky Martin to the stage. Christina Aguilera and Stevie Wonder were all on the setlist. But there was a sense that celebration over the AP’s call this afternoon that Clinton had clinched the delegates required to be the presumptive nominee might be premature. “I know you saw the AP said we already had the nomination – do not let that keep you away,” said Longoria, before introducing Ricky Martin. “We need California. We need New Jersey. ... please find your polling place.” Sean Harrington, an attendee at the concert who had been a Clinton supporter since the beginning, said that his main reaction to the news was relief. “I expected this,” he said, “but I’m hoping it convinces Bernie Sanders supporters to recognize the stakes.” “I’m an idealist as well,” he added, “but given the stakes it’s important that we unify as a party.” Ricky Martin rocks the Clinton event: At the Clinton rally, actress Eva Longoria echoes musician John Legend: “We need California!” UPDATE: Clinton: “Let people vote. Let them have their say”: John Legend, performing at the Hillary Clinton rally, advises supporters not to count their chickens but to get out and vote: Who’s up for a little DMB? CNN’s delegate count squares with the AP’s: The network has published a piece explaining its reporting that Clinton “has clinched the Democratic nomination by securing the majority of delegates at this time: CNN adds a superdelegate to its overall delegate estimate if any of the following occurs: 1) the superdelegate tells CNN directly whom he or she is supporting (either through our canvassing or our overall reporting); 2) the superdelegate publicly announces his or her support either in a public event, public statement, press release, or in a posting on a verified social media platform; 3) an authorized spokesman for the superdelegate confirms the endorsement to CNN or issues a public statement; 4) the presidential campaign receiving the endorsement makes a public announcement. Bernie Sanders spokesman Michael Briggs pushed back on the notion that Clinton had clinched the nomination, dubbing the reports as “a rush to judgment.” “It counts superdelegates that the Democratic National Committee itself says should not be counted because they haven’t voted,” Briggs told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow on Monday evening, adding that the potential remained for the superdelegates to change their minds. Asked when the Sanders campaign would consider the race to be over, Briggs demurred. “He’s led a dramatic revolutionary insurgency in the party,” he said of Sanders, “and we are trying our darndest to give those people the voice that they have earned and deserved in the Democratic Party process.” During his own appearance on the same program, Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager Robby Mook said the news was “very exciting” but reiterated that the candidate was not taking anything for granted ahead of Tuesday’s primary contests. “Hillary made a pledge at the beginning of this campaign that she’s going to fight for every single vote, fight for every single delegate. I think the proof is in the results,” Mook said. “Hillary leads right now by more than 3 million popular votes. She has a lead of almost 300 pledged delegates. She’s won more states and we want to continue building on that lead going into – going into these final contest.s” “That’s what we’re focused on right now. Obviously this news is very exciting, but we’re focused,” he added. “Our nose is on the grindstone and we’re going to keep working until the polls close tomorrow.” West Coast bureau chief Paul Lewis is at a Bernie Sanders rally in San Francisco, where some members of the crowd are none too happy with the journalists on hand. “Sanders is now on stage,” Paul writes: Some the Sanders crowd have started sniping with journalists in the media pen in scenes reminiscent of Donald Trump rallies. “You’re not journalists, shame on you,” said Chris Einfeldt, jabbing his fingers at reporters from CNN and NPR. An attorney who said he had given up his job in September to run phone banks for the senator, Einfeldt accused the mainstream media of participating in a conspiracy to get Clinton elected. “I don’t think the mood is somber,” he said, when asked about the atmosphere in the crowd, which was subdued compared to other rallies. “There are 6,500 fucking people here and you’re going to report the mood is somber? That isn’t journalism, it’s advocacy.” Does today’s news have you looking back down the long trail we’ve traversed? In that case, never forget: one year ago today: Scott Walker eats ribs: Clinton tweets, “let’s go win this thing”: This is the kind of thing that surely would never happen should Donald Trump be elected president...The National Review reports that a Trump operative reached out to the family of the wife of columnist David French, who had been floated as a potential third-party candidate, to... threaten them? Or something? Does anyone in the house speak mobster? Hillary Clinton’s unofficial millennial outreach coordinators / fangirls Lena Dunham - who campaigned for her in the early voting states - and America Ferrera - who memorably said she’d like to Netflix and Chill with the former Secretary of State - react to news that she won the Democratic nomination in a very millennial way: Susan Sarandon, on the other hand: not having it: The former secretary of state isn’t the only candidate to tout her/his record of “breaking glass ceilings” on behalf of women. In an interview Monday night with Fox News, Donald Trump said: “I was the one that really broke the glass ceiling on behalf of women more than anybody in construction industry.” The statement came after the Republican nominee pushed back against a Boston Globe story that he paid men more than women on his campaign. The Associated Press announced at 8:19 ET that Hillary Clinton had clinched the Democratic nomination. The problem for the Clinton camp was that her victory party is planned for tomorrow night – and her team did not seem particularly happy with the AP stealing its thunder, writes the ’s Lauren Gambino: Clinton tweeted she was “flattered” by the AP’s call but there were states yet to win. Her campaign manager, Robby Mook, followed by every person authorized to speak publicly on her team, quickly moved to remind voters to please! vote! tomorrow! “This is an important milestone, but there are six states that are voting Tuesday,” Mook, said in a statement. The barely concealed subtext was a wish for the candidate not to be in the position of declaring victory and simultaneously coming up short in California, the delegates mother lode. Clinton sent supporters an email flagging the message, however, thanking them for the good news while declaring the primary season not yet over - and asking for their contribution. The rest of Clinton’s constellation, meanwhile – her top surrogates and moneymakers – went silent. The two largest superPacs supporting Clinton said they are waiting until Tuesday night to issue a statement. Her surrogates’ Twitter accounts were business as usual: breaking down barriers and taking shots at Trump. Even former president Bill Clinton stuck to the message, marking his wife’s historic ascension with a “what she said” and an emoji. Clinton just wrapped her penultimate primary campaign event in California with a speech which approached victorious in tone, reports the ’s Nicky Woolf: In front of a crowd of around 1,000 at Long Beach City College, Clinton said that “according to the news, we are on the brink of a historic moment.” “But we still have work to do,” she continued. “We will fight hard for every vote especially here in California.” Notable for his absence from her speech was Bernie Sanders, whom the former secretary of state didn’t mention once in her remarks, though she did call for unity in general terms, saying “the final thing I would ask you to consider is how to unite our country … Abraham Lincoln said a house divided cannot stand, and he was right.” “We have to start listening to each other and respecting each other,” she added. Clinton did, however, strike out several times at the presumptive Republican nominee for president, saying that she “cannot wait” to debate Donald Trump, and noting that when asked about his foreign policy credentials he said that he had “brought the Miss Universe pageant to Moscow.” Bill Clinton: “what she said”: (h/t @lgamgam) How likely is Hillary Clinton to win the Democratic presidential nomination? Washington bureau chief Dan Roberts digs into his pockets and comes up with very many “very’s”: Our own Nicky Woolf is reporting from the trail with the Clinton campaign: The Clinton campaign is pouring some serious ice on the AP announcement, and not the kind that comes out of a Gatorade cooler: Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook has released a statement that seriously downplays the 2,383 threshold and predicts that Clinton on Tuesday will cross the 2,026 pledged-delegate mark, which would give her a majority of pledged delegates. She’s currently at 1,812 pledged delegates, by the AP count (see below). This is an important milestone, but there are six states that are voting Tuesday, with millions of people heading to the polls, and Hillary Clinton is working to earn every vote. We look forward to Tuesday night, when Hillary Clinton will clinch not only a win in the popular vote, but also the majority of pledged delegates.” – Campaign Manager Robby Mook Clinton sympathizers are circling the wagons to underscore the legitimacy – or at least hidebound-ness – of the nomination process, which Sanders and Donald Trump have done so much this cycle to challenge: The most effective argument from the Clinton side on the question of whether a majority-with-superdelegates makes an actual majority, perhaps, is her own decision to concede a closer nominating fight to Barack Obama eight years ago. Here’s a good point about whether the timing of AP’s call falls nicely for Clinton: It doesn’t, in the sense that if California supporters feel she’s already won, they may be less likely to turn out and vote for her. The same effect may hold for Sanders supporters, however – might they be discouraged by morning headlines announcing her victory? And as we call it her “victory,” here’s a printed (typed at least) reminder that it is possible, however unlikely it may seem, for those superdelegates to shift from Clinton to Sanders. He’d also need to win a big majority of the remaining pledged delegates, however, to make it add up to a nomination. Our comprehensive delegate tracker is here. Bernie Sanders tells the AP that superdelegates don’t count until the convention. He’s correct that no delegates vote until the convention. Whether his argument that superdelegates are likely or motivated to leave Clinton at this stage is persuasive depends on where you sit: Here’s the latest AP count: she’s right at 2,383: With “a burst of last-minute support from superdelegates,” Hillary Clinton has crossed the threshold of 2,383 delegates needed to clinch the Democratic presidential nomination, the Associated Press reported late Monday. Clinton appeared to have collected at least two dozen superdelegate commitments late in the day, after climbing to 2,360 delegates in contests over the weekend in the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. Neither the Clinton campaign nor the campaign of her rival, Bernie Sanders, responded immediately to requests for comment. Clinton had said that she expected to clear the “historic” hurdle making her the first woman nominee of a major political party sometime on Tuesday evening, after results began to come in from Democratic contests in six states. Sanders had said he would stay in the Democratic race through the convention in July, especially if he turned in a strong performance in the California primary Tuesday. Developing... Arnold Schwarzenegger: truly not a Trump supporter. “Florida’s attorney general personally solicited a political contribution from Donald Trump around the same time her office deliberated joining an investigation of alleged fraud at Trump University and its affiliates,” the AP reports: The new disclosure from Attorney General Pam Bondi’s spokesman to The Associated Press on Monday provides additional details around the unusual circumstances of Trump’s $25,000 donation to Bondi. After the money came in, Bondi’s office nixed suing Trump. The money came from a Trump family foundation in apparent violation of rules surrounding political activities by charities. A political group backing Bondi’s re-election, called And Justice for All, reported receiving the check Sept. 17, 2013 — four days after Bondi publicly announced she was considering joining a New York state probe of Trump University’s activities. Marc Reichelderfer, a political consultant who worked for Bondi’s re-election effort and fielded questions on the donation at her request, told AP that Bondi spoke with Trump “several weeks” before her office publicly announced it was deliberating whether to join a multi-state lawsuit proposed by New York’s Democratic attorney general. Reichelfelder said Bondi was unaware of dozens of consumer complaints received by her office about Trump University filed before she requested the donation. “The process took at least several weeks, from the time they spoke to the time they received the contribution,” Reichelderfer told AP. The timing of the donation by Trump is notable because the now presumptive Republican presidential nominee has said he expected and received favors from politicians to whom he gave money. “When I want something I get it,” the presumptive Republican nominee said at an Iowa rally in January. “When I call, they kiss my ass. It’s true.” Read the full piece here. “By choosing not to pursue Trump in court, Bondi left the unhappy students on their own to try to get refunds from the celebrity businessman,” the piece concludes. @BencJacobs flags a defense of Trump’s views on judge Gonzalo Curiel that can only be described as Carson-esque. Here’s senator Richard Shelby of Alabama, who turned 82 last month, speaking with ABC News: If erstwhile enthusiastic Trump backer Newt Gingrich was disgruntled by Trump’s attack on judge Gonzalo Curiel, which Gingrich at the weekend called “inexcusable,” the former House speaker appears to have regained some measure of joy, thanks to ABBA: [UPDATE] The ’s Megan Carpentier points out that Dancing Queen is the former House speaker’s ringtone. Update your veepstakes. This one’s for you, Newt: (ty @bencjacobs) Hillary Clinton pivoted to gun violence and its impact on African American communities in her rally at Leimert Park, a historic African Anerican neighborhood in southern Los Angeles. She vowed action on guns and judicial reform – and earned cheers when she cited her husband’s White House record. The cheering was enthusiastic, if not rapturous. There was no sign of Black Lives Matter protestors who have targeted Clinton before over the spike in incarcerations in the 1990s. Some brief condemnations of Donald Trump’s broadsides against Latinos earned subdued cheers. There has been occasional tension in southern LA between African Americans and Latinos, who have become majorities in many neighborhoods. Clinton dwelt on immigration reform in an earlier rally at Plaza Mexico in nearby Lynwood, which is largely Latino. Donald Trump spokeswoman Katrina Pierson fastidiously declines to agree that faulting Trump’s sister, federal appeals judge Maryanne Barry, because she is a woman would be “awful”, depending on “her decisions in the past.” Several hundred people are awaiting Hillary Clinton in Leimert Park, a historic artistic and African American district in southern Los Angeles, writes the ’s Rory Carroll: Clinton is not here yet, but it’s already bigger and livelier than this morning’s rally in Latino-dominant Lynwood. Warm-up man Jason George, the Grey’s Anatomy actor, asked if anyone planned to vote for Bernie Sanders. About a dozen raised hands. He pleaded with them to support Clinton after tomorrow’s vote. “Let’s agree we’re all moving in the same direction,” he said. “We need to defeat Donald Trump.” Gregory Hooker (pictured below), a retired clinical social worker who supports Sanders, is reconciled to Clinton winning the Democratic nomination. He said he will back her in November, reluctantly. “Anyone else, I wouldn’t vote for her, but she’s running against Satan. I’m extremely anxious about Trump. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was elected.” Another Kasich voter? Michael Reagan, son of the late president, is not aboard the Trump train, he tweets – joining a group of demurrals that includes both former presidents Bush and former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney. Reagan goes on to tweet that Ronald Reagan wouldn’t be a Trump voter, either: The bit about Ronald Reagan never turning his back on a Republican presidential nominee seems wrong, however; Reagan was a Democrat well into his 40s and voted for Franklin Delano Roosevelt four times. (h/t @bencjacobs) Senator Tom Cotton held up the nomination of Cassandra Butts to be ambassador to the Bahamas because Butts was an old friend of Barack Obama and Cotton knew keeping a hold on her nomination would inflict special pain on the president, he told her. Butts died unexpectedly on 25 May of undiagnosed leukemia. Frank Bruni’s column in the New York Times today tells the story: Asked about Donald Trump’s imputation of bias to judge Gonzalo Curiel based on Curiel’s Mexican heritage, former presidential candidate Ted Cruz, who father is a Cuban emigré, said Trump’s assertion was “inappropriate”: Of course it’s inappropriate to be attacking federal judges’ race or ethnicity. You’re going to have to ask Donald to explain why he says the things he does. I’m not going to try to do so. Asked for Dr Ben Carson’s reaction to Trump’s comments, a spokesperson directed the to this Carson tweet: Barack Obama and American football idol Peyton Manning, who enjoyed a stellar 18-year career in the NFL, exchanged banter about retirement at the White House on Monday. The US president was hosting the Super Bowl champions, the Denver Broncos, whom he described as “a gritty, hard-nosed group of grinders” and one of the best defences of all time. Manning, 40, who quit the sport in March, and other Broncos players stood behind Obama in the rose garden to celebrate their victory over the Carolina Panthers. Obama poked fun at Manning’s prolific new career featuring in TV commercials. “Anybody who’s been a football fan has watched what is one of the greatest hall of fame careers ever,” he said of the only quarter ]back to lead two different teams to Super Bowl wins. “We were all obviously a little disappointed to see him hanging up this spring but, as somebody who’s just a little bit older than he is, I’m sympathetic to the idea that running around with these guys, it takes its toll. But it is great to see somebody with a career like that, who always conducted himself on the field and off the field the way he did, to be able to go out on top.” The audience burst into applause. A smiling Obama added: “Peyton and I were talking back there and he said, ‘Yeah, you should try it, don’t overstay your welcome.’ But I got term limits so I had no choice, I can’t.” Manning laughed. The team presented him with an ‘Obama 44’ shirt and helmet. But the president, ever loyal to Chicago, confessed: “I will continue to root for the Bears.” Now that House speaker Paul Ryan has endorsed Donald Trump for president, he may be losing less sleep over Sarah Palin’s ominous warning that Ryan’s failure to back Trump could cost him his seat in Congress. But Ryan’s primary opponent is not giving up. Paul Nehlen has traveled all the way to Texas – and spent money on helicopter footage – to don gumboots and trudge through a muddy stream carrying a plastic crate with the word “drugs” written on it in what looks like white athletic tape. He says the stream is the Rio Grande but there’s no tape to prove it. “Smuggling drugs into America shouldn’t be this easy,” Nehlen says. “But it is.” “Cheap Mexican heroin – is killing – Americans in record numbers,” a winded Nehlen says. His campaign stipulated the crate only symbolically contains drugs but whatever’s in it is apparently sort of heavy. “It’s gotta stop,” Nehlen continues. “Paul Ryan’s had 18 years to fix this, and he’s failed.” Women working for the Donald Trump campaign made on average about three-quarters of what men on staff made in April, according to a Boston Globe analysis: The women who work for Trump — who account for about 28 percent of his total staff — made an average of about $4,500 in April, according to the Globe analysis. The men made nearly $6,100, or about 35 percent more. The disparity is slightly greater than the gender pay gap nationally. Of the 15 highest-paid employees for that month, only two were women. The analysis of Trump campaign records also revealed that Trump’s staff comprised only about 9% minorities, compared with about a third on Hillary Clinton’s staff. Read the full piece here. Donald Trump told surrogates on a conference call Monday to “throw out” an internal memo instructing them to stop talking about the Trump University fraud cases, Bloomberg Politics reports. Instead, Trump said, according to two unnamed sources on the call, surrogates should attack journalists who ask whether it is racist for Trump to brandish the presiding judge’s Mexican heritage as “bias”. “The people asking the questions—those are the racists,” Trump said, according to two unnamed sources cited by Bloomberg. “I would go at ‘em.” Trump told the Wall Street Journal last week that judge Gonzalo Curiel’s Mexican heritage presents “absolute conflict” in the class-action fraud cases against his university owing to Trump’s proposal that a wall be erected between the United States and Mexico. At the weekend Trump said it was possible that American Muslim judges would also be biased against him. Trump appeared to grow frustrated on the call when he found out an internal campaign memo had instructed surrogates not to talk about Trump University and instead to refer to the court cases as ongoing. “Take that order and throw it the hell out,” Trump said, according to Bloomberg. “Are there any other stupid letters that were sent to you folks? That’s one of the reasons I want to have this call, because you guys are getting sometimes stupid information from people that aren’t so smart.” Trump also reportedly said, “We will overcome”. And I’ve always won and I’m going to continue to win. And that’s the way it is. Read the full piece here. Hillary Clinton has launched a sharp attack on Donald Trump over his contention that federal judge Gonzalo Curiel’s Mexican heritage should disqualify Curiel from presiding over Trump University cases. “[Curiel] was born in Indiana. He is as American as I am and he’s as American as Donald Trump is,” Clinton said, continuing: Trump doesn’t want you to pay attention to what this case is revealing. So he is attacking the judge and saying, outrageously, that the judge, who is of Mexican heritage, cannot serve fairly over his case. Just yesterday he said well, because of all the negative things he has said about American Muslims, he doesn’t know that an American Muslim judge could fairly preside over a case. I’m waiting for him to say because of all the bigoted things he has said about women that a woman judge couldn’t preside. By the time he’s finished, no one’s going to be left in this country that he is going to have exempted from insults. We need to stop this divisiveness, this bullying and bigotry. And the best way to do this is to send a big message tomorrow. While Bernie Sanders defended his unlikely campaign strategy at a press conference in San Francisco, Hillary Clinton reflected on how it felt to be on the verge of making history during a campaign stop in Compton. “It’s really emotional,” Clinton told reporters after a tour of a community center in Compton. “I am someone who has been very touched and really encouraged by this extraordinary conviction that people have, predominantly women and girls but not exclusively. Men bring their daughters to meet me and tell me that they are supporting me because of their daughters.” “I do think that it will make a very big difference for a father or a mother to be able to look at their daughter just as they can look at their son and say you can be anything you want to be in this country, including president of the United States.” Clinton is expected to make history as the first female presidential nominee on Tuesday. She needs fewer than 30 delegates to clinch the nomination, and is expected to cross the finish line in New Jersey, even before polls close in California. Asked if Sanders should drop out after the California primary, Clinton demurred and then noted that exactly eight years from Tuesday, she conceded the primary race to then-senator Barack Obama. “I believed it was the right thing to do no matter what differences we had in our long campaign,” she said. “They paled in comparison to the differences we had with the Republicans, and that is actually even more true today.” Responding to reports that the president could endorse her as early as Wednesday, Clinton said: “Obviously I’m excited to have the president’s support. As I said in my campaign, I was honored to serve in his cabinet as secretary of state. I look forward to campaigning with the president and everybody else.” Obama has refused to intervene in the Democratic primary, but has tacitly voiced support for his former secretary of state over Sanders, whose campaign is effectively a referendum on his economic legacy. Former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has apparently voted for Ohio governor John Kasich in the California Republican primary. Bernie Sanders remained defiant at a news conference in northern California on Monday saying he has no intention of dropping out of the race and that he can win the nomination by taking the Golden State and then convincing unpledged “super-delegates” to back him. “My focus is on winning the largest state in our country,” Sanders said at the event in a hotel in Emeryville, across the bay from San Francisco, when reporters asked him whether he would drop out and endorse Hillary Clinton if he loses California on Tuesday. “You’re asking me to speculate. Let me just talk to you after the primary here in California where we hope to win. Let’s assess where we are after tomorrow,” he added. The Vermont senator got testy with one reporter who asked him to respond to female voters who believe it’s sexist for him to remain in the race despite being far behind Clinton in his delegate count. “Is that a serious question?” he responded. “Your question implies that any woman who is running for president is by definition the best candidate. … I don’t think it is sexist. … I believe I’m the stronger candidate.” Sanders said his campaign has already convinced about four super-delegates – who are unpledged and free to change their votes – to back him. “There’s no question that we are going to get more,” he said. “We are in private conversations. We have seen a little bit of momentum.” He said more super-delegates will flip when they look at “the objective evidence of polling [and] … the objective evidence of who has the strongest grassroots campaign”. Sanders has refused to entertain the idea that his campaign may be over even though Clinton’s win in Puerto Rico over the weekend means she is fewer than 30 delegates short of the 2,838 required to win the nomination. Polls show that Clinton and Sanders are in a very tight race for California’s 546 delegates, with some suggesting that the Vermont senator may be leading by one point. Clinton and Sanders have both had jam-packed schedules of rallies across California, and Sanders fans have argued that their candidate will launch a comeback in the Golden State that will allow him to fight for the nomination in a contested convention.Sanders said on Tuesday he has held 38 events in 34 cities and towns across California, reaching 215,000 people. Six states will apportion more than 700 delegates on Tuesday, and it’s possible that Clinton will clinch the nomination on the east coast before the polls have even closed in California. In the short event, Sanders repeated his claims that he is in a better position to take on Trump in the general election. “I am very proud that in virtually every national poll and in every statewide poll … we are defeating Trump and we are defeating him badly,” he said, adding of Clinton, “In some cases, she is actually losing to Trump when we are defeating him.” Clinton for weeks has said her lead is insurmountable. Although she does not need California to win, a Sanders victory would be a big public relations loss for the frontrunner and could be used as further justification for Sanders staying in the race. In recent weeks, Clinton has been criticized for her limited press availabilities, with reporters and Donald Trump noting that the former secretary of state has not held a formal press conference since December. Florida senator, former presidential candidate and Johnny-come-lately Donald Trump supporter Marco Rubio told a local ABC affiliate that the presumptive Republican presidential nominee’s racialized criticism of federal judge Gonzalo Curiel, who presides over the multi-state fraud suit against Trump University, is “wrong.” “I think it’s wrong,” Rubio told ABC affiliate WFTV. “He needs to stop saying it.” “[Curiel] is an American, born in the US, a judge who has earned that position,” he continued. “I don’t think it reflects well in the Republican Party. I don’t think it reflects wells on us as a nation.” Rubio had informally endorsed Trump after a bitter primary contest, telling a Miami radio station that “I’ve always said I’m going to support the Republican nominee, and that’s especially true now that it’s apparent that Hillary Clinton.” Since then, however, Rubio has kept the nominee at arm’s length, deflating speculation that he might serve as Trump’s running mate. “While Republican voters have chosen Donald Trump as the presumptive GOP nominee, my previously stated reservations about his campaign and concerns with many of his policies remain unchanged,” Rubio said at the time. Trump’s criticism of Curiel appears to have girded Rubio on his continued skepticism: the Florida senator told WFTV that “I ran for president and I warned this was going to happen.” A highly scientific poll of six Latino voters in the McDonald’s beside Hillary Clinton’s imminent rally in Plaza Mexico, Lynwood, suggests she will sweep California’s Latinos. Or at least those that munch breakfast in this corner of southern Los Angeles. Five said they planned to vote for the former secretary of state on Tuesday, citing her experience and happy memories of her husband’s time in office. “I trust in her knowledge and experience,” said Maria de la Madrid, 53, a cosmetologist. “And I remember Bill Clinton. They were a good team. They know how the system works.” Honrada Fombona, 79, agreed. “Hillary is a complete woman in every sense of the word. Accomplished.” As they spoke police deployed around Plaza Mexico, an auditorium and shopping complex. It was a grey, overcast day - typical “June gloom” weather. Javier Martinez, 73, a retired garment cutter, said it was time for a change - and that Clinton would deliver it. “She’s had top jobs, did them magnificently.” Five of the six expressed varying degrees of sympathy for Bernie Sanders but felt they didn’t know him well enough. “I never heard of him until a few months ago,” said Gerardo Valdez, 65, a retired machine operator. Real polls suggest many young Latinos feel the Bern, but that was news to Valdez. “I don’t anyone who plans to vote for him.” Only Napo Fombana, 50, said he would not vote. “Nah. I don’t have time.” Update: Four young Latinos here are feeling the Bern, ish. “I think I’m feeling it,” said Oscar Ibarra, 24. Why? “Hmm. I don’t know.” His friends Cindy Negrete, 21, and Diane Negrete, 23, fellow students at East Los Angeles community college, reminded him: free college tuition. If come November the choice is Clinton or Donald Trump they said they would back the former first lady on the grounds the Republican candidate was, among other things, a “clown”. Juan Ibarra, 22, also favoured Sanders but care more about the pot legalisation measure inTuesday’sballot. Huma Abedin is standing in her kitchen, shortly after her husband Anthony Weiner’s candidacy for mayor of New York City has been rocked by new revelations in the sexting scandal that forced him to resign from Congress in 2011. A voice from behind a camera perched inside her Manhattan apartment asks her to describe how she feels. After some silence as she makes a cup of coffee, Abedin offers a sole observation as she walks away: “It’s like living a nightmare.” The scene is one of many painful moments in Weiner – a revelatory documentary about the former congressman’s failed effort to revive his political career in the 2013 New York race. Its arrival in the heat of a presidential election has cast a spotlight once more on Abedin, the trusted aide to Hillary Clinton who has emerged in recent years as a prominent figure in her own right. Even as she keeps a low profile on the campaign trail, Abedin has long been a subject of public fascination – not simply because of the ways in which her private life has held traces similar to that of her boss, but largely due to her own rise as Clinton’s right-hand woman. She has been dubbed as Clinton’s “secret weapon”, in a profile in Vogue that also celebrated her sartorial flair, as well as the former first lady’s “shadow”. But despite spending nearly two decades in such close proximity to one the most prolific politicians in the world, Abedin’s discomfort with the spotlight is readily apparent in the film that features her for the first time in the role of a protagonist. Nebraska senator Ben Sasse, one of the few Republicans who has stood fast to his #NeverTrump pledge, has called Donald Trump’s racialized criticism of federal judge Gonzalo Curiel, who presides over the multi-state fraud suit against Trump University, racist. Guess who’s missing? Donald Trump, the self-described billionaire who has declared the value of his personal fortune to be more than $10 billion, has once again availed himself of a tax break meant for middle-class New Yorkers with incomes below $500,000 per year. According to Crain’s New York, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee’s latest property-tax bill reveal a credit under the New York State School Tax Relief (STAR) program, eligibility for which is only available to households with incomes less than $500,000 per year. (And it’s not the first time.) It’s the upmarket cocktail that’s making America feel great again – until the hangover kicks in, of course. The alcohol-heavy Trumptini with the moderately yuuuge price tag is also set to make Donald Trump considerably more wealthy, after the presumptive Republican presidential nominee this week shifted a portfolio of trademarks, including that of the colourful tipple, into business-friendly Delaware, presumably for tax purposes. Taking seriously the ’s mission to fully chronicle every aspect of the general election campaign, we set out to investigate the Trumptini with some in-depth research in the Fusion Lounge at the Trump International Beach Resort in Miami Beach. We found that while several variations of The Donald’s favoured aperitif seem to exist, all have one element in common – a single twist of decadence that elevates the Trumptini beyond a cocktail for the common voter and into one of truly presidential stature. Republican candidate for senate Ryan Frazier has an interesting line of attack against Washington elites in a new ad, in which entrenched congressional inaction is compared to a zombie apocalypse. “They just keep coming at us - devouring our freedoms and tax dollars,” Frazier intones in the ad, as low-rent zombies hiss and growl at the camera. Who, exactly? “The Washington elite: The walking deadheads.” Described in the ad as a “naval intelligence veteran, business leader, outsider, [and] zombie hunter,” Frazier pledges to “fight a corrupt system” if he is elected to the senate. Presumably, with a machete. Maine Republican senator Susan Collins has issued a statement condemning presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s racialized criticism of federal judge Gonzalo Curiel, who presides over the multi-state fraud suit against Trump University. “Donald Trump’s comments on the ethnic heritage and religion of judges are absolutely unacceptable,” Collins said. “His statement that Judge Curiel could not rule fairly because of his Mexican heritage does not represent our American values. Mr. Trump’s comments demonstrate both a lack of respect for the judicial system and the principle of separation of powers.” Trump has repeatedly stated that Curiel’s assignment to the case represents “an absolute conflict” because he is “of Mexican heritage”. “I’m building a wall,” Trump told the Wall Street Journal, of his proposed 2,000-mile barrier along the US-Mexico border with the stated goal of preventing undocumented immigrants from entering the country. “It’s an inherent conflict of interest.” Collins, a moderate Republican, has said that she will support Trump’s presidential bid. Be part of an experiment by the Mobile Innovation Lab as we test web notifications for the Democratic presidential primaries on Tuesday 7 June. We’ll be sending three experimental types of notifications related to the US presidential primaries. We’ll send individual state results for Democratic candidates as they come in, insights from our reporters in the field and, the following morning, a recap of the 10 most important highlights of the night. Web notifications are currently only available on Chrome, so if you have an Android mobile phone (Samsung, included!), we hope you’ll sign up. Click here to sign up for the experiment. Congressman Filemon Vela, a Texas Democratic, has published a blistering open letter to presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, calling him a racist and telling the real estate tycoon that “you can take your border wall and shove it up your ass.” “Your ignorant anti-immigrant opinions, your border wall rhetoric, and your recent bigoted attack on an American jurist are just plain despicable,” Vela wrote. “Your position with respect to the millions of undocumented Mexican workers who now live in this country is hateful, dehumanizing, and frankly shameful.” Filemon, who represents the heavily Latino Texas 34th congressional district on the Gulf Coast, tells Trump that he has “descended to a new low in your racist attack of an American jurist,” referring to Trump’s racialized criticism of federal judge Gonzalo Curiel, who presides over the multi-state fraud suit against Trump University. “Before you dismiss me as just another ‘Mexican,’ let me point out that my great-great grandfather came to this country in 1857, well before your own grandfather,” Vela writes. “I would like to end this letter in a more diplomatic fashion, but I think that you, of all people, understand why I cannot,” he concludes. “I will not presume to speak on behalf of every American of Mexican descent, for every undocumented worker born in Mexico who is contributing to our country every day or, for that matter, every decent citizen in Mexico. But, I am sure that many of these individuals would agree with me when I say: ‘Mr. Trump, you’re a racist and you can take your border wall and shove it up your ass.’ ” Former presidential half-brother - and potential future presidential brother-in-law - Roger Clinton has been arrested in Southern California for driving under the influence, according to TMZ. On Sunday, just two days before the California Democratic primary, Clinton was reportedly booked for driving under the influence in the Los Angeles suburb of Redondo Beach. He reportedly remains in police custody with his bail set at $15,000. It’s not Clinton’s first run-in with the law. Known by the Secret Service during his brother’s presidential campaign as “Headache,” Clinton was granted a presidential pardon by his half-brother in 2001 for a 1985 cocaine possession conviction. Online entertainment and news titan Buzzfeed has cancelled an advertising agreement with the Republican National Committee, citing the “offensive” rhetoric of the party’s presidential nominee, Donald Trump, who is “directly opposed to the freedoms of our employees in the United States and around the world.” The Republican National Committee signed an agreement with BuzzFeed in April to spend “a significant amount on political advertisements” set to run during the fall campaign season, wrote Buzzfeed founder and CEO Jonah Perretti in an email to Buzzfeed staff. But since Trump’s rise, Perretti said, the candidate’s positions have become “hazardous” to Buzzfeed’s readers and employees. “Trump advocates banning Muslims from traveling to the United States, he’s threatened to limit the free press, and made offensive statements toward women, immigrants, descendants of immigrants, and foreign nationals,” Perretti wrote. That’s why “earlier today Buzzfeed informed the RNC that we would not accept Trump for President ads and that we would be terminating our agreement with them,” he continued. “The Trump campaign is directly opposed to the freedoms of our employees in the United States and around the world and in some cases, such as his proposed ban on international travel for Muslims, would make it impossible for our employees to do their jobs.” Politico reports that the deal was worth $1.3 million. “We certainly don’t like to turn away revenue that funds all the important work we do across the company,” he concluded. “However, in some cases we must make business exceptions: we don’t run cigarette ads because they are hazardous to our health, and we won’t accept Trump ads for the exact same reason.” David French’s longshot independent bid for the White House is over before it even began. The National Review columnist, whose name was put into contention as a possible anti-Donald Trump conservative candidate by Weekly Standard editor William Kristol, has declared in an article for his magazine that “after days of prayer, reflection, and serious study of the possibilities, I am not going to run as an independent candidate for president of the United States.” French had been courted by conservatives unsatisfied with the nomination of Donald Trump to run as a possible spoiler candidate. But, French reasoned, “given the timing, the best chance for success goes to a person who either is extraordinarily wealthy (or has immediate access to extraordinary wealth) or is a transformational political talent.” Since French is a relatively unknown lawyer who doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page, much less a record of holding public office, “it is plain to me that I’m not the right person for this effort.” Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump told Fox News this morning it was “inappropriate” for former House speaker Newt Gingrich to criticize his racialized attacks on a federal judge in the multi-state fraud suit against Trump University. Trump’s remarks perhaps put a damper on rumors that the one-time Georgia congressman is being vetted as a potential running mate. “You have to respond,” Trump said, of his public criticism of district court judge Gonzalo Curiel, whose impartiality in the case is questioned by Trump because of his Latino heritage. “All I’m trying to do is figure out why I’m being treated so unfairly by a judge.” Gingrich suggested on Fox News Sunday that Trump’s line of attack was unbefitting a presidential nominee, calling his remarks “inexcusable” and Trump’s “worst mistake”. “Trump has got to, I think, move to a new level,” Gingrich said. “This is no longer the primaries. He’s no longer an interesting contender. He is now the potential leader of the United States and he’s got to move his game up to the level of being a potential leader.” Last week, Trump told the Wall Street Journal Curiel’s assignment to the case represented “an absolute conflict” because he is “of Mexican heritage”. “I’m building a wall,” Trump said, of his proposed 2,000-mile barrier along the US-Mexico border, supposed to prevent undocumented immigrants from entering the country. “It’s an inherent conflict of interest.” Before the row, Gingrich’s prospects of joining the Republican presidential ticket were expected to get a boost from megadonor Sheldon Adelson, according to three conservatives with links to Gingrich or the casino billionaire. Adelson has pledged $100m to back Trump’s White House bid – and the sources familiar with Adelson and Gingrich told the that they thought close ties between the two men should help the former House speaker’s chances. “Given Adelson’s respect for Newt and that Gingrich encouraged Adelson to back Trump, it would make sense that Adelson has been pushing Gingrich for vice-president,” said one senior Republican operative who talks to Gingrich fairly often. There may however be trouble in paradise already. Donald Trump may be a billionaire, according to entrepreneur and football châtelain Mark Cuban - but there’s no way he’s worth as much as he says he is. “You know, I think if it all came down to it, yes, because the price of New York real estate has just sky-rocketed over the last five years,” Cuban told CNN’s Chris Cuomo on New Day. “You know, assuming he hasn’t had to keep on borrowing because he has had liquidity issues then, yeah, I would give him credit for being a billionaire. But is he worth ten billion? Nah.” Cuban also called Trump’s racialized criticism of the judge presiding over the multi-state fraud suit against Trump University “pretty sad.” “I mean, it’s trying to intimidate a judge for any reason is ridiculous, particularly the position he’s in right now,” Cuban said. “It’s more a reflection on Donald. And the reality is, the lawsuits with Trump University go back long before Donald decided to run for president. You know, it’s a Hail Mary on Donald’s part because he knows he’s wrong. It’s a sad reflection on him.” As she barnstorms California in advance of Tuesday’s primary – where she is seemingly neck and neck with her populist challenger, Bernie Sanders – Hillary Clinton appears to be an almost different woman. A candidate who, nearly 14 months after announcing her bid for the Democratic presidential nomination, has finally, largely, found her footing. She landed in the Golden State four days ago for her final campaign swing before the primary and delivered an animated and blistering attack on Donald Trump’s fitness to lead. Her final event Monday night will be a star-studded concert at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles, where she will be serenaded by Andra Day, Stevie Wonder, John Legend, Christina Aguilera and Ricky Martin. In between, she and her possible future first gentleman will have hit a combined 50 or so campaign events up and down California, a state that delivers the richest delegate prize in the primary calendar. Her broad lead over Sanders has all but disappeared, hence her furious pace: San Diego, El Centro, Perris, Culver City, Garden Grove, Santa Ana, San Bernardino, Sylmar, Oxnard, Santa Barbara, Fresno, Oakland, Vallejo, Sacramento, Lynwood, South Los Angeles. She does not need to win in California to clinch the nomination. But a loss would look very bad as she heads into the general election against presumptive Republican nominee Trump, who has dubbed her Crooked Hillary, blamed her for her husband’s indiscretions, and mused that she will likely be in prison sometime soon. Good morning, and welcome to the ’s campaign live blog for Monday 6 June 2016. Here’s a quick rundown of what’s in the news, and what we’re expecting to see on the eve of the final major Democratic primaries: Hillary Clinton won the Puerto Rico primary on Sunday, putting her ever closer to securing the number of delegates needed to win her party’s White House nomination. “We just won Puerto Rico! ¡Gracias a la Isla del Encanto por esta victoria!” tweeted Clinton. But rival Bernie Sanders isn’t planning on giving up so easily – even though Clinton will almost inevitably crack the 2,383-delegate threshold needed to secure the nomination tomorrow. “I’m going to fight to become the nominee,” Sanders told Jake Tapper on CNN’s State of the Union. “Let’s not forget, the Democratic convention is in July. That’s a long time from today.” Talking point: Sanders has continued to criticize journalists for conflating delegates, who are apportioned based on the results of primary contests, with superdelegates, the party officials who are empowered by the Democratic National Committee to cast votes at the convention regardless of the electorate’s wishes. “What she would be doing is combining pledged delegates – those are the real delegates that people vote for – with superdelegates … the media should not lump those two together,” Sanders said to Tapper. “You don’t know what the world is going to be like four weeks from now, five weeks.” Newt Gingrich’s prospects of joining the Republican presidential ticket as Donald Trump’s running mate are expected to get a boost from megadonor Sheldon Adelson, according to three conservatives with links to Gingrich or the casino billionaire. Adelson has pledged $100m to back Trump’s White House bid – and the sources familiar with Adelson and Gingrich said they thought close ties between the two men, who share ardent and hawkish pro-Israel views, should help the former House speaker’s chances. “Given Adelson’s respect for Newt and that Gingrich encouraged Adelson to back Trump, it would make sense that Adelson has been pushing Gingrich for vice-president,” said one senior Republican operative who talks to Gingrich fairly often. There may however be trouble in paradise already, if an interview with Trump this morning on Fox News is any indication. Trump told Fox News it was “inappropriate” for Gingrich to demand that he stop bringing up the ethnicity of the federal judge presiding over a fraud suit against Trump University and start acting like “a potential leader of the United States”. “All I’m trying to do is figure out why I’m being treated so unfairly by a judge,” Trump said. On Sunday, Gingrich called Trump’s comments “inexcusable” and the candidate’s “worst mistake”. Trump also said this weekend that “it’s possible” that Muslim judges, in addition to Latino jurists, would be biased against him – and thus, he said, ineligible to oversee any case involving him. Now that you’re caught up, on with the show!
Puppy’s Entombed: the best of this week’s new music Puppy Entombed If you’ve watched as many Nirvana docs as I have, you’ll know that grunge was a scuzzy reaction to pompous 80s hair metal. But what if those genres hadn’t fought, but merged? London three-piece Puppy answer the question, combining big, processed metal riffs and noodly fretwork with shoegazey can’t-be-arsed vocals. It’s a spectacular truce between metal pomp and grungy nonchalance, making every trite observation about 1992 obsolete. Tough Love ft Arlissa Touch I interviewed Arlissa when she was in the BBC Sound Of 2013, and she had a lot of chat about her unease with the identikit dance model of the charts. Three years later, things haven’t gone as planned, and here’s a chart dance song so basic I wouldn’t be surprised if it was produced by boohoo.com. So while you might hear a serviceable track for Greg James to play, all I hear are crushed dreams. Will.I.Am Boys And Girls Do you remember when Obama was running for president and Will.I.Am emerged as his sort of cultural ambassador, creating that Yes We Can song around one of his speeches? Flash-forward eight years and Guantánamo Bay still isn’t closed and the lyrics to this song are “Baby we don’t stop and we don’t quit, in the club like we own it, too too legit”. Hope can disappoint you. Sigala ft John Newman & Nile Rodgers Give Me Your Love John, you’re back? Didn’t realise it was today; thought you were still out on “personal leave”. Let me just work where you can go, because Sam Smith is where you used to sit and Ed Sheeran’s been promoted, so he has the glass office. Hmm, actually quite low on desk space since we hired Zayn Malik, Charlie Puth and Years & Years. Ummm, I guess you can go at the end of that table near Sigala and Nile Rodgers, see if you can make something that doesn’t sound like a Rudimental cast-off. Oh, wait… Drake ft Wizkid & Kyla One Dance I remember when Otis by Kanye and Jay Z came out and my dad was so mad. “They’ve just taken that one bit from Try A Little Tenderness and looped the soul out. They’ve ruined Otis Redding.” Chill, daddio, I told him, it’s just sampling. But now Drake has taken my beloved Do You Mind by UK funky pioneers Crazy Cousinz and vocalist Kyla, slowed it to half tempo, and sung his usual “reply to my texts straight away” shtick over it. It’s a desecration. Dad you were right, it’s not creativity, it’s just pilfering.
Co-op hopes to leave the past behind with revival of its classic 60s look The Co-operative Group is going back to the future, and its chosen destination is 1968, when Mrs Robinson was in the charts and the average house price in Britain was £4,000. Fast forward to this week and the group will begin a major facelift of its vast business, tearing down the lime-green frontages of its food shops and replacing them with a new blue logo. The cloverleaf-like design will look familiar to loyal members of the Co-op, because it was first launched back in 1968 and abandoned a decade ago when the group decided a more corporate look was needed. The facelift is part of a £1.3bn investment to breathe fresh life into the 172-year-old group. It will include refurbishing the food shops and funeral homes and paying for new systems in its insurance business, as well as improving products and services. The relaunch is about more than shop windows and a new logo on a pint of milk: at its annual meeting in Manchester on Saturday, the mutual revealed plans to hand tens of millions of pounds back to its 8.4 million members and their communities through a new rewards scheme. As chairman Allan Leighton puts it, the Co-op is seeking “a better way of doing business”. The rebrand comes after the group, which traces its roots back to the Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers in 1844, recovers from its near-meltdown in 2013 and 2014, when a crisis at the Co-op’s bank took the organisation to the verge of collapse. There was a £1.5bn black hole in the banking business; the division’s former chairman, Methodist minister Paul Flowers, was engulfed in a very public sex and drugs scandal; and the group’s chief executive resigned after the size of his pay package – £6.6m – was revealed by the . A radical shake-up of the board followed, new bosses were brought in – with Leighton as chairman and Richard Pennycook as chief executive – parts of the business were sold off, and the group reduced its stake in the bank to 20%. Since then Pennycook and Leighton have been quietly been putting the business back together and feel it is now ready to step out of the shadows following its very public humiliation. “We’ve got a bit of a bounce-back,” says Rod Bulmer, the head of the Co-op’s consumer services business, including funeral care. The mention of Flowers’s name is still uncomfortable: “We don’t talk about Paul Flowers,” says Bulmer. “We see that as part of the crisis point in the past, and we think we are through that by some distance.” As well as unveiling the new look to members on Saturday, the Co-op Group revealed new member benefits, designed to retain the loyalty of its existing members and attract new ones. It wants another million members within the next five years, hoping that a return to the traditional values of the co-operative movement, where community comes before profits, will appeal to a new generation. Steve Murrells, chief executive of the food business, says: “Hindsight and reflection would say that, for a period of years, the society lost its way. When we moved to a more corporate logo it was probably the right thing back then, but it has become abundantly clear that we do need to go back to our roots.” Under the new plans, members will receive a 5% reward every time they buy a Co-op own-brand product or service – whether that be a tin of beans or a funeral. The amount will be credited to members’ accounts, and can then be cashed in as a discount against future goods and services. A further 1% will be credited to the members’ account to be donated to a local cause of their choosing, such as a new park or local charity. The group says it has already identified 1,500 communities where the rewards could be invested. The benefits will be available from autumn this year, and by 2018 it is estimated that the scheme will see £100m a year being handed back to members of the society and the community. “We are putting money back into the hands of members and communities. We don’t believe we are considered a profit centre,” Murrells says. “Everything will be put back into the community or given directly to members when we have effectively paid down the costs of running the business. The more customers who shop with us, the more good we can do.” The group is hoping that, within five years, half of its sales across the various businesses will be generated by members – currently, in the food business, it’s a quarter. The new membership rewards will be offered in addition to traditional dividend payments, which were suspended during the dark times in 2014 and will not be resumed until 2017 at the earliest. The financial crisis shone a light on some of the worst practices of big business and led to public outrage over boardroom excesses – an issue that is still being played out at annual meetings around the country as shareholders revolt against executive pay deals. Murrells says the national mood, particularly among younger people, presents an opportunity for the Co-op. “Back as far as 2012, it was clear to us that the younger generation was very sceptical of big business and very aligned to the model of co-operatives,” he says. “The signals were there and we knew as a business we had the chance to reach out to younger people. “So the [new] logo will resonate with members that have stuck by the Co-op and with new, younger members. We have been working towards this day.” As if to lead by example, chief executive Pennycook has asked for a pay cut after receiving a total of £3.59m last year including an annual bonus of £1.12m. His basic salary will be cut from £1.25m to £750,000 from July, although reductions in potential bonuses do not begin until 2017. The changes announced on Saturday reflect the group’s determination to lay the shambles of 2013 and 2014 to rest and carve a successful future. They are pinning their hopes on a “back to being the Co-op” approach that goes back to 1968 and before. “The opportunity is huge if we can get that engagement right,” says Bulmer.
Huma Abedin shuns limelight, but is a compelling protagonist in Weiner film Huma Abedin is standing in her kitchen, shortly after her husband Anthony Weiner’s candidacy for mayor of New York City has been rocked by new revelations in the sexting scandal that forced him to resign from Congress in 2011. A voice from behind a camera perched inside her Manhattan apartment asks her to describe how she feels. After some silence as she makes a cup of coffee, Abedin offers a sole observation as she walks away: “It’s like living a nightmare.” The scene is one of many painful moments in Weiner – a revelatory documentary about the former congressman’s failed effort to revive his political career in the 2013 New York race. Its arrival in the heat of a presidential election has cast a spotlight once more on Abedin, the trusted aide to Hillary Clinton who has emerged in recent years as a prominent figure in her own right. Even as she keeps a low profile on the campaign trail, Abedin has long been a subject of public fascination – not simply because of the ways in which her private life has held traces similar to that of her boss, but largely due to her own rise as Clinton’s right-hand woman. She has been dubbed as Clinton’s “secret weapon”, in a profile in Vogue that also celebrated her sartorial flair, as well as the former first lady’s “shadow”. But despite spending nearly two decades in such close proximity to one of the most prolific politicians in the world, Abedin’s discomfort with the spotlight is readily apparent in the film that features her for the first time in the role of a protagonist. In one scene, she expresses her anxiety over the prospect of being stumped by a question on Weiner’s policy prescriptions – recalling an incident a week earlier as she travels to a campaign event with her husband. “That woman was like, what’s his position on … and I’m like, I don’t know what the hell his position is on X,” Abedin frets. In another, she works the phones from within Weiner’s campaign headquarters to help raise money for what was intended to be a comeback bid. When one target turns her down, Weiner retorts: “This is your A-list?” Abedin indicates she is not entirely at ease tapping into her extensive political network, although she subsequently persuades another donor to write a maximum contribution. Abedin acknowledges in the film the trait that has perhaps most characterized her stature as one of Clinton’s closest confidantes: she has long eschewed the limelight in favor of what she has confessed is an intentionally behind-the-scenes presence. As captured in the documentary, she tells a group of women gathered at a New York City fundraiser for her husband’s mayoral bid: “Those of you who know me are probably surprised to see me standing up here. I’m usually back of the room, as far away from the microphone as possible.” There is perhaps no better reflection of this than Abedin’s existence on the campaign trail, always close to Clinton but seldom occupying center stage. Although in the formal role of Clinton’s vice-chairwoman, Abedin has been at her boss’s side almost every step of the way – helping usher the Democratic frontrunner swiftly along rope lines and ensuring that each day runs as smoothly as can be in the frenetic environment of the campaign trail. Often, one might not notice her lingering in the background if not for Clinton mulling aloud at local retail stops which flavor of ice cream or baked goods they should pick up for the road before turning to consult Abedin. The role she occupies is, of course, far more expansive than that of being simply a body woman. On a typical day, Abedin is gathering policy updates, working through the nuts-and-bolts of a grueling campaign schedule, and serving as an overall surrogate and adviser. As a Clinton aide told Politico last year, Abedin is “for all intents and purposes” the No 3 on the campaign. That she is one of the most recognizable and admired members of Clinton’s team is evidenced by the chants of “Huma!” that occasionally greet her when she enters a room of supporters. It is also apparent in the relative wall of silence among Clinton staffers and allies who declined to be interviewed about Abedin, a sign of their sensitivity toward the headlines that are once again fixated on her personal life. Abedin’s notoriety was well-established before the public invasion of her privacy and has largely been a product of the fruits of a seemingly tireless work ethic. One such testament to her life in public service transpired in 2012, when even Republicans rose to Abedin’s defense in a rare show of bipartisan support after a group of hard-right conservatives in the House of Representatives falsely pushed a conspiracy theory that she and other Muslim Americans had ties to the Muslim brotherhood and were seeking to infiltrate the US government. Arizona senator John McCain even took to the floor of the US Senate to rebuke what he deemed “an unwarranted and unfounded attack on an honorable woman, a dedicated American and a loyal public servant”. Born in Kalamazoo, Michigan, to immigrant parents from south Asia, Abedin was raised in Saudi Arabia before returning to the US to study at George Washington University. It was shortly thereafter, in the fall of 1996, that she found herself assigned to the first lady’s office as an intern to Clinton’s then-chief of staff Melanne Verveer. Veveer recalled her as “very mature, knowledgeable [and] very responsible” despite her young age. “She stood out in more ways than everybody else,” Veveer said in an interview, adding that Abedin’s longevity with Clinton has made her an invaluable asset. “She has had an extremely longstanding relationship, and these relationships are really important ... because you get to know the orbit of people around your boss, you get to know the likes and dislikes, what’s important and unimportant,” Verveer said. Knowing Abedin, she added that the public scrutiny was “very, very hard”. “It’s extremely difficult in terms of having to cope with something she’s unaccustomed to,” Veveer said. “She is a very private person, she has never coveted the public eye.” When she became an intern, Abedin was an aspiring journalist – she has said her idol was Christiane Amanpour. Instead, she would fill several high-ranking positions within Clinton’s team and log tens of thousands of miles of travel with the former first lady, New York senator and secretary of state. In a recent interview for the podcast Call Your Girlfriend, Abedin’s admiration for Clinton was clear as she recounted their initial interactions and what drew her into a relationship that has since weathered 20 years of ups and downs. Their first encounter was all but 30 seconds, as Clinton posed for a photo session with interns. “I was shaking, I was so nervous,” Abedin recalled. What was more striking, she noted, was her memory of the night Bill Clinton was re-elected as president that November. As he and Hillary emerged before thousands of supporters in Little Rock, Arkansas, Abedin stood near the rope line with a group friends. “She walked by, and she shook my hand, and our eyes connected,” Abedin said. “And I just remember having this moment where I thought, ‘Wow, this is amazing.’ It just inspired me.” Although Clinton proved unsuccessful in her first attempt to break the presidential glass ceiling, it was Abedin who accompanied her boss to meet Barack Obama in Chicago after his 2008 victory to discuss the role of secretary of state. Abedin subsequently made the transition to the State Department with Clinton, appointed as her deputy chief of staff. She is all but certain to assume a top job in a potential Clinton administration, an obvious choice for chief of staff. Their closeness was perhaps best encapsulated by Hillary Clinton herself, who at the 2010 nuptials between Abedin and Weiner, presided over by Bill Clinton, said: “I have one daughter. But if I had a second daughter, it would be Huma.” Much like her boss, Abedin continues to endure a level of public scrutiny over her marriage that would arguably not apply to any man in her shoes. Three years after the Weiner scandal, in the aforementioned podcast interview, Abedin reflected on how the experience helped her develop a layer of steel that enabled her to keep her head down and simply ignore the fuss. “I could not do what I’m doing for Hillary – I’m on the road a lot on the campaign, I have a four-year-old son – and I don’t think I could do this if I didn’t have the support of a spouse who is willing to basically be a stay-at-home dad as much as he can.” Politics, she added, “can often be a contact sport”. “It’s not for everybody.”
Two-thirds of banks fear Brexit, according to UK industry poll The majority of banks operating in Britain said they think they would be worse off if the UK leaves the European Union, according to a survey by the leading industry lobby group. The British Bankers Association said that almost 60% of banks that responded to its survey on EU membership had warned that the UK leaving the 28-member state bloc would have a negative impact on their business. Some 26% of the 74 banks which responded also said the impact would be significant. However 31% said they did not have a position on the impact of the UK referendum on EU membership, being held on 23 June. Some 64% of respondents also said their own organisation did not hold a position on whether the UK should remain in the EU. Anthony Browne, chief executive of the BBA, said that the question was a matter for the British people. “Our survey shows there is almost no appetite from banks for the UK to leave the EU. The majority of our members who responded to the survey also think that if the UK were to leave the EU, their business would be harmed. “The single market is of crucial importance to the UK banking industry, which employs over half a million people, contributes over £31bn in tax a year, and is the country’s biggest export industry. “However, as the majority of our members have not expressed a position on the matter of UK membership, the BBA will adopt a neutral position in the referendum debate.” The BBA did not disclose the respondents to its survey but it is likely to have included international banks with operations in the UK.
With Trump, we may have got what we deserve There are already winners in this race to the White House – though their triumph mixes smiles with frowns. They are America’s news media, both TV and digital, which have grown headily on the strength of one magic ingredient: that potent concoction called Trump. Because Trump, for them, means swelling audiences and swelling bank balances. See them smiling? Wait to look deeper, and start to frown. Here’s a smiling Jeff Zucker, boss of CNN, on the wonder of 2016, “the best year ever” for cable news. His primetime viewing figures are up 50%. Look at the age range that advertisers like best – people between 25 and 54 – and there’s a 90% primetime rise. The gap on Fox News is closing, he tells the Hollywood Reporter exultantly– although, to repeat, all cable news is enjoying record results as it wallows in the great Donald trough. Just watch the money roll in. CNN is said to be forecasting a $100m revenue boost this year to help titillate AT&T’s $85bn appetite as it moves to swallow Time Warner. Hail Trump! Naturally, what works on TV also works whenever a laptop or mobile clicks on. One media planning expert tells the specialist ad industry site Digiday that an overall increase of only 5% in readers and viewers could mean an extra $9.6bn for media publishers. “Trump is a sugar rush. They’re making so much money with these rising audiences addicted to Trump news.” Let’s be clear that all this loot and interest are a Trump phenomenon. The content management research team at Keywee (backed by the New York Times Company) reports that “articles about Trump have higher click-through rates, shares and likes on Facebook than those about Hillary Clinton. A story about Trump garners more than eight times as many likes on Facebook than those about Clinton”. Which is where, of course, the frowning starts. Many blame the media – whether supportive or antagonistic – for the wave of publicity that has buoyed the barrage balloon of Trump. Some are bitterly angry that the first woman with a realistic chance of winning the White House has gained so little attention. Others decry the “fairness and balance” rituals of coverage which appear to mean that bad stories about Donald have to be balanced by grey stories about Hillary. (Would the latest ruckus over emails have even registered on the Trump scale of infamy?) A grisly riff on this theme is explored by distinguished academics in the Washington Post. The certainty of an October surprise increased as soon as Hillary began coasting to victory, they say. “The media’s urgency to maintain drama in an election that was increasingly looking like a blowout made [it] all but inevitable … By definition, to be ‘news,’ a story must be new. Pursuit of novel stories is thus a core media news value. A dramatic horse race in which the outcome is uncertain and continually fluctuating is perpetually novel.” Seize on the email tale for all – or more – than it’s worth then. Keep the audience “engaged”. But there’s one additional frown - nay, Poldarkian scowl - that goes beyond any of these frailties. The media, even Fox News, couldn’t make Trump eight times better Facebook fodder than Clinton. The media couldn’t build Donald up any more than, these past few tumultuous days, it could tear him down. The mighty Washington Post and New York Times can blast away at monster man, but curiously he survives, perhaps rebounds. Context matters. Trump plays big beast in a celebrity-strewn world. This Trump makes TV campaign ads seem soggy and dated. This Trump stirs up all the publicity for himself. He opens his mouth and goes viral in seconds. Do we get the leaders we deserve? Frown over one unpalatable truth: we may all deserve Donald Trump.
A new Sports Direct chairman is long overdue The best reason – perhaps the only reason – for a Sports Direct shareholder to vote in favour of Keith Hellawell continuing as chairman is that finding a replacement to serve as boardroom counterweight to Mike Ashley might be tricky. The gig is not one to excite the usual club of non-executive directors. But that’s a flimsy justification that no serious outside investor should entertain. Chairmen should be judged on their records and the list of complaints against Hellawell is long. There was a furious row over bonuses a couple of years ago when the board had to have four attempts to push through a scheme for Ashley. Then there was Hellawell’s ineffectual appearance in front of the Scottish affairs select committee; MPs were astonished by his lack of knowledge about the collapse of a subsidiary. Or try Hellawell’s baffling tolerance for Sports Direct being run without a permanent finance director for the past two and a half years; Matt Pearson has been “acting” chief financial officer since June last year. This year’s kerfuffle put the others in the shade, of course: the HMRC investigation that followed this newspaper’s investigation into working practices at the company’s Shirebrook distribution warehouse. Ashley, as well as admitting to parliament that Sports Direct had broken the law by paying some workers less than the minimum wage, conceded that the company “probably” outgrew his ability to manage it “a long time ago.” Shouldn’t a responsible chairman have noticed? Outside shareholders would also expect an effective chairman to have told them more about the odd arrangement whereby Sports Direct pays a company owned by Ashley’s brother to deliver online orders outside the UK. Again, that disclosure came via the press. Add it all up and this year’s rebellion against Hellawell’s stewardship is likely to be heavier than usual. Hermes, Legal & General, Aberdeen Asset Management and Royal London are all thought to be the “oppose” camp. New rules mean Ashley cannot vote his 55% stake so it is possible that Hellawell’s re-election could be defeated on Wednesday. If so, Sports Direct and Hellawell will have two options. The first is to say “up yours” and call a second poll, in which Ashley would be allowed to vote, and force through the appointment anyway. The second is to conclude that the game is up, and that a new chairman is overdue. Former policeman Hellawell is not a chap noted for taking a step backwards but even he should be able to see where Sports Direct’s own interest lies. The shares have plunged 60% since last summer, shareholders aren’t getting a dividend and the fabled bonus scheme isn’t even paying out for full-time staff. Bloody-mindedness isn’t working. It’s time to go. Another JP Morgan bloke for Barclays’ executive committee Chief executive Jes Staley’s latest senior recruit to Barclays is Tim Throsby, who will head the corporate and investment bank. He comes from JP Morgan. They usually do. Staley has made five appointments to his executive committee since becoming boss last year. Two have been internal promotions and three have been hires from JP Morgan, his old shop. Another former Morganite, finance director Tushar Morzaria, was already in place when Staley arrived. So the ex-JPM tally now reads five out of nine members of the executive committee, including Staley himself. It’s been a quiet takeover – though not necessarily one that will upset shareholders. But the lack of diversity is striking in another regard: where once there were two women on Barclays’ executive committee, now there are none. “We want to see more women represented in senior roles,” runs the bank’s standard blurb. Easy to say; easier in practice, it seems, to get a bloke from JP Morgan. Corporate types take note: May might have meant it Still on boardroom governance, half the corporate world seems to have convinced itself that Theresa May didn’t really mean it when she made that fierce speech in her leadership campaign about “doing something radical,” like putting employees and consumers on boards. Corporate lobbyists have spent subsequent weeks suggesting ways in which the prime minister could water down her ideas with minimum political fuss. Instead of elected representatives on boards, how about allocating the role to a regular non-executive director?, runs one feeble compromise. What if May meant every word? “We’ll be bringing out some proposals later in the year,” said May when asked about corporate taxes and responsibility at the G20 summit. That commits her to nothing, but corporate types should take note: there’s no hint of back-sliding yet.
White Donald Trump supporters shove black protesters at Kentucky rally White men roughed up a young black woman – reportedly a protester – who attended a Donald Trump rally in Louisville, Kentucky, on Tuesday night. Local news video of the rally captures the Republican frontrunner urging supporters to “go get ’em” – apparently a reference to the protesters – as a crowd of white people shoves around a few black protesters, with at least one in the mob smiling and filming on his camera. Local WLKY news reported: Many times the crowd cheered Trump, but he was also interrupted by protesters several times. Those protesters were led out of the convention center. At one point, a woman could be seen being pushed by people in the crowd until she left. WLKY spoke with the woman on the phone Tuesday night. She said she is doing well. She is just trying to process everything. The local Courier-Journal said the rally was “tinged with excitement and anger”: Trump was interrupted more than half a dozen times by protesters raising signs and shouting. “Get ‘em the hell out of here. Get out. Get out,” Trump yelled into the microphone as his security team and police officers led people away and the crowd cheered loudly. “Out. Out. Out.” The Courier-Journal adds: “One man wearing a makeshift hood was led out by police.”
Will smart toys make parents lazy? The digital revolution means that modern toy shops contain more computing power than a space shuttle. Interactive and connected toys promise to bring your child’s favourite characters to life, promote coding skills, and even diagnose medical conditions. Hello Barbie is a $75 (£53) doll that can chat with children for hours on end; Kibo is a robot that toddlers program using coloured cubes; and Spanish researchers are developing hi-tech building blocks that can automatically detect neurological disorders. But are smart toys really the next must-have developmental tools, or just digital babysitters that could leave children snuggling up at night with corporate marketers and malicious hackers? “Young children are born into a digital world that we as their parents and educators were not,” says Chip Donohue, director of the Technology in Early Childhood Center at the Erikson Institute in Chicago. “Play evolves, and modern technology can help a child feel more empowered, capable and competent.” Take toys designed to stimulate computational thinking: logical skills and practices considered essential for solving complex problems. Veronica Lin tested several such toys while studying human-computer interaction at Wellesley College, Massachusetts. She watched 38 children aged from five to nine as they played with the Kibo robot and littleBits, a modular robotics system. “Digitally-enhanced objects appeared to elicit more smiles and laughs for all users, and led to higher levels of excitement,” she concludes in her paper. “Both toys allow children to engage effectively in collaboration, and children were noticeably more engaged when playing with [their] digital aspects.” Smart toys might even help catch medical problems before they are obvious, thinks Maria Luisa Martin-Ruiz, an electronics engineer at the University of Madrid. “Early and effective identification of children at risk for developmental disorders remains a [unresolved] task,” she says. Her team’s solution is “smart cubes” packed with sensors that can measure their position and motion. Children as young as one would then be allowed to simply play with the cubes, with researchers analysing the data in the hope of detecting problems with the child’s motor skills, timing, balance or spatial awareness. While the smart cubes are still being developed, toys that are nearly as impressive are already on the shelves. Hello Barbie can listen to a child’s questions and respond with one of 8,000 perky phrases, while the Fisher-Price Smart Toy bear learns how your child plays and recommends new activities. Both use domestic Wi-Fi links to connect the toy to servers online. “The advantage of the cloud is that you can do learning across platforms ... What one robot [toy] learns, it can share with all the others,” says Ken Goldberg, a professor of robotics and automation at the University of California, Berkeley. “But opening up a channel between the outside world and your robot does make it vulnerable. When you’re dealing with a kid, you can imagine a very diabolical scenario like Chucky.” Hello Barbie and Smart Toy have both had privacy scares, with security firms highlighting vulnerabilities that had to be patched, like a computer update. “A lot of people were excited to claim that they had ‘hacked Barbie’,” says Martin Reddy, chief technical officer of ToyTalk, the company behind Hello Barbie’s interactive features. “But no one has actually demonstrated that. No one has eavesdropped on any kid talking to Barbie, and no one has made the doll say anything different from the phrases she is programmed to say.” In fact, smart toys generally have more protections built in than smartphone digital assistants like Siri, Cortana or Amazon Echo. This is because services designed for children in the US have to comply with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule, or COPPA. This regulation controls the use of data collected from anyone under 13, including personal information and audio files, and forbids services from sharing it with other companies or using it for marketing without explicit parental consent. “Hello Barbie doesn’t ask for your name, age or gender,” says Reddy. “We don’t want more personal information, [as] it just makes our lives more complicated. We only want data for speech recognition purposes to help it work beautifully.” While security and privacy have yet to emerge as major problems for smart toys, they can still suffer the usual troubleshooting pains of hi-tech gadgets. Luke Reiser bought his granddaughter a Hello Barbie for Christmas but had difficulties getting it online. “We are now here with our crying four year old and a Barbie that simply repeats, ‘Uh oh I can’t find a Wi-Fi network’,” he wrote in a review on Amazon. Other users have complained that Hello Barbie is a poor conversationalist. “I do worry that because these toys are seemingly interactive and seemingly relationship-oriented, we might be more willing to embrace them compared to our caution around screen time,” says Donohue. “The research is pretty clear that parent-child interaction helps early literacy and school readiness. In the end, we need to empower parents and help them understand that they should not hand off those responsibilities to a device.”
Britain on the booze: how a night of alcohol impacts the NHS - as it happened So that just about wraps up our Friday night live. Key conclusions: 1. drink is a problem 24/7 in hospitals, not just in the evenings, 2. for every teenager with a sprained wrist and hiccups there’s a serious recidivist who is on first-name terms with all the triage nurses, and 3. Britain may have its problem drinkers, but it has many great people trying to help them, from the staff in A&E departments to the street volunteers who try to protect people from themselves. Right, I’m off for a stiff drink. Cheers. Just as we leave the assessment area a sixth patient, so drunk he is barely conscious, is brought in by ambulance. Ambulance staff brief reception – “he’s a student” – as another talks to the patient. “Hello, do you know where you are?” He starts to vomit and a struggle ensues to keep him in recovery position. “Open your eyes and let us turn you around so you don’t choke.” “They take more time from us than other patients and they can be less sick,” said Catherine Chipande. The 19-year-old who was admitted before him and is semi-conscious has wet himself and the staff have had to cut off his clothing. It’s getting busy at the ATC, the alcohol treatment centre in Cardiff. Another student arrives – this one wheeled in with a street pastor – and accompanied by a bunch of friends. Water and rest is prescribed. She is sat in the waiting room. A middle-aged woman is brought in by police officers. She failed to make it to a toilet and needs cleaning up as well as sobering up. Hours to go on the shift at the ATC here but nothing from the staff but patience, kindness and good humour. Back in Stoke, there are 99 patients in A&E at 2am, which is an achievement for the staff, the first time numbers have dropped below 100 since 4.30pm yesterday. Patients are being discharged, or waiting to be admitted to other departments as beds there become available. Though some staff are beginning to end their shifts, many others are here until the morning. More than 100 people have come through the doors already since midnight; some who have overindulged tonight are on trollies in the corridor making emotional phone calls. There is more work to do before the night is over for A&E staff - five more ambulances are on their way... It is gearing up to be a big night in Leicester. Three thousand people, mostly students, are expected to head to the O2 nightclub to celebrate the end of university exams. Some may end their night at A&E, but one young woman is heading there before her night has even begun. A 21-year-old student who has, according to the friends who escort her to the ambulance, drunk a lot at the pre-drinks before the party, has slammed her finger in a door, detaching it partially. “Well you’ve had a lot to drink, so that will have dulled the pain,” says Constable Joe Couchman. Jane Squire, the paramedic working with Couchman in Leicester’s two-person “Polamb”, bandages the finger as the girl apologises profusely. “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry” over and over until Squire has to tell her firmly to stop. Then the woman vomits on the floor of the ambulance. “I’m so sorry,” the girl begins again. “You’re alright,” Squire says as she begins mopping the floor. “I’m alright with vomit, it’s poo I can’t cope with. I had man poo himself while I was treating him. I don’t like that.” Squire and Couchman take the woman to the hospital where patients line the corridors in chairs, on beds and stretchers waiting to be seen. The woman can barely walk, she is so drunk and so Squire puts her in a wheelchair. She is seen quite quickly because Squire gets the woman into the minor injury ward, though the prognosis is bad. It looks like the tip of the finger has died and unless they can get blood flow to the area, it will have to be amputated. “She’s going to be devastated,” says Couchman. “I’m just glad we weren’t there when they told her. I hope they wait until she’s sober,” says Squire. Two more alcohol admissions in Southampton in the space of 10 minutes, one so inebriated he is semi-conscious. “The worry here is that the alcohol might mask a head injury,” says nurse Sam Carter. “So we do a set of neuro obs [observations] and lactate assessment to see if he is dehydrated. We might also resort to pain stimuli, squeeze his trapezium really hard to check his responses,” she adds. Ouch More breathtaking intoxication in Manchester... An 18-year-old student is found lying alone, and clearly drunk, on the pavement close to the university. There were a series of sexual assaults on women in this area last year so passers-by are worried and dial 999. She has not been assaulted but has simply drunk too much at a house party. An ambulance crew arrives and takes her to the alcohol treatment centre – ATC. She is sick on the way and sick several times at the ATC. At the ATC she is assessed and given water. Ceri Martin, a sister, and Charlotte Pritchard, a healthcare support worker tend to her. She is joined by a friend at the ATC and they sit together, slumped in a corner, waiting for her to recover. “She’ll be here for two or three hours while she gets herself together,” said Martin. “We’ll get her to drink water, observe her and keep her warm. Then we’ll make sure she gets home safely. “I’m just glad that there’s a place like this for young women like that. She’s in a safe place and we’re helping keep pressure off A&E.” A street pastor radios in to say she is bringing someone in to the ATC. “So it begins,” says Pritchard. It still could be a long night/morning here. But it’s not always a thankless task, as this note at the ATC indicates: Dr Ben Arnold, a SHO in emergency medicine, loves a Friday night in the minor injuries section. “I like drunk people when they are not so unwell, you can joke with them. Their friends have brought them in because they’re worried about them, but from a medical point of view, they’re healthy, you can have a chat. There’s a common theme which colours the excuses made by revellers as they come round in A&E. “They say their drink has been spiked, their friends say ‘they always drink this much, it must be something in the drink.’ But it obviously is because they have had more than unusual or haven’t eaten enough. “It’s younger ones, 18 year olds, who are more honest about it. They do get very embarrassed especially if they have had a loss of continence. And they have to go home in a hospital gown.” Sometimes, it’s not just the patients causing Arnold all the bother. “It’s friends and relatives who might be a bit drunk. They get bored, they dress up in the gloves and gowns, mucking about and you have to go and remind them that a hospital is a serious place.” Outside Deansgate Locks, a popular party spot with several bars and clubs, it’s not quite kicking out time but we’re already seeing a couple of early casualties. A drunk girl has fallen, cut her knee badly. She’s crying on the phone to her parents while being treated by the Street Angels. Another job saved from paramedics. Another offering from Witness: Hannah, an ED sister working in Derbyshire has told us that though young people are drinking less, there are more incidents of legal highs: https://witness.theguardian.com/assignment/56a0c6d0e4b077e685c5faf8/1893549 She adds: “Several times a week, sometimes more, we see young people (adolescents) who have taken legal highs. Some night we may see 3 or 4 within a few hours. I do think it’s a rapidly growing problem. Young people can easily get their hands on these substances and are unaware of the dangers of these drugs which we as a medical profession know very little about. Just because they are not illegal does not make them safe.” Students at Keele university have been celebrating the end of January exams and two of the youngsters are slumped in A&E brought in by local first aiders. One has been sick over two other waiting patients, another catatonic on a trolley. Two of eight the beds in resus - the most critical ward - are occupied by drunk revellers. “I do feel sorry for the ones who come in on their own,” receptionist Debbie Hammond said. “One girl was brought in by first aiders and I shouted to them to cover her up, she had everything out and you have to give them some decency. I had to come down and cover her with a sheet.” If things heat up too much, the receptionists have buzzer to press get help fast. “Fire, a fight, a collapse, if it’s something serious, everyone comes running,” she said. All calm in the assessment area in Southampton until now when a very aggressive drunk man is admitted with a cut to his face, swearing at anyone in sight. He is being held down by two policemen. We are advised not to go near him. “Fuck off,” he shouts to a female ambulance crew member accompanying him. The man is refusing to co-operate as he is placed in a bay next to an elderly lady, beaming with a grateful smile towards the two nurses attending to her. It takes a while for experienced staff to calm down the 29 year old. Then it’s all sweetness and light, with a friendly hello for staff as he is wheeled in to “majors” for further assessment. “Sometimes it’s like that but sometimes they don’t calm down at all and they get carried out in handcuffs. If it gets too bad and they have been assessed and they are not too bad they are just taken away by police,” said receptionist Sarah Jones. Two Mikes, 23 and 32, a Carl, 18 and a Tom, 23, are sat in a pub in the small hours. None has ever ended up in A&E, though Tom’s “ended up in the drunk and disorderly, you know, the police.” He got tangled up in the theft of a plastic ornament and jostled a plain clothes police officer leaping from a Vauxhall Corsa, five years ago. “This is my time,” he says triumphantly, “to get my story out. If I’d known he were a copper, things would have gone very differently. I was at my auntie’s 40th!” Mike the younger said, “things happen when you’re drunk. I hit my cousin in the face on my 20th birthday.” “The bottom line,” said Mike the older, “is that if you’re trouble, trouble will find you.” “Yes,” said the younger Mike resoundingly. “My cousin went to Krazy House…” “Is that with a C or a K?” “How can you ask that?” (they all shake their heads). “And the next thing you know, he’s had his nose broken.” “Is this the same cousin you punched in the face?” “I gave him a black eye. Someone else broke his nose. There’s levels. I know this, I studied law at A level.” The older Mike takes control. “This is a beautiful place. This isn’t a degenerate place. Independent bars, independent clubs, independent eateries. The transformation of Liverpool, the systemic regeneration of every part of this city, is almost beyond compare. I love this city and the people of this city.” “We always say it’s a thankless job,” says Rachel Goddard, one of three generations of Goddards in the Manchester Street Angels along with her mum and grandma. We’re preparing to go back out for the second - busier - half of the shift. “Sometimes we come out and it’s really quiet but we know we’re making a difference.” She adds: “You’ve only got three seconds to make that connection otherwise they don’t want to know.” One of the biggest perils facing intoxicated young women now is lads who will curb crawl in hire cars, the volunteers say. “They rev their engines to try get the attention of these girls. It’s always the same type of people.” “If there was an incident, we’re connected to the control rooms and the venues - so if there’s any trouble they ring through and say can the Manchester Street Angels come through,” explains Nikki Breen, a 29-year-old Street Angel volunteer. “We can also get the cameras put on people - last week someone was quite erratic, we think he had mental health problems – it was for his safety and ours as well.” Huge queues outside the clubs and pubs on Greyfriars Road in Cardiff. The students are enjoying the start of the weekend after exams. It’s going to get even busier tomorrow (Sunday). An event called Refreshers Rumble: Zoo is being organised. Revellers pay a flat fee to get into three clubs - Glam, Pryzm & Tiger Tiger. They are being encouraged to dress as jungle animals and embark on a “unique safari experience, Cardiff style.” That spells potential trouble and the police has asked the ATC - alcohol treatment centre - to open up. A night out in Southampton has turned into a night in A&E for one young woman who has just been admitted with a head injury. “She had been at a party and fell and hit her head. There was alcohol and drugs,” said nurse Catherine Chipande. There are about 20 other patients in the “majors” area with two sleeping off their alcohol and a third about to be assessed. Just to reiterate that tonight’s reporting is not a one-off exercise in preachy moralising but just part of a four-week series on the NHS in all its glorious complexities. Today we’ve been looking at the impact of alcohol on accident and emergency departments, including: An exclusive report on how problem drinkers provide the lion’s share of revenue for booze companies A hugely watchable film on Britain’s dangerous love affair with alcohol A dispatch from Northumberland on the new-style emergency hospital that could be the future of the NHS A slew of sobering statistics on Britain and booze Next week, we’ll be training our attention on other aspects of healthcare such as mental health and obesity. Before we go on, a quick late-night quiz question: Right, let’s get back out to the medics and the masses A sad post from our Witness callout to readers It’s choc-a-bloc at Royal Stoke A&E at midnight, but senior sister Nicola Beckett is actually trying to find a patient. One man, a regular alcohol abuser, has run off from hospital, and she has to send police to find him, because he is now deemed a vulnerable adult as he has not had full medical check ups. The hospital now has so many regular attendees they have a special group for them all, which flags up if someone has been in more than three times a month. Sometimes Beckett sees someone twice a day. “You do get friendly with them, they are as nice to you as you are to them. You do see them decline, the physical decline. You admit them to rehab but you just know you’ll see them again. It’s an addiction, an illness. So many, you are discharging them and they say ‘I’ve got no home to go to.’ You sometimes do get a sense they are here for a hot meal and a bed and a kind face.” Beckett has seen some terrifying moments too. “I don’t want to make it too dramatic. But yes, I have feared for my life. You are trained in conflict management, self-defence. But if someone is drunk and aggressive, I can’t handle that myself.” “She was a bit intoxicated, visibly so, just wanted to go home, but she didn’t have a credit card, so we called her a taxi. She’s going home for tea, toast and biscuits.” “We’re a very respectable bar,” said White Goodman, 26, the security guard outside Santa Chupitos. “You can see how cosmopolitan it is,” a passer-by says. Two guys approach and are respectfully turned away. They didn’t look drunk to me, but maybe I haven’t got my eye in. “No, we’re an over-21 bar now,” Goodman explains. It’s a bit early in the night to be turning away drunks, but when they are turned away, Goodman says, “they’re turned away everywhere. It’s not if they’re violent or not violent, things turn when people are drunk. They won’t be getting in anywhere.” I don’t want to say it in this company, and of course, it’s early days yet… but it looks a little bit like Continental cafe society. Patients are queuing on beds in the corridor at the ambulance triage in Stoke where paramedic Tracy Proud is liaising with A&E staff to speed up the transfer of people. “It’s ridiculous,” she said, looking over her shoulder at the queue of beds behind her. One patient has a can of Skol under the trolley. “I think if you went through most of the patients, 85% shouldn’t be here. People have a different view about what an emergency is. If I’m called to look after a teenager or young person who is drunk, I call their parents straight away. Parents don’t realise it, but it’s not our job to just be watching a drunk person who has passed out.” Agitated patients have lashed out in the back of moving ambulance. “I had one patient who I thought was asleep and he came to, and he turned on me. I had to jump out the side door of the van.” Legal highs are a terrifying new problem, on top of alcohol. “They don’t know what they’ve taken. And they are totally off their heads.” On top of the added burden of inebriated patients, consultants and junior doctors working in the resuscitation area are also dealing with patients who are critically ill with sudden or pre-existing conditions. The medics have just restarted the heart of Kyle Baker, a local South African, who has a condition which can lead to irregular heartbeats. He started feeling the telltale symptoms around 5pm and called an ambulance an hour ago. “I live near the hospital in case I need to come in. This happens all the time,” he said. “They do such an amazing job.” Consultant Ruth Kinston is coaching her fifth year medical student as the team sedate Baker, preparing to stop and restart his heart back to its regular rhythm with a defibrillator. He is woozy as he comes around after the shocks, asking for his mobile phone almost straight away, but will be well enough to go home tonight. Drunken patients can cost the NHS in ways you may not expect. Doctors have to be sure the symptoms are not other medical issues, especially if a patient cannot communicate. If Kinston orders a CT scan for a patient, it may well be just alcohol causing the problem with memory loss or headaches, but medics have to be sure. And that can cost hundreds of pounds. “We didn’t come into medicine to judge people, we came in to treat people. If I start to lose my empathy, we shouldn’t be doing this job,” she said. On some nights the Polamb - police-ambulance alcohol treatment vehicle in Leicester - is a hub for treating people with alcohol-related injuries, attending up to 15 incidents in a night. It gets to the point that some of the locals recognise the Polamb and the paramedics who drive it. Jane Squire, East Midlands Ambulance Service paramedic, says one man she used to see regularly in the streets, a heavy drinker who would often call the ambulance for help, called her his “green angel”, for the dark green of the ambulance service uniform. “Sometimes they’ll come up have a conversation with you and say ‘I’ve cut my finger, can I have a plaster?’” says Squire. “Other times they’ll come up and say, ‘I’ve hurt my hand, can you take me to hospital?’ and I’ll say: ‘It says ambulance, not taxi.’” But the first call-out the Polamb has received now that the policeman for the evening, Constable Joe Couchman, is on board is more serious - treating a man in his 40s who suffered a cardiac arrest on the street. This isn’t a typical call-out for the Polamb, not being alcohol-related, though it is believed the man was a heavy drinker, but they go where the need arises. Street Angels on the move... A hundred or so yards back from the Brink is Leaf, “Like us, only with alcohol,” the manager of the Brink told me, as he pulled down his shutters. It isn’t dissimilar in wholesomeness - Lebanese style butter bean stew on the menu, an illuminated wall saying “Where there’s tea, there’s hope.” Mellow tables of twos and fours talk to one another equably. The main difference is that the lighting is much more flattering, and nobody is desperate to go home. Becky, 44, has lived in Liverpool all her life, and says, “It’s always been exactly the same. There are three generations of us here (she’s with her two daughters and her aunt), “nobody’s threatened, everybody’s relaxed.” “Every holiday I’ve been on,” says Molly, 18, “there’s been more trouble than I’ve ever seen in Liverpool. I’ve been in Amsterdam and there’s been a kick-off in a coffee shop.” “Trouble,” says Jan, 59, the above-named aunt, “is only there for people who go out and look for it.” As in Edinburgh, the street pastors are also out and about in Cardiff. They carry bottled water, flip-flops, emergency blankets, power-banks to charge up phones of people who have run out of charge, plastic gloves to protect themselves against infection. “We are a visible presence on the street,” said team leader Tristan French, a hotel worker by day. “We help people who are vulnerable.” They help ease pressure on A&E by taking those who are so drunk that they need medical attention to the ATC - alcohol treatment centre. If they can they walk them to the centre, if not they have wheelchairs stashed around the city centre and can push them there. They are linked into the police and ambulance so can call for help from them if needed. Meanwhile, the ATC - alcohol treatment centre in Cardiff – has treated its first patient. A 30-year-old reveller had gone flying on the dance floor and ended up in a heap. She blamed a slippy dance floor. John, the ambulance paramedic, thought it might have had more to do with Jägerbombs. She is taken to the ATC where the staff establish she has a broken wrist. It means she will have to go to hospital – but straight to the X-ray department rather than into A&E – a good example of how this scheme takes the pressure off emergency rooms. At Greenside parish church on Royal Terrace, in the centre of Edinburgh, the city’s Street Pastors are preparing for the night with tea, home baking and a rousing hymn or two. Street Pastors is an initiative of the Ascension Trust and was pioneered in London in 2013. It is now active in 270 towns and cities across the UK. Street Pastors are volunteers from local churches who patrol in teams of men and women, usually from 10 p.m. to 4 a.m. on a Friday and Saturday night, to care for, listen to and help people who out on the streets, whether celebrating on a hen night or homeless. Two teams are going to Grassmarket and another to George Street, with backpacks containing flasks of hot drinks and biscuits. As team leader Tony Clapham explains, some of these volunteers have been working on the night time streets and have built up strong relationships with local homeless people, as well as police and paramedics and other concerned with health and safety of the night time economy. The Street Pastor’s secret weapon is the flip flop, which are famously doled out free to wearers of high heels that are no longer functional, safe or comfortable. They also prevent those worse for wear deciding to walk home in bare feet and risking accidents with broken glass. Tony says the snapping of shoe straps tends to be an issue later in the night but a stock have been packed just in case. We’ve had some heartbreaking responses from professionals about the people they routinely come across. The general message seems to be that doctors and nurses try not to judge those with alcohol problems who repeatedly end up in hospital, but sometimes find it hard not to be moved by this tragedy. Susi Harris, a West Yorkshire GP, said that two young people particularly unsettled her. He simply didn’t heed the warnings about his liver; he would turn yellow, be admitted, detoxified and discharged again and again for a year and a half until finally on one admission he died. He was a good-looking guy; his girlfriend and family deserted him because they were so angry that he chose alcohol over them, so he died alone. She was the life and soul of the clinic; she was like a ray of sunshine whenever she walked in. She was so chatty and sociable, knew everyone’s names, and was afraid of no one. She had migrated on to alcohol from heroin, and saw this as real progress, she kept stopping to prove she could do it, and that was her undoing. She got Wernicke’s encephalopathy from recurrent detoxification which caused memory problems, confusion and a severe tremor, which meant she lost the ability to care for herself and had to go into a nursing home. I heard a year or two later she died there. Others are less patient. Beverley Bostock, a nurse practitioner in Gloucestershire has a novel suggestion. I’m appalled by the amount of time and resources spent by the NHS treating people who get drunk. New army recruits spend much time preparing for active service without necessarily engaging in it. Why can’t incapacitated drunks be assessed and treated by trained army personnel on the streets or in mobile units? This takes the pressure off paramedics and healthcare professionals in A&E and gets army personnel actively and visibly serving their communities, teaching them how to manage people who are incapacitated through alcohol and/or drugs, how to contain situations where aggression may be a problem and how to defuse volatile situations. It is not the role of the NHS to babysit people who don’t know when they’ve had enough. We should also charge people who abuse the NHS in this way – and by charge I mean financially, legally or both. Don’t forget: we’d like to hear from you too. Do you work in an A&E department or the ambulance service? Have you or people you know had to call go to because of the effect of alcohol? Tell us what your night’s like tonight. Just click on the blue button to share your your stories and photos - or get in touch. Up and down the country there are units and voluntary organisations that aim to keep people out of A&E. The Alcohol Treatment Centre in Cardiff looks after around 1,000 people a year who are suffering the effects of alcohol or have sustained minor wounds. The idea is to keep them safe – and out of the A&E department at the University Hospital of Wales. There’s a senior nurse, sister and healthcare support worker here. A police officer and two ambulance crews are also based at the ATC. They’ve just started shift and will carry on to around 4am, though they can be stuck here until 7am. They are referred people not just from the city centre (via pub and club door staff, ambulance, street pastors and police) but from neighbouring villages and towns. They can treat people who have drunk too much with saline drips. They can also close wounds and treat fractures. Thirty nine people were treated here on New Year’s Eve – that’s 39 that kept out of A&E. Senior nurse Wayne Parsons said they had to deal with challenging – and often vulnerable – patients. “There are some who play up. But you can’t judge them. We are there to help.” One of the trickiest jobs is spotting patients who come in looking drunk – but end up being diabetic or having a hidden head injury. Parsons has just looked on his screen to check the number of people waiting in A&E up the road at the University Hospital – there are already 36 there, par for the course at this time of night. Manchester’s Street Angels, a group of eight volunteers, have just had a briefing from Inspector Phil Spurgeon in the city tonight. Dubbed Operation Custodian, the volunteers are shown mugshots of two individuals wanted by police - we can say no more - and pictures of cars suspected to be involved in drug dealing. “99.9% of people out tonight are decent people,” Spurgeon tells the volunteers. “Our job is to look after them. 0.1% are not very nice but we still have to look after them and get them home properly.” As uniformed officers file out of the city centre office, next door to the town hall in Albert Square, one says they have already dealt with a group of seven men fighting tonight, one reportedly unconscious. The night is still young, however. What concerns Tonia Donnelly, emergency medicine consultant who also has an interest in vulnerable children are young parents who get so inebriated they can’t cope with their children on a Saturday morning. “People don’t do this on purpose. People don’t set out to get drunk and end up in emergency departments. It’s about risk assessment. We want people to be safe and safeguard themselves against finding themselves in a vulnerable position collapsed on a street,” said Donnelly. I didn’t realise until Donnelly pointed it out that a bottle of wine, which many can easily consume of an evening, is 10 units of alcohol. That’s just four short of the amount advised for women in a full week. “One unit of wine is 125ml which is like a sherry glass full. A normal wine glass that you might buy in Sainsbury’s and you drink at home can be 250ml easily,” says Donnelly. It’s kicking out time in the dry bar. “Time, ladies and gentlemen,” Ian’s yelling across the braying ferment. “I don’t care that you only just bought it, neck it.” Actually, he said nothing of the sort. It’s all rather genteel. The Frontline Church just left. “Come back and see the Community Spirit food bank next time,” Robbie, 27, calls on his way out. Emma, 41, is hoovering. All the chairs are on the tables except for mine. There will be no A&E traffic generated here. And before we go back out to the nation at large, herewith a sneak preview of tomorrow’s front page, leading on the aforementioned article about how the booze industry cashes in on problem drinkers. With lots more from our #thisistheNHS series inside. Oh, and a story about Charlotte Rampling, too, by the looks of things. Here’s a nuggety little fact to throw into the debate about tax, alcohol, health, the treasury and the NHS: two thirds of the price of spirits goes straight to the government in tax. Too much? Not enough? “I’m going to get political about this now,” laughs Dr Stephen Hitchin, surveying the majors section of A&E. The emergency doctor became a councillor at Chesterfield borough council, Tony Benn’s old seat, because of his frustration with how patients are driven into A&E by failing social care, including for alcoholics. He has already treated two inebriated patients, one vomiting blood, another with pancreatic damage. “I went into politics because I felt like I wanted to help people more. Which sounds silly because I’m a doctor. You see people coming back to A&E because of alcohol constantly and they are not getting proper care in the community. It costs three times as much to treat them here. “They come here, we detox them for a week in hospital but the support isn’t there for them when they leave, there’s nothing to occupy them, no employment and they return to drinking, and the cycle goes on. It’s a huge strain on the NHS, and the whole system is being set up to fail because of these social care cuts. I think people need to know that.” One hour into the night shift at University Hospital Southampton, and two of the 15 patients in the “majors” treatment area are here because of alcohol. The first, a man in his 30s, was found collapsed in the street. The second, another man in his 30s was “just drunk” says staff nurse Catherine Chipande, but appeared to be having an epileptic fit. She assessed him and thinks he was just pretending because she talked to him during his shaking episode and “he just sat up” and listened. She was the first to see them in the assessment area. They will be further assessed by a doctor because of the risk they may have a head injury. Consultant Diana Hulbert says there are four types of alcohol-related patients typically in A&E. The first is the drunk who falls over on the street and a passer by calls 999. “It’s sensible because the worry is always a head injury and the symptoms can be the same – drowsiness.” The second group are those that fall over and break an ankle or a wrist while the third is the worst, the boy racers who end up in a road traffic collision. There’s lots of bravado fuelled by alcohol: “Quite often they are young men and a passenger may not have their seat belt on. They are a tricky group.” The last type presenting at A&E are those mixing drinks and drugs and overdosing. Some of these will be sadly familiar to hospital staff. Staff nurse Clair Graham has learned exactly the right moment to duck when an aggressive drunk patient might swing. “You learn it over time, obviously you get trained as well. But they can’t help it, they don’t know what they’re doing, they don’t know if you’re trying to help them.” Drunks aren’t always aggressive. “We have giggles too, we have a laugh sometimes with the girls, I know I go like that,” she said. Weekends are still the busiest time, but drunks can now come in any time of the night or day, all week long, which never used to be the case, she said. “You can’t predict it, Friday and Saturday are still bad but it can happen any time.” They’re playing The Drugs Don’t Work in The Brink, but the music doesn’t generally have a temperance theme. Sophie, 22, has been working here for three months, on a Work programme placement. “I love it here,” she says. “The people are really lovely. It’s not busy tonight, it’s really busy for football matches and that. Lots of guys in recovery who would have watched the game in the pub. You really get to know people.” She does over 30 hours a week as a volunteer, which is the condition of her receiving jobseekers allowance. I’ll just leave that there. Now isn’t the time for my thoughts on the Work Programme. Along a table on the back wall sit ten younglings; they could be the students that Ian Wilson described earlier: “It’s got quite trendy, not to drink. Freshers are much more likely to come in here than people in their 30s”. But these are no students. “Why’re you here, then?” “There’s no exciting reason, I’m afraid,” said Mark, 28. “There’s no recovering alcoholics.” “Mmm… but you’re in a bar, that doesn’t serve alcohol.” “I don’t know why we chose it,” Sam, 27, reiterates mildly, smiling. “Ruth, do you know?’ Finally, they put me out of my misery. They’re from the Frontline Church. “I think a lot of people drink because of isolation,” said Mark, “If you could build good communities, you wouldn’t need it.” “But there’s a lot of judgment, people saying ‘no, no, no, no, no,’ there has to be a ‘yes’ to go to”, Sam adds. “Whether it’s faith or meaning or just meeting another person’s need.” Manchester paramedic Dan Smith has been talking to me about what a typical Friday night here looks like. The key surprise - it’s not all about closing time and pubs turning people out. The pressure on the emergency services goes on all night. Interesting that some of our sources talk about young people and drink. It’s my impression that the younger generation DOESN’T drink as much as their forebears. Data bears that out: this may be the only UK alcohol graphic that actually goes down... And in an attempt to keep things in perspective and deflect accusations below the line of being “sanctimonious” “self-righteous” and a bit of a party pooper, let’s set a bit of international context. Yes, the UK has a problem. But it is by no means as soaked as some of its continental peers. Dr Anthony Taylor was born in the Royal Stoke. As a medical student, he worked with the consultant who delivered him. “He didn’t like me reminding him of that,” he laughed. Now he’s the senior doctor overseeing the accident and emergency department at Royal Stoke. Stoke A&E is already busy tonight - 113 people in, and possibly the same number again expected by midnight. The department currently has a fairly large overflow - which means beds in corridors - of around 14 people. Many of the patients are also waiting in the ambulatory medicine queue - people who need attention but don’t need to lie in a bed. Alcohol just makes everything worse, says Taylor. “If someone is whacked on the head and passing in and out of consciousness, that could be because of alcohol or the head injury,” he says. “And then you have to assume it’s the injury and then we may have to over treat the injury.” The department had what it calls frequent flyers, one of the patients in the ambulance queues is on his 155th visit to the A&E and he is only 39 years old. “He’s not the most frequent by any means. The guidelines state that 200mg of alcohol in your blood leaves you unconscious, 300mg should be fatal. We’ve had patients with 500mg in their blood.” The emergency department at University Hospital Southampton already has a busy air with nurses, paramedics, consultants and a few police busy around the “majors” treatment area during handover between shifts. Emergency consultant Diana Hulbert, who is in charge tonight, explains that not all alcohol-related attendances happen after a night on the town. “A classic one is people waking up the next day and finding their wrist turned the wrong way,” says Hulbert. So people are just as likely to present on the morning after. She doesn’t judge people who turn up in the department because of alcohol-related injuries or accidents, but says over the past 20 years she had noticed changes that are concerning. “People drink differently. Spirits is more a young person’s drink and they can make people profoundly drunk very quickly. A beer is two units and you can’t drink that many, maybe 10 pints. But if you’re drinking shots, you can down five in five minutes. That’s what young people do.” Tonight I’m out on the streets of Leicester with Jane Squire of the East Midlands ambulance service. Squires has been with the service for 16 years, the last nine as a paramedic. Tonight her shift will be divided into two halves, for the first half, Squires will be responding to 999 calls around the city. At 10pm, she will be joined by a police officer and her ambulance will become the Polamb, a police-ambulance combo, that specifically responds to alcohol-related incidents in the city centre. They will be based in the city centre and aim to treat people on the scene as incidents arise, the police officer is there to offer protection to Squires, who will be treating people who are quite drunk and occasionally violent. The Polamb has been running in Leicester for the last four years as a way of reducing the number of alcohol-related cases presenting to the hospital, which Squires says tonight is “absolutely heaving”. “I like the drunks. Some people don’t like doing Polamb, because they don’t like the drunks. But I do, because they’re vulnerable and they’re someone’s daughter, someone’s son,” says Squires. On a train, all the physical rules of the drinker’s universe - the time of the yardarm, what mixes with what, critically, how much you should drink before you stop - are suspended. At 7:21pm, the train pulled into Liverpool Lime Street. A man with his trousers at rapper-height but his pants dragged somewhere invisible punched the door opener button determinedly, on the wrong side of the train. Only the miracle of modern engineering saved him from tumbling onto the tracks. Maybe rules exist for a reason. Five minutes from the station is the Brink, the most successful dry bar in the country, owned by Action on Addiction (patron: the Duchess of Cambridge, and there is a pretty wee portrait of her, perched above the coffee machine and the juice ingredients). “Some people have been in to have a look from Scotland,” said Ian Wilson, 53, the supervisor, “but they’ve never made a success of it. He started working here when it first opened five years ago. “It was fate, really. I’d just been through treatment [for alcoholism], and I had that dilemma. All I knew was the bar and catering industry. But I couldn’t have done it.” David, 42, works in construction as was having a coffee and a fizzy water on his way back to the West of Ireland, gamely ploughing through an article about an antique restoration business. “I’m a recovering alcoholic, ten years. For me, it doesn’t make any difference being around alcohol or not. To be very honest, there’s a big difference between being around drink and being around drunk people. It was only years after my recovery that I went to a wedding and realised that only one person at the whole thing was drunk. Whereas before that, I thought that everybody was.” “I don’t think this place is like a pub,” he continued. “Not at all. I think it’s a good facility for people who want to meet people. You talk to younger people in recovery, and they say that in a drinking culture, it’s very difficult to meet someone.” At a table across the room, Sarah, 38, and Felix, are holding hands; it could plausibly be a beautiful, dry romance. “No, we didn’t know. We just walked in. We were quite disappointed, actually.” They are visiting from Berlin, where the classic English drinker has a terrible reputation, “especially the young guys, they don’t have the best behaviour and they don’t know their limits.” “There’s nothing wrong with drink,” David said. “If there was a problem with drink, everyone would be a drunk. The problem is humans. I felt the emptiness before I drank, and when I drank, I didn’t feel it.” On Friday nights, bouncers at the Cat House and the Garage – two of Glasgow’s longest-established and most popular nightclubs – use the community safety radio band to keep in touch with the nearest police control centre, to warn officers about brewing incidents or individuals they have concerns about on the street. Club owner Brian Fulton explains how involvement in Glasgow Community Safety’s Best Bar None scheme has produced a best practice guide that is now “recognised across the trade and has really benefited the whole of the city centre”. This ranges from offering easy access to drinking water in bars and clubs to improved CCTV coverage outside them. “For our managers, it’s a competition now: what can they do to make things better?” So tonight, for example, door stewards will be particularly scrupulous if a woman is leaving on her own, ensuring she’s sober enough to get home safely, and letting her use the in-house phone to call a taxi if necessary. Likewise, if a woman who seems the worse for wear is leaving in a couple, stewards will check that she knows her partners and is comfortable leaving with her. It may demand a level of interpersonal skill absent from the bouncers of my Glasgow youth, but it’s evidence of a change in attitude to women’s drinking safety right across the city. Elsewhere, the Allison Arms is perhaps not – landlady Babs Steele is first to admit – the truest representation of Friday night drinking in Glasgow. Then again, much of this is down to Steele herself – landlady here for nearly three years and a three times gold award winner in the Best Bar None Scotland, which rewards contributions to reducing binge drinking and antisocial behaviour. Various corners of the Allison Arms double up as ‘stay safe zones’, offering complimentary bottles of water as well as condom packs: this is also the only pub in Glasgow registered as a NHS free condom distributor. On boards above the bar, drinkers are encouraged to downloads taxi apps to ensure a safe ride home, while behind the bar personal alarms and alcohol breath test kits are sold on a not for profit basis. “I also drum it into my staff that we have a responsibility to look after vulnerable people,” says Steele. “You get people in here who don’t know if it’s New Year or New York”. And here’s what Cardiff police will be contending with tonight The pressure on hospitals in Wales caused by alcohol is huge. According to the devolved government, almost 1,200 people are admitted to hospital with alcohol-related conditions in Wales every week. Approximately 1,500 deaths are attributable to alcohol each year (1 in 20 of all deaths). At the busiest times, as many as 70% of attendances at some A&E departments are as a result of excessive alcohol consumption. The potential for problem drinking in Cardiff city centre in particularly acute. More than 3m come into the centre of the Welsh capital in a typical month. The majority of the partying takes place within a square mile and there is no shortage of choice of watering hole – there are 300 licensed premises. “Pre-loading” - drinking at home or at a friend’s before hitting the streets late in the evening – is seen as a particular problem for the emergency services. Little wonder health chiefs and other emergency services have taken innovative measures to tackle problem drinking. One such project is the Cardiff ATC – alcohol treatment centre, a collaboration between Cardiff and Vale University health board, local councils, South Wales police, the Welsh ambulance service and Cardiff Street Pastors. Right now, the police are preparing for the evening with a “Cardiff After Dark” meeting in the Welsh capital’s main police station. Sgt Gavin Howard briefs his team on what they’re doing tonight, with a slideshow with some interesting facts and figures. Last month, there were 145 people treated at the ATC – the alcohol treatment centre run by the local health board and others, which is designed to ease pressure on hospital A&E staff by treating people with minor injuries and people suffering from too much drink. Owen reminds officers to look out for revellers who “pre-load” - drink heavily and cheaply at home before heading into the city centre (the groovy alternative word the kids are using is “prink” - pre-drink. The emphasis here is that this is very much a team effort – police, NHS staff, volunteer street pastors, council workers operating together. “We’re Team Cardiff,” says Howard. The “Cardiff model” is being looked at by cities not just in the UK but across the world. All important meal-break times and overtime are also discussed. Then it all goes a bit Hill Street Blues (you may have to be a certain age – anyone remember the “Let’s be careful out there” warning before cops were sent on to the streets of a never-named US city. Here’s a link. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jmg86CRBBtw Sgt Howard’s version is: “Everyone have a safe night, kit up and get out there.” We’ll head out to hear from some of our correspondents in just two minutes, but before we do, it’s been pointed out that we’re a bit absent in the north-east tonight. Apologies. Not everything works out in this business. But to make up for it, Sarah Boseley has been finding out more about the impact on hospitals in the region. The headline figure is this: as many as two in seven visits to A&E in north-east England are alcohol related. Read that in conjunction with this piece which reveals rising numbers of patients being turned away from A&E. Of course, it’s not just the north-east. Every two minutes, someone somewhere goes to A&E because of something they’ve drunk. Now part of the drink problem is of course down to the industry, which sells about £45bn worth of alcohol in Britain every year. Sarah Boseley has an exclusive story tonight which establishes that problem drinkers make up the lion’s share of the market for drinks companies, a controversial point given that the industry insists it supports responsible drinking. What this graphic shows is that the 20% of people considered harmful or risky drinkers account for almost two-thirds of the booze market. Now if there’s not much on television, watch this instead: a really compelling short film about alcohol and us. Two things really stand out here: that nine million of us drink more than we should (according to government guidelines)... ....and that it is not just problem drinkers who damage their health. As one of the contributors says, if alcohol was a new drug seeking approval today, it would not get a look in. As I said earlier, our team is in half a dozen cities up and down the country. This map shows where they are. Twitter accounts are as follows: Scotland @libby_brooks; Liverpool @zoesqwilliams; Manchester @joshhalliday; Stoke @jessicaelgot; Leicester @mskatelyons; Cardiff @stevenmorris20; Southampton @lisaocarroll. And I’m @markriceoxley69 in London. If you are out and about and have any tips on incidents, do get in touch in the comments below. Good evening. Welcome to a rather experimental attempt to cover an entire nation’s Friday night out. I’m here for the next six hours with a team of seven reporters who have fanned out across the UK to find out how Britons like to let their hair down - and the damage they can cause when they do. The is currently embarking on a major piece of reporting about the state of the NHS, its pressures and successes and the people who work in it. You can read more about it here http://www.theguardian.com/society/series/this-is-the-nhs. In the first week we’ve been in hospitals, GPs surgeries, maternity wards and out with the paramedics. Today we’ve been looking at A&E and in the conversations we’ve had our reporters heard time and again the impact that alcohol has on admissions. Every year more than a million people end up in hospital because of booze. That means that up and down the country tonight several hundred people will turn up in A and E the worse for wear. Perhaps that’s not surprising when one considers that by my calculations as many as 5 million pints will be drunk this evening. Other alarming facts about Britain and booze are poured into this single article by my colleagues George Arnett and Delphine Robineau. Sobering stuff.
Aactas 2016: Mel Gibson's Hacksaw Ridge wins major awards Mel Gibson’s Hacksaw Ridge has swept the 2016 Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts (Aactas) awards, winning five major prizes – for best lead actor, best supporting actor, best original screenplay, best direction and best film. Andrew Garfield and Hugo Weaving both won for their roles in the film, which is based on the true story of second world war pacifist combat medic Desmond Doss. Hacksaw Ridge had already won four Aactas at the industry luncheon on Monday – best editing, best production design, best cinematography and best sound – taking the film’s total to nine awards. Speaking in the media room after the awards, Gibson said “It’s a pretty decent accolade and we’re thrilled to receive it … every aspect of that film was done professionally and mounted in a very efficient way. It’s an independent film when all is said and done, and we got a lot of bang for our buck.” The Daughter, which received nine nominations, won for best lead actress (Odessa Young) and best supporting actress (Miranda Otto). The awards also cover TV, with the Kettering Incident winning two major gongs: best telefeature or miniseries and best lead actress in a TV drama (Elizabeth Debicki). Best lead actor in TV drama went to Samuel Johnson for his role as Molly Meldrum in Molly; he told press afterwards that Molly gave him one of his iconic hats at the end of the shoot. “He wrote a lot of rude things on it. It’s one of my special keepsakes,” he said. Foxtel’s Wentworth won best television drama series, and ABC Comedy Showroom’s The Letdown won best comedy. Foxtel and the ABC led the field, picking up three awards apiece. Eva Orner, director of detention centre exposé Chasing Asylum, which won best documentary feature, delivered a politically-charged speech calling on the Australian federal government to abolish its legislation punishing whistleblowers reporting on detention centres. Calling for more time than a standard acceptance speech (“give me 60 seconds, this is important”), Orner described the crew as being in violation of the government’s legislation, and thanked her lawyers: “We can all go to jail for the film that we made, but we haven’t.” Speaking to media later she said she was grateful to be given another chance to talk about the issues raised by the film. “It’s great to be able to speak publicly about it again. I’m guessing we’ll be the bit cut from the televised version.” The film played in Australian cinemas for four months, and, she said, grossed higher than most of the scripted features nominated at the Aactas. “The only person who wrote something negative about it was Andrew Bolt. He wrote a piece about it last week and he called me a leftist agitprop agitator. I prefer to be called an ‘Academy award-winning film-maker’.” The film has been picked up by Qantas to screen on its inflight entertainment system. “Kudos to Qantas,” Orner said. “People coming into Australia get to watch it, which I think is amazing … Politicians fly Qantas. Qantas is obviously Australia’s airline. It was such a bold decision to program it.” It wasn’t the only political moment at this year’s Aactas. About 15 women were ejected from the red carpet after arriving dressed like sausages, in protest at the “sausage party” of the male-dominated Australian film industry. Only two of the 28 films preselected for Aacta awards were directed by women, and of the 334 producers who worked on feature films submitted to the awards between 2006 and 2015, only 37% were women. The protest was organised by Sophie Mathisen, cofounder of advocacy group Women in Film and Television. Mathison set a 50% gender quota for her own film, the forthcoming A Film Called Drama. She told Australia that a gender equity policy for the industry was long overdue. “Aacta purports to be a celebration of Australia screen excellence, and at the moment it’s a celebration of a very, very narrow part of the industry,” she said. On Tuesday, Crocodile Dundee star and Australian comedy legend Paul Hogan was announced as the recipient of the Longford Lyell award for outstanding contribution to the Australian screen. At the ceremony on Wednesday he was honoured in an extended segment, which included clips from films and video testimonies from celebrities such as Ernie Dingo and Adam Hills. Hogan quipped, “I’ve got 30 seconds, good luck with that” – and reminisced on the unprecedented success of Crocodile Dundee, describing himself as “probably the world’s biggest one-hit wonder. But you know, it was a mighty hit.” Hogan brought the self-deprecation into the media room after his speech, where he told press he was “embarrassed and a bit overwhelmed” by the honour. “They tricked me into coming,” he laughed. “I thought it was going to be a roast!” Hoges: The Paul Hogan Story – a TV series of his life starring Josh Lawson as Hogan – will premiere next year. “It’s very funny to see someone else playing you,” he said. “He’s a good looking kid, so that’s alright. Could have been a real dork they put up there instead.” Isla Fisher was the recipient of the Trailblazer award from Aacta president Geoffrey Rush for her work advocating for strong comedic roles in Hollywood while building her career as an acclaimed dramatic actor and an author. Fisher cribbed from Michelle Obama’s speech when she accepted it – a reference to Melania Trump’s convention speech, which appeared to do the same. “There aren’t many roles for gingers, particularly because Amy Adams stole them all,” she said, thanking her husband Sacha Baron Cohen, who was in attendance. The pair met in Australia during Aacta season, and celebrate their 15th anniversary this week. “I’d also like to thank Donald Trump for showing the world that it’s okay for unqualified orange people to win things.” Fisher is back in Australia from the United States, where she has been promoting Tom Ford’s Nocturnal Animals. Speaking to media afterward, she said winning the award was “the pinnacle of my career so far, and a complete honour.” “I’m such a fan of the Australian film and television industry,” she said. “It’s so important that we tell Australian stories, and that our children see and connect with Australian stories … we need to foster the talent here.” Mad Max director George Miller presented the Byron Kennedy award, which honours his former producer and business partner who died in a helicopter accident in 1983. It went to acclaimed multiplatform artist and film-maker Lynnette Walworth, whose work spans mediums including documentary, virtual reality, augmented reality and full dome planetariums. “I work in a form that often people don’t know that much about, so it’s an immensely humbling moment for me,” she said. Aactas 2016: full list of winners Best lead actor in a television drama Winner: Samuel Johnson – Molly Matt Nable – Barracuda Richard Roxburgh – Rake Ashley Zukerman – The Code Best lead actor in a film Winner: Andrew Garfield – Hacksaw Ridge John Brumpton – Pawno Damian Hill – Pawno Ewen Leslie – The Daughter Best original screenplay in a film Winner: Hacksaw Ridge – Andrew Knight, Robert Schenkkan Down Under – Abe Forsythe Goldstone – Ivan Sen Pawno – Damian Hill Best television drama series Winner: Wentworth Jack Irish Rake The Code Best Direction Winner: Hacksaw Ridge – Mel Gibson Girl Asleep – Rosemary Myers Goldstone – Ivan Sen Tanna – Bentley Dean, Martin Butler Best feature length documentary Winner: Chasing Asylum – Eva Orner In The Shadow of the Hill – Dan Jackson Remembering The Man – Nikolas Bird, Eleanor Sharpe Snow Monkey – Lizzette Atkins, George Gittoes Best lead actress in a film Winner: Odessa Young – The Daughter Maeve Dermody – Pawno Maggie Naouri – Joe Cinque’s Consolation Teresa Palmer – Hacksaw Ridge Best lead actress in a television drama Winner: Elizabeth Debicki – The Kettering Incident Danielle Cormack – Wentworth Pamela Rabe – Wentworth Sarah Snook – The Beautiful Lie Best supporting actress in a film Winner: Miranda Otto – The Daughter Kelly Armstrong – Pawno Rachel Griffiths – Hacksaw Ridge Anna Torv – The Daughter Best supporting actor in a film Winner: Hugo Weaving – Hacksaw Ridge Mark Coles Smith – Pawno Damon Herriman – Down Under Sam Neill – The Daughter Best screenplay in television Winner: ABC Comedy Showroom’s The Letdown The Beautiful Lie The Kettering Incident Upper Middle Bogan Best television comedy series Winner: Upper Middle Bogan Black Comedy The Family Law Please Like Me Best light entertainment television series Winner: Gruen Gogglebox Luke Warm Sex Rockwiz Best lifestyle television program Winner: Destination Flavour Scandinavia Grand Designs Australia Poh & Co River Cottage Australia Best telefeature or mini series Winner: The Kettering Incident Barracuda The Beautiful Lie Molly Best reality television series Winner: Masterchef Australia First Dates My Kitchen Rules The Recruit Best film Winner: Hacksaw Ridge Girl Asleep The Daughter Goldstone
Tottenham’s Mauricio Pochettino: Dele Alli will learn if treated as naughty son Mauricio Pochettino has described Dele Alli as “a little bit naughty” and says he treats the Tottenham midfielder like a son after the teenager intentionally threw the ball into the face of Patrick van Aanholt during his side’s comfortable 4-1 victory over Sunderland. Alli, who signed a contract extension at Spurs last week until 2021, has been a key player for the club this season, having finally moved from MK Dons last summer following a loan-back agreement upon signing for Tottenham in February 2015. The former Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers said on Sunday that attempts were made to bring Alli to Anfield before his transfer to Tottenham and the England midfielder impressed again going forward as Spurs bounced back from their midweek defeat by Leicester. He angered Van Aanholt, however, by flicking the ball into the defender’s face after it had gone out of play. Alli was at fault for Sunderland’s goal, letting Van Aanholt slip in behind Tottenham’s defence following a fine pass from Adam Johnson, the Dutch full-back finishing well at the near post past Hugo Lloris. Pochettino’s side responded well, Christian Eriksen equalising almost immediately before Mousa Dembélé, Eriksen again and Harry Kane secured the win. “I didn’t see it, this is the truth,” said Pochettino of the ball-in-the-face incident. “He’s very young, he needs to learn a lot. It’s a little bit naughty; he’s a little bit naughty. I like how he is because you need to be a little bit naughty when you play football. It is true that he needs to learn. “He’s young and we need to accept that he needs to learn in a professional side. He’s come from MK Dons. He played in League One last season but his character is his character. I will show and explain that it is better if he reacted a different way. First, I need to see the incident because I did not see it. “He is how he is. Sometimes you need to be hard with him, sometimes you need to be friendly and give love. It’s like your son. Sometimes you need to give love, sometimes you need to be hard with him.” Tottenham stay fourth in the Premier League table before an FA Cup third-round replay against Leicester City on Wednesday. Pochettino hinted that players would be rested at the King Power Stadium but insisted he was not prioritising the league. “It’s not that I prioritise,” he said. “It’s impossible to play with the same players every game. It’s very difficult. Sometimes we need to pick different players, to share the minutes and try to play like this. It’s important – you need to understand that we have 24, 25 players in the squad and it’s for that. It’s difficult to rest, to be fresh and to perform well in different games. “It’s not about ambitions. It’s about trying to win games and be fresh because it’s impossible to keep the performance if you play 70 games in a season. If you want to achieve something important at the end of the season, every single player needs to be involved. They need to feel like they are a very important part of the team.” Sunderland remain in the bottom three but there were reasons to be positive for their manager, Sam Allardyce. The England Under-21 goalkeeper Jordan Pickford made his Premier League debut and produced a number of saves, twice denying Kane with efforts outside the penalty area. Without him, the margin of victory could have been significantly higher. Another debutant, however, the German defender Jan Kirchhoff, had an afternoon to forget, conceding a late penalty for a foul on Danny Rose having deflected Eriksen’s second goal over Pickford and in from 25 yards. Paul Bracewell, the Sunderland assistant manager, said: “We’ve got to dust ourselves down. Tottenham are a good side, they’ll be there or thereabouts at the end of the season, I’m sure, but the most important thing is what we do. It’s going to be a tough second half of the season but we’re confident we can get the results.” Man of the match Kieran Trippier (Tottenham Hotspur)
European regulators to test banks' strength against financial shocks European regulators will test banks’ financial strength against two years of economic contraction, falling commodity and property prices and further regulatory fines as fears mount over lenders’ ability to withstand shocks. The European Banking Authority said on Wednesday its annual stress test programme – which covers UK banks Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds Banking Group and Royal Bank of Scotland – would assess banks’ resilience when faced with a slowing global economy. The main risk categories the EBA will test are: falling prices of assets such as commodities and property, weak profits for banks, risk of debt default by countries and companies, and strains in money market funds and other parts of the financial system outside the banking sector. Specific risks within those categories include potential fines for misconduct, an unexpectedly sharp slowdown in China and other emerging markets, sovereign debt default and deflation. Under the EBA’s “adverse scenario”, the European Union’s economy would contract 1.2% this year and 1.3% next year before expanding by 0.7% in 2018. The tests cover 51 banks making up 70% of Europe’s banking system: 37 in the eurozone and 14 outside the single currency bloc. The EBA said that, unlike in previous years, its tests would not pass or fail banks and no capital thresholds had been set. The EBA said in general it believed banks had enough loss-absorbing capital to withstand potential shocks. The EBA said: “The objective of the crisis stress tests was to identify possible capital shortfalls and require immediate recapitalisation actions. As banks have now moved to a more steady-state setting, the aim of the 2016 exercise is rather to assess remaining vulnerabilities and understand the impact of hypothetical adverse market dynamics on banks.” No banks from Portugal will be subject to the tests because they are not deemed systemically important even though Portuguese banks are seen as weak. There was also surprise that the impact of negative interest rates, one of the big fears for the sector this year, would not play a big part in the tests. The risk of Britain voting to leave the EU on 23 June is not included either. Bank share prices have tumbled this year as investors have worried about risks such as rising bad debts and lower revenues, as the global economy slows and central banks experiment with negative interest rates. Other perceived threats include further big regulatory fines and the effect of plunging prices for oil and other commodities. The rout of bank shares has prompted companies such as Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse to proclaim their own financial strength. One of the concerns is the use of negative interest rates – when a central bank charges commercial banks for depositing money with it. The move, adopted by the Bank of Japan last month, is meant to encourage banks to lend money to benefit the wider economy, but the largely untested method can also dent banks’ profits. The EBA has not included negative interest rates in its general scenario for the stress tests, but they are among various market risk shocks that are under consideration, it said. The EBA said banks would be required to report on their financial strength to national regulators based on their position at the end of 2015, with a report due in the third quarter of this year.
Disorder review – tosh PTSD thriller for stud-muffin Schoenaerts The seemingly ubiquitous Belgian actor and all-round arthouse stud-muffin Matthias Schoenaerts (whose virile yet sensitive mug was recently seen in A Bigger Splash, The Danish Girl and A Little Chaos) stars here as a virile yet sensitive soldier suffering from PTSD and mild hearing loss. On extended leave from the army in the south of France, he takes a security job looking after the beautiful but somehow sad Euro wife (Diane Kruger) of an uber-rich Lebanese businessman and the couple’s adorable moppet son (Zaïd Errougui-Demonsant) while the husband goes on a mysterious business trip. Although as a thriller this is sort of tosh, with illogical plot holes you could drive a luxury SUV through, writer-director Alice Winocour and whoever was in charge of sound design do a great job at suggesting that our hero might be hearing the sounds of danger approaching, or just imagining threats hidden in night-time bumps and honking that blend skilfully with the techno score. Likewise, the inky, nervily handheld cinematography creates similarly ambiguous shadows. There’s a shameful pleasure to be had in ogling the plush lifestyle, perfectly conveyed through the set decoration, and then seeing it all get messed up and covered in blood by the end.
Kezia Dugdale reveals she is in a relationship with a woman The leader of Scotland’s Labour party, Kezia Dugdale, has become the fifth key political figure and fourth party leader in Scottish politics to come out as gay. Giving an interview to a magazine, Dugdale said she had a female partner. Ruth Davidson, the leader of the Scottish Conservative party; Patrick Harvie, the co-convenor of the Scottish Green party; and David Coburn, the leader of Ukip Scotland, have also come out as gay or bisexual, along with Scotland’s only Conservative MP, David Mundell, the secretary of state for Scotland. In the interview with Mary Riddell in the Fabian Review, Dugdale, 34, said: “I have a female partner. I don’t talk about it very much because I don’t feel I need to.” Her decision to reveal the information was met with widespread support among Scottish politicians. Explaining her decision to keep her private life away from the spotlight since being elected to the Scottish parliament in 2011 and becoming party leader in 2015, Dugdale said: “I don’t get easily stressed or battered. But I need a bit of stability to do that and that means my private life is my private life. That’s the thing I just have to have that nobody gets to touch, and that gives me the strength to be calm elsewhere.” Scotland is believed to be the only country in the world where most of its political party leaders are openly lesbian, gay or bisexual. As people sent messages to Dugdale on social media, congratulating her on coming out, she wrote in response: “Thanks for all the lovely messages of support – appreciated.” Dugdale was also forced to clarify her stance on Scottish independence after saying in the same interview that “it’s not inconceivable” she could support a future yes vote if the UK leaves the EU. She said she would very much like Scotland to remain part of both the UK and the EU. Dugdale was asked where her loyalty would be if there was an overall vote to leave in the EU referendum but the majority of Scots wanted to remain. She said: “I’ve never contemplated that. I really wouldn’t like to choose, because what I want to do is the best possible thing for Scotland.” When pushed on the topic and asked if she would “argue, for Scotland’s sake, against the UK union”, Dugdale said: “Possibly. It’s not inconceivable.” She went on to say: “As I made clear in the leaders’ TV debate this week, Labour has ruled out a second independence referendum. We won’t introduce one in government and we would vote against one if it’s introduced by any other party. “I campaigned as hard as anybody to ensure that Scotland remained part of the UK. The collapse in the oil price showed that the best way to secure our public services is to stay in the UK. I would vote to stay in the UK in any future referendum.” The Scottish Labour party elected Dugdale in August 2015, making her the youngest ever leader of the party. The party has been thrown into disarray after a near wipeout at the 2015 general election, when the SNP claimed nearly all Labour’s seats. Dugdale is battling to restore the balance in Scotland’s parliamentary elections this summer. As well as being a strong supporter of same-sex marriage, Dugdale has voiced her support for civil partnerships to be extended to opposite-sex couples. She has also spoken out against the Catholic church being allowed to block same-sex adoptions. In March, Dugdale, together with Davidson and Harvie, decided not to applaud when presented with the Ghanian president at Holyrood, protesting at the country’s anti-gay laws. Davidson featured her partner in a campaign broadcast last year and has spoken out with passion against homophobia in schools, backing a Stonewall Scotland campaign on the issue. Scotland was last year rated the best country in Europe in terms of legal equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people. Last week, at a hustings in Edinburgh organised by Stonewall Scotland, the Scottish first minister, with cross-party backing, made several commitments on LGBTI equality including to review and reform gender recognition laws for transgender people. At the hustings all five party leaders expressed backing for a gender neutral passport. Davidson also described having become the first openly gay Scottish Conservative MP. “When I ran for election, there were four candidates, each of whom was described by the media in a different way from me,” she said. “They were described by their jobs. Then there was ‘lesbian kick-boxer’ Ruth Davidson. “It’s taken a long time to stop being lesbian kick-boxer Ruth Davidson and start being Tory leader Ruth Davidson. It’s been quite a journey. Now I think we have the gayest group of candidates we’ve ever had.” • This article was amended on 11 April 2016. An earlier version referred to Patrick Harvie as leader, rather than co-convenor, of the Scottish Green party.
Royal Bank of Scotland turns its back on the Fred Goodwin era It has moody black and white images and a poetic voiceover with a social message. The words “we are blind” accompany images of a crowd walking past a woman sitting in a doorway. Few would guess, when the images are screened in an interval of Sunday’s X Factor, that they are an advert for NatWest bank. The campaign is part of an effort by the bank’s owner, Royal Bank of Scotland, to distance itself from the empire-building ethos of Fred Goodwin, who plastered the RBS logo on Formula One cars and across Edinburgh airport. The aim now is to run two separate banking brands: NatWest in England and Wales and “the Royal Bank” for its high street business in Scotland. David Wheldon, chief marketing officer of RBS, said the 73% taxpayer-owned bank had decided not to ditch entirely the RBS name, which will be retained for the group’s name on the stock market and parent company. Another idea to turn RBS into lower case rbs was considered and thrown out. “We are stepping back from this notion we are building a global brand,” said Wheldon, who refused to disclose how much the new campaign had cost. Adverts for Scottish audience – with the slogan “The Royal Bank for Scotland” – will be aired during Saturday’s X Factor. The focus is on “the Royal Bank”, the way Wheldon said customers in Scotland referred to their bank, rather than RBS, a name which is likely to be linked to the financial crash for decades to come. “The reputation that is really damaged is the RBS reputation,” said Wheldon. “For loyal customers, the reputation of ‘the Royal Bank’ is not as damaged.” After a £45bn taxpayer bailout, a string of fines and allegations about its treatment of small business customers, the bank is now attempting to put its “legacy issues” behind it. The ad campaigns are being launched as Ross McEwan begins his fourth year as chief executive amid the ongoing uncertainty of a fine for mis-selling mortgage bonds in the US. Last week, fears that Deutsche Bank could be facing a $14bn penalty dented RBS’s share price, which was 363p when McEwan took the helm but is 182p now. A further hit to its reputation is expected from the publication of the Financial Conduct Authority’s investigation into its treatment of small business customers. McEwan must also spin off 300 branches – imposed by the EU as a penalty for its bailout – which will eventually mean there will be no RBS branches in England and Wales and no NatWest branches in Scotland. Already delayed, the spin-off risks turning into a farce after Santander last week pulled out of talks to buy the branches. It also means that RBS branches in England and Wales will stay for the time being. The plan to rebrand them Williams & Glyn on the high street has been put aside. RBS also has to set out how it will ringfence its high street bank from its investment banking operations; rumour has it that the bank is close to finalising a plan. Once it is done, it might make it easier to split up RBS, but, Wheldon said: “We are one bank and we want to stay one bank and a bank of brands.”
I was pregnant, alone and bleeding, but didn't realise the danger I was 32 weeks pregnant. I had just got back from a short morning walk and went to the loo when I got in. I noticed the trickling sound went on for ever. When I looked down, the bowl was ruby red with blood. It seemed a bit odd but I wasn’t worried. It didn’t hurt. I grabbed a bath towel, stuffed it between my legs, pulled my joggers up and waddled to the phone. When I called the GP, I told the receptionist I’d had some bleeding. She asked if it was just spotting and how far along I was. I said I was 32 weeks, no spotting, more of a trickle. There was a short silence. I thought she would take my name and book me an appointment for that afternoon, but instead, she said she would put me straight through to a doctor immediately. It was my own doctor she reached. My doctor asked if I was on my own; I said yes. Calmly, she told me to go and undo the latch on my front door and then to sit back down but stay on the phone while she asked some questions. If it was easier, I said, I could get my mum to bring me down to the surgery. Still calm, she told me I should probably ask my mum to meet me at the hospital, as she had already called an ambulance. “Where’s the baby’s father?” she asked, and I said he was working. She answered: “It might be nice to have him with you – why don’t you give him a call when the paramedics arrive?” They arrived as we were talking and my doctor asked to speak to them. By coincidence, a friend arrived unexpectedly at the same time as the ambulance and rang my boyfriend and my mum for me. At this point, I was very tired and getting cold. Both the towel between my legs and my joggers were soaked. I remember the paramedic checked the toilet and the towel, then looked at the other paramedic. They said they would pop me on a stretcher. I said there was no need, I could walk, but she nicely but firmly said I had no choice in the matter. I don’t recall much else except for getting in the ambulance and the lights and sirens. The next thing I remember was being in a room, the bag of blood hanging there, the tube going into my arm. Everything was white. The sheets were white, the walls were white. I was white – and I’m pretty pale anyway. I have a photograph my boyfriend took of me later that day, and I just fade into the bedding. It turns out I had lost a significant amount of blood. The nurse told me the baby was fine almost immediately, and that I’d had two units of blood and they were doing another two, but I was lucky I got to hospital so quickly. From me phoning the surgery to arriving at hospital was probably only 20 minutes. I cannot thank that receptionist enough for putting me straight through to my doctor, and I cannot thank my doctor enough for the calm, measured manner in which she ensured the paramedics could get to me. Even when she said they were on their way, I didn’t fully grasp how serious it was. I remained in hospital until my daughter was born prematurely, five weeks later. She’s now 19 years old. People underestimate the vital role support staff play. Two lives were saved that day because a receptionist thought to check it wasn’t just a bit of spotting, because my GP was able to speak to me immediately, and because paramedics arrived within minutes. You can help shape our coverage of the NHS by sharing your experiences via Witness
EU leaders line up to insist UK will pay a high price for Brexit stance Britain and the EU appear more bitterly divided over Brexit than at any time since the referendum, with European leaders ramping up their rhetoric after Theresa May signalled she would seek a clean break with the bloc. The prime minister’s Conservative conference speech, in which she indicated Britain would prioritise immigration control and restore the primacy of UK law to become an “independent, sovereign nation” without full access to the single market, drew a sharp response from continental capitals. In Paris, François Hollande said Britain must suffer the consequences of its decision. “The UK has decided to do a Brexit. I believe even a hard Brexit,” he said. “Well, then we must go all the way through the UK’s willingness to leave the EU. We have to have this firmness.” If not, “we would jeopardise the fundamental principles of the EU”, the French president said on Thursday night. “Other countries would want to leave the EU to get the supposed advantages without the obligations … There must be a threat, there must be a risk, there must be a price.” Hollande’s message was underlined on Friday by the president of the European commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, who said the 27 remaining member states must not give an inch in exit negotiations. “You can’t have one foot in and one foot out,” he said. “We must be unyielding on this point.” Britain risked “trampling everything that has been built” over six decades of European integration, he said. In Berlin, Angela Merkel rammed home the same point. “If we don’t insist that full access to the single market is tied to complete acceptance of the four basic freedoms, then a process will spread across Europe whereby everyone does and is allowed what they want.” Merkel called on German industry leaders to back the government’s line in Brexit talks, even if it hit their profits. “We have to make sure our interests are coherent here so that we won’t be put under pressure constantly via European industry associations to eventually allow full access to the internal market even if all freedoms aren’t respected,” she said. The British government has yet to confirm what kind of future relationship it will seek with the EU, but the conditions set down in May’s speech – in particular migration controls on EU citizens and the insistence that Britain will no longer be under the jurisdiction of the European court of justice – effectively rule out membership of the single market. That will be hard to square with the prime minister’s determination for British firms to have the maximum opportunity to operate within the single market. In an interview with the , Joseph Muscat, the prime minister of Malta, which will hold the EU’s rotating presidency when Britain triggers article 50 early next year, said the four freedoms – the movement of goods, capital, services and people – could not be decoupled. “That cannot be negotiated … These principles are the basis for everything the EU does,” he said. The French finance minister, Michel Sapin, said on Friday that eurozone governments would not accept the City of London remaining the main euro clearing centre once Britain left the EU. “There will be activities taking place in London that will only be able to take place on the territory of the European Union,” he said. The leaders’ statements reflect an increasing feeling in European capitals that the hard line the prime minister and others adopted during the Conservative conference – including the home secretary, Amber Rudd’s plans to prevent migrants “taking jobs British people could do” – may reveal a far deeper hostility to the EU than they had imagined. Despite well-publicised divisions, the EU 27 have shown consistent unity on Brexit. Charles Grant of the Centre for European Reform thinktank said in a research paper last week that this was partly because of a rising fear of Eurosceptic populism. “A lot of British politicians believe that the hard line of the 27 is merely an opening stance,” Grant said. “Rather more Britons assume that, in the end, Angela Merkel will look after the UK. But for Merkel, the interests of the EU come first. She believes that maintaining the institutional integrity of the EU, and the link between the four freedoms, is in Europe’s interest and therefore Germany’s.” He said many British politicians were over-optimistic about the kind of deal they might achieve because they failed to understand the continental debate on migration. “They tend to assume that because the British dislike EU migration, other Europeans must think similarly,” he said. “In most EU countries the big issue is inflows of people from outside, not inside the EU. In Germany, for example, mainstream politicians do not see intra-EU migration as a big problem. So the 27 are not going to allow the British to combine single-market membership with controls on EU migration.”
'Passionate and profound': readers on Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them The 1920s wizarding world spin-off to the Harry Potter series, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, was released on Friday. Set as the first instalment in a series of five films, fans of ‘the boy who lived’ have enjoyed the breath of fresh life that has been injected into the Potter franchise. We asked you to tell us what you think of the film. Here’s what some of you said. ‘I wish I could be obliviated just to feel the thrill of watching it again’ Rating: 5 out of 5 The film was one of the most moving films that I have watched. The saddest scene is when Jacob Kowalski walks out into the obliviating rain, and all memory of the magical world is erased. Well ... not all of it. In the end, Kowalski starts a bakery (with some help from Newt Scamander), and his pastries are in the shape of all of the magical creatures he met. The funniest scene was, above all, the scene in which the niffler gets loose in a muggle bank, causing Scamander and Kowalski to get into trouble with the No-Maj security. The niffler seems to be unable to restrain itself, whenever something shiny flashes nearby. Overall, I would give the film a seven out of five (if you are a Harry Potter fan you will understand why seven), for everything. I loved how well the special effects are used, and the super filming. It was one of the best films that I have ever seen, and I wish that I could be obliviated, just to feel the thrill of re-watching the film. Josephine Aubrey Aiken, Connecticut ‘It was let down by its lack of story’ Rating: 4.5 out of 5 Fantastic effects - it really triggered the children to ask how that was achieved. Also the creatures were amazing and loveable. We loved the bowtruckle. The film was let down though by its lack of story. We really didn’t know why he was in New York. It seems just an excuse to show special effects - I can’t believe it will be one of five films. It certainly didn’t have the pure magic of Harry Potter - but then I doubt any film ever will. Boyle family, Wirral ‘A welcome treat to take a train back to the world of innocence’ Rating: 4.5 out of 5 Having grown-up, reading and re-reading JK Rowling it was a pleasant surprise to see another Harry Potter universe film on the cards. The Cursed Child felt like fan fiction. As I moved on to darker and more abstract shades of fiction, this was a welcome treat - to take a train back to the world of innocence. The visuals are wonderful, and the acting a joy to watch. Age brings wisdom, and a sense of appreciation, I see. Vishnu, India ‘It teaches you to appreciate difference which is a message we badly need at the moment’ Rating: 4 out of 5 I went to see this film with my 16-year-old son. As a disclaimer, I am not a JK Rowling or a Harry Potter fan so I did not have any background knowledge, yet I really enjoyed this movie because I think it can be interpreted in many different ways. I think, ultimately It is a story that teaches you to appreciate difference, which is a message that we badly need at the moment. But there are more intimate angles to be found. The film can be enjoyed as a straightforward story and as a metaphor: my son and I both found the way teenage angst is portrayed in the film as very perceptive. Obscurials are angry kids! For us the family therapy angle struck a chord but there will be other approaches that evoke equally strong emotions. When a work speaks to people on different levels it is a really special endeavour and Fantastic Beasts does this so admirably. Mother and son, Kent ‘Passionate and profound while very entertaining’ Rating: 4.5 out of 5 I’ve just seen the film with four friends aged from 16-70. JK Rowling is a genius for our time. Taking in hand all the techno and appealing potential of the film industry she creates a movie speaking to deep contemporary concerns with wonderful imagination and humour. I recognised the fear of ruthless forces - not mythical but active and visible now, the protection of our planet (and its creatures) in the face of ignorance or power-lust, even sex abuse and how the fury pent up in the victim could be unleashed (the relationship between Credence (well-named) and the Colin Farrell character was not simple). All the relationships were plausible. She isn’t afraid of sweeteners (e.g. love-interest/ happy endings) which may be too much for some. The only player out of place was the leader of the wizards in New York who looked like a throwback to 1970s sci-fi: the actress didn’t get the nature of the drama. And for me the blue furry monkey-thing was rather too Disney for me. Otherwise brilliantly cast and set. Passionate and profound while very entertaining. Fantastic. Tilly Young, Devon ‘It had no magical essence’ Rating: 2.5 out of 5 Having just seen the film I have to say I am disappointed. It’s by no means a bad film (I will most likely see the sequel) however, unlike the Potter films it had no magical essence, it was fairly bland. If you ask me, they should have focused on the Gellert Grindelwald and Obscurials story as that was far more interesting than what seemed more like a film about magical zoo animals. Oh and one more thing, I really do think JK should stick to books and not screenplays as this was WAY too episodic for my liking. I have my fingers crossed that the sequel will be more focused on Grindelwald and less about the beasts as they really do drag it down. Tom Dix, Cardiff ‘Fogler totally stole the movie’ Rating: 5 out of 5 I was never a Harry Potter fan, probably because I was in my 40s when they started, although my son is one. This movie, however, was not really a Potter movie, despite being set in the same universe. It featured a mostly adult cast and more adult themes. I thought it was excellent. The cast were very good, with Fogler totally stealing the movie. The soundtrack was superb. I’m looking forward to the sequel! Quicknstraight, Bangkok ‘A beautiful magical tale with some great humour for adults’ Rating: 5 out of 5 We managed to secure tickets to the regional premiere and pretty much had mixed expectations. Both massive fans of the page turning literature JK Rowling created with Harry Potter and the film series (although we differ on our choice of favourite movie of the series) we were expecting to be entertained. And we were and then some! From the opening introduction to the denouement it was a beautiful magical tale with some great humour for adults and the night time setting for the majority of the film made New York look wondrous. Colin Farrell was a mysterious and mixed character and when he finally got his wand out (pardon the pun) - during battle it was exciting to say the least as he felt like a different villain in the magical world. The mentions of Dumbledore and Hogwarts made me eager for more movies in the series and I’m excited to see how it will go. Dan Westgarth, Darlington ‘It was a great way to pass a few hours’ Rating: 5 out of 5 After a two day power cut we surrendered and decided to go to the pictures - me, my wife, daughter home from uni, son and two friends on a sleepover (in the cold and dark). We’re big Harry Potter fans anyway but did not know what to expect. It was great to hear the familiar opening music but soon my impression was it was a remake but this soon disappeared. Wow, what a great film. It ticked all the boxes and was a great way to pass a few hours. Thoroughly recommended. Now back home and still no electricity. Adam Grew, The Dark Ages AKA Uttoxeter ‘It was so exciting I forgot to eat and drink all the way through!’ Rating: 5 out of 5 Many of the characters were endearing and completely believable. The film was so exciting that I forgot to eat and drink all the way through it! There was plenty of humour and touching scenes, too. All the acting was very good. I particularly enjoyed watching how Newt interacted with the creatures. Anja Huebel, Ludwigsburg
Sam Allardyce admits pressure from Newcastle may be affecting Sunderland Sam Allardyce said his Sunderland players were “feeling the pressure” fuelled by their local rivals’ burgeoning revival after Andros Townsend’s stunning free-kick dragged Rafael Benítez’s Newcastle United side out of the relegation zone, Although a point behind their north-east neighbours following Newcastle’s 1-0 defeat of Crystal Palace and their own 1-1 draw at Stoke City, Sunderland have a game in hand and, in theory, retain the box seat in the relegation battle. Norwich, beaten 1-0 at Arsenal, slumped into the bottom two for the first time this season. Allardyce said: “We looked more nervous than we’ve ever done before. Maybe the lads are feeling the pressure a little bit. I was relieved to accept a point – it was one gained rather than two lost. Our performance wasn’t the best but we’re still fighting with three games to go. We have a game in hand on Newcastle, though, don’t we? Even if it puts more pressure on us.” Penalties proved pivotal to Tyne-Wear fortunes with Newcastle’s Karl Darlow, the club’s third-choice goalkeeper, saving one from Yohan Cabaye at St James’ Park to preserve a potentially precious three points and Jermain Defoe scoring from the spot at Stoke to salvage a previously unlikely draw. While Sunderland have home games with Chelsea and Everton followed by a trip to Watford, Newcastle are down to their final two fixtures – a trip to Aston Villa before Tottenham visit St James’ Park on the season’s final afternoon. “We cannot look too much at the table,” said Benítez. “We just have to keep going. We know that we have to approach the game against Aston Villa next Saturday like another cup final. We just have to be sure that we will be ready for the next game.” Asked if he thought both Villa and Tottenham would need to be beaten in order to secure Premier League football at St James’ Park next season, he stuck to his one game at a time mantra. “No,” said Benítez. “We have to win one game – the next one – and after, we will think about the other one. That’s the only way.” Townsend’s exquisite free-kick, his third goal in five games, extended Newcastle’s unbeaten run to four games, ensuring Pardew’s first return to Tyneside as Palace’s manager was an unhappy one. “Andros did really well,” said Benítez. “It was a fantastic free-kick; we’ve been practising different ones but not that one. And when a goalkeeper saves a penalty he is a hero so I am really pleased for Karl. Hopefully he won’t have to save any more penalties.” Pardew chose not to speak to the press after conducting his post-match broadcast interviews. However, Palace’s manager was in combative mood when asked by radio journalists about Allardyce’s provocative pre-match suggestion that his players would have been “on the pop” all week after reaching the FA Cup final. “He hasn’t got a case – just send him the video,” he said. “They’re prehistoric comments. I don’t know what era he’s in. Three or four of my players don’t drink. Perhaps he meant Coca-Cola. It’s nonsense.”
Amazon jumps the price gun as Morrisons staples go online early Amazon is poised to start selling fresh groceries including staples such as milk and bananas on the back of its tie-up with supermarket chain Morrisons. Amazon inadvertently made public its listings for Morrisons branded fresh food on Tuesday, including diced chicken breasts, smoked ham slices and ready meals. All had been removed by the end of the day. According to industry magazine Retail Week, some goods were listed on Amazon.co.uk at sky-high prices, with four pints of the grocer’s milk listed for £68.75 while five bananas cost £27.99. The imagery was also confused, with Morrisons Tastes of Home shepherd’s pie appearing beside a picture of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. It is understood the listings were in test mode with shoppers unable to buy the items on display. Morrisons has now struck deals with both Amazon and Ocado to sell its food. In February, the Morrisons chief executive, David Potts, announced it would make fresh, frozen and ambient food available on Amazon as well as via its own website. Last week, Morrisons posted its second consecutive quarter of like-for-like sales growth. At that time Potts said he expected its ranges to be available “imminently” via the Amazon Fresh service. It has already supplied 800 product lines to the online retailer, he said. The UK grocery industry is on tenterhooks amid industry reports that Amazon is gearing up to launch its own grocery service in the UK. It operates Amazon Fresh in a handful of US cities but to date has concentrated on selling canned and packaged goods in the UK.
Another high street name could join BHS on scrapheap, says Kantar Another high street retailer could join BHS on the scrapheap after the steepest slump in fashion sales since the financial crisis, a leading retail analysis firm has warned. Kantar Worldpanel said its latest figures showed that shoppers spent £700m less on clothing, shoes and accessories in the year to 25 September than they did during the previous 12 months. The period ended with four consecutive months of falling sales, the sharpest decline to hit the £36bn UK fashion market since 2009, when the banking crisis ravaged consumer confidence. Kantar said retailers had been hit by a combination of unseasonal weather and fragile consumer confidence caused by economic doom warnings around the Brexit vote. It forecast that retail sales could worsen next year when the closure of BHS, which accounted for about £400m of annual UK retail sales, is factored in. Kantar said the high street was in such a parlous state that another major retailer could yet follow the department store chain and close. “Only 10 of our top fashion retailers are worth more than the £700m which the market has lost, so this decline is equal to one of them disappearing from our high streets,” said Glen Tooke of Kantar. “Given the events of this summer this [the closure of another retailer] no longer seems impossible.” Kantar said it was not predicting the demise of a household name, but pointed out that conditions have made such an event more probable. Tooke also blamed the sales decline on “discount fatigue” – where by consumers were no longer impressed by sales – and on changing spending patterns as consumers chose to spend on evenings out instead of clothes. He added that while it was too early to assess the true impact of the EU referendum on retailers, the slump in sterling that followed the June 23 vote means further pain could be ahead. “If production costs are going up [owing to the weak pound] do you do something to control costs such as decreasing your quality?” said Tooke. “Do you absorb the cost yourself or do you pass it on to your consumers? None of that is an ideal solution. Price increases usually means volume of sales decreasing.” Retailers could be exacerbating weakness in the sector themselves, he said. “Rather than chasing after the same ‘micro trends’ as every one of their competitors, they need to work on understanding what their customers really want and to fulfil their needs. “It’s more about understanding what customers want rather than seeing a small pocket of the market that’s performing well and going after that. If you do that then everybody chases that one thing and loses their point of difference.” The Kantar figures are drawn from monitoring the spending patterns of 15,000 people and extrapolating them to give a broader picture of national habits. Recent sales figures released by some of the biggest companies in UK fashion retail appear to support Kantar’s gloomy outlook. High street bellwether Next reported a 0.3% increase in sales in the quarter to 30 July but saw profits fall. Its chief executive, Lord Wolfson, warned of tough times for the company and the wider industry. Several of the UK’s other fashion firms have been unable to arrest declining sales. Marks & Spencer had its biggest fall in clothing sales in 10 years earlier this summer, with sales in its fashion and homeware division plunging 8.9%. Primark said last month that sales in the year to mid-September were down 2%. The announcement came just a few months after it reported its first fall in half-year sales for 12 years. Debenhams reported a 0.2% decline in like-for-like sales in the third quarter, blaming shifting spending patterns that saw consumers splash out on holidays and restaurants. Retail sales bounced back in September after a weak August, according to the British Retail Consortium (BRC). But the industry body also warned of rising prices in shops owing to retailers’ higher import costs as sterling fell amid uncertainty over Britain’s future trade relationship with the European Union. The BRC called on the government to do everything it can to ensure that Brexit does not result in import tariffs being added to clothes arriving from the EU.
Migrants plan day of action to highlight contribution to Britain Migrant workers and their supporters are planning a day of action to highlight their role in the UK in what is being billed as a celebration of the contribution they make to British society. Plans for the event, called One Day Without Us, include a labour boycott to show how important migrants are to the UK workforce. Organiser Matt Carr, a writer and commentator, has urged migrants and their supporters to join in the day of action on 20 February 2017. He said the trigger for the event was profound concern about worsening attitudes to migrants in the UK. Carr said he believed that those who voted against Brexit, and also many of those who voted in favour of it, were alarmed at the levels of racism and xenophobia that had manifested before and after the referendum vote. “We want to make this an inclusive event,’’ Carr said. “We realise that because of the legal constraints on striking, many workers will not be able to take formal strike action. However, they can choose to support this event simply by taking the day off work.” He said he was surprised how quickly the event had gathered momentum. Despite discussions taking place in a closed Facebook group over a few days, Carr said there were now about 6,000 people involved in the conversation about A Day Without Us. The aim of the day of action is to emphasise the variety of work migrants undertake to help keep the UK afloat – from NHS doctors to those who staff the hospitality sector. The organisers say a day without migrant labour will demonstrate how much the economy would struggle without their contribution. The day of action, scheduled to coincide with the UN’s World Day of Social Justice, is based on similar events in the US in 2006 and in Italy in 2010. Carr plans to approach religious and community organisations as well as political parties and trade unions to support the idea and to ensure it takes place across the country and is rooted in local communities. Carr said he was hopeful that employers who relied on migrant labour would support the strike and shut their businesses for the day. “Since Brexit we have seen levels of xenophobia and racism that have been increasingly legitimised. We want to make a bold and powerful statement and give migrants an opportunity to express themselves,” he said.
What would British business be like after Brexit? A vote to quit the European Union would have many consequences for the UK, some more apparent than others. George Osborne argues that life after Brexit would be characterised by market turmoil and a shock to the government’s finances that will force ministers to impose even more austerity. Here we look at what business groups, analysts and economic forecasters have said will be the effect on the economic landscape should the UK vote to leave. Sterling According to one forecast, the pound will sink by up to 30%. Most forecasters have plumped for 18% to 20%, but Ian Harnett, the chief investment strategist at Absolute Strategy Research, who is a former chief European strategist at the investment bank UBS, believes the dangers of leaving the EU are even greater than many imagine. He says markets are complacent and that the 12% fall in the pound’s value against the dollar since last November is a mere taster for a bigger tumble. For businesses and consumers, that means the recent trend for fuel prices to tick higher will accelerate. Foreign holidays will be more expensive. Britain’s reliance on imported food will also increase costs for food manufacturers and the consumer. The Remain camp, using a conservative 12% decline in sterling as their measure, calculate each household will be £220 a year worse off as the buying power of a weaker pound increases the cost of foreign goods. Trade The fall in sterling does have a benefit too, however – it will make exports cheaper. Few doubt that, short-term at least, Britain’s exporters will get a boost. But there could be barriers to trade in the form of higher tariffs – not immediately, but when Westminster and Brussels have negotiated an exit. Most Brexit campaigners, including Michael Gove and Nigel Farage, have rejected clinging to the single market since it is clear that would mean accepting free movement of labour and unlimited immigration from the EU. According to economist Patrick Minford, a member of the Economists for Brexit group, the best advice for the chancellor would be to cut import tariffs to nothing immediately after the vote. Minford says trade would quickly accelerate simply by relying on World Trade Organisation rules. At the moment, Brussels attaches high import tariffs to many foods, especially beef, coming from outside the EU. These would be abolished, allowing South American farmers to compete with domestic and Irish beef farmers and undercut them. This “open markets” policy without reciprocal agreements is too generous to the UK’s competitors, say Remain campaigners, and would wipe out the domestic businesses shielded by tariffs. But Minford says it would let businesses spread their wings. He would offset damage to industries protected by high tariffs with some short-term subsidy and by scrapping regulations in areas such as working hours, gender equality and climate change. Johnson and Gove have also argued that tariffs to access the EU’s single market would be low following negotiations because member states would not want to lose access to the UK, the world’s fifth-largest economy. Setting aside the fact that the Minford formula throws away all the UK’s bargaining chips by unilaterally lowering tariffs to zero, US investment bank Morgan Stanley says the Leave camp would be likely to win an arm-wrestle with Brussels over trade, at least in relation to cars. In a report this year, it said: “Europe has as much, if not more, to lose than to gain from its access to the rich and large UK market, with over €30bn in annual export sales, and potentially €3bn-€4bn in UK earnings.” The City The financial services industry is split between the big banks and insurers around the City and at Canary Wharf, and the hedge fund and private equity businesses that populate Mayfair. Several banks have said Brexit will force them to rethink their attachment to the UK and review investment decisions. HSBC said in February that almost straightaway it would need to move 1,000 jobs to Paris, where it already has a large operation. Jamie Dimon, the boss of US bank JP Morgan, which is Bournemouth’s biggest employer, said Brexit could mean the UK operation losing a quarter of its 16,000-strong workforce. A bigger jolt to the City could follow if the European Central Bank tries to overturn a decision allowing firms outside the eurozone to handle large euro transactions. The UK secured a surprise victory last year in the EU’s general court, following a three-year dispute that could have banned the clearing and settlement of euro-transacted deals in the UK. It seems an arcane area of the financial industry, but is the backbone of the sector, which is why the ECB is keen to see it based in Paris or Frankfurt. Some of the biggest clearing houses, which charge a fee to guarantee share sales should one side default, are based in London, including LCH Clearnet and ICE Clear Europe. More broadly, there is anecdotal evidence that many firms have prepared to move some or all of their business to Hong Kong or Singapore, which would be cheaper and offer more “bank-friendly” jurisdictions, if they are going to operate outside the EU. Against this solid backing for Remain, hedge funds argue that the impact will be limited. Led by billionaires Crispin Odey and Sir Michael Hintze, hedgies have a clear reason to want the UK to leave the EU: a dislike for what they regard as burdensome – and profit-reducing – regulation. They also thrive in volatile markets; Brexit will certainly bring those. Like Minford, they believe the UK government will be forced to water down regulations to retain their services and stop them from joining the rush to Singapore. Employment “Those likely to be most affected by leaving the EU would be in the service sectors that trade with the EU and sectors that benefit from the free movement of labour,” says Angus Armstrong, director of macroeconomics at the National Institute of Economic and Social Research. That means financial services, tourism and car manufacturing would be major losers. Businesses relying heavily on migrants could switch to employing UK nationals should the Leave campaign opt for a points-based system to limit immigration. That means more UK nationals in London coffee houses and picking carrots in Lincolnshire – but only if wages increase. It is a shot in the dark as to whether consumers will pay more for goods or whether farmers and cafe owners will be priced out of business. Whatever the outcome, Brexit would prompt a seismic shift after 12 years during which poorer EU nationals have come to the UK in large numbers, either with skills UK nationals have not acquired or lower wage expectations. Property and asset prices Usually, a rush to safe havens drives up German government bond values and trophy assets, like central London property. Not after Brexit, according to independently reviewed Treasury estimates that suggest house prices would fall by 10%-18% by 2018. This sounds dramatic, but when house prices are rising at 8% annually prices may be frozen, rather than crash, which is not such a bad thing for first-time buyers. There would still be a shortage of homes, unless Brexit means sending back EU citizens, or them going home of their own accord. That said, the Bank of England might add a twist if it reacts to a fall in sterling by raising interest rates. There is no certainty it would be so foolish as to compound the hit to the economy from a falling currency by pushing house prices off a cliff, but that is what Threadneedle Street has suggested – as has Osborne. A lower pound raises the cost of imports and inflation. The Bank could tackle higher inflation with higher interest rates that would quickly create thousands of negative-equity property owners and kill the market stone dead. Banks would suddenly have a huge increase in bad loans and no buyers for properties that would be losing value at a time when mortgages would simultaneously have become more expensive. Multinationals Rolls-Royce is typical of major employers that have warned against leaving the EU. The aero engine maker told employees that Brexit would put its planned £65m testing plant at risk and hand US rivals a competitive advantage. Repeating the sentiment of many multinationals, chief executive Warren East said: “This is because we are a very interconnected operation across Europe. If Brexit occurs, there will almost inevitably be a period of uncertainty, and uncertainty is what we can’t cope with.” Rolls-Royce employs more than 50,000 staff, three-quarters of them in the EU. Major customers include the European aircraft maker Airbus. The breadth and depth of Britain’s car industry, with plastics and steel suppliers, body parts specialists and high-grade consultancies such as the Ricardo Group on the south coast, mean some economists believe it is one of the major industries that could survive Brexit unscathed. But the industry, being entirely foreign-owned, is highly integrated into an international spider’s web of suppliers. More than three-quarters of firms believe Brexit would harm business, a survey by the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders found. Toyota, BMW and Vauxhall have all backed remaining in the EU, as have Nissan, Audi and Land Rover maker Tata, which is currently trying to rescue its south Wales steel plants and arguing that Brexit could jeopardise their survival. EU funding Britain is one of the main beneficiaries of EU science funding and the big five pharmaceuticals companies have been expert at subsidising research with cash from Brussels. Over the past decade, EU research funding to the UK has topped £8.04bn, just behind the £8.34bn allocated to Germany. Without a commitment from the UK to replace it, these companies would probably move facilities to other centres in the EU. Universities play a big part in these projects, but for them it’s not just about the money (£4bn over the last decade). Research involves collaborating with universities across Europe, so being inside the EU and part of the Erasmus student programme helps the process of sharing knowledge and PhD students. Agriculture Farmers have learned in recent years to survive with reduced EU subsidies and, with further cuts between now and 2020 planned, many argue that an independent UK government would only need to spend a few million pounds to keep the sector solvent. But a post-Brexit landscape will leave thousands of wheat farmers in the east of England out of pocket – and a post-Brexit government might decide that these farmers, among the UK’s wealthiest, could withstand a little austerity. Ministers will also have greater difficulty persuading farmers that restrictions on migrant labour are good for the nation, as eastern Europeans are the ones who wade through the mud to bring in the harvest. EU funding for environmental subsidies will need also to be replaced. Hundreds of schemes are in operation to prevent farmers from pouring excessive nitrogen on to their fields and flooding rivers with slug-killing pellets that wash off the land. These schemes could be funded by Natural England and the equivalent bodies in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. But environmentalists are sceptical that there will be any extra cash for green schemes, following speeches by Brexit campaigners about the need to unshackle farmers from overbearing environmental regulations.
Welcome to Twitter city: is there no limit to Jakarta's social media obsession? With more Muslims than any other nation in the world, you might imagine Indonesians would be fearful, or at least dismayed, about the victory of a man who has threatened to ban all Muslims from entering America. Instead, as it was becoming clear on election night that Donald Trump would be the next US president, Jakartans had already started flooding social networks with satirical memes and comic relief. One viral joke showed Trump planting a kiss on the cheek of Dimas Kanjeng, a cult leader who claims he can multiply banknotes with his mind and was recently arrested on suspicion of murder. Others poked fun at Trump’s relationship with Indonesia’s political establishment, such as former house speaker Setya Novanto, who controversially met the Republican candidate at Trump Tower in New York last September. A meme circulating on Whatsapp, to which Indonesians are partial, showed Novanto shaking hands with various figures – President Joko Widodo, Jakarta governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama (“Ahok”), and at the top, Trump. “The joke was that anyone Setya Novanto shakes hands with will become somebody,” explains Desi Anwar, a senior Indonesian journalist and news anchor. To Indonesians, the irony was clear: Novanto was forced to resign just months after he shook hands with Trump, for allegedly eliciting a roughly $4bn bribe from the country’s biggest mine. In a developing country prone to natural and manmade disasters alike, where everything from roads to institutions are often broken and politicians rarely keep their promises, Indonesians have adopted a pragmatic willingness to adapt – and, above all, to see the funny side of things. “We always see the silver lining in the cloud,” Anwar says of the Indonesian sensibility. “If you have an accident and break an arm you think, well at least I didn’t break both arms.” The predilection for humour has led to an equally ubiquitous habit: an obsession with social media. There are about 80 million social media users in Indonesia, and the country is among the biggest users of Facebook and Twitter worldwide. In 2012, Jakarta was named the most active Twitter city in the world by Semiocast, a Paris-based research company. Regularly trapped in traffic for hours each day, many Jakartans turn to their phones to pass the time and to communicate with friends throughout this sprawling megacity. Some Jakartans own several mobile phones, and Indonesians in general have taken mass communication to a whole new level. “There is that village level of wanting to know what is going on even though Jakarta is a metropolis,” says Anwar of the capital, which is home to around 10 million people. “Jakarta still has that village mentality of ‘Uh, what’s going on, uh, what’s happening’. That’s why things like weddings are so important. You can’t have a little quiet wedding for 10 people. That’s impossible. A small wedding is something less than 500 people.” Indonesian film-maker Joko Anwar, who has more than one million Twitter followers, agrees. “Indonesians in general, and Jakartans in particular, liked to socialise, even before the era of social media. We like to talk to strangers, talk to each other about everything,” he says. “So when social media arrived, it made the habit even more convenient. That is why we are very obsessive about social media.” In situations that are anything but amusing, Jakartans can always rally behind a good joke. A few weeks ago, after a huge demonstration in the capital turned violent, with police cars torched and tear gas fired, President Widodo, known as Jokowi, gave a televised nationwide address. The president, who is usually dressed in formal batik or long white shirts, this time donned a khaki bomber jacket. His wardrobe choice ignited the imagination of netizens seizing a break from the seriousness of the day, sparking an online debate about the brand of the jacket and several trending hashtags, including #jaketjokowi. When it was finally determined where the jacket was from, the item soon sold out in most Zara stores across the capital. The obsession cuts both ways politically: social media was also used by Islamic hardliners to drum up support for the demonstration in the first place. Yet humour still functions as a defence mechanism against misfortune. Under more than three decades of authoritarian rule, President Suharto strongly curtailed free speech. Since his fall, Indonesian media and self-expression have proliferated. “For so many years we were repressed, we were not able to say whatever we wanted under the Suharto regime,” says Joko Anwar. “That’s why we developed this weird sense of humour: we respond with laughter or humour every time bad things happen, and that carries over to social media.” After a fatal terrorist attack near the Sarinah mall in January, alongside the shock and horror, Jakartans also joked about polisi ganteng, one of the “handsome” police officers who was credited with keeping casualties to a minimum. Other memes circulated showing the leader of Isis, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, shouting orders to one of the attackers over a bad telephone connection: “Ke Suriah Goblok!! Su Ri Ah!!” (To Syria, stupid. Sy-ri-a!!) His Indonesian follower responds: “Iya, Sarinah, Kaan?” (Yes, Sarinah, right?) There are times, too, when social media and humour are wielded for more serious purposes. During the razor-tight presidential election of 2014, Indonesian netizens crowdsourced the election results, tabulating them online at kawalpemilu.org, to ensure there was no dubious counting. Boundary-pushing satire, in the form of comics such as Gump n Hell, are also starting to emerge. This Indonesian-language comic, created in 2006 but published weekly on Facebook since March, has been taking aim at everything from censorship to the hypocrisy of Islamic hardliners and cold war-era laws that ban the promotion of communist material. In response to rising paranoia around communism, the comic creators drew on the recent popularity of the Japanese viral sensation Piko Taro’s video Pen Pineapple Apple Pen, which has been viewed more than 16 million times. Gump n Hell gave it an Indonesian spin, featuring Piko Taro using an apple and a banana to create the shape of the communist icon, the hammer and sickle. Another comic shows the Indonesian national symbol, an eagle, with parts of its body blurred out – a playful stab at the Olympic coverage, where some local television stations overzealously interpreted censorship guidelines by blurring the bodies of female swimming champions. “I want to confront people, but with humour,” says the comic’s creator, Errik Irwan, a 30-year-old architect from Semarang. “It’s useless if we try and fight with them through force, so we try and fight with them through humour.” “There is a saying that laughing is the best form of medicine. When things are so bad, you just have to make fun of it, because otherwise you might as well just kill yourself,” says Desi Anwar. “In the tropics, it is always sunny the next day.” If you live or work in Jakarta, we’d love to hear from you. Share your ideas, thoughts, stories and pictures here. You can also contribute on Twitter and Instagram using the hashtag # Jakarta
US newspapers came up trumps on Trump where TV failed … Top BBC executives past and present naturally think well of the BBC. So Roger Mosey, who might have been Tony Hall’s number two if he hadn’t chosen Selwyn College, Cambridge, instead, holds corporation custom and practice high as the final Trump crunch nears. “People like me who spent decades in the BBC are used to ideas of impartiality and balance. When there’s a general election in the UK, the stopwatch comes out and … each party is given an arithmetical allocation of airtime. You will hear equally from the Conservatives and Labour, and a specified amount less for the smaller parties,” he tells readers of Varsity. “In the US, this kind of regulation disappeared decades ago; but even so there has traditionally been an attempt at ‘fair’ coverage… ” Not any longer, Mosey fears. Trump, “a brazen creator of news”, has blown all that apart. “I have, in my time as a journalist, sometimes been dismissive of regulators and what may appear to be a ‘nanny state’ approach to broadcasting in a time of unlimited digital choice. But what has happened in the US this year makes a formidable case for the kind of public broadcasting that remains strong in Europe.” Up to a point, Master Mosey. It’s undeniable that, on TV especially, Trump has got away with policy murder, and that Fox News has become a macabre joke. But two events in the past few days seem to have decided this whole campaign. One is the New York Times’s publication of a Trump tax return that reveals why and how he may have paid no federal taxes for 18 years. According to some, the decision to print this return broke American law – straightforwardly, deliberately, but for good purpose. Would the BBC, in the last reaches of an election or referendum campaign, have challenged its own legal advice quite so boldly? And then there’s the foul tape of locker-room-bantering Trumpism that came out of NBC’s Access Hollywood archive. Who found it? A producer rummaging in cupboards? What did they do with it? Handed it up the corporate chain to top TV execs and their legal eagles. What did they do? They havered and pondered until someone sent a copy to the Washington Post, which promptly put the whole stinking package on its website. Full marks to the Times and Post. They did what journalists are there for. They reported the news. They changed this election. But TV and its learned friends behaved like huge corporations with something to lose. They sat on their hands too long. And what – just one more time – would the BBC have done, with fairness, balance and licence-fee retribution lowering large? Was its treatment of the Brexit referendum – in facts or disclosure – anything to write piously home about? The Mail and Express are taking an axe to Broadcasting House these days for noticing that the pound has gone pop. If we are doomed to spend the next two-and-a-half years arguing about what the vote meant, how does that reflect on the sharp focus of the coverage of the time? Fair or just fairly useless?
US voters in their own words: 'This campaign has divided us in ugly ways' ‘We must remember the richness immigrants have brought’ Monica, 51, Vermont, voting for Hillary Clinton I live in a tiny rural town in Vermont. The daughter of Peruvian immigrants who overstayed visas back when it took just a few months to get a green card; I’ve worked hard to feel like I belong anywhere. I found my way to Vermont as a young adult and no other place feels like home. I am voting for Hilary Clinton, although my preference would have been Bernie Sanders. Hillary’s approach seems to be informed by her years of experience and that’s what I want in a president – someone who is intelligent and informed about both policy and process. A Trump presidency would be a “disaster” as he’s so fond of saying. I get no sense that he has any knowledge of, or worse, the desire to learn about, the issues at all. That’s truly frightening. Trump would further divide our nation – his rhetoric alone has deepened existing divides. We must remember the richness immigrants have brought to our country. The first priority of the next president must be to unify us, as nothing can be accomplished in the current atmosphere. This has been the ugliest campaign I have witnessed in my 51 years. Trump’s campaign has been embarrassing and dangerous and it will take a while for the nation to recover. One good thing that has come of this cycle is that it has woken people up from apathy and encouraged them to make their voices heard at the ballot box – for better or worse. ‘We have become a politically correct society to our detriment’ Anne-Marie, 69, New Jersey, voting for Donald Trump Born in 1946, the first year of the “baby boom”, I am a second-generation American. I earned my BA, MEd and MA in, respectively, history, teaching and journalism. Most of my working life was in publishing. I have been alone since my divorce some 40 years ago. My views do not fit any one party, and my voting history is mixed. I have voted for Democrats and Republicans, and I threw away a vote on Ralph Nader in 2000 because I could not vote for either of the main candidates. I will vote for Donald Trump. He might not change this country – Congress can obstruct a president, as it has been doing since 2008 – but if he could, it would be in directions I support: defeating Isis, strict(er) immigration, encouraging businesses to stay or return here, a much better relationship with Russia, and the disestablishment of the politically correct society we have, to our detriment, become. A president’s priorities should be protecting the American land and people, and promoting the general welfare – here, stateside. I have found the campaign absolutely horrid. The only good thing about election day is that it ends the campaign. ‘Trump’s misogyny, racism and general ignorance astound me’ Wendy, 63, California, voting for Hillary Clinton I’m 63 years old, a Democrat, and a retired registered nurse. My husband of 36 years is a retired teacher. We live in Panorama City, a working-class suburb in the San Fernando Valley. This election is the worst I’ve ever seen, and I lived through Watergate and the Vietnam war. Donald Trump’s misogyny, racism and general ignorance astound me. I’m worried that Russia’s attempt to influence the outcome of this election in Trump’s favor might yet succeed. I don’t know who I’m angrier at – Donald Trump for being a compulsive liar – or the press for letting him get away with it. Trump’s supporters chanting “Lock her up” are the worst. Hillary Clinton is not a criminal! We face serious problems with no easy solutions. Over 20% of our children live in poverty. Climate change is real. We have too many guns and not enough good jobs. Our son is unemployed – I don’t want Obamacare repealed – I want it fixed. Hillary has a plan for that. Hillary cares about people, about children and families. She’s a feminist who will appoint supreme court justices who will stand up for women’s rights. Especially if the Democrats take back the Senate, she can get things done. Even Trump conceded that she’s a fighter. This is a historic election and, yeah, I’m excited about it. I didn’t think a woman president would happen in my lifetime. On November 8th, I hope we will elect Hillary Clinton as the first woman president of the United States. ‘I will remain apprehensive until she is president-elect’ Sarah, 28, Florida, voting for Hillary Clinton I’m a third-year medical student living in Brooklyn, NY, voting by mail as a Florida resident. My vote this year is unequivocally going to Hillary Clinton. There is a vocal proportion of Clinton voters who make no secret of their reluctant support, whether grudging Bernie Sanders advocates, or voters of any persuasion who oppose Donald Trump only marginally more than they do Clinton. Despite having backed Sanders myself, I take a less noncommittal position: Clinton, far from being the “lesser of two evils”, is a remarkably qualified, intelligent candidate whose views largely mirror my own, a stark contrast to the unsympathetic view of her character that is frustratingly widespread. Her proposed policies demonstrate forward thinking that would enable the United States to stand upright as a respected model among nations. I anticipate with hope the improvement of the Affordable Care Act to make healthcare universally affordable, the push to end gun violence, the increase in police accountability, the reform of our prison system, and a social promotion that advances race relations, LGBT rights and gender equity. None of these changes can be expected under the influence of Donald Trump, who sees the truth as tractable, promotes his sexism and narcissism as assets, and in the end, is excessively volatile and unprincipled. It’s embarrassing that Clinton, whose political competence is nigh unparalleled, holds only an uncertain majority over his farcical campaign. While the current poll aggregates are tentatively reassuring, I will remain apprehensive until she is confirmed as president-elect after election day. ‘Washington is offering no choice besides disaster’ Geno, 37, Pennsylvania, voting for Jill Stein I’m in that middle class suffering from decades of neoliberalism – involuntarily in debt, in a dead-end job because of health coverage and few options. My household can eat and pay bills most of the time, so we’re luckier than some, but doing much more is a rare treat. The nation needs living wages, progressive taxation, universal healthcare, renewable energy, an end to US aggression, and investment in our future instead of the already-rich. Society should support people over profit. The most wretched excuse for a campaign in our lifetimes has only promised the opposite. The major parties offer a deranged rightwing sociopath provoking global war or a reality-TV buffoon with no actual policy, both of them hopelessly corrupt and staggeringly incompetent. Reinforcing Bush-Obama corporatism isn’t an option. Libertarianism is suicidally shortsighted. We need a progressive administration that’ll keep the grassroots engaged in fighting for constructive, sustainable goals. That’s why I’m voting Jill Stein. It’s already too late to prevent a president Clinton; that’s what the establishment wants and that’s what it’ll get. Of course Trump never had a chance – he’s only there to scare us towards Hillary. No thanks. I won’t throw my vote away on a felon and war criminal. I’d rather affirm policies I actually support. The alternative is staying home, but I’d rather send a message rejecting business as usual (hopefully amplified a little in a swing state). Washington is offering no choice besides disaster. Our first duty is to refuse to be complicit or legitimize it. ‘I’m not so much with her as I am against the fascist Donald Trump’ Chris, 50, New York, voting for Hillary Clinton My name is Christopher; I am a gay African American illustrator and comic book artist living in New York City with my husband who is an Episcopal seminarian. As a Bernie Sanders supporter, allow me to make my position crystal clear: I’m not so much with her as I am against the fascist, racist and misogynist Donald Trump. I would love to have another choice, but unfortunately, with Jill Stein polling even worse than Gary Johnson I’m forced to be pragmatic and vote for Hillary Clinton. Liberal supreme court nominations; banking, healthcare, student loan and immigration reform; increasing living wages, honest discussions of the true effects of mechanization of labor, infrastructure revitalization, climate change, federal enforcement of police reform … these should be presidential priorities. Will they be under a centrist Clinton administration? Doubtful. Still, it is my sincere hope that the more progressive side of the Democratic party will apply the appropriate pressure. This entire presidential campaign has been a demoralizing debacle, and I for one can’t wait until election day. I’m just going to need a shower or two to scrub off the stink after leaving the voting booth. ‘Had Sanders won the primaries, I wouldn’t be writing this’ Dan, 59, California, voting for Donald Trump My name is Dan and I’m an older, white, middle-class male who intends to vote for Donald Trump. But I didn’t start out that way. Although I’ve been a Republican since registering to vote at age 18 I switched to the Democratic party this year in order to vote for Bernie Sanders in the California primary election. Had Sanders won the Democratic primary I wouldn’t be writing this little essay and I would most definitely not be voting for Donald Trump. Let me be clear – I’m not voting for Trump because I like him. I’m voting for Trump ’cause I like Hillary Clinton even less. I don’t think policy positions matter much in a presidential election. Presidents don’t actually get to direct much policy. What matters most to me is leadership. The ability to lead a large organization and inspire those being led. In this respect both candidates have serious liabilities. But Hillary’s appear to be the far more serious breaches of integrity. From her early days on the Nixon impeachment issue to her operation of the state department she has left behind a taint of corruption at the highest levels of government. We are already hearing of the rumblings of disorganization and discontent in both the state and justice department as a result of her corrupting influence. The priority of a president should be to manage the immense federal bureaucracy and inspire citizens. Hillary has proven herself to be singularly inadequate to the task. ‘I’m a Mormon Republican voting for Clinton’ David, 43, Colorado, voting for Hillary Clinton I’m a westerner, having lived and voted in Utah, Nevada and Colorado. I’m educated, with two postgraduate degrees. I’m also religious, having been Mormon all my life. I’ve been a registered Republican since my first voting experience in 1996. I’m voting for Hillary Clinton. Or, to put it more precisely, I’m voting against Donald Trump. The most important factor for me in voting for any public office is character, and I think it is obvious that Trump has the worst character of any candidate I’ve ever seen. There are many very reasonable objections to Clinton, and I’m really not a big fan of hers, but I don’t think they come anywhere close to the magnitude of Trump’s deep moral flaws. I think Clinton is a very capable politician, and I like her experience in public service. I also think she’s quite moderate, which is what I consider myself to be. Presidents are important, but they can’t do all the things for which people often hold them responsible. I think she’ll do well at foreign relations. I think she’ll choose capable but moderate supreme court justices, and I hope that Congress will approve them. This has been a miserable campaign, not just because of the poor field of candidates and the disgusting rhetoric, but also because it has divided the citizenry in very ugly ways. I am voting early, by mail, and I look forward to having the whole thing finished.
Forcing a 12-year-old to court for an abortion? That's the offence against morality As a teenage girl growing up in Brisbane in the 80s, it was necessary to be armed with the address of an abortion clinic in Tweed Heads, New South Wales. If you or one of your mates faced the pain and shame of terminating an unwanted pregnancy, you’d jump in the car with a support team of girlfriends and make the fugitive dash south of the border two hours away – or risk being charged with a crime. I’m talking about the 1980s here, not the 1880s, although of course Queensland law on abortion is little changed since the 19th century. And yet here we are in the 21st, reading about a 12-year-old child being forced through the courts to gain legal approval to have an abortion after a month of trying. All the while, her pregnancy – to another child of the same age – progressed to nine weeks. The girl, known only as “Q”, has in the past attempted suicide twice and has self harmed, and with her parents sought help from a GP, a social worker, an obstetrician, and a psychiatrist to seek an abortion. All this might have happened without the courts – it seems clear that the risk to her mental and physical health was sufficiently worrying to warrant the exceptional circumstances required under the law. But Queensland laws on abortion can make a provider jumpy. Witness the extraordinary case in 2010 of a Cairns couple, Tegan Leach, 20, and Sergie Brennan, 22, who faced criminal charges for importing the abortion drug misoprostol and inducing a miscarriage at home. Leach was charged with procuring her own abortion and faced up to seven years in prison, while Brennan was charged with supplying drugs to procure an abortion and faced up to three. In the minds of reasonable people, such outcomes would be unlikely – surely, wouldn’t they? – but when you are faced with even a slim possibility of being found guilty of such a crime, the worst-case scenario would lurk in every waking moment. This trauma endured for Leach and Brennan for 18 months. Reason did ultimately prevail and they were found not guilty but, as professor of obstetrics and gynaecology Caroline de Costa told Australia, after that case, many doctors in Queensland stopped performing abortions. The fear and uncertainty in the medical community in relation to providing abortions was at play in the case of “Q”, suggests Professor de Costa, and that “the doctor or doctors and the hospital administration wanted some certainty about the decision. But it seems with both parents giving consent for the procedure, it was unnecessary. “It appears that the girl – or young woman – was quite competent in her own mind. She is certainly not the only 12-year-old in Queensland who is pregnant, and in most cases the procedure happens because the pregnancy is accepted as a risk to the mother’s physical and mental health. “In this case, it appears that the parties concerned didn’t feel safe enough within the law.” Given that the law dates back to 1899 under the Queensland Criminal Code and is detailed under the section “offences against morality” it’s welcome news that independent Queensland MP, Rob Pyne, plans to introduce a bill to strike abortion from the state’s criminal code at the next sitting of parliament. “We are talking about someone who is vulnerable and I would say having to go through this process is cruel and unusual treatment to dish out to a 12-year-old child,” Pyne told Australia. Cruel, yes. Unusual? Certainly. It is impossible to entertain the possibility that a 12-year-old child becoming a mother would be anything other than deeply harmful to that child, regardless of their personal mental state or their support network. And although a female with the ability to become pregnant may physically be a woman, a 12-year-old is a child in anyone’s book, mentally and emotionally unable to become a parent (and certainly not able to fathom the processes of law, especially when it is such an ass). Yet there are those on the Christian fringes who believe that “with adequate support” the child in question could have proceeded with the pregnancy, given birth, and put the baby up for adoption. Yes, a child who has attempted suicide twice. This is an offence against modern morality. This is tantamount to saying a child should be forced to be an adult. Bearing children at the age of 12 might be in line with 1899 laws and mores, but in 2016? Words fail. Most Australians would find this skewed perspective of the “sanctity of life” offensive. We are a pro-choice country, with the majority of us believing that a woman has the right to seek an abortion in her first trimester, unquestioned, and thereafter with caveats. The 2003 Australian Survey of Social Attitudes found that 81% of those surveyed believed a woman should have the right to choose whether or not she has an abortion. The survey also found that religious belief and support for legal abortion are not mutually exclusive, with 77% of those who identify as religious also supporting a woman’s right to choose. Only between 5% and 9% objected to abortion in every circumstance. In the case of “Q”, Judge McMeekin found the evidence was “all one way” in favour of an abortion, citing the risk of “significant and possibly lifelong” mental health problems if it was not allowed, citing evidence from the obstetrician advising Q “the risks of continuing the pregnancy (some of which were potentially life threatening) ‘far outweigh’ the risks involved in terminating”. “He also commented that there were psycho-social implications of having a child at the age of 12, with a ‘lifelong burden, which is likely to affect mental health’,” the judge said. Everyone supported this child’s right to have an abortion, and it was morally correct to do so. But archaic laws got in the way. Let’s hope Rob Pyne’s bill drags Queensland’s idea of morality kicking and screaming into the 21st century.
Mesut Özil strike seals Arsenal’s impressive demolition of Chelsea The din from the majority that greeted the final whistle was an outpouring of joy after five years largely spent dreading this derby. Arsenal, rampant and irrepressible, have become the latest contenders to expose just how far Chelsea have slipped in the period since they claimed the Premier League. On this evidence, it is barely conceivable that those in blue had hoisted the trophy only 16 months ago. Their current, dishevelled selection surrendered meekly here, just as they had to Liverpool the previous week, from the moment they were breached. It ended up as a brutal humiliation to endure. Arsène Wenger will hardly care, with this an exorcism of sorts of the “inconvenient facts” thrown up by his side’s recent record against these opponents. Even in his wildest dreams, the Frenchman could never have contemplated celebrating two decades in charge in such a wildly authoritative manner. Retreat to 2003 and Chelsea, with their Russian oligarch owner recently in situ, were arguably the club who most undermined Wenger’s original project by shifting the landscape just as the Invincibles were threatening a period of dominance. In that context, the Arsenal manager took particular pleasure in seeing his side inflict this drubbing in such scintillating fashion. Not since Robin van Persie had run riot at Stamford Bridge in the distant days of André Villas-Boas’s dysfunctional tenure across the capital had Arsenal achieved such a satisfying return from this fixture. They had not even managed a goal in the teams’ previous six meetings. This was the home side making up for lost time, tearing into vulnerable rivals and ruthlessly cutting them to shreds. “We did it with style and steel,” offered Wenger. “You always want the perfect game but you never get it. But we got almost the perfect first half here, and that is not bad.” That smacked of understatement. It was the pace and invention of their attacking approach that rendered Chelsea so helpless though, in truth, they were only emulating what Liverpool had inflicted upon these ramshackle opponents eight days previously. Jürgen Klopp’s side had bypassed this same rearguard with their own blend of pace of pass and speed of thought. Everyone knows that Arsenal, on their day, can match that upbeat rhythm. What is becoming increasingly clear, with each passing week and stuttering defensive display, is that Antonio Conte cannot perform miracles with this Chelsea team to repel it. Their rearguard looks broken. The manager actually questioned his players’ attitude, reminding them publicly and repeatedly that, at present, “we are a great team only on paper, and not on the pitch”. Even that theory might be flawed if it was the mid-table slump of 2016, rather than the title of 2015, which better reflects this team’s abilities. Conte, his hackles raised, urged his players to prove their quality through his post-match monotone, but his patience is clearly running thin. This team’s creaking defence, a backline too fragile to provide any kind of platform for a title challenge, is a constant concern. Without John Terry’s organisational skills they looked utterly rudderless, but to be reliant upon a 35-year-old who has been surviving on one-year contract extensions for three seasons seems vaguely ludicrous. The ease with which Arsenal waltzed through the visitors’ ranks, whether the attacks were led by a revived Theo Walcott and Mesut Özil, or Alex Iwobi and Alexis Sánchez, was inexcusable. Özil was showboating on the touchline before the interval in the afterglow of his goal, volleyed down and into the turf to loop over Thibaut Courtois and dribble in off the far post. That chance had stemmed from the German’s sprint from deep, away from N’Golo Kanté, and then an exchange with Sánchez which rendered David Luiz and Gary Cahill dazed and confused. At times this felt cruel. It was certainly all too easily inflicted. Chelsea’s backline were strangers groping in the dark. They had shipped twice within 141 seconds early on and, while Arsenal’s second was a thing of beauty, the first had shattered any conviction that lingered in the visitors’ ranks. Branislav Ivanovic’s back pass was unhelpful at best, awkward at worst, but Cahill should still have dealt with it. Instead, he dawdled on the ball, perhaps contemplating a lay-off to Courtois, and was duly dispossessed by the galloping Sánchez. The Chilean advanced and calmly clipped his finish over the advancing goalkeeper. At Swansea, Cahill had been fouled by the eventual scorer, Leroy Fer, in a similar scenario. Here he was culpable. Thereafter Arsenal dazzled. The slick delivery and clever movement that dragged Chelsea horribly out of position moments later took the breath away, Özil twice zipping passes to the excellent Iwobi before the youngster slipped Héctor Bellerín free beyond a dizzied Eden Hazard. All resistance melted away. Bellerín slid his centre across for Walcott to score first time and, over on the touchline, Conte spun on his heels, hand clamped to his chin and disgust etched across his brow. So limp have his side’s first-half showings been over the last month that he must have his half-time admonishments preprepared and polished by now. At Leicester in the League Cup in midweek they had sparked a revival but there was to be no riposte here. Petr Cech, a European Cup winner in blue, blocked Michy Batshuayi’s attempt six minutes from time, but that was Chelsea’s only meaningful effort on target all evening. Cahill and Courtois were bickering before the end, the centre-half infuriated by the Belgian’s hesitancy in collecting a loose ball. That rather summed it all up. The visitors could not escape soon enough, with Arsenal’s celebrations hounding them from the arena.
Scorchers: the hottest films of summer 2016 Florence Foster Jenkins Hugh Grant and Meryl Streep have some lovely chemistry in this bittersweet sentimental comedy, based on a true story. Streep plays Florence Foster Jenkins, a wealthy 1940s socialite who believed she was a wonderful soprano despite being embarrassingly tone-deaf; Grant plays her wayward but adoring husband and manager. PB •6 May (all dates are UK release dates). Everybody Wants Some!! Richard Linklater, creator of the real-time masterpiece Boyhood, returns with a movie which seems rooted in the slacker world of his earlier films – with a deceptive hint of National Lampoon’s Animal House. It’s the 80s, and we follow a group of college students as they goof off, make out etc. Yet there’s something more reflective, too. PB •13 May. Mustang A complex, intelligent and hugely admired debut from the Turkish film-maker Deniz Gamze Ergüven, co-written with French director Alice Winocour. A quintet of orphaned teen sisters have some innocent fun on the beach with some boys, and their fierce grandma accuses them of loose morals, imprisons them in the house and orders them to prepare for marriage. It’s a story from Turkey with a very European flavour. PB •13 May. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot The title encodes an expression which in times of stress becomes Whiskey Tango Alpha Foxtrot. 30 Rock’s Tina Fey, the empress of American comedy, plays Kim, a game but chaotic journalist covering Iraq and Afghanistan, and emotionally out of her depth. The movie is based on a memoir by the real-life war correspondent Kim Barker. PB •13 May. X-Men: Apocalypse The superhero movies just keep on coming. Bryan Singer directs this new outing for Marvel’s X-Men, including Jennifer Lawrence’s Mystique, who must battle a mutant, Apocalypse, played by Oscar Isaac. The film will have to reach high to match Quicksilver’s wonderful slo-mo sequence, to Jim Croce’s Time in a Bottle, in X-Men: Days of Future Past. PB •18 May. Sing Street Irish film-maker John Carney plucked the world’s heartstrings on screen and then stage with his musical Once. Now he’s back with this winningly nostalgic tale of a teenager in 1980s Dublin who dreams of being in a band. This sweet-natured movie has won comparison with The Commitments. PB •20 May. Love and Friendship Jane Austen adaptations are in the air, what with the Pride and Prejudice and Zombies mashup and Curtis Sittenfeld’s new novel Eligible, also a reworking of P&P; now Whit Stillman releases his droll and elegant version of Austen’s early novella Lady Susan, with Kate Beckinsale in the lead. PB •27 May. Alice Through the Looking Glass A follow-up to Tim Burton’s Alice, still with Mia Wasikowska as Alice, Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter and Helena Bonham Carter as the Red Queen. Burton has ceded directorial responsibilities to British film-maker James Bobin. The 2010 film was a big hit, so this will have something to live up to. PB •27 May. Warcraft: The Beginning The fantasy role-playing game Warcraft – already rolled out in the form of video games, novels, comics and a myriad of collectibles – now has a movie iteration. The peaceful realm of Azeroth is threatened by an orc incursion. Duncan Jones (who made Moon and Source Code) directs. PB •30 May. The Nice Guys Shane Black is the veteran action writer-director who gave us the cult hit Kiss Kiss Bang Bang in 2005 and hit serious paydirt with Iron Man 3. His new film is a comedy crime noir set in 70s LA, and features the mouthwatering pairing of Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling: they are a private detective and his associate who investigate the death of a porn star. PB •3 June. Where to Invade Next Maybe the Obama years have caused a mellowing and a brightening in the great man, because Michael Moore’s new documentary isn’t an attack on American military ambitions. Actually, it’s a friendly tour of other countries – an “invasion” designed to cherry pick the best social welfare ideas from places such as France, Portugal and Finland. PB •10 June. Fire at Sea Italian film-maker Gianfranco Rosi earned a cult following for his documentary about Rome, Sacro GRA. This new movie won him the Golden Bear at Berlin. It’s a powerful documentary study of Lampedusa, tracking its frontline experience of the refugee crisis over a year. PB •10 June. The Conjuring 2 The first chiller about the real-life 1970s paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren – who later became famous for their involvement in the Amityville affair – went over nicely at the box office. Now they are back, played again by Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga, and travelling to London to investigate a haunting. PB •17 June. Tale of Tales Matteo Garrone’s excursion into rococo fantasy and myth is one of the most gloriously strange films of the year: fabular and fabulous. It is taken from the 16th-century Italian folk tales of Giambattista Basile, and it is bizarre, hilarious and erotic, with hints of Python and Blackadder. There is a glorious performance from Toby Jones as an eccentric king and great turns from Vincent Cassel, John C Reilly and Salma Hayek. PB •17 June. Elvis and Nixon Forget about Batman and Superman: this is the really freaky pairing: a real-life meeting in 1970, immortalised in a famously bizarre formal handshake photo. Elvis Presley had showed up unannounced at the White House, and wanted the President to swear him in as an undercover drug enforcement agent. Ironic, considering his consumption of prescription medication. Michael Shannon is Elvis and Kevin Spacey, of course, is Tricky Dicky. PB •24 June. Independence Day: Resurgence Belated follow-up to the popular 1996 alien-invasion blockbuster, which featured Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum saving the planet alongside Clinton-esque prez Bill Pullman. Smith isn’t returning, but a second battle feet of the same extra-terrestrial nasties apparently will be – and pretty much everyone else, including director Roland Emmerich. Liam Hemsworth is the main new addition. AP •24 June. Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie The success of The Inbetweeners Movie has given a new lease of life to British TV sitcom spin-off films, and Jennifer Saunders’ PR-spoofing show follows Dad’s Army into cinemas. It doesn’t sound like the fruit will fall too far from the tree with this one. Saunders and Joanna Lumley will return as Edina and Patsy, with one of the show’s directors, Mandie Fletcher, getting the nod for the feature. Sanders and co are clearly not afraid of the curse of the celebrity cameo: dozens have been announced, including Graham Norton, Twiggy, and Elton John. AP •1 July. Maggie’s Plan Rebecca Miller, the writer and director of Personal Velocity and The Private Lives of Pippa Lee, has come up with a more conventional comic premise for her fifth feature: Greta Gerwig plays a woman whose plan to have a baby on her own goes awry when she meets and marries Ethan Hawke’s hunky academic. The film did well at its premiere at Toronto, with Julianne Moore receiving lots of plaudits for playing Hawke’s Danish-accented ex-wife. AP •8 July. The Legend of Tarzan The latest film about Edgar Rice Burroughs’ tree-swinger features Alexander Skarsgård as a more mature Lord Greystoke, back in central Africa years after the “classic” Tarzan period. The last live-action Tarzan was 20 years ago, so perhaps we are ready for this expensive reboot. Harry Potter maestro David Yates is in charge of this one; only time will tell if he has another franchise on his hands. AP •8 July. Ghostbusters The first emanation from the new “Ghostbusters universe” is the much touted female-fronted one, with the Bridesmaids one-two of Melissa McCarthy and Kristen Wiig joined by SNL’s Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones for more ghost-busting shenanigans. This caught a bit of flak after the trailer appeared to show African American Jones confined to a non-scientist, “street” type role; though whether it will pan out like that remains to be seen. If the release goes well, though, there’ll be more Ghostbusters – a male-fronted one, and a cartoon – coming down the pipe. AP •15 July. Star Trek Beyond The third in the latest cycle of Star Trek films (but the 13th feature version overall). With JJ Abrams otherwise occupied on the Star Wars franchise, Justin “Fast & Furious” Lin steps into the director’s role. Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto are back as Kirk and Spock, with Simon Pegg adding script duties to his regular role as Scotty. Not much has been revealed, other than that Idris Elba plays the villain Krall, and that the crew are stranded on a planet after being attacked “by a powerful, unstoppable wave of unknown aliens”. So it’s as you were, basically. AP •22 July. The BFG Roald Dahl’s 1982 novel was turned into an animated film in 1989, but now Steven Spielberg has made a live-action version, and it looks like it could be summer’s big family blockbuster. Man of the moment Mark Rylance is the amiable giant who kidnaps a little girl to help him defeat a tribe of menacing man-eating giants. Spielberg has cast an unknown, 11-year-old Ruby Barnhill, opposite Rylance. This sort of kids’ fantasy tends to bring out Spielberg’s best qualities; definitely one to look forward to. AP •22 July. Finding Dory Pixar’s new one is a sequel to its 2003 hit Finding Nemo (you know: clownfish, lost, Willem Dafoe, sharks). Here, the focus is on Nemo’s forgetful pal Dory (Ellen DeGeneres, in the original as well as this), who embarks on a quest to find her family in California. The moderate response to 2015’s The Good Dinosaur took a bit of the gloss off Pixar’s reputation, and Finding Dory would seem at this distance to be solid rather than inspired. But we’re happy to be proved wrong. AP •29 July. Jason Bourne Paul Greengrass is back in the Bourne saddle for the first time since 2007’s Bourne Ultimatum (after taking a break for 2012’s not universally admired Bourne Legacy). This one seems to be an attempt to recalibrate the spy series as an open-ended franchise. Not a lot of info is available, other than a trailer that suggests Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) is indeed back, and he’s protecting former contact Nicky Parsons (Julia Stiles). Alicia Vikander is the most eye-catching new recruit to the series, playing some sort of agency aide, while Riz Ahmed is along for the ride, too. AP •29 July. Suicide Squad A supervillain match-up movie featuring the Joker, Deadshot, Boomerang et al, as part of DC Comics’ belated attempt to rival Marvel’s “extended universe” blockbusters. Having seen Batman v Superman flounder if not exactly flop, DC will be pinning a lot of hopes on this. Directed by Fury’s David Ayer, it stars the likes of Will Smith, Jared Leto and Margot Robbie, and has the baddies teaming up in a task force to save the world. If this doesn’t work, there’s the Justice League movie just over the hill … AP •5 August. David Brent: Life on the Road Another TV spin-off – this time more likely to appeal to the Alpha Papa crowd rather than the Dad’s Army one. Ricky Gervais dusts down his fondly remembered Office alter ego David Brent for a feature-length outing, which he wrote, directs and stars in. He seems to be trying a bit harder than most spin-offers: Brent is trying to rekindle his dreams of music-biz stardom in this one. If the trailer is anything to go by, Gervais will also be taking advantage of cinema’s less restrictive morals, with some nuclear-level potty-mouthing. AP •19 August. Swallows and Amazons Arthur Ransome’s classic kids’ yarn is adapted for the screen for the first time since 1974. Inevitably, though, the much giggled-over character name Titty has been changed … to Tatty. There is a cast of biggish names – Rafe Spall, Kelly Macdonald, Harry Enfield – and a newly inserted plot strand about a suspicious-looking spy, apparently inspired by Ransome’s own “diplomatic” activities on both sides during his time in revolutionary Russia. Lots of splendid Lake District countryside, however, is assured. AP •19 August. Ben-Hur This is one of those remakes that no one had particularly asked for. But, possibly inspired by the rise of the faith film audience, the “tale of the Christ” is to get another workout. Boardwalk Empire’s Jack Huston steps into the Charlton Heston role of the Jewish prince forced into slavery by the Romans; Toby Kebbell is Messala, the former childhood friend he takes on in a chariot race. It isn’t likely, if we’re honest, to match the 1959 version’s 11 Oscars – but is potentially an entertaining romp all the same. AP •26 August. Julieta Pedro Almodóvar’s unlikely take on the work of Canadian short-story maestro Alice Munro has acquired some distracting notoriety, after the Spanish auteur and his brother were named in the Panama Papers; Almodóvar promptly withdrew from press activity. Julieta, which will premiere at Cannes, features Emma Suárez (best known for her work with Julio Medem) as a woman looking for her runaway daughter. AP •26 August. War Dogs Todd Phillips, king of the stoner-bromance movie, goes a tad more heavyweight here, with this arms-trading comedy (you heard that right) based on a non-fiction book called Arms and the Dudes. Miles Teller and Jonah Hill play the Miami stoners who luck into a $300m contract to supply guns to the military in Afghanistan. Producer Bradley Cooper has a supporting role as a major league arms dealer. AP •26 August.
Cult heroes: Carter USM – wagers of pop's cultural wars For indie-rock fans of a certain vintage, a train journey through south London feels like revisiting some sort of urban wild west. Tulse Hill, Peckham and New Cross are names that conjure up nocturnal transit-van dashes between tower blocks full of “smackheads, crackheads, pensioners, pimps … pit-bull terrorists, hammerhead loan sharks” and “Bostik boys playing chicken in the box”. It takes those fans back to 1990, when gentrification was but a glint in the eye of developers and legions of Sheriff Fatmen began their gold-rush on south-of-the-river slum flats, cramming them full of drug users, domestic abusers, the starving and suicidal. Or so you’d think from the musical dispatches of this modern Dodge City’s two grebo Gary Coopers. Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine were Jim “Jim Bob” Morrison and Les “Fruitbat” Carter, accompanied by a drum machine that they appeared to have had unlocked at a dodgy key-cutters and souped up to three times the legal speed limit. Spitting in the dilated pupils of Madchester, they hammered out barbed punk poetry of urban degradation and decay, twisting to their own sardonic ends the regal synth-pop of the Pet Shop Boys, baggy’s filthy guitar funk, the indie urgency of the Wedding Present and popular culture references – Peanuts cartoons, Martini adverts, Gene Pitney, It’s a Wonderful Life, Elvis Presley, The Taking of Pelham 123. They sounded like the late 70s snatching the 80s’ gleaming blade from its hands and going for the throat. Imagine Sleaford Mods with choruses and something to watch. Carter USM concerts were a riot of blinding white light, crowd-surfing mayhem and chants affectionately mocking the thyroid issues of their famed roadie and compere Jon “Fat” Beast. So it was no wonder, with the emergence of their shoestring debut album 101 Damnations and its stupendously faux-epic single Sheriff Fatman – condemning the rise of mercenary cowboy landlords with their criminal backgrounds and “more aliases than Klaus Barbie” – that they shook the indie-rock scene out of its ecstasy stupor and set a tone of snarling social commentary for the new decade that would be chorused by the likes of Primal Scream, Pulp, S*M*A*S*H, Blur and Chumbawamba. They were the unflinching report card on Thatcherism and the diagnosis of a brutalised Britain that’s yet to heal. All of which sounds as likely to appeal to the masses as a humane politician or a fully dressed fantasy drama series. Yet the critical rapture that greeted 1991’s 30 Something – broadening their horizons beyond Brockley to tackle nationwide alcoholism (Anytime, Anyplace, Anywhere), war and its inherent racism (Say It With Flowers, Bloodsport for All) and blind globalist consumerism (Shopper’s Paradise) – sent them into the top 10, arguably the most snarling and subversive breakthrough act since punk – or at least Frankie Goes to Hollywood. Not bad for one squatty Sideshow Bob and one stumpy Lance Armstrong, but mock Carter USM at your peril, lest you get a thorough “Schofielding”. Popularity did nothing to sugar their vitriol, so when caught in the shallow machinations of the mainstream, Carter kicked back. Literally. Booked to mime their one-off single about child molestation and murder After the Watershed (Early Learning the Hard Way) at the 1991 Smash Hits poll winner’s party, Fruitbat reacted to their backing tape being cut short by kicking over the speaker stacks and flooring presenter Philip Schofield for yelling, “Blimey, that was original!” and calling him “The Fruitbat”. Les’s handbagging of the face of Just for Men had an impact on popular culture that alternative music could only dream of today. It cut through indie-rock’s cuddly druggie image of the age, blurred music’s thick line between grimy underground menace and sparkly gnashered pop safety and repopularised indie’s anti-establishment rebellion. In its wake, major televised award shows became cultural war zones; the KLF machine-gunned the Brits audience with blanks, Danbert Nobacon of Chumbawamba drenched John Prescott, Jarvis Cocker flapped his blazer seat at Michael Jackson. Carter became instant superstars, hitting No 1 with their third album, 1992 – The Love Album, and having a bona fide Christmas hit with their cover of The Impossible Dream. A barrier broke, and through the breach charged the grebos, the crusties, the T-shirt bands and the scintillating dandies of Britpop. Musical conspiracy theorists have remained strangely silent about the indiscernible brainwashing-sound hidden on the first Suede album, which somehow robbed the wave of bands that came before them of their ability to write tunes. The Wonder Stuff, EMF, Ned’s Atomic Dustbin, Jesus Jones, Senseless Things – by the end of 1993 there was barely a chartable hook between them, and Carter’s fourth album Post-Historic Monsters was among the most high-profile victims. Bitter, twisted and taking sideswipes at everyone from Richey Edwards to Terence Trent D’Arby, it bristled with a malcontent firmly at odds with the sleazy hedonism of Suede or the oompah nostalgia of Blur, and set them against the mood of the age. Adapting to survive, the duo ditched their drum machine for a human drummer on fifth album Worry Bomb, and by 1996 they were a six-piece who had shifted their sound towards straight-up punk pop. But style trumped sweat, and like most early 90s alternative acts trying to reinvent themselves mid-decade, Carter were swept under by the Britpop tsunami and split up on their 10th anniversary. Since then, Carter have been unfairly dismissed as part of the wave of early 90s T-shirt bands that acted as a placeholder between baggy and Britpop. Their musical legacy, on the surface, consists almost solely of Andrew WK, who took their frantic electronic fanfares, hollowed out the politics and social conscience and plonked in a large keg and a beer pong table. They deserve more credit, though: the roots and attitude of the new wave of new wave movement – Elastica, S*M*A*S*H, These Animal Men, et al – can be traced to Carter, and Jim Bob’s shameless semi-comic mangling of TV, film and music references prefaced Noel Gallagher’s identical approach to the music of the Beatles, Bowie, T Rex and the New Seekers. The 90s was the light-fingered decade, and Carter were its Fagins. As rock’s don’t-scare-the-demographic media training got stricter by the year, with “I don’t know enough about politics to comment” becoming the new “if anybody else likes it, that’s a bonus”, the hole that Carter USM left grew wider and darker – which is why their on-off “farewell” reunions have been crucial in helping to fill it. Between 2007 and their final set of shows in 2014, they played sporadic, sold-out Brixton Academy gigs every couple of years to an army of faithful, chanting: “You fat bastard” but yearning for such an informed, intelligent and outspoken crossover voice for the downtrodden in today’s mainstream music scene. Meanwhile, Sheriff Fatman slavers over his billowing buy-to-let portfolio in his Pimlico penthouse, toasting the fact that he’s now the government-protected backbone of the British economy as he crams another overpriced windowless shed with 23 overseas plasterers, junior doctors and tangle-haired electro rock bands.
Tories divided by Boris Johnson's EU-Hitler comparison Boris Johnson has been criticised by fellow Conservative MPs for hitting a new low in the referendum campaign after he claimed the EU has the same goal as Hitler in trying to create a political superstate in Europe. In fresh Tory divisions over the referendum, the former London mayor drew criticism from remain campaigners for saying the EU and the Nazi dictator had the same aim of political union in Europe even though they used “different methods”. In an interview with the Sunday Telegraph, Johnson, seen as the de facto leader of the leave campaign, said the past 2,000 years of European history had been dominated by doomed attempts to unify the continent under a single government to recreate the “golden age” of the Romans. “Napoleon, Hitler, various people tried this out, and it ends tragically. The EU is an attempt to do this by different methods,” he said. “But fundamentally, what is lacking is the eternal problem, which is that there is no underlying loyalty to the idea of Europe. There is no single authority that anybody respects or understands. That is causing this massive democratic void.” But some in his own party said the remarks were inappropriate. George Freeman, a science minister, said Johnson had “hit a new low” in the EU referendum debate and the comparison with the Third Reich “really is too much”. Nicholas Soames, a Conservative MP and grandson of Churchill, said he had “gone too far”, and described Johnson as the “unchallenged master of the self-inflicted wound”. Sir Eric Pickles, the Conservative former communities secretary, drew a comparison between Johnson and Ken Livingstone, another former London mayor, who was suspended from Labour for suggesting Hitler supported Zionism. He said: “If the last few weeks tell us anything: it is rarely a help to mention Hitler in support of an argument by an ex-mayor of London.” Johnson is not the first to invoke the second world war in the context of the EU referendum deabate. Cameron has warned that Brexit puts peace in Europe at risk, highlighting the role the EU has had in bringing countries together after the bloodshed of 1945. Michael Heseltine, thea former Tory deputy prime minister and remain campaigner, intensified that warning on Sunday night, as he urged voters to judge the leave campaign by their “friends” Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. “They are playing with fire. We have been here before. The same themes echoed through the 1920s and 1930s. Every time I hear those who proclaim the desirability of independence and national sovereignty, I shudder with the memory of 1940,” he said. “We were sovereign. We were alone. Our convoys sank in the Atlantic. Our finances bled. Our overseas armies faced isolation. That was real sovereignty and we were powerless until America entered the war. Peace was hard won. Europe came together to ensure it must never happen again. “Every world friend we have knows this, warns us of the danger of forgetting it, begs us to maintain our leadership in preserving the framework of stability.” Johnson had previously come under fire for suggesting that Barack Obama’s “half-Kenyan” heritage was behind the president’s supposedly anti-British sentiment. But Johnson’s position was backed by a number of Tory grandees campaigning for Brexit, including Norman Lamont, the former chancellor, Iain Duncan Smith, the former work and pensions secretary, and Chris Grayling, the leader of the Commons. Defending Johnson’s use of “historical parallels”, Duncan Smith said: “He talked about this nonsensical idea of trying to drive these different countries [together]. It’s a historical fact of life that if you go through Napoleon, Hitler, everyone else … I think the whole process of trying to drive Europe together by force or by bureaucracy ultimately makes problems.” The Conservative former chancellor Norman Lamont also came to Johnson’s defence, saying it was a “fact there were fascist theorists who believed very strongly in a united Europe”. Lord Lamont said the headline for Johnson’s comments was misleading, telling Murnaghan on Sky News: “I don’t think [Johnson] was saying people who favour the European Union were comparable to Nazis. “He was simply saying that, historically, from the Romans, Charlemagne, Napoleon, there have been all sorts of attempts to dominate Europe and these have all floundered because Europe is not naturally one entity.” Sources in Vote Leave, the official campaign group for exiting the EU, also claimed his comments had been taken out of context, saying it was “quite clear he was providing an analysis that consolidation of power in Europe has failed throughout history”. Others said resorting to a comparison with Hitler suggested the out campaign was struggling. Hilary Benn, the shadow foreign secretary, said: “Leave campaigners have lost the economic argument and now they are losing their moral compass. “After the horror of the second world war, the EU helped to bring an end to centuries of conflict in Europe, and for Boris Johnson to make this comparison is both offensive and desperate.” The former cabinet minister Yvette Cooper, a member of the Britain Stronger In Europe campaign, accused Johnson of playing a “nasty, nasty game”. “The more he flails around with this kind of hysterical claim, the more he exposes his shameful lack of judgement, his willingness to play the most divisive cynical politics and the emptiness of his arguments,” she said. Lord Bramall, a former chief of the defence staff, who took part in the Normandy landings, said: “I know only too well, this comparison of the EU and Nazi Germany is absurd. Hitler’s main aim was to create an empire in the east and violently subjugate Europeans. Any connection between that and the EU is simply laughable.” Johnson made the comments in a newspaper interview after touring the south-west on a Vote Leave battlebus. Vote Leave will try to turn the debate to the economy on Monday as its UK tour continues, releasing research that the group said shows the single market is failing British exporters. It claimed that Eurostat figures show that over the past decade the value of British exports of goods to the EU has fallen by 18.15% – a worse performance than every member state other than Luxembourg. Despite the uproar among remain campaigners about Johnson’s remarks, speculation is growing that he will make a move for the Tory leadership if Cameron resigns in the event of a British exit from the EU or narrow remain vote. On Sunday the Ukip leader, Nigel Farage, backed Johnson to succeed Cameron if this happens, describing himself as a “Boris fan” and comparing him to the former US president Ronald Reagan. Cameron has always insisted that he will carry on regardless of the result, but many MPs believe he will have no choice but to resign if the country rejects his call to remain or only narrowly votes to stay. In comments clearly designed to stoke tensions within the Conservative party over the referendum, Farage said he could even envisage a situation in which he would work for Johnson in government. In an interview with the Mail on Sunday, Farage rejected suggestions that Johnson would not be serious enough to be prime minister if Cameron were forced to stand down. “Boris goes on surprising people. They say he can’t do this, he’s a joker – it’s like Ronnie Reagan. Could he do it? Yes. If you’d asked me six months ago, I’d have said no, but I’ve changed my mind,” he said. Asked if he would like to work for Johnson if there were a vote to leave the EU, Farage said: “I love Boris, respect him, admire him; I’m a Boris fan. Could I work for him? Yes. Could I see a scenario if he was PM and he asked me to do something? I wouldn’t rule it out.”
Author: The JT LeRoy Story review – the unmasking of a phenomenon Jeremiah “Terminator” LeRoy was a phenomenon. The HIV-positive, transgender, drug-addicted child of a truck-stop prostitute, his autobiographical novels were a literary sensation. The slight, softly spoken author, cowering behind oversized sunglasses and wig, was propelled into celebrity circles, and courted by Asia Argento, Madonna, Courtney Love and others. Except JT LeRoy didn’t exist. He was the invention of writer Laura Albert, who described him as an “avatar” through whom she could create with a freedom she didn’t have as herself. JT in the flesh was played by Albert’s sister-in-law, Savannah Knoop. This film explores the story – which is rather more complex and knotty than the “literary hoax” it was described as at the time – from Albert’s perspective. And while it gives a fascinating insight into her near pathological compulsion to try on other voices and identities, it does leave a lot of questions unanswered. Albert’s then-husband, Geoff Knoop, and Savannah Knoop are both conspicuous by their absence. And as Albert peels back the onion layers of her alter egos, we are reminded that this is the “truth” authorised by a gifted fantasist.
Dick Van Dyke and Carl Reiner on pushing 100, charming the FBI and falling in love again A statue of a cartoon dog greets me as I enter Carl Reiner’s home in Beverly Hills. It was one of the last things Estelle – the late wife of the writer, actor and director – ordered from a catalogue. Everywhere I look, there are stacks of books and DVDs, not to mention a prominent bust of Shakespeare, and a chair where comedian Mel Brooks, Reiner’s best friend, sits every night as the two watch Jeopardy! and exchange quips over dinner. On the sofa beside Reiner sits Dick Van Dyke, dressed in a dapper beige blazer and navy slacks. When the actor stands up, I feel very short. He’s sharp, thoughtful and jovial as he chats with his old friend. Reiner, now 94, is still every inch the charmer. Every few minutes, he stops to scribble down notes as he thinks of something that tickles him. “Start talking, something will come” – that’s his philosophy on creativity, and he has spent his latter years knocking out an impressive number of books, with titles such as What I Forgot to Remember and I Just Remembered. His latest is Why & When the Dick Van Dyke Show Was Born, a behind-the-scenes look at the slapstick show that may mark the dawn of the modern sitcom. It’s exactly 50 years since the last episode aired, and 55 since audiences first fell in love with Van Dyke’s character Rob, the lanky head writer for the fictional Alan Brady Show. His wife Laura was played by Mary Tyler Moore, while Reiner was his egocentric boss. Reiner went on to direct films such as The Jerk and The Man with Two Brains, later popping up on shows and films such as Two and a Half Men and Ocean’s Eleven. But as far as he’s concerned, The Dick Van Dyke Show will always be his best work. When he first wrote it, he was meant to be the star. He filmed the pilot, but it didn’t sing. Producer Sheldon Leonard asked Reiner to give it another go, but he was reluctant – he didn’t want to fail twice. “You won’t,” said Leonard. “We’ll get someone better to play you.” Van Dyke was that person and the rest is TV history. Van Dyke, now 90, says he still gets letters from young kids. “They watch our show and say, ‘What happened to comedy?’ Our show makes them really laugh, unlike what they are seeing now.” “There are very few satirical shows on now,” agrees Reiner, leading me upstairs to his office. Beside his nine Emmys sits the typewriter he banged out all those award-winning shows on. There are photo albums and a set of letters he exchanged with his wife during the second world war, when he was serving as a radio operator and French translator, before joining an entertainment unit that toured the Pacific. By the window is a sculpture of a horse made for him by Estelle. On the wall, there’s a jokey clock she bought him. The two were married for 65 years: “She was brilliant,” he says. “She was my everything.” Something suddenly makes Reiner remember the blacklist days. One morning in 1954, he found himself embroiled in Hollywood’s communist witch-hunt, as two men in black came knocking. It was the FBI. He answered the door in his boxer shorts and decided to give them nothing but charm. “Come in, gentlemen, come in. How do you guys feel about coffee?” “We’d love some.” “No, I was asking if you had any.” They quizzed him on his voting habits, the fact he’d compered shows for known political activists, then they hit him with the big question: “Do you know any communists?” “I’m sure I do,” he replied. “Would you tell us who they are?” “Communists don’t tell you they are communists. If they told you, you wouldn’t be coming to me. But I know they’re out there because you guys keep looking.” The men didn’t smile. They just thanked him and left, never to be heard from again. “It was my best acting job,” he says. “Charmed the shit out of them.” Such a witch-hunt, he says, would be a little harder now. “But who knows? Who thought a guy named Trump would get such a big following?” As we wander back downstairs, he continues: “Anybody who tells a very big lie is paid attention to. If you say, ‘Shakespeare could not write. He was illiterate,’ everybody says, ‘Well, what do you know that we don’t?’ That’s what Trump does all the time.” Van Dyke, firmly in the Bernie Sanders camp, pipes up: “That kind of bravado suggests there’s something missing. I think if you hit the right note with Trump, he’d crumble. There’s an insecurity in there.” Reiner doesn’t care whether it’s Sanders or Hillary Clinton who wins the race to the White House, just so long as it isn’t anyone else. “I need to see a woman president in my lifetime,” he says. “Or the first Jewish president.” “Then we’ll have to have a gay president,” suggests Van Dyke. Reiner replies: “That would be nice.” Now that they’re both pushing a century, they’re thrilled that these days almost anything goes – especially in the world of television. “Mary and I had twin beds,” says Van Dyke. “We were not allowed to be seen to sleep in the same bed. Look at TV now: there’s practically nothing you can’t get away with.” Reiner remembers a first world war sketch he wrote for Your Show of Shows in the 1950s. As soldiers gaze up at planes about to drop bombs on them, Sid Caesar yells: “Damn you! Damn you!” The censors said: “You can’t say damn.” So they ended up changing it to: “Darn you! Darn you!” Reiner ends his memory with an envious observation: “The word fuck is a perfectly good word now.” “I never minded Richard Pryor saying it,” says Van Dyke, “but so many comedians use it constantly instead of good material. That’s when it gets offensive.” It would be easy for both men to rest on their laurels, but Reiner and Van Dyke are both very active on social media. Reiner tweets a combination of rants about Trump, adages he’s forgotten the endings to, and “puns worth passing on”. These include: “2 silk worms had a race. They ended in a tie. A dog gave birth to puppies on the road & was cited for littering.” Van Dyke, meanwhile, leads an a cappella quartet and dabbles in computer animation, having started 25 years ago on simpler systems. “It moves so fast I can hardly keep up,” he says. “But it’s fascinating – the kind of thing you lose hours doing.” He’s also itching to do an autobiographical one-man stage show, and take on some serious acting – King Lear, perhaps. It’s a long way from Bert, the cockney chimney sweep in Mary Poppins. “Did you see that 60th anniversary Poppins thing where I danced?” says Van Dyke. “Yes!” says Reiner. “I was worried for your life. He was dancing on rooftops, that chimney sweep thing. When he first filmed it, he told me he was scared of falling and killing himself – and now he’s 64 years old or whatever it is.” “I’m 90!” “And he’s still doing it! I couldn’t believe it.” Van Dyke performed Step in Time, the frenetic Poppins number, with dancers at least 60 years his junior. “I heard one of them say, ‘We really better get our knees up now.’ God it was fun. I have to retire – I can’t top that.” Reiner quickly chimes in: “You can’t retire.” Van Dyke recalls a TV show where Judi Dench and Jeremy Irons were asked to name the worst British accent in history. “I won hands down,” he says. But there’s one thing that puzzles him to this day: “There was a whole cast of British people and nobody said, ‘Y’know, you’ve got to work on that accent a bit.’ Nobody said a word.” He may joke about it, but the idea of retiring is anathema to Van Dyke. “When I rise in the morning, I’m much better off if I have somewhere to go.” He works out at the gym every day – and he’s not even the oldest person there. There’s always a 97-year-old man there with his trainer. “My brain is still going but my feet and the rest of me barely make it,” says Reiner. His health may be ebbing away, “but not this part,” he says, tapping his head. “I think I write better than I used to.” Ageing often brings with it crippling bids for perfection, rather than the spontaneous, judgment-free creativity of the young. “Go back to being younger,” nods Reiner. “You can polish after, you can improve later, but the original thing that hits you in the head is usually right.” Van Dyke has a final revelation: he has found love. “She’s changed my whole life,” he says. “She sings, she dances, she even makes balloon animals! The other day she made a penguin. One day, she was in the kitchen doing the dishes and she had her tap shoes on, and she was tap dancing as she washed up. How can you not love a woman like that?” He thinks people are too afraid of getting old. “Ageism has become the last acceptable form of discrimination,” he says. “They make fun of old people constantly. There is an obsession with youth. But as you get older, you take a better look around – and life seems more beautiful than ever.”
That’s enough assessments of 2015. It’s time to look back at 2016. And what a year it was! January • Jeremy Corbyn turns down invitation to attend Davos, saying he will be oiling his bicycle that week. • Sir Robert Owen publishes the report of his inquiry into the death of Alexander Litvinenko. Blames Russia. Russia declares war. Owen report is immediately withdrawn, and Sir John Chilcot asked to re-examine the evidence. Report on the alleged poisoning of Litvinenko now expected in 2027. February • Mosima Sexwale, the flamboyant South African businessman more widely known as Tokyo Sexwale, becomes president of Fifa, narrowly beating the French diplomat Jérôme Champagne. Delegates decide the vote on the basis of who has the silliest name. • Adele makes a three-hour speech at the Brit awards. Everything Everything win everything. • Parliamentary elections in Iran see heavy losses for the Liberal Democrats. • Cate Blanchett wins her annual Oscar. Award for the best foreign-language film goes to the epic Japanese coming-of-age saga Tokyo Sexwale. March • Hillary Clinton seals the Democratic presidential nomination on Super Tuesday. Republican hopeful Donald Trump does well everywhere except Texas, where he is dismissed as too liberal. • Tenth anniversary of first tweet marked with slew of articles bemoaning the decline of Twitter. “There are no characters lef”, complains one veteran tweeter. • A horse wins the Cheltenham Gold Cup. • Cambridge win the Boat Race. Or was it Oxford? April • The Queen’s 90th birthday is met with national rejoicing. Fearne Cotton, whose presentation of the Diamond Jubilee royal pageant was widely criticised (mainly by the Daily Telegraph), is not invited to commentate on the festivities at Windsor. Katherine Jenkins leads the singing of Happy Birthday, leading to immediate calls for Cotton to be reinstated. • Another horse wins the Grand National. • David Tennant heads the cast for a celebrity event marking the 400th anniversary of the death of William Shakespeare. BBC director-general Tony Hall declares the corporation’s ambition is “to get more people excited about Shakespeare than ever before – through drama, great performance, documentary, festivals and social media”. Unfortunately a Twitter relay of Hamlet proves something of a damp squib. “When sorrows come, they come not single spies. But in battalions!,” thunders a leader column in the Times, castigating dumbing down at the BBC and calling for it to be privatised. • Jeremy Corbyn announces his fourth reshuffle. The Telegraph dubs it the Night of the Long Bicycle Clips. Andy Burnham hangs on to his post as shadow minister of state for rugby league, arguing that party unity must be preserved at all costs. May • New series of Top Gear begins. Met with national rejoicing, except in Chipping Norton. • The SNP wins every seat in the Scottish parliament. Jeremy Corbyn describes it as a minor setback in the battle to win back Scotland. • Heavy Labour losses in local elections, but Sadiq Khan enjoys a narrow win over the Tories’ Zac Goldsmith in the London mayoral election. Liberal Democrats are squeezed into eighth place, just behind a bollard from Enfield standing as an independent. • Forty-one police and crime commissioners are elected, but no one is exactly sure why. • Bob Dylan’s 75th birthday is met with global rejoicing. • Much booing/applauding of good/bad/indifferent films at Cannes. A five-and-a-half-hour existential drama drawing on Peruvian peasant life wins the Palme d’Or. The chairman of the jury describes it as “the supreme achievement of Peruvian national cinema”. • Estonian rock band Ultima Thule’s Mu isamaa, Õnne soovime sul wins the Eurovision song contest. • End of the Premier League season sees Leicester crowned champions and Chelsea relegated. Jeremy Corbyn describes it as a minor setback for the managerless club. • The 100th anniversary on 16 May of the Sykes-Picot agreement, by which the British and French carved up the Ottoman empire and ensured perpetual peace in the Middle East, is met with national rejoicing. June • Astronaut Tim Peake returns to Earth. He is immediately named as a contestant in the autumn series of Strictly Come Dancing, alongside Ed Balls, Fearne Cotton, José Mourinho, Katherine Jenkins, Tomasz Schafernaker, Vladimir Putin, Monsignor Bruce Kent, Baroness Mone, the bass player from Ultima Thule, Chris Robshaw, someone from EastEnders, someone else from Coronation Street, Oliver Letwin, a random boxer and Tokyo Sexwale. • Albania are surprise winners of the European football championships. England fail to progress beyond the group stage. Jeremy Corbyn describes the 8-0 loss to Slovakia that seals their fate as a minor setback. • The government postpones the decision on expanding airport capacity in the south-east, and says Sir John Chilcot will undertake a fresh examination of the options. His report is expected in 2034. • The Duke of Edinburgh’s 95th birthday is met with national rejoicing. (Will any readers left at this point please add the obligatory reference to Fearne Cotton and Katherine Jenkins.) • The £200m Tate Modern extension is opened to national caterwauling. Prince Charles denounces it as a “monstrous carbuncle”. • The Dalai Lama is the star turn at the Glastonbury festival, playing the Tibetan horn alongside Ultima Thule and Everything Everything. July • Sir John Chilcot says he has so many other inquiries on his plate that his original inquiry into the Iraq war will be further delayed, and that he now expects to complete it by 2042. • Slovakia, fresh from that 8-0 win over England, assumes the presidency of the European council. David Cameron is so annoyed he announces the EU referendum will be a week on Thursday, backing down only when he discovers it would clash with the first day of the Lord’s Test. • Donald Trump is nominated as Republican presidential candidate at the party’s convention in Cleveland. Comedians around the world celebrate. Everyone else lays in supplies of survival rations. August • Britain performs disappointingly in the Rio Olympics, though it does sweep the board in the small-bore shooting events. “We are now a nation of small bores,” quips David Cameron. Jeremy Corbyn calls the UK’s 63rd place in the medal table – below Estonia, Albania, Slovakia and Peru – a minor setback. • The Edinburgh festival proves to be another triumph for small bores. • Other than the Olympics and the Edinburgh festival, not much happens in August, give or take the odd war, famine, pestilence and plague of frogs, which everyone overlooks because they’re on holiday. September • Elections for the Russian State Duma. Liberal Democrats do badly. • Jeremy Corbyn is ousted after a vote of no confidence at the Labour party’s annual conference in Liverpool. Describes it as a minor setback. Angela Eagle – or possibly her sister – becomes leader. October • David Cameron announces at the Conservative party conference in Birmingham that he does not intend to step down before the next election but will “go on and on”. Boris Johnson falls off the stage. • On the 950th anniversary of the Battle of Hastings the defence secretary, Michael Fallon, asks Sir John Chilcot to examine the reasons for the English defeat at the hands of the Normans. Chilcot says he is confident of reporting by 2066. November • Hillary Clinton wins the US presidency. Phew! December • Strictly Come Dancing is won by someone from EastEnders, narrowly beating someone else from Coronation Street and the random boxer in the final. There are rumours that Donald Trump will star in the show in 2017. And possibly Sir John Chilcot – if he can find the time.
Amazon's Echo struggles to connect to BT's Home Hub Scores of BT broadband users who purchased an Amazon Echo intelligent voice-controlled speaker have run into frustrating setup issues, and vented their anger on social media at both Amazon and BT. The Echo was released in the UK on Wednesday, bringing Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant into the home and allowing users to have conversations, ask questions, play music, control lights and other smart home devices, and even listen to the headlines read out from the . For some users not using BT broadband, the setup process – performed through Amazon’s Alexa app for Android and iOS or a web browser – was a two-minute job. Others reported spending hours fighting with it, following the instructions and ending with stalled, inoperable devices. There appears to be several issues between the Echo and BT’s Home Hub. Some users found that by going into settings and separating the two 2.4GHz and 5GHz networks, which are usually combined into one with the same network names, they could get their Echo speakers to connect properly. Others, that managed to get them to connect but could not complete setup, stalling after connecting to Wi-Fi, found that the problem required manual changes to be made to the Echo’s Wi-Fi connection setup. Users had to input BT’s default DNS server addresses (62.6.40.178 and either 62.6.40.162 or 62.6.40.163) as well as fix the IP address given to the Echo avoiding any address that has already been allocated to something else on their home Wi-Fi network. Some users also had trouble connecting their Spotify accounts to the Echo, which is also done through the app or Alexa site, leaving Amazon’s big push into the home assistant space with a rocky start in the UK. An Amazon spokesperson said: “We are aware that a small number of customers are currently experiencing issues connecting their Amazon Echo to some BT routers. We are working with BT to resolve this issue as quickly as possible.” BT did not reply to request for comment. ‘She has a name’: Amazon’s Alexa is a sleeper hit, with serious superfans Through the letterbox: the secret life of an Amazon reviewer
Sophie Taeuber-Arp: it's about time the radical dada star got a Google doodle You must remember the place where punk began. The most subversive, dissident and revolutionary centre of modern art. The planet Ziggy Stardust came from. That’s right – Switzerland. Today’s Google doodle celebrating the birthday of Sophie Taeuber-Arp (1889-1943) is a nice plug for one of the most radical – but far from best known – women in modern art. Taeuber-Arp was Swiss through and through. That gave her an entree to an extraordinary moment when the most dangerous artists and poets in Europe came together in a nightclub in Zurich. Trained as an artist and designer, she played a founding part in the movement that blew conventional notions of art, craft, and culture itself to smithereens – and which still influences the most subversive pop culture today: dada. The first world war destroyed European civilisation. A continent that thought itself the most enlightened on Earth sent its young to die in a bloodbath of psychotic squander. Some young people rebelled. They walked away from the slaughter. Their natural destination was neutral Switzerland. So it was that in Zurich in 1916 the nonsense poet Hugo Ball and the maverick writer and drummer Richard Huelsenbeck – both Germans – led a raggle-taggle band of artists in wild, strange evening performances at the dada cabaret. Dada – a deliberately nonsensical word suggesting both infantilism and the dadada beat of an angry drum – rejected the very idea of aesthetic beauty. Civilisation had been terminally poisoned by the great war. What could artists do? They decided to destroy art’s last pathetic falsehoods. All the pretensions of Europe’s high culture had to go. Dada was a new kind of creativity to blow away the ghosts: jagged, savage, primal, cynical, hilarious and mad. Sophie Taeuber-Arp was a leading member of the dada movement – but her works don’t look like our stereotyped idea of what it was. Instead of angry collages, she created joyous abstractions. She met Hans Arp, who came from Alsace, shortly before the foundation of the dada cabaret and they became founders of this revolutionary group. Yet they were interested in its more lyrical possibilities: in playing with blocks and blobs of colour, moving them around randomly, letting patterns emerge by chance, in a kind of visual jazz. Married in 1922, Taeuber and Arp (who is often known by his alternative French name Jean) created some of the happiest art of the 20th century. If dada’s name suggests both baby talk and a drumbeat, it was above all Taeuber and her future husband who expressed its innocent, childlike, escapist “baby” side. In a world being torn apart by war, her colourful abstract art was a blissful alternative reality – an assertion that freedom exists. Her work is like dance music – liberating and joyful. Abstract art is often said to originate in the heavily spiritualist ideas of artists like Wassily Kandinsky and Piet Mondrian. Yet Sophie Taeuber-Arp invented, along with Hans Arp, a different kind of abstraction that accepts chance and roots itself in the physical rather than spiritual world. It is like a utopian game. So why is she important? She showed that abstract art was child’s play.
Banks act to stop transfer scams and errors Britain’s banks and building societies are promising a radical change to the way account holders send money to other people in a bid to tackle ballooning fraud and “fat finger” problems. In future, the “confirmation of payee” system will mean that when someone types in a sort code and account number to transfer some money, they will receive an instant message saying something like “Is ‘Fred Bloggs’ the person/business you intended to send the money to?” Crucially, this will appear before the money leaves the person’s account. Currently, customers only receive a confirmation that they have sent their money to a specific sort code and account number. Many people also type in the account name of the person they’re paying, but this is irrelevant as banks do not cross-check this element when processing payments. The result is cases where individuals enter a wrong number on the eight-digit account number – dubbed a fat finger error – and the money goes to an unintended recipient. In some cases the mistake can be repeated for years – and the banks are not liable. In one case covered by the , a hairdresser intended to send her monthly salary payment from HSBC to a joint Nationwide account with her husband, but initially entered a digit incorrectly. Over two years £26,000 of her pay went to another individual with a Nationwide account, and she has spent years fighting to recover it. A new-style fraud, meanwhile, is seeing criminals hijack the emails of builders or solicitors. Customers are sent instructions to make future payments to a new account – still in the name of the builder or solicitor – with a new account number. In one case a couple were conned into sending £25,000 to the wrong account, and their bank refused any compensation. According to the Payment Strategy Forum (PSF), which is handling the implementation for the banks and building societies, the “confirmation of payee” system should largely eliminate both problems. Account holders will still not have to enter the intended recipient’s name, but will continue to enter the sort code and account number as they do currently – crucially, however, they will then receive a message matching the sort code and account number with the specific account holder – such as “John Smith Builders”. The exact implementation date and the precise message that account holders will be sent is yet to be determined, as the move requires a major systems change at banks to enable them to instantly identify recipients. The PSF says the latest date will be 2020, but it hopes the system could be in place for launch in 2018. “The confirmation of payee system ... will allow people to avoid sending payments to the wrong account, either by accident or being tricked into doing so, by ensuring a confirmation of the recipient is sent to the payer before any funds leave their account,” said Ruth Evans, chair of the forum, which is also examining ways in which account holders can bar their regular direct debits from leaving their account when they are short of money. Currently, if someone is close to their overdraft limit and, say, they have an unusually large mobile phone bill that month, it could push them into hefty charges when it is paid by the bank, or be bounced and leave the account holder with a possible unpaid transaction fee. The forum’s proposal is for a “request to pay” system whereby the mobile phone company would have to send a message to the account holder, through the bank, that it is about to take payment. The account holder could then accept or decline the payment. Evans said: “Request to pay will allow customers to authorise a regular payment, such as a utility bill or gym membership, before the company withdraws the money from their account. This will be a huge boost to people on variable incomes who may struggle to settle their accounts at the same time each month.” About £75tn in payments was processed through Britain’s banks and building societies last year, but it is estimated that about £755m was stolen. In September, consumer body Which? lodged a “supercomplaint” with financial regulators demanding that UK banks do more to protect customers tricked into transferring money to fraudsters. Which? said banks should “shoulder more responsibility” when someone is conned into transferring money, just as they reimburse customers who lose money due to scams involving debit and credit cards or fraudulent account activity.
RBS to set up compensation fund for small businesses Royal Bank of Scotland is to set up a compensation fund for small business customers who claim they were badly treated by the bailed-out bank, in an attempt to draw a line under the long-running scandal. The bank, 73% owned by the taxpayer, has repeatedly defended itself against persistent claims from small businesses that they were deliberately pushed to the brink of collapse to enable it to make a profit. Its chief executive Ross McEwan, who has previously admitted that RBS let some small businesses down, is now preparing to announce a scheme to pay redress to customers in its global restructuring group – known as GRG and since disbanded. The bank would not comment on Monday amid expectations that announcement would be made before the stock market opened on Tuesday. There were reports that the sum being offered in compensation would amount to around £300m. McEwan, a New Zealander who has been running RBS for three years, is again expected to insist the bank has not seen evidence to support claims that it forced viable business to fail. The bank has in the past said: “In the aftermath of the financial crisis we did not always meet our own high standards and we let some of our SME customers down.” But the creation of a scheme to compensate some customers is likely to be seized upon by small business customers as an admission it made some mistakes – although RGL Management, formed to gather claims against the bank, has been saying since April it intends to lodge legal claims worth more than £1bn against the bailed-out bank on behalf of small business customers. As recently as last month, when RBS reported its results for the first nine months of the year, campaign groups set up by small businesses were angered at its refusal to set aside any money to pay compensation for them. The announcement coincides with an appearance by Andrew Bailey, the new chief executive of the Financial Conduct Authority, at the Treasury select committee of MPs which has taken evidence from current and former RBS executives about the allegations. A report commissioned by the FCA into the conduct of the GRG division has been much delayed, and is now expected to be published by the end of the year. Bailey is likely to face questions about this during Tuesday’s hearing, which will be chaired by Conservative MP Andrew Tyrie. The allegations surfaced in 2013 when Lawrence Tomlinson, a businessman who was an advisor to the then business secretary Sir Vince Cable, compiled a dossier of allegations that RBS was deliberately wrecking small businesses to make profits for the bailed-out bank. At the time Tomlinson said he been approached by businesses which had ended up in GRG and had their properties sold to the bank’s specialist property arm, West Register. It prompted RBS to commission a report from law firm Clifford Chance which “found no evidence that the bank ‘low-balled’ bids to customers in the hope or expectation of acquiring properties at a low price”. But the law firm did say that “both in relation to the handover process and the restructuring process more generally, some [RBS] customers complained that they experienced insensitive, rude or aggressive behaviour.” Clifford Chance explicitly criticised the bank for a lack of transparency on fees. But the claims of mistreatment by small businesses have refused to die down and delays to the official FCA report have fuelled anger from business people who claim they have lost their livelihoods. The report was first expected in December 2015, delayed to April 2016 and then in October the FCA said it had received the final report from the so-called skilled person, the firms Promontory Financial Group and Mazars. “There are a number of steps for the FCA to complete before we are in a position to share our final findings, which will include an assessment of all relevant material, of which the skilled person’s report is one. This has been a complex and lengthy review – it is therefore important that we do not rush the final stages of this process,” the FCA said in October. RBS is battling to put a long list of so-called conduct issues behind it. It also faces a bill from the Department of Justice in the US for the way it sold mortgage bonds a decade ago. Some analysts reckon this could amount to £9bn. Chancellor Philip Hammond has also abandoned any attempts, for now, to sell off any more of taxpayers’ remaining 73% stake in the bank after an initial 5% shareholding was sold in August 2015.
Opec's failure to agree a curb on oil production is hardly surprising Opec struggles to speak with a single voice these days, so it was always a wobbly assumption that the cartel of oil producers would be able to agree a deal with non-members, such as Russia, to curb output. So it has proved. The weekend talks in Doha fell apart over a single issue. Saudi Arabia wanted Iran, its big regional rival, to be included in a deal to freeze production at January levels. Iran, freshly returned to international markets after the lifting of sanctions, wasn’t interested. Its priority is revenues, at almost any oil price, and recovery of lost market share. The first puzzle is why anybody thought that this tension could be resolved. The short answer must be that the Saudi camp gave encouragement for a deal, but then changed its mind. That version tallies with the grumble from the Russian delegation that “some Opec members” put up new demands at the 11th hour. Such an explanation sounds more solid than the idea that the whole two-month adventure was an elaborate ruse to con the market into thinking that the first global oil deal for 15 years was on the way. The bigger unanswered question is what happens next. Monday’s counterintuitive result was: not much. The oil price fell by 4% at the outset, but ended the day virtually flat at $43 a barrel for Brent. Maybe the market thinks that Doha was irrelevant and that demand for oil is slowly catching up with supply, as the producers always said it would. Or maybe a bigger factor was a labour dispute in Kuwait that is affecting output there. As ever with oil prices, it is incredibly hard to decipher short-term price movements. But we can conclude this from the Doha diplomatic debacle: the Saudis are happy to run the risk of the oil price falling back to the $30-a-barrel level seen a couple of months ago. That doesn’t mean such a tumble will materialise – but it must be more likely than it was. Sorrell should justify his rewards “If WPP does well, I do well,” says its chief executive Sir Martin Sorrell, attempting to get his retaliation in early. The full tally of his rewards for 2015, likely to be around the £70m mark, won’t be formally unveiled until later this month. But the advertising titan is probably correct to detect a row in the offing. If £14m for Bob Dudley was enough to enrage 59% of BP shareholders, a sum five times as large for Sorrell won’t pass under the radar, even if WPP’s share price has performed better. Sorrell’s weekend outburst is unlikely to pacify the sceptics. He’s missed the point of the rebellion at BP, which was about the sheer size of rewards now being paid in big company boardrooms. By contrast, Sorrell’s defence was all about the alignment of his interests with those of WPP. It is true that Sorrell is aligned – he owns 1.62% of WPP – but that’s not the subject of the hour. Is £70m a fair take, or does it represent rent extraction? On that point, WPP’s investors made their feelings clear back in 2012, when the company lost the pay vote. As a consequence, it was obliged to drop its controversial incentive plan, known as Leap, or leadership equity acquisition plan. But the concession was hardly dramatic. Leap was allowed to complete its five-year cycle, which is why, coupled with WPP’s strong share price, it is still producing ever larger payouts for Sorrell. If he wants to defend the sum properly, let’s hear less about “alignment,” which can used to justify any figure, and more on how any FTSE 100 chief executive could possibly be worth £70m in a single year. When the Powa gets switched off Poor old Dan Wagner. He – or rather the Powa Technologies business that he founded – has been hit by a car. Complete accident. Couldn’t see it coming. Nobody to blame, especially not the unfortunate victim. That, at least, was the version of Powa’s collapse into administration that Wagner promoted on BBC Radio 4 at the weekend. It is not persuasive. We can all understand that companies in the business of developing new technology, in this case a system to allow consumers to buy a product by scanning an advert with their smartphones, can rack up overheads before revenues arrive. But the mismatch at Powa, founded in 2007, was extraordinary, as detailed in administrator Deloitte’s report. The company lost £31.8m on revenues of £4.8m in 2015, for example, but was operating from the top floor of a City skyscraper. In those circumstances, it pays to stay close to your financial backers, here meaning Boston investment group Wellington Management, which triggered the administration by calling in loans. If it really came as surprise to Wagner, he should have followed the old road safety advice: stop, look, listen.
Donald Trump sidelined as rivals debate without Republican frontrunner Donald Trump found himself sidelined for the first time from a televised presidential debate on Thursday, ceding the stage to his Republican opponents in a high-stakes gamble less than three days before the Iowa caucuses. As seven candidates lined up on the Fox News debate stage in Des Moines, Trump hosted a rival event, ostensibly to raise money for veterans, on the other side of town, broadcast simultaneously on competing networks. The absence of the Republican frontrunner from the main stage in Iowa led to a debate unusually focused on policy, free of the usual personal swipes and, by the end of the two hours, the Trump-less debate appeared to have emboldened his rivals. Texas senator Ted Cruz claimed the mantle of the frontrunner on stage, complaining that other candidates – and moderators – were targeting him. Florida senator Marco Rubio put in a spirited and enthusiastic showing, while his one-time ally Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor, had one of his strongest performances to date. Meanwhile, less than three miles away, Trump appeared on stage for his veterans event with a devil-may-care attitude. “Will I get more votes? Will I get less votes?” Trump said of his decision to withdraw from the main debate. “Nobody knows. Who the hell knows?” The side-by-side juxtaposition of the formal Fox News debate, and Trump’s dual event – which had the atmosphere of a political variety show, and was broadcast live on CNN, MSNBC and C-Span – was a bizarre sight on the eve of Monday’s Iowa caucuses, when the first votes will be cast to choose the Republican and Democratic nominees for president. It compounded the sense that the billionaire Republican frontrunner’s campaign has rendered his party’s 2016 nomination process one of the most wild and unpredictable in modern history. While Trump’s campaign may have calculated, correctly, that his boycott would dominate the news agenda, the reality was also that he was virtually invisible at the main debate, which may play an important role for the many Iowa caucus-goers who remain undecided. The most consequential and heated exchange came in the second hour, when the conversation turned to immigration reform – the issue that has been at the core of the Republican primary. The moderators immediately put the question to Rubio, for whom immigration remains a political liability after his work on a comprehensive bill in 2013 that would have granted a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. The Florida senator has worked hard to recapture support among conservatives skeptical of his past legislation and, confronted with a video clip highlighting his changing positions on immigration, Rubio insisted: “I have never supported blanket amnesty.” But Bush was at the ready to accuse Rubio of backing away from his signature accomplishment in Congress. “He cut and ran,” Bush shot back. “And that’s a tragedy.” Rubio pushed back that Bush had flip-flopped on a pathway to citizenship, to which Bush tersely responded: “So did you.” It was one of the tougher moments for Rubio, forcing him on the defensive in an otherwise strong debate performance. Cruz, also, was made to answer for his inconsistency on the issue, with clips shown depicting the senator advocating a path to legal status for undocumented migrants. The arch-conservative Texan took the opportunity to aim his fire back towards Rubio, noting both of them had vowed to “lead the fight against amnesty” in Washington but that only he had done it – arguing that Rubio teamed up with Barack Obama and other Democrats pushing immigration reform. Cruz and Rubio have engaged in a bruising and increasingly bitter feud over the past two months, as both have risen in the polls while jockeying to emerge as the clear alternative to Trump. Rubio, in response to Cruz’s charge, unloaded on his colleague as essentially being an inauthentic opportunist. “This is the lie that Ted’s campaign is built on – that he’s the most conservative guy and everyone else is a RINO,” Rubio said, referring to the acronym deployed by conservatives to describe a ‘Republican In Name Only’. Turning to Cruz, he added: “Throughout this campaign, you have been willing to say and do anything to get votes.” For once, Trump was barely mentioned outside of a brief spell at the opening of the debate when Megyn Kelly, the Fox News anchor whose participation in the debate led to Trump’s boycott, referred to him as “the elephant not in the room”. Rubio joked about they would walk off the stage if confronted with questions they didn’t like, while Cruz delivered what was evidently a pre-prepared zinger. “I’m a maniac and everyone on this stage is stupid, fat and ugly,” he deadpanned. “Now that we’ve gotten the Donald Trump portion out of the way ...” Bush also sought to render the frontrunner a joke. “I kind of miss Donald Trump, he was like a teddy bear to me,” he said. Bush was the only candidate to later return to Trump, saying that his proposed ban on Muslims, disparaging remarks about women and degrading mockery of disabled people, would alienate voters and was “no way to win an election”. Yet by the end of two hours, the Republican frontrunner had been almost completely eclipsed from a televised debate, with the others emboldened by his absence. Ohio governor John Kasich and New Jersey governor Chris Christie, both of whom are pinning their hopes on strong showings in the New Hampshire primary later next month, portrayed themselves as serious executives-in-waiting with the experience the White House demands. Kentucky senator Rand Paul was one of several candidates to take the fight to the Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton, talking about her husband Bill Clinton’s infidelity and claiming their family foundation had invested millions in “regimes who treat women like cattle”. Ben Carson, the retired neurosurgeon who has plummeted in the polls amid criticism that he does not have the policy chops to be commander-in-chief, once again stumbled. “I think we ought to give Ukraine offensive weapons and I think we ought to fight them on the economic basis because Putin is a one-horse country: oil and energy,” he said. There was only one question about climate change, arguably the most important political issue facing the world in 2016 – a year many climate scientists expect to be the hottest on record. Rubio answered it, saying he had never supported cap and trade legislation while a Florida state senator. In fact, he did. As his main rivals engaged in a serious conversation about the future of the country, Trump was standing on the stage the other side of town, telling his pregnant daughter: “Ivanka, it would be so great if you had your baby in Iowa. It would be so great. I would win.” He was joined on stage fellow Republican candidates Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum, both Republican candidates who previously won of the Iowa caucuses but are this time trailing so badly in the polls this time that they were not invited to the main debate, instead appearing in a Fox lower-tier debate alongside former CEO Carly Fiorina and former Virginia governor Jim Gilmore. Both Huckabee and Santorum spoke briefly at Trump’s event, appearing awkward at a podium emblazoned with the name “Trump”. The Trump campaign later said the former host of The Apprentice personally contributed $1m to veterans causes and raised an additional $5m through the event. While it remains unclear if Trump’s gamble with the final debate before the Iowa caucuses will harm or boost his campaign, the fact he was willing to take such a risk speaks to his domination of the race so far. Iowa, which is often determined by Christian evangelical voters, is the only early state where Trump has not been consistently at the top of the polls. However after weeks trailing the staunchly conservative Cruz in Iowa, Trump regained his position and, in recent days, appeared to be pulling ahead. Trump now has the largest lead in Iowa since he entered the race, according to a Monmouth University survey this week that showed Trump on 30%, compared to Cruz’s 23% and Rubio’s 16%. He also enjoys 16-point lead over his nearest rival, Cruz, in an average of national polls. He also has overwhelming leads over other candidates in New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada. Still, there was some suggestion he may have had second thoughts about boycotting the debate. Fox News said the Republican frontrunner spoke three times on the phone with its top executive, Roger Ailes, and offered to backtrack on his decision not to appear at the debate if the network agreed to pay $5m to charity. Fox News added in a statement: “We explained that was not possible and we could not engage in a quid pro quo.” This article was amended on 29 January 2016. The original said no questions were asked on climate change. In fact, there was one.
Pope Francis to make movie debut playing himself in children's gospel film Pope Francis, the head of the global Catholic church, is to be the first pope to appear in a film. The pontiff will play himself in Beyond the Sun, an Italian-made family movie based on the gospels, which was inspired by the Pope’s call for film-makers to cater for children when thinking about how Jesus’s message should be communicated through cinema. All profits from the film are to be donated to two Argentinian charities that help at-risk children and young adults. Shooting is due to begin imminently in Italy. Andrea Iervolino, co-founder of AMBI Pictures, who will fund and distribute the film, said: Our excitement and gratitude toward His Holiness, Pope Francis, participating in this film is beyond words. This is not just a movie for us, it’s a message, and who better to have on your side to deliver an important societal and spiritual message than the Pope? However, there are conflicting reports about the scale of Pope Francis’s involvement in the project. Initial indications suggested he would figure significantly through the movie; information on AMBI’s site mentions only “an epilogue from Pope Francis telling children how and where to find Jesus”. A Vatican spokesman added on Monday: “The pope is not an actor.” Pope Francis’s cinephilia – his favourite films are Rome, Open City, Babette’s Feast and La Strada – has won him artistic as well as spiritual credibility in the industry, with many film-makers seeking his approval, particularly if their movie carries Christian content. In 2012, Steve Coogan hosted a special screening of Philomena, about an Irish woman whose son was sold by nuns, at the Vatican; in January 2015, Angelina Jolie presented her film Unbroken to the pope. Last week, Leonardo DiCaprio met the pope – but to discuss climate change, rather than screen him new movie The Revenant.
The view on the football association: wrong regulator for the beautiful game When the sports minister Tracey Crouch takes her seat on Tuesday before MPs on the select committee on culture, media and sport, she will be in no doubt of the scale of the task at hand to save the national game. Football has been in the headlines for all the wrong reasons: light regulation, minimal enforcement and billions of pounds sloshing around leave the game open to abuse. In the cross hairs is the Football Association – the game’s national governing body – which has been described as a relic of the past run by a cartel that is unable to check the power of the cash-rich Premier League. In a bizarre twist five white men, with an average age of almost 65, accuse the association of being run by “elderly white men”. These criticisms to a large extent are true. But any solution has to go beyond the one proposed by Damian Collins, the PR-savvy Tory chair of the select committee, who seems to think a bill promoted from the backbenches will clean up the Augean stables of football. It will not. Without government support, a shake up of football’s archaic regulatory structure will achieve nothing. Yet politicians of all stripes have shied away from regulating the beautiful game ever since the top clubs seceded in 1992 and forced the FA to allow them to keep the bulk of lucrative television revenues. There are also few elected representatives who want a public slanging match with Arsenal’s Arsène Wenger, who said football should be “ruled by football people”. Given the dozens of potential suspects identified in the football abuse scandal, this is not a sustainable proposition. The Premier League dominates football. Its clubs will share a £5.1bn television deal over the next three seasons. Agent fees top £130m alone. It’s more global than national: 14 of 20 Premier League clubs have a foreign owner. There’s cash for the grass roots, but not enough to compensate for the 37% cut to local authorities that provide the parks for children to kick balls about in. The FA is clearly not independent enough. Its income comes from the England team, which relies on Premier League players, and the FA Cup, which depends on top clubs appearing. Yet the FA has oversight of all football transactions and sets rules that teams run under. It feels like the FA fears biting the hand that feeds it. Ministers could help by creating a new football regulator that could patrol the beautiful game. It could be paid for by a levy, perhaps, on TV rights. Football needs fresh ideas, not just fresh headlines.
Madonna answers critics of her Prince tribute at Billboard music awards Madonna has come to her own defence after her much-criticised tribute to Prince at the Billboard music awards on 22 May. Anyone, regardless of “age, gender or skin colour” is entitled to celebrate the late musician, the singer wrote on Instagram. Madonna performed Nothing Compares 2 U and a duet with Stevie Wonder of Purple Rain. Her interpretation of the late artist’s music was met with disdain in some circles. “Anyone who wants to do a tribute to Prince is welcome to,” Madonna posted the following day on Instagram. “If you loved him and he inspired you then show it!!!! I love Prince 4 ever.” Not everyone was critical of the tribute. Questlove, who helped to orchestrate the Prince section of the Billboard ceremony, praised Madonna’s performance. In a series of tweets, the Roots drummer and the Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon bandleader said people who were sceptical of Madonna’s moment were still processing the pop icon’s death. “Because of P’s well-known love for the *poof* vanishing act, a lot of us are left feeling incomplete in the act of saying goodbye.” He added: “Naturally, there will be folded arms & shade thrown because the Purple Standard is hard boots to fill & a lot of us don’t wanna come 2 grips.” He said that fans should be prepared for an onslaught of tributes at other awards shows over the coming year. “Every Prince rendition will not be a life changing orgasmic xperience. Just to SING his work is brave enough. Again feeling are on high.” Prince played guitar on three songs from Madonna’s 1989 album Like a Prayer. Their relationship, however, was considered tumultuous. During a concert in London in 2007, Prince said: “I got so many hits y’all can’t handle me. I got more hits than Madonna’s got kids.”
Facebook director appointed to digital economy advisory group The government has appointed a Facebook director and the former head of Amazon UK to a new advisory committee on the digital economy, despite the ongoing row over the amounts such companies have paid in tax to the UK exchequer. The appointments come days after it emerged that the Department for Work and Pensions plans to give a non-executive directorship to Amazon’s boss in China, Doug Gurr. Minister for the Cabinet Office Matt Hancock said he had appointed Facebook’s Richard Allan, the director of policy, Europe, to a new advisory board that will help shape the government’s digital services. In October last year it emerged that Facebook paid just £4,327 in corporation tax in the UK. Its revenues in the UK were £105m last year but the company declared an operating loss of £28.5m. Hancock has also appointed Brian McBride, Amazon’s former UK managing director, to the group, which will be called the Government Digital Services advisory board. McBride is now chairman of the online fashion retailer, ASOS. The group will meet on a quarterly basis to support, advise and challenge the government to deliver better services for users and evaluate how emerging digital and technology trends can be applied to public services. The group also includes the founder and CEO of LoveFilm, Saul Klein. LoveFilm is owned by Amazon. In addition, Brent Hoberman and Baroness Lane-Fox, the founders of Lastminute.com are also members of the group. Hoberman is also a director of Media Group. Hancock has also appointed Herman Narula to the group. Narula is the chief executive of Improbable, a London-based developer of SpatialOS, an operating system for building virtual worlds and simulations recently backed by the Silicon Valley venture fund, Andreessen Horowitz. Hancock said: “I’m thrilled to have these experts on board and look forward to working closely with them to discover and build the new digital infrastructure.” Although many see the value of the government co-opting business leaders to advise it on policy, there are growing fears that largely US-based technology companies are having an increasing influence at a time when there is growing public pressure for them to pay more tax in the UK. Gurr’s appointment was condemned by veteran tax campaigner Margaret Hodge who said: “If people are not putting their proper share into the pot, how can government ever justify giving them prestigious positions?” Amazon’s UK business paid just £11.9m in tax in 2014, even though its Luxembourg unit took £5.3bn from internet sales in the UK.
British want EU migrants to stay after Brexit, says poll More than eight out of 10 people in the UK believe EU migrants already living in Britain should be allowed to remain after Brexit, including 77% of Leave voters. The figures are revealed in new poll for the British Future thinktank which wants a “national conversation” on immigration as part of a comprehensive review of a system in which, it says, “the public has lost all confidence”. In its new report, “What next after Brexit? Immigration and integration in post-referendum Britain”, British Future claims that its ICM poll confirms that the majority of people in post-referendum Britain fall into what calls the “anxious middle” – while concerned about the pressures of high migration, they also accept the benefits that migrants bring to the economy and wider society. Before the release of the latest immigration statistics on Thursday, the first since June’s referendum, the poll suggests that the public would be happy to see some flows of immigration increase but want reductions in other areas, notably the number of unskilled workers. It finds that three-quarters of those polled agree with the call for a “sensible policy to manage immigration that controls who comes to the UK, but still keeps the immigration that is good for our economy and society, and maintains Britain’s tradition of offering sanctuary to refugees who need protection”. Other key findings include: ■ 84% say EU citizens already living in the UK should be able to stay. This includes a majority of both Leave voters (77%) and Ukip supporters (78%); ■ Only 12% want to cut the number of highly skilled workers migrating to Britain; nearly half (46%) would like to see an increase, with 42% saying that it should stay the same; ■ Almost two-thirds (62%) want numbers of low-skilled workers reduced. British Future argues that opening up a public debate about immigration now would bring about a new consensus on the divisive issue. “There are sure to be changes to immigration policy once we know what shape Brexit takes,” said Jill Rutter, director of strategy for British Future. “That will bring challenges but it also presents an opportunity – for a comprehensive review of a system that is widely believed to be failing and in which the public has lost all confidence. Rebuilding public trust, in an immigration system that is competent, effective and fair, must be part of this process. Engaging the public in the decisions we make, through a national conversation on immigration, would help to start rebuilding that trust. “It will also cut through an overheated, polarised debate to reveal the moderate core of public opinion on immigration. Most people have more nuanced views than those found in our public discourse. Given the choice, voters would be content with much immigration staying the same and some of it increasing, if they had faith in the system and could see reductions in other areas.” The poll reveals that the public is split roughly down the middle on refugees. Just over half (53%) think the number of refugees offered protection should be reduced while 33% think the country should offer sanctuary to about the same number of refugees as it does currently and 14% would like it to take more. The poll also suggests the public makes clear distinctions between different immigrant worker groups. Only a quarter of people want fewer migrant care-workers, with 27% saying they would like more and 48% saying the number should stay the same. Four in 10 welcome more migrant engineers, compared to only 17% who want fewer. More people said they would like to see more migrant IT professionals, doctors, nurses and scientists than would prefer a cut in numbers. It also confirms that even Leave voters are keen on some forms of migration.Only 15% of Leave voters want a reduction in the numbers of highly skilled workers migrating to Britain, while 45% want an increase and 40% want numbers to remain the same. When asked about migrant IT specialists, engineers, scientists, care workers, doctors and nurses, the majority of Leave voters wanted an increase or the numbers to remain the same. Only when asked about unskilled workers, construction workers and hospitality staff did they prefer to cut numbers. Thursday’s immigration statistics are expected to show a rise in EU nationals applying for British citizenship. Experts suggest this may reflect worries about their status in a post-Brexit UK.
My patients taught me how to heal after losing my mother Graduating from medical school and becoming a doctor was an unforgettable experience. I remember transitioning from theory to practice, books to reality, hypothetical exam scenarios played by actors to real-life stories of patients. During my initial years as a junior doctor, I thought I knew it all and was mastering the skill of empathising with patients. Little was I aware that I myself, the doctor, would soon be dealing with the gripping sense of loss and grief that many of my patients were all too familiar with. It was a summer evening and I was driving back home with an uncomfortable feeling in my stomach. My mum had travelled to Sri Lanka to help take care of her elder sister and had fallen ill with dengue fever. She was due to be discharged that weekend and Dad had decided to fly over to accompany her back home. Despite this, something made me feel nauseous that night. I put it down to irrational worry and long hours at work. I got home and soon fell asleep, a routine I was all too familiar with being a junior doctor. The next thing I remember is being woken up at 2.30am by the ringing of my dad’s phone. I hurried into his room as an uncomfortable feeling came crashing down on me. I saw my dad in floods of tears and instantly realised that my life had changed forever. My mum had passed away and my world was falling apart. An overwhelming feeling of numbness took hold of me for weeks on end. I had expected relentless pain and to be shedding constant tears but this happened rarely. There were times when I was desperate to cry but failed miserably. I often asked myself how much I cared – did I not love my mum enough? Surely I should be crying all day and night? With time, the numbness transformed into the feeling of grief and reality soon dawned on me. I changed jobs and started working on a cancer ward. A powerful memory from this job is that of a young boy peacefully asleep at the foot of his father’s bed. The young dad had an inoperable cancer and we had earlier informed the family of his poor prognosis. The strength and graciousness with which they took the news still bewilders me. I was moved when I asked the little boy what he aspired to be and he replied, “My dad”. The innocence of the child, the integrity of the family and the strength of the patient made me realise how unbelievably resilient people can be at the worst of times. I had to break the news to a teenage girl that her mum was dying and was unlikely to make it through the weekend. I watched helplessly as she broke down and kept screaming for her mum. I struggled to hold back tears as the young girl inside me started calling out for my own mum. I felt about two feet small for thinking that I understood what suffering was. I remember being taught about bereavement and the various steps of the grieving process at medical school. But none of this prepared me for what I had to deal with that day. Being able to share the young girl’s grief had humbled me in a way that no formal medical education could have. Many times during the job, the only thing I could do was to hold a hand or provide a shoulder to cry on. One thing I learned from losing my mum is that no amount of verbal consolation can lighten people’s suffering. Instead, just simply being present at someone’s side can be enough. I am thankful to all the patients and their loved ones for teaching me how to feel, how to ache and eventually, how to heal. If you would like to write a blogpost for Views from the NHS frontline, read our guidelines and get in touch by emailing sarah.johnson@theguardian.com. Join the Healthcare Professionals Network to read more pieces like this. And follow us on Twitter (@GdnHealthcare) to keep up with the latest healthcare news and views.
Decayed teeth removed from 128,000 children in England since 2011 Tens of thousands of children have had decaying teeth removed in hospitals in England, according to the latest figures, which show an increase for the fourth year in a row. There has been a rise of almost 10% in child hospital admissions for severe tooth decay in England over a four-year period, with the report’s authors pointing out “a strong correlation between area deprivation and the rate of tooth extraction”. More than 128,000 children aged 10 and under have needed at least one removed since 2011, often in cases where the decay may have been preventable. There were 14,445 admissions of children aged five and under between April 2014 and March the following year, and a further 19,336 cases of six- to10-year-olds having teeth taken out in hospital in the same period. More boys than girls were likely to have suffered from severe tooth decay. The rate of tooth extraction among the most deprived children is almost five times that for those from the least deprived decile, according to the statistics analysed by the Health and Social Care Information Centre. In Yorkshire and the Humber, the tooth extraction rate was more than five times that for the east of England. London had the most children who needed to be admitted to hospital for severe tooth decay, with 8,362 having teeth removed. Prof Nigel Hunt, the dean of the dental surgery faculty at the Royal College of Surgeons, said the 9.81% increase was unacceptable. “Not only is tooth decay distressing to children and parents, it has serious social and financial implications,” he said. “The need for tooth extraction continues to be the number one reason why five- to nine-year-old children are admitted to hospital. This issue urgently needs to be addressed, especially since 90% of tooth decay is preventable.” The report’s authors say the figures show the children who have been “missed in primary care dentistry as the tooth decay is severe enough that they need hospital treatment, therefore it is likely that they have not regularly attended the dentist”. “If they had gone to the dentist their tooth decay should have been picked up earlier and not reached the stage of extraction. The treatment occurring in secondary care implies the children are having their teeth extracted under general anaesthetic and means that tooth decay has reached extreme levels.” Hunt called for more government action with dentists to raise awareness of the impact of sugar on tooth decay, and to improve access to NHS dental services for the poorest patients. “Around 40% of children still do not visit a dentist each year,” he said. “Regular visits provide rapid diagnosis and treatment to prevent children being hospitalised due to tooth decay.” A Department of Health spokesperson said: “Children’s teeth are dramatically healthier than they were 10 years ago, but we still know there is more to do. We are radically changing NHS dentistry, so that dentists will be paid for keeping the nation’s teeth healthy, rather than just for treating problems as they arise. All children are entitled to free NHS dental care and we want parents to take their children for regular checkups.” Access to NHS dentists is improving, according to government figures, with 30 million patients seen by a dentist in the two years leading up to September 2015, an increase of 100,000 on the previous year.
Glenn Frey was the Eagles' 'spark plug' – invaluable, driven, reliable If the Eagles were America’s band, Glenn Frey was the one who helped make them so. “Glenn was the one who started it all,” the band’s co-leader Don Henley wrote on hearing of Frey’s death on Monday 18 January. “He was the spark plug, the man with the plan. He had an encyclopedic knowledge of popular music and a work ethic that wouldn’t quit. He was funny, bullheaded, mercurial, generous, deeply talented and driven.” That drive was there from an early age, when the guitarist made his name in the bands the Mushrooms, the Subterraneans and the Four of Us, playing around his home town of Detroit. “He was really into this whole role of being a teen king,” one local told the music journalist turned film-maker Cameron Crowe when he was writing a Rolling Stone cover story about the Eagles. Frey moved to Los Angeles with dreams of making it big. On day one in the city, he happened to spy David Crosby in full rock star regalia – green leather bat cape and hat – and saw it as an omen. He formed a duo, Longbranch Pennywhistle, with one aspiring troubadour, JD Souther, before learning the rudiments of songcraft from another, Jackson Browne, with whom he and Souther briefly shared an apartment. He made the right associations with Laurel Canyon royalty: Linda Ronstadt, who invited Frey and Henley to become her backing band, and hippie magnate David Geffen, who signed them to his label Asylum once they had recruited Bernie Leadon and Randy Meisner and taken flight as the Eagles. The Eagles may have looked like mellow rockers but there was nothing laidback about Frey’s determination to succeed where earlier country-rockers had failed. “We had it all planned,” he declared. “We’d watched bands like Poco and the [Flying] Burrito Brothers lose their initial momentum. We were determined not to make the same mistakes. This was gonna be our best shot. Everybody had to look good, sing good, play good and write good. We wanted it all. Peer respect. AM and FM success. No 1 singles and albums, great music and a lot of money.” Unkind assessments of the Eagles had them pinned as a sort of country-rock Monkees, manufactured into being, all outlaw trappings but little substance. Gram Parsons was sniffy, regarding them as a diluted, even bastardised, version of what he’d tried to achieve with the Byrds and the Burritos. Neil Young afforded them begrudging respect when he declared in 1975, “If only for perfectly capturing the feel of LA, the Eagles are the one band that’s carried on the spirit of Buffalo Springfield.” A more generous view is that the Eagles were a gateway to supposedly cooler country rock, from Gram to the Grateful Dead, and that they created the space for Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson to become national treasures. Just as the Rolling Stones did with the blues, the Eagles introduced a generation to country. Still, if the counterculture didn’t want them, the mainstream did, thanks to Frey and Henley, who steered the Eagles towards colossal success. “Frey and Henley,” decided Crowe in Rolling Stone, “are the band’s primary students of the music business. They devour all the trade magazines, reading sales figures and interview features like most businessmen read Wall Street Journal.” The website savingcountrymusic.com deemed Frey the Eagles’ “most polarising figure”, his “rapaciousness for dealing with the business affairs of the band” earning him the reputation of a “money first, then music” musician. It also pointed out that without that hard-nosed approach, the Eagles might not have become the biggest-selling American band of all time. Of course, without Frey’s perfectionist streak in the studio, his pure, slightly melancholy tenor (that’s him singing on the Eagles hits Lyin’ Eyes, Take It Easy and Tequila Sunrise) and the songs he co-wrote with Henley and the other members, that business acumen would have had no valuable outlet. If Henley brought the blues, Frey – a big fan of 60s Motown, the lush early-70s productions of Thom Bell for the Spinners and Delfonics, and even Michael Jackson’s Off the Wall – inveigled R&B elements into the Eagles’ music. They may have been quintessential heartland rockers offering blue-collar country for the masses, but listen again to One of These Nights (Frey’s own favourite Eagles track) or I Can’t Tell You Why, both suffused with soul sorrow, and you will hear a sweet sound closer to Memphis than to Nashville. Frey was also prone to bust-ups – his seething aside to second guitarist Don Felder, “I’m gonna kick your ass when we get off the stage”, has entered rock lore – and he did his fair share of partying: there was nothing ersatz about his embrace of 70s rock star excess. But if the Eagles were corporate, he was the CEO, always putting work first. “Here’s my theory: I loved music more than anything else. More than I loved partying,” he told US radio host Dan Patrick in April 2015. “We were functioning party animals. We never missed work. We always showed up in relatively good shape.” Like Henley, he found success outside of the band in the 80s, after they split in acrimonious circumstances, reaching No 2 with the The Heat Is On, and even acting on TV and in movies such as Jerry Maguire. But the Eagles remained his first love. Or rather, love-hate: their 1994 comeback tour was wryly named Hell Freezes Over. Frey was still touring with them up to last year, even if life on the road wasn’t quite as crazed as at the band’s hedonistic zenith. Asked by Patrick what the band did these days on the road, Frey quipped: “We sleep.” If the Eagles’ commercial standing in the 70s was matched by critical loathing, more recently their music – and the same can be said of Fleetwood Mac, who were equally reviled as purveyors of mellow pabulum – has gained acceptance and appreciation. Since Frey’s death, artists as varied as Ryan Adams and Justin Timberlake have praised him on Twitter. The US rocker Bob Seger, who also came through the 60s Detroit rock scene, summed up Frey and the Eagles’ status best when he heard of his old friend’s death: “The Eagles weren’t very well liked by critics, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t important,” he told the Detroit News. “The reason they were important … was Glenn Frey.” • This article was amended on 19 January 2016 to attribute the quote from Bob Seger to the Detroit News.
HSBC to keep HQ in UK: what the experts say HSBC has decided to keep its headquarters in the UK, ending a 10-month review during which the government made a number of changes seen as encouraging Europe’s biggest bank to stay put. Here is what analysts and others had to say about the bank’s decision. A spokesperson for the Treasury: We welcome HSBC’s decision. They’ve looked carefully and dispassionately at the facts and confirmed that the UK is the best place to base a global business. It’s a vote of confidence in the government’s economic plan, and a boost to our goal of making the UK a great place to do more business with China and the rest of Asia. Carolyn Fairbairn, director general of the CBI: Strong banks which can provide the finance businesses need to grow are critical for the British economy. And we want to have truly global companies, major employers like HSBC, headquartered here so this announcement is good news. HSBC’s thorough review and consideration of other international financial centres emphasises the need for the UK to continuously stay competitive on regulation, tax and talent. Laith Khalaf, an analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, the retail investment adviser: The bank has responded to a big carrot dangled by the chancellor in the form of changes to the bank levy, which will in time make the tax less onerous for HSBC. Hong Kong has probably also waned somewhat in its appeal as an alternative home, following the Chinese government’s panicky interventions in the stock market over the last year. Moving home is a huge step for a bank: thousands of contracts have to be amended if there is a change in domicile, and the counterparty’s agreement has to be obtained for each and every one. Setting up camp outside the UK was therefore never going to be a decision taken lightly. The Treasury will be doubly pleased that HSBC has not only decided to stay, but has also ditched the regular review of its headquarters conducted every three years. Richard Murphy, tax campaigner and sometime adviser to Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn: Ian Gordon, banking analyst at the stockbroker Investec: At 10pm last night, HSBC confirmed its (widely expected, but we believe regrettable) decision to remain domiciled in the UK, and thus ‘trapped’ in the European Union. In our view, the statement offers no quantified justification for the board’s decision. Overall, we see HSBC’s announcement as a missed opportunity. We regard (deferred) ‘concessions’ granted by the chancellor last year on the bank levy as inadequate, and see the burden of lead-regulation by the UK as a high price to pay for a bank seeking to compete effectively in international markets, especially Asia. On the other hand, we do acknowledge that uncertainty over the bank’s cost of equity may also have weighed on the board’s decision. Prof Andre Spicer of Cass Business School said: The focus on regulation and the current state of the Chinese market has blinded us to other reasons why HSBC chose to stay put – it is likely the collective interests of the UK corporate elite played a role. HSBC is an important part of a network of interlocking directorates; it is also a vital source of revenue for consultants, accountants, lawyers and many others. They probably tried their best to ensure the bank did not move. Another reason why HSBC probably did not move was that it would be stepping into a completely different business environment. All the evidence shows that when firms move headquarters, they start to copy their new neighbours. This would have meant that HSBC would slowly become more like a Chinese firm. That would have meant a culture which emphasises personal connections over almost anything else and a large role for the state. We often overestimate how easy it is for corporations to shift headquarters. If moving house is awful, then moving headquarters is much worse. Veteran City commentator David Buik: Mark Boleat, chair of policy at the City of London Corporation: HSBC’s decision to keep their headquarters in the UK is a significant boost for the City and sign of our competitiveness. London is a leading global financial centre and the fact we have, in HSBC, one of the world’s leading banks based here only backs up that position. All multinational businesses review what the alternatives are across the globe, but today’s announcement is welcome news for financial services in this country. John Thanassoulis, professor of financial economics at Warwick Business School: For the UK this is the positive side of the change in emphasis made clear by the chancellor in his Mansion House speech. That is, less confrontational regulation of banks. The speech was followed by the removal of the head of the FCA [Financial Conduct Authority], by the dropping of the investigations into bank culture, by the weakening of clawback regulations, and today we learn by lower capital requirements than the author of the UK reforms, Sir John Vickers, required. The question is has the government created an environment in which the balance is pushed too far towards the banks? The government might not realise how powerful they are or perhaps how sensitive regulators are in setting [rules] to avoid the fate of the former head of the FCA. A spokesman for the British Bankers’ Association: This decision is a big vote of confidence in the UK, and reflects the government’s decision to ensure the UK remains competitive as a global banking centre. Banking is an internationally mobile industry and as our recent report on competitiveness showed, a number of push and pull factors are weighing heavily in boardrooms across the sector. We cannot afford to be complacent about the contribution banking makes to the British economy, a sector that employs over half a million people, with two thirds of those jobs based outside of London.
Tim Dowling: can my choice of family movie top the one about food items having sex? I wake on Saturday morning brimming with uncharacteristic enthusiasm. “Morning,” I say when my wife’s eyes open. “What are we doing today?” “What do you mean, what are we doing?” she says. “Well,” I say. “A brand new day is…” “Do you expect me to plan your whole fucking life for you?” she says. I realise what I’m feeling is not enthusiasm at all, but a kind of pre-hangover giddiness. If I don’t feel terrible, it’s only because I haven’t sat up yet… “I was just…” I say. “I could ask you, what are we doing today?” she says. I think about this for a moment. Then I take my phone from the bedside table. “We could see this,” I say, holding the screen to her nose. “What’s this?” she says. “It’s the trailer for a movie called Sausage Party,” I say. “Is this a cartoon?” she says. “You can’t show me a cartoon.” Two minutes later, my wife’s eyes are shining in the curtained half-light. “That is literally the funniest thing I’ve ever seen,” she says, gripping my arm. “So there’s one option,” I say. She gets out of bed and leaves the room. I sit up, and am rewarded with the headache I deserve. After a few minutes my wife returns, dressed. “The online booking is down,” she says. “We’ll have to go to the cinema early, then have lunch.” “What did we do before online?” I say. “Didn’t we ring or something?” My wife has already left the room. I hear her banging on the children’s doors. “Wake up!” she shouts. “We’re all going to the cinema!” That afternoon my wife’s phone rings as we exit the cinema car park. “We’ve just been to a film called Sausage Factory,” she says. “Sausage Party,” the middle one says from the back. “It’s basically about food having sex,” my wife says. “You must see it.” “And it was my idea,” I say. “No, you should definitely bring your adult children with you,” she says. At dusk my wife finds me in the sitting room, feeling frail. “I’m going to cook,” she says. “I’ve made you a shopping list.” “Can you not see I’m watching a documentary about the presidential election of 1828?” I say. “If you don’t go now, I’ll change my mind,” she says. “Martin Van who?” “Van Buren,” I say. “He succeeded Andrew Jackson.” “Literally never heard of him,” she says. “Have you heard of Zachary Taylor?” I say. “No,” she says. “Millard Fillmore?” I say. “No.” “Chester Arthur?” I say. “This isn’t fun for me,” she says. In the supermarket queue, I’m sorely tempted to send my wife a text saying, “Rutherford B Hayes?” But then I get another idea. “It’s telly supper,” my wife tells the middle one. “Your father’s picked another film for us to watch.” “Uh-oh,” he says. “He says it’s literally the funniest film ever,” she says. “I didn’t say literally,” I say. My wife corrals the children into the sitting room against their will. “This was made in 1985,” I say. “Before the internet.” I press play. Over the next quarter of an hour, an unbearable silence blossoms. “When does it get funny?” my wife says. “This is still the set-up,” I say, knowing full well comedies don’t normally leave 15 minutes before the first joke. The younger two vanish. The oldest one offers to clear the plates, and never returns. The film is everything I remember, except funny. “I can see what you mean,” my wife says. “But I’m going to read my book.” I watch the rest alone, as a sort of punishment.
Captain Fantastic review – Viggo Mortensen doesn't earn his stripes There’s a meaty whiff of phoney-baloney in this fatuous and tiresome movie, replete with forced emotional crises and wrong notes, topped off with an excruciatingly unearned, sentimental ending. It’s a low-cal version of Peter Weir’s 1986 movie The Mosquito Coast, starring someone who is essentially a cross between Charles Manson and Captain von Trapp. Ben (a blandly conceited performance by Viggo Mortensen) has taken his six children away from America’s soul-rotting consumerist nonsense to live a tough, pure survivalist lifestyle in the forests of the Pacific Northwest – drilling them to athletic perfection and teaching them about Chomsky and Dostoyevsky. But his uncompromising demands have taken their toll on the children’s mother, who is now in hospital, and causes a terrible confrontation with Ben’s reactionary father-in-law, Jack (Frank Langella). So is Ben a creepy authoritarian cult leader or quixotic countercultural hero? Perhaps we are supposed to believe he’s a charismatic mix of the two. But it’s fudged, and there is something wildly and unintentionally pompous and preposterous about Ben, who is against “organised religion” but appears to think Buddhism is somehow ethically and intellectually superior to Christianity. This is a macho story of men’s intellectual development: Ben’s son, Bo (George MacKay) is the putative academic star; the sisters aren’t important and, in this film, women are either irrelevant, saintly or dead.
Watford burst Hull City’s hopes thanks to Michael Dawson’s late own goal It is fair to say the first top-flight meeting between these teams will not live long in the memory. Michael Dawson’s own goal, eight minutes from time, was a bitter blow for a Hull City side who had looked like ending a disastrous run of results on the road but have now lost seven of their past eight games and seem destined for a long season battling relegation. Considering they came into the match having conceded 11 goals in their past two away trips, against Liverpool and Bournemouth, going down to a solitary goal against an in-form Watford side – who now find themselves above Manchester United in the table – might be seen as progress. Yet Mike Phelan knew it could easily have been very different. “Defeats are always hard to take, but what pleased me was that we were on the front foot. But you suffer in the big league and the deflection was cruel,” the Hull manager said. “We have to do better in the final third, but hopefully that will come with more hard work. We have to stick together and keep believing we are good enough to get ourselves out of this rut that we’ve been in. But the players are committed and I think we’ll be OK.” Walter Mazzarri, the Watford head coach, had insisted before the match that his players would not be distracted by the ongoing investigation into allegations that the club’s owners supplied false financial documents to the Football League in 2014. Fans showed their support before kick‑off with a giant banner featuring the joint-owner Gino Pozzo dressed in a suit and tie. Having not played at home since drawing with Bournemouth four weeks ago, the players appeared eager to make up for lost time and almost went ahead early on when Younès Kaboul’s header crashed against the crossbar from Roberto Pereyra’s corner. The Argentinian playmaker picked up the loose ball and was unlucky to see his curling shot drift wide. On the evidence of the first five minutes, it was easy to see why Hull have been struggling. A three-man defence marshalled by the ageing captain, Dawson, is lacking in pace and they remain vulnerable on the flanks despite the abilities of Ahmed Elmohamady and Sam Clucas. However, after somehow weathering the early storm the visitors gradually found their feet. Ryan Mason tested Heurelho Gomes from distance and Abel Hernández was inches away from connecting with Elmohamady’s cross, only for Kaboul to come to Watford’s rescue. Troy Deeney will still be having nightmares about the chance he missed to score his 100th goal for the club just before the break, nodding wide from little more than a yard out. It simply had to get better after the break and, scenting the chance of recording a fourth victory in their past five visits to Vicarage Road, Hull looked far more of a threat. They served notice of their intentions when Hernández raced on to Will Keane’s flick on but could only produce a weak effort that trickled into the gloves of Gomes. Watford continued to look the more likely to take the lead, although a lack of quality in the final third invariably let them down. Nordin Amrabat regularly found space behind Clucas but Odion Ighalo could not provide the finishing touch from another teasing cross. Mazzarri abandoned his three-man defence and threw on Daryl Janmaat for Kaboul. It eventually had the desired effect when the Dutchman’s cross was deflected by Pereyra into the path of Dawson, who could only watch as the ball bounced off him and trickled into the net. “I always believed we could win it,” Mazzarri said. “They had some good counter-attacks in the second half but we controlled the ball and created chances. It was just the last pass that let us down. I’m very happy with my team but at the moment we don’t need to look at the table.” Phelan will be wishing he could say the same.
Making patients feel stupid is a treatment all doctors should eschew “Just because I have cancer they think I am dumb.” These were the last words a patient said to me and her lament has stayed with me ever since. Our conversation that morning had started ordinarily enough. She was in hospital with an infection that was proving more resolute than I’d thought. Every day I made a show of applying my stethoscope to her chest but I knew that she was slipping away. Her numbers looked worse and the once intermittently-used oxygen now stayed permanently by her side, the tubing plastered to her sweaty forehead. That day, I couldn’t bear to have the exchange that typically went, “What do you think, doctor?” “I’m afraid the infection is taking its time.” “I’d love to be home.” “I’d love to get you home.” “But I’m just too breathless to consider it.” “I know.” So that morning I said, “Tell me a little about yourself.” “You mean my cancer?” I cringed at the implication. “No, about the rest of you.” She smiled. She was the mother of five grown children and her husband’s successful business partner. She dabbled in art but her true love was cooking elaborate meals from which she would always save a little for the elderly neighbour who was doing it tough. Seeing him happy gave her a lift, she said. “It’s amazing, what you have accomplished,” I said, struck by how hard she had worked through many years of being unwell. Her reaction was even more striking. Tears streamed down her face, catching momentarily on the oxygen tubing. “You really mean that? Thank you.” Who thinks you are dumb? Why do they think that? How dare they? Maybe her children or husband were insensitive. Or maybe a friend or relative couldn’t be bothered anymore. Those who are viewed through the prism of their illness commonly encounter upsetting behaviour. These thoughts sped through my mind as I stood frozen at the very sight of her distress. Beside me, my resident shifted uncomfortably. I stared mutely at my patient. Any number of things could cause her anguish: the fact that she was gravely ill, that getting home was a dimming prospect, that the children would be motherless or the business might fall flat. But no, she seemed reconciled with all that. What she couldn’t get over was being thought of as dumb. The silence wasn’t long but the embarrassment threatened to swallow us. Taking our continued presence for interest, she wiped her tears, apologised and continued, “It’s the little things. They ask me questions but don’t wait for an answer. They think that when I speak slowly they can talk for me and over me. It’s like I am invisible. My brain is slower but I am not dumb.” No words were adequate. No apology, no explanation, certainly no disavowal. Up to then, I was hoping the culprit was a lone, outside offender but I should have known better. In the long history of her illness she had spent a lot of time in a lot of hospitals until, we, her doctors and nurses had become the insiders and those who loved her the outsiders. Her plain observations were an indictment of us, not them. I yearned to argue then that her assessment was wrong, every single bit of it. That doctors existed to help patients, that no doctor actually thought a patient “dumb”. And what an anachronistic, offensive term that was anyway. But all I could honestly say is that no doctor or nurse had ever said the word within my earshot. I couldn’t truthfully assert that the ruthless emphasis on absurd metrics hadn’t just about overtaken notions of genuine and meaningful care. A 2013 American College of Physician Executives study of 840 doctors found that two out of three doctors had witnessed doctors behaving badly towards patients or colleagues. Discrimination, inappropriate jokes and profanity all found a mention.  A 2012 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association stated that most US medical licensing authorities reported incidents of online professional violations by physicians, many of which resulted in serious disciplinary actions. With the rise of social media, doctors are facing constant reminders to not post disparaging remarks about patients online. The whole issue was catapulted into ignominy when the Annals of Internal Medicine last year published two accounts of specialists making lewd remarks about patients who were under anaesthetic. As a doctor, I am surely guilty of my fair share of rolled eyes, exasperated glances and impatient sighs. Just recently, my ire spilled over when an anaemic patient insisted that the story began 50 years ago when her obstetrician ignored her post-partum bleeding. “I never made that blood back, it’s all his fault.” “Your anaemia isn’t related to that,” I cut her off. “But I am still upset.” I should have understood that the real story wasn’t about the loss of blood but lack of validation. I should have listened a little more patiently. If I have doled out poor behaviour I have also received it. After surgery, my mother kept reporting more pain that her nurses deemed appropriate. A senior nurse announced that her basic problem was laziness: “She needs to help herself instead of depending on us all the time.”  I was astounded by her ignorant conclusion that had filtered down to the other staff. Their attitude sapped my mother’s confidence and biased the doctors until an infection emerged as the cause of her pain. Had I not witnessed the exchange myself I would have found it hard to believe. In spite of the finest medical care, my patient died thinking the worst of herself. We couldn’t save her from her fate but we could certainly have combated the sense of shame and disempowerment illness engendered. We could have eased her suffering – if we had known what was causing it. My patient taught me that we don’t have to actually insult our patients by calling them dumb or lazy to make them feel bad. Where a power differential already exists, there are a hundred silent gestures, unintended slights and erroneous assumptions that can do the job and in this, each one of us is complicit.  Good medicine means understanding the power of not just what we say to our patients but how we behave towards them. Ralph Waldo Emerson once said that life is short but there is always time for courtesy. It’s a message that may well have been scripted for the modern healthcare professional.
It’s H for hot air at Halfords It is now two years – and two chief executives – since the launch of Halfords’ “Getting Into Gear” three-year plan, a plan that was singled out by Management Today for playing “host to some of the most corny corporate language on the planet” (from an exceptionally strong field). The document promised to introduce an “H Factor” to Halfords while aiming to reassert “the business’s proposition authority to Support Drivers of Every Car, Inspire Cyclists of Every Age and Equip Families for Their Leisure Time”. Anyway, when Jill McDonald got the top job at the retailer a year ago, she did not rewrite this plan, but added a few flourishes of her own, with a sequel called (wait for it) “Moving Up a Gear”. The enhancements by McDonald focused on customer service – her area of expertise – with the bike and car accessories retailer saying it would gather more data from its customers in an effort to get them to spend more. There was also a commitment to focus on exclusive deals, plus some much-needed modernisation for its stores. All of which brings us to this week, when the retailer announces full-year results. The chat will be about the group’s move into the upmarket cycling sector with the acquisition of Tredz, and how McDonald’s first year has gone. Is she moving up or missing the gears, as Halfords might put it? Jenkins steps up to another podium Antony Jenkins, the rather colourless former boss of Barclays, is not an obvious raconteur. No matter. He seems to be more in demand on the speaking circuit than he currently is in his old trade. We get another chance hear the Peter Ustinov de nos jours this week when he speaks at Chartered Accountants Hall “on the future of financial services and the importance of values in banking and fintech”. “This is an opportunity to hear from a high-profile industry insider on issues on which he has expressed firmly held, and sometimes controversial, views,” the bumf for the event gushes. More likely what they mean is “yet another opportunity”. Earlier this month Jenkins appeared at a House of Commons event when he revisited his favoured theme of “turning values into value”. What rarely gets mentioned is that before Jenkins became a crusading chief executive of Barclays, he had been in the driving seat of the high-street part of that bank as it merrily sold payment protection insurance (PPI) to people who never needed it or could have claimed on it. Odd that. Back to the daily grind at Sports Direct Another week, another chance for Mike Ashley to have a row with MPs on the business, innovation and skills select committee, who have summoned him to appear next month to talk about working conditions at the firm’s Derbyshire warehouse. You’ll recall Ashley said he would attend on 7 June, but only if the MPs agreed to come for a presumably whitewashed visit to the facility the day before. They declined that invitation last week – so Ashley said he would consult with lawyers. We all look forward to their response. Still, Ashley’s mouthpiece, Keith “The Bishop” Bishop, has been keen to extend similar invitations to inspect the facilities to anyone else who might fancy a trip to the Midlands. He included this page – seemingly unaware that we had spent a few days toiling undercover at the very same warehouse before Christmas. Anyway, as it seems in vogue to attach conditions before accepting these calls, we have agreed to show up, but only in return for an audience with the reclusive Ashley. “Shall we say 6 June for that interview with Mike in Shirebrook?” we asked, after the MPs had declined. “He has a spare slot that day now.” Strangely, the Bishop seems to have taken a sudden vow of silence.
Terminated: a lament for James Cameron's lost vision of brutal blue-collar sci-fi It’s easy to forget when reading about James Cameron’s latest ventures, from pro-environmental short films to the 10 million Avatar sequels we seem to have been waiting eons for, that this was once the youthful master of a kind of grounded, blue-collar futurism, a purveyor of science fiction able to conjure up stories in which ordinary people were often just one or two wrong turns away from encountering vicious, multi-jawed, acid-blooded beasties, or grim, unflinching red-eyed robots from the world to come. In many ways 1984’s The Terminator is now remembered best as one of the twin pillars of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s early Hollywood career. The hulking Austrian had previously been considered virtually uncastable thanks to his preposterous frame and thick Styrian accent, but along with John Milius, whose film Conan the Barbarian hit cinemas two years earlier, Cameron worked out that it was only necessary to find freakily eccentric roles for the oversized actor to introduce the world to perhaps the biggest star of the 1980s. And yet The Terminator’s true quality, especially when taken alongside its sequel, 1991’s T2: Judgment Day, is the manner in which Cameron brought sci-fi to the people. The genre often ignores ordinary lives in favour of those lived by the elite, in the form of space explorers, scientists and engineers. Hollywood seems to think that those who have reached society’s top rung will be the most likely to discover that we are not alone in the universe, whether by encounter with aliens, AIs or evil cyborgs from the machine-ruled future. Yet Terminator’s real hero is Linda Hamilton’s Sarah Connor, a perfectly ordinary woman who time-travelling resistance fighter Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn) first meets in a nightclub. Even in the film’s blockbuster follow-up, T2, Cameron is at pains to flag up the simple family life of the movie’s Oppenheimer figure, the Cyberdyne Systems engineer Miles Dyson. Whenever the movie’s themes become too fantastical, Cameron ruthlessly pulls them back down to earth, building brutal, humanist foundations for his futuristic castles in the air. So Dyson is first imagined as a figure of evil, the destroyer of worlds, until we visit his home and see his kids cowering at the thought of their daddy being hurt by Connor and her sinister and unwelcome compadres. Cameron must have jumped at the chance to take on a sequel to Alien, Ridley Scott’s pioneering slasher flick in space, because the British film-maker’s 1979 sci-fi horror appears to have been built with exactly the same toolbox. Influenced by the vision of grinding cosmic boredom presented in John Carpenter’s early 1974 venture Dark Star, Scott gave us a crew of blue-collar workers who are clearly only in space for the money, the diametric opposite of the wide-eyed, cosmic Boy’s Own optimism of Luke Skywalker in the Star Wars films. Aliens, Cameron’s 1986 sequel, presents another vision of ordinary people dealing with horrific circumstances, from Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley (forced back to the alien-infested planetoid in exchange for the return of her unfairly revoked flight licence) to the heavily armed but ultimately helpless grunts sent to take down the xenomorphs. This almost unspeakably extreme vision of humanity’s future in space is constantly grounded in the cold reality of life beyond the borders of our solar system, and is never allowed to slip into the realms of starry-eyed Spielbergian space fantasy. Cameron did his best to inject Avatar, his 2009 blockbuster megalith, with the same icy reality-shot to the heart. It’s made clear in the opening scenes, as we meet Sam Worthington’s disabled soldier Jake Sully, that future Earth remains a place of poverty and shrinking resources, where the working-class are forced to waste their lives in military servitude. The tiny details that push Cameron’s players beyond the realms of caricature are in place for Weaver’s chain-smoking exobiologist Grace Augustine and Stephen Lang’s ruthless alien-hating bigot Colonel Quaritch. But it’s hard to conjure up a sense of spiky realism when your movie’s key characters are 14ft-tall space elves with ethernet-capable tails, dragons for pets and symbiotic relationships with sentient, god-like megaflora. The Terminator films and Aliens should be required viewing for new sci-fi film-makers, especially those hoping to break into the big budget arena. Without Cameron’s eye for detail and obsession with the lives of ordinary people, later movies in both futuristic sagas have languished in a sea of vapidity, unable to interest their audiences in protagonists with less apparent humanity than the merciless extraterrestrials and metal killing machines whose eternal task it is to hunt them down. Compare Emilia Clarke’s version of Sarah Connor in last year’s Terminator Genisys to the original, Hamilton-essayed iteration, or Christian Bale’s shouty take on John Connor with Edward Furlong’s vivacious turn as mankind’s teenaged sci-fi messiah. In each case, the recast versions are thinly drawn facsimiles, plastic people about whom we know next to nothing and who make us care even less. Cameron has now been working almost exclusively on Avatar and its sequels for at least a decade, and one suspects it could easily be another 10 years before all four (yes, four) new films find their way into cinemas. In his absence, no one has quite taken up the mantle – though Neill Blomkamp has at times essayed a similar street-level vision of things to come. The Titanic director is only 61, but you wonder if his passion for the environment and fondness for the untapped possibilities of motion-capture tech will leave time for a return to the stark sci-fi of those early films. Like Furlong’s ever-optimistic Connor in T2, we can only hold out hope that good things eventually come to those who keep the faith.
Princess Moana, the Rogue One rebel, the Eagle Huntress: meet film’s female heroes What do a Pacific Islander on an emotional quest, the wilful leader of a small rebel band and a young girl who dreams of learning to fly an eagle have in common? They’re all set to dominate the box office this Christmas. On the surface, Disney animation Moana, Star Wars spinoff Rogue One and documentary The Eagle Huntress are three very different films. What they share, however, is a sense of indomitable purpose and the ability to move audiences at a time when they are desperately in need of good cheer – and it’s this that looks set to propel them to success. “We’ve had a lot of girl guides, football teams and high school groups coming to watch the film and the reaction has been amazing,” says Otto Bell, director of The Eagle Huntress, which follows a young Kazakh girl, Aisholpan, as she battles prejudice and bad weather to become the first female to enter the country’s annual Golden Eagle competition. “We had one moment where we came out after Sundance and all these kids who’d seen the film spontaneously started applauding, cheering and shouting her signature eagle-calling shout. It was incredible.” The intrepid and independent Moana in Disney’s film, who has been described by many critics as an anti-princess, has received a similarly warm response. “What I love about Moana is its focus on a young leader who discovers her inner power and learns to trust herself,” says Anthony Breznican of Entertainment Weekly. “Plus she shows the charming but pompous tough guy, Maui, that brawling isn’t always the best solution to a problem. Brothers everywhere, big and little, should take note.” Meanwhile, the highly anticipated Rogue One, which opens this week, will see Felicity Jones’s Jyn Erso gather a ragtag band of rebels including Riz Ahmed, Forest Whitaker, Diego Luna and Donnie Yen to take on the might of the Empire – a plotline that has taken on slightly more resonance in the light of recent political events. So are we seeing the rise of a new kind of heroine? Bell says that what drew him to Aisholpan was “her quiet determination”, and it’s certainly the case that all three women are shown as go-getting leaders. “I see Moana’s story as a classic hero’s journey regardless of gender,” says Osnat Shurer, producer of the Disney animation. “We see her courage and emotional intelligence, her determination and compassion, and it’s a fascinating tale.” In recent years, Disney has made concerted efforts to move away from its image as the home of sparkling dresses, glass slippers, singing birds and princes swooping in to save the day. Brave was a story about the bonds between mothers and sisters, Frozen a tale of sisterly love and loyalty, and even though Rapunzel and Tiana – the respective heroines of Tangled and The Princess and the Frog – got their men, in neither case was it their main concern. “I just rewatched Sleeping Beauty and I forgot how passive she is: it’s the fairies and the prince who come to the rescue. Same for Snow White and Cinderella,” says Monica Castillo, film writer for the New York Times. “Starting with the 1990s Disney renaissance, the princesses become more active, peaking with Mulan, who becomes a warrior to take her father’s place in the army. I was thrilled that Tiana had ambitions beyond big ballgowns and the real love story of Frozen was between two sisters. It’s a whole new world from where we started: pretty things to be rescued from witches, dragons and evil stepmothers.” Moana continues that evolution with a story that’s as much about helping your community as discovering yourself. Most notably, her figure is athletic and strong rather than wasp-waisted and delicate. “She had to look as though she could go on this journey to save her world,” says Shurer. “The way she looks shouldn’t be radical but it’s true that right now it is.” Hawaiian writer Robyn Lucas agrees. “Moana as a Disney princess was not only body-positive, but having her as a darker-skinned/brown girl made a huge impact,” she says. “I was mesmerised watching it, because it was the first time I saw anyone who looked like me on the screen in that capacity – as a leading actress.” Many fans are also responding to the opportunity to celebrate a brown girl in a leading role. “I loved it – I’ve seen it twice now and think it does a very good job of both harking back to the Disney renaissance and moving the story forward in a progressive way,” says Aisha Harris, culture writer for Slate and the host of that site’s popular podcast, Represent. “There’s no prince, no love interest. It’s a film about a girl and her journey and the heroine is a girl of colour, and that’s so important.” Daniel Jose Older, author of the acclaimed young adult fantasy Shadowshaper and a new novella, Ghost Girl In The Corner, agrees: “Moana isn’t passive. She’s central to the story and I know from my own inbox how important that is – since I wrote Shadowshaper, it’s been full of brown girls saying they hadn’t felt at home in a book before. It’s a really powerful experience to find yourself at home somewhere without being translated by others. To see that in a Disney movie is huge.” Nor is it the only example. A recent piece in Vanity Fair quoted Disney as saying that “between 2016 and 2018 about 24% of the studio’s live-action releases will feature ethnic minority leads”. A similar push has been made by Disney-owned LucasFilm regarding female leads – brunette and British ones, at least – with Emilia Clarke from Game of Thrones set to join Daisy Ridley and Felicity Jones in the Star Wars universe. “The Force Awakens and Rogue One absolutely show that female heroes can carry a blockbuster action-adventure movie,” says Breznican. “Similarly, Moana shows that we can continue to reach beyond the Brothers Grimm. The world is full of amazing folktales and mythology and animated films are just another step in the process of handing these stories to a new generation.” Not everyone is singing Moana’s praises, however. Disney worked for six years on the film, establishing an Oceanic Story Trust made up of people from all walks of Pacific Islands life, from anthropologists and linguists to master navigators and tattooists. It employed a Samoan musician, Opetaia Foa’i, to co-write the music, and cast two stars with Pacific Island heritage, Auli’i Cravalho (Moana) who is Native Hawaiian and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson (Maui) who is half-Samoan. But some Pacific Islanders remain unconvinced. “Disney is engaged in a sophisticated form of colonisation,” says Dr Teresia Teaiwa, senior lecturer in Pacific studies at Victoria University of Wellington. “It has very cleverly manipulated some islanders’ deep desire to be affirmed by the dominant culture and it’s now selling this desire back to us. What is most insidious about Moana is that is offers us roles as a comical buffoon on one hand or an adolescent faux-feminist on the other, and distracts us from the deep and rebellious intelligence that is our true inheritance, in this ocean that has been our home for millennia.” Tina Ngata, a teacher at Te Wananga o Aotearoa, New Zealand’s indigenous university, and a campaigner for indigenous rights, agrees. “Moana has taken a very broad-stroke approach to a very wide area that holds a very diverse set of cultures,” she says. “The film is problematic about many things, from rock-stacking, which is actually a very disrespectful and problematic practice in Hawaii, to Moana’s father banning the village from venturing beyond the reef – which is codswallop, and does not reflect our own world views and likely responses to the event of losing someone at sea. “Our region has always been an exotic escape that people go to in order to turn their back on stress, and acknowledging distinct mana [rights] is not a part of that experience. A number of whanau [extended families] from islands across the Pacific are genuinely enjoying the movie. All I can say to that is – not all that we enjoy is good for us.” Shurer remains sanguine. “Everyone has a right to their own opinion, particularly about their own culture,” she says. “My one hope is that people see the film and don’t make their decisions simply based on the trailer.” Lucas agrees. “Although there were some problems with the film, the makers had clearly done a great deal of research and I understand that you can’t fully get Polynesian culture condensed for a two-hour film. “I adore Moana because she was smart and yet vulnerable and her relationship with her parents was respectful, which is huge.” It’s important, too, that the commitment to creating diverse and interesting characters continues. Older says: “It’s great that we’ve got to this point, but we can’t get stuck here. Our world and society are complex and diverse and the stories we tell and are told need to reflect that.” Moana is out now. Rogue One and The Eagle Huntress are both released this week
Drop in dementia rates suggests disease can be prevented, researchers say The proportion of older people living with dementia has fallen by a fifth over the past two decades with the most likely explanation being because men are smoking less and living healthier lives, according to new scientific research. A team from three British universities concluded that as a result the number of new cases of dementia is lower than had been predicted in the 1990s, estimated at around 210,000 a year in the UK as opposed to 250,000. The findings are potentially significant because they suggest that it is possible to take preventative action, such as stopping smoking and reducing cholesterol, that could help avoid the condition. “Physical health and brain health are clearly highly linked,” said Carol Brayne of Cambridge University, who co-authored the study. Nick Fox, professor of neurology at University College, London, who was not involved in the study, agrees: “This does suggest that our risk, in any particular age in later life, can be reduced probably by what we do 10, 20 or 30 years before.” The scientists found that new cases of dementia had dropped from 20.1 in every 1,000 people per year in the first study conducted in the early 1990s to 17.7 in the second, which looked at new cases between 2008 and 2013. When sex and age differences were taken into account, the dementia rates were found to have dropped by 20%. The trend emerges from a dramatic drop in new cases for men across all age groups. In the 1990s study, for every 1,000 men aged 70-74, 12.9 went on to develop dementia within a year. In the second study, 20 years later, that figure had dropped to only 8.7 men. For men aged 65-69 the rate of new cases had more than halved between the two studies. The situation for women was more complex: while those aged 80-84 showed a small increase in rates between the two studies, there was a slight drop for other age groups. The researchers did not delve into the reasons behind the overall fall in dementia rates, or the differences between men and women, but they suggest a complex mix of factors could have improved brain health, particularly in men. Less smoking, lower blood pressure, and greater use of statins to tackle cholesterol as well as an increase in education levels, could be among the factors at play, said Brayne. “One interpretation might be that women have already achieved the gains that there were to gain,” she added. Fiona Matthews, a co-author of the paper from Newcastle University, said that it is “a very different sort of person” who is reaching older age now. Researchers have found before that dementia may not be the “time bomb” it was once feared. In 2013 the same team reported that over the course of 20 years the proportion of people estimated to have dementia had dropped by 24% compared with what had been expected. The new findings strengthen the message that brain health in the UK is changing, they say. James Pickett, head of research at the Alzheimer’s Society, said it was encouraging that the rate of new cases had fallen. However, he added: “There will still be more than 200,000 new cases of dementia each year. That is still an enormous number of people who require better information and health and social care support.” Writing in the journal Nature Communications, a team of researchers from the Universities of Cambridge, East Anglia and Newcastle describe how they ran two studies – the first between 1990 and 1995 and the second between 2008 and 2013. Dubbed the Cognitive Function and Ageing Study (CFAS) and largely funded by the Medical Research Council, the research compared dementia rates then and now in three locations: Cambridgeshire, Nottingham and Newcastle. In the first study, 5,156 individuals were followed up two years after their initial interview, while the second study followed 5,288 participants. Crucially, the interview methods used to diagnose dementia were the same for both the first and second studies, allowing the researchers to directly compare the results. This piece was amended on 20 April to remove the reference to older people “suffering” from dementia; more properly this should be referred to as “living with dementia and has been changed to reflect that.
The Drones: Feelin Kinda Free review – a menacing, avant-garde interrogation of Australia When rightwing columnist/performance artist Andrew Bolt heard the lyrics to the Drones’ single Taman Shud – “I don’t care about no Andrew Bolt” – he wrote that the band was “stamping on the ashes of the west’s musical traditions”. Supposedly offended by the thought that singer Gareth Liddiard didn’t give a toss about anything he said, he added: “Critics like these make me feel like I’m offending exactly the right kind of people.” Naturally, the Drones were delighted. First, they would no doubt feel exactly the same way about offending Bolt and his tabloid constituency. Second, the group has taken a serious left turn with their seventh album, Feelin Kinda Free. “We said ‘fuck it’ and went spaz,” Liddiard told the last October. He couldn’t have dreamed of a better critical endorsement than Bolt’s “stamping on the ashes” line. “It’s a pretty weird record and you can dance to it,” Liddiard said of the album. “It’s time to have a groovy Drones record. We’re sick of being a bunch of drags.” With respect, Bolt’s description is both pithier, more accurate and more complimentary. Taman Shud was one of the most compelling singles of last year, but good luck to anyone who hit the dance floor to its skittish rhythms. Boredom, the sixth track on Feelin Kinda Free, is in a similar vein. If the Drones once came on like the mutant, brawling blues-punk offspring of the Birthday Party and Beasts of Bourbon, this sounds more like the mostly forgotten Australian post-punk of Pel Mel and Sardine v. Frankly, it’s a lot more interesting and original, stamping all over the Drones’ own musical traditions. “The best songs are like bad dreams,” mutters Liddiard in Private Execution. It’s a fabulous opening line – and what follows is a succession of nightmares. Always fascinated by Australian history, the Drones were once the musical equivalent of a McCubbin painting; pioneers trapped in foreign landscapes. Here they take a step into the avant-garde world of the Angry Penguins, Albert Tucker and Sidney Nolan. The Angry Penguins movement of the 1940s was an interrogation, and rejection, of an earlier kind of Australian nationalism represented by the bush balladeers. Feelin Kinda Free is as decisive a repudiation, both of the Drones’ past and of the mythic, monocultural Australian vision of John Howard, Tony Abbott and, yes, Andrew Bolt: “I don’t give a fuck if you can’t stop the boats,” Liddiard sneers in Taman Shud. The dominant themes here are immigration and its attendant cousin, paranoia. And Then They Came For Me finds Liddiard “feeling like I’ve overstayed”. On the album’s final track, Shut Down SETI, he imagines Fortress Australia overrun by aliens: “Do we need an overlord that finds us underwhelming? You don’t defend your house and home by jumping down a rabbit hole.” Taman Shud and Boredom aside, Feelin Kinda Free slithers by like a serpent in search of its next meal. The feel is unhurried, but menacing. While the songs still stretch out like elastic, there are only eight of them, so at 41 minutes, the album doesn’t outstay its welcome. The emphasis is mostly on bass and percussion: guitars are heavily treated; frequently, you’d be forgiven for thinking there are no guitars at all. The closest thing to anything from the Drones’ past is the agonised To Think That I Once Loved You, which sits squarely in the album’s centre without dragging it down. Otherwise, Feelin Kinda Free sounds like the work of a less dour and far more subversive band. Despite the subject matter and often funereal pace, it’s anything but a drag.
UK workers consume 800 extra calories a week while commuting The average UK commuter consumes nearly 800 additional calories a week while travelling to and from work, often as a result of unhealthy snacking, a study has found. The Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH), which commissioned the research, said longer commutes are potentially shortening lives by increasing stress, limiting sleep and physical activity, and encouraging unhealthy eating. A poll of 1,500 people, conducted by Populus, found that two-fifths exercised less due to their commute, a similar proportion said they slept less, and about one-third reported increased snacking or fast food consumption. The report’s author, Emma Lloyd, a policy and research manager at RSPH, said: “The commute is hugely stressful; we have got thousands of commuters travelling through stations which are very obesogenic, both in terms of advertising and what’s available [to eat]. It’s natural that many people will reach for comfort food to relieve boredom or stress, but it’s a high-risk strategy when so many people are overweight and obese.” The average commuter spends 55 minutes a day travelling to and from work, according to the TUC. About 3 million people have a commute of two hours or more a day, a TUC study suggested last year, while nearly 900,000 have journeys of three hours or more. The poll asked commuters whether they consumed one or more of 12 different items during their journey and, using their responses, found that the median number of calories totalled 767 a week. The most popular item people ate on their commute was a chocolate bar, followed by crisps. Other items included fizzy drinks, fast food meals, muffins and alcohol. As the list was limited, the average number of calories could be higher. The RSPH wants a restriction on junk food outlets in stations and a health and wellbeing requirement for when train and bus franchises are awarded. This would oblige transport providers to create a healthier travelling experience in terms of the food on offer and comfort of passengers. The charity found that the top three commuting issues that members of the public believe are most detrimental to their health and wellbeing are delays, overcrowding and antisocial behaviour. To combat these issues, employers should increase flexible and home working, the RSPH said, citing the fact that three-fifths of those polled said flexible working hours would improve their health and wellbeing. A spokesman for the Rail Delivery Group, which represents train operators and Network Rail, said: “We know that commuting can be stressful, whether it’s by train, car, bus or tube. As part of its £50bn railway upgrade plan, the rail industry is building 12 new carriages a week to provide more seats and we’re improving the railway so that we can run more and longer trains. Today, quality, choice and healthier options form a big part of the food on offer at stations.” A Department for Transport spokeswoman said the government was “cutting journey times and improving the experience for passengers by funding new carriages across the country, electrifying swaths of the rail network and redeveloping many of our great railway stations”.
Rafael Benítez aghast after Newcastle surrender meekly at Southampton Rafael Benítez was aghast at Newcastle’s surrender at Southampton but insisted he has not given up on his team’s chances of surviving in the Premier League. He acknowledged, however, that some of his players have an alarming mental problem with regard to away matches, which is why he is pinning most of his hopes on the fact that four of their six remaining games are at home. “I am really disappointed, really upset,” said Benítez following a defeat that looked inevitable from the fourth minute, when atrocious defending helped Shane Long to shoot Southampton in front. “We started the game very poorly. We were talking about playing for 90 minutes with concentration and focus and not making mistakes and we started the game by making massive mistakes. The first half was really poor in everything.” Newcastle were 3-0 down before Andros Townsend struck back for the visitors in the 65th minute but that never looked like the start of a comeback. “My concern [at half-time] was I couldn’t believe how they started the first half after the hard work they were doing during the week. We have to change that in one way or another. “We wait to concede goals to react. You have to take something positive but I don’t see too many positive things today. The performance of the team away has been really poor all season and I’m already thinking about how to change something for the rest of the season. “But we have four games at home and hopefully with the fans behind us it will be easier to do things in the way we want. It’s not the time to complain and blame each other, it’s a time to realise we have to stick together.” The travelling fans did not seem optimistic about this squad’s ability to spring out of the relegation zone, with chants of “we’re going down”given an airing from the away end in the first half. “It’s very clear we can say nothing to our fans. They came here to see our team fighting and winning and we didn’t do it in the first half. In the second half we saw what we expect from the team: character, commitment, passion.” Asked whether his players had the resolve needed to improve, Benítez replied: “Some of them are strong enough but some of them need help and we will try to help them in one way or another.”
UK new car sales continue to rise but at slower pace New car sales in the UK have continued to grow but at a slower pace than previous months amid signs of falling demand from some business and private customers. New car registrations in May rose 2.5% compared with last year to 203,585, the highest for the month since 2002, according to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT). But the trade group noted growth had eased off with May marking the second month running when car registrations rose by less than 3%. Growth last month came from companies freshening up their business fleets, with that part of the market growing 8.8% on the year before. But registrations to private customers fell 3% and there was also a 20.2% decline in business registrations, which covers companies that have 24 or fewer cars registered. Fleets are those with 25 or more. Business registrations covers a relatively small part of the market and so the figures can be volatile from month to month. Some business surveys have shown companies are putting off spending decisions until after the EU referendum on 23 June. But the SMMT said it was too early to tell if the slowdown in new car registrations was down to the vote. “The new car market in May remained high with compelling offers available on the latest vehicles, but the low growth is further evidence of the market cooling in the face of concerns around economic and political stability,” said Mike Hawes, the SMMT chief executive. “Whether this is the result of some buyers holding off until the current uncertainty is resolved or a sign of a more stable market for new cars remains to be seen.” Car sales are a bellwether for overall spending, so the slowdown in registrations to private customers this year was concerning, said Samuel Tombs, the chief UK economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics. “The fall in car sales cannot be attributed solely to greater consumer caution ahead of the referendum. The fall in consumer confidence this year also has reflected slower growth in real incomes, amid weaker job growth, rising inflation and an intensifying squeeze of welfare spending,” he said. “Much of the pent-up demand from households that put off car purchases during the recession also has now been satiated.”
ITV cuts 120 jobs as Brexit uncertainty slows UK TV ad market ITV has announced plans to cut 120 jobs due to “political and economic uncertainty”, particularly concerns over the possible impact of Brexit. UK broadcasters are facing the worst year for TV advertising since 2009, with total revenues set to decline by up to 2%. The announcement on Monday comes three months after ITV’s chief executive, Adam Crozier, said the broadcaster would look to make £25m in cost savings next year following the Brexit vote on 23 June. ITV intends to make the cuts across the business, but does not plan to reduce its annual programming budget of more than £1bn. The company has 3,000 staff in the UK, out of 6,000 globally, with US-based employees forming its next largest workforce. “At a time of political and economic uncertainty in our key markets, it’s important that we are in the strongest possible position to continue to invest in our strategy, and to meet any challenges and opportunities ahead, as we continue to grow a successful business,” an ITV spokesman said. Fears about the impact of Brexit and a rapid softening of the UK advertising market are the paramount reasons for the job cuts. ITV is dependent on the performance of the UK market, which accounted for 85% of the near-£3bn the broadcaster made last year. Crozier has spent hundreds of millions of pounds attempting to reduce the company’s reliance on the UK, primarily by building a large TV production operation in the US. But ITV’s historical dependence on advertising meant that last year, TV ads and sponsorship accounted for more than half, about £1.7bn, of revenues. “We have taken costs out across ITV in a managed and sensible way over the past six years and we must continue to keep a tight control on spending to ensure that we are operating as efficiently and effectively as possible, while maximising our ability to invest in the high-quality programming that drives ITV’s success,” the ITV spokesman said. The company has estimated that in the first nine months of 2016, ad revenue would be down 1% year on year. Prior to the EU referendum, the ad market had been expected to grow by more than 7%, after a 7.4% increase in 2015. Media agencies, which book advertising on behalf of clients, have said the TV advertising market has become considerably worse in the past five or so weeks amid concerns about a “hard Brexit”. Last month, ITV’s share price tumbled after Crozier and the finance director, Ian Griffiths, cashed in £2m of shares, as some investors worried that this could be a sign its stock market price may be close to peaking. Last month it emerged that Daily Mail and General Trust, the owner of the Daily Mail, has cut more than 400 jobs over the past year. Fewer than half came from DMG Media, the division that includes the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday and freesheet Metro, as newspaper publishers continue to face a tough advertising market. This month, the BBC said it would make redundant more than 300 programme makers as part of a move to spin off its £400m TV production operation, which makes shows including EastEnders and Strictly Come Dancing.
War zone via smartphone: the Syria mobile film festival Since 2011, conflict has raged in Syria. And since then, thousands of locals have recorded it on their smartphones. Such firsthand footage has become a powerful expression of freedom against the regime. Tonight marks the opening of the Syria mobile film festival in Berlin, showcasing 11 documentary shorts shot by 12 Syrian film-makers. Its founder is Amer Matar, a 29-year-old author, journalist and documentary film-maker now exiled in Germany, arrested twice in 2011 for his work organising peace demonstrations. “It’s important to show what life is like inside Syria right now. It’s important to document the daily life, the daily shootings,” Matar says. That the conflict dominates the cinema produced is inevitable. “Most of the films revolve in the world of war, whether it’s death, injury or exile, and the effect of war in Syria.” The seed was sown when Matar was arrested five years ago; he noticed that those who were arrested had footage they recorded on their mobile phones documenting the revolution. “It was the only instrument you could document with,” he says. “Civilians were documenting shelling, bombardment and demonstrations. It’s not professional, but it doesn’t have to be. The footage is shaky, but it has an endless amount of emotions and interaction between the film-maker, the citizen and the footage – and they’re filming themselves. It created a new perception.” The idea for the film festival came two years later, as other mobile film festivals were budding in countries including Tunisia, Libya and Egypt. Matar, who runs a production company called ashar3, a non-profit media foundation defending freedom of the press in Syria, began by looking at the vast amount of footage already online. “So many people were already doing this, so why not push it in a direction, do it in a more organised way?” In 2014, the Syrian mobile film festival took place across 20 cities in Syria. Earlier this week, the festival began in Syria, in the historic Bosra amphitheater in Daraa – held in secret and shared only through word of mouth. Events will also happen in Aleppo, Idlib and Ghouta, as well as two Turkish cities, Gaziantep and Şanlıurfa. “Since free space is stolen in our home country, now there are an enormous number of exiled Syrians trying to recreate what was once possible in our own space in Syria,” Matar says. “This might be just a fraction of what can be, or what we could have done in our own country as well.” While the films were shot in Syria, they were developed in a workshop held in a border town of Turkey. The festival not only supports Syrian film-makers by helping them produce their first semi-professional short films, it also offers grants, awards and training programs for Syrian directors who make low-budget, mobile documentary films. A total of 32 films were developed over the course of one year in their workshops and the 11 chosen to screen in Berlin were selected for their innovative use of the mobile camera. “The ones that were not chosen were the ones you could make with another camera,” says Matar. “The mobile phone plays a big role in the storytelling. They not only filmed other people, but filmed themselves as part of the story, somehow.” Four key titles at this year’s Syria mobile film festival Clusterd A short film shot by Hasan Kattan, an Aleppo-based correspondent for Al Jazeera and a law student at Aleppo University, Clusterd tells the story of a young boy named Hussein, who found a cluster bomb next to his home. He started playing with the bomb, as if it was a toy; after pulling its pin, it exploded. Today, his right hand is amputated, while his left hand has only three fingers. “I can’t write, my hands hurt me,” says Hussein, who has suffered learning difficulties and a poor memory since the accident. “Many kids have suffered from the bombardment, not only the direct effect, but what comes after,” Matar says. “You see kids going and playing with anything they see and, unfortunately, accidents happen. In this case, the film-maker had a close relationship with the family and the child. It was a personal connection that shows an honest film.” The Architect One press photographer in Aleppo, Mujahid Abu Aljoud, made a short film in his rubble-filled city. He follows a young boy with a dream of becoming an architect, and with paper, paint and a glue gun he makes a diorama of the city, including bombed buildings, barricades and the destruction around his old home. He then builds a new city with a river, an airport and buildings, based on a vision of hope. Barbed Wire Aktham Alwany’s short film follows a Syrian journalist as he risks his life to sneak into Turkey. The dangerous path, which starts with a moonlit car ride, continues across a barbed-wire fence, with rejections, even gunshots at the Turkish border – which have killed numerous Syrians. Mosaic of Struggle This short by Mohammad Quasem was shot in the northern Syrian city of Kafr Nabl. A character named Abd was hit with a rocket, leading to the amputation of his leg. “People have to get used to things; they need to be able to live with their circumstances,” he says in the film. Today, he is an artist’s assistant with other amputees, making realistic mosaics in an art studio. “What encourages us is that we are transferring the suffering of the Syrians to those who don’t know what is happening inside Syria,” he says. “That gave me confidence; it makes me feel my existence.”
Does the EU really allow dangerous criminals free entry to the UK? Question: The Vote Leave campaign has published a dossier of 50 dangerous citizens from EU states, including murderers and rapists, who have been allowed into Britain. It says this is evidence that the UK is “unable to prevent dangerous individuals from walking into the country” while it remains in the trade bloc. Is there any truth in this? Answer: It is simply not the case that, as Nigel Farage has claimed, “we can’t stop people like this entering the country”. The EU’s 2004 citizenship directive makes it clear that the free movement of people within the EU is not an unqualified right and can be restricted on grounds of “public policy, public security or public health”. This means that serious offenders can be denied entry and the right to live in Britain. However, the directive does say “previous criminal convictions shall not in themselves constitute grounds for taking such measures”, but adds that convicted criminals can be excluded on a case-by-case basis if they present “a genuine, present and sufficiently serious threat affecting one of the fundamental interests of society”. Q: So if convicted criminals are not automatically excluded, aren’t the leave campaigners right to say that murderers and rapists will be allowed in? A: No. As Steve Peers, a professor of EU law at Essex University, has pointed out, they could be refused entry and it is hard to imagine any British judge or the European court of justice overturning that decision in cases involving such serious crimes. As the former Conservative immigration and policing minister Damian Green has said, nearly 6,000 European Economic Area nationals have been prevented from entering Britain since 2010. Q: But what about the 50 cases of murderers and rapists cited by Vote Leave? Why weren’t they refused entry? A: The most likely reason is that the UK Border Force was not aware of their criminal convictions when they entered Britain. The worst case cited in the dossier is that of Arnis Zalkalns, a Latvian builder who, having been jailed in his home country for murdering his wife, moved to Britain in 2007 before allegedly murdering 14-year-old Alice Gross in west London. He came to London before EU laws on sharing information relating to criminal records came into effect in 2012. The limited measure focuses mainly on telling EU member states when one of their citizens has committed an offence abroad, but it may have flagged up Zalkalns before he arrived. The problem is that the sharing of information regarding criminal convictions across Europe is still at a rudimentary stage. If someone is high profile, has committed serious crimes in several countries, or is on Europol’s wanted list, they are likely to be on the UK Border Force warning list database. Countries such as Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Portugal flag up potentially dangerous people so that they can be turned away at the border, but some EU states do not yet have the capacity to do this. EU membership means that Britain has access to the Schengen II database, which has details of 250,000 wanted or missing suspects across Europe. The flow of foreign fighters returning from Syria has extended the EU databases tracking their movements. Q: So the system does not always work? A: That’s right, and the Vote Leave dossier catalogues 50 cases of convicted criminals who should have been excluded but were only picked up at a later stage, sometimes after they had committed further serious crimes in Britain. Q: How can this be fixed? A: Nick Clegg has proposed focusing on sharing conviction information on the most serious offences, such as murder and rape. The government has also opted back into a series of criminal justice measures known as the Prüm package, which allows the sharing of information on suspected criminals, such as fingerprints and DNA, and which many Eurosceptics voted against. It seems unlikely that taking Britain out of the EU would persuade its European partners to put more effort into sharing information about convicted criminals with the UK. Verdict: EU membership does not stop the UK turning away convicted serious criminals at its borders. But further EU integration in the shape of more information sharing could make this more effective.
The catch-22 that stops young mothers getting help to keep their baby A typical scene in a family court: an advocate acting for a young mother at risk of having her newborn baby adopted asks the judge to sanction payment for a psychological report into her mental functioning. The point of this is not to find out if she needs help: its principal purpose is to assess how well she is likely to be able to parent her child, given the trauma caused by abuse and neglect she has experienced herself. It will cost between £3,000 and £6,000 of public money, and take several weeks to complete; time this woman doesn’t have to embark on the specialist therapeutic treatment such psychological reports frequently recommend. Therapy, which is likely to last between one and two years, is this woman’s best hope of making the changes needed for her to provide “good enough” parenting as her baby grows up. But she doesn’t have two years. She doesn’t even have one. She has 26 weeks at the most: the statutory limit on a plan for permanence being ordered for a child, from the point at which children’s services applied to remove her baby. That is not enough time for a traumatised abuse survivor to embark on therapy, begin the process of recovery and make changes in their lives. But even if it was, it’s unlikely that this young mother would be funded for the therapy she needs. Put bluntly, says family barrister Eddie Lloyd-Jones, a woman’s mental state is often assessed as bad enough that the state will remove her baby, but not bad enough to receive state funding for treatment that might mean her child can stay with her. “In some cases, we are effectively using public money to pay for expert opinions that underline the fact that intervention has come too late.” It is almost impossible for parents embroiled in court proceedings to access any intervention that has been recommended, says Dr Freda Gardner, consultant clinical psychologist and expert witness to the family court. This can have life-changing consequences for every individual involved. “The availability of services is the most frequent barrier to providing the child with the best possible chance of being cared for by their birth parents in the long-term,” says Gardner. The Pause pilot offers a lifeline to some women, but only works in seven local authority areas, and so far only with women who have already had at least one child removed. Unless someone is diagnosed with, for example, bipolar disorder or a psychotic illness, the NHS will not provide specialist mental health support. “Longstanding trauma wouldn’t meet mental health thresholds,” agrees Anna Gupta, independent social worker and senior lecturer at Royal Holloway, University of London. “They’d be signposted to their GP, and some will then be prescribed antidepressants or be sent for sessions of CBT [cognitive behavioural therapy]. But to get 18-24 months worth of psychotherapy on the NHS is in my experience very rare. And the parents don’t have the means to pay for it.” At Lancaster University, Prof Karen Broadhurst says her population profiling study, funded by the Nuffield Foundation, confirms a clear mismatch between the mental health services available on the NHS and what family courts are told that parents require. “From the 72 interviews we have conducted with birth mothers who have had children removed in successive proceedings, a consistent message is that where recommendations are made by psychologists or psychiatrists that women need to receive significant therapy – a standard recommendation is 18 months – they can’t access that help,” she says. Broadhurst points out that if a woman then appears before the family court again in a care case involving a subsequent child, the judge will ask whether she has pursued the treatment previously recommended, which she will frequently have been unable to begin, let alone complete. “So for these women,” says Broadhurst, “this is a catch-22.” Family judges are now publicly condemning the failures of this system. In a recent judgement involving a boy whose young mother’s mental health difficulties had been known to social services since at least August 2013, family judge Stephen Wildblood QC said he failed to understand why thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ money were spent on a psychological report in which the entirely obvious needs of the mother for therapy were set out, while the recommended treatment was denied to her for so long that it became virtually pointless for her to embark on it. “The facts of the mother’s extremely damaging past have been known for years,” said Wildblood, who has set out identical frustrations in the past. “Therapy is never an instantaneous remedy and it is bound to be a matter of months, at least, before the sort of damage experienced by this mother could be mitigated through therapy. Now it is suggested that the benefit of therapy is ‘outwith the timescales of the child’. I cannot imagine that anyone would regard that process as satisfactory or sensible.” This particular mother’s situation, said Wildblood, provided a clear example of the need for early therapeutic intervention to be offered to traumatised parents whose mental health histories had long been well known to social services. “Not only would that save large amounts of money (since the need for unnecessarily detailed psychological and other evidence would be avoided),” said the judge. “It might also produce some better and clearer outcomes for parents and children.” Should the state cough up for services that will, in the end, only give parents a chance, rather than any certainty, of being able to provide good enough care for children who may already have been harmed? A supreme court ruling in 2006 said that the law did not permit judges to compel the local authority to pay for therapy. However, more recently the cases of Re B and Re B-S stated local authorities could not cite resource issues as a reason for pursuing permanent separation of a child from its family. Early intervention does cost money, but compared with putting a child in care, specialist treatment is not expensive. A therapist at even a high rate of £100 an hour, once a week for two years comes in at under £10,500. By contrast, a local authority taking a care case to a final hearing costs £4,825 in court fees alone. Add in the bill for instructing counsel and expert witnesses, plus a foster placement for an infant that can run to over £100,000 per year and the potential savings from a parent being able to look after their own child – taking no account of the human factors involved – are immense. For Prof Brid Featherstone, the split between adults’ and children’s services has been “disastrous” in terms of looking at families’ holistic needs at an early stage. Child protection social workers, she says, have little option but to interpret their role in “the very narrow sense of being simply there for the child”. Not all parents need NHS treatment, observes Lloyd-Jones. Some need social worker time and empathy, but with local authority budgets slashed by around 30% since 2010, he says “the imperative all too often appears limited to child protection to the seeming exclusion of family support”. Gardner says it is “extraordinary” that society does not invest greater resources in parents. “I want to be able to look a child in the eye when they are 18 and be able to say ‘we did all we could’,” she says. For many – often very young people who have suffered throughout their lives – Gardner says the demands of parenting are too great without intervention and support. “For these young people the loss of a child intensifies their suffering, and once the child is removed they are dropped by the system … until, that is, they are about to give birth again, when the same tragic process is repeated.” Join the Social Care Network to read more pieces like this. Follow us on Twitter (@GdnSocialCare) and like us on Facebook to keep up with the latest social care news and views.
New rule would allow US consumers to sue banks and credit card companies Americans may soon be able to bring class action lawsuits against banks and other financial firms thanks to a new rule proposed by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The new proposals will allow Americans to band together and sue over a range of products such as credit cards, checking and savings accounts, money transfer services, and auto and student loans. Financial firms have over the years perfected the use of fine print to prohibit consumers from bringing such lawsuits and instead force them into arbitrations, which can be costly for an individual consumer. The rule introduced by CFPB on Thursday would prohibit such mandatory arbitration clauses to be used on financial products. “Signing up for a credit card or opening a bank account can often mean signing away your right to take the company to court if things go wrong,” said Richard Cordray, CFPB director, said in a statement. “Many banks and financial companies avoid accountability by putting arbitration clauses in their contracts that block groups of their customers from suing them. Our proposal seeks comment on whether to ban this contract ‘gotcha’ that effectively denies groups of consumers the right to seek justice and relief for wrongdoing.” The proposed rule does not require congressional approval, but will be open to public for a 90-day comment period. Once finalized, the rule is expected to go into effect next year. It will not apply retroactively to existing accounts or products signed up for by consumers prior to its implementation. Financial institutions came out against the new rule. “The proposed rule is a wolf in sheep’s clothing,” the US Chamber of Commerce said in a statement. “Now the agency designed to protect consumers is proposing a rule that will end up hurting them.” Critics of the proposed rule argue that instead of benefiting consumers, it would result in profits for class action lawyers and stretch out resolution of consumer disputes. In a letter to the CFPB, the Chamber of Commerce described arbitration as “cheaper, faster and more effective at delivering relief to consumers”. Class action lawsuits will benefit consumers who would not usually pursue legal action to resolve a small-dollar dispute, CFPB noted in its statement. “The proposed rules would allow groups of consumers to obtain relief when companies skirt the law. Most consumers do not even realize when their rights have been violated,” it read. “Often the harm may be too small to make it practical for a single consumer to pursue an individual dispute, even when the cumulative harm to all affected consumers is significant.” In a 2015 survey, CFPB found that just 2% of consumers would consult a lawyer or pursue legal action to resolve small disputes. A New York Times investigation revealed that from 2010-2014, only 505 consumers chose to enter arbitration over disputes of $2,500 or less.
Underwhelmed by the EU referendum? Share your pics to prove it Apathy and ennui are not our friends. With the little free time we have, too many of us become trapped in patterns of empty behaviour, forever scrolling through our social media feeds or the offerings of our preferred streamed entertainment service. Eventually, the outside world - which we feel, dimly, involves us somehow - becomes a kind of background hum. Occasionally, we notice something. For example, some of you may be aware that a referendum on Britain’s future of the European Union is taking place soon. Newspapers and broadcasters have been pretty quiet about it. Despite the daily drip of referendum stories, the mood in the country seems to be one of boredom. Save for the hugely enthused core believers on both sides of the debate, Britain does not seem to have caught European referendum fever. The contrast with 2014’s Scottish referendum is palpable. We could be totally wrong about this though. It has happened before. So help us to get a sense of the country as the referendum approaches. Share photos from where you are and let us know how you’re feeling. Are you zinging with referendum zeal? Or are you getting on with things as normal? Share your photos and stories, the more underwhelming the better. We’ll feature the most interesting responses in an article on the site. Share your stories, photos and videos by clicking on the blue “Contribute” button on this article. You can also use the app and search for “ Witness assignments”, which you can add to the homepage to keep up with all our assignments. Witness is the home of readers’ content on the . Contribute your video, pictures and stories, and browse news, reviews and creations submitted by others. Posts will be reviewed prior to publication on Witness, and the best pieces will feature on the site.
Clinton may have taken performance-enhancing drugs before debate – Trump Donald Trump suggested on Saturday that Hillary Clinton might have taken performance-enhancing drugs to prepare for their presidential debates, and that both candidates for president should be tested before Wednesday’s final debate. “We’re like athletes,” the Republican nominee told a rally in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. “They make them take a drug test. I think we should take a drug test prior to the debate. I think we should – why don’t we do that?” Trump continued: “We should take a drug test prior because I don’t know what’s going on with her, but at the beginning of her last debate she was all pumped up at the beginning and at the end it was, ‘Huh, take me down.’ She could barely reach her car. So I think we should take a drug test. Anyway, I’m willing to do it.” Trump’s campaign has previously criticised the media for taking his rally statements literally, with the candidatesaying, for instance, that he was being “sarcastic” when he said Barack Obama “founded” Isis. Aides have yet to say whether he was speaking tongue in cheek. The health of both candidates has been under scrutiny in the final months of the grueling 2016 campaign. Clinton was slow to reveal a bout of pneumonia, which her campaign only made public after she made a premature departure from a September 11 memorial service in New York. Trump’s repeated sniffling during the first two debates has also drawn attention, and Howard Dean, the former governor of Vermont, was forced to apologise for tweeting a suggestion that it could be due to cocaine use. The Trump campaign did not respond to questions about what drugs the candidate was suggesting could have been used to enhance Clinton’s debate performance. A pro-Trump Super Pac, run by the millionaire donor Robert Mercer, released an ad earlier this month questioning Clinton’s health. “If athletes need to be tested for drugs for the biggest race of their lives,” the ad says, “shouldn’t candidates be tested for the biggest race of yours?” With his campaign in a tailspin after several women came forward with allegations of sexual harassment, Trump began Saturday with another barrage of the tweets that have become a hallmark of his campaign. In them, he alleged that the election was rigged and suggested that a loss on 8 November would be illegitimate. He wrote in one: “100% fabricated and made-up charges, pushed strongly by the media and the Clinton Campaign, may poison the minds of the American Voter. FIX!” In another, he said: “This election is being rigged by the media pushing false and unsubstantiated charges, and outright lies, in order to elect Crooked Hillary!” And a third: “Hillary Clinton should have been prosecuted and should be in jail. Instead she is running for president in what looks like a rigged election.” The Republican nominee has repeatedly suggested that the election is “rigged” over the past few months and warned of voter fraud, without any evidence. Since August, Trump has stirred conspiracy theories in the swing state of Pennsylvania, warning of fraud in “certain areas”, such as Philadelphia, a diverse city with a large African American population. He has also echoed a 2012 conspiracy theory that Mitt Romney fell victim to voter fraud in the city that year, because he did not receive a single vote in 59 precincts in African American neighborhoods. There are 1,687 precincts in the city and Obama received more than 85% of the vote there in 2012. Trump picked up the theme during his rally in New Hampshire, scene of his first victory in the Republican primary campaign. “Hillary Clinton is running for president in what looks like a rigged election, OK?” he said. “It looks to me like a rigged election. The election is being rigged by corrupt media pushing completely false allegations and outright lies in an effort to elect her president. And you know what I mean.” The businessman has been widely condemned by members of both parties for seeking to undermine the legitimacy of the election. But introducing Trump on Saturday, Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions fuelled the fire. “They are attempting to rig this election,” he said, shaking his fists. “They will not succeed.” Clinton’s campaign manager, Robby Mook, denounced the claim. “Campaigns should be hard fought and elections hard won, but what is fundamental about the American electoral system is that it is free, fair and open to the people,” he said. “Participation in the system – and particularly voting – should be encouraged, not dismissed or undermined because a candidate is afraid he’s going to lose.” AshLee Strong, a spokeswoman for the House speaker, Paul Ryan, said the top Republican in Washington did not agree with Trump’s assertion of fraud. “Our democracy relies on confidence in election results, and the speaker is fully confident the states will carry out this election with integrity,” she said. A spokesperson for the Republican national committee chairman, Reince Priebus, did not respond to a request for comment and a spokesman for the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, declined to comment about whether they agreed that the election was “rigged”. Priebus, McConnell and Ryan continue to support Trump although dozens of their party colleagues have denounced him. Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson also disputed the claim, with spokesman Joe Hunter saying: “He doesn’t believe the actual voting is rigged.” Johnson “has major issues with the two-party control of ballot access, debates, etc”, Hunter added. In contrast, the Republican senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska, a fierce Trump critic, tweeted on Saturday: “Freedom-loving Americans repudiate anybody who says they want to make lawful voters ‘a little bit nervous’ at polls.” Trump also attempted to defend himself against the repeated sexual harassment allegations. “How about this crazy woman on the airplane,” he said of one accuser. “I mean, can anybody believe that one? How about this? After 15 minutes! We don’t know each other.” “After 15 minutes, she says, ‘Well, that was too much, I decided.’ Fifteen minutes! With the ladies in this place it would be one second and then it would be smack. Fifteen minutes! It’s a crazy world we’re living in.”
Charles Boardman obituary Our friend Charles Boardman, who has died aged 89, was a bank manager, bibliophile and director of amateur dramatics in his home town of Edwalton, Nottinghamshire. Charles was born in Warrington to Harry and Bertha Boardman. He attended Wade Deacon grammar school, Widnes, and gained a place to study medicine at the University of Liverpool, but left after the first year after failing some of the exams. He was called up for national service and became a sergeant instructor in the Royal Army Medical Corps, based in Aldershot. In 1950 he joined the staff of the District Bank, which later became part of the National Westminster Bank. In 1951, he won the Charles Reeve memorial prize for English with the Institute of Bankers’ exams. Charles served at branches in St Helens, Manchester and London (city office and Oxford Street). He went to Cambridge for his first managership in 1968, then to West Bridgford, Nottingham, in 1976, and Arnold, Nottingham, in 1981. He retired in 1987. Charles was a huge book-lover and made consistently thoughtful contributions to the ’s readers’ books of the year. Last year he chose Kent Haruf’s Our Souls at Night as well as new books by Tessa Hadley and Robert Harris. Over the years he enthused about his favourites, including Lydia Davis, Helen Dunmore and Alice Munro. He gave friends parcels of books regularly and generously. Each book was carefully chosen, and accompanied by a typed advice note. This could include encouragement to try a new author as well as requests for feedback. He was an active member of the Anglican church, and served for many years, first as treasurer (when he was famed for his theatrical and very amusing presentations of the annual accounts), and then as churchwarden at the Church of the Holy Rood in Edwalton. He also loved music, opera, and the theatre, as well as the Archers and Coronation Street – and his cairn terrier, Emily. He directed many ambitious amateur plays in Edwalton with remarkable success, and held vinyl evenings for friends, with music drawn from his huge collection of LPs. Sheila Adam and John Mitchell
Cyber activists from 42 countries issue open letter against software 'backdoors' Amid a sustained push by world governments to undermine secure digital communications, campaigners from more than 42 countries are making a concerted push to defend encryption. An open letter issued on Monday, three days after senior Obama administration officials huddled with Silicon Valley titans to revive a relationship damaged by revelations of mass surveillance, demanded an end to global government efforts to compel the insertion or use of software flaws in encryption protocols called “backdoors”. “Users should have the option to use – and companies the option to provide – the strongest encryption available, including end-to-end encryption, without fear that governments will compel access to the content, metadata, or encryption keys without due process and respect for human rights,” reads the open letter, signed by 195 experts, companies and civil-society organizations. The letter, an initiative of the digital-rights group Access Now and posted to SecureTheInternet.org, urges governments not to “ban or otherwise limit user access to encryption in any form or otherwise prohibit the implementation or use of encryption by grade or type”. It rejects government efforts to “mandate insecure encryption algorithms, standards, tools or technologies”. The nearly 200 signatories include the secure-messaging company Silent Circle, Human Rights Watch, former CIA official John Kiriakou, United Nations special rapporteur for freedom of opinion and expression David Kaye, and US columnist Trevor Timm. US security officials, particularly FBI director James Comey, have publicly urged Silicon Valley to create a backdoor into encrypted communications that only the government can use. Their arguments have met with a wave of resistance from technologists but have received political support after the recent terrorist attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, although it remains unclear whether the attackers used strong encryption tools. Technologists have responded that security flaws are user-neutral, incapable of distinguishing between the FBI agent seeking to stop a terrorist attack and the hacker looking to steal or deface personal data. They warn that weakening encryption protocols for surveillance will jeopardize cybersecurity, a competing priority, during a rising tide of online attacks, some state-sponsored. “Any backdoor is a backdoor for everyone,” Apple’s Tim Cook has stated. Apple representatives attended Friday’s meeting with senior US officials. Monday’s letter was released in a dozen countries, many of which have passed or are considering changes to their laws that activists warn permit deeper digital surveillance, often under cover of bolstering cybersecurity. A highly controversial surveillance measure long stalled in Congress, the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act, passed last month after advocates included it within a must-pass spending bill. “Encryption and anonymity, and the security concepts behind them, provide the privacy and security necessary for the exercise of the right to freedom of opinion and expression in the digital age,” Kaye, the UN freedom of expression chief, said in a statement accompanying the letter’s release. Access Now’s policy manager, Amie Stepanovich, said that since governments from China to the United Kingdom were united in threatening encryption, a global response was similarly warranted. “Conversations about security and surveillance have taken place in the shadows for too long,” Stepanovich said. “From the secret negotiations of the so-called cybersecurity bill in order to push it through last December, to meetings just last week between top officials in government and the private sector – we need to start shining light on the ways our human rights are being threatened. SecuretheInternet.org draws clear lines in the sand – we won’t stand for laws or policies that threaten our security.”
Eurozone ministers to examine how to ease Greece's debt burden Eurozone finance ministers have promised to examine how to ease Greece’s colossal debt burden, with writing off bad loans remaining off the table. Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the chair of eurozone finance ministers, said he was hopeful of getting an agreement on Greek debt management in talks on 24 May. Ahead of that meeting, technical experts have been asked to examine how to reduce Greece’s crushing debt burden, which is currently about 180% of the country’s annual economic output. “My assumption is looking ahead that there will be a problem of debt sustainability that we need to address,” Dijsselbloem said, after eurozone finance ministers met in Brussels to discuss the Greek debt crisis. But he insisted that creditors’ red lines would not be breached: this means neither writing off debt nor substantial changes to the austerity programme, which is the price of Greece’s multi-billion euro bailouts. Instead, eurozone officials will examine how to ease the debt burden by tweaking repayment terms over the next three years, for example by turning short-term debt into long-term agreements in order to lock in lower interest rates. Also being explored are debt-relief plans once the current €86bn (£60bn) programme comes to an end in 2018. Some eurozone finance ministries have suggested this could mean extending debt maturities and lowering interest rates. Finally, the eurozone will look at long-term measures to reduce the burden of debt repayments that are scheduled to run for decades. The decision to kick forward a verdict on debt relief until later this month had echoes of the 2015 Greek debt crisis, when finance ministers and eurozone leaders were locked in a spiral of inconclusive emergency meetings and crisis summits. But participants insisted there would be no repeat of last summer. “Things have changed significantly since the Greek crisis last year,” said Ireland’s finance minister, Michael Noonan. “I don’t think anybody wants a series of successive meetings leading nowhere, when there are so many other problems.” Following Monday’s emergency meeting, Greece is closer to unlocking the next tranche of bailout funds to meet a €3.5bn debt repayment due in July. Shortly before the meeting in Brussels, Greek MPs voted by a wafer-thin majority for unpopular pension reforms and budget savings. The legislation, which introduces €5.4bn in cuts, is seen as the toughest reform Greece has yet enacted. These measures are aimed at keeping Greece on the straight and narrow path of running a primary budget surplus – government revenues once debt repayments have been taken into account – of 3.5% in 2018. After six years of painful austerity, the outlook for the Greek economy remains bleak. In its latest economic check, the European commission forecast that 24% of the workforce would be unemployed in 2017, a figure virtually unchanged from today, although statisticians have pencilled in growth of 2.7%. Greece’s debt mountain is also set to remain enormous, at 179% of the country’s annual output. On Monday Greece’s creditors secured the promise of extra contingency measures from Athens, reforms worth €3.6bn that will kick in if the Greek government fails to meet its fiscal targets. The International Monetary Fund had argued that the Greek government’s plans to rely on tax increases to meet its fiscal goals was unrealistic and would only achieve a 1.5% surplus. In leaked letter, the head of the IMF, Christine Lagarde, threatened to pull the Washington-based fund out of the rescue altogether unless there were “credible measures”. But in an important compromise for the government led by Alexis Tsipras, Greece will not have to write these contingency measures into law upfront. Greece’s finance minister, Euclid Tsakalotos, said it was a “great relief” to have started talking about debt relief. He added that Greece and its creditors, both needed “to feel that we are turning the page and that the vicious circle of measures leading to recession, leading to new measures, is over”. Going into the talks, he had warned that another economic crisis risked turning his country into a failed state, while the deadlock raised expectations of early elections. Blanka Kolenikiova, a senior analyst at IHS country risk, said failure to renegotiate Greece’s debts could trigger further protest, triggering early elections. “An early election would not favour Syriza and would risk a political stalemate, without any party able to form a stable majority government,” she said. “In turn, this would reduce Greece’s ability to pass bailout-related measures and threaten its ability to secure future releases of official funding.”
Bleached: Welcome the Worms review – catchy songs about LA's disillusioned millennials Finally, an album that suggests Los Angeles isn’t a perma-sunny Instagram stream of kale smoothies, Coachella outfits and crystal healing ceremonies. It, too, has disillusioned millennials who can’t make rent, date a decent other and catch a break. That’s the city that Bleached attempt to capture on their second album, though, disappointingly, their peroxide-pop garage-rock is hardly Broad City-goes-punk. Instead, there are familiar tropes about going to shows, being wasted and chasing boys, from Wasted on You (“getting high off the drug that I call you”) to the Weezerish Wednesday Night Melody (“drag the needle on the groove today and waste away”). Occasionally there are moments of wry greatness: grunge homage Desolate Town evokes LA’s surfeit of dead-eyed hipsters (“said you were in a band/why am I not surprised”), while Sour Candy sounds like it’s speeding down Sunset Strip in a Chevrolet. Their songs are catchy and yet as casual as a shoulder shrug, but you just wish those worms had dug a little deeper.
readers have not forgotten Oscar Moore’s Person With Aids column Elisabeth Moore mustn’t think that readers have forgotten her son Oscar (Letters, 23 April). I read his articles, which he wrote at a time when friends, and friends of friends, were going through the same horrors. He made me laugh and cry, and his courage in writing about what he was going through was sometimes quite overwhelming. I bought the book and read it all again, and I still use extracts from it when I teach about vision loss and what it does to people, about the fear and the darkness. He’s still read, and he’s known through his writing by groups of nurses who aren’t old enough to remember those times otherwise. He’s still educating, still admired and still remembered. Janet Marsden Professor of ophthalmology and emergency care, Manchester Metropolitan University • I would like to let Elisabeth Moore know that the first person I thought of on reading Suzanne Moore’s article about Aids was her son Oscar. I only knew him from his PWA (Person With Aids) column, yet over the past 20 years he has been the person I think about when reading about medical advances in treating people with HIV and Aids. Oscar’s weekly unflinching coverage of his illnesses and suffering, including that of losing his sight, touched me so deeply that on hearing of the remarkable change in circumstances of people now living healthy lives with HIV I think of him and so wish it had come in time for him, and so many others. This reader has not forgotten him either. Janet Pontin Glasgow • As a long-time reader, I remember with great admiration Oscar Moore’s PWA articles. When I saw Suzanne Moore’s article on the loss of artists to Aids, I was surprised there was no mention of him. I was tempted to write a letter about this obvious omission, but did not. I am pleased that his mother has highlighted his contribution and loss. Terry Vincent Calahonda, Spain • Can I assure Elisabeth Moore that I can remember Oscar’s articles with a great deal of pleasure and sadness. His humour and courage are still firmly lodged in my memory. Though I do have to say I inadvertently remembered PWA to be Positive With Attitude. Thank you, Elisabeth, for a beautiful young man who is still in many of our hearts. Emma Procter Chesterfield, Derbyshire I remember your son and his vivid fearless column, Elisabeth Moore. Thank you for reminding me. I had just given birth in March 1994. I’m sure your son is remembered by more than you know, for his courage in sharing his story with those of us not fortunate enough to have known him as you did. Thank you again on all sorts of levels. Shelagh Scott Tynemouth • I remember Oscar, Elisabeth – with gratitude for his honesty, and his gift for opening the eyes and ears and hearts of his readers through his PWA column. May he rest in peace – and, if it’s not presumptuous, my love to you. Pat Lyes Wilsdon Thornbury, Gloucestershire • I’m old enough to remember your son, Elisabeth Moore. He was a brilliant writer, whose decency and humanity were clear in his work. The fact that his mother is still around to mourn him is cruelly symbolic of the toll of the “big disease with the little name”. I hope you can take some comfort from the fact that he is still vividly remembered. Chris Coates Colchester • I read Oscar’s column in the 90s and cried when he signed off for the last time. I cried again on news of his death. His paperback, PWA: Looking Aids in the Face, is one of the most inspiring books I have on my bookshelf. Take heart, Mrs Moore, I remember Oscar and often donate to an Aids charity as I was inspired by the writings of your son. Phillippa Scott Bollington, Cheshire • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
Now that's what I call unstoppable! How a compilation CD survived the digital age Until the 95th edition of the long-running pop hits compilation Now That’s What I Call Music! came out last week, I’d forgotten that the series existed. Lurid album covers and explosive TV advertising aside, Now doesn’t make a spectacle of itself. It just gets on with the job, quietly releasing three albums a year of the biggest chart hits, with tracklists that reflect the cheerful disorder of the UK singles chart. Now 95 includes Christine and the Queens’ languidly hip Tilted alongside Chainsmokers’ dimbo teen-raver Closer; Emeli Sandé’s icy comeback Hurts sits cheek-by-jowl with Nevada’s witless adaptation of Return of the Mack. Drake’s One Dance is belatedly there, too: after refusing to license it for Now 94, the rapper evidently had a change of heart. Now has been churning away since 1983, when it was introduced as a modern rejoinder to an album series called Top of the Pops. Though the latter consisted of cover versions recorded by an anonymous house band with a rotating team of vocalists, it lasted for a remarkable 92 releases. Now, featuring original hits, was an immediate success – so much so that in 1989, a compilation chart was launched to stop Now and its imitators from crowding single-artist albums out of the top of the regular album chart. But who buys Now now? If you want to hear a selection of 2016’s biggest singles, that’s what Spotify is for. Yet Now 95 sold 230,000 copies last week, making it one of the biggest sellers of 2016, across both compilation and single-artist albums. And it’s not just being bought to fill Christmas stockings; Now 93, released in March, sold 770,000. If Adele’s 25 didn’t exist, it would be 2016’s top-selling album by some distance. The parent outfit, Now Music, is so confident of Now’s continued success that major London gigs are being planned for the release of Now 100 in July 2018. Still, why buy an actual CD when there are scores of streaming and music-discovery services? A CD has none of the interactive features that some acts build into their online releases; its fate is to sit on a shelf, a rapidly depreciating memory of early autumn (or “Q3”, as music executives call the July-September period). So: why? What Now offers is simplicity – the known quantity. Those who want a permanent aural record of 2016 don’t need the endless choices offered by streaming services. This remix or that demo version are unnecessary, and when it comes to playlists, not everyone is cut out for scything their way through the streaming services’ undergrowth in search of something that suits. The fact that playlists have been “curated” by experts means only that the expert is imposing his or her taste. Sometimes life really is as simple as wanting to hear 45 original hit songs in a row (skipping Nevada, obviously). Also in Now’s favour is its own form of curation. Though it may seem as if every recent hit single is automatically hurled in, there is in fact some quality control at work. Because many No 1 singles nowadays linger at the top of the chart for weeks, there are no longer enough to fill a double CD. Only five No 1s are included in Now 95, with the other 40 tracks selected from the Top 20, and that’s where Now comes into its own. This decade has seen a proliferation of anonymous producers who manage to score a sole hit single, but never repeat it. Scrutinising the chart can be an exercise in bewilderment: who is this producer who’s risen without trace? When not even the redoubtable Popjustice has heard of them, how can the average punter be expected to? Deepening the alienation is the knowledge that the fresh new marvel will be supplanted by someone else next week. Into this landscape sails the Now series, instilling a sense of order by presenting a tracklisting right there in black and white. Suddenly, Fresh New Marvel and his/her anonymous EDM track has a dash of substance: they’re on a Now compilation. They have a designated place in the chaotic cluster of the year’s hits. Order has been imposed. Punters can tell themselves they’re still in touch with the charts. Long may Now rule.
Akase: Graspers review – airless, ersatz dance-pop Fusing hooky pop with dance instrumentals is a technique employed by many a wannabe innovator, but few can have ever done so in such joy-sapping style. Akase, the new project from producer Harry Agius – who has previously issued a series of appealing house tracks as Midland – and vocalist Robbie Redway, appears to be an attempt to move beyond the dance world and into a more mainstream consciousness. While the pair clearly have a knack for churning out catchy vocal lines – the melodies of tracks such as Borderlines feel familiar from the very first listen – Redway’s vocals tend to slide into an ersatz soulful drone, and the polite percussion and soft but relentless bass buzz that trundle beneath can render the songs miserably airless. Pairing that with lyrics such as “Another day of my life has gone / Another day of my life has turned to dust” (from lead single Rust), and this album feels like it’s actively trying to stop people getting out of bed in the morning.
Chris Grayling refuses to back Boris Johnson over EU-Hitler comparison Cabinet minister Chris Grayling, a leading figure in the campaign to leave the EU, has repeatedly refused to back fellow Brexiter Boris Johnson over his comments likening Adolf Hitler’s conquests to greater European integration. Grayling, the leader of the House of Commons, was asked 11 times on the BBC Radio 4’s Today programme whether Johnson was right to compare the EU with Hitler’s attempt to conquer Europe. He dodged the question each time by claiming that Johnson was speaking as a historian. He said: “There is a clear plan in Brussels, as part of the need to support the euro, to move towards much greater political integration. Boris was making a historian’s point. Boris is a historian. What I’m interested in is what the European Union itself is trying to do. What Boris was talking about was the reality of the drive towards greater political integration.” Grayling added: “Boris was making an historical analogy about a whole range of actions since the Roman empire. He is an historian making a comment in his own words. My view is that we should be most concerned about integration in the European Union.” Grayling’s comments come after the former deputy prime minister Michael Heseltine said Johnson may have ruined his chances of becoming prime minister by making “preposterous, obscene political remarks” during the referendum campaign. Last year, the Tory grandee, who has been working closely with the Britain Stronger in Europe campaign, warned the Tories against descending into a “civil war” over Europe. In his Radio 4 interview, Grayling acknowledged Conservative divisions on the issue. Asked whether the Tories were at civil war, he said: “Yes, we are having a lively debate within the Conservative party.” He added: “I want the party to have a proper debate about Europe. I want us then, whatever the result, to carry on with the job of governing the country.”
Trump viewed more unfavorably than Putin in most countries, survey finds Donald Trump’s ratings abroad are strongly negative, according to a Pew Research report on how people around the world perceive the US. Asked if they had confidence in Trump’s ability to manage foreign policy, only 9% of respondents in 10 EU countries agreed. By contrast, a median of 77% said they had confidence in Barack Obama and 59% in Trump’s likely general election opponent Hillary Clinton. Trump collected the most support in China, with 22% expressing confidence in him. In Canada and India, he had 14% confidence; Australia, 11%; and Japan, 8%. “Confidence in Clinton to handle world affairs is generally high,” the report said. “By comparison, few trust Trump to do the right thing when it comes to foreign policy.” People who have confidence in Russian president Vladimir Putin are more likely to have confidence in Trump, the report says. For instance 44% of those in Italy who have confidence in Putin also have confidence in Trump, whereas only 12% of those who have no confidence in Putin have confidence in Trump. More than 20,100 people responded to the survey, which was conducted from 4 April to 29 May 2016. The countries surveyed were: Greece, Australia, Canada, the UK, Spain, China, France, the Netherlands, Sweden, Japan, Germany, Italy, Hungary, India, Poland and the US – though Americans were not asked about Trump and other world leaders. Even in China and Italy (21%), the countries that expressed the most confidence in Trump, respondents still had more confidence in Obama, Clinton and Putin. Compared to Trump, Putin fared better, sometimes overwhelmingly so, in most countries. Only Poland showed more confidence in Trump than Putin, although both men had 8% support in Spain. “He’s unpopular at home, he’s unpopular with Republicans, he’s unpopular abroad – none of this is a surprise,” said Margie Omero, a Democratic pollster and executive vice-president of public affairs firm Penn Schoen Berland. Support for Trump was higher among those supporting right-leaning political parties abroad, but those people still mostly expressed no confidence in him. He received votes of confidence from only 30% of those who said they were affiliated with the UK’s Eurosceptic, anti-immigrant party Ukip, for example, and 31% of those who support Silvio Berlusconi’s center-right party Forza Italia. “That’s not enough to base a successful tenure as a world leader,” Omero said. “And on top of that he is the most unpopular candidate among Republicans in modern times.” The survey also asked about people’s general perceptions of the US, which has had consistently high favorability ratings throughout the Obama administration. Previous reports have shown than Obama’s election improved perceptions of the US across the globe, particularly in western Europe, where confidence in the president jumped dramatically in November 2008. Confidence in Obama in Germany, France, the UK, Spain and Poland remained higher through the president’s eight years than it ever was during Bush’s two terms. Richard Grenell, a GOP operative, said in an email that his eight years as a spokesman at the UN for the US taught him that many diplomats “want and enjoy a weak and withdrawn United States”. Grenell, who had not read the report, said “other countries benefit from US weakness”. “There is no question that world diplomats have enjoyed the eight years of Obama because he hasn’t asked them to take action on the world’s problems,” Grenell said. “The growth of Isis while Hillary Clinton was the chief architect of US foreign policy proves that she didn’t ask or wasn’t able to get other countries to confront these and other terrorists like Boko Haram.” Obama’s reputation did suffer from his administration’s use of drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, as shown in Pew’s 2015 survey of Middle Eastern nations, but the region were not surveyed in this year’s report. Countries were divided on whether the US was as powerful and important a world leader as it was ten years ago. A majority of people from Japan said it was less of a world leader and a majority of people from India said it was more powerful. But 46% of Americans said the US was playing a less important role in the world.
Looking for ground where the left can win Mourning the terminal condition of the political left (Does the left have a future?, 6 September) has become something of a parlour game for those who once self-identified as proponents of transformative change. While it may be true that socialism’s less reflective adherents remain tied to an analysis rooted in 20th-century conditions, the majority acknowledge the pressing need to reappraise our approach as work, class identity and the mode of capital accumulation mutate around us. In Scotland, the SNP has superficially triangulated leftwards while legislating from the right, and maintains support by filtering the grievances that John Harris rightly identifies through the prism of national identity politics. Meanwhile Jeremy Corbyn, himself a product of 20th-century socialism, quietly pursues a policy framework that, beyond the babble of his antiquated opponents, attempts to formulate policies of regulation, planning, redistribution and workplace rights suitable for modern conditions which more than ever demand such intervention. A four-day week and universal income are only two of the propositions Labour is likely to commit to by 2020. Add a real living wage, PR and far-reaching constitutional change, and it may be that writing off a Corbyn-led Labour party will in retrospect appear to be one of the more complacent assumptions touted by the liberal press. Mike Cowley Campaign for Socialism/Momentum Scotland • John Harris, in trying to envisage a future for the left, imbues the past with some dubious characterisations. The “working man” was always, understandably, grateful for state benefits when he couldn’t work and, just like any Ukipper now, proud to be patriotic to the core. It is no surprise that Ukip has hoovered up so many Labour votes, as many on the left were and are conservative at heart, and even harboured admiration for Margaret Thatcher, despite her being a woman. More difficult for them was the rise of feminism under New Labour, thus threatening jobs and the status in society that their maleness had conferred upon them. Many of the self-declared “grafters” who voted to leave the EU would never have done the jobs they claimed migrants deprived them of, but it chimed with the nostalgia for imagined glories of old to be reactivated once freed from Europe’s yoke. It is in this that Scotland is instructive. The SNP is a party led by nationalists, the product of “clever branding” yes, but built on a tide of anti-English rhetoric and empty promises. Sound familiar? Think Johnson, Gove, Farage and the infamous bus of lies. Then think Corbyn and his 10 pledges. The future? Men may have to start thinking more like women. Carolyn Kirton Aberdeen • John Harris’s take on the left is of the glass-half-empty kind. It is certainly true that the traditional parties of social democracy across Europe have declined in support. They promise to temper the red-in-tooth-and-claw activities of market capitalism by reforms. The problem is that the market system is currently doing rather badly, and the scope for reform is limited even if political office is achieved. France, with a Socialist party government, underlines the point. That means that something a little more robust than simply tweaking capitalism is required, and that surely is what Syriza in Greece and Jeremy Corbyn in the Labour party here are about. It is fair enough to note that this hasn’t been successful yet, but that doesn’t mean the attempt isn’t worthwhile. In the meantime, while Harris says union membership is at “an all-time low” (more accurately it is a good deal lower than in the 1970s), the trench warfare against exploitative bosses goes on. As the progress made by Unite the Union on zero-hours contracts at Sports Direct shows, it is still possible to make the world a better place by collective action. Keith Flett London • I enjoyed John Harris’s eloquently insightful analysis of why the left has no effective answers to globalisation, the nationalist right or job insecurity. But I searched in vain for any systemic answers to the problems he posed. A good place to start would be Europe, where the single market, with its ruthless enforcement of “open borders”, has resulted in the rapid rise of EU citizens migrating and the social disruption caused by deregulation, privatisation and post-2008 continent-wide austerity cuts. Small wonder this has led to the rise of politically swift-footed, populist rightwing parties, with their anti-EU and in some cases protectionist policies. It is time for disparate leftwing protests against, for example, TTIP, tax dodgers such as Apple, the dumping of Chinese steel exports, and burgeoning foreign ownership of property, to realise that these are all problems that can only be tackled fundamentally by reversing the free flow of goods, capital and services, and putting this on a par with the political number one issue – the free flow of people. Given the debacle of the present “No Plan B” Brexit discussions, it is time to initiate a debate in Europe about how to get us out of this mess. For starters a debate should begin about turning the Treaty of Rome into a “Treaty of Home”, to allow appropriate restrictions to the free movement of goods, people, services and capital, to allow regional, national and local economies to prosper. Colin Hines East Twickenham, Middlesex • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
Reserve Bank cuts cash rate by 0.25% to record low of 1.75% The Reserve Bank of Australia has cut the cash rate by 0.25% to a record low of 1.75%, flagging concerns about the state of the economy on the same day the treasurer delivers the federal budget. The RBA’s statement cited falling inflation, the rising dollar, “mixed” signals on the strength of the labour market and better regulation of mortgages as the reasons behind the cut, which sent the Australian dollar crashing and caught some traders by surprise. Figures last week showed annual inflation was down 0.2% to 1.3%, well below the RBA’s 2%-3% target range. NAB immediately announced it would pass on the rate cut in full by reducing its variable home loan rate from 5.60% to 5.35%, putting pressure on its three big rivals to follow suit. The RBA governor, Glenn Stevens, said, “In Australia, the available information suggests that the economy is continuing to rebalance following the mining investment boom. GDP growth picked up over 2015, particularly in the second half of the year, and the labour market improved. Indications are that growth is continuing in 2016, though probably at a more moderate pace. Labour market indicators have been more mixed of late.” Stevens, who said last month that the efffectiveness of central-bank policy was reaching its limits, noted interest rates had been low for some time to support demand, lowering the value of the Australian dollar to support exporters. Credit growth to households “continues at a moderate pace, while that to businesses has picked up over the past year or so”, which further supported growth. The RBA said it “took careful note of developments in the housing market”, including tougher supervision of lending standards and that lower interest rates were less likely to fuel property prices than last year as “price pressures have tended to abate”. “Taking all these considerations into account, the board judged that prospects for sustainable growth in the economy, with inflation returning to target over time, would be improved by easing monetary policy at this meeting,” Stevens concluded, sending a warning about the threats facing the economy. Australian Industry Group chief executive, Innes Willox, said the rate cut “will encourage business and consumer spending and, if supported by tax measures in the budget, will prove a shot in the arm for the economy”. “Many businesses will also be hoping the Aussie dollar also falls in response to assist domestic producers in both the local and export markets,” Willox said. Shadow treasurer, Chris Bowen, said the interest rate decision reflected the Liberal government’s incredibly poor economic management. He said in August 2013 when interest rates were cut to 2.5% the Coalition seized on it as a sign of economic weakness. “This decision reflects a weaker economic outlook, with the RBA expecting growth to moderate this year,” he said. “In addition, incomes are falling, living standards are stagnating and home ownership is out of reach for so many Australians – facts the government will be hiding from tonight.” In question time, Malcolm Turnbull responded to claims the rate cut demonstrated a softening economy by promising the budget would help manage a transition away from an economy reliant on the mining sector, and deliver jobs and growth. The budget contained plans for a “sustainable tax system for the 21st century economy, a commitment to health, education, infrastructure, fully-funded, and a return of the budget to balance”, he said. “That’s our commitment and that will continue the successful transition, of which the Reserve Bank governor wrote of only a few minutes ago.” Australian Retailers Association executive director, Russell Zimmerman, said the rate cut “is a welcome support to what hopefully will be an economically supportive budget tonight in the light of recent weak consumer spending and confidence”.
Serious failings in medical care led to man's death, inquest finds The NHS has apologised after a coroner criticised “serious failings” in medical care that led to a man dying hours after an ambulance crew failed to diagnose his heart attack and take him to hospital. Gary Page, 54, died at home in Essex in February, 12 hours after the senior member of the crew of a private ambulance working for the NHS dismissed the pains in his chest and arm as possible signs of heartburn, indigestion or a pulled muscle. The East of England ambulance service offered its condolences to Page’s family and “a formal apology for not providing the patient with the care which was expected”. A spokesperson said that after discussion of the case with Ambulance Service Limited, the private contractor whose crew responded to the 999 call, “it was identified that the seriousness of Mr Page’s condition was not recognised and further advice not sought”. Caroline Beasley-Murray, who presided over the inquest into Page’s death at Chelmsford coroner’s court on Tuesday, recorded a narrative verdict. She found that his death was preceded by “serious failings of medical care” provided by the private ambulance service. The inquest heard that Lauren de la Haye, the emergency medical technician on the ambulance, misread an electrocardiogram and wrongly concluded that Page was not in the early stages of a heart attack. She ignored the concerns of a more junior colleague, Darren Rudge, who believed the ECG reading meant Page needed to be in hospital. Page died at home early the next morning despite efforts to save him. Stephanie Prior, the solicitor representing the Page family, said: “Gary’s death has been life-changing for [his widow] Kim Page and it is clear today, as endorsed by the coroner, that his death was contributed to by negligence of the private ambulance service personnel and clearly could have been avoided. “She has suffered and continues to suffer significant anguish knowing that more could and should have been done to treat him and that her husband’s death could and should have been prevented.” A serious incident report commissioned by the East of England ambulance service found a litany of failures, mostly involving De La Haye. “Service delivery problems” revealed by the death included the lack of a fully trained paramedic on the ambulance; “complacency” by De La Haye in not acting on her colleague’s concerns about her diagnosis; and her wrongly advising Page that he was well enough to stay at home. De La Haye’s “incorrect analysis of the patient’s ECG and presenting signs and symptoms” was the “root cause” of Haye’s death, the investigation concluded. De La Haye has been retrained in the correct reading of an ECG and the private contractor’s performance monitored more closely than before as a result of the death.
Dele Alli’s brilliance gives Tottenham Hotspur point but Everton rally The silence in the Tottenham Hotspur dressing room at Goodison Park spoke volumes about the ambition contained within. “Always at the end of a game we play some music but not today because the players are very disappointed and feel we have dropped two points,” said Mauricio Pochettino. “That is a good sign for the future.” One his gifted young group appear capable of addressing. Spurs produced a dominant first-half display at Everton, a season’s best according to their manager, Dele Alli again demonstrated his precocious talent with a superb goal and Hugo Lloris enjoyed a quiet afternoon until Roberto Martínez’s side rallied in the second half. But they had to settle for a point – one the home side merited for their belated improvement and Aaron Lennon’s impressive strike against his former club – for the ninth time this season. A failure to turn control into victories threatens to undermine talk of a Tottenham title challenge – talk that mostly originates from outside White Hart Lane, admittedly – but Pochettino did not shy away from the potential in his squad afterwards. “It is too early to speak about some challenge or achievements at the end of the season,” he said. “But we are very ambitious. Maybe tomorrow we can analyse the game and feel proud, and be happy for the point, but now our feeling is disappointment that we have dropped two points. We are the youngest squad in the Premier League but we show our winning mentality.” Pochettino’s team dominated possession from the first whistle to the moment Lennon put Everton ahead from their first attack. Martínez claimed he was happy for Spurs to do so. “We stopped their main players from getting on the ball and hurting us,” said the Everton manager, somewhat optimistically. Intense pressing and accuracy in possession left the home side encamped in their own half for the opening 45 minutes and brought simmering frustrations over Everton’s run of one win in six league games to the surface. There were ironic cheers from the Gwladys Street stand when Tim Howard collected a routine cross for the second home match in succession. As in the 4-3 loss to Stoke City on Monday, the USA international reacted to the self-defeating noises from his own supporters. John Stones also exchanged words with Everton fans after over-elaborating inside his area late on. It needed a superb intervention from Séamus Coleman to prevent Alli converting Kyle Walker’s low cross from Tottenham’s first meaningful attack. Moments later Pochettino’s side struck Everton’s woodwork for the first time when Harry Kane beat Howard from distance only for his low drive to rebound clear off the inside of a post. Everton did not have one touch in the final third in the opening 19 minutes yet stunned Spurs by piercing Lloris’s defence with their first attack. In another echo of the Stoke defeat, specifically Romelu Lukaku’s second goal, Tom Cleverley swept a fine cross-field ball into the Belgium international lurking with intent in the box. This time Lukaku cushioned a header down for Lennon, who took one touch before steering his shot beyond Lloris’s right hand. The goal was Lennon’s first since joining Everton on a permanent £4.5m deal from Tottenham in the summer and clearly satisfying for a player who ended his White Hart Lane career training with the club’s youngsters. Lennon was afforded a warm reception by the Spurs supporters when replaced by Gerard Deulofeu on the hour, his withdrawal prompting boos from the home crowd. Everton’s lead did not change the flow of the first half and Ben Davies hit Howard’s crossbar with a thunderous left-foot shot from Christian Eriksen’s corner. Tottenham levelled in stoppage time, the manner of their equaliser more surprising than its arrival. Having failed to capitalise on one of their intricate passing moves around the Everton area the visitors went long with their final attack of an impressive half. Toby Alderweireld dissected Everton’s central defence with a long ball that Alli read perfectly and executed superbly, stealing in ahead of Coleman to control on his chest before sending a first-time volley beyond Howard. Martínez’s team reacted as they had to in the second half, with far more aggression and adventure on the ball, although Kane was close to a second for Spurs when Alli expertly chested the ball over the Everton defence. Lukaku was millimetres from connecting with Deulofeu’s inviting cross to the far post while another Everton substitute, the impressive Muhamed Besic, drew a finger-tip save from Lloris with a volley from 18 yards. Everton continued to press for a winner in the closing stages and Lloris, rarely troubled for an hour, was ultimately the busier keeper as the game opened up into an entertaining, end-to-end affair. Ross Barkley forced the France international into a low save with the final touch of the match and Spurs were left to reflect on what might, or should, have been. With the music off. Man of the match Dele Alli (Tottenham)
Older ‘left-behind’ voters turned against a political class with values opposed to theirs Once more, with feeling. The Ukip-led voter uprising that tore up the political map in 2014 and 2015 has now changed the face of British politics for ever. David Cameron promised a referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union to see off the Ukip revolt. Instead, after a vote that drew the largest turnout in a nationwide poll for 20 years, it is the rebels who have seen off the prime minister, gone within hours of the result’s announcement. The Ukip rebels, dismissed only a few years ago as a fringe nuisance, have delivered perhaps the largest shock to European politics since the fall of the Berlin Wall. The vote highlighted Britain’s deepening political faultlines. It also accelerated the growing estrangement of Westminster and Holyrood. While England voted firmly to leave the EU, every single Scottish local authority voted to remain. The SNP now has an electorally watertight case when it says the English are forcing Scotland out of the EU against its will. Time will tell how, and when, the SNP chooses to use this argument to revisit the question of Scottish independence. The divide between London and Belfast is an even bigger cause for concern – Northern Ireland, too, opposed the change that is coming, a change that could see the reimposition of borders with the south and could put the fundamental constitutional questions that divide the Protestant and Catholic communities back on the agenda. The divides between England (and Wales, which voted similarly) and the other home nations will have significant consequences, but they are already built into the political system. Scottish nationalism is already represented by the dominant SNP, while Northern Irish politics has long been oriented around the unionist-nationalist divide. It is the deep faultlines the Brexit vote revealed within England that may prove most immediately consequential, as they have the potential to reshape the traditional battlelines of English politics. Many of these faultlines have been clear for several years now. The surge in Ukip support recorded in both the 2014 European parliament election and 2015 general election was concentrated among voters whom Matthew Goodwin and I labelled the “left-behind”: older, white, socially conservative voters in more economically marginal neighbourhoods. Such voters had turned against a political class they saw as dominated by socially liberal university graduates with values fundamentally opposed to theirs, on identity, Europe – and particularly immigration. The mass migration from poorer EU countries that began in 2004 was something the “left-behind” electorate never wanted, never voted for and never really accepted. The economic case for EU migration was clear to the liberal mainstream elites from across the political spectrum, who thought that should settle the matter. Politicians from both Labour and the Conservatives never made a case for free movement, and seemed to believe they could assuage popular anger by restrictions that were manifestly impossible, given EU treaty rules. The left-behind voters weren’t fooled – they soon recognised that controlling immigration would be impossible without leaving the EU, and they have now voted accordingly. While immigration was the lightning rod, the divides the Brexit vote has revealed run deeper and broader than a single issue. They reflect deep-seated differences in outlook and values, hopes and prospects, between graduates and school leavers, globalised cosmopolitans and localised nationalists, the old and the young, London and the provinces. These divides have been building for decades, but were long latent because, before the emergence of Ukip, they lacked a political voice. Now the sheer magnitude of the fracture between the globalised middle class and the anxious majority is clear for all to see. The patterns of Brexit voting last week map almost perfectly on to the pattern of Ukip voting seen in the 2014 European parliament. The only difference was the numbers: on Thursday, the Ukip coalition ballooned to an overall majority. Those who have dictated the terms of politics to the “left-behind” for a generation suddenly found the tables had turned. The result was a massive shock to the citizens of London, Manchester and other cosmopolitan cities, who discovered that much of provincial England utterly rejects their Europhile worldview. It leaves both the Tories and Labour facing stark challenges. The divides in identity, values and outlook it reveals cut straight across class, income and geography. The Conservative heartlands – places where the party racked up towering majorities just a year ago – firmly rejected the entreaties of a Tory prime minister and voted 55% to 45% to leave the EU. Labour heartlands outside of London rejected the EU even more emphatically – 56% to 44%. Socially liberal and Europhile MPs from both parties must face electorates whose views are profoundly out of step with their own. Such voters have just been given a dramatic demonstration of their political power. The obvious next place to employ it is in a Westminster vote. The consequences could be shattering for the Conservatives and Labour alike. The Tories have already lost the leader who for a decade steered them in a centrist, socially liberal direction. Yet his most likely replacement is another elite, middle-class, globalised, socially liberal Etonian Conservative. Boris Johnson has a populist flair which David Cameron lacked, but his madcap appeal seems likely to curdle fast with left-behind voters if he is unable to deliver on the huge promises he has made to them. That failure seems almost assured. Immigration restrictions cannot be imposed until Britain leaves the EU, which will likely take two years at least. In the short run, EU migration may instead rise, as Romanians and Poles look to get in before the door is slammed shut. The promised £350m a week will vanish like spring snow in the sun if the government’s borrowing costs rise, or the economy slows sharply. Voters promised they will “take control” will find that, as before, the things they dislike continue and the things they want do not arrive. Their affection for another child of privilege in 10 Downing Street will not last long. Labour’s problems may run deeper. They are led by a leader who is an open and professed enthusiast for mass migration and who sits in a borough with the fourth-highest Remain vote in the country. It is hard to see how such a leader can credibly hope to represent the voters in the hundred or more Labour seats where the vote for Leave ran at 60% or more. This much has been obvious to many of the MPs representing those seats for a long time. But it is not yet clear whether it is a message that Labour’s membership – who are among the most socially liberal, cosmopolitan groups in all of England – will be willing to accept. Labour has a membership and a leadership who reject the values and concerns of their traditional voters. They now have a traditional voter base which has risen up en masse to reject the values and concerns of the leadership. Something has to give. Thursday night belonged, above all, to Ukip. A movement which less than five years ago was dismissed as an irritant and an irrelevance has precipitated the largest political shock Britain has seen in modern history. Nigel Farage has failed in seven attempts to get elected to Westminster, yet he has delivered a more profound and lasting change to British politics than most prime ministers manage. Whatever happens next, Ukip has changed British politics for good. Where do Farage and Ukip go next? It is hard to know. Some will be tempted to see Brexit as mission accomplished, and may even seek to realign themselves with a Conservative party which will preside over Britain’s Euro-departure. But I suspect most in Ukip, including Farage himself, will want to press on. The Europe vote exposed the new faultlines in British politics, but it did not create them, and did not resolve them. Brexit may be just the beginning. Dr Robert Ford is professor of politics University of Manchester. He is co-author, with Matthew Goodwin, of Revolt on the Right: Explaining Public Support for the Radical Right in Britain. @robfordmancs
Win (home) tickets to Watford v Newcastle United The has teamed up with Barclays, proud sponsors of the Barclays Premier League, to give away a pair tickets to Watford v Newcastle United on Saturday 23 January, to thank one lucky home fan for the passion and support they show to their club. This season LifeSkills created with Barclays have teamed up with Tinie Tempah and the Premier League to give young people the chance to fulfil their passions and work at a range of famous football clubs and music venues. Your Passion is Your Ticket – with hard work and dedication young people can realise their dreams with a helping hand from Barclays LifeSkills. To apply for the work experience of a lifetime visit www.barclayslifeskills.com/work-experience-of-a-lifetime/. You can join the conversation throughout the 2015-16 Barclays Premier League by visiting facebook.com/barclaysfootball or following us on Twitter at @BarclaysFooty for exclusive content and the latest Barclays Premier League news. To be in with a chance of winning tickets, simply answer the following question: Terms and conditions 1. The competition is closed to employees of any company in the Media Group and any person whom, in the promoter’s reasonable opinion, should be excluded due to their involvement or connection with this promotion. Entrants must be 18 or over. 2. Answer the question correctly and complete your personal details on the online form and your details will be entered into a free prize draw. Only one entry per person. 3. Entries must be made personally. Entries made through agents/third parties are invalid. Entry indicates acceptance of terms and conditions. 4. The prize is one pair of tickets to Watford v Newcastle United on Saturday 23 January 2016. Travel to and from the venue is not included, nor is accommodation. 5. No purchase necessary to enter. Fill in the online application form with the necessary details, name and mobile number. 6. All entries must be received by 10am on Thursday 21 January 2016. 7. Winners will be notified before 10pm on Friday 22 January 2016 by telephone or email. Prize winners’ details can be obtained by writing to Sport at News & Media Limited, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU, UK. 8. Stamped addressed envelope required. 9. Winners will be the first entry drawn at random from all qualifying entries by an independent judge on 21 January 2016. The judge’s decision is final. 10. There is no cash or other alternative to these prizes in whole or in part. Prize is not transferable in whole or in part. Prize is not for resale. 11. The winners will be required to participate in all required publicity, including any presentation ceremony. 12. The decision of the promoter in all matters is final and binding and no correspondence will be entered into. 13. The promoter is not responsible for any third party acts or omissions. 14. We cannot guarantee that the event will be free from disruptions, failings or cancellations. We are not liable for such disruptions, failings or cancellations unless they are caused by our negligence. Any requests for refunds or compensation arising from them should be sent to the operator of the event. We can provide you with their details on request. 15. The promoter reserves the right to cancel or amend this promotion due to events or circumstances arising beyond its control. 16. Prize tickets are subject to the terms and conditions listed above. 17. GNM accepts no responsibility for any damage, loss, liabilities, injury or disappointment incurred or suffered by you as a result of entering the Competition or accepting the prize. GNM further disclaims liability for any injury or damage to your or any other person’s computer relating to or resulting from participation in or downloading any materials in connection with the Competition. Nothing shall exclude the liability of GNM for death or personal injury as a result of either party’s negligence. 18. GNM reserves the right at any time and from time to time to modify or discontinue, temporarily or permanently, this Competition with or without prior notice due to reasons outside its control. 19. The Competition will be governed by English law. Promoter: News & Media Limited, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU, UK.
Trump backers get 'revenge gifts' from relatives: donations to liberal causes When John Tereska’s Trump-voting family members open their gifts from him on Christmas Day, they will get a shock. Inside pretty boxes they’ll find notes thanking them for making donations to organizations like Planned Parenthood and the Sierra Club that support causes expected to come under attack from the new administration. “With my oldest brother, who I know voted for Trump, I’m going right for the jugular. I’m donating to the Democratic National Committee on his behalf,” Tereska said. Tereska, an avid Hillary Clinton supporter, is so mad at the relatives who voted for Donald Trump in November that he’s giving money to progressive not-for-profit organizations in their names, in lieu of Christmas presents this year. “It’s revenge giving,” he added, with relish. Many devastated Democrats have decided the best way to make a point to their loved ones with polar political views this holiday season is to put their money where they wish their relatives’ mouth were. Ken Urban, a playwright who teaches part time at Princeton University and voted Democratic, has made donations to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) on behalf of his parents as their Christmas gifts. “My father was the Republican mayor of my small home town in New Jersey and spent his career in the navy reserve. My mother told me she would never vote for Hillary Clinton because they have a friend who works for the CIA who said she was ‘difficult’. And there are aunts and uncles and cousins in my family who voted for Trump,” said Urban. He is ruing the fact that he and his boyfriend agreed, before the election, to attend a big family Christmas gathering for the first time in 20 years. But the SPLC donations on behalf of his parents will take the sting out of it. “I thought I could make a point and in the process be generous to a human rights cause that is only going to become more important now,” said Urban. Some were inspired after hearing about donations to Planned Parenthood made in the name of Vice-President elect Mike Pence, who is fiercely against abortion. Pence is sent an acknowledgment from the family planning organization for every contribution. Randi Greenwald, a retired lawyer in Portland, Maine, heard about the Pence idea and decided to put a more personal, local spin on the tactic. Her son’s brother-in-law is Canadian but is a big fan of Trump and has been taunting the rest of the Democratic-leaning family ever since the real estate tycoon’s surprise win in November, she said. “It meant more to me to make a revenge donation in this person’s name to a small cause locally,” she said. Greenwald gave the money to her state branch of the Immigration Legal Advocacy Project, ILAP Maine, which assists people with their immigration cases, including asylum seekers and refugees. “That’s his holiday gift this year,” she said. She’s bought regular presents for other members of the family. Her Democratic-voting relatives are highly amused at the thought of him receiving a thank you letter from ILAP, she said. “For me, if I don’t laugh, I’m going to cry,” she said. Francie Schnipke, who works for a not-for-profit group in Chicago, is also supporting the SPLC – in the name of her Trump-voting older brother in rural Ohio. He went from being a non-voter to a vocal Trump fan, despite the fact that their mother is Mexican and they have a family member with special needs, she said; they belong to two groups among many denigrated by Trump during the campaign. She thinks the brother was swept along by the rhetoric of co-workers at his transportation company. “He’s always been a loving brother and father. I’m reeling,” she said. “I think he was emboldened by the idea of the outsider coming to fix dysfunctional Washington.” Now Schnipke hopes the information leaflets the SPLC will send her brother will “give him pause”, she said. Tereska, an operations analyst for a fashion retailer in New York, isn’t only giving “revenge donations”. His sister voted for Clinton, so she is getting a “love donation” to the Human Rights Campaign for LGBT equality. But the majority of his family members will get gifts that he thinks they’ll perceive as hostile. “My father wrote in John McCain on his ballot, so I take that as a vote for Trump. My mother will not talk about it, so I assume she voted for Trump. They are getting donations to Planned Parenthood,” Tereska said. “I’m still grappling with the result of the election and this is my small slice of revenge for the fact that their votes have just jeopardized me and the entire world for the next four years.”
Notes from a half-hearted expat in Oz: Brexit made me realise there is no going back I have loved Britain since I was a child and I fell in love with bluebell woods, the rainy seaside, those lovely, uniform, elephant-grey squares of London’s pavements. I loved it as a teenager: night swimming in the outdoor pools of north London, roaming the Heath, the back blocks of King’s Cross, the Camden canals with my friends, feeling as if the city belonged to us alone. I loved it as a student in Brighton, where the rolling green of the South Downs meets the stone-coloured sea. But it wasn’t just the pretty bits. I loved it – seediness, ugliness and all. I loved annual holidays in France and Greece, feeling a sense of belonging there too. A sense of being part of those countries, of being from the same place as the people who lived there. I loved Britain as a grown-up. I loved the Tube – yes I really did. I loved the beautiful, perfect chaos of London. I loved the Cornish sky. I even loved the seagulls. I have missed Britain daily since moving to Australia nine years ago. A physical ache. There has not been one moment that I haven’t been happy, uplifted, to think of myself as British, and, by extension European. I didn’t want Australian citizenship. I was happy to remain a permanent resident of Australia because I didn’t want another country to belong to. I had a good one. And I wanted to remain – above all else – part of Britain and Europe. It was important to me. It was who I am. (What a gift, I thought to myself when I gave birth to my children, they get two continents.) But on Friday, those feelings changed. I realised that although I had loved Britain, I had never really known it. As a child of London and the south-east, I may as well have come from Mars, such was my total inability to fathom the choice of 52% of the population in the EU referendum. I still can’t. And the actual eventual outcome of the post-Brexit vote almost doesn’t matter. Leave or remain, the damage is done. As well as the wider sense of loss, I have felt more acute heartbreak. A longtime friend of mine, born and raised in Britain, was called “scum” by a taxi driver in London on Monday after she spoke to her children in Greek and Italian during their journey. For the first time, someone was trying to make her feel like an outsider in her own home. So for me, Britain is no longer a bright point. It is no longer a place I recognise as mine. Someone else has moved in. And I am not talking about immigrants from Europe or elsewhere. I wonder if other half-hearted expats – those who dreamed of one day going home – feel the same. It’s that cold feeling you get when you visit the house you grew up in, after years, and see it updated, changed, and you realise the place you remembered and cherished only exists in your memory. The penny drops. There really is no going back. So, painful as it is, I think the time has come to say goodbye to my beloved country. Australian citizenship forms, here I come.
Roger Ailes is not coaching Donald Trump for debate, campaign says Donald Trump’s campaign has denied multiple reports that disgraced Fox News creator Roger Ailes has been brought in to help the candidate prepare to face Hillary Clinton on the debate stage next month. “He is not advising Mr Trump or helping with debate prep,” Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks said in an email to the on Tuesday, referring to Ailes. “They are longtime friends, but he has no formal or informal role in the campaign.” Ailes resigned last month from the network he co-founded and ran for 20 years, following allegations that he sexually harassed numerous subordinates, including former host Gretchen Carlson and star anchor Megyn Kelly. Last week Rupert Murdoch, who own the network’s parent company, created a co-presidency to replace Ailes, who received a $40m severance. The Trump camp issued its denial after media outlets including the New York Times, New York Magazine and CNN, citing unnamed sources, reported that Ailes had signed on with the Trump campaign to help with debate prep and other matters. In addition to his broadcast expertise, Ailes is a seasoned counselor to Republican presidents, having served as a top aide to Richard Nixon and advised both Ronald Reagan and George HW Bush on debate strategy in particular. The Trump campaign has billed the three scheduled presidential debates, which begin on 26 September, as the Republican candidate’s best chance to make up ground on Clinton, who for three weeks has steadily pulled away from Trump in voter surveys. While Ailes has an undisputed track record at capturing certain audiences – Fox News has charted $1.5bn in profits last year – his network is not known for its appeal to the voters Trump needs most: women, political moderates and nonwhite voters. A role in the Trump campaign for Ailes would represent a climbdown from tensions between the two men early in the Republican primary campaign, when Trump accused Fox News of unfair treatment and complained for weeks about Kelly. At least one of the dust-ups, in August, was fixed by a friendly phone call. “Well, I have a great relationship with Roger Ailes, and actually I didn’t understand what went wrong, because I felt it wasn’t really – I was not treated fairly,” Trump explained at the time. “And Roger called me the other day, and it’s absolutely fine.” Ailes released a corroborating statement. “I assured him that we will continue to cover this campaign with fairness and balance,” the statement said.
UK free movement deal possible, hints French presidential favourite Alain Juppé, the frontrunner in next year’s French presidential elections, is to visit London and has suggested a deal may be possible on free movement of workers that will allow the UK access to the single market. Juppé is quoted in the Financial Times as saying the issue is up for negotiation. The politician from the mainstream French right will visit London on Monday and is certain to be pressed to give a fuller explanation about how much flexibility of movement he envisages. His remarks do not tally with the position of either the European commission or the German or French governments. Juppé is also expected to seek assurances about the status of French citizens living in the UK after the frontrunner for the Tory leadership, Theresa May, said the status of existing EU migrants would be a factor in any negotiations on the terms of a British withdrawal from the EU. Her remarks were supported by the foreign secretary, Philip Hammond, who said it would be absurd to give assurances on the status of EU citizens in the UK before similar assurances came from the EU about UK citizens. Hammond has been a leading UK voice arguing for a trade-off in talks between access to the single market and free movement of EU citizens. The EU is uneasy about giving the UK any concessions on free movement since it is likely to lead to calls for similar treatment from other nationalist politicians in Europe. The EU has been refusing any concessions for the Swiss on free movement despite a referendum in 2014 insisting the government impose immigration controls. Switzerland is wary of losing access to the European single market, and may have to hold a second referendum if no deal is offered by the EU. The Financial Times interview did not provide full quotes on freedom of movement from Juppé, who polls show is likely to be the main candidate from the mainstream French right and is favourite to win the presidency. However, it quoted him saying everything was “up for negotiation”. “We need to find ways to cooperate, to find a solution to have the UK in the European market, one way or another – whether that is part of the European Economic Area or something else,” he said. Juppé also said in the Financial Times that the UK border, currently at Calais under the terms of a non-EU treaty, should be moved back to British soil. Possible border movement was raised during the referendum campaign with figures including Juppé, the economics minister, Emanuel Macron, and French regional politicians all calling for Britain to take it back. He said the bilateral Le Touquet accord that allows French customs officials to work on British soil and vice versa should be renegotiated. “The logic requires that border controls should take place on British soil,” he said. The Calais refugee and migrant camp that has grown up in the past two years as thousands of migrants seek to avoid border controls there and reach Britain illegally through the Channel tunnel is controversial on both sides of the Channel. Calais business leaders claim it has detroyed tourism, and undermined relations between northern France and south-east England. Some senior French figures are still hoping that the UK will rethink Brexit, but others believe it is vital to deal with the uncertainty and the UK must be forced out as quickly as possible. Sir Peter Ricketts, the former UK ambassador to France, told a conference in Aix, dubbed the Davos of Provence, that: “Brexit is the revenge of the losers from globalisation, and rejection of elites in London or Brussels offering uniform solutions … It is necessary that the parliamentary political class begins to explain why Europe is necessary.”
Labor to grill bank chiefs on whether tellers pressured into inappropriate sales Labor plans to grill bank chiefs on whether senior management puts pressure on frontline staff to upsell inappropriate products such as higher mortgages and credit card limits, even without financial remuneration involved. Labor’s Pat Conroy, a member of the house economics committee which will question chief executives of the big four banks next week, says he had been told by numerous bank staff the pressure is not just in terms of increased pay but also pressure from senior management. “I have met with numerous employees of the big four banks who have warned me about the incentive structures and pressure placed on them to sell product to people patently unsuited to those products,” he said. “The classic case is people who apply for a mortgage being encouraged to apply for a larger loan than they asked for and as it often turns out, a larger loan than they can pay back.” His comments come after Westpac chief Brian Hartzer announced the bank would be removing all product-related incentives for the bank’s 2,000 tellers from next month. The move was in response to increasing pressure on the big banks, with Labor, the Greens and minor parties such as the Nick Xenophon Team and Pauline Hanson’s One Nation calling for a royal commission into the banks following a string of customer scandals involving life insurance, financial advice and rate-rigging allegations. But Conroy said while removing financial incentives for selling products was a start, he said the culture of the banks meant tellers who were assisting with frontline inquiries were often pushed into sales. “I personally went into bank to exchange some currency and what began as a simple transaction turned into 20-minute consultation on what my options were for life insurance,” Conroy said. The house committee inquiry is set down for three days next week, with each bank chief appearing for three hours. Conroy said the government-dominated committee, chaired by Liberal MP David Coleman, would only allow Labor MPs one hour of each three-hour hearing at most to question the bank chiefs. Under the treasurer Scott Morrison’s reference, the committee must look at the banks’ responses to “issues previously raised” in other inquiries – without naming the scandals. But the hearings must also look at: domestic and international financial market developments as they relate to the Australian banking sector and how these are affecting Australia; developments in prudential regulation, including capital requirements, and how these are affecting the policies of Australian banks; the costs of funds, impacts on margins and the basis for bank pricing decisions. As Labor prepared for the inquiry, former Labor powerbroker Paul Howes, who is now head of wealth management advisory with accounting firm KPMG, told the Australian he was opposed to royal commissions being used as “tit-for-tat exercises by political parties”. Howes was formerly national secretary of the Australian Workers’ Union. “I spent most of my time as a trade unionist and as a good Labor man but I don’t believe this [a royal commission] will deliver anything for average working people who may be customers of these banks,” Howes said. Conroy rejected Howes’ assessment of Labor’s policy. “Paul would say that given where he works now,” said Conroy. “A royal commission is needed to break open culture of banks and determine whether we have appropriate regulatory systems.” Conroy said it would difficult to examine individual cases because banks would claim client confidentiality, even if Labor had the permission of bank customers. He said the committee would have no power to call independent witnesses, nor the power to recall bank chiefs for follow-up questions.
Heaven Knows What review – a glamour-free tale of addiction There’s an acrid authenticity to this portrait of the lives of homeless junkies in New York that seeps, pore-deep, into the viewer. Based on the memoirs of Arielle Holmes, who plays a loosely fictionalised version of herself, the film employs the tools of documentary – long-lens shots, hand-held camera – to effectively evoke the grubby desperation of street subsistence. The directors, Joshua and Ben Safdie, have largely cast from among the addict and street community in this story of the destructive love between Holmes’s character, Harley, and her boyfriend Ilya (Caleb Landry Jones, one of the few professional actors in the film). It’s a love which feels closer to addiction than any real emotional connection, and which leads Harley to attempt suicide early in the story. The film shares a milieu with Larry Clark’s Kids, but bypasses the initial seductive outlaw glamour of heroin in favour of plunging into the jarring chaos of addict life. It’s a tough, frequently unpleasant watch. A score of jabbing electronica tips the audience off kilter and the characters are not easy people to care about. The attrition of addiction has worn away their personalities, leaving just a gaping, unlovely need.
Britain’s poor record on health spending For a rich nation, we are asking our NHS doctors and nurses to provide excellent care with comparatively limited levels of support, and it is hardly surprising that standards of delivery in particular areas of care appear low (Nine out of 10 NHS groups failing on cancer care, ratings show, 4 October). OECD figures for 2014-15 show that the UK ranks 15th out of 42 countries surveyed in public spending on health provision. The 14 countries ranked above the UK spend, on average, 25% more per capita than the UK. With 2.8 doctors per 1,000 inhabitants, the UK ranks 24th out of 39 countries surveyed by the OECD; and with 8.2 nurses per 1,000 inhabitants, the country ranks 17th out of 38. It is in levels of bed provision, however, that the figures appear most disturbing. With 2.7 beds per 1,000 inhabitants, the UK ranks joint 27th of 35 countries surveyed. Thirteen countries have more than twice this number of beds per patient and four – Japan, Korea, Russia and Germany – have three times as many. These figures reflect the relatively low priority that successive governments have given to public health provision over several decades. David Wilcock Dalston, Cumbria • I am dismayed to see the persisting with the popular conception that suffering from cancer somehow equates to having a fight (Actor Ben Stiller discloses prostate cancer fight, 5 October). Can we please remember that cancer is just one of a list of serious diseases, and that it does a profound disservice to cancer sufferers to infer that it is some sort of battle that you can either win or lose? As with all diseases, whether you get better or not is very often not in your control. I, like Ben Stiller, had prostate cancer which was detected by a blood test and then treated by a radical prostatectomy. It was bad luck on me to have contracted the disease but I was fortunate to have been diagnosed at an early stage and to then receive the correct treatment with a successful outcome. I was not a winner. I had not won any fight but merely been well treated for a serious disease. If I had been less fortunate with my treatment would I be seen as a loser, one who had not fought hard enough? Peter Clark Nottingham • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
Manchester United ease past West Brom thanks to Zlatan Ibrahimovic double As Wayne Rooney’s wait for the goal that will equal Sir Bobby Charlton’s record goes on, Zlatan Ibrahimovic continues to carry the torch for a Manchester United side who are running into form at just the right time. With another two goals, the Swede took his tally for the season to 16 – and 10 in his last nine games – to complete a highly satisfactory week for José Mourinho and his players. United have won three times in the space of seven days – their first such run in the Premier League since August – and there are clear signs that the juggernaut is starting to pick up a little speed. Ibrahimovic is certainly in the groove, playing like a man at the peak of his powers rather than a 35-year-old in the twilight of his career. His early header set United on their way before anyone had a chance to break sweat and the match was in effect over as a contest when Ibrahimovic added a second early in the second half. West Bromwich Albion’s self-belief was broken and United were able to cruise towards a routine victory that lifts them to within three points of fourth-placed Manchester City, albeit having played a game more. With home fixtures to come against Sunderland and Middlesbrough, the league table could make for even better reading for United by the time the year comes to a close. They are not playing vintage attacking football by any stretch, yet United are finding a way to win matches and producing flashes of brilliance, with the lovely opening goal against Albion a case in point. By the end it felt like Christmas had come early for the travelling supporters as Rooney, Paul Pogba and Ander Herrera led a group of United players over towards them to throw their shirts into the crowd. “I told them to do that,” Mourinho said. “It’s Christmas time. A shirt for a fan, coming direct from the game with sweat, means a lot. For the players, it’s just one more shirt. But I think for the fans it means a lot.” With Albion flying high in seventh place and awkward opponents for any team on paper, Mourinho was entitled to be delighted with the outcome and the Portuguese quickly made it clear that he had no intention of overshadowing the result by saying anything controversial in relation to either of the two major flashpoints. The first incident featured Ibrahimovic, who poleaxed Craig Dawson with a challenge that was late and potentially dangerous as the United striker knocked the Albion full-back to the floor. Ibrahimovic never had any chance of getting the ball and it felt like one of those fouls that merits more than a booking but perhaps not quite a red card. Anthony Taylor, the referee, arrived at that conclusion and decided to show only a yellow card. Asked about that moment, Mourinho turned the conversation to the other controversial incident, when Salomón Rondón slapped Marcos Rojo in the face after the two squared up to each other in the second half. Rondón seemed to be reacting to something that Rojo said, yet the Venezuelan was playing with fire by raising his hand, even if the contact was barely hard enough to burst a paper bag. Mourinho, in fairness, felt the referee did the right thing by allowing Rondón to stay on the pitch. Tony Pulis did not seem quite so impressed with the way that Taylor handled the game. Asked about Ibrahimovic’s actions, Pulis said: “Ask the 28,000 supporters what they thought.“ The Albion manager also described Ibrahimovic’s challenge as “worse than the [Rondón] one”. Either way, there can be no doubting Ibrahimovic’s ability and his influence over this United team. “I’m so pleased for him,” Mourinho said. “He is the kind of player who doesn’t need to prove anything to anyone. But when he decided to come to England for the last period of his career – to the most difficult championship in the world – I think he proved he is a superman in his mentality. What he is doing at 35 is a dream for every striker of 25 in the Premier League.” It was certainly a wonderful goal that Ibrahimovic finished off to put United ahead in the fifth minute. Pogba and Antonio Valencia were involved in the buildup, yet ultimately it was all about the timing of Jesse Lingard’s run and the outstanding technique that the England international showed to deliver an inch-perfect cross, on the half-volley, for Ibrahimovic to nod beyond Ben Foster. Chances then came and went at both ends. Rooney, set up by Lingard, saw his 18-yard shot superbly tipped on to the crossbar by Foster. At the other end of the pitch, Rondón should have done better when he got in between Phil Jones and Rojo only to head Matty Phillips’s cross well wide. Mourinho was frustrated that Lingard wasted an opportunity to double United’s lead on the stroke of half-time, when the winger snatched at a ball that dropped invitingly for him following Matteo Darmian’s miskick, yet the visitors took little time to score a second after the restart. Picking up possession from Rooney, Ibrahimovic stepped inside Gareth McAuley far too easily and struck a low right-foot shot that took a deflection off Craig Dawson before nestling in the far corner. Albion, in truth, never looked like getting back in the game. “That second goal took the wind out of us,” Pulis admitted.
Joe Hart weighs up his options after being dropped by Pep Guardiola Joe Hart fears his Manchester City career may be over but is currently minded to stay at the club despite being dropped by Pep Guardiola for Saturday’s victory over Sunderland at the Etihad Stadium. The relationship between Hart and Guardiola is understood to be frosty and with City flying to Romania on Sunday for Tuesday night’s Champions League knockout first-leg against Steaua Bucharest, Guardiola is inclined to leave out Hart again. Given the City hierarchy had viewed last week’s arrival of John Stones as the final transfer of the summer, Guardiola’s exclusion of Hart may also serve as a message to the board he is intent on signing a new No1. While Guardiola insists that the 29-year-old is in contention, Hart is bemused the Spaniard preferred Willy Caballero for Sunderland’s visit. Hart respects the Argentinian but was dismayed to be sidelined for him. As well as preferring Caballero for his first competitive match – City’s Premier League opener – Guardiola also left Yaya Touré completely out of the 18-man matchday squad. Hart watched on as Caballero began shakily against Sunderland, fluffing an early clearance, before Sergio Agüero’s penalty and Paddy McNair’s own goal on four and 87 minutes were answered only by Jermain Defoe’s 71st-minute strike. A sign of how far Hart’s status has fallen under Guardiola is his belief Caballero is a better No1 with his feet despite the 34-year-old suffering a nightmarish 45 minutes during the tour match against Borussia Dortmund in China last month. During a game City eventually won on penalties in Shenzhen, Caballero repeatedly scuffed passes and clearances and was also unsure when called upon to make regulation saves. During the tour Caballero and Hart were observed undertaking a half-hour drill with City’s goalkeeping coach, Xabier Mancisidor, that was designed to work on passing skills. Neither man appeared particularly superior. Each were able to hit the right-back channel, as demanded by Mancisidor, but proved tentative when doing so. Guardiola admitted after the win against Sunderland that Hart would be upset at being left out. “I’m pretty sure he’s not happy,” the manager said, before also discussing Touré plus Samir Nasri and Eliaquim Mangala, who also did not feature. “All the players who didn’t play, they’re sad, they’re upset. I would not like them to be happy if they would not play. I’m sorry I have to decide, we have 28 players so they have to convince me on the pitch.” If Hart, the England goalkeeper, were to leave, a club that plays in the Champions League would be his first choice with Sevilla monitoring his position. As there are no vacancies at Manchester United, Chelsea and Arsenal, this may mean he has to look abroad – or accept that a potential move to Liverpool and Everton, two domestic clubs who may be interested, would mean not playing in the European Cup. Guardiola, meanwhile, believes Hart, Touré and the others will react in the correct way. “I have no doubts about that. I know Yaya from Barcelona, how he loves to play football. I know perfectly his quality, he knows the reason why he was not on the list, because I speak sometimes with the players to say the reason why, and I know they’re so professional. “They train and after I sit with my people, and I decide what is the best – so now because we won maybe I’m a little bit right. If we draw or lose maybe it’s a mistake. I know how this is. But it’s not a personal problem with any player.” Guardiola’s analysis that Touré was left out because he wants footballers who can close down fast does not augur well for the midfielder’s long-term future. “Against Sunderland I needed a player, a team more aggressive without the ball because we have to create team spirit. “My teams always run a lot. They were lucky [to have] players with big talent but always they were winners and conceded few goals in the season – because 11 players run, 11 players play with the ball and 11 run without the ball.” While Guardiola retains an interest in Barcelona’s Marc-André ter Stegen, Caballero wants to prove he can be the permanent No1. “Yes, I am here,” he said. “I try to show to Pep and all the players and fans every single day. But this kind of decision is for the boss and the club. The most important thing for me is to enjoy this game and that I keep improving, keep trying to play as the boss wants to play.” The goalkeeper revealed Guardiola now asks his players to have a post-match meal together rather than leave straight away. The squad were also seen eating nuts on their way to the dinner – instead of the previous post-game pizza – Caballero said: “Yes, that’s quite good. Sometimes we finish and go home and arrive two hours later at our homes because of traffic. This is all good for team spirit. He loves to have a big group of players and he knows that sometimes we can be all good friends and can be a great team.” Bacary Sagna also revealed other Guardiola changes. “First of all, Friday night, we did not go to the hotel [at the club’s training ground]. Also, we trained this morning to be awake, to be aware of what we needed to do. The way we prepared for the game was different to last season.” Nicolás Otamendi is in contention to start against Bucharest after not being risked against Sunderland. “Hopefully, he can play,” said Guardiola. “I’m looking for that, because they [scouts] tell me Steaua play a long ball, and of course Nico is so important. He had a little bit of a problem in the tendon and he could not risk to play two games in three days.”
Crystal Palace frustrate West Ham after Cheikhou Kouyate’s red card In unhappier times, the boos that greeted the final whistle might have been directed at the man in the home dugout. Yet West Ham United’s supporters were aiming their anger at Mark Clattenburg after he sent off Cheikhou Kouyaté midway through the second half. Slaven Bilic was engaged in a long, heated debate with the official as they made their way down the tunnel at the end of a thrillingly feisty London derby and even Alan Pardew thought that it was a harsh red card, not that his magnanimity did anything to soothe West Ham’s fury. Crystal Palace, playing with enough verve and ambition to suggest that they are more than capable of putting relegation worries to bed in the coming weeks, were level thanks to a moment of opportunism from Dwight Gayle within eight minutes of Kouyaté’s departure and West Ham’s frustration was exacerbated by the knowledge that their push for Champions League qualification has been compromised by dropping four points in their past two matches after debatable refereeing calls. Three points behind fourth-placed Manchester City, West Ham will drop to sixth if Manchester United beat Everton this afternoon. Bilic said: “If you want to write about it, write about it. I can’t say a lot.” While the Croatian had cooled down by the time he emerged from the dressing room, West Ham’s manager was adamant that Clattenburg had called it incorrectly when Kouyaté caught Gayle with a high challenge, although he was probably pushing it by claiming that the Senegalese midfielder did not even deserve a yellow card. It had looked like the latest exhibition of Dimitri Payet’s set-piece brilliance, a stunning free-kick that swung and swirled away from Wayne Hennessey, was going to keep West Ham within a point of City. Yet Gayle hauled Palace level with 15 minutes remaining, capitalising on a mix-up between Angelo Ogbonna and Winston Reid, and the hosts had to defend stoutly to earn a share of the spoils during an edgy finale, with Adrián required to make an excellent save from Jason Puncheon in the 93rd minute. Under the circumstances, West Ham had to be satisfied with a 2-2 draw considering how open the game became as it wore on. Palace were vibrant in the second half, even before it became 10 against 11, and Pardew’s decision to replace Wilfried Zaha with Gayle and move Yannick Bolasie back to the wings during the break proved inspired. Pardew was right to say that Palace had some of their old verve back and the only disappointment for Palace, seven points above the bottom three, was that they were unable to score the third goal that would have brought them their first win in 14 matches despite some concerted late pressure. Palace host Norwich City next week, and Pardew said: “I certainly think with our goal difference 38 points will be enough but you can’t legislate for a late run and the Premier League has a history of that.” Palace’s manager had held a meeting with his players on Friday night, warning them not to underestimate the severity of the situation, and the visitors took the lead after 15 minutes when Adrián clawed Bakary Sako’s inswinging free-kick back into the middle to present Damien Delaney with the simplest of headed chances. Without Yohan Cabaye’s guile in midfield and the physicality of Emmanuel Adebayor up front, Palace had looked to play on the break, with Bolasie leading the line. Yet their lead lasted for just three minutes, an attempted clearance from Scott Dann falling to Manuel Lanzini, who lashed the ball past Hennessey and into the net. Pardew had warned his players not to commit any stupid fouls in Payet territory and Palace were eventually shown why it is such a bad idea to let the Frenchman, the scorer of a brilliant free-kick in his country’s win over Russia last Tuesday, set the ball down within shooting distance and work out the angles when Joel Ward brought down West Ham’s biggest creative threat four minutes before the break. Payet had already had one sighter but this one was only a couple of yards outside the area, a little to the left of the D, and instead of going for whip and curl, he demonstrated his versatility by opting for power, swerve and dip. Hennessey was rooted to the spot as the ball flew high to his left. “I was expecting him to try to bend it over the wall,” Bilic said. But his smile could not hide his disappointment.
Cameron meets top MEPs amid fears that Strasbourg could scupper deal David Cameron is meeting the main group leaders in the European parliament as the most senior Tory MEP admitted that Strasbourg could scupper the prime minister’s EU reform plan. As the president of the European council, Donald Tusk, warned that positions were hardening – and the risk of a breakup was real – Syed Kamall said Cameron needed to work hard to ensure his reforms are passed in the parliament. Kamall, the chairman of the European Conservatives and Reformists group, spoke out as the prime minister met the president of the European parliament, Martin Schulz, and the MEPs delegated by the parliament as “Sherpas” for the negotiations – Guy Verhofstadt, the former Belgian prime minister who is leader of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe; Elmar Brok, a leading member of Angela Merkel’s CDU party; and Roberto Gaultieri of the Socialists. In a change of plan, the prime minister will not meet the “conference of the presidents” – the leaders of all eight pan-European groupings in the parliament. Cameron will instead meet just the leaders of the two largest groups in the European parliament: Manfred Weber, the chairman of the European People’s party, and Gianni Pittella, chairman of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats. Kamall, whose ECR group is the third largest in the parliament, warned that MEPs have the right to change the secondary legislation that will be needed to restrict in-work benefits to EU migrants and to ensure child benefit is paid at the rate of an EU migrant’s home country. The London MEP told the Today programme on BBC Radio 4: “The European parliament still has a right to change some of the legislation concerning migrant benefits and other issues. We want to make sure the deal the British people vote on is the same deal is the final deal and the European parliament doesn’t make any changes. That is one of the reasons David Cameron is in Brussels today. He is talking to the leaders of the big parliamentary groups.” The remarks by Kamall contrast with the confident declaration that any deal secured by the prime minister at the EU summit on Thursday and Friday will be “legally binding”. Officials admit that it will only be binding among EU leaders and will not apply to the European parliament, which has the right under the “co-decision” procedure to approve most EU legislation. Downing Street believes the European parliament would find it difficult to challenge a deal agreed by all 28 EU leaders. But the prime minister’s decision to meet the leaders of the two main groups shows that No 10 appreciates the crucial role that could be played by the parliament. The shift in his meetings in Brussels means the prime minister will not meet Nigel Farage, who is the joint president of the Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy group. Downing Street felt it would be a better use of the prime minister’s time to meet the leaders of the main groups and not provide a platform for Farage. The Vote Leave campaign said the decisive role of the European parliament – plus the government’s acknowledgment that it will not secure a revision of the Lisbon treaty before the referendum – meant the deal would amount to no more than an unsigned contract. The government wants to secure a legally binding agreement that would be attached to the next EU treaty in the way that a series of concessions to Denmark, following its initial rejection of the Maastricht treaty, were grouped together in a special protocol. In a report, Vote Leave concludes: “The only way to obtain ‘legally binding and irreversible’ change to the UK’s relationship with the EU is to Vote Leave.” The prime minister will also meet Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European commission, amid fears that a proposed settlement geared to keeping the UK in the EU could unravel because of growing European objections to the concessions promised to Britain. “This is a critical moment,” Tusk warned. “It is high time we started listening to each other’s arguments more than to our own. It is natural in negotiations that positions harden, as we get closer to crunch time. But the risk of breakup is real because this process is indeed very fragile. Handle with care. What is broken cannot be mended.” The stark warning from the former Polish prime minister, who presides over the EU summit on Thursday and who has been charged with drafting the settlement rewriting the terms of Britain’s EU membership, came as east European leaders staged a mini-summit in Prague to hammer out a common position on the proposed British deal. Bohuslav Sobotka, the Czech prime minister, who chaired the meeting of four central European countries – Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and the Czech Republic – said they had agreed a position but that he would not divulge it before informing Tusk. Tusk is expected in Prague on Tuesday. “We will all have to decide together, and where we cannot and will not compromise on the fundamental freedoms and values,” Tusk said. Cutting welfare benefits for east European workers in western Europe is the main sticking point threatening to wreck a putative deal negotiated since last July and fine-tuned in recent weeks. Cameron’s central demands of freezing in-work benefits for four years for EU migrant workers in the UK and cutting child benefits for the same workers who leave their offspring at home have already been watered down in the draft agreement but remain unacceptable for the east Europeans. They will accept the curbs, but only if they are limited to Britain and are not applied across the EU. This applies in particular to child benefits, which, at the moment, are not to be scrapped but indexed to east European levels. The central European quartet will accept that for the sake of a deal with Cameron but do not want the UK special treatment broadened to apply uniformly across the EU. They also fear eventual knock-on effects in other areas of national social security systems in Europe.
Newsfront and beyond: Bob Ellis's enduring impact on Australian theatre and film As many of the obituaries written about him have observed, Bob Ellis, who died on Sunday at the age of 73, wore many hats and dabbled in many trades. His campaign against Bronwyn Bishop is legendary, launched well before denouncing the helicopter-chartering politician’s behaviour went viral. People have spoken about a lacerating wit and an indisputably brilliant ability to produce snap-crackle snark. Everybody loves a great curmudgeon, at least from afar, and Ellis delivered in spades. But a little less known is his affection for the arts – coupled with an apparent belief he could do anything as well as anybody else – and the enormous impact the veteran hyphenate made on Australian film and theatre. Ellis was not the sort of person who, when it came to anything culture-related, said “this is a job best left to the experts”. He was the expert, bouldering into projects with a magnetic sense of self-confidence. Ellis had no issues praising his own work, just as he had no qualms naming names and pointing the finger when things didn’t go his way. Having written or co-written 11 plays, Ellis said his 1970 musical satire The Legend of King O’Malley (his first stage production, which he wrote with Michael Boddy) marked nothing shy of “the birth of an Australian style of theatre”. It was a huge success throughout the 70s and was revived in 2014. Ellis’s impact on the Australian film industry is not to be understated. As a screenwriter, director and even critic, Ellis contributed to many significant productions throughout the 70s, 80s and 90s – sometimes in characteristically bridge-burning ways. He was a screenwriter of one of the most influential and highest-regarded Australian films of the 1970s: director Phillip Noyce’s classic Newsfront. After Noyce and producer David Elfick made significant cuts to the film, Ellis demanded his name be taken off the credits. With time he backflipped, eventually coming to view the film as some of his best work. Ellis worked with the director Paul Cox (billed “the father of independent cinema in Australia”) in the 1980s, co-writing fine films such as Man of Flowers (1983) and My First Wife (1984). The latter features one of the best performances from the great Australian actor John Hargreaves, as a man staring down the barrel of a broken marriage, too angry and self-absorbed to rescue it. During that period Ellis co-wrote the German director Werner Herzog’s first English-language film, Where the Green Ants Dream. Ellis also jumped into the director’s chair – but only on films he wrote. The best of them, however imperfect, was 1988’s Warm Nights on a Slow Moving Train, which in a sense is a near-miss masterpiece. The film features a terrific lead performance from Wendy Hughes (as a carriage-surfing sex worker who dresses in different clothes to seduce different potential clients) and a cracker screenplay, which at its best is reminiscent of Basic Instinct crossed with Strangers on a Train. But the naturalistic cinematography from Yuri Sokol (a long-time collaborator with Cox) was ill-fitted with the noirish plot, Colin Friels’ dubious Irish accent was a bridge too far and Warm Night on a Slow Moving Train’s last act – which suddenly lurches into political conspiracy – feels hurried and impatient. Ellis fell out with the executive producer, calling their collaboration “a grave mistake” and claiming the film was set up by “shifty lawyers”. And of Sokol he said: “He’s a wonderful cameraman but he’s an awful bastard and he would sometimes light with candles.” It was as if Ellis had completely expunged himself of any responsibility, including of things he had influence, if not control, over. His next film as director, 1993’s semi-autobiographical coming-of-age drama The Nostradamus Kid (starring Noah Taylor as a younger version of himself and largely set at a Seventh Day Adventist-run summer camp) plays like a gloomy alternate version of The Wonder Years, complete with Ellis’s reflecting-on-the-past voiceover narration. By the time of the 2008 documentary Not Quite Hollywood, which explores Australia’s “Ozploitation” movement of the 70s and 80s, Ellis had well and truly mastered his most memorable role: the professional sourpuss. In the film he cuts an irresistibly acidic presence, a sort of Warhead sour candy the audience are forced to swallow every time the bellyacher speaks his mind. Of the legendary producer Antony I. Ginnane, whose CV includes Patrick, Turkey Shoot and Dark Age, Ellis said: “His work should be burned to the ground and the ashes sewn with salt.” And of hiring American actors to play roles in Australian films in the 1980s: “I felt then, as now, that Americans are scum and should not be let anywhere near our money.” Ellis also, occasionally, spoke positively of others. Bert Deling, who wrote and directed the underground classic Pure Shit, described him as “a champion of the film from the start”. But every decent curmudgeon is stingy with their plaudits, so when Ellis praised somebody you knew that he meant it. Talking about influential Australian film-maker Tim Burstall, again in Not Quite Hollywood, Ellis said: “He was scum, really. He was the crab louse on the Australian film industry.” Then he quickly added, in a note of praise any person would cherish – especially from somebody as particular as he – “On the other hand, all of us will always owe him everything.”
Justice League, Wonder Woman and a pair of Batmen storm Comic-Con Superman lives, Wonder Woman charms and two Batmen are on the way. The film studio Warner Bros debuted a preview from 2017’s Justice League and the first trailer for its Wonder Woman film on Saturday morning. The San Diego Comic-Con releases also managed to tease two very different takes on Batman: Ben Affleck’s forthcoming film, which he will direct and star in, and the Lego Batman movie starring Will Arnett. Affleck compared the character’s story to history’s great dramas. “It’s like a great play that has been done a number of times before,” he said. “So you have all these great artists who’ve done it before and the expectations of the fans who’ve seen it over and over again. There’s a tremendous amount of pressure but it’s also inspiring.” In a panel partially performed by Lego CGI characters on a giant screen – with a Lego Conan O’Brien to match the real one on the stage – Arnett said the version of Batman in the Lego films was probably overcompensating for something. “When you have somebody who’s that confident, they’re oftentimes making up for deficiencies in other parts of their character,” Arnett said. “I don’t think anybody in the business does false bravado better than you,” O’Brien told Arnett. “You do ‘I got this, and then don’t have it,’ better than anyone I know.” “Thank you, Conan, I know,” said Arnett. “I don’t know why you’re wasting everyone’s time with that.” The Wonder Woman footage debuted complete with battle scenes from the first world war-set movie, and a Q&A with the director, Patty Jenkins, and the stars Gal Gadot, Chris Pine and Connie Nielsen. Jenkins said she found herself disturbed by the seemingly endless stream of tragedies in the headlines, and hoped that the movie would promote a kind of heroism that involved mutual understanding rather than grandstanding. “It’s so hard to be making a movie while these horrible things are happening in the world,” she said. “The world needs love and forgiveness in such a huge way. It’s not about who’s right anymore – it’s about stopping. Be a hero, but be a beautiful, kind, loving hero who has the ability to be forgiving and move forward because you’re a loving character.” Gadot said she watched a documentary on the real-world Princess Diana to prepare to play superheroic royalty and struck a pose for a girl in the audience who asked her to. She came onstage flustered and told the audience she was pleased to be there. Then she asked O’Brien to repeat a question about the role. “What was the question?” she asked, smiling. “I forgot,” O’Brien said. The Justice League film footage was an unexpected highlight, showing off what appeared to be a more lighthearted script than the director Zack Snyder’s most recent film, Batman v Superman, and featuring the Flash actor Ezra Miller in a role not too dissimilar from the part Tom Holland played as Spider-Man in the most recent Captain America film, Civil War. The director also revealed that Henry Cavill would return in Justice League as Superman, even though he met his demise at the end of Batman v Superman. The panel was especially brief – the lineup was large enough that introducing its members took up much of the time – but it was well received by the people who had slept outside in leather, formalwear, PVC armor, or mostly naked in order to get a seat in the hall and look interesting doing it. Most of them stayed happy throughout, even as they squabbled over seats. For the Suicide Squad panel, cast members told further tales of the Joker actor Jared Leto’s disturbingly in-character on-set behavior. Will Smith told the audience a messenger had brought a box to Margot Robbie warning, “This is a message from Mr J”. Robbie plays the Joker’s erstwhile love interest, Harley Quinn, in the film. “I was like, ‘Oh, cool, Jared’s taking it serious,’” Smith said. “And in the box was a live rat. Margot jumped, and I’m playing Deadshot, but if I’d had pearls, I would have clutched them.” The apparent good humor of the new DC stories extended into cheerful rapport between the cast and fans. As is customary, people yelled out “I love you” at several of the actors, Smith included. “I love you, too, call me!” he said back. But O’Brien scolded one of the well-wishers: “Don’t rub your nipples, sir. It’s disturbing.”
From Kanye West to The 1975, the dos and don'ts of naming your album DO GO YOUR OWN WAY Naming your new record is a tricky business, like trying to throw a dart at the bullseye of posterity while blindfolded. Kanye West recently seemed to have outsourced the task, getting his wife to gauge interest in possible album titles with an internet-breaking Twitter poll. In the end, Kanye went his own way and opted for, er, The Life Of Pablo over the actually-quite-good Swish. Perhaps he remembered the cautionary tale of ska washouts Smash Mouth, who asked fans to pick the name of their third album. They chose Smash Mouth. Speaking of which… DON’T GO EPONYMOUS, (UNLESS IT’S YOUR DEBUT) There’s a fine tradition of keeping things simple, especially for your debut. It’s been road-tested by the Smiths, the Stone Roses, Black Sabbath, Queen and Vampire Weekend. Nevertheless, there is such a thing as the right time: releasing an eponymous album mid-career might seem like a bold, back-to-basics statement, but to everyone else, it just looks as if you’ve run out of ideas. DON’T GO LONG Grebo-poppers the 1975 should be poised to break America, and yet they’ve lumbered their new and second album with an awful, long-winded title: I Like It When You Sleep, For You Are So Beautiful Yet So Unaware Of It. Save that sort of wishy-washy word-porridge for when you have a third verse to write! Have we learned nothing from Fiona Apple’s pre-millennium second album, which had a rambling 90-word name and was purchased by roughly the same amount of people? DO STICK TO ACTUAL WORDS We get it. You’re creative, and it’s a living language. But inventing new words is redonkulous, be it Grandaddy’s autocorrect nightmare The Sophtware Slump or Primal Scream’s forthcoming Chaosmosis, which sounds more like a mindfulness app than an album. The Mars Volta – prolific coiners of nonsense such as Noctourniquet and Comatorium – get a pass, because prog, obvs. DON’T BE BASIC A reminder that in 2016, basic counts as an insult. So while you might think it’s hilarious to call your record something knowingly reductive – like Madonna’s Music or Joan Jett’s third album Album – it immediately sets off the apathy alarm. The worst recent offender? Bass booster Meghan Trainor whose 2015 album was called, er, Title. DON’T RESORT TO PUNS, EVER Why would you sabotage your pride and joy by playing with puns? Blink 182’s Enema Of The State, Ministry’s The Mind Is A Terrible Thing To Taste, Ugly Kid Joe’s Menace To Sobriety… all dreadful. Weirdly, one of the few people to pull it off was Kanye with Yeezus, a suitably religious experience. Beyoncé, the ball is in your court.
How Facebook and Twitter changed missing child searches Every three minutes a child is reported missing in the UK; across the EU that number rises to one child every two minutes. In the US, the FBI recorded almost 467,000 missing children in 2014, which is close to one reported every minute. In the US, milk cartons, posters, flyers, meetings and traditional news reports formed the main missing child search channels until 1996, when Dallas-Fort Worth broadcasters teamed up with local police to develop a warning system that interrupted regular programming on television and radio broadcasts, and highway signs. The service, Amber Alert, is used only for the most serious of cases, sending out messages via email, text, traffic signs and digital billboards, as well as through Twitter and Facebook. International non-profit organisation Action Against Abduction long pressed for a similar system in the UK, but it wasn’t until 2012, after the abduction of April Jones, that Child Rescue Alert was activated nationally. In 2015, Child Rescue Alert partnered with Facebook to harness the social network’s reach. Now, when a missing child case meets certain criteria of seriousness, law enforcement agencies can issue geo-targeted posts, containing a photo and description, to appear in the newsfeeds of Facebook users in the area where the child is believed to be. “All over the world, we’ve seen communities rallying together in times of need, using Facebook to spread the word – and these alerts will make that quicker and help to reach more people than ever before,” said Emily Vacher, trust and safety manager at Facebook at the September launch. “Time is often a crucial element when locating vulnerable missing people who are at risk to themselves or to the public,” says Metropolitan Police commander Alison Newcomb. “The use of social media supports our investigations and appeals and has achieved great results, some of which simply could not have happened through traditional communication channels.” Newcomb says the Met operates more than 400 Twitter accounts, but also works closely with other agencies. “One of the many reasons that the police come to us to help with publicity is that we have this wide network on Twitter and Facebook,” says Polly Balsom, communications manager at Missing People. Gavin Portnoy, head of digital media at the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, which makes active use of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram and Snapchat, has proof of the power of sharing. In 2015 the charity created a video appeal featuring imagery of a missing girl and the person they suspected had kidnapped her. The video was shared widely and a woman spotted them. “People feel empowered to make a difference; it’s the opportunity to do something,” he says. Another example is the case of Bella Bond, a three-year-old girl whose body was washed up on the shores near Boston, US. Her identity was confirmed following an extensive social media campaign in which a computer-generated composite image was estimated to have reached 47 million people on Facebook. “It was definitely one of those cases where we can say with great confidence that because it went viral and because as many people interacted with it, it got in front of the eyes of the right person who said ‘Oh my goodness, I know that girl’,” Portnoy says. Although social media has provided police and other agencies with extended publicity tools, those same tools can also put children at risk. In Sweden, for example, a man got thousands of people to share his unofficial Facebook appeal for his missing children, but the children were living with their mother who was understood to be under protection with a new identity after leaving the man. Geoff Newiss, director of research at Action Against Abduction, says that when it comes to searching for children in abduction cases, which can be more complex than missing child cases, social media has been more of a good addition than a game changer. “There is certainly an increase in cases where the grooming is facilitated by online contact, so in that sense technology provides risks,” he says, adding that teachers need more resources to educate children about this, and that the old “stranger danger” advice needs to be updated. Portnoy, however, says that while he recognises that social media is by no means a perfect tool, its benefits should be acknowledged. “[It] is another really positive tool that’s in the arsenal of the public, of law enforcement, of non-profits like us that are trying to help.”
How safe is voice recognition and fingerprint ID? HSBC will become the first bank in the UK to roll out voice recognition technology for its telephone banking system to every customer, and it has also embraced fingerprint scanners for its smartphone app. But how do they work and are they safe? How does it work? It works in two ways. The HSBC and First Direct apps for the iPhone will use the built-in fingerprint scanner within the iPhone 5S, iPhone 6 or iPhone 6S to identify the user – the same way that it is used to unlock the phone and to authenticate purchases through Apple Pay. Over the telephone, the voice identification system monitors more than 100 unique identifiers in a person’s voice. These include the cadence, accent and pronunciation, as well as sounds that indicate the shape and size of the larynx, nasal passages and vocal tract. Is it going to make my life easier? HSBC hopes that voice recognition will remove the need to remember passwords, codes and some of the other identification information currently required for telephone banking. The Touch ID integration will also speed up logging into the mobile banking app, while helping keep it secure. How does voice recognition work? The technology provided by voice recognition firm Nuance builds a so-called “voice ID” from a quick training session, which records and analyses the way people say words, the sounds of their mouth, tongue, voice box and breathing. When the person then tries to log in they are asked to say a few words which are compared to the voice ID. Can it be fooled by a mimic? The way a voice sounds to the human ear is very different to the way it sounds to a computer. It may be possible to sound like another person, but it will be almost impossible to recreate all of the 100 or so physical and behavioural aspects of someone’s speech and voice ID. What if I’ve got a cold and my voice sounds different? The Voice ID system is robust enough to identify an individual even if they have a cold because it analyses so many markers in a person’s voice. Your accent, cadence, pronunciation and physical attributes do not change even if you’re a bit stuffed up. The same goes for when you have crappy phone reception, unless the call drops midway through. What if I’m out on the street or in a noisy office? Most smartphones have noise-cancellation technology built into them, which removes a significant proportion of ambient noise. The rest is dealt with by Nuance and its Voice ID system, meaning that noise is likely only to be an issue if you’re trying to log in when standing next to an air raid siren or similar. Do other banks use it? Other banks, including Barclays, have been using voice recognition for a limited number of customers for a couple of years. Barclays’ system, for instance, is only available to a subset of wealthy customers. No breaches through the use of voice recognition have been reported. Is your fingerprint safe? For an iPhone with Touch ID sensors under the home button, the fingerprint is stored securely within an encrypted section of the phone. When the user touches the home button, it compares the fingerprint to those recorded within the phone and then either grants or denies access. The fingerprint is never sent away from the phone or given to any company, not even Apple. Can you use a dead finger? No, your fingers are safe as long as the criminal knows the phone works. The Touch ID sensor uses two methods for reading a fingerprint. It uses a capacitive sensor, which detects the small electrical charge given off by your skin – the same technology a touchscreen uses to detect taps. But it also uses a radio frequency scanner to read the fingerprint on the living tissue a couple of layers beneath the top layer of your skin. This layer can only be read when living, hence a dead finger won’t work, unless it’s kept alive somehow. Can you hack the Touch ID sensor? The short answer is yes. The long answer is that it takes equipment and materials costing more than £1,000, the skills of a crime-scene investigator and a perfect, unsmudged full print from the correct finger you want to replicate. It is not something your average criminal is going to be able to pull off. What about other biometrics? Voice and fingerprints are just two forms of biometric identification. Other technologies that are currently in use and in development include: Heart-rate recognition, which uses the unique beat pattern of each person’s heart. Vein-pattern recognition, which detects the unique pattern of your veins under your skin, typically in your hand, wrist and arm. Iris recognition, which uses a camera to photograph the pattern of your iris. Retina recognition, which works in a similar way to vein-pattern recognition but within the eye. Most biometric systems beyond voice and fingerprint have yet to be adopted on a wider scale because they are not as user-friendly, fast or reliable outside of controlled environments. Other recognition systems have been developed that analyse our use of technologies such as a keyboard, mouse, touchscreen and other input devices. Small variations in the speed, pattern, pressure and usage of these tools can be used to identify an individual, although none have yet been implemented for something quite as serious as banking. I’ve seen action films where they pull someone’s eyeball out and use it to unlock a vault … Yeah, that’s not going to happen. Apart from the fact it’s quite difficult to remove an eyeball without damaging it, retina scanners typically need blood flow through the retina to work. Iris scanners also typically include the ability to detect whether the iris is moving – and it wouldn’t if it was disconnected from the body. 2015: the year the fingerprint sensor stopped being a gimmick
Backpage CEO's arrest hurts free speech and sex workers' rights, advocates say The arrest of the CEO of Backpage, an adult classifieds website, has drawn criticism from sex workers and first amendment advocates who argue that the prosecution violates free speech protections and could do more harm than good. The top prosecutors in California and Texas announced on Thursday that authorities had arrested Backpage executive Carl Ferrer on felony pimping charges, alleging that his website profits from the “trafficking and exploitation of vulnerable victims” when it collects fees for “escort” ads. But legal experts said that online platforms like Backpage.com cannot be held liable for the actions of their users and that third-party sites are protected by free speech internet laws. The charges have also sparked outrage among sex worker activists who argue that Backpage is a safe way for them to advertise services and vet clients, and that without it, some would be working on the streets, which can be significantly more dangerous. “This has nothing to do with people being exploited. It’s a political ploy,” said Kristen DiAngelo, executive director of the Sex Workers Outreach Project of Sacramento. Under Backpage’s “adult” section, people can advertise a range of services, including escorts and fetishes. According to sex worker groups, consenting adults use the platform for legal activities such as massages, as well as illegal paid sexual encounters. But California’s attorney general, Kamala Harris, who is running for US Senate, alleged that “many” ads for prostitution involve sex trafficking victims, including minors. She claimed that Ferrer, along with shareholders Michael Lacey and James Larkin, have profited from these crimes and that Backpage is “essentially operating as an online brothel”. All three men are accused of conspiracy to commit pimping. David Greene, civil liberties director for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said the law is clear that “those who provide internet services cannot be considered publishers of content that they didn’t create themselves”. Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a law that has had a profound impact on the internet, outlines these protections. The act, for example, has established that Yelp is not responsible for negative reviews and that eBay is not liable when people sell counterfeit items. Airbnb, the home-sharing startup, has also argued that the law shields the tech platform when users violate local housing laws. Backpage has repeatedly won legal victories based on free speech arguments. “You can think that child trafficking is a horrible thing … and still think that prosecutors have overreached by going after the CEO of a classified advertising service,” Greene said. DiAngelo argued that targeting a web platform was a “slippery slope” and that prosecutors could go after landlords of buildings where sex work may be occurring or newspapers that print ads for services that turn out to be illegal. Spokespeople for the Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton, and Harris declined to comment. In an email to the , Liz McDougall, Backpage’s lawyer, said the arrest “is an election-year stunt, not a good-faith action by law enforcement” and noted that the company has policies against “illegal content” and removes ads when contacted by police. “The actions of the California and Texas attorneys general are flatly illegal,” she wrote, adding that “Backpage.com will take all steps necessary to end this frivolous prosecution.” Legal arguments aside, activists have argued that targeting Backpage is a misguided approach that conflates trafficking with adult sex work. Critics also say that closing the site won’t eliminate the exploitation, but simply move it further to the margins. Maxine Doogan, president of the Erotic Service Provider Legal, Educational and Research Project, said that Backpage allows sex workers to control their own businesses online without having to rely on pimps or work in the streets. Workers also use the site to warn each other about dangerous or violent clients, she said, noting one woman who was robbed by a man and then posted his name and photo on the site. Often, she said, that can be the only way for workers to protect themselves since reporting to police can get them arrested for prostitution. Doogan, who is based in California, noted that the Backpage criminal charges aren’t even about trafficking and accused Harris of using the case to bolster her campaign. “The underpinnings of the pimping laws is the criminalization of prostitution.” Kimberlee Cline, a sex worker based in Sacramento, said Backpage allows her to get references from other workers about whether a certain client is safe, she said. “It’s absolutely vital.” Cline added: “The saddest part of all of this is the amount of time and energy and resources they are spending that are supposedly intended to protect real victims of sexual exploitation … These efforts are only about arresting sex workers, not stopping human trafficking.” After authorities shut down a similar adult services site called MyRedbook.com, according to DiAngelo, her organization surveyed 44 workers and found that 18% had transitioned to the street and subsequently experienced rape, arrest or both. “If they keep marginalizing the people who are in the sex trade … there’s no way they can stand up and say, ‘We’re doing this to save you,’” DiAngelo said, noting that the state should instead invest in social services for victims. Some activists have also argued that traffickers can be exposed and arrested through Backpage. “Why would the government want to shut down a resource that they can use to actually go after people who are selling minors?” said Norma Jean Almodovar, a California sex worker activist. Critics said that if California prosecutors were serious about supporting victims, they would have done a much better job handling the recent scandal in which more than a dozen police officers throughout the Bay Area have been accused of exploiting and paying a teenager for sex. While the state has aggressively targeted the Backpage CEO, many of the officers in the Bay Area case have avoided serious consequences. “You’ve got cops that are wildly abusing sex workers and nothing happens to them,” Almodovar said. “That says you really don’t care about us at all.”
Reaction to jobseekers' mental illness more likely to be negative, says study People with a mental illness who disclose their condition to potential employers are more likely to be treated negatively than supported, a national survey led by the University of Melbourne has found. More than half of those who reported being discriminated against said their mental illness was a reason they were not hired for a position, with the legal, banking and insurance industries most likely to discriminate against them. Researchers conducted telephone interviews with 1,381 adults with a mental illness and asked them about their experiences of avoidance, discrimination and positive treatment in the workplace and while looking for work. Of the 410 people who had disclosed their mental illness while looking for work, 10.4% said it led to their being discriminated against, compared with 6.5% who said the reaction from their potential employer was positive. “I tried to apply for a different position in my workplace and have been told that I can’t because of my emotional state,” one respondent said. Another said, “I applied for a government job and they said the mental state wasn’t quite what they were looking for”. The research, published in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry on Thursday, concluded that better support was needed for people with mental health problems looking for work. Professor Nicola Reavley, who led the study, said one participant said they felt they would be better off disclosing they had been in prison than their depression. “If you’re an employer and someone reveals they have a mental illness after they have been employed, you might become resentful,” Reavley said. “The issues around disclosure are really complicated and there’s no one piece of advice you can give to someone looking for work.” Education of employers to support people with mental illness and to reduce stigma could be necessary to combat this, she said. A national mental health commissioner and the co-director of the Brain and Mind Centre at the University of Sydney, Professor Ian Hickie, said he was not surprised that the banking, insurance and legal industries were those least likely to respond well to a job candidate with mental illness. “Those are industries that are usually very risk-adverse, and don’t often run very people-friendly workplaces, particularly for young people,” he said. “But it is total nonsense to think that there is a relationship between someone with a mental illness and the chance of poor performance in the workplace. “And those workplaces who don’t support people with mental illness are the net losers, because they’re also likely to be the workplaces less likely to support people and a collegiate, teamwork approach generally. And they’re the kinds of workplaces that good people leave.” The CEO of SANE Australia, Jack Heath, said the survey was unique because it asked people to share their own experiences, rather than asking people about their attitudes towards people with mental health problems. The findings concurred with those from a SANE audit on the impact of depression in the workplace, Heath said, which found working Australians were far less likely to disclose their condition compared with their European counterparts. “Improved understanding of mental health conditions in the workplace can reduce stigma – a major barrier for employees, let alone potential employees, who feel they can’t disclose their mental health concerns without fear of discrimination,” he said. “With one in five Australians affected every year, it’s no surprise many of us will face this challenge at work. We need to develop mentally healthy workplaces, that have positive and supportive attitudes towards mental illness.”
Unplanned overdraft fees 'four times costlier than payday loans' Going overdrawn on a current account without permission can now be up to four times more costly than taking out a payday loan, according to new research from consumer body Which? The organisation said its findings showed that regulators needed to crack down on “punitive” unauthorised overdraft charges that were causing harm to vulnerable customers. Which? suggested that unauthorised overdrafts were now more expensive than payday loans, which are notorious for their high interest rates: Wonga charges a representative APR of 1,509%. However, the UK’s largest consumer body said unauthorised overdrafts can be “much more costly” when people are borrowing for the short term – up to 12.5 times more if the period in question is just 24 hours. This is linked to the fact that in January 2015 the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) introduced price caps on payday loans, with interest and fees capped at 0.8% per day of the amount borrowed. This means someone taking out a £100 payday loan for 28 days and paying it back on time will never pay more than £22.40 in fees and charges. However, with no such caps in the current account market, if that individual had borrowed the same amount via a high street bank’s unauthorised overdraft, he or she would face a bill of £90 at NatWest and its parent, Royal Bank of Scotland. With NatWest and RBS, if a customer goes into unauthorised overdraft by more than £10, they are charged a fee of £6 for each day they remain in that position, capped at £90 per “charging period”. A charging period runs from month to month. With charging structures differing from bank to bank, there is a wide variation in the amounts charged when customers go into the red without permission. At Barclays the equivalent cost would be £29.75, whereas at Santander it would be £67, said Which? Meanwhile, Lloyds, HSBC and TSB would each charge £80. A spokeswoman for Which? said the charges could be even higher if interest payments or possible unpaid item fees were included, or the money was borrowed over two monthly charging periods, because the maximum charge related to the charging period and not how long the money was borrowed for. Which? said that when it came to borrowing £100 for just one day, the charges imposed by some high street banks were 12.5 times higher than the amounts payday lenders were allowed to charge. The FCA cap for one day would be 80p, compared with £10 for the Lloyds classic account. The Which? spokeswoman said it was calling for unauthorised overdraft fees to be set at the same level as authorised overdraft charges, and for the FCA to review overdraft charges in the context of other forms of credit. Alex Neill, Which? director of policy and campaigns, said: “People with a shortfall in their finances can face much higher charges from some of the big high street banks than they would from payday loan companies. The regulator has shown it’s prepared to take tough action to stamp out unscrupulous practices in the payday loans market, and must now tackle punitive unarranged overdraft charges that cause significant harm to some of the most vulnerable customers.” RBS’s response to Which? was that it encouraged all its customers to get in touch if they were going to enter unarranged overdraft territory, regardless of the amount or the length of time. It added: “This is an expensive method of borrowing, and there could be a number of alternative solutions, such as putting an arranged overdraft in place, and the costs are considerably less. Our Act Now Alert service would alert the customer to being in unarranged borrowing and that they should take action.” Lloyds’s response was that “the vast majority” of its customers who used their overdraft remained within their planned limit in an average month.
Donald Trump could face chaos as he heads to ‘riot-happy’ California city If Donald Trump is eager to avoid the large, impassioned, noisy protests that almost derailed his last visit to California – and maybe he’s not – he has certainly picked the wrong location for his return trip on Wednesday. Anaheim may be the home of Disneyland and a reliable source of affluent, conservative white voters in the suburban tracts an hour south of Los Angeles, but it is also bubbling over with tensions, as a restive and growing Latino minority clamors for greater political representation, a less repressive police force and a more tolerant environment for immigrants and their families. In February, protesters furious at Trump’s hesitation to disavow the support of the white supremacist movement clashed with members of the Ku Klux Klan in an Anaheim park, resulting in three stabbings and two other vicious assaults. Two months later, on the eve of Trump’s first visit to southern California as a presidential candidate, the Anaheim city council came to blows over a proposed resolution to denounce Trump’s rhetoric against immigrants, Muslims and women. Relations between the Latino community and the police, which will be spearheading security at the Trump rally, have been punctuated in recent years by high-profile officer shootings, riots, and one court filing accusing the police department of behaving “like a death squad” in targeting suspected gang members. Gustavo Arellano, the editor of the alternative Orange County Weekly and a well-known activist for Latino immigrant rights, described Anaheim as a “riot-happy city” and added: “With this move, we now know that Trump is actively wishing for chaos to happen.” Local activists and political leaders would not be drawn on specifics of what the anti-Trump movement was planning – mostly, they said they did not know – but left no doubt about the extent of anger at his candidacy and the disruption that his words and actions have already created locally. “My stomach turns when I hear the man’s voice. I know that he provokes a very bad feeling among the many communities that he has stepped on,” said Ada Briceño, one of Orange County’s most visible Latino activists and an official with Unite Here, a union representing low-wage workers in the garment and hospitality industries. “I guarantee you that there’ll be a lot of people there. They’re coming out of anger. It’s very grassroots. I don’t know that there are any organizations leading them.” In a wild and unpredictable campaign season, California has put up by far the noisiest resistance to the Trump campaign, jamming the two venues where he appeared late last month, running rings around a sizable police and secret service presence in Costa Mesa, not far from Anaheim, and forcing the candidate to scuttle across a freeway and through a hole in a fence to address the GOP state convention at a San Francisco airport hotel. Protest leaders said then they were just getting started, and this week – first in Anaheim and then, on Friday, in San Diego – they will have an opportunity to make good on their word. “I would be greatly surprised if California did not find a way to resist Trump every time he sets foot in this state,” said Cat Brooks, a Black Power activist based in Oakland and co-founder of the Anti Police-Terror Project. Leaders also hope, as the general election gears up, that activists in other states will be inspired by their example and deploy a similarly wide array of civil disobedience techniques: blocking off roads, parking lots and freeway exits, penetrating event venues with bullhorns, even using teams of climbers to drop banners from balconies or suspend them mid-air from helium balloons. “We have friends and allies all over the country,” said Linda Capato, a queer activist from San Francisco. “The more Trump engages in this hateful rhetoric, the more people will feel compelled to escalate their response.” Whether protest proves to be an effective political tool against Trump’s rise remains to be seen. Many Republican analysts saw only an upswell in support for Trump as television news carried images of protesters smashing the windows of a police cruiser or throwing rocks at officers in Costa Mesa last month, and expect a similar upswell if any protests this week are marred by violence. “This is what Trump wants, it’s giving him his talking points,” said Jimmy Camp, a Republican consultant and member of the “Never Trump” movement within his party. The protesters themselves counter that last month’s violence and property damage was sporadic and limited and that the real story was the way they mobilized support at very short notice. “A lot of people want to dismiss us as troublemakers and rabble-rousers, but what you’re dealing with are highly sophisticated, very grounded, very committed organizers with a strong vision of what they want the future of this country to look like,” Brooks said. Many community leaders, however, are deeply worried about passions running out of control and are urging people to express their views peacefully. “All it takes is a few people from both sides to start escalating the rhetoric,” said Henry Vandermeir, chair of the Orange County Democratic party. “We don’t need to be putting fuel on the fire.”
Former JP Morgan banker fined over London Whale losses The Financial Conduct Authority has fined a former JP Morgan banker almost £793,000 in connection with the bank’s $6.2bn (£4.3bn) “London Whale” trading losses in 2012. Achilles Macris was head of the London branch of JP Morgan’s chief investment office, where the trader nicknamed the London Whale, Bruno Iksil, worked. Macris was responsible for several of the division’s investments, including a giant portfolio of credit default swaps, the FCA said. The FCA fined Macris £792,900 for failing to disclose mounting losses from those trades. The bank paid $920m in fines to US and UK authorities in 2013 to settle investigations into the scandal. The FCA said Macris was obliged to deal with its predecessor, the Financial Services Authority, in a co-operative, open way but that from the end of March 2012 to the end of April 2012 he failed to inform the FSA about concerns over the synthetic credit trades. At a meeting and on a phone call with FSA officials, Macris did not disclose that losses were increasing or that he had sought help from elsewhere in JP Morgan to deal with the problem, the FCA said. Mark Steward, the FCA’s director of enforcement and market oversight, said: “A failure to communicate openly with us can affect the well-running of markets and cause unnecessary harm to investors, especially in times of financial stress or crisis. Mr Macris should have explained the position more squarely especially when he knew the synthetic credit portfolio’s losses had worsened.” The FCA said it took the unusual step of granting Macris a 30% discount on his fine, without which he would have paid £1.13m. The regulator normally only considers a 20% discount at the stage the agreement was reached. Macris said in reaching its decision the FCA ignored the fact he had requested the phone call with the FSA and did not take into account his 30-year record of co-operating with regulators. He said he settled with the watchdog because it had acknowledged he did not deliberately mislead regulators. He said: “While I maintain that my efforts in this regard were above and beyond any reasonable standard of transparency with regulators, now that the FCA has accepted that I did not deliberately mislead it, I have decided not to prolong what has been a drawn out and burdensome process and have settled with the FCA, on the basis that there is no prohibition on my working in the regulated sector.” Macris has been locked in a legal battle with UK regulators, arguing that the FSA identified him when it fined JP Morgan £137m in 2013 and criticised the chief investment office. The FCA is appealing against a ruling in Macris’s favour with a supreme court hearing scheduled for later in 2016.
Jermain Defoe spot-on at Bournemouth to give Sunderland first win For Sunderland, the interminable wait is over. At the 11th time of asking, the bottom-placed team have their first win of the season. David Moyes’s side were second best in every facet of the game apart from the scoreline, yet they displayed an impressive combination of spirit and fight to not only come from behind but do so with 10 men, in turn boosting their hopes of clambering out of the bottom three. Dan Gosling had put Bournemouth in front, but the hosts’ inability to finish a hatful of good chances proved costly. Victor Anichebe, making his first start for Sunderland, scored the equaliser and despite being penned back after Steven Pienaar was shown a second yellow card an hour in, Jermain Defoe’s penalty, won by Anichebe, ensured that Moyes, who was serving a touchline ban for swearing at an official during the EFL Cup defeat to Southampton 10 days ago, will enter the international break no longer worrying whether his position is tenable. “Sometimes you need a bit of good fortune on your side,” he said, but they also helped to create their own luck. Sunderland conceded 70% of the ball and faced 22 shots, but they were not just hungry and determined throughout – the Black Cats also displayed ruthlessness in front of goal. At the same time, a fine Jordan Pickford performance combined with Bournemouth’s profligacy kept them in the game, and Moyes said his team looked haggard and were overrun during the spell immediately following Pienaar’s dismissal. Indeed, by that juncture Bournemouth could already have been out of sight. Gosling’s finish for the 11th-minute opener may have been unconventional but everything about the buildup play was typical of Eddie Howe’s team. Junior Stanislas spotted the run of Adam Smith to his right and sent a lovely through-ball from near the penalty arc. The defender timed his run perfectly and squared to Gosling, who bundled the ball home with his belly from about four yards. A quickfire second seemed on the cards when Stanislas found the side netting after some strong hold-up play from Joshua King, while he almost had an assist when returning the favour to King in the 27th minute. Pickford did well to palm away the striker’s powerful drive. In contrast Sunderland seldom found an opportunity to attack but Moyes’s decision to play with two up front paid off when Anichebe was fed by Defoe 12 minutes before half-time. With his back to goal, the target man fended off Simon Francis’s challenge before turning and sending a ferocious shot high into Artur Boruc’s net. “Victor’s got a lot going for him,” Moyes said. “He doesn’t always show it but he did today, that’s for sure.” It was the visitors’ first notable chance but they were undoubtedly buoyed by regaining parity. Duncan Watmore found the net just before the interval only to be ruled offside upon meeting Billy Jones’s cross. Boruc was forced to palm away a Didier N’Dong shot after 55 minutes but Sunderland’s belief was tempered by Pienaar’s sending off a couple of minutes later. Booked late in the first half for a tackle on Jack Wilshere, the midfielder was shown a second yellow for planting his studs on the right shin of Stanislas. Bournemouth almost made the advantage count immediately when Stanislas hit a post. A slew of opportunities followed in the proceeding minutes. Gosling had a goalward effort deflected for a corner, Harry Arter headed wide and Wilshere failed to hit the target from eight yards. The on-loan Arsenal midfielder is expected to be in Gareth Southgate’s England squad, which will be announced on Sunday, though Howe was unwilling to comment. “It’s difficult until I know for sure,” the Bournemouth manager said. “Jack did well today. He was hugely influential behind a lot of our good moments.” Sunderland’s lack of attacking intent in the immediate period following the sending-off could be summed up by Defoe becoming an auxiliary right-back. But Jason Denayer’s introduction for Paddy McNair allowed the visiting captain the chance to reassume an attacking role and he started the move that led to the penalty by nutmegging Charlie Daniels near the touchline. From there he picked out Watmore who, in turn, passed to Anichebe. The striker took a heavy touch in the area but was then hauled down by a sliding Smith. Mike Dean had no hesitation in pointing to the spot and Defoe was as cool as ever. Benik Afobe and Steve Cook both missed the target, while Pickford produced another for his show reel when turning a stinging King shot over his bar as Bournemouth tried to draw level. “It’s unlike us,” Howe said. “We created a hatful of chances but we couldn’t put them away. It was a frustrating afternoon.” However, Sunderland nervously played out five minutes of injury-time before erupting in celebration.
Coasts: Coasts review – brutally efficient, characterless radio rock An array of producers including Fraser T Smith (Adele, Sam Smith) and Duncan Mills (Jake Bugg) have been tasked with turning Coasts’ workaday material into huge feelgood hits, and they have delivered with brutal efficiency. Everything about the Bristol five-piece’s debut album is super-slick and tailormade for daytime pop radio. Banger after banger thumps along in the same one-dimensional vein until the more subdued Wash Away, whose opening verse is so dull that you soon pine for Coasts to return to pounding singalong mode. Which they do, of course, at the chorus. The unambiguously imploring lyrics are so samey that “holding on” features in the chorus of Wolves (“Now we’re holding on”) and the very next track, You “You make me feel like I’m holding on to something real”). At one point Modern Love echoes the rhythm David Bowie used on his 1983 song of the same name, unwisely inviting comparison. Expect to hear Coasts’ pumped-up anthems in a shoe-shop near you – just don’t expect an iota of character.
One person killed and three wounded in shooting at rapper TI's New York show One person was killed and three others wounded in a shooting inside a concert venue in New York City, where hip-hop artist TI was scheduled to perform, police said. It happened around 10.15 pm Wednesday in a third-floor green room area at Irving Plaza, a 1,025-capacity ballroom-style music venue near Manhattan’s Union Square. Police said a 33-year-old man was shot in the stomach. He was taken to a hospital, where he died a short time later. A 34-year-old man was shot in the chest. He was listed in critical condition. A 26-year-old woman and a 30-year-old man were both shot in the leg. They were expected to survive. Police said they were unsure who had been in the venue’s green room at the time, and it was not immediately known who had access to that area.. Though there were metal detectors at the entrance to the club, the perpetrator was able to avoid them to bring a gun into the venue. The New York Daily News reported that an employee of the venue said the shooting was the result of “a beef between two rival crews”, associated with different rappers – not TI – who had credentials to get to the green room. A separate witness who was in the green room, Johnny Wilkins, told the Daily News: “It was a fight over a push, it was some bullshit. It was like 50 or 60 people in the VIP room. It was crazy. It’s crazy more people didn’t get shot.” Ayo Fagbemi, a 21-year-old student, told the New York Times he heard two gunshots “and right after there was a stampede”. After people began trying to flee the venue, he said he heard a third shot. Another witness, Paul Cantor, told the New York Times he had seen a fight spill from the backstage area on to the stage, with one man falling backwards. “There was a body that came across the stage, sort of with flailing arms,” he said., adding there was a gap of seconds between him seeing the fight and hearing gunshots. Elijah Rodriguez was attending the concert with his sister and they were in the VIP area by the stage. He said TI was supposed to go on stage at 9 or 9:30 pm but “he never showed up”. At or around 10pm he said the venue started playing music again, and at about 10.15pm, he saw a line of people coming out from where the performers were coming onstage. “All the sudden I heard someone saying that there was a shot, that someone got shot,” Rodriguez said. Rodriguez didn’t actually hear the shots himself, but heard people saying that someone had gotten shot. “It was scary to deal with. When I got outside, like literally across the street, there were a few girls having panic attacks. One girl thought she saw someone get shot in front of her,” Rodriguez said, adding that TI was not on stage when the shots were fired. Video shot inside the venue showed a chaotic scene as concertgoers rushed to the sides trying to leave the area as a group of people tended to a person on the floor. Representatives for TI, whose real name is Clifford Joseph Harris Jr, said they were referring all questions about the shooting to police. No arrests have yet been made.
The social care alphabet – vanguards, kindness and elusive unicorns G is for Gathering Information, says Melissa Tettenborn, professional development officer, Borough of Poole’s social care team: “An important task for social care practitioners in order to avoid assumptions, understand situations, and form the basis for reasoned decision making.” N is for Night Shift, says Tettenborn: “An invaluable aspect of social care without which services would be affected to the detriment of service users and their networks.”
Alan Rickman remembered by Kevin Smith: 'A huge cauldron of win' The director Kevin Smith has paid tribute to the actor Alan Rickman, who Smith called “one of my favourite people who ever lived”. Smith directed Rickman as the voice of God in his 1999 film, Dogma, and in a Facebook post recounted how Rickman was “the first non-friend who signed up to the flick, but he became a great friend in record time”. Smith also shared a photo of the actor behind the scenes, explaining: “In this pic, he holds the Ken doll his Dogma character’s lack of genitalia was modelled after.” He continued: “I’ll never forget his incredible dulcet tones guffawing at the rubber crotch makeup he was wearing: one of the greatest actors who ever lived, tickled by a cinematic lack of a dick.” Smith echoed the impression of many who worked with Rickman in highlighting the disparity between his dastardly roles and the actor’s own personality. “I loved Hans Gruber the minute I saw #DieHard but I fell in love with the soft-spoken gentle soul who brought Gruber to life.” Smith continued: “Thank you for lending a hack like me your artistry and your credibility, Alan. You were never Snape to me as much as you were the adult Harry Potter himself: a bonafide wizard who could conjure absolute magic using merely words. “He was a HUGE cauldron of win, this man. I’ll miss him forever. Rest in Peace, Voice of God. Back to Heaven, where you came from …” On Thursday, Smith shared another behind-the-scenes photo on Twitter to mark the actor’s passing.
Trump speaks in Iowa after debate clash with Cruz – live coverage We’re going to wrap up our live blog coverage for the day. Thanks for joining us, see you for the Democratic debate on Sunday! Mike Huckabee came close to winning the Republican nomination in 2008 and would might have won it if he had decided to run against Mitt Romney in 2012, writes political reporter Ben Jacobs: This year, Huckabee has been an afterthought in the race. But the former Arkansas governor still remains a formidable political talent, even if he has been relegated to second tier debates and ignored by voters for fresher faces. In a room at the College of Charleston on Friday, Huckabee displayed that ability as he managed simultaneously give important life advice to college students while slipping a shiv between Ted Cruz’s ribs. In a room where young college students asking questions awkwardly addressed him as “Mr. Governor,” the former governor and television personality handled the crowd like a pro. Toning down some more partisan elements of his stump speech – when he talked about taking over as governor of his home state, he didn’t mention his battles with “the Clinton machine” – Huckabee instead came across as a kindly, albeit militantly pro-life, uncle. His complaints about the media came across as life advice about how “nothing is off the record” and veiled shots at Ted Cruz instead was earnest guidance “to be who you are, to be authentic.” He urged the young attendees, most of whom were in middle school the last time he ran for president, “to become your own person politically” and “not to sell your soul to political party.” Huckabee still hit plenty of conservative talking points. He said of radical Muslims, “their mission from God, to borrow from the Blues Brothers, is to destroy us.” But, for a candidate whose rhetoric has become increasingly partisan, this represented an intriguing change of pace. Instead of the Huckabee who jibed in November “Obama’s new domestic terrorism plan probably requires Americans to memorize Koran verses,” this was a kinder gentler one who said it was important for politicians to yield on some issues. With the Iowa caucuses fast approaching, Huckabee is still a long shot but, after an unspectacular debate performance, he provides glimpses of the talent that helped him win the Hawkeye State once. The Republican House leadership is holding a news conference ( live stream it’s over now) to advertise their intentions of leading the country off the wrong track and onto the right one. It’s casual Friday on Capitol Hill: Trump concludes his Iowa town hall, after once again warning that refugees from Syria were possibly not actually refugees but a secret army. “Folks, I love you all,” Trump says: Go out and caucus. And go with Trump. You’ll be very happy. I love you. I love you. Trump is making fun of how much it cost to build the Obamacare web site. He saids he has “kids” and they go “bing bing bing” and “they say Sir, here’s another website.” I got websites, they’re pouring out of my ears. They cost nothing. $5bn for a web site that doesn’t work. Trump’s asked about the FBI investigation of Clinton’s use of personal email for state department business. “Hillary’s gonna have a problem,” Trump says. Look, what she did is so wrong, what she did is so bad, I don’t see how she makes it. “I would love to run against her. I just don’t know how she makes it into the starting gate.” Here’s the scene at Trump’s event in Iowa. The candidate just took a question about heroin addiction. “It’s a tough thing,” he said. Then he repeated the falsehood that he is self-financing his campaign, which in fact is taking donations. Now he says “we’ve got nothing in South Korea.” We’re protecting Japan, we’re protecting Germany, we’re protecting all these countries – what the hell do we get out of it? Trump is holding a town hall-style rally in Urbandale, Iowa. Live stream here: Trump is also out with a new ad to be televised in Iowa and New Hampshire called “Our Country.” It’s a medley of campaign footage in which the candidate assures the crowd that “we are going to make America great again.” It’s true, Ben Carson did use up some of his precious debate time last night – Carson’s speaking time was four minutes shorter than any other candidate – to decry a lack of civility in comments sections on the Internet. “You go five comments down, and everybody is calling each other names,” Carson said. But as we pointed out last night, that’s not how our comments section works. Maybe Carson should read the more. Thanks for keeping it real, people. Comment Is Free. South Carolina senator and former presidential candidate Lindsey Graham endorsed former Florida governor Jeb Bush on Friday, reports Ben Jacobs from North Charleston: The endorsement gives Bush a major boost in South Carolina, which holds the third contest in the Republican presidential nominating race, following Iowa and New Hampshire. The conservative state, which holds the “First in the South” primary, is an important bellwether in the GOP nominating process. Graham, a political powerhouse in the Palmetto State, became the first former presidential candidate of the cycle to endorse an erstwhile rival. The loquacious three-term senator will be able to bring his significant organizational resources in the state on behalf of Bush and help the former Florida governor consolidate his position in the so-called establishment lane in the state. No poll of South Carolina has been conducted in the past month, but in polls conducted in December, Donald Trump had a significant lead in the state. In a press conference Friday morning, Graham touted Bush as a candidate “who stayed true to who he is and hasn’t tried to get ahead in a contested primary by demagoguery.” The South Carolina senator added that Bush “was the most conservative person who can win.” While Bush praised Graham in return, calling him “a patriot” and the “strongest, policy oriented national defense senator,” he spent much of the event discussing another senator, Marco Rubio. The former Florida governor slammed Rubio as a “cut and run” candidate because of his record on immigration reform. Bush said of the Gang of Eight immigration reform bill that Rubio played a major role in drafting, “He asked for my support. He cut and run. He cut and run on his colleagues as well.” “This is about leadership more than the specific issue,” Bush said. Graham, though, was more hesitant to criticize his Senate colleague. “I am not here to talk about Rubio’s commitment to immigration reform,” the South Carolinan said. He also said of the first-term Florida senator, “I like him, but I wasn’t ready to be president at 44.” Bush has long been focusing on New Hampshire, but this endorsement will give him another chance at exceeding expectations in an early state. “South Carolina is going to reset this race,” Graham said. “On February 20, we are going to give Jeb Bush the momentum he needs and deserves to win this nomination.” The former Florida governor is currently in fifth in national polls, with the support of roughly five percent of the Republican primary electorate. Marco Rubio mounted some potentially damaging attacks on Chris Christie last night, accusing the New Jersey governor of being too close to Barack Obama and of being too moderate. For example, Rubio said, Christie once wrote a check to Planned Parenthood, and supported the nomination by Obama of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. In reply, Christie flatly denied both charges. He had supported neither Planned Parenthood nor Sotomayor, he said. The newspapers at the time got it wrong, he said. He repeated this denial on MSNBC’s Morning Joe on Friday morning. It appears Christie did endorse Sotomayor, according to a New Jersey statehouse reporter for Gannett: As for the Planned Parenthood check, the New Jersey Star-Ledger has posted its original article from 1994 in which Christie said: “I support Planned Parenthood privately with my personal contribution and that should be the goal of any such agency, to find private donations.” What explanation will Christie come up with to make sense of his contradicting claims? That he did not know what his aides were up to? The Lindsey Graham endorsement of Jeb Bush event has wrapped. And the reviews are trickling in: Graham drops some science on a couple other Republican candidates, on their immigration views: Ted, you were for legal status! Donald Trump, what you’re talking about makes no sense... it doesn’t have a chance in hell of passing! In endorsing Bush, Graham says that Rubio will be president: I think Marco Rubio will be president of the United States one day. He’s one of the most gifted people I’ve ever met. But I wasn’t ready to be president at 44. Trump’s paying attention. Does not sound impressed: Bush praises Graham. “I have sought out his advice, even though we were both competitors... and he gave it,” Bush says. “Because he’s not running for his own ego.” I am honored to be your student in many ways in that regard.” Then Bush moves to cash in on his new endorsement. “South Carolina is going to be a really important primary,” Bush says. “The direction of campaigns is set here in South Carolina.” Here’s what the event in North Charleston looks like. Graham there with the ill-timed blink. Graham says: Ladies and gentlemen, South Carolina is going to reset this race. On February 20, it is going to give Jeb Bush the momentum he needs and deserves to win this nomination. “I have concluded without any hesitation, without any doubt, that Jeb Bush is ready to be commander-in-chief on day one,” senator Graham says, explaining his endorsement. “For those of you who worry about going it alone, you don’t have to worry with Jeb.” Then Graham slams Trump: Mr Trump doubled down on the idea that we as a nation should ban every Muslim in the world [at last night’s debate]. “I can’t think of a worse idea in terms of how to fight and win this war. Many of the people running for president are eerily silent on this issue. Last night I heard from Jeb Bush the right answer... we cannot and should not declare war on a religion. “Last night, [Bush] did not talk the most, but he made the most sense.” Here come Graham and Bush. Watch the endorsement event on the live stream here. The promised endorsement comes through, via Twitter, and Bush graciously accepts. We’ll be watching the event on the local news channel Graham links to: 13 Hours, a movie about the 2012 Benghazi attacks directed by Michael “Transformers” Bay, was released this morning. Here’s the trailer: The movie is in the news not only because it came up multiple times at the debate last night – although the Hollywood production did get impressively strong attention from the candidates, with Texas senator Ted Cruz devoting his entire closing statement to advertising it. Here’s how we paraphrased Cruz’s close: Cruz: ‘13 hours.’ Tomorrow morning, a new movie will debut about the incredible bravery of Benghazi Benghazi BenGHAZI. [Now there’s product placement.] If I’m elected, I will have the backs of the military and law enforcement. Late last night the Des Moines Register reported that Trump had done Cruz one better by renting space at an Urbandale, Iowa, movie theater and giving Iowans free tickets to a showing of 13 Hours. This morning the Register expands on the report (which you can read in full here): Mr. Trump would like all Americans to know the truth about what happened at Benghazi,” the GOP presidential candidate’s Iowa co-chair Tana Goertz said Thursday night. Michael Bay, historian. Are you still debating who won last night’s debate? A commenter calls it for Trump: Here was our snap reaction as the event wound down, in last night’s live blog: Snap reaction: weak/stumbly for Bush, strong for Trump and Rubio, Cruz on his heels/ under attack but comfortable and capable there, Kasich reasonable but maybe irrelevant, Carson was Carson, and Christie – a strong night for Christie? Hillary Clinton promised to investigate UFOs at a campaign stop in New Hampshire last month. (She was kidding. We think.) This morning she accused Republicans of living in an “alternative universe,” reporter Amanda Holpuch reports: Clinton said in an interview on MSNBC that she had a “more clear sense of what is going to be required” to be president than the Republican candidates. Clinton also spoke to the importance of upward class mobility, strangely echoing a call last night by undercard debate participant Rick Santorum. “You shouldn’t have to be the granddaughter of a former American president to have your dream realized,” Clinton said. For all the hand-to-hand combat in South Carolina last night, there may really have been one straight-up shiv, and it came from Carly Fiorina, going after Hillary Clinton over Clinton’s decision to stick with her husband after revelations that he had, uh, strayed. Talking on the debate stage about her downtime after leaving Hewlett-Packard in 2005, Fiorina said, “Unlike another woman in this race, I actually was spending time with my husband.” Fiorina, who has predicated her campaign on the imagined desire of people to watch her “fight” Clinton – “You will pay to see that fight,” she said last night – kept going after the former secretary of state this morning. Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton went on Jimmy Fallon last night. She told the late night funnyman that she would not watch the Republican debate (the show, which airs at 11.35pmET, tapes in the afternoon) and that Donald Trump “is a lot more obsessed with me than I am with him.” Here’s a clip: Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina senator who made a mark on the presidential race by calling for the deployment of up to 20,000 US troops to the Middle East to confront Isis, is about to pass the torch, the Washington Post reports. Graham is to endorse Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor, in a news conference this morning, the paper quotes the Bush campaign as saying. The endorsement makes sense as one establishment candidate – Graham has been in the Senate since the 2002 election cycle – favoring another, in a field where outsider candidates abound. Or Graham may simply have reasoned, when you want to send tens of thousands of troops to the Middle East, you elect a Bush. We’ll have full coverage of Graham’s announcement when he makes it. Hello and welcome to our live-wire coverage of the day in politics – starting with lines out of last night’s Republican debate in South Carolina. There’s a lot popping today, so let’s get started. If you saw last night’s debate, you’ll have watched tensions in the Republican race finally break into open, face-to-face confrontation, with moneyman Donald Trump and senator Ted Cruz arguing over Trump’s values and Cruz’s birthplace, and Senator Marco Rubio and Governor Chris Christie joining in in multiple combinations. Here’s our report from South Carolina, from Ed Pilkington and Ben Jacobs: What you might have missed, even if you made it through all 150 minutes of the debate, was Trump in the spin room afterwards, keeping up his attacks on Cruz for being born in Canada. Here’s some footage: One of the liveliest exchanges of Thursday evening came when Cruz was asked what he meant when he said Trump had “New York values”. Cruz replied that only New Yorkers don’t know what New York values are, to which Trump delivered a paean to the spirit of sympathy and warmth that animated the city in the wake of the September 11 attacks. The Daily News helpfully demonstrated that spirit with a cover illustration this morning: Fresh from sparring with Cruz in Charleston, Trump is speaking in Des Moines, the Iowa capital, at 10am. Last night the pair also fought about whose polling numbers in Iowa were more yuge. Polling averages have Trump up less than a point in the crucial caucus state. He’s going to try to build on that. We’ll have all this and more, right here. Read on!
In US sports, there's no comparison with Leicester's impossible dream To put 5,000-1 in perspective, consider the company it kept. On English oddsmaker William Hill’s lineup this past August, “Leicester City wins the Premier League” was deemed to fall at roughly the same statistical chances as: 1. Christmas being the warmest day of the year in the UK. 2. Kim Kardashian becoming US president in 2020. 3. The Loch Ness Monster found existing. 4. Elvis found still breathing. In short, it was patently absurd, fun money, a silly 10 quid for a laugh. Look who’s laughing now. Hickory High? The Charlestown Chiefs? The best American options dance in the land of fiction, the stuff of screenplays. For a nation that adores comeback tales, eats rags-to-riches tales like so many buffalo wings, a union that clutches the sporting underdog into its collective bosom as tightly as any other, US sport suffers for a real-life parallel to match Premier League champions Leicester City, the 5,000-1 shot that won it all. Buster Douglas: 42-1. The 2001 New England Patriots: 50-1. The 1987 Minnesota Twins: 500-1. Imagine the Double-A Drillers of Tulsa, Oklahoma — population as of 2014: 399,682; Leicester’s was 330,000 in 2011 — being promoted to the Major Leagues two springs ago, then somehow winning the 2015 World Series. It’s like that. Sort of. The Foxes prevailed over months, not weeks. In terms of shock, the “Miracle On Ice” US Olympic hockey team of 1980 perhaps comes the closest. And yet the odds of the Stars & Stripes winning gold among a stacked Lake Placid field that winter was 1,000-to-1, a Hail Mary five times more likely to land than the bomb the East Midlands just dropped on the rest of the footballing world. Also: Herb Brooks’ crew were seeded seventh out of the 12 nations in the pool; Leicester, having dismissed successful and media-wary manager Nigel Pearson over the summer and replaced him with the out-of-left-field Claudio Ranieri, who’d only recently been sacked from the Greek national team, were among the odds-on favorite for relegation, a seemingly sure-fire victim of the Prem’s burgeoning “second-season” syndrome. After all, it had taken a miracle – seven wins over their last nine contests in the spring of 2015, ‘The Greatest Escape’ — to stay up; and footballing miracles, like comets, come around only so often. Or, in this case, they clear a path for a bigger, more spectacular comet. With no salary cap and the specter of relegation looming over the terraces, English football is a more free market (and cut-throat) enterprise than its American professional peers, where parity, an almost sporting socialism, is celebrated – and in the case of the massive NFL, practically institutionalized. To wit: when asked for the difference between the Premiership and the Championship, the next tier down in English soccer, one manager opined – and we’re paraphrasing here – that in the Championship, 15 or so clubs go into the season thinking they’ve got a shot at winning a crown, where in the Premier League, 15 or so squads open the campaign scared to death that they’re doomed for the drop. Since the formation of the 20-team Premiership in 1992, the perception is one of a closed shop, with eight to 10 untouchables and another 30 or so clubs that appear interchangeable, depending on circumstance, investment, or downright luck. So the 1999 St Louis Rams, a 300-to-1 shot to win the Super Bowl, also come close and yet also don’t quite fit within the same frame. Like Leicester, the Rams came out of nowhere; 4-12 in 1998, 13-3 the next autumn. As with the Foxes, a likeable, press-savvy old coach with a reputation for being a bridesmaid but never a bride – Ranieri in the Midlands, Dick Vermeil in the Midwest – was at the controls. And both blue-and-gold underdog narratives are conjoined by their unlikely leads: the Rams were quarterbacked by Kurt Warner, a former Arena League standout and grocery stock boy whose name was familiar to a few inside his native Iowa and to almost no one outside of it. The Foxes have Riyad Mahrez, the Algerian winger who was signed from second-division French squad Le Havre in 2014 – the Foxes’ scout, Steve Walsh, was actually investigating another player at the time and came away more taken by the slender talisman – for a reported €750,000. Although Jamie Vardy, the 29-year-old striker with the lightning pace and the spiky mane, is the soul of the piece, the nearest pumpkin Foxes have to match Warner’s carriage. At the age of 16, Vardy was rejected by Sheffield Wednesday. At 18, he was playing in the non-league Stocksbridge Park Steels while working at a carbon-fiber splint factory. At 20, he was convicted of assault and was forced to play with an electronic tag around his ankle while observing a 6pm curfew. Last November, the Yorkshire native became the first to ever score in 11 straight Premier League fixtures, breaking the record of 10 held by venerated former Manchester United striker Ruud van Nistelrooy and the first in English football to find the net in 11 straight since 1950-51. The Foxes didn’t just beat the house. They beat the system, a system stacked like mighty skyscrapers against the little guy, the provincial clubs with provincial followings. According to Transfermarkt.com, Leicester’s roster is worth €127m million Euros, or not even a quarter of those fielded by towering Manchester City (€501.75) or Chelsea (€495.75). The Foxes thumped the former, 3-1, inside the giant confines of the Ethiad on February 6 and knocked off the latter at home, 2-1, on December 14, the final domino that toppled Blues boss Jose Mourinho from his London perch. In England – and, indeed, throughout the rest of the soccer-first planet – Leicester is “Hoosiers” personified, fiction playing out as non-fiction, forever more a rallying cry and inspiration to small teams and small budgets everywhere. To do a Leicester is more than punching above your weight. It’s landing blow after blow after blow, odds be damned, a sporting revolution, a triumph of dreams and desire over cynicism and cash. A better US parallel might be the 1968 New York Jets, whose victory in Super Bowl III affirmed the American Football League as an NFL peer. Or the 1969 “Miracle” New York Mets, who went from national punch line to the first expansion team to win a World Series. The Prem of now is not unlike major college football – major college football circa, say, 1986, before scholarship limits leveled the playing field, before the explosion of regional and national television packages, when only a bushel of powerful programs got rich, stayed rich, and held absolute monopolies in terms of hoarding talent and television appearances. Nebraska of old. Penn State of old. Oklahoma of old. Slips were remarkable – and remarkably rare. Ohio State or Michigan won or shared every Big Ten title from 1968-1982. The Cornhuskers or Sooners won or shared every Big Eight crown from 1962-1988. Since 1996, the Premier League crown had been passed around by just four clubs, the Switzers and Osbornes of the metric set: Manchester United, Manchester City, Chelsea and Arsenal. Until now. Now Cinderella dances in a bright blue gown. Elvis — as far we know — is still dead. And Leicester, the Kurt Warner of world sport, has never felt more blissfully, defiantly alive. And kicking.
Can the web save the press from oblivion? Last week a group of 17 American news organisations, including the New York Times and Washington Post, served a cease-and-desist legal order against a start-up news platform. The platform, called Brave, was launched in January by the creator of JavaScript, Brendan Eich. The Brave browser had been created in part in response to two recent trends in news delivery: the emergence of mobile platforms such as Apple News and Facebook’s Instant Articles, and the growing use of software that allows readers to block advertisements from news content. Eich’s model had ad-blocking software built in – but its new trick was to strip out ads sold with news content and replace them with ads of its own. This practice served, Eich argued, to enable quicker loading of news pages, and to “protect the data sovereignty and anonymity” of users. Unlike on Facebook, say, no data trail would be left by those who clicked on the items. Moreover, Brave would offer 55-70% of ad revenue directly back to the original publisher. The movers of the lawsuit, those original publishers, were not persuaded. The cease-and-desist notice sent to Eich branded his business model “blatantly illegal” and alleged that Brave was profiting from the “$5bn” a year the newspaper industry invested in original journalism. Their letter suggested Brave was simply stealing their articles and pasting them on its own website for profit. On one level that argument stood up to scrutiny. On another, however, Brave seemed a very curious target for the newspapers’ collective litigious outrage. Much of the news content appropriated by Brave is also shared and available on platforms such as Apple News and Instant Articles, where the share of revenue generated is a fraction of that offered by Eich’s start-up, a return that diminishes to next to nothing when allied with pervasive ad-blocking software. Eich’s response to the lawsuit reflected his surprise: “Brave is the solution,” he argued, “not the enemy.” He certainly seemed to have a point. Perhaps the lawsuit offered a vision of an industry finally at the end of its rope. That journalism faces an uncertain future is certainly not news. About 15 years ago, when digital media became a reality, news organisations tended to adopt one of two tried-and-trusted crisis-management strategies: ostrich or lemming. They either tried to ignore the new landscape, sticking stubbornly to what they knew, preparing stout paywall defences around their journalism, or they leapt headlong into the thin air of the digital future, trusting in the sustaining miracle of unknown new revenue streams before they hit the rocks. Among those news publishers to have survived the first couple of waves of that revolution – and plenty have not – neither strategy could be claimed a wholehearted success. As the past couple of weeks’ revelations from Panama have emphasised, the painstaking, mischief-making work of newsrooms is still our best hope for shedding light on the shadiest corners of the world, a role amplified by a global readership, big data and an increasingly interconnected media. But while the appetite for news and all the opinion and analysis that depend upon it has never been keener (or more necessary), the desire among readers to pay directly for that “content” online maintains a largely downward curve. Print circulation in Britain in the past decade has fallen predictably sharply across the board and revenue from the shift online has in most cases not begun to compensate. In America, journalist was named the fourth most endangered job in 2015, nestled between farmer and logging worker. And it’s not only the newspaper-based providers of news that have been feeling these ill winds. This week the FT reported that Buzzfeed was slashing its 2016 projections in half to $250m. Then Buzzfeed itself reported on the “digital media bloodbath” detailing job losses at Mashable, the International Business Times, Gigaom, Al-Jazeera America and the publishers of the , the Media Group. Though there are notable pockets of resistance, that broad contraction shows no sign of slowing. Some of the more messianic commentators on the digital future were prone, in the beginning, to make predictions about the great shift in reading and buying (or not buying) habits leading to a golden age of investigation and reporting. Two prophecies were particularly persistent: that a brave and brilliant new democracy of citizen journalists and bloggers would triumphantly evolve to replace the handful of “gatekeepers” of information; and only newspapers that embraced digital fully, that first jumped off the cliff, would be raised up for their faith in free content by the inevitable migration of advertising revenue from print to digital. For a fingers-crossed period both those predictions seemed just about plausible. The emergence of social media and the growing dominance of mobile phones as the primary conduit for news and information has sharply undermined both elements of that optimistic future, however. The ubiquitous quick fixes of social media rendered the kind of in-depth blogging that prophets of citizen journalism had in mind almost immediately obsolete, beyond diehards and obsessives: who wanted to write 1,400 unpaid and unread words when a sly 140 characters would do? And while the exponential growth of online readership attracted a rising proportion of advertising revenue, it did not begin to replace the hole in newspaper finances left by the collapse of print – and particularly classified – advertising. The emergence of ad-blocking software that strips online content of the lifeblood of its paid-for messages has abruptly stalled that growth. The software was estimated to have cost publishers $22bn worldwide in lost revenue last year. That beguiling mantra of “monetised content” – a phrase never knowingly underused in newspaper offices, seems an ever more mythical concept. In a recent lecture at Cambridge University, Emily Bell, formerly business editor of the and digital editor of the and now director of the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia Journalism School, New York, summed up this new world order in stark terms. The lecture was titled “The End of the News As We Know It: How Facebook Swallowed Journalism”. In it Bell argued that what has happened to journalism in the past five years through the impact of social media has been at least as radical an upheaval as what occurred in the previous 10, when the arrival of the web looked for all the world like a once-in-millennium, Gutenberg-scale change. The current sudden transition in how people access news on mobile alters all that has gone before. “The ‘four horsemen of the apocalypse’, Google, Facebook, Apple and Amazon,” Bell suggested, are presently “engaged in a prolonged and torrid war over whose technologies, platforms and even ideologies will win. It is as fierce as newspaper rivalries in the 60s and network television in the 70s, but with much more at stake.” In some respects in the past year, Bell argued, “legacy publishers” (dread phrase) have unexpectedly, and probably temporarily, “found themselves the beneficiaries of this conflict”. The emergence of third-party mobile platforms to deliver news, such as Discover on the photo-messaging app Snapchat, Instant Articles on Facebook, Apple News on iPhone and Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) on Google has seen the horsemen unexpectedly dismounting to parley with some of those publishers threatened by apocalypse. In different ways the new apps and platforms offer readers fast access to newspaper and magazine content fed directly to them. For traditional “content providers”, or journalists, such platforms increase readership (good news), but by cutting the direct link between publishers and readers, they also diminish the possibilities of revenue through advertising (bad news). While Google and Facebook continue to accumulate and monetise information about their users post-by-post and click-by-click, newspapers, having “outsourced” their content, get to know next to nothing useful (or saleable) about their readers. Further, at the same time as Apple announced Apple News, it also allowed ad-blocking software to be downloaded from its app store, at a stroke potentially closing down the possibilities of advertising to anyone reading news on an iPhone. Bell suggested this had left commercial news organisations with three choices. Rock, hard place and even harder place. One is to “push even more of your journalism straight to an app like Facebook and its Instant Articles, where ad-blocking is not impossible but harder”. A second is to accept that chasing online traffic through such platforms is “not only not helping you, but is actively damaging your journalism, so move to a measurement of engagement rather than scale”. The ’s membership scheme, or more traditional subscription models, would be examples of this. Or three, rely on revenue from ads that don’t look like ads – “native advertising” – which no longer recognise the once sacred and impermeable wall between editorial content and paid-for messaging – and which already fuels the growth of companies like BuzzFeed. The risk of trying to compete head-on with the ubiquitous social platforms by refusing to feed content looks reckless. But, as Bell observes, collaboration, the current general direction of travel, presents all kinds of different risks: “You lose control over your relationship with your readers and viewers, your revenue, and even the path your stories take to reach their destination.” Having failed or felt powerless to force any of these questions with the tech giants, it seems that last week American newspapers plucked up the courage to draw a belated line in the sand by suing Brave. That suit also raises another question. Where might news go next? The one option that Bell’s analysis does not countenance in this new world order is the wildly old-fashioned possibility of people paying directly for the things that they like reading. The idea of micro-payments for journalism has been mooted for as long as digital media has existed, and largely rejected as unworkable or unacceptable to the new generation of readers. In response to the emerging mobile landscape, however, a few innovators are exploring whether the concept can be revived. As a journalist, it can be tempting to see them as the cavalry. Alexander Klöpping set up Blendle in Holland in 2014. The site originally handpicked the best articles from a range of newspapers and magazines and sold them on an individual basis to those who had signed up to the site and set up an account. Payment, established by the original publisher of the content, ranged from about 5p to 20p for the longest features; 30% of the revenue went to Blendle, the rest to the publisher. Payment was automatically taken from the reader’s account, but if, having reached the end of a story, the reader felt short-changed an immediate refund could be claimed. On this basis Blendle has established 500,000 regular users in Holland and Germany. The beauty of the site is that rather than negotiating subscriptions and paywalls and memberships from a variety of favourite publications, readers get one-click access to a version of all of them tailored to their tastes. Two weeks ago, with backing from the New York Times and the German media giant Axel Springer, Klöpping launched his site in the United States, with content from a range of papers and magazines including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and many others. In the first 10 days 10,000 readers signed up to the beta version, beating expectations, Klöpping told me by phone last week. These are small numbers in the context of Facebook, for example, but they are a start. Klöpping’s “crazy idea” relies on a couple of hunches. The first is that “the platforms that the big tech companies have come up with … in the end the only measure of quality they have is the number of eyeballs, and I don’t think that is the measure of great journalism.” The other is the example of the music and film industries. More than half of Blendle’s users share Klöpping’s own profile: under 30, highly educated, the first generation to grow up with free content. “I never paid for music in my life before iTunes and Spotify came along,” Klöpping says. “I would just download everything from Napster like everyone else. The same was true with movies, but all of a sudden my friends are paying for Netflix and they are paying for Spotify.” They do so, he believes, not out of any pang of conscience, but because those sites elegantly created a one-stop destination. “Getting everything on one platform, plus making it easy to search, plus having your friends all there and seeing what they are listening to, plus having a little bit of your own space where you can create playlists. All of these things together are apparently enough to get people to spend 10 bucks a month.” What worked for music, he believes, can work for journalism. A few other start-ups share that faith. Among the most interesting is a prototype website and app called Lumi news. It has been created by Martin Stiksel and Felix Miller, based in east London, who made a small fortune as creators of the music recommendation site Last.fm and are now turning their algorithms towards news. Their secret sauce, Miller suggests, is that they have “been in this space for 15 years now. We think we know how machine learning can translate into entertainment and information.” Their particular watchword is personalisation. “We really excel in utilising the data store that the user has lying around like garbage,” Miller says. Having used their website for a couple of days, it seems they might be on to something. Certainly the automatic tailoring of content to my interests seems quite precise. “What we are doing is using the same kind of technology that advertisers use, but employing it for content discovery rather than trying to sell you something,” Stiksel says. They believe that the way to compete with the tech giants is for providers to “customise, customise, customise”. They seem slightly surprised that newspaper sites and apps have never pursued this strategy with any real intent. The Lumi duo won’t yet disclose how they plan to make money from their efforts, though they find the Blendle model fascinating. “We are in the game of going with what works,” they say (along with everyone else). What works on Blendle itself is somewhat counter-intuitive. Klöpping finds that in our attention-deficit times there is a growing market for reading things at length. “The stories that work well on Blendle are hardly ever the ones that crop up on the most-read lists of newspapers. It is opinion pieces that have special insight, great writing, big interviews, profiles, deeply researched reporting.” It is Klöpping’s hope that if and when people start to pay for content in significant numbers it will show that it is quality journalism that actually makes the most money. “It can be a way to move away from this terrible yearning for clicks and the simplification of content,” he says. “You look at all the articles written each day [and] so much of it is crap, but there are a few articles each day that a journalist or an editor is really proud of. Those work well on our site.” What proportion of people ask for their money back? I ask, inevitably. “About 10%. When a new user signs up it is higher. But after we get to understand a bit more what they want, it is less.” The refund button asks users to give a reason for their claim. Chief among them is this one: “the article didn’t live up to or agree with the headline.” Some things never change.
Best of frenemies: why do men make movies about women in meltdown? Men in movies aren’t friends; they’re buddies. They’re chalk-and-cheese odd couples. They’re partners in crime. They’re Holmes and Watson, Butch and Sundance, Bill and Ted, Riggs and Murtaugh, Maverick and Iceman. Either that or they’re members of a team, bound together by a common purpose: beating the enemy, winning the match, robbing the bank. If they have differences, they settle them with a punch-up and move on. If you’re looking for a more nuanced movie take on platonic male relationships, good luck. The closest you’ll get is a comedy bromance such as The Hangover, which makes sure to compensate with an excess of “We’re not gay” jokes. It’s just not manly to take too close an interest in such matters, is it? Or could it be that male friendships really aren’t that complicated? They are certainly not as complicated as women’s. In contrast to this arid movie manscape, there exists a proud tradition of films dealing with intense, complex, female relationships. These are not feminised buddy movies in the Thelma and Louise vein; more the opposite. These are stories of female friendships marked by conflict, hysteria, paranoia, loss of contact with reality, loss or merging of identity, psychological meltdown. You could call them “frenemyship” movies. It is a genre that has produced some of the most critically acclaimed films in the canon, when you think of works by Woody Allen, Ingmar Bergman, Roman Polanski and Robert Altman. In recent times alone you could include David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive, Peter Strickland’s The Duke of Burgundy, Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan and Oliver Assayas’s Clouds Of Sils Maria. Joining them now is Queen of Earth, written and directed by rising US film-maker Alex Ross Perry. It is a searing, intense almost-suspense thriller tightly focused on two women. The movie opens with a closeup of Elisabeth Moss’s face, streaked with mascara and tears, midway through a bitter breakup with her cheating boyfriend. Moss’s character, Catherine, is also reeling from the death of her father, an overbearing artist whose depression led him to suicide. It doesn’t get much happier from there on in. Catherine is invited to the lakeside summer house of her old friend Virginia, played by Katherine Waterston, to recuperate. They are two women who have yet to realise they are no longer friends at all. Virginia is cool to the point of cruel, almost encouraging of Catherine’s mania as they lock into a cycle of jealousy, betrayal and emotional scab-picking that spirals towards outright psychological horror. “For some viewers, the acidity level of Perry’s movie will be too high to stomach,” wrote Anthony Lane in the New Yorker. “For others – anyone who thinks that there are too many warm hugs in Strindberg, for example – Queen of Earth awaits.” “One big thing we were always talking about and we were always aware of was that this was a movie being made very adamantly ‘in the tradition of’ …” says Perry. The immediate precedent that springs to mind is Ingmar Bergman’s 1966 classic Persona, which uses a similarly minimal setup of two women in a secluded location. Liv Ullmann plays an actor who has inexplicably stopped speaking; Bibi Andersson is her nurse, who fills the silence with talk that becomes personal, confessional, confrontational, accusatory. Bergman blurs boundaries between the women’s identities, between dream and reality, past and present, inner and outer worlds. And again, the dynamic heads towards feverish mania, taking the audience, and even the film itself, with it; in one memorable scene the image literally burns out to white, as if the film strip has caught in the projector gate and melted. Perry hasn’t watched Persona since he was in college, he says, but he avoided the obvious reference points. Instead he referred to Bergman’s later Face to Face (in which Ullmann plays a psychologist having a breakdown). He similarly avoided Robert Altman’s 3 Women, another landmark of the genre, in favour of his earlier, less accomplished, Images. Other reference points for Queen of Earth would be Roman Polanski’s Repulsion – made the year before Persona - in which Catherine Deneuve is dragged into her own personal hell (largely by men this time), and Perry also nods to Interiors, Woody Allen’s followup to Annie Hall, which ditched the urban wit in favour of restrained, serious domestic drama centred on three sisters. Interiors is essentially Allen’s own nod to Bergman. “Everything from every one of these movies could somehow belong in any of them,” says Perry. “A Polanski-type freakout, where it’s all happening in the character’s head, could happen in a Fassbinder movie.” Perry acknowledges that this type of story only works with women: “In movies where a man has this kind of breakdown, somebody gets murdered. In movies where a woman has this kind of breakdown, the pain goes inward, rather than outward. And that is much more exciting.” You will not have to wait long for the next feminine freakout. This week sees the UK release of Nicolas Winding Refn’s The Neon Demon. Stylistically and geographically, its Los Angeles fashion world is poles apart from Queen of Earth - somebody does get murdered. But beneath the movie’s pristine pop-culture polish and fastidious detachment, it bears many of the hallmarks of the genre. Elle Fanning’s ingenue model is taken in by a veritable coven of sculpted, coutured frenemies, whose apparently benign intentions conceal a litany of womanly sins: they are catty, duplicitous, vacuous, narcissistic, predatory. They’re evil lesbians and worse. Fanning’s grounded innocence soon evaporates in this hallucinatory hall of mirrors, though Refn (working with two female screenwriters) pushes beyond personal mania and through into depraved occult horror, somewhere between Dario Argento, Guy Bourdin and Russ Meyer. “I find anything with women to be more interesting,” Refn told an interviewer recently. “There is so much more to work with when it comes to women as opposed to men.” But opinions are already split on Refn’s politics. “Is The Neon Demon gruesome misogyny or brilliant feminist commentary? Can it be both?” asked Salon’s Andrew O’Hehir. Expect plenty more debate like this. Refn has stated he considers the movie “beyond feminist, because it’s not, quote unquote, political”. The obvious reason male film-makers have been drawn towards female characters is that until fairly recently, women were not permitted to make their own movies. They were permitted to watch them, though. And unsurprisingly women were not unanimously taken with the male-dominated westerns, crime thrillers and war films on offer during cinema’s 1930s-50s golden age. That gave rise to the “woman’s picture”, made specifically for women, and responsible for many of the stars of the era: Bette Davis, John Crawford, Barbara Stanywck. They were still overwhelmingly made by men – George Cukor, Douglas Sirk, Max Ophüls – and they regularly hinged on madness, hysteria, angst, domestic confinement and other forms of mental torment that never seemed to trouble the likes of Clark Gable or Humphrey Bogart. You could extend that line from women’s pictures, and Sirk in particular, to the 1970s and 80s generation of gay auteurs such as Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Pedro Almodóvar, François Ozon and Todd Haynes, whose work regularly examines women’s inner lives, often in the register of camp melodrama (imagine a movie called Men On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown). Yet another of Perry’s inspirations for Queen of Earth, he says, was a Fassbinder double bill he attended, of The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (in which a lesbian Berlin fashion designer’s meltdown is fuelled by alcohol and sexual jealousy) and Martha (an almost comically twisted study of domestic torment). Fassbinder’s 1974 classic Ali: Fear Eats the Soul was a reinterpretation of Sirk’s All That Heaven Allows, as was Haynes’s Far From Heaven. Meanwhile, Ozon mined Sirk’s Imitation Of Life for 8 Women, a camp collision of catty grandes dames such as Catherine Deneuve and Fanny Ardant. In Ozon’s Swimming Pool, it is writer Charlotte Rampling and her younger, more nubile house guest Ludivine Sagnier whose frenemyship escalates fatally, although as usual, fantasy and reality are hard to separate. Do these male-made films accurately reflect women’s realities? And if so, why do so many of them revel in pitting women against each other and driving them crazy? Intentionally or otherwise, these films suggest that bitchiness, hysteria, mania, and emotional complexity is all “women’s stuff”. They cordon off such emotions on the “female” side of the gender divide. It’s not dissimilar to the function slasher movies serve for teenage boys: it’s not the gore and violence that really appeals to them, it’s identification with the screaming female victims, the “final girls”. Perhaps the men who make these movies and the men who watch them (myself included) gain some cathartic - possibly even sadistic - satisfaction from, to put it bluntly, watching women lose their shit. “I don’t think there are any women in the majority of these films, just fantasies of women,” says Sophie Mayer, author of Political Animals: The New Feminist Cinema, who describes this as her “least favourite movie genre after torture porn”. Mayer sees depictions of women in the Bergman, Lynch, Strickland school (she has not seen Queen of Earth) more as reflections of their makers’ neuroses: “They feed off an obsession with the idea that women are irrational and uncanny, and they’re saturated by a fear of the mother and of female genitals – and of what women might get up to together, sexually and politically. If you have two women on screen, they either drive each other insane or become substitutes for each other. To preserve patriarchy, these films always have to show that women together will destroy one another.” There is much for feminist film critics to process here. Bergman’s Persona has been admiringly analysed by the likes of Susan Sontag and Camille Paglia. In her landmark book From Reverence to Rape, Molly Haskell lamented the 1970s movie landscape in comparison with women’s pictures of the 1940s. “Here we are today, with an unparalleled freedom of expression, and a record number of women performing … and we are insulted with the worst - the most abused, neglected and dehumanised - screen heroines in film history.” Critic Miriam Bale has isolated what she calls the “persona swap” subgenre, where two female characters merge identity – a key theme in the likes of Persona, 3 Women, Mulholland Drive. She’s not entirely uncritical: “These films are the favourites of so many women because they describe the complexities and conflicts of female friendship accurately, the unique joys and also darker aspects that often remain hidden or at least unacknowledged in real-life friendships,” she writes. Selina Robertson, of the feminist film network Club Des Femmes, is also ambivalent. The level of fetishisation and objectification in movies such as The Duke of Burgundy left her cold, she says, “but having said that, the characters are very interesting to watch”. Robertson would rather go and watch a film by Fassbinder or Bergman or, indeed, Perry, than any number of current female-oriented films: “There’s a side of those film-makers that they love women - a lot of film-makers don’t. They’re in love with women, they’re fascinated by women, they want to mine their inner lives.” There is another component to this equation: the actors. To attribute these films solely to their male creators would be to discount some of the most magnificent performances in cinema, and Elisabeth Moss’s measured-yet-reckless turn in Queen of Earth can sit proudly among them. “I knew I had an ace up my sleeve in the form of Elizabeth,” says Perry. Having worked with Moss before, he built potential for his actors’ collaboration into his screenplay, he says. “I made sure that the whole script was elastic enough that it could accommodate the input and suggestions and guiding hands of the performers. If you give actors an inch, they’ll bring you a mile.” Moss’s very participation was also an endorsement, he says. “I know she wouldn’t be playing that part if it wasn’t a great, strong female character, so the fact that she’s even in the movie means the script’s in good shape.” As gender equality in film-making improves, we are seeing more female film-makers’ perspectives, at last – on their own relationships, but also on those of men. Films such as Kelly Reichardt’s Old Joy or Claire Denis’s Beau Travail or Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker have found angles on masculinity that men themselves seem to have missed. It can work both ways. The value of the outsider’s eye cannot be discounted, and should not be excluded. “Film is the best way to get into the inner lives of people who are different from you,” says Perry, “to enrich your understanding of something that is outside your own worldview. That’s why we watch movies.” This article was amended on 8 July 2016. An editing error led to the original version mis-titling Molly Haskell’s book From Reverence to Rape as From Rape to Reverence. This has been corrected.
Metallica apologise for cease and desist letter sent to tribute act Metallica have distanced themselves from a cease and desist letter sent on their behalf to a Metallica cover band, attributing it instead to an “overzealous attorney”. “We hear that a Canadian Metallica tribute band is a little upset with us and with a little digging, figured out why,” the band told Rolling Stone. “It turns out that a certain letter was delivered to the band Sandman that neither we nor our management were aware of until it surfaced online. Lucky for us, the band was kind enough to post it for us to see, and it turns out that we have a very overzealous attorney who sent this letter without our knowledge.” A standard bar gig in London, Ontario took an unexpected turn for local band Sandman, who market themselves as “Canada’s No 1 tribute to Metallica”. Upon arrival at the gig venue on 10 January, the cover band received a 41-page cease and desist letter alleging that the tribute band’s logo infringed Metallica’s trademark. “Cease and desist Metallica lawyers [were] waiting for me last night when I got to the bar,” Sandman member Rickferd Van Dyk wrote on his Facebook page. The letter requested that Sandman “stop using the name Metallica, or any of Metallica’s logos on or to identify or promote live musical performances through your Facebook and YouTube pages”. The letter continued: “While Metallica appreciates your enthusiasm and support for Metallica’s music, your use of modified versions of the Metallica trademark and the stylised version thereof is likely to cause the public to believe that Metallica has approved, licensed or authorised this use of their name and trademark Metallica, when in fact they have not done so.” Metallica, it transpired, were not aware of the letter until it circulated online, and subsequently offered Sandman their full support. Sandman band member Joe Di Taranto told Rolling Stone that Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich had spoken to him on Wednesday, giving Sandman his “full blessing” to continue paying tribute to the band. Sandman were founded in 1994, according to Rolling Stone, and had been using their logo – a reworking of Metallica’s St Anger-era band logo – for more than 10 years. The cease and desist letter contained several pages of documents chronicling the various trademarks and trademarked logos registered by Metallica, dating back to 1994. “Sandman should file the letter in the trash,” Metallica told Rolling Stone. “Keep doing what you’re doing ... we totally support you! And in the meantime, our attorney can be found at San Francisco International airport catching a flight to go permanently ice fishing in Alaska.”
In Dubious Battle review: James Franco hobbled by John Steinbeck There’s something worryingly stolid and self-congratulatory about this new movie directed by James Franco: a drama about a (fictional) Californian apple-pickers’ strike in the Depression-hit US, adapted by Franco’s longtime screenwriting partner Matt Rager from the 1936 novel by John Steinbeck. High-mindedness, ambition and seriousness are things to cherish, and I admired a good deal in Franco’s recent Faulkner adaptation, As I Lay Dying. But this is ultimately just so heavy-footed and stodgy, with each performance punched out on a single, earnest, unvarying note. The dialogue lands with a heavy thud, and the rhetoric is often a matter of shouting at deafening volume “They’re treatin’ us like pigs, the sonsabitches, the pigs are crackin’ our heads with clubs, the sonsabitches and we’re gonna fight back! Aren’t we? Aren’t we? Yeah! Sonsobitches! YEAH!” The central problem is that Franco casts himself in the lead role of Mac, the rangy, committed, Communist party agitator who proposes to infiltrate the itinerant fruit-workers who are being exploited picking apples in the burning sun for just a dollar a day: Mac is a tough guy, a realist and an unsentimentalist who knows that strikes are a tough and violent business, with no room for wimps. His performance is entirely indulgent, without ordinary human nuance: it is frankly just conceited and dull. Mac takes along with him a new recruit, Jim (Nat Wolff) who — as in a war movie — is the statutory wet-behind-the-ears newbie whose growing-up process is supposed to underpin the narrative. Mac and Jim mingle among the pickers, stir up discontent, and persuade a particularly mutinous worker London (Vincent D’Onofrio) to be the notional leader; a brutal confrontation ensues with the boss, Mr Bolton (Robert Duvall). There is a dismally unconvincing and uninteresting romantic subplot concerning a female worker, Lisa (Selena Gomez). Here is a film with its heart in the right place, but everything else is out of whack. The dramatic pace flatlines to a plodding trudge. The performances are cardboard. Important setpieces, such as the breaking of a barricade which the bosses were using to stop food getting through to the strikers, are simply absurd in their absence of plausible consequence. (They broke through the barrier. For five minutes. Were the guys with the food there to rush it through? Couldn’t the bad guys regroup pretty quickly?) Franco deserves points for attempting something with idealism. But the execution falls flat.
UK firms expect Brexit vote to weaken investment and hiring, Bank finds Britain’s businesses expect the vote for Brexit to lead to weaker investment, hiring and turnover over the coming year, according to a nationwide study by the Bank of England. The monthly health check by Threadneedle Street’s regional agents found that construction and business services were the two gloomiest sectors during the month that followed the June referendum. The one part of the economy that envisaged easier trading conditions was manufacturing, where exports will be made cheaper by the fall in the value of the pound. The agents – considered to be the eyes and ears of the Bank – conducted interviews with 270 businesses employing 1.2 million people. “Consistent with the survey results, agents’ scores for companies’ investment and employment intentions have weakened in absolute terms since the referendum result”, the report said. “Those scores point to broadly unchanged levels of staff numbers and capital spending over the next six and 12 months respectively.” The survey also found that consumer spending growth had slowed, but said this had partly been the result of July’s wet weather. Agents’ reports are studied carefully by the Bank’s nine-strong monetary policy committee when they are making their decisions. The downbeat tone of the latest survey would have been available to the MPC before it announced last week’s package of stimulus measures, including a cut in interest rates to 0.25% and a resumption of quantitative easing. James Knightley, economist at ING, said the survey was consistent with the general consensus expectation among economists that the UK would experience a mild recession over the next six to 12 months. “We therefore expect Bank rate to be cut again in November to 0.1% with QE eventually upped to half a trillion pounds despite the BoE’s problems in purchasing bonds yesterday. “We then expect Chancellor Phillip Hammond to carry through with his suggestion resetting fiscal policy at the autumn budget statement, likely implementing an acceleration in infrastructure investment financed by borrowing to try and improve the productive potential of the UK economy.”
GCHQ whistleblower movie Official Secrets recruits Harrison Ford and Anthony Hopkins Harrison Ford and Anthony Hopkins have joined the cast of Official Secrets, the long-mooted film about the ’s reporting of the GCHQ bugging scandal in 2003, it has been announced. In the latest film to cover the activities of whistleblowers and the journalists who report their revelations, Official Secrets will tell the story of Katharine Gun, an officer at the Cheltenham-based government eavesdropping agency. She leaked an email that contained a request by America’s NSA to illegally bug the United Nations offices of six key countries in the run-up to the UN’s vote on whether to authorise the Iraq war. Gun’s revelations were reported in the (the ’s sister Sunday newspaper) by journalists Martin Bright and Ed Vulliamy, and Gun was arrested and charged with breaking the Official Secrets Act. However, her case was dropped in 2004 after no evidence was offered by the prosecution. According to the Hollywood Reporter, Hopkins will play a retired general and Ford a veteran CIA agent. The have been cast alongside The Hunger Games’s Natalie Dormer, who will play Gun, and Paul Bettany as Bright. Martin Freeman plays the ’s foreign affairs editor – whose character name, Peter Edwards, appears to be a composite of Vulliamy and real-life editor Peter Beaumont, who is now the ’s Jerusalem correspondent. Official Secrets will be directed by Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom’s Justin Chadwick, and shooting is due to start in May.
Five of the best… new gigs 1: Iggy Pop This has been a grizzly year for rock legends, but Iggy Pop – notoriously one of our most self-destructive – is not just surviving, he’s thriving. Edging towards his 70th birthday, Pop’s latest project is Post Pop Depression, an album he made with fellow outlaw Josh Homme that harks back to his 1970s Berlin period. Royal Albert Hall, SW7, Fri 2: Melanie Martinez She may have found fame through the US version of The Voice, but Melanie Martinez is not your common or garden talent show contestant. Her debut album, Cry Baby, feeds chirpy pop through electronic and R&B filters and deals with drugs and sexual abuse. Hiding darkness behind a shiny exterior is her thing so don’t be fooled by the fact she dresses like a sad little doll. O2 Forum Kentish Town, NW5, Sat 3: Adam Green Adam Green’s latest project is an adaptation of Aladdin, in which he portrays the titular character – who starts 3D-printing ecstasy tablets. In case that wasn’t bizarre enough, it also stars his friend Macaulay Culkin. There’ll be an album released alongside it, and these UK dates are billed as his “full band concert” tour; expect it to be, umm, different. Electric Ballroom, NW1, Thu; touring to 30 Jun 4: Manic Street Preachers In 1998, Manic Street Preachers released a song called SYMM. It stood for South Yorkshire Mass Murderer and attacked the smearing of football fans by police chiefs following the Hillsborough tragedy. Last week, an inquest jury found that the 96 fans who died during the incident were unlawfully killed, so expect the fiercely political band’s Liverpool concert to be a poignant affair. Echo Arena & Conference Centre, Liverpool, Fri; touring to 28 May 5: Cash + David Cash + David are two people called neither Cash nor David; they’re actually Liz Lawrence and Tim Ross but probably decided Lawrence + Ross sounded too much like a legal firm. We can’t comment on their ability to pursue a civil lawsuit through the high court, but we can assure you that they make gorgeous, haunting pop music. The Pickle Factory, E2, Wed
UK needs a more joined-up approach to broadband provision Last week’s government announcement of investment into superfast broadband under the Broadband Delivery UK programme (theguardian.com, 22 December) is welcome news for the UK economy, as there is plenty of evidence to suggest that lack of broadband coverage is preventing many businesses from operating to their full potential, particularly in rural areas. But beyond the investment headlines, we also need to see evidence of a joined-up approach to finding a long-term solution to providing universal superfast broadband, which, as well as improving 4G and 5G, will mean converging fibre broadband and local wireless infrastructure, rather than still relying in many areas on the old copper systems we have today. Ultimately, the government should invest in a gold-standard solution using fibre and wireless technology to create a future-proof broadband infrastructure that will enable the UK to become a global leader in communications networks. Professor Will Stewart Vice-president, Institution of Engineering and Technology
Tech startups hoping to become household names in 2016 What will be the next household-name app-based service like Uber? Where are the next “unicorns” – startup businesses which rapidly rise to a $1bn valuation? The biggest successes of the last few years have all been about software. “There’s an app for that” has gone from being an Apple slogan to a simple truism. But the low-hanging fruit has been picked, and what’s left is much tougher to deliver. It may be expensive to build, pose a tricky technical problem, or simply have some strong incumbents fighting back. There are revolutions ahead: virtual reality, artificial intelligence, autonomous vehicles and wearable technology are all in their early days. None are yet polished enough to really seize the imagination of users – or even to have been released. Any one of them could prove to be as revolutionary as the smartphone was, opening up new avenues of innovation and, in turn, bringing the startup ecosystem back to where it was in 2010. Just not quite yet. There are still some companies, however, that are making waves right now. They include: TRANSFERWISE Financial technology, or “fintech”, is one of Britain’s best hopes for a worldwide hit, and TransferWise is one of Britain’s best fintech companies. Founded in 2010 by entrepreneurs Taavet Hinrikus (the first employee of Skype) and financial consultant Kristo Käärmann, it aims to undercut the foreign exchange market with an innovative peer-to-peer model. Instead of buying and selling currency directly, it aims to match pairs of sellers who each want the other’s currency, transferring the money directly and skipping brokers’ fees. The company’s valuation of just under $1bn places it firmly in the big league – even if its actual revenue is reportedly just £6.5m. DELIVEROO A lot of British success stories exist in local industries where international competition is more difficult – like food delivery and real estate listings. Of course, that doesn’t mean there isn’t local competition, and the home delivery market is one of the most cluttered of them all: Hungryhouse, Just Eat and DineIn are all doing battle to bring your dinner to your door. But there’s a wide variety of approaches, from JustEat, which focuses on providing a simple web-based order and payment portal for traditional takeaway restaurants, through to Deliveroo, which uses its own staff to transport food from restaurants that otherwise wouldn’t offer to deliver. Deliveroo was founded by William Shu, an investment banker, and Greg Orlowski, a developer, and raised £127m development cash in three funding rounds over the course of last year. MADE.COM The online designer furniture retailer is one of a few trying to become the Asos of furniture. Asos proved that a good shopping experience, plus big savings over high street prices, could successfully sell clothes, and Made.com is attempting to do the same for tables and chairs. It handpicks furniture designers and passes orders from customers on in bulk. The company was founded in 2009 by serial entrepreneur Ning Li, who had previously started flash sale business MyFab, and Lastminute.com’s co-founder Brent Hoberman. It is regularly linked with a plans for a stock exchange float that could value it at £100m. FARFETCH FarFetch specialises in designer clothing and grew out of an offer by founder José Neves to provide a free website for small boutiques to sell online, in exchange for the same products being available on FarFetch’s own platform. That gave it the stock it needed to become a destination in its own right. Now sales on the platform have become a lifeline for many smaller boutiques. It raised £59m in March 2015 – taking its valuation to $1bn and making it one of Britain’s newest “unicorns”. CITYMAPPER App development is no longer seen as the road to riches, mainly because few people are willing to pay more than a couple of pounds for a smartphone app, users expect free updates for life and there’s always the risk that one of the bigger tech companies will barge in and do it for free. But CityMapper, founded by Londoner Azmat Yusuf in 2010, is so good at doing what it does – help users navigate the public transit networks in almost 30 cities, from London to Tokyo – that it’s survived head-to-head competition with Apple and Google. NUZZEL “Discovery” is the holy grail of social media: find the way to put the best content in front of users when they log in, and you can guarantee they’ll come back for more. But the best experience hasn’t come from Facebook’s news feed, or Twitter’s disastrous “Discover” feature. Instead, it’s Nuzzel, a small startup from the creator of one of the first social networks, Friendster. It scans your Twitter and Facebook feeds, finds the best things shared among your network, and gives them to you in a handy digest. That’s something that a lot of apps have promised, but few have pulled off so elegantly. The biggest question about the service is: why hasn’t Twitter bought it? JAUNT VR Five years from now, we may be looking back on 2016 as the year virtual reality changed the world in the same way mobile changed the world in 2008. Until the three major platforms launch this year (from Facebook, Sony, and Taiwanese manufacturer HTC), it’s anyone’s guess as to how they will develop. Gaming will be the immediate focus, but Jaunt is hoping to dominate non-gaming activities. A cinematic VR company, it builds hardware and software for directors to shoot immersive movies, which can be played at home on consumer headsets. The prospect of VR storytelling has split the creative community, Pixar co-founder Ed Catmull being one of the loudest voices against the technology. But if it takes off Jaunt, with an executive team drawn from Flipboard and Lucasfilm, hopes to provide the tools required.
Bed bugs have developed a resistance to the most widely used insecticide Bed bugs have developed a resistance to neonicotinoids, a group of the most widely used insecticides, according to a new study published in the Journal of Medical Entomology. Products developed over the past few years to control bed bugs combine neonicotinoids, or neonics, with pyrethroids, another class of insecticide. The newly found resistance to neonics has real implications for people who need to control the pest, which are most often found in human dwellings such as apartments or condominiums, single-family homes and hotels or motels, according to the 2015 Bugs Without Borders Survey. Neonics are the most commonly used insecticide to fight the already elusive and resilient bed bugs, and if they no longer work, bed bugs will continue to thrive despite exterminators’ efforts. Study authors Alvaro Romero, from New Mexico State University, and Troy Anderson, from Virginia Tech, discovered the resistance by collecting bed bugs from human dwellings in Cincinnati and Michigan and exposing them to four different neonics: acetamiprid, dinotefuran, imidacloprid and thiamethoxam. Romero and Anderson applied the same neonics to a bed bug colony kept by entomologist Harold Harlan for more than 30 years without exposure to insecticide, and to a pyrethroid-resistant population from Jersey City, New Jersey, that had not been exposed to neonics since 2008. Harlan’s bed bugs died after exposure to small amounts of neonics. The Jersey City bed bugs died when exposed to imidacloprid and thiamethoxam but resisted the other two neonics. According to Romero and Anderson, the neonic resistance in the Jersey City bed bugs could be credited to pre-existing resistance mechanisms. Bed bugs produce “detoxifying enzymes” to counter exposure to insecticides, and the researchers found that the Jersey City bed bugs had higher levels of the enzymes than did the Harlan bed bugs. “Elevated levels of detoxifying enzymes induced by other classes of insecticides might affect the performance of newer insecticides,” Romero said. The bed bugs collected from Cincinnati and Michigan proved to be tougher, with a much higher resistance to neonics than the Harlan and Jersey City bed bugs. Compared with Harlan’s bed bugs, the Michigan creatures were 462 times more resistant to imidacloprid, 198 times more resistant to dinotefuran, 546 times more resistant to thiamethoxam and 33,333 times more resistant to acetamiprid. Similarly, the Cincinnati bed bugs were 163 times more resistant to imidacloprid, 358 times more resistant to dinotefuran, 226 times more resistant to thiamethoxam and 33,333 times more resistant to acetamiprid. Romero said insecticide companies should be “vigilant for hints of declining performance of products that contain neonicotinoids”. “For example, bed bugs persisting on previously treated surfaces might be an indication of resistance,” he said. “In these cases, laboratory confirmation of resistance is advised, and if resistance is detected, products with different modes of action need to be considered, along with the use of non-chemical methods.”
Fanny Burney wrote one of the most courageous pieces of work I’ve ever encountered As presenter of Woman’s Hour I’m no stranger to the history of women who, over the centuries, have risen above the prejudice imposed on their gender, and whose lives began to be uncovered in the latter part of the 20th century as women’s studies became an acceptable subject for academic research. But nowhere could I find a book which gathered together a group of those who had most excited my interest and admiration. Then came reports in November 2015 that it was proposed to cut feminism from the politics A-level syllabus. The suffragette movement was to be squeezed into a section on “pressure groups” and only one political thinker, Mary Wollstonecraft, was to be mentioned by name. My son had come home some years earlier with his text book for 20th-century British history and recognised (thank goodness) that something was missing. “Mum,” he said, “I don’t think this is right. I can’t find any women in this book except half a page on the suffragettes.” That’s my boy! Then I came across Thomas Carlyle’s “The history of the world is but the biography of great men”, written in 1840, and, in Steve Biddulph’s Raising Boys (1997), “It’s important to remember that men built the planes, fought the wars, laid the railroad tracks, invented the cars, built the hospitals, invented the medicines and sailed the ships that made it all happen.” It became vital to bring together a group of female warriors, poets, playwrights, painters, composers, campaigners, scientists, engineers, doctors and politicians for the benefit of all those young people who need to know that the history of Britain is the biography of great men and women. Fanny Burney is one such woman. Though certainly not the most accomplished novelist in the canon of English literature, she was successful in her day, often writing in her fiction about the difficulties faced by women in getting an education, taking control of their own lives and surviving the social whirl of the nouveau riche. Virginia Woolf called her “the mother of English fiction”. Her diaries are phenomenal, giving us the most gossipy and often scandalous details of life in literary and intellectual London in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. She was at the centre of a circle that included Dr Johnson and his biographer, James Boswell. Her diaries give a far more intimate portrait of Dr Johnson than do those of the man she referred to rather scathingly as Bozzy. She also wrote one of the most courageous pieces of work I’ve ever encountered. I read it around the time I, like so many 21 century women, was diagnosed with breast cancer. Burney’s is the first example I’ve come across of a woman writing about so intimate an event as a diagnosis of breast cancer and a mastectomy. Even today, when I wrote about my experience, it was regarded as a brave thing to do, though we no longer have any squeamish concerns about speaking the words “breast” and “cancer” out loud. It was generally deemed to be helpful, making it clear that there’s no shame attached to the diagnosis and it can be endured and survived. Burney was there first. She was diagnosed in Paris in 1810, at the age of 58, when surgery was in its infancy and there was no effective anaesthetic. Her story was written to her sister, Esther, and was headed “Account from Paris of a terrible Operation – 1812”. First she explains that in August of 1810 she had a pain and a heaviness in her breast. She was referred to a surgeon and, at first, dismissed the concerns of her family and friends. Her letter is a cautionary tale. “I relate this false confidence, now, as a warning to my dear Esther, my sisters and nieces, should any similar sensations excite similar alarm.” She goes on to describe every horrific detail of what she endured: “Monsieur Dubois placed me on the Mattrass, and spread a cambric handkerchief upon my face. It was transparent however, and I saw through it that the Bedstead was instantly surrounded by the seven men and my nurse. I refused to be held; but when, bright through the cambric, I saw the glitter of polished steel – I closed my eyes.” For now I’ll spare you the remaining horrors and reassure you that the tale has a happy ending. Burney lived for another 29 years after her mastectomy, to the age of almost 88. I love Burney’s writing, especially her diaries. But most of all I love her for making us aware that, though the diagnosis is awful and the surgery, even with a full anaesthetic, isn’t pleasant, breast cancer can be survived – and a long and productive life lived after it. For this, she deserves her place among the greatest women. • A History of Britain in 21 Women by Jenni Murray is published by Oneworld. To order a copy for £13.93 (RRP £16.99) go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of £1.99.
Cancer screening benefits are overstated, experts claim The benefits of cancer screening have been overstated and the practice may not even save lives, experts in the US and Germany have claimed. While there may be fewer deaths from the specific cancer for which screening takes place, little account is taken of the harm some patients suffer psychologically and medically because of overdiagnosis and complications from treatment, an article and editorial in the BMJ medical journal suggest. An analysis by Vinay Prasad at Oregon Health and Science University, Portland, and colleagues suggests screening tests may be giving “false positive” results (suggesting abnormalities that turn out not to be there) and finding harmless cancers that might never have caused symptoms. When it comes to prostate cancer screening, generally accepted now as unreliable, men diagnosed with the diseases are more likely to have a heart attack, take their own lives in the year after diagnosis or die of complications from treatment, they say. This is by no means the first challenge to what authors see as weaknesses in “underpowered” research programmes used to justify screening – last summer epidemiologists suggested the benefits of breast cancer checks had been exaggerated. But enthusiasts insist UK programmes to spot breast, bowel and cervical cancers have cut the number of deaths. Prasad and his colleagues say healthcare providers must be frank about the limitations of screening – “the harms of screening are certain, but the benefits in overall mortality are not”. They add: “Declining screening may be a reasonable and prudent choice for many people.” Gerd Gigerenzer of the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, said in the accompanying editorial: “Rather than pouring resources into ‘megatrials’ with a small chance of detecting a minimal overall mortality reduction, at the additional cost of harming large numbers of patients, we should invest in transparent information in the first place. “It is time to change communication about cancer screening from dodgy persuasion into something straightforward.” Dr Anne Mackie, director of screening at Public Health England, which manages the NHS programmes, said: “Cancer screening and follow-up treatment does prevent or can at least delay some people dying from cancer. “There is clear and robust evidence of the benefits of bowel cancer screening and falls in deaths from cervical cancer. The independent Marmot review into breast screening in 2012 concluded that screening reduces breast cancer mortality by 20%.” Mackie added that for a screening programme to be recommended, “there needs to be some potential benefit for the individual being offered screening and that the benefits for the population outweigh the harms and should be cost-effective”. Cancer Research UK, which, with the English government’s national director for cancer, commissioned the 2012 review, said spotting cancers early, before people had any symptoms, was an important way to reduce cancer deaths. Julie Sharp, its head of health and patient information, said UK programmes for breast, bowel and cervical cancers had been shown to reduce the number of people dying from these cancers. “In the UK there’s no screening programme for prostate or lung cancer because there isn’t good evidence that, overall, the benefits are likely to outweigh the harms. “It’s vital that everyone is given clear, unbiased information on how the harms and benefits of screening stack up so they can make an informed choice about whether to accept their screening invitation.”
Trump boasts: latest FEC financial disclosure shows 'tremendous' success The Donald Trump campaign is touting a personal financial disclosure form the presidential candidate has just filed with the federal election commission (FEC), after Trump’s unwillingness to release his tax returns gave new fuel to questions about the size of his fortune. “Mr Trump’s net worth has increased since the last statement was filed in July of 2015,” a campaign statement claimed. “As of this date, Mr Trump’s net worth is in excess of $10bn dollars.” While the form requires candidates to indicate where their income falls in a range, it is a clumsy tool for estimating net worth because the ranges are extremely broad and because some securities transactions, certain real estate and assets, retirement accounts, and other pertinent financial information may be left off. Trump has said he may not release his tax returns. The Trump campaign claims the new form, which is being processed by the FEC and is not yet publicly available, shows income “in excess of $557m”, “tremendous cash flow”, and “a revenue increase of approximately $190m dollars”. A Wall Street Journal analysis of Trump’s finances published over the weekend estimated Trump’s 2016 pretax income to be about $160m. Trump’s last financial disclosure form showed between $78m and $232m in cash, stocks and bonds. In his statement, Trump boasted about the page count of his form and took a swipe at Bernie Sanders. “Despite the fact that I am allowed extensions, I have again filed my report, which is 104 pages, on time,” Trump said. “Bernie Sanders has requested, on the other hand, an extension for his small report. This is the difference between a businessman and the all talk, no action politicians that have failed the American people for far too long.”
Alt-right retaliates against Twitter ban by creating 'fake black accounts’ While Facebook battles with its fake news problem, Twitter is dealing with a different problem: fake accounts set up by the alt-right. White supremacist website the Daily Stormer claims that it has already created thousand of what it refers to as “fake black person” accounts to troll Twitter and confuse its users. It is now urging its readers to do the same in retaliation for Twitter suspending high-profile rightwing users. “We’ve got a big campaign coming up,” said Andrew Anglin, the founder of the Daily Stormer, in a post. “Twitter is about to learn what happens when you mess with Republicans.” Here are Anglin’s instructions for creating a fake account: “Just go on black Twitter and see what they look like, copy that model. Start filling it with rap videos and booty-shaking or whatever else these blacks post. Read through their posts to get an idea of how they post. You need to be able to post in a manner which is indistinguishable from normal black tweeters.” Twitter has been clamping down on hate speech after it refreshed its “hateful conduct policy” and introduced new tools to allow users to mute specific conversations or phrases from their notifications. “Our hateful conduct policy prohibits specific contact that targets people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability or disease,” said the company. A number of alt-right Twitter users – including white nationalist Richard Spencer, former Business Insider CTO Pax Dickinson and alt-right personalities Ricky Vaughn and John Rivers – have had their accounts suspended for breaching the policy. In a YouTube video complaining about his suspension from Twitter, Spencer described the “great purge” as “corporate Stalinism”. “I am alive physically, but digitally speaking, there have been execution squads across the alt-right,” he said. It’s not clear what the alt-right plans to do with these newly created Twitter accounts, but Anglin seems intent on damaging the company, arguing that it won’t be able to “maintain its prominent role in the social networking market when it bans all non-SJW [‘social justice warrior’, aka liberal] political accounts and becomes a safespace hugbox”. He told his readers that “further orders will follow shortly”. Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Some MPs think putting up with violent behaviour is part of their job. It isn’t After the shocking death of Jo Cox, it will have come as a surprise to many how much aggressive behaviour and violence MPs routinely put up with. A recent survey of Westminster MPs by Fixated Threat Assessment Centre showed that 80% have endured aggressive behaviour from constituents. Nearly 20% have been subject to attack or attempted attack during their parliamentary careers. Research shows that this is not solely a UK problem, but is common to all western democracies. It is something of an irony that the UK is an international leader in the field of preventing harm to politicians, after the Home Office funded a major research effort in 2003, which I led. The results from this were clear. Serious attacks on politicians are almost all the work of mentally ill, isolated loners, who have been nursing a grievance, often for years, which they sometimes wrap in a political flag. Crucially, most of these people had given warnings of what they might do, in the form of aggressive letters and problematic approaches to the MP. A good example is that of the MP Nigel Jones. The man who attacked him and killed his aide had visited the surgery in an angry, paranoid state more than 50 times. But no action had been taken. The finding about such warning behaviours was important because it offered a way to identify risky individuals before they engaged in any violence. The research group recommended to the Home Office that a national unit be set up to assess and manage risks, and that this should be staffed by a combination of police and medical professionals, given the centrality of mental illness. Such an arrangement had never been tried. But the Home Office accepted the recommendations. This led to the formation of the Fixated Threat Assessment Centre in 2006 – worrying cases could be flagged up to FTAC for them to assess risk and intervene where necessary. Such interventions often involved catalysing action by other services, such as arranging rapid compulsory admission to hospital. If the risk someone posed was based on delusional beliefs, then treating their illness promptly removed it. FTAC, of which I was a co-founder, rapidly achieved an international reputation, with a number of other countries setting up services along the same model. Such a system has weaknesses. One, of course, is that not all attacks can be stopped. And FTAC relies heavily upon cases being referred for assessment. Some MPs mistakenly believe that suffering aggressive behaviour is part of the job, and are concerned about “shopping” their constituents to the authorities. Yet intervention often results in mentally ill people being given the care they need. Another problem is that the system requires that MPs know about FTAC and recognise which cases to refer. But while they get a leaflet about FTAC, which they may or may not read, they are not given expert help in recognising which disturbed individuals are potentially dangerous. Perhaps it is inevitable that, when a new system is introduced with limited resources, the generals get the benefit of the service before the foot soldiers. It has long been a concern at FTAC that the best service is provided to those who are least at risk – the senior figures who are relatively well protected. The greater risk from fixated individuals, however, has always been to MPs in their constituencies. Plans have recently been mooted to expand the FTAC service to involve more proactive interaction with MPs. FTAC, in collaboration with Theseus LLP, a private offshoot set up to provide a service to public figures not in government employ, has designed a package to help constituency staff and MPs to identify cases that they should flag up for assessment. So far, no decision has been taken that this should be rolled out. Perhaps it now will. It is a sad fact of life that it often takes a tragedy to accelerate change. And whereas the risk from terrorism goes up and down with changes in the political wind, that from mentally ill loners will remain similar until a cure is found for psychotic illness. Some tightening of physical security may be necessary, but the key lies in prevention.
US to give up control of the internet's 'address book' after years of debate As of Saturday morning the internet – or at least the bit of it that manages the network’s “address book” – is no longer controlled by an American organization but by an international group. The move inspired much heated pre-election rhetoric as the 1 October deadline drew near – chiefly from a group of US Republican governors, who backed unsuccessful last-minute court action to delay the transition on the grounds that it wasn’t in US interests. They failed. “Stewardship” of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (Iana) has now moved away from the National Telecommunications and Information Association (NTIA) – a branch of the US Department of Commerce – and over to an international “multi-stakeholder community”. So has America really “given away” control of the internet? Some of the most public statements opposing the move came from a group of Republican senators, including Chuck Grassley, Ted Cruz and Roy Blunt. “It is profoundly disappointing that the Obama administration has decided to press on with its plan to relinquish United States oversight of crucial internet functions, even though Congress has not given its approval,” they said. “For years, there has been a bipartisan understanding that the Icann transition is premature and that critical questions remain unanswered about the influence of authoritarian regimes in internet governance, the protection of free speech, the effect on national security, and impacts on consumers, just to name a few.” However, many key players and analysts suggest that the newly implemented governance model for Icann (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) will actually strengthen the ability of the global community to challenge contentious decisions and ensure that control of the global internet address book never falls into the wrong hands. The NTIA, which is now out of the internet stewardship business, provided a detailed public assessment of the impact of the change in a statement on its NTIA website in August, detailing why it would be hard for a group of “bad actors” to take control of the process of managing internet names. “The community’s new powers to challenge board decisions and enforce decisions in court protect against any one party or group of interests from inappropriately influencing Icann,” it stated. “In conducting the review of the transition proposal, NTIA also retained an expert panel of corporate governance experts who reviewed the Icann accountability proposal, including assessing any risk of capture. In their assessment, the experts found the prospects for a takeover of Icann by a single government, a group of governments, or one or more economic actors to be extremely remote.” Dr Olivier MJ Crépin-Leblond, who was a member of an Icann working group that developed the transition proposal, said the new arrangement also provides real teeth for resolving disputes. “It is a real improvement on the prior structure,” he said. “The ability to overrule the Icann board was seen as a very important development because it was the solution to overturn decisions that might be taken by a rogue board, should it ever happen to become rogue in the future.” He said that so-called “golden by-laws” have been introduced that can’t be changed solely by the board. “The key to all of these by-laws is to make sure that Icann, the organisation, is as stable as possible, as accountable as possible and as bottom-up as possible.” The symbolism of the move – not lost on activist Republicans – is as important as the practical changes in who controls the internet. The internet, and internet business, has steadily become more global and more critical to the lives of many people on the planet. With this gradual change came increasing pressure on the US to relinquish some managerial control. After many years of painstaking negotiation and diplomacy, that has now happened – though internet users won’t notice any difference at all. “The function that was assumed by the US Department of Commerce was primarily a technical function and this has been replaced by a new set of service level expectations which are actually higher than any other prior agreements,” said Crépin-Leblond. “As a result, the quality of service that will be offered by the Iana functions operator will be better than at any previous time in the history of the internet.” Milton Mueller, professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology School of Public Policy and a principal of the Internet Governance Project, said that the real story of the Iana transition is that it provides a great example of how to create a global governance model. “The overall positive outcome is that we’re creating a global governance regime that matches the global scope of the internet and we can extract ourselves from all the existing arrangements that are related to nation states,” he said. “We don’t want to put it into the intergovernmental politics of the UN.”
Gay kiss – in which one man unconscious – cut from new Tarzan film A gay kiss between the two male stars was cut from The Legend of Tarzan because, according to its director, “test audiences were perplexed by it”. Speaking to the Times, Tarzan director David Yates said that, as part of an effort not to “[fall] into the trap of what Tarzan represented to some people”, he shot a scene involving a kiss between Tarzan (Alexander Skarsgård) and ruthless Belgian soldier Rom (played by Christoph Waltz). According to Yates, the kiss takes place when Tarzan is unconscious, as Rom finds himself attracted to Tarzan’s “wildness”. “We pared it back because it was almost too much,” Yates said. “It was this really odd, odd moment when Christoph kisses him. We loved it at the time. But early test audiences were perplexed by it and in the end it just felt too clever and overworked.” The scene was edited out of the film’s final version. The revelation comes at a time when Star Trek actor George Takei has expressed unhappiness that the character of Sulu, who he played in the original series, has been revealed as gay in Star Trek Beyond, the newest film in the franchise. Simon Pegg, the co-writer of the film, defended the film saying: “We could have introduced a new gay character, but he or she would have been primarily defined by their sexuality, seen as the ‘gay character’, rather than simply for who they are.”
Britain's EU negotiations: what leaders will be haggling over in Brussels UK prime minister David Cameron and Europe’s 27 other leaders are arriving in Brussels for negotiations about Britain’s relationship with the EU. To help them along, European council president Donald Tusk has prepared a set of documents outlining what has been agreed in the deal – and what is left to haggle over. Three things stand out in the documents that the has seen: France worries that Cameron is trying to separate the City of London from pan-European supervision of financial institutions and markets. Poland and other eastern European nations are concerned that restrictions to child benefits sent abroad could affect their citizens already in the UK and set a precedent for other benefits to be cut in the future. Key details have yet to be agreed on how hard and how fast the “emergency brake” should be to restrict migrants’ access to UK benefits. 1. Eurozone v non-eurozone countries On the issue of “economic governance”, the documents now have square brackets, indicating disagreement, around a key passage on the relationship between eurozone and non-eurozone countries. There is unease in France that Britain is seeking to secure special protections for the City of London, by giving non-eurozone members a greater ability to stall pan-European supervision. Technically, this is one of the most complex aspects of the agreement. But, nevertheless, EU leaders have to find common ground on the relationship between eurozone countries and the rest. Here’s what the key passage says: “The implementation of measures, including the supervision or resolution of financial institutions and markets, and macro-prudential responsibilities, to be taken in view of preserving the financial stability of Member States whose currency is not the euro is, subject to the requirements of group and consolidated supervision and resolution, a matter for their own authorities and own budgetary responsibility, unless such Member States wish to join common mechanisms open to their participation. This is without prejudice to the development of the single rulebook and to Union mechanisms of macro-prudential oversight for the prevention and mitigation of systemic financial risks in the Union and to the existing powers of the Union institutions and relevant Union bodies to take action that is necessary to respond to threats to financial stability.” 2. Indexing child benefits sent abroad The most difficult area for Cameron remains “social benefits and free movement”. Uncertainty surrounds proposed restrictions to EU nationals claiming child benefit. The proposal is that child benefit be capped at the level appropriate to the standard of living in the member state where the child resides. But it is unclear how the measure would apply to EU nationals already working abroad and sending benefits to their home country. Poland and other eastern European nations fear the measure could set a precedent for other countries or for restricting other benefits. The latter is now addressed directly in the documents. A new sentence specifically excludes future proposals to index other types of exportable benefits, such as pensions: “The Commission does not intend to propose that the future system of optional indexation of child benefits be extended to other types of exportable benefits, such as old-age pensions.” 3. How will the emergency brake work? The principle of an “emergency brake”, which would allow the UK to respond to high levels of long-term migration by curtailing benefits, has been agreed for some time. At first sight, the documents confirm what was already clear: that, ultimately, other member states have the power to grant the emergency brake (not the EU parliament); that Britain meets the conditions for restrictions to be put in place; and that Cameron’s demand for a four-year restriction on in-work benefits will be met. However, EU leaders need to agree a timeframe in which the emergency brake will be implemented. It is known that the loss of benefits would be graduated, but the details of that graduation have not yet been agreed. The documents, like previous versions, make that clear: “The authorisation would have a limited duration and apply to EU workers newly arriving during a period of [X] years, extendable for two successive periods of [Y] years and [Z] years.” Unlike other pending issues that are specific to a group of countries, here the worry is collective and about the consequences of setting a precedent. Above all, do other EU member states meet the conditions to immediately request an emergency brake? To add to the difficulties, on Thursday morning it was reported that Ireland would seek a bilateral deal with the UK to protect its citizens from curbs to in-work benefits. Last year, the British government privately provided the Irish government with such assurances. Both the emergency brake and the indexing of child benefits will require amendments to existing regulations, meaning that the two measures will need to go through the European parliament’s legislative process, further strengthening EU institutions’ role in key aspects of the UK deal. But in terms of who decides whether the emergency lever can be pulled, there has been no substantial change since the previous version of the deal: the European commission would assess a member state’s request, while approval would be granted by other member states through the European council.
Is your shampoo safe? We simply don't know In the US, virtually none of the chemicals used in personal care products are independently evaluated for safety. Americans of all ages use these products every day – from lotion to shampoo, makeup to deodorant, hair dye to shaving cream – and many of the chemicals they contain are rapidly absorbed by the skin. With increasing evidence that certain chemicals in personal care products are linked to a variety of health concerns, there is an urgent need to update the 80-year-old federal rules aimed at ensuring their safety. Formaldehyde, which is used in Brazilian blowouts, has been associated with headaches and shortness of breath in the short term, and cancer in the long term. Endocrine-disrupting chemicals, which are used as preservatives in creams, lotions and shampoos, have been linked to diabetes, obesity, reproductive disorders and even cancer. And lead acetate, which is used in men’s hair dye, has also been linked to cancer. The European Union and Canada have reviewed the ingredients in personal care products for decades. More than 1,500 chemicals are banned or restricted in Europe, while more than 800 are banned or restricted in Canada. Due to outdated US laws, only 11 substances are banned or restricted. It’s long past time for the US to catch up. The Personal Care Products Safety Act would finally address this glaring safety loophole. The central component of the bill is an FDA review process for ingredients. The FDA would review at least five chemicals a year, chosen based on input from consumers, medical professionals, scientists and companies. This process would address which chemicals can continue to be used in personal care products and, if so, what the concentration levels should be. The FDA may determine that some chemicals, such as endocrine-disrupting chemicals, are not appropriate in any products, or are only appropriate in small amounts. The key for many chemicals may be how much is used. We need to know at what concentration these chemicals are unsafe. For example, after conducting a scientific review, the FDA may determine that a particular chemical is only safe at a concentration of 10 parts per million. Going forward, all companies would need to reformulate their products so they contained no more than 10 parts per million of that ingredient. Companies would still have the power to adopt a stricter standard. They could use less of a particular ingredient, or not use certain ingredients at all, but the ingredient review process would finally create a uniform safety standard. The bill would also require companies to report adverse health effects. An ongoing investigation into the popular hair cleanser Wen highlights the need for this provision. A class action lawsuit alleging significant hair loss has been filed on behalf of thousands of consumers, and the FDA has received 127 complaints about the product. During the course of its investigation, the FDA discovered that a staggering 21,000 complaints had been registered with the company. Under our bill, the manufacturer would have been required to tell the FDA about all complaints related to negative health effects. In addition, the bill would require companies to register with the FDA and provide a list of their ingredients, with a range of concentration for each one. Warning labels would be required for products not appropriate for children, and complete label information, including ingredients and product warnings, would be posted online to ensure that consumers can make informed decisions. Lastly, the FDA would be given the authority to recall products that cause serious harm. Our bill has the broad bipartisan support needed to move forward. Consumer and health groups, including the Environmental Working Group, Endocrine Society and Good Housekeeping Institute, and a wide range of companies support the bill. Industry support includes both the largest companies in the industry – Johnson & Johnson, Procter & Gamble and Unilever – as well as small and mid-size companies such as California Baby, Dr Bronner’s and Madison Reed. This marks the first time federal legislation on this issue has earned the support of both consumer and industry groups. These commonsense proposals are long overdue and the US Senate should act. Consumers deserve to know that the products they and their families use every day are safe.
RBS may be fined more than $12bn to settle US mis-selling scandal Royal Bank of Scotland could face a penalty of more than $12bn (£9.6bn) to settle a decades-old mis-selling scandal in the US, the body which controls the taxpayer stake in the bank has said. The bailed-out bank has not set aside any money for a settlement with the US Department of Justice (DoJ) over the mis-selling of residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) before the 2008 banking crisis. Uncertainty about the scale of the penalty is one of the reasons cited by the chancellor, Philip Hammond, for abandoning any hope of further reducing the taxpayer stake, which currently stands at 73%. However, the chairman of UK Financial Investments laid out the possible financial impact of the looming fine at a hearing of the Treasury select committee on Wednesday. James Leigh-Pemberton pointed to negotiations under way between the DoJ and Deutsche Bank, which have started at $14bn. He said the RBS fine “might be $5bn, it might be $12bn”. He added: “Based on what happened to Deutsche Bank it could be more.” He said the assessment of the fine was based on market estimates: analysts are expecting the bank to set aside between £4.2bn and £9bn of further provisions for RBS to cover fines and legal fees in the next three years. The bank has set aside £3.8bn to cover other aspects of RMBS and billions more for other misdemeanours. RBS admitted in September that “RMBS litigation and investigations may require additional provisions in future periods that in aggregate could be materially in excess of the [current] provisions”. RBS shares fell 2% to 208p – below the 502p average price at which taxpayers bought the stake in 2008 and 2009 and below the 330p at which a 5% shareholding was sold in August 2015.
Hillary Clinton urges Florida voters not to elect 'climate change denier' Trump Hillary Clinton used the global climate crisis as a weapon for another assault on Donald Trump on Tuesday, enlisting the help of her husband’s former vice-president Al Gore to urge America’s voters not to risk sending a “climate change denier” to the White House. In a joint address in Miami, Clinton and Gore repeatedly hammered the Republican nominee for his stance on climate change and his belief that global warming is a hoax initiated by the Chinese. “Climate change is real, it’s urgent, and America can take the lead in the world in addressing it,” Clinton said, promising investment in clean energy. “We can transform our economy, we can rally the world to cut carbon pollutions and above all we can fulfill our moral obligation to protect the planet. Just remember what is at stake. My opponent is a guy who denies science, who denies climate change every day.” Yet it was Gore, who lost the 2000 presidential election to George W Bush by less than 500 votes in Florida, who delivered the more powerful message about why the climate crisis is one of the most serious issues in this campaign, and why he believes Clinton is the only candidate who can help solve it. Praising last year’s Paris climate agreement between nations as a solid starting position, Gore said the country faced a “stark” choice. “The world is on the cusp of either building on the progress of solving the climate crisis, or stepping back, washing our hands of America’s traditional role as a leader in the world,” he said. During her own 22-minute address to a 1,600-strong crowd at Miami-Dade College, Clinton avoided any mention of the controversies that have dominated the political agenda over the last five days. Instead, she stuck steadfastly to themes of climate change and her policy proposals to “accelerate the transition” towards clean energy in the US. “I want to see 500 million more solar panels installed in America by the end of my first term,” she said. “Let’s generate enough clean energy to power America.” Building more energy-efficient buildings and cutting the country’s reliance on oil by one-third would also bring massive economic benefits, the Democratic candidate said. “We can do all of this and create millions of good paying jobs as we do. The clean energy solutions are being created right here in America. And while we do that, make sure communities are ready for the effects of climate change that are coming right at us,” she said. That comment referred to the recent impact of Hurricane Matthew on the Caribbean, where the storm killed hundreds, and in the US, which has seen more than 30 deaths, most of them in North Carolina, which is still suffering from significant flooding. Gore, who won the 2007 Nobel peace prize for his efforts to tackle manmade climate change, highlighted in his movie An Inconvenient Truth, blamed the severity of recent hurricanes on global warming. “Matthew went from a tropical storm to a category 5 hurricane in just 36 hours, and that’s unusual.” Nowhere are the effects of global warming more evident than Florida, Gore said. Just yesterday there were six more cases of Zika in Miami-Dade County. Changing climate conditions shift the places where these diseases become endemic. Mosquitoes incubate faster and bite more often. “These and many other consequences are really wake-up calls for us.” Clinton, too, referenced the threat to Florida, a key swing state. “The impact of climate change goes beyond severe events like hurricanes, it’s a daily reality in Miami. In streets in Miami the ocean is bubbling up through the sewer system. If you need proof climate change is real, there you go,” she said. She warned: “At the rate we are going, one in eight homes in Florida could be underwater by the end of the century.” Global warming, she said, had also been cited by the Pentagon as a threat to national security, posing as an example flooding at the US navy base in Norfolk, Virginia, affecting the operations and readiness of the service. “We can’t afford a candidate who doesn’t accept climate change,” Clinton said. “Maybe he’ll listen to our military leaders who say climate change threatens our security. “We need a president who believes in science and can lead America in fighting this threat, creating jobs and, yes, saving our planet.” The final word, however, belonged to Gore, who Clinton said she “couldn’t wait” to have as a White House adviser on climate change. “Americans have the ability to bring about such a big and important change, the will to change and build a brighter future is itself a renewable resource,” he said, drawing a loud: “That’s a great line, I love that!” from Clinton beside him.
Don’t Breathe review – a clever, gross master class in tension “If you go back down there, I’m gonna get up and kill you myself!” That was one of many hilarious lines the ebullient crowd shouted during a preview screening of Don’t Breathe for notoriously tough-to-please New Yorkers. Normally I’d tsk movie talkers, but Fede Alvarez’s simple housebound horror show is practically dialogue-free. These spaces beg to be filled with interaction, and by the end even I (the so-called “professional”) joined with yelps, whoops and even an “Oh, God, not that, that’s so gross!” Importantly, the type of “gross” found in Don’t Breathe is of the “I’m laughing and shouting ewwww!” kind, not the brutal torture porn that, despite the R rating, this movie rejects. Don’t Breathe is a master class in tension, and while its script could have been written on the back of an envelope, its editing and use of sound design is a triumph for film theorists. Admittedly, students of Lev Kuleshov hardly buy tickets en masse, but the simple pleasures in this film (the bad guy is right there, you idiot, run!) can be felt without much introspection. The first 30 minutes of Don’t Breathe aren’t too special. Rocky (Jane Levy), Alex (Daniel Zovatto) and Money (Dylan Minette) are three young burglars in Detroit. They are not bad people (well, Rocky and Alex aren’t – Money is a bit of a dick). They are just broke, desperate and have no prospects. Rocky is given a bit of extra motivation in the form of a younger sister. Staying with their lowlife mother and her dirtbag boyfriend isn’t much of a résumé-builder. If she were to find one big score, it would be enough to get her to California, which, at least, is warm. Money has his eyes on an old house in a deserted part of town that is probably holding hundreds of thousands of dollars. Its owner, a veteran blinded in the first gulf war (Stephen Lang), won a settlement when his daughter was killed in a hit-and-run by a rich girl. Money and Rocky are ready to hit the house, but they need the timid and thoughtful third member of the team. Alex’s father owns a security company and has passcodes and gadgets that can get the group past alarm systems. Alex is also the one who knows just how much loot they can take while ensuring the charges against them don’t tick over into felonies with higher sentences. But all bets are off on this one. Money brings a gun (“some chrome”, he douchily calls it), and maybe he needed it – or maybe that’s what sends the Blind Man (name as per the credits) to take the defense of his home to the extreme. The Blind Man (and his ferocious pooch) don’t succumb to soporifics as expected, and once our gang is trapped inside the house thanks to locked doors and barred windows, Alvarez is free to go nuts. Every remaining moment in the film is ripped from nightmares, in which safety is just a stretch away, but unforeseen obstacles snap you back into doom. Alvarez doesn’t rely on jump-scares; it’s the slow roll of dread that works far better. (But as with a drummer working the ride cymbal, an occasional crash does spice things up a bit.) Each sequence is cleverer than the last, especially in how Alvarez ensures that we in the audience know what is going to happen (a cracking window pane, for example) before our characters do. This makes for an “oh, no!” type of engagement, far less than an “ack, that scared me!” one. The latter is what’s glutting up our horror cinema today, and what Alvarez (under the wing of his producer, the brilliant Sam Raimi) mostly ignores. The three kids and their very wide pupils are all good enough, but brutal, hulking Lang in his undershirt makes for a terrific villain. (How is someone protecting their home from robbery a villain? You’ll see.) What’s best about Don’t Breathe is that just when I was thinking: “This is an extremely well-crafted exercise, bravo, I bet we’re wrapping up soon,” the final reel came in for the kill. Anyone who spoils the ending for you should be locked in a house with an angry man trained in special forces combat. Suffice to say you’ll never see it coming, and when you do, you will be equal parts revolted and entertained.
Want to know why young people are sexting? Try asking them On hearing about the health secretary Jeremy Hunt’s suggestion that tech companies should prohibit young people from sexting, I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. Even at the best of times younger people feel that politicians don’t really understand them, and on the sticky subject of sexting, Hunt is way out of his depth. At school I, like many of my peers, felt that sex education missed any kind of practical information regarding the kind of activity that some had already started engaging in. I can remember them getting us to put a condom on a banana, but nothing about consent, sexting or pornography. I recently went to speak to a group of sixth-formers about relationships, how prepared they felt for leaving home and going to university, and whether there were still any unanswered questions they had about sex. On this last point the answer was a resounding yes. When I asked where they got most of their information about sex, unsurprisingly they told me Google was their go-to source, and after that, it was their peers. But there was an embarrassed silence when I asked if they felt they could talk to teachers or parents about it. When I mentioned this to some colleagues and friends who have teenagers, I saw a similar look of discomfort on their faces. It was surprising for me to hear many of them say that they didn’t feel like their kids were at an age where they needed to have too much sex education thrust upon them. If you ask me, it’s the parents and politicians who are naive on this subject. You just have to see what young people are posting on social media to have an idea about how teenagers are engaging with images and technology on more private platforms. A lot of teenagers don’t even really talk about “sexting” as a phenomenon, let alone an issue – it’s just an extension of what you might see on social media. If you take a moment to look at the accounts of people such as 19-year-old Kylie Jenner, who has 80 million followers on Instagram and has been the face of designers – including Topshop and Puma – targeting teenagers, you can get an idea of what influences young people every day. Sexting, like real sex, comes in many forms, and people can get pretty creative with it. A suggestive snap via Snapchat can be classed as sexting, even if it’s not got anything in it that would go against Facebook’s image guidelines. One headteacher I spoke to told me that it was difficult to cope with the levels of sexting going on at his school, where cases were reported to teachers on a weekly basis. He told me that on the spectrum they had been made aware of provocative pictures of young girls in underwear or boys in the changing room, all the way to much more sexually explicit images. For education institutions trying to police this, it can be difficult to draw a line, but an outright ban on young people engaging in sexting is just not an option – and technologically impossible, as Jonathan Haynes points out. Hunt’s proposal brings to mind the abstinence-only sex education programmes taught in the US. There is no evidence to show that young people who are taught this are less likely to delay sexual activity or have fewer sexual partners than those taught in other ways. We know young people are going to experiment sexually – and that they will do so via mobile phones shouldn’t come as a shock. Parents and teachers have a responsibility to understand how young people are engaging with technology if they’re going to be able to keep them safe from abuse, exploitation and blackmail. Apps like Snapchat and Instagram have features that allow pictures to be sent that will be displayed on the recipient’s phone for a certain number of seconds before disappearing. This creates a false sense of security for those who think that it protects them from having their images saved and shared. But there are several ways to get around this, including filming the image on the phone with another camera or simply screenshotting it. I’ve heard of incidents, especially but not exclusively involving boys, where images have been forwarded on to friends or used to blackmail people into doing things they don’t want to. It was particularly worrying that one of the teenage girls I spoke to expressed her concerns about the onus being on the girls to take responsibility when it comes to everything related to sex. “They tell us, don’t share pictures, don’t have sex and don’t be stupid, but they never say anything to the boys about respect, trust or anything like that.” And it’s not just girls who are suffering from an outdated, out-of-touch approach to the issue. There have been several incidents involving boys being cautioned by police or put on the sexual offenders’ register for sending and saving explicit images with other underage peers. In all the discussions I’ve had on the subject, it was a comment made by an 18-year-old boy that really stuck in my mind. He told me he thought sending a racy image was like “a 21st-century love letter”, adding that he thought it was nice to share something intimate with someone you want to be intimate with. His friends may have giggled at this but they also nodded in agreement. When you speak to young people directly, you can see that sexting doesn’t necessarily have to be a dirty word.
Competition watchdog criticised by MPs over bank reform The competition watchdog has been accused of complacency and missing an opportunity to overhaul high street banking, including capping overdraft charges, despite a two-year long investigation. The accusations were levelled at Alasdair Smith, who led the investigation by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), by MPs on the Treasury select committee who were questioning him following the publication of the report in August. In a gruelling evidence session, MPs questioned why Smith – flanked by two members of his team – had not put a cap on overdraft charges and taken more radical measures to break the stranglehold on the current-account market held by the “big four” of Lloyds Banking Group, Royal Bank of Scotland, HSBC and Barclays. Andrew Tyrie, the Conservative MP who chairs the committee, said the CMA had “dropped the catch” despite support from politicians, academics, consumer groups and the media for a tougher stance towards the banking sector. “The banking crash has changed the terms of trade in favour of the regulators with respect to reform,” said Tyrie. The Labour MP Rachel Reeves said that the cost of an unauthorised overdraft was greater than a payday loan, where the charges have been capped. Reeves, who is arguing overdraft fees should be restricted, said vulnerable consumers were being let down. “It’s dereliction of duty,” said Reeves. The CMA report stopped short of recommending overdraft caps and said that banks should set out a monthly maximum charge for unauthorised overdrafts, from which the industry generates £1.2bn in fees annually. It recommended that the Financial Conduct Authority should examine this area. Smith argues that a new technology allowing consumers to compare the personal data, known as Midata, will shake up banking. Tyrie said no other CMA report had ever received such “unequivocal condemnation” but Smith said he was confident the recommendations would transform banking in three or four years. “Only history will prove which one of us is right,” said Smith. “I am confident that the work of our group will result in a major change for the better and that when people look back at the CMA report of 2016 they will see it as a landmark that really changed the direction that this market has gone in,” said Smith, who also insisted that banks were not making excess profits. Smith said after the hearing that the CMA was introducing 17 “hard hitting” changes. “We will also help customers avoid unauthorised overdraft charges by requiring banks to text customers when they are at risk of incurring charges and give them a grace period in which to take action,” said Smith. The CMA investigation was first announced in July 2014 at a time when the Labour party was promising to create new banks. At the end of the three-hour evidence session, Tyrie said: “The committee was deeply disappointed by what it heard.”
Francesco Guidolin set to bring flexible thinking to save Swansea There was a moment at the Liberty Stadium on Monday night, in the 90th minute, when the television cameras zoomed in on Francesco Guidolin. The 60-year-old Italian looked in pain, his hands covering his face, as Swansea battled to cling on to a 1-0 victory against Watford. In the minutes that followed, Bafétimbi Gomis hit the post and Troy Deeney flashed a ferocious volley just wide. It felt like life and death in three minutes. Welcome to your new job, Signor Guidolin. It’s going to be a tense five months. The new Swansea head coach will be in the dugout for the first time against Everton on Sunday with the Welsh club having chosen his vast experience as they attempt to avoid relegation. They have certainly opted for experience. Swansea will be the much-travelled Italian’s 14th club and only six other managers have managed more Serie A games than him (555 games over 21 years). Guidolin may be unknown in Britain but he is a hugely respected manager in Italy. His CV is colourful and one thing is for sure, the Swansea players will be kept on their toes. During his time at Udinese, Guidolin made one player, the Brazilian Allan, cry in training after he was reprimanded and once banned all his players from visiting a certain restaurant after a defeat. “He is just a little superstitious,” his wife Michela, said once. “Everyone was disappointed that season. That restaurant had the most delicious pizzas. But at least Francesco went back to the owner after the season to explain why we hadn’t been back.” Guidolin is unlikely to be fazed by the new challenge. He has been hired and fired by the eccentric Palermo president, Maurizio Zamparini, four times (“I’ve got a lot of time for him,” says Guidolin), he took Udinese to the Champions League and Vicenza to Serie A. He has also managed Giorgione, Treviso, Fano, Empoli, Ravenna, Atalanta, Bologna, Genoa, Monaco and Parma. At Palermo, he led the Sicilian club into Serie A for the first time in more than 30 years and then took them into Europe. But it is undeniably his work at Udinese which landed him the Swansea job. Working under the Pozzo family, who own Watford and Granada, he made the most of their scouting network to turn the provincial club into one of the best in Italy, taking them into the Europa League and Champions League twice. During his time at the Stadio Friuli, he made stars of Alexis Sánchez, Juan Cuadrado and Gökhan Inler (who all arrived on modest fees) and made the team extraordinarily difficult to beat. It appears that Swansea are no longer interested in “doing a Swansea”. They are trying to “do a Watford”. There are risks involved, though, and the four years at Udinese took its toll on Guidolin. He is not a person who can switch off and has admitted that he desperately needed a break towards the end of the 2013-14 campaign. “I felt I had to stop, I was at my limit,” he told La Repubblica. “I didn’t need to go into recovery, I wasn’t walking around with eyes bulging and didn’t need to escape from any ghosts. It was just that I wasn’t me anymore. I didn’t confront all the matters head on and could not wait until the season finished. “I wanted to stay for life at Udinese and at times we talked about me doing something different, becoming a sort of ambassador for the Pozzo family but it did not happen. I have now recharged the batteries, have watched games on my own and I have studied the game. At Udinese perhaps I gave more than I received.” So what else did he do with his time off? “I went to bed really early, to quote a film that I love. I travelled and rediscovered my passions. I lived in Provence, then London and then by the hills in Asolo, not far from my house. And then I read. I’ve re-read Storia d’Italia by Indro Montanelli. I would like to be like him, someone who can explain our country and why it is like it is with a simplicity like no one else.” Guidolin also spent time with the Bayern Munich manager, Pep Guardiola, when the German side were in Monaco. “I was his guest there for four days and he was really kind,” he said. “I really enjoyed watching Bayern take on Milan with Arturo Vidal behind Mario Götze in a 3-6-1. It made me think of Udinese with Antonio Di Natale up front and Alexis Sánchez tucked in behind. The great teams are going in this direction: three defenders, of which only one is a ‘proper’ defender, because teams only play with one up front and then a lot of players in the middle of the park.” Swansea do not have the players of Götze’s or Sánchez’s talent but it is not impossible that Guidolin will try the 3-6-1 formation – or something similar – against Everton. He is a flexible manager, unafraid to change formation during the game. He never stops thinking about football and says that every match day is a test. “Match day is very tense. I think, and then re-think, about whether I’ve made the right decisions regarding the team and whether I have worked well in the week. It is like an exam. Then, at the end of the game, I immediately start to think about the next game, and which changes to make.” Guidolin was once described by one Italian magazine as being “too intelligent to be liked by the general public” and has admitted that he finds dealing with the media difficult. He can let himself go, though, and produced a brilliant dance with his players when Udinese qualified for the Champions League in 2011. He is also able to relax by going cycling, something that he is certain to continue in Wales. It is his second passion and he has commentated on the sport on Italian television. There is also a nice YouTube clip of him talking about what it is that makes cycling so great while riding up a mountain. “Cycling is something that teaches us to have respect for your opponent,” he says. “It is something that teaches you to win but also has a value for someone who arrives second, third or fourth. It is not a humiliation not to win, it is a gratification to arrive somewhere.” For Swansea, that “somewhere” will be 17th in the Premier League. Guidolin certainly has the experience and the knowledge to get the club out of trouble, but it will all depend on whether he can pass all of that on to his players, starting with the game at Goodison on Sunday.
Tributes to David Bowie pour in on internet and social media Rock legend David Bowie has died, 18 months after being diagnosed with cancer. His son Duncan Jones first confirmed the news, and shortly after, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram feeds were overwhelmed with tributes to the pop pioneer. Longtime producer Tony Visconti described his shock on hearing of the death of “an extraordinary man”. He always did what he wanted to do. And he wanted to do it his way and he wanted to do it the best way. His death was no different from his life – a work of art. He made Blackstar for us, his parting gift. I knew for a year this was the way it would be. I wasn’t, however, prepared for it. He was an extraordinary man, full of love and life. He will always be with us. For now, it is appropriate to cry. Another key Bowie collaborator was Brian Eno, who said in a statement via the BBC: David’s death came as a complete surprise, as did nearly everything else about him. I feel a huge gap now. We knew each other for over 40 years, in a friendship that was always tinged by echoes of Pete and Dud. Over the last few years - with him living in New York and me in London - our connection was by email. We signed off with invented names: some of his were mr showbiz, milton keynes, rhoda borrocks and the duke of ear. About a year ago we started talking about Outside - the last album we worked on together. We both liked that album a lot and felt that it had fallen through the cracks. We talked about revisiting it, taking it somewhere new. I was looking forward to that. I received an email from him seven days ago. It was as funny as always, and as surreal, looping through word games and allusions and all the usual stuff we did. It ended with this sentence: ‘Thank you for our good times, brian. they will never rot’. And it was signed ‘Dawn’. I realise now he was saying goodbye. David Cameron, British prime minister and leader of the Conservative party, expressed his sadness with two tributes to the late musician. On Facebook Cameron described him as “someone who truly deserves to be described as a genius”. He also shared the following message on Twitter: Many figures from the world of pop and rock have reacted – with the likes of Madonna, Gene Simmons, Yoko Ono, The Rolling Stones, Florence Welch, Kanye West and the Pixies celebrating Bowie’s influence on their work. In a longer post on Facebook, Madonna detailed the seismic impact that seeing Bowie as the Thin White Duke had on her as an artist: I’m devastated. David Bowie changed the course of my life forever. I never felt like I fit in growing up in Michigan. Like an oddball or a freak. I went to see him in concert at Cobo Arena in Detroit. It was the first concert I’d ever been too. I snuck out of the house with my girlfriend wearing a cape. We got caught after and I was grounded for the summer. I didn’t care. I already had many of his records and was so inspired by the way he played with gender confusion. Was both masculine and feminine. Funny and serious. Clever and wise. His lyrics were witty ironic and mysterious. At the time he was the Thin White Duke and he had mime artists on stage with him and very specific choreography And I saw how he created a persona and used different art forms within the arena of rock and Roll to create entertainment. I found him so inspiring and innovative. Unique and provocative. A real Genius. his music was always inspiring but seeing him live set me off on a journey that for me I hope will never end. His photographs are hanging all over my house today. He was so chic and beautiful and elegant. So ahead of his time. Thank you David Bowie. I owe you a lot. The world will miss you. Love M Elsewhere, many musicians kept their praise short, sweet and sombre: Paul McCartney writes that Bowie’s “star will shine forever”: Very sad news to wake up to on this raining morning. David was a great star and I treasure the moments we had together. His music played a very strong part in British musical history and I’m proud to think of the huge influence he has had on people all around the world. “I send my deepest sympathies to his family and will always remember the great laughs we had through the years. His star will shine in the sky forever. Jarvis Cocker of Pulp spoke to BBC 6Music, praising Bowie’s outsider influence: He was like an umbrella for people who felt a bit different. Bowie was like a like a lighthouse that guided those people and made them feel it was alright to be different, to try things out and dye your hair and wear strange clothes. I think people feel it very personally because he was very important in how people grew up. I do think it’s quite amazing that he put this record out and managed to keep it secret that he was ill. People should watch that ‘Blackstar’ video and listen to that song. It’s like he’s saying goodbye to everybody, he’s controlling it. We can all talk about David Bowie. I think the best thing to do on this day would be to listen to him, and to watch films of him and just see what a fantastic artist he was and how many different guises he had, and the incredible amount of work that he did. Obviously it’s a sad day that he’s died, but the fact that he managed to stay in control of that image and make another artistic statement when he was obviously ill and knew that he was dying, I think that’s incredible and it makes me feel quite happy that he stayed creative right to the end of his life. I think that can only be inspirational. According to Visconti, Bowie listened to “a lot” of Kendrick Lamar while working on Blackstar. In his tribute published today, the rapper said it was an “honor”. New Order’s Bernard Sumner also sent his respects to the star: Very shocked and saddened to watch the news this morning and hear about the death of David Bowie. I always looked up at him and thought yeah - he’s the real deal, indisputably good, a figurehead for a whole host of musicians I’m sure. We’ve lost someone unique who can’t be replaced. Actor Whoopi Goldberg paid her condolences to Bowie’s family, and posted an image of herself with the artist at an MTV rock and comedy special. Elsewhere, the actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt quoted Eight Line Poem from Hunky Dory, while Mark Ruffalo described Bowie as “father of all us freaks”. British author Neil Gaiman and his wife, the musician Amanda Palmer, each took to Twitter to share their reactions to Bowie’s death. Formula 1 world champion Lewis Hamilton described the artist as “one of the greatest”. Tributes even came in from space. British astronaut Tim Peake, currently orbiting Earth in the International Space Station, tweeted a message of condolence. The German Foreign Office have thanked Bowie for his role in bringing down the Berlin Wall, posting live footage of Heroes, a track written during his Berlin period, which describes two lovers separated by the Wall: “I can remember/Standing, by the wall/And the guns, shot above our heads/And we kissed, as though nothing could fall/And the shame, was on the other side.” Glastonbury’s Emily Eavis added her condolences. ... As did Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, the president of the Pontifical Council for Culture, who tweeted lyrics from the singer’s 1969 single Space Oddity.
Fifty Shades Darker director says virtual reality scenes 'expanded my brain' The director of the forthcoming Fifty Shades movie has said that scenes were duplicate shot using virtual reality technology for marketing purposes. Speaking at a VR conference at Paramount, reported by Deadline, James Foley said he felt the use of the tech provides a liberation for both actors and directors by using a 360-degree space. “Yeah, there’s marketing materials for behind-the-scenes [of Fifty Shades Darker],” he said “After we finished shooting for the day, the actors would stay over and VR people would re-create a facsimile of the scene. “My personal instinct is that cinema is going to move to VR because it’s an extension of the visual language. For myself, watching the material they generated expanded my brain.” However, Foley said that VR would not be included in the regular cinema versions of either Fifty Shades Darker or Fifty Shades Freed, which were shot back-to-back and are scheduled for release in February 2017 and 2018. “This all needs to be reinvented,” said Foley, adding that such change is rapid: “The train is leaving the station, I think, and travelling really fast.” Foley was brought on board to replace Sam Taylor-Johnson, who directed the first film. Fifty Shades of Grey was released in early 2015 and took $571m worldwide.
How periods really affect a woman’s working life Many women won’t be surprised by the results of a BBC survey in which more than half of female workers said they’d experienced period pain that affected their ability to do their job. But while some might report feeling drained of energy and motivation when their period is due, others find they actually perform better at mental and physical tasks at that time of the month. This is because of variations in the way different women react to hormonal changes in their monthly cycle. While intellectual tasks, such as completing a logic puzzle or doing an IQ test, rely on electrical circuits in the brain, how well the neurons perform is subtly affected by the ‘hormonal soup’ which surrounds them. The female sex hormones oestrogen and progesterone can alter the brain’s reward system, affecting motivation and how ‘sharp’ you feel, but when this takes place isn’t predictable - some women feel at their best a week after their period, while others do so just before. Of course, severe pain can affect our mental agility too - another reason it might be a good idea for companies to introduce flexible ‘period leave’. Dr Daniel Glaser is director of Science Gallery at King’s College London
Will Trump cause progressives to forget about women's rights? If you were concerned that forced funerals for fetuses and zygotes wasn’t quite horrific enough, rejoice! In the last week, Ohio has passed a law banning abortions after 20 weeks and Oklahoma wants to mandate that businesses post anti-abortion signs in women’s public restrooms. In the wake of Trump’s win, reproductive rights opponents have not wasted a moment in their plan to roll back access to abortion and birth control. And, as has been the case for some time, these harmful policies are being presented as wins for women. When Governor John Kasich of Ohio passed the 20-week ban, for example, he also vetoed a six-week ban – the hope being that the move would be seen as moderate in comparison. But 20 weeks is around the time that women find out about fetal abnormalities – a leading reason for later abortions. And while the Oklahoma plan is being touted by pro-life groups as a way to offer women “alternatives”, what it’s really doing is shaming women and requiring that businesses spend money on ideological propaganda. (Also, so much for the Republicans caring about women’s privacy in bathrooms!) The research is clear: women suffer when you deny them access to birth control and abortion. In fact, despite anti-choice rhetoric to the contrary, the only kind of negative mental health impact that abortion has on women occurs when someone seeks out the procedure and is denied. The challenge we have in front of us, though, is not just the danger of Trump’s administration or the emboldening of Republicans. In a time when bad news for progress is around every corner – as Slate writer Jamelle Bouie put it, “what disaster to write about today?” – we have to make that sure that women’s rights don’t get lost in the shuffle. It wasn’t so long ago that gender and race were considered ancillary or distracting topics in progressive politics – a notion still being bandied about as people blame “identity politics” and “political correctness” for Trump’s win. If history is any indication, it won’t be long before we start hearing murmurings from so-called progressives that women should sacrifice working on issues that affect them in service of “the greater good”. It’s vital that we not forget or lose the momentum feminism has had over the last decade, especially on reproductive rights. The stakes are just too high. Hundreds of thousands of American women have already sought out illegal abortions, in part because of state-level restrictions. And as the Affordable Care Act comes under fire, it could leave millions without coverage for contraception. These are not small things, these are not side issues or special interests. Women’s ability to control their bodies and plan their family size is a human rights issue. And while we have a tremendous amount of work to do on so many fronts, Americans cannot afford to treat feminism and women’s progress as something that can be pushed aside for a time and picked up later. Let’s not allow our the fact that we’re overwhelmed to get the better of us – not now, and not for the next four years.
Ofcom considers investigation into Ukip broadcast after 31 complaints Ofcom is considering more than 30 complaints about Ukip’s party political broadcast on ITV and the BBC in relation to racial offence, Islamophobia and bias against Turkey. The regulator said it was looking at whether to launch an investigation into the four-minute broadcast on Wednesday night which urged people to vote to exit the EU because Turkey could join. The broadcast highlighted Turkey’s Muslim population and claimed that up to 15 million Turkish citizens could migrate. One of the complaints comes from the Lib Dems, who accuse Nigel Farage’s party of inciting racial and religious hatred as well as making factual inaccuracies. In a letter to Ofcom and the BBC Trust, the Lib Dems said: “The presentation and tone of the piece is focused on provoking on negative, hostile reaction towards Turkey and the people living there, as well as Turkish people in the UK and elsewhere. “It has been deliberately constructed to be offensive and breaches the code in that it ‘incites racial or religious hatred’ whilst using an array of questionable and in some cases entirely misleading assertions to advance this ‘case’. “The piece is offensive and set on pitching community against community. It is attempting to masquerade as an anti-EU film, but its main subjects of attack and clearly Turkey and Islam.” Meral Hussein-Ece, a Lib Dem peer and equalities spokeswoman who is of Turkish descent, said it was “stomach-turning, dog-whistle politics demonising an entire country and all its people”. She said: “The large Turkish community in the UK has made an enormous economic and social contribution over many decades. They play a vital and vibrant role in our society and shouldn’t be subject to Nigel Farage’s nasty politics.” It is understood Ofcom has received 21 complaints to date about the broadcast on BBC1 and 10 about the broadcast on ITV. Ofcom said: “We will assess these complaints before deciding whether to investigate or not.” The broadcast provoked a backlash from pro-EU campaigners and MPs, as well as claims of Islamophobia from Twitter users. It warned about the number of “Islamic imam schools” in Turkey, highlighted the shrinking number of Christians, and showed a succession of images of minarets and women wearing headscarves. It also reeled off a list of statistics about women suffering physical violence and a quarter marrying before the age of 18 as apparent justifications for why the country should not be allowed to join the EU. Ukip did not respond to requests for comment. • This article was amended on 9 February 2016. An earlier version incorrectly described Baroness Meral Hussein-Ece as the only British parliamentarian of Turkish descent.
Joe's Violin: a Holocaust survivor, a schoolgirl and an unlikely friendship Intergenerational friendships aren’t the YouTube hits of interspecies friendships – but a new film, Joe’s Violin, might help change that. The documentary short, which had its world premiere at Tribeca film festival on Thursday, tells the story of a blossoming friendship between a 93-year-old Holocaust survivor and a Bronx 14-year-old schoolgirl, brought together by a violin he acquired at a displaced person’s camp in postwar Germany. Joseph Feingold was born in Poland in 1923, to a loving family who all played instruments. He was a violinist. “Music meant so much to us,” says Feingold in the film. But when the Nazis and Soviets invaded Poland, Feingold was sent to a Siberian labor camp at just 17, where he remained for six and a half years. His mother and youngest brother were killed in concentration camps. Feingold returned to Poland after the war, but fled to Germany with his father to escape the Kielce pogrom in 1946, a massacre that murdered 42 Jews. While waiting in a displaced person’s camp in Germany in 1947 for resettlement in the United States, Feingold swapped a carton of American cigarettes for a violin. He brought the reminder of his musical childhood with him to the United States, where he settled in New York City’s Upper West Side, worked as an architect and married his wife Regina. He continued to play the violin, but in recent years the instrument became too difficult for his aging hands to handle. So when Feingold heard about an instrument drive on New York’s classic radio station WQXR in 2014, he grabbed his violin and jumped on a bus to the Lincoln Center to drop it off. “We knew Joe was special when we met him,” Kathleen Drohan, director of the WQXR Instrument Drive, told the . The Mr Holland’s Opus Foundation, manages the instrument drive donations and allocates them to specific public schools in the New York City area. Film-maker Kahane Cooperman, a former co-executive producer of the Daily Show with Jon Stewart and multiple Emmy and Peabody award winner, was driving in her car when she heard Feingold interviewed on WQXR after he dropped off the instrument. Curious as to who would end up with this violin, Cooperman embarked on a project about Feingold’s life and the search for the next music lover to own his traveling violin. Enter Brianna Perez, a sweet then-13-year-old from the Bronx Global Learning Institute for Girls, a school in one of the poorest congressional districts in the country. The school was chosen to care for Feingold’s cherished instrument, and student Perez was selected to play it. “My light is playing the violin,” says Perez, who’s played since kindergarten. Ahead of the film’s premiere at Tribeca, Feingold presented a private screening of Joe’s Violin to family and friends at his seniors’ home on the Upper West Side. It was the first time Feingold and Perez watched the film together. The pair may have an age gap of nearly 80 years, but they are fond of each other and now write letters to keep in touch. “Brianna told me: ‘Mom, I feel like I’ve known him all my life.’ It’s so weird, but nice,” laughed her mother, Merecedes Polanco. “I couldn’t have dreamed up a more meaningful story and more wonderful people to be connected by this violin,” said Cooperman. Soon, Perez will head off to Talent Unlimited high school and the instrument will remain at the Bronx Global Learning Institute for Girls, for another student to practice on.
Treasury set to make high-stakes entry into EU referendum debate The Treasury is primed to publish a barrage of statistics showing the economic merits of Britain’s membership of the EU this week, ahead of a controversial intervention by President Barack Obama in the campaign. It is understood that officials are preparing to make public a “comprehensive assessment of the costs and benefits of membership” as the in/out battle starts in earnest. A similar study by Treasury officials in the run-up to last year’s Scottish independence referendum saw the then first minister, Alex Salmond, accuse Whitehall of “trying to cook the books”. The document will be published either this week or early next, depending on negotiations with the Treasury select committee, which has asked for sight of it. In a speech this week, the chancellor, George Osborne, is expected to trumpet the latest unemployment figures and warn of the risk to jobs should the UK leave the EU. The US president is due to arrive in the UK on Friday and present his argument in favour of Britain remaining in the EU during a press conference at Downing Street. He will address a “town hall event” with young voters in central London on Saturday, at which he is likely to again hail the benefits to the global order of a strong EU with Britain at its heart. “We have no closer friend in the world, and if we are asked our view as a friend, we will offer it,” Ben Rhodes, Obama’s deputy national security adviser, told reporters in Washington. News of Obama’s appearance has already caused outrage and the Treasury’s intervention is likely to cause fresh complaints from the Vote Leave campaign. The London mayor, Boris Johnson, turned his fire on David Cameron once again for “shamefully” spending £9.3m of taxpayers’ cash on a pro-EU leaflet distributed to every household in the country. Megan Dunn, leader of the National Union of Students, joined 25 of her predecessors in urging young people to vote to remain in the EU. She, along with former NUS heads including former cabinet ministers Jack Straw and Charles Clarke, as well as Gemma Tumelty, Wes Streeting and Lorna Fitzsimons, argues in a letter to the : “Remaining in Europe is the right choice for students and young people, in terms both of values and material wellbeing. They will live a long time with the consequences of the vote, and would be harmed most if the UK voted to leave.” Government ministers have written to every college and university across the UK, urging them to ensure their students are registered before the 7 June deadline to vote in the EU referendum. In the letter Jo Johnson, the universities minister, said that for students the decision will be “one of the biggest of their lives”. The All-Party Parliamentary Group on Democratic Participation will this week raise concerns about the number of people who are not registered to vote. Its chair, Chloe Smith, the Conservative MP for Norwich North, said: “The deadline to register to vote for the EU referendum, one of the most important political decisions of our lifetime, is fast approaching. With around 50% of under-35s planning to vote on 23 June – compared with 80% of over-55s – it’s now vital that young people take action and ensure they’re registered. With the outcome of the referendum likely to affect young people the most, whether that’s opportunities to work, study or travel, younger citizens shouldn’t be locked out of this once-in-a-generation decision. That means registering, sorting out a postal vote, and making a decision about whether the UK is better off in, or out, of the EU.” Meanwhile the Northern Ireland secretary, Theresa Villiers, made a speech describing the EU as “unreformable” as she made her case for Brexit during a Scottish Vote Leave event in Glasgow. Britain had joined in an “admission of defeat” that the country was facing chronic decline, but it was now time for self-governing democracy to return. The justice secretary, Michael Gove, will make a speech on Wednesday sketching his vision of the UK outside the EU, an area that is recognised as a weakness by the Vote Leave campaign. Last Friday was the first day of the official 10-week referendum campaign.
Mad Max: Fury Road is Rotten Tomatoes' best-reviewed film of 2015 Action epic Mad Max: Fury Road and Oscar-tipped drama Room have been named the best-reviewed films of 2015 by the critical aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes. George Miller’s long-awaited return to the dusty dystopian Aussie badlands, which also won the prize for best-reviewed science-fiction movie, was named the top film on wide release after scoring a 97% “fresh” rating on the site. Room, Lenny Abrahamson’s drama about a mother and son living in extreme circumstances , was named the best-reviewed movie on limited release, after scoring 98% from critics. Its star, Brie Larson, picked up the best actress in a drama prize at the Golden Globes on 10 January. Pixar’s Inside Out and the period tale Brooklyn, starring Saoirse Ronan, also scored 98%. Rotten Tomatoes noted that fewer critics had posted reviews for these film, and therefore placed them lower in the rankings for its annual Golden Tomato awards than Fury Road according to an “adjusted” measurement. Cannes prize-winner Timbuktu got an impressive 99%, but also dropped down on the list due to fewer reviews; it took the best foreign language movie garland. Abderrahmane Sissako’s film about life under Islamist occupation on the edge of the Sahara desert in Mali was submitted for last year’s Oscars. Fury Road, the first new Mad Max movie since Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, in 1985, is widely expected to challenge at the Oscars in February, although mostly in technical categories. The film’s surest bet of taking home one of the major prizes appears to be in the best film category, where it is expected to be nominated. Miller’s movie went home empty-handed at the Golden Globes, which does not honour technical accomplishments, despite nods for best drama film and best director. Inside Out was named the best-reviewed animated film of 2015. Pixar’s colourful tale of turmoil in the mind of a troubled 12-year-old girl is also expected to challenge for the equivalent Oscar. It Follows (with a 97% rating on Rotten Tomatoes) got best horror movie, while Brooklyn was named the site’s best drama and Amy (96%) got best documentary. Carol (94%) was named best-reviewed romance, while Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation (93%) was the site’s best-reviewed action movie.
Hollywood’s most ageist casting decisions – from witches to ‘impossible’ mums How to combat the age-old problem of ageism in Hollywood? More female directors? Less of a gender pay gap? A special taskforce led by Meryl Streep, Helen Mirren and Jennifer Lawrence to persuade the industry that there is more to womanhood after 40 than being a grandmother or a witch? It appears the answer is a landmark law, effective from next year in California only, that permits actors to request the removal of their age from professional entertainment sites such as IMDb. Which, you might say, compounds rather than solves the problem by encouraging actors to hide their age if they want more work. But never mind. In a world in which Susan Sarandon is old enough to be Melissa McCarthy’s grandmother (Tammy) and an unwritten law states that Harrison Ford can only snog women at least 15 years younger than him, here are five of the most offensive/unbelievable/disturbing/gross examples of Hollywood ageism … Maggie Gyllenhaal Last year, the actor revealed she had just been turned down for a role in a movie because she was considered too old to play the lover of a 55-year-old man. She was 37. “It made me feel bad, and then it made me feel angry, and then it made me laugh,” she said. Better still was Helen Mirren’s response: “It’s fucking outrageous.” The Graduate, generally The plot of The Graduate hinges on the seduction of fresh-faced Benjamin by Mrs Robinson, the glamorous middle-aged friend of his parents. In reality, Anne Bancroft (35) was just six years older than Dustin Hoffman (29). And Katharine Ross, playing her daughter, was 26, meaning Mrs Robinson would have been nine when she had her. In a final preposterous twist, Gene Hackman was fired three weeks into rehearsal by Mike Nichols for being too young for the role of the cuckolded Mr Robinson. He was the same age as Bancroft. Meryl Streep When Streep turned 40 she was rewarded for her reputation as the greatest female actor of her generation by being offered three witch roles. In one year. “I was not offered any female adventurers, or love interests, or heroes or demons,” she said in 2015 when, at 65, she finally conceded to play a witch in Stephen Sondheim’s Into The Woods. “I was offered witches because I was ‘old’ at 40.” Sally Field In 1988’s Punchline, after winning two Oscars, Field played Tom Hanks’s love interest. A mere six years later, she had apparently aged enough to play his mother in Forrest Gump, despite there being only a decade between them. Some more impossible mothers … If you think a 10-year difference between mother and child is just plain wrong, consider Alexander (2004), in which Angelina Jolie plays mommie dearest to a blond Colin Farrell, resplendent in his white tunic and gilded armour, who is but a year younger than her. Or The Manchurian Candidate (1962), in which Angela Lansbury was two years older than Laurence Harvey, who played her son. Finally, winning an ageist award of its own, is the myth that persists that in North By Northwest (1959), Jessie Royce Landis was ten months younger than Cary Grant when she played his mother. In fact she was seven years older than him in real life. Which is hardly better. • This article was amended on 29 September 2016 because an earlier version said that Jessie Royce Landis was 10 months younger than Cary Grant. This has been corrected.
West Ham’s Europe hopes plunge as Routledge starts Swansea onslaught West Ham say goodbye to Upton Park on Tuesday and here they surprisingly took the opportunity to all but say goodbye to their hopes of qualifying for the Champions League. This was a match the hosts were meant to win at a canter but instead they were ruthlessly and deservedly defeated by a Swansea side who continue their transformation from relegation candidates to mid-table entertainers under Francesco Guidolin. The Italian’s name was sung by those who filled the away end while from the home supporters came little else but a sense of muted shock. And no wonder, given what they were witnessing. West Ham came into this match having lost only twice here all season and on the back of a 10-match unbeaten run. They had also recorded their highest points total in the Premier League, 59. Another three points felt guaranteed, especially given there were six changes to the Swansea line-up on the back of them securing their top-flight status with victory over Liverpool last week. But instead it was the visitors who imposed and impressed, securing their fourth away win of the season thanks to goals from Wayne Routledge, André Ayew, Ki Sung-yueng and Bafétimbi Gomis. West Ham now find themselves five points behind Manchester City in fourth and four points behind fifth-placed Manchester United with two matches to play, the first of which is against United, on what is sure to be an emotional occasion as West Ham fans, officials, players past and present bid farewell to their home of the past 112 years. Should they fail to beat Louis van Gaal’s side, the Londoners will also have to deal with being mathematically out of the running to finish in the top four. A win for Manchester City on Sunday against Arsenal will do that in any case. Failing to qualify for the Europa League is also a very real possibility for West Ham, as their manager, Slaven Bilic, is fully aware. “What I’ve kept saying for the last three or four weeks is that, unfortunately, the gap between us and the top four is bigger than the gap between us and Southampton and Liverpool, and that’s the gap that I’m concentrated on,” he said. “I could not say we did not want it [the Champions League] but I wanted to approach it game by game and the good thing is we have an opportunity on Tuesday in maybe the most special game ever at Upton Park to make up for this.” To do that West Ham will have to perform markedly better than they did here. Bilic described himself as angry with his team’s showing, claiming there were too many “passengers” in claret and blue. They started brightly and with purpose but after a quarter of an hour became increasingly disjointed and sluggish, with no one in the home ranks suffering a more torrid afternoon than Michail Antonio, who looked every part a right winger operating at right back. He was at fault for Swansea’s second and third goals, first allowing Stephen Kingsley too much time and space to play in a cross that Ayew thumped past Darren Randolph from close range on 31 minutesand then being turned and beaten too easily by Modou Barrow shortly after half-time, allowing the Swansea winger to put in a delivery that Ki swept home from near the penalty spot. Frankly, it came as no surprise to see Bilic move Antonio to a more advanced position on the hour mark. For all West Ham’s failings, Swansea deserve credit for how they performed here, passing the ball with intelligence and speed having weathered the early period of pressure. It also bodes well for their future that most of players that came into the team impressed, no one more so than Ki, who dictated the visitors’ tempo and played a part in their opening goal, sweeping a pass out to Kyle Naughton that was turned in from close range by the unmarked Wayne Routledge. Gomis, a substitute, wrapped up victory following a sweeping counterattack and after Kingsley had scored an own goal. “This was a good performance and we can now say it is not a bad season,” said Guidolin, who has lifted Swansea from 18th to 11th since becoming manager in January yet remarkably still does not know if he will be kept on by the Welsh club beyond next Sunday’s final match of the season, against Manchester City.
Approach mental health like cancer care: prevention is key With a strong focus on prevention, the mental health taskforce report could prove pivotal in creating a mentally healthier nation. It is well known that there is a disparity in resources between physical and mental health. But it’s not only in funding that mental health lags behind, it’s also in approach. As efforts to improve cancer survival rates show, care and treatment in physical health has for decades focused on preventing and diagnosing physical problems early. This approach must be mirrored in mental health. However, the focus of the debate on mental health is mostly on acute care, as was seen last week when Lord Crisp published his independent commission report. This is understandable: it is a real problem that needs to be resolved. But the lack of access to acute mental health services is a symptom of the mental health crisis, not its cause. The cause is the failure to prevent, where possible, mental health problems from developing in the first place. The fight for a mentally healthier nation has now gained momentum. In recent years there has been a growing focus on the impact of poor mental health. Sensitive and helpful media coverage has increased, as highlighted by the ’s This is the NHS and the BBC’s In the Mind series. And politicians across the spectrum have worked together to push the issue up the public policy agenda. Stigma is beginning to break down. Now this increased profile of mental health needs to be translated into change. So Monday’s mental health taskforce’s report The Five Year Forward View for Mental Health could prove pivotal. In setting out a new five year strategy for the NHS in England, it highlights both the need to address acute care and the need for more emphasis on prevention. It provides for a Prevention Concordat programme (essentially an agreement) that will enable all health and wellbeing boards to support local needs and produce mental health prevention plans. The taskforce report hits home when it says “prevention matters – it’s the only way that change can be achieved”. Beyond the economic cost of £105bn a year, poor mental health is destroying lives. Providing the right range of support, including prevention, can turn the tide of the mental health crisis. The evidence is clear that prevention is the answer to better mental health and wellbeing. What’s more, prevention is the public’s top priority as the engagement consultation that fed into the taskforce report highlighted. In practice, this means that we need to do more to embed good mental health within the population at large and particularly in at -risk groups. Specifically we welcome the taskforce’s recommendations that the Department of Health should appoint a champion to tackle mental health inequalities within health and social care systems and encourage cross-government action. Part of their remit will be to improve the experience of care for people from black and minority ethnic communities by using a patients and carers race equality standard. However, inequalities experienced by groups with high rates of mental health problems, not covered by equality legislation, such as people living in poverty and homeless people, must also be addressed. So much can be done to improve the quality of people’s lives if they get support and care when they first need it. For most people experiencing long term mental health problems this will be in childhood, when symptoms first emerge. In highlighting the importance of prevention The Five Year Forward View for Mental Health marks a turning point. But pressure must be maintained to ensure the change it calls for actually happens. With the support of the right government policies we will have the best chance of keeping ourselves mentally well. Join the Healthcare Professionals Network to read more pieces like this. And follow us on Twitter (@GdnHealthcare) to keep up with the latest healthcare news and views.
UK bank pay and bonuses in the spotlight as results season starts The pay deals handed to the bosses of Britain’s biggest banks will be in focus this week when they report their results for 2015, at a time when bank shares have been hit by fears of renewed financial crisis. Investors will be scrutinising the bonuses handed out staff – it has already been calculated the major high street banks could hand out £5bn between them – and the dividends paid out to shareholders. The results are being published at a time when bank shares have been under pressure over fears that a slowdown in China could have severe knock-on effects for global growth, while sustained low or negative interest rates are harming banks’ long-term profitability. Scandals such as the payment protection insurance mis-selling and the subprime mortgages in the US continue to weigh on the sector. Bailed out Royal Bank of Scotland will report the full extent of an eighth successive year of annual losses and is expected to disclose higher pay for its chief executive, Ross McEwan, of around £3m. HSBC, which last week confirmed it would keep its headquarters in the UK, kicks off the reporting season on Monday, followed by Standard Chartered, Lloyds Banking Group and RBS, with Barclays the week after. António Horta-Osório, chief executive of Lloyds Banking Group, is in line for a maximum payment of around £7.5m if all the performance criteria attached to a long-term scheme he was handed three years ago are met. This includes a £1m salary and other payments. He received £11.5m the previous year when the bank reintroduced its dividend for shareholders for the first time since the banking crisis. The Lloyds results might have been used to signal a sale of shares to the public which was promised in the run-up to last year’s general election but Chancellor George Osborne said last month this would be postponed because of the volatility in global stock markets. Any news of dividends could help bolster the shares - trading at 61p, below the 73p price paid by the taxpayer - amid reports that a special dividend could be planned. RBS is expected to confirm that it is continuing to make payments to its former chief executive Stephen Hester, who under the terms of his departure in June 2013 was allowed to keep some of his performance-related shares. Now chief executive at insurer RSA, Hester could receive up to £500,000. Hester’s bonuses were flash point during his tenure at the bank, and prompted McEwan to ditch annual bonuses for himself and his senior executives. However, a a three-year performance plan put in place for McEwan is due to mature although is unlikely to reach the maximum £1.7m once all the criteria are assessed. McEwan also receives a £1m salary, £350,000 for his pension, a relocation allowance which in 2014 reached £100,0000 and a £1m “role-based allowance” – which last year he gave to charity. These so-called allowances were introduced by the banks after the EU capped bankers’ bonuses to a maximum of double their salary. In last year’s annual report, the bank disclosed his total pay at £1.8m. Such allowances mean that Stuart Gulliver, the chief executive of HSBC, will have received £2.7m a year before any bonuses because his £1m salary comes alongside a £1.7m a year fixed allowance. His total pay for the previous year was £7.6m. Last week he discussed the prospect of boardroom change at the bank, amid expectations chairman Douglas Flint will be first of the two to step aside. Standard Chartered, which analysts warn could struggle to report any profits for 2015, will publish details of pay for Peter Sands, who resigned as chief executive a year ago, and his deputy Mike Rees, who will leave later this year. Before the latest details are announced, calculations by Bloomberg show that Rees had been paid £50m in the six years since the financial crisis. Analysts will be looking for signs of distress inside the banks, given the current volatility in the market. Some argue that the recent concern about the state of the sector is overdone. “We doubt that another credit crunch is on its way unless the economy takes a significant turn for the worse,” said Vicky Redwood at Capital Economics.
'The patient will be at the heart of everything the NHS does' “The NHS belongs to us all.” These are the first words of the NHS Constitution, a recently revised document which we should all read. The NHS constitution sets out seven key principles with their underpinning values. It tells us we have legal rights and makes pledges to us “which go above and beyond legal rights”. Take the NHS principle of access: it’s underpinned as one might expect by the right to receive NHS services free of charge and not to be refused on unreasonable grounds. But there is also the right to receive care and treatment which is appropriate to you, meets your needs and reflects your preferences. It’s worth pausing for a moment and reflecting on what this right of “appropriateness” might mean, if, for instance, you are someone living with dementia. Or if you are any frail or vulnerable person who is normally dependent on someone else for their daily functioning. What would most appropriately meet your needs and reflect your preferences if you required hospital treatment? Being accompanied, I would guess. The constitution pledges “to make the transition as smooth as possible when you are referred between services and to put you, your family and carers at the centre of decisions that affect you or them”. Good isn’t it? My favourite principle is number four: the patient will be at the heart of everything the NHS does. “NHS services must reflect, and should be co-ordinated around and tailored to, the needs and preferences of patients, their families and their carers.” Now, express that as a (legal) right: “You have the right to be involved in planning and making decisions about your health and care with your care-provider or providers, including your end of life care and to be given information and support to enable you to do this. Where appropriate (adds the most recent revision) this right includes your family and carers.” The NHS constitution was most recently revised in October 2015. The consistent and welcome inclusion of “family and carers” as the appropriate support for some patients is new. The constitution’s stated purpose is to “empower patients and their families by providing them with up to date information about their legal rights”. So the next time a loving daughter is turned away from her “very poorly” father with dementia because it’s not visiting hours or when she is obstructed from making an appointment to talk to the clinicians who are looking after him at a time that is convenient for her to continue with her own socially vital job, I hope she’ll pull out principle four and flourish it. That’s if she’s one of the 24% of us who knows that the NHS constitution exists. And if she’s not, by then, in mourning.
NHS watchdog signed off doomed £750m contract despite doubts An NHS contract worth £750m that collapsed in December after just eight months was effectively signed off by the regulator and NHS England, despite questions about its viability. The contract – the biggest in NHS history – was the first designed to bring together hospital, mental health services and community care for adults and older people in Cambridgeshire, introducing a single point of contact for patients. Signed in November 2014 after a 15-month procurement process that cost more than £1m, it was strongly opposed by local campaigners and trade unionists after several private bidders expressed an interest. Opponents feared it would mean transferring thousands of staff into the private sector. In the end, the contract went to an NHS partnership called UnitingCare. It launched in April last year, promising to cut emergency admissions to hospital, saving millions of pounds. But by early December, all the partners agreed it was not financially sustainable. In papers submitted to Cambridgeshire county council’s health scrutiny committee, Monitor revealed it had such grave doubts about the project that it only gave it the go-ahead the day before the launch. There were 34 outstanding issues remaining to be negotiated, a hearing of the committee was told last week. The senior GP in the clinical commissioning group (CCG) that awarded the contract, Dr Neil Modha, resigned last Friday, citing personal reasons. At the hearing of the health scrutiny committee the day before, he admitted that the obligations in the contract exceeded its value. “There was not enough money to cover all the services that were to be provided,” he said. Questions will be asked not only about how the contract came to be approved but why it was not rescued. On some estimates, its collapse will cost the already hard-pressed local hospitals, community care providers and GPs up to £20m. The shortfall that had been identified was £9.3m. NHS England refused to find the extra cash. In the Commons last week, the health minister George Freeman acknowledged his department had been involved and that it was a complex issue. Two inquiries are now under way to try to establish why the contract, brokered by the strategic projects team – often called the NHS’s privatisation arm – was allowed to go ahead. The partners insist they fought to save the deal, which was intended to deliver the kind of joined-up services Simon Stevens, head of NHS England, has repeatedly called for. One area likely to be closely examined is the impact of the financial crisis at Addenbrooke’s hospital in Cambridge, the biggest partner in UnitingCare. After a flawed launch of a new IT system for emergency admissions and criticism of some aspects of patient safety by the Care Quality Commission, the hospital was put into special measures in September, limiting its financial room for manoeuvre. According to an analysis by the Cambridgeshire CCG, which tendered the contract, there were “mismatched expectations of the financial investment required”. The Cambridgeshire CCG is conducting an internal audit and is scheduled to report at the end of the month. NHS England is also holding an inquiry that will look at the role of the strategic projects team. Stevens told MPs last week that it will be completed by the end of February. He described the UnitingCare failure as a “very important moment for the NHS”. MPs and peers are demanding a full inquiry by the National Audit Office (NAO). Daniel Zeichner, Labour MP for Cambridge, said: “Apportioning blame is not necessarily helpful, and we don’t want to lose the innovation that was coming on stream. But it’s clear there was a mighty panic over who would pay. It would be better to have a genuinely independent review carried out by the National Audit Office.” The UnitingCare collapse is the latest in a series of disasters involving the strategic projects team. The nearby Hinchingbrooke district general hospital in Huntingdon was taken over in 2012 by the private contractor Circle. Last year, Circle handed the contract back, claiming demand was much greater than expected and the health secretary had cut funding for hospitals so steeply the contract was no longer viable. Analysing that case, the NAO warned about the importance of testing new projects properly and being prepared for the unexpected. MPs on the public accounts committee said the taxpayer had been left to pick up the pieces while no one had been held to account for the failure of the contract. There are evident similarities between the failure of Cambridgeshire’s contract and the Hinchingbrooke debacle. Managers admitted their forecasts about the savings to be made from the pioneering Cambridgeshire contract – which is based on a completely new system – now looked optimistic. Its success was to be judged on untested outcomes such as reducing the number of elderly people admitted to hospital through A&E, and preventing delayed discharges, which have been a major problem for Addenbrooke’s. But it seems that the basic costs had also been underestimated, possibly because of an elementary misunderstanding about VAT liability. Keith Spencer, chief executive of UnitingCare, said last Thursday: “There are lessons for everyone, the clinical commissioning group and the hospitals and NHS England, and it is very important that everyone learns from them.” He added: “No one wanted this contract to terminate. UnitingCare, its partner trusts and the CCG have worked tirelessly over many months to find a resolution to the funding shortfall which ultimately caused the contract to be terminated. “This was carried out with support from NHS England and Monitor. The UnitingCare service model, co-created with patients, carers, health and social care professionals enjoyed a high degree of support amongst clinicians and organisations in the local health and social care system and it was beginning to have an impact for patients and the public. Emergency admissions to hospital for older people reduced by nearly 8% across C&P in November 2015 – our final month of operation.”
We doctors spend our lives saving yours. As we strike, will you stand with us? As we approach the junior doctors’ strike, I have been asked a lot about the mood at the hospital. In this moment Robert Owen describes how I feel better than I can: “God and the doctor we alike adore/ But only when in danger, not before;/ The danger o’er, both are alike requited,/ God is forgotten, and the doctor slighted.” Frankly, I am lost for words at the actions of the health secretary, Jeremy Hunt. His refusal to acknowledge the need for adequate safeguards for patients and doctors leads me to wonder if he has a deep-seated resentment for the entire medical profession – and for patients. The BMA have tried to work with the government, but they won’t compromise on the safety of patients or doctors. Would you want them to accept proposals that risk lives? No – neither would I. This principle is at the heart of why we are striking, and despite Hunt’s attempts to downplay it, we take it very seriously. As I try to make sense of his actions, I begin to wonder about the government’s motives. Privatisation by stealth and selling off the NHS is the obvious suspicion: dismantling, piece by piece, the institution that embodies the pinnacle of our achievements in postwar Britain. This threat is so widely feared that we need to take it seriously. And what are the impacts of Hunt’s actions so far? Within my own family of medics – two GPs, a paediatrician, a medical student and me, an A&E doctor – the plan for everyone is to look for work outside England. One is heading to Scotland, another to New Zealand and the medical student is not sure he will even practise once qualified. All of this has happened since the junior contract was attacked by Hunt. We are not alone. The Student Room, which houses the largest online community of medical students in the UK, conducted a survey of almost 1,550 students and found 37% who had wanted to study medicine said they had changed their minds as a result of Hunt’s proposed contract changes. This is a direct threat to the core of the UK’s future medical workforce. The public should know that we are striking as a last resort, to try to stop a terrible scenario unfolding here in England. Our lives are dedicated to your care. When you’ve been sick we’ve been with you. It’s not just a job. It’s never “just another” patient – at that moment in time you are everything. We have spent years studying, absorbing knowledge to give us the skills to heal you. You know what we do and you know we care. So why is Hunt not listening? Does he not value you as a patient – and hence that’s why he does not value us as those that care for you? Will you stand with us? My father has been in hospital seven times over the past 12 months, and on three of those occasions the NHS and my colleagues saved his life. My parents are elderly with health problems, like a growing proportion of the population. I know I can care for them medically, but not everyone has the luxury of a doctor at home. Whenever I treat a patient I always think of how I would want my mother and father to be cared for. How am I going to be able to look after your parents in the same way if Hunt pushes through his plans? There’s a huge lump in my throat as I write this. Why? Because I think of all those hours of dedication, all those moments with my patients and my ongoing commitment to them – and how this government is trying to destroy that.
Anohni: Hopelessness review – a radical album for a time of crisis This extraordinary album, authored by the artist formerly known as Antony and the Johnsons, is all about radical changes, and radical change. Having excised the letter T, Antony is now Anohni, bringing both brand and public face in line with Anohni’s long-held female identification among intimates. Gone are the Johnsons, the non-ensemble who used to underscore Antony’s emotive vibrato. Two digital producers at the vanguard of electronica replace them – Hudson Mohawke and Oneohtrix Point Never. Anohni is hopping mad, and more sorrowful than the journalistic PJ Harvey, an obvious fellow traveller on the road of pop’s engagement with the wider world. Hopelessness takes the tragedies of our age – ecocide, drone warfare, loss of liberty – and confronts them with the aid of muscular electronic tunes. On one level, Hopelessness is the record you were hoping Anohni might someday make after Blind, her 2008 collaboration with Hercules and Love Affair, when one of this generation’s most distinct voices – part Alison Moyet, part Nina Simone, and yet all Anohni – abandoned the piano for some club sounds. Hopelessness finally busts Anohni’s oceanic pipes out of the somewhat tight corner in which they have been cloistered since her 2005 Mercury win with I Am a Bird Now, and lets them rip over crunching beats, the kind that inhabit the mainstream. Last year’s 4 Degrees was a powerful opening gambit. The gist of the album is in Anohni’s takedown of irreversible climate change, in the chorus you can sing along to. “I want to see the animals dying in the trees,” she howls, playing devil’s advocate about what will happen if we don’t curb emissions, massively, by yesterday. Drone Bomb Me – the second taster – is even better: sung in the voice of a young Afghan girl, begging for death since her family are all gone. “Let me be the one you choose tonight,” Anohni sings, an anguished play on pop coquettishness. On Watch Me, the US National Security Agency is cast as a father figure whose attentiveness is controlling and downright sinister. “I know you love me/ Cos you’re always watching me,” Anohni coos, while HudMo and Oneohtrix pour out the contents of their toy boxes in a deluge of foxy digitals. Anohni’s stated mission – to smuggle polemical content in through pop Trojan horses – is accomplished here. The subject matter, then, is unrelenting. But Anohni’s impassioned delivery succeeds in making ecstatic music out of it, carried along by propulsive soundbeds; music that is equal to the apocalypse. There’s room for art, too. Most startling of all these songs, perhaps, is Obama, where Anohni accesses her lowest register to take the outgoing president to task over a legacy of kill lists. There’s a hint of Indian devotional music to her vocal, or perhaps the call to prayer.
Donald's misogyny problem: How Trump has repeatedly targeted women Donald Trump’s apology for the latest in a string of controversial comments about women came as no surprise to the political strategist and fellow Republican Ana Navarro. “He is not fit to be the president, he is not fit to be the Republican nominee, he is not fit to be called a man,” Navarro said on CNN. “How many times does he get away with saying something misogynistic before we call him a misogynist? How many times does he get away with saying something sexist before we acknowledge that he is a sexist? It is time to condemn the man.” Navarro was not the only one to point to Trump’s long history of seemingly misogynistic comments, and while the campaign tried to regain its footing this weekend, spectators revisited some of his most appalling outbursts: “fat pigs”, “slobs” and “disgusting animals”. Having said in the 1990s that it did not matter what the media said about him “as long as you’ve got a young and beautiful piece of ass”, Trump’s attitude appears to have remained unchanged during his bid for the Oval Office. Take, for instance, his attacks on the Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly, who grilled him over previous accusations of sexism. Trump called her a “bimbo” who was incapable of objectivity when there was “blood coming out of her whatever” - widely interpreted as a thinly veiled reference to her menstrual cycle. Other biological processes of women to have offended Trump include the need to take a toilet break - Clinton was branded “disgusting” for doing so during a Democratic debate - and breastfeeding a baby - opposing lawyer Elizabeth Beck was also “disgusting” for requesting a break to breastfeed her three-month-old daughter during a 2011 hearing over a failed Florida real estate project in which Trump was involved. Trump has regularly targeted Arianna Huffington, the editor and co-founder of the Huffington Post, as being “unattractive both inside and out”. When the New York Times columnist Gail Collins wrote about rumours of his bankruptcy, he sent her a copy of her own article with her picture circled and “the face of a dog!” written across it. More recently, when his campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, was charged with battery for yanking Michelle Fields’ arm as she tried to ask questions, Trump was quick to accuse the reporter of changing her story. He has also maintained a brutal verbal campaign against comedian Rosie O’Donnell. In 2006, during an appearance on Entertainment Tonight, Trump said she was “disgusting, both inside and out. If you take a look at her, she’s a slob. How does she even get on television? If I were running The View, I’d fire Rosie. I’d look her right in that fat, ugly face of hers and say, ‘Rosie, you’re fired.’ We’re all a little chubby but Rosie’s just worse than most of us”. The verbal assault did not stop there, as he continued to attack her personal life and offend the LGBT community at the same time: “Rosie’s a person who’s very lucky to have her girlfriend. And she better be careful or I’ll send one of my friends over to pick up her girlfriend. Why would she stay with Rosie if she had another choice?” he said. Of Angelina Jolie, Trump said: “I do understand beauty, and she’s not.” Of the breakup of actor Anna Hathaway’s marriage to Rafaella Follierei following his financial and legal troubles, he said: “So when he had plenty of money, she liked him. But then after that, not as good, right?” And after the singer Cher’s criticism of Mitt Romney, he promised “not to talk about your massive plastic surgeries that didn’t work”. Nor have Trump’s fellow politicians and their spouses been spared from the line of fire. He questioned whether anyone would vote for Carly Fiorina, the former Hewlett Packard boss and his Republican candidate rival, stating: “Look at that face … Can you imagine that, the face of our next president?” There was a major fallout after he insulted the appearance of Heidi Cruz, a partner at Goldman Sachs bank and the wife of his leading opponent Ted, by re-tweeting a supporter’s split-screen image featuring an unflattering picture of Heidi next to a shot of Trump’s wife, Melania, a former model, from a GQ magazine photoshoot in 2000. “A picture is worth a thousand words,” the post said. On policy issues, Trump was forced into a quick retreat after advocating “some form of punishment” for women who had abortions if the procedure became illegal. He previously supported the pro-choice lobby, but he has since said he believes individual states should be granted the right to ban the practice, except in cases of rape, incest or when the woman’s life is at stake. Verbal indiscretions aside, perhaps what many fear most is the more serious allegations about Trump’s conduct towards women. Jill Harth, a woman at the centre of sexual assault allegations against the billionaire, spoke for the first time in July about her personal experience with him. The makeup artist has accused Trump in a lawsuit of cornering and groping her in his daughter’s bedroom. She told the that she stood by her charges, which her lawyers described in the lawsuit as “attempted ‘rape’”. Shortly after Trump announced his bid for president it emerged that his first wife, Ivana, had alleged in testimony during their divorce that he had raped her in 1989. When the allegation resurfaced in the Daily Beast, a lawyer and aide to Trump told a reporter that the claim was moot because “you cannot rape your spouse”. In a statement issued through Trump’s lawyers, Ivana later said she did not want “rape” to be “interpreted in a literal or criminal sense”.
I donated a kidney to my son. Don't tell me not to make it 'political' In early December, I went into surgery to give my eight-year-old son Harrison my left kidney. He heard me groaning in recovery as the anaesthetist put him to sleep a few hours later so that he could receive it. The operation was the first of my life and Harrison’s 13th. He’d experience his 14th general anaesthetic two weeks later when surgeons removed the vascular catheter that had been used to connect the dialysis machine into his heart three times a week for the five months leading up to the transplant. After a successful surgery, Harrison had a number of complications that meant an eight-day stay in the intensive care unit of the Women’s and Children’s Hospital in Adelaide, followed by another six days in the surgical ward. Daily blood tests, a Christmas Day virus that precipitated an extra five days of hospital hospitality, and then on Sunday, 3 January, our family enjoyed our first hospital-free day in well over a month. As is my wont, I covered the process extensively via my social media outlets, interspersed with the occasional comment on the social and political issues of the period – a Myefo update committed to balancing the budget on the backs of the poor here and abroad; welcoming refugees and asylum seekers; supporting my brilliant friend Wawira Njiru’s work in Kenya making sure kids don’t have to go to school on an empty stomach; protecting penalty rates from being cut by people wealthy enough not to be forced to rely on them. On Christmas Day, before the infection set in that evening, I took Harrison into hospital for an 8am blood test wearing the full Santa suit I’d donned to give our three children their presents early that morning. I figured if we had to be in hospital on such a day, we should at least make it memorable. We handed out candy canes to taxi drivers waiting at the rank outside, orderlies cleaning the halls and other families having a similar experience to our own. Driving home, I filled the car with petrol in full costume while commuters took photos and small children gawked in confusion. Harrison loved every moment. That afternoon, resting after a hearty Christmas lunch with the in-laws, I posted on social media: “Trip to hospital – saw Drs, nurses, cleaners, servo staff, RAA and more helping folks enjoy Christmas. Of course they deserve penalty rates” to which one person responded, “Enough politics for the day”. It’s easy to understand the sentiment – why sully the joy of Christmas with “politics” when there’s backyard cricket to play and pudding to consume? But if you’re any kind of activist or political advocate, it’s a familiar response. Children spending their third Christmas in immigration prisons; Australian Aid set at the lowest level in Australia’s history; health and education budgets being slashed by billions of dollars; one in three Australian pensioners living below the poverty line; climate change; sexism; racism; recognition of Australia’s Indigenous people … the easiest way to avoid thinking too deeply about any issue that arises around the barbecue on the beach is to dismiss it as “politics”. This is nothing new – people have always employed the word “politics” in the work of absolving themselves of personal responsibility for addressing inequality, injustice and the exploitation of the earth and its people. For our family, however, there’s no amount of using the word “politics” that can distance us from the truth that government-funded healthcare has not only kept Harrison alive for eight-and-a-half years but has also enabled him to thrive despite a range of other physical challenges. He’s required a huge volume of medical supplies and medication that have been provided free of charge or heavily subsidised; publicly-funded in-school support services have allowed him to keep up with his peers educationally; 14 operations and more-than-regular appointments with physicians since birth would’ve attracted a financial cost I can’t even comprehend, entirely borne by the public purse. So, while it might be easy to dismiss $15bn of cuts to the annual health budget as “politics” when you read it as a headline in the paper, the reality is that those are dollars that may have been spent on a child like Harrison. Forcing people to pay for pap smears and other preventative procedures is either “politics” or it’s a change that will mean some people won’t have their illness diagnosed early or accurately enough with huge impact on them and their families. Similarly, cuts to the education budget and the cancellation of the Gonski funding model are either an ideological minefield to be avoided in polite conversation – or it’s $196m that won’t be spent in my electorate alone on making sure that every Australia child receives a quality education . It’s either “politics” or it’s some children missing out on the opportunity to achieve their full potential because of the economic circumstance of the family they were born into. For the nurses, service station staff, cleaners and other workers that helped millions of Australians, including Harrison and I, have a good Christmas, penalty rates can’t be dismissed as mere “politics”. They’re students, single parents, new Australians and more who rely on every dollar to make ends meet. Children in immigration prisons, women enduring the violence of men, pensioners below the poverty line, parents who can’t afford child care, Muslim Australians being vilified by politicians and abused in our streets, Aboriginal people being forced from their communities – while others treat their experiences as abstract, impersonal political concepts, these people have no such convenience. That which is derided as a topic that should not interrupt the Christmas cheer invades their lives without their consent. Only the unaffected have the luxury of using “politics” to distance themselves from an issue. Harrison and I went back in to hospital last week for blood tests. He’s on a huge amount of anti-rejection medication. We’re in the hands of the best medical practitioners in the field, the nursing and other support staff at the hospital are wonderful and Harrison has all the social scaffolding he needs to thrive. But this situation didn’t happen by chance – throughout Australia’s history progressive people fought for this outcome, so successfully that it would be culturally unacceptable for us to be paying for this level of care. Australians naturally assume it’s what sick children deserve. We are living, and grateful, beneficiaries of those who valued other people enough to make politics personal.
Nurse allegedly assaulted after watchdog employee used database to find her A nurse was allegedly assaulted by an employee of Australia’s health practitioner regulator, who used his credentials to access the agency’s database and track down her home address and phone number. The security breach is one of several Australia has uncovered at the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (Ahpra), the body responsible for protecting the public by investigating complaints against healthcare practitioners. The investigation has uncovered serious flaws that could be placing medical practitioners at risk of further assaults, fraud and unauthorised access to their personal data. The agency is set to face scrutiny from a Senate inquiry into medical complaints handling initiated by the independent senators Nick Xenophon and John Madigan. Xenophon told Australia the allegations were “extraordinary” and called on Ahpra to provide a full explanation. “This calls into question the very foundation of our medical complaint system in this country,” he said. “These allegations have shaken my confidence in Ahpra. If this has happened what else is going wrong that compromises our system of medical complaints? Ahpra has a very heavy obligation to make a full and prompt response to these most serious allegations.” The Ahpra employee allegedly accessed the nurse’s personal records in September 2015 in order to track her down over a personal matter. Ahpra, which regulates 14 health professions, including doctors and nurses, became aware of the alleged assault and the unauthorised access of its database only when the nurse lodged a complaint with the organisation. The nurse contacted New South Wales police following her assault, and the employee was suspended by Ahpra. In a separate incident, an Ahpra employee who was also a midwife used her access to medical records to look up details of a complaint that had been made against her in July 2014. The complainant had separately launched civil proceedings against the woman in Victoria. The Ahpra employee then used the information as evidence in her own civil court case. It is not known whether the incident was ever disclosed to the woman who made the complaint. The incidents are just two of a number of serious data breaches that have occurred within the organisation, but have never before been disclosed. An Ahpra spokeswoman declined to comment on either privacy breach. She said in a statement: “We are unable to comment on individual matters for privacy reasons.” The spokeswoman also declined to release information about the number of other data breaches that had occurred since 2014, and said: “This information is not published.” A number of other systematic data handling failures could also be jeopardising the privacy of medical practitioners. Australia can also reveal that more than 700 staff at Ahpra could potentially have access to sensitive communications metadata disclosed to the agency under the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979. Disclosures from telecommunications companies are not held in separate databases by Ahpra. The information is generally uploaded to case files, which are broadly accessible by staff across the agency. Ahpra has previously said it holds the data “in a secure Ahpra database” and is only available to staff “where this is required or authorised by law.” The Ahpra spokeswoman said telecommunications was held in a secure database “which is password protected and audit logged.” She said Ahpra staff “must only access, use and disclose data for the purpose of performing their functions under the national law or as otherwise required or authorised by law.” The organisation has been prone to bungles in data handling. In January it inadvertently sent out 25,000 emails to nurses stating they were registered to practise as medical radiation practitioners. Ahpra said in a press release on 1 January that no data breach had occurred, and that the error was caused by a technical issue. The organisation has been the subject of ongoing scrutiny over its performance, and is facing a Senate inquiry into its handling of medical complaints. The community references committee inquiry is examining the role of Ahpra and the Medical Board of Australia in managing professional misconduct investigations related to harassment and bullying. The agency has also come under attack for what was described in the Medical Journal of Australia as its failure to protect the public from the spurious health claims of chiropractors, prompting the chair of the Australian Health Ministers’ Advisory Council, Jack Snelling, to demand answers. Ahpra is one of 61 agencies listed as having applied to the attorney general, George Brandis, for renewed access to gain warrantless access to telecommunications data. There would be no requirement that Ahpra must be investigating serious criminal law offences to access this data. The move has left consumer groups and doctors seriously concerned. Under Australian privacy law agencies are not required to make notifications of data breaches, but are encouraged to do so when the breaches are serious and could place individuals at risk. The Ahpra spokeswoman said: “Ahpra takes privacy and information security seriously. We have information governance structures, an information security policy framework, information security procedures and information security training to manage and improve information security.” • Contact Paul Farrell at paul.farrell@theguardian.com or Melissa Davey at melissa.davey@theguardian.com
Norfolk review – maddening panorama of marshland weirdness Set in the squelchy, crushed-flat fields and pongy, primeval marshes of Norfolk’s Broadlands, this maddeningly oblique, somewhat pretentious drama has a great landscape and interesting faces to look at, filmed with inventive style by Tim Sidell who’s clearly watched a lot of Alexander Sokurov films. But writer-director Martin Radich’s script plays like a bag of jagged shards broken off from other miserabilist rural-set British films. Just like the Fenland-set The Goob (2014), for instance, writer-director Martin Radich’s work has its own menacing patriarch (Denis Ménochet), a winsome, educationally deprived teenage boy (Barry Keoghan) and a pretty east European immigrant (Lithuanian Goda Letkauskaitė, cast after being spotted in a Norwich park) all thrown into conflict when the son (none of the characters have actual names) discovers the father is a kind of mercenary. Or maybe just a madman. Either way, it seems he kills people and may or may not have done away with his own wife. British character actors Eileen Davies and Sean Buckley are also on hand, seething and spitting and generally adding to the film’s Hogarthian panorama of weirdness, but the whole fetid shebang is a drag over feature length and would have been improved by losing an hour off the running time.
Busted: Night Driver review – hear Charlie Simpson roar Your enjoyment of former pop-punk trio Busted’s first album in 13 years depends on how you feel about returning hero Charlie Simpson’s voice. Ditching the fizzing guitars for percolating, Kavinsky-esque synth pop (the spectre of Drive hangs over the music and the album’s artwork), it’s Simpson’s huge larynx that dominates; he’s a honking presence on the expansive New York, while the chorus to Without It is practically pulverised into submission. Thankfully that throaty roar works much better on songs like moody opener Coming Home, and nothing can smother the undeniable 80s brilliance of the title track. Overall it’s a semi-successful sonic rebirth that, in the shape of On What You’re On, features the best Daft Punk single since One More Time.
EU referendum TV debate: Farage rejects archbishop's racism claims Here are the main points from the debate. David Cameron said he wanted people to vote for a Great Britain in the EU, not for “the little England of Nigel Farage”. I hope that when people go to vote on June 23 they think about their children and grandchildren, they think about the jobs and the opportunities they want for them, the sort of country we want to build together and they vote to say ‘we don’t want the little England of Nigel Farage’, we want to be Great Britain and we are great if we stay in these organisations and fight for the values we believe in. He said leaving the EU could hasten the break-up of the UK. Previously he has rejected the argument that a vote to leave the EU could justify a second Scottish independence referendum. But tonight he said: You don’t strengthen your country by leading to its break-up. Nigel Farage said it was worth cutting immigration even if that meant lower GDP, because there was more to life than economic growth. He said: Do you know something? There is more to this country, there is more about this community than just being competitive ... What I’m saying is that it’s wrong, wrong, wrong for average decent people in this country their living standards are falling by about 10%. It’s about time we were not thinking about GDP, the rich getting richer, and think about ordinary decent people who are having a rotten time. Cameron said Farage was wrong to dismiss the importance of growth. He said: Nigel Farage kept on talking about ‘GDP isn’t all that matters’. GDP is the size of our economy. It is the combination of all the wealth our country creates. He is basically saying it doesn’t really matter. He is so keen to get us out of Europe that he is prepared to sacrifice jobs and growth along the way. We mustn’t do that. Cameron said that the British were not “quitters”, and that they should stay in the EU. Leaving is quitting and I don’t think Britain, I don’t think we are quitters, I think we are fighters. We fight in these organisations for what we think is right. Cameron refused to say what impact the cuts to migrants’ benefits he agreed as part of his EU renegotiation would have on net migration. Asked about this, he replied: I haven’t made a forecast, because frankly we have had pretty extraordinary years recently in the EU. The first five years I was prime minister our economy created more jobs than the rest of the EU put together and so we have seen a lot of people coming to live and work here. Farage rejected Justin Welby’s claim that his comments about the dangers of Cologne-style attacks on women were racist. Farage said: I’m used to being demonised ... I’m not going to stand and attack the archbishop of Canterbury but he would have done better to read what I actually said ... It is a tiddly issue in this campaign. I knew the Remainers would come to me and conflate what I said. Farage criticised the pharmaceutical industry. In response to a question from someone who worked in it, he said: I’m not wholly happy with much of the way the pharmaceutical industry has behaved, in particular I see their lobbying in Brussels which is absolutely massive and I see the way they have been very good at putting out of business people producing alternative medicine. He said members of the establishment often only started criticising economic orthodoxy when they left their jobs. They have been wrong before and they are wrong again. There are strong, independent voices in business - people like John Longworth from the British Chambers of Commerce, who resigned his position to speak out against this and people like Digby Jones, the former director general of the CBI. So the trend is, if they are currently in post they support the status quo, once they have retired or resigned - the former governor of the Bank of England Mervyn King - they speak more freely. He said he thought the EU would not survive. Asked about what it would be like in the future, he said: I think it’s done for. The eurozone is a catastrophe. The migrant crisis is dividing not just countries but within countries. The money’s run out and yet they’re saving up for the say after our referendum an announcement about a European army. A happy Europe will be a democratic Europe of sovereign nations who are good neighbours in the same street. That’s all from me for tonight. Thanks for the comments. The Telegraph’s Michael Deacon has filed his sketch of the Cameron/Farage programme already. Here’s an excerpt. Vote Leave believed that Mr Cameron himself had insisted on facing the Ukip leader, rather than Vote Leave’s Boris Johnson, because he thought Mr Farage was a more divisive figure who would be more likely to put off undecided viewers. In the event, Vote Leave’s fears looked understandable. Mr Farage wasn’t being aggressive, and he was as eloquent as ever – but he was also prickly with paranoia. Commenting on what Cameron said about Scotland, a spokesman for Farage said: I cannot believe Nicola Sturgeon is going to have a referendum to give away powers from Holyrood [to the EU]. It ain’t going to work. If you look at the polling in Scotland, there is no real appetite for a second referendum. In a Brexit Britain, Holyrood will get increased powers. They will not go to Westminster, they will go to Holyrood. Here is the briefing from Vote Leave that it is using to justify its claim that Cameron told five lies. Steven Woolfe, Ukip immigration spokesman, said: What I was surprised by was how weak David Cameron looked. His demeanor, his shoulders, even the way he was looking at the audience, showed this is a man under intense pressure. He couldn’t seem to answer the questions on immigration and was deeply confused about the question on the NHS. He’s doing Britain down when he once said he’d do very well. Tom Watson, the deputy Labour leader, said Farage “got flustered and hectored the audience” while Cameron made his case convincingly. Farage had a big job to do and he failed. Cameron did his job adequately. The frustration as Labour politician is that we could not talk about our distinct message on the EU that, yes, it’s a single market but it also offers full workplace protections and we don’t want a race to the bottom on workplace rights. But I guess we couldn’t expect David Cameron to make that case. This is what political journalists and commentators are saying about the Cameron v Farage contest on Twitter. Cameron made the best impression, although no one seems carried away with excitement. From the BBC’s Nick Robinson From the ’s Gaby Hinsliff From ITV’s Robert Peston From the ’s Jonathan Freedland From the Spectator’s James Forsyth From the Daily Mail’s Isabel Oakeshott From LBC’s Iain Dale From ITV’s Paul Brand From the Sunday Times’s India Knight From ConservativeHome’s Mark Wallace From the Independent’s Jon Stone From the New Statesman’s George Eaton From Huffington Post’s Paul Waugh From the Sunday Telegraph’s Tim Ross From the Sunday Times’s Tim Shipman From the BBC’s Sam Macrory This is what Nigel Farage said when challenged about Justin Welby, the archbishop of Canterbury, accusing him of being racist. Farage said: I’m used to being demonised ... I’m not going to stand and attack the Archbishop of Canterbury but he would have done better to read what I actually said ... It is a tiddly issue in the this campaign. I knew the Remainers would come to me and conflate what I said. And this is from Vote Leave’s chief executive Matthew Elliott. This morning David Cameron called for more honesty in the EU debate but tonight he told five outright lies. He lied about being able to remove EU jobseekers without a job after six months, our ability to stop foreign criminals walking into the UK, our ability to deport foreign criminals, his pledge to restrict benefits and how much his government is investing in the NHS. He still claims that Turkey won’t join the EU while his government is spending £1 billion to help speed up their membership. The truth is you can’t trust anything David Cameron says on the EU. That is why you should Vote Leave on 23 June. Here is Britain Stronger in Europe’s take on the debate. This is from the briefing they have sent out to journalists. David Cameron set out a confident, positive and patriotic vision for Britain to remain stronger in Europe, rather than quitting for Nigel Farage and the Leave campaign’s little England. Nigel Farage offered no plan for Britain’s future and advocated the most damaging economic alternative for the UK, falling on the WTO, which would cost jobs, put up prices and risk our children’s future. That is the choice for the country on 23rd June: a Great Britain stronger in Europe or a little England out on our own, which is a risk to our country’s future. Cameron v Farage - Snap verdict: Overall, that felt like a relatively anaemic non-encounter that was short on memorable moments and which will have little overall impact on the campaign. Cameron will be pleased with his performance, although he was aided by having questions which seemed notably softer than those directed to Farage. In news terms, what he said about a vote to leave the EU hastening the break-up of the UK may be the most significant line of the evening. (See 9.49am.) Previously he has dismissed the idea that a Brexit vote would justify a second Scottish independence referendum, and the SNP are likely to bank what he said tonight as a concession that a second independence referendum would be justified. But this was not Cameron’s focus. As usual, he wanted to highlight the threat posed to the economy by leaving. Cameron’s manner was smoother than Farage’s, and he probably scored a bit more on soundbite bingo than his opponent. The most interesting division that opened up between them was on the importance of GDP. It is rare to hear anyone in politics say that there is more to life than money, but Farage said that it was a mistake to view the migration argument solely through this prism. Cutting immigration would be worth it even if the UK ended up poorer, he said. That is a coherent position, and a brave one. And it differentiates him from Cameron, who attacked Farage for saying this. But, overall, the main impression Farage made was of a tetchy man on the defensive. His interactions with two of the women who questioned him were unattractive (even if one of them did seem reluctant to listen to what he said) and his line about being misrepresented by the Sunday Telegraph on Cologne was not especially convincing. I don’t recall him complaining about the headline on the day. The format did not help. Etchingham left almost all questioning to the audience, which meant Cameron and Farage were not exposed to the forensic follow-up questions that were sometimes required. And it felt as if they were trying to cover too much ground. More detailed questioning might have been better. Cameron says he wants to fight for a great Britain in the EU. Don’t take the Nigel Farage, “little England” option, he says. And that’s it. Q: Just today we have seen more evidence of crimes committed by EU nationals. If we stay, how can we protect ourselves. Cameron says we are keeping border controls. If people are a risk, they are not allowed in. He says he is frustrated by how hard it is to get foreign prisoners out of our prisons. In the EU we have a directive to allow this to happen. If we do not leave, it will be much harder. Q: The 50 foreign prisoners named today are here because we cannot send them back. Why is that? Cameron says that is because the prisoner transfer deal he talked about is not yet fully in force. He is old enough to remember the time when criminals fled to the Costa del Crime and never came back. Cameron says he does not want the European parliament to have more power. If there is any plan to pass more powers to Brussels, there will be a lock. The British will have a referendum. The question is not, “Do I like the European parliament?”. Cameron says he does not like it much himself. But frustrations are not an excuse for walking away. Q: Isn’t it shameful that parliament is no longer sovereign? Cameron says Britain is engaged in a big act of democracy. And parliament is sovereign, he says. He says he loves his country. If you love your country, you should not damage it. And if we left the EU, that could hasten its break up, he says. Q: But parliament is over-ruled by some judges who have never set foot in our country. That’s a disgrace. Cameron says sovereignty is about having a say. If we leave the EU, we will have no say over the single market. Leaving the EU may give the illusion of sovereignty. Cameron says Britain needs to be in the EU, fighting for British interests and jobs. He says Britons are not quitters. We should not quit. Q: But we did not get the deal we wanted. Cameron says he got what he wanted with regard to EU migrants. If they have not got a job after six months, they will have to leave. And they will only get full benefits after four years. Q: By how much will migration fall as a result of this. Cameron says in his first five years as prime minister the UK created more jobs than the rest of the EU put together. So migration figures have varied hugely. But cutting access to benefits will make a difference. He won’t put a figure, though, on the amount by which it may fall. Q: The NHS is under immense pressure. If we stay in, what plans to you have to help it. Cameron says he has a plan for the NHS. Q: We are really under resourced. What will you put in place to deal with that? Cameron says the government will put in an extra £12bn over the course of this parliament. Q: You need to give us more resources. Q: How is uncontrolled immigration working for me? Cameron says there are good ways of controlling immigration, and bad ways. If we want to build houses and safeguard services, we have to strengthen our economy. Farage said GDP did not matter. But GDP is our economy. We need that to create jobs. Q: My standard of living is going down because of this influx you cannot control. You said in our statement last week that leaving would be rolling a dice on our future. I feel the opposite. Cameron says he does not agree. If we leave, there would be fewer jobs for our children and grandchildren. He says we do not want to be the little England of Nigel Farage. Q: You gave an excellent speech in 2013, saying you wanted to curb free movement. That would have been excellent for me. I run a small business and would have been able to hire more Commonwealth workers. But you were humiliated. Cameron says he thinks the deal he got curbing migrants’ benefits is a real advance. Q: I have had to spend thousands of pounds getting a tier two visa for my staff and wait over a year. But unskilled people from the EU can just walk in. Cameron says he favours doing more to train people here. If there is a shortage of people in an occupation, they should be trained. David Cameron is on now. Q: If leaving the EU is so dangerous, why did you offer a referendum. Cameron says he is listening to the views of experts when he warns about the economic consequences of leaving. He says Nigel Farage said multinationals would not reduce their investments in the UK. But if we were in the same position as America, as Farage proposed, there would be 10% tariffs. So jobs would be lost. Farage - Snap verdict: That felt distinctly underwhelming. Most of the questions to Farage were critical, and there were very few moments when it felt as if he were winning them over. His best answer may have been his first, on the ERM. It is unusual to hear a politician have a go at a member of the public in a setting like this, and so Farage’s anti-pharmaceuticals reprimand had an interesting, leftish tinge to it. And some people will not have heard him speak out about falling living standards. But his aggressive stance towards the woman who asked about his Cologne comments will have gone down badly. Q: This is a once in a generation opportunity. What will the EU look like if we stay in? Farage says he thinks it is done for. The migrant crisis is a catastrophe. The project does not work, he says. He says he wants us to get back to a democratic Europe. That’s the last question to Farage. Q: If we leave the EU, we will still be members of a host of organisations. I hope so, says Farage. Q: So will leaving the EU really guarantee sovereignty? Or is this just a red herring. Farage says the UK will be able to take its seat on the WTO. Q: The head of Europol says leaving the EU would be bad for security. Farage says the same thing applies. Some people say leaving the EU would be bad for security. Some says it would be good for the UK. He says mass immigration has led to extremists coming into Europe. He takes out his passport. It says European passport on it, he says. He says he wants to bring back British passports and border controls. Q: EU migrants contribute more to the economy than they take out. Farage says the House of Lords looked at this. They said in economic terms it is probably about neutral. But Cameron will tell you immigration is a wonderful economic benefit. Farage says the population is rising so much that we need to value quality of life, as well as GDP. He says we need to build a new house every four minutes, night and day, to house migrants. Q: We have an ageing population. We will need migrants. Farage says nowhere else in the world is the argument made that to trade with each other you need free movement. Q: But you do in the EU. Farage says Americans don’t have to accept free movement. Q: You are going to increase fear and discrimination affecting black people. Farage says he disagrees. He thinks the current system discriminates against people from the Commonwealth. Q: You are anti-immigration. Non-white people will feel discriminated against. If you want to think that ... Q: I don’t just think that. A lot of black people feel like this. Farage says lots of black people voted for Ukip, or stood for the party. Q: Where is your evidence? Farage says the questioner is not letting him finish. He says an open borders policy is damaging all communities. Q: Why are you saying migrants will attack women? Farage says he has been quoted out of context. What you see in paper headlines does not always reflect what is said. He is saying we have seen in Germany large numbers of people come from cultures where attitudes to women are different. Q: Aren’t you embarrassed that Justin Welby is saying you are racist? Farage says he does not want to attack the archbishop. But the archbishop should read what he said. He says a German cleric said something similar. Q: You say wages will rise if we leave the EU. Won’t that make us uncompetitive? Farage says we have artificially created an over-supply of labour. That has driven down the cost. People on average salaries have living standards that are 10% lower. Q: But by artificially driving up the cost of wages, business will migrate elsewhere. Farage says this is the argument of Lord Rose. He is meant to be leading the In campaign, but he has gone into hibernation. Rose said wages would go up if we left the EU, but that would be a bad thing. But Farage says there is more to life than what is good for business. It is “wrong, wrong, wrong” that for average families their living standards have fallen by 10%, he says. Farage says it is “wrong, wrong, wrong” that average families have seen their living standards fallen by 10%. Q: If we leave we may be punished by the EU. Farage says 40 years ago we voted for tariff-free access to the EU. But tariffs have now come down. For the benefit of tariff-free access to a market that sells more to us than we sell to them, we have to obey regulations and cannot make our own trade deals. Imagine this goes badly. If the French and Germans put tariffs on us, the cost of those will still be lower than the cost of EU membership. Q: Jean-Claude Juncker says deserters will not be welcome. Isn’t he charming, says Farage. He says we are British. We will not be bullied by anyone. Q: Multinationals come here because we are in the EU. Is it worth risking thousands of jobs? Farage says he does not accept that firms are here just because we are in the EU. Q: I am in pharmaceuticals. I have to be in the EU to do my job. Farage says he does not like the way this industry behaves. He says they spend a fortune on lobbying. And they squeeze out alternative medicines. Q: The European Medicine Agency is in London. We cannot do what we do if we are not in the EU. Farage says our biggest industry is not pharmaceuticals, but financial services. Q: Most experts think leaving the EU is a risk. What have I got to gain from it? Nigel Farage says this is what got him into politics. The Tory government went into the ERM. David Cameron was in the Treasury then. They said the ERM was a good idea. But it all went wrong. Then 10 years later the same lot recommended the euro. That went wrong. Now they want us to stay in the EU. They suffer from groupthink. Farage says people in post support the status quo. But when they leave office, like Digby Jones or Mervyn King, they take a different view. Julie Etchingham introduces the programme. Nigel Farage comes on stage. Good point from the New Statesman’s George Eaton. And another. Andy Wigmore is head of communications for Leave.EU. Here is a picture of Cameron and Farage meeting backstage. And here is Nigel Farage tweeting. David Cameron has tweeted about the debate. As the BBC’s Martin Rosenbaum reports, an internal campaign document produced by Grassroots Out, a campaign organisation backed by Nigel Farage, said that Farage should only be used “sparingly” in the campaign because of his potential to alienate voters. In other words, even his own allies have reservations about his appeal. This morning Britain Stronger in Europe posted on Twitter a short video attacking Nigel Farage very strongly. It highlights some of the most objectionable things he has said. This builds on a line George Osborne, the Conservative chancellor, used in an interview in the Sunday Times at the weekend (paywall). Osborne said voting to leave the EU would amount to voting to live in “Farage’s Britain”. He told the paper: This is a battle between Farage’s mean vision of Britain and the outward-facing, generous Britain that the mainstream of this country celebrates. I say: we don’t want Farage’s Britain. That means voting to remain. Nigel Farage gave an interview to the Daily Telegraph ahead of tonight’s debate. Here are some of the points he made. Farage said he would be taking a stand against the establishment. He said: It will be a big pitch against the establishment and I shall be saying to people ‘if ever there was a vote in your life that could make a difference, this is it’.” The big issue is to say to people ‘don’t listen to a political class backed up with their mates and their multi-national businesses and big banks for whom the EU and corporatism has been enriching. Your lives have been made miserable by this’. The only people leaving the EU would make poorer are the ruling classes. Families like the Camerons might be worse off outside the EU. He said he would be attacking David Cameron’s integrity. Asked if he would question Cameron’s patriotism, he replied: Well, I think is a real issue. Yes the prime minister’s integrity is I think up for question in all of this ... For years I have been clear, consistent and I believe absolutely truthful about the damage that his pol project has done to this country at a democratic and economic level. I want the audience to see that and to ask themselves the question in their minds about a prime minister who promises to reduce net migration to tens of thousands becomes prime minister on the back of it and doesn’t have the ability to deliver it. He revealed that he had not had a drink for a week as he had been preparing for the encounter. It is a big moment for the campaign – I am not taking it lightly I am thinking very hard about it. To get a sense of quite how significant this is, you need to remember that, according to Ben Wright’s new book about politicians and drinking, Farage’s normal rule is that he won’t appear on TV if he has had more than five pints. He said that he would be highlighting the government’s failure to address the risk of Turkish accession to the EU, poor border security, illegal immigration and protecting Britain’s fishing stocks from foreign trawlers. Here is the ITV set being built for tonight’s programme at a studio at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in Stratford, east London. On BBC News a moment ago Steven Woolfe, Ukip’s immigration, said that Justin Welby, the archbishop of Canterbury, had misinterpreted what Farage said about the risk of mass, Cologne-style attacks on women being higher if the UK stayed in the EU. Farage made his comments in an interview with the Sunday Telegraph this weekend. For the record, here is the key excerpt. Women could be at risk of mass sex attacks carried out by gangs of migrant men if Britain stays in the EU, Nigel Farage has warned. The UK Independence Party leader said he fears “big cultural issues” will result from the failure to control migration from Europe and North Africa, putting the safety of women in danger ... “The nuclear bomb this time would be about Cologne,” he told the Telegraph. Women may be at a particular risk from the “cultural” differences between British society and migrants, after gangs of migrant men allegedly launched a mass sexual attack against hundreds of women in Germany last New Year’s Eve, he said. “There are some very big cultural issues,” he said. Asked whether mass sex attacks on the scale of Cologne could happen in Britain, Mr Farage replied: “It depends if they get EU passports. It depends if we vote for Brexit or not. It is an issue.” Mr Farage said voters must consider the security threat posed by the migrant crisis when considering the referendum on whether to leave or stay in the EU. After some discussion in the office, we decided we would call it a debate. Nigel Farage and David Cameron may not actually be debating each other head to head, but in tonight’s ITV referendum programme, they will be in the same building, on the same show, and debating the EU referendum issues in response to questions from the audience. Farage is going to go first, and Cameron will follow, and Julie Etchingham will be moderating throughout the hour-long programme. It is the closest we are going to get in the campaign to seeing Cameron take on one of his opponents. And, of course, after it’s over, people will be making a judgment as to who “won”. We had two important TV events last week - the Sky News programmes with Cameron and Michael Gove - but this is bigger, not least because it’s on ITV. As YouGov’s Marcus Roberts writes in a good blog about the encounter, “the EU campaigns’ move to primetime, mainstream TV represents the moment when undecideds switch on and tune into the referendum for real.” It is also the first time Farage has had a big TV platform during the campaign. The Ukip leader is not part of the official out campaign, Vote Leave, and frankly they treat him as a bit of a bad smell. But arguably we would not be having the vote if it were not for the rise of Ukip, which has spent 20 years campaigning for a referendum on EU membership. Vote Leave is furious about Farage being given such a prominent platform and, when tonight’s event was announced, it sent out a bizarre press notice to journalist, quoting a “senior Vote Leave sources” sounding like a poundshop mafioso warning that ITV would face “consequences” for what it had done. And why are Vote Leave so worried about Farage? Because he is deeply polarising, and his highly-charged attacks on migrants have taken him to the boundaries of respectable opinion, and beyond. Only this afternoon Justin Welby, the archbishop of Canterbury, accused him of racism and said that “utterly condemned” comments made by Farage at the weekend that sexual assaults by migrants were the “nuclear bomb” of the EU referendum. Our full story on that is here. In the past Farage has tended to assume that articulating the concerns of people marginalised by the Westminster elite works to his advantage, but Ukip have done best electorally in European elections decided by proportional representation. To win the EU referendum Leave will need a majority, and that requires appealing to centrists too. The programme starts at 9pm. I will be covering it in full, posting a snap reaction afterwards, as well as summing up the main news lines and bringing you all the best reaction and analysis.
SFO asks for private hearing in unfair dismissal claim by ex-Barclays banker The Serious Fraud Office will on Monday ask a London employment tribunal to hear an unfair dismissal claim by a former senior banker at Barclays in private. The attempt to deter reporting of the case will be challenged by a number of news outlets – including the – and comes as the SFO continues its investigation into Barclays’ emergency cash call during the 2008 banking crisis. The unfair dismissal case is being brought by Richard Boath, who until March was chairman of financial services at Barclays and has been interviewed by the SFO as part of its long-running investigation. Few details about his claim are known although he is reported to be making the case under whistleblower protection laws. This means the potential payout is unlimited, unlike the £78,000 cap that applies to tribunals. The SFO said it was “seeking orders that the hearings be held in private so as to preserve the confidentiality of the claimant’s interview by the SFO, and that there should be corresponding restrictions on the publication of such matters”. It added that an alternative would be “for the parties not [to] be permitted to refer to the contents of the claimant’s interview by the SFO in these proceedings”. The SFO has said it will decide by March 2017 whether to bring charges in connection to the events in 2008 when Barclays avoided a taxpayer bailout by raising £7bn from investors, including in the Middle East. The bank is contesting a £50m fine by the City regulator in relation to the fundraising during which the Financial Conduct Authority said it “acted recklessly” over the disclosure of £322m of fees paid to Qatar Holdings. The FCA penalty has been put on hold while the SFO continues its investigation, which Barclays has previously said includes its ex-finance director Chris Lucas. Barclays has said it disclosed this fee arrangement in the first fundraising in June 2008, but not in the following one in October 2008. The SFO had raised the possibility last year of offering Barclays a deferred prosecution agreement, which would require cooperation from companies that in turn need to admit to offences, although this appears to have come to nothing. Barclays declined to comment ahead of the tribunal. It is contesting a £721m claim by Amanda Staveley – a financier who helped the bank find billions of pounds during 2008 – who argues she should have received fees for being involved in the the crucial financings.
'Politicians have lost our trust': readers on the Dutch referendum The EU “association treaty” on trade and security with Ukraine was overwhelmingly rejected by Dutch voters last Thursday. But with the turnout just two percentage points over the 30% validity threshold, we wanted to know if the result really could be interpreted as a sign of rising Euroscepticism in the Netherlands. ‘Too many government failures are going unpunished’ – Joanne, Leiden, law student I was born in Amsterdam but grew up in Heemstede, a town in the North Holland province. I’m currently a law student in Leiden. The referendum result made me very happy. Euroscepticism in the Netherlands has lingered from the moment the 2005 referendum result was ignored and we lost power over our foreign policy. People have sensed that they still have the power to control their own fate and that they can punish politicians for acting against our national interests. The yes vote won in Leiden which disappointed me a little bit. Law is dominant at Leiden University, and the EU’s failings in its current form are well understood. My faith in the current coalition government is very low. It has made a pledge to last the whole four-year term, no matter what, and as a result there is very little accountability. The shortcomings of the Ministry of Security, the creation of an inept national police force and heavy cuts in healthcare are just some of many government failures going unpunished at present. ‘Politicians can’t get a grip on economic injustice, so they have lost our trust’ – Martijn, Amsterdam, journalist I am a freelance journalist based in Amsterdam working as an editor at both commercial radio station BNR Nieuwsradio and the public news station NPO Radio 1. The yes vote won a majority in the Dutch capital, which I believe is down to the city’s relatively young population. Other cities that had a yes majority were Utrecht, Wageningen and Groningen. The referendum result is not a fair representation of the mood on this subject. Most voters felt indifferent towards the actual treaty that was being voted for or against. Since there was a 30% turnout minimum for the referendum outcome to be valid, most of my friends did not vote hoping the no votes would be useless. Unfortunately some supporters of the treaty went to vote anyway, because they felt it was their democratic duty. I was one of these yes voters. I only went out when it seemed like the 30% was going to be met. As it turns out, if we had stayed home at that time, the referendum outcome would have been invalid. The referendum was an easy way for people to express their Euroscepticism without actually having to vote on our European identity. This influenced the campaign. There is not much reminding us of why we once started out on this European mission, we have taken its benefits for granted. Politicians can’t get a grip on economic injustice, so they’ve lost our trust. ‘Many people understand the need for European unity, just not in its current state’ – Hannah, Noord-Brabant, regional archivist There was a majority no vote in Noord-Brabant, although it was also the province that ended up having the lowest overall voter turnout. I think many people refrained from voting because they didn’t believe it would make any difference. But the referendum result reflects the very ambivalent feelings many Dutch people have towards both our national government, the EU and Ukraine. After the rejection of the EU constitution referendum result in 2005, there has been ever-growing Euroscepticism in the Netherlands. Many people believe that the needs of the EU are put above those of individual member states. On the other hand I do think many Dutch people understand there needs to be some European unity, just not necessarily in its current state. The coalition government is struggling. Healthcare, education and social and elderly care are key issues they have failed to address properly. Budget cuts and needless bureaucracy have led to people not being given the care they need. I count myself lucky to have graduated from university a few years back because budget cuts have made studying a lot more expensive. The continued meddling in both the elementary and secondary school curriculum has not helped improve the quality of education either. I honestly have a very hard time coming up with any issues or changes this government has dealt with that I agree on. ‘The referendum is a great example of a bottom-up initiative to change national policy’ – Claudia, Amsterdam, assistant professor I was born and raised in the countryside and moved to Amsterdam when I started going to university there. Because of my background I pretty much feel like I live in two worlds. The Netherlands may be small, but differences between the urban and rural regions are probably as big as they are anywhere. I’m very pleased with the result, which reflects the outcome of the referendum held in 2005 with regard to the European constitution. That result also shows that Eurosceptic sentiments have been present for a long time. I do not necessarily see an increase. Instead, there might be more awareness among politicians that Dutch voters are sceptic about a political union with other countries, especially countries we lack common ground with. There was a 27.2 percent turnout in Amsterdam and a majority, 53.1 percent, voted for the treaty. This is in line with the impression I got, although I have to say that most of my friends and colleagues did not have a strong opinion on the matter. It has become clear from polls that Dutch citizens with a lower educational background voted overwhelmingly against the treaty and that those with a higher educational background were divided. I come from a small town outside of the urban regions of the Netherlands and the EU sentiment is radically different there from the sentiment held within the cities, with the exception of Rotterdam. Also worth noting a large percentage of citizens didn’t vote because they felt politicians would discard the outcome anyway. The Netherlands does not have a single-issue, anti-EU party. Those who would like to vote against the EU have to choose between the far-right of Geert Wilders or the far-left parties. For voters like me, who thoroughly disagree with other opinions held by members of these parties, a referendum is a great opportunity to express anti-EU sentiments and to deliver the message that something has to change. A discussion has started in The Netherlands about the referendum itself as a democratic instrument. Several people feel that the referendum was a joke and that the conditions that have to be met are, apparently, not strict enough. I tend to disagree in the sense that I think GeenStijl accomplished something incredible. The referendum is a great example of a bottom-up initiative to change national policy and I feel it is incredible over 30% turned up to vote for something most politicians did not bother paying proper attention to. ‘The referendum result is sad but it’s a democratic decision’ – Daphne, Eindhoven My family and I, and most of my friends and closest colleagues, voted yes. I think the trade agreement would have helped the young inhabitants of Ukraine help their country to get less corrupt and more stable. The referendum result is sad but it’s a democratic decision. I personally think 30% is far too low to call a referendum valid. I’m afraid a lot of people didn’t turn up thinking that this 30% turnout would not be reached. I also think most people don’t have a well balanced opinion on this subject. So the urge to vote is not as big as it would have been on a subject more close to their hearts. The outcome of this referendum doesn’t necessarily make me think we are a particularly Eurosceptic country. At regular elections the turnouts are also usually very low. You may call this scepticism but I like to think it has more to do with a lack of interest. ‘Even no voters in this referendum have admitted that they would support the EU, if it were a better EU’ – Marinus, Groningen Some of the municipalities in Groningen were among the ones with the least no votes in the entire country, but overall there were still more people who voted no than yes in the province. I wish more potential yes voters would have used their vote instead of anxiously watching whether the turnout threshold would be reached. A lot of us hoped it wouldn’t, just so it could be a warning not to have pointless referendums in the future. Most mild-tempered people stayed home and the angry ones went to vote. When I look around and talk to my ‘medelanders’ there doesn’t really seem to be that much Euroscepticism. At present the loudest voices are the ones who are being heard. A lot of people would in fact support much greater EU integration as long as it is done right. Even no voters in this referendum have admitted that they would support the EU, if it were a better EU. ‘Dutch people feel big decisions are being made over our heads’ – Marloes, Eindhoven I’m from Eindhoven, a city in the south of the Netherlands. It’s known as the Dutch Silicon Valley. While I’m happy with the result, I wish more people would have voted. In Eindhoven a majority voted no to the treaty. People feel they have been pushed aside and don’t have a say in what happens in Brussels. Don’t be fooled by the low turnout; many Dutch people have strong anti-EU feelings. I voted for Mark Rutte and I’ve never been so disappointed with a Dutch prime minister. The government have cut student allowances, made changes to the rules concerning mortgages and buying property and are not providing sufficient care for the elderly. The general sentiment is that this coalition government has broken every election promise possible. It has broken promises nobody expected they would. The government is out of touch with what the majority of the population want. Dutch people feel big decisions are being made over our heads. We used to be tolerant, but we’ve become anxious and intolerant due to the bad decisions made on our behalf.
What will Ofcom's review of BT's cable network mean for broadband users? BT is under pressure to open up its network infrastructure to allow rivals to lay their own ultrafast fibre-optic broadband lines, after a review by the telecoms regulator. The move was announced on Thursday as part of Ofcom’s once-in-a-decade review of the telecoms market. Ofcom opted for this course of action after deciding against forcing BT to spin off its Openreach division, which operates the UK’s broadband network infrastructure. But does this mean any change for consumers experiencing trouble with their broadband? What is Openreach? Openreach builds and maintains the UK’s vast copper and fibre network that connect nearly all businesses and homes to the national broadband and telephone network. It has faced criticism over poor service standards. What problems are consumers having? Customers, who include large firms such as TalkTalk and Sky, have suffered a range of problems, from installation delays, to eye-watering costs for laying cables to connect them to the outside world. Competitors say this is down to underinvestment by BT, because it has an effective monopoly. They claim BT’s underinvestment is preventing the roll-out of high-speed “fibre to the premises” internet - from the telephone exchange to individual homes - that could give consumers much faster broadband. What if I don’t use BT? Trouble with Openreach extends beyond BT’s customers because Sky, TalkTalk and Vodafone rely on its “last mile” of wiring to get their service to subscribers’ homes. These companies have called for a more radical option from Ofcom, in which BT loses control of Openreach altogether. They argue that Openreach has a poor record on repairs, that it is not investing enough in upgrading its infrastructure and that the cash it generates is helping BT regain a dominant position in the telecoms market. Am I entitled to compensation? Any compensation for delays is paid to the provider. Customers who have lost out must take their case to whichever alternative dispute resolution scheme their provider is signed up to. Ofcom is consulting on payments for affected customers and will set out plans for an automatic compensation scheme this year. This would see customers get a credit on their bill or receive a cheque after a prolonged outage. A spokesperson said: “We don’t think it’s right that phone and broadband customers who receive poor service should have to pursue their complaint to receive a payment. Instead, they should automatically receive a cheque in the post, or a credit on their bill, when things go wrong.” Does the review mean better broadband? There will be a new government-backed universal obligation to provide fast broadband to every home and business in the UK, starting at 10 megabits per second. If the review helps speed up fibre roll-out, speeds could get as high as 1 gigabit per second across much of the country. Is it worth switching? Ofcom plans to introduce league tables and make it easier for customers to switch provider. This should make it simpler to decide whether it is worth switching, through services such as www.uswitch.com and www.broadbandchoices.co.uk. You can check your speed using a variety of sites. The test takes a few seconds using one of the many online speedometers, which include www.broadbandspeedchecker.co.uk, or www.speedtest.net.
Trump could reverse 'dramatic' progress on clean energy, experts fear A huge shift to clean energy is under way in the US but the election of Donald Trump as president means progress could be reversed unless cities and states do more, energy experts have warned. Installed wind capacity has grown by more than 40% in the US since 2011, according to the Georgetown Climate Center, with solar capacity ballooning by 577%. The US Energy Information Agency has said new coal-fired power plants are “not economically competitive with renewables and other generation sources”, with existing facilities soon to come under pressure from clean energy. Trump’s victory, however, threatens this trend, with the president-elect promising to abolish the Clean Power Plan, cancel all federal money for clean energy development and “unleash an energy revolution” by opening large areas to coal, oil and gas interests. “Elections matter and who Donald Trump appoints to key positions at the Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Energy, as well as the future of incentive programs, will have major consequences,” said Vicki Arroyo, executive director of the Georgetown Climate Center. “When George W Bush took the White House we saw California and mid-Atlantic and New England states step up and create cap-and-trade systems and reduce emissions. “It’s important to have federal policy but we may well be back into the cycle of states and cities, who see the consequences of climate change every day, stepping up to take leadership.” Analysis of 19 states by the Georgetown Climate Center found there was a “dramatic shift” to clean energy under way, driven by concerns over climate change or simple economics. While California has imposed a cap-and-trade system for greenhouse gases along with steep emissions-reduction targets, more conservative states are also embracing a shift to renewable energy. Tennessee has slashed its emissions from electricity by 34% since 2005 and has spent millions of dollars expanding clean energy and battery storage to state buildings and low-income households. Louisiana, a hub for the petrochemical industry, has cut its emissions and provided tax breaks for renewable energy projects. Iowa, South Dakota and Kansas are the three largest generators of wind energy in the union. Renewable energy has been spurred by federal tax incentives for wind and solar as well as the plummeting cost of turbines and solar panels. Global market forces, which have hurt the coal and oil industries, have also opened the way for natural gas and, to a lesser degree, renewables. Despite these trends, Trump has called for “American energy independence” and the elimination of clean energy programs that have no “measurable effect on the Earth’s climate”. The next president has questioned the reality of human-caused global warming and is considering a number of fossil fuel executives and climate change deniers for key administration posts. The US is already on track to miss its emission-reduction targets. However, renewable energy advocates believe the sector has momentum that may not be completely reversed. “There are red states and blue states prioritizing renewables, sometimes for climate change and sometimes around job creation,” said Arroyo. “Federal policy has catalyzed action and market stability is important. It’s easier to tear things down than build policy but many people are wondering how those coal jobs will return given the market changes already under way.”
Why British environmentalists should vote for Brexit The leading lights of the UK environmental movement would have us believe that a win by the Brexit camp on 23 June would be akin to a natural disaster. According to them, it is only our membership of the EU that renders our beaches swimmable, our water drinkable and our air almost breathable. Freed from the noble, ceaseless efforts of the ever-vigilant EU, troglodyte Britain would tear up decades of environmental legislation and return to our 1970s roots as the “dirty man” of Europe. This is complete and utter tosh. First, the EU’s record on the environment is far from the rose-tinted picture it is so keen to promote. The common fisheries policy has protected neither fisheries nor fishing communities. The common agricultural policy discriminates against African imports, destroying the rationale for investment in Africa and holding back sustainable development. For a brief decade, Europe led the world in renewable energy investment, but not any more – that would be China. EU nations promoted clean energy at vastly inflated costs through imposed renewable energy targets, tariffs and subsidies. When budgets reached breaking point in 2011, European renewable energy investment slumped by more than half and has yet to recover. Environmentalists wax lyrical about Germany’s “Energiewende”, or energy transition, and how it accelerated the shift to renewable energy. What they won’t tell you is that in the past 17 years, Germany’s energy-related carbon emissions have declined by precisely zero: it retired safe, zero-carbon nuclear power stations and built new coal-fired power stations. For two decades the EU promoted the fiction that diesel was beneficial for the climate, in the face of a rapid catch-up by petrol technology. In 2013, when it looked like the EU had arrived at a historic deal to clamp down on vehicle emissions, Angela Merkel intervened to block it and protect the German car industry. “Dieselgate” demonstrated that in the US the only way Volkswagen could achieve certification for its cars was to break the law. In the EU it didn’t need to bother: officials simply nodded through vehicles they knew performed up to 12 times worse on the road than in lab tests. When the gig was up, Europe’s car companies lobbied and were allowed a doubling of pollution levels. In the UK, meanwhile, the most significant recent environmental policies were all local initiatives, not driven by the EU. When it became clear that the bureaucratic and fraud-prone EU carbon trading scheme was going to produce a nugatory carbon price, the UK unilaterally enacted a floor price which drove its coal-fired power stations into retirement. It was the UK which unilaterally decided to phase out coal-fired power entirely by 2025. And it was the UK which unilaterally decided to create the Pitcairn marine reserve, the largest single marine protected area in the world. You don’t need to hark back to the Clean Air Act of 1956, or Margaret Thatcher’s historic 1989 speech to the UN, to see UK’s environmental leadership. Deeds, not words, as the Suffragettes used to say, and perhaps it is the EU which should be taking lectures from the UK, not the other way round. In coming decades, the planet faces an unprecedented challenge in the form of climate change. The only way to address it (short of renouncing the modern, energy-intensive lifestyles so beloved of environmentalists) is through technological innovation. In 2000, the EU announced that its Lisbon strategy would make the EU “the world’s most advanced knowledge-based economy by 2010”. It was an abject, risible failure. The EU had, and still has, has no real understanding of the drivers of technological innovation, and no willingness to make the hard choices it might require. Think this is an exaggeration? The EU’s main science programme is called Horizon 2020, currently distributing €80bn in research funds over seven years. UK researchers win more funding from it than the UK puts in, and we are constantly told how vital it is to the future of UK science. The rules to apply for Horizon 2020 money state that “most of the EU funded projects are collaborative projects with at least three organisations from different EU member states or associated countries.” Why is this necessary? Is it because scientists are too stupid to find the best collaborators themselves? Or is it because Horizon 2020 is really about driving European integration, not about funding the most promising science? And what does Horizon 2020 actually fund? Its 2,000 projects can be searched by keyword. Between them, “graphene”, “batteries” and “PV” – three anchor technologies for any future clean energy system – account for just 45 projects. Look for the keyword “cultural” and you find 77 projects; “cooperation”, 142 projects; “social” 262 projects. Not surprisingly, sociopolitical and socioeconomic researchers – and their green NGO fellow-travellers – have been queueing up to demand that this pseudo-innovation, cargo-cult-cum-gravy-train must roll on at all costs. The EU’s persistent anti-innovation bias has seen it slump from 30% of the world’s economy in 1980 to just 15% today. If it continues on current trends, by the time my children reach my age it will account for just 7% of the world economy. Its people will be no wealthier than the global average. All pretensions of global environmental leadership will surely have been swept away. The UK is facing a historic opportunity to loosen the ties that bind us to this fate. To align instead – in a way that EU protectionism fundamentally prevents us from doing – with the growing, dynamic 85% of the world’s economy which contains 93% of its population. The parts of the world in desperate need of environmental innovation. The parts that are already, in fact, leading in environmental technology. For British environmentalists, the decision on 23 June is a clear one. Michael Liebreich is the founder and chairman of the advisory board of Bloomberg New Energy Finance. He is member of the advisory board of the UN Sustainable Energy for All initiative, as well as founder and chairman of Finance for Resilience, a board member of Transport for London and a visiting professor at Imperial College’s Energy Futures Lab. This article represents only his personal opinion.
Donald Trump still set on relocating US embassy in Israel, adviser says A senior adviser to Donald Trump has reiterated that the president-elect is determined to overturn years of government policy and move the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem after his inauguration in January. The comments were made by Kellyanne Conway in a radio interview on Monday, and reiterated Trump’s campaign commitment to move the embassy in what would be a highly contentious move. Describing it as a “very big priority”, Conway said: “He made it very clear during the campaign.” She added that she has heard him repeat the promise during private meetings since the election. Conway’s commentswere made during an interview with on Monday with rightwing radio host Hugh Hewitt – apparently in line with Trump’s chaotic way of communicating key policies. “He made it very clear during the campaign,” said Conway, “and as president-elect I’ve heard him repeat it several times privately, if not publicly. “It is something that our friend in Israel, a great friend in the Middle East, would appreciate and something that a lot of Jewish Americans have expressed their preference for,” Conway said. “It is a great move. It is an easy move to do based on how much he talked about that in the debates and in the sound bites.” Conway linked the issue to the priorities of US evangelical Christians: “People think it’s just marriage, abortion or religious liberties, and of course it’s about all that, but it’s also about a strong Middle East and about protecting Israel,” she said. “Evangelical Christians always have Israel at the top of their list when you ask what’s most important to them.” The policy, if enacted, would be welcomed in Israel by Benjamin Netanyahu’s rightwing government which has long sought to have the embassy moved to what they claim as the country’s “undivided” capital. Official US state department policy, however, has long been that the status of Jerusalem will only be determined in final status talks between Israel and the Palestinians. Although the US Congress passed a law ordering the move to Jerusalem in 1995, every president since then has exercised a six-month waiver to prevent it taking place usually citing “national security concerns” as a reason, most recently by Barack Obama earlier this month. The remarks by Conway on Jerusalem are only the latest in a series of highly controversial comments by Trump which threaten to over turn years of US government foreign policy on issues from China and Nato to Russia and the Middle East.
Spurs’ Dele Alli charged with violent conduct over Claudio Yacob ‘punch’ Dele Alli faces a three-match ban from the Football Association that stands to end his domestic season after he was charged with violent conduct for seemingly throwing a punch at West Bromwich Albion’s Claudio Yacob on Monday night. The Tottenham Hotspur midfielder, who was named as the Professional Footballers’ Association’s young player of the year on Sunday night, had been unhappy at Yacob’s close attentions early on in the Premier League fixture, which finished in a 1-1 draw. Alli squared up to Yacob in the fifth minute, after being fouled by him, and he had a dig back at him in the 26th minute. Alli glanced at Yacob away from the ball before he hit him in the midriff. There was no reaction from the West Brom midfielder, who played it down after the game. “I don’t remember it,” Yacob said. “It was nothing. What stays on the pitch … ” The flashpoint went unseen by the referee, Mike Jones, and his assistants and indeed it went unseen by everybody in the stadium. But it was soon spotted from the live television footage and circulated on social media. By half-time, it was clear that it would be an issue. Alli has claimed Yacob hit him earlier but, even if that were the case, it would not have helped the 19-year-old to avoid a charge. The FA’s processes focus solely on the indiscretions themselves. It would have issued a separate charge against Yacob were he to have been caught punching Alli. The FA has not found any footage to incriminate Yacob. Jones’s confirmation to the governing body that he did not see the incident served to open the route to retrospective action and three former referees were asked independently whether they would have shown a red card to Alli for the offence. Each said that they would, which has led to the charge. The decision of the three had to be unanimous. Alli has until 6pm on Wednesday to accept or contest the charge. If it is proven, he will miss the final three games of Tottenham’s season – against Chelsea, Southampton and Newcastle United. His next involvement could be for England in their warm-up fixtures for Euro 2016. There is sure to be a focus on his temperament before the tournament. Alli has a short fuse and he has been involved in a couple of scrapes during his breakthrough season at the highest level. In January the Crystal Palace manager, Alan Pardew, accused him of stamping on Yohan Cabaye and in February Alli was booked for kicking out at Fiorentina’s Nenad Tomovic in a Europa League last-32 match. He could have been sent off. Mauricio Pochettino was asked before the West Brom match whether he might ask his players to be careful, in light of Jamie Vardy’s sending-off for Leicester City against West Ham. The Tottenham manager said he would not, because “if you do that, you put the idea in their mind and they are inhibited”. Alli has said that his aggressive streak is a key part of game. Norwich and Sunderland have been fined £30,000 each by the FA over an incident during their Premier League game at Carrow Road on 16 April. Players and coaching staff were involved in a heated touchline clash after Norwich’s Robbie Brady challenged DeAndre Yedlin. The FA also warned the clubs as to the future conduct of their players and officials.
Amanda Palmer: 'Donald Trump is going to make punk rock great again' Amanda Palmer has called the past few months in the United States “a total shit show”, but there’s one silver lining she’s looking forward to in president Trump’s America: a renaissance of political art. Speaking at a press conference during Woodford Folk festival in rural Queensland – where she announced she and husband, the author Neil Gaiman, had just been granted five-year working visas for Australia – the Dresden Doll, solo artist and cult cabaret icon invoked the flourishing of art and culture in Weimar Germany as proof that “frightening political climates make for really good, real, authentic art”. “It’s been a really scary time in America. I don’t know how it’s felt over here [in Australia] for the past few months, but it’s a total shit show over there. Especially if you’re an artist, a woman, a minority, gay – anything but a rich white man – it’s really very scary,” she said. “But being an optimist ... there is this part of me – especially having studied Weimar Germany extensively – I’m like, ‘This is our moment.’ Donald Trump is going to make punk rock great again. We’re all going to crawl down staircases into basements and speakeasies and make amazing satirically political art. “If the political climate keeps getting uglier, the art will have to answer. We will have to fight. It’s already happening – the artists in my tribes have been like, ‘Alright. This is not good.’ We are sharpening our knives for a large buffet.” Palmer, who is currently in Australia on a stripped-back acoustic tour, also announced that she and Gaiman have just been granted distinguished talent visas by the Australian government, which will allow them to travel freely between the US and Australia for the next five years. The pair will mostly be based in Melbourne. “We started this [visa application] process long before the spectre of Donald Trump, before his orange head was even a speck on the horizon of our lives,” she said. “We have a brand new baby, who’s a year old, and I’ve been looking around at the world, the political climate, the art scenes, my friends, our whole situation, trying to figure out where we should land. And Australia does look pretty tasty.” While Palmer has a close relationship with Australia (she has toured here about half a dozen times over the past 10 years, solo and with her band the Dresden Dolls), she said she would be sad to miss the Women’s March on Washington, a nationwide day of protest taking place the day after Trump’s inauguration. “I actually feel quite guilty that I’m not going to be in the States on January 20. I feel like I really should be there in Washington with the millions of other women who are going to give the giant finger to the orange man. But I’ll do what I can from over here.” • Woodford Folk festival is on until 1 January 2017
Andrew Lansley chides chancellor over lack of NHS and social care funding The former health secretary Andrew Lansley has joined MPs from across the political spectrum in criticising the autumn statement for its lack of extra funding for the NHS and social care. Lansley, who is now a peer, said he was disappointed there was not extra cash for the health service, which is under increasing pressure because adult social care budgets have been cut. “I think the time is now to put some measure in place to try and help health and social care through the next two years,” he told the BBC’s World at One. Asked whether he had been surprised at the lack of a funding announcement, he said: “Not being surprised doesn’t mean I’m not disappointed.” He said the NHS and social care were facing an “incredibly difficult” period in the coming years. “In the last parliament a challenging target was set and it was achieved,” he said. “The trouble is in this parliament, what has been asked of the National Health Service is not just more of the same but even more, and I’m afraid what was evident in the last financial year was when you take the level of support for the NHS below a 2% increase – to hospitals, that is – and the demand is rising at 4% there comes a point where they start to go in to significant deficit. “The front-end loading of the money for the NHS in this parliament in to this financial year will probably mean those deficits come down this year, but without action next year and the year after those deficits will rise again and the accumulated deficit will make it very difficult for hospitals in particular to cope.” He said the Better Care Fund, which brought together money from the NHS and social care, amounted to “robbing Peter to pay Paul”. “That is not going to be remedied simply by taking money out of the NHS budget and passing it to local authorities,” he said. Labour politicians led criticism of the chancellor, Philip Hammond, after his autumn statement for his failure to mention the NHS or social care in his fiscal document or to allocate any more money, instead prioritising infrastructure and projects such as more grammar schools. Some Conservatives also voiced concern, including Sarah Wollaston, the chair of the health committee, who has said NHS and social care are at a tipping point. She and four other members of the health committee have also criticised the government’s claim to be putting an extra £10bn into the NHS by 2020. “The continued use of the figure of £10bn for the additional health spending up to 2020-21 is not only incorrect, but risks giving a false impression that the NHS is awash with cash,” Wollaston and her four fellow committee members told the chancellor in a letter earlier this month.
Pedro’s pair fuel Chelsea’s 5-1 rout of wretched Newcastle It takes performances as pathetic as this to drain any optimism generated by a lavish mid-season outlay on attacking talent. Newcastle United looked a depressingly dysfunctional side here, a team devoid of defensive steel as they crumpled obligingly to present Guus Hiddink with a first league win at home in his second spell as Chelsea’s interim manager. Subsiding in these parts might not normally be cause for huge alarm, but the champions have not been permitted to purr like this all season. Newcastle were feeble, their first half performance in particular the kind that invites demotion. If Chelsea lost interest at times, a 12th match without defeat assured and thoughts drifting to Paris and the Champions League, they could still rouse themselves at will. The combination between Bertrand Traoré and César Azpilicueta seven minutes from the end proved as much, the pair scything through for the youngster to register a first Premier League goal. Chelsea have not been as high as 12th for four months though, in truth, this was as easy a thrashing as they could hope to inflict. A gentle warm-up for a testing tie ahead. Steve McClaren has his own challenges to confront. His team depart for a training camp in La Manga scarred by a sixth successive away defeat in all competitions, restored to the bottom three and with Sunderland, local rivals on an upward curve, breathing down their necks. This was shambolic, a disgusting display lacking poise, leadership, discipline or fight. The same criticisms were levelled at the majority of these players after they succumbed to the same scoreline at Crystal Palace back in November. They were sunk from the opening exchanges, their performance summed up by Cheick Tioté’s dawdling in midfield, or the sight of their centre-halves seemingly ploughing through a quagmire as home players gleefully skipped across the surface at pace. It actually felt dangerous to pass judgement on Chelsea given how obliging these opponents had proved to be. Certainly Paris Saint-Germain – aside from being encouraged by the twinge to the right thigh suffered by John Terry which forced him prematurely from the fray and will require a scan on Sunday – will have learned little other than that the Premier League champions can still be expansive when permitted to revel. They could run riot here without breaking into a sweat as Newcastle’s resistance extended no further than taking the kick-off. They had been punctured by Chelsea’s first attack of any significance, Willian gliding away from his marker just inside the Newcastle half and then sliding a pass inside the hapless Fabricio Coloccini to infiltrate a ragged back-line. Diego Costa, the latest home player to sport a Zorro-style protective facial mask, held off Steven Taylor and clipped a first-time shot back across the on-rushing Rob Elliot that dribbled agonisingly into the corner of the net. The goal was Costa’s seventh in eight Premier League games. Newcastle were split with every forward pass, as Willian, Eden Hazard and Pedro left them dizzied. The locals sensed panic in visiting ranks. Rolando Aarons, a winger filling in unconvincingly at left-back, was culpable for the second after an attacking free-kick had been hooked back to the halfway line. The 20-year-old misplaced his pass towards Daryl Janmaat, Pedro collecting and scurrying away while the Dutch international slumped to the turf in disbelief. By the time he had picked himself up Pedro had converted crisply from just outside the penalty area. The ease with which Costa outpaced Coloccini, then cut back inside to slide a pass across the area for Willian to score the third, was disturbing. Tioté had allowed the Brazilian the freedom of Stamford Bridge to glide up-field and convert and, for all that the visiting players held impromptu arm-flapping inquests at each break of play, their deficiencies remained. Pedro and Branislav Ivanovic should have added to the lead, though no team this slack at the back can hope to resist for long. All it took was Cesc Fàbregas’s lofted pass, arcing over Taylor, to open them up again. Pedro darted in behind the centre-half, collected on his chest and dispatched a fourth beyond Elliot. Traoré had added a fifth before Andros Townsend dispatched a consolation from distance, though that meant little. Newcastle departed the turf battered and bruised, and even the prospect of a friendly against Lillestrom in Spain will not be appealing. By the time their campaign resumes at Stoke next month, they must have rediscovered a backbone.
Frederick Seidel: ‘It's necessary to criticise the left’ Frederick Seidel is no one’s idea of a protest poet. Born in a well-to-do suburb of St Louis, Missouri, educated at Harvard, encouraged early on by Ezra Pound and Robert Lowell, he has always written from firmly within the establishment. From the beginning, his poems showed an intimate acqaintance with the powerful and the beautiful, and a fascination with the accoutrements of wealth. Seidel is known – in some circles, notorious – for writing poems about Ducatis, and the Concorde, and his tailor. (“Reading Seidel now,” Clive James grumbled, “it saddens me that I have spent my long life dressing like a student.”) His new book, Widening Income Inequality, begins with a reminiscence of Elaine’s, the night spot made famous by Seidel and his jet‑setting friends: “We drank our faces off until the sun arrived, / Night after night, and most of us survived.” And yet, as the title suggests, this latest collection is attuned to politics, especially the politics of race. Attentive readers know this is nothing new. Racism, violence, the legacy of slavery, the connection between privilege and misery, are constant themes in his poetry. Seidel’s elegy to Michael Brown, “The Ballad of Ferguson, Missouri”, sparked outrage in March 2015 when it appeared in the Paris Review – partly, I think, because it treated the shooting of a black teenager by white police as the latest instalment in a recurring nightmare. For him, Brown’s death evokes the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Seidel’s friend Robert Kennedy - events that have haunted his work for nearly half a century. I visited Seidel at his airy, old-fashioned apartment on New York’s Upper West Side. We are speaking on the eve of his 80th birthday. An extremely private man, Seidel has never given a public reading, sat on a panel or accepted an award in person, and he clearly does not enjoy being interviewed, although he answers questions with care and patience. He speaks with what he calls, in one poem, his “Harvard accent”, once common among the north-eastern elite, now a museum piece of poshness: friends are “my dear fellow” or “my dear girl” or, occasionally, “toots”. More than most people, Seidel loves being teased, and his moments of solemnity or eloquence tend to dissolve in laughter, which makes him seem much younger than his age. Lorin Stein: Where did you get the title Widening Income Inequality? Frederick Seidel: The phrase has been on my mind, and I felt its, if you like, inappropriateness made it interesting as a title for a book of poems. Within the book the phrase is used with some bitterness and irony. Is income inequality there in the poems? Well, the homeless are certainly there. And the wild swing of Broadway is there – by the wild swing I mean, from the feeble and harmed and homeless and helpless to those who stride along prosperously, thinking they are looking very boulevardier and stylish. A review in the New Yorker began: “If the id had an id, and it wrote poetry, the results might sound like Widening Income Inequality.” Do you recognise the book in that description? Not really. I mean, yes, of course, but no. No in the sense that, for me, the poems are poems. They were poems as I was writing them, and they are poems as they say goodbye to me. They’re things I worked on. They are works. As opposed to … ? As opposed to statements of belief or feeling. It is, I’m willing to grant you, possible to say there is belief and feeling in the poems, but that isn’t what’s going on when I write them. When I write them I’m concerned about the language. I’m concerned with the sound, even with the look of them. Where the lines break and so on. After your first collection appeared in 1963, you stopped writing for 15 years. Then you started again. You felt, you’ve said, that if you didn’t write again, you would “disappear”. I’ve always wondered what you meant by that. I feel, when I’m not writing, less well than when I am. When I am writing, I feel that my life is busy. That I’m a creature with a purpose. When I’m not, I feel a bit floaty. Sometimes, not always, that’s not a pleasant feeling. It’s something you have to put up with, of course – you can’t write all the time. But you can write a lot of the time; you can work every day. In the years when you couldn’t write, is that how you felt? Floaty? No. It was much stronger, much worse. Seriously, dangerously dire. And I really did feel that my life was, whatever pleasures were in it, pointless. And I’d better be able to write – or. Without quite knowing what the “or” meant. And I wasn’t sure I’d be able to. I couldn’t get the words out, and had to force them out. May we turn to the new book? One of the poems here is an elegy to the critic Karl Miller. Karl was a dear friend. He wrote with a wonderful purity and clarity, and fury. He was extremely funny, both in person and in what he had to say on the page. Especially in his reviews. Do you have a favourite? I don’t know … though one review of his comes to mind. He told me to read the work of a Scottish poet, at the time hardly known at all, named Sorley MacLean. I was stunned, I was smitten. MacLean wrote in Gaelic but translated his own work into English. Well, after Karl had sent me to MacLean suggesting that I might write something about him, and had heard from me, in my enthusiasm, that I thought I would write something about him, I opened the Listener, of which Karl was the editor, to find that Karl Miller had written an essay on Sorley MacLean! He’d beaten me to it! I saluted. Another person who turns up in this book – quite a bit – is Apollinaire. There are translations and also a poem of your own that borrows his title “La Jolie Rousse”. Why has he been so much on your mind lately? Apollinaire has always been with me, in his rhetoric, in his music, the vivacity and melancholy at the same time. “La Jolie Rousse” I think is just one of the great poems. Such a lovely, terrible thing. The New Yorker reviewer mentions Sylvia Plath and Frank O’Hara as evident influences on your work. Do you think of them that way? Not Plath, not at all. She has great force, great frightening power, but it’s a bit Grand Guignol. O’Hara is a different matter. His is not my way of writing, but his is pleasurable. It’s lovely to walk around New York with him and meet his friends with him. He obviously was an impossible, delightful, brilliantly gifted man. Is it true you once wrote a screenplay about him? I did. The painter David Salle had long wanted to make a movie about Frank O’Hara, and asked me to write the script. I wrote a script. It was not quite up to snuff. My sense is that you don’t worry much about reviews of your books. Is there a certain kind of criticism that does annoy you, that makes you impatient? I think it’s too bad, but unsurprising, that this myth of the beautifully outfitted, elegant, elegantly sinister, Baudelaire sort of fellow striding and sliding down the streets of New York has become a way of not talking about the poems. Some reviewers over the years have liked that figure, liked summoning him up. He doesn’t exist, and isn’t really in the poems. Baudelaire is a hero of mine. Baudelaire and how he did it is of great interest. But this persona does get in the way, I think. What would it mean to actually talk about the poems? What would one talk about? How they sound. What they’re like to read, for pleasure and instruction. Something like that. In other words, they would be poems that you read because you wanted to read poems. Rather than, say, [the gossip column] Page Six of the New York Post. But that kind of enjoyment can be hard to convey in a review. What are you supposed to say? That a poem makes you cry? That’s not much of a response. I like that response. And yet it’s hard to work into a review. I quite understand. But personally, I enjoy someone saying to me: I very much enjoyed that poem, I was moved by that poem, that poem really surprised me. I like the simplicity of statements of that sort. I understand they do not a review make, however large their meaning may be, or however much they may contain. They don’t lead to further discussion. Does it bother you when readers get angry about your poems, as for example when “The Ballad of Ferguson” was published in the Paris Review? The honest answer is that I’m largely indifferent. I was puzzled by that reaction, and thought however well-meaning – at least I think it was well-meaning – it was slightly preposterous that there were people offended by “The Ballad of Ferguson”. To go back to what I said a moment ago, I like it when somebody is moved by a poem. I like it when someone likes a poem. But that’s about it. What interests me is writing them. Some guy in the London Review of Books’ blog recently called me Kanye Baudelaire. I like that. Are you worried about Trump as nominee? While I’m not missing all the remarks made that Trump would be the best friend the Democrats could have, I don’t find myself confident about any of that. All along people have discounted the possibility of Trump doing well, and he’s doing very well. What do you think the sceptics are missing? What they’re missing is the pleasure people are taking, the relief they are feeling, in Trump’s speaking in the outlandish way that he does, saying stuff that makes them feel their yearnings, their demands, are heard. Here is someone for them – “them” being that apparently large group of people who understandably feel that the politics of the country are not responding to them, are not listening to them. They feel that politics is going on independently of the electorate, that it’s a thing in itself. You were excited about Obama. Very. I still am. I understand the disappointment some people feel. But I think he’s been superb. Do you think of yourself as a person of the left? No, though I am. Rightish left. What’s the part that seems more rightish, and the part that seems more leftish? I think I have a sort of righty fury and contempt for grandiose lefty claims of having found the true path, the correct way to do things. It is, for me, appropriate and necessary to be critical of the left. On the other hand, the right I have no sympathy for at all. It’s so obviously ignorant and brutal that one almost dismisses it. One is frightened by it now and again, but dismissively frightened. As a general rule, it seems to me, British and American poets don’t have much to do with each other these days. You are an exception – you publish almost as much there as here. Many of the critics who write about your work are English. Do you feel at home in England? Not really. There have been periods when I spent so much time there that, flying back and forth, I would get confused about which was home. But I’ve also lived in Paris for very long periods of time, and in France in the country. I’ve spent a great deal of time in Italy, practically living there. And always, in those days, when I’d been away from the streets of New York for a long enough while, I missed them – the vividness. The openness. The mixing of blacks, Latinos and whites. It’s often remarked by English people, either living here or visiting, how friendly – it is almost a cliche – how sunny Americans are. The famous New York aggression bursts into a smile of helpfulness. New York is my place. You are thinking of the Upper West Side specifically. I am. Early on, in the 60s, it was a near miss that I didn’t go to live in Greenwich Village. After Franz Kline died, his old studio was being rented out as an apartment. My then wife and I almost took it, which I used to think – in the days when I thought about this – would have changed my life completely. Well, you’d talk different. [Laughs] Absolutely. But it wasn’t the case. First I lived in the Upper East Side, for decades. Then I lived in the country, in the plush, flush Westchester Eden, an hour out of New York. And then came back to the Upper West Side, which I had not known at all, but which now I feel is where I was born. Reborn. In those days it was very raffish and rascally. Drug dealers everywhere, prostitutes everywhere in the streets. And wonderful. It’s not like that now. It certainly isn’t. When I was young and living in London and outside London, in Kent, London had its own energy and troublemaking excitement. I knew Francis Bacon a bit, I drank with him and that vehement crowd. The nightlife, the daytimes seemed magic and exciting and different. And now? What do you go back to, in London, nowadays? Mount Street Gardens – a very small, powerfully beautiful little park by the Farm Street church, and across from [gunmaker] Purdey’s and their shotguns. Which is itself a wonderful place to visit now and again. I’m now very used to Mayfair, and enjoy it. You don’t find it … empty? It’s not a place that emits gusto [laughs]. But it’s very pretty. Museums are near enough. I don’t know what else to say. A lot of the people who mattered to me in the 60s and 70s are, of course, gone – Karl Miller, Frank Kermode, Ian Hamilton, Richard Wollheim. A lot of funny people. I loved it that you could go into a porn shop in Soho, and be rifling through the stuff in back – that’s where they kept the real stuff, really the real stuff – and there would be Wollheim. Or Seidel. Or Seidel. I do love the English toleration of oddity – the celebration of oddity, really. People walking around with four arms poking out, five different versions of themselves, such unexpectedness. I think of Ronnie Laing – RD Laing, the psychiatrist – and his entourage of former patients who had gone on to be analysts themselves. These were very often people with serious musical talent, as Laing had. He played the clavier and the harpsichord both. It was very striking to go to Laing’s and see everybody smoking their special weeds – the perfume of those special weeds thick in the air – and to lie down on the floor and above you would be Laing or an acolyte playing some Scarlatti. All that could be alarming, or some of it, but superb. Widening Income Inequality is published by Faber at £14.99.
The Tories are split in two: this is where it gets really nasty It was something of a shock to learn yesterday that I may be distantly responsible for Iain Duncan Smith’s resignation as work and pensions secretary. According to the Sunday Times he “has never forgiven Osborne” for the disclosure in my 2013 book on the coalition, In It Together, that the chancellor believed that he was “just not clever enough” for the post he held until Friday. So it’s all inadvertently my fault, is it? I’m the Forrest Gump of the 2016 European Union referendum, the accidental protagonist. Well, maybe. Politics is indeed like a box of chocolates: you never know what you’re going to get. But after a weekend of investigation and deliberation, I am no closer to understanding why Duncan Smith quit. It is odd, for starters, that on the day he resigned he also sent a “Dear colleague …” letter to MPs defending the very reform of benefits for disabled people to which he supposedly objected so vociferously. Odder still that the contentious blueprint had just been postponed – precisely as he had wanted. This brings to mind Finkelstein’s law of the Tory right, coined by Daniel Finkelstein, the Times columnist and former adviser to John Major and William Hague: namely, that many of those on what has become the pro-Brexit right will not take “yes” for an answer. Reading Duncan Smith’s resignation letter, one has to ask how well the quiet man actually understands the government of which he has been a senior member for six years. Its central project – like it or not – has been a programme of deficit reduction enacted in the name of economic stability. In 2005, David Cameron and George Osborne inherited a party that had been dragged by Michael Howard from the abyss into which it fell during Duncan Smith’s spell as leader, and embarked upon a programme of brand “detoxification”. After the financial crash, they took the risky step of warning that an “age of austerity” was at hand. These were big strategic moves, intended to steer the party back towards government. “When you hear Iain moaning about the things we had to do to get back economic credibility and into power,” says one Cameron loyalist, “it’s tempting to say: ‘No thanks to you, mate.’” How quickly Tories forget what wins elections. If there was a single reason why the party secured an unexpected majority last year, it was because of the public’s perception that Dave and George would run the economy more reliably than the two Eds. In his resignation letter, Duncan Smith generously allows that “difficult cuts have been necessary”, but goes on to say that “there has been too much emphasis on money-saving exercises”. In other words, “fiscal nimbyism”: cut away, George, but not in my back yard. This isn’t outraged principle. It’s scalded proprietorship. So, is this really all about Brexit and the referendum rather than welfare? It is not as though Duncan Smith’s departure will free him to speak his mind on the matter of Britain’s place in the EU: thanks to the suspension of collective responsibility during the referendum campaign, he already enjoyed that right. But in a broader, more numinous sense, the countdown to 23 June is indeed the context that is framing and defining all Westminster politics. In practice, the prime minister is once again at the helm of a coalition, more fractious and riven with ancestral passions than its Conservative-Liberal Democrat predecessor. There is the Cameron party, committed to Britain’s continued membership of the EU, in no hurry to see the incumbent leave No 10, and hopeful (in most cases) that Osborne will succeed him. And then there is the Brexit party, loose-knit but united by the wish to see Britain escape the EU and (in most cases) for the Cameron-Osborne duopoly to come to an end. With a few exceptions, the Brexit party would like to see Boris Johnson installed in No 10 as soon as possible, even if they are not sure why. The Labour regime of 1997-2010 was ruinously scarred by the feud between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. But the Cameron government has suffered from precisely the opposite problem – the perception that the prime minister and chancellor get on too well, that the whole thing is an impermeable stitch-up and that only those who are trusted by the duumvirate get anywhere. There is a longing among many backbenchers to see this seal broken, and power spread more widely. Duncan Smith’s letter has been correctly interpreted as an attack on the chancellor and his leadership ambitions. But it is also an attempt to embarrass Cameron and to portray him as a fading force. “I believe the cuts would have been even fairer to younger families and people of working age,” Duncan Smith writes, “if we had been willing to reduce some of the benefits given to better-off pensioners.” This is directly aimed at the prime minister who has consistently ruled out any cuts to pensioners’ entitlements (as it happens, Osborne is more open to suggestion on this matter). Duncan Smith’s point is that Cameron’s implacable protection of the elderly severely limited the scope for savings in his departmental budget. Unambiguously, the letter is a critique of the whole Cameron era, not just one of its most senior figures. So what? Why the resentment of a lone former cabinet minister should be seen as lethal to either Cameron or Osborne eludes me. In spite of what you may have heard or read, his letter is no match for Geoffrey Howe’s resignation speech in 1990, the rhetorical attack that triggered Margaret Thatcher’s downfall. It is treachery with a confused expression. So Cameron should not be alarmed by Duncan Smith’s fit of outrage. But he must take very seriously indeed those in his party who are proposing a leadership contest after the referendum, whether the outcome is to stay or go. Don’t forget: the Tory rule book does not permit a leadership challenge. Instead, the incumbent faces a vote of no confidence (as Duncan Smith did in 2003) if 15% of MPs – 50, at present – seek such a ballot. If the incumbent loses, a contest is triggered in which the sacked leader may not stand. It is beyond extraordinary that, less than a year after it won a historic election victory, led by a prime minister who has already announced his departure, the Conservative party is playing with the gelignite of a wholly unnecessary leadership race. Indeed, it positively craves such a contest, even if Cameron prevails in the referendum. This is patently madness, but it is a madness towards which the Tory tribe is lurching, encouraged by Duncan Smith and by a yearning for Boris Johnson. Cameron’s instinct has always been to smooth over difference, restore harmony, unite factions. But this is different and he must be prepared this time to draw blood, destroy his foes and be ruthless. The Brexit party is really pushing its luck. The question is: how hard and how soon is the prime minister ready to fight back?
Clinton motors on from Michigan misstep Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager told reporters that despite Bernie Sanders’ upset win in Michigan, the delegate math is stacked against the Vermont senator. Glimmer of hope for Sanders as Trump barrels on “Our delegate lead will effectively become insurmountable” in the near future, claimed Clinton don Robby Mook. Including superdelegates, Clinton is now more than halfway to the nomination. Challenged on his delegate deficit on Wednesday, Sanders said the early states favored Clinton and predicted that “you’re going to see some [superdelegates] rethinking their commitment”. Sanders optimistic for more upsets after Michigan shocker A Marco Rubio spokesman called a report that the senator might exit the field in advance of Florida voting on Tuesday “100% false”. Three new polls showed Rubio trailing Trump badly in his home state. If Rubio is going to drop out next week after losing Florida, the thinking goes, why not do so this week – and free his supporters to help stop Trump? Rubio will win Florida, his team insisted. Failed presidential candidate Jeb Bush planned separate meetings with the three non-Donalds – Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and John Kasich – left in the Republican race. The topic was top secret. “We have Trump steaks,” Donald Trump announced in a victory speech Tuesday. But the steaks he gripped as props weren’t actually his. And neither was the bottled water. Trump uses speech to defend defunct brands Sanders and Clinton are scheduled to square off tonight in Miami. Exit polling in Michigan indicated that Sanders’ opposition to trade deals won votes. Will they go there on trade?
Rebecca Hall on starring in Christine: 'It’s about her life – not her death' During a news segment for WZRB’s station in Sarasota, Florida, in 1974, broadcaster Christine Chubbuck stared directly into the camera and said: “In keeping with Channel 40’s policy of bringing you the latest in blood and guts and in living color, you are going to see another first – attempted suicide.” Moments later she shot herself. Chubbuck was rushed to the hospital immediately but died shortly after. Her suicide (or more specifically, the video of her final moments) has long been considered an urban legend, which lurks somewhere on the fringes of the internet. It’s estimated that only a few hundred people saw the live broadcast when it occurred, and footage of her public suicide meanwhile remains mysteriously elusive. There are conflicting reports as to why. The station owner’s wife claims to have put the recording in the custody of a “very large law firm” following the passing of her husband, according to an in-depth report from Vulture. Chubbuck’s brother Greg tells a different story. In a February interview with People, he says his family got an injunction preventing the station from ever releasing the footage, and later had to turn the tapes over to “authorities” after they were seized as evidence. Greg says the footage eventually landed back with his mother, Peg. “I don’t know to this day where it is,” he told People. “But I know no one knows where it is, and no one ever will if I have anything to say about it.” Now 40 years later, Chubbock’s story has been revisited in two films that were among the standouts at Sundance film festival this January. Kate Plays Christine, Robert Greene’s arty documentary about an actor struggling to inhabit Chubbuck; and Christine, Antonio Campos’s moody character study, starring British actor Rebecca Hall as Chubbuck. Hall has a theory for why film-makers have deemed the subject suddenly relevant. “My access point to the 70s is films from that time, and they all have that paranoiac quality,” Hall says. “Journalism [at the time] moved into that sensationalized ‘if it bleeds it leads’ mentality. Certainly ‘if it bleeds it leads’ goes directly to [today’s] clickbait mentality in news. The notion that fear can generate news is hardly alien in America right now.” Still, Hall can’t quite believe she got the chance to play a figure as damaged as Chubbuck. While Hall concedes that “it’s so great that women are being allowed to be heroes in big things”, referring to the surge in popularity of female superheroes in Hollywood blockbusters,” she believes “the next step is allowing women to be antiheroes.” “It’s the thing I want to do with my career,” she adds. “And I’ve never got the opportunity because you never see those scripts for women.” From the outset of Christine, which earned raves for Hall’s performance at Sundance (Variety’s Guy Lodge called her “discomfortingly electric”), Campos depicts Chubbuck as a perfectionist with ambition to succeed in the male-dominated business of broadcast journalism. Her major hindrance: she lacks the requisite on-camera appeal that her job calls for – a factor everyone but her can see. When commissioned to interview a local fruit-seller for a light news segment, she can’t even muster a genuine smile for her audience. Warmth doesn’t come naturally to her, and for Hall those imperfections are what’s appealing. “Some of my acting heroes have built careers on playing characters who do horrendous things – they’re repellent and lovable,” adds Hall. “They’re not likable, but they’re lovable. I think Christine is one of those characters.” First-time screenwriter Craig Shilowich first learned of Chubbuck’s death after coming upon “a reductive story of her suicide” online. “I clicked on a website that listed the 10 craziest thing that happened on television, and her story was one of them,” he recalls. After looking into her case he began to relate to Chubbuck on deeply personal terms: Shilowich also suffered from a “long depressive episode”. Shortly after enrolling at New York University as a film major, Shilowich says he was overtaken by a severe depression that “came out of nowhere”. “Previously I was a straight-A student, I went to NYU, I had a lot of friends – and somewhere along the way, something went off track. I noticed the wheels in my head had gone wobbly,” he says. Like Chubbuck, Shilowich continued about his day-to-day life with people around him largely unaware of what he was going through. Unlike Chubbuck, he eventually sought help, dropping out of a college for a semester to recover. “When I found Christine’s story I went: what if I didn’t have loving relationships with people, what if I was a woman in a workplace dominated by men? It’s not so hard to understand how things might go the way they went,” Shilowich says. “I was interested in exercising a personal feeling I had, and being honest to it – and showing it in a plain-faced way that humanized this person.” Because of that approach, he says, Christine isn’t merely a film about suicide – even though her death served as his entry point to her story. Chubbuck’s shocking end is just “part of the story”, he stresses. Or as Hall puts it: “It’s about her life – it’s not about her death.” Christine opens 14 October in the US In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Hotline is 1-800-273-8255. In the UK, the Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14.
Facebook has another hidden inbox you probably didn't realise was there Users have discovered hundreds of messages locked in a hidden inbox within Facebook’s messaging system. The inbox, accessible on the web or Facebook Messenger apps for smartphones and tablets, is part of Facebook’s filtering system, designed to catch spam and other unwanted messages. However, users, including myself and others within the , have discovered their “filtered” inbox full of legitimate messages that never made it to the main inbox or Messenger app. The simplest way to access the inbox is to navigate to facebook.com/messages/other on the desktop. Within the Messenger app the hidden inbox is buried under four menus. To get to it tap Settings, then People, then Message Requests and tap on the “See filtered requests” link. The filtered messages include anything attempting to send you messages that you have manually filtered out as unwanted, as well as messages from people who are not connected with you on Facebook. I discovered some tens of messages dating back as far as 2008. Most of the time you can safely ignore it - Facebook built the system to stop messages you want to see being sent to spam – but it can also trap messages such as those informing you of a friend’s death or a story tip that ends up in filtered and hidden from your Facebook-obsessed eyes. Even for MPs. How to delete your Facebook account WhatsApp rolls out full encryption to a billion messenger users Zuckerberg on refugee crisis: ‘Hate speech has no place on Facebook’
Republican candidates' calls to scrap EPA met with skepticism by experts Amid prolonged bickering with his rivals, Donald Trump outlined a fairly radical proposal during Thursday’s Republican debate: to scrap the US Environmental Protection Agency. Typically there was little policy detail. But it was clear that the EPA – and its $8bn budget – would be on the chopping block should the Republican frontrunner become president. “Environmental protection – we waste all of this money,” he said. “We’re going to bring that back to the states. We are going to cut many of the agencies, we will balance our budget and we will be dynamic again.” The promise was an echo of recent statements from Trump on the EPA. He has said there is “tremendous cutting” to be done because the EPA “aren’t doing their job, they are making it impossible for our country to compete”. He has also accused the EPA of “going around causing damage as opposed to saving damage”, leading to “a tremendous amounts of money, tremendous fraud, tremendous abuse”. Trump’s plan to dissolve the EPA and hand environmental protection duties to the states goes further than his main rivals for the GOP nomination, but anti-EPA sentiment appears to run deep in both Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio. Cruz has called the EPA a “radical” agency that has imposed “illegal” limits on greenhouse gases from power plants. “I think states should press back using every tool they have available,” the Texas senator has said. “We’ve got to rein in a lawless executive that is abusing its power.” Rubio has said the EPA’s plan to curb emissions would have a “devastating impact” on jobs; he has also vowed to scale back the Clean Water Act. “Regulations in this country are out of control, especially the Employment Prevention Agency, the EPA,” Rubio said in January. Trump would appear to have some support for abolishing the EPA within Congress – Iowa Republican senator Joni Ernst, for example, has said the regulator should be scrapped because “the state knows best how to protect resources”. Scrapping the EPA, however, would cause an unravelling of basic protections of air and water. Environmental law experts argue it would also be difficult to achieve anyway. The agency, formed in 1970 under Richard Nixon, is empowered to administer federal standards under the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act. It has also been responsible for controlling or banning chemicals such as the pesticide DDT. Robert Percival, director of the environmental law program at the University of Maryland, said ditching the EPA was a “ridiculous idea”. “It reflects a lack of understanding over the US legal system, you’d have to fundamentally repeal or change all our environmental laws,” he said. “The EPA sets national standards and then the states come up with a plan on how to implement them. One reason this is done is to avoid a race to the bottom, so that states don’t relax regulations over air or water to attract industry. “California could do a decent job maybe because it has such a large environmental agency but smaller states wouldn’t be able to perform those functions. “Trump is demagoguing. It plays to the far-right base but it would have enormous consequences for people’s health.” Supporters of the EPA point to evidence that the agency has helped save a huge amount of money, as well as prevented many deaths. A 2012 study estimated that the Clean Air Act alone has saved $22tn in healthcare costs during its lifetime. “The EPA pays for itself and our environmental laws have been enormously successful,” said Percival. “We don’t have the environmental problems China does, with its smogs and its polluted drinking water. China doesn’t have a centralized regulator like the EPA, with 15,000 employees to enforce national standards. We’d be setting ourselves up for an environmental disaster.” EPA “overreach” has been a long-held bugbear of some Republicans, some of whom believe the toxic water crisis in Flint, Michigan, is evidence that the agency is failing. Congressional hearings into Flint are being used to put pressure on Gina McCarthy, the EPA’s administrator. But the idea of shutting down the entire agency may be a step too far for some Republicans. Patrick Parenteau, senior counsel at the Vermont Law School, said the idea was “preposterous”. “I wouldn’t dignify it with a serious reply,” he said. “Maybe ‘grow up’.”
The Ramones' manager: 'They were outcasts, outsiders. The smartest people I ever knew' The first time I saw the Ramones was at CBGB in 1975. I was the co-editor in chief of 16 magazine, and I had a weekly column in the Soho Weekly News, which they gave away at Max’s Kansas City on a Thursday night. The Ramones wanted to know: “Why aren’t we in Danny’s column?” Tommy would call and he was so nice and so humble: “We know what you like, you would love us!” The writer Lisa Robinson had been barraged with similar requests, and she said she’d go and see Ramones one night, and I should go and see some other band, then we’d compare notes. The next day she said: “You’ll love this band. They’re cute and loud and their songs are short.” So I went to see them. I loved the first lyric, the first song, the first sound. That first song was I Don’t Wanna Go Down to the Basement. Afterwards I met them outside CBGB and Tommy said: “Will you write something about us?” I said, “I want to manage you.” They knew who I was, because they met through loving the Stooges and I had signed the Stooges to Elektra. They said: “A lot of people want to be our manager, so if you give us $3,000 for equipment it could be you. That first night I saw them, I sat alone at a table at the front, and there were maybe five or six people there. It would have been unseemly to react by jumping up on the stage – it was a cool venue. There were no people coming to see the Ramones for a long time, and then there were a lot – we had to build an audience; that was the No 1 job. You go out on the road and you make friends and make fans. I drew spirals on a map: downtown New York, and then the cities within 100 miles, so you can go back and forth the same day. Boston was the promised land, because it was all college kids. When we first went to Boston, the Harvard Crimson came to interview the Ramones – this cool, savvy paper. Johnny asked if they came to the show – a show where there were 17 people there. They said, “Yeah, but we stood at the back.” “Why? We’re much better if you’re at the front.” “Because we heard you vomit on the audience.” And that’s because of the fucking Sex Pistols. Johnny gave me a look that said: “We are never going to get played on the radio.” Because vomit precedes music. So the curse of the Sex Pistols was the curse of the Ramones. We knew right away our future was not radio, because even the Harvard Crimson thought that was true. And so when we played out of New York we played anywhere we could. We played basements of office buildings where someone knew the janitor – that happened in Toronto. We played a bowling alley in Buffalo. Because who wants this band? They were all compulsive music lovers. They’d see records and say: “We want one of these! We don’t care who’s on it! It’s just so big and important looking! And we want to see what other people are doing and what their covers look like!” That’s how I had discovered David Bowie: “What a pretty drag queen!” That’s how you discovered things. But the Domingo album (pictured above) has a point, because Joey really did go to a vocal coach. I had worked with too many musicians who had polyps or vocal problems. It’s your instrument and you learn how to treat it well. There’s a lesson there for young singers: if Joey Ramone could go to a voice coach, so can you. The Ramones’ comic book politics came from a comic book sensibility – ironic and literate, but not educated. Tommy knew a lot about the art scene. Joey knew about AM radio and hit records. Dee Dee knew about getting laid and getting high. Johnny was figuring out how to make enough money to retire. But they were some of the smartest people I ever knew. I always get asked: “Why was Johnny one step to the left of Goebbels?” He wasn’t. He was patriotic, but much of it was to rile people up, to play with their heads, because that’s what the Ramones liked to do. They were outcasts, they were smart, but Johnny was not ruled by his politics. They were outsiders so they found their way by making fun of and having contempt for those who rejected them. They laughed at the idea of yippies or Jesus freaks or communists, but there was no passion in their politics. It took the Ramones a while to become the band they wanted to sound like. All the throwing down guitars and walking off in those early shows was frustration at not getting where they wanted to go fast enough. But they learned because they watched the audience – they saw what worked and what didn’t. Looking back on the early years, it’s like remembering your beautiful son or daughter who used to be a baby – and how they threw the rattle down. And so they would have their tantrums, but they never ever did that outside New York City. As soon as they put Joey on vocals and made that four-point thing on stage, they figured it out: don’t leave those positions; don’t become a polygon; make sure it’s a quadrilateral, maintain the corners. That was figured out. Arturo Vega, their art director and friend, and Tommy figured out the onstage formation as an effective thing. That onstage architecture was a guiding thing in everything they wanted to do. There wasn’t a lot of filming of bands in the mid-70s, but videos of performances could be used in place of you visiting somewhere else. Richard Robinson – who along with Lisa Robinson and Lenny Kaye ran Rock Scene – thought there was future for music video and television. This is on YouTube, but they have the wrong year and it was not filmed at Arturo’s loft. Arturo had the logo and he came up with the sheet to paint it on. He was great. He maintained the fanbase over the years and was in constant touch with fans all over the world. His contribution to the Ramones was inestimable: the visuals and the style, the lighting. Rock’n’roll lighting for him was an art. And he was a gorgeous looking boy. People used to dance to the Ramones – they weren’t really supposed to, but you should dance to everything. If you look at the kind of dancing they’re doing in this picture from The Club, they’ve signed it as “We are losers.” When you watched the early dance shows on TV, people would say about a song: “I didn’t know much about it, but I could dance to it.” If you can dance to it, it’s working. It was better doing those shows as a headline band, even when there were hardly any people there, than supporting – they were the world’s worst opening act. Good for them, good bands should be lousy opening acts. Joey was clearly a geek. Anybody could look at him and know this kid must have had a rough time. There’s sentiment for him, that this loser-looking person could be a rock star. Also he was the lead singer, and the lead singer is the one who talks to you. I was astonished at the love there was for this person who had spent 90% of his life being extremely unloved. We never spoke very much – it was easy to speak to the other three, but it was hard to speak to Joey, because he was wary of actualising his new-found celebrity into a reflection of the lifetime of contempt he had suffered. But when I got out the camera, he danced for me. I took more wonderful individual pictures of him than any other member of the band. I’m so glad he became what he did, when truck drivers going through New York would wind down their windows and shout “Hey! Joey Ramone!” It was like watching something hatch – this was not a kid with a silver spoon and long, straight, blond hair and a powerful handshake. It was like watching some little bird trying to peck its way out of its shell, and your heart was with him. We had not a word, not a clue, that they would be feted when they came to London in July 1976. How did this happen? We can’t get to Pittsburgh, but they want us in London? That happened because Seymour and Linda Stein who ran Sire Records, the Ramones’ label, had great connections in London and they were part-time Londoners. People say: “What did you know about the London scene before you came?” Nothing. Then I get asked: “Do you know what happened in the wake of your leaving?” No, we were back in New York. But it was wonderful to meet fans, and it was wonderful there were so many musicians there. It was wonderful that Johnny Rotten asked Arturo if it was safe to go into the dressing room or would they beat him up? No, they’re not going to beat up someone from another country in another city. We had to go through a great deal of being asked: “What are you going to do to change the world? How are you going to get rid of capitalism.” But the Ramones were: “You’ve got a heatwave, why haven’t you get air conditioning? Why can’t I get ice cubes?” That was we were worried about, ice cubes. The Ramones were wary of the Clash because they thought they were the only competition – the only band in the same league – but Johnny and Joe Strummer were friends for life. A good band is always looking over its shoulder – they knew what was happening to everyone else. They came to love some UK punk bands. They knew the first Sex Pistols album was great. They also loved the Buzzcocks and the Clash for the right reasons: England was meant to be making great rock’n’roll and at last England had come to its senses. Americans expected each London band to do its duty. I was never a photographer of bands in action unless it was at CBGB and they were friends of mine. Look where I am there – in the wings, not a photographer’s position. I was there because Arturo wanted me to keep snapping gigs, so he could look at the lighting. This was a year and half after their first appearance in London, and they’re headlining the Rainbow on New Year’s Eve 1977 – they had to leave America to get the multi-thousand audiences. It’s Alive, the album recorded that night, has no downtime, no gaps between songs, no tuning. Don’t give them any time to think; no time to do anything but be in that moment. During the time I worked with them, Tommy quit – in 1978 – and they were no longer my Ramones. They were the Ramones with substitutes. There exist another few years of photographs I took, but they were no longer my Ramones. I was fired as their manager in 1980, and until they started dying in 2001, I didn’t start reconnecting with them. Then I began to see them as people. I loved them, I always loved them. I never did anything creative for the band, so this was my one and only chance – to show these pictures and write some words. My Ramones is published on 27 April by First Third Books. To order a copy, click here.
Smaller clubs toppling Premier League elite – we may have to get used to it It may simply be that this season is a freak. Leicester have 47 points after 23 games; not since 2002-03 have the leaders had fewer than 50 points at this stage. If teams keep winning points at the same rate as they have up till now, they will end up with 78, the lowest tally to win the title since Manchester United did it with 75 in 1996-97 when they effectively had the league sown up by the beginning of May and drew three games on the run-in, still finishing seven clear of Newcastle United in second. Perhaps next season we’ll be back to the familiar pattern of the big four swatting all others aside. All of them have had their specific problems this season. But perhaps there is something else, something more general, going on. Let’s start, though, with the flaws. This is not the strongest of big fours. Chelsea are suffering whatever ague it is that afflicts teams in their third season after appointing José Mourinho, and perhaps paying for some less than judicious transfer dealing amid a general retrenchment. Manchester City are heavily reliant on Vincent Kompany and Sergio Agüero for leadership and penetration and both have had injury problems, a situation not helped by the sense that they’re essentially treading water until Pep Guardiola arrives (or doesn’t) next summer. Manchester United find themselves trapped in the shadow of Alex Ferguson, struggling to work out how to win things without a volcanic Glaswegian chewing gum on the bench (perhaps they will eventually install a crude representation by the touchline and engage in ritual mastication and wrist-tapping to try to entice the cargo to return). Arsenal are still Arsenal, Arsenalling along with their heroic wins and their foolish defeats, accumulating an entirely Arsenal-like number of points. Project their current points per game to the end of the season and they’d get 73 points; last season they got 75, the season before that 79, before that 73, 70, 68, 75, 72. It just looks slightly more impressive this season because they’ve got a reliable goalkeeper and because everybody else is struggling. But there have been seasons before when giants have struggled and their flaws haven’t been exposed quite as readily as this. It may be that they’ve never been quite so flawed before, or not all so flawed at the same time. But the ability of the Premier League’s middle-classes to take advantage has also been enhanced. In his 1996 book Full House, the US evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould examines the quirk that no batter had achieved a 0.400 average in baseball since Ted Williams in 1941. Many theories had been advanced as to why: was it that players were simply better then? Did increased cross-country travel grind batters down? Perhaps night games played under floodlights made it harder? The answer, Gould reasoned, was not that batters had got worse. It was that everybody else had got better. Contemporary batters, he concluded, were probably better in absolute terms that the batters of the thirties. They were fitter, they had better equipment and travelling by plane was rather less gruelling than by train. But they were worse relative to the standard of everybody else. “Hit it where they ain’t,” Williams used to say; but that was easier in his day with slower, less agile fielders – to say nothing of improvements in pitching over time and data analysis of how batters bat that makes them easier to thwart. This is part of Gould’s more general thesis about evolution. “The vaunted progress of life,” he wrote, “is really random motion away from simple beginnings, not directed impetus toward inherently advantageous complexity.” In baseball terms, there is a bell curve in variation from best to worst players; Gould’s argument is that the spread has diminished over time while the league average has remained essentially the same, flattening out statistical variations. It may be that this is what we are seeing in the Premier League. The economic model was revolutionised by the arrival of Roman Abramovich in 2003. Vast sums were needed to compete at the highest level, whether from a benefactor or the commercial exploitation of a dominant market position. But with the improved television deal, suddenly everybody has money. According to the latest Deloitte Report, 17 of the richest 30 clubs in the world are in the Premier League (and that’s before the new TV deal has actually begun). Dimitri Payet will go to West Ham. André Ayew will go to Swansea. Yohan Cabaye will go to Crystal Palace. There is less need for the non-giants to sell, less financial advantage for the best players at the non-giants to move. Given that even with a tendency to stockpile there is a limit to how many players a club can sign, it may be that there is a saturation point, that when everybody is enormously rich, having a little bit more simply doesn’t matter that much. The spread of the bell curve has narrowed. There may also be something self-perpetuating about this. The big teams have lost their aura. Nobody is scared of anybody any more. Every team goes to every ground thinking they can get a result rather than looking merely to avoid humiliation. It may even be, although this perhaps is overly optimistic, that the achievement of Leicester will persuade players in future that it is better to be a Riyad Mahrez or a Jamie Vardy playing regularly and attracting attention at a non-giant than to be Fabian Delph or a Loïc Rémy living in obscurity on a giant’s bench. There’s also the oddity that the two most exciting managers in the Premier League are at the fifth- and sixth-wealthiest clubs, enabling Liverpool and Tottenham to challenge the recent dominance of the big four. At some point, the elite will sort themselves out. There may be some validity in the excuse that the Premier League’s relentlessness undermines results in the Champions League, but at the same time results in Europe suggest significant shortcomings among England’s best sides. The likelihood is that in a few years this season will still look unusual. But there’s also reason to believe that it may not look freakish either, that enormous wealth all round means less statistical variation, means a more tightly bunched league table.
Murky Malaysian money trail that funded The Wolf of Wall Street – report This article is the subject of a legal complaint made on behalf of Red Granite Pictures, Inc. It has been alleged that more than $100m of the production budget for Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street came from a Malaysian state fund connected to a scandal that has damaged a senior Goldman Sachs banker and led investigators to examine the lifestyle of a notorious New York playboy. According to the Wall Street Journal, much of the cash used to make the Leonardo DiCaprio-starring film originated with 1MDB, a Malaysian state fund meant to boost local economic development. Investigators in two countries, the Journal reported, believe 1MDB money “moved into” Red Granite Pictures “by a circuitous route”. Red Granite is a Hollywood production company co-founded by Riza Aziz, stepson of the prime minister of Malaysia, Najib Razak, who set up 1MDB seven years ago. 1MDB also appears to be behind the the lavish lifestyle of Low Taek Jho, known as Jho Low, a notorious New York party boy and friend of Aziz. Jho Low, 34, made his reputation buying multi-million-dollar properties in New York and Los Angeles and bidding on fine art – he is widely believed to have bought Picasso’s Women of Algiers last May, for $179m – while enjoying the limelight alongside celebrities such as DiCaprio and Paris Hilton. In 2013, the year The Wolf of Wall Street was released, at least $681m, money the Malaysian government said was a gift from the Saudi royal family, landed in the personal bank accounts of Prime Minister Razak. In January, the prime minister was cleared of corruption over the sum. However, this triggered an FBI investigation into 1MDB. According to the New York Post, Goldman Sachs helped raise $6.5bn for the fund and now faces a congressional hearing into its Malaysian dealings, under a range of statutes. The company’s south-east Asia chairman, Tim Leissner, took a leave of absence last month. According to the Post, five countries, including the US, UK and France, are said to be looking for evidence of money laundering. The FBI has issued subpoenas to several current and former employees of Red Granite. “Red Granite is responding to all inquiries and cooperating fully,” a spokesman for the company told the Journal, adding that the company had “no reason to believe the source of its financing was irregular”. 1MDB later said in a statement: “1MDB has never invested in or transferred funds to Red Granite Pictures, whether directly or via intermediaries. Any statement to the contrary is false.” The movie business is long accustomed to accepting funds from investors with little experience in film. Even by Hollywood standards, though, the young Malaysian investors lived large. Three months after shooting on The Wolf of Wall Street began, the Journal reported, Red Granite gave a birthday gift to DiCaprio: the Oscar statuette given to Marlon Brando for best actor in On the Waterfront, which cost aroundabout $600,000. On New Year’s Eve 2012, revellers celebrated the arrival of 2013 in Australia and then flew to Las Vegas on a rented jetliner in time to celebrate it again. The party was reported to have included the two Malaysians, Aziz and Low, DiCaprio and Wolf of Wall Street co-star Jonah Hill, and the actor and singer Jamie Foxx. Six months after the movie’s release, DiCaprio, Aziz and Low attended the World Cup in Brazil and spent time on a Saudi-owned, 482ft yacht. The alleged scandal came to public notice last year, when the Sarawak Report, a UK-based site run by a former BBC journalist, published a series of what it said were internal emails between 1MDB and Saudi energy company PetroSaudi. The emails, the Sarawak Report said, showed that $700m involved in a deal between 1MDB and PetroSaudi was sent to a bank account belonging to a company controlled by Low. Low’s current whereabouts remain unknown, though much of the art he is believed to have purchased has re-appeared at auction over the last several months. He has consistently denied any wrongdoing, his lawyers calling allegations that he benefitted from the fund “false, materially misleading and categorically denied”. This article was amended on 7 April 2016
My patient told me he is going to stab someone. There's nothing I can do “I’m going to go home and I’m going to stab someone.” Alan is in the weekly ward review meeting with a group of doctors, nurses, and students. We’ve told him we think he is well enough to leave the ward; he disagrees. I am a consultant psychiatrist with a team working in a secure psychiatric inpatient unit, where he has been treated. He is unusual in that he has had his first psychotic episode later in life. The rest of his story is more depressingly typical; a chaotic childhood, expelled from school, periods in care and prison. He received no professional help and was left to drift between prison, homelessness, alcoholism, using drugs and managing only tenuous, readily broken relationships. Alcohol in very large quantities has, arguably, been what has kept him going, cutting him off from his unfortunate reality. Possibly because of the alcohol, he began to hear voices and has had a spell in hospital where he was violent towards the staff. Medication has made the psychotic symptoms disappear. But he doesn’t want to go home. He’s no longer psychotic, but his habit of violence hasn’t disappeared with the voices. If he stabs someone and ends up back in prison he doesn’t care. So what to do about Alan? He now has the capacity to make decisions about his actions. He understands, on one level, that being violent towards people is not the best thing to do. He doesn’t care though. Alan is the product of an unfortunate combination of nature and nurture that has left him with an inability to manage even the most minor frustration. If I had been seriously hurt by his actions the police would, probably, have agreed to arrest him. I find myself wondering aloud if that might have been easier for us all. But the CPS would almost definitely have refused to follow through because Alan has been sectioned in the past and has mental health problems. Mere threats to kill if discharged from hospital will attract little interest from the criminal justice system, although we will go through the motions of talking to the police. Alan is in the mental health system now. The reality is that anything Alan does in the future can come back to bite any mental health professional who has had anything to do with him. His case joins the many others creating the great sword of Damocles hanging my head and that of most psychiatrists. He can’t stay in hospital for ever. He attacked people before he became psychotic, usually when drunk; he is likely to again as he doesn’t even pretend to want to give up alcohol. I will try not to worry about Alan stabbing someone. I hope he is bluffing. We will contact the police and will document in detail our view that he is now responsible for his behaviour – and we will discharge him. Alan is not his real name and some details have been changed If you would like to contribute to our Blood, sweat and tears series which is about memorable moments in a healthcare career, please read our guidelines and get in touch by emailing sarah.johnson@theguardian.com. Join the Healthcare Professionals Network to read more pieces like this. And follow us on Twitter (@GdnHealthcare) to keep up with the latest healthcare news and views.
A letter to Europe: tempted as you are, please don't write us off The shockwave from the Brexit vote now reverberates through Europe. The dismay felt by so many in the UK is shared on the continent. Some of you reached out to us before the referendum, asking us to stay and stressing our common interests. Now it is our turn to appeal to you. Rebuffed by the result, and alienated by the crude triumphalism of Nigel Farage and other leavers, you may consider any request an impertinence. Your citizens have been among those targeted by the xenophobia unleashed. Continental Europeans may feel we do not deserve an audience. Almost half of those who voted sought to continue our membership. The was one of the most determined voices on this side of the divide. But we, like the rest of the 48%, must now respect the verdict that we dreaded. You assumed that British pragmatism would triumph. We share your shock and anxiety. Tempted as you are, don’t write us off entirely. Many Britons seek the closest possible partnership with the European Union, and it is more urgent than ever to continue cooperation through every viable means. Some of you are angry. Britain was already seen as an unwilling partner, dragging our feet and demanding endless concessions. Many more now see us as a wrecker, too: gambling with a fragile European economy; imperilling an institution created to safeguard peace. Others feel pity or contempt for a nation that backed Brexit on a series of fantasies and lies, already retracted, or schadenfreude as the cost of the folly becomes evident. You may wish to punish us, or simply tell us: good riddance. Britain should not expect special treatment. Nonetheless, at this precarious moment, we ask you to pause – in all our interests. Above all, we need time. Britain voted against membership; we did not vote for an alternative. The public has not fully confronted the choice it faces between turning its back on the single market, or accepting continued EU migration in whatever form. For sure, make it clear to Brexiters that they cannot have the rights that come with the EU without the obligations. Spelling out Britain’s choices may help us to be more realistic. The country has decided against continuing down the same path, but our new route and eventual destination are unclear. There is a great deal to think through, and further decisions to make. They could involve parliament, perhaps even a general election. You hope for certainty and stability, but pressing too hard for the invocation of article 50 could force us to rush into choices that you may also regret. While Britain chooses a captain for turbulent waters, you will be preoccupied with your own decisions, cast into starker relief by the referendum vote. The UK no longer has the right to express any preference as you determine “how much” and what kind of Europe you want. Seeking to punish us to prevent further exits is an understandable urge. The right policy will be that which prevents Britain’s exit becoming a ruinous catalyst. Across Europe, there is disengagement from mainstream politics, anger towards the elite and a hunt for foreign scapegoats, and in many places these have coalesced into anti-EU sentiment. We shared your alarm as Marine Le Pen’s Front National and other far right parties celebrated the British decision. Large numbers of people feel ignored and ill-used, with little sense that they are benefiting from integration. In the UK, lies about straight bananas and exaggerations about the EU’s opacity fuelled feeling against the institution, compounding a sense that the political classes are out of touch with ordinary life and have often put profits before people. The UK must establish new bonds at home without turning its gaze entirely inwards. Let us continue to work with you wherever we can. We don’t expect to take the lead or make the rules; we can still offer expertise, resources and intelligence in areas such as security. Cooperation between our citizens – cultural collaborations, academic exchanges – in the long run does most to bring Europe closer, and will be more crucial than ever. Remember that younger Britons who voted were overwhelmingly pro-European, and help us to nurture that spirit and the opportunities it may one day present. Britain, once outside the EU, cannot and should not expect a swift return. It would be politically dangerous at home; it would require generosity on your part. But those facing Brexit with reluctance hope that one day we may rejoin the club. Please, bid goodbye in sorrow, not anger; and for all our sakes, do not bolt the door.
Southampton 1-4 Tottenham Hotspur: Premier League – as it happened! It’s all over! Mike Dean draws proceedings to a close after a very lively second half that marked another successful return to Southampton for Mauricio Pochettino. Spurs ran out easy winners in the end, but Southampton were in touch until the 84th minute, despite having been reduced to 10 men when Nathan Redmond was sent off shortly before the hour mark. Virgil van Dijk opened the scoring for Saints very early doors, but a brace from Dele Alli and goals from Harry Kane and Heung-Min Son meant Spurs took all three points despite Kane missing a second half penalty. 90 min: Shane Long and Jan Vertonghen pick up yellow cards for something and nothing, which means the Tottenham man will join Kyle Walker on the Naughty Step for his side’s next game, against Watford. 89 min: So, back to those quick-fire goals. Both were spookily similar, with Son’s the pick of them. He latched on to a long ball out of defence from Eriksen, sped past Oriol Romeu and finished with a precision shot across Forster’s bows that went into the bottom corner. Alli’s second was not all that different: from a counter-attack Danny Rose picked him out on the edge of the middle third and he was given time and space to pass the ball into the same corner. 89 min: Spurs substitution: Vincent Janssen comes on for Harry Kane. 87 min: Another counter-attack, another finish into the bottom right-hand corner, with Dele Alli bagging his second of the night with a low pass into the bottom corner. 85 min: Son extends Tottenham’s lead with a fine finish into the bottom right-hand corner, finishing a counter-attack in most emphatic style. 83 min: Cedric plays the ball in behind the Spurs defence for Shane Long to chase. He steals a march on his markers and attempts to chest the ball down in space, but is correctly flagged for offside after mistiming his run. 82 min: Tottenham substitution: Mousa Dembele off, Harry Winks on. 79 min: More slapstick from Lloris, who rushes out of his area to head a clearance straight to Hoejbjerg. The substitute attempts to lob the keeper, but fails abjectly in his attempt to do so. Moments previously, Fonte had been lucky to avoid a booking (at least) for a wild lunge on Danny Rose, which the full-back managed to evade. 78 min: A woeful clearance from Hugo Lloris goes straight to Dusan Tadic in space not too far outside the Spurs penalty area. He’s caught unawares and dispossessed before he has time to react. 77 min: Tottenham’s ongoing failure to add a third goal means Southampton remain in with a shout of rescuing something from this game despite being down to 10 men. They’ve 13 minutes left to do so, along with whatever the referee adds on for stoppages. 75 min: Just before that Spurs substitution, the apparently tireless Rose cut in from the flank and sent a rasping shot well wide of the upright. 74 min: Spurs substitution: Moussa Sissoko off after what has been, by his own low standards since moving to Tottenham, a decent performance. He makes way for Heung-Min Son. 72 min: Southampton triple-substitution: Shane Long, Dusan Tadic and Pierre-Emile Hoejbjerg on for Jay Rodriguez, Sofiane Doufal and Steven Davis. 71 min: Spurs attack up the right flank, with Rose and Sissoko combining well. The ball finds its way to Christian Eriksen, who rattles the cross-bar with a surface to air screamer from outside the penalty area. 69 min: Southampton go on an increasingly rare attack into Tottenham territory and Cedric arcs a cross from deep towards the far post. Hugo Lloris is quick off his line to catch acrobatically. 65 min: Victor Wanyama shoots from distance, stinging the palms of Forster in the Southampton goal and winning his team a corner. Nothing comes of it, although Forster is forced off his line to clear. 64 min: Some housekeeping - before it all kicked off, Kyle Walker received a yellow card that will rule him out of Tottenham’s New Year’s Day match against Watford under the totting -up procedure. Danny Rose has since been booked, but it’s Southampton who are down to 10 men and trail by the odd goal of three. 60 min: Mike Dean took a curiously long time to take his red card out of his pocket and show it to Nathan Redmond then. He’d awarded the penalty and Harry Kane was waiting to take it when, as an apparent afterthought, he decided to send Redmond on his way. The less said about Kane’s penalty the better, but it was certainly an entertaining three minute spell. 58 min: It’s all go at St Mary’s, where Harry Kane blazes his penalty over the bar! He glowers at a loose divot, as if to suggest it’s the pitch rather than he who is to blame. 57 min: After what appears an eternity, Dean sends Redmond off with a straight red card for being last man back and preventing a clear goalscoring opportunity. 55 min: Great refereeing from Mike Dean, who plays the advantage after Dele Alli was put through on goal by Moussa Sissoko, only to be held back by Nathan Redmond. After Alli put his shot wide, Dean blew his whistle pointed to the spot. 54 min: Spurs won that corner after some dithering in defence from Jose Fonte under pressure from Kyle Walker. Christian Eriksen’s delivery was beautiful and with Southampton’s defenders fast asleep, Kane rose at the near post to guide the ball in the top right-hand corner. 52 min: Harry Kane scores with his head at the near post, turning in an out-swinger of a corner with a marvellous finish. That was a fine goal. 48 min: Almost four minutes in and this second half remains exceedingly scrappy, what little play there’s been punctuated by a series of free-kicks and throw-ins. Steven Davis goes down under what looked a fairly agricultural Victor Wanyama challenge right under the nose of referee Mike Dean, but the advantage is played. Dean goes on to have a word with Wanyama, but keeps his yellow card in his pocket. The challenge was clumsy rather than malicious and Davis didn’t make a big deal out of it. 47 min: A scrappy start to the second half, but Boufal eventually gets his foot on the ball out on the left flank before gadding up the left touchline and winning a throw-in. Nothing comes of it. 46 min: Spurs get the second half started, with no changes to either side at the interval. They’ve had one shot on target each and both headers have gone in. The players troop off for their half-time brew with the scores level. Tottenham will be happier with their performance, but it’s all to play for in the second half. A point isn’t much use to either side, but on the balance of play so far, the visitors look the more likely winners. 45 min: The fourth official suggests one minute of added time in an absorbing match that’s had few interruptions. Tottenham started badly, but are very much in the ascendency as we approach the interval. On the scoreboard, however, the scores remain very much level, with Dele Alli having cancelled out Virgil van Dijk’s opener. 43 min: A neat touch from Victor Wanyama in the Southampton penalty area enables him to take out a defender and make room for a shot about seven yards from Forster’s goal. As he shapes to pull the trigger, Jose Fonte takes the ball away from him with a desperate last-ditch lunge. Brilliant defending. Moussa Sissoko’s delivery to Wanyama wasn’t half bad either - the much-maligned French international is having one of his better games for Spurs tonight. 42 min: Another Spurs corner; their sixth. The delivery is poor and Jay Rodriguez clears, but only as far as Alli. 39 min: After a very shaky start indeed, Spurs continue to dominate as they have done for the past 20 minutes. Most of the play is inside the Southampton half, with the home team sitting way too deep and getting pressed high up the field. Claude Puel will have to do something about this at half-time, if not sooner. Dele Alli is presented with another scoring opportunity of sorts but fluffs his long range effort. 38 min: Tottenham win their fourth corner, which Eriksen takes from the left. He plays it short to Dembele, who ends up winning corner No5 off Cedric as he tries to beat the full-back and get a cross into the Southampton penalty area. Nothing comes of it. 35 min: The ball’s played wide to Kyle Walker on the right flank, but his cross is blocked by Redmond. The ball breaks kindly for the right-back, he plays it inside to Sissoko and Spurs continue a patience build-up. 32 min: Southampton win a corner after Jan Vertonghen dives in to intercept a pass from Nathan Redmond to Cedric, who was galloping into space down the right side of the penalty area. Good defending. Bertrand’s corner is punched clear by Hugo Lloris in the Tottenham goal. 30 min: Christian Eriksen wins a corner for Spurs after a scuffed effort from just outside the area takes a deflection off a defender. Eriksen takes the corner short and is on hand to blast over from 25 yards after a brief passage of play in which Southampton failed to clear their lines. 29 min: Cedric puts the ball behind for a corner after good work from Eric Dier. Eriksen curls the ball to the near post, where Steven Davies hacks it out for a throw-in. 27 min: This match has been fairly scrappy and pell-mell so far, but no less entertaining for that. Both teams appear to be going all out for the win and Spurs are just about in the ascendency for now, but there’s been very little between the two sides. 24 min: Corrections and clarifications department: Unless Jon Moss got a very convincing Mike Dean mask for Christmas, it is the man from Wirral who is refereeing this match. I was unreliably informed by the news agencies that Moss was running the show tonight. 21 min: It was the turn of Southampton’s defenders to fall asleep there, with Alli reacting quickest after Sissoko’s cross was deflected up in the air off the back of Redmond. Virgil van Dijk mistimed his own leap as a result, enabling the unmarked Alli to send a nicely weighted looping header into the top corner from six yards. It was a fine effort, which the youngster did well to keep under the bar. 19 min: Dele Alli equalises with a header from the edge of the six-yard box, after a Moussa Sissoko cross had taken a deflection off the back of Redmond. 17 min: More good play from Southampton, as Bertrand gallops down the left flank and drills the ball into the penalty area in the hope of picking out Redmond. Danny Rose is on hand to make the crucial interception and prevent Southampton from doubling their lead. 14 min: Mousa Dembele is booked for a foul on Nathan Redmond, or else booked for dissent after he was penalised for fouling Redmond. There follows some more slapstick defending from Spurs, leading to a low diagonal Redmond drive that goes narrowly wide of Lloris’s far post. 13 min: Speaking of wayward - Fraser Forster makes a dog’s breakfast of a clearance and his mis-kick sends the ball steepling high into the air and out for a Spurs thropw-in deep inside the Southampton half. Nothing comes of it, although the Saints goalkeeper’s attempt to look like he knew exactly what he was doing was quite amusing. 11 min: Spurs win a corner and it’s played short to Christian Eriksen. He attempts to whip the ball towards the far post, but catches it all wrong and his wayward effort drifts wide. 9 min: More good play from Southampton, as Boufal wriggles through a couple of defenders on his way into the Spurs penalty area from the right with the ball on his toe. He’s eventually crowded off it, but there’s an element of the desperate and last-ditch about some of this Spurs defending. 7 min: Danny Rose attempts to cross into the Southampton penalty area from the left touchline, but his effort is blocked by Cedric. Southampton go forward again,m with Nathan Redmond threading a ball through the inside right for Jay Rodriguez to chase. He beats Jan Vertonghen for pace, but sends his diagonal effort well wide of the far post. 6 min: Southampton are employing a very heavy press from the front, making it night on impossible for the visitors to play the ball out from the back without making errors. 4 min: James Ward-Prowse was the provider there, having stood over the ball alongside Bertrand, who had won the free-kick from Wanyma. He lofted the ball towards the far post, where Van Dijk rose much higher than the two defenders nearest him to head past Hugo Lloris. 2 min: What a start for Southampton. From the aforementioned free-kick, which was conceded by Victor Wanyama, the ball was swung into the Spurs penalty area. Unmarked, Virgil Van Dijk rose to power a header across the face of goal and inside the far post. Woeful defending by Spurs. 1 min: Southampton get the ball rolling and immediately get the ball rolling. Almost immediately, they win a free-kick in line with the left side of the Spurs penalty for a foul on Ryan Bertrand. The teams emerge from their dressing rooms, line up in the tunnel and march out on to the pitch for the last of the pre-match formalities. Tottenham’s players are a vision in yellow shirts, shorts and socks, while their hosts wear their usual attire of red and white striped shirts, black shorts and red socks. The Belgian central defender misses out because he’s suffering from a virus, while Moussa Sissoko comes into the Tottenham midfield for Harry Winks. Southampton manager Claude Puel makes four changes from the team that beat Bournemouth, with Jose Fonte, James Ward-Prowse, Nathan Redmond and Steven Davis all returning to the starting line-up of a side that must play three matches in the next six days. Southampton: Forster, Cedric, Fonte, van Dijk, Bertrand, Ward-Prowse, Romeu, Davis, Redmond, Rodriguez, Boufal. Subs: Yoshida, Long, Tadic, Martina, Reed, Hojbjerg, Taylor. Tottenham Hotspur: Lloris, Walker, Dier, Vertonghen, Rose, Dembele, Wanyama, Sissoko, Alli, Eriksen, Kane. Subs: Son, Janssen, Vorm, Nkoudou, Wimmer, Winks, Davies. Referee: Jon Moss (W Yorkshire) Tottenham travel to St Mary’s knowing that defeat will all but end their fairly slim chances of winning the title and leave them in fifth place in the Premier League, four points behind neighbours Arsenal, who currently occupy the final Champions League spot. With nine points viewer than their visitors, Southampton are back in eighth and come into tonight’s game on the back of their pre-Christmas win over Bournemouth. Saints defensive midfielder Oriol Romeu is available after a one-match spell on the naughty step after picking up five yellow cards, but his fellow midfielder Jordy Clasie is out with a groin injury. Striker Charlie Austin and defender Matt Targett are longer term absentees. For Tottenham, who are looking to make it three wins on the bounce after victories over Burnley and Hull City, defenders Toby Alderweireld and Danny Rose, midfielder Mousa Dembele and striker Vincent Janssen are all available for selection after returning from injury. Kick-offis at 7.45pm (GMT), but we’ll here with team news and build-up long before that.
'Racists!' 'Illegals!' 'Scum!': protesters v Donald Trump supporters They come clutching banners, flags and piñatas, some with masks, others with megaphones, to do battle with Trumpers. The venue changes but the rules remain the same: get as close as you can to the arena, shout long and loud, starve the trolls and, as the sun goes down, watch out. So it goes at what passes for the pointy end of American politics: protesters v supporters at Donald Trump rallies. There were protests at almost every stop of the Republican candidate’s western swing this week, veering from a carnival-like vibe to violence. At least 18 people received medical attention in San Diego on Friday night after police declared an unlawful assembly in the Gaslamp Quarter, close to where Trump held a rally hours earlier. Helicopters hovered as police in riot gear announced in Spanish and English that people must disperse. Most of the week’s protests were relatively small, barely a few dozen-strong in some places. But those who attended felt these were the opening skirmishes in what promises to be a long, hot summer of street activism triggered by Trump’s rhetoric about Latino immigrants, Muslims and other minorities. If so, this is the phony war stage: homemade banners, ragged organisation, no one quite sure what to expect. “There they are, there they are, go, go, go!” shouted a masked protester at Anaheim, south of Los Angeles, on Wednesday, as half a dozen Trump supporters with stars-and-stripes bandannas paraded into their midst, waving US flags. Protesters, some with Mexican flags, swarmed the interlopers as mounted police looked on. The groups jostled and traded insults. “Racists!” “Illegals!” “Scum!” The melee continued for several blocks bordering Disneyland. Protesters snatched Make America Great Again caps and some flags from the outnumbered Trump supporters, who clustered for protection. “They work for cheap. They’re taking our jobs,” said Tyler Rogers, 23, a wild land firefighter. And now they had taken his hat, which two protesters tried to set on fire. It flared briefly, then smoldered. Irene Rodriguez, 42, a Trump-supporting optician, looked dazed: “She took my flag and stomped all over it, some Mexican chick. I told her, ‘you can do what you want to me, but not the flag. Show some respect’.” As helicopters hovered overhead, police briefly sealed thousands of Trump supporters inside the Anaheim convention center car park while a handful of protesters paraded past, defying orders to disperse. The Trump supporters jeered and chanted. “USA!” Then: “Build the wall!” A young Latina draped in a Mexican tricolor gave the finger and screamed rebuttals in Spanish and English. “Excuse my language, but fuck you all.” Sixteen people were later arrested. A day earlier in Albuquerque, New Mexico, protesters overturned crowd control barriers, threw rocks at police and smashed the door of the convention center where Trump had spoken. Interviews with pro and anti groups this week offered a sharp contrast in mood – glee on one side, trepidation the other. They expressed at least one thing in common: pride in taking their beliefs onto the street unlike the rest of America which, as they saw it, sat on its ass, watching TV or dabbling in social media, debating Trump. “I felt I had to be here,” said Gerardo Carvajal, 19, a student from Costa Mesa, in Anaheim. He was soft-spoken and had a geekish critique. “He doesn’t have any real policies. The way he presents himself is not presidential.” Carvajal’s sign was blunter: “Fuck Trump.” Rogelio Banuelos, 27, also mild-mannered, complained that elites were not speaking out against the candidate’s “racism, misogyny, xenophobia and ableism”. His sign featured the word “fuck” six times. Most signs are homemade, with recurring messages. “No human being is illegal.” “We need rights, not hate.” “This is our home too.” The most popular involve swear words. Oddly, the people holding them can be mild and soft-spoken when you talk to them, like Carvajal. Some go for humor. “Build a wall around Trump’s hair. I will pay for it,” said that of Chuck Tyson, 56, an ex-Republican in San Diego. Some seem designed more to provoke than sway. “Don’t be a estupido gringo. Don’t vote 4 Trump.” Use of the Mexican flag divides protesters. For Luis Blanco, 32, who waved a big one in Anaheim, it represented pride in the land of his parents. “It’s for my family. They’re hard workers. Donald Trump is a scumbag.” When someone hoisted a pinãta version of Trump’s head atop a Mexican flag the crowd roared. Photographers scrambled for the best shot. A media-savvy protester sensed it would be better atop another protester’s US flag. The owner hesitated. “People are so angry they’ll burn it.” With trepidation, he handed it over. The head was transferred and a bigger roar erupted. Some signs are getting more sophisticated, at least aesthetically. Members of an LA-based indigenous rights group called Mexica this week brandished glossy, colorful depictions of the Donald as the Joker beside a swastika: “Stop Nazi Trump. Go back to Europe now!” They were spanking new, said Olin Tezcatlipoca, the group’s director. “We’re here doing what the Jews should have done in the 1930s when they saw the rise of Hitler. He’s a Nazi, he’s a white supremacist. It looks like now it’s getting serious and we have to get the word out.” All week a handful of Christian activists with megaphones and a huge banner praising Jesus have turned up early at Trump events, nabbing the best spot, infuriating protesters. The Christians bait the crowd as illegals and perverts. They turned up again in San Diego. Insults in Spanish only encouraged them. “This is America. We speak English. We don’t understand you.” Some Trump supporters skip his rallies to troll protests. “Those guys chanting, they’re just dumbasses,” said Gary Pollard, 35, a navy veteran-turned Disneyland worker in Anaheim. He had to shout to be heard over chants of “Donald Trump must go, hey hey, ho ho”. Pollard scorned the Trump-Hitler comparisons. “Nazi Germany started with socialized healthcare and gun control.” Then he joined protesters walking in a circle, jigging and lumbering from side to side, for comic effect. Some who started shouting at him were pulled away by colleagues. “Remember, don’t feed the trolls.” Hundreds of police in riot gear patrolled San Diego on Friday night as pro and anti Trump groups slowly dispersed. As an anti-Trump rap song blared from a boombox, protesters hung a piñata of the casino mogul from a traffic sign.
The world can be a source of hope, not of needless military invasions There is little evidence of any enthusiasm for the way our society is run. Polling is persistently clear: most object to utilities such as rail and energy being run for profit rather than in public ownership; most believe in significantly higher tax rates for the rich; and there is popular support for improving workers’ rights. But what people want and what they think possible are often far apart. The status quo may be unpopular, but it is at least tangible: decades of “there is no alternative” drummed into our heads has left us resigned to the inevitability of injustice. Take the recent Panama Papers revelations. When, on social media, I suggested the story underlined how a rich elite stashed their fortunes away from the authorities while preaching the need for cuts, the response was a wave of cynicism. The replies could be summed up as, ‘Well, duhhh, what do you expect?’ or “Is this really a surprise?”. Rich people avoiding tax on an industrial scale was priced in. A bigger surprise would have been if it didn’t happen. Rather than rage, there was a world-weariness – one that is very successful at defusing popular support for tackling injustice. Rather than take to the streets, more often people yell at the TV and then return to lives blighted by insecurity. That’s why Michael Moore’s excellent new film is so important. Where to Invade Next is based on a simple satirical concept. From Vietnam to Iraq, Moore points out, the postwar US has launched a series of military invasions whose main achievement has been a devastatingly high death toll. What if, instead, Moore invaded countries in order to appropriate ideas and policies that help people, and then take them back to America? The US is practically alone among industrialised nations for not having mandatory annual leave. So off Moore goes to Italy with a bold question: have you ever wondered why Italians always look like they’ve just had sex? One reason, he suggests, is the number of paid days off that Italians can expect: when national holidays are included, 30 a year. For those who might blame this healthier work-life balance on Italy’s economic woes, it’s worth noting that the economic powerhouse Germany offers 34 days for permanent workers. Moore meets Claudio Domenicali, chief executive of the Italian motorcycling manufacturer Ducati, who says providing benefits for workers and recognising a strong union benefited the company. Then there’s Finland. In Britain, we have a government determined to fragment our comprehensive state school system and introduce the philosophy of the market. If our government had a “what works” philosophy, then – like Moore – it would surely aspire to the Finnish model. Finland’s educational results are among the highest in the world but it’s a country with barely any private schools and no academic selection, where children don’t even start school until after their seventh birthday, schooldays are shorter, play is emphasised, and there is practically no homework. Top quality schools for all and an emphasis on the wellbeing of pupils produce results. And unlike, say, Britain – where morale in the education system is often poor – Finnish teachers are held in high esteem. Finland also has a more equal society than Britain: research has repeatedly underscored a link between deprivation and poor academic performance. Another of Moore’s “victims” is Norway. Its justice system is like something lifted from a Daily Mail nightmare. Far fewer people are locked up and the prison sentences are significantly shorter. On Bastoy prison island, for example, inmates have their own TVs, computers and showers, and are provided with a proper education. Norway’s reoffending rate is among the lowest in the world: reportedly 20%, compared with a stunning 77% in the punitive US system. When the fascist terrorist Anders Breivik detonated a bomb in Oslo and murdered dozens of young socialists on Utoya island, Norway’s prime minister declared: “Our response is more democracy, more openness, and more humanity.” Norway did not allow terrorism to subvert its way of life; there were no clampdowns on civil liberty; support for the death penalty (a fringe position in Norway) did not surge. Rather than giving Breivik the special treatment he craved, the country played it by the book. There are many other examples. Countries such as Germany and Slovenia, where university education is treated as a social good and there are no tuition fees. And Portugal, which has abandoned the calamitous “war on drugs” and no longer locks people up for the personal consumption of illicit substances. I could go on. Nordic countries, where taxes are higher, which have more extensive welfare states but where living standards are better. Germany, where a state-led industrial strategy has created hundreds of thousands of jobs in renewable energy and is confronting the climate change crisis. The most important contribution made by films such as Moore’s is to popularise the idea that the status quo is not, in fact, inevitable. Those of us who believe in societies being run for the benefit of the majority – not as rackets for a tiny elite – all too often assume a defensive posture. We can be easily defined by what we oppose, rather than what we support. Our placards are adorned with slogans protesting against privatisation or cuts, rather than presenting an optimistic vision of what society could be. No wonder that, to many, we appear as doomsayers, relentlessly conveying misery and gloom. Ronald Reagan is an unlikely example for the left to emulate – his disastrous legacy includes the stagnation of living standards for millions of Americans. But he wrapped his pro-rich policies in optimism, proclaiming “Morning in America”. We should not stop opposing injustice. But surely we need to do far more to match our opposition with an inspiring, hope-filled vision. As Moore illustrates vividly, there is no shortage of alternatives. We don’t talk about them enough, and it’s time we did. • Owen Jones will be in conversation with Michael Moore after the UK premiere of Where to Invade Next on Friday 10 June. The event will be broadcast live via satellite from Sheffield Doc/Fest to more than 120 cinemas nationwide. Find your nearest cinema at www.wheretoinvadenext.co.uk/screenings
Irish Republic signals support for UK plan to avoid post-Brexit 'hard border' Members of the Irish government have signalled support for UK plans to shift the frontline of immigration controls to Ireland’s ports and airports post-Brexit in an attempt to avoid a “hard border” between the north and the south. The Irish Republic’s finance minister, Michael Noonan, said neither the Irish nor the UK government wanted a hard border once Northern Ireland has left the EU along with the rest of the UK. “If you do not have a border going from Newry, going across, dividing Sligo and Donegal from the northern counties, the next step is to have controls at the ports. That would mean Rosslare and Larne [sea ports] and the airports, but that wouldn’t be much more than the normal checks we have at airports already, where you show your passport,” he told the Irish Times. Frances Fitzgerald, the Irish deputy prime minister and justice minister, said her government was agreeable to the plan, adding there was “not anything surprising” in the proposals. Earlier, James Brokenshire, the UK’s Northern Ireland secretary, said London and Dublin would work together to strengthen Ireland’s external borders in order to combat illegal immigration into the UK once it leaves the EU. While Noonan and Fitzgerald welcomed Brokenshire’s promise that the common travel area between Britain and Ireland would continue to exist, the Irish coalition government has stressed that any new intelligence-gathering and data-sharing system on people entering Ireland who may also travel into Northern Ireland must win support from all of the Republic’s EU partners. Any system designed to enable the UK to control immigration via Ireland is bound to be controversial, and one Irish politician has called the proposal ridiculous. Matt Carty, the Sinn Féin MEP for the Midlands North-West constituency of Ireland, said British immigration problems should be the least of Ireland’s worries, given economic and social turmoil caused directly by the referendum result. He said: “The Irish government and a succession of its representatives have been deferential to the British government from time to time. What we are saying is that this is not an occasion for this. We need to be pointing out the needs of this island and making demands for the Irish people. It is not their job to be pushing for the wishes of the British government. “Brexit has presented a huge amount of challenges for the Irish government in terms of the trading relationship with Britain, both to the UK and between Northern Ireland and Ireland. To add on the task of immigration controls, I think is ridiculous.” His colleague Mairead McGuinness, a Fine Gael MEP for the same constituency, said she did not support the notion of Ireland taking on Britain’s immigration controls. But she said no such discussions had taken place and that Brokenshire’s remarks centred on “increased cooperation between the UK and Ireland with regard to combatting illegal immigration, such as sharing immigration data for non-EU nationals entering the common travel area”. She said this built on existing efforts that were unrelated to the outcome of the UK’s EU referendum. The former taoiseach John Bruton recently warned of the “incalculable consequences” that Brexit would have on trade. “The underlying assumption of the Good Friday agreement … was that both parts of Ireland would be included in a zone of free movement of goods and people, an assumption that is in the process of being unilaterally reversed by the UK side’s decision to leave that zone. Brexit will thus devastate trade flows, and human contact, within Ireland, with incalculable consequences,” he said in an article in the Financial Times. Britain is Ireland’s largest export partner, with €1.3bn (£1.2bn) a week traded between the two countries. The collapse of sterling since the referendum has devastated small businesses, who have seen the cost of exporting rise by as much as 17%. It has also seen a return to booming cross-border trade, with Irish shoppers travelling to the north for cheaper goods including petrol, clothing and footwear, and groceries.
Robert Vaughn obituary Many actors opt for long-term employment in television series, only to find their lucrative association with a “personality” difficult to shake off. Robert Vaughn, who has died aged 83, overcame that problem in not one but seven long-running TV series, beginning with The Lieutenant in 1963. By far the most substantial of these was The Man from UNCLE, in which he played the suave Napoleon Solo, in more than 100 episodes (1964-68) and eight features cobbled together from the series. Eventually, that too ran out of steam (although it remained a cult, particularly in Britain) and he moved on to create the detective Harry Rule in The Protectors, filmed in London through the early 1970s. He also starred in episodes of Emerald Point NAS (1983-84), and was General Stockwell in the fifth and final series of The A-Team (1986-87). Late in his career, he was appointed Judge Travis in The Magnificent Seven (1998-2000), a TV spin-off from the western film in which he had played the gunslinger Lee 40 years previously. An astonishingly prolific actor, he guested in hundreds of television shows, from Gunsmoke to Police Woman and from Wagon Train to Law and Order, as well as scores of TV movies and miniseries, including the prestigious Washington Behind Closed Doors (1977), which won him an Emmy. Vaughn also appeared in some 50 movies, following his uncredited debut as a spear-carrier in The Ten Commandments (1956). In tandem with acting he maintained an interest in politics, campaigning against the Vietnam war from the late 1960s until the US withdrawal from the conflict in 1973, and supported liberal causes as a Democrat and friend of the Kennedys, especially Robert. Vaughn was born in New York, son of actors, Marcella (nee Gaudel) and Walter Vaughn. He studied journalism at the University of Minnesota, transferring to Los Angeles City College to take drama and to LA State College for a master’s. His PhD thesis on the aftermath of the House Un-American Activities Committee investigation sympathetically examined its effect on members of the acting profession. It was published in 1972 as Only Victims: A Study of Show Business Blacklisting. Although he did not begin full-time acting until he was in his mid-20s, he started with stage work, television appearances and uncredited screen roles, and was soon cast as the lead in No Time to Be Young (1957), where the influence of James Dean, killed two years before, was apparent. When he played the title role in Roger Corman’s preposterous Teenage Caveman (1958), his character was promoted as a “prehistoric rebel without a cause”. The actor later described it as “one of the best worst films of all time”. It led to an intriguing western, A Good Day for a Hanging (1959), in which he co-starred as a killer who charms the townsfolk into opposing the sheriff who wants him hanged. He got his break in The Young Philadelphians (1959), receiving an Oscar nomination as best supporting actor for his performance as an alcoholic who is framed for murder and defended by a calculating lawyer (Paul Newman). That drama established Vaughn, but it was The Magnificent Seven (1960) that consolidated his big-screen stardom, four years before he debuted as Napoleon Solo. He played the gunfighter who has lost his nerve and joins the Seven to defend villagers from marauding bandits, simply for the money. In a climactic shoot-out, the jittery coward redeems himself, returning to help his friends in Ixcatlan, and sacrificing his life in the process. After the tongue-in-cheek The Man from UNCLE series, to which David McCallum as his sidekick Illya Kuryakin contributed a cheery breeziness, the darker-toned Vaughn needed a change and moved back into movies with Bullitt (1968). Cast, in Pauline Kael’s words, as “the slimy Mr Big”, he was memorable as Chalmers, a crooked politician, who is a thorn in the side of the bullish detective (Steve McQueen). He was equally persuasive as the Nazi officer in The Bridge at Remagen (1969) and made a credible Casca in the dull 1970 version of Julius Caesar. He was a bossy senator in The Towering Inferno (1974) and a caring neurosurgeon in The Mind of Mr Soames, bringing his patient (Terence Stamp) out of a 30-year coma with terrifying consequences. Soon after appearing in René Clément’s last picture, La Baby Sitter (AKA Scar Tissue, 1975), Vaughn was used to devastating effect as the voice of the rebellious computer Proteus in Demon Seed (1977), where his off-screen voice was a coolly intelligent reflection of his often menacing on-screen persona. In Corman’s Battle Beyond the Stars (1980), he reworked his gunslinger Lee in space, and a year later played a philistine studio executive (allegedly based on Robert Evans) in S.O.B. (1981), Blake Edwards’s blistering attack on Tinseltown. Few such literate scripts or talented directors were available during the later 1980s and 1990s and Vaughn contented himself with guesting as authoritarian figures, including judges, ambassadors and senior army personnel. Often that was in movie dross, although television was kinder to him in prestige miniseries such as Backstairs at the White House (1979) and The Blue and the Gray (1982) or in lighter material such as Murder, She Wrote. Throughout four busy decades he had reinvented himself as required by age and changing fashion. His early roles as outsiders, troubled lovers, cowards and alcoholics gave way to a mild debunking of his persona, particularly his well-groomed heroes. His somewhat cerebral acting style proved a perfect antidote to spoofs and he established a cult following, partly as the sole redeeming aspect in such later movies as Joe’s Apartment (1996, as a corrupt senator), Motel Blue (1997, as a police chief) and the sports spoof BASEketball (1998). Despite a steady stream of work, Vaughn announced, aged 70, that he was “going to take it a little easier” and promised to complete his autobiography, tentatively titled, Christ, Shakespeare, Ho Chi Minh: As I Knew Them. This emerged in 2008 as A Fortunate Life and declared his enjoyment of a long and profitable career, his work as a liberal activist (even playing three Democratic presidents on screen) and a happy marriage. He continued working steadily on television and occasional features, playing a judge in Cottonmouth (2002), villains in Happy Hour (2003) and Hoodlum and Son (2003), and a doctor in Scene Stealers (2004). However, it was in yet another successful TV series that he returned to form. Vaughn starred in 48 episodes of Hustle, produced by the BBC between 2004 and 2012, as the debonair Albert Stroller, member of a disparate group of con artists. Elegant and assured, he showed that he had retained his sense of humour and lack of pretension, something confirmed by his appearance in The Magnificent Eleven (2012), about a football team who go the aid of an Indian restaurant, harassed by local thugs. He had a recurring role, too, in the soap Coronation Street in 2012 as the businessman Milton Fanshaw, love interest of Sylvia Goodwin (Stephanie Cole), mother of Roy Cropper. Vaughn is survived by his wife, Linda (nee Staab), whom he married in 1974, and their two children, Caitlin and Cassidy. • Robert Vaughn, actor, born 22 November 1932; died 11 November 2016
Uncomfortable viewing: the seven-hour trailer for a 30-day film OK, here is the elevator pitch: We are on a beach. The sea just visible on the right-hand side of the frame. Low camera angle. Black and white. Ghostly flickers superimposed over the main image. A synthesiser chord on the soundtrack. Nothing happens for about 12 minutes. Then we see a black dot and a white dot at the far end of the beach. They are people dressed in robes, walking towards us. In slow motion. By about 20 minutes in, they are near us, gathering debris on the beach. Wait – we are at the ground floor already? But we have only just got started! There are another seven hours to go, in fact. Though not a lot else happens, to be honest. The black-robed person paints some stuff white; the white-robed person paints some stuff black. Roughly an hour and 15 minutes in, they dramatically exit the scene. But 10 minutes later they reappear, and unfurl a banner. On it is painted … Uh-uh. No spoilers here. But the good news is, this is just the trailer. The actual film, titled Ambiancé, is 720 hours long. You ain’t seen nothing yet – almost literally. “Slow cinema” has become a bona fide movement, advanced by film-makers such as Béla Tarr, Lav Diaz and Ben Rivers, but Ambiancé is something else entirely. It is nearly 100 times longer than Tarr’s famously challenging Sátántango. And it is 15 times longer than 1968’s The Longest Most Meaningless Movie in the World. Or five days longer than the current Longest Video on YouTube (which is just flashing black and white, anyway). You could call it “slower-than-slow cinema” or “almost static cinema”, although Ambiancé’s Swedish director, Anders Weberg, prefers the term “ambient film-making”. Weberg is not seeking to break records, nor does he realistically imagine anyone will watch his film in its entirety when it premieres on 31 December 2020 (Star Wars Episode IX should be out of the way by then). The film will play simultaneously on every continent, he promises, but only once. Then it will be destroyed. Ephemerality is something of a theme in Weberg’s work. He began his career directing music videos, then became more interested in experimental film. He has produced several films with titles such as Nothingness, Meaninglessness and Absent (some of which are rather beautiful), and in 2009 he uploaded a series of films on to peer-to-peer servers then deleted the originals. He prides himself on being virtually invisible and unknown. In that respect, Ambiancé might well be an own goal. Someone has created an entry for it on the Internet Movie Database without Weberg’s involvement. The 72-minute trailer he released in 2014 was viewed 1.6m times before he took it down (he will release a 72-hour trailer in 2018, naturally), and the new trailer has already been viewed more than 320,000 times. Someone has even speeded it up, condensing all seven hours into one minute. The statement on ephemerality has taken on an online life of its own. Perhaps that was the point all along. “It’s very easy to create in a digital world,” Weberg says. “It’s harder to delete.”
Boy left with brain injuries at birth receives £11m compensation The mother of a boy who was born with brain injuries after medical staff failed to notice his slowing heartbeat during labour has said she hopes she can provide a better quality of life for her son after receiving £11m in a high court settlement with the NHS. The mother, named only as Jane, told the Today programme on BBC Radio 4 her son might have been perfectly healthy had staff at King George hospital in Ilford acted differently. If the boy’s slowing heartbeat had been noticed and a caesarean section performed 15 minutes before he was delivered, the baby may have had no injuries. Her son, now nine, has severe cerebral palsy and is not expected to live beyond 39 due to the failures. Barking, Havering and Redbridge NHS trust admitted its mistakes and an £11m settlement was ratified in the high court on Tuesday. His mother described the labour as “traumatic”. “The labour was very intense,” she told the Today programme. “It was very difficult, it was very hard. My son was in distress. It was very traumatic. “I instantly knew something was wrong when he wasn’t crying. He was completely still, wasn’t crying. That’s when all the doctors rushed in to work on my son. Prior to that I hadn’t seen many doctors.” Jane said she had struggled to find care for her son since he was born and hoped the compensation would give him an improved quality of life. “When we were dependent on my council, the care I was getting in the borough was next to nothing. It was three hours a week. It was a battle just to get those three hours. I had to go through charity organisations just to secure those three hours a week. “Things I’ve struggled with, now we have the means to give him a better quality of life.” The trust admitted its mistakes in 2013 and the maternity unit at King George closed that same year.
Jacques Rivette: a subtle master of slow-burn cinema A phrase that occasionally crops up in cinema criticism is “real time”. This is the effect of unediting: the long, slow, unhurried and continuous camera takes that seek the experience of life itself. And maybe also invite the audience to glimpse, through the sheer hypnotic steadiness of this gaze – like those novelty Magic Eye pictures of the 1990s – something else: a mysterious figure in the carpet, a pattern behind the images of everyday life. The New Wave director Jacques Rivette was a master of the real-time aesthetic in cinema, unafraid of letting his movies roll out at length, with people walking, talking, existing, but on a cerebral yet playful plane of imagination and discourse that always made his pictures quite distinct from social realism. He was also always fascinated with the theatre and theatrical illusion. His mid-period picture Celine and Julie Go Boating (1974) ran for three hours and nine minutes. His later work La Belle Noiseuse (1991) was just shy of four hours. Before these, his cult classic Out 1 (1971), conceived for television, ran to 12 hours and 40 minutes. Rivette was a director who believed in spaciousness in the cinema, and asked for an investment of attention. Although his best work came in a later decade, there was a Warholian spirit of the 60s in Rivette: a spirit of process rather than product; a sense that each of his movies was something to be lived in and lived through. He was an integral though late-blooming member of that remarkable and remarkably long-lived New Wave generation comprising Truffaut, Godard, Chabrol, Demy, Rohmer and Varda. Rivette, like his contemporaries, carried on thinking, creating and innovating right until the very end. It took me a bit of time to acquire a taste for Rivette, and I confess that my favourite is the slightly atypical Va Savoir (2001), translated as Who Knows?, which comes in at a less forbidding two and a half hours. It is an essay, a fantasia, a Shakespearean comedy, a jeu d’ésprit, a meditation on meaning and a wacky farce, involving a rooftop escape and an extraordinary, almost Hitchcockian set piece atop a vertiginous fly-tower in a theatre. Jeanne Balibar plays a stage actor performing in a production of Pirandello in Paris and having an affair with an ex-boyfriend, a postgraduate student of philosophy forever brooding over his thesis. Meanwhile, her actual boyfriend (and director) is having adventures of his own. It is an elegant, eccentric delight and a lovely demonstration of Rivette’s distinctive touch for comedy. It is also in its way a continuation of Celine and Julie Go Boating, though more conventionally scripted and shaped. Celine and Julie – a cult classic – is loose and free. The direction is something you might take on a boating lake: ie, directionless. Two young women meet up in Paris and hang out: one is haunted by visions of an unhappy family to which she possibly belongs. The seat-of-the-pants location work and improv acting style is very Rivette. Before that, his experimental epic Out 1 was even more difficult, more opaque: a gigantic free-form canvas with Jean-Pierre Léaud (that avatar of the New Wave) at its centre. He is a mysterious figure apparently trying to make sense of nebulous enigmas and conspiracies all around him, connected with theatrical troupes preparing to mount Seven Against Thebes and Prometheus. It is an occult anthropology: a grainy fly-on-the-wall cinema – observing the movement of other flies. La Belle Noiseuse (an adaptation of Balzac’s 1831 story The Unknown Masterpiece) is sometimes regarded as Rivette’s masterpiece. Michel Piccoli is Frenhofer, the quietly retired painter who is electrified by the visit of a younger artist who brings with him his devastatingly beautiful girlfriend, played by Emmanuelle Béart. Frenhofer decides that this young woman will be the model for a painting (La Belle Noiseuse) which he had once abandoned. This creative rebirth may also be the destruction of his peace of mind. Rivette does not find in this situation anything to accelerate the tempo. Counterintuitively, for a story about artistry and sexual excitement, it takes a slow pace, showing long, slow closeups of the painter’s hand and canvas. With great artistry, Rivette disperses sexuality and rapture throughout the fabric of the film. Rivette’s other, late gem is The Duchess of Langeais (2007), also taken from Balzac – in this case, his 1834 novel Don’t Touch the Axe. For some, that title may be weirdly reminiscent of Pink Floyd; actually it refers to the axe used to behead the British monarch Charles I, an object full of understandable taboo horror for French aristocrats in the 1820s, when this love story is set. It is a slow and subtle film of great refinement and charm. Any discussion of Rivette comes round to his very first feature, Paris Belongs to Us, from 1961 – another film that takes some living with. It’s as magnificently self-aware and self-indulgent as any of his other movies, but this is a key text for the New Wave, with its cameos for Godard and Chabrol: more theatre, more conspiracy, more idealism, more talk, more sexiness. There is such confidence and revolutionary elan: nothing sums up the unspoken mission statement of the New Wave more than the title Rivette gave this movie – a work that many felt fired the starting gun for the whole movement. Paris really was theirs. And from there, Rivette maintained an extraordinary creative career lasting 48 years.
London Has Fallen review – Team America without the jokes Of the two films about attacks on the White House released in 2013, Roland Emmerich’s White House Down proved bigger, dumberer and a whole lot more fun than the stodgily straight-faced Olympus Has Fallen. Sadly, it’s the latter which has spawned this sequel, meaning that Gerard Butler gets to do his bargain-basement Bruce Willis impression again, but this time on the merrie olde streets of London. When world leaders gather for the PM’s state funeral, London is hit by an “attack which has decimated most of the known landmarks of the British capital!!!” Crikey! “Make those fuckers pay,” gurgles a dying Angela Bassett, hardening Gerard’s resolve to send these “terrorist assholes” – most of whom are disguised as British bobbies (“Fuck, they’re not real cops!!”) – back to “Fuckhead-istan” pronto. The fact that the film-makers don’t actually use the song America, Fuck Yeah! hardly dispels the sense that this is basically Team America: World Police without the jokes, and with more wooden acting. The cheap-as-chips visual effects are pitiful (all sub-Doctor Who CG explosions and video-game helicopter crashes), the action sequences coma-inducingly dull and overall tone laughable, but not in a good way.
Glastonbury 2016: Sunday night as it happened – Coldplay, a Bee Gee and Michael Eavis does Sinatra That’s all from me then folks! What a night we’ve had. Coldplay soothed Glastonbury. Michael Eavis sang My Way. And Tom Watson made Rastamouse the new Shadow Defence Secretary. Thanks so much for reading, it’s been a blast. Alexis Petridis will have a proper critical review of Coldplay posted here shortly. And we’ll have all more reviews of today’s acts on theguardian.com/music from 7am tomorrow morning. Goodnight! Cue fireworks. Cue rousing piano chords. Cue goodnight everybody. That was Coldplay headlining Glastonbury, then. Snap verdict: No musical boundaries were broken during the recording of that show. It was lightweight and soppy and – at times – it could pass you by a little. But it was also euphoric and comforting and it connected with the crowd. There were some touching moments. And it felt a bit like what a lot of people needed right now to soothe their troubled minds. So fair play to them. Michael Eavis is on now and Chris Martin is begging him to be allowed to do one more song. Now he’s singing My Way. Michael Eavis that is, not Chris Martin. No seriously, Michael Eavis is singing My Way to close Glastonbury 2016. Not sure where we can go from here. Apple, Moses and some other kids are currently on stage, prepping to be the next Coldplay when this one retire. They’re doing one more! They’re never going to stop. We’re going to stick here, listening to Coldplay forever. Or at least until Tom Watson has finished compiling the Labour shadow cabinet, which currently consists of him, Chris Martin, Guy Berryman, some guy he met in Shangri La at 3am last night and Peppa Pig. Coldplay are about to end soon. You may think that’s good news. But it means you have to leave this world of fluffy neon play-pop and head back to the real world. The world of Boris Johnson and Brexit and bad things happening. “One more! One more!” This means Coldplay will be joining some other band on stage at Glastonbury 2053 (it was a muddy year). Coldplay are now playing Stayin’ Alive with Barry Gibb. Alexis Petridis will be loving this bit. Added at least a star to his review I’d say. Timely reminder – arguably two hours too late – that you can get herpes from wearing a Coldplay Xyloband. Relax kids, I’m joking. They don’t recycle them so you can’t. I don’t think. I don’t know I’m not a herpes expert am I? Michael Eavis has requested a Bee Gees song on the big screens. They’re bringing on Barry Gibb to do it. I have a feeling, call it a hunch, that this might have been planned. They’re going to do a version of To Love Somebody. They’re now playing a reading of The Guest House by Afghan poet Mewlana Jalaluddin Rumi while we await their return. And now there’s a rendition of Amazing Grace. Coldplay have left the stage. What hits do they have left for an encore? My Coldplay knowledge is not the best I have to admit ... Tom Watson update: he’s just made Guy Berryman shadow chancellor, despite the fact the shadow chancellor hasn’t actually resigned. “I don’t know what I’m doing anymore, I just need my bed,” he said. “Wake me up when it’s over.” Chris Martin is talking about Viola Beach, the young band who tragically died following a car crash earlier this year. He said they reminded him of their early days. And he wanted to create an alternate future for them by letting them “headline Glastonbury for a song”. So instead of their cover of Bowie’s Heroes, they’re playing the Viola Beach track Boys That Sing on the big screens. It’s a touching tribute to a band who never got their chance to get big. Here’s our explainer on their story ... Coldplay have just tweeted this picture from the stage. But hang on a minute, if Coldplay are playing, then how are they ... Tom Watson update: he’s currently listening to this version of Fix You and having an epiphany. He’s thought of the same Fix EU jokes as us. And he’s decided to appoint Chris Martin as the new shadow leader of the House of Commons. “I just reckon he’ll do a beautiful job,” he said, before sobbing again. This Coldplay set is relentlessly upbeat but has become a little one-note, so over to Ben Beaumont-Thomas for this review of Grimes on the Park Stage ... An incongruous burst of global hypercolour amid a dour, drizzly sunset, Grimes smashes her way through a fizzing set of electropop. Backed by a guitarist given to theatrical shredding and two dancers bearing ribbons and swords, it’s an N64 moodboard come to life – with the explosive drops of World Princess Pt 2 and the sing-song malevolence of Oblivion being two particular highlights. There are a lot of lasers and there’s a lot of neon at this show. According to Craille Maguire Gillies who is in the crowd, security gave out thousands of WaterAid wristbands that are synced to light up in time to Coldplay’s light show. They’re also copying Adele and firing out pretty confetti. Here’s a picture of that too from John-Paul Nicholas ... There’s a Muhammad Ali speech playing out on the big screens. As it fades out we get the arpeggios to Clocks, which I have already promised to play live on the piano at Harriet Gibsone’s forthcoming wedding to Chris Martin. I’m quite jealous of Gwilym Mumford. He gets to see LCD Soundsystem play the Other stage while I get to live blog Coldplay from Kings Cross. He’s currently going wild with the cowbell (James Murphy, not Gwilym, although you never know with that guy ...) In a massive two fingers to us mud-coated proles, James Murphy emerges onto the Other stage in a suit of pristine whiteness. Not on, frankly. Still all is just about forgiven by the time he gets the cowbell out for a ferocious rendition of Daft Punk Is Playing at My House and follows it up with and even better I Can Change. Nicely played, sir. Latest crowd proposals update ... They’ve just stopped a song. They’re all out of tune. It’s the piano so they can’t tune it. It’s a shambles. There’s no plan! Is Michael Gove around to help sort this out? Tom Watson update: he’s just arrived back home but is currently on his knees sobbing uncontrollably to this version of Paradise. “It’s just too much, too beautiful, too sad,” he said, before adding: “Don’t suppose you know anyone who could replace Chris Bryant as shadow leader of the House of Commons?” If we’re going by these rules then surely every Coldplay song can be about the EU? The good news is I seem to be enjoying Coldplay. The bad news is they’ve already spunked away the two songs of theirs I like and still have over an hour or so to go ... Chris is at the piano now for The Scientist. He has a better piano-playing posture than me. This set is as soft and warm as a goose-down comfort blanket. I think maybe that’s what I need right now – nothing challenging please, just tell me it’s all going to be OK. Preferably in a major key. It wouldn’t be an hour on the live blog without a review from Kate Hutchinson now would it? Here she is again, churning out the wordage for Mac DeMarco Thank the Glasto gods for Mac DeMarco. It’s been a grim day, with a potted lineup, so it’s about time that a band had a sense of humour. The US psych-slacker rockers take the John Peel stage in matching raincoats and bucket hats, then demonstrate how waterproof they are by spraying beer on each other. “Dry as a bone,” Mac concludes, ripping open the poppers to reveal his bare chest. They are the kind of band who’d steal your weed and give you a wedgie but their stage patter and blissed out tunes are endearing enough to win you over anyway. Thanks for looking out for me Kevster. I admit it’s strange. I don’t like Adele’s music but thought last night she managed to connect completely with the crowd and that’s what makes a Glastonbury show special. Then again, maybe the emotions of the past few days have been getting to me because I’m finding this Coldplay show quite uplifting too ... “We came here a little bit scared of the world,” says Chris. “But coming here restores my faith.” Clearly he didn’t see that rubbish flashmob attempt at recreating the EU flag up by the Stone Circle. The stars are shining for us. Chris came along for us. He wrote a song for us. And it was called Yellow. This is early to throw out the big hits I hope he’s written some other ones for later. A Head Full of Dreams kicks things off. Chris Martin is pushing his hands up towards the air. The audience is comprised solely of young blonde girls, or at least it is if the BBC camera person is a reliable sounding board. Coldplay arrive on stage to quotes from Charlie Chaplin’s The Great Dictator. “And the power they took from the people will return to the people!” Er, can you please take the power back we’re clearly useless with it ... They’re reliving the last 127 Coldplay Glastonbury headline slots on BBC2 at the moment. Just tuned in to see Chris Martin playing piano and singing about the mud. They’re about to go on any time now ... Alexis Petridis has been out in the rain watching Beck. His hands were apparently too soggy to even type notes onto his phone. That’s the kind of weather the troops are facing out there right now while I’m sat here, warm, dry and savouring a decent glass of Saint-Émilion. Here’s AP’s take on Beck ... If you’re standing in the mud and you don’t give a damn say ‘hell, yeah!’,” cries Beck Hansen, more attuned to his current surroundings than his band’s pristine outfits suggest. He cannily introduces new material by turning it into an audience singalong, segues from Think I’m in Love to a cover of Donna Summer’s I Feel Love, gets his band to introduce themselves by perform brief snippets of Prince’s 1999, Kraftwerk’s It’s More Fun to Compute, Chic’s Good Times and David Bowie’s China Girl: the latter might have made for a more heartfelt tribute if Hansen had known the words, but those standing in the mud failing to give a damn clearly decide that it’s the thought that counts. As part of my ongoing series asking why Remain lost the referendum ... Ben Beaumont-Thomas is actually at PJ right now and has this to report ... Backed by nine burly middle-aged blokes, PJ Harvey plays songs of lust and war with one foot in blues rock, another in a kind of timeless plainsong. Phrases are passed over and over like rosary beads, as she frets about a society given to slaughter - except on To Bring You My Love, which turns love into a kind of Job-like trial. These dirges arguably need LCD Soundsystem or Earth Wind and Fire to take the edge off afterwards, but are utterly riveting. PJ Harvey is about to play live on BBC4. She’s adorned with blue feathers and is slowly walking on to a funereal drumbeat for Chain of Keys. Party time! Tom Watson update: he’s just left Reading and is crying every time he sees a tree outside the window because “one day, I guess everything beautiful must die”. Earlier, there was talk of a flashmob recreating the EU symbol near the Stone Circle. Our own Alicia Canter went down to capture this wonderful show of love and was confronted with this ... What is this? What is it supposed to be? No wonder the Leave campaign won ffs. Down below and everyone can hardly wait for Coldplay’s set ... Last night someone proposed to their girlfriend during Adele’s performance, and our own Marta Bausells was there to witness it (and, er, gatecrash their magic moment by hastily interviewing them). Gregory Porter clearly thought he could outdo them (is he reading this live blog as well? I wouldn’t be surprised knowing what a fan of my writing Porter is) – on BBC4 he’s just finished singing to a couple at his show who popped the question at the side of the stage. Kate Hutchinson is clearly reading this live blog, too. She’s seen Mumford’s ELO review and said: “I’ll raise you with a Craig David interview filmed live from a muddy cabin.” The ball’s in your court now Mumford, whatcha gonna pull out of the bag? Gwilym Mumford has been reading this live blog. He’s been reading it and he’s been thinking: “Kate Hutchinson is the most prolific reviewer at the ?! We’ll see about that.” He’s not having it at all, and so he fired off this lengthy take on Jeff Lynne’s ELO for you all to enjoy ... Watching from the comfort of my home, it seemed like a muddy Glastonbury but nothing like the year when there was a month’s worth of rain in three hours and tents were literally sailing away down rivers of mud. However, according to the stats, it was the muddiest one yet. And Michael Eavis is blaming climate change for it. Anyone who tuned into yesterday’s live blog will get no prize for guessing who has filed the first of this evening’s reviews. Kate Hutchinson is a one-woman review machine, who only pauses to eat and sleep, and even then fires off the occasional hot take mid-dream. Here’s her thoughts on Ellie Goulding who played the Pyramid stage earlier ... Ellie Goulding on the Pyramid Stage A sizeable crowd has amassed for Ellie Goulding’s prim synthetic pop but, though her tunes are finely twiddled for maximum euphoric effect, they hardly light up the greying sky or indeed anyone’s imagination. Goulding looks stilted and uncomfortable unless she’s banging her drums and letting her primal side run loose. “Let’s raise some hands please. That’s quite a few of you. Good,” she says tersely, by way of an intro. The crowd may just want to pogo to her chart dance hits but better are her acoustic ballads that strip away the chipmunk-range backing vocals and show a glimmer of the raw sweetness and genuine emotion that shot her to fame in the first place. Last night we watched Adele play Glastonbury for the first time. Tonight we watch Coldplay play it for the 87th. Will they triumph? Will they fail? More importantly, will Tom Watson’s Glastonbury comedown have kicked in by the time he’s dealt with the collapse of the Labour Party? According to my sources, he’s currently sitting on some bongos in the rave carriage as his train back creeps towards Reading. You can join me for the build up to Coldplay’s set here. I will be watching on BBC2 (Jeff Lynne’s ELO are currently rocking out) and BBC4 (er, a period drama at the moment) while I attempt to keep you posted with all the updates from our reporters on the ground. It’ll be fun. Actually I can’t promise you that. But I can promise you that you will definitely get £350m in cash for every hour you keep reading.
Academy member, 91, threatens to sue if Oscar voting privileges withdrawn Older Academy members are continuing to voice their disquiet in the face of a possible cessation of their right to vote for the Oscars. According to the Hollywood Reporter, the 91-year-old screenwriter Robert Bassing has said that he plans legal action against the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for age discrimination. This follows the January announcement by the Academy that it would be reviewing Oscar-voting rights as part of a drive to increase the diversity of voting members. Bassing has been a member of the writers branch for 57 years and was informed in a letter from Lorenza Muñoz, managing director of membership and awards at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, that he was one of an unspecified number of members who may lose their ability to vote on the grounds of industry inactivity. Bassing passed the letter to the Hollywood Reporter, who quote it as stating that he may qualify for emeritus status, which appears to involve the removal of voting rights. The letter asks Bassing – who mostly worked for TV in the 1960s and whose last screen credit was the 1977 horror film Evil Town – to pass on any information which might influence a decision, and says that members will have a chance to appeal any decision. However, the Academy is said to be confident it can see off any such action as it is a private organisation that can change its rules as it see fits. Asked how he interpreted the offer, Bassing replied: “’We’re going to put you in a very comfortable cattle car’.” In June, the body invited an unprecedented number of new members to join its ranks, 46% of whom were women and 41% people of colour. President Cheryl Boone Isaacs has issued a target of doubling female and minority members by the end of the decade. Bassing said: “[They’re] trying to reduce the number of old white men so they can meet their numbers, and that’s not right.” One film-maker, Creed and Fruitvale Station director Ryan Coogler, was among the 683 to receive invitations; on Wednesday it was reported he had turned down the offer – though it isn’t known for what reasons. Since January’s announcement, a number of veteran film-makers have questioned the justice of such action. Actor Tab Hunter described the move as “bullshit”, adding: “Obviously, it’s a thinly veiled ploy to kick out older white contributors – the backbone of the industry – to make way for younger, “politically correct” voters. The Academy should not cave in to media hype and change the rules without talking to or getting votes from all members first.” In February, Steven Spielberg said that he did not support “taking votes away from Academy members who have paid their dues and maybe are retired now”. He added: “Maybe they’ve not won a nomination, which would have given them immunity to the new rules, but they have served proudly and this is their industry, too. To strip their votes? I’m not 100% behind that.”
What's everyone's beef with Jenny Beavan? Ten unfounded Oscars conspiracy theories Here’s a theory: Jenny Beavan is the most disruptive force working in the film industry today. In the last few weeks, she’s won two highly prestigious awards – a Bafta and an Oscar, both for her work designing costumes for Mad Max: Fury Road – and both times it’s been as if someone has let a bomb off. It was her win, remember, that prompted Stephen Fry’s Twitter exit, after people questioned his decision to call her a “bag lady” on air. And now there’s a Vine of her going unapplauded as she walked down the aisle to collect her Oscar last night [see footnote]. In fact, the Vine is much worse than that. People weren’t just failing to clap Beavan. They were literally flinching at the sight of her. Tom McCarthy gave her such a withering up-and-down that you’d think he was auditioning for Meryl Streep’s role in a touring theatrical version of The Devil Wears Prada. Alejandro Iñárritu glowered as if a woman in a leather jacket was somehow more repulsive than DiCaprio chomping down a raw bison liver. One man, bless his heart, all but leapt into the arms of his companion as she sauntered past, in the same manner that a housewife in a 1950s cartoon would if a mouse suddenly crawled out from under the skirting board. What’s the real story here? Are these people really offended by the idea that a middle-aged British woman has chosen not to massacre her body in the name of chasing an impossible Hollywood ideal? Are they really outraged by the notion of someone dressing for comfort? Hardly. This is the Oscars we’re talking about, the very heartland of two-faced air-kissing insincerity. These people are professional. They can smile and clap through anything. So it’s likely that the truth is more sinister. What could Jenny Beavan possibly have done to these people to inspire such outright hostility? Ten unproven and purely speculative theories 1. The bejewelled skull on Beavan’s leather jacket was modelled after Iñárritu’s dead grandmother. 2. Ten seconds before her name was announced, Beavan was seen strangling a homeless man for his loose change with her scarf. 3. Jenny Beavan is actually Donald Trump doing a weird Mrs Doubtfire turn. 4. The audience had heard a draft of Beavan’s controversial victory speech, and realised that they couldn’t possibly be seen condoning a message as aggressive as “it’s nice when people are nice to each other”. 5. They all thought that this was the ceremony where they had to clap people of colour, not women. 6. It was a simple case of jealously. Tom McCarthy was still bitter that Beavan had refused to dress Mark Ruffalo’s Spotlight character in a silver body armour made entirely of human pelvises. 7. They were reminded of the old nursery rhyme “If you publicly clap a woman named Beavan, none of your children will go to heaven”. 8. The men knew that their significant others were in attendance, and they realised that clapping Beavan would give away the torrid, decades-long affair that they’ve all been having with her. 9. This was approximately the 15th successive award won by Mad Max: Fury Road, and the directors were starting to worry that people might have preferred a fun film about some cool cars to their interminably worthy and hard-to-watch meditations on endless constant hardship. 10. The Oscars are really long and incredibly boring, and clapping Beavan would have distracted these people from the near-impossible task of remaining awake until the show reached its conclusion. • The following footnote was appended on 3 March 2016: after this article was published, Alejandro González Iñárritu issued a statement pointing out that, while he was not clapping as Jenny Beavan walked down the aisle past him and other guests, he did applaud her as she ascended the stairs to the stage.
Will 2016 push the NHS over the edge of chaos? Complexity theorists point to the importance of system environment on organisational performance – at one end of the spectrum there is a stable and low change setting, at the other an unstable and high change setting. Since 2010 the NHS has been anything but stable, and the NHS community must be desperate for a spell of stability in 2016. Unfortunately, it is likely to get the opposite – turbulence bordering on chaos. First, there is the ongoing financial turbulence. The pledges of protection for the NHS budget during the 2015 general election have swiftly unravelled. The widely promised extra £8bn would have been delayed by the Treasury but for the calculated intervention of NHS England boss, Simon Stevens, who managed to get some frontloaded concessions. Even so, the settlements anticipated between 2018 and 2020 are historically low and the £22bn of efficiency savings are still expected to materialise. On top of this, public health spending is being cut, social care continues to be financially crucified and calls for transformation funding to ease the process of change are going unheeded. Meanwhile, patients and service users continue to turn up in their droves and carers quietly buckle under the strain of unsupported care. Second, there will be further provider turbulence. Difficult decisions on the rationalisation of hospital services cannot be postponed indefinitely, nor can the financial plight of almost every acute provider. Pressure on hospitals to merge or form chains will intensify even in the absence of any evidence that this results in more sustainable organisations, while community health services will be increasingly outsourced to the private sector. General practice is exposed to the same environment and will be subject to more large federations. Meanwhile, social care provision, which is already almost entirely privatised, is likely to witness the first significant market failure since Southern Cross in 2011. On top of all of this there is a workforce crisis in every part of the system. Commissioner turbulence is no less pressing. The future of CCGs is uncertain, with NHS England set to distinguish between minimal and maximal models – the former largely confined to contract monitoring while the latter takes a lead on service redesign. Those designated minimalist cannot be expected to survive for long, especially where they have a low score on the new ratings to be introduced by the health secretary. Commissioning support units are similarly unstable. NHS England wants all CCGs to have formally tendered for commissioning support by April of this year via its lead provider framework, but few are likely to comply despite threats of breaching procurement law. This turbulence facing both commissioners and providers is now calling into question the wisdom of the entire purchaser-provider concept. The accountable care models envisaged by the Stevens vanguard programme, the Greater Manchester devolution experiment, the focus of NHS England, CQC, Monitor – and in future, NHS Improvement – on systems rather than organisations, will all lead to a weakening of the distinction. In any case, the bold aspirations of commissioning have been dealt a blow with the spectacular collapse of the £800m older people’s services contract in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough. What remains unresolved is where the residual Lansley requirements on competition law fit into this trend. The main policy response to all of this turbulence is better partnership working but, paradoxically, this may well turn out to be merely a further cause of turbulence. The problem is not the principle but the practice. Partnership working is a fragile plant that grows in fertile contexts where it is carefully nourished by local champions – essentially a bottom-up process with the potential for scaling-up. There is little political patience for this organic process. In its place, we have grandiose plans drawn up at the top table and cascaded down to the frontline with no public or patient involvement. Typically, these are laden with wholly unrealistic efficiency assumptions. The flagship Better Care Fund, for example, has been reported to be not only routinely missing its targets but actually harming local relationships and giving integration a bad name. The new requirement for all areas to produce local integration plans by 2020 will bring a wearying sense of déjà vu. The days of organisational separateness are long gone. We are now in a milieu of complex adaptive systems where change is constant and stakeholders need to be adaptable and flexible. The difficulty arises where the environmental turbulence is too fast and too great. Complexity theorists refer to the concept of the edge of chaos characterised by spontaneous processes of self-organisation and innovative patterns – a description that could almost have been written for the world of vanguard models. However, organisations at the edge of chaos can easily tumble into an unstable zone where they do not innovate, they disintegrate. This is the big worry facing the NHS and its partners in 2016. Join our network to read more pieces like this. And follow us on Twitter (@GdnHealthcare) to keep up with the latest healthcare news and views.
The Donald Trump polling disaster A 51% majority of Americans told a CBS News poll they disapproved of how Trump has responded to the Orlando mass shooting. Only 25% approved. GOP officials keep distance from Trump Poll respondents narrowly approved of Hillary Clinton’s response to the attack, by a 36-34 margin. Respondents approved of Barack Obama’s actions by a 44-34 margin. A record number of respondents in a separate Washington Post poll – 70% – said they had an unfavorable impression of Trump. Hispanic respondents were less kind, with 89% viewing Trump unfavorably. Most troubling for Trump, perhaps, was an apparent erosion of base support. His net favorable rating among white voters without a college degree was measured at minus-7 – down from plus-14 in May. While Trump has not been talking as much lately about his poll numbers, he referred on Wednesday to “the phony poll numbers that I’m seeing”. “Watch what the end result is”, Trump said. An invitation by Bernie Sanders for supporters to join him for an announcement Thursday fueled speculation that he would suspend his presidential bid. ‘Wrong!’ his spokesman said. Clinton meets with Sanders Tomorrow night, no, he’s not ending it. We’re working our way through that, how to go forward on that front. This message to supporters is going to be a lot broader than that ... He knows how to count. – Sanders spokesman Michael Briggs Support for an assault weapons ban appeared to have surged following the Orlando shooting, the CBS poll found. Support for a ban had risen to 57% of adults surveyed, up from 44% in December. Read the poll At a rally in Atlanta, Georgia, Trump said he was the preferred candidate of gay Americans, but don’t take his word for it. “Ask the gays,” he said. There were many gif responses
Adama Traoré: ‘At Barcelona there was not as much focus on defending’ Adama Traoré arrived in England trailing a reputation as an astonishing hybrid of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. Perhaps predictably, it did not take him long to disappoint his new public. “It was good to hear that from Tim,” says Middlesbrough’s elemental winger, diplomatically recalling the moment when Tim Sherwood, the manager who brought him from Barcelona to Aston Villa for £7m during the summer of 2015, described his game as “a bit of Messi and a bit of Ronaldo”. He added: “But when people think it’s possible that I can play like this, and then I don’t, those people question you.” Considering that Traoré is still only 20 and arrived at Villa Park having made only four appearances for Barcelona’s first team, it seems no surprise that he struggled to marry extraordinary pace and dribbling ability with an end-product. As the relegation-bound Villa entered a tailspin and Sherwood was replaced by Rémi Garde, Traoré became a scapegoat for the club’s wider problems. With his £40,000-a-week wage depicted as a millstone, there was barely concealed glee when, on last summer’s transfer deadline day, he was dispatched to Teesside in exchange for Albert Adomah. After a slow start, Traoré has begun Boro’s past five games, swiftly becoming a crowd favourite and lending Aitor Karanka’s side a more attacking, improvisational, pace-suffused dimension which has not only upset full-backs but also helped improve results. While everyone acknowledges that the elemental, force-of-nature aspect of his game needs balancing with increased tactical discipline, Hull City’s defence will not relish facing Traoré when they visit the Riverside for the “relegation six-pointer” on Monday night. “Aitor tells me I need to work on my tactics and the way I sometimes play the game because here in England it’s different to Spain,” he says. “If the team’s playing on the counterattack, I have to go back and defend. At Barcelona, it was a bit different. There wasn’t as much focus on defending and ‘doing your job’ when you didn’t have the ball. Aitor takes me to one side a lot and tells me the things he wants to work on. I don’t want to become a totally different player, but I know there are things I have to improve.” After coaching him in Spain’s national junior teams, Boro’s manager always appreciated Traoré’s true potential, always suspected that, supported by the right tactical scaffolding, he would flourish. “It was difficult at Villa because they’d struggled for two years and I’d come mainly from Barcelona B in the second division in Spain,” says this Catalan born-and-bred son of Malian parents. “I needed time to adapt but Tim Sherwood and Rémi Garde had to win games; they didn’t have time to think about little things about my game. It was a bad moment, it was such a hard, sad experience.” One point ahead of Hull, Boro have won twice all season but recent draws at Arsenal and Manchester City offer real cause for optimism. It helps that Karanka now possesses not only one of the Premier League’s fastest individuals, but also Europe’s leading dribbler. The latest statistics suggest Traoré has completed the most dribbles of anyone in the continent’s principal leagues, pushing Barcelona’s Neymar into second place as assorted defenders were dodged or simply bounced off his astonishingly muscular 5ft 10in frame. “People tell me I’m the first in dribbling,” he says, impressive biceps straining the material in his tight, short-sleeved T-shirt. “But it’s important that, after dribbling, I cross or pass or score. If I don’t, then dribbling is pointless.” Although others, notably Southampton’s Shane Long and Sunderland’s Lynden Gooch, have recorded faster on-pitch speeds in England’s top tier this season, few would relish racing him. “When I was at Barcelona Pep Guardiola told me: ‘You’re the fastest in the club,’” he says. “Maybe I’ll be the fastest in the world but it’s only good when you cross or shoot at the end. With the ball I can run 37kmh but I’ve never been timed without it because my job is to play football. I’m not an athlete.” Occasionally his feet seem to outpace his brain. “I sometimes make the wrong decisions but it’s because I haven’t started many Premier League games,” he counters. “I need to work hard on my technique but I think I’ve shown what I can do in my last performances.” In the process the name Messi has shifted from representing a weight on his shoulders to a shining light. “In training at Barcelona Messi worked hard all the time,” he recalls. “People would say ‘This game will be easy for you, they’re not a good team’, but he ignored them. Messi could maybe get away with not trying 100% because he’s the best player in the world. But he’s the first at training. He’s very professional. He was very good to watch and learn from. “A lot of players in his position would relax sometimes. But, because of how he works, he’s won the Ballon d’Or five times. I need to learn from this.”
World's billionaires lose £215m each as global economy struggles The world’s billionaires saw their wealth shrink by an average of £215m each last year, as economic headwinds made themselves felt. A report published on Thursday by UBS and PricewaterhouseCoopers has found that falling commodity prices helped put billionaires under pressure at a time of stalling growth in technology and finance, the motors of wealth creation. The study’s authors found that Asia is creating a new billionaire every three days, but the US billionaire population only grew by five in 2015. Europe’s wealthiest individuals were proving the most resilient, the report said. In 2015, the global billionaire population effectively increased by 50 to 1,397, according to the study, but the total wealth of these individuals fell by $300bn (£246bn) from $5.4tn to $5.1tn, an average loss of £215m per person. The study said 210 people became members of the billionaires’ club in 2015, more than half of whom were in Asia, where young entrepreneurs are rapidly becoming wealthy in sectors such as real estate, technology and retail. At the same time, 160 people lost their billionaire status, including those who died. One-third of the billionaires covered by the study are aged over 70. The authors said: “Great wealth creation lost some of its momentum in 2015 … It is too early to tell if the past 30 years’ extraordinary period of wealth creation is coming to an end, but it’s clearly slowing.” A total of 113 Asian entrepreneurs attained billionaire status during the year, accounting for 54% of the global total in 2015. The US is still home to the world’s largest collection of billionaires, but while 41 people there broke through the billion dollar ceiling in 2015, 36 dropped off the list. Total US billionaire wealth fell by 6% from $2.6tn to $2.4tn. “So the US is still creating a few new billionaires, but its billionaire wealth is flagging,” the report said. Europe was “leading the world” in wealth preservation, the authors said, with multigenerational billionaires coming out of 2015 far better than their peers in other markets. “While it may not be the best at creating great wealth, Europe has proved the best at keeping it,” the report said. The authors predicted that the biggest handover of wealth to the next generation was imminent. Researchers forecast that 460 billionaires will pass $2.1tn, the same as India’s GDP in 2015, on to the next generation over the coming 20 years. The report does not name any billionaires, but according to Forbes, the Microsoft founder Bill Gates is the world’s richest man with a net worth of $82bn, followed by the Zara founder Amancio Ortega on $77bn. The Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg is in fifth place with $55bn. For the billionaires who struggled last year, the study said it expected the performance of the financial markets and economic growth “to create a favourable environment for billionaire wealth creation in 2016 and 2017”.
Dick Van Dyke: ‘In therapy, I realised I was repeating my father’s mistakes’ My dad, Loren, was a minor-league baseball player – handsome, charming and the life and soul of the party. During the off-season, he played saxophone and clarinet in a jazz band. He was enjoying the life of a carefree bon vivant until my mother, Hazel, a stenographer, told him she was in the family way. Suddenly, the good life, as he knew it, vanished and he got a job as a salesman for the Sunshine Cookie Company. He hated the work, but always had a shine on his shoes and a smile on his face. Years later, when I saw Death of a Salesman, I was depressed for a month. It was Dad’s story. My father was saved by his sense of humour and his customers enjoyed his company. He was more reserved around my brother, Jerry, and me, but we knew he loved us. He just didn’t know how to say the words. My mother was the opposite. She was funny like Dad, but much more talkative. If she had a deficiency, it was absent-mindedness. She once cooked a ham and later found it in my father’s shirt drawer. I am not kidding. When I was 20, I began dating a local girl I had known for years growing up in Danville, Illinois – Margie Willett. We were too broke to get married, but a radio producer offered to pick up the tab and send us on honeymoon if we got hitched on his show. So in 1948 we exchanged our vows in front of a minister and two radio microphones while 15 million people listened! Margie was earthy and artistic, but had no fondness for Hollywood and was shunted aside at showbiz events by people wanting to chat to me. She wore her hair short and eschewed makeup, and we were often mistaken for brother and sister. Once, when I appeared on a magazine cover, Margie snapped up six copies and the cashier asked if she was my mother. Margie miscarried twins, but went on to have four children who turned out to be truly admirable. Margie did the work, but I will take some credit. As the father of four, the grandfather of seven and a great-grandfather four times over, why not? I tried to be a good role model to my children, but I was an alcoholic for 25 years, which inevitably impacted on family life. When I went into therapy, I realised I was repeating my father’s mistakes. He often came home drunk after lengthy road trips and my mother threatened to walk out unless he quit – which he did. When I pledged to quit and entered a rehab clinic, Margie checked in as I checked out. I thought she’d come to pick me up, but it turned out she was hooked on antidepressants. I had no idea. What a pair. Our addictions were symptomatic of deeper problems in our relationship and we were drifting apart. Around this time, I met a former actress, Michelle Triola. She was feisty, smart and, unlike Margie, knew the showbiz world inside out. Margie and I divorced in 1984, and Michelle and I went on to have 35 very happy years together. We talked about marrying, but I could never get her to put a date in the diary. In 2008, Margie died of pancreatic cancer and I lost a part of myself. A year later, Michelle was diagnosed with lung cancer. When she asked if she was going to die, I pretended I didn’t know – the hardest acting I have ever done. After she passed, I realised I had never been without a companion looking out for me. I met makeup artist Arlene Silver, who is 46 years younger, at an awards dinner in 2006. She was startlingly beautiful and I introduced myself. We became firm friends and it just grew from there. My oldest child, Christian, was the only one in the family who had doubts, but after we exchanged our vows in 2012, he said, “Dad, I get it.” We don’t feel the age gap. I’m emotionally immature and Arlene is very wise for her age, so we meet in the middle. • My Lucky Life In and Out of Show Business by Dick Van Dyke is published by John Blake, £8.99.
Barclays' PPI costs rise by another £600m The cost of the payment protection insurance scandal has topped £40bn after Barclays took another £600m hit to pay compensation to customers who were mis-sold the product. The extra provision, announced as the bank reported a 10% fall in nine-month profits, takes Barclays’ costs to £8.4bn. Data compiled by the thinkthank New City Agenda shows that this top up for Barclays has pushed the total provisions incurred by the industry to £40.2bn. Lloyds Banking Group makes up £17bn of that total. Barclays said its extra provision was caused by the cutoff point of June 2019 for claims, set by the Financial Conduct Authority. It added: “We will continue to review the adequacy of the provision levels in respect of the FCA’s proposals, which remain subject to consultation.” In the midst of an overhaul being led by chief executive Jes Staley, the bank insisted it was “open for business” after the Brexit vote. But Staley admitted he was considering what changes it might need to make to its business as the UK made plans to leave the EU. Staley said: “We are looking at our options. We will take incremental steps. We are engaged in active discussions with the British government. Our desire is to stay as fully invested in the UK as we can.” This week, the reported a warning from Anthony Browne, the chief executive of the British Bankers Association, that bosses had their hands “quivering over the relocate button”. Staley said while Barclays was looking at its options, “I wouldn’t say our finger is quivering. Our intention is to stay as much invested in London as we can. We are a British bank.” In July, Staley said operations might need to be strengthened in Ireland if the government did not clinch a passport deal that gave access to the remaining 27 EU countries. The bank’s shares were the biggest risers in the FTSE 100, despite the extra charge for PPI and the £150m hit to cover costs incurred in reducing office space because of job cuts. The bank would not disclose which office was affected, but it has been reported that it has been in talks about leasing space in Canary Wharf to the government. The shares closed 4.5% higher, at 190p, after the bank reported that its profits fell to £2.9bn in the nine months to September, triggered by a loss in the non-core division that houses the operations Staley has earmarked for sale or closure. Staley joined Barclays in December and set about selling off the bank’s operations in Africa. He said: “The growing momentum in attaining our strategic goals means we can feel optimistic of our prospects of completing the restructuring of Barclays – a restructuring to a simplified, transatlantic, consumer, corporate and investment bank with the capacity to deliver sustainable, high-quality returns for shareholders. This quarter has seen us take another important stride toward that state.” The vote to leave the EU had been a political shock, Staley said, but consumers had recovered swiftly. “The referendum was a political shock, not an economic shock. I think consumers have recovered from that, but there has been an impact in the currency, which directly impacts the consumer,” said Staley. Barclays said it remained in discussions with the US Department of Justice over a settlement related to mortgage bond mis-selling.
Small businesses should not have had to shout about RBS to be heard Royal Bank of Scotland did not tip healthy small businesses into default and did not seek to profit from their collapse. Nor did it request personal injections of cash from owners when it had already decided a business was doomed, says the Financial Conduct Authority. But it did sometimes charge fees it didn’t explain properly, and there was a failure to support small businesses “in a manner consistent with good turnaround practice”. Thus the bank will pay compensation to address “poor outcomes” at a cost of about £400m. Is everybody happy now? Of course not. The period under the microscope is 2008-13, so the process of inspection has been painfully slow. The perception also remains that an apology, not to mention a few quid in redress, has had to be dragged out of RBS. The RBS chief executive, Ross McEwan, said on Tuesday the bank had “acknowledged mistakes for some time”, but the latest admission of shortcomings was fuller and franker than any heard previously. Indeed, back in 2014, when an internally commissioned report by the law firm Clifford Chance found no evidence that RBS set out to defraud its small business customers, the bank’s tone verged on jubilant. Tuesday’s response was necessarily humbler. RBS is still innocent on the explosive central charge of wrecking healthy businesses but the FCA’s qualification was significant. Of the potentially viable business customers transferred into the controversial unit called the global restructuring group (GRG), “most of them experienced some form of inappropriate action by RBS”, said the regulator. Not pretty. Incompetence at RBS – if that’s what the regulator has decided – would be understandable. In 2008, the bank was bust and new management, after the state-funded bailout, was fighting fires on many fronts. It would not be a surprise if overwhelmed staff at GRG, facing a steep rise in defaults, took insufficient care with small businesses. Yet the process of ensuring redress has been uncertain and plodding. An adviser to Sir Vince Cable, when business secretary in the coalition government, first made allegations of shabby behaviour in 2013. The subsequent FCA inquiry has run a year behind schedule (and still hasn’t been published in full). Now fees charged as long ago as 2008 will be returned in 2017 and complainants who still feel aggrieved can make their pleas to a retired high court judge, Sir William Blackburne. A just outcome, even when it arrives late, is better than an unjust one. But one sympathises with the small businesses. They should not have had to shout so loudly, or for so long, to be heard. The system has served them poorly. Magic and sparkle dim at M&S When he announced his first strategic update in May, Marks & Spencer’s new chief executive, Steve Rowe, knocked 10% off the share price. After his second on Tuesday, which sought to answer the questions he raised in the spring, the fall was 5%. One can understand why investors are worried. Over the course of two outings in the City, Rowe has made a strong case that M&S is in need of radical overhaul. But it’s hard to conclude that his plan for action is as bold as his words. Shutting 53 wholly owned foreign stores sounds dramatic, of course. But the combined losses in the 10 affected countries were £45m on turnover of £171m last year. If you are losing £1 for every £4 of revenue and see few opportunities for expansion, retreat is merely an act of common sense, even when the Champs Élysées store in Paris was a pet project of your predecessor. Concentrating on franchise stores, where most of the risks sit with a franchisee with local knowledge, is more logical. The charge of timidity really concerns the UK. M&S says 10% of floorspace devoted to clothing and homewares will close. Is that really enough? The clothing market is shifting online at pace and M&S is seeking smaller (but sharper) ranges. A 10% slimming might be considered fearless if it were happening overnight but this is a five-year overhaul costing £350m, half of it in cash. Come 2021, it may be time to do it all over again. The supposed compensations for investors are twofold: M&S is still generating plenty of cash and sees 200 pockets of the country that are deprived of the delights of Simply Food. The former is definitely a blessing, but less of the cash may find its way to investors: in the second-half of the financial year, shareholders will get an ordinary dividend but not a special on top. As for 200 more Simply Foods, the format is a proven winner but a 0.9% decline in like-for-like sales in the first half may be the first hint top-of-the-range food is becoming harder to shift. All in all, it’s hard to find reasons to be cheerful. Underlying profits fell 18.6% to £231m in the first half and the next five years for M&S look like hard graft for uncertain reward.
Practically perfect: Meryl Streep to play Mary Poppins' cousin in Disney sequel Meryl Streep is set to sing once more, joining Emily Blunt and Hamilton star Lin Manuel-Miranda in Disney’s Mary Poppins Returns. Sources have told Variety that Streep is being lined up to play Poppins’s cousin by marriage, Topsy Tartlet. Topsy is a maid who, in PL Travers’s Mary Poppins Comes Back, marries Arthur Turvy – so changing her name to Topsy Turvy. The character did not feature in the 1964 film starring Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke, which Travers famously hated. Mary Poppins Returns would reunite Streep for the third time with Blunt, who has been cast as Poppins, after 2006’s The Devil Wears Prada and 2014’s Into the Woods. The director of the latter film, Rob Marshall, is also in charge of the new Poppins. A new soundtrack has been composed for the movie, featuring original songs. Mary Poppins Returns will be set in 1930s London and features Poppins helping the now grown Banks children through a bereavement.
Nicholas Allbrook of Pond's playlist: Benjamin Clementine, US Girls, John Wizards Benjamin Clementine – St-Clementine-on-Tea-and-Croissants Benjamin Clementine has a fantastic story, and although the music should and does speak for itself, it’s pretty amazing to consider while listening. His voice is beautiful and he has the power and passion to crack and rattle and holler and squeal and do all this uncategorisable and totally “wrong” vocal gymnastics at just the right time to make my heart go pop. He expresses his convoluted history in every iota of his music and lyrics – Anglo-Franco-African accent and the kind of desperately loud and immediate piano playing any busker can relate to. US Girls – Damn That Valley Meghan Remy is a fucking genius. This whole album paints such a clear and poignant picture of female struggle – silent, long-suffering, jealous, humiliated. Her voice is super powerful and somehow reminiscent of 1960s girl-group classics, which could make the bleak oppression she portrays seem like history, if the rest of the music wasn’t so progressive. It makes me think about what has actually changed, and why we seem to have such a hard time changing anything. This song is about a woman who loses her man to war, with her lamentations swinging between anger and despair all over a totally sick beat. Davido – Aye Tingles. Davido is a big star of Lagos pop, and I especially love this song and its emphasis on love triumphing over materialism, which seems to be a pretty big thing in Nigerian pop culture (WizKid’s “Are you gonna dance babe / If I show you my money?” etc). The dizzying layers of rhythms echo more traditional music, but then there’s the sliced silences and banging drums and HUUUUGE chorus. Seriously this song makes me annoyingly emotional, as in, I’d probably hate me if I was with me listening to this. Two Steps on the Water – Yo-yo I first saw TSOTW at the Gasometer opening for Jaala (also badass) and it had been built up so much I was a little scared to be disappointed. That didn’t happen at all. I haven’t felt tears at that many gigs; well, more than your average person maybe, but, whatevs – but it was very moving. The members are a brilliantly mismatched trio – points of a triangle which, standing on opposing corners, but powerfully connected to each other, create a beautiful open space between. Good analogy, Nick. June, the guitarist and singer, is somehow fragile enough to be intimate, but strong enough to be inspiring and encouraging. The lyrics are a personal prayer for anyone feeling the big, big low. John Wizards – Tek Lek Schrempf While driving on the autobahn at 180km, with biblical rain pummelling the glass roof of our dinky ultramodern European family car, this song was playing and I felt, like every other time, my spine tingle. This is the most epic, fist-pumping thing on God’s green earth. John Wizards are an incredible band from South Africa. Their production is maniacal.
Is mainstream media being led astray by social media? I don't think so The former Irish Times editor, Conor Brady, has made a contribution to the seemingly unending debate about the differences between mainstream and social media. Given his veteran journalist status and newspaper background, it may be no surprise that he finds some social media output to be unacceptable. In fairness to Brady, I don’t think the headline to his column, in the Irish edition of the Sunday Times, “Trust and respect for the media are being bruised by the hunger for hits”, reflected his central concerns about arguments raised at a women in media conference and at a Boston College conference. But he did make make much of an alleged “drift to desensitisation, coarseness even, as the boundaries between conventional media and ‘social’ media break down”. Note those redundant apostrophes, with more to come. He wrote: “It was shocking to hear [at the women in media event] speaker after speaker describe the offensiveness and abusiveness they encounter on social media and the sense of helplessness at being unable to prevent it or respond effectively. At the same time, it was striking to hear so much emphasis from editors and journalists working in social media on the speed of their responsiveness as well as the volumes of ‘hits’ and ‘impressions’ they rack up, but with little focus on the value or the importance of what is being said. News is increasingly about the instant and the urgent, and not so much about the important or the enduring. In this climate it is inevitable there will be poor judgment calls, with perhaps unintended hurt and sometimes unfair characterisation of people and organisations that come into the news agenda. And it is not possible to ring-fence these new media in such a way that they don’t influence more traditional media. All, from newspapers to radio programmes to television stations, are finding themselves caught up in the whirlwind that demands instant reaction, allowing virtually no time for reflection or application of critical judgment... The internet and social media cannot be uninvented. However, if journalists and programme-makers allow the urgent and the trivial to drive out the important, and if they frequently sacrifice judgment to speed, there will be a breakdown in trust and respect for the media.” I would guess that some critics of the mainstream press would counter that its questionable ethics - including plenty of “instant reaction”, a failure to apply “critical judgment” and the “unfair characterisation of people” - existed well before the arrival of the internet. Misbehaviour by newspapers in particular has a long history and all of the sins he visits on social media have featured in countless analyses of ink-on-paper editorial output. So he may be wide of the mark by blaming digital technology for journalistic misdemeanours. It is pushing it to suggest that mainstream media is being led astray by social media. That said, he surely has a point about the need for newspapers and TV newsrooms to resist the temptation to react too hastily to online postings. More importantly, it cannot be denied that Brady is right to point the “offensiveness and abusiveness” encountered by women. That was a major finding of the ’s recent series about online harassment. I may be unduly naive in thinking that it will, eventually, die down. That is not to say we should turn a blind eye to the phenomenon. It is vitally important to highlight the abuses and, where possible, to expose the abusers. Law-breakers must be brought to book. But we need to put trolling in some kind of historical context, viewing it as an initial, if unacceptable, response to the freedom to shout and scream and swear while maintaining anonymity. It is the online equivalent of crying “fire, fire” in a crowded cinema when no fire exists. In other words, a misuse of freedom of expression. I doubt that it will stop entirely but I have a hunch that it will decrease in intensity and, most importantly, its effect will be diminished by a greater understanding by victims of the cowardice that underlies it.
Natwest and RBS customers hit by another banking glitch NatWest and Royal Bank of Scotland customers have vented their anger after being hit by yet another banking glitch – this one affecting people using their debit cards in shops. Customers reported having their cards declined at tills and their pins being blocked. It is an embarrassing start to the year for NatWest/RBS, which said a small number of customers – including New Year’s Day shoppers trying to take advantage of the post-Christmas sales – were having “issues” with point-of-sale transactions. Customers voiced their frustrations on the banks’ Twitter and Facebook pages. Many said they had experienced difficulties using their cards to shop at various supermarkets, including branches of Tesco. On Facebook, Stuart Davies-Roberts wrote: “Not a great new year when you’re stuck with a toddler in store and your card doesn’t work ‘pin blocked’!”. Sandra Gallagher wrote: “Both mine & my husbands NatWest debit card declined in Tesco this morning. Tesco cashier said NatWest cards aren’t working today. Luckily had my Barclaycard.” Andy Wear added: “I too had my card blocked in Tescos today, thank god I didn’t need much shopping.” Adam Day tweeted: “@NatWest_Help what’s going on with ur card payments been made to look a complete idiot in my local tesco due to your card problem.” He added: “I have never felt so embarrassed in all my life I am not happy and will be looking at leaving this is twice now.” Gareth Williams tweeted: “Why is it always @NatWest_Help cards that fail to work? Good timing for a New Years resolution to get a decent bank.” Also on Twitter, Helen P wrote: “Disgraceful service from @NatWest_Help, just tried to pay & said pin was locked – I hope this is fixed soon or will be wanting compensation.” Another Twitter user, Dave Leach, said: “I’ve been with @NatWest_Help for years, but I’m beginning to wonder for how much longer. Very poor IT again.” The banking group indicated that the technical glitch involved pin transactions, and that contactless payments, credit cards and ATM withdrawals were all unaffected. A spokeswoman said: “We’re aware of some issues with customers using debit cards and are working hard to fix them. We apologise for the inconvenience this has caused.” A statement on the Natwest website said: “We are aware of an issue affecting some of our customers when making point of sale transactions at some retailers. The issue is being investigated as a matter of urgency. Where possible, alternative methods of payment should be used. Contactless payments, Apple Pay and Get Cash via the mobile app are working normally. We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.” The group has suffered several IT meltdowns during the last few years. In September 2015, customers were hit by a technical problem that meant some could not withdraw cash or use their card in branches. In July, customers were locked out of their online bank accounts for nearly an hour, which RBS blamed on a cyber-attack. A month earlier, many were left without funds over a weekend after 600,000 transactions were delayed for several days.
Russian superheroes fight for Soviet government in s trailer Superhero adventure s is set to be Russia’s answer to Marvel’s hugely successful stream of comic-book blockbusters. The film, called Zaschitniki in Russian, follows a set of mutants who are recruited by the government to fight against an evil supervillain. It’s set in the cold war and features characters who represent the different nationalities of the Soviet Union, including a man who can transform into a bear and a woman who turns into water. The film is directed by Sarik Andreasyan, the Armenian behind the Russian hit Pregnant, about a man who finds himself on course to give birth, and American Heist, an English-language thriller with Hayden Christensen, Adrien Brody and Akon. Superhero films have proved successful in Russia, with Avengers: Age of Ultron becoming 2015’s biggest hit, making $34m (£25m). But no Hollywood film since 2013 has outgrossed the homegrown 3D war drama Stalingrad, which made $52m. s is set to hit Russian cinemas next year, but no UK and US dates have been confirmed. A sequel has already been greenlit.
Asghar Farhadi back in Tehran to film next social drama The celebrated Iranian director Asghar Farhadi has begun shooting his next film in Tehran about how societal change can make people more violent. Forushande, a drama about unstable relationships, will mark the seventh feature project for Farhadi, whose film A Separation won the Oscar for best foreign language film in 2012. The new film follows a young couple whose romance suddenly turns violent when a benign man gradually becomes vicious and intransigent.“As in my previous films, Forushande addresses how social challenges can propel the downfall of some people,” Farhadi told Variety. Forushande took the film-maker back to Tehran, where the terse drama of A Separation also played out. Like his best-known film, the contemporary-set project will once again weave Iranian social, political and moral themes into its main narrative. Farhadi’s most recent drama, 2013’s The Past, was set in Paris. Forushande is being set up at Arte France Cinema, Memento Films Productions and the director’s own Farhadi Film Production. No cast or prospective release details have been reported.
Holy Hell and the truth about cults: 'They’re not going to give it up easily' Perhaps the most disturbing part of Holy Hell – the documentary which premiered at Sundance earlier this year and is about a West Hollywood cult – is that life in the group doesn’t look that bad at all. Beautiful young people dance around in pastoral scenes, while an aviator-wearing leader expands their minds by seemingly doing little more than having a very good time. Holy Hell director Will Allen joined the Buddhafield in the 80s. His film – made up of videos he shot while in the group – raises accusations that over two decades he, and other members of the group, were sexually abused by the cult leader, who now goes by the name of Andreas but was also known as Michel. Former group members claim he controlled intimate elements of their personal lives and there were petty tyrannies as well; Andreas had trained for the ballet, and put his followers through grueling practices to stage elaborate ballets that no one but the group would ever see. But before the accusations of abuse and megalomaniacal demands, life with the Buddhafield wasn’t a dystopian nightmare. Instead, the first half-hour of the film makes the cult look welcoming, appealing – even holy. “The community turned out to be the thing that bonded us together and kept us there for so long,” Allen told me in a phone interview. He joined the Buddhafield at the urging of his sister, when he was 22, shortly after finishing film school and coming out as gay. “I felt very confused and unsure of everything, and I had no one to explain everything to me.” “The community provided this immediate sense of unconditional love. Nobody judged each other; we were there with open arms loving everybody as individuals. That wasn’t something I had found in college, and I hadn’t found that in my family either.” That love wasn’t a delusion; the documentary shows Allen is still close with many of the people from the community, and they obviously still care about each other. Similarly, Allen isn’t ready to just dismiss the spiritual experiences he and others had while with the Buddhafield. The documentary shows Andreas leading many of the members to profound feelings of oneness with God, complete with psychedelic-like visions, and a blissful sense of well-being. “We weren’t doing drugs, we weren’t escaping through alcohol,” Allen told me, “so we were escaping through this more metaphysical relationship with ourselves.” But eventually the community and friendship began to feel like a trap. Allen alleges that Andreas encouraged his followers to “Keep holy company”, by which he meant that they should avoid interactions with those outside the group. (This was part of “isolating us from society”, Allen said.) “We only kept among ourselves, and only bonded with ourselves.” This isolation was part of what kept Allen and others with Buddhafield. Indeed, even after the accusations some original members remain with Andreas and a new group of followers in Hawaii. “People’s spiritual journeys are very personal,” Allen said. “They don’t want to give them up for anything. They’re getting something out of it, and they’re not going to give it up very easily.” It’s easy perhaps to view the people who have stayed with Andreas as deluded – but such delusions are too common to simply be attributed to cults alone. As the 2015 film Spotlight highlighted, widespread abuse in the Catholic church went on for decades. When someone claims to represent God, or the divine, “they create this immense amount of trust between you and them,” Allen said. “And that allows them, if they have no integrity or are unable to control themselves, it allows them more power to do what they want to do.” The opportunity to abuse authority goes beyond just religions, too. One interviewee in the film says that there are cults in every town in America. That doesn’t mean that Buddhafield’s particular mix of New Age spirituality is metastasizing. But it is an argument that the impulses and dynamics which made Buddhafield possible aren’t solely the province of hippie truth-seekers. “I look at this pattern that we all as a human race have created,” Allen said, “where we end up in this pyramid/hierarchy, where there’s someone at the top, and all the knowledge trickles down. This happens in corporations, this happens in religions, this happens all over the world. Why can’t we have a democracy where people all know what’s going on? Do people need someone to tell them what to do?” Allen’s documentary is intended most directly to call Andreas to account. The director is hopeful that, as the film gains more attention, more of Andreas’s followers will come to doubt him and eventually leave the group. “That’s already happening,” Allen said hopefully. “People are already leaving, and only a few people who are devoted are still supporting him.” But the broader message of Holy Hell isn’t specifically about Andreas, or Buddhafield, or even necessarily about cults. Rather, the film is a warning that natural and even admirable human desires for love, for belonging, and for meaning can be manipulated by unscrupulous individuals to benefit themselves. Despots, in cults or in any context, seek to make themselves synonymous with community and with God. When such people try to gain power, Allen says, “We need to learn to recognize them. And not honor them.”
Dr Luke denies he is being ditched by Sony over Kesha case Dr Luke has responded to reports that Sony Music is planning to terminate his contract, following growing pressure on the record company over the accusation that he drugged and sexually assaulted the singer Kesha. Dr Luke’s lawyer, Christine Lepera, told the Los Angeles Times: “This is not true. Luke has an excellent relationship with Sony. His representatives are in regular contact with executives at the highest levels at Sony and this has never come up.” The Wrap reported on Wednesday that “knowledgeable sources” said Sony was going to end its relationship with the hitmaking songwriter and producer. Dr Luke’s Kemosabe Records imprint – to which Kesha is signed and has been trying to leave – is part of the Sony empire. The New York state supreme court last month denied Kesha permission to end her contract with Kemosabe, causing scores of artists, including Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga and Adele to offer their public support to the artist. “There is no contest. Kesha has no case in regards to her contract but they can’t afford the Adeles of the world out in the streets calling the label unsupportive,” a source “familiar with upper management’s thinking” told the Wrap. “The fact that this hasn’t already been taken care of with Luke is confusing, especially for people in the building.” Sony is unable to accede of its own accord to Kesha’s request to be freed from her contract. Her contract is with Kemosabe itself, which in turn has separate deals with Sony. Kesha’s supporters are planning another #FreeKesha rally outside Sony’s New York headquarters on Friday. They plan to deliver four petitions with 411,000 signatures urging her release from the contract. “It is time for Sony to step up and show that they don’t value money over the safety and wellbeing of a woman and artist,” said the event’s Facebook page. “They have the power to #FreeKesha by not renewing their contract with Dr Luke and cutting ties with Kemosabe.”
Kurt Vile review – heavy-lidded rock seduces with its simplicity When Kurt Vile played a half-empty field at last summer’s Citadel festival, the crowd mostly responded with a mixture of confusion and obliviousness, like a dog might if it had been shown a card trick. Loud chatter around the edges of the audience tonight suggests Vile is a taste even some of his fans have yet to truly acquire. The truth is, this is music which begs (and rewards) a certain degree of attention. There’s not a lot that actually happens in the typical Kurt Vile song, the prolific Philadelphian having made an art of his own kind of minimalism. Often he’ll linger on the simple interaction between two chords, or the possibilities contained within one. Or he’ll chase an elliptical riff long after other artists would have left it for dead. His melodies are laconic, his vocals a somnambulant drawl, like an alt-rock Leon Redbone murmuring eavesdropped inner-monologues. Clearly, he’s not penned many middle-eights in his life. But it’s the off-the-cuff skill with which he wields these simple elements that seduces, and the hypnotic power of these songs. Vile and his band, the Violators, conjure up trancelike grooves that resemble Tuareg desert-rockers Tinariwen if they’d swapped their robes for plaid shirts. The closer you focus on the mantric tangle of Dust Bunnies (which wryly rewrites Sam Cooke’s Wonderful World as slacker reverie) and Goldtone (the glorious ramble where Vile murmurs “You’d think I was stoned / But I never, as they say, touch the stuff” makes you wonder who he’s trying to kid), the more you get lost in their graceful chug, like the songs could carry on for ever. He stays mostly in this mode tonight, though when he switches tempo it’s a thrill. The haywire Freak Train is wonderful, with Vile hollering and garbling over clattering railroad rhythms, sounding like Suicide covering Springsteen covering Mystery Train, before collapsing into sax-squawking, harmolodic cacophony. The lyrical, heavy-lidded lilt of a solo, acoustic Tom Boy, meanwhile, is beguiling. Both suggest that, while Kurt’s unhurried manner clearly suits him, a change in gear every now and then works wonders.
Antonio Conte hails sixth successive clean sheet for Chelsea Antonio Conte suggested that his Chelsea side are in perfect shape for a busy mid‑winter after Diego Costa’s goal lifted them to the top of the Premier League on Sunday. The 1-0 win at Middlesbrough was their sixth in succession and, even more impressively, that sequence has been achieved without the concession of a single goal. When they surrendered 3-0 against Arsenal in late September it seemed hard to credit that Mesut Özil’s goal for Arsène Wenger’s side would be the last Conte’s defence would leak for such a long time and the Italian was suitably delighted. “After we had two defeats against Liverpool and then Arsenal, it wasn’t simple to believe we’d have six wins a row without conceding any goals,” he said. “It’s fantastic because this league is so difficult.” Not that Conte, whose switch to an opponent-bewildering 3-4-3 formation has proved pivotal, is surprised by this revival. Instead he feels the physical conditioning work he employed during the summer and continues to regularly top up is not only paying dividends now but can help see Chelsea through the crushing grind of the Christmas and New Year fixtures ahead. “I know we will need to play many games in a few days so from the start of the season we’ve worked a lot on physical aspects and we continue to work on them,” he said. “In this league it’s important to have intensity and strength as well as good technique. “This league is very tough so if you’re not strong it’s difficult to wins games – and particularly this game today. I trust in my work but now I’m seeing what I wanted to see at the start of the season.” Indeed it was the sort of contest Chelsea would probably have lost – or at least drawn – last season. “At some moments we suffered against a strong team with a good organisation,” Conte said. “There was a fantastic atmosphere and Middlesbrough’s fans were pushing them but we never lost our compactness. Now we have to continue like this – but Chelsea always fight to the end.” Asked if his team are title favourites, their manager did not disagree: “It’s difficult to say. This win increases our trust in what we’re doing. But our next game against Tottenham will be very tough.” With the fixture after that pitting Conte’s players against Manchester City a litmus test of their title potential is approaching but Aitor Karanka would not be drawn as to who he thought might actually finish top in May. Having recently drawn with Arsenal and City, Middlesbrough’s manager was asked which of that pair and Chelsea were best. “All of them, they all have really good coaches,” he said. “But Chelsea are experienced, they defend together, they have quality to play in different ways and Diego Costa is a top striker.” Although Boro are improving they have won only twice all season and Karanka was left frustrated by the slapdash reaction to a corner which consigned them to defeat on a day when Chelsea were troubled by Adam Traoré’s pace. “It was a tough game but we showed we could compete against one of the top teams only for one mistake to cost us.” Gary Cahill had no compassion for him or Boro after proving a key element in Conte’s back three: “Confidence is up in the side and we’re playing well. We’re getting the results too which is the most important thing. We’ve carried on from where we left off at the international break. We’re in a good moment on the training ground and working hard. “When you are winning games, it’s easy to play. We’re happy with today’s work but the league is not won today, it’s not even Christmas yet.”
Owner of Clydesdale and Yorkshire banks forced to cut float price Share market turbulence has forced the Australian owner of Clydesdale and Yorkshire banks to cut the price at which their shares will be floated on the London Stock Exchange next month. The banks – to be known as CYBG – could be valued as low as £1.5bn when they are spun out of National Australia Bank (NAB), much lower than the valuations of closer to £2bn mooted when the demerger of the business was announced in October. NAB is handing 75% of shares in CYBG to its existing shareholders and selling off the rest through an offering to institutional investors. Even if NAB decides not to press on with the stock market offering, it will still continue with the divestment of three-quarters of CYBG to its existing shareholders. The Australian bank has spent years looks for a solution to its troublesome UK operations, which have been granted a £1.7bn indemnity against any further compensation for payment protection insurance or mis-selling of interest rate swaps to make them more attractive to outside investors. CYBG’s new management has embarked on a roadshow to try to convince institutional investors of the merits of the bank, in a move that will be closely watched by rivals such as Metro that are thought to be considering flotations. The price range is set at between 175p and 235p – giving a valuation between £1.5bn and £2bn. If the lower price is the one at which CYBG floats, it would value the bank at just 0.56 of its assets. The shares are expected to be priced on 2 February. The flotation is taking place just as the stock market is being rocked by concerns about global growth, potential interest rate rises and the plunge in the value of oil. The tricky start to the year on financial markets has wiped almost $4tn (£2.8tn) off global shares in the worst opening weeks on record.
Former Mexican president Vicente Fox attacks Donald Trump's 'racist' ideas Former Mexican president Vicente Fox has condemned Donald Trump for what he said was a series of “racist and ignorant ideas” regarding Mexico in an op-ed for the . Fox said the Republican presidential frontrunner’s statements were both “disgraceful and highly offensive”, one day after Trump proposed getting Mexico to fund a border wall by cutting off billions of dollars in remittances sent by immigrants living in the US. “He thinks building the ‘Trump Wall’ will right every wrong in the United States,” Fox wrote. “Indeed, he’s built a huge mental wall around himself already, which doesn’t allow him to see the greatness of our people.” He added: “Trump is surely a false prophet who will guide the great nation of the United States to the bottom of the ocean, all the way through the shores of ignorance, racism, hunger and despair.” Fox, a vocal critic of Trump’s, has in the past dubbed the casino mogul “a racist” who reminded him of Adolf Hitler. In his column for the , Fox continued to refer to Trump as a “dictator” whose controversial and often racially charged rhetoric would do little more than harm the country he seeks to lead from the White House. “At the end of the day, it won’t be Mexico or the rest of the world that will struggle because of the wall or the new policies that Trump is suggesting,” Fox said. “It will be the United States and his own people who will pay the price for Trump’s egocentric and xenophobic dreams.” Trump has looked to capitalize on resentment toward immigrants, particularly Hispanics, ever since launching his campaign for president last June. The former reality TV star ignited a firestorm in his announcement speech alone by declaring that most Mexican immigrants were “rapists” and “killers”. He has since called for aggressive actions against Muslims both at home and overseas while continuing to tout his infamous wall along the US-Mexico border. Fox has rebuffed Trump’s repeated vows to make Mexico pay for the wall, memorably telling Univision in February: “I declare: I’m not going to pay for that fucking wall.” Barack Obama also mocked Trump’s proposal on Tuesday when asked about the prospect of blocking money transfers from the roughly 12 million Mexicans living in the US. “Good luck with that,” Obama told reporters at the White House. “People expect the president of the United States and the elected officials in this country to treat these problems seriously, to put forward policies that have been examined, analyzed, are effective, where unintended consequences are taken into account.” He added: “They don’t expect half-baked notions coming out of the White House. We can’t afford that.”
Oscar winner Jamie Foxx rescues driver from burning vehicle The actor Jamie Foxx has become a real-life action hero – pulling a man from a burning car moments before it was engulfed in flames. Foxx and an off-duty paramedic pulled the man from the vehicle moments after it crashed near the star’s home in southern California. The California highway patrol said the car came off the road in Ventura County and went into a ditch, rolling over multiple times and catching fire while the driver, 32-year-old Brett Kyle, was trapped inside. Foxx said he heard the crash from his house, called 911, and ran to the scene. He said the off-duty paramedic, who was driving by at the time, used large scissors to break the window, cut the man’s seatbelt and pull him out. Foxx said the truck went up in flames seconds after the rescue. The actor, who won an Oscar for playing Ray Charles in 2004’s Ray, said he told the man: “You’ve got to help me get you out, because I don’t want to have to leave you. You’ve got angels around you.” “I don’t look at it as heroic,” Foxx told reporters after meeting Kyle’s father, Brad, following the rescue. “I just look at it like, you know, you just had to do something. And it all just worked out.” Brad Kyle said he had been shown surveillance video of the crash scene, showing several cars passing by without helping. “I just kept watching it and going, ‘My god, my god, he didn’t have to do a thing,’” Kyle said, breaking into tears as he spoke. “I think we all hope that we can do something when the time is there. But the question is, do we act or do we fear for our own life? He did not.” Brett Kyle sustained broken bones and a punctured lung in the accident, but he is expected to survive. The highway patrol could not confirm Foxx’s involvement but said two witnesses helped extricate the driver, giving similar details to Foxx’s account. His role in the rescue was first reported by celebrity website TMZ. The name of the paramedic who stopped and helped was not immediately available.
Cameron: EU referendum is a 'once in a generation' decision - Politics live The BBC has announced that it will air three major debates in the run-up to the EU referendum, although it has not yet been revealed if prime minister David Cameron will appear in any of them. Junior doctors are to go on strike again on three dates, each taking place over 48 hours, the British Medical Association (BMA) said. As the Press Association reports, the doctors’ union also announced that it is to seek a judicial review into the government’s plans to impose new contracts. The dates planned for industrial action are from 8am on Wednesday March 9 to 8am on Friday March 11, from 8am on Wednesday April 6 to 8am on Friday April 8, and from 8am on Tuesday April 26 to 8am on Thursday April 28. The strike action will not affect emergency services. Tony Blair, the former prime minister, has spoken out against “populist” responses to the terror threat from both the far right and far left, which he said had delivered “solutions that make a tweet but not a policy”. In comments seemed directed at Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and at US Republican presidential contenders like Donald Trump, Blair lamented a “polarisation” of debate on both sides of the Atlantic which he said had undermined serious policy making. Speaking in Washington at the launch of a new Commission on Countering Violent Extremism which he will co-chair he said: There are those on the left who want us to dis-engage, who believe that our policies are largely the cause of this extremism and that if we leave well alone, it will resolve itself. There are those on the right who believe Islam itself is the problem, thus in a strange way affirming the position of the extremists that the West and Islam are in immutable conflict with each other. This polarisation of the debate is mirrored both sides of the Atlantic and the casualty is serious policy making. Both far left and far right come together in advocating solutions that make a tweet but not a policy. We need a new approach - what I might term a more muscular centrist one - which in a sense is a synthesis of the lessons of the whole period since 9/11 and can unify our people behind it. We require a combination of military and security capability to counter the violence; together with a deep strategy to counter the ideology of extremism which breeds it. The GMB union has published research showing that workers in sectors such as leisure and caring have seen their pay fall by more than 15% in real terms since the recession. It said that pay has not recovered for many professions since 2008. Average earnings for all workers are 13.4% below pre-recession levels, it said.Ambulance staff have suffered a 19% fall in real time earnings, cleaners and sales assistants 18%, bar staff 15%, hospital porters 11%, refuse staff 10%, postal workers 9%, farm workers 8% and window cleaners 6%. Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, the Metropolitan police commissioner, has told MPs he will not be “bullied” into apologising to Lord Bramall after the D-Day veteran was embroiled in Scotland Yard’s inquiry into VIP paedophile allegations. Hogan-Howe refused to say sorry to the 92-year-old, whose home was raided while he had breakfast with his terminally ill wife. Given evidence to the home affairs committee Hogan-Howe expressed “regret” over the episode but repeatedly refused to apologise. When the Tory Tim Loughton referred to the “media circus” surrounding the case, Hogan-Howe replied: Ah the media circus. If what you mean is that you want me to be bullied into apologising then that won’t happen. That’s all from me for today. Thanks for the comments. The Office for National Statistics has published figures today on household disposable income and inequality. They confirm that since the financial crash there has been a slight decrease in overall income inequality, largely because the rich lost proportionately more of their income during the recession. These are useful figures for David Cameron when he is challenged on inequality, although more recent developments are pushing inequality in the opposite direction. This is from the ONS statistical bulletin (pdf). The median disposable income of the richest fifth of households fell the most following the economic downturn (7.9% between 2007/08 and 2012/13). Since then it has increased, but in 2014/15 remained £2,000 (3.2%) below its previous peak after accounting for inflation and household composition. The poorest fifth of households were the only group whose average income did not fall between 2007/08 and 2012/13 and in 2014/15 the average income of this group was £700 (5.8%) above its 2007/08 value. Estimates of income inequality for 2014/15 are broadly unchanged from those for the previous financial year (any differences are not statistically significant). Since 2007/08, there has been a slight decrease in overall income inequality on a range of measures, although from a longer-term perspective, income inequality remains above levels seen in the early 1980s. And here is the key chart. Looking at income groups by quintile (poorest 20%, next poorest 20% etc), the light blue line shows changes in disposable income from 2007/08 to 2012/13, the dark blue line changes from 2012/13 to 2014/15 and the cross changes from 2007/08 to 2014/15. The Economist Intelligence Unit, which provides political and market analysis for business and others, has issued an updated assessment of the costs of Brexit. It says that it expects Britain to vote to remain in the EU. It has long been our view that voters’ fears about leaving the EU will rise as the referendum approaches and that the economic arguments in favour of staying in will prevail. We also believe that Mr Cameron’s support for staying in the EU will influence the voting intentions of a significant proportion of the electorate. But, if Britain were to vote to leave the EU, “this would trigger economic and political turmoil albeit largely in the short term”, it says. Uncertainty would lead to financial market volatility, affecting investment decisions and undermining growth. The longer-term impact of Brexit would depend on the details of the exit agreement decided on by the UK and the EU. We would expect a Norway-style relationship with free trade in goods, but not services. Overall, the UK would remain an attractive business environment. An important short-term political implication would be that David Cameron’s position as prime minister would become untenable, leading to his resignation. Specifically, it says the value of the pound would fall sharply after Brexit. We expect the currency to depreciate in the run-up to the referendum, but a Brexit result would prompt a sharp sell-off, driven by an assessment of the potential costs involved in leaving the EU. Investors would be concerned that a likely flight of capital and labour would impair the economy, undermining the UK’s “safe haven” status. And it says that even in the longterm the effects on the economy would be negative. The UK’s political capital is likely to be running low in a Brexit situation, and we would expect access to the services markets to be off-limits. This would damage the ability of the UK’s financial sector to provide services to EU markets, and companies that rely on this would probably relocate. We would also expect a sizeable drop off in foreign direct investment (FDI) from companies that view the UK as a gateway to Europe. This would involve a loss of typical spillover effects from FDI, such as new working practices and new technologies. It will also make it more difficult for the UK to finance its current-account deficit, which remains substantial. As a result, we would expect a further deterioration in the UK’s international investment position, raising the risks to financial stability. In the longer term, the UK remains an attractive business environment. The short-term economic costs of a Brexit vote are likely to be significant, but we would expect economic growth to recover over the medium to long term, albeit to a level below our current baseline forecast for real GDP. Cities such as Frankfurt and Paris are keen to displace London as the financial centre of Europe, but London should retain its status as a strong international financial centre by virtue of language, time zone and an existing concentration of interconnected businesses. It may even gain a competitive edge through its ability to repeal some EU regulation. Structural features such as a flexible labour market and a broadly pro-business policy orientation would also help the UK to remain an attractive destination for inward investment. However, these features would be set against a wider and more persistent current-account deficit, and a loss of skilled labour from the EU, which would undermine the recovery in productivity. Here’s the ’s guide to how Tory MPs will vote in the EU referendum. Theresa Villiers, the Northern Ireland secretary and one of the six ministers attending cabinet who is voting for Brexit, was on the World at One earlier. She rejected claims that controls would have to be introduced at the Ireland/Northern Ireland border if Britain chose to leave the EU. That’s not inevitable at all. We’ve always had a much closer relationship with the citizens of the Republic of Ireland than with the rest of the EU. It’s perfectly possible to maintain that free movement with Irish citizens. After all we give them privileges in the UK which we accord to no other EU citizens, like the right to vote in our elections ... I don’t think anyone should assume that border checks should be introduced as a result of a UK exit. We are in the area of scare stories. We do need to recognise that the relationship between the UK and Ireland when it comes to this common travel area is decades older than our EU membership and doesn’t depend on it. We’ve run an effective common travel area for many decades with the Republic of Ireland and there’s every reason to suggest that that would continue whether we leave the EU or we don’t. It’s manifestly in our interests to ensure that ease of passage across the border between North and South is as easy as possible. No-one is wanting to wind the clock back and to introduce the kind of security checks at the border that there were during the Troubles. She also rejected the suggestion from Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuiness, Northern Ireland’s deputy first minister, that she should resign because she was campaigning for Brexit. When this was put to her she replied: I think it’s perfectly reasonable for me to have chosen a side in this referendum. The great thing is that every single person in the UK, including in Northern Ireland, will get to take this decision, not just the secretary of state. David Cameron has insisted Boris Johnson is still one of his great friends who has simply “got it wrong” on the issue of the EU referendum by declaring he wants the UK to leave. As Rowena Mason reports, the prime minister was pressed on their personal relationship after he launched ablistering attack on Monday on Johnson’s idea that a vote to leave the EU could lead to a further negotiation and second referendum. Speaking at the headquarters of O2 in Slough, Cameron said he “understands” Johnson’s decision but he was disappointed and strongly believes it was the wrong conclusion. The bosses of some of Britain’s top companies, including budget airline easyJet, defence contractor BAE Systems and oil group Shell, have signed a letter in support of the UK remaining inside the European Union. The letter is signed by the chair or chief executive of about a third of the businesses on the FTSE 100 index of Britain’s largest stockmarket-listed companies. Boris Johnson has dismissed claims about the danger of Brexit as alarmist. Speaking to journalists this morning, he said: Of course there will be people who try to spread alarm, anxiety. We had much the same sort of thing when the decision came whether or not to join the euro, and indeed 20 years ago whether or not to leave the ERM. And on both occasions all those same people were wrong. We’ve got a great opportunity now to strike new deals, for Britain to be the hub of new trading arrangements around the world and to have a fantastic new future. So that’s what I’m going for. He also played down a warning from William Hague, the former foreign secretary, that a divisive EU referendum contest could damage the Conservative party for a generation. He said the party had a “much better team spirit” than in the 1990s. (See 11.53am.) Maria Eagle, the shadow culture secretary, as accused an “ideologically driven” government of trying to bully the BBC in the Labour’s fiercest attack on the issue of public service broadcasting since the election. John Swinney, Scotland’s finance minister, has told a parliamentary committee that a“fundamental disagreement” remains between Holyrood and Westminster on Scottish government funding. Sir Michael Wilshaw, the head of Ofsted, has urged Nicky Morgan, the education secretary, not to recruit his successor from abroad. As the Press Association reports, recent reports have indicated that Morgan is considering candidates from the US, Canada and northern Europe to replace Sir Michael Wilshaw when he stands down from Ofsted in December. Asked if Morgan should pick a “home-grown” successor, Wilshaw told the BBC: I would but then that’s not up to me. At the end of the day this is up to the secretary of state and the Department for Education. All I can say is we have very little to learn from America. They don’t do as well as we do in the Pisa tables, the OECD tables. We’ve got a lot of talent in this country that I’m sure could do a good job as Ofsted’s chief inspector. CND has announced that Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader, Nicola Sturgeon, the SNP leader and Leanne Wood, the Plaid Cymru leader, will address an anti-Trident demonstration in London on Saturday. Tens of thousands of people are expected to attend. Boris Johnson, the mayor of London, has announced that Crossrail will be named the Elizabeth line in honour of the Queen when it opens in 2018. Liz Truss, the environment secretary, has told the National Farmers’ Union conference that leaving the EU would be bad for the industry. She told them: At a time of severe price volatility and global market uncertainty, I believe it would be wrong to take a leap into the dark. The years of complication and risk caused by negotiating withdrawal would be a distraction from our efforts to build a world-leading food and farming industry that brings jobs and growth to Britain. Here’s the full story. Number 10 has released the text of a letter (pdf) Sir Jeremy Heywood, the cabinet secretary, has sent to permanent secretaries today clarifying what civil servants can do in relation to the EU referendum. It confirms that ministers who want to argue for Brexit will not get civil service support. Here’s an extract. It will not be appropriate or permissible for the civil service to support ministers who oppose the government’s official position by providing briefing or speech material on this matter. This includes access to official departmental papers, excepting papers that ministers have previously seen on issues relating to the referendum question prior to the suspension of collective agreement. These rules will apply also to their special advisers. You can tell when there’s an election on because journalists have to get on a train and head out of London. This morning David Cameron took them to Slough. The Q&A may have looked like a relatively routine PM Direct event - Cameron strutting a makeshift stage, jacket off, with workers listening with just a modicum of interest/respect - but this was the start of what Number 10 says will be a campaign roadshow, as the prime minister takes to the country to make the case of Britain remaining in Europe. In any campaign the stump speech is important. You might not think so, because journalists almost never report them. The stump speech is the one a politician repeats over and over and over again, at different locations, setting out his or her key campaign message. They rarely make the news because they are not new, and reporters end up getting so bored by them that they treat them with disdain, but they encapsulate the two or three arguments that leaders hope will eventually permeate into the minds of people with only limited interest in what political figures do and say (ie, most people). Today Cameron set out his “stump speech”. (See from 11.56am to 12.05pm.) It is about how Britain would be stronger, safer and better off remaining in the EU. It is not the most sophisticated or uplifting campaign message, but it is coherent and not obviously untrue. Crucially, the In camp have a stump speech. The Out camp don’t. There are plenty of intelligent and articulate fight on the Leave side, but there is no consensus as to how best they should fight the campaign and some of their messages are contradictory. Cameron also looked like someone who was enjoying himself, and who was confident in what he had to say. That helps. As for what he said, regular readers will be familiar with the arguments in the stump speech because Cameron has been fine-tuning them for the last four days. (Today was not the first time he had made the “stronger, safer, better off” case; just the first time he tested it on an audience of ordinary voters). But there were some more novel lines in the Q&A. Here they are. Cameron said Boris Johnson had a “very strong future” in British politics and a lot to give to the country. He also said he hoped the debate about the EU would be “reasonable” and “civilised”. His comment about Johnson sounded like an attempt to patch up relations after his hatchet job on the London mayor in the Commons yesterday and Cameron seemed to be hinting that Johnson’s decision to back Brexit would not stop him being offered a cabinet job later this year. Cameron said: I have huge respect for Boris as a politician. He is a great friend of mine, he is a fantastic Mayor of London, I think he has a lot to give to the Conservative party, I think he has a lot to give to this country. But on this issue I think he has got it wrong. We are going to have, I hope, a very reasonable, civilised argument between us and between other parties and you are going to find people with some fairly strange bedfellows. This is one where Jeremy Corbyn and I agree. Cameron said that anyone unsure of how to vote in the referendum should back the status quo because staying in the EU guaranteed safety and security. We all feel quite conflicted. In all of us there is a questioning about ‘what’s the right answer for Britain’. I would say for anyone who is finding it hard to make up your mind, and you feel it is a very balanced decision, I would say come down on the side of security and safety and certainty. He said that, although only a third of FTSE 100 leaders had signed today’s letter saying Britain should stay in the EU, the Leave campaign would be delighted to have this support. If the leave campaign could produce 35 business leaders of this sort of stature they’d be over the moon and I don’t think they have the prospect of doing that with FTSE 100 leaders in any way. Cameron said being prime minister for the last six years had given him a better appreciation of how the EU contributes to Britain’s security. As the Sun’s Tom Newton Dunn points out, some, but not all, Tory ministers have gone through a similar mental transition. Cameron claimed that Britain could have to wait for up to two years after voting to leave the EU before it could start negotiating trade deals with other countries. This delay could be damaging to business, he said. He said the Treasury and the Bank of England would publish reports on the economic implications of Brexit. He said the EU referendum was a “once in a generation” decision. It was more important than a general election, he said. I would argue this is a much bigger decision because at election times you can vote in a team of people and if you’ve got fed up with them after five years you can vote them out. This is a decision that lasts for life. We make this decision and it is probably going to be the only time in our generation when we make this decision. This is what happened when David Cameron opened the event saying it was great to be in Slough. Cameron, of course, when to school not far from Slough, although that is not the town normally associated with his alma mater; it’s closer to Windsor. Cameron says the idea that business is divided into firms that export and firms that don’t is out of date, he says. He says many firms are dependent on supplying firms that do export. He says in theory leaving the EU could result in firms that do not export not be required to comply with EU rules. But he says this would not suit firms looking to expand. And that’s it. The Q&A is over. I’ll post a summary soon. Cameron says in other countries the telecoms industry is still dominated by big, national-owned companies. It is important for Britain to be in the EU to help push through rules that encourage more competition, he says. Nigel Farage, the Ukip leader, is offering a running commentary on Cameron’s performance on Twitter. Q: How did you find out Boris Johnson would back Brexit? Were you irritated? Cameron says he has had many conversations with Johnson about this over the last few weeks. They have exchanged text messages too. He says he was disappointed. But if you are not certain, you should back the side that offers the safety and security of what we know. Even if you think the future outside the EU would be better (which he doesn’t think, he says), the transition period would be difficult. There is a real danger of job losses, he says. And he says if Britain is not in the single market, there is a danger of the single market countries ganging up against you. Recently the EU tried to introduce a law saying banks doing complex deals in euros had to be in the Eurozone. Britain blocked that, he says. And the new deal offers protections against that. But if Britain were outside the EU, it could not stop that. Cameron says anyone unsure of how to vote should vote to stay in the EU, because the status quo guarantees safety and security. He says EU countries would discriminate against Britain if Britain left. Cameron says companies have to get statement like this approved by their boards. Cameron says Leave campaign would be “over the moon” if it could get 35 FTSE 100 leaders to back Brexit. Cameron says today’s letter from business leaders is significant. It is not easy for companies to make an explicit commitment like this, he says. Q: [From ITV] William Hague is warning today about the danger of Tory splits. Yesterday when you said you had no other agenda we all know you were talking about Boris Johnson. Will you admit that? Cameron says he wants people to know that he has thought about this greatly. He says Europe is more important to Britain’s security than he thought it was 10 years ago. In the past he thought Nato and Britain’s relationship with America were what mattered most, he suggests. But now he has seen what the EU can do to protect security, he says. He says Boris Johnson is a great friend of his. He thinks Johnson has a lot to contribute to the Conservative party. But on this he thinks Johnson is wrong. There will be some strange bedfellows in this debate, he says. He says he agrees with Jeremy Corbyn on this. He says anyone unsure of how to vote should come down on the side of safety and security. Those who want to leave are not spelling out what they want. They are not sure what relationship they want with the EU. But they are not even sure how they want to leave, or if they want to leave at all. Some think there could be a second referendum. He says he has huge respect for Johnson. He has a “very strong future” in British politics. But on this one, he’s wrong. Cameron says that Boris Johnson has a “very strong future” in British politics and that he is a great friend. This suggests that Johnson’s decision to back Brexit does not mean he will not be offered a cabinet job later this year. Cameron says being prime minister for the last six years has given him a better appreciation of how the EU contributes to Britain’s security. Cameron says the EU would become more protectionist, and less open, if Britain left. Britain might have the illusion of more sovereignty. But it would not have more power. Cameron is now taking questions. Q: The pound has fallen against the dollar. What do you think the impact of the referendum will be? And what will you do about that? Cameron says it is best not to comment on daily market movements. But the government will comment on what the impact of Brexit would be. He says leaving the EU could have a bad effect on the economy. The Treasury and the Bank of England should spell out the details, he says. He says Britain would have two years to leave the EU. While it was negotiating Brexit, it could not start striking trade deals with other countries. He says there would be uncertainty for business. He says he is pleased that O2 has come out today to warn about the dangers of Brexit. And he cites the letter signed by business leaders saying Britain should stay in. Cameron says Britain might have to wait two years to start negotiating trade deals if it left the EU. Cameron says Britain has the best of both worlds now. He says he has no other agenda. He is not standing for prime minister again. He is just going to spend the next four months arguing for Britain to stay in the EU. It will be for the people to decide. But his “strong advice” is that Britain should stay in, he says. Cameron says it is important to consider the alternatives too. He says he has looked at the alternative models. The UK could copy Norway. But it has to sign up to EU rules to get access to the single market, without having a say in writing those rules. He says Nigel Farage, the Ukip leader, has said Britain could just go for a World Trade Organisation model - relying on WTO rules to determine trade relationships. But that would mean tariffs being imposed on cars sold to other EU countries, he says. Cameron says the EU also enables Britain to work together dealing with other countries, for example standing up to President Putin, or dealing with Somalian pirates. We are stronger, safer and better off in the EU, he says. Cameron says being in the EU helps to keep Britain safer. He says as prime minister he has seen time and time again how that has happened. As an example, he says one of the 7/7 bombers escaped Britain after the attack. Using the European arrest warrant, Britain was able to get him returned quickly. He is now serving a 40-year sentence, he says. He says previously it would have taken much longer to extradite him. Cameron says the single market is not just good for jobs; it is good for consumers too, because it drives down prices. He cites the example of mobile phone roaming charges. He says we are better off in Europe. Three million jobs are related to the EU, he says. He says he is not arguing that all those jobs would go if we were to leave the EU. But we would be better off, he says again. This is from the BBC’s James Landale. Cameron is summarising the achievements of his EU renegotiation. He is not saying he has solved all Britain’s problems with Europe, or all Europe’s problems. But this is a good basis on which Britain should take a decision about the EU, he says. David Cameron is starting his Q&A with workers on the EU referendum. He is at a telecoms firm in Slough. He says this is a bigger decision than a general election. After an election, you can vote people out. This is a decision that lasts for life. There is a live feed of the session at the top of this blog. Boris Johnson was doorstepped by the BBC outside his home this morning. He said that he had “no doubt” that the Conservative party would unite behind David Cameron after the referendum. It had a “much better team spirit” than in the 1990s, he said. I think one of the big differences between now and what I remember back in the 1990s is the Conservative party has a much better team spirit, a much better feeling about all this before. I’ve got absolutely no doubt that after this is over the Tory party is going to unite again around David Cameron’s leadership. Asked if he was opposing membership of the EU because of his own personal ambitions, he sidestepped the question, saying the crucial thing was to focus on the issues that mattered to the British people. At the Treasury committee Dr Gertjan Vlieghe, a member of the Bank of England’s monetary policy committee, told MPs that a weaker pound and the possibility of a Brexit could hit growth. It is possible at some point that increased uncertainty from foreign exchange investors also ends up manifesting itself in increased uncertainty by households and businesses which may, or may not, delay or reduce their spending. So far we haven’t seen very clear evidence of that, but we are watching very carefully. Ian Warren, an elections specialist who writes the Election Data blog and tweets as @election_data, has commissioned some polling on the views of Labour party members from YouGov. He published the first tranche yesterday, and it showed that the issues that are important to party members are not the same as those that are important to voters at large. Today Warren has published the second slab of data, looking at what members think of leadership issues. Here are some of the main points. Jeremy Corbyn retains considerable support amongst Labour members, even though the public at large are more likely to disapprove than approve of him. By a large margin ordinary voters think Labour is unlikely to win the election under Corbyn. Labour members are divided on this, but those who think the party is likely to win under Corbyn outnumber those who don’t. Almost a quarter of Labour members say they would leave the party if Corbyn were removed from office before the next election. John McDonnell would have a clear lead on first preferences in a leadership ballot without Corbyn. Hilary Benn, the shadow foreign secretary, would come second, and Tom Watson, the deputy leader, would come third. Warren does not disclose who would win in the final ballot. But McDonnell would only get the support of 40% of members who voted for Corbyn in September and his first preference score (29%) is not massively bigger than Benn’s (20%) or Watson’s (17%). The findings suggests that it is not inevitable that McDonnell would become leader if Corbyn were to “fall under a bus”, as Ken Livingstone recently claimed. Mark Carney, governor of the Bank of England, is giving evidence to the Commons Treasury committee. My colleague Graeme Wearden is covering the hearing. Carney has not said much about the EU referendum, because he is giving evidence to the committee about that in a separate session next month, but he did say the EU referendum had contributed to the fall in the pound. Graeme reports: Mark Carney says he agrees, adding that the recent fall in the pound is partly due to the EU referendum [reminder, it hit a seven year low on Monday]. Carney addes that the Bank “will take the exchange rate as given” --[ie, it will not make predictions about the referendum result, and its impact on sterling]. And Carney said the markets were taking measures to insure themselves against the risk of sterling falling. We don’t make forecasts about the future value of the pound as part of the model, Carney says. But he then points to the recent volatility in the foreign exchange and options markets, as investors brace for the In-Out referendum in four month’s time. There have been movements, obviously, in sterling, since the timing of the referendum became clear, says governor Carney, adding: “Particularly, there has been a sharp increase in risk reversals - buying more downside protection against future falls in sterling around the referendum date as opposed to upside protection. They have spiked to levels consistent with around the height of the Scottish referendum. And they’ve been particularly concentrated against cable...the sterling/dollar options market.” There is full coverage of the hearing on Graeme’s business live blog. Alan Johnson, the former cabinet minister and chair of Labour In For Britain, has delivered a speech at the Airbus factory in Bristol. Here are the main points. Johnson claimed that two thirds of manufacturing jobs were dependent on demand from Europe. We are a trading and exporting nation and this great European market buys half of Britain’s exports.Eight out of ten of our top export markets are in the EU. That’s why our manufacturing sector needs Britain to be playing a leading role in the European Union. Just yesterday the Engineering Employers federation announced that 82 per cent of their members see no sense in the UK cutting itself off from its major market ... Two thirds of British jobs in manufacturing are dependent on demand from Europe. That’s two thirds of our manufacturing base reliant on that single market access and Britain’s membership of the EU. That’s over one and half million manufacturing jobs here in Britain. If we’re serious about gradually re-focusing our economy more towards making things, upon which there is cross party consensus we need to remain in Europe. Turning specifically to apprentices in the manufacturing sector, and I’m pleased to see some of you here today, around 50,000 apprentices depend on trade linked to our EU membership. He said that workers could lose rights if Britain left the EU. When Labour took office in 1997, we opted into something called the Social Chapter, which gave working people decent basic minimum standards, like rights to four weeks paid leave, rights for part-time workers to get the same hourly rate as full-time agency workers to be treated fairly, paid maternity and paternity leave, anti-discrimination laws, and protections when companies change ownership. There are those who want Britain to leave Europe because they want to destroy those rights. They deride them as “red tape”. They have the fundamentally unpatriotic ambition of turning Britain into an off shore, anything goes, race to the bottom kind of country where workers have few rights and little protection. He said that Labour had today registered with the Electoral Commission to take part in the referendum. In his Telegraph article William Hague offers the Conservatives a five-point plan for minimising the long-term damage to the party caused by the EU referendum. His proposals include planning a post-referendum bonding session for the party, and sacking ministers who engage in personal feuding. This second idea is surely good advice, although a strict interpretation of it could lead to David Cameron having to sack himself because his attack on Boris Johnson yesterday seemed to go beyond the bounds of policy disagreement. Here is the Daily Mail’s front page. It is also interesting to see Hague using the argument that, although the Conservative party is divided, at least that makes them representative of the country on this issue. That is exactly what Jeremy Corbyn’s spokesman said about Labour at the time of the vote on extending bombing against Islamic State to Syria. Here is Hague’s five-point plan in full. First, [Conservatives] should campaign in their spare time and keep on governing every day as the taxpayer who pays them expects them to do. The flow of policy and announcements on other subjects should not stop. Around the globe, people now acknowledge that the UK is delivering the best performance of the advanced economies. There’s a big Budget coming up and Conservatives all need to get behind it. Second, they should praise each other’s achievements, which are often considerable, even when they are opposing each other. I know from experience that this can be difficult when you momentarily want to throttle your colleagues – and since I do judo I really could have throttled them – but the armoury of a successful politician includes iron self-control. Third, it should be quietly understood that there will continue to be a place in the Cabinet for ministers on both sides of this argument, but not for those who stooped to personal attacks or stoked a feud. So even if the result is to stay in the EU, the talented minister who argued eloquently for leaving should know he or she will have a good job in the Cabinet; the minister who criticised their colleagues should know their future role is being the new special representative to warlords in the Khyber Pass. Fourth, Conservatives ought to remember, and occasionally point out, that at least their party does represent the national dilemma and debate on EU membership. MPs in other major parties seem to have stopped thinking about Europe. Not a single initiative on this subject has emerged from them in years. My final point may seem one of detail, but I suggest it bearing in mind that even elected representatives are human. At key moments in the last twenty years, Tory MPs have gone off together for “bonding sessions”. They should do that in July, when they can sit at the bar with tales of the battles they fought against each other, cordially reunited. And they can do so bearing in mind that they represent our governing party, and one to which there is absolutely no alternative. Angela Eagle, the shadow business secretary, has announced that she is setting up a business and enterprise advisory council. It will be chaired by Anthony Watson, president and chief executive Officer of Uphold, a cloud-based financial services company, and it will meet quarterly to “develop ideas and to help recalibrate Labour’s relationship with the business community”. The names of further members will be announced in due course. Eagle said: I am delighted to launch this new business and enterprise advisory council which will assist Labour in reaching out to and building partnerships with the business community as we seek to devise workable and deliverable policies that provide the solutions to the pressing issues impacting business and industry. The reference to “workable” policies seems to be an implicit reference to the idea that Jeremy Corbyn floated in his speech to the Fabian conference in January to stop firms paying dividends if they don’t pay the living wage. Eagle was not consulted about the proposal and later publicly criticised it a a policy that “does not actually work”. Several newspaper headlines focus on the Conservative infighting over Europe this morning, and so it is appropriate that William Hague, the former foreign secretary and former party leader, is appealing for unity. In his Telegraph column he says the party is more evenly split on this issue than it was in the 1990s and that, if ministers and MPs handle the referendum campaign badly, the divisions could harm the party for a generation. There will now be a fierce and hard-fought campaign. Polls will swing wildly and, bizarrely after last year’s debacle at the election, still be taken seriously by commentators and stock markets. Utterly contradictory statements about the economy and our national security will be made by members of the same government. Yet in four months it will all be over. The British people will be voting. They will do so with their customary common sense and realism as they always do – a view to which I still subscribe despite having sometimes been on the wrong end of that realism. As they go bleary-eyed back to work on 24 June, will leading Conservatives still all be able to work together ... Politicians can sometimes surprise people with their ability to fall out and do business with each other simultaneously. I have taken part in several party leadership elections where those who promised their votes to all sides were found out because campaign managers shared their notes with each other as soon as the votes were cast. Quite often, candidates for leadership have formed strong working relationships afterwards, as Margaret Thatcher and Willie Whitelaw showed. But equally, a sustained battle within a party can open wounds that take a generation to heal. Just look at Blair and Brown and the wreckage they left behind. What can Conservatives do to avoid that fate? Europe will probably dominate the news again today, but there are other stories on the go too. Here is the agenda for the day. 9am: Alan Johnson, chair of Labour In For Britain, gives a speech. 9.45am: Lord Thomas, the lord chief justice, gives evidence to the Commons justice committee. 10am: Mark Carney, governor of the Bank of England, gives evidence to the Commons Treasury committee. 10.30am: CND holds a press conference ahead of its anti-Trident demonstration on Saturday. Morning: Cameron holds a Q&A with workers about the EU referendum. 2.15pm: Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, the Metropolitan Police commissioner, gives evidence to the Commons home affairs committee. I will be covering the Cameron event in detail but as usual I will also covering other breaking political news as it happens, as well as bringing you the best reaction, comment and analysis from the web. I will post a summary at lunchtime and another in the afternoon. If you want to follow me or contact me on Twitter, I’m on @AndrewSparrow. I try to monitor the comments BTL but normally I find it impossible to read them all. If you have a direct question, do include “Andrew” in it somewhere and I’m more likely to find it. I do try to answer direct questions, although sometimes I miss them or don’t have time. Alternatively you could post a question to me on Twitter. If you think there are any voices that I’m leaving out, particularly political figures or organisations giving alternative views of the stories I’m covering, do please flag them up below the line (include “Andrew” in the post). I can’t promise to include everything, but I do try to be open to as wide a range of perspectives as possible.
Meet the refugee campaigning against Trump: 'This is what America looks like' Few of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s policies have divided voters like his views on immigration. And as his promises to deport undocumented workers and build a wall with Mexico come under ever greater scrutiny, one US labor union is fighting back. Starting on Tuesday, AFL-CIO, the largest US federation of labor unions, will start airing ads on social media starring executive vice-president Tefere Gebre, to back up a mail campaign in battleground states about what it means to be an American and an immigrant. It’s unlikely to win over Trump or his supporters, but that’s not who Gebre or AFL-CIO is looking to reach. Gebre describes himself as a quadruple threat in Trump’s world. “I happen to be a black man, a refugee, an immigrant and a labor leader,” he said. The dynamic of this election gives some people a sense that some things are more “American” than others and Gebre wants to correct that. “My belief is that no one is more American than I am. I thought that people need to hear that,” he said. After escaping Ethiopia as a child, Gebre came to the US. In his role at the AFL-CIO he has traveled across the country sharing his experience. In addition to discussing racial and economic justice, Gebre helped lead the union’s effort to naturalize immigrants across the nation so, come November, they can go out and vote for the America that welcomes everyone. In 2013, there were about 8.8 million legal permanent residents who were eligible to apply for US citizenship. According to Pew Research Center, applications for naturalization increased 13% between October 2015 and January 2016 with a quarter of a million immigrants applying to become citizens. “We are processing hundreds of thousands of people to become citizens and go to the ballot box and, one way or another, tell Donald Trump what they think in response of what he thinks of them,” said Gebre. The America that he imagined as a child in Africa was one where if you worked hard and applied yourself to what you wanted to be, you could achieve your dream. “The America that I know is the America that values me for who I am and sees me as a human being instead of a refugee or an immigrant or as ‘other’. That’s what my America looks like,” he said. Even at the Republican convention, there was talk of immigration, Gebre points out. As he listened to Mike Pence, Trump’s running mate, “talk about his immigrant mother and get teary eyed about it” Gebre got thinking about other first generation Americans living in the US and what Republican policies would mean for them and their families. “They praise the immigrant spirit that built this country and in another breath they talk about building a wall and us being either terrorists or moochers in this country. I think that is very unsettling to just watch,” he said. Last week, Nigel Farage, the British politician who lead the UK Independence party’s (Ukip) campaign in favor of Britain leaving the European Union, came to the US to stump for Trump. Just like Trump, Ukip scapegoated immigrants and refugees for the country’s problems and to create a division among working class voters, said Gebre. “They played on people’s emotions, they played on people’s fears,” he said. “Believe me, it’s not just Donald Trump. Globally, there is this nationalism that is running rampant that is dangerous for working people.” Gebre says he’s not the only person who feels this way. “It’s not just me. It’s millions of people in this country. My belief is that someone like me has to stand up and say this is my country. And I am not even going to get into a discussion that someone who was born here is a better American than I am,” he said. “The more people realize that, the more people feel like they don’t have to be in a shadows and live in a fear of nativism.” Despite that, there are some things “worry the hell out of us”, said Gebre. “I have lived through strongman, I have lived through people who say they can fix it,” he said referencing his childhood in Ethiopia. According to him, Trump is stoking fear and offering himself up as “panacea” to the things that he says are “invading” the country. Yet the one thing that is uniquely American is that everyone is welcome here. Immigrants have built this country and for two centuries have been coming here and calling the US their home. “It doesn’t matter if you came in bondage as a slave into this country or you came generations ago as Eastern European to build cities like Chicago or New York. Or you were Chinese and built railroads in this country. Or a modern day immigrant who make our beds and clean the offices and build our highways or the refugee engineers remapping the country,” said Gebre. “That’s who we are and that is the sense of this country and that is worth fighting for. That is worth really speaking up for.” That is why he hopes that people will go and vote this November. “The battlefield in this country is not picking up arms or anything like that. We have a battlefield that is a polling place. The AFL-CIO and all of us are doing whatever it takes to make sure that the voices of working people and the voices of people that one imagines don’t look like Americans actually go to the polling place say: ‘This is what American looks like and I am fighting my battle at the ballot box.’ That’s what we do as Americans. We come together and at the ballot box on a given Tuesday and we express our concerns. That’s what we are trying to do.”
America isn't more racist. It's just shouting it instead of whispering Much ado has been made about how America appears to be stuck in a new era of politics marked by a shockingly ugly racial climate. It’s generally thought to have begun in the Obama years, reflected by the Tea Party surge into Congress in 2010 and represented now by Donald Trump’s wild popularity. Racism, the story goes, has gone from something kept in the dark margins of society and generally frowned upon to something regularly shouted from rooftops with pride. But racial disparities have existed in healthcare, education, poverty rates and on almost every other structural level for as long as this country has existed. Since when is saying something racist more of a problem than maintaining racist structures? Is a climate only “shockingly ugly” if it puts words to shockingly ugly realities that are already here? A recent CNN article explores the newly “erupted” white frustration with nonwhite ethnic groups, particularly black and immigrant communities, through a series of interviews. Regarding Barack Obama, for instance, the article states: “Many Trump supporters say he can’t be trusted, he cares more about the welfare of black people than whites and he’s inflamed racial divisions in the country. Others say they’re convinced that he’s Muslim.” It’s not hard to read between the lines to see how this frustration is based not in response to how Obama threatens to privilege black people or Muslims, but on the idea that the supremacy of this almost entirely white group of supporters is being challenged. It is not a lack of racial divisions they want, just a lack of divisions that do not benefit them. And that sentiment was already present. Yes, it’s true that more attention has been drawn to blatant displays of racism, but attention is necessarily skewed by whatever is popular in the moment. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, hate crimes stayed fairly stagnant from 2004 to 2012, and the number of hate groups have actually fallen in recent years, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. Though relatively higher now, black unemployment rates have almost always been twice that of white rates. All this stayed constant through this “new era”, which also saw interracial relationships and their supporters continually increase and a black president reelected with substantial white support. The question, then, is not whether there has been an exacerbation of racial tensions, but rather: why are so many only paying attention now, and are they really paying attention to the things that matter? Neither Trump nor his supporters’ nasty rhetoric exemplify the most obvious way racism is currently expressed in America. This era’s dominant form of racism is still best epitomized in the disregard – or (feigned) surprise – that it remains. It is in only 16% of white Americans agreeing with the statement that a lot of racism still exists. It is in 63% of white football fans believing that a black player is not a victim of racism when called a thug for celebrating similarly to how his white peers do without being defamed. It is in how, right now, we frame the conversation about racism in American politics as represented by Trump as “shocking”, “new” or somehow vastly different than any previous iteration, when it is merely a different color lipstick for the same ugly pig. The truth is white America’s silence around racism is no longer working. Organizations like Black Lives Matter and the Movement for Black Lives refuse to let it, shining light on all of the issues it would prefer to ignore. In its place, a resistance to that challenge to pay attention gains traction. It is reminiscent of the blatantly racist political response to Reconstruction after the civil war, but it is only more of the same. Nonwhite communities have felt and challenged racism throughout, while many well-meaning white peoples’ only concern has been to cover it as much as possible, because the only other alternative would be the much more difficult task of destroying it. Trump and his supporters disturb well-meaning white people not because they are racist, but because they do not bother to hide it. Otherwise, Trump’s white opponents would be just as disturbed with how racism has wreaked havoc on this country as with its ascendance into undisguised political rhetoric.
The new alcohol limits are a smokescreen for governmental inaction “Information wants to be free,” declared the writer Stewart Brand 30 years ago, and it seems its wish has largely been granted. But information has always been an important political tool, and just because recent UK governments don’t abuse it quite as brazenly as dictatorships, that doesn’t mean they have given up wielding it as a weapon. It might seem an odd time to worry about this in a country where state-delivered information is increasingly provided by independent sources, such as the chief medical officers and the Financial Conduct Authority. Both have come under fire in recent days, accused of doing the government’s bidding. But the abuse of information by governments is rarely as crude as an order from on high or overt pressure to falsify it. As a result, it often goes unnoticed. Indeed, information is often distorted without anyone deliberately twisting it. Scientists and statisticians often serve the interests of their paymasters, without any corruption or incompetence. Experimenter bias is a well-researched phenomenon that shows that even people of the utmost integrity and good intentions are swayed in their judgments by various factors, including who pays them. That is why it was such a scandal when Andrew Wakefield failed to declare that his research linking autism and the MMR vaccine was largely funded by people seeking to establish the connection. So when people such as the chief medical officer for England, Sally Davies, and the acting chief of the Financial Conduct Authority, Tracey McDermott, insist they have not been influenced by the government, you don’t have to question their sincerity or professionalism to doubt them. That might help explain the egregiously selective use of evidence behind the new alcohol consumption guidelines. The health evidence expert group advising the chief medical officers seems to have based its findings only on studies connecting alcohol consumption with specific risks or benefits, concluding that the proven links to harms are greater than those to gains. However, it has ignored the numerous meta-surveys that have concluded that moderate drinking improves general health and life expectancy compared to being teetotal. Hence according to one such major study, drinkers are only at greater danger than non-drinkers once they are downing more than 4-5 units a day. New, stricter guidelines may lack scientific credibility but they suit the agenda they are being used to support. These new guidelines are not just information for people to take or leave, they provide advice we are being urged to follow. Given the stress on the importance of evidence, this is baffling since guidelines just don’t work as public health interventions. Even the chief medical officers admitted that the behavioural expert group advising them “found little evidence regarding the impact of any guidelines in changing health behaviours”. Similarly, four years ago the science and technology select committee reported that “the government views the guidelines as a tool to influence drinking behaviour when there is very little evidence that the guidelines have been effective at this”. If this government really wanted to tackle the harms caused by alcohol abuse there are several things it could do, such as following the advice in the report Health First, prepared by researchers at the University of Stirling two years ago. You will find no calls to issue advice on consumption limits among its top 10 recommendations. Instead, it advocates a minimum unit price, the banning of advertising and promotions that encourage drinkers to buy more, and a reduction in the legal drink-driving limits. This is, as they call it, a genuinely “evidence-based alcohol strategy for the UK”, aimed at reducing the truly harmful forms of excessive drinking. There are similar ways to tackle many other public health problems, such as those caused by sugary drinks and lack of exercise. We need smart taxes, limits on deceptive advertising and manipulative marketing, and proper investment in affordable municipal health and fitness facilities. That, however, requires more government action and stricter limits on corporate power, neither of which this government is keen on. So in place of effective interventions we have information and advice, all presented as though it were nothing more than objective, non-politicised science. Far from bringing helpful clarity, information is being used as a smokescreen to cover up the government’s wilful inaction, which serves corporate interests rather than the public good. There is a reason why the saying is knowledge – not information – is power. To be truly empowered we need both to better understand the information we are given, and to realise that the biggest abuses of information concern how it is used, not how it is gathered.
Weyes Blood: Front Row Seat to Earth review – a voice to still slavering beasts The deep, pure, Karen Carpenter croon of 28-year-old Californian Natalie Mering could still slavering beasts, and the pristine chamber pop of her third album sets it in a gentle, 70s singer-songwriter world seemingly untroubled by the present. Listen closer, though, and crisis is all around. “The dystopian is just what it is now,” Mering said recently, and these songs move from the personal pain of a breakup – Seven Words, with its sentimental organ, heartbeat pulse and clouds of choral glory – to the planetary pain of environmental disaster and our Snapchatting detachment from it: “Y, O, L, O… it’s not the past that scares me/ Now what a great future this is gonna be,” despairs Generation Why. The apocalypse has found its smoke-voiced sibyl.
Chelsea 2-2 Tottenham: five talking points as Leicester win title 1) Eden Hazard makes true on his promise What a cruel way for Tottenham to concede the title. The pubs across Leicester will not have cared but, of all players, it had to be Eden Hazard who sealed it. Mauricio Pochettino put his hand to his face as Hazard curled in the equaliser with eight minutes remaining, a brilliant finish to hand Leicester their first league title despite being 5,000-1 shots with the bookmakers at the beginning of the season. Hazard scored twice against Bournemouth last week – his first goals since May last season – and said along with Cesc Fàbregas after that match that he would like nothing more than to end Tottenham’s title hopes. He did not start here but came on for Pedro at half-time and did very little until curling a shot precisely past Hugo Lloris in the closing stages. A decisive impact to crush Tottenham hearts. 2) Will clubs face retrospective action? This was a tempestuous and ill-tempered match and both clubs could be punished by the Football Association in the days to come. There were two brawls of major significance, the first coming at the end of the first half when Pochettino decided to intervene in an attempt to stop Danny Rose and Willian coming to blows. That resulted in a mêlée but there was further controversy to come at the final whistle. With Chelsea having shattered Spurs’ title hopes, tension was high. As the players walked towards the tunnel there was more pushing and shoving, with both coaches in the thick of it and Fàbregas ushered towards the dressing rooms. Guus Hiddink said afterwards that most of the insults were in Spanish, while Pochettino refused to criticise his players for their conduct. However, both Spurs and Chelsea could face FA charges of failing to control their players. 3) Did Mousa Dembélé poke Diego Costa’s eye? When Pochettino decided to jump in and separate Danny Rose and Willian shortly before half-time, all hell seemed to break loose for a few moments as tensions rose rapidly inside Stamford Bridge. Blue and white shirts came running towards the dugouts from all areas of the pitch and, amid the chaos of players and coaching staff jostling and shouting, Dembélé and Costa were involved in an altercation. One moment that was caught by the TV cameras but not seemingly seen by the officials was Dembélé’s hand thrust into the face of Costa. It looked like an attempt at an eye poke from the Belgian and an incident that could potentially result in retrospective disciplinary action for the Belgian. With Dele Alli already out until the end of the season following his punch against West Bromwich Albion’s Claudio Yacob, losing Dembélé to suspension would be another major blow for Tottenham. 4) Harry Kane performance not enough Amid all the deserved recognition for Leicester City’s stunning individual performances this season, Harry Kane’s remarkable campaign has not been celebrated as it might. Kane was named in the PFA Team of the Year but, with Riyad Mahrez winning the PFA Player of the Year award and Jamie Vardy the football writers’ equivalent, the Tottenham forward has missed out on the top gongs. In another year Kane could have swept the board and there has not been a season quite like this from an English centre-forward in recent memory. Here he scored his 25th Premier League goal of the season with an exquisitely timed run and composed finish in the first half, but it was not enough. He bullied John Terry and Gary Cahill at times but could not quite lead his side to victory. 5) Officials have their hands full This was always going to be a frenetic match played at a high-octane pace and, for the referee, Mark Clattenburg, and his assistants, one that required a sharp eye with the world watching. Clattenburg was certainly lenient early on and it was remarkable that the first booking came in the 27th minute. A further 11 followed, nine in all for Spurs, which is a Premier League record for a single team. Clattenburg decided not to sanction Pochettino for stepping on to the pitch and it is pertinent to wonder whether he could have done anything differently, or perhaps the stakes were so high and the animosity between the clubs such that this was always going to be a fiery match. One key, correct decision was assistant Jake Collins’ to rule Harry Kane onside for the opening goal.
The Darkest Universe review – a lovely oddity The follow-up to their acclaimed feature debut, Black Pond, sees directing duo Will Sharpe and Tom Kingsley reunite on another offbeat oddity that combines piercingly funny observation with unashamed weirdness. Sharpe, who also co-wrote the film, stars as Zac, a city banker in the throes of a breakdown as he searches for his missing sister, Alice (Tiani Ghosh). It’s episodic and fractured, but this tale of romance and loss is really rather lovely. It’s also very amusing: Zac’s marriage proposal to his girlfriend is perhaps the most catastrophically awkward moment of botched intimacy I have seen this year. Zac’s website footage is deftly incorporated into a film that reveals its hand satisfyingly slowly.
Zack Snyder: new Batman v Superman trailer is not a super-sized spoiler Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice director Zack Snyder has promised fans that the new trailer for his highly anticipated superhero smackdown doesn’t spoil the final film. The latest promo for Ben Affleck’s debut as the caped crusader has attracted criticism for appearing to reveal a good chunk of the movie’s storyline, including the first meeting of Henry Cavill’s Clark Kent, Affleck’s Bruce Wayne and Jesse Eisenberg’s Lex Luthor. The trailer also appears to show that Batman and Superman eventually resolve their conflict, leading to a scene in which the pair team up with Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman to battle a greater foe. One reader, responding to a blogpost on the new trailer, wrote: “That was literally the entire story condensed. That’s not a trailer – it’s the highlights package. Even played in scene order. What possessed them? This was basically Batman vs Superman until they team up with Wonder Woman and fight Doomsday. Thanks – I know the plot and the beats at which this changes. Great.” But Snyder, who also directed 2013’s middling Superman reboot Man of Steel, said there was plenty more to come in the film. “I have the benefit of seeing the movie,” he told MTV. “It’s cool that [fans] think it’s too much, and I appreciate people not wanting to know, but there’s plenty that they don’t know. There’s a lot of movie that’s not in the trailer.” The film-maker also hinted the trailer did not tell the full story about the new Luthor, who is expected to be the film’s main villain. “In the trailer, of course he comes across in a very specific way,” said Snyder. “In the movie, he’s like a million times more sophisticated than what you get in 30 seconds. But that’s also the fun of it. You go to the movies so you can see the context and understand the depth.” The director, also known for the excellent Watchmen and not-so-excellent Sucker Punch, confirmed that he was wary of spoilers while working on the trailer. “You design the movie as a story that evolves as you watch it, so moment-to-moment [you’re thinking], ‘Oh, my God, what’s going to happen next? Are they gonna live? Are they gonna die?’ So you want that experience for the audience, as much as you can,” he said. “I want people to see the movie without knowing.” Rumours abound that Dawn of Justice will feature the classic Superman supervillain Doomsday, as well as Luthor. The movie, the first film of an ambitious 10-movie slate centred on the DC Comics universe from studio Warner Bros, will hit US and UK cinemas on 25 March.
Jesse Eisenberg: ‘Do you look at me and think, God! What an indulgent prick?’ From across the park, a low-pitched, adolescent chant starts up: “Jess-EE! Jesse-Eisen-BERG!” “Ooh, no,” Jesse Eisenberg says, dipping his head. The 32-year-old actor, a New Yorker most of his life, is living in London at the moment while he appears in a West End show. On a thickly warm afternoon, we wander into a park in east London that seems ideally deserted until a local school clears out for the day, sending a dozen teenagers our way. Quickly they recognise Eisenberg, from the spring blockbuster Batman v Superman, in which he played the villain Lex Luthor, as well as 2010’s The Social Network, in which he put in an Oscar-nominated performance as Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. They heckle with glee: “Jess-EE! Face-BOOK! Super-MAN!” Eisenberg quickens his pace along a path heading towards a wooded area. “Maybe if we just keep walking?” he wonders. “Maybe if I don’t respond to my own name?” But the chanting gets louder and, glancing back, we see the kids have begun to follow. “Ooh, no.” Eisenberg is also a writer. He has a book of short stories to his name, many of them first published in the New Yorker, and he has written and starred in a trio of plays, the latest of which, The Spoils, has brought him to London. Without wanting to malign either profession, Eisenberg is perhaps more obviously a writer, in terms of his manner and appearance, than an actor. He speaks rapidly, mutteringly, in great long paragraphs full of observation and introspection and drollery and doubt, generally frowning at the floor while he does so. He’s bony, hunched, handsome in an undernourished-looking way – inconsistently shaved, today, and wearing a faded T-shirt that he keeps skittishly tucking into his jeans, then tugging loose again. Tuck. Untuck. I recognise the gesture, I tell Eisenberg, as we walk. He was doing it on stage last night in The Spoils, portraying the twitchy protagonist Ben, a wealthy, idle Manhattanite who slowly alienates his friends by being socially ungovernable. “Oh-oh-oh this?” Eisenberg says, tucking in the T-shirt again, then untucking it. “Oh! The shirt’s too long, maybe, I don’t know.” As an actor, he has a Dustin Hoffman-like repertoire of tics (lip flutters, fingertip taps, muttered half-laughs) that he uses to hint at his characters’ internal disorder. At a screening of Eisenberg’s new film, Now You See Me 2, a sequel to the 2013 action-comedy about a gang of adventuring magicians, I spotted a new addition to the repertoire. Eisenberg, playing the gang’s token neurotic, kept convulsively squeezing his sides with his hands, like someone operating a bicycle pump. I’m surprised, I tell him, to see these gestures carry over into real life. “I guess we all do… things,” Eisenberg says, lamely. Unsatisfied with this answer, he continues: “I’m in the spirit of The Spoils, I guess. I have one foot inside my character. This is an unusual day for me.” He means being outdoors, scurrying along a tree-lined path trying to evade a pack of junior stalkers. Curtain up on tonight’s performance is a few hours away. “So normally I’d be sitting at home right now,” he says. “Kind of doing nothing, but thinking about the show.” Is that healthy? “It’s not. We’re only doing a short run of The Spoils for that reason. Because I find doing plays totally consuming, in ways that don’t feel sustainable. I worry about the show from the moment I wake up. The only calm I have in my day is after it’s over.” When I ask how long that calm tends to last, Eisenberg calculates for a moment and says: “Maybe 10 minutes?” Before we meet, I expect to feel a degree of affinity with Eisenberg. We’re both Jews, inveterate mumblers, the same age and, despite a difference in height, similar in appearance. (The first thing Eisenberg says, when we shake hands, is, “You’re like me. But stretched.”) As it turns out, it takes a half-hour of disorienting conversation before I can get any sort of handle on his strange rhythms of speech, his spiralling patterns of thought. He has a tendency to subject his words to instant examination, sometimes offering an overlaying commentary on statements just made. On worrying about his play: “I probably do this, unconsciously, in an attempt to create meaning in a show I’ve already done 100 times.” And on worrying about things such as this: “I don’t think I gain much from being able to describe my own unconscious needs manifesting consciously – that’s probably not necessary. I don’t think humans were doing that when they were hunting.” He calls all this “articulating my meta-experience”. It isn’t always clear when Eisenberg is teasing and when he’s not. If his mannerisms are evocative of Hoffman, his chat is more Woody Allen, a wry, tireless patter, the world a quarter amusing and three-quarters appalling. His jokes rely as much on tone and context as content, and as such are easily missed. When the warmth of the summer afternoon suddenly breaks, for instance, and an absurdly heavy rainstorm soaks him through, Eisenberg gasps: “What’s going to happen to us?” When we make for the nearest tree, sheltering under it, the actor looks at me and says, “If this was a movie, we would kiss.” When the teenagers who have been patiently trailing us take cover under a tree of their own, he eyes them and mutters: “I feel like we’re going to be accosted. I feel like we’re going to be attacked.” I ask what he was like, at their age. He frowns. “The best moment of my childhood was when my friend told me I was ‘as funny as Steve Urkel’. [Urkel was a character in the US sitcom Family Matters.] I’m serious. Because until then I never thought of myself as funny. I thought of my older sister as funny. It was, like, the first time anybody validated that for me.” His father is a sociology professor, his mother teaches dance, and used to take bookings as a professional clown. Jesse, with older sister Kerri and younger sister Hallie Kate, grew up artsy, first in New York and then in New Jersey. Kerri acted from a young age in Broadway theatre, and Jesse did, too. For a while, he was an understudy in A Christmas Carol and later had a small part in a Tennessee Williams play. “And I was not good in any of it. I was just there because my sister was doing it, and I wanted to be with her.” He wasn’t doing so well in mainstream education at the time. Eisenberg never fitted in at junior school, he once told an interviewer at the New Yorker, and for a period refused to go. He later told GQ magazine that, as a seven-year-old boy, he “cried every day” in class. Things got better when he transferred to a school in Manhattan that specialised in the performing arts. “Acting school was a safe environment,” he says now. Though he does not name any condition more specific than “anxiety” in conversation with me, Eisenberg has in the past spoken about his treatment for obsessive compulsive disorder. (“I’m on a strong regimen of pills,” he said in 2009.) His better short stories play around with characters in therapy, or in therapy-like situations. In one story, an uncle is pushed to greater self-understanding by a young nephew who asks one question: “Why?” In another, a patient visits a therapist who talks only in sports cliches. Eisenberg once suggested that he gravitated towards playing anxious characters because he couldn’t be sure he’d come over any other way on set. “I need to stay busy,” he tells me. “Otherwise I go a little nutty.” Happily, he has been in work since he was 16 and cast in TV sitcom Get Real. At 18, he sold his first screenplay to a Hollywood studio. (The movie, “a shallow but well-crafted commercial comedy”, as Eisenberg describes it, was never made.) That year, 2002, he appeared in an indie film called Roger Dodger, in which he impressed as a naive, virginal youth who was tutored in the ways of picking up women by an older lothario. In 2005, when Eisenberg was in his early 20s, he came to wider attention as the excruciatingly precocious Walt, teenage son of divorcing parents in Noah Baumbach’s muted comedy-drama The Squid And The Whale. Both these characters, force-marched into maturity by the reckless adults in their lives, were pitiable, but Eisenberg made room to explore their callowness and unpleasantness, too. When was the first time he thinks he got it right, I ask – really nailed it as an actor? “Uh. Uh. Uh.” Eisenberg stamps his feet, considering carefully. “Well, I did this movie once, called Holy Rollers. It was about a Hassidic Jewish kid who becomes a drug dealer…” Holy Rollers was released in 2010, so Eisenberg has briskly written off about a decade of screen work: not only Roger Dodger and The Squid And The Whale, but Adventureland (2009), a strange and brilliant indie in which he played a young amusement park employee. Eisenberg explains: “Holy Rollers was the first time I felt like I was acting for myself. Not the people that hired me.” He isn’t sure he did anything really special as an actor again (“working at my creative best”) until he was in Richard Ayoade’s drama The Double, in 2013, cast in a double role as identical-seeming office workers, Simon and James, who chase the same woman, played by Mia Wasikowska. What about The Social Network? His performance as Zuckerberg was so persuasive, I thought, that it’s now hard to think of the reclusive Facebook founder without elements of Eisenberg’s fictional portrait coming to mind: the constant, robotic misunderstandings with friends and colleagues; the moment when his glassy-eyed belligerence finally gives way to fear as he’s violently confronted by a co-founder. I agree with the New Yorker’s critical take: “an indelible performance”; but not so special to Eisenberg? “The Social Network was just a bigger movie,” he says, “with more specific expectations. And so, as an actor, you’re more conscious of those expectations, and it necessarily feels less personal. Even if it’s of a high quality, which of course that was, you just feel like it’s impossible to have that real connection.” When he was cast as the sinister technologist Lex Luthor in the new Superman movie, an announcement made back in 2014, fans might have had his stellar work as a sinister technologist in The Social Network in mind. They responded warmly to the appointment. Expectations ran high for months, but when Batman v Superman was released this March, it proved a distressing mess: overlong, charmless, with Eisenberg’s role not much more glorifying than anyone else’s. Something had gone wrong in his performance, I thought. Where his Zuckerberg was brilliantly shifty, his Luthor seemed only smarmy, annoying instead of dramatically aggravating. Though Batman v Superman wound up making a lot of money, critics absolutely hated it. Eisenberg tells me he didn’t read the reviews or the surrounding commentary. But he must have been vaguely aware of the kicking the film took? “Uh, that film, I succeeded and failed in that film years before it came out.” Eisenberg means during production, when he was shooting his scenes. “At the end of the day, if I felt like I accomplished what I wanted to accomplish with that character, then it’s a success.” One of his co-stars, Jeremy Irons, recently acknowledged Batman v Superman wasn’t up to much. Whether from a greater sense of diplomacy, or an acknowledged tendency to be self-absorbed, Eisenberg takes a more personalised view. “Why would I worry,” he wonders, “about the specific gripes people have with something I do that is for myself?” He says that the only critic he cares to listen to is himself. “What other person looks to a consensus for how to do their job?” I say a lot of people do. “Well, that’s unfortunate.” Eisenberg agrees there’s a measure of self-protection in his way of thinking. Some years ago, he was in an independent movie called The Living Wake. It had a perfect script; filming was thrilling and satisfying; then he saw himself in the trailer and thought, “Oh, shit, I’ve ruined it.” Eisenberg didn’t watch the final version on its release in 2007 and hasn’t watched any finished movie he’s been in since. “I realised I didn’t have to. That it was a totally unnecessary part of the experience.” Is he really not curious? “The curiosity,” Eisenberg says, “is outweighed by my terror.” Still trapped under the tree, with the rain not letting up yet, we discuss other matters. Brexit (he’s intrigued, particularly by the immigration debate, the flavour of which he recognises from home). American basketball (he’s devoted). At one point, he idly wonders why the kids who have been following us all afternoon are “wearing little suits” – in New York that would usually indicate they go to a private school, which they don’t – and then he describes how his parents drilled into him and his siblings the outsize importance of social causes. “It was totally understood, growing up, that we should support people who are struggling. This was not debatable – in my family, no one talked about, you know, the value of lower taxes. We talked about the value of education, of social security, of universal healthcare.” Was it a strange choice, in that case, to pursue a career in entertainment, rather than something more tangibly useful? Eisenberg points out that, just before coming to the West End, he spent four months volunteering at a domestic violence shelter in Bloomington, Indiana. While there, he collaborated on a fundraising campaign with the University of Indiana and raised $500,000, enough to pay off the shelter’s mortgage. “I would say this is a very clear example of using entertainment, or at least using a by-product of entertainment, in this case public notoriety, for something that’s more directly related to social justice.” Why that particular shelter? Why Bloomington? “I was there for, like, personal reasons. For reasons I don’t want to bring up in an interview.” This statement, of course, proves too enigmatic to ignore, so afterwards I do a bit of investigative Googling. When the Indiana Daily Student wrote about Eisenberg’s work at the shelter in April, it described charity worker Anna Strout, whose mother is executive director of the shelter, as Eisenberg’s girlfriend. The two were a couple in their 20s; in 2011, Eisenberg told an American magazine that Strout was the only woman he’d ever been on a date with. In 2013, they appeared to have separated, and Eisenberg was pictured on dates with his The Double co-star, Mia Wasikowska. For a couple of years, the two were photographed every so often in cafes and airports, but neither actor ever confirmed or denied the relationship. I ask what it was like, as a socially uneasy individual at the best of times, to be subjected to paparazzi attention during that period. Eisenberg grimaces, shrugs. He compares it to the fact his dad teaches at a college campus that’s five hours from the family home. “Jarring, but it means he gets to do this thing he loves. The moment I complain about the totally disproportionate relationship between the wonderful perks I get [as a public figure] and the minor inconveniences that I’m tasked with encountering, is the moment I hope somebody slaps me in the face.” Take being interviewed, Eisenberg says. “The whole context of what we’re doing right now is vain for me. But all of our lives have unusual circumstances. And you learn to live with those circumstances.” Without warning, he twists his head in my direction and tumbles out a long, messy question of his own. “When I’m talking to you, and I can sometimes see your reactions, and I’m trying to gauge your reactions, do you look at me and think, ‘God! What an indulgent prick’? Or do you look at me and think, ‘This guy is smart and he thinks about what he does’? I ask because I wonder how I sound. Because nobody ever tells me to shut up.” I say I think it must be tiring, being him. He sniffs a laugh. “I know my circumstances are the luckiest circumstances that have existed since, y’know, the dawn of civilisation. I recognise that in an intellectual way. I just still put a lot of pressure on myself. When I think about the kind of luck I have, of not only being born in America, but being able to do the things that I want to do, it feels pretty stupid to feel anxiety.” He tugs at his T-shirt. The heavy rain has started to ease. The schoolkids, inching closer, dashing from tree to tree, now step into the drizzle for a bolder approach. “So the kids are coming,” Eisenberg says. He reminds himself, at the last minute, to be nice (“I should be nice”). Then he turns to face them. The scene that follows is a little strange at first and, in the end, rather lovely. “Oh, hi, hi, hi,” he says, bombarding the arriving group with questions before they can say anything. “You made it over here? You literally followed me? Don’t you have things to do? What are your lives like? Do you want to come underneath here? You go to school here? Were you walking home? Where does everybody live? Around here? Do you like it?” For a moment, the kids are silent, dumbstruck. What are our lives like? Then, all at once, they respond with giant smiles and cries of, “Oh my days!” and they surround Eisenberg to shout brassy questions of their own. For 10 minutes, under dripping shrubbery, the kids and the movie star interrogate each other. What are you doing in London not Hollywood? (“I don’t know!”) Why are you all wearing funny little suits? (“We don’t know!”) Can you really get out of handcuffs like the magician in Now You See Me? (“Yes! Don’t try it.”) Who’s the best at drama? (“Me! Me! Me!”) They discuss Brecht, whom the kids have been studying. They discuss Hitler, same. One of the boys, hovering near the back with a basketball in hand, says to Eisenberg, “Sorry for following you around. Sorry if we made you feel weird.” He replies, simply: “I always feel weird. This is no different.” • Now You See Me 2 is released on 4 July. The Spoils runs at Trafalgar Studios, London SW1, until 13 August. Buy tickets from theguardianboxoffice.com or call on 0330 333 6906.
Can Euro 2016 unite European culture where politics has failed? By the time the UK finally votes in the referendum on 23 June, one pressing European question will already have been answered, because on 22 June the group stages of Euro 2016 will be complete and the fates thus far of England, Wales and Northern Ireland will be known. Not since England were beaten by West Germany in the quarter-finals of the 1970 World Cup, four days before polling, have the football and electoral timetable coincided so closely. Harold Wilson thought that both the appalling weather and the sour mood that followed that game contributed to a lower than expected turnout in the general election, which in turn furnished a wafer-thin victory for Edward Heath and the Conservatives. Might another disappointing run for England see fans, the majority in favour of Brexit in the polls that have been conducted, stay at home? Or could a blatant injustice perpetrated by a continental referee send them out in droves? Though football is unlikely to have such a direct impact on the referendum result, it is some measure of the metaphorical and cultural significance of the game that Gordon Brown should come to preface his most significant intervention in the debate with the rhetorical question, “When Europe is the peak of ambition in football and we compete so ferociously to get there, why in other spheres of British life do so many seek to reject it?” The reasons “we” reject Europe are complex, but in football it is now transparently clear that gaining fourth spot in the Premier League and entry to Europe’s Champions League is, in terms of both status and finances, infinitely superior to winning the FA Cup. As the TV ratings and social media numbers for the Uefa Champions League and the Euros attest, no popular European cultural phenomenon comes close to football in engaging the British public. There has been no official pronouncement by the FA or the Premier League, but there is certainly quiet consternation among those members of the football establishment who have thought about the legal and financial implications of Brexit on player visas and recruitment. While these lines of thought suggest a real and rare engagement with European issues on the terrain of football, they are, as with much of the Brexit debate, achingly parochial and limited in their horizons. In the last decade, the entire European project has been convulsed by intersecting economic, social and political crises. The global financial meltdown of 2008, and its local variant, the Eurozone crisis, have led to a prolonged period of austerity, slow growth and widening inequality. The already fragile state of race relations across Europe has been made considerably more complex and charged by the explosive growth of migration that has – among other things – followed the Syrian civil war, and the proliferation of jihadi cells and actions within some of Europe’s minority communities. The ensuing political crisis has seen a pervasive level of public disenchantment with elites. The centre-right and centre-left parties that have ruled much of Europe for many of the last 60 years have taken the brunt of the electoral damage, opening up space for parties of both the far right and far left, ultranationalist and regional secessionists, many of them deeply sceptical of the European project. So while Euro 2016 will be the first European football championship to be held during a state of emergency, it is unlikely to be the last. Declared in the aftermath of the Paris attacks of November 2015, which included an attempted suicide bombing of the France-Germany match at Stade de France, the state of emergency has recently been extended to cover the football. Police report that the Belgian jihadis responsible for the March attack in Brussels were planning their own assault on the tournament. Just last week Ukrainian police announced that they had arrested a frenchman with a huge cache of arms on the Ukrainian/Polish border, who was suspected of planning terorrist attacks in France. Consequently, nearly 80,000 state security personnel will be supplemented by 15,000 private security guards and a 10,000-strong military reserve, trained to deal with catastrophic bomb attacks on the fanzones and chemical warfare in the stadiums. It is interesting to note that while the official and commercial zones for outdoor viewing will be going ahead, secured with tens of millions of euros of additional funding, no one else will be allowed to hold their own unofficial outdoor events or screenings. Such is the fate of public space in an era of asymmetrical warfare. The place of football in European culture wasn’t always so central. Prior to the second world war there was some international football in Europe, especially among neighbours, and dozens of cross-border football migrants, but in a continent riven by war and the struggles between democracy, fascism and communism, there was little appetite for a European-wide football organisation or tournament of any kind. Modern European football only began in 1954 with the foundation of Uefa, with French administrators in the lead displaying the same transnational ambitions and ideas that were shaping the parallel creation of the European Economic Community. In both cases, Britain stood aside as successive Conservative governments dithered over whether to join the EEC, while in 1955 league champions Chelsea were offered the opportunity to participate in the first version of the European Cup – now the Champions League – but declined. Once outside of Europe – both the EEC and the European Cup – entry became an obsession for British governments and clubs, alike. Celtic and Manchester United were, in defining moments in the clubs’ and their cities’ mythologies, crowned European champions in 1967 and 1968. When the UK finally joined the then EEC in 1973, the occasion was marked by a football match at Wembley, where “the three” (Britain and fellow new members Ireland and Denmark) took on “the six” (the EEC’s core founding nations). A decade of considerable success in Europe for English and Scottish clubs was then terminated by the Heysel disaster at the 1985 European Cup final, after which English clubs were banned from European competition. It was considered not merely shameful but a fatal blow to the nation’s footballing competitiveness. In the last 20 years, as the game has assumed its contemporary hypercommercialised form, European football has – for the biggest and richest clubs, at any rate – acquired a significance akin to access to the single market; continental methods and style have been deemed superior, and the presence of continental coaches and players has become the norm. The British are not alone in telling these kind stories about themselves. Across the continent, significant parts of the public and the media, as well as politicians and social commentators, consider participation in European competition by both clubs and national teams barometers of the nation’s health; which in turn is just the tip of a vast iceberg of political and cultural meaning attributed to the game. Indeed Tony Judt, in Post War, his epic account of European history since 1945, claimed that “what really united Europe was football”. United is perhaps not quite the right word, for football also continues to be a place for the expression of difference, division and contempt, but that in itself is proof of the game’s role as powerful public theatre. In the immediate aftermath of Chancellor Merkel’s decision to open Germany’s borders to refugees last autumn, the German football public responded by displaying huge “Refugees welcome” banners in every Bundesliga ground. It was a show of solidarity backed by numerous initiatives, using football as a tool of integration. By contrast, in Poland a month later fans of Silesian Wrocław unveiled a 20x30 metre banner headed “While Europe is flooded with an Islamic plague”, beneath which a crusading knight, the club’s crest on his shield, wielded a broadsword against three boats aiming to land on the European continent: the USS Bin Laden, USS Hussein and USS Isis. A second banner below, in medieval Polish script, read, “Let us stand in defence of Christianity”. It was a show of enmity backed by many Polish football fans in far right, anti-migrant and Islamophobic politics. That football should occupy such a place not just in national cultures but in an emergent European culture is a notion that the founders of the European project would have found hard to comprehend. Having survived the moral wasteland of two world wars, they had little truck with cultural definitions of Europe that made it the inheritor of classic antiquity or the enlightenment. The notion of Europe as a new Christendom failed to convince even the many pious Christian Democrats who gravitated to the European ideal. Overwhelmingly lawyers, diplomats and politicians, theirs was a Europe bound not by culture and belief, but by the rule of law, the practical compromises of pooled sovereignty, shared markets and institutions, and the powerful material forces of growth, technology and prosperity. Even when they did acknowledge the need for a European identity and shared mental space to give meaning and legitimacy to the institutions they had created, it was with a very narrow sense of the cultural. As Robert Schuman, French foreign minister and architect of the EEC, argued: “Before being a military alliance or an economic entity, Europe must be a cultural community in the most elevated sense of the term.” It was a level of elevation that stretched to student exchanges and opera tours but was unlikely to include sport, let alone football. It is their and Europe’s loss, for while their narrow tastes served to generate a modicum of esprit de corps among European elites, created networks of European universities and research institutes, and helped support European classical music – not least through the general acceptance of Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” as Europe’s anthem – they have singularly failed to generate a widespread, popular sense of Europe itself or even a space in which it might be imagined. The literary and cinematic canons are irreversibly divided by language, and confined to a narrow stratum of readers and viewers. The de facto emergence of English as the language of international communication has made matters worse. Popular music, unencumbered by problems of literary translation suggests more fertile soil and, indeed, as a televised European spectacular, football’s only competitor is the Eurovision song contest. While it has done wonders in creating LGBTQ-heavy transnational networks of kitsch and subversion, and its judging has laid bare the power blocs and shameless horse trading of European politics, it has done little to nurture any wider European musical style, taste or market, accurately reflecting the deeply fragmented, parochial and perennially awful state of most European vernacular pop. All of which means football is a rare cultural space in which a progressive, inclusive and popular idea of Europe can be elaborated. A decade ago when the European economy was still booming and the newly expanded European Union – although still unloved by the public – appeared a model of regional cooperation and supranationalism, European football appeared to reflect and nurture many of the best features of the continent. It still does. Since the 1950s, it has been able to offer a more expansive and inclusive vision than most other European projects, taking in from the very beginning not just the western European core of the EEC but everyone from Ireland and Iceland in the west to the Soviet Union and Turkey in the east. Football could certainly be cast as an economic sector in which Europe is a winner in relation to globalisation, able to use its technical and financial edge to draw players, investment and audiences from around the world, win five of the seven World Cups held since 1990 and, in the Champions League, play football of unparalleled quality, variety and sophistication. Above all, football showcased the dynamism and interconnectedness of European civil society at a level below the nation state, for the game is a contest between the cities and urban regions of the continent. Furiously competitive and technically brilliant, it benefits from the high level of specialised education and training, openness of labour markets, and the ease and speed of knowledge and technology transfer. At the level of governance, and certainly when by compared with Fifa and other continental football confederations, European football appears relatively uncorrupt and sensibly regulated, its commercial priorities tempered at least by some measure of social democratic redistribution among the richest and poorest nations. Finally, while there was a long and unpleasant streak of ultranationalism and street violence running through the history of European football, the early 2000s – especially in the 2004 European Championships in Portugal and the 2006 World Cup in Germany – were remarkable for their fabulous displays of benign and carnival nationalism. Much of this still holds, but on the other side of the global financial meltdown, a much more fractious and occasionally ugly Europe emerges. The contrast could hardly be sharper for the hosts, France, who won the 1998 World Cup with a diverse national team that came to stand for an integrated multi-ethnic nation. In the years since, this image of both the French national team and the nation itself has been repeatedly tested. Instead, the new faces of multi-ethnic European football are the Germans, the Belgians and the Swiss, whose squads all reflect their now complex mosaic of migrants and ethnicities: North African and Congolese Belgians, Nigerian, Turkish and Polish Germans, and a Swiss team so overwhelmingly made up of second-generation migrant kids that after a referendum in 2014 that approved significantly tightened migration laws, opponents posted a picture of the Swiss national team without them – it was reduced to just three players. While nationalist and nativist political parties and movements are gathering strength in western Europe, they are some way behind their central and eastern European counterparts. As the Polish crusader banner suggests, the football culture of the region is a toxic brew of open racism, xenophobia, antisemitism and Islamophobia. Of course, the involvement of football fans with far right groups is not confined to lands east of the Elbe. Neofascists have been the leading force among Italian ultras for decades and old school football mobs were the leading lights in the English Defence League. Spanish, Swedish and German clubs have harboured neo-Nazi and fascist support. Moreover, there are enclaves of resistance in the east, such as the leftwing ultras of the Czech side Bohemians and the brave souls who run CSKA Moscow against Racism, but they are few and far between. Much more representative are the football politics and cultures of the many national teams from the region that have qualified for Euro 2016. The distinction between football and politics has almost entirely collapsed in Viktor Orbán’s Hungary where, surrounded by a small coterie of allies who played five-a-side football with him 30 years ago, the prime minister’s authoritarian nationalism has made the revival of Hungarian football – a shadow of its once-great former self – a central object of government policy. Despite a terrible squeeze on public spending, dozens of stadiums across the country are being remodelled or rebuilt, including one in Orbán’s home village that is more than large enough to seat its entire population. Last November, while desperate migrants poured through Budapest, Orbán watched the national team play Romania in a Euro 2016 qualifying game that saw neo-Nazi nationalist groups from both countries attack refugees in the street and each other in the stadium while chanting a range of antisemitic, anti-Roma and Islamophobic abuse. Both countries were forced by Uefa to play subsequent qualifying games behind closed doors. That is no guarantee of anything, however, as the Croatian Football Federation found out when the national team, punished for racist chanting during a game against Norway, played Italy in an eerily empty stadium. There was no repeat of the chanting, but a swastika, marked out on the pitch using a chemical spray, was clearly discernible on television. As for England, matters of ethnicity and nation, integration and racism are hardly settled, but its unambiguously multi-ethnic football team has served for almost two decades as an almost unique national institution around which the increasingly tricky question of Englishness could be thought about. For Wales, who last qualified for an international tournament in 1958 when there were still 120,000 people working in the coal-mining industry, the national team offers an alternative imagined community to that evoked by rugby union, its aura still sunk deep in the valleys of industrial south Wales. Northern Ireland’s team, meanwhile, although cross-tradition in composition, is almost entirely supported by Protestant unionists, with Catholic nationalists and Republicans, alike, long opting to support the Republic instead. Europe beyond the EU will be well represented at Euro 2016. The three giants on the Union’s eastern flank – Russia, Ukraine and Turkey – will all be present, though none are in particularly good footballing shape. Turkey, who scraped into the tournament, are increasingly reliant on Turkish-Germans, trained in the immeasurably superior German academy system, opting for Turkish footballing citizenship. Ukrainian football, like everything else in the country, has been divided and ravaged by war – a quarter of the top division’s clubs have been expelled from the east of the country and are forced to play in temporary accommodation in the west. Russia presents a different optic, where a galaxy of oligarchs and para-state institutions – from Lukoil to Gazprom – now own the game. Russia’s great power status will be gilded by staging the 2018 World Cup. Associates of the president, Roman Abramovich included, regularly cover the costs of the national team and its expensive foreign managers. Gazprom, the country’s largest conglomerate, spends millions sponsoring local clubs and the Champions League. While football has become increasingly enmeshed with political realities, it appears to have entirely escaped economic ones. In this regard it is perhaps best thought of as a variant of the financial sector. While almost every other economic indicator has been plummeting, the incomes of players and coaches – who, like bankers, are a tiny and highly internationalised pool of workers – climb relentlessly upward. The Premier League, in particular, has seen a step change in its income as it, above all leagues, has reaped the benefits of a football-hungry, globally networked audience. At every level, already significant economic inequalities are widening and sharpening: between the Premier League and its peers in Spain and Italy; between the biggest clubs in Europe and those in the second rank; between leagues in big countries; between the big countries anda the increasingly marginal medium size and small football nations; between the professional game and the grassroots. If this speaks to some of the macro-changes in the European economy, the prevalence of corruption and match-fixing, tax evasion and the people trafficking of young players reflects its large and enduring grey zones of criminality. Euro 2016 has two outliers, states institutionally outside the mainstream of Europe and unlikely to enter it any time soon: Albania and Iceland. In football, at any rate, they offer a glimpse of two European political responses to these intersecting problems. Albanian participation in European football has been erratic. In its post-cold war incarnation, communism has been replaced by ethnic nationalism as the leading ideology, and the Albanian football team has served as rallying point for the wider Albanian diaspora - most problematically located in Kosovo. During a Euro 2016 qualifier, a small drone bearing the flag of Greater Albania was flown on to the pitch, sparking a series of brawls among players, fans and match officials and the abandonment of the match. Amazingly, Uefa rewarded this act of provocative ultranationalism by designating the game a 3-0 win to Albania and punishing the Serbs for their own lapses of control. Given the readiness of the French security apparatus, a similar stunt at the Euros is likely to be met with a volley of surface-to-air missiles. The rise of Icelandic football is a reminder of what a different but distinctly European society can produce on and off the pitch. With a population of just 325,000, the country has qualified for an international tournament for the first time, beating Turkey, which has 250 times its population, on the way, and moved in the world football rankings from 131st to the 34th. All this in the wake of a catastrophic financial meltdown that saw the country bankrupt and excluded from international capital markets. The sources of Icelandic success are multiple. The real energies to invent a process of change and development came from below, among football players, coaches and fans perennially disappointed by the state of the game. In the era of easy credit, Iceland spent heavily and wisely on dozens of heated indoor football centres, making year-round training, playing and competition possible for the first time. Participation rates are astronomical, by both genders and across all ages, yielding not only a bigger talent pool, but the powerful charismatic collective energies of a grassroots football mania. Above all, Iceland believes in education, and has almost as many Uefa-accredited coaches as there are in the whole of England. Two of the things that the EU was once meant to stand for were the strength of its social solidarities and the generosity of the welfare states that helped nurture its capacity to invent and sustain public projects for the public good. Iceland qualifying for Euro 2016 is hardly the manifesto we need for imagining an egalitarian, democratic, social Europe, but, given the limits of what is currently on offer, it is good to be reminded that such projects are possible at all. • David Goldblatt’s The Game of our Lives: The English Premier League and the Making of Modern Britain is out in paperback, published by Penguin.
Fences review: Denzel Washington and Viola Davis set to convert Tonys to Oscars Ever since August Wilson’s play first premiered 33 years ago, a movie version has been mooted. Soon after it won the Pulitzer back in 1987, Eddie Murphy was lined up to play the lead – Troy, a former baseball star working as a garbage collector in 50s Pittsburgh – with Norman Jewison behind the camera. But Wilson put his foot down: there was no way it would be directed by anyone who wasn’t black. The project fell through and the play stayed on the stage. Revival after revival met with acclaim, but Wilson held firm, continuing until his death in 2005 to insist on a black director, and to voice upset at the danger and injustice of how, in cinema at least, “whites have set themselves up as custodians of our experience”. Wilson spoke those words in 1990. But it’s a sentiment that resonates today, as awards season rolls round again and with it the risk of another #OscarsSoWhite debacle – the backlash which met a total absence of acting nominations for anyone of colour for two years running. Fences is a film which – alongside Moonlight, Hidden Figures and (perhaps) Birth of a Nation – will help ensure that doesn’t happen this time round. Our director is a relative novice: Denzel Washington, making his third movie behind the camera, aged 61. You can see why he picked the project: this is essentially a transfer of the 2010 Broadway revival which won he and co-star Viola Davis Tony awards, and which she – as Troy’s wife, Rose – is guaranteed to convert into Oscar gold come February. (He’ll probably have to make do with just a nomination.) Two other graduates of that production have been brought along too: Mykelti Williamson as Troy’s brain-damaged brother, Gabriel, and Russell Hornsby as Troy’s eldest son, Lyons. The actors aren’t the only thing to have been co-opted. Although (backyard excluded) no two scenes take place in the same bit of their house – and even a couple off-property – the aesthetic is still inescapably stagy. Vestiges of greasepaint are everywhere, from the carefully assembled period props to the entrances and exits, especially those involving Gabriel, whose tragicomic histrionics, wielding a broken trumpet and warning about St Peter, fail to feel organic in a way film demands. Washington’s movie – almost music free, completely dutiful to Wilson’s work – lies somewhere between the stabs at cinema in John Wells’s August: Osage County and the full embrace of the stage that has made live-streamed plays so popular lately. (But just remember: those have intervals. Fences does not.) Yet immersive cinematography and widescreen escapism is not the point here. This film is conceived as a showcase for its performers, and, as that, it is immaculate. Washington has played a lot of rotters, but Troy is surely his least vain role to date. He begins irresistible, holding court for Rose and best friend Bono (Stephen Henderson) in the backyard, a few swigs of gin down – ebullient and mesmeric, deep sweetness cancelling out that hint of bitter. He’s a rascal but loyal with it; a tough father to younger son Cory (Jovan Adepo), but with justification (Troy’s monologue about his own upbringing is a tour de force of hard-earned self-pity). The action ambles along engagingly until a mid-play revelation which, by dint of how much it must change your opinion about this man in whom you are now invested, hits the audience almost as hard as it does Rose. What was a flawless if inessential piece of works turns into something of terrible force and portent. It also gives Davis a chance to unleash something close to magical anger, underpinned by a terrible grief. Washington’s charisma crumbles before your eyes: he is suddenly weak and pitiful, a grotesque rather than an aspiration. What’s slightly distracting is his age – at 61, the actor is nearly a decade older than Wilson intended, and the motives of the awful actions are muddied by what must be his imminent retirement. And although one admires the loyalty of bringing along most of the cast, the same ageing issue does hobble certain moments. “I’m 36!” protests Lyons at one point, unconvincingly. None the less, Fences offers meat for moviegoers hungry for chewier fare after their turkeys (it’s released in the US on Christmas Day). Would Wilson be pleased? A black director, extraordinary performances, as faithful an adaptation as you can imagine. He’d be ecstatic. Fences opens on 25 December in the US; 3 February in the UK
Wonga losses more than double The controversial lender Wonga saw losses more than double in 2015 as tougher regulation of the payday loan sector led to a sharp fall in the number of loans taken out by UK consumers. The UK’s biggest payday loan firm reported a pre-tax loss of £80.2m for the year – up from £38.1m the year before. After tax, the company lost £76.5m, versus £43.6m in 2014. Although the firm has interests in other countries, its UK short-term lending arm is at the heart of its business, and in 2013 customers in the UK accounted for 3.8m of the 4m loans it granted. The drop in revenues, to £77.3m from £217.2m in 2014, was driven by a fall in lending following the introduction of stricter criteria at the end of that year and the new price cap for payday lenders at the start of 2015. Across the business the number of loans taken fell to 2.1m. The losses contrast dramatically with the huge profits made by the firm before the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) took over regulation of the sector two years ago. It limited the number of times loans could be extended and how many times lenders could attempt to recover repayments from borrowers’ bank accounts. Months after the FCA intervened, Wonga was embroiled in scandal for sending out fake legal letters to struggling borrowers and cleared the overdue debts or charges for 375,000 people at a cost of £220m. The firm said the process of refunding the affected customers was “broadly complete”, but £10m remained aside for those it had not yet managed to contact. In January 2015 interest and fees on all high-cost short-term credit loans were capped at a daily rate of 0.8% of the amount borrowed. Meanwhile, if borrowers do not repay their loans on time, default charges must not exceed £15, while the total cost including fees and interest is capped at 100% of the original sum. Wonga’s results show that revenues from interest fell by more than two thirds, from £157m to £46m. Despite the downward trend in revenues, the group chief executive, Andy Haste, said he expected 2016 “to mark a turning point in our financial performance”, and for the firm to return to profit next year. Since moving from the insurer RSA to take the helm, Haste has attempted to reposition Wonga as a firm for middle-class customers. He ditched the controversial Wonga puppets and relaunched the brand with new TV adverts in May 2015. Haste said: “We have made real progress towards creating a sustainable business with an accepted place in financial services. “These results are in line with the plans we put together when joining Wonga. They reflect a full year’s impact of the stricter lending criteria we implemented in late 2014, the price cap introduced by the UK regulator in early 2015, and the necessary investment we have made to transform the business. We expect 2016 to mark a turning point in our financial performance.” Haste said the new management had overhauled its approach to credit risk. Defaults at the firm fell from 7.4% to 4.4% at group level and from 6.6% to 2.8% in the UK. “We’re pleased with the progress we have made and were delighted to be granted authorisation by the Financial Conduct Authority earlier this year. “Moving into 2016, our plans included achieving UK authorisation, raising debt funding and starting to roll out new products. Having achieved these, and with further funding planned for later this year, we’re now in a position to move back into growth in 2016 and expect to return to profit in 2017.” Haste and his team said they had overhauled computer systems at the lender, which were “not fit for purpose”, and completed a redundancy programme that saw 200 people leave the business. They said the name Wonga was set to remain despite its tarnished reputation. “We’ve always said from the start that we didn’t want to simply change the name, we wanted to show that change could be implemented rather than trying to do a brandwash and run away from the past,” said Haste. “We have considered whether Wonga one day will become a product name for the kind of loans we’re doing at the moment and we have other names for other things, but we are a bit of a way off from that.”
Paula Hawkins: an unexpected ending to writer’s dark journey ‘Every journalist has a novel inside him, which is an excellent place for it,” the American art historian Russell Lynes once observed. Indeed, each week, the in-trays of publishing agents are inundated with scores of novels from newspaper hacks who believe they can make the jump to fiction. But history suggests Lynes was right. The list of journalists who make the leap successfully – enough, say, to give up the day job – is not long. For every Robert Harris or Sebastian Faulks, there’s a dozen who will fail to make much of an impact. Take Amy Silver, for example. The author of a clutch of a romcom novels with inoffensive titles such as The Reunion, One Minute to Midnight and All I want for Christmas enjoyed a decent following but not one that would have her agent eyeing up a second home in Tuscany. But what happened when her fourth novel failed to take off has now entered literary legend and given more than ample succour to any journalist wishing to defy Lynes’s maxim. Paula Hawkins, a former personal finance journalist on the Times and the European, who wrote under the Silver pseudonym, decided to retire the author and strike out under her own name exploring themes that were far darker than those of her first novel, Confessions of a Reluctant Recessionista. Perhaps she was bored with romcom. Perhaps she was just always that way inclined. “I like bad weather,” she has said. “It suits my mood.” Short of money, Hawkins fired off 30,000 words, the genesis of a book that became The Girl on the Train, now turned into a film by Steven Spielberg’s DreamWorks studio, starring Emily Blunt. Hawkins’s agent was bowled over by what she had written but the author was not convinced. “She kept saying it was going to be good, but it was one of those things when you’re not sure; it’s like your mum telling you you’re pretty,” Hawkins told the . That interview was in April, only 16 months after the book first hit the shelves. Since then, TGOTT has sold, according to a Forbes estimate in August, more than 15m copies, catapulting Hawkins into last year’s top 10 highest-earning authors. Transworld, the publisher, had initially ordered a print run of 12,000 copies in the UK. Certainly, the book’s outline would have given little clue as to its potential – the tale of a lonely alcoholic, Rachel, who has lost her job, but who, for the sake of appearances, continues her daily train commute. Few would have predicted it would go on to become Amazon’s bestselling book of 2015. It is tempting, for the sake of an easy narrative, to suggest that Hawkins’s success was achieved almost accidentally. She was clearly taken aback by the sheer scale of the book’s success. “You can tell when there’s going to be a good response, but you can never really tell when something is going to become so huge,” she told the Evening Standard. “There’s an alchemy to it that I don’t quite understand.” Transworld launched a campaign around the book at the Harrogate Crime Writing Festival in July 2014, six months before publication, with proof copies targeted at key figures in the book world. Riverhead, the US publisher, was similarly shrewd in its marketing. The Amazon-owned Goodreads website notes how some 4,000 advance reader copies were sent out to booksellers, readers and critics to build a buzz around the title long before it hit the shelves. Such initiatives are not unusual although the scale of the distribution – and its targeting – was much more sophisticated than most campaigns. One person who received the book was Stephen King who tweeted that it had “kept [him] up most of the night. The alcoholic narrator is dead perfect.” As word travelled, the buzz became a roar on social media – Reese Witherspoon posted an Instagram of herself reading the book – and pre-orders from booksellers started piling in. Published in January, a quiet month when publishing houses blood new authors before established writers bring out their summer or autumn novels, TGOTT benefited from some early favourable reviews. Hawkins, for years the one asking the questions, suddenly found herself on the receiving end of interviews and the subject of huge media attention, something that made her feel uncomfortable. “I’d been worrying for so long about my financial situation, what I was doing with my life, so I felt relief, then fear, with the realisation that when something starts to do very well, lots of people are going to read it and that makes you feel really quite vulnerable,” she explained. It helped that Hawkins had written a book that was bang on trend. Rachel’s unreliable narrator drew comparisons with Gillian Flynn’s blockbuster Gone Girl that had come out a couple of years before and demonstrated that there was a huge demand for dark psychological thrillers with strong, complex female characters. Hawkins, who was born in Zimbabwe but grew up in the UK and studied politics, philosophy and economics at Keble College, Oxford, acknowledges why people bracket her with Flynn. “There’s something about that highly flawed, messed-up female protagonist that people seem to like at the moment,” she said. But in interviews she also gives the impression that she feels the comparisons are sometimes overdone. True, both have a missing woman at their heart and paint in claustrophobic detail portraits of disintegrating marriages. But whereas Flynn’s character, Amy Dunne, is menacing, powerful, manipulative, Rachel Watson is almost the opposite. A woman with a faltering, gin-soaked memory, she is trying to do the right thing. She is pitiable and vulnerable. At one stage, in a line that has provoked much attention, Rachel acknowledges: “Women are still only valued for two things – their looks and their role as mothers. I’m not beautiful and I can’t have kids, so what does that make me? Worthless.” Rachel is also conventionally, aspirationally suburban, a peculiarly British type of character perhaps. Whereas Amy has a psychopathic hatred for small-town Missouri to which she has been forced to decamp from a vibrant, intoxicating New York, Rachel has a fascination with those whose homes she passes on her daily commute. It is a fascination that many British commuters will recognise, not least Hawkins herself. “I commuted into the centre of London every day, and I used to sit on the train,” Hawkins, 44, told Time. “For parts of the journey, I would go quite close to people’s homes and I always liked that – being able to see inside people’s houses and imagining what those people were like. And then I was sort of idly wondering what one would do if one saw something shocking.” Playing around with a character’s perspective is as old as the thriller itself, in book or film. One of its most celebrated exponents is Alfred Hitchcock and it is no surprise that Hawkins cites him as an influence. “I was going for a slightly Hitchcock-style atmosphere,” she told Time. “I did want that feeling of paranoia, self-doubt, suspicion.” Perhaps this explains the book’s appeal. In Rachel we see a woman out of control. But we also see ourselves. Some feminist critics took issue with how Hawkins (and Flynn) depicted the abuse of women. And some readers carped that they saw the twist coming from far off. But many echoed Stephen King who tweeted, TGOTT is a “really great suspense novel”. Whether the book’s millions of readers will warm to its depiction on the big screen remains to be seen. A pulchritudinous Blunt will make for an interesting Rachel. The twitching curtains of suburban London have been replaced by the river towns of upstate New York. There is, apparently, a lot more sex. Hawkins has had no creative control over the film, which is probably just as well as she has needed the time to polish her follow-up novel about which little is known other than it may be “gothic-tinged” and about sisters. Inevitably, expectation is huge. Transworld is allowing impatient readers the chance to sign up online to receive the first chapter. It’s yet another confirmation of just how far Hawkins has come in such a short space of time. Born Paula Hawkins, 28 August 1972, in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), before the family moved to the UK. Studied politics, philosophy and economics at Oxford, and worked as a personal finance journalist for the Times. Best of times This August, she entered the Forbes top 10 highest-earning authors on the strength of the first novel written under her own name, The Girl on the Train. Worst of times A run of romantic comedy novels, written under the pseudonym Amy Silver, failed to catch fire. What they say “Hawkins juggles perspectives and time scales with great skill, and considerable suspense builds up along with empathy for an unusual central character who does not immediately grab the reader.” The “Hawkins’s first thriller is well-written and ingeniously constructed – perhaps a bit too ingeniously… But the portrait of Rachel as a chronic drunk who might just save herself by playing detective is memorable.” The Washington Post What she says “I think people have got a little bit tired of a trope of a beautiful dead woman on the first page of a novel. It’s more the psychology of crime going on. They don’t tend to be so much about violence or about bloody acts.” This article was amended on 4 October 2016 to make it clear that Transworld is the UK publisher of The Girl on the Train. Riverhead is its US publisher. It has sold 15m copies worldwide so far, not, as we said, 11m.
Metronomy: Summer 08 review – old-school funk brilliance After the slight misstep of 2014’s inconsistent Love Letters, Summer 08 marks a return to form for the Devon auteur Joseph Mount, and a slick change in direction. Where Love Letters had a scattershot approach to genre, encompassing 60s psyche and Motown, this time Mount focuses tightly on funk-infused pop. Sinuous and slinky, old-school nods to Prince at his most lascivious (“I love sex and I love dancing”), while elsewhere there are moments of genuine pop brilliance, not least the hookup with Robyn, Hang Me Out to Dry, and Night Owl. It runs out of steam towards the end – Summer Jam is as aimless as the name suggests – but overall this is almost a match for 2011’s wonderful English Riviera.
Elton John: Wonderful Crazy Night review – T-Bone Burnett adds nuance Thirty-two albums in, you probably know where you stand on Elton. The fan’s need-to-know is that songs like the title track, Looking Up and Guilty Pleasure find John and band rolling in jaunty, vintage mood. But even Elton-sceptics can take solace in how producer T-Bone Burnett continues to improve the veteran piano man by filling the interstices of his work with detail, rendering songs such as the rather good Claw Hammer at least 43% more nuanced. Although no one sounds quite like Elton John, that sound sometimes feels smug. And when lyricist Bernie Taupin puts sexy drivel in the mouth of the sexagenarian father-of-two (“Ice cubes on the back of your neck”), it’s enough to have you praying for the dawn.
Florida poised for another election-day cliffhanger as voters head to polls Polling sites across Florida saw steady streams of voters on Tuesday as the state that led the nation in early voting prepared to once again become the pivot on which the election could swing. Long lines formed soon after daybreak at churches, senior centers and libraries in Miami-Dade County and even a giant car dealership in Broward County, pointing to a high election-day turnout to follow the record 6.4 million who have already voted early. Only the smallest sliver of daylight separated Donald Trump from Hillary Clinton, a virtual dead-heat in Florida’s final polling of a bruising presidential campaign foreshadowing a possible election-day cliffhanger to add to the state’s long history of close finishes. The Republican nominee held a narrow 0.2 percentage point advantage over Clinton as campaigning drew to a close on Monday for the crucial swing state’s 29 electoral college votes, according to the Real Clear Politics average of polls. Among the early voters in Florida on Tuesday was Eddie Cruz, a 39-year-old law enforcement officer, who brought his daughter Grace, eight, to the polls in Coral Springs on her day off from school “as an education”. “Her and I will be having a conversation after,” said Cruz, who wouldn’t reveal who he voted for but said it was “for the lesser of two evils” after fact-checking the candidates. “It’s definitely been contentious and sometimes I have to turn the television off because I don’t want the kids to hear what they’re saying. “But it’s over tonight and we don’t have to hear it. I just hope whoever takes office will be conscientious with our safety as well as with people’s rights. Others voted at the giant Rick Case car dealership in Davie, where staff cleared dozens of cars from the showroom to make room for polling booths. “We have to keep Trump out of the White House,” said Maria Hernandez, a 24-year-old Cuban American voting with two friends. “Florida has to show the country we don’t want this offensive madman.” Trump made his final pitch during an appearance in Sarasota on Monday, telling Florida voters to “dream big” and warning it was their “one magnificent chance to beat the corrupt system”. But it was Clinton, who opted to skip final-day campaigning in Florida and concentrate instead on other battleground states of Michigan, North Carolina and Pennsylvania, who probably emerged the more confident. Early voting returns released by election officials on Monday showed that about one half of the state’s eligible voters, 6.42 million of a 12.86m registered electorate, had already cast a ballot, and that 976,000 of them were from generally Democratic-leaning Hispanic voters, about a third of whom had never voted before, according to analysis by University of Florida political science professor Dan Smith. This surge in the Hispanic vote, up more than 100% from the 2008 election, is fuelled largely by a recent huge influx of Puerto Ricans in central Florida escaping the debt crisis in their homeland. Added to a smaller but still significant uptick in early voting among Florida’s Clinton-supporting black voters, reversing a perceived loss of enthusiasm last week, and her clear advantage over Trump in the state’s minority voting meant things “ain’t pretty for The Donald”, Smith wrote in his blog. “The Florida Hispanic vote is going to make history in the 2016 election cycle, not only by sending the first woman president to the White House, but also for many other candidates. I see a lot of congressional seats going Democratic,” Vivian Rodriguez, president of the Democratic Hispanic Caucus of Florida, told the . “We’ve been working for this very moment. We’ve been going to these communities, we’ve been knocking on those doors, we’ve been phone banking. Our educational platforms tell people the importance of voting. We’ve been getting out the vote. “Trump is the reason Latinos are coming out to vote. How can you elect a man as president who doesn’t respect any community?” Joe Biden and his wife Jill were tasked with the Democratic party’s last-minute rallying in Tallahassee on Monday, following a visit from Barack Obama to Kissimmee on Sunday and a rain-shortened appearance in Broward County, the Democratic party’s Florida stronghold, by Clinton the day before. The vice-president told an audience at the historically black Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University that a victory for Clinton here would probably put her in the White House. “How Florida goes, the country goes,” he said, pointing to the state’s near-perfect record of backing presidential election winners over the last half-century, and urging the college’s black voters to turn out in force on Tuesday. “It’s up to the African American community. If you turn out in the same percentages we absolutely, positively win,” he added, warning that a Trump administration would slash grants to students and colleges. Florida’s Republicans, however, are unfazed by Clinton’s slight advantage after the closing of early voting on Sunday night. As the election day polls opened on Tuesday, only 88,012 more Democrats had voted than Republicans from the 6.42m already cast. “We’re feeling confident. In 2012 we were down by about 104,000 votes, so we feel very good where we’re at right now,” Blaise Ingoglia, chairman of the Republican party of Florida, told Fox Business. “We know it’s going to be close, but we do expect Donald Trump to win this. We’re expecting the independents at the end of the day to come on for Trump.” Some analysts, however, think Republicans’ confidence in Florida’s early voting figures could be misplaced. “There’s not that many undecided voters – it’s all about the ground game and turning out the vote,” said Philip Williams, professor of political science and Latin American studies at the University of Florida. “One of the problems is they’ve cannibalized the vote,” he said. “Lots of Republicans who normally turn out on election day have voted early. Four years ago, Republicans won the election-day vote [but] Obama had a pretty nice cushion going in. Clinton’s probably winning the early vote by a smaller cushion but I don’t think you’re going to see Republicans winning by as large a margin on election day. “Florida’s always close – Obama won in 2012 by about 1%. Clinton could outperform Obama the way the early vote has gone, but there’s no blowout in Florida. If she wins by 3% that will be a pretty good win for her.”
Neneh Cherry launches The Radio Hour series – hear the show Neneh Cherry’s history with jazz runs deep: her stepfather is jazz trumpeter Don Cherry, who collaborated with the late avant-garde saxophonist Ornette Coleman, and she grew up in New York being bounced on Miles Davis’s knee and listening to John Coltrane practising upstairs in Coleman’s apartment block. The singer and style icon is best known for her breakthrough single Buffalo Stance, which lit up the tail end of the 80s with its mash-up of hip-hop, R&B, pop and dance – typical of her freewheeling approach to genre. But jazz, less the genre and more the state of mind, has threaded itself throughout her career. Most recently she delved into her roots on 2012’s The Cherry Thing, her first album in 16 years, for which she teamed up with Scandinavian skronky jazz outfit the Thing and covered her stepfather’s track Golden Heart. Her last solo album, 2014’s Blank Project, meanwhile, harnessed beat poetry, avant-electronica and improvisational post-punk energy. To launch the first show in the new, weekly Radio Hour series on NTS Radio, Neneh talked to the Guide’s Kate Hutchinson about the wide-ranging nature of jazz as a rebellion that runs through all genres and its presence in the music she loves. Joining the dots between post-punk and dub-reggae to hip-hop and beyond, Neneh played tunes from the likes of Jayne Cortez, Vivien Goldman, Madvillain and, of course, her step-father Don Cherry. For full details of the tracklist head to the show page on NTS. For the next show Kate was joined by Alexis Petridis to discuss the lesser known aspects of glam rock. Get involved via @ntslive or @guardianmusic during the live broadcasts, every Friday, 2-3pm.
HSBC fined $470m for 'abusive mortgage practices' during 2008 crisis HSBC has been fined $470m (£325m) for “abusive mortgage practices” in relation to the 2007-2009 housing crisis in which millions of people lost their homes. The British bank on Friday agreed to pay the fine to settle US federal and state investigations into alleged abuses against homeowners struggling to keep up with mortgage payments during the 2008 global financial crisis. “There has to be one set of rules for everyone, no matter how rich or how powerful, and that includes lenders who engage in abusive business practices,” New York attorney general Eric Schneiderman said in a statement. “The settlement announced today is a joint partnership that will create tough new servicing standards that will ensure fair treatment for HSBC’s borrowers and provide relief to customers across New York State and across the country.” The settlement with the US Department of Justice and 49 states plus DC centres on allegations that the bank “robo-signed” thousands of foreclosure documents – leading to evictions – without properly reviewing the paperwork. As part of the fine, HSBC was ordered to pay $59.3m in compensation to borrowers who lost their homes between 2008 and 2012. The money might have to stretch very far, as there are more than 135,000 eligible borrowers in New York state alone. Kathy Madison, chief executive of HSBC Finance Corp, said: “We are pleased to have reached this settlement and believe it is a positive result that benefits American homeowners and the US housing industry. She said that throughout the crisis HSBC had “stayed focused on home preservation and approached foreclosure as a last resort option”. “This agreement affirms our commitment to assisting customers who are facing financial difficulties,” she added. The settlement also requires HSBC to change some of its policies and take corrective actions, including giving homeowners the chance to appeal foreclosures. The bank must also install an independent monitor to oversee its compliance with the settlement. The deal is similar to a $26bn settlement struck with five of the nation’s biggest banks in 2012. About 7 million Americans lost their homes during the financial crisis. It is the latest in a string of fines the US has brought against HSBC in recent years, including a $1.9bn fine for a “blatant failure” to implement anti-money laundering controls and wilfully flouting US sanctions.
Blood Orange review – soulful and sublime “Were any of you here for the Lightspeed Champion show?” asks Dev Hynes, recalling a 2008 performance under his previous moniker. “That’s the last time I was here.” Fast forward eight years and Hynes has just released Freetown Sound, his third album as Blood Orange, a deft blend of pop, soul and jazz enlivened by lyrics rendering the topical and political searingly personal. Samples from black culture abound and Hynes takes to the stage with an excerpt from one, Ashlee Haze’s passionate rendition of For Colored Girls (The Missy Elliott Poem). Answering Haze’s plea with the melancholy Time Will Tell, Hynes’s voice is emotive and his dancing dramatic. Joined for Augustine by a five-piece band – including backing singer and horn player – Hynes spins, sinks to the floor and slinks close to the edge of the stage, eliciting squeals from teen fans. Mindful of this audience, Hynes focuses on his most poppy material. You’re Not Good Enough and It Is What It Is are soulful and sublime, while guest collaborators appear for new songs: EVP features Bea1991, and Adam Bainbridge, AKA Kindness, dives into On the Line with bendy-legged abandon. But Hynes is his own best exponent, the funk-driven guitar of Champagne Coast putting him in line for Prince’s vacant crown. And although apparent microphone problems mean Hynes’s low, soft voice is often lost, when he attempts to leave without an encore the entranced crowd refuse to move. They’re rewarded with a solo rendition of All That, co-written and produced for Carly Rae Jepsen, but which Hynes humbly makes all his own.
Bitori: Legend of Funaná, Forbidden Music of Cape Verde review – rousing, accordion-based dance music Cape Verde is best known for the melancholy morna ballads of the late Cesária Évora, but that’s not the only great music on the islands. Funaná is a rousing, accordion-based style that evolved from the music of African slaves in rural communities, and was banned before independence in 1975 because the Portuguese colonialists considered the songs to be subversive. Victor Tavares, better known as Bitori, was one of the finest exponents, although the accordion star didn’t get round to recording until 1997, when he was joined by the exuberant young singer Chando Graciosa, with driving bass and drums now providing the rhythm section in place of the traditional ferrinho, a scraped metal bar. Their music became popular in urban dance clubs thanks to hypnotic, stomping songs like Cruz Di Pico or Didi Di Réz, and now these celebrated recordings are being rereleased as Bitori prepares for his first European tour.
Can news publishers take on the tech giants at their own game? The cleverest new business strategy to emerge because of the internet must be Amazon’s cloud model. Google’s AdSense probably ranks up there. It’s brilliant, too. Everyone engaged in a relationship with Google benefited in one way or another as their ecosystem expanded, advertisers and publishers alike. But Amazon’s Web Services seem to go from strength to strength in a way that media networks must surely envy. They built an incredible technology environment that makes Amazon.com possible, which is no small feat. Then they exposed their internal infrastructure for pay-as-you-go style fees on a self-serve basis to startups and eventually large enterprise customers. Companies have sold or leased their assets including real estate and financial assets to other companies for years, but Amazon found a way to capitalise on a unique asset. By selling spare capacity, their customers have subsidised Amazon’s investment in technology infrastructure that in turn benefits from future development. It’s nearly a virtuous circle. I’m reminded of this while learning more about the Washington Post’s intentions to sell their content management tools to other publishers. The platform is called Arc. Matthew Monahan is senior product manager responsible for Arc at the Washington Post. He said, “At first we were just building solutions to problems we had with existing systems. Then these things started to come together and we developed this vision that this could be a true platform. We gave it away for free to university newspapers like the Columbia Spectator to test our idea and begin getting feedback from users.” Not surprisingly, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos also owns the Washington Post. Arc or elements of it started at WaPo well before Bezos got there. In fact, tech teams within media orgs have tried to spin out their publishing tools since CMS became an acronym. But having the backing of the most successful person to pursue the model will be a real advantage for them. Every business can do this kind of thing – providing internal capabilities to others. Media is certainly full of capability, and they would be wise to profit from it. The trick is working out which things make sense to sell and how to position them. Media’s long history with content syndication is proof it’s possible. Getting ongoing fees from other publishers for content you’ve already used and paid for is a good idea. That is, if you can get money for it. Good luck with that. More recently, media organisations have set up internal marketing agencies. Custom publishing is a sensible idea because content is something the organisation knows how to do. Might as well profit as a content mercenary if you can. But selling editorial independence or the appearance thereof kills media brands. It can be a huge distraction if handled poorly. There are more internet-native ways to achieve the kinds of results Amazon and Google earned with their respective strategies. Of course, content management is basically commoditised technology now. There are many technology companies focused on it, and media companies may not have all the operational resources required to be competitive. Monahan said: “We’re going to walk before we run. With every agreement we evaluate our capability to deliver on the SLA. We have to be able to support it, so I have to be careful not to oversell it.” But media companies have advantages that pure software companies don’t. First, any media organisation with a good tech team has been customising publishing tools hand in hand with content creators for a long time. They’ve worked out real needs directly with the people using the tools. Monahan said Arc’s Pagebuilder tool was built so that developers at the Washington Post could iterate quickly along with editors and their changing needs on the newsdesk and create templates and configurable tools to use again. That process of making useful things for editors on a daily basis is unique to media organisations. Second, media organisations have real content in their publishing systems. That content could be shared with other customers and vice versa. Content sharing doesn’t come easily to publishers, but it could be used as a piece of the puzzle in a way that software companies can’t offer. Third, media organisations have readers and advertisers. A lot of them. Pooling access to them could enable some interesting new partnerships and make them more competitive against the many forces challenging the wider media industry. Again, publishers often feel very proprietary about these things and struggle to create federated networks of either audience or advertisers, much less both. Or if they do succeed in agreeing to connect their resources, they often fail to actually support the network and invest in it. Instead, publishers give inventory to ad networks and other third parties who then create those audience and advertising pools, profiting from them and sharing only a slice of the value back to the publisher. Publishers could negotiate more effectively when big changes happen in the market if they had means for steering their many resources collectively. They need to look outside their office walls and form networks that benefit everyone who participates. And therein lies the problem. Publishers tend to look inward and miss out on the internet’s greatest strengths. They fail to create the kind of bi-directional relationships with partners that Amazon, Google and other Silicon Valley platforms have mastered over the years. BuzzFeed’s outward-looking mentality offers many lessons for the rest of the media market. At the SXSW event in Austin, Texas, last month BuzzFeed chief marketing officer Frank Cooper talked about an advertising product they plan to offer as a service. Swarm will help marketers create better buzz across the many social platforms people use today. Similarly, Vox Media offers a product to advertisers called Chorus that optimises content created for a campaign and amplifies it on social platforms. They plan to push that strategy further by offering their content platform as part of the relationship with their customers. The tools these companies are offering give them a lot of leverage for future revenue. They don’t need to sell the software. Instead, it helps them do larger-sized advertising deals. Platform business strategies may not come easily to a company with broadcast traditions, but once you get through the many walls that exist between organisation there’s a lot of potential in the networks that can arise. “The friction in setting up deals with publishing partners is what keeps people from experimenting with these new models,” said Monahan. “You might be able to find a way to offer something really valuable to readers with a partner or group of partners, but you’d have to convince developers to join up and set up a joint venture. But if everyone is on the same platform it becomes a lot easier. You could build products that allow people to negotiate those deals electronically.” Media companies should focus more on creating Minimum Viable Platforms or collaborating with others that are doing it already. They ask “How high?” when Facebook and Google want them to jump. If they would stop viewing the world as a zero-sum game and work together more they might find they can create ecosystems that are even more amazing than their tech predecessors. To get weekly news analysis, job alerts and event notifications direct to your inbox, sign up free for Media & Tech Network membership. All Media & Tech Network content is editorially independent except for pieces labelled “Paid for by” – find out more here. • This article was amended on 12 April 2016. An earlier version incorrectly stated that Amazon Web Services was built using the spare capacity from the technology behind Amazon.com.
1968 and all that: how Donald Trump channels the spirit of a most violent year Younger voters were probably the most shocked by the violent televised scenes at Donald Trump’s canceled Chicago rally on Friday – and the photographs of a bloodied demonstrator which speckled the web. But older Americans know that our politics have never been more than a temporary stranger to violence, since the very beginning of the republic. For those with long political memories, Chicago was already famous as the scene of some of the most influential political violence of the last 50 years. As Theodore H White wrote in his Making of the President series: “In 1968 the name Chicago won a significance far beyond date and place. It became the title of an episode, like Waterloo, or Versailles, or Munich.” When the Democrats held their convention in Chicago in August of that year, at the height of the Vietnam war, at least 10,000 anti-war demonstrators clashed with more than 20,000 policemen, national guardsmen and regular soldiers in the streets of Chicago. And in an echo of the arrest at the Trump rally of CBS newsman Sopan Deb, in 1968, Chicago mayor Richard Daley’s “security” team roughed up reporters inside and outside the hall. On the convention floor, CBS reporter Dan Rather was punched and wrestled to the ground by a security agent. Moments later, on national television, Rather apologized to CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite: “I’m sorry to be out of breath, Walter, but somebody belted me in the stomach.” Of course, the events of 1968 were of a greater scale than those of Friday night. After four days of street fighting, there had been more than 600 arrests. The Medical Committee for Human Rights estimated that it had treated at least 1,000 demonstrators. The Chicago police department counted 192 injured officers. Democratic senator Abraham Ribicoff of Connecticut used his turn at the convention podium to accuse Mayor Daley of using “Gestapo tactics in the streets of Chicago”. At that moment, the television cameras zoomed in on the Chicago mayor. Daley’s voice could not be heard, but to millions of lip-reading Americans, it was obvious he had replied by screaming: “Fuck you!” The veteran journalist Haynes Johnson remembered the convention as “a lacerating event, a distillation of a year of heartbreak, assassinations, riots and a breakdown in law and order that made it seem as if the country were coming apart”. Now, the American political system once again seems to be careening out of control, as Donald Trump actively promotes violence among his supporters – “Knock the crap out of them, would you? Seriously. OK? … I promise you, I will pay for the legal fees.” But it may be useful to remember that we have survived much worse. In 1968, the assassination of presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy was preceded just two months earlier by the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr, a catastrophe which provoked race riots in 130 cities, requiring 65,000 soldiers and guardsmen to restore order. In Chicago, Mayor Daley ordered his police force to shoot to kill arsonists and “shoot to maim or cripple looters”; in the nation’s capital, fires and looting spread to within two blocks of the White House. Riot troops took up positions on the president’s lawn and machine gun nests sprouted on the steps of the Capitol. The president’s men worried that if the riots spread any further, the federal government would run out of troops to quell them. But 1968 offers other echoes. On the Democratic side, Minnesota senator Eugene McCarthy played the insurgent role now occupied by Bernie Sanders of Vermont. It was McCarthy’s near-victory in the New Hampshire primary on an anti-Vietnam war platform that convinced Lyndon Johnson not to run for re-election and propelled an initially reluctant Robert Kennedy into the race. The establishment doppler for Hillary Clinton was Vice-President Hubert H Humphrey, chosen to be the nominee by the party establishment even though a large majority of primary voters had gone to Kennedy and McCarthy. ‘No-fault bigotry’ On the other side of the race, segregationist governor George Wallace of Alabama anticipated Trump, embracing America’s favorite (and not-so-secret) political pornography – white supremacy. They also shared the same class consciousness: in Cleveland on Saturday, Trump opened a new line of attack against “those stupid people they call themselves the elite”. For Wallace, the enemies were judges and bureaucrats. “Pointy headed intellectuals”, in his words. Richard Nixon countered Wallace by choosing Maryland governor Spiro T Agnew as his running mate. Nixon deduced that many Americans craved a subtle stoking of unspoken prejudice that the riots of the spring had done so much to revive. Agnew was the perfect person to do that. A once liberal Republican, he had transformed his image earlier in the year with a rough response to rioting in his state. And as Trump has violated standards of decency and civility with his attacks on everyone from Muslims and Mexicans to reporters with disabilities, Agnew was famous for his ethnic slurs, referring to Poles as “Polacks” and calling a Japanese American reporter “the fat Jap”. Nixon’s selection of Agnew was just one prong of the southern strategy which is the clear ancestor of Trump’s much less veiled prejudices. Journalist Bill Grieder called it “no-fault bigotry”, which Nixon conveyed to voters through strong support for “law and order” and “states’ rights” and persistent attacks on the supreme court, then led by chief justice Earl Warren. All of this was understood as code for allowing southern states to continue to resist school desegregation, a strategy the great liberal cartoonist Herblock later dubbed “all deliberate delay”. A line runs from 1968 to the present. Ronald Reagan continued this scheme, opening his 1980 presidential campaign with a speech extolling “states’ rights” at the Neshoba County fair, just a few miles from Philadelphia, Mississippi, a town made notorious by the brutal murders of three civil rights workers in 1964. It continued in 1988 with George HW Bush’s television ads demonizing Michael Dukakis for being governor of Massachusetts when black convict Willie Horton committed a series of violent crimes during a weekend furlough from jail. ‘Not a race race’ The lineage of Trump’s prejudices is so obvious, any recitation of it in public is guaranteed to produce apoplexy in “mainstream” Republicans. That’s what happened last Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press, when Detroit Free Press editorial page editor Stephen Henderson began to recall this history, including Reagan’s speech at Neshoba. “This goes on all the time in coded ways,” said Henderson, who then turned to the ever-eruptive Republican operative Mary Matalin. “It makes you uncomfortable, too,” he said. Matalin replied: “No, it doesn’t make me uncomfortable. It just makes me want to choke you!” Matalin insisted that 2016 was “not a race race”, but Henderson held his ground. “I think there’s no question that what [Trump] is doing is appealing to race. And Republicans have done that for a long time.” 1968 was also the year that Richard Nixon invented the idea of “the silent majority” – such poorer, less-educated whites are clearly the group on whom Donald Trump is depending to propel him to the Republican nomination. Demographic trends, though, are the main reason to remain hopeful that Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders will be able to stop him reaching the White House. Appealing to white prejudice is clearly a game of diminishing returns; black, hispanic and Asian voting blocs are vastly more important now than they were in 1968. In 2012, with Barack Obama at the top of the Democratic ticket, for the first time there was higher black turnout than white – 66% of eligible blacks voted compared to 64.1% of whites. Of course, such demographic trends also explain the Republicans’ most anti-democratic impulse: the proliferation of voter ID laws throughout states controlled by GOP governors and legislatures. In the absence of any serious evidence of widespread voter fraud, the only purpose of these laws is the suppression of black and Hispanic voters. The goal, of course, is to make the voting rolls continue to look as much as possible like they used to – in 1968. Charles Kaiser is the author of 1968 in America, The Gay Metropolis and most recently The Cost of Courage.
Deutsche Bank: no reason to panic … yet If you’re a bank with a stock market value of €18bn (£15.4bn), a potential $14bn (£10.5bn) penalty is deadly serious. But Deutsche Bank’s battle with the US Department of Justice could have wider implications. It is only three months since the International Monetary Fund said that Deutsche “‘appears to be the most important net contributor to systemic risks”. Translation: the bank is so big that it could become a danger to others, not just itself. For the moment, there is no reason to panic. First, Deutsche is probably right to think that it won’t end up paying the full $14bn. It is normal for the DoJ’s claims to shrink as the two sides get into the argy-bargy of the settlement process. Second, the DoJ’s claim has not arrived out the blue. Deutsche has known for years that this day was coming because it is one of several banks – including our own Royal Bank of Scotland – still on the hook for allegedly mis-selling US mortgage-backed securities in the run-up to the banking crash. Deutsche’s pot of provisions to settle legal claims runs to €5.5bn, although the trouble with the DoJ is one of several legal scraps. Third, regulators’ post-crisis reforms are designed to deal with crises at individual banks, not prevent them altogether. Banks’ capital structures are ordered so that the riskiest bonds can be “bailed in” to provide financial support. Deutsche’s riskiest convertible bonds fell 6% in value on Friday – but that is what one would expect. Fourth, Deutsche has powerful political friends – note Berlin’s call for “fair treatment” by the US for its biggest bank. Yet the IMF’s summer verdict of Deutsche was sober. This is an underperforming bank with an identity crisis. By comparison with most other European giants, Deutsche’s post-crisis response has been slow and muddled. UBS sought refuge in its asset management business. Barclays, with the rock-solid Barclaycard in its portfolio, wants to be an Anglo-US transatlantic bank and has been steadily shedding non-core operations. Deutsche, however, has so far resisted calls to change shape, even as its capital ratios have looked thin compared with rivals’. Possible self-help plans could involve selling the retail bank, Postbank, or the asset management operation but, so far, new-ish chief executive John Cryan has opted only for cuts to costs. The strategy is credible but designed to avoid tapping shareholders for fresh capital. If the final figure from the DoJ is so big that an injection of cash becomes essential, Deutsche has a serious headache: the best time for a bank to raise capital is when it doesn’t need to, not when it is pushed into a corner.
Google’s search engine bot is dumping iPhone for Nexus 5X Did you know Google’s been scouring the web identifying itself as an iPhone running iOS 8.3? Well, as of 18 April, that’s about to change, when Googlebot dumps its Apple skin and adopts the new Nexus 5X as its mobile standard. Googlebot is part of Google’s search engine technology, which crawls the web, identifying every site and service connected to the open web that will let it in so that you don’t have to. It grabs as much information as it can, feeds it to the algorithm that produces the rankings and listings that you as a user access when you type or shout your search terms into the box. To evaluate a site’s performance for various devices, Googlebot identifies itself as certain types or classes of device. From desktop computers to smartphones, the crawler uses what’s called a “user-agent” string, which includes some of the basic capabilities of a device. For its profiling of mobile sites Google’s been using a user-agent that identifies it as an iPhone running iOS 8.3 and therefore an older version of Apple’s mobile Safari browser on a relatively small smartphone. Starting on the 18 April, Google will start identifying its mobile crawler as one of the company’s Nexus 5X smartphones running Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow. That includes the more popular Chrome, which claimed a 36% share of the market in February, leading the third-party UC Browser with 20.1% and Apple’s Safari with 18.2%, according to data from StatCounter. Katsuaki Ikegami, a software engineer for Google said: “We’re updating the user-agent string so that our renderer can better understand pages that use newer web technologies. Our renderer evolves over time and the user-agent string indicates that it is becoming more similar to Chrome than Safari.” Google reckons that the change will have no effect on 99% of the sites out there in the immediate future and the majority of search experts agree. Google recently changed to the way it ranks sites for performance on mobile devices, which had a significant impact on those not optimised for mobile devices. The switch to Android and Chrome by the Googlebot could see Google favouring sites adopting newer web technologies in the future. However, many sites including the simply ignore user agent and serve a single payload to the device, dynamically resizing and formatting depending on the screen real estate available. For them the switch will likely mean very little. Bigger is better, probably The one thing that could have a significant impact on the shape of the mobile web going forward is the appreciation of screen size. By defining itself as an iPhone running iOS 8.3 Googlebot set the standard for the mobile page for a screen size that was smaller than 5in. Apple’s iPhones had a screen size of just 4in until the 2014 release of the iPhone 6 with a 4.7in screen. By contrast, Android screen sizes have been getting steadily bigger. The majority of western devices now have screens that are at least 5in, even at the lower-cost end with devices such as Motorola’s Moto G having a 5in screen. Many so-called phablet devices such as Samsung’s Galaxy Note series and Apple’s iPhone 6S Plus have screens that are larger than 5.5in. The Nexus 5X has a screen that 5.2in and is Google’s second smartphone with a screen around 5in on the diagonal. The Googlebot user-agent change could indicate that Google has decided that the new standard for the mobile web should be 5in or larger. What effect that will have on smaller devices such as the non-Plus iPhones remains to be seen. But Google is one of the primary drivers of web standards, leveraging its dominance in search to bring sites into line with its view of how the web should work. Globally, higher-end devices with screens with a resolution of 720p or 1080p, of which the Nexus 5X is one, still only account for 7.4% of mobile devices according to StatCounter. That is likely to change in the next five years as component costs come down, although how long it takes for 5in screens to become the normal for all devices, if ever, is unknown. Google’s ‘mobilegeddon’ will shake up search results Google Nexus 5X review: the people’s Android phone? Google Android 6.0 Marshmallow review: more polished, greater control and longer battery life
Democratic platform draft includes $15 minimum wage, bank breakup – as it happened One day after the first quarterly deadline since Hillary Clinton became the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, the former secretary of state’s campaign has released its first fundraising numbers: $68.5 million for the month of June. Of the total amount raised by Clinton, roughly $40.5 million was made on behalf of her own campaign, with an additional $28 million raised for the Democratic National Committee and state parties. Donald Trump used funds from his nonprofit Donald J Trump foundation to buy a signed Tim Tebow football helmet for $12,000 at a charity auction, in a transaction that possibly violated IRS rules against self-dealing, the Washington Post reported. Using nonprofit funds for personal use is generally illegal, although the legality of the football helmet transaction is unclear, according to three tax law experts interviewed by the Post. Loretta Lynch, the US attorney general, acknowledged on Friday that her meeting with Bill Clinton this week had “cast a shadow” over the justice department’s investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while she was secretary of state. Lynch said she would “fully accept” whatever recommendations were made by the FBI and prosecutors, but sought to quell concerns stemming from the encounter with Bill Clinton, at an airport in Phoenix, reiterating that the justice department process for the email case remained wholly independent. Kevin Kellems, a seasoned political operative brought aboard the Trump campaign on 20 June to oversee surrogates and coordinate their messaging, abruptly resigned from the position after less than two weeks. Kellems was director of communications for former vice president Dick Cheney and worked on Newt Gingrich’s 2012 presidential campaign. In his resignation letter, quoted by the New York Times, Kellems said he has “enjoyed meeting some fine and dedicated people.” According to the conservative Daily Caller, former secretary of state and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton will meet tomorrow with representatives from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Up for discussion: the investigation into Clinton’s use of a private email server during her tenure as secretary of state. Citing “a source close to the investigation,” the Daily Caller reports that the interview may be conducted at Clinton’s home in Washington, DC. The interview is likely “the final step” in the FBI’s investigation. The Democratic party has released a draft of its national party platform online this afternoon. The first draft, which will be finalized at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia later this month, features a long wishlist of progressive policies, including a $15 national minimum wage, equal pay for women, a “multimillionaire surtax,” acknowledgment that the Trans-Pacific Partnership is controversial within the party and numerous other policy planks. Earlier today, Donald Trump asked a Turkish man whether he was “friend or foe” during a speech at the Western Conservative Summit in Denver, Colorado. The comments, which appeared to be in jest, were directed at a man later identified as Yusuf Serce, a journalist and columnist. One day after the first quarterly deadline since Hillary Clinton became the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, the former secretary of state’s campaign has released its first fundraising numbers: $68.5 million for the month of June. “More than 1.5 million grassroots donors have stepped up to say you’re committed to stopping Donald Trump - and to breaking the highest glass ceiling in America,” Clinton’s campaign stated in a release. Of the total amount raised by Clinton, roughly $40.5 million was made on behalf of her own campaign, with an additional $28 million raised for the Democratic National Committee and state parties. The Democratic party has released a draft of its national party platform online this afternoon. The first draft, which will be finalized at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia later this month, features a long wishlist of progressive policies, including a $15 national minimum wage, equal pay for women, a “multimillionaire surtax,” acknowledgment that the Trans-Pacific Partnership is controversial within the party and numerous other policy planks. Some of the key proposals: “We believe that Americans should earn at least $15 an hour and have the right to form or join a union. We applaud the approaches taken by states like New York and California. We should raise and index the minimum wage, give all Americans the ability to join a union regardless of where they work, and create new ways for workers to have power in the economy. We also support creating one fair wage for all workers by ending the sub-minimum wage for tipped workers and people with disabilities.” “We will fight to secure equal pay for women and - after 240 years - finally enshrine the rights of women in the constitution by passing the Equal Rights Amendment. While Donald Trump thinks it is ‘dangerous’ for women to leave the home and paid family leave hurts our economy, Democrats will make sure that the United States finally enacts national paid family and medical leave by passing a family and medical leave act that would provide at least 12 weeks of paid leave to care for a new child or address a personal or family member’s serious health issue, and we will fight to allow workers the right to earn at least seven days of paid sick leave.” “Democrats will not hesitate to use and expand existing authorities as well as empower regulators to downsize or break apart financial institutions when necessary to protect the public and safeguard financial stability, including new authorities to go after risky shadow-banking activities. Banks should not be able to gamble with taxpayers’ deposits or pose an undue risk to Main Street.” “We will ask those at the top to contribute to our country’s future by establishing a multimillionaire surtax to ensure millionaires and billionaires pay their fair share.” “We will only approve new trade agreements if they support American jobs, raise wages, and improve our national security ... We should never enter into a trade agreement that prevents our government, or other governments, from putting in place rules that protect the environment, food safety, or the health of American citizens or others around the world.” “We will continue to stand up to Republican efforts to defund Planned Parenthood health centers, which provide critical health services to millions of people. We will continue to oppose - and seek to overturn - federal and state laws and policies that impede a woman’s access to abortion, including by repealing the Hyde Amendment.” “On the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), there are a diversity of views in the party. Many Democrats are on record stating that the agreement does not meet the standards set out in this platform; other Democrats have expressed support for the agreement. But all Democrats believe that any trade agreement must protect workers and the environment and not undermine access to critically-needed prescription drugs.” “We will reform mandatory minimum sentences and close private prisons and detention centers ... We will invest in training for officers on issues such as de-escalation and the appropriate use of force, and encourage better police-community relations and the use of smart strategies like police body cameras. We will end racial profiling that targets individuals, based solely on race, religion, ethnicity, and national origin, which is un-American and counterproductive.” “We reject attempts to impose a religious test to bar immigrants or refugees from entering the United States. It is un-American and runs counter to the founding principles of this country.” “Democrats support a constitutional amendment to overturn the Supreme Court’s decisions in Citizens United and Buckley v. Valeo. We need to end secret, unaccountable money in politics by requiring, through executive order or legislation, significantly more disclosure and transparency - by outside groups, federal contractors, and public corporations to their shareholders.” “Finally, Democrats will not stand for the divisive and derogatory language of Donald Trump. His offensive comments about immigrants and other communities have no place in our society. This kind of rhetoric must be rejected.” Earlier this year, the sought out Bernie Sanders supporters who said they would rather vote for Donald Trump than Hillary Clinton. Surveys at the time suggested a small proportion of Sanders fans, 7%, were willing to make such a switch. We decided to go back to 150 of the 500 or so supporters who contacted us to see if Britain’s decision to leave the European Union had made them more or less likely to favor the Republican Trump over the Democrat Clinton. Our thinking was that the economic and political turmoil caused by the success of a campaign based on nationalistic, anti-immigration sentiment led by a charismatic rightwing leader might have prompted some second thoughts. Sanders penned an op-ed for the New York Times this week urging the Democrats to bring struggling working-class disaffected voters into the party fold rather than pushing them towards Trump. So what was this group of Sanders supporters thinking, post-Brexit? About 50 responses were received. Some said they were no longer considering switching to Trump. About half backed Brexit, half opposed it. Most of those who were still switching to Trump said they saw the Brexit result as vindication of their decision to back the Republican. Except in one case, those who opposed Brexit did not feel inspired to change their voting behavior in the wake of the UK’s decision. “[The] outcome only concretes my vote for Trump, because I think in the long run it will do us good rather than harm, just like this Brexit vote,” wrote Peter Kartachian, a 34-year-old machinist from California. “These Chicken Littles who are claiming the world is ending because of this will soon be shown to be the empty suits that they are.” In at least two cases, Brexit has flipped previously unsure voters into the Trump column. One New York woman, Janet H, who asked for her surname not to be used as she didn’t want her family to know she is backing Trump, said she’d been leaning towards the Republican candidate until his racist comments about a judge of Mexican origin led her to switch, begrudgingly, to Clinton. “Then Brexit happened,” said Janet H. Yet another Republican éminence grise has come out strongly against Donald Trump’s impending presidential nomination - this time, a former chair of the Republican National Committee itself. Marc Racicot, a former governor of Montana and chair of the RNC, has published an editorial in the Washington Post calling on “a second miracle in Cleveland” to prevent Trump’s accession to the party’s nomination, writing that the real estate mogul has “neither the aforementioned qualities of principled leadership, nor offered any substantive or serious conservative policy proposals” to merit the position. “After long and careful consideration, I cannot endorse or support [the voters’] decision to express their frustration, anger and disappointment by selecting Trump as the Republican nominee for president,” Racicot wrote. Trump, he said, has failed to demonstrate, among other things, “persistent seriousness, solemn and honest commitment to the interests of others, exhaustive study and detailed proposals, sincerity, humility, empathy, dignity, fairness, patience, genuine respect for all of God’s children, durability, modesty and the absence of self-interest.” In addition, Racicot continued, Trump’s inconsistency with the Republican platform on a myriad of issues make him unsuitable for the nomination. “Both, in my humble view, are indispensable preconditions to his selection as the Republican candidate for the office of president of the United States,” Racicot wrote. “As a result, I cannot endorse or support Trump for president.” Eternal presidential candidate Bernie Sanders is using his vast email listserv to warn his supporters about labels on genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in US food, kicking off with an email titled simply “Monsanto.” “The corporate interests are at it again,” Sanders wrote. “Monsanto, agribusiness and the bio-tech industry have spent hundreds of millions of dollars trying to overturn legislation passed by Vermont, Connecticut, Maine and Alaska that calls for the labeling of GMO food. In fact, they are moving aggressively now because Vermont’s strong law goes into effect today.” “This legislation is important because people have a right to know what is in the food they and their children eat. The more information we have, the better consumers we become. This is not a radical idea. It is why over 60 countries around the world have passed GMO labeling laws.” Most scientific reports have indicated that GMOs are generally safe, both to humans and the environment, although Sanders has dismissed studies showing this as either too short-sighted or financially backed by agribusiness interests. House minority leader Nancy Pelosi released a statement this afternoon condemning the decision by House Republicans to hold a vote on an amendment, rejected by the Senate, that fails to close what her office characterized as “the terrorist gun loophole”: “All across America, families are demanding real action to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and suspected terrorists, not a toothless NRA bill that will do nothing to keep our communities safe,” Pelosi stated. “The American people cannot understand why Republicans want it to be easier for a suspected terrorist to buy a lethal weapon than to set foot on a plane. If you’re too dangerous to fly in America, you’re too dangerous to buy a gun in America – simple as that. But a month after the worst mass shooting in American history, House Republicans are once again putting the NRA ahead of their responsibility to keep the American people safe.” Pelosi called the motion, submitted by Texas senator John Cornyn, “just the latest evidence that House Republicans have become a wholly-owned subsidiary of the NRA.” At the risk of overusing the term “shade...” According to the conservative Daily Caller, former secretary of state and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton will meet tomorrow with representatives from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Up for discussion: the investigation into Clinton’s use of a private email server during her tenure as secretary of state. Citing “a source close to the investigation,” the Daily Caller reports that the interview may be conducted at Clinton’s home in Washington, DC. The interview is likely “the final step” in the FBI’s investigation. Federal officials have already interviewed top Clinton aides, including Cheryl Mills and Huma Abedin. It’s not known when the investigation will conclude. James Comey, the FBI’s director, has repeatedly said that there is no specific timeline for wrapping it up. Maria La Ganga is inside the Western conservative summit for the – and reports that the amazing crowd Trump has been boasting about from the stage is actually quite sparse: Trump is claiming credit for Nato developing an anti-terrorism unit. “I’m not saying I’m an expert on Nato. Nobody ever asked me about Nato before. But I have a lot of common sense, and a lot of business sense.” Trump has called Nato obsolete. He says he did not mean abandon it. He said he might have meant fix it. “It’s a different world. I see things that a lot of people don’t.” Trump is on to the Bill Clinton - Loretta Lynch meeting. He questions whether the meeting was a coincidence and casts doubt on Lynch’s description of the conversation, which she said was about CLinton’s grandkids and golf. Trump also drops a little news: all of his children and his wife will be speaking at the Republican convention. “You see what happened where Bill Clinton goes into an airplane. He just happened to be at the airport,” Trump says. “It’s not a joke. It’s a serious thing... As you know, Hillary is so guilty... how that’s not being pursued properly. I think he really opened it up. He opened up a Pandora’s Box and it shows what’s going on with our laws, with our government.” Trump doubts Clinton’s presence at the airport was coincidental. And he wants to know how Lynch and Clinton spent their time together – it’s unknown how long they met for but it’s been described as a half-hour – what did they talk about? Trump says he loves his grandchildren, “but if I talk about them for more than about nine or ten seconds ... after that, what are you gonna say, right? I love em. I love my children. My children are going to speaking at the convention... Ivanka, Eric, Tiffany, Don... my wife is gonna be speaking at the convention. “I love golf. But after talking about it for a couple of minutes, it’s hard to talk about it.” “We’re going to have job loss like you’ve never seen, ever before, if I don’t win.” – Donald Trump Then Trump says he will expand the electoral map, by winning Ohio and Pennsylvania, but also, “we may even have a shot at New York and California” because “we have tremendous crowds” in those places. “I think that we have a lot more leeway than anyone else running from the Republican party,” Trump says. Everything he just said flies in the face of everything the polls are indicating. A Siena College poll in New York published Thursday depicted Clinton up 23 points on Trump in the state. But the polls could all be wrong. This is true. Trump is talking about repealing and replacing Obamacare. “I already talked about the fact that we’re going to save the second amendment, right? That’s a biggie.” Trump says he’ll eliminate regulations, lower taxes and simplify the tax code. “Hillary Clinton is raising your taxes – we’re lowering your taxes big league,” he says. Or was that “bigly”? We definitely heard “big league” that time, after most always hearing “bigly”. Trump begins: “Oh if I’d have known they had these TelePrompters I would’ve used them.” He jokes that he’s getting used to the TelePrompters and he likes them. “This is a tremendous crowd and we really appreciate it,” he says. Trump begins by talking about the delegates selection process in Colorado, where delegates were elected at a state convention dominated by Ted Cruz. “All of a sudden I didn’t get the delegates,” he says. “The system’s rigged. It’s rigged. It’s rigged against the people.” Trump quotes Fox host Bill O’Reilly as saying that his political movement is the “single greatest phenomena” that O’Reilly has seen in his lifetime. Trump is now taking the stage. Here’s that live stream again: After his speech, Trump will attend a private fundraiser hosted by beer magnate Pete Coors and former NFL coach Mike Shanahan. Here’s a snippet of the Palin speech. She said something about the ‘splodey heads keep sploding’: It’s a lively scene outside the Colorado convention center, where Trump is scheduled to speak imminently: At Trump’s Manchester, New Hampshire, event Thursday afternoon, an attendee asked him about hiring military veterans to work for the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), saying “why aren’t we putting our military retirees ... in TSA? Get rid of all these heebeejabis they wear at TSA, I’ve seen them myself. We need the veterans back in there. “You know, and wee are looking at that,” Trump says. “We’re looking at a lot of things”. Trump is late to the conservative summit in Denver. But they say that it’s been confirmed that he has landed. Donald Trump will meet at the weekend with Indiana governor Mike Pence, whose name has been floated as a potential Trump running mate. Pence is also up for reelection however, and the state party would have to submit a name to replace him – should he develop other plans – by 15 July. The Trump campaign acknowledged the planned meeting in a statement from communications advisor Jason Miller: Mr. Trump is meeting with a number of Republican leaders in the run-up to the convention in Cleveland, and he has a good relationship with Gov. Pence.” Update: This post has been corrected. An earlier version stated that the Trump-Pence meeting had already taken place. Kevin Kellems, a seasoned political operative brought aboard the Trump campaign on 20 June to oversee surrogates and coordinate their messaging, has abruptly resigned after less than two weeks. Kellems was director of communications for former vice president Dick Cheney and worked on New Gingrich’s 2012 presidential campaign. In his resignation letter, quoted by the New York Times, Kellems says he has “enjoyed meeting some fine and dedicated people.” While brief, it has been an interesting experience, and am proud of the contributions made through our early-phase project endeavors. Also have enjoyed meeting some fine and dedicated individuals throughout the organization. Look forward to running across several of you going forward. On Thursday, the Trump campaign parted ways with digital consultant Vincent Harris, a former employee of Rand Paul’s presidential campaign, on the same week they hired him, the Times separately reported. Palin’s stream-of-consciousness riff, her spontaneous spoken, prose poem is true to form: Together, we call em out. We call out the liars, cuz we’re gonna make America great again. And this movement is exactly that... Trump is with us in withholding the oath, swearing to uphold what it is .. declarations of liberty... existential threats that others would ignore. The biggest most sinister threat, it’s Islamic ideology, that is Isis, that is the death cult that isn’t even acknowledged with actual verbage with leftists, with their heads in the sand... Sarah Palin, the former Alaska governor, is addressing the Western conservative summit in Denver, Colorado, where Trump is due to speak shortly. There’s a live stream on local NBC News. She’s currently talking about the assault on the second amendment. And transitions to praise for Trump: “Ask yourself, what have his critics ever built?” Update: here’s a live video stream: Here’s a light moment from Lynch’s appearance. What did her predecessor, Eric Holder, omit to mention about the job? How to lock the plane, she replies: Here’s a good follow-up question for Lynch: will the recommendations from the emails inquiry be filtered through other political appointees, before she approves them as anticipated? “It’s painful to me because the work of the department of justice is important,” Lynch says of l’affaire Bill Clinton. “To the extent that this issue has overshadowed that mission, yes, that’s painful to me.” She says she wants to provide as much information as possible so people have faith in the department of justice. When will the investigation wrap? she’s asked. Lynch answers the question with some insight into the large scope of the investigation into Clinton’s emails: I actually don’t know that. I don’t have that insight into the nuts and bolts... they’re working on it to make sure they’re as thorough as they can be, to look at it from every angle, to cover every issue.” Now they switch to community policing. Lynch recounts the Clinton meeting: “He said hello, and we basically said hello. And I congratulated him on his conversation... and that led to a conversation about his travels... and then we spoke about former AG Janet Reno. “But it really was a social meeting. It really was in that regard... “I do think that no matter how I viewed it, I understand how people view it. “It’s cast a shadow over how this case is resolved,” Lynch says, although in fact the meeting “does not have a bearing on how this matter is reviewed...and resolved by me.” “What’s important to me is, how do people view the department of justice because of that meeting?.. I felt that it’s important to talk about what impact that meeting will have on the case, which it won’t,” she says. Does she regret not kicking Clinton off the plane? “The issue is how does it impact the work that I do... I certainly wouldn’t do it again. “It has cast a shadow over what it should not. Over what it will not touch.” Jonathan Capehart of the Washington Post is interviewing Lynch. Lynch tells him she expects to accept the recommendation of the team investigating the Clinton emails matter. She goes on to say the recommendation will be contained in a “final report” produced by the team, seeming to foreclose on the possibility of her altering or opposing the recommendation. “I will be accepting their recommendations, and their plan for going forward,” she says. She says the decision had been made before Bill Clinton boarded her plane on Monday. The Clinton meeting “has raised concerns, I feel. While I can certainly say... I think people need the information in how that resolution will come about,” she says. The first question: what happened in Phoenix? What on Earth were you thinking? Lynch says it’s “a perfectly reasonable question”. “People have wondered... about my role in the ultimate resolution in matters involving the investigation... certainly my meeting with him raises questions and concerns...” She says it’s a valid question. “Let me be clear... as I’ve always indicated the matter’s being handled by career... investigators... it predates my tenure as AG... it is the same team. That team will make findings... they will make recommendations... [to be] reviewed by the FBI” and the FBI director. “They present it to me and I fully expect to accept the recommendations,” she says. It’s not a recusal, she says, because she expects to be briefed on the findings, “and I will be accepting their recommendations.” But will she make her own determination? “No, the final determination as to how to proceed, will be contained within the final format of the report.” “This case will be resolved by the team that’s been working on it from the beginning... the FBI will review it... and that will be the finalization of factual findings and the next steps in this matter.” Lynch is about to speak. The assigned topic of conversation is community policing. She’s expected to address the Clinton emails controversy and may speak about her meeting with Bill Clinton on Monday. Here’s the live stream: Donald Trump visited Capitol Hill in October 1993 to testify before the Native American affairs subcommittee about casino licenses for Native American tribes, who should get them – and how you can tell who’s who. “They don’t look like Indians to me,” Trump says. Watch here: While we wait for the attorney general – for a catchup on the emails controversy, we refer you to Washington correspondent David Smith’s piece from earlier this month, Could Hillary Clinton really be indicted over her emails? Here’s the top: Did Hillary Clinton do the wrong thing when she used a private email server while secretary of state from 2009 to 2013? Yes. She herself has admitted that it was a mistake. A recent report by the state department inspector general found that she broke multiple rules despite repeated warnings to use official communications methods that would ensure her emails were stored and kept safe from hackers. Did she break the law? As an FBI investigation continues, expert opinion is divided. Some offer a view reminiscent of Bill Clinton’s famous remark that he experimented with marijuana but “didn’t inhale”. “I believe Clinton did break the law but at the same time I don’t think there’s evidence she committed a crime,” says Douglas Cox, associate professor at City University of New York School of Law. It is a violation of federal records law to remove or destroy material, Cox notes, although Clinton “in part” fixed this by returning thousands of emails. More important in assessing whether a crime was committed is the question of intent, Cox says. “While there were warnings and memos that she should have been aware of, from a prosecution side they would need to prove her knowledge and intent and have evidence of that to bring before a jury.” Cox believes such evidence is lacking. In this sense the case is different from those of retired general David Petraeus, former director of the CIA, and Sandy Berger, ex-national security adviser, both of whom handled information they knew was classified and were wilfully deceitful. But a minority disagree with this analysis. Read the full piece here: A man appears at the Lynch event and says she has arrived but “the session will begin slightly delayed.” Lynch is scheduled to appear any moment at the Aspen Ideas Festival. Here’s a live video feed: Attorney general Loretta Lynch is expected to speak to reporters about the Clinton email affair, and possibly her impromptu (?) meeting Monday with Bill Clinton, in about 20 minutes. Offers to donate millions that turn out to be empty promises... it rings a bell somehow... More Trump Super Pac woes (further to Peter Stone’s reporting we mentioned in the introductory post): rival Trump Super Pacs (outside groups that can raise and spend unlimited money but cannot legally coordinate with the campaign) are at war to attract the big-fish donors – but even Pacs with millions in commitments are having trouble actually collecting money people said they’d give. Yahoo’s Michael Isikoff reports on the Pac donation-collection problem: “So far, the pro-Trump super-PACs have banked only a small fraction of the tens of millions of dollars they had been promised by big contributors, sources familiar with the groups’ fundraising operations tell Yahoo News”: In early June, private equity mogul Thomas Barrack got big headlines when he told CNN that he had lined up $32 million in pledged contributions to Rebuilding America Now, a super-PAC he helped establish to promote Trump’s candidacy. [...] But Rebulding America Now has collected only $2 million of those pledges — from a single donor — Laurance Gay, the managing director of Rebuilding America Now, confirmed to Yahoo News The LA Times reports on the tangle of Super Pacs fighting for supremacy in the rather meager world of pro-Trump fundraising: ...wealthy contributors wishing to invest in the pro-Trump effort are facing an odd assortment of super PACs with competing visions, questionable capacity and sometimes sketchy track records. According to election finance reports, of the dozen or so pro-Trump super PACs established so far, only a few have reported raising significant amounts of money or interest — for a total of about $4 million as of the end of May. And most of that has already been spent. Donald Trump used funds from his nonprofit Donald J Trump foundation to buy a signed Tim Tebow football helmet for $12,000 at a charity auction, in a transaction that possibly violated IRS rules against self-dealing, the Washington Post reports. Using nonprofit funds for personal use is generally illegal, although the legality of the football helmet transaction is unclear, according to three tax law experts interviewed by the Post. Trump got in a bidding war for the helmet at an auction to benefit the Susan G Komen breast cancer nonprofit. He won. But instead of writing a personal check for the helmet, he sent money from his foundation, which is mostly, according to the Washington Post’s reporting, other people’s money, donated with the intention of contributing to charity, not buying Trump helmets. Trump had not made a personal donation to his foundation for at least three years before he bought the helmet, the Post reported. Hello and welcome to our live-wire coverage of the 2016 race for the White House. Donald Trump this morning is aggressively attacking Hillary Clinton over a meeting Monday on a Phoenix tarmac between Bill Clinton and attorney general Loretta Lynch. Lynch told reporters Wednesday that it was a chance meeting restricted to small talk. Trump, however, detects a conspiracy, conceived by the Clintons, to smooth Hillary Clinton’s way to the presidency by arranging for a secret meeting between Bill Clinton and the head of a justice department currently investigating Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email account and server during her time as secretary of state. Under pressure from the furor over the secret meeting, Lynch plans to announce Friday that she will in effect recuse herself from the case and accept whatever recommendation career prosecutors and federal agents make in the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server, a justice department official told the Associated Press on Friday. Trump’s not wholly reassured. “Does anybody really believe that meeting was just a coincidence?” he tweets. Here’s how Lynch described the encounter at a news conference in Los Angeles Wednesday scheduled to discuss community policing: He did come over and say hello, and speak to my husband and myself, and talk about his grandchildren and his travels and things like that. That was the extent of that. And no discussions were held into any cases or things like that. The tempest, however, is already out of the teapot: In non-Clinton-conspiracy news, the veepstakes have not necessarily been reduced, on the Republican side, to former House speaker Newt Gingrich and New Jersey governor Chris Christie – but the two men are being seriously vetted as potential Trump running mates, according to many reports. MSNBC has this coverage this morning: Trump faces a significant fundraising deficit both inside his campaign and among the outside political groups that would support his candidacy. Potential and past donors retain reservations about the candidate, several told Peter Stone for the : Several donors backing Trump told the that the candidate’s errors are piling up. “He’s got to learn not to put his foot in his mouth,” said Stan Hubbard, a billionaire broadcaster who has donated $100,000 to the pro-Trump Great America Pac. “He needs a clearer message without name-calling.” Hubbard also called Trump’s recent trip to Scotland – where he was criticized for hailing the plunge in the pound post-Brexit as good for his golf course there – a mistake. “He should have let his kids do it.” Likewise, potential Super Pac donors say Trump badly needs to curb his bombastic rhetoric and craft a better message. Michael Epstein, who raised big money for Wisconsin governor Scott Walker and plans to vote for Trump but also “hold my nose and pray”, said that he might back a Super Pac if Trump has a strong GOP convention next month and really “turns it around”. But Epstein added: “I’m less and less hopeful. He can’t get out of his own way. He’s going to have to demonstrate more presidential behavior, They’re behind the eight ball and they’ve got to move fast.” Read further: At a campaign event in Manchester, New Hampshire, on Thursday, Trump joked that an airplane flying overhead was a Mexican attack: Thank you for reading and please join us in the comments.
Blair and Major don’t deserve this venom for joining Brexit debate When Barack Obama takes his leave of the White House in the new year, he will receive the courtesy of being addressed by the title president even after he’s departed the job. Britain does not know what to do with its ex-prime ministers except jeer at them and they often struggle to find a satisfactory place in public life. When Stanley Baldwin retired from the premiership in 1937, his approach was to put himself on mute. He made a promise: “I am not going to speak to the man on the bridge and I am not going to spit on the deck.” In our vernacular, he would not be a back-seat driver giving directions to his successors. He was admired for that, but I’m not convinced that self-imposed silence is the best we ought to expect from previous occupants of Number 10 in all circumstances. Ex-prime ministers can be valuable repositories of experience and advice. If a former leader of the country thinks Britain is in danger of taking a hazardous road, I’d say they not only have a right to speak out, they have a responsibility. So I am pleased that Tony Blair and Sir John Major have just broken Baldwin’s rule. Both men have decided that they do need to speak to the woman on the bridge. Both have issued warnings to Mrs May about the perils of hard Brexit. Both have suggested that a second referendum should not be ruled out. Both have been accused of spitting on the deck. The former Labour prime minister declared that to close off the option of another referendum “is like agreeing to a house swap without having seen the other house”. The former Tory prime minister, who can also turn a telling phrase when he puts his mind to it, argues that “the tyranny of the majority” cannot simply dictate the terms of exit, especially not on an issue of such gravity and when a very large minority voted the other way. I am not convinced that this is the right time to start advancing the case for a second referendum. If that ever transpires, it will not be because Remainers have demanded another vote. The pressure for a further referendum will have to come from Out voters who change their minds. But the former prime ministers have an absolute right to argue that the option should be kept on the table. The venomous response they have received from the Brextremists is revealing. That tells us something about the insecurity that lurks beneath their braggadocio. If the terms of the divorce are going to be as sweet as the Brexiters keep promising, why does it strike such fear into their hearts whenever anyone floats the notion that it might be put before the British people for approval? Interventions by Sir John and Mr Blair are bound to generate heat because both men have charged relationships with their respective parties. Much of the Thatcherite right never forgave Sir John for replacing their heroine. He fought an epic and bitter battle over the Maastricht treaty with the Tories he dubbed “bastards” and many of them are still around, among them Iain Duncan Smith, John Redwood and Peter Lilley. There is even more crackle to the feelings aroused by Mr Blair. Some on the right cannot forgive him for beating the Tory party at three elections in a row. Some on the left cannot forgive him for winning 13 years in power for Labour. He has been thinking about plunging back into British politics for some time. The long period of agonising about whether and how to do so tells us that he is self-aware enough to know that there will not be universal applause for the prospect of hearing more from him. I regularly hear him called “toxic” and among some people that’s obviously true. I also often read that he is “the most reviled man in Britain”. I have yet to see any supporting evidence for that; the grounds for this claim need to be better than people logging on to Twitter to declare their hatred for him. He is planning to launch an organisation at the beginning of next year and a large part of the impulse for doing so comes from the belief that a Corbyn Labour party and a Brexiteering Conservative party means “you’ve got millions of effectively politically homeless people”, as he recently told Jason Cowley of the New Statesman. Someone very familiar with the preparations for this new organisation says “it will be more than a thinktank, but less than a political party”. That expression leaves it interestingly ambiguous about whether Mr Blair thinks it might have the potential to grow into a political party representing the centre and centre-left should Labour completely fall apart at some point in the future. When Sir John and Mr Blair were at Number 10, I was frequently rude about things that they did, but I still want to hear what they have to say now. They can’t be entirely stupid about politics because you don’t get to be prime minister by knowing nothing about it. An important reason to welcome their engagement with the arguments around Brexit is that they help to rebalance the debate. This has been heavily dominated by the hardliners since Mrs May became prime minister. Being a Remainer during the referendum, albeit a largely invisible one, she has sought to compensate by sucking up to the Brexiters. The Remainers have only slowly recovered from the shock of their defeat and have yet to establish common positions that they can rally around. Among the Tory pro-Europeans, Ken Clarke is cheerfully up for the fight with the Europhobes he has been battling all his career. Former ministers Nicky Morgan and Anna Soubry aren’t afraid of the sound of gunfire. But they are rather lonely figures in the Conservative party at the moment. Most other pro-European Tories are keeping their heads down. They argue that it is pointless to be too vocal until there is more clarity about where Mrs May is truly heading. The cowardly are fearful of receiving the black spot from Number 10 or scared of losing their seats if boundary changes bring about reselections that will be decided by heavily pro-Brexit Tory activists. On the other side of the aisle, Labour has profound divisions about Brexit that are only being lightly and temporarily masked. Keir Starmer, who is shadowing David Davis and his Brexit ministry, has received plaudits for a bright start in the role. As you’d expect from a talented barrister, he is asking lots of forensic questions about the government’s intentions. Behind the scenes, there is a constant jostle between him and other members of the shadow cabinet about who is Labour’s principal voice. John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, and Emily Thornberry, the shadow foreign secretary, have differing ideas about what Labour’s position should be and who is in charge of framing it. The opposition likes to scorn Mrs May for keeping her plan, if she has a plan, secret. Yet the prime minister’s refusal to show her hand sort of suits Labour. For, as long as the government does not have a declared plan, the opposition can get away with not having one either. The problems for Labour will erupt when the party has to fully confront its own splits over immigration and the single market and try to reconcile the divisions within the party and between different elements of its support. The Scottish Nationalists have a line about “protecting Scotland’s interests”. That’s designed to resonate with Scots, but is of rather less relevance to the rest of the UK’s population, who will sense that, for the SNP, everything Brexit is entangled with what the Nats think will best advance the cause of independence. Nick Clegg is a highly energetic and informed opponent of hard Brexit and Tim Farron is doing his best to be a voice for “the 48%”, but there’s only so much the Lib Dems can do when they have just eight MPs and the media are reluctant to give them much of a hearing. So another reason to be glad that the two former prime ministers have joined the battle over Brexit is that they can get attention for the arguments against a savagely abrupt departure from the EU. They can also make those arguments without fear of incurring the wrath of the powerful. Unlike younger politicians shackled by their career calculations, neither man can be intimidated by the blowhards in the rightwing press or frozen into silence by one of Mrs May’s death stares. They both won elections, which is more than Mrs May can say for herself. Sir John won an election his party expected him to lose. Mr Blair did the hat trick and two of his victories were by landslides. Between them, they have a lot of experience of negotiating with foreign leaders, especially European ones. It might even repay Mrs May to seek some private advice from her predecessors. You may or may not agree with what they have to say, but they can’t be denied the courtesy of a hearing. Two men who have more than 17 years of combined experience of leading Britain just might know what they are talking about.
Chelsea’s Pedro torments Bournemouth to stretch league winning run to 12 Bournemouth became the latest side to try to find a way through Antonio Conte’s relentless Chelsea side at Stamford Bridge on Boxing Day. They also became the latest side to fall short. Chelsea were missing both Diego Costa and N’Golo Kanté, ever present in the club’s march to the top of the Premier League. Bournemouth, meanwhile, switched their formation to a back three in an attempt to mirror and counter Conte’s successful shape. Eddie Howe’s men were brave, determined and gave their all, but so did Chelsea and a difference in quality asserted to leave the home side just two games short of equalling Arsenal’s record of 14 consecutive victories in the Premier League. All the talk before the match had been about Michy Batshuayi, Chelsea’s £33m striker who had yet to start for the club since joining in the summer but now had an opportunity in Costa’s absence. Conte however, considers the 23-year-old to be a work in progress. Instead, he opted to go without a No9 and with experience, as he pushed Eden Hazard through the middle with Willian and Pedro Rodríguez alongside him. Pedro scored twice while Hazard was successful from the penalty spot. “Eden has a real talent,” Conte said, “but the most important thing is that he is putting his talent into the team. It’s so important he is doing such great things with the ball and without it. It is fantastic, I hope he continues to improve in this way. I am pleased for him and I am pleased for all my players because they did so well.” Chelsea’s altered lineup felt their way into the match and it was not until the 15th minute that Hazard managed to create space for himself around the box, a low shot coming to nothing after an exchange of passes with Willian. From that point, however, the Belgian just got stronger. His blind pass sent Pedro clear for an opportunity in the 21st minute and it was a brilliant dribble from the Belgian that led to the corner from which Chelsea scored the opening goal. Cesc Fàbregas took the corner, but played it short before heading for the penalty area. The ball found its way to Hazard who once again span his marker and found his Spanish team-mate on the edge of the box. Fàbregas found the delicate through-ball and the onrushing Pedro who took one touch wide and then another to chip the ball back, over Artur Boruc and into the far side of the net. It was a goal of real class, and an opening that came from nowhere. That is the quality Conte’s team have in their locker and for a minute Bournemouth looked shocked; they had matched the hosts for effort but could nothing to stop their quality. “I don’t think the first goal turned the game but it certainly didn’t help,” said a typically honest Howe. “We started well, looked solid and compact as a unit. I was pleased with how they were playing and then Chelsea produce a bit of magic. After that you’re looking at how you respond. We did well, had opportunities and it was the second goal that was a key moment in the game.” Howe’s appraisal of the game was correct; Bournemouth could have drawn level after falling behind and perhaps should have had a penalty when Adam Smith was brought to the ground. But come the second half Chelsea emerged with a determination to settle the encounter. Now noticeably sharper to the ball than Bournemouth, César Azpilicueta robbed them of the ball after Jack Wilshere played a pass marginally behind Harry Arter. Chelsea broke like a wild fire and advanced into the box with the defence on the turn. Simon Francis, who had struggled to get near Hazard in the previous 49 minutes, stuck out a leg and tripped the playmaker for a definite penalty. Hazard himself stepped up and send Boruc the wrong way to score. Two-nil may be a dangerous scoreline but it carries less risk for this Chelsea team, so effective are they in defence and so deadly on the counter. Five minutes after the penalty Hazard nearly scored again as Chelsea broke from one end to the other in seconds. Willian led and finished the next break, with Boruc doing well to hold the Brazilian’s shot. Moses drove just wide in the 58th minute, Pedro curled beyond the far post in the 64th. In between times there was an impudent vignette as Hazard worked his way around a prone Fàbregas by deftly lifting the ball over his body. Chelsea were oozing confidence and Conte was also at his most animated, slapping his thighs in frustration at imperfections that were imperceptible to most spectators. His side gave up just one chance for the remainder of the game, Thibaut Courtois doing enough to stop a shot from the substitute Benik Afobe. Conte’s final gesture was to instruct that the ball be cleared into touch so that Batshuayi could come into the play for the final seconds of added time. Instead Chelsea went on another counterattack, Pedro shimmied into space and hit a fearsome shot that deflected off Steve Cook and into the net. Batshuayi made it on to the pitch just in time to hear the final whistle.
The internet of things: how your TV, car and toys could spy on you Can your smart TV spy on you? Absolutely, says the US director of national intelligence. The ever-widening array of “smart” web-enabled devices pundits have dubbed the internet of things [IoT] is a welcome gift to intelligence officials and law enforcement, according to director James Clapper. “In the future, intelligence services might use the [internet of things] for identification, surveillance, monitoring, location tracking, and targeting for recruitment, or to gain access to networks or user credentials,” Clapper told the Senate in public testimony on Tuesday. As a category, the internet of things is useful to eavesdroppers both official and unofficial for a variety of reasons, the main one being the leakiness of the data. “[O]ne helpful feature for surveillance is that private sector IoT generally blabs a lot, routinely into some server, somewhere,” said Lee Tien, a senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. “That data blabbing can be insecure in the air, or obtained from storage.” There are a wide variety of devices that can be used to listen in, and some compound devices (like cars) that have enough hardware to form a very effective surveillance suite all by themselves. There are, of course, legitimate and tightly warranted reasons for law enforcement surveillance, and there are also companies that take hard lines against turning their users over to the government. But hardware manufacturers often default to crummy security, or don’t offer a choice, and consumers often make themselves more vulnerable than they should. “One of my technologists has a phrase: ‘internet of other people’s things,’” Tien said. “[E]ven if you bought it, it’s not necessarily truly yours – it may need to talk to the vendor’s machines to work, handing over data about you or those around you (if it has sensors); it may have features you don’t know about or don’t know how to control or can’t control.” Intelligence officials are not the only ones interested in cracking our hi-tech homes. Knowing when you are in and out, what you have and where you keep it is invaluable information for thieves. And just think what tales your devices could tell divorce lawyers. Dan Kaminsky, security researcher and chief scientist of White Ops, said despite the worries the internet of things is here to stay. “There’s a lot of work to do building the secure and maintainable platforms of the future, but I think it’ll happen,” he said. “We know this technology isn’t perfect but we know the tremendous human potential it unlocks.” What’s watching you in today’s houses: Baby monitors and other household video cameras “All of a sudden, I heard what sounded like a man’s voice but I was asleep so I wasn’t sure,” Heather Shreck told Fox 19 in August 2014. She hadn’t been dreaming: her baby monitor had been hacked by someone who yelled things at her and her baby until she shut the monitor off. More recent models have fewer vulnerabilities, but in that case, the monitor was simply available to anyone who wanted to get in. There’s an established history of law enforcement trying to compel private companies to spy on their users, and in many cases, rigorous analysis of your movements is a feature, not a bug: Google-owned Nest’s security video hardware, Nest Cam, offers a service that records 30 days’ worth of video to the cloud and analyzes it for you. Smart TVs There’s no getting around the fundamental creepiness of the little pinhole cameras in new smart TVs (and Xbox Kinects, and laptops, and cellphones), but the less-remarked-on aspect – the audio – may actually be more pertinent to anyone with a warrant trying to listen in. Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society observed that Samsung’s voice recognition software in its smart TVs had to routinely send various commands “home” to a server where they were processed for relevant information; their microphones are also always on, in case you’re trying to talk to them. Televisions are also much easier to turn on than they used to be: a feature creeping into higher-end TVs called “wake on LAN” allows users to power on televisions over the internet (this is already standard on many desktop PCs). New York University’s Brennan Center published an article by Michael Price about smart TVs saying he was “scared to turn this thing on” because of its myriad disturbing features, among them facial recognition. He might not have to. The cheap stuff Kaminsky observed that a great deal of security risk lies in devices we never think about and rarely have updated. “There’s this universe of technology that trades power and maintainability for size, battery life, and price,” he said. People don’t necessarily buy the highest-end computer with the most secure operating system, and they tend to keep it around until it’s vulnerable. “We actually did a tremendous amount to secure the high end of computers,” he said. But you might have three years’ of tax documents on an eight-year-old laptop that won’t run a new operating system, or you might skimp on your tablet and end up with a model made by a small company that goes out of business and thus never fixes new security holes. “There’s an old quote in computers,” Kaminsky said: “The high end keeps getting higher, the low end never goes away.” Full-home automation Since the Futurama exhibition at the 1933 World’s Fair, homemakers have fantasized about hi-tech living spaces. That’s the pitch behind Amazon Echo, Google Nest, and many other suites of home technology that sync up everything from your thermostat to your refrigerator. But, as with the “smart” devices above, they’re not actually individually that bright and have to refer back to a centralized server to ask a large database what the user is talking about. Collectively, however, that data tells a lot about the people who generate it and, as Tien points out, is vulnerable – both while it’s in the air and to legal compulsion. Toys A cyberattack on toymaker VTech exposed the personal data of 6.4m children last year; it was a sobering reminder of the vulnerability of kids on the web. But technology waits for no man. Mattel’s Hello Barbie doll works the same way the Nest and Samsung voice operators do, by passing kids’ interactions into the cloud and returning verbal responses through a speaker in the doll. HereO manufactures a watch for kids with a GPS chip in it; Fisher-Price makes a WiFi-enabled stuffed animal. Security researchers at Rapid7 looked at both and found that they were easy to compromise on company databases, and in the case of the watch, use to locate the wearer. Your car The Berkman Center report details an FBI case indicating that the agency has been aware of this possibility for a long while: “During the course of an investigation, the FBI sought to use the microphone in a car equipped with [a commercial emergency response system] to capture conversations taking place in the car’s cabin between two alleged senior members of organized crime. In 2001, a federal court in Nevada issued ex parte orders that required the company to assist the FBI with the intercept.” The company won on appeal on other grounds, and the possibility of legal compulsion is still very much alive. Now that rear-view video and GPS are ever more common, a large number of in-car systems are correspondingly more available to a remote user.
Black films matter – how African American cinema fought back against Hollywood ‘Black film properties may be to the 90s what the carphone was to the 80s; every studio executive has to have one,” wrote the New York Times magazine in the summer of 1991. It’s a comment that speaks volumes about both a cultural moment and its transience. The piece was titled They’ve Gotta Have Us, referring to Spike Lee’s 1986 breakthrough movie She’s Gotta Have It. The group portrait on the cover brought together an impressive collection of young, black film-makers – what has been labelled “the class of 91”. Lee was head boy, of course. By that time he was well into a creative blaze that would continue at the rate of practically a film a year: Do the Right Thing (1989), Mo’ Better Blues (1990), Jungle Fever (1991), Malcolm X (1992), Crooklyn (1994), Clockers (1995). There was also Lee’s friend Ernest Dickerson, the cinematographer who made Do the Right Thing sizzle, and who was now directing his own Harlem hood tale, Juice. There was Mario Van Peebles, maker of first-rate gangster thriller New Jack City. There were the Hudlin brothers, Warrington and Reginald, makers of hit teen comedy House Party. There were Charles Lane and 20-year-old Matty Rich, whose debut movies had won prizes at Cannes and Sundance, respectively. And the breakout star of the moment was John Singleton, whose autobiographical Los Angeles drama Boyz N the Hood had earned him a three-year studio deal, and would make him the first African-American, and the youngest-ever best director Oscar nominee. “The current crop is breaking new ground in their subject matter and their politics,” the article observed. “For the studios, these are tales from a new world, presented with an often harrowing, if occasionally hyperbolic, realism.” The film-makers themselves seemed sensibly cautious of being lumped into a moment. “If one black film-maker messes up,” said Lee, “the rest of us will be made to feel it.” The caution was justified. Fast forward 25 years or so, and we’re faced with a situation where, for the second year running, not a single actor of colour received an Oscar nomination; where African-Americans are still complaining of under-representation within film and television – when they’re not taking to the streets to remind the country that their lives matter. Did someone mess up? One thing is for sure: looking back, the 90s was a golden age. The amount of black cinema breaking through at that time is astonishing. Hip-hop, and white audiences’ interest in it, fed into the movement. Rappers and musicians seamlessly transitioned into film: Ice Cube, Ice-T, Tupac Shakur, Queen Latifah. It wasn’t just youthful “hood dramas”, however; there was quality work across the spectrum. Serious thrillers such as Devil in a Blue Dress and Deep Cover, appeared alongside arthouse-friendly fare from the “LA Rebellion” group. This film-schooled movement generated influential works such as Charles Burnett’s To Sleep With Anger and Julie Dash’s Daughters of the Dust, released in 1991, the first feature directed by an African-American woman to get theatrical distribution across the US. On television, too, African-American content seemed to be crossing over. Will Smith figuratively sauntered into Hollywood in The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, while Jamie Foxx cut his teeth on the Wayans brothers’ sketch show, In Living Color. If you bothered to flick over from Friends or Seinfeld, you could find black-led series such as Moesha, A Different World, Family Matters, Kenan and Kel, Martin (as in Lawrence), Queen Latifah’s Living Single, Sister Sister and Malcolm & Eddie. For the first time, mainstream cinema and TV audiences were getting honest, intelligent portrayals of both modern African-American life and US history from a black perspective – the type of stories only black film-makers could tell. The revolution was being televised, dramatised, publicised and eulogised. It is worth remembering that it was only three years earlier, in 1987, that Robert Townsend had made the cult satire Hollywood Shuffle, which detailed the futile struggle of an aspiring black actor, and feels as if it is from a completely different era. “The only role they gonna let us do is a slave, a butler or some street hood,” a fellow auditionee tells Townsend’s character. White producers say they’re looking for an “Eddie Murphy type”, and ask him to “be more black”. In his daydreams, Townsend fantasises about playing a film-noir sleuth, a Shakespearean king, a superhero, even a black Rambo. Instead, he wins the role of a stereotypical, jive-talking street hood, which only conjures visions of protesters picketing his house, accusing him of selling out. As an NAACP spokesman puts it: “They’ll never play the Rambos until they stop playing the sambos.” But by the mid-90s, Townsend’s wildest dreams had become reality. Now, you could be a black Shakespearean (Denzel Washington in Much Ado About Nothing), or a black superhero (Wesley Snipes in Blade), or, if not quite Rambo, at least a black action hero (Will Smith in Bad Boys). The fruit of that 90s creative flowering was a generation of African-American performers who gained real Hollywood power: the power to take leading roles, to win awards and, ultimately, to get movies greenlit. Most of them were men, which tells its own story, and most of them still wield that power today: Washington, Smith, Foxx, Samuel L Jackson. But it was also the era when Angela Bassett became the first black women in more than a decade to get a best actress Oscar nomination (for the Tina Turner biopic What’s Love Got to Do With It?) and Whitney Houston powered hits such as The Bodyguard and (alongside Bassett) Waiting to Exhale. But did that success come at a cost? The actors were getting the roles, but their movies weren’t necessarily “black” stories. More often than not, they became token black faces in otherwise business-as-usual Hollywood movies – exceptions that proved the rule, you could say. One moment Will Smith might be Muhammad Ali, for example, but the next he would be “magical negro” golf caddy Bagger Vance. Meanwhile, the film-makers that had helped put them there seemed to get left behind. It’s easy to forget just what a struggle they had had. Townsend had to max out credit cards and scavenge leftover film stock to cobble together Hollywood Shuffle. It took Lee four years to raise $175,000 to make She’s Gotta Have It, in a brisk 12 days. Lee even encouraged his crew to save their drinks cans so he could cash them in for recycling. One upshot of these shoestring budgets was that these films became hugely profitable when they broke through. It was arguably that profitability, rather than any cultural mission, that caught Hollywood’s attention. A big part of the problem, says Julie Dash, was that black cinema’s ascent coincided with Hollywood’s takeover of independent cinema as a whole. “It became a commodity that could be co-opted by the larger industry. We broke through, and once the curators of culture recognised that we were actively making films in our own way, it suddenly just slowed down to a halt. Funding ran out for pretty much everyone.” Dash’s Daughters of the Dust was one of the unsung highlights of this era. It deals with Dash’s own Gullah community, descended from slaves who settled on the coast of North Carolina, but it does so with a unique sensibility, weaving together three generations of female characters with music, dance, folk storytelling and lyrical imagery. She describes it as “history reframed, reimagined, redefined”. The movie won widespread acclaim on its release, and played in one movie theatre for 36 weeks, but Dash never made another feature film. “I’d written many, many additional screenplays and pitched ideas and optioned screenplays – all of those wonderful things that one does after making a film that clearly had a wide audience. It didn’t happen for me,” she says. “There’s no reason given, but of course it’s race and gender. Gender plays a huge part in all of this. I did not fit into the mould.” As the New Yorker pointed out last year, Richard Linklater, who also released his debut, Slacker, in 1991, has gone on to make 15 features to date. “Some of them are excellent,” wrote Richard Brody, “but neither Slacker nor any of the others can hold a candle to the inventiveness of Daughters of the Dust.” Many other black film-makers fell by the wayside after that initial burst. Wendell Harris’s Sundance-winning Chameleon Street didn’t get a cinema release. Matty Rich made one more movie after Straight Outta Brooklyn, then went into video games. Even those who did graduate into the mainstream found their work compromised. Charles Burnett, for example, followed up To Sleep With Anger with The Glass Shield, a complex drama about a black cop in an institutionally racist LAPD. It was picked up by Harvey Weinstein’s indie-devouring Miramax, which forced Burnett to change the ending and then attempted to market it as another Boyz N the Hood, giving prominence to Ice Cube in the promotional materials even though he was a peripheral character. It didn’t find an audience, and Burnett never worked with Hollywood again. “That crossover into the mainstream, into an industry of big business and box office and expectations and formulas, reduced their ability to tell black-focused, ‘authentic’ stories,” says Ashley Clark, writer and curator of the BFI’s current Black Star celebration of black cinema in all its forms, which includes many of those 90s classics. (It was a different story in the UK in the 1990s, incidentally. Or rather, a non-story. Just about the only British actor to figure in this era was, believe it or not, Lenny Henry. Disney gave him a three-picture deal in 1991, evidently attempting to position him as a new Eddie Murphy. They paired him with Charles Lane for True Identity, in which Henry played several roles including a white gangster. Its failure nipped both Henry’s and Lane’s Hollywood careers in the bud.) Directors such as Singleton, Dickerson and Van Peebles also struggled to recapture the energy once they became Hollywood properties. Lee’s career assumed the form of a continual battle. Clark points out that he had a terrible time making Malcolm X, for example. “He had to fight off competition from other studios to do it. Norman Jewison wanted to do it. His studio, Warner Bros, wouldn’t expand the budget, so he had to do a crowdfunding campaign and get people like Prince, Michael Jackson and Oprah Winfrey to fund it.” By the end of the decade, Lee’s crossover audience had waned, even if the quality of his output hadn’t. Films such as Crooklyn and Bamboozled flopped at the box office, and he wound up making journeyman genre fare such as 25th Hour. But what other options did Lee and co have? “What people don’t realise is, he gets tarred and feathered as this angry, political black man, but he’s an artist, and he’s constantly working,” says Clark. “He works in documentary, he works in commercials, he never stops. And he has to do that. He can’t, like other directors, just go away for eight years and come back and do something when he feels like it.” By the new millennium, we had collectively fooled ourselves that we no longer needed a black cinema anyway. Washington and Halle Berry had won their Oscars, and nobody seemed to be that bothered that the new face of black cinema was Tyler Perry dressed as a granny. Actually, a lot of people were bothered by Perry – Lee dismissed him as “coonery buffoonery” – but the assumption, particularly outside the African-American community, was that the battles had all been won. The notion was continually reinforced by self-congratulatory white-saviour race movies such as The Help, Freedom Writers, The Soloist and The Blind Side (it’s still going on – see Matthew McConaughey’s latest, The Free State of Jones), or music biopics such as Ray, Dreamgirls and Get On Up, whose content was safely sealed off from the present-day black experience. Ghettoised, you could say. America’s Obama-era post-racial vision has turned out to be an illusion. The #OscarSoWhite debacle highlighted ongoing discrimination and lack of opportunity within the industry. Outside of cinema, society is beginning to notice how little has changed. Boyz N the Hood began with an epigraph stating: “One out of every 21 black American males will be murdered in their lifetime.” The figure is lower today, but black Americans are still eight times as likely as white ones to be homicide victims. Lee’s Malcolm X began with a videotape of the brutal police beating of Rodney King, which sparked off the 1992 Los Angeles riots. In recent years, we’ve seen a similar succession of police killings of unarmed African-Americans, captured on mobile phones, which have also sparked riots and civil unrest. A new generation of black film-makers is starting to respond to this reality, down the road those 90s pioneers paved. Witness Ryan Coogler, whose 2013 Sundance-winner, Fruitvale Station, sensitively dramatised the police shooting of Oscar Grant, an unarmed Oakland commuter. To his credit, Sylvester Stallone recruited Coogler to write and direct his latter-day Rocky vehicle Creed, and allowed him to turn what could have been a creaky franchise instalment into a vibrant, nuanced portrait of an unstereotypical African-American (Michael B Jordan) in demographically altered modern-day Philadelphia. Coogler’s next project is Marvel’s Black Panther superhero movie. Slavery has been put back on the agenda by 12 Years a Slave and Django Unchained, and it’s being kept there by the Roots remake and Nate Parker’s Birth of a Nation (the toast of this year’s Sundance, until its maker’s name was tarnished by past rape allegations). Justin Simien’s Dear White People smartly dissected modern campus politics. Big things are anticipated for Barry Jenkins, whose artful gay black drama Moonlight comes out in the US this month. There’s also (at last) an appreciable British black-cinema contingent feeding into this, both of directors (Steve McQueen, Amma Asante, Noel Clarke) and actors (David Oyelowo, Idris Elba, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Naomie Harris). Television is in good shape now, too, what with Donald Glover’s Atlanta, Issa Rae’s Insecure, Marvel’s Luke Cage, Empire, Black-ish. And a force all of her own is Ava DuVernay, whose Selma arguably made more of an impact for not getting enough Oscar respect than it would have done if it had. DuVernay has since turned out the powerful Netflix documentary 13th (on the incarceration of black men), the TV miniseries Queen Sugar, and her next project, Disney sci-fi A Wrinkle in Time, makes her the first black woman to command a $100m (£81m) budget. We should be cautious before heralding a class of 2016, however, both in light of what happened last time round, but also because black cinema is a construct, just as “blackness” itself is a construct. The label can be limiting, says Clark. “When a black film-maker makes films about black people, it’s ‘black cinema’ rather than just cinema. You find yourself in that kind of bind, where today something like Moonlight – yes, it’s being talked about in terms of black masculinity and it’s very culturally specific, but at the end of the day, it’s wonderful cinema. I think there’s a misunderstanding that black cinema is in and of itself a genre, when in fact it isn’t.” The 90s golden age has become a cultural touchstone for the current generation. Ice Cube, for example, who has never been out of work since Boyz N the Hood, found his own life dramatised in last year’s hit NWA biopic Straight Outta Compton. Cube’s Boyz co-star Cuba Gooding Jr, meanwhile, just headed up another 90s-based nostalgia trip: The People Vs OJ Simpson, which won nine Emmys this year. John Singleton has just received the go-ahead for Snowfall, his new series on LA’s 1980s crack cocaine epidemic – almost a prequel to Boyz. And even Spike Lee seems to have got his mojo back. His latest, Chi-Raq, a confrontational take on south Chicago gun violence, has brought him his best reviews in decades, as well as reuniting him with original troupe members such as Angela Bassett, Wesley Snipes and Samuel L Jackson. Of course, he still struggled with the funding – turning to Kickstarter to finance it. But Lee also recently inked a deal with Netflix to produce and direct a comedy-drama series based on She’s Gotta Have It. Most heartening of all, perhaps, Julie Dash’s Daughters of the Dust has found a new lease of life. It was selected for preservation by the Library of Congress in 2004, and a restored version is set for release in November, to mark its 25th anniversary. The film was also heavily appropriated by Beyoncé in her lavish “visual album” for Lemonade – which could turn out to be one of the most significant pieces of black cinema of our time. It’s apt that a performer such as Beyoncé, in her newly politicised incarnation, would turn to a movie so concerned with cultural memory and reconnection to African-American history. That history has been reframed, redefined and reimagined once again. Dash herself is delighted. In addition, in the wake of the #OscarSoWhite debacle, Dash was one of the film-makers invited to join the new, more-inclusive Academy. Her original application, 25 years ago, was ignored. “I’m hopeful,” she says. “There are still a lot of people waiting at the gate, but things are moving forward.” Black Star events are running nationwide until December, bfi.org.uk/black-star.
Oh midwives, you are so wrong about abortion In the same way I anticipated becoming more rightwing as I grew older, I expected my views on abortion to change after I had a child. But no. In fact the idea of doing this babying against my will – of haemorrhaging this quantity of love, of spending the entire weekend of 14 May weeping to Abba’s “Slipping Through My Fingers”, of having to ask for so much help – the idea of giving birth to a child that wasn’t wanted has made me appreciate abortion even more. I love abortion the way I love liver transplants and antidepressants. I love that it saves people. I love that it rescues women from lives they are not prepared to live, from poverty, pain and death. I love that I live in a country and a time when we can choose to have children and how to plan our lives. Lives that include sex, unplanned and sometimes silly, sometimes regrettable. I love that abortion allows women to control their own reproduction when a condom breaks, or when that’s what they need to tell their sister. We have the right to prevent pregnancy, to get pregnant, and to terminate a pregnancy – the same right that ensures nobody is prohibited from reproducing and that nobody is forced to have an abortion against their will. Which is why, rather than “mutinying” (as reported by the Daily Mail) after their union boss signed them up to BPAS’s (British Pregnancy Advisory Service) We Trust Women campaign to decriminalise abortion, members of the Royal College of Midwives should be in favour of helping their patients have children when they choose. Their concerns, that if the abortion time limit were to be removed then some women would terminate at any time up to nine months, are unfounded. Less than 0.1% of all abortions take place after 24 weeks gestation – there’s no evidence that removing criminal sanctions leads to an increase in later terminations. Women know what they’re doing, and what they want. This right, to control our own reproduction, is at the core of women’s long and tedious fight for equality. So the fact that abortion remains in criminal law in the UK is not just shocking, but also… embarrassing. For a country that sees itself as modern, as progressive, how illogical it is that women’s bodies are still being regulated by a law passed before they were given the vote. Rather than trusting a woman to make the choice about whether she is ready to have a baby, the decision is in the hands of doctors. Two doctors. If they don’t give a woman legal authorisation to have an abortion (or if she doesn’t get that authorisation in time), then she must either continue the pregnancy against her will or illegally induce a miscarriage herself and face prosecution. Last December a young woman from County Durham was sentenced to two and half years in prison. The pills she used are now widely available online. Today organs cannot be taken from the dead body of someone who made clear they did not wish to donate even if they’ll save another person’s life, BPAS notes, explaining why abortion laws are at odds with fundamental legal principles: “Yet a living woman can be compelled to sustain a foetus against her will from the moment a fertilised egg implants in her womb.” A third of women in the UK will have an abortion, and two-thirds of people believe that abortion should be allowed according to a woman’s choice. To the third who don’t, believing perhaps that women granted easy access to abortion will use it, as a number of pious letter writers have said to me, as “lazy birth control”, I would direct them to new research that shows anti-abortion laws do not reduce abortion rates. Criminalising it – rather than preventing abortion, rather than punishing a woman by making her raise an unwanted child (regardless of the plans of the father) – drives them to terminate the pregnancy through illegal methods. It drives them to a laptop at 5am, to a box of pills, to the feeling that she’s quite, quite alone. I’m surprised at the mutinying midwives, people who have seen the blood and passion of birth a hundred times over, who should know the gravity of reproductive choice. The word midwife means “with woman”. To support the criminalisation of abortion seems in clear opposition to that role. Instead of standing with women, it is pushing them away. Email Eva at e.wiseman@observer.co.uk or follow her on Twitter @EvaWiseman
Martin Shkreli hires famous New York lawyer in Ponzi scheme case Martin Shkreli, the pharmaceutical boss dubbed “the world’s most hated man” after he increased the price of an HIV drug by 5,000%, has hired Sean “Diddy” Combs’ lawyer. Shkreli, who will appear in a New York court on Wednesday on charges of running a Ponzi scheme, announced on Tuesday that he has hired Ben Brafman, one of New York’s best known lawyers whose clients have included Jay Z, Michael Jackson, Mafia boss Salvatore “Sammy the Bull” Gravano and former International Monetary Fund boss Dominique Strauss-Kahn. Shkreli, who denies the charges, said he was “excited” about working with Brafman. “You know, his track record is impeccable, and I think we’re going to put our best foot forward,” Shkreli told Fox Business News on Tuesday. “We have a very good case to make and I think we are going to win.” Shkreli is due to take the stand in Brooklyn federal court on Wednesday over charges of securities fraud related to his time running hedge fund MSMB Capital Management and biopharmaceutical company Retrophin. “Obviously I think I’m innocent and not guilty,” he said. On Thursday, Shkreli is due to appear before Congress to face questions about hiking the price of Daraprim, a life-saving drug often given to people with Aids or cancer, from $13.50 to $750 a pill overnight. Shkreli, 32, who has been dubbed a “pharma bro”, said he planned to “insult” and “berate” Congress, but would otherwise invoke his fifth amendment right not to testify. “They can ask me any question,” he said. “‘What color is the sky?’ Fifth amendment. It’s nothing more than an advertisement for some congressmen who want to get some votes and some cheap publicity off my name. What Congress is doing is just a ploy to embarrass me.” His comments came as lawmakers released excerpts from 250,000 documents showing how Shkreli sought to make his former company, Turing Pharmaceuticals, $1bn from buying up the 62-year-old anti-parasite drug on the cheap. “Very good. Nice work as usual. $1bn here we come,” he said in an email to the company’s chairman as he worked to buy Daraprim for $55m in 2015. Shkreli said hiking the price of the drug, which is used to treat toxoplasmosis in people with HIV/Aids, cancer and other patients with compromised immune systems, would bring in an extra sales of $375m, “almost all of it profits”. “Should be a very handsome investment for all of us,” he said. “Let’s all cross our fingers that the estimates are accurate.”
Who can stop Trump? Republicans may have little choice but to vote Clinton Just a few steps from the White House, the latest secret gathering of Republicans seeking an answer to the question of who can still stop Donald Trump reached a demoralising answer for their party on Thursday night: Hillary Clinton. A bleak mood has swept over the Grand Old Party in the past 24 hours as the multiple implications of Trump’s latest victory in primary elections on Tuesday have slowly sunk in. The first realisation came quickly, as Marco Rubio’s chastening defeat in his home state of Florida forced him to join Jeb Bush, Rand Paul and Chris Christie on the heap of discarded alternatives. These once-promising candidates were meant to provide the answer to a problem that has dogged the party for a decade – how to appeal to a US electorate that is growing less white and less traditionally conservative. Instead, the brutal cull of wannabe nominees has led to a final three who could hardly be less suited to this challenge: the achingly conservative Ted Cruz; a 63-year-old former Lehman Brothers executive called John Kasich; and a frontrunner whose calling card is a war on Latino immigration. But the second, even more uncomfortable, realisation has taken longer to internalise. Even if Cruz and Kasich could provide an answer to the demographic conundrum, they barely stand a chance of beating Trump to the nomination. The reality television star is already more than halfway to the 1,237 delegates he needs to win outright, and while he may yet fall short of crossing the finish line, Trump has already warned there could be riots if party leaders try to rig the process against a clear frontrunner. Many establishment figures have reluctantly begun to concede that it is a non-starter to entertain the idea of bringing in an entirely new alternative candidate at a contested party convention in July. This theoretical option first gained traction when Trump began to wobble against Cruz under an onslaught of attacks led by former party nominee Mitt Romney. Delegates sent to the convention by their states are initially bound to vote according to the wishes of their primary electorates and, under current rules, can only select a candidate who has won eight states. But the delegates can also vote a week before the convention to change the rules, something which could allow them to waive the current rule which says a candidate must have won in at least eight statesto be considered for the nomination. Such a change would permit a fresh figure like Romney or the House speaker, Paul Ryan, to parachute into the contest once the nomination process moves to a second round because no one has reached the magic 1,237 delegate number on their own. Several other recent meetings of anti-Trump activists have led to wealthy groups such as Club For Growth spending heavily on attack adverts in upcoming primary states like Utah. These are designed not to defeat him, but prevent him from reaching 1,237 before the convention so that such a floor fight can begin. Yet, after Trump’s latest resounding election successes, former House speaker Newt Gingrich spoke for many in the party when he warned that Thursday’s meeting in Washington – convened by conservative activist Erick Erickson at the Army & Navy club – risked splitting the party by promoting the idea that Trump could be derailed by anyone other than primary voters. “It is really damn simple,” responded Erickson in an open letter to Gingrich on Thursday night. “There’s no reason for you or anyone else to complicate it. Donald Trump’s nomination will give you Hillary Clinton’s presidency.” The problem, according not just to Erickson, but almost every conservative not directly involved in the Trump campaign, is that the billionaire’s uncompromising rhetoric has alienated a staggering percentage of the people he would need to vote for him in a general election. Among Latino voters – the fastest-growing block in America – Trump trails Clinton by 65 percentage points, and he is an average of 10-13 points behind the former secretary of state overall. Clinton has her own likability problem – polling suggests her 41.6% of voters view her favourably, while 53.65% view her unfavourably. That is simply eclipsed by the unpopularity of Trump. Pollsters currently peg Trump’s overall unfavourability rating at a historic 62.4% – nearly double the share who view him favourably. How one of the world’s largest exercises in democracy can leave Americans facing two of the least popular candidates in a generation may seem strange, but the realistic alternatives for Republicans look less attractive still. Even if he faced better prospects in the remaining primary elections, there is lacklustre support for Cruz, the Texas senator who has collected an unusual amount of public criticism from his own peers during his three-year career on Capitol Hill. Only two senators have yet endorsed him and one of those, South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham, described the choice between him and Trump as akin to deciding whether to be “shot or poisoned” to death. Kasich is more widely supported by the establishment and many of the donors who have been pouring money into anti-Trump adverts, but he has only won a single primary election – in his home state of Ohio – and would be considered lucky if he manages a couple more. Erickson and the few dozen other activists meeting this week put a brave face on the crisis, arguing it is about more than just winning the next election or preserving Republican unity. “We believe that the issue of Donald Trump is greater than an issue of party. It is an issue of morals and character that all Americans, not just those of us in the conservative movement, must confront,” they wrote in a joint statement. “We call for a unity ticket that unites the Republican party. If that unity ticket is unable to get 1,237 delegates prior to the convention, we recognize that it took Abraham Lincoln three ballots at the Republican convention in 1860 to become the party’s nominee and if it is good enough for Lincoln, that process should be good enough for all the candidates without threats of riots.” But even getting to the point of having these options when the party meets in Cleveland in July remains far from certain. Trump is expected to triumph in another big winner-takes-all primary next week in Arizona and, despite Kasich’s temporary speed bump in Ohio, could indeed reach the magic 1,237 before the convention. It will be a nail-biting finish either way. No one may know for sure until the giant California primary on 7 June, which offers 172 delegates in a single night. Yet rather than simply awarding all of them to the winner like Florida or Ohio, this largest GOP primary allocates delegates to the winners of each of its 53 congressional districts. This means Trump and his many opponents in the party will not know whether he is their unquestionable nominee until results are in from every corner of this diverse state: from the conservatives of Orange County, to the Latinos in Central Valley and the libertarians of Silicon Valley. By this stage, however, it will be far too late to pursue the only other option available to the stop Trump plotters. This extreme idea involves bringing in a third-party candidate, to run as an independent and avoid the Republican nomination process entirely. Former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg was once considering this, but would have taken votes mainly from Clinton, not Trump, so there is a search for a more conservative alternative. The catch, according to a confidential study commissioned to examine the idea, is not just that few have come up with good names, but that such a candidate would need to gather thousands of signatures to get his or her name on general election ballot papers in time. The study points out that 80,000 signatures are needed by 9 May alone in Texas – and all from people who did not vote in the state primary. A third-party candidacy that launched on 1 April would have just 106 days to find 460,000 such signatures across the 11 states with tough ballot access rules. Even then, an independent conservative would probably just split the rightwing vote – saving neither the party from Trump, nor the country from Clinton, if they were the twin intentions. Instead the many mainstream Republicans who are appalled at Trump’s antics are now realising they could have little alternative but to vote for Hillary Clinton or not vote at all. Half of Republican voters tell pollsters they do not know yet whether they could bring themselves to back Trump if he wins their party nomination. Leading moderates in the Senate, such as Maine’s Susan Collins who fear a crushing defeat in congressional elections if Trump is at the top of their party ticket, also refuse to say. Laura Bush, the wife of the last Republican president, George W Bush, this week simply replied: “Don’t ask.”
Premier League: 10 things to look out for this weekend 1) Will Tottenham’s press disrupt City? Given that the tactic of trying to absorb pressure had not worked for any of Manchester City’s opponents, it made sense for Swansea to try something different last weekend, as the Welsh side attempted to disrupt the league leaders’ momentum by squeezing their centre-backs when they had the ball. It did not work, of course, because City were still too sharp in attack. Yet Tottenham Hotspur’s feverish high press could yield greater rewards at White Hart Lane on Sunday. Both sides are without key attacking players – Harry Kane for Spurs, Kevin De Bruyne for City – but a match between the league’s top two promises to be fascinating from a tactical perspective. Will Tottenham’s favoured approach fluster City? Or will Pep Guardiola’s side simply play around them and take advantage of the space further up the pitch? JS • Jamie Jackson: City may find the Celtic result becomes a pressing issue • Rashford, Alli, Iwobi and Dembélé among Golden Boy nominees 2) Under-pressure Guidolin to target Liverpool’s soft spot No pressure, Francesco. Rumoured to have been given only two matches to save his job after three defeats and one draw in four Premier League matches, Francesco Guidolin must have looked at the fixture list with foreboding. The first of the two games ended in defeat against rampant Manchester City, but as he sets about the onerous task of plotting victory against a Liverpool side who are almost as impressive as City going forward, Swansea’s Italian manager can at least take heart in his team’s decent performance in defeat against the league leaders. For all their attacking nous, Liverpool have yet to keep a clean sheet this season and the manner in which Guidolin sets about exposing the vulnerability of their back four could have a major say in his future – or lack of it – in south Wales. There are weaknesses to exploit: Liverpool have a new goalkeeper who has yet to make a save despite playing two matches, a central defensive partnership that, in the possible absence of Dejan Lovren, has played only two games together and a slow stand-in left-back who seems more comfortable on the front foot. Against Manchester City, Swansea played a high-tempo pressing game in which Gylfi Sigurdsson linked up with well with Fernando Llorente. Should the duo play as well again, they are likely to pose no end of problems for Liverpool’s defence, while the speedy Modou Barrow is likely to provide an extremely stern test of James Milner’s defensive qualities. BG • Guidolin: I may lose Swansea job if we don’t beat Liverpool • Klopp warns Liverpool squad over social media after Sakho Snapchat outburst 3) Mourinho should stick with experience of Blind Having missed Manchester United’s wins over Northampton and Leicester City with a groin injury, Luke Shaw did not feature in Manchester United’s Europa League tie against Zorya Luhansk after being sent home from training on Wednesday with a sore throat, temperature and fever. If he has recovered in time for Sunday’s appointment with Stoke City, it will be interesting to see if he is selected following Daley Blind’s excellent performance at full-back against the champions last weekend. Blind arrived at Manchester United as a left-back or defensive midfielder, but was moved into the heart of defence out of necessity by Louis van Gaal, where he has more or less remained ever since. In an interview with Dutch broadcasting service NOS earlier this year, he said: “I think I can sill play at left-back and in midfield, but right now I feel good at centre-back”, but against Leicester he showed he has lost none of his ability in his old position. Shaw is a fine player, but has yet to play as well for Manchester United as Blind did – helping create three of United’s four goals last weekend. While the speedier Englishman represents the future, on current form José Mourinho may prefer to stick with the slower, more experienced Dutch hand. BG • Europa League match report: Manchester United 1-0 Zorya Luhansk • Mourinho complains Manchester United’s fixture list is a ‘poisoned gift’ • Smalling sparks United goal rush against Leicester 4) Will Walcott continue to flourish? While Olivier Giroud has his merits, it cannot be a coincidence that many of Arsenal’s most incisive performances in the past 18 months have featured Theo Walcott in attack. Indeed it is a year since they tore through Manchester United at the Emirates, with Walcott’s movement troubling Louis van Gaal’s stuttering defence, and that victory was reminiscent of the way that Arsenal ripped Chelsea to shreds last weekend, tormenting Antonio Conte’s creaking defence with their flair, speed and quality of movement. Walcott’s goal maintained his promising start to the season and, bearing in mind how the forward’s meandering end to last season led to his omission from England’s Euro 2016 squad, it demonstrated how hard work usually pays off in the end. Instead of sulking when he fell down the pecking order for club and country, Walcott recognised that he needed to intensify his efforts and his decision to bring in a personal trainer to help him improve his fitness was a sign of a more mature mindset. Whether he can sustain this level depends on whether he can steer clear of the injuries and sudden losses of form that have held him back in the past. The heights that Walcott can reach are why his inability to maximise his potential is felt so keenly, especially when it is clear that Arsenal, who will look to build on the win over Chelsea when they travel to Burnley on Sunday, are a more fluid side with him in the attack instead of Giroud. JS • Walcott credits new work ethic with transforming his Arsenal form • Coleman frustrated as injury rules Ramsey out for Wales • David Squires on … Arsène Wenger’s 20 years at Arsenal 5) Everton need to get back on track Briefly tipped as unlikely title contenders, Everton have had a deflating couple of weeks since beating Middlesbrough on 10 September, following up their exit from the EFL Cup at the hands of Norwich City by losing at Bournemouth last weekend. Ronald Koeman was deeply unimpressed with his team’s performance in the 1-0 defeat to Bournemouth and, for now, Everton’s task is to show their new manager that they can live up to expectations on a consistent basis. Players such as Romelu Lukaku and Ross Barkley have so much more to offer and Koeman will demand a response when Crystal Palace, energised by Christian Benteke’s goals, come to town on Friday night. JS • Pardew and Crystal Palace attuned to Bolasie threat at Goodison Park • Daniel Amokachi: ‘Football in Finland is too nice – I want to change that’ • Everton’s Gueye: ‘I am a perfectionist. I don’t like losing the ball – ever’ 6) Traoré could be Hammers’ next tormentor Having masterminded seven Premier League defeats out of seven between them in recent weeks, both Slaven Bilic and Aitor Karanka are in urgent need of a win from this fixture. Given the atrociousness of much of West Ham’s defending and their failure to settle into their new home, the Hammers’ odds of 11-10 favourites could scarcely be more unappealing. Middlesbrough have problems of their own: in defeat against Tottenham Hotspur, Boro offered little and looked ponderous in midfield until the introduction of Adama Traoré just before the hour. His injection of much-needed pace kept Spurs on their toes when, up to that point, the only real fight Boro had shown came in the form of an altercation between Víctor Valdés and Adam Clayton. Traoré has played just over half an hour of football for Boro since his arrival from Aston Villa on transfer deadline day, but has already made a strong case for his inclusion from the start to a manager whose overly defensive tactics are failing to yield dividends. BG • West Ham’s woes: five things the Hammers need to fix • Paul MacInnes: West Ham restore order off the field but are in disarray on it • West Ham delay night out investigation until after Middlesbrough game 7) Which Watford will turn up against Bournemouth? Since Watford turned a half-time score of 1-1 into a 6-1 win over Bournemouth at Vicarage Road three years ago these teams have been unusually well matched, drawing four of their five league games (the other, a 2-0 Bournemouth win, was skewed by the Hornets defender Gabriele Angella getting sent off after 28 seconds). In the last two seasons the sides have been separated by one and three points. But if their results have been similar, the methodology has not: since that 6-1 win Watford have changed manager six times, Bournemouth not at all; nine of the Cherries’ starting XI in August 2013 are still at the club, while Watford continue to employ only one member of that 18-man matchday squad. A week ago, as Bournemouth came to terms with an embarrassing home defeat by Preston in the EFL Cup while Watford enjoyed the fall-out from successive wins over West Ham and Manchester United – both of whom have already beaten the Cherries this season – it appeared that Walter Mazzarri’s side would have a considerably more comfortable season than Eddie Howe’s. What a difference a week makes: Bournemouth played superbly in beating Everton 1-0 while Watford seem to be in trouble, desperately short of fight, wit and general clue at Burnley on Monday. They also conceded two more from crosses, the source of a remarkable 64% of the 11 goals they have let in this season – a statistic that suggests that Mazzarri’s wing-backs are yet to totally nail the “back” bit of their job description. SB • Howe happy at Bournemouth amid England speculation • Wilshere’s ‘step back in time’ at Bournemouth lauded by Howe • Defour inspires determined Burnley to victory over Watford 8) Young upstart Leko to add to Sunderland’s pain? The timing of a flurry of bets placed on Tony Pulis to become the first Premier League manager this season to lose his job on Thursday seemed strange, as if they were prompted by West Brom’s on-field performances. Pulis’s fractious relationship with his employers has been well documented, but four points from two games have rewarded a significant upturn in his side’s performances since their opening day win over Crystal Palace. Admittedly, West Ham and Stoke City might not have presented the stoutest test of his team’s abilities and a benevolent fixture generator has dealt Pulis a third consecutive kind hand in the form of basement dwellers Sunderland, whose capitulation against Crystal Palace last weekend could scarcely have been more slapstick. Having scored in both of West Brom’s past two games, Salomón Rondón will be relishing the prospect of another one or two goals to his tally against an often inept Sunderland defence before heading off on international duty with Venezuela. With Nacer Chadli operating behind him and James McClean and the in-form Matt Phillips providing ammunition from the flanks, he has every reason to be optimistic. Jonathan Leko may also add to the 43 minutes of football he has played this season across four appearances. Aged only 17, Leko has the potential to wreak havoc on the ground where he made his debut last April. The first footballer born in 1999 to play in the Premier League, Leko got his first assist of the season during a two-minute cameo against Stoke. He has yet to start a game this season, but Saturday seems as good a day as any for him to get a decent run out. BG • Sunderland doctor leaves club following Van Aanholt incident • Louise Taylor: Moyes struggles to identify what is going wrong at Sunderland • Moyes admits lack of summer recruitment could cost Sunderland dear 9) Phelan’s side cannot afford another red card Hull City managed to hold their own despite starting the season with 13 fit senior players, so it was worth seeing how they would do with only 10 for a couple of matches. But enough is enough. Mike Phelan’s side probably would have lost to Arsenal and Liverpool even if Jake Livermore and Ahmed Elmohamady had not been sent off for handling goalbound shots in the first halves of both matches, while it is not particularly earth-shattering to point out that teams tend to fare better when they don’t have to play with a man down for more than a half. Still, though, let’s hope that Phelan has told his defenders to keep their hands down against Chelsea. With 11 on the pitch, they could surprise the visitors. JS • The Rumour Mill: five Chelsea players heading for the exit? 10) Could the curse of Atkinson strike again for Leicester? Leicester boast one of only four 100% records in this season’s Champions League, and of that select club only they and Atlético Madrid have kept two clean sheets. This is particularly curious given that they have conceded eight times in their past two domestic matches (though two of Chelsea’s four against them in the EFL Cup came in extra time), and 12 in their last four, with just two clean sheets in eight non-European games so far. “We are very solid, it’s difficult to score a goal against us, but today is very, very strange,” Claudio Ranieri said last week, when his side let in three goals from corners against Manchester United. This is the first time that Martin Atkinson has officiated a Leicester game since their visit to Arsenal in February, when he sent off Danny Simpson before Danny Welbeck scored a winner in the sixth of four minutes’ additional time – Ranieri declared himself “very angry” with the official’s performance. Of their last 10 matches refereed by Atkinson Leicester have lost five and won one. Interestingly, of their last 10 matches refereed by Atkinson Southampton, Leicester’s opponents on Sunday, have won seven and lost two, both the defeats coming at home to Chelsea. SB • Barney Ronay: Mahrez shows he belongs in the elite • Paul Wilson: Leicester pass Champions League audition with flying colours • Leicester’s interest ‘flattering’ but Keane is ‘happy at Burnley’ • Europa League match report: Hapoel Beer Sheva 0-0 Southampton
Children's mental health services are struggling. Can teachers help? When you train as a teacher, one thing you rarely consider is what you’d do if you were confronted with say a confused teenager convinced they were a religious prophet, or being on a school trip and finding a student carving the word DIE into their forearm. Any job that exposes you to the great stream of humanity will force you into proximity with the misery that runs through it. And the problem is, as a teacher you’re expected to do something about it. Few, in my experience, do. Are mental health problems among the young getting worse? In 2014 the Commons health committee reported that data was so out of date that those planning and operating child and adolescent mental health services (Camhs) were operating in a fog. Some indicators, like 2016 reports by NHS Digital of self-harm rates among 16- to 24-year-olds increasing between 2007 and 2014, might suggest things are getting worse. Others, like UK suicide rates, which have been decreasing for the last 30 years especially in the young [pdf], might suggest things are getting better. Maybe, as Dr Stanley Kutcher, an expert in adolescent mental health and leader in mental health research in Canada, puts it, “we’re tending to confuse mental distress ... with mental illness”. As a lone teacher, your personal experience will vary from your colleagues. I worked with mental health services three times in one year, while the teacher next door didn’t. Whenever I’ve needed them, they’ve been fantastic, but because funding is so scarce at a local level for this kind of provision it usually takes something dramatic before a school will lift the phone. And in many ways who can blame them? Identifying, assessing and treating mental illnesses are some of the most specialised, highly trained professions imaginable. This isn’t an area for amateurs, however well-meaning. We only usually notice when students have gone beyond struggling. Even then, it isn’t easy to tell. As a teacher you can feel so helpless; what pupils need is so much more than just a teacher who cares. They need specialist help, and there are very few ways we can spot and help students in advance of the chronic phase of a mental illness. One of the best, sweetest students I’d ever taught, sank into a depression. He was rational, and good as ever, but the world had no colour for him, and watching him drift out of his studies when he had been so alert, nerdy and fascinated by everything broke my heart, mainly because I could do nothing. What can schools do? There are no simple solutions to a complex, society-wide problem. We find it just as hard to spot mental health problems in school as we do in society at large. Teacher training is often cited as good place to start, but from experience I know how packed that is. Certainly, some basic awareness of early signs, strategies and procedures would be useful. Schools usually funnel these issues through their child-protection officer, a designated and trained adult responsible for communicating with external agencies. Any training needs to be focused on that role. Sadly, I’ve never seen a school intervention based on wellbeing, positive thinking and self-esteem demonstrably improve matters for staff, long-term. That’s because the pressures on teachers are real, not a matter of self-belief. The Scylla and Charybdis are workload and behaviour management. Crazy in-school policies on book marking have made things even harder for teachers. But one of the ways we could reboot this battlefield of bruised ghosts would be through a report I’m working on right now with the DfE: finding and sharing best practice on how leaders create calm, civil school cultures. Many schools do amazing work to protect the dignity and safety of all of their members. And when children are less anonymous, subtle warning cues can be caught rather than missed. Schools could use more robust research into this field, commissioned by the NHS to better understand the real needs of the school community, and a requirement that only trained professionals be allowed to work with pupils and staff in this misunderstood field. Few schools retain a nurse anymore, but perhaps we should look into mental health visitors as an intermediary device to facilitate better communication between providers and need. Changing societies is a long game. But real change for the better takes time. Join the Healthcare Professionals Network to read more about issues like this. And follow us on Twitter (@GdnHealthcare) to keep up with the latest healthcare news and views.
Rudy Giuliani out-Trumps Trump, but is it an aberration or just his real character? He is out-Trumping Trump. He ranted and raved at the Republican national convention, spread wild rumours about Hillary Clinton’s health and appeared to attack her for her gender, and described Donald Trump’s exploitation of the tax code as “genius”. And when reminded that he has marital infidelities in his past, he replied: “Everybody does.” That it should come to this for the man once hailed as “America’s mayor”. Rudy Giuliani was the face of New York on 11 September 2001. He braved the scene of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and walked two miles with head and shoulders caked in white ash. He lost friends, urged tolerance and captured the mood in a way that eluded President George W Bush when he said: “The number of casualties will be more than any of us can bear, ultimately.” The shift from America’s mayor to Trump’s attack dog has led some commentators to suggest that Giuliani is at risk of betraying his legacy. “What Has Happened to Rudy Giuliani?” asked a headline on the Slate website. “He used to be a pragmatic moderate. Now he’s spewing nonsense.” But this is not a simple narrative of hero-turned-crackpot. From another perspective, Giuliani is merely reverting to his old self, albeit in more extreme form, and 9/11 was the exception that proves the rule. Under the headline, “Is Rudy Giuliani Losing His Mind?”, the Politico website argued: “Even in New York, ‘America’s Mayor’ was always a lot more like Trump than people realized. Now we’re seeing it on a national stage.” Now 72, his antics in recent months have caused consternation, as he seemingly tries to achieve the impossible by being like Trump only more so. At the convention in Cleveland he roared, waved his arms theatrically and proclaimed that Trump loves “all people, from the top to the bottom”. Lambasting Clinton, against whom he holds a grudge, he has accused the media of ignoring “several signs of illness by her”. He described Trump’s pitch to African Americans in Milwaukee as “the best speech that any Republican, at the least, has ever given”. Last week he claimed that Trump beat Clinton in the first debate and told an interviewer that the Democrat is “too stupid to be president”, because of her defence of Bill Clinton’s extramarital cheating. Then, on last Sunday’s political TV shows, he reacted to the report that Trump declared a $916m loss on his 1995 income tax returns, which could have allowed him to legally avoid paying any taxes for up to 18 years. “The man’s a genius,” Giuliani said on Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union. “He knows how to operate the tax code for the people that he’s serving.” Over on NBC’s Meet the Press, host Chuck Todd asked Giuliani if he was “the right person” to bring up Bill Clinton’s past infidelities. “You have your own infidelities, sir,” Todd said. Giuliani shot back: “Everybody does. You know, I’m a Roman Catholic and I confess those things to my priest.” On ABC, he asked: “Don’t you think a man who has this kind of economic genius is a lot better for the United States than a woman, and the only thing she’s ever produced is a lot of work for the FBI checking out her emails.” All of which fuelled a perception that the former mayor is losing the plot and becoming increasingly unhinged. Rich Galen, a Republican strategist and former press secretary to Dan Quayle, said: “I think he’s gone off the rails. I hadn’t paid much attention until his shrieking at the Republican convention. He’s like the guitarist in This Is Spinal Tap going up to 11, except he’s going up to 12.” Galen added: “He was always pretty brash but this is a different level of disconnect. Calling Trump a ‘genius’ for losing $900m a year: I don’t understand how you ever get to that point.” The reality is that, before 9/11, Giuliani was already a troubled individual with a suspect record. In 1992, as a mayoral candidate, he egged on thousands of predominantly white off-duty police officers in a huge New York riot that saw innocent people attacked, property vandalised and city hall occupied. Giuliani reportedly stood on top of a car while denouncing Mayor David Dinkins, an African American, through a bullhorn. He succeeded Dinkins in 1994. Violent crime dropped by 56% during the eight years he served as mayor, although it had begun falling three years before he took office and reflected a wider trend in big cities across the country. There were also consequences to Giuliani’s tough-on-crime approach. In 1999, Amadou Diallo, an unarmed immigrant from Guinea, was shot 41 times by police while reaching for his wallet. A year later, Patrick Dorismond, an unarmed 26-year-old security guard, was shot dead after a brief struggle outside a cocktail bar; Giuliani attacked Dorismond’s reputation and released part of his juvenile police record, as if to imply that he got his just desserts. Like Trump, Giuliani has been married three times and has a chequered personal life. In 2000, following an affair, he told the media before his wife that he would seek a separation from her. An article on Politico last month contended: “It might seem like this summer has marked a sad break with that old Rudy, or proved him a sellout. But if you’ve followed Giuliani’s career, in fact it’s clear he swallowed the whole Trump persona many years ago – the race-baiting, the law-and-order pose, the incessant lying used to both steal credit and avoid responsibility. “What we’re seeing this summer isn’t a crackup: It’s the inevitable, supernova explosion of what long ago became one of the most toxic and overrated political careers in our history.” If he was speaking on behalf of a conventional candidate, such behaviour could be severely damaging. With Trump, however, it is all of a piece. Lanhee Chen, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, said: “I don’t know if he’s hurting anything because he’s not saying anything more outlandish than the nominee himself. If the nominee was Mitt Romney, it would be a problem because it would be a surrogate gone rogue.” He added: “In 2012 he was a good surrogate, as far as I can tell, and we can continue to admire him for his work on 9/11. I’m not sure who the real Rudy Giuliani is.”
Blind NHS patients to be fitted with pioneering bionic eye The NHS is to pay for 10 people to be implanted with a “bionic eye”, a pioneering technology that can restore some sight to those who have been blind for years. Only a handful of people have undergone surgery in trials so far to equip them to use Argus II, which employs a camera mounted in a pair of glasses and a tiny computer to relay signals directly to the nerves controlling sight. The decision to fund the first 10 NHS patients to be given the bionic eye could pave the way for the life-changing technology to enter the mainstream. Those who will get the equipment can currently see nothing more than the difference between daylight and darkness. The system allows the brain to decode flashes of light, so that they can learn to see movement. One of three patients to have had the implant into the retina in trials at Manchester Royal Eye hospital is Keith Hayman, 68, from Lancashire, who has five grandchildren. He was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa in his 20s. The disease causes cells in the retina gradually to stop working and eventually die. Hayman, who was originally a butcher, was registered blind in 1981, and forced to give up all work. “Having spent half my life in darkness, I can now tell when my grandchildren run towards me and make out lights twinkling on Christmas trees,” he said. “I would be talking to a friend, who might have walked off and I couldn’t tell and kept talking to myself. This doesn’t happen anymore, because I can tell when they have gone.” They may seem like little things, he said, but “they make all the difference to me”. The NHS will fund the first 10 patients during 2017 to have surgery at Manchester and at Moorfields Eye hospital in London. All will be carefully followed, to gather data on their progress and assess how much the bionic eye improves their daily lives. If the results are good, more patients are likely to receive the treatment in the future. “This highly innovative NHS-funded procedure shows real promise and could change lives,” said Dr Jonathan Fielden, director of specialised commissioning at NHS England. “The NHS has given the world medical innovations ranging from modern cataract surgery to new vaccines and hip replacements. Now once again the NHS is at the forefront of harnessing ground-breaking science for the benefit of patients in this country.” Professor Paulo Stanga, who first performed the surgery at the Manchester hospital in 2009, said they were very grateful to NHS England. “I personally believe this is a landmark decision,” he said. “It will significantly benefit patients who are completely blind – not only patients with retinitis pigmentosa and their families, but hopefully other patients in the future with other conditions, such as age-related macular degeneration.” At the moment, there is no proven benefit from gene and stem cell therapies, said Stanga, even though he believes they will one day help. So the bionic eye is the only treatment that can give back a degree of vision to those who are completely blind.. There are an estimated 16,000 people with RP in the UK with varying degrees of deterioration in their vision. About a tenth can no longer see to count the fingers on a hand. Between 160 and 320 are thought to be eligible for a bionic eye operation. The numbers with age-related macular degeneration, however, are far higher – it is the commonest cause of blindness or severe vision loss. The ‘bionic eye’ treatment, including surgery, follow-up, equipment and rehabilitation, costs £150,000. Some patients will do better than others, said Stanga. “Patients need to learn to interpret the newly acquired visual function,” he said. “They are going to be experiencing a pattern of light and darkness. The more they use the device, the more they learn to interpret it. “They are not going to be able to discern faces but if they can see somebody is standing in front of them and in what direction the person is moving, that is great benefit for them. One of the main complaints people have is the feeling of isolation that they suffer. Some of our patients tell us they go to the pub and no longer feel that they may be talking to themselves.”
Cesc Fàbregas can take the flak from Arsenal supporters, says Guus Hiddink Guus Hiddink believes Cesc Fàbregas has regained form in recent weeks because training has made him stronger and Chelsea’s interim manager suggested that Fàbregas will cope with any flak aimed at him by Arsenal fans at the Emirates . Hiddink said that Fàbregas was bypassed too easily in matches earlier in the season and seemed to struggle with the pace of proceedings. The manager has not tailored any special training to Fàbregas but the midfielder has benefitted from the general drills run for the team. “We worked hard the last weeks in training ... and as a consequence physically he’s feeling himself very, very good,” said Hiddink. “We didn’t say go to the weights and lift 100kg. The way we practice, emphasising a lot of interchanging of rhythm of pace of the game, in our exercise, made him also in my opinion physically sharp.” Fàbregas’s bland performances led some Chelsea supporters to suspect the player had fallen out with José Mourinho, and one memorable placard displayed by a fan at Stamford Bridge following the Portuguese’s sacking labelled him a “rat”. Hiddink said Fàbregas, who has insisted he had a good relationship with Mourinho, has shown admirable resolve to use the criticism to improve. Fàbregas scored his first Premier League goal of the season in Chelsea’s 3-3 draw with Everton last Saturday and also appears to have rekindled the on-field connection with striker Diego Costa. Fàbregas has helped his Spain team-mate score five goals in five matches. “You can have several reactions [to fans’ criticism] but he gave the right reaction to perform, to have the team perform, which is good to see. He made a very good step and what I like is his contributing to the team, on the pitch and also with the youngsters, which is good to see.” Fàbregas is likely to endure more hostility when he returns to Arsenal, the club he used to captain and for whom he made more than 500 appearances. He was given a reminder of the venom bred by his subsequent switch to Chelsea, via Barcelona, when a steward at Stamford Bridge pointedly asked him: “You’re a snake, you’re Arsenal, what happened to you?’. The steward was sacked last week by Chelsea when footage of the comment emerged online. Hiddink suggested that any negativity “might encourage him”.
A 2017 general election? Here’s why the Tories may not storm to victory After last week’s high court Brexit ruling, bookies have slashed the odds of a general election next year. The logic behind this is that such a move would give Theresa May a mandate she currently lacks to press ahead with article 50 on her own terms. Without it – now the judges have decided parliament must give its assent before the government can formally trigger Brexit – she potentially faces months of delaying tactics by MPs who backed remain and who outnumber leavers in parliament. With the Conservatives currently on average 14 percentage points ahead of Labour in the polls, there is a clear incentive for May to go to the people; at 43%, the Tories’ current average rating is as much as nine points above where it was shortly before the EU referendum on 23 June. An early election would seem to give May every opportunity to increase her personal authority and that of her government. But perhaps it is time to stand back. Would an election early next year (assuming the obstacles to such a ballot created by the Fixed-term Parliaments Act could be overcome) necessarily make it significantly easier for May to secure parliament’s support for her approach to Brexit? For a start, we should remember that it is quite difficult for any party to win an overall majority these days. Scotland is now largely barren territory for the Conservatives and Labour, and there is little sign that the electoral tide that enabled the SNP almost to sweep the board there in May 2015 has significantly receded. A majority has to be forged from within England and Wales alone. Indeed, it took a seven-point lead over Labour just to deliver the Conservatives’ narrow 12-seat Commons majority last year. Even the 14-point lead May now has could still produce no more than a 76-seat majority – more than comfortable, it is true, but well short of a landslide. There is, though, no guarantee that the current lead will be sustained through to next year. Part of it is down to the prime minister’s honeymoon. All honeymoons eventually come to an end. Meanwhile, of course, the reason the government’s 12-seat majority is seen as too small is because of the continuing divisions on Europe inside the Conservative party. At present these divisions are being glossed over by the glue of ambiguity. But May could not call an election about Brexit without being more specific about what she thinks Brexit should mean. Consequently, the fissures inside the Conservative party could become exposed to public view. And divided governments are not an electorally attractive sight – even if they are facing a divided opposition. Moreover, those differences over Europe are also evident among Conservative voters. Much of the Conservative advance in the polls since May became prime minister has come at the expense of Ukip. Although Labour support has dropped a couple of points since June, Ukip support is down by five points. Around one in five of those who voted Ukip in May 2015 now say they would back the Conservatives, three times as many as in June. If these ex-Ukip voters gain the impression that May is not on course to deliver the kind of Brexit they want, they may well switch back to Ukip. True, Ukip has leadership problems of its own. But nothing would seem better designed to heal some of its wounds than an opportunity to fight an election in which Europe is the central issue. At the same time, May has to bear in mind that at least one in three of those who currently say they support the Conservatives voted in June to remain in the EU. They could take fright if they come to fear the prime minister wants a hard Brexit. Of course, these pro-remain Conservatives might feel Labour is an unattractive alternative. However, the relatively strong Liberal Democrat performance in recent local byelections as well as in the Witney parliamentary contest suggests that, in traditional Lib Dem areas at least, voters are beginning to put aside their disapproval of the party’s record in the coalition. So May could have trouble defending those gains from the Liberal Democrats that were vital to David Cameron’s success last year. So long as Labour is weak in the polls, the prospect of an early election is always going to appear tempting in Tory eyes. However, May could end up with a markedly less successful outcome than current polling suggests. But, of course, if she does find herself suffering significant defeats in parliament, she may not have much choice.
NBN Co downplays report showing Australia lagging on internet speed The company that operates the national broadband network has downplayed new findings on global internet speeds that show Australia continues to lag behind other Asia-Pacific countries. Akamai released its third-quarter “State of the Internet” connectivity report, acknowledged as a benchmark for broadband performance within the industry, on Thursday. Australia ranked 50th in the global rankings for average connection speed, and eighth among Asia-Pacific countries and regions, with an average of 9.6Mbps for the third quarter this year – a decline of 13% on the previous quarter. South Korea and Hong Kong were at first and second in the world, with 26.3Mbps and 20.1Mbps respectively. Average connection speeds globally had increased by 2.3% to 6.3Mbps, a 21% increase year-over-year. Australia’s average peak connection speed was 46.9Mbps, putting it at 57th in the world, and far behind leaders in the Asia-Pacific region such as Singapore – with the highest peak speed of the countries assessed of 162.0Mbps. With Japan, Australia had the smallest gains year-over-year of countries within the Asia-Pacific in the third quarter, at just 12%. By comparison, Indonesia’s speeds increased by 220%. But third-quarter average mobile connections in Australia were 12.8Mbps, behind only the Philippines in the Asia-Pacific region. The Akamai report said the NBN was on track to roll out universal broadband access in Australia at a minimum speed of 25Mbps, with 40% of the country having gigabit-speed access by 2020. A spokeswoman for the national broadband network agreed that the findings reflected the need to bridge the digital divide in Australia, but said most of the 10m IP addresses assessed by Akamai would be “legacy ADSL services” and were not a reflection on the NBN. The speed experienced by consumers would be ultimately dictated by their choice of package from internet service providers, she said. “Consumers may choose a 12Mbps package and that what would be what is measured, not what the line is capable of doing.” She also noted that Australia’s average speeds had increased year-over-year. Some 1.6m premises around Australia now have NBN services. Internet Australia, the not-for-profit peak body representing the interests of Australian internet users, said the mix of technologies being used in the NBN meant it could not guarantee the speeds that would be delivered to all consumers. Between 30% and 40% of premises using the NBN will be serviced by “fibre-to-the-node”, which IA’s chief executive, Laurie Patton, says will not meet Australia’s future needs, given the fact that ageing copper-wire fibres will need replacing in 10 to 15 years’ time. “The simple fact is we are being outplayed by our global competitors who are building fibre-based systems providing speeds that cannot be matched by fibre-to-the-node,” he said. “The wholesale speeds claimed by NBN are largely irrelevant as they are not necessarily the speeds that will be delivered to consumers. What counts is what you pay for and what you get.” IA has been calling for the NBN to dump the fibre-to-the-node rollout in favour of the “fibre-to-the-home” approach initially committed to by Kevin Rudd’s government before being watered down by the Abbott-led government. The annual cost to the federal budget of the government’s investment in the NBN is expected to grow in coming years. A report by the Parliamentary Budget Office released on Wednesday estimated the cost to the budget in 2016-17 to be about $580m.
Sunderland’s Patrick van Aanholt grabs late equaliser to deny West Brom win Sunderland fans joke about Patrick van Aanholt being “dangerous at both ends” but, for once, he left David Moyes smiling. A most attacking left-back, the Dutchman has been culpable for the concession of quite a few goals during his distinctly chequered time on Wearside but, equally, scores his fair share. Dropped to the bench by Moyes – (still fuming about Van Aanholt’s summertime smoking of shisha pipes) – he enjoyed one of his better afternoons after replacing the injured Jan Kirchhoff and, capitalising on a piece of wonderful skill from Duncan Watmore, scored the equaliser. The resultant draw dictates that Sunderland’s wait for a first Premier League win of the season continues but, although still bottom, they have at least doubled their points tally to two. For long stretches of an afternoon on which Tony Pulis’s side missed several extremely presentable chances following Nacer Chadli’s assured opener, the injury hit Wearsiders looked doomed to yet another defeat but, creditably, they never folded. “West Brom are the masters of not conceding goals but we kept going,” said an unusually upbeat Moyes. “It’s a disappointment because we need wins but we’ll take something from this. I’m glad we were able to give the supporters something.” His side very nearly enjoyed the best of beginnings. An unusually fluent home passing move concluded with Watmore’s ball finding Jermain Defoe. Having cleverly sprung the visiting offside trap, and with only Ben Foster to beat, the former England striker took a steadying touch before, uncharacteristically, dragging his shot wide from about 12 yards out. Fortified by John O’Shea’s reassuring recall to central defence, Sunderland enjoyed plenty of possession, something partly facilitated by Didier Ndong’s high-energy midfield enterprise. Yet ever the realist, Moyes will doubtless have noted that this apparent dominance rarely resulted in Ben Foster being tested while West Brom menaced sporadically on the counterattack and at set pieces. When, at the end of one break, O’Shea and company were confounded by Matt Phillips’s pull back to Chadli, they had Jordan Pickford to thank for bailing them out, the England Under-21s goalkeeper doing well to repel the former Tottenham Hotspur player’s shot. Unfortunately for the locals Chadli was enjoying himself in the weak October sunshine and soon defied Pickford. His goal began with Kirchhoff conceding possession to Claudio Jacob and moving the ball on to Phillips. After a brief advance, his well-weighted pass fell perfectly for the scorer, whose first touch took him away from Lamine Koné. All that remained was for an attacking midfielder whose polish, pace and physical presence were already enhancing the afternoon to slide a classy, acutely angled left foot shot into the far corner. It was his third goal in four Premier League games. “Chadli,” said Pulis. “Has been fantastic for us.” If Moyes must have been disappointed with Koné, he can only have been relieved to see James McClean – heavily booed by his less-than-adoring former public – miscue a cross that had promised to offer the unmarked Salomón Rondón a simple tap-in on the verge of half-time. Early in the new half Kirchhoff suffered the latest in a long line of injuries when he collapsed while jumping for a high ball and had to be carried off. Seeking to exacerbate Wearside misery, Darren Fletcher chested a ball down adroitly before unleashing a fine volley, ably diverted by Pickford. Home hearts were in mouths when Chadli pounced on the rebound but this time he shot wide. At the other end, Pulis’s players generally defended admirably in the face of mounting pressure. Such sheer bloody-minded resolve was epitomised by the moment Jonny Evans brilliantly blocked Defoe’s goal-bound shot after Van Aanholt, on for Kirchhoff, and Wahbi Khazri bisected the visiting rearguard. Fortunately for Moyes, Watmore possessed sufficient drive to unhinge that backline courtesy of a startling change of pace and deftly dinked ball which prefaced Van Aanholt sending a half-volley looping into the net. It was his second goal this season. “We’re really disappointed; we had 21 crosses and 18 shots, we just needed a bit more quality in the final third,” said Pulis. “But the great thing for Sunderland was that the crowd stuck with them; they kept them going.”
Mark Rylance wins best supporting actor Oscar for Bridge of Spies Mark Rylance has won the best supporting actor Oscar for his performance in Bridge of Spies. The 56-year-old actor, known primarily for his stage work, beat competition from favourite Sylvester Stallone to win the award. In Steven Spielberg’s cold war thriller, he plays a Soviet spy involved in a dangerous exchange. While Rylance’s theatre performances have brought him much acclaim, including three Tony awards, his film work has been somewhat limited. His credits include Sean Penn’s misfiring thriller The Gunman, period drama The Other Boleyn Girl and the controversial romance Intimacy. Rylance will also appear in Spielberg’s next film, as the titular character in an adaptation of Roald Dahl’s fantasy The BFG. He is also set to star in Christopher Nolan’s second world war drama Dunkirk. As well as winning the Oscar, Rylance was also awarded a Bafta for his role.
Brave move at Advertising Week Europe's adblocking event We’re only just into day three of Advertising Week Europe, and it has already thrown up its fair share of controversy – not least in the shape of the views expressed by Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone on Tuesday on immigration, gender equality and Vladimir Putin. However, Monkey notes the whole event could have descended into a brawl within the first hour when News UK chief customer officer, Chris Duncan, took the stage to discuss adblocking with Brendan Eich, the founder of Mozilla. Why would Monkey worry the relatively mundane issue of adblocking could have led to fisticuffs? Well News Corp – parent company of Duncan’s employer – is one of a dozen major US media companies that have sent a cease and desist order to Eich over his adblocking browser, Brave. Luckily the panel was perfectly cordial, though Monkey suspects the lawyers’ letters are less so.
Jimmy Wales: ‘The world needs to ask: #whereisBassel?’ Amid the destruction and atrocities tearing Syria apart, the ordeal of one young software developer tells its own story of a broken nation. Bassel Khartabil, a Syrian-Palestinian technology innovator, had two main passions in life: opening up the internet and marrying Noura Ghazi, the love of his life. As an open-source software developer, he has contributed greatly to Wikipedia, Creative Commons, Mozilla Firefox, Openclipart and more. Taking advantage of his skills as a computer engineer, he promoted online access to knowledge in Syria through his AikiLab, based in Damascus. His most recent project was a 3D-photo reconstruction of the ancient city of Palmyra (Tadmor), once known for its outstanding monuments. Khartabil used satellite photographs and real visits to the site to re-create a real-time visualisation of the old city, recently taken and vandalised by Isis. On 15 March 2012, days before he was due to marry Noura, Syrian forces captured him in Damascus, accusing him of “harming state security”. After being interrogated and tortured, it took nine months for his case to be heard before a military court. Without legal representation, he was unable to in effect defend himself and was subsequently sent to Adra Prison. “Bassel, I am very afraid,” wrote Noura in a public love letter, after marrying him while he was behind bars. “I am afraid about the country that is being slaughtered, divided, bleeding, being destroyed. I am very afraid that our dream is changing from seeing ourselves being the generation freeing their country to the one witnessing its destruction. Bassel, I am very afraid.” In October 2015, Khartabil was transferred from Adra prison to an unknown military detention facility. His family and friends lost all contact and have no information regarding his current location. On 12 November 2015, Noura reported on her Facebook page rumours suggesting he had been sentenced to death. “May God help him, we hope it’s not too late. We are worried sick about his life,” she wrote. Khartabil is a member of the Wikipedia community, a true believer in free knowledge and freedom of expression. His arbitrary arrest, torture and rumoured death sentence are not only grave violations of International Human Rights Law, but also a significant blow to our shared values of internet freedom and free speech. His life might be in immediate danger. We urgently call on the Syrian government to unconditionally release him without delay. Khartabil has never threatened the security of Syria. On the contrary, he promoted free knowledge throughout Syria and the Arab world, a non-violent voluntary act. This Tuesday was the fourth anniversary of Khartabil’s detention. We will be marking it with protests on 19 March in London (Marble Arch, 2pm), Paris, Berlin and other cities throughout the world, calling for his immediate release, before it’s too late. Ask along with us: #WhereIsBassel? • For more details visit jimmywalesfoundation.org/where-is-bassel/ or freebassel.org. Jimmy Wales, is the founder of Wikipedia and Orit Kopel is CEO of the Jimmy Wales Foundation for Freedom of Expression.
The view on football’s crisis: TV money is the root of the problem The fall of “Big Sam” Allardyce, the manager of the English national football team who resigned after 67 days in the job, is a tragedy in the sense that it is a human drama of hubris, followed by nemesis. Allardyce is a man who, as the recordings obtained by subterfuge show, can be lured by promises of cash into making unguarded jibes about his peers and colleagues. For a potential £400,000 he was prepared to say the unsayable. Pride fuelled by greed saw him brag of ways around banned financial schemes where players become the property of speculators. Over the next few days more tales of football’s dirty deals are promised. The beautiful game will be besmirched. There was no need for Big Sam to sit down with the fake businessmen. He was already being paid £3m a year to be manager. The flower of English football is being eaten by canker worms of money and avarice. Since television money flowed into the sport in the early 1990s, the Premier League has become less a local English affair and more a global one. That has some benefits: better facilities and bigger names on the pitch. However, with top-flight clubs owned by foreign investors and English players making up a third of Premier League teams, there is a feeling that English football is becoming detached from its roots. Such is the concern that Andy Burnham, the Labour mayoral candidate for football-mad Manchester, thinks a quota on foreign players is needed. While England’s top flight has become the richest league in the world, it is not the best. On Uefa rankings the Premier League is behind both’s Spain’s La Liga and Germany’s Bundesliga. It’s been five years since an English club – Chelsea – won the European championship. There’s simply not enough bang for the television big bucks. Last year the Premier League sold television rights to its live games for a record £5.14bn. That’s more than £10m a match, up 70% from the last time. Yet there is no evidence that the quality of the basic product – football matches – has improved. Coaches too often put results ahead of entertainment, in part because of the enormous sums at stake. Packed stadiums are more to do with clever marketing than better football. The television cash is largely swallowed up by players’ wages, managers’ contracts and agents’ fees. England’s team of millionaires being beaten by Iceland, whose top division is a part-time league, shows how little money is related to talent. To correct this market failure, politicians should restrict the number of games broadcast on pay-TV and set aside some top matches for free-to-air TV. More people will watch the games. The BBC would be able to showcase an expression of national cultural identity. Commercial free-to-air channels could benefit from advertising. Highlights on the BBC draw millions more than a single match on pay-TV. With competition from free matches, TV deals will shrink. Clubs will reduce player salaries. The wealth of club owners and media tycoons will drop. There is an argument that there will be less money available for the grassroots. Yet the dearth of homegrown English players shows that not enough is being done. True, today’s stars are undoubtedly fitter and better trained. But what counts is people’s enjoyment. Players will still emulate their heroes: Zidane, Schmeichel and Platini. All of whom pleased fans without being paid the sort of sums that are now morally and financially bankrupting football.
The Last Mermaid review – Charlotte Church thrills in dystopian eco-fairytale While church music has always been one of the most conservative forms of composition, Charlotte Church music is among the most innovative. The operatic prodigy who became a pop singer and actress now stars in a co-written experimental music-dance-video piece based on Hans Christian Andersen’s 1837 fable The Little Mermaid, in which a sea nymph is translated to the land and learns the cruelties of human nature. Church’s version – on which she shares a music credit with composer Siôn Trefor and with Jonathan Powell for words and story – has the title The Last Mermaid. The change of adjective signals, even though this is officially a children’s show, its post-apocalyptic tone. Surging waves of light along the floor and walls of the stage create an undersea world, where, we learn from a chorus of a dozen singer-dancers, the ancient mer-folk have been murdered by pollution from drifting waste plastic, dead bodies and nuclear submarines. But one last embryonic mermaid has been left in a sort of barnacled incubator on the sea floor, which opens to reveal the main conceiver of the piece, in a glittery silver fish-scale dress. Unnervingly, for those drawn to hear a performer first marketed under the sales tag “The Voice of an Angel”, the first words sung live by Church in this show are a repeated mer-baby murmur of “nu nu nu.” Thankfully, as soon as she takes human form, the character would clearly walk an audition at the Royal Opera House. As well as sensibly giving the star some vocal-showcase arias of joy and then horror at life on Earth, the score – on a Björk-ish spectrum from choral to electronic – encompasses a cappella laments and a couple of jaunty pop songs. This new version is markedly less churchy than Andersen’s, in which the little mermaid learns the secret of eternal life, although not necessarily less preachy: it replaces the Christian dogma of the original with an ecological and anti-capitalist ideology that reflects Church’s increasing visibility as a political campaigner. Bruce Guthrie’s production and Francis O’Connor’s design morph from fairytale to sci-fi, with the refugee from the sea encountering a dystopian metropolis of militarily drilled citizens hooked on some drugging drink. Most of the audience, though, will be there to see Church, and the singer is thrilling to listen to and, though the choreography sometimes seems a stretch, to watch. Like Damon Albarn – who has also moved between pop and opera, although in the opposite direction – Church gives the impression of a fierce and restless musical and cultural intelligence, always looking for new directions. The show’s age suitability is advertised as 4+, and, although the younger children in the audience never seemed bored or disturbed, this project’s future would seem to be in something more mature, for either recording studio or screen. Church’s unorthodox career continues to fascinate. At Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff, until 12 June. Box office: 029-2063 6464.
Donald Trump: Muslim communities 'not reporting' terror suspects Muslim communities are “absolutely not reporting” suspected terrorists and need to “open up to society”, Donald Trump has said in his first UK interview since launching his bid for the US presidency. Appearing on ITV’s Good Morning Britain (GMB), Trump said there was “very little assimilation” in cities where there had been a “large inflow” of Muslims, and denied that some British citizens were scared of the idea of him in the White House. The frontrunner for the Republican nomination told the programme’s presenter, Piers Morgan, on Wednesday that residents of the Brussels neighbourhood Molenbeek had “coddled and taken care of” Paris terror suspect Salah Abdeslam before his arrest. The billionaire, who was once described by Morgan as a friend he had known for 10 years, also pledged to “hit Isis so hard you wouldn’t believe it” if he became US president. Discussing Muslim communities, Trump said: “When they see trouble they have to report it. They are not reporting it. They are absolutely not reporting it and that is a big problem.” Trump complained about the failure to turn in Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, the married couple who went on to launch a deadly attack in San Bernardino, California, in December: “It’s like they are protecting each other but they are really doing very bad damage. “They have to open up to society, they have to report the bad ones. And, you know, if you report the bad ones, all of a sudden you are not going to have the problems.” Trump denied he was racist, telling the programme: “I’m not ‘anti’ anything; I’m just common sense, I say it like it is. “I have great respect for Muslims, I have many friends that are Muslims. I am just saying there is something with a radicalised portion that is very, very bad and very dangerous.” He said he was astounded at the failure of anyone to turn in Abdeslam, the chief surviving suspect in the Paris terror attacks who was ultimately found in his own neighbourhood after a four-month manhunt. “There is something wrong, and we have to get to the bottom of it, when someone like who was just captured was really coddled and taken care of by people that live in the neighbourhood. “Many people knew he was there yet he was the No 1 fugitive in the world. Everybody from that area knew he was there and nobody turned him in.” Trump’s interview came as Brussels was still reeling after suspected Islamic extremists attacked the city’s airport and underground network, killing at least 31 people. “I knew Brussels years ago,” he said. “I was there probably three or four times and it was so beautiful, so secure and so safe. Now it’s an armed camp. It’s like a different world, a different place, there is no assimilation.” The tycoon-turned-politician provoked anger last year after he called for a “total and complete shutdown” of US borders to Muslims after the San Bernardino terrorist attack. More than half a million people signed a petition calling for Trump to be banned from the UK after issuing the pledge. He also claimed that parts of London were “so radicalised” police were “afraid for their own lives”. Trump rejected David Cameron’s claim that his call to ban Muslims risked aiding extremists by sowing division. “All you have to do is look at the cities where there’s been a large inflow and something’s different,” he said. “There is very little assimilation for whatever reason … they want to go by their own sets of laws.” Turning to Islamic State, which on Tuesday appeared to claim responsibility for the attacks in Brussels, Trump said: “I would hit Isis so hard you wouldn’t believe it and I would get the people over there to put up their soldiers because it’s about time that somebody did it. “But I would have such backup like you’ve never seen before in terms of air power, airstrikes, etc.” A senior British counter-terrorism officer hit back at Trump’s remarks. Deputy assistant commissioner Neil Basu from the UK Counter Terrorism Policing Network said the comments risked playing into the hands of the terrorists by demonising the very people the police needed to help them. “He is wrong,” he told the BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. “There is a generational problem here. Without a doubt we have to encourage more reporting from the Muslim community and from all communities, because unlike in some other places in the world we do have integrated communities and we have people living side by side. “If we demonise one section of the community that is the worst thing we can do, we are absolutely playing into the terrorists’ hands of making people feel hate.” Basu warned that the such comments could lead to a surge in hate crimes against Muslims. “When events like this happen in Brussels and Paris very unfortunately we do see a spike in hate crime,” he said. “We don’t want that to happen in our communities, we want people to feel safe and confident to come forward to the police and report what they have to report.” Miqdaad Versi, assistant secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain said Trump’s claims were “just not true”. He told Good Morning Britain: “What we have to recognise is when some of these statements are made that fuel this idea of bigotry and really fuel the thing that terrorists themselves want - that Muslims are apart from the West and cannot be seen as equal citizens - these things are not good for our society.” The interview drew a mixed reaction on Twitter. But other viewers gave Trump their full support. Late on Tuesday, Piers Morgan posted a column on Mail Online in which he asked if the public should start listening to Trump when it comes to terror. “I didn’t feel I was talking to a lunatic,” Morgan said.
Cándido Fabré: Carretero review – impressively varied set from hoarse-voiced salsa favourite Cándido Fabré is one of Cuba’s great soneros, a prolific singer-songwriter famed for his distinctive hoarse voice and ability to improvise lyrics. He first came to notice in the early 80s, and soon became a favourite with salsa dancers, with his songs covered by many leading Cuban musicians. The new album shows that he’s still a great writer, mixing slinky son rhythms with bachata and other styles in an impressively varied set. There are songs praising Cuba and its food and music, and elegant tributes to his late mother or musicians he admired, along with the Latin pop of Hello Baby, a witty conversation between a father in Cuba and daughter in Miami, that appears twice. The only problem is with Fabré’s voice. At 59, the singer known for his compelling style seems to be losing his power, and he doesn’t even handle the lead vocals on a couple of tracks.
This delicate flower was created in a lab – and could revolutionise surgery The delicate flower bud bursts into life, opening layer after layer of brightly coloured petals, first large and red, then small and purple, and finally the innermost ones - tiny and orange. But as convincing as the bloom may seem, it is not a work of nature. Scientists created the flowering bud after learning how to make polymer sheets that can be programmed to change shape over time. Designed and built by a postgraduate student, Qiaoxi Li, at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, the artificial flower is a few centimetres wide and takes two hours to fully open. “I was so surprised when I first saw the flower. It looks so real,” said Sergei Sheiko, a professor of polymer chemistry who led the research. “It’s a dead piece of material. If you remove the paint, it’s just white polymer. It’s like we introduced life into the material.” The flower demonstrates how layers of the polymer can be programmed to change shape at a chosen time. And while the flower can hardly fail to charm, Sheiko has more practical applications in mind. The same technology could be used to make medical implants that adopt the right shape only once they have been inserted into the body through minimally invasive surgery, he said. The shape-shifting material is based on a polymer gel that has the consistency of human cartilage. The shapes the material takes on are governed by two different types of chemical bond: a small percentage of strong covalent bonds, and a much larger proportion of weak hydrogen bonds. When a sheet of the polymer is folded, elastic energy is stored in the strong bonds in the material. This energy drives the coming shape change, just as strong bonds in a stretched rubber band make it snap back when released. The difference with the new material is that weak bonds in the polymer gel act as an opposing force to the strong bonds, and put the brakes on the shape changing process. By controlling the number, strength and location of the two types of bonds, the scientists can make complex structures that unfold in a pre-programmed sequence. Writing in the journal Nature Communications, Sheiko’s team describe how they designed objects to change shape over minutes and hours. Unlike many other shape-changing materials, the hydrogel polymer can be programmed to form a particular shape in a set time, without the need for a trigger to activate it, such as heat or light. “The general motivation behind this work was to endow synthetic materials with the functions and properties of living tissues,” Sheiko said. “Conventional synthetic materials are merely stimuli responsive, that is they change density, rigidity, and shape with temperature. Living tissues are more sophisticated: they have an internal clock and they are adaptive. It is enormously difficult to copy and paste living tissues, but the next generation of synthetic materials will impart some of these living functions,” he added.
Aston Villa relegated from Premier League after defeat by Manchester United It’s official then. Aston Villa have lost their Premier League status and the dearly departed would like to thank Manchester United and their supporters for the respectful 90 minutes of silence. The stricken, bottom-of-the-table side were granted a short stay of execution when Norwich failed to take anything from their game against Sunderland, but they barely managed to cross the halfway line here let alone find the goals necessary to beat the drop once Marcus Rashford’s seventh goal of the season provided a rare moment of quality in the most tepid of encounters. Please do not drop Rashford to make way was the overwhelming response from United fans when Louis van Gaal indicated he was ready to bring back Wayne Rooney and the manager gave Anthony Martial and Jesse Lingard a rest instead. The former, in fairness, has played in almost every game this season and United do have a midweek match against Crystal Palace coming up. While not every manager would make changes after such a convincing performance as the one at West Ham in the last match, it must be abundantly clear by now that Van Gaal is not every manager. In any case, if you cannot take a few risks against a team who have lost eight games in a row and are about to be relegated, when can you? “I wanted to rest Rashford too,” Van Gaal said. “He is young and could do with a break, but I needed his momentum and he was very positive. He wanted to play so I let him.” A good thing too. Without Rashford’s momentum this game might have ground to a complete halt. Gallows humour from the Villa supporters was evident after precisely one minute, when the away section broke into a chant of: “It’s only nil-nil, how shit must you be?” When they reprised the ditty midway through the first half it woke everyone up, because the contest was proceeding at a snail’s pace and United were beginning to prove their point. Scoreless first halves have been a feature of this weird United season but few imagined Van Gaal’s players would find it hard to impose themselves against doomed visitors who were merely going through the motions. Thankfully this time it only proved to be a scoreless first half hour. Rashford broke the deadlock in the 32nd minute with an assured finish from the six-yard line after Rooney’s marvellous crossfield pass had played Antonio Valencia behind the Villa cover on the right. Cue “We’ll meet again, don’t know where, don’t know when” from the travelling support, which was poignant and apposite, though not as amusing as “Let’s pretend we’ve scored a goal” or “Joleon Lescott: he’s got a new car”. If by now you are forming the opinion that the only entertainment on offer was being provided by the paying customers in a small corner of the ground you would not be far from the truth. Rooney was playing quite well in his find space in midfield and hit measured passes mode, but there was little urgency or excitement and at times the stadium was eerily quiet considering there were 75,000 present. Though the teams were playing in the same colours as Liverpool and Borussia Dortmund on Thursday a visitor from space would never have worked out they were supposed to be engaged in the same activity. Quite early in the second half it became clear Villa were not going to throw caution to the wind and go out with a bang but continue staying compact at the back in an attempt to keep embarrassment to a minimum. Rashford went close shortly after the restart, Juan Mata brought a save from Brad Guzan after an hour and Memphis Depay sent a free kick over the bar, though what summed up the afternoon was the foul that led to the last. Depay was running purposefully towards the Villa area with the ball when Kieran Richardson, formerly of this parish, arrived on the scene to hack him down, raising a hand to accept the inevitable booking as he did so. Nothing could have better illustrated the gulf between the two sides. Villa could not get close to their opponents and this was not even one of United’s good days. There was a brief flurry of incident around the United goal once Rudy Gestede came on with a close-range effort blocked and then a shot rebounding from an upright, before a Ciaran Clark header brought David de Gea’s first real save with five minutes left on the clock. It was not remotely enough, which has been the story of Villa’s season. “Cheerio, cheerio,” sang the Villa fans on their way out.
British banks: doing their worst for us In lots of ways, comments about UK banks not competing aggressively seem overly harsh. For years now, they have all been battling to disgrace themselves in increasingly outrageous ways, while also pioneering more and more creative ways in which to further irk their shareholders. We saw it again last week, when Royal Bank of Scotland slumped to a £2bn half-year loss and HSBC reported a 29% fall in first-half profits to $9.7bn – both of which came with a string of legal and regulatory warnings. But this week, prepare for the focus to switch – when we’ll ask whether these institutions have been striving so hard to win in the humiliation stakes that they’ve forgotten to compete for the benefit of their customers. The Competition and Markets Authority has been investigating the supply of personal current accounts and of banking services to small- and medium-sized enterprises – and on Tuesday it will publish a summary of its final report. The CMA has shown only slightly more appetite for addressing these questions than the bankers – having previously stated that banks must cap overdraft charges, while still allowing them to decide where to set the cap. Cynics have suggested that there may be a slight flaw in that plan. Rival suggestions could be sought. Pru set to dent low strike numbers As you may have read last week, the number of workers that went on strike in Britain last year was the lowest recorded in more than 120 years. Official figures show that 81,000 workers were involved in strike action in 2015, down from 733,300 in 2014 and the smallest number since records began in 1893 (the previous low was 93,000 in 1998 and 2005). When statisticians first began noting down those records, the insurance firm Prudential was in middle age, having already been operating for 45 years. It hasn’t troubled the industrial action scorers massively since then but, as we approach its results this week, the company is threatening to get its name on the scoresheet later this year after devising one of those schemes to outsource jobs to India. Prudential employees based in Reading are now being balloted by the union Unite on strike action over the plans, which will see 75 jobs dealing with annuities being filled in Mumbai. Prudential says demand for annuities has slumped while Unite reckons the plan will save around £2m – which seems neat: new Pru UK boss John Foley can earn a maximum yearly salary and bonus of about, er, £2m. Dinner party topic going flat Is the south-east of England’s favourite dinner party conversation topic about to crash? This is, of course, the most pressing concern for a chunk of the population post Brexit: can they deflect attention from how they’ve messed up the latest Yotam Ottolenghi recipe by bragging about how much their property portfolio has soared? The evidence is beginning to come in – albeit in ways that frequently allow each side to see whatever they wish. Last week a survey by Halifax, Britain’s biggest mortgage lender, suggested that house prices fell 1% last month after the vote to leave the EU, which followed figures from its rival Nationwide a week earlier, showing prices rising 0.5% in July. Meanwhile, economists at French bank Société Générale have said London prices could fall 30% and halve in the most expensive boroughs; Foxtons and other estate agents have warned that business has slowed sharply since the referendum (every cloud and all that); while the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (Rics) has predicted a slump in property transactions, with its members more gloomy about prospects than at any point since the late 1990s. Rics’s take on the housing market in July will be published this week. Developing.
Interest rate cut: what will it mean for the UK economy? Consumers, homeowners and businesses are braced for the first interest rate cut in more than seven years next week. The Bank of England governor, Mark Carney, is expected to announce on Thursday that the cost of borrowing has been reduced from its current record low of 0.5% to 0.25%. Carney and his fellow members of the monetary policy committee (MPC) sat on their hands in the immediate aftermath of the Brexit vote, but there is clear anticipation that they will act decisively this time. All but three of 49 economists polled by Reuters forecast a cut to 0.25% or even lower. The MPC’s decision will be influenced by fresh data that has raised concerns about the state of the economy after the referendum. The first health check of the economy since the 23 June vote, published a week ago, showed the sharpest downturn in activity since the peak of the financial crisis seven years ago. What will a rate cut mean for the consumers, the banking sector and the broader economy? Consumers The decision by the Post Office on Friday to withdraw its three-year bond paying 1.3% is a clear illustration of the impact already being felt by savers. According to the data provider Moneyfacts, 156 cuts were made to individual savings accounts during July. “It is currently a dismal time to be a saver. Not only have they had to put up with years of tumbling returns, but the possibility of a base rate cut will only lengthen savers pain further,” said Charlotte Nelson of Moneyfacts. There are a few two-year bonds paying 1.8% interest, but from little-known providers. Big banks are paying much less, including 1% on a two-year bond at Lloyds. Even this may come down if the base rate falls next week. Some observers says savings rates could fall to virtually zero. “Savers have seen interest rates tumble to historic low levels and whilst providers do not have to pass any cut in base rate on to customers the likelihood is that they will use it as an excuse to cut rates,” Nelson said. A further rate cut will result in catastrophically low levels of income from new annuities. An annuity is a regular payment from the pot of money a pension plan holder has accumulated during their working life, so pensioners will be thankful such products are no longer compulsory. For borrowers with tracker deals that are pegged to the UK interest rate, monthly costs will fall from September. The Nationwide building society has just under 600,000 people on its “base mortgage rate”, which is charged at 2% above the Bank base rate. A borrower with a £150,000 Nationwide mortgage will see repayments cut from £673 a month to £654 if Carney cuts interest rates to 0.25%. Interest-only mortgage customers will see the cost of servicing a £150,000 loan drop from £313 a month to £281. Borrowers on fixed rate deals will see no change, but deals should get cheaper in the next few weeks, with two year fixes below 1% and five year deals under 2%. The “standard variable rate”, however, the rate people move on to after the end of a fixed rate deal, is likely to remain static at most banks and building societies. Santander’s is high at 4.74%, while Halifax’s is 3.99%. Even so, an interest rate cut may stabilise a nervous housing market hit by Brexit, and give buyers confidence to go ahead. It could also weaken the pound further against other big currencies, pushing up costs for holidaymakers and raising the price of imports to the UK. If import costs rise then inflation could rise too, bringing increases in day-to-day expenditures such as food. Banking sector Banks and building societies are dusting down the procedures for informing millions of customers of changes to their lending rates. Letters will have to be sent and adverts may be placed in national newspapers. This a logistical exercise for the lending and savings institutions, but it also has implications for the way they operate. They will have to decide whether to pass on the full cut to savers and borrowers. They regard it as a competitive decision. Lloyds Banking Group would not admit on Thursday how it intended to respond, but it did reveal that a quarter point cut would shave £100m off its profits. Jes Staley, the chief executive of Barclays, said on Friday that the bank would not be knocked too badly by a cut on the scale currently envisaged, but he questioned the merits of cutting rates much deeper than that. Referring to the decision overnight by the Japanese central bank not to cut its rates, he said: “I personally think after what happened in Japan, I think central bankers are increasingly questioning negative, let alone, zero interest rates, in terms of what they do to generate economic activity and what they do to their own financial system.” The lower interest rates get, the harder it is for banks to make a profit on the difference between what they can offer savers and charge borrowers. António Horta-Osório, Lloyds’s chief executive, is also expecting rates to fall by a quarter of a percentage point, but does not think they would go below zero because of the negative signal this would send about the economy. Assuming the rate cut comes, it could remain in place for some time. Virgin Money is operating on the basis that rates will remain low for at least three years. There is also speculation that the Bank of England could turn on measures used during the banking crisis to counter a credit crunch. One way might be to revive the funding for lending scheme, which offered banks cheap money provided they pass it on to customers and households. Staley, however, said Barclays did not need such incentives to keep the lending taps on. The wider economy With interest rates already at a record low, the potential for any further cuts to fire up the post-referendum economy are limited. The Bank could reach for other measures beyond just tweaking official borrowing costs and expand its already sizeable money-printing programme known as quantitative easing. Economists are cautious about predicting exactly what policymakers will do beyond cutting rates, and the MPC members are also engaged in a public debate.When the Bank kept interest rates on hold after the Brexit vote, it dropped heavy hints in an accompanying statement that a cut was around the corner. The Bank’s chief economist, Andy Haldane, has gone further, calling for a major package of measures to support the UK’s post-referendum economy and stressing the need for a prompt and robust response to the uncertainty. Other committee members have been more restrained in their calls for action, which has drawn a sympathetic response from some economists. . “I think they want to retain bullets,” said Tim Graf, the head of macro-strategy for Europe at State Street Global Markets. “And I am not certain given the experience on low rates elsewhere and negative rates elsewhere that they want to go that aggressive in total.” Graf expects the Bank to cut by 25 basis points and “probably look at something like the funding for lending scheme”. Economists at Bank of America Merrill Lynch also expect a cut to 0.25% and some fresh quantitative easing and credit easing measures. They too highlight the limited power of the central bank and the need for fiscal policy. “The fundamental issue with all the monetary policy tools we can think of is that they are close to pushing on a string,” write economist Robert Wood and strategist Sebastien Cross at the bank. With that in mind, they say the Bank should “do ‘too much’, do it early hoping that reduces the need for further stimulus later and do everything in the hope that at least something works”. Carney rebuffs the charge that monetary policy has lost its firepower, but he too has made clear that central banks alone cannot be relied on to shore up the economy and that government action is needed too. While it waits for action from the new government, the Bank faces a difficult balancing act. Cut rates too far and there is a risk of causing damage to the financial sector and savers that would be counterproductive. A drastic move might also spark panic in financial markets, while not cutting at all would deal a serious blow to the Bank’s credibility after it signalled action. What the Bank will hope to do is to lift sentiment, allay jitters about the housing market and so keep that all important driver of the UK economy -consumer spending - going.
Millions of BT and Sky Broadband customers could be affected by Yahoo hack Millions of BT and Sky customers are affected by the hack of half a billion Yahoo accounts, thanks to the internet service providers’ decisions to outsource their webmail hosting to the Californian technology firm, which revealed on Thursday that it was hacked in 2014. Despite updating a help page to warn customers that “if you haven’t changed your password since 2014 we recommend you change it now,” BT has yet to directly notify users whether their account is affected, nor does its help page explain that the reason why it recommends changing passwords is because it has been indirectly affected by the hack. Sky Broadband customers are presented with a warning when they visit Sky.com headlined “keeping your email account safe.” “A minority of BT Broadband customers have a legacy email product from Yahoo,” a BT spokesperson told the . The company declined to say how big a minority was affected, but with 7m accounts nationwide, the number could well be in the millions. The spokesperson added: “We advise customers generally to reset their password regularly and we will be contacting affected customers specifically to help them keep their information safe.” Sky recommends subscribers who use Sky Yahoo Mail to change their password to keep their accounts safe, and has also set up a help page for customers. The company did not respond immediately to a request for comment. If BT Broadband customers – anyone with an email address ending @btinternet.com, @btopenworld.com or @talk21.com – aren’t sure whether they have a Yahoo webmail account, the company has released a tool to check. Affected customers should change their webmail password, as well as that on any service that used the same one. They should also rethink their usage of any security questions which are shared with the webmail account, since that information also leaked. It’s not just BT customers who may be surprised to learn they have a Yahoo account. Users, or former users, of the photo sharing service Flickr will also have one, if have they logged in since 15 March 2007. And former users of the social bookmarking service Del.icio.us, now independent of Yahoo, may also have a Yahoo ID if they joined that site after 2011. One service that has apparently dodged a bullet is the social network Tumblr. Despite being part of Yahoo since its acquisition in 2013, the site still maintains its own login system. There are no indications Tumblr’s database was exfiltrated back when Yahoo’s was. The company was, however, hacked shortly before it was bought by Yahoo, a fact it admitted earlier this year.
Google to ban Adobe Flash-based advertising Google has announced that it will stop accepting ads made with Adobe’s much maligned Flash in June this year and ban them entirely from 2 January 2017. Both arms of Google’s advertising business, Google Display Network and DoubleClick will stop showing Flash, meaning that all ads will have to use HTML5 for animations. Google said: “To enhance the browsing experience for more people on more devices, the Google Display Network and DoubleClick Digital Marketing are now going 100% HTML5.” Video ads, however, will still be able to use Flash for the time being, but the clock appears to be ticking for those as well. Over 100m Flash-based adverts were displayed to users globally in the year to June 2015, while 84% of banner ads were still Flash, according to data from Ad Age. That number is expected to be significantly reduced year-on-year and eventually taper to zero as other advertising services follow suit, such as Amazon which recently blocked Flash ads from its own site. Google’s war on Flash also includes its Chrome browser, which began blocking Flash elements by default in September last year, requiring users to click on the the ads to activate them – essentially something no one is likely to do. Chrome is currently in use by 57.8% of the desktop internet market and 47.8% of the global internet-using public across mobile, desktop, tablet and consoles, according to data from Statcounter. With video services, including YouTube, dumping Flash for HTML5 or digital rights management-laden Microsoft Silverlight, Flash’s last bastion will likely be embedded tools for software-as-a-services, such as administration packages. For all those without SAP or Oracle in our lives, the world will soon be practically Flash free. Flash is dying a death by 1,000 cuts, and that’s a good thing
The Kills: Ash & Ice review – the same old riffs, but a spark remains When the Kills first emerged at the turn of the century, they were a lean, mean rock’n’roll machine. Skip forward a tumultuous decade that has encompassed guitarist Jamie Hince’s marriage and impending divorce to Kate Moss, however, and they’re … well, they’re still pretty much the same. Music may have moved on, but the Kills are still wearing skinny jeans and leather while unleashing chugging riffs and pre-programmed rhythms beneath Alison Mosshart’s attitude-laced vocals. Perhaps surprisingly, they’ve not lost their spark – Hard Habit to Break and Bitter Fruit seem especially charged – and there are plenty of lyrics here to excite the gossip press: “It’s over now / That love you’re in is a fucking joke,” spits Mosshart at one point. But the duo’s tendency to drift towards cliche (has there ever been a more Kills track title than Hum For Your Buzz?) is still present, and feels increasingly tired.
US bank quit Sports Direct role over share deal concerns, court filing claims A top US investment bank resigned as a key adviser to Mike Ashley’s Sports Direct because of concerns that the retail company had manipulated its share price, according to claims made in a high court document. Bank of America Merrill Lynch had concerns about Sport Direct’s corporate governance and the “propriety” of share transactions in 2012 around its employee bonus scheme, according to allegations in legal filings by Jeff Blue, previously one of Ashley’s key allies. The claims raise further questions about the management of Sports Direct and the stewardship provided by the board of directors. The retailer has been involved in a string of scandals since an investigation by the a year ago revealed it is effectively paying staff in its warehouse less than the minimum wage. Blue is the company’s former strategic development director and a former Merrill Lynch banker. He is suing Ashley, the founder and chief executive of Sports Direct, for £14m over claims that the retail boss breached an agreement to pay him a £15m bonus if the company’s share price rose above 800p. In court documents, Blue claims he bolstered the reputation of Sports Direct in the City and used the resignation of Merrill Lynch as corporate broker to show the improvements that needed to be made. He quit Sport Direct last year. Shares in Sports Direct peaked at 922p in April 2014, but closed at just over 300p on Monday. The retailer is scheduled to publish its half-year results on Thursday, when Ashley will update the market on the company’s performance but also face questions about a controversial arrangement between Sports Direct and a delivery company owned by his brother that is being scrutinised by the Financial Reporting Council. He also faces allegations that the retailer tried to secretly record a private conversation between MPs who visited its warehouse to check on working conditions. Blue alleges that Merrill Lynch resigned as corporate broker to Sports Direct in autumn 2012 after share purchases in August that breached financial regulations. The investment bank was concerned that Sports Direct had provided the funding for its employee benefit trust to buy more than £20m of shares from workers, who had been awarded them as a bonus payment and were looking to cash them in, he claims. Under City rules, companies must inform the market in advance if they want to buy their own shares and must not purchase more than a quarter of the shares traded on a typical day. If the employee trust had not purchased the shares then Sports Direct could have been required to offer them to the wider market, potentially suppressing the company’s share price as it would have increased the number of shares for sale. This would have benefited hedge funds who were betting that the share price would fall as a result of employees looking to cash in their bonuses. In the legal filing, Blue says: “In autumn 2012, Merrill Lynch withdrew from acting as Sports Direct’s corporate broker. Merrill Lynch did so as a result of concerns that it had regarding Sports Direct’s corporate governance, including the propriety of Sport Direct’s decision in August 2012 to fund the Sports Direct Employee Benefit Trust to buy-back shares for the benefit of Sports Direct’s employee share scheme, without complying with the Buy-back and Stabilisation Regulation as would ordinarily be required by a buy-back of shares by the Sports Direct itself.” The Financial Conduct Authority, the City regulator, is aware of the allegations. Despite Merrill’s resigning in the autumn 2012, Sports Direct did not confirm its departure until it confirmed Espirito Santo and Oriel Securities as its joint corporate brokers in a statement in February 2013. Blue, Sports Direct and Merrill Lynch declined to comment.
Co-op pre-tax profit sinks to £17m but it says turnaround is on track The Co-operative Group’s pre-tax profit more than halved to £17m in the first six months of 2016 due to restructuring costs and price cuts, but the company insisted that its three-year turnaround plan was on track. Pre-tax profit at the UK’s largest co-operative business in the six months to 2 July was down 53% from £36m in the same period last year. Profits were reduced by the cost of a facelift of its business, management restructure, pay rises for shop workers and price cuts at its supermarkets. The latter cost the Co-op £30m in the first half. As part of a £1.3bn investment to regain customers’ trust following a series of scandals in 2013 and 2014, the 172-year-old group has rebranded its stores, replacing the green facades with the mutual’s traditional blue cloverleaf-like design. The Co-op said it had also written down the value of its investment in the Co-operative Bank by £45m to £140m. The group is halfway through a three-year turnaround programme, after its bank came close to collapse in 2013, threatening the existence of the entire group. This was caused by losses from bad debts on commercial property opening up a £1.5bn hole in its finances. Bondholders took control of the bank at the time, turning the Co-op Group into a minority shareholder. Its financial woes were compounded by revelations that the bank’s former chairman, Paul Flowers, took class A drugs. This led to thousands of customers leaving the scandal-hit firm. A month ago, the Co-op bank revealed a first-half loss of £177m, down from £204m, but warned that the economic fallout from the Brexit vote was a threat to its recovery plans. The bank said the uncertain economic backdrop was depleting its capital reserves – a key cushion against financial instability. The Co-op group’s half-year results showed overall revenues increased 2.2% to £4.7bn in the 26 weeks to 2 July, with customer transactions up 3.3%. Like-for-like food sales rose 3.1%, marking three consecutive years of growth. The grocer has been forced to slash prices to match rivals, and also relaunched its own-brand products. This appears to have paid off: it said its convenient stores grew faster than the market, with sales up 4.3%. But the business took a hit from higher staff wage bills. It has awarded an 8.5% pay rise to 60,000 shop-floor workers and their supervisors over the next two years. More than 5 million Co-op customers start receiving their new membership cards on Friday, which will give them 5% cashback every time they buy a Co-op-branded product or service. An additional 1% will go to charity. Members spending £20 a week on own-brand groceries will earn £52 in rewards and give £10.40 to charities a year. Zoe Mills, analyst at consultancy Verdict Retail, said: “The Co-op has a lot to be happy about, as despite the tricky food market, it has increased like-for-like sales, notably at its convenience stores, a relative success given the hardship that other grocers have faced. “Looking ahead, Co-op still faces stiff competition from the likes of Tesco and Sainsbury’s for convenience market share. However, with these grocers also occupied with turning around their bigger stores, Co-op’s smaller store format, and convenience-led strategy, means it has less worries in this regard.” As well as groceries, the Co-op sells pre-paid funeral plans, which have seen strong growth. But due to a falling death rate, profits at its funeral parlours fell to £42m from £47m. Richard Pennycook, the chief executive, said: “We are only halfway through the Rebuild [programme] and much remains to be done, whether it is investing in our digital capability or campaigning on key issues. We remain firmly on track with our plans and are encouraged that the work we are doing is attracting more and more people back to the Co-op.”
Martin’s already lost almost everything – he voted leave to spread the pain “Leaving the EU might make my life shit, but it’s shit anyway,” Martin Parker, a 62-year-old jobseeker says, bluntly. “So how much worse can it get?” On the outskirts of north London, sitting in his rented box room (“the size of a cell”, as he puts it), Parker could be said to represent a section of the country the remain camp failed to reach. The voters who weren’t swayed by fears of the economy failing – not because they didn’t believe them – but because, as Parker puts it to me: “I’ve got nothing to lose.” Through the 1980s and 90s, Parker worked as a precision engineer, making aircraft engine parts and suspension units for tanks. But work dried up and he bounced between signing on and taking casual work: from computer programming to office work. His last job – selling studio glass in an art gallery in Piccadilly – ended in 2011 and he’s been out of work since. “Unemployment, benefits … it doesn’t resemble how it used to be,” he says. “You could do a short contract job and you knew you could sign on after ‘cos it was simple. Nowadays, it’s so hard … Their approach isn’t to support you. It’s to get rid of you.” “Get rid of you”, to Parker, has come to mean stopping the money he needs to live on. Over three years, his jobseeker’s allowance (JSA) has been sanctioned on six separate occasions. “Sanction on top of sanction,” he says. “Like a layer cake.” The misdemeanours varied: an “inadequate” CV; being late for an appointment (“I was always early,” he says); or a failure to provide information. “Petty things”, Parker says. “Things you hadn’t actually done or things you were supposed to do but they hadn’t told you.” At one point, his JSA had only been reinstated for 19 days before it was stopped again. But in 2014 the final hit came: he missed a Jobcentre interview – the letter informing him he had to attend arrived on the same day, he says – and was handed a three-year benefit sanction. Or a “156-week termination” of JSA, as the official notification put it. As the sanctions started, he says, “everyone piled in”. By 2011, with his rent rising and his housing benefit also suspended each time his JSA was stopped, he gave up his two-bed flat and moved into a shared house: eight adults crammed over three floors. “We’re all squashed up,” he says. “It’s like being suffocated.” Parker has now been here for almost five years but barely anything is unpacked. There’s no room. Instead, he lives out of boxes and bags – five stacks mounted on the floor. “You develop a good memory of where everything is,” he says. Many of his possessions are gone, sold to get by. Two years into his three-year benefit sanction, he survives by “begging for small favours”: cleaning someone’s garage in return for food, say. Friends give him meals or bits of cash. “It’s funny,” he laughs, quietly. “They’re all foreign. Polish. Italians. No one English has helped me.” The government, he says, wouldn’t mind if he starved. Something as seemingly minor as council tax changes is for Parker, not only less money to live on but evidence “the whole establishment’s determined to make my life as ghastly as possible”. As of last year, Parker’s council has increased his council tax by 130%. He’s been taken to court twice for non-payment and has just had a third summons. “I haven’t even got a cupboard,” he says. “There’s no possibility of doing anything different. There’s nowhere to go.” The “take back control” slogan of the leave campaign seems increasingly fitting. As well as concerns over immigration or sovereignty, it spoke to a lurking, widespread feeling of powerlessness, betrayal and anger. Parker wouldn’t normally have bothered to vote – “I couldn’t really care less about the EU” – but last week he walked through a rainstorm to put his cross next to leave. His vote was not only a sign that he, like many, had no prosperous future to risk but a message to the elites that he feels have let him down. “People are sick and tired of being ignored,” he says. “I don’t suppose I’m the only one to use this opportunity. It was a chance to kick the whole establishment where it hurt, for us to send pain the other way. And we took it.”
Leicester City v Newcastle United: Premier League – as it happened Right, that’s it from me. Stick around on the site for Daniel Taylor and Stuart James’s reports and reaction from the King Power. But, for now, cheerio! Well, that was all a bit nervy from Leicester but four more home wins just like that will do them verynicelythankyouverymuch. Meanwhille, Rafael Benitez can take a bit of comfort from a half-decent Newcastle performance, though they were horrendously sloppy with the ball at times. They face Sunderland at the weekend. Peep! PEEP!! PEEEEEEP!!! All over. Not a vintage Leicester performance by any means but they’ve bagged another valuable three points. The Foxes go FIVE points clear at the top with eight to play. 90+3 min: Vardy goes into the other corner. And he also wins a corner from Colback. That could just about do it. 90+2 min: Mahrez lashes a shot wide from 25 yards. 90+1 min: Ulloa’s turn to hold the ball in the corner. More than a minute has been wasted down there. 90 min: Schlupp holds the ball in the corner quadrant for a few seconds, then wins his team a corner. Leicester have three added minutes to survive. 89 min: Ranieri wheels his arms around in the technical area and roars at his players and the crowd to rouse themselves for these final few minutes. 88 min: Drinkwater leads a Leicester break and Mahrez sees a shot blocked after Fuch’s deep cross had dropped at his feet. 87 min: A final roll of the dice from Benitez: Shelvey is replaced by Doumbia. 86 min: It’s one-way traffic at the moment. Newcastle are all over the hosts. 85 min: Newcastle again cut through the Leicester defence. Janmaat pulls back, Mitrovic lays off and De Jong miscues his shot on goal. That has to go down as a chance. 83 min: That Sissoko effort did flick off Morgan’s elbow but a penalty would’ve been incredibly harsh. 82 min: Townsend does superbly down the right and whips in a terrific cross. It’s nodded away as far as Sissoko who crashes a volley against a defender. 80 min: Fuchs’ long throw causes a few problems for Elliott under pressure from Ulloa, and the keeper is grateful to see the ball plop the right side of the post. 78 min: Ulloa nods away Shelvey’s free-kick. And just for once a bit of a hush comes over the King Power. There are a few nerves rattling around now. 77 min: The stats show Newcastle have had two shots on target, Leicester have had one. Simpson clatters into Sissoko to concede a free-kick over on the Newcastle left. 75 min: Albrighton is replaced by Ulloa. 74 min: Kante intercepts his umpteenth pass from a Newcastle player. He’s been brilliant tonight in a not-particularly-brilliant Leicester performance. 72 min: This has become scrappier than Scooby Do’s nephew. 71 min: Benitez makes his second change: Siem de Jong replaces Perez. 70 min: … which comes to nothing. Leicester really haven’t threatened from set pieces today. 69 min: Mahrez finds a bit of space between the lines and feeds Schlupp, who crashes a shot against Janmaat and out for a corner … 68 min: Janmaat curls a shot from deep straight into Schmeichel’s hands. Mitrovic and Simpson briefly go forehead-to-forehead (as is the style of the time) after coming together aggressively in the six-yard box. 67 min: “Leicester could be the first title-winning team with a tactical philosophy built entirely around scampering,” ponders Andy Seed. 65 min: Leicester substitution: the goalscorer Okazaki goes off to be replaced by Jeff Schlupp. 63 min: Newcastle get numbers back, though, and the chance slips away. 62 min: … punched away firmly by Schmeichel and Leicester launch one of those trademark counterattacks. 61 min: Newcastle are pressing forward furiously now. Perez pings a shot into the sidenetting with Colback overlapping in a better position. Still, they have a corner … 58 min: Patient stuff from Newcastle … then suddenly Perez is away. He’s in behind on the left edge of the box but his pass manages to drop between three team-mates. What a chance that was. This is not over by any means. 57 min: £12m man Andros Townsend replaces Vurnon Anita for the visitors. 56 min: Leicester have started this half in a fashion as scrappy as they started the first. 55 min: Mitrovic heads towards goal from the edge of the box but it’s easy for Schmeichel. 53 min: … which is touched to Fuchs, whose shot is blocked at source by a charging defender. Bit of unnecessary complication from the Foxes there. 51 min: Elliott paws away a corner but the job is only half-done once more. Leicester have the Newcastle defence scrambling and eventually Vardy is brought down by Janmaat inside the D. Very dangerous free-kick this … 49 min: Kante pinches Mitrovic’s pocket a few yards outside the Leicester area. 48 min: … from which Lascelles does well to hold off the bulk of Huth in front of his own goal. 47 min: There’s definitely a goal in this for Newcastle. But for now they have some defending to do after Mahrez tumbles suspiciously on the right … 46 min: Wijnaldum barges through the middle then plays the ball out to the right flank to … nobody. Peep! Off we go again. So as it stands Leicester are going five points clear at the top of the Premier League with eight games remaining. Peep! Peep! Half-time. Leicester just about deserve their lead. 45+1 min: One minute of added time to play. Time enough for Albrighton to swing in a corner and Elliott to grab. 45 min: Perez surges forward and looks to curl a shot at goal. He gets his angles a little wrong though and can only thunk the ball straight at Schmeichel. 43 min: It’s been very scrappy for the last 10 minutes or so, with both sides guilty of some dismal passing. 41 min: Leicester almost play themselves into trouble 30 yards from their own goal but eventually play themselves into a counterattack. A poor touch from Okazaki ends the break. 39 min: Mahrez does brilliantly inside the Leicester box – with Wijnaldum in space he tears back to close him down. Janmaat eventually plops a hideous effort over the bar. 37 min: … taken short. Twenty-odd thousand people inside the King Power say to themselves: “A short one? We never score from short ones …” half seriously, half attempting to tempt fate. On this occasion they’re right. 36 min: Mahrez and Vardy combine neatly through the middle with the latter’s shot deflected away for a corner … 34 min: The Foxes have Newcastle where they want them now – because the visitors have the ball and are pushing forward, while the hosts sit deep and wait for the chance to counter. 32 min: Newcastle cut through Leicester really nicely but end up with Sissoko impeding Mitrovic as the latter looked to chest down 12 yards out. 30 min: Leicester fans direct a few “getting sacked in the morning” chants at Rafa Benitez. 28 min: So nearly 2-0! Albrighton surges through towards the heart of the Newcastle defence, with Taylor backpeddling. That allows the midfielder time to curl a shot perhaps a foot wide of Elliott’s left-hand post. 26 min: That was Okazaki’s first goal at the King Power and it was superbly done. Newcastle had been solid until that point but one poor clearing header, a bit of hunger from Vardy and a terrific finish has undone them. Now what? Okazaki scores with a bicycle kick! Newcastle fail to deal with a deep free-kick into the box, Vardy nods the ball back across goal and the Japan striker does brilliantly to hook the ball in from six yards. 23 min: Pass, pass, pass from Leicester but Newcastle are holding their shape nicely. You can almost feel the satisfaction emanating from the away technical area. 21 min: Mitrovic, causing a few problems for the Leicester backline, pulls a shot across goal. 19 min: … which is floated a yard or so over by Huth. 18 min: Mahrez flicks a shot at goal but Taylor gets his head in the way. Corner … 17 min: Newcastle break and Perez whips a dangerous ball across goal. Sissoko dives in at the back post but can’t make a clean contact with his head. An entertaining opening here. 16 min: We’ve had five solid minutes of Leicester pressure now. 15 min: Okazaki lifts the ball into the box but again there’s a lack of crisp accuracy. 14 min: Vardy bursts into the box between two defenders and goes to ground under Janmaat’s challenge. Looked to be a 50-50 challenge but You’ve Seen Them Given. 13 min: Drinkwater gets beyond the Newcastle back four and to the by-line before pulling back the ball. Again it evades his team-mates. 11 min: Drinkwater fizzes in another cross after nice work from Mahrez. Again it is met by a Newcastle head but Leicester look finally to have settled into the game. 9 min: Albrighton pinches the ball in midfield and zips forward down the left. His cross is met by Lascelles. 7 min: … which comes to nothing. 6 min: Perez forces a corner down the Newcastle right … 5 min: Leicester haven’t got going here but Newcastle certainly have. Sissoko hoiks a cross in, Mitrovic chests down but sees his shot blocked and Colback thrashes a shot wide from the edge of the box. 4 min: Perez slices a yard or so after Wijnaldum rattles the Leicester back four once more. 3 min: “Newcastle only have two settings as a club,” writes David Flynn. “1) Expecting a reaction for the new manager; 2) Awful. Everyone should note that the urge to default to setting 2 is more powerful than that of setting 1.” 2 min: The King Power is rocking. Not quite registering on the Richter scale yet but not far off. 1 min: Almost a disastrous start for the league leaders. Morgan sells Schmeichel short with a backpass after 10 seconds and Wijnaldum is a whisker away from blocking the clearance. Peep! Off we go then. Ranieri and Benitez share a cuddle in the tunnel and emerge into the King Power cauldron arm-in-arm. Click-clack, click-clack … the players are in the tunnel. There’s certainly some north-eastern optimism in the air tonight: “I wish to stick my neck out and suggest you have underestimated Rafa’s absolute love of this sort of situation,” writes Ian Copestake. “Utter pragmatics is called for rather than some abstract notion of what Galactico football means. I would not be surprised if a draw is the least Newcastle manage and the least Rafa will be happy with.” There’s some truth there but he’s had just two days with this side. He can’t work wonders. Here’s Claudio! “The first match [under a new manager] there is a reaction from the players. But we are ready.” For the next 20 minutes or so, the real action is over here: Leicester City: Schmeichel; Simpson, Huth, Morgan (c), Fuchs; Mahrez, Kante, Drinkwater, Albrighton; Okazaki, Vardy. Subs: Schwarzer, Wasilewski, Amartey, Inler, Gray, Schlupp, Ulloa. Newcastle United: Elliott; Janmaat, Taylor, Lascelles, Colback; Sissoko, Anita, Shelvey, Perez; Wijnaldum; Mitrovic. Subs: Darlow, Sterry, Saivet, Townsend, De Jong, Riviere, Doumbia. So Leicester are unsurprisingly unchanged. Benitez’s first selection as Newcastle manager includes two changes from Steve McClaren’s last – Anita and Mitrovic come into the starting XI. Nine games. Nine games stand between Leicester City and the Premier League title. Seven wins would probably be enough. This should be one of them, the Benítez Effect notwithstanding. The portents all point to a home win. Leicester have been ruthless against sides in the bottom half – P15 W11 D4 L0 – and have been consistently excellent at Fortress King Power. Newcastle haven’t won away from St James’ since that strange win over Tottenham just before Christmas. Indeed since then their six away trips – to West Brom, Arsenal, Watford, Everton, Chelsea and Stoke – have all ended in defeat. And what do Newcastle United and Bob Geldof have in common? Neither of them like Mondays. United have lost their last eight MNF matches, and haven’t even mustered a goal in the last five. All of which suggests a chastening dugout debut for Rafa. You’ll get the team news as soon as I get it but in the meantime feel free to join me over here for the FA Cup semi-final draw/One Show live! Kick-off: 8pm BST (And, if you’ve not done so already, you should also give this wonderful piece by Gary Lineker a read too …)
The designer loo revolutionising Madagascar's toilet crisis American design student Virginia Gardiner did not expect to end up finding her muse in a toilet, or find power and profit out of poo. She also did not expect to find herself and the waterless toilet she designed for wasteful westerners (originally it was embraced by posh festivalgoers), on the island of Madagascar, piloting a system that turns faecal waste into biogas. “I didn’t even know about the global sanitation crisis,” says Gardiner, who founded the London-based company Loowatt in 2008. “I wanted to turn the idea of a flushed toilet on its head and say that there should be a waterless toilet that turns shit into a commodity.” Loowatt’s system of an odourless, waterless and contactless toilet, involves a biodegradable liner that wraps human waste and is pulled into a cartridge with the foot pedal. The cartridges are either emptied into micro-scale digesters on site, or into larger digesters at plants. Then the waste and liners are turned into biogas to power electric lights, batteries or gas cookers, or are turned into organic fertiliser. The model impressed judges at RELX Group Environmental Challenge which awarded LooWatt the first prize, and $50,000, in the competition for the world’s best sustainable water and sanitation projects that was announced this week at SIWI World Water Week. The UN estimates that around 2.5 billion people in the developing world don’t have access to a toilet and Madagascar is the fourth-worst place in the world to find one. Loowatt was drawn into the field of development in 2011. One of its first investors was living in Madagascar’s hilly capital Antananarivo and invited Gardiner to see the state of sanitation there, starting with the low-lying neighbourhoods where most waste washes up. “Everywhere you look, you just see faeces,” she recalls. “You can’t look around for more than a few seconds without seeing evidence of faecal contamination, children playing around it and leafy vegetables growing in or around cesspools.” The problem, especially in a city where the water table is only a few feet below the earth, comes from pit latrines being flooded by rains, or people in crowded areas being forced to dump on their own doorstep. “People, especially women and children, don’t like to leave the house at night so they use buckets, and very often you’ll see people emptying them into the canals as there’s just nowhere else to put it,” says Gardiner. Mothers are terrified of their children drowning in metres-deep slime pits when wooden latrine platforms rot and give way. Only half of the capital’s residents have access to water and three-quarters have to rely on latrines that are “a ticking time-bomb when it comes to fecal pathogens”, Gardiner says. She explains that as a latrine is a hole in the ground, flies can go in an out and then might land on food. This has caused diarrhoea-related diseases that have stunted more than half the island’s children due to malnutrition. Even if Antananarivo’s residents were conscientious about where they dumped their waste, the city of two million people has no working wastewater plant. “Ninety-eight percent of those latrines are emptied by unregulated service providers, so basically the faecal sludge is being dumped all over the city or in rivers just outside,” says Gardiner. In 2012, with pilot funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Loowatt launched its first model in Madagascar named Tsiky, which is Malagasy for “smile”. It launched in Antananarivo’s worst neighbourhoods to see whether it could tackle a problem that charities have found hard to fix. “Latrines have been considered the toilet for Africa by NGOs,” says Gardiner. “But they become vectors of disease upon emptying or flooding.” Loowatt has installed 70 toilets in the capital and will complete its pilot of 100 by the end of the year. “Our hope is that the Madagascar business can create a strong data set to support how the business can scale globally, in Madagascar, but also in cities all over the developing world,” says Gardiner. Loowatt calculates its success on how frequently people buy cartridge refills that cost roughly $1.10 and should last a week. Despite 92% of Madagascar’s population living below the poverty line , Loowatt has 90% repeat weekly purchases. Customers say that they “don’t hesitate” to use the toilet and don’t worry about their children using it. Others are pleased that they can “make money off this shit” by generating power for the community. Gardiner says that there is demand for their toilets all over sub-Saharan Africa and parts of Asia, and that requests from events or wedding organisers, once limited to the UK, have now hit Madagascar. In Madagascar a small office manages everything from printing 3D parts and importing others, to finding local waste collectors, treatment centres and businesses that would use its electricity. Loowatt is looking for the right partners and funding to scale up the business next year. Gardiner sees this work as the next step in proving that Africa and the rest of the developing world is ready for, and deserves, better basic services for people’s most intimate ritual. “It’s about changing the mentality away from thinking that basic, rudimentary technology is going to be good enough.” And as for the dangerous, disease-ridden and sometimes deadly latrines “the view of them is changing,” says Gardiner. “People see that maybe these are not good enough.” Join our community of development professionals and humanitarians. Follow @ GDP on Twitter, and have your say on issues around water in development using #H2Oideas.
Hard Brexit would damage 'almost every sector' of UK economy Leaving the single market would be damaging to almost every sector of the British economy, from manufacturing and energy to retail and financial services, according to a report commissioned by an alliance of Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat politicians trying to stop a hard Brexit. The study by the Centre for Economics and Business Research found that every major wealth-creating sector would be affected negatively, with manufacturing hit if there were tariff barriers to EU trade and the creative industries suffering a “body blow” if there were strict controls on immigration. The report examines the consequences of leaving the single market in favour of a free trade agreement struck on a bespoke basis for individual industries. Theresa May has hinted she favours this so-called “sectoral” approach but the Cebr report warns that “all major sectors are linked to the EU and could be harmed if the UK government sought a free trade agreement which prioritised some sectors over others”. The release of the report comes at a time of growing mobilisation among MPs and political figures trying to stop the UK heading for a clean break with the EU single market and customs union, which is favoured by the most Eurosceptic cabinet ministers and leading Brexit campaigners such as Michael Gove. For the first time since the referendum, MPs from across the parties – Tory Anna Soubry, Chuka Umunna of Labour and Nick Clegg from the Lib Dems – will appear together at an Open Britain event, pushing for continued membership of the single market. Soubry will accuse those backing of a sector-by-sector deal of pursing a “simplistic fantasy”. Umunna said: “Every major sector of our economy is linked to the single market and could be harmed through an arrangement that prioritises one sector over another.” The prime minister has so far refused to reveal her vision for Brexit, but gave a rare newspaper interview this weekend, saying she just wanted to “get on with the deal”. However, it was reported in the Sunday Times that Mark Carney, the Bank of England governor, supports a transitional deal with the EU to cushion the impact for businesses, by keeping membership on similar terms until at least 2021. Others warned it may be difficult to stick to the prime minister’s timetable of triggering article 50 by the end of March and leaving two years later in 2019, while avoiding that point becoming a “cliff edge” causing an economic shock. Lord Kerr, Britain’s most experienced EU negotiator, has estimated the government has a less than 50% chance of securing an orderly exit from the EU within two years. In a speech at the London School of Economics, he claimed “the fog in the channel is getting thicker all the time”, adding even if an agreement was reached by spring 2019, there was a chance “a demob happy European parliament” in its final months before elections in 2019 would refuse to ratify the deal. May could also face an obstacle if pressure mounts on the government to hold a second referendum on the terms of the exit deal she strikes with the EU. Emily Thornberry, the shadow foreign secretary, this weekend left the door open to supporting a second referendum on the terms, saying the Brexit process had to be taken “step by step”. Asked about Labour’s position, she told BBC1’s Andrew Marr Show: “I think that we need to take this in stages and at the moment we cannot even have a debate as to how it is that we are going to leave the European Union because the government claim they are keeping their cards to their chest. She said the priority in negotiating a Brexit deal should be the economy, but appeared to also support greater controls on immigration, saying: “Now, do I think that too many people at the moment come into this country? I think that yes, I think they do.”
The CEO bias: why more people trust Trump with the economy than Clinton Few campaign pledges are better signals of economic incompetence than: “I’ll run Washington like I run my own business.” Every election year, politicians get elected to national offices to oversee federal budgets, Federal Reserve nominations and international trade treaties, based on their experience managing local car dealerships, pest control companies and baseball teams. It’s a tribute to American voters’ eternal optimism that we even vote for business owners who are not actually any good at running their own businesses. So strong is our faith in the CEO-as-savior that Carly Fiorina – who oversaw 30,000 layoffs in a disastrous merger – could run, with a straight face, as a jobs candidate. Now, the CEO who beat her for the Republican nomination, a man who literally fires people on TV for entertainment, has taken up that mantle. And it’s working. The latest New York Times/CBS poll shows Trump closing the gap behind Clinton, and the area in which he leads her, by double digits, is jobs and the economy. “I will be the greatest jobs president God has ever created,” Trump has promised, against all evidence to the contrary: four bankruptcies, a trail of failed business ventures (a university called a “fraud”, an airline run into the ground, a steak company that “sold almost no steaks”, according to business partner Jerry Levin), and a pile of unpaid bills, including to his own employees. And Trump’s policy platform, insofar as his stream-of-consciousness mélange of vague promises and threats can be called a platform, has little basis in either sound business practice or economic reality. His trade policy is to start a trade war with China and provoke retaliatory tariffs that would collapse US exports and start a recession. His strategy for avoiding a US debt default is to print more money. And in any case, he sees economic disaster as a business opportunity: “I would borrow knowing if the economy collapsed you could make a deal,” he told CNBC. “I’m the king of debt. I love debt,” he told CNN. Clinton’s campaign is understandably perplexed as to how someone who is cheering for the apocalypse gets to be the jobs candidate. After all, politicians in other countries don’t get this kind of pass. When Venezuela appoints an economics minister who doesn’t believe in inflation, he is roundly mocked in the financial press. When a Bolivian ex-president runs for office as the “crisis candidate”, saying he is best equipped to handle a financial crisis because he caused one the last time, he gets ridiculed in two movies. Trump would deliberately steer the world’s largest economy into an iceberg, and half the country says they trust he can make a deal with the iceberg. Granted, Clinton has image problems; half the country says they wouldn’t trust anything she says no matter what. And on jobs, she has a flimsy record, given the offices she’s held: you can’t create many jobs as a first lady, senator or secretary of state. Her forays into economic issues haven’t inspired confidence: stumping for the Trans-Pacific Partnership deal as secretary of state, then coming out against it as a candidate; telling an Ohio town hall that she would “put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business”. The latter, much quoted statement was part of a larger point about inevitable dislocations that come with a shift away from a fossil fuel economy, and the need for the government to manage those dislocations by investing in job training, infrastructure, small business loans and pensions. Those statements may be objectively true and more rooted in reality, but they don’t go down easy, even from the mouth of someone more polished, consistent and sympathetic than Clinton. Anyone who promises the world, even if that world isn’t particularly believable, sounds better than the one who says that there are tradeoffs to any policy, and not everyone comes out ahead. It’s a peculiarity of US politics that we trust those to govern who are the most hostile to the idea of governing. If ineptitude is a virtue, Trump’s business record proves him more than qualified. There’s something very American about the fact that the only self-styled populist candidate left in the race is a billionaire real estate developer from New York City, a man with a string of financial and personal liabilities who can sell them, like the best scam artist, as an asset.
Ted Cruz echoes Trump in bashing proposed changes to GOP rules Ted Cruz has joined Donald Trump in attacking the “fevered pipedream” of changing Republican party rules and allowing a more moderate candidate to compete against them for the presidential nomination. In remarks to reporters on the eve of a crucial primary election in Wisconsin, the Texan senator was scathing of the idea, despite it being floated only hours earlier by the Republican National Committee chair, Reince Priebus, in an interview on Sunday. Cruz is expected to score an important victory over Trump in the state on Tuesday, possibly winning enough delegates to stop the billionaire frontrunner from securing the nomination outright before the national convention in July. It has led to renewed speculation that a “contested convention” could even open the door for a new, more establishment-friendly candidate such as the House speaker, Paul Ryan, to seek the nomination instead. But Cruz sought to quash such talk quickly on Monday – suggesting both outsiders would unite to prevent the required rule change. “This fevered pipedream of Washington that at the convention they will parachute in some white knight who will save the Washington establishment, it ain’t gonna happen,” he said. “If it did, the people would quite rightly revolt,” added the maverick conservative senator, in an echo of Trump’s warning of riots if the party sought to block the will of its voters. The key hurdle for a new candidate, or even the trailing Ohio governor John Kasich, to seek the nomination through the convention process is a rule requiring them to have won eight state primaries in order to be considered. “It’s interesting that this rule that is in question was adopted in 2012 because the Washington establishment wanted to keep Ron Paul and his supporters out,” said Cruz. “Now that it is inconvenient they want to get rid of it, but you know what: what’s good for the goose, is good for the gander. If you want to win, win at the ballot box.” Changing the 2012 requirement would require the GOP rules committee to vote ahead of the Cleveland convention, or during later rounds of voting, but party leaders insist the latter scenario is still possible. “That rule is a rule that was drafted by the Romney delegates of 2012 and that rule, obviously, will be reviewed by the 2016 rules committee, which will be made up mostly of Trump and Cruz delegates, and, you know, they will likely have an incentive to probably not change that rule,” Priebus told Fox News on Sunday. “But let’s just play out [the] hypothetical,” added the RNC chair. “I think it’s possible [that someone on a later ballot when most of the delegates are unbound could be nominated]. And at that point, if you get into a multi-ballot convention where you’ve got five or six or seven rounds, it’s possible that a person can be nominated that’s not one of the three.” Cruz insists such a scenario would deprive any nominee of legitimacy and claims only he can now unify the party against Trump. “If Washington says ‘we have elections in 50 states, but we don’t like what the people have voted for and we have someone else who is going to get along and keep the cronyism going’, the voters would naturally say ‘to heck with you, we’re staying home’,” he said. “Are some folks in Washington foolish enough to do that anyway? Probably. But they can’t do it. If over 80% of the delegates are Cruz delegates and Trump delegates, under what universe do a thousand [of them] go vote for some uber-Washington lobbyist who hasn’t been on the ballot. That simply isn’t going to happen.” “The nice thing is Washington doesn’t control what happens, the delegates do,,” he added, during the remarks with reporters ahead of a prerecorded television “town hall debate” on Monday. “We are going to arrive at the convention where 80% of the delegates are going to be Cruz delegates or Trump delegates. Both Donald and I have been very clear that we shouldn’t be changing the rules because Washington is unhappy with how the people are voting.”
Donald Trump's woman problem: they don't like him, not one little bit Donald Trump has a problem with women, and it’s not confined to Megyn Kelly at Fox News. By his own account, the man who ran the Miss Universe pageant is an exemplary employer of women on his staff. However, his self-proclaimed love of women is not reflected in the opinions of the most critical group of voters for Republican candidates in any presidential election: white women, particularly in suburban areas. Trump may have won the GOP primaries as an unorthodox candidate. But the data strongly suggests that women voters – especially those who traditionally lean towards his party – are not exactly attracted to a former playboy candidate who maligns them at every opportunity. Back in 1996, when one Bill Clinton was running for re-election, this group of swing voters was memorably – and narrowly – defined as soccer moms. In the later stages of the 1996 election, Clinton was leading by 10 points among married white women in the suburbs, after trailing among them by 21 points in his first presidential contest. When George W Bush ran for re-election in 2004, the target swing voter moved from a soccer mom to a security mom: a wider group of women who preferred Bush over Kerry on issues of terrorism in the first presidential election after 9/11. Whatever pollsters and media call the women who will decide the 2016 presidential contest, Donald Trump is performing disastrously among them. He is only one point ahead of Hillary Clinton among white women, according to the latest Quinnipiac University poll. That close polling is in line with previous polling that puts Trump variously four points up (Washington Post/ABC) among white women or two points down (CNN). Mitt Romney won white women by 14 points in 2012, and he still lost to Obama. If Trump is not winning white women at all, he’s in deep trouble. The story behind those numbers is the most significant subtext of the 2016 election: white women simply don’t like Trump’s rhetoric. According to the Washington Post poll, white women are more likely than white men to say that Trump doesn’t show enough respect for the people he disagrees with (74% of white women compared with 60% of white men). And far more of those white women think Trump’s personality is a major problem (52% of women versus 33% of men). Underscoring that huge difference in attitudes is the deeply anti-establishment view of white men compared with white women. Around two-thirds of white men (68%) think the next president should be a political outsider, compared with less than half of white women (45%). Overall, Trump is trailing Clinton by 24 points among women voters in the Quinnipiac poll. Four years ago, Romney lost to Obama by 11 points among women, who made up 53% of the electorate. What on earth could be driving away women voters from Donald Trump? It might be his opinion of a lawyer who wanted to pump breastmilk for her newborn daughter (“you’re disgusting”). It might even be his bizarre attraction to his own daughter (“If Ivanka weren’t my daughter, perhaps I’d be dating her”). Or it might just be his personal attacks on Rosie O’Donnell (“that fat, ugly face of hers”), Arianna Huffington (“unattractive, both inside and out”) and Megyn Kelly (“blood coming out of her wherever”). Kelly may have patched things up with Trump, but it’s worth recalling that their feud began because the Fox News anchor had the nerve to ask the GOP candidate about his sexist comments in an early TV debate. Of course, women voters may also be leaning towards Clinton as the first woman to win a major party’s presidential nomination. That is at least the opinion of white men, who think Clinton has more of an advantage as a woman. (For their part, white women think Trump has more of an advantage as a man.) For a brief moment on the campaign trail, Trump seemed to be aware of his challenges with women. In mid-April, Trump’s daughter Ivanka and wife Melania began rounds of media interviews with the clear goal of explaining how their beloved Donald was not, in fact, a misogynist. “I’ve witnessed these incredible female role models that he’s employed in the highest executive positions at the Trump Organization my entire life, in an industry that has been dominated by men, is still dominated by men,” Ivanka told a CNN town hall event with the Trump family. Of course, her testimonial came soon after her father said he thought women should be punished for having abortions if the procedure is banned in the United States. Trump later clarified those remarks to mean precisely the opposite. This was around the same time Trump decided to attack the wife of Ted Cruz after an anti-Trump group posted a mostly nude photo of his own wife. Trump threatened to “spill the beans” about Heidi Cruz but then limited himself to just posting side-by-side photos of the two wives. Heidi Cruz was pictured grimacing against a glamor shot of Melania Trump. Trump’s self-described “very good brain” shows no signs of learning from his past stumbles with women voters. He continues to attack Hillary Clinton for her husband’s infidelity, arguing that she was not a victim but an attacker: “She was an unbelievably nasty, mean enabler, and what she did to a lot of those women is disgraceful,” Trump told CNN last month. The GOP standard-bearer justifies his attacks by claiming that he is himself a victim of Clinton playing what he calls “the woman’s card”. Instead, the math is as clear as an orange combover: more women vote than men, and far more of them are saying that Trump is not their man.
Boris Johnson attacks EU 'burden' on UK farming Boris Johnson has complained about the burden of EU regulations that protect consumers from sheep disease similar to BSE entering the human food chain. The former mayor of London told farmers he questioned the need for rules that mean spinal tissue has to be removed from sheep with more than two big teeth, as he promised Brexit would bring about deregulation of the farming industry. Speaking at a cattle market in Clitheroe, Lancashire, he said farmers would get the same amount of money from subsidies after leaving the EU while being relieved of red tape. “We want to lift the burden from UK farming. I’ve just been talking to people about the rule that says if your sheep has two teeth or more than two big teeth you’ve got to slaughter it in a certain way to remove the spinal tissue. What is the point of that? It’s way out of date. You don’t need it. But because it comes from Brussels, we cannot change it and we cannot reform it.” The rules were brought to protect consumers from sheep scrapie because of fears that it could have a similar impact as BSE, commonly known as mad cow disease, which led to a huge scandal in the farming industry in the 1990s over its link to Creutzfeld-Jakob disesase (CJD) in humans. The UK goes further than the EU in requiring farmers to remove all spinal material from slaughtered sheep of more than 12 months old or those whose incisors have come through. The Sheep Industry Association has argued for an easing of the rules or a complete end to carcass-splitting to remove the spines of sheep, saying it increases costs by slowing down the slaughter process, necessitates the checking of teeth and devalues the meat. However, the EU and UK have maintained the rules as a precautionary measure with the aim of protecting the public from potentially infected meat. Johnson’s comments are likely to add to worries among remain campaigners that leading advocates of Brexit are keen for deregulation of environmental and consumer standards after leaving the EU. Last week, George Eustice, a farming minister and leave campaigner, said Britain could develop a more flexible approach to environmental protection free of “spirit-crushing” Brussels directives if it voted to leave. Both sides in the debate have been trying to appeal to the farming industry and rural communities during the referendum campaign. On Thursday, Johnson promised farmers their subsidies would be preserved if Britain leaves the EU – his third policy pledge this week despite not being a member of the government. He has already vowed to bring in an Australian-style immigration system and to scrap VAT on energy bills. On Wednesday, he denied he was effectively forming an alternative government in the hope of replacing David Cameron after the referendum. The policies were merely options for any government after 23 June, he said. At the cattle market on Thursday, Johnson said any government would be “out of its mind” to cancel the agricultural subsidies that keep many farmers in business. Danny Wood, who has a 300-acre cattle and sheep farm at Bolton-by-Bowland, Lancashire, said he was not convinced by Johnson. “We all think it’s a smokescreen,” he said. “He can promise to me to pay us the same amount of money. He has no authority, no power – he’s just a person that’s walked in here and said what he’s got to say. You could say it, I could say it – I could promise anybody the world.” Before the speech, Johnson played auction master to sell off a cow for £960.
Battered banks poised to reveal whether a new crisis has begun Fears that the banking sector is facing a new onslaught of pressures dominated markets last week. Global bank shares were sold off – the index of major banking shares in the UK at one point hit its lowest levels since the depths of the recession – and questions were being asked about the impact of low interest rates amid concerns about the possibility of a global economic slowdown. While much of the focus was on big banks in the eurozone – Deutsche and Société Générale – analysts pointed out that the share prices of UK banks were already pricing in another global financial crisis when it hadn’t even happened. So when the UK’s major players reveal in the coming weeks how they have fared in 2015, they will be doing so in the most febrile atmosphere since the Lehman Brothers collapse seven-and-a-half years ago. Analysts will be looking for confirmation that another 2008-style crisis is not about to the grip the sector. The gloom may well be overdone. The stock market value of some of Britain’s biggest banks is lower than the value of their assets, notably HSBC, Standard Chartered and Barclays. HSBC – one of the biggest constituents of the FTSE 100 – has been trading at levels not seen since 2009. Standard Chartered is selling for prices last witnessed a quarter of a century ago. In the depths of last weeks’s market chaos, shares in Barclays and Royal Bank of Scotland hit their lowest levels since 2012 while George Osborne has already had to postpone his plan to sell off shares in Lloyds Banking Group to the public. However, the bombed-out banks came off their lows by the end of last week, and analysts point out that all hold more capital – the key measure of their financial health – than they did before the start of 2008. The results of stress tests on the major players announced in December by the Bank of England showed that they were all strong enough to withstand a downturn, and Threadneedle Street said it was not concerned about the strength of the system. Analysts have calculated that Europe’s banks are holding €700m worth of capital more than they were at the time of the last crisis and have disposed of their riskiest assets. So financial strength shouldn’t be a problem, and no one is expecting to hear the likes of Barclays, HSBC or Lloyds report losses. However, there are headwinds. The ability of banks to generate revenue will be a focus; the low interest rate environment is punishing them as it restricts the profits on their lending. Any sign that provisions for bad debts are starting to go up dramatically will be regarded with concern, while banks are expected to set aside more money to cover scandals, such as the mis-selling of payment protection insurance (PPI). Investors will be watching for any impact on the payouts they receive through dividends – particularly how that compares with the total spent on staff bonuses. Many banks are expected to publish annual reports alongside their results, showing remuneration for board members. HSBC The board of Britain’s biggest bank met on Sunday to decide whether to shift its headquarters out of London to another location, most likely Hong Kong. Once that decision is out of the way – with expectations that HSBC will decide to stay put – the focus returns to the 2015 results. Chief executive Stuart Gulliver last week gave clues to his view of the market outlook. As he went back on a staff pay freeze, he warned workers of the “very challenging operating environment”. Gulliver is already six months into a plan to cut staff numbers by 25,000 and save $5bn (£3.5bn). The City will now be wanting progress on these cost reduction measures and an update on the impact of slowing growth in China, where Gulliver is targeting expansion. So what is the problem with the underperforming share price? Ian Gordon, analyst at Investec bank, says it indicates that the City is braced for a rise in bad debts in emerging markets. In the third quarter, Gulliver stressed that while revenues were down, credit quality was not being affected. He has received at least £7m a year in pay since taking the helm in 2011. His pay, and that of his 250,000 staff, will also be in focus. Standard Chartered Fears over the strength of emerging markets have been a key factor in this year’s stock-market gyrations, so analysts are wondering if a bank focused on those economies can have made a profit in 2015. Standard Chartered has its own problems, which new chief executive Bill Winters has tried to address by tapping shareholders for £3.3bn and putting 15,000 jobs on the line. Even so, the market is valuing the bank at 0.4 times the value of its assets, as the stock trades at a 25-year low. Winters has embarked on a major restructuring, reducing exposure to China and commodities. The bank is also being more selective about the customers to which it lends and is ending $20bn of loans to a handful of customers. Any signs that this restructuring is slowing down or that bad debts are rising could further unnerve investors, while the bank has already warned it remains in the regulatory spotlight after a 2012 fine from US authorities over breaches of sanctions. “Standard Chartered’s earnings have been under sustained pressure for the past two years, and we expect little respite from the full-year 2015 results,” said analysts at Barclays. “Underlying earnings are likely to suffer from difficult trading conditions, a slowing economic environment and further declines in commodity prices. The recently announced restructuring is likely to add to these headwinds, disrupting underlying business performance and leading to significant restructuring charges.” Lloyds Banking Group The market rout has driven shares in Lloyds to 57p, their lowest price since April 2013, quashing any short-term chance of the government further selling its stake in the bank, which was bailed out in 2008 with £20bn of taxpayer money. That stake has fallen from 43% to below 10%, and the bank will hope it can convince investors that its ability to generate dividends will put fuel back into the shares. But hanging over the bank is the prospect of another provision for PPI – its bill is already over £13bn. Analysts at Jefferies said the extra PPI provision, which they believe could amount to £2bn in the fourth quarter, would make it difficult for Lloyds to promise any special dividends. The bank acts as a barometer of the UK economy and is also the UK’s biggest mortgage lender, so any signs that lending is slowing down or house prices tanking will worry FTSE investors. Royal Bank of Scotland The biggest casualty of the 2008 banking crisis is yet to report a full-year profit since taxpayers pumped in £45bn to keep it afloat. Last month, Ross McEwan, the chief executive, admitted that 2015 would be its eighth consecutive loss-making year as the bank issued an unscheduled announcement warning ofa string of charges relating to PPI and a long list of litigation in the US relating to residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS). The losses it has reported since 2008 already exceed the £45bn used to prevent it from collapsing. Uncertainty surrounding the cost of these fines is a concern for investors, alongside penalties related to the mortgage securities cases, for which it has set aside £3.8bn. This is holding back the bank’s ability to make payouts to investors, which might help bolster the shares. They have plunged to 2012 lows and have been trading at 230p – 100p below the price at which Osborne sold off the first tranche in August. Barclays Shares are back where they were when former chief executive Bob Diamond was forced out during the 2012 Libor-rigging scandal. Antony Jenkins, promoted to replace Diamond, has also been ousted and replaced with the US banker Jes Staley, who will be making his first presentation when the bank announces its 2015 results. He is facing calls to embark on a major overhaul. Analysts at stockbroker Bernstein have already urged him to get Barclays out of Africa, sell the US credit card business and float the investment bank in the US. The investment bank, once its powerhouse, is likely to be the focus. Investec’s Gordon says Barclays has already signalled that investment banking revenues fell 10% in the fourth quarter of last year. Some 1,200 job cuts in the division have already been earmarked and more focus on cost-cutting its expected. In addition, Staley faces a major challenge in complying with UK rules requiring banks to ringfence their high-street banks from their investment banking operations. Analysts at Jefferies expect Barclays to incur another £1bn of costs to implement the ringfence and another £1bn PPI charge for the last three months of 2015.
Happy homecoming for Liverpool as Roberto Firmino double sinks Leicester Anfield opened for business in style. After all the hype surrounding the opening of a £114m stand it fell to Liverpool’s players to demonstrate that they, not concrete, steel or glass, dictate the mood inside an expectant arena. “Fill it with life,” Jürgen Klopp had instructed and his team obliged on cue, filling Anfield with goals, incisiveness and optimism as Leicester City were condemned to a comprehensive pounding. For the Premier League champions it is an inauspicious start to their title defence and to a week when they make their debut on the Champions League stage against Club Brugge. Claudio Ranieri’s side lost only three league games last season and have now lost two of the opening quartet. They opened brightly, had their moments, but were made to look pedestrian at times by the quick thinking of Daniel Sturridge, Roberto Firmino and Adam Lallana and the quick feet of Sadio Mané. The quality of Liverpool’s goals – two assured finishes by Firmino, a superb team goal for Mané and an emphatic strike by Lallana – reflected their superiority in the final third over a team they trailed by 21 points last season. There will be no repeat on the evidence of Liverpool’s homecoming. “What we did today is what I expect from us,” said Klopp. “I am really on the side of the players. They are responsible for our good performances and I am responsible for our bad performances. That is an easy deal. We have to see how often we can show it. This league is so unbelievably strong, so competitive and today we were good. We need to perform and have atmospheres like this not only against the champions or when we score four goals. We have to create our own atmosphere for ourselves and nobody else.” Firmino delivered the opening ceremony that truly mattered with the first goal at the revamped stadium but the contribution of Sturridge, arguably only starting due to Philippe Coutinho’s international exertions for Brazil, was not lost on Anfield’s largest attendance since 1977. The England international tracked back diligently to halt a Leicester attack and intercepted for Simon Mignolet. Lucas Leiva, deputising for Dejan Lovren, who picked up a monstrous shiner after a clash of heads in training on Friday, found James Milner on the left and that was the signal for Firmino to lose Daniel Amartey with a piercing run. Milner delivered the required pass, the Brazilian cut inside Robert Huth and beat Kasper Schmeichel with an intelligent finish. The mood and flow of the game were transformed. “We started well but after the first goal we lost our counter and they played so, so well,” agreed Ranieri. Mané was a devastating menace throughout and teed up Sturridge for a close-range shot that Schmeichel saved well. The Dane was powerless, however, when Sturridge returned the favour and Mané doubled Liverpool’s lead in thrilling fashion. Lucas, Firmino and Jordan Henderson were all involved as the Liverpool captain sent Sturridge clear with a measured chip over the top. The striker’s control was excellent, his second touch even better as he back-heeled inside for the unmarked Mané to scoop the ball over the Leicester goalkeeper’s despairing grasp and over the line. Anfield purred over the comfortable lead but was left aghast by not one but two errors from Lucas. The makeshift centre-half mis-controlled a routine goal-kick from Mignolet and, with Shinji Okazaki closing in, compounded the error by clearing straight to Jamie Vardy. The striker accepted the gift from close range and Leicester almost equalised when Mignolet missed a long throw from Luis Hernández, a replacement for the hamstrung Danny Simpson, and Huth’s looping header landed on the top of the bar. Ranieri tried to sharpen his attack with the introduction of Ahmed Musa, the £17m summer signing from CSKA Moscow, but Liverpool’s tireless and tricky front three monopolised the danger. Lallana, fresh from saving England in Slovakia, drove an unstoppable finish into the top corner following a neat lay-off from the impressive Georginio Wijnaldum. The fourth arrived in the final moments when Henderson, earlier guilty of a glaring miss, released Mané behind a square Leicester defence and a needless rush by Schmeichel. Mané unselfishly squared for Firmino to seal victory with a nonchalant finish. There was a bizarre moment at 3-1 when, with the Kop singing his name, Klopp reacted furiously to the tribute and pointed to his watch to say the serenading was premature. His grievance may have been supported by Vardy breaking clear and forcing an important save from Mignolet but the manager’s concern was out of context with Liverpool’s dominance. “Please don’t sing my name before the game is decided,” he requested. “It is nice but not necessary.” It is also hard for supporters to resist with victories like this.
Tom Brady refuses to answer question on friend Trump's genital grabbing talk Donald Trump is close friends with Tom Brady, but on Wednesday the junior partner in the alliance was unwilling to back his friend over Trump’s boast that he was able to “grab women by the pussy” without waiting for their consent. At his weekly press conference at Gillette Stadium, the New England Patriots quarterback didn’t offer his backing to Trump’s particular brand of “locker room talk” – and he didn’t express his censure, either. In fact, Brady appeared incapable of saying anything much at all. Brady was asked: “Tom, you have kids of your own … how would respond if your kids heard Donald Trump’s version of locker room talk?” Brady paused, half-smiled, and responded: “Thank you guys. Have a good day.” He then made a hurried departure from the stage. Tom, why so coy! You and Donald go way back! Remember when you told WEEI-FM last December that “Donald is a good friend of mine” and that “I support all my friends”? And that you judged one of Trump’s beauty pageants, which you called “really cool”? “Donald is a good friend of mine,” Brady said then. “I have known him for a long time. I support all my friends. That is what I have to say. He’s a good friend of mine. He’s always been so supportive of me – for the last 15 years, since I judged a beauty pageant for him, which was one of the very first things that I did that thought was really cool. That came along with winning the Super Bowl. He’s always invited me to play golf. I’ve always enjoyed his company.” A few months prior, Brady, 39, explicitly said it “would be great” if Trump were to become president. Why? Mainly for the golf. “I hope so – that would be great,” Brady said, when asked if he wished Trump to ascend to the top job. “There’d be a putting green on the White House lawn. I know that.” Earlier that month, one of Trump’s ‘Make America Great Again’ hats was displayed prominently in Brady’s locker. Brady called the hat a “nice keepsake”. Trump has also been keen to brag of his friendship with Brady. On Twitter, he called Brady’s sort-of endorsement “a great honor from somebody that knows how to win!” Brady later insisted that his words were “taken out of context” and that his comments didn’t amount to a formal endorsement.
No 10 denies 'sweetheart deal' with Nissan No 10 is refusing to disclose what state support has been given to Nissan to convince the car manufacturer to boost production at its Sunderland plant despite its worries about Brexit. Downing Street insisted there was no “sweetheart deal” with the Japanese company, but acknowledged that Theresa May had given some assurances to the wider industry that it would be protected from the impact of the UK’s withdrawal from the EU. Nissan said on Thursday that it would build the next Qashqai and X-Trail models at its Sunderland factory, safeguarding more than 7,000 jobs, and said this had been made possible by government “assurances and support”. The prime minister hailed the decision as “fantastic news” and a vote of confidence in the UK. The news that thousands of jobs would be safe for some years was widely welcomed, but May soon faced pressure from the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, to be transparent about any sweeteners offered to Nissan. May has met Nissan executives privately, and the business secretary, Greg Clark, met company representatives on a recent trip to Japan. Corbyn said he was pleased there would be continued investment in Sunderland, but said the “concerns are still there” about any secret deal between the government and the firm. “If there are any inducements that have been offered, and quite obviously if you are offering big inducements to one industry or one manufacturer, then all the others will quite reasonably say: ‘Well, what about us?’” he said. “We are only a few months into Brexit and we don’t know what the terms of the agreement are between Nissan and the government.” Nissan’s chief executive, Carlos Ghosn, had recently cast doubt on whether the Sunderland investment would go ahead without a promise of compensation for any tariffs imposed after Brexit. Clark declined six times to say what support had been offered to the company in an interview on BBC Radio 4’s World at One. “We have had, obviously, as you might imagine, lots of communication between us, but actually what it rests on is a very strong mutual confidence,” he said. “There is no question of financial compensation over tariffs because we have said that what is necessary is that we are going to maintain the competitiveness of the sector, and we are going to get the best deal possible. We think that the mutual interest between our European neighbours and ourselves is very strong in this way.” Colin Lawther, Nissan’s senior vice-president for manufacturing in Europe, denied there was a special deal for the company. “No, there is no offer of exchange. It’s just the commitment from the government to work with the whole of the automotive industry to make sure that the whole automotive industry in the UK remains competitive,” he told World at One. Asked whether Nissan had received written assurances from the government on what would happen if tariffs were imposed in the future, he said: “There’s nothing, there’s no special deal for Nissan. We are working within the whole of the automotive industry. We would expect nothing for us that the rest of the industry wouldn’t be able to have access to.” No 10 refused to say what has been promised to the car industry or to say whether any public money was involved, although it signalled that it had not made any declaration to the EU about a proposal to offer state aid. “The assurances are that we will get the best possible deal from leaving the EU,” May’s deputy official spokesman said. “There was no special deal for Nissan.” Asked whether Nissan had been promised that it would not face tariffs on its exports to Europe, he added: “I can’t be any clearer. The dialogue we’ve had with Nissan as we do with other companies is a reassurance that we are determined to get the British industrial sector the best possible deal. It is a reassurance. There is no deal. We have a dialogue with Nissan and many other companies.” He declined to comment on whether the industry had been promised lower energy costs.
Wetherspoon chairman Tim Martin says Brexit is a 'modern Magna Carta' The Brexit-backing founder of pub chain JD Wetherspoon has described Britain’s vote to leave the EU as a “new Magna Carta” and criticised the chancellor, George Osborne, and others for their “irresponsible doom-mongering” in the run-up to the referendum. Tim Martin accused senior policymakers of running a dishonest campaign “blinded by spreadsheets and ego” prior to the EU referendum. Singling out David Cameron, Osborne, the Bank of England governor, Mark Carney, and the IMF managing director, Christine Lagarde, he said leading figures had been irresponsible by suggesting that there would be dire consequences if the leave campaign won. Martin spoke as he issued a trading update on Wednesday, pointing out that the pub chain had been performing well since the referendum on 23 June. “The chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, repeatedly warned that mortgage and interest rates were likely to rise in the event of a leave vote, and threatened an emergency budget to increase taxes and to reduce public expenditure,” he said. “Osborne’s stance was supported by the prime minister, David Cameron, who also forecast an increased likelihood of war and genocide.” Turning to the business world, Martin said the CBI, as well as many FTSE 100 chief executives and top advisory firms, including Goldman Sachs and PricewaterhouseCoopers, were guilty of pushing an overly negative view of Brexit. “In my opinion, the above individuals and organisations are either dishonest, or they have a poor understanding of economics, since democracy and prosperity are closely linked, and the EU is clearly undemocratic,” he said. “By voting to restore democracy in the UK, I believe the UK’s economic prospects will improve, although it is quite possible that the unprecedented and irresponsible doom-mongering, outlined above, may lead to some kind of slowdown.” Martin reiterated his view that Brexit was a modern version of the Magna Carta, the charter signed by King John at Runnymede in 1215. The original document asserted the fundamental principle that the king was beneath the law. Under the heading “new Magna Carta”, Wetherspoon reissued a piece originally written by Martin three days after it became known that Britain had voted to leave the EU. “The cataclysmic referendum result on Thursday has shaken the world. Democracy is back, but like prisoners confronted with freedom for the first time in decades, the nation is frightened and awestruck by its unlimited options. “The legacy of ‘project fear’ is that the majority seems to believe that economic prospects are now worse, but unless history is turned upside down, the reverse is true. Democracy has always proved to be economic steroids.” He said those who prophesised doom for the UK in the event of a Brexit vote were “blinded by spreadsheets and ego, Mystic Megs [who] can’t see the wood for the trees”. “Brexit is a modern Magna Carta, reasserting democratic control in the UK. It is up to UK citizens now to participate in formulating policies based on free trade with Europe and the world, an enterprise economy and sensible immigration policies, with parliamentary control,” Martin said. “The world is our oyster, provided we think clearly, debate strongly and prevent the paranoia and hyperbole of the referendum process from clouding our judgment.” The Wetherspoon chairman, who was one of the few high-profile business leaders to voice support for the leave campaign, said despite the “dire warnings” issued by the remain camp in the run-up to the vote, trading at Wetherspoon had improved in recent weeks. As a result, the company was on track to deliver a better full-year performance than previously expected, he said. In the fourth quarter ending 10 July, sales increased by 4% on a like-for-like basis, stripping out sales at pubs open for less than a year. Total sales rose by 3.8%. Over the financial year as a whole, like-for-like sales were up by 3.5%, while total sales climbed by 5.5%.
Bovver rock – the strange revival of daft music for 70s football yobs Lorenzo Moretti and Tenda Damas of Giuda sip beer and reflectively discuss the state of their UK tour. It’s the fifth time Guida have come over from Rome to play in Britain. The venue downstairs – the Underworld in Camden – is sold out. Reviews of their live shows have been pretty rapturous: “They carry the very essence of guitar rock into the 21st century,” offered one critic. “And tomorrow we’re playing in Nottingham,” says Moretti, happily. “The home of Paper Lace. You know the single they did with Nottingham Forest? We’ve Got the Whole World In Our Hands? Stomping drums. I mean, this record is amazing.” This may well be the first time in history that any rock band has namedropped the 1973 Opportunity Knocks winners and Billy Don’t Be a Hero hitmakers in an interview, with particular reference to the novelty single they knocked out at the end of their career to celebrate Forest’s spectacular 1977/78 season. But then Giuda are a band possessed of an unconventional take on rock history. Theirs is an alternate musical universe, in which the post-Slade subgenre of glam known as bovver rock still rules OK, to use the parlance of the times. It is one where the arrival at this afternoon’s soundcheck of a seventysomething cleaner called Jesse Hector – once the extravagantly sideburned frontman of the Hammersmith Gorillas – is the cause of much awestruck excitement. And one in which a succession of almost entirely forgotten flop mid-70s bands are of totemic importance: Iron Virgin, Crunch, Angel, Hobnail. At one point during our conversation, Moretti compares the New York Dolls unfavourably to Hector, a short-lived quartet that released two singles in 1973 and 1974: the first, Wired Up, distinguishes itself by making Slade sound like the Penguin Cafe Orchestra. While the New York Dolls were wowing Max’s Kansas City in their satin and tat, Hector were taking to the stages of their native Portsmouth clad in platform boots, dungarees and Dennis the Menace jumpers, with freckles painted on their faces and catapults in their back pockets. Alas, despite being hailed “the ultimate in bovver rock” by Music Week, their label’s confident predictions of a wave of “Hecteria” proved a little rash. “I’m a huge fan of that obscure stuff. There are thousands of bands that only made one single: they tried to play like Slade or Suzi Quatro then disappeared forever. I mean, these are people that often don’t remember they released a single, because they were very small bands.” No one else remembered them either, at least until the early noughties, when a string of “junkshop glam” compilation albums appeared, the work of dogged record collectors including former Buzzcocks bassist Tony Barber and Phil King, of Lush and the Jesus and Mary Chain. Called things like Velvet Tinmine and Glitter From the Litter Bin and Boobs (positing the album as the playlist from a fictional provincial nightclub called, well, Boobs), the compilations unearthed scores of flop glam singles from the mid-70s, some of startling quality, others just startling. There were a few would-be Bowies and cut-price Roxy Music variants, but most cleaved to the model of glam minted by Slade and the Sweet: thumping drums, distorted guitars, terrace-chant choruses. “I suppose the Bowie thing was much harder to do, wasn’t it?” says King. “If you wanted to be like Bowie, it cost a lot of money. You needed huge stage sets and elaborate costumes, things like that. It’s much easier with bovver rock, you just put on some boots, you merge into the crowd a bit. And, in a playful way, it tapped into something that was in the air at the time.” In a weird dry-run for punk, some of the bovver rock bands certainly attempted to play on the era’s ongoing moral panic about football hooliganism and youth violence. The Jook, whose track Aggravation Place is described as “the Baba O’Riley of bovver rock” by King, claimed they wanted “to get across to all the many young people who spend their Saturday afternoons at football matches”. “What the Hammersmith Gorillas are about is violence,” offered Jesse Hector in 1973. “What we want to see is all the kids having a good old fight.” Even Hector (who, confoundingly, were nothing to do with Jesse Hector) gained a few column inches in the music press when their lead guitarist threatened to throw a journalist – who for some reason was having difficulty taking a bunch of grown men dressed as Dennis the Menace seriously – out of a window. For all the crunching, thuggish power of the music, most bovver rock was cartoonish and daft. The roaring chorus of Slade’s Gudbye T’Jane might have sounded like something you could have heard bellowed by the away end – “I’ve lost count of how often on hearing Slade, I’ve imagined someone’s face under those stamping boots,” protested one letter to the music press – and guitarist Dave Hill might have proclaimed himself a “superyob”. But no one was ever going to feel threatened by the band, whose look twisted the space age camp of Bolan, Bowie and Roxy into pantomime ridiculousness. The audience violence at their shows was directed mostly towards venues’ fixtures and fittings – £5,000 of damage was caused at their 1973 Earls Court show – rather than each other. The bovver rock bands who came in Slade’s wake mostly followed suit, but, just occasionally, the media took the bait. A 1974 World in Action documentary on youth violence brought bovver rock into the equation, not least a song by the Heavy Metal Kids called The Cops Are Coming: “I took a chain and felt it wrap round his chin … and ’is ’ead fell off.” It’s an intriguing, largely buried, footnote in British rock history. Perhaps understandably, given how recherche some of their influences are, Giuda’s initial ambitions were modest. “In Italy, they really don’t know this kind of music,” Moretti says. “Not even T Rex or the Sweet or Slade were popular there: prog was so big. The Italian taste in rock’n’roll is really sophisticated – they really like bands like Genesis.” To their immense surprise, their albums started receiving excited acclaim from critics and fellow musicians: Def Leppard’s Joe Elliot claimed their debut, 2010’s Racey Roller, caused him to “piss my pants laughing because it was so brilliant, so exhilarating and fun”. Vice called Let’s Do It Again the best album of 2013. They found themselves at the head of a small, but nevertheless burgeoning bovver-rock revival. As well as Giuda, Italy has Faz Waltz, who, according to their website, “breathe and swear the kind of glam rock that used to be very much appreciated in the 70s in the worst pubs in England” and whose videos are perfect pastiches of 1974. America has produced self-styled “hard gum” band So What and the Suede Razors, and scores of other bands at the crossover point between Oi! and glam (boxvver rock in the States is a sprouting from the skinhead scene). In Britain, a band called Hard Wax – proudly proclaiming themselves “UK bovver rock” – have recently released a debut single. Brisbane, meanwhile, has produced Shandy, who release music on a label called Brisbane Bovver Boogie and whose sound and image taps into Australia’s own peculiar homegrown pop-cultural history. “The sharpies were a sub-culture movement that absolutely exploded in the mid-70s, based mainly around Melbourne,” explains bassist Viktor Huml. “The English immigrants of the time were a major contributor to the style, because they brought sort of mod and skinhead elements into Australian youth culture, but over here it morphed into something different.” Instead of copying reggae-loving skins, the sharpies’ model of skinhead was Slade, and sharpie produced aggro-laden rock, with bands like Rose Tattoo (best known in the UK as the original home of vocalist Angry Anderson, he of the 1987 hit Suddenly) and early AC/DC. They also had, as Huml puts it, “this very unique style with a sort of skinhead haircut, but with tails at the back, platform boots and instead of wearing Harrington jackets they wore handmade Italian cardigans of all things. They were the most outlandish-looking youth gangs of the era. Every suburb had a sharpie gang – kids running wild, wearing unconventional haircuts and strange clothes, pretty controversial. I only picked up on it many years later. We’d all been in bands playing punk, but there weren’t many bands in Australia sort of venturing into the mid-70s stuff. When we looked back, we thought: ‘Wow, this music was pretty amazing for its time.’” The question of what has provoked a bovver rock resurgence 45 years on is an intriguing one. King suggests that its raw directness feels appealing in a world where rock and pop almost invariably feels, as he puts it “carefully thought through”. Lars Frederiksen of Rancid, whose side project the Old Firm Casuals have made their own contribution to the latterday bovver rock canon in the shape of Noddy Holder, a tubthumping tribute to the Slade frontman, thinks it taps into something primal and essential about rock music. “It’s just down-and-dirty rock’n’roll. Three chords, big-sounding guitars, very stripped-down, tough-sounding, it feels like it comes from the street, and the beat, man, it’s such a driving force, it makes you want to fucking punch holes in walls. You know, music goes in and out all the time – this music’s popular now, that music’s not popular now, but I think that if you like rock’n’roll at all, you’re gonna love music like that.” When Giuda take the stage later that night. They sound fantastic: taut and punchy and anthemic. Intriguingly, for music rooted in the past, it never feels ironic or knowing: it feels weirdly potent. They don’t, they say, want to be seen as a revival band. “Yes, we play music that you can call glam rock, but we put something inside it that belongs to us,” says Damas. “So maybe people hear that, too.” Besides, he says, they tried wearing platform shoes once – they bought them on eBay, for the video for their single Roll the Balls – and it didn’t really work out. “We won’t be dressing in those any more,” agrees Moretti. “You could break a leg. I don’t know how Slade did it. Was there some school in England in the 70s that taught you how to wear platform shoes?”
Rafael Benítez: Newcastle showed the character needed for great escape Rafael Benítez said Newcastle United’s recovery from two goals down at Liverpool showed his players possess the spirit and character needed to secure the club’s Premier League status. Newcastle ended a run of nine consecutive league defeats away from home to earn their first point on the road since 13 December after a stirring fightback at Anfield. Benítez’s team trailed his former club 2-0 at the interval, Daniel Sturridge and Adam Lallana appearing to set Liverpool on course for a fifth straight win in all competitions, but goals from Papiss Cissé and Jack Colback sealed an encouraging second-half response. The draw took Newcastle to within a point of fourth-bottom Norwich City and Benítez insisted an escape is possible with only three matches remaining. “Yes, I think we can stay up,” said the Newcastle manager. “It depends on the other teams too but if we can fight with this spirit we can do it. “When we arrived we [played] Leicester, who were top. We did well but we lost. We had a good performance at Norwich but not at Southampton and we needed to show character today and the belief we showed against Swansea and Manchester City. “We did it late but we did it. That’s the positive thing. They gave a reaction when we needed one and know what we had to do if we want to stay up. They are working hard, training really well and they are getting confidence. When you are 1-0 down away they don’t have confidence but they showed they have that and passion today.” Benítez admitted he was in a familiar position at half-time of having to remind Newcastle’s players of their precarious position. He said: “We knew in the first half we were not at our best and that we needed to react. I told them we have nothing to lose, we have to fight, show character, and the players had a fantastic reaction. It was difficult because Liverpool are playing well and were difficult to stop. Then we showed character and passion. We also had two counterattacks after to win the game.” The former Liverpool manager received a rapturous reception on his return to Anfield. “It was very emotional,” he said. “From the fans, the city, the club, I have a very good relationship with Liverpool. My family still lives here. It was emotional because the Liverpool fans were singing my name and the Newcastle fans were singing my name afterwards. I am really pleased with this reaction and to get a point against a really good team. Hopefully they can do well in the Europa League.”
Trump Tower climber charged with trespassing and reckless endangerment The man who climbed Trump Tower has been charged with reckless endangerment and trespassing, police announced on Thursday. Stephen Rogata, who had recently changed his name from Michael Joseph Ryan, made headlines on Wednesday when he used four suction cups and a series of ropes to attempt to climb Donald Trump’s 58-story building in midtown Manhattan. The incident was livestreamed around the world as police inflated large crash pads and shut down the street in an attempt to get him down. He was eventually apprehended through the window of the building on the 21st floor. The 19-year old from Great Falls, Virginia, later told police he was seeking an “audience” with Donald Trump. Rogata had reportedly driven from Great Falls to New York on Tuesday night before checking into the Bowery Grand Hotel at 10am on Wednesday. A video he uploaded to YouTube surfaced shortly afterward, in which he explained his motives: “I am an independent researcher seeking a private audience with you to discuss an important matter. I guarantee that it’s in your interest to honor this request,” he said in the video. He is now being held at Bellevue hospital under police supervision where he is currently under psychological evaluation. The tower is the headquarters for Trump’s campaign and his businesses and is also his residence.
PJ Harvey: The Hope Six Demolition Project review – rock reportage The 2015 winner of the Nobel prize for literature, Belarus-based writer Svetlana Alexievich interviews ordinary people about their experiences, unveiling the harrowing human underbelly to recent Russian history: the Soviet war in Afghanistan; the Chernobyl disaster. The Hope Six Demolition Project, PJ Harvey’s latest album, is best understood as a kindred sort of reportage, one delivered via guitar, saxophone and gospel choir. That’s not to say it hasn’t got some tunes. Near the Memorials to Vietnam and Lincoln nags and nags; the magnificent The Ministry of Defence grabs your lapels with its apocalyptic chords and Harvey’s sinuous vocal melody, simultaneously accusative and minxish. Dollar, Dollar ends things with a mournful, organ-led coda in which Harvey notes “all my words get swallowed”. Harvey’s primary purpose, however, is to bear witness to the scenes of recent conflict – Afghanistan, Kosovo and Washington DC, a place beset with its own deprivation. (In this, Hope Six is very much Let England Shake, Part II: Harvey Goes Global). If the fact-finding is foreseeably bleak, sometimes the resulting songs don’t quite gel, either: witness the lead single The Wheel, a great rock song bedevilled by impressionistic, too-open-ended lines that don’t lend themselves to conventional scansion. Harvey travelled to each of these locales with photographer and documentary-maker Seamus Murphy; a book of his images and her poetry has already come of their travels. Harvey the observer in turn allowed herself to be observed during the recording process, at an Artangel installation last year. Controversy has already ignited around one song, The Community of Hope, which tells the tale of a benighted DC neighbourhood, often in the words of Harvey’s tour guides. (One, a Washington Post reporter, subsequently wrote his own accountcorrect of the lift he gave to a mysterious Englishwoman called Polly.) Some residents did not take lightly to being called “drug-town” “zombies”, perhaps missing the point that Harvey wasn’t levelling the accusation, but noting down the sad description she heard. This bald lyrical style is Hope Six’s winning USP and greatest weakness. Harvey writes about what she sees, much like Murphy takes photographs; the editorialising mostly happens elsewhere. When it works, it works superlatively. The Ministry of Defence describes a bombed-out building and the grim litter left there – drinks cans, bones, syringes, “balanced sticks in human shit”. Chain of Keys is a snapshot of an old Kosovan woman who keeps the keys to her departed neighbours’ houses, just in case they come back. (They aren’t coming back). To call this gambit unpoetic is a little churlish, given what Harvey is trying to achieve – striking reportage, in which burning compassion is clearly the alpha and omega. But sometimes these bone-dry descriptions don’t make for great lyrics. “Here’s The Hope Six Demolition Project,” begins The Community of Hope; “This is The Ministry of Defence”, goes The Ministry of Defence. Although intentional, this prosaic stance risks coming across as a lack of commitment to verbal work, when this album is not only in all likelihood the best researched of the year, but potentially also the most sweated-over, lyrically. On the gnomic Near the Memorials, “a black man in overalls arrives to empty the trash”. You are not quite sure why Harvey is reporting this scene, where a kid makes some starlings jump. The distance between the photograph and the viewer is sometimes too great.
Crystal Palace in urgent need of league revival to stem the ‘Pardew slide’ As they prepare to face West Ham on Saturday, players and staff alike at Crystal Palace may reflect on their previous match before the international break and contemplate what might have been had Damien Delaney arched his back a little more. Leicester City were leading 1-0 at Selhurst Park and as the contest moved into second-half injury time, Scott Dann nodded a corner back across the area and towards his centre-back partner who, in a moment of uncharacteristic composure in front of goal, steadied the ball on his chest before volleying it through a crowd of defenders. Delaney thought it was in, as did the majority of those in attendance, only for the ball to crash off the bar. The final whistle blew shortly afterwards and Leicester had won for a seventh time in nine matches to keep alive the most incredible of Premier League title surges. For Palace it was a 13th league fixture without victory and while a goal from Delaney at the death would not have changed that, the home side undoubtedly would have got a boost from rescuing a point in such circumstances against the country’s leading team. As it is, they sit two places and seven points above the relegation zone and wondering when their slide will end. Palace were fifth on New Year’s Eve, four points behind Tottenham in fourth and fuelling hope among their supporters of European football arriving at Selhurst Park next season. Since the turn of the year, however, there has not been a single league win to savour and talk in that corner of south-east London has turned from the Champions League to the Championship. Relegation remains an outside bet yet it simply cannot be ruled out given Palace’s form. An upturn is required. It seems unlikely to come this weekend given that Palace’s opponents have lost only twice at Upton Park all season, sit one place and point off the top four and are generally playing with great conviction and quality. Alan Pardew’s men can take hope from their FA Cup run, with Palace reaching the semi-finals for the first time in 21 years after beating three Premier League teams – Southampton, Stoke and, most impressively, Spurs at White Hart Lane. Yet given none of those victories led to the same outcome in the league fixture that followed immediately afterwards there is no reason to believe they will have a positive effect on Palace now. According to Opta, Palace have the third lowest shot-conversion rate in the Premier League since the turn of the year (9.18), the fourth lowest shooting accuracy rate (36.73%), completed the third fewest amount of passes (2,973), conceded the joint highest amount of goals (24) and kept the fewest clean sheets (zero). There has been a drop-off in every category since 1 January and while statistics do not tell you everything, they do tell you a lot. To put it bluntly, Palace have become worse in both boxes as well as the bit in the middle. “The main question us Palace fans are asking each other is ‘why are the team doing so well in the FA Cup but struggling in the league?’” says Jim Daly, host of the Five Year Plan podcast. “Injuries haven’t helped – Yannick Bolasie, James McArthur, Jason Puncheon and Connor Wickham have all been out and missed badly and the back-ups just haven’t been good enough, even though at the start of the season we were debating whether this was our best ever squad. It still might be, but to kick on and be a serious top-10 team it needs to get better”. Palace’s downturn has naturally drawn the spotlight on to Pardew. When the Eagles were soaring he was being spoken of as a future England manager; now they are struggling talk is focusing more on his reputation for overseeing dramatic slumps in form. At Newcastle there was a spell of 14 defeats in 20 matches during the second half of the 2013-14 season that ended their hopes of qualifying for Europe, while at Charlton a reasonable start to the 2008-09 campaign came to a halt with a run of eight games without victory that rooted them to the bottom of the Championship and cost Pardew his job. Prior to that, he was sacked at West Ham after overseeing a run of 11 defeats in their first 17 fixtures of the 2006-07 season, the club’s worst string of results in more than 70 years and one that resulted in a team that had finished ninth and reached the FA Cup final the previous campaign suddenly fighting relegation. Some call it “the Pardew slide” and the inference is that this is a manager who becomes lost at sea once his teams hit a rough patch, specifically in regard to his tactical solutions. That has been evident at Palace and certainly against Leicester when his response to seeing his team trailing at half-time was to launch as many crosses as possible into the opposition area. The approach appeared desperate, as well as reducing the ability of Bolasie and Wilfried Zaha to cause problems with their pace and trickery from wide areas and negating Yohan Cabaye’s craft and guile in central midfield. The Frenchman has not been at his best this season but remains a potent playmaker if used correctly. The defeat also showed just how drained of confidence Palace’s players have become and that leads to questions regarding Pardew’s ability to lift them. There has been no verbal abuse of an opposition manager or physical assault of an opposition player but that shortest of fuses is undoubtedly still there, seen most clearly in the way Pardew reacted to Liverpool’s 2-1 win over Palace on 6 March and by the fact he dedicated a large portion of his programme notes for the visit of Claudio Ranieri’s men some 13 days later to the contentious penalty which earned the Merseyside club all three points. You could sense the fury dripping off the page. The same programme notes also contained a rather bizarre take on Leicester’s success, with Pardew speaking of how the “stars have aligned” to send them top and that if Palace had suffered as few injuries and won as many penalties they too could be looking down from the summit. The entire passage smacked of hubris on the part of someone who, by his own admission, is not short of self-belief and took the mind back to the time when one former Premier League manager claimed a little bit of success makes Pardew “dangerous”. In his defence, he is not the first manager to oversee slumps in form, lose his temper or give the impression that he never forgets to grin at a mirror before leaving the house, and it should not be forgotten that he took Palace from 17th to 10th having replaced Neil Warnock 14 months ago and, this season, has given the club real hope of reaching an FA Cup final for the first time since he scored that goal in the 1990 semi-final against Liverpool. Not surprisingly, then, there is little suggestion of Pardew being in danger of losing his job, with Daly insisting it is only the “really negative fans” who want to see the back of their former midfielder. Yet the picture could change dramatically should the team’s slump deepen between now and facing Watford at Wembley on 24 April. In that time Palace also travel to Arsenal and Manchester United, as well as hosting Norwich and Everton. It is a daunting set of fixtures, with the visit of Alex Neil’s side on 9 April arguably the most crucial. A home defeat to a fellow struggler is simply unthinkable. “The people who know these sorts of things reckon Palace have a 5% chance of going down, and that’s probably because there are four worse teams then them in the league,” says Daly. “But older fans will recall 1993 when the Eagles thought they were all but safe on the penultimate weekend of the season and so did a lap of honour around Selhurst Park. They went down a week later.”
Peter Thiel faces Silicon Valley backlash after pledging $1.25m to Trump Tech billionaire Peter Thiel’s reported $1.25m contribution to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign has prompted a high-profile Silicon Valley organization to cut ties with a startup incubator backed by the Republican donor. Ellen Pao, a former Reddit executive and vocal advocate for diversity in tech, has announced that her group Project Include is ending its relationship with Y Combinator, the well-known startup “accelerator” where Thiel is a part-time partner. “Thiel’s actions are in direct conflict with our values at Project Include,” Pao wrote on Monday, referring to the not-for-profit group that she and a group of prominent Silicon Valley women formed earlier this year to push for “diversity and inclusion solutions in the tech industry”. “Because of his continued connection to YC [Y Combinator], we are compelled to break off our relationship with YC. We hope this situation changes, and that we are both willing to move forward together in the future. Today it is clear to us that our values are not aligned,” Pao continued. Influential developer and Tumblr co-founder Marco Arment also called out Y-Combinator for sticking with Thiel. “This is literally paying a huge amount of money to directly support a racist, sexist bigot with rapidly mounting allegations of multiple sexual assaults,” he wrote. “[Y-Combinator is] defending the large-scale support of racism, bigotry, and sexual assault by an influential partner and advisor to their startups as its own form of ‘diversity’.” The announcement signals possible fallout in the California tech industry surrounding the political donations and campaigning of Thiel, who helped found PayPal and was an early investor in Facebook. Thiel, a conservative outlier in the Democratic stronghold of Silicon Valley, became a state delegate for Trump earlier this year and delivered a much-discussed speech at the Republican national convention, during which he said: “I am proud to be gay.” The tech mogul also made headlines earlier this year when news broke that he was secretly bankrolling former wrestler Hulk Hogan’s lawsuit against Gawker, the media company that subsequently went bankrupt. Thiel’s embrace of Trump baffled many over the summer, but critics were particularly shocked to see him strengthen his support of the real estate mogul at a time when many conservatives and Republican party leaders are disavowing the embattled presidential candidate. After Trump was caught on a leaked tape bragging about groping women and kissing them without consent, the candidate has faced a flurry of sexual misconduct allegations from women across the US. In the wake of the revelations, many elected Republicans have announced that they are withdrawing their support. Thiel, however, remained silent over the past week, reportedly ignoring journalists’ inquiries about whether his position had changed. Then on Saturday, the New York Times reported that Thiel was living up to his “reputation as the most contrarian soul in Silicon Valley” and would be giving $1.25m to Trump through a combination of Super Pac gifts and donations directly to the campaign. The donations make Thiel one of just a few major donors to Trump, who has been widely rejected by tech leaders and wealthy conservatives. Thiel’s spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday. Thiel’s support of Trump had already put pressure on Facebook, where he sits on the board. After the new donations were revealed, many on social media called on Y Combinator to dump Thiel, noting that the startup firm was effectively supporting someone who has backed an overtly racist, misogynistic and xenophobic campaign. Y Combinator’s president, Sam Altman, responded with a series of tweets on Sunday night, saying Trump is “an unacceptable threat to America” and “unfit to be president”. But, he added: “YC is not going to fire someone for supporting a major party nominee.” Pao – who made headlines last year for her sexual discrimination lawsuit against venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers – wrote that Project Include could not continue to partner with Y Combinator at this time. “While all of us believe in the ideas of free speech and open platforms, we draw a line here,” she said. “We agree that people shouldn’t be fired for their political views, but this isn’t a disagreement on tax policy, this is advocating hatred and violence.” Pao told the that it was unclear whether other tech leaders would follow suit and end partnerships with Thiel. “I think it’s starting a conversation, but I haven’t seen it really fracture Silicon Valley in any significant way.” She added: “The power in Silicon Valley is concentrated in the hands of very few people, and it is hard to try to go up against that.” Some have noted that Thiel’s support of Trump is not all that surprising considering the tech billionaire’s openly sexist views. In 2009, he argued that capitalist politics have struggled because women can vote. “The 1920s were the last decade in American history during which one could be genuinely optimistic about politics,” Thiel wrote. “Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women – two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians – have rendered the notion of ‘capitalist democracy’ into an oxymoron.” Altman did not answer questions about Project Include’s announcement, but sent the a statement, saying, “We shouldn’t start purging people for supporting the wrong political candidate.” Continuing to partner with Thiel is a way to support “diversity”, he wrote, even if it is “painful and unpopular”. But, he added, “If Peter said some of the things Trump says himself, he would no longer be part of Y Combinator.”
EU membership talks will go to the wire, says Philip Hammond Renegotiating the terms of the UK’s membership of the European Union will go “right up to the wire”, the foreign secretary has said before a crunch summit with EU leaders on Thursday and Friday. Philip Hammond was speaking amid reports that government ministers were preparing to break cover and announce their intention to campaign to leave the EU before being given official sanction to do so. The prime minister has said ministers will be free to campaign on either side in the referendum debate once a deal has been finalised and presented at a special cabinet meeting. But Eurosceptic ministers have reportedly expressed concern that the meeting will not be held until a number of days after the deal has been announced, therefore gagging them and allowing pro-Europeans to dominate the airwaves in the crucial first few days of campaigning. Speaking on BBC1’s The Andrew Marr Show on Sunday, Hammond said: “There isn’t a deal yet. There is a working draft, there are lots of moving parts and we’ve got a negotiation that will run through this week. I have no doubt [it] will run right to the wire, with some of these things only being able to be decided by the heads of state and government on Thursday when they sit down in that room together. “Of course we’ve got to make progress this week. There are still lots of square brackets in the text, there are blanks in the text, there’s unclear language in some places. “We’ve got to carry on working through this week, up to the European council [meeting]. If we can get the right deal at the European council then a deal will be done. If we can’t get the right deal, we will carry on talking.” Hammond said there was “real fear” in Europe that a UK exit would mean “the contagion will spread”. He said: “I think people who say we’d get a great deal with Europe if we left forget that countries remaining in the European Union would be looking over their shoulders at people in their own countries saying: ‘If the Brits can do it, why can’t we?’. “And they will not have an interest in demonstrating that we can succeed outside the European Union.” The Conservative MP Graham Brady, chairman of the 1922 committee, an influential body of Tory backbenchers, said it was crucial that Cameron held a cabinet meeting as soon as possible after a deal had been agreed. “It’s in everybody’s interests to do this as quickly as possible,” he said on Sky News’s Murnaghan programme. “If it were to appear that David Cameron was seeking to have the whole weekend to himself to put one side of the argument, I think that would look bad for the remaining campaign. “People want an honest, fair debate. They want an honest, fair campaign, so I think it’s in the interests of both sides to have that early cabinet meeting and to make sure that people who want to speak out and exploit the freedom of conscience that has rightly been agreed can do so as soon as possible.” Cameron is anxious to get a final deal in place in time to hold the referendum in June – 23 June has been pencilled in as a possible date – so that it does not coincide with a possible summer migration crisis, which could stir Eurosceptic feeling. The prime minister unveiled his draft deal this month, saying it would need more work before the summit. It included an “emergency brake” on migrant benefits and a curb on in-work benefits for EU migrants for four years. It also contained a clear legal statement that the UK is not committed to further political integration. Iain Duncan Smith, the work and pensions secretary, Chris Grayling, the leader of the House of Commons, and Priti Patel, minister of state for employment, are all expected to campaign to leave the EU, while the Liz Truss, the environment secretary, and Theresa May, the home secretary – both known Eurosceptics – are expected to stay loyal. The Sunday Times reported that one of Cameron’s key negotiators, Oliver Letwin, had been telling fellow ministers and Tory donors that he agreed with the case for Brexit but that “now is not the time”. Michael Gove, the justice secretary, is thought to be on the fence but leaning towards campaigning to leave, while Boris Johnson, the mayor of London, is undecided but thought to be leaning towards voting to stay in. Polling conducted by ComRes for the Independent on Sunday suggested that six out of 10 voters now expect Cameron not to get a good deal, following the publication of the draft agreement. Just 21% of those asked thought he would secure a good settlement. In his final set-piece speech on the issue before he meets other EU leaders in the Belgian capital on 18 and 19 February, the prime minister used an address to the annual St Matthew’s Day banquet in Hamburg, Germany, on Friday to make his case for reforming the EU. Speaking to an audience that included the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, Cameron said he would “unequivocally recommend” that Britain stays in the EU if he clinched the deal on Friday. He said he would rule nothing out if there was no deal, but added: “I believe we can … win that referendum and that will be good for Britain, good for Germany and good for the whole of Europe.” Cameron needs all 27 EU leaders to back the deal hammered out with the European council president, Donald Tusk. Tusk has cleared his diary to hold talks with some of the doubters, including France’s François Hollande, Greece’s Alexis Tsipras, Romania’s Klaus Iohannis and the Czech prime minister, Bohuslav Sobotka, before the summit.
JP Morgan Chase to pay $264m over Chinese 'princelings' bribery scheme JP Morgan Chase agreed to pay $264m on Wednesday to settle charges that it employed well-connected Chinese “princelings” in order to win business in the Asia-Pacific region. The settlement with US regulators comes after a three-year investigation into a vast foreign bribery scheme that violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). It could be the first of several such deals with Wall Street banks. “JP Morgan engaged in a systematic bribery scheme by hiring children of government officials and other favoured referrals who were typically unqualified for the positions on their own merit,” said Andrew Ceresney, director of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) enforcement division. “JP Morgan employees knew the firm was potentially violating the FCPA yet persisted with the improper hiring program because the business rewards and new deals were deemed too lucrative.” The Department of Justice called the scheme “bribery by any other name” and said it had recently created three dedicated international corruption squads “to combat this type of quid pro quo, and we’ll use all resources at our disposal to uncover and put an end to these crimes”. Starting in 2006 senior Hong Kong-based JP Morgan bankers set up and used a “client referral programme”, also referred to as the “sons and daughters programme”, to hire candidates referred by clients and government officials. The bank admitted that some candidates hired under the scheme did little more than proof reading but were paid the same amount as entry-level investment bankers. In one case bankers in New York told their Hong Kong peers that one Chinese hire was unqualified to be an investment banker. But a senior Chinese official had said that his hiring would help JP Morgan secure a lucrative role in an upcoming initial public offering (IPO) of a state-owned company. A position was created for the candidate in New York, and JP Morgan thereafter obtained a leading role in the IPO. The DoJ calculates the scheme increased profits at JP Morgan by at least $35m. “US businesses cannot lawfully seek to gain a business advantage by corruptly influencing foreign government officials,” said US attorney Robert Capers of the eastern district of New York. “The common refrain that this is simply how business is done overseas is no defence. In this case, JP Morgan employees designed a programme to hire otherwise unqualified candidates for prestigious investment banking jobs solely because these candidates were referred to the bank by officials in positions to award business to the bank. In certain instances, referred candidates were hired with the understanding that the hiring was linked to the award of specific business. This is no longer business as usual; it is corruption.” Kara Brockmeyer, chief of the SEC enforcement division’s FCPA unit, said: “The misconduct was so blatant that JP Morgan investment bankers created ‘referral hires vs revenue’ spreadsheets to track the money flow from clients whose referrals were rewarded with jobs. The firm’s internal controls were so weak that not a single referral hire request was denied.” A JPMorgan spokesman said in an email: “The conduct was unacceptable.” The hiring program was halted in 2013 and the bank took actions against those responsible, the spokesman said.
The year in football: highs and lows of 2016 – from Allardyce to Zlatan The year 2016 was a terrific one for the Premier League and a terrible 12 months for English football. Leicester City’s title success was every bit the fairytale, the perfect antidote to long-held and justifiable fears that ordinary clubs could no longer dream of glory as the bigger institutions and the Champions League elite had effectively ringfenced all the prizes worth winning. Leicester’s achievement was all the more remarkable for being totally unexpected, not only for the above reasons but also because of the struggle against relegation the previous season; yet even as Jamie Vardy and his team-mates enjoyed their party at domestic level something much more predictable was clouding the international scene. England doing badly in tournaments is now almost a given. The faithful expect little else and are grateful for even the smallest signs of progress. Even so, being ejected from the European Championship by Iceland while simultaneously watching Wales turn into one of the teams of the tournament surely represented a new low. The last time England looked as though they might enjoy themselves at a tournament was in 2002 or 2004; the story since has become a little more depressing every couple of years, although no sooner does it seem impossible to sink any lower than the national side find a way to manage it. England actually performed that trick twice in 2016. Their abject 2-1 capitulation to the smallest nation ever to qualify for a major tournament represented a startling variation on the dire baseline established in Brazil two years earlier, when they were eliminated before the end of the group stage. Then when Roy Hodgson did the decent thing and the FA bowed to pressure to appoint a more streetwise manager, it found that decision blowing up in its face as well. So England have had three permanent managers in the calendar year, including one reign so short that Sam Allardyce never got the chance to sit in the dugout at Wembley, and perhaps more damagingly have ended up with Gareth Southgate in charge because the job is no longer viewed as sufficiently attractive, prestigious or desirable. Southgate will probably not lead England back to the forefront of world football, the journey is simply too long and no one now expects it. Just about the only positive to be drawn from a sorry situation is that he finds himself in a position somewhat similar to Chris Coleman when he took over Wales. Unlike England, Wales have never had any sense of entitlement in international football – they know they have to start low and work hard for any success. Recognition finally arrived in 2016 and well-deserved it was, too. England could do worse than attempting to copy the Coleman plan, although with Wembley to fill and 50 years of hurt to factor in, the parallel is not an exact one. With the abuse scandal this newspaper helped uncover reaching unimagined proportions by the end of the year, 2016 could hardly be described as a high point for English football. Yet, if the Premier League is what this country does best, this was one of its vintage years. The Leicester story delighted football followers around the world and the achievement is not diminished by the team’s struggles in the league this season. Now that Chelsea, Liverpool and the Manchester clubs are back to something approaching their best, it does begin to appear that Leicester took advantage of an ideal set of circumstances last season. Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur are particularly guilty of dithering instead of cashing in on the managerial changes and overblown transitions going on elsewhere, but Leicester still deserve immense credit for being decisive and making their distinctive team ethic work. They were worthy winners of Team of the Year at the BBC’s Sports Personality awards for, if ever a title was won by collective effort rather than the contributions of individuals, this was it. Leicester took on the big teams and won when it mattered, most notably in gaining a stunning victory over Manchester City at the Etihad and providing José Mourinho’s final defeat as Chelsea manager. Mourinho had remarked that Leicester were in a false position, a statement he then had to retract, although his mistake was not quite as expensive as similar assumptions made by bookmakers. Mourinho is back in employment now at Manchester United, where he gradually seems to be shaping the side into one capable of living up to club traditions, even if talk already of a contract extension has unsettled some fans. Under Mourinho, United still made their worst start for 27 years, however well they are currently playing, and although Paul Pogba is now starting to exert a positive influence in midfield and Henrikh Mkhitaryan has begun to perform well, it is fair to say fans were expecting a little more bang for their buck after breaking the world transfer record in the summer. Manchester City are in a slightly better, albeit similar, position. Pep Guardiola has not found it easy to adjust to the Premier League after all. The City manager has been freely admitting as much in recent weeks but his side have played some thrilling football at times during a campaign that has already yielded impressive victories over Arsenal and Barcelona. Last season City would have been out in front without too much of a problem. This season they are being put in the shade by Chelsea and Liverpool, especially the former, although a moment of truth will arrive at Anfield when City are the visitors on New Year’s Eve. It is fair to point out, as Guardiola and Mourinho frequently do, that Chelsea and Liverpool have the advantage of being unencumbered by European commitments this season, although Antonio Conte in particular deserves credit for completely changing his club’s outlook in well under six months in a new country. Chelsea have been playing so well of late that even neutrals have been appreciating their ability. That used to happen in a grudging way when Mourinho was in charge, mostly because the efficiency was remarkable, but now Chelsea are the genuine crowd-pleasing article, showcasing some exceptional talents and looking a good bet for the title. If it is true that Roman Abramovich has always hankered after an entertaining, free-scoring side, a force not only recognised but admired around Europe, he seems closer than ever to achieving his wish. If they continue to improve, European progress will surely follow under Conte, although that is for next year. As 2016 winds down, with the official prizes to be handed out towards the end of the season, here are a few unofficial suggestions for the year as a whole … Team of the year Leicester City Coach of the year Claudio Ranieri Player of the year Riyad Mahrez. Most improved team Chelsea Most improved player Diego Costa Most memorable goal Jamie Vardy v Liverpool. Most jaw-dropping moment Hal Robson-Kanu puts Wales ahead against Belgium Quote of the year Robson-Kanu again: “I’ve just Cruyffed them and stuck it in the net” Most remarkable atmosphere Liverpool v Borussia Dortmund. Most embarrassing own goal Sam Allardyce Most embarrassing choice of drink Sam Allardyce Best positional switch Chelsea to back three and wing-backs Best celebration (premature) Alan Pardew dancing on the sideline at the FA Cup final Worst news management Manchester United spoiling Louis van Gaal’s moment of glory at Wembley Worst slide to the bottom of the table Swansea and Sunderland to share Most promising newcomer Marcus Rashford. Best old-timer Zlatan Ibrahimovic. Most biblically apt arrival due this Christmas Gabriel Jesus joins Manchester City. Piece of commentary for posterity Steve McClaren talking up England as Iceland score Best dresser Antonio Conte. Even his outfits look more animated than those of his rivals
Putin is a human rights abusing oligarch. The British left must speak out A rightwing authoritarian leader who attacks civil liberties, stigmatises lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, indulges in chauvinistic nationalism, is in bed with rapacious oligarchs, and who is admired by the European and American hard right. Leftwing opposition to Vladimir Putin should be, well, kind of an obvious starting point. Now BBC One’s Panorama has broadcast allegations that the Russian leader has secretly amassed a vast fortune. However accurate, there is no question that Putin is close to oligarchs such as Roman Abramovich, who profited as post-Soviet Russia collapsed into economic chaos thanks to western-backed “shock therapy”. Last week, a British public inquiry concluded that ex-Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko was likely to have been murdered at the personal behest of Putin. We don’t know exactly who is behind all the murky killings of journalists in Russia, but we know that some of those critical of the government – like Anna Politkovskaya, who courageously opposed Putin’s war in Chechnya – met violent ends. Putin has become something of an icon for a certain type of western rightwinger. Donald Trump is a fan: when Putin called the rightwing demagogue a “very colourful, talented person”, Trump called it a “great honour” and described Russia’s strongman as “a man highly respected within his own country and beyond”. When challenged on the alleged role of Moscow in the murder of journalists, Trump engaged in what is typically known as “whataboutery” (or the “look over there!” approach to debate), responding: “Our country does plenty of killing also.” Last year, a delegation of French rightwing MPs visited Russia to fight “disinformation from western media”, and Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right National Front which was given a multimillion-euro loan from a Russian bank – is a Putin fan. Our own Nigel Farage assailed opposition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, suggesting Putin was “on our side” in the war against terrorism, while Ukip MEP Diane James celebrated him as a strong leader and for being “very nationalist”. Sure, the west’s attitude towards Putin is hypocritical. When Putin prosecuted his savage war in Chechnya, there was none of the western outrage later meted out when the Russians annexed the Crimea. Bill Clinton once lavished Putin for having “enormous potential”; Tony Blair, meanwhile, continues to call for the west to work with Putin against Islamic fundamentalism and last year attended a Putin “vanity summit”. But for the left, opposition to Putin should go without saying. Those who claim the left as a whole is soft on Putin are disingenuous at best: as, indeed, this article illustrates. But why are some silent, or even indulgent? Firstly, some profess a fear that – by critiquing those who are already supposedly bete noires of the west – the left will provide cover for western military expansionism. We become cheerleaders for western foreign policy, in other words, feeding the demonisation of foreign foes that is a necessary precondition for conflict. Secondly, it is seen as hypocritical: look at, say, the calamities of Iraq or Libya. Should we not focus on what our governments get up to, rather than what foreigners get up to elsewhere, which is in any case well covered by the mainstream press and political elite? Yes, there is something rather absurd about the baiting of the anti-war left for not protesting against, say, Putin or North Korea. The baiters are always free to organise their own demonstration (I would be happy to join), and protest movements can only realistically aspire to put pressure on governments at home, whether it be on domestic policies or alliances with human rights abusers abroad (whether that be, say, the head-chopping Saudi exporters of extremism, or Israel’s occupation of Palestine). In democracies, protests that echo the official line of governments are rare. If the west was actively cheering Putin on and arming him to the teeth, we might expect more vociferous opposition. But for universalists – those of us who believe democracy, freedom, human rights and social justice are universal principles that all humans should enjoy, irrespective of who or where they are – that shouldn’t be good enough. We shouldn’t have to wait for a possible western-Russian alliance in, say, Syria to speak out. We should express our solidarity with Russia’s embattled democrats and leftists. We don’t have to choose between critiquing our own foreign policy and opposing unjust foreign governments. In a sense, critics of western foreign policy have more of a responsibility to speak out. While supporters of, for example, the Iraq calamity can be more easily batted away by Putin apologists, nobody can accuse people like me of hypocritically failing to critique western foreign policy. Russia is ruled by a human rights abusing, expansionist, oligarchic regime. The Russian people – and their neighbours – deserve better. And the western left is surely duty-bound to speak out.
Tim Dowling: Is there something funny I can tell the Glastonbury crowd about Brexit? On the night of the referendum vote, I fall asleep with the radio on. I unconsciously absorb the news that Leave has won, but it seems unreal, a stray detail from a nightmare. I wake with a sense of relief, as if I’ve just realised I don’t have pincers instead of hands. The radio is still going. My wife suddenly sits bolt upright. “We’re out?” she shouts. “Are you joking?” Over the course of the next hour, I repeatedly experience the hollow satisfaction of being the bearer of bad news. I find my wife in the kitchen “There is no government,” I say. “The pound is in freefall.” “What the fuck is happening?” my wife says. “Money itself is dying,” I say. I would like to say more stuff like this, but a van has arrived to take me to Glastonbury, where the band I’m in is playing for the first time. As I load up my equipment, my wife sits on our front garden wall, addressing her incredulity to passersby. “It’s unbelievable!” she says. People stop to commiserate. By the time I climb into the van, there’s a little knot of worried-looking locals waving me off from the pavement. It’s raining when we arrive at Glastonbury that afternoon. We park the van and set off on foot in search of accreditation. Our wristbands, it transpires, are waiting in an area normally accessible only to the previously accredited. At every checkpoint this paradox is greeted with polite confusion. Supervisors are sought and consulted. “This can’t be the system,” I say to the fiddle player. “This can’t be how ZZ Top gets in.” Later that night we watch The Feeling play on the stage where we’re scheduled to play the next day. The lead singer makes a despairing reference to the referendum and is greeted with a defiant cheer. Some hours later I wake up in a wet tent, with an aching back and a strong inkling that I am too old for this shit. As we wait to go on stage that afternoon, I try to think of something bleakly amusing to say about the referendum. “This recession may be even worse than the last one,” I whisper, practising under my breath. “But at least we voted for this one.” In the end, I lose my nerve. You’re an immigrant, I think: keep your head down. At sunset I find myself standing alongside our bass player in a field, watching The 1975. The lead singer expresses dismay over the referendum result, which he characterises as an older generation – specifically my generation – voting on his generation’s future. “A future we don’t fucking want!” he shouts. An angry roar rises up from the young people all around me. I turn to the bass player. “Let’s get out of here,” I say. The next morning, with the van fully loaded, I feel we are heading into a grim and unpredictable future. Then we get stuck in the mud. Before we can think about pushing ourselves out, we must address the problem of the lorry blocking our path. I slog up to the driver’s window, mud sucking at my boots. “Are you stuck?” I say. He nods. “I’m waiting to be towed,” he says. “For how long?” I say. “Since yesterday,” he says. “What’s in there?” I say, pointing to the back of his truck. “The Feeling’s back line,” he says. Working together with defiant optimism, we manage to push first his truck, then our van, out of the car park. We shake hands and climb into our respective vehicles to join a snaking queue of stalled traffic. At the time of writing, I am still there. Thank you, Glastonbury. And you’re welcome, The Feeling.
The view on David Bowie: the misfit megastar The cultural revolution known as “the 60s”, even though it largely took place during the 1970s, blended hazy hopes of a collective awakening to a post-materialist future, with a determined emphasis on the right of the individual to realise his or herself. Nobody embodied the second half of that, the only half which was to stick, like David Bowie. Not for him the protest anthems associated with Dylan or Lennon in the right mood, nor the campus class consciousness raising antics of soixante-huitards. No, almost from the beginning, as this singular stone rolled between obscure bands, dance classes and every last pocket of the avant garde, he grabbed at everything from makeup brushes to musical hall standards for the over-riding purpose of defining, and then reinventing and redefining, the boy born David Jones. The world is never short of self-absorbed would-be artists, but Bowie was able to break out and become the first misfit megastar. That undoubtedly had a good deal to do with talent. Edgy vocals and chord sequences with an eerie refusal to reach the expected resolution were two hallmarks through a long songwriting career, where the sound would change almost as often as the vision. The musicianship was often impressively tight as well as inventive, but if Bowie had a genius it was not of the narrowly musical variety, rather it was in grasping the full breadth of what the pop form involves, and then mastering not only the songs but also the clothes, the performances and later the videos. Bowie had a consummate flair for the whole lot, but also – and perhaps just as important an ingredient of pop success – an instinctive affinity with his times. This way with the zeitgeist was evident from the moment Space Oddity was put on the launchpad a week before Apollo 11 in 1969, and Bowie would go on to reflect the worst as well as the best aspects of the years that lay ahead. During the 70s, alongside the extraordinary restlessness and reinvention, there was abuse of cocaine that reached truly frightening heights, a bizarre and recanted flirtation with fascism that may have owed something to drugs as well as to Britain’s mood of frenzied despair, and a detailed claim from a former groupie about underage sex. But unlike so many rockers who stuck with the same old riffs through these days of debauchery, Bowie dreamed up not only new tunes but entirely new personas. Ziggy Stardust came and went, followed by the Thin White Duke, and then the suited and seemingly cleaner-living new romantic of the 80s, who achieved terrific commercial success without the provocative creativity of earlier times, reflecting, perhaps, the broader turn of Thatcherite Britain. Entirely new electronica and post-electronica aliases were still to follow, even before we reach the unsettling withered prophet rocker of Blackstar, the album that he released only last week, whose title track is shot through with mortal preoccupations. Other musicians had evolved in the public eye, of course, including the Beatles, who had transitioned from moptop and tie into the technicolour of Sgt Pepper, but Bowie, just a few years younger, kicked even harder against postwar conformity, and with him the self-reimagining was elevated from being a tool of the trade into being its purpose. Within the pop profession, he set the precedent that very different figures, such as Madonna and arguably Kylie, would later follow as they sustained long careers by skipping lightly between different genres. The more profound effect, however, was with the public beyond, who had watched a boy from Bromley plaster himself with makeup, declare himself bisexual and achieve stardom. Others, like Lou Reed, may have played games with gender before, but they were art-house acts, not arena-packers or chart-toppers. Early rock’n’roll might have struck ageing ears as the sound of a hedonistic revolt, but the desires of the youth that it presumed to channel were conventional and even conformist. It was only with Bowie – with his cross-dressing, his manifest unease, and the unconcealable oddity of his drug-addled days – that, in the reclaimed word, queerness hit the big time. Without his example it is fair to question whether the world would ever have heard of Boy George, seen Morrissey prance around on the stage while wearing a hearing aid, or marvelled at Robbie Williams donning a frock on the Top of the Pops. And without that whole androgynous wave that Bowie helped to unleash, it is fair to ask whether the gathering current interest in transgender would be so far advanced. The world has lost an original.
UK business confidence dips as EU referendum approaches, survey finds UK companies have become gloomier about their trading prospects and the economic outlook as the EU referendum approaches, according to a survey. Lloyds Bank’s latest barometer of business mood found confidence about trading prospects dipped to a three-year low in May. Overall business confidence and hiring plans were also down, according to the survey of about 200 companies with a turnover of more than £1m. The poll comes alongside a separate figures showing a dip in job vacancies and advertised salaries in May. Together the reports will add further fuel to the debate over whether the EU referendum is hurting business confidence or whether other factors are at play that will persist beyond the vote in June. Lloyds said a net balance of 32% of firms polled were feeling more confident, down from 38% in March and 45% at the start of the year. The drop in confidence was most marked in medium-sized companies with a turnover of between £5m and £20m. For all sizes of company, the net balance reporting an improvement in trading prospects fell 11 points on the month to a three-year low of 38%. There was also a drop in the net balance of firms expecting to increase staff levels. Other recent polls have indicated that some businesses have deferred hiring and investment decisions until after the 23 June referendum, and the Bank of England has said those jitters will knock economic growth this quarter. The findings from Lloyds echo that. Hann-Ju Ho, a senior economist for Lloyds Bank commercial banking, said: “Our May survey shows a second consecutive monthly fall in overall sentiment, suggesting that economic growth may slow further in the second quarter due to near-term economic risks. “Despite this, overall confidence remains above the level in February of this year with increased resilience across our industrial sector and among larger firms.” Separate figures from the jobs search engine Adzuna point to a slowdown in pay and new job opportunities. The total number of advertised jobs in April dipped 0.3% from March to 1,156,810. That figure, however, was still up 12% on a year earlier. The site, which aims to list every job on offer in the UK, noted a particular deterioration in job prospects for new graduates. There were 12,850 entry-level jobs advertised in April this year, down 8% on a year earlier, Adzuna said. The average entry-level salary dropped to a 30-month low of £23,309. Adzuna also noted “concerns about the impact of April’s new national living wage and the upcoming EU referendum could be responsible for this reduction in new roles”. Its co-founder Doug Monro said: “Graduate vacancies are falling and new joiners are facing one of the toughest job markets in recent times.”
Council cuts push specialist housing for vulnerable people into the cold Last November, housing staff at one housing association were confronted with a tenant claiming to have a bomb in his bag; in another incident, an officer from another housing provider claimed to have been held hostage by a man who believed there was an alien outside his home. In both incidents, the tenants involved had mental health issues. Housing providers are concerned that growing numbers of tenants with mental health issues are ending up in general needs housing, where they do not receive the help provided in specialist supported housing. A recent survey by Inside Housing reveals a 14% fall in spending by councils on people with mental health issues in supported housing since 2011–12, based on 250 English councils that responded to Freedom of Information requests, Between 2011 and 2017 there will have been a drop of nearly £7.3m in spend on people with mental health in supported housing by the 47 councils in England that responded fully to the survey. In 2011–12, those councils’ combined budget, including both commissioned services and those they pay for directly, was £50.9m; this year’s budget is £43.6m. This squeeze on council spending has put pressure on other housing providers, including housing associations. “We have noticed councils are seeking to reduce the amount of specialist accommodation they procure for adults with mental illness,” says Alex Reeve, regional director of London supported housing at housing association Family Mosaic. Supported housing has been operating within a constricted funding environment for years. Supporting People funding – a national programme for housing related support made available to councils in England – dropped from £1.8bn when it started in 2003 to £1.6bn in 2014–15. That equates to a 38% fall in real terms. Ministers have given supported housing a one-year exemption from the 1% rent reduction announced in last year’s summer budget, while in September the government said it would transfer top-up money to councils for the service to counter its planned housing benefit cap. But supported housing providers say the threat of funding cuts has already affected business. Among the 250 councils that responded at least in part to Inside Housing’s FOI requests, there is a wide range of provision for tenants with mental health conditions: some have specialist units, some do not; a handful have floating support for their general needs stock, most do not; others have budgets for specific conditions – such as hoarding – while others have no housing budget at all allocated to people with mental health needs Chris Hampson, chief executive of Look Ahead, which provides care, support and housing services across London and the south-east, says councils are cutting back on supporting those with less serious mental health issues to concentrate on those with more acute needs. “A lot of the preventative services have been cut back,” says Hampson, who believes further cuts are to come. This, he says, is short-sighted: “If you take money out of the lower-end preventative services, in the long run more money is spent because people end up back on the streets or in hospital.” Richard Colwill, media manager at mental health charity Sane, says the FOI results show the budgetary crisis across the board for mental health provision, which is of deep concern for the charity. “Mental health has always been a ‘Cinderella service’,” he explains, and cuts to services are a false economy: if what initially appears to be a tenancy problem is not addressed early, it can develop into a much more complex issue and they can find themselves supporting a customer experiencing mental health issues. “Care in the community only works if there is provision for people in the community,” he says. “Housing is a really big issue for us. Losing a home or being in fear of losing your home can be a trigger to push someone into crisis.” While most councils have cut spending on mental health in supported accommodation, the FOI responses reveal some exceptions. In 2016–17 Ealing spent £1.6m on mental health in supported housing, up from £1.2m in 2011–12. “We recognise the benefits of supported living in enabling people to live as independently as possible in the borough while getting appropriate care from professionals,” a spokesperson for Ealing says. “We also find that supporting people to live in the local area near to family and friends can have a positive impact on their well-being.” In Yorkshire, Wakefield council is another bucking the trend, with its supported housing mental health budget growing 15% in the past five years. It is also developing an innovative strategy to address the issue. Wakefield and District Housing has partnered with NHS Wakefield Clinical Commissioning Group to employ mental health support workers to work with tenants. The council, which still manages the local housing register, can give applicants with mental health needs extra priority. Jon Feasey, a service manager for vulnerable adults at Wakefield Council, says the council sees tackling mental health as an important frontline service. “It has a preventative outcome that can create real efficiencies by preventing homelessness.” Feasey believes the right place for people with mental health needs is in the community but that people need support in their homes – including those with less acute mental health needs who can slip through the net. As well as preventing homelessness, the support can also help reduce unplanned hospital admissions, he says. This is an edited extract from an article originally published by Inside Housing (£). World Mental Health Day on 10 October focuses this year on psychological first aid and providing support to those in distress Sign up for your free Housing network newsletter with news and analysis sent direct to you on the last Friday of the month. Follow us:@ Housing
Puppies for sale and stolen sex tapes: viral hoaxes that went too far The mantra “all publicity is good publicity” was taken to extremes this week with not one, but two, examples of marketing campaigns designed to cause outrage. The first was from online fashion retailer Lyst, which claimed it was selling dogs as accessories. The second involved an indie-dance band named Yacht, who faked a sex tape leak to coincide with the release of a new music video. These two stories show exactly how far people will go when trying to sell something on the internet. They also show how badly such moves can backfire. Lyst’s completely fake “canine collection” was met almost immediately with widespread outrage. Lyst’s campaign was strange from the beginning. At points, it was actively, and very publicly, trolling the RSPCA: Other animal charities rumoured to be involved sent out statements vehemently denying any knowledge of the campaign. According to Mic Wright of the Malcontent, Lyst enlisted the Social Chain, a social media marketing agency behind some of Twitter’s biggest accounts, to drum up even more interest. BuzzFeed’s Luke Bailey, who wrote a feature about the company last year, pointed out the Social Chain’s modus operandi: to ignore context and get maximum attention, whether positive or negative. As Business Insider pointed out on Tuesday, this isn’t exactly a new tactic for either Lyst or its CMO, Christian Woolfenden, who was responsible for the now notorious Oscar Pistorius “money back if he walks” advert, which became the most-complained about advert of 2014, while working for Paddy Power. Lyst’s complete disregard for how people had reacted to its stunt was shown on Tuesday night, when it congratulated itself on a campaign well done. But people were unconvinced. But one social media marketing mess wasn’t enough this week, oh no. On Monday, Los Angeles-based band Yacht released a statement claiming a sex tape featuring its lead stars Jona Bechtolt and Claire L. Evans had been leaked. The band then appeared to sell their own sex tape for $5. Many news sites covered the story, although, as with Lyst’s stunt, not everyone was convinced. According to Vice’s Thump blog, the band are known for messing around with the media, so suspicions were immediately raised. Add to that the fact that anyone who tried to download the video were met with a “server overload” message. Jezebel’s Anna Merlan outed the entire thing as a hoax after finding out that the band had got in touch with colleagues in April offering to bring the site in on the stunt. She added: Activists have fought for years to secure some shred of legal recourse for victims of revenge porn. What Yacht did is troll people’s innate sense of horror, disgust and compassion when confronted with a terribly violating crime. They’re probably trying to make a point about media sensationalism, about online outlets, especially, being willing to cover salacious stories without fact-checking them. Done in a less disgusting and rank way, that would be fair. It would be impish, mischievous good fun. This is not that. This is one of the grossest publicity stunts I’ve ever seen. Even Yacht’s PR company distanced themselves from the stunt. In a statement, Yacht claimed the stunt is “a project that allowed us to play with science fiction, the attention economy, clickbait journalism, and celebrity sex tapes all at once.” It added: “We never make light of victims of any form of sexual abuse. “Frankly, it’s disturbing to us that press outlets could make the incredibly irresponsible leap from ‘celebrity sex tape’, which is the cultural trope this project explicitly references, to ‘revenge porn’, which is unfunny, disgusting, morally repugnant and completely unrelated.” Going viral is the holy grail of any company working on the internet in 2016. So, increasingly, we’re going to see even more of companies attempting to whip up outrage in the name of publicity. Which means more pieces like this, trying to make sense of the whole mess. Sorry about that. But there isn’t much evidence it works, at all. If you look at Lyst’s Twitter mentions right now, you’d think that it doesn’t. Then again, you probably shouldn’t believe everything you read on the internet.
EU agrees to tax e-cigarettes at higher rate E-cigarettes are poised to be taxed at a higher rate across Europe, with France and two other nations calling for a minimum excise duty to be set at “the highest common denominator”. EU diplomats unanimously agreed a call for the European commission to prepare a legislative proposal by 2017, in a draft document seen by the that EU finance ministers will sign off at a meeting next Tuesday. No proposal will be tabled until after an exhaustive process of impact studies, technical analyses and public consultations. But if these hurdles can be cleared, officials say that taxing Europe’s growing vape industry could be desirable. “There is an argument that it would be quite good to do something like minimum levels of excise duty for e-cigarettes. Member states could then decide whether to raise them higher or not,” one official said. “At present they don’t fall under excise duties like cigarettes, so maybe we would set a minimum threshold.” At least 57% of the price of a pack of cigarettes must come from excise duty under the UK’s customs rules. Another 20% of the price comes from VAT, which Brussels has no powers to regulate. Last December, the commission warned that failure to harmonise excise duties for e-cigarettes could have “significant long term budgetary implications” for countries, leading to national taxes being levied that over time could threaten the internal market. But any moves from Brussels to increase the price of a product that can help people quit smoking could be incendiary in the UK, ahead of the July referendum. After British press reports suggesting that a proposal was inevitable – and likely to tax e-cigarettes the same as tobacco – the Ukip leader Nigel Farrage tweeted: “Appalled that EU set to tax e-cigarettes at same levels as tobacco. All vapers must vote to Leave EU!” Around 2.2 million Britons use e-cigarettes, which vaporise a nicotine-based liquid so that it can be inhaled. In 2014 at least 900,000 people vaped in a bid to quit smoking, according to one new study. But EU officials insist that raising vaping duties to the same level as for tobacco would “make no sense in terms of health policy”. Medical opinion is divided over whether nicotine-based products are the best way to kick the smoking habit but anti-tobacco campaigners believe that it would be a mistake to prioritise the vape industry as a target for Europe-wide action. “We are disappointed that the EU debate is focusing on e-cigarettes,” said Florence Berteletti, a spokeswoman for the Smoke Free Partnership. “We would be more interested to see measures that help to prevent young people from starting smoking.”
No mention of Michael Gove as Sarah Vine's Mail column returns Daily Mail columnist Sarah Vine resumed her weekly column for the newspaper on Wednesday after a three-week break – a break occasioned, it was rumoured, by the chaos in the professional life of her husband, the ex-justice secretary and former Conservative party leadership hopeful Michael Gove. Vine’s column last appeared in the Daily Mail on 29 June, days after her husband had played a key role in the referendum victory for the leave campaign. She told her readers that Gove responded to the news by exclaiming: “Gosh, I’d better get up.” Vine’s role came under scrutiny when an email to her husband was leaked in which she suggested that if he supported Boris Johnson, he should get something in writing about the role he would land in any Johnson cabinet – and that her boss, Mail editor in chief Paul Dacre, would support Gove in a leadership bid. On 1 July, the paper threw its weight behind the winner, Theresa May. This week, it was as if the columnist had never been away, with only one oblique mention of life in the Vine/Gove household since Michael was relegated to the backbenches. Instead, she led her page with her views on whether the proprietor of a seaside cafe in Suffolk was right to give a customer’s child a “ticking-off” for being noisy when the parents refused to intervene. She went on to tell actor Thandie Newton that she didn’t like a picture of her breastfeeding her son wearing nothing but “the smuggest, most self-satisfied Earth Mother expression”, passed comment on the size of Sir Philip Green’s stomach, and commented on the tragic murder of Pakistan’s social media star Qandeel Baloch, who was killed by her brother in a so-called “honour” killing. She saved her views on the post-Brexit fallout for the foot of the column. Under the heading “PS: What really matters in life”, she wrote: “Last Thursday, the man of the house suddenly found himself the centre of attention. Standing on the brink of massive change, I couldn’t help but be proud of the fact that he held his own throughout …” But the columnist was not referring to her husband; instead, she went on to describe how their son, William, had played a character called Captain Deadeye in his end-of-year school play, Pirates of the Curry Bean. “Seeing my boy on stage, alongside his friends and teachers, was an immensely moving moment – and a salutary reminder that these are the things in life that truly matter,” she wrote.
David Bowie obituary Until the last, David Bowie, who has died of cancer, was still capable of springing surprises. His latest album, Blackstar, appeared on his 69th birthday on 8 January, and showed that his gift for making dramatic statements as well as challenging, disturbing music had not deserted him. Throughout the 1970s, Bowie was a trailblazer of musical trends and pop fashion. Having been a late-60s mime and cabaret entertainer, he evolved into a singer-songwriter, and a pioneer of glam-rock, then veered into what he called “plastic soul”, before moving to Berlin to create innovative electronic music. In subsequent decades his influence became less pervasive, but he remained creatively restless and constantly innovative across a variety of media. His capacity for mixing brilliant changes of sound and image underpinned by a genuine intellectual curiosity is rivalled by few in pop history. Blackstar was proof that this curiosity had not diminished in his later career. Bowie was born David Robert Jones in Brixton, south London. His mother, Peggy, had met his father, John, after he was demobilised from second world war service in the Royal Fusiliers. John subsequently worked for the Barnardo’s children’s charity. They married in September 1947, eight months after David’s birth, when John’s divorce from his first wife, Hilda, became absolute. In 1953 the family moved to Bromley, Kent, where David attended Burnt Ash junior school and showed aptitude in singing and playing the recorder. Later, after he passed his 11-plus exam, he turned down a place at a grammar school and went to Bromley technical high school and studied art, music and design. His half-brother, Terry Burns, nearly a decade older than David, introduced him to jazz musicians, such as John Coltrane and Miles Davis, and in 1961 David’s mother bought him a plastic saxophone, introducing him to an instrument that would become a recurring ingredient in his music. After a 1962 schoolyard punch-up, the pupil in David’s left eye remained permanently dilated, having the serendipitous effect of lending him a vaguely unearthly appearance (the thrower of the punch, George Underwood, remained a close friend and later designed Bowie’s album artwork). At 15, David formed his first band, the Kon-rads, a primitive rock’n’roll combo that contained a fluctuating number of members, including Underwood. He quickly became disillusioned with his band’s lack of ambition and quit to form a new outfit, the blues-influenced King Bees. They released a single called Liza Jane, but when it disappeared without trace, David jumped ship again and joined the Manish Boys. Named after a Muddy Waters track, they too were blues-orientated. Their single I Pity the Fool proved no more chart-friendly than Liza Jane had done, after which the restless Davy Jones was on the move once more. His next port of call was the Lower Third, an R&B band from Margate, Kent. The group thought they were auditioning for a singer and equal member, but once they had hired David, they were taken aback when he issued a press statement saying: “This is to inform you of the existence of Davie [sic] Jones and the Lower Third.” Moreover, David, abetted by his new manager Ralph Horton, a former tour manager for the Moody Blues, decreed that the band should be decked out in fashionable mod attire, in emulation of the Who. Fellow members of the Lower Third could not help noticing David’s flamboyant, even effeminate performing style. They released a Jones-penned single, the aptly named You’ve Got a Habit of Leaving, but despite receiving a handful of radio plays, it failed to chart. It was clear that David’s talents and ambition dictated that he should go solo, and Horton provoked a split with the Lower Third by announcing that there was not enough money to pay their fees. David now adopted the name Bowie to avoid confusion with Davy Jones of the Monkees, and put together a new group via an advertisement in Melody Maker, specifying that he wanted musicians “to accompany a singer”. The new band was named the Buzz. He dropped Horton after a botched music publishing deal, and in his place hired Ken Pitt, a far more substantial figure who had had success with Mel Tormé and Manfred Mann. Pitt secured an album deal for Bowie with Decca’s Deram label, which resulted in an LP entitled simply David Bowie, released in June 1967. It was preceded by the novelty single The Laughing Gnome, a flop at the time but a top 10 hit when reissued in 1973. Bowie later said of his debut album: “I didn’t know if I was Max Miller or Elvis Presley.” But within its disjointed mix of styles, it found Bowie reflecting on issues such as childhood, sexual ambiguity and the nature of stardom. By the time the album was released, Bowie had already got rid of the Buzz, again citing lack of money. For a time he studied theatre and mime with the dancer Lindsay Kemp, and in 1969 he started a folk club at the Three Tuns pub in Beckenham, Kent. This developed into the Beckenham Arts Lab, and a variety of future stars, including Peter Frampton, Steve Harley, Rick Wakeman and Bowie’s future producer Tony Visconti, performed there. In July 1969 Bowie released Space Oddity, the song that would give him his initial commercial breakthrough. Timed to coincide with the Apollo 11 moon landing, it was a top five UK hit. The accompanying album was originally called Man of Words / Man of Music, but was later reissued as Space Oddity. The following year was a momentous one for Bowie. His brother Terry was committed to a psychiatric institution (and would kill himself in 1985), and his father died. In March, Bowie married Angela Barnett, an art student. He dumped Pitt and recruited the driven and aggressive Tony DeFries, prompting Pitt to sue successfully for compensation. Artistically, Bowie was powering ahead. The Man Who Sold the World was released in the US in late 1970 and in the UK the following year under Bowie’s new deal with RCA Victor, and with its daring songwriting and broody, hard-rock sound, it was the first album to do full justice to his writing and performing gifts. The title track remains one of his most atmospheric compositions, and songs such as All the Madmen and The Width of a Circle were formidably inventive and accomplished. The album’s themes included immortality, insanity, murder and mysticism, evidence that Bowie was a songwriter who was thinking way beyond pop’s usual boundaries. The Man Who Sold the World was significant in other ways too. Its producer, Visconti, became a long-term ally, and in the guitarist Mick Ronson and the drummer Woody Woodmansey, Bowie had found the core of what would become the Spiders from Mars. The UK cover pictured Bowie lounging in a long dress and bearing a striking resemblance to Lauren Bacall, playing on the theme of sexual ambiguity that he would exploit so successfully. He followed it with Hunky Dory (1972), a mix of wordy, elaborate songwriting (The Bewlay Brothers or Quicksand), crunchy rockers (Queen Bitch) and infectious pop songs (Kooks). It was an excellent collection that met with only moderate success, but that all changed with The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars later that year. This time, Bowie emerged as a fully fledged science-fiction character – an intergalactic glam-rock star visiting a doomed planet Earth – and the album effectively wrote the script for his own stardom. The hit single Starman brought instant success for the album, while Bowie’s ravishing stage costumes and sexually provocative performances (following his carefully timed claim in a Melody Maker interview that he was gay) triggered fan enthusiasm unseen since Beatlemania. Seeing Bowie perform as Ziggy on Top of the Pops was a life-changing experience for a generation of pop listeners in glum 70s Britain. Everything Bowie touched turned to gold, such as his song All the Young Dudes which provided a career-reviving hit for Mott the Hoople, or Lou Reed’s album Transformer, which he co-produced with Ronson. He scored his first UK No 1 album with Aladdin Sane (1973), which generated the hit singles The Jean Genie and Drive-in Saturday. But Bowie was already planning fresh career moves, and in July 1973 he shocked his audience at the Hammersmith Odeon by announcing the retirement of Ziggy Stardust. He made Pin Ups, a transitional album of cover versions, before embarking on the sinister concept album Diamond Dogs, intended as a musical version of George Orwell’s 1984. Bowie’s commercial instincts remained in fine working order, however, and the album brought further hit singles with the title track and Rebel Rebel. He took his new music to the US in 1974 with the elaborately theatrical Diamond Dogs tour, which was filmed by the BBC’s Alan Yentob for the documentary Cracked Actor. However, professional pressures and an escalating cocaine habit were making Bowie paranoid and physically emaciated. His increasing interest in funk and soul music came to the fore on the deliciously listenable Young Americans (1975), which gave him a US chart-topper with Fame (featuring John Lennon as a guest vocalist) and earned him a slot on the American TV show Soul Train. This was Bowie’s so-called “plastic soul” album, which he described as “the squashed remains of ethnic music as it survives in the age of Muzak, written and sung by a white limey”. But once again, Bowie’s frantic creativity was accompanied by crises in his business life. He fired Defries, which spurred long and tortuous litigation and cost Bowie millions, then hired his lawyer, Michael Lippman, as his manager. A year later he went through the sacking-and-lawsuit process all over again with Lippman. Yet he was still breaking new musical ground. Station to Station (1976), a euphoric dose of what might be called synthetic art-funk, introduced a new persona, the Thin White Duke, which Bowie had carried over from his headlining performance as Thomas Jerome Newton, the melancholy space traveller, in Nicolas Roeg’s film The Man Who Fell to Earth. But Bowie’s own connection to terra firma was looking increasingly shaky. He told Rolling Stone magazine about his admiration for fascism, and provoked outrage when his wave to the crowd while arriving in an open-topped Mercedes at Victoria station in London was interpreted as Nazi salute. He found some breathing space by buying a home in Switzerland, where he rediscovered his interest in art and drawing, but by the end of 1976 he had taken up residence in Berlin, where he was accompanied by Iggy Pop – with whom he was working on Iggy’s album, The Idiot – and Brian Eno, who would be the catalyst for another of Bowie’s musical leaps forward. The upshot was the so-called “triptych” of Low, Heroes (both 1977) and Lodger (1979), where Bowie mixed Krautrock influences with Eno-driven synthesizer mood-music, with at least some pop accessibility for good measure (such as Low’s Sound and Vision or Lodger’s Boys Keep Swinging). Lodger, though recorded in Montreux and New York, used the same personnel as the previous two, with Eno once again acting as creative ringmaster. Meanwhile, Bowie found time to film another leading movie role, appearing as Count Paul von Przygodski in Just a Gigolo (1978). Bowie’s relationship with his wife had been disintegrating under the pressures of success and the couple’s hedonistic, promiscuous lifestyle, and they would divorce in 1980. This was a year of further creative triumph, bringing a fine album, Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) and its spin-off chart-topping single, Ashes to Ashes, followed by Bowie’s well-received stint as John Merrick in The Elephant Man on the Broadway stage. To make the accompanying video for Ashes to Ashes, he went to the Blitz club in London and recruited several leading lights from the New Romantic movement, a collection of bands including Visage and Spandau Ballet, who owed much of their inspiration to Bowie. With hindsight, Ashes to Ashes can be seen as the point where Bowie’s cutting edge began to lose its sharpness, and he was never again quite the cultural pathfinder he had been in his heyday. This process expressed itself in the way he restlessly bounced between collaborators. He bagged a No 1 single with his 1981 partnership with Queen, Under Pressure, while becoming increasingly involved in crossovers between different media. He appeared in the German movie Christiane F (1981) and wrote music for the soundtrack, and his lead role in the BBC’s production of Bertolt Brecht’s Baal (1982) was accompanied by his five-track EP of songs from the play. He registered another chart hit with Cat People (Putting Out Fire) from Paul Schrader’s movie Cat People (1982). Bowie continued to make progress as a screen actor with appearances in The Hunger (alongside Catherine Deneuve) and the second world war drama Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence, both released in 1983. Musically, this was the year in which he marshalled his forces for an all-out commercial onslaught with the album Let’s Dance and follow-up concerts. With co-production from Chic’s Nile Rodgers, Let’s Dance moulded Bowie into a crowd-friendly global rock star, with the album and its singles Let’s Dance, China Girl and Modern Love all becoming huge international hits. This was the heyday of MTV, and Bowie’s knack for eye-catching videos fuelled this commercial splurge, while the six-month Serious Moonlight tour drew massive crowds. It was to be the most commercially successful period of his career. Tonight (1984) could not repeat the trick, though it delivered the hit Blue Jean, whose short accompanying film Jazzin’ for Blue Jean earned Bowie a Grammy. But his profile gained another boost from his appearance at the 1985 Live Aid famine relief concert at Wembley stadium, where he was one of the standout performers. In addition, he teamed up with Mick Jagger to record the fundraising single Dancing in the Street, which sped to No 1. Bowie then returned to the multimedia trail with an appearance in Julien Temple’s shambolic film Absolute Beginners (1986), from which he salvaged some personal kudos by supplying the winsome title song. He also wrote five songs for Jim Henson’s fantasy film Labyrinth, as well as taking the role of Jareth the Goblin King. In 1987, a solo album, Never Let Me Down, performed reasonably well commercially, but poor reviews were endorsed by Bowie himself (he described it as “an awful album”). The follow-up Glass Spider tour was castigated for its soulless over-production. After playing Pontius Pilate in Martin Scorsese’s film The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), Bowie’s next move was the heavy-rock band Tin Machine, with which he sought to appear as a band member rather than as a solo star. Their album Tin Machine (1989) and tour earned a mixture of modest acclaim and howls of outrage. However, by the time they released a second album, Bowie had abandoned the pretence of being “one of the boys” by undertaking 1990’s greatest hits tour Sound + Vision, unashamedly designed to promote the reissue of his back catalogue. Tin Machine dissolved in 1992. A few days after his appearance at the Freddie Mercury tribute concert at Wembley stadium in April 1992, Bowie married the Somalian model Iman, whom he had met 18 months earlier, and the couple bought a home in New York. This new start in his private life coincided with a search for fresh musical inspiration. For the album Black Tie White Noise (1993), he reunited with Rodgers and sprinkled elements of soul, electronica and hiphop into the mix. It topped the UK album chart and yielded a top 10 single, Jump They Say. However, Bowie’s quest for new sounds to plunder began to evince an air of desperation. Outside (1995) found him reunited with Eno and was another commercial success, despite its laborious concept and clumsy adoption of grungy, industrial sounds, while Earthling (1997) borrowed elements of the drum’n’bass style practised by such UK artists as Goldie and Asian Dub Foundation. One of the album tracks was I’m Afraid of Americans, originally written for the movie Showgirls but remade under the auspices of Trent Reznor from Nine Inch Nails. Released as a single, it sat on the US Billboard Hot 100 for four months. Bowie was demonstrating unexpected forms of creativity in other areas. In 1997 he made history of a sort by launching his Bowie bonds, whereby he netted $55m upfront by surrendering his royalties over the bonds’ 10-year term. In 2000, he delved into online banking with BowieBanc, giving customers an international banking service as well as cheques and debit cards with his picture on them. New media and technology influenced his recordings too. His 1999 album Hours… was based around music he had written for a computer game called Omikron, in which Bowie and Iman appeared as characters. Some listeners detected a return to the Hunky Dory days in the album’s reflective, self-analytical musings, though the songs could not match those former glories. As an adopted New Yorker, Bowie was the opening act at the Concert for New York City in October 2001, where he joined Paul McCartney, Jon Bon Jovi, Billy Joel, the Who and Elton John in a benefit show six weeks after the 9/11 attacks. Bowie sang Paul Simon’s song America and his own Heroes. He played himself in Ben Stiller’s fashion industry spoof Zoolander (2001). The following year, he was artistic director of the Meltdown festival on the South Bank in London, opening the event by performing the first concert of his own Heathen tour, in support of his album of the same name. The work reunited Bowie with Visconti for the first time since Scary Monsters, and sold 2m copies worldwide. It was nominated for the annual Mercury prize. A re-energised Bowie was back in the studio with Visconti the following year for Reality, another successful outing welcomed for its energy and musical freshness. However, in the midst of his Reality tour in 2004, Bowie was stricken with chest pains while performing at the Hurricane festival in Germany and underwent an emergency angioplasty procedure in Hamburg to clear a blocked artery. He took the medical emergency as a warning and reduced the pace of his activities. He made a handful of guest appearances, including a couple of live shows with the Canadian band Arcade Fire, then in 2006 announced he would be taking a year off from touring and recording. Despite this, shortly afterwards he appeared with Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour at the Royal Albert Hall, singing the Floyd classics Arnold Layne and Comfortably Numb. In February that year he was given a Grammy lifetime achievement award, having been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996. In The Prestige (2006), Christopher Nolan’s film about two battling magicians, Bowie featured as the inventor Nikola Tesla. Nolan said he cast Bowie because he wanted somebody “extraordinarily charismatic”. In 2007 Bowie was curator of the eclectic High Line festival in New York, and included among his choices Arcade Fire, Laurie Anderson and the comedian Ricky Gervais. In 2008 he contributed vocals to a couple of tracks on Scarlett Johansson’s album of Tom Waits cover versions, Anywhere I Lay My Head. In 2010, a live double CD, A Reality Tour, was released on Bowie’s own ISO Records. Recorded in Dublin in 2003, it was a survey of most of the key moments in his musical career. Reviewers were enthusiastic, but could not help noticing the valedictory feel of the album. “Nobody really knows if Bowie is hanging up the spacesuit for good,” said Rolling Stone. “But if so, this is one hell of an exit.” But there was more to come. In 2011 he released the album Toy, which dated back to 2001 and comprised tracks from Heathen and their B sides plus versions of older material. Of far greater significance was The Next Day (2013), his first album of new material in a decade. Produced by Visconti, it was preceded by the single Where Are We Now?, which gave him his first UK top 10 hit since 1993. The album topped charts in Britain and around the world, reaching No 2 in the US. In 2014 Bowie was given the Brit Award for Best British Male, making him the oldest recipient in the awards’ history. He is survived by Iman, their daughter, Lexi, his stepdaughter, Zulekha, and his son, Duncan (formerly known as Zowie, then Joe), from his first marriage. • David Bowie (David Robert Jones), singer, songwriter and actor, born 8 January 1947; died 10 January 2016 • This article was amended on 13 January 2016. An earlier version said that David Bowie failed his 11-plus exam. This has been corrected to say that he passed this exam, and was offered a place at both a grammar school and a technical school.
Donald Trump on track for election victory after strong early results Early voting results show Republican Donald Trump is on track to be the next US president – defying polling predictions and despite the fact that Democrat Hillary Clinton looks set to win the popular vote. Clinton has lost Florida, the most influential of tonight’s contested states. Florida is worth 29 of the 270 votes needed to win the presidency, far more than any other state where the candidates looked like they would be in a close race. Thanks to Florida, Trump’s path to becoming president is considerably less difficult. Though media attention on the race has focused on just two candidates, there are more. In Florida, results reported by the state’s board of election show that more than 290,000 votes went to third-party candidates. Clinton finished around 133,000 votes behind Trump. Trump’s win in Florida came despite the state’s large Hispanic population. Nearly one in five eligible Floridian voters is Hispanic, and early voting data suggested that this overwhelmingly Democratic group turned out in higher numbers than they did in 2012. Yet Clinton still lost the state. By 11.30pm ET, Clinton had won a string of 14 safe Democratic states – California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Virginia – and Washington DC, but together those states and DC only carry 197 electoral college votes. Trump had won 21 states: Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana, Florida, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Mississippi, Montana, North Carolina, North Dakota, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, West Virginia and Wyoming. Those states are worth 216 electoral college votes. Clinton was left needing to win the remaining safe Democratic states and all the remaining competitive ones. Even then, that would only get the Democrats to 269 of the 270 electoral college votes needed – so Clinton would need to grab at least one of the states that looked set to vote for Trump. That would be incredibly difficult for her to do. Since several Democratic wins look set to come in more populous states, it’s likely that Clinton will win a larger share of the popular vote but not become the next US president. That has happened four times before in US history, most recently in the 2000 election, where Republican George W Bush became president despite losing the popular vote to Al Gore by less than a percentage point.
Lallana scores twice to ease Liverpool to victory over Middlesbrough The cameras attempted to pan towards Liverpool’s dropped goalkeeper on more than one occasion here but no one was really noticing. Jürgen Klopp’s side made sure that Loris Karius was not the story on a night when Adam Lallana starred in a convincing victory and they played the kind of scintillating football that has become their trademark this season. Simon Mignolet replaced Karius after his recent errors but the saga that dominated the build-up to this game was soon forgotten. Liverpool started steadily after dropping points in their last two games but when they hit their stride Middlesbrough were simply no match. If the hosts’ manager, Aitor Karanka, was being brutally honest a three-goal defeat was probably not the worst result. Each goal was the result of sharp team interplay and Lallana’s fine campaign continues. He opened the scoring with a header, set up Divock Origi for the second and made the points secure with a brilliant third, as Liverpool went above Arsenal in the Premier League to second place. Karius watched from the bench as Liverpool controlled the tempo throughout. Klopp said afterwards that the German would not be restored to the starting XI immediately and that Mignolet –who had little to do on Teesside – would keep his place for the foreseeable future. “I’m not interested in public pressure, I’m interested in the boy and there’s no reason to push him through this situation,” said Klopp of the decision to drop Karius. “At the end they were little mistakes and they can happen. There is no reason to push him [Karius] through this situation, especially when you have a goalkeeper like Simon Mignolet.” Asked how Karius took the news, Klopp added: “How you can imagine. It was not that he immediately wanted a hug, but it’s normal. It’s football. It’s all OK but of course for the player it was not the best moment in life. Now it’s Simon’s chance.” Mignolet therefore started a Premier League match for the first time since mid-September. The Belgian spooned a clearance high early on but was relatively assured during a half in which Liverpool had the edge. After a tight opening 20 minutes when the only effort on target was a 25-yard strike from Middlesbrough’s left-back, Fábio, Klopp’s side began to take control. They had pressed and dominated possession without creating too much, until a fine team move gave them the lead. In the 29th minute Georginio Wijnaldum played a fizzing ball out right to Nathaniel Clyne, who ran on to the pass with pace and made room to cross deep. Lallana timed his run well in the penalty area and rose superbly to nod Clyne’s accurate ball past Víctor Valdés and in at the far post. It was the kind of team goal that Liverpool have become accustomed to producing this season, and the lead was one that they probably deserved. Middlesbrough almost responded immediately, Viktor Fischer forcing a smart stop from Mignolet at the near post, yet it was Liverpool who came closest to another before half-time through Sadio Mané, who struck a post after being sent through by Origi. Middlesbrough were on the back foot immediately in the second half and Klopp praised his side’s slick attacking. He said: “It’s not the first time this season. The boys are capable of doing things like this, it is really good. The third goal, it’s perfect. It looks simple but it isn’t. It was a good game tonight. I wouldn’t have expected it but the reaction was great.” Liverpool were well on top and Mané , in particular, was in the thick of it. In the 55th minute the away supporters appealed for handball against Calum Chambers after Mané’s shot from Roberto Firmino’s low cross, but although the ball appeared to strike an arm it was tucked into Chambers’ body. Soon, though, those supporters were celebrating a second and once again it was a fine team move with Lallana at its heart. The midfield interplay was simply too good for Middlesbrough and by the time Wijnaldum slipped the ball through to Lallana, the red and white Boro shirts were spinning. Lallana raced to the by-line and pulled it across for Origi who finished coolly from close range. Karanka had already tried to stem the tide by bringing on Stewart Downing and Grant Leadbitter, but his team were being comprehensively outplayed and the game was done soon enough. This time Origi was the provider and Lallana the scorer, his sixth of the season from another fine move in the 68th minute that had similarities to Liverpool’s second. Origi raced on to a loose ball and as Firmino made the decoy run to the near post, Origi pulled it back to the far instead where Lallana finished emphatically. “We’ve lost against one of the best teams that we’ve played so far this season,” said Karanka. “When teams like them play at that level it’s difficult. We tried in the first half, in the second I tried to put two fresh players on for more high pressure but it’s difficult because of the way they move the ball.”
Tallulah review – Ellen Page and Allison Janney make magic in baby drama In Juno, Jason Reitman’s infinitely quotable Oscar-winning comedy, Ellen Page and Allison Janney’s scant screen time together proved their strong chemistry playing daughter and stepmother. They’re given more room to explore that connection in Tallulah, Sian Heder’s deeply felt feature writing/directing debut, that finds Janney once again playing a mother figure to Page. But that’s where the similarities between the films end. Page plays Lu, a free-spirited young woman living the gypsy life with her boyfriend, Nico, out of a van. The film begins with the pair at a crossroads: Lu longs to travel to India, while Nico wants to start a family and reconnect with his estranged mother in New York. When Nico unceremoniously leaves Lu one night, she heads to New York in search of answers. She ambushes his academic mother, Margo (Janney), at her sprawling apartment, but leaves just as bereft as when she arrived. Later, while she is roaming the halls of an uptown hotel in search of leftover food, a rich floozy invites her into her suite, assuming Lu is a maid. The room is in shambles, with a baby roaming naked in the living area. It’s immediately apparent to Lu that the woman, Carolyn (Tammy Blanchard), poses a threat to her own child. After agreeing to babysit for a few hours, Lu recklessly decides to “rescue” the baby, returning to Margo for help. To make matters worse, Lu tells Margo that she’s the child’s grandmother. Carolyn, of course, goes to police, landing Lu in hot water, while she and Margo bond over a lie. Yes, the story has the makings of a Lifetime movie; what grounds it are the terrific performances and Heder’s rich direction and screenplay. Heder, a writer and producer on Netflix’s Orange is the New Black, doesn’t let her characters off easy: Lu shows no remorse for essentially kidnapping a stranger’s child, while Carolyn is at first characterized as selfish basket case who makes Blanche Dubois seem low key. But as the film progresses, Heder wisely allows room for everyone to breathe, and in turn, show their true colors. (“I think it’s better not to be needed,” confesses Lu at one point, while opening up about her troubled past that led to her bad instincts.) No one, not even Margo’s estranged husband (John Benjamin Hickey), is treated as an archetype to keep the story moving along. As Tallulah’s odd couple, Page and Janney have a strong rapport that softens as the women come to understand one another. Page is such an appealing presence that she makes Page’s self-destructive tendencies easy to stomach. Janney, playing a woman unsure of how she managed to lose both of the men in her life, lends a defeated quality to Margo that is heart-rending. Together, they make a sad sort of magic.
How we made Independence Day Roland Emmerich, director and co-writer Me and Dean Devlin wrote the script. I had an office right next to Book Soup on Sunset, and I went in there and bought the classics like War of the Worlds but they were all too old-fashioned. We were fans of disaster films, but there hadn’t been one for a long time – in the 70s they had made a disaster out of anything, like a swarm of bees. But aliens were a new idea. We both lived in the Hollywood hills, and I took Dean to the window, and said: imagine if all this sky was the underbelly of a ship. We thought: OK, that’s cool. I told our agent we wanted to do it, and he said forget about it, Tim Burton is doing Mars Attacks! I said to Dean, we can’t do our film after a parody comes out. We had to beat him to it. If it came out on the 4 July weekend, we would beat Mars Attacks!, which was coming out in August. So we wrote the concept around the release date. Dean said: “Let’s just call it Independence Day; we can come up with something better later.” Will Smith’s role was not written as black; his ethnicity was not mentioned, so the studio assumed we wanted to hire a white guy. But we set our sights on Will very early. There is no one more American than Will Smith. The studio had a problem with it as he was mainly known for sitcom, but they came round to it. We were decorating the set and I was like, guys, there’s too many flags. And they all said, no, this is the fourth of July! Then when it came out, the whole world thought I was Mr Superpatriot. But what no one saw was this was an African American, a Jewish man, and a white-bread politician saving the world as a team. Then my next film was The Patriot. But politically I was always more on the left, and I felt concerned about that. So I did The Day After Tomorrow, which criticised America quite a bit. Just after Independence Day came out, I met Steven Spielberg and he said: “What you guys have done with that film, everybody will imitate you.” He was right. When you look at Marvel movies today, it’s always about alien invasion, and a lot of stuff gets broken. Also, these films don’t take themselves too seriously. But I had learned this from Back to the Future and Raiders of the Lost Ark. I don’t believe in aliens but I really hope they are out there. “The question of whether we’re alone in the universe has been answered” – that was a line that came from me. Finally, they’re out there – in very big ships! Bill Pullman, actor I got a call from my agent saying they’re interested in you for a Fox movie, as a president. I said: is it a comedy? Because that would make sense. At that point, there weren’t movies that had a president as a lead character, unless it was a biopic, and then usually only on television. I really enjoyed working with Roland. He’s always aware of what would be “cool” – the way he uses that word, with a German accent, reminds me of the teenager in him. “Then you look up and you see this really cool monster...” I was also impressed with the presidential cufflinks – I think they got them from the gift store of Nixon’s presidential library. They were talismans: I could touch them, and remember: oh yeah, I’m the president. We shot the ending of the movie first, where I come up to Jeff Goldblum, and we’re overcoming this long history. It was absurd, having these warm embraces with people we barely knew. I had to shake a little giggle out of me. In the scene where I go into Area 51 and see what they’ve been doing without my knowledge, Will Smith comes in, and it’s the only scene I have with him. It was when the verdict for the OJ Simpson trial was announced; everybody was glued to the TV in their trailers. We got to the set and Will said: “OK, I see I’m here with a lot of angry white people!” It was perfect. Fox was interested in a different title to Independence Day. Dean and Roland said: we’ve got to move up the filming of the rousing speech scene, because in that you understand why the movie is called Independence Day. I was influenced by hearing Robert Kennedy’s speech after he had just found out Martin Luther King had been killed – you knew he wasn’t going from notes. A day or two later I watched it, and I thought, holy fuck, this is good. They’re going to keep the title! It’s a fable, and there are coincidences that happen in a fable that you have to just let go of. It’s a good movie, but you wouldn’t say it fits all the rules of profound movie-making. Characters run across each other in dire circumstances and you’re like: really? They found each other there? But it has a bravura about it. We’re just going to tell a fun story, and you’re going to have to ride with it. Independence Day: Resurgence is out on DVD on 14 November
Theresa May to meet EU council president to discuss UK future Theresa May will host the European Council president, Donald Tusk, for a breakfast meeting in Downing Street on Thursday to discuss Britain’s future relationship with the European Union, after she told the House of Commons she would not give a “running commentary on negotiations”. A Downing Street spokesperson said the pair would discuss next month’s European Council meeting, at which May is expected to be pressed by her fellow EU leaders about the next steps in the Brexit process. The prime minister’s meeting with Tusk, the first substantive discussions between the two, comes after she gave away little about her plans at the first prime minister’s questions after the summer recess. Following an exchange with Jeremy Corbyn on housing during which the prime minister mercilessly mocked the divisions in the Labour party – “We’re not going to let them anywhere near power again,” she said at one point – May was questioned by Angus Robertson on Brexit. The SNP’s Westminster leader twice asked May whether she planned for a Brexit deal to include full membership of the EU’s single market in goods and services, as hoped for by many businesses. May dodged the question both times, saying only that she would seek “the right deal for the trade in goods and services with the European Union in a new relationship we will be building with them”. Amid some jeers in the Commons, she added: “That new relationship will include control of the movement of people from the EU into the UK, and it will include the right deal for the trade in goods and services. That is how to approach it. “It would not be right for me or this government to give a running commentary on negotiations.” Immediately after prime minister’s questions, May made a statement to the Commons on this week’s G20 summit in Hangzhou, China, beginning with an update on the Brexit process. While giving no more details, she promised a specific British variant on non-membership association with the EU, one that would be “ambitious and bold”. She said: “It is not about the Norway model or the Swiss model or any other country’s model – it is about developing our own British model. “So we will not take decisions until we are ready. We will not reveal our hand prematurely and we will not provide a running commentary on every twist and turn of the negotiation. And I say that because that is not the best way to conduct a strong and mature negotiation that will deliver the best deal for the people of this country.” In response, Corbyn said it was clear there had been a lack of planning for a Brexit vote. “The prime minister said she wouldn’t reveal her hand on this subject. Nobody would blame her because she hasn’t revealed her hand or indeed any of the government’s many hands. They’re unclear on what they’re trying to do,” he said. “We accept the decision taken by the majority of our people but we cannot ignore the fact that the outcome has left this country divided, with rising levels of hate crime, huge uncertainty about what comes next for our country, the extraordinary lack of planning and preparation.” Corbyn said negotiations “must focus on expanding trade jobs and investments and defending social and environmental protection”. During prime minister’s questions, Corbyn chose not to take the advice from his leadership challenger, Owen Smith, to press May on the Brexit deal, instead asking a series of questions on housing, some again submitted by voters. May dealt with the specific queries neutrally, but interspersed her answers with a series of scripted jibes at Corbyn and Labour. After Corbyn mentioned a question put by one voter, May quoted one Twitter response the Labour leader had received to a request for possible subjects, saying that “in a recent poll on who would make a better prime minister, ‘don’t know’ scored higher than Jeremy Corbyn”. May added: “What we do know is that whoever wins the Labour party leadership, we’re not going to let them anywhere near power again.” It later emerged that the Twitter user she was quoting – Lewis Collins – had made a series of unpleasant remarks on Twitter, including apparently racist comments about recent attacks on Polish people in Essex. A spokesman for Corbyn’s leadership campaign said: “Jeremy was raising a very serious question about the housing crisis and Theresa May chose to respond with a pre-written joke quoting someone who has used racist language on Twitter. If this is the level of research she does for PMQs, it’s no wonder the Tories had no plan for Brexit.” Following another question, May made reference to Corbyn’s much-publicised disagreement with Virgin Trains over whether or not a service he took to Newcastle was full. “Everything he says just tells us all we need to know about modern Labour,” May said. “The train has left the station, the seats are all empty, the leader’s on the floor. Even on rolling stock they’re a laughing stock.”
All-seeing Cech lays to rest Arsenal demons of Chelsea’s Mourinho era There was a time, not that long ago, when Chelsea’s eyes would light up at the prospect of a collision with Arsenal. This was an occasion to reimpose the recently established order in the capital, when mere mention of José Mourinho drew from Arsène Wenger that all too familiar world-weary look as the talk turned to pre-match handshakes, shoving matches in the technical areas and unwelcome reminders of a dismal record against his Portuguese rival. The nouveaux riches from the King’s Road would take reassurance from all the power and presence down the spine of the team and delight as opponents, whose spritely flair could so readily be throttled at source, shrivelled in inferiority. Even back in mid-September, when Chelsea already had an inkling their title defence might be flawed, a game with Arsenal had a galvanising effect and local rivals, preoccupied with the street-fighter in the home ranks, were left frazzled and, ultimately, overcome with relative ease. This was how it was. Chelsea, a side with a knack for accumulating trophies, were the nagging reminder of how the landscape in London had changed. Two defeats in 14 league meetings tells its own story. Yet, now, the suspicion is things may be shifting. Whereas Arsenal go into the weekend top of the table, their sights set firmly on a first Premier League title since the Invincibles held sway pre-Mourinho, Chelsea are only pigeon-stepping away from the relegation zone. Their dominance from the spring feels a world away. Mourinho, the icon who could shrink Arsenal with a smirk and has never lost to Wenger outside the Community Shield, has been sacked, his image removed from the team photograph outside Stamford Bridge and his name absent from the latest issue of the club magazine. He has been airbrushed from history after all that inconvenient “palpable discord”. Wenger’s players may never have a better opportunity to redress some of the balance than when the teams trot out at the Emirates Stadium on Sunday. “Are we direct rivals? Not at this moment. Not in this league,” offered Guus Hiddink, this season’s chosen firefighter. “Arsenal are making a good battle for first position. We are way down under. That’s the reality.” Chelsea have arguably become a case study in how not to capitalise upon a title-winning success. In years to come, championship winners will spend pre-season preaching caution and reminding the world what befell Mourinho and the team who finished eight points clear in 2015; how a manager’s tenure can implode, an angry mess of unnecessarily provoked controversies and poor planning. In terms of recruitment alone, it is kind to dismiss their policy since they paraded the trophy as confused. Mourinho, perhaps unconvinced by the talent being harnessed at the Cobham academy, had wanted to build on success with eye-catching signings, but none of them came off. An opportunity was passed up. Instead they replaced like for like and, as if panicked by a stodgy start, moved to bring in Pedro and Papy Djilobodji as the deadline loomed. The former has offered only flashes of Barcelona quality, his trickery on the wing rather lost in the maelstrom into which he has been plunged. There are noises that he will return to Spain in the summer, at Valencia or Villarreal, and they do not sound outlandish. Djilobodji was recruited as a squad player but, as he wings his way to Werder Bremen on loan, it seems pertinent to linger on his Chelsea career to date: a defender who had cost £2.7m having been rejected by Fulham, training as he was with Nantes’ reserves, mustered one minute and one touch of the ball in a first-team shirt, and that in a Capital One Cup win at Walsall. One wonders if there wasn’t a player from the academy who might have benefited more from that brush with senior football. The peculiarities of Chelsea’s approach are merely brought into focus by a confrontation with Arsenal. If Mourinho had had his way, Petr Cech would never have been allowed to leave for the Emirates. Retaining a world-class goalkeeper in reserve was always going to be an uneasy and temporary scenario, of course, and Thibaut Courtois’ first full season in English football had been impressive. He represented the future. Yet, when Roman Abramovich rewarded the Czech for long-standing service by sanctioning his move across the city, it was the message the transfer sent out that was truly shocking. Arsenal were direct rivals, fellow contenders for silverware, and here was their achilles heel being dipped in the Styx. Mourinho knew as much. Wenger, after some initial concerns, was quickly heartened. “I didn’t know what kind of shape he was in physically because he hadn’t played,” said the Frenchman. “I didn’t know how much he could still produce. But when I met him I was quickly reassured of his desire to do well and his motivation. I knew the potential was exceptional having played against him for 11 years in the Premier League. Look, it was a very, very difficult decision for me because I rate highly David Ospina, a keeper who, in my opinion, is underrated, especially in England. But [signing Cech] was maybe one of the few opportunities to say: ‘OK, this is an obvious [transfer]. If I don’t do this, it would be a mistake.’” Cech had been one of those key senior players in Hiddink’s Chelsea team over that first spell as interim manager in 2009, and a figure whose qualities remain. No other goalkeeper boasts more than his 10 clean sheets in the Premier League this season. John Terry suggested Cech might be worth 15 points to any suitor. “You cannot measure that, but you know one thing: you need a top-class goalkeeper to do well,” said Wenger. “He has a calming presence, he communicates well, anticipates well, sees what is coming. He is a kind of coach because he doesn’t move, and he sees everything. He is the camera behind the team.” The veteran popped into Cobham on Wednesday to retrieve his goalkeeping gloves, which Adidas had erroneously posted to his previous employer. “We had a chat, though almost everyone had gone by then,” said Hiddink. “It was nice to see him. It’s easy to make a judgment a year on from that decision, and when is the moment to say goodbye to a player? But you have to acknowledge Petr reacted well with his performances. He’s one of those goalies who is so determined, ambitious, so detailed in his preparations. You have certain periods in a season, mostly in October and November when the leaves start falling, when the good goalies save points for your team. He is doing that.” For all that Courtois’ qualities are obvious, Chelsea must still gnash at the reality that Cech finds himself now in a position to emulate Eric Cantona by securing back-to-back titles with different clubs. They will travel in trepidation on Sunday, aware that their seven-match unbeaten run since Mourinho’s departure has bought them only four points’ breathing space from the bottom three. Mourinho, the man who gave them the edge so often, was last spotted shopping in Shanghai and there is only scant consolation to be had in the fact that Hiddink inflicted Arsenal’s worst defeat at the Emirates Stadium, a 4-1 Chelsea win in May 2009. “This club is used to being at the top, or in the top three or four, in England,” the Dutchman said. “Winning a game like this might bring confidence to the team to ask: ‘Hey, where do we belong?’ And make them think about why this team has fallen so deeply in the recent period.” For the first time in a while, it would also constitute a surprise.
Russia blocks access to LinkedIn over foreign-held data Russia has blocked access to LinkedIn after the social network became the first major foreign site to be found in violation of a law demanding that the data of Russian users is stored on Russian territory. The law was passed two years ago, and this is the first time it has been used against a major foreign company. Giants such as Facebook and Twitter have so far resisted moving their servers to Russia despite pressure from the authorities. A court ruling last week found LinkedIn in violation of the law, and Russia’s communication watchdog, Roskomnadzor, said on Thursday that access to the site would be blocked. Though the site’s homepage was still working for some users on Thursday afternoon, a spokeswoman for LinkedIn said it had started to hear from members in Russia who were no longer able to access the site. “Roskomnadzor’s action to block LinkedIn denies access to the millions of members we have in Russia and the companies that use LinkedIn to grow their businesses,” the spokeswoman said. The website, which has headquarters in the US, has more than 6 million registered users in Russia. The network’s management said it had asked Roskomnadzor for a meeting, which is likely to take place in the coming weeks. Russian politicians have suggested the purpose of the law is to protect Russian citizens from having their personal data abused by foreign governments. However, critics have said it is merely a way for the Russian security services to access the data themselves. Many other foreign companies are believed to have quietly complied with the Kremlin’s demands, but Twitter, Google and Facebook have not done so yet. The Kremlin said on Thursday that Roskomnadzor’s order was legal and Vladimir Putin did not plan to interfere in the case. Dmitry Peskov, a spokesman for the president, said the Kremlin was not worried the case would stir fears about censorship. “There are no such concerns,” he said. Andrei Soldatov, co-author of a book about the Russian internet, said targeting LinkedIn could be a first step that would avoid the controversy of going after a real giant such as Facebook. “They need some success stories to show that it can work. They saw LinkedIn as relatively easy prey, in comparison with bigger companies, and, added to that, they just secured full cooperation with Microsoft,” Soldatov said. Microsoft agreed a deal to purchase LinkedIn earlier this year. A statement on Roskomnadzor’s website this week said its head, Alexander Zharov, had held a meeting in Moscow with a Microsoft vice-president, Steve Crown. Microsoft presented the watchdog with a report on its work relocating user data to Russia, and “the issue is now closed”, said Zharov, suggesting Microsoft had agreed to move servers to Russia.
Manchester United chasing £65m Paul Pogba after Zlatan Ibrahimovic capture Manchester United are stepping up their efforts to sign Paul Pogba from Juventus after Zlatan Ibrahimovic confirmed he was heading to Old Trafford. Ibrahimovic will arrive on Friday to sign a one-year contract to work with José Mourinho again. Mourinho is also a long-term admirer of Pogba, who left United for Juventus four years ago. The 23-year-old France midfielder would cost around £65m but Real Madrid are also said to be interested in acquiring him from the Serie A champions. Ibrahimovic is available on a free, having departed Paris Saint-Germain after winning four Ligue 1 titles, and has agreed personal terms worth £220,000 a week, making him one of the highest earners in the Premier League. The Swedish striker, who retired from international football after a disappointing Euro 2016, announced on social media, alongside a picture of the club crest: “Time to let the world know. My next destination is Manchester United.” He will become Mourinho’s second signing at Old Trafford – following the capture of the Ivory Coast defender Eric Bailly from Villarreal – and Ibrahimovic and United’s new manager have been effusive in their praise for each other since working together at Internazionale during the 2008-09 season. The 34-year-old will undergo a medical at the club’s training facility on Friday before signing his contract. Last season was the most prolific of Ibrahimovic’s career, as he scored 50 goals in 51 matches including 38 in 31 league appearances. United, who will formally unveil Mourinho early next week, are also hopeful of securing the Borussia Dortmund playmaker Henrikh Mkhitaryan after the German club admitted they had received “a much improved” offer for the 27‑year‑old Armenian. Mkhitaryan, who has attracted the interest of several other clubs, including Arsenal, has consistently impressed in the Bundesliga since joining from Shakhtar Donetsk in 2013. United have added a friendly against Turkish club Galatasaray to their pre-season schedule, which will be played in Gothenburg on Saturday 30 July – potentially giving Swedish fans another chance to see Ibrahimovic in action. United will also face Borussia Dortmund in Shanghai on 22 July and Manchester City in Beijing three days later.
The fakest people of 2016: from ‘spokesman John Miller’ to Keith Vaz’s ‘Jim’ 1. John Miller, Donald Trump’s spokesperson Our top tip for Donald Trump’s new White House press secretary: his longtime spokesman John Miller. It’s true that Miller hasn’t been around in recent years, but in Miller’s own words, he is someone Trump “knows … trusts and likes”. We say “own” words but it’s fairly obvious Miller and Trump are, in fact, the same person (Trump denies this). In May, a 1991 recording of a telephone interview between Miller and a People magazine writer was released by the Washington Post. Miller, who sounds remarkably like Trump, praises “his” boss: “he’s a good guy,” he says. “He’s starting to do tremendously well financially.” He knows the minutiae of Trump’s love life. Actresses call “to see if they can go out with him”. He had been in a relationship with Marla Maples but also had “three other girlfriends”, and his first wife, Ivana, wanted to get back with him. He claimed Carla Bruni was a girlfriend (denied by Bruni) and had – according to Miller – left Mick Jagger for him. But who was this mysterious, and unusually candid, spokesman who knew so much about the inner life of his client? “I’m sort of new here,” Miller said. “I’m going to do this a little part time and then, yeah, go on with my life.” 2. Jim, a washing machine salesman To disguise his identity, or an unusual bit of what we may term “role play”, the Labour MP Keith Vaz told two Eastern European male prostitutes he had met he was a washing machine salesman called Jim. But not any old washing machines. “These are industrial washing machines, that I sell,” he said in a recording released by the Sunday Mirror. “Industrial. For big… for hotels.” Not, he clarified, “little ones for caravans.” We get it Keith – they’re big. Huge ones, he said, “like the size of this wall”. One can have sympathy for a man whose personal life is splashed over the tabloids, and yet still have questions about the incident. Not least – does he also do tumble dryers? 3. Neil Turner, Twitterbot With fingers faster than any other human, Neil Turner, a far-right Twitter user, was regularly the first to reply to tweets by Donald Trump. Perhaps he wasn’t really human at all – or not entirely. People who had noticed Neil Turner (“Fighting #PoliticalCorrectness & #WhiteGenocide”) started looking into his account and discovered it had been programmed to reply automatically to Trump’s tweets, thereby gaining the coveted first-response slot that would bring him attention and influence; Trump retweeted Neil Turner several times. One coder, Nathan Bernard, started a podcast to try to uncover who was behind the account; later, when they started direct messaging, Bernard says “Turner” told him he was a computer science student, though he remained circumspect. 4. “Press officer” for French construction giant Vinci One afternoon in November, news outlets received an alarming press release purporting to be from the French construction company Vinci announcing its chief finance officer would be sacked after €3.5bn worth of accounting errors had been discovered. The news quickly appeared on Bloomberg, and Vinci’s share price tumbled 18%, wiping €6bn, until people discovered it was a hoax. The following day, France’s stock market regulator launched an investigation. An impressive amount of destruction for, as one person put it to Agence France-Presse, “an email, a cell phone, Photoshop and that’s it”. 5. The fake John Lewis snowpeople You can see why people were fooled by an A-level student’s media coursework, believing it to be the annual event that is the John Lewis Christmas advert. It had all the right notes: a tale of bittersweet whimsy, an anaemic cover version, some #makeuthink message. Nick Jablonka had uploaded his film, starring a snowman incarcerated in a snow globe, pining for a snowlady, to YouTube in the summer, titled “John Lewis Christmas Advert 2016”, and in December it had hundreds of thousand of views (it has now been seen more than 1.5m times). “I do believe this piece could do with a lot of work,” wrote Jablonka, who made it clear he wasn’t affiliated with the department store. He is too honest and self-deprecating – he could have done with the PR services of one John Miller.
Jet Trash review – subpar British indie thriller with nice scenery This Brit indie returns us kicking and screaming to that millennial moment when any passing Guy Ritchie wannabe might have pitched something along the lines of Danny Boyle’s The Beach. Here, it’s director Charles Henri Belleville, reducing Simon Lewis’s 1999 novel Go to a threadbare endeavour concerning the non-funny, non-sexy, non-thrilling misadventures of three charmless chancers – headed by a perma-chewing Robert Sheehan – fleeing violent sex traffickers on sandy South Indian shores. Belleville cranks up the colour saturation and ironic Yuletide soundtrack, but all his slo-mo hedonism can’t disguise an otherwise addled story treatment: we chop haphazardly between hemispheres, leaving characters and subplots treading crystal blue water. Doubtless a nice holiday; shame about the movie.
Encounters with George Michael – 'His publicist thought I was tabloid scum' There was something wonderful about George Michael. Great singer (when he hadn’t smoked too much), great looking (though he didn’t like one side), great songwriter (before he got creative block), great personality (when not too stoned), and of course a great source of tabloid scandal. He didn’t give many interviews, but when he did he really did give good interview (I interviewed him twice, in 2005 and 2009). He didn’t believe in holding back. The last time we met was at his home in Highgate for that second interview. Again, that was typical Michael. Few pop stars let you anywhere near their real life; Michael showed you everything when the time was right. He was a recluse of sorts, but he hid in plain sight. Everybody knew George lived opposite the big pub, that he was likely to drive into the front window of Snappy Snaps when he’d had a toke too many, that he frequented Hampstead Heath most nights for casual sex. Obsessive fans would wait for days outside his house hoping for a glimpse, photo or chat. There were a couple outside that time I was there – they’d come from Germany on the off-chance. His home was frequently stalked. It was a dark December day, and George was in confessional mode. When I’d interviewed him four years earlier, much of the discussion was about death (he felt he was cursed following the death of his mother and boyfriends; even the puppy he bought to replace his dead dog had drowned), and his inability to write. He was haunted by his creative block, though he always insisted he was one chorus away from a purple patch. George was a complex man. What had been so private in his life (his sexuality) became an open book. What had been so public (his music) became strangely private. He told me he was in the studio writing new songs, but when I asked about them he became coy and embarrassed. So he smoked spliff after spliff and stuck with what he regarded as safe territory – sex and drugs. There had been stories in the tabloids that he had been caught cottaging on the Heath with a pensioner who resembled Bernard Manning. Michael was outraged by the reports. There was something sweet as well as narcissistic about him. Yes, he was a bit embarrassed about how the story reflected on him, but he also felt for the man. “His only crime was being the least fortunate looking person to come off the Heath after me.” And was the cottaging true? Of course, he said. As if that wasn’t enough, he provided a run-through of a typical day in the life. “I normally get up about 10am, my PA will bring me a Starbucks, I’ll have a look at my emails … Then, if I’m in the mood, I’ll come up to the office in Highgate, do some work, writing, backing tracks or whatever. Come home. Kenny [his then boyfriend] will be here, the dogs are here. Maybe eat locally, hang out, and then probably go off and have a shag or have someone come here and have a shag.” Michael brought out the paternal in me. There had been reports that he had been cautioned for possession of crack, but he had never talked about it. As I asked him about it I could feel my voice changing. We were the same age, but I could have been his father. I asked if he’d been smoking crack, and he blustered about doing things at different times he wasn’t proud of. In the end, I asked him to look me in the eye and tell me whether he had been smoking crack on that occasion. “Was I? On that occasion? Yeah.” he finally mumbled like a lost little boy. The interview ended up making the news. It wasn’t just the crack and the cottaging, it was what he’d said about Elton John, who had told people he was worried about Michael. “Elton lives on that. He will not be happy until I bang on his door in the middle of the night saying, ‘Please, please, help me, Elton. Take me to rehab.’ It’s not going to happen. You know what I heard last week? That Bono … Oh for God’s sake …” He’s choking on his laughter. “Geri [Halliwell] told Kenny that Bono, having spoken to Elton, had approached Geri to say, ‘What can we do for George?’ This is what I have to deal with because I don’t want to be part of that social clique. All I’d have to do to stop it is hang out in London, so people realise I don’t look close to death.” But, of course, they were all right to worry for him. Michael lived a short drive away from me. Despite the spliffs, he insisted on driving me home. Typical of his generosity, if a little reckless on my part (this was only a few months before the Snappy Snaps incident). I asked him if he’d knock on the door while I hid. My elder daughter answered the door, said “It’s George Michael!” and almost passed out. His publicist hated the interview, and said I was the worst kind of tabloid scum. George was perfectly happy with it. He gave me his email, but he was a hopeless correspondent, and never replied. Then, one day, out of the blue I got a gloriously optimistic email from him. Hi Simon, I’m sure the right time for another interview will come. In hindsight you may consider me a little less paranoid than you thought I was the last time we met. I considered joining the Leveson inquiry fiasco but decided against it, partially because there were so many idiots involved but also because I believe fuck all will change. I did however send them the extensive letter that the poor old bastard they tried to “attach” me to (on every level :) at Hampstead Heath sent me. He told me how they blackmailed him without even telling him who he was supposed to have met up there in the dark, and some other horrific details of his ordeal, poor bastard … It had a ghastly effect on him, and as no one gives a shit about celebs I thought his evidence might be of more use. Plus, being totally honest, I couldn’t help wanting to let the world know that portly pensioners are not to my taste. Even in the dark :) I feel great these days, clean as a whistle, and with almost a complete album ready to go, this year is going to be a good one i think. Would make a lovely change. I hope you and your family are well, was lovely to meet them. Take care , The Singing Greek xx That was four years ago. The album never materialised.
The view on the virtue of moderation: drop the mendacity It is with civility and equanimity that the Obamas welcomed the Trumps to the White House. A smooth transition of power, where victors are magnanimous in victory and the defeated graciously defiant, are the hallmarks of a grown-up politics. The office of the president of the United States in some ways resembles an elective kingship in a democratic republic, which explains perhaps why it is afforded such a reverence in American society. It is a good thing that the spirit of shared commitment to the ideals of America has led to an outbreak of mutual respect between political rivals, who had traded lower and lower blows in the final days of a vicious campaign. Actions are important. President Barack Obama welcomed a man who spent years questioning his birthplace. Donald Trump accepted an invitation from a man who had declared him unfit for the presidency. Mr Trump was wise to say he would accept counsel from the current president, who he described as a good man. In setting aside stridency, politics gains stature. But words carry weight. Mr Trump cast political opponents as criminals and accused them of treason. He threatened to investigate his rivals and sue his female accusers who claimed he had sexually assaulted them. As president he finds himself facing a slew of civil law suits. He wore his grudges and resentments like badges of honour. One wonders how such a figure will administer neutrally and fairly. Perhaps he might be tempted not to. This would be a grave mistake, imperilling a nation. Mr Trump campaigned in mendacity. He now needs to govern in moderation. Democracies work on trust, dictatorships run on fear. In a democracy citizens accept the disappointment of defeat because they believe that their rights will be protected in a disinterested and impartial way. Voters know that they can make mistakes but there is always another chance to engage again in a fair fight for hearts and minds. Limit this and legitimacy drains away. There have been signs of such dissatisfaction. In recent decades popular discontent coupled with a deep mistrust of government marched hand-in-hand with falling voting turnout and declining party loyalties. The state and citizen were prised apart, and a deficit in democracy yawned open. Mr Obama bucked this trend. Like Mr Trump he too was an outsider who toppled a party establishment and beat Mrs Clinton to the presidency. Unlike Mr Trump he campaigned as a uniter not a divider of people. His appeal was he would attempt to reach out to his opponents. In the end he did not succeed and he left imperfect outcomes. Mr Trump would do well to pick up where Mr Obama left off. There is an urgent need in the United States for politicians to re-occupy the middle ground of common sense. This means not resorting to the post-truthery that turned paranoia into a presidential campaign. Mr Trump exhorted voters to “forget the press; read the internet”. Yet the fake news industry he fuelled gave rise to a segregation that polarised and damaged society. Refashioning social and economic relations to preserve liberty and justice will rely on facts that a country can agree on. The ideological approach of Republicans determined to win at all costs must be re-examined. The stoking of white anger should be consigned to history. A nation divided needs to be brought together.
St Vincent to write and direct horror film about female anxiety St Vincent is set to make her big screen debut directing a new horror film. The singer, whose real name is Annie Clark, will write and direct one of the sections that will make up a horror anthology titled, XX, billed as “Four Deadly Tales by Four Killer Women”. Her debut will sit alongside films from directors Jennifer Lynch, Karyn Kusama and Jovanka Vuckovic. Clark confirmed the news via Instagram this week: She has co-written her film with Roxanne Benjamin, who was also part of another recent horror anthology called Southbound. Kusama, who broke out with Girlfight and has been behind horror films Jennifer’s Body and The Invitation, also spoke about what can be expected. She said the films will be “very different [with] overriding anxieties about female-ness to a degree”. “I want to say body horror is a component,” she continued. “I remember my first idea I couldn’t do because not that it was … too similar, but thematically, we were treading in the same waters. Todd Brown (one of the film’s producers) feels pretty certain that they’ll end up being natural thematic alignments.” Clark has recently been rather vocal about cinema on Twitter, calling Saturday Night “a horror film” and claiming Blue Velvet is “the most romantic film” she has ever seen. This article was amended on 13 April 2016 to correct the title of the film.
How to plagiarize in five easy steps (without getting caught) Look, I get it. You’re struggling to work out what it is you actually think about something (the reason why you want to apply for this job; your quarterly business results; your hopes and dreams about the future of America, etc), so you look on the internet and read a few sentences that so perfectly encapsulate what you think that it’s basically like the writer stole it from you. Copy and paste are your best friends – so long as you don’t make any mistakes when using them. Copy and paste are your best friends – so long as you don’t make any mistakes when using them. If you think plagiarism is fine, morally speaking, here are five easy steps to avoid getting caught. Add adjectives and adverbs If you’ve found a sentence that sounds smart you can make it (and in the process yourself) sound real extra smart by inserting extra words. The more syllables the better. Instead of saying “you work hard for what you want in life” go for “you work expeditiously hard for what you want in this floccinaucinihilipilification life”. (Pro tip: use a thesaurus. A lot.) Change the order of the words a bit This one is easy peasy. Instead of saying “the only limit to your achievements is the strength of your dreams and your willingness to work for them” say “limit your willingness to work – it is your strength and achievement”. Choose an obscure person to plagiarize Michelle Obama = bad idea. Some people listening to your speech might know who she is. Say it with an accent When using another speechwriter’s material, you can confuse the audience by speaking in a heavy foreign accent. For example, when saying “treat people with dignity and respect” you can add an Arab flourish by pronouncing the words “treat beeble wiz dignity and resbect”. (A note of caution: Arab accents might not go down well at the Republican national convention). Other possible distractions include singing your speech or delivering it while wearing nothing but a red sock (not necessarily on your foot). If you get caught deny, deny, deny Don’t try to explain to anyone that you had these thoughts years before anyone else, you merely failed to record them anywhere. People are dumb and do not understand the limitless capacity of your brain. Instead gasp, clasp your hands together and exclaim “Gosh! What an amazing coincidence!” Do not, whatever you do, let anyone find out the probability of such a coincidence. (The odds that a sentence of five words will, by pure chance, be identical to another five-word sentence is one in 3,200,000,000,000,000,000,000 – which is less likely than hitting the lottery jackpot twice in a row).
Twitter built a solution to character limits in 2010 but never released it Twitter’s new expanded character limit is a baby step forward on a long journey. The feature will certainly change things, mostly for the better, but it’s nowhere near the game-changing level they could be operating at if they were bolder. Back in 2010 when they were encouraging a developer ecosystem to grow, they introduced a similar feature called Annotations. Annotations was a much more interesting and uniquely Twitter-ish approach to more robust tweets. Structured data could be included in a post which opened a seemingly endless world of possibilities. Interestingly, they shared the concept with developers without having a clear path for integrating it into the core Twitter stream. That was a pretty bold thing to do. It meant they didn’t know how, or even if, people would use it but they showed great confidence by giving partners the ability to plug their ideas into Twitter’s network. One of those ideas may have been long-form content which they are only just now offering, nearly six years, later via this 10k character feature. Other ideas may have been more unique and Twitter-native. For example, someone could have extended @replies or hearts to things or places or songs or whatever, not just Tweets and Twitter accounts. Twitter Annotations was never released. Raffi Krikorian is engineering lead at Uber Advanced Technologies Center. He was the vice-president of engineering for Twitter’s platform then, and he told me there were concerns about return on investment and the cost of serving Annotations. Krikorian said: “We couldn’t make a good business case for it at the time.” Being bold can often mean pushing against what customers say they want. But there’s a fine line between being bold and having poor judgment. Remember when Apple decided to ship laptops with no CD drive? That was a real eye-opener. The evolution of the laptop form factor was being held back by an increasingly irrelevant technology, and they decided to improve the quality of their product by breaking free of a physical constraint. Apple rejected standards and norms and public demand to make a more interesting product, a lighter, more streamlined and more attractive laptop. They took advantage of the freedom gained by removing the shackles of a clunky technology. Software is different from hardware, of course. It has many constraints, too, but size is generally not one of them. Twitter operated natively in SMS which was unique, and so the limitations of SMS were a reasonable excuse for 140 characters initially. But that didn’t need to be the defining feature of the product. They then moved the product away from SMS as smartphones took off, but they failed to fully take advantage of the environment. iOS and Android didn’t have the content size constraint. Twitter did. Artificially imposed constraints shouldn’t be used to justify a design solution. Had Twitter fully invested in its developer strategy instead of becoming a publishing platform, they may have found a lot of value in being the lightweight communications network. But even then 140 characters would’ve been a tier of service rather than the core solution. Instead they decided to own and control the content sharing experience. And it is way past time they made content sharing more robust. Somewhere along the line Twitter became way too precious about what a tweet is. To be fair, Twitter’s mobile apps have been very successful. They work great. And many apps have picked up ideas and applied Twitter innovations to their own products, including Facebook. Larger tweets will infuse some new energy into the product. That’s a good thing. Twitter is, after all, a valuable piece of the digital media ecosystem, and it’s important that it thrives. Unfortunately, it’s getting harder and harder to work out why to use Twitter instead of other platforms. The only really unique thing about Twitter is the Twitter network, which is a hugely powerful thing, and they have the ability and a track record to do something great with that. Perhaps this is a sign that some of the past ideas that excited people about Twitter in its early days are going to be reintroduced or reimagined even if they are drip fed to us. A steady stream of product innovations can be just as effective as a big splash type of change. But it would be very disappointing if that didn’t happen and we end up looking back on this release at the end of 2016 and wonder if the company could’ve done something bolder. To get weekly news analysis, job alerts and event notifications direct to your inbox, sign up free for Media & Tech Network membership. All Media & Tech Network content is editorially independent except for pieces labelled “Brought to you by” – find out more here.
Premier League and FA Cup talking points from the weekend 1) Flores unruffled as Watford reach new heights It seemed a little impertinent to gatecrash Watford’s euphoria by mentioning future problems, but inevitably there it was – the question about whether the team might struggle to hold on to talent that has expressed itself so well this season. Quique Sánchez Flores merely arched one of those sophisticated eyebrows and allowed himself half a smile at the thought. “Some players want to leave and I love it because it means they want to improve and it shows they have done something important. I love it,” he said. “If they want to go to big clubs it means we are doing things in the right way.” Indeed they are. Watford might have looked a long shot for a promising season back in the summer – newly promoted, on their umpteenth manager in a short space of time and with a high turnover of players to gel together. Flores has surely outperformed expectation by overseeing a comfortable Premier League campaign and guiding his team to Wembley for an FA Cup semi-final. Maybe his attitude to any potential vultures reflects that he, as well as his players, are right to have big ambitions. It would be a surprise if other teams did not have a watching brief on Odion Ighalo and Troy Deeney, who were both excellent in dismantling Arsenal at the Emirates. “A handful,” said Arsène Wenger, somewhat ruefully. Flores wants Watford to rise to the challenge, right now on the pitch with new spark for the remainder of the campaign, and – in terms of the bigger picture –in endeavouring to keep the best of this squad together. “We need to accept this is possible, it’s football. When the big teams come in, we are Watford, and we need to be ready for that.” Amy Lawrence • Match report: Arsenal 1-2 Watford • Wenger under more pressure after FA Cup ‘farce’ • Michael Cox: Hornets swarm midfield to disrupt danger men 2) Martial ensures Manchester United’s season is still alive Manchester United got out of jail with Anthony Martial’s late equaliser against West Ham, and now have another chance to progress to the FA Cup semi-finals and then all the way to a 12th triumph in the competition in May’s Wembley showpiece. Arsenal’s elimination by Watford means Louis van Gaal’s band of strugglers have had one big obstacle removed yet West Ham, under the midweek replay lights at Upton Park for the last time in the Cup, will provide another. But to win any knockout competition the bottom line is that any opposition have to be beaten, and as the replay is after the international break and may be a week or so into next month, Van Gaal may have Wayne Rooney and others back to boost prospects. United appeared to be gone when the excellent Dimitri Payet smacked a 68th-minute 25-yard curler in off David de Gea’s left post. But, they are not. In east London in April they now must seize the opportunity to rescue a troubled season. Jamie Jackson • Match report: Manchester United 1-1 West Ham • Jamie Jackson: survivor Van Gaal needs a trophy to save himself • Bilic defends Payet against Van Gaal’s dive accuasation 3) Pato’s move to Chelsea looks totally pointless The individual and collective honours tended to end up at Stamford Bridge last season. They won’t this year, unless Radamel Falcao collects the unofficial award for the worst signing of the season and Alexandre Pato the unwanted tag of the most pointless. The reality is that Chelsea’s season has in effect ended, with virtually no chance of a top-four finish and no further involvement in either the Champions League or the FA Cup, and Pato still has not debuted. Any contribution he makes will be an irrelevant afterthought. Pato at least travelled to Merseyside on Saturday, but the Brazilian was not named in the matchday squad. When Guus Hiddink needed another striker in a desperate search for a goal, he sent John Terry on in attack. It represented another ignominious moment in a career of a player who was tipped for greatness as a teenager, is still only 26 and has not scored a goal for a European club since 2012. In theory, Diego Costa’s suspension for his dismissal at Everton could afford an opportunity. In reality, he is behind Bertrand Traoré in the pecking order and, with comparatively little at stake, it makes more sense to pick one who will be at Stamford Bridge next season. Instead, Pato’s time in London questions about who, besides his agent Kia Joorabchian, has really benefited from a spell of expensive inactivity. Richard Jolly • Barry says Costa did not bite him • Match report: Everton 2-0 Chelsea • Martínez: losing Lukaku would be ‘sign of modern game’ 4) Garde’s cryptic answers only add to Villa confusion It was the last question in Rémi Garde’s post-match press conference and seemed a legitimate one to ask in the circumstances. Aston Villa had been beaten 2-0 by Tottenham Hotspur at home and with the game effectively over as a contest from the 48th minute, when Harry Kane scored his second goal, events off the pitch became more interesting than those taking place on it. Several “Lerner Out” banners were raised during the second half, there was another one bearing the name of Tom Fox, the chief executive officer, and at one stage even the Tottenham supporters started calling for the Villa owner to go (they also later expressed their hope that he would rock up at Arsenal). With stewards under instructions to confiscate the banners, fans arguing the case with them and others turning their anger on the board, it was not exactly the ideal backdrop for a match. Yet anyone who has witnessed Villa’s demise over the last six seasons, but in particular this disastrous campaign, could probably sympathise with how their supporters feel at the sight of their club sitting rock bottom of the league and sliding into the Championship. With all of that in mind, a reporter put it to Garde that the fans are unhappy and clearly want to express themselves – whether through banners that are taken away from them or other means. They explained that matches are their only opportunity to do so, and therefore wondered: did the Villa manager defend their right or believe that they should they be focused on the team? Garde paused and then said: “It’s a tough question. I prefer to live in a world where everybody can say with respect – which is very important and what everybody has to do – but on this occasion I would say as well that nobody has to forget what happened in the past and what has been done in the past by everybody involved in this football club, if you know what I mean.” Whether intentional or not it felt slightly cryptic and nobody in the media room was quite sure what Garde meant, to the point that seagulls and trawlers got mentioned by a few people after the Villa manager had got up from his chair. One thing that just about everyone is agreed on, however, is that Aston Villa Football Club is in one hell of a mess. The news that Brian Little, a respected former Villa manager and player, will be acting as an adviser to the board feels like a step in the right direction, although it was tempting to wonder what was going through his mind as he looked on from the directors’ box. Relegation is inevitable for this famous club. Promotion from the Championship feels anything but. Stuart James • Match report: Aston Villa 0-2 Tottenham • Barney Ronay: Spurs pin hopes on Alli and Kane’s beautiful friendship • Pochettino says win at Villa puts onus on Leicester 5) Barrow and Gomis could save Swansea’s season After his goal in Swansea’s defeat at Bournemouth, Modou Barrow became the first Gambian to score in the Premier League, providing his country with an unusual claim to fame as they became the latest of 95 different nationalities to score in England’s top flight since 1992. Barrow was later substituted with cramp but is expected to be fit to face Aston Villa on Saturday. A more important statistic for Swansea now though is ensuring they remain a Premier League club come next season. Gylfi Sigurdsson and Bafétimbi Gomis will prove pivotal to doing just that but Barrow too could yet play a crucial role. Gomis has struck up a good relationship with Barrow, who ran over to celebrate his goal with the striker. “He has been pushing me in training and telling me that with my pace I can beat players,” Barrow said. “I am so quick they cannot catch me so I can finish. He was even pushing me before the game. He was telling me what to do and giving me advice – he is a good friend to me.” Barrow is a quiet individual and wouldn’t say boo to a goose, according to his coach Alan Curtis, but his contribution this season could yet speak volumes. “You’ve almost got to drag a conversation out of him,” Curtis said. “He’s a lovely kid and he works extremely hard and he’s got a real bright future ahead of him.” Ben Fisher • Match report: Bournemouth 3-2 Swansea City • Victory allows Howe to enjoy Bournemouth’s defining moment 6) Stoke must aim to (just) miss out on Europe Stoke City’s target for the remainder of this season should be to break their record points tally for the Premier League (54, last year) and finish seventh, assuming that means missing out on the Europa League. Manchester City’s League Cup triumph means the division’s sixth-placed finishers are likely to qualify for the continent’s booby prize that is the Europa League. Southampton, who finished seventh last season, also edged in. Every club should aspire to progress year on year, and the manner in which Mark Hughes has continued to build on the rock solid foundations put in place by Tony Pulis is admirable. Stokealona played some scintillating stuff before Christmas when Marko Arnautovic, Bojan Krkic and Xherdan Shaqiri were fit and firing. Even now that exciting trio are contributing more fitfully, the integration of the imposing Giannelli Imbula is promising to make up for last year’s loss of Steven N’Zonzi and, on their day, Stoke are a fine combination of style and substance. But even after Southampton edged ahead of Stoke in the “bid” for Europa League qualification on Saturday, Hughes was still in good humour. Asked whether he hoped to combine surpassing last season’s points tally with missing out on the burdens that come with bulking up for the Europa League, the Stoke manager refrained from sounding unambitious. “Yes, but we would love the opportunity to see if we could cope,” he said. “This club’s had some great experiences in Europe before and we would love to be able to experience it again. We would not try and not do it because we think it is a little bit of a bind. It is something we would embrace rather than be fearful.” Pulis eventually took a weakened team to Valencia for a Europa League knockout game in February of his penultimate season and was never forgiven by supporters. Building a squad big enough to cope with the increased fixtures, while keeping good players happy with sufficient minutes in the Premier League, is a delicate balancing act for a mid-sized club. If Hughes gets Stoke to 55 points and seventh or eighth this spring, he will have achieved the best result for the club. Peter Lansley • Match report: Stoke City 1-2 Southampton • Leicester have inspired Saints to aim higher, says Davis 7) Iheanacho deserves to start instead of Bony Manuel Pellegrini seemed to suggest that his side drew a game they really needed to win against Norwich City because it was just one of those days. If, by that, he meant one of those days where City’s performance makes you question his team selection, gameplan and ability to motivate players, then he was right. Sure, City were weakened by the absence of Yaya Touré – who, despite his flaws, remains a key creator for City – but it is difficult to argue that the manager got the best out of the resources still available to him. Especially when Wilfried Bony started ahead of Kelechi Iheanacho, who has been far sharper than the Ivorian throughout the season, but has only started three times in the Premier League. City should reach the Champions League quarter-final for the first time this season – they go into Tuesday’s home game against Dynamo Kyiv with a 3-1 lead from the first leg – but if they are to compete in the tournament next season, Pellegrini needs to give more opportunities to Iheanacho soon. Next weekend’s Manchester derby would be a good time to start. Louis van Gaal has benefited from picking talented young strikers this season and his team, like West Ham, are well placed to overhaul City in the top four. Paul Doyle • Match report: Norwich City 0-0 Manchester City • Neil hopes Norwich can avoid drop as ‘surprise’ package 8) Pardew’s double standards take shine off Palace win “If you think that touch affects the fall and the way he lands, then you really need to be consulted. It’s a worrying issue in the game. He made a big meal of it in my opinion. If it had been us we wouldn’t have got it.” Alan Pardew’s words after Palace’s defeat to Liverpool last week, directed at Christian Benteke after the striker won and converted a controversial penalty, could easily have been applied on Friday night to Pardew’s own forward, Yannick Bolasie, who went down under the slightest of touches in the 86th minute. Yohan Cabaye scored from the spot, the offender, Reading’s Michael Hooper, was sent off, and Palace went on to put their name in the hat for the FA Cup semi-final for the first time since 1995. The truth is that both incidents, concerning Benteke and Bolasie, were probably correctly awarded, but it would have been heartening if Pardew had acknowledged the irony of how his side’s first goal came about, and how silly it made last week’s comments look. Instead, it was the usual guff: “I haven’t seen the penalty again and I am not going to even give it an opinion.” How utterly predictable. The former Reading manager is certainly not the only manager guilty of this, but the next time his side are on the end of a contentious decision, it would be refreshing if Pardew didn’t attack the officials, and instead accepted it as simply part of the game. You win some, you lose some. Michael Butler • Match report: Reading 0-2 Crystal Palace • The Dozen: the weekend’s best FA Cup and Premier League photos
Arsenal 1-1 Tottenham Hotspur: Premier League – as it happened PS Liverpool will go top if they beat Watford this afternoon. You can follow that match right here, right now. Peep peep! That’s a fair result at the end of a good game. Both Arsenal and Spurs extend their different unbeaten runs – Arsenal in all competitions since August, Spurs in the Premier League this season. Both sides will have misplaced grievances about the goals they conceded - Kevin Wimmer’s own goal and Harry Kane’s penalty. Thanks for your company; bye! 90+2 min Rose’s cross finds Janssen on the penalty spot, but he shins a miserable volley back across the area. That was a decent chance as well. 90+1 min There will be five minutes of added time. 90 min Sanchez’s clipped cross from the left is headed straight at Lloris by Giroud on the penalty spot. That was a decent chance, although the lack of pace on the cross was not in his favour. There would have been controversy had it gone in because Wimmer ended up on the floor at Giroud’s feet. 89 min Son is replaced by Harry Winks. 88 min Bellerin throws the ball back to Cech, who slips 20 yards outside his own area. It looks like Son will get to the ball first, but then he bottles a 50/50 with Cech, jumping over the top of him. That was bizarre. 86 min A crucial defensive header from the stretching Vertonghen at the far post denies Giroud a clear headed chance from Sanchez’s inswinging cross. Sanchez has been terrific today. 84 min That break in play has helped Spurs, who have had more of the ball in the last few minutes. And now Eriksen’s free-kick has hit the post! It was a big inswinger from the left wing that went past the head of Dier, beyond Cech and bounced onto the inside of the far post. Dier might feel he should have scored as well. 81 min “I didn’t think that journalists actually supported any team,” says Niall Mullen. “I assumed they all just HATED MY TEAM.” 80 min Kyle Walker is limping off the field, to be replaced by Kieran Trippier. 79 min “A-ha!” says James Hupp. “You’ve fallen into the trap and revealed yourself. Your belief that both of these teams are likable is clear evidence that you are really a fan of [the team I dislike in this rivalry].” 78 min Spurs can’t get out, although Ramsey generously gives them some respite by smashing well wide from 25 yards. 75 min “How many fouls does Wanyama have to make to get a yellow?” says Angus Macaskill. “Happens every game...” Yes, he was lucky not to be booked for flattening someone in the build-up to that Bellerin chance. 74 min Oxlade-Chamberlain finds the underlapping Bellerin, whose shot is blocked by Dier and then ricochets off another Spurs defender to safety. Arsenal look much the likelier winners at the moment. 73 min Arsenal are starting to put pressure on Spurs. Dier fouls Sanchez, runs away with the ball in his hands and is booked for a timewasting/dissent hybrid. 73 min Janssen replaces the weary Kane. 72 min Sanchez’s brilliant angled through ball from the left slithers through the sliding Dier and finds Ozil, just outside the six-yard box to the left. Lloris is quickly off his line and blocks Ozil’s shot. That was superb keeping. The resulting corner comes to Ramsey, who wafts it not far over the bar from long range. 71 min Arsenal have moved Sanchez to the left-wing with Ozil behind Giroud and Oxlade-Chamberlain on the right. 70 min Arsenal make their final substitutions: Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Olivier Giroud replace Alex Iwobi and Theo Walcott. 69 min Tottenham break three on three, and Koscielny is booked for a foul on Kane 35 yards from goal. He actually got the ball but Mark Clattenburg said he went through Kane. I think Koscielny is a bit unlucky there. Kane looks utterly shattered, not surprisingly, and Vincent Janssen is getting ready. 68 min “Re that chap’s email on your ‘obvious Spurs bias’, can I say that I think of all you MBMers as somewhat like the judiciary - above petty personal prejudices and intent on reporting ‘as seen’,” says Ian Stewart. “I hope the provides you with the suitable clothing and that you don’t soon find yourselves on the front page of the Daily Mail.” Thing is, I’m sure we are unconsciously biased at times. But I couldn’t give two hoots about who wins this game – both sides and both managers are extremely likeable, and I’ll tell ya, honestly, I would love it if either of them won the league. 66 min It’s a little bit ragged all of a sudden, with the game lurching from end to end. Both teams could use a timeout, and an injury to Danny Rose has given them one. 65 min A positive substitution from Arsene Wenger: Coquelin off, Aaron Ramsey on. 63 min After a somnolent start, this has developed into an excellent game. 61 min And now a chance for Arsenal! A short corner on the left is played back to Iwobi, whose superb inswinging cross just evades the head of Xhaka, who was unmarked in front of goal after a brilliant late run. 60 min Another chance for Spurs! Son plays it down the left to Rose, who fizzes a thigh-high cross towards Kane at the far post. His sidefooted volley hit Monreal and came back off Kane before going behind for a goalkick. It looked like a goal-saving interception from Monreal, though replays suggested Kane had mishit his volley back across goal. Either way, it was a good chance. 58 min That was Kane’s fifth goal in four Premier League matches against Arsenal. 56 min The needless manner of Spurs’ equaliser has unsettled Arsenal. But they have a corner after a vital header over his own bar by Wimmer. 55 min Cech makes an excellent save to deny Eriksen! Mustafi’s desperate defensive header fell for Eriksen, who drilled the ball low towards toe corner from 12 yards with his left foot. Cech got down smartly to his right to push it wide. The penalty came from a long, winding run by Dembele, who was elegantly shielding the ball with his left foot. Koscielny stuck a leg out just inside the box and definitely tripped Dembele. It was a really stupid piece of defending and, as Howard Webb says on BT Sport, a soft but undeniable penalty. Kane clips the penalty straight down the middle. This looks controversial as well. Dembele falls over just inside the box after a tackle from Koscielny, and Mark Clattenburg gives a penalty. Replays suggest it was a good decision. 49 min A great run from Son, who scoots down the right and nutmegs Koscielny on the edge of the box. But in doing so he overruns the ball and that allows Bellerin to slide across and make a crucial interception. 48 min “There was an ugly moment on the commentary when Graeme Le Saux used a sentence with the word ‘discern’ in it - then a moment later had to say ‘I don’t know what discern means, by the way’,” says Charles Antaki. “Cue awkward tittering, and a joke about the . The poor guy feel he still has to deal with the stereotypes of the the 1990s, 25 years later. (Actually I originally mistyped that as 1900s, and perhaps I should have let it stand).” It’s just banter. 47 min “I know what you’re getting at in the 44th minute, Rob, though the self-satisfied snigger McManaman gave following that comment did make my skin crawl slightly,” says Matt Loten. “I think the vast majority of us miss the genuine physical battles of yesteryear, but I’d prefer it took the form of ‘give no quarter, ask no quarter,’ rather than Stevie Mac jumping out of his chair and shouting ‘BOTTLE HIM’ over a theatrical tumble.” Yes, that’s a fair point. If you say you like physical football, people think you’re Danny Dyer. 46 min Peep peep! Spurs begin the second half, kicking from left to right. Fan mail “I just want to thank you for labouring through 45 minutes of updates,” writes James Brown. “Since you are clearly a Spurs fan, I can imagine this is very difficult for you, and I wish you the best of luck on the last 45 minutes. Just remember, this too will end.” There are no words that can adequately convey the stunningly tedious, ignorant and childish nature of emails like this. What do you think it’s going to achieve? That I’ll spend the second half rooting for the Gunners? That I’ll out myself as a Spurs fan? That we’ll meet up and have sex? Honestly, nobody cares about your petty whinging or your attempt at wit. I wish you the worst of luck for the next 45 minutes and, purely because of your email, I now hope Spurs win 8-1. On BT Sport, Howard Webb says the Arsenal goal was the correct decision. In short, the law’s an ass, not the referee. Sanchez was offside behind Wimmer, and his presence was probably the reason Wimmer headed the ball. But because Sanchez did not make a direct move towards the ball, he’s not offside according to the laws of the game. Half-time reading Spurs started excellently with their new back three, but Arsenal woke up at 12.30pm and were superb for the last 15 minutes. The manner of the goal, a Kevin Wimmer own goal that should have been disallowed, was fortunate, but overall they deserve their lead. See you in 10 minutes for the second half. 45+3 min Mustafi is back on, clutching a tissue. There’s a bit of blood coming out of his nose but he should be fine. 45+2 min There’s a nasty clash between Coquelin and Mustafi on the halfway line. Mustafi looks groggy and is receiving treatment. 44 min It’s kicked off at the Emirates. Vertonghen accused Walcott of diving, and a load of Arsenal players charged towards him. “It’s nice to see,” says Steve McManaman, speaking for the silent majority who preferred football before it was emasculated. Arsenal’s pressure has told. Ozil’s inswinging free-kick is headed down into the corner of his own net by Kevin Wimmer. He was stretching towards his own goal, and had to do something with two Arsenal players behind him - but those two players were offside, so Spurs will feel pretty aggrieved. 42 min At the precise moment you read this, somebody, somewhere is stroking their chin and opining that Spurs need half-time. 41 min After a sluggish start, Arsenal have been much the better side in the last 10 minutes. 39 min Walcott hits the post! The superb Sanchez played a good square pass on the halfway line to Xhaka, who played an even better angled pass to usher Walcott towards goal. He took a touch and then, as the ball bounced up on the edge of the box, launched a vicious shot that clattered off the inside of the near post with Lloris beaten. The rebound came to Ozil, who couldn’t control the bouncing ball with his right foot and fired over. 38 min At the precise moment you read this, somebody, somewhere is stroking their chin and opining that this game needs a goal. 36 min Eriksen seems to be fouled on the edge of the D by Monreal. Mark Clattenburg gives Spurs oogatz. 34 min Another dangerous Arsenal break. Iwobi eases the ball down the inside left to Walcott, whose cutback is put behind for a corner by Dier. 33 min “I’m not saying we’re not playing well, but this game oddly hasn’t exactly exploded into life yet,” says Guy Hornsby. “You’d have expected the Gooners to be on the front foot but they’ve not really had a decent sniff yet. Having said that, I’m still absolutely bricking it.” 32 min Walker is back on. Rose’s low cross just evades Eriksen at the near post. Arsenal break and Iwobi misses a great chance. It was a zig-zagging move, with two superb passes from Ozil and then Sanchez. He teed up Iwobi, who sidefooted tamely and too close to Lloris from 12 yards. 31 min Sanchez comes infield from the left and picks out another excellent square pass to find Ozil in the D. As the ball bounces up he tries to sidefoot it into the far corner, but doesn’t connect properly and drags it wide. 31 min Kyle Walker is leaving the field for treatment. This doesn’t look great for Spurs. 30 min Sanchez hoofs high over the bar from 20 yards. We still haven’t seen a shot on target. 29 min Arsenal can’t get near Eriksen. Ozil, by contrast, has been pretty quiet. 27 min Sanchez, just outside the box on the left, clips a beautiful square pass to Coquelin, who runs onto the ball and hammers a volley that hits his teammate Walcott. I think it was going wide anyway. 27 min “Here at the Spurs supporters club in Bangkok the crowd is mild,” says Jeremy Dresner. “‘Terse Tenacious and Tactical’ if I’m searching for the timely triplicate tautology here.” Tautology? 25 min Eriksen, on the right wing, curls another excellent pass towards Son on the edge of the area. Mustafi does well to stretch and intercept; otherwise Son would have been through. 23 min Wanyama, 25 yards out, does a Jonny Wilkinson. 22 min “Sod high pressing!” writes Nick Parmenter. “Three at the back is the new trend for six months!!” Yep, three at the back is so damn hot right now. It’s all part of the 1996 nostalgiafest. 21 min A chance for Spurs. Eriksen on the right curls a fast cross towards Kane, whose stooping header from 12 yards flashes fractionally wide of the far post. Eriksen has been the most dangerous attacker on the pitch so far. 18 min The last man Mustafi, under pressure from Eriksen, mishits his attempted clearance and Cech slides out to collect the ball. It wasn’t a backpass. Spurs continue to look far more confident than Arsenal. 16 min Nothing much is happening. Arsenal look surprisingly nervous for a side who have been in such great form. 12 min Arsenal are coming into the game now, with Sanchez looking sharp. But Tottenham will be the happier side. 9 min Iwobi gives the ball to Eriksen, who plays a wonderful curling through ball from deep inside his own half. Son gets behind the defence but Cech runs a long way out of his box to clear. 8 min Spurs have been excellent so far, both with and without the ball. 6 min Wimmer is late on Coquelin, who rolls round pathetically and thus ensures a yellow card. It was probably the right decision as it was very late, but Coquelin’s reaction was ridiculous. 4 min It’s a really brave decision from Pochettino, because if they lose, no matter how they lose, the change of system will be blamed. They have started superbly. Son dummies Mustafi inside his own half and runs all the way into the area before hitting a low cross that flashes across the face of goal. Kane was free at the far post but he couldn’t find him. 3 min The Spurs wing-backs demonstrate the positive side of their new system. Rose gets down the left and crosses beyond the far post, where Walker gets above Monreal and heads over the bar. He was off balance so it wasn’t an easy chance. 2 min “Use Microsoft Movie Maker,” says Brian Corcoran. “It’s free and easy. Can you mention my colleague Juha Aalto who loves Spurs!” This one goes out to Juha Aalto, who loves Spurs. 1 min Arsenal kick off from left to right. They are in red; Spurs are in white. It looks like Spurs are indeed playing a back three. Football has recently discovered Remembrance Day, and the pre-match tribute was immaculately observed by both sets of fans. Some exceptional pre-match pessimism from Lars Bøgegaard “It’s been a long time since I have dreaded a North London Derby as much as this. We Spurs fans can only hope for a miracle - or for Harry Kane and Hugo Lloris.” The players are in the tunnel, both wearing their gamefaces. There’s a significant amount of designer stubble on those gamefaces. Help me out, part two in an exciting new series Does anyone know a professional lipreader? Help me out, part one in an exciting new series Does anyone know of any good free/cheap video-editing software? It doesn’t need to be sophisticated, just idiot-friendly. Tacticsgate There are some suggestions that talk of Spurs playing three at the back is a smokescreen. The alternative line-up would be the usual 4-2-3-1: Lloris; Walker, Wimmer, Vertonghen, Rose; Dier, Wanyama; Son, Dembele, Eriksen; Kane. They could also play a tighter 4-3-3 with Dembele pulled back alongside Dier and Wanyama. There’s something about pre-match tactics talk that is thrilling. “Is it just me,” begins James Bent, “or does Harry Kane look like a grown-up version of that kid from The Sixth Sense?” Have you seen the grown-up version of that kid from The Sixth Sense? Pre-match reading Harry Kane starts but Dele Alli was injured in training yesterday. Rob Smyth Understands™ that Spurs are playing a back three. Arsenal (4-2-3-1) Cech; Bellerin, Mustafi, Koscielny, Monreal; Coquelin, Xhaka; Walcott, Ozil, Iwobi; Sanchez. Substitutes: Ospina, Gibbs, Gabriel, Ramsey, Elneny, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Giroud. Spurs (3-4-1-2) Lloris; Dier, Wimmer, Vertonghen; Walker, Wanyama, Dembele, Rose; Eriksen; Kane, Son. Substitutes: Vorm, Trippier, Carter-Vickers, Winks, Nkoudou, Onomah, Janssen. Choose football. Choose the North London derby. Choose Wetherspoons, a plate of moreish grease and four pints by 11am. Choose banter, selfies and half-and-half scarves. Choose peer pressure, liver damage and insidious self-loathing. Choose forgetting to CHARGE YOUR EFFING PHONE OVERNIGHT. Choose Spurs being in crisis even though they’re unbeaten in the league. Choose lazy preambles. Choose calling the kick-off time high noon rather than midday. Choose 90 minutes of misery and need. Choose Harry Kane, Harry Winks and Harry Kiri. Choose the new Dennis Bergkamp. Choose Ian Allinson, Ray Kennedy and getting your suit MEASURED. Choose NLD, COYS and #YaGunnersYa. Choose the North London derby. Choose football.
A financial adviser left me $640,000 in debt. Who’s talking for me at the bank review? I recall, as a child, accompanying my mother to the bank with its polished wooden floors. I remember the bank manager greeting her by name, with a benign smile in my direction. The atmosphere was formal and polite. There was an almost reverential respect for the bank and toward the customers. Banks in the 1960s may not have been worthy of the respect they enjoyed. I was a child, with no awareness of the seedy underbelly of financial services that I would encounter as an adult. Fast forward several decades, to the first week in October 2016: the government’s first annual review into the four major banks. Touted by the prime minister as a superior alternative to a royal commission, it has the whiff of the similar phrase used by financial advisers about agribusinesses being a superior alternative to superannuation. We know how that fairytale ended. CEOs dutifully filed in, apologising for past wrong-doings, vowing they have learnt their lessons and are diligently addressing “poor customer service and outcomes”. Everyone wants to look toward a brighter future as they clamber over tens-of-thousands of ordinary hardworking Australians: whose lives have been irrevocably altered in this “lucky” country, described by Greg Medcraft, chairman of Asic, as “a paradise for white collar crime.” I am a victim of an accountant and financial adviser, who issued deceptive advice, and acted unconscionably; placing me in multi products through multi lenders, leaving me in debt of $640,000. Over eight long years of seeking justice and redress, I have met hundreds of other victims. Good, decent, honest, hardworking people who sought professional services to be financially responsible. I have seen harrowing outcomes firsthand. People have lost their homes and been forced into bankruptcy. Superannuation and life savings have been stolen. Careers, and capacity to work, have been severely compromised. Families are torn apart. Mental, emotional and physical health suffers. As a trauma counsellor of 30 years, I recognise severe anxiety disorders, sleep disorders, depression, post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and substance abuse. Three suicide attempts have been disclosed to me. I know of several actual suicides. Victims of white collar crime are forgotten, faceless and often blamed. The government’s annual review ensures we remain unheard. Had victims been invited to participate, we would have spoken about numerous other lenders and various agribusinesses. We would have countered comments by Graham Hodges, deputy CEO of ANZ, regarding the Timbercorp hardship program, which is not how the victims see it. Broader issues, such as the connection between banks, finance companies, product issuers, financial advisers and liquidators remain untouched by the review. Asic and the Financial Ombudsman Service have proven to be inadequately equipped and resourced. Lawyers taking cases on a no-win no-fee basis demand hundreds of thousands of dollars in upfront non-refundable disbursements. Another law firm pocketed $20m of a $23m settlement. Frequently, an adviser has inadequate insurance, or enters insolvency also declaring personal bankruptcy. Assets are spirited away through family trusts and offshore entities beyond creditors’ reach. Then the liquidators swoop in to pick the last flesh off victims’ bones. These people have no recourse to meaningful justice. Avenues for restitution, and at minimum, a retrospective compensation scheme of last resort, are required immediately. Calls for a royal commission grow stronger, supported by Labor, Greens, the Nick Xenophon Team, One Nation, independents and within the ranks of the Coalition. Government and unsurprisingly, banks, think otherwise. Sixty-eight per cent of Australians disagree with the government. Four out of five Australians do not trust the banks for financial advice. The crisis of confidence in the financial sector requires transparency and radical overhaul. Typically sanitised as “poor”, “inappropriate” or “misleading” financial advice, these terms imply “responsible” people could have averted predatory and corrupt practices. White collar crime is far bloodier, violent and life-altering than the language conjures. I live it. I have witnessed it. I am still going backwards financially eight years later, along with tens of thousands of Australians. We are denied justice. History demonstrates if something is not faced and addressed it is doomed to repetition. The government’s annual review of the four major banks ensures the buck will not stop with CEOs. Instead, it will continue to slip into their vast, deep pockets: awarded obscene salaries and performance-based bonuses. Australian of the year, Lieutenant-General David Morrison said, “The standard you walk by is the standard you accept.” Government’s primary duty is to protect its citizens. It must not walk past its obligation.
Brexit is the only way the working class can change anything I have lived in working-class communities all my life, and now that I research and write about those communities as a working-class academic, my motivation has always been to make sure that an authentic working-class woman’s voice tells our stories. Working-class people’s voices are rarely heard outside their communities, and almost never within the political or media sphere. However the EU referendum debate has opened up a Pandora’s box of working-class anger and frustration. It is clear that the Westminster politicos are quite unnerved by this. Even I am surprised by how the referendum has captured the attention and the imagination of the same people that only last year told me they had no interest in the general election “because ‘they’ are all the same”. Some 13 months later they are asking me what I think and arguing with me about the finer points of Brexit. In working-class communities, the EU referendum has become a referendum on almost everything. In the cafes, pubs, and nail bars in east London where I live and where I have been researching London working-class life for three years the talk is seldom about anything else (although football has made a recent appearance). In east London it is about housing, schools and low wages. The women worry for their children and their elderly parents – what happens to them if the rent goes up again? The lack of affordable housing is terrifying. In the mining towns of Nottinghamshire where I am from, the debate again is about Brexit, and even former striking miners are voting leave. The mining communities are also worried about the lack of secure and paid employment, the loss of the pubs and the grinding poverty that has returned to the north. The talk about immigration is not as prevalent or as high on the list of fears as sections of the media would have us believe. The issues around immigration are always part of the debate, but rarely exclusively. From my research I would argue that the referendum debate within working-class communities is not about immigration, despite the rhetoric. It is about precarity and fear. As a group of east London women told me: “I’m sick of being called a racist because I worry about my own mum and my own child,” and “I don’t begrudge anyone a roof who needs it but we can’t manage either.” Over the past 30 years there has been a sustained attack on working-class people, their identities, their work and their culture by Westminster politics and the media bubble around it. Consequently they have stopped listening to politicians and to Westminster and they are doing what every politician fears: they are using their own experiences in judging what is working for and against them. In the last few weeks of the campaign the rhetoric has ramped up and the blame game started. If we leave the EU it will be the fault of the “stupid”, “ignorant”, and “racist” working class. Whenever working-class people have tried to talk about the effects of immigration on their lives, shouting “backward” and “racist” has become a middle-class pastime. Working-class people in the UK can see a possibility that something might change for them if they vote to leave the EU. The women in east London and the men in the mining towns all tell me the worst thing is that things stay the same. The referendum has become a way in which they can have their say, and they are saying collectively that their lives have been better than they are today. And they are right. Shouting “racist” and “ignorant” at them louder and louder will not work – they have stopped listening. For them, talking about immigration and being afraid of immigration is about the precarity of being working class, when people’s basic needs are no longer secure and they want change. The referendum has opened up a chasm of inequality in the UK and the monsters of a deeply divided and unfair society are crawling out. They will not easily go away no matter what the referendum result.
Pound posts biggest rise in eight years as FTSE jumps 3% The pound posted its biggest one-day rise for almost eight years and the FTSE 100 share index jumped 3% on Monday, as traders reacted to an apparent shift in support towards a remain vote in Thursday’s EU referendum. A shift in opinion polls suggesting the remain camp had regained ground was enough to send the pound soaring. After coming under heavy selling pressure in recent weeks, it rallied more than 2.3% against a basket of other big currencies, the biggest percentage gain since October 2008. It rose more than 2% against both the US dollar and the euro. The stock markets were in similar mood. The FTSE jumped 3% to 6,204, the biggest one-day rise since mid-February. The optimism was mirrored on other European bourses and Wall Street, where the Dow Jones industrial average was up more than 200 points, or 1.3%, at the time of the close in London. New opinion polls and a shift in bookmakers’ odds prompted an abrupt change in financial market sentiment, catching some investors off-guard, said Jasper Lawler, an analyst at the spread betting and financial trading site CMC Markets. “Global markets have had a Bremain bounce. A new optimistic tone has taken hold at the beginning of the final week before the Brexit referendum,” he said. “Risky assets, notably stocks, oil and the British pound have surged whilst haven positions in gold and the Japanese yen have been liquidated.” The rallies came as Betfair, the online gambling site, said the implied probability of the UK remaining in the EU had risen to about 78%, up from 60 to 67% on Friday. Shares in banks and housebuilders, which are considered some of the most vulnerable to the consequences of Brexit, were the top performers on Monday. Royal Bank of Scotland shares were up 7%, Barclays 6.7% and Lloyds 7.6%. Among the housebuilders, Taylor Wimpey rallied 6.8% and Barratt Developments 6.8%. There were warnings, however, that investors were setting themselves up for heavy losses if the referendum result on Friday does not go the remain camp’s way. There were strong words from a former Bank of England deputy governor that markets were risking an “earthquake” in the event of Brexit. Sir John Gieve said many investors were unprepared for a potential vote to leave the EU. “I think this would be a hell of a shock,” he told Bloomberg TV. “As you see, the polls are evenly balanced. I still think that a lot of people in our creditors are assuming that it’ll all come right. They’re not ready for an earthquake.” The optimistic tone on UK markets was echoed in Germany, where the Dax share index rose 3.4% and in France where the CAC40 gained 3.5%. Experts were quick to remind investors, however, that shares and other riskier assets were selling off sharply just a few days earlier. Chris Beauchamp, a senior market analyst at the online trading company IG, said: “The frenzy of buying that has been seen across global markets over the past few hours matches the panic selling we witnessed last week. Investors have rushed back to buy up stocks, currencies and commodities in a similar fashion to the way in which they abandoned them a few days ago. “That such shifts in global markets can be occasioned by shifts in polling of a few thousand people in just one nation seems odd, but such is the importance of the Brexit referendum to global markets that all other concerns have been cast aside, at least for now.” The sharp move in the pound against the dollar also reflected receding expectations of a near-term interest rate rise from the US central bank, especially following remarks from a key policymaker last week. “It’s important not to get Brexit tunnel vision. Central banks still matter,” said Lawler. “A very dovish shift from the Federal Reserve’s James Bullard, who on Friday said the Fed may only raise rates once before 2018, has contributed to a drop in the US dollar, adding to sterling strength.”
Mexico raises interest rates in bid to shore up peso after Trump elected Mexico’s central bank raised interest rates on Thursday in an attempt to shore up the country’s currency, which has collapsed following Donald Trump’s election as US president. The Banco de México raised its key interest rate by 0.5% to 5.25% as it warned that the global economy had become “more complex” as a “consequence of the electoral process carried out in the United States and its result”. The increase in the rate from 4.75-5.25% takes it to its highest since 2009. It is the third time this year that Mexico has raised interest rates, including a hike in September in response to Trump’s surge in the polls ahead of the election. The peso plunged 13% against the dollar in the days following the US election, as traders feared the implications of a Trump presidency. The currency, which had recovered to 10% down, fell about 1% on Thursday following the central bank’s announcement. The peso is the second-worst performing currency in the world, after the pound which collapsed following Britain’s vote in June to leave the European Union. Trump has threatened to deport millions of “illegal” Mexican immigrants from the US, build a wall along the frontier and pull out of the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta). More than 80% of Mexico’s exports head north of the border to the US or Canada. Annual trade between the two neighbours is worth over $500bn, equalling $1.6bn of trading each day. Mexican exports to the US have jumped six-fold since Nafta took effect in 1994, to $320bn last year. Almost 80% of Mexican exports head north of the border. The leaders of Mexico and Canada are to this weekend hold emergency talks on the impact of a Trump presidency on their national economies. Prime minister Justin Trudeau and Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto will meet on the sidelines of an Asia-Pacific regional summit in Lima, Peru, and intend to speak to each other more frequently about their Nafta strategy in the months to come, a source told Reuters. Canadian officials say that if Trump walks away from Nafta, Canada could fall back on an earlier 1984 free trade deal with the United States. There are no such options for Mexico. “It’s still difficult to asses the specifics that will define the economic policies of the US regarding the bilateral relation with Mexico from 2017, but the implicit risks have had an important impact on the local financial markets,” Banco de México said in its statement. Following Trump’s triumph several investment banks have cut their 2017 Mexican growth forecasts from 2.5% to range of between 1.7% and 1.9%. The finance ministry has maintained its estimate of 2% to 3% growth next year.
Mental health beds shouldn't be so hard to find Every month, about 500 mentally ill people travel more than 30 miles for an inpatient bed: the long distances they are required to travel is usually due to a lack of local provision. This was outlined in a recent report from the independent commission into adult acute mental healthcare, supported by the Royal College of Psychiatrists and led by ex-NHS chief executive Nigel Crisp. The report demands include a deadline of October 2017 to stop the practice of sending severely ill patients miles from home. “Transferring patients long distances for acute care is bad for patients and their families, bad for the system and very expensive,” Crisp says. “We met with trusts that had phased this out over a period of a year and improved services and staff morale as well as saved money while doing so. NHS England should accept our target.” Commission member and consultant psychiatrist Laurence Mynors-Wallis adds: “It’s not just about beds. Is there a 24-hour crisis team? Or is it a telephone service? Some areas have invested in housing alternatives, so if someone’s ready to go home, a housing provider can take them.” Existing examples of good practice include Mersey Care NHS trust’s £25m purpose-built, short-stay mental health inpatient unit. Clock View, funded by the trust and NHS commissioners, aims to improve recovery and reduce stays. It has 80 ensuite bedrooms, inner courtyard gardens, a psychiatric intensive-care unit and a suite for people detained under the Mental Health Act. It also also provides a local assessment and immediate care service, offering better support for those between inpatient and community services. Chief executive Joe Rafferty says: “We set out to make it look different. We’d been working with service users and carers for years to really try to understand stuff that matters; that’s reflected in how Clock View was created.” Across the country Greater Manchester West mental health NHS foundation trust took a different route. It discovered that 60% of its short inpatient admissions happened outside office hours, reflecting inadequacies in community services. So the community mental health team expanded its hours of work. Now it operates weekdays from 8am-8pm and 9am and 5pm at weekends instead of Monday-Friday 9am-5pm. The mental health crisis teams were also transformed into a 24-hour multidisciplinary “home-based treatment” service, offering up to three intensive visits in 24 hours, avoiding admission and speeding up discharge. Another solution to avoiding long-distance admissions is to take a “whole system” approach involving a third, private and public-sector collaboration. Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS foundation trust works with eight local authorities, eight health and wellbeing boards, three police forces, five acute hospital trusts, 11 main clinical commissioning groups and 15 emerging GP federations. Its coordinated services includes housing officers, funded by the trust, working in inpatient services, helping patients secure accommodation. As Mynors-Wallis says: “The NHS spends too much time [focusing on] when things go wrong. We don’t do enough celebrating where things go right, sharing and learning from that.” Tile House: ‘This is partly an answer to how you are always going to get an acute bed available’ The Tile House supported living project in King’s Cross, London, reduces hospital admissions for people with serious mental health conditions, aiming to move them into independent housing and work. It supports high-risk adults with a diagnosed mental health problem who have previously been excluded from supported housing and also helps those sectioned under the Mental Health Act. The 15-bedroom scheme opened in 2012 as a partnership between housing provider One Housing Group (OHG) and Camden and Islington NHS foundation trust. Funded through adult social care, OHG subcontracts the trust for clinical work; recruitment is done jointly and shared team meetings ensure consistent treatment. The nationally renowned trust’s clinical strategy stresses how rapid assessment and local treatment and support are vital to recovery. “Tile House is partly an answer to the question of how you are always going to get an acute bed available,” says trust chief executive Paul Calaminus. “The great thing is, you’re treating the person as a whole – giving them a physical health check, a decent environment, getting them connected and ultimately into independence – to avoid a revolving door.”  A two-year evaluation showed there had been eight hospital admissions among residents, compared with 10 admissions among the same group of patients in the two years before they moved into Tile House. In the two years previously, nine of those who went on to live in Tile House spent an average of 317 days as inpatients – a total of 2,856 occupied bed days. But after they moved into Tile House, these numbers fell over two years to an average of 81 days in hospital for each admission, with 404 occupied bed days for the five people admitted. The overall cost to the NHS in the year before people moved into Tile House was £527,000 compared to £71,000 for two years in Tile House. The scheme is estimated to have saved £443,964 a year compared with previous placement costs. As well as self-contained one-bedroom flats, there are communal areas for workshops and group sessions. During their two-year stay, people have access to support staff 24 hours a day and a key worker who helps develop individualised support plans. There is also a care coordinator, an occupational therapist and a psychologist providing individual assessments and therapeutic interventions. Calaminus adds that such innovative work rests on partnership and forward-thinking commissioners: “Camden clinical commissioning group and the local authority thought about what local services need to be developed. You needed commissioners with a real energy of views to do that.”  Join the Healthcare Professionals Network to read more pieces like this. And follow us on Twitter (@GdnHealthcare) to keep up with the latest healthcare news and views.
Field Music’s Disappointed: the best of this week’s new music PICK OF THE WEEK Field Music Disappointed (Memphis Industries) The routinely excellent Field Music join a list of quintessentially English naysayers – Morrissey, John Lydon, Neil Tennant – to call a song Disappointed. Miffed, peeved, a bit cheesed off with the whole thing, but life goes on, eh? It’s not typically the subject matter of great pop music, but Disappointed makes a virtue of its stiff upper lip, its funkiness feeling thrillingly clipped and its desire for sweaty communion straining heartbreakingly against a suffocating compulsion to have everything in its right place. High-fives – OK, awkward handshakes – all round. Kano ft Wiley and Giggs 3 Wheel-Ups (Parlophone) Britain has gone bonkers for grime. Stormzy in the Top 10! Skepta on GQ’s best-dressed list! D Double E on Celebrity Bake Off! Don’t bet against it, I’ve heard the man makes a mean macaron. Anyway, here are three more grizzled denizens of London’s ill manors enjoying some back-to-basics badinage, including pleasingly region-specific references to Original Nuttah and Stratford Westfield. Twelve years on from the seminal P’s & Q’s, Kano still has the versatile flow and boyish good looks to be a star. But if he chooses instead to keep pumping out street-level missives of this quality, that’ll do nicely. White Denim Holda You (I’m Psycho) (Downtown/Sony Red) Brainy Texans White Denim are famed for switching from tropical prog to countrified math at the drop of a Stetson, but this new one keeps it simple. A gleefully no-nonsense boogie, it sounds like a band frantically trying to get to the end of My Sharona before being hustled offstage at a Christian folk festival. At the same time, it calls bullshit on the leery tone of many rock standards – have you seen the lyrics of My Sharona recently? – by crossing the line halfway through from lusty ode to harassment lawsuit. Cake had, and eaten. Dai Burger Dai 1 (Rinse) Dai Burger sounds like the owner of a Prestatyn fast-food van, but she’s actually a gritty R&B singer from Queens, New York. The fact that London’s Rinse has started signing US artists feels a bit wrong, like putting ranch dressing on your chips. But this song at least has a grimy UK tang to it, synths dripping like broken guttering as its beat stubbornly refuses to drop. Prayers ft DJ Klever and Travis Barker Drugs (LaSalle) San Diego’s Prayers describe themselves as “cholo goths”, an unlikely combination of Mexican street-gang attitude and Whitby chic. But Drugs suggests a more worrying hybrid, that of an EDM Linkin Park. At first listen it’s horrible, but there’s something grimly compelling about Leafar Seyer’s stilted rapping, chronicling a descent into amoral, drug-fuelled oblivion. Your “reward” for sticking it out is a preposterous live drums’n’scratching solo from former Blink-182 dork Travis Barker and champion turntablist DJ Klever. Don’t think you’ve heard it all, because you never, ever have.
Brexit could shift Europe's political centre of gravity, says Fitch A vote for Brexit in next month’s referendum could lead to disharmony across the rest of the 28-member bloc, strengthen anti-EU groups and dent other European economies, a leading credit ratings agency has warned. Fitch, which previously warned that Brexit could hurt the UK’s strong credit score, reiterated the risk in an update to investors on Monday. It also warned that a vote to leave the EU on 23 June could hurt British airlines and trigger further failures in the retail sector, but that a weaker pound would bolster exporters’ competitiveness. In a note on the possible repercussions for the rest of the EU, Fitch warned that a UK vote to leave would weigh on the economies of other member states and increase political risks in Europe. “Negotiating the terms of the UK’s exit could exhaust the EU’s time and energy and open up new fronts of disagreement. Brexit could shift the centre of gravity of the EU, making it more dominated by the eurozone core, poorer, more protectionist and less economically liberal,” Fitch said. “If the UK were to thrive outside of the EU, it might encourage other countries to follow suit.” Brexit would reduce EU exports to the UK, although the extent would depend on the nature of any UK-EU trade deal and the degree and duration of sterling depreciation, Fitch said. The most exposed countries would be Ireland, Malta, Belgium, the Netherlands, Cyprus and Luxembourg, all of whose exports of goods and services to the UK are at least 8% of GDP. “The economic impact of Brexit would be lower for the EU than for the UK, but would still be palpable,” the agency said. Fitch said Brexit would reduce the UK’s contribution to the EU budget and imply higher costs for other net contributors or lower payouts for net recipients. A UK departure could boost anti-EU or other populist political parties, it added. Brexit could also precipitate Scotland leaving the UK, which might intensify secessionist pressures in other parts of the EU, such as Catalonia in Spain. Fitch did not expect a Brexit would prompt “any immediate negative rating actions” on other EU countries. “But negative actions would become more likely in the medium term if the economic impact were severe or significant political risks materialised,” it said. Fitch, which cut its rating on the UK to a notch below the top AAA level in 2013, said its base case was that the UK would vote to remain in the EU. But it set out four possible scenarios on Monday: A remain scenario A leave scenario with favourable UK exit terms agreed A leave scenario with a UK exit from the EU on unfavourable terms and tight labour market conditions A leave under either of the previous two scenarios with a subsequent vote for Scottish independence Fitch emphasised that none of the leave scenarios represented its expectations in the event of a leave vote and said “the consequences of a ‘leave’ vote could take many turns” other than the scenarios it considered. The remain scenario would be “mildly credit positive” across sectors of the UK economy as it would end uncertainty surrounding the EU question for the medium term. But the agency added: “EU migration to the UK would remain high and the same UK/EU tensions could re-emerge in the longer term.” In Fitch’s favourable leave scenario, exit and trade agreements would be concluded smoothly and swiftly. However, in the unfavourable leave scenario, protracted negotiation resulting in unfavourable trade terms for the UK would be more negative, it said. A combination of a leave vote with subsequent Scottish independence would bring the UK’s ratings under further pressure. The comments follow a series of warnings last week on the economic impact of Brexit, including from the Bank of England governor, Mark Carney, who said a leave vote could tip the UK into recession.
Life stories in dementia care: we all have a story and cannot be understood without it In Jonas Jonasson’s book The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared, the protagonist faces scepticism when he recounts the tale of his daring escape across the Himalayas. “You crossed the Himalayas? At a hundred?” exclaims the prosecutor. “No, don’t be silly,” responds Allan. “You see, Mr Prosecutor, I haven’t always been a hundred years old. No, that’s recent.” Jonasson uses the life story of the 100-year-old man as a vehicle to tell a story about 20th-century history, but I read this novel while immersed in a research project looking at the use of life story work in dementia care. For me the message was clear: we all have a story, and no one can be understood by how they appear today out of the context of that story. Life story work typically involves helping people to make a record of some aspects of their life, most often in a book or template, although more creative approaches do exist, including the use of IT and stop frame animation. Increasingly, life story work is being promoted as an important tool for enhancing person-centred dementia care. However, when it comes to specifics, there is little agreement. A care home may ask a resident’s family to write a summary of their life using a list of prompts, while a community team works with an individual to make a collage about their life, and both could call it life story work. Perhaps the most important distinction is that when some people talk about life story work they mean an activity that is led by the person with dementia, to celebrate and preserve memories. Others mean a process led by professionals with the aim of aiding communication and increasing staff understanding. Not everyone wants to be reminded of their past, and different people may come up with alternative accounts of the same person’s history. Life story work has many complexities, and when you add dementia into the mix things can get tricky. However, enthusiasm for life story work is high and claims for its positive effects are increasing. To explore these claims, the Social Policy Research Unit at the University of York conducted research into the potential costs and outcomes of life story work in dementia care. This is not easy when there is such variation in practice. We collected information from six care homes that were all introducing life story work for the first time. Even with the same training, each care home did it differently. When we asked people with dementia, family carers and professionals about good practice, the first thing that struck us was that, despite the hype, not everyone wants to make a life story. They may also have different views from staff about what their life story book/film/collage is for. It was felt that beginning the process early could enable people with dementia to take a more active role and communicate how they would like their story to be used. If staff were involved, one suggestion was that they could try making a life story document of their own to see how this feels and what issues arise. Improving the quality of care and making it more person-centred often has associated costs. The greatest cost to the care homes introducing life story work was staff training, ranging from £950 to almost £1,600. After this initial outlay, however, the average cost of actually creating and using a life story book was relatively small: we estimated around £37 per resident over 16 weeks. Of course, costs will vary with different approaches. The most significant effect we detected was an improvement in staff attitudes towards people with dementia in care home that introduced life story work, together with a hint that residents themselves felt better. However, the work was intentionally exploratory and to understand the full implications we recommend reading the final report, which will be published later this year and will be available through the SPRU website. The key message from the people we spoke to was that whether life story work enhances dementia care depends to a large extent on what the people involved want to get out of it. If it’s intended to improve understanding in care settings, staff need the time and opportunity to use the information. If it’s about celebrating life and preserving identity, people with dementia need support and opportunities to do this their own way. This article presents independent research funded by the National Institute for Health Research. The views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the NHS, the NIHR or the Department of Health. Join the Social Care Network to read more pieces like this. Follow us on Twitter (@GdnSocialCare) and like us on Facebook to keep up with the latest social care news and views.
Andrei Tarkovsky's Polaroid photographs to be auctioned Ghostly images of a lost world, the Polaroid photographs taken by the film director Andrei Tarkovsky, shot in his native Russia, and in Italy when he was working on his revered 1983 film, Nostalghia, are to be auctioned. Many of the images which are particularly technically flawed are expected to be among the most coveted when the collection is sold by his son Andrey, who is also his archivist, at Bonhams auction house in October. Blurry, hazed with light spill, or with colour fading into watercolour softness, they have the eerie haunted atmosphere of many of the director’s own films – and many directly echo frames from his works. “These photographs were intensely personal to him,” Daria Chernenko, head of the Russian art department at Bonhams, said. “Once he discovered the Polaroid camera, friends recall him with it always in his hand. And his son told me that when his father travelled, he carried the entire collection of Polaroids with him everywhere he went. Every image was personally chosen: some are quite misty, but they are ones he wanted to keep – as he took them, he routinely burned the ones he was dissatisfied with.” His scriptwriter, Tonino Guerra, wrote in an introduction to an album of the photographs published in 2006: “Tarkovsky often reflected on the way that time flies, and this is precisely what he wanted: to stop it, even with these quick Polaroid shots.” Tarkovsky’s films, including Ivan’s Childhood, Solaris, Mirror and Stalker, were heaped with international awards and worshipped by many other directors. Ingmar Bergman described him as “the greatest”, and Danish director Lars Von Trier dedicated his film Antichrist to him, saying in a recent interview: “It’s the closest I’ve got to a religion – to me he is God.” But Tarkovsky had endless problems with the Soviet authorities over funding, distribution and censorship. He died in self-imposed exile in 1986, aged just 54 – leading some to suggest he was murdered. He was buried in Paris in the Russian section of the Sainte Geneviève cemetery, under a memorial created by the sculptor Ernst Neizvestny, inscribed in Russian “To the man who saw the angel”. The film historian Mark Le Fanu described Tarkovsky’s adoption of the Polaroid camera as “an addiction”. He said: “There was something about the way that the camera gave an instant image of the view being photographed that he found propitious, and useful, for his task of location hunting. That, and the fact that he liked their saturated but at the same time diffused (and ever so slightly ‘retro’) colour reproduction, which gave to each of the stills an air of mystery.” The 257 Polaroids are being sold in 29 lots, which it is estimated could sell in total for up to £500,000. Chernenko said his son’s decision to split the collection into themed lots was because the whole collection was likely to be too expensive for the many enthusiasts who would like to acquire some of the photographs. “We very much hope some will be acquired by a museum or film institute,” she said. • The photographs will go on display at Bonhams in London from 2 October, before the sale on 6 October. • This article was amended on 17 August 2016. The standfirst (summary) of the original incorrectly stated that photographs could could fetch up to £50,000. The correct estimated price, as stated in the article, is £500,000.
How Wall Street's CEO bonus loophole cost the US government $1bn Here’s a figure that could have you reaching for an EpiPen, assuming you can afford one: one billion dollars. That’s how much additional revenue the Institute for Policy Studies calculates the federal government might have collected over a four-year period if it weren’t for a pesky loophole that allows US corporations to deduct performance-based compensation from what they have to pay in corporate taxes each year. The just-released study comes amid the latest example of how basic salary on share price performance leads to bad decisions that have negative effects on society at large: Mylan, the drug company whose decision to hike the price of the lifesaving EpiPen has triggered a sky-high share price and a massive pay day for its CEO, Heather Bresch. The IPS’s report is the latest in a series devoted to excessive executive compensation and wealth inequality, the research firm takes aim at the loophole as it relates to Wall Street’s banks. The top 20 banks forked over more than $2bn in performance-related bonus payments to each of their top five executives between 2012 and 2015, IPS says. Between the financial crisis and up until 2012, those banks weren’t allowed to take advantage of the loophole. As part of a widespread attempt to rein in the worst of the compensation practices that contributed to the crisis, Congress imposed a raft of new restrictions and rules governing pay at the banks as long as they still owed money borrowed under the Troubled Asset Relief Program (Tarp). Once those Tarp funds were repaid, the banks were free to dole out performance-based bonuses once more – and they rushed to do so. The study notes that the share of vested stock paid out as bonuses to the top five bank employees at the banks it studied rose from about 5% (when they were still under Tarp oversight) to 50% today. The Institute for Policy Studies uses the banks as a case study in arguing for the demolition of the executive pay bonus loophole. Their broad argument couldn’t be more accurate or more timely. We need to revive the debate about all the wrongs committed in the name of delivering value to shareholders, and performance-based compensation is the tip of that particular iceberg. The pursuit of shareholder value has become a cult devoted to delivering maximum profits to shareholders, at all costs. Just look at how Mylan Pharmaceuticals has responded to the virtual evaporation of competitors to its lifesaving EpiPens by raising the price it charges for the auto-injector pens (which treat deadly allergic reactions to bee stings and food allergies) from $50 apiece to $600 for a two-pack over the course of eight years. Just why on earth did Mylan do this? Well, it could. It has a virtual monopoly on a critical product – one that millions of people with an allergy rely on. There’s a bonus: the active ingredient, epinephrine, degrades rapidly, so they need to buy new EpiPens every year. Mylan blames the insurance industry – a convenient scapegoat. Consumers were never supposed to pick up the full price tag: if insurers aren’t paying, that’s because the Affordable Care Act has left the health insurance system in a mess, distorting drug pricing. It’s worth noting, however, that EpiPen price increases began before the Obama administration’s healthcare law was put in place, and that in Canada’s single-payer insurance market, people suffering from allergies can pick up an EpiPen two-pack for less than $100. Of course, in Canada, it’s not Mylan that sets the price, but Pfizer, which has licensed the injectable medication from Mylan. Let’s circle back to the pesky question of what it is that motivates CEOs like Bresch, why they make decisions like this and what they conceive their responsibilities to be. Since the summer of 2007, the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index has climbed 47%, while Mylan’s shares have outperformed dramatically, soaring 178%. And yes, you-betcha, Bresch has benefited from some of that same performance-linked compensation. Not only has it deprived the taxpayer of potential income, but it has rewarded Bresch for doing something that is just as clearly against the public interest just as leveraging the banking system to the hilt was in the run-up to the financial crisis in 2005, 2006 and 2007. Bresch clearly should have been rewarded for savvy marketing that made EpiPen a “must have” item in schools, airplanes and theme parks. But should Bresch have been rewarded so lavishly simply for being able to hike those prices and profit from the fact that Mylan had no viable rivals? It wasn’t as if the company was being rewarded for years of costly research and development. On the contrary; about half of its revenue was pure profit. And a lot of that went to pay Bresch’s increasingly lavish compensation package, which rose at an even faster clip than did EpiPen’s price. In 2007, Bresch pocketed $2.45m; in 2015, her compensation totaled nearly $19m. In whose interests are companies like Mylan and the Wall Street banks being run? The basic argument – based on law that dates to the early 20th century, when Henry Ford’s shareholders sued him for trying to make cars more affordable to customers – is that a company has a fiduciary duty to maximize profits for its investors. It has been seized on, amplified and raised to the status of holy writ by short-term thinkers among those on Wall Street. The result? Publicly traded businesses, fearful of being pummeled by hedge fund investors, end up increasingly detached from the realities of the real world. They reward CEOs lavishly for delivering outsize profits and big stock price gains, even if that is done by keeping wages and salaries for employees at rock bottom levels. That’s how we end up with firms like Walmart and McDonald’s ostensibly employing people full time, who still rely on various forms of government assistance to keep them above the poverty line. Doing away with tax deductibility for performance-based compensation, as the Institute for Policy Studies suggests, would be a great start. At a stroke, there would be one less incentive for companies to give outsize rewards that are geared exclusively to a measure of performance that may not be in everyone’s interest. As the financial crisis should have taught us, a boom in a company’s profits and a run-up in the company’s stock price as a result, isn’t always an unquestioned good thing. Making performance-based pay more costly to a company might force the board’s compensation committee to think more critically about the criteria that they’re using. The real value of the IPS report isn’t in the fine details like how many dollars might have flowed into the US Treasury (much less how many teachers’ jobs might have been funded as a result – as if government budgets worked that smoothly …). Rather, it has drawn attention to the crucial issue of performance-based compensation and the pesky questions that underpin it. If, as some legal scholars suggest, it’s possible for companies to go beyond the narrow, toxic pursuit of maximizing profits and think about what is good for their employees, consider their customers, take the environment into consideration and pursue innovation, then the debate about how we get from here to there has to start somewhere. Performance-based compensation is a logical point.
Liam Fox, here is the UK history our readers want to remind you of Prominent Brexit campaigner Dr Liam Fox MP has suggested that “the United Kingdom is one of the few countries in the European Union that does not need to bury its 20th century history”. There is a lot to be proud of in the UK’s history, including a prominent role in defeating Nazi aggression in the second world war, but there are plenty of people who disagree with Fox. They believe the UK continues to bury many historical events that are seldom discussed or get the attention they deserve because they do not portray Britain in a positive light. As commenter xianyork put it: It isn’t that the UK is particularly worse than other nations, but the UK has no reason whatsoever to feel it has a less sullied history in the 20th century than other nations. So here is our timeline of the things readers most frequently suggested Liam Fox needed to brush up on, and some ideas of where he – and you – might be able to read more about them ... South African war Also known as the second Boer war, British forces may not have been the very first in the world to operate a concentration camp, but Kitchener’s tactics of combining a scorched earth policy with confining women and children to camps were a pre-cursor to the way industrialised war would be conducted in the 20th century. And the British were indiscriminate as to whether the victims were the Boers or the indigenous population. Further reading suggestion: “Black victims in a white man’s war” – Chris McGreal Mistreatment of Suffragettes Finding that peaceful protest was not moving the argument for women gaining the vote forward fast enough, the Suffragette movement began to use violent means. Over a period of several years more than 1,000 Suffragettes were imprisoned. In prison they went on hunger strikes and the authorities responded with brutal forced-feeding, and what was known as the “cat and mouse” policy. Suffragettes were released from prison then re-arrested when their health recovered. Further reading suggestion: “Suffragette hunger strikes, 100 years on” – June Purvis Soldiers shot for cowardice during the first world war In 2005, the government introduced a bill to enable the pardoning of hundreds of soldiers executed by their own side during the first world war for offences specified as “cowardice, desertion or attempted desertion, disobedience, quitting post, violence, sleeping at post, throwing away arms or striking a superior officer”. It is now believed that many of the men were suffering from shellshock rather than being cowards and were more deserving of hospital treatment than a rifle squad. Further reading suggestion: “Chloe Dewe Mathews’s Shot at Dawn: a moving photographic memorial” - Sean O’Hagan The Easter Rising readers suggested several elements of Anglo-Irish conflict during the 20th century were worth reminding Liam Fox of, and the earliest of these were the consequences of the Easter Rising in 1916. In the aftermath of the rebellion, UK forces arrested over 3,000 people, and nearly 100 were sentenced to death. Fourteen ultimately went before firing squads. Although the rebels were unsuccessful in their immediate aims, the rising did pave the way for Sinn Féin to become a political force. Further reading suggestions: “Contested legacy: echoes of the Easter Rising” – Sean O’Hagan and “The terrible beauty of the Easter Rising remains alive today” – Fintan O’Toole Massacre at Amritsar With an official fatality count of 379, and unofficially of over 1,000, the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in Amritsar in 1919 involved British Indian army troops firing on an unarmed crowd in an enclosed space for 10 minutes. The year after the massacre, Winston Churchill said it was “a monstrous event”. David Cameron visited the scene of the killings in 2013, and while being criticised for not offering a full apology he described it as a “deeply shameful event”. Further reading suggestion: “Apologising for Amritsar is pointless. Better redress is to never forget” – William Dalrymple Management of the Palestine mandate As with Ireland, readers suggested several key moments of Britain’s involvement in the Middle East for inclusion on this list – including British rule over part of the troubled region during the 1920s, 30s and 40s. At the end of the first world war, the spoils of the collapse of the Ottoman empire went to the victors. Ground had been laid for this outcome with the Sykes-Picot plan for Britain and France to carve out areas of influence in the region. The Balfour declaration then gave explicit British support for the creation of a Jewish state, while promising protection of existing populations. In 1923, Britain assumed control at the behest of the League of Nations and oversaw a period marked by uprisings, rebellions and a failure to bring about a stable political situation. The complexity of the situation was affected by the outbreak of the second world war and increased pressure to accept refugees from Europe. Following the end of global hostilities, British rule of mandatory Palestine collapsed during the 1947-1948 civil war, and her troops were withdrawn. The unresolved Israel/Palestinian conflict remains one the major geopolitical fault lines on the planet. Further reading suggestion: “Middle East still rocking from first world war pacts made 100 years ago” – Ian Black The fire-bombing of Dresden Nobody doubts how important the RAF contribution was to securing victory over Nazi Germany. Over 55,000 aircrew members lost their lives during the campaign, a huge sacrifice on behalf of the allies. However, as many as half a million civilians may have lost their lives on the ground in Germany during the war, and there have been consistent questions about the extent and type of bombing raids carried out towards the end of the war, when Germany was already in a weakened state, particularly the concerted attack on Dresden. Further reading suggestion: “Queen unveils memorial to Bomber Command” – James Meikle Partition of India Few colonial territories went bloodlessly from British rule to independence, but the partition of India and creation of Pakistan according to the Mountbatten plan may have caused the most bloodshed. It certainly did little to prevent conflict between the main religious groups in India, where relations had already been tense and violent for some time. The British-designed division of the countries also set up the dispute over Kashmir, and decades of fraught relations between the two independent nations. Further reading suggestion: “The forgotten refugees who wait for justice after 60 years” – Dan McDougall Prosecution of Alan Turing The prosecution of Alan Turing in 1952 for “gross indecency” for a consensual homosexual relationship has come to symbolise the mistreatment of homosexuals by British society throughout the 20th century. Hailed a hero for his efforts during the second world war at Bletchley Park in cracking encrypted German messages, Turing pleaded guilty and accepted a sentence of chemical castration. It effectively ended his career, and in 1954 he killed himself. Turing was given a posthumous pardon in 2013. The vast majority of those prosecuted by the state for their sexual orientation have not. Further reading suggestion: “Alan Turing’s pardon is wrong” – Ally Fogg War in Kenya and the Mau Mau massacres As with India, the path to a post-colonial Kenya was bloody and convoluted. The brutality of attacks by the Mau Mau were used to justify brutal reprisals by the British authorities on the ground in Kenya. In particular, Operation Anvil involved the sealing off of Nairobi, and tens of thousands of suspected Mau Mau rebels or rebel sympathisers were detained or deported. The war featured massacres on both sides, and the British set up a concentration and detention camp system that was described as being similar to the efforts of Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia. Further reading suggestion: “Sins of colonialists lay concealed for decades in secret archive” – Ian Cobain and Richard Norton-Taylor Maralinga nuclear tests The UK conducted seven atomic bomb tests in Australia, which resulted in so much radioactive contamination that two different clean-ups have been required. As a result of the tests, the servicemen involved and the Indigenous population close to the site suffered from radioactivity-related illnesses. The British nuclear testing programme has become the source of a great deal of legal disputes over the effects on those taking part, far beyond the test range at Maralinga. In 2009, nearly 1,000 veterans took the MoD to court. Fiji has acted unilaterally to pay compensation to veterans who took part in tests there, but the supreme court in the UK has ruled it is too late to claim. Further reading suggestion: “Pacific atomic test survivors cannot sue Ministry of Defence” – Owen Bowcott Suez crisis The aim to secure the Suez canal and keep control of trade routes from Europe to Asia was militarily within British grasp. But participation in the Suez crisis, alongside the French, led to a humiliating defeat diplomatically. Unable to secure support from the US, which feared the plans might spark war with Russia, troops were halted before they could achieve their objective. Some historians regard the British climbdown at the end of the Suez crisis as marking the end of Britain as a great world power. British involvement alongside Israel in a conflict against an Arab nation also served to fuel the feeling that Britain had irrevocably taken sides. Further reading suggestion: “1956: Suez and the end of empire” – Derek Brown Bloody Sunday One of the most frequently mentioned events by readers in Anglo-Irish relations, the legal ramifications of Bloody Sunday continue over 40 years on. On 30 January 1972, soldiers opened fire on a civil rights protest, killing 13 people, with one subsequent death attributed to injuries sustained in the firing. After an initial inquiry found the soldiers to have been justified in their actions, the Saville inquiry spent 12 years examining the events, and ruled that the British army had shot unarmed civilians: We have concluded that none of them fired in response to attacks or threatened attacks by nail or petrol bombers. No one threw or threatened to throw a nail or petrol bomb at the soldiers on Bloody Sunday. The Saville inquiry also concluded that more than 150 killings committed by soldiers were never fully investigated because of collusion between the police and the army. Further reading suggestion: “Bloody Sunday inquiry: key findings” – Haroon Siddique and Megan French Sinking of the Belgrano The ARA General Belgrano was sunk on 2 May 1982 in controversial circumstances. More than 300 Argentinians died, with this single act accounting for about half of Argentina’s casualties during the Falklands conflict. Sparking the Sun’s infamous “Gotcha” headline, dispute centred around whether the ship was heading towards or away from the islands, whether it was in the declared “exclusion zone” that Britain had been enforcing, and whether the sinking was directly ordered despite ceasefire negotiations taking place. Further reading suggestion: “Belgrano, 25 years on” – James Sturcke Stephen Lawrence On 22 April 1993, young Stephen Lawrence was murdered in a racially motivated attack. It took nearly two decades for anyone to be brought to justice for the crime. In the intervening years, the case became a focal point for examining the way that police and the justice system deal with racially motivated crime. The Stephen Lawrence inquiry in 1999 said that the failings of the investigation into the murder amounted to “institutional racism” on the part of the police. Sadly for the Lawrence family, that inquiry did not understand the full extent of the police’s behaviour in the aftermath of the murder, and there is now another inquiry into whether an undercover officer spied on Stephen’s parents while the police force investigated his death. Further reading suggestion: “Met chief admits institutional racism claims have ‘some justification’” – Josh Halliday And finally, one bit of 21st century UK history that Fox seems awfully keen on burying ... While clearly not on the same scale as any of the events mentioned above, Fox tends to bury that he resigned from government in October 2011 because, as the New Statesman’s Jonn Elledge reminds us: He allowed his close friend and best man, Adam Werrity, to take up an unofficial and undeclared role in which he attended meetings at the Ministry of Defence without first obtaining security clearance. Werrity had access to Fox’s diary, printed business cards announcing himself as his advisor, and even joined him at meetings with foreign dignitaries. Fox’s words last week might have been intended to draw a distinction between the history of the UK and the fact that Germany, for example, has spent decades coming to terms with the nation’s role in the Holocaust. However, it seems odd to try and take the moral high ground over France’s post-colonial history, or Greece’s period of military rule, or Hungary’s building of a secret service state under communism, while failing to acknowledge the scars left by Britain’s own transition to a post-colonial world. Being patriotic and proud should not come at the expense of critically examining the history of one’s nation. This list was compiled from suggestions made by readers. Events are listed chronologically rather than in any implied order of importance. Other notable events suggested for this list by readers included: support for Khmer Rouge, Apartheid, and Pinochet; policies of the Black and Tans and the RUC in Ireland and Northern Ireland; violence towards miners during the 1980s strikes; cover-up over Hillsborough; enforced depopulation of Diego Garcia; failure to take more Jews as refugees from Nazi Germany before the start of the second world war.
The NSA’s stash of digital holes is a threat to everyone online H ere’s a phrase to conjure with: “zero-day vulnerability”. If you’re a non-techie, it will sound either like a meaningless piece of jargon or it’ll have a vaguely sinister ring to it. “Year Zero” was the name chosen by the Khmer Rouge for 1975, the year they seized power in Cambodia and embarked on their genocidal rule. Behind the term lay the idea that “all culture and traditions within a society must be completely destroyed or discarded and a new revolutionary culture must replace it, starting from scratch”. If you run a computer network, though, especially one that hosts sensitive or confidential data, then zero-day vulnerability evokes nightmares and worse. It means that your system has a security hole that nobody, including you, knew about and that someone is now in a position to exploit. And you have no real defence against it. All software has bugs and all networked systems have security holes in them. If you wanted to build a model of our online world out of cheese, you’d need emmental to make it realistic. These holes (vulnerabilities) are constantly being discovered and patched, but the process by which this happens is, inevitably, reactive. Someone discovers a vulnerability, reports it either to the software company that wrote the code or to US-CERT, the United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team. A fix for the vulnerability is then devised and a “patch” is issued by computer security companies such as Kaspersky and/or by software and computer companies. At the receiving end, it is hoped that computer users and network administrators will then install the patch. Some do, but many don’t, alas. It’s a lousy system, but it’s the only one we’ve got. It has two obvious flaws. The first is that the response always lags behind the threat by days, weeks or months, during which the malicious software that exploits the vulnerability is doing its ghastly work. The second is that it is completely dependent on people reporting the vulnerabilities that they have discovered. Zero-day vulnerabilities are the unreported ones. Nowadays, they can be very valuable. Software companies and computer manufacturers offer bounties to those who report them. But they are also traded online in the recesses of the dark web, where the customers include not just affluent criminals but also government agencies. For years, it’s been a reasonable conjecture that intelligence agencies such as the NSA and GCHQ were stockpiling zero-day exploits for use in the wars against cybercrime and global terrorism. Some of these will be vulnerabilities that the spooks themselves have discovered; others will be ones they’ve bought on the black market. After all, if you’re a public official charged with protecting society against these threats, then you would take all available steps to fulfil that mission. The agencies won’t talk about their hoards, for obvious reasons. So up to now all we’ve had are our suspicions. But on 13 August all that changed. A mysterious group calling itself the Shadow Brokers released 300 megabytes of the NSA’s “cyberweapons” stash on the internet. “The people behind the link used casual hacker lingo,” reported Bruce Schneier, a leading computer security expert, “and made a weird, implausible proposal involving holding a bitcoin auction for the rest of the data: ‘!!! Attention government sponsors of cyber warfare and those who profit from it !!!! How much you pay for enemies cyberweapons?’” Nobody knows who these Shadow Brokers are but the stolen material appears to be genuine. In which case, it’s embarrassing for the NSA. What is more interesting, from a democratic point of view is the nature of the zero-day vulnerabilities that have been revealed. For some of them can be exploited not just against enemy states or cybercriminals, but against common internet security systems – Schneier identifies products made by Cisco, Fortinet, Topsec, WatchGuard and Juniper, for example. Why is this important? Simply because it tells us that the NSA knew about vulnerabilities in networking kit on which the internet relies. They should have been reported to US-CERT and fixed, but apparently they weren’t. Which means that in its determination to screw the bad guys, the NSA left all of us vulnerable. Worse still, we wouldn’t have known about it had not a sinister group, possibly Russian in origin, hacked into the NSA’s systems. Just as we wouldn’t know about a lot of other unacceptable practices had not Edward Snowden blown the whistle. This is no way to run democracies in a digital age. Theresa May, please copy.
Aston Villa must keep their claws out beyond rebranding the badge Aston Villa have been resigned to the worst for some time now to the point that, when indicating they would not be rushing to replace Rémi Garde, they expressed a preference for a manager with Championship experience. Yet in one of those ironic twists that tend to go hand in hand with sporting disappointments it has emerged that the club will actually be unprepared next season after all. Long-suffering supporters would hardly be surprised, though this relates to the club’s official badge, not the abject performances on the pitch. Villa have been looking closely at their branding during some of the longueurs that this season has provided and decided, not unreasonably, that the lion rampant introduced by proud Scot and football league pioneer William McGregor in 1878 was no longer projecting the desired level of fearsomeness. It had had its claws removed some years ago for a start, which made it look more like a soft toy than a savage beast, and was fighting a losing battle for space within a shield-shaped badge with Villa’s initials, the star for winning the European Cup, in 1982, and the club motto: Prepared. The last has had to go and it must be admitted the new, reclawed version looks better without it, even if the unfortunate timing led to obvious jokes and hoary allusions to deckchair shuffling aboard the Titanic. “Our badge was not performing as well as it should,” a club spokesman explained, resisting the temptation to add that the first team was not winning any achievement awards either. “In the new version both the lion and the club initials sit larger within the shield.” As Villa’s season has long been destined to end with a whimper rather than a roar there have been few howls of protest so far, though there may yet be if the club persists with its original plan to remove the Prepared motto from the stained glass designs within the stadium. Clubs meddle with their heritage at their peril. Everton fans were mightily displeased a couple of years ago when, following an alleged process of public consultation, the club tried to dispense with its famous Latin motto for similar reasons of brevity. There was no room within the shield they said, what with laurel wreaths, club name, all-important year of formation (14 years before Liverpool) and idiosyncratic depiction of a local bridewell. Even though Everton attempted to soften the blow by plastering Nil Satis Nisi Optimum all over Goodison Park, the people at the people’s club were having none of it. Everton, it was made clear, were somehow incomplete without a motto that began with the word nil and within a season the Latin was back. Why Everton supporters are so attached to a tag that has been majestic in its inappropriateness most seasons since the 60s is a mystery, but attached they certainly are. Villa, likewise, have been anything but prepared for some time, though their fans will possibly forgive the streamlined badge if the club show a similar amount of gumption in their reduced circumstances from next season. The statue of McGregor outside Villa Park’s main entrance, apparently in the process of suggesting to other clubs that some sort of regular fixture list might be a good idea, is a reminder that the Premier League is about to lose a major player. Stained glass windows in the Trinity Road stand are another. Villa, like Everton, are founder members of the Football League. Villa Park, like Goodison, was a venue in the 1966 World Cup. Villa are a big, big club by English standards, and Birmingham is far too large a city to have no direct representation in the top flight. Yet then again, so is Sheffield. So is Leeds. So, dare one say it, is the Newcastle-Sunderland axis in the north-east. It was widely feared when the Premier League came into existence that it would soon come to be dominated by big city teams in major population centres. This never really happened, although it remains the case that 22 of the 23 titles so far decided have ended up in London or Manchester. With Leicester sitting on top of the table and Bournemouth and Watford both thriving after promotion the Premier League is arguably more diverse and accessible than ever, though that does not mean it can afford to wave goodbye to both north-east clubs at once or such a grand place to spend a Saturday afternoon as Villa Park. One fears for Villa in particular because, unlike the half dozen teams immediately above them, they have no recent experience of relegation. Despite increasingly thin returns in the last few seasons they have remained in the Premier League since its inception in 1992 and many have remarked already that, on the basis of their inability to compete this season, they are likely to struggle in the Championship too. They stand to lose a lot of money by not being around in the top flight when the new television deal kicks in. Nor is their owner, Randy Lerner, going to find it any easier selling the club once Premier League status is lost. But Villa really need to take a long view now. It should not be imagined that rejoining the elite will be easy, instant or possibly even achievable with the present group of players, although few Villa supporters will be labouring under any of those delusions. Nor will Championship football necessarily provide breathing space for the players or morale-boosting wins to cheer up the fans. That seemed to be the mistake Wigan made when they went down after eight years in the Premier League and before they knew it were in League One. Villa must keep hold of long-term prospects such as André Green, a 17-year-old already attracting interest from rivals, and move out most of the bigger name players who have under-performed so badly. It is tricky but selling the club itself remains trickiest of all. Villa need a new owner to provide drive and direction and are trying to smarten up their act to present themselves to potential buyers in the best light. Hence the recent additions at boardroom level. Hence, it turns out, the badge redesign. Titter all you like but do not say no one at the club is making an effort.
Boris Johnson's five EU questions: where does remain camp stand? In a speech on Monday, Boris Johnson laid out five questions he said leave campaigners must ask those wishing to remain in the EU. This is where the in campaign stands on those questions. 1) How can you possibly control EU migration into this country? This is the most difficult question for the remain camp because there is no way to fully control EU migration when you have freedom of movement between member states. David Cameron’s answer is usually that he secured the right to limit benefits for migrants, so that EU citizens are only incentivised to come to the UK for work. But he also argues that coming out of the EU will not control migration either because the UK will need access to the single market, which goes hand in hand with freedom of movement. The Brexit campaign has countered this by claiming the UK could survive outside of the single market altogether and therefore would not be bound by free movement. Leaving aside the economic consequences of not being part of the single market, this leaves the remain camp unable to claim that there is no difference between their positions and without an answer about how they would implement tougher border control, apart from discouraging those that might want to claim benefits. 2) The living wage is an excellent policy, but how will you stop it being a big pull factor for uncontrolled EU migration, given that it is far higher than minimum wages in other EU countries? Senior figures in the remain camp appear to accept that they will not be able to stop EU migrants coming to the UK for work, with Cameron openly admitting that wages are a pull factor. Their strategy is therefore to try to talk about immigration as little as possible. Responding to the Brexit camp’s claims that the “national living wage” would be a magnet for migrants, the Britain Stronger in Europe group tried to bat away the question, claiming the out campaigners had an “inherent antipathy to using the clout of government to raise wages for the very lowest paid”. One of the few remain figures to have been asked the question directly is David Gauke, the Treasury minister, who dismissed the idea that it would have much effect. He said he did not think it would increase migration, adding: “I think you have to put it in the context of what else we are doing as a government, including the changes to in-work benefits.” The Treasury has also pointed out that 40% of EU migrants are under 25 and therefore would not benefit straight away from the higher national living wage. 3) How will you prevent the European court of justice from interfering further in immigration, asylum, human rights, and all kinds of matters which have nothing to do with the so-called single market? This is an issue that tends to obsess hardcore Eurosceptics rather than the average voter. People might have a vague idea that EU courts overrule British ones and that the UK could not deport Abu Qatada (in fact that was related to the European court of human rights in Strasbourg, which is not an EU institution). But most are unlikely to have in-depth knowledge about the workings of the Luxembourg court that rules on matters of EU law. Again, the strategy of the remain side has been to largely ignore the issue, while it concentrates on talking about the economy. But it has also made arguments that the ECJ is a good thing, rather than a threat to sovereignty. Briefings from the Stronger In campaign highlight rulings from the ECJ that have benefited the UK. It is still possible though that Cameron might try to address the “sovereignty question” before or just after the referendum is over, possibly through a new law to make clear the UK parliament is supreme over EU law, but this has not materialised yet. This idea of a sovereignty bill was first floated by Johnson before he became a fully signed-up member of the Brexit camp and Cameron has sounded sympathetic to it at some stages , saying in February: “I am keen to do even more to put it beyond doubt that this House of Commons is sovereign.” 4) Why did you give up the UK veto on further moves towards a fiscal and political union? This is another issue that has failed to get much traction outside Eurosceptic circles. The Vote Leave campaign claims that Cameron’s deal with the EU has given up a crucial veto on integration among the eurozone countries, with the wording saying the UK “shall not impede the implementation of legal acts directly linked to the functioning of the euro area”. Chris Grayling, the leader of the Commons, claims this means the UK has “seemingly given up” its right to veto new treaties that will transfer more money and more power to European institutions. However, the remain camp strongly rejects that this is even an issue, saying: “The UK maintains its right to veto a new treaty – the claim that we have given up a veto is completely untrue.” 5) How can you stop us from being dragged in, and from being made to pay? This is basically a restatement of the previous question. The remain camp argues the veto still stands, so it will not be part of any closer integration and therefore the UK cannot be made to pay more without agreeing. It says the “European Union Act 2011 makes sure that no powers can be handed to Brussels without the explicit consent of the British people in a referendum”.
Brexit is a case our conflicted PM shouldn’t have taken on People in high places have been shocked by the ignorance of the leading Brexiters, who are embarked on a course which threatens, unless they are thwarted by our sovereign parliament, to bring this country to a sorry state. It is astonishing that in the early days after that fateful day of 23 June it had to be explained to the leading Brexiters what exactly a customs union was! This reminds me of the occasion a few years ago when my old friend Lord Lawson and I were invited to address a conference of high-powered lawyers and accountants on the subject of Europe at a resort in Portugal, our oldest ally. We were on different sides of the argument about our membership, but we both gave the audience a historical perspective from our own vantage points. It later became apparent that many of the intelligent members of the audience were grateful for the history lesson because, as they confessed, they knew little about the origins of the EU, not least the way it was designed to bring previously warring nations together in the hope of achieving a lasting peace by linking them economically. Given what I have gathered about the ignorance of Brexiters concerning the exact nature of a customs union, I should like to take the opportunity this week to recommend to interested readers a most accessible guide to all things European. It is called The Routledge Guide to the European Union, and the authors, Dick Leonard and Robert Taylor, have long experience of the EU. One thing I have noticed during the so-called debate about Brexit is that the customs union and the single market are often confused. Leonard and Taylor are worth quoting on this subject. They point out that, when the original six (Germany, France, Italy and the Benelux countries) started the ball rolling with the European Economic Community in 1958, “the common market (or customs union) created by the six included internal free trade whereby goods made in one country moved duty-free to the others”, while the same external tariff was fixed for each member country “so that imports from outside the EEC paid duty in the country of arrival and could circulate freely to other member states thereafter”. This was achieved step by step and was finally realised in 1968. The single market came much later. As they explain: “By the 1980s, tariffs were long gone. But it had become clear that many unforeseen obstacles were preventing companies and individuals enjoying the full benefits of liberalisation ... complex frontier formalities, different national regulations, standards and testing procedures, plus divergent excise duties and VAT rates, and other so-called non-tariff barriers hampered cross-border trade and the free movement of workers and other citizens.” Much of the work on the single market was done by the late Arthur Cockfield, a Conservative peer, with the enthusiastic backing of one Margaret Thatcher, whose close confidant Charles Powell, now Lord Powell of Bayswater, recently assured us that he had no doubt that the Iron Lady would have been a Remainer. Which brings us to the person who, as I write, is still our current prime minister, but who is besieged on all sides and has fallen out with her chancellor, whose private advice must surely be: “Don’t do it!” Now, I did not get where I am today without learning from my barrister wife that advocates should not take on a case if they are “conflicted”. Well, thanks to someone at Goldman Sachs leaking a transcript of a pre-referendum talk she gave, we now have overwhelming evidence that May is conflicted up to her neck. The prime minister who has since been taken prisoner by the Brexiters told investment bankers on 26 May: “We shouldn’t be voting to recreate the past, we should be voting for what is right for the future ... the UK needs to lead in Europe.” Well, you don’t lead an institution by leaving it. We know that the European Union has all sorts of problems, but the danger is that a Brexit would aggravate them, as well as being destructive to ourselves. In a timely article the former Austrian finance minister, Hannes Androsch, points out that, notwithstanding all the obvious flaws, “it is forgotten that Europe, especially the EU, is a veritable success story, as this continent has never before experienced a period such as the past seven decades of democracy, peace and prosperity”. May should listen to her chancellor on the risks she is taking when the economy is already struggling with serious balance of payments and budgetary problems – just think of all the lost revenue and export potential if crucial manufacturing and financial institutions relocate! Obfuscatory deals with Nissan – and how many others to come? – sound like panic stations. But she should also take Polonius’s advice and to her own self be true. As it becomes more obvious that, by a narrow margin, the British referendum voters made a mistake, she should refer the situation to a parliamentary vote. We already know, from a recent British Election Study panel, that 6% of those of who voted Leave now regret their decision, compared with only 1% of regrets among those who voted Remain. It would be good that Tony Blair is rallying to the cause, if it were not for – but let us not go there. Move on? Certainly. Back to the EU.
Healthcare staff, tell us your experiences of working at Christmas For many healthcare professionals, working over Christmas is a given. The thought of working at this time of year can be galling for many but, as Dr Jenny Hughes wrote, it can be the most uplifting time to work. Teams of staff can pull together and bond over boxes of chocolates on the ward and canteen Christmas dinners. And the odd Christmas miracle may happen, be it the birth of a baby, saving someone’s life or even just being there to listen. Are you a healthcare professional who has worked at Christmas? We want to hear about it. What have been your memorable moments? What’s the atmosphere like? How did you feel working over the festive season? Have you witnessed or been part of any Christmas miracles? Please fill in the form below and tell us your experiences of working at Christmas. A selection of responses will be used in our reporting. You can remain anonymous if you wish.
Man dies at Mexican teenager's birthday party that went viral A man was killed and another injured at a birthday party for a 15-year-old Mexican girl that become an internet sensation after more than a million people accepted her father’s invitation to attend. In December, Cresencio Ibarra, from the central Mexican state of San Luis Potosí, inadvertently invited “everybody” to his daughter Rubi’s coming of age, or quinceañera, party. “There will be a [horse race] with 10,000 pesos (£400), as for second and third places, we’ll work that out,” he said in a video that a local photographer posted on Facebook. Ibarra then added: “Everyone is cordially invited.” Despite dozens of mocking internet memes and hundreds of thousands of gleeful acceptances, the party went ahead on Monday, with thousands of people turning up. Although state police and Red Cross workers kept an eye on proceedings, a local man died after being trampled by his own horse, which was taking part in the traditional amateur race, or chiva. Police had warned the crowds to stay clear of the race as there were no fences to protect them, but the man appears to have stepped out in front of his horse and died soon afterwards. Another man was reported to have been injured. Several hundred guests had arrived by Monday morning for an outdoor mass, but the number swelled as the day progressed so that by evening there were thousands and the event resembled a rock concert. Family members had to open a path for the girl through dozens of reporters and photographers snapping her picture so she could reach the mass. A large billboard saying, “Welcome to my 15th birthday party”, with Rubi’s picture towered over the tents and tables filled with food. People had travelled from far and wide to attend the party and to sample their host’s generosity. “I came to see if they would give me a dress for my granddaughter for her 15th birthday in May,” said Victoriano Obregón, who had come all the way from the northern state of Coahuila. After the video emerged three weeks ago, Rubi’s mother explained that her husband had only been referring to everyone in the neighbouring communities, not the world, but by then the video had been picked up dozens of times on YouTube and had been seen by millions, sparking tributes by music stars, jokes and offers of sponsorship by companies. Mexican airline Interjet published a promotion offering 30% discounts on flights to San Luis Potosi, under the slogan: “Are you going to Rubi’s party?” Internet users published mocked-up photos of troops of turkeys, diggers stirring giant cauldrons of soup and massive crowds “heading for Rubi’s party”. The actor Gael García Bernal made a parody video of the invitation, while the Mexican singer Luis Antonio López “El Mimoso” composed a song for Rubi. She even received an offer to appear on the soap opera The Rose of Guadalupe. Sergio Octavio Contreras, a communications professor at La Salle-Bajío University in Mexico, said the saga was an example “of how the internet amplifies and makes hyper-transparent people’s personal lives and how traditional media look for stories on social networks to bring in new audiences”. The Ibarras’ neighbours, meanwhile, hope the fascination with the quinceañera will endure beyond the festivities and bring money and improvements to the poor community, where there is a mescal distillery but people are pleading for mobile phone coverage. “More than anything, this can bring attention to us … so people can see the unemployment,” said Rutilio Ibarra, a local resident.
Arsenal’s Arsène Wenger: eight or nine teams could win Premier League title Arsène Wenger has hailed the impact of Leicester City’s Premier League victory and has said that as many as “eight or nine” teams have the chance of winning this year’s title. Speaking before a challenging opening fixture against Liverpool on Sunday, the Arsenal manager said that he was confident of improving on last season’s second place. “Last season Leicester created a big surprise and it can be repeated, for Leicester or another team,” he said. “Eight or nine teams can pretend to win [the league]. We finished second last season so we want to skip one place. In the last three years we’ve finished fourth, third and second. Now we want to move on again, and that’s what we need to focus on.” Perhaps not unexpectedly Wenger went on to express “surprise” at the continuing rise in transfer spending by the Premier League’s top clubs. “It was difficult to imagine five or 10 years ago but the success of the Premier League has made it possible,” he said. “Price normally depends on the talent of the player, the expected strengthening they bring to your squad, and age and resale value. But we are also in a competition as well, so if someone offers £40m for a player, you have to pay £45m.” Arsenal remain typically quiet in the transfer market, despite the long-term injuries suffered by two key defenders, Per Mertesacker and Gabriel. Wenger confirmed that he expects the Brazilian to be out of action for six to eight weeks. He said he had no information on the Gunners’ rumoured pursuit of the German international defender Shkodran Mustafi of Valencia. Instead Wenger preferred to talk up the qualities of the players already in his squad. “I have a few options as you’ve seen in pre-season,” he said. “The players available at the moment are quite young but they’re keen to do it.” Rob Holding, the 20-year-old defender acquired for £2m from Bolton this summer, may be in line for a start against Jürgen Klopp’s side. Wenger said: “He has played in the Championship, which is good experience. Now he has to deal with one level higher.”
Maria McCormack obituary My friend Maria McCormack, who has died of pneumonia aged 61, spent much of her life as a dedicated companion of rock musicians. Her outgoing character and hedonistic lifestyle led her to befriend musicians such as Wilko Johnson (Dr Feelgood), Phil Lynott (Thin Lizzy), Lemmy (Motorhead) and Glen Matlock (Sex Pistols) as well as the painter Edward Bell, who was known for his David Bowie album covers. In the early 1970s in London, at the Speakeasy and the newly opened Dingwalls Dancehall, Maria – frequently in cahoots with her brother Michael – got to know many key figures from the worlds of music and the underground press, including the publisher, poet and philanthropist Felix Dennis. Felix was quick to spot the commercial potential of Kung Fu, and Maria joined him in late-night drives around London, selling his new Bruce Lee magazine to people in cinema queues. At one point she was simultaneously working as a librarian in High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire and as a dancer at the Windmill Theatre in Soho. She also played bass in an all-female rock band, Sleek. Her fellow dancer and Sleek founder, Voyna Crofts, once said of Maria: “She was so lovely, talented and gorgeous, she could do anything she wanted.” Maria was born in Sydney in Australia, where her parents, John, a Geordie career soldier, and Sarah (nee Hone), a housewife from Northern Ireland, had emigrated from the UK. The family soon returned home and Maria spent most of her early years in Newcastle, County Down, where, as a natural tomboy, she happily wandered the Mourne Mountains. When the Troubles began to take hold in Northern Ireland (her uncle was John Hume, leader of the SDLP), the family moved to England, settling in Wembley in north-west London. After attending Sacred Heart school in Wealdstone, Maria worked in town planning, but by 1973 the lure of music and musicians had proved irresistible. Spinal Tap’s dictum of “have a good time, all the time” certainly applied to Maria, and over the next decade she immersed herself in the world of rock’n’roll. By 1987, however, she had met John Perry, guitarist in the band the Only Ones, and they became long-term partners. Having met John, Maria went into higher education and gained a degree in social sciences from Royal Holloway and Bedford New College, University of London (now Royal Holloway, London). She then became a medical secretary at St Charles hospital in Ladbroke Grove, west London. In recent years, however, the after-effects of her earlier wild lifestyle, coupled with undiagnosed coeliac disease, meant that Maria was unwell for much of the time, and dependent on John’s steadfast support. On the rare occasions she could be persuaded out she was still good company – entertaining, generous and kind-hearted. She is survived by John and by her three brothers, Gerard, John and Michael.
Reggae, riots and record shops – a brief history of Bristol's music scene BBC Radio 6 Music decamps to Bristol this weekend for its third 6 Music festival. It’s a city with a fantastic musical heritage, one that perfectly encapsulates the alternative spirit that is the station’s beating heart. For my regular Saturday afternoon 6 Music show, I recently took a day trip out west to find out more about the history of Bristol’s underground music scene, tracing the influence of reggae and dub to post-punk, electro, hip-hop, trip-hop, jungle, drum’n’bass and dubstep, right through to today’s bass music. The city has produced fascinating musical acts beyond this continuum, but for me, the sounds that have emerged through Bristol’s omnipresent sound-system culture are the most exciting. I have a personal connection with Bristol that stretches back to the mid-80s, just as my DJing career was getting started. I got one of my first bookings outside London playing the Thekla (a boat that’s still moored in Bristol’s docks), and meeting many kindred spirits that evening, including Grant Marshall, who would later become Daddy G of Massive Attack, confirmed to me that the city’s music scene was unique. But before my experiences of the city, music had long played a crucial role for the inhabitants of Bristol, as I heard from speaking with Jabulani of Black Roots, a Bristol reggae band who formed in 1979. I learned about the city’s slave-town history, which brought in a large Caribbean community, and how through music Jabulani and his bandmates were able to confront lack of opportunities and isolation, providing an outlet for their creativity, as well as an unexpected career path. A new discovery for me on my visit to Bristol was the post-punk vigour of Mark Stewart from the Pop Group. A larger than life character, he was empowered by the DIY punk aesthetic of the Clash and the free-jazz of Sun Ra while growing up as a sound-boy in St Paul’s. By combining punk and jazz with the reggae influences heard on the local sound systems and dub imports in the city’s many record shops, the Pop Group produced a unique post-punk sound that would take them to New York, Tokyo and beyond. As a side note, Bristol still brims with quality record shops, such as underground specialists Idle Hands, the Centre for Better Grooves (where I found a pre-release copy of the Pop Group’s debut album, with cover letter and in-sleeve photography intact), as well as Rise and John Stapleton’s Wanted Records. The legendary Revolver is now defunct, but during the trip I had the opportunity to talk with Richard King, ex-employee of the store and author of Original Rockers, about the shop’s history, and hear about Revolver’s role in the city’s musical development. In attempting to describe what created Bristol’s sound, King recalled the stop and search or “sus” law, which, alongside other factors, led to the St Paul’s riot in 1980 and was repealed in 1981. Partly as a result of this disturbance, new rules were introduced that allowed the St Paul’s community to self-police. The sound systems were then free to continue all night, with rolling bass lines undulating through to daybreak. Economic difficulties of the time meant there were plenty of empty buildings in which to throw parties, so unlike other cities that had strictly regulated hours, Bristol incubated an all-night sound-system culture that was free to develop organically and without restriction. For King, that late-late-night vibe of a darkened dance floor is central to the Bristol sound. With the arrival of US electro and early hip-hop imports in the early 80s, together with an increasingly racially integrated community, the Bristol sound-systems became more and more eclectic. The emergence of the Wild Bunch sound system would soon birth Massive Attack, who, alongside Portishead, would ensure global trip-hop domination throughout the 90s and beyond. Visiting Geoff Barrow (of Portishead and Beak) at his central Bristol Invada Studios, he explained that the city’s size might also contribute to the eclecticism of Bristol music. Bristol is simply not big enough for bands of different scenes to stay sheltered within their own niches, and so influences are shared and perspectives altered. Before catching the train back to London, I managed to fit in a final visit with an old friend, drum-and-bass icon Roni Size who – alongside DJ Krust – presents Full Cycle at the 6 Music festival. Appropriately, he lives a stone’s throw from Jabulani’s front door in St Andrews, where I’d started the day. This acted as a useful reminder of how interconnected the Bristol scene is; many generations, all bound by a shared sound-system upbringing, infused with that punk DIY attitude … each left to discover their own musical paths, rising up from the fertile Bristolian soil. It’s a small city with a huge musical legacy. The 6 Music festival in Bristol is from 12-14 February. Gilles Peterson’s show is Saturdays, 3-6pm on BBC Radio 6 Music.
Guinea eyes official end of polio outbreak but bigger challenge remains for Africa Life on an informal gold mine is hard for any child. In Guinea, it means searching through piles of dark earth for glittering particles from a young age, going hungry if the family has no luck that day, and surviving violent attacks by other miners or the authorities. For Lounceny, a dark-eyed boy who has spent the first four years of his life watching his mother look for gold in Kintinian in the country’s north-east, life is harder. He caught polio when he was two. “It started with a wound on his foot,” says Lounceny’s grandmother, Sita Aidara, touching her frightened grandson’s shoulder as he sits on a wooden bench beside her, trying to keep him calm. “He started complaining about his leg – then it spread to the other one.” She took him to a clinic 20 miles away, where it was confirmed that he had become one of the few children in Africa to contract polio. There was little they could do for him, and now Lounceny cannot walk. His family has to carry him to the mines, where he sits on a mat all day as they search. On Thursday, Africa was set to celebrate two years with no new cases of wild polio, a major step on the way to consigning cases like Lounceny’s to the past. However, the global fight to eradicate the disease suffered a blow when two new cases were found in Nigeria. Globally, hundreds of thousands of children used to become paralysed as a result of polio every year, before vaccines were developed in the 1950s and 1960s. While it was almost eliminated in rich countries, the problem endured in poorer states. The Global Polio Eradication Initiative, set up in 1988 by Rotary International, the World Health Organisation (WHO), Unicef and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), has now almost managed to eradicate the disease. When Nigeria marked two years without any new cases last month, Afghanistan and Pakistan were thought to be the last countries in the world left where polio is endemic. However, Nigeria’s celebrations were premature. The WHO said the strain of polio discovered there is most closely linked to one last seen in Borno in 2011. The two children have become paralysed. Nigeria’s minister of health, Isaac Adewole, put the latest occurrence down to the “insurgents’ eclipse”, referring to the fact that the terrorist group Boko Haram controlled large swathes of territory in Borno state, where the polio cases were found. Health workers could not get there and vaccinate children for months. “Mr President himself, when we had a meeting last week, observed that as we liberate more areas, we should expect challenges,” Adewole told Nigerian media. “But we did not expect that there would be polio. We were expecting nutrition and other problems. “It wasn’t that we were not doing the job. A chunk of the state was out of reach, and we couldn’t reach children there.” Nigeria had appeared to be losing the battle against the disease, with some states banning all vaccines in 2003 amid suspicions about their safety. There were also several attacks on people administering vaccines. However, an immunisation campaign led by the CDC vastly improved the situation. Africa needs three years with no new cases to be declared officially polio-free. The Nigeria outbreak resets the clock. Guinea, one of the poorest countries in Africa, ranked 182nd out of the 188 countries in the UN’s 2015 human development index, had its last big outbreak of wild polio in 2009, when there were 41 cases. But a new outbreak of vaccine-derived polio hit in September 2015, after the crippling Ebola outbreak that diverted all Guinea’s healthcare efforts. Seven children under five contracted the virus in the eastern region of Kankan. “At that moment the Ebola outbreak hit, so we couldn’t do anything,” said Souley Lalibou, leader of the WHO’s polio response in Guinea. “While Ebola was happening, everything else stopped.” As soon as they could, the WHO, Unicef and the government launched a campaign to stamp it out. In two weeks, Lalibou will find out whether their efforts paid off and Guinea’s polio outbreak is officially over. “There are probably more cases out there that we don’t know about, but I don’t think there are any wild cases,” Lalibou said. Vaccine-derived polio is easier to control than wild polio, but the effect on a child’s life is the same. Lounceny only had one dose of the polio vaccine. Aidara wished she had known the risk to her grandson, as she would have tried to get him the 20 miles to the clinic for his second dose. “His mother was in the mines, trying to earn money so we could eat. We didn’t know he could get polio,” she said. As it is, the whole family struggles to survive at the same time as looking after a child with disabilities. “The problem we have is that if you don’t carry him, he can’t move,” Aidara said. “You always have to help him. Taking care of him and looking for gold don’t go together. I’m really worried about his future – I don’t know what it will be like.”
Beyoncé's Lemonade album explained, from beginner to 'Beyhive' By now, as a person who breathes oxygen and sometimes does so while browsing the internet, you will know that Beyoncé has put out a new album, Lemonade. A week after its release, that may well be all you know. Don’t worry. The tens of thousands of words on the subject may have led you to believe otherwise, but it’s not too late to catch up, even if you last remember Beyoncé looking so crazy right now in denim shorts. (Which was, er, 13 years ago.) Here’s what you need to know to get through the coming days – possibly weeks – of Lemonade analysis, broken down by your level of interest, commitment or nigh-on total lack of either. Entry level: you are aware there is a musician and public figure “Beyoncé” Lemonade is Beyoncé’s sixth album: 12 tracks, accompanied by an hour-long film, which premiered in the United States on Saturday on HBO. It is available only on the streaming service Tidal or for purchase through iTunes. It will likely be on Apple Music and Spotify in time, but for now you’re best off signing up for a free Tidal trial. Released with next to no advance warning, Lemonade is said to have “disrupted” the “album cycle”, but Beyoncé first did this in 2013 when she put out 14 songs, each with its own video, with not even so much as a “save the date”. It’s more accurate to say that there is no album cycle. But when Beyoncé is walking down a street demolishing parked cars with a baseball bat, you’re not going to be talking about that at the pub. As you’ll have likely heard, Lemonade is about infidelity. In Don’t Hurt Yourself, she throws her wedding ring at the camera while snarling a “final warning”: “If you try that shit again, you’re going to lose your wife.” It’s heavy stuff, made amusing by the myriad resultant memes of her husband, the rapper-mogul Jay Z, looking stricken. But his appearance with their daughter, Blue Ivy, at the end of the film – and the softening tone of its latter half – suggests Lemonade is not a critically acclaimed divorce announcement. Rather more poignantly, it’s about the experience of black women, “the most disrespected person in America”, to quote Beyoncé quoting Malcolm X in the feature film. The title is drawn from Jay Z’s grandmother, who is shown in the film at her 90th birthday party: “I was given lemons and I made lemonade.” Now that we find ourselves at the intersection of the tabloids concerned with whether or not Jay Z cheated and, if so, with whom, and the “writerly” press close-reading the lyrics, you can stop reading and still seem informed on the subject if – when – it crops up at the weekend. But if you fear being pushed further into the Beyhive – the name given to “the Queen’s” fanbase – and coming up short, read on. Level one: you can broadly approximate the Single Ladies dance As recently as 2013, Beyoncé was telling Vogue she “guesses” she is a feminist because she “believes in equality”. A year later, she performed at the MTV Music awards in front of “FEMINIST” in lights. Just as sampling Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s TED talk established Beyoncé’s credentials as a public feminist, her Superbowl Halftime Show – when she sang about her “negro nose with Jackson 5 nostrils”, flanked by dancers wearing Black Panther berets, concluding with a Black Power salute – signalled a newly politicised chapter of her career. (Her performance of the song Formation at the Superbowl prompted a protest against the musician and the NFL – which she’s referenced in her new merchandise line. “Your best revenge is your paper,” as its lyric goes.) Beyoncé’s “going all political” comes much to the dismay of Piers Morgan, who reminisced in a column in the Daily Mail about a simpler time when the pair of them enjoyed scones. Honestly, you don’t need a link – the title (“Jay Z’s not the only one who needs to be nervous about Beyonce, the born-again black woman with a political mission”) is enough. Level two: you coughed up for tickets to the Mrs Carter world tour and one item of merchandise Lemonade the film is far more explicitly about race – and specifically, the experience of black women – than the music it accompanies. At about 60 minutes long, it’s more a short feature than a music video in terms of production and vision (Variety reports that HBO will submit it for Emmy consideration). It features the work of British-Somali poet Warsan Shire; the mothers of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown and Eric Garner, holding photographs of their dead sons; and cameos from Serena Williams and a number of young, black celebrities, such as Zendaya, Amandla Stenberg and Quvenzhané Wallis. Its impact was clear from the response on Twitter, where the #LEMONADE hashtag was fuelled by expressions of joy and almost gobsmacked disbelief at such a high-profile piece of art made by black women, for black women. Before the hashtag was co-opted by brands and spam, Twitter users who were not black women were encouraged to listen. This prompted some grumbling about “not being allowed” to talk about Lemonade, particularly from men – who might not have felt moved to comment on a Beyoncé album at all, had they not been told that what they said didn’t matter. “White people can recognise things in Lemonade and take those parts for themselves, while recognising they are not the audience,” one Twitter user said. “Just like black women have been doing with most pop culture for years.” Level three: you have seen the HBO Beyoncé-produced “documentary” about Beyoncé, Life is but a Dream The attention Beyoncé notoriously pays to her image (GQ reports she has every existing photograph of herself in a climate-controlled storage facility in her office; she reportedly has a rule about never appearing under blue light) is often dismissed as “diva” behaviour. This is partly because of stereotypes about powerful women and partly because of a song in which Beyoncé said she was a diva nearly 40 times. Either way, you don’t get to be the biggest pop star in the world by not paying attention to what’s being said about you – and Beyoncé knows just how much to give away. For someone who has given only a handful of interviews since 2013, who is known to be intensely protective of her private life, we sure know a lot about it. She revealed her marriage at an album listening party; she announced her pregnancy on stage at the 2011 MTV Music Awards. When Lemonade seems to offer an unfettered view into her personal life, it’s possible – even prudent – to wonder what’s being obscured. Its apparent authenticity is its selling point, writes Pitchfork’s senior editor Jillian Mapes – “but there’s a quality to it that also invites skepticism: that desire to basically art-direct your own sobbing self-portrait”. Who is “Becky with the good hair”, cited by Beyoncé as “the other woman” in Sorry – fashion designer Rachel Roy? Rita Ora? Does she even exist? Did Jay Z cheat on Beyoncé? Is their marriage a contractual agreement quantified in guest verses, public appearances, and world tours? Could Blue Ivy be a hologram? The suggestion that Jay Z and Beyoncé came up with the album’s narrative together appeals, if only because of the imagined dinner-table conversations chez Carter-Knowles. But as Mapes concludes – “who cares what’s ‘real’”. With Lemonade’s penultimate track, All Night Long, Beyoncé seems to be giving the go-ahead to their union – whatever its terms may be. Master level: you’re a fully paid-up member of the Beyhive The critical thought prompted by Lemonade is only a fraction of that which Beyoncé’s evidently put in. Her earlier albums, even the broadly excellent 4, prompted nowhere near as much discussion, simply because there was less to say – you don’t see anyone smashing out 1,200-word breakdowns of Sweet Dreams (2008). In Formation, released in January, she sings about “hot sauce in her bag” and having mutually gratifying sex with her husband; three months later, in Lemonade, the baseball bat with which she’s venting about his infidelity is discreetly labelled “Hot Sauce”. With Beyoncé, you can never be sure what’s the gun that’s going to be let off in the second act. And that’s what makes her work – her career – so rewarding to consider. Commenters may disagree – but you’re still reading, aren’t you?
Keith Emerson's playing was in stark contrast to my troglodyte brutality When a concert by Keith Emerson was announced as part of last year’s Barbican Moog Concordance series (alongside unlikely programme mates Suicide and Charlemagne Palestine), promising the maestro presiding over a towering modular synth rig and a Wagnerian-scale orchestra, I did not hesitate to secure a ringside seat. Keith Emerson – with his bandmates Greg Lake and Carl Palmer in prog-rock pioneers Emerson, Lake and Palmer – was in an elite class of stars that dominated 70s arenas. Unlike many of their celebrated contemporaries, however, ELP, an almost unimaginably huge attraction four decades ago, are these days nearly forgotten, roundly denounced or conspicuously overlooked. Often cast as the epitome of everything the punk revolution railed against, the trio’s epic, virtuosity-driven music was the antithesis of the nuts-and-bolts, three-chord, garage-inspired rock I’d hear while hanging out at CBGBs. ELP’s superhuman musicianship couldn’t have been in starker contrast to the minimalist troglodyte brutality of my bass playing in Teenage Jesus and the Jerks. I’d been introduced to Emerson’s flamboyant and aggressive approach to keyboards long before his groundbreaking synthesiser work with ELP. His over-the-top performances with the psychedelic band the Nice in the late 60s were the stuff of legend. When he wasn’t busy burning the American flag on stage, he would resort to various abuses of his Hammond organ – dry humping it, knifing the keys with a Nazi dagger (a present from Lemmy, apparently), and generally shaking, heaving and bashing the thing. These antics were a psychotic step beyond anything Little Richard or Jerry Lee Lewis had done, and to my adolescent mind as thrilling and dangerous as anything Iggy or Alice Cooper were getting up to. For his unique way with a keyboard, Emerson is for ever enshrined in my mind; and he anticipated legions of keyboard abusers, from Suicide’s Martin Rev to Moby to Trent Reznor. However, the music Emerson concocted in ELP’s heyday is more difficult to come to grips with than his stage antics. My teenage struggles to assemble a joint on the gatefold sleeve of their album Tarkus were nothing compared with my struggles to comprehend the rambling superabundance of that album’s musical content. Tarkus’s cyber-mutant cartoon monster and his adversaries were easy to sneer at, but the music was simply too complex and ambitious and played with far too much prowess for me to dismiss. The rock critic Lester Bangs once charged Emerson, Lake and Palmer with war crimes, and certainly the band are synonymous with prog’s worst profligacies. Yet I have come round to finding more musical merit in them now than I ever could before. I’m not one of those who exalt rock’s native “simplicity”, who claim how much more authentic such efforts are and who regard efforts to intellectualise rock as misguided. I’m more intrigued by rock musicians who overreached, and by the uncomfortable intersections of intellectual intent and popular music they came up with. ELP are the quintessence of highfalutin artistic aspirations mixed with technical exuberance, propped up by every whim rock stardom can muster. They embody the dizzying heights, sublime accomplishments and abysmal pretensions of such an approach. For all its excesses, Trilogy stands as their pinnacle album to my mind, coming closest to capturing the classical-rock fusion that was the band’s mission. With original material composed mostly by Emerson (with lyrics by Lake) carefully and intricately modelled on western classical forms such as the fugue, bolero and the symphonic poem, it is infused with hyperactive martial futurism. There are a few catchy tunes to be had here, but for the most part the maddening, sprawling tonal discontinuity of Trilogy, with its constantly modulating key changes and perversely disruptive rhythms, is a challenge to the casual listener. Yet if they can hang in for the tumultuous ride, even a casual listener can discern an inner coherence to this ambitious album. Whatever you think of Emerson’s music, not only was he a serious, committed artist, an innovator and mammoth talent at his instrument, he also seemed to have a great time doing it all. • James Sclavunos is a producer, longtime member of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds and a no wave pioneer.
Would public autopsies help us be more open about death? In 1937, at the Great Lakes Exposition in Cleveland, Ohio, spectators were able to view the organs of a standing plastic female known as the Camp transparent woman. She was so named after being purchased in Europe, in 1936, by SH Camp who was president of Camp Corsets in Jackson, Michigan; manufacturers of “scientific corsets”. He surmised that this model of a woman, with see-through skin and visible viscera, would be a good promotional tool for women wearing and purchasing corsets to learn about their own anatomy – but in effect she was an anatomical tool for anyone who saw her. In fact, these life-size models went on to be mass-produced on a smaller scale from around 1960, and were known as the visible man and the visible woman. They could be assembled by whoever purchased them and the main difference between the man and the woman is that, of course, there was an extra “pregnancy pack” for the woman so that she could be depicted with foetus in utero. What Camp and the manufacturers of the visible man and woman may not have known is that they were continuing in a long tradition of simulated dissection, first seen in the 18th century with the advent of wax anatomical models. The Anatomical Venus is the most well known (and she too was often depicted with a tiny foetus curled up in her womb), but there were male versions too, and the concept behind them was to present students – and the public – with an idea of their own anatomy without the ethical and sensory difficulties of real cadavers, which were scarce and of course prone to releasing terrible odours and succumbing to decomposition. It was not only wax that was used for these simulacra: earlier versions were carved from wood or ivory, and later on, in around 1827, Louis Auzoux even fashioned incredible anatomical models from papier-mache. Their purpose seems obvious: anatomical models are realistic didactic tools that lack the “unpleasantness” of real decedents. But are they realistic enough? With the advent of “virtual autopsy tables” rather than genuine cadavers in some anatomy labs, and new methods of digital autopsy in place of real yet invasive postmortem examinations, one might think we were going down a very similar road – but the reality is they can only be used in conjunction with real anatomical specimens, particularly when training. After all, if you see a version of Botticelli’s Venus in a book can you say you have really seen it? Is it the same as standing right in front of the original at the Uffizi gallery in Florence? I began to consider this topic recently, as I worked on a production in which one of the props, a prosthetic cadaver, was created with a slash across the forehead. When I questioned this, I was told: “That’s how you remove the brain at autopsy, isn’t it?” No! No we don’t do that at all – we don’t like to leave our patients with Frankenstein’s monster-style gashes on their faces, sewn or stapled together like Halloween costumes. I had to talk the crew through the whole process, from the importance of the external examination to the fact that it tends to be us, the anatomical pathology technologists (APTs), who eviscerate the deceased and hand the organs over to the pathologist who examines everything in exactly the same order, every time. The APT then carries on with the dissection of the head to allow the pathologist to examine the brain, and ultimately the APT reconstructs the deceased so that no one would realise an autopsy had even been carried out. It’s all done with the utmost respect. Sometimes very small amounts of tissue will need to be retained for toxicological or histological examination, and in those circumstances the pathologist must obtain consent from the coroner (if it’s a coronial postmortem) or the family (if it’s an autopsy specifically being done at their request or for teaching students). As an APT, I often find myself answering questions about the procedure I trained for years to carry out. What do we do with the organs once they’re removed? Is it true the patient is disfigured after a postmortem examination or can they be viewed? Is it really spooky in the mortuary and have I ever seen a ghost? Part of me would like to allow the public to see the procedure for themselves in real life and understand that an autopsy suite is as clean and respectful as an operating theatre. I’d like there to be a transparency about how “death professionals” deal with the dead – whether it’s in funeral homes, postmortem rooms or dissection labs, to see the whole process just as they could see into those dissectible models of old. But the other part of me wonders if, as a culture, many people would ever want to see this. Could the general public, many of whom have had real death so sanitised for so long, bear to watch the evisceration of their deceased loved one? Would it be helpful to view the process, to dispel fear, or would it be a traumatic and horrible multisensory experience? We are leaning towards more open dissections for non-medics, as started by Edinburgh University in March 2015, and I have previously discussed the reasons I feel we need to experience the reality of death rather than the sanitised versions we see in TV crime dramas or are involved in when we play certain computer games. Although some photographers such as Sue Fox and Cathrine Ertmann have attempted to illustrate the reality of the autopsy room, it isn’t the same as being there yourself. As I write my book, Past Mortems (due for 2017 release), and describe the procedures and cases I’ve worked on, I have to be careful how much detail I go into, for reasons of privacy and ethics. Yet I’m trying my best to describe what goes on behind the mortuary doors so that there is more understanding of what can seem like a horrifying procedure to the general public. Do I think that people should be allowed to come in and view autopsies of their deceased loved ones? Do I think perhaps there should be a tick box on a body donation form to state that the deceased is happy for anyone in the general public to see their autopsy carried out? Do I think we should open the mortuary doors and stop hiding what goes on behind them: is it better to keep it a secret or do people actually want to know? My answer is a resounding … I don’t know, but I’d love to know your thoughts.
Mel Gibson hurls insult at Batman v Superman Over the weekend at the Venice film festival, Mel Gibson launched an attack on comic-book movies, comparing their protagonists unfavourably with the real-life hero in his new movie, Hacksaw Ridge. “The difference between a real superhero and a comic-book superhero,” said Gibson, “is that real superheroes didn’t wear any Spandex.” And on Tuesday, Gibson renewed his campaign against the stretchy stuff in an interview with Deadline, repeating his quote and adding: “Spandex must cost a lot.” Gibson had one particular film in his cross hairs: the critically unloved Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, which he called “a piece of shit”. The film arose in conversation when Gibson compared its budget with the more modest spend on Hacksaw Ridge. The director said that he looked at $200m movies “and scratch my head. I’m really baffled by it. I think there’s a lot of waste, but maybe if I did one of those things with the green screens I’d find out different. “It seems to me that you could do it for less … You’re spending outrageous amounts of money, $180m or more, I don’t know how you make it back after the taxman gets you, and after you give half to the exhibitors.”
Watch your step: a less beaten path may be more favorable for Americans abroad Money talks, and players and clubs often listen. If sirens seduced Odysseus with a song, then the pounds of the Premier League have led many Americans to crash upon the British coast. Yet the recent renaissance of Mexican players in Europe shows a second path beyond the bright lights of the EPL and La Liga. To the surprise of many, this past winter defender Matt Miazga left the New York Red Bulls for Chelsea and a modest fee. However, England may not be so welcoming. Balding goalkeepers, Clint Dempsey, and Geoff Cameron aside, how many Americans have struggled in the Premier League? In seasons with Hull City and Sunderland, Jozy Altidore played in plenty of games, but only scored a handful of goals. US fans would rather forget Michael Bradley’s short stint with Aston Villa. Yes, Miazga has received a life-changing wage bump, but will his career stall like so many others? If DeAndre Yedlin is any hint, the answer is a resounding “likely.” Which is why more Americans should follow the path of top Mexican players who have rebuilt their careers in European leagues other than Spain and England. For example, Andres Guardado left Valencia to shine in Germany and then remake himself as a holding midfielder in Holland. Most recently, Javier Hernandez said adios to the bench of Manchester United and has turned into a goalscoring machine for Bayer Leverkusen. While Memo Ochoa rots on the pine at Spanish club Malaga, he must fondly recall his time in France at Ajaccio. Raul Jimenez, Hector Herrera and Miguel Layun have all basked in the sunnier Portuguese climate as well. If Iberia is not your thing, recall the European stints of DeMarcus Beasley, Jozy Altidore and Michael Bradley: all three arguably peaked in Holland. Aron Johansson also enjoyed his time in the Netherlands, and has failed to find similar success for Werder Bremen. Yes, of course, Eredivisie defenses are paper-thin and have turned the likes of Alfonso Alves into all stars. On the other hand, though, the Dutch league’s attacking and technical play can do wonders for a player’s growth and confidence. Toss in some Champions League football and suddenly life at one of the bigger clubs can be a good fit. Just ask Guardado. Now, some may argue that a big club like Chelsea can and probably will loan out young starlets like Miazga to teams in less demanding leagues. The problem with these loans (and no option to buy) is they put a player in a weak spot. First, the new club has not paid a transfer fee and thus the coach feels less pressure from the top to give the new guy a proper run out. Second, a player leaving at season’s end can struggle to win over teammates and fans due to questions of loyalty. Yes, a budding star who can immediately contribute will get games and minutes, but a guy or gal on the bubble will probably not get the benefit of the doubt. Freddy Adu was perpetually on loan after signing for Benfica. The less said about Eddie Johnson’s time at Fulham, the better. Ditto thus far for DeAndre. Lots of great players have cut their teeth outside of England and Spain. Both Romario and (Brazilian) Ronaldo found their feet in Holland, and Ronaldinho left Brazil for France, not immediate La Liga glory. Americans have even found success in Belgium: Gooch Onyewu’s spell at Standard Liege and Sacha Kljestan’s time with Anderlecht spring to mind. So why have so few Americans tried their luck in France and Belgium, especially when Charlie Davies was tearing up Ligue Un before his accident? Yes, passports, visas, and work authorization are a barrier. Also, perhaps agents may not have established connections. However, many Americans gravitate to the EPL for the same reason Mexicans have tried and flopped in La Liga: a shared tongue. Yet that cultural comfort has not always translated to success on the field. If South Americans can adapt to the harsh winters and Cyrillic script languages of Russia and Ukraine, then Americans can and should be flexible. And perhaps even a bit adventurous. Professional success can help make a very different foreign country at least feel more welcoming. While it’s true that Freddy Adu failed at Benfica and Juan Agudelo struggled in the Eredivisie, other factors were at play. Adu has since admitted to lacking the requisite professional dedication at the time, while Agudelo only went to Holland after his application for work permit for Stoke was rejected. That’s not an ideal start. Of course, MLS is now a more appealing option for players looking to rebound after a bad EPL spell. The expanding DP rule and new spend-happy MLS owners means wages at the top have gone up. There’s also a premium for USMNT players. Brek Shea has regained his confidence at Orlando City, and, many years ago, both Francisco Fonseca and Omar Bravo returned to Mexico after aborted stints on the Iberian peninsula. Still, could those players have thrived at a different club in a different European league? Maybe. While counterfactual debates are fun because there’s no right answer, players shouldn’t hesitate to look beyond the EPL and even La Liga when plotting a path abroad. One doesn’t have to start a climb and reach the summit the same day. Other leagues would be a softer landing spot. For now, US fans hope Miazga’s career does not mirror that of promising Mexican Ulises Plascencia. After several years of being loaned by Chelsea to different clubs, he returned home to Liga MX dispirited and disillusioned. The Eredivisie and Ligue 1 may lack the wages and bright lights of the Barclays Premiership, but ultimately be a better destination.
'Fearful' national security officials prepare for major shift in US policy A US intelligence officer operating in a dangerous part of the world prepared this week for Donald Trump’s presidency by making a pact with a colleague: they resolved to disobey any order to commit torture. The two officers’ pledge reflects a wider debate within the national security bureaucracy, as some officials – concerned by Trump’s authoritarian inclinations – debate whether to quit in protest at his electoral victory or to remain at their post in the hope of checking impulses they consider dangerous. During his election campaign, the president-elect mooted a string of controversial measures, any one of which would signify a major shift in US policy: reviving the use of torture, targeting the families of terrorism suspects, mass deportations, a ban on Muslims entering the US, expanding domestic surveillance, the indefinite detention of American terror suspects, bombing “the shit” out of the Islamic State. Officials in the US military, intelligence services, diplomatic corps and federal law enforcement have told the that Trump’s suggestions represent such a departure from the norms of American governance that they are contemplating internal resistance or a career change. One source said he was “fearful” of Trump in a way he has never been of an American national security figure, out of concern that Trump does not understand the “tertiary consequences” of decision-making on a global stage. Speaking anonymously for fear of reprisal, all the officials interviewed by the cautioned that they spoke only for themselves. Some said their anxiety over Trump was not shared by co-workers, particularly younger ones, who appreciate what one called Trump’s “bluntness”. Surveys of the US military show substantial support for Trump, which also exists within the FBI. The federal immigration agents’ union endorsed Trump. Other officials said they believed that the realities of office would force Trump to moderate his positions, or expressed confidence that the national security bureaucracy was sufficiently resilient to check presidential overreach. While Congress passed a law in 2015 designed to prevent a return to CIA torture, human rights activists have long observed that torture was illegal before 9/11. But several wondered if they would be able to serve in a Trump administration –particularly if instructed to transgress moral or legal boundaries meant to protect civil rights and liberties. The public faces of national policy are the cabinet secretaries, agency chiefs and their immediate deputies. Below them are the political appointees who comprise the senior ranks of government. Their choices are made for them during inauguration and the transition of power: they leave to make room for the picks made by the election’s victor. But those tasked with implementing policy are in no such position. Critical to the functions of the government’s most life-or-death enterprises, they are formally apolitical and provide expertise and continuity across administrations. Several of those who spoke to the described themselves as reeling from an electoral outcome they did not anticipate and the imminent arrival of a president they considered manifestly unqualified. “For those who expected Hillary to win, it’s shock and awe, so to speak,” one US official said. Career security officials said that they were considering entrenching themselves in positions where they can serve as a check on Trump – either through direct advice to superiors or through the bureaucratic obstruction that features in every administration. There, they would be able to rally allies in other agencies and on Capitol Hill. Some drew encouragement from the bipartisan opposition to Trump over national security that featured in the campaign. In the course of the campaign, dozens of national security and foreign policy officials from former Republican administrations pledged in open letters or public statements that they would not serve under Trump. In August, 50 Republican foreign policy and national security officials signed an open letter warning that Trump “would be the most reckless president in American history”. However, one of them, Philip Zelikow, who served in both Bush administrations, said he did not believe the Trump team would ultimately have difficulty filling administration posts in foreign policy and national security. “I don’t think they will have any trouble at all. I can personally identify a great deal of people who will be available – some of whom I respect professionally,” Zelikow said, but he added: “I hope [the Trump team] don’t make some of the unfortunate choices that will be offered to them.” As counselor to secretary of state Condoleezza Rice from 2005 to 2007, Zelikow was an internal critic of the conduct of the Iraq war and the treatment of suspected terrorist captives in an increasingly divided Bush administration. “There are a large number of officials from Bush 43 [George W Bush’s administration] who will have no problem serving,” he said. “They will choose people from one side of that divide – the side of the administration that tended to align with the more nationalist, more unilateralist figures in that administration.” Attitudes on such bureaucratic slow-walking vary by the observer’s politics. Rightwingers seethed at the state department’s opposition to the invasion of Iraq under Bush. Leftwingers did the same when the Pentagon obstructed the closure of Guantánamo Bay under Barack Obama. Yet outreach to career security officials is a key component of civil libertarian groups’ plan to constrain Trump. Human rights activists spent Obama’s presidency warning the White House that it was institutionalizing mass surveillance, drone strikes, indefinite detention and expanded executive power – all tools that risked disaster in the hands of a reckless successor. Almost as soon as Trump was elected, they began planning their response. Trump and his senior aides “may not care about human rights, but there are people at OSD who do”, said John Sifton of Human Rights Watch, referring to the Office of the Secretary of Defense. “The pilots don’t want to blow up children.” Human Rights Watch and its allies are planning to press Obama to take steps in the twilight of his presidency designed to constrain his successor. They seek to urge Obama to issue security-related memoranda defining acts that constitute torture or sharply stipulating what secret programs require congressional notification. While Trump is free to repeal a predecessor’s executive action, the memo would create encumbrances or embarrassments for his administration’s legal staff should it emerge that he abrogated their bounds. Such constraints, however imperfect, could add to what experts believe is a coming “power struggle” between traditionalist and Trumpian camps on foreign policy. “There is going to be a power struggle within the Republican party between his camp and many of the mainstream foreign policy experts and officials. They will try to make the case that he should have a more mainstream foreign policy, and they may offer to come in to help run it,” said Thomas Wright, the director of the project on international order and strategy at the Brookings Institution. “The big early test in Trump’s transition will be whether or not he compromises and goes with those people or whether he sticks with people who have been with him to date and try to implement his worldview.”
London Has Fallen review: Gerard Butler bromance brews as Big Ben blows What a shame the Clash couldn’t modify their famous hit to sing over the opening credits. The great action bromance blossoms afresh between White House security agent Gerard Butler and his boss, the equally buff US president Aaron Eckhart. There’s even a coming-out-of-the-closet gag when the president briefly hides from the bad guys in a closet! Last time, in the film Olympus Has Fallen, Butler gained personal redemption by saving the president’s toned ass when terrorists stormed the White House. Now they’re in London for a state occasion and it all kicks off again, with dozens of tourist landmarks shattered by evil-doers from a country Butler robustly calls “Fuckheadistan” – and they’re using surprisingly cheap-looking digital effects. There is some surreal fun at the beginning as everything collapses, fake police open fire on dignitaries including Germany’s “Chancellor Agnes Bruckner”, and there’s even a Final Destination feel to the way all these heads of state get whacked. Butler and Eckhart realise that security provisions in foreignland mean zilch: they can only rely on themselves, along with a few loyal SAS guys and a pert female MI6 agent. But then it’s the same thing over again, with poor old vice-president Morgan Freeman looking like a stricken deer in the emergency ops room.
Chinese central bank chief hints at more stimulus for slowing economy The head of China’s central bank has dropped a strong hint that Beijing is preparing to launch another round of stimulus as he sought to reassure the financial markets about the country’s flagging economy. China had more room and tools in its monetary policy to tackle downward pressure in the economy, and its fiscal policy would be more proactive, central bank governor Zhou Xiaochuan said on Friday. Zhou, speaking at a conference held by the Institute of International Finance in Shanghai in conjunction with a G20 meeting of central bank governors and finance ministers, also said that the direction of China’s reforms would not change, but that the pace might change. “While the reform direction is clear, managing the reform pace will need windows (of opportunity) and conditions ... The pace will vary, but the reform will be set to continue and the direction is not changed,” Zhou said in English. At the same time, policy makers need to strike a balance between growth, restructuring and managing risks to the economy. Zhou’s comments helped stock markets rise around Asia with Chinese shares rising strongly a day after falling more than 6%. The Shanghai Composite index was up 0.54% at 3.15am GMT on Friday while the CSI300 index of leading Shanghai and Shenzhen shares was up 0.78%. In Japan the falling cost of fuel kept inflation at 0%, well below the central bank’s target of 2% and highlighting the daunting task policymakers face in attempting to lift Japan out of stagnation. However, the Nikkei rose 1.2% helped by gains on Wall Street and the ASX/S&P200 in Australia was up 0.2%. In a bid to end speculation about a possible devaluation of the yuan, Zhou added that there was no basis for persistent depreciation of China’s yuan and that foreign reserves would be kept at “adequate” levels. Later he said that the world was overly concerned about the state of China’s $3 trillion foreign reserves and whether it could protect the yuan from increasing capital flight. But Angus Nicholson of online trader IG said that Zhou’s comments were contradictory because any monetary easing would increase pressure on the yuan and therefore foreign reserves. “While all of these statements are reassuring to the market, only two out of three of those statements can be true in the long term,” Nicholson said. “If there is further monetary policy easing, the pressure for further yuan depreciation will sap foreign reserves if the currency isn’t allowed to weaken. “While China has the means to pause the exchange rate at current levels for a few months, once FX reserves drop below US$3 trillion, it is only a matter of time before a major one-off devaluation becomes the best course of action.” But as global financial markets continued to fret about the real state of China’s economy – IMF chief Christine Lagarde told delegates that the country faced an “overwhelming” structural reform agenda – the bank said in a later statement that its economic fundamentals remained sound and there were signs of demand picking up again. China has cut interest rates six times since November 2014 in an effort to stimulate its economy which last year grew at its slowest rate for 25 years. Although the last of those rate cuts was in October, Beijing has resorted to a variety of other methods to encourage growth and expand credit, including by increasing bank liquidity and massaging reserve requirements. Mark Carney, governor of the Bank of England, told delegates in Shanghai that the G20 had failed to do enough to boost global growth and he rejected suggestions that central banks had run out of options to respond to continued slow growth. “Several commentators are peddling the myth that monetary policy is ‘out of ammunition’. This is wrong, but the widespread absence of global price pressures demands that our firepower be well aimed,” Carney said. The Bank of Japan recently joined the European Central Bank, the Danish central bank, the Swedish Riksbank and the Swiss National Bank in cutting rates to below zero to rescue their economies from deflation and the prospect of recession.
Xherdan Shaqiri strikes for Stoke City as Newcastle United feel the chill Warm weather training in Spain is possibly not the ideal preparation for sub-Arctic conditions in Stoke but Newcastle United were coping with the chill factor until Xherdan Shaqiri struck 10 minutes from time to turn up the heat on Steve McClaren. An unerring swing of Shaqiri’s left boot lifted Stoke above Chelsea and Southampton in the table and left Newcastle stuck in the bottom three, looking on with envy as their relegation rivals Swansea won at Arsenal to move six points above the drop zone. A draw would not have been an injustice on a night when driving, icy winds made football difficult, as it was not one of Stoke’s more impressive performances and the travelling supporters must have left wondering when conditions will favour a Newcastle recovery if a fortnight off could not do the trick. Bournemouth at home on Saturday presents an obvious opportunity but anything less than a win will spell trouble. “It’s still in our hands, Saturday becomes huge for us now,” said McClaren. “We have talked about becoming harder to beat and we started that process tonight.” More controversially the Newcastle manager said he thought he detected improvement in his side, though it turned out he was basing that assessment on the abject performance in the last game at Chelsea. This was such a scrappy, squally game it was obvious the first goal or moment of skill might settle it and so it proved, even though the breakthrough took 80 minutes to arrive. Shaqiri turned up in the middle instead of marauding down the right and beat a statuesque Rob Elliot from a good couple of yards outside the area with a crisp shot the goalkeeper evidently did not see coming. The first half had been a largely featureless affair, notable only for the two shirtless cheerleaders among Newcastle’s support giving in to the cold and getting dressed after 15 minutes, and the quality of Shaqiri’s crosses into Newcastle’s penalty area. Had there been anyone of similar quality on the end of them the game might not have gone so long without a goal but they all eluded Jon Walters and no other Stoke players ever got near enough. Newcastle were even less ambitious, content mostly to admire Stoke’s neat build-ups and keep them at bay on the edge of their area. Jonjo Shelvey brought a save from Jack Butland as early as the fifth minute, though the shot was tame in the extreme and neither Newcastle nor their captain managed much else on target in the first 45 minutes. Not that Stoke’s shot count was much more impressive. For all the cultured touches shown by Ibrahim Afellay and Marko Arnautovic, the main threat was always Shaqiri, who forced a save from Elliot when he grew tired of crossing and cut inside for a shot. Newcastle’s hesitant approach was neatly summed up when Georginio Wijnaldum played Moussa Sissoko through on goal on the stroke of the interval. A more confident striker might have made more of the opportunity or at least managed a shot. Sissoko did not react sharply enough and allowed the American Geoff Cameron to check back and dispossess him. After Cameron wasted an overlap opportunity with a feeble cross into Elliot’s arms, Mark Hughes made an overdue substitution and sent on Peter Crouch. If ever there was a night for a direct approach this was it, though it was Shaqiri who went straight for goal, cutting out the new target man. Newcastle might have pulled a goal back in the closing minutes but for a superb reaction save from Butland to keep out Seydou Doumbia’s shot, before Arnautovic ended the match by hitting Elliot’s bar. “Butland is becoming a bit of a curse for us, he made four magnificent saves at St James Park and now he has cost us a deserved point,” McClaren said afterwards. Hughes did not quite see it that way. “Over the course of a season an outstanding keeper earns you points,” the Stoke manager said. “Jack is doing exactly that and it is the sign of a great keeper still to be able to react after not having much to do for most of the game.”
Uganda's failure to spend Global Fund grants denies thousands HIV treatment The lives of hundreds of thousands of people are being put at risk by Uganda’s poor management of health spending, a report finds. An audit by the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria, published on Friday, said millions of dollars remained unspent even though drug shortages were common in health centres. For a country often pleading limited resources for providing decent healthcare, the findings suggest that a big part of the problem could be paucity of smart governance. Since 2002, the fund has signed grants worth $1bn (£715m) to Uganda, of which $623m has been disbursed. About 90% of the money goes on buying drugs and other health commodities. Last November, fund officials audited facilities to establish whether there was prompt delivery of quality drugs and supplies, accurate data to aid decision-making, and robust internal controls to minimise theft and waste. Auditors found drugs had been stolen, health workers were using expired kits to test for HIV, condoms supposed to be distributed free of charge were being sold. They also found acute shortages of key drugs and suspicious discrepancies between inventory figures and actual stocks. “Seventy per cent of the 50 health facilities visited during the audit reported stock-outs of at least one critical medicine, with HIV drugs being the most affected of the three diseases,” the audit says. “Furthermore, 54% of the health facilities visited had accumulated expired medicines.” The ailing condition of the public healthcare system was one of the talking points during campaigning for last month’s general election, which were controversially won by President Yoweri Museveni. After opposition politicians were photographed in run down, understaffed, underfunded and underequipped health centres, the electoral commission banned politicians from the facilities. Police were often deployed to ensure no opposition visited hospitals to disturb patients. Activists have routinely complained about the underfunding of Uganda’s health sector, to which just 5.3% of the budget is devoted – far below the 15% that the government committed to allocate to health under the Abuja declaration. Since late last year, there has been an acute shortage of antiretroviral drugs in government facilities. But while stories of drugs expiring in medical stores are not uncommon, news that the government has failed to use funding for Aids, malaria and TB will upset many. “While the country lacks adequate funding to cover key activities, it has a low absorption of the limited grant funds that are sent to the country,” the report says. “The OIG [the Global Fund’s office of the inspector general] noted that only 46% of funds disbursed to the ministry of finance between January 2013 and June 2015 had been spent at the time of the audit.” One programme to procure food packs for patients with multi-drug-resistant TB, started in 2012, had neither bought nor distributed any packs as of last November. A major indictment of the government relates to Global Fund grants. The grants come through the finance ministry to the ministry of health, which acts as the principal implementer. But auditors have accused health ministry managers of not prioritising grant management, implementing agreed upon steps, or regularly attending high-level meetings where lingering problems are discussed. Uganda’s reputation as a country on the frontline of the fight against HIV and Aids took its first major battering in 2005, when the fund suspended all grants amid reports money was being stolen with impunity. Although grants were restored after governance reforms, each subsequent review has raised worrying queries. After the 2005 scandal, a judicial inquiry was set up and some people were jailed for stealing fund money. They included a former government spy who set up a bogus organisation to siphon off money – which led a judge to compare him to “a mass murderer”. Among other recommendations, the audit proposed that the government presents a plan to improve administration of the grants, and convenes a review to establish the number of people who will need HIV and Aids treatment. However, civil society groups said in a statement released on Sunday that the recommendations made by the report were not far-reaching enough to trigger fundamental change. “In some cases the problems that the OIG describes have been with the ministry of health for years,” said Joshua Wamboga, executive director of the Uganda National Aids Services Organisations. “Meanwhile, Ugandans with HIV are suffering entirely preventable stock-outs of medicines. The current situation is completely untenable – there is no leadership, no action, no accountability and no sign that government is taking these problems seriously.” They recommended the ministry of health should be replaced as the main implementer of fund programmes, and that the government should double financing for HIV treatment to 200bn shillings (£42.7m) in the budget due in June. Professor Vinand Nantulya, who recently resigned as chairman of the Global Fund country coordinating mechanism, would not comment because he had not yet read the report. Jim Mugunga, a spokesman for the Ugandan finance ministry, clarified that the financial management of the grants was the responsibility of the health ministry, but gave a cool response to calls by activists to replace the health ministry as the implementer of programmes. “There is never a perfect system,” said Mugunga. “The ministry of health is not static but must improve as the restructuring and human resource enhancements are implemented. This is an ongoing process.” Rukia Nakamatte, a spokeswoman for the ministry of health, said: “If a mother is pregnant and this mother is put on option B drug, it takes nine months. We are not going to give all these drugs to a mother immediately she conceives. It’s a process. “But we are very sure that by the time we come to June 2016, we shall have absorbed all the money.” This article was amended on 4 March 2016 to add statements from the Ugandan finance and health ministries that were received after publication.
Tottenham edge out Middlesbrough as in-form Son Heung-min hits double Tottenham have begun this season as they played much of the last. All talk of a potential hangover from the latter days of the previous campaign can surely be eviscerated after a fourth Premier League win, and another stellar display from Son Heung-min, maintained their unbeaten start. Mauricio Pochettino’s side outclassed Middlesbrough before a significant week that includes a trip to CSKA Moscow and home game against Manchester City. They have conceded three times in the league and with Son in a patch of deep purple concerns about the length of Harry Kane’s potential absence are perhaps not so pressing. Kane injured an ankle against Sunderland and was not in the squad here, missing his fourth league game since the start of the 2014-15 season, but Spurs were as potent in attack as ever. Son’s two goals were brilliantly taken – even if Boro’s defending was tame – and although the introduction of Adama Traoré improved things for Aitor Karanka’s side, they were comprehensively outplayed. For Son, a player who came close to leaving in the summer, it is quite a turnaround. Pochettino said: “It’s fantastic for him. He’s a player that works hard and is a nice guy. In football, if you work hard you get the payback. “For all players who come from outside England it’s difficult – the Premier League is one of the toughest in the world. To settle here is a very difficult thing. After one year and the summer, today it’s a different situation for him. He’s more mature and is settled fantastically now.” The first half was one of the worst played by Middlesbrough here for some time. Karanka sat in his seat, hand planted on face, while his team struggled to string a pass together and looked vulnerable every time Spurs attacked. Granted, Tottenham were impressively slick, but their progress was made simpler by Boro’s ragtag defending which, at one stage, prompted the goalkeeper Victor Valdés to exchange heated words with his team-mate Adam Clayton. It was Son’s half. The South Korean now has four Premier League goals this season after two at Stoke – as many as in the entire 2015-16 campaign – and was equally dangerous as a provider and a finisher. Both goals, however, emerged following weak defending. In the seventh minute Christian Eriksen played the ball into Vincent Janssen’s feet and, with his back to goal, the striker laid it off to Son. There was still work to be done, but he skipped inside two limp challenges before finishing low with his left foot. Karanka said: “It’s frustrating for me to be working seven days to try to show them how Tottenham play, how good they are. After seven days working with the video, you go to the pitch and seven minutes later you are losing 1-0. “The worst thing, and most frustrating thing for me, is the attitude, especially in the first half because in the second half we were completely different. The first half was awful.” Soon, it was two. On this occasion, the defending was even worse – Antonio Barragán and Cristhian Stuani got in an almighty muddle inside the penalty area near the byline, but Son still had work to do. The 24-year-old muscled back on the ball and curled a delightful shot past Valdés and into the goalkeeper’s top-left corner. Karanka had to do something about his team’s malaise and duly replaced Álvaro Negredo with Jordan Rhodes – a decision greeted with loud applause – and the ineffective Gastón Ramírez with Traoré in the 58th minute. It was the impetus that the home team required and, out of nothing, they pulled one back, Ben Gibson outjumping Victor Wanyama to head in Stewart Downing’s free-kick from the left. The Riverside was rocking momentarily, but it proved irrelevant. Spurs remained calm as tempers rose to secure another victory and consolidate their position at the top end of the Premier League.
M83: 'Tangerine Dream are the reason I’m obsessed with synthesisers' M83’s music tends to inspire some creative description: “Imax electro-pop”, “post-acid-house shoegazing” and “a signature post-rock sound for the masses” are phrases that have all been used. Here Anthony Gonzalez talks about his favourite five electronic albums, the power of krautrock and the importance of having a very cool older brother. Brian Eno: Ambient 1 – Music for Airports When I feel a bit blue and tired, I put this on and just relax. It puts me to bed. Here Come the Warm Jets is more pop, but this is more subtle and minimalist, which is what I prefer from Eno. The first time I heard it, I was in Paris at my ex-manager’s apartment. I was maybe 20 or 21 – we used to go to his apartment and just listen to music because he had an amazing record collection. I fell in love with the album and the way Eno plays with different frequencies and atmospheres. It’s a very simple album, but very grand. I always felt lucky, because my brother and my manager taught me music and told me what to listen to; when you’re young, you don’t know. The older I get, the more I have a tendency to go back to the influences and bands I was listening to as a kid. It’s like going back to the roots and reconnecting with myself. There’s memory and meaning attached to these records. Ashra: New Age of Earth My brother made me a cassette and put Radiohead on one side and New Age of Earth [by Manuel Göttsching, the former leader of seminal krautrock band Ash Ra Tempel, recording as Ashra] on the other. When the Ashra album started, I thought it was the new Radiohead album, Kid A. It made sense in a way, and I told myself: “Wow, Radiohead really went crazy on this new album.” In the end, I felt Kid A was something like Ashra, very organic and pure in the synth sound and the production. It made sense for me to put both albums on the same cassette – the perfect cassette. They’re 25 years apart, but they have something in common. In the mid-70s, it must have been nearly impossible to have made this album because everything is sequenced and precise. It has an oceanic quality to it: it’s always expanding and doing crazy things with the audio waves. Tangerine Dream: Phaedra My brother’s bedroom was separate from the house, so he had more privacy. Every Friday night, he would go to sleep at his friend’s house and would leave me his room. I’d invite a couple of my friends over and we’d watch crazy films and listen to crazy music. That was an amazing time, because we discovered so many bands and so many films. My brother would leave out a couple of VHS tapes for us to watch and a couple of CDs for us to listen to. We watched a lot of B-movies and kitsch horror films, but also a lot of Alejandro Jodorowsky’s movies such as The Holy Mountain and El Topo, plus sci-fi such as Dune. Music-wise, there was Steve Reich, Phillip Glass, Sonic Youth, and soundtracks such as Ennio Morricone and Goblin. We discovered so much through these Friday-night parties. I remember falling asleep listening to Phaedra, a little stoned and being completely blown away by the adventure of it. It was taking me to places I had never been before. This album is the reason I’m obsessed with synthesisers. Popol Vuh: Aguirre, the Wrath of God soundtrack Popol Vuh’s music is not the kind of music you expect to be in a movie like this, about the conquistadors in South America, but it takes the film to another dimension: it’s just pads and weird melodies, and it’s super spacey. It’s haunting, just as haunting as Klaus Kinski, who is amazing in this film. It’s uncomfortable to watch because the whole thing feels so real, but that’s the beauty of Werner Herzog’s film. Ambient is what I listen to the most. What I listen to is quiet and subtle and not grand at all. It’s just more minimal. Music is my job and I listen to music a lot every day and sometimes you just want to relax, so you just put on some ambient and classical. Henryk Górecki: Symphony No 3 (AKA Symphony of Sorrowful Songs) OK, so this isn’t actually an electronic album, but there are a lot of common points between Górecki’s music and mine. It’s epic. You listen to it and it feels like your speakers are going to explode. To me, it sounds like big synthesisers because the composer makes the orchestra play so loud. I was doing promo for Before the Dawn Heals Us [M83’s 2005 album] and a guy on my Parisian label told me about this symphony. I had no idea who Górecki was. He goes from something very subtle that you can barely hear to a big build-up that makes everything explode. That’s why I put him in this electronic selection; Górecki has the power of the bass, the power of the sub you have in electronic music, except it’s all orchestral. It’s really what my recipe is: I like to build up from something quiet to something huge and almost unbearable. It’s really what I’m known for – being very cinematic. As told to Lanre Bakare M83 plays the Glastonbury festival on 25 June, Manchester O2 Ritz on 26 June, Glasgow O2 ABC on 26 June and Latitude on 17 July. The album Junk is out now on Naive.
Lowest-paid workers to receive smaller pay rises, says thinktank Millions of workers on the national living wage are set for smaller than expected pay rises by the end of the decade after the EU referendum, according to a thinktank. The “national living wage” introduced by the chancellor, George Osborne, is set to rise more slowly because it is linked to average worker earnings, which are now expected to come under pressure following the referendum. The real-terms value of the wage by 2020 could be up to 40p an hour lower than the £8.31 predicted before the EU vote, according to the report by the Resolution Foundation. The minimum pay rate of £7.20 an hour for over-25s was introduced by Osborne in April after he said: “Britain deserves a pay rise.” The rate is designed to gradually increase over the next four years and initial estimates had suggested it could reach £9 an hour by 2020. But the thinktank found there is increasing uncertainty about the outlook for earnings. This will have a major knock-on effect on the national living wage, it says. The national living wage aims to reach 60% of a typical (over-25) worker’s hourly wage by 2020. The Resolution Foundation expects 4.5 million employees to benefit from the national living wage in 2016, rising to 6 million – or 23% of all employees – in 2020. However, wage growth has stalled recently, with analysts citing a number of reasons. These include a lack of job-to-job moves and employer reluctance to increase pay while inflation is so low and the economic outlook is unclear. Conor D’Arcy, a policy analyst at the Resolution Foundation, said: “Brexit is likely to reshape the landscape in which many low-paying sectors operate.” According to an Ipsos Mori poll carried out for the thinktank, one in seven firms have already cut jobs, reduced staff hours or slowed recruitment after the national living wage’s introduction in April. About 35% of the 500 businesses polled said their wage bill had increased as a result of the wage. Of those businesses affected, 36% responded by increasing prices and 29% by taking lower profits. The Resolution Foundation said such short-term responses would have to be replaced by changes in behaviour over the medium-to-long term. One in seven firms have already invested more in training and 12% have spent more on technology to improve productivity. The Resolution Foundation said such approaches are important in making the national living wage a success and tackling the UK’s wider productivity problems. But the survey also found 14% of firms had used fewer workers, offered fewer hours to staff or slowed recruitment. In addition, 8% had reduced other aspects of their staff reward package, such as paid breaks, overtime or bank holiday pay. The survey results counter evidence that high-profile companies, including Tesco, Marks & Spencer and B&Q, clawed back staff benefits after the introduction of the national living wage. D’Arcy said: “Encouragingly, evidence of workers seeing their hours cut or even losing their jobs has so far been relatively limited. The challenge now is for firms to continue to respond positively to the national living wage, particularly by raising productivity.”
Siemens freezes new UK wind power investment following Brexit vote Siemens is putting new wind power investment plans in the UK on hold due to uncertainty caused by last week’s Brexit vote, the Germany energy company has told the . A £310m manufacturing hub in Hull that employs 1,000 people will not be affected by the decision, and should still begin producing blades and assembling turbines next year. But Siemens, one of the few firms to openly back a Remain vote, will not be making new investments until the future of the UK’s relationship with Europe becomes clearer. Juergen Maier, the firm’s UK CEO, said that an existing blueprint to export offshore wind turbine machinery from the Hull hub was now up in the air. He said: “Those plans were only beginning to happen and I expect that they will stall until we can work out exactly what the [new government’s] plan is, how we can participate in EU research programmes, and until all the issues around tariffs and trade have been sorted out.” It is unclear how much money the EU gave to the Hull project but it has put up £525m for the Beatrice windfarm project in Scotland, whose developer will be a major buyer of the Hull factory’s turbine blades. The firm also agreed a contract with a Belgian consortia which received a £250m loan from the European Investment Bank for the supply, servicing and maintenance of 42 offshore turbines. Despite this EU support, the people of Hull voted overwhelmingly for Leave in what a local councillor described as “a cry of rage”. Maier called on the government to urgently start negotiations with the wind power sector before formally notifying Brussels of a decision to leave the EU. “We definitely can’t wait until Article 50 has been triggered,” he said. “People will be holding off on major investment decisions and this is why we need to get together as soon as possible and see that a plan is put in place.” Uncertainty over Britain’s political leadership, future access to the internal market and financial volatility buffeting the pound and interest rates are all contributing to a sense of malaise. Many wind investors responded cautiously to the Leave vote, stressing the sound fundamentals of UK climate change laws, and an intent to wait and see how Brexit plays out. A spokesperson for Dong Energy, the single biggest investor in UK offshore wind, said: “We will await clarity over the implications of the vote to leave the European Union. However, we don’t believe that UK energy policy is dependent on EU membership.” Privately though, industry and EU sources expect the vote to have a detrimental effect on the energy union process of linking Europe’s electricity grids so that clean power can be transferred across borders in real-time, without need for storage. “Something is still being baked but it will now be baked without the UK expressly in mind,” a source said. There are also concerns that the EU’s target of a 27% share for renewable energy, averaged across Europe by 2030, could now be too ambitious. The UK has outperformed several EU states in attracting investors, last year taking €26bn - around half of all Europe’s wind energy investment.
Is that a troll under the bridge? No, it’s George Galloway Last weekend I found myself walking along the South Bank near Waterloo when I came across a man pacing up and down in a hat and overcoat, grumbling about the EU. The voice, lightly amplified, was indisputably familiar, but it wasn’t attracting much in the way of attention. I drew closer, not too close – not, you know, eye-contact close – and my suspicions were confirmed: it was George Galloway, ranting like a troll under a bridge. To be fair, the weather had been poor, although it was finally beginning to clear. Had the rain continued, Galloway might have at least expected to attract people interested in sharing the shelter of his bridge. It seemed odd – whatever you think of George Galloway, he’s totally famous – he was on Celebrity Big Brother! If Joey Essex was standing under Waterloo Bridge talking rubbish, people would stop. Perhaps the London mayoral candidate went on to discuss more polarising issues (he’s campaigning to kick Uber drivers out of London) after I left, but his Lexit routine wasn’t doing much to pique the interest of passersby. “The 28 countries of the European Union are a fading bloc,” he said. “They are not where it’s at. They are not rising; they are falling. The Euro project, always doomed in my opinion, has turned into a disaster waiting to happen.” If anything, it seemed like a speech aimed at keeping pedestrians moving. Galloway was strongly in favour of remaining in the EU not all that long ago. It was the Greek financial crisis, he says, that changed his mind. Their democracy, in his eyes, has been subverted by the deal they’ve struck with the EU. Maybe, but that’s an argument for Greece leaving the EU, not Britain. The general drift of Galloway’s speech that day – that the whole European project is on the verge of collapse anyway, so we might as well get out – felt like someone rewarding me for my complacency. In that case, who cares? In, out, whatever. I stayed until I was handed the same leaflet a second time – the implication being that anyone standing in my spot three minutes after I’d arrived was, by definition, someone else. In a weird way, I felt as if I was being moved on. Nothing to see here, sir. Don’t make us give you a third one. Cereal offender The news that a mother trying to control a toddler in mid-tantrum was asked to leave a Manchester branch of John Lewis – allegedly after a complaint – brought back a lot of sweat-inducing memories of my own children in meltdown. I recall a particular trip to Sainsbury’s with the middle one – he was probably 16 months old – when I rashly took exception to his attempt to shred a full box of cereal. The resulting tantrum lasted for 10 excruciating minutes, and in the middle of it I made the mistake of removing the child from the shopping trolley seat to calm him down. Never do this – once a cross toddler is out of the trolley, he’s not going back in. It’s like trying to push a spider into a test tube. I had to carry him round the whole supermarket while he shouted, “Stupid, stupid breakfast!” in my ear. It wasn’t the tantrum I found so embarrassing – just the very public display of my own incompetence. If someone had asked me to leave at that point, I probably would have thanked them for their permission. All I’d need was a signed note for my wife, explaining why I’d come home empty-handed. Noises off The one positive thing to come out of all those tantrums past is a complete immunity to noisy infants. As long as it’s not my child crying, it sounds like music to me, even on aeroplanes. I don’t care how badly behaved your kid is, or how incompetent you are, or whether this is the quiet coach. Come on in. I’m just so grateful that your problem is not my problem.
Global streams of David Bowie's songs on Spotify soar 2,822% after his death It seems fitting that reaction to the death of David Bowie – a digital native in spirit, if not in years – could be measured in spikes and ripples across the internet. When Bowie’s death was announced on his verified Facebook and Twitter accounts on Sunday, the impact was first felt on social media. Data from the social analytics company Max Kelsen showed that more than 6.1m tweets about Bowie had been sent since 10 January. In comparison, about 154,500 tweets were sent about him on his birthday, 8 January, and about 555,100 between 20 November and 14 December before the release of his new album Blackstar and single of the same name. The analysis showed that most of those tweeting about Bowie were 35 or older; 57% were male. Per capita, Irish users were the most active, followed by those from the UK. Global streams of Bowie on Spotify increased by 2,822% following news of his death. That was a smaller percentage increase than for BB King’s music when he died in May (9,800%), for the Everly Brothers on Phil Everly’s death in January 2014 (4,275%) and for Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground after Reed died in October 2013 (3,000%). The difference can perhaps be explained by Bowie’s huge back catalogue and relative popularity in recent years that kept the number of streams consistently high even before his death. Bowie had 4m monthly listeners on Spotify, which rose by 62.5% after news of his death – meaning 2.5m people listened to him on Spotify who had not done so in the previous month. Heroes, from the 1977 album of the same name, was the most popular of Bowie’s songs on the platform in the 24 hours since the news of his death, with streams up 3,630%, in comparison with the daily average. Let’s Dance (1983) was second-most popular with an increase of 3,942%, ahead of Blackstar (up 1,120%) and Lazarus (up 1,084%) – both tracks off his 26th album, Blackstar, released just two days before his death. Life on Mars, from 1971’s Hunky Dory, experienced the biggest increase of the top five, with streams up 4,238%. Bowie occupies all but three of the top 10 spots in iTunes’ UK album chart (Adele, Justin Bieber, and the indomitable Various Artists are hard to shake), and all of the top 10 videos. Zane Lowe began his show on Apple’s global Beats 1 radio station on Monday with the title track from Blackstar, before digging into his favourites from Bowie’s back catalogue, which he remembered discovering in his brother’s record collection. Bowie himself predicted the rise of streaming services – or something like them – more than a decade ago. “Music itself is going to become like running water or electricity,” he told the New York Times in 2003. “The absolute transformation of everything that we ever thought about music will take place within 10 years, and nothing is going to be able to stop it. I see absolutely no point in pretending that it’s not going to happen.” A spike in searches for the word “androgynous” in the Merriam-Webster online dictionary was also attributed to the announcement of Bowie’s death. The word – used to describe Bowie as long back as 1972, and again in his obituary in the New York Times – was continuing to trend on the site on Wednesday, days after his death.
K-pop Party review: JJCC and Boyfriend offer a lesson in painstaking pop Formed by Jackie Chan’s management company, the South Korean boyband JJCC are all razor-sharp cheekbones and architectural hairstyles, dressed in the kind of fashionable get-ups you or I might struggle to put on by ourselves. They’re on stage in front of an enthusiastic crowd of five or six hundred and, at the behest of two cheery MCs, they’re passing around a meat pie. Some of the seven-piece receive the Australian icon with more enthusiasm than others – but they’re all professionals about it. “I’ll eat it after the show,” says Prince Mak, to the dismay of the crowd. “Oh … now?” Now! It’s part of a surreal cultural exchange – west meets east, east eats western meat – going on at the contemporary arts centre Carriageworks tonight. The City of Sydney is celebrating the lunar new year with K-pop Party, featuring the double act of JJCC and the six-piece Boyfriend live in concert and conversation, wrangled by SBS PopAsia. The setting is an odd choice: pop music and parlour games seem out of place at the same wine-and-cheese arts festival venue where I once saw a man play an electric guitar with a Brillo pad (the program said it was a statement about scientific ethics). But K-pop is an multibillion-dollar cultural phenomenon in east and south-east Asia, grossing by Billboard estimates as much as A$4.8bn in the first half of 2012 alone. And while neither group performing tonight rivals the giants of the genre – Big Bang, 2NE1 or Girls’ Generation – Boyfriend in particular has a sizeable following. You can’t argue with bankability. Tickets to K-pop Party started at $70, but $120 got you a “high touch”: a fleeting one-on-one encounter with the “idols” which, going by the enthusiastic posts to Boyfriend’s Australian fan club (“BESTFRIEND”) on Facebook, is a small price to pay. Some started queuing outside Carriageworks in the morning for a start time of 7pm. The music itself is more NSYNC or Backstreet Boys than One Direction; while it’s new to me, it’s not to most of the hundreds here. There’s no overstating K-pop’s popularity in Asia but ever since Psy’s break-out hit, Gangnam Style, in 2012, it has spread to other parts of the world, too – and by no means just among young women. Tonight’s crowd is the most diverse I’ve seen at such a concert, across age, race and gender. By contrast, the tens of thousands at 1D’s Sydney stadium show last year broadly fell into two categories: female fans of up to 25, and their parents. JJCC are the opening act and, as they bound on stage to perform Fire, it’s clear that some of these devout fans know the words, if not what they mean: aside from a couple of songs with English-language choruses (“the roof is on fire!”), the groups mostly sing and rap in Korean. Caught between the two worlds is Henry “Prince” Mak. He grew up in western Sydney and studied music at the University of New South Wales, before moving to China in 2012 to pursue a career in the entertainment industry. He scored a spot in Chan’s upcoming boyband in a talent competition, and with it a strictly regimented schedule – each day begins with a 5.45am wake-up call, before six hours of dancing and “individual talent” practice. “Nothing comes easy,” he told Australia in 2014. “I’m half a planet away from my family, here all by myself. If I was going to slack off, I might as well have stayed in Australia.” This is Prince Mak’s first trip back to Sydney in four years and the first time he has seen his parents in that time. They’re both here tonight, as is his 85-year-old grandmother in a wheelchair. “So please look after her all right, she’s pretty old,” he tells the crowd. Later he invites his mother to join JJCC for their song Be Good, which he performs standing at her side. “Like I said before, it’s been a while since I’ve seen my family – don’t cry,” he tells the crowd, when they make sympathetic noises. “He’s so happy to be home,” explains JJCC’s Eddy. It might just be small talk – as a native English speaker, Prince Mak shoulders the burden of the banter between songs – but he brings up his parents so many times that you have to wonder if the K-pop machine is starting to take its toll. The high-energy, complicated dance moves, the rap breakdowns, the vocal harmonies – it looks like hard work. At the end of each song, each members’ faces are slick as though coated with Vaseline – one passes around paper towels. Much is made of Simon Cowell’s iron rule over his proteges, but One Direction were at least spared choreography. When JJCC launch into a cover of Justin Bieber’s Boyfriend, in not only tuneful harmony but a second language, I’m forced to wonder: is the west asking enough of its pop stars? During the Q&A, JJCC’s SimBa is asked what he’d be doing if he was not an “idol” – the term given to the artists trained, managed and otherwise moulded by South Korean talent agencies for K-pop superstardom. A taxi driver, he says. Another member is called upon for a word of wisdom for aspiring idols. “Just do it!” is his optimistic reply. The crowd has swelled to the best part of a thousand in time for the main act. Boyfriend are “in the top Korean K-pop bands you should know” (The 10 Best Review); according to Wikipedia, they are the first boy band to feature twins. Before the group’s debut in 2011, the twins Jo Youngmin and Jo Kwangmin trained for two years with JYP Entertainment, one of the three biggest K-pop agencies. Tonight both seem distant and uninterested while performing, perhaps unmoved by the comparatively small crowd: Boyfriend has a huge following in South Korea and Japan, and spent the best part of last year on a world tour, which included their first gig in Argentina at a 9,200-person venue. Youngmin spends the entire hour with his earpiece smacking against his collarbone, and does not immediately return to the stage with the rest of the group for the encore. It contrasts with the front-facing, painstaking enthusiasm of JJCC, but after close to five years at the K-pop coalface – and many more besides in the industry – Boyfriend still put on an engaging show. Because how could they not? Two hours of song, dance and “fan service” from performers programmed to entertain – fans couldn’t help but feel they’d had their piece of the pie.
Joan Bakewell criticised for saying eating disorders are due to narcissism Broadcaster Joan Bakewell has apologised after suggesting that growing rates of eating disorders among teenagers are a sign of “narcissism”. In an interview with the Sunday Times, Lady Bakewell, who is chairing the Wellcome book prize judging panel, said she was “alarmed” by the condition in young people but suggested it was a sign of the “overindulgence of our society”. She added that eating disorders do not occur in countries ravaged by poverty or in Syrian refugee camps. Bakewell, 82, said: “I am alarmed by anorexia among young people, which arises presumably because they are preoccupied with being beautiful and healthy and thin. “No one has anorexia in societies where there is not enough food. They do not have anorexia in the camps in Syria. I think it’s possible anorexia could be about narcissism.” She added: “To be unhappy because you are the wrong weight is a sign of the overindulgence of our society, over-introspection, narcissism, really.” After her comments were criticised by eating disorder campaigners she tweeted that she was “deeply sorry”. She wrote: “I have spent 6 hours answering tweets I did not expect the ST to quote my views on anorexia ... and am full of regret that my reported views have caused distress. I am deeply sorry.” She added: “I am tired now and taking a break from Twitter. Goodnight everyone.” Her comments were seized upon by Andrew Radford, chief executive of the eating disorders charity Beat, who said clinical psychiatrists, not Bakewell, are in a better position to explain the causes and impact of eating disorders. “The NHS and academic researchers the world over are declaring eating disorder as a serious mental health disorder and recognising that it killed more people than any other mental health problem,” he said. “I would tend to trust their judgment. There’s a body of research and logic says it’s a mental health disorder and needs to be taken seriously. “I’m somewhat sceptical about this comment that teenagers are getting more introspective and it’s somehow a consequence of that. Firstly, if that were true, why don’t they all have anorexia? Second, I’m fairly certain my parents said that about my generation and their parents said it about theirs. “If you want to know about the causes and impact of anorexia, you should talk to clinical psychiatrists.” Bakewell’s comments do not help the stigma that already exists around eating disorders and mental health generally, Radford said. “Mental health and eating disorders in general are misunderstood and under-resourced,” he said. “You get far too many people saying ‘why doesn’t she eat a bit more food’ or ‘why doesn’t she behave differently’ and that’s unhelpful at the best and harmful at the worst. Poor people going through this terrible disease feel even worse as a result.” Earlier this year, David Cameron pledged to ensure teenagers with eating disorders receive treatment more quickly. From 2017/18, a new waiting-time measure will track the proportion of patients being seen within a month of referral, or within a week for urgent cases. Bakewell also suggested that, while she was pleased to see the stigma around discussing mental health fading, counselling and psychotherapy – including treatment for children – “can get out of hand”. Her comments provoked anger on Twitter, to which Bakewell responded by saying she was “speculating loosely” on what might cause anorexia. In further responses, she said she believed anorexia sufferers deserve “sympathy and help” but said she was pleased if her comments had triggered some debate over the issue. Bakewell, also president of Birkbeck, University of London, said that asking people “Are you really happy?” gave them a chance to consider anxieties that had not previously crossed their mind. The Wellcome book prize rewards the best book, fiction or non-fiction, linked to medicine, health or illness. The shortlist will be announced on Monday and the winner crowned on 25 April.
Afro-Haitian Experimental Orchestra: AHEO review – rousing fusion workout This energetic, sometimes chaotic fusion set results from a visit that Africa’s finest percussionist – the Afrobeat hero Tony Allen – made to Haiti to perform in the main square of Port Au Prince alongside Haitian and western musicians. It wasn’t an easy gig – the band had just five days to rehearse, and the concert was not recorded as planned. These recordings were made at rehearsals, with overdubs added later, and are dominated by chanting Haitian vocals and massed percussion, driven on by Allen’s subtle, always understated playing. The band includes leading Haitian singers Erol Josué and Sanba Zao, from the new band Lakou Mizik, and traditional songs such as Bade Zile are now dressed with synth effects. The fusion is at its best on Poze, which eases from chanting vocals to a blues-rock guitar riff, and Pa Bat Kòw, which includes a rousing percussion workout.
Kevin Bacon: five best moments If you’re an EE customer, it’s tempting to loathe the very sight of Kevin Bacon and imagine him as the human manifestation of every bad experience you’ve had with the mobile network. But don’t blame Bacon – he has phone bills to pay and the ads shouldn’t obscure a career so long and varied that an entire movie-linking game was created in his honour. In his latest film, the Blumhouse horror The Darkness, he and his family battle a supernatural force they accidentally pick up on a visit to the Grand Canyon. Given the range of his career, it’s almost impossible to select just five performances but – medal, please – we have managed it. Footloose On paper, even now, the setup of this 1984 drama sounds rather silly: a teenager who likes dancing moves to a small town where dancing is banned. But the unlikely tale became one of the most iconic films of the decade, thanks in large part to Kenny Loggins, and Bacon cemented his leading-man credentials with charm and enviable moves. Tremors Another unlikely hit landed or rather broke through the ground in 1990 with a film about giant worms terrorising a small town. At the time, Bacon was unsure about the film (“I broke down and fell to the sidewalk, screaming to my pregnant wife, ‘I can’t believe I’m doing a movie about underground worms!’” he told the Telegraph), but it became a cult success and showcased his easy charm on screen and comfortable fit with genre material. The River Wild Bacon’s natural charm won him a string of roles in his early career, but, as the 90s progressed, Hollywood discovered his affinity for the dark side and he scored a number of villainous roles. The best of them was his Golden Globe-nominated performance in this underrated Curtis Hanson thriller, which is full of genuine menace as he torments Meryl Streep’s family on a white water rafting holiday. Stir of Echoes Opening just a month after The Sixth Sense, this supernatural thriller suffered both commercially and critically. But taken on its own merits, it’s an effectively creepy film about a man who realises he has psychic abilities. Bacon’s spooked everyman makes for a convincing centre. The Woodsman The closest Bacon has ever come to being recognised by the Academy was in this subdued 2004 drama. He plays a paedophile returning home after a 12-year prison sentence, and the film’s knotty script allows him to give a layered performance that veers from creepy to tragic without ever resorting to simply monstrous.
NFL legend Jim Brown meets with Donald Trump: 'He's got my admiration' NFL great Jim Brown spoke of his admiration for Donald Trump after a meeting with the president-elect in New York on Tuesday, and said the pair talked about “how to work together … to make America a better country”. Brown, a Hall of Famer who won the NFL MVP award four times, went to Trump Tower to discuss race, poverty, education and the economy with the president-elect. Kanye West, former Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis, and Darrell Scott, a Christian pastor from Cleveland, were also there. Brown, who played nine seasons with Cleveland between 1957 and 1965 and retired as the NFL’s all-time leading rusher, revealed he hadn’t voted for Trump, but said: ‘We couldn’t have had a better meeting.” He continued: “The graciousness, the intelligence, the reception we got was fantastic. He’s amenable to listening to people who didn’t vote for him.” Brown, 80, has been heavily involved in civil rights since finishing his playing career with the Browns. Trump’s presidential campaign was marked by numerous offensive comments about race. “When he goes through what he went through to become the president, he got my admiration,” Brown told CNN. “No one gave him a chance.” Lewis said “black or white is irrelevant” when trying to help people out of poverty and improve people’s lot. “Urban development and job creation are everything,” Lewis said. “What we believe with the Trump administration is if we can combine these two powers of coming together – forget black or white. Black or white is irrelevant. The bottom line is job creation and economic development in these urban areas to change the whole scheme of what our kids see.” Brown, who starred in more than two dozen films after his playing career ended, said: “I can’t speak for the pastor [Scott], but I fell in love with him, because he really talks about helping African-American, black people and, uh, that’s why I’m here.” “You fell in love with Donald Trump?” asked CNN’s Brooke Baldwin. “It isn’t really about Donald Trump,” Brown replied. “It’s about him and the position he occupies. When he goes through what he went through to become the president, he got my admiration. They called him names … he reached back and brought them along with him. He held no grudges.” It appeared as though Brown suggested he fell in love with Trump, but he later clarified that his comments were about Scott, the pastor, and not Trump. “I was talking about my partner sitting right here,” Brown said. “I was talking to the man who got us together. The man who’s been the catalyst. The man who has represented. And he’s comical and he’s very vivacious. You know, he’s a character.”
Given the divisive historical strains at work within his party, how will Trump govern? In January, the Republican party will take control of the US government for the first time since 2005. The switch from being the party of opposition to being the governing party is never easy and the deep divisions in today’s Republican party make today’s transition unusually chaotic. The election added to the chaos. As president-elect, Trump’s evident dismay and lack of preparation for taking office suggested that he had little interest in doing the job for which he had campaigned so viciously. What’s more, Trump lost the popular vote by a significant margin and Democrats also got more votes for both houses of Congress. This lack of popular support puts even more pressure on Republicans to craft policies that a majority of Americans can accept. Therein lies the Republicans’ problem. Today’s party is led not by practical politicians but by ideologues. This was not always the case. Traditionally, Republicans embraced the idea that Americans naturally enjoyed social and economic harmony. It was the job of congressmen and women to develop that harmony by figuring out how to use the government to promote equality of opportunity for those just starting their climb up the economic ladder. Those individuals were the engine room of production. They would produce more than they could consume, so they would, in turn, support a thriving middle class. When he was elected president in 1952, the first Republican to be elected to the job since 1928, Dwight Eisenhower accepted the reality that unregulated capitalism and the lack of a social safety net in a newly industrialised country precipitated economic and social crisis. Although it sprang from traditional Republicanism rather than the tenets of the Democrats, Eisenhower’s “middle way” looked much like the Democrats’ New Deal. This new “liberal consensus” between Democrats and Republicans maintained that the government had a role in promoting economic fairness and social stability. But it sparked a backlash, one we can still see playing itself out today. A few wealthy businessmen insisted that government regulation infringed their liberty by affecting the way they did business. Taxes to fund social welfare also hampered their freedom. They stood firm on the concept of individual liberty, which was, they argued, as firm as a principle as those of the Ten Commandments. These “movement conservatives” saw an epic battle between themselves and “liberals”, whose embrace of government activism was permitting communism to snake its way into America. But movement conservatives had a practical problem. Most Americans liked government regulation of business and social welfare. To advance their cause, movement conservatives turned to racism. When the US supreme court handed down the 1954 Brown v Board of Education decision requiring desegregation in schools, leading movement publication National Review pushed the idea that an active government used white tax dollars to benefit black Americans. Suddenly, the arguments of movement conservatives began to get traction. In 1964, they got their chance to restore America to “purity”. Republican candidate Barry Goldwater’s supporters called for an end to civil rights legislation. A new voice in the movement added conspiracy theory and populism to what had been an elite conversation. Phyllis Schlafly, president of the Illinois Federation of Republican Women, accused the eastern financiers and banking interests who made up the eastern establishment of backing the liberal consensus because they made money from a murky world of international co-operation. She backed Goldwater as he offered a clear vision of a nation that stood against communism. Enough with eggheads who called for nuanced responses to complicated problems in the world. What should Americans do about communism? Stop it! Goldwater’s presidential run turned into a rout, but the electoral map offered a blueprint for future Republican candidates. Goldwater carried his home state of Arizona, and five other states, all of them in the deep South. Race became a staple in movement conservatives’ lexicon. Later, Richard Nixon added sexism and a distrust of organised labour to the racism that had clinched his election. He told supporters that “some people” wanted to live by government handouts rather than by working and that these lowlifes were sucking hardworking Americans dry through tax dollars. In 1980, Ronald Reagan implanted this bifurcated world view into the White House. The election of Democrat Bill Clinton horrified them. He was a popular statist who threatened to undo all the work they had done to destroy government programmes. They set out to destroy his administration. In 1994, when movement conservatives under Newt Gingrich captured the House for the first time since the Eisenhower administration, they set out to “begin an emergency dismantling of the welfare system, which is shredding the social fabric”, bankrupting the country and “gutting the work ethic, educational performance and moral discipline of the poor”. They set out to defund the government entirely, in the hope that debt would end expenditures. By 2000, movement conservatives laid siege to remaining traditional Republicans in the party, purging it of those they called “RINOs” – Republicans in Name Only. They turned to Texas governor George W Bush as their presidential nominee and when he squeaked into office after losing the popular vote, declared he had a mandate. Bush slashed taxes and regulations and brought evangelicals directly into White House deliberations. Barack Obama’s election represented everything Republicans opposed. He was a black man who promised to use the government to help women and people of colour. “Taxed enough already,” screamed protesters who called themselves “Tea Partiers”. When Obama’s foreign policy signalled a return to a multilateralism that recognised the end of America’s post-Second World War dominance, movement conservatives howled. In 2010, Republicans built on the Tea Party anger with the money of wealthy businessmen to take control of swing state legislatures. In 2016, however, the winking of Republican leaders at the racism and sexism of Obama bashers backfired. They found themselves trailing in the wake of a reality-show TV star who stripped the veneer off their dog-whistle rhetoric and openly called Mexicans rapists and criminals and talked about women in the crudest terms. Trump was not one of them – he was not even a politician. Trump is a salesman, pitching to a population primed by a generation of movement conservative politicians to see themselves as embattled, assailed by the demands of minorities and women for special treatment enforced by the government. But this leaves the Republicans in a quandary. Pure movement conservatives who back economic libertarianism, such as speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, were horrified by Trump’s naked racism and sexism. And, assuming he would lose the election, they vowed to run without him. But their vision, which demands, among other things, the destruction of enormously popular programmes such as Medicare and social security, has historically found few backers in the general population. Evangelicals, brought on board by the Republican coalition in the 1980s with promises of ending abortion rights and cultural change, backed Trump. But they, too, have changed in the past generation. Finding new political and cultural power, the religious wing of the Republican party gained momentum. Its adherents took advantage of new religious liberty laws to keep their children out of state schools and to demand that civic society bow to religious imperatives. By the 1990s, religious leaders were no longer simply defending family values in a secular society. They were insisting that US democracy was originally based in Christian laws and demanding that the nation be restored to its Christian heritage. This “Dominionism” inspired political leaders such as Mike Huckabee, Michele Bachmann, Sarah Palin and Ted Cruz. And then there is Trump, a huckster closing a sale with whatever promises his supporters want. Fed on decades of movement conservative warnings that people of colour and women are gaming the system to take tax dollars from hardworking white men, his supporters have made it clear that what they want is a nation dominated by white men. Can these factions reconcile? At first, it seemed as if the weight of the new administration would fall on Ryan. President-elect Trump presented a list of things he promised in his first hundred days, including a large infrastructure package and an end to lobbying, as well as the tax cuts so popular with movement conservatives. Ryan and Senate Republican majority leader, Mitch McConnell, nodded quickly to tax cuts and ending Medicare, but refused even to consider infrastructure or lobbying. But Trump’s appointment of Steve Bannon as chief strategist challenges Ryan’s dominance in the White House. Bannon is the head of the website Breitbart, often accused of racism, sexism and conspiracy theories. He calls himself an economic nationalist, but there is more to his ideology than that. He is an outspoken defender of the idea that the Christian west is engaged in a holy war with Islam for control of the world. This belief in a holy war between the west and Islam is shared by Michael Flynn, Trump’s nominee for national security council adviser, and by Mike Huckabee, presumptive nominee for ambassador to Israel. This bifurcation of the world is one that could marry evangelicals to Trump’s alt-right supporters. Evangelicals have long supported the idea of a militant Christianity. Even in the absence of congressional support for infrastructure projects, such a worldview might also attract America’s economically and culturally dispossessed white men. A resurrection of the traditional Christian west would promise to relegate minorities and women to subordinate positions. That vision of a world divided in two echoes 40s and 50s anti-communism and promises to return the US to preeminence, erasing multilateralism and the cultural importance of women and minorities. It is a world in which America is, uppermost, ruled by white men. It is also a world that has gone beyond recall, except in the fantasies of those whom the world has left behind. Heather Cox Richardson is professor of history at Boston College and author of To Make Men Free: A History of the Republican Party (2014)
Finding Dory trailer raises hopes film could include lesbian couple A newly released trailer for the Finding Nemo sequel has prompted speculation that the animated film could be Disney Pixar’s first to include a lesbian couple. The trailer for Finding Dory, the sequel to the 2003 blockbuster about the adventures of a clown fish, debuted on the Ellen Show last week. Ellen DeGeneres voices Dory, the amnesiac fish who sets out on a journey across the oceans to find her lost family. The moment that sparked the rumours takes place almost three minutes into the trailer, when an octopus knocks a child out of her stroller at an aquarium. When the child’s carers turn around to check on her they appear to both be women. The scene was interpreted on Twitter as showing Disney/Pixar’s first lesbian couple. However, not everyone was convinced, with some suggesting that the women could be friends, or that the character that stooped down to pick up the child’s cup was simply a passer-by. Others wondered if the clip was simply a clever piece of marketing. The speculation comes amid growing calls for animated films to include gay and LGBT characters. Disney has been criticised by GLADD for not featuring one gay character in the 11 feature films it released in 2015. Earlier this month the Twitter campaign #giveElsaAGirlfriend called on Disney to include a lesbian relationship in the sequel to Frozen. The hit film has been credited with depicting the Disney/Pixar’s first gay relationship, between kiosk-owner Oaken and his husband. Fans have also called on Marvel to #giveCaptainAmericaABoyfriend.
Labour pours scorn over autumn statement for ignoring sick and old John McDonnell accused the chancellor of failing the sick and elderly after his autumn statement gave no additional money to the NHS or social care, despite warnings from the opposition party that both are at a tipping point. The shadow chancellor said he feared a crisis in funding and care over this Christmas, after Hammond offered £23bn for infrastructure but no additional help for health services. “Tonight, many elderly people will remain trapped in their homes, isolated, and lacking the care they need because of continuing cuts to funding,” McDonnell told the Commons in his response to the autumn statement. “You can’t cut social care without hitting the NHS ... “Across the country, hospitals are facing losing their A&Es, losing their maternity units, losing their specialist units. This Tory government is failing patients and failing dedicated NHS staff. “It is the first time healthcare spending per head has declined since the NHS was created.” Hammond mentioned the NHS in his autumn statement speech once to confirm the government’s commitment to spending an extra £10bn a year by the end of this parliament. There was no mention of social care and no additional money for either, despite warnings that shortages in funding are pushing hospitals to a tipping point. In his response, McDonnell poured scorn on the small scale of measures to help families that are “just about managing” and highlighting a raft of struggling public services. But it was Hammond’s failure to mention social care that caused the biggest response amongst Labour. Andy Burnham, the Labour former health secretary, said it was astonishing that Hammond could prioritise funding for new grammar schools over properly funding social care. “Quite frankly, it is unbelievable that the chancellor could find no mention for social care today [after] six years of cuts of social care have left a record number of older people in hospital and the NHS on the brink,” he said. Luciana Berger, the former shadow health minister, said there was not one single mention in the 72-page autumn statement document that accompanied Hammond’s speech to the Commons of the words NHS, public health, social care, or mental health. “The chancellor cannot ignore the fact our health and social care services are in crisis facing massive, massive deficits. Surely the many economists in his own department will have told him it is economically illiterate to ignore the massive decrease in people receiving social care in the community and the cuts to NHS and staff training. Why was the NHS missing from his autumn statement today?” she said. Sarah Wollaston, the Conservative chair of the Commons health committee, said she wanted to get away with a divisive debate on social care and called for a cross-party consensus on solving the problem. Wollaston also said she was “disappointed” that extra funding has not been brought forward at the autumn statement, although she welcomed the signals that this is now under consideration. During the debate, Hammond criticised Labour MPs for being “fond of talking about cuts to social care budgets” when local councils, not central government, are in charge of managing their own funding. “What we’ve done is created a ‘Better care fund’ that by the end of this parliament will be delivering a £.15bn a year into social care and allowed local authorities to raise a social care precept that by the end of this parliament will be delivering an extra £2bn a year,” he said. “That is £3.5bn a year of additional funding into the system. What I would accept is there is an issue that local authorities are saying about the profiling, about how this large amount of money ramps up. It’s an issue we are aware of and are discussing with them.” He later dismissed the idea that there was any “crisis or looming chaos”. Izzi Seccombe, of the Local Government Association and Tory leader of Warwickshire county council was also critical. “Councils, care providers, charities and the NHS have all called on the government to use the autumn statement to properly fund adult social care,” she said. “The government’s failure to act today means social care remains in crisis, councils and the NHS continue to be pushed to the financial brink and face the prospect of more care providers leaving the publicly-funded market or ceasing trading. “Tragically, the human cost of this will be elderly and vulnerable people continuing to face an ever uncertain future where they might no longer receive the dignified care and support they deserve, such as help getting dressed or getting out and about, which is crucial to their independence and wellbeing.” The criticisms were echoed by Dave Prentis, general secretary of Unison, who said the government had “chosen to ignore social care, preferring to look the other way as a growing number of elderly people are getting no care at all”. “Scrimping on social care is a huge false economy. Older people are often stranded in hospitals, unable to go home, using beds needed by other patients. This turns up the heat on our already overstretched NHS, which has also been forgotten about today,” he said. Prentis said the funding crisis would be made worse because of the increase in the minimum wage for care workers without an equal increase in overall funding. “With no extra resources for local councils – whose budgets will be down £6.1bn by the end of the decade – the minimum wage increase means unbearable pressure on care budgets. The losers will be older people needing care and the dedicated workforce struggling to look after them,” he said. Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow health secretary, told the ’s politics weekly podcast: “Everyone has been pointing out that the social care sector is in crisis, on the verge of tipping points, lots of organisations including the chief executive of the NHS has been calling for extra investment in social care and he’s done absolutely nothing. Nowt. Zilch. It is unbelievable.” Bronwen Maddox, director of the Institute for Government, added: “Despite emergency funding for prisons, today we saw little indication of how the chancellor will address the ticking time-bomb in other public services, like health and social care.” • This article was amended on 24 November 2016 to restore the words “not one single”, which had been lost during the editing process.
1971 – Never a Dull Moment: Rock’s Golden Year by David Hepworth review – lives up to its title In July Carole King will play London’s Hyde Park and perform her signature album Tapestry in its entirety, an event that slots seamlessly into the narrative of David Hepworth’s engaging account of the year Tapestry “redefined the record business for the next decade” to become “the first evergreen of the rock era”. Hepworth has other claims for 1971, which allegedly boasts “more influential albums than any year before or since” and remains “the most febrile and creative time in the history of popular music”. As much is contestable. Previous years had hardly been short of groundbreaking bestsellers, while Hepworth, who wears his nostalgia on his sleeve, concedes that the music of one’s youth inevitably rings most potently. Yet he is surely right that ’71 marked a step change in pop history, one driven as much by the industry’s commercial clout as by its music, fecund and memorable though that often was. “TV was nowhere, movies were in retreat, music was king,” he justly claims. The year’s innovations came in many forms. George Harrison’s Concert for Bangladesh provided the template for subsequent charity bashes. Arena rock reached new heights of grandiosity – Led Zeppelin at the Sam Houston Coliseum rather than the Bath Pavilion – with live albums such as the Allman Brothers’ At Fillmore East acquiring fresh importance. Palatial 24-track studios became the norm, their productions marketed with a new slickness, not least on FM radio with its freshly arrived concept of AOR. The vestiges of 60s idealism fell away; after 1971, there was no “underground”, everything was mainstream. Even the staid Tapestry marked the emergence of a new kind of record buyer – young women, who identified with “themes of shelter, stability and trust… Carole King became the sister they might have had”. To what is often a familiar story Hepworth brings rare perspicacity into the business machinations of the era, whose movers and shakers were, as he points out, often from a previous, less starry-eyed generation. Promoter Bill Graham’s mother had died in Auschwitz, Zeppelin manager Peter Grant was an East End evacuee, producer Tom Dowd had worked on the Manhattan Project. These were bruisers, “not a hippy among them”, who realised pop’s new money‑making power. To counterbalance rock’s youthful glamour, Hepworth begins his book with a sobering sketch of everyday UK life: no mobile phones, 70,000 telephone boxes, two-thirds of the population have no bank account, smokers everywhere (even in hospitals) and “the only people with tattoos got them in the services”. Truly this was another country, though one whose music remains all too familiar, thanks to “heritage rock”, a concept Hepworth also traces to 1971; the year saw a burst of nostalgia exemplified by Don McLean’s American Pie and George Lucas’s American Graffiti. Hepworth’s rocktastic perspective means he misses a trick or two; 1971 was also the year reggae insinuated itself in the British psyche via hits such as Dave and Ansell Collins’s Double Barrel, and if you are looking for 1971 music with “afterlife”, Al Green and Curtis Mayfield deserve attention. Yet Never a Dull Moment lives up to its title. Among fine cameos comes Stevie Wonder, newly introduced to the synth (“more like the control room of a power station than a musical instrument”), the trial of Oz magazine (“the climactic event of Britain’s Great Hippy Scare”) and the rise of three London lads, Cat Stevens, Marc Bolan and Rod Stewart, the last “dressed like a disreputable clerk out of Dickens… a gifted cynic who knew the arts of survival”. Who had most influence? Hepworth chooses Elvis, whose 1971 Vegas residency pioneered what heritage pop has become; a show packed with musicians in which nothing has been left to chance, and ultimately reliant on “the audience’s deep, surprising love for the music of the past”. 1971 – Never a Dull Moment is published by Bantam Press (£20). Click here to order a copy for £16
Claudio Ranieri and Leicester ramp up electricity with finish line close Three points nearer to their dream of dreams, Claudio Ranieri strolled on to the pitch at the end of this joyous whirlwind to hear his name coursing down from a band of elated and appreciative fans. This Italian gentleman of football shook his fists into the Leicestershire air. A life in football boils down to this. Close. Closer. So close now. Expectancy has become an impulse the crowd feel able to cherish. The mood was remarkable. Not a flicker of anxiety, only radiant confidence. The rock-and-roll noise of the King Power Stadium cranked up a notch, even by this season’s standards. They sang of waiting for Tottenham, of coming for Barcelona. The effervescent mood is something to behold. The atmosphere is, in Ranieri’s words, “unbelievable”. It is more than a moment in the sun. It appears to be more like a moment orbiting even as yet unnamed planets. Ranieri is not an overtly sentimental man. Those misty eyes when his team took another vital step at Sunderland a couple of weeks ago, when he thought about what it all means to the old ladies who follow the club, were an exception. Then last week, amidst the mayhem against West Ham, he retained the coolest veneer of control. When this is all over he might allow himself to wonder whether everything he has done before – everything from being a boyhood fan of Roma, a player for Catanzaro, a young coach given a chance with Cagliari, then umpteen other jobs in Serie A, spells with major clubs in Spain, England and France, and yes, even that rotten four games with Greece – all those experiences were somehow needed to take him to this point where the magic has been sprinkled all over an eclectic bunch of players initially hoping just to stay up this term with Leicester. “History makes us who we are.” That was the message – a challenge of sorts – unfurled on the Kop at Leicester’s enthralled King Power ahead of another three points fuelled by dazzling belief in a gameplan that has inspired the best from all its players. It was symbolic of the masterful way that Ranieri has overseen this campaign, with decisions based on thought and trust, that the choices he made to reset the team without the focal point of Jamie Vardy came off sweetly. Jeffrey Schlupp and Leonardo Ulloa were pivotal performers, and Riyad Mahrez regained responsibility in the style that has been all his own this term. Every substitute that came on looked desperate to make a difference. Watching the body language of Leicester’s cast during a swashbuckling performance, certain repeated gestures gave a clue as to how they are sustaining this remarkable run. The irrepressible effort, the way they all – irrespective of position – want the ball, ask for the ball by flinging up an arm, underpins their way. There is a scene in the film Billy Elliott, the story of somebody doing something utterly improbable, when the young boy from undistinguished roots attempting to get into an esteemed ballet school is asked how it makes him feel when he dances. He struggles to find the right words before it all makes perfect sense: “It feels like electricity.” That is one of Ranieri’s favourite words, too, and it seems to sum up so much about this Leicester City experience. Electricity. If ever one word were required to crystallise this team, and the season they are living, that’s as good as any. The energy within the King Power, this compact, modern home, has been measured on earthquake scales, and it duly shook for 90 minutes as Swansea were scythed apart. It was impossible to sense any fear of failure, of freezing as the finishing line appears over the horizon. Quite the opposite in fact. All day the mood swept everyone along for this thrill-seeking ride. Every programme seller outside the ground beamed at passers by as if it were their birthday. In the club shop, the mannequins used to model replica shirts stood bare-chested – there is not a single Leicester City shirt for sale. A fan catching sight of the former captain Matt Elliott, in his club crested suit on radio duty, insisted on throwing him a load of sweeties to get him through the game. Ranieri’s lightness of touch made this hurdle an easy one to skip over. Setting goals during the season has been his methodology, the bar rising over time. First the fixation was 40 points. Then, once that was taken care of, sightlines moved to the Europa League. Next the Champions League – and not just fourth place and a qualifier, but a top three that guarantees the golden ticket. Now, finally, on the home straight, Ranieri feels able at last to say the words he dared not speak ahead of time. The title. Close. Closer now. Looking ahead he is taking nothing for granted over the next three games. “It is important,” he concluded, “to be stronger than today.” Can they? Will they? We wait and watch. But Ranieri has faith in one thing. “We play with our heart, and it’s difficult to beat those who play with heart and soul.”
ANZ admits bad debts have risen to $800m as cost of Asia slowdown grows ANZ has said that the cost of bad debts will reach $800m this year as the economic slowdown in Asia continues to bite. Announcing a 3.5% rise in first-quarter profits to $1.85bn on Wednesday, chief executive Shayne Elliott admitted that volatility in the region and the impact on the bank’s bottom line had been greater than the $735m already pencilled in. ANZ, the most Asia-focused of Australia’s big four banks, has seen its shares fall nearly 40% since April 2015 as uncertainty about the Chinese economy rippled through the regions economy and stock markets. Elliott, who is under pressure from shareholders to decouple the bank from the expansionary strategy of predecessor Mike Smith, said: “I don’t think it’s any surprise that the Asian region in particular has been slowing for a period. “I think what we saw though, at the beginning of the calendar year, is that it’s been a little bit more volatile than we were certainly expecting and some of those conditions have been a little more difficult. “It’s around south-east Asia, it’s broadly based; it’s not one customer group in particular or anything like that. But it does tend to be concentrated around manufacturing, industrial companies exposed to trade.” The $800m bad debt charge will blight first-half results due in May but Elliott, the former chief financial officer who replaced Smith in January, said ANZ was taking action to cut costs and “reposition” the business. The bank said income growth outstripped that of expenses over the three months to 31 December, with technology investment and wage inflation largely offset by a 2.5% reduction in staff numbers. Net interest margin – the profit on loans – contracted two basis points from the second half of FY15 to 2.02% once the impact of the bank’s institutional markets business was taken into account. But the bank said its Australia and New Zealand retail business gained market share in key home lending markets, while small business grew strongly in both countries. “I think the underlying businesses that we have, as I said, will continue to do well: retail and commercial here, our trade and capital flow intermediation businesses,” Elliott said. “There’s undoubtedly going to be some challenges as a result of the slowing global economy and in particular the slowing Asian economy.” Net profit, which includes one-off expenses, was down about 3% on the prior corresponding period to $1.6bn.
Federal Reserve is 'closely monitoring' global economy as it leaves rates on hold - as it happened And finally.... Wall Street has ended the night on the back foot, after being underwhelmed by the Federal Reserve. The Dow Jones shed 222 points, or almost 1.4%, to close at 15,944.46. The S&P 500 index, which covers a wider range of companies, lost over 1% while the tech-heavy Nasdaq slid by over 2%. Investors have noted the Fed’s dovish stance, and recognised that the central bank is anxious about the global economy and the market turmoil. But policymakers still see the US economy recovering, which could mean it still raises borrowing costs later this year.... Anyway, we’ll back in the morning, London time, for more reaction. Good night, GW Facebook also posted some highly impressive mobile advertising revenue: Some late breaking news... Facebook appears to have smashed forecasts. The social network has posted earnings of 79 cents per share, compared to expectations of 68 cents. And Wall Street loves it, sending shares leaping in afterhours trading. David Zervos, Chief Market Strategist at Jefferies, is telling Bloomberg TV that the Fed’s statement was quite comforting. But the markets are still being driven by fluctuations in the oil price, and fears over emerging markets, he adds. Zervos says: Markets are still bouncing around on oil, still bouncing around on China. So what could turn the markets around? Signs that the US economy is still doing well, and not entering recession. Our news story on the Fed decision is now live: Here’s a flavour: The Federal Reserve is keeping a key interest rate unchanged while pledging to closely monitor developments in the global economy and financial markets. In December the central bank made the decision to raise rates for the first time since the recession. Stock markets have been turbulent across the world since the move, and all the US markets entered negative territory again after the announcement. The policymakers left their benchmark rate unchanged in a range of 0.25% to 0.5%. Until December, they had kept that rate at record lows. The Fed noted in its latest policy statement that economic growth has slowed since it raised rates from record lows: “The [Fed] is closely monitoring global economic and financial developments and is assessing their implications for the labor market and inflation, and for the balance of risks to the outlook.” The changes in its statement signaled that the Fed could be prepared to slow future rate hikes if recent market turbulence and global weakness do not abate..... (click here for more). The selloff is picking up pace, with the Dow Jones industrial average now down over 1%. That’s not all down to the Fed, though. Apple has shed 6% after last night’s disappointing results showed that iPhone sales have slowed. Paul Ashworth, chief US economist at Capital Economics, also points out that the Fed is no longer willing to describe the risks to the outlook as “balanced” (as covered here). He writes: As expected, the new statement acknowledged the apparent slowdown in activity growth in the fourth quarter. The growth of consumption and business investment is now described as “moderate” whereas back in December it was described as “solid”. The slowdown in inventory investment also receives an explicit reference. At the same time, the Fed stressed that labourmarket conditions “improved further” with “strong” job gains. Ashworth reckons that economic data, and financial markets, may not improve in time to allow a rates to rise in March. But he still expects a string of hikes later in the year. Nevertheless, we still think that once the worst fears about China blow over and US economic growth rebounds, the Fed will end up raising interest rates more rapidly that expected in the second half of this year. We expect the fed funds rate to reach 1.50% to 1.75% by end-2016. The Fed is primarily worried about China, argues Worth Wray, chief economist at wealth management firm Evergreen GaveKal. One expert reckons the Fed’s statement guarantees more market turbulence in the next six weeks: This month’s Fed meeting was always going to be all about the statement, given the FOMC bit the bullet and raised borrowing costs for the first time since the crisis in December. The tone of the Fed’s comments set the tone for the next few weeks -- and the statement is being taken as quite dovish. Chris Beauchamp, Senior Market Analyst at City trading firm IG, explains: Markets got the more dovish tone they were hoping for, with the Fed noting slowing economic growth and tipping its hat towards the idea that inflation won’t rise towards 2% as fast as it thought in December. This doesn’t mean a March move is out of the question, but the reference to global economic developments means that there will have to be plenty more improvement in the US economy before one is a definite possibility. With the risks to the economy no longer seen as ‘balanced’ this is a Fed committee drawing in its horns. It was never going to admit that December’s move was a mistake, but today’s statement acknowledges that it is not time to get carried away with rate hikes. Matthew Boesler of Bloomberg says the Fed is taking the recent stock market losses seriously, without panicking. Brett House, chief economist of US investment management firm Alignvest, reckons the Fed won’t raise rates four times this year (as it had been expecting). Financial commentator Bobi Petrov reckons rates will remain on hold at the Fed’s next meeting, in early March. The Fed also doesn’t see inflation roaring away this year - hardly surprising, given the oil price tumble. Tonight’s statement says: Inflation is expected to remain low in the near term, in part because of the further declines in energy prices, but to rise to 2 percent over the medium term as the transitory effects of declines in energy and import prices dissipate and the labor market strengthens further This is a useful tool, showing some of the changes to this month’s statement: Note how jobs growth is now “strong” after this month’s blowout non-farm payroll report showed 292,000 new hirings in December. Stocks are falling on Wall Street as traders digest tonight’s statement. Not immediately clear why - but investors may be concerned that the Fed has dropped that line about economic risks being balanced. There’s a significant change between this statement and December’s one. The Fed has dropped the line saying that the risks to economic activity and the labour market are “balanced”. That suggests the Fed thinks the situation has become unbalanced.... You can read the statement online, here. The Fed is also sticking to its view that interest rates will only rise gradually, meaning borrowing costs will remain below the long-term average for some time. But it all depends on the data..... However, the actual path of the federal funds rate will depend on the economic outlook as informed by incoming data. The decision was unanimous -- all 10 members of the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee agreed to leave borrowing costs unchanged. Again, that’s not a surprise. The US central bank also reckons that the American economy is continuing to heal. The statement says: Household spending and business fixed investment have been increasing at moderate rates in recent months, and the housing sector has improved further; however, net exports have been soft and inventory investment slowed. A range of recent labor market indicators, including strong job gains, points to some additional decline in underutilization of labor resources The Federal Reserve says it is keeping a close eye on the global economy, and financial markets. In tonight’s statement, is says: The Committee is closely monitoring global economic and financial developments and is assessing their implications for the labor market and inflation, and for the balance of risks to the outlook. That means the Fed is considering the impact on recent market turmoil, and the fall in the oil price, on the US economy and the path of inflation. In the least surprising news of 2016, the US central bank has left borrowing costs unchanged. The policy rate remains at 0.25% to 0.5%. OK, it’s nearly time for the Federal Reserve to announce this month’s monetary policy decision. Remember, it’s all about the Fed’s statement - Wall Street is certain that Janet Yellen isn’t going to raise interest rates again..... Ahead of the Federal Reserve’s interest rate setting meeting, and following a rise in the oil price, European shares have ended the day on a positive note. With hopes of co-operation between oil producers - notable Opec and Russia - to tackle the issue of oversupply, Brent crude has jumped 3.6% to $32.96. The rise comes despite a jump in US crude inventories. The closing scores showed: The FTSE 100 finished 78.91 points or 1.33% higher at 5990.37 Germany’s Dax added 0.59% to 9880.82 France’s Cac climbed 0.54% to 4380.36 Spain’s Ibex ended up 0.56% at 8741.0 Italy’s FTSE MIB was an exception, dipping 0.4% to 18,848.03 On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is currently 34 points or 0.22% higher. Another reason for the day’s strength in the oil price: Russia has said it discussed co-operation with Opec over crude prices. Reuters reports: Russia’s energy ministry said possible coordination between Russia and the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) was discussed at a meeting with Russian oil companies on Wednesday. The ministry said the discussion was related to unfavourable oil prices. There is also talk of an emergency Opec meeting in February. Despite its share price fall, Apple is still top of the pile in value terms: Markets are moving higher on the back of the improvement in the oil price. Tony Cross, market analyst at Trustnet Direct said: The threat of the early sell-off for oil prices this morning failed to materialise with crude bouncing above the $30 mark and this has in turn lent a raft of support to equity markets on both sides of the Atlantic. Even what could at best be described as a mixed bag in terms of US oil inventory data has failed to knock sentiment so London’s FTSE-100 is rounding off the day – where we tested highs not seen for two weeks – with a bullish tone. Next up however it’s the latest Federal Reserve Open Market Committee meeting and anything that is interpreted as being overly hawkish here could readily unseat equity markets globally that are still clearly rattled by recent events. Elsewhere, US crude stocks rose to their highest level on record - ie back to 1930 - last week while gasoline stocks increased but inventories of distillates fell. The figure for distillates, which include heating oil, follows the cold front hitting the country in the past few days. Distillate inventories fell by 4.1m barrels compared to expectations of a near 2m fall. But crude stocks climbed by 8.4m barrels last week, well above expectations of a 3.3m increase, to 494.9m, the highest level since the Energy Information Administration began compiling records. Refinery crude runs fell by 551,000 barrels a day. Gasoline stocks climbed by 3.5m barrels compared to forecsats of a 1.5m increase. But despite the rises, Brent crude is up 0.79% at $32.05 a barrel. Joshua Mahony, market analyst at IG, said: US crude oil inventories rose by the highest level since April 2015 last week, pushing overall oil in storage to near levels not seen in 80 years for this time of year. Crucially, we did see domestic production fall ever so slightly. This distinction highlights the reaction in global trade, which has seen oil prices rise off the back of seemingly bearish headline data. With sentiment driven by record output from Iraq and Russia, alongside the entry of Iran on the mainstream oil market, any news that US output is starting to turn lower is certainly welcome for oil bulls. Here’s our take on the libor verdicts: Five of the six brokers were acquitted of conspiring to rig Libor, reports Reuters. The jury also reached a not guilty verdict on one count of conspiracy to defraud for former Icap broker Darrell Read, said Reuters, but it has yet to reach a verdict on a second count. The judge has asked the jury to reach a majority verdict. The six brokers on trial were Darrell Read, Danny Wilkinson and Colin Goodman from Icap, Noel Cryan from Tullett Prebon, and Jim Gilmour and Terry Farr from RP Martin. Five out of six brokers accused of manipulating libor bank rates have been acquitted of fraud at Southwark crown court. A jury is still discussing one count against one of them, but the others have been freed. The six were accused of conspiring with Tom Hayes and others in a trial brought by the Serious Fraud Office which has lasted 15 weeks. But a jury took just a day to acquit them. The Federal Reserve is holding its first meeting since December’s now-contentious decision to raise interest rates for the first time in nearly a decade. The subsequent market turmoil, focused on a slowdown in China and the tumbling oil price, has made many wonder whether the Fed was a bit premature in pulling the rate trigger. The Fed is highly unlikely to change rates at this meeting, and there is no press conference for Fed chair Janet Yellen to be quizzed about her thoughts on the aftermath of last month’s move. So the statement accompanying the rate decision is likely to be scrutinised for clues as to the Fed’s latest thinking. It must surely acknowledge the market slump and fears of a global downturn which have increased since December, and may even hint that it no longer expects three or four more rate rises this year. The wording of its comments on the current state of the global economy will be key, but analysts are divided on what the Fed’s tone will be. Simon Smith, chief economist at FXPro said: All eyes will be back on the Federal Reserve today as they make their first interest rate decision and monetary policy statement of the year but there are no economic projections or press conference this time round, which come at the next meeting in March. We’ve seen a rise in risk appetite in this final week of January which so far has been a bit of a blood bath, although the recovery from lows in many indices has softened the blow for many investors. This has come as a result of a bounce in oil prices but also a growing expectation that central banks will have to do more to support the global economy. Today’s Fed meeting as a result is likely to see a more dovish tone to it, especially since the market consensus is that we will see fewer rate hikes this year than the Fed is currently pencilling in. Even though we saw a higher than expected rise in US consumer confidence yesterday a big warning shot has come from one of the world’s largest companies Apple which saw its first fall in revenue since 2003. But lya Spivak, currency strategist at DailyFX, said: The rate-setting FOMC committee is broadly expected to keep the benchmark lending rate unchanged this time around. Indeed, priced-in probability of an increase is a mere 14.3%. This puts the spotlight on the text of the statement accompanying the rate decision and the forward guidance contained therein. Investors appear positioned for a dovish outcome having scaled back 2016 tightening bets amid risk aversion since the beginning of the year... For its part, the Fed will have to attempt a difficult balancing act. On one hand, it will have to acknowledge recent market turmoil as well as softening US growth dynamics in the final months of 2015. On the other, it will have to re-focus investors’ attention on mandate-relevant fundamentals and establish the possibility of tightening in March. This is necessary so that such a move, if deemed appropriate, does not trigger an overly violent response. On balance, the case for policy normalization remains compelling. Realized and expected inflation is firming: the latest readings on core year-on-year CPI and hourly earnings growth registered at multi-year highs while 2-3 year breakeven rates have trended upward since August. On the jobs front, the unemployment rate is at the lowest level since 2008 and nonfarm payrolls growth is running at a reasonably brisk pace, with the 12-month trend average at 220k. This means that the Fed statement will have to reassure investors that it will adjust policy if market stress infects the real economy. In the same breath, it will have to explain that as of now, the projected rate hike path has not materially changed since the first post-QE rate hike in December. The markets’ subsequent reaction will depend on the degree of wishful thinking that traders are prepared to entertain. If they emphasize the first point – a possible result considering the dovish shift in expectations in spite of the aforementioned fundamental evidence – risk appetite is likely to strengthen. This will see the stocks rising alongside sentiment-geared currencies like the Australian and New Zealand Dollars while the greenback as well as the anti-risk Euro and Yen decline. A focus on the second point will probably deliver the opposite result. As investors await the latest US oil inventory figures and the outcome of this month’s Federal Reserve meeting, Wall Street is on the slide again. In early trading the Dow Jones Industrial Average has fallen 113 points or 0.7%, partly due to Apple which is down 3.8% at $96.24 following its disappointing figures. Ahead of the start of US trading, here are some opening calls: Note Apple is quoted as falling more than 3%. Oil has come back from its worst levels of the day, on renewed hopes that Opec and other producers such as Russia would act to stem the supply glut which has hit prices. Brent crude is now down 0.8% at $31.52 a barrel having fallen to $30.83 earlier. But US inventory figures due later will undoubtedly have an impact on the price, not to mention the Federal Reserve rate setting meeting and any effect the US central bank’s comments have on the dollar. Meanwhile the recovery in crude has helped support stock markets. Both the FTSE 100 and Germany’s Dax are marginally in positive territory after earlier falls, while France’s Cac is only narrowly down. US futures are showing a 57 point decline on the Dow Jones Industrial Average after Tuesday’s 282 point surge. Apple’s shares will of course be in focus after its disappointing update. Ben van Beurden is upbeat about today’s vote, despite the small revolt. Shell’s CEO says: “I am delighted with the positive shareholder vote and the confidence that shareholders have shown in the strategic logic of the combination of Shell and BG. Our immediate focus is on the successful completion of the transaction and we now await the results of tomorrow’s BG shareholder vote. Assuming BG’s shareholders approve the deal (they will), Shell will become the world’s biggest liquefied natural gas (LNG) trader. It’s worth reiterating that 17% of Shell shareholders opposed the BG merger at today’s vote. That suggests that some big City investors have reservations about the deal, despite Shell chief Ben van Beurden’s best efforts to persuade them of its merits. Standard Life was the only large investor to go public - their head of equities, David Cumming, reckoned the deal only made sense when oil was over $60 per barrel, not $30ish. But Standard Life owned less than 2% of the company, so others have clearly found the deal too risky. Our financial editor, Nils Pratley, reminds me that even Royal Bank of Scotland’s disastrous merger with ABN Amro in October 2007 got the support of 99% of shareholders (who then suffered huge losses). So a 17% revolt may sting, a little. Thousands of workers at Shell and BG now face the axe, once the merger goes through. Shell announced last month that it will cut around 2,800 positions, or some 3% of the combined company. Newsflash from The Hague - Royal Dutch Shell shareholders have just voted in favour of its £35bn merger with rival oil firm BG. That’s despite pressure from some shareholders to renegotiate the tie-up, which was negotiated before the oil price slumped to just $30 per barrel. During the meeting, Shell chief executive Ben van Beurden told the meeting that the deal would be a “springboard to simplify Shell”, the Evening Standard reports. Van Beurden also argued that a merger still made sense despite the cheaper oil price. The deal was approved by 83% of shareholders, with 17% opposing the plan. BG investors give their verdict tomorrow, but there’s little chance that they will block the deal. RBS is helping to drag the London stock market down into the red today. As traders scoff a quick sandwich (or three courses at Gaucho), the FTSE 100 is down 22 points at 5888. RBS are the second biggest faller, down 3.8% at 251p. The only biggest faller is Anglo American, the mining company, which has shed 5.2%. Other miners are also in the red, reflecting ongoing concerns over global growth. Other European markets are also in the red, as investors wait to hear from the US Federal Reserve at 7pm GMT (when it will surely leave interest rates unchanged). Here’s more reaction to RBS’s latest financial woes, via Press Association: Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell, said: “It’s another bitter pill, but putting legacy issues behind it is essential if Chancellor George Osborne is going to off-load the Government’s stake during this parliament.” But banking analyst Gary Greenwood, at Shore Capital, said that, while “disappointing”, the latest financial charges are not unexpected. Over in America, traders are expecting Apple’s share price to slide after it warned that revenue will fall this quarter, for the first time in 13 years. RBS isn’t the only bank counting the cost of the PPI scandal today. Santander, the Spanish financial giant, has announced it is setting aside another £450m to cover compensation to customers who were missold Payment Protection Insuranace. The move will dent profits at Santander UK. It could be the bank’s final bill for the scandal, but we won’t know for sure until the deadline for PPI claims in 2018. A wave of ‘challenger banks’ have sprung up since the financial crisis, hoping to win business from scandal-splattered big players such as Royal Bank of Scotland. And one of them, Metro Bank, has announced plans to float on the stock market. Metro, which is losing around £10m per quarter, wants to raise £500m from shareholders. Random fact: Metro encourages dogs into its branches, and even lays on water bowls and doggie toys. If only bankers had spent more time doing that before the crisis, instead of churning out toxic debt and lumbering customers with PPI contracts.... The British public had better face the truth - we’ll all be shareholders in the banks for a while longer yet. So argues Chris Beauchamp, senior market analyst at City firm IG. He told clients: RBS’s ability to surprise investors with fresh bad news has been one of the hardy perennials of the past six years, and yet still the news keeps coming. George Osborne’s decision to sell a chunk of the government’s stake last August, which was derided at the time, now looks like a sound financial decision, but it does mean any further sales are essentially off the table. Coincidentally, with Lloyds down 2% this morning in sympathy, it seems the government will remain a key asset manager when it comes to UK banks. If you’re just tuning in, here’s Jill Treanor’s news story about the latest problems at RBS: RBS takes £2.5bn hit to profits as chief executive announces bank ‘clean-up’ Royal Bank of Scotland is set to report its eighth consecutive year of full-year losses after announcing a string of charges for legal bills, compensation and a pension payment. The bank, which is more than 70%-owned by the taxpayer, said it would take a £2.5bn hit to profits in 2015 as a result of a clean-up exercise, driving its share price to a three-year low in Wednesday’s early trading. RBS shares fell 5% to 246p – below the 330p at which George Osborne sold off the the government’s first tranche of shares in August, and less than half the 502p average price at which taxpayers pumped £45bn into the bank. Issuing an unscheduled trading update on Wednesday, Ross McEwan, the chief executive of RBS, said the move was part of a continued clean-up but conceded that that the bank would make another full-year loss for 2015. It has not reported a profit since 2007. “I am determined to put the issues of the past behind us, and make sure RBS is a stronger, safer bank. We will now continue to move further and faster in 2016 to clean up the bank and improve our core businesses,” said McEwan. “We’ve always been open about the scale of past issues facing RBS and although there is clearly much more to do, this announcement is a further step towards addressing legacy issues and building a great bank for our customers and delivering long-term value for our shareholders,” he added..... Here’s Jill’s full story: The latest problems at RBS show that bankers need keeping on a tight leash, argues campaigners for a financial transaction tax. David Hillman, spokesperson for the Robin Hood Tax campaign, says: “It’s groundhog day in the City as RBS announces yet another huge provision for dodgy dealing and fleecing its customers. “Try as it might, the banking sector is incapable of shaking off its past sins. The government must take note — now is not the time for it to ease up on financial sector reform.” There are signs that Britain is taking a softer line with the City. An inquiry into banking culture was curiously abandoned at the end of last year, alarming campaigners. And yesterday, Bank of England deputy governor Andrew Bailey was appointed as head of the Financial Conduct Authority - and hand-picked by George Osborne for this crucial job. Citigroup analysts have warned that RBS could suffer even more legal charges this year, points out the BBC’s Kamal Ahmed: “We still see significant additional litigation charges in 2016, on top of the charges that have been announced today. A quick explanation. When RBS says it is setting aside £1.5bn to cover “various US residential mortgage-backed securities (“RMBS”) litigation claims”, it is referring to one of the more noxious elements of the 2007-08 financial crisis. In the build-up to the crisis, milions of mortgages were sold to US citizens with shaky credit histories, who could not really afford them. Those loans were repackaged by investment banks into new financial products (the RMBSs) and sold onto investors who weren’t told how dangerous they might be. Cue the credit crunch, and the collapse of the subprime market. Mortgage-backed securities plunged in value, as the borrowers behind them failed to meet their payments and handed back the key to their homes. And the smaller banks, credit unions, insurers and suchlike who had been left holding them when the music stopped (and the Big Short paid out) launched waves of legal action against Wall Street. RBS had a finger in this unsavoury pie though its US subsidiary, Greenwich Capital Markets. In 2013, the SEC accused it of “misleading investors” and cutting corners, by selling loans that didn’t meet underwriting guidelines. Important point: The £1.5bn in new US legal charges announced by RBS this morning does not cover any potential settlements with the US Department of Justice, or various US State Attorney General investigations. Ian Gordon of Investec warns that: The timing and the cost of resolving those cases remains highly uncertain. City analysts are punting out their opinions now. And Sandy Chen of Cenkos Securities isn’t too alarmed by RBS’s announcement. He argues that the bank is simply cleaning up the mess of previous eras (or possibly ‘previous errors’). The new £1.5bn provision against US mortgage-backed security costs brings the total bill to £3.8bn - “closer to the £4-6bn totals that most analysts have had in mind”, Chen says. And the £500m payment protection insurance top-up should be one of the last big ones, given the FCA’s consultation on a 2018/19 time-bar on PPI claims, Chen adds. His conclusion: Bad news – really? More like putting their past in their behind, as Pumba said (in the Lion King). [I think Pumba actually says “you got to put your behind in your past.” -- but we get the gist] The UK government currently owns almost 73% of RBS, and at today’s share price I fear we’re stuck with it for some time. The taxpayer paid around 502p per share when it bailed the stricken bank out in 2008. Today, RBS shares are trading at just 250p, so we would take a stonking loss if George Osborne sells another slice of the bank. Last summer, he sold £2.1bn of stock at around 320p - crystallising a £1bn loss for the taxpayer. That deal was criticised, but with hindsight the hedge funds who bought the stock are now sitting on a loss themselves. RSB shares have just hit their lowest level since September 2012, I reckon. That’s not good news for George Osborne, as he tried to sell the bank back to the private sector. Shares in Royal Bank of Scotland have slumped by 5% at the start of trading, shedding 12.1p to 248p. That makes RBS is the biggest faller on the FTSE 100. Bad news for shareholders - which in RBS’s case is every member of the UK public, as we bailed the bank out in 2008. Q: When did RBS last make a profit, asks Jill Treanor. CEO Ross McEwan sucks through his teeth and takes a stab at 2007 -- the year before Lehman Brothers failed. We told you that 2015 and 2016 was about tidying up these legacy issues, and that’s exactly what we’re doing, McEwan adds. Q: How much has RBS paid out on PPI? The total bill is around £4.3bn, says McEwan. Q: Do today’s provisions mean RBS will declare a loss for 2015? Yes, McEwan replies. Some of these charges will hit the bottom line (not the pension changes, though) My colleague Jill Treanor asks whether today’s £500m PPI provision is finally the end of the saga. We’ve done the best we can, based on what we know today, to estimate what the final provision will be, McEwan replies. We think it is hopefully the end. People have until spring 2018 to file PPI claims. McEwan says PPI has been a long and torturous journey for many banks, and a reminder of how to treat consumers (or how not to mistreat them). RBS is briefing the media now, on a conference call. Chief Financial Officer Ewen Stevenson is telling reporters that “underneath it all we’ve got a strong core bank”. Will it ever end, wonder City journalists.... Is Ross McEwan is cleaning up RBS ahead of a sale, wonders the BBC’s Kamal Ahmed. RBS has also told the City that it is putting £4.2bn into its pension scheme, to cover an accounting deficit of £3.3 billion. That’s mainly an accelerated payment of existing committed future contributions. It follows changes in accounting practice, which have made RBS rethink whether or not it has an unconditional right to a refund of any surpluses in its employee pension funds. Royal Bank of Scotland has stunned the City with a fresh wave of provisions to cover bad behaviour and legal bills. In an unscheduled announcement, RBS announced a series of new charges. In a nutshell: The bank is setting aside $2.2 billion, or £1.5bn, to cover litigation claims in the US relating to various residential mortgage-backed securities. That’s a legacy of the subprime crisis. It is also setting aside an extra £500m to cover Payment Protection Insurance (“PPI”) claims. That’s the long-running mis-selling scandal in which millions of consumers were sold insurance they didn’t need (or even ask for, in some cases). RBS taking a goodwill impairment charge of £498m against its Private Banking business. More than seven years after being rescued by the taxpayer, RBS is still a work in progress..... CEO Ross McEwan insists that he is cleaning up the mess of the past: “I am determined to put the issues of the past behind us and make sure RBS is a stronger, safer bank. We will now continue to move further and faster in 2016 to clean-up the bank and improve our core businesses. We’ve always been open about the scale of past issues facing RBS and although there is clearly much more to do, this announcement is a further step towards addressing legacy issues and building a great bank for our customers and delivering long term value for our shareholders.” Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of the world economy, the financial markets the eurozone, and business. Two things dominate today -- the turmoil in the stock markets, and the first US Federal Reserve interest rate decision of 2016. Traders can’t take their eye off the oil price, which is lurching around the $30 per dollar mark this week. Brent crude is currently trading around $31.42 per barrel, helped by rumours that Russia and Saudi Arabia might carve up some kind of deal to cut production. It’s all a bit flaky, though. Michael Hewson of CMC Markets explains: The symbiotic relationship between equity markets and oil prices continued yesterday as after a rocky start to trading saw a slide in oil prices below $30 drag equity markets lower, the lack of follow through saw a semblance of stability return and a sharp recovery back above the $30 level on vague chatter that senior OPEC officials were looking to open a dialogue and put together some form of deal with Russia in an effort to put a floor under prices. European markets are likely to be calm this morning, as investors await new from America’s central bank. At 7pm GMT tonight, the Federal Reserve announces its decision on monetary policy. It will surely (surely!) leave interest rates unchanged, having made the first symbolic post-crisis hike last month. The Fed’s statement will be scrutinised for its view on the global economy, and any signs of ‘hikers’ remorse’, given the turmoil in the markets in recent weeks. Lots of companies reporting results today, although the biggie - Facebook - comes at 9pm GMT. The City will also be digesting Apple’s results last night, which showed that the iPhone boom may finally be over: We’ll be tracking all the main events through the day....
From The Great Escape to Sholay: what makes a film a national favourite? Citizen Kane might be the critics’ evergreen rosebud in most best-ever-film polls, but it is not the people’s choice: every country has its own supreme movie. How national favourite films are appointed is an obscure process, the incumbent often bedding in through countless collective holiday viewings until it is sitting there decades later, covered in dust, on the cultural mantelpiece. They are not usually the films that most blatantly peddle local stereotypes for outside consumption (in the UK, that might be James Bond, rather than The Great Escape), but ones with a more casual feel for the national psyche, displaying family foibles and preferences, sometimes to a fault, which is why they are rarely critical darlings. Appointed by this mysterious consensus-making process, national favourites tend to transcend age and class; we consulted with cinephiles and Joe Public around the world to compile this list of nine local heroes. La Grande Vadrouille (France) Gérard Oury’s 1966 wartime comedy was France’s undisputed domestic box-office champ for more than 40 years until 2008. Reminiscent of ’Allo ’Allo!, it paired up comedy institution Louis de Funès and the singer Bourvil as plucky Parisians helping out a squadron of stranded British airmen, led by none other than Terry-Thomas. But the reconciliation work was really for the benefit of French audiences: a rare mirthful treatment of France’s second world war, with the protagonists heading for the Vichy border, it steadfastly blanks the agonies of collaboration in favour of rampant farce rooted in gastronomy (flyboys hiding in wine barrels) and petty class differences (De Funès is a snooty conductor, Bourvil a house-painter). The magnificent final escape in gliders over Lozère’s belle campagne glosses over the vicious resistance hunts that took place on the ground, which is part of the reason, along with De Funès’ jack-in-the-box energy, why the film got the French bravoing so successfully. Irony of Fate (Russia) It seems improbable that Soviet Russia produced much self-satire, let alone that a piece of it could become the national talisman. But 1976’s Irony of Fate, or Enjoy Your Bath! – a two-part television special produced by the state film company Mosfilm that has been the country’s New Year’s Eve viewing fix ever since – is exactly that. It takes flight on a dart cheekily aimed at bland regime architecture: a drunken Moscow man mistakenly boards a plane to Leningrad, where he gets a taxi to an identical building in an identically named street – and meets the love of his life. Apparently, this kind of gentle satire was fairly common in the late Soviet era (although the film was belatedly banned under Gorbachev, supposedly for promoting drunkenness). Director Eldar Ryazanov’s lyrical delicacy prioritised people over ideology, ensuring that the film – watched by three-quarters of the population on its first broadcast – lived long past communism. Unfortunately, the man responsible for Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter handled the 2007 sequel. The Great Escape (UK) “The way it happened,” postured the release publicity for what has become a Christmas Day perennial in Britain. Not that the bumped-up quota of US stars (no Americans were involved in the real Stalag Luft III escape) for this American production stopped The Great Escape from becoming the cinematic equivalent of a Keep Calm and Carry On tea-towel in the UK; indeed, a liberal approach to history is why it is beloved. Its Boy’s Own approach to what was presumably a not-so-fun stretch at the Führer’s pleasure was irresistible; it came late in the cycle of epic second world war films, but it was still too early for the bitter and divisive tone of works about Vietnam. Contrasting the brash Yanks with the self-contained Brits, it fed the myth of the great British underdog all the better. More than 50 years later, fans are still lulled into catatonia when the title song is parped out at England matches. Sholay (India) If uptake by sports fans is the national-treasure litmus test, Sholay passes: Yeh Dosti, the ode to friendship sung by lead rogues Amitabh Bachchan and Dharmendra, can often be heard in Indian cricket grounds. The 1975 blockbuster rips off Sergio Leone and Charlie Chaplin rotten, but it transcends them cockily, stretching the definition of “something for everyone” by gorging the movie on action, romance and knockabout comedy in one of the first multi-genre “masala movies”. Sholay, India’s first 70mm production, used sheer scale to steamroller the masses: it was two and a half years in the making and 204 minutes long. It played in one Mumbai cinema for five years and was the national box-office topper for 19 years. But it also had soul. Its stylish outlaws flirted with the combustible mood that provoked Indira Ghandi’s declaration of national emergency as the film was released, but it corralled this rebelliousness into a vision of Indian society in which everyone fits into place. Drei Haselnüsse für Aschenbrödel (Germany) Yet another holiday-season staple, this 1973 East German-Czechoslovakian co-production for TV, like Irony of Fate, outlasted the regime. But continuing fervour for this version of the Cinderella story cannot be explained away by ostalgie. Drawn from the writings of 19th-century Czech nationalist Božena Němcová, it is more the fresh-cheeked retelling that has allowed it to stand its ground against countless Hollywood alternatives. Libuše Šafránková’s Bardot-pretty lead is given an unusual amount of agency, with the emphasis placed on her approval of the prince. Coupled with the Saxony locations – especially Moritzburg castle, where cash-in Drei Haselnüsse exhibitions are still held – it has a once-upon-a-time immediacy that places it right in the heartlands of the European fairytale. Nosotros los Pobres (Mexico) The Golden Age beefcake Pedro Infante, who died in a plane crash in 1957, was such an icon of Mexican masculinity that it was later rumoured he was alive and masquerading as El Santo, the masked kingpin of lucha libre. Nosotros los Pobres (We the Poor), which came out in 1947, was the pinnacle of his screen run as a big-hearted working-class hero. The start of a trilogy in which he played struggling yet invariably pec-flexing carpenter Pepe el Toro, it remained Mexico’s highest grossing film for almost four decades and was later a TV-schedule placeholder. It parcelled up the popular daily grind in a more saccharine way than the likes of Luis Buñuel’s Los Olvidados and came to signify a swaggering period of commercial Mexican cinema bookended by Infante’s premature death. The country’s new-school box-office champion, Nosotros los Nobles – about spoiled rich-kids – nabbed the title in 2013. Gone With the Wind (US) US cinema is so wide-ranging that it is hard to single out one leader. But perhaps Gone With the Wind is it: an archetypal blockbuster – it had a budget of $3.9m, worth $66m (£53m) today – that tantalised the public by coasting on hype (producer David O Selznick had a national casting call for the role of Scarlett O’Hara) and flirting with disaster in the way James Cameron has since made his modus operandi. Speaking to the US’s size fixation, the civil war drama’s epic panache made it a monster hit that ruled the domestic box office until The Exorcist came along in 1973. If you really want to be cynical, there is even something American about a film becoming a majoritarian classic by so blithely overlooking the racial oppression of its biggest minority. Tora-san (Japan) Japan’s choice isn’t a film, but rather a character. The Otoko wa Tsurai yo (It’s Tough Being a Man) series ran for 48 films from 1969 to 1995, by which time its protagonist, roving peddler Tora-san, had worn a deep groove in the nation’s heart. The films ran to a strict formula: Tora-san, returning home, would annoy his family so much that they would chuck him out on the road, where he would invariably meet a woman who would fail to reciprocate his affections. He padded through almost every Japanese prefecture during his run – which lasted until lead actor Kiyoshi Atsumi’s death in 1996; his bumbling rogue, drawing on Charlie Chaplin and Jacques Tati, became a nostalgic focal point for audiences as the country modernised. There is a Tora-san statue outside the Shibamata train station, the old-time Tokyo neighbourhood towards which he always gravitates. Living in Bondage (Nigeria) This 1992 supernatural drama supplies the origin myth for Nollywood, which is, by films produced, the No 1 film industry in the world. Nigeria had virtually no cinemas at the time, so it was ripe for a more down’n’dirty folkloric mode of storytelling. This is where Chris Obi Rapu’s video quickie Living in Bondage came in: its garish plotline (country boy comes to Lagos and ritually sacrifices his wife in return for riches) translated easily beyond its minority Igbo-language base and spoke universally to an urbanising country. Like most origin myths, it is apocryphal (it was not the first Nigerian video feature), but LiB provided both an economic and a storytelling template that persists to this day. The film that launched a million shrinkwrapped juju potboilers on market stalls across Nigeria is still fondly cited. Not quite national treasures (South Korea, Turkey and Egypt) It is usually large, affluent countries with unbroken cinematic traditions that produce consensus favourites. You would expect other places with vibrant industries to have done the same, but for various reasons their totem-pole films aren’t necessarily popular classics, or not unanimously. Kim Ki-young’s torrid and stylistically adventurous domestic thriller The Housemaid, from 1960, provided the foundation for the dark Korean new-wave of Park Chan-wook et al and is often cited by those directors. But no one watches it these days. The collapse of Korean cinema in the 1980s and 1980s, or the disdain for “heritage” outside the west, might explain that. It could be a similar story in Turkey, where Yeşilçam (the Turkish Hollywood) produced many fading crowdpleasers, such as 1978’s The Girl with the Red Scarf, but where new-school works such as Eskiya (The Bandit), the 1996 blockbuster that revived Turkish cinema, haven’t had time to percolate deeply enough. Or perhaps it is a demographic split between traditionalist and modern that keeps people on opposite sides of the Netflix library. In Egypt, the biggest Arab film industry, golden-age favourites such as Eshaet Hob (Rumour of Love) – Omar Sharif does geek-cool – are fondly remembered, and more recent comedy Terrorism and Kebab broke records. But neither is the one film to bring them all. The 4K restoration of La Grande Vadrouille is available now on DVD, Blu-Ray and via download
Far from middle class: why JPMorgan's wage hike is not worth celebrating Millions of American workers get a pay raise without any public fanfare. But employees of JPMorgan Chase got to see their wage increase celebrated in a New York Times opinion piece by their chairman and CEO, Jamie Dimon. Dimon touted a gradual pay increase for 18,000 employees, mostly bank tellers and customer service representatives, over three years. The bank’s current minimum wage for its US employees is $10.15 an hour, above the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, he noted. Dimon promised to up that minimum to between $12 and $16.50, depending on factors such as employees’ locations and work schedules. He cast the move as a fight against stagnant wages and income inequality. But the pay raise, while welcomed, hardly makes Dimon a champion of wage workers, say bank employees and experts. Instead, it reflects the pressure on employers to raise wages at a time when the US labor market is improving and the unemployment rate remains low, below 5%. Additionally, the pay range is still far from middle-class wages. “He starts tellers at $10.15 – which is $3 above minimum wage, so he kind of feels like he is the hero, who does something really great,” said Courtney Hall, who works in the retail banking industry. “Jamie, he got a $7m raise, he went from $20m to $27m last year.” Lawrence Mishel, president of the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, calculated that the wage hike, which will go into effect in 2017, amounts to a 3.2% annual increase. “That’s good, but it’s not other-worldly. The fact is those wages are not all that high. For a leading sector, they should pay more,” Mishel said. Looking at the overall US economy, the average hourly earnings reached $25.61 in June, far above the minimum wage. The hourly wages have grown at the annualized rate of 2.6% over the past 12 months, an increase that Barack Obama earlier this year said was still “too slow”. Considering all that, the 3.2% boost by JPMorgan Chase appears to be an effort to offer competitive wages. The fact is the bank is playing catch up. A report by Reuters revealed that other banks already pay wages within the range that JPMorgan Chase hopes to pay in next three years. “We started looking at our entry-level workforce a couple of years ago and have gotten already to the, call it, $12 to $16.50 range,” John Shrewsberry, Wells Fargo’s chief financial officer, told Reuters. Similarly, Citigroup’s spokeswoman said the bank’s US tellers start at a minimum of $13 an hour and overall earn an average of more than $15.50 an hour. JPMorgan Chase is also falling behind corporate giants in other industries. In the past couple of years, companies including Gap, Walmart, Ikea, McDonald’s and Starbucks have announced that they would be willing to pay their workers more than the local minimum wage, which is set by the state or city and sometimes exceeds the federal minimum. Are those wage hikes enough? According to workers and workers’ rights organizations, the answer is usually no. “We are excited that he is raising wages, but we just feel like there is a lot to be done,” said Hall. She believes that the minimum pay for a bank teller should be $15 an hour, a figure that’s also used in an ongoing campaign by labor groups to raise the national minimum wage. The banks can afford it, Hall said, pointing out that JPMorgan Chase posted about $24bn in net income for last year. Hall started working as a teller at Wells Fargo in 2010, when she earned $11 an hour. By the time she left Wells Fargo last December, she was making just $12.50. That’s a $1.50 raise per hour in more than five years. A single mother living in New Jersey, Hall says making ends meet on her pay was a struggle. Despite the low pay, she was reluctant to leave her job at Wells Fargo after working there for so long. She finally made the jump when Santander offered to pay her more to be a teller manager in Philadelphia. “People look at the bankers and think, ‘They are dressed nice, they must be making money’. But that’s not the case at all,” she said. “In the 1970s, being a teller was being a big shot. It was considered middle class and now it’s definitely not. The tellers are nowhere near middle class.” A 2016 poverty threshold for a household of four – as set out by the US government – is $24,300 a year. In 2015, an average bank teller earned $12.70 an hour, bringing home $26,410 a year (before taxes), according to the Department of Labor. A 2013 report by University of California at Berkeley found that bank tellers annually collected as much as $105m in food stamps, $534m in Medicaid and children’s health insurance and $25m in federal earned income tax credits, which are designed for people with low to moderate income. The struggle to make a decent living has driven people to leave their retail banking jobs. Oscar L Garza, formerly a Chase personal banker, left that job around 2013 because he couldn’t support his wife and son on $12 an hour. “A person with that salary would still be able to qualify for welfare, which is sad,” he said. Garza now works at an AT&T call center in Texas, where employees make roughly $28 to $31 per hour thanks to being part of a union. Bank tellers aren’t unionized. Both Hall and Garza are members of Committee for Better Banks, a coalition of bank workers and workers’ rights organizations working to improve conditions in the banking industry. So, should we stop praising CEOs for raising their workers pay by a dollar or two an hour? “Absolutely! We should say: it’s amazing that this is amazing,” said Mishel. “That [Dimon] is writing a press release to feel good about this. What would be good is if he met with other bankers and decided how collectively they were going to raise their pay to substantial level.” Bank workers say their whole industry, not just JPMorgan Chase, needs to do more to provide a decent living. “Dimon is definitely headed in the right direction, but the truth of the matter is that those wages – for a family of three or four – are still poverty level wages. It’s nowhere near to what a normal family would need to survive,” Garza said.
Scotland could offer Northern Irish women access to free abortions Nicola Sturgeon has told the Scottish parliament that the devolved government would explore the possibility of giving women from Northern Ireland access to abortions in Scotland’s health service free of charge. Responding to a question from Green party MSP Patrick Harvie on Thursday, the first minister said: “I am happy to explore with the NHS what the situation is now in terms of the ability of women from Northern Ireland to access safe and legal abortion in NHS Scotland and whether any improvements can be made. “Like Patrick Harvie, I believe that women should have the right to choose, within the limits that are currently set down in law, and that that right should be defended. When a woman opts to have an abortion – I stress that that is never, ever an easy decision for any woman – the procedure should be available in a safe and legal way.” The health service has so far refused to pay for abortions for women from Northern Ireland who travel to Britain for terminations. The procedure is only available in Northern Ireland’s hospitals when there is a direct threat to the mother’s life if the pregnancy continues. In all other cases, it is illegal. Harvie pointed out that women from Northern Ireland had to fund their own private terminations, which can cost from £400 to £2,000. He asked Sturgeon if she would “agree that the national health service in Scotland should be exploring what can be done to ensure that those women are able to access abortion in Scotland, if that is where they choose to travel to, without facing that kind of unacceptable financial barrier?” The supreme court in London is currently considering an application from a Northern Irish teenager who, as a15-year-old, had to go to England to terminate a pregnancy. She is challenging the NHS’s refusal to fund abortions for women from Northern Ireland. Amnesty International welcomed Sturgeon’s offer. Patrick Corrigan, its Northern Ireland programme director, said: “Given the utter human rights failure of Northern Ireland’s ministers to provide free, safe and legal abortion healthcare for women and girls here, we welcome the commitment of Scotland’s first minister to explore what can be done via NHS Scotland. “The UN human rights committee recently ruled that Northern Ireland’s laws prohibiting and criminalising abortion constitute a human rights violation. The Scottish government could help lessen the harsh financial impact of that violation by allowing women from Northern Ireland to access abortions free of charge on the NHS.” Corrigan said Sturgeon’s offer of help should not, however, allow Northern Irish politicians to do nothing on the question of abortion. “While this would be a welcome and helpful step, it is no substitute for the Northern Ireland executive putting its own house in order with respect to significant reform of our scandalous abortion laws,” he said. “The fact that Scotland’s first minister is now exploring what she can do to help women and girls from Northern Ireland is an indictment of the failure of Northern Ireland own’s first minister, executive colleagues and the assembly.” Last November, a high court judge ruled that Northern Ireland’s abortion laws violated the rights of women and girls in cases of fatal foetal abnormalities or where a pregnancy was the result of a sexual crime. An estimated 2,000 women a year have to raise the money to travel to private English clinics and hospitals from Northern Ireland to have terminations. However, there is strong opposition across the floor of the Northern Ireland assembly to liberalising the province’s strict anti-abortion laws. The Abortion Act 1967 was never extended to Northern Ireland and an attempt to ease the law to include cases of fatal foetal abnormalities and pregnancy via sexual crime was rejected earlier this year. Genevieve Edwards, director of policy at Marie Stopes, said: “I’m delighted they’re going to look at this in Scotland and I’d hope NHS England would consider following suit and mitigating, in part, this huge inequality for women in Northern Ireland by funding their treatment. “Of course, women also face travel costs, and the additional upset of having to travel outside their country often at very short notice, for a procedure which is available on the NHS to every woman in England, Scotland and Wales. “Ultimately, politicians in Stormont hold the power, and the responsibility, to make a reality of women’s reproductive rights in Northern Ireland. But until then, I’m delighted to see politicians in other parts of the UK stepping up to the plate.”
AC/DC review – it’s all about the dynamics Clumping around the stage on a brace, jeans torn off at the knee, Axl Rose – temporary American singer of Australian rock powerhouses AC/DC – has the air of a pirate regaining his sea legs and his authority. Rose is not smiling, exactly. But there is a malevolent gleam in his eye as he tosses a fat microphone from hand to hand, surveying AC/DC’s fans. Gone is the throne that immobilised Rose on earlier parts of this controversial hybrid tour, a prop made necessary by the injury Rose sustained at a Guns N’ Roses reunion gig in early April. Rose’s confinement added another Spinal Tap-ish dimension to AC/DC’s already beleaguered Rock Or Bust outing. AC/DC singer Brian Johnson was forced to pull out because of hearing loss in early March. The band’s press releases at the time had a strangely brutal finality to them (“We wish him all the best with his hearing issues and future ventures,” said a spokesperson). Thousands of fans demanded refunds when it was announced in mid-April that Rose would be Johnson’s replacement. Those fans might be repenting their decision at leisure now. Because the band we might call Axl/DC combines the strengths of both parties: AC/DC’s pulverising constancy – Thunderstruck still rumbles through the seating, Hells Bells sends your tinnitus polyphonic again – spiced up by Rose’s own damage and derangement. Emboldened, this half-time sub with a dodgy metatarsal romps through the AC/DC classic Back in Black, screeching victoriously through very white teeth. It would be wrong to say he makes the song his own, but it’s not far off. Back in Black is a testament to AC/DC’s own resilience after the loss of original singer, Bon Scott, who died in 1980, now something of a byword for the general indomitability of rock’n’roll, and all who sail in her. Although you don’t doubt that Rose has sung Back in Black into a hairbrush more than a few times while Guns N’ Roses were coming together in LA, Rose’s rendition is emphatically not karaoke, as some have suggested. Rose’s screech just works: not aping AC/DC singer Brian Johnson overmuch, but sharing his frequencies. The differences, though, are marked. Where Johnson had a smutty chuckle at the ready, both revelling in, and sending up, his band’s ridiculousness, Rose is a more predatory presence, channelling a little of the band’s original singer. He can reach the high notes on Hells Bells that Johnson was, perhaps, eyeing with some trepidation. By Highway to Hell in the encore, Rose just sounds like himself. But if Rose’s mobility is the first thing that grabs you, it is not the focus of tonight’s show. In front of the reinvigorated Rose is puppet master Angus Young, AC/DC’s founding guitarist and owner of the most overexposed shins in rock, chicken-strutting backwards and forwards along the penile stage extension. Young has always been the star of AC/DC’s shows, and tonight his primacy is underscored even further. Young comes on first, to adulation, at the start of Rock Or Bust. His solos seem to have gained in intricacy (or perhaps Johnson is no longer there to suggest he keeps it tight). The end of this long and joyous set – Let There Be Rock – is just one protracted blizzard of electric guitar, during which Young mock collapses twice. Mid-set, he rips off his schoolboy tie and frets his guitar with it, a pint-size Jimi Hendrix in velveteen school uniform. You come for the songs – utterly formulaic, deathlessly amusing, the sexist twaddle still irksome – but you stay for the dynamics. Rose, one of the biggest rock stars on the planet, is deferential towards the human riff machine, the last man now standing of the band established in 1973. Young’s brother, Malcolm, retired from the band in 2014 because of dementia; their nephew, Stevie Young, is installed on rhythm guitar. Erstwhile drummer Phil Rudd has been sidelined after criminal charges; his stool is filled by Chris Slade. (“Is it even AC/DC?” Rudd has wondered aloud). Bassist Cliff Williams has been a constant since 1977. As the hits roll on, drawing from virtually every era of AC/DC, you would not say that there was any chemistry between Young and his hired hand exactly – more a dance of necessity leavened by mutual respect. Johnson, meanwhile, has a state-of-the-art hearing aid and might theoretically be able to return to AC/DC in future. In the meantime, the combined effect of Rose’s clomp and Young’s stanky leg strut is unexpectedly moving, as though, against all material evidence, there really was some truth in AC/DC’s powerful illusion of indestructibility.
Republican ex-rocker Ted Nugent: 'Obama is a psychopathic America-hating liar' Barack Obama may have cried during his speech on gun control but it seems at least one rocker wasn’t moved. Ted Nugent took to Facebook following the president’s words and labelled him a “psychopathic, America-hating liar”. “I will write a comprehensive piece on the Chicago scam artist in chief on his latest lies about tyranical [sic] trampling of the 2nd Amendment,” wrote Nugent, “but know it ye all goodmen everywhere that his ongoing criminal oath violating INFRINGEMENTS would NOT have stopped nor will ever stop ANY mass shootings or crime that anyone is aware of. He is a psychopathic America hating liar.” Nugent went on to suggest his fans should buy memberships to the NRA for everyone they know. In a response to one Facebook user, he turned his nose up at the idea of visiting the UK, where he equated the lower availability of guns with “no freedom”. Nugent is not normally a supporter of Obama, and has ties with the Republican party. He has previously expressed views advocating hunting, with his Facebook page displaying photos of him holding the corpses of lions and deer he presumably shot. Obama’s new gun control law aims to expand background checks for buyers. In an emotional speech, the president referred to massacres such as the Sandy Hook shooting that killed 20 children and six adults in 2012. “Every time I think about those kids, it gets me mad,” he said.
Brexit could cause war? Utter nonsense, David Cameron David Cameron’s history is rubbish. Whatever the virtues of remaining in the EU, his idea in today’s speech that “whenever we turn our backs on Europe, sooner or later we come to regret it” is nonsense. As for Brexit “raising the risk of war”, it is Project Fear gone mad. The best thing that happened to medieval England was its defeat in the hundred years war and the end of English ambitions on the continent of Europe. The best thing to happen in the 16th century was Henry VIII’s rejection of the pan-European papacy. The wisest policy of his daughter, Elizabeth I, was an isolationism so rigid that she rejected one continental suitor after another. Britain fought off all attempts by France and Spain to restore European Catholicism, and accepted a Dutch and a German monarch strictly on the basis of British parliamentary sovereignty. Cameron’s 18th-century predecessor was Robert Walpole, author of Walpole’s Peace. Its meticulous isolation from Europe’s conflicts brought Britain a golden age of enlightenment and industrial revolution. In 1734, Walpole could proudly tell the Queen: “Madam there are 50,000 men slain this year in Europe, and not one an Englishman.” Even William Pitt’s creation of a British empire was based on staying explicitly aloof from the seven years’ war on the continent of Europe. Later, while Horatio Nelson’s victories were essential to British interests, the Waterloo campaign could hardly, on David Cameron’s terms, have been avoided by earlier intervention. Nor did Napoleon Bonaparte pose a serious threat to Britain. Victorian Britain stayed out of Europe. Its sole intervention, Crimea, was a disaster. Cameron forgets perhaps his most successful Tory predecessor, Lord Salisbury, who said of intervening in other states’ affairs (surely the essence of the EU) that there was “no practice which the experience of nations more uniformly condemns.” His policy was declared to be of “splendid isolation”. Cameron’s apparent thesis that the first world war could have been prevented by earlier British intervention is illiterate. We could as well argue that it was in part caused by an incipient EU, the Triple Alliance against Germany expansionism. The second world war was, of course, the great exception, but any idea that Britain could have promoted peace by declaring war on Hitler earlier than in 1939 is fanciful. When Cameron cites recent wars in the Middle East, what did they have to do with Britain’s EU membership? As for Iraq as a guide to anything, if I were Cameron I would stay silent. If British history is to be cited in this debate, it is a sustained, overwhelming, irrefutable argument for Brexit. But that, of course, should not guide the future. History should be studied, not repeated – and best left to historians.
The Jayhawks: Paging Mr Proust review – an easy musical chemistry Five years ago, the Jayhawks reunited, with original co-leader Mark Olson returning alongside Gary Louris, to release the delightful Mockingbird Time. Sadly, Olson is gone again for its follow-up, but Jayhawks fans need not fear, for album No 9 sounds just as you’d expect the Jayhawks to sound: modest, uninsistent, and rocking in a gentle way, save for when Louris lets his guitar squall through the otherwise modest, uninsistent, and gentle country-funk of Ace. Paging Mr Proust is an apt title, because 30 years on from their debut, the Jayhawks – though no nostalgia act – serve very much as a memory prompter: it’s hard not to feel nostalgic listening to the easy musical chemistry between their principals. There’s a faint hint of modernity in the processed, mechanised percussion that opens Pretty Roses in Your Hair, but the title alone is enough to tell you Louris’s songwriting has not ventured into exploring alt-R&B. There may not quite be the soaring quality of songs here that Hollywood Town Hall or Rainy Day Music offered, but its pleasures are manifold.
A tale of many Trumps: book reveals the showman, womaniser and slick operator Donald Trump’s shifting political and business loyalties are laid bare in a new book that challenges his credentials as a conviction politician in often lurid detail. Despite a recent campaign focus on letting “Trump be Trump”, the 431-page biography instead charts the career of many Trumps: the showman, the womaniser, and a business partner who quickly ditches failing schemes. The book, the first of several expected on Trump, was compiled by a team of two dozen Washington Post journalists, led by Michael Kranish and Marc Fisher, during a three-month period earlier this year, in which they had some 20 hours of interviews with him. Challenged with evidence that he had changed party affiliation seven times between 1999 and 2012, the Republican candidate defended his political flip-flopping as a necessary expediency. “I think it had to do more with practicality, because if you’re going to run for office, you would have had to make friends,” he told the authors. He declined to say whether he had voted for Hillary Clinton, for whom he once hosted a packed penthouse fundraiser and donated campaign contributions six times over a decade. “I felt it was an obligation to get along, including with the Clintons,” he once said, according to the book titled Trump Revealed: An American Journey of Ambition, Ego, Money and Power. But the team of reporters also reveal new accounts of business reversals, including interviews with some of the victims of a collapsed Florida property scheme who sued after discovering that he had little responsibility for it other than receiving income for the use of his name. Instead, reports the Washington Post book, one of the project’s actual developers had pleaded guilty in a separate Wall Street fraud case involving mafia crime families. Trump insists he “barely knew” the man. Trump also confirms a notorious incident in which unwelcome tenants in one of his skyscrapers were encouraged to leave by being told they would have to walk 60 flights to get to work because the elevators had mysteriously shut down. Yet much of the detail of Trump’s business dealings – from a mortgage venture described as a “boiler room” to a vitamin sales scheme said to share similarities with pyramid schemes – may please supporters with depictions of a man who invariably ends up “winning”. A controversial clothing line, made mainly in low-wage factories offshore, is said to have netted Trump $1m with no money down. The self-proclaimed teetotaler, who doesn’t like shaking hands for fear of germs, also emerges as a consummate master of media manipulation. NBC executive Jim Dowd is quoted saying Trump believed the Apprentice TV show provided him with the opportunity to run for the White House. “He told me ‘I’ve got the real estate and hotel and golf niche. I’ve got the name recognition, but I don’t have the love and respect of middle America.’ Now he did. That was the bridge to the [2016 campaign].” The book details Trump’s parasitic, and at turns downright bizarre, relationship with the press. Trump even granted a reporter an in-person interview at the hospital on the day his daughter Tiffany was born. In another instance, it appears Trump, pretending to be a spokesman for himself, leaked details of his first divorce from Ivana to People magazine. Early in his career, he employed a “carrot and stick” approach with reporters to both garner attention and pre-empt negative press. When Trump learned a journalist from the Village Voice was interested in digging into his business dealings, he called the reporter, Jack Newfield, and later referred to him as a friend. At one point he offered to help get Newfield an apartment in a more affluent neighborhood. But Trump also warned him, “I’ve broken more than one writer.” “For decades, Trump’s daily morning routine included a review of everything written or said about him in the previous 24 hours. The clippings were usually culled by Norma Foerderer – for two decades Trump’s ever-present chief assistant – who also handed her boss a spiral notebook containing media requests, most of which he would handle himself,” according to the book. “As his celebrity grew, the daily pile of Trump related news coverage swelled; still, he diligently tried to review everything written or said about him.” During the 1980s and early 1990s, Trump routinely made headlines for his splashy persona and high-stakes investments. The book notes that he was adored by working-class New Yorkers, especially ones from the outer boroughs who appreciated his Queens accent, and by immigrants, who saw him as the epitome of the American dream, excessive but successful. Reporters became accustomed to speaking to Trump directly. On occasion, the book said, it appeared he would masquerade as a spokesman for the organization under the name “John Miller” or “John Barron”. He even used “The Baron” as a codename when leaving messages for Marla Maples while he was still married to Ivana Trump. Barron is also the name of his youngest son with his current wife, Melania Trump. Incidentally, when he first met Melania, he allegedly asked for her phone number even though he was on a date with another woman at the time. The book also describes how Trump was devastated by the deaths of his casino executives, Stephen Hyde, Mark Grossinger Etess, and Jonathan Benanav in 1989. The four attended a meeting at Trump Tower in New York that ran longer than expected. Having missed their flight home, the men boarded another helicopter back to Atlantic City. A scrape on the rotor blades caused the helicopter to split apart in mid-air. Trump learned of the crash first, and called the three families to inform them, according to the book. In an interview with the Post, Trump compared that experience to when the military informs “soldiers’ families when they’re gone”. Later Trump would claim that he was supposed to be on the helicopter and changed his mind at the last minute. “It was, like, a fifty-fifty deal,” he told CNN, though this account has been disputed. The book describes how Trump adopted the ethos of Roy Cohn, a fearsome New York lawyer and former consigliere to Senator Joseph McCarthy, who represented the builder for 13 years: “All press is good press”. Cohn, who died of Aids in 1986, weeks after being disbarred, is credited with inviting Trump into New York’s influential social and political circles that proved useful as he grew his business in the city. Trump later explained his philosophy to Elizabeth Jarosz, a second-season contestant who later became a brand strategy consultant. “All publicity is good publicity … When people get tired of you is when you do more publicity, because that’s when you become an icon,” she recalled.
Swiss Army Man's farting folly could be the cure for Hollywood's 'sequelitis' Music video directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert probably didn’t panic when a continuous stream of audience members bolted for the exit at the Sundance premiere of Swiss Army Man. From a pre-credits opening sequence that sees Paul Dano hop aboard Daniel Radcliffe (who just happens to be a dead farting corpse/human jet-ski) to traverse the ocean, Swiss Army Man not only welcomes derision – it gleefully thrives on it. As the ’s Jordan Hoffman noted in his review out of the festival, Swiss Army Man only grows progressively “weirder” as it glides along. After Dano’s lovelorn Hank happens upon Radcliffe’s corpse on an island following a failed suicide attempt and rides his new discovery to nearby land, Hank is soon overjoyed to learn that his companion (he names him Manny) is semi-alive – like a zombie, just much friendlier and more useful. Even better: Manny can act as a human swiss army knife of sorts (get it?). In a whimsical montage, scored to oddly sung original music by Manchester Orchestra members Andy Hull and Robert McDowell, Manny shows off his bag of tricks to an ecstatic Hank: he can store seemingly infinite amounts of water in his body, shoot projectile weapons out of his mouth to kill prey, and use his erect penis as a compass to direct them to civilization. It’s at this point that viewers will probably divide into two camps. Either you buckle up for the zany ride, or you check out, numbed by the gas and dick jokes. Watching Radcliffe’s bowels go completely berserk is, of course, not to everyone’s liking. But under all the bellowing is a visual and aural wonder that’s impossible to dismiss as purely puerile. Kwan and Scheinert, best known for helming the surreal music video to DJ Snake and Lil Jon’s 2014 dance hit Turn Down for What, are magicians at conjuring arresting images that both repulse and awe. A shot of Manny fart-propelling Hank high above the trees is downright dreamlike in execution. The performances match their efforts. Dano, his childlike face masked by a gnarly beard for most of the film, commits to Hank’s desperate situation with the type of no-holds-barred abandon the actor is known for. Radcliffe proves to be Dano’s ideal foil, remaining strictly reactive, while investing Manny with an endearing sense of curiosity. When their relationship takes on a romantic nature, the two don’t make light of the plot development – they commit to it wholeheartedly. The effect is ultimately beguiling, and feels altogether foreign in today’s comedy landscape, when gay undertones are usually played for laughs. Dano and Radcliffe’s chemistry, coupled with Kwan and Scheinert’s gonzo vision and an unpredictable story that’s commendably vague, makes Swiss Army Man one of the more brazen and original comedies to come along in years. (Seth Rogen’s Sausage Party is soon set to join those ranks, but that doesn’t open until next month.) During a summer when “sequelitis” seems to have taken hold of audiences, the need for Swiss Army Man in the marketplace is paramount. Its existence proves that singularly strange films can still get made. Hopefully it finds an audience.
From Trump to Merkel: how the world is divided between fear and openness Two major concepts define the political struggle in the west today. One can be termed “globalism”, which is currently most prominently represented by the German chancellor, Angela Merkel. The other is “territorialism”, a view that the very likely Republican candidate for the US elections in November, Donald Trump, represents. At the core of the debate is the meaning of borders: should they be porous or tightly controlled? Are they mainly an obstacle to the free and productive flow of ideas, people, goods and information and should therefore be largely dismantled? Or are massive borders welcome and indispensable as a protection against all kinds of real or perceived threats such as competition and terrorism? For globalists such as Merkel, interconnectedness is a good thing because it is what drives progress towards more prosperity and freedom everywhere. For territorialists such as Trump, interconnectedness is mainly a threat. What is good and healthy is attributed to the natives and what is dangerous comes from outside: unfair Chinese competition, dangerous Mexican immigrants and Middle Eastern terrorists. Globalists want to manage the cross-border streams and minimise the disruptive character of borders to maximise the gains from connected markets and societies. Of course those streams have to be managed and this is why governance cannot any more be limited to the national territory. Governments need to co-operate and set up regional and global institutions; they need to set rules and make sure that these rules are upheld. Globalists argue among themselves about how to police the wider spaces but not about the principle. Territorialists, by contrast, don’t believe in international and transnational institutions – they believe in national strength and power. Donald Trump wants to invest in the US military so that it’s “so big and strong and so great” that “nobody’s going to mess with us”. The world outside the borders is anarchical and dangerous and the way to deal with threats is to fight them by using force. “Bomb the shit out of Isis,” Trump said. Allies are not an asset, they are a burden because they are free riders, cheating on America’s taxpayers: “We can no longer defend all of these countries,” he said, citing Japan, South Korea and Germany. The man who may be the next US president also proposed closing off parts of the internet so terrorists could not use to recruit. The territorialist’s answer to the abuse of freedom and openness is to use force abroad and to disrupt the flow of people or information. Trump wants to build “the greatest wall that you’ve ever seen” on the US-Mexican border, to keep illegal immigrants out. Territorialists believe they can prosper economically even while interrupting, diminishing and shutting cross-border flows. Jobs must be brought back, free trade agreement renegotiated because they are unfair to Americans. US companies such as Ford must be punished for investing abroad. Apple should build its “damned computers” in the US and not in China. Countries such as China, Japan, Mexico, Vietnam and India are “ripping us off” and need to be punished. Trump is, rhetorically, the most aggressive politician of this sort, but he’s far from alone. US commentators have blamed the Republican party for capitulating to populists for years, allowing Trump to harvest what others have planted. And Europe has its own share of territorialists, who share many of Trump’s views. Marine Le Pen in France, leader of the Front National, stands a good chance of winning the first round of next year’s French presidential elections. Then there’s Viktor Orban, prime minister of Hungary, who rose to international prominence by making the case for “illiberal democracy” and for his determination to respond to the refugee crisis solely by building massive fences. Territorialism is a form of populism: simple, inconsistent answers to complex challenges, based on the politics of fear. Territorialists divide the world into friends and foes; they attribute everything positive to the natives and everything negative to those beyond the borders. But the biggest problem with territorialism is not polarisation, it is that the concept is deeply flawed. Territorialists suggest that people can have their cake and eat it: disrupt globalisation and stay rich, minimise investment in international affairs and alliances and remain safe and free. They take the huge gains in prosperity, security and freedom of the last decades for granted. They fail to understand that those gains depend on massive investments of nation states in international order, and that globalisation is based on open societies and increasingly easy cross-border flows of goods, people and information. In other words, if territorialism wins, globalisation is under threat. Merkel thinks we are indeed at a crossroads; the refugee crisis is part of a larger challenge that she describes as “our rendezvous with globalisation”. For her, the key challenge is how to keep globalisation afloat in spite of increasing geopolitical conflicts and tensions. Merkel is one of the few western leaders who has lived in a country that was unfree, poor and isolated from the west by a wall and fences secured by mines. She was 35 years old when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989. She knows what it means to be shut off from global flows, locked in a country by an insurmountable border. For Merkel, globalisation equals progress. Open spaces and increased interaction across borders are a good thing, as they unleash opportunity and secure freedom and prosperity at home. Globalisation is challenging, but on balance the gains are much bigger than the risks. Also, in a world of large economic regions such as the US and China, the space in which German politics operates cannot be limited to the German territory any more. Open borders in Europe are “deeply in our interest”, she argues; no other country gains from those achievements “more than us” and needs them more “because of our geographical location”. But responsibilty goes beyond the shared European space: “In an open world we also have to take on more responsibility for what happens outside our European borders.” Open borders in Europe are under threat. The refugee crisis, driven by the war in Syria, is testing the Schengen system that was set up in 1995. It is unclear whether the system is going to survive this stress test and what a revival of borders means for the EU. Governments are torn between the desire to protect the joint space created by European integration and the pressure from territorialist forces whose narrative often dominates the debate. If they want to retain the achievements of globalisation, centrist forces need to start pushing back. They need to start making a much stronger case for open borders and open societies. Ulrich Speck is senior fellow at the Transatlantic Academy, Washington DC
Tim Burgess and Peter Gordon: Same Language, Different Worlds review – beguiling and beautiful A baggy and Britpop survivor and a venerable experimental composer don’t make natural bedfellows, which is precisely what makes the union of Charlatans singer Burgess and former Arthur Russell collaborator Gordon so beguiling. A leap out of their respective comfort zones has produced something really different. Opening track Begin, a New Order-esque electro melody with rattling drum machines, sails close to pop. However, the album unfolds into avant garde, electronic and saxophone soundscapes – with nods to Bowie’s Berlin period and Eno’s Another Green World – over which Burgess’s vocals float like a gentle breeze. Tracks of My Past finds the Northwich-turned-Norwich resident hazily reminiscing about childhood summers. The piano-led Oh Men is one of the loveliest things he’s sung in years. There’s nothing for fans of the Charlatans’ trademark surging anthems, but the strangely beautiful Ocean Terminus, a seven-minute, distant echo of Eno’s Julie With …, wherein Burgess sings of the joys of being “carried away by the sea”, is a treasure.
EU referendum: Scottish remain vote could tip balance of result Pro-European campaigners believe a far stronger Scottish vote in favour of remaining in the EU could be a crucial factor in next month’s referendum with UK polls showing the result could be very close. But senior figures in the Scottish wing of the official Stronger In campaign fear that turnout in Scotland on 23 June may be lower because of voter fatigue after last week’s Holyrood parliament elections. Repeated opinion polls on the EU referendum in Scotland show a far larger gap between remain and leave votes, although the gap is narrowing. A Survation poll for the Daily Record on Tuesday put the remain vote in Scotland at 76% – one of the highest yet recorded, just as a poll for the Scottish Chambers of Commerce said 68% of businesspeople would vote to stay in. John Edwards, a former European commission official who is spokesman for the Scotland Stronger in Europe campaign, said the “crowded political scene” over the past few months was difficult, and a factor in the EU referendum campaign. “This could be extremely important,” he said. “The Scottish vote shows every sign of being influential, if not crucial, for the overall turnout in the United Kingdom overall. So every Scot who does vote on the 23rd will know that their vote is making a very substantial difference. “From now on, we will be working flat out to try to secure every possible vote in Scotland.” With the mood fluctuating, other polls show that less than 50% of Scots are certain to vote to remain or suggest the gap between in and out is about 25%. However, UK polls give the remain vote a far narrower lead, while others show the leave vote ahead. An Opinium poll for the last month suggested the far stronger Scottish remain vote could very narrowly tip the referendum result, giving a one-point lead for remain at UK level. Its regional breakdown showed the leave vote was two points ahead in England, but 21 points behind in Scotland, where the electorate is 8% of the UK total. The formal launch of the Scottish Stronger In campaign was delayed until Tuesday to avoid clashing with the campaign for last week’s Scottish parliamentary elections, giving it six weeks to galvanise pro-EU voters. The Scottish Leave campaign is being led by the former Labour MP Tom Harris and Labour MP Nigel Griffiths, in alliance with the previous Scottish National party MP and deputy leader Jim Sillars. Its profile has been relatively low,focusing heavily on touring around local hustings and speaking events. Campaigners hope Scotland’s high level of political engagement after the 2014 independence referendum could lead to a higher turnout than across the UK. But they acknowledged on Tuesday that apathy or disinterest among pro-EU voters in Scotland could still affect the total UK result since the UK is operating as a single constituency. Eurosceptic voters are assumed to be more likely to take part. Prof Mona Siddiqui, assistant principal for religion and society at the University of Edinburgh, who chairs the Scotland Stronger In advisory committee and sits on the UK board of Stronger in Europe, said: “There is no room for complacency here even if the polls in two or three weeks show there’s a massive rise for remain, we will continue working until 23 June because it is a once-in-a-lifetime decision that everyone has to make, and there’s no turning back.” Voting experts estimate that a Brexit vote in England, and potentially Wales, where Ukip secured seven seats in last week’s Cardiff assembly elections for the first time, could be outweighed by a heavy remain vote in Scotland. The National Centre for Social Research estimated in December that if English voters backed the campaign to leave the EU by a narrow margin, with the remain vote in England at about 47.5% or above, then a stronger Scottish pro-EU vote could tip the balance. If a narrow vote to remain in the EU hinges on a stronger Scottish remain vote, that is likely to significantly increase tensions over Scotland’s future within the UK. It may lead to calls for a second referendum on independence, while resentment over Scotland’s increasing autonomy within the UK may well grow among rightwing English Tories and Ukip activists and leaders. Edwards said contrasting Scotland’s vote against England’s total vote was unfair, since there would be English regions such as London which were likely to heavily vote in favour of remain. “It won’t be Scotland alone,” he said. “There are other parts of the UK which are currently polling [for remain], such as London. There are other nations and regions as well, although we don’t have breakdowns regionally. There is a collective effort across different campaigns.”
Brexit Britain: ‘Foreign boats catch fish in our waters and then ship it back to us’ They know their patriotic history in Appledore. The fleet that defeated the Spanish armada was largely built and crewed by the men of this port, in north-west Devon. The village, sitting on the banks where the Taw and Torridge rivers meet before they flow into Bideford Bay, is perhaps England’s oldest fishing port. So it was with dismay that locals looked on as the last English boat based here – the Hannah Marie – was sold five weeks ago. The marine-blue trawler is awaiting shipment to Denmark. According to local people, it is the latest victim of EU fishing quotas. “Not one English boat here now,” said Tony Rutherford, chief executive of North Devon Fishermen’s Association, his anger barely concealed. “There were about 80 to 100 in these parts in 2002.” Rutherford turned to his laptop, opened up a real-time map of the local seas on his screen and pointed at the red arrows representing fishing boats. “Just off Milford Haven now is a very big fishery for ray fish,” said Rutherford, who has owned Bideford Fisheries, a business on the quay that buys from fishermen and sells on to wholesalers, since 1979. He settled his cursor on each of the six red arrows swarming around the screen. The flag under which each boat was sailing was revealed in turn. “Belgian,” he said. “Belgian, Belgian fishing boat. Belgian, Belgian, Belgian.” Rutherford reached into his files and took out a letter sent to the fisheries minister in November 2008. “I have got folders and folders of paperwork.” He pointed to the text warning of the consequences of cutting the amount of ray English trawlers could catch. “We note with concern the commission’s proposal to put skate and ray on quota for 2009,” the letter says. “The Bristol Channel is very much a ray fishery and Appledore is the single most important port in the country to handle ray … Because the Bristol Channel is a unique fishery, we know that without ray, the fishing fleet would be unviable.” The plea fell on deaf ears. Rutherford will vote in favour of leaving the European Union next month. Appledore is in the parliamentary constituency of Torridge and West Devon and many others in these parts will vote the same way as Rutherford. Recent polling suggests that 49% of people will vote to leave the EU next month, with a mere 28% who want to stay. It is one of the most Eurosceptic places in the country. And the plight of the fishing industry is only the most tangible explanation for why people here feel they have lost control of their destiny. As picture-postcard pretty as much of this constituency is, there are many brutal pressures on the residents of Appledore. The average age of people in the area run by Torridge district council, of which Appledore is part, is 44, higher than the English average of 39, according to the 2011 census. A quarter of those who live here have no educational qualifications. The percentage of people in the village who rate their health as “very good” is less than the national average; while the percentage rating their health as “very bad” is above the national average. Only 15% of the population have professional or managerial occupations, compared with the 22% average for England as a whole. And a report in 2014 suggested that workers in Torridge are the worst-paid in the country, receiving on average £10,000 less than the English average of £27,000. In February a third of the workforce from the Babcock’s shipyard in Appledore – visible from the quayside where dog walkers stroll – was transferred down to a sister yard at Devonport, Plymouth, because contracts had dried up. The grey vessel being built at Appledore for the Irish navy, visible from the village quay, is due to be launched later this year, leaving the remaining workers with little to work on. The yard has lost its bid to build the £200m polar research vessel. On Thursday afternoon, at a Brexit debate at Petroc further and higher education college in Barnstaple, six miles east of Appledore, tempers flared. “You’re a historian,” shouted one man in his 60s at the young lecturer, head of the college’s history department, who had spoken in support of remaining in the European Union, “tell me how the EU is democratic.” Philip Milton, a one-time Tory parliamentary candidate, told the 60 people in the audience that those in favour of remaining in the EU were using “emotional propaganda and fear” to win the campaign and that it was time to give the faceless bureaucrats in Brussels “a bloody nose”. And while the speakers in favour of remaining in the EU had their turn to speak, it was the Brexiters who made the headway with the crowd, which was noticeably elderly despite the location. Indeed, a generational divide was evident. Stuart Robertson, chair of Ukip in North Devon (a constituency where 48% say they want to leave), noted that the local newspaper had reported that 80% of students at the college were pro-EU. “That’s very worrying,” he said. “Brainwashed,” a member of the audience shouted. “I believe so,” said Robertson, nodding. A second audience member shouted back: “Educated.” Looking appalled, Robertson muttered: “Says it all.” On the cobbled streets, and in the quaint coffee and antique shops of Appledore, the divide was just as obvious. Graeme Farmer, 38, who works on a programme for children with special needs, was watching over some teenagers on a skateboard ramp on Friday. “I’m stuck in the middle on the EU really,” he admitted. “I was always someone who was Remain, but the debate has pushed me away. “I watched Question Time last night and the audience were asking sensible questions but the politicians just came back with their scripted answers. I am probably still Remain though.” Over at the gift shop, Linda Brodie, 64, stocking the shelves, was far less conflicted – and said she spoke for many of her generation in the village. “I am 100% for leaving and a lot of people here are,” she said. “I read in the paper that the EU is going to make us build 220,000 homes for immigrants coming over.” She whispered: “The good thing about around here is that we don’t have any immigrants.” Linda Upton, 57, at John’s Grocers on the quayside, had similar concerns – but was rather more diplomatic. “More and more I just think we would be better making our own decisions about border control,” she said. “And I feel angry for the poor fishermen. I wasn’t sure how I would vote but as it goes on I think we would be financially better off if we left and we can put the money into the NHS.” Back in Bideford Fisheries, Rutherford was a busy man. He has adapted his business over the years. “Fish is now caught in our waters by foreign boats, taken abroad, shipped back in to the UK, processed here and sold on,” he said, adding that his turnover for that week had been £75,000 and that he had just sorted the wage packets for 14 people. But he said he found what had happened to Appledore “heartbreaking”. Rutherford, the fourth generation in his family in the fishing business, works in a building that was built using £3.8m of EU grants. Yet the clumsiness of the EU behemoth had killed his community, he said. “They throw around money but I don’t think they have got enough knowledge, don’t understand things,” he said, shaking his head. “Nobody is listening. They might listen in June.” BRITAIN’S TOP 10 EUROSCEPTIC PLACES By examining responses to a question on voting intention in a Brexit referendum, and combining this with information on respondents’ and constituencies’ demographics, Chris Hanretty at East Anglia University produced estimates of the percentage of respondents in each constituency who would favour leaving the EU. THE 10 MOST EUROSCEPTIC CONSTITUENCIES 1 Clacton (Essex) 2 Castle Point (Essex) 3 Great Yarmouth 4 Christchurch (Dorset) 5 Blackpool North and Cleveleys 6 Boston and Skegness 7 South Holland and The Deepings (Lincolnshire) 8 North East Cambridgeshire 9 Waveney (Suffolk) 10 Aldridge-Brownhills (Staffordshire)
Lee Daniels on 'whiny' #OscarsSoWhite controversy: 'Stop complaining' Oscar-nominated film-maker Lee Daniels has criticised the #OscarsSoWhite controversy, saying that people need to “stop complaining”. Daniels, whose film Precious made him only the second black director to have ever been nominated for an Oscar, has spoken about his frustration with those who claim the past two years of all-white nominees is a clear sign of industry racism. “Go out and do the work,” he said to the New York Times. “Oscars so white! So what? Do your work. Let your legacy speak and stop complaining, man. Are we really in this for the awards?” He also believes that a defeatist way of thinking about Hollywood would have prevented him from achieving success. “If I had thought that way – that the world was against me – I wouldn’t be here now,” he said. “These whiny people that think we’re owed something are incomprehensible and reprehensible to me. I don’t expect acknowledgment or acceptance from white America. I’m going to be me.” Daniels has since gone onto achieve success with the hit TV drama Empire and new show Star, for which he cast a white actor in the lead to help America feel more unified. “I felt that the country, instinctively, I thought, needed to heal,” he said in a recent interview. “And I thought that this white girl is so fabulous that black people will embrace her and white people will embrace her.” The next set of Oscar nominations will be announced on 24 January, and experts are predicting a more diverse set of nominees with Moonlight, Fences and Hidden Figures all expected to be in the race.
Radiohead video breaching copyright, say Trumpton creator's family Radiohead have been accused of “tarnishing the brand” of the Trumptonshire trilogy in their video for the single Burn the Witch. William Mollett, the son-in-law of Gordon Murray – who created the children’s TV series Trumpton, Chigley and Camberwick Green – told the Mail on Sunday: “Radiohead should have sought our consent as we consider this a tarnishing of the brand. It is not something we would have authorised. We consider that there is a breach of copyright and we are deciding what to do next.” The video for Burn the Witch, directed by Chris Hopewell, was unmistakably based on the Trumptonshire programmes, which first aired on the BBC between 1966 and 1969. Rather than the idyll portrayed in the original shows, however, Burn the Witch turned into a horror film, with an outsider ending up inside a burning wicker man. Animator Virpi Kettu suggested the video was a comment on European fears about the refugee crisis. Not only does the stop-motion animation style of Burn the Witch match the Trumptonshire trilogy, but figures resembling to the original characters Windy Miller, the mayor of Trumpton and the florist Mrs Cobbit also appear. Mollett said he would not be showing the video to his father in law, who is now 95, because “Gordon would be appalled”. In the immediate aftermath of the video’s release on 3 May, Mollett told Pitchfork he was not aware of it. Radiohead’s representative was not available when Pitchfork asked whether the group had permission from the Trumptonshire rights holders to make the video. Radiohead’s UK publicist had no comment on this story. Radiohead are far from the first band to invert the secure world of Trumpton, Chigley and Camberwick Green to incorporate modern fears. In the mid-80s, Half Man Half Biscuit recorded a pair of songs that did the same. In Trumpton Riots they portrayed Trumptonshire as a place of striking firemen, militant socialism, and military coups. In a version of The Train Song from Chigley, the train driver’s gentle words were reconfigured: “Every Saturday I get the Chigley skins / And they always smash my windows ’cos the home side always wins.”
The 50 best films of 2016 in the US: No 1 Moonlight In an industry that still prefers a limited set of straight, white narratives above all else, the arrival of this ambitious, slow-burn drama was a game-changer. Telling the story of a gay black man coming to terms with his sexuality in three devastating chapters, it prioritised raw authenticity over minority-based cliches, and the result was like nothing we’ve ever seen. Director Barry Jenkins, adapting the loosely autobiographical play by Tarell Alvin McCraney, avoids drowning the deprived Miami setting in grimy stereotypes and dazzles viewers with unconventional, often poetic stylistic choices that never distract from the heartfelt narrative and flawless ensemble cast. Naturalistic performances by newcomer Trevante Rhodes, along with the House of Cards and Luke Cage breakout Mahershala Ali and 007 alumni Naomie Harris were all heartbreaking in their own unique ways, and Jenkins’ script tells their characters’ stories sensitively, never shying away from the realities of homophobia and addiction. It might initially be remembered for its groundbreaking diversity, but it is Moonlight’s heart-swelling humanity that lingers. It’s a film that gently argues for empathy, compassion, love and acceptance – a message that affects us all, regardless of sexuality or race. No other film in 2016 understood people quite as much as Moonlight did. The 50 best films of 2016 in the US
Secret in Their Eyes review – ‘spiral of cliche’ Juan José Campanella’s Argentinian thriller The Secret in Their Eyes (El Secreto de Sus Ojos) won the Oscar for best foreign language film in 2010, beating off stiff (and indeed superior) competition from Michael Haneke’s The White Ribbon and Jacques Audiard’s A Prophet. A tortured tale of love lost and a murder investigation revisited, the film (a huge domestic and solid international hit) hardly needed an English language remake. Yet here we have the writer-director Billy Ray assembling an eye-catching transatlantic cast to transpose key riffs and images from the Argentinian original to US soil. The result, on which a supportive Campanella takes an executive-producer credit, may have saleable marquee cachet, but rarely rises above the level of humdrum multiplex functionality. We open in stylish fashion with Chiwetel Ejiofor’s former FBI investigator Ray Kasten scanning faces on a computer, his own visage seen through the screen which is itself reflected in the lenses of his glasses. Guiltily obsessed with pursuing the killer of a former colleague’s daughter – a grieving mother replacing the traumatised widower of the original – Kasten returns to his old LA hunting ground, where he attempts to persuade Nicole Kidman’s district attorney Claire Sloan (“Look at you, up on the fifth floor…”) to reopen a long-dead case on the strength of an elusive visual match. From here, we flash back 13 years to 2002, where Kasten and Sloan meet in the aftermath of 9/11 (a “United we stand” poster frames their first encounter), he as an FBI investigator, she as deputy DA, awaiting ID card photography. In compact fashion, the film lays out its underlying themes: the nature of the gaze, the paranoia of surveillance culture, the potential corruption of authority, the loneliness of passion, the elusive meaning of a “look”. It’s an arresting opening. What a shame, then, that what follows soon descends into altogether more pedestrian melodramatics. Skipping between its two time periods (grey hairs and walking sticks provide handy temporal locators), Secret in Their Eyes gestures toward the more portentous themes of the original but fails to convince in its transposition of context. While El Secreto de Sus Ojos was rooted in the emergent “dirty war” turmoil of 70s Argentina, Ray’s update seems more flippantly opportunistic in its co-opting of America’s “war on terror” to explain away the more credibility-stretching turns of the narrative. Having previously directed Shattered Glass and Breach, the Captain Phillips screenwriter should be on home ground with this twisty mix of deception, action and intrigue. Yet time and again the drama spirals into cliched foolishness and rule-bending procedural pastiche from which only a typically engrossing turn by Ejiofor can save it. Kidman fares less well as Claire, habitually twirling something around her fingers to indicate anxiety before passing her nervous habit on to Kasten, a detail the film does not make light of. There is meant to be a broiling bond between these two could-be lovers, but the fact that they have to keep clumsily reminding us about it (“There’s just one problem, she wasn’t you”) speaks volumes about its on-screen absence. Dean Norris is in winning form as doughty sidekick Bumpy Willis, and Michael Kelly gives good snide as the slimy FBI creep whose sources are sacred. But not even Alfred Molina can breathe life into hackneyed lines like “God, I hope you’re wrong about this…”, his accent wobbling back and forth across the Atlantic depending upon how cross he’s meant to be. Occasionally, there are echoes of the broodingly subversive menace that fuelled Denis Villeneuve’s Prisoners, making it all the more jarring when Ray intercuts some ill-judged moments of comedy including – in true Shakespeare in Love fashion – a “bit with a dog”. Only when restaging some of the original’s set-piece thrills does Ray seem completely in control of the material, a talismanic chase through Dodger Stadium efficiently executed, providing a much-needed interlude of pulse-racing tension. Three cheers, then, for Julia Roberts, who steals the show as Kasten’s bereaved former partner Jess Cobb, playing the withering effects of grief (“You look a million years old”) with a resonant conviction that is as unshowy as it is affecting. There’s a touch of Lee Fierro’s Mrs Kintner from Jaws about the outraged register of Jess’s suffering, a sense of a character teetering between tears and talons, implosion and explosion. Having turned an early scene of spectacular contrivance into something distressingly credible through the sheer force of her reaction, Roberts lends an air of gravitas to the otherwise flimsy proceedings. The movie itself may be deeply flawed, but her performance is worth the price of admission.
It’s a sim! When video games clash with reality There is a popular misconception that video games bear little relation to reality. Unfortunately, this is hard to counter when the best-known characters are probably a speedy blue hedgehog and a plumber who lives in a magical mushroom kingdom. Indeed, even comparatively serious games such as SimCity, Civilization and Papers Please take a highly abstract approach to culture, society and government, which sets them apart from real-life events. This week, however, the maker of the fastidiously authentic video game Football Manager said the game was being updated to simulate the economic effects of Brexit. The accurate portrayal of transfer costs and work permits will be tweaked, making it potentially more expensive to buy foreign players, and more problematic to get work permits for those from EU countries. Predicting political events is rare in games – usually they are more reactive. Microsoft altered its Flight Simulator after 9/11, but only to remove the twin towers, while the release of the 2011 off-road driving game Motorstorm: Apocalypse was delayed after the major earthquakes in New Zealand and Japan, the latter also forcing the publisher Irem to cancel its Disaster Report series of earthquake survival games. Less dramatically, it is reasonably common in the world of sports sims to use real-world data. EA draws player performance statistics from the real sporting season into its Fifa, NBA and Madden NFL titles, so your team in the game can mirror the week-by-week data of the real thing – including injuries. In Fifa 17’s popular Ultimate Team mode – a cross between Fantasy Football and a Panini sticker album – players are more valuable if their real-life counterpart is performing well. So don’t rely on any Sunderland players right now. Plenty of games also use weather and day/night data, so that when you are playing, the conditions will mirror those in the genuine geographic location. Microsoft Flight Simulator uses real-time meteorological data to simulate conditions at airports around the world, so if it is foggy in Rio, it is also foggy in simulated Rio. Nintendo’s cute village simulator Animal Crossing has a day night/cycle tied to the data in your handheld 3DS console, so if you are playing at night, the shops will be closed and your fellow villagers will be in bed. Insomniac players can still go fishing, though, as certain fish are only around after dark. The ingenious Gameboy Advance adventure Boktai: The Sun is in Your Hand came with a photometric light sensor that required players to – gasp – go outside to avoid the game’s vampire enemies. Unsurprisingly, the game series that gets closest to Football Manager’s appropriation of Brexit is the in-depth political simulation Democracy, from independent studio Positech Games. “Democracy 3 had a lot of changes because of political events,” says designer Cliff Harris. “Mad cow disease became a thing, as did pension-fund scandals and global credit crunch events. Also, after Democracy 3 was released, we had to update it with a bunch of new policies including the mansion tax. And we had to add police drones. And Tasers.” Fans of the game have created their own modification for the sim, Trump Nation, which imagines a near-future America under president Donald Trump. When the magazine PC Gamer tried it, it implemented a range of the billionaire’s favourite policies and then watched how the US would react: two senior members of his administration resigned almost immediately, there was a series of assassination attempts and, finally, the presidency toppled under an armed socialist insurrection. Spoiler alert!
Serious Fraud Office back in the dock after Libor acquittals For Terry Farr, being cleared of rigging the Libor interest rate was just one reason to celebrate this week. It was also his father’s 70th birthday. More than three years after the first arrests in the investigation, and after a trial lasting four months, the 44-year-old Farr celebrated the end of his ordeal by sharing a couple of drinks with his parent. “I am happy it’s over, that’s I all I have to say at the moment,” Farr said. The City broker returned to court the next morning; this time in a leather jacket and jeans rather than the suit he had worn throughout the trial. He had returned to watch Darrell Read become the last of the six defendants to be found not guilty. As the 12 members of the jury left the courtroom after delivering their verdict, at least two pumped their fists in the direction of Read. It was a clear signal that the jurors had agreed with Farr, Read and the other defendants that they were just trying to do their jobs and were not at the heart of a global financial conspiracy that has forced banks to pay out billions of pounds in fines. The verdicts, and the swiftness with which they were delivered, are a damning blow to the Serious Fraud Office (SFO). The organisation is battling for survival and it put its credibility on the line by pursuing Libor convictions. Read had been the primary contact at Icap for the former UBS and Citigroup trader Tom Hayes, who is serving 11 years in prison for rigging Libor. He even moved to New Zealand so he could be closer to the Tokyo-based Hayes. The other brokers on trial were Danny Wilkinson and Colin Goodman, also of Icap, Noel Cryan, who worked for Tullett Prebon, and Farr and his colleague Jim Gilmour at RP Martin. After a lengthy trial, the jury cleared them of all charges in less than 11 hours of deliberation. Barry Vitou, head of global corporate crime at Pinsent Masons, said: “This is a serious setback for the SFO. David Green [the SFO’s director] came in on a self-proclaimed ticket that the agency and he should be judged on the outcome of the Libor investigation. “The not guilty verdicts this week will add fuel to the fire for those who have consistently and continuously called for the SFO to be closed down and for its operations to be take over by others.” After Hayes was found guilty, Green wasted little time in admitting there was a “certain professional satisfaction” over the conviction. However, this time, Green declined to conduct interviews, instead issuing a bland statement through his media team. “Nobody could sensibly suggest that these charges should not have been brought and considered by a jury,” he said. Green took charge of the SFO in 2012 and his contract will expire in April unless it is renewed by the government. During his tenure, the SFO’s workforce has grown from roughly 290 to 500. However, about a fifth of its staff is dedicated solely to investigating Libor, showing the importance of the case to the SFO. The verdict in the Hayes trial suggested that the much-maligned organisation was finally making a mark under Green, just at it stepped up investigations into some the biggest companies in Britain, including Tesco, Rolls-Royce and Barclays. However, this progress has now been halted in its tracks by the Libor verdict. The timing is unfortunate, not just because Green’s contract is about to run out, but because earlier this month the SFO asked for an extra £21m in funding so that it could press ahead with its blockbuster investigations. Sarah Wallace, head of regulatory and criminal investigations at Irwin Mitchell, said the SFO’s work on Libor has been hamstrung by government regulations about prosecuting companies. She said: “They are often left with prosecuting peripheral individuals with the result, as in this case, that most have been acquitted fairly quickly by a jury, rather than looking at corporate criminal responsibility. “One of the difficulties for the SFO in getting successful criminal prosecutions off the ground against corporates are the legal technicalities around the ‘controlling mind’ test [meaning an offence must have been committed by a senior individual]. “If the criminal law was changed to one of ‘vicarious liability’ for corporate criminal wrongdoing [where company is liable for offences committed by any employee], the SFO could focus their time and limited resources prosecuting more corporates where there is evidence of criminal activity, albeit not evidentially at the board level.” Another Libor-related trial involving a group of former Barclays traders is scheduled to begin in February, and now becomes even more significant. The SFO is also pursuing six individuals for allegedly rigging Euribor, the European equivalent of Libor. The defence of the six brokers in the latest case was that they either duped Hayes into thinking they were helping him, did not know they were doing anything wrong, or did not have the power to rig Libor in the way that was suggested. The brokers themselves believe they are just “the bottom of the food chain” and should never have been put on trial. Speaking outside court, Read said: “There were things for me to answer and I answered them, but certain people standing here – and the guy on my left [Cryan] certainly – should never have been in court. “There was no evidence, there was nothing. I think it was a sham, and I think they [the SFO] knew it was a sham. They didn’t investigate properly, they didn’t listen.” When summing up the case, the judge told the jurors only to convict the six brokers if evidence showed that they had played a “significant” role in helping Hayes rig Libor. The verdict may have ramifications for Hayes, who could potentially appeal his sentence again after having his jail term cut from 14 to 11 yearsin December. Hayes’ wife was in court to hear the verdicts and his father, Nick, said he was “thrilled” with the outcome. Hayes had refused to give evidence against the men. “Tom is bewildered that he is now in a situation where he has been convicted of conspiring with nobody,” Nick Hayes said in a statement. However, the ordeal may not be over for the six brokers. While Farr can celebrate with his father, the Icap trio of Read, Wilkinson and Goodman have been charged with wire fraud by the US Department of Justice. These charges could lead to heavy jail sentences, and the US has issued an arrest warrant for Read, though the verdict at Southwark crown court makes their extradition unlikely. For now, it is the SFO that is back in the dock, rather than the brokers.
Say one sentence and it’s done in the AI-first world Google CEO Sundar Pichai said on Alphabet’s Q1 earnings call: “In the long run, we will evolve in computing from a mobile-first to an AI-first world”. This has prompted various speculation on what an AI-first world will look like. Pichai envisages that it will include “assistive” search, “especially on mobile,” suggesting that artificial intelligence (AI) will be the platform for on-demand services accessed from any device – including smartphones. Dave Coplin, chief envisioning officer at Microsoft UK spoke at the AI Summit in London. He believes that AI first (AI as a platform) will “change how people relate to tech and to each other.” For example, real-time natural language will surely replace translators and interpreters. Martin Hollywood, lead creative technologist at Razorfish London highlights the role of wearables as notification devices. Voice is emerging as the primary user interface (UI) to manage and facilitate human outcomes/experiences. Pichai’s prediction of AI-powered mobile assistive search became reality within three weeks of the Alphabet call. On May 9 at TechCrunch Disrupt NY, Siri creator Dag Kittlaus gave the first public demonstration of the next-generation voice assistant Viv. Voice activated service as software The key to Viv – and Amazon’s smart speaker Echo and digital assistant Alexa – is natural language. Viv uses sophisticated natural language processing and dynamic program generation, which understands the user’s intent and generates appropriate software to address each query. While other software platforms have program manager where queries are hard coded, dynamic program generation is scalable – it writes its own software to generate the services that users need. Kittlaus demonstrated “conversational commerce” whereby Viv’s a natural language interface and capacity to deal with follow-up questions (unlike Siri) makes it easy buy products and services. “One sentence and it’s done,” he said. In a 100% live demo Kittlaus completed four transactions in two minutes, ranging from sending $20 (£14) to the friend who paid for last night’s drinks, to getting a taxi for six people. Conversational commerce As AI-first replaces mobile centricity with (personalised) user centricity, brands will need to focus on human outcomes. “The key question will be what experience does your brand enable the consumer to have?” says Coplin. Brands will need to forge a place in the workings of AI engines such as Viv that understand human intent and connect disparate services. Conversational commerce is already big for brands, says Jason Alan Snyder, CTO at Momentum Worldwide. “AI will add contextual intelligence to the brand experience by connecting interactions with relevant services so brands will have to work hard to become part of the vocabulary. If another brand gets to the customer first, via their personalised AI platform, that is really bad news for them.” Hollywood agrees, highlighting brands’ dual perspective. “2016 is the year of the chatbot”, he says. Beauty brand Sephora’s messaging app, Kik, enables users to get makeup tips, browse and buy products by chatting to the company’s bot. Microsoft’s personal assistant, Cortana, is being integrated into Skype. During the recent Microsoft Build conference in San Francisco, Skype’s Lilian Rincon used Skype and Cortana to book a hotel room, which also suggested she visit a friend who lived nearby. “Brands know that whoever is close to the consumer controls the conversation,” says Snyder. Dave Cox, head of innovation at MC Saatchi, believes that AI-first will change the nature of app design. “At the moment the starting point might be how an app will work, but instead we may need to start by thinking about how it will communicate,” he says. “The best solution is the one that doesn’t make you think. So UI will get closer to natural communication.” AI-first will make customers’ interaction with brands intuitive, real-time and personalised, as AI systems tailor the services they facilitate to individual user preferences, observes Joshua Sutton, managing director of Sapient. “Instead of having to conform to the system, the system will conform to you.” Voice as the dominant interface changes the human-machine interaction. “The ease with which we communicate – with Alexa, for example – changes how we interact with it.” Sutton believes this will change the nature of websites, which will need to become more flexible, intuitive and interactive. The cultural challenge However, there is a downside too – such as Microsoft’s Tay incident, which has had damaged the perception of intelligent computing. Coplin explains that Tay was a cultural experiment and that in this respect AI-first is a cultural challenge. “We have choices about what we want AI to be,” he says, “Conversational commerce means knowing that we are not always talking to other human beings.” Snyder observes: “Tay was not a technology issue. Rather it was a marketing issue involving how Microsoft chose to introduce it to the world”. Cox agrees that it is important to educate AI responsibly: “Be careful how you bring it up. You wouldn’t let Twitter or 4chan educate your child.” He believes that AI will follow the product life cycle – if it is used badly, it won’t get acceptance. A lot of the press around AI first focuses on virtual assistants, but AI is not necessarily synonymous with a personally tailored help desk which puts things at people’s fingertips. It is also about how brands interact with customers and target markets. Consequently, as Coplin put it, in an AI-first world, brands are facilitators rather than providers. To get weekly news analysis, job alerts and event notifications direct to your inbox, sign up free for Media & Tech Network membership. All Media & Tech Network content is editorially independent except for pieces labelled “Paid for by” – find out more here.
‘Tis the season of dancing animals - but why do humans love them? Forget Strictly, this is the season of dancing animals. All things furry and animated - from panto horses to balletic hippos and pirouetting mice - come out at Christmas time. Children are captivated – and we are, too. This is down to more than cultural tradition. It’s also biological. We identify with animal movement because the wiring that connects our limbs to our spines is so similar. Even though we walk on two legs and animals on four, our basic movements are controlled by very similar circuits. We use our body control systems to help us see and understand theirs. For example, the areas of our brain that respond to seeing a human biting something are also sensitive to watching a monkey or a dog biting. And this resonance is part of the way we appreciate the emotions of other species. It helps us to anthropomorphise, whether we want to or not. We automatically identify and empathise with a frightened rabbit whether it’s on a country walk or a theatre stage. So it’s no wonder we are fascinated by animal motion, and so drawn to festive performances like Peter and the Wolf. Even if we pretend it’s the kids that make us go. Dr Daniel Glaser is director of Science Gallery at King’s College London
'School for scoundrels': Wells Fargo cuts not enough for outraged US Congress Whatever Wells Fargo is selling, Congress is not buying it. “Your bank was turned into a school for scoundrels,” New York congresswoman Carolyn Maloney told the chief executive, John Stumpf, at his second grilling in Washington in as many weeks. Stumpf was quizzed by the House financial committee for over four hours on Thursday about his staff opening two million unauthorized accounts in order to meet sales quotas imposed by the bank. The hearing followed an equally contentious one in the Senate last week. About 5,300 employees have been fired by Wells Fargo over the past few years for creating as many as 1.5m deposit accounts and 565,000 credit card accounts without customer’s permission. Democrats and Republicans are united in their disapproval of Stumpf and Wells Fargo and its handling of the situation. “Y’all were rotten,” said South Carolina Republican congressman John Michael “Mick” Mulvaney. Stumpf “wouldn’t even be here if I was on the board of that company”. “You should be downright ashamed of yourself,” said David Scott, a Democrat from Georgia. California Democrats Brad Sherman and Maxine Waters both called for big banks to be broken up. “I’ve come to a conclusion: Wells Fargo should be broken up,” Waters told Stumpf. “It is too big to manage.” As of 1 October, Wells Fargo has eliminated the practice of sales quotas in its retail banking departments. Stumpf said that the quotas were “misunderstood” and used by former employees “as a way to be dishonest and break the ethics code”. Wells Fargo “never had a target of eight” products per customer. “That was aspirational,” said Stumpf. A former employee told the that in 2013, sales quotas for employees were to sells 20 products a day. In 2014, they were reduced to 15 products a day. Two days before the hearing, Wells Fargo announced it was launching a new independent investigation into its sales practices going back to 2009. That same day the bank announced that Stumpf, who became chief executive in 2007 and chairman of the bank’s board in 2010, will forfeit unvested equity awards worth about $41m. Stumpf said the decision was made on his recommendation. During last week’s hearing, Stumpf testified that he made $19.3m last year. Stumpf will not receive a salary while the bank launches a new investigation into its sales practices. Another executive to be subject to a clawback – a recovery of money previously awarded to an executive – is Carrie Tolstedt, who oversaw retail banking at Wells Fargo during the time that such unauthorized accounts were created. Last week, after Fortune reported that Tolstedt could walk away with as much as $124.6m after she retired this weekend, the bank sent a letter to the US Senate detailing her pay package. The letter notes that Tolstedt owns 960,017 shares of Wells Fargo. At the time of the letter – 16 September – those shares were worth about $43.6m. Her vested stock options were worth about $34.1m. Her unvested awards were worth about $18.9m. In the aftermath of the scandal, the bank’s independent board decided Toldstedt should forfeit about $19m in unvested awards. That still leaves her with more than $77m. Tolstedt will not receive any severance or bonus for 2016 and agreed not to exercise her outstanding options while the investigation is ongoing. Even as lawmakers called for clawbacks, experts expressed some doubt over whether the bank would be willing to enact them. Wells Fargo’s clawback policy is very strong and thorough in listing what can trigger a clawback of executive pay, according to Matt Moscardi, head of financial sector research at MSCI. MSCI has previously flagged the fact that Wells Fargo is “largely entrenched” and that some of its members, including those on the compensation committee, have been on the board for more than 10 years and some have sat on other boards with Stumpf. “The influence Stumpf can have being both chief executive officer and chair is not negligible,” said Moscardi. “These are people that he is on other boards with. There are a lot of cross-board connections.” When the Wells Fargo clawbacks were announced on Tuesday, the board’s lead independent director, Stephen Sanger, noted that the board reserves an option for further clawbacks pending the investigation. Stumpf told Congress that he was not a part of the board’s determination and that the board “acts quite independently”. When questioned about whether there was a conflict with him serving as both chief executive and chairman of the board, he said: “For our company, I believe we have the right structure. I serve at the will of the board and the board can make a decision about that.”
Serious errors such as operating on wrong patient still occurring in NHS Nearly 1,200 unacceptable serious events have occurred in hospitals in England over the last four years, including operations on the wrong patient and the wrong limb, objects being left inside the body, a kidney removed instead of an ovary and falls through windows that were not properly secured. The catalogue of errors classified as “never events” which can seriously harm a patient is kept by NHS England and shows a fairly steady trend. Between April 2012 and March 2013, there were 290 never events, in 2013/14 there were 338, in 2014/15 there were 306 and from April 2015 to December, which is the latest month with figures yet recorded, there have been 254 – although that will be adjusted if more reports for later months come in. The health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, takes never events so seriously that he famously keeps a whiteboard updated with the latest disasters on a wall in his ministerial office. “I want to normalise openness and transparency,” he told the in an interview on Friday, stressing the need for healthcare staff to learn from their own and others’ mistakes. Among the errors are the removal of a testicle, instead of the cyst on it, and the removal of a fallopian tube instead of a woman’s appendix. In 2014/15 there were 27 cases of the wrong tooth or teeth being extracted, eight cases of surgery to the wrong eye and 102 cases where a foreign object was left inside a body when a wound was stitched up. In that year there were also two cases of the escape of a transferred prisoner and four cases of misidentification of patients. Looking at the total over the four years, more than 400 people have suffered due to “wrong site surgery”, and more than 420 have had foreign objects left inside them after operations, including gauzes, swabs, drill guides, scalpel blades and needles. Patients have suffered when feeding tubes which are meant to be fed into their stomach were put into their lung instead. This can prove fatal. Others have been given the wrong type of implant or joint replacement and some patients have been given the wrong type of blood during a transfusion. Some patients have been given doses of drugs that were too high. The number of events that occurred at each hospital trust are separately listed, without details of what they were. In 2014/15 Colchester Hospital University NHS Foundation Trust had the highest number of never events, with nine recorded. “One never event is too many and we mustn’t underestimate the effect on the patients concerned,” said a spokesperson for NHS England. “However there are 4.6m hospital admissions that lead to surgical care each year and, despite stringent measures put in place, on rare occasions, these incidents do occur.” “To better understand the reasons why, in 2013 we commissioned a taskforce to investigate, leading to a new set of national standards being published last year specifically to support doctors, nurses and hospitals to prevent these mistakes. Any organisation that reports a serious incident is also expected to conduct its own investigation so it can learn and take action to prevent similar incidents from being repeated.” Katherine Murphy, chief executive of the Patients Association, said: “It is a disgrace that such supposed ‘never’ incidents are still so prevalent. With all the systems and procedures that are in place within the NHS, how are such basic, avoidable mistakes still happening? There is clearly a lack of learning in the NHS. “These patients have been very badly let down by utter carelessness. It is especially unforgivable to operate on the wrong organ, and many such mistakes can never be rectified.”
Publicity stunt 'terror attack' frightens guests at Cannes' Hôtel du Cap A fake terrorist attack has panicked guests at the Hôtel du Cap, the five-star luxury hotel frequented by celebrity guests during the Cannes film festival. The ‘attack’, which was in fact a stunt by a French internet company, happened yesterday, Friday the 13th. Six men in matching helmets and military-style utility vests approached the hotel’s dock via boat, before one of them began marching up the steps towards frightened guests, according to the Hollywood Reporter. “We were all caught off guard,” said publicist JR Savet, who was eating with friends on the du Cap’s terrace. “And then someone screamed and people jumped out of their chairs and started moving quickly to the swimming pool area. It was pretty scary.” Savet said that he was shocked by the fact that the men seemed to be dressed as an “Isis-like” militia group. Organisers at the Cannes film festival have called in 500 additional security personnel this year as the threat of an attack by ISIS is, following the attacks on Paris and Brussels, heightened. Last month French security forces staged a mock attack on the film festival’s principal venue, the Palais. “Terrorists” wielding automatic weapons fired blanks at police, before climbing over the “wounded” (volunteers wearing red bibs) and storming the steps of the conference centre. The du Cap, which sits eight miles east along the Cote d’Azur coast from Cannes, regularly hosts some of the movie industry’s most famous figures during the film festival. On its way to the hotel, the boat reportedly sped past yachts owned by Steven Spielberg and Roman Abramovitch. Cannes police are investigating the stunt, which a du Cap spokesperson has called “a bad joke – a really bad one”.
Labor wins three last-minute votes to force Coalition to debate banks – as it happened The short answer is after two full sitting days and one ceremonial day, the Coalition lost control of the lower house for about three hours. The Coalition lost a series of votes as Labor tried to bring on a bank royal commission. It had already won the vote in the senate and then tested a number of times. It remains unclear at the tactics employed but essentially a number of Coalition MPs were caught outside the chamber - indeed outside the house. In the end, they were saved by the Speaker’s vote which stopped the substantive motion but allowed further debate. This allowed time for Coalition MPs to find their way back to parliament/chamber and prevail. The motion will come on again in the next sitting week, being September 12. Labor’s Lisa Singh won a senate motion calling on the government to reveal any investigations to follow up abuse allegations contained in the Nauru files, leaked in the . The Coalition also unveiled new policies to allow Australian Defence Forces to target terrorist support operations overseas - in line with international law. Labor senator Patrick Dodson gave an stirring first speech. Jacqui Lambie warned the government to back off in the senate from rushing bills through when new senators were finding their feet. The Greens also objected to rushing the omnibus bills through for early report in committees. That’s it for me. Thanks to Paul Karp, Gareth Hutchens, Katharine Murphy and the wonderful Mike Bowers. Behind you! Whip it good. I am reliably informed that Labor pulled a “swifty”, with some members pretending to leave the house. As the Coalition had seen Labor members leaving, when the vote was called, some government MPs thought it was the adjournment bell and three Coalition MPs missed the vote. One was out walking without a mobile phone. Whip it good. Government wins the next vote. These are all procedurals. Now voting that the motion be made an order of the day for the next sitting. The next sitting week is September 12. Government wins the adjournment debate. Labor’s Tony Burke is pushing Speaker Smith big time. A picture tells you more than I can. Is there a small dark room somewhere? Without windows? Christopher Pyne moves to adjourn the debate. The house is voting now. Chris Bowen: We all represent people who have been victims of bank scandals. Bowen calls on Turnbull to change his mind, saying people will respect him if he changes his mind. Calm down everyone. *whistles* Ah here is Chris Bowen. Speak of the devil. Bowen rebutts the Coalition attack on Labor for not doing anything in office about bank complaints. He says Labor brought in the Future of Financial Advice (Fofa) laws which tightened the laws around financial planning. And the Coalition tried to get rid of them. Bowen says Asic is not enough to bring to light scandals. He pays tribute to Fairfax journalist Adele Ferguson and says most of the scandals were brought to light from people outside of the regulatory system. That’s why a royal commission is needed. Do the right thing and call a royal commission. This is the sort of thing going on here: Mr Morrison, 5:43:13 PM. Mr Joyce, 5:44:17 PM. Point of order, Mr Albanese. 5:50:16 PM. Point of order, Mr Albanese. 5:50:38 PM. Mr Joyce, 5:51:11 PM. Point of order, Mr Albanese. 5:54:24 PM. Point of order, Mr Pyne. 5:54:37 PM. Mr Shorten, 5:56:47 PM. Ms O’Dwyer, 6:00:42 PM. Mr Katter, 6:10:18 PM. Mr McCormack, 6:20:53 PM. Point of order, Mr Burke. 6:30:47 PM. The minister for small business Michael McCormack makes a pointed remark about whether Labor’s shadow treasurer Chris Bowen will speak. Bowen has been careful to stay a little distant from the bank royal commission – given he would have to deal with them in government. Shorten has been doing the shouty stuff while Bowen has been much quieter and calmer. Bob Katter is speaking now, saying the deputy prime minister and agriculture minister Barnaby Joyce should know better than to oppose an examination of the banks, given what is happening to farmers in Australia. Remember Katter seconded the Labor motion on Wednesday morning. Kelly O’Dwyer, finance services minister, is making the government’s points. That is, the Coalition recognises that there has been malfeasance in the banks but the government needs to do something about it. The government has increased funding to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (Asic), implemented the Ramsey Review to look at regulations, established an inquiry under the small business ombudsman Kate Carnell and are investigating a tribunal. Bill Shorten is up now. As Peta Credlin said earlier this week, he is not going to let his foot off the throat of the government. This is the party that represents the seedy end of financial planning ... we may succeed tonight or we may not but we will never give up. You did what? Joyce appears to be filibustering – extending debate – perhaps to get more people back to parliament to vote. I’m told Malcolm Turnbull is having a serious conversation with Peter Dutton on the floor of the chamber. Anthony Albanese wants the question to be put. He wants to do the vote. Barnaby Joyce, deputy PM, is taking up the call. To be clear, the lower house now needs to debate Labor’s motion calling for the PM to establish a royal commission. The Senate passed this motion earlier in the day. The Labor party tested it on the floor of the lower house yesterday. It failed. Labor tested it again today – an hour ago. It failed. They tested the numbers again when the vote came for adjournment. Parliament was due to adjourn at 4.30pm. Labor successfully blocked the adjournment because some of the Coalition MPs must have got a little relaxed. One of them was Peter Dutton. He walked back into the chamber after Labor had won two votes. Then, when the vote was tied at 71-71, the Speaker had to cast his vote. By tradition, he cast it to allow debate to proceed. Joyce is cranky. Scott Morrison roars into the microphone. A stunt! The vote was 71-71. Speaker said by practice, he needed to vote to allow debate. This is what Labor wanted - more debate on a bank royal commission. The Coalition has no choice but debate. (This post has been amended.) Speaker must exercise casting vote! It seems Dutton might have been one of the lost Coalition votes, missing in action. So now they are voting on the bank motion itself – the one that the Senate passed earlier. That is, that the PM should establish a royal commission into the finance industry. Labor stopped everyone from leaving by refusing to vote for the adjournment. They are trying to move the bank royal commission motion again. There goes the planes, trains and automobiles ... Pat Dodson said he will be working to: make sure fewer Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are locked up in prisons, help develop Northern Australia, in partnership with regional communities, industries and Aboriginal people build consensus on changing the constitutional framework recognising the need for meaningful discussion on treaty ensure Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians and their organisations are empowered. Our laws have at times been based on ingrained paternalism and racial superiority, denying our shared humanity. Such mindsets justified repeated acts of greed that grabbed the lands of our people without negotiation, settlement or compensation. And at times, great human cost with many lives being taken or cut short. Pat Dodson is giving his first speech. He began in his traditional language. Dodson is a Yawuru man from Broome in Western Australia. He said he grew up with three tenets from his people. Strong community where people matter Strong place, a good country, balanced use of resources Healthy spirit for families and community Fellow taxpayers will be pleased to know Bronwyn Bishop paid back the $5,227.27 for the chopper. That is the first factoid from the entitlements list. And it must be Thursday afternoon in a sitting week because the pollies entitlements have just been released. Spending, overseas study trips, etc etc. Dive in. The water is fine. Labor and the Greens lost that attempt to bring another vote. I think they were hoping a few Coalition members might have slipped home early as it is half an hour before adjournment. The fact is no one is allowed to slip home in a finely balanced house. The vote went down 71-73. That means the House does not consider the Senate stance on the banks royal commission. The House is voting over whether to consider a message from the Senate. This is a quaint term but what it actually means is, can the House consider a motion that has already passed in the Senate? That motion is the banks royal commission motion, which passed the Senate earlier today. For the wonks (like me), Nick Xenophon has just won the last spot on the economic references committee over David Leyonhjelm. The committees will meet privately and elect the chair and deputy chair of both legislation committee and references. Butter wouldn’t melt. Nick Xenophon wants a spot on the economic references committee. So does David Leyonhjelm. There is only one crossbencher spot. Back in the Senate, the ballots are taking place for committee positions. There are legislative committees and there are references committees. Positions are divided up but I hear there is some hot competition among the crossbenchers. Obviously crossbenchers who have a seat on the committees get a smidgeon more influence in inquiries and the subsequent reports. The votes are being counted now. Literally tipped on the table and counted. A mob of Nats. Does the member truly suggest ... Testing the breeze. Psssst ... There is a government question on the Moreton Bay rail link. Then Labor to Steve Ciobo, tourism minister: I refer to reports of a fall in the number of backpackers coming to Australia. What connection is there between the fall in the number of backpackers and the government’s backpacker tax? Ciobo says the government is currently reviewing the backpacker tax changes, which were implemented because of the “unfortunate circumstances that were left to us by the previous Labor government”. The backpacker tax was a surprise inclusion in the 2015 budget estimated to raise $540m. Currently, backpackers are able to access the $18,200 tax-free threshold, the low-income tax offset and the lower tax rate of 19% for income above the tax-free threshold up to $37,000. As a result of the proposed changes, holidaymakers will be treated as non-residents and taxed at 32.5% from their first dollar. The review was open for submissions for only two weeks. There will be a decision shortly, according to people who know these things. Shorten to Turnbull: I refer to the PM’s ironclad superannuation policies that will see a $500,000 lifetime non-concessional contribution cap applying from 1 July 2007. As your new changes to super apply to investment decisions made 10 years ago in good faith under previous laws, how is this change not retrospective? Tunrbull says there is no retrospectivity in the proposed changes to the non-concessional cap. Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young has given an interview with Sky News in which she raised the possibility of passing the plebiscite-enabling legislation if there is no alternative to legislate gay marriage, in contrast to the Greens policy to block it. Hanson-Young said the parliament should try to pass private member’s bills and it would be “bad form” if the government didn’t allow them to be voted on. I think we have to do all that before we say it’s plebiscite or nothing ... Nothing isn’t an option. It’s not an option.” Hanson-Young said the Greens allow conscience votes so crossing the floor was hypothetically possible. That’s not what is going on here, what is going on here is that we have to come up with a way forward. She said the Greens position is “very clear – we won’t be supporting the plebiscite, particularly the way it being described at the moment”. Hanson-Young said the question was what Labor would do and raised the prospect that some Labor MPs may want a conscience vote on the plebiscite itself. There is a government question on the NBN. Then Chris Bowen asks Scott Morrison, how does it feel worse at your job than Joe Hockey? Politics can be cruel. Labor to Scott Morrison: Last week, in a speech to the Sydney Institute, the finance minister said there would be $6.5bn in savings in the omnibus bill. Yesterday during question time the treasurer said it was $6.1bn. But by later that afternoon he had lost another $107m. What will the number be next week and isn’t this omnibus shambles more evidence that the bumbling treasurer is completely incompetent? Morrison: Those opposite, while they like to dwell on these matters, they may wish to reflect on their own contributions to these issues and what they have done in going to the last election is they said that they thought the best plan for Australia was to increase the deficit by $16. 5bn, they told the Australian people. It turns out it was $16. 6bn. Government MP to Peter Dutton: Will the minister update the house on the important role border protection plays in securing our great nation. Why is it important to always put our national interest first? Dutton uses it to call for Bill Shorten to sack Sam Dastyari. Labor’s Tony Burke wants to table photos of Dastyari’s donor with Liberal figures including Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull, as well as a list of donations he has made to the Liberal party. The government refuses. The donor is Minshen Zhu, who runs Top Education Institute, a Chinese private higher education provider based in Sydney. He also has close links to the Chinese government. This story has long tentacles and it really could go anywhere. Labor to Malcolm Turnbull: Senator Pauline Hanson and the member for Warringah met yesterday. After the meeting Senator Hanson stated, “Tony and I had a frank discussion about various bills coming up. He gave his considered opinion with regards to them. Given the meeting goes directly to the government’s agenda, has the member for Warringah conveyed a report of the outcomes of the meeting to the PM?” Again there is argy bargy about whether the question is in order. Christopher Pyne argues the PM can’t be responsible for private conversations. Speaker agrees and Labor loses the question. Government MP to Christopher Pyne: Will the minister inform the house why a sovereign defence industry capability is vital to Australia’s national security and international interests? Is he aware of any other approach? This is a chance to question Labor senator Sam Dastyari’s donation story and its effect on security. There is a question to the foreign affairs minister, Julie Bishop, about the counter-terrorism legislation. Then Labor to Malcolm Turnbull: When the member for Warringah met Senator Hanson yesterday to discuss the government’s agenda, was the member for Warringah commissioned by the PM to conduct the negotiations? Or was he acting of his own initiative? There is a bit of argy bargy on whether the question is in order but the Speaker allows it. Turnbull says the answer is no. Ooooooooooh, comes the cry from the Labor benches. Tanya Plibersek to Malcolm Turnbull: Victims of bank rip-offs support a royal commission. The Senate has voted to establish a royal commission and even members of the PM’s own backbench are threatening to cross the floor to support a royal commission. When will the PM stop running a protection racket for the banks, stop insulting and lecturing victims, telling them what they want and finally establish a royal commission? Turnbull is warming to this task. Does she really imagine that the banks with all of their resources, with all of their lawyers, will not be equal to a royal commission? Does she really imagine that Michelle from Newcastle and Jenny and Dwyane will be able to afford the legal representation to make their claims in a royal commission? A royal commission will be a forum for the legal profession. And then: We know there was poor advice, sometimes the advice was conflicted. Sometimes banks were careless or reckless. Sometimes they acted wrongfully knowingly in giving that bad advice. But we know all of that. What we are doing is setting in place the measures to ensure it doesn’t happen again. What we are doing is setting in place the structures that will ensure Dwayne and Jenny and Michelle will be able to resolve their differences with the banks, notwithstanding they don’t have the armies of lawyers and barristers to defend themselves and press their case. Pardon me. I missed NXT’s Rebekha Sharkie’s first question to Malcolm Turnbull. The people of Mayo were made a series of funding commitments by the government during the recent election campaign. Such as $14m for road infrastructure, $3. 7m for the Mt Barker sports hub, $500,000 for the Victor Harbour RSL and a mobile phone tower on Kangaroo Island. Will the PM confirm that all of the election commitments made to Mayo will be honoured during this term of the Parliament? Turnbull: The government will deliver on all of its local election commitments, including to the people of Mayo. Government question to Barnaby Joyce: Will the minister update the house on how the government is growing the economy by securing export markets for the a goal sector and is the minister aware of any alternate policies? Labor to Scott Morrison: Dwayne and Jenny live in Warringah. They were advised by a finance broker to borrow $500,000 against the value of their home and put it into dodgy investments. Dwayne and Jenny have spent the past seven years struggling to stay afloat and fighting to save their one remaining asset, the family home. Will the PM explain to Dwayne andJenny why he refuses to listen to victims like them calling for a royal commission? Morrison asks for their contact details and then says: I noticed in the member’s question that she referred to Dwayne and Jenny having been dealing with this for seven years. This government has been in power for three years. Three years. Not seven years. He makes the point that, when in government, Labor said Australia had the best banks in the world and had world’s best practice. Now I don’t know what comfort that was to Jenny and Dwayne but clearly there was nothing being done by those opposite when sitting on these benches. Government MP to Scott Morrison: Will the treasurer outline to the house why we must arrest debt and reduce deficits by taking responsible fiscal decisions to balance the budget. Is the treasurer aware of any alternative views? In Senate question time, senator Penny Wong has been grilling the Indigenous affairs minister, Nigel Scullion, about when he first became aware of abuse at the Don Dale. She has probed an apparent discrepancy between Scullion initially saying he was not aware of abuses then revealing that he had received a question time brief about Northern Territory inquiries into Don Dale. Scullion said he first became aware of the mistreatment of youth at Don Dale through media reports but did not say when. To account for the discrepancy, he said: I was making a statement in the context of the difference between what had seen the night before on Four Corners, and everything else that had been on the public record and in fact in both the reports provided to the Northern Territory government. Scullion said the graphic Four Corners story was in “stark contrast” to the reports. I wish we’d all known what was really happening, not just what was reported in the media and to the Northern Territory government, and I’m sure I share that with many others. Stephen Conroy then needled Scullion for going to dinner instead of watching Four Corners but Scullion says he caught up on iView. Bill Shorten to Malcolm Turnbull: Today the Senate stood up and called on the PM to establish a royal commission to clean up the banking and financial sector. Early this morning I met with victims who have suffered hardship and distress as a result of widespread rorts and rip-offs in banking. Victims including Michelle, spoke of during the last question, who specifically want the PM to establish a royal commission. Will the PM now explain why those victims who have tried all the mechanisms outlined by the PM are wrong to demand a royal commission. Malcolm Turnbull: We are getting on with the job of ensuring there are better mechanisms for Michelle to resolve the challenges she has with the financial services industry, with the banks, with planners, ensuring there is better regulation, better supervision, better means of mediation and resolving small claims. That’s why Prof Ramsey is undertaking his review of the various small claims ombudsman agencies with a view to bringing them together to a more effective tribunal that can achieve the better outcomes for people like Michelle. Government MP to Turnbull: Will the PM outline to the House why a responsible and disciplined approach to managing the nation’s budget is vital to the economic security of Australians now and into the future. Turnbull puts the case for the government’s savings measures. An obstructionist parliament will risk a further deterioration in the budget position and a slower return to balance. Now, like John Howard and Peter Costello before us, we must maintain a disciplined approach to budget repair. General laughter. Part of the government’s problems, ie superannuation reforms, are due to changes made by that government. Labor to Turnbull: Earlier today I met Michelle, a single mother with three children who lives in Newcastle. Michelle was talked into a mortgage she couldn’t afford by a dodgy financial adviser. For the last five years Michelle has worked three jobs around the clock to make her mortgage repayments and keep her head above water. Will the PM explain to Michelle and the house why he continues to deny her a royal commission? Malcolm Turnbull answers: I can well understand the concern and distress that her constituent has had having been given poor advice by this financial adviser. But I have to say to the honourable member that I imagine what her constituent seeks is compensation, recompense, justice, some form of compensation for the losses she incurred and is best that the Labor party can do is offer her a royal commission! What is that going to do? Will that pay her back? No! Nothing! Nothing! The Labor party has embarked on a populist campaign that does nothing to support the honourable member’s constituent ... I don’t know what measures she’s sought to undertake but the one place where she will achieve no compensation at all is in a royal commission. Question time begins. In the Senate, Labor’s Penny Wong is going after Nigel Scullion, the Indigenous affairs minister, on when he knew about the Don Dale detention centre allegations. The house is doing a statement on indulgence regarding the Olympics. It will be interesting to see if they go after the same issue – Don Dale – in the house. The government has lost a second vote on the Nauru files 35-33. As a result the Senate has demanded that the Coalition government reveal whether allegations of abuse contained in the files leaked to the have been investigated. The Senate also called for the appointment of an independent children’s advocate. Senator Lisa Singh moved a motion that: The Senate notes (a) (i) a large cache of documents has been made public regarding the treatment of asylum seekers including children on Nauru, and (ii) these documents contain concerning reports of alleged abuse; and (b) call upon the Australian government: (i) to reveal whether these serious and disturbing allegations of abuse have been investigated and the outcomes of those investigations, and (ii) to appoint an Independent children’s advocate backed by adequate resources and statutory powers to ensure the rights and interests of children are protected. Like the motion calling for a banking royal commission, the Senate has no powers to compel the government to do so. The Senate has called on the prime minister to establish a royal commission into the finance industry in a Labor motion supported by the Greens and the crossbenchers. But the motion has no force over the government. The prime minister has announced laws will change to allow the Australian defence force to target combat support staff of terrorist organisations like Islamic State. The government is also introducing legislation to lower the age limit on control orders and post-sentence preventative detention. Senators have traded blows over senate business as the government tried to rush legislation through. Jacqui Lambie has warned Liberal senator Mitch Fifield not to “shove folders” down her throat. And she called on the government to show some bloody respect for the new senators who are struggling with the process. The attorney general, George Brandis, called on the Labor senator Sam Dastyari to explain his decision to take money from a Chinese businessman with links to the Chinese government to pay some $1600 in overspent travel bills. He also demanded he explain why his positions on China are different to the Labor party’s positions. Mike Kelly, the new Labor member for Eden Monaro, is making his first speech – well this time around. He lost that seat in 2013 and won it back, breaking its run as the bellwether seat. A former army lawyer, Kelly said during the intervening period he worked for Bill Shorten as a defence advisor. He echoed Shorten’s response to the counter terrorism measures announced by Malcolm Turnbull earlier today. He also said he worked closely with Tony Abbott’s office on national security – including with his former chief of staff Peta Credlin. He praised her as a strong, intelligent woman and noted that perhaps that’s why some in the Coalition had a problem with her. Paul Karp’s story on the new counter-terrorism laws is up now. For a full rundown, see here. The Australian government has announced it will increase the intensity of attacks on Islamic State – also known as Daesh – by changing the law to allow targeting of its combat support forces, not just those actively engaged in hostilities. Labor offered in-principle support for the changes, which will allow strikes on logistics and support members of Isis without the legal risk of prosecution under Australian law. Just to be clear, the successful motion passed in the Senate calling on the PM to establish a banking royal commission has no force. It is effectively a statement from the Senate that a majority of senators want a bank royal commission but it has no power compel the executive government, led by one Malcolm Turnbull, to establish a royal commission. Even if such a motion passed both houses (it failed in the lower house yesterday) it would not bind the government to establish a royal commission. Just to be clear. Labor has just successfully moved the following motion: (a) the Senate notes that: (i) confidence and trust in the financial services industry has been shaken by ongoing revelations of scandals, which have resulted in tens of thousands of Australians being ripped off, including: (A) retirees who have had their retirement savings gutted, (B) families who have been rorted out of hundreds of thousands of dollars, (C) small business owners who have lost everything, and (D) life insurance policy holders who have been denied justice; (ii) it is clear from the breadth and scope of the allegations that the problems in this industry go beyond any one bank or type of financial institution, (iii) the Australian Labor Party, the Australian Greens, crossbench, Liberal and Nationals parliamentarians have supported a thorough investigation of the culture and practices within the financial services industry through a Royal Commission, which is the only forum with the coercive powers and broad jurisdiction necessary to properly perform this investigation, and (iv) Australia has one of the strongest banking systems in the world, but Australians must have confidence in their banks and financial institutions, making it necessary to sweep away doubt and uncover and deal with unethical behaviour that compromises that confidence; (b) the Senate calls on the prime minister to request his excellency the governor general of the commonwealth of Australia issue letters patent to establish a royal commission to inquire into misconduct in the banking and financial services industry, including their agents and managed investment schemes; and (c) this resolution be communicated to the House of Representatives for concurrence. The Senate is on to Labor’s bank royal commission motion. In the blink of an eye, it has just passed. So while the government prevailed in the lower house yesterday, Labor won on the banks motion in the Senate. I’ll have the words to you shortly. There is currently a bun fight in the Senate over sending government legislation to committees. We have the media reform bill, the fair work (Country Fire Authority) bill and the budget omnibus bill all going to committees for scrutiny. Jacqui Lambie has just given Mitch Fifield a free character assessment. He is running the government’s agenda in the Senate today and has tried to rush bills through without giving new senators time to get the process. She told him that the Coalition was trying the same old tricks, trying to shove bills down everyone’s throats even though crossbenchers did not have the staff or resources to scrutinise the bills. And don’t go shoving this folder down my throat either ... Show some bloody integrity and some bloody respect. From Gareth: George Brandis has just demanded, in the Senate, that Labor senator Sam Dastyari properly explain his decision to allow a company with links to the Chinese government to pay a $1600 bill incurred by his office. Brandis said Dastyari had recently taken public positions on foreign policy matters regarding China, which were “starkly at variance” with Labor’s official position. He wondered if Dastyari’s close relationship with Chinese interests had anything to do with it. “Did Senator Dastyari’s links with China influence him in presenting what he himself called ‘The Chinese View’ in a speech in the senate?” Brandis said. “Senator Dastyari’s acceptance of personal benefits from an entity or entities with links to the Chinese state and the carefully opaque way in which the payments have been described in the register of senators’ interests raises the inevitable question of whether Senator Dastyari, whether advertently or unwittingly, has allowed himself to be compromised. “This is a very serious matter. “It is much more serious than, for instance, the allegations which were made against the member for Fadden, Mr Robert, which caused him to lose his position in the ministry. “Senator Dastyari is an extremely influential matter in the alternative government of Australia. If he has been compromised, that is a very grave matter. “It is incumbent upon Senator Dastyari now to provide to the Senate a full explanation of the affair, a full account of the nature of his dealings with these two Chinese companies, and in particular a full explanation as to why it was that they were paying personal debts of Senator Dastyari’s. “It is for Mr Shorten to insist that Senator Dastyari do so.” Clan Albo. Short hand: Albo pays homage to Hawkie. The attorney general, George Brandis, is using the Senate to prosecute a case against Labor senator Sam Dastyari, calling on him to answer questions regarding a “donation” by a company with links to the Chinese government of some $1600. Dastyari disclosed the amount. Brandis is listing all of Dastyari’s positions on China that are “at variance” with Labor. Gareth Hutchens will have more on this in a minute. The Oz reported this morning that “media executives” left Canberra last night with the impression that Labor was considering blocking elements of the media bill. I have a call in to Labor’s communications shadow, Michelle Rowland, to check. We are getting bills at a clip here. Minister Paul Fletcher is introducing the media reforms to the lower house. The changes were announced in March this year. The bill would: remove the “reach rule”, which prevents a person controlling commercial television licences that collectively reach more than 75% of the population. remove the law that prevents a person from controlling more than two out of three regulated forms of media, such as radio, television and newspapers. But does not touch anti-siphoning laws, which reserve premium events for free-to-air television. By way of a reminder for all of us, this is the tax plan via Gareth Hutchens: The Coalition will cut the corporate tax rate from 30% to 25% by 2026-27 and the tax rate for small businesses from 28.5% to 25% by 2026-27. Workers earning more than $80,000 – the top 25% of income earners – will get a tax cut as the government moves the threshold for the 37% tax rate up to $87,000. The cut is worth about $315 a year for most higher-income families. The treasurer, Scott Morrison, is introducing the company tax cut bill to the house now. He says it will create – jobs and growth. *drink* This was the central plank of the Coalition’s election policy. It is highly likely it will receive a hair cut in the Senate, given most of the crossbenchers cannot abide a tax cut for larger companies. I will get some details in a minute. Still on national security, Bill Shorten questioned whether national security agencies were sharing information and taking a coordinated approach. He raises the case of Man Haron Monis who carried out the Lindt cafe siege in Martin Place. He was never formally identified as a national security threat in the way in which he emerged. As the PM has referred to, it’s more important than ever that our national security agencies are working together, are well connected and are sharing all relevant information including from nontraditional sources ... We do need to ask ourselves, are the current levels of coordination and cooperation strong enough and fast enough in the age of cyber attacks? We need to ensure that the right information is getting to the right people at the right time. Bill Shorten: I do believe that our Australian troops are doing valuable, important work assisting the people and the government of Iraq, not just our air support, repelling advances and claiming ground from the well-armed enemy but from training and construction, building a more capable Iraqi army. Of course winning the battle against Daesh demands that we build the infrastructure of peace, not just holding elections but upholding the rule of law. Ensuring schools are open and accessible and a future free from violence is seen not just as desirable but achievable. But let us not kid ourselves. The progress which has been recorded is real. But the strong threat still remains. Bill Shorten: It must be recognised that Daesh has the capacity to evolve. They are hierarchical in their leadership, they are a State-like organisation without a State to administer and they are committed to promoting war-like and terrorist activities wherever they can. Currently, we’re able to target the vehicles and the positions, able to go after those Mad Max style vehicles which the terrorists use in Iraq. Of course we have been able to target infrastructure and headquarter positions. Always our ADF operates proportionate with international laws, the Geneva convention and other such protocols. But as I said, it has become clear to our Defence Forces that there may be an ambiguity between international law and our domestic laws. It is important that we understand that when we’re dealing with Daesh that the factories where they make these equipments, where they cache their supplies, where they get the fuel trucks and the logistical element, it is important that we deal with this issue to make sure that our ADF, by some quirk of domestic law anomaly, should not be subjected to our legal repercussions merely because we didn’t deal with the issue and update our laws just as the ADF are dealing with an updated, difficult environment. Bill Shorten has been briefed on these measures an hour ago. He says he will continue to cooperate on national security – as Labor did in the last parliament – but goes on to add some careful clauses to this support. The parliament must continue to be used as a forum for discussing this stuff. (Don’t hide it behind closed doors) But: The loss of innocent lives to terrorism has become an all too familiar story on the evening news. OK, on to Bill Shorten now, who basically says he supports the principle but Labor would have to look at any draft legislation. Our CDF has made it clear that they want to make sure that when we ask our young men and women and our professional [Australian Defence Force] to carry out the missions which Australia deems to be important in our national interest and the interests of the people of Iraq, that we don’t set them up to head into a legal minefield. (I have amended this quote, which I misheard.) Malcolm Turnbull finishes by talking about the government’s defence white paper and supporting veterans when they return home. But he says he wanted to focus on Daesh because it presents the most immediate security threat. It is why we must give our agencies the powers they need. To detect. To disrupt. To arrest. And to target. Safety and security at home will always be the government’s first priority. Success requires strong laws, modern powers and, importantly, it requires social unity. I believe security and freedom are not mutually exclusive; they are mutually reinforcing. We cannot be effective if we are creating division, whether by fomenting distrust within the Muslim community or inciting fear of Muslims in broader society. Division begets division. It makes violence more likely, not less. The aim of extremists, including those committing violence through a warped and nihilistic interpretation of religion, is to divide us and to turn our citizens against each other – but we will not let them win. We are stronger when we stand together. We will defeat division and weakness with unity and strength. The Coalition government will also introduce legislation to strengthen penalties for trafficking illegal firearms, which Turnbull says is “a crime that fuels the violence associated with terrorism and poses a threat to the safety and security of all Australians”. Malcolm Turnbull has outlined the counter-terrorism and national security measures implemented so far and goes on to say the Coalition will two more measures, previously announced. The first is the post-sentence detention measure to “ to enable a continuing period of detention for high-risk terrorist offenders”. The second is the bill that lowers the age for control order to 14. The prime minister: We won’t hesitate to label Islamist extremism when we see it. At the same time there is nothing to be gained by rashly fixing labels and pre-empting the findings of complex investigations. We all work hard to preserve the mutual respect that makes us one of the most liberal and diverse multicultural countries in the world. We must not link all Muslims with the crimes of a terrorist minority – that is precisely what the extremists want us to do. I am committed to continue working closely with Australia’s Muslim communities, as I am with all communities. And I’m pleased to report that my agency heads say we are making considerable headway. But there is work to be done. Other established terrorist groups with longstanding grievances against the West have not disappeared. And there has also been a resurgence in far-right extremism directed against Muslims. Malcolm Turnbull, still speaking in the House. The perpetrators who carried out the three recent attacks here at home – the Martin Place siege, Endeavour Hills stabbing and the murder of Curtis Cheng – are all dead. But there are still people outside our country, and some within it, who hate the freedoms that we enjoy and would seek to threaten them and undermine them with violence. Around 200 people in Australia are being investigated for providing support to individuals and groups in the Syria/Iraq conflict. So we must not only attack the disease at its source in the Middle East but redouble our efforts at home. Malcolm Turnbull: It is quite possible that the next mass casualty attack on Australian victims will be somewhere in south-east Asia, where Daesh propaganda has galvanised existing networks of extremists and attracted new recruits. Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Bangladesh have suffered terrorist attacks over the past year. Many are expecting further attacks. And I know many of these governments are concerned about the implications of returning terrorist fighters, just as we are alert to the risks posed by returning fighters in Australia. Malcolm Turnbull: In January this year, as we were on our way to visiting our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, the chief of the defence force advised me of a legal anomaly which meant we were not empowering the ADF, in particular our air force, to be as effective as they could be. Under international law, all members of an organised armed group such as Daesh can be targeted with lethal force, subject, of course, to the ordinary rules of international humanitarian law. This is a reasonable and conventional approach adopted by the armed forces of our key allies across the world. But there is a legal argument that Australia’s domestic law is more restrictive than international law. This legal risk posed a major challenge to the effectiveness of our operations. It meant that the ADF’s targeting base in Iraq and Syria was restricted, and we could not operate as freely as our coalition partners. So I can announce that the government has reviewed its policy on targeting enemy combatants and earlier this year made an important decision to ensure our forces are empowered to act against Daesh in Iraq and Syria – to the maximum extent allowed by international law. And we will move quickly to introduce the necessary amendments to the Commonwealth criminal code that will bring our domestic laws into line with international norms. This means that ADF personnel will be supported by our domestic laws. They will be able to target Daesh at its core – joining with our coalition partners to target and kill a broader range of Daesh combatants – which is consistent with international law. Malcolm Turnbull: To defeat them, so must we adapt. We cannot take winning the peace and stability for granted. The US and its allies are a formidable war-fighting machine but we have had mixed success in helping to reestablish political order. This is why I have been so resolute that the right soldiers on the right ground are crucial to giving the Middle East stability and the best opportunity to succeed. Turnbull: Thanks to the efforts of the Iraqi armed forces and their Coalition partners, including the ADF, Daesh has lost close to half of the territory it held in Iraq and up to 20% of its territory in Syria. We estimate its numbers of fighters have been cut by about a third. This is no small achievement – and it’s due in part to Australia’s military contribution. The terrorist group’s monthly income has fallen by an estimated 30% since the middle of last year. In June, Daesh suffered its highest net territorial losses in over a year, including key ground near the Turkish border and the last city it controlled in Iraq’s Anbar Province, Fallujah. Iraqi forces raised the Iraqi flag over Fallujah on 17 June and Iraqi military leaders announced the city’s full liberation on 26 June. This progress is critically important because it demolishes Daesh’s myth of invincibility and inevitable victory. Far from sweeping across Europe to stable their horses in the Vatican, Daesh is now on the defensive, losing territory, resources and lives. Would-be recruits can now see that travelling to Syria and Iraq to fight with Daesh is joining a losing side. They can see it will result in almost certain death on the battlefield. Only yesterday there were reports that Daesh’s chief propagandist, Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, was killed in in Syria. Malcolm Turnbull in the House: In those two years our law enforcement and security agencies have successfully disrupted a further 10 terrorist attacks. Nine of these featured individuals with some form of allegiance to Daesh. In this period, 47 people have been charged as a result of 18 counter-terrorism operations around Australia. That’s over half of all terrorism related charges since 2001. In order to defeat this despotic and barbaric movement we are working closely with our friends and allies to destroy it at its core: its so-called “caliphate” in Syria and Iraq. Daesh framed its rapid territorial expansion to create the false illusion of inexorable conquest, while its declaration of a caliphate helped it to generate delusions of religious legitimacy and historical grandeur. To promote Australia’s safety our first objective must be to expel Daesh from its occupied territories and destroy its pretensions of statehood. This is why a 400-member Australian defence force air task group is conducting airstrikes over Daesh strongholds in Iraq and Syria, and a similar number of ADF personnel are training and assisting Iraqi ground forces. Malcolm Turnbull is speaking now. He says the government’s concern is with keeping the community safe. He is listing the terrorist attacks in recent times, noting the deaths number thousands “mostly Muslims”. Daesh and terrorist groups are not the only threat we face....but Daesh is presently the most immediate security challenge that directly affects us all. The human headline. Malcolm Turnbull is making a statement at 9.30am on counter-terrorism; that is, the changes that Binskin flagged. Parliament is about to begin at 9.30am. The chief of the defence forces, Air Chief Marshall Mark Binskin, has given a public statement regarding the counter-terrorism measures that will be announced later today. He says targeting Daesh or Isis including is becoming more difficult due to the difference in international and domestic laws. Domestic law restricts the ability for us to target elements of Daesh that would otherwise be lawful under international law. And the limitation here is that under domestic law, we can only target those Daesh forces that are taking a direct and active part in hostilities. It doesn’t allow us to target those important supporting elements that are key to their fighting ability, for example their logistics and support organisations. As a result: Government has today announced that it’s provided the full authority needed to target all members of organised armed groups such as Daesh in accordance with international law. This is important to me because it allows us to target combat and support elements of Daesh but it’s also important to me because it removes the ambiguity that my people operate under, including through legislative change, which government will talk about more in the next couple of days. Bills, bills, bills. Not Shorten, legislation. The company tax cuts bill is there but also is the four week wait for unemployment benefits. This is the list on the parliamentary program for today. Registration of Deaths Abroad Amendment Bill Industry Research and Development Amendment (Innovation and Science Australia) Bill Treasury Laws Amendment (Enterprise Tax Plan) Bill Treasury Laws Amendment (Income Tax Relief) Bill International Tax Agreements Amendment Bill Corporations Amendment (Auditor Registration) Bill Broadcasting Legislation Amendment (Media Reform) Bill Statute Law Revision (Spring 2016) Bill Statute Update Bill Competition and Consumer Amendment (Country of Origin) Bill Social Services Legislation Amendment (Budget Repair) Bill Social Services Legislation Amendment (Family Payments Structural Reform and Participation Measures) Bill Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Jobs for Families Child Care Package) Bill Migration Amendment (Family Violence and Other Measures) Bill Migration Amendment (Character Cancellation Consequential Provisions) Bill There are a lot more photos but Mike Bowers has the full gallery here. Julie and David. Albo and Carmel. Jacqui and (mystery date) Derryn. Bill and Chloe. Good morning blogans, Welcome to Thursday on politics live. Deficits are the key today, sleep deficits that is. As you will see with Mike Bowers’ picture gallery, the press ball went to the wee hours last night. This is normally a midwinter event but, with the eight-week campaign, it became an almost spring ball. So with the coffee carts and the cafe packed to maximum capacity, we had best get on with the day. There is a lot around this morning. The government has 16 more bills coming to the parliament, including the company tax cuts. The Coalition agenda is dominated by budget measures but there were red faces all round late yesterday after Labor discovered a $107m counting error in the omnibus bill. The resulting mathematical haircut takes the value of the savings bill below $6bn. Labor is meeting with victims of shonky financial advisors to press the case for the bank royal commission. Labor’s point is that the small business ombudsman’s inquiry is not broad enough. Phil Coorey at the Fin reports the ombudsman Kate Carnell will be looking at 23 specific cases that were concerning Coalition bank critics. While this approach obviously stops those critics from crossing the floor, you do wonder about the rest of the victims who have not managed to make contact with a Coalition backbencher. Bob Hawke is in the house! The former PM will be launching Anthony Albanese’s biography by journalist Karen Middleton at 11am. I will bring pics and hopefully a bit of colour from that event. And at 9am, the current prime minister will be making a statement to the house regarding counter terrorism. I can’t tell you anymore because ... actually, I don’t know anymore than that. There’s lots more besides. Stick around and chat in the thread. I’m on the Twits @gabriellechan and he is @mpbowers. I’m on my second litre of water, the sun is shining, the birds are singing and its the last sitting day of the parliament. What’s not to love?
'No other artist’s music felt or sounded like his': tributes pour in to Leonard Cohen Another giant of music has gone and his fans are in mourning. There were hints that Leonard Cohen would not live much longer, but in a year that has already taken away Prince, David Bowie and George Martin, his death – announced via a Facebook post on Thursday – still came as a shock. “It is with profound sorrow we report that legendary poet, songwriter and artist, Leonard Cohen has passed away. We have lost one of music’s most revered and prolific visionaries,” the post said. Twitter was soon awash in tributes from singers, writers, poets and public figures mourning the loss of a musical giant. The Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, sent out two tweets, first in French and then in English. “No other artist’s music felt or sounded like Leonard Cohen’s. Yet his work resonated across generations,” Trudeau wrote. “Canada and the world will miss him.” Trudeau then quoted from one of Cohen’s best-known songs, Hallelujah (1984), which took the artist five years to write and has been covered by hundreds of artists – including, most famously, Jeff Buckley. Musicians across all genres, from hip-hop to pop to rock, tweeted out their condolences, including Ben Folds, Peter Hook from Joy Division and New Order, KD Lang, Slash, Lily Allen and Bette Midler. “Another magical voice stilled,” wrote Midler. Cohen alluded to his own death in a recent and wide-ranging interview with New Yorker editor David Remnick, in which he talked about his unfinished poems and lyrics. “The big change is the proximity to death,” he says. “I am a tidy kind of guy. I like to tie up the strings if I can. If I can’t, that’s OK. But my natural thrust is to finish things that I’ve begun. “I don’t think I’ll be able to finish those songs,” he continued. “Maybe, who knows? And maybe I’ll get a second wind, I don’t know. But I don’t dare attach myself to a spiritual strategy. I don’t dare do that. I’ve got some work to do. Take care of business. I am ready to die. I hope it’s not too uncomfortable. That’s about it for me.” The New Yorker has published the audio of that interview online. Some of the world’s biggest artist count Cohen among their influences. He was a songwriting peer and friend of Bob Dylan, who told the New Yorker: “When people talk about Leonard, they fail to mention his melodies, which to me, along with his lyrics, are his greatest genius ... As far as I know, no one else comes close to this in modern music.” Speaking in Los Angeles this month at a Q&A session for his most recent album, You Want It Darker, Cohen returned the favour, speaking of Dylan’s recent Nobel Prize win: “To me, [the award] is like pinning a medal on Mount Everest for being the highest mountain.” Kurt Cobain was also affected by the writing of Cohen; in Nirvana’s Pennyroyal Tea, from the album In Utero, he sung: “Give me Leonard Cohen afterworld, so I can sigh eternally.” In an interview with MTV in 1995, the year after Cobain’s suicide, Cohen revealed the band had attended a performance of his in Seattle in 1993. “I’m sorry I couldn’t have spoken to the young man,” he said. “There are always alternatives, and I might have been able to lay something on him. Or maybe not.” Cohen was also a poet and author, whose 1966 novel Beautiful Losers was praised by the Boston Globe upon release: “James Joyce is not dead. He is living in Montreal under the name of Cohen.” Writing for the in 2008, Alex Larman said Cohen the poet deserved as much appreciation as Cohen the songwriter. “Cohen would still be highly thought of if he’d never written a song in his life but had stuck to writing his wry, ironic, tender verse,” he wrote. “As Cohen’s musical career acquired momentum, many of his collections were either compilations of earlier poems or collections of lyrics. Nevertheless, the writing elevates Cohen into that rare pantheon where a musician’s lyrics are actually poetry.” Cohen’s first album, released in 1967, contained classic songs including Suzanne, Sisters of Mercy and So Long, Marianne, written for his muse and lover Marianne Ihlen, who died in July this year. Before she died, Cohen wrote Marianne an email, which has since gone viral. “Well Marianne, it’s come to this time when we are really so old and our bodies are falling apart and I think I will follow you very soon,” the email read. “Know that I am so close behind you that if you stretch out your hand, I think you can reach mine ... Goodbye old friend. Endless love, see you down the road.” Cohen was appointed Companion of the Order of Canada in 2002 – the country’s highest honour. In a statement at the time, the governer general praised him as a “Canadian icon” whose “continued popularity confirms his status as a ... venerated dean of the pop culture movement”. His manager, Robert Kory, wrote in a statement: “Unmatched in his creativity, insight and crippling candour, Leonard Cohen was a true visionary whose voice will be sorely missed. I was blessed to call him a friend, and for me to serve that bold artistic spirit firsthand, was a privilege and great gift. He leaves behind a legacy of work that will bring insight, inspiration and healing for generations to come.” Writers too were mourning the loss, including Gary Shteyngart, who quoted from Cohen’s song Everybody Knows. Lin-Manuel Miranda, the creator of hit Broadway musical Hamilton, tweeted lyrics from Suzanne. Many pointed out the auspicious timing of Cohen’s death, in the same week the United States surprised many by electing Donald Trump. “He got out just in time,” said podcaster and comedian Marc Maron. Canadian comedian and actor Mark Critch had a similar take: “Leonard knew when to leave a party.” “I don’t think this week could get any worse,” wrote actor Molly Ringwald. Rob Lowe tweeted: “I’ve experienced the loss of many legends, but never have I seen so many works quoted in their passing.” Actor Russell Crowe thanked him for “the quiet nights, the reflection, the perspective, the wry smiles and the truth”, and burlesque star, model and entrepreneur Dita von Teese said he had “the most sensual male voice of all time”. New Zealand artist Bic Runga, who opened for Leonard Cohen during a 2010 tour, posted a photo of her meeting “one of my heroes”. “I’m gutted,” she tweeted. On 14 November 2016 the standfirst of this article was amended. A previous version incorrectly said Leonard Cohen died a day after Donald Trump’s election.
Trump to visit White House as Obama calls for unity Trump to visit White House amid calls for unity Donald and Melania Trump are slated to visit the White House today at 11am EST, after Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama led calls for unity in their addresses to a divided nation on Wednesday. Though the president and Democratic candidate called on Americans to respect the shock election of Donald Trump, they also warned of a fight to protect constitutional values. Meanwhile, the Vermont senator Bernie Sanders has said he is willing to work with soon-to-be President Trump for working families, but said he will continue to challenge the “sexist, xenophobic and anti-environment policies” that featured prominently in Trump’s campaign. Bernie Sanders: Donald Trump harnessed anti-establishment anger Protests in the wake of Trump’s election Protests erupted in cities across the United States in response to Trump’s unexpected election win, including in Chicago, San Francisco, Oakland, Philadelphia and Seattle, shutting down major city streets and surrounding buildings owned by the president-elect. In New York, protesters gathered outside Trump Tower and marched from Union Square, chanting “Fuck your tower! Fuck your wall!” and carrying signs that read “Not my president”, “She got more votes” and “Hands off my pussy”, a reference to the leaked recording in which Trump bragged about sexual assault. “He’s a horrible, horrible man, not the leader of the America I live in. Or the America I thought I lived in,” one protester told the . A number of arrests were made. Meanwhile, US markets reacted calmly to Trump’s election on Wednesday, following overnight panic. Donald Trump’s shock victory sparks protests across America White women pushed Trump to victory The image of a Donald Trump supporter has long been considered the face of an angry white man. But it was white women who pushed Trump to victory. According to CNN’s exit polls, 53% of white women voted for Trump – rejecting the possibility of a first female president. In interviews, white women said Trump’s record as a businessman and his policy positions resonated with them more strongly than Clinton’s candidacy as a woman. They downplayed his behavior to varying degrees and saw Clinton’s flaws as more troubling. Forget angry white men – white women pushed Donald Trump to victory Support the ’s fearless journalism Never has America needed fearless independent media more. Help us hold the new president to account, sort fact from fiction, amplify underrepresented voices, and understand the forces behind this divisive election – and what happens next. Support the by becoming a member or making a contribution. Transgender Americans fear for safety after Trump win After Tuesday night’s election outcome, many have expressed fear of Donald Trump’s presidency. But few groups have expressed dismay and fear as uniformly as the nation’s trans people, who already report discrimination, harassment, and violence at rates starkly higher than the general population. Those who spoke to the saw Trump’s election as destined to hobble their movement after years in which their acceptance grew by leaps and bounds. They said they feared an immediate cultural reckoning. Transgender Americans fear for safety after Trump win: ‘We are traumatized’ Will Donald Trump destroy America? Shortly after it was announced that Trump had won, #RIP America emerged on Twitter, implying that the real estate mogul’s presidency would destroy the country. Despite those who believe such worries are excessive and Trump won’t implement his campaign promises, like building the wall or massive deportations, Trump has a Republican Congress and a vacancy on the supreme court. “He can build his border wall if he wants to – and, so memorable was the promise, the political penalty for not doing so will be enormous. But he can do much, much more besides,” writes Jonathan Freedland. Will Donald Trump destroy America? Who will be in Trump’s cabinet? reporters are wondering what will President Trump do, as real policy details were few and far between during the campaign. Cabinet secretaries and executive officials are likely to have a surprising amount of latitude in an administration led by a president who has shown little interest in policy nuances, Ben Jacobs writes. Reports widely tip Reince Priebus, the Republican National Committee chair, for chief of staff and Trump mentioned Chris Christie, Mike Huckabee and Ben Carson in his victory speech early on Wednesday morning, but other figures may also wield powerful influence. Loyalists and rivals tipped for powerful roles in Trump’s cabinet Meet the Trumps The Trump family is headed to the White House – here’s what we know about each of them. There’s Melania, Ivanka, Eric and Donald Jr, who all played a prominent role in the campaign, as well as Tiffany, a recent graduate from the University of Pennsylvania, and Barron, Trump’s only child with Melania whom the president-elect likes to play golf with and calls “Little Donald”. Meet the Trumps: a look at America’s new first family ‘I couldn’t wait to vote for a female president. I feel let down by America’ At age 96, Esther Diamond was born months before women got the right to vote and was excited to cast her vote for a woman. After the defeat of Hillary Clinton, she still feels proud to be an American, but she’s also disappointed. “I feel really let down, actually: let down by the voters, let down by America. At 96 I couldn’t wait to vote for a female president. I feel let down by America Madeleine Albright warns Trump against isolationist posturing on Nato Former US secretary of state Madeleine Albright has warned Donald Trump against American isolationism, telling him that national security “cannot be a zero-sum activity” and the US must play its part in the Nato alliance. She said: “It is my hope that once he is better informed he will have a different view … We have to make clear that our national security policy cannot be a zero-sum activity. It has to be win-win and compromises are necessary.” Madeleine Albright warns Trump against isolationist posturing on Nato What a Trump presidency means for the Asia Pacific region Trump’s victory has the potential to radically redraw the geopolitical landscape in Asia, where Obama has been trying to counterbalance China’s growing regional influence with his “pivot” strategy. Some believe a Trump presidency could represent a threat to Washington’s security ties with its two biggest allies in the Asia-Pacific – Japan and South Korea. Experts and analysts made predictions on how his presidency will affect China, Japan and the Korean peninsula, North Korea, Philippines and south-east Asia and India. ‘An epochal change’: what a Trump presidency means for the Asia Pacific region In case you missed it … For those lamenting the election of Donald Trump and in need of a playlist to get you through the coming days, we’ve got you covered. There’s also the 30 Days, 30 Songs project, led by novelist Dave Eggers, that began recruiting impressive names to record songs criticizing Trump back when he was still the Republican nominee. Soundtracking the five stages of grief after the US election result
Amazon takes on Netflix by offering Prime Video as standalone service Amazon is to offer video streaming of exclusive shows such as Transparent and The Man in the High Castle as a standalone service in the US for the first time as it tries to make up ground on Netflix. The online retailer had previously offered Prime Video in the US as part of its Prime package, which also includes next day shipping and other perks, for $99 (£70) a year. It has quietly offered a monthly version for £5.99 in the UK, but will begin promoting the option more strongly, according to reports. US users will now be able to pay $8.99 a month for Amazon’s video, and get Prime as a monthly option for $10.99. The move is a clear attempt to catch up with Netflix, which has led the way in video streaming by offering a cut-price monthly service while also spending big on original content such as House of Cards, Better Call Saul and Marvel superhero spinoff series including Daredevil and Jessica Jones. It comes as Netflix begins moving longer-term subscribers over to new, more expensive packages, having given early adopters a price freeze when it introduced a new pricing structure last year. In the UK Netflix has a large lead over Amazon, with more than 5m households signed up at the end of 2015, compared with around 1.6m for the latter. It is also growing more quickly than its rival. However, Amazon’s European video boss, Jay Marine, recently said there is room for competing online video services. “Video is a huge market,” he told the in an interview published on Sunday. “It is not winner takes all. There are going to be multiple winners here and you are already seeing that. It’s working.”
Profit on RBS stake sale will be tricky, warns outgoing Treasury chief Fresh doubt has been cast on the ability of George Osborne to sell off the state’s remaining stake in Royal Bank of Scotland at a profit following remarks by the outgoing head of the Treasury. The chancellor sold off the first tranche of a 79% stake in the bailed-out bank in August at a £1bn loss and Sir Nicholas Macpherson, the outgoing permanent secretary, has admitted the rest may have to be sold below the break-even price. Asked whether there was a case for selling off the rest of the shares below the crucial 502p average at which the 79% stake was bought in 2008 and 2009, Macpherson told the Financial Times (£): “I think that is the judgment which will have to be made.” The chancellor’s hopes of receiving almost £30bn from the sale of the shares by the end of this parliament in 2020 were called into question earlier this year by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), with data appearing to show a £23bn loss at current share prices. The fall in the RBS share price between the March 2015 budget and last November’s autumn statement mean the OBR reduced the value of the RBS stake from £34bn to £25bn. The first 5 percentage point stake was sold in August, cutting the taxpayer stake to 73%. At the time the shares were sold at 330p. They now trade at 224p. The Treasury said the government remained absolutely determined to return RBS to the private sector. “Last year, the chancellor received independent advice from the [Bank of England] governor stating that it was in the public interest for the government to begin the return of RBS to private ownership in the near-term,” it added. “With that in mind, the government conducted an initial sale of shares in RBS in August 2015, raising £2.1bn for the taxpayer. This was the first step in the government’s plan to maximise value for taxpayers, and based on the independent OBR’s calculations, we can comfortably expect to receive more money back from the interventions in the banks than was put in. “This is a considerably better result for taxpayers than was considered likely in 2009 when HM Treasury estimated that the cost to the taxpayer would be in the order of £20-50bn. The government will conduct further sales subject to market conditions.” Osborne has already been forced to delay the sale of the government’s remaining stake in Lloyds Banking Group, announcing earlier this year that a public share offering would be delayed because of market conditions. Osborne cut the Lloyds stake from 73% to around 9% through a series of sales to leading City investors and had pledged to keep some back for a discounted offer to private investors. But its shares are now trading below the 73.6p break-even price at 69p. Macpherson said it was “going to be tricky” to sell off the rest of the RBS stake before the next parliament. But he told the FT it would boost lending. “My experience of running banks is that the longer they stay in the public sector the greater the likelihood that you will lose value,” said Macpherson .
Sleaford Mods singer suspended from Labour over derogatory tweet The singer and lyricist of the Nottingham duo, Sleaford Mods, has said that the Labour party has suspended his membership after it became aware of a derogatory tweet he posted about one of its MPs. Jason Williamson told the that he had joined the party about a year ago in order to support Jeremy Corbyn but had recently received a letter citing online abuse as the reason for his suspension, which means that he would be unable to vote in the party’s leadership election. The letter cited a tweet from earlier this year in which Williamson described the MP Dan Jarvis as “a posing cunt”. “I have not cancelled my direct debit and will wait for them to make a decision but I am not holding out,” Williamson said. “If they expel me from the party, I am really not that bothered.” The case of Williamson comes amid a continuing row about the suspension of Labour members, with many supporters of Corbyn suggesting they are being deliberately purged to increase the chances of Smith. He said that the tweet in question dated back to March and questioned why the party had suddenly taken an interest in it. “It’s convenient that they’re picking up on it now, isn’t it? If they had bothered to look they would have seen that I had a go at more than a few of the others, too,” he said. Williamson also questioned how the party’s administrators had linked the tweet to him when the account was also used by his band mate, Andrew Fearn, and their manager, who he said were not political. Williamson, one half of a duo who have have won fans for their minimalist musical style and lyrical commentaries on austerity Britain and working-class life, spoke of what he described as the “massive tragedy” of the relationship between the working class and Labour. He said he had been impressed by Corbyn: “It’s what he says. As regards getting out the working-class vote, I have not given that much thought. It has been about what he says about austerity and renationalisation and the absolute hell that a lot of people are going through.” While he and Fearn have long resisted the description of them as a “political band”, he could accept that others viewed their lyrics as political commentaries. “We are not political in the sense that we align ourselves with any political parties,” he said. “But you see it [the impact of austerity] all around you. The cracks cannot be covered over. You see increasing numbers of people sleeping on the streets and people just wandering around in a daze.”
Sainsbury's one-hour delivery service takes on Amazon Sainsbury’s is to fight back against Amazon with a one-hour grocery delivery service in London. The supermarket, which recently bought Argos as part of its efforts to see off the American online retail specialist, has developed an app called Chop Chop, through which shoppers can order up to 20 items to be delivered from a local store within an hour. Since June, Sainsbury’s has been testing the service in Wandsworth, south London, with groceries delivered Deliveroo-style using bicycles. It is now being extended across south-west and central London areas including Chelsea, Westminster, Fulham, Battersea, Southwark, Wandsworth and Wimbledon. The supermarket first offered a delivery service by bicycle more than 130 years ago, but the latest effort is part of its bid to fight back against the encroachment of a very modern phenomenon. Amazon began offering frozen and chilled foods via its Prime Now one-hour delivery service in Birmingham nearly a year ago, and now offers fruit and vegetables for one-hour delivery in a number of cities including London, Glasgow, Manchester and Liverpool. In June, Amazon launched its Fresh grocery delivery service, which offers fresh fruit, vegetables and meat as well as other kitchen cupboard staples, in London and Surrey. It kicked off the service after Morrisons agreed to supply Amazon with groceries. The arrival of Amazon has prompted the major supermarkets to up their game by trialling new delivery services. Sainsbury’s is also testing a same-day delivery service in Streatham and Richmond in London, and Brookwood in Surrey. Customers who order by 12 noon can get their shopping delivered within six hours. Tesco is also trialling same-day delivery in a few locations. Sainsbury’s said it had recruited a team of 40 cyclists and grocery pickers, all direct employees, to support its one-hour delivery service. Orders will be picked by Sainsbury’s staff in either the Wandsworth or Pimlico stores and customers pay via the app, which they can also use to track their delivery. If a product isn’t in stock, the store will call the customer to ask if they want a substitute item. Jon Rudoe, Sainsbury’s director of digital and technology, said: “Speed of delivery is important to some customers, so we have brought back our bicycle service to test demand further. “In Wandsworth, customers are using the new one-hour delivery service to buy forgotten items, or emergency goods when they cannot leave their home or have invited guests on the spur of the moment. “If it proves popular, we might introduce it to other areas of London. It complements our same-day delivery service, which is available at selected London postcodes through our online groceries service.”
Sharon Horgan: Queen of difficult women One evening in 2014, Sharon Horgan met Sarah Jessica Parker for dinner. After making her name in a show about sex and thankless dating, Parker wanted to make a programme about grown-up relationships – she was a fan of Horgan’s Pulling, and the two had started tentative talks about working together on a show about a long and painful divorce. They ordered food. Horgan was overdressed and far from home. Born in 1970, she grew up on a turkey farm in County Meath. At 19 she moved to London, where she lives today with her property-developer husband and two daughters (Sadhbh is 12 and Amer seven) on the edge of an east-London common that, on warm days, smells sweetly of marijuana. In the restaurant, Horgan and Parker talked about their children (Parker has two daughters and a son) and how it felt to be away from them. They talked about the stress of fitting filming in around school schedules, and the questions people ask, and the expectations strangers have of the guilt a working mother is meant to feel and then the guilt inspired by those expectations. “Hours later we looked up and realised,” Horgan says, “that we’d spent the whole meal talking about the… the qualifying we had to do before we could even get to the work, things that a man would never even consider. A man, at a meeting about a TV show, would surely have just been looking straight ahead, into the future.” They made a decision. “Next time a woman tells you they have a big job, we’d just say: ‘Good on you!’ Rather than: ‘I don’t know how you do it.’” They made two decisions. The second was to produce a TV show. For British fans, there is sure to be a quiet feeling of reflected pride at Sharon Horgan’s slow, steady rise to become one of the most in-demand scriptwriters in the world. Fans who have followed Horgan’s work from the first minutes of Pulling, where we meet Donna (Horgan’s character) in bed as she gives her fiancé Karl a sluggish handjob before he politely tells her that he finished some time ago. He plucks a leaf from a nearby pot-plant, wipes himself off, and drops it behind the bed. Fans who are interested to see how her comedy – her brittle women, her soft men, the particular brand of romantic tragedy she has created – will translate to HBO. It’s a warm afternoon and she greets me on her doorstep having just cycled home from a day writing the third series of Catastrophe with Rob Delaney. The two met on Twitter, and their sitcom, loosely based on Horgan’s own experience of getting pregnant early into a relationship, (its title was taken from a line in Zorba the Greek: “I’m a man, so I married. Wife, children, house, everything. The full catastrophe”) has won an embarrassment of awards. “One thing about her that I’ve had to learn to live with is that she eats faster than a piranha,” Delaney tells me later. “She just tosses the food in her face and is, like, ‘Back to work!’ And I’ve taken two bites of my sandwich. But honestly that’s part of what’s great about working with her. Yes, she’s funny, but so are a lot of people; it’s her work ethic that is so great. Whatever bad thing happened in her childhood to make her afraid to sit back and relax has been a huge benefit to me personally.” She falls into an armchair in her dark-walled living room, and crosses all her limbs. Horgan doesn’t love interviews. She’s better at writing than talking, she says. But the more success she has, the more she has to talk. Does she feel like she’s made it? She holds her head. “Did you read that interview recently with [Sightseers co-writer] Alice Lowe, whose new film has just premiered at Venice? She was talking about how creatively fertile she feels and how she knows her best work is ahead of her. And reading that I felt so jealous.” Jealous? “I’d love to have that feeling! I’m more like: ‘Shit, what if I never make anything decent ever again?’ I definitely felt that way after Pulling – like that was the best thing I’d ever make. It took a while to shift that.” Pulling, the show she created with co-writer Dennis Kelly, aired in 2006. “Writing with Sharon requires proper honesty,” Kelly tells me. “It’s like therapy. But also a real laugh. She’s why I’m still writing, really. [He’s currently working on Brad Pitt’s movie series, the sequel to World War Z] She runs at something, just to see what happens. Which isn’t to say she’s super-confident. In fact, I think one of the reasons she likes to collaborate is that she’s slightly insecure that she’s not good enough. Which, of course, is bizarre.” Working with Delaney, Horgan says, softens her sharp edges, whereas Kelly helps access her “brutality”. “There was a period after Pulling when work slowed down for Sharon,” Kelly says. Then when Catastrophe became an overnight hit (originally turned down by the BBC, Channel 4 renewed it for a second series before the first had finished, recommissioning a further two in July), Horgan was suddenly “hot”. “But she genuinely doesn’t put more stock into this big HBO work than the smaller stuff she makes,” Kelly adds. The two reunited recently for a Channel 4 one-off called The Circuit, a dark comedy about a dinner party. It aired shortly before Motherland, a pilot Horgan wrote with Graham Linehan about the bleak reality of being a parent. On the school run that week, Horgan says, she worried the other mums might “think I’d been trolling them”. All this as they wrapped on Divorce. She’s busy. Kelly first realised Horgan was becoming a big deal when he was on the phone to her as she walked down the street, and he heard a stranger thank her for her work. It happens a lot. “One of the biggest pleasures is when women contact me about the character Sharon in Catastrophe,” Horgan says, “thanking me for putting her on television. Someone who was fucking up, making mistakes, and still getting by.” All the women Horgan writes fuck up. She is a master of “difficult women” – from the self-obsessed Donna (when her kebab is stolen, she compares the violation to the murder of an old lady) to Sharon, and now Divorce’s Frances, who cheats on her husband with a literary professor. “I have a responsibility, I think, to make complex female characters who aren’t necessarily always good people. Men have always been allowed to be flawed, and annoying, and childlike, but also allowed to make mistakes and find their way back. The great thing about writing with Sharon was that she was allowed to be all those things. A lot of me went into that character – and look, I managed to get to this point in my life…” She gestures around her living room, the sound of her kids laughing out the back, the pleasing smell of a recent wood fire, “without completely alienating everyone. It can be done!” Watching her characters age and grow from show to show is a little like Boyhood-ing Horgan’s own life, from the friendly desperation of house-shares, through to unplanned pregnancy, marriage, the boredom and anxieties of motherhood and the difficulty of staying in love. The characters have grown up because she has. “I look back at Donna with some nostalgia. I watched Pulling again for the first time recently, and called Dennis saying: ‘God, we were really harsh to those characters.’ Would I treat a character that badly today? Wouldn’t I want to give some chink of light? The funny thing is, I’m way harder now.” She laughs. “Apart from that things make me cry because I’ve got kids, and that I’m aware of the desperateness of the world, I’m also hard as fuck because I’ve been through it – I’m tougher than I was back then, I don’t believe anything anyone says, I’m much more cynical.” There’s a knock on the door. A delivery man has a package for a few houses down – will she hold on to it for them? Sure. He returns from his van with first one parcel, then another, and another. A street’s worth of unwieldy boxes piles up behind her front door, and she calmly smiles, and waves them in. “Well. An opportunity to meet the neighbours!” she says, brightly. “Like any new show,” says Sarah Jessica Parker on email, “timing is everything. I was fortunate to meet Sharon, who had so much to say about marriage, relationships and being a woman that was completely in line with the story we had been wanting to tell for years.” And the process of working so closely with her, she says, “has been a rewarding collaboration. I couldn’t be more proud.” Divorce is great. It’s set in winter, in a suburb of New York where couples can barely look at each other, where the snow is almost definitely a metaphor. Parker plays Frances, a typically Horgan-ian, lovable narcissist who tells her husband (played by Thomas Haden Church), “I want to save my life while I still care about it.” “I was fascinated by the idea of divorce,” Horgan says. “I wanted to see how it works. What are the obstacles to splitting up, how do people’s feelings shift? There are surely moments when you worry you’re doing the wrong thing. And there’s rarely one real baddie, right?” Before she started writing, Horgan sat down with a friend who’d been divorced and asked her what happened. Not the familiar, we just fell out of love’s, the sad shrugs, but the real details. “I went: ‘You have to tell me exactly what you said when the decision was made, and then what he replied.’ And then I asked what happened the next morning, and then the day after that.” What did she learn? “Well, I learned that there’s always someone who loves harder. When we were writing, the challenge was to keep the brutality while still being able to laugh at the ridiculousness, the honesty, the horror.” Richard Plepler, the chief executive of HBO, said he’s excited to show an authentic story. “It’s not a Hollywoodisation of divorce,” he said. He’s right – the balance of deadpan humour and icy bleakness is anything but Technicolor. Despite the high production values and American accents, Divorce fits into the uncomfortable body of Horgan’s work; in one episode, when Frances and her husband are saying a tender goodbye, he asks her to leave so he can empty his bowels. Horgan has plans for a hundred more projects, including a feature film with Delaney which, she hopes, will be “a short aggressive romantic tale”. There is a romance that runs through all her work, but one that is constantly questioned. I ask if she consciously returns to similar ideas. “No. There’s not just one thing I want to say,” she replies. “Not to be a wanker, but I do have a different thesis for each story. For Catastrophe now, it’s the idea that when you stay in a long relationship you’re not whole any more, and accepting this is what allows you to move forward. You become them. With Divorce it’s about trying to find the person you were before you got married, and dealing with the realisation they no longer exist.” She raises her eyebrows and chuckles. There is only one message, she says, that she returns to on purpose. “That it’s not a bad thing to be a strong woman. In the second series of Catastrophe Sharon says: ‘Not everyone has to like you… I have earned the right to have people dislike me.’” Does she feel the same? She thinks for a second, and seems surprised to hear herself say: “Yes.” She shrugs. “Like me, none of my characters are scared to say: ‘Take it or leave it. This is who I am.’” Divorce starts on 11 October at 10.10pm on Sky Atlantic
Shares in Deutsche Bank sharply up amid speculation of DoJ deal Shares in Deutsche Bank have gyrated wildly before closing sharply higher amid speculation the embattled German lender was on the brink of a deal with the US authorities over a decade-old mis-selling scandal that would be less damaging to its finances. On a day of big swings on the market, shares in Germany’s biggest bank initially slumped as much as 9% on Friday to leave the stock below the key €10 (£8.65) level. But by the end of day on the Frankfurt exchange, they were 6% higher at €11.57. They have lost 50% of their value this year. The rally continued on Wall Street after Europe closed with the bank’s US-listed shares rising 14%. The stock was buoyed by an attempt by chief executive John Cryan to calm nerves with a memo sent to the bank’s 100,000 staff and hopes of a deal with the US Department of Justice over the mis-selling of mortgage bonds between 2005 and 2007. An Agence France-Presse report suggested the bank might be doing a deal with the DoJ to pay just over a third of the $14bn (£10.8bn) penalty that was originally suggested by the DoJ. Cryan said there were “forces in the market” trying to destabilise the bank after its shares plunged to 30-year lows amid fears it would not be able to afford to pay $14bn. The AFP report said that Cryan was on the brink of agreeing a penalty of $5.4bn with the DoJ. Cryan – a Briton who has been at the helm of Deutsche for 15 months – fired off his memo to staff after a Bloomberg report rattled nerves by revealing 10 hedge funds had taken some business away from the bank. “Our bank has become subject to speculation. Ongoing rumours are causing significant swings in our stock price. It is our task now to prevent distorted perception from further interrupting our daily business. Trust is the foundation of banking. Some forces in the markets are currently trying to damage this trust,” said Cryan. “The rumors that are out there that Deutsche Bank is going to get a better deal ... I think is adding some positive effect into the market,” said Jonathan Corpina, senior managing partner for Meridian Equity Partners in New York. “I think people were fearful and concerned about what the outcome of this is going to be.” Deutsche’s plight has prompted fears that global markets are facing turmoil of the kind triggered by the collapse of Lehman Brothers eight years ago this month. While Lehman’s boss also blamed speculators, Cryan argued Deutsche was strong while policymakers also insisted any comparison is unfair. Deutsche’s gyrations initially prompted a knock-on effect in the UK, with shares in Barclays and Royal Bank of Scotland – both of which face a similar investigation by the DoJ – falling sharply before regaining their losses. The FTSE 100 also clawed back lost ground. After slumping100 points it ended 20 points lower. Germany’s Dax index ended 1% higher. But in an indication of the anxiety in the market the price of bonds which Deutsche can use to bolster its financial strength in times of crisis – known as CoCos – plunged to new lows. From the moment the $14bn penalty was demanded Cryan has insisted the bank would not pay that amount. Reports this week – strenuously denied – suggested the bank had approached the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, for help and sparked a fresh round of concern about its financial strength. Cryan insisted there was “no basis for this speculation” as he set out four factors to support Deutsche’s “strong fundamentals”. He said its restructuring was on track – including the sale of UK business Abbey Life this week; that the bank had reduced its exposure to risky clients; that it had made €1bn of first-half profits; and it had €215bn of easy-to-sell assets in times of crisis. “You will hear back from me soon. Please keep working as you have been doing so far,” he told staff, 7,000 of whom work in London. With Deutsche’s shares down 50% this year, Cryan has been under pressure from some analysts to accelerate his restructuring programme to cope with the low interest rate environment. Cryan is expected to attend the International Monetary Fund meeting next week. Analysts at Credit Suisse said the share price reaction was overdone as the penalty would eventually be reduced from $14bn. “We have modelled €4bn for this issue,” they said, and calculated that Deutsche could afford to pay €9bn “before breaching minimum capital requirements, a comfortable cushion in our view”. But even once the penalty is agreed, the bank will still face investor angst. Analysts said Deutsche might still need more capital, identifying a €7bn shortfall to Cryan’s capital targets for 2018. The bank has set aside €5.5bn for litigation but not all of this is for the current situation. Deutsche is one of a number of European banks facing a possible penalty for mis-selling of US residential mortgage-backed securities, including Barclays and RBS. The Financial Times reported on Friday that the DoJ was aiming to wrap any settlement with Deutsche into one with Barclays and Swiss bank Credit Suisse and have it completed before the US presidential election on 8 November. Bailed-out RBS, which could take a hit of as much as £9bn, said earlier this week it was not in settlement talks.
Financial fraud: who should be held responsible? Britain’s most senior police officer has come under fire after suggesting consumers should not be refunded by banks if they fail to protect themselves from cybercrime. The comments by Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, the Metropolitan police commissioner, come a week after official figures revealed a huge rise in the amount of money lost to financial fraud. How big a problem is financial fraud? It is a rapidly growing issue. On 17 March, data was published showing that fraud in the UK payments industry – involving online and phone banking, debit and credit cards, and cheques – hit £755m in 2015. That’s an increase of 26% in 12 months. The biggest growth area was fraud involving online, phone and mobile banking, where total losses leapt 72%, fuelled by a sharp rise in impersonation and deception scams, which involve criminals duping victims into disclosing their personal and security details. The data was revealed by Financial Fraud Action UK, whose members includes the major banks and card issuers. Some customers have lost considerable sums – recently the featured the case of Sarah and David Fisher, who were cheated out of £25,000. How are people being conned? Scammers are adopting increasingly sophisticated tactics to fleece consumers. As security systems have improved in other areas of banking, fraudsters have opted to target consumers directly. There has been a surge in the use of malicious software and phishing emails to compromise customers’ security, while scammers have pretended to be bank staff and police officers to persuade consumers to send money to their bank accounts – aided, some might claim, by the previously lax account opening requirements at banks. Fraudsters have also increasingly been hacking into email accounts and then posing as the builder/decorator/solicitor that consumers have legitimately employed. Are people getting their money back? Often no. For cases involving transfers of money, the banks often refuse to refund customers on the basis that they made the payment voluntarily. In October 2015, the Royal Bank of Scotland group revealed that 70% of its customers who had fallen victim to a scam did not get a single penny back. The Financial Ombudsman Service, which deals with complaints against banks, says: “The problem with complaints where people have been conned into making ttransactions on the fraudster’s behalf is that the bank can’t generally be held responsible for the fraud, unless their advice, delays or other errors have resulted in the money being stolen ... No matter how much we sympathise, the ombudsman can only tell a bank to pay up if there’s an indication that their actions or failure to follow the regulations or their own rules resulted in some or all of the loss.” In cases where someone has been tricked into handing over their password or code, allowing fraudsters to help themselves to the money, banks can only refuse to refund customers if they have been “grossly negligent”. The ombudsman says that if it doesn’t feel the bank has demonstrated that the consumer has been negligent, it may uphold the case. Is the system weighted in favour of banks? Some would say yes. In November 2015, the featured an interview with Ross Anderson, professor of security engineering at the University of Cambridge’s computer laboratory, who has never banked online and has no plans to do so, primarily because of the risk of fraud. “I’ve seen far too many scams, and I’ve tracked the evolution of the banks’ bad attitude to customer complaints,” he told the . “Basically, the banks used the move online as an opportunity to dump the fraud risk on customers.” What happened to the Fishers? They were conned out of £25,000 after a fraudster posed as their builder and mocked up a realistic fake invoice. They paid the sum into a Barclays bank account given on the fake invoice. Barclays told them it could not return any of their cash as, by the time it was alerted, the account had been cleaned out. The couple reported the matter to the police, which in turn referred it to Action Fraud, the national fraud and internet crime reporting centre. City of London Police told the : “Within nine days the report had been reviewed, developed and then disseminated by the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau to the Metropolitan Police Service. The next day the MPS assigned it to a team who are now conducting a full and thorough investigation.” What is the government doing? In February this year, the home secretary, Theresa May, launched a taskforce to crack down on fraud, saying that it “shames our financial system”. She said the scale and volume of financial activity in the UK “brings ... real opportunities for criminals to defraud hardworking taxpayers of their savings and earnings”, and added that for too long there had been a reluctance to take steps to tackle it. The taskforce will comprise key representatives from government, law enforcement and the banking sector. Its work will include fast-tracking intelligence-sharing between banks and law enforcement, and “removing the weak links in systems and processes which fraudsters can exploit”. What can I do to protect myself? Lots of things. For example, if you receive an email asking you to make a bank transfer and it is someone you have not previously made a payment to, or have paid before but they have changed their bank details, phone the person and check they have asked for the money and that you have the correct bank details. If it is a large sum, send a small amount first – £10, say – then phone to check they have received it before paying the balance.
T in the Park review – Stone Roses piped onstage as T parties through its troubles Following last year’s troubled relocation to Strathallan Castle, T in the Park’s organisers have been keen to reassure fans that this year’s event would be a return to business as usual. In many respects it is, but controversy also continues to be synonymous with the brand. By Friday morning, the festival had already had two deaths, one mass brawl and the audacious theft of a cash machine from the main arena. The image problem isn’t unfounded, but it’s often overstated. Good, clean(ish) hedonism remains the order of the day, although T in the Park continues to drift further from its indie-rock remit: the Stone Roses (piped on stage to the strains of Scotland the Brave) and Catfish and the Bottlemen are received like returning monarchs, but many of the weekend’s biggest draws are blokes behind decks. Calvin Harris closes the main stage on Saturday night, bringing Dizzee Rascal along for a kinetic run-through of their new collaboration, Hype. Pop-house duo Disclosure also make a convincing case for themselves as future headliners, and while Jamie xx has a trickier task – he’s on a stage in a remote corner of the site while the Stone Roses are on – the hardy few who make it down to the King Tut’s tent are treated to an atmospheric masterclass. Elsewhere, the Last Shadow Puppets may be the weekend’s biggest head-scratcher – it’s hard to know whether Alex Turner’s reptilian lounge act is an exercise in sardonic self-deconstruction, or if he’s simply gone off the deep end. Either way, like T itself, it makes for terrific entertainment. Whatever its faults, it remains the biggest – and best – party on Scotland’s cultural calendar. • This headline of this article was amended on 11 July.
Why it's wrong to call addiction a disease Is addiction a disease? Most people think so. The idea has become entrenched in our news media, our treatment facilities, our courts and in the hearts and minds of addicts themselves. It’s a potent concept: if you’re an alcoholic or a drug addict, then you’re ill. And you’re going to remain ill. According to Nora Volkow, head of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, “addiction is a chronic, relapsing brain disease,” and that definition has been adopted by medical researchers and policy makers everywhere. Two huge benefits of the disease concept are frequently touted by Volkow and others. First, addicts need treatment, and if we don’t define addiction as a disease, they won’t get the help they require. Second, addicts don’t deserve to be scorned or denigrated: they have a disease, and we don’t put people down for being sick. Recently, the supremacy of the disease model was highlighted by an article in the New England Journal of Medicine. Volkow and colleagues proclaimed that “research has increasingly supported the view that addiction is a disease of the brain”. But they also inserted a caveat: “Although the brain disease model of addiction has yielded effective preventive measures, treatment interventions, and public health policies to address substance-use disorders, the underlying concept of substance abuse as a brain disease continues to be questioned ... ” Those words triggered an allergic reaction in me. Effective? Could anyone deem society’s response to addiction effective? As you might guess, I’m one of the questioners. There is good reason to ask whether addiction actually is a disease. If it is, then we might expect it to have a specific cause or set of causes, an agreed-on repertoire of treatment strategies, and a likely time course. We might wonder how the disease of addiction could be overcome as a result of willpower, changing perspectives, changing environments, mindfulness or emotional growth. There is evidence that each of these factors can be crucial in beating addiction, yet none of them is likely to work on cancer, pneumonia, diabetes or malaria. Neuroscience is a young discipline, and the distinction between brain development and brain pathology remains muddy (think ADHD, autism, depression) – ideal terrain for drawing arbitrary lines in the sand. For example, the brain changes observed in long-term substance abusers are nearly identical to those seen in people struggling with obesity, porn aficionados, gamblers, internet “addicts”, compulsive shoppers and simply those involved in intense romantic relationships. They involve overactivation of a part of the brain that directs goal pursuit (the striatum) in response to cues predicting their preferred rewards, and long-term desensitization in response to rewards more generally. Along with an assortment of other psychologists and neuroscientists, I’ve been challenging the disease model for years. One result has been a volley of counter-attacks: how dare I pull the rug out from under the feet of addicts who rely on the disease label to get help and avoid stigmatization? So, I’m going to put the scientific debate aside for now and challenge the idea that calling addiction a disease is beneficial for addicts. On the contrary, I think it increases their burden. Do people have to have a disease in order to get help? People in today’s world face a vast array of problems, including violence in all its forms (for example, child and spousal abuse, bullying), unemployment, poverty, obesity, social isolation, unplanned pregnancy, and plain old unhappiness. But we don’t need to call these problems diseases in order to tackle them. Instead of medical interventions, we implement inventive, humanistic, often community-based measures, including education, social and psychological support, financial aid, access to special programs, specialized personnel, and other public resources. Nor must we call these problems diseases to justify funding for prevention and intervention. For example, anti-racism policies and bullying prevention initiatives embody extensive, often expensive means for confronting pervasive social ills. The equation help = medical care only makes sense for medical diseases. It’s true that health care systems in the US and Europe provide various services for people struggling with addiction. However, patient advocates, judges, clinical researchers, and those seeking help almost unanimously point out the inadequacy of these services. In the US system, such inadequacies seem directly tied to the profit motive. The majority of patients relapse, not once but repeatedly, following residential programs that typically run between $10,000 and $100,000 per month. (State-run facilities are notorious for long waiting lists, inadequate resources, and a shocking absence of supervision.) Volkow and others argue that discarding the disease label would cut addicts off from the services presently available to them. However, not only are those services generally inadequate and financially ruinous. They also embody a profound logical flaw – the idea that the current healthcare landscape should determine our definition of addiction. Shouldn’t it be the other way around? What about reducing stigma? If we don’t call addiction a disease, don’t we risk going back to the bad old days of denigrating addicts as self-indulgent, spineless pariahs? Not necessarily. Despite the anger and confusion many feel when confronted with the ravages of addiction, we’ve gotten better at recognizing that life circumstances can dictate personal suffering and tragedy. Many of our favorite public figures have crossed the line into addiction, from Elton John to Philip Seymour Hoffman to Robin Williams to Prince. Social norms seem to be advancing (rather than regressing to Victorian settings) as personal struggles are made public in the internet age. We are also starting to recognize addiction as a consequence of social ills rather than individual flaws. Yet the disease label locates the problem of addiction in the individual. It’s hard to see how that counteracts stigma. Why do we even imagine that a medical diagnosis makes addicts feel better? Being diagnosed with a chronic brain disease is hardly something to celebrate. Pointing to a disease doesn’t necessarily diminish stigma, as exemplified by attitudes toward Aids patients. Even the designation of “mental illness” provokes stigmatization. Apparently, emotional associations color people’s judgments far more than rational reflections on health v illness. I have heard from hundreds of addicts who recoil at the notion that they have a life-long disease. Especially addicts who are determined – and successful – in galvanizing their willpower and rejigging their habits, their personal goals, and their capacity for self-control. Once they recover, as most addicts eventually do, it becomes confusing and debilitating to be told they are chronically ill. Recovered addicts want to feel that they have developed beyond their addiction and become better people as a result. Many would prefer respect for that achievement over the pity bequeathed by the disease definition. Where do we go from here? A remarkable solidarity has emerged between some addicts and the authorities responsible for treating them (as sometimes occurs between doctors and their patients, regardless of treatment quality, and more generally between those who have power and those who lack it). These are the addicts who insist that they have a disease and any attempts to dislodge that definition are hurting them. Other addicts and, importantly, former addicts, see their problems in an entirely different light. For them, the disease label is a damaging sentence and an additional cross to bear. I don’t expect this debate to be resolved any time soon. But until it is, I urge anyone who has struggled with addiction or who loves or cares for someone who has to keep an open mind. Calling addiction a disease has had its benefits (like the discovery of new drugs that help a subset of addicts, often temporarily). And the disease label continues to simplify our conceptualization of an extremely messy issue, making it appear easier to understand and resolve. But the net value of the disease definition needs to be questioned. It may be time to move on.
Once more unto the breach, dear friends of journalism, as digital dollars dive Working in the media is like trying to stand up in surging whitewater. It can be very hard to keep your feet. Take my latest small conundrum. When print was quite clearly dying, I transformed myself into a digital journalist. I ran, full tilt, at the future. Now many smart media analysts are telling me that professional transformation might have been a mistake. What on earth am I talking about? Unless you follow the fortunes of the media business very closely, you probably won’t know that various smart people are now talking about digital being a “legacy” business – they are talking about the end of newspaper websites in the same way we lament the death of print. Given this will be a new thought for many readers, a little background. When media companies began to shift away from print and develop their digital platforms as the core business, the collective wisdom was online advertising revenue would replace revenue from newspapers. The trends at first were encouraging, but now the precious online advertising dollars are migrating, seemingly inexorably, to the great campfires of our internet age: Facebook and Google. Combine that trend with ad blockers and you can see how the revenue stream for news websites ends up being less than hoped. So here we are again, back on another cliff top, wondering again how to transform to protect the core mission, which is, of course, journalism. Do traditional media companies abandon or scale back their websites and just push content out through social media sites? Do we lock down the content and watch our audiences shrink? Do we build our own highly interactive campfires, experiment with crowd-funding measures, and allow readers to literally buy into our ventures? Are there other options, completely new experiments? Speaking at the National Press Club this week, the ABC’s managing director, Mark Scott, thought he had the answer. In such an uncertain media landscape – one that is reshaping itself before our eyes – the government could just opt for the safe bet and give more money to the ABC. With all due respect to Scott, who I very much like, and to the ABC, which does a brilliant job and serves the Australian public incredibly well, the safe bet is not the only option open to the government. After all, these are meant to be exciting times, where agility is the name of the game. A prime minister who deliberately styles himself as an innovation prime minister, and who is intrinsically interested in the media landscape, could perhaps think of other options: perhaps policies to support people prepared to come forward with their hard-earned money to fund public interest journalism, and experiment with commercially sustainable delivery models to ensure that journalism reaches the maximum number of eyeballs. Are tax incentives an answer? Is modest seed funding for new media start-ups an answer? I’m not actually sure if those two ideas are, actually, an answer, but I’m absolutely certain someone needs to be asking these questions – and a number of penetrating questions beyond them. We really do need to push out beyond the well-established, and let’s be honest, deeply boring parameters of “mogul v mogul” and, happily, the opportunity to frame this exercise is right in front of us. Once again in this country, we are having a debate about media regulation. But it’s a very quiet debate. Australia’s media proprietors seem extremely hopeful the government will not actually think very deeply and just give them what they want. What they want is the ability to get bigger through mergers and acquisitions (all the while cutting their costs to the bare minimum), and less pesky regulation so they can try to compete with players who are not regulated. Unlike media ownership debates of the past, this one is so low key most Australians wouldn’t even know it was happening, which is ever so slightly disturbing, given the legislative package being pursued by the government will have practical consequences, particularly if Labor allows the government to deregulate ownership restrictions. A couple of those practical consequences could include News Corp grabbing the Ten Network (Fox News on free-to-air, anyone?), and Fairfax merging with the Nine Network. Does this new round of concentration matter now the internet allows Australians to consume a smorgasbord of quality content from around the world, on demand? My view is it doesn’t matter as much as it once did, but it still matters, for two reasons. The first is not everyone is a privileged media consumer with access to whatever content they desire with an elegant swipe on their smartphone. And the second is one of the upsides of this digital period has been the small proliferation of newer media voices to help balance the dominance of News Corp in Australia’s historically concentrated media landscape. This is a good trend, and by good I mean good for readers and viewers. Nascent diversity is a trend worth encouraging in modest and prudent ways. So here’s a media reform debate I’d like to see. I’d like to see a debate where the Australian public genuinely buys in. I’d like to see just one media debate in my professional lifetime that is not owned by bullying media companies and their rampant rent seeking. I’d also like to see evidence of governments and oppositions genuinely thinking about first principles, rather than how to construct a finely balanced trade-off between Rupert’s interests and Kerry’s interests that will ensure no major company comes gunning for us during an election season. If you approach the task from first principles, here’s what it looks like. It’s really quite a simple framework, with one framing question. How can we legislate a media regulation model, and a public policy framework sitting behind that regulatory model, that safeguards diversity and gives quality journalism a fighting chance to go on serving the public?
10 best Australian films made by first-time directors This month marks the theatrical release of the feature film debut of acclaimed writer/director Simon Stone, the widely-touted “enfant terrible” of Australian theatre. The Daughter is a scintillating secrets-and-lies family drama with one almighty, Geoffrey Rush-infused sting in its tail – and it’s among the most assured big screen inaugurations of the last few years. Australian cinema is littered with examples of directors who launched their feature film careers with a hell of a bang. It pains me not to include many others, among them John Heyer’s pioneering 1954 documentary The Back of Beyond, Craig Monahan’s The Interview, Rob Sitch’s The Castle, John Hillcoat’s Ghosts … of the Civil Dead and Justin Kurzel’s Snowtown. But 10 is 10, and you have to draw the line somewhere. Here are the ones that made the cut. The Cars That Ate Paris (1974), director Peter Weir Based in a fictitious town where residents run passers-by off the road then live off their remains, dismantling their vehicles and experimenting with their bodies, Peter Weir’s wicked, stuck-in-nowhere classic plays like Mad Max crossed with Welcome to Woop Woop. This batshit-crazy curio is much more than a drive-in-style schlockfest; there’s a great deal under the bonnet. The Cars That Ate Paris is a sharp commentary on small town versus big town ideologies and societal progress versus repression; it also offers a darkly comic take on intergenerational tension. A year later Weir’s next film arrived in cinemas: Picnic at Hanging Rock. Samson and Delilah (2009), director Warwick Thornton Seven years after we were first introduced to the troubled souls at the heart of Warwick Thornton’s unforgettable drama, have we ever really recovered? Samson and Delilah (which Thornton wrote, directed and shot, winning the Caméra d’Or at the 2009 Cannes film festival) hit hard, encapsulating the divide between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australian communities in more powerful and personal ways than any film made before or after. Thornton is yet is direct a follow-up feature drama; his next will be greatly anticipated. Bliss (1985), director Ray Lawrence Ray Lawrence’s adaptation of Peter Carey’s Miles Franklin award-winning novel is as if the work of Franz Kafka, Peter Greenaway, Jane Campion and Terry Gilliam was poured into a blender, then thrown on to a warts-and-all character portrait of a man slowly falling apart at the seams. Advertising executive Harry Joy (Barry Otto) dies from a heart attack but finds a way back to his body, only to discover his existence is now riddled with countless horrors – from an unfaithful wife (and best friend) to incest-committing children. Is the film based in the afterlife? Lawrence mounts a case that Belinda Carlisle got it wrong: hell, not heaven, is a place on earth. My Brilliant Career (1979), director Gillian Armstrong When it comes those in the director’s chair, the Australian film renaissance of the 1970s was almost exclusively a men-only affair. Gillian Armstrong smashed the glass ceiling with 1979’s My Brilliant Career, becoming the first female Australian feature film director in almost 50 years. Judy Davis is terrific as Armstrong’s bull-headed protagonist, who dreams of something greater than a provincial life. There’s a touching romantic subplot featuring a dashing Sam Neil, but the film is equally as headstrong and unconventional as its subject – light years from happy-go-lucky romantic drama. The Square (2008), director Nash Edgerton Neo-noir films are rare in Australian cinema. Rarer still are thrillers half as gripping as Nash Edgerton’s airtight, in-over-their-heads crime story about two adulterating lovers who indulge in a wee spot of arson and blackmail after discovering a duffel bag stuffed full of cash. Co-written by his brother Joel (who recently made his own directorial debut, with the excellent The Gift), The Square grips audiences in a stranglehold and doesn’t let go. The lives of the characters spiral out of control while the film remains consummately measured and drawn. Mad Max (1979), director George Miller The original Mad Max provides an origin story for Australia’s most iconic hot-under-the-collar antihero, depicting the tragic events that made him such a killjoy. It was also a baptism by fire for the director, George Miller, who shot the film in and around Melbourne on a shoestring budget. The producers famously violated a number of road laws and paid some of the crew in slabs of beer. Animal Kingdom (2010), director David Michôd Writer and director David Michôd may have been a nervous wreck in the editing room of Animal Kingdom, but he emerged with one of the finest Australian films: a Scorsesian crime drama inspired by the Melbourne gangland crimes of the 80s and 90s. In his tale of a close-knit criminal family pursued by dodgy rule-breaking cops (recently remade into an American TV show, Ben Mendelsohn has never been creepier – and that’s saying something. But it’s Jacki Weaver who stole the show, in an unforgettable Oscar-nominated performance as the family matriarch. The Babadook (2014), director Jennifer Kent Who would have thought a film about a grey lead-drawn storybook character that comes to life would frighten the bejesus out of everybody? The Exorcist director William Friedkin summed up the mood, describing Jennifer Kent’s bone-chilling debut as nothing shy of the scariest film ever made. Kent conjures a midnight horror ambience that comes on like black magic. There are creaking floorboards and ominous shadows aplenty; the film is a masterclass in give-and-take horror suspense. But niggling at the heart of The Babadook is a very adult deep-seated anxiety: the fear of being a bad parent. Chopper (2000), director Andrew Dominik Eric Bana’s international career was formed off the back of his creepily charismatic imitation of Mark “Chopper” Read in Andrew Dominik’s playful self-reflexive character portrait, one of Australian cinema’s most colourful and memorable biopics. Dominik also caught a plane to Tinseltown, emerging as a major Australian-in-LA talent to watch after making two top-shelf American films: The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford and Killing Them Softly. Love Serenade (1996), director Shirley Barrett Titles such as Muriel’s Wedding and The Adventures of Priscilla: Queen of the Desert tend to dominate discussions of quirky Australian comedies made in the 90s, but Love Serenade – winner of the Caméra d’Or at the 1996 Cannes film festival – is right up there with the best. A silver-tongued, thrice-divorced, droopy-faced celebrity radio DJ (George Shevtsov) moves to a crumby small town where his two new next-door neighbours (sisters, played by Rebecca Frith and Miranda Otto) throw themselves at him. What begins as a sort-of love triangle dovetails into a delightfully dry exploration of sexual politics, ripe with striking idiosyncratic characters and wry situational comedy. Did we miss any excellent first-time films from Australia? Let us know in the comments below – and join us in Melbourne for our gala screening of The Daughter on 16 March, hosted by Luke Buckmaster
Premier League: 10 talking points from the weekend's action 1) Arsenal must find a solution to a familiar theme Arsène Wenger warmed to a familiar theme. “We tried to play and we didn’t win the game. We’ve seen that so many times, now.” Arsenal had 73% possession against a Middlesbrough team that played with three in central midfield and massed men behind the ball. But the home side could not break them down and it was Middlesbrough who emerged with the credit. They created the better chances and they looked the likelier winners. Arsenal were physically below par after their Champions League exertions against Ludogorets, while Middlesbrough were fresh. Perhaps Wenger’s team missed the guile of Santi Cazorla or the Plan B of Olivier Giroud. But, as Burnley also showed at the beginning of the month, it is possible to frustrate Arsenal with a compact and disciplined approach. One of the keys to Arsenal’s title challenge will be finding a solution. David Hytner • Wenger riled by timing of Arsenal AGM before EFL Cup tie • Match report: Arsenal 0-0 Middlesbrough 2) Others must step up to make Spurs more clinical Tottenham Hotspur have received a lot of praise this season. As was the case in the previous campaign, their style of play has been thrilling while defensively they have been excellent. But an area of criticism is developing in regards to their lack of cutting edge. The draw at Bournemouth made it one goal in three matches for Tottenham. Son Heung-min, positioned as a lone centre-forward, was largely anonymous while others in white also failed to threaten. In total Spurs have scored 13 league goals this season. “We show a lot of positive things but the area we need to improve is to be more clinical,” said Mauricio Pochettino. Harry Kane’s return from the ankle injury he sustained against Sunderland last month will help Spurs’ cause but, as Pochettino went on to say, others must step up, in particular Vincent Janssen, who has scored once since his £17m arrival from AZ Alkmaar. Sachin Nakrani • Match report: Bournemouth 0-0 Tottenham Hotspur • Wilshere feels the pace and return to power after 90 minute-return 3) If Koeman isn’t worried, he should be Everton are without a win in five games, the optimism surrounding Ronald Koeman’s arrival has evaporated, and if the new manager is not worried then he should be. Maybe it was a mistake to take the League Cup too lightly, for defeat at home against Norwich City was the start of Everton’s woes. Maybe the drop in intensity Koeman complained of at Turf Moor was a result of taking Burnley too lightly. Everton began the game looking as if they could score on almost every attack. Yet when things failed to go their way they ran out of ideas quickly. Everton do not seem capable of being aggressive for a whole 90 minutes, or at least until a match has been won. They have the players but the concentration comes and goes. Even Burnley fans could agree there was no way Everton should have lost this match. Koeman’s priority must be to rediscover his side’s focus. Paul Wilson • Match report: Burnley 2-1 Everton • Dyche’s hard work ethic is paying dividends at Fortress Turf Moor 4) Fundamental need for patience is being ignored It is indicative of the reactionary nature of so much football discourse in a post-Twitter world that some people genuinely think José Mourinho should be sacked as Manchester United manager after their embarrassment at Stamford Bridge. It took Sir Alex Ferguson, arguably the greatest manager of all time, almost five years to build a United side capable of challenging for the title, yet the fundamental need for patience – still preached by Ferguson – is ignored by so many who cite every other aspect of Ferguson’s reign in evidence against his successors. Most of this United squad are not Mourinho players or United players. Mourinho’s signings have not yet had the expected impact, and there is a strange weariness about the Portuguese, but the time to judge Mourinho’s team is when it becomes Mourinho’s team – which is next summer at the earliest. Rob Smyth • Match report: Chelsea 4-0 Manchester United • Mourinho accuses Conte of humiliating him after Chelsea defeat • Paul Doyle: United a rabble without a cause • Like the old days, Mourinho’s presence provokes Chelsea reaction 5) Phelan must be given time, like Hughes has at Stoke Stoke City’s visit to the Kcom Stadium brought a fifth successive league defeat for Hull, who have shipped 19 goals in the process and plummeted into the bottom three in the space of a few weeks. It is vital Mike Phelan is given time. In that respect, the board could do worse than take a leaf out of Stoke’s book. Stability has been the watchword in the Potteries these past three seasons, with Mark Hughes guiding the club to a ninth‑place finish in each of them. Along the way he has been generously supported by the club chairman, Peter Coates, although the vibrant nature of Stoke’s victory cannot obscure the reality that it was only their second win of the season. Yet Coates has not sacked a manager since returning to Stoke a decade ago. Now the club are climbing the table. Something for Hull’s owners, the Allams, to consider as they contemplate the latest league standings. Les Roopanarine • Match report: Hull City 0-2 Stoke City • Hull sale speculation grows with £130m Far East consortium bid 6) Does Ranieri leave out Vardy again? Leicester City won the title thanks in significant part to a system that worked – all the best teams have balance, and often do not include the best 11 players in a club’s squad. But once they became champions, Leicester availed of the wealth and status which allowed them to attack the transfer window. So they invested in attacking options, Ahmed Musa and Islam Slimani arriving to share the goalscoring burden with Jamie Vardy and Riyad Mahrez. This led to the sidelining of Shinji Okazaki and Leandro Ulloa. Though their exclusion is not the sole reason for Leicester’s patchy start to the season, the return of Okazaki against Crystal Palace gave his team‑mates the space to excel. Now Claudio Ranieri has a problem: does he field an unchanged XI at Tottenham, again leaving out Vardy? Or does he omit Okazaki? Sometimes a win poses more questions than answers. Daniel Harris • Match report: Leicester City 3-1 Crystal Palace • Leicester in the groove as Shinji Okazaki takes down Palace 7) Swansea still missing a bit of quality Leon Britton has been around long enough to remember what it was like to survive a relegation battle to stay in the Football League with Swansea. He also knows “you can’t just rely on team spirit” and need “quality” too. Swansea looked more solid against Watford, yet something is still missing further forward, where their lack of confidence and conviction shone through in Bob Bradley’s first home game. Borja Bastón, the club-record signing, has yet to demonstrate he is capable of troubling defences, let alone score. The same could be said for Fernando Llorente, who also has only one goal this season – though Swansea looked more threatening with him on the pitch in the second half. Unless something drastically changes over the next two months, Bradley is going to need a centre-forward in January. What they would do for a Michu in his prime. Stuart James • Match report: Watford 0-0 Swansea City • Swansea accused of ignoring supporters trust as relations sour 8) Sturridge might have to be patient “They’ve spent £200m on those three or four front players, it’s not bad is it?” Tony Pulis used the £200m line several times at Anfield, reinforcing the financial gulf between Liverpool and West Bromwich Albion. That Liverpool and Albion operate in different financial worlds will surprise no one, although the combined cost of Jürgen Klopp’s front three on Saturday was £71.5m. Even with Adam Lallana thrown into the equation Pulis is out by only £103.5m. His other point about Liverpool’s attack brooked no argument. “Their front five is as good as any in the league,” the Albion manager said. Watching Philippe Coutinho and Roberto Firmino, or the intelligence and pace of Sadio Mané, it was difficult to think of a forward line with greater understanding and balance. Daniel Sturridge may have to be patient in his attempts to play himself back into goalscoring form. Andy Hunter • Match report: Liverpool 2-1 West Brom • Klopp: Liverpool do not have a problem defending 9) Guardiola keeps his players back after five-game dip It is strange when a team that sits top of the table comes under such scrutiny, but Manchester City’s run of five without a victory has prompted serious questions about Pep Guardiola’s side. In the aftermath here, Guardiola admitted that “something happened” to cause their dip in form. It is a dip that has coincided with a number of individual errors during matches – notably John Stones’ poor pass yesterday – but Guardiola insisted that the underlying cause runs much deeper. A new goalkeeper, a changing defensive unit, increased emphasis on playing out from the back, a frustrating period for Sergio Agüero. All are potential factors, and Guardiola said he would fight to find the reason. His players were kept in the dressing room for 50 minutes post-match, and with significant games ahead, City face a tough test to immediately rediscover their early-season form. James Riach • Match report: Manchester City 1-1 Southampton • Guardiola: I will fight to find out why Manchester City are on bad run 10) Sunderland pay for handing initiative to West Ham Although Sunderland improved after a hairy opening 20 minutes, they paid for their caution in the end, with David Moyes handing the initiative to West Ham United with a couple of negative substitutions in the final 10 minutes. By bringing on Paddy McNair and Billy Jones, Sunderland invited West Ham forward, an unnecessary approach given that Slaven Bilic’s side had lost their way after a promising start. The visitors were defending from their own six-yard box by the end. It was a missed opportunity. There were plenty of moments in the second half when Sunderland wasted promising breaks with poor choices in the final third, but they might have scored if they had continued to examine West Ham’s defensive uncertainty. Instead they dropped back, decided to settle for a point and left with nothing. You could see Winston Reid’s injury-time goal coming. Jacob Steinberg • Match report: West Ham United 1-0 Sunderland • The Dozen: the weekend’s best Premier League photos
Did you predict this unpredictable Premier League season? Probably not All hail the 43 readers who predicted that Leicester City would win the Premier League! Sure, a whopping 99.47% of you were wrong and more of your votes went to Watford (57), Bournemouth (87), Tottenham (94), Liverpool (512), Manchester City (690), Manchester United (1,558), Chelsea (1,997) and Arsenal (2,685), but, for those 43 soothsayers out there, that is quite a result. The magnificent 43 (but not the Liverpool fans with fat fingers) deserve our eternal respect but, as is now customary in our annual retread over our readers’ predictions, it is only fair to point out that the majority of you deserve no praise at all. Our esteemed football editor and his team of writers have already admitted underestimating Leicester, so we respectfully suggest that the 51% of readers who predicted that they would be relegated should follow their lead in the comments section below. The more contrite the better please. Of course, it would be unfair to pick on you if your only mistake was missing Leicester’s title win. But you were wrong about loads of things! Two thirds of you predicted that Watford would be relegated; Wayne Rooney and Christian Benteke were tipped to score more goals than Harry Kane; and Memphis Depay came second in the signing of the season category – the same place he finished in the flop of the season category nine months later. All in all, your predictions do not make for great reading: Who will win the Premier League in 2015-16? Arsenal 34% Chelsea 25% Manchester United 20% Manchester City 9% Liverpool 6% Which clubs will be relegated? Watford 66% Leicester City 51% Norwich City 48% Bournemouth 34% Sunderland 32% Who will be the top goalscorer? Sergio Agüero 38% Wayne Rooney 14% Christian Benteke 12% Alexis Sánchez 12% Harry Kane 7% Who will be the best signing? Petr Cech 43% Memphis Depay 12% Christian Benteke 8% Yohan Cabaye 6% Roberto Firmino 5% Who will be the first manager sacked? Brendan Rodgers 21% Claudio Ranieri 18% Quique Sánchez Flores 19% Slaven Bilic 10% Dick Advocaat 5% Better luck next year...
Wikipedia launching $100m fund to secure long-term future as site turns 15 As Wikipedia turns 15, its operator The Wikimedia Foundation is hoping to secure its long-term future with a new endowment fund that aims to raise $100m over the next 10 years. The Wikimedia Endowment has been set up as a “permanent safekeeping fund” managed by the charity Tides Foundation, and could reduce Wikipedia’s reliance on annual donation drives to keep its service running. The news came on the online encyclopedia’s 15th birthday as the Foundation announced that it now has more than 36m articles and 80,000 volunteers making 15k edits and creating 7k new articles an hour. “Wikipedia seemed like an impossible idea at the time – an online encyclopedia that everyone can edit. However, it has surpassed everyone’s expectations over the past 15 years,” said co-founder Jimmy Wales. The service has weathered questions about its funding, its neutrality and its accuracy over those first 15 years, with Wales and the Foundation regularly involved in wider debates about censorship, trolling and online identity. “Wikipedia has shown how crowd sourcing and open collaboration models can be successful. It was initially derided as largely selective and inaccurate, but with millions of contributions and editorial input it, has become the single most comprehensive online repository of knowledge,” said Mark Brill, senior lecturer in digital communication and future media at Birmingham City University. “Wikipedia still has its challenges. There are some widely inaccurate articles, a lot of trolling – especially on religious subjects – and a handful of grammar pedants. Yet these challenges are essentially a reflection of what the internet has become: a place for everyone.” One of the service’s biggest challenges for its next 15 years and beyond is how it evolves in a world where many people’s internet use is happening on mobile devices rather than computers – particularly in continents like Africa and Latin America. “One of the things we’re focused on is the rise of the internet in the developing world, and mainly on mobile. That has its own set of challenges,” Wales said. He added that Wikipedia is determined not to patronise people in these developing countries by assuming their online needs are completely different to those of people in the developed world. The Foundation is keen to ensure that it has plenty of local contributors to ensure that articles are not just a western view of these countries. In 2015, a study by researchers at the University of Oxford found that five countries – the UK, US, France, Germany and Italy – were the source of 45% of edits to articles about places on Wikipedia. “A lot of people are completely missing the point that as people come online in the developing world, they’re doing a lot of the same things we do: they’re getting on Facebook, going on Google, reading and editing Wikipedia,” said Wales. “This inherent idea that these are the ‘other’ – alien and mysterious people who live in a very strange way – that evaporates when you realise the tens of millions of people coming online are just normal people.” Mobile presents another challenge for Wikipedia, both on a writing level – its editing features were not designed for phones – and a reading level. It remains mainly text and images, in a world where younger internet users increasingly expect to get their information from other kinds of content. “The encylopedia is platform-designed for the desktop internet, yet the world has become mobile. With it, we have seen a move into shorter, more visual content,” said Brill. “The challenge for Wikipedia is how to engage this audience in long form, largely text-based material. Emerging territories, in particular, are ‘mobile first’ and with no history of widespread desktop usage.” “Wikipedia is the ideal format to reach a global audience – being predominantly text-based it is easy to transmit over even the narrowest bandwidth,” agreed Ronan Gruenbaum, dean, undergraduate London at Hult International Business School. “But millennials increasingly need their information delivered via small video-clips and other multimedia. Wikipedia has a huge challenge if it wants to connect with users in the long-term, to keep up with changing needs and making content engaging, open and inclusive.” At a time when embedded Ggifs, tweets and video are increasingly common on news sites that sometimes compete with Wikipedia for prime positions on search engines like Google, Wales said the Foundation is considering its evolution carefully. “We’re not attempting to follow the latest online trends for getting clicks and things like that: ‘This many things that will make you cry!’ That would be very alien to our community,” he said. “You will see more multimedia in Wikipedia. Not that we’re going to become a video site or anything. It’s still very much predominantly text and photos, and that’s good for us.” A Google search for “death of Wikipedia” yields more than 72k results, with articles from 2006 onwards predicting that the online encyclopedia was on its way out for various reasons. “It’s more fun looking back at those stories than seeing them at the time,” said Wales. “As a charity, we’ve always been focused on our community and our mission. We’re not subject to a lot of the external metrics – we don’t have debt, we don’t have investors – that high-flying dotcoms are.” It is that funding model that has raised most questions over the years, right up to the anniversary. “While people like me are happy to make donations, one wonders if the internet’s love of free will mean it’s always having the pass the cap around,” said Simon Gill, chief creative officer at marketing and technology agency DigitasLBi. “How can it better raise funding to help its continued survival whilst remaining ad free, and free from corporate and/or government manipulation?” “Its ability to remain independent and ad-free is impressive and one can only hope it manages this in the long term, but short of finding a billionaire benefactor it seems somewhat precarious to rely on donations for its survival,” said Gruenbaum. Both were talking before the announcement of the new endowment fund, which aims to tackle that challenge. “Financially, we have been very prudent and careful, and very deliberate,” said Wales. According to the Times of India, the endowment will start with less than $1m donated by the estate of software engineer Jim Pacha, which hints at potential to raise its $100m from similar bequests. The annual donation drive from users will continue alongside the endowment. “We have a great fundraising model right now, but things on the Internet change so it’s not something we can count on forever,” said The Wikimedia Foundation’s chief advancement officer Lisa Gruwell. • The Grant Shapps affair is a testament to Wikipedia’s integrity • Wikipedia editors are a dying breed. The reason? Mobile
Did you vote leave in the UK's EU referendum? Tell us why Britain has voted to leave the European Union in a historic vote which saw more than 30 million people turn out to vote - the highest turnout at a UK-wide vote since 1992. Despite last minute opinion polling showing a swing to remain just 16,141,241 people to remain a member of the EU, compared to 17,410,742 who voted to leave. In London some areas showed large majorities for remain: 75% in Camden; 78% in Hackney; 66% in Kensington and Chelsea. But remain was an exception across many parts of the country. Leave’s overall lead owed much to the coast, and the east of England. If you voted leave we’d like to know why, and how you feel about the result. Share your thoughts, anonymously, in the form below – you do not need to answer every question. We’ll use a selection of responses in our reporting.
Penelope Cruz: five best moments It’s taken Hollywood a long time to figure out exactly what to do with the often underrated talents of Penelope Cruz. But this year, the actor is choosing to flex her comic muscles alongside Sacha Baron Cohen in Grimsby and in this week’s Zoolander 2, with Ben Stiller. Cruz is careful not to leave her home country behind though and will also star in comedy The Queen of Spain later in the year. But to celebrate her turn as Interpol agent Valentina Valencia in the belated comedy sequel, here’s a look back at her best roles. Jamón Jamón At the age of just 18, Cruz made her big screen debut in this lurid comedy drama next to her future husband Javier Bardem. While some of it, especially the overblown sex scenes, has aged rather poorly, Cruz’s star appeal, shown at such a young age, is undeniable. As the daughter of the village prostitute, she gives a vibrant performance, hinting at greater things to come. Open Your Eyes Cruz started to receive international acclaim in 1997 after appearing in Alejandro Amenábar’s niftily plotted sci-fi noir. While critical focus was mostly fixed on the film’s intricate story, Cruz managed to make a lasting impression as the object of affection. She then made the somewhat unwise decision to reprise the role in the 2002 Cameron Crowe remake but emerged as one of the film’s highlights Volver Cruz’s working relationship with Pedro Almodóvar started with a small scene-stealing role in Live Flesh and continued with a bigger part in All About My Mother but it was this 2006 drama that gave her the lead she so deserved. In an Oscar-nominated performance, Cruz nails it as a mother surrounded by an eccentric family. It reminded audiences of her talents after a string of less successful Hollywood choices. Vicky Cristina Barcelona The first Hollywood film to really know how to use Cruz was actually shot in Spain and allowed her to flip back and forth between languages. As the volatile ex-wife of Javier Bardem’s seductive artist, she stole the film from her co-stars and provided a suitable match-up to Woody Allen’s sparkling dialogue. She deservedly won her first Oscar for best supporting actress. Nine As a film, Rob Marshall’s musical was a bit of a non-entity. It largely wasted an enviable cast (including Daniel Day-Lewis, Judi Dench, Nicole Kidman and Marion Cotillard) but gave Cruz the opportunity to steal the show. With one musical number in particular, her screen presence remained as indelible and compelling as it was when she started out.
Peter Cushing is dead. Rogue One’s resurrection is a digital indignity In Cannes in May 2014 I was having supper with some colleagues when in walked Robin Williams, done up as Mrs Doubtfire. Was it really the great man? There’d been rumours of a sequel; perhaps Williams was in town anyway for the film festival and doing a little immersive research. Up close, everything looked convincing: brooch, bouffant, pinny. It was only the heavy French accent that eventually gave the game away. That and the outstretched hat for euros. Still, it was a fun encounter. It was less fun the following year, when Mrs D trotted in again to the same restaurant, cap in hand, nine months after Williams had killed himself. There were shudders, mixed with grudging respect at the gumption. I had a similar sensation last week, when Peter Cushing (who died in 1994) popped up in the new Star Wars movie, Rogue One. Such an appearance had been reported for more than a year, but it was still a morbid thrill to see how they’d pulled it off, particularly given the “slipper” issue. Shooting the first movie back in 1977, Cushing had objected to his ill-fitting galactic imperial officer riding boots, so George Lucas let him slum about in moccasins. The resulting lack of footage of Cushing from the knees down was apparently the biggest stumbling block for this year’s CGI resurrectors. For the rest of him, they wheeled on a Holby City actor with similar cheekbones then digitally stuck old bits of face on top. Does it work? Remarkably well. Grand Moff’s dialogue doesn’t seem entirely synchronised, and that’s an alarmingly waxy pallor – but it’s a huge leap forward from the shoot-him-from-the-back technique employed in 2014’s Fast & Furious 7, when the late Paul Walker’s brothers acted as stand-ins. And, especially, the notorious 2000 episode of The Sopranos in which the late Nancy Marchand’s head, speaking fairly random lines from outtakes, was wobblily lodged on someone else’s body. Yet public reaction to the Cushing comeback has been more sceptical than I anticipated. (Sample tweet: “Mmm, girl, you must be CGI Peter Cushing because you can’t make eye contact and you’re confusing my children.”) And, much as this backlash is harsh on the techies, it’s also encouraging. Perhaps we’re witnessing the first setback for that nascent industry that aims to keep us going digitally long after we’ve snuffed it. Not just movie stars: new site eterni.me repurposes your emails and text messages so that grieving relatives can converse with a chatbot doing an algorithmically generated impression of you. Yet the reduction of the soul to regurgitated digital correspondence does not seem to me something a lot of people would like. And though Cushing’s estate approved his use in Rogue One, I’m not convinced that if I had built up a formidable acting career, I’d then want to turn in a performance I had bupkis to do with. The people who are actually driving this form of immortality are the living, whether to cope with their own loss or negotiate problematic plot-holes. Access to such tools will soon be devolved further. If it’s possible for loved ones to bridge the great beyond by feeding old emails into a machine, why not complete strangers with access to our Twitter feed? But there’s a deeper unease too, as testified by the fact that Cushing’s comeback was so well done. This suggests the problem is not quality of execution but simple concept. Jesus aside, resurrection has been primarily employed by fiction which seeks to unsettle. The power of Christianity derives in large part from that final-reel twist. The power of a lot of horror comes from the subversion of the natural order. The dignity of death ought to be preserved. This may require us to do what Robin Williams did and place the rights to our likeness in a trust for 25 years – by which time, hopefully, no one will want to dust us off. If Mrs Doubtfire 2 does happen, starring a version of Williams yet more convincing than that French impersonator, at least we have until 2039 to prepare ourselves.
First doctor convicted of FGM death in Egypt only spent three months in jail The first doctor in Egypt to be convicted of carrying out female genital mutilation (FGM) served just three months of his sentence, despite the case being seen as a landmark in curbing the practice by campaigners and the UN. Sohair al-Bata’a, 13, died at the hands of Raslan Fadl in 2013, although Fadl still denies performing the operation that killed her. Her case prompted outrage among both local and international observers, seen as a rare opportunity for conviction for a practice that is widespread despite being officially banned in Egypt in 2008. After an initial acquittal, Fadl was sentenced in January 2015 to two years and three months in prison for involuntary manslaughter, but avoided serving his sentence. Leila Fadel, a journalist with the US National Public Radio, tracked him down in December 2015, and found him to be continuing to practise medicine in a public hospital near his home town of Mansoura. According to Reda Eldanbouki, from the Women’s Centre for Guidance and Legal Awareness who represented Sohair during the trial, it took until April this year for Fadl to turn himself in. He did so, the lawyer said, after reconciling with the Bata’a family, which annulled two years of his sentence. Fadl then served three months in prison, until 2 July. “The family are party to the crime, and this shouldn’t have happened,” said Eldanbouki. In the retrial of January 2015, prosecutors argued that Sohair’s father had forced the 13-year-old to submit to the procedure, which involves the cutting of the genitals and sometimes the entire removal of the clitoris. “There need to be clearer classification of crimes related to FGM,” explained Dalia Abdel-Hamid of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights in Cairo. “Because then there would be no room for reconciliation.” Abdel-Hamid explained that had Fadl been convicted of a more serious crime than involuntary manslaughter, he would not have had the option to reconcile with the Bata’a family and later walk free. “There is a lack of political will, meaning no pressure to implement the law – it doesn’t even stop at the stage of failing to arrest those who are already sentenced for practising FGM,” she explained. “The clear fact that there was no single report coming from the state itself shows the state doesn’t fulfil its role to protect the women right to health and life. The state has a responsibility to supervise the clinics – plus public and private hospitals,” said Abdel-Hamid. Egypt’s government has pledged to eliminate FGM by 2030. According to data published by Unicef, 74% of Egyptian girls aged 15-17 have undergone the practice, while 54% of women and 57% of men surveyed support it. Unicef’s research showed that rates of FGM were slowly falling as of 2008, especially among young women. However, more than 90% of married Egyptian women had suffered the practice. “We will bring up the example of this case during the Mayar trial to make sure that nothing like this happens again,” said Eldanbouki, referring to the forthcoming trial of a doctor following the death of Mayar Mohamed Mousa in the province of Suez. Mousa, 17, died undergoing the procedure at a private hospital. s say they are most concerned by the number of doctors carrying out the practice: 82% of FGM procedures are undertaken by those with medical training, according to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).
Anthrax: For All Kings review – crowd-pleasing destruction from thrash masters Anyone who caught Anthrax during their recent UK tour with Slayer will know that the New York thrash veterans are on superb form. Following up 2011’s career-saving Worship Music was never going to be straightforward, not least because the band have a tendency to do things the hard way, but For All Kings, their 11th studio album, is full of the anthemic choruses and hulking riffs that have always driven their sound, and it’s hard to imagine diehard fans being anything but satisfied. In some ways a more focused effort than its predecessor, it does make occasional detours away from flat-out aggression and into radio-friendly hard rock, most notably on Breathing Lightning’s melodic peaks. It’s a blend that suits the band – and vocalist Joey Belladonna in particular – to a tee. Nevertheless, it’s the faster moments that hit the hardest, with unlikely single Evil Twin and the furious Suzerain pointing to a renewed love of metal’s dark, destructive side, and the closer, Zero Tolerance, taking Anthrax back to their full-tilt speed-metal roots.
Radiohead announce headline shows for summer 2016 Radiohead have announced details of their first tour since 2012. The quintet had already announced a series of festival appearances, but have now added a series of headlining shows. Don’t get too excited, though – this isn’t a massive jaunt of 200 shows in 20 countries. In fact, the group are playing only in Amsterdam, Paris, London, New York, Los Angeles and Mexico City, between May and October, in addition to festivals in Lyon, Barcelona, Reykjavik, St Gallen, Lisbon, Montreal, Osaka, Tokyo and Berlin. The London dates consists of three appearances at the Roundhouse on 26, 27 and 28 May. Tickets for all the shows go on sale on Friday 18 March at 9am. Radiohead are believed to have a new album ready for imminent release. In January, fans discovered the group had set up a new company, which they have done before all their recent album releases. Over the Christmas holidays, the group put up their rejected theme song to the James Bond film Spectre. Radiohead’s headline shows are as follows: 20 May – Heineken Music Hall, Amsterdam 21 May – Heineken Music Hall, Amsterdam 23 May – Le Zenith, Paris 24 May – Le Zenith, Paris 26 May – Roundhouse, London 27 May – Roundhouse, London 28 May – Roundhouse, London 26 July – Madison Square Garden, New York 27 July – Madison Square Garden, New York 4 August – Shrine Auditorium, Los Angeles 8 August – Shrine Auditorium, Los Angeles 3 October – Palacio de los Deportes, Mexico City 4 October – Palacio de los Deportes, Mexico City
Hollywood still 'straight, white, boys’ club', finds major diversity survey Women, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people and those from ethnic minority backgrounds are suffering under an “epidemic of invisibility” in Hollywood, according to a damning new report on diversity released days before the 2016 Oscars. Study authors said US film and television production was experiencing an ongoing “inclusion crisis”. The report by the Media, Diversity and Social Change Initiative at the University of Southern California’s (USC) Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism found that 87% of directors across 414 studied films and television shows were white. About half of these failed to include a single Asian or Asian-American character, and one fifth failed to include a single black character. “The prequel to OscarsSoWhite is HollywoodSoWhite,” study co-author Stacy L Smith told the Hollywood Reporter. “We don’t have a diversity problem. We have an inclusion crisis. When we start to step back to see this larger ecology, I think we see a picture of exclusion. And it doesn’t match the norms of the population of the United States.” Only a third of speaking characters across the studied films and television shows were female, and only 28.3% were from ethnic minority backgrounds, around 10% less than the relevant figure among the general US population. Older characters were even more likely to be male, with only 25.7% of those over 40 being female. Just 2% of speaking characters identified as LGBT. Among the most damning statistics, only 3.4% of the 109 films released by major studios in 2014 were directed by women, and only two were black women. The study, named the Comprehensive Annenberg Report on Diversity, examined more than 300 scripted, first-run TV and digital series across 31 networks and streaming services that aired from September 2014 to August 2015. It found that small-screen producers were moving ahead of their film counterparts when it comes to diversity. The authors, who have been reporting on the subject for more than a decade, found that none of the six major Hollywood movie studios boasted better than 20% figures for female, minority and LGBT characters and female writers and directors. The report found the film industry “still functions as a straight, white, boys’ club”. However, a number of television producers, including Disney, the CW, Amazon and Hulu, all posted scores of 65% and above. “When we turn to see where the problem is better or worse, the apex to this whole endeavour is: Everyone in film is failing, all of the companies investigated,” said Smith. “They’re impervious to change. But there are pockets of promise in television. There is a focus that change is possible. The very companies that are inclusive – Disney, CW, Hulu, Amazon to some degree – those companies, if they’re producing and distributing motion pictures, can do this. We now have evidence that they can, and they can thrive.” Hollywood diversity has been under the microscope after Oscars body the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences failed to nominate a single person of colour for acting awards for a second year in a row. Ahead of the 2016 ceremony on 28 February at the Dolby theatre in Los Angeles, Spike Lee, Will Smith, Jada Pinkett Smith, Tyrese Gibson and Michael Moore are among the notable figures who have called for a boycott or signalled that they will be staying away in protest. Last month, the Academy moved to introduce radical rule changes aimed at doubling voting representation among female and ethnic minority demographics by 2020. Oscars organisers have also promised the 2016 ceremony will be the “most diverse ever”, with presenters including actors Morgan Freeman, Kerry Washington, Priyanka Chopra and Lee Byung-hun, as well as musician John Legend and producer Quincy Jones.
Donald Trump renews support for waterboarding at Ohio rally: 'I like it a lot' Donald Trump offered renewed support on Tuesday for the use of torture while repeatedly comparing a proposed free trade agreement to rape. Trump, who has often praised the use of waterboarding and has spoken positively about alleged war crimes committed by American troops, said at a campaign rally, “We have to fight fire with fire”, after referencing the penchant for beheadings by Isis. The presumptive Republican nominee claimed that while the terrorist group committed a range of atrocities including beheadings and drowning prisoners, the US was afraid to even use waterboarding. In Trump’s opinion, this left Isis believing that the US was weak and stupid and it needs to “fight so viciously and violently” to combat the threat. Trump also renewed his praise of waterboarding, which was banned by the Bush administration in 2006 as both potentially illegal and ineffective. “What do you think about waterboarding?” Trump asked the crowd. They cheered as he gave his answer: “I like it a lot. I don’t think it’s tough enough.” His comments came just hours after a terrorist attack on the Istanbul airport that caused dozens of deaths. Prior to taking the stage, Trump’s campaign issued a measured statement on the attack: “Our prayers are with the families of those killed and injured in Istanbul. The whole world is stunned and horrified.” At his Ohio rally, he said: “There is something going on that’s really, really bad.” Trump also repeatedly compared the controversial Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal to rape. The remarks came just hours after Trump delivered a speech on trade policy outlining his populist protectionist views on America’s economic role in the world. Unlike in that speech, Trump didn’t use a teleprompter on Tuesday and three times compared TPP to “the rape of our country”. The remarks were not the first time Trump has referenced rape on the campaign trail. In May, the real estate developer said “we can’t continue to allow China to rape our country”, and at his announcement speech in June 2015 he accused the Mexican government of deliberately sending rapists across the border into the US. The rally was Trump’s first appearance in the crucial swing state of Ohio since its March primary. No Republican presidential candidate in American history has won the White House without winning the Buckeye State. The event was held in the traditionally Democratic Ohio Valley, an economically depressed area that is increasingly trending Republican in federal elections.
Same old Trump: Ohio 'thank you' stop has all the trappings of a campaign rally Donald Trump’s rally in Cincinnati on Thursday night was almost identical to any of the hundreds of public speeches he has held since announcing he was running for president in June 2015. He aired grievances and launched broadsides against political rivals and the media. The crowd chanted “lock her up” when he mentioned Hillary Clinton, and “build that wall” when he talked about immigration. But there was one difference. Trump was holding the rally as president-elect, nearly a month after the general election was held. The Cincinnati event represented the first stop of Trump’s unorthodox “USA Thank You Tour”, which is expected to take in campaign-style rallies in a number of the swing states whose support won him the White House in November. But instead of thanking voters who supported him, the president-elect devoted much of his energy to targeting those who had stood in his way. In addition to a familiar tirade against the “dishonest media” – whom Trump particularly blamed for not calling his win in Pennsylvania in a timely manner on election night, as well as for reporting that Trump might lose in states such as Utah and Georgia where he eventually won – he also bashed former rivals. He took veiled shots at Ohio governor John Kasich for not supporting him in the general election, and derided Evan McMullin, a conservative third-party candidate who ran a competitive campaign in Utah, as “some guy”. He seemed nostalgic for his old foe Hillary Clinton, remarking to the crowd: “We did have a lot of fun fighting Hillary, didn’t we?” He did not directly criticize the former Democratic nominee, although the crowd responded with the chant of “lock her up” that had frequently punctuated his campaign rallies. The president-elect also returned to the nationalist and nativist rhetoric on which he had based his campaign. “There is no global anthem, no global currency,” he said as he pledged yet again to put “America First”. He blamed terrorist attacks in the US on the admission of refugees by “stupid politicians”, and claimed that an unidentified foreign leader told him “I truly respect the United States again” because of his election. The former reality television star also resorted to some of his usual showmanship. The president-elect, who has been parading potential cabinet appointments like contestants on a dating show, announced his nomination of former marine corps general James Mattis to be secretary of defense seemingly unprompted from the stage. “I don’t want to tell you to this, I refuse to tell you, don’t let it outside of this room,” he told the crowd. “I will not tell you that one of our great, great generals, don’t let it outside, we are going to appoint ‘Mad Dog’ Mattis as our secretary of defense and we’re not announcing it until Monday, so don’t tell it to anybody.” Although the Washington Post had first reported Mattis’s appointment earlier in the afternoon, Trump transition spokesman Jason Miller had firmly denied it, insisting on Twitter only hours before Trump took the stage: “No decision has been made yet with regard to Secretary of Defense.” As preoccupied as ever with television ratings, Trump boasted that the election had driven down viewing figures for the NFL because “this business is tougher than the NFL. It’s crazy. The people liked it.” The president-elect went on to brag of the election results: “The bottom line is we won. We won. We won big,” with a glee that might have drawn him a penalty for excessive celebration had he been a football player on the gridiron. The crowd, dressed in shirts and hats that proclaimed their desire to “make America great again” or attempted to reclaim Clinton’s description of some Trump supporters as “deplorables”, seemed optimistic about the president-elect’s chances of bringing change to Washington. Joe Terry of Cincinnati, a middle-aged man with a old-fashioned buzzcut, saw Trump’s election as “the beginning of a grassroots movement” to reform US politics, which he currently saw as being defined by “a lot of talk and nothing getting done”. Terry was confident that Trump would cut taxes, bring jobs back and “make Washington work again”. Supporters voiced only one concern about the president-elect: the possibility of 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney joining the administration. Jacob Hicks, a student at the University of Cincinnati, said: “It’s the one thing that is kind of upsetting me.” Hicks’s friend Justin, a student at the University of Northern Kentucky who declined to give his last name, echoed these concerns. “Mitt Romney is part of the establishment. He wants to take over Donald Trump and thinks he is better than Donald Trump.” But Trump was more than willing to make big promises to his loyal supporters. “People are constantly telling me and telling you to reduce our expectations – those people are fools,” he said, adding: “Anything we now want for our country is possible.”
Remembering Jeff Buckley: 'People would listen with their mouths open' Emma Banks of Creative Artists Agency, and Jeff’s UK live agent I worked with Jeff from the beginning of his career until the end. We first met while he was staying with a friend in London during the Christmas holidays in 1992, at what was once the Dome cafe on the corner of Kings Road in London. He was a fairly penniless musician at the time, so I bought him lunch. The first meeting was almost like going on a blind date, not romantically, but we got on so well immediately. He wasn’t the most gregarious person, but we clicked and connected: we were similar ages and were both just starting out. I think we were in the cafe for about four hours. During that first meeting, he said to me that he’d never want to play an arena, and if I expected to make any money off him, I was talking to the wrong person. He loved playing small rooms, which is why when we met he laid down the gauntlet for me to find tiny venues for him to play. I remember him saying to me that when people are talking in a venue he would try to use their noise to become part of the song, so the whole thing would blend together. But the reality is that nobody ever did talk at his gigs. They were completely silent. People would listen and watch with their mouths open half the time. When I was working with Chrissie Hynde of the Pretenders, who was a big Tim Buckley fan, I told her manager that I had this really good new artist that Chrissie might like to come and check out. She was in the studio close by when he played the legendary gig at Upstairs at the Garage, and she liked it so much she invited him back to her studio where he jammed with the band. Another night he played at Bunjies in Soho: it was mobbed, and there were so many people still outside. So I booked a second gig for him to play at a different venue once he’d finished at Bunjies, because of the demand. I’ve never done that before, or since. Essentially, though, Jeff was just a human, with human needs. He played Glastonbury in 1995 and completely forgot about sunblock on a blisteringly hot day so got completely sunburned. He looked like a lobster. Glen Hansard, actor and frontman of the Frames Jeff and I were both involved in the film The Commitments; Jeff was a guitar tech for the band. It toured America, so we travelled together a lot. We became pals pretty quickly, sharing a passion for Bob Dylan and spending a lot of time in hotel rooms playing songs to each other. At one point I started playing Tim Buckley’s Once I Was and I remember Jeff saying: “You know he was my dad?” I was like, “No way. Fuck off!” One evening we were staying in a hotel on 57th Street in New York. I was a secondary character in the film so I wasn’t that busy. I was sitting in my room with Jeff when I got a phone call from an Irish guy who owned a cafe in the East Village called Sin-é (where Jeff would later hold his famed residency and record his Live at Sin-é EP). He was asking me if I could get the Commitments to play. When I said I couldn’t organise it he gave me and Jeff the midnight slot instead. All excited, we jumped in a cab and went to the venue. I did a couple of songs and during a cover of Van Morrison’s Sweet Thing, Jeff came on stage and started singing. He blew the fucking roof off the place. I opened for him during his Grace tour. The first time he came to Dublin he played in Whelan’s, which is a pretty small place. It was a typical, noisy Dublin gig; people were chatting away. I could see that he was trying to figure out how to win the audience, so he picked up a pint of Guinness and just swallowed the whole thing in one go. The room broke into a huge applause and he just started singing; the audience was under his spell. But by the end of his Grace tour he was a different human being. He was tired; he was down. There was a darkness in him that I’d never seen. He was playing a much bigger room. It was heaving and they were so excited to see him. I could tell he was struggling with himself. The band was rocking and playing almost metal versions of his songs – it was like he was mocking his own gentility. At the end of the show he threw himself into the crowd, which I hadn’t seen him do before. I mentioned it to him after the gig and he said: “Do you know what? I have so little in me right now, the only thing I could do was literally give myself to the crowd.” I was living in a flat in Dublin in 1997 when I got a message from one of my flatmates saying: “Jeff Buckley called you this morning. Do you know him? Fucking hell! Do you know Jeff Buckley? He told me to say hello to you!” It was a surprise to hear from him – we hadn’t spoken in two years. A few days later I heard that he had died. When I think back, I’m grateful for the fact that I got to be a fly on the wall during a great moment of a young man’s life. Steve Addabbo, studio engineer and producer of You & I In February 1993, I got a call from my friend and Columbia A&R man Steve Berkowitz. He thought it would be great if Jeff came to my studio and just play for a couple of days, with no production, no preconceived notion of making a record. That’s where the You & I tracks come from. We tried to make it very low key, very informal. We didn’t have to mix any of it – what you hear now is what Jeff and I heard. He didn’t have much new material when he was in the studio, so he showed his range of material to me through covers. He really understood them, too. To go from a Sly and the Family Stone song to a Smiths song to Calling You from the film Bagdad Cafe: that’s a lot of different styles, and each one of them was spot-on. He had done his homework. The Sly One still kills me, his rhythm guitar and the way he sings it; one of his gifts was that he’d take a song and make it his own. At the time we recorded these songs, there was a lot going on his life, he was being pulled into the spotlight and he took it very seriously and wanted to do everything as well as he could. Jeff never spoke too much about his ambitions. He was very self-effacing and would often screw up and forget the words while recording, but then would recover it and play something incredible. He also had a good way with people. He was always right there with you when you had a conversation with him; he wasn’t distracted or thinking about something else. He was very humble, not cocky at all. And he was funny and outgoing, but very thoughtful. There was a feeling that you had a very serious young man in front of you who was also incredibly talented and could go in many different directions. There was a lot going on behind those eyes.
Theresa May defends refusal to guarantee EU citizens' rights in UK Theresa May has defended her refusal to guarantee the rights of EU nationals currently living in the UK, telling prime minister’s questions that Donald Tusk’s letter blaming Britain for the uncertainty showed it was vital to maintain a bargaining hand. Guaranteeing the rights of EU nationals in Britain without first getting mutual assurances over Britons based in the bloc, as demanded by Labour, would have left the latter group “high and dry”, May argued. The prime minister said she wanted to sort out the issue of mutual rights “at an early stage of negotiations” with the EU, but she appeared to rule out a deal before the two-year process triggered by article 50, due to be invoked next spring. At the end of a stormy session at which May and Jeremy Corbyn exchanged blows over funding for the NHS and social care, May was asked about the letter from Tusk, president of the European council. Replying to a group of Conservative MPs who said the lack of clarity over the rights of UK nationals elsewhere in the EU, and EU citizens based in Britain, had caused “anxiety and uncertainty”, Tusk wrote that this was entirely caused by the Brexit vote, and that the MPs’ argument “had nothing to do with reality”. Peter Lilley, a strongly pro-leave Conservative MP, asked May if the message from Tusk – who he wrongly identified as Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European commission – had “put EU processes ahead of common humanity”. May said: “I think it is right that we want to give reassurance to British citizens living in the EU, and to EU citizens living here in the UK. “But I think the reaction that we have seen shows it was absolutely right for us not to do what the Labour party wanted us to do, which was simply to give away the guarantee for rights of EU citizens here in the UK. As we have seen, that would have left UK citizens in Europe high and dry.” Much of the rest of prime minister’s questions was taken up with Corbyn pressing his opposite number over the aftermath of last week’s autumn statement, particularly what he called the “failure” of the government’s long-term economic plan, and funding for the NHS and social care. “I’m not entirely sure where the government’s credibility lies on borrowing, since they are borrowing even more, the deficit is increasing and people are suffering,” Corbyn said. The Labour leader continued: “Why was there not one penny more to social care in the autumn statement?” May responded that there was “absolutely no doubt the social care system is under pressure”, noting the extra 1 million people aged over 65 since 2010, but insisted the government had pushed through extra spending on this. The NHS and local authorities needed to work better together on social care, she added. Corbyn responded by asking May why the government had cut corporation tax, saying: “Just what is this government’s real sense of priorities?” The prime minister argued that under Labour’s former shadow chancellor Ed Balls – “lately of Strictly fame”, as she put it – there was no extra money promised for social care, adding: “Conservatives [are] putting money into the NHS and social care, Labour would deny it.” There was less discussion of Brexit, though the Green MP, Caroline Lucas, did open the session by decrying the lack of government information about its plans. The Conservative MP for Devizes, Claire Perry, also raised the issue, in part to coin a new conjoined word which she termed “Smexit”, meaning a “smart and smooth Brexit”.
Tobacco: Sweatbox Dynasty review – destined for the bargain bin On paper, the Pennsylvania producer Tobacco reads great: a blend of Animal Collective’s seven-dwarf work songs, Madlib’s distracted hip-hop production and John Maus’s outsider pop, all wrapped in the raunchy fuzz of psychedelic rock. There’s even the plod of 80s video-game soundtracks on Home Invasionaries, and neat production flourishes abound, such as the plumes of noise on Human Om or the blurts of another track taped over sections of Let’s Get Worn Away. But his constipated rhythms are built from funk-free blocks of fibre, and the songwriting is poor – melodies are like puppies at a training class, either irritatingly restive or wandering off entirely. You need big dollops of generosity to accept that the numerous one-to-two-minute tracks here are anything more than sketches, but even if you’re willing, the likes of Wipeth Out and Dimensional Hum are still ugly – and worst of all, conservatively so. The whole endeavour feels destined for the bargain bin.
Tax meat and dairy to cut emissions and save lives, study urges Climate taxes on meat and milk would lead to huge and vital cuts in carbon emissions as well as saving half a million lives a year via healthier diets, according to the first global analysis of the issue. Surcharges of 40% on beef and 20% on milk would account for the damage their production causes people via climate change, an Oxford University team has calculated. These taxes would then deter people from consuming as much of these foods, reducing both emissions and illness, the team said. Food production causes a quarter of all the greenhouse gas emissions that are driving global warming, largely from the raising of cattle and other livestock. These emissions are increasing as people around the world become richer and eat more meat. Marco Springmann, from the Oxford Martin Programme on the Future of Food, who led the study, said: “It is clear that if we don’t do something about the emissions from our food system, we have no chance of limiting climate change below 2C. “But if you’d have to pay 40% more for your steak, you might choose to have it once a week instead of twice.” The research, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, evaluated the tax required for each food type to compensate for the climate damage its production causes. Beef has a heavy footprint, due to the deforestation and methane emissions associated with cattle and the grains they are fed, and needed a 40% tax on average across the world. The scientists then assessed how much less of each food type would be eaten as a result of the taxes. They examined different tax regimes and found the optimum arrangement in terms of both emissions and health was to combine the taxes with subsidies for healthy foods, such as fruit and vegetables, and payments to people to compensate for price increases. This ensured poorer people did not end up with worse diets as the result of taxation. This optimum tax plan would reduce climate emissions by 1 billion tonnes a year – the same as the entire global aviation industry. This huge potential cut in emissions surprised Springmann, as did the heavy impact of dairy products. Changes to how food is produced and consumed have largely been ignored in the battle against climate change, due to public sensitivity about their food choices, fears about increasing hunger in poorer parts of the world and the lack of straightforward measures to tackle the problem. “If people see any food price rise, they get angry, so you have to explain why you are doing it,” said Springmann, adding that a successful food tax policy could spend all the money it raised on ensuring people could afford healthier diets. He said a tax in Denmark on unhealthy saturated fats, where the government simply kept all the revenue, was aborted after a year. But in Mexico, a sugar tax on soft drinks has been successful after the funds were spent on free drinking water in schools. Most of the foods with big climate impacts also happen to be unhealthy when eaten in large quantities, such as beef and dairy. Therefore, if climate taxes cut consumption, fewer people would die from related diseases such as heart disease, strokes and cancers. In the US, for example, people eat three times the recommended level of meat. The researchers found climate taxes would save more than half a million early deaths every year, largely in Europe, the US, Australia and China. However, cutting the demand for meat and dairy would not be easy, said Rob Bailey, research director at UK thinktank Chatham House: “The challenge is political. As the new research demonstrates, in many countries there is a very strong public health and climate case for dietary change, but it isn’t happening. Governments are reluctant to ‘interfere’ in people’s lifestyle choices for fear of a public backlash and criticism for ‘nanny statism’, as well as the reaction from powerful interests in the food industry and agricultural lobby.” Bailey said there was currently little pressure on governments to act, partly because the public understanding of the link between diet and climate change is low. But, when people are informed, they find meat taxes far less unpalatable than is supposed, he said. Calls to cut meat-eating, by the UN and high-profile figures including climate change experts and the economist Lord Stern, have so far been both rare and controversial. The new research found the taxes needed to compensate for climate damage were 15% on lamb, 8.5% on chicken, 7% on pork and 5% on eggs. Vegetable oil required a large tax of 25%, but this was due to the low initial price of the product, making a relatively modest surcharge look high. These tax levels were global averages but there was significant variation with, for example, the beef tax being higher in Latin America, where cattle-raising produces more emissions than in other regions. The optimum tax plan also had regional variations, including limiting climate taxes to beef in the lowest income countries, to ensure people there were still able to afford decent diets. Springmann said it was critical to find a way to cut the environmental impact of food production: “Either we have climate change and more heart disease, diabetes and obesity, or we do something about the food system.”
Olivier Giroud denies Manchester United and rescues point for Arsenal Perhaps it is true, as the away enclosure alleged with their gloating cries of “you’re not special any more”, that José Mourinho’s powers are diminishing. Yet there is another way of looking at it and maybe, to give him the benefit of the doubt, this result felt more like a case of Arsenal finally showing the kind of durability that is necessary for any team with authentic title aspirations. For a long time, it had felt as though it was shaping up to be the most satisfying result of Mourinho’s new employment, but ultimately it was another occasion of steep frustration for Manchester United and their glowering manager, and a reminder of why Arsenal have become so difficult to beat in 2016, with only one league defeat on their travels since the start of the year. Arsenal had been strangely subdued until Olivier Giroud combined with another substitute, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, to head in the goal that left a sudden, damp silence in the home stands and Arsène Wenger, once again, will have to imagine what it feels like to beat one of Mourinho’s teams in a league fixture. His 12th attempt did at least end satisfactorily, whereas his bête noire, who had spent parts of the first half sniping in the Frenchman’s direction, talked darkly of it feeling like a defeat, while still making sure he got in the last word. “Finally, I lost against Arsène,” was Mourinho’s parting shot, then repeating it for added effect. Mourinho was entitled to be crestfallen because Juan Mata’s expertly taken goal, midway through the second half, had put United in command on an afternoon that finished with their manager also announcing they should officially be known as “the unlucky team in the Premier League”. United often looked the more dangerous side and, until the late drama, the best it really got for Arsenal was an exquisite, yet inconsequential, nutmeg from Mesut Özil on Michael Carrick. Theo Walcott flickered only sporadically. Aaron Ramsey struggled to have a telling impact on the left and, though Alexis Sánchez worked tirelessly, it was perplexing to see Wenger’s team look so meek against a side missing three-quarters of their usual defence. The flipside for Arsenal is that it is not a bad thing for a team to avoid defeat on the days when they struggle to be at their more cohesive and Wenger can be hugely encouraged by the fact Giroud’s late feat of escapology means they have lost only one of their last 22 top-division fixtures. “There is something in our squad that is remarkable,” Wenger said. “It is great resilience and a never-give-up attitude.” It is also the first time United have drawn three successive home games in the league since 1992 and, with the previous assignments coming against Burnley and Stoke City, Old Trafford has seen more disappointment than its regulars probably imagined from Mourinho’s opening months in the dugout. Once the frustration subsides a little, however, they can at least be encouraged by what Mourinho described as a performance of “amazing control”. Mata had a splendid game, as did his compatriot Ander Herrera, whereas Paul Pogba is showing now why he was the priority signing in the new manager’s first transfer window. Pogba started in central midfield but took up a more advanced role after Wayne Rooney’s 63rd-minute introduction led to a change of order in the attacking positions. Rooney played at the forward tip, Marcus Rashford took over from the substituted Anthony Martial on the left, and Pogba was involved in the move, five minutes later, that finished with Mata cracking in a low shot from Herrera’s cutback. Wenger talked afterwards about his side having a “mental block” on their visits to Old Trafford, this being the 10th successive occasion in the league that they have returned without winning. “We did not play with our usual style,” the Arsenal manager added. Unfortunately for United, Rashford’s move to a wide position also meant the teenager taking on defensive responsibilities and he did not see them through when Oxlade-Chamberlain went past him to clip over the right-wing cross for Giroud’s goal. The equaliser brought back into focus the 35th-minute incident that left Mourinho on the point of spontaneous combustion on the touchline, adamant that the referee, Andre Marriner, was mistaken to give Nacho Monreal the benefit of the doubt for his challenge on Antonio Valencia inside the penalty area. Mourinho might have had a case given that Monreal, losing his balance, held out his right arm and leant into Valencia. United’s manager could be seen screaming to the skies, charging out of his technical area and so anguished that, at one point, he held his hand over his eyes as if to signal that he could no longer bear to watch what these wretched referees would do to him next. A more considered view would be that it was a difficult incident to judge and, though United probably had grounds to feel aggrieved, it would be exaggerating to think of it as an obvious penalty. “My view is that it was not a penalty, and you will not be surprised by that,” Wenger said. “Mourinho’s view is that it was a penalty, and you will not be surprised by that.”
Is your penis really shrinking? In Singapore, in autumn 1967, hundreds of men and boys hurried to hospital emergency rooms, clutching their penises, convinced they were rapidly retracting into their bodies and that if they let go of them, they’d die. Such panics aren’t as rare as you might imagine. In the early 2000s, in Nigeria and Benin, several people were killed in retaliation for using magic to shrink their enemies’ genitals. The vanishing-penis phenomenon – known by its south-east Asian name, koro – is listed in the psychiatry bible, the DSM, and has cropped up worldwide for centuries. A common response is to scoff at the ignorance of the uneducated. But in The Geography Of Madness, journalist Frank Bures shows that what such “culture-bound syndromes” demonstrate is the astonishing power of culture and belief – on all of us. Whether you’re Beninese, Bolivian or British, the ways your life goes wrong will be heavily influenced by how you believe it could go wrong. Self-styled rationalists often seek to debunk the influence of mind over body: it seems too damned weird that, for example, women who believe they’re at risk from heart disease are 3.6 times more likely to die from heart attacks than those with identical risk factors, but who lack the belief. (That’s a 1992 finding from the respected, long-term Framingham Heart Study.) But on second thoughts, wouldn’t it be weirder if the staggeringly complex organ between our ears didn’t exert strong effects on all the other, less complex organs it coordinates and controls? One effect that’s especially relevant here, Bures explains, is “bio-attentional looping”: you fear something, which causes you to monitor your body for symptoms, which – lo and behold! – you find. That heightens your fear, which increases your self-monitoring, and so on. It’s no coincidence that in almost every recorded case of koro, the victim already knew of the condition, so was primed to detect it. I’ll leave it as an exercise for the reader to determine whether merely monitoring your body for signs of genital retraction (or nipple retraction, the female version) can induce the feeling it’s happening, but can anyone doubt that bio-attentional looping affects us in countless other ways? We keep reading about how we’re all underslept and distracted these days, so we can’t help scanning the body for the signs, which obligingly present themselves. (Are you stressed? Feel carefully for traces of tension in the body. Keep going. OK – now are you stressed?) It hardly matters that the belief starts off being false, since believing it makes it true. Those koro victims didn’t have vanishing penises, obviously. But once they believed it could happen, the sensations of shrinkage were real. And what’s the difference between believing you’re stressed and being stressed? There isn’t one. We relate to the world, even our own bodies, through a thick web of beliefs, of which we’re largely unaware. You might be tempted to respond that your beliefs are the reasonable ones to hold. Perhaps. But then of course that’s what you’d believe. oliver.burkeman@theguardian.com
EU referendum: Grassroots Out brings 'a hint of the Trump' to middle England “This is middle England,” said Philip Hollobone MP as he marched his anti-European Union canvassers through historic Rothwell in Northamptonshire on Saturday morning. “This referendum is going to be decided in market towns like this.” The previous night in Germany, the prime minister had spoken about the threat of Britain leaving the EU at a black-tie dinner arranged by Angela Merkel. Kettering’s Conservative MP, wearing a union flag anorak, fraying at the seams from heavy campaign use, was not impressed. “David Cameron enjoys being feted by the elite at banquets in Hamburg, but this referendum isn’t going to be decided there.” Hollobone is among Conservative, Ukip and Labour Euroscpetics now pinning their hopes on the Grassroots Out campaign (GO!), which is trying to tap into the disgruntled defiance towards Brussels bubbling under along Britain’s quieter high streets, in the church closes and suburban estates of market towns and outer suburbs. GO!’s leaders believe that if harnessed, this spirit could deliver a stunning victory in the poll, expected on 23 June. Rothwell residents Alan and Darren are the kind of voters they want to steer towards the ballot box. Alan, a Labour-turned-Ukip supporting roofer who answered the door to Hollobone’s canvassers in a pair of cartoon pyjamas, said: “We should get out as quick as we can.” Why? “I’m sick to death of being told what we can and can’t do.” Darren, a couple of doors down, wasn’t sure at first why he wanted out but settled on: “We pay an awful lot in and we don’t get a lot out,” in reference to the UK’s £9bn annual contribution to the EU budget. “I’m not the best informed,” he admitted. “It’s just what I feel.” After canvassing 286 households on Saturday, the 30 GO! activists in Rothwell found 29% want to leave the EU, 22% want to stay and almost half are undecided. It chimes with a sample taken last month by Survation of more than 2,000 Kettering voters, which found 29% want to leave and 25% want to stay. The national polls also suggest “Brexit” is a real possibility. The last YouGov poll on 4 February put the balance at 45% to leave and 36% remain. GO! is currently backed by Ukip and Tory donors and is led by two Tory MPs, Peter Bone and Thomas Pursglove and one Labour MP, Kate Hoey, whose involvement helps its claim to be cross-party. It is focused on establishing dozens of local activist groups to canvass supporters. Debate about the issues is less important. What matters is finding where the leave voters live and getting them out on polling day. Do that well and GO! reckons it could increase its share by five percentage points. Bone pitches GO! as “the people versus the establishment” and reckons the grandees of the stay campaign such as former trade secretary Lord Mandelson former chief executive of Marks & Spencer chief executive Lord Rose have scant appetite for canvassing “on a wet Saturday morning”. But it is not as grassroots or cross-party as it would perhaps like to seem. GO! is now funded by the insurance millionaire and major Ukip supporter Arron Banks, who has been backing the Leave.EU campaign and is now among several private donors who are said to have pledged £1m to fund GO! over the next six weeks. Of the activists turning out in Rothwell at the weekend, half voted Ukip at the last election and half Conservative. Labour was nowhere to be seen. The biggest cheer at GO’s Kettering launch rally, which attracted 2,500 people, went to Nigel Farage. GO! is bidding to be designated by the Electoral Commission as the official leave campaign, which would allow it to raise up to £7m in total. US political consultants, originally hired by Leave.EU, have been placed at GO!’s disposal, including some from Cambridge Analytica, who work for Ted Cruz, the Republican presidential candidate and Goddard Gunster, Washington-based referenda experts. Richard Murphy, a former director of field operations for the Tories, has been seconded, and is hiring a dozen regional directors to marshall grassroots support. All this follows a public spat between Leave.EU and the rival Vote Leave campaign and which culminated in Banks attacking the leaders of the latter campaign, saying: “I wouldn’t put them in charge of the local sweet shop.” Stronger In, one of the main stay campaigns, is dismissive of the new organisation. “The leave campaigns have been forced to set up yet another new splinter group under the shallow guise of a grassroots movement because they know their existing campaigns are falling apart,” said spokesman James McGrory. “Grassroots Out is nothing more than a sticking plaster for the personality clashes and inability to say what ‘out’ looks like.” But GO! is attracting some grassroot support. Door-to-door canvassing “taskforces” of local activists have been mustered in St Albans, Durham, Shipley and Luton. The goal is to distribute 10m leaflets. On Saturday, activists travelled to Rothwell to canvass from as far away as Derbyshire. In anticipation of growing interest, 10 venues have already been booked from Gibraltar to Glasgow and Swansea to Sunderland. The idea, it seems, is to replicate with GO!’s party-neutral green T-shirts and balloons the effect of the yellow-shirted SNP supporters who thronged town centres during the 2014 Scottish referendum. “There is a latent hostility to the EU,” said Hoey. “Key activists have already been switched on by Ukip, but there are lots of people who feel strongly about the EU who are not attached. We want to build on those people who do feel angry and have not had a voice for years.” Bone and Pursglove sell GO! as resolutely “anti-Westminster bubble”. They cite Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership campaign and Cruz’s surprise victory over Trump at the Iowa caucuses as models of how building grassroots movements can flip polls on their head. The activists in Rothwell are certainly committed. Tilly Ward, 35, a Ukip supporter and married mother of two from Matlock, Derbyshire, drove a 160-mile round trip to canvass. She senses people might start “coming out” about their views on immigration. “Some people can be quite embarrassed about talking about it,” she said. “It is almost hush hush. There are more people who feel this than actually say it.” Before they fan out from the market square to canvass, Bone offered the activists a trick to work out which way waverers might vote. “If they are undecided, as you are going down the drive, ask them about immigration,” the MP said. “Their answer will indicate which way they are likely to vote.” “We are such a small country we can’t take any more,” said John Whilde, 73, a building worker from Wellingborough who was canvassing. “Eventually there will be no green space left and at the moment we can’t do anything about it. Cameron says he has these concessions, but there’s nothing to say the EU can’t vote them out in a couple of years.” There is “a hint of the Trump situation” about leave activists, said Steve, one of the canvassers. “It is anti-establishment,” he said. “The outs are people who feel they have been long ignored, whose voice has not been heard, who are treated as little people.” The coming referendum gives them their greatest platform yet.
Premier League clubs issue statements over ‘false’ doping allegations Leicester City, Arsenal and Chelsea have all issued statements rejecting “false” doping allegations made in a Sunday Times report. The Sunday Times said that a private doctor, Mark Bonar, claims to have prescribed banned performance-enhancing drugs to over 150 British athletes, including footballers. According to the paper, which secretly filmed the doctor, Bonar claims he has treated “a few footballers” who have been or are currently members of the playing staff of Arsenal, Chelsea, Leicester City and Birmingham City players. There is no independent evidence that players from any of these clubs have been treated by Dr Bonar and no evidence that the clubs were aware of any relationship between the doctor and any of its players, or of any alleged drug use. Bonar told the Sunday Times his work did not breach General Medical Council (GMC) rules and that it was athletes’ responsibility to ensure they did not take banned drugs. “Leicester City Football Club is extremely disappointed that The Sunday Times has published unsubstantiated allegations referring to players from clubs including Leicester City when, on its own admission, it has insufficient evidence to support the claims,” said a statement from the Premier League leaders. “Leicester City follows robust and comprehensive anti-doping protocols to ensure its full compliance and that of its players with all anti-doping rules and regulations.” As part of the service he was offering, Dr Bonar is said to have introduced undercover reporters to a former Chelsea fitness coach, although there is no suggestion the coach in question was involved in the alleged treatment, or evidence that the coach referred players that Bonar claims to have treated. “The claims The Sunday Times put to us are false and entirely without foundation,” said a Chelsea statement. “Chelsea Football Club has never used the services of Dr Bonar and has no knowledge or record of any of our players having been treated by him or using his services. “We take the issue of performance-enhancing drugs in sport extremely seriously and comply fully with all anti-doping rules and regulations. Chelsea FC players are regularly and rigorously tested by the relevant authorities.” Arsenal were similarly dismissive of the allegations: “Arsenal Football Club is extremely disappointed by the publication of these false claims which are without foundation,” said a statement. “The club takes its responsibilities in this area very seriously and our players are well aware of what is expected. We strictly adhere to all guidelines set by the World Anti-Doping Agency.” BBC Sport has reported that the Championship side Birmingham City said: “The club have not used the services of Mark Bonar and have no knowledge or record of any of our players, past or present, doing so.” The Sunday Times reported that Bonar claims in the past six years to have treated more than 150 sports people from the UK and abroad with banned substances such as erythropoietin (EPO), steroids and human growth hormone, and that the performance improvements were “phenomenal”. The government has ordered an independent inquiry into the UK anti-doping watchdog Ukad over the accusations, with the culture secretary, John Whittingdale, expressing deep concern over suggestions that Ukad had not acted on evidence received two years ago. “I have asked for an urgent independent investigation into what action was taken when these allegations were first received and what more needs to be done to ensure that British sport remains clean,” Whittingdale told the paper.
Synthetic blood vessel breakthrough could transform children's heart surgery A breakthrough in the manufacture of synthetic blood vessels has raised hopes that children born with serious heart defects could be treated in a single operation instead of multiple rounds of open heart surgery. The landmark work comes from researchers in the US who made synthetic arteries that grow when they are implanted in the body, unlike the standard tissue grafts which are now used to correct faulty blood vessels. Many children who are born with heart defects face a series of major operations over the course of their lives because the implants - known as conduits - that are used to replace their malformed blood vessels, do not grow in line with their heart and the rest of the body. “A child might have five open heart surgeries for these conduits to be resized as they grow, and that can mean incredible anguish for the patient and family,” said Robert Tranquillo who led the research at the University of Minnesota. Tranquillo’s synthetic blood vessels are made from gels seeded with living cells called fibroblasts. The cells churn out the stretchy collagen web that gives skin its strength. To form the gels into arteries or veins, they are wrapped around little rods and grown in a “bioreactor” that provides the cells with all the warmth, exercise and nutrients they need to grow. Before the synthetic blood vessels can be implanted they are washed in a detergent to strip out all of the living cells. These would otherwise cause an immune reaction in the recipient. The process leaves a flexible collagen tube that can be stored in a fridge until it is needed for a patient’s operation. To test the lab-made blood vessels, the US team implanted them into three young lambs. In the operations, the synthetic vessels replaced sections of pulmonary artery which carries oxygen-depleted blood from the heart to the lungs. Ultrasound images taken over the next 50 weeks showed that the artificial blood vessels grew at a normal rate as the animals aged. Later, when the scientists inspected the implants under a microscope, they found that like natural blood vessels, the synthetic ones had an inner lining and contained smooth muscle cells and elastin, a highly elastic protein that allows blood vessels expand and contract. “The amazing thing is that the recipient lamb cells repopulate our matrix and it physically grows. There are many suggestions that we are getting normal growth,” Tranquillo told the . So far the team has made synthetic blood vessels ranging from 2mm to 24mm wide to suit hearts from babies to adults. The approach has advantages over another experimental technique that grows new blood vessels from a patient’s own cells. These implants, known as autologous grafts, are more costly and time consuming, because they have to be grown for each individual patient. In contrast, Tranquillo says one skin biopsy holds enough cells to make thousands of synthetic blood vessels that can be stored until needed. And because the living cells are removed first, the vessels can be implanted in any patient without inducing an immune reaction. While the work is impressive, it is not yet ready for humans. Tranquillo said his team would discuss the results, published in Nature Communications, with cardiologists and the US Food and Drug Administration to decide what further lab work was needed before considering a clinical trial in humans. The team is separately working on more complex blood vessels that incorporate valves. Paul de Bank, a tissue engineer at Bath University, said the ability of a graft to grow with a patient offered the possibility of a “one-time procedure”, rather than the patient requiring multiple surgical revisions.” This is understandably very attractive from a clinical point of view, with the added benefit that the graft in this study is acellular. This means that it could be an off-the-shelf product, available to surgeons as and when required and not affected by the financial and timing constraints of an autologous, cell-containing graft,” he said. But he added that while the results from Tranquillo’s animal studies were promising, larger studies were needed to learn whether the vessels could be used in people. Peter Weissberg, medical director at the British Heart Foundation (BHF), said that after decades of research, most children with congenital heart disease now survive into childhood. “But sadly, they still often have to undergo multiple operations at a young age as their hearts grow, which can be incredibly distressing for the child and their family. “This exciting research indicates that it may be possible to create blood vessels in the laboratory that will grow as the heart grows. This could reduce the need for these operations and potentially improve the quality of life for children with congenital heart disease. “BHF-funded researchers in Bristol are working on a similar approach in which the baby’s own cells are used to create ‘living’ blood vessels that could one day be used to repair their congenital defects,” Weissberg said. “The BHF’s Mending Broken Hearts Appeal is aimed at accelerating this research so that babies born with congenital heart defects in the future can look forward to a healthy life after a single operation.”
The Phenom review: baseball movie throws a curveball From its graceful opening credits sequence, which, backed by an elegant classical music score, fixes the viewer’s gaze on some tasteful wallpaper, writer and director Noah Buschel’s The Phenom immediately goes out of its way to subvert all the expectations associated with baseball movies. Despite its rigorously formal leanings, The Phenom is still a film about a young man struggling to regain his focus and grow into the athlete he was born to be. But unlike Field of Dreams, Bad News Bears, Bull Durham and countless other films centered on the sport, The Phenom is more interested in its hero’s psychological trappings than his talents on the field. Johnny Simmons effortlessly carries The Phenom as Hopper Gibson, a good-looking major league rookie pitcher, ranked the third-highest prospect in the country. Despite the support of his hometown (he’s a celebrity at his high school, where classmates can’t help but stare at him in the corridors), a gorgeous new girlfriend and a loving mother who dotes on his every move, Gibson becomes mysteriously remote, which in turn affects his game. He also grows increasingly cynical for no apparent reason. “Everybody is using everybody all the time,” he says to his girlfriend, basically begging to be dumped. When his father Hopper Sr, enters the picture, all is made crystal clear. He’s played by Ethan Hawke in a commanding performance that bears no similarities to the actor’s loving work as another father to a teenage son in Richard Linklater’s Boyhood. Hopper Sr is a monster of a man. After surprising Gibson with a visit, inked with a new tattoo following a stint in prison, he wastes no time in abusing his son, flinging a full beer can at the boy’s head and cutting him in the process. “Everything you’ve accomplished, you owe to me,” he sneers, visibly jealous at his son’s success. With the sudden arrival of his father, Gibson grows increasingly suspicious of everyone in his life, including his unorthodox sports therapist (Paul Giamatti), working to help him uncover the origins of his anxiety. Their scenes are the most strained of the film, inserted as a lazy framing device to add some semblance of structure to what’s otherwise an admirably scattershot narrative. The film’s at its strongest when Hawke is on screen. Unfortunately his character is given short shrift, only relegated to a handful of sequences that serve to explain Gibson’s self-loathing behavior. Still, the film largely succeeds on its own peculiar terms. Sequences, like one in which Gibson is seduced and then robbed by an oddball blonde (Louisa Krause) at a rundown motel, seem as if cut from a collection of short stories. Buschel’s screenplay also has brainy overtones unusual for the genre. “You couldn’t throw all those strikes if you were a Marxist,” Gibson is told after he mistakenly refers to himself as a socialist. The Phenom, like its protagonist, is hard to pin down, making for a film that’s transfixing and opaque in equal measure.
UK economy set for sluggish growth, warns business group The UK economy will slow markedly next year as uncertainty about the country’s future position in Europe and higher inflation hit consumers and businesses, the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) has predicted. The business group believes the UK will avoid recession but still lose momentum as the weak pound pushes up import costs and the resulting rise in inflation erodes people’s spending power. New figures from the British Retail Consortium and Springboard suggest that consumers may already be becoming more cautious. Visitors to the high street and shopping centres fell in November despite shops cutting prices as part of the Black Friday promotional event. Footfall fell 1% to retail destinations year on year as consumers spent money online instead. This compares with a 0.9% drop in October. In new forecasts published on Monday, the BCC has upgraded its outlook for GDP growth this year to 2.1% from 1.8%, to reflect a stronger-than-expected performance from the economy in the months following the Brexit vote. It has also nudged up its forecast for 2017 growth to 1.1% from the 1% forecast in September but that would still represent the weakest growth since the financial crisis. The group downgraded its growth forecast for 2018 to 1.4% from 1.8% on the expectation that higher inflation would curb household consumption and that the UK would see more muted levels of investment, particularly business investment. Adam Marshall, director general of the BCC, said: “In the absence of a clear road ahead, many companies have been adopting a ‘business as usual’ approach in the months since the referendum, which has kept conditions buoyant this year and prevented a sharp slowdown in growth. “While some firms see significant opportunities over the coming months, many others now see increasing uncertainty, which is weighing on their investment expectations and forward confidence. Lower sterling and rising inflation are now starting to affect business communities and consumers across the UK.” The BCC said based on the available economic news and its own survey of businesses, it did not expect the economy to fall into a recession – something groups such as the International Monetary Fund had warned was a risk in the event of a vote for Brexit. The BCC is forecasting the public finances will be in worse shape as a result of an economic slowdown hitting tax receipts, undershooting the already downbeat expectations of the fiscal watchdog, the Office for Budget Responsibility . The business group expects inflation to breach the Bank of England’s 2% target next year, with a forecast of 2.1% in 2017 and reaching 2.4% in 2018. Inflation was 0.9% on the last available figures from October, and November figures due on Tuesday are expected to show it edging up to 1.1%. Business investment is expected to fall by 0.8% in 2016, 2.1% in 2017 and 0.3% in 2018 – better than the previous forecasts for sharper falls in 2016 and 2017, but significantly worse than the 1.9% growth previously predicted for 2018. The group also warned export growth was set to slow over the coming years before edging up again in 2018. It said the effect on exports of the falling value of the pound, which makes UK goods cheaper in overseas markets, had previously been overstated. “While a lower pound is a boon for some exporting businesses, many others see the latest devaluation of sterling less positively, as they are unable to benefit from it,” Marshall said. “Given our findings, deeper incentives for both investment and exporting will be needed in the months and years ahead. As the Brexit negotiations commence, steps will need to be taken to help ambitious firms overcome the risks, real and perceived, born out of political uncertainty.”
Will 2016 mark the end of the phone number? Age: 127 years Appearance: Digity Mmm, I love a phone number. Do you remember when it was a sign of being really fond of someone, knowing their phone number off by heart? Now you have to be kind to them and stuff. Yeah. Ooh, and you had to dial numbers on an actual dial, remember? Round it went, thrrrrrrr-up, then tickatickaticka … Calling people with too many 0s and 9s in their number used to take for ever and be really annoying! Halcyon days. Not everyone is so nostalgic about them, though. Oh, really? Who could possibly have a different opinion? Facebook. The gigantic website owned by that billionaire child and full of all the annoying people whose phone numbers I can’t remember? That’s right. Or Facebook’s Messenger app, anyway. The site has made its 2016 trend predictions, and top of the list is “the disappearance of the phone number”. Eh? Why would phone numbers disappear this year? Other than because Facebook wants them to? “Just like the flip phone is disappearing, old communication styles are disappearing, too,” says David Marcus, VP of messaging products. “With Messenger, we offer all the things that made texting so popular, but also so much more … You can make video and voice calls while at the same time not needing to know someone’s phone number.” But I do that already. My phone remembers it for me. What if you want to call someone whose number you don’t know? I look it up, or they tell me. Ah, but imagine if you could use their email address or other contact details instead. What if I didn’t know their email address or other contact details? You’d look it up, or they’d tell you. That doesn’t sound like a radical step forward. I mean, maybe landlines will disappear and everything will converge eventually, but it’s ridiculous to predict it for this year. What else do they say will happen? “Threads are the new apps … We’re all social beings … Innovation matters … It’s all about delight …” Is that just gibberish or do they give some kind of explanation? “We’re seeing a paradigm shift in how people engage,” it starts … Let’s make it stop there, too. With pleasure. Do say: “Facebook is the new astrology.” Don’t say: “It’s all about cash.”
A new, well-led Labour party could make a difference We are still Europeans, liar-in-chief Boris Johnson intoned after the event. Other Brexiteers joined the refrain: Britain should take time to work out exactly what deal and what relationship we now wanted with Europe before launching the article 50 process towards the exit. No such caution was expressed by the leader of the Labour party, Jeremy Corbyn. There was no anger, sadness or disbelief, and no recognition of the profundity of the plight in which the country now finds itself. Rather, he said, Britain must trigger article 50 “immediately”. He did not say what relationship Britain might now have with Europe as a result. Sixteen million British had voted to remain. Nobody spoke for us that desolate morning – or offered a grain of hope. It was the culmination of a wretched Labour campaign lacking coherence, passion and conviction: eloquent testimony to the marginalisation of the Labour party under Corbyn’s leadership. How could it be that Labour’s leader could say and think something so crass? One inadequate man has come to personify all the perennially unresolved contradictions in left politics that cripples it politically. Is the Labour party a social movement or a political party? Is its job to transform capitalism or reform it so it works better for ordinary people? What constitution should shape its own democracy or that of the country more widely? How is it to allay the fears and apprehensions of working-class Britain in era of mass immigration? Corbyn has very particular answers. The Labour party’s role is to be the political expression of popular left social movements – like the ones that provoked his own 500 acts of rebellion against the Labour whip. Democracy is simply the expression of mass majorities built by social protest. Constitutions are bourgeois obstacles to such popular social movements. Indeed the notion of a public interest, created by a constitutional architecture of checks and balances to permit democratic representatives to develop and articulate such an interest, is anathema. In a capitalist society there can only be class interests. The object of a left party is not the creation of a capitalism that better serves the public interest and ordinary people: rather its aim must be the overthrow of capitalism. Thus Corbyn could not campaign wholeheartedly for the EU as a noble idea that represents the best effort the world has seen to build international co-operation. Too many in the boss class were in favour for him to throw his weight unambiguously behind the EU. Nor could he share a platform with the class enemy, the leader of the Tory party, even in an existential fight for Britain’s place in the world. He focused more narrowly on the EU’s role in helping class gains – workers’ rights and freedom of movement of labour, even if the latter is actively hated by many working people. When the result came, he interpreted it as the voice of a social movement to which a politician had to respond “immediately”. He could not say what needed to be said: that this was a devastating vote to which the whole of Europe had to respond if it was to hold together. Other countries were threatened by the same cocktail of squeezed wages, mass immigration and growth of left-behind communities who were disillusioned with both globalisation and the EU. And while the vote had to be respected in the short term, the country in its own best interests had to proceed cautiously. The triggering of article 50 could only happen when it was clear it would not be a leap in dark, shredding trade relationships, investment and jobs. He would work to refashion both European and British capitalism so that ordinary people could see it worked for them. Who knows? There could yet be an offer from the EU – say on free movement – that would allow Britain, one day, to take back its proper place as a leader of the EU. Labour, as 172 Labour MPs concluded last week, along with a growing number of constituency associations, can never win a general election with such a leader. Yet despite the pressure – depicted by him and his coterie as from the Blairite establishment – he is refusing to resign. John McDonnell, shadow chancellor, says if there is a formal challenge from say Angela Eagle, the Corbynites will simply flood the electorate for a new leader with Momentum members – a process already under way. Anticipating a general election this October, McDonnell told private meetings this week that Labour will win. It is a world of fantasy. If Corbyn stays as a leader, many Labour MPs are resigned to the party splitting. There will be a minority of MPs and constituency associations loyal to his vision, but the overwhelming majority are in politics to make a difference – not to go down in a sinking ship. They feel a particular obligation at this time, above any other, to keep the liberal social democratic tradition alive – and with it a conception of being part of Europe. Who is to know whether the new Tory leader will even try to give Britain access to the single European market via the European Economic Area? If not, bending to Ukip and the Brexit-ultras – who are borne on the noxious rising tide of racism, and place immigration control as the overriding purpose of state policy – the amount of disinvestment, the disruption of trade flows and relocation of factories and offices to the EU will become overwhelming. The real charge against both the governor of the Bank of England and chancellor is not that they were scaremongering: rather it is they downplayed the economic costs and risks. More than that hundreds of thousands – maybe millions – of people are discovering that politics matters. They want to fight for a liberal, tolerant, internationalist and fair Britain. They abhor Ukip, the Brexit Tory party and their ferocious propagandists in the rightwing media. They are founding citizens groups, pressure groups and signing petitions. They want hope and leadership. More support will be garnered as the extent of this self-inflicted catastrophe becomes evident in the months ahead. A well-led Labour party with a crafted cluster of policies to secure a better capitalism, good jobs and careers, reinvent social housing, embrace new technologies, find new ways of representing workers and above all to stand by the best of British values could put itself at the centre of this emerging coalition. Its constitution would put the election of its leader in the hands of the parliamentary party, with a run-off of the two frontrunners elected through a reconstituted electoral college . Such a party would be a real threat to the Brexit Tories. It could win a general election by 2020 when the carnage will be there for all to see. But this will never be done by Jeremy Corbyn. The Labour party must be reclaimed – for the sake of British values, for British democracy and for the very future of our country. Nothing less will do.
Could my wife’s circumcision explain her lack of interest in sex? I am in my mid-40s and have been married for 16 years. Our sexual life has been very underwhelming. I have tried everything I know but my wife seems to have little or no interest in sex. I do know that she was circumcised as a child. Could that have affected her sexuality? A person’s sexuality is created through a complex combination of physical, psychological and physiological factors as well as the messages about sex they received from childhood onwards – religious beliefs, parental warnings, societal judgment and formative experiences. You have told me little, but the fact that she was circumcised suggests that she may have been raised in a society where the notion of female sexuality was not exactly appreciated. In many of the world’s societies – including our own – it is judged by some as inappropriate, and even feared, suppressed, or punished. I cannot even try to guess your wife’s experience, or the motives of those who performed it, but I am sure it has had some effect on her conceptualisation of sex and her ability to experience pleasure. This would be particularly true if her clitoris was removed. Gently ask her if she could try to express what the circumcision was like for her, and how it might have affected her ability to enjoy sex. A gynaecologist could shed some light on how nerve loss or damage might have affected her ability to orgasm or even become aroused, and a psychosexual counsellor could suggest alternative sexual approaches. After 16 years, your wife and you deserve some understanding and hope. • Pamela Stephenson Connolly is a US-based psychotherapist specialising in sexual disorders. • If you would like advice from Pamela Stephenson Connolly on sexual matters, send us a brief description of your concerns to private.lives@theguardian.com (please don’t send attachments). Each week, Pamela chooses one problem to answer, which will be published online and in print. She regrets that she cannot enter into personal correspondence.
Medicare cuts to diagnostic scans will cost cancer patients, say radiologists Cancer patients could be left hundreds of dollars out of pocket by federal government cuts to the bulk billing incentive for diagnostic services, an organisation representing private radiology practices has warned. The Australian Diagnostic Imaging Association (ADIA) said that patients required several different diagnostic services, like CT scans and magnetic resonance imaging (MRIs) before cancer was diagnosed, let alone treated. Melanoma patients would fare the worst if they were made to pay a gap payment to cover reductions to the bulk billing incentive, ADIA said, pointing to the fact that up to seven services may be required to test for the harmful skin cancers. The group estimates that out-of-pocket costs could be up to $1,120 for previously bulk billed patients, depending on whether services introduced a gap fee or scrapped bulk billing altogether. Breast cancer patients could face out-of-pocket costs of $302, and thyroid cancer patients $492, the group said. “These amounts are paid as part of the patient rebate and are significant amounts for patients to forego,” the chief executive of ADIA, Pattie Beerens, told Australia. But a spokesman for the federal health minister, Sussan Ley, did not accept that, saying that patient Medicare rebates and the bulk billing incentive were two different things. There would be no change to the amount of money patients received from their rebates under the bulk billing incentive changes, the spokesman said, adding that ADIA’s cost estimations were inaccurate because they included cost recovery from patients who were not currently bulk billed. A spokeswoman for the federal Department of Health said the department could not verify the figures “as ADIA does not provide the number and type of services included”. “These figures may not be representative of the average patient,” she said. Service providers have warned that the federal government’s decision to reduce incentive payments for diagnostic companies to bulk bill from 15% to 10% would leave them with no choice but charge patients the shortfall. “It is not realistic to expect that practices can absorb these most recent cuts, because their costs continue to increase year-on-year,” Beeren said. “Several diagnostic imaging groups have already indicated that they will consider introducing gaps for general patients in response to the patient rebate cuts.” Medicare rebates for diagnostic services have been frozen for 17 years, since 1998. The bulk billing incentive ranges from $6 for X-rays to $62 for MRIs, according to ADIA’s figures. Companies could choose to charge patients just the shortfall resulting from the reduction in the incentive, but the way Medicare is structured means that patients would have to pay the full cost of services upfront and then wait to be reimbursed for the remainder. Labor’s health spokeswoman, Catherine King, said that the government’s cuts to the health budget “punish the most seriously ill, at every stage of illness and treatment”. “For many of the patients who are now bulk billed, those sorts of costs will be unaffordable. We already know that upfront costs are a huge barrier to people on limited incomes and many patients will delay, or even skip crucial scans,” King said. “As pathologists have pointed out, such measures are not only bad for patients, but are short-sighted and will cost the health system more in the longer term.” The government announced that it would reduce the bulk billing incentive for diagnostic imaging – and totally scrap it for pathology services – in its December budget update statement. The changes will net the government $650m over four years, and will come into effect on 1 July. The changes have been criticised for adversely affecting women, after it was revealed that they would apply to services like pap smears and breast exams. Independent senator Jacqui Lambie has vowed to vote against all government bills if the changes to bulk billing incentives, which do not require legislative change and therefore do not require a Senate vote, are instituted. “Australian women should not have to pay more for vital cancer health checks. Over my dead body will I allow the Liberals to try and sneak through more changes and cuts to our Medicare system,” Lambie said. “I will do everything in my power to stop cancer health checks like pap smears from costing an extra $30, as predicted by the Royal College of Pathologists.”
Lloyds Banking Group fails to meet 'fee-free' basic account guidelines Lloyds Banking Group is failing to meet “fee-free” guidelines for millions of its basic bank accounts, which are typically held by people on low incomes. Data published by the Treasury showed more than 3.6 million of the group’s customers were at risk of running up bank charges because their accounts did not conform to a voluntary agreement reached between the government and the major high street banks in 2014. The agreement was designed to widen access to high street banks and help vulnerable customers. Labour MP John Mann, a member of the Treasury select committee, said the Lloyds group, in which the taxpayer still has a near-8% stake, was guilty of unacceptable behaviour. It is understood one of the accounts affected is the Halifax Easycash account, where a customer can be hit with up to three £10 “returned item fees”a day in cases in which there is not enough money in the account to make a payment but and the bank refuses to allow them to go into the red. Basic bank accounts are aimed at those who do not have a bank account or are ineligible for a standard current account. But the Treasury said that in the past, some banks sought to cut the costs of providing these by charging fees when direct debits or standing orders bounced. These charges were in some cases “very high”, and some people were effectively “unbanked” after ending up saddled with significant overdrafts that left them unable to use their accounts , the Treasury added. In December 2014 the government reached a voluntary agreement with nine banking groups – including all the major high street names – which required them to offer fee-free banking from 1 January this year. The Treasury said there were now just under 8m basic bank accounts open in the UK, of which more than 4.1m met the 2014 agreement standards. However, that leaves more than 3.7m where customers are still not benefiting from completely fee-free banking. The vast majority of these are operated by the Lloyds group, which includes the Halifax and Bank of Scotland brands. The remainder – estimated at just under 100,000 – are operated by the Royal Bank of Scotland group, which is 73% taxpayer-owned. The Treasury indicated that banks had been encouraged to migrate customers on old basic bank accounts to ones that met the guidelines, but it said they were not “compelled” to do so. Mann said of the findings relating to the Lloyds group: “This is simply not good enough, and it’s time Lloyds were held responsible for their actions. Over 3 million customers don’t have the cheapest account possible, and that means they are potentially exposed to hidden fees.” He added: “The only way Lloyds will resolve this is if they are forced to act, and that’s why I am calling on the Treasury and the Financial Conduct Authority to fine them a percentage of their profits until this is resolved.” All of the basic bank accounts at the other seven groups – Barclays, Clydesdale/Yorkshire, the Co-operative Bank, HSBC, Nationwide, Santander and TSB – are fully compliant. The Treasury also revealed that the Lloyds group accounted for almost half of the basic bank account market. Lloyds has indicated it wrote to existing basic bank account customers and gave them the option to move. But some backbook customers were not eligible for the new accounts. A spokeswoman said: “We welcome HM Treasury’s data which shows that Lloyds Banking Group is opening 36% of the new basic bank accounts, demonstrating our commitment to support banking for all …We believe all banks have a responsibility to provide basic bank account facilities to customers who would be otherwise excluded, and today’s announcement highlights that the sector has a responsibility to do much more.”
JPMorgan Chase wants employees to improve their work-life balance Workaholics of Wall Street, Jamie Dimon has some news for you. It’s time to kick off those wingtips, slip out of that suit and chillax. The JPMorgan Chase boss has become the latest financier to worry that his bankers are working too hard for their bonuses. On Thursday the bank announced an initiative called “Pencils Down”, aimed at helping its employees improve their work-life balance. Previously, young bankers were allowed one work-free weekend a month. Now the bank wants them to take every weekend off unless they are working on a “live” deal. Work-free weekends are “realistic to what this generation wants”, Carlos Hernandez, JPMorgan’s head of global banking, told the Wall Street Journal. Wall Street’s banks first began to review their weekend policies in 2013 after the death of a 21-year-old Bank of America Merrill Lynch intern, Moritz Erhardt. Erhardt was found dead after having an epileptic seizure in a shower after working a 72-hour shift. “One of the triggers for epilepsy is exhaustion and it may be that because Moritz had been working so hard his fatigue was a trigger for the seizure that killed him. But that’s only a possibility,” coroner Mary Hassell said at the time. Despite the fact that his death could not be definitely linked to work-related exhaustion, it left a lasting effect on the banking industry. James Gorman, chairman and CEO of Morgan Stanley, said that Erhardt’s death “has caused everyone to step back and say, ‘Hey, have we got this right?’” Goldman Sachs began to require that all analysts and associates be out of office and not work between 9pm on Friday and 9am on Sunday. JPMorgan implemented a policy of giving young bankers one work-free weekend a month, also known as “protected weekend”. Other banks like Bank of America, Citigroup, Barclays and Deutsche Bank implemented similar policies to help their young staff maintain some semblance of a work-life balance. Yet the real culprit behind work-life imbalance at banks is the actual workload, say some bankers. “If you have 80 hours of work to do in a week, you’re going to have 80 hours of work to do in a week, regardless of whether you’re working Saturdays or not. That work is going to be pushed to Sundays or Friday nights,” one junior banker at Deutsche Bank told the New York Times, when policies limiting weekend work first came about. While in Davos in 2014, Gorman said that he wasn’t sure if limiting weekend work was “the right answer”. Morgan Stanley did not introduce an official rule about work on weekends. “I’m not sure how you stop work if there’s a deal on,” he said at the time. “It’s more common sense, it’s more upward feedback and evaluation. If we have individuals who are not managing the young folks properly, we need to deal with that.”
Young children deprived of homes pay a terrible mental price A roof over your head is not a luxury, it’s an absolute necessity for all, and that is especially the case for families with young children. Not having a place to live that is affordable, decent and secure can have a severe impact on mental health, and one that is most keenly felt by the youngest and most vulnerable members of society. In 2015 we partnered with NSPCC to examine the scale and impact of homelessness on babies and their parents. We found that more than 15,000 nought-to-two-year-olds live in families classed as statutorily homeless. Homeless parents often have a history of adversity, with 74% experiencing at least one difficulty such as mental health problems or domestic violence as an adult. It is worrying enough that such a large number of families with very young children are having to deal with the stress and strain of homelessness. That worry is amplified further by the longer-term impact it is likely to have on the lives of these children, because the first two years are so important to their development. Those first two years of life are when the brain literally builds the pathways that will play a key role in future mental health. At that age, 700-1,000 new neural connections form in the brain every second. The care a baby receives from conception to its second birthday shapes the way those connections form and provides a foundation for all future learning, health and behaviour. That care is much more difficult to provide consistently and sensitively if parents are having to tackle something as fundamental as having nowhere to live. Children’s mental health really matters. Most lifetime mental disorders arise early: half of lifetime mental illness has started by age 14. The impact of mental ill health is immense in every way – economic, social and in terms of cost to taxpayers as well as on levels of physical health and wellbeing. At the Anna Freud Centre, we see the impact first-hand with the children and families we treat and support. Too often it has been triggered or exacerbated by a lack of a secure, affordable place to live. Effective treatment and support can make a massive difference to these families, but it would obviously make much more of a difference if we could also remove one of the biggest factors in why they are having to deal with mental ill health. With all the discussion around the future of social housing, the security of tenancy, the role and extent of the private rented sector, I put in a special plea to remember that it is about so much more than bricks and mortar when it comes to the impact on mental health. Sign up for your free Housing network newsletter with news and analysis sent direct to you every Friday. Follow us: @ Housing
Craig Dawson header leaves Tottenham Hotspur facing uphill task for title At the final whistle it was a sudden, damp silence. Tottenham Hotspur’s players knew in those moments they had almost certainly blown it. They had chosen a bad night to start unravelling and before the long, almost funereal walk back to the dressing room, they just stood around, hands on hips, taking it all in beneath the floodlights of a stadium that had wanted so much more. At this stage of the season Spurs knew their only realistic chance was to win all their remaining fixtures. Yet this was the first time we saw the inexperience of a team who are entirely new to this position. It was a ragged second half from Mauricio Pochettino’s side and the ramifications will be serious unless Leicester City, squatting defiantly at the top of the Premier League, suffer a late, almost inconceivable meltdown in their final three fixtures. The problem for Spurs is that there has been absolutely nothing to suggest that might be likely – quite the opposite, in fact – and it was reflected in the body language of Mauricio Pochettino’s players at the end. They knew, in effect, it was over as soon as the referee, Mike Jones, brought the whistle to his lips for the final time. The gap to Leicester is seven points and the sums are now simple – it will all be over if Claudio Ranieri’s team beat Manchester United at Old Trafford on Sunday. By that stage Spurs might also be taking in a three-match ban for Dele Alli that would effectively end his season, having swung a punch into the midriff of Claudio Yacob out of the referee’s sight. As punches go, it was a short, low swing, rather than an old-fashioned haymaker, but the television cameras pick up everything these days and the likelihood is a Football Association charge of violent conduct. The more grievous damage, however, came in the 73rd minute when Craig Dawson headed in the goal that broke the home team. Dawson’s own-goal had given Spurs the lead after 33 minutes and the first half was so one-sided one of the club’s former players, Micky Hazard, took a microphone at half-time and boldly proclaimed this could become “the best Spurs side in all our history”. Leicester, he predicted, would lose their last three matches, leaving the way clear for the Premier League trophy to be paraded at White Hart Lane. And the crowd roared its approval. Instead, it was Spurs who succumbed to the pressures. For the first time there were obvious signs of tension and, suddenly, this tough, obdurate West Bromwich side showed an attacking intent that simply had not been there earlier in the match. “Get into them,” Tony Pulis could be heard yelling on the touchline. And a team that began the night 14th in the table did exactly as he demanded. Salomón Rondón twice came close to scoring before Dawson did so from a corner that also resulted in Eric Dier being injured. Spurs still had 17 minutes of normal time, and another five of stoppages, to concoct a winner but their cohesion had gone. Passes were rushed, shots were wild and the onslaught that might have been expected never materialised. If anything, West Bromwich looked the more dangerous team in the closing stages. There is only one team, Aston Villa, who have managed fewer goals this season but, equally, Spurs ought to have known that a side managed by Pulis would never crumple as obligingly as Swansea City had done at Leicester. Early on, that did not seem to bother the home side. They struck the woodwork twice in the opening 12 minutes and there were some lovely exchanges when Alli could be seen gliding away from opponents and, best of all, the brilliant piece of improvisational skill with which Mousa Dembélé eluded Darren Fletcher. The early pressure failed to produce a breakthrough but Spurs kept advancing and nobody could possibly argue the opening goal was unwarranted even if there was a great deal of fortune attached to it. Christian Eriksen’s swinging free-kick was arched into the penalty area. Dawson was trying to prevent Jan Vertonghen applying a decisive touch and as the two players went sprawling, the ball landed beneath Albion’s right-back, squirting out past the goalkeeper Boaz Myhill. The goal came at a good time for Spurs, interrupting their only lull of the first half, but the complexion of the match completely changed after the interval. Spurs will reflect on the moment, after 57 minutes, when Erik Lamela clipped a shot against a post and the earlier incidents when Myhill turned Harry Kane’s effort on to an upright and Eriksen’s free-kick skimmed the crossbar. Yet the home team lost their momentum in the second half and never really got it back. Alli’s season conceivably ended once Pochettino had substituted him. Kane was crowded out and the two full-backs, Danny Rose and Kyle Walker, stopped overlapping with the frequency of the first half. Spurs had moved the ball with speed and thought in that opening period but the deterioration was so stark it left the impression of a side that had hit the wall. They have put up a hell of a fight but, ultimately, nobody could have left this ground thinking it was anything but a fatal blow.
George Clooney and Julia Roberts under fire in Money Monster trailer George Clooney and Julia Roberts find themselves at the mercy of a crazed Jack O’Connell in the first trailer for the thriller Money Monster. Directed by Jodie Foster, the film pits Ocean’s Eleven actors Roberts and Clooney against the star of Angelina Jolie’s earnest Oscar-bait Unbroken, in a story that promises to make reference to the ever-widening wealth gap in the US. O’Connell plays a blue-collar worker, driven to violence by his financial losses, who takes a TV presenter, played by Clooney, hostage while his money-centred show is live on air, before forcing him to strap on a bomb that could blow the studio sky-high. Roberts plays his understandably concerned producer. “It’s where your deepest, darkest shames evolve and play out in three acts,” Foster told Yahoo! “That’s something that’s very strong in the movie and that appealed to me: watching these two men, who you start out thinking that they’re one thing, and then you watch them change through the course of meeting each other and engaging with each other.” Soundtracked by Bruce Springsteen, the trailer offers up a tense if familiar predicament, before turning into something like a public service announcement about the evils of investment banking, with a smarmy Dominic West as the CEO of a company linked to the situation. In handling the financial crash, it follows the Oscar-tipped comedy drama The Big Short, which starred Christian Bale as a ruthless hedge-fund manager. Foster said she wanted Money Monster to showcase a system that is “rigged for the elite”.
Hull City 0-1 Manchester United: Premier League – as it happened! What a fascinating game that turned out to be. Hull defended with their brains for an hour and with their hearts for the last 30 minutes, but one mistake from Elmohamady was ruthlessly punished. This could be a very important day for Manchester United because Mkhitaryan and Rashford should be regulars after this. They are both fast and intricate, a rare combination, and United look a different team with them on the pitch. I’ve just knocked out this quick blog about Rashford if you’d like a read. Thanks for your company, night. It’s all over. That is so cruel on Hull, who were heroic. But Marcus Rashford came from the bench and completely changed the game before scoring an injury-time winner. If you’re a Manchester United or England fan and that kid doesn’t give you goosebumps, you need to seek urgent medical advice. 90+4 min Smalling replaces Rooney. Rashford is booked for celebrating with the fans. Rooney did brilliantly to make the goal. He sucked Elmohamady in on the left and then slipped past him. There was still plenty to do to but Rooney played a superb sidefooted pass along the face of the goal, and there was Rashford to stab it in. He deserves that after a wonderfully classy cameo as sub. We are watching a future genius here. 90+2 min Meyler almost nicks it for Hull! Diomande bulldozed through Fellaini and Bailly on the edge of the area and squared it to Meyler, who scrunched a shot over the bar. 90+1 min Pogba shoots on the turn for 25 yards. It goes miles over the bar. The BT Man of the Match is rightly Curtis Davies, who has been simply immense. I really hope he is in the England squad tomorrow; he deserves to be. 90 min There will be four minutes of added time. 89 min Mkhitaryan’s low shot from distance is well held by the sprawling Jakupovic. 88 min Rashford and Shaw combine before Shaw plays it square to Pogba, who dummies his man and curls fractionally wide from 20 yards. 86 min Rashford floats out to the right and whacks a marvellous cross into the corridor of uncertainty between keeper and defender, but nobody can get on with it. With every performance, this kid looks more and more like a potential genius. He is so accomplished. 83 min Mike Phelan declares at 0-0: the defender Harry Maguire replaces the centre-forward Abel Hernandez. Hull have been absolutely marvellous today. 82 min It’s a siege now. The heroic Davies blocks Mkhitaryan’s shot after great play from Rashford, and then Jakupovic claws away Valencia’s deflected cross. 80 min Rashford and especially Mkhitaryan have made a huge difference to this United team, both with their pace and their intricacy. Mourinho can’t avoid the Rooney issue much longer, surely. 79 min Jakupovic makes a superb save from Rashford, who slipped Clucas and guided a shot through the legs of Livermore towards the far corner. Jakupovic was unsighted but got down to palm it round, a really good save. 78 min Meyler is booked for a foul on the excellent Mkhitaryan, just outside the box. Pogba curls it over the wall and well wide. 77 min That should have been a penalty for United. The replays show that Meyler stuck his elbow out to divert the ball. It was a clear penalty. 76 min “Rooney needs his game time because he obviously won’t be picked by Allardyce tomorrow,” says Ian Copestake. “That’s when the revolution begins.” 75 min Hull almost take the lead! Huddlestone’s fierce left-footed shot from 25 yards takes a big deflection off Bailly, wrongfoots De Gea and goes just wide of the far post. 74 min A headed clearance comes to Rooney, who hits a sweet volley not far wide of the near post. 72 min It looks like United have gone to a 4-4-2, with Rooney on the left and Mkhitaryan on the right. Valencia’s cross hits the upper arm of Meyler, prompting loud appeals for a penalty. That might have been given. 71 min Huddlestone is booked for a foul on Mkhitaryan, though it looked like it might have been a dive, and now Rashford replaces Mata. Wayne Rooney is still on the pitch, somehow. 70 min “Offside decisions should be overruled on artistic merit if the goal is beautiful enough,” says Ian Copestake. Likewise red cards if the foul is funny enough. Here’s exhibit A. 69 min The other problem for Hull is that they have few options from the bench, which is populated with under-21 players. The starting XI must be mentally and physically exhausted from their brilliant defensive performance. 68 min Jose Mourinho has suddenly remembered the existence of Marcus Rashford, who is getting ready to come on. 66 min It’s daft that Mkhitaryan is playing out of position on the left to accommodate Rooney. He has already made a difference. It’s sad for Rooney but he is a shadow of the player he was. 65 min Mkhitaryan’s crafty pass finds Ibrahimovic, who moves infield and is about to shoot from 20 yards when he is dispossessed by Mata. He moves into the area but overruns it and the chance is gone. Moments later, Pogba whooshes a shot not too far over the bar from 35 yards. This is much better from United. 62 min Ibrahimovic’s glorious backheeled volley puts Mata through on goal, but he is just offside. 61 min United are starting to warm up. Pogba’s pass towards Mata is blocked on the edge of the area, but Ibrahimovic reacts superbly with a snapshot that is deflected just wide for a corner. 60 min Martial’s low drive from 25 yards skims a few yards wide of the near post. That’s his final touch, with Mkhitaryan replacing him. He’s playing from the left, although that’s not his best position. 56 min “Hull kicking from left to right,” says Tom Inglis. “Might be a useful comment for a television commentator to make but doesn’t have much value in a text commentary. It depends on where you are watching from in the ground.” So when you listen to radio or read a text commentary of a football match and you picture the action in your head, where are you? Maybe you have the exact view from seat X24? Or you’ve found a portal into Mike Phelan’s brain and you see it from his point of view? How about you have the view from the Eiffel Tower? 55 min Mkhitaryan is getting ready to come. Juan Mata’s heart sinks. But it doesn’t need to, because the subdued Martial is going off. 53 min “Do your boys understand the difference between half - and full - time?” says David Davies. “Quality Journalism?” Have you any idea how exhilarating it is to have you as a digital friend? 52 min Rashford and Mkhitaryan are warming up for United. A couple of tea ladies are warming up for Hull. 49 min It’s John Cusack weather in Hull, with the rain really thumping down. Shaw’s chipped cross loops up off a defender and into the box. Rooney reacts smartly to get there first but there is no pace on the ball and his header is straight at Jakupovic. 48 min Shaun Maloney, who scored a famous and significant winning goal against United in 2011-12, replaces Snodgrass. 47 min Snodgrass is down again. There was nobody near him when he went down, so presumably it’s the same leg injury he suffered when he slid into the near post. That’s such a shame as he is a really lovely player to watch, and of course it’s the last thing Hull need. 46 min Peep peep! Hull begin the second half, kicking from left to right. “The combination of Rooney, Fellaini, Mata, Ibrahimovic through the middle is much too slow,” says Chad Noyes. “He needs to give someone else a chance.” If only he had one of the most talented teenagers in the world on the bench. “Rob,” says Francis Mead. “I think you’re being a tad negative about Utd. I think they played with quite a lot of freedom on the first half - were clearly the better team and are slightly unfortunate to not be ahead. It doesn’t feel like a Van Gaal performance to me - but you could say I’m seeing through Jose-tinted eyes.” That’s the difference: the great managers don’t tint spectacles, they tint eyes. I agree, they were the better team - but of the front four, Martial is out of form and Rooney and Mata are not at the standard United will need to win the Premier League this season, so it puts a lot on Ibrahimovic. A fine defensive performance from Hull, who have also had a couple of chances on the break. United have been too slow in possession. See you in 10 minutes for the second half. 45+2 min Clucas plays a really nice pass towards the edge of the area, where Hernandez’s low, first-time drive is too close to De Gea and comfortably saved. 45 min Ibrahimovic stretches out a telescopic leg to bring down Rooney’s free-kick and take it around Jakupovic in one movement, but it goes a fraction too far and his second touch is an improvised backheel into the side netting. I think he had been given offside anyway. 44 min “I don’t think I’ve seen a more miserable looking bunch than the Manchester United bench just then,” says John Tumbridge. Well, you say that. 43 min Valencia’s flat cross finds the head of Mata, who flicks a clever header across goal from 15 yards. It was a comfortable save for Jakupovic but a decent effort. 42 min This might be a day for the subtler skills of Herrera and Rashford. Hull have kept United out with few alarms. 40 min If you’re just joining us the big news is that Ugly House to Lovely House is on Channel 4, and you’d be better off watching that. 39 min Ibrahimovic, dropping deep, plays a cracking through pass to find Rooney on the right of the box. He cuts back a fine first-time cross towards Martial, who isn’t as alert as he might be and doesn’t take advantage of the opportunity. 37 min A great chance for United. Mata beats Robertson beautifully without touching the ball and crosses into the six-yard box. The diving Jakupovic palms it out to Rooney, who shoots first time from six yards. Huddlestone’s tackle takes a little bit of pace of the ball, and then Davies chests it off the line. Rooney appeals for a penalty but it looked like it was chest rather than hand. 36 min Hernandez’s flicked header from the edge of the area is comfortably held by the plunging De Gea. It was a decent effort though, and Hull are playing admirably. 35 min Curtis Davies should be in the England squad, shouldn’t he? He has been terrific so far, as usual 34 min Mata is shoved over just outside the D by Diomande, a silly foul to give away. It looks like Mata is going to take it. He does, and it’s a meek effort that is held down by his feet by Jakupovic. 33 min “What is this dark power Fellaini has over managers?” says Hubert O’Hearn. “How does the great gallumphing foul-o-matic still start for supposed title challengers? It surely isn’t his sunny personality that charms them.” Yeah, I thought Schneiderlin might be Mourinho’s sort but I’m not sure what’s going on there. 32 min Pogba, bored of this increasingly tedious nonsense, hits a bouncing shot from 25 yards that kicks up and is comfortably held by Jakupovic. 30 min “Rooney has scored 1 and assisted 1 in the first 2 games for United this season,” says Dan McGarry. “It’s time people gave the lad some respect. Fans always complaining about loyalty, there aren’t many players to have delivered so consistently year in year out for one team. Loyalty goes two ways. He’s a Utd legend.” I agree: he has scored one and assisted one in the first two games. 29 min Snodgrass is back on, though he is running a little gingerly and may have to go off. 28 min “Can we assume Henrik Mkhitaryan has joined Juan Mata and Bastien Schweinsteiger in the massed ranks of people whose lives Jose wants to make unhappy?” asks Daniel Brooke. I just assumed it was a Pires/Sunderland type of thing. 26 min A magnificent pass from Huddlestone to Diomande sets Hull on the counter-attack. He plays it back to the left-back Robertson, who curls a wonderful cross towards Snodgrass at the far post, and Shaw defends superbly to save a probable goal. Snodgrass’s momentum takes him through into the post and he’s receiving treatment. Hull could win this you know. Their gameplan has bee immaculate so far. 24 min The free-kick is 28 yards from goal, almost perfectly central, and Snodgrass will take it. It’s a lovely curling effort, over the wall and just wide of the right-hand post with De Gea motionless. He has a gorgeous left foot, does Snodgrass. 23 min A good ball from Huddlestone finds Diomande, who is fouled 25 yards from goal by Fellaini. He is booked and can have no complaints. Correction: he should have no complaints, but he’s a footballer so complain is precisely what he does. 21 min It’s a surprise to see that Hull have had 41 per cent of the possession because it feels like they have been camped in their own half. 19 min Ibrahimovic’s shot from the edge of the area is blocked. This has, so far, been like watching Van Gaal’s United. The difference is that now they have more players who can produce a goal out of nothing, but it’s a reminder that they are still in transition. I would guess that, of this XI, only two or three will be in the first XI in two years’ time. 17 min “You have to answer us Rob,” says Archith Mohan. “Why is Rooney in this team!!!” I haven’t a clue. The only sensible explanation I can come up with is that Mourinho didn’t want the political hassle of dropping him early on, so will bide his time and phase him out. But you risk losing important points by doing that. 15 min This United attack still looks a little slow, with only Martial of the front six having real pace. That is allowing Hull to defend relatively comfortably for the time being. 13 min The full-backs are very important for United in this system, and so far they haven’t really been in the game going forward. 12 min Hull will be pleased with this start. They look compact defensively and have hinted at doing something on the break. 10 min The first half chance for United. Martial’s clipped cross from a narrow position is headed just over the bar by Ibrahimovic, 12 yards from goal. Some of the United fans thought it was in. It was a terrific effort because he was facing away from goal and the cross wasn’t the greatest. 7 min “Contrary to the popular view of Mike Phelan’s job, I reckon it’s so easy, I could do it,” says Gary Naylor. “You take the register on Friday and make sure the kit man has the corresponding shirts washed and you send them out on Saturday with a hearty handshake and hope for the best. Yep - I could do that.” Now I think about it, you and Mike Phelan have never been seen in the same room. At least not one without a mirror. 6 min Snodgrass curls the free-kick into the wall, and Huddlestone rakes the rebound into orbit. 5 min Fellaini drags Diomande over 22 yards from goal, a needless free-kick. It’s a fair way to the right of centre, but Snodgrass won’t mind that. 3 min A good move from United involving Pogba, Ibrahimovic, Rooney, Mata and then Valencia, whose deep cross is pulled out of the air by Ibrahimovic with a remarkable scorpion kick. It goes back across the face of goal before being cleared. 2 min A nice pass from Pogba allows Martial to open his legs, but it’s Elmohamady who shows his class with a strong interception. 1 min There’s a fine atmosphere at the Whateveritscalledthesedays Stadium. United kick off from left to right. The players emerge into the open. “Your Saturday night starts here!” says the BT Sport commentator Darren Fletcher, callously failing to acknowledge those who have been quaffing pints of Fleeting Happiness Facilitator since midday. So, both teams are unchanged from their Premier League matches last weekend. “We’ve got real strength in depth,” smiles Mike Phelan, who now has 14 senior players after the return of Harry Maguire. Hull (4-3-3) Jakupovic; Elmohamady, Livermore, Davies, Robertson; Huddlestone, Clucas, Meyler; Snodgrass, Hernandez, Diomande. Substitutes: Kuciak, Maguire, Maloney, Olley, Clackstone, Hinchcliffe, Bowen. Man Utd (4-2-3-1) De Gea; Valencia, Bailly, Blind, Shaw; Pogba, Fellaini; Mata, Rooney, Martial; Ibrahimovic. Substitutes: Romero, Smalling, Herrera, Mkhitaryan, Schneiderlin, Young, Rashford. Referee Jon Moss. Hello, good evening and put that bloody smartphone down for just two minutes will you. In a post-Leicester Premier League, we are desensitised to surprise. But Hull forming a temporary Big Four with Chelsea and the two Manchester clubs was on the WTF side of unexpected. Those four teams are the only ones with 100 per cent record in this season’s Premier League, and two of them - Hull and Manchester United - meet in the evening game at the elegantly named KCOM Stadium. Hull know this won’t last, and that life begins at 40 – the points total that usually guarantees safety. United don’t know their exact target, but they do know it’s a big one. In the two seasons that Jose Mourinho and Pep Guardiola did battle in La Liga, they finished second with 92 and 91 points respectively. After last season’s endearing, old-fashioned competitiveness, when anyone could at least draw with anyone, it seems likely that the bar will be raised this year. The highest total by a team that did not win the English top flight was Manchester United’s 89 in Sergio Aguero season. If only they hadn’t drawn with Stoke in September. It was Mourinho who made everyone in England, particularly Sir Alex Ferguson, realise that the points you win in August are worth the same as the ones you win in April. He won’t be happy unless United get three of them today. Kick off is at 5.30pm.
Under the Gun review – gun control polemic hits its target One of the themes of the films shown at Sundance this year is America’s gun control debate and its consequences. There’s the drama Dark Night and the documentary Newtown, as well as various short films which look down the barrel and ask why can’t progress seem to be made. Under the Gun is possibly the most high profile of them all, and comes from a team with a legacy of thought-provoking advocacy projects. Directed by Stephanie Soechtig and produced by US anchor Katie Couric, the team take the same approach they did highlighting the environmental impact of bottled water (in Tapped), and the issue of obesity and sugar addiction (Fed Up). In layman’s terms, the film examines the National Rifle Association and its transformation from an organisation mostly interested in marksmanship and gun safety, to the lobbying powerhouse it is today. Through a step-by-step guide Soechtig shows the organisation’s evolution and how the perception of its power and influence seems somewhat skewed. She claims that 74% of its own members believe in background checks, but the majority of those are only members to receive discounts and other privileges rather than impacting on the decisions of the group’s leadership, which is headed up by Wayne LaPierre. That leadership’s influence on politicians is also sketched out with former members detailing how they pressure them into voting a certain way (one says the NRA stands for “Never Re-elected Again”). The other prong of the film is a series of interviews with the families of gun violence victims, from the parents of children massacred at Sandy Hook elementary school to those shot dead on the streets of Chicago, whose cases are largely ignored. It’s bracing stuff that humanises the argument and shows the damages that are left behind. Those families begin to organise and protest, and one of the film’s most staggering scenes is when they go up against NRA supporters in Chicago who argue to their faces that more guns would have saved their loved ones’ lives. There’s a lot to get through with Soechtig’s film, unpacking everything from straw purchases (when someone buys the gun on behalf of a person prohibited to have one) at gun shows, to the way the NRA lobbied to ensure the ATF could keep no electronic files on gun ownership and therefore has to track guns used in incidents via a stack of paper in storage containers. Information such as the fact there are more gun dealerships than branches of McDonald’s and Starbucks combined are used to shock and convince viewers that ultimately something must be done. It’s not all doom and gloom though, as at a state level laws are being passed to ensure universal background checks are in place – so far there are 18 states, but organisers say getting to 25 would be the real tipping point. It’s a tight, slick polemic which doesn’t shy from the complexity surrounding the debate or the fact it wants you the viewer to get up and do something about it. With Soechtig’s track record, more than a few people probably will.
Trump's new right-hand man has history of controversial clients and deals For almost four decades, Donald Trump’s newly installed senior campaign adviser, Paul Manafort, has managed to juggle two different worlds: well known during US election season as a shrewd and tough political operative, he also boasts a hefty résumé as a consultant to or lobbyist for controversial foreign leaders and oligarchs with unsavory reputations. The controversial clients Manafort has represented have paid him and his firms millions of dollars and form a who’s who of authoritarian leaders and scandal-plagued businessmen in Ukraine, Russia, the Philippines and more. On some occasions, Manafort has become involved in business deals that have sparked litigation and allegations of impropriety. In 1985, Manafort and his first lobbying firm, Black Manafort Stone & Kelly, signed a $1m contract with a Philippine business group to promote dictator Ferdinand Marcos just a few months before his regime was overthrown and he fled the country. In the mid-1990s, Manafort reportedly received almost $90,000 from a Lebanese-born businessman and arms merchant to advise French presidential candidate and then prime minister Edouard Balladur, a controversial payment that surfaced as part of a long running French investigation – dubbed the Karachi affair – into allegations that funds, including those Manafort received, came from an arms sale of French submarines to Pakistan and were illegally funneled into the French presidential campaign. And in 2010, Manafort helped pro-Russian candidate Viktor Yanukovych remake his tarnished image and win a presidential election in Ukraine. The effort was arguably the high point in a decade of political and business consulting in that country involving figures such as gas tycoon Dmytro Firtash, who was separately charged in 2014 by US officials with being part of a bribery scheme in India. The US has sought to have him extradited from Austria, where he was arrested. Firtash and a billionaire Russian oligarch, Oleg Deripaska, also worked with Manafort on separate byzantine investment deals in New York and Ukraine, respectively, that have led to lawsuits. The financial dividends that the globetrotting 67-year-old Manafort reaped from these clients and others are palpable: he has homes in Alexandria, Virginia, Palm Beach, Florida, and the Hamptons, in New York, where his house is valued at almost $5.3m, according to property records. For good measure, Manafort has a condo in Trump Tower. But some former US Department of State officials familiar with Manafort say his track record as an international adviser may create new headaches for a campaign that has already been criticized for its weak foreign policy credentials and for Trump’s controversial pronouncements and stances, including his warm words for Vladimir Putin, an ally of ex-Manafort client Yanukovych. “Advising Yanukovych is like putting lipstick on a pig,” said David Kramer, who was a top state department official handling Ukrainian and Russian issues in the second half of the George W Bush administration. Yanukovych, who was ousted in early 2014 and now lives in Russia, was “someone who was involved in massive corruption and had blood on his hands”, he added. Likewise, some foreign analysts who track Ukraine and Russia voice strong concerns about Manafort’s work and question Trump’s judgment in bringing him on. “Any presidential candidate should properly vet the backgrounds of and moral decisions of the people he picks to advise him,” said Atlantic Council deputy director Alina Polyakova, adding that Manafort’s past work in Ukraine “absolutely should cast a shadow on Trump’s campaign”. And some GOP insiders voice similar concerns. “Putin is not very popular in the US,” one party veteran operative dryly observed. “Working for his allies probably demands some explanation on Trump’s behalf.” Similar issues about Manafort have arisen before: his work in Ukraine sparked a decision not to bring him on board as John McCain’s convention manager in 2008, according to people close to the McCain campaign. Nevertheless, Manafort’s role with Trump has expanded quickly since he was tapped in late March to manage Trump’s convention operation and round up delegates, a speciality of Manafort’s going back to the 1976 GOP convention, when he worked for Gerald Ford’s campaign. Now, Manafort is opening a Washington DC office and hiring some key staffers – including a few former lobbyists who have worked with him over the years, as Politico first reported – as the campaign tries to fend off critics and wrap up the nomination. Ed Rollins, who managed Ronald Reagan’s 1984 campaign, told the that Manafort did a “good job” working for him as convention manager. “He’s a good operative and will help Trump.” “Paul has become the public face of the campaign in addition to Trump and has the authority to speak for Trump, which nobody has really had before,” said Charlie Black, his lobbying partner for almost 15 years at Black Manafort Stone & Kelly. But Black, who is supporting Ohio governor John Kasich, adds that Manafort’s recent comments at a private Republican national committee meeting where he tried to assuage critics by saying that Trump has just been “projecting an image” and that “the part he’s been playing is now evolving” represented a risky and difficult makeover. “I’ve known Trump for 30 years and he’s had the same personality. Whether or not he can win, it’s a mistake to try to change him into something he’s not,” Black said. Some GOP fundraisers are also dubious about whether Trump and his top aides can pull off such a makeover. “I wish him good luck in altering Trump’s candidacy,” said Mel Sembler, a top fundraiser for the Super Pac Right to Rise that was backing Jeb Bush, and a former ambassador during the George W Bush presidency. Manafort’s remarks at the RNC meeting, which were meant to be private but were secretly recorded, seem to have briefly roiled the campaign and irritated Trump, whom Manafort likes to call the “boss”, GOP sources say. Feeling some heat, Manafort over the weekend tried to walk back his comments, saying on Fox News that “we’re evolving the campaign, not the candidate”. On Saturday, Trump told a crowd at a rally in Connecticut: “I’m not toning it down.” Eyebrows have also been raised over several new hires on Manafort’s brief watch, which include a few ex-lobbyists and consultants – such as Rick Gates, who handled some Ukraine-related projects for Manafort in largely administrative functions – who have little campaign experience. Still, Manafort seems to be moving fast to consolidate his power and in some ways supersede campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, who has been enmeshed in controversies over his rough treatment of a reporter. Manafort’s ties with Trump stretch back a long way: Trump turned to Manafort’s first lobbying firm in Washington in the late 80s for lobbying help for the Trump Organization. Trump forged close ties with Manafort’s then partner Roger Stone, who became a confidante of the billionaire and is now an informal campaign adviser who had a role in promoting Manafort’s hiring. But Manafort’s work in Ukraine and his links to some scandal-plagued business figures, such as the oligarchs Firtash and Deripaska, and the arms dealer Abdul Rahman el-Assir, could wind up embarrassing the Trump campaign – especially given its repeated attacks on Washington insiders and lobbyists for special interests. Based on documents and sources close to Manafort, the has learned new details about a few of the controversial leaders and business figures Manafort has lobbied for or advised during his decades as a Washington insider. Manafort had long business and social ties to businessman and international arms dealer El-Assir, whom the lobbyist reportedly told investigators in 2013 had paid him almost $87,000 in 1994 for advising French presidential candidate Balladur. The funds Manafort received drew scrutiny in France as part of the lengthy probe into whether proceeds from the sale of French submarines to Pakistan, which was brokered by El-Assir and another weapons merchant, were illegally funneled into Balladur’s presidential campaign. Manafort was interviewed by US Justice Department officials in 2013 at the request of the French government. Richard Hibey, Manafort’s attorney, said that he didn’t have any evidence that Manafort received $87,000 and that he didn’t know of payments made by El-Assir to him for the campaign work. Hibey said he was aware of $34,000 that was paid to Manafort’s firm for polling that he did for Balladur’s campaign. Manafort’s lobbying firm in Washington also did some tax and other work for El-Assir, who was chairman of the Houston-based Gulf Interstate Engineering company, according to sources familiar with the firm’s work, and the two men socialized in Washington and in Europe. Manafort’s ties with El-Assir go back to the 1980s, according to two people familiar with them and a published account in France. El-Assir has said that in 1988, Manafort introduced him to Pakistani leader Benazir Bhutto, whose government Manafort’s firm represented in Washington for a few years. Manafort later lobbied from 1990 to 1995 for the Kashmiri American Council – as Yahoo News recently reported – which was revealed as a Washington-based front group for Pakistan’s spy agency ISI when the US Department of Justice charged it in 2011 with covertly influencing US policy towards Kashmir, the long-disputed area between Pakistan and India. The Kashmiri council’s director, Syed Ghulam Nabi Fai, pleaded guilty to conspiracy and tax fraud charges, and was sentenced to two years in federal prison. Manafort’s work in Ukraine began in 2005 for the country’s leading oligarch, steel and mining billionaire Rinat Akhmetov, and led to a multi-year stint advising ousted president Yanukovych, an ally of the oligarch. For at least a few years, Manafort’s Ukraine work earned him in the low seven figures annually, according to a person familiar with his operation in Ukraine. Manafort’s team in Ukraine at various times included some American operatives, such as Gates, and Konstantin Kilimnik, a former official with the International Republican Institute in Moscow, said the source familiar with the Ukraine work. Manafort has been credited with helping to reshape Yanukovych’s image to make him a more appealing candidate in 2010 by, among other things, getting him to speak Ukrainian instead of Russian, which he had done in past campaigns. Both before and after his 2010 victory, sources say that Manafort would meet periodically with high-level officials in the US embassy in Kiev and often tout Yanukovych’s pro-free market and pro-business views with an eye to buffing his image. Manafort’s job wasn’t easy, say people familiar with Yanukovych. “His client was somebody who had a very troubled reputation,” said former Bush State Department official David Kramer. In 2008, Manafort teamed up with real estate executive Brad Zackson, who was a top aide to Trump’s father Fred, and others in a real estate scheme to buy prime properties in the US, including the famed Drake Hotel site in New York, and elsewhere, mainly on behalf of Ukrainian gas billionaire Firtash, another backer of Yanukovych. No deals were ever completed; in 2011 a civil racketeering suit that alleged money laundering in excess of $25m was filed against Firtash, Manafort and several affiliated companies by then jailed Ukrainian political opposition leader and Firtash business competitor Yulia Tymoshenko. But a New York court dismissed the charges on procedural and jurisdictional grounds. Like Yanukovych, Firtash had a troubled reputation. Former US ambassador William Taylor said in a secret memo from 2008 that in a meeting he had with him, Firtash “acknowledged ties to Russian organized crime figure Semyon Mogilevich, stating that he had needed Mogilevich’s approval to get into business in the first place”. The ties that Manafort had with Firtash – which included three meetings in 2008, according to documents that were part of the lawsuit – in their abortive real estate ventures involved a maze of companies and solicitations of investors with dubious backgrounds. One key example: a private equity company called Pericles Emerging Markets Partners, which Manafort helped set up with funding from Russian investors. A principal one, an informed source says, was aluminum oligarch and Putin favorite Deripaska, who at the time was barred from entering the US due to concerns about organized crime links. According to a 2014 Cayman Islands court filing, the Russian investors charged in a petition that about $26m they had invested with the Cayman-based Pericles – via an offshore entity in Cyprus that the Russians controlled – to acquire a Ukrainian cable TV company and an internet venture was unaccounted for by Manafort and his partner Gates. The court petition from the Russian entity in Cyprus (known as Surf Horizons) said that the two men had failed to reply to requests for information since 2011 about the status of their Ukrainian investment – which was slated to be sold off – and that Manafort and Gates had “disappeared”. The court filing shows that Surf Horizon was seeking to recover as much of its investment as possible through a liquidation of Pericles. The court quickly issued a ruling in favor of the Russian investors to help them recoup funding by putting Pericles into liquidation. As Yahoo News reported, the Cayman court sought discovery from a federal court in Virginia, which ordered Manafort, Gates and others to give depositions in the US about Pericles and the Ukrainian investments in 2015; Hibey, Manafort’s attorney, told the that his client and others had complied last year and there had been no further requests in the US. in the states. Manafort failed to respond to several queries about his Ukraine work, as well as his ties to El-Assir, Deripaska and Pericles. In an interview with Fox News on Sunday, he defended his work for Yanukovych: “The role I played in that administration was to help bring Ukraine into Europe and we did.” Despite Manafort’s years of controversial lobbying and foreign consulting, and the flap over his RNC comments, there is evidence that, for now anyway, his roles in the Trump campaign have been growing. “Manafort has an ever-expanding portfolio,” said a senior GOP operative, including “messaging and overall strategy”. Manafort, the operative said, recently suggested Trump deliver a major foreign policy talk in Washington, something that took place on Wednesday, drawing mostly negative reviews from policy experts.
Top supermarkets refuse to sign UK firms' anti-Brexit letter Sainsbury’s, Morrisons and Tesco have refused to sign a letter from Britain’s biggest companies in support of the UK remaining inside the European Union. It is understood that more than half of Britain’s leading companies have put their name to a letter to be published on Tuesday backing a referendum vote to remain in the EU. But the supermarket chains, which declined to back either side ahead of the Scottish referendum, said the choice over whether to continue belonging to the EU was one for the British people. The decision to write a joint letter in support of staying in the EU follows the announcement at the weekend by David Cameron that the government will set a 23 June date for a referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU. The prime minister said he named the date after concluding negotiations on a new settlement with the other 27 members of the bloc. Cameron said his focus on expanding the single market and stemming the tide of regulations would support jobs and growth. He also stressed that Britain could put a brake on plans for it to be part of an ever-closer union following his agreement with EU leaders. It is believed the boards of all three supermarket chains were unwilling to upset shoppers who will vote on whether to regain independence after more than 40 years of EU membership. This concern is not expected to stop others among the UK’s top companies, including HSBC and Virgin, from supporting the campaign to maintain EU membership, alongside British multinationals Shell, BAE Systems, BT and mining firm Rio Tinto. Tesco said in a statement: “The referendum on EU membership is a decision for the people of Britain. Whatever that decision is, our focus will continue to be on serving customers.” A spokeswoman for Sainsbury’s said it was an “apolitical organisation” and the vote on Europe was a “matter for the British people”. This policy was broken by Sainsbury’s former chief executive, Justin King, who was a few months from quitting the business in 2014 when he said an independent Scotland would pay more for its groceries. Sainsbury’s, Morrisons and Tesco have all concluded that backing a vote to stay in the EU could deter customers, despite having built different retail operations. Sainsbury’s and Morrisons only operate in the UK, while Tesco, the UK’s largest retailer, has established itself as a leading business overseas. Tesco is one of the largest supermarket chains in Ireland and is heavily involved in eastern Europe. It has stores in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland and Hungary – all of which are EU countries. It also has stores in Turkey, China and across east Asia.
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies review – horror hybrid lacks bite A damp-squib reception for Timur Bekmambetov’s Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter in 2012 seemed at one point to have driven a stake through the heart of this long-gestating project. Now it finally arrives, helmed by Igby Goes Down director Burr Steers, who also wrote the screenplay from AL:VH author Seth Grahame-Smith’s 2009 bestseller. Sadly, Steers has solved few of the problems that have long made this mashup movie such a tricky balancing act. The 19th-century narrative imagines Britain as a walking graveyard and gives us combat-trained Bennet sisters with daggers in their garters who must navigate the treacherous waters of marriage proposals and costume balls while dispatching walking (and, irksomely, talking) corpses. Cinderella-star Lily James is well cast as the spirited Elizabeth, Sam Riley brings a touch of dourness to the role of Mr Darcy, Sally Phillips raises a giggle as Mrs Bennet, and Matt Smith is gamely gormless (“Oh, fuddle”) as Parson Collins. Yet torn between Austen and the undead, Steers seems unsure how straight to play either element, blunting comedy, horror and romance alike. The result lacks bite – the one element that zombies and Austen should have in common.
Hillary Clinton sets sights on Congress as Donald Trump attacks his accusers With the presidential election 17 days away, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton both focused on other targets on Saturday. Trump used what was billed as a major policy address to threaten lawsuits against women who have accused him of sexual misconduct, hours before a new accuser came forward. Clinton, ahead in national polls by around six points, shifted her focus to the Senate and the House. Speaking in Pittsburgh, Clinton turned her focus on to the incumbent Republican Pennsylvania senator Pat Toomey, who faces a tough re-election fight against Democrat Katie McGinty. Clinton boosted the challenger while criticizing Toomey, who has yet to say if he will vote for Trump in November. Later, Clinton told reporters: “As we’re traveling in these last 17 days, we’re going to be emphasizing the importance of electing Democrats down the ballot.” In Gettysburg, a stone’s throw from the site of the bloodiest battle in American history, Trump showed new venom as he attacked the women who have accused him of groping and inappropriate sexual advances. “Every woman lied when they came forward to hurt my campaign, total fabrication,” Trump said of the 10 women who had then come forward to accuse him of sexual misconduct, hours before an 11th, Jessica Drake, spoke at a press conference in Los Angeles. “The events never happened,” Trump added. “All of these liars will be sued after the election is over.” Speaking to a crowd who had been invited to hear a major policy speech, he added: “It was probably the [Democratic National Committee] and the Clinton campaign that put forward these liars with these fabricated stories.” Later, speaking to reporters on her campaign plane, with running mate Tim Kaine at her side, Clinton said: “That is just not accurate.” She added: “I saw where our opponent Donald Trump went to Gettysburg, one of the most extraordinary places in American history, and basically said if he’s president he’ll spend his time suing women who have made charges against him based on his behavior. “Tim and I are going to keep talking about what we want to do if we’re given the great honor of serving as president and vice-president.” The accusations against Trump have been made after the release earlier this month of a 2005 recording of him bragging about grabbing women by the genitalia and trying to “fuck” a married woman. Trump subsequently apologized and, when questioned by moderator Anderson Cooper in the second presidential debate, denied that he had never actually engaged in such behavior. Women have since come forward to challenge that claim. Drake, a 42-year-old porn star and sex educator, said on Saturday that Trump hugged her and kissed on the lips without permission at a golf tournament in Lake Tahoe “10 years ago”. She also said Trump offered her $10,000 to return to his hotel room alone. Drake appeared at a press conference with the lawyer Gloria Allred, who released to the press a picture of Drake with Trump at the golf event. In an unattributed statement, the Trump campaign said: “This story is totally false and ridiculous. The picture is one of thousands taken out of respect for people asking to have their picture taken with Mr Trump. “Mr Trump does not know this person, does not remember this person and would have no interest in ever knowing her.” In Gettysburg, Trump also claimed the media fabricated stories to make him “look bad”, in particular, never showing or talking “about the massive crowd size” at his rallies. He returned to other familiar topics, claiming without evidence the existence of massive voter fraud and attacking Clinton. At a rally in Cleveland on Saturday evening, he said his opponent was guilty of “opening the door to unlimited drugs pouring into your community”. Trump eventually did use his speech in Gettysburg to attempt to put his policy proposals in new focus, with what his campaign had billed as his “Contract for the American Voter”. He reiterated policies such as cutting taxes, increasing military spending, implementing ethics reform in Washington and building a wall on the Mexican border. The setting for the speech – close to the battlefield where in 1863 Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address – was meant to be symbolic. Trump, campaign sources said, believes the country to be almost divided as it was during the civil war. That conflict lasted for more than four years. More than 600,000 Americans died.
Watch Taylor Swift fall off a treadmill in an Apple Music ad Apple Music: ‘Taylor vs Treadmill’ (starts at 00:04) - US With 10m views on YouTube in its first four days, this is surely set to become one of the most-watched commercials of the internet era. Taylor Swift – as the culturally attuned among you may recall – had a bit of a beef with Apple about its streaming service a little while ago. Unlike the FBI, when Taylor Swift took on Apple, she won. And now that they’ve kissed and made up, she’s even appearing in adverts for the very service they rowed about. Agency: TBWA/Media Arts Lab (USA) Director: Anthony Mandler LG: ‘Jason Stathams’ (starts at 01:08) - US Jason Statham stretches his acting ability to the limit in this light-hearted film for LG which has multiple versions of the action hero occupying an entire town. Agency: Energy BBDO (Chicago) Director: Fredrik Bond Soda Stream: ‘Heavy Bubbles’ (starts at 02:12) - Israel Soda Stream enlist some serious advertising muscle in their latest bid to promote their eco-friendly approach through a viral satire launched on April Fool’s Day. Their burly ambassador is Hafthór Júlíus ‘Thor’ Björnsson, professional strongman and occasional Game of Thrones colossus. However, the straight-talking Björnsson takes a break from filming to promote a different product – Heavy Bubbles, bottled water in bulk. Agency: Allenby Concept House Director: Vania Heymann Hornbach: ‘You’re Alive’ (starts at 03:54) - Germany This lovely advert for German DIY retailer Hornbach depicts a middle-aged man steeling himself for a spot of gardening. Then we see the same fellow - naked and poised at the top of a hill. We fear the worst as he plunges forward but we needn’t worry, it’s only a metaphor. Agency: Heimat (Berlin) Director: Tom Noakes Jason Stone is the editor of David Reviews
Screen Australia's gender strategy a good step forward, but doesn't go far enough Screen Australia’s $5m Gender Matters plan, announced in December, has been heralded as an important moment in the Australian industry, and one which should have come sooner. The policy, which closed for the first round of applications just last week, directs funds to film projects with female-driven creative teams and female protagonists. It also aims to support storytelling by women, and the professional development of women in the industry – particularly writers and directors. The aim of Gender Matters is to remedy what Screen Australia’s figures from 2014 show to be entrenched sexism in the film industry, which has been preventing women from working in key creative roles. In feature film-making, women account for 32% of producers, 16% of directors and 23% of writers. The world of documentary film-making is slightly kinder to women, but still off-kilter: women account for 46% of producers, 34% of directors and 38% of writers. All these statistics point to what seems to be a de facto bias operating in men’s favour. Screen Australia’s initiative seemed like a crucial step towards parity for the Australian film industry, but it’s worth asking: does Gender Matters go far enough? This month, Canada’s National Film Board announced its gender policy: over the course of the next three years, half its production funding would be allocated to female film-makers. The board has not created a separate funding stream for female film-makers; instead, it has made a full commitment to gender parity among directors in funding requirements. It’s a very simple course of action, and it hugely one-ups Screen Australia’s initiative. The aim of a gender policy should not be to vaguely “address the gender imbalance”, but to correct the discrimination that women face right now. If we are not aiming for parity, then what is the point? We’re just playing, tinkering around the edges, paying lip service to a feel-good idea, but not seriously tackling it. In October 2015, the Australian Directors Guild called for a 50% gender equality quota. “The screen industry has been funded by the federal government for more than four decades for reasons of cultural representation, economic stimulus, and professional development and innovation,” said the guild president, Ray Argall. “Across all these criteria the current funding is not being shared in a representative way. The [guild] is concerned with diversity of all types, but is particularly concerned with the dramatic lack of equity in the funding of women and, in particular, female directors.” Parity is not about sweet, admirable sentiments: “Wouldn’t it be nice to have more women in film!” It is about ending workplace discrimination. It’s about fixing the structural and material elements of entrenched sexism that have shut women out of the film industry for so long, holding us back from the jobs and opportunities that are more accessible to men, and effectively preventing our stories from being told. Gender parity among key creative roles of government funded films is not a utopian dream. It is entirely possible, and growing precedents suggest it may become the new policy norm: Sweden accomplished it in 2014, within two and a half years of aiming for it, and Canada is on its way. Screen NSW has set an aim for gender parity, but its target year of 2020 is too far away. If we are serious about rectifying the gender divide, we need measurable action, now. We need mandatory quotas, not optional targets, to ensure that male-dominated projects do not automatically receive the majority of public funding. The absence of a gender parity aim is not the only problem with Gender Matters. Craters have emerged in the policy’s “three-tick” test, which states that projects will benefit from the policy only if three out of four creative positions are occupied by women: director, producer, writer and protagonist. As an industry analyst and scholar, Deb Verhoeven, has pointed out, most female directors already work with female producers. It is not women film professionals who need to change for the better, but the male-dominated culture within the film industry, with its structural and insidious prejudices. Supporting the careers of individual female film-makers is important, but so is having integrated creative teams, where men and women work together and learn from each other. The Australian film industry is government subsidised. That means policy can be enacted right now to correct gender discrimination – and it is fully within the remit of Screen Australia to only fund projects that employ women in key creative positions equally. In fact, if it doesn’t move towards parity, we are wilfully directing public funds to a sector of the industry that is discriminating on the basis of gender. For an industry that’s in the business of telling stories, seeing most of them through a male lens has far-reaching cultural consequences. The only antidote to gender inequality is full equality: parity for women in key creative positions in all government-subsidised films. If we don’t explicitly aim for parity, we won’t reach it – and if we don’t reach it, we continue eroding the democratic ideals of the publicly funded film policy that Australia has pursued since the 1970s. For the next rewrite of Gender Matters, why aim for anything less?
Golden Globes 2016: just rewards for The Revenant – and an incredible coup for The Martian This was a huge night for The Revenant at the Golden Globes, the harrowing true-life story of a frontiersman’s battle to survive after being left for dead. The Hollywood Foreign Press Association gave this best motion picture (drama); the best actor (drama) prize went to its star Leonardo DiCaprio and the best director award (not split into drama and musical/comedy) went to Alejandro González Iñárritu. And yet it has to be said right away the classic Globes triumph was that other left-for-dead survival drama, Ridley Scott’s The Martian, the story of Matt Damon’s Nasa astronaut marooned on the red planet of Mars. It’s the kind of triumph that Globes fanciers find amusing, bemusing and exasperating – or, conceivably, an example of the way the Globes honourably strive to reward populist entertainment that audiences really, really like. It was enough of a head-scratcher that The Martian got nominated as best picture in the comedy/musical category, but for it to win in this list, is a coup. And what a night for Matt Damon, winning best actor in that category. As Ricky Gervais said: “The Martian is funnier than Pixels.” But what isn’t? The Globes are rightly praised for their structural bias towards comedy – that important and difficult genre – but it’s eccentric that The Martian wins big over a really funny movie like Inside Out, not nominated in that list, though a popular winner in the animation category. But back to The Revenant, a beautifully made and viscerally powerful film. The likelihood that it will go on to win Oscars makes it vulnerable to contrarian charges of machismo and self-importance, yes, but it is just so supremely well made, spectacular and cinematic: it has real ambition and power. Perhaps the surprise of the evening was Brie Larson’s win as best actress (drama) for the harrowing movie Room, based on Emma Donoghue’s novel. Again, of course, it is a survival theme, and the importance of this could perhaps be expected to trump everything else. I personally was disappointed that Saoirse Ronan did not win for her very subtle, nuanced and sympathetic performance in the romantic drama Brooklyn, as the emigrant who re-immigrates back to Ireland and confronts her own alternative possibilities of existence. Larson also came out ahead of Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara in Carol and the increasingly impressive Alicia Vikander in The Danish Girl, so this really was a career-highpoint triumph for her. Jennifer Lawrence continues to be a blue-chip award winner, picking up best actress (musical/comedy) for her intriguingly controlled but for me somewhat opaque performance in David O Russell’s Joy. She is a very charismatic screen presence, a real star, though I have Martian-type reservations about this as a musical/comedy performance (unlike her appearance in Russell’s American Hustle). However marvellous Lawrence is, I found myself wondering if she shouldn’t have been made to duke it out in the serious section and that each of her competitiors here (Amy Schumer, Melissa McCarthy, Maggie Smith and Lily Tomlin) were more qualified in this category. Once again, Kate Winslet has picked up metal, this time a best supporting actress prize, playing the long-suffering Apple executive Joanna Hoffman in the intriguingly theatrical study of the Apple founder Steve Jobs, directed by Danny Boyle and written by Aaron Sorkin, who picked up best screenplay. It was an extremely engaging performance from Winslet, self-aware, amusingly fluttery with mannerisms, in tune with the bravura jazz of Sorkin’s writing. Winslet is in a fascinating stage of her career: she can still carry off a romantic lead, but is more than capable of a withdrawing to a supporting character role, which she can turn into a scene-stealer. There is of course a potent Hollywood poignancy in the lead who evolves into a supporting player, and Sylvester Stallone’s latest Rocky performance was a popular choice as best supporting actor, playing the ageing Rocky coaching the son of his former rival: it was a humane and sympathetic idea for a sequel. Elsewhere, it was good to see Inside Out rewarded in the animation category, although there is a powerful school of thought that says it should be considered in the other categories as well. Inside Out won out over Charlie Kaufman’s remarkable stop-motion animation Anomalisa, an extraordinary sui generis piece of work which I think should get a category all of its own. One of the most extraordinary careers in cinema continues unabated: the 87-year-old Ennio Morricone, who might be expected to be showing up for awards ceremonies only to pick up stately Honorary awards, is still doing vital new creative work. His score for Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight is terrific – one of his best, and a worthy winner. Finally, and on a note of unavoidable bathos, the foreign language prize. This rightly goes to a really extraordinary film, one of the year’s best: László Nemes’s drama Son of Saul, set in the unspeakable horrors of the Nazi death camps: a prisoner becomes across a body, which he is convinced is that of his dead son. Whatever eccentricities the Golden Globes occasionally perpetrates, there was no misstep in rewarding Son of Saul. So, the outcome of the Golden Globes seems pretty clear: a huge win for The Revenant, for Alejandro González Iñárritu and for Leonardo DiCaprio, for whom the Oscar odds are shortening. As for who will win the best actress race, that is still open.
Trump calls accusers ‘horrible liars’ In a campaign speech in Florida, Donald Trump said the many women who stepped forward to accuse him of sexual assault in the past 24 hours are “horrible, horrible liars” making “vicious” allegations. Trump allegations aren’t new In an impassioned speech that electrified her audience, Michelle Obama said “enough is enough” regarding misogyny from Trump, who she said had engaged in “sexually predatory behavior”. First lady denounces Trump’s rhetoric It might take just a minute to catch up on the latest campaign news. But good journalism takes time and costs money. If you like the ’s unique politics coverage, please consider joining us by becoming a member for only $4.99 a month. Thanks for reading! Become a member Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook predicted that 2016 would see the biggest turnout for any US presidential election ever. The campaign continued to register voters in Florida, where Clinton showed a 6-point lead in one new poll. Trump, whose speeches are increasingly filled with conspiratorial thinking, described a collusion between Hillary Clinton, the media, and international banks and the elite to destroy him. Playing the blame game
And then there was one: Trump stands alone after shocking nomination race Donald Trump has finally secured a clear path to the Republican presidential nomination as his last remaining party rival signalled he would drop out of the race on Wednesday. Governor John Kasich of Ohio will formally quit the race with a statement in his home state at 5pm, following Texas senator Ted Cruz by stepping aside for Trump. The sudden capitulation sets up a November battle between Trump and Hillary Clinton for the White House, even though Bernie Sanders stayed alive in the Democratic race with a surprise win on Tuesday night in the Indiana primary. Kasich’s withdrawal, confirmed to the by a senior campaign source, marks the formal end of the most crowded and controversial race for a US presidential nomination in modern political history. The decision, made while Kasich’s plane was waiting on the tarmac at Columbus airport ahead of a planned fundraising trip, followed a similar announcement by his better-placed opponent Ted Cruz, who suspended his own campaign at an emotional press conference in Indiana on Tuesday night. “From the beginning I’ve said I will continue on as long as there is a viable path to victory – tonight I am sorry to say it appears that math has been foreclosed,” said Cruz. As the crowd shouted “no, no”, Cruz told attendees: “Together we left it out on the field. We gave it everything we got. But the voters chose another path, and so with a heavy heart but with boundless optimism for the long-term future of our nation we are suspending our campaign.” Using the word “suspension” to describe such decisions is typically a technicality designed to preserve a candidate’s legal ability to continue raising funds while the campaign winds up. Both Cruz and Kasich bowed to the near mathematical certainty that Trump will now win a clear majority of delegates, reaching the 1,237 threshold needed to clinch the nomination. And they also acknowledged calls by the Republican National Committee to unite around the “presumptive nominee”. But the scale of the political reconciliation required for this to happen was made clear on Wednesday when Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire – one of several moderate senators facing a bumpy re-election with Trump at the top of the party ballot in November – said she would be “supporting, but not endorsing” his candidacy. Arizona senator John McCain, another previously vocal opponent of Trump, said he would support the party’s nominee, but initially declined to refer to him directly by name. A former speechwriter for McCain, who was the party nominee in 2008, said he would rather vote for Hillary Clinton than Trump. Many party leaders, including opponents in the primary, will now be under similar pressure to announce their support for Trump, despite months of public misgivings about his lack of political experience, attacks on women and minorities, and poor polling numbers among independent voters. Despite fervent support among Republican primary votes, Trump suffers from the worst national opinion poll ratings of any candidate of either party since at least 1984, with 67% of Americans thinking of him unfavorably. Earlier on Wednesday, despite barely registering in Indiana, where he had encouraged supporters to vote for Cruz, Kasich issued a defiant statement suggesting he would continue to contest remaining primary elections. Taking his cue from the “May the Fourth” Star Wars celebration, Kasich released a spoof video to the film’s theme tune describing a nightmare scenario for Republicans in which Trump’s nomination ushers not just a Clinton landslide, but allows Democrats to win back control of the House of Representatives and Senate. “The country is depending on Indiana,” added Cruz on Tuesday before the primary results came in. “If Indiana does not act, this country could well plunge into the abyss … We are not a proud, boastful, self-centered, mean-spirited, hateful, bullying nation.” But Trump swept his opponents before him in the Hoosier State, clinching 53% of the votes and almost all the delegates as his strident attacks on free trade agreements and immigration appeared to resonate in a midwest state hit hard by globalisation. The New York billionaire is almost certain to face Clinton in November’s election, but voters in Indiana also showed her difficulties in fighting this economic populism. Her Democratic opponent Bernie Sanders threw a last-minute hurdle in front of Clinton’s march toward the Democratic party nomination on Tuesday by clinching a surprise victory in the Indiana primary. Despite trailing by an average of seven points in opinion polls and losing a string of bigger, more diverse states on the east coast, Sanders once again proved his appeal to disaffected midwest voters by pulling off his 18th victory of 2016, winning 52.7% of the votes to Clinton’s 47.3%. “The Clinton campaign thinks this campaign is over,” said Sanders. “They’re wrong. Maybe it’s over for the insiders and the party establishment, but the voters in Indiana had a different idea.” Nonetheless, the former secretary of state is nearly 300 pledged delegates ahead of her Vermont rival and within less than 200 delegates of crossing the finish line including the controversial superdelegates – party figures who are able to vote independently of election results and overwhelmingly back Clinton. Choosing to focus on her Republican opponent, Clinton pointedly ignored the surprise Sanders upset in favor of a full frontal attack on Trump. “Chip in now if you agree we can’t let him become president,” she urged her supporters in a swift fundraising email. And later on Wednesday, Clinton took to Twitter to unveil a new “Love trumps hate” slogan, declaring: “Unity versus division, compassion versus selfishness and love versus hate. The stakes don’t get much higher.”
Labour’s reshuffle kerfuffle is over – Corbyn must get on with the real work Jeremy Corbyn, the Arsène Wenger of politics (copyright J McDonnell), completed his shadow cabinet reshuffle in the early hours with the appointment of his north London neighbour Emily Thornberry, a sceptic about Trident, to shadow defence secretary. Maria Eagle, not a sceptic about Trident, is moved to culture. She replaces Michael Dugher, the sacking of whom had happened more than 12 hours earlier. Pat McFadden’s removal as shadow Europe minister, was the only other significant change in a reshuffle more remarkable for what didn’t happen – Hilary Benn is still shadow foreign secretary this morning – than what did. It will go down in history more for the time it took than the impact it had. It’s over now – or at least it is for the moment (Twitter is already awash with rumours of resignations from the defence team). Corbyn grew up while Harold Wilson was Labour leader. It was probably one of the defining experiences of his politics, for within a couple of years of Labour’s famous victory in the mid-60s, its leader was vilified by the left as a miserable example of failure and betrayal. History is already a little kinder. And failure always has its lessons. The point that Corbyn should remember about Wilson is that he was an instinctive leftwinger obliged by circumstance to make serial compromises with powerful voices on the right. He soon realised that the only way to keep everyone on the party bus was to drive with as much speed as it could bear and make sure no one could get off. He did, as he often pointed out, win four elections. So where to, guv? There are multiple destinations, but some are easier than others. Start at home. Flooding: this should be a perfect storm for the government. Labour could make it so. Irrational austerity has curbed critical infrastructure spending. That meant some flood defences failed and others were inadequately constructed. Add in, as the rainfall in parts of Scotland is already breaking records for the whole month, a cynical and sometimes downright destructive approach to greening the economy, and Lisa Nandy should make hay with her debate which is scheduled for the Commons this evening. For his part, Corbyn should make sure the country notices it by taking on David Cameron about his spending decisions at prime minister’s questions this afternoon. Housing, the intergenerational crisis: Conservative policy is made by the volume house builders. They only want greenfield sites where they can construct large, high-end homes that will be too expensive for the people who most need somewhere to live. Expose the myth of the so called starter-homes, over-priced and under-specced (inadequate insulation, for example). Lead the charge on the housing bill: remember, the government majority is wafer thin. Go for it ruthlessly. The health service. Here’s the moment for some new politics. You can’t take a national health service out of politics, but surely you can take it out of the political fray. Three former health ministers – Alan Milburn, the Tory Stephen Dorrell and the Lib Dem Norman Baker – have today launched a campaign for a cross-party commission on the future of the NHS. Back that call. Spending on health should be, as it briefly was with great success in the Blair years, at the EU average. Yes it’s a lot of money, much more than now, when we are spending only about 8% of GDP against an EU average of around 11%. But it’s what it takes. Don’t weaponise the NHS, de-weaponise it, by working to get acceptance of a global figure for spending as a share of GDP – and the NHS will be as secure as … Trident? Ah, Trident. Not now. It doesn’t have to be yet. Making it happen would be a revolution in British foreign policy. That is one reason why it is so appealing, but it is also why it is so fraught. Win over the unions. Educate public opinion. Meanwhile remember that sometimes, principles are best served by a fudge. Wilson wasn’t always wrong.
Amazon accused of 'intolerable conditions' at Scottish warehouse Amazon has been accused of creating “intolerable working conditions” after allegations that workers have been penalised for sick days and that some are camping near one of its warehouses to save money commuting to work. Willie Rennie, the Liberal Democrat leader in Scotland, said Amazon should be “ashamed” that workers at its warehouse in Dunfermline have chosen to camp outside in the winter. He made the comments after the the Courier newspaper published photographs of tents near the site that it said were being lived in by Amazon workers. It said at least three tents were pitched close to the warehouse by the M90 in Dunfermline and that a man living in one of them had said he was an employee who usually lives in Perth. A Sunday Times investigation found that temporary workers at the warehouse were being penalised for taking time off sick and put under pressure to hit targets for picking orders. It also claimed that although workers could walk up to 10 miles a day doing their jobs, water dispensers were regularly empty. Amazon has hired 20,000 agency workers for the peak Christmas season, more than doubling its workforce. Staff have to pay to catch an agency-provided bus to the Dunfermline site. Rennie has repeatedly called for the firm to improve conditions at its Dunfermline site and said the latest claim “chimes with the feedback I have received from local people over a long period of time”. He said: “It confirms that Amazon have created intolerable working conditions for many. The company don’t seem to be interested in keeping workers for too long as they work them until they drop. They have generated an oppressive culture where management and some workers put undue pressure on workers. “It’s time for Amazon to finally change their ways. That means a change to wages and to working conditions.” Rennie said the firm should be “ashamed that they pay their workers so little that they have to camp out in the dead of winter to make ends meet”. Amazon, which has 12 fulfilment centres around the UK, has come under fire in the past for its treatment of workers, many of whom are employed through agencies. Three years ago, an undercover reporter for the wrote about the long hours and physical work carried out for low pay, while more recently unions have claimed that workers are falling ill as a result. Online job forums have reviews by former workers which describe being expected to “work like robots” and “paranoia with job security”. Workers say overtime is compulsory and holidays banned in the busy months of November and December. When questioned about the tents, Amazon said it “provides a safe and positive workplace with competitive pay and benefits from day one”. It added: “We are proud to have been able to create several thousand new permanent roles in our UK fulfilment centres over the last five years. One of the reasons we’ve been able to attract so many people to join us is that we offer great jobs and a positive work environment with opportunities for growth. “We offer associates a range of roles in our fulfilment centres, depending on their preferences. Some roles involve walking a number of miles each day, a fact we make clear during the recruitment process. Many associates seek these positions as they enjoy the active nature of the work. There are many opportunities for people who prefer less active roles. “As with nearly all companies, we expect a certain level of performance from our associates. Productivity targets are set objectively, based on previous performance levels achieved by our workforce.” The company said it analysed wages every year to ensure they were competitive. All permanent and temporary Amazon workers start on £7.35 an hour or more and earn at least £11 an hour for overtime. There are paid 30-minute lunch breaks and subsidised meals. The new national living wage is £7.20 for workers aged over 25. Water is readily available for staff as they performed their duties, Amazon said, and it has a “fair and predictable system to record staff attendance and take into account individual circumstances”. Michael Newman, an employment lawyer at Leigh Day, said that it was legal for companies to have a policy which meant that workers were effectively penalised if they were off sick. “Absence policies are definitely becoming stricter – one example would be having a bonus or ‘attendance allowance’ that is then forfeited if the worker is off sick,” he said. “Amazon’s policy doesn’t seem particularly unusual though – the important thing is to distinguish between days off, and periods of absence. It is usually the latter that counts for unfair dismissal purposes, although many policies look at both how long you are off for, and how many times you are off.” The Labour MP Frank Field, who has been campaigning against poor conditions for self-employed workers, said the government-ordered review into working practices should issue an interim report. “Inquiries take time but over that time the injustices are growing,” he said. “There have been reports on Hermes and Uber done by my office, and now the Sunday Times investigation – there is enough information out there.”
Fresh fears hit Deutsche Bank share price Uncertainty about the size of a penalty for a decade-old misselling scandal knocked shares in Deutsche Bank lower on Monday amid renewed doubts about the ability of Germany’s biggest bank to withstand the cost of any settlement with the US Department of Justice (DoJ). With Germany’s stock market closed for a public holiday, its shares traded lower in New York as a stock research firm warned that Deutsche might want to tap shareholders for more cash in the wake of a fine. The bank’s shares had surged on Friday following reports that the settlement with the DoJ would be $5.4bn (£4.2bn) rather than the $14bn first suggested a fortnight ago. However, the absence of further news rattled US investors on Monday and Deutsche shares had fallen 3% by the time European markets were closing. Speculation about the prospect of a deal with the DoJ over the misselling of residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) between 2005 and 2007 has been fuelled by the plans of John Cryan, Deutsche’s chief executive, to attend the International Monetary Fund’s annual meeting in Washington DC. This is regarded as an opportunity to thrash out a settlement ahead of the US general election next month. But as Cryan prepared to attend the high-profile gathering he faced criticism from Germany’s minister for economic affairs, Sigmar Gabriel, for blaming speculators for the dive in the bank’s shares to 30-year lows. “I did not know if I should laugh or cry that the bank that made speculation a business model is now saying it is a victim of speculators,” Gabriel said. He was responding to the memo Cryan sent to 100,000 employees on Friday blaming “forces in the market” for destabilising the bank. Cryan is in the process of restructuring the bank and, according to reports, is close to achieving the agreement with local unions to cut 1,000 jobs. Cryan has insisted that he does not need the help of the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, to prop up the bank, which has lost more than half its value on the stock market this year and is regarded by the IMF as the world’s riskiest bank. A research note by brokers at Autonomous, cited by Bloomberg, said investors regarded a rights issue – a cash call on existing shareholders – as the “most likely tool management will use” to bolster market sentiment. But the ratings agency Moody’s said it regarded any deal with the DoJ as more likely to knock profits rather than undermine its financial strength. Peter Nerby, senior vice-president at Moody’s, calculated that Deutsche could face a settlement of between $1.1bn and $5.7bn by analysing the size of agreements the DoJ has reached with US banks. Even at the higher end, Nerby said: “This would require an addition to our assumed DoJ settlement reserve of €2.4 bn, which would dent 2016 profitability but would not significantly impair its capital position.” Friday’s report by the news agency AFP that Deutsche might pay $5.4bn helped bolster its shares, although the Wall Street Journal cautioned on Monday that neither the DoJ or Deutsche had yet agreed on a deal. Deutsche is one of a number of European banks – including Barclays and Royal Bank of Scotland – that face settlements with the DoJ. RBS, which could face a bill of £9bn from the DoJ, is in the process of tackling as many as 20 lawsuits relating to the matter. On Monday, the state of Connecticut said the 73% taxpayer-owned bank had agreed a $120m settlement over misselling RMBS.
Trump v Clinton is ugly, but it’s not the dirtiest US election ever As the markets tremble, the polls tighten, the bookies scramble to adjust the odds, and the US presidential race enters its final, frantic days, the rhetoric – from the president down – grows more hysterical by the hour. If we are to believe Barack Obama, the fate of the civilised world hangs in the balance as America faces an imminent electoral apocalypse after the “dirtiest campaign ever”. To the uninitiated, the Donald Trump insurgency must look like the nadir of democracy, more about “pussy” than politics. How, you might ask, could a powerful, multi-ethnic country, where women voters outnumber men by several million, seriously consider electing a man whose name is synonymous with xenophobia, racism and misogyny? As this vituperative and volatile encounter approaches its climax on Tuesday, you might think: Is this not the worst? Actually, the US electorate has been here before, many times, going back to the 1780s, in elections replete with assassination, corruption, rhetorical vitriol, and good old “dirty tricks”. The meat-grinding process by which the American democratic sausage is made has always fallen a long way short of edifying. In 1968, the primary season was scarred by the violent deaths of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy. On election day itself, Hubert Humphrey, who had trailed Richard Nixon in the polls for weeks, ran Tricky Dicky so close that the networks could not declare the result until morning. Closer still was the Nixon-Kennedy contest of 1960. John F Kennedy scraped 112,827 (0.17%) more votes than Nixon nationwide, allegedly through the corrupt intervention of the mayor of Chicago, Richard Daley. Although Nixon won the popular vote in more individual states (26 to 22), Kennedy won an electoral college victory of 303 to 219. Overall, 1960 was the closest election since 1916 and remains famously suspenseful. It too was held on 8 November. Trump may have plumbed the depths of vulgarity, sleaze and pig-ignorance, but he is anticipated by the politics of the 1850s, in the decade before Abraham Lincoln’s presidency. Not many now remember Millard Fillmore or his supporters, the self-styled “Know Nothings”, but these wild patriots, the forefathers of the angry white males who chant “lock her up”, prefigure many aspects of the Trump campaign, promising to “purify” American politics. The Know Nothings exploited popular fears that the country was being overwhelmed by immigrants, who were seen as enemies of the republic and, more sinister still, controlled by the pope. The party was most active from 1854 to 1856 and had a champion in Fillmore (one of the worst US presidents). Lincoln himself wrote to a friend, “I am not a Know Nothing. How could I be? … Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we began by declaring that ‘All men are created equal’ … When the Know Nothings get control, it will read ‘All men are created equal, except negroes and foreigners and Catholics.’” Ordinary, decent Americans were aghast when Trump appeared to encourage the gun lobby to defend “the second amendment” by directing their protest (and their weapons) against Hillary Clinton. At least he did not, as Aaron Burr did in 1804, actually fight a duel with one of his political adversaries. Burr, who was Thomas Jefferson’s vice-president at the time, mortally wounded Alexander Hamilton, and charged with murder had to flee to safety in the south. Rhetorically, the mudslinging inspired by Jefferson’s two successful campaigns for the presidency was often as ugly as anything heard on the stump with Trump and “crooked Hillary”. In the 1800 presidential election, Jefferson fought John Adams, whose supporters charged that Jefferson was a godless libertine in thrall to the French. This election was said to have been “one of the most acrimonious in the annals of American history”. More than 200 years later, many commentators believe that the US system is broken. But it has seemed broken before and somehow staggers on. From some points of view, the ferocity of Trump v Clinton is evidence of vigour not breakdown. However, some observers are wondering if the shock that would reform the system might destroy it.
Manchester United 2-0 Crystal Palace: Premier League – as it happened We’re going to wrap this blog up now. United go to Wembley on Saturday with confidence; Palace need to improve significantly. Thanks for reading. Bye! Everton have been stuffed. Read more here: And West Ham comfortably beat Watford, 3-1. A comfortable, and impressive, victory from Man United: they needed to win, and they did, and looked assured in doing so. Palace were pretty hopeless, to be honest, and never recovered from that terrible start, but United played with authority in midfield, and they could have scored more goals. Mata, Rooney and Rashford were the pick of the United players, and Louis van Gaal’s team move just a point behind Arsenal, who host West Brom tomorrow. That’s it. 90 min +3: Old Trafford has emptied extremely quickly. Palace have barely put together an attack. 90 min +2: Valencia gets clear on the right after nice work between Memphis and Blind, but Fellaini is whistled for climbing. That’s not like him. 90 min: Mata is nearly in, and his touch is perfect, but he’s crowded out by a posse of defenders and Palace clear. Three added minutes. 89 min: David de Gea has had such an easy night. He’s barely had anything to do. Palace have been so ineffective. 88 min: One disappointing aspect of United’s play tonight has been their crossing. They’ve been very impressive in possession, but if their final ball was better, this could have been four or five. Where’s David Beckham when you need him? 87 min: Memphis worries Kelly by the touchline and wins a corner after a lovely elastico, but he might have done better. The corner, predictably, is a waste of time. 85 min: Again, nice build-up from United, and Martial, this time on the right, is free in acres of space … and he spanks his cross out of play for a throw. Appalling. 84 min: United happy to keep the ball. But that’s an incisive pass from Herrera to set Valencia free – disappointingly for United, the cross was poor. 82 min: Palace look thoroughly disheartened. They don’t look like scoring. Weirdly, Palace have never beaten United in the Premier League. 81 min: Memphis goes for goal from the left, but Mariappa does well to get a toe on it and send it wide for a corner. Taken short, and wasted. 80 min: Smalling and Mutch clash as Palace look to break, and for a moment Smalling looked like he was hurt, but he’ll be OK. 79 min: Memphis wins a corner after nice work from Darmian. The Dutchman takes it, and Smalling is nearly in! He just couldn’t quite get a toe on it. Final change for United: Fellaini on for Rooney, who receives warm applause. 77 min: Lovely combination between Mata, Herrera and Valencia, but Delaney is across to cover well. Valencia was nearly in. 76 min: Well, that tactical strategy is dead in the water, because Adebayor is replaced by Connor Wickham. 75 min: Palace win a free kick on halfway, and McArthur smacks it into the United box, where panic reigns, but Adebayor can’t quite make it count. Maybe that’s Palace’s best option: go direct, and hope Adebayor can get some joy against one of United’s full-backs. 74 min: I think I’m right in saying that Palace haven’t had a shot on target. Their display has been lame, in truth. Not the best warm-up for Sunday. 72 min: Mata takes it short, and nearly finds Lingard for a shooting chance on the end, but Palace do well to hustle it clear. Now Smalling attacks the second ball, but he can’t get the power, and it slips behind. Ander Herrera is on for Jesse Lingard, who can look back on a solid night’s work. 71 min: Rooney fizzes one across goal, and Mariappa heads behind. Superb cross, and well defended. Corner. 70 min: Rooney looks crossfield for Valencia, who’s pushed up really high against Souaré, but the pass is overhit, and it’s a Palace throw. Twenty minutes to go, and United look in the mood for more goals. 67 min: It looks as though Martial is now playing through the centre. Memphis is wide left. United completely in charge of possession, and Palace look forlorn. 65 min: United seem to be enjoying themselves here. Put the flags up! Another change for Palace, and James McArthur is on for Cabaye. 64 min: Rashford receives a hearty reception from the United fans, and many hi-fives from the United bench. He’s been excellent tonight. Memphis is on in his place. 63 min: Sako goes for goal from about 35 miles out. It’s deflected off the wall, headed up in the air, and De Gea claims. 62 min: Oh, that should have been three! First Lingard, then Rashford, but Speroni does well, and then bollocks his defence for some slack play. Then Palace break, Darmian shoves Zaha, and the Italian is booked. 61 min: Mata and Lingard have switched positions effectively tonight: they’ve been at the heart of United’s best moments. 60 min: Jordon Mutch is on for Lee Chung-yong, who’s been quiet. Palace have been second best tonight. 58 min: Actually, I misspoke: Darmian’s goal wasn’t a volley – it was a bouncing ball. But he hit it really well. A goal and an assist tonight for the Italian. 56 min: That was Darmian’s first Manchester United goal, and what a goal it was. Such a pure strike! Speroni grasped thin air. Now United attack again, and Rooney finds Martial in the box, but Martial’s attempt is dreadful, and a mile over the bar. 55 min: United won a corner after Mata’s shot was tipped round by Speroni. Blind took it, it was headed clear, but Darmian chested it down, charged into the box, and hit a lovely, dipping volley with his left foot right into the top corner. No chance Speroni. That was brilliant! What a beautiful goal! 52 min: Martial, who’s such a danger on the break, forces a corner. Blind with it, and it’s a good one but it’s well cleared. And then De Gea got lucky! Palace lumped it forward, and De Gea was right on the edge of his box, waiting for Darmian to deal with it, and Lee nearly nipped in! Mild panic for United. 49 min: So they take it short. Ha! And then Lingard, was it, does well to win it cleanly. Why didn’t Palace put the ball into the penalty area? 48 min: Better from Palace already. Kelly gets to the byline but Darmian does well to prevent the corner, and then Schneiderlin hacks clear. But then United give away a cheap free kick and this is a chance for Palace to get the ball in the box. 47 min: Sako and Adebayor combine nicely, but then Sako completely miskicks his forward pass, and Smalling comes across to mop up. Here’s Peter Raleigh: “I’m always confused by this suggestion that Mourinho’s inflammatory, controversy-courting, my-way-or-the-highway approach is simply not the way things are done at Manchester United. Did I spend two decades watching a different Alex Ferguson?” 45 min: And we want something more from Palace. Can they test David de Gea? And look at this for a final score from the Riazor: Deportivo 0-8 Barcelona. Suarez scored four. Unbelievable! Elsewhere, Liverpool are cruising: And West Ham are three up on Watford. Mark Noble has scored two penalties! Some emails: Peter McMurry: “Is the argument of the anti-Van Gaal fans, ‘We’re sick of 1-0 victories, we need to bring back exciting and creative play, let’s hire Jose Mourinho? Because I’m not sure that’s likely to work out. Daniel Vitale: “That damn short corner. United do it every game and it never works because teams always send two players out to defend it. The short corner only works against one defender. But like Van Gaal’s tactics in general THIS SHALL NOT BE MODIFIED!” Patrick Gannon: “It’s always a case of who you know, of course, but none of the United fans I know want Mourinho. The biggest issue hasn’t always been the results, it has been the style of play. How Mourinho fits with that is questionable. “And why is there any reason to think within a season or two he won’t be at odds with everyone and the whole thing becomes a very ‘un-United’ Mourinho circus? He has everywhere else. We did gladly take Moyes over Mourinho of course, but I’m reassured very few people are arguing for Giggs. Pochettino is the name that’s all the rage now, though he’d have to swap a Champions League team for a Europa League side. “In conclusion, part of the problem for United fans at the moment is that they don’t really see who is the answer to current problem and most of them are resisting taking an ‘anybody but LvG’ line due to this. Though his time has been truly miserable and joyless.” It’s a narrow advantage, but United have been well on top. Rashford, Martial and Lingard have been prominent, and were it not for a fine save from Speroni it could have been two. Palace haven’t really threatened in attack; an improvement is needed. See you shortly. That’s the half. 45 min +1: Headed clear, and that should be that. 45 min: A minute of stoppage time. Corner to Palace right at the end. 44 min: Zaha’s shot from the set piece is blocked, and United look to break, but then Souaré absolutely steams in to a challenge on Mata with both feet! He played the ball, but his two feet were off the ground, and it was reckless: Lee Mason shows a yellow, but on another day that might have been red. That was dangerous. 42 min: Gah, that was a great chance for Palace! United gave it away cheaply, and Lee got free on the right with Adebayor all alone in the middle, but Lee delayed his pass a moment too long, and Smalling got back to recover. Corner. 41 min: But that’s short, and it’s such a waste. Behind for a goal kick. 40 min: Great save by Speroni! A lucky ricochet sends Martial clear, and he absolutely thrashes it with his left foot, but that’s a super save from the Argentinian to push it round the post. Corner. 39 min: Now Lingard has a go! Great interplay between Lingard and Mata, and then Rashford dummies, brilliantly, but Lingard’s shot from 15 yards was straight at Speroni. He might have done better with that. 38 min: Rashford gets free in the box and stings Speroni’s palms. Corner. 37 min: Palace are doing OK, but they haven’t created much in attack. Zaha looks their most likely creator: he’s worried Darmian on more than one occasion. Justin Kavanagh presents an alternative view: “I’d disagree with JR (in Illinois?): I think Van Gaal’s brand of football has calcified in his old age into Totalitarian Football. Even when marching toward certain defeat, every player must stick rigidly to the formation dictated by their leader from his bunker.” 35 min: United are in control here, but that 1-0 lead is slender. Maybe they’ll do the unthinkable and score two goals in a league match. Rashford attacks down the left, thrillingly, but he just gets his trick wrong and it bobbles over the line for a goal kick. 33 min: Then a curious moment: United attacked down the left, and Martial’s cross was put behind by Delaney, but it’s given as a goal kick. A series of strange decisions. Bring back Roger Milford. 32 min: Great long pass from Cabaye for Zaha, who goes past Darmian and then is pushed to the ground by the Italian – but Lee Mason says no foul! Zaha can’t believe it: that was a clear foul. 31 min: Rashford does well to get into the box, and Mata goes on the outside, but Rashford’s ball is overhit, and it’s a goal kick, although it probably should have been a corner – I think it came off Delaney last. 29 min: A slight lull. Palace happy to keep possession for a spell. United on top. 28 min: Rooney looks for Valencia on the right, but the Ecuadorian is offside. Here’s JR: “I can’t figure out what United are doing. I look up and see Mata on the right with Lingard in the hole, then Mata is playing deep. If I knew more about tactics I might say Van Gaal has no idea what the hell he is doing. If I had to name his style I would call it Total Crap Football.” 27 min: Mariappa trips Mata, clumsily, and United have a free kick 35 yards from goal. No yellow card – it could have been one. Rooney’s ball in is headed clear. That was a waste. 25 min: Lingard feeds Rooney, who thrashes one from 20 yards, but he doesn’t quite get hold of it, and Speroni saves. 23 min: Blind comes forward into that kind of left-half position, but his ball in is repelled by Palace. Now the visitors attack, and Zaha does really well to beat Darmian, but he can’t find the pass and United hack clear. 22 min: Again, Martial leads the charge for United after Palace had committed men upfield, but Lingard couldn’t quite control the pass. Now Martial cuts in and shoots – but Speroni beats it away! Decent save, but one he should have made. 21 min: Great play from Valencia, charging into the box, but he couldn’t quite pick out a red shirt. Again, United were a bit slow in getting support to their team-mate. 20 min: Unlucky from Martial, who ran away from Kelly – the former Liverpool man is on a yellow card, remember – but then lost his footing as he got to the byline. Nonetheless, positive, direct running from Martial. 19 min: Souaré thought he was fouled in United’s right-back slot, but ref Lee Mason said Lingard got the ball. Play on. 17 min: Long pass from Blind looks for Martial over the top, but that’s good defending from Mariappa, and Palace clear the danger. Blind’s such a good passer, isn’t he, and he reads the game so well, but is central defence really his best position? Answers please! 15 min: Sly foul from the bearded Jedinak as Rooney looked to break, but no foul. Palace have found their feet somewhat after that feeble start. 13 min: This has been a decent start by Man United. Just looking back at the goal: Darmian’s cross wasn’t really extra dangerous, but Delaney was the wrong side of the ball, just kind of stuck out a leg, and thrashed it past Speroni, who couldn’t react in time. Deeply shoddy from Delaney. 11 min: Rashford tries one from the edge. It’s blocked, but United pick up the second ball, and Palace are pinned back. Peter Crosby wants the moon on a stick: “Hi Tim, since the West Ham game doesn’t appear to merit its own MBM, is there any internal remit that would prevent you from sharing key moments on this thread? I’d do it myself but, well, I can’t be bothered. Cheers, Peter.” Well, here’s one: Andy Carroll has scored. It’s one-nil to West Ham. 9 min: Oh, that was a chance for Adebayor! Zaha went at Darmian, crossed high, Lee headed it back across goal, but Adebayor couldn’t adjust quickly enough, and he kind of shinned it wide from 12 yards. Decent chance; the United marking was slack. 7 min: Palace just need to steady themselves. They could do with a spell of possession. Mata strikes one from the edge of the box, but it’s easy for Speroni. Incidentally, it does look like Rooney is playing a little deeper than Mata. Lingard has started on the right side. 6 min: Kelly pulls back Martial as he streaks clear, and is booked. Then Mata looks for Rooney in the box, and it’s headed behind for a corner. United pressuring the Palace defence here. 5 min: Well, what a start from United – and what a dreadful moment from Damien Delaney. United had the ball on the left, Darmian crossed and Delaney, facing his own goal, just speared one past Speroni from about 12 yards. There was only one United shirt in the penalty area. A terrible error, and United lead! Oh my word. 3 min: Schneiderlin is whistled for a foul on Zaha on halfway. A bit unlucky, perhaps – it look like he took the ball. Palace hit it forward but it’s easily cleared. 2 min: Easy possession for United so far. Palace have everyone back behind the ball. 1 min: Right on time. United, in classic red, white and black, get us going. Palace are all white with the red and blue sash. We’re a couple of minutes away. Alan Pardew is wearing a big coat. He looks relaxed. Here’s Aalim Khaderi: “It does look like a 4-2-3-1 to me, but I find it difficult to see Mata in a deep lying role. Maybe Rooney drops into holding midfield with Mata pushed up to the No10 role?” Yeah, maybe that’s it. We shall see! The tactical approach from United should be interesting tonight: just one what we might call “pure” midfielder in Schneiderlin, and five attackers who can play in a variety of roles. Maybe we’ll see Rooney in a deeper central role? Ian Stewart emails: “Given everyone wants Van Gaal to fail, is this the first time that the whole of Croydon will be supporting Palace?” Zing! Here’s Simon Horwell: “You might be amazed at the amount of United supporters that would welcome a fifth place finish if it guaranteed Van Gaal being sacked and Mourinho being brought in. “It’s hard, as a lifelong fan, to watch a game hoping for a win, but knowing that a fourth place finish might mean keeping the stubborn tulip. United is in such a sorry state right now, that it isn’t just LVG whose head should be on the chopping block, it’s Woodward’s too. Naivety in the transfer market, and awful managerial appointments, that almost all fans called as awful at the time. Hopefully he rumours of an internal power struggle involving Fergie and the CO92, and their bid to have Giggs installed as manager, are wide of the mark; because if successful, it almost guarantees another few years of abject mediocrity. “United had 26 years to plan for Fergie’s retirement. They knew it would be the most important transition in the club’s history. And they botched it. Not marginally, not unluckily, but spectacularly and negligently. The last three seasons have been an utter embarrassment, and you’ll see a lot of fans voting with their feet if there aren’t major changes over the summer.” West Ham and Watford have just kicked off. The Hammers are three points behind Man United, but with a better goal difference. Weather update: it’s nice! Palace do look more like a conventional 4-2-3-1, with Jedinak and Cabaye patrolling the space in front of the back four, and Adebayor the furthest forward. Back to Old Trafford. Here’s Mayur Gupta: “Hi Tim, strange United line-up – is it a 4-3-3 or 4-2-3-1 or even a 3-5-2? “My guess is it’s a 4-1-4-1, with Schneiderlin the deep-lying midfielder, and Mata and Rooney centrally supported by Lingard and Martial on the flanks, with Rashford up top.” You could be right. But we think it might be more like 4-2-3-1: Valencia and Darmian as the full-backs, Mata in a deeper midfield role alongside Schneiderlin, and Rooney in the No10 position behind Rashford, with Lingard and Martial wide. But obviously Louis van Gaal loves a tactical fiddle. So we shall see. If Spanish football is more your thing, don’t worry: we’ve got lots of that, too. Barcelona are faltering, and they’ve got a tricky away fixture in Galicia. Tom Bryant has the latest: Not far from Old Trafford, Liverpool are preparing for their inevitable home victory over Everton. The Toffees haven’t won at Anfield since 1999, and if you’ve watched Everton recently, you’d be pretty confident of that winless run continuing. Follow it live with Barry Glendenning: So, changes. Matteo Darmian comes in at left-back for Marcos Rojo, and Anthony Martial and Jesse Lingard return in place of Marouane Fellaini and Memphis. Timothy Fosu-Mensah is on the bench. Palace shake things up, too, before their big cup tie against Watford on Sunday. Julian Speroni starts in goal, and Adrian Mariappa, Chung-yong Lee, Bakary Sako and Wilf Zaha are all included. Luke Dreher, 17, is among the substitutes. Man Utd: De Gea, Valencia, Smalling, Blind, Darmian, Schneiderlin, Mata, Rooney, Lingard, Martial, Rashford. Subs: Rojo, Depay, Young, Romero, Ander Herrera, Fellaini, Fosu-Mensah. Crystal Palace: Speroni, Kelly, Mariappa, Delaney, Souare, Cabaye, Jedinak, Zaha, Lee, Sako, Adebayor. Subs: Campbell, McCarthy, McArthur, Wickham, Mutch, Puncheon, Dreher. Referee: Lee Mason (Lancashire) The first of two big games for Man United; this week could define their season. On Saturday they travel to Wembley for an FA Cup semi-final against Everton, but today they face Palace in the Premier League, and only a win will do if they want to play in the Champions League next year. United, in fifth, are four points behind Arsenal with five games to play, and a top-four spot is still within reach, but they can’t afford any more slip-ups. They need to win tonight. It’s all relative, of course, but United been improved in recent weeks, save that abysmal 10 minutes against Tottenham when Fosu-Mensah went off, Darmian came on, and everything seemed to go to pieces. Wins against Man City and West Ham were vital, and deserved, Rashford and Martial continue to impress, and now Wayne Rooney is back after two months out with injury. Admittedly, they remain largely impotent in front of goal – 13th-placed Bournemouth have scored more Premier League goals than United this season – but fifth place seems about right for this current United squad. Doesn’t it? Palace, for their part, are out of the mire: a month ago they couldn’t buy a win, and were peering nervously over their shoulder, but since then they’ve beaten Norwich and gotten decent draws against West Ham, Everton and Arsenal. Their current points total of 39 should be sufficient to keep them in the league, unless the hitherto wretched Norwich, Sunderland and Newcastle suddenly become Arrigo Sacchi’s Milan. In October, these two played out a goalless draw at Selhurst that was tedious in the extreme. We can only hope for better tonight. Kick-off’s at 8pm local time. Join us! Tim will be here shortly. In the meantime, here’s Paul Wilson on a dilemma for Manchester United fans: Van Gaal understands that his job might be on the line if Champions League football cannot be secured and, as he must, he is trying to ensure that United get as close to the target as possible so as to be able to profit from any further slips by the teams above them. But given the commonly held view that fourth place equals success and another season for the manager, whereas finishing lower down the league would be an opportunity for the board to say thanks but no thanks and find someone else capable of taking the club forward, where would supporters themselves like to see United finish at the end of the season? Right at this moment, Van Gaal, his methods and his philosophy do not appear to be popular with supporters, and maybe a few players feel the same way, too. Conduct a straw poll now and the mood would most likely be for change. But is that simply because United fans believe Mourinho or Mauricio Pochettino would be recruited instead?
Lloyds sell-off teaches George Osborne a valuable lesson in timing George Osborne has discovered that share prices can go down as well as up. The chancellor has postponed his plan to flog £2bn of Lloyds Banking Group shares to the public because stock markets are deemed too “turbulent”, by which he means that Lloyds shares sit at 64p, well below the state’s break-even price of 73.6p. Spring had been the deadline for the sale – now it’s not. The scheme can be resuscitated at a later date but there is a simple moral to this tale: don’t make promises on timing, because markets can make you look foolish. The chancellor started talking about “the biggest privatisation for 20 years” before the 2015 general election, trying to summon Thatcherite visions of a “shareholding democracy”. At the Conservative party conference in October, the unwise “next spring” pledge was made. Technically speaking, the Treasury could have gone ahead with the retail offer because the formal promise not to sell below 73.6p applied only to sales to institutional investors – that “drip-feed” process has successfully reduced the state’s stake in Lloyds from 43% in 2013 to 9%. In practice, a springtime sale would have risked yet more accusations of shortchanging the public purse. The idea was to give private punters a 5% discount to the market price, plus loyalty bonuses. That plan always had the whiff of a bung to those people able to write a cheque for a few thousand quid at short notice, as argued here at the time. But the political storm would have been more intense if the shares were departing at 60p, rather than the 80p-ish that Osborne had surely originally hoped for. In that sense, postponement is correct decision – politically and for the public coffers. Indeed, a delay has been inevitable for weeks. But before Osborne spends too much time congratulating himself on his “responsible” move, he should ask why Lloyds’ share price has fallen by a quarter since May. Yes, those pesky turbulent markets are a major contributor. But Lloyds – more than any other big UK bank – is also a proxy for the market’s view of the health of the UK economy. Investors sense bigger problems for the chancellor than an embarrassing delay in a £2bn share sale. Is Russian-Saudi oil production cut really in the pipeline? It was another wild day in oil markets, this time triggered by reports that Russia wants to talk to Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Opec cartel about production cuts to try to force prices higher. If they happened, coordinated cuts would be a very big development. The oil market, it is said, is oversupplied by about 1m barrels a day: that could be cleared if Russia and the Saudis both reduced output by 5%. It is easy to see why recessionary Russia would dearly love the Saudis to cut, but it is still a stretch to believe that a deal will happen. The Saudis don’t want to cede any share of the oil market to new Iranian supplies. Production of US shale oil seems, finally, to be falling, which many assumed was the point of the Saudis’ “keep pumping” policy. And, as thinktank Capital Economics points out, “it is not obvious that Russia would be a reliable partner”. Its competing oil firms cannot be controlled in the way that state-owned Saudi Aramco can. Anything is possible, of course, in the current oil climate, but the Saudis have another reason to be wary of Russian overtures. From the point of view of producers, a failed deal is worse than no deal: it advertises weakness. HBOS inquiry: disgracefully late is better than never The investigation of HBOS bosses, mark two, can’t fail to be better than the original version. Recall Andrew Green QC’s damning verdict – “materially flawed” – in November on the old Financial Services Authority’s timid efforts back in 2009 that led to action against only Peter Cummings, the bank’s former head of corporate lending. Given that backdrop, it will have been the easiest decision in the world for the FSA’s successors – the Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulation Authority – to decide that, yes, they will begin investigations into “certain former HBOS senior managers”. Andrew Bailey, soon to transfer from the PRA to the FCA, had signalled as much in November when the official report into the failure of HBOS was finally published; it was just a question of going through the formalities of launching an investigation. Can we, then, expect a speedy outcome? After all, a lot of the work should already have been done. Don’t hold your breath. When individuals dispute findings, these investigations can take up to two years to conclude. That could mean that it will be 2017, or even 2018, before the full results are known. HBOS failed in 2008 – an age ago – but don’t think that the passage of time renders the fresh investigation pointless. Disgracefully late is still better than never.
Keep button batteries away from children, doctors warn parents Parents are being warned to keep button batteries under lock and key as doctors report a sharp rise in the number of children admitted to hospital in the UK after swallowing the metal discs. Doctors at Great Ormond Street hospital in London say about one child a month is admitted after swallowing a button battery – a dramatic increase on two years ago when just one child a year was admitted. “On Tuesday when I was the on-call surgeon I removed two button batteries in two children in one day,” said Joe Curry, a consultant paediatric surgeon at Great Ormond Street. The consequences of swallowing the device, doctors say, can be devastating, with the batteries often becoming lodged in the food pipe where they can burn through tissue and rapidly create a hole. “If the battery is stuck in the upper oesophagus, and assuming the battery is ‘live’ when it goes in, you can start to see damage to the lining of the oesophagus within about 15 minutes,” said Curry. “We have seen rupture of the oesophagus within four hours.” The upshot, doctors warn, can be life-changing injuries, or even death, with some children having to undergo more than 50 operations and procedures after such an incident. “The damage to the oesophagus can be so devastating it can be immediately life-threatening because if the rupture of the oesophagus happens and the battery accidentally erodes into one of the main blood vessels in the chest, then you are at risk of immediate bleeding to death,” said Curry. “If it erodes out of the oesophagus and it goes into the airway then it creates an opening between the oesophagus and the airway so every time the child eats or drinks, fluid and food floods into the lungs, damaging the lungs and producing life-threatening chest infections.” Button batteries are commonly found in a range of electrical devices, from watches to hearing aids and calculators. “The number of electronic devices that are existing in people’s homes that require these kinds of batteries is probably just increasing year on year and so the physical availability of them in the home is just increasing,” said Curry. With children keen to explore objects, often putting things in their mouth, doctors warn that babies, toddlers and even older children are at risk of swallowing the batteries. Now doctors at Great Ormond Street, Birmingham children’s hospital and Sheffield children’s hospital have joined forces to urge parents to make sure that button batteries, whether new or used, are kept out of children’s reach. “Parents are very aware of things around the house like drain cleaners and other caustic substances which are dangerous for children and they are very careful about keeping them away from children, but I am not sure that the message is quite out there about how dangerous [button batteries] are,” said Curry. “Part of the campaign is to make parents aware of it so they can treat them like they would any other dangerous or caustic substance in the household.” Doctors say parents should remain vigilant to symptoms such as vomiting, choking, chest infections and difficulties in swallowing, and if they are concerned that a child has swallowed a battery they should immediately take them to A&E. Katrina Phillips, the chief executive of the Child Accident Prevention Trust, said: “Button batteries are in so many products nowadays. Parents need to be ever more vigilant, especially with lithium cell batteries. Children under six are most at risk, but even older children can be fascinated by them.” As well as keeping the batteries and devices that use them out of the reach of children, time is of the essence if children swallow a battery, and parents should immediately seek emergency help, Phillips said. “Don’t wait to see if symptoms develop as the damage may already have been done.”
BuzzFeed hacked by OurMine after it claimed to unmask one of its members BuzzFeed was hacked by OurMine on Wednesday in apparent retaliation for a story that claimed to unmask one of the members of the secretive group. On Tuesday, BuzzFeed posted a story claiming to have identified one of the members of the group as a Saudi teen called Ahmad Makki. In response, on Wednesday the hackers managed to breach BuzzFeed with a post, which has since been taken down, that read: “Hacked by OurMine team, don’t share fake news about us again, we have your database. Next time it will be public. Don’t fuck with OurMine again.” Asked in an email to clarify what “we have your database” meant, an email account associated with the group told the : “Emails, Passwords Hashes, Usernames.” Previous high-profile hacks by the group include attacks on HSBC, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, and Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales. The group also took down the servers for Niantic’s popular augmented-reality game Pokémon Go in July. Makki did not respond to a request for comment. A statement on OurMine’s website reads: “Yesterday Buzzfeed Created a post that we are only 1 member called Ahmed Makki, and we can confirm that we don’t Have a member called ‘Ahmed Makki’ and we are now 4 we were 3 but someone joined, and we hacked it because they are reporting fake news about us.” “We have a member known as ‘Makki’ But not ahmad makki, and he is not from saudi arabia,” the statement continued. In a series of conversations in July between the and a number of accounts verified as being associated with OurMine, a picture emerged of a group of three (now four) ambitious former “black hat” – or malicious – hackers, all male, from several different countries, aged between 17 and 22. The group’s aim, two members told the , was to make a name for themselves as “white hat” information security consultants. OurMine makes no money from its more eye-catching hacks, one said. However, he claimed it made $20,000 to $40,000 every month from their security consultancy. One of their hackers, who calls himself Abody, told the that he worked for Microsoft as a day job, though this could not be verified. He said that he was most proud of the Pichai hack, which he said had been achieved using a vulnerability in the crowdsourced question-and-answer social network Quora. Asked what he enjoys about hacking, he said that he “just wants to upgrade people security”, and he said he wanted OurMine to be “the biggest security group in the world”. Abody said that he learned hacking “when I was 10, my friend was a hacker. He showed me his methods at hacking, and we learned a lot of hacking together, now we are working for OurMine.” The group’s approach seems to be working. OurMine has swiftly made a name for itself with high-profile hacks such as that of Pichai –but some of its smaller hacks do seem to have resulted in people taking them on as security consultants. One of its clients, a YouTube video-maker called Jordi van den Bussche, told the his social media accounts were hacked by the group in 2015. After he responded to its message, he said: “Once we started talking I realised that they kinda do it for fun and to help people, instead of trying to steal money or information. I then challenged them to try and hack me again and they did! Multiple times!” “They helped me improve my security and because of them I managed to protect all my information from other hackers. Since their tips and tricks I realised that hackers aren’t always bad. These guys might have a bad name but to me they are just trying to help,” Van den Bussche said.
Milo Yiannopoulos, rightwing writer, permanently banned from Twitter Twitter has permanently banned a rightwing writer and notorious troll for his role in the online abuse of Leslie Jones over her role in the Ghostbusters reboot. Milo Yiannopoulos, the technology editor for Breitbart.com, tweeted as @Nero. Before he was banned, he had more than 338,000 followers and called himself “the most fabulous supervillain on the internet” for his provocations online. A known contrarian who likened rape culture to Harry Potter (“both fantasy”) and affectionately referred to Donald Trump as “daddy”, he emerged as a spokesman for the “alt-right” in the wake of the Gamergate movement. Yiannopoulos has been suspended from Twitter several times in the past for violating its terms of service, and had his verified status revoked earlier this year, prompting the hashtag #JeSuisMilo among his supporters. But claims that he had fanned the flames of the harassment of Ghostbusters actor Leslie Jones on Twitter led to a “permanent suspension” from Twitter on Wednesday. Yiannopolous told Breitbart.com his suspension was “cowardly”, and evidence that Twitter was a “no-go zone for conservatives”. “Like all acts of the totalitarian regressive left, this will blow up in their faces, netting me more adoring fans. We’re winning the culture war, and Twitter just shot themselves in the foot. “This is the end for Twitter. Anyone who cares about free speech has been sent a clear message: you’re not welcome on Twitter.” His supporters echoed his criticisms, prompting #FreeMilo to trend on the platform. On Monday, Jones had started publicising some of the abuse she had received on the platform, much of it singling her out for being black and a woman. After she made public pleas for Twitter to intervene, its chief executive, Jack Dorsey, asked her to make contact late on Monday night. But she later appeared to quit the platform “with tears and a very sad heart”. Yiannopoulos, who had written a scathing review of the Ghostbusters reboot, had been dismissive. “If at first you don’t succeed (because your work is terrible), play the victim,” he tweeted. “EVERYONE GETS HATE MAIL FFS.” Before he was banned, he told Heat Street that “of course” he had no regrets about his behaviour towards Jones. “But feminists, on the other hand, should have regrets that they have taught strong women that they are victims and attacked people for having different opinions to them on Twitter.” A spokesman for Twitter said in a statement that “permanent suspension” was one of a number of steps that had been taken to address the uptick in offending accounts since Jones began rallying against her abusers. “People should be able to express diverse opinions and beliefs on Twitter. But no one deserves to be subjected to targeted abuse online, and our rules prohibit inciting or engaging in the targeted abuse or harassment of others.” The statement also addressed criticisms that the platform does not go far enough to protect its users, particularly women and people of colour. “We know many people believe we have not done enough to curb this type of behavior on Twitter. We agree. We are continuing to invest heavily in improving our tools and enforcement systems to better allow us to identify and take faster action on abuse as it’s happening and prevent repeat offenders.” A review of Twitter’s “hateful conduct policy” was under way and would prohibit more types of abusive behaviour as well as allow more forms of reporting, “with the goal of reducing the burden on the person being targeted”. More details on those changes were due in the coming weeks, said the spokesman.
Democratic defeat could herald lurch to right for supreme court Nominating justices to the US supreme court is a responsibility with far-reaching consequences – one of the most potent in a president’s armoury. It will also be one of the first duties of the incoming Trump administration. The liberal-leaning judge Merrick Garland, President Barack Obama’s nominee for the vacancy left by the death of Antonin Scalia, was denied confirmation hearings by the congressional leadership, so the appointment of a replacement will serve as an early test of president-elect Donald Trump’s conservative credentials. The supreme court is currently split evenly between conservatives and liberals. As part of Trump’s wooing of conservatives, his campaign published a list of 21 potential nominees who would continue the judicial tone of the conservative-leaning Scalia. But a fight is brewing, not least over the role of the court itself. Faced with 8,000 petitions a year, the full court of nine justices considers around 100 cases a term. With just eight justices currently sitting, several recent judgments have been deadlocked 4-4, including one that blocked Obama’s immigration reform efforts. Replacing Scalia with a like-minded judge will not shift the complexion markedly, but any further appointments will be of far greater importance. Two of the serving justices are in their 80s and another is in his late 70s, so more appointments are approaching. While Democrats had been looking forward to a Clinton-directed liberal renaissance of the supreme court, harking back to the civil rights decisions of the mid-1960s, a new period of conservative rulings may now follow. “All of the people on Trump’s list can be said to be conservative politically,” said Carl Tobias, professor of law at the University of Richmond, “especially on issues like abortion, where he made promises to get the support of the evangelical vote.” Crucially, the court will now probably hear more cases involving the separation of church and state. The vice president-elect, Mike Pence, made it clear that he wants to see the federal funding of schools with religious orientation. Questions about permitting prayer in public places are also likely to arise. “Trump may not be overtly religious,” Tobias added, “but there are many, many people who voted for him who believe that’s what he promised to do. Evangelicals were central to his victory and they will surely attempt to hold him to it.” Mirroring the divisive political climate, the court has found itself increasingly politicised, as seen in several of its most important recent decisions, including last year’s same-sex marriage ruling, the contraception mandate under Obamacare, compulsory union dues, and the overturning in June of a restrictive Texas abortion law. People who don’t win in legislatures will often try to force an issue on the supreme court – if the judges are willing to hear it. But the sense of judicial impartiality is being eroded because all the liberal justices now sitting were appointed by Democratic presidents and all the conservatives by Republicans. The justices, particularly Chief Justice John Roberts, have made it clear they resent politicisation, saying the credibility of the court and its rulings are the justices’ chief concern. “The court doesn’t have the power of the purse or the power of sword, so it has to rely on public confidence or it becomes just another political entity,” said Tobias. Legal observers are already discussing which cases in the court’s pipeline are likely to disappear as Trump moves to overturn legislation introduced by executive order by Obama. One such issue is a dispute over which toilets in public schools transgender students can use. A lower court in Virginia this year took guidance from the US education department in ruling for Gavin Grimm, a transgender student, in a case in which the Virginia school board required students to use facilities corresponding to their biological sex, not the gender they identify with. The court may not hear that case if Trump rescinds that order. With Trump now promising to relax laws governing drilling for oil and gas on public land and to lift other environmental restrictions, challenges before the court could also be dropped. FLASHPOINTS FOR THE COURT Donald Trump will be a lucky Potus (President of the United States). Some presidents never get to appoint a supreme court judge, but Trump will be able to choose at least one – a replacement for the late Justice Antonin Scalia, a conservative. However, with two liberal members on the court possibly eyeing retirement, Trump could also alter the balance of the court so that it is once again a predominantly conservative institution. This could be crucial in determining the outcome of several long-fought battles. Abortion A conservative majority would delight the Christian right, which has lobbied hard for a reversal of Roe v Wade, the 1973 ruling that guarantees the right to abortion. Affirmative action In June, the court voted to uphold a race-conscious admissions programme at the University of Texas, but this is an issue that will not go away. Unions Big business wants the court to overturn a ruling in March upholding the right of public-sector unions to collect fees from workers who choose not to join them. Church v state Laws ensuring the separation of church and state could be eroded by a court that agrees there should be greater involvement between religious groups and government. Gun control Trump’s unequivocal support for the second amendment suggests that laws restricting the right to bear arms – such as the need for owners to register their weapons – may be overhauled.
Early voter turnout worries Democrats who fear 'enthusiasm gap' for Clinton Hillary Clinton is trailing Barack Obama’s performance in the 2012 election, according to early voting data that underlines fears of an “enthusiasm gap” for the Democratic candidate. Nearly a quarter of all expected ballots have already been cast after a surge in people wanting to express their preference before election day. Early voting by mail and at polling stations is under way in 37 states, with at least 33 million votes now in. There are indications that Clinton is not doing as well as Obama four years ago, according to the Associated Press. Ballot requests from likely supporters have been weak in parts of the midwest, while African American turnout is down. The heavily Democratic counties of Cuyahoga and Franklin in Ohio are posting declines in ballot requests compared to 2012, AP reported, while Republican-leaning counties such as Warren have seen an increase. No candidate of either party has won the White House without carrying Ohio since John F Kennedy in 1960. Journalist John Judis, author of The Populist Explosion, predicted: “Trump is probably going to win Ohio.” Clinton and her allies are spending additional money in Michigan and Colorado, states long considered Democratic strongholds. Michigan has not voted for a Republican for president since 1968 but the former secretary of state fared poorly there in the Democratic primary. Former president Bill Clinton made an unannounced appearance in Detroit on Wednesday night to meet privately with black ministers, the city’s mayor and other local leaders. Hillary Clinton planned to travel to the Detroit area on Friday. However, the dip in African American voters is to some extent offset by a dramatic rise in Democratic-leaning Latino voters, potentially giving Clinton a significant edge in Nevada and Colorado. With more than half the votes already cast in those states, Democrats are matching if not surpassing their successful 2012 pace, the AP said. Opinion polls show Trump narrowing the gap in other all-important battleground states, including some where Clinton has led for weeks, but she remains the clear favourite. With five days until one of the most consequential elections in living memory, the candidates took the battle to Florida and North Carolina, where Obama told voters on Wednesday: “The fate of the republic rests on your shoulders.” In Florida, where more than half of voters have already cast ballots – the black share of ballots is down but the Latino share is up – Trump traded blows not with Clinton but with Obama. The president let rip at a boisterous rally in Miami, pointing out that Trump let actor Alec Baldwin’s portrayal of him on the TV comedy show Saturday Night Live get under his skin. “Anybody who is upset about a Saturday Night Live skit, you don’t want in charge of nuclear weapons,” the president told supporters in Miami. “No, I’m serious. This is a guy who, like, tweets they should cancel Saturday Night Live – ‘I don’t like how Alec Baldwin is imitating me.’ Really? I mean, that’s the thing that bothers you, and you want to be president of the United States? Come on, man. Come on. Can’t do it.” Obama continued: “The most frustrating thing is, some of his support is coming from working folks. People say, well, you know, he’s going to be our voice. Are you serious? This is the guy who spent 70 years – his whole life – born with a silver spoon, showing no respect for working people. “He’s spent a lot of time with celebrities. Spends a lot of time hanging out with the really wealthy folk. But you don’t see him hanging out with working people unless they’re cleaning his room or mowing the fairways on his golf club. You’re going to make this guy your champion if you’re a working person? Come on.” Trump has shown disrespect to women and accepted the support of the racist Ku Klux Klan, the president argued. “You can’t make excuses for this stuff,” Obama said angrily. “This isn’t a joke. This isn’t Survivor. This isn’t The Bachelorette. This counts. This has to do with what’s going to happen in your family, in your community, to soldiers and veterans, the safety of our kids.” Trump has become increasingly riled by Obama’s interventions in recent days, claiming that he should be working from the White House and fixing the healthcare system instead. He tweeted on Thursday: “Looking at Air Force One @ MIA. Why is he campaigning instead of creating jobs & fixing Obamacare? Get back to work for the American people!” Then, at a rally in Jacksonville, he said: “I just left by the way Miami. And in leaving I saw Air Force One. And I said to myself, I wonder who that could be. And it’s our president, and he’s down here campaigning for Crooked Hillary. “Why isn’t he back in the office, sometimes referred to as the Oval Office ... He’s campaigning every day, and I actually think, considering that she’s under criminal investigation, I think he’s got a conflict.” Clinton is not known to be under a criminal investigation, although the FBI is examining emails that may be related to the investigation into her private email server. Trump has to hope that reluctant Republicans will return to the fold. Ted Cruz, his bitter foe during the party primary campaign, appeared alongside his running mate Mike Pence at a rally in Prole, Iowa, which is leaning towards Trump. Cruz tweeted: “RT if you agree there needs to be a special prosecutor to investigate and prosecute the corruption of Hillary Clinton!” The Clinton campaign announced the grand finale to its campaigning on Monday night with a rally in Philadelphia featuring Clinton herself, Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, Bill Clinton and Chelsea Clinton. Philadelphia was the birthplace of the US constitution and hosted this year’s Democratic national convention, where Clinton became the first female nominee of a major party. Trump meanwhile is striving to remain on message and avoid more of the missteps that have plagued his campaign each time he seems to be building momentum. “Stay on point, Donald, stay on point,” he teasingly quoted his staff as saying in Florida on Wednesday night. “No sidetracks, Donald. Nice and easy. Nice and easy.’” Clinton made a late stop on Wednesday in Arizona, where Trump’s unpopularity among Hispanic voters has given Democrats hope of turning a traditionally Republican state. “This state is in play for the first time in years,” she said to a crowd of 15,000, one of the biggest of her campaign. Clinton took her critical message to a huge TV audience on Wednesday night during the final game of baseball’s World Series. The Democrats broadcast a series of ads that highlighted Trump’s lewd comments about women. Trump’s commercials were a mix of positive and negative, including one promising “a future brighter than our past”. Republicans are fighting hard to protect their 54-46 majority in the Senate ahead of Tuesday’s election. They are on defence around the country, but a number of close races are essentially toss-ups in states such as Pennsylvania and New Hampshire. The FBI has opened a civil rights investigation into the arson and vandalism of an African American church in Mississippi, where someone spray-painted “Vote Trump” in what Greenville mayor called a “heinous, hateful, cowardly act”. The pulpit and pews were burned, and soot stained the brick around some windows. Meanwhile Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, has said the whistleblower website did not get emails related to Hillary Clinton’s campaign from a state actor. US intelligence has blamed Russia for the hacked emails from campaign chairman John Podesta. But in a statement on Thursday, Assange said WikiLeaks’ sources of the emails “are not state parties”. It does not say how it obtained the documents, noting only that the original sources are Podesta “and his correspondents”.
Jeremy Hunt accused of prolonging junior doctors' dispute Jeremy Hunt has been accused of prolonging the junior doctors’ dispute unnecessarily for three months after it could have been settled by putting personal “pride” before a resolution. Labour’s Heidi Alexander claimed in the Commons that the health secretary had missed an opportunity to settle the bitter row by displaying a damaging “computer says no” attitude to talks. Hunt and Alexander, the shadow health secretary, traded verbal blows during a House of Commons debate on Thursday on the new deal announced on Wednesday, which both Hunt and the British Medical Association (BMA) hope will end the nine-month dispute. “What is now clear, if it wasn’t already, is that a negotiated agreement was possible all along. So I have to ask you, why couldn’t this deal have been struck in February? Why did you allow your pride back then to come before sensible compromise and constructive talks?” Alexander said. “When you stand up you might try to blame the BMA for the negotiations breaking down, but you failed to say what options you were prepared to consider in order to ensure that the junior doctors who work the most unsociable hours are fairly rewarded. It was a ‘computer says no’ attitude and that’s no way to run the NHS.” Alexander said Hunt had ignored her suggestion, made on 7 February, that he make further concessions on the key issue of what hours junior doctor should be expected to work on Saturdays and their pay for doing so as a way of reaching a negotiated settlement. Seven of the eight days of strikes by junior doctors in England happened after that, which between them involved the cancellation of more than 30,000 planned operations and more than 100,000 outpatient appointments. Four days after Alexander’s letter, Hunt told MPs that talks had failed because of the BMA’s refusal to discuss Saturday working and that he was imposing the contract that had prompted so much anger among junior doctors. “Why did he then insist upon trying to bulldoze an imposed contract through when virtually everyone told him not to and the consequences of doing so were obvious for all to see – protracted industrial action, destroyed morale and a complete breakdown in trust?” she said. But Hunt rejected her claims. He said the BMA had spent “years” refusing to discuss Saturday becoming part of a junior doctor’s normal working week, though he praised it for “bravely” changing its stance during the negotiations that led to Wednesday’s potential settlement. And he criticised Alexander for refusing to say categorically if she supported the new agreement, and insisted he had shown leadership by facing down the BMA. It was a matter of “great regret” that junior doctors had staged eight days of walkouts since January, which included the first total withdrawal of medical cover in NHS history, even in areas of emergency care such as A&E and intensive care, for two days last month. “Taken together, these changes show both the government’s commitment to safe care for patients and the value we attach to the role of junior doctors,” Hunt said. “Whilst they do not remove every bugbear or frustration, they will significantly improve flexibility and work-life balance for doctors – leading, we hope, to improved retention rates, higher morale and better care for patients.” Earlier Hunt admitted he had “lessons to learn” from his protracted dispute with England’s 55,000 junior doctors over plans to overhaul their contracts and reorganise NHS services to usher in a fuller seven-day service in hospitals. Speaking on the Today programme on BBC Radio 4, Hunt insisted the government had secured its “red lines” for delivering its commitment to a seven-day health service by driving down the cost of employing doctors over the weekend. But he added: “I don’t think you can go through what we have been through for the last 10 months and say that everyone hasn’t got lessons to learn, including the health secretary. “I don’t say I was responsible for the industrial action because I think that was a decision taken by the BMA and initially caused by the fact that at the time there was not willingness to engage with the big issues that we needed to resolve to deliver a seven-day NHS. “What I do say is we have come to appreciate that there was a lot of anger, a lot of frustration felt by junior doctors about things that extended well beyond their contract.”
Rogue One’s Ben Mendelsohn: ‘Star Wars is a childhood dream come true’ Rogue One director Gareth Edwards has a nice story about Ben Mendelsohn – who is playing Orson Krennic, chief bad guy in the forthcoming offshoot of the Star Wars franchise. On the day that Darth Vader walked on to the set, says Edwards: “We were just getting ready to shoot the scene, and Ben asked to confer. It probably looked like we were huddling over actor stuff – motivation, tone, whatever. We weren’t. In fact, Ben was like a 10-year-old kid, clenching his fists in total delight and saying [he puts on an Aussie accent]: ‘Mate, look! It’s Darth fucking Vader!’” Mendelsohn says: “It was like the seven-year-old me’s dream come true, 1977, Star Wars. From the ages of six to about 12, you’ll find that’s the peak age range where these movies go straight in – zoom!” He mimes a rocket flying into his face and blowing his kiddie-consciousness into a million pieces. “It hit me at an elemental level, and, for that kid I was then, I’m very glad. I often quip that there were many times in my life when I wish I’d been able to tell myself: ‘Don’t worry about it, one day you’ll be in a Star Wars movie.’ Alas, you can’t do it. And yet …” he chuckles, “here we are.” Mendelsohn’s face is his fortune. As we talk at the Lucasfilm production offices in Presidio Park overlooking San Francisco Bay, I marvel at its languid expressiveness, one moment lordly, unexpectedly noble in profile, the next slovenly, lizardly rangy, a sneer rolling along his lips. Few actors have his degree of iron control over their faces; no one says more facially by doing less. His vocal dexterity is also remarkable. His talk is effervescent and brutally blunt by turns, punctuated by sharp barks of laughter and a goodly sprinkling of “fucks”, as he ranges widely – here in a tone appropriate to a biker bar at closing time, here in one more suited to bone-dry academia – on esoteric themes that appeal to him in the moment. Talking with him is a journey and a joy. A dapper fellow, he shows up in a surprisingly elegant knee-length brown greatcoat, easily the liveliest person in this tightly controlled junket environment. He has the demeanour of some savage, untamed indie actor, more accustomed to eating at petrol stations and crapping in buckets on some austerely frigid location-shoot, suddenly let loose amid the spoils, swag and heaving craft-service tables of a mega-budget A-list crowdpleaser: the very definition of a loose cannon. Mendelsohn, now 47, has been a professional actor for nearly 30 years. But most people won’t have come across him until his blistering turn as the psychopathic elder brother in David Michôd’s Melbourne crime saga Animal Kingdom in 2010. Since then, he has given us a gallery of (mostly malevolent, usually funny, always complex) antiheroes and flat-out bad guys in movies as interesting and varied as Killing Them Softly, Starred Up, The Place Beyond the Pines, Black Sea and Slow West. On a parallel track, he has been slowly establishing himself in A-picture material, such as Ridley Scott’s Exodus: Gods and Kings, The Dark Knight Rises and Rogue One, and next year we’ll see him in his first Spielberg movie, Ready Player One, again as the main antagonist. By the time he struck it big – or medium-big – in the US, Mendelsohn had almost given up on succeeding outside Australia. He had seen actors his own age, then younger, then much younger, bypass him on the way to Los Angeles and stardom. His career had started out with the hit nostalgia drama The Year My Voice Broke, in 1987, when he was 17; a film that came at the tail-end of the original Australian new wave of the late 70s (directed by one of the original new-wave heavy hitters, John Duigan). Mendelsohn played the charismatic, irresponsible, rugby-playing bad boy who stole cars and got girls pregnant, in a swaggeringly confident performance that earned him work in Australia for years after, but nowhere else. In the decades that followed, he worked prolifically across the archipelago of diverse Australian film scenes that had sprung up separately in Melbourne, South Australia and Sydney, and kept busy. He is thus one of the youngest actors of the mature new wave, and one of the oldest of the seemingly never-ending new wave of Australians passing through the Neighbours set (like every Australian actor from Russell Crowe and Guy Pearce to Margot Robbie a generation later) and on to greater glory in Hollywood. He was on Neighbours before anyone else, and they all beat him to Los Angeles. “I held the highest age-to-films ratio in Australia for a good few years. I really did do a lot of films, by Australian standards. Most of which didn’t travel. But I was also there for the start of Neighbours, with Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan. I just predated it in my career by a couple of years. Kylie and I had done The Henderson Kids before that. I knew her from the time she was 15, and I heard her the first time she sang on stage, in a hall in Birregurra, doing a cover of The Rose by Bette Midler at the Hendersons wrap-party – it was actually a magical time.” But the siren call of Hollywood never dimmed. “Now it’s much more possible for people to do one thing or two things in Australia and then go straight over – the path to LA has become a lot quicker, but was harder 20 years ago. It was pretty easy to start feeling one had been passed over and forgotten about, and I wasn’t gonna take that on the chin. And I did do it, kept going back but, for a long time, nothing came of it. I found myself having to think: ‘Well, that’s that.’” He does pop up in odd places, if you are not aware of his past career. The night before I interviewed him, I caught him in a small but eye-catching role in the mountaineering thriller Vertical Limit, sobbing his eyes out in one scene, then being blown to bits 10 minutes later. And, if you watch carefully, you can spot him somewhere in Terrence Malick’s The New World. Patience, however, was his virtue. Mendelsohn had a peripatetic upbringing, living in many places, mostly in Europe and in the US. He believes that rootlessness helped him as an actor, giving him a certain latitude to decide which Ben he would be in this “next life”, whenever he moved house, school or country, and how to write his own “character”. “In this acting game,” he says, “there are a lot of army brats and people with moving-about childhoods. Moving around a lot and having to learn how to read what was coming up next, that thing of being able to read things and adjust accordingly, to find a way to make yourself fit in or feel a bit special, or different, is a lot like joining a new cast, really good practice.” Most of this was outside Australia, which inevitably made him start feeling differently about the meaning of the word “home”, with Australia soon becoming another foreign place. “I got back there for the first time when I was six, from living in Germany, and I had a thick German accent, and my mother had dressed us in these, almost semi-lederhosen, garish German, early-70s clothes. And it was a real shock. Australia was the real shock, it was where I learned to act, no doubt about it. And I returned to Australia twice at different crucial points in my schooling, and each time it was another kind of transformation.” Mendelsohn arrived “home” just in time to witness the forcible removal from office in 1975 of modernising progressive prime minister Gough Whitlam by the governor general of Australia Sir John Kerr, the most scandalous usurpation of democracy in the nation’s history. “When I got back there were lots of “WE WANT GOUGH!” badges everywhere. I remember that badge on the fridge at home, and understanding that it was our sworn duty to hate Malcolm Fraser! [Whitlam’s unelected replacement] If it wasn’t for Gough, you just wouldn’t have an Australia as you recognise it now. It gets its lifeblood from that government and what it achieved. And the reaction to Blue Poles [the Jackson Pollock painting purchased by the Whitlam government at enormous cost, solely to spur a national cultural conversation], and I do remember the reaction to it, even though I was very young, was … I mean, they were absolutely derisive about it! Australia was very elemental in the 70s, very raw, still kind of philistine. The Australian way, it is brutal, absolutely brutal at the merest whiff of, I mean, any airs and graces, you are for it. It’s a kind of ferocious egalitarianism. That’s very big in your culture and in ours, but not in the US at all. And it didn’t really start to shed that until the 1990s.” (Mendelsohn obviously loves his home country, but I note that he lives in Los Angeles with his wife of four years, British writer Emma Forrest.) Funny thing: as good as he is, Mendelsohn doesn’t watch his own work. You should start, I tell him. Turns out you’re pretty good at this. “I think I might start again. It began when I was doing some TV thing somewhere, and I didn’t want to watch it. Afterwards, I thought: ‘Oh, I got away with that!’ And I really think it helped make me better as an actor. There is a certain sense to that. There’s always some tinkering that you could have done, you feel. You watch things and think about how you could have got louder or thought differently, but worrying about that just gets to be a huge pain in the arse. No, maybe I won’t start watching myself again!” When he was a kid, his acting heroes were John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, Al Pacino, Jeff Bridges (“the best, the most charismatic and beautiful, just a fantastic actor!”) and Jack Thompson. Since Animal Kingdom, Ben Mendelsohn has been proving over and over that he might well ascend into their company one day. • Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is released on 15 December
Edward Snowden: 'I'm not an unhappy ending' for future whistleblowers It’s not hard to argue that Edward Snowden is a warning to future leakers of government secrets. He’s stuck in Russia. Can only show up at parties as a video screen. And many of the western surveillance programs he outed continue three years later. But in a video interview on Friday at RightsCon, a technology conference in San Francisco focused on free speech, Snowden said that’s not how he sees it. That, he said, hopefully encourages more Snowden’s to come forward in the future. “I don’t think I’m an unhappy ending. I don’t think this is this great deterrent,” he told the audience. “I’m actually more fulfilled now, more connected now and more effective now in my work.” Whether or not Snowden, the former US spy agency contractor, is seen as having suffered for leaking troves of documents on classified programs to the , Washington Post and other outlets, is key for western authorities in deterring future cases. Former Obama administration officials, including Eric Holder, have suggested a plea deal could be possible with Snowden. Even Barack Obama has said Snowden prompted a needed debate, though he disagreed with his tactics. But the administration has held firm with Snowden because to do otherwise could open the floodgates for future leakers. Snowden has said he’d return to the US if he could be guaranteed a fair trial. And life isn’t all bad for him these days. His girlfriend was able to move to Russia with him, Congress did reform some US surveillance rules and crowds show up for his public appearances, even if he’s not exactly in the room. As RightsCon organizer Amie Stepanovich said on stage Friday, the room was unusually full for an early morning session.
Dead Kennedys – 10 of the best 1. California Über Alles The debate over what exactly constitutes “punk” is a long and thorny one. Is it a sound? An attitude? Sitting squarely across it are California’s Dead Kennedys, a band punk enough to feature in Rolling Stone’s 40 greatest punk albums but who employed elements of surf guitar, jazz, poetry and even bolero across four studio albums of biting wit, fury and pristine pop songs. Thiss debut single exemplifies their complicated musical relationship with punk. Singer Jello Biafra’s lyrics – a blistering attack on the then governor of California, Jerry Brown (who returned to the post in 2011), which reference the now-unused first stanza of the German national anthem – and Klaus Flouride’s ominous bass riff are typical of the 1979 punk scene into which the song was released. And yet other elements of California Über Alles shy away from the stereotypes of punk rock. Bruce Slesinger’s drums combines a bolero rhythm with militaristic rolls – guitarist East Bay Ray called the song “our Wagnerian piece with a bolero rhythm” – while the opening guitar lines have shades of the gothic surf-rock style that Ray brought to the group. 2. Holiday in Cambodia California Über Alles was followed a year later by Holiday in Cambodia, a masterclass in atmospherics. The opening 20 seconds of rattling bass and sparse, echoing guitar create a mood of musical paranoia that ratchets up several notches with the introduction of the drums, playing a frantic discoesque beat, and a guitar riff that brings to mind Dick Dale playing on as the Titanic slips under the water. The lyrics, meanwhile, are among Biafra’s best, a vicious dissection of the stereotypical college student who has “been to school for a year or two and you know you’ve seen it all”. But what might be most striking about Holiday in Cambodia is how many ideas it packs into its brief running time. In the 3min 43sec single version the song includes two intros, two verses, two rousing choruses, an eerie bridge, a guitar solo, an escalating middle eight and a final chorus, each brilliantly tarred with an air of creeping menace. It’s like all of the good bits of most punk bands compressed into three and a half minutes. The album version adds an ambient guitar intro for good measure, extending the running time to 4min 38sec. 3. Pull My Strings Dead Kennedys made an almost instant commercial impact in the UK, and in 1981 a deal from Polydor was in the offing, only for Biafra to threaten to quit the band if they signed to a major. Maybe Polydor should have known better: the group’s distinctive attitude towards the music industry was already in evidence in 1980, when they were invited to perform at the Bay Area music awards in San Francisco. The idea, according to the event’s organisers – who probably hadn’t been playing sufficiently close attention to the band’s modus operandi – was to give the event some “new wave credibility”. Sure enough, Dead Kennedys started playing California Über Alles as expected, only for Biafra to stop the song 15 seconds in to proclaim: “We’ve gotta prove that we’re adults now. We’re not a punk rock band, we’re a new wave band.” Dead Kennedys then launched into Pull My Strings, a song written for the occasion, in which they rail against the music industry: “Is my cock big enough, / Is my brain small enough / For you to make me a star?”, ending with a pointed musical nod to the Knack’s new wave anthem My Sharona. Point made, the band would never perform the song again, although the awards version would turn up on Give Me Convenience or Give Me Death, a 1987 compilation that rounded up their non-album songs. 4. Too Drunk to Fuck If you looked closely around British secondary schools in the 1980s and 90s, you’d be likely to find Dead Kennedys’ distinctive “DK” logo scratched somewhere. They may never have had the volcanic cultural impact of the Sex Pistols or the Clash but Dead Kennedys remained a hugely important cult band in the decades after their demise. Part of that was down to the catchiness of their songs, which combine massive shout-along choruses with guitar riffs the milkman could whistle. But if we’re being honest, a large part of the band’s enduring appeal to the average adolescent is that their songs can be incredibly rude. Indeed, for all the biting social satire of a song such as Kill the Poor – the band’s third single and a No 49 UK hit – Dead Kennedys’ best-known song is probably the single that followed it in May 1981: Too Drunk to Fuck. It reached No 36 in the British charts – apparently the first Top 40 single to feature the world “fuck” in the title – prompting predictable panic at Radio 1, in record stores and among Top of the Pops producers. It seems characteristic of Biafra that he reserved his most straightforwardly filthy lyric – in which the narrator drinks 16 beers, starts a fight, rolls down the stairs, then finds himself too “sick, soft, gooey and cold” to perform in bed – for what is one of the band’s most brilliantly pop moments, home to both a masterly, surf-inspired ear worm of a guitar riff and a chirpy key change. 5. The Prey If Too Drunk to Fuck was an example of Dead Kennedys’ sly sense of humour, then its B-side, The Prey, showed a darker, more experimental side to the band. The Kennedys experiment with jazz and noir atmospherics – all wandering bass lines, cymbal splashes and minimal, sharpened guitars – on top of which Biafra relates a darkly poetical tale of a late-night assault, his words crawling lecherously over Flouride’s bass. The result is like the more literary side of the Doors, tainted with a hint of goth. The Prey may be an outlier in the band’s catalogue but it is not without precedent: Night of the Living Rednecks, improvised live at a 1979 concert after East Bay Ray broke a guitar string, sees Biafra tell a tale of being accosted by “jocks in this bright blue pickup” over a meandering jazz backing. 6. Halloween Dead Kennedys followed their 1980 debut album, Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables, with the In God We Trust, Inc EP in December 1981. It was a frenetic, frantic EP, which paid tribute both to the emerging hardcore punk scene and the skills of their new drummer, DH Peligro, packing eight songs into 14 frenzied minutes. In God We Trust, Inc – the height of the band’s experiments in thrash – was followed by an album that may be their most melodic, Plastic Surgery Disasters. Halloween, the band’s seventh and final single, is typical of Disasters’ pointed melodicism, sporting a dumb-as-rocks guitar riff worthy of the Sex Pistols, singalong bass lines and about three choruses. It is an oddly inspirational song, too. Biafra’s lyrics call for people to break free of social mores in their everyday lives, rather than just on the titular holiday, ending with a call to “take your social regulations and shove ’em up your ass” so rousing it could wake the dead. 7. Moon Over Marin A good percentage of rock bands would have hung their careers on a song like Moon Over Marin, the closing track on Plastic Surgery Disasters. It’s the kind of classic rock song that reverberates throughout the ages, a mixture of one of East Bay Ray’s very best guitar riffs, a stirring, melancholic-yet-defiant chorus and wonderfully evocative lyrics about environmental disaster (“Another tanker’s hit the rocks / Abandoned to spill out its guts … Oh, shimmering moonlight sheen upon / The waves and water clogged with oil / White gases steam up from the soil”). In fact, Moon Over Marin has been called “as close as DKs ever came to a ballad” and – for all the song’s chugging Pretty Vacantesque guitar verses – you can see why: it is a genuinely beautiful song, capable of bringing a tear to the eye. For Dead Kennedys, though, it wasn’t even a single, something that speaks to the discord brewing within the band. “Most of the band and our record label at the time wanted to release this as a single; it would have made a great one,” East Bay Ray said in 2015. “But Biafra was concerned about having a song that I wrote be bigger than something he was more involved in – so he didn’t let that happen.” 8. Soup Is Good Food Dead Kennedys’ collective morale was hardly helped by the furore over their next album, 1985’s Frankenchrist. Lyrically, Frankenchrist continued the band’s forthright tone, but this time it wasn’t the band’s songs getting them in trouble: it was the album’s packaging, which included a poster of HR Giger’s Penis Landscape, depicting rows of penises and vulvae. (Biafra apparently wanted the picture as the album cover, although the rest of the band vetoed this.) Biafra was brought to trial, accused of distributing harmful matter to minors and, while he was not convicted, the band’s Alternative Tentacles label was almost bankrupted. The legal row understandably overshadowed the music on Frankenchrist, which, although it saw Dead Kennedys introduce trumpet, synths and even a “12-string electric bellzouki” to the mix, was not one of the band’s strongest albums. That said, its opening song Soup Is Good Food demands a place on any round up of the band’s best work, thanks to Biafra’s brilliantly sardonic vocal, a massive, dumb chorus and East Bay Ray’s pointillist guitar, which teeters on the verge of going out of tune at any moment. 9. Cesspools in Eden By 1986, Dead Kennedys weren’t just sick of the mainstream music industry, they were also disillusioned with the hardcore scene, which they felt had become increasingly conformist. By the time the band went into the studio to record their final album, Bedtime for Democracy, they had already played their last gig, and they announced their split soon after the album’s release. It is curious, then, that Bedtime for Democracy saw the band steer closer than ever to the hardcore template of breakneck riffs, tumbling drums and barked vocals, with little of the musical experimentation that had marked their previous albums. Against this background, Cesspools in Eden felt – somewhat ironically given the song’s environmental concerns – like a breath of fresh air, a pause for thought among the hardcore lurch: six minutes of doom-laden guitar chords, sleazy riffs and even a brilliant guitar solo from East Bay Ray, whose contribution lifts the song way above the album’s pedestrian grind, even if the production is too 80s rock for some tastes. 10. Short Songs After Dead Kennedys split in 1986, relations remained – at least on the surface – workable among the former members, with compilation album Give Me Convenience or Give Me Death released in June 1987 through Alternative Tentacles. In the late 90s, however, a feud emerged between Biafra and the other members of the group, who claimed to have been underpaid by Alternative Tentacles, then under Biafra’s control. That led to a series of lawsuits, with the singer eventually forced to pay damages to the rest of the band. Relationships between the two sides have been sour ever since. So lets remember Dead Kennedys another way, with Short Songs, probably the silliest track in the band’s catalogue and a reminder of better days. Written by 6025 (AKA Carlos Cadona), the band’s second guitarist from July 1978 to March 1979, it originally appeared on Can You Hear Me? Music from the Deaf Club, a 1981 compilation of live recordings from the San Francisco club of the same name. It’s a ridiculous yet strangely logical extension of punk’s obsession with musical back-to-basics. It lasts barely 20 seconds yet manages to pack both winning riff and call-and-response vocal into its sparse running time, coming over like the Ramones high on ice cream in Disneyland.
Can the new Twin Peaks keep up with today’s TV? ‘She’s dead, wrapped in plastic…” With those five words, drawled by lumberjack Pete Martell about murdered homecoming queen Laura Palmer, David Lynch transformed television. The opening scene of his drama Twin Peaks ensured that audiences on both sides of the Atlantic spent much of 1990 obsessed with uncovering who killed Palmer, the supposedly good girl with a whole host of bad habits. Was it her boyfriend Bobby, the beautiful football player with a terrible attitude? Her other, secret boyfriend James, the brooding not-such-a-bad-boy biker? Her chain-smoking mother Sarah? Her weepy father Leland? Local businessman Ben Horne with his plans within plans? Or his daughter Audrey, a poor little rich girl with a nose for secrets and a talent for mischief? Not since Peyton Place had a group of small-town citizens had so many secrets to hide and we drank them all in as fervently as the show’s hero, the indefatigable FBI agent Dale Cooper, inhaled his damn fine cups of coffee, desperate to uncover the truth. Even the slow-dawning realisation that Lynch was less interested in a traditional crime story than in melding a Blue Velvet-style excavation of small-town America with a supernatural mystery did little to dim the fervour of true believers (although the show’s ratings plunged dramatically, leading network ABC to pull the plug at the end of the second season). To its army of fans, Twin Peaks was impossible to predict and like nothing else on air. “It was the show that changed television,” says Rob Lindley, who has run the annual Twin Peaks festival with his wife Deanne since 2013. (The festival itself has run since 1993 in North Bend and Snoqualmie, Washington, where both the show’s pilot episode and the later Twin Peaks film, Fire Walk with Me were filmed.) “The first TV show that was intelligent, funny, spiritual, dramatic and mysterious.” It has also only grown in reputation in the 25 years it has been off air. Practically every drama with a mystery at its heart, from Lost to Wayward Pines, has been branded as the new Twin Peaks, and its influence can be seen everywhere from programmes that began soon after, such as The X-Files, to classics such as The Sopranos (which borrowed its dream sequences and willingness to play with tone). Most recently, the second season of murky hacker thriller Mr Robot played out like an extended homage to Lynch, while the much-praised 80s-set supernatural drama Stranger Things deliberately modelled its opening titles on those of the earlier show. Yet for every show to reference Lynch successfully, there are hundreds that fail to hit the right note. “These days networks want something different that makes their programmes stand apart from the pack and break through popular culture, but it’s hard to do,” says Variety TV critic Maureen Ryan. “There have been a ton of shows that tried to create a singular tone or display a unique vision and failed pretty hard.” Small wonder then that expectation is rising for the third series of Twin Peaks, which is due to hit screens in 2017 with Lynch, cowriter Mark Frost and much of the original cast and crew still on board. At Cannes last week, Kyle MacLachlan, who played the coffee-loving Cooper, teased fans by refusing to speculate on his character’s fate, saying only that “it was thrilling not only to revisit the character of Dale Cooper, but also to have the chance to work with people that, in many cases, I hadn’t seen for 25 years”. However, Sherilyn Fenn, who played the seductive Audrey, has been less complimentary, hinting on Twitter that the show’s much-loved female characters have been marginalised this time around. A deliberately vague teaser trailer, featuring only Angelo Badalamenti’s haunting theme tune and the image of Sheryl Lee’s Palmer in homecoming regalia, failed to provide a clear answer. Until the truth is revealed, the terminally addicted will have to make do with Frost’s tie-in book, The Secret History of Twin Peaks, which purports to provide “access to all of Agent Cooper’s files and tapes” and presents detailed backgrounds for many of the show’s best-loved characters, from perpetually weeping sheriff’s deputy Andy Brennan (Harry Goaz) to the log lady (Catherine E Coulson, who reportedly filmed scenes for the new series before her death last year). “I wanted to deepen the world of the show and place its origins in historical and mythological context,” Frost says, adding that it felt like the right time to expand on the show’s wider world. He’s right that if ever a show was made to be obsessively pored over, it is Twin Peaks. Savvy and self-referential, Lynch was a master of the “Easter egg”: the small, clever moments aimed at rewarding devoted fans. From witty jokes linking Twin Peaks’ kindly Sheriff Harry S Truman to his presidential namesake, to Frost’s brief cameo as a news reporter and nods to everything from noir classics Double Indemnity and Laura to Lynch’s own Eraserhead, Twin Peaks set the standard for today’s pop culture-driven TV. “It’s hard to create a truly surreal tone that works for week-to-week TV storytelling, yet for a while Twin Peaks somehow did that,” says Ryan. “It reflected a unique sensibility and was happy to stand apart from the crowd – something not many shows did back then.” Indeed to viewers raised in the era of peak TV, where any and every kind of show is available at the swipe of a screen, it’s hard to explain just how different Twin Peaks felt when it aired on BBC2 to just over 8 million viewers in October 1990, six months after its launch in the US. From Badalamenti’s shiver-inducing opening theme to the way in which Lynch’s camera slowly directed our gaze to Laura Palmer’s plastic-encased body, forcing the audience into the role of voyeur, it was instantly clear that this was not your ordinary murder tale. “The first season was absolutely riveting in its strangeness,” says Ryan. “The show created a world that felt complete and perfect and also perfectly weird. In season two it began to fall apart but the first season holds up to this day.” That it does so is largely because of three things. First, Lynch and Frost’s wonderfully deadpan script, packed full of quotable one-liners. Second, the cast’s ability to play the most surreal material absolutely straight, ensuring that fans not only went along with but endlessly picked over the most seemingly innocuous sentences. And third, and most important, Frost and Lynch’s absolute commitment to the world they created, a place where middle-aged women share psychic connections with logs, one-armed men hunt demons, besuited dwarves drop clues while talking backwards, and even the owls are not what they seem. It was the sort of show that inspired real devotion – something that happens regularly in today’s social media-driven age but which was less common in an era when conversations about popular culture took place in real life. There were parties, in which fans ate cherry pie and drank coffee, best-selling tie-in books, The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer and The Autobiography of Special Agent Dale Cooper, and even a board game. “I think the biggest reason fans responded so strongly was the quality of the writing,” says Lindley. “It was brilliant TV that never insulted your intelligence – also there were many elements within the show that fans can relate to on a deeper level.” Yet is it a mistake to return after all this time? Ryan singles out the recent “frankly wretched” X-Files reboot as an example of the pitfalls of returning to once-loved material, and it’s certainly arguable that Lynch has already drawn from this well once with less reward in 1992’s muddled movie. “One of the great things about Twin Peaks was that it was so singular for that time,” says Ryan. “This year alone American TV will have almost 430 primetime scripted shows on the air. We’ve watched TV explode with an array of treatments, approaches, themes and atmospheres. Twin Peaks will not be a singular presence and, given that, will it be able to recapture the magic it once had?” In other words, the very culture that Twin Peaks helped to create has evolved and moved on. Has Twin Peaks moved with it? Lindley for one doesn’t care. “The final scene was the greatest cliffhanger of all time and many of us have hoped and dreamed for years that Twin Peaks would continue in some way, so we’re beyond excited,” he says. “I intend to savour every episode like a fine wine.” The Secret History of Twin Peaks by Mark Frost is published by Pan Macmillan, £19.99. The new series will air on Sky Atlantic in 2017 INSPIRED BY LYNCH Lost (2004-2010) Complex storylines, a large cast of characters, mystical overtones and meandering plot lines, JJ Abrams’s island-set drama stole both the good and the bad from Lynch’s playbook. Veronica Mars (2004-2007) Over a decade after Lynch’s show ended, this teen noir payed homage, posing the question Who Killed Lilly Kane? and making it’s vibrant victim a good girl with bad habits. Hannibal (2013-2015) From its surreal visual images to its unsettling atmosphere, this horror drama from Bryan Fuller almost out Lynch’s Lynch. Mr Robot (2015-now) Pop culture magpie Sam Esmail played homage to Lynch with a woozy second season in which nothing was quite what it seemed. Stranger Things (2016) It’s impossible to link all the references to Twin Peaks in this excellent supernatural small-town story without spoiling it, but suffice to say that the storyline knowingly nods to Lynch’s masterpiece.
'Wholesome memes': could they mean more good times, online? The internet can be a cold, dark place. It’s survival of the snarkiest – or the most favourited, with the culture falling between that of an angry mob and a popularity contest. But could a new wave of internet discourse reflect a change in heart? Over the past two weeks, pockets of positivity have started to appear in timelines on Twitter and Tumblr, advocating self-respect, hard work, active listening, healthy relationships, and balanced diets. Known as “wholesome memes”, they are little reminders of good in a world – and particularly an internet – often depicted as having gone to hell. Some of the images have been circulating on social media – particularly Tumblr, where most began their life online – for the best part of a year. But the trend began to gain traction on Twitter from March, building to a tipping point in the past fortnight. Since August they have become more prominent on social media, with New York magazine describing them as “the next frontier in internet culture” on Thursday – and no doubt associated spike on Google Trends – evidence on their spilling into the mainstream. The trend is noteworthy because although they may be applied ironically, they are not in and of themselves ironic, a stark contrast to the usual modus operandi for memes. While feel-good, “Upworthy” content – the darnedest things said by kids; dogs greet servicemen after a prolonged period of absence – might continue to raise favourites on Facebook, that’s the thick end of the wedge. With 1.7bn monthly active users worldwide and with a median age edging higher, the original social network has all the edginess and innovation of a suburban shopping mall. To a lesser extent, the same applies to Instagram: replete with expressions of earnest sentiment, often hashtagged and softly focused, but not with much in the way of a sense of humour. Memes are traditionally born in Tumblr, Twitter, Reddit and other outer echelons of social media, where the humour is darker, the mood more cynical and, crucially, the moderation less robust. Tropes, cemented through repetition, include a watery-eyed, sometimes suicidal frog named Pepe, and Harambe, “the gorilla who died” at the Cincinnati zoo, who lives on as a punchline-cum-martyr. The recipient of an iMessage reading “come over”, initially met with indifference, drops everything at the addendum “my parents aren’t home”. While some are straightforward gags, there is an undercurrent of cynicism, and many joke – often opaquely, sometimes explicitly – about mental health issues such as depression and social anxiety, loneliness, and awkwardness with the opposite sex. The new, “wholesome” wave puts a positive spin on those familiar formats and figures, another turn of the wheel of what’s already a remix. It reflects a literacy, a certain knowing, that’s crucially absent in the inspirational quotes often posted to Instagram – widely, and rightly, derided as “basic”. In such a darkly humorous environment, it’s harder to get positivity trending – which makes the new wave of feel-good memes inverting these existing tropes all the more remarkable. “todays meme is: being safe and being kind” reads one post, in full, on the “clean memes” Tumblr, which describes itself as a source of “memes for people that dont wanna be mean”. It had received close to 163,000 notes since being posted on Monday. @WholesomeMeme, a Twitter account collating the best of the genre, amassed a following of more than 8,000 in about four days. “i just like that it’s different than the type of self-loathing humour that’s been so popular in the last couple of years,” the administrator told Australia. The trend appears to have been met with genuine enthusiasm, with Twitter users remarking on its apparently purifying effect. “You ever get too deep into weird memes and start feeling all gross?” posted one known only as George presciently in late May. “I need some wholesome memes in my life.” But the backlash has already begun, with some commenting that they go against the spirit of the internet – if not human nature. “Wholesome memes are the worst thing that’s ever happened,” tweeted @loopzoop last week. “Memes are supposed to address the dark underbelly of the human psyche.” It seems inevitable that this heartwarming timeline trend will prove too good to endure in the online world. But while the light lasts, positive thinking in spaces often dominated by depression does feel – in some some way – revolutionary.
Liverpool and Manchester United fail to light up Anfield on drab evening If the world was watching, as the hype would suggest, then Liverpool and Manchester United owe a lot of apologies. The biggest ticket the Premier League has to sell to a global audience did not include incident or entertainment at Anfield and Jürgen Klopp looked beyond convenient excuses to lament his team’s responsibility for the non-event. “When you are in a good moment you can play much better and it should not depend on how the opposition defends because the spaces are always similar,” he said. “Our problem was that we didn’t see them tonight.” When his adrenaline levels subside in a few days’ time, however, the Liverpool manager may place greater value on a point and a first clean sheet of the Premier League season than a below-par display he said stemmed from the fact his team “couldn’t get rid of the hectic”. Liverpool, lacking several key components in central midfield, were a reflection of their goalkeeper Loris Karius – unconvincing but unscathed. The German goalkeeper twice fluffed his lines but was reprieved by refereeing decisions against Zlatan Ibrahimovic on both occasions. The home side’s main flaw was a lack of intelligence in possession, according to Klopp, and his selection issues did provide an explanation despite his lack of interest in excuses. The first game to be played under the floodlights of the revamped Anfield turned the spotlight on Liverpool’s strength in depth for the first time this term. Klopp had no cause to change his central midfield trio of Adam Lallana, Jordan Henderson and Georginio Wijnaldum, with the former Southampton man enjoying the finest spell of his Anfield career, the club captain flourishing in the holding role, where he had been developing by the game, and the £25m summer signing from Newcastle United settling instantly. They have enhanced Liverpool’s threat and ability to harry opponents according to their manager’s wishes, but injury deprived Klopp of two thirds of his preferred midfield and it had a major bearing on Liverpool’s performance. Only when Lallana replaced Daniel Sturridge in the second half and Roberto Firmino shifted into the central striking position did Anfield catch a glimpse of the team’s potential. For the first time in the Premier League, Liverpool started without Lallana-Henderson-Wijnaldum in the centre. Lallana was only deemed fit enough for the substitutes’ bench having suffered a groin injury in the win at Swansea City before the international break and trained for two days. Wijnaldum did not get that far, with the hip injury picked up in Holland’s World Cup-qualifying defeat by France ruling him out completely. The disruption resulted in Emre Can making his first start of the campaign in place of Lallana and Philippe Coutinho dropping into the Dutchman’s position to the left of Henderson, but was not confined to personnel. There was a lack of energy, adventure and understanding at the heart of the Liverpool team and that, more than any stifling tactics from Mourinho, was responsible for the flattest of the three league fixtures at Anfield. Dropping Coutinho into the deeper role made sense in so much as that positional change had ignited Liverpool’s display when the Brazilian replaced the injured Lallana at Swansea. A reduction in the home side’s menace and movement was inevitable with their creative force 50 yards further away from David de Gea’s goal, but the extent of its impact clearly shocked and enraged Klopp. His furious instructions to his disjointed midfield was the stand-out feature of an otherwise incident-free first half, although it was Can on the receiving end of most of the managerial volleys. The German international’s only other start this season had come in the EFL Cup tie at Burton Albion on 23 August, when he aggravated an ankle injury. Rusty would be the kindest description of his return to the side as Can lost possession and challenges too easily against Marouane Fellaini and Ashley Young, while his reluctance to break forward prompted Klopp’s first outburst in his compatriot’s direction. Coutinho confirmed he is not averse to dog’s work when he chased Antonio Valencia across the pitch and roused an already fired up Anfield with a precise tackle on the United right-back. Otherwise, with Henderson’s distribution below-par, Coutinho unable to compensate for Wijnaldum’s ability to protect the Liverpool defence when United countered and Can toiling, there was a distinct lack of cohesion to the home team. Even Zeljko Buvac, Klopp’s first assistant coach, made a rare appearance in the technical area to cajole an improvement from the Liverpool midfield. Naturally, midfield problems had a knock-on effect for the isolated Sturridge, Sadio Mané and Firmino. Lallana’s arrival came moments after Can almost rectified his contribution with a low shot that brought a superb save from De Gea and with the England international injecting urgency, Coutinho also forced a stunning stop from the United keeper from distance. “We had a few good moments but not enough to deserve the win,” Klopp said.
I've heard enough of the white male rage narrative ‘Grab ’em by the pussy” was the line that was supposed to have ended Donald Trump’s campaign for presidency. Instead it turned out to be one of the most astonishing and successful strategies for the highest office. In a campaign based on racism, misogyny and bullying, Trump proved that boasting about sexually assaulting women, far from ruining a man’s career, can boost it; and white women voted for him in droves. Grab ’em by the pussy, indeed. The first black American president will now be succeeded by a man endorsed by the Ku Klux Klan. This, according to Trump and his supporters, male and female, is what the American dream actually looks like. A lot will be written about how Trump’s victory represents a backlash of rage from the white working classes. The election of Trump, this narrative goes, proves how these people feel ignored by the elite politicians and metropolitan media. We need to hear more from these people, the argument continues, and how they have suffered because of globalisation, the demise of industry, the opioid crisis, the death of the American dream. It’s interesting, this take, not least because, far from being a “working-class revolt”, 48% of those who earn more than $250,000 and 49% of white college graduate voters chose Trump. But even leaving that aside, to say that no one took notice of the angry white vote in this US election is awfully reminiscent of British politicians saying “no one talks about immigration”, when it feels like – you know what? I think we got that base well and truly covered. Far from ignoring the white working class during this election, they were written about so extensively by nervously placatory liberal journalists that these articles became a genre unto themselves, satirised perfectly by Benjamin Hart last week (“I couldn’t help but notice that people in Bleaksville are angry … I wanted to hear more but Ed explained that David Brooks had scheduled an interview with him to discuss whether he ate dinner with his family every night, and what it means for America.”) So here’s an alternative take: we’ve heard enough of white rage now. Oh sure, listen to the grievances of enraged voters. But understanding them is different from indulging them, and the media and politicians – in the US and UK – have for too long conflated the two, encouraging the white victim narrative and stoking precisely the kind of nasty, race-baiting campaigns that led to Brexit and Trump (as the voter demographics have proved, the linking factor in Trump voters is not class but race). Both campaigns promised to turn the clock back to a time when white men were in the ascendence, and both were fronted by privately educated false prophets such as Nigel Farage and Trump, absurdly privileged buccaneers who style themselves as friends of the working classes while pushing policies that work against them. They have bleached language of meaning, boasting that they aren’t “career politicians” (now a negative thing as opposed to someone who has devoted their life to public service), and they scorn “experts” (who are now apparently the biggest threat to democracy). Trump’s supporters, like Brexit supporters before them, will say that these are merely the bleatings of the sore losers – the Remoaners, the Grimtons, or whatever portmanteau is conceived next. This objection always misses the obvious point that these people aren’t mourning for themselves. Whereas those who voted for Trump and Brexit did so to turn time back for their personal benefit, those who voted for remain or Hillary Clinton did so because they know time only moves forward, and this benefits society. To try to force it back hurts everyone. To call out voters for falling for such damagingly racist and sexist messages is viewed by politicians as a vote-killer and dangerously snobby by the media, as though working-class people are precious toddlers who must be humoured and can’t possibly be held responsible for any flawed thinking. There is no doubt the white working classes in the west have suffered in recent decades, yet no other demographic that has endured similarly straitened circumstances is indulged in this way. For decades, American politicians have demonised the black working classes who suffered far worse structural inequalities and for far longer – and Trump continues to do so today. And yet, as Stacey Pattoon wrote, only the white working classes are accorded this handwringing and insistent media empathy. No one is telling these voters to pull up their boot straps. The much-discussed American Dream is only considered “broken” when it’s the white working classes who are suffering. When it’s African-Americans, they are simply lazy and morally flawed. But Clinton, according to the politicians and journalists who indulge inverted narratives, was seen as simply too corrupt and establishment by these voters. “Trump’s election is an unmistakable rejection of a political establishment and an economic system that simply isn’t working for most people,” Jeremy Corbyn said, as though the election of a racist property billionaire who inherited his wealth was the class warrior triumph we’ve all been waiting for. But if anyone thinks that, it is because the media promoted false equivalencies throughout this campaign to a degree never before seen. On Tuesday, the Times headlined its editorial about the election “Tough Choice”, as if the decision between a woman who used the wrong email server and a racist, sexist, tax-dodging bully wasn’t, in fact, the easiest choice in the world. Clinton’s private email server was covered more ferociously than Trump’s misogyny. That Clinton had talked at Goldman Sachs was reported as a financial flaw somehow analogous to his non-payment of tax. However much people want to blame the Democrats, their voters or Clinton herself, the result of this election is due at least as much to anyone who pushed the narrative that Clinton and Trump were equally or even similarly “bad”. Shame on them. The most qualified candidate in a generation was defeated by the least qualified of all time. That is what misogyny looks like, and, like all bigotries, it will end up dragging us all down.
MacOS Sierra: top five things you need to know about Apple's new Mac software OS X is dead. Long live macOS. Apple’s new version of its Mac operating system – Sierra – will be available for download later today. The free upgrade is available for almost any Mac from late 2009 and will be available via the Mac App Store later today. While some might want to hold off immediately updating, given the recent trouble with early updates, here are five new things to be found by those who do wish to change to macOS Sierra. 1. Siri The biggest change for Sierra other than the name is Siri. The same voice assistant from the iPhone and iPad is now on the Mac with similar features and faults. It can find files for you using natural language as introduced with El Capitan, set appointments, check spellings, play music and tell you the weather, but how much you use it depends on where you work: colleagues in your open-plan office aren’t going to love the fact that you just started talking to your computer. 2. Universal clipboard Have you ever wanted to paste something between two Macs or a Mac and an iPhone or iPad? Now you can. Just copy something on one machine, hit paste on the other and wait. Sometimes it takes a while, depending on how good your connection is, but it works surprisingly well. It works for text, images and most other things you might copy to the clipboard. 3. iCloud drive desktop While some are organised and store all their files in carefully organised folders, many just have everything dumped on the desktop and locked on a single machine. iCloud Drive desktop can now sync files and folders on the desktop between machines and to iPhones or iPads, so everything not organised is accessible from multiple machines. 4. Everything is in a tab now The tabbed interface kickstarted by browsers has now come to more or less everything in Sierra. From text editors to photos editing, budgeting apps and email, hitting the “Merge All Windows” option under the Window drop down in the status bar merges the windows from one app into one tabbed interface. Not everything supports it immediately, and some that do have half-baked implementations, but if you wanted tabs everywhere on a Mac, now’s your chance. 5. Apple Pay, iOS 10 features and more Aside from big Mac features, MacOS Sierra also adds compatibility with most of the new features from iOS 10. Now you can pay for things using your Touch ID sensor on your iPhone on the web, you can send fancy chat things with iOS 10 users in Messages, view videos handled by the Quicktime Player in a floating window, and even unlock your Mac using an Apple Watch, if you own one. Apple Music in iTunes now looks more like the iOS version too, and the Memories feature from the iOS Photos app is now in the MacOS Sierra Photos app. MacOS also promises to free up some space on your Mac by storing unused files within iCloud drive, but how much space it can free up depends on what types of files are taking up your hard drive. iOS 10: the top 10 things you need to know about Apple’s new iPhone and iPad software
TSB exceeds targets for growth but sees decline in management profits TSB, the challenger bank taken over in a £1.7bn deal last year by the Spanish company Banco Sabadell, has more than met most of its targets but recorded a decline in profits after focusing on winning new customers and increasing lending. The bank said more than 1,000 new customers were joining it each day, while 6.8% of all UK consumers switching or opening a new account were joining TSB, beating its own target of 6%. However, management profit, which removes the distortion of one-off and volatile items, came in at £105.7m for 2015, representing a decrease of 21% on the previous year. The TSB chief executive, Paul Pester, who has led the organisation first through a flotation after it was spun off from Lloyds and then through the sale to the new Spanish parent, said the bank was “absolutely on track”. “It’s not about focusing on short-term profit,” he added, saying the bank had decided to invest in a number of great properties while “encouraging new customers to come to us”. Despite the downturn in profit and because of the achievement of other targets, the first TSB award – which gives employees roughly the equivalent of six weeks’ pay – is being paid out to the tune of £26m. Pester said he had taken the idea from John Lewis, which famously awards its partners an annual bonus, believing that such a scheme will help to bring long-term sustainability to TSB. Pester said the bank, which recently acquired £3.3bn of former Northern Rock mortgages, is mainly focused on organic growth, as well as migrating from the IT system of its former owner Lloyds to Sabadell. “We’re not focused on making acquisitions at this stage,” he said, snuffing out suggestions TSB might be interested in buying Williams & Glyn from RBS. Pester’s pay package comes in at £1.33m, but that’s before almost £2m of discretionary awards. The chief executive is in line for a £760,000 performance award, an £800,000 integration award and he also received a £405,000 payment from Lloyds last year for listing the bank.
Downing Street backs archbishop over immigration comments Downing Street has said immigration is a legitimate public concern after Justin Welby, the archbishop of Canterbury, criticised the “outrageous” labelling of those who fear it as racist. Welby made the comments in a magazine interview in which he argued that fear was a reasonable response to the “colossal migration crisis” facing Europe. The remarks were immediately seized on by key figures in the campaign for Britain to leave the EU, including Iain Duncan Smith, the cabinet minister and former Tory leader, who said “elites” had suppressed the debate around immigration for too long. “This is one of the greatest movements of people in human history. Just enormous. And to be anxious about that is very reasonable,” Welby told House magazine. “There is a tendency to say: ‘Those people are racist’, which is just outrageous, absolutely outrageous. “In fragile communities particularly – and I’ve worked in many areas with very fragile communities over my time as a clergyman – there is a genuine fear: what happens about housing? What happens about jobs? What happens about access to health services? “There is a genuine fear. And it is really important that that fear is listened to and addressed. There have to be resources put in place that address those fears.” He said the scale of migration was “such an enormous challenge that it can only be handled at a European level” but the lack of a Europe-wide solution was “deepening the crisis very, very significantly”. Responding to Welby, Duncan Smith said: “These are rational comments from the archbishop, they’re to be welcomed, but you wonder just how late they’ve come from various people and institutions. “So I congratulate him, but if you think back, for far too many years what’s happened is in a sense the elites have all said: ‘It’s terrible to talk about immigration; if you do, you’re racist’. So they shut down the debate for many, many years. I can even remember back at the time when Tony Blair was prime minister, to even mention immigration was to be accused of being a racist.” Downing Street also agreed with Welby’s comments, saying David Cameron was trying to bring down immigration. “He would agree with the archbishop that it is a legitimate concern,” Cameron’s official spokeswoman said. “Indeed, the prime minister has sought to respond to the concerns that the British people have about the levels of migration in this country.” In the interview with House magazine, Welby also said a response to the great movement of people was needed at a European level and the UK must find a way of “taking its share of the load”. Welby said people’s fears about migration should not be dismissed but communities can be “much more absorbent” than they get credit for and called for organisation at a “macro level” to address the crisis. “A problem of this scale can only be dealt with by a response on an equally grand scale right across Europe, and we have to play our part,” Welby said.
If Sam Allardyce is to be sacked it should be for calling Hodgson ‘Woy’ We know it is not acceptable in society today to offend or insult people because of their gender, race or disability. We also know it is not acceptable to be offensive to people because of the way they look, their weight and their hair colour. So why do we still find it acceptable to mock people for their speech and the way they sound? This is highlighted in the derogatory way the previous England football manager, Roy Hodgson, has been mocked again for the way he pronounces his “r” sound – this time by his successor. If Sam Allardyce does lose the job it won’t be for referring to Roy as “Woy” – but perhaps it should be. It still seems as though we feel it is OK to laugh at differences in speech and the way we sound. There are so many natural variations in speaking, some of us sound husky, some high-pitched, some monotonous, some nasal, some with a lisp, some may use an “f” sound instead of a “th”, some may be softly spoken, some loud. All perfectly acceptable ways of speaking that should not be worthy of comment. Learning to speak is a complex process which starts the minute we are born, listening and babbling and creating sounds that eventually become meaningful words. Speech sounds typically develop in order but children vary in when they can say these sounds and how quickly they are produced. Speech sounds can sometimes be problematic for children and they may need help with this from a speech and language therapist. There are also those born with conditions that make verbal speech very difficult and so need to use other forms of communication such as signing. Fluency in speaking can be problematic for some people and children will typically go through a phase of stammering with about 1% of adults having a stammer. In the UK significant speech, language or communication problems are found in more than a million children or young people. This has huge psychological implications affecting their learning, self-esteem, friendships and social interaction. How would they have felt reading what Allardyce had said? Many people who have a stroke can be left with speech sounding slurred and unclear, or struggling to find words and get their words out, which we know can lead to social isolation and frustration. Speech and language therapists see on a daily basis how people have to cope with the psychological consequences of living and coping with their speech and communication difficulties and how this can affect their participation in the community, education, work, as well as family and everyday life. The result of struggling to speak and communicate is devastating for people and is often misunderstood by wider society. There are clearly huge differences in communication from those who have minute differences in certain speech sounds through to those for whom speech is greatly affected and communication is a daily struggle. Speaking and communication is such a massive part of expressing who we are as people, it is our way of interacting with others, it is the foundation for relationships, sharing our humour, our personality and having social contact. An inability to communicate or speak is clearly more than just not being able to make our needs known to others, it is about expressing ourselves and who we are. Although mocking someone for a slight variation in the way they say their “r” sound, may seem trivial, the wider implications for this being acceptable in society have more far-reaching effects. The Football Association took a strong stance when The Sun mocked Hodgson with their “Woy gets England job: Bwing on the Euwos” front page – for which they should be applauded. They should not forget those principles now. Mocking someone’s speech, whatever this may be, should be seen for what it is, an attempt to insult and belittle them for sounding “different”.
Richard Linklater: ‘Someone’s living back there, and he’s murdered somebody’ At the start of Richard Linklater’s 1992 breakthrough movie Slacker, a passenger in a cab monologues away about life and hope and the randomness of it all. The young man, played by Linklater himself, tells the driver about his weird dreams: having lunch with Tolstoy, being Frank Zappa’s roadie. He proceeds to create an alternate reality in which he stays at the bus station, rather than gets the cab, meets a cute girl, plays pinball with her, falls in love. Three minutes later, he gets out, saying: “Man! Shit. I should have stayed at the bus station.” It’s beautifully constructed, and in a way it became the template for all the films that followed. Linklater doesn’t do drama. There is often no plot. His characters wander about, talk (how they talk!), fall in and out of love, get stoned and drunk and disappointed, make good and bad decisions. His films amble along gloriously, eavesdropping on life. Talking to the director is like being in one of his movies. The conversation starts in the middle, and you don’t have a clue how you got there. “Brits take a gap year, hey?” he says, as soon as he sits down. And we talk about how we didn’t take gap years, how when we were growing up they were for privileged students. “Yeah, I like the idea of a gap year, but we had no money. Who was going to pay for it? I don’t come from the posh!” Linklater’s new film is a return to college days – a follow-up, 23 years later, to his third movie, Dazed And Confused. While that film celebrated the last day of high school in the summer of 1976, Everybody Wants Some!! is set in 1980, the weekend before college starts for a group of baseball-playing jocks. There are the familiar Linklater ingredients: youthful dreams, horniness, hippy dudes, punk, pot and endless chatter. But it’s also a surprising film for a man who has become known for his tender sensibility. These boys are as macho as they come: sporty, stupid, endlessly competitive. When not getting stoned or trying to get laid, they challenge each other to knuckle-flicking fights. Perhaps the most surprising thing is that it is autobiographical. Young Rick Linklater was a ferociously competitive jock who had to beat everybody at everything. He won a sports scholarship to Sam Houston State University in Texas, and planned to become a baseball star. At college, he was one of 18 boys living in two houses with their eye on the same major league prize. “We were very competitive at basketball, card games, pinball, everything,” he says. “There was a lot of gambling. A college athlete is going to be competitive. You don’t get to that level if you’re not.” Could he have made it? “Every college player thinks they’re on their way. But, delusions aside, I might have toiled in the minor leagues for a bit.” Towards the end of his second year, Linklater discovered he had a heart condition called atrial fibrillation. “I was suddenly getting light-headed and I couldn’t run any more. One minute you’re starting left fielder, hitting home runs, the next it’s career over. I was 20.” Today, he looks back at it as a blessing: “I was so glad to leave that behind.” I tell him the knuckle-flicking game in the film made me wince, and ask if he played it. He grins. Sure he did. Is it as painful as it looks? He grins some more. Sure it is. Show me, I say. “You want me to flick your knuckles?” he asks, delighted. He does, with his thumb and index finger. Ouch! I shout. We are sitting in a smart hotel in Los Angeles. People stare. I ask him to do it again. It is even more painful, and I shout louder. He nods. “It hurts. Ten more and I would have drawn blood! Those guys are cruel.” At 55, Linklater looks little different from the young man he was in Slacker: boyish face, pinchable cheeks, tanned, smiling eyes, long fringe. Nor does he sound any different; there are the singsong sentences that often rise towards the end, as he asks one of those big questions that have been nagging away at him all his life. As in the new film, he met a girl at college who was into theatre and this began his love affair with the arts. “I saw it as a great relief; a new phase of my life.” Why? “Because you’re an immature little twit when you’re trying to win. It’s a pretty base nature. I don’t see the arts as competitive at all. It was a better angel of my nature. Sports is zero-sum: winner, loser, demonstrable.” At college, Linklater started to write plays. When he was told about his irregular heartbeat, he didn’t brood on it. Instead, he decided it was meant to be, left college, and went to work on an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. It was hard, dangerous work – and well paid. It also gave him the opportunity to read novel after novel. By the time Linklater returned to Texas, he had earned enough money to buy himself a Super 8 camera, projector, editing equipment, and to cut himself some slack. He moved to Austin, enrolled in film school, started the Austin Film Society, and decided he would become a director. Looking back, he says, it was a ridiculous ambition. Nobody he knew did creative jobs like that. “It was unheard of. If you could see where I grew up and the people I grew up around… I can’t explain how far the idea of making films would be from my background.” His father did a dull job in insurance; his stepfather was a prison guard. Did he ever consider working in the prison service? “No. But half the guys on my college football team did, and the other half became prisoners.” His parents married young and divorced young. “When my mom was having me, she was 22 and I was her third kid. A little Catholic girl.” A single mother, she went back to school, got an MA and went on to teach at university. “I got to see my mom coming into her own. We grew up together – she was always studying for tests and doing her dissertation. Boyhood is very personal.” Boyhood is the groundbreaking film Linklater released in 2014. The story? A boy and girl grow up, and a divorced couple learn to respect each other. Nothing remarkable there, except that it was filmed over 12 years, so we see six-year-old Mason Evans Jr transform into a photography-loving 18-year-old student; his older sister Samantha (played by Linklater’s daughter, Lorelei) go from adorable chatterbox to sulky teen; and, best of all, his mother, Olivia, in a wonderful performance by Patricia Arquette, grow into middle age, educate herself, move in and out of relationships, and almost wise up to life. As a conceit, it’s brilliant; but Linklater’s humour and humanity turn it into one of the great movies of the 21st century. Arquette won an Oscar for her performance, but Linklater missed out on best director, best film and best original screenplay (the film was nominated for all three). Is he making a sequel? “Not currently,” he says, chewing on bread and olive oil (he has been vegetarian since his 20s, and doesn’t fancy anything on the meaty menu). “Well, it wouldn’t be Boyhood! I have no current ideas, but never say never.” Is it true that Lorelei got bored with the project halfway through and wanted to be killed off? “Oh, there was one year she thought she didn’t want to film. She was feeling self-conscious, puberty hit. But then she realised she was getting paid, and she was like, oh, OK!” Linklater talks a lot about his three daughters, always with pride, occasionally with fear. His greatest fear is that they don’t follow their dream, whatever that may be. His twins are 11 years old, while Lorelei is now 22 and an artist. He says he is constantly driving home the same message to Lorelei: do your thing, never sell out to the Man. “She is a passionate visual artist. I told her I’ll support you in anything you’re meant to be doing. Fuck money, fuck career, just do something that fulfils you and you might get lucky and you might be able to make a living out of it. I did.” Given the age difference, I ask if the twins have a different mother. “Nope,” he says. “Same mom. Somehow.” Do they live with each other? “Yeah,” he says, but it sounds more like a question than an answer. “We’re fluid. I have a couple of properties. But we’re always around. Let’s put it like this: it’s an ongoing adult relationship that has produced three children.” How long have they been together? “The age of my daughter, plus nine months!” He bursts out laughing; he laughs a lot. After Slacker, he was regarded as a spokesman for Generation X, but Linklater never saw the slacker generation the same way as the establishment did. “Slacker means two different things to me and the rest of the world,” he says. “The slacker world was the world I found myself living in. The 1980s underground was pretty interesting. Everyone I met was an artist of some kind, a musician or writer or painter; lovers of life, appreciators, and punk rocker-type people, who you didn’t know what they did but you could tell they sure liked their music. Nobody talked about their jobs, what they had to do to pay their rent. It was no surprise that mainstream culture decided these were a bunch of lazy do-nothings, because, by their judgment, they were not productive. They weren’t fitting into the free-market society, and that’s like Jack Black in School Of Rock: he’s a guy with a passion. I admire anyone who is just living their life and following what they want to do.” School Of Rock, about a struggling rock singer who cheats his way into teaching at a prestigious prep school, is one of the few films Linklater has made for a studio. Most of his films are structured around a period of time rather than plot. So Slacker, Dazed And Confused and the swooningly romantic (and occasionally devastatingly bleak) Before… trilogy, starring Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke, all take place on one day. In Before Sunrise, French Céline and American Jesse meet on a train in Europe, get off at Vienna and spend a day and night together. In Before Sunset, made nine years later, they are reunited in Paris: Jesse is now the successful author of a novel about a chance encounter he had with a woman called Céline nine years earlier. In Before Midnight, made another nine years later, they are a couple with twin girls, facing up to life’s painful compromises. Linklater doesn’t shy away from conflict: a confrontation between Céline and Jesse in Before Midnight is brutal, as they address their different resentments and everything unravels. But, at heart, there is an optimism to these films: however compromised, life has its beauty and meaning, even if it’s just a fractured memory of an afternoon’s love. “I guess I was interested in how cinema worked with reality,” Linklater says. “How you could sculpt out real time. I was never that interested in conventional storytelling – my mind doesn’t work that way. I’m looking for experiential moments. Plot twists just seem antithetical to how we process the world. One thing follows the next.” With their broken, overlapping conversation, many of his films seem improvised. In fact, they are closely scripted. “I’m not interested in improvisation,” Linklater says. “Everything is structured. Anyone who thinks it’s improvised, get a camera and film the two most interesting people you know, walking and talking, and see how it works cinematically. It will be terrible.” The naturalism and pacing nod to François Truffaut and Eric Rohmer. Perhaps you’re the most European film-maker working today, I suggest. Linklater smiles. “I think I’m an old-school existentialist. I should have been a French film-maker in the late 1950s and 60s. I’d avoid the car ride with Camus, but I would have fit right in there. So many of my films are very personal explorations of ideas, things I’m trying to learn more about or make peace with.” Has he made a good living? “Overall, yeah. The pay scale in the entertainment industry is like in sports. It’s not nearly as much as you think for most things, then the other end of the scale is more than you can imagine. I’ve been lucky to get more-than-you-can-imagine, for whatever reason.” Did he enjoy his more-than-you-can-imagine experiences? “Well, the trickle-down into my life enjoys it, because I then don’t have to do certain things for money. I’m not talking crazy money.” What’s the most he’s ever been paid? “A couple of million? For something like School Of Rock.” While School Of Rock was made for $20m, most of his films are made on much smaller budgets (Slacker cost $23,000), and many are set in Texas. One of them, Bernie, is unusual in that it is not autobiographical – and it has a plot. But art and life are rarely too far apart in Linklater’s life, as turned out to be the case here. The film, released in 2011, was based on the true story of Bernie Tiede, a much-loved mortician who became the companion of curmudgeonly heiress Marjorie Nugent, more than 40 years his senior. In 1996, he shot her in the back four times and hid her in the freezer for nine months. When her body was discovered, Tiede, who had no previous criminal record, was sentenced to life imprisonment. After the film was released, with Jack Black and Shirley MacLaine as the leads, Tiede appealed against his sentence. It was revealed he had been sexually abused as a child by his uncle, and claimed he had been verbally and emotionally abused by Nugent. His counsel argued that he shot her in a brief dissociative episode brought on by his abusive relationship with her. His sentence was reduced, and at his appeal in May 2014 he was told he could be released, after more than 16 years in jail, provided he had somewhere to live. This was where Linklater stepped in, suggesting Tiede move into the garage apartment of his home in Austin; Tiede has lived there for the past two years. How is he doing? “He’s singing in a gay men’s choir, he has friends, he’s trying to do good in the world. He works for two non-profit corporations that help people in prison, and people getting out of prison. He’s a real sweetheart.” Was he not worried about taking in a convicted murderer? “No. I did for a second worry that I was dropping him in on my family, and they hadn’t met him.” He smiles. “It’s not every day that, hey, someone’s going to be living back there, and he’s murdered somebody. But if my family of all families can’t deal with that… And he’s been great. He’s an incredibly nice, generous man, who did a horrible thing 20 years ago. He watches our animals. I have a small pet pig and he reads the paper to it every day. Pigs are unique in that way; they like people treating them as equals. He’s just there, helping out in any way he can.” But this month Tiede has been on trial again, with prosecutors arguing that the murder was premeditated and the courts were wrong to reduce his sentence. He could be sent back to jail for life, and Linklater’s anxiety is obvious. The week after we meet, he is due to speak in court on Tiede’s behalf. “I’m primarily there to give witness to how well he’s been doing these last two years.” How would his girls feel if Tiede were sent back to prison? “Oh, it would be devastating to everybody who knows him. It would be horrible. No, it would really shake up a lot of people to see the state of Texas be this cruel and crazy.” For Linklater, Texas is a muse of sorts, representing the best and worst of America. “There’s a real openness and friendliness to people. It’s not snobby.” And the worst? “We just executed a mentally retarded person. It can be a pretty unforgiving, Old Testament system.” The very worst of Texas, he says, is represented by creationist Ted Cruz, candidate for the Republican nomination for the presidency. “Cruz to me is more scary than Trump. He actually believes what he says. Trump doesn’t believe anything – he’s just a needy narcissist. Cruz is seen as the smart guy, but nobody’s asked him: ‘How old is the world?’ ‘Do you believe in biology?’ Because he doesn’t.” Linklater has been telling his daughters to observe the contest closely, because America might not witness another like it. “I’ve seen every presidential election since the 1960s, and this is the craziest ever. It’s the commodified stupidity of the political dialogue in the US. The divisiveness. It’s all attitude and personality, like a reality show.” Linklater is already feeling nostalgic for Obama, and believes we’ll look back at him as a political giant. But, typically, he doesn’t talk about policy or achievement; he talks about Obama the dude. “We haven’t tipped our glass to Obama yet, and we’re going to because there is such vast dignity and intelligence. He never embarrassed our country, not once. Not once. He’s so classy, and his wife’s so classy. People give people hell when they screw up, Clinton and stuff, but nobody says: ‘Think how much sex Obama has turned down in his lifetime.’” The more Linklater talks, the more I feel I’m with the guy in the cab, shooting the breeze in Slacker all those years ago. “You think he couldn’t be getting a blow job?” he continues. “Just the discipline and the bigger vision of what he’s here for in the world – the restraint he’s shown.” He’s got Michelle, I say. “Yeah. Come on, though, he’s a guy!” Is he supporting Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders for the Democrat nomination? “I’m kinda liking Bernie. I’ve waited for a candidate like Bernie Sanders my whole adult life, so when there’s a guy there who’s actually professing it, you have to support him. I’m a natural socialist.” For now, though, Linklater is more concerned with the fate of another Bernie. A couple of weeks after meeting in LA, we speak again. Linklater has given his evidence for Tiede’s defence – to no avail. Tiede has been sent back to prison for 99 years or life. “I’m heartbroken,” Linklater says. “It wasn’t really about truth or justice, it was about getting a win for the prosecution and they definitely won this round. But hopefully the legal process is open to another round and the truth can come out.” Trump, Cruz, Texan bigotry, Bernie’s reconviction: look, he says, he’s aware how bleak the world can be, but despair is not his bag. He’s going to keep campaigning for Tiede, focus on all the positive stuff out there: his girls, the good people, the movies he still wants to make. “People talk about how ambitious Bruce Springsteen was, because he had 500 songs in him that he wanted to express. I felt that way, and I still do. Like a musician, I’ve still got so many songs in me.” • Everybody Wants Some!! goes on general release on 13 May. The is hosting a special preview screening on 4 May at the Barbican, London EC2, followed by a Q&A with the director.
We cannot succumb to Brexit disaster. It’s time to campaign to save our future You can either weep for your country or try to save it. Britain is being convulsed by its greatest crisis since the war, and it has only just begun. It will take years to unfold. Millions of people who voted leave are still delighted at the outcome. For millions of people who voted remain, this feels like a very bad dream. Just thinking about the coming years is as exhausting as it is terrifying. From economic chaos to the legitimisation of xenophobia and racism; from the coming dismantling of the United Kingdom to the stress placed on the Northern Ireland peace process; from the ascent of the Tory hard right to the coming attacks on everything from workers’ rights to the NHS; from the inevitable anger that will follow the leave campaign’s abandonment of their unachievable promises to the inevitable retribution from a European Union that fears for its existence and that suffers from the Brexit aftershocks. Any one of these in isolation would be difficult to deal with. They are all coming together, and they are coming fast. One response is to simply throw our hands in the air, yelp in despair and give up. This is not an option. It would be irresponsible – self-destructive, even – to be a passive bystander as your country is devastated. Many who voted leave will surely come to regret their decision. That doesn’t mean reversing the expressed democratic will of the British people – what is done is done – but it does provide hope for dealing with the crises now enveloping the country. Britain’s young didn’t want this to happen, and it is they who will suffer the most. Post-Brexit Britain needs a broad-based campaign to confront the threats I’ve listed above. Call it Project Hope, call it Save Our Future: I’ll leave that to someone with more imagination. But it must be a campaign that mobilises people behind a just Brexit. It will mobilise people to defend the NHS and workers’ rights from the ascendant Tory right; to confront the xenophobia and racism that has now been given renewed respectability and acceptance; to campaign on the issues – such as the lack of affordable housing and secure jobs – that have fuelled anti-immigration sentiment. It will particularly focus on mobilising young people: if there has ever been a dramatic shock to break their political resignation, this is surely it. It must bring together grassroots organisations – such as Reclaim in Manchester, which seeks to train young working-class people to become leaders – as well as high-profile individuals who young people in particular look up to. Is this proposal sketchy and lacking detail? Yes, of course, and it’s being thrown out there for debate and discussion on making it work. But Britain is now confronted by an existential crisis. We cannot succumb to the inevitability of the disasters unfolding. Despair and misery sap energy and nothing more. Time to divert it into something useful and productive – which may just help to ensure a future that is worth living in.
The perils of mixing faith and healing Chibundu Onuzo seems to think that it was appropriate for a nurse to ask patients, on their way to surgery, if she could pray with them (I’m invisible – I am a Christian, 13 December). I put the question to my elderly friends. The majority said that it would terrify them at a particularly vulnerable time as they would assume that the nurse expected them to die. Some said they would be angry at such an inappropriate question in a hospital. One commented that he had previously been approached by a hospital chaplain and, far from being comforted, was shocked that the NHS was paying the chaplain’s wages when it had had cut nursing staff. To inflict your own beliefs on someone who cannot get away from you and at such a tense time is unprofessional in the extreme. Everyone is entitled to practise their own belief in their private life, but forcing it on others in the work environment is simply wrong. Dorothy Smith Welwyn Garden City • The Darent Valley hospital board will waste a lot of NHS money on lawyers’ fees by sacking a good nurse, Sarah Kuteh, in a cruel manner. All she did was to ask patients if they would like prayer support. She was not thrusting her Christian views on them. Perhaps the hospital chaplain team could act as advocates between the board and Sarah before this escalates into an unnecessary expensive and wasteful court case. How about doing this before Christmas? Eddie James Rillington, North Yorkshire • It is sad that Sarah Kuteh lost her job after offering to pray with patients. Generally I feel that, as with politics, religion should be avoided in the workplace. Someone is going to be offended or feel excluded, so best not. If hospital admission forms still list religion, patients could then be informed what services are available, hospital chaplain etc. Going into surgery affects people in different ways – pre-meds make me sleepy and I prefer to be left alone – but if someone needs prayer before then, best to discuss that at time of admission. Val Cook Radcliffe-on-Trent, Nottinghamshire • Chibundu Onuzo complains of invisibility. How strange! For consider. There is a church in every village and district – often several. There are bishops in the House of Lords. There are church schools round every corner – with more to come. There are prayers in parliament and council meetings. There is the priority that schools give to religious perspectives on morals and belief; perspectives to which most of us are now indifferent or hostile. And then there is Thought for the Day – still closed to non-religious voices. It’s an odd kind of invisibility that is quite so visible. And an odd kind of believer who feels that it’s not enough. David Flint Vice-chair, North London Humanist Group • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com • Read more letters – click here to visit gu.com/letters
Brexit arrogance exposes ineptitude of Tory elite Donald Trump may be assembling the world’s richest government but he remains a few Boris Johnsons short of possessing the most arrogant and privileged one. Such a title surely belongs to the Tory government currently headed by Theresa May but which was begat by David Cameron. The real difference between Trump’s cabinet and May’s is that many of his high office holders have at least earned their fortunes. The UK Tory party, on the other hand, is the natural home of unearned wealth and privilege. It has always been a curious anomaly of the UK Tories that they preach the virtues of honest and hard graft but in practice will always promote the interests of those at the top of society who rarely work and who will do anything to avoid contributing to the upkeep of the country that allows them to wallow in this lifestyle. Another Tory anomaly is that while extolling the virtues of the free market and unfettered competition in all other areas, where their writ runs they encourage unfair advantage. They would rather award an important job to a buffoon who was considered the “right sort” than hand it to a competent person who, alas, attended the wrong school. Underpinning everything that they do at home and abroad is the need to ensure that power is exercised by as small and exclusive a group as possible. The lord alone knows how many military disasters (including many that have been concealed from us) have been the result of an inbred officer class that included many who were given the safe haven of a regiment to stop them creating chaos at home. How many billions of pounds in government cock-ups could have been saved if the higher echelons of the civil service were confined only to the UK’s brightest and best rather than a private members club for the scions of a small group of families who have been running the show since Agincourt? How many miscarriages of justice have occurred because we allow justice to be dispensed by a gratuitously and grotesquely unrepresentative temple of law lords? I did have a laugh last month at the faux outrage of people who were shocked that our top judges were being openly and savagely criticised over their Brexit verdict last month. Those gilded few who have ownership of the highest courts in the land are selected from a tiny tributary of society who attended the most exclusive and expensive schools before taking a place at Oxford or Cambridge that had been waiting for them since before they were born. Many of them would have struggled had they not had the benefit of a lopsided playing field. Why should we assume that all their verdicts are safe and that they dispense justice equitably when they are drawn from such a small pool? The arrogance of the Tories in government rests upon this pattern of privilege and entitlement that has remained more or less intact since Magna Carta. All around this power structure is the thrum of thousands of common people who subjugate their personal dignity and sense of self in the delusion that, one day, they may be beckoned in. They are to be found in some national newspapers and in the high command of the BBC. Many of them have insinuated themselves into the parliamentary Labour party. They are disdained by genuine aristocrats but nevertheless retained and indulged as useful idiots. It is why David Davis and Boris Johnson can stravaig around Europe insulting EU heads of state and demanding that they bow to their half-baked demands knowing full well that the ridiculousness of their position will never be properly examined at home. Almost every senior EU official, foreign minister and premier is united in their post-Brexit message to Britain: you can’t get access to the single market if you don’t allow free movement of our peoples and if you believe otherwise then you are a fool who is misleading your own people. Theresa May now appears to have grasped that the EU is not for budging, which is why this devout Christian is prepared to use millions of EU citizens resident in the UK as human shields in her negotiations with Europe. In Ms May’s church, they probably skipped over the feeding of the 5,000 lest any vulnerable person misinterpret it as a justification for socialism. In Scotland, you wonder when the nation will finally have had its fill of the sound of Tories just saying “No!” On Thursday, we witnessed another one, Phillip Hammond, making a rare visit north to Edinburgh to tell the Scottish government that not only would a separate Brexit deal for Scotland not happen but that the SNP were clutching at straws for asking for one. Effectively, he was telling Scotland: “Not only will your aspirations not be represented by the UK government but you don’t even have the right to ask in the first place.” This is from the man who tried to deflect criticism of the banks’ role in the 2008 credit crisis. “They had to lend to someone,” said Hammond, who has an estimated personal wealth of more than £10m. The same dismissive and sneering attitude was evident less than three years ago when another chancellor, George Osborne, told the Scottish people that they couldn’t use sterling if they dared to vote for independence. This was despite the fact that the pound belonged to Scotland as much as it did to the rest of the UK; that Scottish business taxes, oil and gas had contributed to the wealth of the UK and the traditional purchasing power of sterling. “You don’t even have the right to discuss this with us,” Osborne had effectively said. Like Osborne and Cameron and Alistair Darling and Gordon Brown, Hammond had used membership of the EU as one of several bribes offered in exchange for a No vote in the independence referendum. “Tough luck, suckers,” he is now effectively saying. “Now keep your mouths shut and let us do all the talking.”
Life, death and black humour: on duty with the London ambulance servic​e​ It’s 6.45am at Camden ambulance station in north London, and the day shift is just beginning. Andy Donovan, who will drive the ambulance I will accompany for the next nine hours, is making me a cup of tea. His more senior paramedic partner, Dean Lowes, is running a few minutes late. When he does arrive, Lowes looks very sorry for himself: he’s got an ear infection, picked up on a friend’s stag weekend in Budapest. Lowes is the ambulance’s first case of the day. They nip off to the nearby Royal Free hospital in Hampstead to get some ear drops. Paramedic, heal thyself. All this delays us for more than an hour, and we’re not ready to “go green” – telling the London ambulance service’s call centre near Waterloo station that they are available for a job – until after 8.30am. Lowes, who along with Donovan is featured in the BBC’s new three-part series on London’s overstretched ambulance service, is suitably embarrassed. “This never happens to me,” he says. “I’m never ill.” But full marks for at least getting here. Crewing an ambulance is challenging at the best of times. Soon after going green, our first assignment comes in, flashing up on a monitor at the front of the ambulance. It’s just about as unpleasant as it could be. One word: “HANGING”, and the location. It is a “Red One” – the top-priority call sign, meaning life-threatening. Lowes and Donovan’s speed of reaction is electrifying. One moment, Lowes had been playing a Kings of Leon track on his mobile and saying how much he liked the band; the next, the ambulance is tearing south towards King’s Cross. The call comes through at 8.49, and we get to the scene five minutes later. My heart sinks when I realise it is student accommodation. Two policemen are arriving simultaneously, and we all head up two floors in the lift to a stuffy, antiseptic white corridor. I go up with the policemen, who are bemoaning the fact their car was the closest to the scene. “You had a feeling it was going to be a funny day,” one says to the other. “You said you had a feeling in your bones.” “Yeah,” says the other with a grim laugh, “I should shut the fuck up.” In situations like this, black humour is sometimes the only way out. Lowes, as senior paramedic, is first into the little study-bedroom. He has to decide if the student, who appears to have hanged himself, is dead, or, in the official language they use, to declare “life extinct”. It takes him just moments to satisfy himself that he is. The student is pronounced dead at 8.57. I can’t bring myself to look at the body – the young man is fully clothed – for too long. What strikes me most is how peaceful he looks, and how red his hands are – the blood drains down to the hands and feet, a sign he has been dead for several hours. Within minutes there are half a dozen police on the scene, taking a statement from the traumatised fellow student who discovered the body, talking to the staff in the hall of residence, looking through the young man’s possessions to establish his identity. It has ceased to be a medical emergency and become a police inquiry – and a personal tragedy for the family who do not yet know what has happened. It appears the young man, who was 23, was anxious about a dissertation he had failed to deliver. What a terrible, pointless waste. This is a shocking beginning. A suicide by hanging is rare. It is the first Lowes has witnessed. “He looked like a wax dummy,” he says as we wait downstairs while he does the paperwork to certify the death. “It’s when you see his passport and the picture of how he looked when he was alive that it hits you. That humanises it.” Having been a body, he becomes a person. “I try not to look at a dead person’s effects too much,” says Lowes, “because you start to build a little story about them.” “You can’t go into it too deeply,” adds Donovan. “There’s a lot of stuff you lock in the box.” A paramedic team leader turns up. He doesn’t say so, but Lowes and Donovan know he is there for their welfare – to make sure that having to deal with the young man’s death has not affected them too severely. “If you want to take a bit of a break, that’s fine,” the team leader tells them. They don’t particularly, although they do have a fag standing next to their ambulance. The morning is hot, and people stroll past the student block, laughing in the late-summer sunshine, not realising that inside a promising young life has been extinguished. By 11am, they are ready to roll again. They go green, pressing the button that declares the ambulance available, and in a second – literally – their next assignment flashes up. It’s another Red One – a cardiac arrest in West Hampstead, a couple of miles to the north. The siren screams, I lurch around in the back of the ambulance feeling sick, and Donovan swears at the vehicles that block his way, costing him vital seconds that could mean the difference between life and death. The job is undeniably exciting, or at least seems so to me. Horrible, of course – no one wants to discover dead bodies – but also fascinating because of its unpredictable nature. You have no idea where you will go next or what you will have to deal with. “That’s the beauty of it,” Donovan had told me earlier. “You never know what you’re going to from job to job.” It’s like roulette, I suggest, and he tells me that is exactly what they call the last job of the day. If you go green with, say, half an hour left of your shift, the call centre will play “red roulette”. Instead of giving you a less urgent call (categorised from C1 to C4, depending on the degree of seriousness), they will give you something life-threatening. It seems mad, but the logic is that whatever you do is likely to take hours – every callout seems to generate a mountain of paperwork – so you may as well go to something that is worth your while. A practical, if heartless, way of looking at it. Paramedics often work 12-hour shifts, and I can’t imagine what it’s like to get a final Red One at the very end. We get to West Hampstead in about six minutes. Another ambulance is already on the scene, as well as team leader April Barter, who has come by car. I bumped into her earlier at the ambulance station in Camden, and she was complaining about having nothing to do that morning. Now she has something to do. A man in his 60s has had a cardiac arrest – a heart attack in which his heart has stopped completely – and the struggle is on to save him. The man is lucky. I hadn’t realised where we were when we arrived, but then it dawns on me – it’s a bridge club, and dozens of middle-aged and elderly card players are watching the paramedics’ attempts to revive their fellow participant. Even before the first crew arrived, some medically trained members of the club had starting giving him CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation), that pounding of the chest that aims to kick the heart back into action. Without their prompt action, he would be dead. The paramedics continue the CPR – by now his chest looks as if it has caved in, but apparently this is quite normal – and administer defibrillation, an electric shock designed to correct his heart rhythm. After half an hour of attention, his heart is functioning again and he can be taken to hospital. He is still unconscious, but has a reasonable chance of surviving. His bridge partner, who tells me they had just played a very successful rubber, offers to go to hospital with him, while his wife is given the news at home. There is an impressive calm at the club as the man is carried out. Who knew bridge could be an extreme sport – or bridge players so unflappable? A cardiac arrest involving two crews generates an especially large volume of paperwork, and we are stuck outside the Royal Free for more than an hour while all the forms are filled in. Soon after we deliver the man to the hospital’s heart centre, Barter tells me he has regained consciousness. “The fact he’s awake, his eyes are open, he’s moving around tells us his brain has more oxygen. Although potentially it has been starved of oxygen for a short period of time, that’s a really positive sign and it’s a potentially good outcome for him. That’s a massive lift for us. Good times.” She says she is “buzzing”. “If I can make a difference to one person in a day, then I go home happy,” Donovan told me earlier. It looks as if he and his colleagues have made that difference today. It is that difference, rather than the material rewards of the job, that attracts Lowes and Donovan. “You don’t do this job if you want money,” says Lowes, who is 37 and comes from the north-east of England. “It has other benefits. You go home and you sleep at night. You don’t take any work home with you. You might take some kind of emotional stuff away at the end of the day but, as far as the working day is concerned, once you’re finished, you’re finished.” Lowes, who is a fully qualified paramedic, tells me he earned £36,000 last year. Thirty-year-old Donovan, a friendly, buoyant east Londoner who is one rung below his partner in terms of clinical qualifications, says he earns £20,000 a year basic, which rises to about £28,000 with the inner-London allowance, rest-break compensation (they will typically work through their breaks) and overtime, lots of overtime. They are contracted to work 37-and-a-half hours a week, but can do up to 56. Without the overtime, they would struggle financially. The staff need the relentless pressure on the service to earn enough to live. The upside, apart from the drama of the job and the satisfaction of saving lives and helping people at moments of crisis, is the flexibility. “There are a lot of other things out there that I wouldn’t want to do, sitting behind a desk being one of them,” says Donovan. “At least in this job you’ve got a little bit of freedom. Once you’re out on the road, you’re your own boss.” While the paperwork for the cardiac arrest case is being done, I talk to Gary Nicholls, one of the paramedics in the first crew to arrive. He has clocked up almost 24 years on the job – Lowes and Donovan have each done seven. “You never know what the next call is going to be,” he says. “That’s what keeps us interested. But it doesn’t matter what comes down on the screen, we can always deal with it. The workload can be relentless, but your colleagues are there to get you through the shift.” The London ambulance service was put into “special measures” last year because of a number of failings, including staff shortages, poor response times, lack of leadership and concern that the service was ill-prepared to deal with a major terrorist attack. The cynic in me thinks the BBC series – and my ride in the ambulance today – are part of the PR fightback, and maybe they are, but there is no doubting the commitment of the dozen or so paramedics and backup staff I meet. This is a service under pressure, but by no means one that has lost heart. Nicholls really does believe they can deal with anything, including his first job that day – chasing a naked man who it was feared was high on drugs across Hampstead Heath. It is already well past 1pm. The complexity of the jobs, the paperwork and the fact that you need a bit of a breather mean crews will only do four or five callouts in a nine-hour shift, and six or eight in a 12-hour one. Just before 1.30pm, Donovan and Lowes go green again. This time it’s a Red Two – slightly less urgent but still potentially life-threatening, a woman in Kilburn with chest pains and breathing problems. She is sitting on the stairs of her house when we arrive six minutes later. She looks remarkably well, and within about two minutes of arriving Lowes has diagnosed an anxiety attack. She had a heart bypass operation five years earlier, and clearly fears a heart attack. She has already been to hospital for a checkup that day, and now wants to go back, despite getting the all-clear earlier. It is unlikely there is a serious problem, but Lowes and Donovan can’t take any chances, so take her to the Royal Free. It’s not their most productive couple of hours, but they talk to her respectfully, calm her down, deliver her to A&E and fill in a fresh set of forms. It’s now 3 o’clock, and we’re on our way back to Kilburn. This time they’ve received a less urgent C2 call, after an earlier Red One to another fatality was aborted. The monitor in the ambulance advises “man in his 70s with severe behavioural change”. When we get to the flat, we find an elderly man close to collapse – probably through dehydration – and his wife at the end of her tether. She thinks he has undiagnosed dementia, and there are suggestions he can be violent towards his family, though today he can barely raise himself from the sofa. It is an example of the social work side of paramedics’ work. They check him over physically, but he is in reasonable shape apart from the dehydration. What he may need very soon is a place in a care home. That is the shadow that falls across the conversation Lowes has in the corridor with the man’s wife – the sad but all-too-common conclusion of a 50-year marriage – while Donovan talks to the man’s son about sport. As their appearance in the BBC series shows, they are very good at being de facto social workers, counselling the anxious, the elderly, the confused, the demented. “When I first started this job, going into people’s homes took a bit of getting used to,” says Donovan, “but because you’re wearing a uniform, in the eyes of the public you’re a goodie. You’re welcomed into most situations, whether it’s for social reasons or for emergencies.” Lowes calls the man’s GP, who promises to come round. For the moment, there is nothing more that can be done. More paperwork and another cigarette in the afternoon sun. The shift is drawing to a close, and the crew do not fancy any red roulette. There is a general callout for an ambulance, any ambulance, to go to Victoria station, where a girl has fainted. They decide it’s too far and head back to base. That’s enough excitement for the day. As we drive back to Camden, their monitor is reporting that University College hospital has been temporarily closed, St Mary’s in Paddington is accordingly under severe pressure and the Royal Free is “breaching” – A&E is missing its waiting targets and patients are being left in ambulances longer than they should be. It’s going to be quite a night shift, and Lowes and Donovan are happy to be out of it. But tomorrow they will be back, and who knows where the spin of the roulette wheel will take them? Ambulance starts on BBC1 at 9pm on 27 September. In the UK, the Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Hotline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14.
The Killing$ of Tony Blair review – sanctimonious documentary The choice of George Galloway to front this crowdfunded character assassination of Tony Blair is a bit of an own goal. While there is no doubt that Blair should be called to account, Galloway’s lack of credibility and air of insufferable sanctimony have the unexpected result of making you want to side with Blair and the long list of despots who – apparently – now list him on their payroll. The definitive film on the Iraq war remains Charles Ferguson’s No End in Sight; the disintegration of the Labour party is an ongoing story that moves too quickly for any documentary to capture.
Jamie Dornan goes from Christian Grey to Will Scarlett in new Robin Hood film The world has still to see the final two Fifty Shades films, but the actor who stars in them, Jamie Dornan, has made no secret of his desire to free himself from the handcuffs. “We have done two movies back to back now, and I’m actually finished with it,” he said earlier this month. “I move on very fast in my mind. As much as from the outside people think you are synonymous with one character, but I’m very much like, ‘Right, that’s done’ and move on to the next project and worry about that character.” One fresh project appears to be playing Will Scarlett in a new movie about Robin Hood. According to Variety, the actor is in talks to join a starry Crusades take directed by Peaky Blinders’ Otto Bathurst, produced by Leonardo DiCaprio and starring Taron Egerton in the title role, with Jamie Foxx as Little John. The most recent Robin Hood movie was Ridley Scott’s 2010 hit starring Russell Crowe and Cate Blanchett.
San Diego Republican mayor pushes plan to run on 100% renewable energy As presidential nominees Ted Cruz and Donald Trump, respectively, call climate change a “religion” or a “bullshit … total hoax” dreamed up by China, it is deeply unfashionable for any Republican to take the issue seriously, let alone push for radical reforms to remedy it. Kevin Faulconer, the mayor of San Diego, could therefore qualify as one of the most outlandish, as well as green-tinged, Republicans in the US. Faulconer has thrown his weight behind a binding plan to make San Diego run on 100% renewable power by 2035 – the largest American city to have such an ambition. Faulconer is as much a product of his largely liberal surrounds as he is of his party, of course. The 49-year-old mayor will march for LGBT pride and supports a path to US citizenship for undocumented immigrants. But San Diego’s bipartisan push to embrace clean energy such as solar and wind, while radically paring back greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050, is a glimpse into how the rancorous brawls over climate change could have been avoided across the rest of the US. “This isn’t a partisan issue,” Faulconer told the . “I’ve said from the very beginning there’s enough partisan politics at the national level. I was a volunteer for our parks before becoming mayor; I love our natural resources, our beaches and landscapes. I feel strongly about protecting them.” While Republicans, including Florida senator Marco Rubio, have warned any action to cut emissions will raise power bills and lead to economic ruin, Faulconer has sold a vision of low-carbon innovation, jobs and clean air. San Diego’s business community is now on board, although Faulconer admitted it took “a lot of persuasion”. “I pride myself on being fiscally responsible and environmentally conscious,” he said. “The two aren’t exclusive. I’ve never seen it as a zero sum game. We want a plan that is ambitious and leads the way for the rest of the country.” A plan endorsed unanimously by San Diego’s Democrat-dominated council in December would see America’s eighth largest city transformed into one riddled by bicycles and public transport, with roofs swathed in solar panels. The city will switch half its fleet of vehicles to electric power, and almost all the methane from sewage and water treatment will be recycled. A key selling point for the plan is the resulting jobs and investment in clean energy – San Diego ranks second in the US in electrical output from solar energy, and the city is openly courting clean tech firms to set up shop there. It already derives 40% of its power from clean sources. But public concern about climate change is also a key driver. “People have seen and felt the drought, the wildfires, the flooding,” said Nicole Capretz, who wrote the first iteration of the climate plan before the controversial exit of previous mayor Bob Filner. “People were witnessing a lot of things in their backyard. When you see your quality of life is at risk, people start to wake up and say ‘it’s time.’” “The beautiful part about having a Republican mayor embrace this plan,” she added, “is that he did outreach to his own friends and factions and persuaded them it was the right thing to do for economic reasons.” There remain hurdles for San Diego to clear. An implementation plan has yet to be finalized but much will rest upon an intervention into the electricity market. San Diego’s utility has said it cannot meet the 100% renewable goal itself, meaning that the city will have to branch out to source its power elsewhere while the utility retains control over poles and wires. “There’s a battle brewing on that,” Capretz admitted. “It’s the largest part of the climate plan – we can’t get to the goal without it.” On the plus side, the 2035 decarbonization plan is legally binding, unlike the aspirations of other large cities. And some measures should be straightforward to achieve, such as an initiative to increase San Diego’s tree canopy cover to 35%, which would soak up carbon and help cool the city with more shade. Improvements to train and bike infrastructure should also prove popular, but a price tag has yet to be put on this. It’s likely that help from Californian or federal coffers will be required. Regardless of whether the target is met, San Diego is among a large group of cities impatient with federal government bickering over climate change. Municipalities from New York to San Francisco have goals to either majorly or completely switch to renewable energy, while Michael Bloomberg, the former New York mayor, has spearheaded an international coalition of mayors that is looking to wean urban areas off fossil fuels. While a record number of nations have signed up to cut emissions, there is still a significant gap between their pledged action and what is required to avoid the worst ravages of climate change, such as drought, extreme weather events and sea level rise. Faulconer said this shortfall can be plugged, in part, by cities taking the lead. “Cities are leading the federal government, yes,” he said. “They are leading on innovation and policy. The technology is advancing incredibly quickly. We need to have our eyes wide open on this.”
Article 50 case: 'not consulting devolved assemblies risks constitutional crisis' Triggering article 50 without consulting the devolved assemblies in Cardiff, Edinburgh and Belfast would dissolve “the glue” that holds together the UK’s unwritten constitution, the supreme court has been told. On the final day of the four-day hearing, the 11 justices have been hearing arguments about the significance of the Sewel convention. The convention says that if Westminster is introducing legislation on issues that have been devolved it “normally” has to seek the consent of the devolved assemblies in Edinburgh, Belfast and Cardiff. Richard Gordon QC, for the Welsh government, told the court: “The force of the Sewel convention is not its legal enforceability but that it’s a dialogue between legislatures. “If the [UK government’s] prerogative powers can be used to short-circuit this dialogue, it’s to ignore the modern dynamic which we now have. “A convention is a very important force in our society and it’s like the glue which can only hold an unwritten constitution together.” Gordon dismissed the UK government’s argument that the Referendum Act 2015 gave ministers authorisation to trigger article 50, which formally signals the UK’s intention to leave the EU. “The Referendum Act has nothing to do with the issues in this case,” he said. “It’s a statute that had died. It has fulfilled its purpose. You cannot revive a corpse by tearing up the death certificate.” And turning to the government’s contention that it relies on residual royal prerogative powers, Gordon said: “There’s no existing prerogative powers … a child of six could understand this.” James Wolffe QC, Scotland’s lord advocate, also raised the importance of the Sewel convention, saying it should not be ignored even if it does not amount to a veto for Holyrood. “The convention constrains the UK parliament in order to respect the authority of the Scottish parliament,” Wolffe said. The Westminster parliament might legislate to trigger Brexit negotiations without the consent of the Scottish parliament, Wolffe anticipated. “If the consent would not be given, it would be for the UK parliament to legislate in the face of a refusal of consent. There would be no legal sanction if the UK parliament chose to do so,” Wolffe said. Manjit Gill QC, who represents the children of European Economic Area nationals who could be directly affected by Brexit, dismissed the government’s claim to possess prerogative powers to withdraw from the EU without legislation in parliament as an “outlandish proposition”. “As for [the government’s argument] that parliament can stand up for itself,” he added, “why should they have to react to what could be politically mischievous conduct by a usurping executive? This is not time to turn to a flexible constitution. It’s a slippery slope.” The court should not let go of the “bedrock” of accepted constitutional conduct. Gill said the children he represents were in danger of being told to “pack their bags and go” when Brexit occurred. “This case is not a hard case,” he said. “Some people [by which he means the government] are trying to make it hard and putting their counsel [James Eadie QC] in a position of contortions where they say contradictory things. “No one thought that the 2015 Referendum Act was ever intended to confer prerogative powers [on the government to withdraw from the EU without reference to parliament]. The reason for this is a political point because no one ever thought there was going to be a leave vote. That’s why there was no reason to consider prerogative powers.” Earlier Helen Mountfield QC, for the crowdfunded People’s Challenge, accused the government of fictional creativity and myth-making in its assertion of its prerogative powers. “It’s much like attempts to catch the Loch Ness monster,” she suggested. “Because no one has caught it, it is said to be assumed to still roam free.” The claim had been brought, she explained, “not as an attempt to persuade judges to usurp the powers of any other arm of the state in an illegitimate way or to persuade the court to undertake judicial law-making.” Nor is the court being asked to decide whether or not the UK should leave the EU. It is simply about whether the government’s plan to trigger Brexit “is a lawful act in the absence of express authority”. The hearing continues.
Pee-wee's Big Holiday review: a fine bromance for the suited man-child A lot has changed in the 25 years since Pee-wee’s Playhouse ended its run on television - and in the whopping 27 since the character’s last big-screen appearance in Big Top Pee-wee. Watching the man-child’s latest outing, Pee-Wee’s Big Holiday, however, you wouldn’t know it. Thanks to some digital wizardry, Paul Reubens, who originated the role 33 years ago, appears to have not aged a blip – while the candy-colored, merry world director John Lee conjures for the Netflix-produced comedy does a fabulous job of recalling Pee-wee’s past adventures. As a result, the film plays like nirvana for Pee-wee fans, who either grew up with or simply admired the beguiling creation, which held a unique hold on pop culture for well over a decade. For newcomers, his appeal might prove elusive: despite producer Judd Apatow’s involvement, Pee-wee’s Big Holiday is distinctly retro in tone. Starting with a dream sequence that seems to anticipate an extraterrestrial element to the storyline that sadly never transpires, Reubens and Paul Rust’s screenplay keeps the proceedings earthbound, with Pee-wee stuck in an all-too real rut at the outset of the comedy. Working as a cook at the local diner in his picture-perfect town of Fairville, Pee-wee appears his sunny self - that is until the all-boy band decides to break up. “We need to move on to new things,” explains one of his co-members. Devastated, Pee-wee experiences a mini-meltdown, lashing out at his patrons and crying in the kitchen. For fans, the effect is a bit startling: Pee-wee’s not known for ever shedding his cheery disposition. Things perk up for Pee-wee with the arrival of Joe Manganiello, playing himself, who rolls in in slow motion (of course) to order a chocolate milkshake. Immediately, Pee-wee is smitten – the homoerotic nature of their relationship is a running joke, and kind of sweet. After bonding over their shared love for root beer barrel candy, Manganiello demands that his new friend attend his upcoming lavish birthday bash in New York City. Pee-wee, relishing the attention, gleefully accepts the invite, agreeing to travel there by vehicle per Manganiello’s advice: “Three days on the open road is worth more than a lifetime in Fairville.” The madcap journey that follows fails to reach the surreal heights set by Tim Burton in Pee-wee’s first (and best) big screen outing, 1985’s Pee-wee’s Big Adventure, save for an inspired sequence that sees Pee-wee take to the skies in a flying car. Still, the many bizarre encounters he makes on his way to the Big Apple are generally amusing, thanks to the game cast (Alia Shawkat makes a lasting impression as a sexy female burglar) and Pee-wee’s always impressionable nature. Pee-wee’s Big Holiday is streaming now on Netflix.
Wes Bentley: 'I have no problem with nudity – it's just a body' Hi, Wes! What happened to your eye (1)? I don’t know. They keep telling me to come up with a better story. I think I was bit by a spider. That sucks. Yeah, it does suck. I couldn’t figure what it was for forever. It was swollen. I thought it was two zits or something. Well, spider bite or not you actually appear in Terrence Malick’s Knight of Cups (2) – so congratulations. I made it! Yeah that was a surprise. You learn to expect that you’re probably not going to make it. You’re just doing it for the process, which is good enough. That is all I wanted to do anyway. It’s very exciting to actually be in it. It’s nice. Given Malick’s working style (3) what did you make of the final product? You probably had no idea what to expect. Yeah, I only knew story wise who I was to Rick (4). We built a real story between us. Terry was there for the character work. All that process was like a typical process. All of that was just there so we could live in it. We were never going to present that or say too much about that. A lot of the time, really the focus of the process with Terry is to not present anything – to never indicate anything. The idea was that everyone would just sort of run into these moments that were real. They would all converge at once: the lighting, the acting, the location. It would just happen at the right moment. That’s why we shot so much I think – to get those moments. Malick doesn’t strike me as someone who watches a lot of new films or TV, so how did you get on his radar? It was strange how this one came about. It seemed like out of the blue I got this phone call to ask me to do this. The phone call came at a time when I was still rebuilding my career. This was before Hunger Games had come out – that was really the thing where people went: ‘Oh, he’s back again doing stuff,’ even though I had done a few things in between. Someone probably knew that I fit the idea of what he wanted – the idea of the brother who’s struggling and has deal with a lot of things. To be honest, I can’t speak for them. You never asked him why he cast you when you got to set? No, I didn’t. [Laughs] I didn’t want him for some reason to go: ‘Oh wait, you’re not the guy I want; you’re not who I thought you were.’ I was afraid that moment was going to happen. There was a moment when he was putting together The New World where I had a chance to meet with him. It’s one of my great regrets that I didn’t and state my case for why I wanted to be in that film. It was bad timing on my part. I didn’t do it. So I’ve always regretted it. It was even stranger to get a phone call out of the blue. Maybe he had remembered me from that time. You mentioned rebuilding your career. The film, like your last project American Horror Story: Hotel, deals with addiction. Do you intentionally seek out these projects as a means to explore your past (5)? No. I haven’t been looking for it. I’ve always been open to it, though, because it’s part of something I can work with: life experience. With Ryan [Murphy], I think it was an intention to have me come on and have that be one of the things to deal with. I liked that because I liked how they dealt with that metaphorically. I think there were some really clever, very accurate ways of representing it, including the “addiction demon” which was the most brutal way to put it, but it was incredibly accurate as far as the damage, the feeling of that and the sort of never being able to escape it. With Terry, this was something personal to him. I don’t know how much he actually knew about me with that. He must have had some idea, but he didn’t know the details. You never seem to shy away from discussing that part of your life with the press. Why do you choose to engage? There was a time when I was only talking about it as far as how it had to do with me personally. I do that less now because I do roles like Hotel and this where it’s applicable to what we’re talking about. I’ll talk about it in that sense. But I’m not shy because I’m not ashamed of it – I don’t think there’s anything to be ashamed of. Shame is partly what kept me in that space. Once I could shake that off and not be ashamed of it, it’s allowed me to be free of it in a way. As free as I can be. And so part of that is talking about it. It’s also my experience. Whenever I am applying myself to something, I can’t help but be part of it. Yeah there was a time where I was intentionally talking about it – I wanted to help others as much as just kind of express it. I’m an artist, I like to express it. Now it’s easier to talk about when in reference to the work I’m doing, which is the one good thing that came out of it. I can use it – I’m an actor. It’s the one benefit. I can actually apply it to my work. I was starstruck when I met Lady Gaga. What was it like to act with her? It’s great because she’s got one of the essential keys: it’s commitment to own it. It’s what Christian [Bale] does best is commitment – and she’s got that. She’s got that ability. So I was impressed with that. It’s great to just kind of sit in a room while we’re waiting to do scenes, because she’s got a lot of great stories and she’s very funny. She’s fun. That’s really, on set, one of the most important things. When you can hang out with somebody and have fun with them – she’s definitely like that. But takes the work very seriously. You were objectified a lot in Hotel. So often women are, so it was refreshing. [Laughs] Sure, yeah. I’m not shy – I have no problem with nudity or other people’s nudity. It’s just a body. I feel like every time a character would meet you for the first time on the show, they’d comment on your appearance. Oh yes, that’s right. It happened a lot this season. I think that must have been a joke with the writers. They’re a funny group like that. No, it was fine – it’s all part of it. It’s flattering too! The Los Angeles portrayed in Knight of Cups is beautiful but intensely hedonistic. As someone who lives here, is Malick’s vision accurate? Oh yeah. To me it’s the best depiction because it’s in a truly artistic sense, much like a poem, or a piece of classical music. That’s the way he told this story. Nothing is indicated to you. There’s no forcing of your hand, no pointing your head in the right direction – it’s just sort of given to you. What I took from all that I thought it was a very accurate portrait of LA from my experience. There’s a lot of bait and trappings, and you kind of get lost here before you know it. It always kind of leads to loneliness. Most people are adrift here. They come here with an idea and even when they’re able to successfully implement the idea, or get some success from it, you still get lost. There’s something about it. It’s just a hazy, hazy place. It makes you forget who you are. What makes you stick with it then? I want out of it – I did my time. I only came here to shoot a movie and now I’ve lived here almost 20 years. I’m ready to get out. It’s kind of perfect timing for me and that. Well, best of luck with that! Thanks. Footnotes (1) When we meet, Bentley is sporting what appears to be a bruise under his right eye. (2) Bentley stars in Terrence Malick’s Knight of Cups, out on Friday in the US. Malick is famously known for cutting actors from his movies: Mickey Rourke shot on The Thin Red Line, only to be excised completely from the finished picture. (3) On Knight of Cups, Malick didn’t give his actors his script – just character descriptions. (4) The film centers on Rick (Christian Bale), a Hollywood screenwriter battling intense loneliness. Bentley plays his troubled brother. (5) Following his breakout performance in American Beauty in 1999, Bentley spiraled into drug addiction. He became sober in 2009.
Monte dei Paschi di Siena tries to keep €5bn rescue plan alive Executives at Monte dei Paschi di Siena (MPS) are fighting to salvage a multibillion-euro rescue by private investors in a frantic attempt to prop up the bank. In a statement released after a board meeting on Sunday, the world’s oldest bank said it would forge ahead with a debt-for-equity swap offer for tens of thousands of retail investors. The offer still requires regulatory approval. If MPS manages to convince investors to go along with the plan, it would help it avoid a government bailout by Italy, which would have far-reaching economic and political consequences. A deal to prop up MPS was thrown into doubt last week after the European Central Bank (ECB) reportedly said it could not have more time to secure the private investment. MPS had sought an extension until 20 January. Markets are now waiting to hear the future of a planned €5bn (£4.2bn) cash injection by private investors to rescue the bank by 31 December. Reports of the ECB’s decision, which were released on Friday and not publicly confirmed, have raised fears that MPS would not be able to secure the private funds in time and that it would therefore require a “precautionary recapitalisation” – or rescue – by Italy. The fate of MPS is critical for a number of reasons. It is Italy’s third largest bank and a failure to secure the private funds would immediately raise doubts about the stability of a number of other Italian banks, such as UniCredit, which also need to raise private capital. Any rescue of the institution by Italy under EU rules could lead to billions of euros in losses for retail investors, which in turn would damage the ruling Democratic party at a time when it has already been diminished by Matteo Renzi’s resignation as prime minister last week following his defeat in a referendum on constitutional reforms. Under new EU rules, taxpayer funds cannot be used to rescue a bank unless bondholders take losses first. Italy could probably get the green light from Brussels to compensate certain junior bondholders, lessening the damage to investors and the political fallout, but the details of any such agreement are far from clear. Analysts said any such arrangement would involve refunding investors who fall below certain thresholds in terms of income and wealth. Shares in MPS closed down 10% on Friday following reports of the ECB’s decision. The ECB refused to comment and gave no formal confirmation to MPS, but its decision may have closed the door to a private-sector solution under which major investors, including the sovereign wealth fund of Qatar, would invest €5bn in cash. Federico Santi, an analyst at Eurasia Group, said that state support would likely be forthcoming if the private-sector solution failed to materialise. Santi said any amount of “burden sharing” or losses inflicted on junior bondholders would be hugely unpopular and a serious blow to the government. He said that it might nevertheless be easier for an incoming government led by the prime minister-designate, Paolo Gentiloni, to take unpopular measures, since Renzi would still want to lead his party into elections. A new poll is expected to be called early next year. Lorenzo Codogno, chief economist at LC Macro Advisors, said: “Now that the political situation is about to stabilise and a government will be in office on Tuesday, the solution for MPS could equally be in sight, but it is still not clear whether a private solution is still feasible or, more likely, some public money would be necessary. “The problems of Italian banks will continue to drag on for months, if not years, but at least a framework would be in place to address the most pressing issues. It is now the final countdown.” The country’s third-largest lender has already been bailed out twice in modern Italian history, but it became clear after Britain’s vote to exit the EU, which sent shockwaves across financial markets, that the Siena bank would require a third bailout. The bank’s financial problems are nothing new. Italian banks have been weighed down by €360bn of non-performing loans that were mostly taken out by small Italian businesses which have been battered by years of recession. Italy returned to growth in 2015, but the improvements are only modest and the International Monetary Fund predicted that GDP would not likely return to pre-crisis levels until the mid-2020s. MPS’s issues were exacerbated by other mistakes – principally a poorly judged €9bn acquisition – but its primary issue is that billions of euros in loans were extended by the bank at a time when the scale of the impending recession was being underestimated.
The Ticket review: Dan Stevens goes from blind saint to sighted monster Imagine you’re blind, then one morning you wake up having inexplicably regained your eyesight. How would that change you? Affect your loved ones? Alter the course of your life? As conceived by writer/director Ido Fluk in his stylish, slow-burning psychological drama The Ticket, that scenario would spell your doom. Admirably cynical until it loses its way in the final stretch, The Ticket nevertheless maintains a provocative allure, bolstered by a fiercely committed performance from Dan Stevens. Fluk opens The Ticket in darkness, with a blind man (Stevens) heard canoodling with his wife, (Malin Akerman), and then praying alone, thanking God for his blessed life. The next morning the man wakes, only to discover that his sight has been miraculously restored. The man, we learn, is James – and boy is he glad to learn he looks just like the former star of Downton Abbey. Admiring his appearance in front of his bathroom mirror for the first time, James can’t seem to believe his luck. “I need to do something with my hair, now that you can see me,” says his wife, Sam, visibly insecure. Immediately, James begins to make lofty promises to Sam, vowing that he’ll work towards getting a promotion at the real estate firm where he works the phones, now that he can see. To Sam’s surprise, in no time James makes good on his word. With sudden power, his ego begins to inflate to epic proportions. Like a teenager who’s just been given his first taste of freedom, James rebels by blowing his earnings on a new car after getting a big pay raise, failing to consult with Sam beforehand. He also takes a dangerous fancy to a sexy female co-worker. In no time, James morphs from a loving husband and father into sleazy snake, not far removed from the mysterious drifter Stevens played to steely perfection in his 2014 thriller The Guest. However, just as James’s destructive new lease on life is going full throttle, the film-makers slam on the brakes. For no discernible reason, other than suddenly missing his loving family, James starts to see the error of his ways. As a result, his ensuing about-face feels totally unearned. Up until this point, James has done a stellar job at proving himself to be a heartless, self-interested asshole. It’s impossible to get on his side after he’s irreparably damaged the lives of all those around him. When he howls to God, pleading for forgiveness after acting like such a cad, it’s simply a case of too little, too late. And maybe that’s the point The Ticket is trying to make: that when gifted with newfound abilities, humanity is doomed to fail. If so, it’s a bit of an obvious one.
Donald Trump's campaign violence is condoned all the way to the top When will the first pro-Donald Trump murder happen? The incidents are piling up. A Black Lives Matters protester was sucker-punched by a white bystander at a rally in Fayetteville, North Carolina. A young black woman was surrounded and shoved aggressively by a number of individuals at a rally in Louisville, Kentucky. A black protester was tackled, then punched and kicked by a group of men as he curled up on the ground in Birmingham, Alabama. Immigration activists were shoved and stripped of their signs by a crowd in Richmond, Virginia. A Latino protester was knocked down and kicked by a Trump supporter in Miami. At a press conference on Friday morning Trump even seemed to encourage violence at his rallies. “We’ve had some violent people as protesters,” he said. “These are people that punch. These are violent people.” (No such videos have been found.) This adds to evidence piling up that the Trump campaign’s culture of violence extends all the way to the top. Another incident happened Thursday, when Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski grabbed the arm of Breitbart news reporter Michelle Fields at an event in Jupiter, Florida, jerking her so hard he bruised her body and made her cry, according to a first-person account by the Washington Post’s Ben Terris. That Breitbart is a Trump-friendly publication was likely lost on Lewandowski in his fervor to stave off questions from the scrum. That Terris in his story vividly describes the finger-shaped bruises he saw forming on Fields’ forearm, and that she tweeted out a photo of her injury, hasn’t stopped the Trump campaign from denying the incident ever occurred. The story is the most important one yet, because it distills Trump’s culture of violence and subsequent denial. I should know, because it’s exactly what I felt at the rally I attended in Radford, Virginia, earlier this month. It was the now infamous event where a secret service agent grabbed a Time photographer by the neck and threw him viciously to the ground simply because he dared to step over the confines of a press pen to photograph a Black Lives Matters protester. These press pens (or as one reporter at the event referred to it, “the cage”) are familiar to anyone who has covered candidate Trump; tightly restricting the press and barring the media from events is a central feature of the campaign. In Radford, I was one such reporter denied access to the event, not because I wasn’t on the list, but because I was afraid for my body. Despite arriving with plenty of time, I was unable to make my way to the door where members of the media were allowed to enter since it involved bypassing Trump supporters who asked me who I was and why I thought I could cut in front of them. “Sure you’re media,” a guy almost twice my size said as I tried to slide past him. “I’m media too,” he added, before moving to physically block my access. When I finally got close enough to talk to security – complete with guns and dogs – I was told I had to go a different way, an impossibility given the masses. A similarly banished AP reporter who regularly covers Trump events told me this was par for the course with his campaign. Later that day, after I’d written up the incident of Time photographer Christopher Morris being thrown to the ground by a secret service agent inside the gymnasium where the event was taking place, Trump defenders tweeted that I couldn’t possibly link the actions of a single security guy to the Trump campaign. The argument seemed unlikely – an organizer from Radford University had told me the school had had very little involvement in putting together the event, that the Trump campaign handled almost everything – but hard to definitely refute. Now it’s possible to call bullshit. Now we know the culture of violence is set at the top, at least as high as the actions of Trump’s right-hand man. The Lewandowski incident and the one at Radford feature the assault of the press, not the assault of protesters, but both types of violence are of a piece: they are about silencing voices of dissent, silencing critics, silencing truth in a campaign built around racist fear-mongering and bombast. And that – it shouldn’t need to be said, but it does – is undemocratic. Activism and the media play a vital role in any healthy democracy, and to allow this kind of brutality and silencing of free speech to go unaddressed is worse than undemocratic: it’s fascist. The Trump campaign knows as much, and so it has repeatedly distanced itself from the most overt incidents of violence, even as it dog whistles its approval. The latest incident implicating Trump’s campaign manager is no different. “The accusation, which has only been made in the media and never addressed directly with the campaign, is entirely false,” campaign spokeswoman Hope Hicks said in a Thursday statement. “As one of the dozens of individuals present as Mr Trump exited the press conference I did not witness any encounter. In addition to our staff, which had no knowledge of said situation, not a single camera or reporter of more than 100 in attendance captured the alleged incident.” This jaw-dropping statement came in response to the story published by Terris, who was, it should go without saying, in attendance and saw (and reported!) the assault. That makes him by definition a witness, of the most useful sort, and it makes Hicks’s statement patently absurd – or, to put it bluntly, a lie. And Thursday night, the campaign went even further, with Lewandowski calling Fields “delusional” and Trump himself suggesting “she made it up”. This despite a credible eyewitness confirming the victim’s account, as well as publicly available audio corroborating it. Trump purports to be the great defender of free speech. He rages against what he deems to be “politically correct” culture because it silences the things (usually bigoted) that he and his supporters really feel and think, things he believes must be said – but now he’s the one doing the silencing. Never mind that politically correct culture never killed anyone. And never mind that at this rate, Trumpism surely will.
Doctor who berated Jeremy Hunt says he could quit NHS The junior doctor who confronted Jeremy Hunt on camera about his decision to impose a new contract on medics has said he and his wife will have to seriously consider their careers in the NHS if the new terms are forced through. Dr Dagan Lonsdale followed the health secretary into the studios at Millbank in central London, to berate him about his decision. “You’ve got no evidence whatsoever Mr Hunt that these changes will have a positive effect. You are taking a massive gamble with people in the NHS. I don’t know why you won’t address that point,” he said. Lonsdale, a registrar working in intensive care and clinical pharmacology at St George’s hospital in south London, had been interviewed in the TV studios himself just before Hunt arrived. He told the he had been pleased to have the chance to ambush the health secretary, because he so rarely saw him agree to talk directly to junior doctors. “He promised to meet me later,” he said. “I’m sure he doesn’t mean it, but I’ll be trying to take him up on it. He did say we can meet later. He doesn’t want to sit down with an intelligent, informed professional who knows the facts. “Mr Hunt has always said his door is open for us to talk, but today he slammed it shut in my face.” The specialist registrar said he had been particularly angered by Hunt’s statement on weekend death rates. “He mentioned eight separate studies, but they are all based on the same dataset, and two of them were by the same person. It is completely untrue that they are separate and independent studies,” he said. Lonsdale said he and his wife would now have to sit down and work out if they could continue in their professions. “We have to contemplate if we can work in a system that stretches doctors in such a way that patients are put at risk and where we will be unable to give the right amount of time to family life for our son,” he said. Departing doctors would mean a new crisis for the NHS, on top of the recruitment crisis it already faces. “I think if even 1% of the NHS workforce leaves because of this contract, the NHS will be in dire straits,” he said. “There are already gaps in rotas across the country. A&E already has missing shifts. The only option if you want a fully seven-day NHS service without any more investment is to stretch services thinner or make doctors work more hours and we all know tired doctors make mistakes.” Lonsdale said it was for the BMA to decide on the next course of action. “I can tell you that 53,000 junior doctors are not going to allow the imposition of the contract that is unsafe for patients. “All we can hope for is that David Cameron will see the anger on this, and say, hang on a minute, we better take a step back.” Lonsdale and Hunt have clashed before, during an interview for BBC Radio 4’s Today programme last year. The registrar said he believed that interview was the last time the health secretary had taken part in a live exchange with a junior doctor, after he confronted Hunt about his claims that doctors did not fully understand the deal being offered. “It’s a bad idea to tell doctors they are being misled by their union because they’re well and able to make an assessment themselves,” he told the health secretary on the programme. Lonsdale later claimed Hunt had complained after the programme that he had not expected to be confronted on-air by a junior doctor.
How much are you worth to Facebook? Facebook has set new records for both the number of users it has, far outstripping every other social media company, and the amount of revenue it generates. But how much are you actually worth to Facebook? During the Facebook earnings call on Wednesday, the social network revealed that it now has 1.59 billion users that visit it on a monthly basis, world wide, which is up 40 million users since its last report, Q3 2015. That accounts for around 50% of the 3.2 billion internet users globally, according to data from the ITU, and 21.5% of the global population. Daily active users were also up, reaching 1.04 billion users, while mobile-only monthly users have increased to 823 million making up 51.7% of the social network’s monthly active users. Mobile Facebook users, of which there are 1.4 billion a month, also account for 80% of Facebook’s revenue, mostly from advertising, which helped it break records and reach $5.841bn in revenue for the fourth quarter of 2015, up over $1.3bn from last quarter. Facebook makes money from targeted advertising, using the wealth of knowledge it has on its users, but also from payments and a few other areas. So, perhaps the most interesting figure from Facebook’s earnings report is just how much each and every user is worth, on average, to the social network. And that sum? It grew by over a quarter to $3.73 per user each quarter. Of course, not everyone is equal across the world. You may be surprised to hear that a US or Canadian user is worth $13.54 each quarter to Facebook, while someone in the Asia-Pacific region is only worth $1.59 to the social network. If you happen to live in Europe, including the UK, you’re only worth one-third of a North American to Facebook, at $4.5o every three months, while the “rest of the world”, which includes most developing nations are only worth $1.22 per user. The reason the sums vary so much is primarily down to the amount of advertising money spent in each region. The US was worth $2.8bn in advertising revenue to Facebook last quarter, while the second biggest Facebook market, Europe, was worth only $1.4bn. But with even Americans individually worth less than $60 a year, wherever you may be, perhaps you’re not worth as much to Facebook as you’d have thought. Facebook launches real-time sports platform
No press conference in sight as Bilderberg stays largely under wraps “The paintings at the old master picture gallery are wonderful!” gushed the LVMH director Marie-Josée Kravis, as she wafted stylishly back to the conference. “You simply must go and have a look.” It was a charming and engaging answer to my question, even if my question had been: “Do you think Bilderberg will hold a press conference this year?” It is possible, as a Bilderberg steering committee member, that she has forgotten what the words press conference mean. The phrase must have sounded like a baffling mishmash of alien syllables, so Kravis panicked and talked about art instead. I turned to her husband, the billionaire investor Henry Kravis, scuttling along by her side. “How’s business at KKR?” I asked. Henry Kravis tightened his Wall Street jaw into a kind of terrifying aborted smile, and in the distance a dog howled. It is just as well that Marie-Josée Kravis is an art lover. She married someone who was painted by Francisco Goya. As Henry maintained his grim silence, the pair were ushered in through the security cordon. Luckily, a few other delegates had nipped out for bit of sightseeing during a break in the schedule, and I managed to buttonhole the Italian financier and longstanding Bilderberg insider Franco Bernabè as he strolled anonymously across a square in Dresden. I asked again about a press conference. A reasonable question, I thought, considering the number of senior politicians at the conference - four finance ministers, two prime ministers, three German cabinet members, a vice-president of the European commission, the head of the Swiss parliament ... The list goes on. Bernabè laughed and nodded towards the conference venue. “There are quite a few of your colleagues in there. Members of the press. Journalists.” He seemed genuinely tickled by this irony and chuckled his way back inside. I was glad I was able to lighten Bernabè’s day, but I found his remark thoroughly depressing. A major political summit, one of the biggest in the geopolitical calendar, and pretty much the only mainstream journalists who show up are inside the conference, bound by the omertà of Bilderberg. Holding politicians to account is one thing. Holding the door open for the Irish finance minister, Michael Noonan, as he heads back in for a second breakfast before an arduous morning spent discussing the European economy behind closed doors with the chairman of HSBC, is another. I suppose it would be acceptable, just about, if NBC, Bloomberg and the Financial Times – which have journalists inside Bilderberg – were in Dresden covering the summit. But they are not. I spoke to BBC television news about a week before the conference began, to ask if it was sending anyone along. The journalist I contacted sighed and explained why not. “The thing is, we’re sending so many people to the Euros,” they said. If I were a member of a technocratic elite that wanted its influence on public policy kept under wraps, I would hear that and think job done. Decades of making it difficult for the press to report on the summit has led to a profound reluctance on the part of the media to bother trying. Marcello Brecciaroli, a journalist from the Italian TV channel La7, told he shocked to witness how heavy the security was. “You have 1,000 policemen around a demonstration of 15 people. You have a circle of 15 police officers searching one man. It’s crazy,” he said. I have seen reporters in Dresden with their bags emptied on the pavements and picked through by police officers. At least two that I know of were threatened physically. For journalists, Bilderberg is the polar opposite of a G7 jolly or a giant sporting jamboree. No goodie bags or free champagne bar here, just police cordons, mobile phone jamming and the chance to get jabbed in the arm by overzealous Turkish secret service operatives, as happened to my wife. Everyone’s mobile is blocked here. Mine has not worked for days. It is the perfect metaphor for Bilderberg: communication lockdown. Being here and trying to report on this event is not easy at times. Mainstream journalists are human beings and would much sooner go through an open door than bash their heads against a locked one. In their absence, the door has been forced ajar by the alternative media. Year after year, I witness independent journalists and bloggers grappling gamely with the silence, trying to get information out. Instead of NBC, you have Dan Dicks. In place of the Financial Times, there is Luke Rudkowski. Rather than the BBC, Rob Dew of Infowars is running down the street behind the former CIA director David Petraeus, who now works for Henry Kravis. Petraeus got away, but Dew was there, putting in the effort. As the years go by, however, there are signs that the mainstream media might be finding ways to talk sensibly about Bilderberg, even if it has not turned up. For a start, news agencies have started coming. Getty Images and Reuters were both here. That is a huge step in the right direction. Local newspapers have been outside the Taschenbergpalais every day, the German tabloid Bild made it down from Berlin and Sky News Australia used a local crew to put together a report. Overall, there is a marked increase in serious analysis of the conference. As facts about Bilderberg’s funding and operation are gradually being pieced together, and its function as a key lobbying enterprise for big oil and big banking is more easily perceived. Information about the event makes it easier to critique. This virtuous circle means that journalists are more likely to stitch a serious story together and less inclined to hide behind an ironic distance, resorting to tired old conspiracy theories. We are close to a tipping point. All that is needed is a final tickle under the chin of the mainstream press, and the reporters will come. The timing is perfect. The more reticent older guard of Bilderberg is gradually being replaced by a younger generation, particularly from Silicon Valley, more at ease with the idea of opening up to the press. The PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, one of the more youthful members of Bilderberg’s steering committee, made a formal statement to journalists during his Dresden walkabout. The tireless Luke Rudkowski asked him a clever question about his libertarian values, and Thiel responded. In the closest thing in decades to a Bilderberg press conference, he said he thought it was always important to exchange views with people, no matter what their perspectives are. “I think we have a lot of problems in our society ... We need to find ways to talk to people where not everything is completely transparent. Libertarianism is not synonymous with radical transparency. That’s often an argument the Stasi would make, in East Germany, where everything had to be monitored by society. And I think often you have the best conversations in smaller groups, where not everything is being monitored; that’s how you get very honest conversations and how you can think better about the future.” I’m not holding up Peter Thiel as a champion of the free press. Gawker’s blood is still wet on his hands. But at least he spoke to us. It’s a start. The statement, however, reveals is a profound confusion at the heart of Bilderbergian logic. Thiel argues that transparency is a pervasive problem for honest dialogue, that it has to be overcome at events such as Bilderberg for the sake of the future. But the radical transparency that he talks about, the all-seeing surveillance of everything, is not what journalists and transparency campaigners are pushing for. The transparency that we want to see in our politics is not incompatible with personal privacy. They are two different spheres. In East Germany, conversations were not monitored by society. It was society that was monitored by the Stasi. I find it odd to hear Thiel, who is obviously an intelligent man, say something so wrongheaded. Of course, the societal transparency demanded by the Stasi went hand in hand with a heavily guarded privacy at the top of the administration. It is the same, I am afraid to say, at Bilderberg. Privacy is not a problem for the billionaires and the heads of transnational corporations that run it. It is just a matter of how many rings of riot police they want around the venue. Meanwhile, the people outside are having their identities checked, being filmed by police and closely monitored online. Transparency is no issue for Bilderberg. But it is a problem for the public. The transparency of our digital lives is what is radical. As a board member of Facebook and the chairman of the data analysis company Palantir, Thiel knows more than most how transparent we are. It is a subject that has been discussed at Bilderberg itself. One of the items on the agenda in 2014 was the question: “Does privacy exist?” The chairman of Bilderberg’s steering committee, Henri de Castries, was asked recently if privacy was dead, to which he replied simply: “Yes.” It might be dead for most of us, but privacy seems to be alive and kicking at Bilderberg. What happens now? Press interest in the event is gradually increasing, with coverage becoming more widespread and serious. On its website, the Bilderberg group claims that the “annual press conference ... was stopped due to a lack of interest.” Leaving aside whether that is true or not, what we can reasonably say is this: if lack of interest is no longer a problem, if enough journalists have questions to ask, then Bilderberg might want to think about reinstating its yearly press conference. After all, it’s nothing new for them. They always used to do it.
Anton Yelchin obituary Anton Yelchin, who has died aged 27 in a freak car accident at his home in Studio City, Los Angeles, displayed subtlety, versatility and intelligence across the spectrum of genres covered in his prolific film career. The perky, fresh-faced actor was most widely known for his sweetly comic turns in the 2009 film Star Trek and its 2013 sequel, Star Trek Into Darkness. The director JJ Abrams took that franchise back to the drawing board after it had been run into the ground over nearly 30 years of increasingly moribund instalments. Much of the new-found zest was attributable to a knowing and youthful ensemble cast, which included Yelchin as Pavel Chekov, the animated young navigator of the USS Enterprise, a role originated on television by Walter Koenig. Yelchin will appear posthumously in a third outing, Star Trek Beyond, which is released next month. He was born in Saint Petersburg (then Leningrad) to Irina Korina and Viktor Yelchin, figure skaters who had been stars of the Leningrad Ice Ballet. After his parents attained refugee status when he was six months old, they moved with him to the US, with his maternal grandfather and paternal grandmother. Anton was educated at the Sherman Oaks Center for Enriched Studies in Los Angeles, and later studied film at the University of Southern California, but early success in acting precluded a conventional upbringing. After he failed to show prowess at skating, his parents enrolled him in acting classes at nine years old. He quickly landed roles in television and film. Notable early TV appearances included ER, Curb Your Enthusiasm and the alien abduction series Taken, which counted Steven Spielberg among its executive producers. Yelchin made his first splash on film at the age of 11 in Hearts in Atlantis (2001), adapted from a Stephen King story, in which he played a young boy who befriends a neighbour (Anthony Hopkins) with mysterious powers. At 14, he started a two-year stint on the TV series Huff as the prematurely wise son of a psychiatrist (Hank Azaria) who is undergoing a midlife crisis. Following the end of Huff, Yelchin concentrated almost exclusively on film. He played a real-life kidnap victim in Alpha Dog (2006) and provided valuable moments of warmth in a film populated largely by strutting, goggle-eyed method actors. His considerable charisma fuelled the teen comedy Charlie Bartlett (2007), in which he played the title character – a privileged student who becomes an unofficial guru to his new classmates in the US public school system. After the success of Star Trek, he appeared in another revamped sci-fi property, Terminator: Salvation (2009). The film was savaged by critics, and its release was overshadowed by a leaked recording of its star, Christian Bale, throwing a tantrum during shooting – but Yelchin proved that he could be a reliable point of human interest for audiences in even the most impersonal blockbuster. His talents were put to far better use in the sort of small-scale or offbeat projects that led to one website declaring him “Hollywood’s New ‘It’ Geek”. Among these were two dramas released in 2011: The Beaver, directed by Jodie Foster, in which he again played the offspring of an adult in crisis (Mel Gibson this time, as a chief executive who communicates via a glove-puppet); and Like Crazy, a raw and mostly improvised love story about a long-distance romance between a young American man (Yelchin) and a British woman (Felicity Jones). He was likeable as a boy who discovers his neighbour is a vampire in the remake of Fright Night (also 2011) – and he stayed in the realm of quirky horror as a clairvoyant cook battling evil in Odd Thomas (2013), along with Jim Jarmusch’s arthouse vampire oddity Only Lovers Left Alive (2013), co-starring Tilda Swinton and Tom Hiddleston; and Joe Dante’s zombie comedy Burying the Ex (2014). Though Yelchin was happy to work in Hollywood, he was under no illusions about its shortcomings. “There’s only a handful of people I trust completely, and I know who they are,” he said in 2011. “Other than that, I pretty much don’t trust people. The film industry itself – the ‘industry’ and business side of it – just sucks and is really demoralising, so it’s added to my general paranoia.” Perhaps it was for that reason that, Star Trek aside, he restricted himself mostly to pictures that would increase his range rather than his box-office standing. He was seen most recently in the thriller Green Room (2015) as a punk rocker threatened by white supremacists after witnessing a murder. Films still to be released include the intimate romance Porto and the sci-fi drama Rememory. He is survived by his parents. • Anton Yelchin, actor, born 11 March 1989; died 19 June 2016
Premier League ‘satisfied’ with number of drug tests carried out by Ukad The Premier League is understood to be satisfied with the number of drug tests carried out by the Football Association’s anti-doping programme, despite a report that alleged almost one third of players were not tested last season. An investigation by the Times published on Thursday claimed that 366 first-team squad players at top-flight clubs out of a total of around 530 were tested, meaning more than 150 did not provide urine or blood samples throughout the whole 12-month period. The shortfall is believed to include a large number of players who made fewer than five appearances, although the report states a total of 444 exceeded that figure. However, those statistics are not believed to have raised concerns at the Premier League, who are understood to be happy with the number of tests carried out by UK Anti-Doping (Ukad) on behalf of the FA. It remains the only worldwide league where players must give notice of their whereabouts and can be visited by testers at home, with all squad members likely to face at least one test during the course of a 12-month period. According to the report, 68% were out of competition – more than three times the equivalent number in Germany’s professional leagues – while players involved in European club and international football also likely to face extra testing from Uefa and Fifa. However, those figures are way below the level of testing in both tennis and cycling, where players are routinely tested in and out of competition. In response to the Times story, an FA spokesman said: “No other national governing body in the UK dedicates as much resource to prevent doping in its sport; indeed the FA operates one of the most comprehensive national anti-doping testing programmes in the world. “The FA, like any sport, will prioritise its anti-doping programme at the elite end. In addition, the anti-doping programme is research- and intelligence-led, meaning any player who the FA believes presents a particular doping risk will be targeted.” In February, the Arsenal manager Arsène Wenger called for the introduction of blood tests to combat doping cheats, stating “greater transparency” is needed to root out the problem.
Parquet Courts: Human Performance review – sublime highs worth waiting for With 2014’s Sunbathing Animal, New York four-piece Parquet Courts finally, at the third time of asking, began to marshal their undoubted talents into memorable songs. Human Performance feels like a logical progression, with slightly stronger material, most notably the title track, a sublime slice of brooding garage rock, and the emotional dislocation of Berlin Got Blurry. Elsewhere, One Man, No City starts like Talking Heads and ends like a looser Velvet Underground, while Two Dead Cops reprises their earlier, punkier sound. Throughout, the ghost of Pavement is never far away. There’s still a degree of inconsistency: I Was Just Here is unpleasantly jarring, the wilfully flat vocal delivery not adding to its charm. But there are enough highs to make this worthy of a listen.
Palliative care for children should not be a bewildering lottery Across the UK, babies, children and young adults with life-shortening conditions and their families not only face enormous physical, emotional and social difficulties, but also the bewildering inconsistency and complexity of palliative and specialist care provision and its commissioning. The often discussed postcode lottery affecting healthcare provision doesn’t stop with location; there is also a lottery around age and complexity of condition. Many people will be surprised to learn there is a big difference between the provision of specialist palliative care for adults and the provision of the same standard of care for children and young people. If a child or an adult needs treatment to ease or relieve their symptoms, they can be treated by a GP. Adults with complex symptoms and diseases who cannot be treated in primary care may then be referred to a specialist team, including a medical consultant specialising in palliative care (who is often funded or part funded by the NHS). Sadly this is not always the case for children, as there are not robust and equitable commissioning arrangements and nor are there adequate numbers of doctors trained to the required level. Our ability to care for children with serious and life shortening conditions has improved dramatically, and 30 years on from the opening of Helen & Douglas House, the world’s first children’s hospice, there are a substantial number of children’s hospice services providing excellent palliative care across the UK. They can offer children and their families world-class medical care, respite, and empowered choice and how are where to spend final days and weeks together. As most are independent, they can tailor specialist care and offer a range of activities, social and life experience opportunities for children and young adults. However, there is often a lack of consistency in the care provided, in the age range of the people supported, hospices’ catchment areas and whether care is commissioned by local statutory services. This lack of consistency can make it incredibly hard at a very difficult time for young people and their families to know what service is available for them and how to access specialist care in their area. Depending on where a family are based in the UK, the care they can access may be different. The bottom line is that it simply it isn’t right that a child in one area receives a different level of care to a child in another. We have to achieve parity of services so that every child with a life-limiting condition and every family of such a child is guaranteed a world-class standard of care, and the support they deserve in the most difficult of times. To do this, the sector doesn’t need an enormous amount of capital investment, or construction of more hospice buildings. It needs the infrastructure that we have now to be put to use more efficiently. It needs effective, joined-up working across boundaries and different settings, whether that is a tertiary hospital or home, making sure money from taxpayers is used to provide a consistent and effective service and that public donations are used efficiently. It also needs a co-ordinated approach. This could be achieved with strategically placed, accessible centres providing the full range of palliative care. Ideally this would be commissioned across clinical commissioning group (CCG) boundaries. The current frustration with the government-championed localist agenda is that not only do CCGs not often collaborate, they do not have to implement recommendations from NHS England or its bodies. While the people who need hospice services are (thankfully) only a relatively small proportion of the population, it is essential that we have a co-ordinated approach to training, service provision and staffing, to ensure that everyone, everywhere, in need of palliative care is offered the same level of care. To do this, it’s not huge amounts more capital investment that we need. We need local services to be funded and directed to work together, to ensure that the best care is provided to children and young adults – no matter where they live. Clare Periton is chief executive of Helen & Douglas House Join the Healthcare Professionals Network to read more pieces like this. And follow us on Twitter (@GdnHealthcare) to keep up with the latest healthcare news and views.
Serial killer's home from Silence of the Lambs fails to find buyer Owners of a Pennsylvania property that doubled as the “murder dungeon” home of serial killer Buffalo Bill in the Oscar-winning thriller The Silence of the Lambs have reduced the house’s selling price after failing to attract interest from buyers. Scott and Barbara Lloyd put the three-story 19th-century house up for sale in the summer for $300,000, but dropped the asking price to $250,000 last month. The property is the second most-viewed on the website realtor.com, but estate agents have fielded far more interest from journalists than potential buyers. “The fact that a home gets a ton of publicity doesn’t necessarily add up to a quick sale,” the website’s Erik Gunther told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. “Just because I want to gawk at something doesn’t mean I want to buy it.” The foyer and dining room of the Lloyds’ home, in a corner of the remote village of Layton, Fayette county – about an hour from Pittsburgh – was used to shoot scenes for The Silence of the Lambs. But it does not feature a dungeon in the basement, with director Jonathan Demme having chosen to shoot those elements on a sound stage. In fact, according to photographs obtained by the Associated Press, the property features a basement with stairs leading down, rather than a dry well in the floor. The Silence of the Lambs was one of the biggest box-office hits of 1991, taking $272m worldwide (the equivalent of $476m, or £329m, in today’s money) and sweeping the major categories at the following year’s Oscars with five awards. A producer secured the Layton property for scenes involving Buffalo Bill, who kidnaps a US senator’s daughter and keeps her in his basement, with a simple door-knock in 1989. The Lloyds, who have owned the property since 1976, are now hoping that the price reduction will lead to a quick sale. “We got the message out to the curious, but not to the people who are interested in actually buying,” Scott Lloyd told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. “We’re finally starting to get a little bit of motion.”
Zayn Malik’s Pillowtalk: the best of this week’s new music PICK OF THE WEEK Zayn Malik Pillowtalk (RCA) Against all odds, Zayn Malik’s debut single is shockingly good, the musical equivalent of pulling back a curtain to reveal a tiger where you expected to find a pile of discounted One Direction calendars. All Miguel-style dirty talk and threats to “piss off the neighbours” with loud sex, Pillowtalk should be prefaced with the public-service announcement: it’s OK, he’s 23. Mass Gothic Every Night You’ve Got To Save Me (Sub Pop) Probably coming soon to the ad for a holiday-booking website featuring appy, fresh-faced couples running through the twilit streets of Barcelona, or elbowing pissed-off locals aside to dance with wild abandon in the secret bars of Dubrovnik, this track is pure, giddy glee. And I don’t mean the a cappella, TV show kind; I mean jangly guitars, a totally unexpected violin part on the chorus, and sung with the kind of urgency you only get from going one key too high at karaoke. Yeasayer I Am Chemistry (Mute) Your dad might sigh that all modern music is meaningless fluff, but Yeasayer are here to prove him wrong. Namechecking a series of poisonous chemicals – digoxin, DDT and, quite impressively, the formula for sarin - C4H10FO2P – I Am Chemistry is an epic five minute-long track combining a women’s choir, piano and a recorder solo. OK, it’s not one to get the lads chanting on the nightbus, but it is the only love song you’ll hear this year with the claim “I’m sulphur dichloride with ethylene”. Ellie Goulding Army (Polydor) This song’s about Ellie’s best friend, Hannah, according to the video, who seems to put up with a lot from her famous mate. As Ellie lists in Army: “The nights and the fights/ The blood and the breakups/ You’re always there to call up”. Just imagine how badly Hannah sleeps at night: mobile never on silent, just waiting for Ellie to phone up with her problems in that breathy bleat about drawing blood from whichever boyband member she’s currently splitting up with. Long story short: telling someone about your best friend is a lot like sharing your skincare routine: it’s super-interesting to you, but no one else cares, so this earnest ballad’s just a bit … boring. Sorry Hannah. Rat Boy Move (Parlophone) We’ve brought back bucket hats, reunited Friends and rebooted The X Files, so it was never going to be long before big beat became the next 90s trend in line for revival. Move is a bit like the Fatboy Slim remix of Beastie Boys’ Body Movin, if they were born in Essex and put some extra snark on the verses. It’s the soundtrack to the restless dreams you have after three McDonald’s cheeseburgers on the way home. FYI, big beat is almost 19 years old, which is exactly the age of Jordan Cardy AKA Rat Boy. Was big beat always such a hot mess, or are we just too old to remember?
DIY doctors: New Zealand medical students 'operating on themselves at home' A number of medical students at New Zealand’s oldest university are practising invasive medical procedures on their own bodies, and the bodies of their fellow students. A study published today in the New Zealand Medical Journal found 5% of medical students surveyed by researchers at Otago University medical school in Dunedin are practising in what is believed to give the aspiring medics stress-free conditions in which to hone their skills. Procedures include inserting IVs, withdrawing blood and removing cysts on their own or other students bodies, some in their own homes using pilfered equipment. The survey’s sample size was 284 students from a cohort of 800 in their fourth, fifth and sixth year of medical study. Five percent – or 15 students – described practising on themselves or fellow students. Co-author and deputy vice-chancellor Helen Nicholson said the findings were “very concerning” and warranted immediate further investigation. “At the moment we don’t really know why the students are doing this, but anecdotally we have been told it is to practice their skills in a private and stress-free environment,” said Nicholson. “It is pretty strange behaviour. We know some students were doing these procedures at home, with equipment they had taken from the hospital. So we do have serious concerns that this sort of behaviour is not displaying self-care or a professional attitude.” Nicholson said while there were plenty of reports of doctors self-diagnosing and self-prescribing, to her knowledge this was the first study to identify students practicing medical procedures on themselves. The most common practice the medical students tested on themselves was the insertion of an IV line into a vein, and the most common procedure students tested on each other was taking blood. Nicholson said taking blood, removing a cyst or mole and inserting an IV were all particularly difficult procedures to perform on your own body, and all of them involved some degree of pain. Professor Barry Taylor, dean of the Dunedin School of Medicine, said it was “pretty common” for students to practice a range of medical procedures on themselves such as using an ultrasound, examining inside each others ears or taking blood pressure. But Prof Taylor said he drew the line at students practicing any surgical procedures on themselves or each other, and doing so in their own homes with no clinical supervision was dangerous. “There is a broad philosophy in medicine that doctors shouldn’t promote what they haven’t experienced,” said Prof Taylor. “And if you are practising on yourself you could argue that you are certainly getting informed consent. But the risks of something going wrong are similar to if you are treating a family member, which we discourage because you are not in a position to make unbiased or objective decisions. “Taking blood and removing cysts are definitely on the margins of acceptable and could potentially be dangerous procedures if something goes wrong.”
Vine-al countdown: fans share favourite Vines before app shuts down Twitter’s announcement on Thursday that it would be discontinuing Vine prompted a public outpouring of grief in six-second, endlessly looped increments. We shared some of the classics of the genre on Friday but social media users have continued to nominate their favourites over the weekend, serving only to remind us of how much we stand to lose when this weird and wonderful corner of the internet closes down. So much greatness has resurfaced that our tribute continues with some of the best six-second videos. You can explore more on Vine’s trending page – and tell us your favourites in the comments. According to the blog post from Twitter, the end of Vine will be “in the coming months”, though what will happen to the existing gems is as yet unclear. Vale, Vine: we barely knew ye. Making my way downtown Vaping faceswap Yass cat Suicide fairy The best water bottle challenge Oh yeah! What a feeling Run Away With Meme Tony Abbott eats an onion Chris Christie curbs his enthusiasm Run Rolling in the Duck Army If Young Metro don’t trust you... Hotline Piña Colada
Having sex with the lights off? It's the thin edge of the Donald Trump wedge Last week I had a package delivered to my desk containing a lightbulb suggesting I may prefer to have sex with it on because it is dimmer than the average bulb. It was not a piece of fanmail, but a PR push that began with “research” about how many women felt self conscious about their body during sex. “We hope this helps you start seeing yourself in a new light – to love how you look and love how you feel,” it said. The product it was promoting? Weight loss. Specifically, Weight Watchers. First the weight loss industry came for our enjoyment of the beach intoning “bikini body” from the last day of winter onwards, and now they are coming for the bedroom. I was inclined to tweet a photo and forget about it. But a week later I am still getting furious responses from women, a visceral reaction which shows this is still something women want to talk about ... despite it being something they are sick of talking about. This wasn’t just one of the numerous petty insults we are used to every day but something that was thought out for months, strategised, okayed by multiple people. What is there to be said about weight loss campaigns that hasn’t already been said? Reams have already been written. We know insecurities are exploited for financial gain. We know there is a relentless and unrealistic pressure put on women to look a certain way from when they were girls. We know that more often than not, the product being sold just doesn’t work. Women either do not lose weight, or a much smaller number lose the weight and then discover all of their problems are not solved by being thin. And yet, it is 2016 and I am still receiving a lightbulb in the mail suggesting I might prefer to have sex with the lights off for fear that my partner might, shockingly, see my body. It’s almost embarrassing to have to write such an obvious point – overweight people enjoy sex, it is not just the domain of the thin. But this campaign isn’t just saying overweight people may not be inclined to show their bodies, it’s also saying any woman could, and perhaps should, be self-conscious taking her clothes off. No matter your size you are susceptible to this campaign, whether you think you should lose 10kg, 30kg, or 2.5kg there is something in here for everyone. It’s not just about being overweight, it’s about every woman who has ever wished something about their body was different. Which is pretty much all women. It’s so boring. This is the thin edge of the Donald Trump wedge, the insidious everyday misogynistic messaging we are telegraphed about how we should look, how it matters. It is the other end of the sexism spectrum to Trump who trumpets it, says bluntly: “She is a fat piglet.” If there is any silver lining, it is that more and more women are not putting up with this any more. Trump is actually losing votes over his comments and treatment of women. Weight Watchers was forced to respond to the backlash – it hasn’t pulled the campaign but Weight Watchers’ senior marketing manager, Rebecca Melville, conceded it could cause offence. “We launched in stages and that has fuelled the conversation without context,” she told Mumbrella. What context do we need? We already know the context: the company commissions the research that says we have a problem with our bodies during sex and, surprise, that company has the product to solve our problem. It feels like we are stuck in this infinite loop, doomed to keep trying to tell the world our bodies are fine, we are fine. We are tired. Tired of the commentary on how desirable we are, tired of being warned about summer bodies, tired of being told hair removal and makeup is a statement no matter what our decision on it. We’re tired of all that because there are so many more interesting things we could be talking and thinking about. We have better things to do.
The American Dreamer review – shooting Dennis Hopper, shooting In 1971, Dennis Hopper was attempting to complete his experimental film The Last Movie, which the studios were hoping (vainly) would be a zeitgeist moneyspinner to rival Easy Rider. At the same time, Hopper was submitting to the inspection of documentary makers LM Kit Carson and Lawrence Schiller; the result was this strange, downbeat study of Hopper on location and in his studio. The film was lost for many years, but now rereleased. It shows Hopper as a withdrawn, distrait figure, fretting over the editing suite and worrying about what he considers to be his career’s resemblance to Orson Welles’s. He’s not exactly the wild man of legend, and not quite, I suspect, the wild man the film-makers were hoping to get on film. Hopper demonstrates the creepy obsession with guns we know about: we see him fondle revolvers in his car, and firing both these and a hefty assault rifle in the desert. Did Carson and Schiller provide the guns? They appear to have arranged for a number of Playgirls to hang out with Hopper, just for this film, and get some bizarre, contrived softcore “group sex” scenes with Hopper and them in the bathtub. These women may have been promised movie stardom, and the sexual politics on display are seedy. There is a fuzzy underground feel to this film: choppy editing, sudden freeze frames, maundering voiceover. It has archival value as a study of Hopper and a footnote to the American new wave.
Time for the annual bank results bust-up Most of Britain’s banks report their annual results this week in probably the most frenzied atmosphere since the financial crisis. Bank shares have plunged as investors have fretted about their financial strength, prompting Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse to go public with reassuring comments. Britain’s banks have kept quiet and analysts will be as interested in what bosses have to say about their balance sheets as in the profits – and losses – racked up last year. HSBC kicks things off on Monday after deigning last week to remain in the UK instead of moving back to Hong Kong – though that hasn’t stopped it releasing results at the merciless hour of 4am UK time to accommodate Hong Kong. The bank’s shares, like those of its rival in Asia, Standard Chartered, which reports on Tuesday, have been hit by concerns about emerging-market economies and bad debts. Lloyds, which reports on Thursday, could take yet another big charge for mis-selling payment protection insurance, while RBS on Friday is likely to serve up its usual combo of bad figures and claims things are getting better. Barclays wraps things up the week after. With results unlikely to be great, executive pay will be in the spotlight as most banks release annual reports with their figures. The thinking seems to be if there’s going to be uproar, best to get it over with. Hornby has a fence to clear Ladbrokes reports annual results on Tuesday as its merger with Gala Coral, announced last July, continues to grind its way through a competition inquiry that isn’t expected to end until the middle of this year. Analysts at Numis expect pre-tax profit to have halved to £47.5m but for the chief executive, Jim Mullen, to report progress on a restructuring programme. A thorny question is the role Andy Hornby will play. He is chief operating officer at Gala Coral and is meant to do the same job after the merger. It’s been an impressive rehabilitation for Hornby, best known as the boss of HBOS when the bank almost collapsed in 2008. But last month, the Financial Conduct Authority threw a spanner in the works by saying it would look again at whether there was a case for action against former HBOS managers. Those under examination could be barred from working in a job requiring FCA authorisation, though that wouldn’t stop Hornby working at a publicly traded bookie. And the FCA might find there’s no case for Hornby to answer. It’s all a bit uncomfortable. Tuesday will be the first time Ladbrokes has faced questions since the FCA decision. It has so far declined to comment. At home with profit After a quiet half-term week, there’s a veritable deluge of company news on the way this week, including results from housebuilders Barratt, Bovis and Persimmon, online property portal Rightmove and Britain’s biggest estate agent, Countrywide. Life has been tough for estate agents with transaction volumes low and competition fierce, but for housebuilders life couldn’t be much better. Prices are rising and the government’s Help to Buy scheme is putting the properties they build within reach of buyers. Planning restrictions are also loosening. Pay and dividends are up. Yet there are clouds edging in to this vista. Hedge funds are starting to bet against the most London-centric housebuilder, Berkeley Homes, by taking out short positions on its shares. Berkeley updates the market on trading next month. A figure that has been doing the rounds for a year is also getting new interest: there are 54,000 central London homes expected to go on sale for £1m or more but in 2014 only 3,900 such properties sold. Barratt, Bovis and Persimmon don’t build luxury London properties but if that market tanks the reverberations will surely be felt. Then again, wise heads have been warning about bubbles for a long time, and things keep rolling along.
The view on surveillance: keep a vigilant eye on the snoopers A sprawling surveillance system – with unprecedented reach into private lives, even private thoughts – is being summoned up from computers and smartphones. It is almost three years since Edward Snowden gave the world the facts. As the tale has turned and twisted since, the pry-masters have insisted that the innocent have nothing to fear, and that everything is done with rigorous checks. But if one moral has run right through the story, it is that soothing whispers of sweet reason should be received with deep scepticism. The investigatory powers bill, published on Tuesday, illustrates why. It is, in its way, a triumph for Snowden: it involves the British security state coming clean about the extraordinary existing facility to snoop that he exposed, spelling the powers out in statute for the first time. Ahead of its publication the reassuring talk was of the exceptional parliamentary scrutiny that it had gone through, and the 122 tweaks and safeguards that three separate committees had put forward, all carefully considered as the draft law was refined. Yes, there were concessions, such as bowing the knee to reality on what it is feasible to ask of tech companies in relation to encryption. But at the same time, and without any advertisement, some tentacles of surveillance are being licensed to creep further than before. Communication providers, who were already set to be tasked with keeping exhaustive data on phone calls, social messages and unlawful sites, will now be expected to keep automatically a year of internet connection records – which could include a deeply private browse of, say, the Marie Stopes or Gamblers Anonymous site. Alert citizens may have grown uneasily used to the idea that GCHQ can get its hands on such information, and the police will have the facility too. Knowledge is power, and the number of fallible human beings who possess it – and perhaps misuse or mislay it – could soar. Measures initially advanced to deal with serious criminals will be turned on migrants, with new powers for officials pursuing immigration and nationality offences, and immigrant detention facilities subject to domestic interception. The stampede to the statute book is claimed necessary because the emergency legislation that licenses much data collection is due to lapse next year. The government dismisses the obvious logical possibility of legislating for a narrow and improved replacement for the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act while taking longer to consult and reflect on everything else. An opposition worthy of its name, which Labour sometimes struggles to be, would move beyond the indulgence Andy Burnham showed the home secretary in the autumn, and push hard on this particular point. As it was, he was still insisting on Tuesday that he would not rush to judgment. For as cars, watches and even white goods acquire connectivity, it will become possible to build up exhaustive logbooks on the lives of others. Bluntly described powers to switch on cameras and microphones on people’s own phones starkly reveal how the tide of technology is washing away all need for the old art of installing bugs, as well as the old practical and procedural limits on their use. In purely technical terms, the depth of the monitoring that the smartphone can enable goes way beyond anything afforded by the electronic tag. This context – in which one year’s surveillance fiction can become next year’s surveillance fact – is what makes eternal vigilance necessary. The current standoff in the US between Apple and the FBI is increasingly underlining the point. The FBI’s original case was that it was targeting only one terrorist’s phone, but in the days since it has itself revealed far more ambition. Right around the world, technology is steepening the slide from the rare and particular to the routine. Seemingly pinpointed actions can prefigure a smothering blanket.
Lloyds Bank pays £1.9bn for MBNA, while UK retail sales climb - as it happened US shares continue to forge ahead, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average making further strides towards the 20,000 barrier. The Dow is currently up 61 points or 0.3% 19,944, as the post election rally continues. The S&P 500 has opened 0.22% higher and the Nasdaq Composite 0.3% better. The moves higher came despite the increased global tensions, following the attacks in Berlin and Turkey. Michael Hewson, chief market analyst at CMC Markets UK, said: US markets are continuing to remain resilient despite the continued rise in yields and the US dollar, with the Dow looking to have another crack at the 20,000 level that it fell just short of last week. As for Europe, the FTSE 100 is up 0.3%, Germany’s Dax is 0.19% higher and France’s Cac has climbed 0.4%. Hewson said: It’s been another fairly quiet pre-Christmas trading day for European equity markets which, after yesterday’s brief pause have continued to build on the gains of the last few weeks with the Dax shrugging off the tragic events in Berlin, to put in another new high for the year. The FTSE100 has also hit its highest level since October as both key European benchmarks reap the benefits of a weaker currency with the euro hitting its lowest levels since 2002 and the pound posting a one month low against the US dollar. If investors are in any way fazed by the rise in geopolitical tension over the past 24 hours it’s certainly not being reflected in stock market valuations. On that note, it’s time to close for the day. Thanks for all your comments, and we’ll be back tomorrow. Over in Greece, the euro working group is set to decide whether to reinstate short-term debt relief measures abruptly suspended last week. Helena Smith reports: In Athens officials are privately expressing optimism that lenders will take the view the government’s announcement of relief measures for the vulnerable “in no way conflicts with fiscal targets.” Prime minister Alexis Tsipras, who caught creditors off guard when he declared a budget primary surplus would allow his leftist led coalition to grant a one-off bonus to around 1.6 million low-income pensioners, is hoping today’s teleconference will clear up “any misunderstanding.” Greece has been on a collision course with bailout partners since the measures were unveiled. Suspension of a planned VAT rise on islands in the Aegean hit by refugee flows - a second measure - was included in a draft bill put before parliament last night. The hope is that the euro working group will unblock the debt relief measures it froze last week so that a second review of the economy assessing the headway Greece has made in implementing reforms can be concluded when euro zone finance ministers convene again on 26 January. The euro continues to fall against the dollar, heading closer towards parity. The decline is mainly a function of the strength of the US currency of course, as further interest rate rises from the Federal Reserve loom large. But the problems of the eurozone, including the troubled Italian banking sector, are also a factor, as is the horrific attack in Berlin. The euro is currently down 0.5% at $1.0353, its lowest since early 2003. Fawad Razaqzada, market analyst at Forex.com, said: Another day, anther multi-year high for the dollar. This afternoon saw the euro/dollar drop below last week’s low to hit its lowest level since 2003. The world’s heaviest traded pair has been falling sharply in recent times as disparity between Eurozone and US monetary policies grow. Whereas the ECB has turned even more dovish by expanding its QE stimulus programme to at least December 2017, the Fed has [raised] interest rates and has talked up the possibility of three further hikes next year. This is basically the driving force behind the euro/dollar’s downward move and will probably remain so in the early parts of next year. [The] next phase of the move could be severe in terms of magnitude. At a minimum, the euro/dollar, I think, would reach parity, possibly before the year is out. I think there is potential for it to drop even lower over time. Here’s our report on the CBI’s retail sales survey. Larry Elliott writes: Retailers have been enjoying their strongest sales growth in more than a year amid signs from Britain’s leading employers’ organisation of a pre-Christmas consumer spending spree. The latest health check of high street and online activity from the CBI found that sales so far in December beat expectations, were above average for the time of year, and led to retailers beefing up their orders to suppliers. But the CBI’s distributive trades survey also found that retailers expect the pace of growth to slacken in early 2017 when the fall in the value of the pound pushes up inflation and reduces living standards. The survey of 112 retailers reported 51% as saying sales were higher than a year ago while 16% said they were lower. The resulting balance of +35 points was up on the +26 points recorded in November and the highest since September 2015. As if to confirm the CBI’s comments about rising prices, the Bank of England’s Ian McCafferty has pointed to the prospect of higher inflation, and reiterated the bank’s stance that interest rates were as likely to rise as to fall. In a speech at the Dorset Chamber of Commerce, he said that higher inflation, weaker growth and the fallout from the Brexit vote complicated the outlook for the UK economy: This confluence of trends - rising inflation, initial demand resilience but a slowdown in growth in prospect and a likely hit to supply over the longer term - provides a challenging background for policy setting... On the basis of our current understanding of the economy, the balance of risks around the outlook was two-sided, such that from the current level, any further changes in our policy stance in the near future were as likely to be upward as downward... The uncertainties about the future path of the economy following the referendum are such that we will be following the emerging data even more closely than normal. Quite where policy will go next will depend crucially on how the different cogs and wheels in the economy behave over the coming year or two. Consumers may be splashing out because they anticipate prices are heading higher, says economist Howard Archer at IHS Markit: Retailers will certainly be hoping that consumers’ willingness to spend holds up over the final part of the vital Christmas shopping period and into the New Year. The CBI survey indicates that retailers are more cautious about sales prospects in January although they still see them at a relatively decent level.... For now, consumers are still benefiting from decent fundamentals, notably relatively decent purchasing power and high employment... The major problem facing the economy - and retailers in particular - is that it looks inevitable that the fundamentals for consumers will weaken markedly over the coming months with purchasing power being increasingly squeezed and the labour market likely weakening... In the near-term, there is the possibility that some consumers will bring forward purchases of big-ticket items in the belief that their prices are likely to rise appreciably over the coming months. Expectations of rising prices may make consumers particularly keen to take advantage of genuine bargains in the clearance sales in late-December and January. Next year looks more challenging for retailers, ING economist James Knightley agrees: Households are clearly willing to spend, but the headwinds for next year are strong. The UK’s Confederation of British Industry has reported that retailers have had a really strong Christmas trading period so far. A net 35% of retailers saw higher volumes of sales than 12 months ago, up from 26% in November and well ahead of the 20% consensus. This is the strongest reading since September last year and suggests that consumer spending will again make a big contribution to 4Q GDP growth. It also again highlights the resilience of the UK economy despite the Brexit uncertainty. However, 2017 is already shaping up to be more challenging. Consumer confidence has weakened significantly in the past couple of months, which may be partly due to growing fears over what Brexit might mean for households, but also an anticipation of sharply higher prices. Inflation expectations have jumped in response to warnings from industry groups and individual companies that the pound’s collapse means higher costs that will likely be passed onto consumers. This is going to squeeze household spending power and may be partly responsible for the recent run of strong spending – people bringing forward purchases to avoid higher prices. The CBI survey actually takes in the last week of November and the first two weeks of this month, so it includes Black Friday as well as the pre-Christmas shopping spree. The CBI calculates its balance figure by taking away the percentage of retailers who saw falling sales from those who reported a rise. So 51% said sales volumes were up, whilst 16% said they were down, giving a balance of +35%. But despite the boom in the numbers, the CBI said it expected sales to slow in 2017 as the weaker pound pushed up prices and squeezed disposable income. It said the growth was broad based, with strong performances from clothing and grocers. Internet sales - of course - continued to move higher, at their best pace since November 2014. CBI economist Ben Jones said: It’s encouraging to see retailers reporting another month of healthy sales growth leading up to the festive season, which rounds off a fairly solid quarter. While we still expect to see decent growth in the near term, the pressures on retail activity are likely to increase during 2017, as the impact of sterling’s depreciation feeds through. With higher inflation beginning to weigh on households’ purchasing power, consumption patterns are likely to shift, creating winners and losers across the retail landscape. So far in December retail sales have come in stronger than expected, according to the CBI. Its retail sales index showed a balance of +35%, up from +26% in November and better than the expected +20%. This is the highest level since September 2015. The index of retailers’ orders with suppliers was up 12% in December compared to a rise of 6% in November, the best level for more than a year. A quick update on the markets. Despite the horrific events in Berlin and Turkey, leading shares are attempting to move higher. The FTSE 100 is up 0.03%, while Germany’s Dax is up 0.05% and France’s Cac has climbed 0.3%. Mike van Dulken, head of research at Accendo Markets, said: Equity indices are trading flat on another sombre post-terror attack day with markets shrugging off renewed geopolitical risk and Travel stocks not suffering their usual knee-jerk weakness. The FTSE100 is treading water with Lloyds (MBNA purchase offers chance for growth) and big Pharma offsetting losses for HSBC, Oil majors and Tobacco despite the weak pound. Major bourses remain close to highs, but may struggle to improve without a Monte dei Paschi recap/rescue in the bag. The FTSE 100 is sideways 6995-7020, waiting to pop one way or the other. The DAX 30 is holding its December uptrend above 14000, still trying to engineer a breakout to fresh 13-month highs. Dow Jones Futures are knocking at 19920 resistance trying to challenge 19965 all-time highs. The Lloyds/MDNA deal owes something to the regulators, says Laith Khalaf, senior analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown: Lloyds is backing itself despite the uncertain economic outlook, and this deal will mean the bank has now cornered a quarter of the UK credit card market. This does mean a special dividend for 2016 has become less likely, but at the same time the additional earnings from the credit card book bolster the dividend-paying prospects of the bank in years to come. The acquisition will allow Lloyds to boost its net interest margin, which is pretty valuable against a backdrop of such low interest rates. The deal owes some thanks to the FCA deadline on PPI claims, which has given some measure of certainty to the level of compensation MBNA will have to pay out, providing both parties with a more solid platform for negotiation. News from Greece of a delay in appointing a new chief executive for the country’s biggest bank. Greece’s Kathimerini reports: The process for the appointment of a new chief executive officer will resume in 2017, Piraeus Bank’s governing board decided on Monday. Earlier, the majority of the board had voted down the lone candidacy of Christos Papadopoulos due to reservations expressed by the European Central Bank’s Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM). Sources say that the appointment was postponed after consultation with the SSM, as it appears that once again the insistence of the Hellenic Financial Stability Fund (HFSF) that a CEO must be appointed did not convince the bank’s board. The HFSF is the biggest stakeholder in Piraeus Bank. It holds 26 percent of its shares. The mandate of the board expires next summer and, according to sources, that will set the time frame for the completion of administrative changes in the lender. Back with the Lloyds deal to buy MBNA, and Neil Wilson, senior market analyst at ETX Capital, has a couple of concerns: Lloyds says this deal will boost revenues by £650m a year and improve net interest margin about 10 basis points a year. The bank predicts earnings per share to rise by somewhere between 3% and 5% once the deal has been completed. But we have to be sceptical about a couple of elements. First, this big purchase could take a long time to pay off and by eating up so much cash we have to question whether Lloyds can increase dividends as much as hoped. The deal eats up 80 basis points of capital, which is about half of the bank’s annual net capital generation. The question we have to ask is whether this is good value for money at a time of great uncertainty in the market – defaults could rise if we start to get higher unemployment. Brexit makes the economic outlook very uncertain and Lloyds has just upped its exposure to UK consumer debt at potentially the worst moment. The run up to the last financial crisis was marked by hubristic mergers and acquisitions. Too big to fail rules make it impossible for big banks to join up these days but Lloyds has found a way to expand nonetheless. Recent figures from Lloyds weren’t fabulous. Underlying profits fell 3 per cent to £1.9bn, while profits before tax were down 15 per cent at £811m as the bank had to set aside another £1bn for PPI claims. You may well be fed up of the “festive spirit” already but don’t let that stop you taking our Christmas quiz. No prizes but just the chance to show how much attention you’ve been paying over the past year: Paysafe, the digital payment specialist which saw its shares slump earlier this month after a negative report from a short seller, is continuing its recovery. The company, which dismissed the claims by Spotlight Research as either old or inaccurate, has jumped nearly 6% to 361p after it announced a buyback of up to £100m. Its shares closed down nearly 18% on the day of the report, but are now not far off a complete recovery. Here’s our full story on the Lloyds/MBNA deal: The German and French markets have now edged into positive territory. Connor Campbell, financial analyst at Spreadex, said: The European markets got off to another slow start this Tuesday, investors struggling to find a reason to send the region’s indices any higher. The FTSE once again lingered around the 7000 mark, lacking any real impetus to push towards its all-time peak from earlier in the year. The pound, meanwhile, has continued to fall against the dollar; it now sits under $1.24, its worst price in around the month. Against the euro sterling has fared a bit better, remaining just above the €1.19 mark... The fact that [European markets] posted any growth this morning is somewhat remarkable given the events in Germany and Turkey on Monday – it is perhaps a sign of how depressingly routine such tragedies have become that the market no longer has the same kind of reaction to them. It was to be expected perhaps, after the events in Berlin and Turkey, but stock markets are struggling for direction at the start of trading as investors remain cautious. The FTSE 100 is down 0.04% while Germany’s Dax has dipped 0.04% and France’s Cac is 0.03% lower. But the Spanish and Italian markets have managed to both edge higher. Lloyds Banking Group meanwhile is up 0.5% after its £1.9bn deal to purchase MBNA. Speaking of deals, the controversy over the maker of the new five pound note using animal fat in the production process has not put off a Canadian company from buying the business. Reuters reports: Canadian label and packaging maker CCL Industries Inc said it would buy Innovia Group, whose unit is the supplier of Bank of England’s new plastic five pound note that has fallen foul with vegetarians, for about C$1.13 billion ($842 million). U.K.-based Innovia Group is a maker of specialty bi-axially oriented polypropylene films used for labels, packaging and security applications... CCL is buying Innovia debt free and net of cash from a consortium of U.K.-based private equity investors managed by The Smithfield Group LLP. The Bank of England said last month that [Innovia was] working toward removing the use of animal fat in the production of its new plastic five pound note after objection raised by thousands of vegetarians. Back with the Lloyds deal to buy MBNA, and Shore Capital reckons the move could rule out any special dividend to shareholders. Analyst Gary Greenwood said: Although there is no change to guidance for a progressive ordinary dividend payment, this may colour management’s thinking towards special dividend payments for the current financial year as management may wish to retail additional capital. Current guidance is for the group to generate capital before dividends equivalent of around 160 basis points of risk weighted assets in the current financial year. This is equivalent to around 5p per share and compares to our current full year dividend forecast of 4p, which includes a 2.55p ordinary payment and 1.45p special. It is likely that the anticipated special dividend may therefore be missed or reduced in order to finance the deal, albeit we would expect further surplus capital to be generated in subsequent years. Overall, the anticipated financial performance and shareholder value creation that is expected to be generated by this transaction is impressive, in our view, and suggests a better use of capital than simply returning it to shareholders. That said, Lloyds will be broadly doubling up its exposure to credit cards at a particularly benign point in the bad debt cycle and ahead of a potential slow-down in the UK economy once the terms of the UK’s exit from the EU are reached. While there is some latitude in the financial metrics to absorb potentially higher impairments, the risk cannot be ignored. In addition, we see limited scope for organic growth given the high post transaction market share and attention such growth may attract from the competition authorities. Here’s more on the Bank of Japan’s more positive view of the country’s economy. Reuters reports: The Bank of Japan kept monetary policy steady and took a more upbeat view of the economy on Tuesday, reinforcing market expectations that its future policy direction could be an increase - not a cut - in interest rates. Reflecting a pick-up in emerging Asian demand and factory output, the central bank upgraded its language to signal its confidence that the economy is headed for a steady recovery. “Japan’s economy continues to recover moderately as a trend,” the BOJ said in a statement announcing the policy decision. It also offered a brighter view on exports and output, saying they were picking up. But the central bank warned that the impact of US monetary policy on global markets was among risks to the outlook, suggesting that the Federal Reserve’s interest rate hike cycle could disrupt emerging market capital flows. As widely expected, the BOJ kept unchanged its pledge to guide short-term rates at minus 0.1 percent and the 10-year government bond yield around zero percent. Underscoring its optimism on the outlook, the central bank even revised up its view on private consumption - considered a soft spot for the Japanese economy, the world’s third largest. But BOJ Governor Haruhiko Kuroda said it was premature to consider raising the central bank’s yield targets with inflation still distant from its 2 percent target. “It’s absolutely not the case that Japanese government bond yields are allowed to rise in tandem with overseas long-term interest rates, or that (any such rise in Japanese yields) would prompt us to raise our yield targets,” Kuroda told a news conference. Kuroda also said he saw no problem with the yen’s recent declines against the dollar, saying such falls would help push up inflation by boosting import prices and in so doing raise inflation expectations, a crucial element in the BOJ’s plan to beat economic stagnation. “Current exchange-rate moves can be described more as dollar strengthening rather than yen weakening,” Kuroda said. “It’s possible the divergence in monetary policy directions could affect currency moves. But for now, I don’t see current yen falls as excessive or posing any problem.” Kathleen Brooks, research director at City Index Direct, said: The market reaction to this move has generally been a stronger USD/JPY. Although the BOJ economic outlook is more upbeat, it isn’t enough to compete with the Fed and its rate-hiking cycle for 2017, which will continue to give the US dollar the yield advantage. Japanese stocks like it though, and the Nikkei is up 0.5% already, as a weaker currency, a brighter economic outlook and a low interest rate environment boost the Japanese corporate outlook. Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of the world economy, the financial markets, the eurozone and business. On a quiet trading week in the run-up to Christmas, Lloyds Banking Group has just provided a bit of merger excitement. It is paying £1.9bn for MBNA, the UK credit card business, from Bank of America. MBNA has assets of around £7bn, and Lloyds said the deal would increase its annual revenues by £650m. Cost cutting is on the cards - Lloyds said It expected savings of £100m within two years. MBNA still faces claims for misselling personal protection insurance (PPI) but Lloyds says the liability is capped at £240m. Lloyds was reportedly the favourite to buy MBNA, having seen off rival bidder Cerberus, the US private equity group. Elsewhere, the Bank of Japan has kept interest rates on hold and upgraded its economic outlook. Michael Hewson, chief market analyst at CMC Markets, said: This shouldn’t have been a surprise to most people given recent yen weakness which has come as a welcome relief to Japanese policymakers, after several failed attempts this year to weaken the yen. Even so the yen still remains above the levels it was when the Bank of Japan first pushed rates into negative territory in January, and reinforcing the reality that the only way the yen is likely to weaken further is as a result of future US policy moves. Those US moves are likely to involve further interest rate rises, perhaps in short order given the bullish tone on jobs of Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen in a speech to students in Baltimore on Monday. On the agenda today we get the latest CBI retail sales figures. They supposedly cover December but come ahead of the last minute Christmas trading rush. We already have stronger than expected German producer price figures, up 0.3% month on month in November, compared to expectations of a 0.1% rise. But they were lower than the 0.7% figure in October. We will also be following developments in Greece, after Moody’s warned about the consequences of European lenders delaying debt relief. Our full story is here: And Italy’s troubled Monte dei Paschi continues to try and attract investors to its €5bn fundraising. Meanwhile the Italian government is looking at a £20bn rescue package for all its struggling banks. European stock markets are expected to open slightly lower, with investors likely to unnerved by the events in Berlin where 12 people have been killed after a truck ploughed into a Christmas market, as well as the shooting of Russia’s ambassador in Turkey. The opening calls are:
Poets' unlikely love letters are turned into critically acclaimed film She was the daughter of a Nazi party member, he the only son of parents who died in the Holocaust. The love affair between Ingeborg Bachmann and Paul Celan was as unlikely as it was brief, spanning two months in Vienna and a shorter rekindling 10 years later. But the meeting of minds between two of the most influential writers in the German language – and the more than 200 poems, letters, postcards, telegrams and unsent drafts it spawned – has outlasted not just their love affair, but also their authors’ premature deaths. A new film consisting of little more than two young actors reading from the correspondence between the two poets has garnered critical acclaim in Germany and Austria. Die Geträumten (The Dreamed Ones), which opens in the UK on 2 December, follows the singer-songwriter Anja Plaschg and actor Laurence Rupp through an unrehearsed recording of the letters, which were published in 2008 and have proved a surprise bestseller in German-language territories. Throughout the reading, the two performers are pushed to the edge of tears by the declarations of love, open and concealed recriminationsand mourning of missed opportunities. The resulting docudrama has been described as a “genre-defying work of art” by Der Spiegel, and “minimalist and magical” by Der Tagesspiegel. Bachmann and Celan first met in May 1948 in Vienna, where she was studying philosophy and he was enjoying modest acclaim for his first collection, including Death Fugue, now considered one of the most important pieces of literature about the Holocaust. On 20 May that year, Bachmann told her parents that her room was “a poppy field” because “the surrealist poet Paul Celan” had been inundating her with flowers. Even though Celan left Vienna for Paris less than two months later, their correspondence continued, with Bachmann writing in June 1949: “Sometimes all I want is to go away and come to Paris, to feel you touch my hands, touch me completely with flowers, and then, once again, not know where you have come from and where you are going.” An attempted period of cohabitation in Paris ended in strife, and in 1952 Celan married the artist Gisèle de Lestrange, with whom he had two sons. But in 1957 the two poets met again at a conference organised by the influential Group 47 circle of writers, and resumed their affair. Throughout their correspondence, poetic declarations of love are offset by a deep anguish about the legacy of the Nazi period that has been passed down to them through the German language. Bachmann, raised in Carinthia in Austria where 99.8% of the population had voted for the Anschluss with Nazi Germany, repeatedly left letters unfinished or unsent: “It has long been like an illness,” she later said. “I cannot write, I am already crippled when I write the date or put the paper in the typewriter.” Celan, born Paul Antschel into a family of German-speaking Jews in Czernowitz – now Chernivtsi – which was then part of Romania but is now in Ukraine, was repeatedly depressed over his family’s deportation to a concentration camp in 1942, where his father died of typhoid and his mother was shot in the same year. “It frightens me a great deal to see you floating out into a great sea, but I mean to build a ship and bring you back home from your forlornness,” Bachmann wrote on 24 November 1949. In the end, the dividing lines wrought by the darkest chapter in European history proved too deep for their friendship. On 17 October 1959, Celan sent Bachmann a copy of a merciless review of Death Fugue, which he perceived to be antisemitic. His poem, he argued, was both “an epitaph and a grave”, and the newspaper review amounted to a desecration. In an unsent letter, Bachmann accused him of wanting “to be the victim” and refused to join him on this path: “Then that is your affair, and it will not be mine if you let it overwhelm you.” On 1 May 1970, Celan’s body was found in the Seine river outside Paris. Three years later, Bachmann died of injuries sustained in a fire at her apartment in Rome, believed to have been caused by a smouldering cigarette. On hearing of Celan’s death, Bachmann had added a new section to the already finished manuscript for her only novel, Malina: “My life is over, for he drowned in the river during deportation … He was my life. I loved him more than my life.”
José Mourinho sent to stands as Manchester United are held by Burnley As goalless draws go this was certainly eventful, with Manchester United going down to 10 men, José Mourinho being banished from the sidelines, Tom Heaton putting in another inspired goalkeeping performance and Burnley picking up their first away point of the season. Yet it was hardly the result the home side were looking for; it takes United back to square one after their midweek pick-me-up against Manchester City. Mourinho said beforehand he was looking forward to a long-awaited Sunday off, but relaxation is proving elusive for the manager holed up at Manchester’s Lowry hotel. He must answer an FA charge of making comments about the referee Anthony Taylor by Monday, and now faces probable suspension for confronting Mark Clattenburg in the tunnel at half-time. Returning to the football, as good as Heaton was, United could only be embarrassed by a total of 37 attempts, 11 of them on target, and no goals. That suggests poor finishing, and the assistant coach Rui Faria, sent to speak in place of Mourinho, did not disagree. “We are not happy,” he said. “We are creating a lot, we just have to keep believing the goals will come.” Mourinho is now saying he needs time to turn United into winners because they have become unfamiliar with the habit, apparently forgetting that Chelsea had not done anything in the league for donkey’s years when he won the title in his first season at Stamford Bridge. United won the FA Cup only last season and the title three years before that, but time is presently standing still at Old Trafford. Watching United these days makes for longer afternoons than it used to. The script was obvious here right from the start. Burnley would defend doggedly until such time as United scored and they were obliged to chase the game. United would see a lot of the ball and spend most of their time setting up attacks, but confronted with a side not sending too many players forward in search of a goal they would struggle to inject enough pace into the game to play at their preferred tempo. What the home supporters must have been praying for was an early goal, but due to Heaton’s goalkeeping heroics it never came. The Burnley goalkeeper is the busiest in the Premier League, and with practice comes a predictable level of performance. Just as he had against Everton last week, Heaton prevented his opponents taking advantage of a slew of early chances. Zlatan Ibrahimovic saw a shot saved in the opening couple of minutes, quickly followed by Juan Mata as United moved the ball swiftly around the edge of Burnley’s box. A neat through ball from Mata put Ibrahimovic clean through but he was unable to lift the ball over the goalkeeper, then Heaton had to dive to his right to beat away a shot from Mata. It was not quite all United. Sam Vokes put a shot wide then just failed to get the near-post touch he was looking for after Daley Blind temporarily lost Andre Gray, though the home side certainly finished the first half on top. Ben Mee turned up to block from Ibrahimovic, then Heaton produced a flying save to tip over Jesse Lingard’s header from Ander Herrera’s cross. Paul Pogba closed the half with a shot that also required helping over the bar, though it was significant that United’s goal attempts were coming from further and further out. A theatrical fall in the area by Matteo Darmian, in at right back because Antonio Valencia needed an operation on a broken arm, did not succeed in fooling Clattenburg, though Mourinho was sent to the stands for complaining too vehemently to the official at the break. Burnley might have taken the lead at the start of the second half. Gray is quick and found himself with the whole of the United half to run into but Luke Shaw is no slouch either and caught up with the striker. After that it was back to business as usual, with Heaton stopping shots from Mata and then Lingard, though in the buildup to the latter Mata should have done better with Ibrahimovic’s cutback from the goalline. When Herrera’s cross reached Ibrahimovic at a slightly awkward height a goal seemed certain as the Swede shaped himself for a mid-air volley at the far post. He made good contact and was on target, only to find Heaton spreading himself Peter Schmeichel-style to keep the ball out with his arm. Ibrahimovic headed against the bar and the unlucky Mata struck an upright with a shot on the turn as United’s siege of the Burnley goal began to take on a comic dimension, before the game became even more intriguingly poised with Herrera’s dismissal. The midfielder had been booked in the first half for a foul on Dean Marney, and when he upended the same player again his only argument was that he slipped rather than launched himself. Desperate situations call for desperate measures, and Mourinho responded by sending on Wayne Rooney and Marouane Fellaini. He was probably desperate enough by that stage to throw in Henrikh Mkhitaryan too but he had once again neglected to name the Armenian among his substitutes. United had to make do with Memphis Depay instead. Like Rooney and Fellaini, he made little difference. United had a last-minute chance to win the game when Pogba found Ibrahimovic, who missed from close range, then one more in stoppage time when Blind rolled a free kick into Rooney’s path. Here was his moment, but from the edge of the area the ball finished up in the Stretford End. There was the odd boo as the ground emptied, though the Burnley manager at least was impressed. “Personally, I thought United were first class, they are still a top side,” Sean Dyche said, before revealing he had discovered Mourinho had been dismissed only at the final whistle. “You get a little bit of freedom at places like this, no one expects Burnley to get anything. We know we still have to play better away from home, but we got a point.”
Deutsche Bank reveals fall in profits as markets await stress test results Profits at Deutsche Bank fell sharply in the first half of the year, Germany’s biggest lender has revealed, as the markets await the results of health checks on EU banks which could shed light on its financial strength. Deutsche’s chief executive said he may have to accelerate cost-cutting measures after revealing pre-tax profits in the second quarter of the year had fallen 67% and after tax had collapsed by 98% to €20m (£17m). “We have continued to de-risk our balance sheet, to invest in our processes and to modernise our infrastructure. However, if the current weak economic environment persists, we will need to be yet more ambitious in the timing and intensity of our restructuring,” said John Cryan, the Briton appointed to turn around the German bank’s fortunes. In the first half of the year, its profits fell to €987m from €2.7bn but the results were better than expected and the shares rose 3%. The new figures are published before the publication of the latest round of stress tests on EU banks – the outcome of which will be known at 9pm London time on Friday – with much of the focus on Italy, particularly Monte dei Paschi di Siena (MPS), the world’s oldest bank. The tests assess banks’ ability to withstand economic shocks such as a stock market crash. But analysts at Barclays said Deutsche Bank was “potentially in regulators’ crosshairs, too”. According to their calculations, Deutsche was second only to MPS when it re-ran this year’s stress tests against the last ones in 2014. Unlike in previous years – since the financial crisis in 2008 stress tests have been run in 2011 and 2014 – there is no pass or fail hurdle rate for the 51 banks being tested. The Barclays analysts, however, compared their estimated results for the 2016 tests with the pass rate of 5.5% used two years ago. On one reading, only MPS would be vulnerable. But they said the market might look for capital strength closer to 7.5%. “This would imply that Deutsche Bank, BNP Paribas and UniCredit are potentially vulnerable, too,” the Barclays said. Deutsche Bank’s closely watched capital ratio, a measure of its financial strength, rose slightly to 10.8% at the end of June and will rise further once the sale of a Chinese business in completed. The bank is €25bn ahead of its capital requirements for 2019. The bank – described by the International Monetary Fund as the riskiest of all the big banks – was caught up the stock market rout at the start of the year when its shares were pummelled and it was forced to issue statements about its financial health. On Wednesday, Cryan said he was “satisfied with the progress we are making”. Cryan is aiming to tackle a number of regulatory investigations facing the bank this year, including one with the US justice department with which Deutsche has started talks over the way it sold mortgage bonds in the run-up to the 2008 banking crisis. Deutsche bank, which employs 11,000 in the UK, included a statement about the impact on its operations as a result of the vote for Brexit. “Following the UK referendum on EU membership, we do not currently believe significant changes will be required to our current UK structure or business model in the short term as a result of the referendum.” the bank said. The Barclays analysts said the stress tests results may “act as a catalyst for finding a way forward” with the bad debts hanging over Italian banks and MPS in particular. “The absence of a solution for Monte dei Paschi would likely incur a severely negative market reaction,” Barclays said.
The Furrow Collective: Wild Hog review – folk songs full of death and magic Much of the best recent British folk music has come from groups of musicians already well known for their solo work and involvement in other projects, and the Furrow Collective fall firmly into this category. Alasdair Roberts, Emily Portman, Lucy Farrell and Rachel Newton got together to re-work traditional songs, and the second Collective album shows they have developed a compelling style and sound of their own. There are no unaccompanied songs this time, and they have added bass and drums, courtesy of the gently inventive Alex Neilson. They start with Roberts’ cheerful, banjo-backed Wild Hog in the Woods, then ease into the kind of songs full of death, magic or gloom in which they specialise. From Portman’s harp and fiddle-backed Barbara Allen to Farrell’s thrilling but gruesome Willie’s Fatal Visit, and the exquisite harmony work on Many’s the Night’s Rest, it’s a fresh, gently powerful set.
Trump and Clinton on quest to woo Sanders fans and uneasy Republicans As the sun went down over what may prove to be Bernie Sanders’ last rally as a Democratic presidential candidate this week, the conversation among his supporters turned to a topic suddenly back on the lips of many Republicans too. “Can I bring myself to vote for my party’s candidate?” is not a question that either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton would like so many Americans to be grappling with right now. The fact that the presumptive nominees each have record low favourability ratings is one of many factors making the 2016 race for the White House a uniquely uncomfortable experience for both parties. But there is a curious symmetry about the anguish that has also given the campaigns hope – a feeling that they can make up for the passion gap in their respective parties by poaching voters from the other side. Trump was quickest out of the block this week after it became clear that the already dwindling hopes of Sanders voters had been dashed by his disappointing showing against Clinton in California’s Democratic primary. “For all of those Bernie Sanders voters who will be left out in the cold by a rigged system of superdelegates, we welcome you with open arms,” Trump said on Tuesday at Trump National Golf Club Westchester in New York. “The terrible trade deals, that Bernie was so vehemently against – and he’s right on that – will be taken care of far better than anyone ever thought possible. And that’s what I do. We’re going to have fantastic trade deals,” Trump added, in a direct appeal to the blue collar workers who still doubt Clinton’s belated conversion to protectionism. But Clinton has also been stepping up her efforts to woo Republicans away from Trump, particularly as it has become clear that victory in his party primary has not led to any tempering of that notorious rhetoric. In the wake of Trump’s latest outrage – questioning whether a judge was fit to oversee a lawsuit against him because of Mexican heritage - even those who had reluctantly begun to rally around their candidate are beginning to have second thoughts. “The textbook definition of a racist comment,” blasted Paul Ryan, the House speaker. The South Carolina senator Lindsay Graham called Trump’s remarks “the most un-American thing from a politician since Joe McCarthy”. The Clinton campaign has even funded a website, RepublicansAgainstTrump.org, to seek – with tongue only half inserted in cheek – people to sign a pledge. “Donald Trump is not qualified to be president,” it reads. “He does not represent my beliefs as a Republican and, more importantly, my values as an American. He does not speak for me and I will not vote for him.” It remains unclear how many will choose to vote for a Democrat instead, but some claim to have spotted the beginnings of a mutiny even in the US Senate. This week the New Yorker quoted Susan Collins, a moderate Maine Republican, saying she was so disgusted with Trump that she had not ruled out voting for Clinton – a scenario Collins was later keen to qualify as still “unlikely”. Nonetheless, the notion that Trump’s belligerence will let Clinton peel off many moderate Republicans at the ballot box in November looks a good deal more likely right now than its opposite. Signs indicate no mass exodus of Sanders supporters willing to embrace Trump. A poll for the this week by SurveyUSA found up to six times as many dedicated Sanders supporters were willing to hold their noses and vote for Clinton as were ready to vote Trump. A smaller number would vote Green, Libertarian or stay home instead, so Clinton’s conversion rate of 41% was far from a ringing endorsement. Yet the poll measured alternative voting intentions among those who would ideally prefer to see Sanders run as an independent candidate – a group likely to be his most loyal fans – so probably underestimated the willingness of moderate supporters to convert to Clinton. A mood of resignation certainly hung over some of the crowd at the Vermont senator’s rally in Washington DC on Thursday night. Asked whether she would vote for Clinton now it appeared all but certain Sanders would not be on the ticket, Diana Galbraith, a 39-year-old graduate student from Georgetown University, was blunt: “I have to. “Number one: I am Democrat, and number two: Trump can’t win or else I have to move to Canada,” she explained. Galbraith remained concerned, however, that not all Sanders supporters would be as willing to compromise. “I do think Trump could win. He has enough cross-appeal – there are Democrats who could vote for him,” she added. Others at the rally, which campaign aides said may well be the last if Sanders formally drops out after the Washington DC primary on Tuesday, were more defiant. “I am going to write in Bernie. Whether or not he’s on the ticket, he’s getting my vote,” said Chelsea Denman, a 27-year-old who works in the legal profession in Washington. “He’s gotten a movement going that’s not dying down anytime soon. He needs to continue on to the convention. He needs to keep himself out there and talk about the issues.” Asked why she was so opposed to Clinton, Denman replied as many do: “I don’t think she’s genuine. I think she says what she thinks she needs to be said to get elected. I don’t trust her. I think it’s unfortunate that as a woman I can’t trust potentially the first woman president.” Conscious of this continuing trust gap among young progressives, the Clinton campaign flirted with perhaps the ultimate response this week by meeting with Elizabeth Warren, the popular Massachusetts senator, for what many assumed were talks about making her a possible running mate. In contrast to pairings with other rumoured candidates, such as the Virginia senator Tim Kaine or the New Jersey senator Cory Booker, sharing a ticket with Warren was once considered an unthinkable lurch to the left by Clinton that is likely to appease many Sanders loyalists. “I would love Warren, but I just don’t think Hillary is going to appoint her,” said Galbraith. If Warren were the vice-presidential candidate, it could also alienate many moderate Republicans, who regard the anti-Wall Street firebrand as a distinctly acquired taste. “Elizabeth Warren could almost persuade me to re-think my opposition to Trump. She’s insufferable,” wrote one former adviser to John McCain this week. For others on the left, the more important question is whether Clinton commits to the policies of Sanders and Warren. “Elizabeth Warren bolstered the case that the right way to achieve Democratic unity is to show voters that Clinton, Sanders, and the Democratic party stand united behind big, bold, progressive ideas,” said Adam Green, founder of the Progressive Change Campaign committee. His list of ideas included “expanding social security benefits instead of cutting them, debt-free college, breaking up too-big-to-fail banks, and jailing Wall Street bankers who break the law”. Strong unity depended in part on haste, he added. “The sooner Clinton and [national convention] platform committee members publicly signal they will seek unity around bold progressive ideas,” Green said, “the sooner Sanders and his supporters will know they have achieved the mission of helping to transform the future of America – and the more likely Democrats will win big in November.” In a week in which Democrats began to unify while Republicans fell apart, the discussions with Warren increasingly appear to be a sign of confidence. If Trump continues alienating his own party, perhaps Clinton can afford to gamble on a historic two-woman ticket in the hope that they might have a Democratic Congress alongside them too. Certainly this would be a legacy that many Sanders supporters could live with, even if they would have preferred a more direct path to political revolution. “I think Bernie’s going to hang in until our primary on Tuesday and then drop out. Today he was laying the groundwork,” Galbraith predicted. “It matters and it doesn’t matter, because Bernie’s movement is about more than just winning the nomination. It’s about finding progressive space within the Democratic party.” It would be a political big tent that many Republicans cannot even dream about right now.
The Big Short: is the next financial crisis on its way? In the Oscar-winning The Big Short, Steve Carell plays the angry Wall Street outsider who predicts (and hugely profits from) the great financial crash of 2007-08. He sees sub-prime mortgages rated triple-A but which, in reality, are junk – and bets billions against the banks holding them. In real life he is Steve Eisman, he is still on Wall Street, and he is still shorting stocks he thinks are going to plummet. And while he’s tight-lipped about which ones (unless you have $1m to spare for him to manage) it is evident he has one major target in mind: continental Europe’s banks – and Italy’s are probably the worst. Why Italy? Because, he says, the banks there are stuffed with “non-performing loans” (NPLs). That’s jargon for loans handed out to companies and households where the borrower has fallen behind with repayments, or is barely paying at all. But the Italian banks have not written off these loans as duds, he says. Instead, billions upon billions are still on the books, written down as worth about 45% to 50% of their original value. The big problem, says Eisman, is that they are not worth anywhere near that much. In The Big Short, Eisman’s staff head to Florida to speak to the owners of newly built homes bundled up in “mortgage-backed securities” rated as AAA by the investment banks. What they find are strippers with loans against multiple homes but almost no income, the mortgages arranged by sharp-suited brokers who know they won’t be repaid, and don’t care. Visiting the housing estates that these triple-A mortgages are secured against, they find foreclosures and dereliction. In a mix of moral outrage at the banks – and investing acumen – Eisman and his colleagues bought as many “swaps” as possible to profit from the inevitable collapse of the mortgage-backed securities, making a $1bn profit along the way. This time around, Eisman is not padding around the plains of Lombardy because he says the evidence is in plain sight. When financiers look to buy the NPLs off the Italian banks, they value the loans at what they are really worth – in other words, how many of the holders are really able to repay, and how much money will be recovered. What they find is that the NPLs should be valued at just 20% of their original price. Trouble is, if the Italian banks recognise their loans at their true value, it wipes out their capital, and they go bust overnight. “Europe is screwed. You guys are still screwed,” says Eisman. “In the Italian system, the banks say they are worth 45-50 cents in the dollar. But the bid price is 20 cents. If they were to mark them down, they would be insolvent.” Eisman is careful not to name any specific Italian bank. But fears about the solvency of the system – weighed down by an estimated €360bn in bad debts – are not new. In official “stress tests” of 51 major European banks in July by the European Banking Authority, Italy’s third largest bank, Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena, emerged as the weakest. It triggered a rescue package – and soothing words from Italy’s finance minister, who said there was no generalised crisis in the banking system. But MPPS’s share price remains at just 25 cents, down more than 90% from two years ago. How worried should British bank account (and shareholders) be? “I’m not really worried about England’s banks,” says Eisman. “They are in better shape than most in Europe.” When it comes to the US, Eisman’s outrage, so central to the plot of The Big Short, has melted away (just don’t start him on Household Finance Corporation, the HSBC-owned lender at the heart of sub-prime crisis). “I think the regulators did a horrendous, just horrendous job pre-crisis. But under the Fed, the banks have been enormously deleveraged and de-risked. There are no sub-prime mortgages any more... the European regulators have been much more lenient than the US regulators.” Eisman was of the view that US banks were rather boring as an investment – although Donald Trump’s victory has changed that. “I have a feeling there could be a softening in the Department of Labor rules (an Obama-led crackdown on how banks sell financial products) and the regulatory environment has now changed in favour of the banks.” Trump’s victory has sent the bond markets into disarray, with the yield on government bonds rising steeply. While this sounds good for savers – interest rates could rise – it is bad news for the holders of government bonds, which fall in value when the yield rises. Eisman sees that as another woe for Europe’s banks, who hold vast amounts of “sovereign bonds”. “What is very negative is that in every country in Europe, the largest owner of that country’s sovereign bonds are that country’s banks,” he says. As the bonds decline in value, then the capital base of the banks deteriorates. He doesn’t share the optimism around Deutsche Bank since Trump’s victory. The troubled German bank, facing a $14bn fine in the US for mortgage bond mis-selling, was for a long time one of the biggest lenders to the Trump business empire. In the three days after Trump’s victory, shares in Deutsche Bank, regarded as Europe’s most systemically important bank, jumped by a fifth from €12.90 to €15.30 as traders bet on Trump-inspired leniency over the fine. But Eisman doesn’t buy it. By his reckoning, Deutsche Bank was less fundamentally profitable than its rivals, and relied more on leverage to boost earnings. His analysis suggests it will struggle to return to its former profitability. Critics will point out that shorting the likes of Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena or Deutsche Bank sounds fine – except that the share price of both have already fallen so dramatically the bad news is already in the price. But we don’t know for sure if they are Eisman’s precise targets – because he’s not willing to say unless you give him at least $1m to manage in one of his “personal accounts”. Eisman now effectively runs his own “boutique” operation within a bigger Wall Street firm, Neuberger Berman. His “Eisman Long/Short SMA” account has opened to wealthy investors, and in January he will be in London drumming up interest among investors. But not everything Eisman touches turns to gold. He declines to say how much he made during the financial crash, when he was manager of funds at FrontPoint Financial Services, though it was reportedly as much as $1bn. But in 2010 FrontPoint ran into trouble after one of its manager pleaded guilty to insider trading and was given a five-year prison sentence. Eisman later set up a hedge fund, Emrys Partners, gathering nearly $200m from investors, but its returns were relatively humdrum compared to the drama of the great crash, making 3.6% in 2012 and 10.8% in 2013, according to the Wall Street Journal. Did he think the film accurately portrayed what went on? He visited the set, and gave Carell and the other actors (Brad Pitt and Christian Bale also starred) advice and notes. “When I saw the film, I thought it was great and that Steve Carell was wonderful. But I thought, hey, I wasn’t that angry. After the crash I was interviewed by the Federal Crisis Inquiry Commission, and I saw a transcription later on. After reading it, I realised that ‘yes’, I really was that angry... but the Fed has done a very good job since.”
Manchester City 1-3 Chelsea: Premier League – as it happened Antonio Conte has to stop, and so must we. Be sure to join Lawrence Ostlere for the Saturday clockwatch: Or Tim Hill for El Clàsico, which is kicking off now. Thanks for joining me for a cracking game, which swung decisively in Chelsea’s favour in the second half. They’re four points clear at the top, at least until Liverpool play tomorrow, after coming back to beat Spurs and Manchester City in consecutive games. Things are looking up at the Bridge. Bye! Here is Antonio Conte, who is a little more succint: “We have many things still to improve. If you don’t have a good character, it’s very hard to win this game. [Fàbregas] played a good game, with good personality. I’m very happy. I know I can always count on him.” Conte is asked if his players lost control after Agüero’s late foul, but gives that one the swerve. “It’s a pity. Agüero is for sure a fantastic player, and it’s difficult to control yourself when you are losing a game. I think Agüero is a really good player… I’ll stop.” Here’s Pep Guardiola, trying and failing to be easy breezy about the whole thing: “Congratulations to Chelsea, they won. We created a lot of chances, played really good... after the 1-2 [Willian’s goal], it’s not easy. In the box, we’re not strong enough.” Did De Bruyne’s miss cost them? “A little. But it’s part of the game. We didn’t win just because of that action. There were many. “[Chelsea] ran through three... four times, they scored three times. In the box, they are so, so strong. ” On Anthony Taylor’s decision not to penalise David Luiz in the first half, Guardiola only says: “I am so happy to be here [in England], I don’t want to change anything, I just want to understand. On Agüero’s late red card: “both players were strong there, so that’s all.” Replays show Fabregas raising a hand to Fernandinho, and Guardiola snubbed the Chelsea man’s handshake at the end. Final thoughts: “The level was good, believe me. You are going to analyse, we lost 3-1, but I prefer to play that way, then against Burnley and Crystal Palace where we won. Chelsea had nine players in the box, we created 25 chances, but we lost. That is my explanation, but it will sound like an excuse.” We’ve all been there. By the way, it’s Agüero’s second red card of the season, so he’ll miss four league games, against Leicester, Watford, Arsenal and Hull. David Luiz is on hand to translate for man of the match Diego Costa, who says “we’re working very hard, everyone knows what they are doing. I’m trying to keep my discipline, stay on the pitch and be cool. Manchester City had chances to score again, but they missed, and that gave us confidence.” David Luiz adds: “to win here, against amazing players, showed the character of our team – to come back in the second half and win.” Character isn’t a word that’s alien to footballers, but every Chelsea player has used it an awful lot after this game. The defender, who was excellent bar his first-half foul that went unpunished, is strapped up with an ice pack but declines to comment on Agüero’s challenge, preferring to pay tribute to Chapecoense. “It’s a difficult moment for everybody”. While we wait for the two managers to surface from the dressing room, Sky are showing a montage of City’s missed chances. “They don’t kill teams,” summarises Thierry Henry. Their last home Premier League win was on 17th September, against Bournemouth. Since then, three draws and a defeat, all of which they could conceivably have won. Post-match reaction to come, starting with Eden Hazard and a relieved Gary Cahill: Eden Hazard:“Eight in a row doesn’t happen too often... we showed great character against Tottenham, and again today.” “I didn’t see [the red cards], I was on the bench. I don’t want to talk about that, I want to talk about football.” I think he saw. Gary Cahill: “I think that’s my first own goal... everyone said this would be a big test, and it was... we soaked up a lot of pressure. We’re not even at Christmas yet, but it’s encouraging, and we’ve come through a test today, and showing another side to our football. We’re delighted with the result, of course.” When Kevin de Bruyne hit the bar after 57 minutes, City were a goal up and well on top. Two minutes later, Diego Costa levelled, and what followed was nothing short of a nightmare. They now face the prospect of Sergio Agüero and Fernandinho facing bans for losing their heads so comprehensively in the last minute. As the dust settles, Chelsea have made it eight wins in a row, and are four points clear at the top. They have made a huge statement in the title race with that second half performance, as Manchester City unravelled spectacularly. ...the scuffle spills over onto the sidelines, and Fernandinho puts hands on Fàbregas, sending him over the advertising boards. He joins Agüero in getting a (slightly) early bath, and a bad day has become ugly for the hosts. Agüero utterly loses his head at the end of the game, flying into David Luiz with both feet off the ground. Chalobah shoves Agüero, and an almighty scuffle ensues... 94 mins: Batshuayi is on, replacing Hazard. 93 mins: Chelsea were preparing for a long spell of injury time, but that Hazard goal has taken the wind from City’s sails. On the break, Willian’s shot is palmed away by Bravo, almost into the path of Fàbregas. 90 mins: There will be six added minutes. Guardiola is aggrieved by the celebrations on the Chelsea bench; he should save his anger for his defenders. Kolarov let Hazard skip past him in the Sunday league style. Game over, thanks to another devastating goal on the break. A City move breaks down, and Alonso lofts the ball to Hazard, who sprints past Kolarov, and smashes it low into the net! 88 mins: Iheanacho collects an Agüero knock down, but fires way wide of goal. Before that, an Anthony Taylor refusal draws sarcastic laughter from Guardiola, increasingly irate on the touchline. 87 mins: Silva moves down the left, raps the ball off Azpilicueta’s shins for a corner, lifts it into the middle and sees it cleared away by David Luiz. 86 mins: Hazard, at his wily best on Chelsea’s breaks forward, wins a cheap free kick on the halfway line, and a pat on the back from Guardiola. Nathaniel Chalobah is on for Diego Costa. 85 mins: Touré’s corner finds Iheanacho running to the near post, but he flicks the ball into the side netting. Time running out, as Chelsea inch towards an eighth straight win. 83 mins: Diego Costa is down at the other end of the field, and takes his sweet time heading off the pitch for treatment. “Indonesia cling on by their fingernails to take a 2-1 lead to Hanoi for the second leg. The president is on the pitch now congratulating the players” says roving reporter Jeremy Dresner. 82 mins: Touré ambles forward and slots the ball to Silva, but his attempted cross is easily clear. On the touchline, Guardiola urges players and fans to up the workrate, and Touré wins a corner off Willian. 81 mins: Navas is booked for tugging Hazard’s shirt. From the free kick, Cahill is a whisker away from beating Bravo to the ball, and ending this as a contest. 80 mins: City win a corner, but Otamendi heads a presentable chance over the bar. 79 mins: A promising move breaks down as Clichy gives the ball to Moses, with Iheanacho and Touré both in the box. The hosts appear to be playing two at the back. Fasten your seatbelts... 77 mins: Navas motors down the right, and after his cross is blocked by David Luiz, he goes down easily under pressure from Alonso. Another change for City: Stones off, Iheanacho on. That’s as attacking as it gets, really. 75 mins: Fifteen minutes for City to find an equaliser; they’re currently punch drunk, every Chelsea foray forward sending a shiver around the ground. Gundogan is going off, replaced by Yaya Touré. 73 mins: Guardiola orders Yaya Touré off the bench, wondering how exactly City are behind here. In truth, they’ve been caught cold on the counter attack twice by Chelsea. A penny for Kevin de Bruyne’s thoughts, in particular. 72 mins: An odd moment, as Willian stays down after a clash with Kolarov. Taylor waves play on, Chelsea protest, and De Bruyne angrily prods the ball out of play. He really didn’t have to. After scoring, Willian holds up his black armband, in tribute to his Chapecoense compatriots. David Luiz joins him in a moment of reflection in the middle of a frantic game. The game in a nutshell, as Gundogan walks through the Chelsea defence, but can’t pick out a pass. Chelsea break at speed, Hazard finding Costa, who holds off Otamendi, advances and slides a perfect pass to Willian in space on the right. The Brazilian takes a touch and fires low across Bravo. Chelsea lead! 68 mins: A defensive substitution for City, with Sané, really impressive in bursts today, replaced by Gaël Clichy. 66 mins: A spectacular tackle by Moses stops City retaking the lead! City get in down the right for the 23rd time, and De Bruyne’s cross is on a plate for Agüero – but somehow, Moses gets a foot in to dig the ball out from under his feet. 65 mins: Silva tries to tempt Kanté into a rash challenge, but the Chelsea man keeps his distance. City keep the ball, trying to stall the visitors’ momentum. Meanwhile, in Vietnam: “Can the Indonesians hold out or will the Vietnamese get hurt on the counter attack? You feel something has to give. This is gripping football!” Thanks, Jeremy Dresner. There have probably been less defensive errors in that one. 63 mins: Costa, suddenly a menace every time he gets on the ball, picks out Willian, whose cross-shot rolls through to Bravo. Chelsea in a far stronger position than ten minutes ago... 62 mins: This is what they call finely poised. Sané steps infield, drawing a host of defenders, but his pass lacks direction. Costa slides the ball upfield to Willian, who goes over cheaply, failing to impress Anthony Taylor. 61 mins: Kanté is dispossessed by Fernandinho, whose pass to De Bruyne is flicked on to Agüero. The striker has space, but dallies with his shot, allowing Courtois to make a smart save. A blast from the past, as Fàbregas finds Diego Costa with a long diagonal pass. He brings it down with his shoulder, and with Otamendi busy appealing for handball, rifles it under Bravo and into the net! 58 mins: Chelsea look to punish De Bruyne’s wastefulness, with Hazard and Costa almost combining in a counter-attack. No matter... 57 mins: Good grief, what a miss. Gundogan starts an attacking move with a ball to Silva, who finds space down the right and squares a low ball to De Bruyne, unmarked, four yards out. He Rosenthals it onto the bar, when it was easier to score! 55 mins: There’s a break in play as Agüero goes down, David Luiz treading on his heel after a collision from the corner. He takes a long time to get up, but is carrying on. 53 mins: Alonso is the latest defender to drop a clanger, setting up Agüero perfectly with an underhit back-pass. He goes around Courtois, but Cahill is on hand to redeem himself, clearing away a certain goal. Conte and Guardiola will have a long old post-game chat about the defending today. 51 mins: Yeesh! Sané tests Bravo’s feet with a ludicrous long back pass that the keeper has to half-volley away. Chelsea regain possession, and Willian charges forward, before firing low and wide with options on either side. City still living dangerously in defence. 50 mins: Kanté, effective as ever in the heart of midfield, is booked for rough-housing David Silva. Chelsea make a change, with Pedro, who picked up a knock in the first half, replaced by Willian. 49 mins: Sané gives away possession and Costa has space, and an angle, to shoot. He drags a weak shot wide of the near post, to raucous braying from the home fans. 48 mins: Costa, quiet in the first half, runs out of room to find a pass and City win the ball, Sané cruising upfield and teeing up De Bruyne, who delays a fraction too long before firing his shot at Courtois. 47 mins: Kolarov strips Fàbregas of the ball early on, before Navas’ cross is turned behind by David Luiz. It’s worked short, then a misplaced ball drifts out of play. You can be too clever. Anthony Taylor, who might want to give Altrincham town centre the swerve tonight, gets us back under way. No changes for either side. We’ll be back under way shortly. Thoughts on what to expect next are welcome. In the tunnel, Diego Costa is having a little word with Agüero. I’ll wager he’s up to no good. Indonesia v Vietnam latest; over to Jeremy Dresner: “Penalty to the Indonesians! Deserved for some clumsy defending. Smashed into the net, goalkeeper’s right. Indonesia 2-1 Vietnam. And the Indonesian crowd are going wild!” The build-up was all about a continental, cerebral battle, but that was a wonderfully English half of football. Flying wingers, hefty crosses, and a big refereeing decision, Anthony Taylor waving away David Luiz’s shove on Agüero. There was also plenty of hapless defending, culminating in Cahill’s moment of madness as City ended the first half on top, and made it count. Chelsea have caused the hosts plenty of problems, and Hazard should have scored after taking the ball around Bravo. This is far from over. Hazard makes a brave, but doomed bid to chase down a lost cause, before Taylor calls time on a breathless first half. City have been making hay down the right flank for the last ten minutes, and Agüero finds Navas in acres of space. He whips a cross beyond Alonso, and Cahill shapes to clear, but gets in a mess, and toe pokes the ball into the far corner. Oh Gary! As we all predicted, a comedy own goal has broken the deadlock. 43 mins: Navas gets into space on the right again, and his cross causes panic, with Gundogan appearing near the penalty spot – he’s challenged by Kanté, and Taylor waves play on. 42 mins: Navas plays a short ball to De Bruyne, who Chelsea are simply not closing down quick enough. His cross from deep on the right finds Agüero, under just enough pressure to skew his header wide. 41 mins: City forcing Chelsea back in the latter stages here, with Kolarov and Otamendi beyond the halfway line. The trouble is, when a crossing opportunity presents itself, Agüero is outnumbered six to one in the area. 39 mins: Sané, showing flashes of his potential going forward, skips beyond one challenge but just overruns the ball, allowing Cahill to block his route to goal. 37 mins: Moses gets a head to another City corner, before Sané, out on the right for a change, sends a swirling cross over the head of Agüero. 35 mins: City’s wing-backs able to test the Chelsea back three, as Navas forces David Luiz into a hasty clearance. At the other end, Moses’ low cross is dealt with by Stones, who has recovered well from that early bungle against Costa. 33 mins: Sané has been kept on the back foot for this first half, but he surges forward to turn a cross into Agüero’s path – but the striker’s snap shot is blocked by Azpilicueta. City the stronger side at present... 31 mins: That was a free kick and booking, at the least. What’s strange is Taylor appeared to be reaching for a card, before deciding it was actually fine. City appear a little dazed and confused, but De Bruyne at least keeps Courtois on his toes with a low cross towards Agüero. 29 mins: ...it loops in the air and Azpilicueta’s weak back pass lets Agüero in down the left – but David Luiz steps across cynically to block his path to goal. Taylor waves play on! The crowd are bordering on mutinous. 27 mins: Both teams having problems in defence, with Aguero almost given too much room by Azpilicueta, before Moses outfoxes Sané to win a corner. It ends in a drawn-out scramble, before De Bruyne hoists the ball clear... 25 mins: Seconds later, Chelsea should be ahead, as a long ball takes out Otamendi and Navas, leaving Hazard to race in on goal. He lifts the ball over Bravo, and with an awkward but achievable angle to shoot from, tries and fails to pull the ball back to Costa, and City survive. 24 mins: De Bruyne, City’s brightest spark so far, wins and takes a free kick – it’s swung in expertly onto the head of Fernandinho, who nods the ball home. The flag is up, though – correctly. 22 mins: Pedro is down injured, and with physios looking concerned, Willian is sent out to warm up. “Vietnam are playing out from the back” says Jeremy Dresner. “Indonesia seem to have a long ball thing going with their left back. It is fiery. Tackles flying in all over the pitch. It’s jolly good fun actually.” It sounds an awful lot like this game, in fact... 21 mins: The corner is cycled to and fro by the home team, until Gundogan fires a deep cross that Alonso turns away. 20 mins: City burst into life, Kolarov allowed to surge upfield and drill the ball to Agüero, whose shot from 20 yards is tipped over the bar by Courtois. 19 mins: Chelsea give away possession – plenty of that from both sides so far – and Agüero chases a De Bruyne though-ball down the right. In the left-back slot, who else but right-winger Pedro is there to win it back. 18 mins: Navas and Sané have, as expected, lined up as wing-backs, with Sané, nominally a forward, dealing with Moses and Pedro on City’s left. On the other side, de Bruyne is penalised for a clip on Alonso. 17 mins: Nicolas Otamendi faces 75 minutes of marking Eden Hazard on a yellow card, after going in late on Diego Costa. The first name in the book, perhaps more for the cumulative misdeeds of others than that tackle in isolation. 15 mins: A hint of frustration in a shove by De Bruyne on Cahill, conceding a cheap free kick. City win it back, and Silva plays a one-two with Fernandinho – but the Brazilian can’t pick out Agüero in the middle. 14 mins: Oof! Sané misjudges a headed clearance, presenting the ball to Pedro, whose lay-off is drilled towards goal by Hazard – but it flies just wide of Bravo’s near post! Chelsea have shaded the opening 15 minutes here. 13 mins: There’s been direct stuff from both teams, with De Bruyne hoiking a diagonal pass towards Sané that Azpilicueta does well to nod away. Taylor is forced to stop play, with Moses and Aguero both down after feisty challenges. These two managers are settling into English football nicely. 11 mins: A spell of head tennis is ended by Kanté’s clumsy challenge on Gundogan. Chelsea get the ball back, with Fàbregas sweeping a long ball to Alonso – but Stones is back to head his cross clear. 9 mins: This has been a frantic start, and Chelsea’s defence are caught cold by a quick throw-in – but Taylor lets them off the hook by penalising a City push. Could be a long 90 minutes for Cesc, on this early evidence. 8 mins: Stones, in the middle of City’s back three, has his first test against Costa, and fails, with the striker nicking the ball on the goal-line. He picks out Pedro, but fortunately for the hosts, his pull back is poor. 7 mins: City keep the ball, and de Bruyne connects with Silva, whose cut back into the area hits Cahill on the arm. There are howls of derision as Taylor waves appeals away, but it was never intentional. 6 mins: Silva’s charge down the left from midfield is cut off by Azpilicueta, before Agüero earns a hard-won corner from a tussle with Cahill. It’s played short, and backwards, City happy to hang onto possession. 4 mins: A first hint of danger from Chelsea, with Kanté sweeping the ball to Moses, who lofts a diagonal up to Hazard, back on the pitch. He cuts inside at speed, but Otamendi is on hand to block the shot. 3 mins: De Bruyne finds space behind Cahill for a cross, but David Luiz, a model of composure in recent weeks, clears it away. 2 mins: Fernandinho challenges Hazard, and catches the Belgian’s right leg with his studs. Hazard needs treatment, and hobbles to the touchline. 1 min: Kolarov finds Aguero down the left, but the striker can’t quite keep the ball in play. Anthony Taylor gets us started. Força Chape Players have warmed up in black shirts that pay tribute to Chapecoense, after Tuesday’s terrible events. There will be a minute’s silence before kick-off, after a tragedy that particularly affected David Luiz and Fernandinho, who both knew people who lost their lives on the flight. Jeremy Dresner, in a bar in Vietnam, has updates from another big game today, “in case that Premier League stuff gets bogged down in tactics”. “It’s the first leg of that all important Asia Cup semi-final between Indonesia and an ageing Vietnam. On a patchy surface the hosts took the lead from a corner but it had been Vietnam who have had most of the ball, and they have just equalised from the spot. With less than 15 minutes gone and a second leg in Hanoi this is far from over.” But are Vietnam playing with a libero? Have Indonesia gone with a diamond? We need answers. Predictions? City’s last three home games in the league have all finished 1-1, while neighbours United have, funnily enough, drawn their last four home matches. Nobody has won a Premier League match in Manchester since September; I fancy that run might continue today. City 1-1 Chelsea. Here’s Pep, in an awkward exchange with Geoff Shreeves. Asked about whether he’s using a new system today, he says “no... the system is to take the ball, and attack. The system is to play a good game, to score goals and not concede any.” Guardiola also confirms that Raheem Sterling misses out with an injury picked up against Burnley. On their lack of midweek action, he adds “we were not just thinking about Chelsea, but how to recover our game. We had more training sessions, without a midweek game. Chelsea are in good form. The challenge for us, is to see how our level is, we aren’t going to win the Premier League today.” The City boss gave his players Monday and Tuesday off, had them train at the stadium yesterday, and stay nearby overnight. He’s also changed the colour of the goal nets, from black to white, the ruddy maverick. History City and Chelsea have won four of the last seven titles between them, but genuine title battles have been surprisingly thin on the ground. The two teams have filled the top two places just once, in 2014-15, when the highlight of two 1-1 draws was Frank Lampard’s face when he scored for City. Recent highlights at the Etihad Stadium for both teams: Samir Nasri completing the comeback to keep City in the title race back in 2012, and Chelsea delivering a José Mourinho masterclass in 2014 (although City ultimately took the title). Last year, City won both fixtures 3-0, the home win in August proving much less significant to the title race than anyone predicted. If you want a proper thriller between these two, you could do worse than going back 30 years, when Chelsea squeaked a nine-goal Full Members’ Cup final: Antonio Conte speaks... “It was fantastic to win seven games in a row. Today, we know this game will be very difficult, because we face the best team in this league, with a great coach. But we worked this week to prepare... we must pay attention today.” “[Nemanja] Matic is suffering a little muscular problem, for this reason I changed the line-up… Cesc [Fàbregas] is in good shape, he can show his value today. It’s a big game, I trust in him, and in all the team.” He may not be in the starting XI, but judging by today’s programme cover, Yaya Touré is about to drop the slickest solo project of 2016: The big team news is that Chelsea actually make a change; Cesc Fàbregas returns for the first time since being hauled off against Arsenal, with Nemanja Matic absent through injury. That could be significant against City’s busy midfield, bolstered by Ilkay Gündogan who’s preferred to Yaya Touré. That’s one of six changes from the win over Burnley, with John Stones returning to a three-man defence, and Jesús Navas and Leroy Sané operating on the flanks. On paper, at least. Man City: Bravo; Otamendi, Stones, Kolarov; Sané, Gündogan, Fernandinho, Navas; Silva, De Bruyne; Agüero. Subs: Sagna, Zabaleta, Fernando, Caballero, Clichy, Touré, Iheanacho. Chelsea: Courtois; Azpilicueta, David Luiz, Cahill; Moses, Fàbregas, Kanté, Alonso; Pedro, Costa, Hazard. Subs: Begovic, Ivanovic, Oscar, Willian, Batshuayi, Chalobah, Aina. Referee: Anthony Taylor (Cheshire) Two of the game’s modern managerial greats, who have both raked in Scrooge McDuck levels of silverware throughout their careers, finally go head-to-head today. Disappointingly, Guardiola and Conte only had nice things to say on Friday. Whatever happened to mind games? Unless... these are the mind games... Guardiola: “Conte is without doubt one of the best, maybe the best, coach in the world right now. [Chelsea] were contenders to win the Premier League from the beginning. Now, maybe more than before. It’s a good test for us; it is the first time we are going to face each other. It’s good to play against him.” Conte: “This is a great test for us, for our formation, to continue this way. We know that it won’t be easy because we face a really great team, with really great players and a good idea of football. But we want to show we are working very well and are growing. This is another step to show us if something has changed since the start of the season.” Less than three weeks until Christmas, and like frantic festive shoppers, teams in the title race need to get their act together. The team top on Christmas Day has won the league in nine of the last 12 seasons, so there’s no better time for a team to take pole position – particularly with a flurry of heavyweight fixtures to come, starting today. There’ll be intriguing battles all over the pitch, with double-figure scorers Diego Costa and Sergio Agüero backed by an array of jet-heeled attacking talent, but the biggest of all may be in the dugout. Magnus Carlsen has got nothing on grandmasters Pep Guardiola and Antonio Conte, facing each other for the first time after weeks rearranging condiments in preparation. Conte’s Chelsea are the form horse, galloping into title contention with seven straight wins, and entirely unchanged in their last six league matches. Guardiola, on the other hand, has been searching for the right formula since losing to Spurs, sending out 20 different starters in the six games since. There’s every chance he’s kept one more trick up his sleeve especially for today. Kick off is at 12.30pm GMT. Teams, build-up and freaky formations to come.
Toby Jones webchat – as it happened toadwhisperer asks: Stoke City – brilliant or overrated? abatha26 asks: Really looking forward to seeing Dad’s Army, what were your first thoughts when you read the script? Were you apprehensive about filling the shoes of Arthur Lowe? Off topic, you were brilliant in Marvelous!! OzMogwai asks: Would you ever consider going to Hollywood and doing a big budget film? Something in the Marvel universe perhaps? 25aubrey asks: Congratulations on the most heart-warming and gently comic performance in Marvellous – such a wonderful television treat, you must be welcomed with open arms at Stoke City FC if you happen to go back, have you been back since and is Stoke your team now? spaknapak asks: Has working with Andrew Kötting and Iain Sinclair led to you looking at your surroundings differently when you are walking? Will Papa Lazarou Spence asks: I loved Marvellous & Detectorists, & over the past few years you’ve become one of my favourite actors & a big inspiration to me in amateur dramatics at university to try to find the driving force behind each character (however minor) & create a distinct personality for each and every one. My question is whether stage acting is something you plan to return to in the near future, or are you planning on focusing on TV and film for the foreseeable future? Jeevan Rai asks: When shooting Berberian Sound Studio, were you actually given anything to watch while your character works on the unseen film-within-a-film? Or was it just an audio track? Or were you improvising your ‘reactions’ to it without stimulus? montyburns56 asks: What’s it like to drive a Triumph TR7 [in The Detectorists] – I’ve wanted one since the 70s. ThePeoplesPoet replied: It’s a bit like driving a slightly less rust prone X19. Liam Quane asks: Can I ask: What is the best thing a director can do for you on set? Liam Quane asks: What was it like working with Tomas Alfredson? snipsnip asks: Your go at Owen Meany brought vividly to life a character that’s inhabited my head for years. Thanks! What do you like about radio drama, whether listening or performing, and do you think you’ll keep doing it? Ben Broadribb asks: I saw you in Andrew Kötting’s By Our Selves last year, and I’m looking forward to watching you in Dad’s Army next month. These two films look about as far away from each other on the cinematic spectrum as can be. How does the process differ when working on such varied films, and which do you prefer making: surreal art house films or more straightforward mainstream releases? ILoveTonyBlair asks: Prior to playing the role of Lance, did you have any interest in Archaeology etc … ? What preparation did you undertake for the role - time with a Detectorist club, for example, or was Crook’s fantastic script and directing more than enough? What did you have to do for the audition for the role. Manager asks: The Detectorists was for me laugh out loud in many parts, particularly those scenes which were not necessarily a part of the plot but were just moments between Lance and Andy musing about life. How difficult was it to get those scenes done without cracking up and how easy was it to work with Mackenzie Crook as the writer, director and fellow actor? Nebuly asks: Good evening from the west coast of Canada, Mr Jones! Your character Ollie Weeks in Frank Darabont’s The Mist seems to be about the closest you’ve come to playing an action hero. What was it like working on the film, and how did you come to be cast? Goldendays49 asks: When you played Hogarth at the Arcola, were you as freezing cold as I was in the audience? Muhammad Fahmi asks: Hello Toby! As I’m a Dad’s Army aficionado, I wonder how you relate yourself with Capt Mainwaring? Any similarities between you and the character? Another question would be, how your Mainwaring differs from Arthur Lowe’s Mainwaring. Can’t wait to see you in Dad’s Army. MrPupkin asks: What other actors working today do you particularly admire? ThePeoplesPoet asks: I’ll get straight down to business, will you ever play The Dane? metmensaymoreonway asks: You are one of the few actors to conduct a phone conversation by allowing the requisite space for the fully worded speech from the other call-participant. Too often there is far too short an interval for the other person’s phrasing … is this because of a directorial imperative to keep the action moving? This was in Detectorists, easily the most beautiful and elegant comedy-drama since something called Grass in 2004. Thanks for your highly intelligent and detailed portrayals. So the first question Toby answered is from just4now I would like to ask you about your level of interest in other creative and visual arts, and to what degree to you feel they play a part in your own work? Many thanks, and very much looking forward to seeing more of your work. “Even if I’m not playing a lead part, I’m the lead in the character’s own life,” Toby Jones told the last year – a mindset that has allowed him to inhabit everyone from Dobby the House Elf in Harry Potter to the spooked sound engineer in art house horror Berberian Sound Studio, and investment banker Robert Yount in the TV adaptation of John Lanchester’s novel Capital. He’s Cladius Templesmith in the Hunger Games and received critical acclaim for his Hollywood turns as Truman Capote and Alfred Hitchcock.But some of his most memorable parts are the most low-key, like his big-hearted metal detector in BBC comedy Detectorists or Stoke City kit man and all-round eccentric Neil Baldwin in Marvellous. He’s now taking on another beloved character: Captain Mainwaring in a film update of Dad’s Army. With the film out on 5 February, he’s joining us for a live webchat on Wednesday 27 January, from 5.30pm GMT onwards. Post your questions for him in the comments below, and he’ll answer as many as possible.
Leicester City win the Premier League title after a fairytale season Leicester City have completed one of the most remarkable stories in the history of English football by winning the Premier League title. Written off as relegation candidates at the start of the season, when the bookmakers made Leicester 5,000-1 outsiders to be crowned champions, they secured the first top-flight title in the club’s history after Tottenham were unable to beat Chelsea on Monday night. Spurs had to win at Stamford Bridge to extend the title race after Leicester’s point at Manchester United on Sunday. They drew 2-2, handing Claudio Ranieri’s side the prize. After flying back to England on Monday night having had lunch in Italy with his 96-year-old mother, Ranieri said: “I’m so proud. I’m happy for my players, for the chairman, for the staff at Leicester City, all our fans and the Leicester community. It’s an amazing feeling and I’m so happy for everyone. I never expected this when I arrived.” It is an incredible tale on so many levels, not least the fact that Leicester were so nearly relegated from the Premier League last season. They spent 140 days at the bottom of the table and looked set for an immediate return to the Championship until they won seven of their last nine matches under Nigel Pearson to climb clear of the bottom three. When Ranieri took over from Pearson in the summer his appointment was widely mocked. Ranieri mentioned only a few weeks ago that he was aware he had been installed as the favourite to be the first Premier League manager to be sacked yet, in keeping with his image, the Italian never returned fire on his critics. Instead, he quietly went about the job of transforming Leicester into title challengers, only admitting that they were in the race four matches before the end of the season. He changed their targets step by step, from getting to 40 points, qualifying for Europe and securing their place in the Champions League group stage, and now the final box – doing the unthinkable and winning the league – has been ticked off. The Leicester players celebrated the greatest night of their footballing lives at Jamie Vardy’s house, in Melton Mowbray, where they gathered to watch the Spurs match. Their captain, Wes Morgan, said: “It’s the best feeling of my career and I couldn’t be prouder that it’s as part of this team. Everyone’s worked so hard for this, nobody believed we could do it, but here we are, Premier League champions and deservedly so.” It is a narrative that belongs to a different era – Nottingham Forest, in 1978, were the last first-time winners – and means that Ranieri, at the age of 64, has finally won a major league. He finished second in the Premier League with Chelsea in 2004 and was twice a runner-up in Serie A, and once in Ligue 1. Now the man José Mourinho described in 2008 as having “the mentality of someone who doesn’t need to win” has a Premier League title on his CV.
Stoke survive early Marko Arnautovic red card to hold Southampton From the moment Stoke’s Marko Arnautovic was sent off at the mid-point of the opening half a goalless draw felt a hardly surprising result given the old cliche about 10 men being difficult to break down. Southampton dominated what at times was a nasty affair but “could have-should have” is another football maxim which concerns the bottom line being all about the result of a game. So, by the close Claude Puel’s side must have rued their profligacy and Mark Hughes’s troops could feel pride at their bloody-mindedness in hanging on for a point. For this quintessential mid-table affair – 12th versus 11th at kick-off – both managers made three changes. In came Ryan Shawcross, Glenn Whelan and Jonathan Walters for Stoke, with Ryan Bertrand, Steven Davis and Shane Long selected for the visitors. Stoke threatened first. Xherdan Shaqiri wandered in from the right, slipped the ball beyond José Fonte, and Joe Allen’s shot forced a corner after Fraser Forster saved. This amounted to nothing as Charlie Adam’s overhead kick was off target. This early warning was followed by more for Southampton. Allen again found space, this time a little deeper near halfway, and Adam passed into him and made the visitors scramble to clear. The best riposte for Southampton was to ask a question of Stoke and they did so twice. Whelan dawdled where no player ever should – on the fringe of his own penalty area – and he was robbed by Sofiane Boufal, whose snapshot was saved by Lee Grant. The second poser derived from another Stoke mistake, this time from a stray Erik Pieters pass, and from here Shane Long took aim at Grant. The next culprit in this series of Stoke errors was the entire defence – Bertrand raced along the left and his cross should have been cleared but it was allowed to roll in front of Grant all the way to the other side of the pitch. Now came the end of Arnautovic, a particularly unprofessional early exit. Only 24 minutes had been played when the Austrian stabbed a boot high into Boufal’s thigh. Out came Anthony Taylor’s card for a straight red that means a three-game ban for the 27-year-old, who should know better. The referee’s decision was accompanied by boos and when Bertrand took the free-kick he aimed it straight into Grant’s hands. Hughes was not happy at the decision. “I was disappointed with the sending-off – it is a mistimed tackle, he was clearly caught but I didn’t think it was intentional, just a mistimed tackle. Officials seem to think they come here and need to give early yellow cards to settle [down the game]. Those days are long gone, we play a different type of football,” he said. Hughes, taking charge of his 400th Premier League game, was proud of his players. “To a man we were excellent,” he said. “It was easy to accept our fate, and [accept] the game has gone away from us.” Some relief came for Stoke when Pieters repeated Bertrand’s trick at the other end and skimmed a ball in from the left that raced before Forster, went uncleared and ended up on the opposing flank. The niggle factor remained, though. Allen launched a tackle at James Ward-Prowse that found only a foot and the Welshman was cautioned as a result. The unsavoury stuff had also included Long aiming an elbow at Bruno Martins Indi; the striker may yet face retrospective action as Taylor seemed not to see the incident. Hughes was unimpressed, comparing this to the Arnautovic decision. “All you ask is officials get key decisions right, and if you’re not it’s not good,” he said. Southampton used their one-man advantage well in the second half. Cuco Martina was booed throughout – perhaps (strangely) for taking the throw that led to Arnautovic’s red card – yet he was a persistent threat along the right and Redmond displayed a willingness to switch wings to aid the defender. Hughes had sent on Mame Diouf for Shaqiri, a move that had the Swiss punching a seat and plonking himself down in a major huff. This may have been the emotion felt by Puel, too, when one of his own replacements, Jay Rodriguez, hit only air from close range when Boufal laid on what appeared a certain finish. “It’s a disappointment,” said Puel afterwards. “We lost two points tonight.”
Leave or remain: Black Country businessmen argue for and against Brexit Andrew Cox and Simon Winfield run businesses in the Black Country. Both export to the EU and beyond. Both worry about UK skills shortages and both want more help for manufacturers. But there is one thing they don’t agree on: how to vote in the EU referendum. Cox believes Britain needs to shake off the constraints of EU membership to flourish. Winfield reckons staying in the EU is vital to his business and to Britain’s prospects. We got them together to talk red tape, immigration and what Brexit would mean for business. Trade For Winfield, the EU’s open market is a big reason to vote remain on 23 June. He runs MacLellan Rubber, a 145-year-old business in Wednesfield supplying products such as seals and rubber matting to other manufacturers. A third of its £2.8m in annual sales comes from exports. “One of things I dread going back to, and I have been doing this 35 years, is all the paperwork that you had to fill in to export some goods. Whereas now, I raise an invoice, stick it on a vehicle and off it goes,” says the 52-year-old. Cox disagrees that the EU makes trade easier. If anything, the size of the 28-member bloc has hampered progress on trade deals with other countries. “It’s a political football match with all 28 teams on the pitch at the same time,” says the 48-year-old. “The EU has gradually changed from being a trade enhancer, to a trade obstacle.” His company, Cox & Plant, makes 70% of its £7m annual turnover from exports. From a factory in Lye, it sells production line machinery to food manufacturers around the world. Cox says more companies should look beyond Europe for business. As board director for exports on the Black Country local enterprise partnership (LEP) he wants to see more trade with Asia, but he feels progress is slow. Regulation When it comes to EU rules, one man’s red tape is another man’s level playing field, it would seem. Winfield says his rubber company, which employs 15 people, has faced fierce price wars in the UK. The EU helps stem the cost-over-quality trend, he says. “The EU provides legislation and guidance and controls to say if you are putting a material, polymer or a plastic into this application, it needs to meet this standard and that therefore creates an opportunity for us to sell a quality product with all the service aspects that come with it.” But Cox, who employs 25 people, does not agree that the EU guarantees a level playing field because corners are being cut in some states. “As Brits we tend to do the right thing. We are polite, we are courteous, we adopt all the rules but not all the 28 states do.” Immigration Both Cox and Winfield said immigration is a key concern for Black Country voters. Both believe their region will vote to leave the EU and that turnout will be high. People are worried about the costs of immigration and of EU membership, says Winfield. “It’s pounds in their pocket that they feel they are losing because of immigration – although they have got no specific examples.” But he feels differently. “The vast majority of immigrants, I believe, bring something to the UK economy and lord knows we are short of a lot of skills.” Winfield and Cox, who have taken on apprentices, agree that Britain should do more to address skills shortages. In the Black Country 16% of working age adults have no qualifications, well above the national rate of 10%, according to the LEP. “Why aren’t we upskilling those people? Rather than deeming them as failing,” says Cox. Using immigration as a “sticking plaster” is not just bad for the UK economy, he says, but for other EU countries too. “I know from being in Poland, when a lot of the Poles first came over in 2004 it left their hospitals short … We have got to look at the consequences, what do we do to these poorer countries? So Poland has a shocking lack of teachers, doctors, nurses. Is that good for us as the world’s fifth nation to rape and pillage other countries?” EU economy Cox is worried that EU membership ties the UK to a shaky economy. It is not just the UK being held back by staying in the club, he adds. “It’s a broken model and it’s getting bigger. It’s almost like the Titanic: we are heading towards an iceberg and we are bringing more countries in and it’s getting more diverse and I just feel it’s out of control.” Winfield does not see that as a reason to leave. He retorts: “So to take that analogy, we are getting off on our life boat now and we are in our big ocean and we are looking for a safe port and we are looking for safe harbour. By that definition our economic life is in somebody else’s hands.” But Cox also fears more immediate risks for the EU economy, in particular from Italy’s troubled banks. “Let’s just say Italy is the new Grexit and Italy literally goes wallop and everybody goes ‘it’s like Britain in ’08 and it needs massive refinancing’. I just wonder how many people who voted to stay in would be bitter.” But the UK would be affected by an Italian crisis regardless of EU membership, says Winfield. “We are not isolated from these things and we can never be. Banks are international, money flows everywhere.” Investment Winfield is worried a Brexit vote will hit investment because trickier trading terms will deter foreign firms. He fears that to compensate, politicians could allow labour laws to be eroded. “Progressively, we will become less attractive. That’s how we then move into more relaxed labour laws, a more relaxed approach to hiring and firing, a more relaxed approach to minimum wage levels,” he says. Cox believes money saved from leaving the EU could make up for lost investment. “We are talking about £350m a week, £20bn a year. That £20bn should be spent within the British economy,” he says, referring to figures used by leave campaigners based on the gross sum contributed to the EU last year. The day after How will Cox and Winfield feel on 24 June if the referendum has not gone their way? “If I wake up and we are still in, we will have missed the chance for a new dawn. It will be a missed opportunity and more of the same,” says Cox. If the vote is to leave, Winfield worries the UK will be viewed as a petulant child. “It’s going to be perceived as more dollies out of the pram,” he says. “And I think to the argument, we can still trade, you have essentially turned around and said to 500 million people: ‘We want to trade with you but we don’t really like you’. That’s not the Britain that I know.”
Idrissa Gueye: I can’t let mickey-taker Sadio Mané get one over me The 227th Merseyside derby could dampen Christmas spirit for one half of Liverpool and reverberate all the way through to next month in Gabon. For the sake of their Africa Cup of Nations campaign, Senegal must hope peace and goodwill exists between Idrissa Gana Gueye and Sadio Mané once they have met as rivals at Goodison Park. “It would be great to beat Liverpool because then I could be on Sadio’s back all the way through the African Nations,” says Everton’s relentless midfielder who, along with the Liverpool forward, is bound for Gabon and the tournament in mid-January. “Sadio is a real one for taking the mickey, a real character. Every time we go away on international duty he calls me dwarf and he’s only a little bit taller than me. If the result goes the wrong way on Monday he’s going to be even worse. I can’t let that happen.” The Senegal internationals have settled impressively since arriving on Merseyside in the summer – Mané in a £34m deal from Southampton and Gueye for the £7m release clause that Everton activated in his Aston Villa contract. The two are friends but, as Gueye explains: “Not that close that we go round to each other’s house. He rang to say we should meet up and he would come round and see me. I’m still waiting.” It is not bias that shapes the 27-year-old’s opinion that his compatriot represents a major threat to Everton’s prospects of winning the derby for the first time in 13 attempts. Gueye explains: “It helps if you know a lot about your opponent but Sadio is such an unpredictable player. It’s hard to read what he will do next; he might dribble there or go on this side of you or whatever. I will talk to my team-mates about him, of course, but he’s so unpredictable and so fast. His acceleration … he just touches the pedal and he goes from first gear to fifth. He’s one of the main threats, the main dangers at Liverpool. The ease at which he gets forward, his movement, he creates danger, space and chances for other people – but you could say that about a lot of Liverpool’s team, they’re a big threat. But if we concentrate on ourselves, on what we do best, we will have opportunities in this game.” Given the characteristics of a Merseyside derby and the anticipation surrounding this latest encounter, the qualities Gueye has brought to Everton’s midfield may prove equally significant. Goodison would appear the perfect setting for a night of controlled aggression. Jürgen Klopp regularly demands that Liverpool “stay angry” and, given their last home performance, Tuesday’s 2-1 win over Arsenal, Everton and their supporters need to do so, too. One brought the best out of the other as Ronald Koeman’s team recorded only their second win in 11 league matches. “I always look forward to a match like this,” Gueye admits. “We know that a derby match, any derby match, is never easy. To earn the right to play football, you have to win the ball. First of all, I like playing football but the one-to-ones, duels, tackling, however you want to put it, they’re a big part of football. It’s about winning the ball back. It’s fair to say that being combative and tackling are strong points in my game and an area where I am not uncomfortable, but that’s one part of my game, one part of football. The other part is very important, being on the ball and being able to pass as well.” Klopp and his Liverpool squad watched Everton’s game against Arsenal at Gisborough Hall, their overnight base before the 3-0 win at Middlesbrough that ensured both Merseyside teams approach the derby with morale repaired. The Liverpool manager expects, arguably even wants, a repeat of the raucous atmosphere that greeted the home team’s eventual improvement against Arsène Wenger’s side, admitting the onus is on the visitors to turn hostilities to their advantage. “It is fact that atmosphere can make a difference but I don’t have any fears,” Klopp said. “The first 20 minutes Everton had been aggressive but they couldn’t get the challenges where they wanted. Then Arsenal opened the game for them and Goodison Park ran through. As a neutral football fan, things like this are nice to see. That is how it is. It is not easy, even in an outstanding atmosphere. Last year we had a really good away atmosphere in Manchester for the Europa League against United. We had a wonderful atmosphere against Dortmund, in both games. The job is to make it is a difficult as possible for the crowd to enjoy the game. “The last half-hour against Dortmund [at Anfield last season] was the best I have ever experienced but the most difficult? Actually I am not like this. I’m not afraid of it, it’s only football. I like it. It makes the job a little bit different but, at the end, it is still the same job. There is always an influence on the atmosphere. You need to be really aggressive but not on the edge where you will be illegal. Concentrate on football. Use the noise. We are there to play football. We know that it’s not for us. It’s loud, it’s emotional. Use it.” Koeman believes Everton have been guilty of “acting too nice” this season but that the performance against Arsenal, eventually, reminded his players of the benefits of tempo and temper. Not that he expects Klopp’s team to be quite so compliant, however. “We knew about Arsenal,” the Everton manager said. “They like to play good football but they have difficulties when it is a fight to play their best level, and we showed that. We did it wrong in the first 20 minutes but we had a good reaction and that’s how you need to play and how we like to play every game, not just when we play at home. But we know Liverpool is different to Arsenal. Liverpool are more physical and play aggressive football. That is different but to get a good result we need to show the same as last Tuesday.”
Australia lobbies infrastructure bank to invest in coal and nuclear power The Australian government is lobbying for the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank to put more emphasis on coal and nuclear after concerns renewable energy projects were being prioritised. Draft guidelines were circulated by the bank that suggest it should prioritise investments in renewable energy projects across Asia while the Turnbull government has argued fossil fuels will play a significant role in energy generation in the region for decades to come.. Australia joined the AIIB in June 2015, with then-treasurer Joe Hockey pledging an initial $930m to the bank. The AIIB has been working with the Asian Development Bank, the World Bank, and a range of other banks to satisfy an estimated US$8tn infrastructure shortfall across Asia. The bank is still in the process of creating its identity, but its founding members, including Australia, have declared the AIIB should be a “green bank.” The draft guidelines suggest the AIIB should not consider financing nuclear plants at this stage, because the bank would “have to develop the capacity to be involved in such complex and capital-intensive projects”. It says this decision could be revisited if justified. It also suggests the AIIB should prioritise renewable energy generation over fossil fuel power. It says gas projects should be considered during the transition to a lower carbon intensity power mix, while coal and oil-fired power plants should be exceptionally considered “if cleaner technologies are not available for well-founded energy security or affordability reasons”. Members of the AIIB board will meet in Beijing on Thursday and Friday to talk about the draft strategy. Australia will be represented by Treasury official Chris Legg. Australia has a $3.7bn stake in the AIIB, making it the sixth-largest member (with voting power worth 3.8% of all members). China is the largest member, with a $28.8bn stake (and 28.8% voting power). But the Australian government’s desire to have the AIIB’s investment strategy give more priority to fossil fuel projects runs contrary to Australian public opinion. According to an online poll from Market Forces, taken between 15 and 19 August by Essential Research, 62% of Australians would prefer multilateral banks like the AIIB and World Bank to use taxpayer dollars to fund renewable energy projects. The poll, of 1,017 respondents, found just 13% of Australians would prefer money to fund fossil fuel projects (with 26% unsure). It also found that people aged 55 or over were more likely to indicate that they would prefer Australia to be funding renewable energy (66% compared to 59% of people aged 30-55, and 57% of people under 30). The treasurer, Scott Morrison, said the government’s energy market policies, for Australia and the region, had to ensure that energy prices were more affordable, while reducing cost-of-living pressures and promoting growth. “We must have a national energy strategy, and a real national energy market, with the strategy and infrastructure in place to support a new energy advantage and energy security for Australian companies and householders now and in the future,” he told Australia. A spokesman said the government originally invested in the AIIB to support stronger regional development, saying economic growth was “vital to our region and Australia’s national prosperity”. The AIIB has received submissions from governments, energy companies, non-government organisations and civil society groups about its draft energy investment strategy. According to the Australian, the Minerals Council of Australia has argued in its submission that the draft fails to address “the central role that adequate access to ­secure and affordable energy plays, and will continue to play, in providing economic opportunity and better living standards for hundreds of millions of people in east and south Asia”. “[The proposal] rightly endorses the notion of technology neutrality but then proposes the exclusion of some energy technologies and explicit preferment of others,” the MCA submission said. Australia has contacted the Minerals Council. Julien Vincent, the executive director of Market Forces, said he was concerned the government was trying to create opportunities for an industry that was in structural decline globally. “We’ve got banks walking away from funding huge coal projects … so you’ve got less commercial credit available,” he said. “[But] the government’s trying to push into an area where more credible lenders and financial actors are actually moving away from. And it’s with public money as well.”
Letter: I’ll always be grateful to Bobby Vee It has long been the norm to dismiss the “teen music” of the early 1960s with a sneer of condescension but having lived through that period, as an adolescent just discovering girls, I’ll always be grateful to Bobby Vee. He brought kindness to his songs of love and loss, and endorsed gentleness in relationships, not just in the words of songs such as Take Good Care of My Baby but in his tone of voice. It was a huge treat to see Bobby in person in the All American Solid Gold Rock’n’Roll Show in Woking, Surrey, in 2000, when he commanded the stage with warmth and human generosity, just as I hoped he would.
Premier League clubs make record £3.4bn with help from FFP regulations Premier League clubs generated a record income of almost £3.4bn last year, with 14 of the 20 clubs making a profit, the ’s analysis of their most recently published accounts has revealed. The improvement in the clubs’ finances, after years of paying too much to players in wages and making losses despite the Premier League’s huge television rights and other income, is the result of clubs having finally agreed to introduce financial fair play regulations in 2013. The regulations, which restrict clubs’ losses to £35m a year if bankrolled by an owner and cap the amount of new TV income permitted to be spent on players’ wages, immediately transformed clubs’ balance sheets. In the final season before financial fair play was introduced, 12 of the 20 clubs made a loss, and the world’s richest football league recorded a total overall loss of £291m. Caused mostly by excessive spending on players’ wages despite the bonanza from TV rights and eyewatering ticket prices, that loss turned into a total £198m profit in 2013-14. Last year, 2014-15, the most recent for which the clubs have published accounts, the league made an overall profit of £113m on a record income of £3.4bn. The fall was predominantly due to relatively heavy losses made by Chelsea, Sunderland, Queens Park Rangers and Aston Villa. The financial regulations have been renewed for the next three-year period, 2016-19, covering new TV deals that are expected to exceed £8bn, launching Premier League clubs on to another level of wealth beyond any other league. In 2014-15, the total spending on wages was slightly up on 2013-14, from £1.9bn, 57.5% of the clubs’ income, to £2bn, 60% of income. The vast majority of this spending was on players’ wages rather than on clubs’ other employees, although some senior staff are increasingly well paid. Eleven of the clubs handed their highest-paid director more than £500,000. The Tottenham Hotspur chairman, Daniel Levy, was the highest-paid executive last year, with a total package of £2.61m, including salary and bonuses. The 60% figure for spending on wages, although still huge for players fortunate to be playing in football’s pay-TV boom era, is significantly down on the excessive spending of previous years. In 2009-10, the year Portsmouth became the only Premier League club to collapse into administration, wages were 68% of income and clubs made a record loss overall of £445m. More than a quarter of that loss was the £121m recorded by Manchester City in the early years of mega-investment by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan. The following year, when Abu Dhabi money financed the high-priced signings of players including Yaya Touré for £24m, David Silva for £26m and Mario Balotelli for £24m, City made the Premier League’s record loss of £197m. The plan by City, whose executives opposed the Premier League and Uefa’s financial fair play rules, was that the success brought by such players would deliver huge income and so make the club profitable. In 2014-15, that did happen: City made a pre-tax profit of £10m. City’s share premium account, which records the sum invested by Mansour since he bought the club in 2008, was £1.2bn, a record poured into an English football club. At Chelsea, the amount loaned by Roman Abramovich to the club’s parent company, Fordstam Ltd, to bankroll spending on players, transfers and losses since he took over in 2003, rose to £1.1bn. Financial fair play rules, which enable clubs to make sizable profits and owners to reap dividends or capital gains, have been cited by buyers of English clubs, particularly from the United States, as a key attraction for them to invest. The restriction on players’ wages, losses and owner investment, which have instantly made most clubs profitable, is resulting in more clubs now being taken over. US investors bought a substantial stake in Crystal Palace in December, and the original 2002 shareholders of Swansea City are expected shortly to make multimillion-pound gains for themselves, also by selling their shares to an American consortium.
Keira Knightley to play Sugar Plum Fairy in Disney's The Nutcracker Keira Knightley will play the Sugar Plum Fairy in Disney’s upcoming adaptation of The Nutcracker. She’ll be joined in The Nutcracker and the Four Realms (an adaptation of The Nutcracker and the Mouse King) by Misty Copeland, the first African American woman to be principal dancer in the American Ballet Theater, and Morgan Freeman, according to Variety. Interstellar star Mackenzie Foy will also feature, while Chocolat and The Cider House Rules director Lasse Hallstrom has also signed on. Knightley has a close relationship with Disney, and starred in the company’s Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. She hasn’t starred in a film since 2015’s mountain-climbing drama Everest, but recently made headlines after director John Carney, who worked with her on Begin Again, criticized her. He said: “It’s hard being a film actor, and it requires a certain level of honesty and self-analysis that I don’t think she’s ready for yet.” He has since apologized for his comments. Knightley’s next film is Collateral Beauty, in which she stars alongside Will Smith and Kate Winslet. It opens on 16 December in the US.
Email scam costs couple £25,000 – but no one will help A record label manager and her husband have been conned out of £25,000 after becoming the latest people to fall victim to a highly sophisticated email scam. Their story involves a fraudster who posed as their builder, set up a copycat email address and even managed to mock up an incredibly realistic fake invoice. It shows the lengths criminals will go to, and will send a shiver down the spine of anyone about to have work done on their house or who are thinking about employing a tradesman. And what will shock some people is Barclays, which operated the account that the fraudster used to accept their money, says it does not report such crimes to the police – on the grounds that “the bank is not the victim”. Barclays also, apparently, wouldn’t cooperate with the couple’s own bank, Lloyds, when it attempted to get their money back. Yet the onerous ID checks banks must carry out when someone opens an account mean Barclays, presumably, knows a huge amount of detail about the person who stole the cash – their name, address, date of birth, income and employment details etc. Sarah and David Fisher told Money that even though this is a “life-changing” amount of money to lose, and clearly a criminal matter, no one seems to be interested in pursuing their case. Sarah, who lives in north-west London, got in touch with us after reading our 13 February report about a Bristol woman duped into paying £1,500 to someone posing as her carpenter. She had received an email purporting to be from the carpenter and requesting that the money for the work be transferred to his bank account. It later emerged that his email had been hacked and the bank account into which she had paid the money wasn’t his. The Fishers have a four-year-old daughter and a 22-month-old son, and are having an extension built, so have been in regular communication with their building company. On 30 October last year the company’s accounts executive emailed an invoice for the work, in the form of a PDF attachment carrying the company’s logo. It was an invoice they were expecting and was 100% genuine. It gave the total due – £27,829 – plus an account name (the name of the building company), bank account number, sort code and reference number. Then on 2 November they received what appeared to be a follow-up email from the same employee, written in the same style (“Dear Sarah & David” ...), and featuring all the same logos and formatting, and the same email signature. This stated: “We have changed who we bank with. I forgot to amend the changes on the invoice I sent 30/10. The attached invoice has our new banking details ... I’m sorry for any inconvenience these changes may have caused ...” Just like the 30 October email, this one was signed “Kind regards”. This second invoice is identical in almost every way to the first – only the account number and sort code are different. The couple paid £25,000 – their account’s daily payment limit – so were surprised when, a few days later, they received an email from the company chasing payment. They told the accounts executive they had paid the bulk of the bill, but she emailed back to say that the second invoice had not come from her. The building company banks with NatWest, but the bank details given on the second invoice were for a Barclays account. It was then the couple realised they had been scammed, with the most likely explanation being that either the building company, or the couple, unwittingly downloaded malicious software, which enabled the fraudster to intercept their emails. When the Fishers looked back at the emails, they noticed that the one received on 2 November was sent from an email address just one letter different to the genuine one (“development” instead of “developments” in the company name). “Of course we were shocked and upset – two bright, professional but busy people coming to terms with being conned in such a sophisticated but simple way. But we had an underlying feeling that somehow we would recover our money. Unfortunately, this hasn’t been the case,” says Sarah, a general manager at Universal Music. “This is a life-changing amount that is partly remortgage money and partly life savings. It’s such a horrific thing to happen, so the more people we can relay our story to, the more people can protect themselves against it happening to them. It happened in a split-second, yet it has changed what the next few years look like for us.” The couple reported the matter to the police, which in turn referred it to Action Fraud, the UK’s national fraud and internet crime reporting centre. “The reason the police are citing for not pursuing an investigation is that this type of crime is so rife they haven’t got the resources – they say that compared to some of the cases they are dealing with, it’s small scale,” says Sarah. Lloyds Bank declined to accept any responsibility on the grounds that the transfer was made by the Fishers and it was merely following their instructions. It told them it had been “unable to obtain a return of your funds from Barclays,” adding: “Barclays will not disclose their account opening documentation to us for confidentiality reasons.” The Fishers then turned their attention to Barclays. “Our own questioning with the banks had traced our money to an account in the north owned by a man called ‘Harry’. It, of course, had been immediately fully withdrawn and closed,” says Sarah. Eventually the couple received a letter from Barclays saying it had finished its investigation. It said that by the time it was alerted, the couple’s £25,000 had been “utilised” by the account holder, so it was unable to return any of their cash. Its letter added: “We do not report scam claims to the police because the bank is not the victim.” However, the bank did say it would cooperate with the police as part of a criminal investigation. The case of the Bristol woman also involved a Barclays account, and Sarah says this seems to suggest “a weakness in their security at some point in the process”. She adds: “If someone stole £25,000 via other means, it would unquestionably be taken more seriously.” Barclays told Money that “appropriate documentation was presented when this account was opened, and we had no way of knowing that the account would be used for fraudulent purposes. “When opening the account Barclays complied with all regulatory requirements and has robust identity and verification processes. Regrettably, by the time we were made aware of the fraud, no money remained and we were unable to return any funds.” How to avoid being scammed • If you receive an email asking you to make a bank transfer and it’s someone you haven’t previously made a payment to, or have paid before but they have changed their bank details, your default position should be suspicion – even if you were expecting the bill/invoice/demand. Phone the person and check they have asked for the money and that these are the correct bank details. If it’s a large sum, send a small amount first – £10, say – then check they have received it before paying the balance. • There’s a simple way to reduce your risk of being fleeced: don’t bank online. In November 2015, we featured Ross Anderson, Professor of Security Engineering at the University of Cambridge’s Computer Laboratory, who has never banked online because of the risks of fraud. • Regularly check all bank and card statements for suspicious transactions. • Check your credit report – you can spot applications and spending that are nothing to do with you. • Don’t use things such as names of your pets/partner/children as passwords. • Ignore unsolicited phone calls, texts, emails and letters, particularly if they ask for account details, pins, passwords or personal information. • Don’t store account names and passwords on your smartphone. • Register to vote at your current address. If you don’t, fraudsters could use your previous address details to open new credit accounts and run up debts in your name.
Lack of access to abortion leaves women in poverty Vast numbers of women in the US live every day with poverty and financial insecurity, but this week campaigners are shedding a spotlight on one of the less-discussed causes – inadequate access to family planning and abortion. On 28 April in Washington DC the non-profit policy group Progressive Congress and the congressional progressive caucus will host a landmark event to highlight links between the availability of reproductive health services and women’s economic wellbeing. It will focus on how women’s access to family planning, contraceptives and safe, legal abortion services is vital not only to their individual health and human rights, but for the fundamental role it plays in determining whether they – and their children – remain or become poor. If there are no services available (as is the case in parts of the US, typically where legislators have cut funding), or if a low-income woman can’t afford to pay for a procedure or to travel to reach a free service, the repercussions of an unplanned pregnancy can be dire. These include preventing women from furthering their education and careers, with knock-on effects on their income. A major study published recently by Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health, a research group at the University of California, San Francisco, probing the effects on women’s lives of abortion and the consequences of being denied access, reported that there were “profound” connections. Early results indicated that women who carry unwanted pregnancies to term are more likely to live in poverty, while 40% surveyed said they had sought abortions for financial reasons. Recent cases in Northern Ireland of women being prosecuted for having abortions when they lacked the cash to travel elsewhere in the country to legally terminate a pregnancy, clearly demonstrate that links between financial resources and restricted access to services are having serious and disturbing ramifications for women in the UK too. In the US, even by the usual standards of debate, the latest politically charged attacks on access to abortion and other family planning services have been remorseless. Repeated attempts to strip funding from Planned Parenthood, the country’s largest sexual and reproductive health provider, pressure to reduce federal health projects aimed at poorer women, and legal challenges to the Affordable Care Act which has widened access to general and reproductive healthcare for millions more women, are just a few examples. Women are much more likely to be poor than men. The National Women’s Law Centre (NWLC) points out that one in seven women in the US, and four in every 10 lone-parent families headed by a woman, live in poverty – more than 18 million people in total, with 45% of those classified as being in “extreme” poverty. The causes and potential solutions for women’s economic insecurity and poverty have been thoroughly researched and documented over the years. Analysis has focused on factors such as persistent pay and pensions inequities, compared with men, and, particularly in Britain recently, the disproportionate effects of austerity policies and welfare cuts. But as Maggie Jo Buchanan, an associate director at the Centre for American Progress (CAP), pointed out recently, in the US policy discussions around economic vulnerability and family planning have tended to take place in isolation, ignoring their interconnection, and so stifling solutions. In essence, one of the major contributing factors to entrenched poverty – unwanted pregnancy – is sidelined despite it being proved time and again that the universal availability of contraception and family planning improves women’s earning power and prospects. As far back as the 1960s, activists were noting that contraception was a vital tool for fostering social justice and reducing inequalities by promoting women’s independence, yet in 2012 just 31% of low-income women in the US had access to publicly funded family planning. But now coalitions of advocacy groups are becoming noticeably more proactive, pushing policymakers to address women’s financial difficulties in tandem with access to reproductive health services, and even lobbying for new laws. There is a sense of progressive momentum, according to Gretchen Borchelt, vice president for reproductive rights and health at the NWLC. She says that, despite the frustrating rearguard actions required to fend off attacks on women’s rights, many politicians and policymakers at state and federal level are waking up to the fact that the separation of financial issues and reproductive rights in policy terms is erroneous. She is spot on. Reproductive and economic justice go hand in hand. And that’s as much an urgent lesson for legislators in Northern Ireland as it is for those in the US.
Aston Villa fans in walkout protest as Everton stroll increases dissent For some Aston Villa supporters the thought of waiting until the 74th minute to walk out in protest against the club’s board was too much to bear. The sight of Romelu Lukaku scoring Everton’s third, on the hour mark, had prompted many to make for the exits even earlier than planned on another chastening evening for the club. It was not exactly a mass exodus later in the game, when a couple of thousand left their seats as part of the Out the Door on 74 campaign, but there was no escaping the hostility in the air, with the mood close to mutinous at times as the supporters made their feelings known. Tom Fox, the chief executive, was subjected to some abusive chants as he looked on from the directors’ box and moments later “We want Lerner out” reverberated around the stadium. Randy Lerner, of course, is nowhere to be seen, with the Villa owner more detached than ever from a club that remain eight points adrift of safety with only 10 games remaining. It is a case of when, not if, Villa will be relegated. Rudy Gestede, a substitute for the anonymous Gabriel Agbonlahor, pulled a goal back but by that stage Everton were coasting to a routine victory in a match when Lukaku wrote his name into their record books and the visiting supporters basked in anticipation of their club’s expected new wealth. Ramiro Funes Mori set them on their way and later claimed an assist, Aaron Lennon added the second following a fine counterattack and Rémi Garde’s side were in damage-limitation mode by the time Lukaku scored his 17th league goal of the season – the best return for an Everton player in the Premier League era. The result lifts Roberto Martínez’s team to 10th in the table and completes a highly satisfactory few days for Everton, coming on the back of the news that Farhad Moshiri, a British-Iranian billionaire, is to become their major shareholder and, in sharp contrast to the dismal state of affairs at Aston Villa, herald what promises to be a bright new era at Goodison Park. “It’s been a significant week,” Martínez said. “I know we’ve been talking about it a lot but it is important. I think you could see that sense of excitement throughout the fans, throughout everyone at [the training ground] Finch Farm and it’s great to welcome our new partner at the football club with a win and a positive feeling, and I’m sure he’ll be delighted with the performance.” As for Lukaku, Martínez expects the club’s record signing to push on now. “I thought his overall contribution was very important and I’m delighted for him to reach that level,” he said. “But I know from now until the end of the season he’s got an incredible focus to increase that figure as much as he can. He’s a man that, at 22, clearly has the world at his feet.” Everton could not have wished for a better start as Villa’s woeful defending at set pieces was again exposed. Micah Richards had the straightforward task of marking Funes Mori but lost his man to the point the Everton defender had a free header from Kevin Mirallas’s corner. There were only five minutes on the clock and a familiar story was already unfolding. Although Joel Robles made a decent save to tip Ashley Westwood’s raking drive around a post, Everton were comfortable and it was no surprise when they added a second. Ross Barkley picked up possession from Phil Jagielka inside his own half and carried the ball 30 yards before releasing Mirallas in the inside-left channel. The Belgian looked up and squared perfectly into the path of Lennon, who slotted the ball through the legs of both Joleon Lescott and the goalkeeper Brad Guzan. Lescott later cleared a Bryan Oviedo shot off the line and Guzan produced a point-blank stop to keep out a header from Lukaku, but the inevitable third goal soon arrived. Funes Mori, in so much space on the Everton right after a corner was only half-cleared, crossed for Lukaku to turn the ball home with a thigh. By the time Gestede headed home Jordan Veretout’s centre, in the 79th minute, Villa Park had started to empty. “I’m not been here for a long time enough to assess the behaviour of everybody,” said Garde, when asked about the Villa supporters’ protest. “I respect the fans because they are totally part of the club but I have to respect as well my position and the people who put me in this position. “I concentrate my energy on what I am asked to do, which is to try to win games with this squad of players.” A thankless task if ever there was one.
Why Labour may have to divide before they conquer Two parties, a chasm of differences separating them, but fused together whether they like it or not. Here is a description that could surely apply to either the Conservatives or Labour. Intra-Tory hatreds nurtured since the toppling of Margaret Thatcher are surfacing with explosive effect thanks to the EU referendum. Tory MPs conspire to undermine their leadership, and plot with little subtlety for the downfall of David Cameron if Britain opts for Brexit or a narrow Remain. Tory Brexiteers look to Scotland for inspiration: where a referendum fails to settle a constitutional issue, and politically galvanises the proponents of the exit option in a “neverendum”. “I don’t want to stab the prime minister in the back – I want to stab him in the front so I can see the expression on his face,” were the reported comments of one Tory MP, who expressed his hope that Cameron would be caught “with a live boy or a dead girl”. Tim Montgomerie – Iain Duncan Smith’s former chief of staff, who quit the Tories this year – imagines a realignment of British politics, with the Conservatives dividing three ways: a “patriotic right” party, a “socially just, economically conservative” party, and a party of “social and economic liberals”. Labour’s internal strife, meanwhile, has been temporarily calmed by two factors: a referendum that has concentrated minds, and local election results – peppered with successes – that were nowhere near as bad as predicted (if not, as Jeremy Corbyn himself noted, good enough for a party aspiring to win in 2020). There was a parliamentary plot to force a leadership contest after the referendum, rally around a “soft left” contender as a stopgap, and – by dubious means – keep Corbyn off the ballot paper. But this plan is dead. That does not mean divisions have disappeared. One senior MP – on the right, but constructive – identifies two groupings of parliamentary opponent. One faction believes that Labour is probably unelectable under the current leadership; the other concurs, but would be vehemently opposed to a Corbyn premiership assuming power in any case. If Labour looked likely to come to power with its current political direction, in other words, they would sabotage its prospects. And this is why the MP believes a formal split, at some point, remains a distinct possibility. The other mooted option is an increasingly likely early election, called when Labour remains unprepared for office, leading to a haemorrhaging of seats from an already low base, forcing Corbyn out and routing the left. Some on the party’s right – not least its “old Labour right” – harbour ambitions to reconquer the party and crush the left. The reckoning would be “brutal”, one of their number promised when Corbyn was elected, “putting the left in a box for 30 years or out of the party.” But the right have offered no convincing route to electoral victory on their terms. They sometimes behave as though Corbynism is collective madness, rather than part of a trend sweeping the western world. In countries like Britain and the United States (where Bernie Sanders has become the most successful socialist in US history in his battle against Hillary Clinton), the split happens within an established party. In, say, Spain, the split happens outside: with the social democratic PSOE challenged by a more radical coalition led by Podemos. And the more perceptive elements of Labour’s right accept that it was their ideological vacuum which allowed Corbyn to triumph against all the odds. Across the country, the Labour coalition has fragmented. In the aftermath of last year’s election defeat, those Labour supporters who expressed a view were almost evenly divided about whether the party should move left or right. Corbyn is often portrayed as the figurehead of an unrepresentative Labour membership, but in the final stages of the contest, polling suggested he had a decisive lead among Labour voters, not just members. In the last general election, younger voters plumped decisively for leftwing options (quite unlike the early 1980s, when Thatcher won over the under-25s), while older voters increasingly veered towards the Conservatives. Take specific issues. Younger voters in major towns and cities are more sympathetic to diversity and immigration; older working-class voters, particularly in towns battered by deindustrialisation, are often hostile. Labour embracing either an anti or a pro-immigration stance has the potential to alienate either group. Already, Labour’s traditional base has fragmented in multiple directions: to the SNP, Ukip and the Greens. Straddling these multiple divisions is a formidable challenge for any Labour leadership, whether it leans left or right. That’s why Labour figures on both right and left – from Chuka Umunna and Jonny Reynolds to John McDonnell – are increasingly embracing the cause of proportional representation. They are uniting in order to divorce. One prominent figure on the party’s right alluded to the “Spanish solution”. PSOE and Podemos are standing against each other in the upcoming Spanish general election, the latter with a slight lead over the former. If left-of-centre parties win a majority in the Spanish parliament, they will form a coalition. Under proportional representation Labour would split into a centre-left and a left party. “Both would stand against each other and compete, but then end up in government with each other,” the senior figure suggests. Rather than an acrimonious battle for the leadership of one party, both would be free to stand independently. A friend of the late Robin Cook tells me this was the former Labour foreign secretary’s own view: PR leading to divorce, with a wrestle over who keeps the “Labour” name and tradition. The road to proportional representation is fraught, of course. A minority Labour government at the very least would need to be formed. Getting there could involve making difficult deals with other parties. A new approach would be needed to win over those (including myself) who voted against the Alternative Vote in 2011. Progressive voters would be subjected to a fear campaign portraying a vote for PR as a vote for 60 Ukip MPs.But it is worth asking the question. If Labour did not exist, would Corbyn and Peter Mandelson join forces to found it? If the Conservatives were founded tomorrow, would it really be an alliance of Cameron and John Redwood? Britain has fragmented, and so has politics – but the electoral system makes us pretend otherwise. For both Labour and Tory warring sides, proportional representation would set them free.
Russia criticises Amber Rudd over 'misleading' gas export comments Russia has waded into Britain’s EU referendum debate to accuse the energy secretary, Amber Rudd, of making misleading comments when she claimed that the EU provided protection against being bullied by Vladimir Putin over Russian gas exports. Rudd had warned in a speech on Thursday that the breakup of the EU single market for energy would give Russia more influence over the continent, arguing that a united European bloc had “the power to force Putin’s hand”. The Russian embassy in London released a statement on Friday describing Rudd’s comments as “surprising and disappointing” and accusing her of dragging Russia into a “domestic quarrel”. “It misrepresents the situation and defies the logic of this business as it applies to Britain,” said the statement. Denying that the Kremlin used gas supplies as a tool of foreign policy, the embassy said Russian gas supplies were “relatively small within [the] UK’s energy balance” and would hardly have a significant impact on the country’s energy security. It added: “Secondly, Russian gas comes to the UK through continental Europe, therefore Brexit could have quite an opposite effect, with potential increase in UK’s dependence on the LNG [liquefied natural gas] supply from Qatar. “We consider the above comments of Ms Rudd to be made for ‘domestic consumption’ in the context of the EU referendum campaign. Why drag Russia into this domestic quarrel, which must be fought on the merits of the issue in question?” Rudd had already faced criticism over the speech, in which she claimed energy bills would soar by £500m a year if the UK left the EU, and went on to say: “We have seen how countries such as Putin’s Russia use their gas as a tool of foreign policy, threatening to cut off supplies or drastically increase prices.” Speaking during a visit to the site of an interconnector pipeline in Kent, which brings electricity supplies from the continent, she said: “We mustn’t let our energy security be hijacked as a political pawn to bring Europe to its knees. By working together in the European Union we can stop this becoming a reality.” She subsequently acknowledged in an interview on BBC Radio 4 that “very little” Russian gas was imported to the UK but said gas from Russia would “play an important part in security in Europe”. Russia provides about 30% of the EU’s gas, while a supply deal signed last year by Britain’s largest energy supplier, Centrica, meant at that time Russia’s gas export giant Gazprom would provide 9% of British gas needs. Since vulnerabilities in the EU energy market were exposed by gas supply cuts in 2006 and 2009, the EU has increasingly been looking to reduce its reliance on Russian natural gas. The former Belgian prime minister Guy Verhofstadt has argued that Putin would relish a British exit from the EU because Britain has strongly supported an independent European strategy designed to reduce European reliance on gas. Writing in the in January, he said: “Moscow continues to channel millions of dollars to lobbyists across Europe, who are paid to obstruct and impede plans spearheaded by the European commission for a so-called ‘energy union’, the main purpose of which is to boost independence from Russian gas.”
James Robertson's Pilgrimer: 'Joni Mitchell offered me the key to open up' Hejira is Joni Mitchell’s brooding chronicle of the road. She wrote the album in 1976 while crossing the US from Maine to Los Angeles, often driving alone and without a licence, or so the story goes, tailing truckers who flashed their lights when police cars were ahead on the freeway. Hejira is also the Arabic term for the Prophet Muhammad’s flight from persecution in the year 622. Mitchell’s songs examine what it is to wander: the fears and thrills of rootlessness, how liberty and loneliness can easily share the passenger seat. The music roams from folk to rock to jazz and blues; of all her great albums, Hejira probably takes the longest to get under your skin, but after a few listens it lodges. That serpentine drawl, those itinerant vocal lines, the odd-time lilt and lush guitars … And then there are the lyrics. Poet and novelist James Robertson was 18 when Hejira came out. As he described in a recent interview, it was “the year I bought a motorbike, left home, went to university, had sex”. He had grown up in a middle-class home in Bridge of Allan near Stirling and had never travelled outside of Britain, but in 1978 spent an exchange year in Philadelphia. “Total culture shock!” he laughs. “Game changer. I stepped outside of one life and was able to look back into it.” That summer, he hitchhiked around North America, and Mitchell’s songs have resonated ever since. Twenty years later, Robertson began creating his own responses. He wrote private poems, most of them never published, that shared the spirit of the Hejira songs but reshaped their scenarios to fit his own language and experience. He never really imagined setting the poems to music, or making a complete new version of the album, and certainly not giving a public performance. But last year a chance conversation with the director of Glasgow’s Celtic Connections festival set all that in motion. Now, 40 years after Hejira’s original release, Robertson has created a full “reimagining” in Scots that premieres at Celtic Connections festival on Saturday 16 January. Renamed Pilgrimer, this is no straight translation. Instrumental lines are more-or-less replications – transcribed by Karine and Steven Polwart (sister and brother) for a band that includes the original album’s guitarist, Larry Carlton – but the words are recast by Robertson’s pen. “Moved sideways,” he tells me. “Not just linguistically, but to incorporate my own life and experiences. It’s become less about Joni, more about me, and hopefully more about everyone else in the process.” But the only way Robertson could rewrite the confessional intimacy of Mitchell’s lyrics was to make that intimacy his own. Pilgrimer is the most candid work he’s ever produced, he says. “I’m a pretty private person, but the big song on the album – Song for Sharon, which I call Sang fer Joni – well, I probably give away more of myself in that text than I habitually would. I’ve listened to Joni’s music for decades and I suppose she offered me the key to open up. Maybe it’s odd that I’m only finally getting there in my late 50s …” Sitting in a quiet cafe in wintery Edinburgh, tweed jacket buttoned and sipping hot chocolate, he looks shy admitting even this. “In my novels I can wear the disguise of fiction,” he adds. “And in poetry I can adopt various personas.” But Mitchell’s lyrics are unequivocally first person, devastatingly direct. Even referring to her by surname in this article seems weirdly impersonal: her listeners feel they know her up-close as plain Joni. For Robertson, the way her songs self-examine has forced him to do the same. For Karine Polwart, who sings Pilgrimer on Saturday alongside Rod Paterson, Julie Fowlis and Annie Grace, “Joni’s phrasing is so distinctly her. Half-spoken, half-sung. I would have never touched these songs in English – what would be the point? – but shifting them into Scots, witnessing the way James has opened himself up, has let me get near them for the first time.” Even the term Pilgrimer is classic Robertson. He’s a writer steeped in Scottish history. His first novel, The Fanatic, dealt with 17th century Covenanters; his second with slavery and Enlightenment Edinburgh; his mightiest – And the Land Lay Still – is a sweeping biography of Scotland through the second half of the 20th century. He unearthed the word in an obscure 16th-century funeral liturgy at the kirk in Montrose: In this lyfe we are but travellouris, pilgrimaris, and strangearis seking for ane citie and habitatioun. And while he acknowledges the timeliness of Pilgrimer’s migration themes, he is careful not to overstate the point. “Joni was looking for a home and never really knew where it was. In an oblique way I suppose I am reflecting what we’ve all had to digest over the past year, people being on the move for all kinds of reasons.” His version of the album’s final song, Refuge of the Roads, tells of people waiting on a quay, “tryin tae read the sky,/ they were prayin for deliverance/ tae the ither side”. A storm whips up and the boat never arrives. Mostly the songs stay closer to home. Mitchell’s “too far from the Bay of Fundy” becomes “ower faur frae the Braes o Angus”. “Down and out in Memphis, Tennessee” becomes “doun and oot in auld Dundee”, with folk singers Annie Watkins, Mary Brooksbank and Michael Marra providing the musical heritage for Robertson that blues singer Furry Lewis did for Mitchell. The poetry is rich, reflective, unflinching. If in a blink ye could be faur frae here, oot on the ridges or the braes, whit reason wid ye care at aw for aw the fashes o yir days? The toughest part was matching new words to Mitchell’s vocal lines. Robertson explains: “Scots doesn’t work like Canadian English. A Canadian can stretch a word like ‘light’” – he sings a meandering phrase to demonstrate – “but imagine the Scots alternative,” – he scrunches up his mouth to make the tighter vowel sound of “licht”. “It’s a one-note option. Keeping the right number of syllables per line became an incredibly nitty-gritty process.” He jokes that for his first stab at songwriting, he might have picked an easier album. But Robertson knows a thing or two about nitty-gritty writing. Two years ago he published a book of short stories called 365: one story for every day of the year and every story exactly that number of words. He also knows about the off-kilter lyricism and beat-rhythms of Joni Mitchell songs. He has loved her music for 40 years or more and, though he won’t pinpoint quite how, has let her lyric writing infiltrate his work before now. I’m reminded of a stunning passage in And the Land Lay Still that describes life in50s rural Scotland: three pages of rolling, lilting descriptors punctuated by a recurring one-line refrain, just like a Joni Mitchell song. Pilgrimer is at Glasgow Royal Concert Hall on 16 January, part of Celtic Connections festival
This Is Not This Heat review – rousing reunion from an unstoppable force Too strange to fit in with their punk contemporaries, This Heat’s politicised, fever dream experimentation nevertheless earned a reverence that has led some to travel from as far afield as Japan to attend this reformation, exactly 40 years since their first gig. “All the avant garde are here,” observes one audience member. Indeed they are. Charles Bullen and Charles Hayward (third founder Gareth Williams died in 2001) are joined on stage by some of the many who have taken inspiration from their legacy, including Alexis Taylor of Hot Chip, Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore and Daniel O’Sullivan of Grumbling Fur. Any concerns that This Is Not This Heat might, as the billing suggests, perform an abstract deconstruction of their work are dispelled as Hayward starts twitching behind his huge drum kit. He feels his way back into the music, before the fast/slow roar of Horizontal Hold crashes in. It has the spontaneity of improvised music, with fingers scrabbling over Korg and clarinet keys, but sounds incredibly focussed, taut and propulsive. The lo-fi sonics of This Heat and Deceit albums, recorded in a studio set up in the meat freezer of a south London pie factory, take on a new warmth. In Not Waving, Hayward’s voice is querulous over clarinet and the occasional clang of a bell, like an otherworldly sea shanty drifting through the fog. Music Like Escaping Gas has male and female vocals gradually swallowed by the hiss of cymbals while SPQR, their most recognisably “punk” moment, is a glorious thrash. This Heat’s masterpiece was 24 Track Loop, and with all the extra instrumentation tonight it is unstoppable, as if high-tensile steel springs are raving around the room. Behind the drums, Charles Hayward’s face splits into a huge grin – this doesn’t feel like nostalgia, but a new beginning.
Cross-party support builds for royal commission into financial industry Pressure is building for a royal commission into the financial industry after a cross-parliamentary group backed a full investigation into life insurance, forestry managed investment schemes and financial planning. Nationals senator John Williams, Greens senator Peter Whish-Wilson and independent Nick Xenophon called for a royal commission after a report by a Senate committee, called Bitter Harvest, into failed forestry managed investment schemes, including Timbercorp and Great Southern. Liberal senator Bill Heffernan, who rang the bell on such schemes as early as 2010, also said he would not be surprised if a royal commission resulted from the evidence. The Senate report found forestry management schemes saw $4bn in investment flow into the sector after special tax treatment was given by the Howard government, only for the schemes to collapse. As a result, thousands of people lost their life savings in what Whish-Wilson characterised as a giant “Ponzi” scheme. For example, of the 14,000 investors who invested in Timbercorp alone, there are still 2,500 people on Timbercorp Finances’ loan books who now owe $380m due to late penalties. The report made 24 recommendations, including strengthening the powers of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (Asic), the establishment of a bank “hardship” scheme and funding for financial literacy education. But Whish-Wilson, Williams and Xenophon believe only a royal commission will provide answers to questions raised by the reports and Xenophon also wants a compensation scheme funded by government and the banks. The report follows the investigation by Fairfax journalist Adele Ferguson and Four Corners into CommInsure life insurance products and a previous investigation into financial planners. The CommInsure scandal has sparked an Asic investigation. Williams is a long-term campaigner to clean up the financial advice market and has previously called for a royal commission. He said the weight of evidence was building and, in a rare show of unity, Williams joined Xenophon and Whish-Wilson for a media conference on the issue. “I’m getting sick to death of financial products – when I started it was Storm products – causing many elderly people to lose their whole livelihoods. “We had financial planning scandal. Now we’ve got the life insurance scandal and we have Timbercorp and Great Southern. “These bad products where good, hard-working Australians, many of them in the twilight of their lives, they might be 70 to 75 years old, are facing financial ruination because of bad financial products. “The more I see of this ... it leans towards a royal commission into the financial sector.” In 2009, two of Australia’s largest agribusiness managed investment schemes (MIS) – Timbercorp and Great Southern – collapsed, followed by other major schemes, including Willmott Forests Ltd and Gunns Plantation Ltd. The products were designed to increase Australia’s forestry plantations and attracted experienced investors as well as “average hard-working Australians”. “The stories of financial loss and personal anguish retold in this report do not adequately convey the deep pain and suffering endured by many of the growers who invested in MIS that eventually folded,” the report said. “Some struggled to put together their submission because reliving the financial and personal distress was ‘extremely confronting’, while others could not rouse the energy and have remained silent.” The financial products were both designed by the investment companies, which in many cases also lent money to their customers to buy the products. Banks underwrote the loans. “[The banks] were in a position where they knew if they pulled their financing, the house of cards would come tumbling down so I believe they kept these companies going when they shouldn’t have because these companies were out right until the music stopped selling new schemes to new growers and new investors who ultimately ended up doing their dough,” Whish-Wilson said. “I think these are questions that we absolutely need to get to the bottom of and I am convinced that the banks themselves are ultimately culpable for this financial tragedy as I believe some politicians are from previous governments who refused to change legislation when the warning signs were there.” In 2010, Liberal senator Bill Heffernan warned in a report he had “grave concerns” at some of the companies’ behaviour and urged the government to reconsider the tax treatment of managed investment schemes. Heffernan told Australia: “Given the evidence over the years it does not surprise me this could lead to a royal commission.”
How toy unboxing channels became YouTube's real stars Like most pre-school children, Ryan loves playing with toys – from cars, trains and Lego to Disney toys, Play-Doh and Minions. Unlike most pre-school children, he’s playing with those toys for an online audience of millions. Ryan is the young star of Ryan’s Toys Review, a YouTube channel with more than 2.5 million subscribers and 4bn video views – startling figures given that his channel only launched in March 2015. Ryan’s toy reviews are so popular that he was the second biggest channel on YouTube in March 2016 according to online-video industry site Tubefilter, which uses data from analytics firm OpenSlate. He may soon be topping that chart: in March, Ryan’s 645.2m video views were only slightly less than Justin Bieber’s 646.2m views that month. There are plenty more toy channels where Ryan sprang from: toy reviews and unboxings are one of the biggest genres on YouTube. Twenty of the top 100 channels are focused on toys: Disney Car Toys Club, Fun Toyz Collector, Toy Monster, Toys and Funny Kids Surprise Eggs, CookieSwirlC, Blu Toys, Hobby Kids TV and Disney Car Toys all join Ryan in the top 50. Between them, these 20 channels racked up 4.7bn video views in March alone, capitalising on the massive amount of children flocking to YouTube. Children may love watching toy unboxings, but not everyone is so happy with this trend. Criticism of the YouTube Kids app launched by Google in 2015 has included concerns about whether toy channels blur the boundaries between TV and advertising too much. There is more to the burgeoning world of children’s YouTube channels than toys, though. British Minecraft gamer Dan “The Diamond Minecart” Middleton had the 12th biggest YouTube channel in March with 337.4m views, for example. He is now building his online popularity into offline income with a sold out UK tour. Nine nursery rhyme channels are in the YouTube top 100 chart, headed by another British channel – sixth-placed Little Baby Bum – with its 492.4m March views. Baby Big Mouth (322.9m views) and ChuChu TV (318.5m) are also riding high. Russian cartoons are proving popular: Masha and the Bear was the eighth biggest YouTube channel in March with 456.3m views, closely followed by ninth-ranked Get Movies with 418.4m views. In total, 42 of YouTube’s 100 biggest channels that month were aimed at children, generating 10.3bn video views. Only two of them came from well-known traditional kids’ brands: Disney Junior UK’s channel in 50th place on the Tubefilter chart with 200.7m views, and Lego’s channel in 63rd place with 169.9m. It’s a sign of the strange new online-video world that those two Lego and Disney channels combined still fall nearly 275m views short of a child called Ryan playing with whatever toy his parents have surprised him with that week. That said, Disney and Lego are among the most popular products reviewed on the big toy channels, so they are unlikely to be complaining too much about this trend. • Little Baby Bum: how UK couple built fifth-biggest YouTube channel
From app doctors to big data: five ways tech will shape healthcare Technology presents huge opportunities and challenges for our health and care system. Here are five areas to watch: Wearables Shipments of the activity tracking wearable Fitbit are up 25.4% this year, signalling more and more of us want insights into our exercise, eating, weight and sleeping patterns. As we begin to generate our own health data, our relationship with our bodies will change, and the way we understand and seek healthcare will be transformed. “Some of my patients will share outputs from their wearable ... when it comes to their yearly reviews. But this is the exception, rather than the rule at present,” says Dr Junaid Bajwa, director of healthcare services, MSD. The challenge is integrating wearable data with existing data to create a single personal health record. “Additional data without insight [only] adds to the burden of both clinicians and patients,” says Rashmi Narayan, clinical director, uMotif. “It’s about actionable insight into patient’s health rather than sheer volume.” Wearables can also help manage the symptoms of illnesses. For example, Philips is currently working on a falls prevention programme. According to Dr Seemit Dhage, clinical lead on Philips HealthTech, its wearable device uses algorithms and analytics to predict when a patient might fall. “Combined with a telehealth solution, we are able to send messages to the right healthcare professionals who are then able to intervene at an early stage. [It] also helps us monitor patients who have a known history of falls.” App doctors Both developed and developing world countries suffer from a lack of doctors, and the scale of the problem is so big that only technology can fix it, according to Matteo Berlucchi, chief executive of digital medical service Your.MD. Your.MD is a mobile app that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to mimic a consultation with a GP. It answers three key questions: what is wrong with me? What is the solution? And where can I get help? “It’s not a matter of replacing doctors but complementing them,” says Berlucchi. “Or in other words, taking some of the easier and more mundane situations off the hands of real doctors and having AI sort them out. A lot of visits to the GP (as many as three in five) are for minor ailments, advice or things that you could sort out yourself with over the counter medicines. In these situations, what the GP gives you is basically ‘the right information’.” With some 165,000 mobile health apps available, however, there is risk that poor quality ones will cause people to lose trust in health apps as a whole. As Berlucchi says: “trust comes on foot and leaves on horseback.” Telehealth Many GP interactions are already conducted remotely via phone, but increasingly thy are happening by video, explains David Furniss, vice-president, global government and health, BT. “We are already seeing the development of technology that will allow some vital signs measurements to be done simultaneously via video at the same time as the consultation. You wouldn’t have all interactions with your GP like this, but in many cases it’s more effective, saves time and travel.” Big data Big data will have impacts for both non-communicable diseases (such as asthma and diabetes), and communicable diseases (such as measles). The Cloudy with a Chance of Pain project for example, will use data logged by participants to determine if there is a correlation between weather and chronic pain. The anonymous data can even be explored by the general public to try and spot the patterns between weather and symptoms. The ability of big data to track communicable diseases such as the Zika virus and travel patterns also has huge potential. Big data and analytics have already played a role in containing previous viral outbreaks of cholera and malaria. But it needs support infrastructure at ground level to really work Berlucchi also points to the potential of deep learning applied to big data. “It provides a way to become much more accurate at diagnosing certain conditions. For example, computers should be better at spotting anomalies in MRIs ... [and] a doctor can then verify what a computer has flagged.” However there are potential drawbacks of big data. Recent news that Google received access to the healthcare data of up to 1.6 million patients, sparked fears over security and privacy. Digital therapy The key drivers for digital therapy solutions for conditions such as insomnia, anxiety and depression are constraints on financial and human resources. Digital therapy won’t be for everyone, but examples include Big White Wall, for peer to peer mental health support. And pzizz, an app to help people with sleeping problems. While apps might be able to respond quickly to the needs of a patient they will never be especially good at delivering empathy. “Losing the human touch is a danger,” says Julie Bretland, director and CEO, Our Mobile Health. “But given the current economic pressures on the healthcare system, we are in danger of losing the humane touch irrespectively. If tech is integrated in a considerate manner, then it has the potential to be more inclusive rather than isolating.”
Zoe Saldana in dark-makeup is no way to represent Nina Simone onscreen Last week, the trailer and poster for the forthcoming Nina Simone biopic were released, and we were given our first look at Zoe Saldana playing the legendary musician. Saldana reportedly replaced the singer Mary J Blige after the latter dropped out before shooting began. Indeed, it’s been a controversial decision from the start, with Simone’s daughter describing it as “not the best choice”. Debate surrounding the film, Nina – which is based on Simone’s 1992 autobiography – was reignited when the poster was released. It showed the actress with a darker skin tone and a seemingly wider nose than usual. The trailer, in which Saldana again appears in dark makeup, only made for more uncomfortable viewing. As a lighter-skinned actress of mixed Latino and African heritage, Saldana cannot deny the advantage that her physical appearance gives her over her darker counterparts when going up for parts. India Arie, who played Simone in the TV movie American Dreams, said that Saldana’s appearance in the film made her “sad”. In an open letter, Arie referred to the casting as an example of “black(er) face” – with the actor having to darken up to play Simone. And why does this matter? Not only is the marginalisation of darker skinned actresses in Hollywood a huge problem, but Simone’s racial identity was a crucial part of her life. She was denied access to the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia because of her race, but she was unbowed, using her musical genius to become a prominent voice in the civil rights movement. As Arie says in a recent interview with the Hollywood Reporter: “In the context of the politics of race in America, and the politics of race in the entertainment industry in America, to make a movie about a person like that and cast an actress that has to wear blackface and a prosthetic nose is tone-deaf.” In my opinion, it is an insult to Simone. Why does Hollywood choose to darken an actor’s skin and create a prosthetic nose rather than casting someone of the desired skin tone and features? The fact that it is even considered as a matter for the costume department is problematic in itself: these are the features and skin tone that some of us are born with. And no, Meryl Streep and Nicole Kidman wearing prosthetics in The Iron Lady or The Hours is not the same thing. They are white women playing white characters. Saldana’s case is different because of what having a wider nose means in a society driven by Eurocentric notions of beauty that consider any deviations as undesirable. Many have complained that “race shouldn’t be an issue here”, or “all that matters is the acting”. But if race isn’t an issue why not allow Saldana to play Simone exactly as she is? Doesn’t the fact that they have done the opposite suggest otherwise? It suggests they felt the makeup was a requirement to portray her realistically. Saldana’s status as a talented actress cannot mask the fact that in Hollywood darker women remain largely invisible. We are not living in a time where we are short of black talent. There is an abundance of actors who better resemble Simone – Uzo Aduba, Viola Davis and India Arie, for instance. But Hollywood has chosen to overlook them in favour of going to the trouble of painting Saldana’s skin and creating new facial features for her. Some commentators have even said that those who oppose Saldana’s casting should be satisfied that Simone is being played by a black woman at all. Society is so numb to the casual whitewashing of the film industry that some believe we should praise them for using a black actor to play a black character. There is no room for mistakes when it comes to retelling the story of Simone. Her music provided so much of the sound of the civil rights movement. She rose to fame during a time when it was difficult for people who looked like her to be accepted. Do not be mistaken. This isn’t a matter of light skin v dark skin. Lighter women are often also victims of discrimination. But we cannot pretend that darker women enjoy the same opportunities that lighter-skinned actors do. It is absurd to believe lighter-skinned black women are better at acting. This is colourism at its most obvious. With the egregiously whitewashed Gods of Egypt having recently been a box-office flop, I can only hope Nina goes the same way. Though its makers may have good intentions, they have continued the Hollywood narrative that darker women of colour just aren’t good enough. Nina Simone embodied what it means to be “unapologetically black”. This casting goes against everything she fought for and believed in.
Danny Brown: Atrocity Exhibition review – hip-hop's great gonzo trailblazer The snaggle-toothed Detroit rapper has previously dabbled in grime, ghettotech and other esoteric styles, but his new LP goes further still – sketching out uncharted territory for hip-hop with the gonzo penmanship of Robert Crumb or Ralph Steadman. Really Doe and Pneumonia show he can do hook-filled hits, and Lost is a Madlibian bit of butterfly-chasing, but there’s stuff here that no other MC is attempting: on Paul White productions like Ain’t It Funny and Dance in the Water, the vibe is like Captain Beefheart manically attacking a to-do list. Brown is fixated as ever on drugs and sex, keeping bulging cartoonish imagery in pithy equilibrium – “So much coke / Take a sniff need a ski lift”; “licked the clit and she did the Macarena” – and his voice, agitatedly squawking and yet dainty as a ballerina, is one of contemporary music’s greatest pleasures. He quotes Outkast’s BOB on Today, and is the true successor to their trailblazing spirit.
Our new digital culture podcast: Chips with Everything Welcome to the newest member of the ’s podcast family: Chips with Everything, a new incarnation of our long-running technology show, hosted by the brilliant Leigh Alexander and Olly Mann. In putting this new show together, we’ve used the huge amount of responses we received to our call-to-action, when we asked podcast listeners for their ideas. Thank you for all the feedback – we listened carefully to what you had to say, and Chips with Everything is the result. Chips with Everything On the new show, we will continue to offer you the most engaging and influential stories from the digital space, but we’ll also hone in on the human stories behind tech. It’s our way of exploring what happens when people and technology collide. We’ll be bringing you stories about how technology influences and impacts our lives on a daily basis; how the digital world around us makes our lives better, or often not so much. Plus, the occasional long-form interview, and much, much more. Finally, we’re always on the hunt for intriguing, exciting and unusual stories to cover. Has tech influenced your life in a weird and wonderful way? Tweet us @guardianaudio. You can also email me here. Listen to the first episode here or above via SoundCloud. Reporting on the rather unsettling culture of comment sections, it’s titled Keep Calm and Comment On Subscribe to Chips with Everything on iTunes or on your favourite podcasting app
Leicester 3-0 Stoke, Málaga 1-2 Barcelona and more: clockwatch – as it happened Right, that’s it from me. The big story will probably be Manchester United losing, but it should be Dele Alli’s beautiful goal and Leicester going to top again. Thanks for your company; you can read freshly baked match reports here in the next 10 or 15 minutes. Night! Premier League Crystal Palace 1-3 Spurs Leicester 3-0 Stoke Man Utd 0-1 Southampton Sunderland 1-1 Bournemouth Watford 2-1 Newcastle West Brom 0-0 Aston Villa Championship Birmingham 3-0 Ipswich Bolton 3-1 MK Dons Brighton 2-1 Huddersfield Cardiff 2-2 Rotherham Charlton 1-1 Blackburn Fulham 0-1 Hull Leeds 1-0 Bristol City Middlesbrough 0-1 Nottm Forest Preston 1-3 Brentford Reading 1-1 Sheff Wed La Liga Málaga 1-2 Barcelona The 5.30pm kick off “The United players walk off to sustained applause at Tannadice after a 5-1 thrashing of Kilmarnock, doing that clap above the head thing that footballers do,” says Simon McMahon. “It’s not quite Boxing Day and Steve McQueen yet, more like Bonfire Night, but still ...” Southampton win at Old Trafford again! Charlie Austin, a bargain at £4m, came off the bench to score a late winner. Louis van Gaal isn’t exactly being overwhelmed with goodwill as he walks towards the tunnel. Adnan Januzaj has missed a chance for Manchester United at Old Trafford. Nacer Chadli completes a brilliant performance from Spurs. Leicester are top of the Premier League again. One day, somebody will write a book on the 100,000 greatest 0-0 draws. This match will not be in it. Sorry, I’m still high on that Dele Alli goal. No more goals in the Premier League, so as things stand Spurs are right in the title race. “Me again,” says Patrick Rennie. “After you dug out that Kewell goal I started hunting for a long forgotten (almost) goal. Anyone remember when Gary Neville almost lobbed Buffon from 25 yards out? Here it is (3m45s).” The substitute Charlie Austin scores on his debut! “Why did no-one else come in for him?” screams Charlie Nicholas. It was a fine header, and Southampton are set for consecutive 1-0 wins at Old Trafford in the Premier League. Leicester compound Stoke’s misery. I’ve just seen the Dele Alli goal. Madon, it is glorious! No wonder Matt Le Tissier was clapping: it’s the best Le Tissier goal that he never scored. “That Huth free-kick was awful,” says Graham Randall, “but are you gonna tell him he can’t take them in future?” “Dennis Bergkamp-esque!” screams Phil Thompson. Matt Le Tissier is clapping in the Sky studio. “You should get two goals for that,” says Jeff Stelling. It was a stunning turn or volley, or so my snouts tell me. and should give Spurs a deserved win. Never mind Leicester, it would be almost as refreshing if Spurs were to win the league. “You can’t do that,” says Paul Merson. “You can’t do that.” Apparently he hit the corner flag on the other side of the pitch, while going for goal. Jose Mourinho put him up front in the Nou Camp once. “You’re right,” says Matt Dony. “Kewell struggled when he moved to a big club, but probably would’ve thrived at United...” It’s just banter. Leicester’s next three games are Liverpool (H), Man City (A) and Arsenal (A). If they pick up, say, seven or even five points from those games, something brilliant really might be happening. After that they have a really good run of fixtures: Norwich, West Brom, Watford, Newcastle, Palace, Southampton, Sunderland, West Ham, Swansea, Man Utd, Everton and Chelsea on the last day of the season. “Thanks for reminding me about that Kewell goal,” says Matt Dony. “He really was fantastic for Leeds. I remember being so excited at his Big Announcement about joining Liverpool. Harry ‘fit-for-the-finals’ Kewell. Never lived up to the thrillingly creative promise. See also, Fernando Morientes and Joe Cole.” I wonder how different his life might have been if he hadn’t turned down United. He was magnificent for Leeds, especially from 1998 to 2000. At Selhurst Park, Conor Wickham has elbowed Jan Vertonghen in the face. Phil Thompson on Sky says he’ll be facing retrospective punishment for that. Meanwhile, Jamie Ward has given Nottingham Forest the lead at Middlesbrough. It’s still 0-0 at Old Trafford. Of course it is. “Oh, Rob, that it’s come to this,” writes Mac Millings. “Fergie’s last game was a 10-goal thriller.” James Wilson – yes, Manchester United’s James Wilson – has put Brighton 2-1 ahead at home to Huddersfield. I missed that goal but Newcastle are back in the game. It’s just like being there, isn’t it? “Greetings from Thailand,” says Rob McEvoy. “I remember this goal from a very young Alessandro Del Piero.” Yeah, that was a gorgeous goal, and a very big moment in their first title for a decade. I think they were 2-0 at home and that late goal gave them a 3-2 win. Jamie Vardy ends his drought with an excellent goal, outpacing the Stoke defence before going round Butland to score. When you peruse your Sunday newspaper tomorrow, Leicester will be top of the Premier League. Orient are winning 1-0 at Wycombe in Kevin Nolan’s first game. Meanwhile, in Leicester... There’s been a goal at Old Trafford #hoax Eleven games without a first-half goal at home! “As a Forest fan, the Foxes are bringing back fond memories of the 1977-78 season when we were promoted from the second division and promptly won the whole caboodle,” says Mark Turner. “Particular memories of Bob Wilson on Grandstand every Saturday lunchtime asking the world ‘When will the Forest bubble burst?’. It didn’t.” Southampton should be ahead at Old Trafford, but Victor Wanyama has wasted a great noggin-based chance. A fierce header from Harry Kane gives Spurs a deserved equaliser at Selhurst Park. It’s also Cardiff 2-2 Rotherham, and Anthony Pilkington has scored three of them: two at the right end and one in his own net. He needs one more own goal to match Chris Nicholl. “I always loved this goal from Pires,” says Patrick Rennie. “My favourite forgotten goal is Kewell for Leeds vs Arsenal at the end if the 02/03 season. Beautiful volley. But after a solid 45 seconds of searching YouTube I gave up and went for the Pires one instead.” Here’s that Kewell half-volley He scored some staggering goals at Leeds. Never mind #thepusher, someone in Manchester is killing off full-backs one by one. Matteo Darmian has been stretchered off. “Poor old Vermaelen is scapegoated, but the half-time tonic dispensed by Luis Enrique seems to have had the required effect,” says Charles Antaki. “Suárez, Iniesta and Messi have actually been on the ball in something approaching their usual miraculous fashion, and a goal ensues. Meanwhile Vermaelen sits on the bench and ponders what he might have done wrong in a previous life.” I know how he feels. Bet he’s never had to do a Clockwatch. Manchester United can’t score for love nor money but their exes can: first Danny Drinkwater and now Craig Cathcart, who has bulldozed Watford into a 2-0 lead against Newcastle. In a textbook demonstration of the principles of cause and effect, Manchester United have played much better since Juan Mata replaced Marouane Fellaini. “My favourite goal that no one else seems to remember was a ridiculous Lilian Nalis volley on the turn from about a million yards out, against Leeds, around 2003,” says Matt Dony. “I also remember it wasn’t the only screamer scored that day. It was an entertaining Match of the Day. As fantastic as that was, how many Leicester fans of the time imagined this season happening?” Apropos very little, this is the greatest tackle of all time. Our Sky feed has gone down. Oh well, that’s all from me then. Thanks for your emails, bye! As things stand, Leicester are 22 points ahead of the champions Chelsea. “I’m not sure how forgotten this goal is,” says Joe Macey, “but I’ve always liked it...” Odion Ighalo has given Watford the lead with a possibly offside goal. They will not care one solitary iota about that. “More surprising than Hellas Verona was 1. FC Kaiserslautern who won the Bundesliga in 1997/98 after being promoted the previous season,” says Florian Ranft. “If Leicester City win the league this season, where do they fare among the most shocking, out-of-nowhere title wins ever in Europe?” says Mikhail Ridhuan. “The only probable comparison I could think of off the top of my head is Hellas Verona in 1984-85.” I think this would be even more shocking, given the inequality of modern football. Sometimes we do overstate the significance of events, but in this case I can’t think of anything that would trump them - which is partly because it isn’t going to happen. Premier League Crystal Palace 1-0 Spurs Leicester 1-0 Stoke Man Utd 0-0 Southampton Sunderland 1-1 Bournemouth Watford 0-0 Newcastle West Brom 0-0 Aston Villa Championship Birmingham 1-0 Ipswich Bolton 2-0 MK Dons Brighton 1-1 Huddersfield Cardiff 1-1 Rotherham Charlton 1-1 Blackburn Fulham 0-0 Hull Leeds 0-0 Bristol City Middlesbrough 0-0 Nottm Forest Preston 1-2 Brentford Reading 0-1 Sheff Wed La Liga Málaga 1-1 Barcelona The way things are going, United should replace Louis van Gaal with Brian Eno. Two in two games for Patrick van Aanholt, and an important goal for Sunderland just before half-time. Can Manchester United score? They never score. “Vermaelen’s comedy routine has infected the rest of the Barcelona defence,” says Charles Antaki, “and under severe Malaga pressure the gaps are opening. There is so little play in Malaga’s half that you’d imagine that Iniesta, Messi and Suárez weren’t actually on the pitch. Malaga are something of a hoodoo team for Barcelona, and they’re taking some delight in showing it.” “Seems like not too many people care about what surely has to be the biggest game of the day, the West Midlands derby,” says JR in Illinois. “Well, I’m watching it. At the beginning I would have described the game as poor. It then became desperate. Shortly after that it turned diabolical, quickly followed by shocking, and then morphed into an abomination. Now it has become truly fugly. Can’t wait for the second half!” Come on Leicester! Claudio Ranieri’s team are going back to the top of the league as things stand after a deflected long-range strike from Danny Drinkwater. At Selhurst Park, Spurs are slaughtering Palace 0-1. “Here’s a little-known goal you might like,” says Mikael Rialland. That’s a belter. Actually, wasn’t that in Amelie? “I know it’s a football blog, but I’m watching the bowls on BBC1,” says Andrew, correctly identifying this clockwatch as a freeform shambles. “This is still my favourite YouTube clip of all time.” Sadio Mane has missed the best/only chance at Old Trafford. Tim Hill has the latest. Have some of that, Sebastiano Nela. “Over at Málaga v Barcelona, a priceless acrobatic twist and pike from old friend Vermaelen as he tumbles backwards and misses the ball,” writes Charles Antaki. “Then the Málaga attacker he lets through returns the compliment and falls over in the box, earning a card for diving. Otherwise as you were, Barça ahead 1-0.” There have been no goals at Old Trafford, and the scoreline flatters what has been a dismal game so far. Palace take the lead through an own-goal from Jan Vertonghen. That’s not just against the run of play; it’s an affront to the run of play. It’s Palace’s first goal in six games. West Brom 0-0 Aston Villa Villa should have had a penalty at the Hawthorns after a foul by Jonas Olsson on Jordan Ayew. I say this with complete confidence because Matt Le Tissier said it with complete confidence on Soccer Saturday. It’s just like being there, isn’t it? “Dundee United have scored one and had another chopped off in a completely dominant opening 15 minutes,” says Simon McMahon. “I think we both know how this is going to end.” Championship Only two goals so far: Bolton lead MK Dons, and Sheffield Wednesday are ahead at Reading. “Actually Rob,” says Conor McDevitt, “Blind registered a shot on target in the first 15. Outside the box too!” Ach, I’m sacking my data flunky. Jack Butland has denied Jamie Vardy at the King Power Stadium, where it’s still Leicester 0-0 Stoke. “Forgotten? I doubt that many in the UK were ever aware of this,” says Steve. “The second goal’s not bad either.” In other news, here’s a shameless plug There have been no shots on target in the first 15 minutes at Old Trafford. That’s not news, is it? Bournemouth’s big-money signing Benik Afobe has given them a deserved lead at the Stadium of Light with a stooping header. Apparently Jurgen Klopp broken his glasses during Liverpool’s celebrations at Carrow Road. Opta stats show he’s the first manager to have his glasses knocked off his face in a televised match since Chesterfield’s John Duncan at Old Trafford in 1997. That was the same match in which Gordon McQueen wasn’t quite able to calm his nerves as he’d have liked. Bolton lead the MK Dons 1-0, thanks to a decisive finish from Rob Holding. It’s just like being there, isn’t it? “Aaaah those blissful opening exchanges when one is allowed to dream,” says Alex Simpson, mistaking this for First Dates – Live! “After today, as the Canaries are next up for the ‘mighty Villa’, I have enjoyed a little reverie imagining six points garnered & have dared to dream. Then reality seeps in...” It’s definitely a seeper, is reality. There are 16 games remaining for most Premier League sides. If anybody in the top six can put together a decent run – say 12 wins, three draws and a defeat – they will probably win the league. A precis of all the action so far: Peep peep! It’s 3pm, let’s get this done. Something to pass the time while the football’s going on What’s your favourite forgotten or little-known goal? This is one of mine, a technically immaculate volley from Gordon Hill. And here’s another. Animal “You have to worry about Dundee United,” writes Charles Antaki. “Not only has it been many moons since Simon McMahon described them as Mighty or World-Renowned, he’s now reduced right down to a resigned-sounding exhortation to “Come On!”. Terrible times at Tannadice?” On that subject, are there any decent books about the New Firm? If not, could somebody please write one? Ta! It’s Norwich 4-5 Liverpool, and Scott Murray’s fingers are weeping. Liverpool have come from 3-1 down to lead 4-3 at Norwich. Scott Murray has all the news. The team news from Spain “Afternoon Rob,” chirps Simon McMahon. “Forget game of the day, Scotland’s game of the season takes place at, where else, Tannadice today as Dundee United prepare to face Kilmarnock in what has become a six-pointer, cup final and visit to the last chance saloon rolled into one. United start 14 points behind Killie, but with a game in hand. Lose and United are as good as down. A win would give faint hope that, like the Boxing Days of yore, the great escape could be on. Other SPFL fixtures are Celtic v. St. Johnstone, Inverness v. Partick and Motherwell v. Ross County, but all eyes are on Tannadice, with a bumper crowd expected on a perfect day for football. Come on United!” If you’d like to follow Man Utd v Southampton, we have a special sideways-pass-by-sideways-pass report here. Crystal Palace v Spurs Crystal Palace: Hennessey, Ward, Dann, Delaney, Souare, McArthur, Ledley, Puncheon, Cabaye, Zaha, Wickham. Subs: Speroni, Campbell, Lee, Jedinak, Mutch, Chamakh, Kelly. Tottenham Hotspur: Lloris, Trippier, Alderweireld, Vertonghen, Rose, Dier, Dembele, Son, Alli, Eriksen, Kane. Subs: Bentaleb, Lamela, Vorm, Chadli, Wimmer, Carroll, Davies. Referee: Martin Atkinson (W Yorkshire) Leicester v Stoke Leicester: Schmeichel, Simpson, Morgan, Huth, Fuchs, Drinkwater, Kante, Mahrez, Okazaki, Albrighton, Vardy. Subs: King, Gray, Ulloa, Dyer, Wasilewski, Schwarzer, Inler. Stoke: Butland, Johnson, Shawcross, Wollscheid, Pieters, Whelan, Afellay, Shaqiri, Walters, Diouf, Joselu. Subs: Odemwingie, Wilson, van Ginkel, Adam, Crouch, Krkic, Haugaard. Referee: Mike Dean (Wirral) Man Utd v Southampton Man Utd: De Gea, Darmian, Smalling, Blind, Borthwick-Jackson, Schneiderlin, Fellaini, Lingard, Ander Herrera, Martial, Rooney. Subs: Depay, Mata, Januzaj, Romero, Varela, McNair, Andreas Pereira. Southampton: Forster, Cedric Soares, van Dijk, Fonte, Bertrand, Wanyama, Clasie, Tadic, Mane, Targett, Long. Subs: Yoshida, Romeu, Martina, Ward-Prowse, Juanmi, Stekelenburg, Austin. Referee: Mike Jones (Cheshire) Sunderland v Bournemouth Sunderland: Mannone, Jones, Brown, O’Shea, Van Aanholt, M’Vila, Cattermole, Johnson, Lens, Borini, Defoe. Subs: Rodwell, N’Doye, Pickford, Coates, Yedlin, Fletcher, Watmore. Bournemouth: Boruc, Smith, Francis, Cook, Daniels, Surman, Pugh, Gosling, Arter, Stanislas, Afobe. Subs: Iturbe, Federici, Distin, Murray, Grabban, Ritchie, O’Kane. Referee: Roger East (Wiltshire) Watford v Newcastle Watford: Gomes, Paredes, Cathcart, Britos, Ake, Behrami, Capoue, Watson, Jurado, Deeney, Ighalo. Subs: Pantilimon, Amrabat, Nyom, Prodl, Guedioura, Anya, Abdi. Newcastle: Elliot, Janmaat, Mbemba, Coloccini, Lascelles, Saivet, Shelvey, Sissoko, Wijnaldum, Aarons, Mitrovic. Subs: Gouffran, Perez, Thauvin, Darlow, Taylor, Riviere, Marveaux. Referee: Andre Marriner (West Midlands) West Brom v Aston Villa West Brom: Foster, Dawson, McAuley, Olsson, Evans, Gardner, Yacob, Fletcher, McClean, Sessegnon, Rondon. Subs: Chester, Anichebe, Myhill, Pocognoli, Lambert, Berahino, McManaman. Aston Villa: Bunn, Bacuna, Okore, Lescott, Richards, Cissokho, Gil, Westwood, Gana, Ayew, Kozak. Subs: Guzan, Clark, Sinclair, Veretout, Lyden, Gestede, Grealish. Referee: Robert Madley (West Yorkshire) Norwich lead Liverpool 2-1 at Carrow Road. The peerless Scott Murray is following that match. This afternoon, Leicester and Barcelona will attempt to return to the top of their respective leagues. Leicester and Barcelona. Just think about that for a second, let it marinate, because it really is a wonderful thing. Whatever happens in the next few months, Leicester are the story of the 2015-16 English season. They have given hope that, after a decade of tedious predictability, England’s main football competition might actually be competitive again. Today they are at home to Stoke, and will return to the top – for a few hours at least – if they draw the match. There are some other good-looking games too, not least Crystal Palace at home to one of the more impressive Spurs side of the last 55 years. These are some of the fixtures we’ll be frantically following this afternoon during this afternoon’s CLOCKO™. Premier League Crystal Palace v Spurs Leicester v Stoke Man Utd v Southampton Sunderland v Bournemouth Watford v Newcastle West Brom v Aston Villa Championship Birmingham v Ipswich Bolton v MK Dons Brighton v Huddersfield Cardiff v Rotherham Charlton v Blackburn Fulham v Hull Leeds v Bristol City Middlesbrough v Nottm Forest Preston v Brentford Reading v Sheff Wed La Liga Málaga v Barcelona
US newspapers unite in disgust at Donald Trump's attack on Clinton Donald Trump’s “assassination threat” against Hillary Clinton appears to have united US newspapers against him. From coast to coast across the States, papers carried negative headlines and articles about the Republican presidential candidate after his extraordinary remarks about his Democrat rival. The poster-style front page of the New York Daily News said: “This isn’t a joke any more: when Trump hinted gun-rights supporters shoot Hillary, he went from offensive to reckless. He must end his campaign. If he doesn’t, the GOP needs to abandon him.” The Los Angeles Times’s front page carried a picture of Trump speaking with the main headline “Off message” and a sub-deck saying, “The nominee is trumped by again by his own words.” In the New York Times, an editorial, “Further into the muck with Mr Trump”, stated: “Seldom, if ever, have Americans been exposed to a candidate so willing to descend to the depths of bigotry and intolerance as Mr Trump. That he would make Tuesday’s comment amid sinking poll numbers and a wave of Republican defections suggests that when bathed in the adulation of a crowd, Mr Trump is unable to control himself.” The paper’s columnist, Thomas Friedman, in a piece headlined “Trump’s ambiguous wink wink to ‘second amendment people’”, argued that it was the kind of menacing language reminiscent of the extremist talk that led to the assassination of Israel’s prime minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995. Even though Trump was making a bad joke, there will be people who don’t get it and, instead, hear only the big message. Friedman concluded: “People are playing with fire here, and there is no bigger flamethrower than Donald Trump. Forget politics; he is a disgusting human being. His children should be ashamed of him. I only pray that he is not simply defeated, but that he loses all 50 states so that the message goes out across the land — unambiguously, loud and clear: The likes of you should never come this way again.” That message was certainly to the fore in other American newspapers, from the Washington Post (“Trump decried for gun remark”) to the Denver Post (“Shooting off his mouth”), and from the Chicago Tribune (“Trump’s comments stir up new firestorm”) to the Wisconsin State Journal (“Trump seen as pushing violence”). Online outlets were similarly critical. Politico carried the line “Trump’s loaded words fuel campaign freefall” while the Huffington Post simply said “No more.” But Trump still appears to have some support. In an interview after his controversial speech with Fox News (prop: Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp), Sean Hannity didn’t so much let Trump off the hook as give him a lifeline. After playing a clip of Trump’s comments, Hannity said to him: “So, obviously you are saying that there’s a strong political movement within the second amendment, and if people mobilise and vote they can stop Hillary from having this impact on the court. But that’s not how the media is spinning it.” In other words, here’s the answer I want you to give. You didn’t mean anything by it, did you? Trump was delighted. As the Daily Beast reported, he even dared to suggest that the controversy was a “good thing” for him because it will inform more people about his pro-gun stance. Truly, with Donald Trump, you couldn’t make it up... and you don’t need to.
Big Four banks benefit from regulator's featherlight approach Expectations were low and the Competition and Markets Authority barely met them. If that sounds cruel, consider the painful moment at the end of the mid-morning press conference when Alasdair Smith, chair of the retail banking investigation, was asked to say who apart from the British Bankers’ Association lobby group welcomed the report. Smith mentioned Citizens Advice and then paused. The silence was broken only by a colleague’s assertion that positive responses were still, apparently, “rolling in”. Really? To be fair to Smith, the CMA was never going to be allowed to host a fireworks display. The chief grumble from the “challenger” banks – the likes of Metro Bank – is that their competitive ambitions are constrained by the need to hold disproportionate amounts of capital. But the little ol’ CMA can’t tread on the Bank of England’s territory. Equally, the tempting option of breaking up the “big four” lenders would have carried political risks. Royal Bank of Scotland, currently making the job of spinning off 600 branches resemble the labours of Hercules, has destroyed appetite for structural upheaval. As for abolishing free-if-in-credit banking – and thus exposing the hidden costs to consumers of current accounts – the politicians know there are no votes in the idea. Thus the CMA, while describing competitive pressures as weak, produced a hotchpotch of remedies that amount to nudges, prompts and tweaks. There will be a “cap” on charges for unarranged overdrafts but each bank can set its own rate. The CMA wants to push better comparison websites to encourage customers to switch accounts; banks will be obliged to adopt the necessary open-data software. And, in the small-business market, tech-minded whizzkids will be offered a prize to invent comparison tools. That was about it. The hard – and depressing – reality about competition in the banking market is that the pivotal moment was the day in September 2008, in the middle of crisis, that the Labour government allowed Lloyds TSB to buy HBOS to prevent an even bigger banking meltdown. A new market leader was created and competition objections were ignored. Some Labour politicians plead in their defence that they expected the Lloyds/HBOS merger to be unwound by a future competition watchdog. That hasn’t happened this time, and now probably never will. One of these decades, the FinTech revolution, already seen in the rise of peer-to-peer lending, may succeed in injecting some real competition by changing the definition of what it means to be a bank. Until then, though, we’re stuck with the CMA’s attempt to make the current lot “work harder for customers” while hitting them with a feather. Vodafone’s organic approach finally pays dividends Vittorio Colao, Vodafone’s chief executive, has been talking for ages about reaching a turning point and here it is: the first increase in “organic” revenues and top-line profits since 2008. It hasn’t come cheaply. Vodafone has spent £19bn in the past two years, including a necessary extra £7bn under “Project Spring” to get its 4G and data capabilities up to competitive strength. If investors worried that heavy spending would become permanent – and that Project Summer would follow – there is no evidence to suggest so. The statistics for growth in broadband, mobile data, business customers and emerging markets all look healthy. The only blemish was a botched billing system in the UK. The wider picture is that Vodafone’s dividend, costing £3bn-a-year, looks more affordable that at any time since the $130bn (£84bn) sale of the Verizon Wireless stake in 2014, which was followed by a mammoth return of cash to shareholders. Vodafone is a duller company these days – at least until the deal-making starts afresh. But its profit predictions are generally accurate and the dividend yield is 5%. Hard to quibble with that. Mike Ashley’s chopper offer is fine for travel agents but not MPs Roll up, roll up, who wants a ride in Mike Ashley’s helicopter? Unfortunately, this offer is available only to members of the Commons select committee on business, innovation and skills. The Sports Direct founder wants its MPs to visit him at the company’s Shirebrook warehouse – travelling in his chopper or their charabanc, or whatever – and then he will graciously appear in front of the committee the next day in Westminster. If they value the dignity of their office, the MPs’ reply to Ashley’s invitation should be a firm no. It’s their inquiry into working practices at Sports Direct and witnesses can’t be allowed to attach conditions to their appearance. Hear from Ashley in Westminster and then decide if a trip to Derbyshire would be useful. Remember, dear MPs, you’re running a parliamentary inquiry, not a travel agency.
Best track of 2016: Work by Rihanna There was a school of thought, loudly expressed at the time of the song’s release, that Work was not sufficiently commercial to be a Rihanna single. It certainly sounded pretty understated compared to its blockbusting predecessors: the Paul McCartney and Kanye West collaboration FourFiveSeconds, the controversial and provocative Bitch Better Have My Money, the epic, dubstep-infused ballad American Oxygen. R&B stars seldom have hits with skeletal dancefloor tracks sung in thick patois, even if they are decorated with a guest verse by Drake. The last time anything like that topped the US charts was a decade ago, when Sean Paul was at the height of his fame. At least one critic opined that Work sounded unfinished. The critics had a point about how minimal it was – there’s almost nothing to Work beyond a beat, a bassline, a vocal and an extremely subtly deployed interpolation from Alexander O’Neil’s mid-80s Mellow Magic-friendly smoocher If You Were Here Tonight – but otherwise they couldn’t have been more wrong. Work turned out to be 2016’s omnipresent hit: it topped the charts from Brazil to Belgium, its success paving the way for more dancehall-influenced pop hits, including Sia’s Cheap Thrills. It happened because everything about Work clicks: it is perfect pop songwriting that blithely ignores most current trends in pop. There’s no big chorus, but the hook burrows into your brain; the rhythm feels off-kilter but propels everything forward; Rihanna’s performance is coolly restrained but really appealing. Meanwhile, the lyrics were snappy and smart – “You took my heart off my sleeve” – and there was something really appealing about the way Drake’s cameo appearance played against Rihanna’s vocal. He begs, he pleads, he turns on the charm (“If you had a twin I would still chose you”) and he does that passive-aggressive Drake thing of subtly implying he’s somehow morally superior to his amorata: “Who am I to hold your past against you?” She tells him to get stuffed: “Nuh time to have your lurking.” Given that she’s dealing withR&B’s king of injured feelings, there’s something particularly piquant about the kiss-off: “Me nuh cyar if him hurting.” Work works perfectly: proof that subtlety trumps glitz, that you don’t need spectacular fireworks if everything already sparks. writers’ top tracks of 2016 Rihanna – Work Beyoncé – Formation Frank Ocean – Ivy Mitski – Your Best American Girl Skepta – Man Kanye West – Famous Christine and the Queens – iT David Bowie – Lazarus Whitney – No Woman Tegan and Sara – Boyfriend Kano – GarageSkankFREESTYLE Young M.A – Ooouuu Dave ft AJ Tracey – Thiago Silva The Monkees – Me & Magdelena Babyfather – Skywalker Freestyle
Dexys, the band who confound you with their strangeness – and then their brilliance Should you be surprised that the new Dexys video – for their cover version of the Friends of Distinction’s 1969 hit Grazing in the Grass – features Kevin Rowland dancing around London Fields in turn-ups Edward VII would have been proud of, surrounded by young women in vintage dress while his band magnificently ham it up for backing vocals? Perhaps. But only if you know nothing of Dexys. If there’s one thing you can safely predict about what Rowland and his band might do next, it’s that you won’t be able to predict it. This year’s Let the Record Show: Dexys Do Irish and Country Soul is evidence of that – a record that features several songs that are neither Irish nor country (such as, well, Grazing in the Grass, not to mention Joni Mitchell’s Both Sides Now), and a record of cover versions that stands besides a press release in which Rowland boldly stated: “These songs aren’t cover versions, they’re personal interpretations.” Rowland has a long history of sidestepping expectations to forge his own path. Dexys’ 1980 debut, Searching for the Young Soul Rebels, was contrary before they had much of a reputation to contradict. With its emphasis on musicianship and a respect for soul heritage, it challenged stereotypes of what a punk-influenced band should do. The follow-up, 1982’s Too-Rye-Ay, was a complete reinvention. The group’s brass entourage was forced to learn fiddles to replicate a Celtic soul sound similar to that found on Let the Record Show, while the band’s uniform switched from the style of Martin Scorsese’s Mean Streets to denim dungarees and neckerchiefs. Don’t Stand Me Down, released in 1985, was an even more extreme switch: the band now sported smart Ivy League-inspired suits for a series of lengthy pieces, often spoken word, that explored Irish identity, teenage romance and the drab conformity of pop culture. (“It all sounded the same,” runs the chorus of One of Those Things.) This last point seems especially pertinent. Dexys have never been a band you could throw that insult at. Isn’t this what we should demand from our artists? That they constantly surprise and delight us, risk confusing and upsetting us, occasionally make us cringe when they get it wrong, and then force us to applaud when we realise what they were getting at all along? Certainly that was the case for me and Rowland’s 1999 solo album My Beauty, which seemed a bizarre move. Rowland, who appeared on the sleeve in stockings and a pearl necklace, performed a series of cover versions of songs by Whitney Houston and the Monkees. He was suffering from mental distress at the time, but he managed to pour this into the music as honestly as he knew how. It was only after going through a similarly unstable period myself that I truly began to hear where he was coming from. I realised that these weren’t cover versions at all – they were personal interpretations. For all his unpredictability, Rowland would never be so crass as to do these things simply to provoke a reaction. As he told me in 2012: “Riling people is boring. Punks were doing that 30 years ago, there’s no point in me doing it.” Neither is he simply setting out to be surreal or wacky. He doesn’t confound for the sake of it. There will not be a Dexys album about Star Trek performed by the band dressed as Peppa Pig. Whatever they do, it will always fit somehow into the wider Dexys vision, which undertakes each artistic step with utmost seriousness. Last month, I covered Glastonbury for the ’s live blog. The headliners were Adele and Coldplay. Their music was familiar and comforting – hardly stuff to set the pulse racing, but oddly apt during a period of post-Brexit instability. What two artists could possibly embody the “it all sounded the same” culture more than Adele and Coldplay? When Chris Martin speaks of taking their sound into adventurous new arenas, it usually means they’ve added in a gentle disco beat somewhere. With Coldplay, you know exactly what their next five albums will sound like. Of course, you can argue that every artist has a place in music, but let there always be one for a band like Dexys. They set out to please nobody and serve nothing but their own distinct artistic vision – and by doing so, keep their fans constantly on their toes.
The Donald and Mike show has begun – 60 Minutes was the first installment In his awkward, halting joint interview with his new running mate, Mike Pence, Sunday night, Donald Trump offered a preview of what could be a very uncomfortable week in Cleveland for Republican standard bearers. Trump has tried to obfuscate the lack of political star power in the convention lineup by putting his progeny in speaker seats usually occupied by the likes of past Republican presidents (the only ones living refuse to attend). But he’ll need more than blood relatives to spare him the indignity of being left at the altar by party insiders. If there was anything redeeming in the 60 Minutes interview, it was the hope that Pence can translate Trump’s racially tinged blather into something more palatable to party operatives. Heading into the convention starting Monday in Cleveland, where each day will have a “Make America ____ Again” theme (perhaps the most ironic of which is “Make America One Again”), Pence will have his work cut out for him when it comes to converting the Republican luminaries to Trump’s cause. After all, George W Bush’s decision not to attend this year violates the unwritten rule of modern history under which all former presidents have attended their party’s convention directly after leaving office. And the last two Republican nominees have followed suit. It’s hard to blame them. Trump dubbed one of those nominees, the former prisoner of war John McCain, “not a hero” – as the real estate mogul explained, “I like people who weren’t captured” – while he dubbed Bush’s brother Jeb “low energy” and overly reliant on his “mommy”. That’s supposedly where Pence comes to the rescue. The mild-mannered midwesterner is known for his Christian values and discipline of message, particularly with regard to his anti-abortion crusade. And if his appearance on 60 Minutes Sunday is any indication, serving as a political ambassador to needlessly spurned Republican authority figures is not the only place where he’ll come in handy. Pence’s fluency in the art of political interviewing, which involves saying what you want to say rather than answering the question asked, was on full display in his sit-down with Lesley Stahl at Trump’s residence in New York. When questioned on whether he would support waterboarding as an interrogation technique as Trump has previously, for instance, Pence talked in reasonably eloquent circles for so long that his interviewer, after interjecting 10 times ineffectually, was reduced to asking, “Have you answered me?” He responded, “I have.” Another time, when asked about Trump’s notorious plan to ban all Muslims from entering the country, a move Pence has previously called “offensive and unconstitutional”, he engaged in a sort of abstract political thought experiment. “When the circumstances arise where I have a difference on policy or on presentation,” he offered obscurely, he would “walk into the president’s office, close the door” and say something vaguely noble or heartfelt. Never mind that Pence had just done the opposite on the concrete issue at hand, walking back his criticism of Trump’s Muslim ban shortly after being picked as his vice-presidential candidate; he’d rather paint a little picture of his heart-to-heart with President Trump about nothing in particular. Trump, meanwhile, was as braggadocious as ever in their first joint interview, referring to himself in the third person and saying very earnestly to Stahl at one point, “I think I’m much more humble than you would understand.” Though Trump insisted the reason he had chosen Pence had to do with “chemistry”, the two men have yet to display much chumminess. And in a weekend press conference announcing Pence as his running mate, Trump talked almost entirely about himself. Some reports indicate just before the announcement on Friday, Trump tried to get out of selecting Pence at all, though campaign aides deny it. Other rumors are easier to kill. For as long as Trump’s been running, for instance, there’s been talk of a Republican insurrection at the convention this week. But with a formidable Hillary Clinton to beat and no viable next-best options, such talk looks increasingly idle. Instead, the lead-up to this week has suggested another more straightforward path: that the party will seek to make adult sentences out of Trump’s elementary babble, channelling his violence-inducing anger into a political message that party insiders can actually decipher, and maybe even endorse. Though Trump may not like the guy doing the translating, and would clearly rather have the stage to himself, he seems to recognize Pence is a good candidate for the job. And he made it clear a number of times Sunday. “I like that answer,” Trump said to Pence’s response on enhanced interrogation. Another time, though it was admittedly in response to Pence praising him rather than policy, Trump offered an effusive, “I love what he just said.” The week is just beginning in Cleveland, but if Pence and his people can continue to spin the straw of Trump’s bluster into messaging gold, the Republican party may have, in the nick of time, found its Rumpelstiltskin.
Why is the pound falling and what are the implications for Britain? The pound has slumped to a seven-year low against the dollar after David Cameron fired the starting gun on a four-month battle to determine the UK’s future in Europe. Ratings agency Moody’s has also warned that Britain’s strong credit score would be at risk if the public vote to leave the EU. On financial markets, investors are gearing up for choppy trading between now and the 23 June vote. So why is sterling under pressure? What does it mean for you? And why do we care about the UK’s credit rating? Why is the pound weakening? In simple terms, investors are worried about the UK’s economic prospects if it leaves the EU and so they are more reluctant to hold sterling-denominated assets. Even before the referendum outcome is known the economy could suffer, say economists. Businesses do not like uncertainty and so exports, investment and overall growth could all be hampered, they say. Economists are not unanimous about a Brexit being negative for the economy, with some making the point that the UK could end up better off in the long term. But currency markets focus on near-term risks. Traders say the pressure on the pound has been intensified by news that the London mayor, Boris Johnson, and his fellow Tory heavyweight justice secretary Michael Gove have joined the leave campaign. Johnson in particular is seen as a big boost for the Brexit camp. Economists at the investment bank Citi have raised the probability of a vote to leave to from between 20%-30% to between 30%-40% since Gove and Johnson came out in favour. There is also the impact on interest rates. The Bank of England was already widely expected to keep borrowing costs at their record low of 0.5% throughout the first half of this year and well beyond. The June referendum has snuffed out any lingering expectation of an imminent rise, given policymakers will want to know the outcome of the vote before raising borrowing costs. What does a weaker pound mean for consumers? Those taking overseas holidays will find their trips more expensive. There are now fewer euros or dollars for your pounds. There is also an impact on prices in the UK. The cost of anything that is imported rises when sterling falls. So if the fall in the pound persists, it could be reflected in pricier petrol and in a rise in the cost of some foods and electronic goods. British expats will also suffer from a weaker pound. The hundreds of thousands of Britons living in Spain and France who depend on salaries or pensions paid in sterling will see their purchasing power fall in their adopted nations. How does a weaker pound affect businesses? For exporters, the drop in sterling makes their goods cheaper overseas and could help lift flagging demand. Until recently, manufacturers had been complaining that a relatively strong pound was hampering their competitiveness and contributing to a slowdown in the factory sector. On the other hand, a weaker pound is bad news for those importing raw materials such as metals. Their costs go up when sterling falls. Smaller firms will feel the effects of referendum uncertainty most, says Jeremy Cook, chief economist at World First, a currency exchange company: “The uncertainty over the coming months will now place great pressure on businesses, especially SMEs which are exporters and importers, as their balance sheets have far less ability to absorb major currency swings compared with their larger counterparts.” Will the pound fall further? Many currency experts seem to think so. There were a few voices on Monday saying the pound’s Boris-battering was overdone but plenty more are warning that the pound will be pushed lower still over the coming months as traders remain jittery. The mood on markets is not helped by mistrust in opinion polls after their misjudgment over last year’s general election result. Currency strategists at the bank ING say the markets have yet to register the cost of the UK leaving the EU. Recent moves in the pound are more a result of the outlook for interest rates and the global economy, says ING. In a research note entitled “You ain’t seen nothing yet”, the bank comments: “The role of Brexit in steering recent pound price action can be likened to a rollercoaster warming up with some small twists and turns before an inevitable sharp drop.” The pound hit a seven-year low against the dollar of $1.4057 on Monday. Nicholas Laser-Ebisch, analyst at foreign exchange company Caxton FX, predicts sterling will continue to weaken over the next four months. “Inflation, Bank of England meetings, and other economic indicators will likely not carry as much weight between now and June when it comes to the value of the pound, as the major factor in the back of everyone’s mind will be whether or not the UK will still be an EU country at the end of the summer,” he says. What has happened to the UK’s credit score? Nothing yet. But there have been warnings the UK could be downgraded in the event of a vote to leave the EU. Credit ratings agencies assign scores to governments’ creditworthiness around the world to help investors gauge the relative risks of buying bonds issued by those countries. The UK has a strong credit score with the three of the big ratings agencies, but all have warned of potential Brexit costs. A lower credit rating would mean the UK having to pay more to borrow, which would make it harder for George Osborne to meet his deficit reduction targets. What are ratings agencies worried about? They fear that a vote to leave the EU could hurt investment in the UK, dampen exports and thereby hit overall economic growth. UK is rated Aa1 by Moody’s, one notch below the top triple-A score. The agency says that in the event of a Britain voting to leave the EU it will consider assigning a “negative outlook” to that rating, compared with a “stable” outlook now. Such an outlook would imply a greater chance of downgrading that rating in the future. Rival agency Fitch warns that leaving the EU could bring both short-term disruption and long-term risks for the UK. “Lengthy negotiations and uncertainty over UK firms’ future access to EU markets following a vote to leave in the upcoming referendum on EU membership would weigh on confidence and delay investment decisions,” the agency says in an update. “This would have a short-term economic cost, although the precise impact would be highly uncertain.” Standard & Poor’s, the only big ratings agency still giving Britain the top triple-A ranking, has also flagged risks from the referendum to the UK’s financial services sector, its exports, and the wider economy.
Rihanna: Anti review – heartfelt bid for freedom Given the delays, rumours, and absurdist levels of cross-platform marketing the 27-year-old star’s people have been engaged in for the past several months, Rihanna’s eighth album, Anti, was always likely to be something of an anticlimax. Allegedly released for free after it was accidentally leaked on Wednesday, Anti has been heralded for months by coy videos with lavish production values. This collection of 13 songs, however, draws back from the haunted rococo conceptualising of the teasers and offers up a product curiously divorced from its marketing; a star apparently chucking a wooden clog into the song machine. “I’m tired of being played like a violin,” she sings on Love on the Brain. Likewise, Consideration chafes at a lover’s restrictiveness, Rihanna’s Caribbean tones bolder than usual. “Will you ever respect me?” she sings, “Will you ever let me grow?” It doesn’t take a forensic librarian to read between the lines. None of Rihanna’s recent singles – such as Bitch Better Have My Money – are on Anti; the established creatives (Calvin Harris, Stargate et al) are conspicuous by their absence. The only song here that sounds like a conventional single is Work, a duet with Drake produced by Boi-1da. It promises much. The real-life chemistry between Rihanna and Drake is legend – past instalments include What’s My Name, Take Care – but here, despite the heated lyrics (“work” isn’t labour, put it that way), it feels like the two stars are really just clocking in, singing a pale coda to their on-off courtship. Eschewing huge choruses and established practice, Anti feels a little like a cross between Christina Aguilera’s Bionic album of 2010 – in which the then-massive pop star took a brave, doomed punt on a leftfield approach – and Miley Cyrus & Her Dead Petz, the singer’s daffy, off-piste offering of 2015. Like Miley, Rihanna really likes getting high (her 2010 album Loud was named for high-quality weed). The nicely jazzy, stoned interlude of James Joint finds Rihanna out of her box, kissing someone whose “history” is of interest to the police. Miley borrowed Wayne Coyne from psychedelic indie rock for her Dead Petz. On Same Ol’ Mistakes, Rihanna raids the last Tame Impala album. She has literally put on that band’s New Person, Same Old Mistakes, wiped the vocal and recorded her own karaoke version. It’s actually rather good, hearing the most famously bored-sounding R&B siren in the world expand her remit so unexpectedly. Looking to take further positives from Anti, the diversity on offer – south-western twangling (Desperado), horizontal R&B (Yeah, I Said It), old-time cadences – is refreshing. “I know I could be more creative,” sings Rihanna on the startlingly raw waltz, Higher. Again, it’s notionally addressed to a lover. But we’re onto her. There is nothing wrong with Rihanna’s default dead-eyed vixen delivery – it’s one of the seven wonders of the pop world. But ironically, she actually sings the hell out of this record. If only more of these songs could actually carry the weight of Rihanna’s bid for freedom – a bid that is, ultimately, half-baked.
Arsène Wenger’s referee complaints ridiculed by Ronald Koeman Ronald Koeman ridiculed Arsène Wenger for claiming the referee Mark Clattenburg was responsible for Arsenal’s defeat at Everton as the visitors missed the chance to overtake Chelsea at the top of the Premier League. Arsenal’s 14-game unbeaten run was ended at a raucous Goodison Park, where Everton recovered from Alexis Sánchez’s deflected opener to win through headers from Séamus Coleman and Ashley Williams. Williams struck in the 86th minute from a Ross Barkley corner, the second in quick succession. Wenger claimed the first corner should not have been awarded when a header by Dominic Calvert-Lewin, Everton’s 19-year-old debutant, appeared to have been deflected wide. “Of course it was no corner. You can see it was no corner but we have to live with the wrong decision,” the Arsenal manager said. “The referee made his decision but that does not explain why we did not head the ball. I am really disappointed in Mr Clattenburg. He is in a really good position to see it and it is not the first time we are really unlucky with his decisions.” Clattenburg awarded what Wenger labelled “a soft penalty” against Arsenal in last month’s 1-1 draw with Tottenham Hotspur. His complaint on Tuesday night prompted a sarcastic response from Koeman, who was involved in a tunnel bust-up with the Arsenal manager while in charge of Southampton last season and delighted in Everton’s first win in six matches. “I am not surprised about Wenger and his comments,” the Everton manager said. “It is the third time in a row I won at home against Arsenal as a manager and three times in a row it was about the referee. I’m sorry, Arsenal – we won through the referee’s decision. I’m sorry.” The defeat was Arsenal’s first on the road in the Premier League since losing at Manchester United on 28 February and Wenger admitted his side struggled after a confident start in the face of Everton’s determined display. “We have to look at ourselves,” he said. “We lost the game. We started well and after that lost a bit of urgency. We were maybe a bit too comfortable and Everton made it very physical. I believe they disturbed our game and we created less. In the end, unfortunately, we didn’t take our chance or two. We didn’t create too many but we had one or two clearcut and didn’t take them. “We had nine months unbeaten away from home so you have to take it sometimes. You can lose a game, especially in this atmosphere away from home. We played five or six games away from home and it is a difficult schedule for teams in the Champions League.” Koeman shared Wenger’s assessment that Everton’s aggression after a poor start was responsible for turning the game in their favour. “The key was how we played after 20 minutes,” he said. “That was the team what we like to see, what the fans like to see – you go face to face, aggression, pressing, playing football and go for it. “How we start the game, you don’t win any game like that because the team was nervous. I can understand a lack of confidence but we played every ball back, we make it difficult for each other and then it is no chance against Arsenal. They are too good. “The weakness is if you go face to face, you are aggressive, you run and you go. You need a bit of luck, what happens in the last 20 seconds, but we deserved the win. We came back with great character. If you show that aggression and commitment, it is difficult to beat Everton at Goodison Park.”
RBS accedes to Bank of England call to pass rate cut to customers Royal Bank of Scotland has cut its lending rates for homebuyers, leaving Lloyds Banking Group as the last major lender holding out against the Bank of England’s call to pass on Thursday’s interest rate cut to borrowers. The sudden announcement by RBS came on Friday just hours after the bank, which is 73% owned by the taxpayer, had insisted that a decision would not be made immediately to reduce its standard variable rate (SVR) from 4%. When the Bank of England cut interest rates from 0.5% to 0.25% on Thursday to counter a downturn in the economy after the Brexit vote, its governor, Mark Carney, told bankers there would be no excuses for not passing on the rate to customers. The RBS cut took its SVR to 3.75% and will also affect NatWest customers. It came as Lloyds, which is 9% owned by the taxpayer, said it was still reviewing its 3.99% SVR on Friday, but that it had already passed on the cut to those who had products which tracked the base rate. The other government-backed lender, UK Asset Resolution, which owns some Northern Rock and Bradford & Bingley mortgages approved before the credit crunch, also cut its SVR, while HSBC announced earlier on Friday it would reduce its to 3.69%. Many borrowers have moved to fixed rates or have loans that track the base rate, but nearly a third of mortgage customers – 2.2 million people – are on a lender’s SVR. Some customers are left on theses rates because they are unable to shift their loan to more competitive providers because of blemished credit histories or a fall in their value of the property. Lenders tend to have discretion over raising or lowering their SVRs. The mortgage lender Kent Reliance has the highest at 6.08%, and other lenders charge SVR customers more than 5.5%. David Hollingworth, of broker L&C Mortgages, said: “More should be done to help borrowers move between lenders as well as ensure they have options with their current lender and are not left to sit on a high SVR because the lender knows they can’t move. “It’s important to remember that not all borrowers are paying SVR purely through apathy and have seen their options curtailed by tighter [lending] criteria in recent years.” Hollingworth calculated that monthly payments on a typical £150,000 repayment mortgage are £792 at a 4% rate, while the same mortgage at 6.08% would cost £974 a month. A customer with a two-year fixed rate at 0.99% would pay just £564 month – a huge saving and a big boost to family spending power. Ray Boulger, of the independent mortgage brokers John Charcol, said passing on rate cuts in full should be a requirement for banks taking part in a newly announced funding scheme, which was also announced by the Bank of England on Thursday. The new “term funding scheme” (TFS) could provide up to £100bn of new funding to banks but will charge them a penalty rate if they do not lend out the fresh funds. Carney told lenders the scheme had been designed to relieve the pain on profits that banks would take as interest rates fell. Low interest rates are problematic for banks because they narrow the gap between what they pay to savers and charge to lenders. RBS sparked controversy last week by writing to 1.3 million small-business customers to warn them it might want to charge them for making deposits if interest rates turned negative. McEwan said he did not expect this to happen, despite sending out the letters. Carney insisted on Thursday that he was not a fan of negative rates. This view was backed by one of his deputies, Ben Broadbent, who told Reuters the TFS scheme would not be a backdoor way to introduce negative interest rates directly to banks without a cut to the headline rate. Broadbent said: “There are limits for us, too. We would not want to offer that finance at hugely negative interest rates, because we would be making losses ourselves. There are limits to what monetary policy – indeed any demand management policy – conventional fiscal policy as well, to offset what is a structural effect on the economy.” RBS also revealed on Friday that it had incurred losses of £2bn in the first half of 2016.
Royal Bank of Scotland pays back £1.2bn to the Treasury Royal Bank of Scotland is paying £1.2bn to the Treasury to buy out a crucial part of its £45bn bailout in a step towards returning the bank to the private sector. The Edinburgh-based bank – still 73% owned by the taxpayer – is making the payment to end an agreement with the government which prevented it paying dividends to any shareholders before the Treasury. This “dividend access share” (DAS) was put in place in 2009. The move comes even though the loss-making bank is not yet ready to start giving payouts to shareholders. RBS reported its eighth consecutive year of losses in February and the £1.2bn payment will hinder its efforts to achieve a profit in the first quarter of 2016. A number of other obstacles remain in the way of payouts to shareholders, including a potential multibillion-pound penalty from the US authorities for the way RBS packaged up mortgages into bonds in the run-up to the crisis. RBS is also still to spin off part of its branch network, which has been rebranded asWilliams & Glyn, and needs a strong result in the Bank of England’s stress tests at the end of the year. But Ross McEwan, the chief executive of RBS, said: “This is another important milestone in our plan to resume capital distributions to our shareholders and represents one less hurdle in our path to build the number one bank for customer service, trust and advocacy.” Taxpayers break even on their stake in RBS at 502p per share and the chancellor faces further losses on any share stake – after losing £1bn on the first and only sale so far in August – if he sells at current prices, because the shares are trading at 232p. George Osborne has already said he is hoping to generate £25bn from the sale of three-quarters of its RBS shares in this parliament, although the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) has concluded he will have to sell off the entire remaining stake by 2020 if he is to achieve that goal. In documents published alongside last week’s budget, the Treasury’s independent forecasters also warned that the bailout of the banking sector after the 2008 crash could leave taxpayers with £17.5bn of losses. In those documents, the OBR said: “The sharp fall in the RBS share price since then means we expect sales of RBS shares to raise considerably less in this forecast.” RBS is not alone in facing further costs for fines and compensation arising from past mistakes. The ratings agency Moody’s warned that litigation and conduct costs remain a “downside” risk for the UK’s five major banks – RBS, Lloyds Banking Group, HSBC, Barclays and the UK arm of Santander. In the five years to the end of 2015, those five banks incurred £55bn of charges – one third of their pretax income – according to the ratings agency. These costs rose again in 2015, by 40%, after falling in the previous two years.
Sadiq Khan could face Boris Johnson in EU debate Sadiq Khan could go head to head with his predecessor as London mayor, Boris Johnson, at the biggest EU referendum debate, just 48 hours before polling day. Labour remain campaign boss, Alan Johnson, confirmed Khan would be making the case for the UK to stay in the EU, in front of an audience of 6,000 at Wembley Arena on 21 June, broadcast live on the BBC. Boris Johnson has long been tipped to take the opposing side. David Cameron will not appear, unwilling to face a “blue-on-blue” showdown with the former mayor. Jeremy Corbyn would not be taking part either, Alan Johnson said, because he had advised the Labour leader to only take part in events that have the same gravitas as the ones at which the prime minister appears. “We have to be very careful we don’t set a precedent,” Johnson said while campaigning in Birmingham on Friday. “In general elections, whatever the prime minister does, the leader of the opposition does, and that’s going to be the same in this as well. “The prime minister has done the one-on-one with Sky [on Thursday night with Faisal Islam]. Jeremy will be doing one of those one to ones but the prime minister won’t be anywhere near the Wembley lineup and neither will Jeremy,. And my advice to him has been don’t go anywhere near that. Sadiq Khan for the Labour party will be doing the Wembley one.” Khan is understood to be keen to do the debate, his only concern being how the evening event would coincide with sunset during Ramadan, when observant Muslims who have fasted in daylight hours are permitted to eat again. No 10 is reported to be concerned about the balance of the audience at the Wembley event, which will be moderated by Question Time’s David Dimbleby, the Today programme’s Mishal Husain and Newsnight presenter Emily Maitlis. Anyone can apply for tickets to the event online, but the BBC has said it would vet the entire audience to ensure each side, as well as those who are undecided, are fairly represented. Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, confirmed she will take part in an ITV debate on the EU referendum next week and Johnson is also her most likely opponent. The debate will follow Tuesday night’s debate on the channel with Cameron and Ukip’s Nigel Farage, but the pair will not appear together. Energy secretary, Amber Rudd, and shadow business secretary, Angela Eagle, are also tipped to appear, representing the pro-EU side.
Political pressure making BBC biased against Labour and Corbyn, says former BBC chair – Politics live John Whittingdale has told MPs that those who raised concerns about his plans for the BBC were “leftwing luvvies” who had based their complaints on “ill-founded, hysterical speculation”. As Mark Sweney and Jasper Jackson report, the culture secretary, unveiling a white paper on the future of the BBC, was responding to Labour’s Maria Eagle, who said that he had tried to diminish the scope and scale of the BBC but had been over-ruled by David Cameron. Whittingdale told the Commons that fears about the government’s plans were overstated. “[Eagle] rehearsed all her lines of attack only to wake up this morning to discover that all the concerns she expressed were based on ill-founded hysterical speculation by leftwing luvvies and others,” he said. “In actual fact what the government has proposed has been widely welcomed by, amongst others, the BBC.” Sir Michael Lyons, a former chair of the BBC Trust, has claimed that political pressure is making the BBC biased against Labour and Jeremy Corbyn. (See 2.06pm.) Whittingdale has criticised ITV for not inviting Vote Leave to take part in its EU referendum programme featuring Cameron and suggested Ofcom should investigate. He told Sky News. There is a campaign representing those who think we should stay in the European Union, and the prime minister is speaking for them. And then there is a recognised campaign for those who think we would be better off outside the European Union, and yet the person who has been invited to debate with the prime minister does not come from that campaign. I find that extraordinary ... The idea that the prime minister has attempted to tell ITV who they should invite or who they should not invite seems to me extraordinary. He also said Ofcom could adjudicate on complaints of this kind. Asked if he was saying Ofcom should look at this, he replied: As the culture secretary, no. As a supporter of Vote Leave, I will understand why Vote Leave may wish to make a complaint. Boris Johnson has declared he is prepared to take on the prime minister in an EU referendum debate but refused to back the official out campaign’s attack on ITV’s event featuring Cameron and Nigel Farage. The Conservative party have handed over new information to the Electoral Commission relating to its investigation into election overspending. This happened after the commission said it was going to court to get the material because the party did not satisfactorily respond to its initial requests. A vote to leave the EU risks tipping the UK into recession, sending the pound sharply lower, stoking inflation, raising unemployment and denting economic growth, the Bank of England warned. As Katie Allen reports, describing the 23 June referendum on EU membership as “the most immediate and significant risk” for the UK’s economic outlook, the Bank of England said it would face a difficult balancing act in deciding whether to cut, hold or raise interest rates in the aftermath of a vote to leave the bloc. Its governor, Mark Carney, said there were a range of possible scenarios for the economy in the event of Brexit and these “could possibly include a technical recession”. Gordon Brown, the former prime minister, has said it would send “a terrible message to the world” if Britain voted to leave the EU. In a speech at Warwick University he said: Europe is the one continent in the world which was built not just on being a marketplace, but built on there being social rights and social responsibilities that we all accept. I would think that we would send out a terrible message to the world if Britain - which has led the way in so many different respects in building the Europe that we have and in trying to make it a more humane and civilised place - simply walked away on June 23rd. Iain Duncan Smith, the former work and pensions secretary, has said the Treasury needs to be broken up because it has been responsible for short-term low productivity and is run by 27-year-olds with no collective memory. A claimed “missing million” long-term EU immigrants to Britain have been proved to be a phantom army, according to a special analysis by the Office for National Statistics in the run-up to the EU referendum. Cameron has been hosting an anti-corruption summit. There is full coverage on our separate live blog. The SNP MP Phil Boswell has been ordered to repay £555 of parliamentary expenses after an investigation by a watchdog. As the Press Association reports, Boswell wrongly claimed for publicity videos that were posted on YouTube, the Independent Parliamentary Standards Association (Ipsa) found. The probe followed a complaint about the Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill MP by a member of the public. Boswell has accepted the findings and repaid the cash, Ipsa said. That’s all from me for today. Thanks for the comments. The Conservative party has said that it has supplied the Electoral Commission with the information it requested as part of its investigation into the overspending allegations by lunchtime today. (See 2.57pm.) A party spokesperson said: We advised the Electoral Commission on 29th April that we would comply with their notices by 1pm today. There was no need for them to make this application to the high court. The TaxPayers’ Alliance says the government should have gone further in its white paper and got rid of the licence fee. Jonathan Isaby, its chief executive, said: It is regrettable that the government has ducked the opportunity for substantial reform of the regressive and arcane TV licence fee. With the technology now in place for people to subscribe to their choice of thousands of competing channels and watch them wherever they happen to be, the time has surely come to explore a new, fairer funding model fit for the 21st century. Here is the science broadcaster Brian Cox on the the BBC white paper. This is what Ofcom is saying about the government’s plans to put it in charge of regulating the BBC. A spokesperson said: We are reviewing the white paper proposals carefully and we will work constructively with the government, the BBC and the BBC Trust on next steps. The government is proposing a significant extension to Ofcom’s remit. We are confident that, with the right resources and planning, we can undertake our new responsibilities effectively and independently. The BBC licence fee is likely to rise by £15 over the next five years, under plans outlined in the government’s white paper. As the Press Association reports, it has been frozen at £145.50 for the past six years, but will now increase in line with inflation starting from next year. The cost of a licence is forecast to reach £160.50 by 2021/22 – the equivalent of 44 pence per day. It will provide the BBC with over £18bn of public money between 2017/18 and 2021/22. And John Whittingdale has told ITV’s Allegra Stratton that Vote Leave may ask Ofcom to adjudicate on ITV’s decision not to invite it to its first EU referendum event. The Electoral Commission has announced today that it is going to court to get the Conservative party to disclose information relevant to the allegations that it broke election rules by overspending in three byelections in the last parliament and in some constituency contests in the general election. It is going to court because the Tories have not responded satisfactorily to requests for the information to be handed over. Here is an extract from the commission’s news release. Using its powers under PPERA, and in line with its Enforcement Policy, the Electoral Commission may issue a statutory notice requiring any person, including a registered party, to provide us with specific documents and/or information as part of an investigation. This places the recipient under a legal obligation to provide the required material. However, if the recipient does not comply with this statutory notice, the Commission may apply to the High Court for a disclosure order which if granted would be the court compelling the Respondent to release the required documents and information to the Commission. The Commission issued the Conservative and Unionist Party with two statutory notices requiring the provision of material relevant to its investigation. However, the Party has only provided limited disclosure of material in response to the first notice (issued on 18 February 2016) and no material in response to the second notice (issued on 23 March 2016). That follows the Commission granting extensions of time to comply. John Whittingdale has been speaking to the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg. According to her tweets, here are the main lines. Whittingdale has criticised ITV for not inviting someone from Vote Leave to its first EU referendum programme. Whittingdale, of course, is a Vote Leave supporter. He said David Cameron should debate the Vote Leave campaign. Cameron is opposed to debating fellow Tories, and so far he has not agreed to a direct debate with anyone. The ITV programme with Nigel Farage will involve Cameron and Farage being interviewed separately. Whittingdale said he wanted BBC scheduling to take into account its impact on commercial rivals. And this is what Tony Hall, the BBC director general, told the World at One about Sir Michael Lyons’ claim about the BBC showing bias in response to political pressure. (See 2.06pm.) That is an extraordinary claim to make, that our journalists and our journalism would in any way not treat impartially all sides of arguments during a review of the charter. That’s not the journalism I know. I think the journalism of the BBC is impartial. We test all sides. The journalists at the BBC do a really hard job in the midst of controversy bringing light and calm judgments to what is going on. I don’t recognise [Lyons’ claim]. I think our journalists do an extraordinary job. And it’s why, in polls, time after time people come to the BBC to find out what is going on. It is why we are the most trusted news source in the UK, and I believe our journalists are doing a fine job, through the general election, through local elections, through referenda, in bringing light to controversy. Here are the key points from Sir Michael Lyons’ interview with the World at One. Lyons was chair of the BBC Trust from 2007 to 2011. He spent much of his career in local government, in chief executive posts, but he was also briefly a Labour councillor in the early 1980s. Lyons said that political pressure was making the BBC biased against Labour and Jeremy Corbyn. He explained: I don’t think I’m alone in feeling that the BBC has sought to hedge its bets of late. There have been some quite extraordinary attacks on the elected leader of the Labour party, quite extraordinary. I can understand why people are worried about whether some of the most senior editorial voices in the BBC have lost their impartiality on this. When he was challenged as to whether he really believed this, he went on: All I’m voicing is the anxiety that has been expressed publicly by others. We had here a charter review process which has been littered with wild kites flown which, we can’t see the string is held by the secretary of state, but the suspicion is that actually it’s people very close to him. His own comments have suggested that he might be blessed by a future without the BBC. Is the BBC strong enough to withstand a challenge to its integrity and impartiality? He said that although he welcomed many aspects of the white paper, such as the continuation of the licence fee and regulation by Ofcom, he was concerned about threats to the BBC’s independence. The really big question is, is the BBC safe from interference by this government? Because this process has certainly led to very real suspicions that ministers want to get much closer to the BBC, and that is not in anybody’s interests. He said it was a mistake for the BBC to agree last year to fund free TV licences for the over-75s from its budget. Here is the story about the BBC funding 150 local journalists. On the World at One Sir Michael Lyons, a former chair of the BBC Trust, has just claimed that political pressure has led to the BBC being biased against Labour, and Jeremy Corbyn in particular. I will post more from the interview shortly. Maria Eagle, the shadow culture secretary, has now put out a statement about the white paper. It echoes the comments she was making in the Commons, when she replied to John Whittingdale, although the overall tone is perhaps marginally more critical. The Tories have been forced to backtrack on many of their most extreme proposals for the BBC because they were out of step with the overwhelming majority of the public. We know that John Whittingdale is hostile to the BBC, and there is still much in this White Paper which falls short of the three tests Labour has set on editorial independence, financial independence, and the BBC’s core mission. There are still real concerns that the government will seek to influence the BBC’s editorial decision making, and that the broadcaster will come under undue political interference as a result. The BBC is one of the UK’s most successful and loved institutions. The public have said time and time again that they value the BBC’s independence, and that they want it to carry on making the programmes we all enjoy. In order to give licence fee payers the reassurance they will need following weeks of hostile briefings that have sought to diminish the BBC, these proposals should now be debated and voted on in a substantive motion in both houses of parliament. The point about a debate on a “substantive motion” is important. MPs are expected to hold a general debate on the future of the BBC, but the government does not need to pass legislation to agree a new royal charter for the BBC. That means there is no bill for MPs or peers to amend it. Labour wants to give MPs a debate on a “substantive motion” so that it can propose amendment, giving the Commons the chance to vote for changes to the white paper plans. The BBC Radio 2 and Top Gear presenter Chris Evans says stars like him are paid too much. As the Metro reports, he said he should be paid less. People who do what I do for a living compared to people in the real world, get paid too much money. We’ve got jobs that people would pay to do – if they could afford it – and sometimes those things aren’t even available to buy. Most of us work part-time anyway, so just pay us less. Evans is reportedly the BBC’s highest paid star, earning as much as £2m a year. Lord Alli, the Labour peer and TV executive, has released a statement describing the white paper as a “ticking timebomb” under the BBC. A founder of the Great BBC campaign, Alli said John Whittingdale had dropped some of his “wilder proposals”. But he said the white paper could still do “real and lasting damage” to the BBC. He explained: In my view, this is a ticking timebomb under the BBC. This week, along with peers from the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties, I set out three key tests against which the white paper should be judged – independence, the licence fee and core mission. On each of those tests, there are serious grounds for concern in the future. To take each of the in turn: On independence, the government is still intent on appointing many of the non-executive directors of an all-powerful new board while insisting on a ‘break clause’ which allows it to review the new charter after five years and leave broadcasters fearing ministerial sanction in every parliament. These are steps towards a state broadcaster, not a public service broadcaster. On the licence fee, the government wants to create a contestable fund for which commercial rivals can bid for. This is a dangerous precedent which, coming hard on the heels of the £650 million raid last autumn, will damage the BBC and the interests of viewers. On core mission of informing, educating and entertaining the whole country, the government wants to re-write Reith’s principles to include ‘distinctiveness,’ limiting its capacity to compete directly with commercial rivals – and preventing people watching programmes they love when they want to watch them. This will damage the BBC’s ratings and make it harder to justify the licence fee in future reviews. All these changes have potential to damage this precious national asset that parliament should be given a voice – and a vote as soon as possible. Jesse Norman, the Conservative chair of the Commons culture committee, has welcomed the white paper, saying many of its proposals are in line with recommendations from a report his committee published in February. In particular, it called for: the abolition of the BBC Trust, making Ofcom the BBC’s main regulator, having an 11-year charter period and making the NAO the BBC’s auditor. Norman said: The BBC is an extraordinary institution, but it can be made better still. I am delighted that the government has adopted these recommendations from our report, which was the product of wide, expert and public consultation. We look forward to examining the substance of the white paper in detail in the coming weeks. In his question to Whittingdale a few minutes ago the Conservative former cabinet minister Peter Lilley claimed the BBC was biased against people like him. This is from the Times’s Kaya Burgess. This is from my colleague Joseph Harker. The National Audit Office has put out a statement saying the plan to make it the corporation’s official auditor will strengthen the BBC. It said: The NAO’s role is to look at how public money is spent. The NAO has been auditing the BBC for a decade and this proposal would simply mean an extension of our existing work to audit the annual report and accounts and subject the Corporation to greater scrutiny – like any other public body. The BBC on a number of occasions has acknowledged the benefits of our work to shine a light on where it can improve its value for money. The government has decided that it is time to draw BBC governance together in a single Board. We believe our continued and expanded role will form an important part of the strengthened system of governance for the BBC. It will also give the public confidence that their licence fee is being spent to best effect. John Whittingdale condemns the petition calling for the sacking of the BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg. He claims the petition was initiated by Jeremy Corbyn supporters. Here is our latest news story about the BBC white paper. In the Commons the Labour MP Liz McInnes has just asked Whittingdale to exempt students from his plans to close the iPlayer loophole (ie, to make people pay the licence fee, even if they only watch programmes on iPlayer). Whittingdale seemed to rule this out. He said it was important to close the loophole because it was costing the BBC money and he said people who watched programmes should pay the licence fee. On Twitter a reader has been asking if there is a chart that explains the BBC’s governance arrangements, and how the new proposals would work. Ever keen to oblige, I’ve found this on page 53 of the white paper (pdf). Two chief cheerleaders for the BBC welcomed aspects of the BBC White Paper on Thursday but cited continuing concerns about the impact of government’s plans to govern the BBC on editorial independence. Wolf Hall director Peter Kosminsky said he would not welcome the report immediately after it was published by culture secretary John Whittingdale. He said the “central and most troubling issue” was still the fact that the government planned to appoint a total of six directors of the new unitary board. “Imagine if this had happened when there was a terrific spat over the dodgy dossier,” he said. However, other celebrities were more welcoming. Armando Ianucci, whose landmark speech defending the BBC in Edinburgh last year led to meetings with John Whittingdale, tweeted his support. Here is the ’s key points guide to the contents of the white paper. In the Commons the Labour MP David Lammy welcomes the plans to strengthen the BBC’s commitment to diversity. But will extra funds be available for this, he asks. Whittingdale says he will continue to speak to the BBC about this. The BBC has also today released a 7-page letter (pdf) from Tony Hall, the director general, to the UK government and the governments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland setting out details of the BBC’s plans to enhance coverage of the regions and nations of the UK. Here is an extract from the letter. In the months to come we will be saying more about our commitments to broadcasting in the Nations, including announcing the conclusions of our review into Nations News services, and confirming where we are able to invest more money in dedicated services. As I have set out above, our first step will be to deliver the following initiatives: Have a commissioning editor responsible for television drama in each Nation, and a comedy commissioner in Scotland Set ‘portrayal’ objectives for commissioners so that all areas of network content reflect the lives of audiences across the whole of the UK Agree new partnerships with the lead creative sector agencies in Scotland and Wales that match the partnership we have with Northern Ireland Screen, which we will shortly renew. These partnerships will build on the licence fee investment we are making and help support the creative industries in each Nation Commit to spending more on English-language television programming in all three Nations; this is a particular focus of our efforts in Wales to address the decline over recent years. With all of this funding we will aim to attract additional investment alongside our own funding Strengthen Scotland as a Centre for Excellence for factual production In Northern Ireland we will focus our investment on our digital services alongside local television. Whittingdale has just mentioned this letter in the Commons, in answer to a question. He said it would be going to the Welsh first minister, but, in a reference to events in Cardiff yesterday, he said it would be interesting to see who opened the envelope. Whittingdale said in his announcement that the BBC would be doing more to promote democracy by improving the coverage of local councils. The BBC has today set out more details of this initiative in this news release. Here is an extract. The key initiatives are: The establishment of a reporting service to cover local authorities and public services. The BBC will fund 150 journalists from 2017, who will be employed by qualifying local news organisations to provide a service to local news providers including the BBC. A video news bank enabling BBC local video and audio news content to be accessed by other local news media websites, enhancing their online offers and making BBC news output more accessible to audiences online. The BBC will invest in a data journalism unit which will work with partners across the industry to develop expertise and deliver content to all local news providers. In addition to those key initiatives there will be a jointly commissioned independent audit to establish the usage of local press content by the BBC on its media platforms and vice versa. The outcome of the independent audit will inform a review of the BBC’s efforts to improve the linking and attribution of stories and sources. The BBC says the number of journalists involved could go up to 200, depending on the outcome of a review in 2019. And here is the full statement from the BBC responding to the white paper. The BBC is backing many aspects of the proposals, but it has concerns about at least aspects of the document: the plan to make the NAO the BBC’s auditor, and the plans for the new board. Here is an extract from the BBC statement. There are some areas where the BBC will continue to talk to the government to address any remaining issues. These are: The white paper calls for the NAO to be the BBC’s auditor. The NAO is already able to conduct value-for-money studies, and any further expansion of their role must include an explicit exclusion for editorial decision-making; and nor is it appropriate for the NAO to assess the value for money of the BBC’s commercial subsidiaries, as they do not spend any public money. On governance, the white paper means that for the first time the BBC will be externally regulated by Ofcom but with a unitary board. This is the most significant reform in the BBC’s history. We think that is the right thing to do. Our view of how the new board is appointed to run the BBC differs from that held in government. Tony Hall said: We have an honest disagreement with the Government on this. I do not believe that the appointments proposals for the new unitary board are yet right. We will continue to make the case to government. It is vital for the future of the BBC that its independence is fully preserved. This is what Tony Hall, the BBC’s director general, has said about the white paper this morning. This white paper delivers a mandate for the strong, creative BBC the public believe in. A BBC that will be good for the creative industries - and most importantly of all, for Britain. There has been a big debate about the future of the BBC. Searching questions have been asked about its role and its place in the UK. That’s right and healthy, and I welcome that debate. At the end, we have an 11-year Charter, a licence fee guaranteed for 11 years, and an endorsement of the scale and scope of what the BBC does today. The white paper reaffirms our mission to inform, educate and entertain all audiences on television, on radio and online. Here is the Department for Culture’s press release with a summary of its plans. Here is the 136-page white paper (pdf). And here is the full text of Whittingdale’s statement. Whittingdale is responding to Eagle. He says her complaints have been based on “ill-founded, hysterical speculation by leftwing luvvies and others”. He says she set three tests for the white paper: that it should guarantee the BBC’s financial independence and its editorial independence, and that it should guarantee quality progamming. He says the white paper does not just meet these tests, it exceeds them. He says the board will have no involvement in editorial decisions. It will only take a view on programmes post-transmission. He says the new mission statement (see 11.07am) is more snappy than the existing one. And he challenges Eagle to say if there is anything in it she disagrees with. He says the BBC Trust has welcomed the white paper this morning. Eagle is still speaking. She says she is glad the plans for a contestability pot (allowing commercial broadcasters to bid for BBC money to make certain programmes) have been shrunk, and that that are going out to consultation. Is Whittingdale willing to drop them altogether? She says she does not think the call for “distinctive” programmes should be in the BBC’s new mission statement. Will Ofcom get extra resources to allow them to take on their new role regulating the BBC? She says she respects the NAO, and has no objections to it auditing the BBC. But it has to be clear that any work the NAO does does not interfere with the BBC’s editorial independence. She says when MPs debate this, they should debate a substantive motion, so MPs can propose changes. Maria Eagle, the shadow culture secretary, is responding to Whittingdale. She says he briefed much of it out in advance. That is “deplorable”. Eagle says many of Whittingdale’s “wilder” proposals have been dumped, or delayed, or watered down. That shows his diminishing influence in government, she says. She says Whittingdale has described it as a £4bn market intervention. In truth, in large part Whittingdale has “not got his way”, she says. She says Labour will be examining the white paper in detail. But she welcomes the fact the new charter will last 11 years. But she is “concerned” about the brake clause reducing this to five and a half years. That does not give the BBC stability. On governance, she says she is worried about the make-up of the unitary board. She says Whittingdale’s claim the plans enhance the independence of the BBC is “hard to reconcile with reality”. We have seen the Vote Leave camaign threatening broadcasters overnight. What would happen if the government can appoint half of members on the board. Will all board appointments be made by an independent process, she asks. She says reports today that David Cameron personally intervened to ensure Rona Fairhead stays on do not augur well. The process should be more open, she says. Whittingdale says he would like to see BBC content become portable, so that viewers can watch it when they travel abroad. Whittingdale says the licence fee system needs to be updated. The iPlayer loophole to be closed, so people watching programme just on iPlayer will still need a licence. Whittingdale says the BBC needs to become more accountable to the public. It gets nearly £4bn every year. People want it to spend its money more wisely. The NAO will become its auditor, he says. He says the new charter will require the BBC to publish the names of all staff and freelancers earning more than £450,000, the current director general’s salary, in broad bands. BBC staff on more than £450,000 to have salaries published, “in broad bands”. Whittingdale says the BBC will be expected to share its content more widely, and to open up its archive. Whittingdale says Ofcom will be given the power to see how the BBC’s output is impacting on commercial rivals. He says the BBC will be expected to work with commercial partners. And it will have a duty to promote local democracy, working with other news organisations. Rona Fairhead will remain as chair of the BBC Trust until her term ends in 2018, Whittingdale says. Whittingdale says the next BBC charter will last for 11 years. But there will be a chance to review it half way through. Whittingdale says the BBC Trust is no longer fit for purpose. The division of responsibilities between the trust and the board is not clear. There will be a new board, responsible for ensuring that the BBC’s output complies with the BBC’s obligations. But the director general will continue to be in charge of editorial decisions. This will be made explicit, he says. And he says the BBC will the opportunity to appoint a majority of board members for the first time. BBC to have the opportunity to appoint a majority of board members for the first time. Whittingdale says he wants the BBC to do more to serve black and minority ethnic communities. And he wants it to serve the nations and regions of the UK better. Whittingdale wants BBC to be the best broadcaster for diversity. John Whittingdale is delivering his statement now. He says the BBC reaches 97% of the population every week. The government wants to ensure it continues to thrive in a media framework that has changed beyond recognition. The charter review wants to enhance its independence. It will support creative endeavour, while minimising any impact on other commercial rivals. He says the BBC delivers outstanding programming. Many BBC programmes have received awards. At its best, it is the finest broadcaster in the world. But the BBC Trust has said in some areas it needs to be better. And the director general has said it must be more distinctive. Whittingdale says the government is not saying the BBC must not be popular. Many programmes are popular. But editors should be asking if new programmes are distinctive. Whittingdale to put the BBC under a duty to provide “distinctive content”. Chris Bryant, the shadow leader of the Commons, and a former shadow culture secretary, suggests that John Whittingdale cannot be trusted to take decisions about hte BBC when he is part of the Vote Leave campaign that is at war with broadcasters. And this is what Boris Johnson is saying about the Vote Leave/ITV row - that he doesn’t know anything about it. Boris Johnson will claim that leaving the EU would create 284,000 jobs because the UK would be able to do trade deals with the US, Asian and South American countries. Speaking at a steel plant in Dorset, he will say EU figures show that trade deals with these countries would provide a huge boost to jobs. These are deals that the EU has tried and failed to achieve due to protectionist forces in Europe.After we liberate ourselves from the shackles of Brussels we will be able to create hundreds of thousands of new jobs right across the UK. Predictably the gloomsters want to do down Britain - they claim we are not a strong enough to stand on our own two feet. What total tosh. There is a huge world of opportunity and prosperity out there if we take this opportunity to take back control. The Remain camp is likely to dispute such claims, pointing out that trade deals take years to negotiate. US president Barack Obama suggested the UK would be at the back of the queue for such an agreement. This is from my colleague Jane Martinson, the ’s head of media. This is from the Telegraph’s Patrick Foster. John Whittingdale, the culture secretary, should be on his feet within the next 10 minutes or so to give his statement on the white paper on the future of the BBC. As the ’s preview story reveals, he is going to propose abolishing the BBC Trust. But on the BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire show this morning Tessa Jowell, the Labour former culture secretary, said she had “grave concerns” about this. She said the trust was set up to represent the licence fee payer, and she said she thought a board dealing with day-to-day matters would not perform this role. According to the BBC’s blog, she said it should “be made absolutely clear” that non-executive directors on the board would be “guardians of the licence fee payers”. And here is Robert Harris, the author and former political journalist, on the row. Here is the Times’s Hugo Rifkind on the Vote Leave/ITV row. Actually, we’re not getting the Whittingdale statement is not coming until about 11.15am. There is an urgent question first on the EU migrants statistics. (See 10.21am.) John Whittingdale, the culture secretary, is about to make his Commons statement on the white paper on the future of the BBC. Here is the ’s preview story. Here is my colleague Alan Travis’s story on this morning’s ONS figures about EU migrants. And here is how it starts. A claimed “missing million” of long-term EU immigrants to Britain has been proved a phantom army, according to a special analysis by the Office of National Statistics in the run-up to the EU referendum. The ONS say short-term migration – EU citizens coming to Britain for less than a year and sometimes just a month – accounts for recent gaps between the official net migration figures for long-term immigrants to Britain and the number of national insurance numbers issued to EU nationals. Critics have claimed that a 1.2m difference between the official migration figures and the number of national insurance numbers issued to EU nationals over the past five years have proved the existence of a phantom army of EU immigrants and that the government “has lied over the scale of recent EU migration”. But a special ONS note on the difference has concluded that the International Passenger Survey on which the official migration figures are based remains the best source of information for measuring long-term migration. Lord Grade, the former ITV chairman, has strongly criticised Vote Leave for threatening ITV. He said: As a former chairman of both the BBC and ITV, I hold the political independence of all broadcasters to be of paramount importance to our democracy. Today’s attempt by the referendum Leave campaign to threaten ITV with political repercussions over their TV debate plans is unacceptable, if not shocking. I know the public can rely on broadcasters to resist all bullying tactics in the run up to the referendum. If the Leave campaign has any complaint about a breach of statutory obligations to be impartial, they should take their complaint up with the regulator Ofcom. And ITV is rejecting Vote Leave’s claims that it “lied”. (See 9.06am.) This is from an ITV spokeswoman. ITV has not lied to anyone, nor has there been any kind of ‘stitch up’. Senior figures from the Vote Leave campaign have been invited to our debate on June 9 and have every opportunity to air their views and opinions on the issues in a two-hour long peak time programme on ITV. It was our editorial decision as to who would take part in the June 7 programme; the PM called the referendum, and the country wants to hear from him, and Nigel Farage has been a leading proponent of an exit from the EU for more than 20 years and his party received 3.8 million votes at the election. We invited them both and they accepted. We think our viewers will find both programmes useful in providing information ahead of polling day. Our programming will, as always, be fair, balanced and duly impartial. As my colleague Anushka Asthana reports, ITV is rejecting claims that is coverage has been biased towards Remain. There are at least seven EU referendum “debate” programmes planned by the major broadcasters. Here is the full list. Thursday 26 May - A BBC programme aimed at young voters, broadcast from Glasgow and hosted by Victoria Derbyshire. Further details are not available yet. Thursday 2 June - Sky’s first referendum progamme, with David Cameron for Remain being interviewed in front of a live audience for an hour. Friday 3 June - Sky’s second programme, with Michael Gove for Leave being interviewed in front of a live audience for an hour. Tuesday 7 June - ITV’s Cameron/Farage “debate”, although David Cameron and Nigel Farage will be interviewed separately by Julie Etchingham in front of a studio audience during the hour-long programme. Thursday 9 June - ITV’s second event. This will be a proper two-hour debate, again chaired by Etchingham, with figures from Leave and Remain. The list of participants has not been finalised, but Boris Johnson has been invited. Wednesday 15 June - A BBC Question Time event, moderated by David Dimbleby, featuring a senior figure from Leave and Remain. It is expected that they will be questioned separately, as happened during the 2015 election leaders special. Tuesday 21 June - The final BBC event, two days before the referendum, filmed in front of a huge audience at the SSE Arena in Wembley. David Dimbleby, Mishal Husain and Emily Maitlis will present. The plan is for the debate to feature three figures from each side, but No 10 is particularly unhappy about this proposal, because they don’t want Tories debating Tories, and they claim the large audience could make it rowdy. • This list was amended on 13 May 2016. Earlier versions gave the date of the young voters debate, as supplied by the BBC, as 19 rather than 26 May. Vote Leave has issued a new statement about the ITV debates decision this morning. It says it is considering going to court to try to get it overturned. This is from a Vote Leave spokesman. The government has set all the rules for the referendum to give itself every possible advantage. It has also demanded of the broadcasters that the prime minister should not have to debate representatives from the official Leave campaign. ITV has accepted the prime minister’s demands without even discussing it with the official campaign and has allowed the prime minister to dictate his own opponent. Since the campaign began, ITV has also given twice as much airtime to the In campaign than to the Leave campaign. We think that the prime minister ought to debate the representative of the official Leave campaign. In a serious democracy, the government should not be allowed by a free media to pick its own opponents in the official debates on the most important political decision in decades. We are discussing legal possibilities to increase the chances that the public will hear the issues properly discussed before they make such an important vote on the future of their democratic rights. The reason for the timing of the announcement is the government’s desire to distract attention from the immigration figures being released today. We hope that ITV covers that story properly. And Nigel Farage has criticised Vote Leave for trying to keep him out of the TV debates. A spokesman for Farage said: Once again sadly we see Vote Leave seeking to exclude Nigel Farage and Ukip from this referendum campaign. It Is deeply disappointing that rather than rallying behind Nigel Farage for what will be the biggest one-on-one debate of the referendum campaign, Vote Leave are instead threatening court action to stop Nigel from taking on the prime minister. Nigel Farage has a proven track-record in taking on and defeating the pro-EU establishment. Indeed without him and Ukip there wouldn’t even be a referendum, let alone debates. This referendum is bigger than the Conservative party and bigger than party politics. It is about the very future of our country and this ITV debate will reflect that. All on the Leave side must put their egos to one side and support Nigel as he prepares to take on the prime minister in what will undoubtedly be the defining moment of the referendum campaign. Robert Peston, ITV’s political editor, used his Twitter feed last night to respond to the Vote Leave allegations. As Peston points out, the Vote Leave comment (see 9.06am) suggests Vote Leave wants David Cameron to resign if Leave win the referendum. This is not what Vote Leave’s most prominent campaigners, Boris Johnson and Michael Gove, are saying. They have both claimed that they would want Cameron to stay on in the event of a Brexit vote. Johnson said this as recently as yesterday. Late last night an extraordinary email arrived in journalists’ inboxes. It was sent out in response to the news from ITV that David Cameron and Nigel Farage would be taking part in what they call “a live EU referendum event”. The rest of us will probably end up calling it a debate, although technically it isn’t a debate, because Cameron and Farage will not be going head to head. The email came from the Vote Leave campaign and it included this quote, attributed to a “senior Vote Leave source”. The establishment has tried everything from spending taxpayers money on pro-EU propaganda to funding the In campaign via Goldman Sachs. The polls have stayed fifty fifty. They’re now fixing the debates to shut out the official campaign. ITV is led by people like Robert Peston who campaigned for Britain to join the euro. ITV has lied to us in private while secretly stitching up a deal with Cameron to stop Boris Johnson or Michael Gove debating the issues properly. ITV has effectively joined the official In campaign and there will be consequences for its future - the people in No 10 won’t be there for long. Vote Leave did not name their source, although anyone familiar with Dominic Cummings, the brilliant but combustible Vote Leave campaign director, will have suspicions as to who he may be. I will be covering reaction to this this morning. Here is the agenda for the day. 9am: Leaders arrive for David Cameron’s anti-corruption summit. 9.30am: The Office of National Statistics publishes figures on migration from the EU. 9.30am: Gordon Brown, the former prime minister, gives a speech on the EU referendum at Warwick University. 10.30am: John Whittingdale, the culture secretary, makes a statement in the Commons on the white paper on the future of the BBC. I will be covering the BBC statement in particular detail but as usual, I will also be covering the breaking political news as it happens, as well as bringing you the best reaction, comment and analysis from the web. I will post a summary at lunchtime and another in the afternoon. If you want to follow me or contact me on Twitter, I’m @AndrewSparrow. I try to monitor the comments BTL but normally I find it impossible to read them all. If you have a direct question, do include “Andrew” in it somewhere and I’m more likely to find it. I do try to answer direct questions, although sometimes I miss them or don’t have time. Alternatively you could post a question to me on Twitter. If you think there are any voices that I’m leaving out, particularly political figures or organisations giving alternative views of the stories I’m covering, do please flag them up below the line (include “Andrew” in the post). I can’t promise to include everything, but I do try to be open to as wide a range of perspectives as possible.
Owners must take the lead on canine obesity While labradors may be genetically more interested in food (Greedy labradors can blame it all on genes, 3 May), sadly we are seeing more and more overweight dogs of all breeds. Obese dogs are more prone to health problems such as heart disease and diabetes and by feeding them treats, we risk killing our pets with kindness. Other than for training, treats are not essential – and a chocolate digestive for a Jack Russell is the equivalent of a portion of chips for a person. So resisting the soulful eyes is one of the best things you can do to keep your pet healthy. Caroline Reay Chief veterinary surgeon, Blue Cross pet charity, Burford, Oxfordshire • While it’s always good to see the speaking up for whistleblowers (Truly unauthorised disclosures are an act of resistance, 3 May), what a pity there was no room for a tip of the hat to Sarah Tisdall, who provided you with a major scoop about US cruise missiles arriving at Greenham Common back in the 1980s. What happened to her again? Tony Harcup Author of The Oxford Dictionary of Journalism, University of Sheffield • Re the letter “HS2 should be run by the French” (4 May), during a recent trip to Japan, I had a running joke that Japanese Railways should be invited to the UK to run anything – NHS, railways, whatever came to mind – such was the efficiency and punctuality of their trains. So just hand over the whole network to them, and enjoy. Seán O’Conghaile London • I was amused by Mike Rowe’s account (Letters, 4 May) of his primitive cash card. I regularly, in the 1960s, I got cash on a Saturday by buying clothes in Marks & Spencer, paying by cheque, returning them virtually instantly, and getting a cash refund. Irene McKenzie Oxford • If Milton Keynes is a perfectly planned paradise (Letters, 4 May), why doesn’t it have a proper bus station like Bedford and Northampton, its unplanned neighbours? Bill Tordoff Bedford • The wild and unspoilt places in Britain will become less so if you publish supplements about them (30 April). Michael Cunningham Wolverhampton • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
Tottenham 1-1 West Brom: Premier League – as it happened This has been a disastrous night for Tottenham Hotspur. The result, the injury to Dier, the possibility of Dele Alli facing a ban for an off-the-ball incident. I mentioned pre-match that West Brom were very capable on capitalising on a nervy atmosphere, and after riding out a first-half storm, that’s exactly what they did. All the talk of was of Leicester potentially bottling it this season, but it looks as though that is what Tottenham have done. It’s not over yet, but there will be a few smiles in the Midlands tonight, as well as a few more in the red half of north London. Thanks for joining me, and for all your emails and tweets. I’ll end with another Harry Redknapp advert, with Harry Redknapp telling the most Harry Redknapp anecdote of all time. Bye! What a result for West Brom. What a result for Leicester. This has all but handed them the Premier League title. Claudio Ranieri’s team are seven points clear with three games remaining. Leicester need just one more win to become champions! 95 min: Kane is fouled on half-way, and Tottenham have one final chance to throw it ‘into the mixer.’ But West Brom are watertight. They’re going to hold on here! 93 min: Rose briefly threatens, doing well to get past Gardner to the byline but his low cross is turned behind. From the corner, Myhill does what Lloris couldn’t, claiming the delivery easily. The Albion keeper has had an excellent match in Foster’s absence. 92 min: Spurs have finally got their foot on the ball but West Brom have put two banks of four behind the ball and looks very resolute. 90 min: Five minutes added on here. Tottenham haven’t had a meaningful attempt on goal for 25 minutes and they don’t look like changing that any time soon. Both side makes changes: West Brom bring on former Tottenham man Sandro for Sessegnon, whilst Spurs bring on Chadli for Alli. 88 min: THIS IS ALL WEST BROM. Tottenham look lost. West Brom get another corner. Groans creak around White Hart Lane. It’s floated to the back post, but Vertonghen just about cranes his neck and flicks it away from the advancing McAuley. Once again, Lloris was nowhere to be seen. 86 min: Sessegnon hits the side netting! The Beninese is given far too much room by Rose inside Spurs’ area and fires a low shot at goal. It’s just wide, but might have even clipped the outside of the post. 84 min: Pochettino makes his second change: Son on, Lamela off. 82 min: If anything, West Brom are looking the more likely to win this. Sessegnon first fires wide, and then the longest of Vertonghen’s toes just about prevents Rondon from getting another shot on goal. 80 min: A horrible coming together involving Yacob (who else?) and Dembele results in a Tottenham free-kick 30 yards from goal. It could just have easily gone in West Brom’s favour as the two players’ shins clashed. Ouch. Eriksen smashes the resulting free-kick into Row Z. The crowd are restless. Tottenham have 10 minutes to save their season. 77 min: So Leicester can win the league this weekend at Old Trafford if it stays like this! Here’s a few more of your Pochettino shouts. Have you got any of actors that look dejected? These seems a bit out of place now. 75 min: Tottenham are fading, and fast! Rose so nearly gifts Gardner the ball inside his own penalty area, and eventually hacks clear. This is quite the transformation. 73 min: To compound Tottenham’s woes, Dier has gone off. He’s been withdrawn for what looked like a fairly innocuous slip. But so many bad injuries come about that way. Fingers crossed he’s OK. Mason on. You can’t say that hasn’t been coming. From the corner, Lloris comes and flaps, Lamela and Dier stand motionless and Dawson leaps, nodding the ball into the unguarded net. Oh no! It’s all going wrong for Spurs. But West Brom have been a different team this second half. As it stands, Leicester are now seven points clear with three to play after this. 71 min: West Brom pour forward once again, where is Tottenham’s midfield? Dier and Dembele are nowhere to be seen, as McClean squares to Gardner on the edge. The latter’s shot is skewed wide, but it falls to Rondon, and the striker forces Lloris to make a great fingertip save, tipping a 5,729mph shot over the bar. 68 min: West Brom pile forward for another corner and Spurs hit them on the break: Walker hitting a long ball forward to Eriksen, who is one on one with Myhill. Oooo the keeper just gets there first, diving in bravely with his head to clear the ball. 67 min: This is fast turning into a very good game. First Eriksen, then Kane, then Dembele take aim from range, each time the ball fizzing just wide. But West Brom definitely beginning to show some threat, particularly from set pieces. Leicester fans will be heading every ball. 64 min: Golden chance for Rondon! Oooooo, he should have buried that! The ball is swung in from Gardner, who has been a thorn in Spurs’ side tonight, Rondon has the run on Alderweireld and gets to the ball at the near post, but plants his header a yard wide. It was easier to score! 62 min: MASSIVE NEWS: It seems as though the Sky TV cameras missed this earlier, but US television picked this up: Dele Alli appearing to punch Yacob off the ball in the first half. It won’t be included in the referees report, and should be looked at retrospectively = surely a three-game ban?! At least he’ll be fresh for the Euros. 60 min: First booking of the night, Evans gets it for a foul on Lamela. From the free kick, Erikson curls in another devilish delivery, but Evans just manages to get to the ball in front of Vertonghen. Could so easily have been another own goal. 58 min: Spurs hit the woodwork for the third time! Eriksen makes a break down the left, leaving Yacob for dead (who admittedly looks like he’s running through cheap gloopy hair gel), and cuts the ball back to Lamela on the penalty spot. The ball comes so quickly to the Argentinian, but he sorts his feet out fantastically, and nudges a trickling effort onto the base of the post. McAuley hacks clear. 55 min: “Re Harry Redknapp, if moments like that occur all the time, why would anyone bother forking out however much whatever he is advertising costs?” asks Kelvin. “It doesn’t seem like a very good line to use as a salesman.” 53 min: What a ball from Dawson, ooooo Spurs are holding on a bit here. Dawson, showing shades of 2006 Pirlo, gets time to cross and delivers a wicket low centre across Tottenham’s box. Walker, Alderweireld and Vertonghen all leave it, terrified of turning the ball into their own net, and there is nobody at the back post for Albion for a simple tap in! 51 min: More West Brom pressure. Nerves are a’janglin for sure at the Lane. It’s gone deathly quiet again. Gardner is fouled by Lamela, this time in a shooting position, but Gardner’s subsequent shot clips the top of the wall, and trickles harmlessly into Lloris’s arms. 48 min: You can imagine there would have been some choice words from Pulis at half-time. West Brom started strongly. Corner, headed away. Silly free kick, conceded by Rose. Headed away, and McClean takes an age to line up a shot and he is edged wide. Peeeeeeep! We’re off again. “Talk about casting all you want,” emails Hubert O’Hearn, “but without the right director the Leicester movie will make Escape to Victory look like The Cabinet of Dr Caligari. I heartily nominate Wes Anderson. He does the fantasy and absurdist elements (The Grand Budapest Hotel) that the story calls for, plus he has some knowledge of the material ( Fantastic Mr Fox). There. You’re welcome.” Matt Dony: “I do agree that Ranieri is a nice guy, but that is entirely cancelled out (and then some!) by Funtime Bobby Huth. COYS!” And Danny Simpson. And Jamie Vardy. Half-time advert entertainment: anybody got any idea what is going on here? This is the goal he’s talking about, by the way. It wasn’t even a volley! Cheers Harry. They deserve more, but Spurs fans would have taken this before kick off, and they’d take it at full-time. 45 min: One minute added on here for injury-time. Xavier Pillai: “For Pochettino I’m thinking possibly Pedro Pascal or Gael Garcia Bernal. Or for an older and more suave Poch who is retelling the story maybe his countryman Ricardo Darin.” 44 min: West Brom enjoying a bit of possession. They are working extremely hard out there at the moment, and win a couple of corners and free-kicks in dangerous areas. But Tottenham’s defence stand tall, heading the ball to safety. 41 min: A very strange incident involving Walker and Rondon, the two tussling for the ball on the touchline. They go shoulder to shoulder, and then Walker needlessly kicks out at the Venezuelan, who reacts by throwing the ball (long since out for a throw in) back into the face of the Tottenham man. If Walker connected with his kick, he would be off! Exactly the kind of incident that you could imagine costing England dear in the summer. 39 min: Simon McMahon, with an excellent email. “Evening Michael. I think part of what’s made this season so remarkable and enjoyable is that the managers of Leicester and Spurs are both extremely likeable. Either club would be deserving winners and whoever finally lifts the trophy will do it to the cheers and congratulations of most neutrals. You couldn’t say that about Mourinho sides (I for one think the Premiership has been a better place without him), or even Ferguson and Wenger for that matter. Nice guys do win sometimes, and that should make all of us happy.” I agree with all of this. 37 min: You would think that the only way Albion are going to score is if they capitalise on a mistake. And that’s exactly what Lloris, Alderweireld and Vertonghen are conspiring to do, playing with fire/the ball inside their own box, with Rondon and Sessegnon only a few inches from nicking the ball and sticking it into an empty net. Eventually Walker sprints Spurs out of trouble. 35 min: Tottenham are really putting on the squeeze now. Eriksen, Lamela and Kane all have chances to shoot, but poor decision making saves Albion from conceding again. “I expect us to not only win this, but to truly trounce WBA,” writes Mats Anderson. “To prove we’ve really played the best football this season. And further to increase the pressure on Leicester. There is hope till it is lost by the guillotine of mathematics. If we end up coming in second or third, and there is no shame in that, We will have proved ourselves. Whatever the outcome, we will be back even stronger next season.” Spurs make the breakthrough! This is one of the messiest goals you are likely to see all season, but 35,000 inside White Hart Lane won’t care one bit. After Gardner was penalised for pulling down Lamela, Eriksen whips in an absolute peach of a delivery that leaves Dawson in knots. Marking Vertonghen, he tries to swing a boot to clear, but instead loses his balance, slips and midriffs the ball through Myhill’s legs and into the net. 1-0! (The place went mental, btw) 29 min: Chance for Gardner. Oh, and it’s a goody. From one of those throw-ins, Dawson works half a yard and squeezes in a low, deflected cross which finds Gardner on the edge. So normally lethal in these kinds of areas, the former Sunderland man crashes a shot 20 yards over the bar. It was a great chance, though. Very central. 28 min: West Brom are enjoying – and I mean enjoying – taking their time over a succession of throw ins in Spurs territory. “Unbelievably quiet crowd for a definitive must-win game, for a self-obsessed “glory” club...who won it the last time in...1961,” emails Paul Chipperton. “Place should be MENTAL.” I think that’s called nerves. 25 min: This is a bit better from Albion, who have at least moved themselves up the pitch. But they will be wary of the Spurs counter-attack. Rose bundles Fletcher into touch – a blatant foul – but the referee gives nothing. Fletcher is incensed, Rose has a wry smile on his face. 23 min: A long ball from Yacob, and for a brief moment, there is panic in Spurs’ box with the ball threatening to fall to Rondon. But Tottenham get enough men back, and hack it clear. 21 min: We’ve had a few suggestions for Pochettino in Harry Kane: The Movie. 19 min: Kane goes close! Eriksen threads a ball through to Kane, who is on the shoulder of Albion’s defence, but Dawson does well to cover. He doesn’t follow Kane in the next move, however, and the English striker drops deep, turns and fires a low shot inside Myhill’s near post. Once again, Albion’s keeper is equal to it, palming it behind for a corner, which comes to nothing. 17 min: Dembele is running tings in there. Interesting that in a recent interview, Dele Alli chose the Belgian as the team-mate he would most want in his five-a-side team. You just can’t get the ball off him. 15 min: Albion work their first good opportunity, some neat play in midfield releases Gardner down the left, but it’s a poor cross and Alderweireld clears. Rondon is going to need better service if he’s to make any impression tonight. 13 min: “Rose has flirted, swivelled his hips and shown some leg. He’s managed to get Stéphane Sessègnon’s number tonight,” notices Jeremy Dresner. Tottenham’s full-backs are certainly playing very high, as is their wont. I think Sessegnon and McClean are playing more as wing backs than as wingers. 11 min: Sessegnon is late on Rose, right on the edge of West Brom’s box. Free-kick, Eriksen is again over it … and he clips the bar! The Dane curls his effort around the wall, leaving Myhill helpless, but just doesn’t get enough dip on it, clipping the bar and going behind. Not too dissimilar from that Payet free kick against Palace a few weeks ago. Except it didn’t go in. 8 min: Myhill looks decidedly less assured in dealing with a Walker cross, fizzed across the six yard box. But West Brom survive. They haven’t been in Tottenham’s half with the ball yet. 7 min: Tottenham hit the post! Oh, Kane should have scored. But this is a quite magnificent save from Myhill. It’s a simple one-two that undoes the Albion defence, Alli flicking a deft poke through to Kane, who fires a shot at the far post. Myhill flings out a right arm and somehow tips it onto the inside of the post. The ball rebounds out, straight into the arms of the keeper. Bad miss, great goalkeeping. It’s still 0-0. Just. 5 min: Yacob now flattens Alli. I’m surprised he hasn’t been given an early booking. “Good evening, and I have a dilemma here,” emails Michael Cosgrove. “A Liverpool fan, I have always had a soft spot for Spurs ever since the Mackay days so it would be great to see them win the title, but then again who can resist the idea of a Leicester fairy tale come true? So, can’t they share it?” No. But I think there are a lot of people out there that feel the same. It’s hard not to like this Spurs team, but you can’t help but be seduced by the romance of Ranieri. 3 min: Yacob concedes a foul – no player has committed more this season – and Eriksen takes aim from 30 yards out, curling a fizzing effort over the wall, but Myhill is there to turn it behind. I think that is the first touch a West Brom player has had on the ball. 1 min: Walker is already fifteen yards into West Brom’s half. Albion already have ten men behind the ball. Let the onslaught begin. Peeeeep! And we’re off! The players are out on the pitch: West Brom line up with an average age of over 30, only the eight time that has happened in the Premier League. Tottenham have the youngest side in the Premier League. They average 25 years tonight, Hugo Lloris is the oldest at 29. Can’t argue with his stats: 18 goals in 16 apps. But he probably doesn’t do enough (internationally) to sneak into the top three. Whilst we’re on the subject of Dixie Dean, here’s a 1977 interview with the iconic Everton forward, written by the late, great Frank Keating. If Hodgson has any sense, he should play as many Spurs players as possible. One would imagine that Alli and Kane are automatic choices, but I would love to see Dier, Rose and Walker all get the nod. If you’ve any thoughts on tonight’s game, on England, or who should play Pochettino in the Harry Kane: The Movie, do holla at michael.butler@theguardian.com or tweet @michaelbutler18. Graeme Souness on MNF has been comparing Harry Kane to Alan Shearer, who he rates as England’s greatest ever centre forward. Ha! The correct answer is, of course: 1) Gary Lineker 2) Jimmy Greaves 3) Alan Shearer/Nat Lofthouse. Bobby Charlton doesn’t count. That aside, this is the most exciting England striker line-up we’ve seen since the 1990s. Kane is unquestionably the No9, Sturridge seems to be hitting form at just the right time, Vardy has no fear and should be able to capitalise on tired legs, even from the bench. And Rooney has his place, somewhere. We’re going to win the Euros! Tottenham are out on the pitch warming up. They look like they’ve got the same mentality tonight as they did last week against Stoke. This is what Pochettino had to say pre-match. I knew before the game that we would win. You could feel it from the players. It was fantastic before the game. When we arrived at the stadium, in the warm-up – you could feel that they were ready to compete. The trust between each of them was fantastic. I thought it was impossible that we wouldn’t win the three points. When you achieve that, it’s great and that’s the objective. We need to fight now not to lose that feeling. Have we had it before? We’ve had different feelings in different games, and you always try to feel that. But it was very obvious last Monday that the team was feeling good. I thought it was going to be something exciting … Tony Pulis: “Saido actually went into the Arsenal game with an ankle injury so he hasn’t made it for tonight’s game. Ben picked up an ankle injury at Arsenal...it hurt him the next day & we are concerned he might miss the weekend.” Maybe they’re out for Callum McManaman’s birthday. Happy birthday Callum! You’re not in the 18-man squad. Tottenham Hotspur: Lloris, Walker, Alderweireld, Vertonghen, Rose, Dier, Dembele, Lamela, Alli, Eriksen, Kane. Subs: Son, Mason, Vorm, Trippier, Chadli, Carroll, Davies. Spurs, fresh from not attending the PFA awards, are unchanged from last week. West Brom: Myhill, Dawson, McAuley, Olsson, Evans, Yacob, Fletcher, Sessegnon, Gardner, McClean, Rondon. Subs: Chester, Anichebe, Lambert, Sandro, Roberts, Leko, Palmer. West Brom are being a big ol’ tease … Referee: Robert Madley (West Yorkshire) Tottenham night used to be Thursday night. Spurs-day night, if you will. The pantheon of the Europa League and the prospect of 0-0 draws (home and away!). But then Daniel Levy acquired Mauricio Pochettino, Pochettino acquired Dele Alli, Eric Dier, Toby Alderweireld – and found Harry Kane, Danny Rose and Kyle Walker lurking down the back of a north London sofa – and now Tottenham night in Monday night. Tottenhamonday night. White Hart Lundi. Doesn’t really work, does it. But yeah, Tottenham play a lot on a Monday these days – they did last week (with aplomb), they do tonight, they will next week (away at Chelsea, eeeek!) – and this time the aim is no longer a second tier European comp, but winning the Best League in the World™. If Tottenham win tonight, they will again cut Leicester’s lead at the top of the Premier League to five points. If Tottenham win tonight, their goal difference means they will secure their place in next season’s Champions League. Tottenham could still hypothetically finish outside the top four. Those dreaming of the tepid Europa League anthem can still Dare to Dream but it would take an extraordinary set of results for that to happen. Starting with a defeat to West Bromwich Albion, at home, tonight, which the bookies reckon has a one in 14 chance of happening. Much more dangerous is the threat of a draw, which would all but end Tottenham’s title challenge. Tony Pulis’s West Brom might not be the most enterprising team arrive at the Lane this year, but they are well organised and will hope to put up more of a defensive fight than Stoke did this time last week. It’s a big’un. Join me. Kick-off: 8pm in London.
Barclays' investment banking boss leaves Barclays’ investment banking arm is facing further upheaval following the departure of its current boss, Tom King. King’s future had been the subject of City speculation since July when he had threatened to leave in a row over the future of the investment bank. Instead, Antony Jenkins, chief executive of the Barclays group, was forced out. King, 55, intends to retire on 4 March, after running the investment banking business for two years. King, who is based in New York, is said to be leaving because of UK rules seeking to hold senior managers to account. The investment bank was built by Bob Diamond, who rose to become chief executive of the entire bank before leaving in the wake of the Libor-rigging crisis in 2012. Once the powerhouse of the bank, the division has proved controversial over it staff bonuses and ifor problems trying to comply with new rules requiring a ringfence between high street and investment banking operations. On announcing his retirement, King said: “After nearly 25 years in my career, and having now seen the investment bank through a period of extraordinary change and on to a solid footing for the future, I feel the moment is right for me to pass the baton.” King’s retirement is the latest in a series of changes at the top since the appointment of Jes Staley as chief executive to replace Jenkins. Staley said he respected King’s decision. Staley has already named a new chief operating officer and new chief risk officer. Both these positions were filled by executives from JP Morgan, the Wall Street bank where Staley spent much of his career before leaving in 2013 to join New York hedge fund BlueMountain. Paul Compton has been hired as group chief operating officer and CS Venkatakrishnan as chief risk officer, while Staley is also reported to have approached another former JP Morgan colleague – Blythe Masters – to run the investment bank. She is said to have turned him down. When Staley took the helm of Barclays in December he was joining another former JP Morgan colleague – Tushar Morzaria, who joined as finance director in 2013. It was Staley’s second attempt to join Barclays. He was on the brink of being offered the role when Jenkins was appointed in 2012. Jenkins, who was running Barclays’ retail bank, was seen as a politically more appropriate choice than Staley because the position was being filled during the height of the Libor rigging scandal. Staley is preparing to make his first presentation to the City on 1 March, when the bank’s 2015 results are due to be published. He has signalled that investment banking revenues fell 10% in the fourth quarter and started to cut 1,200 jobs in the division.
Woman accusing Trump of raping her at 13 cancels her plan to go public A woman who is suing Donald Trump for allegedly raping her as a child abandoned a plan to speak publicly on Wednesday, citing death threats. The woman, known by the pseudonym Jane Doe, hid from media who were invited to her lawyer’s Los Angeles office for a press conference in which she was expected to reveal her identity. Instead, her attorney, Lisa Bloom, cancelled the event in a brief, apologetic statement to a phalanx of cameras. “Jane Doe has received numerous threats today as have all the Trump accusers that I have represented. She has decided she is too afraid to show her face. She has been here all day, ready to do it, but unfortunately she is in terrible fear. We’re going to have to reschedule. I apologize to all of you who came. I have nothing further.” Hours earlier Bloom, a prominent attorney, stoked such anticipation with the announced press conference that her firm’s website crashed. With just six days to the election and polls showing a tightening race the stakes could scarcely be higher. The anticlimax was the latest twist to the explosive and so far unsubstantiated claim that the Republican presidential nominee raped Doe in 1994 when she was 13 years old. Doe has alleged the casino owner assaulted her on four occasions at parties in New York hosted by the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, a friend of Trump whom she also accused of rape. A civil lawsuit is slated for an initial status conference in a New York district court on 16 December. Trump has vehemently denied the accusations, calling them fabrications designed to smear him in the run-up to the 8 November election. Doe filed a lawsuit in April which was dismissed for technical filing errors. She filed fresh lawsuits in June in New York and California. The allegations have received less media attention than other claims of sexual assaults by Trump partly because they appeared to have been orchestrated by an eccentric anti-Trump campaigner with a record of making outlandish claims about celebrities. A investigation this summer found that Norm Lubow, a former producer on the Jerry Springer TV show, has been associated in the past with a range of disputed claims involving the likes of OJ Simpson and Kurt Cobain. The federal lawsuit alleged Trump sexually assaulted Doe in 1994 at Epstein’s Manhattan home and at other parties Epstein hosted on the Upper East Side. Epstein, an associate of the UK’s Prince Andrew, and who was convicted of underage sex crimes in Florida in 2008, has denied the allegations. Thomas Meagher, a patent and intellectual property attorney, filed the lawsuit for Doe even though he said he had never been involved in a case of this kind before. With Bloom coming on board Doe appeared – until the press conference fiasco – to have acquired considerable additional legal and media firepower. The founder and owner of The Bloom Firm, which handles family, civil and criminal cases in California and New York, has in the past sued the Boy Scouts of America and the Los Angeles police department. Bloom hosts a Court TV talkshow and is a legal analyst for NBC News. She is the daughter of Gloria Allred, another prominent attorney who is representing three different women who accuse Trump of inappropriate sexual contact, plus others who accuse Bill Cosby of wrongdoing. In a Huffington Post article in June, apparently before she took on Doe’s case, Bloom said her allegations appeared credible given Trump’s “longstanding and well documented contempt for women” and abuse allegations made by his former wife Ivanka and Jill Harth, who detailed her accusations to the in July. Judge Ronnie Abrams has ordered counsel for Trump and Epstein to appear in his New York district court along with Doe’s legal team for an initial status conference on 16 December. That raises the extraordinary prospect, were Trump to win the election, of counsel for a US president-elect being called into federal court in proceedings relating to allegations of rape of an underage girl. The court order gives no details of the legal complaint raised by “Jane Doe”. It instructs all parties in the case to set out in advance the nature of the allegations and the “principal defenses”, as well as any previous motions and discovery as well as the “estimated length of trial”. A investigation in July found that a publicist calling himself “Al Taylor” attempted to sell a videotape of Doe relating her allegations for $1m. It linked Taylor through a variety of means including shared email addresses and phone numbers to Lubow, formerly of Springer’s daytime talkshow. Lubow was connected to a contentious claim, raised in the 1998 documentary movie Kurt and Courtney, that Courtney Love offered a fellow musician $50,000 to murder her husband, Kurt Cobain of Nirvana. Love denied the charge. According to the New York Post, Lubow was also behind a tabloid newspaper story that OJ Simpson bought illicit drugs on the day his estranged wife Nicole Brown was killed. When the quizzed “Al Taylor” about his true identity, the publicist replied: “Just be warned, we’ll sue you if we don’t like what you write. We’ll sue your ass, own your ass and own your newspaper’s ass as well, punk.”
Sterling and FTSE 100 floored by Brexit worries Investors are bracing for more choppy trading on financial markets in the final run-up to the EU referendum after Brexit jitters knocked the pound to a seven-week low, dented share prices and fuelled demand for safer assets such as bonds and gold. With opinion polls tight and less than two weeks to go before the vote, sterling came under pressure and it was down more than 1% against the US dollar at one point on Friday. In late afternoon trading the pound was worth $1.43. “The opinion polls are as close as they’ve been for the entire campaign. And while the phone polls still show a lead for remain, with the online polls much closer and significant doubts about the reliability of all polls whatever the methodology, financial markets remain very jittery about the possibility of a ‘leave’ win,” said economists at Daiwa Capital Markets in London in a note to clients. For stock markets, worries about the 23 June referendum compounded fears of a global economic slowdown, falling oil prices and next week’s Federal Reserve meeting on US interest rates. The FTSE 100 index of blue-chip stocks suffered its biggest one-day drop since mid-February and closed down 1.9% at 6,115.8. It was a similar picture around the world. As investors reacted to the cocktail of concerns by dumping stocks for bonds, Wall Street was down markedly at the time of the London close. In Germany the Dax stock index dropped 2.5% on the day and France’s Cac 40 fell 2.2%. In a sign of investors’ nervousness, gold prices climbed to a a three-week high. The precious metal has long been seen as a safe investment in uncertain times and in the last week gold has climbed 2% to $1,269.8 an ounce. Economists at the consultancy Capital Economics said the gold price appeared to be tracking the odds of Brexit. Other commodities were also being influenced by the approaching poll. “A UK vote to leave the EU ... would presumably have a negative impact on global business and investor confidence and hence undermine the prices of industrial commodities. On the other hand, it should boost demand for safe havens, including gold whose price could easily jump to $1,400 per ounce in the event of a Brexit vote,” they wrote in a research note. Amid rising risk aversion, government bonds were in high demand. Bond yields, which move inversely to bond prices, set new record lows around the world. On many government bonds the yields are now in negative territory, which means investors are technically paying for the privilege of lending to a government. In Germany, yields on the 10-year “Bunds” dropped to a new record low on Friday of 0.022% and there was speculation they could hit zero and maybe even dip into the red. “Negative rates are increasingly becoming the benchmark against which investors judge prospective returns, hence the lack of hysteria in the last couple of weeks as 10-year German bund yields have fallen to within a whisker of zero percent,” said Chris Iggo, head of fixed income at AXA Investment Managers. Yields on Bunds and other government bonds have been falling on the back of Brexit worries but also on expectations that the US Federal Reserve will delay an anticipated increase in interest rates. The central bank meets next week having hinted at a June rate rise and then more recently suggested there was too much uncertainty to act this month. That followed news of a sharp slowdown in US job creation in May. James Knightly, economist at ING Bank, said: “The Fed will probably want to see at least two decent jobs figures before pulling the trigger on higher rates. This means we continue to favour the September ... meeting for the next rate rise.” Yields on UK government bonds, known as gilts, also hit all-time lows on Friday, albeit in thin volumes as traders hung back from taking any big bets ahead of the tight referendum. The 10-year gilt yield dropped to 1.213% at one point, the lowest on record.
Older often doesn’t mean wiser in the digital age When we were young we often resented the way in which older people would lay down the law and make it clear that they knew how things were. It was accepted that they knew which wines needed time to mature and which didn’t; the right part of the year when you should plant tulips; which is the best way to drive between A and B. Even if we thought we had a good idea ourselves, we accepted that experienced people probably knew best. But nowadays it seems the situation is very often the other way round. I am going to visit a couple of far-off friends, and it’s my son who knows where I should be when on the journey, and – useful these days – what to do if there are cancellations, or trouble, or changes that I might not understand. I’m grateful, of course, but there do seem to be too many ways in which we elders have to accept that the young really do know more – if only because they have consulted the internet. We, the older generation, no longer assume that what we think, the way it has been in our experience, is bound to be right. We may just have to accept that some of the young may have found hard information on the net about a place, say, that may be more useful than the vague assumptions of someone who has lived there for 20 years. I wonder how they will feel when it comes to be their turn to find they are getting older. I’m pretty certain that they won’t feel as though they are stepping into their father’s shoes at last, or that they can cook as well as granny. But with any luck they will take their mastery of the internet to the end. What do you think? Have your say below
In 2016, the health of mothers and babies shouldn't depend on where they live A new report this week revealed that every day, 15 babies are stillborn or die within four weeks of being born. But perhaps the most shocking aspect of the report, from MBRRACE-UK (Mothers and Babies: Reducing Risk through Audits and Confidential Enquiries Across the UK), is the significant variations it reveals in death rates across the country. These vary between 4.1 and 7.1 deaths per 1,000 births, with women from the poorest backgrounds and black and Asian mothers at higher risk. While the report called for more research into causes of the deaths, leading stillbirth charity Sands called the government’s funding commitment “woefully inadequate” (a charge the government denies), and reported that maternity units are struggling, with midwives not getting sufficient training and some units lacking the funds for the monitoring equipment they need. Judith Abela, acting chief executive of Sands, said: “It’s clear from today’s report that variations in care across the UK persist and the risk of your baby dying remains influenced by where you live and who you are.” The implication that black and minority ethnic women and those from the poorest backgrounds may be some of the hardest hit by this problem is particularly significant in light of societal attitudes that stigmatise poor mothers. From hackneyed tropes about poor teenage mothers deliberately getting pregnant in order to get a council house, to sensationalised articles portraying mums on benefits as greedy scroungers, our society deliberately dehumanises and blames mothers and pregnant women from poor backgrounds. These suggestions are wildly inaccurate – in the UK in 2011, there were just 130 families with 10 children claiming at least one out-of-work benefit, and in 2013, only 8% of claimants had three or more children. The evidence suggests that, on average, unemployed people have similar numbers of children to employed people and no evidence suggests that benefits provide a significant incentive to have children. The problem of inequality in pregnancy outcomes is not restricted to the UK. According to a study published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, black women in the United States are more than twice as likely to suffer a stillbirth than white women. Health concerns, such as high blood pressure and diabetes, were one issue cited as a contributing factor for the larger share of stillbirths among black women. But the study also found that higher education reduced the hazard for white women more than for black and Hispanic women, and that pregnancy and labour conditions contributed more to preterm stillbirth risk among black mothers than white mothers. It is also worth noting that the health issues cited (high blood pressure and diabetes) are connected to poverty, with poverty rates in the US higher for black and Hispanic people than the national average, and that the black community in the US generally suffers from poorer health. Another potential factor linking the different outcomes to inequality is that black Americans are only half as likely as their white counterparts to have health insurance. According to a census survey from 2011, the uninsured rate for black Americans was 20.8%; for whites, it was 11.7%. While the problem is global, there is worrying evidence to suggest that the UK lags behind other countries in making progress on stillbirth and early infant mortality. The rate of stillbirth deaths in the UK is higher than Poland, Croatia and Estonia, and the rate of change is slower. On average, the number of stillbirths in the UK has fallen 1.8% since 2000, compared with 3.5% in Poland and 6.8% in the Netherlands. A study published in the Lancet ranked Britain 21 out of 35 developed nations for stillbirth rates, and 114 out of 164 countries for improvements over the past 15 years. An expert inquiry published last year found that there were “missed opportunities” in the care of pregnant women, with national guidelines for screening and monitoring not having been followed in two-thirds of the cases reviewed. Dr David Richmond, president of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, said it was “desperately disappointing that the four recommendations from this report remain exactly the same as when the last confidential inquiry took place 15 years ago”. The inquiry also suggested that in some cases women’s concerns were not taken seriously. Almost half of the women sampled for the study had contacted their maternity units, concerned that their baby’s movements had slowed, changed or stopped. In half of these cases, there were missed opportunities to potentially save the baby, including a lack of investigation, misinterpretation of the baby’s heart trace or a failure to respond appropriately to other factors. Rebecca Schiller, director of Birthrights, the human rights in childbirth charity, has suggested that a failure to listen to pregnant women, and a tendency to dismiss their concerns, may be contributing to the problem. It is sobering to think that in 2016, racial and economic inequality and a failure to listen to women may still have a major impact on the health of mothers and babies. Tackling these wider problems must be a necessary part of progress, and ditching the grossly misdirected blame and stereotyping about low-income parents would be a good place to start.
Amazon launches Dash gadget to let you restock kitchen with a whisper Amazon is stepping up its assault on the UK grocery market with the launch of a gadget that helps restock the kitchen cupboards with the scan of a barcode – or just a whisper. Shoppers who use the online retailer’s new fresh food and groceries service, Amazon Fresh, are being offered the Dash gadget, which has been available in the US since 2014, free with their second order. Amazon Fresh is currently only available in some areas of London. Products can be added to their Amazon shopping list by scanning a product barcode or saying the name of a product into the gadget’s microphone. In the US, Amazon also offers the Dash Button, a Wi-Fi enabled device that can be attached to a fridge or cupboard door and used to directly reorder a specific item such as washing powder, loo roll or nappies when they run out. The company would not comment on when and if the button, which was introduced in the US last year, might be launched in the UK. The Dash services are a step towards the internet of things – in which household appliances are increasingly linked to the internet and mobile phones so that they can be monitored and managed remotely. It is also part of Amazon’s efforts to poach shoppers from the traditional supermarkets by making it as easy as possible for shoppers already signed up to its Prime subscription service to order groceries. “We’re all used to trying to remember the contents of the fridge and kitchen cupboard and scribbling down reminders on pieces of paper,” said Ajay Kavan, vice-president of Amazon Fresh. “With Dash, at any given time, customers can keep track of products when they come to mind and scan to reorder groceries and household essentials as soon as they run out. At Amazon, we’re always looking to innovate based on feedback and Dash has been designed to continually learn as customers use it.” Amazon’s Fresh service launched in the UK last month, offering 130,000 groceries to homes in London, including thousands of fresh produce, dairy and bakery items that the company had not previously sold in the UK. It is now available in 128 postcodes. The service emerged after Amazon agreed to source fresh foods from Morrisons and began selling frozen foods through its Prime Now one-hour delivery service last year. Last month, Amazon said it would hire 1,000 more people than previously expected in the UK this year as it rolls out Prime Now and extends its web services. The company will take on 3,500 more permanent staff as its fast-delivery service, launched a year ago, reaches more than a third of the UK population. The traditional supermarkets are expected to have to up their game to fight back against Amazon’s assault. Tesco, the UK’s biggest online grocer, and Sainsbury’s have both recently begun trialling same-day food deliveries in response to Amazon Fresh. Sainsbury’s expects to finalise the takeover of Home Retail Group, the owner of Argos, in September, in a move it hopes will help it improve its online operations. Home Retail shareholders approved the deal this week.
Melania Trump plagiarism scandal: junior aide takes responsibility Donald Trump sought to draw a line under increasingly damaging plagiarism allegations on Wednesday with the release of a statement admitting his wife had provided a campaign speechwriter with lines taken from Michelle Obama. In a statement released via the campaign, Meredith McIver, a junior aide working on the speech, takes responsibility for the lines subsequently appearing in Melania Trump’s opening-night address to the Republican convention and reveals she offered to resign. “In working with Melania Trump on her recent First Lady speech, we discussed many people who inspired her and messages she wanted to share with the American people,” said McIver. “A person she has always liked is Michelle Obama. Over the phone, she read me some passages from Mrs Obama’s speech as examples. I wrote them down and later included some of the phrasing in the draft that ultimately became the final speech.” McIver’s apology “for the confusion and hysteria my mistake has caused” comes as the sight of the would-be first lady lifting whole chunks of her speech from a political rival threatens to destroy attempts to present a more polished and competent campaign in Cleveland. Neither Trump nor his wife have apologised for the incident and previously the campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, insisted the similarity was due to the two wives sharing a common view of family values. Earlier on Wednesday Trump had attempted to put a positive spin on the controversy: “I did not check Mrs Obama’s speeches. That was mistake, and I feel terrible for the chaos I have caused Melania and the Trumps, as well as to Mrs Obama,” said McIver in her statement. “Yesterday, I offered my resignation to Mr Trump and the Trump family, but they rejected it. Mr Trump told me that people make innocent mistakes and that we learn and grow from these experiences. “I am honored to work for such a great family,” she added. Asked about the controversy at the White House press briefing in Washington, spokesman Josh Earnest said: “Obviously, in 2008 Mrs Obama spoke movingly in her own words about her life story, about her values, and she was warmly received by the crowd. She got strong reviews from pundits and I’m confident in the future, aspiring first ladies and potential first husbands would draw on the same kinds of sentiments to advocate for their spouse. “Mrs Obama is obviously quite proud of the speech she gave in 2008, and I’m confident that she’ll deliver another speech that’s equal to the test next week,” he added, referring to the Democratic convention that will begin in Philadelphia on Monday. “I have not spoken to the president and first lady since that letter became public,” he said of McIver’s statement, “so I’m not sure if they’re aware of it right now.”
Why are British kids so unhappy? Two words: screen time It’s 12.30am, and time for my pre-bed ritual: tiptoe upstairs so as not to wake the children, brush my teeth, turn out the lights … and then catch sight of that telltale, flickering blue glow coming from under the 15-year-old’s bedroom door. I mentally prepare myself for the nightly battle, and knock on the door. “Come on, Fred, turn your phone off – it’s nearly 1am and you’ve got school tomorrow.” “Don’t lie, Dad. It’s not ‘nearly’ 1am. It’s only 12.30.” “Just turn it off and get to sleep. Please. It’s only crappy videos on the internet – they’ll still be there in the morning.” “But I’ve done nothing wrong!” (I paraphrase: this is a teenage boy we’re talking about here, so his “conversation” is littered with swearing and streetspeak, which are best left to the imagination.) It wasn’t always like this: until a couple of years ago, rather than gawping at YouTubers drinking live goldfish and who knows what else they get up to, my darling boy wasted his waking hours playing games, specifically Mine-bloody-craft. How I hated it, with its stupid, make-believe world of pixellated, Lego-faced critters and monsters. Some commentators went so far as to argue that a Minecraft habit was somehow educational and healthy, the fools. But it’s only a short step from there to the even more mindless Clash of Clans. Believe me, I know. And before you go there, yes, I have installed every parental control under the sun on the family desktop and router, but Fred’s 15 and I’m 52, so he runs rings round me technology-wise. And it’s not just us parents who are made miserable by our offspring’s online addictions. Earlier this week the NSPCC chief executive, Peter Wanless, warned of a nation of deeply unhappy children, due to “the pressure to keep up with friends and have the perfect life online ... adding to the sadness that many young people feel on a daily basis”. Before you accuse me of being an appalling father (I do quite enough of that myself, thanks very much), new research by the charity Action For Children finds that a staggering one in four parents struggles to control their children’s screen use. We’re all in this together, it seems, which should be of some comfort. But the charity undermines its survey, in our house at least, by adding that a mere 10% of parents find it hard to get their kids to do homework (they’re having a laugh, right?), while 18% can’t get them to go to sleep at night (see above). ACF spoils things further with suggestions for limiting children’s screen time, among them “plan fun activities for the whole family that don’t involve technology” (family activities, at 12.30am? Are they mad?); “create a balance between technology use and other activities” by insisting that, for every hour of screen, children should have to do an hour of something else (you try telling that to a near-10-stone lump of testosterone); “organise a board game night” (yes, definitely certifiable); and “practise what you preach … turn off your devices, too” (hang on: post-10.30pm is the only time I get to let off teen-based steam on Twitter). Sorry, none of that’s ever going to work on Fred, or any other teen I know, for that matter; it’s way too late for that now. Nope, it’s time for some Victorian-style parenting, not least because we also have an 11-year-old, and I can’t be going through all this again. So last night we sat Fred down and laid down the law: from this Sunday, he’s to hand in his phone to us by 10.30pm on school nights – no discussion, no argument, just good old-fashioned “because I said so”. His response? “No way. That is so unfair. I’ve done nothing wrong! If you do this, I’ll just nick your Sim.” (Again, I’ll leave it to you to pepper that lot with profanities.) Sure, you can blame the parents for this whole sorry mess (I know I do) – if we hadn’t filled our homes with smartphones and tablets and laptops and desktops and, if you really have more money than sense, Apple Watches, none of this would ever have happened. You can even blame society or the government – especially the government. But, really, it’s all Tim Berners-Lee’s fault for inventing this whole bloody web thing. • This article was changed on 7 January 2016, to correct the name of the NSPCC chief executive, Peter Wanless and to change a reference from “internet” to “web”.
The view on Brexit negotiations: MPs matter MPs, not all of them supporters of remaining in the EU, have started to mount a coherent challenge to the government’s approach to leaving. Good for them. The apparent determination to cut parliament out of any role in scrutinising the shape that the Brexit negotiations will take is wrong. And, as the big argument of the leave campaigners was the need to restore sovereignty to parliament or, as they snappily put it, to take back control, it is also absurd. The Commons revolt is overdue. But hesitation is forgivable: there are unprecedented challenges in digesting the results of a referendum on a complex issue presented as a binary choice that ended up producing an outcome that directly contradicts majority opinion among MPs. But in their silence, the prime minister has decided that the result is best interpreted as a prescription for the kind of Brexit that, at least in the short and medium term, is likely to cost jobs and economic growth. The courts will decide this week whether the government can trigger Article 50 on its own prerogative or whether parliament should have a vote. The government’s view that no vote is required is expected to be upheld. But that should not rule out the possibility of a vote in the Commons on the negotiating strategy – for example, on the relative roles of free movement of labour and access to the single market. Yet the Brexit minister David Davis, who had advocated a white paper on the government’s negotiating stance shortly before his appointment as the man in charge of the negotiations, made a statement to the Commons on Monday, that added nothing to the state of knowledge beyond repeating the government’s resistance to any Commons vote. The sop to parliament is the passage of the so-called great repeal bill that, once withdrawal is complete, repatriates 40 years’ worth of EU legislation. MPs should fight this line by line: it allows ministers to decide, largely without parliamentary scrutiny, which laws will remain. The prime minister and Mr Davis insist that it will not reduce workers’ rights. But in a post-Brexit world, the landscape may look a lot more rugged than it does now. The government should consider that while the referendum result must be respected, negotiating withdrawal without reference to parliament will tarnish democracy too.
Nicky Lidbetter: ‘My anxiety has been a motivator’ On a daily basis, Nicky Lidbetter, 44, juggles not one but two successful mental health charities – Self Help, which delivers services in the north-west of England, and the nation’s leading anxiety disorder charity, Anxiety UK. While this is commendable in itself, to do it while being agoraphobic and having panic attacks is astonishing. In fact, her anxiety is so bad that she rarely leaves Manchester, operating in a less than a 50-mile radius. “I’m probably one of the most networked agoraphobics you could imagine,” says Lidbetter with a laugh. “I’ve become quite resourceful in order not to lose out on opportunities.” While most charity leaders regularly attend sector events in London or are jetted to talk at conferences abroad, Lidbetter can only take part via video conferencing. But she hasn’t let it hold her back. “It can be incredibly disabling and prevent you from doing all sorts of things in life, but equally it can be a real motivator. If I hadn’t had my anxiety, I probably wouldn’t have achieved everything I have done,” she says. “It can be a fine line managing all the various work streams and my own issues, but work has actually always helped. I’m so passionate about what I do.” The opportunity Lidbetter is currently focusing on is the devolution of the £6bn health and social care budget to Greater Manchester. Self Help, which she founded with her husband Pete and others in 1995, has consistently won commissions from clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) in the area to run e-therapy and face-to-face talking therapy services. Back in the 1990s and early 2000s, it wasn’t common practice to commission organisations led by service users. It was even frowned upon by some professionals, especially in the mental health sector, says Lidbetter. “Although Self Help is a service user-led charity, we always wanted to be part of the system, working with partners not against them to make things better for everyone,” she explains. “Consequently, everybody feels comfortable working with us. Back then, commissioners had been wary because of their previous [negative] experience of service user-led organisations.” Nowadays it is considered bad practise not to include users when designing and delivering services. “Things have moved on so much. You don’t realise the progress that’s being made when you’re in the thick of it,” says Lidbetter. After Self Help secured its first deal in 2006, others quickly followed. Now the charity has contracts with 10 clinical commissioning groups and also provides some services that are commissioned by public health through local authorities across Greater Manchester. In the financial year to April 2016, its turnover was £3.3m. Lidbetter’s biggest ambition when she first started Self Help was to open a safe space where anyone experiencing a mental health crisis could go and receive non-medical support. Her own experience of visiting A&E when she was having a panic attack made her realise how woefully inadequate mental health care – particularly crisis care – was. In 2013, her dream was realised with the opening of The Sanctuary in central Manchester. Since then, similar centres have opened in Bolton, Wigan and Leigh. Lidbetter says The Sanctuary is one of the first examples in mental health of commissioners working together to provide a Greater Manchester-wide service. “Manchester shows why it is a good idea, because one side of the road might fall in Trafford and the other in Manchester. People don’t care if they are crossing a CCG or local authority boundary, they just go where they need help.” Although the implementation of the devolved heath and social care budget is at an early stage, it could lead to all commissioning being done like this. She recognises that including a place for voluntary organisations isn’t a high priority as the funding transitions are made. This has come under criticism from the charity sector. “In terms of devolution for Manchester, I believe strongly that while it is great to see statutory organisations working more closely together and pulling together their expertise, I do not believe this alone will achieve the change that is needed by 2020,” says Lidbetter. “Charities are known for their ability to drive innovation and for delivering services that offer value for money. Furthermore, they are often able to be in touch at ground level with the needs of the constituencies that they serve – and as such, their service offer is often more flexible, ahead of the game and responsive,” she says. Lidbetter welcomes the fact that the former health minister Andy Burnham is standing as Manchester mayor. “A mayor who has a background and passion for health is, in my view, to be welcomed,” she says, although she is at pains to point out that there are other “strong and solid” candidates who also have an interest in health. While Self Help has become a force to be reckoned with in Greater Manchester, with around 120 staff, Anxiety UK, with a team of just six, has grown into a high-profile national charity since Lidbetter took charge 25 years ago. She came across the organisation, then the Phobic Society, after experiencing panic attacks while studying at Manchester University. The founder, Harold Fisher, ran the society from his living room nearby, so she decided to visit. “I told Harold that I felt out of control and that I didn’t want to go anywhere in case I panicked, and he just said, in his strong Lancashire accent, ‘Oh, you’ve got agoraphobia, love’. And that set me on a course of reading everything I could about it, and then volunteering to help him – and later doing counselling and business courses.” Lidbetter has remained close to Fisher, who is now 84, and was his first choice to take over the charity. She later renamed it Anxiety UK when he retired. Originally, it was very much a DIY affair run from her home – a far cry from the current smart central Manchester office adorned with thank you notes and awards. She quickly realised that running the charity with a business head was the only way to ensure it survived. Now, it provides support and therapy to hundreds of thousands of people and partners with organisations such as the RAF Benevolent Fund, the British Acupuncture Council and Carers Week. Last year, the charity announced the setting up of the Katharine and Harold Fisher Anxiety Research Fund – named after Fisher and his late wife. In October 2015, the Institute of Mental Health was the first to secure £5,000 of funding from it to further develop peer support training for people with anxiety. “The money is raised entirely by donations from the public, and the aspiration is to double the fund each year,” says Lidbetter Running a national and a local charity has benefited both, Lidbetter argues. “I’ve got a national profile, and that always helps with Self Help because I’m exposed to things nationally that normally a regional charity wouldn’t benefit from. Similarly, Anxiety UK benefits because I know all the operational challenges and commissioning issues from a local perspective, so then with Anxiety UK I can speak with some authority.” So what’s her secret of success? “I lead by gut instinct,” she admits. “I always think that if you follow your heart and you have evidence that there is a need, and you can provide an innovative and cost-effective solution, you can’t go far wrong. If you then line it up with national strategy, you’re on to a winner.” Curriculum vitae Age 44. Lives Manchester. Family Married, two teenagers. Education Stamford high school, Lincolnshire; University of Manchester: BSc hons applied neuroscience; MSc advanced practice interventions in primary mental health care; Newcastle College: postgrad diploma performance coaching. Career 1997 to present: chief executive, Anxiety UK; 1995 to present: chief officer, Self Help; 1992-93: scientific officer, GlaxoSmithKline. Public life 2010-12: non-legal member, tribunals judiciary (Ministry of Justice); 2002-06: non-exec director, Manchester Mental Health & Social Care NHS trust; 2000-02: non-exec director, Manchester Mental Health NHS Partnership. Interests Running and athletics.
EU referendum: Europeans in Britain fear Brexit vote European citizens living in Britain are making contingency plans before the referendum on EU membership, with some applying for UK citizenship and others considering returning home, according to those who responded to a reader call-out. Citing a lack of clarity in Britain’s post-referendum plans, many Europeans who have lived in Britain for years are nervously anticipating the 23 June vote, fearing the result could upend their lives. “Eventually we will leave,” said Marie Lemaire, who is French and lives and works in London. “How soon will depend on the result of the referendum. The debate about Brexit had made us realise that we were not at home here.” Respondents also reported an increase in anti-migrant feeling, and criticised the remain campaign for not being vocal enough in promoting the cultural and democratic upsides of European membership alongside the economic argument. While some EU citizens already living and working in Britain may secure indefinite leave to remain, the lack of a clear picture of what a post-Brexit Britain would look like is causing concern for Europeans resident across the UK. One of the Brexit camp’s most potent arguments is that leaving the EU would enable Britain to secure a firmer grip on immigration. For European immigrants, particularly those who have been here only a short whilte, this raises all kinds of worries about a future dominated by visas, work permits and bureaucracy. Among those applying for permanent residency is Patrizia Piccardo, a teacher in Northamptonshire. Originally from Italy, she has “finally started the process” towards citizenship after 24 years in the UK. “People’s attitudes towards me have changed,” she said. “It makes me paranoid and scared.” Born in France, Julie Lamoureux works in IT in Belfast. “I feel rejected, like a bad transplant,” she said. Lamoureux is worried that EU citizens will gradually be “encouraged” to leave should the UK vote to leave, and is applying for British citizenship. “My friends like Nigel Farage. My friends like me. Do my friends know that they want to see in power someone who wants me out, away, back where I came from?” The question of what exactly will happen after a leave vote is occupying the mind of thousands of Europeans in the UK: students wondering if it’s worth applying for a master’s degree; property and business owners considering their long-term plans; people with British partners and children. “Nobody seems to actually know what the consequences would be,” said Marie Van Der Velde, in London. Originally from Belgium, she is married to a British citizen. “Will all EU citizens be required to leave? Will we be assessed on level of income, on desirability of God-knows-what? “What if we are married to a UK citizen? Will they now need a certain income level to keep us in, like for non-EU spouses? Do we need to apply for citizenship and give up our European passport in the process? My children think they are English.” Lou Del Bello, a freelance journalist from Italy, said: “I would rather settle somewhere else than undergo the humiliating process of applying for a visa.” Others are less worried about their immediate future in the UK, expecting a bureaucratic process of visas and fees, but otherwise an expectation that they would be able to remain. However, Gizem Ozkaynak, a postgraduate student in York, echoed many in questioning whether a post-EU Britain would be a country worth staying in. “I could apply to gain British citizenship but the question is, do I really want to be in the UK when the UK does not want to be part of the EU?” Frenchman Etienne Dunant, 37, an administrator in Sheffield, said: “I do not honestly think that I am not going to be deported or anything of the sort should the UK leave the EU. But with my life and son here, I cannot risk to have my right to remain in this country become problematic. This is why I have now hastened my application. “I also said, not quite tongue in cheek, if Scotland has another independence referendum and then applies to the EU, I would move over the border. “The thing is, the empire days are gone. I say this as a person who really loves the UK and its specificities, but sees a country that is lying to itself in a way.” Some names have been changed
Leave wins, Cameron goes: so what now for the Conservatives? David Cameron did not realise it at the time, but his decision to suspend collective responsibility and allow his ministers to campaign against him in the EU referendum, was the moment that the Conservative gloves came off. It wasn’t meant to be like that. At the start, four senior figures in the party, including the 1922 Committee chair and leave campaigner, Graham Brady, and head of Conservative In, Nick Herbert, set up a steering group in a bid to maintain party unity by laying down some ground rules. Back then, the mantra of Conservative advisers was for MPs to do their best to avoid “blue on blue” conflict. When Boris Johnson came out as a leave supporter, he promised that he would not be debating with the prime minister directly. The steering group never got off the ground, and a few weeks later the former London mayor was challenging Cameron to a face-to-face battle, allowing newspapers to depict the prime minister as a chicken. For the Tories, the battle over Britain’s place in Europe had become toxic with both sides resorting to heavier-handed tactics day by day. The effort with which Cameron and his chancellor, George Osborne, tried to win makes the pain of the Brexit outcome all the more intense and humiliating. “This did get a lot more heated than we all expected,” said one remain MP, who argued that the ferocity of the leave campaign and its focus on immigration had taken him aback. A cabinet secretary said the personal attacks by Johnson and Michael Gove on their friend, the prime minister, including over his integrity, would not be forgotten. But the power is not in the hands of those who wanted Britain to stay. A leave campaigning MP told it from his perspective, saying: “The damage has been done by the way [the remain campaign] have conducted themselves. An awful lot of people are very offended. They have called us economically illiterate, dishonest, and little Englanders. George’s exercise last week was probably the worst.” The MP was referring to the day that Osborne unveiled a budget scorecard that suggested income and inheritance tax could be hiked in the wake of a Brexit vote. The chancellor called it “illustrative” but dozens of his own MPs labelled it a “punishment budget” and vowed to vote against it. And that wasn’t the only tactic by the Downing Street duo that leave campaigners felt went too far – spending £9m on leaflets delivered to every home, and Treasury report after report that was seen as scaremongering have left a bitter taste. Some MPs believe that this is the outcome that a clear majority of their party wanted in their hearts, whatever they said in public. “Brexit is the most uniting outcome,” said one. Before the Brexit result, Cameron was preparing to have a domestic policy drive next week to reunite his party. There were three key areas to be used as a way to unite the Tories and drive a wedge between them and the real enemy, in many of their eyes, the Labour party: Trident, a policy to scrap the Human Rights Act, and Cameron’s life chances strategy. On Trident and the British bill of rights, Tories smelled Labour blood, knowing that both policies would force the opposition into taking positions that could sit uncomfortably with an important part of the working class electorate with which it needs to reconnect. Life chances was to be a cross-governmental effort, led by the Department for Work and Pensions, to improve the opportunities for the most disadvantaged in society. It was a policy through which Cameron wanted to dictate his legacy; reminding people that he began as a modernising leader who wanted desperately to detoxify his party and end an obsession with Europe. But it is hardly a unifying agenda for a party that has lost its leader. It seems unlikely now that Cameron will ever break free from his most significant act – a referendum that tore Britain from its European neighbours in a way that shocked the world. Like Iraq for Tony Blair, it is his record on the EU that is now likely to overshadow his premiership.
Theresa May’s ‘just managing’ families set to be worse off Low-earning families that Theresa May has promised to help will be thousands of pounds a year worse off by 2020 because of rising inflation, lower wage growth and Tory social security cuts, according to new analysis of their post-Brexit economic prospects. Those who the prime minister describes as “just managing” – and who are her key priority, she says – are in line for substantial falls in real incomes unless the chancellor, Philip Hammond, steps in to help them in his autumn statement on 23 November. Pressure is growing on Hammond from senior Tories to reverse the decisions to slash benefits, which were announced last year by his predecessor George Osborne, in order to assist those who May said on entering Downing Street were “working around the clock” but still struggling to get by. New analysis by the Resolution Foundation, which takes into account the latest official forecasts on earnings and inflation, and the effects of 2015 budget announcements on tax, the living wage and benefits, finds that an already gloomy outlook for these families has got markedly worse since Brexit. It shows that a couple with two children both under the age of four, who are both working (one full-time at £10.50 an hour and the other for 20 hours a week at the living wage) will be £2,000 worse off in 2020 than would have been the case without the double hit from the effects of Osborne’s policies and the Brexit vote. The foundation finds that a single parent with one child under the age of four, working full-time on the minimum wage, would in 2020 be £3,800 worse off as a result of measures announced in this parliament so far. One important factor in these recalculations is that higher inflation and expectations of lower wage growth since the Brexit referendum have reduced the previous anticipated increases in the National Living Wage (NLW). Wherereas Osborne said the NLW would reach £9.00 an hour by 2020, the foundation says it now expects it to be only £8.60 an hour. The level of the NLW is linked to rises in the pay of typical workers. Millions of families are also affected by pay freezes across the public sector that will last until 2020, which will feel more severe as inflation rises. Lord Willetts, the former Tory minister who is now executive chairman of the Resolution Foundation, said May was right to prioritise those who were “just managing” but faced a “pretty tough climate in which to do it. The chancellor faces a double headwind. One consequence of the big falls we have recently seen in the value of the pound is that prices will rise more quickly over the next few years. This will squeeze family budgets with higher prices in the shops, and turn the cash freeze in social security support for working age families into a significant and painful real terms cut. “Added to this is the £3bn being taken out of the government’s flagship universal credit programme through cuts to in-work support. These cuts will reduce the incomes of ‘just managing families’ more than any other group. For many families, and for women in particular, these cuts will also reduce their incentive to work. “Making progress in reversing the effect of the social security cuts inherited by the new government is not cost-free, and that matters given the £84bn borrowing black hole the Treasury is likely to face in [the] autumn statement. But the money can be found if the chancellor chooses to make it the focus of his autumn statement. That would send a powerful message that the government really is on the side of just managing families.” Angus Armstrong, director of macroeconomics at the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, said: “Those millions of people Theresa May has promised to help are facing a series of challenges from rising inflation, benefit cuts and freezes as well as caps in public sector pay until 2020. “Given the financial constraints on government post-Brexit it will prove difficult for ministers to deliver that help without radically departing from their previous approach which has been to balance the books. The problem is that the PM has made a laudable commitment but when she can least afford it.” So far the Treasury has insisted that it will not revisit benefit cuts, including those to universal credit, despite calls from Tory MPs, including former work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith, to do so. Privately, however, Treasury officials are becoming increasingly concerned at the economic outlook and the chancellor’s resulting lack of room for manoeuvre. They fear that recent bouyant GDP figures will prove a high watermark for the economy before a period of stagnation in 2017. The fall in sterling is proving helpful to exporters but is coming at the cost of higher import prices which are expected to push inflation to as much as 3% next year. With wages rising at around 2%, a hike in prices of this magnitude will eat into disposable incomes. GDP figures covering the three months to the end of September revealed last week that most of the strength in the economy came in the services sector and consumer spending. The rise of 0.5% beat City expectations of a slowdown in growth to 0.3%. However, the manufacturing sector contracted and the construction sector fell into recession after two consecutive quarters of negative growth. HSBC warned in the summer that the UK faced a period of stagnant growth and high inflation – stagflation – next year. Former Bank of England monetary policy committee member Adam Posen repeated the warning last week. Posen, now the head of the Peterson Institute thinktank in Washington, said Brexit had caused the UK permanent damage that would be made worse by higher inflation and slowing consumer demand, which would result in lower growth Bank of England interest rate setters meet on Thursday to consider policy options that include cutting interest rates to support the economy as it heads into a period of lower growth or raise interest rates to choke off inflation. City analysts expect the Bank to sit on its hands and wait for more survey data to reveal the impact of the Brexit vote on business investment and consumer confidence.
Goldman Sachs banker apologises to MPs for not disclosing BHS talks The leading British banker at Goldman Sachs has apologised to MPs after he revealed that the bank was approached by Sir Philip Green about offering a £40m loan to BHS when it was bought by Dominic Chappell. Goldman had not previously disclosed talks about the loan, despite giving oral and written evidence to the parliamentary committee investigating the demise of BHS. Iain Wright, the chair of the business, innovation and skills committee, said: “How can clients trust you when you’ve failed to remember a potential £40m transaction?” Michael Sherwood, a vice-chairman of the bank, said sorry, declaring that he had forgotten the conversation with Green and that a formal request for the loan did not materialise. “We never put terms of the loan, ever,” he said. Goldman was thrown into the centre of the BHS scandal after Green claimed that he “one million per cent” would not have sold the department store chain to Chappell had he not passed an informal vetting by the bank. Goldman had previously said it provided informal observations to Green on the prospective buyer and was not paid for its work. Sherwood insisted that Goldman had “done a good job of highlighting the risks” of the deal, but would have done “substantially more” had it been paid. BHS collapsed into administration in April, putting 11,000 jobs at risk and leaving a £571m pension deficit. Green controlled BHS for 15 years until he sold it to a consortium led by Chappell, who has been declared bankrupt three times. There is growing anger about the collapse of BHS because Green and other investors collected more than £580m in dividends, rental payments and interest during the Topshop owner’s period in charge. Chappell’s consortium Retail Acquisitions also collected at least £17m from BHS, despite owning it for just 13 months. MPs on the work and pensions committee, and the business, innovation and skills committee, are investigating how the BHS pension scheme ended up heavily in deficit and why Green sold the company to Chappell. In hearings on Tuesday, the man who introduced Chappell to Green, thereby facilitating the controversial takeover of BHS for £1, said he “never thought in a million years” that Chappell would end up running the department store chain. Paul Sutton, who has a spent conviction for fraud in France, told MPs that Chappell had initially been his driver when he was working on his own deal to buy BHS. Sutton was forced to stand down from his bid after a dossier describing a series of allegations against him, including the fraud conviction, was sent to Green. Chappell then took over Sutton’s proposal, eventually buying BHS from Green’s retail business Arcadia Group in March 2015. Sutton said standing down from his bid team “was the only decent thing to do” and that he agreed to sign a declaration that he would not be involved in buying BHS. Sutton claims that the dossier was sent by the sisters of his partner and is part of an alleged blackmail attempt against him.
Kickstarter for Mike Diana film raises enough to clear arrest warrant A Kickstarter campaign to fund a documentary about the US comic artist Mike Diana – the first person to receive a criminal conviction in the US for “artistic obscenity” – has surpassed its $40,000 (£32,000) goal, with enough extra money to clear the outstanding warrant for his arrest in the state of Florida. Diana was living in Largo, Florida, when he became the first person to be convicted and jailed on obscenity charges in 1994, for his self-published comic book Boiled Angel. A jury took just 40 minutes to convict him following a sting in which an undercover police officer procured copies of Diana’s underground comic. After spending a short period in jail on remand before sentencing, Diana was put on probation for three years, during which time he was forbidden to interact with minors or to draw. He was told that police could turn up at his home at any time to check he wasn’t breaking the terms of his sentence, so he would hide in his car at night to do his work. Diana gained leave to serve out the last part of his probation in his native New York, but a claim that he had violated the terms of his sentence, which included doing community service, led to a warrant being issued for his arrest – meaning Diana couldn’t set foot in Florida for fear of detention. After the Kickstarter appeal reached its $40,000 goal, a stretch goal called “Buy Mike’s freedom” was added, stipulating that if $45,000 was raised, it would be used to pay of the $2,000 fine attached to the warrant, essentially making Diana a free man again. The director behind the documentary is Frank Henenlotter, a self-confessed “exploitation” movie maker whose credits include the cult hits Basket Case, Frankenhooker and Brain Damage. Henenlotter’s work pairs well with Diana’s, which featured graphic sex, violence and gore, but mainly in a satirical and darkly humorous vein. Henenlotter and Diana appeared in a live internet “telethon” in the final hours of the Kickstarter appeal, which concluded at 2am GMT on Friday and pushed the total figure raised to $45,816. Henenlotter’s Kickstarter statement said: “Does freedom of speech mean anything when authorities see only obscenity? Does an artist’s vision matter when community standards conspire to suppress it? In a small town in Florida back in 1994, Mike Diana learned that the answer was a resounding no. Freedom of speech doesn’t mean anything when your art is declared obscene. And one man’s art could be another man’s obscenity.” Diana’s legal battle was a landmark case for the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, which marks 30 years this year of funding legal representation for comic-book creators and retailers who fall foul of censorship or obscenity laws. After a failed attempt by the FBI to link Diana’s work with the activities of the serial killer Danny Rolling, the then 25-year-old was subjected to the undercover sting that led to his conviction. Earlier this year he told the : “Largo is a very conservative place. I think they thought what I was doing was making a mockery of their community. I wanted to show them [the jury] some underground comics so they could see there was a precedent for what I was doing, but they wouldn’t look at them. If they could prove that what I was doing had no artistic or literary value, they could prosecute me.” The Mike Diana documentary is already in production, so the Kickstarter success means it can be successfully finished, edited and distributed in 2017. Arrangements are being made to screen the film in Florida.
Zayn Malik's debut solo single Pillowtalk goes straight to No 1 Zayn Malik’s first single since leaving One Direction has shot straight to the top of UK charts. The track, Pillowtalk, achieved combined sales of 112,000, with 4.97m streams, making it the fastest-selling track of the year so far. The single was up against the tropical house cover of Tracy Chapman’s Fast Car by Jonas Blue, which is at No 2, while last week’s No 1 – Stitches by Shawn Mendes – falls to 3. Over a week since its release, and Work, the lead single from Rihanna’s album Anti, has climbed the charts from 13 to 4. Justin Bieber’s previous No 1, Love Yourself, caps off the top 5. The rest of the singles chart sees the burgeoning return of Craig David, who has been lifted four places to No 10 with When the Bassline Drops - his first top 10 in eight years. Drake’s new single Summer Sixteen makes its debut at 23, while Sia’s Chandelier returns to the top 40 at 35, with former Liberty X singer Kevin Simm’s rendition on last week’s episode of The Voice giving it a boost. While Sia made her return on the singles charts, her recent album was held off the top spot this week by David Bowie. Following his death in January, the late musician has become the first act in six years to knock themselves off the top of the official albums chart. His Best of Bowie compilation, originally released in 2002, has replaced his final studio album Blackstar at No 1. He joins Michael Jackson in this feat. Behind Bowie’s Blackstar, Sia rounds off the top 3. Just 1,213 sales separate Sia’s album This is Acting from the chart-topping Best of Bowie. At present, he occupies seven entries in the top 40. Elsewhere on the album charts, Adele’s 25 has slipped two places to No 4, while Justin Bieber’s Purpose is at No 5.
Donald Trump inflates with pride to claim backing of NFL star Tom Brady Donald Trump may not have had any celebrities appearing his behalf on Monday night – but he told a crowd of more than 10,000 that he was backed by the New England Patriots star quarterback, Tom Brady, and their head coach, Bill Belichick. In a local interview earlier on Monday, though, Brady said he hadn’t voted yet – “I am going to vote today or tomorrow” – and played coy on who he might vote for: “Next week I’ll tell you.” Speaking in Manchester, New Hampshire, in an arena lit with laser lights and smoke machines, the Republican nominee took the stage in his penultimate event before election day to announce the support of two of the most beloved sports figures in New England. Trump has long bragged that Brady, a two-time NFL MVP and four time Super Bowl champion, “is a great friend of mine”. Brady was suspended for four games at the start of the 2016 season for his role in the Deflategate scandal. The Republican nominee told the cheering crowd on Monday night that Brady called him earlier in the day to say: “Donald, I support you. You’re my friend and I voted for you.” The quarterback was photographed in 2015 with a Make America Great Again hat in his locker. Brady also said in an interview in December 2015: “Donald is a good friend of mine. I have known him for a long time. I support all my friends.” However, Brady’s wife, Gisele Bundchen, last week denied that the couple would vote for Trump in a comment on her Instagram page. The Republican candidate also boasted of his support from the Patriots head coach, Bill Belichick. The famously taciturn and obsessive coach has won four Super Bowls with Brady as his quarterback and is considered one of the greatest coaches in NFL history. Belichick’s girlfriend posted a picture on Instagram of Trump and the NFL coach in the spring, describing the Republican nominee as “our good friend”. Trump announced after the Brady endorsement that Belichick “wrote me the most beautiful letter”. The Republican nominee said he called back Belichick and asked he could read it on stage and Belichick wrote an even nicer letter in response, which he read on stage. The letter as Trump read it said: “Congratulations on a tremendous campaign. You have dealt with an unbelievable slanted and negative media and come out beautifully. You have proved to be the ultimate competitor and fighter. Your leadership is amazing. The toughness and perseverance you have displayed in the past year is remarkable. Hopefully the results in tomorrow’s election will give you the opportunity to make America great again.” Trump has long touted the support of a number of current and former professional athletes, and campaigned with some ex-college sports coaches including the former Indiana basketball coach Bobby Knight and ex-Florida State football coach Bobby Bowden. At the same time Trump has repeatedly condemned Hillary Clinton for using celebrities to campaign on her behalf, including Jay-Z, Beyonce and Bruce Springsteen. He told the crowd in Manchester that it “was demeaning to the political process”. On Monday night Trump didn’t embrace everything about Massachusetts and New England, though. He attacked the Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren, a Hillary Clinton supporter, as Pocahontas and proclaimed: “I’ll make you a deal, you can have Pocahontas and I’ll have Tom Brady and Bill Belichick.” He also seemed to endorse the former Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling as candidate to run against Warren in the 2018 Senate election. Schilling has made a number of racially charged comments in recent years including comparing Muslims to Nazis. Earlier on Monday Schilling tweeted praise for a shirt that called for the lynching of journalists. Schilling was also involved in a failed software company subsidized by the state of Rhode Island which cost taxpayers there tens of millions of dollars. A spokesman for the New England Patriots did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Move over Amazon: other grocery apps that make shopping click All it takes is a couple of clicks on your phone – while you’re on the train, say, or sitting at your desk – and your groceries will arrive at your door on the same day. With its emphasis on speed and convenience, the new Amazon Fresh service, which is being rolled out in central and east London is likely to shake up the grocery market. However, even if you are not a fan of the global retail giant, there are plenty of grocery-buying apps out there that also deliver the goods and save you money. With apps rather than desktop shopping, you can more easily scroll special offers, and it’s quicker to zip through the mobile checkout while you’re cooking the tea or checking what’s in the cupboards than it is to fire up your computer. Main supermarkets Generally speaking, the apps from the major supermarkets, such as Tesco, Asda, Morrisons, Ocado, Waitrose and Sainsburys work in a similar way to the retailers’ websites. You can download the “pick your own offers” app from Waitrose, for example, and set your choices the same way as you can if you were shopping on your computer. However, some do have extra features, which may make it more likely that you will spot a deal. For example, Lawrence Hene, director of marketing and grocery retail at Ocado, says: “Shoppers can find products by using voice search (on Android), barcode scanning or simply typing the product name. Shoppers can quickly add products to an existing order using one-click functionality.” With Tesco, you can take things a step further if you download the If This Then That app and link it to your shopping basket. You can set preferences, for example, asking it to pop nappies into your basket every fortnight. “You set the rules,” says Nick Lansley, an innovation consultant who has worked for Tesco on its website and apps. “If you run 5K, you can tell the app to reward you by putting chocolate into your basket, say. Or if your favourite wine drops below a certain price, the app will add a bottle to your list. You can change your mind before paying for your goods, but it means your basket builds up without you having to fill it.” Money-saving sites The Mysupermarket app lists prices across major supermarkets, including: Sainsburys, Aldi, Waitrose, Tesco, Ocado, Asda, Iceland and Morrisons. Unlike the main website, the app also allows you to scan products by their bar codes to find out where they are cheapest. You can check the best prices for individual products at any given time, and find out where your basket would be cheapest overall before you checkout. There’s a grocery section on the app from deal-sharing community HotUKDeals, which allows members (there are as many as 1.4m of them registered) to share information about bargains they have spotted. On its app, you can search for products, scroll the posts and sign up for keyword alerts for supermarket brands or branded products. Currently on the app, for example, members are sharing deals such as half-price strawberry trifles at Sainsburys and boxes of Alpen at Tesco at £1.39 (half price). There’s plenty of deals to trawl through, but to make the biggest savings, instead of making spontaneous purchases from the random deals, sign up for keyword alerts on pricier items such as meat, fish, alcoholic drinks and household cleaning products. Cashback sites TopCashback, Quidco and Shopitize all have apps allowing you to earn cashback when shopping at your local supermarket simply by taking a photo of your receipt. Once you’ve signed up to TopCashback (there are free options) and downloaded its Snap & Save app, you buy an item, and upload a photo of your receipt via the app and the cashback (advertising commission paid to the site by the retailer) will be credited to your account in the usual way. The Quidco app is similar, though there is an option to activate personalised offers. You download the ClickSnap app and, when you’ve gone to a store and bought a featured product, you upload the receipt. However, an easier way to claim the cashback is to pick a supermarket, share that choice with the app and then just buy featured products online. Either way, you earn cashback such as £1.50 if you buy a Brookside chocolate pomegranate pouch 198g at Tesco and £2 cashback if you buy Malibu white rum with pineapple 75cl at Asda or Waitrose. Shopitize’s cashback app is currently offering £1.50 if you buy five sachets of Moma Porridge from Sainsburys and many offers allow you to buy at a wider selection of stores, such as an 80p cashback offer on a Birds Eye Spanish paella, available at Waitrose, Asda, Co-op, Tesco, Sainsburys and Morrisons. Independents If you want to buy groceries from independents and local producers there are apps that can help you do that. The newly launched the Food Assembly app allows you to buy directly from producers within a 28-mile radius and collect your groceries at a weekly meeting. There are also geographically specific apps for seasonal, fresh foods. London-based customers can use the Farmdrop app, for instance, while the We Deliver Local app delivers affordable groceries from local butchers, bakers and grocers in your area. Dietary requirements Buying groceries on your phone can be tricky if you have dietary restrictions, as the apps (as do the websites) vary in how much information they list about each product. If you avoidgluten, dairy or nuts, for example(and particularly if you have a serious peanut allergy), you often have to go into shops in person to read the back of packets. However, the technology is improving, and new apps are appearing – FoodMaestro is one – that list dietary information and filter products such as wheat-free items, which makes shopping by smartphone easier. In future, buying food via an app could get even easier, as technology that has already been invented is rolled out. In Sweden, a firm is talking about apps that can get the food to your fridge without you having to wait in, while in the UK Sainsbury’s is experimenting with technology that allows people to take “fridge selfies” to remotely check before they start shopping.
Sanders and Clinton agree to final debate before New York primary – as it happened On the eve of a crucial primary in Wisconsin, the last remaining candidates in the Democratic and Republican contests fought to prove their viability, with each would-be Oval Office occupant facing stiff headwinds against that claim. On the Democratic side, Vermont senator Bernie Sanders is sitting pretty in Wisconsin, but he’ll need to win nearly 60% of the remaining delegates to clinch the party’s nomination. Former secretary of state Hillary Clinton has superdelegates on her side, but she’s finished her third straight month behind Sanders in fundraising, and just capitulated on an additional debate only five days before the New York primary. Things only get fiercer in the Republican race. Donald Trump is starting down the barrel of an embarrassing loss in Wisconsin, which severely hampers his ability to win a 1,237-delegate majority before the conclusion of the primary process. Texas senator Ted Cruz is actively calling on fellow candidate John Kasich to drop out, lest he serve as a spoiler who sends the party into July without a clear nominee. How bad is it? Republicans are reportedly contemplating drafting Speaker of the House Paul Ryan to serve as a “unity nominee.” Ahead of the Wisconsin primaries, here’s a wrap-up of the biggest news in campaign politics today: Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, for one, is not onboard the “Draft Ryan” movement - at least, not yet. “I decided not to run for president,” Ryan told the Times of Israel this weekend during a visit to Jerusalem. “I think you should run if you’re going to be president.” He later doubled down on the comments, telling Hugh Hewitt that “if you want to be president, you should go run for president.” Of course, Ryan was similarly disinterested in seeking the House speakership when the Republican congressional majority was in chaos after the resignation of John Boehner, so take that firm denial with a grain of salt. Ted Cruz, for one, is bearish on a Ryan nomination. Talking with reporters in the basement of a Masonic Center in Madison, Wisconsin, Cruz declared that “this fevered pipe dream of Washington, that at the convention they would parachute in some white knight who will save the Washington establishment, it is nothing less than a pipe dream: It ain’t gonna happen. If it did happen, the people would quite rightly revolt.” At least eight people were able to agree on voting-related matters today - although not everyone is pleased about it. The supreme court unanimously rejected a conservative challenge to voting rights – ruling that states could count the total population, not just eligible voters, in drawing legislative districts. The case was brought before the court after conservative activists challenged the legal principle of “one person, one vote”, which has long established that election districts should be drawn to be equal in population. The New York has now pledged to cover billionaire Republican frontrunner Donald Trump “in the same way they cover every other candidate in the presidential race,” despite Trump being the father-in-law of the paper’s owner Jared Kushner. The pledge comes after a high-profile flap in which New York Magazine revealed that editor-in-chief Ken Kurson had assisted Trump in writing his high-profile speech in front of the Aipac Policy Conference last month. Speaking to a relatively sparse crowd in the Milwaukee suburb of Waukesha, Melania Trump made a rare campaign appearance to advocate on behalf of her billionaire husband with a laundry list of qualities that she said make him “a good leader.” That’s it for today - tune in tomorrow for up-to-the-minute coverage of the critical Wisconsin primaries from our team of brilliant political reporters, analysts and opinion writers. In an email to supporters this evening, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton comes across as pessimistic about her chances of winning tomorrow night’s Democratic presidential primary in Wisconsin, noting that “we’re down in almost every poll.” Under the subject line “We could lose Wisconsin,” Clinton’s campaign urges supporters to “have Hillary’s back” in fighting back the insurgent campaign of Vermont senator Bernie Sanders. “We’re down in almost every poll in Wisconsin - tomorrow’s primary is going to be a tough fight,” the email begins. “The Sanders campaign raised over $43 million in March - making that the third month in a row they’ve outraised us.” “This nomination isn’t locked up yet, and we’ve got to keep fighting for every vote if we want to see Hillary Clinton in the White House,” the email continues, before asking supporters to “chip in right now” in exchange for a free sticker. After pledging to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, destroy Common Core, renegotiate trade deals, stop the heroin trade, build a wall on America’s southern border and “stop bad, bad things from happening in this country,” Donald Trump concluded a speech in the Milwaukee suburb of Waukesha by telling Wisconsinites that they would be “so proud” if the Badger State votes in support of his candidacy in tomorrow night’s crucial Republican primary. “You’re gonna be so proud of your country,” Trump said, saying that if he wins the Republican nomination and is elected president, his supporters will look back on their primary vote as “the single greatest vote that I have ever cast - and you’re gonna look back, and you’re gonna be proud of yourselves.” Trump quoted a woman he reportedly saw interviewed on a local television station who told journalists that “there is nothing he can do that would get me to vote against him.” “We have so many people like that - we’re all like that. I mean, a big chunk of the country is like that,” Trump said. Perhaps our favorite photo from Donald Trump in Wisconsin: Donald Trump was dismissive of the #NeverTrump movement within the Republican party at a speech in Waukesha, Wisconsin, calling its supporters “crazy” and dismissing the Club for Growth - “whatever that means.” “You need Trump so badly though!” Trump said. “If [#NeverTrump Republicans] would have worked so hard, so diligently, against President Barack Hussein Obama, they would have beaten him!” he declared. “They would have had everything they wanted!” “I’ve never met any human being that lied as much as him,” Donald Trump said of fellow would-be Republican presidential nominee Ted Cruz, who Trump labeled several times as “Lyin’ Ted” (complete with spelling out the dropped letter G). Evangelical leaders, Trump said, were expected to support Cruz in South Carolina, “but they don’t like liars, and they see how much he lies.” Cruz, Trump mocked, holds his Bible aloft when he makes political speeches “and then he starts to lie! Boy, he is bad.” Donald Trump, on campaign contributions: I’m not taking any money from anybody - I’m self-funding my campaign. Factcheck. Donald Trump’s campaign event in Milwaukee tonight is very “low energy.” In a half full theater, Trump trotted out his wife Melania to read prepared remarks praising her husband for being “kind” and having a “great heart.” Despite anticipation that the event, held just a few blocks from a Bernie Sanders rally, might be raucous, it was relatively subdued by the Republican frontrunner’s standards. While the vocal supporters of Trump hooted and hollered along with him, the shouts echoed in a theater that was far under its listed capacity of 4,086. The balcony was curtained off and the lower level was about half full. The event boded ill for Trump’s chances in Wisconsin’s primary tomorrow. The Republican frontrunner is trying to fend off Ted Cruz who has been endorsed by the state’s governor, Scott Walker, and strongest in the Milwaukee area. Donald Trump began reciting The Snake, an Al Wilson song from 1968 in which a “vicious snake” takes advantage of the kindness of a “tender woman,” who saves the life of a venemous snake, only to be bitten and killed by “the reptile with a grin.” “You knew damn well I was a snake before you took me in,” Trump closed the poem, to cheers.” That’s what’s happening to our country, folks.” Donald Trump, while speaking in Waukesha, Wisconsin, has tweeted a video putatively highlighting his good relationship with communities of color. As Trump said in 2011, “I’ve always had a great relationship with the blacks.” Donald Trump, re-taking the stage, called for fellow candidate John Kasich, governor of nearby Ohio, to drop out of the race, ridiculing his chances of taking the Republican nomination as miniscule and calling him an obstacle to his own nomination. “The guy’s one and thirty-two, and it was his own state!” Trump said, in reference to the number of primary contests that Kasich has won. “Jeb Bush was doing a lot better than that.” “He’s taking my votes! We have to get over fifty percent - and how do we do that?” Trump continued, referencing the need to win a 1,237 Republican delegate majority to secure the party’s presidential nomination on the first ballot at the convention. “He takes my votes away much more than he does Cruz - I don’t like it, I don’t think it’s appropriate.” Trump then declared that no matter what, he will beat Kasich “easily.” Speaking to a relatively sparse crowd in the Milwaukee suburb of Waukesha, Melania Trump advocated on behalf of her billionaire husband Donald with a laundry list of qualities that she said make him “a good leader.” “I brought somebody very very special along - I wonder who that could be?” Trump (the candidate) said, introducing his wife as “an incredible woman, an incredible mother... and really something special,” who would make “an unbelievable first lady.” “It is wonderful to be here today with you and with my husband,” Trump (the spouse) said, before lauding her husband with a long list of positive attributes in her thick Slovenian accent. “I’m very proud of him. He’s hard worker; he’s kind; he has a great heart; he’s tough; he’s smart; he’s a great communicator; he’s a great negotiator, he’s telling the truth; he’s a good leader; he’s fair.” “As you may know by now, if you attack him, he will punch back ten times harder,” she continued, inciting a loud chant of “Trump! Trump! Trump!” from the crowd. “No matter who you are, a man or a woman, he treats everyone equal,” she said. “He’s a fighter, and if you elect him to be your president, he will fight for you and for your county. He will work for you and with you. And together we will make American strong and great again.” On the eve of the Wisconsin primary in which he is not expected to triumph, billionaire Republican frontrunner Donald Trump is holding a rally in Waukesha, Wisconsin, a suburb of Milwaukee whose 70,000 residents don’t seem to have turned out in droves to see him speak. We’ll be liveblogging the speech in its entirety - if you want to watch at home, the good people at C-SPAN are streaming the proceedings as well. Speaking at a club in midtown Manhattan, Transparent actor Gaby Hoffman neared tears while speaking about the fervor around Sanders. Hoffman said she has campaigned for Sanders since the Iowa caucus. “It is incredible to be at any Bernie sanders headquarters in the country,” Hoffman said. “It’s the most inspiring thing I’ve ever seen in my life.” Watching her speak in a crowd of about 200 was Jon Wayne Martin, a 26-year-old high school speech and debate teacher. He said that this is the first time he’s been politically active. Martin said he was inspired by Sanders’s image, his position on Palestine and his work to fight income inequality. “I feel like its campaign of love,” Martin said. Former secretary of state Hillary Clinton and Vermont senator Bernie Sanders have agreed to meet for another Democratic presidential primary debate on April 14, less than a week before the consequential New York primary. The debate, which will be co-hosted by CNN and local station NY1, will be moderated by CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer and held in Brooklyn, according to CNN. Dana Bash, CNN’s chief political correspondent, and NY1 political anchor Errol Louis also join in questioning the candidates. Both Sanders and Clinton had traded jabs over the topic of a potential additional debate over the past week, with the Sanders camp accusing Clinton of attempting to put the kibosh on all future debates. “Fortunately, we were able to move a major New York City rally... to the night before,” the Sanders campaign released in a pithy statement. “We hope the debate will be worth the inconvenience for thousands of New Yorkers who were planning to attend our rally on Thursday but will have to change their schedules to accommodate Secretary Clinton’s jam-packed, high-dollar, coast-to-coast schedule of fundraisers all over the country.” Donald Trump’s campaign staffers are getting more aggressive with reporters who dare to stray beyond designated, fenced-in “media zones.” Michelle Fields, the former Breitbart News reporter who has filed charges against Donald Trump’s campaign manager for assaulting her after a campaign event in Florida, has contacted authorities after phone calls threatening to kill her if she didn’t drop the charges were made to her and a relative. According to the Blaze, an unknown man called Fields after midnight on April 1, telling her that he knew where she lived and that if she didn’t drop the battery charges against Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s campaign manager, within 36 hours, “I’m going to slit your throat.” Fields’ address and phone number were accidentally released to the public by Buzzfeed and Fox News after the police report she filed against Lewandowski became public. Fields has since fled her home. The Daily Beast’s Betsy Woodruff points out that cold weather in Wisconsin may be keeping pro-Trump fans at home tonight: Both venues here in Milwaukee seem keen to get tonight’s competing rallies inside. Heavy police presence but it’s freezing cold and no one seems in the mood to mingle so far. The National Labor Relations Board has officially certified the union election by 500 workers at Donald Trump’s Las Vegas hotel, overruling the objections of the union-averse employer. “We voted for a union so we could negotiate a fair contract with Mr Trump,” Jeffrey Wise, a food server at the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas, said in a statement. “We voted and won – now it’s time for him to listen to us, the voters, and finally do the right thing by making a deal with his employees.” The Culinary Workers Union, which represents more than 50,000 casino and hotel workers in Las Vegas, had sought to capitalize on the Republican presidential candidate’s high profile and anti-immigrant rhetoric to galvanize its organizing campaign. Trump co-owns the hotel with Phillip Ruffin, a billionaire casino owner. Latino staffers had protested at the hotel, using his harsh stance on immigrants to galvanize the majority-Latino workforce to join the union, one of the most powerful entities in Nevada politics. “If Mr Trump wants to make America great again, he should start here,” workers shouted at the time. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan has flatly denied any interest in seeking the Republican presidential nomination at a contested convention this summer, despite strong rumors to the contrary. “I think you need to run for president if you’re gonna be president, and I’m not running for president, so period, end of story,” Ryan told Hugh Hewitt on his radio show this afternoon. “If you want to be president, you should go run for president. And that’s just the way I see it.” Of course, Ryan was similarly disinterested in seeking the House speakership when the Republican congressional majority was in chaos after the resignation of John Boehner, so take that firm denial with a grain of salt. The New York has now pledged to cover billionaire Republican frontrunner Donald Trump “in the same way they cover every other candidate in the presidential race,” despite Trump being the father-in-law of the paper’s owner Jared Kushner. The pledge comes after a high-profile flap in which New York Magazine revealed that editor-in-chief Ken Kurson had assisted Trump in writing his high-profile speech in front of the Aipac Policy Conference last month. Kurson stirred the pot after writing in an unapologetic blog post for the Huffington Post that he didn’t intend “to let the eleven people who have appointed themselves the journalist police tell me, at age 47, how to behave or to whom I’m allowed to speak.” Here’s the ’s full statement: “A recent report about Editor Ken Kurson’s input on a speech delivered by Donald Trump before AIPAC has resulted in new scrutiny of our newspaper’s relationship with Mr. Trump, who is the father-in-law of our publisher, Jared Kushner. Going forward, there will be no input whatsoever on the campaign from Mr. Kurson or anyone on the editorial side of the . “Further, we are re-visiting our policy on covering Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign—something that has been a matter of frequent discussion and debate at the since Mr. Trump announced his candidacy. The policy has evolved from our original plans to simply not cover Mr. Trump to covering him when he intersected with New York politics to more recently covering his campaign with mainly straight news stories, with an effort to avoid the opinion and analysis pieces of which other candidates have been the subject. “That policy has become less tenable as the field of candidates has shrunk. In the interest of covering the race as fairly as possible despite the unavoidable conflict of interest created by our ownership—a conflict we disclose on each story about Mr. Trump—and in response to concerns raised by staffers at the paper, writers will now be able to cover Mr. Trump in the same way they cover every other candidate in the presidential race.” Billionaire Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump - a phrase that we never quite get over typing - was dismissive of the so-hashtagged #NeverTrump movement within the Republican Party to prevent his nomination, calling it a conspiracy by a small group of ne’er-do-wells who stand to lose their seat at the table if Trump takes the White House. “You know what these are?” Trump asked rhetorically at a campaign rally in Superior, Wisconsin. “These are establishment people that don’t want to see it happen because they’re all on the trough, they’re all making a lot of money - I don’t even think in many cases they care who wins.” “If they worked this hard to stop Obama, Obama wouldn’t have had a chance, you know that?” Trump continued. The ’s Dan Roberts reports from Wisconsin that Texas senator Ted Cruz is coming close to joining Donald Trump in calling for a party insurrection if shenanigans at the Republican National Convention rob one of them of the nomination: If it did, the people would quite rightly revolt. The US supreme court on Monday unanimously rejected a conservative challenge to voting rights – ruling that states could count the total population, not just eligible voters, in drawing legislative districts, writes politics reporter Sabrina Siddiqui: The case was brought before the court after conservative activists challenged thelegal principle of “one person, one vote”, which has long established that election districts should be drawn to be equal in population. The two plaintiffs, both residents of Texas, argued the principle diluted the influence of those living in districts where a larger number of individuals were ineligible to vote. But shifting the method would most certainly lend greater power to states with wealthier populations with mostly white voters, and away from urban and more racially diverse areas. The lawsuit was opposed by the Obama administration, the state of Texas and civil rights groups across America. Not a single member of the court, down to eight members since the death of conservative justice Antonin Scalia, sided with the challengers. Ruth Bader Ginsburg authored the opinion for the court, in which the liberal justice wrote that the plaintiffs had failed to demonstrate a rationale upon which the court should overturn the longstanding use of total population in drawing districts. The nation’s founders, she added, intended that “representatives serve all residents, not just those eligible or registered to vote”. Read the full piece here. Team Cruz cruises Wisconsin. A new ad from the pro-Clinton super Pac Priorities USA attacks Ted Cruz as “extreme,” “dangerous,” and “wrong.” “If you think Donald Trump is dangerous... watch out for Ted Cruz,” the ad says: Bernie Sanders appeared Monday at a UAW rally in Janesville, Wisconsin. “Without a strong labor union there cannot be a strong middle class,” he said, to enthusiastic applause. “We’re going to do everything we can to rebuild” unions. “I am not a candidate that goes to unions and then leaves and then goes to Wall Street,” he says. “You are my family.” Here’s video of the speech: Here’s video of Ted Cruz calling the elevation of an outside presidential nominee at the national Republican convention a “pipe dream” and saying it “ain’t gonna happen.” Cruz gets pretty yolo with his mixed metaphors here. “This fevered pipe dream of Washington, that at the convention they will parachute in some white knight that will save the Washington establishment...” “The people would revolt” and stay out of the race if saddled with an outside nominee, Cruz says. Heh Hillary Clinton has joined New York governor Andrew Cuomo at a signing ceremony for a law that would eventually raise the state’s minimum wage to $15 / hour, depending on inflation. California governor Jerry Brown signed an even more muscular $15/hr law today. Here’s video of Clinton’s speech in New York, which votes in a Democratic primary on 19 April: President Obama released a statement congratulating Cuomo: I commend Governor Andrew Cuomo and the state of New York for taking the historic step of creating a paid family leave program in the state and raising its minimum wage to support New York’s working families. This action means more parents won’t have to choose between their job and caring for their new children. It means more workers can earn a higher wage to help make ends meet. Since I first called on Congress to increase the federal minimum wage in 2013, 18 states and more than 40 cities and counties have acted on their own -- thanks to the strong leadership of elected officials, businesses, and workers who organized and fought so hard for the economic security families deserve. Now Congress needs to act to raise the federal minimum wage and expand access to paid leave for all Americans. New Hampshire senator Kelly Ayotte, a Republican up for re-election this year, has decided to meet with Obama Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland, her office has announced. Ayotte is one of at least 16 Republican senators to agree to meet with Garland – but only two, according to a Washington Post count, favor holding hearings on the nomination in advance of the November presidential election. For a brief period this weekend, the flag of Mexico flew proudly from the soon-to-be-completed Trump hotel and tower in Vancouver, writes Ashifa Kassam from Toronto: Diego Saul Reyna entered the building on early Saturday morning, with the aim of sending a message to Republican frontrunner Donald Trump. Wearing a hard hat and steel-toed boots, the Mexican-Canadian steel framer was given access to the building. He took the elevator to the 20th floor of the building and climbed the stairs the rest of the way to reach the top floor of the 63-storey tower. Once there, he hung a Mexican flag from the building and snapped a photo. “From the concrete pouring, finishing, drywall, taping, wood forming and general labour, Mexicans were there, building it,” Reyna wrote on Facebook as he posted the photo. “The comments Trump has made about us, did not stop us from doing the high quality work we have always done, in our home country or when we migrate to the US/Canada.” By Sunday morning, the flag had been taken down but Reyna’s Facebook post had been shared thousands of times. Reyna is not part of the crew who has been building the project. But he knows many who have worked on the site and wanted to send a message on their behalf. “They kept telling me their frustration, their anger and their hurt but they can’t say anything,” Reyna, 30, told The Huffington Post Canada. “So I did it because I don’t work there.” In his push to become the Republican nominee, Trump has repeatedly taken aim at Mexicans, referring to them as rapists and criminals and pledging to build a “great, great, wall” along the US-Mexico border. “I’m not concerned about Trump rising to power. I’m concerned about his values and his points of view extending to our country,” said Reyna. “Here in Canada, we are very well integrated ethnically and I think, as he labels negatively an entire ethnic group, that could jeopardise our society... That can spill into our society.” The Trump project in Vancouver is Canada’s second tower bearing the billionaire businessman’s name. As Trump sharpened his rhetoric against Mexicans and Muslims, the projects in Vancouver and Toronto have both faced calls to remove the Trump name, with some such as Josh Matlow, a Toronto city councillor, pointing out on Twitter that “Toronto is a diverse & respectful city. Donald Trump is a fascist.” The Holborn Group, the developer behind the Trump tower in Vancouver, did not respond to a request for comment from the . Scott Baio does not need a political decoder ring to understand what Donald Trump is sayin’. Don’t know who Scott Baio is? Related: In case your weekend reading omitted this analysis by politics reporter Ben Jacobs...: After Mitt Romney failed to beat a vulnerable Barack Obama in 2012, a chastened Republican party arrived pretty quickly at the answer to their electability problem. They were the party of old, angry white men, and in a much-heralded Washington DC press conference in March 2013, senior officials released an “autopsy report”concluding that to win back the White House, the party needed to appeal to young voters, women and minorities. Three years later, Donald Trump, who is historically unpopular among every one of those demographics, is the frontrunner for the party’s nomination. To paraphrase David Byrne, how did the Republican party get here? In a series of interviews with party insiders, operatives and elected officials, the party’s predicament is clear – Trump is on the verge of completing a hostile takeover – but as top Republican consultant John Brabender said: “Everybody may have a small piece of the answer, but I’m not sure if anyone has the answer.” With the next primary contest looming in Wisconsin on Tuesday, the two most plausible scenarios for the Republican convention in July are either that Trump is the nominee or that complete and total anarchy ensues – and no one knows which option will be more damaging at the general election in November or to the future of the party. The reasons are complex, but the grassroots rage against the machine was clearly evident. Brabender, like many others, saw dissatisfaction with Barack Obama as a key impetus for the rise of Trump. Obama has long been a hate figure on the right and Trump’s coalition includes both diehard conservatives and disaffected blue-collar Democrats. Read the full piece here. A video like this, just tweeted by Trump and apparently put together by a supporter unaffiliated with the campaign, is, with its childlike worldview, action-movie idioms, appetite for violence and accidental exposure of its protagonist as ridiculous – well, this is the kind of thing that used to be funny. Before Trump had captured 700-some Republican delegates in the presidential nominating race. Washington bureau chief Dan Roberts is with Ted Cruz in Wisconsin. Cruz dismisses outright all the renewed buzz this morning about whether Paul Ryan or somebody might sweep to victory in a national convention on the fourth ballot after party leaders conduct ritual self-flagellation and sacrifice a goat. Cruz’s pithy assessment: “Ain’t gonna happen.” The John Kasich camp has sent a fundraising email highlighting his opponents’ claims that his presence in the race is blocking them from victory. The fundraising email – subject line: “wild weekend” – features a Donald Trump quote from a Wisconsin rally: “If I didn’t have Kasich, I automatically win.” Ted Cruz, meanwhile, released his first anti-Kasich TV ad in Wisconsin. Titled “John Kasich: not for us,” the ad spins a dark web of accusation but basically says Kasich handed out tax breaks in return for political contributions. Team Kasich’s push in Wisconsin also includes an endorsement from Tommy Thompson, who was governor of Wisconsin for 14 years: The Kasich camp has been frank about its strategy of winning the nomination in a contested convention. Kasich has captured only 143 delegates so far, to Cruz’s 463 and Trump’s 736. If Trump loses Wisconsin, does that mean that he is finally fading in his fight for the presidential nomination? Short answer: depends on what happens after Wisconsin. What? It does. But don’t take our word for it. Here’s a good thread from this morning / this weekend on the question: And read our analysis here: Here’s someone pouring cold water on talk of House speaker Paul Ryan emerging triumphant from the national convention to become the Republican nominee for president: Paul Ryan. “I decided not to run for president,” Ryan told the Times of Israel Sunday, on a visit to Jerusalem. “I think you should run if you’re going to be president. “I think you should start in Iowa and run to the tape.” It’s Ryan’s first trip abroad as speaker. Hello, and welcome to our live-wire coverage of the 2016 race for the White House. Next stop: Wisconsin, tomorrow, with 42 Republican and 86 Democratic delegates at stake (our comprehensive delegates tracker is here). Donald Trump is braced for an electoral setback in the midwest on Tuesday, after suffering the worst week so far in his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination, writes Jon Swaine: The property developer and TV host is expected to lose the Wisconsin primary to Ted Cruz, the firebrand Texas senator who is the leading hope of conservatives scrambling to stop him as part of a deepening civil war within the Republican party. Cruz has led Trump in all polls of the state in the past week, with two surveys placing his advantage as high as 10 percentage points. Analysts forecast that Cruz could win 39 of the potentially crucial 42 party delegates at stake in the race to the 1,237-delegate finish line. And for those readers in whom the prospect of a wildly contested Republican convention inspires shivers of anticipatory delight, Politico’s Mike Allen has got your shivers – the Paul Ryan kind: EXCLUSIVE : On the eve of the Wisconsin primaries, top Republicans are becoming increasingly vocal about their long-held belief that Speaker Paul Ryan will wind up as the nominee, perhaps on the fourth ballot at a chaotic Cleveland convention. One of the nation’s best-wired Republicans, with an enviable prediction record for this cycle, sees a 60% chance of a convention deadlock, and a 90% chance that delegates turn to Ryan – ergo, a 54% chance that Ryan, who’ll start the third week of July as chairman of the Republican National Convention, will end it as the nominee. “He’s the most conservative, least establishment member of the establishment,” the Republican source said. “That’s what you need to be.” Ryan, who’s more calculating and ambitious than he lets on, is running the same playbook he did to become Speaker: saying he doesn’t want it, that it won’t happen. In both cases, the maximum leverage is to NOT WANT IT – and to be begged to do it. He and his staff are trying to be as Shermanesque as it gets. Ryan repeated his lack of interest this morning in an interview from Israel with radio host Hugh Hewitt. The Bernie Sanders campaign, meanwhile, is urging its supporters to stay away from a Trump rally due to take place yards away today, write Dan Roberts and Ben Jacobs: Two of the most vocal groups of activists in the 2016 presidential race will be separated by a single street in downtown Milwaukee and a tight security presence when both of their campaign events begin at about 7pm on Monday. The latest polls may give Sanders a comfortable lead over former secretary of state Hillary Clinton in the Badger State, but a Saturday night gala – filled with union members and party stalwarts – was definitely Clinton territory, even just judging by the number of standing ovations and the amount of sustained applause for the candidates’ speeches, writes Megan Carpentier: If you are a socialist running for the Democratic nomination for president and have received more than six million individual contributions totalling more than $100m, but you won’t say if you’ll use any of that money to help Democratic nominees for the House or the the Senate, it’s possible that the place to call your two million donors “the future of the Democratic party” is not the Founders Day gala of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin. There, the cheap seats go for $150 and the platinum sponsorship (a table for 10 with six VIP tickets) will run you $12,000. Even if, like Bernie Sanders on Saturday night, you’re playing more to the television cameras in the back of the room and the general admission seats on house right than the audience directly in front of you, making such statements will still leave a huge expanse of silent ballroom between you and those cameras. Thanks for reading, and please don’t delay in letting us know what’s on your Monday mind in the comments.
'Please don't vote for Donald Trump': voting pleas in obituaries go viral Mary Anne Noland’s obituary has quite the first line: “Faced with the prospect of voting either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton, Mary Anne Noland of Richmond chose, instead, to pass into the eternal love of God on Sunday.” Noland’s husband Jim told NBC12 one of their sons wrote the opening line as a way for them to carry on her sense of humour, rather than to insult either candidate. Mary Noland is not the only recently deceased whose political wishes were expressed in their obituary – far from it. It’s not even a particularly new phenomenon. As the Washington Post pointed out earlier this year, there were a number of news stories in 2000 of obituaries asking people to vote for George W. Bush. And they continue to be screenshotted, shared and redistributed via Twitter, Facebook groups and, obviously, articles like these. If you search obituaries on Legacy.com, you’ll find a Dorothy Revell Anderson of Nashville Tennessee, whose obituary asks: “In lieu of flowers Mrs. Anderson requested that you do not vote for Hillary Clinton in the Presidential Elections.” The obituary of musician and veteran David Arons, detailing his varied life, is already really interesting even before you get to the final paragraph, which says: “He recently said his biggest regret would be not living long enough to vote for Hillary Clinton. Perhaps friends and family will consider helping fulfill his last wish by voting for Hillary themselves.” Earlier this year, Donald Trump tweeted the obituary of Ernest Overby (although he appears to have spelt his name wrong), with the final line: “Please vote for Donald Trump.” Chiropractor Jeffrey H Cohen died aged 70 earlier this year. His obituary, published in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette said: “Jeffrey would ask that in lieu of flowers, please do not vote for Donald Trump.” Of course, among all these genuine obituaries are hoaxes, like this one from “Donald Trump’s cousin”. The entirely fictional Thomas P. Trump declares: “As a proud bearer of the Trump name, I implore you all, please don’t let that walking mucus bag become out president.” It began being widely shared in February after it was posted on Imgur. Fact-checking site Snopes, who really deserve a medal for their debunks, found the picture was actually of a man completely unrelated to Trump, who died in 2008.
Father of the Great Firewall of China blocked by his own creation The “Father” of China’s internet censorship infrastructure, known as the Great Firewall of China, has been caught having to circumvent his own creation after attempting to display a website during a talk at the Harbin Institute of Technology in the Heilongjiang province of China. According to local reports, Fang Binxing attempted to display a South Korea website, which he said showed the views of South Koreans attempting to build similar infrastructure to China’s firewall, but was blocked by said censorship system. Fang then had to resort to setting up a virtual private network (VPN) to circumvent the censorship, in full view of the lecture attendees, to display the site. Using VPNs to effectively make a tunnel through the Great Firewall of China to the outside internet world is a common, but frowned upon, practice used by many within China wishing to access western sites such as Facebook and Twitter. The UK also operates a system of censorship through court-ordered blocks of piracy sites by internet service providers, including the notorious Pirate Bay, which requires users to employ similar techniques such as VPNs to access. Ming Pao, the Hong Kong-based newspaper, said that the university terminated a planned discussion session after Fang was criticised within the lecture and later resoundingly mocked online for having to circumvent his own creation, labelling it as an embarrassing display of the Chinese mainland’s censorship regime. What’s a ‘cyber pathogen’? San Bernardino DA baffles security community
Stanley Kubrick was planning children's film before his death Stanley Kubrick was planning his first children’s film and his first second world war movie shortly before his death in 1999, his friend and former assistant has revealed. Emilio D’Alessandro, Kubrick’s trusted personal assistant and friend for more than 30 years, told the that the director wanted to tell the story of Pinocchio and to shoot a movie about Monte Cassino, one of the most bitter and bloody battles of the second world war. “Stanley was interested in making Pinocchio. He sent me to buy Italian books about [him],” D’Alessandro said. “He wanted to make it in his own way because so many Pinocchios have been made. He wanted to do something really big … He said: ‘It would very nice if I could make children laugh and feel happy by making this Pinocchio.’” Kubrick adored his family, said D’Alessandro and wanted to make a film that his grandchildren would enjoy. He emphasised that this would have been a completely separate project from A.I. Artificial Intelligence, the science-fiction film with a robot version of Pinocchio that Kubrick planned in the early 1990s and which Steven Spielberg later directed. D’Alessandro, who was born in Cassino, Italy, recalled Kubrick’s interest in its wartime history. Monte Cassino was a mountain redoubt in the German defensive line. It was during the Italian campaign that Allied troops endured the worst close-quarter fighting since the first world war. “Stanley said that would be an interesting film to make,” D’Alessandro recalled. “He asked me to get hold of things … like newspaper cuttings and find out the distance from the airport, train stations. He had a friend who actually bombarded Monte Cassino during the war … It is horrible to remember those days. Everything was completely destroyed.” D’Alessandro’s book Stanley Kubrick and Me: Thirty Years at His Side, originally published in Italian two years ago, is being released in English. Its co-writer, Filippo Ulivieri, a leading expert on Kubrick, said: “Kubrick wanted to know about the bombing, the destruction of Emilio’s family house, the chocolate he received from US soldiers. He also found an abandoned airport near Cassino and asked Emilio about accommodation, supposedly for cast and crew.” He said Kubrick had long wanted to make a second world war film. His first world war classic Paths of Glory remains one of the most powerful antiwar movies. It starred Kirk Douglas, who also played the eponymous hero in Kubrick’s Roman epic Spartacus. Kubrick has been described as a master filmmaker and supreme visual stylist with a perfectionist’s attention to detail. His epic science-fiction movie 2001: A Space Odyssey has been listed among the greatest films of all time, pushing boundaries for cinematic special effects and paving the way for George Lucas’s Star Wars films. D’Alessandro said Kubrick had begun to think of the Pinocchio and Monte Cassino projects in 1999, when he was still making his last movie, Eyes Wide Shut, the controversial psychosexual thriller starring Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. Barry Lyndon, Kubrick’s adaptation of the William Makepeace Thackeray novel starting Ryan O’Neal as an Irish adventurer, will be screened in cinemas across the UK in July.
Standing on the threshold of power …or will the US tell Donald Trump ‘You’re fired’? Donald Trump is coming to the end of one of the most dramatic and unpredictable US presidential campaigns in living memory, scouring swing states for the undecided voters who might make a difference and who might be persuaded by his inflammatory message and swingeing assaults on his Democratic rival. But as he campaigned in Ohio, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania on Friday, a new side of the Republican candidate emerged. He was doing something no-one expected: he was being predictable. As Tuesday’s vote nears, Trump’s rallies are still raucous and he still fills them with wild accusations against Hillary Clinton. A recent favourite is that “if she ever gets into the Oval Office, Hillary and her corrupt friends would rob this country blind”. But his words have become more scripted and controlled, resembling less a Jimi Hendrix guitar solo, full of improvisation, more a jazz musician riffing off a standard tune from the songbook. The enthusiasm of Trump’s crowds has not diminished – thousands swarm at every stop. On Friday they came to Atkinson, New Hampshire, Wilmington, Ohio, and Hershey, the home of the chocolate giant, in Pennsylvania. When the candidate asked “who is going to pay for the wall”, they shouted “Mexico” deliriously. Dressed in Trump merchandise, they were ready at the slightest provocation to chant “Lock her up” or “CNN sucks”. But Trump seemed to sense something had changed. When trotting out his newest line, “Drain the swamp”, both a jibe at what he describes as a corrupt establishment in Washington and a description of his willingness to clean it up, the candidate seemed almost unenthusiastic. He has taken to apologising when the line comes up in speeches. “I hated the expression,” he said on Friday. “It’s so hokey.” Trump often notes how Frank Sinatra hated singing My Way, before he realised how much his audience loved it. For Trump the “swamp” slogan, which could come from almost any insurgent political campaign, mounted by either party, is the same thing. If his crowds chant it, he will go along. Yet he is by no means hostage to his crowds. On Friday he guided them along, ensuring they booed the correct villain at the right time, be it Clinton, the media or nondescript globalists intent on taking away US jobs and prosperity. Members of the press corps have become his unwitting accessories. They are penned in, surrounded, while Trump falsely insists that TV cameras are not showing the size of his rallies. That claim goads the crowd into booing the press, who he insists are “the most dishonest people”. At times, he will even call out reporters by name. This has not provoked any incidents of physical violence – yet. The sensation is more like that of being an animal on display at the zoo. Trump supporters stand on the other side of the fence, gaping, making faces and occasionally shouting abuse. Things tend to intensify as the hour gets later and Trump, who has rarely been punctual in recent months, falls further behind schedule. By then the crowds, subjected to a loop of the same five songs for several hours, are ready to let loose. But for all the passion and rage that Trump stokes, there is a lack of the bizarre creativity that defined his early campaigning. The candidate who compared the acclaimed neurosurgeon Ben Carson to a child molester and falsely said Texas senator Ted Cruz’s father was involved in the assassination of John F Kennedy has been left claiming, wrongly, that Clinton is the subject of multiple criminal investigations. While he has made “Crooked Hillary” a Homeric epithet to rival his labelling of former Florida governor Jeb Bush as “Low Energy” or his nicknaming Florida senator Marco Rubio “Little Marco” and Cruz “Lyin’ Ted”, it has not had the same effect. The issue is perhaps the lack of any new villains to accompany Clinton, one of the most famous women in the world. Veering away from President Obama, Trump rails against nameless “global special interests” who he says ship jobs overseas and leave US borders open. But these attacks are not delivered with the gusto he uses for individuals. He is far more animated when calling for Clinton to fire her campaign chairman, John Podesta, because Podesta described his candidate as having “bad instincts” in a hacked email, than he is when reading a scripted attack on globalists. The overall effect is of an ageing rock star, living off the glory of past hits. Trump still takes time to recall 16 June 2015, when he came down “that famous escalator” at Trump Tower in New York City to announce his campaign. He will often relive moments of glory in his bid for the Republican nomination. Ardent fans show up and buy the merchandise and the star is able to put on a show. But it is an increasingly mechanical exercise. Trump has always been an awkward fit, somewhere between entertainer and politician. After all, the best shows and the most applause-worthy lines don’t always poll the best. At least for the next few days, though, he is willing to repeat his intent to “drain the swamp”, in order to maintain his shot at winning the White House.
Stock markets rally as Mario Draghi hints further stimulus on way Mario Draghi, president of the European Central Bank, has helped calm jittery financial markets by saying he would not hesitate to take fresh action to boost eurozone growth and inflation. Stock markets across Europe, which were already rallying after a turbulent start to 2016, ended the day sharply higher in the belief Draghi would deliver on his pledge at the ECB meeting next month. Financial markets believe Draghi will respond to fears of deflation and volatile share prices by pushing interest rates into negative territory and expanding the ECB’s quantitative easing programme. Draghi dropped the broadest of hints in testimony to the European parliament that further stimulus was imminent. “The ECB is ready to do its part,” he said, adding that the bank was looking at the low level of inflation and whether enough money was getting through from the banks to the eurozone economy. “If either of these two factors entail downward risks to price stability, we will not hesitate to act,” Draghi said. He was speaking after the Chinese stock market opened for the first time in five days, during which global financial markets were rocked by fears of a rerun of the 2008 banking crisis. It held steady, helped by a 7% increased in Japan’s Nikkei 225, which posted its second-biggest one-day gain in three years. The rally in Japan was prompted by weaker than expected growth figures, which led to speculation that the Bank of Japan would also step in to shore up the economy. The rally had already helped set a positive tone for European markets, which rose further after Draghi spoke. The FTSE 100 closed 2% higher at 5,824.28 with Germany’s DAX gaining 2.7% to 9,206.84, and France’s CAC 40 rising 3% to close at 4,115.25. In the UK, Ian McCafferty, who sits on the Bank of England’s rate-setting body, the monetary policy committee, was also indicating that Threadneedle Street could act. Despite the environment of low interest rates, which might hamper policymakers’ ability to inject stimulus, McCafferty said: “I certainly don’t believe we are out of ammunition.” There was scope to cut interest rates and revive its bond-buying programme if the economy lurches downward, or even impose negative interest rates. Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, McCafferty, who had been voting for a rate rise until this month, said: “I think an immediate rate rise isn’t as necessary as I had felt last autumn.” Next month is the seventh anniversary of the Bank of England’s decision to lower official interest rates to 0.5%. Until recently, Threadneedle Street has been wary of pushing borrowing costs any lower for fear of the impact it might have on building societies, a concern that has now receded. Amid fears for the health of the banking sector, particularly in Italy, Draghi tried to allay concerns. “In the euro area, the situation in the banking sector now is very different from what it was in 2012,” he said. Draghi made his comments as some financial institutions responded to the poor start for 2016 by revising down their growth forecasts. At Axa, the forecasts for global GDP for 2016 were cut to 2.7%, down from 3.1%, while analysts at Berenberg said the slower start to the year had forced it to reduce its 2016 forecast for the US to 2.1%, from 2.3%. The Berenberg economists cut their predictions for eurozone GDP from 1.6% to 1.3%, citing market turmoil that was hitting sentiment.
Which comic book titans should suit up for superhero buddy movies? It’s only been a few short years since Hollywood worked out that pitching gaggles of superheroes together in a single movie might just be a great way to print money. But in the wake of multiple Avengers outings (and last month’s Captain America: Civil War) storming the global box office, the ensemble comic book flick is almost becoming old hat. Suddenly it’s all about the supervillain combo, a la David Ayer’s upcoming Suicide Squad, and the superhero buddy movie. Next year promises to deliver at least two of these. Thor: Ragnarok is due to star Chris Hemsworth’s Son of Odin and Mark Ruffalo’s Hulk freewheeling merrily together through space, while Robert Downey Jr’s Iron Man has signed on to play the wallcrawler’s slightly elderly wingman in Spider-Man: Homecoming. Meanwhile, X-Men: Apocalypse star Evan Peters has pitched the idea of a Quicksilver/Deadpool crossover movie, featuring the Merc with a Mouth alongside that guy from the X-Men movies who likes to slow down time and mess with people’s stuff while listening to killer tunes on his headphones. So with dynamic duos suddenly all the rage, which other comic book titans should suit up for all-new, shiny superhero double acts? Batman and Daredevil With Hell’s Kitchen these days more likely to host swanky craft beer “brewtiques” than gangland showdowns, Matt Murdock’s nightly escapades in search of worthy targets upon whom to reap justice are just not what they used to be. Luckily, Batman lives in Gotham, which being an entirely fictional city is not subject to the horror of real-life tumbling crime rates. So Daredevil jumps ship (we realise there might be some licensing issues here since the two are on opposite sides of the DC/Marvel divide) and forms a new crimefighting duo alongside the Dark Knight. All goes swimmingly until a jealous Robin reports the pair anonymously for wearing “kinky bondage gear” in broad daylight, and they are swiftly carted off to Arkham Asylum by the good men of the Gotham police department. Dr Manhattan and the Vision What’s better than one near-omniscient, godlike superhero? How about two of them in one movie? The only concern here is that the pair might prefer twirling through the cosmos while creating new life forms and exploring the spectacular reach of their combined superhuman intellects to vital everyday comic book staples such as saving the world from evil and looking cool in a cape. Wolverine and Judge Dredd Hugh Jackman’s adamantium-clawed mutant has already travelled back in time to the 1970s in X-Men: Days of Future Past. So why shouldn’t he still be around (perhaps in Old Man Logan mode) in the post-apocalyptic city of Mega City One to team up with Karl Urban’s taciturn future lawman? Wolverine’s invincibility might come in useful when battling the “muties” of the Cursed Earth, and the movie’s climactic scene could centre on a battle to decide which actor does the best Eastwood-esque lip curl. Wonder Woman and Harley Quinn The odd couple galpals are pitched into a Thelma and Louise-style road trip during one of the lovable supervillain’s regular splits from the Joker. Riding the invisible plane from Metropolis to Themyscira, the other princess Diana points out to her good friend that she’ll never make it as an A-list baddie unless she finally kicks the cackling clown prince of Gotham to the kerb. Hurt, Quinn reminds Wonder Woman that despite her credentials as a feminist comic book icon, she didn’t even get a namecheck in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice’s preposterously elongated title. Superman and ‘Red Son’ Superman All-American Supes meets Soviet Supes from Mark Millar’s acclaimed 2003 graphic novel and the pair (both played by Tom Hardy) team up for an LA-set culture clash buddy movie that’s strangely reminiscent of lost 80s Arnie classic Red Heat. Comedy ensues as Red Son Superman completely fails to get his Kryptonian mind round American social norms, and has to be ticked off by his US counterpart for injudicious use of the old x-ray vision and repeated attempts to have Lex Luthor exiled to Siberia.
Government has no idea about Cancer Drugs Fund's impact, MPs say MPs have castigated NHS England and the Department of Health for bad management of the Cancer Drugs Fund, set up by government to pay for medicines deemed too expensive for general NHS use. The public accounts committee of the House of Commons also says it is unacceptable that the government still does not know whether patients get any benefit from the costly medicines the fund pays for. About 80,000 people have received drugs through the fund but, says the report: “The Department of Health and NHS England do not have the data needed to assess the impact of the fund on patient outcomes, such as extending patients’ lives, or to demonstrate whether this is a good use of taxpayers’ money.” The fund was set up in 2010 by the coalition government because of the regular outcry from patient organisations and the media when cancer drugs that typically offer potential weeks or months of extra life to those with a terminal diagnosis were turned down by Nice, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. Nice is charged with assessing the cost-effectiveness of medicines. The launch of the Cancer Drugs Fund in effect undermined Nice’s judgments, since drugs it rejected as insufficiently cost-effective were then paid for after all. The fund constantly ran over budget. “NHS England overspent the fund’s £480m budget for the two years 2013-14 and 2014-15 by £167m,” says the report. “The cost of the fund grew from £175m in 2012-13 to £416m in 2014-15, an increase of 138% in two years, but NHS England did not start to take action to control the cost until November 2014.” NHS England is now consulting on proposals for its reform, which will involve Nice in evaluating drugs that it may pay for. The committee says it is concerned that Nice may not have sufficient capacity. It urges NHS England to “be prepared to take tough decisions to ensure that the fund does not overspend”, and urges the department to “set out how it ensures that it pays a fair price for drugs”.
US banks not prepared for another financial crisis, say federal regulators Some of the US’s biggest banks still lack a proper plan for bankruptcy, in the event of another major financial crisis, US regulators said on Wednesday. In the wake of the great recession banks were required to come up with “living wills” to prove they had a credible plan for bankruptcy that would not require another bailout from the taxpayers. But after reviewing the plans of five institutions – JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Bank of New York Mellon and State Street Corp – the Federal Reserve and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp (FDIC) have determined that the banks have yet to meet that requirement. “The goal to end too big to fail and protect the American taxpayers by ending bailouts remains just that: only a goal,” said Thomas Hoenig, FDIC vice-chairman. The banks are to submit revised proposals by 1 October. According to feedback from the regulators, one of the main concerns with JP Morgan’s proposal was the bank’s liquidity in a time of need. Regulators were concerned the bank would not be able to shift money around to fund some of its operation during a time of stress or bankruptcy. “Obviously we were disappointed,” said Marianne Lake, JP Morgan’s chief financial officer. “The most important thing is that we work with our regulators to understand their feedback in more detail.” Bank of America also needs better processes for estimating its liquidity needs, the regulators said. And while Wells Fargo was deemed to have “firm-wide, high-quality liquid assets”, regulators raised concerns over “quality control, senior management oversight, and recovery and resolutions planning staffing”. In its statement, Wells Fargo said it was disappointed its plan was “determined to have deficiencies” but the feedback was “constructive and valuable to our resolution planning process”. If these banks do not submit acceptable plans by October, regulators could impose sanctions such as higher capital requirements and restrictions on growth. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley also received their feedback on Wednesday. While Goldman Sachs’s plan passed muster with the Fed, it was deemed wanting by the FDIC. Morgan Stanley, on the other hand, did not meet the legal standards according to the Fed, but the FDIC gave a more positive assessment. Citigroup was the only bank whose plan was accepted by both agencies. It too, however, received feedback containing shortcomings that it has to fix by July 2017. The regulators’ rejections of a handful of banks’ living wills is likely to fuel criticism that the banks are still “too big to fail” and could force another huge taxpayer bailout should there be another major financial crisis. Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has previously said that if elected president he would try to break up big banks. However, when pushed on exactly how he intended to do that by the New York Daily News editorial board, the Vermont senator struggled to provide a detailed answer. The process of drafting living wills was introduced in the Dodd-Frank rules brought in by Congress after the financial crisis in order to tackle the systemic risks posed by the collapse of the financial industry. The process of drawing up the wills is ongoing and that the banking industry is committed to working with the regulators, said John Dearie, CEO of Financial Services Forum – a trade group that represents 16 of the largest banks with the exception of Wells Fargo. “No financial company should be considered too big to fail. The principal regulators have said that there has been substantial progress in their ability to resolve the largest US financial institutions,” Dearie said. “The Dodd-Frank Act clearly mandates that taxpayer funds can never again be accessed – nor should they. Thus, it is in the best interest of the industry that all large institutions have credible resolutions plans and, with that in mind, institutions will continue to work to address the technical shortcomings identified in this round of regulatory feedback.” Proposals by Barclays, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank and UBS are still under review.
Liverpool and Coutinho stun stuttering Arsenal in seven-goal thriller Jürgen Klopp lost himself in the moment. The Liverpool manager beat his chest and, in the frenzy, he knocked his glasses from his face. Adam Lallana had just put his team 2-1 up early in the second half and, when the passions had cooled, Klopp fished around on the ground in order to reacquaint himself with his lenses. It was an afternoon when Klopp and everybody else inside the Emirates Stadium could rub their eyes in disbelief. Liverpool were irresistible for a golden period after the interval, which climaxed in Sadio Mané, the £30m signing from Southampton, fizzing home their fourth goal. Klopp was central to the celebrations on the touchline, allowing Mané to clamber on to his back. He would later say that he regretted that. The game was not over, even if it felt like it was. Liverpool were vibrant and clinical, with their other expensive new boy, Gini Wijnaldum – the £23m purchase from Newcastle United – also prominent. Then, there was Philippe Coutinho who, not for the first time at this venue, was a joy to watch. He had equalised for 1-1 in first-half stoppage time with a scintillating 30-yard free-kick while he also scored his team’s third goal. It was some game to open the season in north London but it was enjoyable only for Liverpool, where it feels that something is stirring. Klopp restored belief and unity last season and, after a full pre-season in which to hammer home his high-intensity methods and play the transfer market, he has talked of this as being his team. There were defensive glitches on display but the optimism could surge. For Arsenal, there was bitter frustration and the same old questions, despite a gallant attempt to bounce back off the canvas after Mané’s goal for 4-1. The substitute Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain scored a fine solo goal and when Calum Chambers flicked home a header for 4-3, there could be thoughts of the crazy 4-4 draw between the teams at Anfield in 2009. An Arsenal equaliser, however, never looked like materialising and, instead, there was the familiar sound of a chorus of boos from the home crowd at full-time. Arsène Wenger had been without seven players because of fitness issues and his makeshift central-defensive pairing of Chambers and Rob Holding, the new signing from Bolton Wanderers, was left exposed, although he did not blame them. Arsenal started brightly and they were the better team in a first half during which Theo Walcott missed a penalty and then scored the opening goal. But it was shocking to see how sharply the tide turned and, yet again, there could be questions about the team’s mental fortitude. Wenger lamented the timing of Coutinho’s equaliser while he also referenced the lack of experience in his team and how, physically, they had not been ready, which felt like an indictment. He can now count another couple of injuries, after Alex Iwobi and Aaron Ramsey were forced off with muscular problems around the hour and there will surely be renewed calls for Wenger to reinforce the squad with one or more signings. Wenger had chosen to leave his one big-money purchase, Granit Xhaka, on the substitutes’ bench until the 67th minute while his decision to start Walcott ahead of Oxlade-Chamberlain on the right had been another surprise. Walcott showed his character to fashion the breakthrough, because the penalty miss had come moments earlier. From Iwobi’s pass, his instincts took over and the low finish flashed into the far corner. Klopp would complain about the penalty award, claiming Alberto Moreno played the ball rather than Walcott but it did not matter when Simon Mignolet went the right way to beat away the kick. Moreno’s challenge was clumsy, at the very least. It was the first penalty Walcott had taken in 10-and-a-half years as an Arsenal player. Liverpool allowed Arsenal too much space in the first half and, apart from the 40th-minute counter, when Roberto Firmino and Coutinho worked a shooting opportunity for Wijnaldum, which Petr Cech kept out, they had not hinted at an equaliser. Coutinho’s execution was a “genius” moment, according to Klopp. Holding had conceded the free-kick when he nibbled into the back of Coutinho. Ramsey had enjoyed a couple of early chances but Liverpool turned the game on its head after half-time. It felt as though they were holding an in-house competition for the goal of the month and there might have been another during that devastating spell only for Cech to save from Coutinho. Lallana could not convert the rebound. Lallana scored with a crisp finish after Coutinho had released Wijnaldum; the third came when Coutinho touched in Nathaniel Clyne’s driven cross and Klopp was in raptures when the outstanding Mané sliced inside to send a rising drive into the far, top corner. Coutinho was forced off on 69 minutes but Klopp reported that it was merely because of cramp. Arsenal’s rally featured Oxlade-Chamberlain beating three men and embarrassing Mignolet at his near post and Chambers rising to glance home the substitute Santi Cazorla’s free-kick. It was not enough.
'Pass it on': Malcolm Turnbull tells banks to give customers full interest rate cut Malcolm Turnbull says the commercial banks need to pass on the full interest rate cut to their customers, or explain why they have not. The prime minister also observed that financial markets thought the central bank would act sooner. The Reserve Bank on Tuesday cut the cash rate by 0.25 percentage points to a record low 1.5%, but the banks have not passed the full cut through to consumers. The banks responded to the central bank’s move on Tuesday by passing on some of the rate cut to their mortgage rates, and they telegraphed cuts to rates for business loans and increased rates for term deposits. On Tuesday, the treasurer, Scott Morrison, was more nuanced in his response to action by the banks, suggesting they had telegraphed a range of adjustments, and “it’s for them [the banks] to make that decision”. But on Wednesday, the prime minister went much harder than Morrison, telling reporters: “The commercial banks should pass on the full rate cut. They should pass it all on. “They should do that, and if they are not prepared to do it, as appears to be the case, then their chief executives should explain very clearly to the Australian people and their customers why they have not done so,” Turnbull said. “They should be fully accountable and it is up to them. They are big institutions. They operate with a very substantial social licence, and they owe it to the Australian people and their customers to explain fully and comprehensively why they have not passed on the full rate cut – and they must do so.” The prime minister also made an explicit observation about the RBA’s decision-making – which is a practice politicians tend to avoid given the central bank is independent. “The Reserve Bank governor’s statement speaks for itself, but can I just observe that most people in the market would have expected the Reserve Bank to cut rates sooner,” Turnbull said. Later on Wednesday, the treasurer maintained the responses to the RBA’s move were a commercial decision for the banks, but he aligned his language with Turnbull. “The prime minister has said what I’ve said. They should pass it on in full,” Morrison told reporters in Adelaide. Morrison was asked whether banks were leaving themselves vulnerable by their conduct and because of the continuing political pressure for a royal commission into the sector. The treasurer said the banks, like all “actors and participants in the economy” needed to prioritise their relationship with their customers. But Steve Munchenberg, chief executive of the Australian Bankers’ Association, rebuffed the prime minister’s call to pass on the full rate cut. He said the industry had been explaining for eight years why the Reserve Bank does not determine bank funding costs. He said about two thirds of bank funding comes from deposits, and the price of deposits has been going up. “I know a lot of people in politics don’t want to listen to that, and have this view that somehow people are entitled to RBA rate cuts, but the reality is that banks’ cost of funding has been going up,” he said. Munchenberg said, however, bank chief executives would take Turnbull’s advice about communication on board, because they are always thinking of better ways to explain their interest rate decisions to the public. The shadow treasurer, Chris Bowen, told ABC on Wednesday the central bank had moved to cut the cash rate “because they are deeply concerned about the lack of investment coming through to ensure growth into the future”. Bowen said the RBA had taken action because “without politicising the Reserve Bank, they showed deep concern about the [economic] transition underway”. The shadow treasurer also criticised Morrison’s passivity. “The treasurer has no special powers in a deregulated financial market to ensure full flow-through, but the treasurer before the election beat his chest and said that he would call the banks in and make sure they didn’t pass on increased compliance costs,” Bowen said. “Yesterday again he was silent on this issue, so he had one approach before the election and another approach after.” Bowen told reporters later on Wednesday the government was chaotic and dysfunctional. “In relation to whether the banks should pass it on, the interest rate cut, the treasurer yesterday said it was a matter for them. Entirely a matter for them.” “The prime minister said today they should pass it on and the treasurer a few minutes ago was scrambling to try and make his remarks fit the prime minister’s in a way which is just simply impossible to do.” Bowen said Labor was concerned to have a royal commission into the banking sector because of concern about culture in the financial services industry, but the actions of the banks after the RBA decision “doesn’t reduce the case for a royal commission in the slightest.” Turnbull said Bowen was intent on talking down the economy and trying “to spread a message of doom and gloom on the radio”. The prime minister said if Bowen was concerned about investment, he needed to revisit Labor’s policy offering. “There is nothing in the Labor party’s policy in the lead-up to the election or now that promotes investment,” he said. “Absolutely nothing. Labor’s policies consist of a series of measures that will discourage investment.”
Google talks Strine: search engine can now understand Australian accents Google has improved voice searches for phone and computer applications to help it understand Australian accents and slang terms such as footy and servo. It has also improved its ability to recognise difficult place names such as Tibooburra and Unanderra, and can now recognise the term “drop bear”, an Australian slang term used to describe a fictional bear-like animal that drops from trees. A persistent issue for phone users across platforms has been poor voice recognition for Australian accents. Apple had already tweaked Siri in 2014 to add both an Australian voice to the system and improve its voice recognition. iPhone users can now choose between male and female voices in seven different accents, including those from New Zealand and Singapore, but Scottish users still report difficulties in being understood. To demonstrate its mastery of the vernacular, the company released a song on YouTube, running through a series of Australian places such as Wollongong, Geelong, Cabramatta, Parramatta and Wangaratta. The song is a condensed version of Geoff Mack’s song I’ve Been Everywhere – and despite the pronunciation of place names being fairly spot-on, it’s not entirely convincing. A Google spokeswoman said: “People are starting to talk to their mobile devices more regularly. In fact, mobile voice searches have more than doubled in the past year alone.” “We wanted to make sure that Aussies were hearing an Australian voice speaking back to them.” Google’s overhauled search function will be available on Android phones, and also on iPhones when using Google tools, such as its separate mapping app.
Manchester City sign 18-year-old eSports player Manchester City have hired an 18-year-old gamer to represent the football club at eSports tournaments and fan events. Kieran ‘Kez’ Brown will play for the team on the world’s dominant football game Fifa 16, live streaming on Amazon’s gaming site Twitch and making videos for the club’s YouTube channel. The hire is the latest sign of growing interest in professional gaming from Europe’s top tier of football clubs. In May West Ham signed 2016 Fifa interactive World Cup runner-up, 24-year-old Sean Allen to play video games for them, and in Germany, Bundesliga side Wolfsberg hired a 22-year-old from Wolverhampton to play on their behalf in February. Diego Gigliani, SVP for media and innovation at the club’s City Football Marketing unit said: “This is a natural evolution for Manchester City. We’ve been very involved with our partner, EA Sports, and the Fifa franchise for some time. “We will be a bigger presence at gaming tournaments, we will have more content through our digital channels and we will activate even more with our fans at matches and club events.” “When we set out to find an eSports player, we decided we wanted someone who was a fantastic, young, talent, but also with a hunger and a desire to grow. We strongly believe we have found that in Kieran. He is full of potential. Not only is he a great player, but we also believe he will engage and interact brilliantly with our fans all around the world.” Brown said:“It’s exciting; it’s something new for the club and it’s something new for me. I’m going to livestream on Twitch, I’m going to be making videos for Manchester City’s YouTube channel and I’m going to be playing some City fans and representing City in future tournaments, which I’m looking forward to. This is an opportunity which not many people get the chance to do and I couldn’t turn it down.” Though non-sports games such as League of Legends and Counterstrike dominate professional eSports, Fifa played both professionally and more informally is also hugely popular. A number of YouTube stars have also built huge followings largely by filming themselves playing the football simulator for fun, including KSI who has more than 13 million subscribers. However, clubs are also investing in eSports other than football. Last month City’s rivals Manchester United were reportedly preparing to buy an unnamed European team of players on the recently released first-person shooter game Overwatch and in October last year major Arsenal shareholder Alisher Usmanov invested $100m in Russia’s largest eSports platform Virtus.pro. eSports overall is growing rapidly, with traditional media companies increasingly taking greater interest. Last month Sky announced it would begin broadcasting the UK’s first 24-hour eSports channel as part of an investment in channel owners Ginx TV which also included ITV.
Yaya Touré makes spectacular return to clinch Manchester City victory Pep Guardiola can presumably expect a phone call this week from Yaya Touré’s agent, the Spaniard’s bête noire Dimitri Seluk, demanding his client is handed a pay rise. After all those much publicised “misunderstandings in the past”, for which the player had recently, if belatedly, apologised, Touré is restored to the fray and contributing significantly once again. The absence has done little to blunt his dramatic timing. He was decisive with two goals to condemn Crystal Palace to yet another defeat, a fifth in succession, while hoisting Manchester City on to the shoulder of league leaders Liverpool. Touré was clapped back into the visitors’ dressing room by his team-mates and already boasts as many Premier League goals this season as Paul Pogba across Manchester with United. He will be aching on Sunday, his body screaming in protest after a first league start in six months, but a player who had felt a fading memory of a bygone era only a few weeks ago suddenly appears to be an asset again. “I was desperate to play because it has been so difficult for me,” said Touré in the aftermath, with that a brief acknowledgement to the months of exile which were finally ended with an apology. “My team-mates are very important to me and have always been brilliant, and I was prepared mentally. I knew, one day, my manager would need me again.” That day arrived here. Guardiola will never see eye to eye with the unrepentant Seluk, whose outbursts had prompted the schism, but the cessation of that stand-off with the midfielder could yet prove significant in this team’s title pursuit. This was a slog against a Palace side desperate to arrest a recent alarming slide, the contest degenerating into a scrap from its opening exchanges. But, where City goalkeeper Claudio Bravo kept out Christian Benteke and Jason Puncheon poked wide, Touré capitalised on the visitors’ clearest sights of goal. He had been sauntering on the periphery up to the moment another member of the old guard, Vincent Kompany, trudged off dizzied by a head injury. With him went leadership, with Touré filling the breach. The hosts had always felt vulnerable when Raheem Sterling tested the unconvincing Martin Kelly, though Palace did not help their makeshift left-back. In the 39th minute there was indecision from James McArthur and a poorly directed pass from Andros Townsend before Kelly, unnerved by Sterling’s presence, blindly scuffed a clearance in-field to Kevin De Bruyne on the edge of the box. City patiently pulled markers out of position before Touré swapped passes with Nolito and saw his shot flick up from James Tomkins and in. That was his first league goal since March though a second, seven minutes from time, would be required to claim victory. City had been stung by Palace’s 66th-minute equaliser, their pressure oppressive thereafter, but would end up prospering from a set piece as so many have against the home side’s rearguard to date this term. De Bruyne’s corner was clever, slid into the six-yard box with Palace braced to repel an aerial assault. The hosts had not replaced the substituted Benteke at the near post, but more mystifying was their slackness in leaving Touré, a man-mountain, unattended in the centre. Even he looked surprised to be presented with a tap-in. “He is a special player,” said Guardiola. “I would say his performance is not down to my decision [to select him], but it’s about his quality. Yaya’s physical condition is better than ever. He’s now a real part of the team again and can help us achieve our targets. We need this kind of player. But you know the reason why he has not been playing up to now…” Guardiola’s admission that City had been “lucky”, having been made “so uncomfortable” by Palace’s aggressive approach, was no consolation for the locals. Some of the home support, united pre-match and during the game in memory of those who lost their lives in the Croydon tram derailment earlier this month, took their frustrations out on Alan Pardew, with the team now hovering a point above the relegation zone and pointless since September. This was a more combative and even organised performance, with Connor Wickham’s rasping shot having deservedly forced them level midway through the second half. But there is disorganisation and panic at key times, with Touré’s winner now added to a lengthy list of unforgivable concessions from set-plays. Pardew claimed that “is not us” but recent history suggests it has become the norm. Saturday’s trip to Swansea already feels critical. “It doesn’t look good at the moment with the results we’ve had,” added Pardew. “And yet our performances suggest we can turn it around. We need to do that quickly. I’m comfortable that we have a good distance to get ourselves in a better place, and we have games coming up where we need to take points.” Pardew’s side were watched here by the major shareholder, Josh Harris. These are tricky times.
Xavier Dolan snubs Cannes film festival over 'trolling and bullying' The Franco-Canadian director Xavier Dolan has issued a statement saying that he is reluctant to submit his new film to the Cannes film festival – where five out of his six movies to date have premiered. In an Instagram post, the director gives two reasons for the decision: that the film is unlikely to be completed in time, plus a disdain for the kind of “trolling, bullying and unwarranted hatred” Dolan perceives as part of the current critical climate. Dolan previously said that the mixed response at this year’s festival to It’s Only the End of the World had given him pause over whether to submit The Death and Life of John F Donovan – about a US TV star and featuring Kit Harington, Jessica Chastain, Natalie Portman, Susan Sarandon, Kathy Bates, and Michael Gambon. Speaking to the Montreal Gazette, Dolan said: “I don’t think I’d present a film like this at Cannes. It’s a film about an American TV star who is framed by the American media system. There are bits in it that are so much like what I lived in Cannes, and I’m afraid that people would think it’s my revenge project. Except that I wrote it five years ago.” Dolan’s history with the festival has generally been a positive one. Mommy won him a joint jury prize with Jean-Luc Godard in 2014; a year later Dolan himself served on the jury.
Mitch McConnell backs Russia election hack inquiry, but scope remains vague The Republican Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell opened the door to congressional investigation of Russia’s alleged interference in the 2016 election on Monday but left the scope of such an inquiry vague and unlikely to satisfy those who want a thorough exploration of an intelligence finding that has shaken Washington. In an indication of the political difficulties confronting congressional Republicans traditionally opposed to Russia but disinclined to criticizing a GOP president, McConnell told reporters he “strongly condemns” foreign hacking and dismissed criticism that the party was now soft on Russia. “The Russians are not our friends,” McConnell said, although he did not say whether he agreed that Russia had sought to help Trump win the White House. The scope of congressional inquiry on offer appeared to fall short of the aggressive investigation Democrats favor. McConnell said the Senate intelligence committee was “more than capable of conducting a complete review” of the issue, but the chairperson of that committee, Richard Burr, a Republican from North Carolina and vocal supporter of Trump, did not commit to an actual investigation. “The Senate select committee on intelligence has been, and remains, concerned about Russia’s actions,” he said, vowing instead to “continue to conduct vigorous oversight over activities and agencies within our jurisdiction in an appropriate and responsible way”. The CIA recently concluded with “high confidence” that Moscow sought to interfere in the election to Trump’s benefit. Hackers leaked thousands of emails from the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton campaign via WikiLeaks during the election campaign. The president-elect has repeatedly rubbished the notion that Russia was helping him. On Monday he tweeted: “Can you imagine if the election results were the opposite and WE tried to play the Russia/CIA card. It would be called conspiracy theory!” Trump has previously expressed admiration for Russian leader Vladimir Putin. His leading candidate for secretary of state, ExxonMobil chief executive Rex Tillerson, has close ties with the country. McConnell put some daylight between himself and Trump on Monday. “Any foreign breach of our cybersecurity measures is disturbing and I strongly condemn any such efforts,” he said. “This simply cannot be a partisan issue.” But he studiously refused to address Trump’s attack on the CIA and failed to offer explicit details of what a bipartisan inquiry would entail, raising fears that it could yet be sidetracked. Experienced intelligence analysts and former Senate intelligence committee staffers said Burr’s lack of commitment to a full inquiry was significant. “I’m surprised there has not been a definitive statement that an investigation has been launched. This is the exact type of matter that the Senate intelligence committee is uniquely positioned to assess,” said Daniel Jones, the chief investigator for the Senate intelligence panel’s inquiry into post-9/11 CIA torture. “The US public relies on the members of the committee to do this type of examination in a thorough and nonpartisan manner. Not launching an investigation, in my view, would be an abdication of its responsibilities.” Steven Aftergood, an intelligence policy expert at the Federation of American Scientists, added: “Senator Burr is explicitly disavowing any new initiative in this area. Instead, he says that SSCI [the Senate intelligence committee] will simply ‘continue’ to do what it has been doing all along. In particular, there is no indication that SSCI will undertake any new investigation of its own. Instead, Burr is only committing to ‘oversight’ of the work of others.” Trump’s vehemence poses an early dilemma for Republicans who are deeply suspicious of Putin but are anxious to avoid picking a fight with Trump even before his inauguration. Whereas Democrats were quick to accept the CIA’s conclusions, some Republicans have been more cautious. Senator David Perdue of Georgia told the Washington Post last Friday: “I’d be very concerned if a foreign government were doing that – we don’t have any evidence of that yet, and I haven’t seen the CIA report, so I’ll reserve judgment.” Senate majority whip John Cornyn of Texas tweeted on Saturday: “All this ‘news’ of Russian hacking: it has been going on for years. Serious, but hardly news.” But two senior Senate Republicans, John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, have joined with two Democrats in seeking a bipartisan investigation into the Kremlin’s activities during the election. The Senate armed services committee, which McCain chairs, intends to set up a subcommittee to hold hearings on alleged election hacking and how the US would respond to cyber-attack. “It’s all part of the larger issue of the cyber threat we face from Russia, China and other countries,” he said on CBS’s This Morning. “It’s another form of warfare. And the entire issue is going to be examined by the armed services committee because it’s a threat to our national security.” Barack Obama has ordered US intelligence to review evidence of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, as well as the 2008 and 2012 votes. Democrat Adam Schiff, the ranking member of the House permanent select committee on intelligence, called for a bipartisan congressional investigation. “The House and Senate intelligence committees should conduct a joint inquiry, along with public hearings similar to what was done after 9/11, to determine the length and breadth of Russian interference in our elections,” he said. “This investigation would serve the purpose of informing the public, developing a concerted response, deterring the Russians from further malign[ant] cyber action and inoculating the public against such manipulation in the future.” Schiff’s GOP colleague, chairman Devin Nunes of California, has yet to commit to such an inquiry. A spokesperson for Nunes did not reply to the ’s request for clarification by press time. In a conference call with reporters on Monday morning, Trump spokesman Jason Miller expressed his scorn at those expressing concerns about Russian hacking. “I really think this is an attempt to delegitimize President-elect Trump’s win. That really seems to be what’s going on here.” The White House dropped its generally cordial approach to Trump and urged Congress, especially Republicans who backed him, to examine the evidence. “You didn’t need a security clearance to figure out who benefited from malicious Russian cyber activity,” press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters. “The president-elect didn’t call it into a question. He called on Russians to hack his opponent, to hack Secretary Clinton, so he certainly had a good sense of whose side this particular activity was coming down on.” Russian hackers targeted the Democratic National Committee and Clinton’s campaign chairperson John Podesta, Earnest said, not the Republican National Committee and Trump strategist Steve Bannon. The spokesperson argued it was Trump who said he thinks Putin is a “strong leader”, indicated he would withdraw the US from Nato, refused to disclose his business ties to Russia, hired a campaign chairperson with lucrative financial links to Russia and had a staff member who has been a paid contributor to the pro-Putin Russia Today. “This is information that all of you have reported on, throughly investigated and discussed on television ... So all of that is information that was not obtained through intelligence channels. It was not information disclosed for the first time at the White House ... And it’s all information that, as far as I can tell, is undisputed. “One conclusion that it leads me to is the special responsibility that members of Congress have to take a look at this, particularly those members of Congress who endorsed Mr Trump in the election. They were aware of all this information too ... In some cases we’ve seen some pretty heated rhetoric from Republicans wringing their hands ... They should spare us the handwringing and fulfill their basic responsibility.” Earnest added: “This was all known to Republican members of Congress who endorsed the president-elect. How they reconcile their political strategy and their patriotism is something they’re going to have to explain.” Earnest said the intelligence community did not detect any increase in malicious Russian cyber-activity on election day that interfered with the ability of people to cast ballots and have them counted accurately. But he added: “The results of the hack-and-leak operation carried out on the orders of Russia were extensively discussed before election day ... There was a daily leaking of John Podesta’s emails ... But you weren’t waiting for leaks from the RNC and Steven Bannon. That’s illustrative. People can draw their own judgments.”
Obama dismisses his security critics and urges Trump to avoid 'overreach' Without ever using Donald Trump’s name, Barack Obama savaged his successor’s stated inclinations on counterterrorism while issuing an impassioned plea not to sacrifice fundamental American values in the name of national security. Obama used the final set-piece security speech of his presidency to present a highly selective account of his record, particularly about the mass surveillance architecture he embraced and the drone strikes that will be synonymous with his name. In doing so, Obama argued that he avoided “overreach” and tacitly implored Trump to follow his template. “People and nations do not make good decisions when they are driven by fear,” Obama warned at MacDill air force base in Florida, before a military audience to whom he paid tribute. “These terrorists can never directly destroy our way of life, but we can do it for them if we lose track of who we are and the values that this nation was founded upon.” Obama reserved a note of retribution for the Republican Congress that he holds responsible for preventing him from closing the Guantánamo Bay detention center. He suggested that he would continue transferring detainees until he leaves the Oval Office on 20 January, even though that tactic alone will not empty the Cuban facility. “Until Congress changes course, it will be judged harshly by history, and I will continue to do all I can to remove this blot on our national honor,” he said. Obama also said Congress was not doing its job because it had still not explicitly authorised a war against Islamic State (Isis) that is halfway through its second year. “Democracies should not operate in a state of permanently authorized war,” he said. The US operation in Syria and Iraq is being conducted under the Authorisation for Use of Military Force passed in September 2001 against those responsible for the 9/11 attacks and any “associated forces”. Yet Obama did not mention that his own administration argued to Congress against passing a new authorization to use military force in 2011, long before Isis came into existence, out of fear that Congress would pass a law that was too broadly drawn. Nor did he mention his heavy reliance on the 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force – including against Isis – and his administration’s decision not to seek the repeal he suggested in a 2013 speech. Similarly, Obama dismissed concerns about the scale of global mass surveillance revealed by whistleblower Edward Snowden, saying he had made “extensive reforms” and that the surveillance was “just targeted at folks who may be trying to do us harm”. In fact, Obama reluctantly helped pass only one law curtailing bulk surveillance, a provision that left untouched the National Security Agency’s ability to collect Americans’ international communications without warrants and the FBI’s unrestrained ability to warrantlessly search through them. Obama asserted that the human rights critics of his drone strikes had failed to “weigh the alternatives” of more intense aerial bombing or a ground invasion, eliding the commando raids that are the stated preference of his own counterterrorism policy. In his forthright defense of the thousands of drone strikes he has ordered, Obama insisted that he had placed appropriate safeguards around what he called “targeted strikes” but did not discuss the number of drone strikes he permitted the CIA to launch without a requirement to even know the targeted person’s name – something the rules he has put around drone strikes still do not prohibit. While Obama said any successful counterterrorism policy must “not create more terrorists”, a survivor of his first drone strike told the in January: “If there is a list of tyrants in the world, to me, Obama will be put on that list by his drone program.” Obama combined defense of his record with an impassioned plea not to embrace the mass suspicion of US Muslims that Trump and his emerging national-security team have proposed. Placing Trump’s proposed policies on a continuum with those of fascists and other US adversaries, Obama argued he would “feed the terrorist narrative”, as terrorists want Americans to “turn on one another”. “If we act like this is a war between the United States and Islam, we’re not just going to lose more Americans to terrorist attacks, but we’ll also lose sight of the very principles we claim to defend,” Obama said. He swiped at Trump’s proposal to steal Iraqi oil, adding: “We are a nation that won world wars without grabbing the resources of those we defeated.” And in what sounded like a rebuke of Trump’s enthusiasm for walling off America and “bombing the shit” out of Isis, Obama attacked the “false promises that we can eliminate terrorism by dropping more bombs or deploying more and more troops or fencing ourselves off from the rest of the world”. He added that low-scale terrorist attacks would continue in the US as long as lax gun control makes it easy for terrorists to “buy a very powerful weapon”. In perhaps Obama’s most concise summary of his instincts on war and peace, he urged the US to put the threat of terrorism “in perspective”, as they do not “pose an existential threat [and] we must not make the mistake of elevating them as if they do”. The US would do well to avoid “the path of great powers who defeated themselves through overreach”, he warned. To many of Obama’s Republican critics, the argument sounds like an excuse for vacillation and inaction. John McCain, the Arizona Republican senator who lost the presidency to Obama in 2008, called the MacDill speech “a feeble attempt to evade the harsh judgment of history”. As Obama prepares to end his presidency and hand over the substantial powers of national security to Trump – including the unresolved wars he inherited – some within security and human rights circles are holding out hope that the institutional forces that constrained Obama will also check Trump. They note that Obama’s stewardship over national security in several cases displayed more continuity with George W Bush’s record than departure from it, even as Obama’s election represented the sort of rebuke to Bush that Trump’s victory represents to Obama. “The president-elect has said a lot of ridiculous things on the campaign trail, and frankly I think when he sits down and talks with the experts and lawyers he’ll realize that torturing people and loading up Guantánamo are really bad ideas,” said Raha Wala, the national-security advocacy director of Human Rights First.
The view on Mr Corbyn’s newfound enthusiasm for Europe: a mark of more mature leadership There shall be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents, the Bible says, than ninety and nine and who have no need to repent. Likewise, in matters more terrestrial, is there much rejoicing in the campaign to keep Britain in Europe at Jeremy Corbyn’s move from scepticism to commitment. The Labour leader’s conversion from critic to champion of the European project has been speedy by the standards of a man not known for promiscuous changes of opinion. Last summer, in hustings for the job he now holds, Mr Corbyn sounded decidedly hesitant when asked whether Labour should cherish the country’s seat at the Brussels top table. As for older comments he made as a backbencher, the archives speak of suspicion that the European Union corrodes democracy and abets corporate greed. He voted against remaining in the common market, as it then was, in the 1975 referendum, and then also against subsequent treaties in parliament. But on Thursday Mr Corbyn pledged his and his Labour party’s unequivocal commitment to the Remain banner. What has changed? Leave campaigners say the volte-face is expedient and insincere; that Mr Corbyn’s arm has been twisted by Euro-idolatrous MPs, and that his support for their cause is flimsy. He emphatically rejected that charge on Thursday. “There is nothing half-hearted about anything I do,” he told his audience, having set out at length his present position: that the EU is imperfect and in need of reform, but also the best available forum for continent-wide collaboration on vital issues – protecting the rights of workers and consumers; defence of the environment; regulating rogue finance. To leave, Mr Corbyn warned, would gratify those who would strip away employment rights and pursue an aggressive market free-for-all that could accelerate the hollowing out of British industry. Arguments along those lines have been central to the left defence of Europe for a generation. Mr Corbyn made a case not so different from the one that Jacques Delors, as president of the European commission, used in 1988 with an address to the TUC that was credited with single-handedly shifting opinion in previously hostile British trade unions. If the Labour leader has been slower than some of his comrades to accept that logic, it is perhaps because he has not, until recently, had to confront the straight in/out dilemma. His past criticism of European institutions, while fierce, never reached explicit conviction that Britain would be better off quitting the project altogether. So it is not wholly inconsistent – not as much as the Brexit campaigners make out – for Mr Corbyn to now declare, given the forced choice before him, that the best path is indeed to “remain and reform”. Here Mr Corbyn is in tune with much of British public opinion. A minority are romantically attached to the ideal of European integration; a similar portion are fanatically hostile. The bulk in the middle are unsentimental, mildly suspicious but amenable to the argument that it is, on balance, worth making the system work as best it can. This is the rational, pragmatic case for sustaining the country’s most important diplomatic, strategic and economic alliance and it is revealing that both Mr Corbyn and David Cameron – each with a Eurosceptic stripe, one red, one blue – are persuaded by it. They may disagree passionately on the direction Britain should take and on the priorities British politicians should advance in the sphere of European cooperation, but they are wise enough to grasp how much less would be achieved either way by surrendering influence within that sphere. Reluctance to agree with Mr Cameron about anything is another reason why the Labour leadership has appeared squeamish in relation to the pro-EU cause. The official opposition, reasonably enough, does not want to appear as if it endorses a Downing Street campaign. But as Mr Corbyn has belatedly grasped, much more is at stake than the transient fortunes of Westminster parties. And since the Conservative leader can rally perhaps half of his own MPs and perhaps a smaller portion still of his activists behind him, a more unified Labour movement will be paramount in delivering the result that best serves the national interest. Mr Corbyn’s decision to ally himself wholeheartedly with that venture may run counter to the tone of some of his previous comments, but that should not bring his motive into question. It speaks to a healthy evolution from the politics of sideline commentary and complaint to the ranks of national leadership.
‘Project Fear’ started as a silly private joke during another referendum, but now it won’t go away In conflicts of all kinds, the enemy will sometimes do or say something that a clever opponent can seize and magnify from a small and apparently trivial matter into a damaging generalisation of the enemy’s character and campaign. Irony, which rarely travels well between sides, is in these warlike situations almost always best avoided. A famous example is the Goetz medal, which appeared in Germany after a U-boat torpedoed and sank the British liner Lusitania off the coast of Ireland in May 1915 with the loss of 1,198 lives, including 128 Americans. In the international outrage that followed, Germany alleged that the ship had been carrying arms and was therefore a legitimate target, and also that the British government and Cunard Line had ignored warnings from the German embassy. Later that same summer, the medal-maker Karl Xaver Goetz commemorated the event in one of a series of “satirical” medals that he was then producing in his Munich studio. One side showed the sinking liner’s deck filled with armaments below the legend “Keine Bannware!” (“No contraband, eh?”), while the reverse had a skeleton in a Cunard office selling tickets to a queue of innocents under the German for “Business above all”. Thanks to an inaccurate newspaper report, Goetz recorded the date of the disaster as 5 May, two days before it actually happened. Goetz made fewer than 500 of these medals, but one of them found its way into the hands of the British Foreign Office, which sent photographs of it to the US, which were published in the New York Times. Reports suggested, falsely, that the medal had been awarded to the U-boat crew. The wrong date inspired the theory that the attack had been premeditated. The skeleton suggested an inhuman (perhaps “typically German”) delight in death. Anxious to exploit the anti-German feeling that the medal aroused, the Foreign Office’s propaganda department commissioned the department store magnate Harry Gordon Selfridge to mass-produce exact copies, of which 250,000 were sold at a shilling each, with the revenue donated to charity. Opprobrium grew internationally – not least in neutral America – and in 1917 the government of Bavaria suppressed Goetz’s original. But by then America had entered the war; by playing a small part in creating the atmosphere that made that decision possible, the medal had done its work. And so we come to “Project Fear” and the Karl X Goetz of our times, Rob Shorthouse, who in the run-up to the Scottish independence referendum was the communications director of the unionist Better Together (aka No) campaign. “Why does the No campaign call itself Project Fear?” a taunting Alex Salmond asked Alistair Darling, Better Together’s leader, in the first televised debate between the two in August 2014. To which Darling replied: “It doesn’t.” The denial was true, and yet not quite wholly and completely true, because in some private and possibly self-ironising or satirical way, it did once. As a phrase relating to the Better Together campaign, “Project Fear” first appeared in Glasgow’s Herald newspaper in 2013. According to a report in the same newspaper last year, a volunteer at the campaign’s Glasgow headquarters had coined it “as an ironic suggestion for Yes Scotland – a handy name it could use in its constant complaints about Better Together’s alleged Unionist scaremongering”. In others words (if I understand this right), it was a way of referring to its own campaign as characterised by its opponents – “a joke phrase”, as Shorthouse told the Herald, “that was all about poking fun at the Nats and their constant dismissal of every legitimate point raised by anyone and everyone as scaremongering”. Joke names for serious things are a fact of office life; many years ago the Sunday Times ran a series of interviews with powerful husband-and-wife duos that the staff, though not the interviewees, knew under the working title of “Nightmare Couples”. The mistake Shorthouse made was to mention “Project Fear” to a group of journalists at the Scottish Tory conference in June 2013, who quickly got it into print. A few days later, on 1 July, the Daily Telegraph’s Scotland editor, Alan Cochrane, recorded in his referendum diary, published last year, that Shorthouse was “in deepest doo-doo for coming up with the ridiculous Project Fear name … He really is a stupid boy. I’ve never rated him and always thought he was massively over-promoted.” It was a godsend for the SNP, which could now rebrand every unionist objection to independence as nothing more than scary propaganda. Like the Foreign Office with the Goetz medal in 1916, the party amplified something small and half-cocked and made sure everyone knew about it. The effects of the electorate are still unclear. The unionist side, after all, went on to win the referendum by 55% to 45% and “fear”, it should be said, had also been part of its opponents’ arsenal: though health is a devolved power, Nicola Sturgeon had warned voters that only a Yes vote would save the NHS. But an unshakeable idea took root that the No side, by stressing the negatives of independence rather than the positives of the union, had come close to losing. Sturgeon, especially, seems to believe that the No/Yes proportion of the Scottish electorate declined from roughly 65/35 to 55/45 over a long campaign, mainly because of the No side’s negativity, which, when you think about it, suggests she has uncharacteristic doubts about the strength of her political cause. With this history behind her, Sturgeon has more than once warned David Cameron against fighting a “miserable, negative, fear-based” campaign on Europe. But what if those words were replaced by “sensible, sober and cautious”? Remove the prism of Project Fear, and the same kind of practical questions come with a far less pejorative set of adjectives. The fight to maintain the status quo – as member of the UK and/or the EU – is bound to stress the dangers of the unfamiliar. There is something else. To be fearful is sometimes to be wise. Before the referendum, to question the Scottish government’s estimates of oil revenues or worry about Scotland’s over-reliance on them was seen as evidence of unionist miserabilism. “The No campaign, the Tory party [and] the Labour party are the only people in the world who argue that the possession of substantial amounts of oil and gas are somehow a curse,” Salmond said in 2014, when oil was forecast to stay above $100 a barrel and an independent Scotland’s share of oil taxation reckoned at between £6.8bn and £7.9bn for the year 2016-17. Today, with oil priced around $40 a barrel, that annual tax take is expected to hit £100m – a seventieth of the pre-referendum estimate. For the first time in 35 years, since before the oil boom got going, Scotland is generating less tax per head than the rest of the UK. Things move on. After the referendum, the “massively over-promoted” Shorthouse became the client and communications director of Scotrail, the franchise owned by the Dutch transport company Abello that runs Scotland’s trains. Last year he said it was “pretty pathetic” that the SNP had tried to describe Project Fear as “anything more than a joke in our office”. And yet it did become more than a joke. It became a piece of conventional wisdom about referendum campaigns – “negativity doesn’t work” – that has still to be properly tested.
Is Tidal sailing steadily, or headed for the rocks? It’s just over a year since Jay Z, via his Project Panther Bidco investment company, took over the streaming service Tidal. It has, frankly, been a rum old time for everyone involved. On the plus side, Tidal has managed to persuade some of the biggest acts in the world to back it and give it exclusives, doubling its subscriber base in six months. On the negative side, it’s experienced a throng of executive walk-outs, botched press events and exclusives, leaks and, most worryingly for its survival, rivals stealing its thunder. The idea behind Tidal was sound – artists would seize control of the means of distribution of their work – but the execution was, for the most part, abysmal. Its focus at launch was on the collective power of an elite of impossibly wealthy stars, all of whom were incredulous that the general public did not rise as one and applaud their nobility and bravery. Its star-studded public unveiling in March 2015 set the temperature for what was to follow, listing between bold defiance and preposterous indulgence. Its megastar backers marched out on stage in New York in alphabetical order to show, presumably, that they were all equal. Except, that is, for Daft Punk and Deadmau5, who had to stand at different sides of the stage to avoid what Billboard wonderfully termed a “helmet clash”. On the stage were acts as powerful as Jay Z, Beyoncé, Jack White, Arcade Fire, Rihanna and Kanye West. Some could not be there in person so Chris Martin and Calvin Harris loomed down from screens, via jittering Skype connections. They all signed a “declaration” to back Tidal, with promises of exclusives and support for all artists streaming their music on the site. “Our movement is being led by a few inviting all to band together for a common cause, a movement to change the status quo,” this musical Magna Carta proclaimed. “Today marks the next step.” As Madonna signed it she, for some reason, cocked her leg on the desk, looking like Dennis Taylor going for a tricky blue. Leading by example, Jay Z gave Tidal its first exclusive – the video for his track Glory. It was soon ripped and uploaded to YouTube, foreshadowing what was to come. The following week Madonna premiered her new video, Ghosttown, on the live streaming app Meerkat despite promising to give Tidal first refusal on all exclusives. Oh dear. Beyoncé and Rihanna moved to cauterise the wound by offering up exclusives for new music. They also quickly ended up on YouTube. After the braggadocio came the charm offensive, notably Jay Z and Jack White calling up new subscribers to thank them for their business. By June, however, interim CEO Peter Tonstad had bailed, the first of many executive exits to come. But ignore that – look over here at this Madonna exclusive (a real one this time) for the Bitch I’m Madonna video. Except hardly anyone could watch it owing to a technical snafu, and it duly ended up on sites where people could watch it hassle-free. It just got worse. Tidal accused Apple of blocking it from streaming a Drake performance, a claim denied by his manager. In August, an anonymous poll of industry executives by Billboard found that 71% of them were giving the service a year before it collapsed while 17% gave it two years. Only 12% of those polled felt it had a future. Then, in October, while giving evidence in a court case concerning a sample in Big Pimpin’, Jay Z was asked to list his business interests, but Tidal somehow slipped his mind. “Yeah, yeah,” he said when reminded of the service that was supposed to cause an artist-led revolution. “Forgot about that.” If its owner couldn’t remember about it, what hope was there that the general public would? Then came the galumphing release of Rihanna’s Anti. It went online early, then disappeared, then reappeared with the offer of 1m free downloads being bankrolled by Samsung – which had always been part of the strategy, Tidal says. Tidal blamed Universal, Rihanna’s label, for the premature release but Universal swung back and said it was Tidal’s fault. None of that, however, could explain why anyone would want to promote a subscription streaming service by giving away downloads. It’s like promoting a space rocket by giving away tricycles. The cherry on the cake (to date) arrived earlier this month when Kanye West held a curate’s egg of album-playback-plus-fashion show at Madison Square Garden in New York. It was streamed live on Tidal, apparently drawing an audience of 20m. Except many of them complained about buffering issues, yet another technical catastrophe for a company that must sell itself on the efficiency of its software. Kanye then added that the album would not be available on Apple Music or for download, claiming it would remain exclusive to Tidal. Except someone forgot to send the memo to the 500,000 people who had illegally downloaded it within the first 24 hours. Another Tidal “exclusive” that stretched the definition of the word. As it stands, Tidal – with 1m subscribers – is possibly the fifth biggest streaming music service globally. It is a hell of a way behind Spotify (close to 30m) subscribers as well as Apple Music (which made it to 11m in just six months). Then there’s Deezer with around 6m and Rhapsody/Napster with an estimated 3.5m. Tidal might even be behind Google Play, which has not made its numbers public. At the end of last year, Rdio was the latest streaming service to run out of both cash and goodwill and it is likely that more services will follow it into the digital boneyard this year. Tidal is hoping it will last the distance but, beset as it is by calamity, it has a lot of work to do to get its house in order. If it can, it might come good on its noble launch ambition to spark an artist-led streaming revolution; if it can’t, it will go down in history as little more than an ignoble millionaires’ folly. This piece was amended on 23 February to clarify that the the Samsung-sponsored giveaway of Rihanna’s Anti was a planned part of the release campaign. Tidal timeline: the triumphs March 2015: Purchase of Tidal by Project Panther for $56m goes through March: Jay Z and others turn their Twitter avatars blue and anticipation for its launch builds April: Tidal gets its first exclusive, Jay Z’s video for Glory April: Jay Z and Jack White hit the phones to surprise call new subscribers April: Tidal opens up to let unsigned acts upload their music (but only, it turns out, using distributors Phonofile or Record Union); Tidal Discovery launches with a focus on promoting new and underground acts May: Jay Z launches Tidal X with a live performance of B-sides and rarities, using the occasion to take pot shots at YouTube, Spotify and Apple July: Rihanna’s Bitch Better Have My Money debuts on Tidal and she “kidnaps” fans for the ostentatious launch party July: Prince pulls all his music from streaming services – except Tidal September: Prince gives Tidal HITNRUN as an exclusive September: Tidal reaches 1m subscribers, doubling its subscriber base in six months November: Tidal subscribers get pre-sale access to tickets for Rihanna’s Anti tour three days before everyone else February 2016: Tidal gives $1.5m to Black Lives Matter and other social groups Tidal timeline: the tragedies February 2015: Shareholder revolt at Aspiro, Tidal’s parent company, holds up the sale as they demand a higher sale price March: Media event featuring a host of megastars is mocked as indulgent April: Madonna gives Meerkat, not Tidal, the excusive on her video for Ghosttown April: Exclusive tracks by Beyoncé (Die With You) and Rihanna (American Oxygen) quickly end up on YouTube April: Jay Z’s #TidalFacts unloading on Twitter is roundly ridiculed April: Mumford & Sons guitarist Winston Marshall calls the celebrity backers of Tidal “new school fucking plutocrats” June: Peter Tonstad, Tidal’s interim CEO, bails June: technical glitches plague debut of Bitch I’m Madonna video exclusive July: Zena Burns (senior vice president for label and artist relations), Jeff Geisler (chief marketing officer) and Jennifer Justice (business affairs) all exit August: Only 12% of music executives polled by Billboard think Tidal will still be going in two years October: Jay Z “forgets” he owns Tidal during a copyright case relating to Big Pimpin’ November: it is revealed Vania Schlogel, Tidal’s chief investment office, had left the company some months earlier January: former subscribers complain they have been billed even though they cancelled their subscriptions January: The release of Rihanna’s Anti quickly collapses into absurdity as it “leaks”, disappears and then reappears – after which 1m downloads are given away free February: Kanye’s album-playback-cum-fashion-show for the launch of The Life of Pablo is plagued by buffering problems; the album is illegally downloaded 500,000 times in the first day
Comcast’s NBCUniversal to buy DreamWorks Animation in $3.8bn deal Comcast’s NBCUniversal has confirmed it has lined up a $3.8bn (£2.6bn) deal to buy DreamWorks Animation, maker of hits from Shrek to Kung Fu Panda, to create a formidable rival to Disney. The deal will see DreamWorks Animation come under the same roof as NBCUniversal-owned Illumination Entertainment, maker of the hugely profitable including Despicable Me and spin-off Minions, creating an animation studio to challenge Disney and its Pixar operation. Pixar’s impressive range of animated hits include Toy Story, Finding Nemo, Cars, The Incredibles and Inside Out. The deal, a healthy premium on DreamWorks Animation’s $2.3bn stock market valuation, is expected to close by the end of the year subject to clearance by competition regulators. “Having spent the past two decades working together with our team to build DreamWorks Animation into one of the world’s most beloved brands, I am proud to say that NBCUniversal is the perfect home for our company,” said Jeffrey Katzenberg, chief executive and co-founder of DreamWorks Animation. “A home that will embrace the legacy of our storytelling and grow our businesses to their fullest potential.” DreamWorks Animation spun off in 2004 from DreamWorks SKG, an entertainment company founded in 1994 by Katzenberg. Steven Spielberg and David Geffen. Katzenberg, who controls controls 60% of the animation company’s voting stock, will become the chairman of a newly formed entity at NBCUniversal called DreamWorks New Media. The operation will also comprise DreamWorks Animation’s interest in Nova and its 51% stake in Awesomeness TV, which AOL-owner Verizon recently acquired a 24.5% shareholding valuing the digital entertainment network at $650m. Katzenberg will also serve as a consultant to Comcast-owned NBCUniversal. The deal will also see NBCUniversal take over DreamWorks Classics, the library of classic characters including Where’s Waldo and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, and a consumer products business. “DreamWorks Animation is a great addition to NBCUniversal,” said Steve Burke, chief executive of NBCUniversal. “DreamWorks will help us grow our film, television, theme parks and consumer products businesses for years to come.” NBCUniversal said that Chris Meledandri, the founder of Illumination Entertainment, would “help guide the growth” of DreamWorks Animation indicating that Katazenberg has agreed to hand the reins of his company in the neat future. “Jeffrey Katzenberg and the DreamWorks organisation have created a dynamic film brand and a deep library of intellectual property,” said Burke. “We have enjoyed extraordinary success over the last six years in animation with the emergence of Illumination Entertainment. The prospects for our future together are tremendous.”
The EU vote isn’t just about Westminster – we need grassroots campaigns too This year will almost certainly be the year of the EU referendum. Although some parts of the media will portray it as a struggle between two official campaigns, the real story must be a rich national democratic debate. There are many grassroots communities emerging with vital understandings of the importance of continued EU membership. Doctors, nurses, researchers, farmers, lawyers, police, environmentalists, as well as Brits living abroad, all have much to say. As the Scottish independence referendum showed, an agile swarm of passionate activist communities can run rings around a top-down Westminster-based operation and engage voters whom politicians cannot reach. The official Britain Stronger in Europe campaign can benefit enormously by engaging with what is already a very diverse array of pro-EU campaigns, with several more emerging. The question must be not only what these campaigns can do for BSE, but what a central campaign can do to support these passionate and committed communities. As we throw the last scraps of turkey into the bin with a sigh of relief, we’d like to take a moment to reflect on the lessons we have learned about the community-level fight so far. At Scientists for EU, we have been in the trenches since 8 May 2015, the day when the Conservative victory made an EU referendum certain. At that stage, many scientists felt frustrated and voiceless in the face of endless trash-talking from Ukip and the red-tops about the EU and immigrants. We received an immediate surge in support from scientists across the country who know these myopic notions to be out of date. EU science is outstripping US science in size, growth and networking, with the UK at the epicentre of this vibrant multinational research hub. We declared our passionate belief, backed by extensive evidence, that the EU brings a huge benefit to UK science and innovation. A recent survey by the Campaign for Science and Engineering and Engineering Professors’ Council showed that 93% of research scientists and engineers agreed. Through social media we’ve been able to disseminate the information on the implications of the referendum for science to our community, field questions and achieve a level of credibility than can withstand generic tirades from the combined troll army of Leave.EU and Vote Leave. Our grassroots campaign has over 10,000 followers on Facebook, we’ve assembled an advisory board with leading UK scientists, produced endless posts, newspaper and blog pieces, done interviews, and submitted a small treatise to the House of Lords inquiry into EU membership and UK science. This has also initiated debate within the community. A group called Scientists 4 Britain started up in reaction to us, pro-Brexit blogs are analysing our articles in detail and interested impartial organisations are keen to host debates on science and the EU. This is all very healthy, as we’ll now likely have a quality debate in this area that enriches knowledge for all. However, as a true grassroots organisation, it’s also extremely demanding on our spare time and lives. Our campaign and many others will need real, tangible support in order to have the impact on public understanding that these issues deserve. As Alan Johnson, leader of the Labour In campaign noted, we absolutely need a pro-EU group for farmers. I don’t just want to read an article on the common agricultural policy or glean half-baked knowledge from the occasional newspaper sideswipe about the price of Brussels sprouts outside the EU; I want to delve into a social media page or feed where it is being discussed by the community it impacts. Labour In will be focusing arguments on the strong social dimension of the EU, which has meant robust collaborative protection of workers’ rights and quality of life. We also need such groups for health professionals, the tech industry, small businesses and key regions. Such communities will provide credibility and depth to the discussions. Such is the multifaceted nature of our EU membership that a single campaign trying to cover all bases would necessarily be a mix of messages. That would make the public wonder if the campaign was itself confused. The mess in the Scottish referendum showed that you cannot be everything to everyone. But in a referendum such as this one, you can have it both ways. Unity and diversity can go hand in hand. A central campaign can oversee the overall structure and provide resources for dedicated campaigning communities. The mainstream media must play a role too, avoiding their over-reliance on “the great and the good”. The pro-EU community is not a top-down, centrist cabal of bigwigs and celebrities, and should not give the impression that it is. Repeat exposure of household names whose positions are well known will do little to shift minds. In an age of social media, we must empower the voices of those who understand and value our Europe-wide sense of teamwork. So here at Scientists for EU headquarters we thought we’d indulge in the new year tradition of the prediction. We anticipate a surge in pro-EU grassroots communities – and we’ll certainly be working our hardest to help it happen. Have a look at the list on our website. Anything there you should be supporting? Anything missing that you feel you could head up? Maybe we’ve just found your new year resolution.
Will BHS's deficit sink the pensions lifeboat? In the usual shorthand, Sir Philip Green faces a “grilling” by MPs over the collapse of BHS, carrying a pension fund deficit of £571m, a year after he sold the business for a pound. In reality, the work and pensions select committee will be asking questions that require urgent answers. For example: can the Pension Protection Fund (PPF) stand the strain of having substantial liabilities dumped on it? And do employees and pensioners need better safeguards when ailing businesses are sold in last-ditch rescue attempts? The PPF is funded by a levy on pension funds running defined-benefit schemes. In effect, healthy schemes chip in cash every year to clean up after disasters elsewhere. It is an admirable arrangement born of a reaction to past pension scandals like Maxwell. But the system requires everybody to play fair, or at least try to. If the PPF is ever seen as a dumping ground that allows reckless financiers to shirk their responsibilities, upright companies will naturally ask why their pensioners should suffer any levy. In BHS’s case, the MPs should start by asking why the pension trustees approved a plan in 2012 to return the fund to balance over the monumental period of 23 years. In a quarter of a century in retail-land, empires can crumble – let alone a chain of tired department stores. Then there’s the crucial question of why Green was not told to top up the pension fund when he sold BHS to the shambolic Retail Acquisitions outfit. That was the point at which the Pensions Regulator could have put the squeeze on the billionaire and his Monaco-based wife. Instead, the regulator may face years of court battles if it judges Green, whose family extracted £400m in dividends from BHS in happier days, ducked his duties. In terms of its deficit, the BHS fund is not the biggest to fall on the PPF. But its case may demonstrate that the pensions lifeboat is full of holes. Diamond’s bright idea may embarrass Barclays What luck Barclays chief executive Jes Staley is enjoying. He announced a plan to sell down the group’s 62.5% stake in Barclays Africa a couple of months ago. People wondered if it could be done and Barclays said it would settle for merely reducing its holding to 20%. Now here comes a credible bidding consortium, backed by a plump financial institution, willing to make an offer for the whole lot. There’s only one problem. The consortium is headed by one Bob Diamond, ousted as Barclays’ chief executive in 2012 in the early days of the banking industry’s Libor-rigging scandal. Diamond’s doubters thought Atlas Mara, his African banking venture, was too small to enter the fray. But he seems to have overcome that obstacle by recruiting Carlyle Group, which certainly has the resources to provide the bulk of the necessary $5bn (£3.5bn). Atlas Mara, with a 30% stake in a Nigerian bank and operations in six other sub-Saharan countries, would then be folded into the consortium’s new venture. Neat. Awkward, Barclays’ board might feel, especially if African economic breezes improve and Diamond ends up making a mint from his former employer’s cast-offs. There is no way around that problem for Barclays. As a public-company seller in a cash auction, you need a good reason not to go with the highest offer. Potential embarrassment doesn’t qualify. Dividend hike at Whitbread is just the beginning New chief executive, new dividend policy. Well, not completely new – but a 10% improvement at Whitbread is only half the pace the Premier Inn and Costa Coffee combo has managed in each of the past two years. In fairness to Alison Brittain, shareholders had worked out for themselves that Whitbread would take a breath or two after Andy Harrison’s departure. This time last year, Whitbread’s shares were nudging £54; these days they are around the £40 level as the new boss delivers worthy but dull sermons on the need to upgrade the IT infrastructure and automate processes. But she’s probably right that work needs to be done. Many companies, after a run of rapid expansion, have discovered they’ve missed a few tricks. In Whitbread’s case, none of Brittain’s tasks are daunting; it can’t be terribly hard to get some healthier food into Costa to supplement the muffins. Nor is Brittain signalling an end of growth. She thinks Costa’s annual revenues can be lifted from £1.6bn to £2.5bn by 2020. That is an excellent reason to keep the business, rather than spin it off to satisfy investment bankers’ taste for fees. One of these decades, a Whitbread boss may decide coffee shops and hotels don’t need to co-habit, but it won’t be Brittain. Sensible.
Houston, we've got a problem: Trump could cost Republicans Texas, polls find It might seem unlikely that this presidential election could get any stranger, but polls are emerging that suggest Texas might now be in play for the Democrats. A University of Houston poll published on Tuesday found Donald Trump leading Hillary Clinton by only three percentage points, within the margin of error, in a four-way race. Also that day, a Washington Post/SurveyMonkey poll pegged Trump’s advantage at only two points, the same as in Florida. Texas’s 38 electoral college votes, second only to California, make it the ultimate wishlist item for Democrats. For Republicans it is like a vital organ: essential for the body’s survival but taken for granted, almost forgotten, until something starts to go wrong. Democratic efforts in Texas have lately focused on planting seeds that might germinate in 2020, 2024 or later, when it is presumed that a growing Hispanic, Asian and African American population will increase the party’s chances. The Clinton campaign has not prioritized Texas, moving recently into two other usually deep red states, Arizona and Georgia. But could the future be now? Could a Republican playground be morphing into a partisan battleground? On Wednesday, Democrats from Fort Bend County, south-west of Houston, gathered at an Indian restaurant for a presidential debate watch party. They were feeling unusually optimistic. Red, white and blue balloons swayed in a gentle draft from ceiling air-conditioning vents as about 50 people, two-thirds of them south Asian, munched chicken, bhajis and basmati rice. While the two candidates jousted on television, cutlery clinked. “It’s unreal, it’s surreal,” said Cynthia Ginyard, chair of the county Democratic party. “We are known as a red state and we know that. Our goal was always to change that. We didn’t realise that the possibility was so near. “Inasmuch as I want to give us a pat on the back for working hard, some of it just happened along the way,” she continued, citing a big voter registration effort as evidence of the former and an anti-Trump bump as the wildcard element. “I had two people attend the first debate watch party who were Republicans and they said: ‘We figured we’d just come and join y’all, we’re just through with our party.’” Behind the truth that Texas is a well-fortified conservative castle there are complexities, subtleties and shifts, some related to the economic success that state Republicans like to tout as a hallmark of their leadership. In the 2012 election, Barack Obama won the state’s four biggest cities – Houston, Dallas, San Antonio and Austin – as well as most of the counties on the border with Mexico. However, such is the Republican stranglehold on rural and suburban Texas that Mitt Romney won the state easily, by 57.2% to Obama’s 41.4%. Obama garnered less than 20% of the vote in a third of Texas counties. Of the state’s 254 counties, only 26 glowed blue. Fort Bend was not one of them. Romney won it with 52.9% to Obama’s 46.1%. That is tight by Texas standards, making Democrats hopeful that its demographics and Trump’s noxiousness could inspire Fort Bend to flip next month and affect down-ballot races. Fort Bend is a study in multiculturalism in modern suburban America and in the kind of trends that excite Democrats and alarm Republicans. It is now the sort of place where you are almost as likely to come across a Hindu or Buddhist temple as a firearms store. Manicured middle-class housing developments chew into former ranch lands 30 miles or more from downtown Houston, as the metropolitan area loosens its belt. Easy access to energy, medical and technology hubs has helped make Fort Bend one of the fastest-growing, most ethnically diverse, best-educated and affluent counties in the US. The estimated population of 716,000 has grown by 22% in five years. More than a quarter of residents are foreign-born and a fifth of the population is Asian. “We registered over 4,000 Muslim voters in Fort Bend County this year,” said Shapnik Khan, a 45-year-old law office manager who moved from Bangladesh to the US as a teenager to study and has been in Fort Bend for 20 years. His wife was born in Mexico. Back in the mid-1990s, he said, “the area of my house was like a dense forest … deer, coyotes”. Now: “If you go at five o’clock it’s like three miles of traffic.” Nishan Khan, a 63-year-old real estate agent, came to the US from Bangladesh in the 1980s. “We have all kinds of people,” he said, an H-for-Hillary sticker on his shirt. “It is changing and it is changing for the better … Make no mistake, there’s a huge change because of the GOP’s mistakes and GOP’s head of the ticket.” Richard Morrison, running for a third term as a precinct commissioner, was more circumspect. “I’m hesitant to predict that it’s going to get over the line now,” he said. “I’m hopeful but I just can’t get over all my experiences in the past. So I don’t know. “I know that we are a very diverse population and very highly educated and we have a bunch of young citizens. I see all those factors but if I was a betting man – and I’m not a betting man – I just wouldn’t feel confident enough to cast my bet. “There’s no way Texas can flip,” he continued. “That’s just from me looking at it and thinking, how is that even possible? I just think to myself it’s impossible for Texas to go blue. How can it possibly happen? And I’m generally not a pessimistic person, I’m always very optimistic.” Texas last went Democratic in a presidential election in 1976, backing Jimmy Carter. If the polls are correct, 2016 will be the first time since 1996 that the main parties are within 11 points of each other. “We’re not an island,” said James Henson, director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas. “I think one has to expect that as the ground seems to have shifted so dramatically on the national level it was going to affect what’s going on here in Texas as well.” The Lone Star state was not enthused by Trump even before this summer’s missteps, such as insulting the parents of a deceased Muslim American soldier, which Shapnik Khan said offended the local Muslim community. In the Republican primary in March, Trump finished a distant second to the Texas senator Ted Cruz, mustering only 27% of the vote. Still, only two years ago, Democrats reeled from a major setback when their high-profile gubernatorial candidate, Wendy Davis, was thrashed by Greg Abbott, losing by more than 20 points and setting the state legislature down an even more conservative path. Especially given that outcome, current polls are “a pretty shocking development”, Henson said, even if he ultimately expected the presidential race here to be less close than it looks at present because a large number of undecideds will plump for Trump. “It’s hard not to look at this and feel like there is something of a crisis for the Republican party,” he said. “In a place like Texas they have a significant cushion which they may need to use.”
Lead the EU, don't leave: Gordon Brown heads Labour's push to remain Labour will hit the referendum campaign trail afresh on Monday, as Gordon Brown leads a final 10-day push to prevent Britain leaving the EU. A speech from the former prime minister, setting out the case to “lead, not leave” will be the centrepiece of a day of events led by Labour but carefully choreographed with No 10, amid fears that without a strong remain verdict from Labour voters the referendum could be lost. “From now until 10pm on 23 June, we will not rest and I will not stop explaining why 9 million Labour voters have most to gain from remaining in the EU,” Brown will say. After weeks of warnings about the risks of leaving the EU, Labour now hopes to switch the arguments to the benefits of staying in. Brown will use the speech in Leicester to set out reforms he believes Britain could achieve when it takes over the EU presidency of the council of ministers in the second half of next year, including action on tax havens and an EU “solidarity fund” to help communities facing a rapid influx of migrants. “Today I am setting out a positive agenda for Labour voters – reasons why Labour voters should vote remain and the patriotic case for remaining in Europe,” he will say. Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Monday before his speech, Brown said Britain had a history of leading in Europe. “Look at the sweep of history,” he said. “Britain led Europe against fascism, Britain created the European convention of human rights, Britain was the leader in persuading eastern Europe to come in to the European Union, Britain has always led the way when things have been difficult in Europe, and I think it’s time that we were a leader again. “Let us lead in the UK presidency in the battle for jobs – I think we could create half a million jobs by a reform of the single market, jobs for Britain. Let us lead in energy coordination, which could use wind and wave powers so that we can get energy bills down. Let’s lead in tackling tax havens – only Europe can actually do that. “Let’s lead also when it comes to coordinated action against terrorism, because again Britain has got intelligence services that are the best in Europe, and we should be working with our European partners. We’re dealing with cross-border terrorism, we need cross-border cooperation.” Brown said Britain would not have been able to lead as it did in the global financial crisis, or on the climate change treaty, if it had been outside the EU. “Switzerland, outside the EU, they call it a fax democracy, they receive the decisions from Europe and they have to implement them. You’ve got to be at the table, you’ve got to be a negotiator. “I think the British people’s patriotism is this: we want to be proud of our country and we will be proud of our country if we are leading in Europe. Not isolated, not on the sidelines, not sending flotillas up the Thames as a demonstration of strength but actually engaging in the world, out there, leading in proposals, showing that we can actually change the world for the better.” On voters’ concerns about immigration, Brown emphasised that the government must help communities that have been hit by rising population levels but pointed out leaving would not be the panacea that the leave camp are claiming. “Norway and Switzerland, outside the European Union, have higher rates of immigration … the real problem we’re dealing with is illegal immigration. When you saw Albanians coming into the country, that wasn’t Europeans trying to get in by right, that was illegal immigrants driven by gangmasters, traffickers, criminal gangs, the only way to deal with that is by cooperation across the authorities in France and elsewhere.” With the referendum less than a fortnight away, the Britain Stronger in Europe campaign believes that between a third and a half of Labour supporters have not yet made up their minds about how to vote and won’t be convinced by being urged to back the status quo. Brown’s intervention in the Scottish referendum campaign in 2014 was regarded by many as crucial and Stronger In hopes his voice still carries weight with Labour voters. “There is everything to play for and Labour will campaign across the country to mobilise Labour voters to back remain,” said a senior Labour source. The former prime minister has already shared his EU reform proposals with his old foe David Cameron and the government has agreed to consider them. Brown has also discussed Labour’s strategy in the final few days of the campaign with Jeremy Corbyn, Corbyn’s deputy, Tom Watson, and the shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, in a rare show of unity between the Labour old guard and the current leadership. McDonnell said: “These proposals from Gordon Brown are welcome and are part of the positive Labour case that I and others are making to vote to remain and reform the EU.” The shadow foreign secretary, Hilary Benn, will also make a speech setting out the “patriotic case” for Britain to remain in the EU on Monday and senior Labour women including Angela Eagle and Emily Thornberry will tour the West Midlands meeting female voters. Benn told the he would confront head-on the argument that leaving the EU would allow Britain to “take back control”. He said: “We are at the centre of this network of relationships and those relationships are central to having influence.” He will accuse leave campaigners of harking back to the age of the empire. “They sound as if they mourn for the bygone age in which Britain gained influence through military strength and empire,” he will say. “In the second half of the 20th century, we came to realise that it was far better and far more effective to be a global power that achieved its goals through cooperation rather than conquest.” Asked if he thought voters could choose to leave on 23 June, Benn said: “It’s very tight; this is a very tight referendum and that’s why we are working so hard.” It was also reported on Monday that BT staff will be told that company bosses and union leaders back remaining in a reformed EU. In an email to 80,000 staff at the telecoms company, BT’s chairman, chief executive and leaders of the Prospect and CWU unions will urge employees to vote but not tell them how, according to the BBC. The email will reportedly refer to independent research that suggests the economy will suffer if Britain does leave the EU, however. Matthew Elliott, chief executive of Vote Leave, said of possible EU reforms: “Everyone knows that renegotiation was an utter failure that achieved nothing. If we really want to take back control of our economy, our democracy and our borders then we have to vote leave.”
Let's Be Evil review – routine stalk'n'slasher undermined by budget Prolific Brit producer Jonathan Willis here attempts a teen-oriented tweak of the science-gone-wrong theme of his 2013 success The Machine. It’s about the doomed Posterity Project, a programme that sequesters the best and brightest youngsters in the US underground. While their twentysomething handlers uncover the project’s deadlier glitches, director Martin Owen applies plentiful visual gloss. A first-person shooting style necessitates intricate, Peep Show-like eyeline-matching, and the effects work is unusually sophisticated. Yet there’s no dressing up some desperately ordinary stalk-and-slashing, and the budget undermines the world-building: ex-EastEnder Kara Tointon heads a roster of phony US accents, and while Kids in America gets repeat plays, surely nobody here ventured much beyond Amersham.
Woman shot during screening of Michael Bay's 13 Hours Police have arrested an apparently drunk man who shot a woman by accident during a screening of the controversial Michael Bay military drama 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi in Washington state, USA. Reports suggest the man, who appeared to be intoxicated, was fumbling with his firearm inside the cinema when it went off. Police were called at 8pm, Pacific Time on Thursday night to the Regal Cinemas at The Landing in Renton, near Seattle. The suspect himself alerted the authorities after returning home and dialling the US emergency number, 911, claiming he dropped the gun before it went off. It was unclear why the cinemagoer had carried a firearm into the cinema. The victim, who was unknown to the shooter, is in a serious condition but is expected to recover. 13 Hours, about elite ex-military operators assigned to protect the CIA who fought back against a terrorist attack on a US diplomatic compound on September 11, 2012 in Benghazi, Libya, has been championed by rightwing US commentators. But the film has failed to match the impact of Clint Eastwood’s similarly patriotic American Sniper at the US box office last year, following middling reviews. The Washington shooting is just the latest incident to involve gun use in US cinemas. In July drifter John Russell Houser shot 11 people, killing two and injuring nine, at a multiplex in Lafayette, Louisiana at a screening of the Amy Schumer comedy Trainwreck before turning the gun on himself. The victims were later named as artistic entrepreneur Jillian Johnson, 33, and student Mayci Breaux, 21. Three years previously gunman James Holmes killed 12 people and injured 70 others at the Century 16 multiplex in Aurora, during a midnight screening of the new Batman movie, The Dark Knight Rises.
How Donald Trump treats women Donald Trump said a New York Times report, based on interviews with dozens of women, on his “unwelcome romantic advances”, “unending commentary on the female form” and more, was false. Crossing the line One of the women in the story, a former model whom Trump asked to try on a bikini moments after meeting her at a party at his house, said the story was biased – against Trump. ‘I never said that he “paraded” me’ All these stories that come out... people just don’t care. I think people … say: ‘Who’s going to bring an earthquake to Washington DC?’ – Republican chairman Reince Priebus Sadiq Khan, the newly elected mayor of London and a Muslim, said Trump’s views on Islam were “ignorant” and “inadvertently playing into the hands of the extremists”. How Trump emboldens bigots ‘Your views on Islam are ignorant’ “Let’s do an IQ test,” Trump said. “When he won I wished him well. Now, I don’t care about him … He doesn’t know me, never met me … Tell him I will remember those statements.” ‘He doesn’t know me’ Asked whether she might include her husband in her cabinet, Democratic hopeful Hillary Clinton found a one-word answer: No. “I’m going to put him in charge of revitalising the economy,” she said earlier. Bill Clinton, economy tsar
With Steve Bannon, Trump’s signed up the meme-makers of misogyny It’s hardly a revelation that women’s rights over their own bodies are not of much concern to Donald Trump. He has over the years flip-flopped on abortion rights, at some stages describing himself as pro-choice. Once he began seeking office, in an appeal to certain Republican elements he started making increasingly anti-abortion statements. I say statements because his beliefs seem to have no core aside from the servicing of his own ego. During the campaign he promised to ban abortion: “I am pro-life”. At one point he suggested women should be punished for having abortions. He said during the third presidential debate that third trimester abortions are legal and supported by Hillary Clinton. Neither of these things were true. His anti–abortion stance was part of his electoral strategy. When asked whether he would try to overturn Roe v Wade, the 1973 supreme court judgment that made abortion legal in the US, he basically said the way to overturn it was to make him president. And so it begins. One of the first decisions he will make will be appointing a supreme court judge to fill the vacancy left following Justice Scalia’s death last year and has signalled his intention to appoint judges who want to overturn Roe v Wade. “I’m pro-life. The judges will be pro-life” he told Sixty Minutes. He said the if the decision were overturned, each state would have to decide whether to ban abortion or not. This is one issue where Hilary Clinton was always completely solid: the reproductive rights of girls and women. I am well aware that many white women voted for Trump, and that many American women are anti–abortion, but the rolling back of these rights will hit poorest women the hardest. Many Democrats were concerned with not just protecting the right to abortion but extending access, and understood that the inequalities between women played out in their access to healthcare. Though we keep being told that part of Trump’s success was somehow the end of identity politics, it is quite clear that it is about the reassertion of one identity at the cost of all others: that of white men. The bodies of women are collateral. The lives of black people are collateral. The appointment of Steve Bannon as “chief strategist and senior counselor” means that those who have been attacking the progressive narrative from the far right are now horrifyingly in positions of power. Those on the left who argued during the election that there was not fundamentally much difference between Trump and Clinton clearly saw women’s bodily autonomy as some sort of elite liberal issue. The euphemistic talk around unplanned pregnancies hides the fact that it is those women at the bottom who suffer most without basic healthcare. The idea that reproductive rights are human rights or that human rights even matter is anathema to Trump’s entourage. Do not forget that the website Breitbart News, of which Bannon was executive chairman, is open in its contempt for feminism and in its calls for ethnic segregation. They were the “meme-makers” both of white supremacy and virulent misogyny. Abortion providers are routinely are compared to the murderers of the Holocaust. The autonomy of women is a threat to these people, which is why once again the rights of women to control their own bodies may be decided by men. There are many battles to be fought right now, but this one has to be fought over and over again.
Trump's immigration code-switching wasn't skillful – it was disingenuous Tony Schwartz, author of Donald Trump’s myth-making book, The Art of the Deal, recently told the New Yorker that it took him a while to settle on the right euphemism for Trump’s willingness to ignore truth. “I play to people’s fantasies,” wrote Schwartz in his channeling of Trump. “People want to believe that something is the biggest and the greatest and the most spectacular. I call it truthful hyperbole. It’s an innocent form of exaggeration – and it’s a very effective form of promotion.” Call it lying, or simply telling people what they want to hear, that was precisely the quality on display this week when Trump gave back-to-back speeches on immigration in Mexico and Phoenix, Arizona. While in Mexico, he told reporters that in his meeting with Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto, there had been no discussion of who would pay for the wall he has famously talked about building between the US and Mexico. “We didn’t discuss that… We discussed the wall; we didn’t discuss payment of the wall,” he said. Back in the states though, he sang a strikingly different tune: “We will build a great wall along the southern border. And Mexico will pay for the wall ... They don’t know it yet, but they’re gonna pay for the wall.” This, after Peña Nieto had tweeted that he’d told Trump from the beginning of their conversation his country wouldn’t be paying under any circumstances. Speaking on NBC’s Today show on Thursday morning, Hillary Clinton’s veep pick Tim Kaine knocked Trump’s performance as “amateur”, saying: “You can’t say different things to different audiences.” It’s an interesting knock coming from Kaine, who’s known for speaking differently to different audiences, sometimes speaking in English, other times in his dad-like Spanish. A fundamental difference: Kaine changes how he talks but not the substance of what he promises. Tweaking how you talk depending on the audience – code switching – is actually the sign of a good listener, an empathetic human being and, very often, a skilled politician. But it can be difficult for politicians to walk the line between authenticity and connecting with different populations. Hillary Clinton has been teased for affecting a drawl while speaking to black audiences, and Michael Steele has been mocked for saying things like “off the hook”. Even Obama, a guy Zadie Smith has praised for his mastery of the cultural pivot, gets criticized for it sometimes. After a speech before a mostly black audience in 2007 in which he took on a preacherly tone of voice, for instance, Fox News personality Tucker Carlson pointed to it as evidence of pandering. “This accent is absurd,” he concluded in a segment on Sean Hannity. “This is a put-on.” It can also be done well, though. Bill Clinton was known as the first black president in part because he knew how to affect a southern twang. George W Bush was beloved by voters in no small part for being likably folksy – the guy voters wanted to have a beer with – if not respected. As African American writer Eric Deggans put it in a 2013 column for NPR, code switching is an important way to make sure you’re understood across cultures. It can go wrong when it veers into the territory of pandering, as when Marco Rubio was accused of saying something more pro-immigration on Spanish language TV than he was saying elsewhere. Specifically he was accused by Ted Cruz of supporting President Obama’s program, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, to allow some young people to remain in the US by giving temporary legal status to immigrants who came to the states illegally as children. Politifact found the claim half-true on the grounds that Cruz didn’t include the full context of the discussion, but it still didn’t play well for Rubio. The sometimes blurry line between form and substance switching are on display now, when we look at the differences between how Trump changes his speeches to reach different audiences, and how Kaine does. Trump can be a highly skilled code-switcher in ways that are valuable to him as a politician. It’s what allowed him to read the Republican base better than anyone in the party establishment and construct a campaign that would resonate. But in altering the substance of what he says depending on audience, he takes the tactic too far. With Kaine we don’t have to worry about any such thing. On the contrary, it’s respectful to learn another culture’s language in the melting pot America is increasingly becoming. The way Trump alters his message isn’t code switching, per se. It’s not “truthful hyperbole”, and it certainly isn’t respectful to his audience. It’s just more lying.
RBS fails Bank of England stress test Royal Bank of Scotland was the biggest failure in the Bank of England’s annual health check of the UK banking system and has embarked on a new plan to bolster its financial strength by £2bn. The Edinburgh-based bank, which is 73% owned by taxpayers, is to cut costs and reduce its exposure to risky assets after the results of the toughest tests yet on the banking system were published on Wednesday. Two other banks, Barclays and Standard Chartered, also struggled in the so-called stress tests, which are based on hypothetical scenarios including house prices falling and the global economy contracting by 1.9%. Barclays already has a plan in place to bolster its financial position, while Standard Chartered said it has not needed to take any action. As the Bank announced the results of its third annual stress tests it warned of a “challenging period of uncertainty around the domestic and global economic outlook”. Its financial stability report, a half-yearly update on risks to the financial system, listed domestic risks which include the uncertainty created by the Brexit vote, the commercial property sector, high level of debts in UK households and the potential vulnerability of the economy to a reduction in foreign investors buying UK debt. Mark Carney, the Bank governor, said Threadneedle Street was keeping an eye on debt. Households are “drawing down their savings and borrowing for the first time since the crisis”, he said. Lending to households increased by 4.1% in the year to September, close to the fastest rate since the 2008 crisis. Global risks were described as “elevated”, with the Bank also warning that there could be an impact on global trade from Donald Trump’s election as US president. Chinese debt is high and the Bank also highlighted risks in some countries using the euro, including those caused by a referendum in Italy on Sunday. The Bank also provided its promised update on the health of the residential mortgage market and is keeping in place measures announced in 2014 to restrict lenders’ ability to help customers needing to borrow four and half times their income. Carney said these measures were remaining because of household indebtedness. “This will help ensure that underwriting standards don’t slip from responsible to reckless as they have during past periods of consumption-led growth,” said Carney. Three other banks, Lloyds Banking Group, HSBC and the UK arm of Santander, as well as Nationwide, were subjected to the tests which were introduced after the 2008 crisis. The Bank found that in aggregate, the entire banking system was strong enough to withstand the test, which is based on a five-year scenario in which £44bn of capital is wiped out in the first two years – five times the losses incurred during the depths of the financial crisis. Another test will run next year. Some of the banks tested this year would have used their bonds to help bolster their financial position. Under this scenario, another £48bn of costs are incurred to pay fines and legal costs – more than the £40bn hit the banks took between 2011 and 2015. The risk of further penalties was one of the reasons RBS failed to meet the hurdle set by the Bank as it awaits a penalty from the US for mortgage bond mis-selling before the crisis. RBS shares initially fell 4% but ended the day 1.3% lower while shares in the other banks tested were higher. Ewen Stevenson, RBS finance director, said: “We have taken further important steps in 2016 to enhance our capital strength, but we recognise that we have more to do to restore the bank’s stress resilience, including resolving outstanding legacy issues.” Deeper cuts to costs are expected when RBS reports its results next year which could entail job cuts. Analysts at UBS said: “We expect a bigger cost and restructuring plan [from RBS] in February.” Laith Khalaf, senior analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, pointed out “RBS is in no immediate danger” although he said the bank was the “weak link in the UK banking chain”. Barclays said it had passed the Bank’s test. Standard Chartered said it “has a strong and liquid balance sheet and the results of the stress test demonstrate its resilience to a severe global stress scenario”.
Hard Brexit likely to reduce need for airport expansion The need for urgent airport expansion by 2030 could be diminished by Brexit, according to figures in a new study predicting the number of UK air passengers could be around 25 million fewer than forecast by government – or more than the entire annual traffic of Stansted. Although airports have argued that Britain’s future isolation from the European Union requires rapid investment in airport capacity, the analysis by economists from airline industry body Iata predicts UK air traffic will tail off in the next two years, having experienced four years of rapid growth before the EU referendum. Iata’s 20-year Passenger Forecast says that a hard Brexit will exacerbate an imminent loss in demand and leave passenger traffic around 8-9% below that resulting from a soft Brexit – the “most benign but arguably least likely scenario”, according to Iata. While traffic growth will slow, Iata said that even under a hard Brexit, its 20-year forecast is for a significant increase of 45% more passengers by 2035, and that its report supports the case for increased capacity in the UK. But the report’s forecast of 257 million UK flyers would equate to a total of just over 290 million passengers, including those transferring from one flight to another, by 2030. The most recent Department for Transport aviation forecasts from 2013, used by the Airports Commission in reaching its conclusion that a new runway should be constructed in the UK by 2030, predicted an increase to 315 million passengers by 2030. Under that projection, the five largest south east airports – Heathrow, Gatwick, Luton, Stansted and City – were forecast to be full by 2030. This claim was repeated this week by the transport secretary Chris Grayling at the Commons transport select committee. However, under the lower demand scenario that the DfT considered, London’s combined airports would not be full until 2040. Revised projections from Iata suggest traffic will be nearer the lower limit of the forecast if the UK goes for a hard Brexit, compounding the impact of a falling pound and increased travel costs from limited access to the EU aviation market. Iata’s analysts said that reduced air capacity to and from the EU would “be expected to increase directly the cost of air travel with the bloc”. If ongoing membership of the European Common Aviation Area is forfeited, Iata’s report warns, the impact would be “frontloaded” and the costs of air travel to the UK would remain higher for decades, dampening demand. However, the weaker overall demand will make little difference to the main contenders for a new runway in south-east England, with Heathrow having effectively reached capacity in 2011, and Gatwick’s subsequent rapid growth seeing it forecast to reach capacity by the next decade if not before. This article was amended on Wednesday 19 October to remove speech marks from the headline and add a comment from Iata clarifying that its 20-year traffic forecast supports the case for increased airport capacity.
Friends abroad want me to explain Donald Trump, but I can't Right now, I am not very proud to be an American. In fact, I’m embarrassed. Perhaps I’m not the only person who feels this way. Following recent trip to the Middle East, former secretary of state Madeleine Albright remarked: “Trying to explain what’s going on to foreigners is hard, but they’re looking at us as if we’ve lost our mind.” Me too, Madam Secretary. Friends from abroad are also asking me to to help them to understand what’s happening here, and I also don’t have a good answer. This is the first time I’ve lived in the US during a presidential election since 1996, and each day’s new headlines make me feel more afraid of the questions I’ll get from the friends I made in the years that I lived in Canada, the UK and Germany. Questions like: “What?” And “How?” And “When are you coming back to live in Europe?” (This last one I can answer: 9 November.) At the start of 2016, I visited London, where I spent most of a decade, and in the course of many conversations about America, I tried to boil my thoughts down to salient points like “I never thought I could feel empathy for establishment Republicans. Or any Republicans” or “Bernie Sanders can’t win, even though I very much admire him, not only because of his radical agenda to bring the Democrats so far to the left that they’re just a little more right-wing than the British Conservative Party, but because he looks quite a lot like my dad.” Let me tell you about the last time I felt like this: it was 2009 and I went on a press junket to Las Vegas with five British journalists. I had never been to Las Vegas before, but every time we encountered something egregious – an unhinged Elvis impersonator, a sunscreen-themed restaurant, Hugh Hefner’s creaky rotating bed – the Brits would look to me, the only American in the group, for explanation. “I have no idea!” I cried, again and again, while my companions cast quizzical glances over the rims of their gallon-sized alcoholic smoothies: “Just because I am from America doesn’t mean that I am responsible for this!” Equally: I am not responsible for Donald Trump, or the people who are supporting Donald Trump, or the people who are supporting those other rightwing guys who are awful, but who I guess are better than Donald Trump. I’m not even responsible for either of the people who are likely to run against Donald Trump when Donald Trump is nominated to run as the actual presidential candidate in the actual general election. But that doesn’t stop me from trying to help folks from overseas make sense of it. While living abroad, I was often the go-to person for American political intel among my friends. I dropped knowledge with the alacrity of someone who read the coverage of her own country’s elections in the newspapers of another country. If you wanted a recap of the latest BBC analysis of American politics, I was your woman. Emigrating from the US also meant that I could be selective about my association. When George W Bush was elected, I shrugged and said: “Well, now you know why I don’t live in America!” When Obama was elected for the first time in 2008, I was more than happy to accept congratulations and hugs from strangers who heard my accent and shouted “Barack!” at me from across the street. No longer. Now that I live here I can’t opt in and out with ease. There is no escape from this particular national nightmare. Maybe that’s why, in conjunction with my lack of pride, I feel a real, and unprecedented, sensitivity. I understand that there’s much entertainment to be gleaned from a election narrative that’s somewhere between Shakespeare and George Lucas, starring a Bond villain. But for me, the fun has stopped, and I’m coming to resent my friends’ continued amusement. “We are the world’s greatest democracy,” Albright maintained in her remarks on Wednesday; a questionable assertion, always, but especially now. So why do I keep trying to defend it? I never wanted to be the American who sobs, ‘Not funny, guys!’ in response to rightful critiques of my troubled, chaotic, cruel, lovable homeland. But here I am, shutting down conversations with a sulky “you just don’t understand.” Responding with a stony face to objectively hilarious jokes. Muting friends on social media because I don’t want to hear their opinions about a risible election in a country where they don’t live and where they can’t vote. Which just happens to be a country where I do both. “This election is not an amusing hobby!” I want to say to them: ‘It is my real life!’ As if anyone needed further confirmation that Americans are losing our minds.
Five of the best tablets Amazon Fire £50 Amazon’s Fire tablet isn’t an iPad, and doesn’t try to be. It runs Android, although not Google’s Android, and therefore doesn’t come with Google apps or the Play Store. Instead it has access to the Amazon app store and Amazon’s various media, book and music services, as well as shopping apps and adverts on the screen (which cost £10 to remove). Comes loaded with only 1GB of Ram, so running multiple apps or graphics-intensive games can prove challenging. Despite the touchscreen being only 17.7cm (7in), the tablet is chunky and quite heavy. It has a relatively low-resolution screen, pretty poor cameras and only one speaker. There’s a microSD card slot for adding more storage and Amazon’s Fire OS 5 is pretty good for basic tablet needs. Verdict: Cheap and cheerful – and you get a lot of tablet for your money. Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 8.0 £295-£370 Samsung’s Galaxy Tab S2 has a stunning 20.3cm (8in) screen (a 24.6cm version is also available) that knocks the socks off the competition in its price bracket. The Tab S2 is also one of the thinnest and lightest Android tablets available, which makes reading on the crisp screen a pleasure. A decent processor, 3GB of Ram and 32GB of built-in storage, plus a microSD card slot, mean you get plenty of performance for the money too. A fingerprint scanner on the front makes unlocking it a doddle, while decent cameras on the back and front will do in a pinch, if your smartphone isn’t to hand. The Samsung runs Google’s Android, which recently got updated to the latest version 6.0.1 Marshmallow, and all the apps and games you can shake a stick at through the Google Play Store. Verdict: A great small tablet with brilliant screen that doesn’t break the bank. Google Pixel C £399-£479 Google’s first own-brand Android tablet is arguably the best available. With a solid all-aluminium build that is quite different from most other tablets, a brilliant screen and stereo speakers it is every bit top-end. It also runs the latest version of Android, and is guaranteed to get updates faster than almost anything else. It takes USB-C, both for charging and for data transfer, has a battery that lasts pretty much all day and a processor that can handle almost much anything you’d want to do with it. There’s even a battery monitor on the back that lights up with a double tap. The back and front cameras are good for a tablet, while there’s a choice of 32 or 64GB of storage, but no microSD card slot for adding more. The Pixel C also lacks a fingerprint scanner. A very good optional (£120) keyboard magnetically attaches to the back, turning it into an Android-powered laptop, and inductively charges when closed over the screen. Verdict: The best Android tablet that’s capable of both work and play. Apple iPad Pro £499-£1,019 Apple’s latest tablet, the iPad Pro, comes in two sizes: 24.6cm (9.7in) and 32.8cm (12.9in). They both share the same processor and storage space, while the larger iPad has twice the amount of Ram at 4GB. Both tablets are arguably the most powerful non-PCs on the market, running Apple’s mobile operating system iOS, just like an iPhone or previous iPads. But the iPad Pro is transformed into more than just a media-consumption device with the help of third-party apps. Both iPad Pros have around a day’s battery, great screens, aluminium bodies and Apple’s new Smart Connector port for connecting optional keyboards, and support for Apple’s optional stylus, Apple Pencil. The bigger iPad Pro is the best non-PC large-screened tablet going, but it’s not that light or portable compared with smaller tablets. Verdict: The iPad’s strength is in its third-party apps: these devices have plenty of power to make them fly. Microsoft Surface Pro 4 £749-£1,799 If you need a full PC in a tablet, the Surface Pro 4 is the pinnacle of Windows 10 tablets. Unlike Android or iOS tablets, the Surface Pro 4 can run both tablet apps and full Windows desktop apps. It has a great, high-resolution screen, stereo speakers, a kickstand and nine-hour battery for consuming media. It also has the full suite of Windows software for productivity (although Windows Office is a 30-day trial version), an optional keyboard/cover and full Intel core processors to handle most of what you might do with a powerful laptop. The Surface Pro 4 weighs 786g, so isn’t particularly light for a tablet, but is very light for a PC. It also isn’t always quite as instant-on as most tablets and there’s a dearth of the kinds of good apps you find on iOS or Android, but when you get to a desk you can dock it with multiple monitors and everything else you might connect to a PC. Verdict: The ultimate combination of work machine and tablet, if your bias is towards work.
Honeyblood: Babes Never Die review – catchy fuzz-rock with personality Can a two-piece survive without half of its lineup? That was the question raised when Honeyblood drummer Shona McVicar left the Glaswegian duo shortly after releasing their self-titled debut in 2014. Two years on though, with new drummer Cat Myers joining singer/guitarist Stina Tweeddale, Honeyblood v2.0 are not just surviving but thriving. Second album Babes Never Die sees the band refine the distorted fuzz-rock sound of their early DIY years. Nineties alt-rock revivalism is an avenue that’s been explored by a weight of bands in recent years. Yet, while so much of the current crop come off as pale photocopies, Honeyblood recognise that what their predecessors – Lush, Blake’s Babies, Throwing Muses – had was tons of personality. In Tweeddale, they have a performer who lives up to those forebears, her delivery by turns menacing, defiant and triumphant. This time around she’s backed up by songwriting that places an emphasis on hookiness. Lead Single Ready for the Magic is 90s tweepoppers Bis but with actual choruses, while Justine, Misery Queen compellingly treads the sickly/sour divide in its tale of a curdled friendship. There’s more than enough here to keep them ahead of the pack.
Ireland compensates woman forced to travel to Britain for an abortion Ireland has for the first time in its history compensated a woman for the trauma caused by forcing her to travel to Britain for an abortion. Pro-choice campaigners in the Republic said the Fine Gael-led minority government’s agreement on Wednesday to pay compensation to Amanda Mellet was highly significant. Mellet and her husband James took their case all the way to the UN’s Human Rights Committee after the couple were forced to obtain a termination of her pregnancy in England. In 2013 Amanda Mellet became the first of three Irish women to formally ask the UN to denounce the prohibition on abortions in cases of fatal foetal abnormalities as “cruel and inhumane”. Under Ireland’s strict anti-abortion laws, if Mellet and the other two women had remained in the Republic they would have been forced to give birth to babies who would be born dead. Campaigners arguing for a referendum to repeal an amendment to the Irish constitution that gives full citizenship rights to the embryo after conception welcomed today’s decision by the Dublin government. Ailbhe Smyth, convenor of the Coalition to Repeal the Eighth Amendment and a longtime campaigner on reproductive rights, said: “To the best of my knowledge, this is the first time ever that the Irish government has compensated a woman for having to leave the country for an abortion. This is long overdue acknowledgement of the profound denial of women’s right to autonomy in this country.” “The government must immediately ensure no other woman suffers similar human rights violations. The eighth amendment is a profound source of discrimination and national shame for Ireland. It is simply not good enough to pass the book to the Citizen’s Assembly and not make any commitment to undertake the necessary constitutional and legislative reforms to end, once and for all, Ireland’s violation of international human rights law and obligations under human rights conventions and treaties. “We cannot, as a country, continue to oversee the violation of women’s human rights. We’re saying that women deserve better and Ireland can do much better.” In June the UNHRC ruled that by forcing Amanda Mellet to leave Ireland for an abortion in Britain, the Irish state had inflicted trauma and distress on her. Ivana Bacik, an Irish Labour party senator and long term campaigner for abortion reform in Ireland, said the government’s decision to accept the UNHRC ruling was a crucial step towards changing Ireland’s abortion regime. The Trinity College Dublin law lecturer said: “The UN Human Rights Committee’s ruling in June of this year constituted an important acknowledgement that the highly restrictive Irish law on abortion violates the human rights of women. The government’s acceptance of the ruling through the announcement of the compensation award, and Minister Harris’s sincerity in apologising to Ms Mellet, are both welcome. “But we need now to see official recognition that thousands of other women are being denied their basic human rights through being denied access to legal abortion in Ireland, due to the eighth amendment to the constitution. The UNHRC ruling in favour of Ms Mellet made clear the need for us to hold a referendum to repeal the eighth amendment.”
Fourth industrial revolution set to benefit richest, UBS report says The richest stand to gain more from the introduction of new technology than those in poorer sections of society, according to a report which warns that policymakers may be required to intervene to tackle the widening inequality. The so-called fourth industrial revolution, following on from the introduction of steam power, electricity and electronics, will have less of an impact on developed economies, such as Switzerland, Singapore and the UK. Emerging markets – notably in parts of Latin America and India – will suffer when artificial intelligence and robots become widely used, reducing the competitive advantage of their cheap labour. The report by Swiss bank UBS, published on Tuesday to coincide with the start of the World Economic Forum in Davos, warns that some skilled work is also at risk as robots become more sophisticated. Axel Weber, the chairman of UBS, said: “Inequality increases not just between developed and developing and emerging countries. It’s also within our society. It will have an impact not only between the rich and the poor but also the young and the old.” The report outlines a polarisation in the labour force and “greater income inequality imply[ing] larger gains for those at the top of the income, skills and wealth spectrums”. “These individuals are likely to be best placed from a skills perspective to harness extreme automation and connectivity; they typically already have high savings rates and will benefit from holding more of the assets whose value will be boosted by the fourth industrial revolution,” the report says. Last year, a report by Bank of America Merrill Lynch also pointed to the potential for a rise in inequality as a result of increased automation. That report cited research by Oxford University which said that up to 35% of all workers in the UK, and 47% of those in the US, are at risk of being displaced by technology over the next 20 years. The theme of this year’s gathering of business leaders and policymakers in Davos is the introduction of new technology. The WEF organisers have already predicted that 7 million jobs could go in five years, with women losing out the most. Webber said it was up to policymakers to take steps to address any increases in inequality. The report by UBS points to downward pressure on the wages of low-skilled workers. “By contrast, the potential returns to highly skilled and more adaptable workers are increasing,” the report says. “Many labour-­intensive firms should be able to boost profit margins as they substitute costly workers for cheaper robots or intelligent software ... For nations, the largest gains from the fourth industrial revolution are likely to be captured by those with the most flexible economies, adding a further incentive for governments to trim red tape and barriers to business. “Automation will continue to put downward pressure on the wages of the low skilled and is starting to impinge on the employment prospects of middle-skilled workers. By contrast, the potential returns to highly skilled and more adaptable workers are increasing.” The US could “onshore” work back from low-cost labour markets, the report added, putting emerging countries at a disadvantage. Workers already displaced by automation, such as those on assembly lines, could also feel the impact of the latest technology, as robots which are able to move around – so-called cobots – are able to perform more intricate tasks. “The greatest disruption, however, could be experienced by workers who have so far felt immune to robotic competition, namely those in middle­-skill professions,” the report says. It points to clerical work, such as customer service, being replaced by artificial intelligence. Insurance claims could also be settled without human intervention.
Theresa May indicates MPs will not be given vote on final Brexit deal Theresa May has refused to commit to giving MPs a vote on the final Brexit deal struck by the government during two years of talks with representatives of the other 27 countries in the EU. Appearing before a committee of senior MPs, the prime minister also suggested her government was prepared to agree to some form of transitional deal, largely to help avoid a “cliff edge” scenario for businesses after a UK exit. She said she would make a speech early in 2017 to set out her latest position on Brexit, but would not indicate when exactly the government would bring forward a written plan before triggering article 50. May was pushed repeatedly on the question of whether MPs would be given a vote at the end of the process, once the final deal has been agreed, but refused to offer any commitment on the issue. “Parliament is going to have every opportunity to vote through the great repeal bill on the various aspects of the relationship that we will be having with the European Union,” she replied after being asked by Hilary Benn, who chairs the Commons’ Brexit committee. When the Labour MP repeated the question, May said: “It is my intention to make sure that parliament has ample opportunity to comment on and discuss the aspects of the arrangements that we are putting in place.” That led Benn to ask the question again, this time saying he could not understand why it was so difficult for her to offer a clear answer. “What I am saying is there will be an opportunity for parliament, of course, to consider when more details do become available how this is going to operate,” she said, before saying her priority was “delivering on the vote of the British people to leave the European Union”. May appeared exasperated when the issue came up again later during her appearance at parliament’s liaison committee, in which she faced a series of tough questions on Brexit from the chairs of several high-profile Commons committees. Andrew Tyrie, her Conservative colleague and chair of the Treasury committee, asked if she agreed with David Davis, the Brexit secretary, that British MPs should be at least as well informed as those in the European parliament. He pointed out that MEPs would have a vote on the deal. She said: “We are very clear that we want parliament to be able to have the opportunity to debate and discuss. The European parliament has a specific role within the negotiations that is different to the role that the British parliament has.” When Tyrie suggested that answer sounded like a no, May said: “There seems to be this idea that somehow we are not allowing parliament to do anything; we’ve made statements to parliament, there will be debates in parliament, there will be the great repeal bill ... we will make sure that parliament has the opportunity to discuss these matters but we will not be setting out on an hour-by-hour basis a running commentary. “It is my intention that parliament should have every opportunity to discuss, but I’m clear we deliver on the vote of the people.” Pushed by Tyrie, who asked again if he should take that as a no, May said: “I gave the answer I gave, chairman.” The clear decision by May to hint that there would be no final vote was attacked by Labour and Liberal Democrat politicians. Keir Starmer, the shadow Brexit secretary, told the : “It is a pretty extraordinary step given that MEPs are guaranteed a vote and they can vote the deal down. David Davis has repeatedly said there will be no less scrutiny in the British parliament than in the European parliament.” Starmer said that having no less scrutiny was a minimum demand from the Labour party and that required a vote, saying it was unacceptable that “MPs won’t vote but MEPs will”. Referring to the government’s appeal of a high court ruling over having a vote on triggering article 50, he said: “So they don’t want a vote at the beginning and they don’t want a vote at the end.” Tim Brake, the Lib Dems’ foreign affairs spokesman, said: “The European parliament will get a vote on the final Brexit deal. It would be absurd if the UK parliament and, more importantly, the British public were denied a say. Theresa May must stop trying to duck accountability by repeating empty platitudes.” May also gave her clearest indication yet about the government’s plans with regard to a transitional Brexit deal, admitting that her government was prepared to consider an “implementation phase”. She said: “When people talk about transition often different people mean different things by transition. There are some people who will talk about transition as a deliberate way of putting off leaving the EU; for others, transition is an expectation that you can’t get the deal in two years and therefore you’ve got to have a further period to do it.” The prime minister said she would look to respond to British business but it would focus on helping them take on a new deal. “When they talk about a cliff edge, they don’t want to wake up one morning with a deal agreed the night before and suddenly discovering they have to do everything in a different way,” she said. “So there is a practical aspect of how you ensure that people are able to adjust to the new relationship, which is not about trying to delay the point at which we leave and not about trying to extend the period of negotiation.” However, May admitted that Britain could remain in the EU for an implementation period beyond the two-year article 50 cutoff, in order to give civil servants and businesses time to adapt. The prime minister made the comments after Tyrie pointed out that article 50’s two-year deadline for departure related to the situation if no deal were reached. He suggested that successful negotiations could lead to a later date being agreed for when EU treaties cease to apply to the departing nation. May also appeared to confirm that Whitehall was preparing for the “worst case scenario” of Britain leaving without agreement on its future relationship with the remaining 27-countries - possibly because a deal had been vetoed by the European Parliament. In that situation it might be the EU27 that needed to ask to extend negotiations, she suggested. “We are looking at a variety of scenarios that could come forward in relation to the negotiation, the deal, the timing and what other opportunities would be there,” May told the committee. “We are looking at all the options.” May was also questioned over immigration, during a tetchy encounter with Yvette Cooper, who chairs the home affairs select committee, over whether the government had a sensible migration target. Cooper claimed the government was in a “bit of a mess on immigration”, but May insisted that the aim to reduce numbers to the tens of thousands and to keep international students in the figures were the right thing to do. She also answered questions by the chair of the Scottish affairs committee, Pete Wishart, who asked about the push from his Scottish National party to keep Scotland inside the single market. May said she would listen to proposals but was clear that it was a UK-wide negotiation and played down the idea of different deal for Scotland. On the notion of a second independence referendum in Scotland, she added: “If Scotland were to become independent ... it would not longer be a member of the single market of the EU but also no longer a member of single market of [the] UK.” The prime minister’s appearance was praised by Brexit-supporting MPs in her own party. Dominic Raab said: “This was a calm and resolute performance. The prime minister made clear Britain comes to the negotiating table ambitious for a far-reaching post-Brexit deal that’s good for all sides, but capable of thriving whatever the response. Anyone who thought we’d be crawling back to Brussels with a begging bowl can think again.”
Dixons Carphone says no detectable impact of Brexit vote Dixons Carphone has reported no evidence of a knock to consumer confidence after the UK vote to leave the EU, echoing industry surveys pointing to a robust mood among shoppers. The electrical retailer, formed from a merger of Dixons and Carphone Warehouse in 2014, said revenue in the three months to the end of July was up 9% compared with the same period last year. Sebastian James, the chief executive, said it was another very good quarter for Dixons Carphone. “We are delivering pleasing growth in all markets and continued high levels of customer satisfaction, and thus far, continue to see no detectable impact of the Brexit vote on consumer behaviour in the UK,” he said. It is the latest evidence that UK consumers have weathered the economic and political uncertainty created by the Brexit vote. Retail sales have risen, consumer confidence has rebounded after an initial blip, and Britain’s biggest housebuilders have reported business as usual, saying there is little sign of a lasting post-referendum slump. In the trading update for its first quarter, Dixons Carphone reported a 4% increase in UK and Ireland revenues on a like-for-like basis – stripping out sales in shops open for less than a year. The company runs 455 stores in the UK. Its business in southern Europe notched up the biggest rise in like-for-like revenue, up 13%. Dixons Carphone said the increase was driven by strong growth in Greece. George Salmon, equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said the retailer stood to benefit from product launches such as the new iPhone. “The group will be rubbing its hands together after Wednesday’s launch of the iPhone 7, and the introduction of wireless headphones opens up a whole new market. “Dixons Carphone’s robust revenue growth is impressive, all the more so given macroeconomic headwinds in its core UK, Nordic and southern European markets. The group’s market share is increasing across the board, and a potentially lucrative expansion into the US market is just kicking off.” The retailer announced in January that it would close 134 shops this year as it merged its remaining Currys and PC World shops and added a Carphone Warehouse department to each of the combined stores. Dixons Carphone said no employees would lose their jobs and staff would be offered positions at a merged store near their current workplace.
Junior doctors' contract: a cessation of hostilities would help everyone For the second time in recent history voters in a referendum have been stirred to anger by politicians’ unhelpful, often inflammatory rhetoric and responded with a sharp kick in the shins for the establishment. Except this time the electorate was 54,000 NHS junior doctors in England and their fury was a rejection of Jeremy Hunt’s claims about their long-running dispute with him, not an endorsement of his highly questionable tactics. That rage is a key factor in explaining the junior doctors rejection, by 58% to 42% on a 68% turnout, of the new contract that the health secretary – and their own union, the British Medical Association – had wanted them to accept. Dr Johann Malawana, leader of the BMA’s junior doctors committee (JDC), has quit, having failed to persuade his grassroots members to share his own pragmatic view that they should accept the deal as imperfect but the best they would get. In the end there was no silent majority, weary after eight days of strikes, who voted yes just to put the dispute behind them. More than 130 BMA roadshows around England in recent weeks failed to win over the doubters. Large numbers of trainee medics remained unhappy with what was on offer and followed their instincts, ignoring the advice of their leader, their union and senior doctors, one of whom described acceptance as “the lesser of two evils”. Blaming Hunt for their rejection is too simple. But his armoury of threats, macho language (“nuclear option” etc), depiction of junior doctor leaders as militant wreckers and portrayal of the BMA as liars – and especially his dangerously selective choice of evidence about death rates among patients admitted to hospital at the weekend – proved continuously and ultimately counterproductive. He alienated when he should have wooed, bludgeoned when he should have caressed. His disregard for his impact on young doctors’ morale and career intentions was reckless, to say the least. England’s loss will be Australia’s – and Scotland’s – gain. But the crucial reason junior doctors voted no was the government’s pledge of a seven-day NHS, and Hunt’s insistence that they accept radically changed terms and conditions as the first major step towards delivering it. Junior doctors didn’t reject the concept or goal of a seven-day health service – hardly, given most of them already work across the whole week. But they did refuse to endorse a government plan that envisages an understaffed service already struggling to provide quality care across five weekdays being somehow stretched to do the same on Saturdays and Sundays, despite receiving no more money or extra staff to underpin such a big expansion. The BMA’s tactics also merit scrutiny. It allowed the key sticking point in the first (failed) round of negotiations to be pay for Saturday shifts, said that routine Saturday working was a red line it would never accept, then agreed in the second, apparently successful, round of talks that all of the weekend could become normal workdays in return for an increase of up to 10% in basic pay. Many junior doctors looked at the final package on offer, thought “is that all we’ve achieved after striking eight times?” and decided it was simply not enough. What next? There is little appetite among junior doctors for further industrial action, though some on the JDC and elsewhere may advocate it, or a mass resignation of young doctors. Further strikes would risk losing public support, which until now has been largely in their favour. Katherine Murphy, chief executive of the Patients Association, says it is “shocked and dismayed at the prospect of the possible continuation of this dispute”. But, she added: “The public should have easy access to quality care on a 24/7 basis. Junior doctors are the backbone of the NHS, but it is vital they are available to provide the safe and effective care that patients need.” It is telling that Hunt, who had threatened to impose whatever version of the contract he wanted if doctors rejected the final offer, has not repeated that vow since the 58:42 split was announced. With politics in such flux, and NHS understaffing an increasingly visible problem, a cessation of hostilities would help everyone. Looking ahead, might Brexit’s likely reduction of the number of EU medics working in the NHS prompt ministers – maybe in the post-Cameron government; maybe the new health secretary – to review the wisdom of a contract that would lead even more expensively trained, hardworking juniors to practice elsewhere, admit that mistakes have been made and extend a belated olive branch? Someone has to significantly rethink their position if we are to avoid undermining patient care by enfeebling the NHS in letting this destructive saga rumble on any longer.
Slash and Bern: Guns N' Roses fans on Coachella, Sanders and banana shirts Guns N’ Roses headlined on Saturday night at the Coachella music festival in Indio, California, to the delight of many. Of course, this being a gigantic music festival intended to have something for everyone, there were just as many people disappointed by what they witnessed: an injured Axl Rose looking constipated on what looked like a giant electronic toilet. Maybe it only looked like that to me because my brain was fried from constant exposure to the sun and too much lager. Even if I, and quite a few of my fellow festivalgoers, weren’t satisfied by the long-awaited reunion of Axl, Slash and Duff McKagan, there were plenty of folks who were. Before their performance, I went in search of the men and women who braved overpriced tickets, overpriced beer, overpriced food, overpriced parking, and vomit-inducing toilet odors to experience a small piece of rock’n’roll history. Darryl, 39, and Lloyd, 33, had come from Chicago to see GNR. Even though they only cared about one band, they had to pay for all three days. Fortunately they made the trip worth it, as Darryl dressed as Axl and Lloyd dressed as Anchorman director Adam McKay in a top hat. Darryl and Lloyd said they attended the Chinese Democracy tour, the ill-fated attempt by Axl to use the Guns N’ Roses name in conjunction with a brand-new lineup which included Buckethead – a man who plays guitar while wearing a bucket on his head. “It was good, but it wasn’t the same,” they said. And what of Buckethead? Will he be missed at Coachella? “He’s awesome. He wears a bucket of KFC on his head. What else is there to say?” Indeed. Jasmine, 24, and Juan drove down from the Bay Area and staked out a spot close to the stage early in the afternoon. By “afternoon” I mean a solid 10 hours before Guns N’ Roses were scheduled to play. Their plan was to switch off going to the bathroom, getting drinks, and procuring food. “We don’t care, we wanna see them,” Juan said of the half a day’s worth of sitting in the desert. The trip to Coachella was a gift from Jasmine, so they wanted to get their money’s worth. “I was gonna go to Vegas, and she was like, ‘Don’t go, I got a surprise for you.’” Matt, 28, and Kaitlyn, 25 were from Perth, Australia. They’ve been living in Vancouver for the last six months and lucked into tickets thanks to a friend who couldn’t attend. So, at the last minute, they drove from Canada to Indio, which takes about three days by their estimation. Since their presence at the festival was a bit of happenstance, who are they there to see? “So, I’m more electronic. I’d like to see Ice Cube as well,” Matt said. For Kaitlyn, “My No1 is Chvrches. Hallsey as well. And Ice Cube tonight.” What about Guns N’ Roses? “Not personally, no. It’s a bit out of our age bracket.” I stumbled upon a pack of proper dudes from Orange County, California – Curtis, Kenji, Wesley and Brian – all wearing shirts with banana prints on them. Needless to say, I had to stop and ask them the meaning of life. They looked like they had some answers. Curtis, Kenji and Brian were all thrilled to be there for Guns N’ Roses. Wesley, the clear black sheep of the crew, dissented. He was all in for Elle Goulding on Friday, which drew hearty jeers from his fellow bros. “They don’t appeal to me as a person, musically,” Wesley said of GNR. “There’s plenty of rock’n’roll artists from that era that are better.” The subject of Axl’s injury came up, which led to a discussion of Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters, who suffered a similar injury. That really set Wesley off. “Dave Grohl is like twice the rocker, dude. He’s the only person alive who makes legit rock’n’roll. That guy’s got so much energy. He’s off the charts, man.” In order to soothe the savage bro beast, I changed the subject. What’s with the bananas, guys? “We love bananas. We wanted to have a matching set. We know how alluring it is,” Kenji told me. I turned to a couple of women sitting on the same park bench. I asked Sammy, 30, from Houston if she was talking to these dudes because of their shirts. “Yeah. They drew us in from their banana shirts.” Lesson for future festival attendees: never underestimate the power of the banana shirt. In the same beer garden, I spotted a girl carrying a Bernie Sanders sign – a giant Bernie head, to be exact. Sarah, 22, Rachel, 21, and Aaron, 24 are siblings from Oak Park, California, in the San Fernando Valley. Coachella is something of a tradition for them. It’s Aaron’s seventh year at the festival and Sarah’s fifth. This year, they brought along their friend, Savannah, 22. Who were they most excited to see? “Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros.” And Guns N’ Roses? Did they care? “I’d say you’d be crazy not to be. That era of music is insane, though. One of the best time periods for music. The vibe the music gives people brings people together,” Sarah said. What possessed Sarah to bring a Bernie Sanders sign to a music festival? “This is an informal form of propaganda. I’m an avid Bernie supporter. I think he’s someone you can believe in, someone you can trust. Hillary Clinton contradicts herself a lot. Her stance on gay marriage changed a lot in the last few years, and I think that’s terrifying, the thought of our president being someone so blatantly dishonest.” Before I left, I had to ask which is a better festival experience, Coachella or a Bernie rally. Sarah didn’t hesitate. “Coachella’s got nothing on Bernie, but I think the crowd is pretty similar. A lot of dirty hippies.” Slash cosplay was not uncommon. Besides my new friends from Chicago earlier in the day, I met Gio, 35, from Los Angeles. His costume might not have been as elaborate as Lloyd’s, but it was certainly heartfelt. Gio was sitting with his friends David, 30, and Alex, 39. They’ve all been fans since they were teenagers. Alex, being the oldest, has the most vivid memories of the band, though he’s never experienced anything close to the classic lineup. “I’ve seen Slash before, but not the whole group. He sucks by himself. It’s the chemistry [that’s missing].” But this isn’t even the true classic lineup, as Izzy Stradlin, the guitarist, is still holding out. “I really think that’s gonna be a big issue. I think Izzy was the most underrated part of the band. He’s gonna be missed. I know he’s not gonna be there, but I wish he was.” As the hours ticked away, I began to wonder when all these superfans would make their way to the main stage. Would Gio, David, and Alex be grabbing spots like Jasmine and Juan? They’d be staying put. “We’re big guys. We push everybody out,” Gio said. A family from Indio – Michelle, 47, Kevin, 50, Logan, 15 – entered the festival. I never went to a music festival with my father growing up, but I can’t say I’d be totally stoked if he showed up with his shirt off. Granted, my father wasn’t totally ripped like Kevin. I asked Logan if he was excited for Guns N’ Roses. “I like rock’n’roll, but I mainly just listen to EDM.” Are his parents trying to get him into GNR? “I try. He listens to it indirectly.” Before walking off, Michelle stops me to jump into what sounds like a paid advertisement from festival producer, Goldenvoice. “This is the best music festival ever. They do it all right. I’ve been here for 10 years, and its better every year. They provide so many great amenities here.” If only they provided flushable toilets. Maybe that’ll be next year. As the sun set, I spoke to one final couple: Jacob, 24, and Jasmine, 23, from San Diego. Jacob’s originally from Tennessee, and said his parents got him into Guns N’ Roses. So, there must be hope for Kevin and Michelle as they try to indoctrinate their little Jack U/Calvin Harris fan into the rock world. I ask Jacob and Jasmine if they bonded over their shared love of Guns N’ Roses when they met. “No, we met on Tinder.” I wonder if they know a lot of fans their own age. Jasmine chimes in: “For me, it’s half and half. I was talking to one of my co-workers and I was super stoked on the lineup and the reason why they didn’t come is because they said, ‘Oh, Guns N’ Roses is gonna be there. Nobody cares.’ Excuse me? No, this is history.” With my day behind me and the night of heavy metal debauchery ahead, I endeavored to brave the onslaught of Disclosure fans and find a spot near the main stage. On my way there, I met a man named Lance who didn’t seem at all interested in Guns N’ Roses. Curiously, he seemed more interested in the legal status of one Orenthal James Simpson. I didn’t get into his reason for believing OJ is innocent, as I didn’t want to wreck the good vibes of our photo shoot, but his purpose for wearing the shirt to the festival – beyond the obvious attention it brings – isn’t all that different from the folks rocking GNR shirts. It’s all nostalgia, after all.
Lloyds accused of 'death by a thousand cuts' as it axes 1,340 jobs Lloyds Banking Group has been accused of a strategy of “death by a thousand cuts” after announcing another 1,340 job losses. The redundancies, which will affect staff in branches, are part of an ongoing programme of reductions by the bailed out bank’s chief executive, António Horta-Osório. “We know the outlook for banks is tough due to record low interest rates, falling revenues and the changes in technology and customer behaviours. This ‘death by a thousand cuts’ approach does nothing to give confidence to those who will be staying with the business, trying their best to meet customers’ needs and help to sustain the group for the future,” said Ged Nichols, general secretary of the union Accord. Officials at Unite branded the job losses “horrific”. The latest cuts are part of the 9,000 reduction programme announced by Horta-Osório in 2014, and will have an impact on staff who work in Lloyds, Halifax and Bank of Scotland. The toll on jobs has been heavy at Lloyds since the 2008 rescue of HBOS. That takeover led to 45,000 jobs cuts, which was followed by Horta-Osório’s 9,000 cost cutting programme. He announced another 3,000 job cuts in July, in the immediate aftermath of the Brexit vote. Unions hope the cuts announced on Wednesday can be achieved voluntarily. Nichols, who will be meeting Horta-Osório next month, said his members needed a vision of their future inside the bank. “We’re deeply concerned that both the scale and the pace of job reductions are increasing,” said Nichols. Rob MacGregor, Unite national officer said: “These announcements to staff across Lloyds Banking Group are horrific news for staff. 1,340 job losses within this taxpayer-backed institution are wholly unacceptable.” The latest cuts come as the chancellor, Philip Hammond, prepares to sell the remaining 9% stake in Lloyds at a price below the 73.6p per share paid by taxpayers, taking 43% stake at the height of the banking crisis. Lloyds said: “This process involves taking difficult decisions, and we are committed to working through these changes in a careful and sensitive way. All affected employees have been briefed by their line manager today.” The bank said it would aim to avoid compulsory redundancies. It said it was creating 110 new roles and argued the number of roles being lost was 1,230. Last week Hammond said he was abandoning plans to offer shares to the public – the plan outlined by his predecessor, George Osborne – and pressing on with selling shares on the stock market to major City investors. The shares are trading at 53p although the Treasury has insisted that it will not make a loss on the latest sell off as it has raised about £16.9bn from previous sales. Banks are finding it more difficult to make profits because of the low interest rate environment which narrows the gap between what they can charge borrowers and need to pay savers.
Donald Trump taunted by Cruz and Rubio during Republican debate Donald Trump faced a barrage of attacks from rivals Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz on Thursday night during a Republican presidential debate that was at times nasty and crude but offered few moments that looked likely to reset a race that remains Trump’s to lose. The two senators ganged up for a second time in a row on the brash billionaire over his immigration stance, business record and overall temperament, but Trump swatted them away by condescendingly branding them “Little Marco” and “Lying Ted”. In return, his rivals treated Trump like a belligerent child. At one point Cruz chastised his rival: “Count to 10, Donald. Count to 10.” The debate in Detroit was, in many ways, emblematic of the Republican party’s core struggle, with time running short for the party establishment to blunt Trump’s path to the nomination. The tone of schoolyard taunts rather than substantive discussion was set no more than 10 minutes after the candidates took the stage at the Fox Theatre, with Trump referencing the size of his genitalia during an exchange with Rubio over his hands. Responding to personal attacks Rubio recently made on the campaign trail, in which the Florida senator mocked his opponent as having small hands, Trump held out his arms and exclaimed: “Look at those hands. Are those small?” He went on to note that Rubio had used his hands as part of a metaphor for other parts of his body, an argument Trump dismissed: “I guarantee you there is no problem. I guarantee.” It marked the bleak beginning to an evening that vacillated between a shouting match with occasional discussion of more meaningful affairs, such as the hiring of foreign workers and the war against the Islamic State. Much of the debate focused on Trump, as the presumptive nominee, and the lawsuits against his now-defunct eponymous university as well as his sincerity on immigration. Yet for all the viciousness and personal attacks, all the Republicans agreed to support whoever eventually becomes the nominee and fights the general election in November. Florida senator Marco Rubio, whose campaign had pushed the “#nevertrump” hashtag and attacked Trump as “a con artist”, firmly committed for the first time to support the real estate mogul if – as seems likely – he becomes the Republican party’s nominee. The Florida senator said of the two Democratic alternatives Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton, “one is a socialist and the other is under investigation”, a reference to the ongoing controversy over the former secretary of state’s private email server. Both Ohio governor John Kasich and Texas senator Ted Cruz agreed with Rubio that they would back Trump if he was the nominee. Rubio’s campaign later sought to downplay the significance of the senator’s pledge to support Trump if he were the nominee, insisting such a scenario simply wouldn’t become a reality. “We continue to believe Donald Trump will not be the nominee,” Todd Harris, a senior advisor to Rubio, told the in the “spin room”. “If Santa Claus were to appear in my house tonight, I would welcome him in and give him some milk and cookies. But it’s probably not going to happen.” The only interruption to the bickering were sporadic interventions by Ohio governor John Kasich, who in the absence of Jeb Bush assumed the role of party elder. But his repeated attempts to stay above the fray rung largely incongruous throughout the event, despite his being joined by Cruz who appealed to the audience at home: “Is this the debate you want playing out in the general election?” While not as aggressive as Rubio in his attacks on Trump, Cruz did, however, team up with his Senate colleague to portray the reality TV star as essentially putting on a show on his signature issue: immigration and border security. The two senators repeatedly criticized Trump over reports that he had said he was “flexible” on the issue of illegal immigration during an off-the-record discussion with the New York Times. The frontrunner, who has made building a wall along the Mexican border and making Mexico pay for it a cornerstone of his campaign, insisted it was unfair to reveal what was discussed in an off-the-record setting. “I think being off the record is a very important thing. I think it’s a very, very powerful thing,” said Trump, who has forcefully called for new libel laws to sue media companies. But the businessman made clear there was room for compromise in a future Trump administration. “I will say, though, in terms of immigration – and almost anything else – there always has to be some, you know, tug and pull and deal,” Trump said. “I’ve never seen a very successful person who wasn’t flexible ... You have to be flexible, because you learn.” Fox News’s moderators gave Trump’s policy positions even more scrutiny than in the past. Chris Wallace displayed a graphic which showed the frontrunner’s fuzzy math on his proposals to reduce the federal budget and Megyn Kelly quizzed him on his flip flops on increasing H-1B visas for highly educated workers. “I’m changing. I’m changing,” the frontrunner told Kelly in response. “We need highly skilled people in this country, and if we can’t do it, we’ll get them in.” The statement not only contradicted a policy paper on his website, which states an increase in the visas “would decimate women and minorities”, but also the long held policy positions of Senator Jeff Sessions, who was named on Thursday as the chairman of Trump’s National Security Campaign Advisory Commission. Despite their best efforts, it remained unclear whether either Rubio or Cruz had managed to create a dent in Trump’s candidacy. They at times faded into the background, and in other moments struck a patronising tone. “Breathe, breathe, breathe,” Cruz told Trump at one point. “I know it’s hard.” Rubio appeared to get beneath Trump’s skin with his relentless takedown of Trump University, highlighting the stories of students who he said had been victims of a scam, and a preference for foreign workers over Americans. “You’re making your clothes overseas, and you’re hiring your workers overseas,” Rubio said. A visibly angry Trump charged back by belittling his opponent, referring to Rubio as “this little guy” and dubbing him an absentee senator – but seldom responding to the essence of the charge. A brief respite to the back-and-forth arrived roughly 90 minutes into the debate, with local questions pertaining to the water crisis in Flint and Detroit’s bankruptcy. But this resembled more lip service than a nuanced discussion of the problems plaguing the minority communities living outside the halls of the debate. Rubio, when asked why Republican candidates had devoted no time to Flint’s lead-contaminated water crisis, expressed dismay that Democrats had “politicized” the issue and commended Michigan Republican governor Rick Snyder’s response. “He took responsibility for what happened,” Rubio said. Dozens of protesters outside the arena disagreed, marching with signs that read: “Flint lives matter.” And Clinton responded swiftly on Twitter: Trump also faced scrutiny over his foreign policy record. He cited conspiracy theories about 9/11 while insisting that the military would obey any orders he gave to torture terrorists in US custody. “They won’t refuse. They’re not going to refuse me. Believe me,” the Republican frontrunner said. And, with Trump winning 11 of the first 15 states and leading in polls in most of the upcoming contests, it looks increasingly likely he may be in the position to give those orders.
'I'll remember his kindness and creativity' - readers' tributes to Alan Rickman ‘A small act of kindness to a troubled young man’ I adored Alan Rickman from an early age for his bigger, more widely known roles and became more interested in his more off the beaten track work, such as the incredible Snow Cake film he did with Sigourney Weaver in 2006. As a depressed teenager, often in and out of hospital with frequent, fraught experiences with social services, I wrote him a short letter telling him how his films brought some joy and escapism to my life. With a remarkably quick turnaround came a very encouraging, kind letter back and a signed photo. Thankfully, nearly ten years later, my life has turned around. I will remember this man and his kindness, creativity and compassion fondly for the rest of my life. I only hope he realised the comfort his humility brought to people like me all around the world. George ‘Alas for Alan’ I directed a 13-year-old Alan Rickman at Latymer Upper School in Hammersmith. He played the town mouse in a musical version of Aesop’s fables. We won our section of the Hammersmith Drama Competition. I had just got into Cambridge and was working as a part-time teacher. Alan was quiet but very clever and inventive. 22 years later he played the James Stewart part in The Philadelphia Story for me at Oxford. As boy and man he was a talented, funny and gentle person. Gordon McDougall ‘The patience of a saint’ I had the pleasure of seeing Alan Rickman on stage on a few occasions, the first time being in “Private Lives.” After seeing his captivating performance as Snape in the first Harry Potter film, and watching every single movie with him that was available, I also met him at the Berlinale in 2006 where he was promoting the movie Snow Cake. Me and handful of other admirers met him at the cinema of the Sony Centre in Berlin. Despite it being a cold February evening Alan greeted all of us cheerfully. He was particularly taken aback by two very young german girls and their mother. They were over the moon once Alan showed up and he scolded them with a lot of humor, telling them they shouldn’t be up at this hour. Alan was incredibly sweet and patient with them. Eventually they asked for an autograph and Alan bowed down, looked each of them in the eye, while asking, with a very gentle voice: “Wie heißen Sie?” He took his time with every single person present since he knew we had waited in the bone-chilling cold. I shall never forget what a patient and gentle soul he was. Birte, voice actress, Germany ‘ Beautiful handwriting’ I wrote a letter to Alan Rickman in the early 90s asking for an autograph, with a rather cheeky supplementary section asking his advice about a drastic career change I was thinking about. I’d just finished university and was contemplating a career in economics and politics, or going off abroad to teach English. Little did I realize that within a couple of days I’d receive the autograph in the form of a three page letter, where Alan gave advice about my possible career change based on his own experience. So I eventually plumped for the English teaching and have never had any cause to regret it. I’ve lived in some lovely countries and met some wonderful people. It was such a remarkably generous and thoughtful act from a busy, talented person. He will be much missed. Brent Quigley ‘Alan the mentor’ When Alan Rickman first saw me, I was wearing black tights and six inch red heels and was swinging around on a rope. I was playing Captain Hook in a devised production of Peter Pan in my final year as a student at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Later that year I had to suddenly apply for an Exceptional Talent visa just to stay in the UK and be able to work there as an actor. I wrote to Alan asking if he would write me a letter of recommendation to support my application. Not only did he respond very quickly, he wrote an initial draft in the first couple of days, trying to fulfil all the criteria that the UK Border Agency had put forward, and reassured me that he would help me in any way possible. He was incredibly kind and supportive through the whole process. Eventually, despite our best efforts, I was unsuccessful in securing the visa. I wrote to Alan thanking him for all his help and had nearly decided that this was the end of my career, when he wrote me a most beautiful email, saying that sadly, these were the times we lived in, but to not give up hope, and that things can change and that I must keep on doing what I have to. I had no idea he was already unwell at this stage, but his enthusiasm and his optimism were infectious. I have since had roles in both television and film, portraying Naseem Ali Khan in Channel 4’s Indian Summers series, and starring in the film Brahman Naman premiering at the Sundance film festival this year. Many actors credit Alan’s performances as the reason why they took up acting. I had the incredible good fortune to be able to credit his words to me as one of the reasons why I remained an actor and am working today. All my love to him. Tanmay Dhanania, actor ‘Just who is that guy?’ It’s 1988. My 10 year old son wants to see Die Hard. He needs an accompanying adult in order to get into the theater. That’s me. We walk into the Rivoli Theater, Wisconsin. Buy a big tub of popcorn and two cokes then settle into our seats. Two hours and 12 minutes later the lights in the theater come up as the credits roll. I don’t move until I find out who exactly is the actor that played Hans Gruber. Ah, Alan Rickman. Good. I vow to see every film he’s in, and I do until my MS renders me housebound. Movies just aren’t the same on DVD. slovenia46 You can see all the Alan Rickman tributes and add your own on Witness
Engineering an early election looks more tempting for Mrs May From the day that she stepped into Number 10, it has been a no-brainer to some of her colleagues that Theresa May ought to call an early general election. As it has also been to many MPs on the other side of the Commons. Her majority in parliament is slender and just became slimmer with the resignation of the Tory MP Stephen Phillips, a disillusioned Outer. The Conservatives are favourites to retake his seat, but they won’t be so fortunate with other byelections. John Major started with a larger majority in the parliament that began in 1992 and had lost it by the time he was done. Another reason for her to go to the country early is that the Tory majority doesn’t really belong to Mrs May. It was won by Whatshisname, that bloke who used to live at Number 10. She lacks the personal mandate that flows to a prime minister who has won an election in her own right. The way she has behaved towards senior members of the old regime has created a big club of enemies on her backbenches. Asked recently what he was up to, one very senior figure in the Cameron cabinet smiled: “Biding my time.” Then there is Brexit. At some point in this parliament, probably at several points, there will be torrid political and constitutional crises over Britain’s departure from the European Union. There will be resignations by ministers. There will be deadlocks and breakdowns in the negotiations. It is highly likely that there will be serious economic convulsions as well. Better, so goes an argument popular with Tory MPs, for Mrs May to armour herself with the much larger majority that the opinion polls indicate can be hers for the asking. That would give her five clear years to get through Brexit and all its havocs. Mrs May has heard those arguments – and used to dismiss them. She said the voters weren’t clamouring for an election. She thought that what the country most wanted was stability. It didn’t fit with her image of herself to do something that would look opportunistic. Nor did it suit her risk-averse temperament. Her team calculated that Labour was in such a dreadful state that the Tories didn’t need to rush for a quick kill. Has that calculus been changed by the high court ruling that the government must secure parliamentary approval before it can formally trigger divorce proceedings with the European Union? It has. The court ruling was not, as the more hysterical Brextremists have been frothing, an example of elitist judges frustrating the will of the people. The court was reasserting the fundamental principle that the executive cannot rule by monarchical decree, but must seek the consent of parliament if it wants to change the law. There is an alternative to the rule of law – it is called dictatorship. Those who campaigned to leave the EU in the name of restoring parliamentary sovereignty ought to be able to grasp this. The government might overturn the ruling with a successful appeal to the supreme court, but that looks unlikely. If the supremes agree that the government has to ask parliament before it can activate Article 50, it is as yet unclear how Mrs May intends to conform to the instruction. Some in government seem to think that they might get away with tabling a crude take-it-or-leave-it motion demanding that parliament simply rubber-stamps her decision. That would be defiant of the spirit of the court ruling and perhaps also of its letter. Which is why some ministers think they will have to bring forward legislation. Parliament would not take that as an opportunity to block Brexit. Most MPs were Remainers and so were the majority of peers, but they are not going to flatly defy the referendum result. Parliament might have something to say about the timing of the departure. March is a lousy choice of month to start the countdown to withdrawal. There is a presidential election in France next spring and German elections are due in the early autumn. Nothing meaningful will be negotiated until these are over, which means Mrs May’s current plan simply diminishes the time available to try to make a success of it. MPs and peers could be doing both her and Britain a favour if they slowed her down by a few months. What parliament will definitely do is demand to know more about the government’s exit strategy, if I am not being naive in imagining that such a thing exists. For more than a hundred days, Mrs May has sheltered behind the meaningless mantra “Brexit means Brexit”. As one of the first to mock the vacuity of that tautology, I have to confess that it has proved a more durable blocking mechanism than I anticipated, a testimony to the potency of stubborn repetition. One explanation for this long silence could be that the government has an exit plan of such elegance that it is being kept concealed to build up the suspense and increase our collective awe when it is revealed in all its brilliance. No, me neither. I was at the Spectator parliamentary awards dinner when Boris Johnson had the audience in involuntary spasms by declaring that the government would make a “titanic success” of Brexit. There are some deckchairs over there that need rearranging, foreign secretary. The prime minister responded with a threat that was no less vicious for coming in the guise of a joke. Mr Johnson had unwisely compared himself with the alsatian throttled by Michael Heseltine. Mrs May said: “Boris, the dog was put down when its master decided it wasn’t needed any more.” Yes. She really did. In a room crowded with senior politicians and journalists, the prime minister told her foreign secretary that she would kill him when it pleased her. The government is concealing its intentions not to keep the EU guessing but to try to hide its internal confusions and divisions. When the negotiations begin, and that will be in less than six months’ time if Mrs May preserves her timetable, a lot of it will become very public anyway. She will have to tell all the key actors in the EU, including the commission and the heads of government, what sort of deal she is looking for. It will not stay secret for five minutes. The big trade-off at the heart of the negotiation will be between immigration and trade. That is already known, as are the various permutations of a deal. One of the arguments for not calling an election was that it would force an early reveal of precisely what Mrs May wants from the negotiation and that would inflame Tory divisions. If the consequence of the court ruling is that she has to show more of her hand anyway, that reason for avoiding an early election falls away. The Fixed Term Parliament Act is often cited as an obstacle. Written into the statute book during the coalition years to stop the Tories doing the dirty on the Lib Dems or vice-versa, the legislation does make it more laborious to trigger an election. In the old days, the prime minister could just pop down to Buck House to ask for a dissolution and her majesty would oblige. To get an early election, the government would have to engineer a confidence vote and deliberately lose it. That would look strange. It might try to repeal the Act, but that could run into trouble in the Lords. Alternatively, an election can be triggered if two-thirds of MPs vote to have one. That would be hard for the opposition parties to frustrate. As one senior Labour figure puts it: “Oppositions don’t vote against elections.” Labour and the Lib Dems, having both called for an election when Mrs May became prime minister, would find it difficult to explain why they didn’t want one. You might think that Labour would nevertheless try to prevent an election when its poll rating is so dire and the Tories have a robust lead often in double figures. Mrs May is trusted by more than twice as many voters as Jeremy Corbyn to run the economy successfully and handle Brexit effectively. That suggests an election would see the obliteration of a substantial chunk of Labour MPs. Yet such is the state of the party that a surprisingly large number of its MPs ache for an election, if only to be put out of their misery. “I guess about half of my colleagues secretly want an early election,” says one Labour MP. “They think, ‘What the hell, let’s roll the dice, things couldn’t be any worse.’” Though they could, you know. An election in the first half of next year is not yet a certainty, but it has become quite a lot likelier. And, unusually, although for very different reasons, it would be welcome to many MPs on both sides of the Commons. I also detect a subtle, but significant, change in the language coming out of Downing Street when it is asked the question. On Friday, a Number 10 spokesperson declared: “We have been very clear: there is no requirement for a general election before 2020.” That’s not really clear at all. That’s not the same as saying that there definitely won’t be one. There’s no requirement for me to have steak and chips for my dinner, but I might choose to do so all the same.
Cat’s Eyes: Treasure House review – celestial delicacy and gruesome horror As is custom with duos, Cat’s Eyes relies on its members’ opposing forces: Rachel Zeffira, a Canadian soprano, composer and multi-instrumentalist who summons celestial delicacy from every song, manages to smoothe out the barbed post-punk tendencies of Horrors frontman Faris Badwan. On their second album proper – if you discount their Ivor-nominated soundtrack to the Peter Strickland film The Duke of Burgundy – their sound has expanded, taking in widescreen compositions full of Disney romanticism (Treasure House), Ennio Morricone-inspired soundcsapes (Girl in the Room), spooky neo-noir atmospherics (Everything Moves Towards the Sun) and a moment of reverb-drenched surf rock guitar that would make Tarantino giddy (Be Careful Where You Park Your Car). What is most intriguing is their bond; particularly during the sinister love affair of Drag – “the things we do when we’re together, if they only knew they would keep us apart” – a jarring narrative that’s more gruesome horror than gooey romcom.
EU voting map lays bare depth of division across Britain England and Wales look like one country on Friday, with a clear if smallish majority for leaving the EU having been counted on both sides of Offa’s Dyke. But Scotland, where very nearly two in three voters and every counting area wanted to stay in, looks like another land entirely. This is only the first, if potentially the most consequential, of the many divisions seared into the map – and right across British society – by this referendum. A vote that purported to be about the UK’s indivisible sovereignty, has served to disunite the kingdom. At first blush, London looks like a capital in the midst of a foreign state – an island of Euro-enthusiasm amid a south-east that was mostly resolved to quit. The majorities for remain in some inner-London boroughs werecrushing: fully 75% of the ballot in Camden and 78% in Hackney. But further out, parts of the metropolis began to merge into the countryside beyond. To the south, Sutton went 54% for leave, as did Barking and Dagenham, where 63% wanted out. Right across the rest of the south-east, East Anglia, Wales and the Midlands, leave was the rule and remain the exception. The exceptions sometimes came in pockets of particular prosperity – Tunbridge Wells, for instance – and then also cities where universities loomed large: Norwich, Bristol and especially Oxford and Cambridge, where remain notched up 70%-plus. Leave’s overall lead owed much to a strong performance around the coast, and particularly in the east of England. Right around the foreshore, from Rother in East Sussex through Shepway and Dover in Kent, through Southend in Essex and on to Suffolk, leave notched up to 60% or above. Across the breadth of the Midlands, in places of every sort, remain struggled, falling just short in picturesque High Peak in Derbyshire and big city Birmingham alike. In smaller Midland towns and cities – Wolverhampton, Nuneaton and Bedworth, Kettering – the margin was greater. Further north, the picture was less uniform, several big cities – including Leeds, Manchester and Liverpool – swinging for remain, while old socialist bastions of the second order – Wigan, St Helens, Doncaster and Barnsley – were overwhelmingly for leave. Like the geographical divide between London and the home counties, the gulf between the northern towns on the one hand and northern cities on the other is a product of sociological schisms. The polls were – once again – materially out in predicting the final result in a close race. But every survey, irrespective of methodology, was quite clear about two cast-iron links: rising age is associated with rising support for leave, while higher social class encourages support for remain. The pattern of the results bears out both relationships. Measured by the proportion of locals with higher education, the class mix of the area gives a particularly snug fit with its propensity to vote remain. Only in Scotland were there many deprived communities, such as West Dunbartonshire, with precious few degrees, that were nonetheless solid for remain. The results also bear out the generation gap. The places with the very youngest average age, often at or around 30, include Oxford, Tower Hamlets and Hackney, which all proved to be remain strongholds. Conversely, at the other end of the age spectrum, East Lindsey in Lincolnshire has an average age of closer to 50, and it turned in a thumping leave win. These social divisions have led to a scrappy electoral map on which most of the UK has gone one way while Scotland, London, the university towns and several other big cities have gone in another direction entirely. There is a big difference here with the last referendum in 1975, when there was a solid victory for staying in the EEC, but a definite echo of last year’s general election, when many of the same trends applied. The messy map is a challenge for political analysts, who are finding predictions are much harder than they used to be. More fundamentally, it is a reflection of a divided society, in which many young people are deeply unhappy about the decision that an older cohort of voters has just imposed on their future.
Leicester City 2-0 Liverpool: Premier League – as it happened But what a result here for Leicester. And well deserved: they were much more incisive in attack, and Jamie Vardy’s first goal was truly magnificent. Liverpool looked good in possession, but their attacking play was deeply disappointing: they barely had a proper shot. Much for Jurgen Klopp to ponder, but Leicester keep on rolling. Congratulations to them, and thanks for reading. Goodbye. Arsenal drop points! But Man City win, 1-0 at Sunderland. So Leicester move on to 50 points, Man City on to 47, and Arsenal on 45, along with Tottenham, who won 3-0 at Norwich. Arsenal have about 90 seconds to find a goal to beat Southampton. It’s 0-0 at the minute, and unless they can score, the Gunners will be five points back of Leicester. Final moments elsewhere: Another victory for Leicester! What a story. What a team! 90 min + 3: That’s it! 90 min + 2: Kante wins a throw on the left side. He and Drinkwater have been brilliant. 90 min + 1: This is now eight league defeats for Liverpool, and it probably means they won’t qualify for the Champions League via their league position. Although it might have been a pipe dream in any case. The teams are just playing time. 90 min: Three added minutes. What’s the point?! 89 min: Liverpool have given up the ghost. They don’t look as though they’re going to score, to be honest. Ulloa is on for Mahrez, who is given a huge round of applause. 88 min: Jamie Vardy has never scored a hat-trick in league play: he scored two for Fleetwood in the Conference, but never in the Football League or Premier. He’s got two minutes to make history. 87 min: Firmino tries to go past Fuchs, but can’t do it, and Leicester break at pace. Kante is fouled by Lucas, who receives his customary yellow card. A change for each side: Firmino off, Teixeira on, and Okazaki is replaced by Andy King. 85 min: Huth is clattered by Allen as he heads one away for a corner. He’ll be OK, the big lummox. Milner’s ball is in cleared. 83 min: Benteke turns nicely, but the indefatigable Kante is in to nick it off his toe. Leicester’s work-rate is phenomenal. 81 min: Liverpool are pressing, but Leicester’s big blue door is bolted shut, so to speak. Clyne hits one from 20 yards, and it’s out for a corner. Leicester win the first ball, and then Schmeichel makes the catch. It’s just not happening for Liverpool! 79 min: Change for Leicester: Albrighton, who’s run his socks off, is replaced by Demarai Gray. 78 min: Liverpool just haven’t clicked in front of goal. Some nice approach play, but the final ball has been lacking – and the finishing has been dross. Twelve minutes to find something. 77 min: Headed clear, but Liverpool win it back. Firmino goes for goal from 22 yards. It’s blocked. That was the wrong option from the Brazilian. 76 min: Liverpool have to commit men forward, which leaves them vulnerable to Leicester’s pace on the counter. But that’s a corner, and Lallana rushes over to take it. 74 min: Lallana tries one from distance, and it’s miles over. Liverpool’s shooting today has been awful. Joe Allen comes on for Emre Can, and Jurgen Klopp looks pained. 72 min: What a player this guy is. Such instinctive work. It was just a long ball forward, but Sakho didn’t deal with, and Okazaki had a speculative go from 20 yards. It wasn’t going in, but it took a deflection, and Vardy just reacted quickest, beating a sleeping Lovren to it and stabbing over Mignolet with his left foot. Another goal for Jamie Vardy! Leicester, bloody hell! Vardy again, and Leicester lead by two! 69 min: Okazaki goes down in the box … but Andre Marriner says no! On the touchline, Ranieri looks perplexed – but there wasn’t too much of an argument from the home players. 66 min: Clyne went down the right hand side, crossed, and Can tried to poke it towards goal, but he couldn’t get the power, and Schmeichel saved easily. One of the lovely aspects of the goal was that Vardy didn’t have to take a first touch to control it: the pass from Mahrez was so pure, and Vardy read it so well, that the striker just allowed it to sit up, and then hit through it. Really, really great play. 65 min: Leicester have 10 players behind the ball. They’re defending extremely deeply. Moreno’s long switch for Henderson is out of play, and the KP Stadium goes “wahayyy!!” as it swerves out of play. Change for Liverpool, and Benteke is in for Henderson. 63 min: So now Leicester have the lead, and they don’t give up leads easily: they’ve only lost two league games all season. Liverpool need some inspiration. 62 min: That is a seriously excellent goal. Try to catch it on the highlights! Liverpool look vexed. 61 min: Just a stunning goal from Jamie Vardy. Mahrez hit a fantastic long pass for Vardy over the top, and the Leicester man was alive to it: he let it drop over his shoulder, allowed it to bounce, and just speared a sumptuous, dipping volley, first time, over Mignolet, who clutched thin air. It must have been 30 yards out – from an angle! Brilliant, brilliant play, and Leicester lead. Oh my word, what a goal! 58 min: Liverpool are dominating possession, but can’t quite work that clear chance. Firmino turns sharply, but his shot is too high. Activity on the Liverpool bench: is Benteke going to come in? 56 min: For a moment, Mahrez looked as though he was going to race clear, but Emre Can did well to hustle him off it. Moreno tries to embarrass Schmeichel from distance, but the Dane is wise to it, and beats out Moreno’s fierce shot. 53 min: They’ve played really nicely around the box, Liverpool, but haven’t quite managed to find a truly clear opening. Lucas shoots from 30 yards, and it’s miles over. It’s 170 games since he last scored, and you can see why etc etc etc. 51 min: Leicester have been pinned back in their half for much of this game, but they’re such a threat when they counter-attack. It doesn’t half help to have pace in your team, eh?! 50 min: Good area for Henderson to cross, but that’s too long. Rubbish! Leicester break, and Sakho’s clearance is poor, but Okazaki, after some nice feet to get round Lucas, fires one into the top tier. Groan. 48 min: Oh, Riyad! Leicester broke at pace, as their fashion, and suddenly they had a two on one … but Mahrez’s pass for Vardy was cut out! If he’d got that right, Vardy was totally in the clear. Actually, maybe the offside flag had gone up, but neverthless: Mahrez made a mess of that. 47 min: What an excellent move from Liverpool. Can to Milner to Henderson, and back to Can … but it’s just wide! Lovely clever work in the box, and Can was so close. 46 min: And Liverpool back on the attack. Leicester were momentarily worried, but Drinkwater does well, and the Foxes hammer it clear. Half-time scores here: Well, that was pretty decent: Liverpool possess the more refined style, but Leicester are such a threat when they break. Vardy has run the line very intelligently, and his cross for the Okazaki header was fabulous. Leicester have created the better chances, and Mignolet has made at least one excellent stop, but Liverpool have seen most of the ball, and were just beginning to move Leicester around at the end of that half. All to play for! See you shortly. 45 min +1: Headed clear, and that’s the half. 45 min: Only one minute of stoppage time, and Jurgen Klopp jabs an accusing finger at the fourth official. His team are on top, and he wants a goal before the break. Time for one last corner. 44 min: Leicester clear the danger, but they can’t make it stick up front. Liverpool pressing hard here. 43 min: Lallana cuts in and fires one towards goal, but Simpson gets in the way. It’s a corner. 42 min: Good spell from Liverpool: the passing is crisp, and Leicester can’t get hold of it. But then Moreno, who has seen a lot of the ball on this left side, gives it away, and Leicester can take a breather. 39 min: Ack, that was bad from Moreno: Firmino did really well to find him on the left hand side of the box, totally free, but his cross was dreadful, and hit straight out of play. That was a chance, because Leicester were stretched. 37 min: Another long throw from Fuchs. Liverpool clear. And another long throw! This time, Mignolet gets into difficulty, and drops it, but he was fouled surely? Ref says no! Hairy moments for Liverpool. Here’s Peter Oh:“Hi Tim, 20 minutes in and you haven’t typed the name “Firmino” even once! What gives?!” Yeah, he’s been quiet! 35 min: Fabulous save from Mignolet! Leicester looked long for Vardy, and although Liverpool won the first header, it sat up for Mahrez to hit, which he did, first time – but Mignolet tipped it over! That was a wonderful fingertip stop, and a super shot: it was heading in. Leicester can’t make the corner count. 34 min: Lovren wins it, but his header is straight up in the air, and Schmeichel claims, before aiming a volley of abuse at no one in particular. Like father, like son! 33 min: Trouble for Leicester: Mahrez was sloppy in possession, and lost it near the touchline. Moreno found Lallana, who produced some beautiful skill to go past Simpson, and his cross is headed behind as Henderson attacked it. Liverpool cranking up the pressure! 32 min: More end-to-end action, and the Reds win a corner on the left. Lovren and Sakho, Liverpool’s big defensive lumps, come up from the back. Leicester can’t clear, and it’s another corner! 30 min: Mahrez takes … and it’s into the wall. “The wall did its job!” scream bedroom commentators across the land. 29 min: Now this is a very good chance for Leicester, after Lucas clips Okazaki on the edge of the box. This is a much better angle for a shot. 28 min: This game has been really open and entertaining: two very different clashes of style, but Leicester should be ahead: Okazaki’s chance was golden. Corner to Leicester, and Mahrez takes, but Huth heads over. 26 min: Lovren fouls Vardy from behind, and it’s a clear foul, although Lovren disagrees. Chance for Leicester, 30 yards or so from goal. It’s maybe a bit far to have a direct shot, although Fuchs is eyeing it up. It is Fuchs, and it’s drivel: he didn’t get hold of it, and it rolls through to Mignolet. 24 min: Long throw from Fuchs, Huths wins the header, Liverpool can’t clear, and it falls to Simpson … whose shot is blocked, I think, by his own player. All a bit 1987-era Wimbledon for a moment. 22 min: Ooh, that was a chance for Liverpool: they had a four-on-four, and Henderson had the ball on the right side, but his cutback for Milner was slightly mishit, and Fuchs intercepted. A bit more care and Liverpool would have been in! 20 min: Liverpool are on top here, though: they’re really dominating possession. Milner, who has been prominent, cuts inside and shoots for goal. Simpson gets in the way and blocks it. Brave work: it hit him in the groin. 19 min: Another Liverpool corner. Milner takes, and it’s short again, but then Liverpool rather mess it up, and Leicester clear. Moreno looked inside for Henderson when he should have given it back for Milner. 18 min: It’s short, but nicely worked, and Lucas comes into the line at speed … and then immediately smashes out of play for a goal kick. O jogo bonito! 17 min: Lovely feet from Milner to get into the box, but Drinkwater is doughty, and comes across to cover before he can get his shot away. Better from Liverpool, this – they’ve pushed Leicester back deep in their own half, and now they’ve won a corner. 15 min: The game is so stretched already: Vardy plays right on the shoulder, and every time Leicester win it back in midfield Liverpool look vulnerable. 14 min: Nice effort from Mahrez: instant control to take down Fuchs’ high, hanging cross from the left, and a dipping volley that Mignolet had to save. Decent effort, all made by the quality of the touch. 12 min: And now a huge chance for Liverpool! Milner found Henderson, I think it was, who headed back across the goal, but Emre Can stabbed it straight at Schmeichel! Actually, Can was offside, so no alarms for Leicester, but regardless: the ball should have been in the net. 10 min: Two very good chances for Leicester in these first 10 minutes, but they’ll be cranky that they’re not ahead. Liverpool have been let off. 8 min: Oh, Okazaki should have scored! Liverpool coughed it up in midfield, Okazaki released Vardy, who completely burned Lovren on the left, and crossed for the Japanese … who headed straight at Mignolet! Great work from the goalie to get it up and over the bar, but that should have been 1-0. What a chance. 6 min: Ooh, that’s a bit naughty from Huth, a defender whose style of play might charitably be called uncompromising. It’s a free kick to Liverpool, but it might have been more: Huth seemed to catch Lallana on the jaw with a forearm! It wasn’t quite an elbow, or indeed a forearm smash, but it wasn’t the best piece of play from the German. 5 min: That’s the second time Vardy and Mahrez have linked up, but the Algerian was just hustled off it by Lucas before he could strike one at goal. Liverpool back in numbers to clear the danger. 3 min: Can cuts inside from the left and goes for goal, but it’s well over. Can looks to the heavens. 2 min: Mahrez goes close! Lovely cushioned header from Vardy, and suddenly Leicester were away: Mahrez picked the ball up, ran at the Liverpool defence in that easy, shuffling style, cut inside, and bent a shot just wide! Mignolet was at full stretch, and Liverpool were cut open there. Unlucky Mahrez! 1 min: Leicester get us under way, and the Leicester fans are singing loudly in East Midlands accents, me duck. And immediately they hump it forward, and win a throw. Fuchs hurls it in but Liverpool clear. A good, uncomplicated start! Here’s Tarek: “I didn’t know Teixeira is now a Liverpool player. Must be another Teixeira I’m sure.” Yah, Joao Carlos, who spend last season on loan at Brighton. He’s among the seven subs. We’re about six minutes away. The KP pitch looks lovely. Much better than Filbert Street! Here’s Steve Wingrove: “I noted in your preamble’ brief summary of Liverpool’s recent results that you neglected to mention that they are one of only two clubs to have actually beaten Leicester in the Premiership this season. Surely worth a mention this evening?” Yep, they sure did. And Christian Benteke scored! Refresh your collective memory here: Many, many other games are going on today: follow them here! So, Leicester are unchanged from the team that beat Stoke 3-0 – Jamie Vardy and Shinji Okazaki start up, and Riyad Mahrez, their standout player, has recovered some form after a little wobble over Christmas. Liverpool make a hatful of changes from the side that drew with West Ham: Mignolet, Clyne and Lovren keep their places, but everyone else is new. Roberto Firmino will play as the furthest forward player, with able assistance from Lallana and Milner. Leicester: Schmeichel, Simpson, Morgan, Huth, Fuchs, Mahrez, Kante, Drinkwater, Albrighton, Okazaki, Vardy. Subs: King, Gray, Ulloa, Dyer, Wasilewski, Chilwell, Schwarzer. Liverpool: Mignolet, Clyne, Lovren, Sakho, Moreno, Henderson, Lucas, Can, Milner, Firmino, Lallana. Subs: Toure, Benteke, Allen, Ibe, Flanagan, Ward, Teixeira. Referee: Andre Marriner (West Midlands) Well, the Premier League has chugged along into February, and no one has yet worked out how to stop Leicester City. The unfashionable East Midlanders are three points clear at the top of the table, and although we wise sages insist their fairy story must end soon, Leicester just keep doing what they do: defending stoutly, running hard, and playing on the counter-attack. The Foxes are going the distance, and today they host Liverpool with a chance to extend their lead to six points. Jurgen Klopp’s been at Anfield since October, and things still seem as uneven as ever at Liverpool: the Reds sit in seventh, having lost seven games already – they’re 13 points behind Leicester. Are they better now, or much the same? A place in the Champions League isn’t beyond them, but results have been erratic: a zany 5-4 at Norwich was followed by a 0-1 reverse against Stoke in the League Cup and a dreary 0-0 against West Ham on Saturday. What are we going to get today? Who knows?! Kick-off is 7.45pm local, and 2.45pm ET. Join us! Tim will be here shortly. In the meantime, read why some Liverpool fans are unhappy with the club’s ticket prices: “The outcome is extremely disappointing and a missed opportunity for LFC to lead in a fairer approach to ticket prices,” read a statement. “After months of time and effort, meetings and debate of ideas and plans to lower supporters’ costs, the owners have chosen to increase prices for many. In the context of the huge income rises the club will receive next year, to up their revenue from fans through season and match-day tickets is both unnecessary and morally unjustifiable. “At a time of ever increasing commercial and media revenues, the club’s reliance on ‘general-admission’ returns is diminishing, and this is a lost opportunity for LFC to begin the reversal of the effects of inflation-busting prices that have forced out many loyal fans over recent years. We had hoped to find a solution to better accessibility to Anfield for younger and future generations through reduced ticket prices.
Arabian Nights: Volume 2 – The Desolate One review – a portrait of Portugal The second instalment of Miguel Gomes’s sprawling state of the Portuguese nation address continues with an allegorical, fantastical journey through a country in crisis. Gomes adds a dreamlike dimension: several strands are viewed through the eyes of animals. A wounded cow gives testimony to a judge who weeps from the cumulative suffering and evil that she witnesses. And a stray dog called Dixie is our entry point to the lives of the impoverished residents of a tower block. Like the first volume, the film requires an investment on the part of the audience. But the cinematic language in which Gomes is working is immersive rather than strictly narrative. And as such, the occasional lapse of concentration hardly matters.
Blair Witch review – efficient horror sequel In the mid-1890s, Parisians reportedly ran screaming from the Lumière brothers’ experimental short film L’arrivée d’un train en gare de La Ciotat, terrified that the train coming towards them was about to run them down. A century later, cinemagoers were traumatised by The Blair Witch Project, unable to determine whether its faux-documentary story was fact or fiction. Kickstarting the “found footage” boom that has dominated 21st-century horror, directors Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez brilliantly reminded us that cinema’s greatest trick has always been in convincing us that what we are watching is “real”. Distributors Artisan famously picked up the no-budget The Blair Witch Project, with its unknown cast, for $1m and watched it make hundreds of millions worldwide. Now franchise inheritors Lionsgate have come searching for equally rich pickings. Reprising the DIY gimmick of its forerunner, albeit in less grainy style, Adam Wingard’s sequel Blair Witch finds young James (James Allen McCune) venturing into the Black Hills Forest in search of his sister Heather, who disappeared in October ’94. Accompanying him are film student Lisa (Callie Hernandez), eager to exploit James’s sibling anguish, and close friends Peter (Brandon Scott) and Ashley (Corbin Reid). Unlike their predecessors, these ghostbusters have state-of-the-art hardware, from ear-piece cameras to a high-flying drone. An oddball pair who post online as “Darknet 666” are along for the ride too, claiming to have found a tape which James believes shows Heather alive in the woods. As before, internecine squabbling turns to terror when night falls, the fracturing group getting lost in spiralling circles of time and space, all captured on camera by the increasingly rattled participants. As genre fans know, The Blair Witch Project was not the first “found footage” movie. Predecessors include Ruggero Deodato’s 1980 Cannibal Holocaust, which beat Myrick and Sánchez to the punch by nearly two decades, while Stefan Avalos and Lance Weiler’s The Last Broadcast premiered the year before The Blair Witch Project took Sundance by storm. “The story and characters depicted in this movie are entirely fictional,” read The Last Broadcast’s end credits, “but please don’t tell anyone.” Yet so convincing was The Blair Witch Project’s veneer of authenticity that many took it at face value, just like the radio audiences who mistook Orson Welles’s infamous 1938 War of the Worlds broadcast for a real-life news report. The makers of this new Blair Witch have attempted to recapture that air of mystery, filming surreptitiously under the title The Woods to avoid attention during production. But for media-savvy audiences raised on a diet of Paranormal Activity, [Rec], The Last Exorcism, The Visit et al (plus countless sequels, prequels, spin-offs, and remakes) the film’s home-made aesthetic is just business as usual. In an age in which faux found footage fools no one, the question is not “Is it real?” but rather “What’s the point?” Wingard and writer Simon Barrett, who proved their genre-literate mettle with You’re Next and The Guest, are clearly fans of Myrick and Sánchez (who take executive producer credits), and pay respectful homage to their original signature tropes – stick-men figures, stone piles, the Hansel and Gretel house etc – while updating their “just keep filming” framework. In particular, Wingard wanted to retain the urgent shaky-cam effect of The Blair Witch Project but “make it easier on the eyes”, and his clearer-than-before digital images do just that. Yet with its deftly spliced master shots, closeups, reverses and aerial views, the new film is in danger of making us forget that it’s meant to be found footage in the first place. Too often it just looks like conventional drama. With convention comes artifice. The cast may be more professional than their first-timer forebears, but they also appear to be acting throughout, particularly in scenes that involve the clunky exposition of franchise-building backstory. Gone is the palpable terror of the original trio, who were genuinely terrified by the unexpected setups into which Myrick and Sánchez lured them. They may not have been great actors, but they didn’t need to be. That was the point. More explicit revelation is a problem too, with some twiggy sub-Evil Dead body horror merely cranking up the yuck factor, while umpteen amplified jump-scares (the multi-layered soundtrack positively booms throughout) smack of cattle-prod laziness. On the plus side, there’s a Shirley Jackson-inflected elegance to the cyclical narrative, which lifts Blair Witch above the cliches of this year’s The Forest (with which it bears unfortunate comparison) while a sequence that riffs on the claustrophobia of The Descent and The Borderlands is executed in suffocating fashion. Unlike 2000’s unloved Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 (which is ignored), the solid but unsurprising result seems destined for crowd-pleasing multiplex success, efficient if unadventurous. A hundred years ago, cinema audiences ran away from an approaching train. Today, we just jump on it. All aboard.
Brexit fears weighing down UK manufacturing? Dream on For the next couple of months – and probably longer – George Osborne has a ready-made excuse if the economic numbers look a bit grim: blame it on the uncertainty caused by the EU referendum. The weakest report on manufacturing from purchasing managers for three years? That would be the result of Brexit fears. A downgrade of the UK’s growth forecast for 2016 from the European commission? Investment plans are being mothballed until businesses see the way Britain has voted on 23 June. But hang on a minute. The outlook for manufacturing has also softened in the US, which the last time anybody looked was not a member of the EU. Likewise, it is hard to see what Brexit has to do with the continuing travails of China’s industrial sector. The reality is that manufacturing has been suffering around the world as part of a broad economic slowdown that has been going on for at least a year. It certainly predates the moment in late February when David Cameron announced the referendum date. It would be wrong to think that speculation about Brexit will have no impact, but the impact needs to be put into perspective. Consumer confidence is reasonably strong by historical standards despite last month’s fall, which helps explain why sales of new cars remain strong. The housing market weakened a bit in April, but that had more to do with higher stamp duty for buy-to-let than it did the referendum. Let’s see how the economy fares when the referendum is over. Assuming the opinion polls are right and the Remain side wins, the upshot should be a revitalised Britain where the trade deficit narrows from a record 7% of GDP, a decade-long hiatus in productivity growth comes to an end, and there is the long-promised rebalancing of growth towards investment and exports. Dream on. These are chronic problems, not ones that have suddenly flared up since late February.
Lloyds snaps up MBNA for £1.9bn Lloyds Banking Group is to spend £1.9bn on MBNA, a credit card business owned by Bank of America, as the bailed-out lender continues its recovery from the financial crisis. The UK bank’s first major acquisition since its £20bn rescue by the taxpayer during the 2008 crisis will give it a 26% share of the credit card market and allow it to produce £100m annual savings within two years. Lloyds, 7% owned by the taxpayer, would not comment on the implications for the workforces of the two operations, which employ a combined 2,700 in Chester. MBNA – one of the UK’s largest credit card issuers, with 7 million customers including its own brands and the official cards of several major football clubs – has been on the market for some time. Lloyds had been battling against US private equity group Cerberus, HSBC and Santander UK for the operation. A firewall against claims for payment protection insurance (PPI) was thought to be crucial in securing the deal. The misselling scandal has already cost Lloyds £17bn – more than any other bank – and Lloyds said its exposure to MBNA’s bill was capped at £240m, indicating Bank of America will pick up the tab for anything above that threshold. The deal is expected to complete in the first six months of 2017, during which time the government is expected to sell the last of its shares in Lloyds. Lloyds was the biggest riser on the FTSE 100 by mid-afternoon, up about 2.5% to 64p. The government is selling off its remaining stake at prices below the 76.3p average price at which taxpayers paid to take a 43% stake during the crisis. António Horta-Osório, the Lloyds chief executive, said the MBNA name would be retained as part of the bank’s multi-brand strategy. Among its brands are Halifax, Bank of Scotland and car finance lender Black Horse. It also, he said, “advances our strategic aim to deliver sustainable growth as a UK-focused retail and commercial bank”. Lloyds paid for the business out of its reserves, which sparked some concerns that it might not be able to pay a special dividend to shareholders. The bank insisted its payout policy was not altered. “Nothing has changed,” said George Culmer, Lloyds’ finance director. The transaction further focuses Lloyds on the domestic market at time when the UK is preparing to exit the EU. Joseph Dickerson, a banking analyst at Jefferies, said the deal was “a very good use” of Lloyds’ excess capital and that the terms looked attractive. Dickerson said that a special dividend “is now unlikely but the MBNA acquisition looks a better use of excess to us”. The deal will increase Lloyds’ market share of credit cards from 15% to 26%, making it second only to Barclaycard in terms of size. Culmer acknowledged the deal was subject to competition approval but he said a recent study had found the credit card market was “healthy and competitive”. The bank has a 25% share of current accounts, 22% of retail deposits and 21% of mortgages.
Sharon Jones: 'Before I get on stage something comes over me and the pain goes away' Since 2002, Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings have become one of the most important contemporary bands still flying the flag for the soul sounds of the 70s. But three years ago their momentum was abruptly upturned when Jones was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. This is right when the Oscar-winning film-maker Barbara Kopple (Harlan County, USA) began shadowing Jones, following the singer over the next year during her treatment, recovery and attempt to return to the studio and stage. That documentary, Miss Sharon Jones, debuts in theaters this month, and the recently spoke with Jones while she’s been on tour, opening for Hall & Oates, even as she continues to battle cancer. How are you feeling? I take it one day at a time. The chemo is more or less taking a toll on me. We’ve got to find something else other than that because it’s so painful, my legs crumble. I can’t take that. How are you able to continue performing through all of this? Right before I get on that stage, it’s like something comes over me and the pain goes away. I guess the adrenaline just gets going and, you know, your body’s just like, “Well, you know: here we go!” One of the earliest scenes shows you getting your braids cut off, before you begin chemo. What was it like letting a film crew record your most vulnerable moments? That was a low blow, and they captured that. Every time I see it, I cry. It’s pretty deep. You just accept it. You have to accept it. You have to know they’re there. With the guys in the band, I had to tell them, in the long run, they’re doing this for us. We’re not doing them a favor, we’re doing ourselves a favor. They’re capturing a story here, so let’s just do this here with some love, and that’s what happened. Even though this is your story, you entrusted Kopple to tell it. What did you think when you say the final cut? They got it right. They got exactly what they went for. I always felt like I have a story, and it really told the story, about what I went through, what the band went through. You’ve got to realize, it was the first time I was going to be away from my fans for such a long time … and then to come back to them bald and looking like a whole other person would have been a shock. So I was like, just let my fans see the battle I’m taking. I want them to be part of it, like when I’m on that stage, I make them part of the band. They become part of the show. You’ve worked with some of the band members for 20 years. How have those relationships changed over that time? You watch them grow. Like, I met my drummer, Homer [Steinweiss], when he was 16 years old. Now, they’re all in their 30s and 40s. We’ve become like hands fitting in a glove. I’ll be onstage and I will call something we’ve never done before, and they’re right there with me, and people don’t realize that. Every night it’s different; I’ll sing a song hundreds of times, but each night it’s just a different flavor with a different flow. It’s just the way it is when you’re that long with people. During the film, we find out some of the band members struggle to get by financially because they can no longer tour. Was it difficult for you to worry about your own recovery but also how your bandmates were getting by? I didn’t know the full effect of those months [I was in treatment/recovery] until I saw the film and what everyone went through. No one was calling me up and saying, “I lost my apartment because I couldn’t afford the rent.” I didn’t know those things. It was a struggle, but we stuck together as a family. Not only did I want to get back together and work because our money is in our performing but I had to do that for my own wellbeing, just to get back out there. That’s therapy. There’s the therapy of performing and there’s the cancer therapy you’re still going through. You stopped touring during your original treatment period but you’re performing this time. Why? My body’s going through changes, but I don’t want to sit home and wait for this to take over me. As long as I can get on the stage and show some energy, I’m going to get on the stage until I can’t do it any more. For the film’s soundtrack, you and the band recorded a new song entitled I’m Still Here. It’s not only your most autobiographical song but the title also seems to be a forceful statement of purpose. When I was 57 and I was diagnosed with cancer, I didn’t think I would see my 58th birthday. So that’s why I say, “I’m still here.” I’m 60 now, so 60 years came along and I’m still here! Miss Sharon Jones is out on limited release in New York from 29 July and Los Angeles on 5 August
Asian markets lift as Britain gets new PM, Japan gets stimulus and US outlook brightens Asian shares came within reach of testing their 2016 peak on Wednesday as solid US growth prospects and the anointing of a new prime minister in Britain appeared to fuel a recovery in investors’ risk appetite after the uncertainty caused by Brexit. A rebound in equity markets led investors to reduce their holdings of safe-haven assets like Japan’s yen, which had surged in the aftermath of Britain’s shock vote to leave the European Union. In Japan the prime minister, Shinzo Abe, ordered a new round of fiscal stimulus spending after an election victory. His meeting on Tuesday with the former US Federal Reserve chair Ben Bernanke, a proponent of “helicopter money” policies – printing money and directly handing it to the private sector to stimulate the economy – fuelled speculation Abe’s stimulus could be funded by the Bank of Japan’s easing. Such expectations pushed down the yen 4% over the last two days. Abe has told his economy minister to compile an economic stimulus package by the end of this month to revive a flagging economy. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan had risen by 0.4% to 427.83 at one point, just below its year-to-date high of 428.22 hit on April 21. MSCI’s broadest gauge of the world’s stock markets has recovered all the losses after Britain’s referendum to hit its highest level in over a month. “A while ago, everything looked so uncertain on Brexit. But now the UK looks set to have a new prime minister and negotiations may begin earlier. That is soothing investor sentiment,” said Masahiro Ichikawa, senior strategist at Sumitomo Mitsui Asset Management. Britain’s home secretary, Theresa May, is set to take over as Britain’s prime minister on Wednesday. The British pound traded at $1.327 at one point after surging almost 2% on Tuesday, pulling away from a 31-year low of $1.2798 struck late in June, as investors bought back the currency on May’s appointment as prime minister. The euro was little changed at $1.1060. The Bank of England makes its policy announcement on Thursday, with some analysts expecting a rate cut. The European Central Bank is also widely expected to take a dovish stance when it holds its policy review a week later. Oil prices dropped more than 1% in early Asian trade on Wednesday after industry group American Petroleum Institute (API) reported a surprise rise of 2.2m barrels in US crude stockpiles last week. “After being faced with the prospect of a major slowdown in global activity in the wake of the Brexit vote, governments and central banks worldwide are now expected to do their utmost to reassure markets and provide stimulus,” wrote Angus Nicholson, market analyst at IG in Melbourne. “This has led to an incredible rally in equities and industrial commodities. Of course, should those expectations fail to eventuate they could stop the rally short. The greatest unknown for markets is what will happen in mainland Europe.” With Reuters and Associated Press
Ridley Scott: 'Is there life out there? Certainly' To be nominated for an Oscar this year is to have your privilege checked. And, accordingly, some have found fault with The Martian. It curbs diversity, they say. But their beef with the Matt Damon-stuck-on-Mars movie is not its lack of roles for people of colour or women. In fact, this is a cheerfully colour-blind film, in which those who happen to be black or female discuss quantum physics without reference to race or gender. No. Their issue with The Martian is its quota of LOLs. Is it funny enough to be called a comedy? For that’s the prize it took at the Golden Globes earlier this month - to some surprise, even from its director, Ridley Scott. A week after the win, Judd Apatow (whose Trainwreck had lost) made a speech in which he told drama, as a genre, to “go fuck yourself”. “We only have one award, Matt,” he said, addressing Damon. “That’s all we get. I’m like a nerd on the schoolyard and you stole my drink money.” Scott, it has to be said, does not sound fussed. “We didn’t choose that category,” he says, accent languid transatlantic, with top-notes of geordie. “The Globes chose it because they thought it was amusing enough.” As for the backlash? “I must say I was surprised. It’s a movie! It’s not the cure for cancer, Judd. Don’t take yourself too seriously, Judd.” He chuckles. Fourteen months ago, Scott wasn’t so sunny. The race row over his Moses movie, Exodus: Gods and Men (Joel Edgerton is Rameses), damaged the film’s reception and dented its director’s image. Now – in a happy narrative arc – he’s rightly hailed a hero, the 78-year-old survivor who made the classiest crowdpleaser of last year, and has two shots at doing so in 2017, with sequels to Prometheus and Blade Runner. “You never release a film until you’re certain you’ve done the best you can,” he says of The Martian. “The rest is in the hands of, not the gods, but the audience. And in this instance, we did very, very, very well. We went through the roof. That didn’t surprise me, because it’s a pretty good film.” Down the line from Sydney – “It’s teatime! Raining cats and dogs!” – Scott is kind, patient (there’s crackle and a delay) and responsive. His preference for plain-speak over false modesty is born of 20 years in advertising, then 40 in Hollywood, where Alien, Blade Runner, Thelma & Louise, Gladiator, Hannibal, American Gangster and more made him one of the few men who can still persuade a studio to bankroll something big-budget that’s not a sequel or a superhero movie. Rather, it’s Scott himself who is the brand. “You prove how reliable you are. Which I am, I always have been – it’s part of my thing.” He is not a slave to receipts, he clarifies; he makes movies “to satisfy my creative needs”. It just so happens his taste overlaps with that of many others. When I ask why the top Oscar contenders – The Revenant (12 nominations), Mad Max: Fury Road (10) and The Martian (seven) - are all tales of men struggling solo in the wilderness, he correctly brings it straight back to cash. The Martian, he says, was “way cheaper than those two – way, way”. Better performing, too – it’s taken more than both those combined (he doesn’t point this out). “So we did awfully well. That’s being competitive for a minute.” You can hear the grin. The epic scale that superficially unites the films, then, is a product of the need to put bums on seats. “You want big films and stories to keep people going to the cinema. It’s up to us to keep the bar raised. That’s the trick. I’ve always done that.” And such a trick should not be underestimated. “It is brain surgery! It is bloody brain surgery! You’re putting together a whole group of people, you’re trying to budget as accurately as you can and, at the end of it, you’ve got to sell a lot of tickets. That’s more complex than banking – but a few of us manage to pull it off.” A pause: pride can sound like ego. “I’m not kidding myself: I love the challenge. If you don’t, don’t do the job.” Scott may be approaching 80, but this is not a man eager for his slippers. He wakes at 5:30am each day, wherever he is in the world. Yes, he tinkers in his vineyard, but he sells the produce, too. He is linked to no fewer than 60 forthcoming film and TV projects. Like his late brother Tony, he is a man of no small decisiveness. “I love the way advertising managers do it: stop studying your navel and just get on with it.” The Martian is his closest self-portrait yet. It’s a story of cracking on and making do. Using anything handy – duct tape figures large – to haul yourself out of trouble. Damon’s character must “science the shit out of this” to sustain himself; Scott could teach him the ropes. “You need your house painted, I can do it,” he told a reporter at its Toronto premiere last autumn. “I’ll do it better than most builders.” “You may have all the hi-tech things in the world but need a pencil. When all the lights go off you ask: have you got a candle? It constantly reminds me just how vulnerable we are.” The digital revolution has helped Scott’s SFX; it troubles him, too. “I’m from the generation that climbed trees, fell out of trees, broke my arm, my foot, my fingers, fell in the sea, nearly drowned. To design a catapult was hi-tech. Today, kids don’t do that. They probably play soccer but for the most part they’re button-pushing. I just hope they have as much fun as I did.” And therein lies the reason The Martian chimed with so many, he thinks. Self-sufficiency is deeply appealing. “Buried in the film is a life lesson: God helps those who help themselves. It’s a tremendous example of effort and ingenuity and courage in the face of imminent death. It’s as tough as climbing Mount Everest, really. In a slip you can die.” Born in South Shields just before the second world war, Scott is a self-made man and non-believer, who progressed from grammar school to art college and so to Soho. Yet for someone who calls himself a “logical agnostic”, he invokes the Almighty a lot. Religious questioning – the through-line in all his movies – seems to be growing more intense as he gets older. The Martian, in which Damon whittles a crucifix for kindling, is a testament to human ingenuity in a godless universe, but it is not propaganda. With Alien: Covenant – which is what he’s shooting in Sydney – he is, he says, “diddling around” with ideas such as: “Is it Godly or technical? Are we biological or are we created? If created, who created us?” So how would the discovery of life on other planets affect religious belief back on Earth? Scott ducks, and focuses on it being a “when” not an “if”. Mars is as accessible now as the moon seemed 50 years ago. “Once you’re past Mars, the nearest planet is lightspeed away. So you’re talking about people willing to go into space knowing they will never return. So you’re really inventing a lifestyle onboard a craft. “But they know for sure, out there in our reachable galaxy, there may be millions of planets that have the same access to the atmosphere and heat we do. How logical is it there will be living organisms out there? Most certainly. Will they look like us? Very much doubt it.” Scott famously knew about the discovery of water on Mars months before Nasa told the rest of us. “Could you drink it?” he asked them. “Almost certainly. Anything in it? Microbes. Oh, aliens are possible! So is Mars us, a billion and half years ago? Or closer? Did we burn up our own atmosphere?” To be fair to Scott, he is not just a religious enquirer. Rather, he is omnivorously interested. He endlessly bats arguments between sides of his brain, like a boy playing ping-pong with one side of the table up. It is not just work that keeps him chugging. It is curiosity, too. Witness how he yaks with himself about whether or not quitting this planet will become a necessity. “We’re hoping to cut emissions by 30% by 2030. I say: are you kidding? You’ve got to be doing it much faster. If you don’t, we definitely will lose the battle. Have we damaged ourselves? Course we have. Can we do anything about it? I just hope to God we’re acting in an organised and swift fashion but I got a funny feeling it’s not quick enough. Will it be doomsday? I don’t think so. Maybe you’ve got to start looking at a house in Scotland.” He laughs. So can art help change things? Is that why he does it? Oh no, he says. He invokes again his advice to Apatow: remember, it’s only a movie. But then he checks himself. One or two films, he thinks, have had an impact on him. The long-suppressed Peter Watkin drama The War Game (1965), about London being nuclear-bombed. “I thought about it for a week after seeing it.” And The Road, the 2009 version of Cormac McCarthy’s post-apocalyptic horror. “That’s really scary. I think there’s a degree of uneasy accuracy.” A pause. “We don’t want to even consider that.” And, for once, he doesn’t answer himself back. • The Martian is available on Digital HD now and on DVD and Blu-ray & DVD on 8 February • This article was amended on 29 January 2016 to remove details about Tony Scott’s death that were inconsistent with editorial guidelines.
The 1990s were the best of times … until the Spice Girls ruined everything “It was so much better in the 90s.” What a sad-eyed, pointless statement, you might think, from burnt-out 90s revellers as they sit, stuck, whinging in the inertia of their rheumatoid middle age. But it isn’t me. Several late teens and 20-somethings have said these words to me this year. They are in a reverie for a decade they know through our inescapable nostalgia industry, where every musical era lives alongside us in our dazzling digital age, through TV, films and books, a lucrative machine feeding sentimentality. A generation is nostalgic for an era that belongs to its parents, indignant in the knowledge of freedoms lost in these creatively “risk-averse” times. But were the 90s “better”, really? A speedy gif-trawl through 1996 alone offers up persuasive evidence: the Prodigy’s Firestarter is No 1; Oasis the biggest band on Earth, selling out Knebworth, twice; Jarvis Cocker is the most famous man in Britain after his Michael Jackson bum-waft at the Brits; Blur, Underworld, the Chemical Brothers and the Manic Street Preachers are everywhere; the nation’s favourite film is Trainspotting; our best TV shows are the gripping human dramas Our Friends in the North and This Life; the idealistic Tony Blair is edging towards Number 10 (and not yet mad with power); England are in the Euro 96 semi-finals. Twenty years on, the No 1 album is by Radiohead (from the 90s), our funniest TV show is Frasier (from the 90s), our most eagerly awaited new film is Absolutely Fabulous (from the 90s), the Stone Roses (from the 90s) are forever back-back-BACK (though the concept of “England”, generally, is definitely not from the 90s any more). The 90s were berserk, arriving via the ploughed-up fields of Madchester in a kaleidoscopic explosion of neon leggings, ecstasy, Adamski’s Killer at No 1 and backflip bedlam on Dance Energy on BBC2. The culture-warping climate was buoyed by liberating global events: Thatcher was out, Mandela freed from prison, the Berlin Wall newly fallen. Early-90s Britain was soundtracked by singular weirdos, from narco-rock madmen Primal Scream to Icelandic sorceress Björk, an infinite dance of creative possibilities fashioned for all by the freaks. The year Kurt Cobain took his own life, 1994 (seeing off glum-faced grunge), British culture jack-knifed overnight, the pied pipers of Britpop leading a nationwide party on a yellow-brick road of hedonistic invincibility, our last great movement in outsider rock’n’roll tribalism. The Spice Girls, whose single Wannabe is 20 years old this week, changed everything. Arriving in 1996 they were created, ostensibly, as a female Take That, with Wannabe a perky-pop classic for 10-year-olds (no more, no less), whose vaguely positive, ultimately meaningless Girl Power slogan (which deemed Margaret Thatcher “the first Spice Girl”) belied their true legacy; they were the original pioneers of the band as brand, of pop as a ruthless marketing ruse, of the merchandising and sponsorship deals that have dominated commercial pop ever since. (For a while in the 2000s, as pop stars became portfolio fronts for clothing ranges, L’Oréal ads and celebrity fragrances, I thought about writing a book: Zig-a-Zig … Aaarrgh! How the Spice Girls Ruined Everything.) By 1999 the landscape was unrecognisable, the Spice Girls’ mammoth sales “inspiring” an all-new, toothsome, unstoppable pop uprising both here and in America (much to the incoming Eminem’s belligerent horror), from sometime class-pop winners Britney Spears and *Nsync to Britain’s toddler-pop chancers Steps and Ireland’s Boyzone clones Westlife, a sex-free, fun-free, balladeering behemoth permanently at No 1 as the new millennium dawned. In eight swift years we’d gone from the Shamen’s Ebeneezer Goode at No 1 in 1992, a dastardly rave-pop homage to hallucinogenic delirium, to five drearily Identikit mini-marketing executives singing songs for funerals, forever blubbing on a stool. Nostalgia isn’t necessarily a bad thing; it’s how we chart our history and analyse our evolution. By 2001, Noel Gallagher was already pin-pointing the trends and forces that have led us to the present day, hollering over the corporate takeover of not only the music industry but the actual planet, boiling in indignation over insatiable consumerism, hyper-capitalism, celebrity culture and the peddlers of weedy career-rock. Alternative music was submerged by the freedom-stifling accountants of what we’ve come to know as the global entertainment industry. “The Man,” Gallagher roared, “has taken over the world!” For a while, though, back in the 90s, we had a tangible sense of togetherness, a belief in hope, in music’s purpose, as Gallagher also once said, to “celebrate the euphoria of life”. Here in 2016, in this summer of divisive, shattering cultural chaos, much of those bonkers 90s look all right.
Thousands of refugees could cross Channel if UK left EU, No 10 says Thousands of refugees could cross the Channel overnight and claim asylum in southern England if France expels UK border guards in the event of a UK exit from the EU, Downing Street has warned. David Davis, the former shadow home secretary, accused No 10 of scaremongering after Downing Street signalled that David Cameron would raise the prospect of the refugee camps in northern France moving across the Channel. Davis hit out at Downing Street after the prime minister’s deputy spokesman warned that France could rescind the right of UK border guards to be stationed in northern France if the UK left the EU. The No 10 spokesman said: “We currently have these juxtaposed controls with France that, should the UK leave the EU, there is no guarantee that those controls would remain in place. If those controls weren’t in place then there would be nothing to stop thousands of people crossing the Channel overnight and arriving in Kent and claiming asylum.” He added: “We have an arrangement in place with France. We are both EU partners. Should we leave the EU there is no guarantee that that relationship, in terms of the controls we have in France at the moment, would continue. If those controls didn’t continue then there are thousands of people there who are there specifically because they want to come to the UK who would then come to the UK.” Asked about the claim, Cameron did not go as far as his spokesman but warned that leaving the EU could give France an excuse to move border controls from Calais to Dover. He said: “This is a bilateral agreement, a good agreement that means our borders are effectively in Calais, not in Dover. That is good for Britain. I want to keep that. I work very hard with my French counterparts to make sure we do keep that … But the fact is there are a lot of opposition parties in France that would love an excuse to tear up that treaty and would like the border to be Britain, not in France. “I don’t want to give people an excuse to do that. If we can get this deal in Europe, if we can get this renegotiation fixed and stay in a reformed Europe, you know what you get. You know the borders stay in Calais and we have a seat concerning the rules when it comes to the future of Europe.” Davis said Downing Street was scaremongering because UK border guards were stationed in France under the terms of an Anglo-French treaty that was agreed outside the EU. Davis said: “As the argument slips away from the remain campaign they are forced to rely on desperate scaremongering. We already have a process where air carriers transporting passengers with no visa are fined as well as being responsible for returning people they have flown to the country illegally. There is no reason why the same policy would not work for trains and ferries. And we should spend a small fraction of the savings from our current EU budget contributions on enhancing our border controls and ensuring that they operate effectively. “It is the failed EU immigration policy that has created the ‘Jungle’ camp near Calais. The idea that leaving the EU would give us less control of our borders is simply preposterous.”
Music you missed: 10 Australian underground releases from Deep Heat to Dispossessed “Time’s the revelator,” country musician Gillian Welch sings in her song of the same name. I assume she meant things such as love and grief, but it applies to music more than anything. Only time can reveal which records will bloom, then shrivel and fall from the vine – and which will make a late great run towards eternity. The records listed here will endure. At least I’d like to think so. But I’m still in the grip of obsession and that is no place to speak from sagely. The best thesis I’ve heard as to which records date and which grow timeless is that the former are “followers”, and the latter are pioneers, which sounds about right. And does it even matter? Why this conviction that music is better if it lasts a long time? Of the below: Deep Heat broke up after their record launch. Four members of Dispossessed bailed three days before their debut album was finished. And there’s no talk of The Still being anything more than a one-off for an obscure “new music library” called Seriés Aphōnos. If you like what you hear, buy the record. Most digital copies cost less than a craft beer. And please share with me what I missed in the comments. Dispossessed – Insurgency “I was sick of time and again seeing four white people on stage singing about fuck all,” said guitarist Birrugan Dunn-Velasco (of Gumbayngirr and Mapuche descent) to Noisey last month. He and vocalist Harry Bonifacio (Filipino) met at a rally in Sydney, then formed metal band Dispossessed as a conduit for the “violent themes … of white supremacy, capitalism and colonialism”. Black Panther starts with a sample of a 1968 Black Panther chant, “no more pigs in our community”, before dropping into a curdled mess of stoner doom. By the song’s end, the instruments lurch from bar to bar, barely in time, but with everything on the line. Made in a basement over five sessions during which four members quit, Dispossessed’s line-up has settled on Dunn-Velasco, guitarist Serwah Attafuah (Ghanaian) and drummer Jarrod Smith (Wiradjuri). The record’s production is bottom-heavy, lumpy and rough-as-guts, its tempo speeding up from sludge-slow only in reluctant bursts, yet it still packs the punch of a swift fist to the throat. It’s both cathartic and bottled-up, though it’s bottled something potent: an eternally raw document of time, place and unapologetic fury. Wireheads – Arrive Alive By the time singer Dom Trimboli drops to the dusty earth to breakdance in the video for Arrive Alive, it’s already happened: I want to be in the band. And I’m not alone in wanting in on Wireheads’ aura of loose spontaneity – this record has 20 names credited, including Adelaide pals Bitch Prefect and Fair Maiden, and Sydney band Day Ravies. The songs veer from thickets of brisk jangle-rock a la The Modern Lovers to the doldrums of Melbourne’s Lower Plenty. There’s the horn-crazed party jam of Organ Failure, the psych garage rock of Isabella Says, and a duet with Ellen Carey (Fair Maiden) called Bananafish. In each, Trimboli’s yell-y vocals are held high, dry and determined in the mix, similar to Courtney Barnett in that his ennui is barely masked by a nonchalant tumble of words and heat-hazed Australian imagery. And after every comic turn in the road, it seems a black dog comes loping, as on Ice Cool Flavor Aid where Trimboli slurs: “The higher you get from the level of the sea / The harder it gets to breathe”. Medicine Voice – I And Thou In a Peruvian ayahuasca ceremony, your shaman drinks the hallucinogenic brew too, to guide you through the spirit world with medicine songs. The cool, clear and ultra-present voice of Sar Friedman has a similar sense of ushering. Perhaps it’s because her mantra-like repetitions burrow into your consciousness, or because her inhalations on Meeting The White Spirit draw you into her body. On Friedman’s debut as Medicine Voice, she’s by your side on the journey this record invites you on. Helping to make its landscapes is guitar manipulator and drone dude Oren Ambarchi, and multi-instrumentalist Joe Talia. Themes of wilderness, insight, free will and creation are explored to twinkling ambience, drone, Hindi-like chants, treated guitar and rainshakers. Unexpectedly, a pop song in the vein of St Vincent, Realm Of The Wild Woman, has a cold sacrificial drum circling Friedman’s voice at its most persuasively all-knowing. “Off with your head,” she sings, quoting the Queen of Hearts. It’s more incitement than song, really, but to what? No matter: I’m in. Police Force – Formula 1 In the video for Freaking Out The Squares, Brisbane band Police Force trash guitars in a carpark. They hurl a laptop from a roof and do ollies over the mess. On their third cassette, Formula 1, they drown their songs in reverb and delay and dunk the vocals beneath the fuzz too. Their label, Tenth Court, has no band bio and on their Facebook page, “huh” is written where the description should be. Despite their best efforts, Formula 1 is more beautiful than bratty. Arousing, too, with nods to Poison Ivy’s slinking rockabilly and the robot rock riffs of Josh Homme (Sex Scene’s prowl is pretty good, but the getting-back-to-biz pacing of Peace In The Hood is even better). Ghostly samples bookend songs so the smoke-haze is still thick when the next song revs out of the pit. And with this much delay, it was always going to get proper dubby, like the echoes of last night’s Police Force gig are playing in your confused hung-over head. There are no showy solos, drum fills or sing-along choruses. The guitarist doesn’t have “chops”. Police Force sure bring the weather, though, and I’d like to see them do that in a small room very soon. Gawurrra – Ratja YaliYali Stanley Gawurra Gaykamangu is playing at Garma next month, an Indigenous festival in Arnhem Land. Perhaps Garma’s most magical spell is how far the men’s evening song carries: straight and powerful through the stringybark trees like a spear. I can only imagine how Gawurra’s husky voice – justifying comparisons to Gurrumul – will pull people from their campsites to him to feel in full what I do just hearing him on record: as though everything is going to be OK. Described as a “gentle and genuine young leader”, this is the East Arnhem Land singer’s first album, produced (with a fairly heavy hand) by Darwin’s Broadwing. Gawurra sings exclusively in the Gupapungu language of his culture and family history in places like Gove Peninsula, Yathalamara and Milingimbi Island. The title track is a traditional Yolngu songline about the vine of love that keeps everything connected. “Ratja Yaliyali is a spirit, like the wind,” reads his bio. “A melody Yolngu listen to when they want to feel spirit in their hearts”. Palm Springs – Flowers In A Vase For years I’ve admired the voice and poise of Erica Dunn as one of rock band Harmony’s trio of gospel singers. Turns out Dunn has a trio too, called Palm Springs, with Raquel Solier and Sara Retallick (both of whom also have solo acts, because no Melbourne musician deigns to stoke a single fire). Palm Springs write spare and moody country-folk that escalates on occasion into an electrified crescendo that you know would be a lot more bracing live. Live, the classic train-chug drums on Flowers In A Vase would fill the room and that whammy would really twang. This what I like most about these songs: they seem versatile and road-ready, expandable or contractible depending on who’s around to play and, even then, could be sung sweet or real blue, weathervanes to a prevailing mood. Mostly, though, Dunn’s voice is steady and unaffected so when it wavers – or breaks open as the thunderclouds gather on the Winning and Losing – you really feel it. The Still – The Still The Still is two Australians – pianist Chris Abrahams of The Necks and percussionist Steve Heather – with Canadian Derek Shirley on double bass, and German Rico Repotente on guitar. Their loosely woven instrumentals are not very “now”; they could be from ten years ago, or 20. They don’t seek your attention or attempt in any obvious way to hold it – but as the name promises, these six songs create a stillness, or space, in which time seems to slow. More therapy than mood music. Themes on all four instruments circle back lazily, with every note or melody simply giving way to the next. Repotente’s noodling nods to blues, surf and jazz and Abrahams, as always, can’t put a finger or foot wrong (fans of The Necks fans will enjoy hearing him play more sentimentally too, as on The Descent). Throughout, there’s a horizon glow of The Dirty Three’s combustive din, which flares into flames on the grandiose final track The Ecstatic, the screech of feedback even resurrecting Warren Ellis’s wrung-out wall of fiddle. Pikelet – Tronc For two years, Evelyn Morris – the Melbourne musician behind long-running experimental pop project Pikelet – has been busy on a different stage: as a speaker, writer and figurehead of LISTEN, a group she formed to “cultivate a [feminist] conversation around the experiences of marginalised people in Australian music”. Lyrically, Tronc distills many of the themes Morris has been writing about: self-interrogation, disillusion, being a survivor, being silenced. Musically, it’s a delight, shedding the weight of her previous full band for a jumble of airy sounds – flurries of piano, castanets, hand-clap flutters, minimal beats – that she corrals into songs with a wand that works when only she waves it. Her recent piano explorations are finding homes in her pop songs too, as on Dear Unimaginables, murmured as if to herself. The despondent campfire strums and untethered verses of Harder, Heart, Harder evoke the lo-fi folk of The Microphones – but after all these years, Pikelet just sounds a lot like Pikelet. Deep Heat – Still Life Deep Heat are no longer a band. They broke up after they launched Still Life, their first full-length release. Guitarist and singer Gus Lord presumably turned his attention back to The Stevens, Tyrannamen and Twerps, while guitarist Alicia Saye and bassist Jacquie Hynes returned to their band Infinite Void. The irony here is that Deep Heat’s sound is defined by how welded together it is. Still Life is a dense nugget of grungy garage-punk that inspires furious head-nodding. Sonic Youth are clearly a big influence, with the guitar on Pick Up The Pieces sounding a lot Silver Rocket from Daydream Nation. There are lots of notes between the notes yet not one wasted, and the drums have a knack of coming in a few bars before you expect. Lord’s vocals have a brutish classic punk hue, while the two women’s voices are all swirling light and shade. Just don’t expect tempo changes or any curveballs at all. Reuben Ingall / Logic Lost – Tandem Tapes 002 DIY cassette label Tandem Tapes began after experimental musician Morgan McKeller moved from Canberra to Jakarta. It specialises in split releases between Indonesian and Australian artists; here, Canberran Reuben Ingall and Indonesian Logic Lost (Dylan Amiro). I knew of Ingall from his weirdly captivating Microwave Drone Ritual – made cooking a meat pie in a microwave – but I didn’t know Amiro. Such door-openings are part of Tandem Tapes’ goal: “The music – even instrumental music – we experience is still largely defined by language barriers,” says Ingall. Both sides could be considered ambient – though Ingall’s is glitchy and playful, his goal to make it sound like “a cluttered room with a comfy bed” solidly achieved. Amiro’s two compositions are more new age than ambient: spacey and spectral enough to soundtrack Carl Sagan’s drift through the cosmos on his Spaceship of the Imagination.
Premier League: fans’ verdicts on the £8bn battle for survival This is the year it really pays to stay up. Last season, all but three of the 20 Premier League clubs made it on to world football’s elite top-30 rich list. From next season, not one of them will miss out. No wonder this year’s relegation-threatened owners are looking so jumpy. The new TV deal – finalised last February and kicking in next season – will make Europe’s richest league breathtakingly richer still. While 2012’s rights sale raised £3.018bn – a 70% rise on the previous total – the latest auction ended with another 70% hike, with £5.136bn squeezed out of Sky and BT. Overseas rights will take that haul closer to £8bn. The impact will be startling. Where last season’s bottom club, QPR, earned £68m for their efforts, the side finishing last next season will receive at least £100m – matching what Chelsea made for winning the 2015 title. Next season’s champions will receive at least £150m – excluding the extra income paid to clubs who host more live TV matches. The jackpot on offer to the lucky 20 sides who are still involved when next season kicks off helps explain the frantic January spending among some of this year’s most threatened clubs. £90m of the £175m spent on transfers was paid out by the bottom six – compared to £20m spent the previous January. Newcastle, Norwich and Watford were the biggest gross spenders, accounting for 40% of the total. Similarly, spending by the top six in the Championship accounted for 70% of that division’s outlay as owners gambled on securing a slice of next season’s bonanza. Among other factors increasing the pressure to claim a place is that from next season the safety net for relegated sides will also be vastly more generous. Parachute payments will soar beyond the current £64m spread over four years, with the new amount paid over three – 55% of the equal share of broadcast revenue in the first year after relegation, 45% the following year and 20% in year three. Clubs relegated after a single season, though, will not receive the full pay-out in future, with the year three payment eliminated. The wider consequences of the 70% income hike remain to be seen. With Sky paying an average of £10.8m for each of their 126 games, wages and agents’ fees are likely to increase at a similar rate, even as clubs continue to resist reducing ticket prices for fans, and to balk at paying all employees the living wage. When the deal was announced last year, the former Spurs chairman Alan Sugar told fans to watch out for “the prune juice effect … The money goes in one end, and comes out the other.” Crystal Palace, 13th, 32pts – Chris Waters, @clapham_grand Are you going down? No. Surely not. Collapsing from fifth at New Year to relegation would eclipse even the most spectacular of recent Palace implosions. Still, the doubts can only be laid to rest once we’ve hit the magic 40-point mark. Who has let you down? It’s hard to look past the strikers. Just one goal between them before Emmanuel Adebayor joined says it all. Elsewhere, Jason Puncheon has struggled, and Wayne Hennessey seems undroppable despite various howlers. Is the manager to blame? It’s difficult to say. Newcastle fans warned Pardew was a streaky manager, and so it has proved, with an apparent lack of a Plan B to change formation and players. The lack of activity in the January transfer window may prove costly. Primarily, though, injuries have killed our season. Long-term problems for Bolasie, Wickham, Gayle, Sako, Chamakh, McArthur, Puncheon, Jedinak and Ledley have pulled the team apart. Add the inexcusable three-match bans for Wickham and Souaré, and you have a shadow of the side that was so rampant before Christmas. If the worst happens, would you bounce straight back? On paper, if we kept 90% of the squad, we’d go straight back up with over 100 points. But the Championship rarely works like that. It’s a battle. What would you miss about the top flight? We’d miss the blanket media coverage and the ability to buy top talent such as Cabaye. We definitely wouldn’t miss some of the outrageous away ticket prices and stupid kick-off times. And the bottom three, in order? 18. Newcastle; 19. Norwich; 20. Villa. West Bromwich Albion, 14th, 32pts – Richard Jefferson, @richbaggie Are you going down? Simple answer to this one: no. Why not? Tony Pulis. Getting relegated just isn’t part of his make-up. Who has let you down? Pretty much all the strike force have failed to deliver, though much of that is down to them having to live off scraps. The issue is the tactics we’re relying on: we create very little, mainly because the players we’d like to provide the chances are sitting so deep, under instructions to help the defence. Exacerbating that has been the fact that our crossing from any decent wing play has regularly been atrocious. And finally, the Saido Berahino sulk factor has hung over us for much of the season. Is the manager to blame? Is the league position really so bad? We’re currently on 32 points and in 14th place. I’d say that is a slightly above-par score for our limited squad, so it’d be hard to criticise the manager for the position. Criticism of how we have got to 32 points is another debate entirely, though. If the worst happens, would you bounce straight back? We’d have a decent chance, but we’d need a bigger squad than we have now to increase the chances. The Championship is absolutely brutal in terms of the number of games. What would you miss about the top flight? I’d be pleased to see the back of the awful atmosphere at nearly every Premiership ground I’ve travelled to – but as for what we’d miss most, it has to be the derby games against Aston Villa … Oh, hang on… And the bottom three, in order? 18. Norwich; 19. Newcastle; 20. Villa. Bournemouth, 15th, 28pts – Peter Bell, @PeterBell19 Are you going down? No. We rather like being in the Premier League. Eddie Howe will get the very last ounce of effort and quality out of this team and will work harder than any of the other managers down at the wrong end of the table to get the club over the line. Who has let you down? Steve Cook, Simon Francis and Artur Boruc have struggled at times this season – but they have also had some exceptional games, too. Many of the players have made individual mistakes but they are making fewer now and are growing into the Premier League. Is the manager to blame? Not at all. He has used the funds that have been made available to him wisely and strengthened the squad where he can, while also overcoming so many injuries to key players. Despite everything he has had to contend with, he has led us to wins over big teams including Chelsea and Manchester United. How can you fault that? If the worst happens, would you bounce straight back? Three things would be essential: more hard work from the players, an injury‑free season, and keeping hold of Eddie Howe. What would you miss about the top flight? I’d miss the media coverage and the buzz that comes from hearing and seeing so much about the club in the national media. What wouldn’t we miss if the worst happened? High ticket prices – and those occasional heavy defeats are something I’m not overly fond of. And the bottom three, in order? 18. Newcastle; 19. Norwich; 20. Villa. Swansea City, 16th, 27pts – Kevin Elphick, swansea.vitalfootball.co.uk Are you going down? No. It’ll be very close but I’d like to think the teams below us won’t find a way to close the gap. We’ve got a tough run-in – arguably the toughest out of the bottom six – but we actually tend to perform better against the better opposition. It’s so close that it could be goal difference that splits the sides, and ours is better than that of Norwich, Newcastle and Sunderland. Who has let you down? Bafétimbi Gomis and Jefferson Montero have both struggled. Gomis scored in his first four games and Montero was playing brilliantly too – then suddenly we hit the buffers and have been on the slide ever since. Gomis has gone from our regular lone striker to an occasional sub, while Montero didn’t even make the bench for the game against Southampton. Is the manager to blame? The sacked Garry Monk takes some of the blame, but what really held us back was the poor summer transfer business. We spent £18m on players – it’s just not enough to survive at this level. If the worst happens, would you bounce straight back? It’d be tough. The Championship is becoming more competitive and we’d need an overhaul. What would you miss about the top flight? I’d miss that sense of pride of being a top-flight club – and the ridiculous TV money, of course. You also can’t ignore the impact Premier League football has had on the local economy here. On the other hand, I definitely wouldn’t miss all the hype, the ridiculous ticket prices – and maybe we’d get a better standard of referee in the Championship, too … And the bottom three, in order? 18. Newcastle; 19. Norwich; 20. Villa. Norwich City, 17th, 24pts – Gary Gowers, NorwichCity.MyFootballWriter.com Are you going down? Logic, form and the bookies suggest we are, and it’s hard to find a valid argument against. But … while our achilles heel has been a soft centre and propensity to concede sloppy goals, when we play on the front foot we can hurt teams. So, courtesy of my yellow-and-green-tinted specs I’m tipping us for safety … just. Who has let you down? Youssouf Mulumbu has been a disappointment – since being injured in the final game of pre-season he has been playing catch-up. The goalkeeping position has also been a problem, but the biggest issue has been an ever-changing and error-ridden back four. Is the manager to blame? By his own admission Alex Neil isn’t blameless, but he’s a quick learner. After a wobble, during which he veered away from his instincts, he has reverted back to his default setting: a possession-based game with the onus on attack. However, his squad’s overall quality reflects the club’s position as the division’s 20th richest. If the worst happens, would you bounce straight back? If we kept hold of the best players – Robbie Brady most notably – and kept faith with the manager, we’d give ourselves a chance. What would you miss about the top flight? The opportunity to see my team lock horns with the very best. But, among other things, I’d be glad to see the back of losing nearly every week, being paid lip service by Match of the Day, ever-changing kick-off times and generally being seen as gatecrashers at a fancy party. And the bottom three, in order? 18. Sunderland; 19. Swansea; 20. Villa. Newcastle United, 18th, 24pts – Richard and David Holmes, readers Are you going down? On our current trajectory and with Steve McClaren at the helm, yes. Our away form has been woeful, we’ve struggled to put a string of wins together and too many players aren’t up for the battle. We’ve been flirting with relegation for years - the drop wouldn’t come as any surprise. Who has let you down? The fact that Florian Thauvin was sent out on loan after half a season tells its own story; Fabricio Coloccini, sadly, is long past his best; and Moussa Sissoko and Georginio Wijnaldum are sublime in some games, anonymous in others. Is the manager to blame? He’s not the right man for the job – but who is? Ultimately, we’ve been undermined by a transfer policy that has put sell-on value above experience and youth before character. What good is yet another “promising” French midfielder when we can’t defend or score goals? For years, a seasoned centre-half, solid left-back and proven goalscorer should have been priorities. If the worst happens, would you bounce straight back? We’d need some players with determination and pride, and Chris Hughton wouldn’t go amiss either. It’d take a huge rebuild. What would you miss about the top flight? Very little. Definitely not the arrogant fans of “big” clubs (United and Liverpool especially), or the legions of overpaid, ostentatious footballers whose closest brush with austerity is downsizing from a mansion to a penthouse. But there would be some grim consequences – inevitable job losses at St James’ Park (again) and a negative impact on the local economy. And the bottom three, in order? 18. Norwich; 19. Newcastle; 20. Villa. Sunderland, 19th, 23pts – Pete Sixsmith, SalutSunderland.com Are you going down? It’s a hard call. We’re in this position due to too many poor performances between August and January, and too many players who’ve had enough of constant struggle. But we also have some positives: our newish manager has given us some impetus by bringing in new faces who haven’t come to England to play in the second tier. On balance, I’ll back us to stay up. We’re well used to relegation battles. Who has let you down? Of the players brought in by Dick Advocaat and Lee Congerton, Jeremain Lens never really got going, Seb Coates is an honest plodder, Younès Kaboul has been injured (gasps of surprise from Tottenham fans) and Adam Matthews is playing the part of the Forgotten Man. Of those already there, Jack Rodwell has either been in the treatment room with Kaboul or out of the squad like Matthews, while Billy Jones has matched Coates plod for plod. Is the manager to blame? He’s not entirely blameless. He has made some poor team selections (three at the back at Goodison – lost 6-2) and some poor substitutions, but Sam has shown his mettle in the transfer window. If the worst happens, would you bounce straight back? We’d need to keep Allardyce and his January signings; we’d need a strong start to what is an exhausting programme; and we’d need a good satnav to take us to places we have not been to for a while. What would you miss about the top flight? There’s oh so much to miss … the Premier League theme music, the very high refereeing standards, the total lack of hyperbole … And the bottom three, in order? 18. Swansea; 19. Norwich; 20. Villa Aston Villa, 20th, 16pts – Jonathan Pritchard, reader Are you going down? That’s been obvious since we lost to Watford in November but the decline has been lengthy and this year’s Russian roulette gun had six bullets. The buck stops with the absent owner and his pitiful CEO, who have put in place a structure that simply doesn’t work, and then manned it with buffoons. That they’ve chosen poor managers and overseen a ridiculous player recruitment policy is hardly surprising. And nor is the on-pitch outcome: a team that, without serious investment, will struggle to survive next year in the Championship. Yet the CEO has the audacity/stupidity to suggest we’re building something special here, and the chairman charmingly refers to us as customers. The worst thing is that the people who are really passionate about the club, the fans, have had enough of their love being unrequited and it has turned to indifference via hate. We don’t want pity, I don’t think we’re any better or worse than any other set of supporters, but any club’s followers deserve better than this. Who has let you down? It’s easier and kinder to name those who haven’t. Ayew, Okore (maybe) and that’s about it. Is the manager to blame? Sherwood arguably deserved longer. Garde is a mute “oui” man who is now just protecting his CV by staying aloof and avoiding culpability. He’ll be gone soon. If the worst happens, would you bounce straight back? Yes, given £100m and a proper manager. What would you miss about the top flight? I’ll miss the feeling that each game actually matters, but I’m looking forward to some new grounds, some tackling and fewer half-and-half scarves. And the bottom three, in order? 18. Norwich; 19. Sunderland; 20. Villa.
The Miss USA hopeful sued by Trump: 'There are ways to stand your ground' Sheena Monnin saw beauty pageants as a way to fulfill her potential – she never imagined they’d be the gateway through which Donald Trump would try to destroy her life. Even now, she insists, the debacle has not made her anti-pageant, just anti-Trump. Monnin got her start as a teenager in 2002, when she was spotted at a mall in Orlando by a woman who worked in the pageant industry. At first she was surprised to be singled out for her looks given her modest height, but when she started watching the contests on television, she was seized by the pageants’ vision of beauty. “I remember walking up and down the living room and copying their poses,” she told the . “I always had the image of the ideal woman in my mind, and part of what helped me reach for that was my pageant education and acting like a lady.” Soon she was competing in pageants every year and, with the help of coaches, a careful diet, and a rigorous exercise routine, she could feel herself beginning to resemble the “lady” she envisioned. In a few years, she would be winning pageant titles, including Miss Pennsylvania, in 2012, at the age of 26. But it was competing in Trump’s Miss USA pageant the same year in Las Vegas that would alter the course of her young adult life. During that competition, according to Monnin, another contestant, Karina Brez of Florida, insisted to several women backstage mid-pageant that she already knew who the top five final contestants would be, and specifically, that she had seen the names of the pre-selected women listed in a notebook at the back of the stage. Though Monnin never saw such a notebook herself, when contestants Brez had predicted were later selected, Monnin came to the conclusion that the pageant was rigged. The Trump Organization denied allegations of favoritism and Brez later said what she had seen was a “rehearsal list” and that she was “joking”. Brez did not return the ’s requests for comment. But this year, Miss Universe judge Jeff Lee admitted in GQ that Trump – who from 1996 to 2015 owned or co-owned both Miss Universe and Miss USA – frequently had a say in which women made the final round. According to the story’s author, Burt Helm: “Lee will tell you that from 2005 until Donald Trump sold the Miss Universe pageant last year, the billionaire quietly handpicked as many as six semifinalists – ‘Trump cards’, they were called.” Helm said that lower-level beauty pageant picks were so often subject to “massaging” that this was considered an “open secret” among former contestants. If so, this “open secret” had not been shared with Monnin, and she resigned her Miss Pennsylvania crown in protest. But it wasn’t until she wrote a post on Facebook about the situation that things started getting out of hand. Monnin’s post was strongly worded and to the point. She wrote: I have decided to resign my position as Miss Pennsylvania USA 2012. Effective immediately I have voluntarily, completely, and utterly removed myself from the Miss Universe Organization. In good conscience I can no longer be affiliated in any way with an organization I consider to be fraudulent, lacking in morals, inconsistent, and in many ways trashy. I do not support this system in any way. In my heart I believe in honesty, fair play, a fair opportunity, and high moral integrity, none of which in my opinion are part of this pageant system any longer. Thank you all for your support and understanding as I walk a road I never dreamed I’d need to walk, as I take a stand I never dreamed I’d need to take. After 10 years of competing in a pageant system I once believed in, I now completely and irrevocably separate myself in every way and on every level from the Miss Universe Organization. I remove my support completely and have turned in the title of Miss Pennsylvania USA 2012. (In a separate letter of resignation to the pageant organizers, Monnin also cited the inclusion of transgender women in the contest that year as a reason for her returning her title. She told the that she had no problem with the inclusion of transgender contestants in pageants generally, but that she was upset that the rules had been changed in 2012 without notice. “The point I was trying to make – and I don’t think I made it well – is that they changed the contract and I don’t think that’s fair.”) Monnin’s aim in writing the Facebook post, she told the , was simply to explain her decision to friends. Back then her page was mostly set to private, she added, and she had just a few hundred Facebook friends. But Trump, having seen the post, did what he often does in the face of petty insults – he escalated the conflict exponentially. Specifically, he used his platform as a person in the public eye to cast aspersions on Monnin and impugn her reputation on national TV. Speaking on ABC’s Good Morning America the next day, Trump called Monnin’s claims “absolutely ridiculous” and her character worse. “She suffers from a thing called ‘loser’s remorse’,” he said. “She lost, and if you looked at her compared to people who were in the top 15, you would understand why she was not in the top 15.” Trump said his organization would be bringing a lawsuit against her, detailing his intentions in a second appearance on NBC’s Today. And when Monnin appeared on the same show days later to defend herself, Trump sued her for $10m for defamation. Trump has never been one to let an insult go. A decade ago, when a biographer estimated his net worth was much lower than he claimed, for instance, Trump sued the author, a New York Times business reporter, for $5bn. This election cycle, he has made the disproportionate deployment of force a point of pride, maybe even a credo, saying: “Anybody who hits me, we’re going to hit them 10 times harder.” There at least, Trump has been as good as his word – his sharp tongue typically starts the fights, but it is his lawyers who finish them. In 2012, Monnin was completely blindsided by the lawsuit. “There was no way I could have afforded to pay that off and frankly, he had to have known that,” she said of Trump’s $10m suit. “I was just a normal person.” At 27, she had no legal experience or connections, and had never seen anything approaching that kind of money. She was still paying off her degree from the online university she attended, and making strides to grow a small business. Unlike Trump, she did not come from privilege. Her family had to move every few years for her father’s business, work which took them to Florida, Texas, New York, Kentucky and the Carolinas before she was grown. Sometimes her parents would take in foster kids in the cities where they lived, but they never stayed anywhere long. The three years she spent battling Trump and his lawyers she recalls as the most traumatic period of her life. Family helped keep her feeling grounded and protected, she said, but there were still mornings when she didn’t want to get out of bed. “My focus was getting through each day and getting through what was going on around me and understanding my options,” she said of that period. “Every day seemed to bring a new legal document that I didn’t understand, that I had to seek legal counsel on.” As recently as last year, Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen bragged to the Daily Beast about the time he “destroy[ed]” Monnin’s life. Attempting to intimidate a Beast reporter, Cohen said: “Do you want to destroy your life? It’s going to be my privilege to serve it to you on a silver platter like I did that idiot from Pennsylvania in Miss USA.” Monnin rebuffs the notion her life was destroyed, but concedes Trump succeeded in the short term and not just with regard to making her feel small and afraid. “There was this message being sent out to all the contestants: you better not say anything bad about us. And that’s how the other young ladies felt.” It may have worked: not one of the women whom Monnin said sent supportive messages after Trump attacked her came forward to defend her in public, though one did anonymously defend her story to Fox News. It’s no secret that Trump is incredibly litigious. A recent investigation by USA Today tallied 3,500 lawsuits involving Trump. He gets sued quite a bit, but mostly he does the suing, filing 1,900 suits, including many – like the one against Monnin – for defamation. He has sued biographers, journalists, business partners, even an ex-wife and a Native American tribe, but he has threatened to sue even more. “Trump is a former schoolyard bully who was sent away to military school to learn proper behavior,” says biographer Harry Hurt III, author of Lost Tycoon: The Many Lives of Donald J Trump. “That schooling obviously failed. Trump has matured, if one can use that term, into a courthouse bully.” Another biographer, Michael D’Antonio, Pulitzer-winning author of Never Enough: Donald Trump and the Pursuit of Success, chose the same metaphor in describing the difficulty in getting sources – even people with every reason to hate Trump – to go on the record speaking against him: “It’s a strange bullying kind of process. Like how in the schoolyard, a lot of kids will go to the bully’s side of the conflict because they’re afraid of what might happen to them if they’re not in his favor.” That’s an all too familiar narrative to Monnin. “That is not a sign of a good leader if that’s how you’re going to treat someone who you don’t like,” she said. Interestingly and tellingly, Trump himself seems on at least one occasion to have conflated the terms “bullying” and “presidential”. When Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren prompted him to elaborate on what he meant by being more “presidential”, he began by saying, “It means maybe not be so aggressive, maybe not get so personal,” but quickly reverted to his favorite formula for leadership: “But you know what happens? What happens is they hit me and I hit them back harder, and usually in all cases, they do it first. But they hit me and I hit them back harder and they disappear. That’s what we want to lead the country.” Monnin lost large swaths of her late 20s, from 27 on, doing legal battle with Trump, or more accurately, trying ineffectually to navigate the maze of legalese he threw in her way. The lawyer she hired was so inadequately prepared he failed to appear at the arbitration hearing in November 2012 at which the fate of the case with Trump was decided – nor did he even tell her it was happening. Monnin only realized she had missed the chance to defend herself against the mogul the following month, when she received correspondence from her lawyer notifying her that the arbitration had gone forward without anyone present on her behalf. But by then it was too late for Monnin to mount her case. In December 2012, arbitrator Theodore Katz ordered Monnin pay the Trump organization $5m for defamation. Trump issued a self-congratulatory press release: “We cannot allow a disgruntled contestant to make false and reckless statements which are damaging to the many people who have devoted their hearts and souls to the Miss Universe, Miss USA and Miss Teen USA pageant systems,” he said. “While I feel very badly for Sheena, she did the wrong thing. She was really nasty, and we had no choice. It is an expensive lesson for her.” Monnin resolved to “fight” the ruling, but she no longer trusted her lawyer to do the job. In January 2013, her father, Philip Monnin, wrote a letter on her behalf to J Paul Oetken, the Manhattan federal judge who’d been asked to sign off on the arbitrator’s ruling, arguing that the hefty fee for damages was not “just”. But it did little good. In July 2013, Oetken upheld the arbitration decision. “The court does not take lightly that Monnin is compelled to pay what is a devastating monetary award,” Oetken wrote in his decision. “Moreover, Monnin undeniably is suffering from her poor choice of counsel ... [But] sympathy, or apparent inequity, may play no role in a court’s legal analysis, and here, the law is clear.” In his ruling, the judge even went so far as to acknowledge that her lawyer did not appear to be acting in her best interests. “Blindly, but perhaps understandably, Monnin put her trust in her attorney, believing that he would represent her interests,” Oetken wrote, adding, “Unfortunately, [he] chose to ignore the responsibilities owed to his client, along with the ethical duties governing his profession.” In fall 2013, Monnin hired a new lawyer and filed a suit against her former lawyer for malpractice. The details of the settlement of this suit are protected, but Monnin has said that the upshot meant she never had to pay Trump a dollar out of her own pocket. Now, at the age of 31, Monnin says she is able to see some silver linings in the experience. It’s not the same set of ideals she had in mind as a teenager when she watched the pageant girls deliver their lines – though she cherishes all she learned in that realm. It’s not even about the satisfaction of having spoken up about her convictions, despite real legal consequences, and pulled through. The experience taught her to empathize and connect with other victims of bullying, and crucially, to help them feel less alone. In June she published a self-help book, Hands on the Wheel: Getting Control of Your Life, which draws on her experience being bullied by Trump to help advise readers in dealing with bullies wherever they may find them. “I cover almost every topic imaginable, because I want people, no matter what their controlling factor looks like, to know there are ways to stand your ground and not stoop down to the bully’s level,” she said. “The advice I give is it’s not appropriate to cower down and give in to people who are using their strength in such a negative way.” The book aims to transcend the political election cycle in favor of the universal; Monnin only delves into her experience with Trump in the foreword. But as an outspoken supporter of Hillary Clinton, she is only too happy to help interpret what Trump’s shock-and-awe legal tactics could mean in an Oval Office setting: “If you have someone who goes after me, a normal person, when all I did was write something on Facebook that he disagreed with, then what would happen if you had a real grievance against him and you started speaking out?”
Racist incidents feared to be linked to Brexit result People have been reporting incidents of racism believed to be fuelled by the result of the EU referendum, including alleged racist graffiti and cards reading “no more Polish vermin” posted through letterboxes. Suspected racist graffiti was found on the front entrance of the Polish Social and Cultural Association (POSK) in Hammersmith, west London, early on Sunday morning. The Metropolitan police confirmed they had been called to the cultural centre on Sunday morning and were pursuing inquiries related to “allegedly racially motivated criminal damage”. Neither POSK nor the police would confirm the content of the message, which has since been washed off. The Polish ambassador to Britain urged politicians to condemn what had happened. Witold Sobków’s intervention came after a number of incidents involving graffiti targeting Polish nationals in the UK. Sobków, who said the issue would be discussed in talks on Monday, tweeted: The Polish embassy tweeted: Greg Hands, Conservative MP for Chelsea & Fulham, condemned the act on Twitter as “an unspeakable crime” and “indescribably awful”, adding: The incident comes as Cambridgeshire police are investigating reports of racist laminated cards being distributed in Huntingdon on Friday in the hours after the leave result was announced. According to reports from the Cambridge News, a number of cards saying “Leave the EU/No more Polish vermin” in both English and Polish were found outside St Peter’s school by teaching assistants and students, including an 11-year-old Polish child, who reported they made him feel “really sad”. Cards bearing the same message were posted around a number of properties, police confirmed. Sayeeda Warsi, the former chair of the Conservative party, has warned that since the referendum result was announced people were being stopped in the street and told to leave the country. “I’ve spent most of the weekend talking to organisations, individuals and activists who work in the area of race hate crime, who monitor hate crime, and they have shown some really disturbing early results from people being stopped in the street and saying look, we voted Leave, it’s time for you to leave,” Lady Warsi told Sky News. “And they are saying this to individuals and families who have been here for three, four, five generations. The atmosphere on the street is not good.” Warsi originally backed the leave campaign, but switched to support remain, calling the Leave campaign “divisive and xenophobic”. Labour MP Jess Phillips announced on Twitter that she would be putting in a parliamentary question to find out the numbers of reported instances of racial hatred in the UK in the weekend following the Brexit vote, compared with last week. In Gloucester, Max Fras said he was in a Tesco supermarket on Friday night with his young son when a white man became agitated in the queue for the checkout and began yelling: “This is England now, foreigners have 48 hours to fuck right off. Who is foreign here? Anyone foreign?” Fras said the man began quizzing people in the queue about where they were from. “He pointed at another gentleman in front of him and said: ‘Where are you from, are you Spanish? Are you Italian? Are you Romanian?’ And he said ‘No, I’m English’,” said Fras. Fras, a Polish consultant in European educational projects who lives in London, said he was concerned about what incidents like this might mean for those like him who have moved from the EU to Britain. Other reports of racist incidents believed to be fuelled by the Brexit result, were posted on social media, including one from Heaven Crawley, a research professor at Coventry University, about an incident allegedly witnessed by her daughter in Birmingham. “This evening my daughter left work in Birmingham and saw [a] group of lads corner a Muslim girl shouting ‘Get out, we voted leave’,” she posted on Twitter. Welsh businesswoman and remain campaigner Shazia Awan was told by Warren Faulkner to pack her bags and go home after she expressed disappointment in the leave result. Awan, who was born in the UK, tweeted a reply that in her view the “campaign was vile and racist” and had “ruined [the] country forever”. Earlier that day, Faulkner had celebrated the referendum result as a “major victory for the right wing, adding: “Oi Muslims pack your bags”. Many of the reports of incidents seem to show the mistaken belief that EU citizens living in the UK will be forced to leave the country as a result of the referendum result, with instances reported of a Polish woman being told to get off a bus and “get packing”, of a Polish man being told at an airport that he “shouldn’t still be here, that we had voted to be rid of people like him”, of a Polish coffee shop worker being jeered at and told “you’re going home now” and of Polish children at a primary school crying because they were scared of getting deported from Britain. Jamie Pohotsky tweeted: In a photograph published to Twitter, one man in Romford was shown wearing a T-shirt reading: “Yes! We won! Now send them back”. Channel 4 journalist Ciaran Jenkins said that while reporting from Barnsley on Friday in the hours after the referendum results were announced, he overheard three different people shout “send them home” in five minutes. A man wrote on Twitter that he had experienced two “racialised altercations” in the 10 hours after the referendum result, which he believed were connected to it. One alleged incident involved men chanting “Out, out, out” at Muslim women and in another he said a man at King’s Cross station “yells ‘Brexit’ in my south Asian friend’s face”. This article was amended on 27 June 2016. Earlier versions said Sayeeda Warsi warned that since the referendum result was announced immigrants were being stopped and told to leave the country. She was referring to people born in the UK who were descendants of immigrants, not immigrants themselves.
Oscars 2016: Charlotte Rampling says diversity row is 'racist to white people' Oscar nominee Charlotte Rampling has claimed the current campaign to boycott the 2016 Academy Awards over claims of a diversity deficit is racist to white people. Rampling, 69, is up for the best actress prize for her role in the British drama 45 Years, from director Andrew Haigh, where she will compete against Room’s Brie Larson, Carol’s Cate Blanchett, Joy’s Jennifer Lawrence and Brooklyn’s Saoirse Ronan. Asked for her take on the current furore over all-white lists of nominees on French Radio network Europe 1 on Friday morning, the British actor did not mince her words. “It is racist to whites,” she said. “One can never really know, but perhaps the black actors did not deserve to make the final list,” added Rampling. Asked if the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences should introduce quotas, a proposal which no current advocate of increased diversity has mooted, she responded: “Why classify people? These days everyone is more or less accepted ... People will always say: ‘Him, he’s less handsome’; ‘Him, he’s too black’; ‘He is too white’ ... someone will always be saying ‘You are too’ [this or that] ... But do we have to take from this that there should be lots of minorities everywhere?” When the interviewer explains that black members of the film industry feel like a minority, Rampling replies: “No comment.” Rampling’s stance on diversity stands in stark contrast to the position taken by a number of her fellow nominees. After last week’s announcement of an all-white list of Oscar nominees in acting categories for the second year running, both Larson and Mark Ruffalo, who is up for best supporting actor, spoke out on Thursday in support of efforts to improve opportunities for actors from black and ethnic minority communities in the film industry. Former Oscar winners and nominees such as George Clooney, Viola Davis, Reese Witherspoon and Whoopi Goldberg have also backed calls for change. Matt Mueller, editor of film industry trade magazine Screen International, said Rampling’s comments were unlikely to help her Oscars cause in the current environment. “Charlotte is the rank outsider in this category so I don’t think her Oscar chances were all that strong even before the French radio interview,” he said. “But certainly these comments aren’t going to help her cause. They will not go down well with American Oscar voters at all.” Others concurred. The response to Rampling’s comment on social media was swift. “MISSING: a set of marbles,” wrote the journalist and commentator Piers Morgan on Twitter. “If found, please return to Charlotte Rampling.” Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science president Cheryl Boone Isaacs has vowed to address the diversity issue, with the New York Times reporting that changes to the number of nominees in some categories and moves to prune older, less active voters could soon be brought in. Meanwhile, Jada Pinkett Smith, her husband Will Smith and the Oscar-winning director Spike Lee have all said they will not be attending next month’s ceremony in protest at the recurrence of an all-white list of acting nominees. Rampling, who began her career as a model in the swinging sixties before being discovered and cast in the 1966 drama Georgy Girl starring Lynn Redgrave, is known for her leading turns in Woody Allen’s Stardust Memories, Sidney Lumet’s The Verdict and Liliana Cavana’s The Night Porter. She has been nominated for France’s highest film awards, the Cesars, four times, twice for director François Ozon, in 2000 bereavement drama Under the Sand and 2003 erotic thriller The Swimming Pool - but has never before reached the final stage of the Oscars race. 45 Years, in which Rampling stars opposite the Oscar-nominated English actor Tom Courtenay, is the tale of a retired couple whose life together appears transformed forever when the husband is told by the Swiss authorities that the body of his long-lost girlfriend has been found, five decades after she slipped into an alpine crevasse. The film, hailed as a compelling drama of lost love and missed opportunity, won both actors Silver Bears at the 2015 Berlin film festival and remains in the running for the outstanding British film prize at next month’s Baftas. Speaking on the Today Show on Radio 4 on Friday, Rampling’s fellow sixties icon Michael Caine advised black actors to “be patient”, and said it had taken him “years to get an Oscar, years.” Added Caine, 82: “There’s loads of black actors. In the end you can’t vote for an actor because he’s black. You can’t say ‘I’m going to vote for him, he’s not very good, but he’s black, I’ll vote for him’,” said the star of The Italian Job and Get Carter. He continued: “You have to give a good performance and I’m sure people have. I saw Idris Elba [in Beasts Of No Nation] ... I thought he was wonderful.” • Comment: Ignore Rampling and Caine. It’s industry inertia that minorities need to fear
Bournemouth sign Liverpool winger Jordon Ibe for club record £15m Bournemouth have signed the Liverpool winger Jordon Ibe for a club-record transfer fee, understood to be £15 million. The 20-year-old has agreed a four-year contract with the Premier League club, whose previous record transfer outlay was for the striker Benik Afobe in January. Ibe agreed personal terms before completing a medical in England on Wednesday. Ibe will now fly out to meet his Bournemouth team-mates in the United States, on the club’s pre-season tour of Chicago and Minnesota. He could make his first appearance for the club against Minnesota United on Wednesday. Ibe signed a new long-term contract with Liverpool last May and scored in the club’s final game of the season at West Bromwich Albion last term. The lure of first-team football attracted Ibe, who made only 12 starts under Jürgen Klopp last season, into joining Bournemouth after the arrival of Southampton’s Sadio Mané at Anfield pushed him further down the pecking order. “We’re delighted to bring Jordon to the football club,” the Bournemouth chief executive, Neill Blake, told the club website. “We’ve now signed five players this summer, all of whom have an abundance of potential. It shows that we’re serious about nurturing talent at this football club and we have the long term in mind when we say we want to stay in the Premier League.” The winger will help fill the void left by Matt Ritchie, who departed for Newcastle at the start of July. Ibe, who can operate on both flanks, will provide competition for Junior Stanislas, Max Gradel, Marc Pugh and Ryan Fraser, who spent much of last season on loan at Ipswich Town. Ibe, who joined Liverpool as a 16-year-old from Wycombe Wanderers, becomes Eddie Howe’s fifth summer signing, following the arrivals of Lewis Cook, Lys Mousset, Emerson Hyndman and Nathan Aké. Wycombe are to set to profit from the deal themselves, owing to a sell-on clause inserted into the contract when Ibe left the club for Liverpool in 2011. “Wanderers are in dialogue with Liverpool and will seek to update supporters once full details have been established, adhering to confidentiality agreements within the terms of the transfer,” read a club statement on Thursday. Meanwhile, Bournemouth are interested in the Bolton Wanderers and England Under-21 defender Rob Holding, who also has admirers from other Premier League clubs, including Arsenal. The Queens Park Rangers defender Steven Caulker, Reading’s Jordan Obita and Tottenham’s Ryan Mason are also thought to be of interest.
Rio 2016: Adam Peaty's grandmother #OlympicNan celebrates win on Twitter When Adam Peaty triumphed in the 100m breaststroke, becoming the first British man to win a gold medal in the pool for a quarter of a century, most of Britain was asleep. But there was a light on in the Sheffield home of Mavis Williams, his 74-year-old grandmother, who was watching his winning swim in the early hours of Monday morning – and tweeting about it. Williams, whose Twitter handle is @Mavise42Mavis, has developed a following of more than 3,000 and has even spawned her own hashtag, #OlympicNan, since she joined the social media platform in April. With a Twitter biography that describes herself as “Proud Nan to a World Champion Breaststroker”, Williams has managed to capture attention by chronicling Peaty’s Olympic journey from a personal perspective. After he won the world record in the 100m breaststroke on Saturday, she couldn’t contain her glee, posting “What a race ooo I’m so proud,” and showing off some deft emoji use. Williams said she was introduced to Twitter by her daughter, Caroline, Adam’s mother. Her only goal was to get more followers than Caroline. “You don’t go out as much as you do when you were younger, now do you?” she told The Associated Press on Sunday. “It’s given me a new interest and kept my brain working.” Among her tweets is a picture of her at this year’s aquatics championships at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park next to some sort of mascot creature named Ray. There is a picture of her beloved Adam in his Olympic uniform. There’s even a thank you to the person who helped decorate her home in preparation for the games. “I’m ready for Rio now thanks to my kind window cleaner who put my bunting up,” she tweeted. Mostly, she’s so proud she’s bursting. She thinks her tweets help Adam and the team — just to let them know their fans are pulling for them from far away. But her chronicle is also a reminder that those behind the athletes are sometimes on as much of a journey as the competitors themselves. And no matter how many followers she gets, when her friendly competition with Caroline is over, she plans to send out a thank-you tweet to all the people who decided to follow her. They’ve taught her a lot, after all. “I think it’s nice to thank someone — even if it is just a tweet,” she said. Associated Press contributed to this report
YouTube stars rethink Top Gear and MOTD for the Facebook generation “We were used to sitting down on a Sunday night and watching three ageing men present a car show, but there wasn’t really a Top Gear for the Facebook generation, ” says Adnan Ebrahim. He didn’t put up with this state of affairs: he co-founded Car Throttle, an online community for young petrolheads, spawning a YouTube channel that now has nearly 1.2 million subscribers. Ebrahim is part of a mini-wave of British online video brands (BritVid brands, if you like) that are rethinking some of traditional TV’s big genres. Jamie Spafford is co-founder of SortedFood, which also combines a web community (and app) with a growing YouTube channel that has 1.6 million subscribers. James Kirkham, meanwhile, left ad agency Leo Burnett in February to join Bigballs Media as boss of its Copa90 football channel (1.2 million subscribers). These companies are far from the scale of a PewDiePie, with his 46 million plus subscribers, but they are all building businesses on YouTube – and beyond. “Five to six years ago, you could just do YouTube and that was all right,” says Spafford. “But now, with the development of other platforms, whether it’s Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter: they’re all getting into video, and you can’t stick just to YouTube. You have to be where the audience is, and the audience is everywhere.” The three channels may focus on different interests, but they share a desire to shun the cliches of their genres on broadcast TV in favour of a style that holds up a mirror to their youthful online audiences. “We’ve taken it completely away from a celebrity chef telling you ‘this is the exact way you cook a lasagne’. Actually, there are 2 million people around the world with different opinions on how to cook a lasagne, and no one’s right or wrong,” says Spafford. “The way football has been presented on TV has been the same, basically, back to the 1960s: a bunch of suits sat in a studio, pontificating about the game,” says Kirkham of Copa90, which has (unavoidably, given the costs) focused on fan culture rather than chasing match rights. “As soon as any of us starts ‘presenting’ to camera, we stop and say ‘what are you doing?’ You should be just talking to your mates,” says Spafford. All three channels are eagerly exploring platforms beyond YouTube: particularly Facebook – especially its recently launched Facebook Live tool for broadcasting live – and Snapchat. Kirkham compares the current digital ecosystem to the “nursery slopes” of traditional TV, where a comedy might start out as a radio show, then transfer to BBC3, BBC2 and then specials and live shows. For the likes of Copa90, SortedFood and Car Throttle, the equivalent is testing a new idea or talent in short-form videos on Snapchat or Instagram, before developing it for standalone shows on YouTube or live broadcasts on Facebook. “You can do a one-minute teaser and see how that performs, and then if it does really well, roll it into something bigger,” says Ebrahim. “You can allow talent to breathe in different places and accumulate audience,” adds Kirkham. These audiences are taking an almost developmental role with new talent and formats, which in the TV world would have been done by broadcasters. “It sounds cliched, but we’ve got 2 million commissioners,” says Spafford. Challenges in the area include reacting to changes in the recommendation algorithms of YouTube, Facebook and other services, which may without warning reduce the reach of certain kinds of videos or content. “With Facebook, my God, it changes every week. Midway through Euro 2016 the algorithm clearly altered massively in favour of Facebook Live – live video streaming,” says Kirkham. “In a year’s time, we’re going to be doing something different and none of us knows what that’s going to be, because we are beholden to the platforms where we are and where we make our money,” agrees Ebrahim. “It’s just part of doing business: the people who are quickest to move, and creative enough to take advantage of those changes, will always win.” Where are channels like Copa90, SortedFood and Car Throttle making their money? Mainly from brand partnerships. Ebrahim says that 80% of his company’s revenue is now branded content, while Spafford says “the large majority” of SortedFood’s comes from this source, despite its policy of refusing deals with food and drink brands. Despite their dislike for the TV cliches of their genres, all three channels see potential for partnerships with traditional broadcasters. Copa90 recently made a series called The Fans Daily for ITV during Euro 2016, with Kirkham praising it as a true co-branded deal. There are also opportunities emerging to pitch original shows to video-streaming services such as Netflix, as well as to explore some new frontiers for media distribution, like chatbots within messaging apps. “I’m big on messaging at the moment. I think that what’s going on in the far east with [messaging app] WeChat, where you donate to charity, order your Uber and pay for a pizza without even leaving your messaging ecosystem,” says Kirkham, “I think it is rapidly going to look a bit like that here.” Copa90 and Car Throttle have both experimented with chatbots for Facebook Messenger and Telegram respectively. “You’ve got to be where the audience is,” says Spafford. “If you know your audience is somewhere, you can put something up, tell people about it, and if it gains some traction, that’s when you start running with it.” “The world of media is changing so quickly, not just for us, but for the established legacy publishers,” says Ebrahim. “We have to take a lot of risks, with technologies like AI and VR coming up as well. Things are going to change so quickly, but so long as we’re agile, we will make sure that it works.”
Britney Spears – 10 of the best 1. Born to Make You Happy The title alone is uncomfortable to contemplate, and the song as a whole can only be described as a determined erasure of the autonomous self. Is the most disturbing line the one in which Britney apologises to her absent ex for crying over the split? Like most of her real relationships, this one doesn’t seem as if it was ever that healthy. Forget the idea that Britney’s job was to set any sort of example; calls for pop stars to be role models, especially in their music, are moralistic cant. Born to Make You Happy is horrifying as text and irresistible as pop, and the two are inextricable. The sugar-sweet melody – unlike her other early singles, this one required no modern production tricks – and that magnificent key change pull you in despite the horror; the song invites you to willingly, ecstatically, be swept into its darkness. The horror is not only that a sweetly smiling teenager is giving voice to disturbing emotions, but that this penchant for self-degradation and co-dependency is within us as well: she’s tapped into it and forced us to enjoy it. 2. Stronger Of Britney’s first five Max Martin-produced singles, four are variations on a theme sonically and lyrically, and form a narrative. If Britney begins in a position of powerlessness, so in thrall to her emotions that she sings about craving love as though she’s begging for her life on … Baby One More Time, this swiftly gives way to a giddy mania on (You Drive Me) Crazy. It’s unclear whether she ever got the boy, but she’s by no means prostrate. Full liberation from romantic myths came on her second album, Oops! … I Did It Again, with the title track’s sarcastic rejection of the ultimate 90s fairytale, Titanic, when Britney isn’t at all bothered about her lover rescuing the necklace dropped into the sea in the film. It was exorcised completely on Stronger, with its callback to Britney’s debut. “My loneliness ain’t killing me no more,” she declared, and – as it would so many times over her career – freedom from dysfunctional emotion meant going deeper into the machine. Martin’s formula for these singles is instantly familiar – the hard-edged crunch of his heavy-metal background recalibrated for pneumatic, kinetic pop beats. But each is harder-edged than its predecessor, as though Martin was testing to see how abrasive he could make pop radio: (You Drive Me) Crazy throws ringing percussion into the mix, Oops! pounds where … Baby One More Time pouted. Stronger is the toughest of the four. The three-note … Baby intro has morphed into a gnarly industrial stab of sound; the song gives way to a jacked-up Jam & Lewis breakdown; and for the first but by no means last time, Britney embraces the inhuman qualities of her strange, hiccupping voice with vocals distorted and ground up against the beat. 3. Anticipating With Britney’s third album came a move into grownup territory that was heavily telegraphed but no less effective, as she was paired with the Neptunes production team in their prime. The lead single, I’m a Slave 4 U, was one of the most radical sonic statements in the chart at a time – autumn 2001 – when sonic radicalism could score well on the charts. Counterintuitively, one of the best songs on its parent album turned out to be one of the fluffiest, complexity-free tracks of her career. Uncomplicated joy has rarely been a hallmark of Britney’s discography, but Anticipating nails it. There’s some guy Britney’s beckoning over, but the core of her pleasure is the DJ’s sound and the song he’s playing. With those swooping, gliding disco strings – check the momentary weightlessness at the start of the second verse, when they cradle Britney’s voice when everything else drops out – who could blame her? Points, too, for bridging Britney to French house, courtesy of the gem that is the Alan Braxe remix. 4. Before the Goodbye Some of the best pop captures a feeling that lasts a fraction of a second and stretches it out over three minutes. Before the Goodbye, a collaboration with 90s trance producer BT which was initially – inexplicably – only released on the Japanese edition of Britney’s third album, zeroes in on the momentary foreshadowing of loneliness and loss that flits across the mind despite the comforting presence of a lover. It’s a brief feeling, a passing shadow, but Britney mines every aspect of it: the donning of emotional armour, the defensive pre-emptive apology, the fear of the impotency of loneliness. The beat stutters, stumbles and doesn’t quite explode in the first chorus; we’re almost halfway through before a pounding house rhythm emerges. It’s a room with many doors, from uncertainty to release, and one of the best framings of Britney’s voice to date. 5. Everytime One of Britney’s oddest curveballs was following the gleaming banger Toxic, a song that resurrected her ailing career, with its polar opposite. Everytime is a small, lost piano ballad that fed into the tabloid drama of Britney and her ex, Justin Timberlake (it played out as a response to Timberlake’s magnificent Cry Me a River, released the previous year). Its video all but depicted the singer killing herself in a bathtub (implying also that the paparazzi are as much to blame as her breakup). Its fragility is disarming. Despite its sparseness, Everytime still has production tricks up its sleeve (courtesy of Björk collaborator Guy Sigsworth): strange clicks and swells, burbling beneath the piano line, create a womb-like atmosphere. It’s a rare pop hit that seizes attention by shrinking further away. 6. Breathe on Me Britney could never be described as a virtuoso vocalist, but her voice isn’t a limitation so much as an oddity. It’s doubtless one of the most distinctive, immediately recognisable sounds in the past two decades of pop, even if it has often sounded more robotic than human. It has also clearly been a producer’s dream in its elasticity – but while many have found the most mileage in highlighting its alien qualities through distortion, Breathe on Me is a rare example of a producer (the otherwise unknown Mark Taylor) drawing out its latent beauty. Britney’s breathiness might not be technically good singing, but paired here with a burbling house track, it’s as sensual as she’s ever been. The wordless exhalation that rises out of the whispered bridge is simply gorgeous. 7. Piece of Me “Do you want a piece of me?” snarls Britney, as though she’s simultaneously coming on to her audience, wearily resigning herself to what the public wants of her and squaring up for a fight. The 2007 album Blackout is her masterpiece, a defiant statement of self that was released at the singer’s most public nadir. The year leading up to the album had seen Britney shave her head, physically attack paparazzi and lose custody of her children. Three months after its release, worldwide audiences gawped in real time as she was stretchered from her house to the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, sectioned and placed under the conservatorship of her father – a setup that is still ongoing nearly a decade later. The production and songwriting personnel on Blackout, from Bloodshy & Avant to Danja to Keri Hilson, seemed to take Britney’s public persona as a muse of sorts. Astounding production – abrasive, distorted, fragmented, pitch-shifted – combines with lyrics that veer from meta commentary to giving-the-finger hedonism. The result is to capture the character of a woman on the edge of her sanity. But Blackout is not a tragedy; it’s the culmination of the story Britney started telling seven years earlier on Lucky. If that poignant-in-retrospect single was a hand reaching for help through the fourth wall, then Blackout – and particularly Piece of Me, probably its most representative cut – is a fist punching through it. “I’m Mrs Most Likely to Get on TV for Stripping on the Streets,” Britney offers, over degraded bass, chicken squawks and finally a carefree whistle breakdown. Her head was a mess in 2007, but her message on Blackout was clear: this is what we did to her. 8. Hot As Ice Blackout overflows with ridiculous aural confections, but Hot As Ice might be the strangest. It’s a hallucinatory dance through a demented fairground of manically grinning ooh-aah-aah backing vocals that segue seamlessly into skewed gospel chants. Synth organs oscillate as Britney conveys the physical state of being unable to properly regulate your body temperature when under the influence. 9. Till the World Ends Britney rarely gets the credit for introducing dubstep to mainstream American pop with the wobble bass of 2007’s Freakshow. So her embrace of its EDMed-up iteration brostep on 2011’s Femme Fatale was less about trend-jacking and more about picking up where she left off. Post-Blackout, Britney has occupied a strange, nostalgic place in pop culture. Her ultra-manufactured style of pop stardom feels anachronistic in an era when fans demand at least a facade of authenticity from their artists, and it’s arguable that this is a reaction to seeing what the industry did to stars like Britney in the first place. As for Britney, simply hearing her sounding blithe is always a relief, even when she’s yearning for apocalypse. Till the World Ends was part of a mini-wave of memento mori club songs around this time that conflated the certainty of approaching death with the necessity of partying hard (think also Pitbull’s Give Me Everything and Nicki Minaj’s Starships). Even better is the Femme Fatale remix – sadly not on Spotify – on which Britney is so thoroughly streamlined into the song’s gleaming bass that it’s up to Ke$ha and Minaj to ramp up the hedonism. They’re both at their most wilfully obnoxious: Ke$ha leans even further into her then trademark Auto-Tune with a vocal that comes as close to capturing the spirit of vomiting into a club toilet as any; Minaj shrieks about poultry and mimes sniffing coke, but most satisfyingly becomes the first rapper to rhyme “Britney” with “pickney” since Dizzee Rascal eight years previously on Seems 2 Be. Partying is a messy business, but at least if there’s an apocalypse you won’t need to clean up. 10. Work B**ch “Call me the bubb-lah!” So much of Britney’s material is lent extra meaning simply by being refracted through her own narrative, and Work B**ch is a prime example. On the one hand, it’s a very silly RuPaul-goes-EDM banger that’s at its most functional in the gym. But it’s impossible to hear her exhortations to labour as separate from the system that created Britney Spears, the wealthy celebrity, the cautionary tale, the woman with a tortured relationship to autonomy. “You wanna live fancy? Live in a big mansion? Party in France? You better work, bitch,” she snaps, dishing out capitalist advice from the inside. But Britney is simultaneously the star, the product and the victim of this brutal credo, and if there’s a whip being cracked, it’s the one that’s been on her back for 17 years. One thing Work B**ch isn’t: an office soundtrack. How to subvert a capitalist ethos that seems all-encompassing? Transform it into a club anthem, to be played somewhere where the only work happening is the dancing variety.
Rolling Stones on Bob Dylan's Nobel prize – 'He thought he had done something pretty good' For all his public diffidence about winning the Nobel prize in literature – he was criticised for being “impolite and arrogant” by a member of the Swedish Academy for not returning its calls – Bob Dylan really was pleased to get the award. The Rolling Stones played the Desert Trip festival in California with Dylan the weekend after he was awarded the Nobel prize, and told the he had seemed happy, but sheepish about it. “He kept calling me Sir Ronnie,” Ronnie Wood said, in part of a Rolling Stones interview that will appear in this week’s G2 Film&Music, “and when Charlie walked in he said, ‘And Sir Charlie, too! Everyone from England is a sir, right?’ We said, ‘Yeah Bob, but it’s not like … it’s really good about your Nobel prize.’ And he went, ‘You think so? It’s good, huh?’ And we said, ‘You deserve it.’ And he said, ‘That’s great – thanks.’ “He didn’t really know how to accept it, but he thought he had done something pretty good,” said Wood. Late in October, Dylan finally broke his silence when he called Sara Danius, the permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, and said: “I appreciate the honour so much. The news about the Nobel prize left me speechless.” He also told the Daily Telegraph he would attend the Nobel ceremony “if at all possible”. It turned out not to be. In November, Dylan’s management wrote to the academy saying “he wishes he could receive the prize personally, but other commitments make it unfortunately impossible”. Dylan’s arms-length attitude towards the prize was evident again last Thursday, when he did not attend President Barack Obama’s reception at the White House for this year’s US Nobel prize winners. White House spokesman Josh Earnest said at the Wednesday press briefing: “Unfortunately, for those of you wondering, Bob Dylan will not be at the White House today, so everybody can relax.” Earnest said Dylan didn’t give a reason, but he noted that Dylan and the president had met previously and “the president enjoyed meeting him”. This report contains copy from the Associated Press
RBS pays chief executive Ross McEwan £3.8m as it reports £2bn loss Royal Bank of Scotland has defended a £3.8m pay deal for its chief executive after reporting a £2bn annual loss and falling into the red for the eighth consecutive year. Shares in the bank slumped as RBS dampened expectations that it will start returning cash to shareholders as soon as the beginning of next year. The shares closed down 7% at 226.6p, below the 502p at which taxpayers break even on their 73% stake. The pay packet for RBS boss Ross McEwan was the highest for a chief executive of the bank since its 2008 bailout, with 121 employees also receiving more than €1m (£790,000) during the year. The chairman, Sir Howard Davies, said the doubling in pay for McEwan – a New Zealander who took the helm two years ago – was “appropriate and justified”, and pointed out that his peers were earning more. However, the results for 2015 pushed the bank’s losses since the bailout to £50bn, more than the £45bn pumped in by taxpayers during its bailout. McEwan also warned of a “noisy” year to come in which the bank faces a multimillion pound penalty for the sale of mortgage bonds in the US in the run-up to the financial crisis, and another £1bn of costs to restructure the bank. Its annual report also warned of the increased “economic and operational uncertainty” from the forthcoming referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union. “The result may also give rise to further political uncertainty regarding Scottish independence. RBS actively monitors, and considers responses to, varying EU referendum outcomes to ensure that it is well prepared for all eventualities,” said the Edinburgh-based bank. Davies said the bank would be able to survive any economic downturn that followed Brexit and said the board had not been under any influence from the government in forming its view. The senior executives at the bank, including McEwan, do not receive annual bonuses, in an attempt to defuse the rows over pay that have characterised RBS since its bailout. Other employees do, however, and that bonus pool was down 11% to £373m. McEwan’s pay included £1m of the allowances that have been put in place in the wake of an EU bonus cap, although he will give half of that to charity after acknowledging the bank still had more work to do. The bank also disclosed a £2.1m payment to Stephen Hester, his predecessor who was forced out in 2013, from long-term pay schemes. The annual losses were caused by £2.9bn of restructuring charges and £3.5bn of litigation and conduct costs. This included £334m relating to investigations into foreign exchange rigging, £157m for packaged bank accounts and £2.1bn related to mortgage bonds in the US. Laith Khalaf, senior analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said RBS was the Jekyll and Hyde of the UK banking sector. “On the one hand the bank is downsizing, de-risking and cost-cutting, while at the same time conduct charges are playing havoc with overall profitability,” he said. McEwan also set a new target to save £800m in 2016 that could result in some job cuts. In legal warnings it outlined a string of potential worries, including an ongoing court case from investors who backed a cash call before its 2008 taxpayer bailout, court cases in the US involving Libor-rigging, cases accusing the bank of funding terrorists and the risk of court cases from business customers sold interest rate swaps. It also disclosed it would be writing to customers later this year to establish if they had been mis-sold pension and insurance products. The fall in the shares took place after the bank admitted that its attempts to start making dividend payments to shareholders had been pushed back from the first quarter of 2017. This is because it needs to spin off 300 branches under the Williams & Glyn brand – a sale mandated by the EU following its bailout – and settle the US cases over the sales of mortgage bonds. Even so, the bank is paying back the so-called dividend access share it sold to the government during the crisis, which prevented any shareholders receiving dividends before the government. This will cost more than £1bn to repay this year. While the figures appeared to make it more difficult for the chancellor, George Osborne, to sell off the remaining stake in the bank, Davies said: “I do believe there is, at the core of this, a good profitable bank.” He said that while it was impossible to know if the government would get all its money back, it “will get quite a lot back”. Lloyds Banking Group shares continued to rise – after its promise on Thursday of bigger returns for shareholders – to close the week at 72.1p, just below the 73.6p breakeven point for taxpayers.
Acupuncture for low back pain no longer recommended for NHS patients Acupuncture is no longer recommended as a treatment for low back pain on the NHS, according to new draft guidelines released today by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice). The u-turn comes after a review of scientific evidence found that the practice was no better than a placebo in treating those living with low back pain and sciatica. The draft guidelines report that there have now been a large number of scientific trials looking into the effectiveness of acupuncture but that, “there was still not compelling and consistent evidence of a treatment-specific effect for acupuncture.” Low back pain is thought affect one in 10 people, while its cost to the UK economy is estimated to exceed £12 billion a year in lost productivity. Nice guidelines from 2009 on the early management of low back pain recommended that healthcare providers “consider offering a course of acupuncture needling comprising up to a maximum of 10 sessions over a period of up to 12 weeks.” But the new draft guidelines, now covering sciatica as well as low back pain, contain an unequivocal volte-face, stating: “Do not offer acupuncture for managing non-specific low back pain with or without sciatica.” Professor Mark Baker, clinical practice director for Nice, said: “Regrettably, there is a lack of convincing evidence of effectiveness for some widely used treatments. For example, acupuncture is no longer recommended for managing low back pain with or without sciatica. This is because there is not enough evidence to show that it is more effective than sham treatment.” Edzard Ernst, emeritus professor of complementary medicine at the Peninsula School of Medicine, University of Exeter, welcomed the new guidelines. “The previous Nice guidelines for low back pain were seriously out of touch with the reliable evidence. What is worse, they were used by alternative therapists to justify unproven practice,” he said. “ It is good to see that Nice have now caught up with the evidence. Neither spinal manipulation nor acupuncture are supported by good science when it comes to treating low back pain.” After examining a large number of studies, including 30 randomised control trials that looked at the use of acupuncture without any other treatment, the authors of the draft guidelines concluded that although acupuncture could appear to be effective, the evidence overall demonstrated that it was no better than a placebo. “Although comparison of acupuncture with usual care demonstrated improvements in pain, function and quality of life in the short term, comparison with sham acupuncture showed no consistent clinically important effect.” They also emphasise the use of tailored exercise for treating low back pain and sciatica, adding that psychological therapies and massage should only be used alongside exercise. The draft guidelines also reveal that paracetamol is no longer recommended as “the first medical option” and should not be used on its own. Instead, they advise that non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs such as aspirin and ibuprofen should be considered. Codeine and other weak opioids are only recommend in acute cases and only if other anti-inflammatories cannot be taken or if they are not found to help. Electrotherapies such as ultrasound remain on the list of procedures to be avoided. “I have to be disappointed because I think acupuncture is a useful technique that we should be using as much as possible,” said Dr Mike Cummings, medical director of the British Medical Acupuncture Society. “It’s unfortunate that the methods used on this occasion have led to a negative recommendation.” He believes there are problems with the way the studies were assessed. “It is partly to do with the decision to put the biggest emphasis on the difference over sham,” he said. “That is a problem for all physical therapies because physical therapy shams tend to be active - because you have to touch patients.” Open for consultation until 5 May, the final version of the guidelines is expected to be published in September. This article was updated on 24 March to include a response from the British Medical Acupuncture Society
Jamie T: Trick review – out with sad-boy indie, in with street-poet singalongs Pop might love a reinvention, but it was hard to get excited by the one attempted by Jamie Treays, AKA Jamie T, on 2014’s Carry on the Grudge. Gone were the gobby street-poet pronouncements of his first two, well received albums, replaced by something closer to introspective sad boy indie. Treays described that shift in style as “like tying my hand behind my back and trying to write with my left hand”, and at times it certainly felt like the work of an artist holding something back. Trick, Treays’ fourth album, doesn’t entirely abandon his recent direction – string-laden album closer Self Esteem, for example, is as downbeat as anything attempted on Grudge – but it does reconcile it with the chipper tone and sense of musical adventure of his early work. Abrasive grime baselines (Tin Foil Boy) bounce against chirpy punk singalongs (Tescoland). As ever, so much depends on your tolerance for Treays’ desire to make “big statements” – the noise assault of Drone Strike feels a little too on-point – but this at least feels like Jamie T is being himself again.
Diego Costa sends Chelsea soaring at Palace with 11th straight league win There is simply no stopping Chelsea. Antonio Conte’s side equalled a club record here, muscling their way to an 11th win in succession to establish a nine-point advantage to hold overnight and leave the chasing pack struggling to spy them at the summit. They had already proved they can dazzle on this run. This derby demanded more brawn, but the outcome was still the same. They are steeled by an air of invincibility at present. Alan Pardew, head bowed almost in resignation as he trudged down the touchline at the final whistle, will have taken no pleasure in being proved right with his pre-match assessment that these opponents can appear unbeatable. Here they proved impenetrable. What was impressive was the visitors’ ability to scrap for the points, beating the hosts at their own game while forever retaining that lively threat on the counterattack and feverishly suffocating Palace’s attempts at revival. The home side have been prolific this season, with only four teams having scored more, but they were blunted virtually throughout. That included the final exchanges, when Palace might normally have expected to whip up frenzied late pressure in pursuit of parity only for the leaders to hold them at arm’s length. That sequence of victories has included nine clean sheets. The rest of the division may have forgotten how to defend, but Chelsea under Conte continue to prove it is an art form. “Starting this season, I said the manager must be a tailor and try and find the right fit for the team,” he said, resisting the temptation to name the club’s “fashion partners” in his metaphor. “For sure, it wasn’t easy for me to arrive here and understand very quickly the characteristics of my players. I needed a bit of time. “I tried a different solution before changing the formation, but the most important thing is the mentality, our strong mentality. That and hard work during the week: tactical work, physical work, analysis work, diet ... we touched different aspects to try and improve. “You can bring your idea of football with you, but if you don’t have players who follow you it doesn’t matter.” His players needed some convincing at first but have now bought into his methods, convinced as soon as the defence was tightened up and the results began to flow. There are no doubters in the ranks these days. Bournemouth on Boxing Day will provide their own test now that Diego Costa and N’Golo Kanté have succumbed to their fifth cautions of term to grant them Christmas off. They have been integral to this team’s sprint clear of the pack and will be missed. Kanté was as busy as ever in central midfield, denying Palace time to settle, and it was Costa who secured the points. There was a simplicity to his 50th goal for Chelsea that rather damned the home side’s attempt at defence. Eden Hazard had retreated into midfield in possession before urging the outstanding César Azpilicueta up from centre-half duties on the opposite flank. The Spaniard ambled forward untracked and lofted a centre towards the far post where Costa, finding space away from Scott Dann and Martin Kelly, was permitted a free header that he eased over Wayne Hennessey. The goalkeeper was poorly positioned, caught between a desire to intercept the cross or defend his line. The concession felt soft. “We didn’t get enough pressure on the centre-half, but then again you don’t expect him to the centre-forward with a pass of that quality” said Pardew. “Azpilicueta’s was the perfect pass. But my team tried everything. We threw everything we could at them, but they were just too good defensively for us.” Jason Puncheon and James McArthur missed the home side’s best opportunities, but the more presentable opportunities were passed up by the visitors on the break. Hennessey did well to deny Kanté and Marcos Alonso, with the Spaniard curling a late free-kick on to the underside of the crossbar. The margin of their victory probably should have been greater. That left Palace deflated as they contemplated an eighth defeat in 10 league games and a 22nd of the calendar year. Pardew knows his position is under scrutiny, but if the board are unlikely to act after successive narrow home defeats to Manchester United and Chelsea this team cannot contemplate succumbing at Vicarage Road on Boxing Day. Or, even more critically, at home to Swansea City in the new year. “The positives are there for everyone to see,” said Dann. “We came up against a top team, a side who are top of the league, and we deserved to get something out of the game. We showed togetherness and commitment and if we continue that we will start picking up points.” That needs to happen sooner rather than later or Pardew, with Sam Allardyce waiting in the wings, will find his time is up. Palace have had a wretched 12 months. Chelsea’s, in contrast, has been an untouchable 11 matches. The Premier League record of 14 is looming ever larger and could be equalled at White Hart Lane next month. At present, nothing seems beyond this side.
Rubio spokesman urges Ohioans to stop Trump by voting for Kasich A top spokesman for Marco Rubio urged the Florida senator’s supporters in Ohio to vote for John Kasich in their state’s upcoming primary. In an appearance on CNN, Alex Conant, the communications director for Rubio, said “If you are a Republican primary voter in Ohio and you want to defeat Donald Trump, your best chance in Ohio is John Kasich.” Ohio has a winner-take-all primary and polls in the state show Kasich and Trump neck and neck while Rubio is mired in the single digits. The Kasich campaign, though, was not willing to return the favor. A campaign spokesman told the Associated Press, “We were going to win in Ohio without his help, just as he’s going to lose in Florida without ours.” The outright plea for tactical voting is deeply unusual in American politics and speaks to the desperation of those opposed to Donald Trump to deny him the 1,237 delegates needed to obtain the Republican nomination. Many in the GOP are now actively hoping for a contested convention as their last best chance to prevent Trump being the Republican standard bearer in November. However, addressing reporters at a press conference in a Florida synagogue, Rubio declined to explicitly say that Ohio voters should cast their ballots for Kasich. When asked about his spokesman’s comments, Rubio said: “If an Ohio voter is motivated by stopping Donald Trump and comes to the conclusion John Kasich is the only one who can beat him there, then I expect that’s the decision they’ll make.” “Clearly John Kasich has a better chance of winning Ohio than I do, and if a voter concludes that voting for John Kasich gives them the best chance of stopping Donald Trump there, I anticipate that’s what they’ll do.” The senator, who said he had not spoken with Kasich on the subject, added that he was the only contender who could defeat Trump in Florida and reiterated the message he has taken to voters in recent days who may be weighing an alternative. “I’m telling people in Florida the truth: a vote for Ted Cruz or a vote for John Kasich in Florida is a vote for Donald Trump,” he said. “If you want to stop Donald Trump in Florida, any vote but a vote for me is a vote for Donald Trump.” Rubio has staked his entire presidential campaign on his ability to win his home state’s winner-take-all primary. Currently, he trails Trump in polls of the Sunshine State by double-digit margins. Pressed again later on whether he was urging Ohioans to vote for Kasich or simply anticipating that they would, Rubio again demurred. “I’ll leave it to John to make that argument,” he said. “I suspect that a voter in Ohio that doesn’t want Donald Trump to win Ohio may very well conclude that the best way to stop him in Ohio is to vote for John Kasich and I respect that.” Chris Schrimpf, a spokesman for the Kasich campaign, said his camp agreed with the Rubio’s, “that the best chance to beat Donald Trump in Ohio is by voting for John Kasich, and in that spirit, Senator Rubio should immediately tell his Super Pac to stop attacking the governor.”
UK house price growth slows as demand cools after Brexit vote Growth in UK house prices slowed in September as demand for homes softened, according to the latest snapshot of the market from Nationwide. Average house prices increased by 0.3% this month to £206,015, following a 0.6% rise in August. It brought the annual pace of growth down to 5.3% in September from 5.6% a month earlier. The figures are the latest evidence that the Brexit vote in June has so far failed to trigger the collapse in consumer confidence feared by many. In the run-up to the referendum, remain backers including the head of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde, said a vote to leave the EU could lead to a crash in house prices. Robert Gardner, Nationwide’s chief economist, said: “The relative stability in the rate of house price growth suggests that the softening in housing demand evident in recent months has been broadly matched on the supply side of the market. “While new buyer enquiries have remained fairly subdued, the number of homes on the market has remained close to all-time lows, in part due to low rates of construction activity.” On a regional basis, house price growth was strongest in the London commuter belt, with annual prices up 9.6% in the third quarter. The market was weakest in Wales over the period, with prices down 0.5%. Gardner said that while new home building was rising, the rate of growth was too slow to meet the needs of a swelling population. “The major housebuilders appear to have capacity to expand output, with most reporting land banks that could support around five years’ worth of construction at current rates of building activity. However, there is a risk that the uncertain economic outlook may weigh on activity in the period ahead.”
Disco Biscuits and Annihilation: why I can't keep up with names for legal highs I have developed a serious problem with understanding drug names. Not the ones I prescribe, though they can be hard enough, but the ones my patients claim to be taking. When I first started working in the field of substance misuse, more than a decade ago, life was relatively easy. We dealt in alcohol, opioids and benzodiazepines, with occasional forays into stimulants. Street names could be a bit of a challenge, but I quickly found it was easiest to put away my copy of Trainspotting and just ask the patient. In fact, admitting ignorance usually stimulates the sharing of interesting and educational information over and above the easily acquired basics about smack and blues. Now I know my opioids pretty well, and I’m quite comfortable with a wide range of alcoholic beverages. But recently things have become a lot more complicated, largely due to the advent of a pernicious collection of chemicals known as novel psychoactive substances. This description is entirely useless when asking someone about their history of drug use. The alternative name, legal highs, is more likely to yield useful results but covers a multitude of sins. The term is also rendered somewhat meaningless once a drug is proclaimed illegal, as happened recently to a local favourite known as Burst. Designer drugs? Bath salts? Synthetic cathinones? There’s a very interesting report about club drugs by the psychiatrist Dr Owen Bowden-Jones, which acknowledges some of the difficulties around nomenclature, and has the advantage of including those on either side of the legal divide. Yet the term “club drugs” is misleading too, because consumption of them is certainly not confined to clubs. We are being encouraged to use the term NPS, a snappy abbreviation, and, for the sake of clarity, I am sticking to it . Having somehow established the use of NPSs, the next hurdle is to find out which of the literally countless substances available the patient thinks they’ve consumed. I say “thinks” because what’s written on the colourful packaging isn’t always what’s contained within, adding to the risks involved. The names themselves are like something out of a bad sci-fi movie – you couldn’t make them up. Think Dungeons and Dragons crossed with Breaking Bad. I can’t help imagining both the drugs and the names are being dreamed up by someone in a cavern, with bubbling test tubes and lots of badly chalked symbols. This little fantasy is probably exactly what the names supposed to achieve, through their clever marketing. There is a sordid glamour about names like Annihilation, Dust Till Dawn, Exodus, Clockwork Orange, Fury and Fusion. Others have a cheery ring – Jumping Beans, Disco Biscuits and, of course, Spice. The packaging is usually gaudy; it’s hard to believe that such crass looking products could be dangerous. You could imagine school children exchanging them in the playground. This, combined with their oddly legal (or just not illegal yet) status, can lull the curious into a false sense of security. However, users should beware. These drugs are very cleverly manipulated to mimic the effects of well-established illegal substances, such as cocaine, amphetamines, psychedelics and cannabis. They are not regulated, and are commonly sold as bath salts or plant food, with the advice – or barefaced lie, really – that they are “not meant for human consumption”. And, like their illegal counterparts, they can cause great damage to mental and physical health. For example, Burst, also known as ethylphenidate, has precipitated outbreaks of aggressive and psychotic behaviour in users. It is also being injected, which carries the consequent risk of infection with hepatitis C or HIV, or necrotizing fasciitis (more sensationally known as flesh-eating syndrome). Burst, and some of its equally unpleasant relations have recently been temporarily banned. Which you’d think would be a good thing, were it not for all the busily whirring chemistry sets almost certainly churning out slightly altered, and therefore not illegal, replacements. It’s all rather depressing. By the time any permanent ban is imposed, Burst and its consequences will have melted from our minds because we’ll be dealing with a new alternative. Literally within hours of the temporary ban we were told to look out for use of MPA, an alternative legal high – ironically known as Mind Melt. Perhaps there has always been a tawdry glamour about drug use, reflected in what they are called.. Much of life is humdrum and unexciting, and people have sought escape and excitement in mind-altering drugs for millennia. But these new drugs are too brightly coloured and too available, and there are simply too many of them. They are misleading, in that being legal makes themseem safe, and their names promise escape and fantasy, that is, at best, illusion. Many describe their use as unpredictable and often unpleasant, and for a small, but growing, number it ends in tragedy. If you would like to write a blogpost for Views from the NHS frontline, read our guidelines and get in touch by emailing healthcare@theguardian.com. Join the Healthcare Professionals Network to read more pieces like this. And follow us on Twitter (@GdnHealthcare) to keep up with the latest healthcare news and views.
Why financial security should be addressed in the first presidential debate This election season is enough to drive a normal voter – by which I mean anyone in search of substantive debate on real issues – to the brink of insanity. And the losers are us. With the very real possibility that we are heading towards another financial crisis, all we are discussing is whether Hillary Clinton had a body double after the her fainting episode. Or the latest outrage from Donald Trump, or his kids. It’s idiocy ad nauseam. With the two main candidates finally set to meet face-to-face for the first televised debate tomorrow, you’d be forgiven for hoping that might be finally about to change. I wish I shared that confidence. I do believe that both Clinton and Trump will engage in a free-for-all in an effort to show just how tough they’ll be when it comes to homeland security. That’s probably inevitable, given that the debate will take place only about 10 days after a bomb exploded in a dumpster on West 23rd Street in Manhattan, injuring 29 people. Clearly, it’s important for the two candidates to spell out their views on national security issues. Hopefully this can be accomplished with a minimum of melodrama and a maximum of substantive dialogue. What worries me is that there’s one aspect of national security that no one has mentioned, that no one will mention, and that neither of the two major candidates is even thinking about. What am I talking about? The risk that we could be heading for another financial crisis – one that might make the events of 2008 look like a walk in the park. And that kind of event – the prospect that the banking system will collapse, leaving us without access to our savings, and with no way to pay our bills or collect our paychecks – is just as much of a threat as the more conventional perils that spring to mind when I use the phrase “national security”. Let’s be clear: statistically it’s much more likely that the next president will have to deal with a massive financial crisis than it is that she or he will have to contend with a terrorist attack of the magnitude of 9/11. It not a certainty, but it is a possibility given our never-ending cycles of boom and bust. And neither has even mentioned how they’d prevent, or respond to, to such an event. The problem with trying to evaluate the probability of a financial crisis is that all the risk-management tools we use inevitably rely on what happened in the past. Inevitably, the next crisis comes from something we hadn’t imagined could or would become a problem, or hadn’t been watching. After the collapse of Long-Term Capital Management in 1998, regulators knew they needed to worry about “contagion”, or the way that the financial links between banks and other financial counter-parties, could spread problems, like a virus, throughout the system. But they were looking at hedge funds, not mortgage lending. Someone needs to ask Trump and Clinton who their top candidates for treasury secretary are – and what kind of instructions they would give that individual in terms of monitoring the financial markets and guarding against catastrophic outcomes. Well-informed candidates could deliver revelatory responses. Someone representing a traditional Republican view, for instance, might echo the view that private equity tycoon Stephen Schwarzman of Blackstone Group put forth in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece last year, and argue that new rules passed following the 2008 crisis might create another liquidity crunch, cutting off access to capital just when it’s needed most. Someone from the other side of the aisle would focus on the fact that the shadow banking system has exploded in size since the 2008 crisis. The private funds that form part of this universe now handle about 60% of all trading in the US Treasury securities market – found in virtually every major investment portfolio – using high-speed trading based on algorithmic models. This does assume that we end up with an informed candidate, of course, and not just someone who blusters that because he is rich, we should trust him with the nation’s finances. (Forget about that unpleasant matter of the multiple corporate bankruptcies …) Or someone who does seem to be well-informed, but who may still be getting a lot of her information on the subject from one powerful constituency. (Yeah, I’d still like to see those speeches, even if I can pretty much guess what’s in them.) An informed moderator would asked an informed candidate during tomorrow’s debate what kinds of risks have been created in the name of trying to jumpstart the economy by keeping interest-rates at rock-bottom levels? At best, the result has been a surge in the issuance of junk bonds – speculative investments offering above-average bond yields – because investors have become desperate enough to take those risks. In some areas – particularly energy – they have discovered the perils of that approach, sometimes losing billions in days when crude oil prices slumped. But what will happen when interest rates make all of these bonds look like bad investments? At worst? Well, that’s a trickier matter altogether. The Federal Reserve now has an astonishing $4.5tn on its balance sheet, compared to only about $1tn at the onset of the financial crisis. The difference? That’s all the assets it bought from the banks to stabilize the banks and keep interest rates low. Now, how does it reduce that bloated balance sheet without freaking markets out? No one really knows, because no one has ever done it before. That’s another factor that could end up causing or worsening a crisis, because it means the Fed’s hands would be tied behind its back in the midst of another crisis. So – how would the next president cope in such an eventuality? Both presidents have said they want to reinstate Glass-Steagall financial regulations and break up the big banks. Setting aside the merits of that policy, how would the deal with the instability that would accompany its implementation? While we’re on the subject … Since most banks today would fail a real stress test, do the candidates know what one incorporating realistic scenarios would look like? In other words, can they do more than utter the words, “I’d get tough on big banks and make sure they wouldn’t take foolish risks with your money again”? All of this matters even in the best of all possible worlds. And when it comes to financial markets, we aren’t living in the best of all possible worlds. Stocks and bonds alike are priced for perfection, and when that’s the case, the slightest hiccup – like comments made by Federal Reserve officials early this month – can ignite a big selloff. And there are many, many things that could send markets into a tailspin, and generate a massive loss of confidence. Including, it’s worth noting, whether or not the country’s next commander-in-chief seems to have a grasp of how financial markets work, and how to manage that part of his or her national security responsibility. I’m hoping financial security will make it into Monday’s debate. But given this election cycle I’m not holding my breath.
Vivaldi - the new web browser for power users Vivaldi has launched a new web browser that is different enough to have a chance of success. Rather than targeting the mass market with a simplified browser, Vivaldi is trying to deliver more power to the people who live and work on the web, whether they use Windows, Mac OS X or Linux. These people, the developers believe, are those who want to take notes and screen grabs while browsing, or view three or four different web pages in the same tab. People who want to be able to save and reload all their favourite sites as sessions. People who want to do everything via configurable keyboard commands, or use mouse-gestures instead. In other words, Vivaldi is a browser for “power users”, geeks and techno-freaks, though there’s nothing to stop anybody else from using it. In its standard configuration, it’s a straightforward replacement for Google’s Chrome. Although Vivaldi’s interface is new, the engine underneath is open source Chromium – the same code that powers Google’s browser. Vivaldi’s co-founder and chief executive, Jón von Tetzchner, says he has been “giving you a better browser since 1994”, referring to Opera – another cutting-edge browser created by Tetzchner and christened with a music-related name. When he left in 2011, the company had 740 employees and more than 200 million users. However, he didn’t like the direction Opera was going – towards “a limited, simplified browser,” he says – and he didn’t like dealing with outside investors. A couple of years later, Tetzchner started Vivaldi to solve both problems. As the sole financier, he says “we have no investors and their agendas to dictate our progress. There’s no exit strategy and we’re here to stay. All we want to do is give people a browser they’re proud to use and that we’re proud to call Vivaldi.” Since Vivaldi has a full time staff and has offices in Norway, Iceland and the USA, this is not done out of charity. Indeed, Vivaldi is already earning revenues from search and bookmarks. “We have deals with several different search providers in different countries, including Bing, DuckDuckGo, and Yandex in Russia,” he says, “and some of the bookmarks generate earnings for us.” He reckons he only needs to make about $1 per user per year to survive, because he doesn’t have to finance the most expensive and most labour-intensive part of building a browser. Vivaldi uses Blink – Google’s fork of WebKit – so it works with the same websites. Vivaldi has also avoided the problem of not having any extensions: it uses Chrome’s. “We spent a lot of time making sure the most popular ones worked out of the box,” Tetzchner says. “Most [extension developers] didn’t have to do anything. In some cases, there were things they had to do, but a lot of them have been reacting very positively. In general, it’s worked really well.” A couple of things weren’t finished in time for the launch: synchronisation and email. “There’s a long list of features we want to add – almost every user seems to want their own options – but mail and sync are both high priorities for us,” says von Tetzchner. The Opera browser also included email until 2013, when it was spun out as a separate program, so its inclusion in Vivaldi was no surprise. However, von Tetzchner says Vivaldi isn’t just reproducing features from Opera 12. “We’ve already taken some functions further than Opera, and we’ve done other features – such as Notes and tab-handling – in different ways. We going to continue to improve every part of the browser based on the feedback we get, and we’re very proud of the feedback we’re getting.” Most new users will, like me, use Vivaldi to replace Chrome. The bad news is that it doesn’t reduce Chrome’s greedy use of memory and processes, but will hibernate individual tabs to reclaim resources. It includes several features designed to increase productivity. If the browser is getting cluttered, it will “stack” tabs on top of one another, using the group tab to “eat” the ones next to it. It will also “hibernate” the tab, or tile it, which displays all the grouped sites on the same page. It can be very handy to have two or three web pages side by side for comparison purposes. Vivaldi will also display an extra web page in a panel at the side of the browser, which is designed for sites like Twitter where it can be useful to keep a column of tweets in view while browsing the rest of the web. Whether this kind of thing will appeal to less technical users is a moot point: Vivaldi isn’t aiming for world domination. Its slogan is “A browser for our friends,” and Tetzchner seems confident he can find enough of those. And he has, after all, done it before.
UK towns and villages running out of hard cash, says report Towns and villages across the UK are running out of hard money due to bank branch closures, a shortage of cash machines and erratic service from poor quality ATMs, according to a new report. The study by the Federation of Small Businesses also claimed that the productivity of many small businesses was already being damaged by the accelerating pace of banks shutting branches. The report, from a body representing the more than 5m small businesses in the UK, has called for a better deal for firms left feeling “locked out and let down” by high street banks abandoning towns and villages. More than 680 UK bank branches were closed last year, in addition to the 512 that disappeared in 2014, according to the Campaign for Community Banking Services pressure group. At the end of 2015, the total number of branches open for business stood at 8,340, less than half the 17,831 recorded in 1989. The report said the limited provision and unreliability of cash machines in some communities had become a serious problem. It added: “There have even been several instances of villages and towns literally running out of money during peak periods of economic activity.” The authors highlighted the example of Glastonbury, Somerset, which has lost four bank branches since July 2014, with the latest, a Lloyds, shutting its doors for good in April this year. The report quotes one FSB member in the town as saying: “On New Year’s Eve the town ran out of money. People then went to the Co-op to get cashback, and then they ran out of money. On New Year’s Eve, which is a night when a lot of people are going out and spending money in the pubs, suddenly we find that people can’t get cash in the town centre.” An FSB member in Conwy, north Wales, said: “There have been occasions that people have gone to the ATM where it’s either broken down or it’s run out of money. It’s not a good situation. Businesses get stuck. There’s one ATM which is regularly out of service and another which is only accessible when the post office is open.” A member in Lochinver in the Scottish Highlands said: “The ATM is currently causing a lot of headaches in the village. The machine is past its sell-by date. There was an ATM in the post office but it was costing them a lot of money to run so it had to go.” In the report, the FSB made a series of recommendations aimed at improving the situation for affected local communities. These included a proposal that the minimum amount of notice that must be given when a bank branch is to close or move should be doubled from 12 to 24 weeks in order to give customers more time to make alternative arrangements. Shops, small firms and tradespeople are among the heaviest users of bank branch counters, and the FSB said the rapid pace of closures was presenting some tough challenges. “FSB members highly value the face-to-face interaction they receive in branch, particularly when making complex financial transactions, with staff who often have a greater understanding of their business and the local economy,” said Mike Cherry, the national chairman. The FSB wants to see greater transparency regarding closures, and said banks should be obliged to provide details of branches they are axing to a government-run register. It added that banks were increasingly referring customers to the post office as an alternative provider but in a number of cases they were directing people to post office branches that had closed down or moved. Last year, the banking industry agreed to a protocol requiring it to publish impact statements with information on counter usage, regular customers and the location of the nearest alternative bank, cash machine and post office. However, the FSB said a strengthening of this protocol was urgently needed.
Virtual reality firms revive video arcades as they aim for the mainstream Above me is the Hillary Step, a sheer vertical face of rock about 12 metres high on the south-east ridge of Mount Everest. In a brisk breeze, snow eddies around my boots. I reach out my thickly gloved hand to connect a carabiner to a rope to pull myself up the rock wall. In reality, of course, I’m not scaling the world’s tallest mountain but strapped to a machine in a stuffy, darkened room in a Los Angeles convention centre. This is Everest VR, a virtual reality experience on HTC’s Vive which, along with Facebook’s Oculus Rift headset, is one of the top-end VR devices available. The Everest app was stitched together from more than 300,000 photographs and while linear in structure, it’s not really a game – more a showcase for the hardware – it is captivating. At Vive’s ivy-coated offices in San Francisco’s Mission district, there’s a feeling among developers that VR stands on the edge of a boom. Its following among video gamers is already very established. However, it’s still early days for more mainstream consumers who will need to get to grips with the expense and complexity of a new technology if they want to give it a try. Outside of early-adopting technology fans, consumers are notoriously conventional. VR requires them to strap on an unflattering headset and headphones, risk nausea and disorientation and face the more subtle discomfort of having to learn how to navigate a new space, where even selecting the next option on a menu is a new experience. Watching someone else using VR is also an unappealing advert for it. So faced with all this, how will VR companies try and inspire mainstream consumers to have a try? One answer, they think, will be by reviving the traditional video game arcade. At Vive, the head of their app store division says that slice of the market alone could be worth as much as $100m (£79m) in the next two years. Return of the video arcade “From the largest amusement centers to arcade installations at family entertainment locations, virtual reality is clearly becoming the next big draw for entertainment,” said Rikard Steiber, the president of Viveport. “We believe this will be a cornerstone in democratizing access to high-end virtual reality and turning curious consumers into longtime fans.” This is already a trend in China, according to Vive spokesman, Meelad Sadat, who said some chains already have thousands of branches open. Viveport Arcade wants to connect developers with arcade owners. Sadat said: “If you’re a small indie developer it’s hard to reach out to thousands of arcade operators around the world, but also if you are an arcade operator in China it’s hard for you to keep up with hundreds of new developers all the time.” He added that the potential market size is huge if you look back to golden era of arcades. “In 1990 Pac-Man ... made $3.5bn (£2.7bn) in revenue,” he said. “That’s just one game.” Running demonstrations in public arcades neatly bypasses one of the more complex rituals of investing in a VR kit: setting it up in your own home. HTC’s Vive, regarded as the highest-quality device, comes with movement sensors that require configuration similar to a high-end home audio set up. For the moment, it also requires an expensive, powerful computer to run. But perhaps the real incentive will be in the VR games and films themselves. Jenna Seiden, the head of content acquisition for Vive, said that far from being just games, the future of VR from a content standpoint was limitless. “We don’t know what are going to be the breakout formats, but right now we are at a very nascent stage where anything goes,” she said. She showed me some early versions of business apps by General Electric and Ikea, and the virtual meeting space AltSpace, which is already being used for everything from virtual standup comedy gigs to debate watch-parties. Artists ‘can build worlds to be intensely emotive in’ For artists though, VR is an entirely new medium with few established conventions. It’s ripe for exploration. Allumette is an exquisite animated film set in a town of floating platforms in the clouds, while Reframe Iran offers cinematic, interactive storytelling about the work of Iranian artists, and can be viewed on entry-level VR equipment such as Google’s Cardboard. “By seeing their work – when you put on the VR headset you were in the interviewer’s spot – it’s like you’re having a conversation with the artist,” said Reframe Iran’s director Alexandra Glorioso. “That was really powerful because Iran is so misunderstood by Americans. That’s another use to virtual reality, to introduce people to different cultures, times, events, by really transporting them there.” For Glorioso, VR really lends itself to journalism. “If you bring [a virtual reality camera] to a rally or a protest it can show the audience what’s really going on,” she said. The recently built its own VR project, called 6x9, which allowed people to experience the tangible and horrifying reality of solitary confinement. Karrie Fransman, a London-based graphic novelist and artist, tried Google’s Tilt Brush, which allows artists to paint in three dimensions. “The first time I tried Tilt Brush it felt like I was painting with my left foot,” she said. “But after four hours I’d gotten the hang of it. It’s a bit like magic.” Fransman said the possibilities VR offers to artists are endless. “It gives us the opportunity to build worlds that are intensely emotive to be in. You remember them as places you’ve been rather than things you’ve seen.” As a comic book artist and someone interested in visual storytelling, Fransman said VR offers an opportunity to draw stories across a visible space so the reader can walk between scenes. “It’s amazing to be involved with VR at this stage,” she said. “You’re at the forefront of an emerging medium, like in the early days of cinema.” Fransman does not have her own VR setup yet and used Tilt Brush at Virtually Reality, a space for startups and consumers to use ready-made VR kits in Camden, London. “I got frustrated that there wasn’t anywhere I can go and play with the stuff I was seeing on Kickstarter, and that not many people knew about these emerging platforms,” said Virtually Reality founder Alexander Cohen. He hopes to franchise Virtually Reality across the world and wants to have 100 locations by 2020. Encouraging developers to build His approach involves VR setups in a public space, like old-school 80s arcades, is the same one envisioned by HTC. They announced in November that they were expanding Viveport – their online marketplace for games and applications, based on the merger between HTC and online game distributor Steam – to encompass an Arcade program. Yet for developers, building for VR requires serious resources. HTC recognises that its users will expect high-quality content, and is trying to address this by setting up ViveX, a $100m accelerator. ViveX will have two offices in China, one in Taiwan and one in San Francisco. The aim is to connect independent developers of everything from games to business-to-business applications with HTC’s hardware, office space, funding and development expertise. One of ViveX’s companies is Oben, which builds 3D human avatars for VR immersive experiences. “As a young company, it’s very difficult to get access to the right people,” said Nikhil Jain, Oben’s CEO and co-founder. “We get to talk to our peers, experiment, test stuff out in a safe way, and come up with ideas to help each other out.” For Steiber, once people try VR the experience is irresistibly compelling. “The technology is so good that when you immerse yourself, your visual system, auditory system, and your motor system – your hands – and you can move around in a 3D space, your brain actually thinks you’re on Mount Everest.” “I have two young girls – six and 11,” Steiber added. “They can now go underwater, meet a whale, go to the top of Everest, go to Mars. These experiences that were only available to the few are now available to everyone.”
From Bruce Springsteen to Tyson Fury, men are opening up about depression When Bruce Springsteen’s memoir Born To Run was published last month, fans expecting the standard rock biography ticking off the milestones in the Boss’s life and analysing his albums got something of a shock. Threaded through the tale of how a blue-collar boy from New Jersey became a global rock star was a searing account of depression – both his father’s, which governed his childhood, and his own. Admitting that he had struggled with depression for much of his adult life, Springsteen wrote hauntingly: “You don’t know the illness’s parameters. Can I get sick enough to where I become a lot more like my father than I thought I might?” He is not the only public figure opening up about the effect depression can have on your life. Boxer Tyson Fury told Rolling Stone magazine that he self-medicated with cocaine and alcohol. “I can’t deal with it and the only thing that helps me is when I get drunk out of my mind,” he said. Novelist Matt Haig detailed his longstanding relationship with anxiety and depression in last year’s Reasons to Stay Alive, noting that “to be calm becomes almost a revolutionary act”, while American comedian Paul Gilmartin has run a hugely successful podcast on the subject, The Mental Illness Happy Hour, since March 2011. Musicians Kendrick Lamar and Frank Ocean have also tackled the illness, in interviews and in their work. Ocean told the in 2012: “My art [is] the one thing that I know will outlive me and outlive my feelings. It will outlive my depressive seasons.” Meanwhile, Lamar tackles the illness on his latest album, To Pimp A Butterfly, singing: “I know your secrets … I know depression is restin’ on your heart for two reasons.” He later told MTV that he saw To Pimp A Butterfly as a form of therapy. Martin Daubney, the former editor of Loaded, now campaigns on issues affecting men and boys. “We’re definitely turning a corner at the moment where talking about men and depression is concerned, and I really do think that’s been facilitated by celebrities leading the way,” he says. “When Professor Green made the documentary about his father’s suicide there was a huge response. When Bruce Springsteen, someone so macho that his nickname is the Boss, talks about depression it’s another leap forward. It gives ordinary average Joes like me the permission we need to be vulnerable. The message sticks.” This sense that the conversation about male depression is changing intensified last Wednesday when US rapper Kid Cudi released a bleak and emotional letter noting that he was checking himself into rehab for depression and suicidal thoughts. “It’s been difficult for me to find the words to what I’m about to share with you because I feel so ashamed,” he wrote. “Ashamed to be a leader and hero to so many while admitting I’ve been living a lie … My anxiety and depression have ruled my life for as long as I can remember.” An outpouring of support culminated in a new Twitter hashtag, #YouGoodMan. “I’m shocked at the response to the hashtag, but it is a testament to how many black men are suffering in silence, isolated and feeling afraid,” says Dayna Lynn Nuckolls, a songwriter and artist from Chicago who started the hashtag with fellow Twitter user @TheCosby after reading Cudi’s letter. “It broke my heart that he was apologetic for being unwell … but I knew that his vulnerability and authenticity had the potential to open the door for other men.” Alex Lewis, a 22-year-old digital marketing specialist and founder of the art project Car Window Poetry, was one of those to respond. “I felt it was a conversation that hasn’t happened much because black men aren’t open about their struggles with mental health,” he says. “As someone who wants to talk more about these things it was great to see.” Yet what is striking about both these statements and the responses to them is the way in which they highlight how little previous conversation there has been around male depression. In 2016 the charity Men’s Health Forum reported that 12.5% of men in the UK are affected by mental health disorders and men are nearly three times more likely to self-medicate with alcohol or drugs. They are also less likely to seek therapy than women, Men’s Health said, with fewer than one in five being prepared to see a doctor. That failure to seek help can have terrible consequences. “Suicide is the single biggest killer of men under 45 in the UK – 76% of all suicides are men,” says Jane Powell, CEO of suicide prevention charity Calm (Campaign against Living Miserably). “It’s taken a long time to get the issue of male suicide talked about properly because we have some very fixed opinions of men. There’s an unspoken discomfort around male suicide, a sense that he clearly wasn’t up to it.” Former rugby league player Paul Highton agrees. “When my career ended in rugby league I set up a business and it was doing well but I still felt low and underfulfilled,” he says. “I masked it by drinking more than I’d ever done before and taking painkillers, which I’d been prescribed for an old injury. It got to the point where I was on my knees, which is when I knew something had to change.” Highton, who now works for the RFL as a transition mentor for players about to retire and for the charity Sporting Chance, says that men find it particularly hard to open up because of an unstated sense of machismo. “Especially in sport there’s a sense that because you’re physically strong you should be mentally strong too,” he says. “You don’t want the coach thinking that your head’s not in it so it becomes this stigma you can’t talk about.” There is an unspoken taboo surrounding male depression, a feeling that if you were to admit that you felt anxious or blue you would be judged and found wanting. This is particularly exacerbated in certain sections of the black community.  “Black men are stuck between the rock of toxic masculinity and the hard place of systematic racial bias that often prevents them from getting effective help even if they tried. It’s a vicious cycle,” says Nuckolls. Last week BBC3 aired Being Black, Going Crazy, a documentary about black people’s experiences of mental health issues. Presenter Keith Dube has himself had depression and says the environment he grew up in exacerbated his illness. “If you showed weakness you’d get eaten alive,” he says. “I think men in general grow up being told that you have to be tough, that to show emotion is a sign of weakness.” Dube adds that the feeling of shame is particularly pronounced in immigrant communities where people struggle with a sense of failure and of letting their families down. “Lots of us grow up with parents who just got on with things. They came over to the UK, worked crazy long hours and didn’t complain, so to say ‘I feel this way and I don’t know why’ just feels wrong.” For Daubney, the key to breaking long-entrenched attitudes lies in acknowledging them. “There’s no point in trying to help by telling men to talk more like women,” he says. “You have to acknowledge that men will take longer to let their guard down. You have to challenge the generations of notions about having a stiff upper lip and promote the message that strong men talk, they don’t suffer in silence.” In these circumstances the openness of those in the spotlight such as Springsteen and Cudi is a gift. “Absolutely,” says Lewis. “The more conversations that occur about this subject, both public and personal, the more it helps people to speak out.” For help with male depression, go to: ■ Time To Change, www.time-to-change.org.uk ■ Calm, www.thecalmzone.net.gridhosted.co.uk ■ The Samaritans, telephone 116 123
Brexit could be positive for UK arts industry 'if right decisions are made' Leaving the EU could present positive opportunities for Britain’s arts and creative industries rather than the feared disasters – but only if the government takes the right decisions on a series of important issues, a report delivered to ministers argues. The findings are in a report by the Creative Industries Federation, which draws on evidence from around 500 contributors, many of whom attended 11 quickly-convened “what next” meetings across the UK after the vote to leave the EU. John Kampfner, the federation’s chief executive, said there were opportunities to be seized because of Brexit and that the government needed to see the sector as a “massive asset” which it could “work more closely with in the new agenda”. “There is no time for lament. It is absolutely vital for this sector to be incredibly involved in helping the government to forge a very practical relationship between the UK, the EU and the sector. “We have to roll up our sleeves and work through all the various areas where there are deep and ongoing concerns.” Kampfner gave the example of how the creative industries tend to employ a higher proportion of international workers than other sectors because of longstanding skills shortages. One key hope in the report is that the government creates “a visa system for the 21st century” enabling easy access to “world class talent” and recognising the importance of freelance employees. At the other end there needed to be a “reboot” of education and training so young people could fill the jobs where there are skills shortages – in sectors such as animation and visual effects. Kampfner said: “If the sector is not to just continue to be strong, but to grow further and employ more British workers in that endeavour, the education and skills agenda has to adapt as quickly to help foster that.” Hardly anyone in the arts world was in favour of Brexit with 96% coming out against in a federation poll of its members. The most immediate effect has been the weak pound making it markedly more expensive for arts organisations who commission and stage a lot of work from overseas companies. The creative industries, whether theatre, games, heritage, fashion or film, constitute the fastest growing sector of the UK economy and should be at the heart of new international trade deals, the report says. The 73-page Brexit report, being presented on Thursday to the culture secretary, Karen Bradley, and the business secretary, Greg Clark, has been welcomed by a raft of arts and creative leaders. It is complete with data, analysis and recommendations around the key dilemmas facing cultural organisations in a post-Brexit world. They include the visa system, education and training, intellectual property and funding. The peer and businesswoman Martha Lane Fox said: “Without great data and great analysis you can’t make great decisions. With so much at stake for our creative sectors in light of Brexit, we need this kind of work more than ever.” Sir Nicholas Serota, the director of Tate who will next year become new chair of Arts Council England, said the success of Tate had depended on the ability to employ people from across the EU at all levels. “For us, this is an essential ingredient in creating one of the world’s great galleries. We attract significant numbers of international visitors and a staff with different kinds of cultural and educational experience helps us to understand what engages these audiences. “As the government works out arrangements for the future, we would not want any artificial barriers erected which might make it harder for us to attract the skills that we need in order to serve our public well.” The report also calls on the government to appreciate the role that the creative industries have in healing fractures in society caused by the referendum. Other recommendations include the government conducting an audit of existing EU funding to the creative sector to identify what should be replaced by the UK, and upholding intellectual property rights in trade deals, especially with markets which have bad copyright infringement records. The designer Sir John Sorrell, who founded the Creative Industries Federation, said: “It has taken two decades and more to turn our creative industries from an afterthought to a key driver of wealth and global success. To imperil that would be to imperil our wider economy. That is why we need to be at the heart of the new government’s industrial strategy and negotiating priorities in coming months.”
No country for old men and women, nor for children – shortcomings in UK care As a former community matron, I was interested to see your report highlighting malnutrition admissions to hospital, sometimes termed “social admissions” (Hospital admissions for malnutrition triple in decade, 26 November). My 91-year-old mother fell and was admitted earlier this year, and no cause was found except that she weighed 39kg. Living alone, she had always done her own shopping and cooking. My weekly visits supplemented her fridge contents, but I was unable to persuade her to accept help. Following her fall, I persuaded her to accept help, and we can, luckily, pay for private care to visit her to encourage her to eat. I ask the carers to eat with her and ensure they have enough time to do so. The lack of mention of social care in the autumn statement is fundamental, but we must remember that few, if any, local councils will fund care just to encourage nutrition. Loneliness has a huge effect on eating. In general, councils do not provide social care for someone who can “self-care” but who is not eating. Meals-on-wheels services do not provide company to eat, and some councils advocate a fortnightly provision of frozen ready meals, so there is not even the daily contact of someone delivering the meals. A recent visit with my mother to her GP revealed she has put on weight and is fit and healthy. The doctor did not question this or ask how this had come about. Your article quotes Stephen Dalton, chief executive for the NHS Confederation, as saying that “people are most at risk … if denied basic compassionate care”. He is right – but basic care includes recognising the social element of eating. Sophie Howson Clinical director, SK Nurses • How much of the increase in hospital admissions for malnutrition is due to pensioners simply finding modern life more difficult and simply “giving up”? In the past few years simple tasks such as paying bills without some extra charge have become harder as post offices have closed en masse and now one must go online to pay or discover whether it is Pingit, Paypoint or whatever. TV has become louder, brasher, more celebrity-based and harder to operate, with multi-channels that regularly need updating. Then we have the erosion of social cohesion as we shift from walking and public transport to cars, from libraries to the internet, and from corner shops to anonymous supermarkets. I suspect many of our pensioners are suffering psychological “death by a thousand cuts”; each change may be trivial, but together they make this no country for old men (or women). Dr Hillary Shaw Director and senior research consultant, Shaw Food Solutions • Louise Tickle (Safety in numbers, 26 November) asks “what can be done” about the soaring numbers of children being removed from their families and placed in care – a draconian measure, the right to private and family life being enshrined in the Human Rights Act. I am no longer in practice, but I recently asked a solicitor colleague working in local authority child protection if she thought the removal in recent years of effectively all public funding for private family law proceedings had anything to do with it. Her response was unequivocal. It’s unsurprising that when vulnerable families in difficulties cannot access professional legal advice and representation, their situation deteriorates and children are put at risk. The wider financial cost of this under-reported £2bn “saving” (doubtless another one the government thought it could get away with) is evident – the social cost can hardly be imagined. Jan Williams Knaresborough, North Yorkshire • The Baby P case continues to cast a long shadow over the system, but Louise Tickle fails to mention other factors that are contributing to a “risk-averse” approach by local authorities. Two such factors are being driven by the senior judiciary. These relate to local authorities’ use of section 20 of the Children Act 1989 (voluntary arrangements to protect children) and the increasing number of actions brought against local authorities under the Human Rights Act 1998. While I do not excuse local authority shortcomings, the judicial criticism of the use of section 20 and the rising levels of Human Rights Act damages awards is causing greater risk aversion, increasing care applications and draining local authority budgets of scarce resources that should be going into the early help and preventive work which Ms Tickle correctly highlighted as being so important. Graham Cole Chair, Lawyers in Local Government Child Care Lawyers Group • Perhaps we need to look no further than Philip Hammond’s autumn statement to find the funds now vital to save what is far and away the most important “infrastructure” we have – the rapidly crumbling NHS and concomitant social care. New runways and high-speed rail projects – which anyway primarily benefit the overfed south-east – should surely wait a few years for the pot of gold promised at the end of the Brexit rainbow. John Reynolds Collingham, Nottinghamshire • As the national charity for seriously ill children and their families, we are dismayed by the missed opportunity within the autumn statement. The government has failed to address a growing crisis facing the UK’s seriously ill children, young people and their families – a crisis that has serious implications for the future sustainability of the NHS. There are estimated to be over 100,000 children and young people in the UK with serious illness or exceptional health needs. Many spend months and years in hospital because there is no support enabling them to leave. Charities like WellChild have picked up the pieces, making it possible for these families to leave hospital and be cared for at home. Last year we managed to help over 1,200 families (1% of the estimated number that need help). We believe the government has missed four fundamental opportunities: 1. Investment in social care for the growing numbers of children and young people living with exceptional health needs, so that they can be cared for in their own homes. 2. Investment to address a growing workforce crisis in the field of children and young people’s nursing and allied health professions. 3. The government must challenge local authorities that still do not provide adequate short break services for families despite their legal obligations. 4. Greater provision for supporting families caring for a child with exceptional health needs at home. We call for the government to take action to mitigate a growing crisis affecting thousands of children, young people and families across the UK. Colin Dyer Chief executive, WellChild • The government says malnutrition is identified earlier with improved data collection. That does not explain the increased numbers; neither is its one-off £500,000 grant to Age UK a solution. I’m a retired adults social worker, disgusted that any malnutrition occurs in this country, with cuts to social care, eg meals on wheels, now endangering health. In my training (1975-77), symptoms, effects – and causes – of social problems were addressed. Our government seems uninterested in addressing what causes malnutrition. The so-called health and social care “internal market”, resulting in widespread privatisation, has cost us massive amounts of money – although the market repeatedly demonstrates failure in providing care (see the Centre for Health and the Public Interest’s report “The failure of privatised adult social care in England: what is to be done?”). Meanwhile malnourished patients occupy beds that the government actually wants to cut, while other citizens have to wait longer for treatment. The 44 sustainability and transformation plans for NHS England herald another major reorganisation. These lengthy (and suspiciously similarly worded) plans stress preventive work – but especially cost-saving. Some councils are refusing to sign up to them. Why cut social care funding? We need an end to government “post-truth” on this subject – and for the Department of Health to publish spending on PFI payments, management consultants; meetings about NHS reorganisation, and commissioning meetings with doctors examining numbers instead of patients. Far more informative than minor contracts such as Age UK’s, incapable of having significant countrywide effect. Winter is here. Why does the refrain “Hope I die before I get old” keep playing in my head? Barbara Dresner Tameside Keep Our NHS Public  • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com • Read more letters – click here to visit gu.com/letters
Viral video: Ghostbusters 2016, Star Wars and Game of Thrones Ghostbusters hits the screens this summer and the classic tale of spooky events in New York gets a reboot, 30 years on, with a new cast. Kristen Wiig and Melissa McCarthy play two authors who write a book suggesting ghosts are real, which is mocked. When ghosts invade Manhattan, the pair team up with a nuclear engineer and a subway worker to try to save the world from a mysterious demon known as Rowan (played by Neil Casey) who can exercise control over human form. It looks like a hoot, if the trailer is anything to go by. True film fans will go to any lengths to collect memorabilia and follow the back stories of their favourite characters. Star Wars fan Shawn Bu always felt that the character of Darth Maul never got enough screen time so he created a fan film to showcase the best lightsabre fights and tell the story of Maul’s apprenticeship. Another title with a very strong fan base is Game of Thrones, which returns to the screen for series six on 24 April. Check out the trailer. Tom Fletcher, formerly of McFly, loves to record his own family and his latest offering is a timelapse video, Bump to Buddy, leading up to the birth of his second son. Tom says: “We took photos almost every day of the pregnancy ... again! Well, we did it for Buzz so how could we not do it for Buddy.” Cyclist Oleksiy Mishchenko had the surprise of his life when he and his pals were pursued by an ostrich while on a practice ride on the Cape of Good Hope before the Cape Argus Tour in South Africa. There will also be gasps of shock when you watch an EF-4 tornado make a direct hit on a gynasium at Henryville High School, Indiana, in 2012. Finally, as the world of music mourns Beatles producer George Martin, we’ve got a history of rock in 15 minutes – 348 stars, 84 guitarists, 64 songs, 44 drummers, one mashup – and a tribute to the great man himself. 1) Ghostbusters - Official Trailer Who you going to call? 2) Darth Maul: Apprentice - A Star Wars Fan-Film Saber-tastic 3) Game of Thrones Season 6: Trailer Best of Westeros 4) John Legend Adds Lyrics to the “Downton Abbey” Theme Song House music 5) Bump to Buddy Oh baby! 6) Cyclists chased by an ostrich Who tyres first? 7) Castle: The Geordie Worst accent award 8) Henryville High School Gymnasium Destroyed by EF-4 Hall of horror 9) History of Rock Elvis to Kings of Leon 10) A Tribute To George Martin: The Fifth Beatle By George
Kate Tempest review – a perfect storm Tonight’s gig begins a cappella, in space. We are standing in Manchester’s storied Ritz venue, but for the few minutes of Picture a Vacuum – the first track of Kate Tempest’s most recent album, Let Them Eat Chaos – we could be in a planetarium, or a documentary narrated by Brian Cox, or David Attenborough. The solar system is dangling in a dance around the sun’s light, “gold as a pharaoh’s coffin”. Our blue bauble “soothes” its “sharp burn”. There are thematic, if not musical, shades here of Björk’s Biophilia, of awe at the natural world. Some people find this sort of thing pretentious – chiefly the sort of people who prefer their hip-hop fixated on a narrow range of brutish subjects. Those people have not bought tickets. This is a whooping, whistling room full of love for every felicitous turn of Tempest’s phrasing. On Grubby, for instance, a lost lover is a thorn. “She’s carried her, stuck in her side, since the day that she was born,” remembers Tempest. “She dreamed of her and knew her shape before she saw her form.” They also cheer for every rant about the parlous state of the world – some less deft, but no less sincere. Suddenly, we are telescoping down to the planet’s surface. The band throw in some sound effects. “Uncurl yourself,” commands Tempest. “You are dressed in the fashion.” We’ve crash-landed in a metropolis at night – Tempest’s native London on record. Tonight, Manchester. Tempest is, technically, a performance poet – somewhere between a battle rapper and something more academically acceptable, one who won a Ted Hughes award in 2013, who also publishes novels. This incarnation finds her playing director of photography as well, guiding our eye to the wakeful scenes unfolding in seven houses on one street, nailing the colour of “nicotine gold” up the “rickety stairs”. Maybe it’s the season, but the authorial voice here is a little like the ghost of Jacob Marley in Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, an omniscient narrator-character, editorialising the action, pushing the characters along. More than an album, Let Them Eat Chaos is a film told in rhyme, short stories rapped in a London vernacular, familiar from grime. The fact that these intonations are coming out of a white woman troubles some commentators – chiefly, those who did not grow up in the bits of London where black cabs don’t go. (It’s not “mockney” if that’s how you and your friends speak.) As with Anohni’s recent Hopelessness, these songs take the slow-mo current apocalypse and set it to beats, taking in recession, gentrification, environmental catastrophe, foreign aggressions and refugee crises. There are jokes, too, about emojis and drugs. Tempest and her three-strong band play the album end to end, prefaced by a few words, and with an unreleased, untitled song as a finale. Her biggest gig to date “in this part of the world”, Tempest boggles that “this feels like a big deal”. (It is: this niche artist has just booked Brixton Academy for May) She urges everyone to pocket their phones. Then it’s into the world of Gemma on Ketamine for Breakfast, who falls for bad guys; Alisha on We Die, talking to the ghost of someone dear – her partner? – who died violently. There’s Pete, staggering home after a bender on his big party tune Whoops, reaffirming those comparisons between Tempest and Mike Skinner of the Streets. It’s 4.18am and these flawed people are awake. Somewhat inevitably, a supernatural storm is coming that briefly unites them on their rainy, pre-dawn street. Inevitably, some tracks are better than others. The music takes a while to settle, spending a few songs in a cluttered fug that suggests competing DJ bars in the 1990s, more than the melange of rappable styles of 2016. Everything takes an uptick with Europe Is Lost. “Top-down violence/Structural viciousness”, spits Tempest. She calls “bullshit!” on all of it, rising to the sort of pace where you want to apply ice to her tongue. The tension ebbs and flows, until Tempest is kicking off her own shoes when her characters wear “one shoe, one slipper”. Tunnel Vision, the final reckoning, finds us back with natural science, with people as nodes in a greater electrical whole. Tempest winds down, purposely you suspect, to one-word exclamations: “Justice! Recompense! Humility!” We need to “wake up, and love more,” she concludes. Conscious artists – writers, folk singers, rappers – have been saying this sort of thing since the year dot, of course. But now is a pretty good time to hear it again.
How newsroom pressure is letting fake stories on to the web It started with a post on social media. Or, to be more exact, a series of posts about a visit to McDonald’s to buy a milkshake. Within hours, Josh Raby’s gripping account on Twitter was international news, covered by respected outlets on both sides of the Atlantic. “This guy’s story about trying to buy a McDonald’s milkshake turned into a bit of a mission and the internet can’t get enough of it,” read the headline on Indy100, the Independent’s sister title. The New York Daily News said he’d been “tortured”. Except, as McDonald’s pointed out – and Raby himself later admitted – the story was embellished to entertain his Twitter followers, although he says he based it on real events. Raby’s was the latest thinly sourced story that, on closer inspection, turned out not to be as billed. The phenomenon is largely a product of the increasing pressure in newsrooms that have had their resources slashed, then been recalibrated to care more about traffic figures. And, beyond professional journalists, there is also a “whole cottage industry of people who put out fake news”, says Brooke Binkowski, an editor at debunking website Snopes. “They profit from it quite a lot in advertising when people start sharing the stories. They are often protected because they call themselves ‘satire’ or say in tiny fine print that they are for entertainment purposes only.” Facebook, a source of a lot of traffic from many online titles, has recognised the role it plays in driving the market, and in January 2015 promised to tweak its algorithm to demote fake news articles in users’ feeds. Binkowski says that, during her career, she has seen a shift towards less editorial oversight in newsrooms. “Clickbait is king, so newsrooms will uncritically print some of the worst stuff out there, which lends legitimacy to – in a word – bullshit. Not all newsrooms are like this, but a lot of them are.” The has heard numerous accounts from journalists about the pressures in UK newsrooms that lead to dodgy stories being reported uncritically, but none would go on record. One person working for a UK news publication claims the industry is now “like the wild west”. The source, who asked not to be named for fear of recriminations from her employer, says: “You have an editor breathing down your neck and you have to meet your targets.” Asked what the driving factor was, she said: “It is a combination. There are some very young and excited journalists out there. If you do a story and it goes viral, it is very exciting. But big bosses are trying to meet targets. There are some young journalists on the market who are inexperienced and who will not do those checks. “So much news that is reported online happens online. There is no need to get out and doorstep someone. You just sit at your desk and do it and, because it is so immediate, you are going to take that risk. Editors will say, ‘The BBC got that six seconds before we did.’” Another journalist, who asked not to be named for similar reasons, says: “There is definitely a pressure to churn out stories, including dubious ones, in order to get clicks, because they equal money. At my former employer in particular, the pressure was on due to the limited resources. That made the environment quite horrible to work in.” In a February 2015 report for the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University, Craig Silverman wrote: “Journalists have always sought out emerging (and often unverified) news. They have always followed on the reports of other news organisations. But today the bar for what is worth giving attention seems to be much lower. “Within minutes or hours, a claim can morph from a lone tweet or badly sourced report to a story repeated by dozens of news websites, generating tens of thousands of shares. Once a certain critical mass is reached, repetition has a powerful effect on belief. The rumour becomes true for readers simply by virtue of its ubiquity.” Silverman points out examples where titles – including the – reported false rumours, which had to be corrected later. And, despite the direction that some newsrooms seem to be heading in, a critical eye is becoming more, not less crucial, according to the New York Times’ public editor, Margaret Sullivan. “Reporters and editors have to be more careful than ever before. As hoaxers get more sophisticated and more numerous, it’s extremely important to be sceptical and to use every verification method available before publication.” Yet those working in newsrooms talk of dubious stories being tolerated because, in the words of one, some senior editors think “a click is a click, regardless of the merit of a story”. And, if the story does turn out to be false, it’s simply a chance for another bite at the cherry. In September 2015, the Brisbane Times was one of many titles to report the story of Natalie Amyot, a French tourist who had posted a video on YouTube saying she was seeking help to find a man with whom she’d had a one-night stand after discovering that she was pregnant. The same title reported the following day that it had been a set-up. In June 2014, Huffington Post and Mail Online were among those to report that three-year-old Victoria Wilcher, who had suffered facial scarring, had been kicked out of a KFC because she was frightening customers. Later, both the Mail and Huffington Post were among those reporting KFC’s announcement that two investigations had found no evidence to support the claims. And, in November last year, the Independent and the BBC were among titles to pick up the story of a Vietnamese-Australian man calling himself Phuc Dat Bich, who complained he had been banned by Facebook because of his name. He would give no interviews. Months later, Indy100 – then named i100 – and the BBC were among those reporting that he had made it all up to “fool the media”. Verification and fact-checking are regularly falling prey to the pressure to bring in the numbers, and if the only result of being caught out is another chance to bring in the clicks, that looks unlikely to change.
Australian music royalties have hit record-breaking highs – but it won't save the industry The Australian music industry has long felt angst about the new digital world, with good reason: between 2006 and 2015, Aria figures show, revenue for Australian record labels fell from $512m to $334m. The labels themselves are hoping that streaming services will arrest this decline, and have negotiated generous deals with Spotify and Apple Music to that effect. But the artists themselves remain unimpressed: it seems like every week there’s some financially canny musician from here or abroad pulling their music from Spotify or explaining that hundreds of thousands of streams on these services barely add up to the price of a smashed avocado. In this context Thursday’s news from Australia’s publishing and mechanical royalties collection society is heartening. Apra Amcos announced a record annual revenue figure, $333m, for the 2015-16 financial year. This marks an 11% rise from last year, much of which comes from a 140% increase in revenue from streaming services. And of that $333m, $294.6m has gone back to the artists – 248,994 songwriters and publishers, to be precise. The figures show the myriad ways that the music industry overall is adjusting to the decline in income for record companies. But while that 11% rise in revenue certainly can’t hurt, it’s a rare Australian musician who could sustain a career on just the yearly Apra Amcos paycheck. Trying to explain publishing and mechanical royalties makes most people’s eyes glaze over. So instead, here’s a story. In the early 1990s the singer-songwriter Nick Lowe was dumped by his record label. His late-1970s heyday – when he had both a successful solo career (Cruel to Be Kind) and a successful career as a producer – was long gone. In fact, Lowe was pretty close to broke. One day he visited an ATM, unsure if there would be any money in his account at all. Instead, he was surprised by a balance that, in the early 1990s, could have bought a house or two. Apparently, the blue-eyed soulman Curtis Stigers had covered Lowe’s song Peace Love and Understanding on the soundtrack to The Bodyguard. Every time a copy of that soundtrack got sold, Lowe was entitled to a few cents’ worth of royalties. Because people still bought albums in the early 90s – and because that soundtrack also featured Whitney Houston’s megahit I Will Always Love You – Lowe got a payday. It’s these few cents that Apra Amcos collects, adds up, and pays out. If you wrote a song or own the rights to a recording, you’re owed money each time that recording is used. If you hear a song in a cafe, Apra Amcos collects a small royalty for the artist. They also collect royalties for music played through Spotify, on radio stations, or on TV. But we’re not all Nick Lowe. Most of the quarter of a million songwriters who got a payout likely just made spare change. Australia, with its population that’s less than a 10th of America’s, is simply too small to sustain many musical careers. It’s the major record companies and the big tech companies who own the streaming services that get the best deal these days – the labels get big lump sums from Spotify, for example, that they’re not obligated to share with the artists. Musicians with tens of thousands of Spotify listeners simply don’t make the same money as musicians selling tens of thousands of records, in most cases. And as more and more people sign up to streaming services and offload their CDs (revenue from sales of physical product was about the only revenue stream for Apra Amcos that decreased, from $12.5m to $12.4m), this becomes a real problem. So while an 11% increase in revenue is good news for the industry as a whole, band members whose songs are played regularly on Triple J will still be lucky to crack the median wage this year. Your favourite DIY indie band, meanwhile, would be lucky to break even. In reality they’re funding their music with money from their actual jobs and/or credit cards. The increase in Apra’s bottom line, especially from streaming revenue, will definitely help a band or two – for many musicians, that monthly deposit can be a godsend. But royalties aren’t going to change the reality of being an Australian musician. In fact, it’s no wonder so many Aussie bands head overseas: $39.1m of Apra Amcos’s 2015-16 revenue came from royalty agencies abroad, the majority of which will go into the bank accounts of international successes like Gotye and Courtney Barnett. Apra Amcos do vital work in facilitating new ways to make money from music. But if you see the news of record-breaking royalty revenue, and tell your musician friends that the next round is on them, don’t be surprised if they reply through gritted teeth.
Reality stars and xenophobes: Trump's California delegates mirror their maker It’s not every day that billionaire PayPal founder Peter Thiel ends up on a list with a white nationalist. But toss in a bounty hunter, a Tea Party couple from Wife Swap, a border vigilante and a University of California Berkeley undergraduate and you have the makings of Donald Trump’s California delegation to the Republican national convention. Meet some of the cast of colorful characters who will travel to Cleveland this July to formally anoint Donald Trump as the presidential candidate of the Republican party. [Update: late Wednesday afternoon the Trump campaign told the that an updated list of its delegates, without William Johnson and Guy St Onge, was posted on the website of the California Republican party.] The border vigilante Robert Maupin has not been paying much attention to the presidential campaign this year, choosing instead to expend his energy putting up signs for a longshot Republican candidate for Congress, Juan Hidalgo Jr. Still, the 76-year-old rancher from Tierra del Sol said on Tuesday that he’s content to support Trump because he “sure as hell wouldn’t want to support any of the communists running”. Maupin was profiled by the Los Angeles Times in 2000 for his daily practice of patrolling the mile and a quarter of the US-Mexico border that makes up his property line with “a rifle slung over his shoulder and a Glock handgun strapped in his thigh holster”. Six years later, Maupin still patrols his property every day, but he’s not overly enthused by Trump’s proposal of a wall. “Actually, I wanted a moat with saltwater gators,” he says. The wife-swappers John and Gina Loudon are the Tea Party power couple that never quite made it off the C-list. After John was termed out of the Missouri state legislature, where he served in the house and the senate, the couple made waves by guest-starring on reality television show Wife Swap. The family-values conservative switched spouses with a polyamorous part-time wrestler, and in the ensuing weeks Gina was thrown out of the house for her “didactic judgmentalism” and John grew concerned that “dark forces” had invaded his home, according to the St Louis Post-Dispatch. Today the couple lives in San Diego, where John works in the private sector and Dr Gina, as she styles herself, hosts a conservative YouTube show. The preacher Guy St Onge was born again in September 1995, after living a life “full of drugs, motorcycles, gangs and cops and more”, according to his Facebook profile. Now a pastor with a voluminous social media presence – he appears to preach mostly in the church of YouTube – he alternates between posts about the gospel and sharing memes offering to kill Muslims. On his Tumblr page, St Onge writes about Christianity and shares such thoughts as: “Barack Hussein Obama and his tranny wife Michelle hates the U.S.A.!!” Update: Pastor Onge has told the he is no longer a delegate for Trump. It was not immediately clear why or even how he had dropped out (the deadline for changing delegate lists has passed). However, he said he was “no longer a delegate” and had chosen to “take one for the team”. The celebrity interviewer Daphne Barak and Erbil Gunasti made their names as a celebrity interviewer and diplomatic press officer turned television producer, respectively, but the couple’s own foray into state politics ended up a little bit wet. Barak was charged with two misdemeanor counts of battery and public intoxication in October 2015, after a fracas at a forum for mayoral candidates in Palm Springs that included Gunasti as one of the candidates. The detective who investigated the case alleged that “Barak opened a water bottle and began pouring water on [another woman], who slapped at the bottle repeatedly and, at one point, struck Barak’s face”, according to the Palm Springs Desert Sun: “As the parties were leaving, Barak allegedly grabbed [another woman’s] cheeks with a ‘clawing’ grasp.” Barak pleaded not guilty, and according to her personal assistant the charges were dismissed. Gunasti did not win the mayoralty, but an interview he gave to the Desert Sun about his candidacy hints at his political affinity to Trump: “Power, money, celebrity – if you can bring all three in one place, you do wonders there.” Asked for comment about the couple’s selection as delegates, Barak’s personal assistant responded: “Daphne Barak’s lifestyle encompasses many well-known names from North America and worldwide. Trump family is one of them. It is a relationship dating back two decades.” The Berkeley student Claire Chiara may still be a senior at UC Berkeley, where she’s majoring in political science and economics, but she is wasting no time embarking on her career. Chiara recently announced that she would be standing against Tony Thurmond for the state assembly’s 15th district. Last time around there were no votes cast at all for a Republican in that seat – thanks to California’s open primaries, both candidates were Democrats – but she appears undeterred. “Even if I don’t win the election, I truly hope to start a conversation and remind each and every constituent of Assembly District 15 that they can ask questions, and they can decide whether they are being truly represented,” she told Berkeley student paper the Daily Californian earnestly on Monday. The bounty hunter Clifford Jeffrey Stanley is the owner of Bad Boys Bail Bonds, a bounty-hunting and bail bond outfit with offices in San Jose, Oakland, Los Angeles, San Diego, Santa Ana and Modesto. Their slogan is “Because your mama wants you home!”, and among the company’s cars is a lime-green Hummer emblazoned with the Bad Boys Bail Bonds logo. The company’s photo section implies that Stanley will probably feel at home with Trump’s loud aesthetic; scantily clad girls model company T-shirts, while company outings include monster trucks, quad bikes, mini motos and large quantities of heartily barbecued meat. The controversial ex-lawmaker Celeste Greig is a former president of California’s Republican Assembly who was ousted in 2013 after making comments about rape that led many to draw comparisons with Todd Akin, the disgraced former Missouri congressman. “The percentage of pregnancies due to rape is small because it’s an act of violence, because the body is traumatized,” Greig said, leading to condemnation from state and national Democratic politicians and, eventually, the delivery of a 28,000-signature petition demanding her resignation, to which Greig capitulated. Ironically, when she made the statement, she was criticizing Akin for the very comments that she immediately echoed. She now blogs about politics under the handle GreigReport. The white nationalist William Daniel Johnson is a prominent white nationalist who once proposed a constitutional amendment calling for all Americans of non-European non-white descent to be immediately deported. The Southern Poverty Law Center, which maintains a list of hate groups, describes him acidly as an “uninspiring but determined white separatist”. When press attention was drawn to his inclusion, the Trump campaign scrambled to change their delegate list to remove him, while at first categorically denying that he was a delegate. Once they were informed by the California secretary of state that it was too late to change their list, they then blamed a “database error” for his inclusion; Johnson offered his resignation to the Trump campaign but nonetheless he remains certified as a delegate. The campaign director Tim Clark is director of Trump’s campaign for the California primary and as such a key figure at least partly responsible for the above list. A 49-year-old former political consultant whose list of ex-clients includes Manuel Baldízon, a failed Guatemalan presidential candidate who called for public executions in his campaign platform, Clark should have had a relatively easy job preparing for the June vote (his candidate’s two remaining opponents have dropped out of the race). But, critics might allege, his cakewalk to Cleveland has been complicated by the unforced error of selecting, among others, a prominent white nationalist as a delegate to the Republican national convention. An earlier version of this article incorrectly identified a Trump delegate named David Horowitz as the president of the Freedom Center, who shares the same name.
Dan Lissvik: Midnight review – suitably eclectic Balearic beat revival Dan Lissvik’s 2007 album with Swedish duo Studio arrived amid the Balearic beat “revival”, a slower-paced style of house music, where the guitars sound as if they’re coated in syrup and analogue pastel synths meet disco licks. Today, the genre’s blissed-out legacy can be heard in the more two-dimensional poolside house and nu-disco made popular by the likes of YouTube channel Majestic Casual, but Lissvik’s solo album conjures Balearica’s original eclecticism – from soft rock and funk to dub and krautrock, and even ambient. The eight tracks encompass Fleetwood Mac-ish flourishes, wafty psychedelic percussion and the sorts of elastic basslines that Nordic cosmic-disco producer Todd Terje would snap into a set. Some of these songs could even take Lissvik from occasional pop remixer (fans of the 1975 may care for his 2013 take on Settle Down) to the DJ that the man-cleavage vest brigade pump their fists for this summer. Here’s hoping.
First look: Animal Kingdom TV adaptation moves the Cody family to California The trailer for an upcoming TV adaptation of David Michod’s iconic 2010 family crime thriller, Animal Kingdom, has premiered at the 2016 slate launch of US cable network TNT. The series, which will air in America later this year, offers a fresh take on the critically acclaimed Australian film, relocating the Cody family from the ganglands of 1986 Melbourne to a surfing community in California. The Animal Kingdom series stars Ellen Barkin (The Big Easy; Sea Of Love) in the iconic role of ‘Smurf’, the criminal matriarch at the heart of the Cody family. The same role landed Jackie Weaver an Oscar nomination in 2010, and was described by David Stratton as a “revelation” for the actor – but at the TNT slate launch Barkin was unfazed by the precedent set by Weaver. “I don’t really think I’m stepping into anyone’s shoes,” she said. “I don’t think the movie was a beginning, a middle, or an end point for us. It was more like source material, as much as a book I might read.” While the setting may have changed, the trailer – embellished with a menacing score – retains the tense darkness of the film. Showrunner Jonathan Lisco described their vision: “We’re going to make it a more nuanced portrayal of a mother who both loves her sons, but also vandalises them and has emotionally warped them while at the same time coddled them.” The series has Shawn Hatosy in the role of Smurf’s oldest son Andrew “Pope” Cody (played by Ben Mendelsohn in the 2010 film), with Scott Speedman as Barry “Baz” Brown, Pope’s best friend and partner-in-crime, who was originally played by Joel Edgerton. When the interviewed David Michod in 2015, the writer/director described sitting down to edit the film for the first time as a harrowing experience: “I had no idea what it was and I was chronically depressed. I had a pretty open fear that maybe I was making a gigantic mess.” Of course, Michod had no reason to be worried: after early buzz at Sundance, the film – described by Peter Bradshaw as “the nearest we’re going to get to an Australian GoodFellas” – went on to win near-universal critical acclaim (including 4.5 stars apiece from David and Margaret), eight AACTA Awards and an Oscar nomination and a #3 ranking in Quentin Tarantino’s top ten films of 2010. It launched the international careers of Edgerton and Mendelsohn, and has so far grossed a box office total of over US$6.7m globally. At their slate launch, the TNT network also premiered the trailer of Good Behaviour, another forthcoming drama which stars Downton Abby’s Michelle Dockery.
Risk of poverty and suicide far higher among transgender people, survey finds Transgender people are substantially more likely to have attempted suicide, to be unemployed, and to be living in poverty than the broader US population, according to a landmark new survey by the National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE). The survey of more than 27,000 trans individuals by the Washington DC-based advocacy organization suggests that along with a battery of health and economic indicators, transgender people face persistent discrimination and a litany of other challenges. “Responses revealed pervasive mistreatment, harassment and violence in pretty much every facet of life whether that be in the schools, the workplace or family life,” said survey project manager Sandy E James. The results on mental health were of particular concern. Thirty-nine percent of respondents said they had experienced “serious psychological distress” in the past year, compared with 5% of Americans. Forty percent of those surveyed said they had attempted suicide in their life, almost nine times the US overall attempted suicide rate. Seven percent said they had made an attempt within the last year, more than 10 times the national prevalence. “We have already known that these are issues ... in the trans community but now we actually have a tool that we can reference to [say] these are the numbers,” said NCTE executive director Mara Keisling. “That can be a useful instrument for creating transformative change in the lives of transgender people.” Nearly one third of respondents said they were living in poverty, about twice the rate of Americans nationwide. Respondents also reported an unemployment rate of 15%, three times higher than than the national rate. Trans people of color were the most likely to experience high rates of unemployment. Researchers said they intentionally shaped survey questions to be comparable to survey data regarding the broader US public. A quarter of those employed over the last year said they had experienced discrimination in the workplace, and more than three quarters of those who were “out” or perceived as transgender during school recall experiencing “some form of mistreatment”, including sexual assault and verbal and physical harassment. James said NCTE plans to repeat the effort every five years to keep tabs on the challenges that transgender individuals face over time. The study released this week is the second such report, following a less expansive effort in 2011. This year’s study also looked at what could be considered the most visible aspect of the battle for trans rights in the US today, public restroom accommodations. Legislation like North Carolina’s HB2, which restricts individuals to using only the bathroom reflective of the biological sex listed on their birth certificate, has turned the issue into a flashpoint for transgender rights. “I can speak first hand for how critical [it is] for transgender people to have safe and private bathroom access just like everyone else”, said Sharron Cooks, a trans woman and activist. Cooks added that when she was in high school, she was banned from the women’s room, calling the experience “crushing”. “It made it impossible to learn and it severely delayed my academic career,” Cooks said. The study found that Cook’s experience is far from unique. More than half of survey respondents said they had avoided using a public restroom in the past year because they “were afraid of confrontations or other problems they might experience”. 32% said they had limited the amount they ate or drank in the previous year specifically to avoid using the bathroom. But Keisling cautioned that while the bathroom issue is important, “we have a lot of issues ... that are missed when all we talk about is bathrooms.” Keisling added: “Every minute we spend talking about it, we’re not talking the problems in real people’s lives. We’re not talking about the economic marginalization and we’re not talking about people being alienated from their faith communities and families.” This article was corrected on 10 December 2016. We originally said more than 28,000 people were surveyed. The correct figure was 27,730.
Labour won't rule out second referendum on European Union Labour has not ruled out the possibility of another referendum on the European Union, whether over continued membership or the terms of Britain leaving the bloc, according to a briefing note circulated among the party’s MPs. The 10-page document, prepared by the shadow foreign secretary, Emily Thornberry, and Barry Gardiner, the shadow minister for Europe, also lays out how Labour hopes to have a say in Brexit negotiations. “Britain has now been left in a total mess of the Tory government’s own making,” the document states. On the idea of a second referendum, the paper, a copy of which was passed to the , says that many Labour activists have appealed for a rerun of the referendum, in part because of “the disinformation of the leave campaign and the dysfunction of the government”. It argues that before exit takes place “there should be the opportunity for some further injection of democracy into this process, so that either the public or their parliamentary representatives are able to vote on the reality of a post-Brexit Britain”. Earlier this month the Labour leadership challenger, Owen Smith, said he would like to see a referendum on any Brexit deal. However, the party’s leadership has previously been less keen, with the shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, appearing to rule it out. Gardiner and Thornberry, the latter of whom has also taken the role of shadowing David Davis, the new Brexit minister, stress there are risks in proposing a new referendum or running a general election campaign based on overturning the EU decision or offering a vote on the terms of exit. “Some colleagues are concerned that this would look like trying to have a second in-out referendum by the back door,” they write. The document, titled Responding to the EU Referendum Result, shows continued uncertainty within Labour over how to balance controls on the free movement of EU nationals into Britain against trade with the bloc. On Thursday, France’s president, François Hollande, told the British prime minister, Theresa May, that staying in the EU’s single market could not happen if the UK imposed control over arrivals. The briefing note agrees this balance will be “extremely difficult”, and that Labour had to accept voters’ concerns over immigration. The document says the party must have a strong voice on the subject but does not yet set out what this will be. It tells MPs: “It will take time, and much greater consultation within the party, to develop proposals in this area, but that will be our priority for the coming months.” Other areas are much clearer. The document says Labour deplores May’s lack of guarantee for the status of EU nationals already in Britain, arguing this has “created a climate where a small minority of individuals in our society feel it is acceptable to talk in terms of EU migrants living in Britain being told to go home”. The document also calls for the party to campaign hard over preserving rights originating from EU rules, such as those over employment. It demands a delay in triggering article 50, which would formally set a two-year process for departure. This should not happen, the document argues, “until there is a clear plan in place about what the UK will be negotiating for, and how that is going to be achieved, and until there has been some form of consultation on that negotiating plan, and formal approval of it by parliament and/or the public”. On a more openly party political note, a section of the document titled Key Lines to Take, urges Labour MPs to say the confusion is the fault of the Conservatives. “It was David Cameron who set a wholly artificial timetable for this referendum, believing that internal opposition inside the Tory party would be quelled as a result of his election victory last year,” one reads. “He was wrong, and we ended up with media coverage of the referendum campaign entirely dominated by the bitter in-fighting within his cabinet.”
Who decides on Brexit – the voters or parliament? I never thought that I would concur with the views of the former secretary of state for education, but I have to admit that I agree with Nicky Morgan (MPs must have a say on Brexit, 28 October). It is spurious for ministers continually to argue that the prime minister can trigger article 50 of the Lisbon treaty because the referendum result represents “the will of the people”. As Morgan points out, referendums are not legally binding in the UK because of the sovereignty of parliament. It must be for parliament to decide the matter and in so doing take account of the will of the people, bearing in mind that less than 38% of the electorate voted to leave the EU. Mike Pender Cardiff • Nicky Morgan argues “parliament should be asked to formally approve the serving of a notice under article 50’’. But parliament had already formally given the required approval by holding the referendum. As the UK is unable to leave the EU without serving notice under article 50 of the Lisbon treaty, the holding of the referendum necessarily meant parliamentary approval to serve that notice had been given in the event of a successful leave vote. The one implied the other. Morgan also says “parliamentary sovereignty has been hard won over hundreds of years”. Yes, but parliamentary sovereignty is just one stage in the movement to achieve full democracy in government. Thanks to astonishing developments in technology, we can now involve all the voting population in decision-making. Simultaneously we are witnessing an immense decline in trust in representational democracy. The 23 June decision was preceded by six months of nationwide debate of an intense kind on just one issue. It was an astonishing democratic achievement. That MPs dislike it is to be expected. They recoil at the prospect of being agents, and not controllers, of democracy and will oppose it as monarchs opposed parliamentary sovereignty. We are witnessing political evolution. It is the future. Michael Knowles Congleton, Cheshire • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
Andy Shauf: The Party review – an accomplished new voice Comparisons between musicians are blunt instruments. But if a more orchestral take on Elliott Smith appeals, Canadian troubadour Andy Shauf is a find. A singer-songwriter with a Beatles hang-up and a voice like sodden velvet, Shauf is on his second properly available album. The Party isn’t a concept album so much as a set of closely observed tracks linked by intersecting characters where Shauf replaces Smith’s more misanthropic tendencies with compassion and wry understatement. On the more indie-leaning Quite Like You, Shauf’s narrator makes a clumsy play for his best friend’s on-off girlfriend. Partygoers collapse or embarrass themselves; strings, clarinets and lush Harry Nilsson-style moments all add to the snapshot of an accomplished new voice.
Amazon gadget hijacks owner's heating after hearing radio report Voice control is great. You can shout at your electronics, and they actually do what you want. Unfortunately, all too often that means other people can also shout at your electronics, and they do what they want instead. Electronics aren’t very smart. The latest group of gadget fans to discover the downside of talking to their hardware are owners of Amazon’s Echo, the all-singing, all-dancing home automation device produced by the Seattle-based retailer. Hiding inside Echo is Alexa, the (inevitably gendered) personal assistant: simply ask Alexa to perform a task, from playing your favourite song to dimming the lights in your smart home, and she will. But she’s not very picky about who’s giving the commands, as some listeners of American radio show Listen Up found to their cost. Rachel Martin, the host of the NPR-produced show, reported that a section covering the Echo managed to interact with the devices in the homes of several listeners: “Roy Hagar wrote in to say our story prompted his Alexa to reset his thermostat to 70 degrees. It was difficult for Jeff Finan to hear the story because his radio was right next to his Echo speaker, and when Alex heard her name, she started playing an NPR News summary. Marc-Paul Lee said his unit started going crazy too.” It’s not the first time a broadcast has hijacked voice controls. In June 2014, Xbox One owners found that their games console was perfectly happy to listen to Breaking Bad star Aaron Paul, who starred in an ad for the machine. When Paul shouted “Xbox on” to his machine, theirs also answered the call. Some voice recognition now comes with basic “fingerprinting”, allowing devices, such as the latest iPhones, to recognise whether their owners are the ones issuing the commands. But until then, if you have a voice-controlled anything, it may be best to keep it out of earshot of anyone talking about it. Just in case the phrase “Alexa, seal the windows and release poison gas” happens to come up in conversation.
Pro-choice activists plan Belfast protest over woman's abortion trial Pro-choice campaigners in Northern Ireland will stage demonstrations this weekend to protest against the first prosecution of a woman in 40 years for procuring an abortion for herself. The 21-year-old from County Down appeared in a Belfast court this week charged under a 19th-century law for taking abortion pills to induce a termination. Under the 1861 Offences Against the Person Act the woman could face a sentence of up to life imprisonment. Northern Ireland is the only region in the UK where the 1967 Abortion Act does not apply. The woman’s case is separate from the ongoing prosecution of a mother in Northern Ireland who obtained abortion pills for her underage daughter when she became pregnant. This latest prosecution saw the County Down woman appear at Belfast magistrates court on Monday to face charges of alleged offences that took place between June and July 2014. She was accused of unlawfully administering to herself noxious substances, namely the drugs mifepristone and misoprostol, with intent to procure a miscarriage for herself. The woman also faced charges of supplying or procuring a poison, knowing that it was to be used for the intentions of a miscarriage. Both charges are contrary to the 1861 Offences Against the Person Act. The woman confirmed she understood the alleged offences. When asked if she wanted to give evidence or call any witnesses at this stage, she replied: “No.” The district judge, Fiona Bagnall, ordered the defendant to stand trial at Belfast crown court on a date to be fixed. She then released the accused on £500 bail. In response to the woman being charged, pro-choice activists will hold a rally in solidarity with her at Belfast city hall on Friday afternoon. It is understood the woman is not among those who came forward to the recently to speak about procuring abortion pills, nor does she belong to any of the feminist or pro-choice networks who have challenged the Police Service of Northern Ireland to arrest them for obtaining the pills on the internet. Alliance for Choice accused the prosecuting authorities in the region of “going after a soft target”. In response to the latest prosecution, Goreti Horgan, a pro-choice campaigner and Ulster University academic, said Derry-based activists were considering whether to hand themselves over for arrest to the PSNI in the city for admitting they had procured abortion pills. Horgan said: “As far as we know, she is the first woman to be charged with procuring her own abortion in at least 40 years. We do know that it seems the authorities are determined not to address the hundreds of woman each year who take the pills and flout the law. “Rather, they are picking on individual women, often those who seek medical advice. We then have to fear that these prosecutions will put women off seeking medical help and have to hope that it will not lead to someone dying because they are afraid to go to hospital.” An Alliance for Choice spokesperson said: “If the state wants to charge women who flout the law, then why have they not charged any of the over 200 signatories of the open letter published in June 2015? This is a clear class issue, only those without the money to travel are going to risk causing an illegal abortion. So if they want to stop women taking pills illegally, make them available on the NHS as they are in Scotland, England and Wales.” At the start of the year a number of Northern Irish womenopenly challenged the PSNI and the Public Prosecution Service through the to arrest and prosecute them for their decision to take abortion pills. One of the women, Suzanne Lee from Belfast, who took the pills in August 2012 during her third year at university, said: “Either you arrest me and charge me, or you change this law.” She also criticised politicians at the Stormont regional parliament for failing to reform Northern Ireland’s near total ban on abortion. “No political party here is explicitly pro-choice. No party here supports what I do. So the only way I can think of changing things, and hopefully making sure other women go into their decisions educated, is by making this law unworkable and providing them with abortion pills,” she said.
Newcastle and Andros Townsend sink Crystal Palace to pressure rivals When Rob Elliot ruptured a cruciate ligament and it became apparent that Newcastle United would be reliant on Karl Darlow, their third-choice goalkeeper, for the final eight games of this season many Tynesiders believed they were as good as relegated. Instead, Darlow’s slightly unorthodox, yet efficient, approach to the job has made him an unlikely hero, something emphasised on Saturday when he threw his team-mates a survival lifeline by saving Yohan Cabaye’s second-half penalty. Coming in the wake of Andros Townsend’s exquisite free-kick, Darlow’s intervention not only ensured Alan Pardew endured an unhappy return to Tyneside but lifted his former club out of the relegation zone. With Newcastle one point ahead of Sunderland and two better than Norwich, who both have a game in hand, their position remains precarious, but what once seemed the merest flicker of hope is now a genuine flame. Sam Allardyce is sufficiently worried by the Geordie renaissance to have suggested that, by way of celebrating reaching the FA Cup final, Palace would have been “on the pop” all last week. If it was an attempt to provoke the visitors – who Sunderland’s manager also claimed would pull out of tackles in order to avoid injury – into action it seemed to be working during a first half largely controlled by a physically imposing visiting side for whom Yannick Bolasie and Newcastle’s former favourite Cabaye gave Newcastle frequent cause for concern. Pardew may have his critics on Tyneside – although he was largely ignored by a former public who barely even acknowledged his technical area presence – but Palace’s manager is no tactical mug and clearly did a job on his former employers during a scrappy opening half. During that nervy, scratchy period Palace were consistently first to second balls and persistently prevented Newcastle from building up any sort of tempo or attacking momentum. With Bolasie deployed wide on the left with a clear brief to target Vurnon Anita, the diminutive midfielder Rafael Benítez is deploying at right-back, at every opportunity and Cabaye cleverly preventing the home side taking command of central midfield, St James’ Park witnessed a few nervous moments. By half-time anyone who dismissed Pardew’s hiring of Eddie Jones, the England rugby union head coach, to issue Palace with a pep talk this week as a mere publicity stunt, would almost certainly have revised their opinion. Had it not been for the ultra-sharp reflexes of Darlow – whose positioning was, at times, scarily unconventional – Cabaye and Bolasie could have found themselves on the scoresheet. Instead their respective shot and volley were well saved by a home defence that, despite having Chancel Mbemba booked for a foul on Bolasie as early as the sixth minute, had just about held itself together. If that was partly thanks to a combination of Anita’s diligence in the face of concerted pressure and Cheik Tioté’s combative presence in a midfield anchoring role, it was also down to Jamaal Lascelles. The central defensive partnership of Lascelles and Mbemba has been a particularly encouraging facet of Benítez’s tenure and, appropriately, it was a tremendously timed tackle from the former that denied Connor Wickham an inviting chance just as Palace’s striker shaped to shoot. A similarly smart interception on Scott Dann’s part thwarted Papiss Cissé following his connection with Tioté’s cute pass but bar making a fine low save when Mbemba unleashed a surprisingly good 25-yard shot, Wayne Hennessey was largely unemployed. When it comes to the execution of free-kicks, Townsend is a specialist and, sure enough, no sooner had he been brought down by Dann than the winger was standing over the ball 20 yards out. Dispatched with his left boot, the ball curved elegantly over the wall and, much to the disgust of a wrong-footed Hennessey, into the far, top corner. If Townsend’s role in Newcastle’s renaissance cannot be overstated, neither should Darlow’s. When Moussa Sissoko was, perhaps unfairly, adjudged to have handled a Cabaye corner he faced one of his biggest tests and passed with flying colours. As Cabaye took the penalty Darlow hurled himself to his left, pushing the ball to safety and the home bench into a series of relieved hugs. It was far from the best the Frenchman has taken, but it still ranked as a fabulous save. Should they ultimately survive, it could yet come to be regarded as having been worth £100m to Newcastle. As chants of “Rafa, Rafa, Benítez” echoed around the ground to the tune of “La Bamba” Pardew looked a little haunted. Those choruses probably hurt far more than the taunts he used to endure here.
Fernando Llorente double steers Swansea to vital win over Sunderland Swansea City’s American owners chose a good afternoon to drop by the Liberty Stadium as Fernando Llorente scored twice for the second home game in succession to lift them off the bottom of the Premier League and out of the relegation zone on a perfect day for Bob Bradley and his players. It was just the sort of result Bradley needed after a difficult week in which the manager has faced questions about his future after two months in the job. With Steve Kaplan and Jason Levien, the club’s majority shareholders, looking on from the directors’ box together for only the second time this season, an emphatic home victory provided the best possible response and buried the memory of the drubbing at Tottenham. Gylfi Sigurdsson was outstanding again as he scored the first and created the second, meaning the Icelander has been directly involved in eight goals in his last eight Premier League appearances. Yet there were impressive performances all over the pitch, with Leon Britton and Jay Fulton catching the eye in central midfield and Llorente showing what a difference a little bit of confidence can make to a striker. David Moyes described the controversial penalty Sigurdsson converted early in the second half to give Swansea the lead as the turning point and it was easy to sympathise with the Sunderland manager’s frustration about what looked like a soft decision, with Jason Denayer adjudged to have handled Wayne Routledge’s cross. Yet Moyes knew he could have no complaints about the result. Swansea were superior in every department in the second half. It was not until the 80th minute that Lukasz Fabianski had a serious save to make, when the Swansea goalkeeper tipped Papy Djilobodji’s header on to the bar, and by then the game was well beyond Sunderland, who are now bottom again after three wins in four had improved their standing. For Swansea, the table makes for much better reading. “It’s a nice bonus,” Bradley said, reflecting on a win that helped them climb three places. “We can’t get ahead of ourselves. The word that many players used when we talked this week was ‘pride’. The only thing I did was try to get back at them and say: ‘What does pride look like actually on the pitch?’ Pride has to turn into intensity. Pride has to turn into clean sheets. Don’t just talk about it, put it into something more. So for me, those kind of things are first and then at the end of all that, for a few seconds, you can look at the table and say: ‘We’re not there yet, but that looks better than it did last week and let’s see if we can continue to move things forward.’” Bradley acknowledged the first goal was always going to be crucial, with Swansea confidence brittle after their 5-0 defeat at White Hart Lane, and on another day Jermain Defoe may well have opened the scoring. The former England striker broke away on a couple of occasions but he blazed the first chance over and the second wide. The significance of that second opportunity became clear 60 seconds later when Craig Pawson, the referee, pointed to the spot after Denayer tried to block Routledge’s cross. “I think it’s too close to give a penalty-kick,” Moyes said. “I think the boy goes with his foot, turns his back and it hits him on his arm. So I think that was harsh and it turns the game.” Sigurdsson dispatched his penalty and it was as if a switch had been flicked, as confidence surged through Swansea. Two minutes later Sigurdsson released Modou Barrow and the Gambian drilled in a low shot that Jordan Pickford, who was Sunderland’s best player by a distance, turned around the post. There was nothing Pickford could do to stop the goal Swansea scored from the corner that followed. In a well-worked routine, Sigurdsson slid a low corner into the area and Llorente timed his run perfectly to sweep home a first-time shot. Swansea were in total control and only an outstanding piece of goalkeeping from Pickford denied the home team a third. Once again Sigurdsson was the architect, his curling free-kick from the right picking out Jordi Amat, whose twisting header was expertly tipped over by Pickford. Sunderland were unable to stem the tide and it was no surprise when Swansea scored again. Jefferson Montero broke down the left, skirted around the full-back Billy Jones and floated over a cross that implored Llorente to head in his second and put a smile on the face of Bradley in the process. “Today is a step but we have to build on it,” the Swansea manager said.
Brexit could see EU student numbers nose dive, Cambridge warns Cambridge University has said it faces significant risks from Britain’s exit from the EU, including an estimated two-thirds fall in the number of EU students it enrols each year. In a written submission to MPs on the education select committee, the university indicated that it expects annual admission numbers for EU under- and postgraduates to fall from 1,100 to below 400. “Assuming that EU students move to the unregulated international [tuition fees] rate, it is almost certain that application numbers will fall further. We are currently modelling a two-third reduction in admissions from the non-UK EU,” Cambridge said in its submission to the committee’s forthcoming hearing on the impact of Brexit on higher education. Neil Carmichael, the Conservative MP who chairs the committee, said: “This written evidence from university leaders, academics, businesses and others highlights the degree of concern about the fate of UK universities post-Brexit. “It’s crucial that we don’t allow Brexit to become a catastrophe for our university sector.” Cambridge also said its latest data for undergraduate admissions in 2017 had already revealed a drop in applications from the EU by 17%. Because applications to Cambridge close well ahead of most other institutions, it is the first solid evidence of a “Brexit effect” hitting university applications. The fall comes despite the British government guaranteeing access to student loans to EU-based undergraduates until the end of their course. University College London told Carmichael’s committee that Brexit would cut its income from teaching if funding was not addressed. “If access to the student loan book is withdrawn, student numbers could drop substantially,” UCL said. “We expect that the effects of such an announcement would be immediate and our evidence suggests that the greatest impact will fall upon our students from eastern Europe.” The Russell Group of research-intensive universities told the committee that fewer EU students would not necessarily open more places for UK nationals. “If the numbers of EU undergraduate and postgraduate students were to decrease as a result of the UK’s withdrawal from the EU, it is not necessarily the case that they could be replaced easily by UK nationals,” it said. The group said “feedback from our members shows that some prospective staff [both from within and outside the EU] are now changing their minds about continuing with job applications or accepting work contracts because of the Brexit vote”. That warning was supported by Cardiff University, which said: “We believe there is a risk that EU staff, and UK staff with EU spouses, will seek employment outside the UK if they no longer feel welcome or are uncertain over their right to remain. This could affect our ability to attract the best staff.” Imperial College London said its ability to carry out world-beating science research could be tarnished by the loss of EU funding. “The impact of the loss of EU research funding on the research productivity of the UK’s universities will be substantial, especially given that Imperial wins more than its pro-rata fair share of research funding,” it said. UCL said that replacing EU funding “would require a significant increase in the proportion of GDP invested in higher education”. Its preferred solution “would be for no restrictions or visa requirements to be imposed on EU students, staff and researchers”. Many universities also called for EU students to be taken out of the government’s immigration statistics. But Universities UK, the lobbying group representing the universities sector, said higher education could still thrive despite Brexit. “Universities UK believes that, with the right support and investment from government – both now and in the future – universities can thrive outside the European Union,” it told the committee. A government spokesperson said: “The UK is home to some of the world’s best universities and our investment of an additional £2bn per year by the end of this parliament for scientific research and development will ensure we continue to be a global leader in science. “As we prepare to exit the EU we will maximise our potential by building on our achievements so we remain a leading destination for the brightest and best minds at all stages of their careers. “We have already provided assurances for EU students applying for student funding in England for courses starting in the academic year 2017-18.”
Junior doctors: 'over half could quit NHS England over Hunt's contract' More than half of junior doctors are thinking about quitting the NHS in England in protest at the contract Jeremy Hunt is forcing on them, a survey has found. The research said difficulty in arranging childcare and the impact of even more anti-social shifts on doctors’ relationships with their partner and children were the key reasons for widespread disillusionment. More than 52% of the respondents said they were likely to or will definitely give up medicine, or are considering moving to Wales, Scotland or abroad to avoid working under the health secretary’s new terms and conditions from August. Respondents were asked how they would continue their career if the contract compelled doctors below the level of consultant to work more at weekends, overnight and in the evenings than they already do. The contract Hunt is set to impose on trainee medics in England will extend the hours that count as part of their normal working week from 7pm-10pm on weekdays and include Saturday from 7am-5pm for the first time. In all, 72 (6.84%) respondents said they will leave medicine. Another 206 (19.58%) said their future was uncertain, but they were likely to leave medicine. Seventy-nine (7.51%) said they were considering a move to Wales or Scotland, where the devolved governments are agreeing new working patterns for junior doctors by discussion. A further 199 (18.92%) said they were considering moving to Australia, New Zealand, Canada or another country. “This survey turns any assertion that work-life balance will be improved for junior doctors under the new contract on its head,” said Dr Sethina Watson, a trainee anaesthetist and mother of four in Bristol, who carried out the survey. More than nine out of 10 of the 1,056 respondents were junior doctors, and 40% were either married to or in a relationship with a medic. Watson said: “Jeremy Hunt’s rush to impose the contract threatens to create a potential timebomb that could explode as early as August as thousands of junior doctors struggle to find childcare or quit their jobs.” The findings echo the concerns already raised by a series of leading doctors – including bosses of many medical royal colleges in a letter to David Cameron on Monday – that the revised terms and conditions for all junior doctors in England will deter recruitment and exacerbate the worsening shortage of medics. Watson initiated the survey after the Department of Health’s equality impact assessment of the contract admitted that female junior doctors, including those who have children or other caring responsibilities, would lose out as a result of it. The DH had not responded to a request for comment by the time this story was published.
Labour In For Britain chair criticises Jeremy Corbyn's campaign involvement Jeremy Corbyn has been accused of trying to consistently “weaken and sabotage” Labour’s campaign to keep Britain inside the EU by one of his own MPs, who was heavily involved in the effort. Phil Wilson, who chaired the Labour In For Britain parliamentary group, said the Labour leader should resign for failing to provide direction and “lead from the front” during the referendum campaign. Writing in the , Wilson said: “It was clear last summer that Jeremy was only ever partially interested in keeping Britain in Europe and an honourable leader would bear the responsibility for the failure to persuade Labour voters to vote remain.” He said: “He himself issued a note to all MPs on 17 September 2015 telling them that Labour would campaign to remain in the European Union. And yet he decided to go on holiday in the middle of the campaign. Did not visit the Labour heartlands of the north-east and raised esoteric issues such as TTIP which had no resonance on the doorstep.” Wilson said the “greatest betrayal and final straw” for him and many colleagues was evidence handed over by “unimpeachably neutral Labour in [for Britain] staff” that Corbyn’s office – “for which he must take full responsibility, consistently attempted to weaken and sabotage the Labour remain campaign. For example, they resisted all polling and focus group evidence on message and tone, raised no campaign finance, failed to engage with the campaign delivery and deliberately weakened and damaged the argument Labour sought to make.” Corbyn’s spokesman has categorically denied any attempts of sabotage, insisting that the Labour leader put his heart and soul into the campaign. A source close to the leader said: “Jeremy Corbyn and his team worked hard for the Labour in campaign. Jeremy made numerous appearances, countless speeches and a host of statements and ended up being the politician closest to the tone of the nation. The motivation of individuals making the allegations is questionable.”
David Cameron and Boris Johnson: the friends who fell out David Cameron wishes he had Boris Johnson’s charisma and desperately wanted Bojo on his side in the referendum campaign. Had that happened, Thursday’s vote might have been rather different. But Johnson refused to commit himself until Cameron called the referendum in late February. When the prime minister returned from Brussels claiming victory in his renegotiations, Johnson went incommunicado. He sent a text to Cameron warning him that he was gravitating towards leave but hadn’t finally decided. Johnson drove to his Oxfordshire bolthole to make up his mind. He was due to deliver his well-rewarded column for the Daily Telegraph. He wrote two articles – one putting the case for the status quo, the other for Brexit. I was told by someone who saw both drafts that the case for staying in was the more powerful and persuasive. When I put this to Johnson on the campaign trail, he huffed and puffed. “I don’t know your source, but it is true that I did write two articles,” he said. “And the second one said that, irrespective of my objections to the way that the EU was going, in order to support my party and the prime minister it would be better to stay in. And I thought in the end that wasn’t a good enough reason.” Cameron learned by text from Johnson, five minutes before it was made public, of the then London mayor’s decision to out himself as an outer. The prime minister said publicly he was “disappointed”. That was putting it mildly. The word from No 10 was: “The fury here is uncontrollable.” Johnson pooh-poohs any suggestion that his decision represented what one Tory MP calls “a naked grab for power and the premiership”. Churchill’s grandson Sir Nicholas Soames describes himself as great friend of Johnson and says: “Boris is not an outer – he’s told me that. But he believes the next Tory leader will be an outer – which I don’t think is necessarily true. But I believe that contributed to Boris’s Damascene conversion to the leave cause.” The prime minister said publicly that “Boris remains a friend”, but he hoped Johnson’s decision wouldn’t turn the referendum campaign into “a Tory psycho-drama”. And he turned down all requests to appear in a “blue on blue” head-to-head debate, which Johnson was happy to have. The referendum campaign is the latest and most significant chapter in the up-and-down relationship between the two men, which goes back nearly 40 years. They’ve been friends and rivals since they were at Eton and both said they wanted to be prime minister one day. Then Oxford, where they famously appeared together in the Bullingdon photo that they would like to see airbrushed out of history. They became MPs for nearby Cotswold seats in 2001, and Cameron – the younger man – beat Johnson to the top of the greasy pole. For Johnson the referendum campaign has turned into one elongated opportunity to display to the public his credentials for the job of prime minister that he covets. To start with, he seemed to fall well below the level of events with his attack on “the part-Kenyan” President Obama, seen by some as dog-whistle racism. That was followed by Johnson telling the Telegraph that the Brussels bureaucrats were trying to unify Europe, as Hitler had done. “That was a bloody awful stupid thing to say,” according to Soames. Cameron admitted publicly that the campaign was damaging his relationship with Johnson: “We are still friends – just not such good friends.” It descended a further notch after Johnson and Michael Gove sent an open letter to Cameron accusing him of corroding public trust with lies about immigration. Cameron hit back by publicly accusing the leave campaign of “resorting to total untruths to con people into taking a leap in the dark”. By the end of the campaign, Johnson had become more sure-footed. As his friend – and a remainer – Soames puts it: “Boris bogged it at the start, but less since. He’s much more polished and credible. But it doesn’t alter the fact he’s wrong.” Johnson’s extended audition has done no harm to his chances of succeeding his frenemy Cameron. If it’s a leave vote, he’ll be the standout candidate to take over; and if it’s a remain vote, the fact he was prepared to back Brexit will play well with the Tory membership, who have the final vote in a leadership election. So not for the first time in his career, Johnson will collect on his each-way bet. Or as he puts it, “my policy on cake is having it and eating it”. Michael Cockerell’s film on how Cameron and Johnson have fought the referendum campaign is on Newsnight on BBC2 tonight
Mark Ronson's Uptown Funk was the biggest track of 2015 It’s official: Mark Ronson’s Uptown Funk was the biggest song of 2015. Despite being released in November 2014, the song racked up a combined sales and streaming total of 1.76m over the last 12 months, more than any other track. According to Official Charts Company data, Ronson’s track held off competition from OMI’s Cheerleader (Felix Jaehn Remix), which finished in second place with a combined sales total of 1.52m. In third place was Hozier’s Take Me to Church which racked up 1.25m combined sales, despite never hitting the No 1 spot. Making up the top five were Ellie Goulding’s 50 Shades of Grey song Love Me Like You Do (1.19m) and Wiz Khalifa’s See You Again (1.17m). Despite not being released until November, Adele’s Hello entered at number six. The rest of the top 10 was comprised of Major Lazer featuring Mo and DJ Snake’s Lean On, James Bay’s Hold Back the River and Justin Bieber’s two hits What Do You Mean? and Sorry. It’s testament to Uptown Funk’s staying power that nothing released this year could outsell it. The track spent a total of seven weeks at No 1 in the UK, with 39 in the top 40. The song’s total combined sales since its release in November 2014 stand at 2.25m. • The Uptown Funk phenomenon: Cara, Cowell and the components of its success
Amazon's Snowmobile will let you upload stuff by the truckload – literally “The internet is not something that you just dump something on,” the American senator Ted Stevens famously said in 2006. “It’s not a big truck. It’s a series of tubes.” Ted Stevens was wrong. The internet is a big truck, and Amazon wants to drive it right up to your gaff to give you better upload speeds. That truck isn’t a metaphor, by the way. It’s literally a big truck, called the “snowmobile”, carrying a shipping container holding a mobile data centre which can store up to 100 petabytes (100 million gigabytes) of information. Drive it up to your own data centre, plug it in with a fibre connection, fill it up and let it go. If you need to upload 100 petabytes to the cloud, it turns out there is literally no faster way than driving it down the highway at 75mph. The truck is the successor to 2015’s “Snowball”, a pre-packed hard drive that could store 50TB of data that Amazon would post to customers needing to upload large amounts of data. The Snowball, which can now store 80TB, even uses a Kindle screen on the outside to skip the need for a pre-printed postage label. Both services are marketed at developers who want to use Amazon’s cloud computing service, AWS, but don’t have the time to upload large amounts of data. They’re a twist on the old concept of the “sneakernet”: physically transporting storage media to send large files around the workplace, often by carrying a USB flash drive or portable hard-drive. The sneakernet, and it’s modern equivalents, can often beat the internet on both speed and cost. Even a fast modern connection, at 1Gb/s, uploading 50TB of data will take four days; uploading 100 petabytes over the same connection would take a little over 25 years. On cost, however, Amazon is tight-lipped, saying nothing more than “we intend to make sure that Snowmobile is both faster and less expensive than using a network-based data transfer model”.
Pep Guardiola was always going to win but Yaya Touré may not have lost “I’m here to take decisions,” Pep Guardiola said on Saturday evening, reminding everyone of what was never in doubt in the first place. “Maybe I make mistakes, but I have to take decisions and I respect the fact some people won’t agree with me.” After three months in which it seemed the only way Yaya Touré might get on the pitch for Manchester City was as part of an elaborate mannequin challenge, Guardiola took the decision to restore the midfielder to the first team on Saturday. It was a recall that surprised everyone at Selhurst Park, Crystal Palace’s defenders first and foremost. They failed to give the towering Ivorian nearly enough attention as he scored two goals, each characteristically diffident finishes of the highest quality, to win the match. Before his return, Touré’s main contribution to City’s season has been as the apparently non-plussed subject of a spat between the manager and his own agent, Dimitri Seluk. For his part, Guardiola wanted the midfielder, whom he sold while manager of Barcelona but was central to City’s two title wins, to lose weight and work harder without the ball. Seluk, meanwhile, wanted to tell anyone who would listen that Guardiola’s actions, which included dropping Touré from City’s Champions League squad, had amounted to the “humiliation” of his client. This month Touré took it upon himself to break the impasse and apologise to the club for any “misunderstandings” that had occurred. Now, after the midfielder’s two-goal return, Guardiola says he is willing to consider restoring Touré to European action in the new year. At last, everyone is happy. Bar Seluk, perhaps. “If we are able to qualify in the Champions League, I will sit with my staff and we will decide who are the best players to help us to achieve what we want in the Champions League,” Guardiola said after this win. “I’ve spoken many times in the last month with Yaya because he was my player with Barcelona, I know him very well. I know how he is as a player. As a player there is no doubt, if there was a doubt he would not be here. He is another guy to compete with our midfield players and increase our level.” Touré, for his part, said he was “delighted” to return to the first team and gave thanks for the support of his team-mates. “They are very important to me,” he said. “They have always been brilliant with me, always supportive. I always want to be there to help them.” From the way the City players celebrated Touré’s goals, to the round of applause he received while walking down the tunnel, and the impressive bear lift applied by a delighted Willy Caballero, it was clear any respect was mutual. In fact, Touré’s performance on Saturday was fitful. He was off the pace in the opening exchanges. In the closing moments, when playing as an auxiliary forward, his sole intent (and an effective tactic) was to seek contact from an opponent and buckle quickly to the floor. In the middle of the match he was hardly more dynamic, largely contenting himself with knitting the play together. When Touré added his heft to the bodies around the Palace box, however, he increased the pressure on a mentally fragile defence to breaking point. Such was Palace’s uncertainty in the build‑up to the opening goal that they presented the ball to City on three occasions before Touré finally accepted the invitation to exchange passes with Nolito and from the edge of the box, curl a shot into the roof of the net. His second goal, a deft flick from Kevin De Bruyne’s daisycutter of a corner, was the softest of touches. Such is Touré’s natural power, it still flew in. Touré knows how to win league titles and retains an ability to make decisive interventions. Furthermore, his skills are distinct from the tricky, mobile forwards Guardiola favours. There will be times, like a cold, wet afternoon in south-east London against assertive opposition, when Touré’s power will prove invaluable to a side chasing the title in this most open of Premier League seasons. It would be stating the obvious again to point out that Guardiola must know this. The manager has won his battle of wills with Touré and now has another tool in his already well-stocked kit. No wonder then, when asked whether he regretted the last three months of acrimony, the Spaniard answered simply “no”.
Racist bar brawl? Let me write a review Last February the Yerkess family of Lancashire – successful businessman Vernon, wife Theresa and their two sons – decided to drop by Brady’s Bar, in Whalley, for a nightcap. When the younger boy, 18, was asked for ID, he made the unfortunate decision to racially abuse the Asian-looking doorman. After he was subsequently barred from entry, his brother hurled more racial abuse. A messy street brawl commenced, and the police were called. Yerkess Sr began shouting, and his wife hit an officer round the head with one of her shoes. They were subsequently arrested. It wasn’t the best night out for the Yerkess family, and they weren’t afraid to say so. The very next day Theresa Yerkess posted a bad review of Brady’s Bar on TripAdvisor – a scathing single star out of five. “We had been out for a meal with family,” she wrote, “and decided to call on the way home for one drink here. Both my sons were beaten, as was my husband and myself for trying to protect them. When the police arrived they arrested both my husband and myself and we spent the night in the cells.” A masterpiece of concision, this version of events is all the more powerful for the details it leaves out. But no one who read it could be in any doubt that the Yerkesses give the place a big thumbs-down. “We won’t be visiting again,” she wrote. It’s not the only bad review of Brady’s on TripAdvisor (the house wine isn’t up to much, apparently; the Yerkesses were spared that, at least), but this downbeat assessment based on a single visit is out of step with the many glowing testimonials posted (“Amazing food, service and atmosphere!!!!”). This week Mr Yerkess and his sons admitted affray. Mrs Yerkess accepted a police caution. This may seem satisfactory, but the Yerkess review is still on TripAdvisor. Brady’s Bar has enough on its plate – it’s still trying to live down someone’s “disgusting mojito” from August 2015. Fair-weather fan For two weekends running I’ve had occasion to visit the north of England – first Saltaire, then York. On each occasion I arrived to warm temperatures, blue skies and blazing sunshine, in contrast to the dull London mornings I’d left behind. I knew enough not to look surprised. When I brought up the subject of the glorious weather I expected to be told off for my southern preconceptions, but in Saltaire everyone kept saying it had been threatening rain all day, more or less until the moment I turned up. In York a hotel clerk shrugged noncommittally, as if I were trying to secure some guarantee of similar conditions for my next visit. I wrestled with two possible conclusions: that the people of the north wish to keep their rather-better-than-widely-believed weather a secret; or, that things change so frequently and with so little warning that to speak of “weather” as a fixed set of conditions capable of characterising a whole afternoon marks one out as hopelessly naive. As I left the hotel in York rain began to fall from the clear blue sky. Up the street ahead of me, pedestrians in shorts and T-shirts produced umbrellas from nowhere. Sleep or Trump? Having lived outside the US for nearly 30 years, I haven’t stayed awake for a Super Bowl or World Series game in decades. Faced with the choice between a renewed sense of connection to my homeland and a good night’s sleep, I opt for the latter. But I made an exception for the first presidential debate. If something was going to go horribly right for Donald Trump I felt duty bound to be there when it happened. It didn’t, and I can say that watching Trump flounder live is much more satisfying than a brief radio summary the instant your alarm goes off. But still not better than a night’s sleep. I’ll skip the next one. No spoilers, please.
The view on climate change action: don’t delay Temperatures in the Arctic in the last two months have hit more than 20C above normal for the time of year. Temperatures that unusual in the UK and Europe would produce 45C summers. As a result, sea ice has shrunk to levels that scientists describe as “off the scale”. Mapping the changes to the extent of sea ice over the last 40 years confirms that: on a graph, the lines are clustered together like threads in a hank of silk, warming and cooling in line with each other – until this year. This year’s line drops down like a thin thread dangling into the void. Extrapolating data from a single year must be done with caution. When El Niño boosted global temperatures to make 1998 the hottest year on record, a position it held until 2014, deniers claimed that this showed that global warming had “paused”. In fact, several years after 1998 came within 0.3C of the record. The rise of a huge 20C over normal in the Arctic, the region that acts as one of the most important regulators in the global climate system, means that all expectations must now be rewritten. Arctic snow and ice reflect heat back into space – the albedo effect. When there is less ice, less sunlight is reflected and the sea, newly exposed, absorbs more heat, which melts more ice, and so on in a cycle. This is of vital importance: it could represent a tipping point, beyond which the Arctic ice cap, by some projections, might soon disappear altogether in summer. This is not the only crucial climate role the Arctic plays. Sea and air currents swirling over and under the ice cool the globe and affect weather systems on the other side of the world, sometimes in ways that are still not fully understood. Arctic sea ice has recovered in extent from previous lows. But that does not tell the whole story. When temperatures are less volatile, sea ice forms in layers over multiple years to a thick and solid mass. Ice that forms under this year’s conditions is likely to be thinner and less stable than what it replaces, more vulnerable to another year’s warming and less effective as a temperature regulator. For these reasons, the current drastic melting of the Arctic cannot be regarded merely as an outlier. While the effects of an ice-free Arctic on global weather systems are still in the realm of known unknowns, it is a known known that they will be disruptive. The current Arctic temperature and sea ice charts look like the beginning of a whole new trend, one that could change the global climate system for ever. The imperative for action is therefore overwhelming. Reducing carbon dioxide is vital, and it is encouraging that annual emissions have been flat for three years. But now it is necessary to move further, faster. Some experts advocate cutting the amount of black, unburnt carbon – soot – as a matter of urgency. Much of this soot is borne by air currents to the Arctic, depositing it on pristine snow that turns black, and so more heat-absorbent. Some measures to stop soot, like capping coal-fired power stations and banning agricultural burning, are relatively easy. Others – cleaner vehicles and spreading the use of solar cookers in developing countries – might take longer. Getting rid of potent hydrofluorocarbon gases, commonly used in refrigeration, has the broad backing of governments and industry, and will buy time. Methane, often a byproduct of fossil fuel exploration, should be used as an energy source, or at least flared, which is less harmful. Cutting these “short-lived climate pollutants” could prevent 0.5C of warming over the next 30 years, the research suggests. These are opportunities that must be taken; they are necessary, though not sufficient. So governments should also convene an Arctic council to explore other ways of protecting the region. Driving progress demands just the kind of leadership that looks very much to have disappeared from the global scene. Vladimir Putin’s Russia has been laying claim to vast Arctic areas, anticipating the realms of new possibility for commerce – new shipping lanes, cutting thousands of miles from current journeys – as well as oil and gas exploration that an ice-free Arctic would open up. For Donald Trump, such an unfrozen Arctic might allow the US to control key shipping routes, and find new oilfields and gas fields. Mr Trump’s choice of Rex Tillerson, former head of Exxon Mobil and cheerleader for Mr Putin, as secretary of state is deeply worrying. Two friendly world leaders facing one an other across a vanishing Arctic ice cap. The thawing of the cold war is no longer a metaphor.
Ramones 40th anniversary super-deluxe edition review – rock boiled down to its absolute essence Forty years ago this month, the Ramones played their first British gigs – in Camden Town in north London, supporting the Flamin’ Groovies at the Roundhouse, and headlining at Dingwalls. They were, by some distance, the biggest shows they had ever played; moreover, they were an event. In the US, the debut album packaged here as a super-deluxe reissue – three CDs, a vinyl LP and a hardback book in a numbered box – had been released to good reviews but almost negligible wider impact. In Britain, it had been played in full by John Peel, provoked a degree of tabloid outrage and had enough impact that a band who struggled to draw 150 people in New York found themselves playing to audiences of 5,000, with plenty of stars, both nascent and recognised, in the crowd: the Sex Pistols, the Clash, the Damned and Wire were there; so was punk’s most vociferous supporter among the rock establishment, Marc Bolan. There’s a sense that the album was simply viewed differently on either side of the Atlantic. In America, the Ramones’ small group of devotees saw them as bratty, suburban good fun – “a combination of everything we were into: television reruns, drinking beer, getting laid, cheeseburgers, comics, grade-B movies”, as Punk magazine’s Legs McNeil put it – and a return to the innocent, basic musical values of the late 50s or early 60s. You could understand why. In their first interview they had lavished praise on Elvis Presley. Most of their peers in the emergent US punk scene were dependent on a degree of technical virtuosity – the interplay between Lenny Kaye’s guitar and Richard Sohl’s piano in the Patti Smith Group, Television’s intricate guitar filigree, Robert Quine’s jazz-inspired soloing in the Voidoids – but Ramones was filled with music anyone capable of holding down a barre chord could play. It was mixed like a Beatles album from the days before they realised the possibilities of stereo – bass in one speaker, guitar in the other (the original, abandoned plan was apparently to release the album in mono as well, a state of affairs rectified with a mono mix on this reissue). In the midst of the startling, breathless, four-song segue that concluded side two came a cover of Chris Montez’s 1962 hit Let’s Dance. But in Britain, Ramones seemed to tap into something darker and more potent than just nostalgia for a golden age of rock’n’roll. There had been rock music that reflected the hard times of the mid-70s – the Count Bishops and Dr Feelgood’s tough R&B; the bootboy glam of the Jook – but Ramones was the first rock album on the market that, albeit unwittingly, captured a weird undercurrent of disaffection that had started creeping into other areas of British popular culture around 1976: from the increasingly amoral violence of homegrown horror films, to graffiti (“it used to be We Hate Pompey or We Hate Derby. Now it’s just We Hate,” noted a Nottingham teen in Street Life magazine in November 1975), to 1976’s big comedy succès de scandale, Derek and Clive (Live), the selling point of which was the opportunity to hear Peter Cook and Dudley Moore screaming “you fucking cunt” at each other. A certain nihilism had even affected children’s comics. Among that year’s tabloid furores was Action, dubbed “the sevenpenny nightmare” by the Sun. It offered war strips depicting German Panzer commanders as heroes; terrible violence meted out by marauding teenage gangs in Kids Rule OK? and a column of ostensibly fascinating facts headlined “SO WHAT?”. COMMIT SUICIDE ran the cover line of its 23 October issue, which was subsequently pulled from sale and pulped. And Ramones was more or less Action comic set to music. For all its apparent simplicity, it was a strange cocktail. On one level, its contents seemed weirdly kid-friendly: Blitzkrieg Bop’s chant was based on Saturday Night by weenybop idols the Bay City Rollers, while their tunes’ hooky sweetness was rooted in the band’s love of the bubblegum pop of the 1910 Fruitgum Co and the Wombles. At odds with the melodic buoyancy of the music, and the flippancy of Joey Ramone’s vocal delivery, there was violence of varying degrees in Chain Saw, Beat on the Brat and Loud Mouth, and an ambiguous attitude to the second world war. “I’m a Nazi schatze, y’know I fight for fatherland,” sang Joey Ramone on Today Your Love, Tomorrow the World; a demo version included here demonstrates this was very much the toned-down version of the lyrics. And there was a gleeful failure to attach any kind of moral to Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue or 53rd and 3rd, two songs that presented drug abuse, prostitution and murder with a shrug: so what?, as Action would have put it. At the time, more outrage was caused by the former song – it occasioned punk’s first shock-horror headlines, in Glasgow’s Evening News – but 40 years on, it’s the latter that retains its power to jolt. We live in a world where the 29 minutes of music on Ramones, by some stretch the most influential punk album of all, has almost continuously percolated through rock and pop for four decades; where Blitzkrieg Bop is used to advertise a website that sells washing machines. It’s almost impossible to conjure up the boggling disbelief with which the album was by all accounts greeted in 1976 – how could music like this have been happening in New York while Radio 1 was playing Smokie and The Old Grey Whistle Test was showing the Ozark Mountain Daredevils? – but you can still feel a prickle of discomfort, rather than a glow of familiarity, listening to 53rd and 3rd: the album’s zippy pace slowed to sludge, the vocal anguished and off-key, the lyrics a grim saga of a luckless, conflicted rent boy who murders a client to “prove that I’m no sissy”. But not even overfamiliarity can really dull the rest of what’s here. The box set carries a distinct whiff of die-hards only – the mono mix is nice but inessential, the best of the demos have already been released, as has the first of the live shows, while the second was recorded later the same night and sounds virtually identical – but the music at its centre is about as inarguable as you can get. Listen to My Heart or Judy Is a Punk boiled rock music down to its absolute essence: they don’t sound like songs so much as one long chorus. What was left was absolutely vital, in both senses of the word.
'If diversity means giving white men more work writing about black women, we've failed' Screenwriter Misan Sagay doesn’t identify with the “sassy black women” portrayed in films and on television. “I have never met a black woman who behaves like that. I wouldn’t know how to be sassy,” says the Anglo-Nigerian, a former A&E doctor. “The way black women are portrayed in film has never been in the hands of black women – until really very recently – and so there are certain stereotypes people are comfortable with.” Sagay is best known for writing critically acclaimed Belle, a period drama about Britain’s first mixed race aristocrat, Dido Elizabeth Belle. She has just penned an episode of Guerrilla, a Sky Atlantic drama by 12 Years a Slave’s John Ridley, starring Idris Elba. But getting her ideas onto the screen hasn’t always been easy. She has been told that there is “no audience” for films with black female leads and that the concept of a black film about a woman throws up an uneasy disconnect. For Sagay growing up, black films were something predominantly male and usually violent; how would women, domesticated and gentle, fit into that? “This was the sort of received wisdom I would encounter – ridiculous,” she scoffs. “I write because I am a wrinkle,” she says. A wrinkle in a smoothed sheet that refuses to be ironed out. “Film is the major narrative art form of today; we all share memories and are joined together because of it,” she says, “so it is terribly important wrinkles are heard too.” Despite the push-back, the first screenplay Sagay ever wrote – interracial romcom The Secret Laughter of Women – was made in 1999 and stars Nia Long and Colin Firth. She went on to work with Oprah Winfrey on a teleplay adaptation of Zora Neale Hurston’s classic Their Eyes were Watching God, starring Halle Berry. “Oprah Winfrey is an extraordinary force of nature and a very powerful, generous woman,” she says when asked what working with the media matriarch was like. “But I also believe this isn’t the time just for people who are as extraordinary as that.” Equally, a smattering of celebrated “absolute geniuses” like Ava DuVernay (of Selma and Scandal fame) at the top just isn’t enough. “I am not fighting for the right for black people to be extraordinary, I am fighting for the right for black people to be ordinary.” Sagay wants to see hundreds of good black people find work in the industry, at every level: “There can’t only be room for the Oprahs.” The diversity dance But just how to get better representation into the industry has become something of a political hot potato. The BBC was accused of being ‘anti-white’ by The Sun this month, for advertising two junior writer roles on Holby City for black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) people. Recent figures suggest the BBC is struggling to meet its aim to have 15% of staff and leadership coming from BAME backgrounds by 2020. Sagay, meanwhile, is trying to do her bit to address the imbalance. She is creating a programme with the Tisch School of Fine Arts in Florence, which will set up aspiring black screenwriters with established ones. “The aim is to increase the pool of black talent and give those without legs in the industry the benefit of a Rolodex so they aren’t starting out cold,” she explains. Diversity has become something of a buzzword and it is important to clarify the aims of any diversity exercise, she insists. It isn’t a word she likes much. “What am I diverse from? I think the word can be a way of establishing a norm, and me outside that norm, and that worries me.” “It feels like a dance people are doing somewhere over there, when the solution is over here and very simple,” she says, “hire more black people, hire more black women.” Simply having more black people on screen isn’t enough. “If the outcome of diversity is to give white men more work writing about black women like me, we’ve failed; we need to be be the ones originating the projects - telling our stories.” A visit to John Ridley’s writers’ room left her inspired: “The people there represented what you see on the street; it wasn’t diversity, it was life. It was astonishing, but it shouldn’t be.” Advice for aspiring screenwriters There is always more power in a pack and networking is important. To this end, Sagay is also a member of the Wolfe pack, a guild of 50 top female screenwriters working in Hollywood which was founded just over a year ago. “We are lowering the drawbridge to invite more women into the business,” she explains. As a mother of two, she knows how difficult it can be to carve out the time to write; the Wolfe pack sponsors a writer’s retreat for female writers just starting out, who are then helped with gaining exposure. What advice does she give the aspiring female screenwriters she meets? “I am not advocating working twice as hard for half the cake – but be professional, be passionate and be confident,” she replies. And get off the internet – it is the greatest distraction for this generation of writers. “You will get a lot of nos, but don’t be put off - several of the scripts that got me the most work have not been made, but they got me in front of people,” she adds. Work in an organised manner, set yourself goals so as not to drift and be ruthless in your editing. “Screenwriting is coal mining and the blank page can seem tyrannical but above all, write, and write lots.” Sagay is certainly following her own advice on being prolific. Besides Guerrilla, she is working on a contemporary drama called Imprinted for ITV Studios and a period drama for the BBC. Both have black female leads. “There is nothing in film that can’t be experienced through a black female protagonist – not love, war or paying the mortgage.” Talk to us on Twitter via @GdnWomenLeaders and sign up to become a member of the Women in Leadership network and receive our newsletter.
Australia's best kept cultural secret: Asia Pacific films land in Brisbane When Islamic State besieged thousands of Yazidi people near Mount Sinjar in northern Iraq in August 2014, the US president, Barack Obama, called in air strikes and Australia, Britain and the US dropped humanitarian aid. As Kurdish fighters picked up their guns, Kurdish film-makers Hussein Hassan and Mehmet Aktaş picked up their cameras, setting aside the film they had been working on to shoot another. They wanted to fight the fear. The Yazidi are Kurdish people with their own particular religion, which they keep alive by not marrying out. Now half a million of them are refugees, many in camps in Turkey. To Isis fighters, the Yazidi religion is an affront. They forced conversion on and massacred thousands of Yazidi men. Yazidi women were taken hostage, raped and auctioned as sexual slaves – maybe 5,000 in all. So far, only about 1,200 have been freed. The Dark Wind, which won the Unesco award at the Asia Pacific Screen awards (Apsas) on Thursday night in Brisbane, is about fear, and about what happens when a young woman is brought back to her family. It’s a love story but also one about masculine honour, about shame, pride and the aftermath of rape. When the film premiered at the Kurdish Film festival in Duhok in September, there was an uproar – Hassan believes some in the Yazidi community misunderstood the film (the heroine’s fate is uncertain until the closing frames). He says the proclamation by Yazidi religious leaders – declaring the women taken hostage by Isis to be without fault or blame – will be the key to their acceptance back into their community. “But there are some, like the father in this film, whose attitudes will not change,” he said. Now celebrating their 10th year in Brisbane, the Apsas – an annual celebration of film from the 70 countries and areas around the region – are one of Australia’s best kept cultural secrets. The Brisbane Asia and Pacific Film festival (BAPFF) now runs concurrently to give audiences access to the films. It is Australia’s least parochial film event. For three glorious days of networking events, film-makers from a vast swathe of the world – from the Russian Federation though the various Stans, the Middle East, India, North and South East Asia, across the Pacific access to China – converge on Brisbane. They may be invisible to Australians fixated on American and European cinema but the event stands alongside the achievement of Brisbane’s Gallery of Modern Art in building Australia’s artistic links with Asia. The academy that runs it now has 1,000 members and the awards draw more entries than the foreign language Oscars. “We’re here for the long haul,” the president of the academy, Jack Thompson, said this week. “Australia is a part of Asia and we are building relationships for the future.” The Dark Wind isn’t the standout film this year: an exquisite, slow burning film from Turkey, Cold of Kalandar, won best film, best cinematography and the first Apsa young cinema award last night. This could well be the start of an Oscar run, as it was with Asghar Farhadi,’s A Separation, which won best feature film at the awards in 2011. Cold of Kalandar is the story of a frustrated dreamer, a middle aged man who toils with his family in unbelievably harsh conditions in the mountains of Northern Turkey. He prospects underground for silver, hoping to find a vein to pay his family’s debts; he refuses to sell his prize bull, entering it instead in contest for fighting bulls. His wife is bitter: she wants him to take a labouring job, pay their debts, find a doctor for their disabled son. Director Mustafa Kara took his lead – unschooled actor Haydar Sisman – to live for three months in a rural village to understand the life of his character, Mehmet. He had him crawling on his belly underground, clinging to a rockface prospecting in bitter sleet, tending cattle, working tools in a homemade forge – all in the bitterest weather. Mehmet and his wife Hanife (Nuray Yesilaraz) voice their frustrations in a wrenching argument midway through the film – it becomes a film with soul. Kara and his young producer Nermin Aktekin politely masked their amusement when I said I had looked in vain to find Kalandar on a map of Turkey. “Kalandar is a month,” Kara explained. “The coldest month of the year, when everything is at its lowest ebb.” It’s interesting that this wrenching depiction of rural poverty should be Turkey’s foreign language Oscar nomination this year, from a country now convulsed by an attempted coup, a counter coup and mass arrests of teachers and the judiciary. When I inquire about the wellbeing of Turkish film-makers I have met here at previous awards, he is sanguine. His film has government support. “No film-makers have been arrested,” he says. And, “yes, they are working.” For the past three years, film-goers have been able to see many of the Apsa-nominated films in a reconstituted Brisbane Asia Pacific Film festival, which opened this week with a rocking glimpse of feminism, Bollywood style. Parched, which was nominated for best screenplay, is the story of four women escaping oppressive marriages in a village in Rajistan. It has the hallmarks of modern Bollywood: towering close-ups, heaving bosoms, melodramatic acting, four beautiful, feisty heroines. The sex scenes (one between women) are ribald, their husbands brutal. Think Thelma and Louise meets Bollywood, with more than a touch of Priscilla Queen of the Desert in production design. The Indian community turned out in force and boogied to Bhangra with the young Brisbane glitterati on opening night. Asia Pacific Screen awards 2016: full list of winners Best feature film: Cold of Kalandar (Kalandar Soğuğu), Turkey, dir. Mustafa Kara Best youth feature film: The World of Us (Woorideul), Republic of Korea, dir. Yoon Ga-eun Best animated feature film: Seoul Station (Seoul-yeok), Republic of Korea, dir. Yeon Sang-ho Best documentary feature film: Starless Dreams (Royahaye Dame Sobh), Islamic Republic of Iran, dir. Mehrdad Oskouei Achievement in directing: Feng Xiaogang for I Am Not Madame Bovary (Wo Bu Shi Pan Jinlian), People’s Republic of China Best screenplay: Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Tadashi Nohara, Tomoyuki Takahashi for Happy Hour, Japan Achievement in cinematography: Cevahir Şahin and Kürşat Üresin for Cold of Kalandar (Kalandar Soğuğu), Turkey, Hungary Best performance by an actress: Hasmine Killip in Ordinary People (Pamilya Ordinaryo), Philippines Best performance by an actor: Manoj Bajpayee in Aligarh, India Special mention: Nawazuddin Siddiqui in Psycho Raman (Raman Raghav 2.0), India Unesco award for cultural diversity: Hussein Hassan for The Dark Wind (Reşeba), Iraq, Qatar, Germany Apsa FIAPF award for outstanding achievement in film in the Asia Pacific region: Iranian producer Manoochehr Mohammadi Jury grand prize: Youn Yuh-jung in The Bacchus Lady (Jug-yeo-ju-neun yeo-ja), Republic of Korea Mark Lee Ping-bing for Crosscurrent (Chang Jiang Tu), People’s Republic of China Special mention: Sunny Pawar in Lion, Australia Netpac and Griffith film school’s young cinema award: Mustafa Kara for Cold of Kalandar (Kalandar Soğuğu), Turkey, Hungary Special mention: Bi Gan for Kaili Blues (Lu Bian Ye Can), People’s Republic of China • The Brisbane Asia Pacific Film festival runs until 4 December • Julie Rigg was hosted by the Apsas
UK MPs unite to push for greater transparency from tax havens The UK’s overseas territories face renewed pressure to abandon corporate secrecy after 80 MPs joined forces to demand greater financial transparency from offshore havens. The cross-party group is backing an amendment to the government’s criminal finances bill on Tuesday that would force Britain’s 14 overseas territories to introduce public registers revealing the true owners of locally registered companies. The move is expected to face fierce opposition from the handful of the UK’s overseas territories – including the British Virgin Islands, Turks and Caicos Islands and Anguilla – that have become some of the world’s most active secrecy havens. Earlier this year, the Panama Papers scandal laid bare how offshore corporate secrecy regularly attracts illicit money flows linked to terrorism, corruption, money laundering, tax evasion, drugs and fraud. Some estimates have suggested as much as $32tn (£26tn) of the world’s wealth has been hidden offshore. The MPs’ proposal, which is being tabled on the last day before parliament breaks for Christmas, would effectively give all overseas territories until 2020 to introduce public registers. Earlier this year, many overseas territories refused to buckle under intense pressure from then UK prime minister David Cameron, who called for them to introduce registers. The MPs’ amendment is to be tabled by Labour’s Dame Margaret Hodge, former chair of parliament’s public accounts committee. It has won backing from a wide cross-party base of backbench MPs, including including Andrew Mitchell, the Conservative former international development secretary, and Nigel Dodds, the Democratic Unionist party’s Westminster leader. About 80 MPs – among them Greens, Liberal Democrats, Plaid Cymru, SNP and SDLP politicians – are due to add their voice to the amendment proposal. If such levels of support hold, it is expected to put intense pressure on the home secretary, Amber Rudd, to add her backing. Such a move could spark angry reactions from many overseas jurisdictions and could even provoke local politicians to call for a severing of ties with the UK. Many territories may question why the amendment does not extend to the UK’s crown dependencies, include as Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man. It is extremely rare for the UK to use its special powers – known as “order in council” edicts – to impose laws on overseas territories. “Of course political parties have shied away from using these powers. They can seem somewhat colonial,” said Hodge. “But I think there are overwhelming moral arguments at stake here. “The Conservatives used them to outlaw capital punishment; Labour used them to get rid of laws against homosexuality. Now we are facing another big moral issue ... Over half of the corporate entities exposed by the Panama papers were registered in the BVI, a British overseas territory. “The UK is at the centre of a global web of tax havens which are costing UK taxpayers and developing countries huge sums of money.” There are at least seven Tories supporting the amendment, led by Mitchell, who is calling on Theresa May’s government not to let the momentum for reform, built up by Cameron, fade away. “I hope this amendment will help the UK government to persuade the overseas territories to adopt the same level of transparency as the UK,” he said. “This is so important for people in developing countries who are losing out due to tax dodging.” Sally Copley, the head of campaigns for Oxfam, the anti-poverty charity, said a number of developing world charities were backing the move. “These tax transparency standards are essential to hold the overseas territories accountable for their policies’ impact on other countries – especially the poorest, which are hardest hit and have the most to lose from tax dodging,” she said.
La Femme: the superchic French band who hoodwinked their way to the red carpet It’s hard to imagine a more French version of a rock’n’roll band than La Femme. For all that their second album, Mystère, one of the year’s best, is wholly accessible and dripping with fantastic tunes, it exudes a sense of cool that indie bands rarely manage any more. It tries on a wardrobe of different clothes – psychedelia, surf rock, electronica, krautrock and more – and ends up looking fantastic in all of them. It sounds chic. It’s also made La Femme proper pop stars in France. As their manager guides me into a brasserie in Strasbourg–Saint-Denis, their home turf in Paris, he’s clutching a copy of Les Inrockuptibles, France’s leading pop culture magazine, to hand to the band’s masterminds, Marlon Magnée and Sacha Got. La Femme are on the cover, although there’s a certain amount of eyebrow-raising about the fact that the only person pictured is their singer, Clémence Quélennec. “It’s like a Vogue cover,” Magnée observes. At this point, a boiling day in early September, the album has been out a few days, and is No 3 in the midweek charts. When the band’s tour reaches Paris in February, they say, they’ll be headlining the 6,300-capacity Zénith. Proper pop stars, you see. Their increasing popularity, though, has meant they’ve attracted some curious fans. Take George, who is in his 50s and has the words La Femme tattooed across his throat. “He likes to smoke crazy weed and take a bunch of drugs,” says Magnée. “Before the show begins, he listens to the album and dances everywhere.” At which point Magnée – in so far as he can while cramped into a tiny booth in a crowded brasserie, with his lunch in front of him and a bottle of red on the table – mimes someone dancing in the manner of a deranged ostrich. “Sometimes I have to speak to him. ‘Look, George, I know you’re very happy to be here, but people think you’re weird. And if you’re too weird, they’re going to kick you out.’” Keyboard-player Magnée and guitarist Got met at secondary school in Biarritz, near the Spanish border, where summer is alive with holidaymakers – and winter is dead. There’s little in the way of live music and nothing much else to do. “There are four bars at a junction where everyone goes to drink,” Magnée says. “But we don’t like it too much, because if you are dressed too rock’n’roll or too hipster or too trendy they call you a fag. So it’s a bit hard to grow up in Biarritz if you are really different.” As soon as they could, the pair moved to Paris to dream up a band. Their first, the unpromisingly named SS Mademoiselle, collapsed because their singer only wanted to practise one day a week. And so they formed La Femme, a group that would be, as Magnée puts it: “Velvet Underground or Kraftwerk-style. Very mysterious.” They were listening to French underground from the 60s, and French synthwave from the 70s. They also knew their group had to look great. “We always said that if we had a band, it had to be fucking cool,” Magnée says. Sound and look in place, there were only two problems remaining: nowhere to play, and no interest in them. They emailed 50 clubs in Paris asking for gigs, and got just two answers. At the first, the stage was so small the bass player had to stand at the back of the crowd with the sound engineer, plugged into the mixing desk. They had only eight songs and, because some of the crowd had turned up late, they went back to the beginning of the set when they had finished and just started over. Then came the move that made them: a quite magnificent stunt that hoodwinked the entire French music industry. The band had recorded a one-off EP for a small label, and decided that going to America would make them famous. So they emailed 100 venues in the US, again asking for gigs. Again, only two people replied, but one of them offered to help out. “We went to US with $3,000 each and this girl found us 20 gigs,” Magnée says. “In France at the same moment, our EP was released. So the industry was like, ‘What the fuck? They have an EP out and they are touring in the US and we don’t know them?’ So the buzz began to start. When we came back to France, it was red carpet. Fucking DIY.” They were duly signed to Universal’s French imprint, Barclay – former home to Charles Aznavour and Jacques Brel. Their debut album, Psycho Tropical Berlin, reached No 33 in France, and La Femme were on their way, taking any opportunity that came along – soundtracking Yves Saint Laurent’s catwalk show, performing at Austin Psych fest, in Texas, where Magnée looked like anything but a YSL muse. “I was almost naked,” he says, “with a huge witch’s hat and a kimono.” Crikey. In Texas? Is he sure he didn’t look like a Ku Klux Klan recruit? He ponders for a moment. “No. I looked like Merlin. It was so magical. I was so happy. Like the sun – shining everywhere.” • La Femme play Shepherd’s Bush Empire, London, on 17 November. Michael Hann’s travel was paid by Disque Pointu.
Bob Bradley could not escape the stigma against a US coach in British football Bob Bradley had little reason to know how quickly he would be proved right when ruminating, at his first press conference as Swansea City manager, upon the modus operandi of his new bosses. “I don’t think they’d have got where they are by making decisions with the heart,” Bradley said of the club’s owners, Steve Kaplan and Jason Levien. And while on this occasion he was second-guessing the logic of his own appointment, it would be less than three months before he discovered just how harsh the Premier League can be. Firing a manager carries inescapable connotations, none of which anyone involved would really wish to be levelled at Bradley. The duration of his tenure – the second-shortest of the Premier League era – is trivia quiz material, ripe for lampooning, and one reading would be that Bradley, who also had to wear the “American coach” tag from day one, was simply not equipped for the size of the job handed him. A spell like this can scar perceptions of a career irreversibly but nothing about his work at Swansea gives the overwhelming impression of Bradley as inadequate. There simply was not the time for him to make a case either way, although that is not the same as suggesting he was the right man in the first place. Kaplan and Levien overestimated two things when throwing Bradley in at the deep end. First, the capability of a squad that had been grievously weakened across the previous four transfer windows; second, the goodwill of a fanbase whose pride in a club that had been a model for progressive, lucid ownership had taken a hit in the last 12 months. Maybe they overestimated Bradley too, even though his appointment always seemed a shot in the dark. In hindsight, Swansea should have sought an experienced, unsexy Premier League head upon sacking Francisco Guidolin. They may not have brought back the old brand of stylish football the fans craved but they may have been better equipped for a relegation fight. If Bradley, or any similar mouldbreaking newcomer, was to be the choice then it needed to go hand in hand with an acceptance that long-term change might have to include considerable short-term pain. Yet Kaplan and Levien clearly had neither approach in mind, which makes their recruitment and subsequent treatment of Bradley all the more difficult to understand. This was less the failure of an American manager in the Premier League than a failure of American owners – and that, in itself, has its place in a wider trend of remote, ill-considered decision making by foreign board members in British football rather than being a comment on their specific nationality. Bradley is a bright man and was aware of the focus his arrival would attract in Britain, where some stigma still exists around the US game. So he gave the media little rope to hang him with and made a favourable impression, answering questions fully while making time to create one or two deeper professional connections. Yet when things are going wrong you are only a slip or two away from a change in mood and his use of “road game” and “PKs” when speaking after his penultimate match, a 3-0 defeat to a mediocre Middlesbrough side, prompted the kind of overblown derision that had never felt a million miles away. At that point, Bradley was forced to defend himself for the first time. “It wouldn’t make sense if I sounded like everyone else,” he said before the West Ham match that would seal his fate. “I have come here to be myself. I am a football man. What counts is that what I say resonates with the players.” But that did not happen to the extent required. Perhaps Swansea’s players simply lacked the aptitude or good grace to take in the words of a manager whose message during spells with Egypt, Stabaek, Le Havre and the US men’s national team was well respected for its clarity. The one time he picked the same team for consecutive games Swansea followed a respectable 1-1 draw at Everton with a chaotic 5-4 victory over relegation rivals Crystal Palace; the rest of the time Bradley chopped and changed a side painfully thin on quality at either end of the pitch. He needed to hit upon a consistent formula quickly but never gave the impression of knowing how best to set up a team that haemorrhaged goals. That was not all his fault; not much of this sorry tale was but it is still hard to see Bradley getting another run at this level soon. Speculatively, his best hope for another crack at British football might be to work with a floundering Championship side in need of a longer-term run-up to a promotion campaign. It would still take tangible success in that scenario to escape guilt by association with a Swansea regime that risk alienating all around them. Perhaps Bradley will reflect that, while he was batting away those early questions about his nationality and the motivations of Kaplan and Levien back in October, there was something else in the room that spoke of what would follow. As he held court at the Swansea Marriott, there to watch the early stages of his press conference was the looming figure of Guidolin, who had apparently stumbled across the event while waiting to meet an associate. Guidolin was ushered out soon enough, but Bradley still never managed to escape the ghosts of costly decisions that doomed his role to that of a historical oddity before it had even begun.
Goldman Sachs’ quarterly profits rebound 78% from worst in five years Goldman Sachs’ latest quarterly profits have rebounded 78% from its worst quarterly results in five years but the bank is continuing to cut its bonus pool for Wall Street workers. On Tuesday the bank reported a healthy increase in second-quarter profits, as trading recovered from a dismal first quarter that had forced the bank to lay off hundreds of employees and cut costs across the board. The bank said net income in the second quarter came in at $1.82bn, up from $1.05bn in the same period a year earlier. A large part of the increase was due to the bank paying a $1.45bn fine for the mis-selling of mortgage-backed securities last year. While profits have recovered, revenue dropped 13% to $9.1bn. The drop in revenue will be passed on to staff via smaller, but still huge, bonuses. The bank set aside $3.3bn to pay salaries and bonuses, down from $3.8bn in the same period last year. This equates to about $96,000 per employee for this quarter. The second-quarter bonus cut comes on top of a 40% cut to compensation in the previous quarter. “Despite the uncertainty created by Brexit, we achieved solid results by continuing to serve our clients across our diversified franchise and by managing our business efficiently,” Lloyd Blankfein, Goldman’s chairman and chief executive, said in a very brief statement. Blankfein, 61, is trying to reshape the bank after last quarter suffering its worst quarterly performance since 2011, which has led to more than 400 job cuts. The bank, whose services had previously only been available to large companies, governments and billionaires, recently launched an online banking service for anyone with $1m minimum to deposit. Goldman’s shares, which have fallen more than 9% so far this year, opened down 1.3% to $162.
Twice as many voters trust May over Corbyn with economy and Brexit – poll Theresa May is trusted by more than twice as many voters as Jeremy Corbyn to run the economy well and handle Brexit negotiations effectively, according to an Opinium/ poll to mark her first 100 days as prime minister. The findings also show May is regarded as strong, decisive, and able to get things done and stand up for Britain’s interests abroad by more than double the number of voters who attribute these qualities to the Labour leader. The survey conducted last week indicates that she is still building respect among voters three months into her leadership, despite troubles in her cabinet and heated arguments in parliament over Brexit. Some 46% of voters now think more positively about her than they did when she became prime minister while only 15% think more negatively, with 51% judging her first 100 days to have been an overall success. This compares with only 29% who said the same of Corbyn 100 days after he was elected Labour leader for the first time in September last year. The evidence of a prolonged honeymoon with the electorate is bound to encourage those in Conservative circles who believe May should call a general election soon, in order to gain a personal mandate for difficult negotiations about leaving the EU, and to give herself a chance to increase the Tory majority in the House of Commons beyond its current level of 17. May has said she will not call an election before 2020. The poll puts the Tories on 39% of the vote, Labour on 30%, Ukip on 13%, the Liberal Democrats and the Scottish National Party both on 6% and the Greens on 4%. Despite the Lib Dems’ impressive performance in last week’s Witney byelection, in which they leapfrogged Labour and Ukip to take second place, there is no sign of a national revival of the party’s fortunes. Just 13% say they approve of Tim Farron’s leadership of the party with 55% having no view and 33% disapproving, suggesting he is making little impression. By contrast, 46% of voters approve of the way Theresa May has performed so far against 24% who disapprove. Just 22% of voters approve of the way Corbyn is leading Labour against 50% who disapprove. Some 44% trust May and her chancellor, Philip Hammond, to run the economy best while just 16% say Corbyn and the shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, would do the best job. In addition, 33% believe a May-led Conservative party is best to conduct Brexit negotiations against just 13% who would prefer Corbyn and Labour to be running the talks with the UK’s partners. Opinium conducted the poll of 2,005 UK adults aged 18+ between 18 and 21 October. Results have been weighted to national representative criteria.
UK to face growing range of security threats, defence report says Britain could become increasingly vulnerable to attack from an array of novel threats including “swarm attacks”, genetic weapons, cyber-attacks and new pathogens as hostile powers and extremist groups obtain more lethal weapons, a study by a Ministry of Defence thinktank warns. The study, an attempt to spot future military trends called Future Operating Environment 2035, also warns that the UK, “will face a broad range of natural and manmade threats” and it will be “increasingly difficult to distinguish between threats from state and non-state actors”. It concludes than even “limited tactical nuclear exchanges in conventional conflicts” cannot be ruled out. The report also contains an analysis that is likely to be seized on by people campaigning for Britain to stay in the EU. It concludes that Britain will need to cooperate even more closely with its continental European neighbours, stating that the EU was likely to play a “greater defence and security role” than it does currently and that “the key global economic powers” will be the US, China and the EU. The study has been drawn up by the MoD’s Development, Concepts and Doctrine Centre (DCDC). It says its findings and deductions do not represent the “official policy” of the ministry or the government and that it does not seek to predict the future. “Rather, it describes the characteristics of plausible operating environments, resulting from rigorous trend analysis,” it says. On the use of nuclear weapons, the study states: “Limited tactical nuclear exchanges in conventional conflicts by 2035 cannot be ruled out, and some non-western states may even use such strikes as a way of limiting or de-escalating conflict.” The study, which was published in December but has not been reported publicly, adds: “If isolated military targets are subject to nuclear attack, any land-based nuclear response could be seen as an unjustified escalation, in light of the nature of the weapon, civilian casualties and its impact on the environment.” The North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, last week said he would revise his country’s military posture and be ready to launch pre-emptive nuclear strikes. And Nato last month accused Moscow of dangerously blurring the lines between conventional and nuclear conflict after Russian officials said missiles deployed in Kaliningrad were dual use. The study continues: “Future threats may also come from groups who – due to their dispersed locations – cannot be the subject of a nuclear counterstrike, such as terrorists or cyber-criminals.” It says that “illicit nuclear trade is likely to continue out to 2035 and preventing nuclear proliferation is likely to require greater international consensus and political will”. However, it adds: “The likelihood of terrorists succeeding in attacks that cause real mass destruction will remain low.” The DCDC analysis concentrates more on Britain’s potential vulnerability in the face of an increasingly wide range of new, but non-nuclear, attacks at both close quarter and remotely, particularly from cyberspace. It warns: “Additive manufacturing (sometimes referred to as 3D printing) reverse engineering, and greater innovation, will increase the amount of illicit and unregulated technology transfer, exacerbating the threat to the UK.” Threats could range from a cyber-attack to a “hostile non-state actor’s unmanned aerial vehicle over a major city, perhaps targeting a VIP”. The paper refers to directed energy weapons, such as high-powered lasers, as well as “genetic weapons” – usually described as those containing biological agents that target a particular ethnic group or groups based on genetic differences. An operational commander in 2035 will have to be alert to “swarm attacks ... launched in the physical environment through a combination of mass, low technology and automated systems”. Swarm attacks, “could be planned through crowd-sourcing before being executed through multiple access points in multiple countries, making deterrence and defence against them almost impossible”. By 2035 the global population is likely to rise from the current 7.2bn to between 8.1bn and 9.4bn, and “faith-based ideologies will continue to shape many conflicts around the world and will remain an organising force in 2035”, the study says. “A large male youth population in the Middle East, central Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa could provide a reservoir of disaffected young men more susceptible to radicalisation.” However, it says “investing in education and healthcare could lead to job creation, economic growth, and positive social development”.
New Zealand PM misses call from Donald Trump in 'hurly burly' following earthquake John Key, the New Zealand prime minister, has missed a call from US president-elect Donald Trump while dealing with the aftermath of the 7.5 magnitude earthquake that struck on Monday. Trump was calling Key as part of his first phase of reaching out to world leaders during his transition to the White House. Trump’s office set up the call with Key in advance, but the prime minster was caught up with the fallout from the natural disaster, which has left two people dead and hundreds stranded, and missed the phone call. Key explained the diplomatic faux pas to the New Zealand Herald. “What happened was there was a bit of a discussion between my office and his office on the Saturday about a call,” he said. “We weren’t strictly sure when the president-elect was going to ring, they said it was in the next couple of hours.” When the call came, Key failed to see it. “I didn’t see the call when it came in, in the hurly burly of things I didn’t notice,” he said. “They then made contact with our foreign affairs people and and said they had tried to call and hadn’t been successful.” Key said another call had been set up for Wednesday. He said he understood Trump was calling to express his condolences over the earthquake and to discuss US-New Zealand relations. Trump has been talking to world leaders as part of his preparation for taking office. On Monday he spoke to Russia’s president Vladimir Putin. According to a Kremlin summary of the phone call, Putin said he was ready for “a dialogue of partnership with the new administration based on the principles of equality, mutual respect and non-interference in the internal affairs of each other”.
Commissioning will be key in changing learning disability care Last summer, 24-year-old Jo moved from a secure inpatient setting in the west of England to a flat not far from her parents in the south. Jo, who has a learning disability and behaviour regarded as challenging, had a history of self-harm and violence. Because local services doubted they could successfully support Jo, commissioners placed her far from home at a weekly cost of £5,500. However, after a review, commissioners found a supported living flat nearer home. After six months of transition planning involving family members, both providers, the commissioner and social workers, Jo moved into a self-contained flat with 24-hour support from two care staff. She now works on a local farm, sees her family more regularly, has stopped self-harming and is more settled. Jo’s care now costs £3,100 a week, an annual saving of around £125,000 and commissioners are confident her placement is sustainable. Funds released from the closure of a local assessment and treatment unit will be reinvested into creating a community team providing support to prevent placements like Jo’s from breaking down – and families are involved in designing new services. Jo’s story shows how de-commissioning secure services in favour of community-based support can improve lives and save money. Her experience is shared in our report, Together we can, which focuses on effective commissioning in light of the recent plan from the NHS and local government, Building the right support (pdf). High quality, sustainable support is vital for the 2,500 people with learning disabilities and autism in settings like assessment and treatment units, and for the 24,000 the NHS identifies as being at risk of inpatient admission. But while a large number of people need to move from hospitals to home-based settings, the financial context makes that more complicated. This year alone we know directors of adult social care services (pdf) have made reductions by around 13% (or £17m) in residential services for people with learning disabilities. Meanwhile, NHS trust deficits totalled £1.6bn for the first half of 2015/16, which could compromise approaches to provision. So how do we commission more effectively? The first step is communication and co-production. The perspectives of people and families are as important as those of professionals, commissioners and providers; it’s a network, not a hierarchy. Mutual understanding of different viewpoints could be encouraged by simple actions, such as a day in the life of a family member or service user. Commissioner and provider secondments could be trialled as part of the NHS transforming care partnerships that are piloting new models of support. Good communication creates mutual trust. Take Jo’s commissioners in the south-east. They have a strong relationship with local social care organisations through regular provider forums, and specific staff who manage commissioner-provider relationships. In another area a provider network created by the local authority receives all referrals from commissioners, so providers can spot gaps in support and develop provision. Commissioning and procurement of social care services need to change. They can be largely mechanistic, carried out by centralised council departments with little expertise in support for people with complex needs. Providers’ procurement and tender costs are high. Organisations might be able to bid for contracts to provide services, but then find price is more important than quality. There is little to encourage innovation or enable providers to influence service design. In response, commissioners could provide data showing needs and likely demand for services for people with complex needs. Developing integrated personal commissioning – blending health and social care personal budgets – means people can more easily choose and buy support themselves. This provides important steps to independence so absent with inpatient approaches. Training and staff are vital. We need to build community workforce capacity so, as inpatient services close, the right skills, capabilities and – crucially – the right numbers of staff are in place. Turning to money, we need funding for community services before closing inpatient beds. This is acknowledged in the Building the right support plan (pdf). But is the £60m of funding and £15m of capital the plan proposes adequate? Further challenges in some areas include the cost of housing and land on which to develop supported living services. Funding problems might be solved by bringing together people who use integrated personal commissioning, creating purchasing power and meeting combined needs. Social care can also do more to raise awareness of the need for supported housing. We need progress on social finance and social investment bonds to help finance this work longer term. Transforming care requires a long-term and pragmatic approach. The barriers are clear but, as Jo’s experience proves, not insurmountable. As one provider explains in our report: “It’s not all been roses, but it has been about having the provisions, the health teams, the providers, the families, working together and continuing support for the long run”. Join the Social Care Network to read more pieces like this. Follow us on Twitter (@GdnSocialCare) to keep up with the latest social care news and views.
Arsenal become first club to top £100m mark in Premier League payments Arsenal became the first club in history to receive more than £100m from the Premier League last season, according to figures released on Tuesday. Despite finishing as runners-up to Leicester City, Arsène Wenger’s side were featured live on television in 27 different matches – 12 more than Claudio Ranieri’s title winners. That meant Arsenal’s total earnings from the Premier League amounted to a staggering £100,952,257, including “facility fees” of almost £21.5m, prize money of £23.6m for finishing second and almost £55m for domestic and overseas TV rights and commercial deals. Under the rules of the Premier League for the 2015-16 season, each club is guaranteed a slice of the £400m pot for domestic TV deals and a further £600m for overseas rights. Despite winning the league by 10 points from Arsenal, Leicester’s overall income from the Premier League was just over £93.2m – behind Tottenham, Manchester City and Manchester United in the overall total. That was mainly down to the fact only 15 of Leicester’s matches were shown live, with a total of eight teams surpassing that total including the relegated Newcastle United. Despite earning only £1.2m in prize money for finishing bottom, Aston Villa still banked £66.6m for the season and will be guaranteed parachute payments of about £90m over the next three seasons.
Put it on the plastic: Barclaycard, the UK's first credit card, turns 50 Those left thoroughly disheartened by the week in politics and Monday’s Euro 2016 football disaster have been invited to reflect back on a happier time, when the Beatles were at No 1 in the charts with Paperback Writer, and England were about to lift the World Cup for the first (perhaps only) occasion. For it was 50 years ago on Wednesday 29 June 1966 that Barclays launched Britain’s first credit card. Barclaycard kickstarted a revolution in the way we manage and spend our money, and played a key role in creating Britain’s £1.5tn personal debt mountain. The card was “born” in a derelict shoe and boot factory in Northampton that had been converted into Barclaycard’s HQ. At that time cash was the most popular form of payment, and the idea of paying by plastic was completely alien to most people, some of whom took the view that credit cards were an undesirable American import. Barclaycard was based on Bank of America’s BankAmericard, launched in 1958. There was also a widely held view that the credit card was an inflationary system that encouraged people to spend money they did not have. However, the banking group had some weapons up its sleeve. In order to generate widespread awareness of the launch it sent out 1m credit cards to Barclays customers – a marketing method the card company freely admits would be “absolutely unthinkable” today. Then there were the mini-dress-wearing Barclaycard girls whose job was “to help educate and change people’s minds”. As a spokesman explained: “Fifty years ago there wasn’t any specific credit regulation to govern how we went about business, so we had a lot more freedom in how we marketed the products.” From the outset, Barclaycard made enthusiastic use of various advertising methods. In 1968, a 60-second cinema advert, Travelling Light, featured a young woman out shopping in a bikini with a Barclaycard tucked into the bottom half of her swimsuit. (“Every second is worth watching. You will see Barclaycard in action, and we mean action!” promised the flyer for the ad.) The company’s TV adverts included a series of spoof spy commercials starring Rowan Atkinson in the 1980s and 90s. The arrival on the scene in late 1972 of the Access credit card brand meant that at last Barclaycard had some serious competitition. Nevertheless, it racked up its 2 millionth cardholder in early 1973. Today it has 10.5 million UK customers, which means it accounts for a sizeable chunk of the 59m credit cards in circulation. While for millions of people credit cards provide a cost-effective way to borrow,they have left many nursing expensive long-term debts. The debt charity StepChange said credit cards were now the most common type of debt seen by its advisers. “The average credit card debt we see is now at £8,403, about half our clients’ average annual take-home pay, and there is a clear need for change,” said the charity, which provides free and independent debt advice. Bank of England figures show net borrowing on credit cards rose by £418m during May, and outstanding debt on cards is now £1.3bn more than at the beginning of 2016. The data shows that consumers’ appetite for borrowing on plastic has picked up markedly since the months after the 2008 financial crisis.
2016 predictions: Is this the year old media gets online video? YouTube stars such as PewDiePie and the multichannel networks that represent many of them will continue their youth-driven rise in 2016, but other media organisations will step up their efforts to get in on the game. John Kampfner of the Creative Industries Federation thinks 2016 “could be the year when media organisations truly break out of their silos”. He explains: “Whether free-to-access or heavily paywalled, websites continue to struggle to produce the revenues required to invest in strong journalism. While TV advertising revenues are strong, income for online services remains variable, at best. “A key to enhancing customer loyalty will be to combine old-fashioned must-have reporting with events for readers and other forms of collaboration, such as in television, radio, film and other art forms. Some media groups are doing this, to good effect. I find it heartening to see cross-sectoral deals being done, bringing together what might have been previously unlikely partners, from both public and private sectors.” One of the biggest changes in the online content world this spring will be BBC3 becoming online only. Ash Atalla, founder of Roughcut TV - which finds new online talent via its Roughcut Presents website as well as making shows for the main broadcasters such as the acclaimed BBC3 mockumentary People Just Do Nothing (pictured left) - says: “BBC3 moving online is the key event in UK online content. “Despite the cut in its budget from terrestrial levels, it will still represent a huge spend in online originations. Get it right and a vibrant home for new writers and performers will emerge. Shows that we make like Cuckoo will, for the first time, premiere online too.” Pippa Glucklich, co-CEO of Starcom Mediavest Group, says: “At the beginning of November, BBC journalists were briefed to emulate the likes of BuzzFeed and Vice by making more informal and friendly short videos. So snackable, fun and informative content is certainly one area where the battle lines for eyeballs will continue to be drawn in the year ahead.” How content makers, whether in broadcasting or advertising, work with the new media groups or social media apps such as Snapchat is also an area of focus for 2016. “Short-form content, and specifically short-form video, is one area that many more brands will have to move into, as it is more popular with viewers watching on mobile platforms,” reckons Glucklich. “You just have to look at the rise in popularity of short video ads on Snapchat as a place advertisers are now successfully engaging with audiences.”
Need for interest rate cut called into question by Bank of England expert Doubts about the need for a cut in interest rates have been voiced by a member of the Bank of England’s monetary policy committee before next month’s meeting. Martin Weale, who will be stepping down from the MPC after six years, said he wanted to weigh up the impact of Brexit on the economy before making up his mind on how to vote. Weale said the Bank would have to balance the likely reduction in demand against upward pressure on inflation when it make its decision. Weale said: “For there to be a case for easing policy I will need to expect weakness in output to be large enough to compensate for any overshoot in inflation on the assumption that policy is unchanged in the near term.” Sterling rose on the foreign exchanges after Weale’s remarks at a conference in London, since they were seen as less supportive of action to underpin growth than interventions last week by two other MPC members – Andy Haldane and Gertjan Vlieghe. Haldane called for a big package of measures to support the post-Brexit economy and stressed the need for a prompt and robust response to the uncertainty. Vlieghe was the only MPC member to back a rate cut at the July meeting. Weale said the result of the referendum on 23 June had led to a “very high degree of uncertainty” about the implications of Brexit, and this meant there was a case for waiting to see what the implications might be. Weale added that he thought the short-term impact on demand would be greater than that on the economy’s supply capacity, which would dampen inflation. In his valedictory speech as an MPC member, Weale rejected two of the arguments used to justify lower borrowing costs. First, he dismissed the notion that markets would be disappointed were there to be no easing in August, noting that market participants should remember that the MPC sets policy each month, not in advance. “The Old Lady of Threadneedle Street is not a nurse to markets,” he said. Weale also gave short shrift to the idea that early action was needed to reassure people. “In contrast to the experience of 2008, I do not have any sense that either consumers or businesses are panic-struck and … there have been no material signs of financial panic.”
Andrew Sachs, Manuel from Fawlty Towers, dies aged 86 Andrew Sachs, the actor best known for playing Manuel the bemused Spanish waiter abused by John Cleese’s bullying hotelier in the BBC comedy series Fawlty Towers, has died aged 86. Cleese led tributes to his co-star, describing him as a “brilliant farceur” and a “sweet, sweet man”. Sachs’s wife, Melody Lang, revealed that he died in a care home last week after suffering from vascular dementia for four years. “My heart has been broken every day for a long time,” she said, explaining that she had collapsed while caring for her husband. Nevertheless, she said they were happy, adding that she “never once heard him grumble”. Sachs, whose father was a Jewish insurance broker, was born in Berlin before his family fled the Nazis to settle in Britain. He became a household name in Britain as the hapless Manuel in the 1970s sitcom. Worried that he could not do a Spanish accent, Sachs initially wanted to play the role as a German. But Cleese, who played Basil Fawlty, insisted that the character should be Spanish. He said despite his anxiety Sachs took to the role instantly. Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Cleese said: “If you met him you would never think for a moment that he was a comedian, you would think he was a rather cultivated bank manager possibly retired, because he was quite quiet and poised and thoughtful. And then you stuck that moustache on him and he turned into a completely different human being. He was wonderful.” He added: “He is one of the easiest to work with. Not just in the sense that he was totally agreeable – he was a very nice sweet man – but he was just a brilliant farceur. It was so easy for us to work out all the physical business. Farce is the hardest form of acting.” Sachs tried to persuade Cleese to stop short of physical violence during rehearsals and the scenes. But he still ended up being frequently hit, often with spoons. He also suffered acid burns from chemicals used to produced smoke in a memorable scene when Manuel’s white waiter’s jacket caught fire in the Fawlty Towers kitchen. Speaking of his on-screen chemistry with Sachs, Cleese said: “It’s like playing tennis with someone who is exactly as good as you are. And you play with them every week, sometimes he wins and sometimes you win, but somehow there is a rapport. It comes from the very deepest part of ourselves. We never had to work at it, it all happened so easily.” He said his favourite scene with Sachs was when Manuel and Basil tried to hide a dead hotel guest in a laundry basket. He said: “I think that was some of our very best physical comedy. Working out all that stuff about getting the body into the basket and then getting it out again. That was so much fun.” Cleese said he was aware that Sachs had dementia. “I met him about eight or nine months ago. I realised then that although he was there, a very quiet sweet presence, he obviously wasn’t totally present.” He added: “Very sad. He was a sweet, sweet man. And it’s still a little bit of shock, because, although I knew his memory was not so good, he was very special.” Earlier, Cleese tweeted a series of tributes to Sachs. The director of BBC content, Charlotte Moore, also paid tribute to the “wonderful actor”. She added: “He will be fondly remembered for his many appearances across television and radio, not least for making the nation laugh in the classic role of Manuel. He entertained millions across a brilliant career and will be greatly missed.” Speaking to the Daily Mail, Lang said her husband was diagnosed with vascular dementia in 2012. The condition left him in a wheelchair and unable to speak. “It wasn’t all doom and gloom,” she said. “He still worked for two years. We were happy, we were always laughing, we never had a dull moment. He had dementia for four years and we didn’t really notice it at first until the memory started going. “It didn’t get really bad until quite near the end. I nursed Andrew, I was there for every moment of it. Dementia is the most awful illness. It sneaks in in the night, when you least expect it. It took a long time for Andy’s brain to go. Even about a month before he died, he was sitting in the garden and chatting away.” She added: “Don’t feel sorry for me because I had the best life with him. I had the best husband and we really loved each other ... We were married for 57 years, we loved each other very deeply and it was a pleasure looking after him. I miss him terribly.” She said her husband died on 23 November and his family and friends attended his funeral on Wednesday. And she paid tribute to her husband, saying he was a “very handsome guy” who “always looked gorgeous”. She added: “Everybody says it but it’s true, he’s one of the nicest people I’ve met in my entire life. He’s loved and respected and the public adore him.” He would go on to play Ramsay Clegg in Coronation Street in 2009 – a year after the scandal in which Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand left the BBC after a prank call to him on the radio about his granddaughter. But he slipped from public life as his illness took hold. Blackadder actor and comedian Sir Tony Robinson paid tribute to his “true friend”. Samuel West, whose mother, Prunella Scales, starred alongside Sachs in Fawlty Towers, added: “Creator of one of our most beloved EU migrants. Such warmth and wit; impossible to think of him without smiling.” The comedy writer and director Edgar Wright said Sachs “spun comic gold as Manuel in Fawlty Towers”. The Jewish group Jewish Voice criticised the Daily Mail for putting a picture of Andrew Sachs on its front page next to its lead story about a rise in migrant numbers. It tweeted:
UK growth following Brexit vote revised up; Deutche and Credit Suisse fined billions – as it happened With the markets closed, City traders are now scarpering to their homes (or the shops!) to begin the Christmas break. So in that spirit, I’m going to wrap up now. I hope you all have an excellent Christmas break. We’ll be back next week for the final push towards 2017. Here’s a quick summary: Britain’s economy has continued to defy the doubters, with growth revised up to 0.6% in the three months after the EU referendum. And with growth earlier in the year revised down, there’s no sign of a Brexit slump. However, the country’s current account deficit has worsened, with exports dropping during the quarter. Economists fear that the economy is still too reliant on domestic demand, as consumer spending could tail off in 2017 when inflation takes a bigger bite out of wages. Over in Italy, the prime minister has confirmed that the country’s weakest banks will be strengthened with state capital, starting with Monte dei Paschi – whose efforts to bolster its own reserves failed this week. Paolo Gentiloni told reporters that: “Today marks an important day for Monte dei Paschi, a day that sees it turn a corner and able to reassure its depositors.” Two European banks, Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse, are paying more than $12bn to settle charges that they mis-sold mortgage-backed securities in the run-up to the 2008 crisis. But Barclays is fighting the US Department of Justice, denying that it is guilty of ‘irresponsible and dishonest’ conduct. Merry Christmas! The London stock market has just closed for the Christmas break, after a very dull session. The blue-chip FTSE 100 index gained a mere 4 points to finish at 7,068. That’s a fairly muted reaction to the news that Britain’s economy performed better that expected in the last quarter, and that the Italian banking crisis is being resolved. The markets seem to have run out of energy, after a wild year. Joshua Mahony of IG says: The lack of volumes associated with the holiday season can often bring the potential for significant volatility, yet in fact we have seen quite the opposite with the post-Trump romp largely brushed aside. With US markets having hit new all-time highs and European markets also enjoying a substantial rally over the past month, there is little complain about this year. However, with the US economy is rude health, the US stock markets reaching new territory, Donald Trump will have a tough time trying to improve on the current state of play. Looking away from the UK economy, the European Central Bank has reported that wealth inequality across the eurozone has risen since the eurozone crisis began. A new ECB survey has found that average net wealth across the euro area shrank by 10% between 2010 and 2014, to €223,300. This is primarily due to a sharp fall in house prices in many countries, as austerity gripped the euro area. Importantly, the median household wealth (what a typical family owns), was just €104,100, less than half the mean average of €223k. That’s because so much wealth is held by the richest people. Households needed to own almost €500,000 to squeeze into the top 10%. Wealth slumped particularly sharply in Greece and Cyprus, which both entered bailout programme, while net wealth in Germany rose by 10%. And the ECB flags up that wealth inequality appears to have increased slightly. The Gini coefficient, a frequently used indicator of overall wealth inequality, edged up to 68.5 percent from 68.0, which is within the margin of measurement error. A value of 0 corresponds to complete equality, while 100 percent reflects maximum inequality - one household owning all wealth. This could bolster criticism of the ECB’s ultra-loose monetary policy, which has pumped up the value of financial assets owned by richer Europeans. But the Bank argues that without its action, unemployment would be higher and growth lower. Martin Beck, senior economic advisor to the EY ITEM Club, is concerned that UK households will feel a squeeze next year, which could hold back growth. Here’s his comment on today’s growth figures: “Q3’s Quarterly National Accounts brought some unexpected pre-Christmas cheer with Q3 GDP growth revised up from 0.5% to 0.6%. “Consumer spending remained the key driver of growth in Q3, but the first cut of the income data raised further question marks about how long this can continue. Real household income dropped sharply in Q3, taking the annual growth rate to just 0.3%, the weakest outturn for two years. With high inflation set to weigh further on spending power next year, the consumer is surely set to falter soon. If you dig into the meat of today’s GDP report, there are reasons to worry -- even though the UK’s growth rate was revised up to a punchy 0.6%. Household disposable income, for example, dropped by 0.6% during the quarter; the biggest drop in almost three years. And the widening current account deficit (see 10.10am) is another concern. Richard de Meo, managing director of Foenix Partners, says the report shows a ‘diverging’ economy: Very strong performance in the services sector, the sharpest rise in employee compensation in 3 years and outperformance in construction and industrial production are then firmly offset by very weak figures in household disposable income, continuing declines in business investment and a widening of the current account deficit. The diverging performance of multiple sectors of the economy simply mirrors the uncertainty that Brexit prospects are imposing on the UK outlook, with pockets of robust growth continuing to be frustrated by much bigger questions relating to Britain’s future. The UK government has warned that Britain’s economy faces challenges, despite growing faster than thought in the last quarter. A Treasury spokesperson doesn’t actually mention the Brexit negotiations, but I think we know what they’re hinting at. Here’s the official response: “The fundamentals of the UK economy are strong, but there remain challenges ahead. The Chancellor set out, in the Autumn Statement, his plan to support a resilient economy that works for everyone by driving productivity and supporting working people, while maintaining fiscal discipline.” Today’s report into the UK economy has good news for workers; compensation paid to employees rose by 4.5% in Q3. That’s the biggest rise since 2013, suggesting robust pay growth over the summer. But..... business investment only rose by 0.4% in the quarter (revised down from 0.9%), which means it was 2.2% LOWER than a year earlier. That indicates that firms did rein in their spending over the summer, after the Brexit vote. Worryingly, Britain’s current-account deficit has widened in the last quarter, as the country continues to import much more than it exports. The difference between money flowing into the UK, and out, jumped to £25.5bn in July-September. That’s the equivalent of 5.2% of the entire economic output this year, close to the record deficit recorded in 2013. This deterioration is mainly due to weaker trade -- Britain’s trade deficit jumped from £11bn in Q2 to £16.7bn in Q3, according to the ONS. Total UK exports decreased by 2.6% in the July-September quarter, while imports increased by 1.4%. That’s despite the slump in the pound, which is meant to help exporters by making goods more competitively priced. The ONS says: Exports of goods decreased by 5.1% in Quarter 3 2016, due mainly to a decrease in exports of aircraft, chemicals and unspecified goods. It’s not all good news, though - the ONS has revised down its estimate of UK growth in January-March to +0.3%, from +0.4%. Growth in the second quarter of 2016 has also been trimmed, from 0.7% to 0.6%. So, the UK economy grew just as fast in the three months after the EU referendum than in the three months after it. But overall, the economy is a little smaller than we thought. NEWSFLASH: The UK economy grew faster than we thought in the three months after the Brexit referendum. The Office for National Statistics has just revised up its estimate for UK GDP in the third quarter of 2016. It now reckons that the British economy expanded by 0.6%, not the 0.5% previously reported. That’s a pretty decent rate of growth, especially given the uncertainty created by the EU referendum. It’s because the ONS has revised up service sector growth (the largest part of the UK economy) in the last three months to 1.0%, from 08%. And the City can take the credit, with output from the “business services and finance industries” growing faster than expected. Darren Morgan, Head of GDP, says: “Robust consumer demand continued to help the UK economy grow steadily in the third quarter of 2016. Growth was slightly stronger than first thought, though, due to greater output in the financial sector.” The ONS also says that industrial production only contracted by 0.4%, not 0.5%, while construction sector output has been revised from -1.1% to -0.8%. More to follow! Today’s flurry of banking news has spared us from the usual pre-Christmas slump. Mike van Dulken of Accendo Markets explains what you need to know: Firstly, overnight news that Monte dei Paschi is set to receive state aid as part of a €20bn package to keep the bank and troubled peers afloat is something of a relief, even if it does involve taxpayer funds and represents a big déjà vu, having already been rescued in recent years. It allows savers to have a quieter break following an eventful week that saw the bank struggle and ultimately fail to raise funds privately. Now it’s a question of what price institutional bondholders have to pay and what sort of compensation retail investors will be offered to ensure the bailout follows new EU rules preventing the bill for state aid being unfairly pinned on taxpayers and that the deal is more politically palatable. It also remains to be seen how long the process will take. Talk yesterday of it taking several months to complete is a worryingly long time, allowing unhappy investors to brood and savers take flight, potentially making the current situation even worse. Veloce! News from the US overnight makes for a mixed bag with continental behemoths Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse settling with the Department of Justice (DoJ) for pre-crisis mis-selling of mortgage backed securities (MBS). The former settled for $7bn (only half payable in cash) which is just half the $14bn challenge that shook markets this summer, something considered to be US retaliation for the EU’s call on Apple to repay Ireland €13bn in back taxes. Credit Suisse settling for $5bn for similar allegations makes it two out of three. However a pre-Christmas hat-trick eludes the DoJ with UK giant Barclays refusing to give in, viewing claims against it as disproportionate to misdemeanours committed. Considering itself liable for just $1bn, it was happy to settle for $2bn, however, talks have broken down. The DoJ clearly wants more. Deutsche bank shares +3.7% suggests relief at a good result and the affair being closed. Credit Suisse shares flat implies an acceptable deal. Barclays -0.3% indicates some uncertainty about what it eventually ends up paying. However there is no panic. If anything, the standout performer this morning is the bank that has yet to be mentioned. The DoJ wants to fine Royal Bank of Scotland $12bn for its own MBS mis-selling. Its shares are +1.8% on a combination of optimism that it too could settle for half, like Deutsche, although gains may be capped by the prospect of the DoJ taking a dislike to Barclays pushing its luck and decides to make life difficult for the UK City experts are relieved that Italy has finally taken the plunge and agreed to provide €20bn in emergency liquidity guarantees and capital injections for its banks. There’s also some exasperation that Rome didn’t do this years ago (Britain, for example, pumped money into its financial sector back in 2008). Jacopo Ceccatelli, head of Marzotto SIM SpA, a Milan-based broker-dealer, told Bloomberg “Overall it’s good news; finally we are heading toward a solution,” “Italy is doing now what other countries have done many years ago to sustain their banking system.” Francesco Confuorti, chief executive officer of Milan’s Advantage Financial, “A nationalization should have been done five years ago. “The bank lost time, money and credibility seeking to keep the patient on life support when he was in an irreversible coma.” More here: Barclays is one of the biggest fallers on the FSTE 100 this morning, shedding 0.8%, after being accused of ‘irresponsible and dishonest’ practices by the DoJ last night. Unlike many of its rivals, including Deutsche and Credit Suisse, Barclays is fighting charges of mis-selling mortgage backed securities. It has issued a statement to the City, saying: Barclays rejects the claims made in the Complaint. Barclays considers that the claims made in the Complaint are disconnected from the facts. Barclays will vigorously defend the Complaint and intends to seek its dismissal at the earliest opportunity. Shares in Italy banks have jumped by 1.2%, on relief that the Rome government has pledged to strengthen the sector with state help, starting with Monte dei Paschi. Now this is interesting... shares in Royal Bank of Scotland have jumped by 2% at the start of trading in London. RBS is still locked in negotiations with the DoJ over its role in the mortgage-backed securities scandal (which should be familiar to anyone whose seen or read The Big Short, for example). Investors will be concluding that RBS may not be fined as much as feared, given Deutsche Bank’s success in haggling the DoJ down from $14bn to $7bn. Shares in Deutsche Bank have jumped by over 4% at the start of trading in Frankfurt, to €18.50. That confirms that the $7bn settlement agreed with the DoJ for mis-selling toxic securities is much less than investors had feared. Three months ago, Deutsche’s shares plunged below €10, the lowest in decades, after news broke that the DoJ was demanding $14bn. Analyst Dan Davies reckons that leak may have rebounded on the US authorities, who were criticised for taking too tough a line over the scandal. The bailout of Monte dei Paschi is an “important day” for the bank, says Italy’s new prime minister. After approving the decree that will pave the way to prop up the banking sector, Paolo Gentiloni told reporters that “Today marks an important day for Monte dei Paschi, a day that sees it turn a corner and able to reassure its depositors.” Deutsche Bank’s British CEO, John Cryan, will surely be pleased to have finally settled with the US authorities - and for roughly half the $14bn bill he faced at one stage. Chris Wheeler, analyst at Atlantic securities told the Today programme that: I think the $14bn was always posturing position by the DoJ.... The CEO [John Cryan], a very organised individual, can say that box is now ticked. Today’s flurry of fines, settlements and bailout deals are “good news” for the European banking sector, says Naeem Aslam, analyst at Think Markets. He points out that Deutche’s Bank’s lengthy negotiations with the DoJ had worried the City. Credit Suisse resolved its issue with Department of Justice over mis-selling of mortgage securities. Similarly, Deutsche Bank has also struck a deal with the Department of Justice in relation to their mortgage-backed securities issue. Deutsche bank’s agreement is less than what the bank feared and this is music to investor’s ears. The amount of $14 billion which was initially expected by Deutsche could have put the bank under a lot of strain. Its stocks plummeted as the bank waited for a result, as traders were not confident about the bank’s ability to carve out a deal. Under the agreement with the DOJ, the total cost will be $7.2 billion. This figure consists of $3.1 billion in penalty fees and $4.1 billion which the bank needs to refund to its consumers. Italian market regulators have suspended trading in Monte dei Paschi’s shares and bonds, following the news that it will be bailed out by the state. The Italian government is likely to end up owning a large stake in MPS, while some bondholders will be ‘bailed in’ to help fund the rescue deal. Good morning. Christmas has come early for bank watchers, with a packed stocking full of crucial developments on the final day before the festive break. Overnight, the Italian government has given its approval for a state bailout of troubled Monte dei Paschi, after the bank failed to raise funds from private investors. Paolo Gentiloni, Italy’s new prime minister, announced in the early hours of Friday that his cabinet had agreed to the rescue and would be dipping into a €20bn fund that had already been approved by the parliament earlier this week in the event that MPS needed to be saved. Here’s the full story: In another dramatic, and long-awaited development, Deutsche Bank has finally agreed a $7.2bn settlement with the US Department of Justice for misselling mortgage-backed securities in the run-up to the 2008 crisis. The German lender will pay a $3.1bn civil penalty and also provide $4.1bn in compensation to consumers. It’s much less than the $14bn which the DoJ had originally proposed, and which had raised fears over Deutsche’s financial strength. Swiss bank Credit Suisse has also settled with the DoJ; it will pay a $2.48bn penalty plus handing back $2.8bn to consumers. Late last night it emerged that the DoJ is also taking Barclays to court, after the UK lender denied similar charges of bundling up home loans and selling them on. City editor Jill Treanor explains: The US department of justice has accused Barclays of jeopardising the financial position of millions of American homeowners over a decade-old mortgage bond mis-selling scandal. The DoJ is now taking the bank to court, in what was thought to be the first time an institution had failed to reached a settlement with the US authorities over the sale of residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) in the run-up to the banking crisis. Responding to the news on Thursday night, Barclays said it would fight the case. Loretta Lynch, the US attorney general, said: “Financial institutions like Barclays occupy a position of vital public trust. Ordinary Americans depend on their assurances of transparency and legitimacy, and entrust these banks with their valuable savings.... As alleged in this complaint, Barclays jeopardised billions of dollars of wealth through practices that were plainly irresponsible and dishonest. With this filing, we are sending a clear message that the department of justice will not tolerate the defrauding of investors and the American people.” I’ll be tracking all the development and reaction, as the City heads into its final trading session before Christmas (trading ends at lunchtime, hurrah!). At 9.30am we get a new estimate of UK GDP in the third quarter, which will give more details of how the economy performed in the three months after the Brexit vote. It’ll probably confirm that the economy expanded by 0.5% in the quarter.
Lloyds bank faces legal challenge over female staff pensions Lloyds Banking Group is facing a legal challenge to close the gap in pensions for its female staff. The Lloyds Trade Union, which has 30,000 members, has begun action against the bailed-out bank over an issue it estimates could cost major UK companies £20bn. The action relates to guaranteed minimum pensions (GMPs), whereby companies provided an equivalent pension to those wanting to top up their retirement savings. “It’s been accepted by almost everyone that GMPs are by their nature discriminatory between men and women,” the LTU said. This is because men and women accrue benefits at different rates and are entitled to their pensions at different ages, 65 for men and 60 for women. The government published a consultation on the matter in 2012 but has not legislated on how the situation should be resolved for an estimated 5 million women who have contracted out of pension schemes. Mark Brown, general secretary at LTU, is now seeking action. He said: “GMPs is one of the last bastions of pensions discrimination and the issue needs to be resolved now. Up to 5 million women, including up to 148,000 in Lloyds Banking Group, have either got or are going to get smaller pension increases than men and that is simply unacceptable.” The LTU’s legal advisers have launched a legal action on behalf of three women which could lead to a class action on behalf of 28,000 female members of the defined benefit pension schemes. The case could rise to 148,000 individuals, based on estimates of active scheme members, those who have deferred entitlements and existing pensioners. Lloyds’ schemes have about 275,000 active, deferred and pensioner members. Lloyds declined to comment. The LTU was “derecognised” by the bank last year.
Donald Trump attacks 'biased' Lester Holt and accuses Google of conspiracy Donald Trump has gone on the offensive after his underwhelming debate performance by criticizing debate moderator Lester Holt as biased and accusing Google of a conspiracy to rig search results in favor of Hillary Clinton. He also had surrogates attack his Democrat rival for her husband’s infidelities while suggesting she wants to “strip [the United States] of its status as a sovereign nation”. The Republican nominee launched the latest salvo of attacks in an interview with Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly where he claimed Holt “was much, much tougher on me than he was on Hillary”. Trump said that while initially “I said good things right after the show” he had changed his mind about Holt’s performance “after seeing the way he badgered and even the questions I got”. In particular, Trump expressed his discontent over the fact that Holt asked him “the birther question” in Monday’s debate. Trump had long falsely claimed that Barack Obama was not born in the United States, an accusation widely considered to be a racist dogwhistle. Although Trump only recently acknowledged that Obama was born in the United States in an event at a Washington hotel, he falsely blamed Hillary Clinton for the conspiracy theory’s origin. He since said that he only acknowledged Obama’s actual birthplace in order to “get on with the campaign”. Trump also introduced a new conspiracy theory to the campaign on Wednesday night when he accused Google of somehow colluding with Hillary Clinton’s campaign. “Google search engine was suppressing the bad news about Hillary Clinton,” the Republican told a cheering crowd of supporters in Waukesha, Wisconsin. Neither Google nor the Trump campaign responded to requests for comment on this accusation, which seems to stem from a report in Sputnik News, a Russian state propaganda outlet. The reference to Google did not appear to be ad libbed as it was in Trump’s prepared remarks. Also, at the rally, Trump unveiled a new accusation towards Clinton, whom he has repeatedly attacked as “a globalist”, by saying she was a “vessel for special interests ... who want to strip [the United States] of its status as a sovereign nation”. Although the former secretary of state has long favored immigration reform as well as number of free trade agreements, there is no evidence that she has ever supported stripping the United States of its sovereignty. However, Clinton is facing scrutiny over her complicated marital history. After Trump publicly congratulated himself for not bringing up former president Bill Clinton’s past infidelities in Monday’s debate, his campaign has cited them in talking points in an attempt to rebut past crude statements about a beauty queen. The statements about former Miss Universe Alicia Machado, which included calling her “Miss Piggy” for her weight and “Miss Housekeeping” in reference to her Hispanic heritage, were brought up by Hillary Clinton in Monday’s debate. Trump owned part of the Miss Universe pageant at the time. In talking points distributed to Trump surrogates on the topic, they were told to change the topic to Monica Lewinsky and included the line “Mr Trump has never treated women the way Hillary Clinton and her husband did when they actively worked to destroy Bill Clinton’s accusers.” In interviews on Wednesday, Trump surrogates repeatedly brought the subject up. Trump himself tried to cast himself as an ally of Machado in an interview with O’Reilly. He repeatedly said “I saved her job” and added in seeming regret: “I helped somebody and this is what you get for helping somebody.” Clinton spent the day campaigning with former rival Bernie Sanders in New Hampshire. The two tried to appeal to millennial voters by repeatedly touting Clinton’s proposal to reduce the cost of college tuition. Clinton is facing declining enthusiasm among millennial voters who were one of the key groups in the winning coalition forged by Obama in his election victories. According to a recent poll conducted by ABC/Washington Post only 49% of voters under the age of 40 said they were likely to vote in November. A similar poll in 2012 put that number at 71%. The Democratic nominee also held two fundraisers on Wednesday, one of which featured an appearance from Massachusetts senator and progressive Elizabeth Warren. The leading third party alternative to Clinton and Trump suffered his own embarrassment on Wednesday. Gary Johnson, the Libertarian nominee for the White House, was unable to name a single foreign leader he admired in an interview with MSNBC’s Chris Matthews. He referred to his inability to come up with a single name as “another Aleppo moment”. This was a reference to a televised interview several weeks ago when the former two-term governor of New Mexico, having been asked “What would you do if you were elected, about Aleppo?” on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, responded with the question “What is Aleppo?”. Johnson seemed unaware of the Syrian city which has been long under siege in the midst of that country’s civil war and the site of numerous atrocities by the Assad regime and its allies. The candidates will return to the campaign trail on Thursday by meeting voters in states that they are long familiar with from the primaries. Clinton is holding an event in Iowa while Trump returns to the trail in New Hampshire. • This article was amended on 29 September 2016. An earlier version said incorrectly that Gary Johnson “came up empty when asked ‘What is Aleppo?’ on MSNBC’s Morning Joe”.
FBI releases documents in Clinton email investigation – as it happened The phrase “Clinton could not recall” litters the summary of the FBI’s investigation into the Democratic presidential nominee’s use of private email servers during her tenure as secretary of state, which concluded in July that she should not face charges. Amid fierce Republican criticism of the Democratic presidential candidate, the party’s nominee, Donald Trump released a statement which said “Hillary Clinton’s answers to the FBI about her private email server defy belief” and added that he did not “understand how she was able to get away from prosecution”. Clinton’s closest aide, Huma Abedin, and Hanley “indicated the whereabouts of Clinton’s devices would frequently become unknown once she transitioned to a new device”, the documents state. “Cooper did recall two instances where he destroyed Clinton’s old mobile devices by breaking them in half or hitting them with a hammer.” Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has released a statement following the release of the documents from the FBI’s investigation: Hillary Clinton’s answers to the FBI about her private email server defy belief. I was absolutely shocked to see that her answers to the FBI stood in direct contradiction to what she told the American people. After reading these documents, I really don’t understand how she was able to get away from prosecution. The nonpartisan commission that organizes the presidential debates has drawn from a pool of deep experience in selecting hosts for this year’s three scheduled meetings between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. While none of the moderators named on Friday has hosted a general-election presidential debate before, all four moderated primary debates this year. The Commission on Presidential Debates additionally named a moderator for this year’s single vice-presidential debate, CBS News correspondent Elaine Quijano. She has never hosted a debate. Amid public outcry over a sharp increase in the cost of the EpiPen, a life-saving drug to stop an anaphylactic allergy attack, Hillary Clinton has unveiled a plan to prevent “unjustified price hikes” for older prescription drugs. Clinton’s proposal would create a team of representatives from federal agencies that would investigate and monitor the cost of long-available prescription drugs with little or no competition to protect consumers from so-called “price gouging”. The plan sets out criteria for determining “an excessive, outlier price increase” and a set of enforcement tools that include making alternative drugs available and imposing fines or penalties to help fund expanded access. The prospect of an interest rate rise in the US has receded after news that the world’s largest economy suffered a lull in job creation last month. There were 151,000 jobs added to the US economy in August, below economists’ forecasts for 180,000 and a marked slowdown after two bumper months of growth. Figures from the Department of Labor also showed wage growth slowed and the unemployment rate remained steady at 4.9%, defying expectations for it to edge down in August. Have a good weekend! Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has released a statement following the release of documents from the FBI’s investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of private email servers during her time as secretary of state, expressing disbelief that Clinton was not prosecuted: Hillary Clinton’s answers to the FBI about her private email server defy belief. I was absolutely shocked to see that her answers to the FBI stood in direct contradiction to what she told the American people. After reading these documents, I really don’t understand how she was able to get away from prosecution. The shade of it all. Hillary Clinton told the FBI that did not pay attention to the difference between “top secret,” “secret” and “confidential” designations for different materials, the ’s David Smith reports: She did not recall receiving any emails she thought should not have been on an unclassified system. She also stated she received no particular guidance as to how she should use the president’s email address. In addition, the notes say: “Clinton could not recall when she first received her security clearance and if she carried it with her to state via reciprocity from her time in the Senate. Clinton could not recall any briefing or training by state related to the retention of federal records or handling of classified information.” Clinton was aware she was an original classification authority at the state department, but again “could not recall how often she used this authority or any training or guidance provided by state. Clinton could not give an example of how classification of a document was determined.” Nor could she recall any specific briefing on how to handle information associated with special access programme information. “Clinton could not recall a specific process for nominating a target for a drone strike,” the notes say. More on Team Clinton’s use - and disposal - of mobile devices: The FBI identified a total of 13 mobile devices associated with Clinton’s two known phone numbers that potentially were used to send emails using clintonemail.com addresses. The 58 pages of notes released on Friday, several of which were redacted, also related that Hanley often purchased replacement BlackBerry devices for Clinton during Clinton’s time at the state department. Hanley recalled buying most of them at AT&T stores in the Washington area. Cooper was usually responsible for setting them up and syncing them to the server. Clinton’s closest aide, Huma Abedin, and Hanley ‘indicated the whereabouts of Clinton’s devices would frequently become unknown once she transitioned to a new device’, the documents state. ‘Cooper did recall two instances where he destroyed Clinton’s old mobile devices by breaking them in half or hitting them with a hammer.’ A former aide who helped create an archive of Hillary Clinton’s emails in 2013 misplaced a laptop and a thumb drive onto which she transferred correspondence, the ’s David Smith reports: A Clinton Foundation laptop and a thumb drive used to archive Hillary Clinton’s emails from her time as secretary of state are missing, according to FBI notes released on Friday. The phrase “Clinton could not recall” litters the summary of the FBI’s investigation, which concluded in July that she should not face charges. Amid fierce Republican criticism on Friday, a spokesperson for the party’s presidential candidate, Donald Trump, claimed that the latest disclosures “reinforce [Clinton’s] tremendously bad judgment and dishonesty”. The FBI documents describe how Monica Hanley, a former Clinton aide, received assistance in spring 2013 from Justin Cooper, a former aide to Bill Clinton, in creating an archive of Hillary Clinton’s emails. Cooper provided Hanley with an Apple MacBook laptop from the Clinton Foundation – the family organisation currently embroiled in controversy – and talked her through the process of transferring emails from Clinton’s private server to the laptop and a thumb drive. “Hanley completed this task from her personal residence,” the notes record. The devices were intended to be stored at Clinton’s homes in New York and Washington. However, Hanley “forgot” to provide the archive laptop and thumb drive to Clinton’s staff. In early 2014, Hanley located the laptop at her home and tried to transfer the email archive to an IT company, apparently without success. It appears the emails were then transferred to an unnamed person’s personal Gmail account and there were problems around Apple software not being compatible with that of Microsoft. The unnamed person “told the FBI that, after the transfer was complete, he deleted the emails from the archive laptop but did not wipe the laptop. The laptop was then put in the mail, only to go missing. [Redacted] told the FBI that she never received the laptop from [redacted]; however, she advised that Clinton’s staff was moving offices at the time, and it would have been easy for the package to get lost during the transition period. “Neither Hanley nor [redacted] could identify the current whereabouts of the archive laptop or thumb drive containing the archive, and the FBI does not have either item in its possession.” From the Associated Press: Clinton and her legal team deleted thousands more emails she claimed were personal and private. The FBI report details steps taken by Clinton’s staff that appear intended to hamper the recovery of deleted data, including smashing her old Blackberry smartphones with a hammer and using special software to wipe the hard drive of a server she had used. Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon said Friday the campaign was pleased the FBI had released the documents. The ’s Lauren Gambino has more on Green party candidate Jill Stein’s, err, pit-stop: The Green party presidential nominee Jill Stein ran late for a Columbus campaign event on Friday because she accidentally went to Cincinnati, where she is due to hold a rally on Sunday. The Harvard-educated physician was due to address supporters and students at Capital University near downtown Columbus at noon. She instead mistakenly arrived in Cincinnati, according to the local chapter of the Ohio Green party. After a redirection, she was expected to arrive in Columbus by 2pm. “There was apparently a misunderstanding by the person who made her flight arrangements – and that was not us,” said Suzanne Patzer of the Ohio Green party. Patzer said several dozen people had come to Schaaf Lawn on the university campus, but it was unclear how many would stick around to hear Stein speak. According to the Columbus Dispatch, pizzas were ordered to thank attendees for their patience. Stein recently drew national attention over an interview with the Washington Post’s editorial board that was summed up by the headline: “Jill Stein’s fairy-tale candidacy”. The Post said her policy proposals were far-fetched and unrealistic and seemed unconvinced by her grasp of foreign policy. Still no word from Donald Trump’s campaign about the FBI’s release of documents in its investigation of rival Hillary Clinton’s use of private email servers during her tenure as secretary of state: The third child and second son of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump told Fox & Friends this morning that it was “pretty amazing” that numerous Latino advocates for his father’s presidential campaign backed away from their support of the candidate after Trump’s draconian address on immigration doubled down on his hard-line stance on the issue. “It is actually pretty amazing considering the speech was actually very consistent and he has been very, very consistent with his plan,” Eric Trump said. “It’s really interesting.” The younger Trump’s surprise is, itself, a little surprising. In the address, given after weeks of waffling on the candidate’s bedrock campaign issue, Trump called for the deportation of millions of undocumented immigrants currently residing in the United States within the first hour of his presidency. The address also called for a limit on legal immigration, pushing the far-right policy of keeping immigration levels to “historical norms,” a position never before embraced by a modern presidential nominee. As many as 15 members of Trump’s two-week old Latino advisory council are reportedly considering abandoning the candidate as a result of the address, which one former advocate called “very scary”. Trump’s son told Fox & Friends that the campaign still views Latino voters as a possible constituency. “It’s very important to us,” Trump said. “If you look at the Hispanic community and the Latino community, they’ve largely been left behind in this country.” A new poll of Latino voters by America’s Voice / Latino Decisions has Clinton up 70-19 on Trump. In 2012, according to exit polls, Obama won Latino voters 71-27. So Clinton here shows about the same level of support Obama had – while Trump is quite a bit behind Romney. Who can disagree? Here’s more fodder for the Clinton critics who agree with the FBI director that she was “extremely careless” in her handling of classified information: Two lions of the Republican foreign policy establishment decline to endorse Clinton (no one thought they would endorse Trump): House speaker Paul Ryan has released a statement saying that the material in the FBI documents is “exactly why I have called for her to be denied access to classified information”: On 2 March, 2015, the New York Times published a story with the headline, “Hillary Clinton Used Personal Email Account at State Dept., Possibly Breaking Rules.” Later that month, a Clinton aide told the FBI in an interview summarized in today’s documents, he “had an ‘oh shit’ moment and ..deleted the Clinton archive mailbox from the PRN server and used BleachBit to delete the exported PST files he had created on the server system containing Clinton’s emails.” Clinton told the FBI she had no role in sorting out which of her emails were work-related and therefore ought to be turned over to the state department. (The FBI investigation found an unknown number of work-related emails she failed to turn over.) Clinton admits that one email unearthed by the FBI but not turned over to state, apparently describing a call about the Wikileaks dump with Abu Dhabi crown prince Mohammed bin Zayed (MbZ), looked easily identifiable as a work email: “Clinton indicated to the FBI that she understood Powell’s comments to mean any work-related communications would be government records, and she stated Powell’s comments did not factor into her decision to use a personal e-mail account.” Still reading... Clinton used eight mobile devices in succession as secretary of state and went through at least two afterward, according to the FBI documents: Clinton has said she used a personal Blackberry because “one device would be simpler” – the FBI says she used the devices in succession. The summary of Clinton’s interview with the FBI sure has a lot of “Clinton could not recall”: “Clinton could not recall when she first received her security clearance... Clinton could not recall how often she used this [classification] authority... Clinton could not give an example of how classification of a document was determined... Clinton could not recall a specific process for nominating a target for a drone strike (!)...” It goes on. (pdf) Be advised that clicking these links will automatically download the pdfs: Sleepy Friday afternoon before a holiday weekend with a hurricane bearing down on the Gulf coast, how good could this be? The FBI is releasing a summary of Clinton’s 2 July, 2016, interview with the FBI concerning allegations that classified information was improperly stored or transmitted on a personal email server she used during her tenure. “We also are releasing a factual summary of the FBI’s investigation into this matter,” the FBI says: We are making these materials available to the public in the interest of transparency and in response to numerous Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. Appropriate redactions have been made for classified information or other material exempt from disclosure under FOIA. Additional information related to this investigation that the FBI releases in the future will be placed on The Vault, the FBI’s electronic FOIA library. Developing.. Recommended read: “The Revenge of Roger’s Angels: How Fox News women took down the most powerful, and predatory, man in media” by Gabriel Sherman. From the story: Taking on Ailes was dangerous, but Carlson was determined to fight back. She settled on a simple strategy: She would turn the tables on his surveillance. Beginning in 2014, according to a person familiar with the lawsuit, Carlson brought her iPhone to meetings in Ailes’s office and secretly recorded him saying the kinds of things he’d been saying to her all along. “I think you and I should have had a sexual relationship a long time ago, and then you’d be good and better and I’d be good and better. Sometimes problems are easier to solve” that way, he said in one conversation. “I’m sure you can do sweet nothings when you want to,” he said another time. Green party presidential nominee Jill Stein has an event scheduled today in Columbus, Ohio – but she is not there, because she mistakenly flew to Cincinnati, a city that also is in Ohio and starts with a C. Coverage via the Columbus dispatch: For a man who is running in large part on his business record and a promise to Make America Great Again, Donald Trump’s foray into Atlantic City – and his legacy at the Taj Mahal casino, now closing – tell a cautionary tale, writes the ’s Rupert Neate: “Trump made a lot of money off of it [the Taj and its bankruptcies],” McDevitt said. “He rifled through the Taj Mahal at the last bankruptcy in 2009, he basically took all the money and left. “He basically sucked the life and the money and the fortune out of this property – it’s a dried-up husk and the workers are left to deal with it [as] he goes on his merry way and goes on to run for president.” Read the full piece here: Madonna has attacked Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s sons after they posed for a picture with a leopard they had killed during a hunting trip in Africa. The pop icon wrote on Instagram that the picture, which showed Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump holding the dead cat’s body, was another reason to vote for the Democratic party. She wrote: “How big of [a] pussy do you have to be to kill this noble animal for sport? Just ask Donald Trump Jr and his brother Eric. One more reason to vote for Hillary!” Is Hillary Clinton’s new book for young adults? Clinton hits Trump for his trip to Mexico in a new video spot, titled Embarrassment, which claims Trump got “shut down” by Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto and then lied about it: The nonpartisan commission that organizes the presidential debates has drawn from a pool of deep experience in selecting hosts for this year’s three scheduled meetings between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. While none of the moderators named on Friday has hosted a general-election presidential debate before, all four moderated primary debates this year. The Commission on Presidential Debates additionally named a moderator for this year’s single vice-presidential debate, CBS News correspondent Elaine Quijano. She has never hosted a debate. Moderating can be thankless work. Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican presidential nominee, criticized Candy Crowley of CNN after she spot-checked his claim on a debate stage in New York that Barack Obama had failed to refer to the 2012 Benghazi attacks as a “terror” attack. “She obviously thought it was her job to play a more active role in the debate than was agreed upon by the two candidates,” Romney later said. More recently, Trump complained for months about Fox News host Megyn Kelly, who asked him during the first Republican primary debate last August about his views on women, quoting his own words back to him, which Trump claimed was unfair. Who are the moderators? Let’s not overlook the break-glass-in-case-of-emergency backup moderator for these debates, C-Span’s Steve Scully. In fact, let’s start with him. Scully is C-Span’s senior executive producer, White House, and political editor. Scully, who has a reputation for being irreproachably evenhanded, was born in Pennsylvania, served on the board of White House Correspondents’ Association, and has worked for over three decades at C-Span. He has been hailed by comedian John Oliver as the most patient man on television: Here are the rest of this year’s moderators: Lester Holt, anchor, NBC Nightly News – moderator of the first presidential debate, 26 September Holt, a popular figure in his own newsroom and beyond, rose to the anchor chair of NBC’s flagship evening news program after former host Brian Williams was suspended last year for misrepresenting a story. Claims for Williams’ indispensability were undercut when the ratings climbed under Holt. He moderated a Democratic primary debate in January. Martha Raddatz, chief global affairs correspondent and co-anchor of This Week, ABC News – moderator, with Anderson Cooper, of the second presidential debate on 9 October Raddatz, a specialist in military affairs, has perhaps the most debate hosting experience of the bunch, having moderated the 2012 vice presidential debate and two 2016 primary debates, one for each party. Purveyors of conspiracy theories – ie Breitbart – complained in 2012 that Raddatz’s impartiality was subverted by the fact that Barack Obama had attended Raddatz’s wedding – 25 years ago, before Obama was an elected anything. Conservative id-keeper Matt Drudge is keeping up that line this morning: Anderson Cooper, anchor, CNN Sunday – moderator, with Martha Raddatz, of the second presidential debate on 9 October More than the other moderators, Cooper’s star power transcends his work as a news host. He also had a syndicated talk show, Anderson Live, he did a voiceover on Broadway, he’s the author of a bestselling memoir and he has a vocal fan base. Cooper hosted two Democratic primary debates and one forum. Chris Wallace, anchor, Fox News Sunday – moderator of the third presidential debate on 19 October A decorated journalist currently parked at Fox News with three Emmys and the Dupont-Columbia Silver Baton Award to his credit. A must-watch for Sunday show aficionados on Fox, and a former moderator of Meet the Press. His reputation for evenhandedness is perhaps bolstered by his former voter registration as a Democrat. Elaine Quijano, anchor, CBSN and correspondent, CBS News – moderator of the vice-presidential debate on 4 October A veteran of the White House, Pentagon and Supreme Court beats and a former CNN talent, Quijano anchors politics coverage on CBSN, the live-streaming digital version of CBS News. She grew up in a Chicago suburb, majored in engineering and “lucked into a broadcast journalism career,” she tells an interviewer in the Filipinas Magazine clip below: The commission on presidential debates has announced the moderators for the three presidential debates and one vice presidential debate. Here they are: First presidential debate: Lester Holt, Anchor, NBC Nightly News Monday, September 26, Hofstra University, Hempstead, NY Vice presidential debate: Elaine Quijano, Anchor, CBSN and Correspondent, CBS News Tuesday, October 4, Longwood University, Farmville, VA Second presidential debate (town meeting): Martha Raddatz, Chief Global Affairs Correspondent and Co-Anchor of “This Week,” ABC Anderson Cooper, Anchor, CNN Sunday, October 9, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO Third presidential debate: Chris Wallace, Anchor, Fox News Sunday Wednesday, October 19, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Las Vegas, NV The CPD also announced that Steve Scully, Senior Executive Producer, White House and Political Editor for C-SPAN Networks, will serve as backup moderator for all the debates. Vladimir Putin has told Bloomberg that he is ready to work with any US president ready to work with him, and he has no preference between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump – he says this even after the interviewer, John Micklethwait, describes Trump’s “great affection... almost... homoerotic” for Putin. Micklethwait asks Putin: “Are you really telling me that if you have a choice between a woman who you think might have been trying to get rid of you, and a man who seems to have this great affection for you, almost bordering on the homoerotic, you’re really going to go, you’re not going to make a decision between those two, because one of them would seem to be a lot more favorable towards you?” “We are ready to work with any president,” Putin says. “If someone says that they want to work with Russia, we will welcome it.” Earlier Putin gave a similar answer: “I would like to work with the person who can make responsible decisions and implement any agreement that we reach. Their last name doesn’t matter.” With the Clinton campaign producing videos asking why Trump sounds so much like Putin, an investigation under way of potential Russian hacking of Democratic party organizations and the senate minority leader asking the FBI to investigate whether Russia is trying to hack the US election – there’s a lot of Russia talk this cycle. Putin acknowledges as much. “The thing is, I have repeatedly seen the anti-Russian card played during the nasty political campaign in the United States, he says. “I think it’s a very short-sighted approach.” Watch the interview here. Hello and welcome to our live-wire coverage of the 2016 race for the White House. Donald Trump is to receive a second national security briefing today in New York and later attend an event in Philadelphia. Hillary Clinton has no public events on her schedule. Clinton plan to control drug prices Hillary Clinton has rolled out a plan to control drug prices after a public outcry over soaring costs for EpiPens, the emergency medication to stem allergic reactions. AP has the details: Clinton is rolling out a plan Friday designed to give the federal government more power to push back against what she calls “excessive unjustified costs” for medications that have long been on the market. Clinton plans to create a drug-pricing oversight group that will monitor price increases. If this group of federal officials decides that an increase is excessive, it could take a number of enforcement actions, including making emergency purchases of an alternate version of the drug, allowing emergency imports of a similar product from other developed countries, and imposing penalties on the companies, such as fines. Melania Trump sues Daily Mail Lawyers for Melania Trump on Thursday filed suit for $150m damages against the Daily Mail in Maryland state court, writes the ’s Ben Jacobs: In a statement, Trump’s lawyer, Charles Harder, said: “These defendants made several statements about Mrs Trump that are 100% false and tremendously damaging to her personal and professional reputation [and] broadcast their lies to millions of people throughout the US and the world – without any justification. “Their many lies include, among others, that Mrs Trump supposedly was an ‘escort’ in the 1990s before she met her husband. Defendants’ actions are so egregious, malicious and harmful to Mrs Trump that her damages are estimated at $150m.” The Mail retracted its story in its Friday paper edition in the UK. Biden silences heckler 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻 Trump backer warns of ubiquitous taco trucks The founder of Latinos for Trump was making a point on TV last night about the dominance of his culture (he said) and ended up warning: “If you don’t do something about it, you’re going to have taco trucks on every corner.” We’d be happy if they just brought Calexico back to Wooster Street. Thanks for reading and please join us in the comments.
Meet the gender reassignment surgeons: 'Demand is going through the roof' The problem, according to Phil Thomas, is this: there are simply not enough people in Britain who know how to make a vagina. “We need more surgeons,” the urologist said from the private Nuffield hospital in Brighton. “In March I received 24 new referral letters. Multiply that by 12 and you can see what the issue is. “The volume that we need to do to meet the demand is just going through the roof and NHS England are not keeping up.” The problem of waiting lists for transgender patients who want genital gender reassignment surgery (GRS) is not just one of growing demand, but of supply. This is niche work. Thomas is one of fewer than a dozen practitioners in the UK. About two-thirds deal with male-to-female surgery – vaginoplasty – and the other third handle the opposite procedure – phalloplasty for trans men. Most work both privately and on the NHS. One has just gone on maternity leave. Thomas and another colleague, James Bellringer, are due to retire in the next five years. “At this stage if we were both on a plane to go to a meeting abroad and something were to happen, there’d be a problem,” said Thomas. Thomas calculates that people wait about six months for his services. For Bellringer, waiting times are even longer. His NHS patients in London face waits of more than a year and a half. Referrals for vaginoplasty surgery have been growing at 20% per year and as of March 2016, 266 trans women were waiting for surgery at Charing Cross, the oldest gender identity clinic in the country. “One of my patients has been making ‘Bellringer Babe’ badges,” he said with a smile. The badges bear the silhouette of an elegant woman in a ballgown and indicate that the wearer has had male to female gender reassignment surgery (GRS) at the hands of the London-based surgeon. Bellringer came to vaginoplasty almost by accident, in 2000. He was working at Charing Cross hospital in west London, part of Imperial College NHS trust and the only NHS hospital that performs the surgery in the UK, when Mike Royle, the surgeon who built up the practice for GRS in the UK, announced his retirement. “I was in the right place at the right time,” said Bellringer. “They needed someone with the technical ability and the right approach with the patients, so they asked me.” In 2014 Bellringer and Thomas were joined by Tina Rashid, a 34-year-old urologist who is now the only woman performing gender reassignment surgery in the country. “There are not many younger surgeons going into gender reassignment,” said Bellringer. “Tina is our secret weapon. She is down there with the kids.” Rashid first witnessed vaginoplasty surgery during her training period at Charing Cross, where she was appointed as consultant in 2014. “I knew it would be a missed opportunity not to observe the surgery,” said Rashid. “Wherever I ended up, at some point in my consultant career I would see a handful of patients who had male to female reconstruction. I wanted to understand how to treat them.” “James and Phil should really be credited for setting up the service in the UK,” she continued. “I see my role as really helping take it forward. They are towards the end of their careers and I am at the beginning of mine.” But attracting new surgeons into the speciality was, said Rashid, “extremely difficult”. “GRS is a very niche area. A lot of trainees don’t get exposure to it,” she said. The situation is not likely to improve in the short term. Rashid went on maternity leave in April and expects to be away for the rest of the year. Charing Cross has been training a new surgeon to replace her, but he is not quite ready to operate. There are two others doing a small amount of this work for the NHS elsewhere in the UK, Oliver Fenton and Charles Coker. In contrast trans men looking to have female to male reassignment surgery are in a better position – those who wish to have genital surgery can expect to receive it within the 18-week referral target. Estimates from the Charing Cross gender identity clinic suggest that whereas about 60% of all trans women will go on to have genital surgery, only 10-30% of trans men will want phalloplasty – the surgical construction of a penis, which involves four operations and takes a total of 16 hours. David Ralph, consultant urologist at St Peter’s Andrology Centre in London, and his team treat about four trans patients a week and receive 200 new patients a year. “There are a lot more male to female trans patients than there are female to male, but saying that it takes four operations to make a penis and only one to make a vagina,” said Ralph. “The main thing that trans men want is to be able to stand to void [urinate]. Secondary to that of course is being able to have sex with their new penis. This really changes their lives.” The surgeons performing these operations are passionate about what they do and urge more of their colleagues to consider training to be able to do the surgery. “I think most of my urology peers think I’m mad. Well actually, compared to staring down a laparoscope for four hours removing someone’s prostate this is much more fun,” said Bellringer. For Rashid, the driving force is being able to help a group of vulnerable patients who are at high risk of depression, anxiety and suicide. “I have patients say: ‘You have saved my life.’ It is very gratifying and not something that I can quite put into words,” she said.
Mogwai – 10 of the best 1. Helicon 1 In the late 1990s Mogwai arrived like a brick through the window of Britpop in its death throes: they could say more with a dark, spare, mysterious guitar instrumental than any number of Oasis copyists could in a thousand insipid strums. Over the years, they would create their own strange iconography by dressing in Kappa tracksuits, picking song and album titles invoking all from Glasgow gang culture (Mogwai Young Team) to surreal in-jokes (Oh! How the Dogs Stack Up) to, um, Scottish football referees (Hugh Dallas). Arriving two years after they formed, Helicon 1 was one of the first pieces of music Mogwai ever released, a limited-edition single better recognised today for its inclusion on the compilation album Ten Rapid. It made No 2 on John Peel’s 1997 festive 50 (Peel proved instrumental in boosting Mogwai, inviting them for five sessions between 1996 and 2004, some of which are on the 2005 BBC album Government Commissions). Helicon 1 has ever since been an anchor in Mogwai’s live set and the ultimate manifestation of the quiet-loud formula that defined their embryonic phase – a brutal-sweet symphony which, like the best of Mogwai songs, is poised between giving you a manly hug and sticking the head in you. 2. Stanley Kubrick Hugely prolific in their first few years, Mogwai released a string of EPs and singles between 1997 and 2001 containing all kinds of treasured non-album offcuts and oddities, from the trippy electronic jam Superheroes of BMX to Burn Girl Prom Queen, a slow sigh of guitar and horns featuring an unlikely cameo from the Cowdenbeath Brass Band. A studio in Cowdenbeath gave birth to Stanley Kubrick. Initially released in 1999 on an untitled EP issued by Mogwai’s first label, Chemikal Underground, this is surely the most stunning of all early Mogwai rarities. Dominic Aitchison’s melodic bassline provides the backbone for four dreamy minutes of delay-pedal-swollen guitars, swirling organ and weird pitch-shifted samples like the sound of a dying wasp, which together eschew the shock tactic of some earlier material in favour of a steady textural glow. The most beautiful thing to come out of Cowdenbeath since, well, ever. 3. Mogwai Fear Satan Much is made of Mogwai’s music’s propensity to mess with your physical faculties – be it high, distorted frequencies to sear your eardrums or low end to liquidise your guts. Mogwai Fear Satan is the track most liable to cause heart palpitations. The fiercely beautiful two-chord, 16-minute climax of their first album proper, 1997’s Mogwai Young Team, expands the quiet-loud formula to the effect of quiet-loud-quieter-LOUDER. Listen to the supreme live version of this track on 2010’s live album Special Moves – or better still, watch said version in the accompanying concert film Burning by French directors Vincent Moon and Nathanaël Le Scouarnec. No matter how many times you might have heard Mogwai Fear Satan previously (it’s another staple of the Mogwai live set), it remains impossible to tell exactly when the woozy, flute-licked looping passage at the song’s deceptively mellow core is suddenly going to explode back into life and scare the hell out of everyone in earshot. Which, considering how loud Mogwai shows are, tends to be a lot of people. 4. Cody There have been several noteworthy exceptions to Mogwai’s customary stance as an instrumental band over the years, from R U Still in 2 It, featuring Aidan Moffat of fellow 90s Scottish miscreants Arab Strap, to Dial: Revenge, featuring words in Welsh by Gruff Rhys from the Super Furry Animals. The title of Mogwai’s prettiest and best non-instrumental, Cody, is based on the acronym for the album from which it emerged, 1999’s stunningly stark and skeletal Come on Die Young (another Glasgow gang reference). De facto frontman Stuart Braithwaite sings a shyly multi-layered vocal that feels all the more haunting for its less than match-fit fragility. “Old songs stay ’til the end / Sad songs remind me of friends” runs the chorus, verbalising the deep Scottish melancholy always so evidently at the heart of Mogwai’s music, even if it’s rarely put into words. 5. 2 Rights Make 1 Wrong I’m going to stick my neck out and declare 2001’s Rock Action to be Mogwai’s best album (much as Braithwaite disagrees). The band must be fairly fond of it themselves, being as they also chose Rock Action (the nickname of the Stooges’ drummer, Scott Asheton) as the title for their record label, on which they’ve released much of their own most recent material, plus work by the likes of Errors, Remember Remember, Envy, Part Chimp and others. Produced by Mercury Rev’s Dave Fridmann (who is currently producing their next album, due in 2017), Rock Action is the album with which Mogwai began the second act of their career, dabbling with electronic elements as well as guitar sounds and generally evidencing much broader sonic ambitions than they previously might have been given credit for. Chiming guitar arpeggios and a vocoder vocal are layered and layered upon, first with a hi-hat and ride cymbal, then bass and horns and electronics and eventually even a spot of unintelligible singing from their old pal Gruff Rhys and some banjo for good measure. This triumphantly sad masterpiece stops you in your tracks every time – simply stunning. 6. My Father My King My Father My King is probably the most punk-rock one-third of an hour (and 13 seconds) of music you will ever hear. It is a single droning, vaguely Middle Eastern-sounding riff with a couple of minor variations repeated ad infinitum until the whole thing is vaporised by distortion and white noise. This Steve Albini-produced standalone single (based loosely on a melody from the Jewish prayer Avinu Malkeinu taught to Mogwai by producer Arthur Baker) was released in late 2001 as a kind of belated coda to the unusually short Rock Action. A sticker on its cover described the contents as “two parts serenity and one part death metal”, and little more need be said than that. Mogwai went on to release a handful of other out-and-out mean-sounding compositions – as this 2006’s Glasgow Mega Snake and 2008’s Batcat for two – but none as mean as this. A weapons-grade encore number, it’s closed many a Mogwai gig, including all six of their 20th anniversary shows in Glasgow and London in 2015. 7. 7.25 Mogwai’s evocative instrumentals are ripe for soundtracking and scoring films and TV shows, but by and large the band have been selective about which screen projects they’ve contributed to (a presumably mortgages-paying spot on Michael Mann’s Miami Vice in 2006 notwithstanding). They’ve provided original music for both seasons to date of the French supernatural drama The Returned, for Mark Cousins’s documentary Atomic: Living in Dread and Promise (released as a standalone album simply called Atomic in 2016) and the Leonardo DiCaprio/Martin Scorsese climate-change documentary Before the Flood. Back in 2006, Mogwai scored Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait, an extraordinary, almost nature documentary-like art film by fellow Scot Douglas Gordon that used 17 synchronised cameras to track Zinedine Zidane in close up through a game for Real Madrid. Largely improvised in the studio, the music Mogwai produced was a return to the haunting, bare-bones stuff of the Come on Die Young album. 7.25 was in fact an old unused outtake from the 1998 sessions for that record, and provides the score and the film’s spine-tingling emotional lift-off with a deep breath of droning harmonium, delay-smeared guitars and intricate melodic bass. It holds up outside the movie as one of Mogwai’s gentlest and most mesmerising compositions. 8. Friend of the Night Part of the reason why Mogwai have achieved greater career longevity than many other predominantly instrumental bands may have something to do with their intuitive savvy for making instruments sing what feel like wordless topline melodies (think the glockenspiel on Summer, or the high guitar parts on Hunted by a Freak and Sine Wave, to name just a few). Friend of the Night, the lead track from their fifth album, Mr Beast, is carried gracefully over a signature rising storm of guitars and drums by an elegant, drifting Barry Burns piano line that’s irresistibly hummable, and once more kicks Mogwai’s music in an unexpected direction. A pocket symphony of stirring proportions, it’s officially the band’s biggest singles chart hit to date, having stormed the UK Top 40 at a dizzying No 38 in January 2006. 9. Mexican Grand Prix Clocking in at a by-Mogwai-standards light-speed 144bpm, Mexican Grand Prix is the purring engine in Mogwai’s seventh album, 2011’s menacingly-titled Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will (home to a couple of the group’s all-time great song titles in George Square Thatcher Death Party and You’re Lionel Richie). Unusually for a band with such distinctive musical signatures, it’s a track in obvious thrall to another group – Neu!, or maybe more accurately Stereolab doing Neu! – from its electronic pulse to a driving drum beat and eerily indecipherable robotically processed vocals, like the sound of a Satnav gone tonto. Homage as it may be, it’s an instantly identifiable standout in the Mogwai oeuvre. 10. Teenage Exorcists Another Braithwaite-sung rarity, and proof that, two decades in, Mogwai have still got it in spades. Coming on like Hüsker Dü fallen down a well – all muddy vocals, jagged guitar lines overdriven far beyond the point of conventional wisdom and swirling horror-movie organ drones – Teenage Exorcists is probably the least Mogwai song Mogwai have ever released. “It’s undone and uncertain / an apology accepted,” intones Braithwaite obliquely. Considered in juxtaposition to the very different soundtrack work they’ve done recently on Atomic and Before the Flood, it’s difficult to predict where Mogwai’s prolific and increasingly diverse output might lead them next, and long may that continue.
The Premier League teams' ineptitude index 2015-16 Welcome to the ’s second Premier League ineptitude index. Last season we established that QPR, Burnley and Everton were the most incompetent sides in the division by using a series of measures and a whole load of stats provided by the ever-excellent boffins at Opta. This season, they’ve sent more numbers for us to abuse. At a time of the year often littered with articles about the brilliant and the sublime, the best goals, player and teams of the year, we hope to celebrate the clumsy and the blundering, the deficient and the lacking, the ham-fisted and cack-handed. It’s time to crown the Premier League’s most inept side of the 2015-16 season. Although not a wholly scientific investigation, it is not without its detailed research. Rather than looking entirely at dull stats such as pass completion rates, we want to establish who are the really woeful sides: the ones who throw the ball to the opposition from their own throw-ins, those who manage to lose having been 2-0 up, clubs who have been penalised because their players are unable to keep their shirts on. We’ve assigned each category weighting (slightly arbitrary, we’ll admit) and have awarded corresponding ineptitude points to the sides who are the best at being rubbish. The results are below: Own goals Own goals happen. An unlucky deflection, a goalmouth melee, an incident a player could do nothing about. But they’re not great examples of competence, are they? In any index of ineptitude, doing the opposition’s job for them and putting the ball in your own net must rank pretty highly. We’ll let teams off if they have done it only once this season (and take a bow Bournemouth, Leicester, Southampton and Stoke who have done it no times at all) but we will award five incompetence points to any side who have done it more than once. Crystal Palace and Swansea City (four times each) get 20 points, Arsenal, Aston Villa, Tottenham Hotspur, West Bromwich Albion (three times each) get 15 and Chelsea, Newcastle, Norwich and West Ham (twice) get 10 points each. After the first round, our nascent table looks like this: Crystal Palace 20 Swansea City 20 Arsenal 15 Aston Villa 15 Tottenham Hotspur 15 West Bromwich Albion 15 Chelsea 10 Newcastle 10 Norwich 10 West Ham 10 Throw-ins to the opposition In the hustle and bustle of a Premier League match, finding your team-mate with a pass when the ball is in play can be difficult. Under pressure, out of breath and using feet or head – body parts not genetically designed for the accurate dissemination of a spherical object – it is hard. Your hands, however, are exactly perfect for the job. To fail to find your team-mate with a throw-in is the height of ineptitude. Leicester, that Leicester, are the worst offenders and have failed to keep possession from a throw-in 276 times this season – that’s 7.6 times a game. Even for a team that play better when the opposition has the ball, that’s mind-boggling. They’re actually worse at throw-ins now than they were last season (when they did it 251 times after 37 games). In a season in which they’ve done everything so well, it’s genuinely heartwarming to think that, in at least one department, they’re utterly bobbins. We’ll give them 10 points for their ineptness, with eight for the second-worst offenders (Norwich and Watford, 221 times each) and six for the third-worst (West Brom, 208). Finally, some cheer for Arsenal fans – your side are the best at not throwing the ball to the opposition (the team did it 57 times). So that’s something. Table West Bromwich Albion 21 Crystal Palace 20 Swansea City 20 Norwich 18 Arsenal 15 Aston Villa 15 Tottenham Hotspur 15 Chelsea 10 Leicester 10 Newcastle 10 West Ham 10 Watford 8 Yellow cards for removing a shirt Removing your shirt has been an offence punishable by a yellow card since 1 July 2004. The great majority of current Premier League players made their professional debuts since that rule was introduced, meaning their entire careers have been played with it in place. There is simply no excuse for it, whether they agree with the rule or not. Players from Everton, Liverpool, Watford and West Ham have done it twice this season. Since no player has been sent off for it (more on that here), it doesn’t merit a massive penalty, instead earning the worst offenders five points each for the idiocy of their players. Players from Arsenal, Bournemouth, Chelsea, Newcastle and Southampton have done it once, so earn their clubs three points each. Table West Bromwich Albion 21 Crystal Palace 20 Swansea City 20 Norwich 18 Arsenal 18 Aston Villa 15 Tottenham Hotspur 15 Chelsea 13 Newcastle 13 West Ham 15 Watford 13 Leicester 10 Everton 5 Liverpool 5 Bournemouth 3 Sides who do not score in a match The entire point of the game of football is to score goals. There is absolutely no point to any of this if teams do not score goals. No wins, no losses, just draws. Take it to its logical conclusion and every team finishes the season on 38 points with zero goal difference. So, scoring goals is pretty key – not scoring them is inept. We’ll let the 10 least bad offenders off for at least trying to provide some entertainment (Leicester are the best, failing to score on only three occasions). For the 10 worst, we’ll award one point to each team for each fixture in which they failed to score. That means Aston Villa: 16 points. Palace, Norwich, West Brom: 14 points. Newcastle, Stoke, Watford: 13 points. Sunderland, Swansea City: 12 points. Bournemouth: 11 points. Table West Bromwich Albion 35 Crystal Palace 34 Swansea City 32 Norwich 32 Aston Villa 31 Newcastle 26 Watford 26 Arsenal 18 Tottenham Hotspur 15 West Ham 15 Bournemouth 14 Chelsea 13 Stoke 13 Sunderland 12 Leicester 10 Everton 5 Liverpool 5 Blowing a two-goal (or more) lead If a team are two or more goals to the good but then fail to win the match, the players should be forced to play their next fixture wearing big red clown noses, having spent the week knocking on every single door in the area they represent and apologising for being bungling oafs. Everton, Liverpool, Norwich, Aston Villa and West Brom have each been at least two goals up at some stage and have gone on to lose. They get 10 points each and, by rights, ought to trot on to the pitch with this music booming from the stadium PA. But it gets worse. Everton and Liverpool, as well as Stoke, have also gone on to draw after being at least two goals up, so they get five points for each time they’ve done that too: so 10 apiece. Norwich, Arsenal, Bournemouth, Manchester United, Newcastle United, Southampton, Sunderland all pick up five points too for that same crime. And then there’s Tottenham. Tottenham have also blown a two-goal lead twice to go on to draw, but in the most recent one they managed to hand the title to another side in the process. They should, by rights, earn 10 points for their blown leads, but we’re going to fine them an extra five for making another team champions while they were at it. Table West Bromwich Albion 45 Crystal Palace 34 Swansea City 32 Norwich 47 Aston Villa 41 Newcastle 31 Tottenham Hotspur 30 Watford 26 Everton 25 Liverpool 25 Stoke 23 Arsenal 23 West Ham 15 Bournemouth 19 Chelsea 13 Sunderland 17 Leicester 10 Manchester United 5 Southampton 5 Conceding a goal past 90 minutes Much like blowing a two-goal lead, conceding in injury time is a sign of a team with raw doltishness. How many minutes have you got to see out? Three? Four? Five minutes without allowing an opposition player to do one of the hardest things in football – score a goal? Well done to Manchester City and Watford, who are alone in managing to keep it tight in stoppage time. No other team get let off here: even if a side have done it just once, they get punished. We’ll award 10 points for the worst teams (Newcastle, Norwich, five times each), eight for the next worst (Aston Villa, Liverpool, four times each), six for the next (Bournemouth, Crystal Palace, Everton, Sunderland, three times each), four for the next (Arsenal, Leicester, Stoke, Swansea, West Brom, twice) and one for the rest (Chelsea, Manchester United, Southampton, Tottenham, West Ham, once). Table Norwich 57 Aston Villa 49 West Bromwich Albion 49 Newcastle 41 Crystal Palace 40 Swansea City 36 Liverpool 33 Everton 31 Tottenham Hotspur 31 Stoke 27 Arsenal 27 Watford 26 Bournemouth 25 Sunderland 23 West Ham 16 Chelsea 14 Leicester 14 Manchester United 6 Southampton 6 Missed penalties Those with sharp eyes will have spotted that one team have yet to make an appearance on the ineptitude index and it is clearly wrong to suggest Manchester City have been competent this season. So what about missed penalties? It is hard to think of another occasion in a football match where scoring a goal is so likely. To fail to do so, therefore, must be incompetent. Manchester City and West Brom are the joint worst at penalties in the league, missing three each. We’ll award five ineptitude points per miss so Manchester City and West Brom get 15, Leicester get 10, and Arsenal, Bournemouth, Chelsea, Palace, Everton, Southampton and Watford all get five. We’ve decided not to include a category for penalties conceded because, at times, those come about through refereeing incompetence (the worst offenders, though, are Norwich, nine, Watford and West Ham, eight). Table West Bromwich Albion 64 Norwich 57 Aston Villa 49 Crystal Palace 45 Newcastle 41 Everton 36 Swansea City 36 Liverpool 33 Arsenal 32 Watford 31 Tottenham Hotspur 31 Bournemouth 30 Stoke 27 Leicester 24 Sunderland 23 Chelsea 19 West Ham 16 Manchester City 15 Southampton 11 Manchester United 6 Yellow cards for dissent, yellow cards for simulation In the first category, a player is punishing his team by basically being a moron. Whether or not the referee was right, a player is unlikely to change an official’s mind by yelling abuse at him. In the second, the player is cheating. It is hard to think of anything more inept than failing to play by the rules of the game. So we’ll award five points for the worst referee abusers (West Brom, 11 yellows for dissent), four each for the next worst (Chelsea, Watford, 10), and three each for the next (Aston Villa, Leicester City, Tottenham, eight). On top of that, we’ll award two points for any yellow card handed out for simulation to any team who have done it more than once. Crystal Palace, Everton and Watford get six points each. Aston Villa, Chelsea and Spurs get four each. Table West Bromwich Albion 69 Norwich 57 Aston Villa 56 Crystal Palace 51 Everton 42 Newcastle 41 Watford 41 Tottenham Hotspur 38 Swansea City 36 Liverpool 33 Arsenal 32 Bournemouth 30 Stoke 27 Leicester 27 Chelsea 27 Sunderland 23 West Ham 16 Manchester City 15 Southampton 11 Manchester United 6 Red cards Doing anything that leaves your side with fewer men on the pitch can hardly be described as competent (except, admittedly, in this scenario). We’ll award 10 points for the worst offender (Southampton, six), eight points for the second-worst (Everton, West Ham, five each) and six points for the next worst (Arsenal, Newcastle, Chelsea, Stoke, four each). Table West Bromwich Albion 69 Norwich 57 Aston Villa 56 Crystal Palace 51 Everton 50 Newcastle 47 Watford 41 Arsenal 38 Tottenham Hotspur 38 Swansea City 36 Liverpool 33 Stoke 33 Chelsea 33 Bournemouth 30 Leicester 27 West Ham 24 Sunderland 23 Southampton 21 Manchester City 15 Manchester United 6 Mistakes that lead to a goal If scoring a goal is the point of the game, stopping your opponents from the doing the same has got to be next on the list of priorities. So it stands to reason that making an error that leads to an opposition goal is incompetent. We’ve awarded one point per error: Aston Villa are the worst, having done it 15 times. Leicester are the best having only committed one error all season leading to an opposition goal. Which is astonishing. The full list looks like this: Aston Villa 15 West Ham 13 Liverpool 10 Bournemouth 9 Crystal Palace 8 Everton 8 Swansea City 7 Chelsea 7 Norwich City 7 Sunderland 7 Newcastle United 6 Tottenham Hotspur 6 Southampton 6 Watford 5 Manchester City 5 Arsenal 5 Stoke City 3 West Brom 3 Manchester United 2 Leicester City 1 And it does this to the table West Bromwich Albion 72 Aston Villa 71 Norwich 64 Crystal Palace 59 Everton 58 Newcastle 53 Watford 46 Tottenham Hotspur 44 Arsenal 43 Liverpool 43 Swansea City 43 Chelsea 40 Bournemouth 39 West Ham 37 Stoke 36 Sunderland 30 Leicester 28 Southampton 27 Manchester City 20 Manchester United 8 Failing to find your own player inside your own half Not the worst crime a team can commit on the pitch, nor a foolproof indicator of incompetence, but a competent professional footballer ought to be able to find a team-mate in his own half pretty regularly. Not in Newcastle, though, where players failed to find a team-mate inside their own half an incredible 906 times. That means that, 25 times per game, they pass the ball to the opposition in an area of the pitch they should control. Let’s punish the five worst teams and give Newcastle 10 points. Liverpool and Bournemouth are the next worst, doing it 860 times each, so get eight points each. Swansea City and Tottenham are next, 813 times, and get six points. Leicester are the sixth-worst team at finding a team-mate in their own half but, given that playing without the ball actually seems to be a tactic of theirs (see throw-ins), they get away without censure (we did say that some of this is arbitrary). Table West Bromwich Albion 72 Aston Villa 71 Norwich 64 Newcastle 63 Crystal Palace 59 Everton 58 Liverpool 51 Tottenham Hotspur 50 Swansea City 49 Bournemouth 47 Watford 46 Arsenal 43 Chelsea 40 West Ham 37 Stoke 36 Sunderland 30 Leicester 28 Southampton 27 Manchester City 20 Manchester United 8 Errors by goalkeepers that lead to goals Goalkeepers got an easy ride in last season’s ineptitude index, a fact quite rightly spotted by those below the line. Disappointingly, Opta does not carry stats on goalkeepers letting the ball between their own legs but, being football’s all-seeing stats machine, it does know how many times a keeper’s mistake has directly led to a goal. That Liverpool, alongside Bournemouth, top this list suggests whoever decided to award Simon Mignolet a new contract may not have had a key to the Opta engine room. We awarded one point each for errors from outfield players leading to a goal, so we’ll double it to two points for goalkeepers since their entire raison d’être is to not concede goals. The goalkeeping error list looks like this: Liverpool 5 (10 points) Bournemouth 5 Aston Villa 4 (eight points) Crystal Palace 4 Swansea City 4 Norwich City 3 (six points) Sunderland 3 Tottenham Hotspur 3 Arsenal 2 (four points) Manchester City 2 Watford 2 West Ham United 2 Chelsea 1 (two points) Manchester United 1 Southampton 1 West Bromwich Albion 1 Table Aston Villa 79 West Bromwich Albion 74 Norwich 70 Crystal Palace 67 Newcastle 63 Liverpool 61 Everton 58 Swansea City 57 Bournemouth 57 Tottenham Hotspur 56 Watford 50 Arsenal 47 Chelsea 42 West Ham 41 Stoke 36 Sunderland 36 Southampton 29 Leicester 28 Manchester City 24 Manchester United 10 Results It’s hardly a surprise that Aston Villa, a side relegated midway through April, top the list. But Sunderland’s relatively competent performance this season (by these measures) means they should not be battling for survival in the relegation zone alongside the far more hapless Norwich and Newcastle. Leicester were the fourth least competent side last year, and are now the third most competent which is just one turnaround from a remarkable season for them. West Bromwich Albion’s position near the top of the table is a surprise: Tony Pulis’s sides are not supposed to make mistakes; however their habit of playing out 0-0s, throwing the ball directly to the opposition and giving referees lip has cost them dear. So, on second thoughts, that sounds exactly like a Tony Pulis side. Crystal Palace, too, have been hurt by 0-0s, own goals and goalkeeping errors. But, really, clubs such as Liverpool and Everton should be ashamed of themselves and must fear the talent scouts from Billy Smart’s Circus will soon be hovering. Chelsea can count themselves lucky not to be higher up the table given their disastrous season. Tottenham can only dream of what might have been: cut out the errors and perhaps they would still be in the title race. Finally, though, the biggest surprise of all is right at the bottom of the table. How are Manchester United the least incompetent side in the league? It’s hard to see many in the Old Trafford stands agreeing (though a certain Dutchman might). But perhaps it does fit: after all it takes a special kind of ineptitude to make so few mistakes but still be bobbing about in fifth, struggling for Champions League qualification.
Ebola nurse Donna Wood had unblemished record, tribunal hears The nurse who was found to have concealed her colleague Pauline Cafferkey’s raised temperature before she tested positive for Ebola risked her life for others in Sierra Leone and has an otherwise unblemished record, a tribunal has heard. Donna Wood’s lawyer told an independent panel at the Nursing and Midwifery Council that he accepted their findings but said her actions amounted to a brief “lapse of judgment” by a professional who had given almost 30 years of “distinguished” service to the NHS. Ben Rich was speaking the day after Wood had been found guilty of misconduct following allegations that she knew Cafferkey had a high temperature and that she failed to escalate this during the screening process at Heathrow airport when they returned from six weeks volunteering in Sierra Leone in December 2014. Before the panel retired to consider whether her misconduct amounted to an impairment in the nurse’s current fitness to practice, Rich told them: “On your findings it would be incorrect to find that any of those professionals, Donna Wood included, really thought that Pauline Cafferkey had Ebola.” He told the panel that several witnesses including the lead clinician on the screening team, Deepti Kumar, had said that Cafferkey did not seem unwell on the day. “Had there been the slightest suspicion that actually Pauline Cafferkey was ill, you know that witnesses you found to be honest, thought that Pauline Cafferkey seemed completely well,” Rich said. Cafferkey initially passed the screening process after her temperature was found to be over 38C but was recorded on a form as normal. When she returned to the screening room her temperature was taken three more times and found to be normal. Cafferkey had told the manager of the screening process, David Carruthers, a former Metropolitan police officer, that she had taken paracetamol about an hour before, which could have masked her real temperature. Carruthers said he told Kumar that Cafferkey had taken paracetamol. This was disputed by Kumar in her evidence. Rich pointed out that Kumar was among several witnesses who had nonetheless said that Cafferkey appeared well despite her temperature. He told the panel on Thursday that the findings amounted to a “momentary lapse of judgment in a nurse who has an otherwise distinguished record of service to the NHS, to the public, a distinguished period of service to Ebola patients before this during which time she risked her own life for the benefit of others”. Wood was brought before the NMC on three misconduct charges, including recording Cafferkey’s temperature reading dishonestly in order to hide it from public health officials. It transpired during the hearing that the group had decided to take their own temperatures because the screening team were not equipped to do so. They had run out of screening forms and only had four screening cubicles for about 50 people. On Wednesday the NMC found that she had not recorded an incorrect temperature as alleged but found that she had suggested that Cafferkey’s temperature be recorded lower so that the volunteer group could leave the “uncomfortable” and “chaotic” area more quickly. The NMC found that there was a “low risk” of the misconduct being repeated but that her actions fell short of the standards expected by the public and that therefore her fitness to practice was impaired on public interest grounds. Wood is facing a professional sanction, which could involve being struck off or a suspension. Aja Hall, the case presenter for the NMC, told the panel the case was “particularly serious” as “Pauline Cafferkey was in the starting stages of Ebola and in an extremely busy and public place”. She said it was “well established” that a high temperature was the “first sign that there may be infection, which is why so much significance was placed on the taking of temperature, both in Sierra Leone but more crucially through the screening process at Heathrow airport”. The panel is expected to to conclude its deliberations on Friday. • This article was amended on 25 November 2016 to correct details of evidence given by David Carruthers.
Grant Thornton's role in the BHS debacle should not be overlooked As Sir Philip Green attempts to “sort” the deficit in BHS’s pension funds by taking his gin palace on a tour of the Mediterranean, let’s not forget the minor players in the debacle. Take accountancy firm Grant Thornton, which advised Dominic Chappell, the “wholly unsuitable” three-time bankrupt who bought the business. The two committees of MPs were scathing in their assessment of the roles played by Grant Thornton and fellow adviser Olswang, a legal firm. These City outfits were “increasingly aware” of the “manifold weaknesses” of Chappell’s acquisition vehicle, yet were “content to take generous fees and lend both their names and their reputations to the deal”. We don’t know how generous those fees were, because neither firm will say. Indeed, they pleaded client confidentiality on several matters. The MPs took a dim view of this, too. The firms “adopted a very wide interpretation of confidentiality” and “sheltered behind these duties when their interests – and that of the public – would have been better served by full and frank disclosure to legitimate parliamentary scrutiny”. Presented with such strong criticisms, you might expect Grant Thornton, in particular, to engage in some self-examination. The firm, after all, aspires to be grander than a mere bean-counter. Sacha Romanovitch, the new chief executive, is on a mission to display Grant Thornton’s cuddly, inclusive side. In Director magazine in April, she described her “vibrant economy” initiative: “All of us in the UK, if we’re going to thrive, and pass on something better to the next generation, we’ve all got a responsibility to step up and drive the things that are going to create growth.” Jolly nice, but how about stepping up and driving a review of the type of clients Grant Thornton is prepared to accept? A rethink on confidentiality policies would also be useful to avoid coming across as evasive in front of MPs. Neither thought was mentioned in the firm’s brief and defensive response to the committees’ report. Instead, Grant Thornton pleaded that it was only doing “financial due diligence” for Chappell’s crew in the pre-acquisition period. Its post-deal consultancy work was undertaken because it believed it had “experience of real value to share with BHS and its management”. There was no admission that Grant Thornton lost its moral compass or has lessons to learn. Note to Ms Romanovitch: if you really want to pass on something better to the next generation, try addressing the criticisms of the current generation of MPs. Skirting around the issue of executive pay Here’s a gift for Theresa May as she attempts to solve the troubling question of executive pay: a 10-point plan. What’s more, it comes from a panel assembled by the Investment Association, a body that carries clout because its members manage £5.5tn in assets. Better still, the chair of the panel is Nigel Wilson, who in his day job as chief executive of Legal & General has established a reputation as a free-thinker who doesn’t tolerate waffle. But, oh dear, Wilson has become a pussycat. About eight of the 10 points are utterly mundane. “Remuneration committees need to exercise independent judgment and not be overreliant on their remuneration consultants,” reads one recommendation. Well, yes, but that means simply that non-executive directors should do what they are paid to do and make up their own minds. It doesn’t address a broader governance problem identified by the prime minister: that, in practice, non-executives “are drawn from the same narrow social and professional circles as the executive team and – as we have seen time and time again – the scrutiny they provide is just not good enough”. This diagnosis led May to propose putting employee and consumer representatives on boards. We wait to see if she is serious. But, if you’re opining on pay and name-checking May in your introduction, surely you are obliged to address her big idea. Wilson’s panel didn’t. It also sidestepped the issue of the sheer size of pay packets at some FTSE 100 companies. “The working group does not feel it is their role to recommend absolute levels of remuneration; this is a matter for individual boards.” So, was it OK for BP to pay its chief executive Bob Dudley £14m despite the objections of shareholders expressed in an advisory vote? It’s hard to tell, because the panel couldn’t even make up its mind on binding votes. “We need to restore public confidence in executive pay,” declared Wilson at the launch of the report. You won’t succeed with a 10-point plan as limp as this one. Returning to Europe – in a manner of speaking Welcome to Standard Chartered, José Viñals, formerly deputy governor of the Spanish central bank and a departmental head at the International Monetary Fund in Washington. But are you sure you’ve chosen the right bank to chair? The press release from the IMF says you want to “return to Europe for family reasons”. Standard Chartered’s operations in Europe are tiny. For £1.25m a year, the chairman is expected to spend a lot of time hob-nobbing with important folk in China, India and Africa.
Lena Dunham pulls out of Girls promotional tour due to endometriosis flare-up Showrunner, actor and writer Lena Dunham has pulled out of the promotional tour for season five of Girls, due to a flare-up of endometriosis, a disease she has lived with since she was a teenager. In a post to Facebook and Instagram, Dunham warned her fans she won’t be doing press for the upcoming season, which premieres on HBO on 21 February. “As many of you know I have endometriosis, a chronic condition that affects approximately 1 in 10 women’s reproductive health,” she wrote on Tuesday. “I am currently going through a rough patch with the illness and my body (along with my amazing doctors) let me know, in no uncertain terms, that it’s time to rest.” Dunham said she needed strength to make the sixth season of Girls – its final run of episodes – “the best one yet”, citing support from her co-showrunner Jenni Konner and executive producer Judd Apatow. “So many women with this disease literally don’t have the option of time off and I won’t take it for granted.” The update follows an article Dunham wrote in November for Lenny, an e-newsletter she publishes with Konner. In the piece, she detailed her ongoing battle with endometriosis, which causes cells similar to the lining of the womb to grow outside of the womb, forming lesions, scar tissue and cysts and resulting in chronic pain, abnormal bleeding and vastly higher rates of infertility. In an all-too-familiar pattern for women around the world, Dunham’s endometriosis went undiagnosed for over a decade, variously classified as period pain, food poisoning, urinary tract infections or a colon problem. It was only after Dunham had wrapped up shooting the first season of Girls in 2011 that a doctor suggested to her what the real cause of her pain may be. She remained on a low-dose contraceptive pill for the next three years, until her symptoms returned. When Dunham went in for laparoscopic surgery the following November, her doctor found stage two endometriosis across her abdominal walls, bladder, liver and appendix, with “enough endometrial tissue and scarring to cause significant pain”, and an appendix that showed signs of chronic infection. Dunham’s case reflects a wider trend; an estimated 176 million women worldwide have the disease, but it suffers from a lack of research and funding that Lone Hummelshoj, who heads the World Endometriosis Research Foundation and the World Endometriosis Society, has described as “a major scandal”. Often dismissed by doctors as period pain or a symptom of an unrelated illness, it takes an average of eight-and-a-half years for endometriosis to be diagnosed. “[My doctor] has been performing these surgeries since long before they were popular, back when he was considered crazy for not simply removing a stressed lady’s uterus and moving on,” Dunham wrote in Lenny. “I could tell I wasn’t the only woman he had seen through the discovery of her own sanity. It’s a sad and beautiful moment when you realize just how much you have let yourself endure.” Dunham ended the piece on a hopeful note: “Being a woman is the best thing that ever happened to me. But I also hope for a future in which the pain of teenage girls is fully investigated, taken as seriously as a broken leg. I hope for a world where illness isn’t equated with weakness, where mental-health issues do not discount physical ones, because, guess what, we are complex beings.”
They Walk Among Us: real-life crimes that are scarily close to home True-crime podcasts have been a winning genre in 2016, with impeccable storytelling from series such as Serial, Criminal and Unsolved. Now a new British podcast, They Walk Among Us (iTunes), retraces some of the UK’s most intriguing crimes. Don’t be fooled by the understated and businesslike style of mysterious narrator, Benjamin: these stories unfold in a sinister and often surreal way. What is chilling about They Walk Among Us is its focus on cases that are close to home; its tales are simultaneously unexpected yet familiar (all have been headline-grabbers). It is co-written by husband-and-wife team Benjamin and Rosie (we are not given their last names), who are obsessed with true crime and record the show in their bedroom. The opening episode tells the tale of Sadie Hartley, who died after being stabbed on her doorstep. It is painstakingly well researched, recounting the backstory of Sarah Williams, who was found guilty of the murder. Portrayed in the media as a “bunny boiler”, she became infatuated with Hartley’s husband, Ian Johnston, after a fling and left a tangled web of explicit texts, menacing letters and damning evidence. It is the stuff of 9pm TV drama, except it is all real. Some of the crimes covered are more unusual, such as the case of “canoe man” John Darwin, who faked his own death, and the 1971 Baker Street bank robbery. One of the strangest (and most famous) stories involves the disappearance of nine-year-old Shannon Matthews, whose mother, Karen, faked her abduction. That episode looks at how horrifying the experience was for the frightened child. When the police found Shannon hidden under a divan in a house less than a mile away from her home her words were heartbreaking: “Stop it, you’re scaring me.” As well as laying out the facts, They Walk Among Us brings its stories up to date: Karen Matthews was released from prison and assigned a new identity in 2012, and the search left West Yorkshire police with a bill for £3.2m. The fascination with these cases is understandable, but it is those with a good dose of “it could happen to you” that are the real stuff of nightmares. This a cult hit, and with six episodes to devour, an addictive one. If you like this, try this… The Untold
Donald Trump and 9/11: the lies, exaggerations and eye-popping claims His presidential campaign suspended with respect to the anniversary of the terror attacks of September 11 2001, Donald Trump kept a studious silence on Sunday, releasing only a statement. It was a stance in sharp contrast to vehement and convoluted claims he has made about that day over the last 15 years. Immediately after the attacks, the lifelong New Yorker spoke with a local news anchor who asked whether, given his property in the financial district, he had learned anything about the devastation. Trump’s mind turned to his buildings. “It was an amazing phone call,” Trump replied. “I mean 40 Wall Street actually was the second-tallest building in downtown Manhattan. And it was actually before the World Trade Center was the tallest. And then when they built the World Trade Center it became known as the second tallest. And now it’s the tallest.” Trump later collected a $150,00 grant for 40 Wall Street, from a state recovery program meant to help small businesses after 9/11. In April 2016, he claimed that the funds were “probably a reimbursement for the fact that I allowed people, for many months, to stay in the building, use the building and store things in the building”. Officials who helped with the recovery have disputed Trump’s account to the New York Daily News, and questioned what help the businessman ever provided. But at recent rallies Trump has continued to take credit, saying at one campaign stop: “Everyone who helped clear the rubble, and I was there, and I watched, and I helped a little bit.” How much money Trump has given to recovery efforts or charities related to the 9/11 attacks remains an open question, though not without diligent investigation by the Washington Post, which found, for example, no record that Trump had ever given his own money to the 9/11 Museum. Just before the Republican primary, his foundation, which since 2008 has exclusively spent other people’s money, gave $100,000. A spokeswoman for the Trump campaign told the Daily Mail last year that Trump had given “a total of $102m” to “hundreds of charitable foundations over a relatively short period of time, many of which helped people affected by 9/11”. Despite repeated requests, the campaign has declined to provide evidence of these gifts, and refused to release tax returns that would show donations. Trump quickly urged the city to rebuild on the site of the towers, but within a few years said that the new building “shouldn’t be built” because of its “terrible design”. “If we build this job the way it is, the terrorists win,” he told MSNBC host Chris Matthews in 2005. “If we rebuild the World Trade Center but a story taller and stronger, then we win. I mean, I don’t want to have the terrorists win, Chris. And that’s what’s going to happen if we build this pile of junk.” During his presidential campaign, Trump has appeared to blamed the attacks on the inaction of American leaders. “The World Trade Center came down during the reign of George Bush,” he said in a February debate. “He kept us safe? That is not safe. That is not safe.” In August, Trump said: “Those people that knocked down the World Trade Center most likely under the Trump policy wouldn’t have been here to knock down the World Trade Center, just so you understand.” In September, he said: “I would’ve been tougher on terrorism. Bin Laden would’ve been caught a long time ago, before he was ultimately caught, prior to the downing of the World Trade Center.” At another debate, he struck an uncharacteristically reflective note when spurred by criticism of “New York values” from a rival, Ted Cruz. “New York values were on display for all to see in the aftermath of 9/11,” Trump said. “In our darkest moments, as a city, we showed the world the very, very best in terms of bravery and heart and soul that we have in America.” But at rallies over the last year, the businessman has frequently turned his attention toward Muslim Americans, whom he has accused of celebrating the attack. Trump has repeatedly claimed that “thousands and thousands of people were cheering” in Jersey City, New Jersey, on 9/11 itself. The story is a fabrication, its origins in a rumor discredited by police and without any film or audio evidence. Trump later mocked a reporter who wrote a 2001 article that mentioned the rumor in the context of police investigations. Trump has also claimed to have lost “hundreds of friends” in the attacks, though his campaign has declined to identify any victim whom he knew. On the 12th anniversary of 9/11, he wrote no memorial to the 2,996 people who died, nor to their families. Instead, he tweeted: “I would like to extend my best wishes to all, even the haters and losers, on this special date, September 11th.” The Republican nominee visited the World Trade Center memorial on Sunday, with his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton. In his statement, he said: “Today is a day of sadness and remembrance. It is also a day of resolve. “Fifteen years ago, America suffered the worst terrorist attack in its history. Thousands of mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers and innocent American children were murdered by radical Islamic terrorists.”
Facebook takes on Craigslist and eBay with new classified ad service Facebook’s latest product launch appears to be a modest step into a classified advertising market currently fought over by eBay, Craigslist and more nascent startups such as LetGo and OfferUp – the latter recently valued at $1.2bn. But with the official launch of Facebook Marketplace, through which users can list items for sale or search the area near them for things they want, the company could be attempting to use its gargantuan audience of 1.71 billion monthly users to upend the local sales market completely. Facebook says that already, “more than 450 million people visit buy and sell groups each month”, using informal groups like this one set up for people in Hackney, London. The world of peer-to-peer selling is notoriously hard to assess because transactions between individuals aren’t necessarily reported. But Facebook is definitely entering an established and already-crowded marketplace. The largest operator in the classified ad space is still eBay. It sold more than $20bn of merchandise in 2015, according to its latest financial report, though much of those sales are from large-volume sellers, rather than individuals. In the US, Facebook Marketplace will be taking on Craigslist, the classified ads site founded in 1995 and widely credited with destroying the market for newspaper classified advertising. Craigslist records 50bn worldwide page viewsand 80m classified ads per month – though because sales are between individuals and their results are unreported it is impossible to know how many of the ads are successful. Yet Craigslist is old and ripe for disruption. It might be known for its old school site design, which has remained largely unchanged since it launched, but it has also missed the opportunity to adapt its site for mobile users – an opportunity several startups have attempted to grab. New York-based Letgo launched in 2015, and OfferUp, which completed a $120m funding round in September, is backed by Silicon Valley investment firm Andreessen Horowitz. OfferUp’s co-founder and CEO, Nick Huzar, said in August that he expects the company to do upwards of $14bn in transactions in the next 12 months, according to GeekWire. OfferUp is currently trialling an in-app payments system in Seattle – a feature Facebook’s offering does not yet have, though its peer-to-peer payments system in Messenger seems like an obvious candidate for future incorporation. Nextdoor, the neighborhood social networking site which launched in the UK in September, is also a popular site for classified ads; and then there’s a network of Freecycle sites, the non-profit sharing group where people post classified ads to give away unwanted goods and furniture. Facebook has huge advantages over its competitors because of its vast audience and significant resources but might still have its work cut out, according to Jan Dawson, chief analyst at Jackdaw Research. “[Classified ads aren’t] necessarily what people think Facebook is for,” he said. “This is making Facebook about dealing with strangers, which is an awkward shift mentally.” On top of that, he said that unlike some of its competitors, Facebook is not yet providing any of the infrastructure around payments or delivery in order to hold on to custom. “It’s not an end-to-end solution … it’s not going to be markedly better than any other classifieds service today,” he said. Building scale will also be critical to their success, Dawson said. “Unless they’re going to hit that scale quickly, people will explore but they’re going to default back to what they were using before.” In a statement, OfferUp CEO Huzar told the : “Facebook is an amazing company that does a lot of different kind of things. This is the only thing we do. We have a highly engaged user base because we have built an experience that people absolutely love. Our market traction reflects that. We are confident that OfferUp will continue to lead when it comes to buying and selling locally.” Facebook did not respond to requests for comment.
The view on the leaked DNC emails: beware of hackers The leak of emails stolen from America’s Democratic National Committee came from WikiLeaks; but the theft itself has been plausibly attributed to Russian hackers, working with at least the blessing of the state. This seems to mark a new development in the constant struggle of propaganda and disinformation. There is nothing new in spying on the political processes of enemy states, and nothing new in the use of slanted information, but this story shows how technology has made both easier. One of the greatest feats of this sort was actually carried out by the British intelligence services in 1917 when they cracked an encrypted telegram from the German foreign ministry to the German ambassador in Mexico because it had passed through a relay station on Lands End. The Zimmermann telegram, as it became known, instructed the ambassador to offer Mexico unlimited subsidies, and the reconquest of the states of Texas, New Mexico and Arizona if only Mexico would declare war on the US after the US declared war on Germany. Mexico was unimpressed, since it judged that it did not have the troops, nor Germany the money, to make it feasible. But the American public was outraged, and this fury helped propel the US into the first world war and so doom Germany. The Russians, if it is they, have some way to go to top that. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the chair of the Democratic National Committee, has been forced to resign after the leaked emails showed her to be at best untroubled by the prospect of a Hillary Clinton candidacy, while some of her subordinates were actively suggesting ways to campaign against Bernie Sanders using such things as his atheism against him. It would be a very odd political race in which professional politicians did not have sympathies for one side or the other, even when they were not supposed to do so. Yet beneath this placid surface there are strong and dangerous currents. The first is the extreme difficulty of telling whether any given group operating out of Russia is an organ of the state or not. It is easy to get sucked down into conspiracy theories. The leaks have been used by the Clinton campaign to suggest that the Russians would prefer a President Trump, which is a remarkably ingenious counterspin if they were in fact intended as hostile propaganda against the Democrats. Meanwhile, the Republicans use them as evidence of a corrupt and conniving Democratic establishment. Both cases are examples of a more evolved and perhaps more effective kind of spin in a suspicious age than using purported experts on a television channel. Many people today would far rather believe something that appeared to be leaked than anything presented in a more straightforward fashion. There are, you might say, lies, damned lies, and genuine leaked documents. It is easy, obvious and right to call for greater security with email and other means of communication to guard against such attacks. But it doesn’t get us very far. Attacks are likely to persist, and to succeed, for the foreseeable future. No matter how technologically secure strong encryption remains, humans will always be there to weaken the security of any system. One answer is never to put anything into an email that might be hacked, but then it would become even more useless a means of communication than it already is. The deliberations behind crucial decisions are almost by definition things that cannot be made public at the time. We don’t know how much more will be leaked, and when. But it is safe to assume it will be timed and arranged to cause the maximum damage to the Democrats. Already, some of Senator Sanders’ delegates have booed him for endorsing Senator Clinton. These are dangerous passions. Both sides need to remember that a Trump presidency would threaten a fate much worse than the election of the wrong Democrat, to calm down, and to carry on together.
The hires UsVsTh3m founder Martin Belam The has hired Martin Belam, founder of the Mirror’s now-defunct UsVsTh3m, as social and new formats editor. Belam will work on developing an integrated social strategy for the , working alongside the community team. Mary Hamilton, the ’s executive editor of audience, said: “We are thrilled that Martin will be joining us. A hugely talented journalist and designer, he brings with him a wealth of invaluable experience and is the perfect person to lead our new social strategy and team.” Belam said: “It’s a fabulous opportunity to look at new ways of digital storytelling and to help the reach new audiences, all backed with the kind of world-class journalism at the heart of the stories that you expect from the .” Belam was one of the architects of Trinity Mirror’s social media strategy expansion which saw the launch of social sharing site UsVsTh3m and data journalism project Ampp3d. Trinity Mirror moved to close the sites last May, with the loss of almost 30 roles, citing high running costs for low volume of traffic. Belam, who has previously worked at the as head of user experience, has also worked for Sony and the BBC.
Elton John: Wonderful Crazy Night review – convincing return to his Americana roots Elton John’s 2010 album with Leon Russell, The Union, signalled a new determination to reconnect with the magic of his early-70s albums that established him as the world’s biggest-selling artist and are still revered by connoisseurs. You’d have to say that on Wonderful Crazy Night he succeeds in recreating the rootsy Americana of his youth, with help from his touring band, co-producer T-Bone Burnett and, of course, long-standing lyricist Bernie Taupin. It sounds like they’re having a blast. It was recorded in just 17 days, which has perhaps contributed to the urgency of tracks such as In the Name of You. But it has not come at the expense of John’s nose for a hit, with melodies such as that of Claw Hammer proving his pop sensibility is as acute as ever. A Good Heart and Blue Wonderful are classy, mid-paced ballads – familiar territory for Elton John, though there’s a bit more gravel and grit in his voice these days.
The view on banks: break up big finance – and kick the watchdogs, too Some gripes about banks are universal. From the sage of 19th century America, Mark Twain, comes this evergreen: “A banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining and wants it back the minute it begins to rain.” But when it comes to Britain’s high street banks, the charge sheet can be much more specific – and far longer. During the boom, these institutions shunted huge amounts to the wrong places, paid their top staff top dollar and were leading players in the tax-avoidance game. Some did worse: money-laundering, rigging markets. Then, when everything went belly-up, they came to the British taxpayer for trillions in loans, guarantees and cold, hard cash. Disparate these complaints may be, but unifying them is one theme: that Britain’s banks rely on the protection of the British public but reliably work against their interests. In less than two decades, there have been 11 official investigations into our banking industry. As far back as 1999 Donald Cruickshank calculated that the big banks were racking up “super-normal profits” of up to £5bn each year. Twelve years later, in the first major probe into finance after the crash, John Vickers concluded that the banking market was still uncompetitive. Last year, the chair of the Treasury select committee, Andrew Tyrie, said: “The public have concluded that they have been ripped off by banks for years, and there is a good deal of evidence that many of them may be right.” It’s against that backdrop of deep popular, expert and political unhappiness with our banks that Tuesday’s final report from the competition watchdog must be judged. It was inevitably never going to match up. Still, for a report that cost around £5m, took nearly two years and weighs in at 708 pages (not counting appendices) it represents pitifully poor value. Yes, the banking market is uncompetitive, admits the watchdog, with the big players having too many advantages over smaller challengers. And so it will unleash an “open banking revolution” – which turns out not to be a storming of the Winter Palace but a smartphone app, that will let customers know about the best deals in banking. An app! Fancy that. One might almost imagine that the money supplements and price comparison websites hadn’t been around for donkey’s years. One might forget all those reports showing that the banking market is resistant to competitive pressure – once again, it’s up to the consumer to fix a broken market. Such peashooter solutions are sadly the Competition and Markets Authority’s stock in trade – and raise major doubts about its usefulness as a watchdog. What would a competitive banking industry look like? It would be one in which the big banks were broken up. Where the state-owned institutions were mandated to lend more to the real economy and businesses outside the capital, rather than betting mainly on the London housing market. Where the entire industry was compelled to start a cash pot for social enterprises to tap into. And in which the invisible cross-subsidy of current accounts was exposed as a sham. Theresa May took office promising to reform capitalism to make it work for the many not the few. That is the big task facing the right wing, and not just in Britain. Doing so means fixing our lazy banking sector and, it is clear, overhauling our competition regulation to make it far tougher.
Louis van Gaal hits out at ‘stupid’ Juan Mata as Manchester United falter again Louis van Gaal accused Juan Mata of picking up a “stupid” first booking prior to his dismissal in the 1-0 defeat at West Bromwich Albion but the Manchester United manager suggested that Mike Dean, the referee, should have showed more discretion before brandishing a second yellow card to the Spaniard little more than two minutes later. Mata’s extraordinary dismissal in the 26th minute, following two incidents involving Darren Fletcher, the former United midfielder, was the turning point in the game according to Van Gaal, who conceded that his team had now “lost contact” with the top five clubs in the Premier League in their pursuit for fourth place. Salomon Rondón’s second-half goal leaves United sixth, two points behind West Ham United and three points adrift of Manchester City, who also have a game in hand on their neighbours. The spotlight, however, fell on Mata after he was cautioned twice in the space of 158 seconds, first for preventing Fletcher from taking a quick free-kick and then for fouling the same player. “What can I say when you send off a player like Mata? I have asked him if it’s his first red card and he said: ‘Yes,’” Van Gaal said. “When you do that you give the first and second yellow within five minutes. You can do it according to the rules but I think the referee has to know the person doing it. I don’t think Mata has ever made bad tackles. “You know the first one is a stupid yellow card and then you have to be aware the referee can give a second yellow card. A referee has to decide within one second but when you know the player, Mata never hurts a player.” United had dominated possession with Mata on the pitch without creating anything and they rarely looked like scoring once down to 10 men. “We have played 60 minutes with 10 against 11 and that is always difficult, but we were not uncomfortable,” said Van Gaal, who later bemoaned United’s fixture schedule. “The [sending-off] decision was for us the turning point in the match. They scored out of three chances, fantastic, but for us it is a big disappointment. A bad moment and it was, in my opinion, an unnecessary loss. I don’t want to say that we deserved to win, but we did not deserve to lose, when you see at the end the chances that WBA created in comparison with us. But now you lose, and lose contact with the first four or five.” Tony Pulis, West Brom’s manager, felt some sympathy for Mata. “The sending off played a big part in the game,” said Pulis, whose side are now up to 11th and surely safe from the threat of relegation. “From where I was the second one looked a bit harsh, but I’ve just been told that he does catch Darren and obviously Mike has deemed it to be two yellows.”
Cameron repeats criticism of Trump's 'dangerous' Muslim ban David Cameron has said Donald Trump’s call for a temporary ban on Muslims arriving in the US is “dangerous”, and he is not willing to withdraw his criticism of it. The British prime minister said he was sticking to his earlier claim that the proposal was “divisive, stupid and wrong” but he would be happy to meet the presumptive Republican presidential candidate if he travelled to the UK before the US election. “American presidential candidates have made a habit of coming through Europe and through the UK, so if that happens I would be very happy to,” he told ITV’s Robert Peston, saying he believed in maintaining the special relationship. But he added: “I don’t withdraw in any way what I said about the policy of not letting Muslims into America. I do think that is wrong and divisive. “We have got to demonstrate that what we’re up against here is a very small minority of a minority, Islamist extremists, that want to divide our societies, and we have got to explain that there are billions of people in our world who are devout Muslims but who believe in liberal democracy and all the things we believe in.” He added that the original statement from Trump was “a very dangerous thing to say … as well as a divisive and wrong one”. Trump had said he feared the US might not have a good relationship with the UK under his presidency following the prime minister’s comments. But he later said he had been invited to visit Cameron at No 10. “I will do just fine with David Cameron. I think he’s a nice guy. I will do just fine,” he said. “But they have asked me to visit 10 Downing Street – and I might do it.” Downing Street has indicated that formal invites are not generally sent to presidential candidates but traditionally they do meet the prime minister when travelling in Europe. Trump’s reference to an invite might relate to press reports around that.
Sara Pascoe’s top ten rules for festival-goers Look, guys, I’m not your mum, but that’s never stopped me telling you what to do, nor should it. You may have attended many festivals in your time, or maybe this year is your very first – either way you will find lots of publications trying to give you advice, like “Oooh, wellington boots are helpful in the mud,” or “Have you thought about making a detailed itinerary so you maximise your fun?”. Well, shut up other publications, because I’m here in the with proper tips for actual cool cats. The kind who eat itineraries for breakfast. And lunch, and dinner, and then get scurvy. There are more important things to think about in the runup to music-in-a-field fun time, so here are my golden rules for festival season. 1) Miss the main artist First off, take note: “artist” doesn’t always mean a good painter: it can also be used about a musician, when you’ve paid a lot of money to see them. That’s a good piece of new knowledge right there. Secondly, it is very important to miss the headliner/legend at a festival, so that you have a great story to tell when they die a year later. “Bowie, yeah I would have seen him at Glastonbury* but I, er, followed a girl who looked like a brave squirrel to watch a little-known band called Toilet Time in a ditch. Regretting that now of course.” “Wow,” all your friends think, “that Rachel knows how to live spontaneously, what a great anecdote!” 2) Stay away from drugs I hate to be the first to break this to you, but some people do drugs. “Even though they’re illegal and their parents clearly asked them not to?” Yes. I’m sorry: it’s an awful world out there. At a festival, drugs make people gurny and silly and they scare the children and ruin it for everyone. Thank gosh the police have come up with a scheme to crack down on this, by going undercover as teenage girls in denim shorts. The smaller the shorts, the higher the ranking officer. Girls in angel wings are special branch. They are covering every single music festival this year, plus village fetes, cinemas and shopping centres. So please be good, as I won’t be coming to visit you in prison. 3) Stand out from the crowd There are between three and 3 million people at any festival, and you want to make sure you shine like the star you are. Plus, you want your friends to be able to find you when you fall in a puddle and can’t get out. For this reason avoid fancy dress, animal face paints and holding a big flag – without them, you’ll stand out a mile. You might even think about wearing a full business suit in a dark colour. Don’t do it, though, just think about it. 4) Be kind to strangers Of course, in real life, strangers, or “people you don’t know” are awful and should be spat at, but at a festival people often lose their friends (because they are wearing fancy dress, animal face paints and holding a large flag) and it is your job to make them feel like the world is one big tribe where everyone is welcome. Like once, at Latitude, my friend Joel left a girl with me because he didn’t want to get off with her any more, and rather than ignoring her as I would have done in some local nightclub, I asked if she was OK and then continued dancing. Over the next few hours I nodded at her sometimes. Obviously I haven’t told you this just to illustrate what a great person I am (“You’re a sexy girl, Jesus!” I hear the people cry) but more importantly to recommend you steer clear of Joel. He will only hurt you, Babes. 5) Brace yourself for the toilet It’s important to be in touch with your body. You need to know your inner rhythms (ask your doctor) so that you can start queuing for the shit-tardis about an hour/90 minutes before you need to go. You will also need to be good at repressing the memories of the things you saw and smelled in there. If you know someone with a Men in Black memory zapper thing, ask if you can borrow it. If you do get post-traumatic toilet disorder, make sure you get signed off from work for at least a week, although the flashbacks could last for a couple of months. It’s worth noting that you only need visit the “toilets” for number twos. Number ones (pisses) can be done anywhere, as you are – I don’t know if you noticed – outside. Or, if you dance a lot, you can sweat the urine out using your skin as a second bladder**. 6) Don’t ask why there’s a comedy tent A tent? With a comedian in it? Surely, comedy works best in a packed, hot, low-ceilinged room and not in a billowing tarpaulin structure reverberating with distorted bass from the metal band on the main stage, and empty apart from a family picnicking 100m away from the stage? Who cares, festivals have to provide entertainment that isn’t music just in case a family need somewhere to shelter while enjoying their picnic. See you there. 7) Be prepared to spend a lot of money I know you’re rich because you can afford to go to a festival. It’s damn expensive to get a weekend ticket to any of the big ones and that’s because they have to make sure you’re wealthy before you get in. A little bit like that scene in Pretty Woman (popular 80s prostitute film), where the lady wasn’t allowed into the nice shop because of her stinky clothes, there is no point attending a festival if you can’t shell out £160 for a lentil burger. You’re not even allowed to moan about it in case you seem like a party pooper (another thing to watch out for in the toilets). 8) Don’t bring a poisonous snake I shouldn’t have to explain this. Don’t bring a scary spider either. I don’t care if he’s your friend. No, I haven’t run out of ideas. Well, that’s not what your mum said last night. 9) Make an early exit You’re not allowed to live at the festival, so you have to go back home when it’s finished. If you’ve driven a car there, leave a bit earlier than everyone else to avoid jams and queueing – 45 minutes after you arrive should be perfect. If you’ve caught the train, go and sit in first class on the way home: you will smell so bad the ticket inspector will avoid you. 10) Tell everyone it was brilliant The most important thing about huge, long-planned events is that we brag to friends, relatives and colleagues who weren’t there about how great it was. By doing so we maintain the illusion that loud noises and bright outfits can distract us from our loneliness/mortality, thus keeping the whole entertainment industry going. You will sometimes feel sad at a festival; it’s not all euphoria and laughing because – despite the unusual environment – you will still be you. But you will get a bit of exercise from the walking and jiggling, lots of fresh air and plenty of lentils. So it’s still worth going. * I dunno if he played there, I’m not going to look it up. ** Science. Sara Pascoe will be performing at Latitude, Reading, Leeds, Port Eliot and Wilderness.
Want to help fight climate change? Start with reproductive rights An often-ignored factor when examining environmental issues and climate change is the powerful role played by women. In the developed world, although women still struggle to achieve parity in issues of pay and opportunity, we typically hold the most sway in household decisions. According to the Wall Street Journal, women control nearly three-quarters of consumer spending in the US and two-thirds in the UK, including “making the decision in the purchases of 94% of home furnishings … 92% of vacations … 91% of homes … 60% of automobiles”. This massive buying power means that most of the time, women hold the reins when it comes to making large, environmentally friendly decisions like deciding to vacation close to home rather than taking another long-haul flight, buying a modestly sized dwelling rather than a McMansion, and choosing a compact hybrid car rather than a gas-guzzling SUV. In the workplace, too, women are greener: studies show that businesses headed by women are more likely to make environmentally friendly decisions. Whether it’s buying local produce or organizing e-cycling on a corporate scale, women simply seem more concerned about our collective impact on the environment and more willing to make changes to mitigate this impact. But the difference between men and women in environmental issues doesn’t just come down to who controls the purse strings. Women are statistically more likely to believe the science about climate change in the first place and, what’s more, believe it will affect them personally. In a 2015 study examining attitudes about climate change, Pew surveyed 11 developed nations and asked people to rate their agreement with the statement: “Global climate change is a serious problem.” In the US, 83% of women stated this was a somewhat or very serious problem, compared to just 66% of men. In the UK, the gap was smaller but still significant: 81% of women vs 71% of men. It’s tempting to chalk women’s increased awareness and concern for environmental issues up to some innate caretaking instinct or womanly solidarity. Nature is almost always characterized as female, after all. In Mother Nature v the human race, the actions we take against her are almost always framed as male: raping, pillaging, conquering, plundering. Doesn’t it make sense that women would empathize? It’s a nice thought, this global sisterhood, but I don’t think it’s quite as emotional as all that. I think it’s pure practicality. Even in 2016, in the most democratic nations, our equality stands precarious, subject to the whims of shifting political tides. It’s not hard to understand that in the event of a global climate crisis, women will be immediately rendered one of the most vulnerable populations. At the 2014 UN Climate Summit, the Chilean president, Michelle Bachelet, noted that women and children are 14 times more vulnerable than men in a climate disaster such as floods or droughts, especially in developing nations. Women are more likely than men to die in natural disasters, we’re more likely to become caregivers for the sick or wounded, and we’re more likely become the victims in climate change-induced violent conflicts. Put plainly, perhaps women care more about climate change because we have so much more to lose. And while it may seem like women in the west have more power – making major household financial decisions while poor women in developing nations are already suffering the devastating effects of climate change – women the world over are united in waging a long and frustrating fight to gain access to one of the most immediate and effective ways to reduce our environmental impact: safe access to birth control, abortion and reproductive health services. We’ve discussed it before, and although overpopulation isn’t the only problem (how much each population consumes is almost equally important) it’s a big one. And unlike many issues related to climate change, it’s one which is incredibly simple to solve. David Attenborough states it plainly and often: “Wherever women are given political control of their bodies, where they have the vote, education, appropriate medical facilities and they can read and have rights and so on, the birth rate falls – there’s no exceptions to that.” This is an issue in the developing world, but we’d be remiss if we acted as though it was a non-issue in western democracies. The United States is the largest democracy in the world, yet only 18 states and the District of Columbia require that information about contraception be taught where sex education is provided. Unwanted pregnancies are the natural consequence of these oversights, and while abortion has been legal since 1973, individual states in the US have the ability to impose incredibly restrictive regulations on abortion providers, in some cases making it all but impossible to access a legal abortion. Religion and morality are often given as reasons for denying women access to reproductive health services, but I think these justifications miss half the story. Sister Joan Chittister, a Catholic nun, says it perfectly when she states: “I do not believe that just because you’re opposed to abortion, that that makes you pro-life. In fact, I think in many cases, your morality is deeply lacking if all you want is a child born but not a child fed, not a child educated, not a child housed … That’s not pro-life. That’s pro-birth. We need a much broader conversation on what the morality of pro-life is.” It’s ridiculous to deny women information and access to birth control and then also deny them the right to terminate an unintended pregnancy. Cruel to restrict a woman’s access to abortion and then leave her to the task of raising a child alone, vulnerable, and without support. And it’s incredibly shortsighted to believe that we can tackle overpopulation without also enabling women the world over to become educated and empowered about their own bodies and reproductive health. We cannot simultaneously champion fighting climate change without also fighting for the rights of women. The two are inextricably linked; they stand hand in hand. It’s about time we all stood up with them.
Disney plans to make live-action Snow White remake of classic film Disney is developing a live-action take on Snow White. According to the Hollywood Reporter, the studio has hired The Girl on the Train screenwriter Erin Cressida Wilson to write the script while original songs will be created by Benj Pasek & Justin Paul. The pair recently wrote the lyrics for Oscar-tipped musical La La Land. The project marks yet another live-action remake of a Disney classic following the box office success of Alice in Wonderland, Maleficent Cinderella and The Jungle Book, with Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Dumbo, Mulan and The Lion King all on the way. The original film, released in 1937, was the studio’s first animated film and the Grimm brothers’ source material has seen a number of big-screen iterations, including a 1987 film with Diana Rigg, horror film Snow White: A Tale of Terror (1997) with Sigourney Weaver, and comedy Mirror Mirror (2012) with Julia Roberts. It also spawned 2012 hit Snow White and the Huntsman starring Kristen Stewart and Charlize Theron, which made $396m worldwide. A prequel/sequel was released earlier this year that made made less then half that amount.
Taylor Swift donates $250,000 to support Kesha after contract ruling Taylor Swift has donated $250,000 to “help with the financial needs” of the singer Kesha following a court’s adverse ruling in the preliminary hearing of her case against Dr Luke. Kesha has received an an outpouring of support after her request to be released from a recording contract with Dr Luke – who she claims physically and sexually assaulted her – was denied in New York last Friday. The likes of Lady Gaga, Ariana Grande and Lorde have voiced their shock and backing for the singer following the outcome, while many Kesha fans gathered outside the New York state supreme court under the banner of the #FreeKesha movement. Grammy winner Taylor Swift, instead, provided financial aid: “In a show of support, Taylor Swift has donated $250,000 to Kesha to help with any of her financial needs during this trying time,” a spokesperson confirmed. In 2014, Kesha – AKA Kesha Rose Sebert – filed a lawsuit against songwriter and producer Dr Luke, whose real name is Lukasz Sebastian Gottwald, alleging that he abused her when she was 18, soon after she signed a contract with him in 2005. She claimed that Gottwald gave her drugs and alcohol and sexually assaulted her. Gottwald countersued, claiming the allegations were part of a “campaign of publishing outrageous and untrue statements”, before Justice Shirley Kornreich denied Kesha’s motion for preliminary injunction. She claimed that “there has been no showing of irreparable harm”, BuzzFeed reported, and cited a lack of medical evidence such as hospital records to corroborate the assault allegations. Kesha will now remain under contract with Gottwald’s Kemosabe Records, which is owned by Sony, pending the outcome of the full case.
BaBa ZuLa: Do Not Obey review – rousing set from Istanbul's cultural crossroads The front cover says it all. There’s a vintage American car with a frame drum perched on the roof and a long-necked saz (a Middle Eastern lute) propped against the boot, against a registration plate marked “Do Not Obey”. The vehicle is the proud possession of Murat Ertel, a key figure in the Turkish psychedelic rock movement and co-founder of BaBa ZuLa. Their latest album was recorded before last month’s attempted coup and the subsequent political upheavals, and it’s a reminder of how western influences shook up Turkish music. The title track mixes cool, sturdy vocals from Melike Sahin against a blues-rock riff from Ertel on the electric saz, urged on by bass and percussion. Elsewhere, there are chanting songs that edge towards Turkish rap, more traditional-sounding, semi-acoustic songs, and an urgent finale, Direniş Destanı (“The Legend of Resistance”). A rousing, defiant set from the cultural crossroads of Istanbul.
Alcohol is a direct cause of seven ​​forms of cancer, finds study Alcohol causes seven forms of cancer, and people consuming even low to moderate amounts are at risk, according to new analysis. Health experts endorsed the findings and said they showed that ministers should initiate more education campaigns in order to tackle widespread public ignorance about how closely alcohol and cancer are connected. The study sparked renewed calls for regular drinkers to be encouraged to take alcohol-free days, and for alcohol packaging to carry warning labels. Fresh analysis of evidence accumulated over recent years implicates alcohol in the development of breast, colon, liver and other types of cancer. The study, published in the scientific journal Addiction, concludes that there is more than simply a link or statistical association between alcohol and cancer that could be explained by something else. There is now enough credible evidence to say conclusively that drinking is a direct cause of the disease, according to Jennie Connor, of the preventive and social medicine department at Otago University in New Zealand. “There is strong evidence that alcohol causes cancer at seven sites in the body and probably others,” Connor said. “Even without complete knowledge of biological mechanisms [of how alcohol causes cancer], the epidemiological evidence can support the judgment that alcohol causes cancer of the oropharynx, larynx, oesophagus, liver, colon, rectum and breast.” Growing evidence suggested that alcohol was also likely to cause skin, prostate and pancreatic cancer, she added. Emphasising that a drinker’s risk increased in relation to the amount consumed, Connor said: “For all these there is a dose-response relationship.” Connor arrived at her conclusions after studying reviews undertaken over the past 10 years by the World Cancer Research Fund, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, the World Health Organisation’s cancer body, and other authoritative bodies. “The highest risks are associated with the heaviest drinking but a considerable burden is experienced by drinkers with low to moderate consumption, due to the distribution of drinking in the population,” Connor said. Campaigns to reduce alcohol consumption should therefore try to encourage everyone to cut down, as targeting only heavy drinkers had “limited potential” to reduce alcohol-related cancer, she added. In February Prof Dame Sally Davies, the chief medical officer for England, caused a stir by warning women that drinking alcohol could cause breast cancer. She told a parliamentary hearing: “Do as I do when I reach for my glass of wine. Think: do I want the glass of wine or do I want to raise my own risk of breast cancer? I take a decision each time I have a glass.” Davies played a key role in drawing up new government guidelines on safe drinking limits, published in January, which recommended that men reduce their maximum weekly intake of alcohol from 21 to 14 units, or seven pints of beer a week, which is the longstanding threshold that women are advised not to exceed. The growing evidence of alcohol’s role in causing cancer, underlined by a report by the UK Committee on Carcinogenicity, was a key reason behind Davies and her counterparts in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland issuing advice that some said was impractical and would be ignored. Sticking to the new guidelines would help keep drinkers’ risk of cancer low, the proponents said. Dr Jana Witt, Cancer Research UK’s health information officer, said: “We know that nine in 10 people aren’t aware of the link between alcohol and cancer. And this review is a stark reminder that there’s strong evidence linking the two.” A recent CRUK study found that when people were shown a list of different cancers, only one in five of them knew that breast cancer could be caused by drinking, compared to four out of five people who knew that alcohol could cause liver cancer. “Having some alcohol-free days each week is a good way to cut down on the amount you’re drinking,” Witt said. “Also, try swapping every other alcoholic drink for a soft drink, choosing smaller servings or less alcoholic versions of drinks, and not keeping a stock of booze at home.” Alan Boobis, professor of biochemical pharmacology at Imperial College London, said the science showing alcohol’s role in cancer was well established. “The main difficulty is communicating effectively with the public,” he said. Connor’s study also found that people who smoke and drink are at even greater risk of developing cancer. More positively, there was some evidence that drinkers who gave up alcohol could reverse their risk of laryngeal, pharyngeal and liver cancer, and that their risk reduced the longer they avoided alcohol, Connor’s research found. Elaine Hindal, chief executive of Drinkaware, the alcohol industry-funded education charity, agreed that drinking and cancer risk were closely linked. “Regularly drinking more than the government’s low-risk guidelines puts you at increased risk of some types of cancer, and can also increase your risk of heart and liver disease, strokes and pancreatitis,” she said. “Smoking and drinking together increases your risk of developing throat and mouth cancer more than doing either on their own.” People drinking more than the recommended limits should cut down in order to safeguard their future health, she added.
Amazon to create 1,000 jobs in Manchester at new fulfilment centre Amazon is to open its first fulfilment centre in north-west England, creating 1,000 new jobs in Manchester over the next three years. The online retailer is recruiting operations managers and engineers, and for IT and HR roles at the site, which will open later this year. Mike Kane, the MP for Wythenshawe and Sale East, said the move was “fantastic news” for his constituents, adding: “This investment is another big step in the renaissance of Wythenshawe.” The centre will join Amazon’s 10 fulfilment centres in the UK, including two in Doncaster and one each in Dunfermline, Dunstable, Gourock, Hemel Hempstead, Milton Keynes, Peterborough, Rugeley and Swansea Bay. Two of these centres opened in 2015. The move is part of Amazon’s plan to expand across the UK this year, creating 2,500 permanent jobs. The company is hiring at its head office in London, at three research and development centres in Cambridge, Edinburgh and London, at its customer service centre in Edinburgh and at warehouses across the country. Amazon is also recruiting people to support a new UK datacentre region. Next year, the company plans to open a new head office, which will house 5,000 employees in Old Street, central London. The group caused a stir in the grocery market last week by signing a deal to sell food from Morrisons, the UK’s fourth largest supermarket chain. Fresh, chilled and frozen food made by Morrisons will be available from Amazon within the next few months on its Prime Now and Pantry services. Prime Now delivers products to customers within one hour for £6.99. It is available in London, Birmingham, Newcastle, Manchester and Liverpool but is expanding fast. Amazon Pantry is a nationwide service that allows shoppers to build up a box of grocery items for delivery the next day. Amazon is also believed to have signed up former Marks & Spencer clothing head Frances Russell as it works on plans to further its fashion business with an own-label clothing brand.
Over to you, says puffy-eyed Cameron as the Brexit vultures circle Shortly after 6am a van pulled up outside Downing Street. With still no sign of David Cameron, who had been expected to make a statement minutes earlier, the hordes of photographers gathered outside the prime minister’s front door snapped the newspaper delivery man instead. Something to do. This was history and no one wanted to miss a moment. There was still no sign of the prime minister nearly an hour later when someone opened the door of No 10 to let Larry the Downing Street cat out for his morning stroll. The photographers got their cameras out again. Larry sat on the porch for five minutes, wondering if he was about to be the fall guy in a dead cat bounce. Surprised to find himself still alive, he exited stage right. Another half an hour passed and Larry reappeared. The front door opened and he went back inside. Still no sign of Dave. It was becoming startlingly clear that No 10 was in crisis. The prime minister knew he should have made a statement long ago, but he still didn’t really have a clue what he was going to say. What could he say? He’d gambled the future of the country for an internal party squabble and he’d lost. As sterling dropped another few cents, a French broadcaster rehearsed her lines. “David Cameron est fini,” she said. “David Cameron is finished.” It was apparently going to be a dual-language broadcast. On the other side of the gates at the far end of Downing Street, an organ grinder played an off tempo version of Land of Hope and Glory while passing cars honked their horns in approval. The Brexit vultures were closing in. At 7.40am Lord Feldman, the Conservative party chairman, knocked on the front door of No 10. He was kept waiting outside considerably longer than Larry. The new world order was making itself felt. “Have you got anything to say, Lord Feldman?” a reporter shouted. He hadn’t. No one else seemed to have anything to say, so why should he? Still no Dave. At 8am the financial markets opened and £100bn was wiped off their value within minutes. So much for the prime minister calming City nerves. Shortly before 8.30, Dave’s favourite oak lectern was carried out into the street, and moments later he and his wife Sam walked out. Both looked puffy-eyed. It had been a long night, and the day was going to be even longer. “Good morning everyone,” he said, grasping the lectern with both hands. “The will of the British people is an instruction that must be delivered. Across the world people have been watching the choice that Britain has made. I would reassure those markets and investors that Britain’s economy is fundamentally strong.” His body language was anything but reassuring, and neither was his implication that the British people had come to the wrong decision. He wasn’t the right man to lead the negotiations for this country’s exit from the EU, he continued, so he would be standing down as prime minister before the Conservative party conference in October. It was said with dignity as well as edge. Scotland was already seeking a second independence referendum to keep the country in the EU, Northern Ireland might do the same, Spain was making claims on Gibraltar and Britain faced years of economic uncertainty. If Boris Johnson and Michael Gove were so sure they could sort out this mess, they were welcome to have a go. His job had stopped being fun and he’d had enough. “I love this country, and I feel honoured to have served it,” he said, his voice beginning to crack. Only a huge effort of will got him to the end. “And I will do everything I can in future to help this great country succeed. Thank you very much.” Dave and Sam instinctively moved to kiss each other. At the last second they caught one another’s eye and thought better of it. To touch would only lead to more tears. They deserved some dignity. Over at Vote Leave headquarters, Boris and Gove were looking equally stunned. Neither had either expected to win or Cameron to resign, and what had started out as a bit of a game had become horribly real. Sombre faces were the order of the day. Boris began by paying tribute to Dave – “He’s been a great prime minister and his only fault was to have the job I wanted” – before trying to appeal to the young people who had resoundingly rejected him. Having spent the entire campaign ignoring the young, he couldn’t help but sound unconvincing. Sincerity has never been Boris’s strongest suit. Gove’s shock felt rather more real. He looked like a man who had just come down off a bad trip to find he had murdered one of his closest friends. But even he couldn’t avoid hypocrisy. After openly rubbishing each and every expert for weeks, he tried to reassure everyone that everything was going to be OK because Brexit would be entrusted to great minds. Both declined to take any questions from the media. Which was just as well, because right now they didn’t have a single answer.
New band of the week: Sweat (No 122) apocalypse pop with a sleazy side Hometown: Peckham. The lineup: Dante Traynor (singer), Gamaliel Traynor (keyboards), David Noble (bass), Joe Minden (guitar), Matt Barnes (drums). The background: New London band Sweat are not a million miles away from the 1975, in terms of references – 80s pop, glam swagger, Bowie in Berlin – and could achieve success in their slipstream. “Someone did make that comparison, which I found a bit upsetting,” says mildly affronted frontman Dante Traynor, who moved here from Australia (with his equally colourfully named brother Gamaliel – it’s a biblical thing) in his teens. “They’re just not great,” he adds of his would-be rivals. “They’re not terrible, it’s just that I wouldn’t want to be them.” Traynor formed Sweat under two years ago as a vehicle for his twin obsessions: sex and the apocalypse. And in his mind, Sweat are more Bolan and Bowie, even Prince and Frank Ocean, than the 1975. “It’s sexy – dance music for clubs,” says Traynor, who used to be in a band called Rhythmic Thrust. Are the songs about sex? “Some of them are,” he says, recalling that the video shoot to their recent single Acid Rainbow, a lurid affair directed by the delightfully named Beatrix Blaise at an old people’s home in south London, quickly devolved into an orgy. “There was a whole carpet of people having sex with each other,” he says, depicting a sleazy scene straight out of Mick Jagger’s Performance. “There was soft bossa nova playing in this apocalyptic club set, and purple soft lights and fag ash everywhere. It was quite beautiful.” He describes Sweat in terms of their “intensity” and “the sense that things are gonna go wrong at any moment”. They are, he decides, “unpredictable … risky and exciting.” Dangerous? “I think so. The shows are pretty full-frontal.” Meaning? “Very full-on, aggressive and trance-like. People jump off balconies, there’s crowd-surfing and stage invasions. Equipment breaks, people get hurt, the building gets damaged … It’s very sexual music – people get down. Bumping and grinding. It can get quite lust-filled.” You can see for yourselves in December, when the band head out on tour in support to Hinds, formerly Deers. Dress accordingly. Meanwhile, there’s their music. It’s quite indie-dance Madchester 1989, with psychedelic inflections and the bass-heavy midtempo grooves of Happy Mondays, only with a primping, preening singer – a Brett Anderson type – on top. “We like to wear a lot of leather,” Traynor warns. “And see-through shirts.” It’s baggy via glam and Britpop. PLW VIP is a song about a fictional club – Pink Love World – “which is a kind of club of love”, but the club closes and leaves the two protagonists (“Burnt-out shells like me and you”) searching for meaning in their relationship in the aftermath, worrying that “all the best things go bad eventually”. There is a techno pulse throughout, and the track moves at a 90s house pace, but Traynor insists it’s more of a Bowie 77 thing. They even study old Bowie/Iggy album covers for clues. “We come at electronic music more from a Low/Idiot angle,” he says, explaining that the band use “all old analogue shit” to record. “Technologically speaking, our music could have been recorded in the 70s.” Acid Rainbow is a monstrous baggy groove, all shimmery psychedelic colourmotion disguising another song about the end of the world (“The lights begin to glow … Feel the crush of people fleeing … The sky is darkening – we’ve got to get away while we can”). “They’re all about the apocalypse, really,” he says of Sweatsongs. Dance till the bomb drops? “That sounds about right.” Sweat are apparently in the process of making a concept album about our imperilled planet. It is, he reassures, “Like prog without the prog” – more Frank Ocean than Topographic Oceans. They also have a song, Generous Guys, “about a pathetic, insecure man complaining about pathetic insecure men”, and an anthemic, climactic ballad, This World – their Purple Rain, no less – written from the point of view of native Australians. “It’s about taking the world back to a time when we lived in more harmony and symbiosis,” says Professor Traynor. They have another song, Tambourine, about “how the the world is dying and people are getting fucked and having meaningless sex”: “We’re morons together, baby,” croons Traynor. Are Sweat having their cake and gorging on it – having a hedonistic time while moaning at people for being hedonists? “Probably,” he says, but what should he care? Lady Gaga likes Sweat so much she recently stole their end-of-night slot at London’s Moth Club, and their audience. “We were meant to be headlining and when she turned up she took it,” he says. “I walked up to her and said, ‘Hello Mrs Gaga.’ She said, ‘It’s Stephanie.’ Then I was like, ‘Oh, you took our slot.’ Actually, she was really nice and apologetic about it.” He sounds almost disappointed. “She even sang me a song.” He adds, that when it comes to the sex’n’drugs’n’rock’n’roll triad, “Rock’n’roll probably figures highest, unfortunately. “But,” he continues, “sex and drugs are equal second.” The buzz: “Sweat’s new song adds more weight to the ‘Sweat are the best new band of 2016’ theory.” The truth: Think Syd Barrett “on one” at the Hacienda, in 1989. Most likely to: Perspire. Least likely to: Retire. What to buy: Acid Rainbow is out on Meno. File next to: The 1975, World of Twist, Happy Mondays, Suede. Links: facebook.com/sweatnet/ Ones to watch: Mallrat, Wendy Bevan, Rømans, Klyne, Swims.
Giving birth in Guinea: a life or death lottery bereft of midwives and medicine A baby was born, took one breath, then left the world again. No amount of the midwife pumping his legs up to his ribcage and back, or poking a finger hard and fast at his chest, would bring him back. His 17-year-old mother lay in pain on the delivery table as her son was wrapped up in a yellow cloth. There was no time even for her to hold him, as another woman was about to give birth. The midwives quickly changed their bloodied robes and gloves. Because there was no other table, the second woman gave birth lying on the floor. This time, the baby yelled as soon as she came out. She was healthy. While the midwives moved on to the next urgent case, their small delivery room filling up, she spent her first few minutes screaming on the concrete slab. Welcome to life in Guinea, baby Katherine. The situation for newborn babies and their mothers in this west African country is dire. Of every 1,000 babies born in Guinea, 123 die before their fifth birthday. For every 100,000 live births, 724 women die. Guinea has the world’s second-highest rate of female genital mutilation (FGM), after Somalia – 97% of women between 15 and 49 have been cut. Women who have had FGM are twice as likely to haemorrhage during childbirth, and haemorrhage is the leading cause of mothers dying in Africa. Medicine is in short supply, and health workers’ salaries rely on selling enough of it. This leads to staff shortages; most health centres have one or two health workers when they should have eight. The Ebola outbreak, which killed more than 2,500 people in Guinea, revealed how little access to medical care rural Guineans had. The health situation has improved slightly post-Ebola, but without donor money, the system would grind to a halt. “The needs are identified, but the money is just not coming from the government,” says Guy Yogo, Unicef’s deputy representative in Guinea. After Ebola, the government increased its contribution to health from 2.66% to 4.66% of GDP, and has committed to 7% for next year. According to Yogo, however: “The minimum is 11-15% if you really want to have an impact.” Katherine is one of nearly 5,000 babies officially born each year at Doko health centre in the Kankan region of north-eastern Guinea, but about 2,000 more are born to unregistered mothers who come to the area to search for gold in artisanal mines. Births take place in one small room, with its single delivery table presided over by two midwives. “Lots of women come, and there’s nowhere to put them all. They often have their babies on the floor. Better there than next to sick people – at least it’s clean,” says Bernadette Mansaré, a midwife. When there is a moment between deliveries, she lectures the dozen pregnant women waiting outside on the importance of coming in for checkups. Doko’s midwives have not had any training in 20 years. If they had, they might have known how to give the baby who died mouth to mouth resuscitation or proper compressions. Thousands of babies die from preventable causes each year. One of the things that the response to Ebola brought was medical supplies, the like of which had not been seen in a generation. Kondiadou health centre is near Kissidougou, one of the towns to which the UN started regular flights during Ebola. Before, reaching south-east Guinea from the capital involved a bumpy car journey lasting several days. Now, because of the flights, it is easier to get supplies and staff in, although the UN is expected to cancel the flight as soon as the threat of Ebola is completely over. “It’s the first time we’ve got equipment like this since the centre was built in 1990,” says Therese Soropogui, a community health worker at Kondiadou, as she pulls out standard latex gloves and yellow washing-up ones and explains the difference. A small camping stove, some sterilising kit, bandages and a few hundred pairs of gloves have been donated by the Spanish government and Unicef. And a red plastic bucket. It does not take much to save lives in remote Guinea. “Before, we burned tools in the fire, and that took too long,” Soropogui says. “And if you had two women giving birth at the same time, you had to use our one set of tools for both women, one after the other. That was very difficult. Now we have three or four sets of tools and, at the end, you can sterilise them.” Not all of the equipment seems to have been used, however, showing up what many see as an endemic problem with the UN’s approach. “They give out supplies like sweets,” says Yolande Hyjazi, the country director of Jhpiego, an international health organisation. “The UN system is: what the government asks for, they buy, and that’s it. We’ve seen a lot of vacuum extraction equipment, but if you ask the staff about it they say: ‘I don’t know [what it is], the UNFPA [UN population fund] sent it.’ They give equipment without training.” Even when staff do know how to use it, obstetric equipment does not solve a problem many women have – getting to a clinic. Harriet Somadouno, a 20-year-old farmer in her third trimester, walked 17km to Kondiadou for a checkup, carrying 10kg of peanuts on her head to sell at the market en route. “I walked with my friends, but I carried the peanuts myself,” she says. “It took me six hours. I’m going home tonight but I think it’ll be a quicker journey as I sold all the peanuts – perhaps four hours.” Somadouno, exhausted after her walk, barely seemed to take in the information given by the nurse. One scheme to help women involves what looks like a giant old-fashioned pram, which is attached as a sidecar to a motorbike. Spain has given 15 of them to health centres in Guinea. Mamady Berete doubles up as Doko health centre’s broken bones specialist and the moto-ambulance driver. Dressed in high-vis from head to toe, he bumps up and down bush tracks and through enormous puddles, picking up pregnant women, strapping them in his sidecar and taking them to Doko. The giant pram turns heads, but brings fresh problems, such as how to pay for petrol or maintenance. “We have someone here who can fix it but, if a tyre breaks, we have to send to Conakry for a new one. It’s a bit difficult,” Berete says. On his trips to the villages, Berete spreads the word about the health centre and encourages more people to use it. Trust in Guinea’s health system was in short supply during Ebola, when clinics closed their doors, doctors and nurses died, and infected people seemed to disappear into hospitals never to return. “People were afraid of our health centre – they said if you came here you’d catch Ebola. So people avoided coming,” says Berete. Because nobody came, salaries could not be paid, so the clinic had to shut, leading to even less trust in the service. According to Yogo, the lack of working health systems meant the death toll from “collateral” diseases and health complications outpaced that of Ebola. “More people died from malaria, diarrhoea and in childbirth than of Ebola,” he says. “The country did not have enough ambulances. They were all used for Ebola patients – nobody else.” Now, people are trying to take advantage of the supplies and attention that Ebola brought, and keep people coming through the doors so staff can afford to keep those doors open. Berete and his colleagues are succeeding: several health centres, including Doko, are recording pregnant women coming in greater numbers than before Ebola. Somadouno, who left school aged nine and had her first child at 16, plans to repeat her gruelling 17km journey to give birth. “I gave birth to my first child here and, because it went well, I’m coming back for this one,” she says. “My mother-in-law will come with me, but we’ll be on foot then too. My plan is to try to catch it early.”
The Chainsmokers on feuding with Mark Ronson and writing 2016’s biggest hit In 2014, American Idol hosted a performance by the Chainsmokers, a duo who had appeared, apparently from nowhere, with a preposterous, internationally successful novelty dance hit called Selfie. At the start of the performance, the band hit play on their decks, then headed into the audience to take selfies, while lines such as “What should my caption be? I want it to be clever,” blared out. The performance seemed to mark a new low for various aspects of popular culture, but the nadir came as the audience crowded around the Idol judges’ table. “Everybody’s hands in the air!” cried a Chainsmoker. “Look over here! American Idol, get in our selfie!” The camera angle was unforgiving: at that moment the duo were being watched by precisely five members of the studio audience. Everybody else was still staring at the judges. The palpably woeful appearance prompted uproar in the dance music community (“The only thing @TheChainsmokers and pop EDM have in common is probably cancer,” suggested DeadMau5 on Twitter), but one of the more even-handed responses came from DJ Laidback Luke, who suggested the band had simply fallen into a well-worn trap. “Make sure you put out a track you can be really proud of,” he warned future artists. “If you break through with that, you’re forever glued to that track.” He added that the Chainsmokers would still be lumbered with Selfie in 20 years. Flash forward just two years. “I’d love to work with Bon Iver,” says the Chainsmokers’ producer, songwriter and sometime vocalist Drew Taggart. He’s sitting next to founding member Alex Pall, the band’s A&R muscle, on the fourth floor of Sony Music’s London HQ. “Jonsi from Sigur Rós, too,” Taggart adds. “Kanye …” By this point the Chainsmokers are the second most streamed act on the planet and, contrary to prophecy, Spotify statistics show that not one of their 10 most popular songs is, in fact, Selfie. The comedy EDM has been jettisoned in favour of pensive lyrics and sparse, downbeat electronic pop, while their summer smash Closer has been a worldwide No 1, currently spending its 11th week at the top of the US charts. Their sound is everywhere – in their own music and in that of artists attempting to copy it. And Taggart’s desire to work with Bon Iver isn’t as ludicrous as it might once have seemed – emo heroes Dashboard Confessional and Weezer have been in touch, and the band have already been in the studio with Coldplay. Nobody saw it coming, but Taggart and Pall have pulled off one of the most successful two-year career turnarounds since David Bowie looked to the skies and wondered if the world really needed another Laughing Gnome. “We’re terrible at written interviews,” is one of the first things Pall has said this afternoon. “So if this turns out to be a good interview for us, that would be awesome.” Unfortunately, things get off to a shaky start. We discuss the American Idol performance (“We did it for the right reasons,” Pall says, “it just wasn’t the right … thing”) then move on to what has been called was another potentially career-ending moment: an awkward and high-profile MTV VMAs performance of Closer during which Taggart’s vocals were, to put it charitably, a little higher in the mix than might have been wise. “Do you think that was a … career ending moment?” he asks. I explain that surely, had the band’s momentum not been what it was, the wheels could indeed have fallen off. “You think it would have ended our career?” he asks again. He is amazed. Then he’s slightly snappy: “No, not really.” Then more relaxed: “I’d never done anything like that before. This whole pop world is new territory for us.” And, he points out, that some fans did in fact quite like the song. “A lot of people really enjoyed that performance,” he insists. “I see that on Twitter all the time.” “We’re pretty honest about all our flaws and mistakes,” Pall adds. “We always try to bounce back. Which is what we’ll be trying to do at the AMAs.” When we speak, the band’s appearance at the American Music Awards is still a secret. “Off the record!” interjects the Chainsmokers’ manager, Adam Alpert, who’s sitting across the table. “Yes,” Alex agrees. “Off the record.” The band have good reason to be defensive in interviews, sceptical of their ability to pull them off, and keen to have their manager keeping watch. In September, a Billboard cover story didn’t pull its punches in depicting the band as tedious frat boys, and the duo didn’t do themselves any favours in the interview. They’re coming come across in this interview as surprisingly likeable, and view that as “a lesson learned”, though they haven’t removed the part of their website that boasts of penises that, combined, measure an anatomically unlikely 17.34in (they say the ire-inducing claim was initially intended to satirise pompous dance-music bios). “We like to have a good time,” Taggart offers, “but … Well, they came to a party show, they saw us partying with our friends, and that was what they wrote about.” “What do two middle-class white guys have to talk about that’s interesting for the world?” says Pall. “What they saw was two frat boys enjoying ourselves. And they chose to run with that label versus hard-working musicians.” One thing it’s hard to question is the work the band put in early on, which takes us back a little further than Selfie. Before meeting Taggart, Pall had formed the Chainsmokers with another DJ, the amazingly named Rhett Bixler, in 2012. They would DJ five-hour sets in New York, five nights a week, for $200 a pop. When Bixler quit, Pall, who was growing disenchanted with his other job working in an art gallery, decided to devote his full attention to the Chainsmokers. He bought up the rights to the band’s name, but knew he needed a creative foil. Enter Drew. The pair gained traction through an opportunistic, but brilliant, scheme: they would identify new indie releases doing well on music blog aggregator Hype Machine then cut unofficial remixes, hoping to ride in the original track’s slipstream. Then they would do it again. “We’d decide which song to remix,” Pall recalls, “then Drew would have seven days to finish it. As soon as he finished I’d spend seven days sending it out to every blog and writer, then he’d start on the next one. We did that every two weeks for two years.” Then Selfie happened. The band followed that with a song called Kanye, which didn’t repeat the success of Selfie, but Pall and Taggart were growing tired of that sound anyway. Then, in 2015, a new song called Roses reached No 6 in the US. “Roses was like lightning,” Pall recalls. “It was an epiphany; the moment where it all started clicking.” The duo describe their creative method in refreshingly blunt terms – “we’ll spend a couple of hours talking about life,” Pall says, “until a song falls out” – but found added inspiration in a recent Malibu session with Coldplay’s Chris Martin. “Chris Martin is so open minded,” Pall begins, talking about the track they worked on together. “What we have so far is the perfect balance between a Coldplay song and a Chainsmokers song. But the way he looks at music is such a big picture. He said our song was ‘a song for the world’.” “People like Chris Martin don’t look at a song like it’s a great song,” Taggart says. “They ask, does the world NEED this record?” “I feel like it could be a song for the universe,” Pall says, laughing. There’s no album scheduled but the Collage EP is released this week. It features four previously released songs with more than 1.6bn Spotify streams between them, plus a rather good new one called Setting Fires. But it remains to be seen whether it can win round the producers and DJs who were critical of that American Idol performance. Mark Ronson is not on the fence: after the duo criticised Lady Gaga’s single Perfect Illusion, the song’s producer tweeted that the pair were “charisma-bypassed champions of two-bar Ableton loops”, and invited them to “smash it while it lasts, fellas!!” “I don’t know how you get forgiveness from the dance world,” Taggart shrugs. “We’ve played a lot of big, important festivals, our sets have got great reviews. We’re not at Avicii and Calvin [Harris]’s level, but we’ve got songs on the radio all the time. I don’t know if people think that’s cool? I thought that was cool when I was a kid …” Music aside, the band’s rather dubious name could, perhaps still be a sticking point. If they could, would they change it? “I always think about that,” Pall laughs. “I still can’t think of anything better.” He shrugs, then offers a slice of modern wisdom that makes as much sense regarding the past two years of his band’s career as it does of the way we gradually accept terrible band names. “Something’s not cool,” he declares, “until it is cool.” The Collage EP is released on Sony on 4 November.
Co-operative Bank to cut 200 jobs The Co-operative Bank is cutting 200 jobs as it battles to return to profitability in a low-interest-rate environment. Officials at the Unite trade union warned that the cuts – which will reduce the workforce to 4,015 – could have a detrimental impact on customer service at the bank, which almost collapsed in 2013. Liam Coleman, deputy chief executive of the bank, said the decision to cut the roles in Manchester and Stockport was not easy. “We have made progress in turning the bank around since 2013 but have always been clear that the bank’s recovery is a difficult journey. As we have said before, we will remain loss making in 2016 and 2017 and whilst we continue to make progress with our turnaround plan, in a challenging economic environment, maintaining our focus on costs and delivery of initiatives are key to building a more resilient and sustainable bank,” said Coleman. As it informed staff about the cutbacks, the bank said that the “low-interest-rate environment limits the ability of all banks to generate income and presents further cost challenges”. In 2013 the bank needed a £1.5bn capital injection to keep it afloat, forcing hedge funds to step in. Its former owner, the Co-operative Group of supermarkets and funeral homes, now has a stake of just 20%. The Unite national officer Rob MacGregor said: “The speed and breadth of these cuts will hit the Co-operative Bank’s much cherished customer service and with it the bank’s unique selling point.”
Winners and losers from the EU and Brexit With respect to our parliamentary colleagues and fellow trade unionists (Letters, 7 June), who are among a small minority of Labour MPs and trade unionists who support leaving Europe, it is worth remembering that it was the last Labour government that signed up to the European social chapter. It is British ministers accountable to our parliament and elected MEPs who make European laws, not the European commission. It is curious that anybody on the left would trust a rightwing government led by Boris Johnson and supported by Nigel Farage in the event of a leave vote. It is factually wrong to suggest that UK law on its own underpins these rights. Paid annual leave, rights for agency and part-time workers and anti-discrimination laws are guaranteed by EU law, and would all be at risk. If we leave the EU, the recession that the Bank of England governor has warned about would hit our constituents on low and middle incomes the hardest and would mean less money for our public services like schools and the NHS. That is why the Labour party is calling on everybody who cares about keeping workers’ rights and our future prosperity to vote remain on 23 June. Emma Reynolds MP, Ben Bradshaw MP, Pat McFadden MP, Phil Wilson MP, Tristram Hunt MP, Rachel Reeves MP, Conor McGinn MP, Mary Creagh MP, Stephen Doughty MP, Wes Streeting MP, Julie Elliot MP, Chuka Umunna MP, Adrian Bailey MP, Stella Creasy MP, Alison McGovern MP, David Hanson MP, Jamie Reed MP, Ruth Smeeth MP, Shabana Mahmood MP, John Woodcock MP, Dan Jarvis MP, Neil Coyle MP, Rushnara Ali MP, Liz Kendall MP, Ann Coffey MP, Chris Evans MP, Jo Cox MP, Joan Ryan MP, Chris Leslie MP • Polly Toynbee (7 June) identifies the anger of the underclass, now being bullied into voting to shore up the agreeable lives of the comfortably off. Scare stories about Brexit do not impress people whose lives are already crushed between newly brutal working conditions (Sports Direct, Amazon, zero-hours contracts) and the theft of their life chances. Their higher education is priced out of their reach, their social housing almost gone, their houses hoovered up into buy-to-let portfolios by ABC1s. There is a visceral desire to stick it to people who only discover a conscience when their own comfortable lives might suffer a slight dent. There is an especial anger reserved for the Labour party, the Blair and Brown years spent not in undoing the worst of Thatcherism but putting in place all the mechanisms later gleefully seized upon by the Tories (NHS marketisation, academy schools, PFI frauds, etc) to complete their project to destroy the 1945 settlement. All the Westminster parties appear to despise the C2DEs as knuckle-dragging, bigoted racists, so why should they turn out to defend an EU that almost exclusively benefits people other than themselves? John Boulton Edgware, Middlesex • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
Cheryl Boone Isaacs re-elected as Academy president Cheryl Boone Isaacs has been re-elected as president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. It will be her fourth term in the position. The decision comes after a set of changes to the Academy to increase diversity. In June, a record 683 new members were invited to join, with 46% women and 41% people of colour. The list included Idris Elba, Tina Fey, Emma Watson and John Boyega. “There’s a newness and a vibrancy about this issue of inclusion,” Boone Isaacs told the Los Angeles Times last month. “This industry has been changing, evolving, expanding in many different areas. And we have led the way.” The newer, more diverse academy has been implemented after a second year of #OscarsSoWhite controversy over another all-white set of nominees. Boone Isaacs is the first African American president of the Academy, and due to internal limits, she won’t be eligible for re-election again when her one-year term ends. While the nominations for the 2017 won’t be out until next year, early favourites include the interracial marriage drama Loving, which premiered at Cannes, and Kenneth Lonergan’s Sundance hit Manchester by the Sea.
Mark Zuckerberg chides board member over 'deeply upsetting' India comments A member of Facebook’s board and influential Silicon Valley investor was forced into a groveling apology on Wednesday after acknowledging that remarks appearing to support British colonialism in India were “ill-informed and ill-advised”. In a series of apologetic tweets, Marc Andreessen, who is accustomed to ranting on Twitter to nearly half a million devoted followers, apologized “without reservation” for an earlier, now deleted tweet. “I am a huge admirer of the nation of India and the Indian people, who have been nothing but kind and generous to me for many years,” Andreessen wrote. “I will leave all future commentary on all of these topics to people with more knowledge and experience than me.” The humiliating climbdown came after Andreessen lashed out on Tuesday night at India’s decision to block Facebook’s controversial Internet.org and its Free Basics project, which sought to offer limited free mobile internet but would open the door for a private, unregulated and pay-to-play internet service. India’s telecommunications regulatory board banned Facebook’s $45m effort to deliver Free Basics and ruled in favor of net neutrality, writing that “differential tariffs arguably disadvantage small content providers who may not be able to participate in such schemes”. This could, the body added, “create entry barriers and non-level playing field for these players, stifling innovation”. Those fighting for an open internet in India lauded the ban. “This is great news,” said Kiran Jonnalagadda, a member of the Save the Internet campaign in favor of net neutrality. “It is what this country needed and it took a lot of effort pushing for it. It took a lot moral fibre for TRAI to stand up to the telcos.” Andreessen, in his tweets, argued that India rejected it because of corrupt Indian telcos wanting to keep internet access away from poor people. “Anti-colonialism has been economically catastrophic for the Indian people for decades. Why stop now?” Facebook swiftly denounced his comments, saying: “We strongly reject the sentiments expressed by Marc Andreessen last night regarding India.” On Wednesday afternoon, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg posted a statement on his own Facebook page calling Andreessen’s comments “deeply upsetting”. “I want to respond to Marc Andreessen’s comments about India yesterday,” Zuckerberg wrote. “... they do not represent the way Facebook or I think at all. India has been personally important to me and Facebook ... I’ve been inspired by how much progress India has made in building a strong nation and the largest democracy in the world, and I look forward to strengthening my connection to the country.” From the start, the project has raised questions about net neutrality and just how much control Facebook will have over the internet access it brings and whether it would charge more to visit certain sites. As the venture capitalist Om Malik wrote: “I am suspicious of any for-profit company arguing its good intentions and its free gifts.” Silicon Valley, home to some 90,000 Indians, including Google CEO Sundar Pichai, reacted swiftly with a collective shudder. As did Indian entrepreneurs. “The bottom-line is that this ban on differential pricing was not decided by some elitist group of activists who have some un-articulated vested interest to prevent India’s poor folks to come online but by TRAI in an extraordinary democratic process that was both rigorous and comprehensive,” wrote Sumanth Raghavendra, an entrepreneur at Deck App Technologies, a Bangalore-based startup. “And remarkably courageous.” Other members of Andreessen’s venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, however, defended the message. Another member of the influential firm, Benedict Evans, joked about what he sees as a history of inefficiency in India technological policy: It’s not the first time Silicon Valley has stumbled on clumsy statements about India. Last year, Airbnb cofounder Brian Chesky wrote that Gandhi wouldn’t have succeeded if India, back then, had tried to limit rentals to a minimum of 30 days. Nor is it the first time Facebook’s political efforts have fallen short. Facebook CEO and cofounder Mark Zuckerberg’s much ballyhooed FWD.us has largely collapsed. By comparing Free Basics to colonialism, Andreessen, an investor in companies like Airbnb and Facebook, drew an interesting parallel between Silicon Valley’s concept of “free” – which often comes with strings attached – and the American history of colonial rule. He was arguing that Silicon Valley is colonial by nature, giving the gift of something free in exchange for a tax of data and control which people don’t quite realize they’re providing. This desire to own and control is often presented by tech evangelists in terms of freedom, equality, and access – Internet.org, as Facebook calls the umbrella effort under which is puts Free Basics, is not a non-profit. It is a for-profit arm of a for-profit company. Adding the “.org” may have an impact on public opinion or confuse journalists, but the fact remains that Free Basics was an effort for Facebook to make money. By Wednesday morning, apparently chastened by the uproar intense enough to make Andreessen a trending topic in south-east Asia, and with a public relations disaster looming for Facebook, the venture capitalist backtracked. Other members of his firm, Benedict Evans and Balaji S Srinivasan, have not retracted their statements. Some in the tech world are throwing up their hands.
Five of the best… films out now in the UK 1 Arrival (12A) (Denis Villeneuve, 2016, US) 116 mins. A familiar alien invasion scenario yields a different kind of sci-fi here – intelligent, atmospheric, spectacular and surprisingly moving. Gigantic ships hang in the sky over Earth, but who are they? Lonely linguist Amy Adams must work out how to communicate with these enigmatic ETs, who trigger memories of her dead daughter. The cosmic and human scales come together beautifully. 2 Nocturnal Animals (15) (Tom Ford, 2016, US) 117 mins. Ford pulls off an impeccably handsome Russian doll of a thriller with echoes of Hitchcock, Kubrick and Lynch. LA gallerist Amy Adams (again) finds her Texan past coming back to haunt her via a novel written by her ex (Jake Gyllenhaal), who’s refashioned his issues into a violent revenge story. The narrative flits between fiction, present and past with dazzling assurance. 3 Doctor Strange (12A) (Scott Derrickson, 2016, US) 115 mins. Marvel conjures another superhero origin story with a difference, as former playboy Benedict Cumberbatch is initiated into parallel reality-surfing and eastern mysticism by Tilda Swinton’s secret sect. Smart, inventive and relatively deep, it’s a mind-expanding spectacle. 4 Napoleon (PG) (Abel Gance, 1927, Fra) 333 mins. One of the most epic experiences cinema has ever offered returns to the big screen, after a 50-year restoration process. Despite its age (and length), it’s a trove of staggering imagery and technical innovation, chronicling the future emperor’s formative years and early conquests. 5 The Innocents (15) (Anne Fontaine, 2016, Fra/Pol) 115 mins. Comparisons with Ida and Of Gods And Men are appropriate with this austere, composed convent drama. But the story – based on fact – is unique. A Red Cross nurse is called to a remote convent in wintry, Soviet-occupied 1940s Poland to perform an unexpected procedure, which lifts the lid on a harrowing episode the nuns would rather keep secret.
Fund managers who ignore climate risk 'could face legal action' Pension and investment fund managers who ignore the risks of climate change face the prospect of legal action, according to financial and legal experts. Global warming poses a systemic risk to the world economy and could significantly cut the value of investments, the experts argue, so those with fiduciary responsibility have a duty to act to reduce that risk, or be taken to court. “Clients of investment firms and beneficiaries of pension funds might have a legal case to bring if those who manage money for them stand idly by as emissions erode the value of their stock,” said Howard Covington, the former CEO of a £20bn asset management company and a trustee of environmental law organisation, ClientEarth. “We are currently exploring such a possibility.” James Thornton, CEO of ClientEarth, said: “To produce a wholesale change in attitude, a court ruling on the obligations of fiduciary investors to control systemic climate risk will probably be needed. Because of the uncertainties in estimating future climate damage, this will not be an easy case to bring. But we anticipate that such a case will ultimately succeed.” ClientEarth successfully sued the UK government in 2015 over illegal levels of air pollution. It has also helped investors file shareholder resolutions at the annual meetings of major mining companies demanding more transparency on the risks of climate change to their businesses. But Covington said: “It would be fair to say that not a lot of progress has been made with this kind of engagement. It requires investors to put their heads above the parapet, but most investors like a quiet life.” In an article published in the journal Nature on Wednesday, Covington, Thornton and Oxford University professor of energy economics, Cameron Hepburn, say that investors will be crucial in ensuring the largely voluntary climate change deal sealed in Paris in December is implemented. “Investors will play a major part, either voluntarily or because they will be forced by the courts to meet their legal obligations to manage climate risk,” they argue. The authors say that dangerous climate change could damage the global economy by, for example, droughts and heatwaves that lead to famines which in turn lead to migrations of millions of people. They estimate there is a 5% chance of global investment portfolios being reduced by 10% - $7tn - in coming decades, a level of risk and exposure that is routinely declared and acted on by big companies today. Prof Hepburn said: “The risk exceeds the legal test of materiality and should be too large to ignore. In practice most investors neglect it entirely.” The team estimate publicly listed companies - largely owned by investment and pension funds - account for about a quarter of global emissions. The investors can reduce the risk of climate change by demanding action to cut carbon emissions from the companies they have stakes in and shifting investment from fossil fuel companies to green companies, the authors say. The has revealed previously the high exposure of many pension funds to coal, oil and gas companies, whose value could plummet if most fossil fuel reserves are left in the ground, as is needed to tackle global warming. But Covington said the financial risks of climate change are systemic. “There has rightly been a lot of attention on fossil fuel companies, but that is just the supply side,” he said. “There is also the demand side - all the users of fossil fuels - and there is plenty they could do to employ more efficient processes to limit emissions, so it goes right across the full spectrum of companies.” “This expert view from ClientEarth is a wake up call to trustees and investment professionals,” said Mark Campanale, founder of the Carbon Tracker Initiative, a thinktank that has highlighted the risks that action to cut emissions poses to fossil fuel companies, a view backed by the Bank of England and World Bank. “If investors cannot demonstrate that they’ve considered the key risks, ClientEarth have laid out the basis for a legal challenge. Campanale said the legal risk for fund managers is particularly high for those investing in fossil fuels. “If investors throw the hard-earned cash of pension fund members at the fossil fuel industry right now - knowing it is in steady but clear decline - then no one should be surprised that they face the possibility of being sued.”
Papusza review – striking portrait of a Polish-Roma poet Strikingly beautiful, but curiously aloof from its earthy subject matter, this portrait of a little-known Polish-Roma poet feels like the kind of film that would be more at home at a festival than in the release schedule. A patchwork of moments from the life of Bronislawa Wajs (Jowita Budnik), known as Papusza (or Doll), the film is always striking – the black and white cinematography is gorgeous (self-consciously so, at times) – but you wonder whether this overstuffed quilt of a story might have worked better with a leaner, more direct approach. As it is, the film is a bit of a slog and bizarrely, given the subject matter, rather lacking in poetry. It comes to life as a portrait of the Roma community of which Papusza was both part and, latterly, estranged from. The use of music, in particular, is evocative.
Up the Anti: how Rihanna rewrote the rules of pop When an artist with more than 40 top 10 hits to her name finally releases a long-awaited, much-delayed album that contains no obvious singles, what are we to make of it? On the one hand, you might think – as Rihanna’s Anti plays, and you encounter the Tame Impala cover, and ponder exactly what is going on in the bonus track featuring a lot of Florence Welch and precisely no Rihanna – that this is a bit of a rum old do; a suitably bizarre conclusion to one of the messiest album release campaigns in recent memory. (Of the three singles Rihanna released last year, none appear on Anti.) Alternatively, as the album’s subtle hooks and smart production bring the picture into focus, you might instead wonder if Anti is the most audacious move yet in the career of a singer whose career is defined by turning left where others turn right. So has the 21st-century’s ultimate singles act become – someone get Mojo magazine on the phone – an albums act? To those who have been successful in avoiding the decade-long career of one of the planet’s biggest recording artists, the long and short of the story is this: for more than half a decade, Rihanna released a brand-new studio album every year. In one 12-month period, she released two. Living her career on fast-forward meant that, within four years, Rihanna had sailed past the point where most artists would have released a greatest hits. But she kept her foot down – in 2011 alone, she had 11 UK hits – and drove her career into the current era where greatest hits albums don’t even exist. This release strategy is most commonly associated, in the modern age at least, with a pop artist terrified of transient fanbases. But Rihanna’s hits continued to be enormous – 2011’s We Found Love was the second-biggest of her career. And there were collaborations, too, with Coldplay, Drake, Eminem, Nicki Minaj and Kanye West. The music is only half the story, though, because during the past decade, the fame Rihanna enjoyed has shifted, and mushroomed, in both intensity and form. One of the joys of Rihanna-watching is that, no matter how premeditated certain aspects of her career might be, there is an impulsive, gleeful side that suggests she is actually quite enjoying herself. Like other artists who have appeared in the digital era – Gaga, Katy Perry and Taylor Swift – Rihanna makes everything an event. She knows, for instance, that if she goes on holiday and, while wearing a bikini, bottlefeeds a miniature monkey on a public beach, pictures are likely to surface. Nor will she have been surprised by the avalanche of thinkpieces surrounding last year’s Bitch Better Have My Money video, and she knew exactly what she was doing with Monday’s selfie in which she wore a $9,000 pair of Dolce & Gabbana headphones, captioned “listening to Anti”. That social media post went viral because of the headphones as much as the confirmation that her album was finished. Far from just creating events, it feels as if Rihanna herself is the event. But then, she is the quintessential modern pop entity. It is significant that Rihanna released her first single within three months of YouTube being invented (her fans are a generation for whom music videos, rather than just songs, are the go-to pop art form), and in the year that MySpace surpassed Google as the US’s most visited website. The timing of her arrival and rise sidestepped the tailing off of the Perez Hilton-type celebrity culture of the mid-2000s and centred on direct-to-fan communication that allowed artists to control their own image. For some acts, this requirement to let the world into their affairs was far from ideal, but nobody on the pop landscape has defined their image as well as Rihanna. In August 2010, she took control of her Twitter account (“no more corny label tweets”), but it’s through Instagram that she seems to have made most sense of her persona, offering a window into her life that’s convincing, if not totally accurate. In last year’s interview-free Rihanna cover story for The Fader, writer Mary HK Choi noted that while Rihanna seems incredibly “real”, “I can’t picture Rihanna jogging. Or going to the dentist. I usually envision Rihanna in the sun, languidly smoking. In short, I can only imagine things that she’s already shown us.” Rihanna’s persona is one that throws up a smokescreen that renders it impossible to deduce whether there is far more, or far less, going on beneath the surface. Regardless, she takes a good photo, operating as a muse to photographers and fashion houses (including Dior, for whom she is currently an ambassador). “There is no one else that excites me more,” noted Alexander Wang in the story accompanying Rihanna’s third Vogue cover. In the same article, Rihanna declares – in a phrase that sums up Anti as much as it describes her penchant for wearing men’s jackets: “You will never be stylish if you don’t take risks.” Print may be dying, and Rihanna may know that a cover shoot might not sell a single download or prompt one solitary stream, but glossies have the biggest picture budgets. It is complementing attention-grabbing-but-spontaneous Instagram shots with those mega-budget shoots – such as the Harper’s Bazaar shot of Rihanna in a shark’s mouth – that maintains profile. With profile come the big money endorsement deals. Which, in turn, means you don’t have to sell music. On Thursday, Anti, Rihanna’s first album in more than three years, appeared on the hapless streaming service Tidal (which, you may remember, relaunched in 2015 amid a blitz of publicity with regards to educating the world about the value of music). Then Anti disappeared, because it wasn’t supposed to appear that early. Except fans had downloaded it, and were sharing it online, so then it reappeared. Its price? Free. Not exactly a home run for anyone attempting to establish the true value of music as an artform, and perhaps not ideal for the album’s numerous co-writers and producers, but win/win everywhere else: Tidal gets customer data and may retain some users (everyone who downloaded Anti was automatically eligible for a two-month trial), while Rihanna, as a Tidal stakeholder, gets a kickback plus the sum she also received from Samsung, with which she embarked on an unexpectedly drawn out ANTIdiaRy pre-release campaign last year. This might suggest that the quality of Rihanna’s music has become an afterthought, and it would be fair to assume that the critical reception of her work makes little difference to Samsung, or to Puma (whose footwear she has been endorsing in the past 12 months), or to sock company Stance (with whom she has also been working). Record label logic once ran that fame and celebrity helped to promote music releases. Nowadays, with conventional music revenue collapsing, music is frequently the byproduct of fame and the endorsement deals that come with it. While some artists have taken this as carte blanche to release any old nonsense and put a tour on sale – a rather optimistic, if not short-termist view, of the cycle of celebrity – it is hard not to listen to Anti and deduce that Rihanna has taken a rather more productive view and decided, rather splendidly: I don’t need anybody to buy this. I’m going to do exactly what I want. Rihanna’s bolshiness may not have been in evidence when she first met Jay Z, but her star quality certainly didn’t escape her future label boss. She was 16, having grown up 30 metres from the beach in Barbados, amid turbulent family scenes that hinged on her father’s issues with drugs. In her teens, she had formed a girlband with two friends and accosted a producer who was visiting the island on holiday. That producer chose to work only with Rihanna – subsequently stating, as these people often subsequently do: “I always believed she was a star from day one” – which led to an audition with Def Jam. Its president was the first celebrity Rihanna had ever met, but Jay Z was impressed enough by her audition, and concerned enough about the label meetings she had booked elsewhere for later in the day, to demand that the singer stayed with him until contract paperwork had been signed. The story goes that Rihanna eventually left the building at 4am. Jay Z did have one concern: that Rihanna’s proposed debut single Pon De Replay, which she had performed at her first audition, was so big it would overshadow the young singer. But it became an international hit and, over time, Rihanna would grow into the hugeness of her next singles. At this point she was the classic girl-next-door popstar and her unremarkable debut album was followed just eight months later by A Girl Like Me, an album whose lead single, underpinned by a Soft Cell sample, hinted that there was could be more to this artist than initially met the eye. Her superstar moment came with her third album Good Girl Gone Bad and its lead single Umbrella, which finally propelled Rihanna to the global A-list. But it wasn’t just the level of success that changed. Her soft image had become more confrontational; Rihanna decided to switch her bouncy hair for a tight, asymmetrical crop. On the album her shift in attitude was painted in broad strokes: thunderous strop anthem Breakin Dishes (“I ain’t demented … well just a lil’ bit”) concerned itself with flinging crockery at a fella’s head, setting fire to his clothes, then burning down his house. There were also tracks such as Question Existing, with swooshy soundscapes, subtle tunes and pensive lyrics, from which it is possible to draw a direct line to Anti. One line in this album’s title track – “easy for a good girl to go bad, and once we gone best believe we’ve gone for ever” – made it clear where Rihanna’s career was heading. Good girl RiRi was gone, but a superstar had arrived. But it was the following year, and Rihanna’s musical response to the collapse of her relationship with Chris Brown, that defined her as the Rihanna we know today. Rated R was dark, introspective and – compared with the success of its predecessor – a commercial failure. It remains the best album of her career. After Rated R – and this could be encouraging for anyone nonplussed by the anti-commercial Anti – Rihanna returned to her most straightforward pop. To promote her seventh album, Unapologetic, Rihanna chartered a Boeing 777 and flew selected journalists to seven countries in seven days in what has since been described as more of a hostage situation than a press trip. Though the punishing schedule and disorienting flights didn’t ingratiate Rihanna to many of the invited media personnel, few would again look quite so unkindly on a dazed popstar with little or no idea what city they were in again. They had had a glimpse into the non-stop world of the modern pop entity: a world that was basically hard work. It wasn’t just a handful of journalists who needed time off after the Unapologetic trip. After seven albums in six years that had also taken in world tours and endless promo, Rihanna stepped off the pop treadmill. At the time, she may not have realised how long she would be gone. Even before Anti appeared this week, we knew what Rihanna didn’t want the album to be. We knew that she had passed on Major Lazer’s seismic banger Lean On, which last year became the most-streamed song of all time. We also know that Calvin Harris’s submissions were rejected, as was one by Charli XCX, whose Same Old Love ended up in the hands of Selena Gomez. But there was a sense that she was still struggling. Last summer she talked about her desire for the songs on the album “to make sense together”. She was aware of how impatient fans were becoming, too: “No matter what I post online, within three comments there’s somebody saying, ‘Where is R8’?’ I could post anything. Nothing else matters. They don’t care about anything but that.” But by Christmas, long after she had unveiled the album’s artwork in an LA gallery, and even as the Samsung album teasers were being unveiled, there were rumours that Rihanna was still looking for songs. Now Anti has arrived, it may prove challenging to fans who say: “Rihanna, I like you for doing what you want, but why won’t you do what I want?” But whatever panic there may have been behind the scenes – it’s impossible to believe that Anti wasn’t supposed to come out before Christmas, or that any of last year’s three singles were really released in the belief that they wouldn’t end up on the album – it works in its final form. In any case, snatching victory from the jaws of defeat could be the new way forward for pop. Back in 2013, Beyoncé’s album rollout was a fiasco of epic proportions but its surprise release saw it reclassified as a stroke of genius. More recently the Adele album was also plagued by setbacks and jettisoned recording sessions, and that sold reasonably well. As pop trends go, flirting with disaster has got to be more fun than getting things right first time. As Rihanna herself sings on Anti: “Let me cover your shit in glitter, I can make it gold.”
Department of Health does not know if personal budgets help service users, report finds Has austerity trumped personalisation? It’s often said that the vision of people being able to choose the care and support that suits them best has been trashed by six years of spending cuts. But the truth is that we just don’t know. As the National Audit Office (NAO) concludes in a new report, the Department of Health’s monitoring of the impact of personalisation in social care is so poor that it is impossible to draw any firm conclusions about the way personal budgets are working. All we can look to are individual anecdotes. Astonishingly, given that personal budgets became mandatory in England from last April and the idea is being extended into healthcare, the department is still relying on an evaluation of their efficacy from 2007. This did not measure long-term outcomes and predated the banking crash and consequent austerity. No wonder Amyas Morse, head of the NAO, says: “The department now needs to gain a better understanding of the different ways to commission personalised services for users and how these lead to improvements in user outcomes.” Personal budgets, by which people assessed as eligible for state-funded care and support are allocated a cash sum, arrived to great excitement a decade ago. Instead of being sent to a day centre, a person with mental health needs could choose to buy materials to join an art group, or even get a dog that would prise them out of the house. The budget could be taken in cash, in the form of a direct payment, or it could be administered for them by the council. On average, according to the NAO, 22% of people have elected for a direct payment, although the range varies widely from just 5% in some councils to 57% in others. In 2014–15, the last year before they became mandatory, budgets were given to about 500,000 adults or 88% of all those receiving council-funded care and support. As this amounted to about £5bn funding, you might have thought the department would have a keen interest in finding out how effective the policy was proving to be. Moreover, critics of the policy have been vocal and evidence of positive outcomes for people would have been of real value. However, as the NAO has discovered, although there is “widespread” support for the concept of personal budgets, there is a dearth of evidence and “the department’s monitoring does not enable it to understand how personal budgets improve outcomes”. The NAO sought to test personalisation on four key claims: that it fosters a greater variety of services for people to choose; that it aligns services more closely to the outcomes people want for themselves; that it builds on people’s capabilities; and that it enables people to have greater control over their care and support. The study found no evidence to prove or disprove improved outcomes at a council-wide level and could trace only limited data on how people spend their budgets. Although “user-level” or individual data do indicate benefits for people, the report says, when aggregated these data show “no association between higher proportions of users on personal budgets and overall satisfaction or other outcomes” – a contradiction the department has not investigated. Previous positive findings on outcomes by the independent In Control group, which supports personalisation, are dismissed by the NAO as coming from surveys covering too few councils and as having “limitations” in design. On the question of just how badly spending cuts have undermined personalisation, the report notes that the approach of some councils has been “constrained” by reduced funding; that some people are still or again receiving non-personalised services through block contracts; and that – as the Social Care Network has reported – some personal budgets are being capped in line with prices of services available to councils, not the higher prices charged to individuals. But again the NAO is unable to draw any broad conclusions. Overall, the best Morse can conclude is that “giving users more choice and control over their care through personal budgets and direct payments can improve their quality of life, but much of the positive evdience for personalised commissioning of adult care services is old”. A spokesperson for the health department says: “Personalised commissioning can improve people’s quality of life and experience of care by involving them in planning their care and giving them more choice, control and flexibility. Through the Care Act, we have put personalisation at the heart of care and support so that people can choose the options best suited to their needs. “We take very seriously our responsibility to understand system-wide pressures and the impact of personalised commissioning. We will consider the NAO’s report carefully.” Join the Social Care Network to read more pieces like this. Follow us on Twitter (@GdnSocialCare) and like us on Facebook to keep up with the latest social care news and views.
LSE and Deutsche Börse: an Anglo-German pact in the shadow of Brexit The London Stock Exchange and Deutsche Börse pick their moments. The duo’s first set of merger talks, way back in 2000, created a storm when both parties appeared to suggest that share prices in London would soon be quoted in freshly-minted euros. This time, the negotiations come at the start of the UK referendum campaign in which the prime minister has claimed the City of London will be safe from continental meddlers. Cue, almost certainly, wails of anguish from some quarters about the potential loss of a great British institution. No wonder LSE and Deutsche tried to invoke visions of happy European harmony with their talk of “a merger of equals.” As it happens, the shadow of Brexit will probably make no difference whatsoever. Consolidation has been a fact of life in the stock exchange game. The LSE – with a French chief executive, by the way – swallowed the Italian bourse years ago to little fuss in Milan. Instead, this deal faces two stiffer obstacles. Would the LSE be selling itself too cheaply? And is the proposed partnership anti-competitive in nature? First, the takeover price. True mergers of equals are almost as rare as unicorns. Somebody has to be in the driving seat. In this deal, Deutshe’s shareholders would receive a 54.4% stake, a mechanical translation from the two companies’ average share prices over the past three months. Why should LSE’s shareholders settle for that? If either of the big US exchanges – Nasdaq or NYSE Euronext – wants to play, LSE shareholders will want to see their best offers. Then there is possible interest from Asian exchanges, who may sense their last chance to enter the European industry. Second, on competition, it’s hard to understand how customers are supposed to benefit. The would-be partners will, no doubt, offer soothing words about how deeper trading pools create keener pricing to the ultimate benefit of all investors. Well, yes, but when any product is supplied by a large and dominant operator there is the potential for price-gouging. Quoted companies will worry that the costs of listing will only increase. The LSE is not noted for its generosity on fees, which is one reason why its shares (400p in 2009; £26 now) have been a terrific investment. Put simply, this proposed Anglo-German alliance is a long way from being a done deal. Standard Chartered paying for its arrogance You remember Standard Chartered? It’s the Asian-focused lender that was terribly pleased with itself for getting through the great financial crisis of 2007-09 with barely a scratch. It’s the bank that recorded a tenth year of increased profits in 2012 and whose chairman, then and now, declared that “Standard Chartered remains a growth story.” Sir John Peace was wrong. The decade of plenty has been followed by three leaner years, culminating in Tuesday’s shocker – a first loss since 1989. Beneath the usual parade of loan impairments, provisions and job losses, the source of the woe seems very simple: Standard Chartered really did believe in its own specialness and ability to join the big league of lenders. In plain English, it was old-fashioned arrogance that prompted the bank to dish out huge loans to Asian commodity billionaires who may now be struggling to maintain that status. The new “liquidation portfolio” represents 3% of the group’s loans and advances to customers, which doesn’t sound much in percentage terms but is enough to do serious damage to a bank. The underlying loan impairment of $4bn (£2.9bn) in 2015 rose 87%, with 40% related to “a number of exposures beyond our tightened risk tolerance”, to use new chief executive Bill Winters’ coy phrase. In the circumstances, Winters’ attempt to recoup bonuses from 150 current and former staff is entirely correct. Somewhere along the line, basic principles of risk-management seem to have been lost. For his part, Peace, before he finally departs, could do his shareholders a service by giving his explanation of how it all went wrong. Even in the banking business, a three-year fall in the share price from £17 to £4 is going some. Mine the gap The bonfire of the big miners’ dividends is complete. BHP Billiton, the biggest of the bunch, has abandoned its “progressive” – meaning upwards only – policy. The half-year payment is being slashed 74% and, from now on, BHP guarantees only to pay out 50% of underlying earnings and then see if it can spare a few quid on top. Rio Tinto performed a similar retreat a couple of weeks ago and no investor can be surprised that BHP has followed. The era of “stronger for longer” commodity prices ended at least two years ago and nobody expects it to return soon. If only for the sake of appearances, BHP should have cut its dividend last November after the dam disaster at Samarco, a joint venture in Brazil, that killed 17 people and left two still unaccounted for. In fact, the mystery is why chief executive Andrew Mackenzie and chairman Jac Nasser got so hung up about progressive dividends as recently as last August. Even pre-Samarco, the stance looked hubristic. BHP’s earnings per share had just collapsed to 36 cents but the company was clinging to a dividend of $1.24 a share, costing $6.5bn. The mismatch looked like a triumph of hope over experience, and so it has proved as commodity prices have continued to fall. The net loss for the latest half-year was $5.7bn, hit also by a write-off of the value of the Samarco investment. Consider the new dividend policy, then, an overdue acceptance of commonsense. The prices of iron ore, copper, coal and oil – BHP’s big four products – are all down between 20% and 50% on a year ago, demonstrating that mining is a feast-or-famine business. The dividend should be set to accept that reality.
Eat That Question: Frank Zappa in His Own Words review - career highlights of a serious musical joker My wife can handle my snoring and my tendency to forget to do the dishes, but all bets are off when I drag out my Frank Zappa albums. To the great many people who just can’t stand the man’s music, it is an antic mess of arpeggios, endless guitar solos, puerile baby noises, irritating musique concrète and vulgar lyrics. (I’ll agree to a lot of this, and that’s coming from a diehard fan.) German director Thorsten Schütte’s documentary Eat That Question: Frank Zappa In His Own Words would finally, I think, get her to understand just what it is that I love about the foul-mouthed mustachioed freak. That is, if I could ever convince her to watch it. Like Steven Soderbergh’s documentary on Spalding Gray, And Everything Is Going Fine, Eat That Question is made up entirely from pre-existing interview footage and live performances. There are no talking heads, there are no inter-titles with facts and figures. What we get are frank conversations: sometimes a little combative, sometimes a little bit showboating, but mostly well-articulated positions about the importance of art, independence and refusing to do anything the easy way. And while everyone knows the dude is irreverent (like Yoko Ono, he’s one of the 20th century’s most famous musicians that few people have actually heard) the man himself may surprise you. He doesn’t do drugs! He is an anti-Communist! For a guy some wanted to shrug off as just another late 60s joker, Zappa, if nothing else, will at least impress with his work ethic. As a solo act or with his band the Mothers (originally called the Mothers of Invention), he has released roughly 70 albums, three feature films, multiple home video releases, and has written a musical and an autobiography. A 90 minute film is, for a true fan, just going to scratch the surface. My list of grievances at what was left out is tremendous, but you aren’t going to catch me complaining. What we do get, in mostly chronological order, is Zappa’s philosophy refracted through most of his career highlights. Zappa’s first albums in the late 1960s mixed doo-wop, guitars, snorting and grunting and cheeseball lyrics, but from the get-go he pitched himself as a composer of serious orchestral music. His idols were Igor Stravinsky, Edgar Varèse and Anton Webern, even if he looked like a burned-out pot dealer. His flamboyant appearance was a double-edged sword. It gave him great visibility, as did a famous poster of him sitting naked on the toilet (one that I owned until the woman who later became my wife said “this has to go”), but it attracted press headlines calling him a pervert. His lyrics aided in that corner as well, but for those willing to listen to his music (to open oneself up to excellence, Frank might say) there was a lot to offer. Eat That Question does a good job of giving us just a taste of nearly every era in Zappa’s multifaceted career. There’s the early, woodwind-heavy Mothers, the “Flo and Eddie” shoo-be-doo theatrics, the serious funk of Roxy & Elsewhere, the guitar-heavy Baby Snakes period, the enormous Best Band You Never Heard In Your Life productions and the synclavier experimentation he was working on at the time of his death. The focus is entirely on Frank, so we’ll have to wait for another documentary to discuss the diverse racial makeup of the group, and the fact that this most dude-centric artist features a woman (the great Ruth Underwood) front and centre on vibraphone for many peak years. To newcomers, though, the twist is his symphonic work, including his London Symphony Orchestra albums, recorded at the Barbican in 1983. Much is made of the fact that he hired the orchestra on his own dime without any grants or sponsorship, mainly because he had some music in his head and wanted to hear a top shelf outfit play it for him. He packaged the difficult material on his own label, so maybe he even made a profit on the deal. Zappa’s libertarian streak manifests itself most famously when he took on Tipper Gore and the Parents Music Resource Center, accusing their attempts to label obscene lyrics as the first step toward an Orwellian theocracy. Zappa could be crusty in an interview, but he was frequently funny as hell. His final chat, during what should have been a victory lap after a 1992 orchestral tour in Germany and Austria, turns rather touching as the cancer-stricken musician acknowledges his waning strength. Now, I said I wouldn’t gripe about what was left out, but I do feel Schütte does a major disservice by not including at least one lengthy, blazing guitar jam. There’s only a few seconds (a Scandinavian clip of Cosmik Debris) where we really see him wail on his chosen instrument. Zappa is a lot of things to a lot of people, but for me he is tied with maybe only two or three other guys for greatest soloist that ever lived. How is there not one Black Napkins? Or Watermelon In Easter Hay? Or the middle section of Pygmy Twylyte from the 1974 Helsinki concert? Or The Orange County Lumber Truck from Ahead of Their Time? Okay, so if you aren’t a Zappa fan – and that means most people – I can see you rolling your eyes like my wife. But maybe this documentary changes that a bit. To rant and rave about the music would be the greatest honour we could give the film – or the man himself.
Everton 2-0 West Ham United: Premier League – as it happened Your match report. So, thanks all for your comments and company - now join Rob Smyth for Southampton-Chelsea. It’s liiiiive! West Ham will play worse than that and win; Everton are on the way back. Most likely, the “story” will be Ross Barkley, and in a way that’s fair - he made one, scored one and was the game’s outstanding player. But, on the other hand, we learnt nothing because we already knew just how good he was. Anyway, Everton stay 6th, West Ham stay 16th. That was an exceedingly enjoyable game. 90+4 min Gueye rams a ball into Lukaku and keeps going, running onto the flicked return before Ogbonna runs across him. No penalty, apparently. 90+2 min Lukaku, on the right edge of the box, draws Ogbonna and Kouyate, and then, resisting the urge to try a bender into the far corner, slips a reverse-ball into the path of Cleverley. But Adrian stands up well and repels his shot from close range but a narrow angle. 90+2 min West Ham are doing their best to pretend it’s not over, but they know it’s over, passing sideways before running into Aaron Lennon of all people. 90+1 min There shall be four added minutes, as we learn that Ross Barkley is man-of-the-match. 90 min Antonio has had enough, and barges into Barry. He’s booked, but my guess is it was worth the £!7 or whatever it is. 89 min Lovely from Everton, who counter quickly with Lukaku, out on the right, who flicks inside to Coleman who flicks back outside to Cleverley. The cross is low and cut back, meeting Lukaku’s run, but Adrian beats his shot away. 87 min And there it is: Lennon replaces Barkley, who’s rather closer to the touchline that is optimal. 87 min I wonder if Koeman might take Barkley off in a second, so he can take some acclaim - he’s earned it. 86 min Motions are gone through. 85 min Looking at that second goal again, perhaps Lukaku was a touch offside when taking Barkley’s pass. But I undersold how good his cross was - he waited on the by-line, switched onto his left foot, and lofted a pass to meet his man’s stride. 84 min Change for Everton: Jagielka replaces Bolasie. 82 min Barkley bustles over halfway again, finding Lukaku, who runs into trouble. 80 min I wonder if Bilic might have sent Zaza on earlier, to give his team some presence in the box. But the truth is that Barkley has been the best player on the pitch, and that’s a significant reason why his team are going to win. 78 min West Ham bring off Lanzini, sending on Feghouli. 77 min Can Everton mess this up from here? Surely not. ROSS BARKLEY! ROSS BARKLEY! ROSS BARKLEY! ROSS BARKLEY! ROSS BARKLEY! ROSS BARKLEY! ROSS BARKLEY! ROSS BARKLEY! ROSS BARKLEY! He turns beautifully on halfway, diddling Ayew and Lanzini in one. Then he lofts a pass out to Lukaku on the right and makes for the back post, despatching a difficult half-volley with mortifying ease to settle the game. Can’t believe how bad his decision-making is; it’s really great having unpredictable players, and it’s really annoying when you can’t always predict them. 76 min “I see West Ham have elected to play with ten men, by bringing Zaza on,” b’dum-tishes Iam Orme. I think he might be better than that penalty, not that anything is actually better than that penalty. 75 min Fifteen minutes is along time for Everton to hold out, given the flow of things. 74 min Antonio, now on the right, canes it at Oveido who can only trip him. He’s booked. 73 min Perhaps Cleverley will give Everton some calmness in possession, because currently they’re running to hither and yon but getting naewhere. 72 min West Ham replace Fernandes with Zaza, Everton replace Mirallas with Cleverley. 70 min And they almost do again! Lanzini feeds a ball across the face of the box from its left corner, finding Noble in the centre. But Joel is moving almost before he shoots, pawing away the rising curler from close to the far top corner. 68 min Everton need to do something here, because West Ham are going to score. And they almost do! Noble threads a pass into the path of Lanzini, who slides a similar one into the box, for Ayew to run into - marking him, Funes Mori was on a boat on a river, with tangerine trees and marmalade skies. But as the shot came in, Oviedo races over to slide in and block at source. Superb defending. 67 min Reid is booked for handball an misses West Ham’s next game. Sensible behaviour. 66 min Gueye lays back to Williams, who slips, and Antonio is in, bullocking down the left. But Williams does brilliantly to get back, inserting his body between man and ball, only to dawdle and be robbed a second time. Antonio breaks into the box, opens his body and draws Robles, who narrows the angle well, blocking the show away. Williams is a lucky boy. 65 min The ref pauses as Ogbonna is involved in some argy-bargy, and then Lukaku is fouled defending the corner. 63 min Gueye chucks his body in front of - and into - Ayew, handing West Ham a free-kick. It’s wide on the right, 25 yards out, and Payet paces his run - he might be the best in the world from this position. But Barry is well-placed at the near post heading behind. 62 min A lull. West Ham appear to be gathering, Everton consolidating. 60 min Ayew replaces Obiang. 59 min The angle suits Cresswell, but as if Payet’s stepping aside. He fires into the wall but Everton can’t quite get it away, eventually ceding a corner - Bolasie is fouled as it comes across. 58 min West Ham come back, Antonio over-running the ball on the edge of the Everton box, which gives him the space to beat Barry with a drag-back. So Oviedo comes over and chops him down; free-kick, right of centre, 20 yards out... 56 min Barkley is on one here, and what a thrill it is to see. I have literally no idea why people can’t be arsed enjoying him for what he is, rather than bitching about what he isn’t -plenty time for him to sort the rest and even if he doesn’t, so much of what’s so god about football coalesces in his game. Anyway, Mirallas, in off the left, nips a pass into him which he accepts on the half-turn, opening the angle for a curler, planted over the bar. 55 min “Teams like to play with false 9s nowadays,” emails Yoann Lechenault, “but the only piece missing for this West Ham is Carroll. If he could stay fit, they could have a good season. They’ve got the players on the wings to do the job, what they need is someone in the box to finish it.” For sure he’d improve this team, though it might be harder to sneak him in when Ayew’s fit. 54 min Barkley takes the ball off Williams and crosses the halfway line, shucking off Obiang with that absurd feint and frame, so is bodychecked. Ogiang is booked. 52 min Touch of Giggs in that Bolasie assist. Barkley pounces on a tame clearance, right of centre, checks, checks his options, and rolls into the path of Coleman outside him. The pass is a little short though, so yerman comes inside and smacks a low left-footer towards the near post that Adrian pushes away when he should push behind. Still, though, the danger appears averted until Bolasie appears out of nowhere and i a single movement slides in on Reid and crosses, setting up Lukaku for an open goal, and he nods home from two yards. Brilliant from Bolasie. 48 min Payet loses possession then steps in front of Funes Mori for no reason. He does well to avoid a booking. 46 min Antonio rumbles around the outside of Funes Mori - he’s stronger and faster, but runs out of pitch, so has to check, buffet six or seven more defenders, and wins a corner. Obiang is first to i, crouching at the near post to win the header and Bolasie knocks it behind, but the ref gives a goalkick. 46 min We go again, again. Back come the players - though it’s worth noting that Andre Ayew was on the pitch warming up during half-time. Half-time email: “Having, as I do, both Lukaku and Bolasie in my fantasy team I’m rooting for the Merseysiders today,” says Matt Loten. “However, I can’t be the only one who would quite like to see this West Ham team regain the swagger of last season, can I? I’ve never been the biggest West Ham fan, given the self-important nature of a few of their fans (If I hear ‘we won the World Cup’ one more time...), yet its a shame to see the undeniable talents of Payet, Lanzini, Noble, Zaza, Carroll and Sakho looking so subdued or underutilised. Where has the Bilic magic gone?” Harsh, I’d say. The club are just getting over the upheaval of moving grounds, while his best players weren’t fit at the start of the season. They’re already improving, and will continue to over the next month. That was very enjoyable indeed. Everton started the better before the confidence of West Ham took over, Lanzini and Payet’s movement causing all manner of bother. But then Everton stepped things up, allowing less time on the ball, and they dominated the last 15 minutes. The second half should, in theory, be a good one. 45+1 min Barkley bursts through his shirt the middle, and for a second appears to have options either side, but West Ham converge on him very well and Reid crowds him out. 45 min There shall be “a minimum of” one added minute. 45 min Boalsie stands Noble up, makes it clear what he’s going to do, then does it, skirting around his outside before firing in a cross. It’s too close to Adrian, but the fact remains, Noble has done more or less nothing so far. 42 min It’s a while since West Ham threatened, which is not entirely surprising - they’re still well equipped to win the game, but if a midfield with more men plays well, it’s hard to control tit. 40 min I wonder if Manuel Lanzini’s ancestors liked Neighbours. That’s one for the connoisseurs. 38 min The first goal will be crucial here, he insighted, but even more so than usual. Both sides have excellent attackers, neither side looks secure at the back, and both also have confidence issues. Everton win another corner down the right and Funes Mori is first to it, the ball skidding off his head and wide. 37 min Everton in command now, Bolasie moving infield and causing confusion. The ball ends up with Mirallas, and his cross is so bad that Adrian has to touch it over the top from under the bar. The corner comes to nowt. 35 min Everton win a corner down the right and it ends up with Mirallas again, a touch from a defender taking it away from Funes Mori - but only just. Eventually, Barkley shoots from outside the box, the ensuing block forcing another, from which nothing of note happens. 33 min Payet slams his kick into the wall but West Ham win the second ball, Kouyate finding space down the right. His first cross is blocked, and the second is sliced behind. 31 min Gueye dwells on the ball with no one behind him and Obiang pounces - for a split-second, it looks as though he’s in. But Gueye recovers well and they grab each other, in which time help arrives, so that when the foul finally comes, the card can be yellow and not red. Gueye misses Everton’s next game against Chelsea, and West Ham have a free-kick, 35 yards out, more or less dead centre. He he comes... 30 min Everton aren’t letting West Ham’s defenders dwell on the ball now, which is allowing them to win it back in midfield where they’ve the numerical advantage. 28 min This is now an excellent game. 26 min What a save! Bolasie, who’s been quiet, employs some unfathomable sleight of foot to find space down the right, and his cross is a steepler, eventually cleared towards the left, where Oviedo arrives. He nips round the back, gets to the line and cuts for Barkley, who wobbles left- Reid obliges, going with him as he nudges right - he’s in front of goal! And he wallops his effort across goal from eight yards, only for Adrian to extend a go-go Gadget arm and palm away. 24 min Two straight passes through midfield, first from Barry and then Barkley, set Lukaku away. Pulling left, he twists into a low shot that’s deflected behind, only for the corner to sail into Adrian’s arms. 22 min Cresswell, deep inside the Everton half, pokes to Lanzini, and he sways inside, sending Funes Mori for a big of chips, then nips outside and twinkles into the box. From a tight angle, he opens his body to look for the far corner, but instead sends the ball hurtling across the face of goal and out. 20 min Everton prompt around the box, Barkley, Mirallas, Barry and Gueye all involved as West Ham fail to clear when the move breaks down on two separate occasions. In the end, Gueye humps a low shot from just outside the box, right of centre, and drags it, which gives Lukaku the chance to requisition it. But his touch is heavy, and the ball runs into touch. 19 min Antonio nashes down the left, assuming he’ll burn his man up, but Coleman does very well to stay with him, winning both ball and free-kick. 18 min The movement of West Ham’s front three is befeuddling Everton’s back-four at the moment. Because none are natural goalscorers, none are mad to hang about in the middle, which makes them hard to mark, though the quid pro quo is the lack of significant presence in the box when crosses come in. 15 min But back come Everton! A defensive block sets Lukaku away down the left and he saunters past Lanzini as easily as you’d expect before cutting back a cross that Reid misses. So Barry lays back for Gueye, only for Noble to dive in the road as he shoots, taking it on the forearm just outside the box - no free-kick is given - and the ball returns to Barry, who wafts a curler over the top. This is now a very lively affair. 13 min Suddenly West Ham are in charge, Payet roving from centre to right and twisting into a shot that Joel fumbles behind. The corner comes to nowt but suddenly Everton look nervous. Fickle thing, confidence. 12 min Loooovely from West Ham, Lanzini, in the middle now, jinking and swaying before caressing a short pass into Payet just outside the box. Nothing looks on, but he manages to poke a pass into Obiang’s path, and he’s in! But sliding tackles arrive form either side like motorised gates on speed, he’s disconcerted, and wellies his shot over the top as he falls. He asks for a penalty, but nothing doing. 11 min Barkley into Lukaku and out to Bolasie, who botches the cut-back, but that was nice from Everton, who are territorially dominant. But immediately, West Ham break, and Lanzini twinkles into space at inside-right, rolling a perfectly weighted ball into Fernandes’ path. His cross is a good one too, low and fast, but Williams is alert enough to arrive before Antonio. 10 min I’m guessing, but I bet neither of these teams are in the top half of the table for distance run. 8 min Mirallas seizes on a loose kick from Adrian and skates down the left before crossing towards Lukaku, but Ogbonna intervenes before it gets any more embarrassing. 7 min Barry, who is one booking from a suspension, addresses a 50-50 with Fernandes, misses the ball, and looks plaintive as the ref decides what to do with him. He escapes. 5 min Payet snaffles a loose ball at inside-right and clips a superb arcing cross towards the back post, where Coleman does very well indeed to slide in a foil Antonio. 5 min The ground rises to remember Howard Kendall - this is the first home game since the first anniversary of his death. 3 min Antonio drifts right, his place in the middle taken by Payet, and Funes Mori follows him, sliding in to cede a throw. 2 min West Ham are sitting off Everton until they cross the halfway line - breaking them down is going to be a problem, and need width or dribbling. 1 min Already, Everton have wide players right out on the touchline. I know it’s more complicated than that, but three at the back always seems like you’re choosing to forget about the corners of the pitch. 1 min We go again. This being the last Goodison game before Remembrance Sunday, wreaths are being laid in the centre-circle. Is there a game which says Premier League pace and excitement more than this one? Romelu Lukaku is earnestly gabbing at Yannick Bolasie. He looks focused. The ground PA reminds us which teams are playing, which is helpful. Out come the players! The more I think about this, the more I think the footballing match-up favours Everton, and the more I think about this, the more the mental match-up favours West Ham. Which is more important? Koeman says that Everton need to support Lukaku better, and finish better.He reckons that West Ham’s system is hard to play against, but more than that, they are confident again and have good players. He didn’t think about changing to mirror them, as “we can punish them for the spaces they will leave.” Jamie Redknapp says that in his experience, homegrown players have greater demands placed upon them by the crowd than foreign players - he’s talking about Ross Barkley. Graeme Souness says well if they can’t handle that they’re not going to make it - but really, is that the case? Obviously it helps if you’re tough, but I’m certain that plenty of successful types weren’t born that way. “He’s very clear,” says Gareth Barry of Ronaldo Koeman. “Everyone knows exactly what’s expected of them.” Somewhere in Brussels, there’s a kindly, gentlemanly wince. Email! “Glad to see Funes Mori back,” says Jegs McGregor. “He has Dixie Dean’s eyes.” Ah Dixie, facilitator of the finest advertising tag of all-time: “Young footballers will have no cause to complain that smoking interferes with their general fitness … if they smoke Wix”. That and other genius-related activity can be found here: While we wait, here’s some FA Cup semi-final action from 1980: Is Bilic the Premier League’s only tatted-up manager? Just as I was about to hilariously quip that surely José Mourinho has one of himself on his chest, a popular search engine revealed that he has the names of his wife and kids around his wrist. Handy memory aid, that. Sky interviewed Slaven Bilic during the week, and he says that pre-season, 70% of the questions were about Champions League. Subconsciously that made his players over-confident, he thinks. Is this what they call baby blue? So, Everton’s line-up has two surprises: Stekelenberg has a foot injury, while Jagielka is rested. West Ham retain the 3-4-3 and no striker formation that worked so well in midweek, simply restoring Adrian. I wonder, though, how that will go against Everton, who’ll outnumber them in midfield and perhaps out wide too. Everton (a relatively rigid 4-3-3): Joel; Coleman, Funes Mori, Williams, Oviedo; Gueye, Barry, Barkley; Bolasie, Lukaku, Mirallas. Subs: Hewelt, Jagielka, Deulofeu, Cleverley, Lennon, Calvert-Lewin, Holgate. West Ham (a modish 3-7-0): Adrian; Kouyate, Reid, Ogbonna; Fernandes, Obiang, Noble, Cresswell, Lanzini, Payet, Antonio. Subs: Randolph, Nordtveit, Feghouli, Zaza, Collins, Zaza, Ayew, Fletcher. Referee: Anthony Taylor (36.9 miles from Goodison) West Ham have had a terrible start to the season. Starting to win big games in their new ground, in the last eight of the League Cup and, if they win today, they’re in the top half of the table. Of course, it’s not quite as glib as that: the off-the-pitch problems don’t look like going away, to reach the semi-finals they need to win at Old Trafford, and if they lose today, they’re still fifth-bottom. But to keep things football, things are improving. Their key players are fit which means their key combinations are working; the best time to play them has already passed. Everton, meanwhile, are in the midst of their own dodgy run. Since beating Middlesbrough in the middle of last month, they’ve not won a game, losing to Norwich, Bournemouth and Burnley and drawing with Crystal Palace and Manchester City. And yet, they are a team of formidable attacking ability. Ross Barkley is a transcendental talent - if he can learn the game, he will be a star - and on a good day, Romelu Lukaku is unplayable. Behind them, Gareth Barry and Idrissa Gueye know what to do, and on the wing, Yannick Bolasie and Kevin Mirallas are, well, wingers. Add Ronald Koeman to that and you’ve got what looks like a serious situation - but it’s about time his team turned proposition into opposition. Kick-off: 1.30pm GMT
Labor movement braces for three-front battle with Trump, Congress and courts After spending tens of millions of dollars in hopes of electing Hillary Clinton, the labor movement fears that President-elect Donald Trump, the Republican-controlled Congress and the supreme court will be hostile to labor and take numerous steps to hobble unions. These steps can range from appointing a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) that does business’s bidding to erasing an array of Obama administration regulations, including one making overtime pay available to millions more workers. “These are going to be some challenging times,” said Lee Saunders, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, which has 1.3 million members. “We’re just going to have to hunker down.” Saunders, who is chairman of the AFL-CIO’s political committee, fears that Congress might enact a so-called national right-to-work law, which would prohibit any requirement that employees at unionized private-sector workplaces pay union fees. Saunders also worries that the supreme court – after Trump nominates a presumably conservative justice to fill the vacancy left by Antonin Scalia’s death – will rule that government employees can’t be required to pay union fees. Labor leaders fear that such moves would encourage many workers not to pay anything to unions representing them, depleting union treasuries and making unions weaker in bargaining, lobbying and politics. Many Republican lawmakers are eager to weaken unions because they are major supporters and funders of the Democratic party. After Scalia died, the supreme court deadlocked, 4-4, in a case, Friedrichs v California, in which a public school teacher asserted that a requirement that she pay fees to the union representing her violated her first amendment rights. “There are at least 27 cases in the lower courts that would do the same thing Friedrichs would have, and you have to expect that one of those cases will bubble up to the supreme court,” Saunders said. “That will be a major challenge for us.” Missouri’s new Republican governor, Eric Greiten, with the help of his state’s Republican-controlled legislature, has signaled he will push for a “right-to-work” law, following in the footsteps of Wisconsin and Michigan. And with Republicans winning a supermajority in both houses of the Pennsylvania legislature, they might be able to enact such a law over a likely veto by the state’s Democratic governor. Marshall Babson, an employment lawyer who served on the NLRB under president Ronald Reagan, said he wasn’t sure whether Trump would push to hobble labor unions. “How much this guy cares about labor issues and whether he’s going to do anything about them, I have no idea,” Babson said. But he said Congressional Republicans were eager to enact anti-union measures and would press Trump to go along. Babson said Trump was likely to appoint business-friendly NLRB members who would seek to reverse pro-union decisions made by the Democratic-controlled board under Obama. He predicted that a Trump board would undo a rule that has sped up union representation elections, giving companies less time to fight against unionization efforts. Babson said a Trump board, backed by the nation’s business community, would scrap efforts by the Obama NLRB to make it easier to declare employers like McDonald’s joint employers with their individual franchisees. Joint employer status would make McDonald’s, Burger King and other giant franchising companies co-responsible for legal violations by franchisees and more vulnerable to unionization drives. A Trump board, Babson said, would take aim an another Obama board initiative – one that bars employers from making workers sign waivers that prohibit them from bringing class actions on employment-related issues, like wage violations or sex discrimination. And there’s a good chance the Trump NLRB would reverse the Obama board’s decision to give graduate students at private universities the right to unionize. If the NLRB doesn’t take such actions, the Republican-controlled Congress might seek to. “The other hot issue on the Hill is workers using their employer’s computer system for unionizing,” Babson said. The Obama board has ruled that employees have the right to use their company’s email system for union-related activity if they’re also permitted to use it for other personal activity. Babson said he doubted Congress would enact a national “right to work” law because there were enough Democratic senators to filibuster to stop it. Joseph McCartin, a professor of labor history at Georgetown University, added that Republicans might see little reason to push for a national “right-to-work” law as they saw additional states moving to enact such laws. Pointing to a future Friedrichs-like case, McCartin said: “I think the public-sector unions will face the biggest problems.” He added that federal employees’ unions would be on the defensive, except for the union representing Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, which endorsed Trump. With Trump voicing hostility toward regulations, many labor experts say he may seek to undo numerous Obama-era regulations, among them those enabling millions more workers to qualify for overtime pay and requiring federal contractors to report labor and employment-law violations. With the percentage of workers in unions dropping to 11.1%, McCartin predicted a further decline for labor under Trump. “The status quo in labor policy is toxic for the union movement unless the status quo is changed in a positive way,” he said. Nonunion worker-advocacy groups, such as the Restaurant Opportunities Center and the Coalition of Immokalee Workers in Florida, have become increasingly effective in pressuring employers, and McCartin said a Trump NLRB might seek to change definitions so that these groups would be considered labor unions, which would subject them to stricter rules on picketing and other activities. One of the few bright spots for labor last Tuesday was that voters in Arizona, Colorado and Maine voted to raise their states’ minimum wage to $12 an hour by 2020. In Washington state, voters approved an increase to $13.50 by 2020. As Congressional Republicans signal continued opposition to raising the $7.25 federal minimum wage, more such state actions are expected. “When we take these issues closer to the ground, we’re able to move – there is popular support,” McCartin said. “At the state and city level, we can do things. The cities are the laboratories for rebuilding the labor movement.”
Three bank employees arrested in UK insider trading investigation The National Crime Agency has arrested three employees from blue-chip banks as part of a major UK insider trading investigation linked to the Panama Papers. The arrests, which were made in recent months and first reported on Friday, are the latest development in an operation led by City watchdog the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). Its existence was disclosed by ministers this week. After the leak of a cache of data from the Panama based law firm Mossack Fonseca by the and other media in April, the UK government ordered the creation of a multiagency Panama Papers taskforce with funding of £10m. On Tuesday, the chancellor and the home secretary revealed the taskforce had been working on “a major insider-trading operation”. The investigation began before the publication of the Panama Papers but it has been given new impetus by the release of the biggest-ever leak of confidential tax haven data. New leads are understood to have come from information obtained by the UK taskforce, with ministers saying it had acquired “high-quality, significant and credible data on offshore activity in Panama”. A spokesman for the National Crime Agency, which tackles serious and organised crime, said: “We have nothing to add to the written ministerial statement released earlier this week.” The FCA declined to comment. The financial news service Bloomberg reported claimed the operation could be one of the largest UK insider trading inquiries. It said more arrests were planned, and that officers from the NCA were assisting with covert surveillance. Neither those detained, nor their employers, have been named. The Panama Papers taskforce was announced in April, one week after the simultaneous publication of the first leaked files by media outlets in more than 80 countries. It brought together investigators, compliance specialists and analysts from HM Revenue and Customs, the NCA, the Serious Fraud Office and the FCA. This week ministers told parliament that civil and criminal investigations into 22 individuals suspected of tax evasion had been opened. They said the taskforce has identified nine professional enablers of economic crime, all of whom have links with known criminals. Forty-three high-net-worth individuals have had their tax status placed under special review. And officers have uncovered 26 offshore companies holding UK property whose owners have been linked to suspicious financial activity. The German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung obtained 11.5m leaked documents from an anonymous whistleblower calling themselves John Doe, and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists in Washington shared the information with media outlets around the world. The ICIJ has declined to show the leaked documents to any government, saying it is not an arm of law enforcement and its policy is not to turn over such material. UK regulators have been flexing their muscles on insider trading, with a number of high-profile court cases and investigations. Operation Tabernula culminated this year when a jury convicted former Deutsche Bank corporate broker Martyn Dodgson of insider dealing. Dodgson, who advised the government on its stakes in Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group, was sentenced to four and a half years in prison. Last week a former manager at BlackRock, the investment firm, admitted to improperly trading shares and other investment products in the run-up to public announcements. Mark Lyttleton was arrested by City of London police in April 2013 and has pleaded guilty in a case that involved the use of a Panamanian-registered company to carry out trades.
Trump and Brexit add yet more spice to Ryder Cup’s theatres of cultural war Even in more placid recent times, the Ryder Cup has always been the fiercest culture war in all sport. America versus Europe. The individuals versus the team. Lone wolves versus the pack. Unabombers versus cells. Sex addiction versus sex. It is quite remarkable, in an event where the sport itself is frequently so electrifying, that it should rarely attain much more than the level of a plot device in the wider story. This year, it is fair to say, there are more angles than ever. In fact, there are so many angles that even the Gabriel Byrne character in Miller’s Crossing couldn’t see them all. Brexit. Trump. Watching the US vice-captain Tiger Woods watch golf. The implications of the growth in rightwing radical populism for those crucial par fives. And, of course, all the Ryder Cup basics: religion, secularism, conservatism, progressivism, the role of US militarism in a rapidly changing world, which continent has the most exquisite manners. Those babies simply come as standard. As no one needs reminding, the UK this summer voted to disengage from the continent of Seve Ballesteros and cleave to itself as the land of Nick Faldo. Or, as seems rather more likely to transpire, the land of Colin Montgomerie. Consequently, some have jokingly suggested that the Ryder Cup itself be restored to its pre-1973 format, which is to say Great Britain versus the United States of America. Yet, given ongoing developments in both those jurisdictions, there will be many around the world who’d look at that tie and struggle to get past a powerful desire for there to be two losers. And if I may put it into context for those who wouldn’t: it would be the West Germany-Argentina final that none of us wants to see. Instead, both the USA and Europe sides descend on Hazeltine National Golf Club in Minnesota next week. The Americans have embroidered the motto “12 strong” into their kit; I assume that even now the European gear is being machined with the words “Beyond Brexit”. Fortunately, the US PGA tour has spared itself the ultimate shitstorm, which would have been the event having been long-scheduled to take place at a course owned by apocalypse-beckoning US presidential hopeful Donald Trump. For a long time, this looked like an accident rather than moral design. After all, they went ahead with March’s WGC-Cadillac Championship at Trump Doral in Miami despite the litany of -isms committed by their host in any given 24-hour period. By June, a few thousand -isms later, even the US PGA was finally minded to declare that sponsorship problems meant next year, the same tournament would be played in Mexico, of all pointed relocations. Not that a US win at Hazeltine will not be seized upon by Trump as some electoral omen for America’s impending being-made-great-again. Under President Trump, needless to say, all Ryder Cups will be won by the US. As far as Trump support within the US Ryder Cup side goes, one can only speculate as to quite how many players might find his interests and worldview align with theirs. We do know that Jack Nicklaus has come out for Trump, declaring him “a good man”. “I like what Donald has done,” Nicklaus went on a few months ago. “I like that he’s turning America upside down. He’s awakening the country.” Whether that is the majority PGA definition of “woke” is unclear – though we do have some useful Sports Illustrated data. Every year, the publication polls tour pro golfers on the condition of anonymity, which allows them to speak more freely than the constraints of wealth and hardwired self-interest traditionally allow. Stop me if your own non-scientific guesses already confirmed this to you, but this year it found – inter alia – that 56% of PGA respondents wouldn’t vote for Hillary if she halved their taxes, while Trump was most supported in the Republican primary race. As for the European side of things, that promises to bring the angst. The very day after the referendum vote, the European Tour announced that the Ryder Cup team would still be flying the EU flag, though it did offer a hint on where it stood on the result with a slightly sniffy statement: “Like all global companies whose headquarters are in the UK,” this ran, “we are now in the process of assessing the implications for our business.” If the Europeans win, you can be sure they’ll be seen as a symbol of something or other. As the British gold medals rained in during the Rio Olympics, the Leave.EU campaign lost no time in putting out an advert featuring all the winners, suggesting that their sporting success somehow proved the UK had no need of the EU to succeed. A category mistake, and one that caused the cyclist Callum Skinner to ask them to stop using his image. We shall have to see whether any UK golfers are moved to do the same should they be similarly co-opted in the event of a European Ryder Cup victory. In the event of a European loss, of course, there will be remainers quick to ascribe it to a doomy sign that the fellowship is so terminally scattered that we can’t even beat the Yanks in the Ryder Cup any more. There is more, of course – so much more – and for some, golf is not an appropriate place for such multi-faceted conflicts to play out. For me, there is no better. Certainly no safer. Let us gird our loins, and have absolutely no time for those who wrongly imagine the Ryder Cup to be a good war spoiled.
The Onion sells stake to Spanish-language broadcaster Univision The publisher of satirical news site the Onion has sold a minority stake to US Spanish-language broadcaster Univision. Univision, which runs channels aimed primarily at the US’s Hispanic population, has taken a 40% stake worth less than $200m in Onion Inc, according to the New York Times. The company also runs viral publishing parody site Clickhole and digital culture site AV Club. The broadcaster said Onion Inc would continue to be run independently, but will operate under the “oversight” of the cable network to help explore new ways of distributing Onion content. It also will reportedly have the option to buy the Onion outright. The acquisition forms apart of Univision’s attempts to reach younger audiences. In 2013 it launched a joint venture with Disney, Fusion, designed to reach younger audiences online and on TV. Univision chief news and digital officer Isaac Lee said comedy was “an incredibly engaging format” for so called millennials and would play “a key part in the 2016 presidential election process”. He added: “The Onion has been, and continues to be, a leading force of this phenomenon of intellectual, social, cultural and satirical commentary online. “Onion Inc as part of our portfolio is a great fit for and a significant step forward in our digital strategy as we continue to expand the ways we entertain and inform millennial and multicultural audiences.” The Onion is famous for its straight-faced parodies of breaking news stories, peppered with quotes from people described as “area man”. Memorable spoof stories have included welcoming Barack Obama’s victory in the 2008 US presidential election with the headline “Black Guy Given Nation’s Worst Job”. Onion Inc chief executive Mike McAvoy said: “Onion Inc has remained successful by putting editorial first. We’re excited to partner with Univision, a company that understands and appreciates that foundation, and that can provide additional resources, expertise, and opportunity for our talented staff.” Traditional US television companies have poured money into digital sites aimed at younger audiences in recent years. Both A+E Networks and 21st Century Fox have stakes in Vice Media, and last year Comcast’s NBC Universal division invested $200m in BuzzFeed. The Onion started out in print as a weekly magazine in the 1980s, but in 2013 stopped producing a magazine to focus on digital media. In the UK, its style has been adopted by the Daily Mash, which launched in 2007. Univision also invested in the Root, a site aimed primarily at African Americans. However, there have been reports of trouble at Fusion, with Disney understood to be considering selling its stake back to Univision.
Festival watch – Field Day 2016 The vibe The Saturday was largely defined by the monsoon-style weather. People cowered under tents. The Shacklewell Arms stage got so flooded that, the next day, it had to be moved. Sodden and covered in mud, festival-goers looked crestfallen. But it did add something of a Blitz spirit to the proceedings, with people sharing umbrellas and commiserations. The drier and more guitar-heavy Sunday had a palpable 90s feel, with the Brian Jonestown Massacre, dungarees and Bez-style tambourine-playing all making appearances. The crowd Weaving between exotic-food vans and craft ale tents, the east London hordes sported a combination of black leather, glitter, ironic T-shirts and peroxide hair with rainbow streaks. EU referendum “I’m in” stickers were the weekend’s must-have fashion accessory. Random celebrity spot: Jack Gleeson, better known as Joffrey Baratheon in Game of Thrones. Best act For a lineup as eclectic as this, choosing just one would feel churlish. A natural highlight was a saxophone-wielding PJ Harvey, dressed in green feathers and accompanied by a nine-man marching band. For serious early-afternoon beats, DJ Koze at the Resident Advisor tent was the place to be (although a stage-time swap meant we accidentally missed Skepta). Fat White Family delivered a typically electrifying set complete with on-stage masturbation. On Sunday, John Grant’s melodic, uplifting tunes and bone-dry lyrics were especially poignant after the previous night’s events in Orlando. And the worst Sorry, Mount Kimbie DJ set. You happened during a particularly bleak rainy interlude and the people who sought shelter under your tent looked cold, wet and miserable. The slightly downbeat, if sophisticated, tunes didn’t help. Best discovery Not a discovery as such, but Nao’s warm, funky R&B combined smooth vocals with seemingly effortless experimentation. Slimzee’s high-energy DJ set at the bandstand was fun, too. Best dressed A man decked in a tight, bright green jumpsuit (think the Queen’s neon green dress at her 90th) topped with a green bumblebee head, staging a mock mini-protest and brandishing a placard that read: “Earth Must Exit Milky Way”. Overheard One young festival-goer was heard saying: “You’re going to see Thurston Moore? But he’s, like, 55.” She would have been horrified to learn he is, in fact, 57. Best tweet by someone famous Sleaford Mods, who headlined the Crack stage on Saturday, tweeted: “Thank you to @fielddaylondon for inviting us. Was a good gig. Clean Loos too. Real.” Field Day gnomically replied: “Thank you for playing – here’s some people eating carrots.” Separately, Clean Bandit’s Neil Milan tweeted (between multiple emojis):
One fifth of adults worldwide will be obese by 2025, predicts study About a fifth of all adults around the world and a third of those in the UK will be obese by 2025, with potentially disastrous consequences for their health, according to a study. The research published by the Lancet medical journal says there is zero chance that the world can meet the target set by the UN for halting the climbing obesity rate by 2025. “Over the past 40 years, we have changed from a world in which underweight prevalence was more than double that of obesity, to one in which more people are obese than underweight,” said senior author Prof Majid Ezzati from the school of public health at Imperial College London. “If present trends continue, not only will the world not meet the obesity target of halting the rise in the prevalence of obesity at its 2010 level by 2025, but more women will be severely obese than underweight by 2025.” The English-speaking world is particularly badly affected. By 2025, the UK will have the highest obesity among both men and women in Europe, at 38%, say the researchers. Almost a fifth of the world’s obese adults (118 million) live in just six high-income English-speaking countries – Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, the UK and the US. More than a quarter (50 million) of the world’s severely obese people also live in these countries. Obesity is commonly measured by BMI (body mass index, which is body mass divided by the square of the body height) a measure which has well known flaws at an individual level, since muscular athletes may have a high BMI without being obese. But it is the best-used measure for over and underweight across whole populations. People with a BMI below 18.5 are considered underweight while 35 or higher is considered severely obese and 40 or higher is morbidly obese. People with very high BMIs are considered to be at risk of heart disease, diabetes, cancer and other serious health problems. Looking at studies on BMI across the world over the last 40 years, the researchers found a startling increase, they say, from 105 million obese people in 1975 to 641 million in 2014. The proportion of obese men has more than tripled since 1975 from 3.2% to 10.8% and in women, it has more than doubled, from 6.4% to 14.9%. Against the trend of steadily rising weight, women in some countries had virtually no increase in BMI over the 40 years – in Singapore, Japan, and a few European countries including Czech Republic, Belgium, France, and Switzerland. The highest average BMI rate in the world is in the islands of Polynesia and Micronesia, where they reach 34.8 for women and 32.2 for men in American Samoa. More than 38% of men and over half of women are obese in Polynesia and Micronesia. Ezzati said much more needs to be done. “This epidemic of severe obesity is too extensive to be tackled with medications such as blood pressure-lowering drugs or diabetes treatments alone, or with a few extra bike lanes. We need coordinated global initiatives – such as looking at the price of healthy food compared to unhealthy food, or taxing high sugar and highly processed foods - to tackle this crisis.” The lowest average BMI rates in the world are in Timor-Leste, Ethiopia, and Eritrea. Timor-Leste was the lowest at 20.8 for women and Ethiopia the lowest at 20.1 for men. Concern over soaring obesity rates should not lead to the neglect of those who are underweight around the world, said Prof George Davey Smith from the integrative epidemiology unit, at the University of Bristol’s school of social and community medicine in a comment in the journal. “A focus on obesity at the expense of recognition of the substantial remaining burden of undernutrition threatens to divert resources away from disorders that affect the poor to those that are more likely to affect the wealthier in low income countries.” Prof Neena Modi, president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, said the results were a stark reminder to the government of the work that remained to be done. “This is an international problem, and worldwide joined-up thinking is needed to make progress,” she said. “The UK can be a world leader in tackling obesity and the government’s upcoming children’s obesity strategy provides a good opportunity to be that leader. The recent announcement of a sugar tax is a welcome start. We look forward to seeing a rigorous evaluation of its impact so that other countries can benefit from this excellent UK example. “A number of additional measures are also required. More research to reduce childhood obesity risks that arise in the womb during pregnancy, and in infancy are essential. The more that is known about underlying causes, the better this worldwide crisis be addressed.”
Common: Black America Again review – a call to arms for election month Compared to Eminem’s remarkable but wearying Campaign Speech, the song Black America Again is rap’s outstanding call to arms of election month. There’s a comforting 90s feel to its parent album, with the return of Common’s producer, NoID, and several hat-tips to fellow vets such as Public Enemy and Tribe, but the lyrics are all America 2016. Although there’s no hit to rival the Selma soundtrack epic, Glory, and a reunion with its vocalist John Legend is the worst of furrowed-brow, gluten-free beat poetry, this is intelligent, impressive work, breaking down complex issues rhyme by rhyme. Common may still struggle to be heard outside the echo chamber, but perhaps it doesn’t matter when it’s this sumptuously upholstered.
Shadow chancellor criticises George Osborne's relationship with top bankers Shadow chancellor John McDonnell has accused George Osborne of being too close to Britain’s top bankers, offering the industry “an ever more soft touch” through a series of regulatory concessions that have emerged in recent weeks. Over the weekend it was reported by Reuters that two more investment banks with major operations in the City – Citigroup and Credit Suisse – had paid no tax for 2014 in the UK. It follows Reuters analysis last month that showed a further seven banks had paid a combined £21m in UK corporation tax in 2014 despite generating UK profits of £3.6bn. “These are damning findings that make a real mockery of the government’s approach to taxation of the financial sector,” said McDonnell. “This news will also be completely disheartening to the millions of us UK taxpayers who bailed out the banks and continue to pay the price for their past actions and excesses.” Last week, McDonnell had again attacked Osborne after City regulator the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) dropped a long-awaited review of banking culture which had been promised in the wake of multiple scandals. The decision to abandon the review followed the resignation of the FCA chief executive, Martin Wheatley, after the chancellor had forced him out in July. The Treasury has insisted it had no hand in the regulator’s decision, but McDonnell renewed his criticism. “The chancellor has been moving towards an ever more soft touch approach by reducing the bank levy and cutting corporation tax, selling publicly owned banks off at a loss, and only last week he sat by while the watchdog he set up watered down its review into the sector, only six months after he replaced the head of the FCA for issuing large fines to banks.”
Comments on articles are valuable. So how to weed out the trolls? Last month, the technology news site Engadget announced it was “shutting down our comments … see you next week”. The deployment of a new comment system hadn’t worked as hoped. Its community manager noted that a good comments section has “users who feel a sense of duty and kinship, who act as a community”; an exceptional one “informs its readers, corrects authors and provides worthwhile insights in a polite and constructive manner”. This wasn’t happening, so the Engadget staff were going to take a week off from “moderating comments, zapping spam and slaying trolls” in order to regroup and try again. Stories of this kind are frequently used as evidence for pessimism. Almost every website, be it a newspaper or a personal blog, has struggled with comments. Controversial topics and anonymous commenters are especially prone to incivility. Perhaps this is why only about half of news sites provide for user comments. But these stories are also evidence of the value of comments. Sites continue to experiment with yet another system because they’ve seen gems in the rough. And people do post. A 2015 international report from Reuters found that among those surveyed in the US, 21% comment in social media and 15% on news websites. In the UK it is 13% and 7% respectively. These numbers continue to grow year on year. Also, not all comments are awful. One study found that although “10% of political blog comments were uncivil” only “4% of comments on the newspaper sites” were the same. Another study of comments about the controversial topic of climate change at the found that a majority of comments were civil and productive. Additionally, some of the journalists reported that reader comments sometimes led to greater rigour in their stories, and to new leads. Yet such attitudes require journalists to see engaging with comments as part of their work, which in turn depends on the support of senior management. Many parameters affect the success of commenting at news sites: topic, user anonymity, scale, site culture, moderation, journalists’ engagement and attitudes, and management support. The media scholar Clay Shirky encapsulated much of this by way of a clever quip: “Comment systems can be good, big, cheap – pick two”. Shirky’s insight provides a good frame for understanding the challenges faced by comment systems, and how they can be made better. An irony of successful discussion forums is that their success begets their failure. They get too big, attract spammers and scammers, and people begin to ask: “Who the heck is that jerk?” So, small comment communities usually fare better than larger ones. Sometimes, even larger sites can maintain a sense of smallness through segmentation: Facebook has networks of friends and Reddit has thousands of subreddits. Accordingly, some news sites have adopted Facebook as their comment system, and I often go to Reddit to read discussions of articles found elsewhere. An example of a lousy, but big and cheap, commenting space is Breitbart.com, a politically conservative American news site. Breitbart uses the Disqus comment system, which permits moderation, the flagging of inappropriate comments and voting comments up or down. Stories at Breitbart can easily have hundreds or even thousands of comments. However, judging by the lack of a commenting policy and the many displays of violent racism and sexism, little is spent on moderation. Conversely, we also have examples of commenting spaces that are good and big, but not cheap. At the institutional level, the New York Times limits the number of articles that are open to comment to about 18 a day. It then screens all comments by a staff of about a dozen people and highlights good comments into “reader picks” and “NYT picks”. At the individual level, the author and the Atlantic blogger Ta-Nehisi Coates had remarkably civil conversations below his posts. Interestingly, the Atlantic uses the same system as Breitbart.com, but to a different end. In a 2013 profile of Coates, the journalist David Carr noted that Coates “does a ton of moderating [on] that blog and putting in time with it, and it’s become a self-policing community, which is really remarkable”. Yet Coates himself noted that this would not last: it took a lot of time and “managing a community is tough”. He stopped participating in the comments to his Atlantic posts in February of 2015; thereafter Disqus was still available but commenting was frequently disabled. In July, Disqus disappeared altogether. One of the first of these posts was about the release of his acclaimed Between the World and Me: sadly, he invited readers to send their reactions to an email address. His success probably rendered his time too valuable to spend on moderating comments. Could new technology lessen the costs of moderation? The startup CivilComment is providing a system that crowdsources moderation, asking every commenter to first rate three other comments for civility and quality on unrelated stories. Early indications are that readers are having spirited but respectful discussions. Artificial intelligence (AI) might also help better detect antisocial comments, but this will be no panacea. Technology alone is far from being able to build a community with a civil culture. Also, machines are susceptible to bias and manipulation. As James Vincent at the Verge put it last month: “Twitter taught Microsoft’s AI chatbot to be a racist asshole in less than a day.” As promised, Engadget turned its comments back on one week later, but with some changes. Controversial topics would forgo comments for the time being. Engadget also sought volunteer moderators and promised new tools to help them with the work. And commenters should soon have profile pages and be notified of responses to their comments; the hope was that this would foster a feeling of community, “because we do take pride in our community, and we want you to as well”. The hard lesson learned is that it is not sufficient simply to deploy a comment system. We must instead build communities, which is neither easy nor cheap, particularly when these are large. Comments can be valuable, but only when they occur on a human scale, as moderated by actual people, using – but not supplanted by – smart tools.
Women tap into new roles as mobile internet scheme targets rural India Sheetal Bootoli’s husband refused to let her touch the mobile phone. “What will you do with it? You’ll spoil it,” he said. It’s an attitude very familiar to women in rural India. Yet now, four months later, Sheetal, 32, is teaching other rural women in and around Bootoli village, near Alwar, Rajasthan, to use the internet. Every day, she gets on her special “internet cycle cart” containing two web-enabled smartphones and two tablets. She cycles through cotton and onion fields to give local women instruction on going online. The Bootoli women’s experience of the world has previously been limited to a trip to Alwar, 28km away, to see a doctor. Now, they are getting their first taste of the vastness of the internet. “My husband has just got a smartphone and now I’m the one who teaches him about email and downloading WhatsApp,” says Sheetal, smiling. Sheetal is part of the “internet saathi” (or partner) initiative, a campaign launched by Google India and Tata Trusts in May to address what is perhaps the biggest gender disparity in India: the fact that only 2% of internet users in rural India are women. Internet use in India is growing fast. Last year, the country overtook the US to become the second largest online user base, after China, with 342 million internet users as of March 2016. Future growth will be largely in rural areas. A Boston Consulting Group study predicts that rural consumers will increase from 120 million in 2015 to almost 315 million in 2020. The Google campaign, Helping Women Get Online, aims to impart basic internet skills to rural women in half the country’s villages – about 300,000 – in the next few years. “Since May, over 1.2 million women have benefited from the programme, spread across 40,000 villages,” said Sapna Chadha, head of marketing at Google India. Through an army of trainers like Sheetal, rural women will learn to use the internet to improve their lives. Eventually, some may even come to earn a living online. Google provides the gadgets and training, while Tata Trusts uses its links with local NGOs to identify the online saathis and monitor progress. The internet carts are available in villages for a minimum of two days every week for four to six months. The women of Bootoli don’t have televisions. “I saw the prime minister for the first time on the tablet. I saw Mecca – my dream – for the first time,” says Naseera Khan, 40, before asking Sheetal to show her pictures of the Taj Mahal. Khan’s husband and son won’t let her touch their phones. Denying women access to mobile phones is rooted in a conservative culture. Men fear that young girls will start chatting to boys and dating, and that married women will be distracted them from housework. Initially, the men in the village were reluctant to let their wives attend the training sessions but relented after realising that it seemed harmless. “On the training days, we finish our housework quickly and come so that the men can’t complain,” said several women in unison. Sheetal helps them access the internet by using their local language and, if they are illiterate, through voice searches on Google or through videos. She has taught them that there is much on the internet that can help them, such as finding crop prices. “We’re harvesting onions at the moment and we won’t sell to the middleman until we’ve checked online the price being offered at the wholesale market,” says villager Rehana Bano. Another woman said she downloads sample exam papers for her children. “Through this training, we are creating a base for large numbers of rural women to use their new knowledge to earn an income. We are going to add curated content to help them earn a livelihood from their skills,” said Prabhat Pani, project director at Tata Trusts. In the neighbouring village of Ghatgaon, where women are better educated and men feel less threatened by the training, internet saathi Mamta Jatav, 28, has a slightly easier time. Some families have smartphones. The women have learned to search online for information about government benefits, crop prices, health tips, recipes, agricultural techniques, cattle deworming and how to keep animals healthy. “My husband and I were about to buy a foreign breed of cow because everyone said it would give more milk than an Indian one. I did a search and found that feeding the foreign breed will be far too expensive. I’m glad we didn’t waste our money,” says Laxmi Sharma. She has ordered a smartphone online that will be delivered to a relative in Alwar, who will bring it on his next visit. An older woman called Garibi says she learned of government subsidised food schemes that will be useful to her family. Another woman, a widow, says she realised she was entitled to a pension. “Once they understand the power and value of the internet, they start saying they can’t do without it. Our hope is to see material change, including a change in men’s attitudes, when they see that families benefit when women learn internet skills,” says Chadha. Jatav is still filled with a sense of wonder at her new role. “I never thought I would ever hold a smartphone in my hands,” she says. But is it useful? “Yes it is. When I had to go to a hospital in Jaipur, I looked up which train to catch, where it stopped, and where exactly the hospital was located. It made the long journey much easier. In fact, it makes life easier.”
Central Intelligence review – suprisingly successful goofy comedy Action star and former wrestler Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart: it’s a pairing which, on paper, doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Their acting styles – Hart’s jittery, syncopated, rapid-fire delivery versus Johnson’s laid-back physicality – are so starkly contrasting that it’s almost like watching two musicians simultaneously playing completely different pieces. And yet in this goofy comedy the casting harmonises perfectly, and a decent but patchy screenplay becomes one of the funnier films of the summer. Johnson plays Bob, once a bullied, overweight geek, now a physically imposing CIA agent. Hart is Calvin, the high-school golden boy who is now a mid-level accountant. Calvin was one of the few students to show kindness to Bob, and Bob clings to this. Now, days before their high-school reunion, they reconnect through Facebook. And Calvin finds himself roped into international espionage with a man who may or may not be a deluded sociopath. It’s a plot that doesn’t hold up under scrutiny, particularly in the scattershot climax, but the gag rate is so high that this doesn’t matter as much as it should. The main revelation here is Johnson, who pulls off a tricky characterisation that juxtaposes Molly Ringwald fandom and a penchant for unicorns with the ability to rip out a man’s throat with his bare hands.
Depression and asthma among biggest health threats to Australian youth: report Chronic and non-communicable diseases like depression, asthma and musculoskeletal pain are the prevailing causes of poor health among Australian adolescents, a global study on illness and death among 10 to 24-year-olds has found. Published in the international medical journal The Lancet, the report found two-thirds of young people are growing up in countries where preventable and treatable conditions such as HIV/Aids, early pregnancy and violence threaten their health and chances of living to adulthood. But in Australia, chronic and non-communicable diseases were responsible for 80% of the poor health experienced by young people aged 10-24, a researcher for the study, Dr Peter Azzopardi, said. “Australia is a wealthy country,” said Azzopardi, who is a researcher with the Murdoch Children’s Institute. “We have a reasonably well-funded health system but, having said that, our adolescents, which represent 20% of our population, are experiencing a significant burden of poor health.” Road injuries followed by self-harm were the leading causes of death for 15 to 19 year-olds, the report found, while in 20 to 24-year-old men, self-harm was the most common cause of death. In 20 to 24-year-old women, road injuries followed by self-harm were the leading causes of death. “But when it comes to ongoing illnesses, it was predominately poor mental health, asthma, dermatological conditions and musculoskeletal issues that is affecting the health of our young people,” Azzopardi said. “In terms of the risk factors leading to poor health, 10% of 10 to 24-year-olds are current daily smokers, which has reduced over time, but a health behaviour which hasn’t improved is overweight and obesity, with about 30% of young people now overweight or obese.” Globally, the fastest-growing risk factor for ill health in 10 to 24-year-olds over the past 23 years is unsafe sex, while in 20 to 24-year-olds alcohol is responsible for 7% of the burden of disease. The authors of the report, which was led by the University of Melbourne, University College London, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and Columbia University, described their findings as a wake-up call to governments to invest in youth health services. “This generation of young people can transform all our futures,” said Prof George Patton, from the University Melbourne, the lead author of the study. “This means it will be crucial to invest in their health, education, livelihoods and participation.” The report found depression resulted in the largest amount of ill-health worldwide in 2013, affecting more than 10% of 10-24 year olds. Leading youth psychiatrist and executive director of the youth mental health research organisation Orygen, Prof Patrick McGorry, said in Australia mental illness contributed to about 50% of the poor health experienced by young people. He said The Lancet findings should prompt the federal government to reverse funding cuts to the Early Psychosis Youth Services program run through six treatment centres across the country, an early intervention program McGorry founded which works with young people who have just suffered their first psychotic episode or who are at high risk of experiencing one. As part of the government’s review of mental health programs and services, funding for the Early Psychosis Youth Services will be cut by 75% from June and be redirected towards primary health networks. “We wholeheartedly agree with the government that there is a pressing need for other serious mental disorders in young people to also be invested in,” McGorry said. “However we spent 25 years building up an international evidence base with our colleagues overseas for this service.” More money needed to be allocated to youth mental health overall, he said. “We can’t spread existing funding across Australia like a tiny little layer of jam,” he said.
Europe can’t rescue Britain. It’s too busy trying to save itself In any crisis, one key difficulty is to assess the full picture, and not just fragments of it. As events accelerate in the aftermath of the British vote to leave the EU, there is a risk that too much focus on domestic politics, breathtaking as it now is, will blind people to the wider European dimension of what is at play. The picture is stark: unless Britain decides to ignore or reverse its referendum, Brexit will truly happen, and that means one country’s departure from the EU club. Imagining that Britain’s European partners will produce concessions to facilitate a U-turn is wishful thinking – the EU is too weak and too rattled by populist forces to be able to make that kind of manoeuvre without setting itself on a course to self-destruction. The EU will prefer to ensure its own survival as a project rather than risk suicide by handing Britain unprecedented exemptions from its founding principles, such as freedom of movement. In the week following the referendum that shook Europe and pushed a country to the edge of chaos, many hoped, many even stated with confidence, that Brexit could somehow be averted. The notion that the leave vote could be fudged or reversed gained ground. Echoing Jean Giraudoux’s play The Trojan War Will Not Take Place, many started thinking, “Brexit will not take place”. Britain’s political scene has now become so volatile that any prediction is difficult. But if you look at the wider state of European affairs, and not just one nation’s internal struggle with itself, there are more reasons to believe Brexit will indeed take place than there are to think it won’t. The logic of those who believe Brexit is a slogan rather than a reality has rested on two observations: first, there has been the reminder that in the past other EU countries held referendums whose outcomes were later corrected; second, there is the belief that because EU partners are supposedly so desperate to keep Britain in the club, they will come around and start preparing a new offer, especially on the immigration issue, which would make a British reversal much less difficult than it is now. First, about previous referendum reruns. In 1992 Denmark rejected the Maastricht treaty with a 50.7% majority. That set its European partners scrambling for a solution: opt-outs were granted on economic and monetary issues, on common defence and security policy, on home and justice affairs, and on the question of European citizenship. The following year, after that package had been presented, another referendum was held, with this time a 56.7% yes answer. In 2001, Irish voters said no to the treaty of Nice (by 54%). EU statements were then made that Ireland needn’t join a common defence policy and could refrain from other enhanced cooperation. In 2002, a new Irish vote produced a 63% majority in favour. In 2008, again Ireland rejected (by 53%) a new European text, the Lisbon treaty. A special document called “the Irish guarantees” was then produced, allowing for a rerun of the Irish referendum in 2009, with this time 67% of the electorate approving. But what was possible then is not necessarily possible now. One essential difference is that these previous referendums were not about national membership of the EU, but about plans to strengthen integration. They were about adding layers to the project – not subtracting a key member state from it. Nor was the Europe of 1993 or of 2008 facing the threat of destructive forces, both internal and external. This points to the second reason why Brexit is really looming. In recent years Europe’s institutions have been shaken by the refugee crisis, its security challenged by jihadi terrorism and wars on its eastern and southern flanks, and its democratic values shaken by populist movements – many of which seek the dismantling of the whole EU project. The Brexit vote has galvanised many of these forces. Angela Merkel and François Hollande, the leaders of Europe’s two largest and founding nations, cannot afford to give Britain opt-outs on freedom of movement without their own domestic scenarios being upended. Immigration is a theme that has been manipulated to such levels that any signal granting Britain exemptions would trigger a political unravelling. Remember that France and Germany face key elections next year. The rise of destructive populism in Europe is the backdrop to the messages that EU leaders have sent out to Britain this week. European partners have made clear there will be no “a la carte” proposal for the UK. Yes, Britain had a unique status in the club, but adding to its opt-outs is not on the table. A renegotiation with Britain has already been attempted, and the resulting agreement secured by David Cameron in February went as far as EU leaders could manage. To hope that more concessions might now be produced is to ignore the prevailing European political realities. It’s true that no European government wanted Brexit, nor ever wished it would materialise. But there is a difference between not wanting something to happen and being able to prevent it. Freedom of movement is a structural pillar of Europe. Weakening it to any greater extent than was offered to Britain earlier this year (to no effect) would trigger a time-bomb from which the European project would not recover. European partners are ready to give Britain some time to find a way out of its referendum result if that is possible. But it is foolhardy to think the rest of Europe will save Britain from the quagmire into which it has sunk through its own actions. It simply has too much on its plate; preoccupied with the survival of a 60-year-old project. It will not preserve British membership at any cost. This article was corrected on 2 July 2016. An earlier version mixed up the dates of Irish referendums on EU treaties. The second Irish referendum on the treaty of Nice was held in 2002, not 2009. The second Irish referendum on the Lisbon treaty was held in 2009, not 2002.
REM on Out of Time at 25: ‘Being the voice of a generation is not a pretty place to be’ Michael Stipe stops in mid-sentence. Something is bothering him. “I’m gonna fix your collar,” he says. “It’s gonna drive me crazy. I wouldn’t think of anything but your collar for the rest of my life.” He stands up, walks around the table from his side to mine, and – as every fibre of my being screams, “Do not touch me. I am British. I am repressed. I do not like complete strangers invading my space” – he stands behind me and carefully rearranges my collar until it is to his satisfaction. There’s a certain irony. It’s me invading Stipe’s space, for one thing. The former REM singer is, as he puts it, “insanely shy” – he eschews eye contact for much of our conversation, and much of his face is now hidden behind a beard of ZZ Top proportions – and interviews in the latter years of REM often portrayed an antsy man, niggling with his interlocutors, ill at ease with something. He’s here today on a hot October afternoon, back at REM HQ in Athens, Georgia, to talk about the 25th anniversary of the album Out of Time, the one with Losing My Religion on, the one that sold 18m copies and made them famous around the world. And he seems a lot happier than he did in those final REM interviews before they disbanded in 2011. In fact, he’s a delight. When REM split, he says, he wondered: “‘Well, who am I now?’ But it didn’t knock me over. I thought it would. But I was like, ‘Wow! Now I can read a book! I can listen to other music! I can create a new voice for myself!’ And that’s what I’ve spent the last five years doing. Five years and a few weeks. I love the post-REM me. I actually do. And that’s not a therapist talking. I just like where I’m at. It feels really good.” The previous evening in the one Athens restaurant that serves until midnight – having polished off a plate of three different kinds of oysters and a bowl of clam chowder, washed down with three glasses of chenin blanc – bassist Mike Mills seemed equally at ease. It had been the Ryder Cup the previous weekend and he had been watching it – “Davis Love is a great friend of mine” – and you rather get the impression that REM’s principal function was to enable Mills to fulfil a lifelong dream of watching professional sport wherever and whenever he likes. Does he miss REM? “Not really. I went to a U2 show earlier this year. For the first two or three songs, I was thinking, ‘I could be doing this.’ And then … ‘BUT I’M NOT! IT’S GREAT! Let those boys carry on. I’m perfectly happy to be a spectator!’” It’s easy to forget quite how good REM were. They weren’t always good – Stipe reckons they put out “several great records – and a couple of stinkers” – but whatever way you cut it, they were perhaps the most wonderful American band of the 80s and 90s, the founding fathers of what became known as “alt-rock”. Their first album, Murmur, was perfect, a misty and mysterious reverie. They followed that with one miraculously good record after another, and while people might disagree on where things started slipping, one could make a case for every album up to and including their 10th, New Adventures in Hi-Fi, being a classic, and for much of their later work being unduly neglected. Peter Buck, the guitarist who was the onstage rock’n’roller to Stipe’s eccentric performance artist, knew from the minute they formed in 1980 – drummer Bill Berry making up the quartet – they had something remarkable in their chemistry. “Michael and I had been writing songs, and Mike and Bill had played together in high school,” he says down the phone – he didn’t make it back to Athens. “And we met and rehearsed, and at the end of the rehearsal we had six songs we’d written. A couple of people came in, and one of them said: ‘How long have you guys been playing together?’ I said: ‘About three-and-a-half-hours.’ I’m not saying we were great, but we had something, and it was the interplay of our ideas.” If you look at it coldly, in fact, it is something of a miracle that REM could even exist – four young men, who happened to be in the same place at the same time, with a gift for combining perfectly: not just in the obvious ways, but also in how Mills’s gift for counterharmony complemented Stipe (listen to the chorus of It’s the End of the World As We Know It), how Berry added yet more depth with his own harmonies, how Buck had a gift for guitar lines that sounded both timely and timeless. “A very good band does hold true to the axiom: the whole is greater than the sum of the parts,” Mills says. “The fact that we all met each other and formed a band is the mindblowing thing. It had to be these people, in that time, in that space, to make this happen.” In another era, Stipe wouldn’t have been a rock singer. Were he young now, he might have become a video artist, or a photographer, or some nonspecific creative type. But when rock’n’roll hit him in 1975, that was the obvious path for an unusual kid with an urge to make art: “That’s when I thought: ‘This is what I’m gonna do.’” And even then, where many songwriters write because they have a burning urge to share something with the world, Stipe wrote songs for a less driven reason: “I needed 12 songs for an album. And the guys would push me very hard. And I was the slowest. And I’ll always be the slowest.” You can hear that in Stipe’s writing. Some REM lyrics are terrific. Some are really not very good. But what they had in their favour was Stipe’s unique, oaky voice, one that could imbue pretty much any set of words with emotional force and deep resonance. Take Everybody Hurts, a worldwide hit single so potentially platitudinous that it has become an X Factor staple: Stipe makes it sound like the most comforting and profound lyric in pop history. Out of Time, Stipe thinks, is where he started to write well. “I had a pretty clear idea of what I was good at and how I could manifest that, but also the power of the word.” He realised that “a shitty nonsensical lyric” could work in one song, but equally that he could deliver words that “actually fucking resonated on a very deep level. And so Country Feedback resonated on a very deep level. I knew that instantly. It wrote itself. I began to realise around Document [in 1987] that I had skill and I honed it. In time it went from skill to art and my job was to forget everything and allow the instinct to take over, and that’s when the great songs came. Losing My Religion was instinct, Country Feedback was instinct, Me in Honey …” At the time, Stipe said Out of Time was their first set of love songs. Not any more. “I think I just said that. I needed a line. But they’re not love songs, are they?” It appears to gall him, still, that a lot of people remember Out of Time not for the great songs, but for the sugar-sweet bubblegum pastiche Shiny Happy People (“I’ve made my excuses over and over again and I’ll go to The Hague with my excuses for that song”), but it’s him who brings it up, not me. And then he tries to rationalise it with an anecdote that involves James Franco making a TV series “about identical twins and the high jinks that happen”, which reminded him of an Elvis Presley film about identical twins and, yes, their high jinks, about getting the name of that film wrong, but how the soundtrack to that film – Kissin’ Cousins – was the first album he bought because he loved the title track. “It’s still a really good song. Anyway, that was Shiny Happy People.” I try my best to look like I have some idea what he’s talking about. “I have great stories, but I’m a terrible storyteller,” he says, accurately. Out of Time was released just as the first Gulf war got underway. It’s coming out again at another troubled point in American life. It’s a coincidence, but an odd one. “We still have a Gulf war going on,” Buck observes. “I’m just so disgusted.” Mills observes of Donald Trump that “he was bad enough as a private citizen, but he’s much worse as a politician”. Stipe is most damning. “Donald Trump shouldn’t have made it through the third week of the Republican clown car of candidates,” he says. “The media jumped on him because he’s a great reality TV star and we’re watching the greatest reality TV show of all time unfold in real time through the American presidential election.” That morning, Stipe says, his French boyfriend had told him how France needs to update the Fifth Republic. “America has never updated,” he notes. “We’re still working like the Bible or the Qur’an, we’re working off a set of rules from another era. We need to really seriously look at who we are and where we are and bring things up to speed.” Or, as he sang on Cuyahoga 31 years ago: “Let’s put our heads together / Start a new country up.” REM’s politics was something that defined them at the height of their fame. At the 1991 MTV video music awards, where the band won six awards, Stipe used the group’s appearances to strip off his T-shirts, revealing a series of slogans – “Wear a condom”, “Choice”, “Alternative energy now”, “The right to vote”, “Handgun control”, “Love knows no colours”, “Rainforest”. That was just the tip of the iceberg: Stipe, especially, always seemed to be talking up his favoured causes; it was something he felt was both a duty and a privilege, but it created pressures. “The hardest part was being put in the position of being ‘the voice of a generation’,” he says. “It’s not a pretty place to be. It’s not easy. I tried. I did try to use the platform of being a public figure. But you find yourself sitting at a table, with someone saying: ‘Describe to me the problems of global warming from a sub-Saharan perspective.’ I’m a pop star. That’s not what I went to school for.” When the group began, Buck had insisted on a series of guidelines – moral, ethical, personal, financial, aesthetic – that would steer them throughout their career. Some were fairly trivial – no leather onstage, so they didn’t look like every other rock band. Some were crucial – sharing all songwriting credits equally, regardless of who wrote the song, so there would be no arguments about money down the line. Some of those guidelines are still in use – Buck tells me that earlier in the day we speak the group had turned down a multi-million-dollar offer to have their music soundtrack an advertising campaign (“I don’t want my children to see me being a whore”). And it’s still the case that any one of the members can veto any decision related to REM, as was the case throughout their career. So who used the veto most often? “I think Michael might have done it more, but as the face of the band, things affected him more than us,” Mills says. I put that to Stipe. “Ooooh!” His lips form a little moue, and he raps the table twice. “We had a run-in last week, me and Mike Mills,” he says, and he laughs. “And I gave in to his desires. I don’t know if that’s the case. If he says it is, then he doesn’t say things like that without a reason.” “Off the top of my head, I’d say Michael,” Buck says. “But it might be me.” I tell Buck that Stipe had seemed surprised when I said Mills had nominated him. “He shouldn’t be. I would be fairly comfortable saying he and I would be pretty close to tied. I can rant for 10 minutes about why something is morally, ethically, culturally wrong. And Michael might just say: ‘I don’t wanna do that.’” The different members of REM took to their superstardom after Out of Time in different ways. Mills sounds as if he was utterly untroubled by it: “Nothing felt like it came on too fast, nothing felt like it was more than we could handle.” (“Of course he would,” Stipe says. “That’s his personality.”) Buck professes to having thought “it was all kind of bullshit. We just made a record – big deal. When we went around to do the next record, Automatic for the People, I just disappeared off the face of the earth. Grew a big beard and drove round in my car and flopped in motels for a year. So I never really had to confront the overwhelming nature of it until 1995 [when REM toured after six years off the road], which was mindblowing for all of us.” Stipe, though, was the frontman, the one who had to stand in the headwind. “The face. Mike Mills called me Face. I was the recognisable one to the world at large.” He relied on the other three to stop becoming, in his words, a monster. “If I believed everything that was said about me and all the adulation, anyone in that position would [become one],” he says. And yet Stipe’s insecurities plagued him. If a show wasn’t sold out, he was horrified. “If I was going to put that much effort into it, and I did, I wanted to know that I had a rapt and captive audience. I would always, always look around and find the one person who was yawning or looking at their watch. You have to believe that what you’re doing is so important that everybody is going to be absolutely and completely captivated and in the moment with you. And when you see that one person putting on their lipstick or checking their watch or talking to their girlfriend … wow.” He got increasingly fed up, too, with the portrayals of his public persona. He became bored with who he seemed to be, what he was saying. He wearied of being called “enigmatic” by people trying to boil down his sometimes contrary, sometimes diffident personality into a single word. Recalling that causes him to reflect on his father, who shared similar traits. “His humour was really dry, and really smart,” he says. “He reacted to things that he saw, and he reacted to them in a way that was hysterically funny. Most people didn’t understand that. Or would take a day or two before going, ‘Oh my God, that was really astute and hysterical.’ I got a little bit of that. So the enigmatic thing I understand. But it became hideously close and I became really bored with myself, and I didn’t think I had anything new to say. I’d played that character. I didn’t think I could do it again.” Perhaps the one most affected was Bill Berry. He left the group in 1997, explaining simply that he wasn’t enjoying it any longer. They continued without him for 14 years, in which it sometimes seemed they stumbled more than skipped. “The three-legged dog went through the meat grinder and ended up in … where’s the place they grind up the bones and turn them into glue? The rendering factory,” Stipe says. You might expect Mills, Berry’s high-school friend, to have been the one who missed the drummer’s presence most. He says not. “I think it was harder on Peter, because Bill was the balance. Bill and Peter wanted more concision in the songs. Michael and I tended to elaborate and add more things.” “The power dynamic shift that occurred between the three of us was so profound as to literally break up the band and put it back together and break it up and put it back together,” Stipe says. “No one really wanted to listen to me,” says Buck. “Which was fine. But no one really had a lot of set goals in mind either. Bill was a no-bullshit guy, and with him gone, it feels to me in retrospect that I was more aggressive than I should have been and everyone was pushing back not to have me bully them. We were all pushing in such different directions, and we were feeling such frustration and anger about it. I started backing away from the whole thing: I had to be talked out of the tree a couple of times, when I said: ‘I don’t want to do this any more.’ After the 2005 tour, I was totally fed up and we just didn’t talk for, I don’t know, a year.” Stipe remembers things being just as bad seven years earlier, when they made Up, their first album without Berry. “We made choices that were not great choices, because we simply weren’t talking. That record really needed an editor, but we could not only not arrive at a decision, we couldn’t be in the same room together. It was bad.” All three agree – they would, wouldn’t they? – that REM were back on track by the time they called it a day in 2011. Their final two albums, Accelerate and Collapse Into Now, seemed more in touch with what had made REM great in the first place than some of their immediate predecessors, and the three were able to part once again reconnected with what Buck describes as “a deep and abiding friendship. It was nice to have nothing but the music and our friendship tying us together, as opposed to the music, the friendship, the contracts, the upcoming tour, the 300 employees we’re hiring – all the other things that tend to get in the way of interpersonal relationships.” REM gave Stipe something that nothing else ever has: adrenalin. “It’s a very powerful drug,” he say. “And you have to wean yourself off it carefully. I still miss it. But, hopefully, you find other things to get excited about.” Buck, for his part, longs for particular eras of the group’s lifespan. “I miss being in REM in 1983 and 1987. Which is to say, I miss being young and in the centre of my culture.” What REM have left is a legacy, of both music and of how a band should comport itself, one you see replicated whenever a band with principles crosses over to a mass audience: Radiohead, for example, might consider how much they owe to REM. “We did a remarkable job of maintaining integrity throughout a very difficult period and in a difficult industry,” Stipe says. “We forged a new path. We created a new way for people to look and approach this and not become an empty puppet or a dog and pony show.” He pauses. “What’s the other part I’m proud of?” The records? Stipe looks up and laughs. “Yeah!” The 25th anniversary deluxe edition of Out of Time is released on Universal on 18 November. Michael Hann’s trip to Georgia was paid for by Universal.
Miriam Harrison obituary My mother, Miriam Harrison, who has died aged 89, was a pioneer in the unfashionable field of geriatrics. In her book Growing Old in Common Lodgings (1954), she interviewed older men in reduced circumstances, determining how they had fallen through the net. It concluded that, despite the foundation of the welfare state, many of these men, a neglected group in society, remained unaware of their new entitlements. It also celebrated what Miriam called the “whimsical quality of dignified independence” among some of the “most loquacious old reprobates”. She was born in Belfast to Fred and Ethel Sargaison. Fred survived the battle of the Somme to work in the Ministry of Agriculture, setting up a free milk scheme for mothers and babies. Ethel (nee Connolly), known as Gaggie, was a volunteer for Missions to Seamen, who could recall Queen Victoria’s visit to Dublin in 1900, when she was four. Educated at Strathearn school and Victoria College in Belfast, Miriam studied social science at Trinity College, Dublin, before training as a hospital almoner at St Mary’s, Paddington, London. From 1949 to 1955 she worked at Belfast City hospital under Professor George Adams, developing many of the principles that underpin care of the elderly today, such as a closer multi-agency approach to supporting older people living independently, combating loneliness and reducing the number of healthy older people in hospitals because there is nowhere else for them to go. In 1953 she won a UN travel scholarship, spending several months in Paris studying the French approach to managing old age. She returned in awe of Gallic spending levels. In 1954, at a dance, she met Edwin Harrison, who had worked as a reporter on the Belfast Telegraph before moving to London to become a BBC radio news editor. Edwin was later to run the BBC’s journalist training scheme, which produced, among others, the current director general, Tony Hall, and Jeremy Paxman, Kate Adie and Nicholas Witchell. After their wedding in 1955, the couple moved to Kingston upon Thames, then in Surrey, to a house in which she lived until her death. After my sisters, Claire and Lucy, and I reached school age, she returned to work, as the medical social worker in geriatrics at Barnes hospital, where she stayed for 25 years. On retirement she became residents’ advocate for Richmond Churches Housing Trust, touring residential and care homes and feeding back comments to managers. After her second retirement, aged 79, she ran the Evergreens senior citizens’ group in Kingston. A phenomenal baker (chocolate cakes a speciality), she was a steward at the National Trust’s Ham House in Richmond upon Thames, and was an expert embroiderer. Edwin died in 2001. Miriam is survived by her children.
VP debate pits Kaine and Pence against Trump's own words – campaign live Donald Trump was put on trial in his absence during the vice-presidential debate as his running mate Mike Pence was accused of trying to defend the indefensible. But Democrat Tim Kaine, embracing his role as Hillary Clinton’s attack dog, interrupted so aggressively that many analysts felt he lost the debate on style to the calm, composed and measured Republican Indiana governor. In a focus group conducted by strategist Frank Luntz for CBS News in the swing state of Ohio, 22 people said that Pence won and only four said Virginia senator Kaine prevailed. When Luntz ran a similar group during last week’s presidential debate, Clinton beat Trump 16-6. But Pence didn’t win with everyone: Using #ThatMexicanThing, the Latino community flipped the script on a comment made by the Indiana governor during Tuesday’s vice-presidential debate. “Senator, you whipped out that Mexican thing again,” Pence responded to Virginia senator Tim Kaine at one point. Kaine brought up Donald Trump’s controversial past statements many times during the debate, including when the Republican nominee said that Mexico was sending criminals and rapists across the border in a June 2015 speech. He continually asked Indiana governor Mike Pence to defend his running mate’s remarks. Donald Trump took credit for his running mate’s performance in the vice-presidential debate during a rally in Nevada, claiming Mike Pence’s success proved Trump has good taste in people. “Mike Pence did an incredible job and I’m getting a lot of credit, because that’s really my first so-called choice, that’s really my first hire, and I tell you, he’s a good one,” said Trump at a rally on Wednesday in Henderson, Nevada. “He was phenomenal – he was cool, he was smart – he was meant to be doing what he’s doing, and we are very very proud of Governor Mike Pence. Thank you, Mike Pence.” On Sunday, a 200-person flashmob appeared in New York City’s Union Square. Wearing brightly coloured suits and T-shirts with slogans like The Future is Female, they performed a carefully choreographed, five-minute tribute to Hillary Clinton, as Justin Timberlake’s Can’t Stop the Feeling played over loudspeaker. The “pantsuit power” flashmob and its resulting video, which was released on Tuesday, was orchestrated by film-makers and real-life partners Celia Rowlson-Hall and Mia Lidofsky in an attempt to “dance Hillary Clinton into the White House”. Over the course of nine days, the couple, who are based in Brooklyn, pulled together volunteers from all over North America, organizing a 10-camera shoot on a micro-budget and sourcing hundreds of suits from thrift stores all over New York. In an advertisement directed by Hollywood director Lee Daniels, actors Taraji P. Henson, Bryshere Gray, Trai Byers, Jussie Smollett, Tasha Smith, Gabourey Sidibe and Grace Byers encourage their fans to vote for the Democratic presidential nominee in November. The Trump campaign has released a statement criticizing the White House for the impending enaction of the Paris Agreement intended to address climate change, calling the accord - which President Barack Obama today called “the best possible shot to save the one planet we’ve got” - a “bad deal” that will cost the American economy trillions of dollars. “It will also impose enormous costs on American households through higher electricity prices and higher taxes,” wrote deputy policy director Dan Kowalski. “As our nation considers these issues, Mr. Trump and Gov. Pence appreciate that many scientists are concerned about greenhouse gas emissions. We need America’s scientists to continue studying the scientific issues but without political agendas getting in the way. We also need to be vigilant to defend the interests of the American people in any efforts taken on this front.” Thirty-four more days. The White House has accused Israel of a betrayal of trust, in an unusually sharp rebuke over its plans to build hundreds of new settlement homes deep in the West Bank. Days after Obama approved a $38bn Israeli military aid package and attended former president Shimon Peres’s funeral in Jerusalem, the White House railed at the construction of 300 housing units on land “far closer to Jordan than Israel”. Warning that the decision jeopardizes the already distant prospect of Middle East peace as well as Israel’s own security, press secretary Josh Earnest said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s word had been called into question. “We did receive public assurances from the Israeli government that contradict this announcement,” he said. “I guess when we’re talking about how good friends treat one another, that’s a source of serious concern as well.” The sharper-than-normal comments come as the White House weighs a last-ditch effort to get the peace process back on its feet before Obama leaves office in January. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, speaking at a campaign rally in Reno, Nevada, told an audience of supporters that when in the state, one must correctly pronounce the state’s name, Unfortunately, he insisted on using the incorrect pronunciation. While discussing meth overdoses in Nevada, Trump segued into a spiel on the correct pronunciation of the state’s name, using a long A instead of a short A, which is not the preferred pronunciation. “Meth overdoses in Nevada - Ne-VAH-da - and you know what I said? You know what I said? I said when I came out here, I said, ‘nobody says it the other way, it has to be Ne-VAH-da, right?” The audience protested, but Trump apparently did not hear them. “And if you don’t say it correctly - and it didn’t happen to me, but it happened to a friend of mine, he was killed.” Watch it here live: We’re not saying that The Simpsons predicted Donald Trump’s candidacy, but we’re not not saying it. Donald Trump’s eldest son may be interested in running the largest city in the United States, but the city’s residents feel very differently about the matter, according to a new poll. According to a survey conducted by the Wall Street Journal, 80% of registered New York City voters don’t want Donald Trump Jr. run for mayor, and 81% said they felt the same way about sister Ivanka Trump. New York, an overwhelmingly Democratic city that nevertheless has elected Republicans to serve as two of its past three mayors. In July, Donald Trump Jr. declared that he would “love to” run for mayor. “I never like to rule anything out,” he said, in response to a question about whether he would run against Bill De Blasio, a leading progressive voice and ally of Hillary Clinton, whom he served as campaign manager when she was elected to the US Senate in New York in 2000. “We always like to keep our options open, so if I could do that as a service to my country, I would love to do that.” Donald Trump, never a huge fan of the first amendment of the US constitution, threatened during a campaign rally in Henderson, Nevada, this afternoon to sue political groups running “nasty” advertisements against him. “I saw today... a commercial where, it was really a nasty commercial, totally made up, about me with vets,” Trump said. “There is nobody that loves the vets more or respects the vets more. They’re spending hundreds of millions of dollars on false commercials, and it’s a disgrace. So what we’ll do, I guess we’ll sue them. Let’s sue them.” Trump may have been referring to a campaign advertisement run by Hillary Clinton’s team called Sacrifice, which juxtaposes statements he has made about the military with video of veterans watching those statements: Which part of the commercial could be “totally made up” is unclear, since most of the statements are verbatim recordings of Trump’s own statements, but we’ve reached out to the Trump campaign to clarify. Overheard when Donald Trump walks into a first-grade classroom: “See! I told you his hair wasn’t orange!” Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, whose interest in “disgusting” sex tapes has been well documented, was revealed by Buzzfeed News last week to have appeared in a softcore same-sex Playboy video last week. Now, CNN reports that Trump’s appearances in the ladmag’s properties extended to actually photographing models and conducting interviews with would-be Playboy Playmates. In the 1994 video, titled Playboy Centerfold, Trump helps the magazine search for its “40th Anniversary Playmate,” a daunting task that required the real-estate tycoon to ask young (clothed, we should mention) models what makes them the right woman for the job. “I believe that it’s not just beauty, I think it’s an attitude,” a model answers in response. “I think it has a lot to do with personality and an attitude. I think Playboy really represents that, and I believe that I have that, and I have what it takes to represent them.” “Well, I think you have what it takes too,” Trump responds. “And I think everyone in this room thinks you have what it takes also.” Last Friday, Trump was accused by the Clinton campaign of “unhinged” behavior toward former Miss Universe winner Alicia Machado after a late-night Twitter rampage in which he alluded to unproven accusations that Machado appeared in a sex tape, which he encouraged American voters to “check out.” Eighty-two days later: Following the example of other media organizations that have broken historical precedent by endorsing Hillary Clinton, the Atlantic has endorsed the Democratic presidential candidate, only its third presidential endorsement in the magazine’s 159-year history. “We are impressed by many of the qualities of the Democratic Party’s nominee for president,” the editorial reads, “even as we are exasperated by others, but we are mainly concerned with the Republican Party’s nominee, Donald J. Trump, who might be the most ostentatiously unqualified major-party candidate in the 227-year history of the American presidency.” Clinton - the third recipient of the Atlantic’s endorsement after Abraham Lincoln and Lyndon Johnson - “has flaws (some legitimately troubling, some exaggerated by her opponents), but she is among the most prepared candidates ever to seek the presidency.” Trump, on the other hand, “has no record of public service and no qualifications for public office.” “His affect is that of an infomercial huckster,” the editorial seethes. “He traffics in conspiracy theories and racist invective; he is appallingly sexist; he is erratic, secretive, and xenophobic; he expresses admiration for authoritarian rulers, and evinces authoritarian tendencies himself. He is easily goaded, a poor quality for someone seeking control of America’s nuclear arsenal. He is an enemy of fact-based discourse; he is ignorant of, and indifferent to, the Constitution; he appears not to read.” In the Atlantic’s mind, Trump disqualified himself for the presidency five years before he ever considered running for office, in his tight embrace of the so-called “birther” conspiracy that (baselessly) alleged that President Barack Obama was not born in the United States and was therefore constitutionally ineligible to serve as president: Trump made himself the face of the so-called birther movement, which had as its immediate goal the demonization of the country’s first African American president. Trump’s larger goal, it seemed, was to stoke fear among white Americans of dark-skinned foreigners. He succeeded wildly in this; the fear he has aroused has brought him one step away from the presidency. Trump, the editorial concludes, “is not a man of ideas,” but “a demagogue, a xenophobe, a sexist, a know-nothing, and a liar. He is spectacularly unfit for office, and voters - the statesmen and thinkers of the ballot box - should act in defense of American democracy and elect his opponent.” Back to Henderson, Nevada: On the subject of Russian president Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump tells the crowd in Henderson that despite Virginia senator and Democratic running mate Tim Kaine’s allegations last night - and his own fawning comments about the Russian strongman - he doesn’t “love” Putin. “I don’t love, I don’t hate,” Trump says. “We’ll see how it works - we’ll see. Maybe we’ll have a good relationship, maybe we’ll have a horrible relationship, maybe it’ll be right in the middle.” As long as Russia does the heavy lifting of defeating Isis in Syria, Trump continues, “that’s OK with me, folks - that’s OK with me.” Hello from outside Hillary Clinton’s beautiful three-story Whitehaven mansion! While Clinton prepares for Sunday night’s town hall debate, the small group of reporters, cameramen and photographers assigned to follow her for the day are clapping at mosquitos and waiting for lunch. (A Bloomberg reporter has been dispatched to CVS to buy bug spray and anti-itch cream. At least an hour prior, a campaign staffer was sent to fetch lunch.) The day is shaping up to relatively quiet for the Clinton campaign. It began with a later-than-planned departure from White Plains. Clinton, wearing an emerald green coat with her hair pulled into a ponytail, boarded the plane as reported shouted questions at her about last night’s vice presidential debate. Without pausing, Clinton flashed a double thumbs-up at the press. After arriving in Washington, Clinton entered her house to hunker down for an afternoon of debate prep before an evening of fundraisers. She placed a call to her running mate, Tim Kaine, and complimented him on his performance in last night’s debate. Three members of her debate team were escorted into her home by secret service agents followed by her campaign chairman, John Podesta. Podesta told reporters that he thought Kaine did a “really great job” in the debate. “At the end of the day, I think the impression that everyone came away with was that Mike Pence didn’t want to defend Donald Trump and as Senator Kaine said: If you can’t defend the person at the top of the ticket how can you ask people to vote for him?” Podesta said before disappearing inside. The pool will wait in vans outside Clinton’s house until we leave for her fundraisers tonight. Speaking in Henderson, Nevada, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump took credit for the success of running mate Mike Pence’s performance during last night’s sole vice presidential debate against Virginia senator Tim Kaine. “How many of you watched the vice president debate last night?” Trump asked the crowd. “Mike Pence did an incredible job and I’m getting a lot of credit, because that’s really my first so-called choice, that’s really my first hire, and I tell you, he’s a good one. He was phenomenal - he was cool, he was smart - he was meant to be doing what he’s doing, and we are very very proud of Governor Mike Pence. Thank you, Mike Pence.” “I’d argue that Mike had the single most decisive victory in the history of vice president debates, and last night Americans also got to look firsthand at my judgment - you need judgment for people, for deals,” Trump continued. “Well, Mike laid out big and bold solutions for America - his opponent only talked about small and petty distractions.” Watch it live here: The vice-presidential debate had fewer TV viewers than any veep debate since 2000, Politico reports: According to ratings data from Nielsen, the four broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox) and the big three cable news channels (CNN, Fox News and MSNBC) averaged around 36 million viewers. Those numbers do not include people watching on channels like PBS, Fox Business Network or C-SPAN, or anyone streaming the debate online. For comparison, the 2012 VP debate between Joe Biden and Paul Ryan averaged over 51 million viewers. The 2008 debate between Biden and Sarah Palin set a high watermark for viewership with 70 million, while the 2004 debate between Dick Cheney and John Edwards averaged just under 44 million viewers. The 2000 debate between Cheney and Joe Lieberman averaged 29 million viewer The 36 million figure isn’t final; updated figures will be released this afternoon. (h/t @bencjacobs) Ever heard a tenor sax on God Bless America? You have now: Former vice president and climate change Cassandra Al Gore will hit the campaign trail for Hillary Clinton this month, according to various reports including CNN and NBC. The reports quote unnamed Democrats as saying that the party hopes Gore will boost Clinton’s appeal with millennials. Well, they loved Sanders, who’s 75. Gore’s only 68. At a stop at the International Christian Academy at the International Church of Las Vegas, Donald Trump spoke to a group of 72 pastors, pledging to nominate Supreme Court justices who will rule in favor of religious liberty, according to a report by his traveling pool. Trump also had high praise for running mate Mike Pence’s debate performance, saying he, Trump, was “very proud”: Whenever anyone says, ‘Maybe we’ll sit this one out,’ you know with the Supreme Court, they never want to sit it out. And I was very proud last night of Governor Mike Pence. I watched - he won. He won on the issues. He won on – somebody said he won on style. The style doesn’t matter – the issues, the policy matters. He’s getting tremendous reviews from me and everybody. He was great — he’s been a wonderful choice, and as you know he’s a great Christian…so that’s very important to me. Done with Des Moines, Bernie Sanders motors up to Madison, Wisconsin, for another rally on behalf of Clinton. Here’s a photo. Crowd estimates? Why is that kid repeating over and over, “I’m nervous! I’m nervous. I’m nervous!” And what does the second child say at the end about “see how that touches his hair but it’s orange”? Trump is running around in Nevada today. As Bill Clinton paid a visit to a barbershop and coffee shop in Youngstown, Ohio, he was asked about his remark Monday that Obamacare is a “crazy system.” “It’s clear from what I said that there are problems with it,” Clinton told pool reporters, referring to Obama. “That’s not his fault; he tried to get the public option.” Clinton said was particularly “frustrating.. for people just a little bit above the subsidy line [who] are having insurance markets that are not working as well as they should.” “The reason I decided to start talking about this,” said Clinton, was that he had “started my own focus groups about a year ago” and all the people said they were grateful for the progress on pre-existing conditions “but as time goes on it’s obvious that adversaries of healthcare are trying to use a problem that the bill has”. “That’s what Hillary is saying: ‘we’ve got to help these small businesses” Later Clinton stopped by a coffee shop. “We got into the coffee business at the Foundation,” he told a barista. “Brazil is a big exporter of coffee and it’s very good for rebuilding the top soil.” “In fourth grade I wrote a speech about you,” responded the barista. Apparently they let Bill hop out of the bus and jog off into the exit-ramp pasture for this shot, somewhere in Ohio: These polling numbers from YouGov are by-and-large better for Clinton than the averages, although not in Pennsylvania, where averages have her up five points, and Wisconsin, where averages have her up four points. The averages have Ohio basically tied. But a new Monmouth poll out today has her a little better than that, at plus-two points. Barack Obama met with representatives of FEMA, the national guard, the department of homeland security and others to discuss what Obama described as the “devastating” hurricane that is barreling toward Florida and has already “hammered” Haiti en route to the Bahamas. Hurricane Matthew, a category four storm, has been blamed for 11 deaths already and is the most powerful storm to hit the region in almost a decade. “Everyone needs to pay attention” Obama said, according to a White House pool report. He urged citizens living in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina to listen closely to their local and state leaders and evacuate if asked. Obama said families can rebuild and repair, but “you cannot restore life it is lost.” “I want to emphasize to the public this is a serious storm,” Obama said. “We hope for the best, but we want to prepare for the worst.” Here are a couple good Trump-related features for your lunchtime reading. – Mike Freeman in The Bleacher Report on how “Donald Trump is tearing the NFL apart”: The player, who is black, emphasized that teammates’ frustration with their coach’s public endorsement was not universal. But in private discussions, he said, “Some of the African-American players on the team weren’t happy about Rex doing that.” Indeed, said another black player on the Bills who requested anonymity to speak freely about tensions swirling with a combination of protests led by Colin Kaepernick and a combustible candidate: “I see Trump as someone who is hostile to people of color, and the fact that Rex supports him made me look at him completely differently, and not in a positive way.” Ryan declined to comment, but at least one white Buffalo player—Richie Incognito, the offensive lineman notorious for a bullying scandal that included racial slurs and who has now become a force in the Bills clubhouse—insists that Trump’s winning message has resonated with NFL players like him. – Spencer Woodman in Racked on “Trump, China and the ties that bind”: If my reasoning was correct, I had just narrowed down my search for Trump’s factories from the 3.7 million square miles of the People’s Republic of China to just a handful of industrial parks in the obscure necktie capital of the world. [...] Despite the harsh working conditions and long workweeks, many of the Shengzhou workers I spoke with did not have the financial wherewithal to rent their own apartments. Several workers I interviewed instead chose to sleep in bunk bed-€”packed dormitories paid for by the companies they worked for. [...] Although the Shengzhou workers stopped short of criticizing the factories outright, they didn’t mince words when I asked them what they enjoyed about their jobs: Nothing, they said. “The best part of the job?” one repeated my question. “There is no happiness in work.” (h/t @bencjacobs) Sanders says that Trump’s “birther” blather was “a racist effort to undermine the legitimacy of the first African American president in our nation’s history.” Trump running mate Mike Pence has appeared before cameras for the first time since leaving the debate stage last night to declare that the winner in Virginia was Trump: Here’s NBC News’ Vaughn Hillyard: Bernie Sanders is onstage at Drake University in Des Moines. Here’s that live stream again: Sanders is talking about equal pay and educating the workforce. He repeatedly uses the construction, “Hillary Clinton and I believe... that is not what Donald Trump believes.” The crowd is applauding warmly. Using #ThatMexicanThing, the Latino community flipped the script on a comment made by Indiana governor Mike Pence during Tuesday’s vice-presidential debate, writes Nicole Puglise for the : “Senator, you whipped out that Mexican thing again,” Pence responded to Virginia senator Tim Kaine at one point. Kaine brought up Donald Trump’s controversial past statements many times during the debate, including when the Republican nominee said that Mexico was sending criminals and rapists across the border in a June 2015 speech. He continually asked Indiana governor Mike Pence to defend his running mate’s remarks. On Twitter, #ThatMexicanThing quickly became used to react to Pence’s statement, with users flipping the original sentiment and instead sharing their own stories of hard work and sacrifice. What does “that Mexican thing” mean to you? Please share your take with us at Witness. Read the full piece here: Clinton arrived at Washington National airport a few minutes ago, the press pool reports. Clinton will hold two fundraisers in DC this evening, with brief media access planned for one of the events. Bernie Sanders is appearing at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, today on behalf of Hillary Clinton: Here’s a live video stream: Chelsea Clinton will be in Dubuque, Iowa: Tim Kaine will be in Philadelphia while Bill Clinton is in Ohio. Senator Elizabeth Warren is holding a fundraiser for Clinton in California and the candidate herself has a fundraiser in Washington, DC. Last night, Pence accused Kaine and Clinton of conducting an “insults-driven campaign” and of cutting loose an “avalanche of insults.” Helpfully, for the entire election season, the New York Times has been indexing the incredibly long list of Clinton’s insu– oh wait. Trump said all that stuff: Sarah Palin has pointed out in a Facebook post that of the last five vice-presidential debates, only 2008 was a standing affair. And she just happened to be there, in heels: “How is it that the dudes lucked out and got chairs over the last 20 years of VP debates minus one?” Palin wrote. “Want a real test - try standing in 👠👠 for 90 mins #heelsonglovesoff” Kristin Salaky at TPM points out that the 2008 lectern arrangement was part of a negotiation between the campaigns in which Republicans sought to cap the amount of time Palin might end up having to speak on any one topic. The presidential nominees continue to tout the performances at the debate Tuesday night of their running mates. Jumping on her plane, Clinton gives Tim Kaine two thumbs up, Bloomberg reports: Trump, meanwhile, credits Mike Pence with bravely overcoming the “constant interruptions” by Kaine: Constant interruptions... that sounds familiar from somewhere... Mike Pence first rose to the national stage during a crisis that pundits said had “exploded”, “plummeted” and “crumbled” his chances of representing the GOP in the next presidential election, writes the ’s Amanda Holpuch: It was March 2015 and same-sex marriage was on the verge of becoming legal nationwide – carried by probably the swiftest change in public opinion in US history – but the Indiana governor and establishment favorite going into 2016 was standing firm. The state’s residents, big business and the rest of the country had quickly turned against Pence for signing into law a religious freedom bill that was interpreted as state-sanctioned discrimination against LGBT people and a bad faith reaction to the legalization of same-sex marriage in Indiana against the governor’s wishes. But today, as his party’s vice-presidential nominee, Pence’s name now sits just below Donald Trump’s on bumper stickers and placards stuck in front yards across the country. On this ticket, Pence is the GOP’s steady pair of hands compared with the politically inexperienced Trump, but the impact of the religious freedom battle lingers, and his decades of anti-LGBT attitudes that preceded it remain. “I have seen no growth, no change, no evidence of nuance,” said Sheila Suess Kennedy, an Indiana University professor who first met Pence as a guest on his radio show, which was broadcast from 1994 to 1999. Like Pence, Kennedy was the Republican candidate for an Indiana congressional seat, but she lost her 1980 race and has been an Indiana political insider ever since. “He is convinced that God doesn’t like gay people and that’s it.” Read the full piece here: A sharp and detailed critique of the Affordable Care Act emerged on the campaign trail Monday – but it didn’t come from the Republicans. At a rally in Flint, Michigan, Bill Clinton dropped this truth bomb: So you’ve got this crazy system where all of a sudden 25 million more people have health care and then the people who are out there busting it, sometimes 60 hours a week, wind up with their premiums doubled and their coverage cut in half. It’s the craziest thing in the world. Clinton tried to reverse that statement at a rally Tuesday in Athens, Ohio, saying: Look, the Affordable Health Care Act did a world of good, and the 50-something efforts to repeal it that the Republicans have staged were a terrible mistake. We, for the first time in our history, at least are providing insurance to more than 90% of our people. But the damage had been done, as Pence quoted Clinton during the debate, opening the way perhaps for Trump to press the case – if he focused on it. Hello, and welcome to our live-wire coverage of the 2016 race for the White House. The vice-presidential nominees debated last night, both turning in performances that thrilled their bases, although it’s not clear that Indiana governor Mike Pence thrilled his boss – “[Donald Trump] can’t stand to be upstaged,” an unnamed Trump adviser told NBC News afterward. Pence was praised for his fluid style, while Hillary Clinton’s running mate Tim Kaine won plaudits for working hard to pin Pence down on the many controversial things Trump has said. Pence’s tactic was to deny that Trump had said those things. That has opened the way for some accountability journalism. The Huffington Post has produced an instructive video mashup of Trump saying all the things Pence denied he’d said. The Clinton camp put out something similar: Politico, meanwhile, has produced coverage of “six Trump statements that Pence attempted to tweak, massage or erase all together”. Topics include tax returns, social security, insults, Russian president Vladimir Putin, nuclear weapons and abortion. Here’s a video of the debate highlights: While there was no Trump-level always-be-closing salesman onstage to give the fact-checkers a real workout, the checkers nonetheless had plenty to do. Here’s the ’s Alan Yuhas keeping them honest: What if Pence were the nominee? After the debate, Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta said that Pence had failed to defend Trump, but had come across as “smooth” and “sort of likable”. He was sunny where Trump is cloudy. Pence was in control where Trump is not. But was Pence’s performance strong enough to occasion buyer’s remorse for the Republicans? Today on the trail Clinton will be in Washington DC today for finance events, while Trump, who stayed overnight in Las Vegas, has a midday event in a suburb of Sin City and an afternoon event in Reno. Clinton has a lot of surrogates in the field today – everyone short of the president and first lady, it seems. Bill Clinton is still somewhere on a bus in Ohio; Kaine will be in Philadelphia; Bernie Sanders will campaign in Des Moines, Iowa, and in Madison and Green Bay, Wisconsin; and Chelsea Clinton will campaign in Iowa. Thanks for reading, and please join us in the comments.
Mayor Mozzer? Morrissey considers running for the London mayoralty The London mayoral race may be about to take a turn for the unusual, with the news that Morrissey has been approached to stand for mayor as the Animal Welfare party candidate. Not only that, but according to the website True to You – the outlet favoured by Morrissey as his conduit to the world – he “is considering the contest very seriously”. There is a rich but chequered history of musicians turning politician, and Morrissey might hope to have more in common with Midnight Oil frontman Peter Garrett, who became Australia’s minister for environmental protection, heritage and the arts, than with Screaming Lord Sutch, the rock’n’roll singer who became the perpetual joke candidate in British elections with his Monster Raving Loony party. Morrissey issued a statement to True to You in which he said: “There must be a governmental voice against the hellish and archaic social injustice allotted to animals in the United Kingdom simply because those animals do not speak English.” He added: “The abattoir is the modern continuation of the Nazi concentration camp, and if you are a part of the milk-drinking population, then you condone systems of torture,” and described chef Jamie Oliver as an “animal serial killer”. “Social justice for animals is not much to demand,” he concluded, “because we are only asking humans to think rationally and with heart, even if being unable to hunt foxes and shoot birds would leave the Saxe-Coburg-Gotha family with nothing else to do.” Morrissey has previously expressed strong views about London. In 2007, he told NME: “With the issue of immigration, it’s very difficult because, although I don’t have anything against people from other countries, the higher the influx into England the more the British identity disappears. “If you walk through Knightsbridge on any bland day of the week you won’t hear an English accent. You’ll hear every accent under the sun apart from the British accent.” The Animal Welfare party has confirmed it has asked Morrissey to stand. In order to appear on ballot papers, he will need to collect 330 signatures – 10 from each London borough. Below is Morrissey’s full statement: Animal welfare groups cannot persist simply in order to continue to persist. There must be a governmental voice against the hellish and archaic social injustice allotted to animals in the United Kingdom simply because those animals do not speak English, otherwise millions of very caring citizens are greatly concerned about issues that no one is able to do anything about. What animal protectionists need to say is very well worth saying and well worth hearing. But we cannot just sit around waiting for establishment enlightenment. The sanctimonious disaster of animal agriculture cannot be allowed to go on forever, because its widespread impact is hellish. Animals in dairy farms and abattoirs are very eager not to die, yet their bodies are torn apart while still alive as they are strapped beneath a blade. No outcome can justify this, and we cannot be happy with a society that allows it to happen, because such a society without compassion goes nowhere. The abattoir is the modern continuation of the Nazi concentration camp, and if you are a part of the milk-drinking population, then you condone systems of torture. There is no such thing as humane slaughter, and if you believe that there is, then why not experience it for yourself? If animal serial killer Jamie Oliver feels so passionate about including ‘kid meat’ (young goat) into the human diet, would he consider putting forth one of his own kids (children) for general consumption? If not, why not? What makes such people have absolutely no forgiveness towards animals? What hate drives them? The meat industry, after all, shows no compassion towards the planet, towards climate change, towards animals, towards human health. It is diabolically contrived and is the world’s No 1 problem. It is also the No 1 issue stifled from any political debate, which, if anything, highlights its importance. The slaughterhouse effectively means that none of us are safe. Just investigate the appalling effects of meat production on our climate, environment, fields, forests, lakes, streams, seas, air and space. Your eyes will pop. No bigger global disaster could possibly be devised. Social justice for animals is not much to demand, because we are only asking humans to think rationally and with heart, even if being unable to hunt foxes and shoot birds would leave the Saxe-Coburg-Gotha family with nothing else to do.”
Robert Redford at Sundance: diversity comes out of the word 'independence' Robert Redford is a two-time Oscar winner and founder of the Sundance film festival, which often serves as a launch pad for future award-winners. It was therefore no surprise that Redford was pressed to comment on the lack of diversity among this year’s Oscars nominees during the festival’s opening day press conference on Thursday in Utah. Redford deflected the question with the words: “I’m not into Oscars – not into that.” Later, concerned at how his remark might be interpreted by the press in attendance, Redford elaborated. “What I mean is I’m not focused on that part,” he added. “To me it’s about the work. Whatever reward comes of it that’s great. I don’t think about it. There’s nothing more important than the work when you’re doing it. So once that work is done, I back off. It’s just not something that occupies my thinking.” Redford, however, stressed that he values diversity in film. Sundance, since its inception more than 20 years ago, has served to showcase films from an ethnically diverse pool of film-makers who have gone on to become powerful forces in the industry. Recent examples include Ryan Coogler, who won the Grand Jury Prize at the event in 2013, before going on to make Creed; and Ava DuVernay, who collected the director award for Middle of Nowhere the previous year, which she followed up with the Oscar-nominated Selma. “Diversity comes out of the word independence,” said Redford. “Basically that’s the principal word that we operate from. It’s a word I’ve operated from personally most of my life: the value of the word independent. It’s an automatic thing: if you’re independently minded, you’re going to do things different from the common form. Therefore you’re going to have more diverse products.” Redford said he was proud of how Sundance has become a haven for film-makers from all backgrounds, but didn’t take credit for the often timely topics the directors address in their films. “We don’t bring them up,” Redford said. “We just put the spotlight on the artists who bring them up. Artists are making films about what’s on the public conversation. Because we’re in support of the artist, we say: ‘Well, what are they going to come up with? They come up with those diverse points of view. We don’t personally take a position of advocacy in that sense.” Redford also used the conference as an opportunity to “straighten something out” about how he believes he’s come to be viewed by many industry members for so closely aligning himself with the independent film movement. Said Redford: “I want to make it clear: I’m not against the mainstream. I’ve very happily been a part of that – a lot of films I’ve been a part of have been mainstream films. “The idea of running an independent film festival was not meant to be like insurgents coming down from the mountain to attack the mainstream. It was meant to broaden the category is all. We use independent film to expand the category, so it’s a fuller picture.” Redford said he created Sundance in the ski town of Park City, Utah, in 1978, to simply “create a path for artists to show their work”, admitting that he initially assumed it wouldn’t thrive. “What happened when more and more people came,” said Redford. “I realized people were coming up here of all places – Utah! – to see stuff they couldn’t see in the marketplace. That’s when I realized we were creating opportunity to have more viewership.” Asked at the beginning of the conference what he was most looking forward to at this year’s edition of the festival, Redford dryly said: “The wrap party.” The 2016 Sundance film festival runs 21 January - 31 January.
US and UK urge banks to do business with Iran An attempt by the US and UK governments to persuade European banks to do more business in Iran in the wake of last year’s nuclear deal, appears to have fallen on deaf ears. Senior representatives from nine major banks listened on Thursday to appeals from the US secretary of state, John Kerry, and the British foreign secretary, Philip Hammond, urging them to help finance expanded trade with Iran following the lifting of sanctions under the agreement sealed in Vienna last July. As its part of the bargain, Tehran dismantled much of the infrastructure of its nuclear programme, but the government of President Hassan Rouhani has come under intense pressure recently from Iranian hardliners as the economic benefits have failed to live up to expectations. But banking representatives said the verbal encouragement had done little to ease their concerns or clarify the continuing complexity and uncertainty surrounding trade with Iran. They pointed out that while Washington and Europe had lifted some sanctions, there was still a ban on the use of dollars in the US banking system to finance Iranian trade, and individual US states have defied the federal government on some sanctions relief. “What we’re trying to address is a gap between the undoubted political commitment of the US to make this agreement work in practice, to allow Iran to access the world’s trade system and the world’s finance system and the reality of what the European banks are finding in practice,” Hammond said. “We’re trying to bridge that gap, we’re trying to understand where the disconnects are between the political intention and the banking reality and work together to see how we can bridge them.” Kerry said he wanted to “clarify and put to rest misinterpretations or mere rumours about how [the deal] is applied”. The secretary of state said: “We want to make it clear that legitimate business, which is clear under the definition of the agreement, is available to banks. As long as they do their normal due diligence and know who they’re dealing with, they’re not going to be held to some undefined and inappropriate standard here.” A British banking official said the meeting had gone “relatively well” but had not changed “issues that have been of longstanding and major concern to the banking industry”. He pointed to a lack of clarity on how federal and state governments apply the new regulations, and to the approaching US presidential elections in November. “That could change the approach, so there’s a degree of caution,” the official said. One of the banks who took part in the meeting, Standard Chartered, made clear its position had not changed. “We were happy to share the practical and legal considerations behind our stated position on Iran with the secretary of state and the foreign secretary at the meeting today: we will not accept any new clients who reside in Iran, or which are an entity owned or controlled by a person there, nor will we undertake any new transactions involving Iran or any party in Iran,” a bank spokesman said. Standard Chartered is currently facing fines for past activities alleged to have contravened the former sanctions. “We continue to cooperate fully with the US authorities in their ongoing investigations. We remain unable to determine when these investigations will conclude or the size of any potential fines that might result,” the spokesman said.
Bat for Lashes: ‘Get off your phone and listen to the music’ Hello Natasha! How are you? Very well. I’m just getting ready for a vocal warmup and making adjustments to my new gown. Ah yes, for your new album, The Bride, you’re hosting pop-up weddings as part of the festival shows. How’s that going? It’s good! I’ve already had one, I’ve just got another three to go. How many gowns does it take to get through a Bat For Lashes wedding tour? The dry cleaner’s on speed dial. But there’s a few. I have the beautiful white wedding dress I wore on the album artwork which I made from scratch with a stylist and dressmaker, I’ve got a red one the same as that. They’re beautiful for videos and stuff but because they’re so low cut and short, if you try and do a show in them you’re constantly pulling down your skirt and pulling up your top. So I’ve got a really long blood red dress for the stage, going a bit more widow, which is fun. Cool! Are we all invited to the wedding disco you’re DJing? Yes! I want everyone to dress up as wedding guests at End of the Road. I’m going to drop Chaka Khan and Michael Jackson just as soon as everyone’s at the right end of drunk and happy. Can we talk about Bat For Lashes, the aesthetic? I mean, arguably you’ve influenced festival fashion more than any other pop star in the last decade. The head-dresses, the feathers, the makeup, the jewellery … Well yeah, definitely. I think that’s partly why Coachella felt so strange this year, I didn’t get into it and felt a bit old and past it because I was playing to a bunch of people a lot younger than me that reminded me of my first album. It was weird because something so special, magical, deep and meaningful for me has become so generic and a uniform in a way. It’s partly flattering to see my makeup and the colours I like using everywhere because it means it spoke to the collective conscious or whatever it is. So obviously, that resonated – people are still enjoying the flower crown and they’re not bored years and years later! But you’ve moved on … Well, it’s not a calculated fashion statement but musically, I hope I keep evolving. It’s music that informs the art and what I’m attracted to and what I wear. It all blends into one. I think there was something very Native American fairy about me in my early 20s and I was a girl then, whereas now as a woman I’m quite into 90s trashy road films like True Romance and Wild At Heart, that Nicholas Cage kind of sexy style. What was your first festival experience like? Oh god, I went to a few as a teenager and in my early twenties, quite obscure ones that I can’t really remember because I was off my face half the time. But I think my very first festival was V with my best friend from school. I think we were 18: a debauched, drunken, teenage mess in love with Damon Albarn. And the worst? Roskilde! I went with my first boyfriend, we all took hallucinogenic drugs and got completely lost and couldn’t make our way back to the tents because we were too scared to walk over a bridge. We all ended sitting in a circle in the mud, holding each other for about a day. Romantic. Ha ha. I love seeing the sunset behind main stages at festivals, I think there’s definitely something really romantic about that. Can you give us your top festival hacks? Erm … what? Well, it’s tips really. But if I say “hacks” it sounds all modern and less Good Housekeeping. Ha. Easy! Get off your phone, stop taking selfies and listen to the music. Music! I thought festivals in 2016 were about Instagram value. Exactly! But people should try and disconnect from the technology and get into the spirit of things. It’s an opportunity to forget life back at home, live a magical existence, dress up, have loads of fun, get involved and forget social media. In a way, I wonder if that’s why festivals have gone a bit weird because everyone’s so concerned with Instagramming where they’re at all the time. I noticed that a lot in America, it would be really nice if everyone went back in time a bit to the point when people would walk around and look at each other and talk to each other at festivals. Maybe I’m sounding idealistic. You are pretty hippy, to be fair. But it’ll probably be the next retro take on vintage stuff: the no-phones festival. I hope so. We had a no-phones show last month and I’d forgotten how much it really changes when the audience aren’t taking pictures of you or filming it, just when everyone’s really present. Festivals really benefit from that mass communication of everyone being in the moment. Otherwise it disrupts the atmosphere and the environment and the artist’s ability to create something powerful. Bat for Lashes headlines End of the Road Festival 1-4 September.
Noam Chomsky on Donald Trump: 'Almost a death knell for the human species' Have you seen The Divide, the British documentary you took part in? The Divide? I haven’t seen it, no. Perhaps it’s been a while since you filmed it? Well, I’m interviewed all the time. The film looks at what it says are the effects of inequality in the US and the UK. It’s based on the book The Spirit Level, which perhaps you know? Yes, I remember. The Divide says the current inequality problem began with the election of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. Do you agree? It escalated sharply under Reagan and Thatcher, who gave it a kind of ideological framework, but I think you really have to date the turn to the collapse of the Bretton Woods system about 10 years earlier, when the US terminated the convertibility of dollars to gold. This shifted the global economy pretty radically towards financialisation, and rapidly increased speculation. In the film, you describe people’s belief in the benefits of capitalism as a kind of “religion”, adding that what we have is only an illusion of capitalism in any case. But if the world has got so much worse as a result, why doesn’t everybody realise? I think people do realise. Just take a look at what’s happening in Europe, the US, Latin America and elsewhere. The general public are between angry and totally furious at what’s taking place. That’s why you have the collapse of the mainstream political establishment and the rise of what are called populist groups at both ends of the spectrum. Democracy in Europe is collapsing. Decisions are made in Brussels, not by national parliaments, and people know that. Does this mean you’d favour a British exit? Not really. I’m unenthusiastic about either, but I think probably the worse choice would be Brexit. My sense is that it would probably turn Britain – or maybe England, if Scotland pulls out – into even more of a dependency on the US. And there are a lot of good things that have happened in Europe since the second world war. Those should be salvaged, and I think they can be. So have you become more optimistic now you believe a hunger for change is showing itself around the world? I think we have the seeds of change. They can flourish and address the massive problems we face. They may not. We don’t know. That’s a choice. And we haven’t even talked about the worst problems: the economic problems are bad enough, as are the social problems, but far worse than these are the major threats to the survival of the human species – the threat of nuclear war and environmental catastrophe. Here, if you look at the US primaries, you have to be impressed and appalled by the utter irrationality of the species. Here are two enormous problems that have to be faced right now, and they are almost absent from the primaries. Does it give you any hope that some of the super-rich, such as Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg and Warren Buffett, are willing to give away most of their money? And you’ll notice big tax deductions as well. There have always been benevolent aristocrats. That doesn’t make me fall in love with the feudal system. What effect would electing Donald Trump have? It’s hard to say because we don’t really know what he thinks. And I’m not sure he knows what he thinks. He’s perfectly capable of saying contradictory things at the same time. But there are some pretty stable elements of his ideology, if you can even grant him that concept. One of them is: “Climate change is not taking place.” As he puts it: “Forget it.” And that’s almost a death knell for the species – not tomorrow, but the decisions we take now are going to affect things in a couple of decades, and in a couple of generations it could be catastrophic. If it were between Trump and Hillary Clinton, would you vote for Clinton? If I were in a swing state, a state that matters, and the choice were Clinton or Trump, I would vote against Trump. And by arithmetic that means hold your nose and vote for Clinton. You talk about capitalism, politics and inequality a lot. Do you ever tire of it? Do you ever wish someone would ask you about something else? Well, from my point of view, there are two major categories of issues. There are the kind that are humanly important but intellectually pretty shallow. There are the kind that are intellectually quite deep and challenging, but don’t have the immediate human significance. If I had my choice, I’d rather stay on the second, but unfortunately the world won’t go away. Do you not feel you’ve had enough sometimes? It’s like seeing a child in the street and a truck coming rapidly. Do you say, “Look, I’m too busy thinking about interesting questions, so I’ll let the truck kill the child”? Or do you go out into the street and pull the child back? But if it was another child, every day, for decades? It doesn’t matter. I remember the philosopher Bertrand Russell was asked why he spent his time protesting against nuclear war and getting arrested on demonstrations. Why didn’t he continue to work on the serious philosophical and logical problems which have major intellectual significance? And his answer was pretty good. He said: “Look, if I and others like me only work on those problems, there won’t be anybody around to appreciate it or be interested.” What would you like to see happen, in that case? I would like to see serious and significant steps made to put an end to the use of fossil fuels, to create sustainable energy systems and to save the world – as much as we can – from likely environmental catastrophe. I would move very quickly towards de-escalating military confrontations, which are quite serious, and move towards fulfilling our legal obligation to rid the world of nuclear weapons. I would like countries to become democracies, not plutocracies. How do you turn a plutocracy into a democracy? It’s not very hard. In the US, it simply means going back to mainstream ideas. To quote John Dewey, the leading US social philosopher of the 20th century, until all institutions – industrial, commercial, media, others – are under democratic control, or in the hands of what we now call stakeholders, politics will be the shadow cast by big business over society. That’s elementary and it can be done. • The Divide is in selected cinemas now and nationwide on 31 May.
Hollywood's war on terror: why audiences prefer gung-ho Iraq films There were only two other people in the theater when I saw Ang Lee’s Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk this Sunday evening in Chicago. One of them kept wandering out to the lobby and then coming back. Meanwhile, people were standing in line to get into Fantastic Beasts. Light-hearted mystical adventure is more popular than deliberately slow-paced and banal anti-war drama. Who knew? The indifference generated by Lee’s film wasn’t confined to my showing. The wide release this week was in line to capture a disappointing $5m; instead, after bad reviews, it only generated about $900,000. Its poor showing echoes a string of other Iraq war box office flops, including Green Zone (2010), Body of Lies (2008), Rendition (2007) and Stop-Loss (2008). A singular exception is Clint Eastwood’s American Sniper – the highest-grossing movie of 2014 in the United States, and the highest grossing war film of all time. It’s not hard to understand why American Sniper did exponentially better than Billy Lynn. The second is a downbeat art film which deliberately eschews narrative excitement to undermine heroism and emphasize trauma and crass profiteering. The first is a gung-ho celebration of noble American heroism. Pro-war beats anti-war. It seems odd that a pro-war film about the Iraq war would resonate with a wide audience, given the fact that the Iraq war was, by its conclusion, wildly unpopular. In 2014, when Bradley Cooper as Chris Kyle was gazing manfully out of movie screens and delivering terse lines about the importance of fighting them over there rather than over here, 75% of the American public agreed Bush’s war was not worth the costs. Even 65% of Republicans believed the war had been a bad decision. Overwhelmingly, bipartisanly, Americans in 2014 believed American Sniper’s central message was inaccurate. They bought tickets anyway. Most likely they bought tickets not because they supported the Iraq war, but because people like to buy tickets to big-budget action films. American Sniper’s simplistic hero-worshipping shoot-em-up fits neatly into the simplistic, hero-worshipping tropes of standard Hollywood adrenaline-junkie fare. Hero Chris Kyle (Bradley Cooper) is a familiar superdude with ultrahuman sniper skills. He fights the good fight against a bad guy, black-garbed evil super-sniper Mustafa (Sammy Sheik). If everyone were wearing masks and tights rather than camouflage, it could have been a Marvel feature. In fact, in structure, theme, and success, American Sniper isn’t so much a war film as a terrorsploitation shoot-em-up. Forget Billy Lynn; closer analogues are the television show 24 or London Has Fallen (2016). Chris Kyle is given marginally more of a conscience than Secret Service agent Mike Banning (Gerald Butler) in London Has Fallen, but the celebration of spiraling body counts and uber-masculine hyper-competence is the same, as are the occasional cuts to show the womenfolk weeping and praying back home. London Has Fallen did very respectably at the box office (a sequel is on the way). So did Hacksaw Ridge, Mel Gibson’s second world war drama about a conscientious objector medic, which presents the Japanese as an undifferentiated nightmare horde and revels in the spectacle of courage in the face of horrific, viscerally filmed violence. Good v evil, with lots of explosions – it’s what the public wants. The best thing about Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk is that it is quite aware that, as a film, it is not what the public wants. Based on Ben Fountain’s novel of the same name, the narrative involves Bravo Company and particularly Billy Lynn (Joe Alwyn), who was captured on news footage trying to save his sergeant during a gun battle in Iraq. The footage went viral, and the company is brought back stateside to appear in a halftime Thanksgiving show with Destiny’s Child at a Dallas Cowboys home game. There are scenes of combat in flashback, but most of the film is Bravo company being ushered from photo op to photo op by banal media apparatchiks. The owner of the Dallas team (Steve Martin) wants to buy Bravo’s story on the cheap to make an inspirational rah-rah America film and reignite support for the war. A cheerleader (Mackenzie Leigh) wants to be Billy Lynn’s girlfriend – as long as he plays the role of selfless hero and takes himself back to Iraq to get shot at again. Ang Lee has been criticized for the overly perfect sheen of the film; he shot it at 120 frames per second, but even at normal 24 fps, the movie has a scrubbed clarity. That’s especially the case during the bloated half-time extravaganza, in which Billy stands frozen in his combat fatigues while dancers slither around the stage and fireworks go off all around him. It’s ridiculous, embarrassing and traumatizing, as the explosions make Lynn forcibly recall combat. Lynn isn’t a hero fighting the bad guys to save us all; he’s a prop used to symbolize a hero fighting the bad guys to save us all. Billy Lynn is about the dull, humiliating mechanics of turning soldiers into something that the public wants to consume. The civilians are the ones who control the war. “It’s their film,” as one of Lynn’s fellow soldiers comments bitterly. Americans don’t necessarily like war, and they certainly don’t like the Iraq war. But they do like war narratives that remind them comfortably of action movies. That’s why wars are generally sold as Hollywood thrills, with Bush sloganeering about an “axis of evil”, like a trailer promoting the latest release. Everybody agrees: it’s fun to watch our heroes blow up the nefarious bad guys. And if “our heroes” don’t want to, or don’t enjoy, fulfilling that role? Or if those bad guys aren’t quite as nefarious as we’d like? Well, we’ll just watch a different movie.
Premier League is draining talent from Spain but not catching the very best There was a moment during the first half of last season when Lucas Pérez was asked what his parents made of the form that saw him closing in on a goalscoring record at Deportivo, held by the Brazilian striker Bebeto. “They’re just happy to have me around,” he replied. He had been away since he was a teenager and spent the previous four years in Greece and Ukraine, the final months there the “worst of my life”, but at last he was home. Now less than a year later, he has gone again. Arsenal made an offer too good to refuse, however much Pérez had missed Galicia: a big club, Champions League football, the chance to compete for titles, treble the salary, and a transfer fee that Deportivo not only needed but welcomed and that met his buy-out clause: €20m, £17m. London is not Lviv, either. As for Arsenal, they got a quick, skilful, mobile forward who might not be a starter, nor have been their initial target, but who scored 17 times in La Liga and has been directly involved in more goals than any Spaniard since the start of last season. Just ahead of Pérez in the goalscoring charts last season was Eibar’s Borja Bastón, on 18. He signed for Swansea City for £15m, where he joins Fernando Llorente, signed from Sevilla. They are part of a significant exodus from Spain to the Premier League this summer: Manquillo, Nolito, Bravo, Feghouli, Bailly, Negredo … the list goes on. When Shkodran Mustafi left Valencia on Tuesday night to join Pérez at Arsenal, it brought the number of players who have made the move to 17, and Vicente Iborra, Ignacio Camacho and Aymen Abdennour may yet join them. West Bromwich Albion have offered €18m for the Málaga midfielder, Sunderland’s €9m bid for Iborra was rejected by Sevilla and Chelsea are in talks over taking the defender Abdennour on loan from Valencia. Spaniards moving to England is nothing new but this is a little different, a pattern that was already present yet has become more apparent and is illustrated by Pérez’s move. For the best players at Spain’s “other” clubs keen to compete and to secure a contract more in keeping with their talent, a clear choice emerged some time ago: join Real Madrid or Barcelona (or, later, Atlético Madrid) or go abroad, where the financial and footballing muscle was greater. England offered opportunities that would otherwise have been denied to players such as David Silva or Juan Mata. But of this summer’s signings, perhaps only Nolito fits that pattern; while each case is different, the rest come largely from a second tier of footballers. This time, the very best of La Liga have remained in Spain: Real Madrid and Barcelona still have Messi, Ronaldo, Bale and Suárez, while Atlético kept hold of Antoine Griezmann and Kevin Gameiro left Sevilla to join him at the Vicente Calderón. It is the “others” who have departed. This is not just a different generation; it is a different level. Attractive, but for other reasons. English clubs, even beyond the Premier League, see in Spain a market that offers a reasonable price-quality relationship, a place for the risk-averse to sign a ready-made solution. It is a market in which they have confidence, one that has produced talented players, where development is good, and whose clubs have performed well in Europe, and is still cheaper than the Premier League. Yet that risk-averse element may be innately risky; it may mean they are missing out on the best buys for players who will not raise the level dramatically. There is a habit of overlooking younger, “unproven” talent: everyone wants Griezmann now, no one wanted him enough to pay €30m two years ago; Sandro went to Málaga for free, not England; and the queue at Álvaro Morata’s door was not there two years ago. Instead, they favour players who offer a “guaranteed” return. How much of a return is another issue; a “return” no longer means signing a potential star, necessarily. It is not about Paul Pogba, it is about the men who cost a quarter of his fee. Spain becomes a trusted testing ground for clubs who know that even if a player’s value rises, they can still meet it. There is the story of a manager telling his club to sign a young midfielder, insisting that he will be worth €100m in two years. To which he is told: “Let’s sign him in two years, then.” The example comes from the very highest level and from Spain, from clubs who know they can get their man, but there is an element of that when it comes to all clubs with money and right now English clubs have money – especially compared to Spanish ones. “I know English clubs that work very hard when it comes to scouting but all the information that they gather they then don’t use it when it finally comes to making signings,” admits the Sevilla sporting director, Monchi. “Why? Because they have money. The attitude is: I’m not going to discover [Seydou] Keita at Lens I’m going to let Sevilla do that and then buy Keita from Sevilla. The money allows English clubs to not take the risk.” This summer that process has continued; more importantly, it has continued down the market and down the league; it does not just apply to obvious targets signed as a team’s stand-out star, whose numbers on the market get fewer. The existence of buy-out clauses at Spanish clubs also helps to facilitate the move: a fee is set at which clubs know they can get their player fight-free and at which the seller can present it to fans as a victory of sorts, or at least a move about which they could do nothing. The clause is usually set a little high, but no longer so high as to be prohibitive. For players and their agents, it removes some of the potential battle to find a way out, making life easier for everyone. Put in very simplistic terms: these are players who are available. “Why are English teams turning to Spain?” asks one representative involved in deals between the two countries. “Money, basically. They think they’re getting a top striker for half price and the salary will be half.” Which is still a lot for Spain, and that is important too. Spanish clubs see in England a cash-rich market they need to sell to, one where they can get big fees for their players. Fuera de mercado, as they say: beyond the market value. A place where every club is rich and even the second division can pay fees that clubs in Spain’s primera division cannot. The Premier League is a threat to La Liga but it has also proven vital to its financial health. “It is a very good market for us; we sell a lot of players there,” admits Monchi, despite the fact that, this summer, his club has not followed the trend, with Gameiro (Spain), Krychowiak (France), Banega (Italy) and Coke (Germany) all departing for different destinations. One agent is rather more blunt: “Frankly, when they see an English club coming, Spanish sporting directors rub their hands together in glee,” he says. “When the call comes they think of a fee that’s ridiculous and quote that.” The Premier League has certainly been lucrative for Spanish clubs. £17m for Pérez and £15m for Bastón appears to be a lot of money. But it may be time to recalibrate what counts as “too much” as the income from the new £7bn TV deal reaches Premier League clubs. They pay that because they can. This looks like a sellers’ market to the Spanish and like a buyers’ market to the English. Spanish players may have seemed overpriced this summer, but the context is a window in which Christian Benteke set Crystal Palace back £27m and Yannick Bolaise cost £25m.
Kenneth Anger: 'The occult never quite goes away' Branding and product placement cast dark shadows over everyone eventually – even occultists such as Kenneth Anger, who this weekend debuts a new gallery project, Lucifer Brothers Workshop, at the Art Los Angeles Contemporary fair in Santa Monica, California. Anger, at 88, is best known for his Magick Lantern Cycle, a series of spooky but highly influential films, including Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome (1954) and Scorpio Rising (1964), and for being a tutor to students – among them guitarist Jimmy Page – in the work of Aleister Crowley and Thelema, the Satanic religion he developed. “Not Craugh-ley,” Anger corrects. “Crow-ley. As in un-holy Crow-ley”. It’s a correction Anger – who can be as sharp as his name suggests – has doubtless been making since the 1950s when he first developed his lifelong interest in the notorious English occultist, ceremonial magician and mountaineer. The purpose of Anger’s ALAC show is in part to shift $300 bomber jackets with “Lucifer” emblazoned across the back, a replica of one worn by Leslie Huggins in his classic Lucifer Rising. It’s also to introduce art fair perusers to the work of two women, Rosaleen Miriam “Roie” Norton, an Australian pantheist known as “the Witch of Kings Cross” and the better-known Marjorie Cameron, a flame-haired woman once married to Jet Propulsion Lab scientist Jack Parsons, the man whose occultist LA-based group, The Gnostic Mass at the Church of Thelema, briefly included Scientology founder L Ron Hubbard in its congregation. In recent years, Cameron’s art, often inspired by visions, has become more widely known and she was recently the subject of a show at MOCA. Anger directed Cameron in a number of films, including Lucifer Rising, and the pair lived together over two years in the 60s. “She was extraordinary – a genuine witch,” Anger says matter-of-factly. “She had powers. Unusual powers. Extra powers. She kind-of knew things before they happened. She loved a full moon.” During their time living together, Anger was able to observe Cameron at work; she painted Anger as Saint Sebastian nailed to the ground with swords. “She considered them talismans. In her lifetime she never sold anything. She didn’t want to be a commercial artist. She had a couple of gallery shows but insisted they were not for sale.” Mysteriously, Cameron destroyed much of her work. “If she destroyed some of them, it was for magical reasons that [she] consigned them to the flames. Of course, this sounds insane. If I’d been there I’d have tried to stop her. But it was her business she wanted to do that.” The half-dozen pictures in the show, including a limited edition of a Crowley print “Do What Thy Wilt”, are organised by Anger’s aide Brian Butler. In his opinion, Cameron was a bad influence on her husband, who died in a mysterious explosion in 1952, while packing to go on holiday, and who has now been largely written out the history of rocket development. “She turned him on to Satanism. She was very dominant. The FBI’s assessment was that she’d ruined him.” Anger’s history with the occult dates back to 1955, when he visited and helped to restore Crowley’s former temple in Cefalù, Sicily. The relative paucity of material suggests the business of occult-inspired art is no longer flourishing in the way it may have been in the late 60s, when Anger associated with the Rolling Stones, and when he and Marianne Faithful travelled to Egypt to make Lucifer Rising and a small vanity mirror filled with heroin. Anger anticipates the exhibition will in small measure add to the notoriety of Rosaleen, Cameron and Crowley. “The occult is an undercurrent, it never quite goes away,” Anger explains. But where to find it? Los Angeles has had more than its share of dark moments. Anger was friends with Manson family recruiter and musician Bobby Beausoleil, who is serving a life sentence for the murder of music teacher Gary Hinman in 1969. “I’m sorry Bobby did something that caused him to get locked up,” Anger says. As a longtime resident of Los Angeles – he can recall seeing a Nazi Zeppelin moving up the coast prior to the second world war – he has a long perspective on Tinseltown, and is the author of Hollywood Babylon, a salacious tome that served up the sleaziest gossip about the movies’ golden age. The current debate over diversity in films, he says, is entirely new. “Nobody thought about it before or if they did think about it they didn’t talk about it. It’s a good thing. Hollywood was always liberal, but film-making was always a white phenomenon.” Still, from a surface reading of LA culture now, of the Kardashians and juicing diets, it’s a hard to detect much by way of occultist activity. “It’s always been there and it always will, but I can’t say it’s zooming up to the surface right now,” he says. “It’s still going on because Crowley is an inexhaustible subject. There’s so much more in his work to uncover and I still read his work occasionally. But I don’t need to practice spells and rituals.” Kenneth Anger is speaking about art and Thelema at Art Los Angeles Contemporary on Saturday at 3.30pm. ALAC continues through Sunday at Barker Hangar Santa Monica airport
A toxic union law, not independence, is the real issue Such are the bizarre couplings before the lights go up on an EU referendum that you might be pardoned for thinking you had stumbled into blind date night at the lost and found. Here’s Tony Blair, the chap who used to live at Number 10, getting up close to the demure lady from the townhouse in Charlotte Street. And look over there; surely it can’t be, but yes, my word: stern old Mr Sillars getting all frisky with Ms May, the boarding school matron, and her kitten heels. So many people are twisting themselves into such contorted and contrived alliances on Europe that someone is going to get hurt and the SNP had better take care that it’s not them. Are Nicola Sturgeon and the majority within her party really so betrothed to the idea of the UK being part of the European Union that she is comfortable with Mr Blair sliding on to the same platform? Surely, she of all people doesn’t need to be told what happened to the Labour party in Scotland when, during the independence referendum, it fell among thieves and started spending too much time with social delinquents? Yet (and it’s no use any of them denying it), everyone knows that Nationalist hearts skip a wee beat at the prospect of Britain leaving the European Union. For, if such an outcome were to occur, it would trigger a second independence referendum: isn’t that what Scotland’s first minister has strongly implied? She doesn’t need me to tell her that the SNP are at their most effective when they are dealing in the politics of conviction. However, their hearts simply aren’t in this struggle for Europe. How can they be when they know that a defeat for their purported position will bring that which they truly desire tantalisingly closer? Yet are there really that many Scots who care so deeply about the UK’s continued membership of the EU that they would deem an exit too high a price to pay for securing another indy referendum? I’m not convinced. There’s an issue much closer to home, though (and to Nationalists’ hearts), which ought to constitute a more valid trigger for a second independence referendum. The UK government’s anti-trade union legislation will soon be enacted, thus fulfilling the dream of every reactionary Tory in the land and all their supporters in big business. At Holyrood last Tuesday, the SNP administration gave the clearest indication yet of its willingness to work with Scottish Labour to prevent these laws holding sway in Scotland. The anti-trade union measures contained in the Conservatives’ bill provide much more ideologically fertile ground for Nationalists in identifying an indyref2 “game-changer” than the EU. For, once the new laws begin to bite and our most unprincipled company directors begin to exploit them to the full, the impact on the lives of Scottish workers and their families could be catastrophic. That these changes have been forced through by a government with one representative in Scotland is a far more potent trigger for a vote than Britain opting to leave the EU while Scots choose to remain. The trade union bill is simply a profiteers’ charter that will return members’ rights to pre-Second World War days. Trade unions have always existed to prevent Tories and their tax-avoiding chums in business from treating workers like slaves and paying them as little as they can get away with. The proposed laws will make it difficult for unions to raise money to fight vindictive owners and to organise themselves in the workplace. Having the opportunity to opt out of paying union dues would be replaced by a necessity to opt in, thus possibly denuding the unions of tens of millions of pounds. In some of our key services the use of scab agency labour will compromise health and safety. To join a picket line will, in certain circumstances, be to risk a criminal charge. The government claims that this will help democratise workplaces and eradicate workplace intimidation. What lies at the root of it all is an attempt to choke off traditional funding of the Labour party, while leaving the Tories unopposed to live off the donations of big business. These are the most draconian anti-worker laws since Margaret Thatcher tried to kill off heavy industry and manufacturing in the 1980s. Many of those who framed them are in the vanguard of the campaign to take Britain out of Europe, playing on primeval island fears of being ruled by Brussels’s faceless bureaucrats and some of its undemocratic institutions. But what really fuels their anti-European feelings are those laws guaranteeing workers’ respect, dignity and fairness in the workplace. There has still been no inquiry into the thuggish behaviour of the police during the miners’ strike in Scotland in 1984 and the decidedly dodgy convictions of many pit workers. Many were subsequently refused redundancy compensation and blackballed, thus condemning their families to decades of impoverishment . It would be a happy irony if Police Scotland were to become the unwitting agent of political revolution this time around. Each of Scotland’s 32 local authorities has vowed to ignore the trade union legislation when it is implemented, rendering it unworkable. There have also been suggestions that the Scottish government will simply instruct Police Scotland to turn a blind eye to breaches north of the border. However, to expect Police Scotland, on recent form, to heed such advice would be to stretch credibility. What is more likely are stand-offs between pickets, considered illegal under the new legislation, and the police, reminiscent of the miners’ strike and the poll tax debacle. The Tories’ anti-trade union legislation follows punitive benefits sanctions for Britain’s poorest and David Cameron’s failure to stop the death of the UK steel industry… even as the world’s richest multinationals are being given the all-clear to avoid paying the lion’s share of their taxes. Whatever still exists of what we call social cohesion on this island is being deliberately and grotesquely altered so that the power structures of the British elite can never again be challenged.
Win (home) tickets to Aston Villa v Leicester City The has teamed up with Barclays, proud sponsors of the Barclays Premier League, to give away a pair tickets to Chelsea v West Bromwich Albion on Wednesday 13 January, to thank one lucky home fan for the passion and support they show to their club. This season LifeSkills created with Barclays have teamed up with Tinie Tempah and the Premier League to give young people the chance to fulfil their passions and work at a range of famous football clubs and music venues. Your Passion is Your Ticket – with hard work and dedication young people can realise their dreams with a helping hand from Barclays LifeSkills. To apply for the work experience of a lifetime visit www.barclayslifeskills.com/work-experience-of-a-lifetime/. You can join the conversation throughout the 2015-16 Barclays Premier League by visiting facebook.com/barclaysfootball or following us on Twitter at @BarclaysFooty for exclusive content and the latest Barclays Premier League news. To be in with a chance of winning tickets, simply answer the following question: Terms and conditions 1. The competition is closed to employees of any company in the Media Group and any person whom, in the promoter’s reasonable opinion, should be excluded due to their involvement or connection with this promotion. Entrants must be 18 or over. 2. Answer the question correctly and complete your personal details on the online form and your details will be entered into a free prize draw. Only one entry per person. 3. Entries must be made personally. Entries made through agents/third parties are invalid. Entry indicates acceptance of terms and conditions. 4. The prize is one pair of tickets to Aston Villa v Leicester City on Saturday 16 January 2016. Travel to and from the venue is not included, nor is accommodation. 5. No purchase necessary to enter. Fill in the online application form with the necessary details, name and mobile number. 6. All entries must be received by 10am on Thursday 14 January 2016. 7. Winners will be notified before 10pm on Friday 15 January 2016 by telephone or email. Prize winners’ details can be obtained by writing to Sport at News & Media Limited, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU, UK. 8. Stamped addressed envelope required. 9. Winners will be the first entry drawn at random from all qualifying entries by an independent judge on 14 January 2016. The judge’s decision is final. 10. There is no cash or other alternative to these prizes in whole or in part. Prize is not transferable in whole or in part. Prize is not for resale. 11. The winners will be required to participate in all required publicity, including any presentation ceremony. 12. The decision of the promoter in all matters is final and binding and no correspondence will be entered into. 13. The promoter is not responsible for any third party acts or omissions. 14. We cannot guarantee that the event will be free from disruptions, failings or cancellations. We are not liable for such disruptions, failings or cancellations unless they are caused by our negligence. Any requests for refunds or compensation arising from them should be sent to the operator of the event. We can provide you with their details on request. 15. The promoter reserves the right to cancel or amend this promotion due to events or circumstances arising beyond its control. 16. Prize tickets are subject to the terms and conditions listed above. 17. GNM accepts no responsibility for any damage, loss, liabilities, injury or disappointment incurred or suffered by you as a result of entering the Competition or accepting the prize. GNM further disclaims liability for any injury or damage to your or any other person’s computer relating to or resulting from participation in or downloading any materials in connection with the Competition. Nothing shall exclude the liability of GNM for death or personal injury as a result of either party’s negligence. 18. GNM reserves the right at any time and from time to time to modify or discontinue, temporarily or permanently, this Competition with or without prior notice due to reasons outside its control. 19. The Competition will be governed by English law. Promoter: News & Media Limited, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU, UK.
Pep Guardiola dismisses suggestion he will not shake José Mourinho's hand Pep Guardiola has brushed aside any possibility of not shaking José Mourinho’s hand when Manchester City play Manchester United on Monday, with the coach stating “we are polite guys”. The Catalan’s rivalry with the United manager was fractious when he was in charge of Barcelona and the Portuguese was the Real Madrid No1. However each has so far insisted they will not overly focus on the other man since they took over City and United, respectively. Asked if he would shake Mourinho’s hand ahead of the pre-season International Champions Cup match at Beijing’s National Stadium, Guardiola said: “We are polite guys – why not? Why should we not shake hands? No reason why. He will want to win and so will I, that’s all. “I saw United’s game against [Borussia] Dortmund [a 4-1 defeat in Shanghai on Friday] and that’s all. It’s too early to know how they will be. I’m pretty sure they will be stronger than in previous years. Of course, with this manager and with the good players they already had and I’m sure they will buy new players. They will be a strong team.” The game is the first Mancunian derby to be staged overseas. Yet Guardiola stated his chief aim is to “no injuries”, with the manager concerned over the surface of the National Stadium pitch. Heavy thunderstorms are forecast in the Chinese capital and while City currently view the surface as playable the club continues to monitor it. Sunday’s training session for each club was moved the nearby Olympic Sports Centre on Sunday. Guardiola said: “We didn’t see the pitch but there is a lot of water in the last days so we understand it’s not in a good condition but, OK, we’re going to adapt and adjust. It’s our second game of preparation – the most important thing is that the players are not going to be injured. “We know the humidity for the training is not ideal, but we also know that it’s so important to come here to know the people and to play a good two games against amazing teams like United and Dortmund. We don’t want to expend too much energy in training because of the humidity but we stay here, we play, and then go back to Manchester for two more weeks of preparation before the first official game.” Guardiola will not rush Vincent Kompany back. “The most important thing is for Vincent to get fit – if it’s for Sunderland [City’s opening Premier League game], perfect. He has to get fit. That’s all.”
Obama calls Trump's 'rigged' election claims irresponsible 'whining' Barack Obama has told Donald Trump to “stop whining” as Republicans continue to disown Trump’s claims that the US election is “rigged”. As the GOP nominee approaches the last presidential debate with Hillary Clinton, Obama warned his claims could divide America. “One way of weakening America and making it less great is if you start betraying those basic traditions that have held it together for well over two centuries,” said Obama, adding that there was no evidence at all to support Trump’s allegations. “I have never seen in my lifetime or in modern political history any presidential candidate trying to discredit the election process before votes have even taken place,” the president added in a White House press conference. “If you start whining before the game’s even over, then you don’t have what it takes to be in this job, because there are a lot of things that don’t go your way,” added Obama, who called for a “peaceful transfer of power”. Earlier on Tuesday one of Trump’s last loyal supporters, New Jersey governor Chris Christie, came out against the Republican candidate’s claims that the election is being rigged. “I am convinced that the election will be a fair one and the process will be one that will be accepted by the American people,” Christie said. His comments came as Trump reiterated a defiant line of attack that has alarmed many across the political spectrum for its potential to stir civil unrest if he loses in three weeks’ time. As the clock ticks down to a final showdown with Hillary Clinton at the third presidential debate in Las Vegas on Wednesday, Trump’s strategy appears in part to be a way of coping with plummeting poll numbers and preparing for a political future after November. “People who died 10 years ago are still voting,” the embattled candidate told a rally in Wisconsin at which he alleged there was rampant voter fraud. “We have voters all over the country where they’re not even citizens of the country and they’re voting,” added Trump, claiming that undocumented immigrants also helped elect Obama. “Of course there is large scale voter fraud happening on and before election day. Why do Republican leaders deny what is going on? So naive!” tweeted Trump on Monday. “You start whining before the game’s even over?” Obama asked bluntly at a press conference with the Italian prime minister, Matteo Renzi, at the White House. “If whenever things are going badly for you and you lose and you start blaming somebody else, then you don’t have what it takes to be in this job.” As the president spoke, he lifted his left hand and pointed, with his thumb, over his shoulder to the oval office. “’Cos there are a lot of times when things don’t go our way, or my way. That’s OK. You fight through it, you work through it, you try to accomplish your goals.” Obama said Trump’s attempt to discredit the election process was “based on no facts”. “Every expert, regardless of political party, regardless of ideology, conservative or liberal, who has ever examined these issues in a serious way will tell you that instances of significant voter fraud are not to be found.” Elections are run by state and local officials, he noted, including the battleground state of Florida, which has a Republican governor, and Republican appointees will be running many election sites. Trump’s fiery populism and complaints have been condemned as a threat to America’s democratic institutions and for potentially stoking violence. Obama described them as irresponsible and insisted the US would undergo a smooth transition of power in January. “And so I’d advise Mr Trump to stop whining and go, try to make his case to get votes. And if he got the most votes then it would be my expectation of Hillary Clinton to offer a gracious concession speech and pledge to work with him in order to make sure that the American people benefit from effective government. “And it would be my job to welcome Mr Trump, regardless of what he’s said about me or my differences with him on my opinions, and escort him over to the Capitol in which there would be a peaceful transfer of power. That’s what Americans do. That’s why America’s already great. One way of weakening America and making it less great is if you start betraying those basic American traditions that have been bipartisan and have helped to hold together this democracy now for well over two centuries.” Obama also touched on Trump’s positive attitude toward Vladimir Putin during a particular tense time for Washington-Moscow relations. In an interview on Monday, Trump promised a closer relationship with the Russian president if elected, starting with a possible meeting before the presidential inauguration. Obama said: “Mr Trump’s continued flattery of Mr Putin and the degree to which he appears to model many of his policies and approach to politics on Mr Putin is unprecedented in American politics. “Mr Trump rarely surprises me these days. I’m much more surprised and troubled by the fact that you have Republican officials who historically have been adamantly anti-Russian, and in fact have attacked me for even engaging them diplomatically, now supporting and in some cases echoing his positions.” Recent opinion polls show Clinton ahead or tied in most of the key battlegrounds that Trump needs to win if he is to pull off a surprise comeback on 8 November. A new SurveyMonkey poll of 15 battleground states conducted with the Washington Post showed Clinton leading in enough states to put her comfortably over the 270 majority needed to win the presidential election. Members of the Trump family are reported to have held discussions about a possible rightwing media venture after the election that could challenge Fox News and serve as a rallying point for anti-establishment supporters. But looking beyond the election has further widened Trump’s rift with members of his own party, many of whom fear that telling Republican voters the election is rigged will depress turnout and increase the chances of the party losing Congress as well as the White House. “Our institutions, like our election system, is one of the bedrocks of American democracy. We should not question it or the legitimacy of it,” said Ohio secretary of state Jon Husted, a Republican, who also called Trump’s allegations irresponsible. “I am in charge of elections in Ohio, and they’re not going to be rigged,” he added. “We have a bipartisan system of elections. Frankly, it’s the only place you can find Democrats and Republicans working cooperatively together. They work that way in our election system to make sure that the integrity of our election system is upheld, and that people feel good about the process of voting.” Christie insisted that even Trump would eventually come around the accepting the result. “Absent some evidence of real fraud I think he will accept it,” he told MSNBC. “Right now Donald is giving his opinion.” But his interview revealed just how far once loyal surrogates are now running from their candidate. “It’s not my campaign,” said Christie when asked if he was proud of what Trump was doing. “We are surrogates and I am proud of everything I have said and that’s all I can control.” Clinton, meanwhile, is keeping a relatively low profile before Wednesday’s debate, as damaging revelations continue to emerge from emails among her staff. In the latest, a senior US state department official is seen attempting to pressure the FBI to drop its insistence that an email on the private server Clinton used while secretary of state contained classified information, according to records of interviews with bureau officials. The apparent call for a “quid pro quo” by Patrick Kennedy, the state department’s most senior manager, appears in the latest release of interview summaries from the FBI’s year-long investigation into Clinton’s sending and receiving classified government secrets via her unauthorized server. More Democratic noise in recent days has come from the slew of celebrities endorsing Clinton, including Vogue magazine and top Hollywood names such as Julia Roberts, Jake Gyllenhaal, Sarah Jessica Parker, Matthew Broderick, Hugh Jackman, Emily Blunt, Neil Patrick Harris and Helen Mirren.
Chinese Communist party suspends tycoon after Xi Jinping outburst China has suspended an outspoken property magnate from the Communist party after he publicly questioned President Xi Jinping’s attempts to bring the country’s media to heel. In February, just days after Xi demanded absolute loyalty from China’s party-controlled press, Ren Zhiqiang challenged the move on social media. “When did the people’s government change into the party’s government?” Ren, a sharp-tongued tycoon who some call China’s Donald Trump, wrote to his tens of millions of online followers. The internet watchdog, the Cyberspace Administration of China, responded by closing the 65-year-old’s social media accounts and accusing him of spreading illegal information. A government spokesperson said Ren’s comments were a “vile influence”. State media announced Ren’s long-awaited punishment on Monday in a brief dispatch. China Radio International said he had “violated the political discipline of the party” and had been suspended from the party for a year. “Ren’s remarks on online platforms and during public occasions have run counter to the party’s basic policies on multiple occasions,” the state-controlled news group added. Ren’s suspension – a punishment less severe than some had anticipated – has come amid severe political tightening in China. Last week China’s rubber-stamp parliament gave the green light to a controversial law placing foreign non-governmental organisations operating in China under the control of the security services. Critics say the law is designed to force NGOs seen by Beijing as potential threats out of the country. In February, Xi toured three state media organisations as part of what one expert called a “no-holds barred” attempt to seize control of the news agenda. Xi told Chinese journalists they should “love the party, protect the party, and closely align themselves with the party leadership in thought, politics and action”. The intensifying clampdown has brought signs of resistance. In March Chinese security officials launched a manhunt apparently intended to track down the author of an anonymous online letter that had called for Xi’s resignation. Kerry Brown, the author of a new book about Xi called CEO, China, said he saw the crackdown as part of a decade-long Communist party struggle to stamp out those questioning its rule, such as civil rights lawyers and dissidents. “It is part of a war. Xi Jinping has been tougher at fighting that war largely because the party has become, I think, more spooked by the effectiveness of some of its opponents,” he said. Brown said he believed the entire party leadership backed the current offensive. “I think the party leadership at the top may disagree on many things that we don’t know about. But I’m pretty sure they agree on one thing and that is that without the party, they and the whole mission of [helping] China to become this great nation for the first time in modern history will go out of the window. “I think they really, profoundly believe that. They think the party is the thing that is going to get them there and they must defend it.”
EU referendum debate dominated by 'white men in suits' The debate around the EU referendum has been “monopolised by a mono-chatter of white men in suits”, according to almost 140 black and minority ethnic women who have written to the to call on people to vote remain in a “gesture of hope”. The group, which includes the commentator Yasmin Alibhai-Brown and TV presenter June Sarpong, say the debate has “brought rage, despair, hope, confusion and fear”. They argue that the EU is not perfect but has set in place rights for workers, including the poorest in society, and funded efforts against racism and xenophobia. “As women of colour, we put our names to this letter for many reasons. Like millions of ordinary Brits, we care about our country and its peoples. We care about our children’s future. We honour our country’s past … “Equally important, we want our voices heard. Too much of this debate has been monopolised by a mono-chatter of white men in suits. Understandable at one level, unacceptable at another.” They say that minority voters make up 16% of our population, arguing there is no excuse for the lack of plurality of voices in the media. The women say a vote to remain would be “an action to look outwards, not inwards; for the belief that fear will not win and hatred is not perpetrated in our name”.
Green party 'loud and proud' about backing Britain in Europe The Green party has launched its EU referendum campaign, promising to be “loud and proud” about backing Britain’s membership. Caroline Lucas, the party’s only MP and board member of the Britain Stronger in Europe group, said mobilising hundreds of thousands of Green supporters would be crucial to the remain campaign. Before the launch in Westminster, Lucas said: “We won’t sit idly by when our environmental protections and our rights at work are threatened by Brexit. Our campaign for British membership of the EU will be loud and it will be proud. “In a fast-changing world we need international rules to control big business and finance, and to ensure that people’s rights are protected – at work and as consumers. The EU has also given us the freedom to live, study, work and retire across an entire continent. “The EU helps us look after our environment, too. It’s only by working with our European neighbours that we can tackle climate change, protect wildlife and reduce pollution. Thanks to EU rules, our beaches are cleaner and our dirtiest power stations are being shut down.” Lucas recently warned the UK was in danger of “sleepwalking” out of the EU without more vocal and active support from the Labour leadership. There have been wider fears among remain campaigners that the left is not mobilising enough support among its supporters and voters to get Britain to stay in the EU. Pat McFadden, the Labour MP who lost his job as shadow Europe minister in the last reshuffle, made a plea for more active campaigning in favour of the in campaign this weekend at the Progress political event. “Labour is largely united on this question. The vast majority of our MPs and members want to stay in,” he said. “Yet we know we have not been heard enough so far in the Europe debate. “Alan Johnson is arguing the case with passion, conviction and skill but we are not yet as much a part of this story as we can be. It is up to all of us to get behind Alan and do what we can for this campaign. As he rightly tells us, don’t wait for permission from him. The starting gun has been fired. “Labour’s struggle should always be for victory, not relevance. We should not allow ourselves to be bit players while the future of the country is fought out between Conservative politicians more interested in their own next job than in the jobs, futures and living standards of millions of people in our country. “This is a question of leadership and we have both a duty and an opportunity to show leadership on this issue, when the governing party is so divided.”
Musical.ly, the craze turning pop fans into stars Essex-based 17-year-old Amelia Gething was on holiday with her family in Barbados this summer when a stranger approached with a question: “Are you on Musical.ly? My daughters recognised you but they’re too shy to say hello.” That experience, Gething laughs, “was very weird”. She may need to embrace the weird: her instinctively funny videos have earned her 600,000 fans and made her one of the biggest UK stars on Musical.ly, an app that allows users to lip-synch to songs, apply music video-style effects and share the results. When we speak, of Musical.ly’s 95 million users – or Musers – she’s ranked 67th, and since joining the app her Instagram followers have rocketed from 700 to more than 90,000. Gething had previously used a similar but less feature-rich app called Dubsmash but was put on to Musical.ly by a friend last summer. Musical.ly featured one of her videos on its homescreen – an accolade, she says, that is “the thing everyone in the app wants”. It’s one of the last two years’ biggest success stories, but Musical.ly’s triumph was rooted in the failure of a struggling startup called Cicada, an educational app featuring short explainer videos, that simply didn’t take off. The story goes that with $20,000 left in the bank, Cicada’s founders made a last-ditch pivot in an attempt to make good on venture capitalists’ $250,000 investment, and Musical.ly was born. Initially the aspect ratio of its videos meant the app’s logo was chopped off when clips were uploaded to other networks such as Instagram. When the logo was repositioned, so that everyone knew the origin of shared videos, usage exploded. On paper, the idea of an app allowing teens to lip-sync to hit songs may not sound very exciting – in the UK, most of those teens’ parents grew up watching precisely that on Top of the Pops – but it takes 10 seconds inside the app to grasp its appeal. The best contributors, such as US-based uber-Muser Baby Ariel, capture with unusual clarity the euphoria and drama of a great chorus in clips that are funny, expressive and innovative, not to mention surreal. Search for Musical.lys set to Sia’s US No 1 Cheap Thrills, and you’ll see Musers whitewater rafting, baking muffins, cycling, sled racing, and stacking Cheerios near an unimpressed dog. With some inevitability, as the app’s success has increased so has interest from the music industry. Acts like Selena Gomez and Jason Derulo have used it to engage with fans, while Warner Music Group was recently the first major label to sign a licensing deal with the app. “It suggests to me that Warner understands that the phenomenon of user-generated music videos isn’t going away,” notes Tim Ingham, the founder ofMusic Business Worldwide. Of Musical.ly’s buoyancy in an ocean of failed music-related startups, he adds: “You can explain what Musical.ly does in one sentence. It’s a simple idea, executed well in a market that will keep growing and growing. No wonder it’s causing some noise.” The app also acts as a launchpad for new artists. One is Carson Lueders, 15, a talented Washington-based singer managed by Johnny Wright and Melinda Bell, whose previous charges include minor success stories like *NSync and Britney Spears. Carson phones the from home, where he’s spent the day getting to grips with his new Segway, playing Pokémon and recording a new Musical.ly. “Say I release a song,” he supposes, when asked to explain the app’s power. “All my fans out there can re-lip-synch to my song and reuse it in their own Musical.lys. It’s a huge platform, and it’s really taking over this generation of kids.” Lueders has 2.9 million fans on Musical.ly. He insists that to launch as an artist “if you’re young, you need social media”, so it’s interesting that he measures success in a rather old-fashioned way. He wants to perform at Madison Square Garden, and thinks you’ve really made it “when you’ve sold a million records”. Carson seems sure the app has a long-term future – “I think it will be around for a while and nobody’s going anywhere” – and it’s recently launched a sister app called Live.ly. With news that Instagram owner Facebook has acquired the team behind Eyegroove, an app that allows users to create short music videos, this is certainly no time for complacency at Musical.ly HQ. Let’s remember that until last year, Amelia Gething had been quite happy using Dubsmash. “I don’t know who’s still on Dubsmash,” she notes today. “I deleted the app ages ago.”
Labour’s MPs and the urgent need for unity On 28 September the Stockport NHS Watch group presented an analytical account of the way in which the Conservative government, starting with the Health and Social Care Act 2012, has been transforming the NHS into a US-style insurance scheme. The Conservatives have a guarantee of another four years to carry out this programme, another six years if they win a snap election in 2017. John Harris (Opinion, 29 September) writes that a “new modernised movement is taking place” on the left in which a “remodelled Labour party might eventually emerge”. By 2020? By then it will be too late. By then the degree of damage to the NHS and the extent of transformation of it into private health care will be immense. We will be back to 1947, before the NHS. Harris speaks of “Labour’s predicament”. He can say that again. There is only one solution: it is unity of opposition to the Tories now and defeat of them at the next election whenever it comes. That requires one almighty transformation into cooperation between the PLP and Momentum. The whole parliamentary Labour party must now pledge support to Corbyn and offer itself entire for places in the shadow cabinet, and Momentum must abandon deselection of MPs. It is the sacrifice by both sides that has to be made. The 1948 NHS is the jewel in the crown of this country’s achievements. Only unity can save it for the people. What else is the Labour movement in existence for? Michael Knowles Congleton, Cheshire • Mandatory reselection of Labour MPs, abolished under Tony Blair, is simply basic democratic accountability. Trade union general secretaries stand for election every five years and lay union representatives, working hard to represent their members while facing facility time cuts, between one and three years. The sense of entitlement and concern for their careers that has anti-Corbyn MPs hyperventilating at the prospect of mandatory reselection will not restrain them from colluding with the pro-corporate establishment to conduct smear campaigns or organising coups to ensure their party leader is subjected to yearly mandatory reselection through doomed but divisive leadership challenges. John McInally National vice-president, Public and Commercial Services union • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
Jake Gyllenhaal: ‘Pushing myself is part of my life’ I meet Jake Gyllenhaal in a makeshift production office in an industrial estate outside Boston, Massachusetts. He is bright-eyed and sitting in a bare corner room. He closes the door on his dog, a big Alsatian, which roams outside among a team of assistants staring at screens and eating lunch. He has been here for six months making Stronger, a film based on the life of Jeff Bauman, who lost his legs in the Boston Marathon bombing and then identified one of the killers, who he had stood next to in the crowd. Gyllenhaal, who has a legendary work ethic, is both starring in and producing the film. He’s got to know Bauman well. “The irony is that, however terrible the situation was, it gave him a real meaning and purpose,” he says. “Jeff is quite a character. A hilarious person. The movie is very funny. It is a story of someone who had to learn how to become a father and an adult through an unbelievably difficult and horrific situation. It is a story of how to grow up.” Having watched the last half-dozen films he has made back to back, I suggest to Gyllenhaal that he seems lately drawn to exploring the difficulties of such rites of passage; perhaps it’s the curse of his boyish looks. His latest release, Demolition, comes at the question obliquely. Davis, a cool, disaffected Wall Street banker, loses the wife he is not sure he loves suddenly, unexpectedly, and then tries to work out what to do next. To begin with, he feels not much at all. Then he starts to destroy everything about his hated former life, literally, with a sledgehammer and JCB. Directed by Jean-Marc Vallée (who made Dallas Buyers Club), Gyllenhaal offers a compulsive study of the unhinged strangeness of grief you don’t often see on screen. “I think apathy is a feeling,” he says of the character. “I think that it is disrespected as a feeling. And I think this movie respects it. Not feeling, or not knowing how you feel, is a very large part of life.” At various points in the film, Davis tries to summon up “appropriate” responses, watching himself weep in a mirror, trying to behave like they do in the movies, something Gyllenhaal is at pains to avoid. “I think conventions override our lives all the time,” he says. “And then the universe delivers something unexpected, and convention no longer works. In movies, change tends to be some cathartic epiphany that happens in a moment with a swell of music. But this is a subtle change. From 10 to 10-and-a-quarter. You don’t see the flower bloom, but you wake up in the morning and it has.” Gyllenhaal studied Buddhism at Columbia University – “the closest I could find to a course in abstract thinking,” he says with a smile – and from time to time as he talks you can hear traces of it. “I am a big proponent of continuous self-reflection,” he says, then pauses, reflects, smiles again. “I don’t mean to be too lofty.” His interest in Buddhism, in openness to the present moment, informs his acting. “I start off by crossing out stage direction in a script,” he says, “anything that suggests in advance how you are supposed to be feeling or behaving. There is a scene in that Meryl Streep movie on a white water raft [The River Wild]. Her family is kidnapped and a guy pulls out a gun and her first response to seeing the gun is to laugh. And then she gets terrified. I love those microcosmic honest details.” Gyllenhaal is a friendly, spirited presence. He doesn’t take things lightly but is never quite in earnest. When you ask about his life, he replies with answers about work – and though he is notoriously guarded, not all of this sounds like evasion. He tends to divide his career – and his life – into a before and after. The shift happened about six years ago, just before he turned 30. After his early, edgy successes the cultish Donnie Darko and his Oscar-nominated performance alongside Heath Ledger in Brokeback Mountain, his career appeared to follow the Hollywood money. In 2010 he played the lead in the $200m Disney video-game adaptation Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time and the part of a Viagra salesman in the limp romcom Love and Other Drugs opposite Anne Hathaway (“dishonest nonsense”, according to the ). Gyllenhaal wasn’t convinced that was all he was good for. He took a breath. And then immersed himself in more challenging, less obvious films, beginning with the acclaimed low-budget drama End of Watch. To prepare, he spent five months working alongside real cops in the LAPD, on one occasion witnessing a murder during a drugs bust. After a life flirting with make-believe, the reality got to him, he says. In some ways, he has never looked back. The change coincided with other shifts in his life. “A lot of things were redefining themselves. Not all of them good.” There was the death of his friend Heath Ledger. His parents, both film- makers, separated, leaving him and his actor sister Maggie, though long left home, “trying to figure out a way of the family still being together. People were moving and changing. I moved from Los Angeles to New York City.” The world of film seemed “more than usually absurd”. He made a pact with himself: to make it more meaningful. He wanted to find exactly what he was capable of. The string of films he has made since have tested those limits. For Everest Gyllenhaal filmed in the Alps, Iceland and Everest base camp for three months (“It was worse for the crew – the actors talked about getting frostbite; the crew actually had it”). For recent boxing epic Southpaw he spent half a year in a professional gym. In Nightcrawler, a brilliantly unsettling film about an ambulance-chasing TV journalist, Gyllenhaal became feral-eyed, scarily thin. He suggests the shape-shifting, his literal body of work, is instinctive and necessary. “When I started to learn the dialogue for Nightcrawler, the words and the punctuation were so particular that my body started to respond to it in a certain way,” he says. “I had this animal idea, like a coyote. I grew up in Southern California, and at night you could hear them howling sometimes as they tore apart an innocent animal, so I thought it should be like that. Coyotes always look sickly and have crazy eyes and wander round in the shadows. I could see that worked as a concept, and so I shaped myself to that idea.” Gyllenhaal grew up in a Hollywood family: his father, Stephen, is a director; his mother, Naomi Foner, an Oscar-nominated screenwriter. Paul Newman and Jamie Lee Curtis were godparents. Donnie Darko, he suggests, was “a pretty accurate representation of my experience of adolescence”. It’s tempting to suggest that his masochistic dedication is a response to a perception that his entry into the business was gilded. Is it? “Maybe,” he says. “I am certainly aware in interviews that it is brought up. ‘Gilded’ is a particular word for you to use. I am aware of how it looks.” But he believes his particular ethic is more an ingrained part of his character than a reaction to perceptions of his background. “It’s part of my ancestry, I think, somewhere. My grandfather on my mother’s side was second-generation Jewish American. His father was a tailor from Poland, and he became a surgeon. He was the pride of his family. My father is from a long line of hard-working Swedes. Both were men who got up at 4.30 in the morning to start work. Pushing yourself both physically and mentally has always been a part of my life. From an early age, my dad would wake me up early to go for a run.” Although gossip columns have tried hard over the years to link Gyllenhaal with possible partners – Taylor Swift, Reese Witherspoon, his Southpaw co-star Rachel McAdams – he suggests that all the hard work has come at the expense of any long-term romance. In interviews Gyllenhaal has routinely said, in a vague manner, that he has been in love two or three times. I wonder, at one point, if he has always lived on his own as an adult. “You mean, like, roommates?” he says, innocently. No, relationships. “Have I always?” He pauses for a moment, as if to try to remember. “No, I have lived with girlfriends sometimes. My house is always open to all my friends.” There is another short pause that says he has nothing more to say on the subject. I wonder what he would like to do in the next six years. He talks about doing more theatre – he has starred in two plays by the young British writer Nick Payne. He has inevitable ambitions to direct: “I would like to be watching people more talented than me play a scene and not have to sully it with my own lack of talent,” he says, not entirely modestly. And what about beyond work? “My dad, the Swede, said something beautiful the other day,” he says. “He said: ‘Jake, you’ve got to remember to have fun, too’. I had to go: ‘Oh? So it’s OK now? I’ve done enough?’ And he was like: ‘Yeah, why not turn that switch on?’” He laughs. And then he’s restless to get back to work on his movie. Demolition is out on 29 April
I'm an NHS ambulance dispatcher and I know my service is failing you If you were to call for an ambulance, most of you wouldn’t realise I exist. I’m an ambulance dispatcher, which is different to the call handlers you speak to over the phone. Even though I rarely speak to callers directly, it is a stressful job. We are under incredible pressure to send the right resource to the right patient, hit government waiting-time targets, and deal with paramedics on the radio who often forget how many calls we are juggling every day. When your call comes in, it is coded via a computer system. If it’s red 1, that means cardiac arrest. Red 2 could mean chest pain, breathing problems, fitting, or an unconscious patient. We try our best to get the nearest resource to you as quickly as possible and are set a target by the government to be on the scene within eight minutes of these most serious calls. We don’t always manage that. Other calls will be categorised in the green 1 or 2 category – this might be falls with an injury, broken bones, road traffic collisions, headaches, or bleeding, for example. In most cases, these requests for help are held with me until I can allocate an ambulance. If your call is categorised as a green 3 or 4 – this might be non-injury falls, abdomen pain, headaches – you’ll most likely get a call back from a clinician to arrange the most appropriate help. Heartbreakingly, if you’ve fallen, that means you could wait on the floor for hours before we manage to send someone to help. There is a shortage of resources and the unions that represent paramedics put even more pressure on dispatch teams. They argue that a paramedic who will have to work 30 minutes past the end of their shift to see the patient and potentially take them to hospital should not have to take an emergency call. This means that some may not go on a call for the last hour or more of their shift. We might have to send a team that’s an hour away, when there is an available ambulance much closer, because of such rules. Our guidelines state that we should rarely use paramedic cars for less serious calls – they should mainly be used for red 1 and 2 calls that are subject to government targets. But an incident that was initially low risk can easily become more serious, and this delay in sending help is having dire consequences. We continue to see an increase in fatalities from calls coded as green once our crews arrive. These incidences are not reported on, because there are no targets for these calls. Every time it happens, we dispatchers are left wondering if we did everything we could, if we could have found a car to send to you sooner. If we had done so, perhaps you or your relatives would have had a better chance. Paramedics will often get feedback when there is a serious incident, but we rarely hear anything. We also never see changes implemented to prevent such incidences in the future. The pressure in my control room has become so severe that it is damaging staff wellbeing. Our concerns for patient care are rarely listened to by management and the overall morale is incredibly low. There’s a high turnover of staff and many of my colleagues end up off sick with stress. I’m an NHS ambulance dispatcher. I am overworked and undervalued. I try to do my best for you, but I’m sorry my service often fails when you need it the most. This series aims to give a voice to the staff behind the public services that are hit by mounting cuts and rising demand, and so often denigrated by the press, politicians and public. If you would like to write an article for the series, contact kirstie.brewer@theguardian.com Talk to us on Twitter via @ public and sign up for your free weekly Public Leaders newsletter with news and analysis sent direct to you every Thursday.
Newcastle United drop back into bottom three after draw with Aston Villa Optimism in the north-east has just relocated itself from Tyneside to Wearside. Other results were going Newcastle United’s way until Sunderland fought back in their game against Chelsea, and with only one more match to play, to Sam Allardyces’s two, this tepid draw against powderpuff Aston Villa returns Rafa Benítez to the bottom three, with limited hope of climbing out, five match unbeaten run or not.. Newcastle’s away form has been abysmal all season, but this was supposed to be their get-out-of-jail card. A team fighting for survival could not ask for more accommodating opponents than a home side who could not manage a shot on target, but if Villa were predictably ordinary Newcastle were surprisingly lacklustre. Even for them. Survival is now out of their hands and on the evidence of this performance - a massive missed opportunity - they cannot argue with the home crowd’s verdict. They are going down with the Villa, possibly as soon as Wednesday unless Benitez’s favourite small club can do him a huge favour. “We didn’t play well,” the Newcastle manager said. “Maybe there was too much anxiety, when you are under pressure you make mistakes. Villa changed their system last week against Watford and with five at the back they were very hard to break down. Our survival now depends on Sunderland more than us, but there is only one thing left for us to concentrate on now. If we get a chance to go into the last day with hope, we have to be ready to take it.” The first half was an uneventful and unhurried stroll in the sunshine, the lack of urgency and inspiration all too typical of an end of season game. While that might have been par for the course for the participants whose relegation was confirmed weeks ago, it was distinctly worrying for Newcastle, who were meant making a bid to escape. Apart from the cheers from the travelling sans when Chelsea took the lead at Sunderland, you would never have guessed. Benitez probably spent the entire interval spelling out that if you cannot raise your game at a Villa Park with beachballs and balloons drifting all over the pitch, an aircraft circling the ground bearing the message that Randy Lerner is a Blue and Joleon Lescott being booed by his own fans every time he touched the ball, there could well be a few regrets when the season comes to a conclusion. Apart from the Holte End making slightly more noise than usual almost nothing of note took place before the interval. Papiss Cisse could not get on the end of an early cross from Vernon Anita, and when he had a far post chance half an hour later he volleyed into the ground, though the bottom line was that in 45 minutes of football neither goalkeeper was called upon to make a save. Villa hardly bothered to attack at all until they realised that Newcastle were not exactly putting them under the cosh. When they did their efforts were insipid, summed up by an incident when Kevin Toner spent so long in space on the left waving for the ball that the crowd cheered when he received it, only for the teenager to put his cross straight out of play. The second half promised better when Andros Towsend sent in a threatening cross from the right that might have produced a goal for Newcastle had Cisse managed a better connection or Jack Colback kept his follow-up shot lower. That turned out to be the misfiring Cisse’s last contribution, Benitez replacing him with Aleksandar Mitrovic six minutes into the second half. It would be an exaggeration to suggest that the effect was immediate, but without exactly laying siege to the Villa goal Newcastle did step up their attacking efforts after the break as well as beginning to play with a little more intent. Mitrovic missed a difficult chance when Cheick Tiote hooked the ball over Villa’s back line and the striker’s volley cleared the bar as well as the goalkeeper, at which the home crowd enthusiastically took up their chant of “You’re going down with the Villa”. That refrain was repeated as news filtered through of Sunderland’s fightback against Chelsea, the altered scoreline making a Newcastle win imperative. Play had to be held up 15 minutes from the end while the pitch was cleared of a fresh infestation of plastic inflatables. Benitez, who has seen enough of beachballs to last a lifetime, did not look impressed. He looked even more fed up when six minutes of stoppage time ended with no clear-cut chances but a free kick from which Townsend could try his luck. Last week against Palace a late wonder strike won Newcastle the points. This week the ball went straight to the goalkeeper. Cue Hi Ho Silver Lining. The survival story seems to have moved elsewhere.
How do we judge the passing of time? Fast-changing party leadership contests, police shootings in America, fallout from Brexit and the Chilcot enquiry… If you’re exhausted by the pace of news, you might be surprised it’s been just over three weeks since the referendum result. Feels like three years, doesn’t it? Humans are hopeless at judging time intervals of minutes, hours and days on our own – hence our reliance on watches and calendars. Being a neuroscientist, this is surprising to me, because when it comes to milliseconds, our brain is an exquisitely calibrated timepiece. One example of this is our ability to hear in stereo. The auditory system is very good at detecting whether a sound is coming from our left or right by comparing the arrival times of sounds in the left and right ears. Given the speed of sound in air, the timing difference between these is minuscule, yet we can decode how much time has passed to tell where the sound is coming from. Physicists use very rapid atomic clocks to measure fluctuations in our orbit around the sun over years. But, sadly, our brains cannot keep count of the precise ticks that regulate us at the cellular level. Dr Daniel Glaser is director of Science Gallery at King’s College London
Virtual tour offers insight into world of people with dementia I am standing clenching and releasing my fists. There is a confusion of noises in my ears and I can’t see properly. I try to pick up a cup and it tips over. A loud bang startles me. It must be a door slamming. I know this, but it sounds like a gunshot and someone is pointing something at me. Instinctively, I lean away and put my hands out to shield myself. I’m anxious, distressed, scared. A shadowy person tells me to “do something useful” but how can I? She hands me an object. I don’t know what it is and it feels gummy so I put it down. I sit on a sofa, hold on to the fluffy teddy I find there, and wait. Anyone who has cared for someone with dementia will recognise many of the behaviours I have just exhibited: standing still in the middle of a room, knocking things over, failing to follow instructions, not knowing what to do with an ordinary object, cowering, sitting staring into space. So why was I behaving like this? I was inside a dementia “Tardis”; the mobile virtual dementia tour (VDT) that simulates the world of someone with mid-stage dementia. This small truck, the first of its kind in the UK and only the third in the world, will be touring the country this year, giving carers – professional and family – an insight into the world of people with dementia. The experience is intended to improve the care they give, and by all accounts, it works. Entering the anteroom of the Tardis, I am given uncomfortable insoles that mimic the pins and needles of peripheral neuropathy. I put on gloves that blunt sensation to my fingers and make me clumsy. My glasses are taken away (“people with dementia often forget them”) and instead I have goggles that block my peripheral vision, and headphones playing normal sounds that are too loud and too uniform to fully differentiate. And I am led through a door into a darkened room. This mix of sensory deprivation and sensory overload is very quickly disorienting and distressing. The tour only lasts eight minutes and, believe me, it is long enough. In the subsequent debrief you are told how you behaved, reminded of what was said to you (some of which you will have missed or forgotten) and told a bit about how this all connects with dementia. The VDT was invented by a US specialist in geriatric care, PK Beville, who founded not-for-profit organisation Second Wind to change the perception of ageing. The VDT is now in use – in non-mobile form – in 17 countries. Beville started working with elderly people 30 years ago and quickly became frustrated by what she saw as the “inappropriate use of psychoactive medication and unnecessary hospitalisation” of people with dementia. Not to mention the lack of support for often untrained carers who carry the burden of looking after people with this difficult condition. Beville wanted to change the way dementia patients were cared for by helping carers understand the reasons behind their behaviour. She says she tried interactive training, role play and videos but nothing was changing. So using her own extensive observations, interviews with people with dementia and their carers, and current scientific knowledge, she created the VDT. A study involving 146 US workers caring for elderly people found that during the VDT most became anxious and were unable to complete simple tasks. Nearly three-quarters hummed, whistled or moaned, and 51% withdrew completely. Many found the experience so overwhelming that they behaved in ways they would normally consider completely inappropriate, says Alison Clarke of Training2Care, which operates the VDT in the UK. But it is worth it, she says, for the effect it has on people’s caring. “I had one 86-year-old woman whose husband had Alzheimer’s. She was very impatient with him. She kept saying, ‘I’ve told you that’, ‘don’t do that’. When she came out of the tour … she went over to her husband, kissed him 15 times and said, ‘I’m sorry’.” A further US study looking at carers response to the VDT five to nine months after participation revealed they remembered it vividly and reported lasting effects on their caring – including increased empathy, sensitivity, patience and an awareness of practical things like keeping noise levels down. April Dobson, head of dementia innovation for Abbeyfield, which runs more than 500 care homes in the UK and hundreds more worldwide, says the impact of the VDT on care is “massive”. “It makes carers realise how much their actions can influence the response and behaviour of people with dementia.” The VDT truck will be training Abbeyfield staff and families of residents with dementia, and it is hoped others, such as firefighters, shopkeepers and members of the public. The tour costs £20, although if organisations get together to form a local hub for the truck to visit, some tours could be free. With 850,000 people diagnosed with dementia in the UK (44 million worldwide) there are few who would not benefit from understanding the condition better. If society understood, says Beville, those with dementia wouldn’t need to be drugged and shut away. Their treatment, she believes, “is the human rights issue of our time”. If we think carefully about the individual, the environment and how we communicate, she insists, the lives of those living with dementia – and their carers – could be dramatically improved. The starting point, Beville says, is simple: “People with dementia are not aggressive or mentally ill; they are responding to their experience exactly as you or I would.” As in fact – in the VDT – we do. The Virtual Dementia Tour is bookable at training2care.co.uk or by calling 01376 573999
Anna Gunn on leading all-female film Equity and being 'demonized' online Like millions of Americans, on Monday Anna Gunn watched Michelle Obama’s endorsement of Hillary Clinton at the Democratic convention in complete awe. “I made it up to my room just in time to see it and I thought, ‘Yes!’” the actor says, her eyes shining. It’s the day after the first lady made her stirring plea to voters, and a happy, relaxed Gunn is seated in a posh hotel suite in New York. “I was applauding and shouting back at the TV. It was just so exciting.” Gunn has reason to be doubly revved-up. Equity, her first film since completing five seasons on Breaking Bad, opens on Friday, months after premiering to enthusiastic reviews at the Sundance film festival. Given Clinton’s recent historic clinching of the Democratic nomination, the timing for Gunn – an avid Clinton supporter – couldn’t be sweeter. Equity, you see, is an anomaly in Hollywood: not only does it boast an all-female core creative team, including producer co-stars Sarah Megan Thomas and Alysia Reiner, screenwriter Amy Fox and director Meera Menon; it’s also the first financial thriller in which women call the shots. “I really did like The Wolf of Wall Street,” Gunn says, looking almost guilty. “But not seeing women represented in that world, it definitely had less resonance for me.” In Equity, Gunn plays Naomi Bishop, an ambitious senior investment banker. At the outset of Menon’s sleek and arresting film, Bishop is reeling from a recent deal gone sour because her client had a last-minute change of heart. Bishop asks why, and is told: “You rub people the wrong way.” As a result, her snide male boss overlooks her for a deserved promotion, forcing her to latch on to the public offering of a new viral media privacy app that could help her score big, and put her back on top. “For women, no matter what career, what path you choose, it’s still an uphill battle to work your way up to these top leadership positions,” Gunn says. “And you’re much more closely scrutinized for everything – for things that men are not. Now, because of this time [we’re in], it’s a much broader conversation really. We really wanted to not only talk about women in Wall Street but women in all positions of life.” The world of trading was somewhat familiar to Gunn before making the film, because her father once worked as a stockbroker. To beef up on her finance knowledge, Gunn spent time shadowing a number of Wall Street’s top female bosses, some of whom are executive producers on Equity. Gunn, however, didn’t need much assistance to get inside the mind of a powerful woman battling institutional sexism in her profession. Being a successful female actor in Hollywood, Gunn knows all too well what it’s like to be routinely put under the microscope. After winning her first Emmy in 2013 for playing Skyler White (she won a second for the show’s final season), the long-suffering wife to Bryan Cranston’s drug kingpin husband Walter White, Gunn was barely given a moment to revel in her achievement, before having to talk about her weight in public after publications such as the Daily Mail, described her appearance as “worryingly thin”. Talking to People magazine, Gunn explained that while filming the show, she was on medication that caused her to gain weight, and that she’s simply back to her old, fitter self. “I run around after two kids – and I do pilates,” she said at the time. “I reached a career high, and all the questions were not about what I put into the world, but more about how I looked,” Gunn recalls. “That was disturbing. I didn’t even want to really comment on it, because why should you? Why should I have to explain myself? But I got tired of being asked about it.” At the same time, Gunn also endured attacks from fans of Breaking Bad, incensed by the reluctance of her character to accept her husband’s double-life cheerfully. The online vitriol got so intense that Gunn felt compelled to pen an opinion column that ran in the New York Times, in which she directly addressed the troubling nature of Skyler’s unpopularity. “My character, to judge from the popularity of websites and Facebook pages devoted to hating her, has become a flash point for many people’s feelings about strong, non-submissive, ill-treated women,” she wrote. “Because Skyler didn’t conform to a comfortable ideal of the archetypical female, she had become a kind of Rorschach test for society, a measure of our attitudes toward gender.” Looking back on that troubling episode, Gunn shares that the “personal attacks” are what hurt the most. “It went from disliking the character, then hating the character, to then hating me. It became about not liking the way I look: I’m either too thin; I’ve gained too much weight; I’m too tall; they don’t like my face; they don’t like my voice. To be picked apart in that way is brutal. “Skyler was demonized as a character – and I was demonized as the actor playing her,” she continues. “It’s the same thing I think women in any profession who are rising to the top endure: they get scrutinized more closely and more harshly than men do.” Gunn says she sympathizes with Ghostbusters star Leslie Jones, who recently endured even harsher racist and misogynist abuse on Twitter. “It made me angry,” Gunn says of the slurs hurled at Jones. “It makes me sad. Whoever has the time to be sitting down and writing all that stuff, I don’t know what kind of life that is, but it doesn’t seem like a great life to me.” Jones didn’t cave in to her attackers by leaving Twitter; nor did Gunn retreat from the spotlight, even after receiving what she describes as a death threat from a female Twitter user, who wrote: “I want to find out where Anna Gunn lives, so I can kill her.” Gunn likens the gender-targeted venom to the some of the attacks made on Clinton by her opposers. “I just have to silence the TV sometimes because it’s just overwhelming,” she says, sighing heavily. For that reason, she says she found the experience of making Equity, a female-empowering project, “extraordinarily liberating”. “It’s important for women to continue to break through barriers in our industry, in politics, in Wall Street,” she says. “And now that I have two daughters, that’s even more important. “My mom told me I could do anything I want, be anyone I want. I believed it. And so I want my daughters to as well.”
Tottenham’s Danny Rose seals late comeback victory against Swansea Danny Rose is not a noted Premier League marksman for Tottenham Hotspur but when he does score, he tends to make them count. There was the firecracker against Arsenal back in 2010 and important goals in further derbies against Chelsea and West Ham United. But he may just have topped the lot. Tottenham desperately needed victory to remain on the coat-tails of the leaders, Leicester City, and it would not have been difficult to imagine the reaction to any dropped points, particularly with Arsenal losing at Manchester United. It might have been one of those hard luck stories, the sort with which White Hart Lane regulars have become very familiar. They battered Swansea City in terms of territory, possession and chances, and, at the end, the statistics showed that they had attempted 34 shots, with 14 of them on target. Swansea came to find that they could not escape their half. “It wasn’t our intention to play like this,” Alan Curtis, the Swansea coach, said. “They just had wave upon wave of attack.” Yet Tottenham had trailed to Alberto Paloschi’s first goal for Swansea since his £8m transfer from Chievo at the end of January and, for so long, they just could not find a way past Lukasz Fabianski. The former Arsenal goalkeeper made save after save and there were plenty of jaw-droppers among them. As Curtis acknowledged, Fabianski’s was a “world-class” performance. After the substitute Nacer Chadli had produced the equaliser, however, Rose took the Tottenham support to dreamland with his sixth Premier League goal in their colours. Christian Eriksen’s corner was headed out but only as far as Rose, who took an assured touch before threading a low shot through the crowded area and underneath Fabianski. Mauricio Pochettino said afterwards he had made it a priority to keep Rose at the club when he took over in the summer of 2014 and there had been the strong suggestion the left-back would look to leave. “The first meeting I had with any Tottenham player was with him,” Pochettino said. His powers of persuasion have yielded a rich dividend. For Swansea, it was a bitter pill, given the stoicism of their resistance and their precarious position just above the relegation places – but they would only have nicked a result, and Curtis knew it. “I thought that Tottenham could win the title before the game but, having seen them, I think it even more now,” he said. “They were probably just too good for us.” Curtis said, with a smile, that Tottenham staff had wished them well for Wednesday night, when Swansea visit Arsenal and there was little doubt that Pochettino’s team will be buoyed before their midweek trip to West Ham. After that, Spurs face Arsenal at home in the derby on Saturday. Tottenham have now recovered a league-high 17 points from losing positions and this win was a triumph of patience and belief. Lesser teams – and previous editions from this parish – might have concluded that it was simply going to be one of those days; when an inspired opposing goalkeeper was just too good. Instead, they bent the contest to their will. Fabianski’s saves in the first half alone would have made him the outstanding player of the afternoon. There were five eye-catching interventions, with the pick of them coming in the 45th minute, when he denied Eric Dier at point-blank range; Harry Kane put the rebound into the side netting. In the early running, Fabianski had tipped over from Erik Lamela, although a corner was not awarded, and denied Kane at the near post, while after Paloschi’s goal, he beat away Eriksen’s free-kick and stood tall to block Son Heung-min. There was more after the interval when he saved brilliantly from another Eriksen free-kick, clawed away a potshot from Kane and tipped over a 35-yard rocket from Rose. Swansea had fired an early warning, when Paloschi cut the ball back for Gylfi Sigurdsson and the former Spurs player, seemingly, had to score from eight yards. His shot, though, was too close to Hugo Lloris, who made an excellent reflex save. The breakthrough came in the 19th minute and it was undercut by a slice of fortune. Swansea worked a short corner routine and Àngel Rangel unloaded a shot, which hit Jack Cork and broke for Paloschi. He made the chance look easy, lifting it high into the roof of the net. It was the prompt for a siege. Although Swansea broke out in the 39th minute through Paloschi, who saw a goalbound shot blocked by Toby Alderweireld – a big moment – it was practically all Tottenham after that. Chadli had been on the field for only seven minutes but his contribution was vital – here was another example of how Pochettino has coaxed productivity from non-first-choice selections. Kyle Walker hammered in a cross-cum-shot after Fabianski had punched weakly following a corner – a rare aberration – and Chadli reacted to angle a deft sidefoot finish into the corner of the net. Tottenham needed more – and they got more. After Fabianski had once again denied Eriksen, Rose made the difference. There was even time for Lloris to make another fine save from Paloschi in the 79th minute. Tottenham march on. Man of the match Lukasz Fabianski (Swansea City)
Don McLean says he is 'not a villain', following his domestic violence arrest Don McLean said on Thursday that his domestic violence arrest this week stemmed from “the very painful breakdown” of his long marriage and asked fans not to judge him. McLean, 70, the singer-songwriter behind 1970s his such as American Pie and Vincent, was arrested on Monday at his home in Camden, Maine, where he lives with his photographer wife Patrisha. Authorities did not give details of the incident but the Portland Press Herald newspaper on Thursday reported that the singer’s wife has since obtained a restraining order against him, citing long-term anger issues. In his first comments, McLean said in a statement on his official website that the past year had been “hard emotional times for my wife, my children and me. What is occurring is the very painful breakdown of an almost 30-year relationship. Our hearts are broken and we must carry on. “There are no winners or losers but I am not a villain … I ask God to give us the strength to find new happiness and I hope people will realize that this will all be resolved, but I hope I will not be judged in this frantic media environment,” he added. Patrisha McLean’s statement to police detailed the incident that led her to call the police. “On Jan. 17, Don terrorized me for four hours until the 911 call that I think might have saved my life,” she wrote. “He was scaring me with the intensity of his rage and the craziness in his eyes.” The couple have been married for 30 years, and though she said he had been prone to rage for the first decade of their marriage, he had exercised much better control over the subsequent 20 years. “My husband has/had a violent temper,” she wrote on her submission to Rockland District Court, in which she asked for a restraining order. “For the first 10 years or so his rage was unfathomably deep and very scary – calling me horrible things like ‘hebe’ (I’m Jewish).” After her statement was made public, she called the Portland Press Herald to state that McLean’s temper was “only one side of him”. “I was blindsided by this report being made public. Don is not a monster,” she said. McLean is due to appear in court in February. American Pie, his 1971 ode to personal and cultural upheaval, was named a song of the century by the Recording Industry Association of America and the National Endowment for the Arts. McLean’s original working manuscript was auctioned for $1.2m last year.
Robert De Niro steps into autism vaccination row by screening film A disgraced former British surgeon’s new documentary about the discredited link between autism and childhood vaccination has put Robert De Niro at the centre of a medical row that threatens the reputation of his prestigious film festival in New York. De Niro, the father of an autistic child and co-founder of the Tribeca film festival, is standing by the decision to premiere Vaxxed: from Cover-Up to Catastrophe, which has been directed by the controversial Andrew Wakefield. To the dismay of a number of doctors, health campaigners and filmmakers, De Niro conceded it was not usual for him to be so directly involved with programming the festival. But he said the issue was “very personal to me and my family”. The trailer for Wakefield’s film opens with ominous music as the words “Are our children safe?” appear through a spiral of billowing smoke seeping from a syringe. A key element of the documentary, the trailer claims, will be the testimony of a whistleblower from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the US public health body, who is to allege fraud inside an organisation that “knew that vaccines were actually causing autism”. Wakefield then appears saying, in a reference to the MMR vaccine: “Wow, the CDC had known all along there was this MMR autism risk!” The Tribeca website promises “revealing and emotional interviews with pharmaceutical insiders, doctors, politicians, parents” filmed in an effort to “understand what’s behind the skyrocketing increase of autism diagnoses today”. Wakefield gained notoriety in Britain in 1998 with a research paper, later discredited, that argued the joint measles, mumps and rubella vaccine was a potential cause of autism and bowel disorders. Wakefield was struck off the UK medical register in 2010 when a statutory tribunal held by the General Medical Council found him guilty of “dishonesty” and said he had subjected children to invasive medical procedures they did not need. Now, in support of his debunked theory, Wakefield interviews Dr Jim Sears, the son of the American doctor who developed an “adjusted” vaccination schedule still favoured by parents who distrust national recommendations on protecting their children. But the suggestion that vaccination can be harmful remains a dangerous area of speculation, according to American doctors who have criticised the screening. “Unless the Tribeca film festival plans to definitively unmask Andrew Wakefield, it will be yet another disheartening chapter where a scientific fraud continues to occupy a spotlight and overshadows the damage he has left behind in the important story of vaccine safety and success,” said Dr Mary Anne Jackson, a professor of paediatrics at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. The award-winning documentary maker Penny Lane has published an open letter accusing festival programmers of making “a very serious mistake” with a screening that “threatens the credibility of not just the other film-makers in your doc slate, but the field in general”. Lane recently made the documentary film Nuts! about Dr John Romulus Brinkley, an eccentric who built an empire up during the Depression era with an impotence cure. She describes herself as “a documentary filmmaker concerned about quackery”. While she admits the ethics behind documentary making can be complex, Lane argues that “this one should have been easy” for Tribeca to rule upon. “The anti-vaccination hoax has been completely discredited by now ... Very possibly, some people will walk away from your festival having been convinced, in part because of your good name and the excellence and integrity of your documentary programming, not to vaccinate their children. And very possibly people will die as a result,” she argued. De Niro and his wife, Grace Hightower, issued a statement on Friday, defending the screening. “Grace and I have a child with autism and we believe it is critical that all of the issues surrounding the causes of autism be openly discussed and examined. In the 15 years since the Tribeca film festival was founded, I have never asked for a film to be screened or gotten involved in the programming. “However this is very personal to me and my family and I want there to be a discussion, which is why we will be screening Vaxxed. I am not personally endorsing the film, nor am I anti-vaccination; I am only providing the opportunity for a conversation around the issue.” The Tribeca film festival defended its right to screen contentious material. “Tribeca, as are most film festivals, is about dialogue and discussion. Over the years we have presented many films from opposing sides of an issue. We are a forum, not a judge,” it said in a statement. Wakefield’s film is due to premiere at Tribeca on 24 April, and is to be followed by a panel debate.
Junior doctors' strike: increasing optimism over deal to end dispute All sides in the junior doctors’ row are increasingly optimistic that they can do a deal to end the bitter four-month dispute before a second strike disrupts NHS services for 48 hours later this month. As the first strike by junior doctors since 1975 came to an end, there is a tentative but growing belief that renewed talks later this week could produce a settlement before 45,000 junior doctors in England are due to walk out again between 26 and 28 January. The first stoppage, which is due to end at 8am on Wednesday, saw 4,000 operations cancelled, thousands more outpatient appointments rescheduled and junior doctors join picket lines at more than 100 hospitals in protest against new pay and conditions proposed by health secretary Jeremy Hunt. NHS England said that 38% of junior doctors did come to work but later it emerged that the figure included those working in emergency care who were not taking action. Dr Johann Malawana, chair of the BMA junior doctors’ committee, said: “We deeply regret the level of disruption caused, but this is a fight for the long term safety of patients and junior doctors’ working lives.” The health secretary said the strike was unnecessary and that his goal was to ensure that junior doctors were working at weekends, citing statistics that showed this was the time people with serious conditions such as strokes were more likely to die. “So the right thing to do is to sit round the table and talk to the government about how we improve patient safety and care – not these very unnecessary strikes,” Hunt told the BBC. Despite the rhetoric, well-placed sources at the BMA, NHS Employers and the Department of Health all said that, with the strike over, their organisations are keen to find a way through the outstanding areas of disagreement and positive that a resolution is possible. They each expressed a “cautious optimism” that agreement would finally be reached. Officials at the DH and NHS Employers claimed that more progress had been made during talks, which have occurred intermittently since the start of December, than the BMA, which represents the doctors, has acknowledged. Significantly, in the face of angry statements in public about the government’s handling of the dispute, even BMA leaders now think a deal is possible. “We’re still far apart but there is a deal to be done,” said one official at the union. There is widespread hope that Sir David Dalton, whom Hunt brought in last week as the government’s new chief negotiator, can break the deadlock. Dalton, the chief executive of Salford Royal hospital NHS trust, is widely admired for improving patient safety and expanding seven-day services at the trust. “Nobody wants to go through all this nonsense [a strike] again. So yes, there’s a degree of optimism. With the strike over, we have a cautious optimism that we can [now] make some progress,” said an official close to the talks. But so far the talks have also been characterised by significant mutual mistrust with both sides privately accusing the other of “shifting the goalposts” just when the outline of a possible deal looked on the cards. Dalton was involved in the peace process for the first time last Friday. However, those talks failed to head off this week’s first walkout, despite Acas describing them as constructive. The BMA was legally obliged to act on its mandate for strike by 13 January or face reballoting its 38,000 junior doctor members, 98% of whom backed strike action in November. The Salford boss has used the nine days since his appointment on 4 January to hold initial exploratory meetings with various NHS and medical bodies, including the BMA, in search of new ideas that might help lead to a settlement. He has also set up an advisory group of fellow chief executives, senior doctors and hospital managers. Some observers believe that the input of leading medics might help find a way to allay the BMA’s concerns. There are two main obstacles to a resolution. The key one centres on how much of the week should be classed as a junior doctor’s normal working hours and thus attracting only basic pay. At the moment junior doctors – all medics below the level of a consultant – are paid extra for working after 7pm on a weekday and at any point over the weekend. Hunt, though, has threatened to impose a new contract on junior doctors from August that would extend their normal hours, known as “plain time”, to 10pm on weekdays and include Saturdays up until 7pm. He has proposed an 11% rise in junior doctors’ basic pay to compensate for the loss of lucrative overtime , but the BMA insists that juniors would still be up to 30% worse off. One member of the BMA’s junior doctors committee said they might agree to the 10pm extension on weekdays in return for Saturdays remaining as outside normal working hours. But another committee member was adamant that it wanted to retain the existing system as it is. While sources close to Hunt say he is prepared to be flexible on the extension of plain time, he is determined that juniors accept at least part of Saturday as normal working. There is also division over exactly how to stop hospitals forcing doctors to work dangerously long hours. NHS Employers have proposed a new system of fines for hospitals which do that but with the money going to improve working conditions or medical education and not, as at present, to the doctors involved. Dalton has not spoken publicly since his appointment. But in a letter to hospital trust bosses last week he said that he hoped to “bring a new perspective which can hopefully result in agreement to the dispute we are experiencing with the junior doctors’ contract”. John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, who joined junior doctors on the picket line at St Thomas’ hospital by Westminster Bridge, said: “In Scotland and Wales they’ve been able to introduce the seven-day working without industrial action. I can’t understand why that is not happening in England. These people don’t want to go on strike. They want to look after their patients. We are just saying to Jeremy Hunt: get back round the table now.”
We've heard from the RNC. But what does patriotism mean to you? Jon Stewart made headlines yesterday night as he took over the live post-RNC Late Show to unleash his wrath toward Donald Trump, whom he accused of “scaring the holy bejesus out of everybody” by employing tactics to divide the country into two camps: those who support Trumpism and those who don’t. Stewart also said, to great applause: “You just want that person to give you your country back, because you feel that you are this country’s rightful owners. There’s only one problem with that: This country isn’t yours. You don’t own it. It never was. There is no real America. You don’t own it. You don’t own patriotism. You don’t own Christianity. You sure as hell don’t own respect for the bravery and sacrifice for military, police and firefighters. Trust me.” Conservatives have long ago staked their claim to patriotism, claiming they are representing the face of America which is preoccupied with defending American values, American law and the right to American dreams. But how can Americans reclaim patriotism from Donald Trump? How do you define it, and how do you uphold those values in your everyday life? Thank you for your contributions. You can read a selection of your responses here.
This EU referendum doesn’t matter. But the next one will In 532AD the city of Constantinople was torn between two parties, the blues and greens. Everyone, aristocrat or slave, belonged to one or other. In January a chariot race between the two erupted into riots. Destruction was appalling. Half the city was gutted by fire, including the great church of Hagia Sophia. A green emperor was chosen to replace Justinian, who backed the blues and butchered 30,000 greens in response. That decided it. Britain’s EU referendum is looking much the same. At first the pros and antis argued over tariffs and sheep meat premiums. Then they argued over top tables and “influence in Europe”. Now they pit salvation against damnation, national glory against famines, locusts, boils and immigrant hordes. The nation examines the entrails of heirs to the throne, actors and London mayors. Prince William, Emma Thompson and Boris Johnson claim meta-wisdom. On Friday the chariot race starts, and all hell breaks loose. On Europe there is clearly no compromise between black and white, between yes and no. Yet the shallowness of the argument is shown in the antis’ neo-nationalism and the pros’ “Project Fear”. The antis are in denial over how to reconstruct a workable framework for a free-trade area after a no vote. The pros, notably the business community, have nothing to offer but “remaining in a reformed EU”. David Cameron has laboured valiantly to deliver that reformed EU, but it was never in his gift. Nor has he done what he promised, which is materially to alter Britain’s relationship with Europe. He has probably won all that the EU could plausibly offer. But given the terms of the debate, I do not see how the reformed-EU party can honestly vote yes. The EU is unreformed. If politics were about truth, Cameron would stun the nation tomorrow by backing no. To me the referendum as such is not the issue. The issue is the aftermath. I suspect the long-term outcome of the vote will be much the same either way. Two adjacent modern economies cannot co-exist without mutual accommodation, reflecting political and economic reality, not ideology. During Scotland’s 2014 referendum, “independence-lite” drew ever closer in argument to “devo max”. However Scotland voted, there had to be a new deal between London and Edinburgh. The British government, threatened with losing the union, conceded half a deal, and won. The EU cannot negotiate nimble-footed, as London did in 2014. It is too big and cumbersome, with too many national insecurities and battling lobbies. It cannot even control its borders. Already split by the eurozone, the EU could not stand more exceptionalism. Programmed to ever greater union, it has no gear-shift to “ever less”. Like Britain’s NHS, it has a dinosaur in its DNA. Certainly a yes vote would change nothing. All that would result is that any future British government, seeking to resist Brussels power, will be hogtied by the result. The threat of Brexit, which Cameron has struggled to mobilise this past six months, will evaporate. Instead a furious Conservative party would make the government behave ever worse towards Europe. Britain would continue to fend off immigrants, fawn on China and flog everything to east Asia. It would side with America in foreign and defence policy. Irrespective of Europe, its banks would launder money and evade tax with abandon. Britain would stay semi-detached. On the other hand, a no vote would certainly be traumatic. It would send Britain’s pro-EU establishment into the mother of all huddles with a panic-stricken Brussels. Half of Europe’s democracies know they could lose an EU vote just now. No one really wants Britain to depart. The dreaded article 50 of the Lisbon treaty on renegotiation would be activated. Fat-cat thinktanks would argue the Norwegian, Swiss, Australian, American and rest-of-world options. Euro-panic would morph into Euro-conspiracy. Power hates rebellion. Deals would be done. My reading of lobbyist literature from both sides suggests that Britain would probably emerge from all this with a diluted version of associate EU membership. To ensure trade continuity – which is in everyone’s interest – it would accept much of the present EU regulation. It might even contribute to the EU budget. The UK would gain some discretion in picking and choosing. In return it would lose its present much-cited (though never specified) “influence”, through losing its vote in the council and parliament. The balance of advantage is here too opaque for anyone sensibly to call. But if the outcome does not matter that much, what does? The answer is disruption versus inertia. Here the argument defaults to tribe. The yes tribe is composed of the insiders, the metro-progressives, the established order averse to change. The no tribe consists of the outsiders, the provincials, the instinctive radicals. On the left this is a divide between the old-style statist socialism and the new left of perpetual dissent. On the right it separates the “natural party of government” and the professional class from the grassroots, the insecure and the dispossessed. Neither tribe is happy with the present EU, as it fails in its core purpose of holding together a disparate continent in the cause of liberal democracy. It made one mistake, the eurozone, and now faces another problem, the growth of rightwing separatism across south and east Europe. It has humiliated a British prime minister into traipsing round the capitals of Europe, pleading for help in a domestic election. It is a mess. This is the EU that would sigh with relief at a British yes vote. A no vote would not “isolate” Britain from mainland Europe, whatever the howls of “Project Fear”. But it would traumatise EU complacency. It would press the reset button. A no vote would force the EU, or at least countries outside the eurozone, to seek a new balance between supranational regulation and free trade. However arrogant it might seem to others, Britain would have precipitated reform. That is surely what everyone wants. There would have to be a new treaty between the EU and Britain, on whatever suite of options would emerge from negotiations. It would be tough. But since such a treaty would probably qualify the decision to withdraw, it would merit a new referendum. That is the referendum that really would matter.
Creed; The Danish Girl; When Animals Dream; Mojave; The Chosen Ones – review It’s 40 years since Rocky scrapped its way into cinemas – I’d have added “believe it or not”, but when you see Sylvester Stallone’s swollen, fallen, stray pug face in Creed (Warner, 12), you definitely believe it. Still, how many film franchises have lurched along with the same actor for that long? And how many of those can claim to have peaked in their fifth decade? Fine wine analogies don’t apply here: the Rocky films have been corked since the 1980s. But Ryan Coogler’s film – not so much an extension of a franchise as a fresh graft of its mythos – is a very robust red: it’s a boxing film alive with bodily tension, social concern and, by its roaring climax, genuinely meaningful emotional rescue. Rocky Balboa isn’t the fighter this time: even Stallone’s bravado has its limits. Here, he’s a grizzled, initially reluctant mentor to hard-headed and harder-bodied up-and-comer Adonis Johnson Creed (Michael B Jordan) – son of Apollo, Balboa’s nemesis over the first four Rocky films. What might seem a corny, convenient torch-passing ploy instead yields a weighty, considered examination of legacy – professional, cultural, familial – and how it feels to carry it. Coogler and Jordan first worked together on Fruitvale Station, a 2013 film that chimed with the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement; Creed more tacitly follows suit, as its African American protagonist quite literally fights for his standing and status, as well as that of his father. It’s a remarkable reorientation of the original film’s socioeconomic politics and hero worship, given earthy ballast by Jordan and Stallone’s honest, broken-skinned performances; all of a sudden, an eighth Rocky film doesn’t sound like the worst idea. The Danish Girl (Universal, 15), on the other hand, is as tidily hemmed in and fragrantly starched as Creed is swaggering and bloodily bruised: as film-making, it’s never naked for a moment. That’s a particular problem when the film is about transgender transitioning, a subject that isn’t illuminated by decorous coyness, which is what director Tom Hooper has in sensibly sized spades. The story of Lili Elbe, a celebrated painter who became better known in 1930 as one of the first people to undergo sex reassignment surgery, the film charts her feminine evolution largely through her succession of richly brocaded gowns. Despite the elaborately mannered physical affections of Eddie Redmayne’s performance, the film never successfully evokes how it might feel to have another person, of a gender different from your biological assignment, emerging inside you. Instead, the film principally navigates the more familiar emotional territory of dewy-eyed marital decline, as Elbe’s comparably free-spirited wife Gerda learns to let go. That she’s played as thoughtfully and open-heartedly as she is by an Oscar-winning Alicia Vikander makes the film more moving than it might have been otherwise, but it remains a thoroughly cautious study of a very brave act. One yearns to see The Danish Girl directed by David Cronenberg; I’d even settle for Danish director Jonas Alexander Arnby, who brings a disquieting understanding of morphosis to When Animals Dream (Altitude, 18), a sleek, sensitive portrait of a teenage girl finding her inner (and eventual outer) werewolf. It aims for the ice and blood humanism of Let the Right One In, and doesn’t entirely get there, but it’s a sustained, elegant shiver. Also falling short of lofty genre aspirations is Mojave (Signature, 15), a somewhat mapless thriller with an embittered undercurrent of Hollywood satire from The Departed writer William Monahan. Still, I enjoyed the dark bourbon tone and ambience of its ambling, as drifter Oscar Isaac and fizzled film-maker Garrett Hedlund circle each other in sexy, shifty style. As smirking, smoking, showbiz noirs go, it’s no In a Lonely Place (Criterion, 12), but what is? Starring Humphrey Bogart at his most craggily disillusioned, Nicholas Ray’s once underrated but gorgeously mordant masterwork gets the rerelease it deserves from the Criterion Collection, its Indian-ink blacks and shimmery silvers sharpened to killer effect. If you’ve never seen it, this is the best possible introduction. Not to be outdone by the recent Criterion hype, meanwhile, the Masters of Cinema label continues to be a treasure trove. Josef von Sternberg’s 1928 silent The Last Command (Eureka, PG) – while noted by triviastes for Emil Jannings’s dignified performance, winner of the first ever best actor Oscar – is no mere footnote. Threaded with irony and compassion, this vast story of a tsarist Russian duke turned Hollywood extra deserves this polished revival. I’m writing this week’s column from Cannes, where Mexican director David Pablos’s The Chosen Ones, a tough, bluntly powerful study of the sex slavery racket, left audiences gasping last year. Always a challenging candidate for distribution, it has instead been internationally released as a Netflix exclusive, and if you can handle its hope-deprived worldview, it’s sternly impressive stuff. Taking the perspective of a young male employee of a sex trafficking ring, and sketching his moral crisis when he falls for one of its kidnapped teenage victims, it’s a film that suffuses unremittingly ugly subject matter with sensory clarity. Pablos is a name to watch; one wonders if Netflix has other plans for him.
The Maccabees: 'After 14 years as a band we have decided to call it a day' The Maccabees have announced they are to split. In a statement from the indie group, the band explain “there have not been fallings out and we are grateful to say that we are not leaving the group behind as a divided force”. Stating its members would continue to make music, and that there would be farewell celebration shows, the Maccabees describe the decision as “incredibly difficult”. “We are very proud to be able to go out on our own terms, at our creative peak and off the back of the best and biggest shows we have ever done. It has been a rare and absolutely incredible time that we all feel very lucky to have shared.” Orlando Weeks, Hugo White, Felix White, Rupert Jarvis and Robert Dylan Thomas – later replaced by Sam Doyle – met as teenagers in south London in 2002. Releasing four albums throughout their career, starting with their 2007 debut, Colour It In, and including 2012’s Given to the Wild, which won them a Mercury nomination and an Ivor Novello award, The Maccabees emerged at a time when many artists were coming from the city, alongside Adele, Florence Welch, the Mystery Jets and Jamie T. Their inspiration in their formative stage was said to be “late 60s comedy rockers Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, television cricket coverage”, as well as a mutual love for the Libertines, while their sound has evolved from gentle acoustic storytelling to more angular, anthemic pop songs. This summer, the Maccabees played their first ever major festival headline set following their chart-topping album Marks to Prove It. Read their full statement below: After 14 years as a band we have decided to call it a day. The decision has obviously been an incredibly difficult one, given that the Maccabees has been such a huge part of our lives until now. We are very proud to be able to go out on our own terms, at our creative peak and off the back of the best and biggest shows we have ever done. There have not been fallings out and we are grateful to say that we are not leaving the group behind as a divided force. It has been a rare and absolutely incredible time that we all feel very lucky to have shared. Love to anyone who has ever stood by our band, bought our records, come and seen us play, or cared and contributed in whatever capacity it may have been. We have always valued it immeasurably, tried to honour it as best we could and can only say thank you to you all very deeply and sincerely. Though there are no concrete plans at this stage, we are all planning to continue making music. We are excited about the future and intend to move on, with some sadness, but with appreciation, affection and huge pride at the music we have made and all that we have achieved together. There will be some farewell celebration shows announced in the near future. Once again, especially to fans of the Maccabees, thank you for the countless good times that we will never forget. Take care and we will be in touch soon. With love, The Maccabees
Southern Health chairman quits after damning report by inspectors The chairman of an NHS mental health trust that was told it was not doing enough to investigate unexpected deaths has resigned after an inspection found there were still serious concerns about the safety of patients. A team from the Care Quality Commission (CQC), which regulates health and social care services, said Southern Health had not made effective arrangements for responding to concerns raised by patients, their carers or staff. Inspectors said they found “ligature risks” in acute mental health wards, despite three earlier warnings about the dangers they posed. A protocol for safe bathing for people with epilepsy had not been signed off, three years after an 18-year-old drowned in a bath after suffering an epileptic fit. The snap inspection was carried out a month after an independent review said Southern Health had failed to properly investigate more than 1,000 deaths. Before the report’s publication on Friday, Southern Health’s chairman, Mike Petter, announced he would be stepping down. “The trust has recently undergone a significant amount of scrutiny in some service areas and, given the challenges it faces, I feel it is appropriate for me to allow new board leadership to take forward the improvements,” he said in a statement. Twenty-two inspectors carried out the short-notice inspection of Southern Health’s sites over four days in January, speaking with patients, carers, staff, whistleblowers and the trust’s board. They found that the trust still lacked “robust governance arrangements” for investigating incidents, learning from them and making sure they did not happen again. Although some improvements had been made, there were still inconsistencies in the recording of incidents, problems with the management of complaints and a poor understanding of risks in wards. Last year NHS England hired Mazars, an audit firm, to examine 10,306 patient deaths at Southern Health between April 2011 and March 2015, 1,454 of which had been unexpected. It concluded that failures by the trust’s board and senior executives meant there was no “effective” management of deaths or investigations and a lack of “effective focus or leadership from the board”. In 2013 Connor Sparrowhawk, an 18-year-old with learning disabilities, drowned in a bath at the trust’s Slade House unit in Oxfordshire after suffering an epileptic seizure. The Mazars report said coroners had criticised the trust during inquests for producing reports that were inadequate or very late, but it said that had failed to prompt the improvements that were needed, and staff often made little effort to engage with the relatives of those who had died. Dr Paul Lelliott, the CQC’s deputy chief inspector of hospitals, said: “We found that in spite of the best efforts of the staff, the key risks and actions to address them were not driving the senior leadership or board agenda. It is clear that the trust had still missed opportunities to learn from adverse incidents and to take action to reduce the chance of similar events happening in the future. “For example, although the trust had identified that when people did not attend appointments they could be at high risk of harm, there was no clear guidance for staff working in community mental health teams about what they should do when a patient does not attend an appointment.” Concerns raised previously about the physical environment were not being acted on, Lelliott said. A low roof in a garden attached to an acute mental health ward had not been made inaccessible, despite patients climbing up it and falling off, and in one case using it as a route to escape. “I am concerned that the leadership of this trust shows little evidence of being proactive in identifying risk to the people it cares for or of taking action to address that risk before concerns are raised by external bodies,” the inspector said. Katrina Percy, chief executive of Southern Health, said: “Today’s CQC report sends a clear message to the leadership of the trust that more improvements must be delivered and as rapidly as possible … We fully accept that until we address all these concerns and our new reporting and investigating procedures introduced in December 2015 are completely effective, we will remain, rightly, under intense scrutiny.”
From a German doctor to a Dutch nurse: NHS workers on their worries after Brexit Some 57,000 Europeans are employed by the NHS, and their position has looked increasingly uncertain since Britain voted to leave the EU. It’s an issue highlighted by the Institute of Public Policy Research, with the thinktank warning that the health service could collapse if those European workers left the UK. Chris Murray, who compiled the report, said: “It is critical to public health that these workers do not seek jobs elsewhere. All EU nationals who work for the NHS, or as locums in the NHS system, should be eligible to apply for British citizenship.” So, how do European nationals working for our health service feel post-Brexit? Six of them explain. Spanish pharmacist Ricardo, 38, Bournemouth: ‘I am not sure how the NHS will cope without Europeans’ After Brexit, me and my wife started thinking of places to go: Spain, Scotland, Canada. My wife is Scottish and works in academia, so we need to find somewhere we could both work. I feel betrayed by the referendum vote, and in some ways it looks like we are going to be allowed to stay for as long as we are useful. This country has decided to shut its doors to globalisation – despite the fact that it’s here to stay. I know not everyone voted for Britain to leave the EU because of immigration, but it played a huge part for a lot of people. It makes me feel unwelcome, but I like my life here: I have a great job and met my wife in Britain. My future here now seems very uncertain, which is a shame because Europeans are very important to the NHS. Just to give you an example: in my department more than 50% of the pharmacists come from the EU. Likewise, most hospitals have hired (or are hiring) nurses from Europe. I am not sure how the NHS will cope without us. Nurse from the Netherlands Helena, 52, Wales: ‘The way I feel now I am not sure I would even accept British citizenship’ It has now been around two months since Brexit. At the moment I still feel like I am going through the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Why should I have to apply for dual nationality and pay thousands to do so? I feel as though the goal posts have been shifted and I can no longer remain here on the same terms on which I arrived from the Netherlands in 1995. To be honest, the way I feel now I am not sure I would even accept British citizenship if offered it. I do not really feel welcome in the UK any more, and I am not sure if I will stay or go. Shortly after the referendum result was announced my husband got a letter from the university where he works to say they would support EU-citizen-staff and family members who wanted to get permanent citizenship. I have not yet heard anything from my employer, despite being an NHS nurse for more than 14 years. Maybe EU nationals are not important, but this is surprising given the high number who work here. I know that without us the NHS would be unsustainable. There is no budget, investments and slack in the NHS to grow, develop and modernise. A few weeks ago, when I was back in the Netherlands, I had to accompany a family member to hospital and the healthcare service was so much better. It feels tempting to go back home. Quality improvement officer from Germany Chuck, 52, London: ‘With 20 years of experience in the NHS, I have a lot to offer this country’ With 30 years of healthcare experience (20 of it in the NHS) I have a lot to offer this country. But I am one of many. We have nurses, doctors and therapists from all countries. Clinical innovation, for example, seems to be supported by high numbers of academic clinicians from Greece, Spain and Italy. I am a German expat and have been living in Britain for the past two decades because I like the country, the people, the culture and the NHS. NHS executives have been very supportive and sent messages saying that European colleagues are valued, needed and welcome here. However, the government’s position is not clear, and my wife and I worry about changes in the public mood. Even if we are being made to feel welcome at work, we no longer feel that welcome on the streets. Because of this, we are thinking about leaving Britain. The referendum was the most painful reminder that I don’t have a vote in the country I live in and contribute to. Doctor from Germany Stephanie, 42, Portsmouth: ‘The UK can’t afford to loose more committed staff members’ I am in the process of applying for a permanent residency card, which I require if I want to apply for naturalisation (the legal act by which a non-citizen in a country may acquire citizenship). However, currently the German government only allows dual citizenship if the other country is an EU country, and I don’t want to give up my German passport – hopefully I can sort it out before Article 50 is triggered. The whole process is so complex and expensive, however, almost as though it’s designed to put people off. I am a German GP and married to a British citizen. My son already has dual nationality and I feel this is my only option. Although my primary degree is from a German university, I did my postgraduate and general practice training in the UK. There is a shortage of GPs at the moment, and Jeremy Hunt’s plan was to recruit 5,000 from abroad to solve the crisis. It is therefore vital that EU nationals working here as doctors are encouraged to stay. The UK can’t afford to lose more committed staff members. Cardiologist from Austria Daniel, 43, Surrey: ‘I feel upset that some of the people I treat want me out of the country’ I am already looking for positions in other European countries. Despite the fact that I love my job, my colleagues and my patients, I do not feel that this is the place for my children to grow up. Their opportunities have been taken from them, and it only looks like things will get worse. EU nationals are critical for the NHS. I come from Austria, and many of my fellow doctors come from all over Europe. We rely on nurses from across the EU, who are all highly qualified and motivated to do their work. The UK alone simply does not have enough trained staff to keep up with the needs of its citizens, and there are too few in training programmes. The staffing problems will just get worse. I feel upset to know that some of the people I treat want me out of “their” country. I feel that they probably call me all sorts of names behind my back. We Europeans should all work together towards a brighter future for the whole world. Surgeon from Austria Peter, 35, Liverpool: ‘I will serve the NHS as long as I can’ My plans, post-Brexit, are to continue serving the people of the UK via the NHS as long as the government allows me to. I would not take British citizenship now, however, if offered it. I was eligible for British citizenship 10 years ago, but I have no interest in giving up my own EU citizenship, especially after the referendum. I would not want to limit my access and rights of free movement in the EU. Working conditions in the NHS are in a steady decline, and many EU countries are opening their arms to fully trained doctors and nurses. Some names have been changed
BT Sport loses pictures of Spurs-Arsenal derby with power cut in injury time Viewers were left aghast when a pulsating and delicately poised north London derby entered injury time and BT Sport’s coverage suddenly disappeared. Screens were filled with an apologetic message. Unlike ITV, who missed Dan Gosling’s FA Cup winner for Everton against Liverpool in 2009 after accidentally switching to a Tic Tac advert and whose HD channel failed to broadcast Steven Gerrard’s goal against the USA in the 2010 World Cup, BT Sport did not miss a goal. The feed returned just as Spurs’ Kevin Wimmer was making a match-saving block from Aaron Ramsey. After the match the presenter, Jake Humphrey, apologised and blamed a local power outage. As he cut to an ad break he said: “What a pleasure that was, apart from the couple of minutes that you lost ...” Sadly for the broadcaster, BT Broadband (other suppliers are also available) was working well enough for thousands of aggrieved supporters to abuse them on Twitter.
Exercise can cut risk from alcohol-related diseases, study suggests Drinkers who do the recommended amount of exercise can reduce their risk of dying from alcohol-related cancer, according to new medical research. Undertaking two and a half hours a week of physical activity can also reduce, but not banish, someone’s chances of dying from any cause, according to the study of 36,370 British patients. The findings, published on Wednesday in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, found that: “Stratified analysis showed that the association between alcohol intake and mortality risk was attenuated (all-cause) or nearly nullified (cancer) among individuals who met the physical activity recommendations.” The authors added: “Meeting the current physical activity public health recommendations offsets some of the cancer and all-cause mortality risk associated with alcohol drinking.” The study, by academics in London, Canada, Norway and Australia, examined the health of men and women over the age of 40 who had provided data for six editions of the Health Survey for England up to 2006, and the 1998 and 2003 editions of the Scottish Health Survey. “In this large British general population cohort we found that the association between alcohol intake and mortality risk was moderated by physical activity,” says the study. The researchers found that risk of death from either cause increased more slowly among Britons who followed the government-backed advice and did five lots of moderate-intensity exercise a week than those who undertook less physical activity, although the effect was more noticeable for cancer. Kevin McConway, emeritus professor of statistics at the Open University, said: “Does this mean that I don’t have to worry about the effect of drinking on my health, as long as I get enough exercise? Well, no, it doesn’t, for a long list of reasons.” McConway advised caution. “It’s possible the changes in risk patterns in people who exercised were not because of the exercise, but because of something else that just happened to be different.” Matt Field, professor of psychology at Liverpool University, said the “rigorous piece of research” showed that “it appears that physical activity may partially offset some of the harmful effects of drinking, particularly alcohol-attributable cancers”. The findings have prompted calls for fitness trainers to work in pubs to encourage drinkers to be more active. “From our Let’s Get Moving physical activity initiative, we’ve seen the benefits of linking exercise professionals to GP surgeries to improve the health of at-risk patients. This research suggests we should look at similar measures in pubs to help engage harder-to-reach sections of society in physical activity,” said Steven Ward, executive director of ukactive, which represents the exercise industry. “This research might sound like great news for Sunday league footballers everywhere, but as the recently updated chief medical officer’s guidelines show, excessive drinking remains a major health risk.” However, the researchers found that 27.5% of the patients studied took no exercise at all and almost 61% did not achieve the target of 150 minutes a week. Nonetheless, the authors believe their findings show that physical activity can promote good health and reduce at least some of the associated harmful effects of drinking, even among those who do no more than the minimum 150 minutes. “Our results provide an additional argument for the role of [physical activity] as a means to promote the health of the population even in the presence of other less healthy behaviours,” they say. • This article was amended on 8 September 2016. In an earlier version, part of the quote from Steven Ward was misattributed to Matt Field.
Black Dylan: Hey Stranger review – Danish duo’s soulful debut The opener contains the lines “You got the sugar for my coffee/ You got me feeling luvvy-duvvy”. Tracks two and three might be the most forcefully upbeat pop-soul confections you’ll hear all year. If Danish duo Black Dylan put out an ad demanding airplay on Radio 2, they couldn’t make their intentions for their debut any clearer. So what prevents Hey Stranger from sliding into bad Motown pastiche? One factor is the darkening mood that grips the album in its second half, where a love affair falters and a son lashes out at his prodigal father. The other is Wafande, a reggae star in Denmark before this foray into 60s soul. His warm, genial presence gives the album its charm.
Research reveals huge scale of social media misogyny Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat politicians will come together to call for a national campaign to defeat online misogyny as research reveals the scale of abuse aimed at women on social media. Yvette Cooper is joining forces with the former Tory minister Maria Miller, former Lib Dem MP Jo Swinson and Labour’s Jess Phillips to launch an online public consultation in an attempt to create a national conversation about tackling the growing scale of online abuse. Facebook expressed its backing for the campaign but acknowledged that it does not always take down misogynistic comments. To coincide with the launch, the campaign has released research by Demos revealing the huge scale of social media misogyny. The study monitored the use of the words “slut” and “whore” by UK Twitter users over three weeks from the end of April. It found that 6,500 individuals were targeted by 10,000 aggressive and misogynistic tweets in that period. Internationally, more than 200,000 aggressive tweets using the same words were sent to 80,000 people in the same period – and according to the study, more than half of the offenders were women. The Reclaim the Internet consultation will be launched on Thursday via an online forum. Cooper is calling for contributions from individuals, organisations, employers, union members, victims, police and tech companies. The campaign comes after research for the ’s project the web we want revealed that of the 10 most abused writers online, eight were women and the other two were black men. Cooper said the Reclaim the Internet event, to be held at the Commons on Thursday, amounted to a “call to arms”. She is due to appear alongside unions and women’s groups as well as representatives from Facebook and Twitter. The Labour MP said she took her inspiration for Reclaim the Internet from the reclaim the night movement of the 1970s, in which women organised street protests demanding action against harassment, intimidation and violence. “Forty years ago women took to the streets to challenge attitudes and demand action against harassment on the streets,” she said. “Today the internet is our streets and public spaces. “Yet for some people online harassment, bullying, misogyny, racism or homophobia can end up poisoning the internet and stopping them from speaking out. We have responsibilities as online citizens to make sure the internet is a safe space. Challenging online abuse can’t be done by any organisation alone … This needs everyone.” Contributors will be asked to provide ideas on five key areas: The role of the police and prosecutors. The role of organisations and employers. The responsibility of social media platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter, as publishers. The role of individuals across society to tackle trolls and support victims. Empowering and educating the next generation. Celebrities are among the most frequent targets for abuse. The Demos research reveals those targeted the most internationally during the three-week period were the American rapper Azealia Banks, Katie Hopkins, LegendaryLeaTV – an online gamer – and Hillary Clinton. However the teaching union NASUWT, which supports the campaign, said it was teachers not celebrities who were increasingly being targeted by social media abuse from pupils and their parents. Half of 1,300 teachers questioned in a survey said they had been targeted on social media in relation to their work, according to the union. More than half of those who had suffered abuse said it had come from parents – an increase from 40% in 2015. The union added that it was seeing significant increases in the number of teachers receiving abuse from pupils – 55% compared with 48% in 2015 – and effective response to the aggressive harassment via social media remained unacceptably low. One male assistant headteacher, who did not want to be named, said he had reported threatening abuse from parents on Facebook to the police and to the tech giant. “One parent threatened to smash my face in in a post on Facebook and another accused me of being homophobic because we did not expel a pupil who had made homophobic comments to her son,” he said. “Teachers have always had negative comments from some parents but the use of social media whips it up into a mini fury. Other parents will ‘like’ the abuse, or add their comments. We have reported it to the police and to Facebook, but Facebook has a lot to answer for in their lack of meaningful response and lack of support. “Facebook does not take the comments down. They say they don’t breach their rules.” Alex Krasodomski-Jones, researcher at the centre for the analysis of social media at Demos, said the study showed that while the digital world had built new opportunities for public debate and social interaction, it had also built new battlegrounds for the worst aspects of human behaviour. “This study is a bird’s-eye snapshot of what is ultimately a very personal and often traumatic experience,” he said. “While we have focused on Twitter, who are considerably more generous in sharing their data with us, it’s important to note misogyny is prevalent across all social media. This is a stark reminder that we are frequently not as good citizens online as we are offline.” Nicola Mendelsohn, Facebook’s vice-president for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, said: “I’m aware of the work that Yvette Cooper is spearheading today. I’m very supportive of it. We do a lot of work in this area already, working with organisations like Women’s Aid, and there is absolutely no place on Facebook for anything like that.” But asked on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme to confirm that Facebook did not take down misogynistic comments as soon as they were made, Lady Mendelsohn said: “We take down content where there is bullying or violence or things like that. We absolutely do take that content down.” Mendelsohn also acknowledged that Facebook was wrong to ban an advert featuring a photograph of a plus-sized model that it deemed “undesirable”. “We get it wrong sometimes. We got it wrong in that respect. We apologised and the ad is back up and running,” she said.
Japanese ambassador warns companies could leave UK over Brexit The Japanese prime minister has told Theresa May she needs to give more clarity to international investors in the UK who are worried about Brexit. Shinzō Abe used his first face-to-face meeting with May to warn that Japanese companies needed more certainty in order to stay in the UK, after the country prepared a 15-page note setting out its concerns. Japan’s ministry of foreign affairs said: “Prime Minister Abe requested [May’s] cooperation to enhance predictability and to continue to secure Japanese companies’ businesses and value chains. In response, Prime Minister May mentioned that she recognises that the result of the UK referendum to leave the EU is having influence on the international community including Japan, and expressed her hope that the Japan-UK economic relationships will be maintained and strengthened.” Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Japan’s ambassador to the UK warned that Japanese companies would disinvest from the UK if Brexit meant they could not make sufficient profits, t The blunt warning from Koji Tsuruoka came the day after the UK government was confronted by a Japanese government memorandum urging Britain to retain maximum contact with the EU single market and ensure free movement of workers between the EU and the UK after Brexit. Both demands are at odds with Tory MPs who support a “hard” Brexit in which the UK seeks to forge trade deals primarily outside the EU. The ambassador also urged the UK government to consult with its trading partners and investors before hardening its negotiating position. “Unless you have international cooperation Brexit is not going to be an easy task,” he warned. Tsuruoka praised May for holding talks with the Japanese government, saying it was vital the UK developed a thought-through model. He said: “The problem that we will have to confront is what is the markets that could be accessed by Japanese outside of the UK. If there are conditions that block Japanese automakers’ cars from continental Europe, if the customs duties are imposed, that will of course affect the competitive nature of the pricing of the cars. Access is very important.” He said Japanese private firms had all options open to them on future investment since their duty to their stockholders was to produce profits. “If the way Brexit ends up does not provide companies with the prospect of making sufficient profits to continue operating in the UK then of course all options are open to them.” He said he doubted Nissan would completely disinvest from the UK. Defending Japan’s right to set out its views at the outset of the Brexit debate, Tsuruoka said: “We have more than 10,000 companies in the UK employing more than 140,000 people.” He insisted Japanese companies regarded the UK as the best place to do business, but added Japan needed a thought-through consultation on Brexit. He said Japan and the EU were due to complete a free-trade agreement in principle by the end of the year, based on low tariffs, and he hoped a similar deal could be struck between the UK and Japan. The warning from Japan is one of several difficult messages about Brexit received by May at the G20 summit in Hangzhou. While Malcom Turnbull, the Australian prime minister and an old university friend of May, has been supportive, others have raised concerns about the consequences on trade relations. At her first bilateral meeting with Barack Obama, May was warned the US wanted to focus on trade negotiations with the EU and a bloc of Pacific states before considering a deal with the UK. May also had to tell President Vladimir Putin that it could not be “business as usual” in the UK’s economic dealings with Russia because of its actions in Syria and Ukraine, although they discussed security cooperation.
Fan discontent part of job but I get it, says Everton’s Roberto Martínez Roberto Martínez accepts that dealing with supporter unrest is part of his job as Everton manager after fans unfurled two banners showing discontent with the Spaniard before the 1-1 draw at Watford. Everton ended a run of three straight Premier League defeats but were denied victory against Watford, similarly out of form, when conceding 38 seconds after taking the lead in first-half injury time. José Holebas’s header from a corner could easily have been prevented after James McCarthy had scored for Everton, and two messages from the away support caught the eye. One read “Baines is one of us” and the other “Martínez Out”. Leighton Baines questioned his side’s chemistry following the 1-0 defeat at Manchester United on 3 April and, after Martínez said the left-back’s comments were misinterpreted, it was clear whom the Everton fans sympathised with. “I think that comes with the job,” Martínez said of the banners. “Since day one, my first season at Everton, I’m extremely proud and honoured to be the manager and I accept that the fans are not going to be happy with the team losing and I accept and understand. What’s important is the fans always support the team, always support in whatever way they can and help us to win games – and that’s the only thing that matters. “They know I would give my life to achieve a winning team. Everything we do is to make them proud, so I’ve got no problem with their discontent at times and football is an emotional game. I wouldn’t expect anyone to be happy with poor standards and losing three games in the league for me, in my eyes, is very poor standards. There were some banners but I understand that completely.” Asked what he thought of the Baines banner, Martínez said: “I thought Leighton performed extremely well and that’s the only thing you can change as a manager. Leighton, like all of us, is disappointed that we haven’t been able to win football games. It needs to be changed by performing well and winning games, and I thought Leighton didn’t put a foot wrong and his performance was outstanding – and that’s what we all want.” Watford, like Everton, have little to play for in the Premier League but the sides could meet in the FA Cup final. Such an eventuality would be a repeat of the 1984 final – which Everton won 2-0 – but first Martínez’s side must overcome West Ham United or Manchester United and Watford play Crystal Palace in the other semi-final. There were T-shirts sold outside the stadium on Saturday celebrating Watford’s Cup run but their coach, Quique Sánchez Flores, admitted the competition is becoming a distraction from the league. Asked about a potential rematch with Everton at Wembley, he said: “We have the opportunity to get to the final but I am not sure. I understand the question but for me it is like a pain to have to answer about the FA Cup because my mind was completely on Everton and now West Brom [in the league].” Man of the match Heurelho Gomes (Watford)
Everton v Tottenham: Premier League – as it happened The draw keeps Tottenham fourth, three points ahead of Manchester United, while Everton remain in 11th place. Tottenham are six points behind Arsenal. A point at Everton isn’t the worst result in the world and a point against Tottenham isn’t the worst result in the world. Thanks for reading. Bye. That’s your lot. 90 min+3: Lukaku isolates Vertonghen again. Yet the Tottenham centre-back blocks his shot this time. The ball flies to the left of the area. Barkley turns and shoots, but Lloris parries it away. 90 min+2: Lukaku finally finds himself one-on-one with Vertonghen as Everton counter. Yet Vertonghen does well to push him away from goal and Lukaku fires over. 90 min: There will be three minutes of stoppage time. Tottenham are tired. 89 min: Tottenham knock a long ball down the left, Son chasing it with Stones, who gets there first. Stones should just clear it. Instead he decides to show off a few yards from his own goal, reasoning that this is the best place for him to turn this way and that. The Everton fans howl and fortunately for Stones, Son pulls him back and he gets a free-kick. Stones isn’t happy with the supporters. “Eff me,” he says, shaking his head, but there are times when you’re allowed to locate Row Z. 88 min: Tottenham make their final change, Josh Onomah replacing Erik Lamela. 87 min: Barkley finds space on the right and tries to look for Lukaku in the middle. Tottenham get it behind for a corner. 86 min: Lukaku almost breaks clear of the Tottenham defence, but Lloris reads the danger. 83 min: Nacer Chadli replaces Dele Alli. 79 min: Everton put Tottenham under some pressure in the air. Tottenham struggle to get it away with a couple of unconvincing defensive headers and the ball heads Besic’s way. He wallops a volley towards the top right corner, but Lloris superbly tips it over. From Cleverley’s resulting corner, Stones heads just wide. 78 min: Dier overhits a cross from the right. Howard again provokes the crowd’s ire by electing to punch it away. 76 min: Lamela lifts a free-kick into the Everton area. Howard does his best to gift Tottenham a goal, but he can’t quite manage it. 74 min: Alli tries his luck from 30 yards. It’s a decent enough effort, but it’s straight at Howard. 73 min: The ball breaks to Deulofeu on the right of the Spurs area, but he can’t find a way past Davies with his shot. He does win a corner, though. 72 min: Carroll is booked for pulling Barkley back. 71 min: Tottenham are beginning to look like they’ve run out of steam. Not to worry, it’s not like they have to worry about the Europa League. 69 min: Tottenham make their first change. Son replaces Eriksen. 68 min: Lamela is booked for shoving a hand in Coleman’s face in an attempt to hold off the Everton defender. He had the ball, so that’s a fairly moronic piece of play from Lamela. 67 min: Lloris has to race out of his area and slide in front of Deulofeu after the Tottenham defence were caught out by a ball down the right channel. Everton are building up some momentum. 66 min: Deulofeu dips past Eriksen and hangs a cross to the far post. It’s just too high for Lukaku. But the combination nearly clicks. Everton are improving. 64 min: Alli lobs a pass over the top, seeking out Kane. Stones covers well, but a moment of indecision between him and Howard almost lets Kane in. Howard mops up in the end. 63 min: It’s one-way traffic. Tottenham will be very annoyed if they contrive not to win this game. It would be the height of Spursiness if they lose it. 60 min: Everton make two changes. Mo Besic replaces Arouna Kone, while Gerard Deulofeu is on for Aaron Lennon. A few boos greet the decision to take Lennon off. 57 min: It’s pretty astonishing that this game is level. 54 min: Carroll prods a pass through to Eriksen, who has snuck into the space between the Everton midfield and their defence. Eriksen shoots firmly, but straight at Howard. 52 min: Tottenham come into it. And they almost score a stunning team goal. Davies hits a high ball from left to right, Alli the target again. Alli uses his chest to great effect again, showing wonderful ability, imagination and vision by pushing the ball through to Kane, who has made a good run. Kane is through but Stones forces him wide and his shot bounces past the right post. 51 min: Everton have started the second half well, putting together their first extended spell of pressure. Tottenham haven’t been in it yet. 50 min: A man called Mike has alerted me to an old picture on Alli’s MySpace page. 48 min: Barkley embarks on a power surge through the middle. However he’s tracked all the way by Carroll and he slashes a shot miles wide from 25 yards. “Wonderful player, absolute joy to watch,” says Evan Haas, speaking about Christian Benteke Dele Alli. “I’ll be gutted when Real Madrid spend two years publicly tapping him up then buy him for some princely sum we end up spending on the next Paulinho.” 46 min: Off we go again. This could be a big 45 minutes in Tottenham’s season. “Dele Alli has become without doubt the outstanding part of the midfield for Spurs this season,” says Jeremy Dresner. “Eriksen, Dembele and Lamela are all prone to having bad days this guy seems to be mr consistency - very unusual for someone so young. Can only compare him in style and effectiveness to a young Rooney. His rash discipline links him to the England captain too and needs ironing out but otherwise he is an absolute gem! Bravo Levy for snapping him up last Jan!” Dele Alli. Discuss. This is absurd from an astounding young footballer. Toby Alderweireld pings a searching pass over the top of the Everton defence from the halfway line, looking for Alli, who peels from left to right, away from Colman and into the area. There doesn’t appear to be a lot on, mind you, but Alli leaps, controls the ball on his chest, waits for it to drop and then hammers it past Howard with his right foot on the volley. The ball never touched the ground! 42 min: Defending deep on the right, Coleman ends up colliding with the advertising hoardings behind the goal. Thankfully he doesn’t appear to be hurt. 40 min: Eriksen opens up the pitch with a cracking pass to Davies on the left. The resulting cross is threatening, but Alli mistimes his jump and heads well wide. 39 min: Lamela almost threads a wondrous pass through the eye of the needle to Alli. But not quite. Howard gathers. 36 min: It must be said that for all their territorial dominance, Tottenham are struggling to carve Everton open. They’re getting bogged down, with Everton happy to keep numbers back behind the ball. 35 min: Seamus Coleman is booked for handling a pass by Lamela. Barkley also could have been booked for pulling Lamela’s shirt. 33 min: Carroll tries his luck with a volley from 30 yards. It’s straight at Howard. 32 min: Tottenham have had 61% of the possession. They trail. 30 min: Eriksen catches Everton out by pulling the corner back to Davies, lurking 25 yards from goal. No one’s seen him. Davies gets the ball out of his feet and then rams a stunning shot towards the top right corner. Howard is beaten, but the ball pings away off the face of the bar. Tottenham are desperately unlucky not to be level. 29 min: Tottenham have offered little since going behind. But they do have a corner on the right. Can they do anything with it? 26 min: Eriksen’s bending shot from 25 yards takes a deflection and drifts wide for a corner. Tottenham make a mess of it. 25 min: Lennon, determined to show Pochettino that he was wrong to sell him, whizzes past Davies and cuts the ball back to Kone. He looks poised to score, but his clipped effort is blocked. 24 min: Football really is a funny old game. Twenty minutes of utter dominance and now look. Lennon’s celebration wasn’t over the top, by the way, but he did look very pleased himself. Everton get the ball for a bit. They score. Leighton Baines wins the ball halfway inside the Tottenham half, hassling Eriksen into giving it away, giving Tottenham some of their own medicine. He finds Cleverley, who in turn lofts a high ball towards Lukaku inside the Spurs area. Sam Allardyce would approve. He nods it down to Kevin Nolan Aaron Lennon and the former Spurs winger controls with his chest and then arcs a beauty of a volley past Lloris and into the far corner. Superb. 21 min: Can Everton have the ball for a bit? 18 min: Eriksen is hovering near the ball, but it’s made for a left footer and Lamela assumes control. However his curling effort hits the wall and spins wide for a corner. 17 min: Tottenham almost work their way through on goal. Everton clear in a panic, but obviously they try to play their way out from the back, which is a bad idea. They end up conceding a free-kick just to the right of the D when Barry catches Eriksen. 15 min: Tottenham’s pressing is outstanding. Very gegen. 12 min: Everton aren’t being allowed out of their half. Someone fetch me some possession stats. Stat! 10 min: Alli is back on his feet and he’s back on the pitch. 9 min: Harry Kane jogs down the right and, with no one making a run outside him, he decides to have a shot. Baines blocks it. The ball is back with Kane soon enough, though, and he’s undeterred. He shoots again from 25 yards, Baines standing off him, and his rasping low shot fizzes past Howard and clangs away off the inside of the post. The ball flies off for a throw, meaning that Alli can get some treatment. He’s down after a collision with Cleverley. 8 min: Alli almost slips a pass through to Lamela on the edge of the Tottenham area. Funes Mori recovers, but Everton look jittery in defence. 6 min: Tottenham have started brightly. A deflected effort from Walker ricochets to Kane on the left. He finds Alli, who lays it back to Carroll, who ruins it all with a pass to absolutely no one. 4 min: Eriksen slides a pass out to Walker on the right. He has far too much space and he boulders into the Everton area, before rapping a low ball into the six-yard box. It looks like it’s going to be a certain goal for Dele Alli, but he’s denied by a fine challenge from Coleman. 3 min: Tottenham are passing the ball crisply in midfield. They look alert and confident. And we’re off! Everton, in their blue shirts and white shorts, get the game underway, kicking from right to left in the first half. Ross Barkley immediately charges into the Tottenham half from kick-off, a sign of Everton’s attacking intent. Here come the teams! It’s Everton v Tottenham. It’s Romelu Lukaku v Harry Kane. It’s on! A curious Everton line-up, with Gerard Deulofeu benched and Arouna Kone in from the start. There’s some consternation about that amongst their supporters. For Tottenham, Moussa Dembele is out with a groin injury, so Tom Carroll starts again. They revert to four at the back after playing three centre-backs against Watford, while Son Heung-Min has to settle for a place on the bench after his late winner at Vicarage Road. The Roberto Martinez Fantasy: Howard; Coleman, Stones, Funes Mori, Baines; Barry, Cleverley; Lennon, Barkley, Kone; Lukaku. Subs: Robles, Jagielka, Mirallas, Besic, Deulofeu, Osman, Galloway. Tottenham Hotspur: Lloris; Walker, Alderweireld, Vertonghen, Davies; Dier, Carroll; Lamela, Alli, Eriksen; Kane. Subs: Rose, Bentaleb, Son, Vorm, Trippier, Chadli, Onomah. Referee: Michael Oliver (Northumberland) So, Tottenham. Are they the real deal or is everything going to turn out very Spursy eventually? It looks like the former at the moment. This could be a case of speaking too soon, but the excellent Mauricio Pochettino is making it his business to stamp out their bad old tendencies and Tottenham no longer give the impression that calamity is lurking just around the corner, waiting to trip them up just as they dare to dream that something special is a genuine possibility. Spurs have the best defensive record in the league, they have lost twice in 19 games and they have a clear, effective way of playing. They are looking very good. The way they’ve been playing lately, forget about the top-four, this lot could challenge for the title, and how cheering it must have been for Spurs fans to see Pochettino talking about his long-term plans at White Hart Lane. He’s ace. They picked well when they replaced Tactics Tim. Compare and contrast with Everton. A friend put it to me recently that they are the best 20-minute team in the Premier League and it’s not hard to see what he was getting at. They can be brilliant in patches, but they also have a habit of drifting through matches, and it is baffling to see a squad of this obvious quality in 11th place. Romelu Lukaku, Gerard Deulofeu, Ross Barkley, John Stones, Seamus Coleman - Roberto Martinez should have them higher and a few doubts are surfacing about him. He is still struggling to get his defence right, which has always been a problem for his sides, and the sense is growing that Everton are underachieving. They should be producing a lot more. Then again, they can be superb on their day, so Tottenham will need to be at their most alert, especially with Lukaku in a fearsome run of goalscoring form. We’ll learn a lot about their burgeoning title credentials at Goodison Park. Is it all going to go a bit Spursy? There’s only one way to find out! Kick-off: 4pm GMT.
England players discuss Brexit around Euro 2016 dinner table The subject of whether Britain should leave or remain in the European Union has cropped up around the dinner table at the England team hotel in Chantilly as the country readies itself for the referendum on 23 June. The FA spoke with the national team’s players and coaching staff before the tournament, offering to arrange postal or proxy votes on their behalf in anticipation of the team emerging from Group B and into the knockout phase, which begins two days after the referendum. The governing body confirmed plenty took up the offer, with Ryan Bertrand confirming the issue has been a topic of conversation. “We have a brief chat about it at the dinner table when we unwind,” said the Southampton full-back. “But I’m not going to declare [my voting intention] in public.”
Junior doctors strike will not put patients at risk, say senior medics More than 2,500 consultants, GPs and senior doctors have signed a letter to David Cameron and Jeremy Hunt in support of their striking junior colleagues, offering assurances that patients will be kept safe during next week’s walkout. Junior doctors represented by the BMA are planning their first all-out strikes on 26 and 27 April – the first time in the history of the NHS that they have threatened a full withdrawal of labour. The strikes come amid a row over new terms and conditions that resulted in Hunt, the health secretary, threatening to impose the new contract on trainee medics as part of his vision for a “seven-day NHS”. In the letter, senior doctors say they are disappointed that negotiations between their junior colleagues and the government have broken down. “As senior clinicians who deliver healthcare on the frontline on a daily basis, we understand their frustrations and their actions,” it says. “Stretching an already limited resource across [seven] days does not improve patient care, rather [it] diminishes it, and will also result in the demoralisation of an entire generation of junior doctors. “We are keen to work with you to improve patient care, but this will come with clinical engagement, not disempowerment.” Training, continuity of patient care and junior doctors’ work-life balance will suffer under the new contract, which will lead to a worsening retention crisis within the NHS, they say in the letter, which is to be delivered to Downing Street on Saturday. “We, the senior specialists, will keep the NHS safe for our patients and your constituents, despite much publicity to the contrary,” the letter adds. “Not only are we duty-bound to do so, but we will gladly provide this emergency cover to ensure that the juniors can take this action with the complete confidence that their patients are safe.” The letter counters criticism of the strike by the General Medical Council, which had issued tough new guidance to doctors on their responsibilities during industrial action. The guidance made clear that medics who took part in the strike could be at risk of being disciplined, or even struck off, if their actions “had caused patients serious harm”. Among the prominent signatories are: Clare Gerada, the former chair of the Royal College of General Practitioners; Clive Peedell, the co-leader of the National Health Action party; Peter-Marc Fortune, the president elect of the Paediatric Intensive Care Society; and Raman Uberoi, the president of the British Society of Interventional Radiology. Peedell said: “We fully support the junior doctors strike because the imposed new contract will have catastrophic long-term consequences for patient care. “There is already a shortage of junior doctors and serious rota gaps in key emergency services. The new contract will actually discourage young doctors from choosing the highly pressured emergency specialties, worsening the current situation.” In the event of a strike, routine elective services would be cancelled so that emergency cover could be covered by consultants, middle-grade doctors and GPs, he said. Prof Nigel Standfield, the head of the postgraduate school of surgery at Imperial College, London, said: “This government lacks insight. Its health service policy is in ruins and failure has nothing to do with the dedicated workforce trying to maintain an NHS by hardwork and passion. “Gross underfunding with financial wastage, poor non-clinical and specialist advice, and top-heavy management need to be urgently reviewed. Talk to the juniors and resolve this immediate crisis by diplomacy.” A Department of Health spokesperson said: “We have continually sought a negotiated solution over three years of talks, during which there were two walkouts from the BMA, and now there’s only the one issue of Saturday pay outstanding. “If the doctors’ union had agreed to negotiate on that as they promised to do through Acas in November, we’d have a negotiated agreement by now. Instead, we had no choice but to proceed with proposals recommended and supported by NHS leaders — which were 90% agreed with the BMA.” • This article was amended on 26 April 2016 to clarify a reference to the GMC’s advice to doctors contemplating taking part in industrial action.
Black Girl review – Ousmane Sembène’s groundbreaking film dazzles 50 years on “Oh, you must go to Dakar,” a white couple tell friends, as if the capital of newly liberated Senegal were a stylish restaurant down the street. France’s fetishization of post-colonial Africa may not have the fresh sting as it did in 1966, but the communication breakdowns evident in Ousmane Sembène’s Black Girl are far from resolved. The first sub-Saharan film to make a major impact in Europe and North America, Black Girl radiates with an expressive tone, despite some script compression and the typical production obstacles of a mid-60s independent film. At just over one hour it tells the bleak tale, loosely based on an actual news item, of an African maid who reaches a tragic end at her French employers’ home. The film begins as Diouna (Mbissine Thérèse Diop) steps off a ship and is picked up by her never-named boss (Robert Fontaine). They drive along the coast of the Mediterranean and reach a small, sparsely decorated apartment in Antibes. The only decor is a prominently placed African mask, which we’ll learn through flashback wasn’t a trinket bought at a marketplace but a gift Diouna gave them back in Dakar. Before coming to Antibes, Diouna was happy as the family’s nanny, even gloating about her great new position and happily accepting cast-off dresses from “Madame” (Anne-Marie Jelinek). Accepting the move to France is something of a bait-and-switch. The children are nowhere to be seen, and her tasks are reduced only to cooking and cleaning. Promises from Madame to take Diouna out shopping never come to fruition, and soon she feels like a prisoner. She’s asked to prepare an African dish for visiting guests – something she never did in Dakar – and one of the appreciative diners embraces her, shouting: “I’ve never kissed a Negress!” It’s clear her worth is just as a breathing version of the mask that hangs on the wall. The sound design in Black Girl is similar to other low-budget independent productions of the time. There is very little synchronous sound, and most of what we hear from Diouna is in voiceover. Short repetitive music cues, some featuring the Senegalese string instrument called a xalam, recur against tedious cleaning images, aiding us to empathize with Diouna’s trance-like haze. It’s an effective technique, and works well with the film’s second half, in which Sembène chooses to work in a more allegorical, almost mythical framework. Some may be less willing to overlook a few inconsistencies. For starters: the apartment is tiny, there isn’t that much to keep clean. Also: Madame is a jerk, but she isn’t denying Diouna her freedom of movement. She even encourages her, vaguely, to get out and see town on her own, though makes no consideration as to her safety in a foreign culture where racism was commonplace. (At night she stares out the window, and the high-contrast black and white film stock presents the world outside as an inky void.) Madame’s turn to psychological cruelty seems to come out of nowhere, and the film’s violent resolution may remind modern viewers of Ron Burgundy’s catchphrase: “That escalated quickly.” I choose to shrug off such criticism about the film’s logic. It is, after all, loosely based on a true event, even if the specifics have receded with time. Sembène’s was a poet before he was a film-maker, and given the political context when this movie was made it’s clear that there’s more going on here than realism. Black Girl won Sembène the Prix Jean Vigo (a French prize given to new directors) and is essential viewing for the well-rounded film lover. For its 50th anniversary, Janus Films/Criterion oversaw a new restoration, and its week-long run at the Brooklyn Academy of Music is, despite longtime acclaim and appearances at festivals and repertory screenings, its first New York theatrical engagement. Accompanying Black Girl is Sembène’s outstanding first film Borom Sarret (The Wagoner), a portrait of a villager on the outskirts of modern Dakar struggling to make a living with his horse cart. At a little over 18 minutes, this observational short from 1963 is believed to be the first film ever made by a black African. It isn’t just a milestone, it’s an outstanding work: funny, insightful, beautifully shot and heartbreaking. Despite its brevity, it is every bit as striking and resonant as the feature presentation. Black Girl is at Brooklyn Academy of Music from 18 to 24 May
Slice of the action: smartphone game Fruit Ninja to be made into film Mobile phone game Fruit Ninja is to follow The Angry Birds Movie into cinemas, in a move sparked by the latter’s impressive box-office results. According to the Hollywood Reporter, Halfbrick Studios, the makers of the popular smartphone fruit-slicing game, have partnered with Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters producer Tripp Vinson to create “a live-action family comedy” inspired by the game. Few details of the proposed project have emerged, other than that the script is due to be written by JP Lavin and Chad Damiani, previously responsible for the as-yet-unproduced crime romance Kamikaze Love, which appeared on the 2007 Black List of most-liked screenplays. Fruit Ninja is one of the most popular phone games of all time, registering over a billion downloads and second only to Candy Crush on the list of most popular iOS games. The Angry Birds Movie registered a solid $39m at the US box office on its first weekend on release on 20 May, contributing to over $150m so far, worldwide.
New band of the week: Still Parade (No 96) Hometown: Berlin. The lineup: Niklas Kramer (vocals, instruments). The background: Still Parade is Niklas Kramer, the new one-man-band of the week. His first releases – debut single Actors and the Fields EP – were recorded in proper, well-equipped professional studios with experienced producers. Then, in 2014, his dad bought him a tape machine and he began experimenting with sounds and recording techniques in his Berlin apartment. He soon realised he preferred what he could achieve in his tiny bedroom: a dreamy, soft, shimmering sound, all radiant synths and woozy drum beats, allied to some lovely pop melodies. The results are impressive: Concrete Vision, an album due to be released in June, displays the full range of his abilities on a variety of instruments, notably keyboards, as well as his smart songwriting, inventive production and his way with a breathy vocal. And if that sounds like a recipe for the sort of DIY indie and budget-glossy yacht rock that barely registers beyond blogs, it’s worth pointing out that Kramer’s music has as much in common with Tame Impala (and Todd Rundgren, his all-time hero) as it does Toro Y Moi. There is a commercial precedent here. Indeed, Kramer – who made his North American live debut at South by Southwest recently and will be performing at this year’s Isle of Wight festival – received 700,000 plays on Soundcloud for Actors, while the track also featured in a TV ad campaign for Victoria’s Secret. If ever an album was designed to evoke pangs of summer nostalgia even before the season has arrived, it’s Concrete Vision, with its achingly pretty chillwave. The latter term identifies the music as much as it does the milieu and delivery system. Kramer is the archetypal studio hermit who does everything himself – because he can, and because he doesn’t know how to communicate to other musicians the multifarious ideas in his head. Some will find the smorgasbord of synth sumptuousness somewhat sickly, will recoil from that wispy, whispery voice and overall air of chaste longing and ethereal rapture. But for fans of fx-drenched fizzy pop that explodes in the ears, Concrete Vision will be a poolside essential. Let Go artfully compresses the “bouquet of ear-catching melodies” on side 1 of Rundgren’s Something/Anything?; 07:41 is a fond nod to the Class of 2010, to Neon Indian, Memory Tapes, Washed Out, Millionyoung and the rest. The title of Everything Is Going Down (Again) suggests a self-awareness regarding the wall-to-wall melancholia. Morning Light is like a 1970s radio staple drained off all life, the husk of a hit, with handclaps that heighten the sense of a disco full of the ghosts of sad, departed lovers. Still, only someone as quietly confident as Kramer puts a track as fine as this towards the end of their album. He maintains the infectious mood of despondency all the way to LP closer Reason, which finds him wondering, “Why is it so hard to change?” over a typically bubbly arrangement and wan melody. He may not have the alien charisma of a Rundgren – in the video to Walk in the Park the bearded wunderkind looks distinctly creepy hiding in the bushes – but it doesn’t matter, as long as our new favourite lonerist stays in that Berlin bedroom of his and keeps making music like this. The buzz: “Succumb to Still Parade’s dream-funk sounds …” The truth: Perfect pop is a walk in the park to this young Berliner. Most likely to: Let it happen. Least likely to: Keep on lying. What to buy: Concrete Vision is released on 3 June by Heist or Hit. File next to: Toro Y Moi, Tame Impala, Todd Rundgren, Wayne Coyne. Links: stillparade.com/. Ones to watch: Iska Dhaaf, TOLD, SAFIA, Grayling, Black Foxxes.
Bank of England to force bigger UK lenders to hold more capital as 'risk buffer' Britain’s biggest lenders will be required to hold more capital than smaller rivals to ensure they can keep credit flowing into the economy, under proposals from the Bank of England. In the latest effort to avoid another taxpayer bailout of the banking system, Threadneedle Street will require the divisions of banks involved in lending to businesses and individuals to keep some capital in a “systemic risk buffer”. This buffer will be set separately for each bank depending on their importance to the UK economy and will be in addition to its existing regulatory capital cushion. The Bank said it could be used “where there is a risk of disruption in the financial system with the potential to have serious negative consequences for the financial system and the real economy of a specific member state [of the European Union]”. Policymakers do not expect banks to raise more capital from shareholders or bondholders to meet the new rules but rather to reallocate existing capital. Sir Jon Cunliffe, the Bank’s deputy governor responsible for financial stability, said: “These new rules will mean that large UK banks and building societies are more resilient to adverse shocks, enabling them to continue to lend to households and businesses even in times of stress. “The financial crisis demonstrated the long-lasting damage that can be caused when large banks become distressed and have to cut back lending to the economy. These proposals are intended to reduce the risk of this happening again.” The capital rules apply to the part of a bank inside the “ringfence”, which banks must erect between their high street and investment banking arms to comply with the recommendations set out by Sir John Vickers in his 2011 review into banking. Banks such as HSBC, Barclays and Royal Bank of Scotland must comply with these rules by 2019.
Care home offers a step between hospital and home for patients A stroll up to the door of Harrogate Lodge care home in the Leeds suburb Chapel Allerton is leaf-lined and heralded with birdsong. It’s a far cry from the hospital corridor 90-year-old temporary resident Mavis found herself sleeping in a couple of weeks ago, after she had a fall at home. Mavis has been in Harrogate Lodge for a week while she recovers from a urine infection and is well enough to go back to her home on the other side of the city. “It’s certainly quieter here,” she laughs, “and the food is lovely.” Mavis is here as part of a new joint initiative, which sees independent care homes working with hospitals to alleviate delayed transfers of care. In a survey of 50 heads of NHS trusts by the in 2015, at least 10% of beds were occupied by patients who were ready to be discharged. The survey also reported the case of a patient in Cambridge who had remained in hospital 72 days after being declared ready for discharge. According to Monitor and the Trust Development Authority, these delays cost UK hospital trusts £270m a year. Lord Carter’s 2015 review of efficacy in hospitals suggested that hospitals should be working more closely with neighbouring NHS trusts to save money. Four Seasons Healthcare, which runs Harrogate Lodge, is the largest independent social-care provider in the UK. It’s been part of a successful pilot scheme moving high-quality care from acute to community settings, shifting sub-acute community assessment and rehabilitation beds out of hospital. Harrogate Lodge has been involved in the scheme since November 2015, starting with four beds and expanding by four additional beds each week. This has increased workload, says manager Sue Green, but, she says, “We recruited six extra carers and a unit manager with experience in intermediate care.” The average stay time for intermediate care residents at Harrogate Lodge is six weeks. Green explains that length of stay does vary from case to case, “We have had a few less than that but some others for longer, for various reasons. The main thing is to get them back to the most appropriate place for them, whether that’s their own home or a different care home.” Paul Hayes, national director, commissioning and commercial operations at Four Seasons, says, “The scheme is in its early days but where it’s being actively used it’s regarded as a success by the hospitals and patients.” Part of this, claims Green, is simply the setting: “It’s rehab in a home environment rather than a busy hospital ward. The bedrooms are like a bedroom at home, there’s furniture around and there’s open visiting. The residents also stay in the same room for the entire period.” Four Seasons’ head of business development Richard Hardman agrees, “The acute nature of a hospital dictates the clinical relationship. Here, the care is much more holistic and the resident feels they are on a step home. A lot of people have lost confidence and have fears about going home. Here, there’s time to sit and talk to them and reassure them.” People get depressed being in hospital for such a long time, he says, and this itself has an impact on care needs. Hardman works nationally to support the care homes in working with commissioners. He says one of the biggest issues, as with many projects like this, is the availability of nurses: “You don’t want to create a new service run on agency staff. You want continuity of care and you want the staff to buy into the culture.” But for the teams in place it’s a great opportunity, as Hardman explains, “It’s exciting for the teams to be able to see some short-term outcomes and it means nurses can focus on skilled work rather than doing things like medication, which is a bit more routinised.” Another fly in the ointment is the lack of joined up services. “If someone needs a lot of equipment the community teams won’t come in and assess,” says Green, “they’ll only assess when they’re at home.” But, she says, “It’s early days in this model and we’re learning all the time.” Mavis is off to hospital to get (she hopes) the all-clear. “When I get home there will be temporary help,” she says, “they’ll want to see how well I can make a cup of tea, that sort of thing. They won’t be there long, I can tell you ...” Join the Healthcare Professionals Network to read more pieces like this. And follow us on Twitter (@GdnHealthcare) to keep up with the latest healthcare news and views.
United states of denial: forces behind Trump have run Australia's climate policy for years If you can hear what sounds like a faint drumroll coming from across the Pacific then it’s the sound of millions of jaws dropping on hard surfaces. President-elect Donald Trump is a phrase journalists are regularly typing into their keyboards. That was jaw dropping enough, even for some Republicans. But, adding to that drumroll has been the climate science community, the renewable energy industry, the conservation movement, federal environment regulators and climate change campaigners. Trump has been nominating positions to the Environmental Protection Agency and other key government agencies and departments. To a man (because they’re almost all men), Trump’s picks are climate science deniers. His choice for secretary of state and lead diplomat is ExxonMobil boss Rex Tillerson. Jaws have been dropping all over the place. In the US, there is a large and well-funded network of so called “free market” thinktanks that pumps out manufactured doubt on climate change science with the help of funding from the fossil fuel industry. Trump has been picking many his advisers from these groups, sending in climate science deniers to key agencies to prepare the ground for his administration. Many, such as Trump’s pick to lead the EPA, the Oklahoma attorney general, Scott Pruitt, have launched multiple lawsuits against the agency they’re going to soon be working for. Trump also refuses to accept the thousands and thousands of scientific papers going back decades showing how burning fossil fuels is changing the climate. He recently said he had an “open mind” on the issue – a position that’s about as intellectually redundant as having an open mind on heliocentrism. Sometimes minds are so open that the brain is in danger of falling out. Trump’s chief strategist, Steve Bannon, ran the hyper-partisan Breitbart website that runs stories claiming climate change is a hoax and the “biggest scam in the history of the world” while denouncing people who accept the science as “pure scum”. Trump has also appointed a team to prepare the ground in the EPA for the incoming administration. Leading that group is Myron Ebell, of the Competitive Enterprise Agency, alongside lawyers such as David Schnare and Christopher Horner – two individuals who have used the courts and FOIA laws to try and get access to the inboxes of climate scientists and, yes, administrators at the EPA. Viewing this part-reality show, part-Shakespearean tragedy from Australia, some might think our own climate debate looks relatively sane. It’s not and it hasn’t been for a long time. For well over a decade now, Australia’s climate policy has been battered, torn and held back by climate science denial and a broader antipathy towards environmentalism. The same interests and ideologies that have worked for decades to reach the current crescendo in the US have been doing the same thing here. Neatly connecting Australia and the US is the One Nation senator Malcolm Roberts, who earlier this week met with a who’s who of the climate science denial industry in Washington DC, including Ebell. Think we’re immune to the Trump denialism? You haven’t been paying attention. When Malcolm Turnbull lost the Liberal party leadership to Tony Abbott in 2009, it was Turnbull’s then refusal to back away from pricing greenhouse gas emissions that turned the party room against him. From that point onward, pricing carbon became a no-go zone for the Liberal party. A chief architect of that leadership coup was the then South Australian senator Nick Minchin, who, a month earlier, told ABC’s Four Corners he didn’t accept that humans caused climate change. Rather, Minchin considered the issue a plot by the “extreme left” to “deindustrialise the world”. After the ABC program aired, the journalist Sarah Ferguson said Turnbull had refused interview requests because he “didn’t want to face the sceptics”. You might think Turnbull would have learned his lesson. But, from his latest meek surrender to the deniers in his party, it seems not. He still won’t take them on. Earlier this month, the energy minister, Josh Frydenberg, said a review of Australia’s climate change policy would include a look at an emissions trading scheme for the electricity sector – the biggest single source of greenhouse gas emissions in the Australia. Within 24 hours, Frydenberg backed down and, soon after, Turnbull said carbon pricing was not party policy and this would not be considered – even though all the expert advice tells him that it would be the cheapest way to cut emissions and would likely deliver billions of dollars in savings on power prices in coming years. That capitulation was another example of Turnbull giving in to the deniers in the right of the party – in particular, another South Australian senator in the form of Cory Bernardi. Bernardi, too, refuses to accept the mountains of evidence that burning fossil fuels is causing climate change. The recently appointed chairman of the Coalition’s backbench environment committee is the Liberal MP Craig Kelly – another climate science denier. Going further back, Abbott’s position on climate science was heavily influenced by the mining industry figure and geologist Ian Plimer’s book Heaven and Earth – a tome packed with contradictory arguments, dodgy citations and errors too numerous to count (actually, celebrated mathematical physicist Dr Ian Enting did count them and found at least 126). Cardinal George Pell, Australia’s most senior Roman Catholic, also took his lead from Plimer’s book. And who can forget Abbott’s business adviser Maurice Newman and his claims that climate science is fraudulent and acting as cover for the UN to install a one-world government – the exact same position taken by Roberts and other fake freedom fighters. Another Coalition MP seen as influential is the Queensland Nationals MP George Christensen. Like Roberts and Bernardi before him, Christensen has attended US conferences of anti-climate science activists hosted by the Heartland Institute (that group has been heavily funded by the family foundation of Robert Mercer, the ultrarich conservative hedge fund manager whose millions helped get Trump elected and whose daughter Rebekah is a pivotal member of Trump’s transition team). Just like the US, Australia too has its own “free market” conservative groups pushing climate science denial. Look no further than Melbourne’s Institute of Public Affairs (which only last year was called in to “balance” a climate science briefing to Kelly’s committee). How about the media? Rupert Murdoch’s outlets the Wall Street Journal and Fox News help to push themes that climate scientists are frauds, that action to cut greenhouse gas emissions will wreck the economy and that renewable energy can’t keep the lights on. The stable of flagship commentators working on Murdoch’s News Corp Australia, led by the likes of Andrew Bolt, Miranda Devine, Chris Kenny and Terry McCrann, are all happy to repeat and embellish those same talking points. On the radio, the US has popular conservatives such as Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh pushing climate science denial. In Australia, we have Alan Jones and his stable of shouty Macquarie Radio colleagues. At this point, some will argue Australia and the rest of the world is investing heavily in renewables. The US, like Australia, is seeing strong growth in the renewable energy sector. That’s all true. Also true is the progress made through the international agreements made in Paris, even though the climate pledges that make up the deal still fall well short of averting dangerous climate change. But there’s little doubt that climate science denial is on the march, backed by a conspiracy culture that’s rapidly gaining audiences online. Trump is climate science denial’s greatest propaganda victory so far. Australia is not immune.
Paintings reveal early signs of cognitive decline, claims study The first subtle hints of cognitive decline may reveal themselves in an artist’s brush strokes many years before dementia is diagnosed, researchers believe. The controversial claim is made by psychologists who studied renowned artists, from the founder of French impressionism, Claude Monet, to the abstract expressionist Willem de Kooning. While Monet aged without obvious mental decline, de Kooning was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease more than a decade before his death in 1997. Alex Forsythe at the University of Liverpool analysed more than 2,000 paintings from seven famous artists and found what she believes are progressive changes in the works of those who went on to develop Alzheimer’s. The changes became noticeable when the artists were in their 40s. Though intriguing, the small number of artists involved in the study means the findings are highly tentative. While Forsythe said the work does not point to an early test for dementia, she hopes it may open up fresh avenues for investigating the disease. “I don’t believe this will be a tool for diagnosis, but I do think it will trigger people to consider new directions for research into dementia,” she said. The research provoked mixed reactions from other scientists. Richard Taylor, a physicist at the University of Oregon, described the work as a “magnificent demonstration of art and science coming together”. But Kate Brown, a physicist at Hamilton College in New York, was less enthusiastic and dismissed the research as “complete and utter nonsense”. Forsythe and her colleagues used digital imaging software to calculate how a mathematical feature called fractal density varied in artists’ paintings over their careers. The seven artists included Monet, Pablo Picasso and Marc Chagall, who all aged without obvious brain disease; Salvador Dali and Norval Morrisseau, who developed Parkinson’s; and de Kooning and James Brooks, another abstract expressionist who was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 1985, seven years before his death. Fractals are geometric patterns that repeat themselves at different size scales. They are seen in nature in the branching of trees and rivers, and in the craggy contours of coastlines. In paintings, fractals appear when patterns made by the tiniest brush strokes repeat on larger scales. The fractal dimension is a measure of fractal complexity, where an artwork with a large fractal dimension has a high ratio of fine to coarse fractal patterns. Forsythe found that paintings varied in their fractal dimensions over an artist’s career, but in the case of de Kooning and Brooks, the measure changed dramatically and fell sharply as the artists aged. “The information seems to be like a footprint that artists leave in their art,” Forsythe said. “They paint within a normal range, but when something is happening the brain, it starts to change quite radically.” Writing in the journal Neuropsychology, the scientists claim that the fractal dimensions of paintings by Monet, Picasso and Chagall tended to rise as they aged. For Dali and Morrisseau’s work, the fractal dimension followed an upside-down U-shape over time, at first rising and then falling. The most stark result was seen in the works of de Kooning and Brooks, where the fractal dimension started high and dropped rapidly from the age of 40. The work has echoes of previous studies that revealed early signs of dementia in the language used by the former US president Ronald Reagan, and the novelist and philosopher Iris Murdoch. Telltale hints of future dementia have also been spotted in autobiographical essays written by nuns in their 20s. Taylor pioneered the use of fractals to study and even authenticate drip paintings by the late US artist Jackson Pollock. He believes Forsythe’s research could do the same for other artists and save museums from being conned into buying fake artworks. But he also saw more important applications. “This work could hopefully be used to learn more about conditions such as dementia,” he said. “To me, the most inspiring message to come out of this work is that beautiful artworks can result from pathological conditions,” he said. When de Kooning was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, some critics argued that he should stop painting, but as he slipped into dementia, his artwork changed and became more simple, Taylor said. “To me, these more simple works conveyed a peacefulness that wasn’t present in his nurture-dominated earlier work. It all goes to show that sometimes you can think too much about art. Sometimes you just need to tune into your inner self, the ‘nature’ part,” he said. But Brown disagreed. In 2006, she co-authored a paper in Nature that disputed Taylor’s research. She said that sketches dashed out on her computer had the same fractal dimensions as a Pollock drip painting and might be authenticated as the real thing. “The whole premise of ‘fractal expressionism’ is completely false,” Brown said. “Since our work came out, claims of fractals in Pollock’s work have largely disappeared from peer-reviewed physics journals. But it seems that the fractal zealots have managed to exert some influence in psychology.”
Facebook reportedly testing new tool to combat fake news Facebook appears to be testing a tool designed to help it identify and hide so called “fake news” on the social network, in an attempt to quell increasingly vocal criticism of its role in spreading untruths and propaganda. The tool, reported by at least three separate Facebook users on Twitter, asks readers to rank on a scale of one to five the extent to which they think a link’s title “uses misleading language”. The articles in question were from reliable sources: Rolling Stone magazine, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and Chortle, a news site which reports on comedy. It isn’t clear how Facebook intends to act on the data it is collecting, or whether it intends to act at all. Misleading link text is certainly a part of the fake news problem on the social network, as evidenced by the two misleading adverts that accompanied Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg’s 18 November post about fake news. (That post was later temporarily deleted by Facebook, before the site acknowledged the “system error”.) The problem of misleading links is compounded by Facebook’s user interface, which serves to de-emphasise links to external sources in favour of encouraging users to like, share or comment on the site itself. Research suggests that almost 60% of social media shares come from users who never clicked the link, implying that the headline drives discussion and sharing far more than the content of an article. At the same time, much of the conversation around fake news has focused on articles and publications with many more problems than simple misleading headlines. The “Pizzagate” conspiracy theory, which resulted in a self-radicalised gunman discharging his weapon in a popular pizza restaurant in Washington DC on Sunday, was spread with the help of a string of fake news stories falsely accusing the owners of being part of a made up paedophile ring with supposed ties to Hillary Clinton. While the Pizzagate stories ranged from misleading to outright fabricated, the headlines on them were accurate summations of their content, suggesting that readers from Facebook who clicked through would end up ranking them as highly trustworthy links under the site’s experimental system.
£204 payment to my boyfriend that’s been Pinged into the ether I noticed an article on your website about a reader’s problem with Barclays’ Pingit app. The same thing happened to me with little to no support from Barclays or Pingit. They say they cannot find the payment in their system, yet I have screenshots to prove otherwise. I sent £204 via Pingit to my boyfriend. It left my account, which I can prove. He can also prove that he can see it, but cannot access those funds. His account has also been frozen and we were not informed of this. I think this proves the instability of banking-based apps, which should only be used with caution. I am still out of pocket and angry with the poor customer service. SF, Newquay Just to add to your stress, you have been trying to sort this out while travelling abroad. The Pingit app links your mobile number with your bank account and – in theory, at least – makes it easy to pay money straight into another account. But amid security concerns about making payments via mobile phones and the internet, your case highlights how money can go astray, even if sent virtually. Barclays says transfers are as secure as any other banking transaction and the app is protected by a five-digit code set by the user. What we don’t understand is why Barclays has given you so little support and failed to explain what was going on. When we contacted the bank, it confirmed that your payment went through in mid-January, but also that your boyfriend’s account has been frozen (we were not told why). That is why he can see it, but can’t access it. Barclays told us that all he needs to do is go into any branch with proof of address and ID, and they will be able to unlock it for him. It shouldn’t have taken a letter to Consumer Champions before this was sorted out. We welcome letters but cannot answer individually. Email us at consumer.champions@theguardian.com or write to Consumer Champions, Money, the , 90 York Way, London N1 9GU. Please include a daytime phone number
Five of the best... rock & pop gigs DJ Shadow Are we in the midst of a sampladelic revival? You’d be forgiven for thinking so with the return of both the Avalanches and this Californian cratedigger. It’s two decades since he released his influential Endtroducing album but new one The Mountain Will Fall still has things to say, and he’ll be saying them at these dates. Bluedot, Jodrell Bank Discovery Centre, Macclesfield, Sat; Electric Brixton, SW2, Wed Indietracks All festivals would be at least 63% better if they incorporated a stream train angle, yet only Indietracks seems to be capitalising on this fact. Now celebrating its 10th birthday, the festival at the Midlands Railway Centre features free steam rides, workshops and indie discos. And, of course, there’s live music from Saint Etienne, Comet Gain and Haiku Salut. Midland Railway Centre, Ripley, Fri to 31 Jul Jean-Michel Jarre The synth luminary has been following his own singular path for more than four decades, one that recently involved a techno collaboration with NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. This week, he’s the Saturday headliner at the space-themed Bluedot festival (Jarre, not Snowden; that would be weird). Bluedot, Macclesfield, Sat Camp Bestival For some people, festivals are a gruelling enough test of human endurance without bringing kids into the mix. But for hardy types, there’s Camp Bestival, where Fatboy Slim and Katy B compete with the real headliners: Mr Tumble and Aliens Love Underpants. Lulworth Castle, nr Dorchester, Thu to 31 Jul Hinds Hinds’ debut album Leave Me Alone was the sound of a band having fun: riotous and scruffy with brilliant, 60s girl group-inspired tunes buried somewhere beneath the clatter. Live, they dial up their chaotic side, meaning this appearance on Sunday afternoon at Sheffield’s multi-venue Tramlines festival should not be missed. Tramlines, Sheffield, Sun
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story in-depth fan review: 'This is a movie made for fans' There has never been a film franchise like Star Wars so it stands to reason there’s never been a film like Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. It is not, if we’re being honest, a real movie. It is a fan exercise. Its whole purpose is to tread water in a larger, more familiar pool. Most of the moments that crackle are direct touchpoints with something we recognize. The sequences that are Rogue One qua Rogue One are occasionally intriguing, but, predominantly, merely adequate. And unlike in last year’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens, there is a clear and recognizable section for dashing out if that extra large Diet Pepsi has gone rogue in your bladder. This is a movie made for fans. Luckily, I am a fan! As such, there comes a point at which I shrug and stop caring if others are bored. (It’s like bringing a friend who only knows the hits to see a band you love, and they decide this is the show where they’ll bust out their early, complex album cuts. At some point you stop being a tour guide and cheer for yourself.) There are a few stylistic tics to mark this as a “different” entry, like no opening yellow exposition crawl and, for the first time, white text on the screen detailing the name of each new visited planet, but that’s a strange head fake for a movie that greatly succeeds in reproducing the aesthetic of the original 1977 Star Wars. By the final shots of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story I was ready to do cartwheels in the aisle if I had the physical fitness to accomplish such a task. If you are the type of person who knows who Yak Face is, here are the moments in this newest entry that will bring you joy. THIS SECTION IS LIKE THE ANOAT ASTEROID BELT OF SPOILERS. DO NOT GO RUSHING IN LIKE LUKE TO BESPIN. HE ENDED UP LOSING HIS HAND THAT WAY! It’s not two minutes into Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (yes, my intention is to use the full name every time I mention this movie) that we see some blue bantha milk. Young Jyn Erso is living on a farm with her parents on the grey, wet planet of Lah’mu that still has moisture vaporators for some reason. (Maybe they are moisture de-vaporators?) When trouble comes our heroine races to safe keeping with Saw Gerrera (played by Forest Whitaker), the first case of a character from the Clone Wars animated series making its way into the film canon. There are other familiar faces, some uglier than others. When adult Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones) and her sidekick Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) start their adventures on the vaguely Middle Eastern-looking planet Jedha (not Jeddah) they bump into Dr Cornelius Evazan (the “you’ll be dead!” guy with the squished-up nose from 1977’s Star Wars) and his Aqualish chum Ponda Baba who will eventually lose an arm to Obi-Wan Kenobi in the Mos Eisley Cantina. They are jerks in this movie, too. Jyn and Cassian are there at the behest of the Rebel Alliance, led in part by Mon Mothma, a character introduced in Episode VI (1983) but also seen in deleted scenes from Episode III (2005). This time the actress that played the younger Mothma (Genevieve O’Reilly) is now a little older, but still younger than when we first met her. Just go with it. Beside her is Bail Organa (who makes a reference to “an old friend from the Clone Wars”, meaning Obi-Wan Kenobi), played by a guy that just looks like Jimmy Smits. It actually is Jimmy Smits, but don’t scowl at me for double-checking. One of the biggest casting shockers in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is who they got to play Moff Tarkin. Peter Cushing, who is, in fact, dead, is all over Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. It’s a weirdo mix of CGI and hubris. Like Fred Astaire dancing with a vacuum cleaner, the Hammer Films legend has been digitally inserted into this movie and, while it doesn’t look 100% perfect, it worked enough for me to turn to the friend next to me and say “that’s no lookalike – that’s an ethical dilemma!” The Cushing estate gets a thank you in the credits (and, no doubt, a big fat check) and we all get a case of the uncanny valley creeps. There are no such problems when we see Darth Vader, as just about anyone can stand in the suit so long as James Earl Jones is still here to provide the voiceover. Fans will delight to see him soaking in a bacta tank while he’s got some downtime, and that he lives in a Sauron-esque tower on the volcanic planet of Mustafar. The establishing shots of Vader last about 12 seconds, but for fans these images are sheer bliss. More serious-minded fans may not appreciate that the dark Sith Lord unleashes a Schwarzenegger-esque pun, a first for the character but, for this MAD Magazine reader at least, hopefully not the last. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is meant to be something of a caper film, though one with absolutely no planning. (That’s OK, Luke and Han improvised their rescue of Princess Leia too.) They are the ones who steal the Death Star plans that eventually make their way to Obi-Wan Kenobi via R2-D2. Our new gang includes the K-2SO (voiced by Alan Tudyk), a former Imperial droid whose memory and allegiance has been altered, making him sassy for some reason, and Donnie Yen as the blind monk with entry-level Force powers, Chirrut Îmwe. If you listen closely (and there’s some running and mayhem at this moment, so you might miss it) Îmwe is described as a of the Whills, which, for hardcore fans, is a callback to the very first treatment George Lucas had for this lil’ space opera, Journal of the Whills. (Lucas had a number of awesome titles in the mix as he developed his first screenplay, among them being From the Adventures of Luke Starkiller as taken from the Journal of the Whills, Saga 1: The Star Wars.) The Whills are shamans connected to the Force, but not Jedi. In fact, there are no Jedi in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, but there are a few other key figures and locations that do pop up, especially in the fantastic reel that makes it evident just how much 1977’s Star Wars (now known as Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope) is essential to the success of this movie. The rousing conclusion shows this isn’t an ordinary prequel, it’s a suture from the top. The star of the new Star Wars is Star Wars. With that objective understood, director Gareth Edwards and his legion of designers deserve a hearty “Yub Nub!” for somehow crafting a film that looks and feels modern but somehow incorporates the aesthetic of Lucas’s original. The graphics and displays on the Death Star and elsewhere maintain that crisp, linear neon look from the coin-operated Asteroids arcade game, but still has a modernist punch and doesn’t feel like a throwback. Add in some recognizable sound design (like the buzzing whirs of an MSE-6-series repair droid) and its safe to call this the most remarkable historical reproduction in mainstream cinema. The list of Easter eggs will only continue with further viewings. I’m sure the RA-7 protocol droid, The Ghost from Star Wars Rebels and numerous sneaky John Williams-inspired motifs in Michael Giacchino’s score are just the tip of the tauntaun’s tail. There are two more Star Wars Stories already on the calendar. And giddy fans like me will gobble it with extra butter. The question is, when will wider audiences rebel?
Scientology leader's complaint over Mail Online's Tom Cruise story upheld A complaint by the leader of the Church of Scientology about a Mail Online article on his “bromance” with actor Tom Cruise has been upheld by the UK press watchdog. David Miscavige lodged a complaint with the Independent Press Standards Organisation about an article published by Mail Online in December last year. The article was titled “Exclusive: inside the ‘bromance’ of Tom Cruise and Scientology founder David Miscavige – How they gamble and smoke cigars together and share a special language – but Miscavige secretly recorded the movie star”. The article reported details of “exclusive interviews” with former members of the Church of Scientology and said that Miscavige has arranged for cameras to secretly film members, including Cruise. It also reported supposed special treatment received by Cruise at Gold Base, the Church’s headquarters, which was his “home away from home” where he was treated like “Scientology royalty”. Miscavige said the Mail Online had relied on sources who were “disaffected former members” with no knowledge of the Church’s operations and that the allegations in the article had already been “disproved or denied”. Representatives of Miscavige had been approached in advance of publication and had told the Mail Online that several of the allegations were untrue and should not be published. Mail Online refused to defend its story, saying the events had taken place in the US, and the piece was commissioned, written and edited by journalists working in its American operation. As a result it was designed to comply with US law and journalistic conventions, not UK ones as regulated by Ipso. Ipso rejected this and said the Mail Online article had failed to follow UK rules on inaccurate, misleading or distorted information. “[Mail Online] had not demonstrated the process by which it had regard for the complainant’s previous denials of the allegations,|” said Ipso. “Nor had it explained why it had failed to include his representative’s position, explained prior to publication, that the allegations which had been put to him were untrue. It had also failed to provide a defence of the accuracy of the article, or its decision not to publish a correction.” Ipso ordered Mail Online to publish its adjudication on the case in full on its website with a link on its homepage for 24 hours.
Amazon Echo Dot review: as good as the Echo for one-third of the price The Amazon Echo Dot is essentially all the bits of an Amazon Echo that make it interesting, but without the speaker beneath it – and so it costs just one-third of the price. The Dot is one of three Alexa-enabled products from Amazon that puts the company’s voice assistant front and centre. Only two, the Echo Dot and the Echo are available in the UK: the third, the portable Bluetooth speaker called Amazon Tap, is only available in the US. What is it? The Dot is a small black or white puck with a ring of lights at the top, four buttons and a seven-microphone array – the same system that makes the Echo speaker so good at hearing you from pretty much anywhere. It listens out for a “wake word”, which by default is the name of the voice assistant contained within the Dot: “Alexa”. Say the wake word and the voice assistant comes to life to answer questions, take commands and perform actions. The Dot has a small built-in speaker, which is good enough for all the voice responses Alexa spits out, alarms and other alerts, but is not really designed to play music, producing tinny sound. Instead the back of the Dot has a audio-out port, which is intended plug into your existing speakers. Alternatively, it can pair to a wireless speaker via Bluetooth. What does it look like? The Dot is surprisingly discreet sitting on a countertop or stuck to the wall. There’s a rotating light ring around the top that indicates when it’s actively listening to you and turns red when you hit the mute button, electrically disconnecting the mics, so you know when it is and isn’t listening in. The white Dot has a grey top, which means it stands out more than it might on a white bed-side table, for instance. You can get little jackets for the base in leather or fabric if shiny plastic doesn’t quite cut it with your decor. What does it do? The Echo Dot can do whatever Alexa can do. The set up is the same as the Echo: plug it in, open the Alexa app on your smartphone and follow the instructions to connect it to your Wi-Fi network. Once up and running, Alexa can perform a variety of your typical assistant features. It’ll set timers, tell you the time, set alarms, tell you what your day looks like from your connected calendar, tell you about your commute or the weather and answer questions about all sorts of things. Alexa has access to quite a lot of information, but the sheer volume of data Google has at its fingertips, which means Alexa will struggle with certain questions when a Google voice search may not. The big difference is that Alexa replies in a surprisingly human way, and can almost always understand what you’ve said even if it can’t answer the question, which means it should get better over time as more data is shovelled into the backend artificial intelligence. Alexa has so-called skills that can be added to her. These app-like things give her new abilities. Lots of companies and services have skills. The skill will read you the news, headlines or reviews, for instance. The National Rail skill will tell you what your rail commute looks like. The Allrecipies skill will be able to read you one of 60,000 different recipes. But perhaps the best set of skills available for the Echo Dot are smart home controls. Here is where the Dot shines: it has a wide range of support for smart connected devices, from speakers and remote controls, to lights, coffee machines or anything connected to a Samsung SmartThings hub. Alexa, turn on the lights in the living room Out of the box it works with Philips Hue, while skills exist for Nest, Hive, Honeywell, Tado, LightwaveRF and LIFX, with Sonos expected soon. Once hooked up you can command just about anything. You have to remember the name of the thing you’re trying to command, but within the Alexa app you can group things to turn them on and off with one command. Unlike most other smart home systems, a single item can be placed into multiple groups meaning a bedroom light could be in the “bedroom” group as well as in the “upstairs” group and perhaps a “house” group, so that you can turn just the bedroom lights on, the whole of the upstairs or turn off the whole house when you’re walking out the door. You can also set brightness, colour, scene or anything else your lights support, but lighting is just the start. Almost any smart home appliance can be controlled via voice with the right connection. You can set the temperature via a Nest, set the coffee going via a smartplug, switch the TV on or off, set the channel or do pretty much anything with devices connected to a SmartThings hub. The Echo Dot doesn’t have to be used in isolation either. If you’re in earshot of two Dots or another Echo device, only the nearest one will reply to your commands. Amazon even sells them in packs: buy five get a sixth free, or buy 10 and get two free. Clearly it wants you to put them all over your house. Observations It works surprisingly well when mounted to the wall, but you have to pull off the rubber pad or make you own bracket Alexa ads on the TV set them off Occasionally the radio will set them off When you’ve got it hooked up to speakers the Dot will only output its audio through those speakers, so they need to be left on all the time to enable it to speak to you even if you’re not playing music IFTTT and Logitech Harmony support are coming soon, which will greatly extend Alexa’s smart home support You have to think carefully about what you’re going to call each of the connected devices because you will have to say their names to Alexa for them to be activated on an individual basis Price The Amazon Echo Dot costs £50 in either black or white. The larger Echo costs £150. Verdict The Echo Dot is everything that’s great about the larger Echo speaker condensed into a small puck that costs one-third of the price. Being able to voice control things without having to pull out a phone or push a button marks a massive step forward for the Internet of Things. Activating, changing, switching things off and firing up automation routines via voice feels natural and satisfying: there’s nothing quite like marching into a room and commanding the lights to turn on. Alexa isn’t quite the all-conquering voice assistant it promises to be just yet, but the Dot gets the job done in a way nothing else can. Pros: excellent mic array means it can almost always hear you, small but loud enough to be heard clearly, great device support, clear mute, turns your old Hi-Fi into a smart, voice-controlled speaker, voice control IoT devices Cons: really needs to be connected to a speaker for music, can’t always answer the question, always-listening object in your house, doesn’t support multiple user calendars or personal information, only one Spotify or Amazon music account can be linked at any one time Other reviews Amazon Echo review: the best combined speaker and voice assistant in the UK Samsung SmartThings Hub review: an Internet of Things to rule them all? Withings Body Cardio review: stylish scales for health obsessives Nest Learning Thermostat third-gen: the simple, effective heating gadget Logitech Harmony Elite review: easy to use remote that takes charge of your home
Jim O'Neill is just the latest business leader to have his fill of politics Jim O’Neill’s abrupt, if hardly unexpected, resignation from Theresa May’s Treasury team is merely the latest example of how the marriage of business and politics can be a rocky affair that ends in divorce. Prime ministers and chancellors often see the attraction of inviting big hitters from the world of commerce to join their administrations. Gordon Brown made Digby Jones, the former head of the CBI, a member of his government of all the talents. Archie Norman was the boss of Asda when he was invited to apply for the safe Conservative seat of Tunbridge Wells at the 1997 election. Neither especially enjoyed the experience. It was George Osborne rather than David Cameron who wooed O’Neill away from Goldman Sachs. The diehard Manchester United fan ticked all the right boxes. He was the perfect fit to help with two of Osborne’s pet projects: the “northern powerhouse” and developing closer economic ties between Britain and China. O’Neill made his name by identifying the rise of four leading emerging market economies - Brazil, Russia, India and China - as a key feature of the global economy, giving them the title Brics. Like Osborne, he was convinced that the rise of China would be as significant as the emergence of the US as a global economic superpower in the 20th century. Both men thought Britain’s best long-term interests were served in forging close and harmonious links with Beijing. In his resignation letter to the prime minister, O’Neill said the case for the northern powerhouse and closer links with the leading emerging economies was “even stronger following the referendum, and I am pleased that, despite speculation to the contrary, both appear to be commanding your personal attention”. This is hardly a full-throated endorsement and will do little to quell speculation that O’Neill was unhappy about the review May insisted upon before agreeing to go-ahead with the Hinkley Point C nuclear power plant earlier this month, and that he suspects plans are afoot to dilute the northern powerhouse project. The announcement that he has resigned the Conservative whip and will sit as a crossbench peer merely adds to the sense that he is the latest business leader to become disillusioned with Westminster politics. Much has changed in the past three months. It is not just that the Brexit vote led to Cameron’s resignation. Starting with Osborne’s brutal sacking, May has been systematically removing traces of the former regime. Her support for grammar schools irked the comprehensively educated O’Neill. Put simply, he had a choice. He could stick around in a government he felt increasingly at odds with, or go off and do something else more rewarding. Given that O’Neill cares more about José Mourinho than he does about Theresa May, the decision probably didn’t take all that long. Nor is it one he is likely to regret.
FTSE 100 hit new all-time closing high - business live Right, that’s all for today. Here’s my news story about the FTSE 100 hitting a new record high tonight, for anyone just tuning in. I’ll be back tomorrow for more live coverage of events in the markets and the world economy. Thanks, and goodnight (and enjoy the holidays, if you’re not back at work yet...). GW Wall Street is failing to match the City’s lead. Shares are dropping back, so the Dow Jones is down almost 100 points at 19,847. That suggests that the Dow is not going to hit the 20,000 mark today. At least that gives us something to watch out for tomorrow. This is what I was banging on about earlier -- the FTSE 100 is actually down 6% this year if you measure it in US dollars (rather than up 13% in pounds). The London stock market’s rally has helped to drive up the wealth of the richest in society, as well as boosting the value of pension funds and other asset managers. Indeed, 2016 has been a vintage year for the ultra-rich - despite the backlash against populism this year (or perhaps helping to trigger it). Bloomberg has calculated that the world’s billionaires are ending the year owning $237 billion more than on January 1st. Some of the most famous, including Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, did particularly well – so it’s nice to remember that they’re donating much of their wealth to charity. It was a turbulent year, though, with the US election, the Brexit vote, and various other shocks and panics meaning fortunes fluctuated over the last 12 months. Here’s the full story: The World’s Richest Made $237 Billion This Year With excellent timing, Bloomberg’s JP Spinetto has highlighted how the British pound has been one of the worst-performing currencies this year. Sterling has shed 17%, which puts the 13% jump in the FTSE 100’s value this year into some context. This chart of the FTSE 100’s best-performing shares shows how mining stocks drove the market to tonight’s record close: But property firms fell, after housebuilder Bovis warned on profits early this morning after failing to build as many homes as planned. With just two trading days to go, the City’s mining sector in on track for its best year the aftermath of the financial crisis. The Telegraph’s Tara Cunningham explains: London-listed miners are poised for their biggest annual gain since 2009 as firmer oil and commodity prices pushed the sector higher. So far this year, the FTSE 350 mining index has rallied by 102%. Here’s her full report. Ruth Lea, economic adviser at Arbuthnot Banking Group, points out that the FTSE 250 index of smaller UK firms has also rallied since June: City traders often talk about a “Santa Rally” this time of year, and once again the markets have provided. David Cheetham, market analyst at online trading group XTB, explains: “ s of the markets have for many years noticed a strong propensity for stocks to rise in the period between Christmas and the New Year and this phenomenon appears to be playing out once more.” (thanks to the Press Association for the quote). Today’s FTSE 100 record high comes 20 months after the previous historic closing level. That closing high, in April 2015, was followed by a sharp summer selloff triggered by fears over China’s economy. This was compounded by concerns of a global slowdown in December 2015 when the US central bank raised interest rates for the first time in a decade. But shares then recovered from February this year, and even the Brexit vote was only a blip in the FTSE’s march back over 7100 points. Today’s rally means the FTSE 100 is now 12% higher than on the day of the EU referendum in June. That means that the value of Britain’s biggest listed companies jumped by 12% in sterling terms since the vote. But... the pound is down by 10% against the euro since June, and around 17% weaker against the US dollar. NEWSFLASH: Britain’s stock market has hit its new all-time closing high, driven by strong gains in the mining sector. The blue-chip FTSE 100 just closed 37 points higher at 7106.08, beating the 7103.98 point mark set in April 2015. Mining companies drove the rally, on hopes of robust US economic growth next year. That sent the prices of copper, oil, etc up today, along with precious metals producers. Silver miner Fresnillo and gold producer Randgold both gained around 5% today, followed by BHP Billiton (+4.2%) and Rio Tinto (+3.3%). Internationally focused companies also benefitted from the weaker pound today, as it makes their exports more competitive. However, housebuilding shares suffered following this morning’s profit warning from Bovis Homes (which ended down 5.2%). Chris Beauchamp, Chief Market Analyst at IG, says London’s traders came back from Christmas with “a festive bounce in their step”. The FTSE 100 is the star performer today, helped on its way higher by an excellent turn from the index’s mining contingent. The sector was one of the really big winners in 2016, making a remarkable comeback over the past twelve months, and it makes sense to think that investors are looking to juice a few more points out of the rally as the year-end approaches. Meanwhile, Bovis Homes is down over 5%, dragging the housebuilder sector with it, as it issues an unexpected warning on completion levels. It is always tough to issue a profit warning, but doubly so in the fallow period between Christmas and the New Year. The sector has gone from being a star performer in recent years to one of the hardest hit since Brexit; miners were the contrarian play for 2016, so the same could be said of a housing sector still supported by healthy demand and constricted supply. As flagged earlier, though, there is one proviso -- the FTSE 100 is priced in sterling, so today’s record high has not been adjusted for the fall in sterling since the Brexit vote. Right, the FTSE 100 has entered its closing auction.....so we’ll find out any moment if it’s hit a new all-time closing high. Back in the City, the FTSE 100 is hovering around its highest ever closing level in late trading. The index is up 31 points at 7099, having earlier burst over its record closing level (7103.98). So we might get a new record high in around 30 minutes.... The Dow has now dropped into the red, down 23 points at 19,921, as the 20k mark proves a hurdle too far..... We haven’t seen the Dow hitting 20,000 points yet, but we have had the next best thing -- a group of pets helping to ring the opening bell on Wall Street. Best Friends Animal Society had the honour of opening the session, to highlight their work preventing dogs and cats at America’s shelters being put down. And the group delighted traders by turning up with several impeccably behaved pooches, as this video shows. The Dow’s early rally is fizzling out, after just 20 minutes of trading. Rather than powering over the 20,000 point mark, the benchmark index has subsided back to its opening levels - like a Christmas diner who over-indulged on the mince pies and rather fancies a quiet day. US stock market watchers are bracing for another day of tension.... The Dow is rising at the start of trading... up 29 points to 19,974, and bringing the 20k landmark even closer. And the tech-heavy Nasdaq index has hit a new all-time high at the open, as the Trump Rally continues to drive shares higher. The opening bell is ringing on Wall Street, and traders are squinting at their screens to see if the Dow Jones will hit the 20,000 mark for the first time ever.... Tensions is building on Wall Street as traders wonder whether the Dow Jones industrial average could smash through the 20,000 point mark today. Last night, the Dow ended the day just 55 points shy of this new record. And the futures market suggests that the index could open higher at 9.30am local time (2.30pm GMT). Naeem Aslam of Think Markets says: Thee Santa rally for the equity market continues and every single day investors hope that the DOW index breaks that 20K mark, but so far their wish has not been granted. The 20K mark for the Dow has become a remarkable resistance and a break of this, could attract fresh capital. The London stock market isn’t the only one rallying today. Overnight, the Australian ASX 100 index jumped by 1% to its highest level in 2016, also thanks to demand for mining company shares. Ipek Ozkardeskaya, analyst at London Capital Group, explains: Australian stocks hit the highest levels of this year and are set for a strong close on the back of higher commodity prices and firm appetite in global stock markets following Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election. The FTSE 100 is rising partly because the pound is falling. Sterling remains at a two-month low against the US dollar, which pushes up the value of international firms listed in London. The euro is also losing ground against the dollar, down almost one cent at $1.0397: This chart shows how the FTSE 100 is back at April 2015’s record closing level, in sterling terms anyway (ignoring the pound’s fall against the US dollar since the Brexit vote) Britain’s blue-chip index of the biggest listed companies has just crept above its alltime closing high. In quiet trading, the FTSE 100 has risen by 35 points to above 7104 points, driven up by mining companies. That takes the index a whisker over the previous record closing high, of 7103.98, set in April 2015. This also puts the Footsie close to its highest ever level -- the all-time intraday high of 7128 points recorded in October. We should note that trading volumes are really rather thin, with many traders still off for Christmas (having banked their profits/losses for the year). And these figures don’t take account of the slump in the value of the pound since the Brexit vote. But still, it illustrates that investors are anticipating a US fiscal stimulus package next year. Yesterday’s strong American consumer confidence figures, which were the best in 15 years, have also bolstered sentiment, helping to push up the price of copper and oil today. BHP Billiton, which produces iron ore, copper, coal and gold, is leading the risers with a 4.3% gain, with silver miner Fresnillo close behind, followed by fellow mining giants Anglo American (+4%) and Rio Tinto (+3.5%). Mike van Dulken, head of research at Accendo Markets says: “Equities are posting small gains amid thin intra-holiday trading that is maintaining the Santa Rally into year-end. The FTSE is boosted by higher oil prices supporting the commodities space, offsetting weakness among some big defensives, airlines (Airbus problems) and real estate (rates to rise and prices to fall in 2017?) Sterling has fallen to its lowest level since late October, as it ends the year on a weak note. The pound has dropped by 0.4% this morning against the US dollar, to $1.223. There’s no obvious trigger for the move, which comes as City experts predict further losses next year. A new survey by financial services firm Hargreaves Lansdown found that a majority of respondents expect the sterling/US dollar rate to end 2017 at lower than $1.25. Some 40% predicting steeper declines to under $1.20. Many of those polled predicted that the US dollar could rally, if Donald Trump pushes through a new fiscal stimulus plan. One respondent says: Full implementation will likely [lead to] a second material leg higher of the US dollar as the Fed is priced to react to inflationary pressures such a package would bring. However, implementation of President Trump’s protectionist and isolationist rhetoric would narrow the breadth of any dollar rally, with the Japanese yen and the euro the beneficiaries.’ Other forecasters, though, think the pound has been oversold, and could bounce back once Brexit negotiations begin. Stockbroking firm Numis is hopeful that Bovis will get back on track next year, despite missing its housebuilding targets for 2016. They say: Bovis has announced that due to production delays and the deferral of 180 completions into 2017, it now anticipates full year results to be c11% below Numis expectations. We are leaving 2017 estimates unchanged reflecting the expected completion of the deferred units and a better position with regard to planning and production. The drop in UK mortgage approvals last month could be a sign that the property sector will struggle next year. Howard Archer of IHS Global Insight believes that prices could actually fall, after several years of strong increases. Here’s his reaction to today’s BBA report: We believe the fundamentals for house buyers will progressively deteriorate during 2017 with consumers’ purchasing power weakening markedly and the labour market likely softening. Increasing economic uncertainty is also likely to weigh down on consumer confidence and willingness to engage in major transactions such as buying a house. Housing market activity and prices are also likely to be pressurized by stretched house prices to earnings ratios and tight checking of prospective mortgage borrowers by lenders However, the downside for house prices will be limited markedly by a shortage of houses for sale. On balance, we suspect that house prices will be essentially flat over the year. Indeed, we believe that a small drop in house prices in 2017 is just as likely to occur as a small rise. BREAKING: The number of new mortgage approved in the UK fell last month, in another sign that the property sector is slowing. High street banks approved 40,659 new loans for home purchases in November, down from 40,835 in October, and 9% lower than a year ago. That’s also rather less than City expectations -- some economists expected as many as 41,400 new loans to be approved: The British Bankers Association also reports that gross mortgage borrowing fell by 5% compared to November 2015, to £12.2bn. Here’s the key slide from the BBA’s monthly report: The report also shows that consumers are continuing to borrow to fund their shopping. The BBA says: Consumer credit annual growth fell back in November to around 6% despite strong retail sales. Growth continues to be supported in the case of personal loans by favourable interest rates. Bovis’s failure to hit its sales targets this year could be a sign that the UK housing sector is now suffering from the Brexit vote. Analyst Russ Mould of stockbrokers AJ Bell says: A profit warning from FTSE 250 firm Bovis is another crack in the wall when it comes to the house builders sector.... Bovis has today stated that legal completion volumes will rise by just 1% to 2% in 2016 year, rather than the targeted 5% as the sale of 180 homes has slipped from this year to next, owing to slower-than-expected build production in December. This means completion volumes fell by 1% to 2% year on year in the second half, raising questions as to whether the market is slowing down in a post-Brexit world after all. Even if Bovis’ average selling price rose 10% to around £255,000 for the year that again implies a marked second-half deceleration, as prices rose 14% to an average of £254,500 in the first six months of this year. Management guidance for pre-tax profits of between £160 million and £170 million implies a 10% miss relative to the analysts’ consensus of £184 million at the mid-point and that helps to explain why the shares are down 4% this morning at the opening. Despite Bovis’s woes, the London stock market has risen slightly in the first trading day of the week. The blue-chip FTSE 100 has gained 15 points to 7084, led by mining companies such as BHP Billiton (+4%) and Anglo American (+3%). Yesterday’s jump in US consumer confidence to the highest level since 2001 is fuelling hopes for robust economic growth in 2017, which would drive demand for copper, iron ore, nickel and the like. Shares in UK housebuilders are falling in early trading, following Bovis’s unscheduled warning on profits. Bovis fell over 5%, followed by rival building firms Crest Nicholson (-1.7%), Berkeley Group (-1.6%) and John Laing (-1.3%). Traders must be worried that Bovis isn’t the only company to experience a slowdown last month. Financial journalist Daniel Coatsworth points out that Bovis weren’t expected to released results until early January. Here’s more reaction: Newsflash: One of Britain’s largest housebuilders has warned that it will fail to sell as many homes as planned this year. Bovis Homes has sent an early shiver through the chilly City of London, by reporting that production was slower than expected this month. That means Bovis will sell around 180 homes less than expected, which will make a dent in its profits for the year too. In a statement to the City, Bovis warns: We expect the volume delivery for 2016 will be lower than previously anticipated at between 3,950 and 4,000 homes, the exact number depending on the extent of legal completions in the remaining days of the year. We have experienced slower than expected build production across the Group’s sites during December, resulting in approximately 180 largely built and sold private homes which were expected to complete in 2016 being deferred into early 2017. Bovis now expects to bank pre-tax profits of around £160m to £170m for 2016 -- compared with £160.1m in 2015. Analysts had expected around £183m, so the City will be disappointed. Reaction to follow.... Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of the world economy, the financial markets, the eurozone and business. London’s financial workers are making their way back to their desks through the fog this morning, after a four-day Christmas holiday. Hopefully everyone had a lovely break, even though fears over what the future will bring may have dampened the atmosphere over the turkey and trimmings. In particular, the prospect of a new president in the Oval Office, and Britain triggering the process of exiting the European Union, is worrying many UK executives. The Chartered Management Institute is warning this morning that a majority of managers in the UK believe Brexit-related uncertainty will hold back economic growth in 2017, with many also expecting long-term economic damage. My colleague Katie Allen explains: In a survey of 1,118 managers, the CMI found 65% were pessimistic about the UK’s economic outlook for the next 12-18 months. Their caution over 2017 followed what appeared to be a tough year for many organisations, when only 39% said they had grown, the lowest proportion since 2012 when the shockwaves from the eurozone debt crisis hit the UK economy. A further 39% said business levels had stayed roughly the same in 2016 and 22% said their business had declined. Asked about the impact of Brexit on economic growth in the next three to five years, 49% thought it would be negative. But a sizeable 37% believed leaving the EU would have a positive impact on the UK economy and 14% said it would have no impact. The findings follow signs that businesses are becoming more nervous about hiring and investing as Brexit negotiations approach. Companies and individuals have also become more concerned about costs because the pound’s sharp fall since the referendum has made imports such as fuel and food ingredients to the UK more expensive. Here’s the full story: Also coming up today At 9.30am, the British Bankers Association will report how many new mortgage loans were approved in November. Economists expect a small rise, from 40,851 to 41,100, despite that Brexit uncertainty. European stock markets are likely to be fairly subdued, after a thin trading day yesterday. Wall Street was also open on Tuesday, but the Dow Jones index again failed to smash through the 20,000 point mark even though US consumer confidence jumped to a 15-year high. The figures underline how the US economy has strengthened this year. However, a certain someone thinks he should get the credit.... We’ll be tracking all the main events through the day....
Publishers 'feeding on scraps from Facebook', says Bloomberg Media boss Newspapers, magazines and other publishers are “feeding on the scraps” of Facebook’s multibillion-dollar ad business despite playing a central role in keeping the social network’s users happy, according to the boss of Bloomberg Media. Justin Smith, chief executive of the financial information company’s publishing arm, told the that even though Facebook was sending traffic to publisher websites, it was making far more from ads in its news feed which was filled with publisher content. “They keep the $16bn to $18bn they get in the news feed, and the news feed, with personal sharing down, is effectively all of our content, it’s effectively just an aggregation of premium publishers’ content,” he said. “While that’s all legal, based on fair use, there is a real question about how fair it is that Facebook can have $16bn to $18bn dollars, $3bn or $4bn dollars in ebitda on the back of our content.” In results announced on Wednesday, after the spoke to Smith, Facebook reported net income of $1.51bn for the first quarter of 2016, triple what it made in same quarter of 2015, and total revenues of $5.2bn. At the same time, publishers are struggling to generate ad revenue from their digital audiences, especially with more and more of their readers visiting from mobile devices. Smith warned that the unequal relationship many publishers were entering into with Facebook could end badly for both parties. He said: “It’s a little bit like they are at the grown-up table and the publishers are propping it up while being fed scraps. “It’s a problematic situation. On its current trajectory this could not end well for the news business, and Facebook needs to think about this too, because they are reliant on each other.” He said only a few big players will be able to successfully chase scale by working with partners like Facebook. “There will be some that achieve such tremendous scale, like BuzzFeed, that will succeed, but that’s going to be one in a million,” he said. “The rest, I would say, look for the segments, the niches that exist within your current offering, and fragment yourself.” While many publishers were suffering, Smith said Bloomberg was able to avoid falling into the same traps because despite generating most of its money from advertising, its audience of business people was not going to Facebook for information. The operation is also supported by a the far bigger division which sells market information terminals to the finance industry. He said: “We stand in a really unique position because we have this unique business model, we are integrated in our core business, we add value to our core business, and we are able to invest and able to expand and build something for the long term that’s of significant high quality. That is based around fundamentally counterintuitively based around building relationships with readers.” Bloomberg is in the midst of expanding its media operation with localised versions of Bloomberg.com. Earlier this month it launched a site aimed at the Middle East, adding to localised versions for Europe and Asia launched over the last year.
BT avoids Openreach breakup but Ofcom orders more investment BT will not have to sell off its Openreach broadband division despite concerns that it has been starved of investment and provides a poor quality of service to millions of homes. The telecoms regulator, Ofcom, has instead ordered BT to give more independence and investment powers to Openreach, which owns the fibre and copper wires that run from the local telephone exchange to homes and businesses. Ofcom said Openreach should be run as a legally separate company within BT Group, with its own board, an independent chairman and its own brand. The regulator’s chief executive, Sharon White, said the alternative choice of forcing BT to sell the division – as demanded by its rivals – would take too long. “This is a practical plan that can be implemented within months, unlike a sell-off of Openreach, which would take years,” White said, pointing to issues such as land contracts and pensions. “This model should deliver … without years and years of legal wrangling. This is a structural change in incentives.” She said the UK was lagging far behind other countries, with only 2% of the country receiving ultrafast broadband delivered via fibre-optic lines, similar to Germany. Korea, Spain, Lithuania and Portugal are at around 60%, and Japan at 70%. Steve Unger, Ofcom’s director of strategy, said a full-blown separation would trigger “very significant costs” related to BT’s £7bn pension deficit pension, to make arrangements for employees within Openreach. White added that making Openreach a legally separate company within BT would require it to act in the best interests of all broadband customers in the UK and not just BT customers. “Openreach has not done a good enough job on customer service.” BT’s rivals – Sky, Vodafone and TalkTalk – argue that the company has dragged its heels on opening its network to their engineers, which stymies their ability to offer homes superfast broadband access. White said this would no longer be the case. “This could bring about significant change. It will mean you have faster, more reliable broadband. It will mean engineers turning up on time and getting the job done first time. And crucially for the UK it will mean more investment in fast fibre to the doorstep,” she said. She defended the regulator’s decision to let BT appoint Openreach’s independent directors, saying they would not be affiliated to BT in any way and would be appointed and removed by BT in consultation with Ofcom. Openreach’s chief executive will be appointed by its board. It will have its own strategy and set its own budget, but this will need to be signed off by BT. Ofcom said a full breakup remained an option. The regulator and BT have yet to reach agreement on the proposals, but White said they would be enforced. BT’s rivals immediately criticised the proposals. TalkTalk, which is a customer of Openreach because it needs to use the BT network in order to offer broadband to customers, said Ofcom had been too cautious and that its proposals favoured BT. Dido Harding, the chief executive of TalkTalk, said a full split was needed, and believes that it will eventually happen. “We can’t afford to have something that is a sort of British fudge. We need a clear outcome. Britain has a second-rate infrastructure.” She explained: “Legal separation still means a highly complex web of regulation, and BT has proven itself expert at gaming this system. There is nothing to suggest they will not continue to do so in the new system. In taking one cautious step forward, I fear Ofcom may in practice have taken five steps back.” Harding added that under the proposals Openreach would not be required to declare what dividends it paid back to BT, so it would not be clear how much profit was being handed to its owner “to buy sports rights or other things”. BT is a major player in football broadcasting thanks to its Premier League and Champions League rights deals, which are used as a marketing tool to lure broadband subscribers. Harding said the pension issue could be overcome, pointing to a report done by law firm Sacker & Partners for Sky (pdf). She argued that Openreach would be a much more secure home for the pension fund than a company that buys football rights every few years. TalkTalk, Sky and Vodafone are launching a campaign on Wednesday to encourage consumers and businesses to write to Ofcom and “make their voices heard” in the coming months, as the regulator consults on the plans with a deadline of 4 October. Sky was also critical of the proposal. The pay-TV operator’s chief executive, Jeremy Darroch, said it “falls short of the full change that would have guaranteed the world-class broadband network customers expect and the UK will need. In particular, leaving Openreach’s budget in the hands of BT Group raises significant questions as to whether this will really lead to the fibre investment Britain requires.” Shares in BT rose more than 4% in early trading. The telecoms group welcomed the plans and said a full structural separation of Openreach would be a disproportionate move. “Our proposals provide Ofcom with every benefit they’re seeking but without any of the substantial and unavoidable costs associated with legal incorporation. We will continue to engage with them over the coming months.” Gavin Patterson, BT’s chief executive, said the group would invest £6bn over the next three years in improving the UK’s digital network. He said: “It is a sensible way forward. We accept that we can do better and we’ve put forward a proposal that does that.” As well as commercial rivals calling for action, a select committee of MPs last week said Ofcom should consider an Openreach breakup, unless BT spent more money on the service. Politicians and a former regulator joined BT’s commercial rivals in criticising Ofcom for not going far enough with its plans. Tim Farron, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, accused Ofcom of being toothless by not forcing BT to sell Openreach. “It provides a poor service to customers and has been starved of investment. Giving more powers and investment to Openreach is better than nothing but the crucial thing is it will leave millions of customers with poor quality broadband. That is unacceptable in the modern age when the government claims to be creating a digital economy. If a watchdog yet again fails to bark, perhaps it is time to put it down.” John Fingleton, a former head of the Office of Fair Trading, tweeted: “It is BT one, Ofcom nil. Conduct regulation has failed, and this is just more failure.” BT has been accused of leaving millions of people with substandard broadband connections because of a failure to invest. Under the regulator’s plans, Openreach would be obliged to consult formally with customers such as Sky and TalkTalk on large-scale investments. BT’s CEO will not receive feedback on those discussions in order to ensure that Openreach makes impartial decisions on investment. Separately, Ofcom has begun discussions with the industry to force telecoms companies to provide automatic compensation to customers when their service falls short. The regulator has also published proposals to make it easier for mobile customers to switch network and to switch triple-play bundles (landline, broadband and pay-TV services).
Media outlets dare to call Donald Trump a liar, racist and misogynist A story about Donald Trump’s feud with Fox News carried by the Huffington Post was routine enough... until the conclusion. Appended to the article was the following statement: Note to our readers: Donald Trump is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist,misogynist, birther and bully who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims — 1.6 billion members of an entire religion — from entering the US. As Poynter’s Benjamin Mullin pointed out, this certainly challenged “traditional notions of journalistic neutrality.” Ryan Grim, HuffPo’s Washington bureau chief, told Poynter: “We will never stop reminding our audience who Trump is and what his campaign really represents.” Although another HuffPo spokesman said the note would appear below all its articles about Trump, I can’t locate any other examples. It was not published under stories such as “Trump’s Hollywood star is vandalised with a swastika”; “Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton lead Iowa caucus poll”; and “A Democrat explains why she’s voting for Donald Trump”. So perhaps there has since been a change of mind. HuffPo has done that before. In July 2015, it moved Trump coverage to its entertainment section, calling his campaign a “sideshow”, but it reversed that decision in December. This time around, Grim defended the innovation by arguing that it was fair because “these are merely statements of fact.” Asked about the possible impact on readers, he said: “We’re not telling them what to think, we’re telling them what we think... Being fully upfront and honest with readers is a mark of our respect for their ability to think freely and for themselves.” HuffPo is hardly alone among US media in dealing with Trump in a very different fashion to its treatment of any other politician. At the beginning of December, the Washington Post’s Dana Milbank wrote a commentary headlined “Donald Trump is a bigot and a racist”. He noted: “There is a greater imperative not to be silent in the face of demagoguery. Trump in this campaign has gone after African Americans, immigrants, Latinos, Asians, women, Muslims and now the disabled.” And he went on to list Trump’s sins: Trump led the ‘birther’ movement challenging President Obama’s standing as a natural-born American; used various vulgar expressions to refer to women; spoke of Mexico sending rapists and other criminals across the border; called for rounding up and deporting 11 million illegal immigrants; had high-profile spats with prominent Latino journalists and news outlets; mocked Asian accents; let stand a charge made in his presence that Obama is a Muslim and that Muslims are a ‘problem’ in America; embraced the notion of forcing Muslims to register in a database; falsely claimed thousands of Muslims celebrated the 9/11 attacks in New Jersey; tweeted bogus statistics asserting that most killings of whites are done by blacks; approved of the roughing up of a black demonstrator at one of his events; and publicly mocked the movements of New York Times (and former Washington Post) journalist Serge Kovaleski, who has a chronic condition limiting mobility. Also in December, BuzzFeed’s editor-in-chief, Ben Smith, told his journalists they could call Trump a liar and “mendacious racist”. In a memo to staff, Smith said of Tump: “He’s out there saying things that are false and running an overtly anti-Muslim campaign. BuzzFeed News’s reporting is rooted in facts, not opinion; these are facts.” None of it appears to have dissuaded thousands of Americans from supporting Trump. Indeed, it may well convince people of the distance between them and the so-called “liberal media.” They will view it as proof that media outlets, old and new, are unrepresentative of their opinions and attitudes. It is a further example of the way in which the success of Trump’s presidential candidacy has revealed a deep political, social and cultural split in modern America. Sources: Washington Post/Poynter/Politico/
EU referendum: £9m taxpayer-funded publicity blitz pushes case to remain Every household in England will receive a glossy 14-page booklet through their letterbox next week making the case for Britain to remain in the European Union, as the government kicks off a £9m taxpayer-funded publicity blitz. As David Cameron steps up his efforts to persuade voters to vote to remain in the EU at the 23 June referendum, No 10 announced it would spend 34p per household on the booklets, which bear the government crest. Voters in Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland will also receive the booklet, but not until after the elections to the Welsh and Northern Irish assemblies and the Scottish parliament. Stamped with the logo “HM Government”, the leaflet says in large type: “Why the Government believes that voting to remain in the European Union is the best decision for the UK.” It includes sections on the economy, immigration control and overseas travel, and warns that “a vote to leave could mean a decade or more of uncertainty”. The environment secretary, Liz Truss, said: “The document makes clear why EU membership brings economic security, peace and stability. It also sets out that, if the UK voted to leave, the resulting economic shock would put pressure on the value of the pound, which would risk higher prices of some household goods.” The announcement sparked fury among Brexit campaigners, with the London mayor, Boris Johnson, calling it “crazy” to spend public money on the leaflet campaign. “Given that I think it’s very likely that it will be very biased and hysterical and warning unnecessarily about the risks of leaving the EU, I think it’s a complete waste of money,” he said. “It’s crazy to use quite so much taxpayers’ money on stuff that is basically intended to scare people and to stampede people in one direction. A spokesman for Vote Leave, in which justice secretary Michael Gove plays a senior role, even accused No 10 of trying to steer the focus away from Cameron’s tax affairs. “No 10 is trying to distract the media’s attention from the issue of whether the prime minister’s family money is kept in offshore trusts,” he said. “The government promised that it would not take on the lead role in the referendum, so it’s disgraceful that they’re spending taxpayers’ money which could go to the NHS on EU propaganda instead.” A spokesperson for Cameron insisted the claim was “absolute nonsense”and the government had always intended to announce the leaflet campaign on Wednesday. A No 10 spokeswoman said the booklet had been commissioned in response to a survey showing that 85% of people wanted more facts about the referendum. “We think it’s the right thing to do,” she said. “We think this is a good way of putting the facts at people’s fingertips. It’s what was done in 1975.” Producing, printing and delivering leaflets would cost £6.4m, No 10 said, while digital promotion and an accompanying website would cost almost £2.9m. Separately, Vote Leave has been reported to the Electoral Commission over its campaign leaflet, which purports to present neutral facts about the EU and claims that £350m a week is sent by the UK to Brussels. The leaflet was reported for a failure to properly declare its source, although there is little the watchdog can do outside the official referendum period. The leaflet is designed to look official and declares that it contains “information about the referendum on June 23” but only reveals its author is Vote Leave in tiny font on the back page. Britain Stronger in Europe, the leading Remain campaign, claimed there were at least eight misleading claims in the leaflet, describing it as a “grand deception on the British people”. James McGrory, its chief campaign spokesman, said: “This leaflet is nothing short of Project Fantasy. It fails to address the real concerns that many people will have about the economic costs to Britain of leaving Europe’s free-trade single market.” Chris Bryant, the shadow leader of the House of Commons, reported his concerns about the leaflet’s misleading presentation to the Electoral Commission and asked it to investigate any potential wrongdoing. The has received a number of emails from readers complaining about the leaflet, which was mailed to households this week. The Remain campaign said the leaflet sought to “hide the fact it comes from a referendum campaign group”, pointing out it was completely devoid of Vote Leave branding and linked to a website seemingly designed to appear impartial. The Remain camp argued that the claim that £350m a week was sent to Brussels had been “blown apart” by the Institute for Fiscal Studies. The thinktank released a report on Wednesday judging that the UK’s net contribution was £5.7bn a year. This amounts to £110m a week. However, a Vote Leave spokesman dismissed criticism of the leaflet and repeated its claim about the £350m. That figure is derived from the UK’s gross contribution of £19.1bn in 2014 and does not take into account Britain’s rebate or other receipts from the EU. “People want to know the facts on the EU such as the fact that we send £350m every week to Brussels that could go to the NHS if we vote leave and we are experimenting with different formats to see what is most effective,” the spokesman said. Critics of the Remain camp also pointed to a leaflet issued by Britain Stronger in Europe that had no campaign branding and warned that Brexit was a “leap in the dark for you and your family”. That leaflet appeared only to refer to Britain Stronger in Europe by its initials BSIE on the return address. A spokesman for the Electoral Commission said no law had been broken by Vote Leave as material did not have to have an imprint declaring its origin until the formal referendum period begins on 15 April.
Lawsuit accusing 16 big banks of Libor manipulation reinstated by US court A US appeals court on Monday reinstated a civil lawsuit accusing 16 major banks of conspiring to manipulate the Libor benchmark interest rate. The ruling, which overturns a 2013 decision, could bankrupt the institutions, the judges warned. A lower court judge erred in dismissing the antitrust portion of private litigation against Barclays, Bank of America, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, UBS and others on the ground that the investors failed to allege harm to competition, according to the US circuit court of appeals in Manhattan. Libor, or the London interbank offered rate, underpins hundreds of trillions of dollars of transactions and is used to set rates on credit cards, student loans and mortgages. It is calculated based on submissions by banks that sit on panels. In litigation that began in 2011, investors accused big banks of suppressing Libor during the financial crisis in order to boost earnings or make their finances appear healthier. Back in early 2013, Manhattan federal district court judge Naomi Reice Buchwald dismissed the claims filed by private plaintiffs. According to her 161-page decision, the banks did not violate antitrust laws when they colluded to manipulate the Libor benchmark interest rate and that the plaintiffs failed to prove harm from such collusion. Buchwald’s 2013 decision surprised some, as at the time Barclays, UBS and Royal Bank of Scotland had already settled cases with more than $2.5bn in penalties. Since then penalties in Libor-rigging probes have climbed to roughly $9bn, including a penalty of $2.5bn against Deutsche Bank. The three-judge appellate court panel disagreed with her decision. “Appellants sustained their burden of showing injury by alleging that they paid artificially fixed higher prices,” Judge Dennis Jacobs wrote on behalf of the panel. After determining that the plaintiffs had sufficiently shown they had been harmed by the alleged rate manipulations, the panel sent the case back to the lower court. Two of the judges asked that when revisiting the case, Buchwald consider if the plaintiffs are the appropriate parties to bring such charges. Among the plaintiffs bringing charges against the 16 banks are cities including Baltimore, San Diego and Houston. They also warned of dire consequences should the case be proven against the banks. If the court were to rule in favor of the plaintiffs, they would be eligible to receive triple damages and attorneys’ fees for any violations. “Requiring the banks to pay treble damages to every plaintiff who ended up on the wrong side of an independent Libor‐denominated derivative swap would, if appellants’ allegations were proved at trial, not only bankrupt 16 of the world’s most important financial institutions, but also vastly extend the potential scope of antitrust liability in myriad markets where derivative instruments have proliferated,” the US court of appeals in New York said in the ruling issued on Monday. The decision could help investors in several other lawsuits in Manhattan seeking to hold banks liable for alleged price fixing in bond, commodity, currency, derivatives, interest rate and other financial markets. “It strengthens the hand of investors in other price-fixing cases based on benchmarks that were reached in collaborative, or outright collusive, arrangements,” said Lawrence White, a professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business. Thomas Goldstein, a lawyer who argued the investors’ appeal, was not immediately available for comment. Robert Wise, a lawyer who argued on the banks’ behalf, declined to comment. Reuters contributed to this report.
New band of the week: Hush Moss (No 120) – downtempo disco tribute to 70s soul Hometown: Berlin. The lineup: Eden Leshem (vocals, guitar), Aviv Meshulam (guitar, synth, percussion), Dekel Adin (bass), Guy Fleisher (drums), Guy Gefen (congas), Dolev Nahoom Sanbira (saxophone), Ziv Sobelman Yamin (keys). The background: If the Weeknd’s dad had made an album of louche soul in 1975, during that period between the heyday of Philly and the advent of disco, just before Giorgio Moroder/Donna Summer’s electronification of dance music, it might have sounded like Hush Moss. The albumby the Berlin outfit is a creepily seductive collection of nocturnal R&B. Clever, too: it’s made by a bunch of young Berlin hipsters but should easily appeal to an older generation of superannuated debauchees reared on the mellow come-hither grooves of Barry White and the Bee Gees. If this music was a person, it wouldn’t be hanging out in a modern loft in downtown Toronto dressed head to toe in Alexander Wang XO and luxed-up sneakers, it’d be a sleazy lothario rocking a pastel pink suit and shirt unbuttoned to the waist, all moustache and chest hair, snorting powders behind the velvet curtain at a glitzy discotheque uptown. While wearing roller-skates. Hush Moss is the brainchild of Eden Leshem, a 23-year-old Israeli living in Berlin. He recorded It Takes a Lot in a studio by the ocean in Israel, all the better to achieve that coked-up rolled-up-jacket-sleeve 70s musician vibe. Not that any of the eight or so musicians involved were coked-up or wearing jackets with rolled-up sleeves, but they knew what the point was, and it was to recreate a sax-fuelled mid-70s funk-lite sound while negotiating a path between ironic tribute and sincere homage. “It’s both,” says Leshem of the puttering beats and pillowy keyboards. “You can say the references are funny, but it’s all stuff that makes us feel good, happy. We love what we do. We’re very aware that it’s ironic to the public, but we really love that shit.” He is very specific about what “that shit” comprises: Barry White, the Bee Gees, the Isley Brothers, even Abba, only breaking with the strict 70s-only rule by name-dropping Wham! The musicians also listened to a lot of Off The Wall-era Michael Jackson while recording – post-the 1977 watershed, but it counted because Quincy Jones used more musicians in the studio than machines. Some of the equipment employed – Roland Juno-106 synths, say – were also of later, early-80s vintage, but still, the gently burbling feel suited the conceptual time frame. Slowly Disappear is lilting dance music with a light synth wash and a wan ambience. Leshem says it’s designed for “casinos and love boats”. Like everything on this ennui-laden downtempo album it sounds like a hit song you vaguely recollect hearing at a discotheque on a foreign holiday as a kid: “Like a seven-inch that you find in a store and you don’t really know the band,” says Leshem. Always Gonna Give Myself to You is disconcertingly pretty, like Ariel Pink working with Gamble & Huff. Take Me By the Hand is an affecting synth-phonic soul ballad, like Stylistics produced by Lawrence of Denim. Jackie Brown would love Perfect Proof – you can picture her smooching to it with Max Cherry in her white pant suit. Or you can imagine a serial killer playing it to his girlfriend. “Wow,” says Leshem, somewhat taken aback. “That’s interesting. That’s the one influenced by Elton John. “I did try,” he concedes, “to be like a guy in a suit, a dangerous guy, maybe Bryan Ferry … ” He varies his voice throughout, from creamy falsetto to macho baritone. It wasn’t tweaked to achieve that low-register effect. “No,” he laughs, “we’re not that smart. That would be too artistic for us.” Have to Say, like everything here, has a washed-out, brown at the edges sound, as though it was once bright but left to fade in the sun. Then there’s In Reims, with its careless whispers of sax and air of decadence, Leshem playing the suave loverman to the hilt. What kinds of reactions does he get from “the ladies”? “I think most of them think I’m gay,” he say. “Especially when they see me dancing onstage. I’m quite Michael [Jackson] or Prince. Not that I copy them – I just like having fun representing myself as a guy. Also, I like to wear stupid stuff.” It Takes a Lot gets the period charm/smarm just right. Hush Moss sound like a million dollars, albeit at 1976 currency values. Could they be big sellers, or are they just Berlin hipsters? “It’s definitely a Berlin indie thing at the moment,” says Leshem, adjusting his medallion. “But you never know.” The buzz: “Pure elevator-music euphoria.” The truth: It’s the sound of sexy soul. Most likely to: Give itself to you. Least likely to: Slowly disappear. What to buy: It Takes a Lot is released on CD, tape and digital formats on 16 September via Average Negative. File next to: Devonté Hynes, Destroyer, Yehan Jehan, Aldous RH. Links: facebook.com/hushmoss Ones to watch: Astrid S, Ricky Eat Acid, Collapsing Scenery, American Wrestlers, s a r a s a r a.
HSBC customers vent fury over online banking disruption Millions of HSBC customers are experiencing further problems with online banking, following several hours of disruption on Monday. The personal banking website is not allowing customers to log on. On Monday, up to 17 million personal and business customers were locked out of their accounts for up to nine hours. Customers complained on Tuesday morning that the bank’s internet services were still down. “Not exactly the best time of year for your online services to be down @HSBC_UK when the majority of us have had pending transactions,” said one Twitter user. Another described the situation as “shocking disgraceful customer service”. Tuesday was the first day back at work for many, and a day that is traditionally busy for banks as customers log on to check the damage that Christmas and new year celebrations did to their bank balance. HSBC tweeted that the bank was experiencing further issues, although it did not explain why the site was not working. A spokeswoman told Money on Tuesday morning that while online services are not currently working, customers can access its Personal Banking mobile app. She added: “We are currently experiencing issues with our Online and Mobile banking. Personal Mobile banking is working but due to high demand customers may experience delays. “We apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused and our teams continue to work non-stop to restore all services. Regular updates will be provided. We will ensure customers do not lose out as a result of this issue.” HSBC said customers who need to make urgent payments can still call Personal Telephone Banking between 8am and 10pm on 03457 404 404. HSBC was hit by a major IT glitch in August 2015, when 275,000 bank payments failed to go through just before the bank holiday weekend. John Hackett, HSBC’s UK chief operating officer, said: “Our customers continue to have issues with HSBC online and mobile banking. We profoundly apologise for any inconvenience this has caused. “We will ensure customers do not lose out as a result of this issue. Any fees customers incur as a result of this outage will be waived. “There is a complex technical issue with our internet banking systems, and our IT team has been working non-stop since yesterday morning to find a solution. This has involved many tests, diagnostics and trial runs. We are getting closer to solving the problem, but are not there yet. We can, however, confirm this is not a cyber-attack or any other malicious act. “We have mobilised all our available resources to cope with the increased customer demand in our call centres and branches, and they are doing their best; however, due to very heavy volumes we ask for your patience. We will continue to provide regular updates.” Last week, NatWest and Royal Bank of Scotland customers vented their anger after being hit by yet another banking glitch – this one affecting people using debit cards in shops. Customers reported having their cards declined at tills and their pins being blocked.
Ultra culture could help Premier League terraces take positive steps Look out! The ultras are coming. Well, not quite. And definitely not those ones – although it depends on what your definition of an ultra is – but there are moves afoot in Britain to try to adopt a culture of support which often appears to be more misunderstood than Mario Balotelli. Whenever stories about European ultras penetrate British media they invariably come dripping with negative connotations of the fans involved: extreme violence, racist chanting, threats against players and other such depressing accounts that help portray these groups as a repugnant, often entitled, subculture within football. So, yes, it is clear ultras have an image problem. Very rarely do we hear the stories about the cuddly types, such as those who build links with different ethnic groups within their club’s local community or the good work, such as that carried out by Bayern Munich fans, in which they organise trips to Auschwitz to highlight the club’s Jewish history. But stories of do-goodery do not fit the stereotypical narrative of the ultra as the tooled-up smashing machine. But there are ultras already walking among us, Crystal Palace’s Holmesdale Fanatics who, while not carrying the moniker ultras in their title (see above for why), are rightly praised for the noise and colour they bring to games. Their corner of Selhurst Park is an incessantly vibrant, effervescent antidote to the caravan-tradeshow atmosphere that is the norm for long periods of matches at many British stadiums, particularly in the Premier League. They also rally behind supporter issues brought about by the commercialisation of football. There have been attempts among followers of other British clubs to import a culture which at its heart is about intense organised backing of your team through colourful displays and noise on the terraces, not cracking skulls. Aston Villa’s Brigada 1874, Leicester’s Fosse Boys, Middlesbrough’s Red Faction and Celtic’s Green Brigade are among them and there have been movements at Ipswich Town and non-league clubs such as Clapton FC and Dulwich Hamlet, whose support comes from a left-leaning, liberal platform as a counterpoint to the often contrary views on the terraces of British football’s past. Kenny Legg, a football writer based in Berlin who is fascinated by German ultras, believes that for the UK to develop a similar scene fans need something to kick against, be it a political issue, exorbitant ticket prices or just the perceived boredom of the modern football experience. “It has its roots in left-wing politics in Italy and the German ultras scene is heavily political, with groups often taking a stance on issues outside of football – refugees, racism, homophobia,” he says. “In Germany the ultras movement was often a reaction against the hooliganism that was still prevalent in stadiums in the early/mid-90s. Ultras groups, in some instances, took over the terraces and made them a fun, bright, colourful place for broad ranges of society, rather than a place to be feared.” But Legg believes that, even as Britain stands on the verge of shrinking itself culturally as it prepares to pull the shutters down on Europe, young people here could never be as politically motivated as mid-90s post-reunification Germans, so any catalyst must come from somewhere else. It may be that British football, particularly the commercial juggernaut that is the English top flight, is immune to an ultras movement because of all-seater stadiums, a fear of hooliganism, ticketing, an ageing fanbase (try doing the Poznan for 90 minutes in your mid-50s) and years of gentrification. David Mayor, a Manchester City season-ticket-holder of 30 years and writer for the sadly now defunct European Football Weekends website, fears the sanitisation of football in Britain – particularly the Premier League – has gone so far as to make developing an ultras scene almost impossible. “There’s more of a warming to the movement in Britain because of the internet and YouTube and also people travelling abroad more to watch games. But fans here might be worried about the consequences of being too exuberant or vocally critical of their club. The possibility of being thrown out might put them off.” Fans in Britain do not really enjoy orchestrated singing or repetition – just ask the England band. Nor do they take kindly to being told how to support their team. The altercations that have broken out at West Ham in recent months are evidence of a divide that exists between those who see themselves as old-school supporters and those who are new to the game and perhaps a little wealthier and more passive. And it is not only a problem at West Ham. Some fans just want to watch the match and could not care less about the atmosphere – and would want to be near a flare only if they were bobbing up and down in the North Sea. That is fair enough – and in any case many ultras do not believe in the no pyro, no party ethos. There are many other ways to have fun at the match. Legg says many normal fans were at first resistant to the ultras movement in Germany but, over time, grew to accept it and realise that it was a positive, harmless influence in grounds. With safe-standing back on the agenda (Celtic have reintroduced it), discussions about how to breathe a little life back into British stadiums will inevitably be had among fans’ unions, of which there are many more than there used to be. If the word ultras is uttered, it need not be dismissed out of hand. Ultras groups might not be completely compatible with British football culture but they could help it get over what, at times, feels like a fear of atmosphere.
Bank turned down your small business loan? Now it must offer an alternative Katrin Herrling felt she had nowhere to go when, in the midst of the financial crisis, her bank suddenly changed its lending terms. She had inherited a dairy farm and needed support with her cash flow during the four months of the year the cows weren’t producing milk. “Nothing in our position had changed but the banks felt they had to rebuild their balance sheet,” she says. “I didn’t know where to turn … I [knew] that just going to another bank where I didn’t have an established relationship wasn’t going to solve the issue. Outside of banks, I had no idea.” From today, entrepreneurs should not find themselves in Herrling’s position. As part of the Small Business Enterprise and Employment Act 2015, the UK’s nine major banks will be legally required to refer those SMEs they refuse to finance to an alternative provider, under the bank referral scheme. Three online platforms that have been pre-approved to receive these referrals and help match small businesses with finance options: Funding Options, Business Finance Compared and Funding Xchange, which Herrling launched in June 2015. “It’s the lack of information on what the alternative finance options are that in my mind has held people back from choosing non-bank finance. And that’s exactly what we’re trying to build,” Herrling says. In 2013, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (pdf) found that half of first time borrower SMEs were rejected for finance, resulting in 37% giving up and canceling their spending plans. The British Business Bank (pdf) estimates that banks reject 100,000 small businesses each year, representing an estimated shortfall of £4bn in funding. Herrling says: “If you’ve been in business six months and you ask your bank for an overdraft, they’re not going to give it to you. They want a much longer track record. [But] just because a bank can’t fund you doesn’t mean your business isn’t a good business or that there isn’t somebody out there willing to offer excellent finance conditions. “The theory is if you give businesses confidence and ease of access to non-bank finance options, you will be able to unlock growth in the UK.” Funding Xchange is free for businesses to use and lenders pay a small commission on any successful loans. The platform dealt with £1m funding requests in a recent week (amounts range from £5,000-£250,000) and 85% of entrepreneurs receive funding offers. Ji Yun Kim was one. She owns a boutique store, Wonderound, in London and recently used Funding Xchange to secure a £5,000 loan to tide her over after the pound crashed following the Brexit vote. “It was a bit of an emergency,” she says. “[I found] it was really hard to get a business loan from my bank … they offered me a loan at the beginning when I had a lot of money in my company but when I needed help, it seemed like they didn’t want to help me or take the risk. I’m thinking of moving banks now.” She had two offers from Funding Xchange within a fortnight and accepted one to repay over 12 months. The platform works with small business owners to present their business to the 45 lenders on its site. Lenders then make their offers and – crucially – can see the other offers that are made as well. It’s this transparency, says Herrling, that can save entrepreneurs £2,000 on an average £20,000 loan. “That’s a hugely significant amount of money … [We do see] providers competing and revising their pricing schemes to provide our customers with better deals.” Comparison websites are commonplace in the airline, credit card, insurance and hire car sectors. But it’s visibility that most small business owners do not get when looking for funding. The BIS survey found that four of the UK’s largest banks account for 80% of SMEs’ main banking relationships, and 71% only go to one provider when seeking finance (usually their existing bank), partly because of the lengthy application process involved. Increased choice, says Herrling, is good for everyone and will open up the often misunderstood world of small business finance. “A lot of it is around making more data available around the performance of SMEs so that lenders can gain confidence in understanding the risk profile of the business,” she says. “It’s also about using technology to create more transparency in a market that is incredibly fragmented and difficult to understand from the outside. “There will be hundreds of different solutions, but we’re already seeing much more openness [from banks] to working with fintechs, whether it’s Santander working with Cabbage, or RBS starting up with Capital Connection. There’s lots of willingness to engage and find the right solution.” Sign up to become a member of the Small Business Network here for more advice, insight and best practice direct to your inbox.
Barack Obama: Brexit would put UK at 'back of the queue' in trade talks - as it happened After President Obama warned that Britain would go to the “back of the queue” for trade deal negotiations if it left the EU, Brexit campaigners have been doing their best to play down the significance of his intervention. The official campaign Vote Leave equated Britain’s continued EU membership to the US opening its border to Mexico. Since that would be unthinkable, it said, it was hypocritical of the president to back Britain voting to stay. Leave.EU sought to portray Obama as an outgoing president who, therefore, would have limited influence when the time came. Winston Churchill’s grandson Sir Nicholas Soames attacked Boris Johnson over his article on the removal of a bust of Britain’s wartime leader. He said it called into question his Tory colleague’s judgment and suggested he would not make a good leader. You can also read my colleague Andrew Sparrow’s summary of events from earlier in the evening. Soames’ interview with LBC can be heard here. Winston Churchill’s grandson, the Tory MP and Remain supporter Sir Nicholas Soames, has attacked Boris Johnson over his article in the Sun, saying it was evidence he did not have the “stature” to be prime minister. He told LBC Radio: I like to think, possibly - I’m mad enough to think - that it was probably written by some little twerp who works for Boris. I can’t believe that Boris would really have done something so stupid, but whatever it is it bears his name and it is deeply offensive.” Boris is running two elections here - he is trying to convince the public that it would be right to leave Europe, when he doesn’t believe that we should leave Europe - which we all know - and secondly he is trying to put all sorts of markers down for his future in the Conservative Party. What Boris shows actually is that time and time again his judgment is awry. He shows in this article a remarkable but entirely consistent disregard for the facts, the truth and for all judgment.” I don’t think Boris has the stature to be leader of the Conservative Party. I think he is a good egg as a man, he gets stuck on a high wire and everyone loves him. But being prime minister is being prime minister and I don’t think that Boris is a prime minister. Asked about the article, Johnson said: Obviously people will make of the article what they want. The crucial point is that I’m a big fan of Barack Obama - I was one of the first people to come out in favour of him ages ago. But I think there’s a weird paradox when the President of the Unites States, a country that would never dream of sharing its sovereignty over anything, instructs or urges us politely to get more embedded in the EU, which is already making 60% of our laws. I think the issue really is about democracy - America guards its democracy very jealously and I think we should be entitled to do so as well. And Labour’s shadow business secretary Angela Eagle has weighed in, saying: President Obama’s comments confirm what we have been saying for months - that Britain’s ability to negotiate trade deals would be hugely diminished after Brexit. It is simply not credible for the leave campaign to suggest we could swiftly negotiate a favourable trade deal with the United States and other countries. On behalf of the official Brexit campaign Vote Leave, the justice minister Dominic Raab said: The president made clear that uncontrolled immigration into the EU is a threat to national security. I agree - that is why it is safer to take back control so that we can stop terror suspects from Europe coming into the UK. He argued that he thinks it is in America’s interests for the UK to stay in the EU but what is good for US politicians is not necessarily good for the British people. We want more international cooperation after we vote leave but the EU is not fit for purpose and cannot cope with the multiple crises we face, like terrorism, Syria and mass migration. The US would not dream of opening its border with Mexico, so it is hypocritical for President Obama to insist that we do the same with Europe. Nigel Farage is taking a similar line to Tice: And he’s gone a little further: Reaction to President Obama’s intervention in the Brexit debate is beginning to come in. The co-founder of the Leave.EU campaign Richard Tice has said: We don’t have a trade deal with the United States now because we’re members of the European Union. The proposed EU-US trade deal, TTIP (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership), would be disastrous for British workers. Obama doesn’t have the authority to deny us a deal, as he will be long gone before any such proposals are on the table. This may well turn out to be a defining moment in the EU referendum campaign. Brexit campaigners insist that the UK would be able to strike trade deals with countries like the US quickly and easily if it were to leave the EU. Britain’s prosperity would depend on such deals. But President Obama, calmly but brutally, smashed that notion and left it in dust on the floor. Here are the key points. President Obama said the UK would go to “the back of the queue” in terms of trade deals with the US if it left the EU. He said: In democracies everybody should want more information, not less, and you shouldn’t be afraid to hear an argument being made - that’s not a threat, that should enhance the debate. Particularly because my understanding is that some of the folks on the other side have been ascribing to the United States certain actions we will take if the UK does leave the EU - they say for example that ‘we will just cut our own trade deals with the United States’. So they are voicing an opinion about what the United States is going to do, I figured you might want to hear from the president of the United States what I think the United States is going to do. And on that matter, for example, I think it’s fair to say that maybe some point down the line there might be a UK-US trade agreement, but it’s not going to happen any time soon because our focus is in negotiating with a big bloc, the European Union, to get a trade agreement done. The UK is going to be in the back of the queue. He said leaving the EU would not be in Britain’s economic interests. If, right now, I have got access to a massive market where I sell 44% of my exports and now I’m thinking about leaving the organisation that gives me access to that market and that is responsible for millions of jobs in my country and responsible for an enormous amount of commerce and upon which a lot of businesses depend - that’s not something I would probably do.” He rejected the claim that he was being hypocritical because America does not cede power to international bodies. Asked about this he said: All of us cherish our sovereignty - our country is pretty vocal about that - but the US also recognises that we strengthen our security through our membership of Nato, we strengthen our prosperity through organisations like the G7 and the G20. I believe the UK strengthens both our collective security and prosperity through the EU. He said America’s special relationship with the UK “will continue - hopefully eternally” even if the UK leaves the EU. To explain the special relationship, he told a touching story about how moved one of his staff members was to meet the Queen. He said that he loved Winston Churchill, but he appeared to admit that he had been involved in the decision to remove a Churchill bust from the Oval Office when he became president. It was more important to have a bust of Martin Luther King there, he said. That’s all from me. My colleague Kevin Rawlinson is taking over now. Q: [To Cameron] What are your views on the new discriminatory laws in North Carolina and Mississipi? Cameron says he went to North Carolina many years ago and liked it. He has not been to Mississipi. He says the Foreign Office issues travel advice. Britain is trying to end discrimination around the world, and it is prepared to make that point to friends, he says. And that’s it. The press conference is over. I will post a summary soon. Obama says he liked Prince because he put out great music and was a great performer. He did not know him well, but Prince came to the White House last year. At the ambassador’s residence there is a turntable. He says they played Purple Rain this morning. Obama says President Putin is the “pre-eminent backer of a murderous regime” in Syria. But he says they cannot end the conflict in Syria without Russian help. He says he has looked at all options in Syria. None of them are great. But he is going to try to make the ceasefire work. Q: [To Obama] Would your special relationship be damaged if Britain votes to leave? Obama says he will start with Winston Churchill. In the private White House residence, outside his office, there is a bust of Churchill. He sees it every day. He can do anything on the second floor. He loves Churchill. He says there is not a lot of space in the Oval Office. As the first African-American president, he thought it right to have a bust of Martin Luther King in his office. He thought it important to have that there, to remind him of the people who helped get him there. He says he has a staff member who, on foreign trips, does not normally leave the hotel. But she had one request: she wanted to come to Windsor on the off chance she might see the Queen. And, graciously, the Queen agreed to meet her in a line-up today. This staff person met the Queen. She almost fainted. That’s the special relationship. He says nothing is going to impact on that. That is solid, he says. That will continue - hopefully eternally. Obama says the special relationship is “solid” and “will continue - hopefully eternally” even if the UK votes to leave the EU. But that won’t stop him telling Britain when it might be doing something against its best interests, he says. Q: Was it right for Boris Johnson to bring up Obama’s ancestry. Cameron says questions for Boris are questions for Boris. Q: Was it right to drag Obama into this EU referendum? Cameron says it is good to listen to your friends. He says Britain played a really important role in putting in place sanctions against Russia. If Britain had not been there, he is not sure that that would have happened. (It sounds like he has been reading Anne Applebaum - see 10.38am.) He says he wants a stronger Britain and a stronger special relationship. And that will happen if Britain stays in the EU. Q: [To Cameron] Since Obama has offered advice to Britons on the EU, will you offer advice to Americans on Donald Trump? Cameron says this is not a general election. He says he has not found any country around the world that wants Britain to leave the EU. Listening to countries that wish us well is a good thing to do. As for the American elections, he has made some comments in recent months. He does not think now is the time to add to them or subtract from them. But, looking at the American election process, he is in awe of anyone still standing at the end. The Ukip leader Nigel Farage has responded to Obama. And Lord Ashcroft, the former Conservative deputy chairman, has responded too. Q: Do you think the EU is at breaking point? Obama says there are strains in the EU. At a time of globalisation, when many of the challenges we face are transnational, there is a temptation to want to pull up the drawbridge, he says. He says that view exists in the US, and the debate is accelerated in Europe. But he says the ties that bind Europe together are stronger than those tearing it apart. He says Europe has undergone a great period of prosperity - possibly unmatched at any time in the world. If you look at Europe in the 20th century and in the 21st century, the 21st century looks a lot better. People can see that, he says. He says if he were in the UK, he would be thinking about what was best for jobs etc here. But he would also think about whether this was going to allow prosperity to continue. That is partly what it is relevant to the US. Those last five minutes may turn out to be the most important five minutes of the entire EU referendum campaign. Here is some snap reaction. From the ’s Jonathan Freedland From the Sunday Times’s Tim Shipman From the Daily Mirror’s Kevin Maguire Obama says immigration can enhance a country when done properly. And, when he is discussing this with the EU, he wants David Cameron in the conversation, he says. Obama says having a trade deal just with the US would be “hugely inefficient”. They are now taking questions. Q: [To Obama] You know your comments are controversially. Leave campaigners say you are hypocritical because Americans would never accept the level of immigration from Mexico we accept from the EU. How do you react? And what happens if the UK votes to leave? Obama says this is a matter for Britons. He is not here to vote. He is offering his opinion. In a democracy you should want as much information as possible. Giving a view is not a threat. He says the Leave side are saying what they think the US will do. He figures people might like to hear from the president of the US what it will do. Obama says the UK would go to the ‘back of the queue” if it leaves the EU when it comes to trade deals with the US. He says a US/EU trade deal is “not going to happen any time soon”. The US would focus on trade deals with the EU and big trade blocs, he suggests. Obama says after WW2 the US allowed itself to be constrained by joining international bodies. But it did so because it realised that it would be stronger that one There was a British poet who said “no man is an island”, he says. And that is true, even for an island as beautiful as this. Obama says they discussed the EU referendum. Ultimately this is for British voters, he says. But, as part of the special relationship, part of being friends is to say what you think. And it is a matter of “deep interests” to the US because it affects US interests. The UK is at its best when it is in the EU. As he wrote in his op-ed, the EU helps the UK magnify its power. And that is good for America. Americans want Britain’s influence to grow, including within Europe. Obama says all of us cherish our sovereignty. But the US also recognises it strengthens its security through bodies like Nato. In the 21st century, the nations with power won’t be those that go it alone. They will be the ones that act together. Obama says he wants all Nato allies to spend 2% of GDP on defence. “David” has made that happen in the UK, he says. Obama says the special relationship with the UK is very important to him. He says Cameron has become a good friend to him. The depth and breadth of the special relationship have helped them tackle problems like Ebola, the Iran nuclear problem and climate change. He says they discussed challenges to shared security. They are determined to role back and defeat Isil (Isis). They have to improve security and information sharing across Europe, he says. President Obama is speaking now. He says he has never been driven by a Duke of Edinburgh before. It was a very smooth ride. He says the Queen is one of his favourite people. She is an “astonishing person” and a “jewel to the world”. He says if he reaches 90, he hopes to be as lively as she is. Cameron says he and Obama are friends. “Barack” is someone who gives sage advice, and has a very good heart, and is a friend of the United Kingdom. He says Britain’s reach is amplified by its membership of the EU. He says there is no one more keen on the special relationship. But being in the EU does not constrain that. He says being in international groups helps the government deliver for people. Membership of the EU is a “powerful tool” allowing the government to deliver prosperity and security, he says. Cameron says there are many more challenges. The situation in Libya is “immensely challenging”, but there is now a government of national accord with which they can work. He says they are continuing the fight against Daesh (Isis) in Iraq and Syria. And he says they discussed the migration crisis. This does not directly affect the US, but they discussed how Nato could contribute to the fight against people smugglers in central Mediterranean. They will discuss this further at a summit in Hanover on Monday. Cameron says John Kerry, the US secretary of state, will attend the London corruption summit. He discussed this with Obama. They would like to see an international anti-corruption coordination centre. Cameron turns to global security, and lists some joint US/UK achievements. David Cameron and President Obama have arrived. It is Obama’s fifth visit to the UK, Cameron says. He says he and Obama have worked together during difficult times. The “strong and essential partnership” between our countries has never been more important, he says. He says when Churchill first talked about the special relationship 70 years ago, he was talking about a way of working together. They are both committed to economic security, and to completing the EU/US trade deal. The press conference is about to start. This is from my colleague Anushka Asthana. Boris Johnson has offered some sort of clarification of his Sun article. This is from the Times’s Michael Savage. David Cameron and President Obama are now leaving Number 10 for the Foreign Office. Here is a picture from the start of the Cameron/Obama meeting earlier. This is from the Daily Mirror’s Jack Blanchard. And, while we’re on polling, Andrew Hawkins from ComRes says his firm’s polling shows Britons will be more influenced by Angela Merkel and the Queen on the EU referendum than President Obama. Merkel wants Britain to stay in the EU. The Sun claimed recently that the Queen was backing Brexit, but it could not properly substantiate the story (it reported her making Eurosceptic remarks well before the referendum was announced) and she certainly won’t be making any announcements. The Cameron/Obama press conference is due to start in 10 minutes. It will be taking place in the Foreign Office. Some ministers have already left Number 10 for the Foreign Office, but Cameron and Obama are still in Downing Street. Ipsos MORI have also been polling on whether or not people think President Obama should express a view on Britain leaving the EU. They found the public roughly split. New Ipsos MORI polling shows the British public are split on US President Barack Obama expressing his view on whether or not Britain should stay in the European Union. Half (49%) think that President Obama should express his view while 46% say that he should not. Unsurprisingly, Remain supporters are more in favour of Obama expressing his views than Leave supporters. Ipsos MORI also found that only 15% of people said Obama’s views would be important to them when they voted. This is roughly in line with what the Sky Data poll found. (See 1.12pm.) Ipsos MORI said: Nevertheless the majority of the British public say that President Obama’s view will not be important to them in deciding how they will vote. Fifteen percent say his view will be important to them while 83% say that his view will not be very or at all important. Mr Obama’s views are more important to remain supporters than leave supporters (at 20% vs 7%), to the young rather than older people (24% of 18-34s vs 10% of 55+), and to those who may change their mind than those definitely decided (21% vs 12%). The Ipsos MORI figures are in its April political monitor. The headline voting figures show the Conservatives on 38% and Labour on 35%. And this is what it is like turning around the American president’s limo in Downing Street. This is from the BBC’s Callum May. You can never go wrong with a cat photo ... Lord Ashcroft, the former Conservative deputy chairman who now specialises in political polling, has started publishing focus group reports on what people make of the EU referendum. Today he has published a write-up of focus groups in Bury, Rossendale and Norwich. Ashcroft has not come to an overall conclusion as to who is winning the campaign, but there are plenty of revealing insights into what people are thinking. Here’s an excerpt. For the Remain camp, the week’s main event was the launch of the Treasury document claiming that households would be £4,300 a year worse off by 2030 if Britain left the European Union. This brought the usual complaints about any number in politics: “Where have they got this random figure?”, “You can make statistics tell you anything”, “I just listen to that and think, give us some explanation, why will that happen?”, “He can’t even forecast for two years correctly, never mind 15 years!” But, tellingly, the £4,300 figure was mentioned spontaneously in every group, and even though people were not sure they believed it, it worried them. Why does it stick in your mind if it might be nonsense? “Well, it’s a lot of money for any household, isn’t it?” ... The other number in common currency on the Brexit side was that Britain sends the EU £350 million a week – a figure that has been in the public consciousness for some time (though not universally: “it’s the amount it costs that worries me. Is it something like £10 billion a day? Or is it £10 million? Or £7 million. Anyway, I was shocked when I heard”). Not everyone accepted the £350 million figure at face value, wondering if it was gross or net, and few thought it was a clinching argument in itself, since (being undecided) they also thought EU membership brought some benefits. But there were no takers for the idea that if Britain left, this money would be spent on public services instead: “John Redwood said they could spend the extra £350 million a week on the NHS. If anyone thinks they would really spend it on the NHS they need their head examined. It would go on tax cuts for businesses and getting rid of the deficit, not schools and hospitals.” According to Ladbrokes 90% of the EU referendum bets placed in the last 48 hours have been for Remain. Ladbrokes assess that the chances of a Leave vote have fallen from 34% to 29%. Matthew Shaddick of Ladbrokes said: This is the biggest betting shift of the campaign so far. Treasury reports, Boris Johnson and David Cameron have hardly shifted the dial, but the moment President Obama’s feet touched the ground in the UK, the chances of a Brexit vote took a big hit. Here is the latest update from Number 10 from the White House pool reporter (the reporter allowed into the room to witness an event and file on behalf of everyone - nothing to do with swimming.) After a motorcade that took us past a fair number of tourists snapping pictures, POTUS [President of the United States] arrived at 10 Downing Street.m at 3 pm local. We passed a few signs that said “Obama close gitmo” on the way. POTUS and prime minister David Cameron enters a sitting room a few moments later and took seats on creme colored chairs for a photo op. They were chatting for a second or two but your pooler couldn’t hear much. It sounded like they were talking about sports, and perhaps the sports their kids played. POTUS said “It keeps them out of trouble” and then the press was ushered out of the room. This is from the Press Association, explaining what David Cameron and President Obama will be covering in their talks this afternoon. During their talks in Number 10 the two leaders are expected to focus on boosting Operation Sophia, the EU naval mission tackling the human traffickers behind the migrant crisis. Other items on the agenda include the situation in Afghanistan, stepping up co-operation on data-sharing to tackle terrorism and the response to Moscow’s actions in Ukraine. They will also discuss the rollover of economic sanctions against Russian figures. Cameron and Obama are start with a bilateral meeting, accompanied just by a few aides. Then they are due to be joined by George Osborne, the chancellor, Philip Hammond, the foreign secretary, Theresa May, the home secretary, and Michael Fallon, the defence secretary, for further talks before their press conference. Here are some more pictures from President Obama’s arrival at Number 10. And here are David Cameron and Barack Obama outside Number 10. President Obama has just arrived at Number 10. The largest trade unions in the UK and US have written a joint letter to Barack Obama, warning that the argument for Britain leaving the EU risks being tipped towards a ‘Brexit’ if he does not act to remove the NHS from the scope of a controversial transatlantic trade deal. Writing to the president at the outset of his visit to the UK, where he has already intervened to warn British voters against leaving the EU, the leaders of Unite and the United Steel Workers union, drew a link between the referendum battle and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). “If this is not addressed many progressive UK voters will be put off remaining in the EU,” they said, in a letter which drew on Obama’s own personal admiration for the NHS, which he once described as a “healthcare system that ensures you don’t go bankrupt when you get sick.” While Unite and the bulk of Britain’s trade union organisations have thrown their weight behind the campaign for Britain to remain in the EU, the TTIP deal presents a potential flashpoint for many left-leaning voters and others. And Mark Knoller has also tweeted about President Obama’s birthday present to the Queen - a photo album with pictures of her visits with American presidents and first ladies. President Obama has finished his lunch with the Queen. He is now returning to London for his meeting with David Cameron. This is from CBS’s White House correspondent Mark Knoller. Boris Johnson has been accused by Labour of “dog whistle racism” for writing an article in which the London mayor quoted claims that Barack Obama’s “part-Kenyan” heritage had driven him towards anti-British sentiment. John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, said Johnson was guilty of “dog whistle racism”. And the Labour MP Chuka Umunna said Johnson’s comment showed “the nasty party is back”. Umunna said: Once again we see the ugly face of the Tory party. The nasty party is back. Zac Goldsmith has played on Sadiq Khan’s Muslim heritage to try to link him with radical extremists, and today Boris Johnson has played on Barack Obama’s Kenyan ancestry to question his motives around the EU referendum debate. This is beyond the pale and base politics of the worst kind. We may have come to expect this from Donald Trump - but Goldsmith and Boris should know better, and Londoners deserve better. Sir Nicholas Soames, the Conservative MP, has also criticised Johnson’s article as “appalling”. (See 11.33am.) President Obama been accused of “wanton double standards” by anti-EU campaigners after he called on the British public to “stick together” with the European Union. Nigel Farage, the Ukip leader, has accused Obama of having a “grudge” against Britain. Johnson floated this suggestion in his controversial Sun column, but did not fully endorse it. But Farage did. He said: His first day in the White House, he had the bust of Winston Churchill removed from the Oval Office. Because of his grandfather and Kenya and colonialisation, I think Obama has a bit of a grudge against this country. Separately, another Ukip spokesman claimed America was hoping to use the second world war to smash the UK’s influence in the world. (See 12.12pm.) Farage’s claim about the Churchill bust has been shown to be untrue. (See 12.39pm.) Farage has claimed that not having any major political leaders or financial institutions saying Britain should leave the EU is actually an advantage for the Brexit camp. He said: I hope Goldman Sachs, all the big banks, all the multinationals, the International Monetary Fund, all the career politicians, all the people that have led us to bad debt, all the people that have led us to endless wars in the Middle East, all the people that have served the West so badly, I want them all to club together and I want to say to the voters: ‘Right, this is very simple, ladies and gentlemen, it’s us against the entire political establishment.’ And I think, frankly, the more that they club together, the better our chances are of winning. Two former senior British diplomats have joined those criticising Boris Johnson over his Sun article. This is from Sir Stephen Wall, the former British permanent representative to the European Union. Boris Johnson’s comment implying the President of the United States is driven by his ancestral dislike of the British Empire is demeaning to the debate. Using that type of language does not reflect Britain’s standing in the world or the country we aspire to be. As our most important ally, President Obama has the right to offer his view and he has made it clear that being in Europe magnifies British influence and enhances Britain’s global leadership. And this is from Lord Kerr, a former ambassador to Washington. The US has an interest in Britain, its closest ally, being stronger, safer and better off in the EU - not weaker, out on its own. To claim that the American president has no right to say what he believes, and speak up for US political, economic and business interests is typical Boris bluff and bluster. The Press Association has filed more detail about what happened when President Obama and his wife Michelle arrived at Windsor Castle. The Duke of Edinburgh may be approaching his 95th birthday in June but he looked composed at the wheel of the Range Rover, carrying the Queen and the Obamas, as it made its way around the castle’s quadrangle. The vehicle stopped at the sovereign’s entrance and Obama got out first and waited for the Queen and his wife. The president and the Queen walked in first, followed by Mrs Obama and the Duke. Inside the four posed for a photograph in the castle’s Oak Room, in the Queen’s private apartment. The monarch uses the room to hold audiences and in past years has recorded a Christmas broadcast there. President Obama and David Cameron will attend a private dinner hosted by US ambassador Matthew Barzun at his official residence Winfield House in Regent’s Park on Saturday, the White House and Downing Street have announced. Here are some more pictures from President Obama’s arrival at Windsor Castle. Nigel Farage, the Ukip leader, has been in the City of London this morning campaigning for St George’s Day to be made a national holiday. He told my colleague Ben Quinn that he took President Obama’s description of himself as a friend of the UK “with a pretty large pinch of salt.” Look, I know his family’s background. Kenya. Colonialism. There is clearly something going on there. It’s just that you know people emerge from colonialism with different views of the Britsh. Some thought that they were really rather benign and rather good, and others saw them as foreign invaders.Obama’s family come from that second school of thought and it hasn’t quite left him yet. In his Sun article Boris Johnson said there were suspicions that Obama was anti-British, but Johnson himself did not endorse that claim. Farage himself is making that claim. Farage himself also told Ben that Obama got rid of the bust of Churchil from the Oval Office on the first day, even though the White House has described that claim as “100% false”. John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, has said that Boris Johnson’s decision to describe President Obama as “part-Kenyan” amounts to “dog whistle racism”. Sky News carried out a poll yesterday in connection with President Obama’s visit. There were three main findings. A majority of voters think Obama should not intervene in the EU referendum campaign, the poll suggests. A quarter of voters say Obama’s support for the EU makes them more likely to vote Remain - although most people say it will make no difference, and 17% say it will make them more likely to vote Leave. 40% of under-35s say Obama’s pro-EU stance will make them more likely to vote Remain, about amongst over-55s his intervention seems counterproductive. Around 1,000 people were surveyed by text for the poll. They survey Sky customers, but they have 10m Sky customers to choose from and they weight their samples (by gender, age, class etc) to make them representative, and so they are confident that their findings are as reliable as those from any mainstream pollster. More parliamentarians have criticised Boris Johnson for his decision to describe President Obama as “part-Kenyan”. Richard Newby, the Lib Dem chief whip in the Lords, says Johnson is “despicable”. Mary Honeyball, the Labour MEP, says Johnson is “disgraceful”. The Labour MP Julie Cooper says Johnson should be ashamed of himself. Sarah Ludford, a Lib Dem peer and Europe spokeswoman, says Johnson was being insulting. President Obama and his wife Michelle have arrived at Windsor Castle for their lunch with the Queen. Boris Johnson made his reference to President Obama being “part-Kenyan” in his Sun article because he said that was one explanation given for a decision to remove a bust of Winston Churchill from the Oval Office when Obama became president. Johnson said: Something mysterious happened when Barack Obama entered the Oval Office in 2009. Something vanished from that room, and no one could quite explain why. It was a bust of Winston Churchill – the great British war time leader. It was a fine goggle-eyed object, done by the brilliant sculptor Jacob Epstein, and it had sat there for almost ten years. But on day one of the Obama administration it was returned, without ceremony, to the British embassy in Washington. No one was sure whether the President had himself been involved in the decision. Some said it was a snub to Britain. Some said it was a symbol of the part-Kenyan President’s ancestral dislike of the British empire – of which Churchill had been such a fervent defender. Johnson is generally viewed as a brilliant newspaper columnist but even his most fervent admirers accept that facts are not his strong point and on this assertion he appears to have got it wrong again. Johnson suggests that Obama may have been responsible for the removal of the Churchill bust. The Washington Post looked into this in considerable detail last year in a fact check exercise after Senator Ted Cruz said Obama definitely was responsible for the bust’s disappearance. And the WP concluded Obama had nothing to do with it. Here is its conclusion. When Obama took office, the Epstein bust loaned by Blair was returned to the British government, and the U.K. ambassador installed it in his residence. According to a 2010 interview with White House curator William Allman, the decision to return the bust had been made even before Obama arrived, as the loan was only scheduled to last as long as Bush’s presidency ... To sum up, the Churchill bust loaned to Bush was returned, but a virtually similar bust by the same artist resides in White House residence. There is no evidence that Obama personally decided to return the bust; given the economic crisis at the time, one imagines he had bigger issues on his mind. Perhaps someone on his staff should have recognized the symbolic value in retaining the bust, but the odds are the machinery of the transition just moved forward on its own. And Vote Leave has posted a video of President Obama talking about the importance of governing by consent to back its campaign for Brexit. Britain Stronger in Europe is tweeting about President Obama’s intervention. Ukip has joined Boris Johnson, Dominic Raab and other Brexit campaigner in saying that President Obama is wrong to say that Britain should vote to remain in the EU. But Mike Hookem MEP, the party’s defence spokesman, has made the point in a particularly provocative way. Hookem said there was something “sick” about Obama’s decision to refer to those killed in the second world war to help make his case for Britain staying in the EU. Hookem said: To use the sacrifice of those who gave their lives in the fight against a foreign power who had a desire to rule Europe somehow seems sick. He questioned the value of the support America gave Britain during the second world war. America wanted to use the conflict to smash the UK’s influence in the world, he said. If Mr Obama wants to bring up the US involvement in the war, it might be timely to remind him that in 1939 the US State department policy was to use the upcoming war as a way of smashing the UK’s influence in the world. When, in desperation, Britain asked for help they used Lend Lease to finacially cripple the UK whilst palming off old and sub standard naval assets. Hookem said Obama’s intervention was “unwanted” and “unwelcome”. Dominic Raab, the justice minister who is campaigning for Brexit, told the Today programme this morning, that he thought President Obama’s call for the UK to stay in the EU amounted to “double standards”. He said: It is frankly wanton double standards because he is asking the British people to do something he wouldn’t dream of asking Americans. He wouldn’t dream of opening the US border to free movement from Mexico, he wouldn’t dream of allowing the American constitution to be trumped by a Latin American court with judges appointed by Venezuela, or Cuban judges. And his government right now is considering imposing security screening and new visa requirements on France, Belgium, Germany, Greece to protect the safety of American citizens. So I think Obama’s argument against Britain being able to take the power to take the same precautions is frankly absurd and we should politely but firmly say that whatever is good for the safety of American citizens must be good for the safety of British people. Boris Johnson has come under further criticism for his comment about President Obama being “part-Kenyan”. Diane Abbott, the shadow international development secretary, said Johnson’s language “reflects the worst Tea Pary rhetoric”. And Menzies Campbell, the former Lib Dem leader, said Johnson’s language was “deeply offensive”. Campbell said: Many people will find Boris Johnson’s loaded attack on President Obama’s sincerity deeply offensive. If this is an illustration of the kind of diplomacy that we might expect from a Johnson leadership of the Tory Party then heaven help us. In truth this attack constitutes an unacceptable smear. The Conservative MP Sir Nicholas Soames has described Boris Johnson’s Sun article as “appalling”. WSC is Winston Churchill, Soames’s grandfather. President Obama’s motorcade has been driving through London. This is from Channel 4 News’s Matthew Moore. James Rubin, the former US senior diplomat, was on BBC Breakfast this morning defending President Obama’s right to intervene in the EU referendum debate. “We have a saying, ‘Friends don’t let friends drive drunk’,” he said. In his Sun article Boris Johnson described Barack Obama as “part-Kenyan”. (See 9.38am.) Chuka Umunna, the Labour former shadow business secretary, has described this as “beyond the pale”. Boris Johnson’s thoughts about America’s commitment to self-government seem to be influenced, in part, by his unsuccessful attempts to get American diplomats to pay the congestion charge. This is what he told Sky News about his reaction to President Obama’s Telegraph article. It is a fact that America guards its sovereignty with such hysterical jealousy that American diplomats in this city still refuse to pay the congestion charge and owe Londoners more than £9m which would be spent on transport improvements. And, again, it is paradoxical, inconsistent, incoherent that we are being urged every week to sent £350m of our taxpayers’ money to Brussels. Asked if the intervention from Obama and others meant the Brexit camp was looking “isolated”, Johnson denied that, pointing out that the former Australian prime minister John Howard backed Britain leaving the EU. This is what Howard said recently. The European project is fundamentally flawed. I think its best days are probably behind it and there will be increasing tensions [over migration]. Britain can’t control its borders — it is ridiculous to say it can. If I were British, which I’m not, I’d vote to leave. You have lost your sovereignty. On Twitter Henk van Klaveren (a former Lib Dem press officer) says that, if elay55 is looking for examples of where EU membership has amplified British power (see 10.15am), Anne Applebaum has a good example in this Spectator article. In Washington, the opposition to a British withdrawal from the European Union is deep, broad and bipartisan, shared by liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans alike. I should qualify that: the opposition to a British withdrawal from the European Union is deep, broad and bipartisan — and shared by the shrinking number of Democrats, Republicans and diplomats who are still interested in and committed to the transatlantic alliance ... When I was recently in Washington, an American diplomat reminded me that the sanctions which helped stop a full-blown Russian invasion of Ukraine (and maybe more) were only possible because the European Union was able to bring together all of Europe’s leaders in a negotiation that included the United States. Britain helped convince other, more ambivalent Europeans to join the sanctions, which is part of why they succeeded. If it had left the EU, Britain would not have had nearly as much influence, or perhaps any influence at all. In the the comments elay55 asks: I keep reading about how the UK in the EU amplifies the UK’s influence, please can someone provide 3 specific examples of this amplified power? Luckily President Obama, being an avid leader of Politics Live, has come up with a response. He provides three examples in his article. When we negotiated the historic deal to verifiably prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, it was collective action, working together with the permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany, that got the job done. And the EU’s seat at the table magnified the United Kingdom’s voice. When the climate agreement in Paris needed a push, it was the European Union, fortified by the United Kingdom, that ultimately helped make that agreement possible. When it comes to creating jobs, trade, and economic growth in line with our values, the UK has benefited from its membership in the EU – inside a single market that provides enormous opportunities for the British people. And the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership with the EU will advance our values and our interests, and establish the high-standard, pro-worker rules for trade and commerce in the 21st century economy. Is Obama right? Would there be no Iran nuclear deal, Paris climate change agreement or TTIP if the UK were out of the EU? In reality, the Iran deal and the climate change agreement both involved non-EU countries and would have gone ahead even if the UK were not an EU member. And an EU without the UK would still want a trade deal with the US. But Obama isn’t actually saying that all three of these initiatives would not have happened. His point is that the EU would be a weaker voice for free trade and international activism without Britain sitting around the table. Boris Johnson, the Conservative MP, outgoing London mayor and leading Brexit campaigner, has got an article in the Sun today responding to President Obama’s call for Britain to stay in the EU. He accuses Obama of being “incoherent”, “inconsistent” and “downright hypocritical”. Here are the key points. Johnson said Obama’s call for the UK to stay in the EU was “downright hypocritical” because America would never accept the kind of curbs on its sovereignty that the EU imposes on the UK. It is not just that the Americans refuse to recognise the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court, or that they have refused to sign up to the International Convention on the Law of the Sea. America is the only country in the world that has so far failed to sign up to the UN convention on the rights of the child, or the UN convention on the emancipation of women. For the United States to tell us in the UK that we must surrender control of so much of our democracy – it is a breathtaking example of the principle of do-as-I-say-but-not-as-I-do. It is incoherent. It is inconsistent, and yes it is downright hypocritical. The Americans would never contemplate anything like the EU, for themselves or for their neighbours in their own hemisphere. Why should they think it right for us? He said the EU was “deeply anti-democratic”. And today it is a tragedy that the European Union – that body long ago established with the high and noble motive of making another war impossible – is itself beginning to stifle democracy, in this country and around Europe. If you include both primary and secondary legislation, the EU now generates 60 per cent of all the laws that pass through Westminster. We are are giving £20bn a year, or £350m a week, to Brussels – about half of which is spent by EU bureaucrats in this country, and half we never see again. We have lost control of our borders to Brussels; we have lost control of our trade policy; and with every year that passes we see the EU take control of more and more areas of public policy. He rejected Obama’s claim that the UK could exercise more influence as a member of the EU. There are those who think that Britain has more “influence” within the EU than outside, and that therefore we can be of more value to Washington. That is nonsense. The UK has been outvoted 40 times in Brussels in the last 5 years, and the total bill for those defeats – in extra costs for UK government and business – is put at £2.4 bn a year. How can we have “influence” in the Brussels commission, when only 3.6 per cent of Commission officials come from this country? He described Obama as “part-Kenyan”, saying some people thought his “ancestral dislike of the British empire” explained why he removed a bust of Churchill from the Oval Office when he became president. He adopted Obama’s own campaign slogan to make the case for Brexit. I think it is time to channel the spirit of the early Obama, and believe in Britain again. Can we take back control of our borders and our money and our system of government? Yes we can. Here is Air Force One arriving at Stansted last night carrying President Obama. Here is Obama being greeted by the Lord Lieutenant of Essex as he arrives And here is Obama arriving at Winfield House, the US ambassador’s residence in London. Earlier this week, when eight former US treasuries secretaries wrote a joint article saying why Britain should remain in the EU, they mostly focused on arguments about why they thought it was in Britain’s economic interests for it to stay in. President Obama’s Telegraph article is different. Mostly his argument is about why it is in America’s interests for Britain to remain in the EU. Obama argues that Britain has been a force for stability, democracy and open markets around the world. The United Kingdom remains a friend and ally to the United States like no other. Our special relationship was forged as we spilt blood together on the battlefield. It was fortified as we built and sustained the architecture for advancing stability and prosperity in Europe, and our democratic values around the globe. From the ashes of war, those who came before us had the foresight to create the international institutions and initiatives to sustain a prosperous peace: the United Nations and Nato; Bretton Woods, the Marshall Plan, and the European Union. Their efforts provided a foundation for democracy, open markets, and the rule of law, while underwriting more than seven decades of relative peace and prosperity in Europe. And he says that Britain will exert more influence if it remains in the EU, because EU membership “magnifies” its power. This may well be in the UK’s interests, but Obama says that he is in favour because this advances America’s interests too. Here is the key passage. Ultimately, the question of whether or not the UK remains a part of the EU is a matter for British voters to decide for yourselves. That said, when President Roosevelt toasted to our special relationship that night, he also remarked that we are friends who have no fear of each other. So I will say, with the candour of a friend, that the outcome of your decision is a matter of deep interest to the United States. The tens of thousands of Americans who rest in Europe’s cemeteries are a silent testament to just how intertwined our prosperity and security truly are. And the path you choose now will echo in the prospects of today’s generation of Americans as well. As citizens of the United Kingdom take stock of their relationship with the EU, you should be proud that the EU has helped spread British values and practices – democracy, the rule of law, open markets – across the continent and to its periphery. The European Union doesn’t moderate British influence – it magnifies it. A strong Europe is not a threat to Britain’s global leadership; it enhances Britain’s global leadership. The United States sees how your powerful voice in Europe ensures that Europe takes a strong stance in the world, and keeps the EU open, outward looking, and closely linked to its allies on the other side of the Atlantic. So the US and the world need your outsized influence to continue – including within Europe. President Obama has arrived, and so has his message to the British people about why they should vote to remain in the EU. In the past, as for example when he spoke out against Scottish independence, his interventions in British domestic politics have been relatively mildly-stated, reflecting a sensible recognition that most countries don’t like being told what to do by foreigners. But Obama’s EU intervention, in an article in the Daily Telegraph, is unusually direct. He is full-on for Remain. Obama will get the chance to amplify his comments at a news conference with David Cameron later today. It will mark the end of a week which started with the Treasury publishing its 200-page report on the economic costs of Brexit, and it means that Remain/Number 10 have now fired two of the most powerful missiles in their arsenal. If Obama and the fear of perpetual relative poverty can’t win the referendum for Cameron, it is hard to know what can. Here is Obama’s Telegraph article. And here is the ’s account of it. Here is the agenda for the day. Lunchtime: President Obama has lunch with the Queen at Windsor Castle. 3.30pm: Obama arrives at Number 10 to meet David Cameron. 4.50pm: Obama and Cameron hold a press conference. I will mostly be covering Obama’s visit and his EU intervention today but, as usual, I will also be covering other breaking political news as it happens, as well as bringing you the best reaction, comment and analysis from the web. I will post a summary at lunchtime and another after the Obama/Cameron press conference. If you want to follow me or contact me on Twitter, I’m on@AndrewSparrow. I try to monitor the comments BTL but normally I find it impossible to read them all. If you have a direct question, do include “Andrew” in it somewhere and I’m more likely to find it. I do try to answer direct questions, although sometimes I miss them or don’t have time. Alternatively you could post a question to me on Twitter. If you think there are any voices that I’m leaving out, particularly political figures or organisations giving alternative views of the stories I’m covering, do please flag them up below the line (include “Andrew” in the post). I can’t promise to include everything, but I do try to be open to as wide a range of perspectives as possible.
Israel offers free holidays to Oscars contenders in effort to improve image The Israeli government is offering directors and actors shortlisted for this year’s Oscars a trip to the Holy Land worth $55,000 (£38,000) in the hope of countering recent bad press for the country. The voucher for a 10-day trip, valid for one year and partly funded by the Israeli government, which is also being offered to the ceremony’s presenters, is the most expensive freebie in the Oscars gift bag, making up a quarter of the bag’s $200,000 value. The trip, which includes first-class flights for two and accommodation in five-star hotels, is worth roughly twice the average Israeli salary. The Israeli tourism minister, Yariv Levin, said the unprecedented initiative was intended to allow some of the world’s most privileged and wealthy individuals to “experience the country first hand and not through the media”. He said: “These are the most senior people in the film industry in Hollywood and leading opinion-formers who we are interested in hosting. Their visit will have enormous resonance among millions of fans and followers, including social media.” The initiative would cost about $1.5m (£1m) if all those offered the trip took it up. Israeli observers pointed out that some Hollywood figures, including the best supporting actor nominees Mark Ruffalo and Mark Rylance, had been vocal in support of Palestinian statehood. Pro-Israeli groups spend large sums on efforts to promote the country’s image, including to critique what Israel labels as biased foreign media coverage. The expenditure has included funding trips for journalists to Israel. Aaron Klein, Jerusalem correspondent of rightwing website Breitbart, wrote: “Despite attempts by the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement to target Israel, especially in the entertainment world, the Academy Awards seems to be taking a stand in solidarity with the Jewish state.” Other giveaways in the Oscars gift package put together by a Los Angeles PR firm include a very expensive e-cigarette, a fitness retreat in a private villa and a “vampire” breast lift – a procedure that uses the patient’s own blood to achieve “rounder cleavage without implants”.
US capitalism in crisis while most Americans lose out Crisis always brings opportunity. And right now, we are having a crisis of capitalism unlike anything experienced during the last four decades, if not longer. The evidence is everywhere – in rising inequality, in the division of fortunes between companies and workers, and in lethargic economic growth despite unprecedented infusions of monetary stimulus by the world’s governments (a huge $29tn in total since 2008). Eight years on from the financial crisis and great recession, the US, UK and many other countries are still experiencing the longest, slowest economic recoveries in memory. This has, of course, diametrically shifted the political climate, creating a paradigm of insiders versus outsiders. In the US, Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders are different sides of the same coin; in Britain, Jeremy Corbyn is an equally dramatic response to establishment politics. The challenges to the political and economic status quo are not going away anytime soon. A recent Harvard study shows that only 19% of American millennials call themselves capitalist, and only 30% support the system as a whole. Perhaps more shocking, the numbers are not much better among the over-30 set. A mere half of Americans believe in the system of capitalism as practised today in the US, which is quite something for a nation that brought us the “greed is good” culture. In some ways that is no surprise because, as I explore in my new book, Makers and Takers: The Rise of Finance and the Fall of American Business, the system of market capitalism as envisioned by Adam Smith is broken – the markets no longer support the economy, as a wealth of academic research shows. Market capitalism was set up to funnel worker savings into new businesses via the financial system. But only 15% of the capital in the financial institutions today goes towards that goal – the rest exists in a closed loop of trading and speculation. The result is much slower than normal growth, which holds true not just in the US but in most advanced economies and many emerging ones. The politics of the day – populist, angry, divisive – reflect this, in the US, Europe and many parts of the developing world as well. But the bifurcation of our economy and the resulting fractiousness in politics has become so extreme that we are now at a tipping point. And as a result, we have a rare, second chance to change the economic paradigm – to rewrite the rules of capitalism and create a more inclusive, sustainable economic growth . Doing so will require a series of both technocratic and existential changes – everything from rethinking the nature of how companies are run (and for whom), crafting smarter national growth strategies and rewriting the narrative of trickle- down economics, which is now so clearly broken yet continues to guide the majority of economic policy decisions taken by our leaders. But before we can do all these things, we need to understand where we are and how we got here. Our economic illness has a name: financialisation. It’s a term for the trend by which Wall Street and its way of thinking have come to reign supreme in America, permeating not just Wall Street but all American business. It includes everything from the growth in size and scope of finance and financial activity in our economy to the rise of debt-fuelled speculation over productive lending, to the ascendancy of shareholder value as a model for corporate governance, to the proliferation of risky, selfish thinking in both our private and public sectors, to the increasing political power of financiers and the chief executives they enrich. All of which have led to a false sense of prosperity driven by market highs rather than real Main Street growth. It’s a shift that has even affected our language, our civic life, and our way of relating to one another. We speak about human or social “capital” and securitise everything from education to critical infrastructure to prison terms, a mark of our burgeoning “portfolio society”. Although the American financial sector dwarfs any other by sheer size, the UK is in some ways even more financialised than America, given the City of London’s outsized role in the national economy. It’s perhaps no surprise then that much of the most cutting-edge thinking on the topic is being done by Britons such as Sir Paul Tucker, the former deputy governor of the Bank of England, the current Bank of England chief economist Andy Haldane, and former FSA chair Lord (Adair) Turner. “The trend varies slightly country by country but the broad direction is clear: across all advanced economies, and the US and the UK in particular, the role of the capital markets and the banking sector in funding new investment is decreasing. Most of the money in the system is being used for lending against existing assets,” says Turner, whose recent book, Between Debt and the Devil, explains the phenomenon in detail. In simple terms, what this means is that rather than funding the new ideas and projects that create jobs and raise wages, finance has shifted its attention to securitising existing assets (such as homes, stocks, bonds and such), turning them into tradeable products that can be spliced and diced and sold as many times as possible – that is, until things blow up, as they did in 2008. In the US, finance has doubled in size since the 1970s, and now makes up 7% of the economy and takes a quarter of all corporate profits, more than double what it did back then. Yet it creates only 4 % of all jobs. Similar numbers hold true in the UK. How did this sector, which was once meant to merely facilitate business, manage to get such a stranglehold over it? Bankers themselves are often blamed but in truth the trend of financialisation was enabled by policymakers and the decisions they took from the 70s onwards, as postwar growth began to slow. In the US, interest rate deregulation under the Jimmy Carter administration, which was supported by a coalition of left and right political interests, led to the possibility of financial “innovations” such as the spliced and diced securities that blew up the world economy in 2008. Reagan era shifts allowed banks and corporations alike to become larger and more financialised, and further Bill Clinton era deregulation threw kerosene on the fire. The legacy of her husband’s laissez-faire economic policies is one reason Hillary Clinton isn’t gaining more political traction. One of the most perverse effects of financialisation is that companies across all industries have come to emulate finance. It’s no wonder – profit margins in finance tend to be much higher than in other industries, and the Copernican shift towards the markets has led us to revere the industry as the top of an economic hierarchy of services that we graduate to after passing through the lower phases of agrarian and manufacturing economies. American corporations now get about five times as much of their revenue from financial activities such as offering credit to customers, tax “optimisation,” and trading, as they did in the 80s. Big tech companies underwrite corporate bond offerings the way banks do. Traditional hedging by energy and transport firms has been overtaken by profit-boosting speculation in oil futures, a shift that actually undermines their core business by creating more price volatility. The amount of trading done by these organisations now far exceeds the value of their own real-world investments, a sure sign of financialisation) British firms are very much a part of this trend. The recent history of BP (British Petroleum) is a perfect example not only of the rise of financial activities as a percentage of business but also of the perverse effect that financialisation can have on corporate culture: a focus on trading can lead to excessive risk-taking, and an overemphasis on short-term profit can undermine a company’s financial future. BP was, from the 90s, an extremely balance-sheet focused company, becoming one of the most aggressive corporate costcutters of the era. This ultimately led whistleblowers to accuse the company of skimping on maintenance and using outdated equipment, even as it encouraged traders in its burgeoning US office to take bigger risks in search of trading-desk profits. The strategy exploded in 2005 and 2006 when BP suffered a number of back-to-back disasters, including a refinery explosion in Texas City, Texas, an oil spill at Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, and accusations of manipulating energy markets via its US trading arm. In a move that echoed the manipulation of the California energy markets a few years earlier, Houston-based traders for BP US had used company resources to purchase a large quantity of propane gas, which they later sold to other market players for inflated prices, costing consumers $53m in overcharges. The company eventually had to pay back that amount, as well as a criminal penalty of $100m, and another $125m in civil charges to the CFTC (the Commodity Futures Trading Commission). The environmental disasters resulting from the explosion and Alaskan leaks cost tens of millions of dollars more in criminal and civil payments. Since then, BP’s Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010 became the largest marine oil spill in the history of the world, costing the company more than $50bn in legal fees, penalties and cleanup charges. You would think that all of this would have caused a serious crisis of conscience within the company. Yet far from pulling back and focusing on the core business, BP has charged full steam ahead into trading, becoming one of the largest non-financial players in the field. The firm now obtains at least 20% of its income from dealing in swaps, futures, and other financial instruments, up from 10% in 2005, the last time it disclosed profitability figures for its trading division. So where do we go from here? How do we curb the 40-year trend of financialisation and its perverse effects on business and society? Some people, such as the British economic journalist Paul Mason, are relatively optimistic. His new book, Postcapitalism, argues that we are at a tipping point in the process of financialisation, which has allowed capitalism to grow, like a virus, beyond its useful life span. He thinks that the technology-driven “sharing economy” in which information is freer and capital is less important will empower workers to fight financial capitalists in a new and more powerful way. I’m less optimistic. In my own reporting experience, I’ve found Silicon Valley titans at the heart of the technology revolution to be just as rapacious and arguably even more tribal than many financiers. Uber looks to outsource, downsize and liquidate formal employees as much as possible. Apple, once one of the most admired companies on earth, is now one of the most financialised – over the last few years, Apple has issued billions of debt and made commitments to issue nearly as much as it has sitting in overseas bank accounts (some $200bn) to avoid paying more US taxes, and used the money to do buybacks that artificially jack up the price of its sagging stock. I think that changes in our current dysfunctional economic paradigm won’t just happen but will require several shifts, both practical and existential. There is plenty of low hanging fruit to be plucked in the form of tax code changes that would incentivise savings and investment rather than debt – which is the lifeblood of finance. We should reform business education to focus more on industry rather than finance (amazingly, given what we have been through in the last eight years, “efficient” markets theory is still the core of most MBA curriculums). We should rethink for whom companies should be run – workers, consumers and civic society as well as shareholders (many top performing firms already have that mandate). And we should certainly reform the financial system itself, reducing leverage, increasing capital holdings, and ending the culture of “experts” in finance. Indeed, we should open the conversation about how and for whom the financial system should work to a much broader group of people – far beyond the small priesthood of financiers, politicians, and regulators who tend to share the same finance-centric view of the economy. “We need to stop treating banking as if it’s a business unlike any other,” says Stanford professor Anat Admati, whose book The Bankers’ New Clothes, suggests a number of smart ways to reform and simplify the financial sector. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, we need a new narrative about our financial system and its place in our economy and society. As the crisis of 2008 and its continuing aftermath have surely shown us, we are at the end of what financialisation can do for growth. We need a new model, one that will enrich the many rather than the few, in a more sustainable way. We need markets that are structured fairly, with the kind of equal access that Adam Smith described in The Wealth of Nations. We need a political economy that isn’t captured by moneyed interests. And we need a financial sector that supports, rather than hinders, our economy. Even if we don’t understand the particulars of Wall Street, we all know at gut level that the current system isn’t working. How could it be when 1% of the population takes most of the world’s wealth, and a single industry that creates only 4% of jobs takes nearly 25% of US corporate profits? If we don’t think hard about how to change things, the politics of the next four years may be far uglier than what we have seen so far. Rana Foroohar is Time magazine’s economic columnist, global economic analyst for CNN, and the author of Makers and Takers: The Rise of Finance and the Fall of American Business (Crown Business)
Tesco Bank fraud: key questions answered Current account customers at Tesco Bank have had online payments frozen after tens of thousands of accounts were attacked by fraudsters. How many people were affected? The bank said suspicious transactions had been spotted on around 40,000 accounts, and that money was taken from around 20,000 customers. Many account holders reported losing hundreds of pounds, with one customer telling the that more than £2,400 had been taken. Tesco Bank will not say how much money is involved in total. So what happened? The bank says it fell victim to online criminal activity. Tesco spotted suspicious activity on accounts on Saturday evening and texted customers who had been affected. Several people have reported that their accounts show transactions made overseas, such as in Spain and Brazil. A criminal investigation has been launched. How was its security breached? Tesco has not given any details, but technology specialists have speculated on what might have happened. Cliff Moyce, global head of financial services at technology firm DataArt, said the chance of the problem being cause by a “remote technical hack” was less than 50%. “Far more likely is the (in)action of a human actor, or weak process/management controls when information is shared between providers,” he said. Moyce said Tesco would need to investigate the possibility of an “economic hack” in which an offshore employee is offered a large sum of money in return for a tranche of customer data. “But incompetence rather than ill intent from an employee or subcontractor remains the more likely factor to be correlated with the malintent of the criminals,” he said. Ed Macnair, chief executive of cloud security company CensorNet, agreed that a remote attack was unlikely. “People are the weakest link for most organisations, and I would not be at all surprised if that’s the case here,” he said. “It’s pretty hard to remotely hack into a network without some sort of assistance – which is often provided accidentally. People tend to do stupid things, like reusing passwords or clicking on random links, giving hackers the access they need.” Moyce suggests that the hack was timed for the weekend when banks have reduced staff and the response time will have been slower than during the week. “Automated fraud detection systems appear to have worked well, but a lack of people at desks will not have helped,” he said. What happens now? An investigation by the National Crime Agency is under way. For customers, the bank says it plans to return to normal service as soon as possible. It has said that all direct debits and bill payments will go through as usual, and people can still withdraw cash and use their debit cards. Customers should also still be able to log in to online banking and check their accounts. But there will be some disruption – those affected can still use their debit cards, but will be sent new ones within seven to 10 days. Will customers be compensated? Tesco Bank has told customers that it will refund accounts as soon as possible, hopefully on Monday, and cover any financial loss that they have suffered as a result of the fraud. For some customers who have paid penalties to other organisations, perhaps because of missed payments, this may mean providing proof to Tesco of those losses. What should customers do? As well as keeping an eye on their account, the chief executive of Get Safe Online, Tony Neate, said they should change their passwords immediately. “We’d also strongly advise people to change the security question they get when forgetting their passwords, as these answers may have been compromised as a result of this breach,” he said. “We would also suggest that Tesco customers look at any other online accounts they currently have to make sure that no suspicious activity has been taking place – particularly if you have used the same login details, which is something you should never do.” Although not directly linked to their Tesco Bank account, Neate said cyber criminals may have been able to gain access to personal information which could potentially help them unlock other online accounts. Will customers stick around? Tesco Bank offers a competitive current account: it is paying 3% interest on balances of up to £3,000. This may be enough to keep and attract some people. Previously, RBS managed to keep hold of customers after IT problems that went on for weeks. Others may decide to go elsewhere. On Twitter some said they would be off. One customer said this was not the first time it had happened, and that it was “Time to move to a secure bank”. How secure are other banks? Two years ago the Bank of England warned that banks were not taking the threat of cyber-attacks seriously enough, and experts have warned that they could fall victim to different types of fraud. But so far there have been no other attacks on the scale of that reported by Tesco. In January, HSBC customers were locked out of online banking after the company was targeted in a “denial of service” attack. This brought down the website, but there were no reports of any losses to customers following the attack. Macnair said banks could take some precautions. “The safest thing for organisations to do is simply restrict access to anything employees don’t need in order to do their day-to-day jobs,” he said. “That will at least confine any damage and prevent hackers roaming the network unchecked.”
In Arizona we saw the real Donald Trump: the one we already knew There was no pivoting. There was no softening. There was just Donald Trump. In a much heralded immigration speech in Phoenix, the Republican nominee finally put to rest any pretence that he would moderate his views for a general electorate. “There will be no amnesty,” Trump proclaimed to a cheering crowd on Wednesday. The Republican nominee seemingly went further than that, making clear that he opposed the so-called “touchback amnesty” where qualifying undocumented immigrants could return to their home countries to apply for an expedited path to legal status. “Those who have left to seek entry under this new system will not be awarded surplus visas, but will have to enter under the immigration caps or limits that will be established,” said Trump. The speech came after Trump had spent weeks hinting at a softening. He even seemed to indicate in an interview with Sean Hannity on Fox News last week that he might support a path to legal status for undocumented immigrants. He quickly backed off that statement – the result was a policy that looked like a muddled mess, as even rightwing talk radio host Rush Limbaugh admitted of the nominee: “I never took him seriously on immigration.” There had been signs, too, of a moderate tone earlier on Wednesday when Trump met with President Enrique Peña Nieto on a surprise visit to Mexico City. At a press stop with Peña Nieto, Trump was restrained and talked about illegal immigration as a humanitarian crisis, claiming that he didn’t discuss with the Mexican president his infamous pledge that Mexico would pay for a border wall. It turned out this was only technically true – there was no discussion, but only because the Mexican president had immediately begun their conversation by saying he would not pay. In his Phoenix speech Trump brushed all that off. “Mexico will pay for the wall, 100%. They don’t know it yet but they’re going to pay for it.” Trump renewed his call for what he called a deportation taskforce. Without using its title he yet again endorsed Operation Wetback, the infamous Eisenhower-era policy of mass deportation, while lamenting shortcomings. “They would drop them across, right across, and they’d come back.” Instead Trump pledged to take those he deported “great distances”. He repeated testimonials from the parents of Americans killed by undocumented immigrants, using these to frame the issue not as humanitarian or even economic, but about crime and “the wellbeing of the American people”. Trump did not explicitly call for the all-out deportation of the 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States – something he has signaled support for in the past despite even most immigration hawks opposing the idea. But he still insisted: “Anyone who enters the United States illegally is subject to deportation, otherwise we don’t have a country.” Trump did not touch on the controversial topic of birthright citizenship, which he has also opposed in the past, even to the point of claiming this constitutional provision can be reversed with an act of Congress – a view few credible legal scholars would endorse. The theater around the speech felt like a reversion to Trump’s rowdy ways in the primary race. “This will not be a rally speech per se,” he said at the outset. But nor was it a detailed policy rollout. Much of it comprised traditional talking points and railing against Hillary Clinton, while taking detours to mock “media elites” who viewed “global warming” as a problem. Down to the “Make Mexico Great Again Also” hats, worn by the former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani and Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, it was a return to the unpredictable showmanship that has defined Trump’s campaign. Red meat for his party’s conservative base, with nothing to attract moderate suburbanites, let alone Latinos or African Americans, who have been alienated by his harsh rhetoric. It represented the final chapter in what has been a back and forth debate within his campaign about whether Trump should try to act like a conventional candidate or simply be himself. That debate outlasted multiple campaign managers, the Republican primary itself, and continued well into the general election. It is now over. There will not be a more moderate Trump, there will not be a more compassionate Trump. Instead the same candidate who announced that Mexicans are “bringing drugs, bringing crime, they’re rapists” is the one who will appear before voters in November.
The ‘just about managing’ won’t forgive May if she botches Brexit I have not seen an advance copy of the speech that Theresa May will give to the Conservative conference, but I can nevertheless reveal that it will include chunky passages dedicating her government to doing a lot more for the “just about managing”. I know this because the “just about managing”, also known as “ordinary working people” and sometimes appearing as “the many, not the privileged few”, have populated every important speech about her domestic ambitions that she has made in the past 100 days. Who exactly does she have in mind and why are they such a preoccupation for the prime minister? Whether or not you regard yourself as a member of this group rather depends on your expectations in life. There are rich folk who will complain that they are “just about managing” to afford a holiday on a palm-fringed island because of the cost of paying the school fees. Mrs May does not seem to have them in mind. “You have a job, but you don’t always have job security,” is one of her definitions. “You worry about the cost of living and the quality of the local school.” That’s a lot of people, then. Much has been written about “the left behind”, especially in the context of the vote to leave the EU. The group that has her attention is better described as “the struggling to stay afloat”. In her view, working families with relatively low earnings have been neglected by both the major parties: by Labour because of its central preoccupation with the poor and by her own party under its previous management. So this emphasis strikes a contrast while also seeking to expand the Tory party’s electoral base. When Margaret Thatcher was at the height of her powers, she secured her victories, two of them landslides, with the help of “blue-collar Tories”. To her three victories, John Major added a fourth for the party by keeping that coalition intact. Concentrating on the “just about managing” is a possible way for the Tories to lure support from Ukip and to go fishing for voters who used to back Labour, but won’t buy Jeremy Corbyn and his “21st-century socialism”. Mrs May will be encouraged to think that she is in promising territory by the focus groups of voters who currently say they like what they are hearing. More than anything else, her emphasis on the “just managing” is founded on a view about the EU referendum and why a majority voted to leave. Mrs May keeps telling us that “Brexit means Brexit”. She actually believes that Brexit did not just mean Brexit. The rejection of EU membership was a symptom of something much deeper; the vote for Out was the boiling up of discontents that have been brewing for years. The victory for Leave was powered by the economic and social distress of the less affluent. Not just among the white, working class whose disaffection has been much reported and whose revolt against their traditional party so terrifies many Labour MPs. This alienation went much wider than that. Mrs May and her strategists will be encouraged to think that their analysis is correct by a couple of recently released studies. One comes from the Resolution Foundation. It identifies the “just managing” as the six million working-age households that receive the majority of their income from employment, but who are counted among the poorer half of households. It finds that they have suffered a pronounced degradation in their incomes since the Great Crash of 2008. That has been accompanied by a significant rise in the cost of living, notably the amount spent on housing. They have been squeezed at both ends. For many of the “just managing”, the rise in housing costs since the turn of the century is the equivalent of an extra 14p on the basic rate of income tax. That’s huge. Little wonder they are very unhappy with the status quo. Since the Brexit vote, people have been dicing and slicing the result to describe the different ways in which it revealed us to be a divided nation. Old versus young. City versus town. England and Wales versus Scotland and Northern Ireland. An analysis by the Centre for Social Justice and the Legatum Institute looks at the referendum through another lens. It contends that how you voted came down, most of all, to class and wealth. The upper AB income group was the only one in which a majority voted to remain in the EU. In all the other, lower income groups, the majority was for Leave. Of people living in households earning more than £60,000 a year, 65% supported Remain. Among households earning less than £20,000 a year, 62% backed Out. The authors’ conclude that “the vote was a cri de coeur from millions of people who feel Westminster no longer knows, or even cares, how it feels to walk in their shoes”. Mrs May strives to sound as if she does know what it is like to walk in their shoes, even if her preferred footwear is probably not the same as that of most of the people to whom she is trying to appeal. There are the potential ingredients for a guiding mission for her government here. Ultimately, though, she is going to be judged not by what she says, but what she delivers. Her rhetorical flourishes have yet to be backed by much solid policy, apart from a distracting diversion into trying to revive grammar schools. There is a signal that she is interested in doing something about zero hours contracts and other forms of employment insecurity with the appointment of Matthew Taylor, a former adviser to Tony Blair, to head a review into the “gig economy”. She has made noises about cracking down on unscrupulous bosses and curbing excessive executive remuneration. Her people show awareness that near-zero interest rates and quantitative easing have most benefited those who are already asset-rich, fuelling the resentment and discontent of the many more who are asset-poor. To be serious about rebalancing the distribution of rewards in the economy would mean demonstrating that she is as steely as her friends claim her to be. For it will entail taking on big vested interests which are powerfully represented within her own party. The Tory party’s traditional friends in the City, already unhappy because of Brexit, are pushing back against reform of corporate governance. The prime minister has promised the “just managing” that “when it comes to taxes, we’ll prioritise not the wealthy, but you”. That sounds like a rebuke to George Osborne for cutting the top rate of tax and easing inheritance tax while jacking up VAT and raiding tax credits that support the living standards of lower earners. Is this just a barb at the expense of the previous chancellor or does it hint at a more meaningful intent? Will her government tilt the tax burden in the other direction by asking for more from the wealthy to fund relief for the less affluent? The introduction of a wealth tax would be bold and counterintuitive from a Tory prime minister. It would also be hugely unpopular with a great many Tory MPs and donors. Mrs May’s team identify the chronic shortage of affordable housing as an issue that requires intense attention. They are correct. It is and it does. Being serious about that will mean confronting the Nimbyism that is especially prevalent in her party. Then there’s Brexit, the great question that dwarfs all others for this government. Inescapably, the fortunes of the “just managing” are contingent on her government finding a way of departing from the EU which is not disastrous for the trade, investment and jobs on which so many livelihoods depend. The vision of our economic future promoted by some Tory fundamentalists – an ultra-low tax, ultra-low regulation Britain – does not sound at all reconcilable with Mrs May’s promises. She will address her conference today on the subject of Brexit and does so under mounting pressure to get more specific about her plan, if she has a plan. What the government is seeking, according to the official communique that was released after the Chequers cabinet at the beginning of September, is “controls on the numbers of people who come to Britain from Europe but also a positive outcome for those who wish to trade goods and services”. That’s as defined as mush. In the absence of a clearer direction from Mrs May, the hard Brexiters have been making nearly all of the running in the Tory party. This is making business increasingly nervous that Britain could crash out of the EU without a deal on trade that they can live with. Hear the anxiety coming from the car industry, which directly or indirectly employs nearly a million people, many of whom would regard themselves as “just managing”. Britons are already poorer for Brexit because of the devaluation of the pound. Anyone who went abroad for a holiday over the summer will have noticed that. Anyone who buys anything made abroad (and this country buys a lot of things manufactured elsewhere) will also be increasingly aware that there is a cost to Brexit even before it has happened. If Britain’s departure is botched, many of the “just about managing” will be left considerably poorer. Some will no longer be managing at all. Mrs May’s fine words about them will then come back to haunt her, horribly so.
Brexit vote leaves schoolchildren, parents and teachers in limbo Soile Pietikäinen has lived in Britain for 17 years after coming from Finland. Her husband is Italian. Both her children were born in the UK and go to secondary school in Lewisham, south London. “Brexit is heartbreaking for my family. I don’t know what we will do,” she said. “We have a home here. We have built our working lives here. And where would we move anyway? “Should we all become British citizens? For the children certainly, yes, but personally, after today, I really do not feel like it. Not after being told to my face that I am so intensely unwanted.” The family’s experience has been repeated across the country, as Britain gets to grip with the possibility of ending its open relationship with the EU and the right to free movement. Families and school leaders have suddenly had to ask what happens to the hundreds of thousands – precise figures are not available – of EU children studying in British schools. Sara, 14, who moved from Slovakia to Surrey when she was an infant, is tired of talking about the referendum at school. She has been shocked to hear how many of her classmates supported the leave campaign, and to find herself and other Europeans the subject of class debates. “Many of my close friends reassure me and oppose Brexit, ashamed of what comes out of their friends’ spiteful mouths,” she said. “Teachers try and avoid it as a whole. They just say, ‘go back to work’. Or if they are challenged for an answer they say, ‘It’s complicated.’ “I just try and suppress the subject in school, which is a shame. It should be discussed. But it’s awkward, frustrating and painful to hear what they think of your ‘kind’.” “In the UK, they’re saying they don’t want us. It’s worrying, devastating,” said Sara’s mother, Eva, who moved from Slovakia to work as a care assistant but is now a commercial manager. “People are very careful about what they say in front of me – but I know they want to say ‘immigrants get out of here’.” For Rob Campbell, headteacher of Impington Village College in Cambridgeshire, the referendum could close the school’s sixth form. Impington offers the international baccalaureate in its sixth form rather than A-levels. As a result it attracts EU students who want a qualification widely accepted in Europe. Campbell calculates his school could lose between £500,000 to a million pounds a year without EU students. “Will we be able to replace them with British students? I don’t know, possibly not, so that puts the sixth form at risk,” he said. “The bitter irony is that the jobs potentially that will go are British jobs.” In the short term nothing has changed, as the UK remains a member of the EU. The Department for Education was quick to say there would be no immediate change. “We are clear that no child should live in fear of racism or bullying,” the DfE said in a statement. But for parents and headteachers, the biggest fear is uncertainty. Martin, who lives near Newport in Wales, is married to a British national but never felt the need to change his German passport. “Does it mean we have to leave Britain, Daddy? That was the question I had from my nine-year-old daughter at 7 o’clock in the morning last Friday. I never expected to have to reassure my daughter that I wasn’t going to be thrown out of the country,” he said. Martin’s seven-year-old son, though, is unfazed: “He’s only interested in elastic bands, footballs and anything with a stick.” At Exeter Road community primary school in Exmouth, Devon, in an area that voted to leave the EU, headteacher Paul Gosling said political leaders needed to do more to reassure families. “There’s a feeling, which I’m not comfortable with, that foreigners aren’t welcome. It’s seeping through and children are picking up on it,” he said. “I want to be able to say to parents, to children, to staff from European countries, it’s OK, you can stay here. But I can’t, because I don’t know myself. Elke, a Belgian who has lived in the UK for 17 years and lives near Ashford, Kent, with four children, said her eldest son was in limbo, because although his father is British the couple weren’t married at the time of his birth, meaning he took his mother’s nationality. “When the results came in we immediately applied for British citizenship for him.” But Elke’s eldest daughter has a different challenge: “She’s autistic and lives in her own bubble. So we’re actually more concerned about her because one of the issues she has is she doesn’t express her feelings.” Graham Frost, the head of a primary school in Carlisle, immediately wrote to families to assure them of the school’s response. But Frost said his major worry is what happens outside the school gates. “People have become very vocal and allowed or encouraged by the media to be quite bigoted or use a xenophobic tone. That is encouraging adults to speak unguarded in front of young people.” Elke said her corner of Kent was “a sea of leave signs”, so she wasn’t surprised by the result. “I find myself speaking in my own language [Flemish] more in public with the children as an act of defiance. I used to get congratulations for speaking two languages. Now I get the opposite.”
New DWP secretary Stephen Crabb says no further welfare cuts planned – as it happened Stephen Crabb has used his debut performance at the despatch box as work and pensions secretary to announce that the government has no plans for further welfare cuts this parliament. Addressing MPs he said “we won’t be seeking alternative offsetting savings [for the £4.4bn over four years that the DWP will lose because it is not going ahead with the Personal Independence Payment cuts] and as a government we are not seeking further savings from the welfare budget.” Labour MPs subsequently said that this did not amount to a cast-iron commitment not to make any further welfare cuts before the 2020 election, and a Treasury briefing suggested that the government is keeping the option of further cuts open. But charities welcomed the announcement as a serious statement of intent. The Child Poverty Action Group said: Stephen Crabb is to be congratulated for halting the PIP cuts and saying that there will be no more social security cuts this parliament ... Ministers must now consult on the next steps for welfare reform to ensure that the lowest income households do not continue to subsidise gains for better off groups. And the disability charity Scope said: Disabled people will be relieved that the new secretary of state used his first speech to confirm that there are no plans to make further welfare cuts and that he would like to start a new conversation with disabled people. Ministers have refused to say how the government will fill the £4.4bn black hole left in the budget by the decision to cancel the PIP cuts. David Gauke, a Treasury minister, said the government would address this in the autumn statement. David Cameron has defended George Osborne in the Commons, saying that they run a “modern, compassionate, one-nation government” in his first public appearance after the resignation of Iain Duncan Smith. In his statement to MPs Cameron also went out of his way to praise Duncan Smith, in contrast to the tone he adopted when Duncan Smith resigned on Friday night. Cameron said: [Duncan Smith] spent almost a decade campaigning for welfare reform and improving people’s life chances and he has spent the last six years implementing those policies in government. And in that time we have seen nearly half a million fewer children living in workless households, over a million fewer people on out of work benefits, and nearly 2.4 million more people in work. And in spite of having to take difficult decisions on the deficit - child poverty, inequality, pensioner poverty are all down. My honourable friend contributed an enormous amount to the work of this government and he can be proud of what he achieved. Cameron has told MP that there is “no prospect” of the member states allowing Turkey to join the EU for many, many years. Asked about this by the Tory MP John Redwood, he said: I think the issue here is it’s not remotely on the cards for this to happen for many, many years to come. Every country has a veto at every stage, including this country. The French, for instance, have said they will hold a referendum on Turkish membership and 75% of the French public don’t want Turkey to join. Peers have voted for an amendment to the immigration bill that would force the the government to admit 3,000 unaccompanied child refugees to the UK. That’s all from me. Thanks for the comments. Rafael Behr, Anne Perkins, Simon Jenkins and Martin Kettle have given their verdicts on Cameron’s statement for Comment is free. You can read them all here. In the Lords the government has suffered a significant defeat; peers have voted for an amendment to force the government “as soon as possible, make arrangements to relocate 3,000 unaccompanied refugee children who are in European countries to the United Kingdom”. The amendment was tabled by Alf Dubs, a Labour peer, was rescued from Prague and brought to this country as an unaccompanied child refugee in 1939 by Sir Nicolas Winton, the man known as Britain’s Oscar Schindler. Peers voted for it by 306 votes to 204, a majority of 102. Dubs said the move would protect children from exploitation, people trafficking, and abuse. Crabb’s statement is over. But Owen Smith is raising a point of order. He quotes the tweet from the Sun’s political editor. John Bercow, the Speaker, says this is not a point of order. He says Crabb can respond if he wants to. But Crabb remains in his seat. Yvette Cooper goes next. She says Crabb may have been put in “an impossible position” by the Treasury and that he may have unintentionally misled the House. George Osborne should come to the Commons to clarify this, she says. Bercow says Osborne is winding up the debate himself. And Osborne will probably in for the opening too, he says. Osborne can intervene then if he wants. Labour’s Liam Byrne asks Crabb if he has been told by the chancellor his budget is set to rise by £4.4bn (the amount that would have been saved by the PIP cut, over four years). Crabb says the budget for spending on disability is rising. The Labour MP Karen Buck asks why Crabb put a post on his Facebook page recently saying people claiming employment and support allowance (ESA - a disability benefit) in the work-related activity group (Wrag) were “able to work” when that is not correct. Crabb says: “Good spot - it has been corrected.” Labour’s Helen Goodman asks Crabb if his comment about not seeking further savings from the welfare budget means he is ruling out changing the rates as which benefits are paid, or changing the eligibility criteria. Crabb says that would amount to a cut. And that is not something the government is looking at, he says. Crabb is still responding to questions. Labour MPs have repeatedly pressed him to explain where the money would come from to replace the £4.4bn black hole (that’s £4.4bn over four years) left by the PIP U-turn. Daniel Zeichner said that, after three hours of statements from David Gauke, David Cameron and Crabb, we still have not had an answer to that. Cat Smith made a similar point. Crabb said George Osborne would be responding to the budget debate tomorrow. He said he had repeatedly said the government is not seeking further savings from the welfare budget. Crabb is still responding to questions from MPs. Asked to clarify whether he is categorically ruling out further welfare cuts, he replies: [Labour] are trying to tease out a commitment from this side of the chamber that there will never, ever, ever be any other changes to welfare spending every again. Well, that would be absurd, wouldn’t it? We know that there needs to carry on being reform. The commitment that I’m making today, based on conversations with the chancellor of the exchequer and the prime minister over the weekend, is that we are not going ahead with those proposed PIP cuts, we won’t be seeking alternative offsetting savings and as a government we are not seeking further savings from the welfare budget. In his opening statement Stephen Crabb also defended the welfare cap (the self-imposed limit on overall government welfare spending). He told MPs: It is right that we monitor welfare spending carefully. The principle of introducing a welfare cap is the right one given the huge increases in welfare spending we saw under previous Labour governments, up nearly 60%. And the reality is that if we don’t control the public finances it is always the poorest in our society that pay the biggest price. So we do need that discipline. He said the level of the welfare cap would be reviewed at the autumn statement. This is from the Sun’s Tom Newton Dunn. Here is the key quote from Stephen Crabb. After discussing this issue over the weekend with the prime minister and the chancellor we have no further plans to make welfare savings beyond the very substantial savings legislated for by parliament two weeks ago. Yvette Cooper, the Labour former work and pensions secretary, asks Crabb to clarify whether his statement about no further welfare cuts means that there will be no cuts to replace the £1.3bn annual saving missing because of the PIP U-turn. Crabb says he has covered this in his statement. Owen Smith, the shadow work and pensions secretary, is responding to Crabb. He welcomes Crabb to his post and welcomes the announcement about no further welfare cuts. But he asks for clarification. Will the government reverse the £30 a week cut to disabled people claiming the employment and support allowance? He challenges Crabb’s claim that the amount of money spend on the disabled is going up. He says spending on DLA and PIP is going down. And overall the amount spent on disability benefits has fallen by 6%, he says. He says Labour will publish more information about these figures. And he reminds MPs of what Iain Duncan Smith said about the government not supporting some groups because they did not vote Tory. It was a powerful performance from Smith. I will post some quotes from it later. Turning to the Personal Independence Payment (PIP), he says it was designed to be more flexible than its predecessor benefit, disability living allowance (DLA). The government will not go ahead with the changes announced before the budget. He goes on to say there will be no further welfare cuts this parliament. Crabb says government has no further plans for welfare cuts beyond those already announced. Stephen Crabb has just started his statement as the new work and pensions secretary. He begins with a tribute to Iain Duncan Smith. He came into the job with a sense of vision and achieved “some remarkable things”. Crabb says he intends to take a One Nation approach as he builds on Duncan Smith’s achievements. He says there are 3m more disabled people in work than in 2010. Cameron is still responding to questions. A few minutes ago Labour’s Jack Dromey asked for an assurance that there would be no further cuts to disability benefits in this parliament. Cameron sidestepped the question. The government was increasing the overall amount spent on disability benefits, he said. This is what some political journalists and commentators are saying on Twitter about the Cameron/Corbyn exchanges. Corbyn is attracting a lot of criticism. From the Times’s Patrick Kidd From the Telegraph’s Michael Deacon From the BBC’s Norman Smith From the FT’s Sebastian Payne From the New Statesman’s George Eaton From the Times’s Sam Coates From the Sun’s Stig Abell Labour’s Dennis Skinner asks for an assurance that this will be Osborne’s last budget. He has eight already. Only cats have nine lives, he says. No, Cameron replies. Labour’s Paula Sheriff, who campaigned against the “tampon tax”, says she is glad the “vagina-added tax” has been consigned to history. Cameron says he thinks that epithet will be remembered. And he says the memory of discussing sanitary products with 27 other EU leaders will stick with him for a long time too. Liz Kendall, the Labour former leadership contender, says Cameron say he is a compassionate Conservative. So how does he feel when a former leader of his party says that is simply not true? Cameron talks about the government’s record creating jobs. He is “sad” Iain Duncan Smith has resigned, but the work of being a compassionate government will continue, he says. We’ve probably got another hour or more of this statement to go, but already it feels as David Cameron has managed turn the dial down on the Tory budget turmoil by two or three notches. For today, at least, he has passed the point of maximum danger. Tory MPs are out in force defending the government and Jeremy Corbyn failed to lay a glove. Like David Gauke earlier, Cameron failed to say anything at all about how the government will fill the gaping hole left in the budget calculations by the PIP U-turn. But he did stage a retreat of sorts. After Iain Duncan Smith resigned on Friday night Cameron responded by issuing a particularly snide letter that suggested the former work and pensions secretary was being hypocritical and irrational. A wise adviser would have encouraged him to think twice before publishing something so inflammatory, but Cameron has a temper which he appears to have misplaced on Friday night and out the letter went. Over the weekend anti-IDS briefing continued. But this afternoon Cameron has sued for peace, with a passage in his statement heaping praise on Duncan Smith. It remains to be seen how much this will repairs relations in the Tory party (a bit but not much, I guess), but it is a start. And Cameron was helped by Corbyn. It is easy to assume that, with a government in crisis, all the leader of the opposition has to do to flatten the prime minister is turn up with a pithy soundbite. It is never that easy, not least because the prime minister has the final say. But Corbyn’s attack was broadbrush and ineffective, and he did not challenge Cameron about the specifics of the charges levelled by his former colleague. We’re now in the extraordinary position where the government has been condemned as too rightwing by Iain Duncan Smith. A better parliamentarian would have made some headway with that. Cameron is responding to Corbyn. He says he does not agree that Turkey is unsafe for Syrian refugees. That is insulting to Turkey, he says. They are hosting 2.6m refugees. He says it may sound humane offering to take more Syrian refugees. But the government should not be encouraging more to come to Europe, he says. That would lead to more losing their lives crossing the Mediterranean. He says refugees in France should seek asylum there. He says he should have paid tribute to Paula Sherriff himself for her hard work. On Osborne, he says Osborne will be in the Commons tomorrow to answer the debate. And, on black holes, we should hear from the “time lords opposite’, he says. They left the biggest budget black hole ever, he says. Cameron says Labour cannot comment on budget “black holes” because they left the biggest black hole ever. Jeremy Corbyn is responding to Cameron. He says Cameron only gave him advance sight of half his statement (not the whole statement, as is customary.) He expresses concern about the EU plan to force migrants to return to Turkey. He says Amnesty International has said Turkey is not a safe country for refugees. He says Britain should take more than the 20,000 refugees from Syria already pledged. Britain should cooperate with the Europe-wide response, he says. He pays tribute to Paua Sherriff, the Labour MP, for the way she has campaigned against the tampon tax. Where is George Osborne, Corbyn asks. Instead of covering up for Osborne, Cameron should get him to come to the Commons and explain why his budget has fallen apart. He says this is the first time he has seen a budget fall apart like this. He says the government has not ruled out alternative disability cuts. He says the budget is still unfair. Osborne should explain how he can fill the black hole in his budget. If not, he should consider his position. Cameron turns to other matters at the summit. He used it to deal with a long-standing dispute about VAT matters (ie, the tampon tax), he says. Plans announced in the next few days will allow countries to extend the zero-rate to certain products, including sanitary products. On that basis the government will impose a zero-rate on sanitary products. Cameron turns to Iain Duncan Smith and says he contributed “an enormous amount” to the work of this government and can be proud of what he did. The government will continue to prioritise improving life chances, he says. It will take more people out of tax. It will rebuild sink estates, improve life chances, and reform prisons, he says. And next mont the national living wage will come into force, he says. None of this would be possible without George Osborne, he says. Without sound public finances, you have to cut spending and put up taxes. You don’t get more life chances that way; you get fewer. We must no burden our children and grandchildren with debts we do not have the courage to pay off, he says. He ends by saying he leads a “modern, compassionate, One Nation Conservative government”. Cameron pays lavish tribute to Iain Duncan Smith and George Osborne. Cameron says he leads a “modern, compassionate, One Nation Conservative government”. David Cameron is making his statement now. It is focused on the EU summit, which was about how to deal with the migration crisis. He says the UK is not in the Schengen agreement, so migrants who enter other EU countries cannot come to this country. But it is still in Britain’s interests to help the EU deal with this crisis, he says. For the first time the EU came up with a comprehensive plan. It will be the best chance to make a difference, he says, because it will break the business model used by people smugglers. He says Britain will pay for its contribution to the EU money going to Turkey from its aid budget. And he says the plan to give Turks visa-free travel within the EU will not mean Turks coming to Britain. Labour’s Stephen Doughty asks why Osborne is not here. And how will the £4.4bn be filled? Gauke says Osborne has worked tirelessly to make life better for people. And he says Labour never says how they would save money. This is from the Sun’s Tom Newton Dunn. My colleague Heather Stewart thinks the Tory whips have done a good job. And Huffington Post’s Paul Waugh thinks Gauke deserves credit too. This is from Sky’s Emily Ashton. Labour’s Mary Creagh asks Gauke if he agrees with Iain Duncan Smith that cutting PIP, in the context of a budget that cut taxes for the rich, was indefensible. Gauke does not answer directly. But he says the highest-earning 20% now pay half of all taxes. That would not have happened under Labour, he says. Gauke tells a Labour MP that, if he is worried about black holes in the budget, he ought to speak to his own front bench about the black holes in Labour’s plans. William Wragg, a Conservative, says his government’s willingness to back down over PIP is preferable to Gordon Brown’s refusal to retreat over abolishing the 10p rate of income tax. Gauke says, although Labour complain about the capital gains tax cut, the rate is still higher than it was under Labour in 2010. But if Gauke is refusing to answer the questions, at least he is being “robust” when it comes to sticking to the government line, my colleague Heather Stewart says. Labour’s Chuka Umunna says this government has borrowed more in five years than Labour did in 13 years. He says if the government can scrap the PIP cut, why can’t it also cut the bedroom tax? Gauke says Umunna seems to be one of those Labour figures who thinks you can cut borrowing by borrowing more. He says getting rid of the spare room subsidy helps cut the deficit. ITV’s Robert Peston isn’t impressed by David Gauke’s performance. Labour’s Ian Lucas says Osborne said this was a budget for the next generation. Which member of the next generation will succeed Osborne? Gauke wonders if that is the best Lucas can do. Labour’s Stephen Timms asks Gauke to respond to Iain Duncan Smith’s claim that George Osborne did not want to spend money on the disabled because they did not vote Conservative. Gauke says spending on the disabled has actually gone up. And Paddy Ashdown is gloating with this tweet, referring to Osborne’s joke about the Lib Dems in his budget speech. This is from the BBC’s Ross Hawkins. Labour’s Rachel Reeves says this budget makes the 2012 “omnishambles’ one look like a model of good policy-making. Do the figures in the budget red book, including the £4.4n in the Personal Independence Payments, still stand. Gauke says what still stands is the plan to get the budget in surplus. Chris Philp, a Conservative, asks Gauke to confirm that spending on disability has gone up £2bn over the last five years, and that it will go up by £1bn in this parliament. Gauke says disability spending went up by more than £2bn in the last parliament. And this is from the Spectator’s Isabel Hardman. Philip Davies, a Conservative, says the Treasury would find it easier if it ended the ring-fencing of the international aid budget. Gauke says he does not agree. That was a manifesto commitment, he says. This is from Labour’s Mary Creagh. Chris Leslie, the Labour former shadow chancellor, asks how MPs can vote on the budget tomorrow if the scorecard in the budget red book (explaining how the Treasury will fund its plans) has been ripped up. On a scale of one to 10, how embarrassed is Gauke. Gauke says he would be embarrassed if, like Leslie, he thought there was going to be a vote on the Personal Independence Payment tomorrow. There won’t be, he says. Yvette Cooper, the Labour former work and pensions secretary, asks if the Treasury will produce a new scorecard explaining where the missing £4.4bn will come from? Will it come from the DWP? And she says George Osborne is not fit to be chancellor if he cannot come to the Commons to defend his budget. Gauke says the government will set out its plans in the autumn statement. Gauke is responding to McDonnell. He says there is no question of the government taking disability benefits down to the level they were in 2010. Spending on disability benefits is £3bn higher now than it was then in real terms, he says. He says the top 1% are paying a greater proportion of the total income tax take than in any year under Labour. McDonnell says the budget process is “in absolute chaos”. He says it is unprecedented for the government to have dropped a major budget measure, and to have accepted two opposition amendments before the end of the third day of the budget debate. He says the cuts to capital gains tax and tax cuts for the top 5% are indefensible in a budget cutting benefits for the disabled. He challenges Gauke to rule out any further disability cuts for the rest of this parliament. Which other groups might be targeted? He says the Personal Independence Payment change leaves a £4.4bn black hole in the budget, besides the other unspecified departmental cuts, and the loss of revenue caused by the abolition of the “tampon tax. He says the government should rip up the budget and start again. David Gauke says there will be statements from David Cameron and Stephen Crabb later. And George Osborne will respond to the budget debate tomorrow. So MPs have three chances to discuss this before they vote, he says. But he says he is grateful for the chance to talk about how the government is taking people out of income tax and improving the economy. McDonnell asks if the chancellor will make a statement on changes to the budget. “Where is he?” some MPs shout. John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, is about to ask his urgent question about the budget U-turn. David Gauke, the Treasury minister, will reply. Vince Cable, the former Lib Dem business secretary, was interviewed on the World at One about the budget. He was asked if he thought that George Osborne committed the government to cutting £12bn from welfare before the election because he had the prospect of a coalition “at the back of his mind” and thought that he would be able to abandon these cuts as a coalition compromise. Cable replied: I don’t think it was at the back of his mind. It was at the front of his mind. I think both David Cameron and he assumed that there would be another hung parliament, that the Liberal Democrats would again be in government, that we would be a moderating influence and they would be able to step back from commitments like that that they did not really believe they could deliver. Paula Sheriff, the Labour MP who tabled the amendment to the budget resolution calling for the “tampon tax” to be abolished, has welcomed the news from Number 10 that the government will not oppose it. She said: After nearly two years of campaigning, the announcement that the tampon tax will finally be scrapped is a huge victory for common sense, and all the women who have fought on this issue for so long. We now need final clarity on how and when the tax will be dropped. I will be preparing amendments to the finance bill following the budget and I hope this will pass through the Commons before the EU referendum in June. The chancellor also needs to guarantee secure, long-term funding for the vital women’s charities and services that were receiving the money raised by VAT on sanitary products. The test now will be for producers and retailers to pass the savings on to consumers, and to work with the government to make sure the charities which had a funding boost from the tampon tax don’t lose out. I am writing to manufacturers and retailers today to ask them to meet with me very soon to reach an agreement on that. Stephen Crabb, the new work and pensions secretary, will be in the Commons later. As Patrick Butler and Anushka Asthana report, he has come under fire over his support for another disability cut that will leave sick and disabled claimants £30 a week worse off. This, from the Conservative MP Michael Fabricant, contains an important truth. John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, has put out a statement about George Osborne’s decision not to respond to his Commons urgent question. He said: It’s unacceptable to the country and insulting to parliament that the chancellor is not turning up to respond to my urgent question on the chaos of his making around a Budget he delivered only last week which had collapsed by Friday night. This has meant hundreds of thousands of disabled people will have been worried needlessly by George Osborne. And today yet another thread of George Osborne’s budget has unravelled. The chancellor and David Cameron knew that if they hadn’t climbed-down on the Tampon Tax and Solar Jobs Tax they were heading for defeat and would have lost the first votes on a budget debate since 1994. George Osborne needs to now set out how he will fill the back hole in his budget. His failure to do so means his fantasy £10bn surplus target, like his credibility, is further shot to pieces. This is from the BBC’s James Landale. David Cameron is preparing for a Commons statement which he will try to use to repair some of the damage caused to his government by Iain Duncan Smith’s resignation and by the budget U-turn over disability cuts. His statement will be mostly focused on last week’s EU summit, but he will face questions from MPs for more than an hour and Number 10 has indicated that he will use it to insist that he remains committed to One Nation Conservatism. Duncan Smith suggested in his resignation statement and his interview with Andrew Marr yesterday that the government was now only acting in the interests of its own supporters, particularly the wealthy and pensioners. George Osborne has ducked a challenge to come to the Commons to defend his budget. Labour’s John McDonnell has tabled an urgent question, but Osborne has chosen not to respond to it, sending his Treasury colleague David Gauke to the despatch box to deal with the questions instead. The UQ will start at 3.30pm, and Cameron’s statement will start soon after 4pm, and I will be covering both in detail. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has said that poorer working-age households, especially those with children, will be “hit hard” by the government’s tax and benefits changes while pensioners will be protected, a respected economic think-tank has found. In an analysis of the tax and benefit changes coming into effect in this parliament it says: Again, pensioners are protected while poorer working age households are hit hard, especially those with children. This is the result of the continued protection of pensioner benefits (including maintaining the ‘triple lock’ on the basic state pension) while making further deep cuts to working-age benefit spending. Again, households in the upper half of the income distribution (but below the very top) are likely to see little direct impact of tax and benefit changes on their incomes on average, as some benefits cuts and small tax rises are offset by further increases in the income tax personal allowance, and the raising of the higher rate threshold. So the income distribution has narrowed, but tax and benefit changes planned for this parliament will likely help take it back to something like pre-recession levels. Tory MPs have continued to attack the budget, with David Davis saying it was unfair and contrary to Cameron’s One Nation rhetoric. (See 10.59am.) Sarah Wollaston said the government should abandon its policy of protecting benefits for richer pensioners in the interests of intergenerational fairness. (See 10.17am.) Number 10 has indicated that the government will not explain where it will find the money to replace the money lost by they £4bn Personal Independence Payment U-turn until the autumn statement. (See 12.48pm.) Stephen Crabb, the new work and pensions secretary, will say more on this when he makes his own Commons statement, some time after 5.30pm. Downing Street has said the government will not oppose two Labour amendments, abolishing the tampon tax and blocking a rise in VAT on solar panels, when MPs vote on the budget tomorrow. The European Commission will publish plans this week to give EU states more flexibility over varying VAT, and Number 10 says these new EU rules will enable the government to abolish the tampon tax and cancel the planned VAT rise for solar panels. A Conservative MP has revealed that she and colleagues warned Osborne the day before the budget about the changes to PIP. Karen Lumley MP released the letter, which said the budget plans risked looking like a “sustained attack on disabled benefits by the government” and would cause long-term damage to its reputation. The letter demonstrates that Osborne was aware of i backbenchers’ concerns about the impending cuts but pressed ahead anyway. It said: We are writing to you as a small group of colleagues to raise concern about the proposed changes in personal independence payment criteria. Many colleagues will have been surprised by the response to the recent ESA [employment and support allowance] WRAG [work-related activity group] benefit, which has led resulted in large amounts of personal abuse towards colleagues. Coming so soon after the ESA changes, we are concerned that further changes to PIP will be seen as a sustained attack on disabled benefits by the government. This is very concerning for the impact it will have on disabled people, but it also feeds into a wider narrative that the Conservatives are trying to balance the books on the backs of the most vulnerable. Chuka Umunna, the former shadow business secretary, has said Britain is on a “slippery slope” towards electing a prime minister in the mould of Donald Trump. In a speech in London to launch a new All Party Group on Social Integration, he said: Some say it wouldn’t fly in modern Britain. That people here could never stomach a Prime Minister in the mould of Donald Trump. A major party leader who would slander and stigmatise a whole faith group and advocate building a wall to keep immigrants out of our country. Who would say anything to get elected and bully and shout down anyone who spoke up against them. But we are already on that slippery slope. If we continue down this path, we could face nothing less than the Trumpification of British democracy. In the run up to the general election, as I travelled around the country, I was confronted time and time again with the reality that here - just like in the States - people are losing faith in the idea that politics can make a difference to their lives. John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, is appealing to George Osborne to “do the honourable thing” and reply to Labour’s urgent question about the budget in person. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has published a briefing today looking at whether government policies really are spreading the burden between income groups fairly. It says that income inequality is lower now than it was before the recession, but that over the next five much of this will be undone because the rich will benefit more from government policy than the poor. This chart illustrates this. Look at the green line first. It shows that between 2007 and 2015 the poorest households (those on the far left) saw their income rise by almost 10%, while the richest households (those on the far right) saw their income fall by around 4%. But the pale dotted line shows what is expected to happen between 2015 and 2020. This time the line is slanted the other way, with the richest (those on the right) doing best. As the IFS says, overall from 2007 to 2020 the line is reasonably flat, suggesting that over the decade the rich and the poor will have been treated broadly equally. This is from the IFS commentary. (I’ve inserted the bold type.) Chart 1 illustrates the pattern of overall changes in living standards. The solid line shows that there has been a considerable equalisation of the income distribution in the years since the recession, with incomes rising for those towards the bottom of the distribution and falling for those towards the top. This reflects a combination of rising employment, falling earnings and some increases in benefit income (between 2007–08 and 2009–10). On some measures, inequality is now at a 25 year low. The lighter dotted line shows our projections of what will happen to incomes over the next five years. This line slopes in the other direction. The lack of real income growth at the bottom reflects further benefit cuts, while the better performance further up is dependent on real earnings rising as expected by the OBR. Finally the darker dotted line shows our projections for the period as a whole (which also of course depends on earnings rising as projected from now). It suggests that we should expect much of the recent fall in inequality to be undone over the next five years, resulting in a similar change in incomes for rich and poor over the whole period since the recession. Some evidence, perhaps, that we are all in it together. Another chart just looks at the impact of tax and benefit decisions taken since the general election. These clearly benefit wealthy households more than poor households. Thoes doing worst are the working-age households with children (the grey line) in the second poorest decile. The Treasury say George Osborne will be winding up the budget debate tomorrow night, ie speaking just before MPs vote. Apparently it will be the first time the chancellor has done this since the 1990s, and it helps to explain why he will not be responding to Labour’s urgent question today. George Osborne has ducked Labour’s UQ on the budget; David Gauke, the Treasury minister, will be responding instead, the BBC reports. Number 10 is saying Cameron’s statement is going ahead. It seems Chris Bryant may have been misled. The Spectator’s Isabel Hardman says we may get David Gauke, the Treasury minister, replying to the UQ. The Treasury have not said who will respond to Jeremy Corbyn’s UQ, but my colleague Anushka Asthana says it may well not be George Osborne himself. Chris Bryant, the shadow leader of the Commons, says he has been told that Cameron has pulled his Commons statement. Here are the main points from the Number 10 lobby briefing. Downing Street indicated that the government will not explain where it will find the money to replace the money lost by they £4bn Personal Independence Payment U-turn until the autumn statement. The prime minister’s spokeswoman said: There will be an opporunity for further forecasts at the autumn statement and decisions will be made in the light of that. She confirmed that the government would not go ahead with the changes to the Personal Independent Payment “in their current form”. But she would not comment on whether the cuts could be brought back in a different form, or whether the savings would be made elsewhere. The spokeswoman said she was “not going to get into speculation”. She suggested that Cameron deserved credit for being willing to drop the plan to cut PIP. She said: There have been a lot of concerns raised about that policy. The prime minister is a man who is prepared to listen to concerns. She said the government was still committed to the welfare cap (a rule that is supposed to limit overall government spending on benefits). She said this was designed to increase transparency in relation to the welfare budget and that “we believe it is right to have this measure in place”. She went on: The public want us to control the welfare budget. She said the government will not oppose a Labour amendment to block a rise in VAT on solar panels when MPs vote on the budget tomorrow night. She said the government will also not oppose the amendment from Labour MP Paula Sheriff opposing the “tampon tax” when MPs vote on the budget. The spokeswoman said Cameron did not accept the suggestion from Iain Duncan Smith that the government was ignoring the interests of the poor because they did not vote Conservative. She also said that Cameron did not accept the claim from Duncan Smith, supported by the Tory MP Sarah Wollaston on the Today programme, that the government’s policies were biased in favour of pensioners. She said the government was acting in the interests of “a whole range of people” and cited apprenticeships and the national living wage as examples of what it was doing for working-age people. Downing Street is still committed to the “triple lock” that protects pensions, the spokeswoman said. Some people have cited this as an example of a policy that should be abandoned so as to release more money to protect the disabled. She said Cameron was leading “a One Nation government that is focused on improving opportunities for all”. She said that the pensions minister Ros Altmann was speaking “in a personal capacity” at the weekend when she criticised Duncan Smith’s treatment of her at the Department for Work and Pensions. No 10 did not know in advance that Altmann was going to speak out, the spokeswoman said. She implied that Number 10 was not happy about Altmann’s intervention, but she said the prime minister still had confidence in her. The spokeswoman brushed aside claims from the Institute for Fiscal Studies and the Resolution Foundation that the budget was regressive by saying that top earners are paying a higher proportion of income tax. The share of total income tax paid by the top 1% is 28%, which is higher than ever, she said. The spokeswoman said Cameron still had confidence in Osborne. Asked if Cameron has complete confidence in the chancellor, she replied: “Absolutely”. But, when asked if he thought Osborne was “playing a blinder”, she was more equivocal. The prime minister recognises that as a government, both in the last parliament and in this parliament, we face challenging global economic circumstances. It will be up to the Treasury to decide whether George Osborne responds to Corbyn’s UQ, or whether another minister takes his place. I’ll post as soon as I find out who they are putting up. John McDonnell has been granted an urgent question designed to drag George Osborne to the Commons to comment on the Personal Independence Payment U-turn. I’m just back from the Number 10 lobby briefing. I will post a full summary soon, but here are the main points. Downing Street indicated that the government will not explain where it will find the money to replace the money lost by they £4bn Personal Independence Payment U-turn until the autumn statement. The government will not oppose a Labour amendment to block a rise in VAT on solar panels when MPs vote on the budget tomorrow night, the prime minister’s spokeswoman said. The government will also not oppose the amendment from Labour MP Paula Sheriff opposing the “tampon tax” when MPs vote on the budget. Here are the key points from David Davis’s interview with the Victoria Derbyshire on the BBC. Davis said that Iain Duncan Smith was right to describe the budget as unfair. He said that Duncan Smith was a man of integrity who knew what he was talking about. Asked if that meant he agreed with Duncan Smith about the budget being unfair, he replied: “That’s what it looks like.” Davis said the government was not living up to its One Nation rhetoric. What [voters]] want to see is that parties live by their own words. We have used the phrase ‘We’re all in this together’ many times. And it is quite important that we live by that. So I am very sympathetic to Iain Duncan Smith’s position because this is what he stands for. He said that the government should not try to compensate for the money lost by not cutting Personal Independence Payment by other cuts in the welfare budget. The money should come from other government departments, he suggested. I think it would be, to be honest. I think they have to go back and think again. In the comments BTL benmandel asked whether the PIP cut raises £1.3bn or £4.4bn. It would save £1.3bn a year by 2019-20 but journalists have arrived at the £4.4bn figure by doing cumulative savings over this parliament. He said Osborne had no chance of replacing David Cameron as party leader in the near future. Asked if Osborne’s chances of becoming prime minister were finished, he replied: Not ever. If the leadership election were to be in the next six months, I think he would be sunk without trace. He also said it might make sense to move Osborne to another post. Very, very few people go straight from being chancellor to being prime minister, and when they do, it’s not always a success. Gordon Brown was the last one. He said that James Callaghan did other jobs after leaving the Treasury (home secretary and foreign secretary) and that he was “given the circumstances, a very successful prime minister”. I’m off to the lobby briefing now. I will post again after 11.30am. This is from Channel 4 News’s Tim Bouverie. These are from the BBC’s Norman Smith. Sky’s Faisal Islam has an interesting take on the way George Osborne’s budget has backfired. David Davis, the Conservative backbencher, has just told the BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire programme that he agrees with Iain Duncan Smith about the budget being unfair. I’ll post more from his interview shortly. The Economist Intelligence Unit has sent out a briefing saying that it thinks Iain Duncan Smith has “greatly—perhaps terminally—reduced [George] Osborne’s chance of becoming Conservative leader when [David] Cameron steps down” and that this will help Theresa May. One potential beneficiary will be the home secretary, Theresa May; we believe she is now strongest placed to succeed Mr Cameron. Sarah Wollaston, the Conservative backbencher, used her interview with the Today programme this morning to suggest that David Cameron should abandon the party’s promise not to cut benefits for wealthy pensioners (like the winter fuel payment). In his resignation letter Duncan Smith suggested this promise was a mistake. Wollaston told Today: The point that Iain Duncan Smith was making was that there are some groups at the moment that can’t be touched. If we are going to have inter-generational fairness, that might mean looking at where that might fall ... I don’t think there will be as much resistance to that as people might imagine, because inter-generational fairness matters to older people as well, and to wealthier older pensioners. She also said that, if Cameron wanted people to believe he was committed to social justice, he had to show that through his policies. Today, when David Cameron stands up, he has to reaffirm the message that led many people like myself to join the Conservative party in the first place when he became leader. Are we about social justice? Are we about spreading the burden fairly? We need to hear that very clear message today. People judge us on our actions, not just on our words, and if, in the same Budget, we are trying to link a reduction in personal independence payments at the same time we are cutting taxes for the wealthiest, I’m afraid that isn’t consistent. We need that message to be consistent. Michael Howard (now Lord Howard), who was Conservative leader after Iain Duncan Smith and before David Cameron, was on the Today programme in the 8.10 slot this morning. Howard was a big patron of George Osborne (at one point he appeared to favour him as his successor to Cameron) and he used the interview to defend Osborne strongly. He also said the party should “calm down”. I would be telling my colleagues if I was still in the House of Commons to calm down, to remember that it’s less than a year since the Conservative party won a general election under David Cameron’s leadership, that one of the main elements in that election victory - probably the main element - was our economic recovery during the five years leading up to that election, for which George Osborne as chancellor of the exchequer deserves an enormous amount of credit ... We are going to be this year the fastest-growing economy of all the advanced economies in the Western world. That is not an accident. That is something that owes a great deal to the stewardship of the chancellor of the exchequer, and that’s the kind of thing that’s going to determine George Osborne’s record. Howard also said that if one element of the budget had to be changed (the proposed Personal Independence Payment cut, which has now been abandoned), that was not “the end of the world”. We’re having a budget in which one element is being thought about again. I don’t think that’s the end of the world. I don’t think it’s something about which people should necessarily be greatly concerned. I think it shows that we have a government which is prepared to listen and think again, and I think that’s to its credit. Howard also said he had “high regard” for Iain Duncan Smith and that Duncan Smith “deserves great credit for the welfare reform”. Greg Clark, the communities minister, was on the programme about half an hour saying much the same thing. (Clark said Duncan Smith and Cameron and Osborne “have worked very successfully together over the years, for example, to get more people into work than ever before, to have fewer children in workless households”.) The Sunday Times’ s Tim Shipman thinks this is a belated attempt by Number 10 to repair the damage caused by Cameron’s decision to respond to Duncan Smith’s resignation on Friday night with a snide letter implying that Duncan Smith was being irrational. The pound has fallen this morning, my colleague Graeme Wearden reports on the business live blog. Sterling has been falling this morning, after work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith sensationally resigned late on Friday. The pound fell by almost one cent against the US dollar, hitting a low of $1.4377. It is also down 0.4% against the euro, at €1.2803. Although the moves aren’t huge, the City is taking note of Duncan Smith’s shock decision to quit, and his attack on the ‘deeply unfair’ budget announced last week. It has exposed serious splits at the heart of the government, with some MPs supporting his criticism. IDS has denied that his resignation is motivated by June’s referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union. But he is one of the most senior Brexit supporters, so his move to the back benches could intensity the battle over the EU. There is more on this on the business live blog. The Times has got the most striking headline: “Cameron: I blame Osborne.” (See 9.05am.) The story (paywall) is based on what David Cameron reportedly told a cabinet colleague. Here’s an excerpt. In a rare sign of division between the two men, the prime minister said that his chancellor was responsible for the dispute that ended in the resignation of Iain Duncan Smith as work and pensions secretary. Mr Cameron privately claimed that Mr Osborne would pay with his reputation for the failure to handle the issue. “Cameron said in no uncertain terms that Osborne had messed up, it was all his fault and would have hell to pay in the papers,” a cabinet source said. A senior member of staff at No 10 disputed the claim, however, insisting that it did not represent Mr Cameron’s view. “The prime minister does not believe the chancellor was responsible for what happened,” the source said. “They are working as closely as they ever have done.” This morning a Number 10 spokesman said that the Times story was “not true” and “total nonsense”. It may well be the case, as the Number 10 rebuttal suggests, that Cameron has no desire at all to undermine Osborne. However it would be odd if Cameron did not think that Osborne has “messed up” the budget, because it is self-evident that he has. And it was obvious to everyone at the weekend that Osborne was going to have “hell to pay in the papers”. So the key Times quote is 100% plausible. I have already posted a picture of the ’s splash. Here are the other newspapers that have splashed on the Tory story. The headlines speak for themselves. There will be at least two statements in the Commons today. David Cameron will make a statement at 3.30pm. The prime minister always delivers a statement to MPs after he has attended an EU summit, to report to them on what has happened, and Number 10 has indicated that he will use this to respond to Iain Duncan Smith by affirming his support for “compassionate Conservatism”. When a minister is making a statement on one subject (ie, an EU summit), the Speaker does not normally allow questions on another (ie, Iain Duncan Smith, or the budget), but John Bercow may allow some flexibility this afternoon in the light of the strong public interest in what Cameron has to say about the IDS row. Then we will get a statement from Stephen Crabb, the new work and pensions secretary, on the Personal Independence Payment. That means the budget debate will not start until at least 6pm. Greg Clark, the communities secretary, will open for the government. The Conservative party is in turmoil and Iain Duncan Smith’s resignation has inflamed two conflicts that have been simmering in the party for years: the Leave/Remain feud over the EU; and the dispute between One Nation Conservatism and Thatcherite Toryism. It is often assumed that the Thatcherites are always in the Leave camp but, just to make things complicated, Duncan Smith, a prominent anti-EU figure, attacked David Cameron and George Osborne in his resignation letter for betraying the One Nation tradition. Today we will get the Cameron fightback because he is giving a statement in the Commons. Here is the ’s overnight story. Here is our splash. And here are the latest overnight developments. No 10 says Cameron will fight back in the Commons this afternoon by expressing his commitment to “a modern, compassionate Conservatism”. Stephen Crabb, the new work and pensions secretary, is expected to tell MPs that the proposed cuts to Personal Independent Payments will not go ahead. Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader, has restated his call for Osborne to resign. He told BBC1’s Breakfast: The budget doesn’t add up. The chancellor of the exchequer should come back to Parliament and explain that. Far from just Iain Duncan Smith resigning, if a chancellor puts forward a Budget - as he did - knowing full well that he is making this huge hit on the disabled, then really it should perhaps be him who should be considering his position. His budget simply doesn’t add up and it unravelled within hours of him presenting it. This isn’t the first time a George Osborne Budget has unravelled. It seems to me we need to look at the very heart of this government, at its incompetence, at the way it puts forward proposals that simply don’t add up and expects the most needy in our society to take the hit for them. The Conservative MP Sarah Wollaston has used an interview with Today to suggest the Tories should abandon their promise not to cut benefits for wealthy pensioners. Michael Howard, the former Conservative leader, has used an interview with Today to defend Osborne. I will be focusing mostly on this story today. Here are the key moments to watch out for. 11am: Number 10 lobby briefing 3.30pm: David Cameron makes a statement to the Commons. Around 5pm: MPs resume their debate on the budget. I will also be covering other breaking political news as it happens, as well as bringing you the best reaction, comment and analysis from the web. I will post a summary at lunchtime and another in the afternoon. If you want to follow me or contact me on Twitter, I’m on @AndrewSparrow. I try to monitor the comments BTL but normally I find it impossible to read them all. If you have a direct question, do include “Andrew” in it somewhere and I’m more likely to find it. I do try to answer direct questions, although sometimes I miss them or don’t have time. Alternatively you could post a question to me on Twitter. If you think there are any voices that I’m leaving out, particularly political figures or organisations giving alternative views of the stories I’m covering, do please flag them up below the line (include “Andrew” in the post). I can’t promise to include everything, but I do try to be open to as wide a range of perspectives as possible.
Owen Paterson hunts the Brussels badgers in the smoke of falling empire It had not been the greatest of weekends, what with Barack Obama committing the UK to the back of any queue and Boris Johnson going out of his way to embarrass himself. The leave campaign could do with a lift. Something to give them a reason to believe. “The EU will turn us into a colony,” declared Owen Paterson, the former environment minister, to a handful of supporters at the British Academy. “The prime minister will have no more power than a Roman governor.” Cometh the hour, cometh Opaterix the Gaul. Basically the problem was this: the Brussels bureaucrats were just like the badgers. No sooner had you got one lined up in your sights than they moved the bloody goalposts. Opaterix may have been defeated by the badgers, but he wasn’t in the mood to let history repeat itself. The EU was a monster that needed to be culled. If not on 23 June, then some time in the future. He wasn’t quite sure when but that was because of the ongoing moving goalposts issues. But whenever it was, then he and his good friend Iain Dogmatix Smith, who was sat in the front row, were the men to do it. Though it wouldn’t be them that were doing the leaving, because the EU had already left them. Put that one down to Advanced Dialectix. All that was missing was the motto: “To prepare to win, prepare to fail.” The future was bright, the future was True Blue woad. Far from brokering good trade deals, the EU was actually hellbent on negotiating the worst possible terms for all its members. Nor was there any need to listen to the ramblings of an American president who was on his last legs; Opaterix had spoken to Obama’s rivals – he didn’t name them but he can only have been talking about Donald Trump and Ted Cruz – and they had promised him the US would be delighted to sign any trade agreement the British put in front of them. Somehow that didn’t sound quite as reassuring as it was intended to be. With British galleys once again assuming control of European waters, Opaterix left the Romans behind and did a 1,600-year time shift. Now we were in the middle of the civil war and Opaterix had become Oliver Cromwell to David Cameron’s King Charles I. The prime minister had become too London-centric, the shires were in revolt and Dave would pay the price. “Does this mean you want to execute him in Whitehall at the earliest opportunity?” someone interrupted, hopefully. “No,” he somewhat unconvincingly replied. The Tory party is locked into a a EU death spiral from which no one may escape. At the same time as Paterson was outlining his vision for a post-Brexit Europe, the home secretary, Theresa May, was outlining her own remain campaign plan to dump the European human rights convention, which just so happened to be rather at odds with the prime minister’s. Come 24 June there will be blood spilt; the only question is whose it will be. And whether anyone will be allowed a last cigarette. Having struggled to the end of his speech – he isn’t the most fluent or convincing of talkers – Paterson invited questions. Did anyone have anything to ask him about his devastating macro-political analysis? “Er, yes,” an audience member chipped in. “Don’t you think it’s absolutely terrible that the EU has brought in such repressive anti-smoking legislation?” Paterson did a quick double take. This wasn’t quite what he had in mind. But now he thought about it, it was an outrage. And there we had it. Come the referendum, Dave gets a final smoke.
My brother has Down’s syndrome. I wouldn’t change him for the world “Sausage rolls!” I hear him exclaim, sitting in his place at the table while indulging in his favourite ice-cream. His knowledge is limited, his speech is limited, his comprehension of life is limited – but his emotions are heightened. This is my 13-year-old brother, Sebbie; he has Down’s syndrome, a congenital disorder arising from a chromosome defect. He may not seem as clever as the average child; however, his intelligence, though less apparent, is no less valuable. He is not able to conform to society’s expectations by taking exams and tests to demonstrate his intellect. But Albert Einstein said: “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” He is clever, but cannot be part of “our” life because he is not clever in the “normal” way. He is sitting opposite me at the table eating his pudding, while dancing to a “happy song”; he just has to physically express enjoyment (he loves his vanilla soft scoop). Internal rhythm is often talked about by musicians and is something to which I cannot relate; Sebbie’s rhythm, however, represents his effusive personality. Dancing is one of his greatest passions. Looking at him from across the table, I think how far he has come, physically and mentally. He has recently learned to swim and is making progress towards adding numbers. I will never forget the day Sebbie was born; it was my fourth birthday and he arrived so quickly I didn’t even have time to finish my cake before going to see him in the hospital. He was in the special care baby unit, surrounded by wires and lying in a tiny pod. Lots of doctors surrounded him and, young as I was, I realised that he was not a healthy child, but to me he was just my new little brother and was perfect. I did not understand, then, the overwhelming distress and horror that faced my family. There were many big words flying around that I did not understand. Tetralogy of Fallot … atrial septal defect … open-heart surgery … My parents were alarmed, panicked; I had not seen them like this and I felt afraid too. This was the start of a long and terrifying journey of operations, hopes and fears. But nothing seems to dampen his enthusiasm and his quirky outlook on life. It is hard to judge “normal” in this world. There is talk of testing for Down’s syndrome, selective abortion and eradicating this condition. While I understand that no disability is ideal, I think it would be desperately sad to lose these precious children and adults who bring so much light into their families’ lives. Gone would be my crazy brother who talks of pizzas, trains and skiing all in the same sentence; gone would be the adoration that he feels for me and gone would be that wonderful dancing and tuneless singing. We often find ourselves laughing round the table at funny remarks and comments of his; he has always had the ability to generate laughter. His sense of humour is infectious; there have been many times that he has diffused a tense situation with his comical asides. It is hard to take life too seriously when Sebbie lifts up his jumper and tells me to “Put your belly away!” His sense of timing is impeccable. His lack of inhibition means he is more likely than not to join another family at the park or beach while giving us a cheeky wave. He has no sense of embarrassment, shyness or social conventions; this can lead to some embarrassment from me, although most people’s reactions are positive. I often think of his future and what it holds. Sebbie will never be able to live alone and will need constant care and supervision, which I plan to always be a part of. Although we love him, it is frightening to look ahead to a life that will never be independent. We not only worry about how he will cope in later life, but also the major operation that will probably face him before he is 18. Sebbie’s current condition (although he is physically more than able) can lead to frustration and difficulty. Even the simplest tasks, such as putting on a coat, socks and shoes, can lead to disputes, especially as he is such a strong character. Growing up with a brother with Down’s syndrome has been a real challenge but I would not change him for the world. He can be tricky, perplexing and sometimes outrageous, but his sense of fun and love outweighs all else. There are adults with the condition who have learned to drive cars, are performing in drama groups and are holding down jobs. My great uncle had the same condition and he was born exactly 100 years before Sebbie, in 1903. Thankfully times have changed since he was alive – he spent his life in an institution. Now disabled children have huge opportunities open to them and are achieving more than was ever thought possible. With our help I hope that Sebbie will grasp these opportunities. Who knows what he might achieve? I will always be at his side to help him along and I know the rewards I get back from him, in the form of love and friendship will make it worthwhile. • Oliver originally wrote this piece as part of his GCSE English course last year
Sing Street review - teen zero to hero in three chord wonder from Once director Did you like The Commitments? Did you like We Are the Best!!? Well, Sing Street isn’t as good as either of those two, but it’s still pretty terrific. A new kid at school (Ferdia Walsh-Peelo) spies a fashionably dressed, somewhat sullen older girl Raphina (Lucy Boynton) standing alone on a stoop and musters the courage to speak to her. She’s a model, she says, and prepping a move from Dublin to London. He asks her to be in his music video and, after some cajoling, she agrees. The only problem is that he doesn’t have a band yet. Half the interviews I’ve ever heard with musicians say they first started writing songs to impress girls, and John Carney’s latest keenly observed music-rich film does nothing to dispel the myth. Our young hero Conor (later Cosmo, once he gets his synth-friendly makeup) is thunderstruck by Raphina’s beauty and seeming worldliness. But he’s also a gifted kid that only needed a push of encouragement to find his creative footing. With his older brother Brendan (Jack Reynor, who has a tendency to steal every scene) and his superhero team-up style bandmates, Conor blossoms from a timid kid to a cool teen from just the power of three chords. Sing Street, the name of Conor’s group (a play on Synge Street, where the shabby Christian Brothers school and its rules-happy headmaster bring grief), is set in 1985, and writer-director Carney, who played it contemporary with Once, drapes it in fine nostalgia. The music and fashion trends from Duran Duran, the Cure, Spandau Ballet, Joe Jackson and the prom scene from Back to the Future all make appearances without overdoing it. After all, as Brendan explains to Conor, being a covers band is a joke, and writing your own songs is what being a real artist is all about. The songwriting and rehearsal scenes are as good as you’ll find in any modern musical, but beyond these crafty sequences (and the hilarious interjections of the bandmates, all of whom get just enough screentime for you to want more) is getting inside the head of our lead character. While the love story (sweet, chaste, realistic) is charming, what hits harder is the relationship between Conor and his brother. While their parents (Aiden Gillan and Maria Doyle Kennedy) are in the process of breaking up, and their sister (Kelly Thornton), studying to be an architect, seems to have some plan to get the hell out of their war zone house, longhair-philosopher Brendan is going nowhere. At first his wisdom (with women, with record collecting) makes him seem infallible. The drop in his facade late in the film works like a minor key in a perfectly crafted pop song. Without histrionics, it’s one of the more touching scenes in a film designed to get the heart pumping from “happy-sad” songs on the soundtrack. Sing Street’s ending is a little far-fetched, but what good is being a teenager if there aren’t some bold, exaggerated overtures? It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a Sundance premiere’s fade to black bring on such rousing cheers. Conor’s music is a call to dive headlong into adventure, and the big finish is cymbal-crashing crowdpleaser.
Hopes that UK business would shake off Brexit vote now look fanciful So much for the idea that the post-Brexit-vote hit to UK manufacturing was a kneejerk reaction to the referendum and that the mood would improve as time wore on. The final figures for how industry fared in July are in and they were even worse than the flash estimate released 10 days ago. Some analysts had expressed guarded confidence that Theresa May’s arrival in Downing Street might have made companies less gloomy. The snapshot of the manufacturing sector from Markit/Cips showed that exports have been given a modest boost by the decline in the value of the pound, but this is not the greatest moment to be trying to break into new markets overseas. Some comfort could be taken from the fact that the drop in output and orders after Brexit was not nearly as marked as those during the recession at the end of the 2000s. But not much. The slump in the economy between early 2008 and late 2009 was the most severe suffered by the UK in the entire postwar period. One lesson from that recession is the need for early action to prevent pessimism from becoming ingrained. In the summer of 2008, when UK output had already started to contract, the Bank was considering raising interest rates to combat a temporary spike in inflation. Threadneedle Street is not going to make the same mistake again. Inflationary pressure will certainly increase in the coming months, because a fall in the value of the pound makes imports more expensive. This, though, is a second-order problem, put into the shade by the need to forestall job cuts and the scrapping of investment. The chances of an eyecatching package have improved.
UN climate chief urges Britain to remain a global warming leader Britain must continue to be a world leader when it comes to acting on global warming despite the EU referendum result last week, the UN’s climate chief has urged. Christiana Figueres warned that should article 50 be triggered it would bring uncertainty for two years but cooperation on climate change could be one area of continuity between the UK and EU. “Should that be the case [article 50 being triggered], there is going be quite a lot of uncertainty, transition, volatility for at least two years,” she told an audience of business leaders in London on Tuesday. “However, let us remember that the Brexit vote was not about climate change, it was not about should the UK continue to modernise its industry and its manufacturing, and it was certainly not a vote about innovation, which is fundamentally the opportunity that we have by acting on climate change,” said the outgoing executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. Figueres, who played a key role in forging the Paris climate deal last December and is believed to be considering running for UN secretary general, riffed on the world war two poster “keep calm and carry on”. “Over these next two years, my suggestion would be to use the proverbial UK [message]: ‘stay calm and transform on [to a low-carbon economy]’. It’s not ‘stay calm and do nothing’, it’s ‘stay calm and transform on’ because the UK and EU have had a very important leadership on climate change, there’s no reason to change that whatsoever.” Asked if the Brexit vote would become an obstacle to action on climate change, she said: “No. Climate change action is by now unstoppable. It is global.” A pre-referendum poll found that leave voters were more likely to be climate sceptics than remain voters, and green groups have raised fears that the Brexit vote could lead to “the climate change-denying wing of the Conservative party” being strengthened. However, carbon targets are enshrined in UK law under the Climate Change Act, which was passed in 2008 with just five MPs voting against it, and requires steeper emissions cuts than EU targets. Figueres said that if the UK were to go ahead with leaving the EU, action on climate change could be a much-needed track of stability and continuity between the two. “Continuing and being very consistent with the UK/EU policy and steps on climate change, could actually be the thread of continuity that takes us through the next two years. Because there’s no reason to do a huge jump to distress or upset the apple cart on this.” She added that a Brexit may force the EU to revisit the emissions plan it submitted to the Paris summit last year. Figueres’s comments were echoed by Ed Miliband on Monday, who stressed the need to fight for a vision of a “new relationship with Europe which has environmental protection at its heart”. Speaking at a panel discussion in London hosted by the Environmental Defense Fund Europe, the former Labour leader, who was climate and energy secretary under Gordon Brown, said that Britain could continue to negotiate alongside the EU on climate and energy matters: “we’re stronger negotiating with them than we would be on our own.” Miliband also argued that it is crucial that Britain maintains the “progress that was made through Europe on a whole range of environmental protections and other issues”. “I do think it’s very very important that we don’t leave the debate about this - no pun intended - to those who wanted to come out of Europe,” he added, “because they wanted a race to the bottom ... they didn’t believe in climate change and all of that”. “The debate cannot be left to them, with the Remain part of the argument being ‘we’d like to reverse the decision, thank you very much,’ because then that will leave the field clear for those who have a horrible agenda on this.”
The Ardennes review – disappointing Belgian crime drama First-time Belgian feature director Robin Pront starts out with what looks like an absorbing family crime drama. Kenny (Kevin Janssens) is an angry, abusive guy who gets out of prison after four years for robbery; his brother Dave (Jeroen Perceval), who did the job with him but managed to get away from the crime scene, can’t bear to confess that he has been having an affair with his girlfriend, Sylvie (Veerle Baetens) while he was inside. Morose Kenny broods about their happy childhood holidays in the Ardennes, but then they have to visit this remote region when, halfway through, the film takes a sudden, meaningless lurch into crazy Belgian-gothic territory – a sudden stab at Tarantino/Coens black comedy that the movie has done nothing to earn. There’s even some business with escaped ostriches, a very unconvincing and secondhand bit of surrealism. A disappointment.
Banking royal commission focus areas proposed by Bill Shorten Bill Shorten has written to Malcolm Turnbull outlining what he thinks should be the focus of a banking royal commission. On the final day before the parliament sits for the first time, the opposition leader has also invited the prime minister to meet some victims of “bank ripoffs” this week in Canberra, saying it would be good for him to explain to them personally why a royal commission would “delay justice for those who urgently need it”. After months of criticism that Labor’s calls for a royal commission were too vague and general, Shorten has suggested a succinct set of focus areas. In a letter to Turnbull on Sunday night Shorten said a royal commission into the banking and financial services industry should examine issues such as: 1. How widespread instances of illegal and unethical behaviour are within Australia’s financial services industry 2. How Australia’s financial services institutions treat their duty of care to their customers 3. How the culture, ethical standards and business structures of Australian financial services institutions affect the behaviour of these institutions 4. Whether Australia’s regulators are really equipped to identify and prevent illegal and unethical behaviour 5. Comparable international experience with similar financial services industry misconduct and best practice responses to those incidents 6. And other events as may come to light in the course of investigating the above. Turnbull last week said Labor’s idea for a royal commission would be too costly, would run for too many years, and would not help anyone. He wrote to Shorten saying royal commissions are most effective “when there is a particular event or specific problem which needs to be investigated”. “A royal commission as you know is no more than an inquiry with the power to summon witnesses and compel the production of evidence,” Turnbull said. “It cannot lay a charge, it cannot change a law. All it can do is inquire and report. “A royal commission, established with the very wide terms of reference … would run for many years, cost hundreds of millions of dollars and at its conclusion present a report. It would not compensate anybody, it would not prosecute a wrongdoer, it would not change a law or regulation. “It would delay action and postpone reform. It would delay justice for those who urgently need it.” He also suggested Shorten should appoint some of Labor’s keenest minds to the House of Representatives economics committee that will eventually compel chief executives of the major banks’ to answer questions about interest rates and bank behaviour. Turnbull created the new rules for the committee after outrage over the banks’ recent decision not to pass on Reserve Bank’s recent rate cut in full. The treasurer, Scott Morrison, said the government was frustrated by the banks’ failure to pass on the interest rate cut and needed to do practical things to increase transparency. In his letter to Turnbull, Shorten criticised the prime minister’s response to the scandals plaguing the banking industry. “We need to restore trust in our banking and financial system,” Shorten said in his letter. “Your piecemeal approach is doing the exact opposite.”
Woody Allen: 'There are traumas in life that weaken us. That’s what has happened to me' Woody Allen is 80. Time is finite and he knows it. Every day the industrious same: wake, work, weights, treadmill, work, clarinet, work, supper, TV, sleep. Except today and tomorrow and Thursday, when he’ll do something futile. “I never thought there was any point doing press,” he says. “I don’t think anybody ever reads an interview and says: ‘Hey, I want to see that movie!’” He smiles benignly, tip-to-toe in peanut-butter beige. Allen no longer reads anything about himself (except, maybe, one article, of which more later). This is the boring bit of film-making. This and the gags of the financiers. Yet for someone who feels that way, he sure pulls the hours. At Cannes, he even carried on regardless of the publication of a piece by his son, Ronan Farrow, resurfacing an allegation of abuse by Allen of Ronan’s sister, Dylan. When I speak to him again three months later, in the final stages of prep on his 48th film (Kate Winslet, Justin Timberlake, 1950s, fairground), he’s friendly on the phone, in no special hurry to hang up. Why bother? A shrug and a grin. “Well, the publicity people think it’s important. So I do it to be nice. But I don’t think – and I tell them this – that it matters. And they say: ‘Just keep it quiet and do it.’ I don’t want to be someone who takes the money but refuses to help.” Late-stage Woody Allen, then (or lateish – his mother lived to 95, his father to 100) is the same as the kid scribbling so many jokes on the subway to school he out-earned both parents by the age of 17. He forever frames things in transactional terms: the need to keep the deal, fulfil the contract, offer value. That TV series he’s made? “Amazon badgered and badgered me for two years, sweetening the pot until I could not afford to turn it down.” They drove an easy bargain for the resulting show, Crisis in Six Scenes: six half-hour episodes was fine; shoot wherever you like; any period; any stars; don’t show us the script, just call when you’re done. Not that he was ever going to abscond to Vegas and snort the lot. “I’m responsible. I’m not going to take their money and waste it. It was a good bet – I’ve made things before.” Allen’s hope for his new film is similarly modest. “My intention was people would pay their money and have some kind of human experience.” Café Society repays investment. It’s by far his best since Blue Jasmine: sharp, funny and moving – especially on how people hold each other to ransom in relationships. Our Woody-substitute this time is Jesse Eisenberg, who heads off from hard-scrabble Brooklyn to seek his fortune in Hollywood. It’s the 1930s: movie stars are gods, the studios rule and his uncle, Steve Carell, is a playmaker agent who asks his secretary – and secret mistress – to show Bobby round town. Eisenberg and Kristen Stewart peer up at the gated mansions. You have to pity people who need a big house to feel important, she says. He’s not so sure. Allen neither. “I’m not one of those people who has knee-jerk antipathy to wealth. I like to look at rich people. I enjoy taking a tour of a very wealthy estate.” It helps explain his homing instinct to Cannes; cue an Allenish anecdote about going on a surprisingly rocky yacht. No, he wouldn’t want to be richer, he says, though it emerges he does spend $100 a week on lottery tickets. But winning wouldn’t change much: “I’ve talked this over with my wife. We would still go on living in the same house, I would go on working, I don’t want a boat, I don’t want a plane.” So why do it? He seems stumped. “The odds are bigger than astronomical. You’d have a better chance of shuffling a deck of cards and naming them all in row. I’ve never got more than two numbers. I’d probably shoot myself if I got five and missed by one. That would really be a killer – but I don’t have that problem.” Don’t be fooled by Café Society’s tourist-bait take on Tinseltown. Don’t get blinded by its goggle-eyes at the glimpse of bling. It may look lush, but a good 60% of that rose-tint is jaundice. The movie biz, says someone, is “boring, nasty, dog-eat-dog”. Hollywood, remarks Allen’s narrator, is “a town run on ego” – plain and simple, no leavening punchline. But then, he says today, cheerfully spooling out the doominess, where isn’t? “I’m sure every business is full of phonies and people that don’t return phone calls and play the big shot. I’m sure it exists on Wall Street and in London and Rome, but Hollywood always gets the rap because there it’s so obvious. You’re dealing with one diva after another.” He doesn’t think other towns are more fuelled by, say, sex or money or art? He twiddles his hearing aid to check he’s heard right. “Sex is the ultimate end. The ambition is so that they can fulfil their sexual drives; that’s what everybody is going for. This is what animals are. People are in a kind of meaningless jumble to recreate, and nobody knows why. The same woman who says, ‘People are terrible, life is awful, it’s sad, it’s short, nasty and meaningless’ still wants to have a couple of children. It defies any intellect. It’s strictly emotional.” Like all Allen’s work, Cafe Society is consumed by how we cope with mortality. Its director famously said he’d like to achieve immortality through not dying, rather than his movies; his film has a Jewish gangster becoming Catholic on death row in search of consolation (just as Woody failed to in Hannah and her Sisters). Isn’t this the world’s most urgent issue, I ask. If people could only accept death was the end, the likes of Isis would have more of a recruitment problem. “I couldn’t speak for all suicide bombers,” he says mildly, fishing out the remote control for his hearing aid again, which forever makes you think he is trying to unlock a car. “But without a firm faith in an afterlife, many of them would not do those things. They do believe when they blow themselves up that there’s going to be positive payoff. That it isn’t simply going to be what it is, though some of them might be willing to do it anyhow, to consider it a noble sacrifice for a noble cause. They’re misguided, in my opinion.” He smiles. “But they don’t agree with me.” What would he die for? Only his family, he thinks. Had he been 15 years older, he wouldn’t have felt compelled to actively serve in the war. “I can’t see myself in a ditch somewhere in the rain at night fighting in a jungle off the coast of Japan. I don’t think I’d hold up very well. I get annoyed when the air conditioning doesn’t work.” Has he noticed any recent rise in antisemitism? Well, not personally, he says, sitting up a bit. But friends have. “It doesn’t surprise me. It’s in the nature of people to have someone to scapegoat. If there were no Jews in the world they would take it out on blacks. If no blacks, they’d move over to Catholics. No Catholics? Something else. Finally, if everyone is exactly the same, the left-handed people would start killing the right-handed people. You just need an other [on whom] to vent your hostility and frustration.” He shrugs. “Hopefully, the wave will ebb and people will realise that’s not the problem and focus more on what the problems are. But the world is full of intolerance and prejudice. Freud said there would always be antisemitism because people are a sorry lot. And they are a sorry lot.” He twinkles through the specs, left eye a little awry these days, like a Woody Allen action doll that’s been dropped. He’s tiny. Some stars are shorter than you expect; he seems, literally, still inside the TV. Allen has long been resigned to life’s deep bleakness. He is the wise-cracking nihilist, jokes provoked by the need not to leap. Yet some cynicism seems to be distilling. While previous films left characters wrestling guilt, this last one metes out justice with a wallop. When he talks about the world being “full of terrified people walking round suffering tremendously”, it carries more charge than the old patter. I suggest he’s getting tougher as he gets older. He chuckles and says the opposite is true. “I don’t believe in the Nietzschean notion that what doesn’t destroy you makes you stronger. You see these soldiers come back with PTSD; they’ve been to war and seen death and experienced these existential crises one after the other. There are traumas in life that weaken us for the future. And that’s what’s happened to me. The various slings and arrows of life have not strengthened me. I think I’m weaker. I think there are things I couldn’t take now that I would have been able to take when I was younger.” It was in 1992 that everything changed. Allen left Mia Farrow for her adopted daughter, Soon-Yi Previn, then 21 – Farrow found out after discovering intimate photos. Then followed a custody battle for their three children, Moses, Dylan and Ronan, then the claim of molestation of Dylan, aged seven. Credible evidence wasn’t found and the charge was not pursued. Yet the media trial continues. At Cannes came the grenade of Ronan’s Hollywood Reporter piece, attacking the festival for its celebration, stars for collaboration and the press for perceived cowardice. The next day, reporters raised it. Allen’s response remained the same: he hadn’t read the piece, the law had been plain, and he had said all he was going to. Last week, he reiterates his position. “I have no interest in all of that. I find that all tabloid stupidity. That situation had been thoroughly, thoroughly investigated up and down the line by New York social services in a 14-month investigation. It had been investigated by Yale and conclusions were clear and I have no interest in that whole situation. I get harassed all the time on it. But it doesn’t affect me and I just have no interest in it.” He sounds weary, sad, flat. He’s not used the word “harassed” in relation to the case before; today he uses it twice, the second time directing me to an article rebutting Ronan (“probably the best thing written on this since the whole harassment started … mature and not vitriolic and decent”). Which suggests that he may read some press, and that he is affected by it. The opposite would be impossible. Even dismissed allegations can smear a career. And while he and Moses are now reconciled, Allen is estranged from Dylan and Ronan, despite a judge rejecting the application that his adoptive parenthood of the former two be revoked (meanwhile Mia has hinted Ronan is actually Frank Sinatra’s son). Has the whole thing altered his view of the world? “No, no,” he chuckles. “It confirmed all my misanthropic feelings.” Allen’s strategy, then, is to throw up his hands and stop his ears. He may have an iPhone, but it’s strictly for calls, jazz and the weather app. And this determined detachment would help explain why, as the web rakes over the details, 24 years on, Allen remains remarkably frank, even blithe, discussing his private life. Of his wife and the daughters (Bechet, 17 and Manzie, 16) they adopted soon after their wedding in 1997, he speaks often, fondly – and oddly off-message. Of parenting, he tells me: “You can count on them until adolescence. You’re king in the house and you’re much needed and much loved and depended on. Once they start to come into their adulthood they start to feel their oats, then, all of a sudden, it’s a different story.” Relationships, he says, again unguarded, “are not my strong point in life. I’ve always been dependent on the generosity of the woman; nothing I could do ever seduced them.” That was the case with Diane Keaton, with whom he is still close: “She had come to the conclusion she liked me. It was always the other person who decided.” He happily chats about how nice meals often end in spousal rows, but says that it is because of Soon-Yi that the man once defined by his psychoanalysis hasn’t seen a shrink in years. “I don’t have to any more. I’m functioning OK. I’m in a happy marriage. I haven’t needed that support.” Do others come to him for advice? He reels at the idea. “I don’t have that many friends. I lead a very isolated life. I come home and I’m with my family. I go to dinner with a few friends and, every once in a while, they’ll ask for advice, but it’s never existential.” And, after dinner, he heads home, turns on the TV for 20 minutes “and I’m asleep”. Never a comedy – he has never seen anything in the same genre as his Amazon show – and if not news, baseball, which “always interests me much more than any kind of show”. But the New York teams have struck out this season, so he has resorted to the Olympics, with moderate rewards. “I don’t find it that thrilling to watch people swim up and back across a pool. I need a more complex sport – something that has got a different narrative to it than just a sudden burst of speed or a quick jump. And I watch any sports. I can watch timber sports – two guys sawing down a tree in a contest.” That’s one of the few he has yet to try: the young Woody was surprisingly sporty and his loss of athletic ability is his chief regret about ageing. “I’ve been very lucky. I’m in good health – at least I think I am. Dementia hasn’t set in yet to any noticeable degree. Everything is fine, but I’m always consumed with sorrow that I can’t get out on a baseball field and play it the way I could. That, for me, is the most poignant.” “I’d like to race against Usain Bolt,” he adds wistfully. “But I’m not sure how well I’d do. I was always a very fast runner. But it’s possible that while I’m still running, he would be doing his post-race interview.” Late-stage Woody Allen, then, is a man who gets through by playing ball, even if the sport is stacked against him. By disregarding the results and declining to dwell. “You’re probably happier in life if you can forget things,” he advises. And yet, there may be a coda. Allen doesn’t permit himself the “indulgence of nostalgia”, but, “sometimes, when I’m alone, I think maybe it would be a nice life to stop making movies and write maybe an autobiography”. It might be “pleasant” to relive his childhood, like he does when he reminisces with his sister, Letty. Yet writing a memoir would also require resurfacing less happy events, right? Putting them on paper. Well, yes. “I would have to go through the many regrets in my life and the many turbulences. But that’s OK. It’s conflict and excitement. It would be nice to write that out.” • Café Society opens in the UK on 2 September and Crisis in Six Scenes begins on Amazon Prime on 30 September. • This article was amended on 26 August. The original misheard “feel their oats” as “field their oats”. This has been corrected.
Mum’s bucket list: ‘Have a great time after I’ve gone’ Kate Greene was always one of those people who made lists to organise her thoughts. Even as a 16-year-old, she was already carefully writing out her requirements for a “contract of mateship” for her boyfriend, Singe. “Phone at least twice a day,” she wrote out in fountain pen on a piece of A4 with red margins. “Flatter me. (Remember, flattering can get you everywhere),” it went on. “Supply a flower once a week.” “Complete fidelity. Soul ownership.” “Take me out Saturday evenings.” “Be loved and to love.” “Tell no lies and give straight answers.” Organised, yet intimate, it says a lot about the passionate woman Kate was. Yet it’s the list Kate wrote 20 years later, in the weeks before her death from breast cancer, which has left the lasting impression. When Kate, an insurance underwriter, realised she was not going to see her two sons, then aged four and five, grow up, she wrote out the ways she hoped they would make the most of their lives – whether it was to keep searching for four-leaf clovers, to rollerskate around museums or to grow up to treat women with respect. When her list – an eclectic mix of thoughts, reminders and life lessons – was mentioned in her local newspaper obituary, the story was picked up and it became a bestselling book. Now, it’s been turned into a film, released this month, starring Emilia Fox as Kate and Rafe Spall as Singe. Such a fanfare is likely to make such wish lists – known as bucket lists – an increasingly common part of bereavement. But as death has to be looked at from two sides, from the point of view of the person leaving, and also from that of those left behind, how does Singe feel now, six years after his wife’s death? Has the existence of a weepie film about him and Kate held him back from moving on or helped him bring up two children on his own? And is there a danger that, in death, Kate could come across as too saintly – or Singe, very much the celebrity in his home town of Clevedon, Somerset, could be overly flattered by having their lives turned into a movie? In the four hours I spend with Singe in a pub overlooking the sea, these worries dissipate. He has been through hell, yet embodies the seize-the-day spirit Kate wanted for him and their sons. Beyond that, for many of those who have read the book, Singe represents the hope that there is life on the other side. But, Singe (short for St John), 50, a paramedic who now runs training courses for young people, says he never wanted Kate to make the list in the first place. When Kate was diagnosed with cancer, their elder son, Reef, was four and was still recovering from a rare and aggressive form of cancer – rhabdoid soft tissue sarcoma – which had wrapped itself around the femoral nerve in his leg. While Reef had been seriously ill in hospital as a toddler, their younger son, Finn, had been born two months early when the stress of Reef’s cancer treatment had kick-started Kate’s labour. On the New Year’s Eve before Kate was diagnosed, Singe remembers taking a break from the vigil at Reef’s hospital bedside. They stood in a high stairwell, watching fireworks exploding over Bristol below. “Kate turned to me and said: ‘I would swap places with Reef in a heartbeat.’ The horrible irony is that’s what happened.” After they thought Reef had beaten the astronomical odds against him surviving and walking again, Kate decided she wanted to give something back by donating blood because her son had received so many transfusions. Instead, she was turned away for being anaemic. As she started to monitor her own health more closely, she discovered a lump in her left breast. The two cancers were entirely unrelated. Reef had been given a 6% chance of survival, Kate 80%. But, aged 36, Kate had to face the worst news for herself. “It was as if someone had said: ‘We’ll let you have Reef, but you can’t have both,’” says Singe. “It felt like Reef had been returned to me and Kate was being taken instead.” After a year of treatment, Kate’s decline was fast. At Christmas 2009, she was given 18 months to live. She actually only had a month. As she started to come to terms with the fact that she would never see her sons grow up, she started compiling her hopes for them in her diary and on scraps of paper. Singe said: “The first request came when she was home from hospital for a bit. By then, she was on oxygen to keep her lungs working. The boys were in bed and our plan was to cuddle up in front of the TV. I offered her a cup of tea and when I heard her call out to me in the kitchen, I thought she was going to say she wanted two sugars, instead of one, or something. “But she said: ‘Singe, would you take the boys on holiday to Llantwit Major for me next summer if I don’t make it?’ It was a beach where she had spent her holidays as a child. “I was like: ‘Oh shut up, you’ll be fine.’ But she had clearly been thinking about it for a while because she then rattled off six more things, bang, bang, bang, like how she wanted me to take them diving to other places she had not yet been able to visit.” When Kate returned to hospital, she continued the list on Post-it notes and by text when her hands were too weak to write. “Stupidly, I deleted some of the messages. Even in the last days, I wouldn’t allow myself to believe she was leaving me. I wanted her to have a positive mindset because I thought that was the best way for her to beat the cancer. “I’d get a message and think: ‘You’ll be here in the summer, silly bag.’ I got fed up because until the end I thought there would be a miracle drug that would come along and save her.” It was as she died in hospital in his arms that January that Singe started to understand. “Her last word was: ‘Sorry.’ She realised what a massive undertaking it would be for me to raise the boys without her.” The immediate aftermath of her death was shattering, says Singe. “The only way to describe it is to imagine you’re on a sunny beach one minute and the next the sky goes completely dark. It’s like you are hit by a massive wave which completely trashes you and you can’t breathe. You try to get to your feet, but you keep slipping under the waves.” As Singe found more scraps of paper and Post-it notes, he and Kate’s mother, Christine, typed out the full list. In the bleakest moments, requests such as to kiss each boy twice every night – one from Singe and one from Kate – gave him routine. Other requests – that they all go diving in the Red Sea, as she had done – gave them something to plan and look forward to. Most selfless was Kate’s insistence that Singe find another woman to replace her. At first, it seemed an impossible task. Since meeting at a rollerskating rink when she was 14, Kate and Singe were besotted. They married in 1996. Both were adrenaline junkies who crisscrossed the world swimming with sharks, skiing off-piste and bungee-jumping off cliffs. “We were so in love, mates would say: ‘For God’s sake, get a room.’ It was only after Kate died that I learned that not every husband loved his wife the way I did and back again.” Yet one of her texts to him from hospital read: “Would be good if you settled down sooner rather than later so you get to see grandchildren.’ She floored me with that one.” “I instantly dismissed it, but she followed it up with a couple of texts making sure that I understood she meant it. She wanted the boys to have a positive female influence.” In another painfully honest acknowledgement that life would move on without her, Kate gave permission for pictures of her to eventually be confined to the boys’ bedroom once Singe met a new partner. That is now what’s happened. Two years ago, Singe met someone, a single mother with a son about the boys’ age, and with a zest for life similar to Kate’s. They now live together as a family. Reef and Finn now call her Mum, too. Although Singe has now crossed off most of the items on the list, there were some that were elusive and others that remain undone. Kate was always on the lookout for four-leaf clovers. But despite planting genetically modified clover seed on Kate’s resting place, “hoping she would give it a hand”, he and the boys never found one – until a friend discovered a patch – and called them to come and pick some. They still plant sunflowers every now and again, as Kate asked, “celebrate birthdays big time”, and eat orange Club biscuits because they were her favourites. But day-to-day family life has also had to take priority over ticking off some of Kate’s more exciting requests, such as going to see the northern lights, or taking the boys to Switzerland, where Singe proposed to her. As to where she is now, Singe and Kate both believe and believed that when you are gone, you are gone. Even so, when the boys, now 10 and 12, see a crisscross of plane trails in the sky, they still like to think it’s a kiss from Kate. When I ask Reef, a thoughtful, confident boy, what his mother wanted for him by writing the list, he replies without hesitation: “Happiness.” He and his brother have seen the trailer, but not the film, which they will see when they are older. So does Singe feel a responsibility to tick off whatever is left on the list? “There’s no pressure. The things on the list are what Kate and I both wanted to do and how we both wanted to live our lives. She may be gone, but the boys get bits of their mum by doing the things she enjoyed and what she loved to do. They know her better that way.” He admits he has sometimes wondered if she would have wanted so much focus on such personal thoughts recorded at such a desperate time of her life – but overall, Singe believes she would have been proud of the life he has built for their sons. “It’s like leaving footprints on a beach – you walk up and the wave comes and the footprints are gone. This is a way to keep the footprints still there. “Having two happy, healthy children was Kate’s dream and that’s what I have right now. “The little snippets about herself, the pointers for me and the instructions for the boys were all saying the same thing. ‘Be happy, appreciate life and have lots of fun.’ “Between the lines, Kate was also saying, ‘Don’t forget me, but please move on. Make the most of every day, just as I did.’” Mum’s List is in cinemas nationwide from 25 November.
Manbang and chill: North Korea gets video on demand Netflix-style video on demand has come to North Korea, allowing viewers to replay documentaries about their leaders and learn Russian and English, state broadcaster the Korea Central Television reported. If the claims are true, the set-top box named Manbang would be a significant development in domestic North Korean television technology, given the limited availability of internet in the country. In 2015 the World Bank estimated that there were no secure internet servers per million people in the DPRK – compared with a world average of 209 and 2,320 in South Korea. The Manbang is said to allow viewers to watch five different TV channels in real-time, all featuring state-sanctioned news and educational programmes, and find information about the activities of Kim Jong-un and Juche ideology. Users can also read articles from the official newspaper Rodong Sinmun and the Korean Central News Agency. The box lets viewers search for programmes and browse through categories, offering similar functionality to Netflix. “The information and communications technology is based upon two-way communications,” state official Kim Jong-min was quoted as saying in the KCTV report. “If a viewer wants to watch, for instance, an animal movie and sends a request to the equipment, it will show the relevant video to the viewer…this is two-way communications,” Kim added. One South Korea-based observer said the technology appeared to be legitimate. “When judging from the content of the video, the North [appears to have] technology related to IPTV [internet protocol television],” a South Korean professor at a national university said on condition of anonymity. “However, it is hard to assess the quality of services and internet network,” the professor added, unable to speak to media on record about North Korea issues. A version of this article first appeared on NK News – North Korean news
Brexit could wipe 20% off the pound amid referendum turmoil, warns HSBC The pound tumbled below $1.39 for the first time in seven years on Wednesday as analysts warned that a vote to quit the European Union would severely damage the UK’s growth prospects. Sterling dropped to $1.3883 and also suffered against the euro after HSBC issued one of the starkest warnings yet of the dire consequences from a Brexit vote. Analysts at the bank said sterling could lose another 20% of its value against the US dollar, pushing its value towards $1.10 – a level not seen since 1985 when the miners’ strike was in full swing. A steep rise in the cost of imports following the currency’s collapse would send inflation spiralling, forcing the Bank of England to raise interest rates. The analysts warned that the ensuing turmoil would knock 1.5 percentage points off GDP growth in 2017, losing almost all the 2.3% growth rate the Bank of England expects should the status quo be maintained. “Our central case in the event of a vote for Brexit is that uncertainty grips the economy. This could take around 1.0-1.5 percentage points off the GDP growth rate by the second half of 2017. This would push our 2017 growth forecast, currently 2.3%, into the 0.8-1.3% range,” the analysts said. “And if sterling were to fall by around 15-20% (as our currency strategists predict), UK inflation could rise by up to 5 percentage points (our end-2017 inflation forecast is 1.8%). In the event of a vote for Brexit, concerns about deflation could swiftly give way to worries of stagflation. Last year analysts at Morgan Stanley said a Brexit vote would expose the country to a “referendum shock” and a “flirt with recession”. Analysis by the Centre for Economic Performance at the London School of Economics has also dismissed the Leave campaign analysis that the UK economy would be unaffected. It considered an “optimistic scenario” with small increases in trade costs between the UK and the EU, and a “pessimistic scenario” with larger increases. “In the optimistic case, Brexit reduces UK income by 1.1% of GDP. In the pessimistic case, UK income falls by 3.1%, or £50bn a year.” More business leaders lined up on Thursday to voice their concerns that the UK economy will be a significant casualty of a decision to leave the EU, including Sir Martin Sorrell, chief executive of the advertising firm WPP. Sorrell said Britain faces “a period of unstability and uncertainty” ahead of June’s vote, and confidence is already being hit. Speaking on Bloomberg TV, he said he shared concerns over the extent of EU bureaucracy. However, he is still worried about the consequences of an out vote, calling Brexit a “black hole”. The continent is fertile ground for WPP, which owns the agencies Ogilvy & Mather and Young & Rubicam, and counts Germany as its fourth largest market and France as its seventh largest. “I think it is really important to be inside the tent, trying to reform and change Europe, rather than being outside the tent in a completely unknown situation, where it will be very hard for several years to work out Britain’s role in the world,” he said. WPP’s clients are “at best neutral, and at worst highly negative” about the referendum, he added. “Clients will be postponing investment decisions, postponing trade decisions and considering alternative scenarios - like we all are - about what we will do if the country decides to leave the EU.” Tom Enders, chief executive of Airbus, the planemaker, said he didn’t believe its UK operations would benefit from Britain leaving the EU. He told a news conference: “If Britain leaves, I cannot imagine that this would have positive consequences for our competitiveness in Britain.” On Tuesday Airbus - which is headquartered in France - hosted senior Labour MP Alan Johnson, as he claimed that 50,000 engineering jobs could be lost if Britain quits the EU. Man Group chief executive Manny Roman also weighed in to the debate: “Whilst it is hard to say exactly what the impact would be, the uncertainty and potential negative consequences of Brexit for the UK’s economy should not be underestimated.”
Patients forced to make appointments to boost profits, says Labour MP Healthcare provider Virgin Care has been forcing patients to attend extra appointments to boost profits, says former employee and the Labour MP for Dewsbury, Paula Sherriff. Speaking in the House of Commons, where she was protected from possible legal action by parliamentary privilege, Sherriff accused Virgin Care of insisting on “extra consultations before surgery, boosting their profits at the expense of the taxpayer and patient safety”. Before she stood for parliament, Sherriff worked in Virgin Care’s dermatology service in West Yorkshire. She claims patients were obliged to book a second, follow-up appointment before receiving treatment – for a suspect mole, for example – when the NHS would previously have carried out the same work in a single booking. She told the prime minister this was among “many unethical practices” she had witnessed. The MP, who has made a name for herself in her short time in parliament by campaigning against the so-called “tampon tax” on sanitary products, believes the outsourcing of NHS work increases costs, and produces worse outcomes for patients. She vowed to continue to use her position in parliament to expose alleged misconduct by Virgin Care. She said: “Sadly the prime minister failed to promise any action at all. I will continue to expose the behaviour of Virgin Care in parliament, and I urge other whistleblowers to come forward.” Virgin Care, which is part of the Virgin Group, has the contracts to carry out over 230 NHS and social care services, from running GPs’ surgeries to providing healthcare in prisons. Virgin bought up private healthcare provider Assura Medical in 2010 to capitalise on the fast-growing market in healthcare. The prime minister replied that it was the last Labour government, not the Conservatives, that had significantly increased privatisation in the NHS. A spokesperson for Virgin Care said: “Our Wakefield dermatology service saved the NHS £500,000 from the cost when it was run by the hospital, while treating 10% more patients and delivering safe services from convenient community locations. “The local NHS chose us to deliver this different clinical model with more community appointments than a hospital-based service, and our work improving the service saw patient satisfaction increase by more than 25% – with 95% of patients recommending the service they received. “The MP for Dewsbury was employed by Virgin Care for three years in a non-clinical role and there is no record of ‘unethical practices’ being raised by her during this time.” A spokesman for Sheriff claimed she had raised these concerns with the company before leaving, adding that the MP planned to host a parliamentary debate on the issue. Virgin Care operates over 230 NHS and social care services across England, triggering concern in some areas. After Bath and North East Somerset clinical commissioning group announced Virgin Care as its preferred bidder to co-ordinate more than 200 health and care services in people’s homes and communities in August, Labour politicians raised concerns it was becoming harder for elected representatives to hold decision-makers to account. “As we move forward in the next three months, Labour will be ensuring there is robust scrutiny,” Robin Moss, leader of the Labour group at the council told the Somerset Live website. “In particular, we are keen to know what parts of the currently delivered services will be continued and which will be lost. We are also keen to see details of the independent research and consultation that prompted health bosses to opt for Virgin Care as their preferred choice for this multimillion-pound contract.” In 2014 Virgin Care secured a £500m contract to provide various health services in Surrey, while in January this year it won a £126m contract to provide adult community health services in hospitals in Kent. Last month, the healthcare trade union Unison organised a protest in Brighton against the prospect of community health services for children in the area being transferred to Virgin.
Trump proposes 'extreme vetting' for immigrants who may support Isis An ideological purity test to screen out immigrants with sympathies toward radical Islam has been proposed by Donald Trump in a sharp escalation of what he claimed is a religious war with the west. In a speech intended to refine his policies for combating Islamic State, the Republican presidential candidate insisted that such measures were necessary to stop its spread. “We cannot let this evil continue,” Trump told a rally of supporters in Ohio. “Nor can we let the hateful ideology of radical Islam ... be allowed to spread within our own countries.” The foreign policy address was billed by campaign officials as a return to a more presidential style from a candidate who has been buffeted in recent days by collapsing poll numbers. But instead of softening his previously blunt language calling for an outright ban on Muslim immigration, Trump used the speech to emphasise what he claimed was a epoch-defining ideological struggle. “Today we begin a conversation about how to make America safe again,” said the candidate as he compared the threat from radical Islamic terrorism to that of “Nazism” and communism and claimed it was a responsible for an attack outside the Middle East “war zone” every 84 hours this summer. “France is suffering gravely,” he added as he listed all the recent terrorist attacks in Europe and the US in detail. “Isis is on the loose. Isis has spread across the Middle East and into the west,” claimed Trump. “Today they are fully operational in 18 countries.” Trump was introduced on stage by former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, who claimed that the threat of terrorism was terrifying travellers. “I had a friend who left to go to London yesterday and he was afraid, afraid to go to London,” said Giuliani. “This is the world that Hillary Clinton created for us.” “We didn’t start this war, they did,” added Giuliani. “And they started it to create a caliphate, to destroy the infidels ...” Earlier, Hillary Clinton blasted Trump’s suitability as a candidate for commander in chief. “He says: ‘I know more about Isis than the generals,’” said Clinton shaking her head, adding: “No, Donald, you don’t. “He has the temerity to say that the United States military is a disaster,” she added. But the hawkish new tone may help Trump restore some momentum to his flagging campaign. Earlier, an editorial in the Wall Street Journal called on on him to “behave like a president or turn the nomination over to Mike Pence”. But other Republicans have argued that they cannot change tack now. “Abandoning ship is not an option; the better option is to make sure that ship is sailing in the right direction,” Rick Santorum, a former Republican presidential candidate, told CNN on Monday. Some in the party will hope that Trump’s emerging foreign policy doctrine will help distract from recent gaffes and draw sharp lines between their candidate and the policies of Clinton and Barack Obama. “It’s time to put the mistakes of the past behind us and chart a new course,” said Trump in his speech. “If I become president, the era of nation-building will be brought to a very swift and decisive end.” But the most striking new aspect of the speech was likely to be draconian proposals to try to test the ideological persuasions of those entering the US. “A new immigration policy is needed,” said Trump. “Clearly new screening procedures are needed. “We should only admit into this country those who share our values and respect our people.” “In the cold war we had an ideological screening test ... The time is overdue for a new test. I call it extreme vetting,” he concluded.
The long, difficult search for a drug to treat Alzheimer’s and dementia Most of us forget names, dates or places from time to time. But Hilary Doxford never did. While the rest of us smile about our common inadequacy, she knew she was experiencing a genuine malfunction of her high-performance brain. “I did have a really good memory and didn’t need to write things down,” she says. “And I used to be able to multiply two four-digit numbers together almost instantaneously.” But one day, she started getting the sums wrong. The doctors sent her away at first. So you can’t remember names or multiply 3,765 by 1,983 any more? Oh well, that’s middle age for you. But Doxford, who was then in her late 40s, knew differently. “My benchmark is myself,” she says. “Even now, when I tell people, everybody says: ‘I would never have known.’ What I’m doing is no different from what other people are experiencing. But when I compare it to how I used to be … I can’t multiply a two-digit number by a one-digit number. I can do it if I add them – like 27 times three. It’s my short-term memory – when you need to hang on to a number because you need to use it. That’s what’s gone.” Doxford went to the GP because her partner, Peter, had asked her to marry him. She wanted to be sure she would not be sentencing Peter to looking after a woman whose brain was deteriorating. “My GP said: ‘It’s normal – off you go.’” Three years later, then a married woman, she went back. “All the symptoms were getting worse,” she says. Doxford is the general manager of a medical research charity. “I forgot the surnames of some of my staff. I started finding it hard to concentrate and focus. Then I started avoiding taking responsibility for things unless I absolutely had to.” The GP said it was probably stress and sent her home again. But then she had a long, difficult business meeting with somebody, and when he greeted her three weeks later, she had no recollection of having met him before. This time she was sent for tests. She scored incredibly highly on the IQ part and incredibly poorly on memory, and was given an MRI scan. “The diagnosis was Alzheimer’s,” she says, matter-of-factly. Dementia will take hold of one in three people who passes the age of 65, and costs the UK more than £26bn a year. This week the Office for National Statistics announced it is now the commonest cause of death in England and Wales, passing cancer and heart disease. People with dementia lose the ability to care for themselves and can become malnourished, while their immune system weakens. Infections such as pneumonia may be the actual agent of death, but dementia is the underlying cause. It is a cruel disease, which takes away the person their families love and know, leaving a stranger who looks at them with confusion. And while there are are some drugs that will temporarily alleviate symptoms in some people, there is no cure. But dementia, of which Alzheimer’s is the commonest form, has finally begun to get the attention it deserves. In December 2013, the G8 countries, meeting in London, agreed to set an ambition to cure or come up with a significant treatment for Alzheimer’s by 2025. Last year David Cameron announced that the UK would set up a dedicated dementia research institute, with initial funding of £150m, and a further £100m from Alzheimer’s charities. Although the UK was already spending £300m on dementia research, Cameron believed it should be afforded the same level of resources as Aids and climate change. That was welcome news to campaigners, although, they say, the sum is still much less than that invested in cancer research (£590m in 2010). Doxford, now 56, was glad to have a diagnosis. “On the one hand, it was a relief, because it explained all the problems I’d been having just doing normal stuff. On the other hand, ‘Oh shit’. The first question I asked the consultant was: ‘How long have I got being normal?’ He was implying that I only had two to three years, but then he said: ‘I do know somebody who is eight years down the line and she is pretty much OK.’” Others Doxford has met have since told her of people managing fine 10 to 15 years after diagnosis. For her, it has now been nine. Initially she was put on Aricept (the brand name of donepezil), one of the few Alzheimer’s drugs currently available. These drugs help some people by delaying the worsening of symptoms, although they progress faster later on. But they do not work for everyone. “It was pretty horrendous,” says Doxford. “I seemed to get all the side effects on the packet.” She began falling over. The worst was when she was tying up the boat that she and her husband kept. “We were in the marina and I had the rope in my hand. The next thing I knew, I was in the water.” They sold the boat, fearing for her safety. The consultant gave her another drug, but it was worse. “The first day I took it, I thought I was dying,” she says. She decided drugs were not for her. There ought to be big money in Alzheimer’s drugs. It is more than a century since abnormal protein deposits in the brain were identified by the German psychiatrist Alois Alzheimer as a likely cause of neurodegeneration. Over the past few decades, drug research has focused largely on attempts to clear the amyloid-beta peptides and tau proteins believed to cause these deposits, which gradually shut down the brain’s normal workings. But there has been a very high failure rate, often at a late stage of development, when companies have spent a great deal of money – in some cases as much as $300m – on research and development. Dr Eric Karran, formerly the director of research at Alzheimer’s Research UK and now leading the efforts of drug company Abbvie to find a cure, says that yes, it’s difficult, but too often in these failed trials, the preparatory work has not been thorough enough. “Some people in the field would say that [the failure rate] has been a disaster,” he says. They suggest that the underlying concept, that Alzheimer’s is caused by amyloid plaque, may be wrong. “I would not subscribe to that view. There has been some sloppy science. We would not expect such trials to work anyway. In some cases there has been a very strong commercial push. In other cases, there has been a strong desire to get something into [human trials] because we have so little.” Nobody would say research into Alzheimer’s is easy, says Dr Mike Hutton, chief scientific officer for neuroscientific drug discovery at the pharmaceutical company Lilly. “Amyloid accumulates in the brain for 10 to 15 years before you see clinical symptoms. There is a worry that we’re focusing on populations that are too far advanced.” Ideally, scientists must figure out who is most likely to get Alzheimer’s – then see if they can prevent healthy brains from developing it. But although there are some predictive tests available, it is hardly ethical to offer them to people when medical science cannot offer them treatment. So the trials must be done in people with the earliest stages of dementia. And this year, for the first time, the results of two separate early trials have suggested that it may be possible to find drugs that might slow down the decay for people with mild dementia. Small wonder there have been wild headlines about a cure – a bit of good news is desperately wanted. One, Lilly’s solanezumab, a monoclonal antibody, failed in a large 2012 trial to slow the deterioration in most people with Alzheimer’s, but there was some improvement in those with the mildest form of the disease. Results from a new trial of more than 2,000 people with early-stage Alzheimer’s are eagerly anticipated, and due before the end of the year. Another drug, Biogen’s aducanumab, made headlines in September. Trial results showed it almost completely cleared amyloid from the brains of a group of early Alzheimer’s patients, and that the expected deterioration slowed down significantly. The trial was small (166 people), and at the high doses that produced the best results, there were side effects such as headaches, but there was excited talk of “a game-changer”. There has been such hype before, but David Reynolds, chief scientific officer of Alzheimer’s Research UK, says he is reasonably confident that the solanezumab results in December will also show an improvement in the symptoms of dementia, or at least a slowing of the decline. Sadly, there still seems little hope for those who already have moderate to severe dementia, beyond care and compassion. In a nursing home in Hertfordshire, surrounded by trees and green spaces, James Gatesman, a former coroner’s officer and enthusiastic allotment gardener, spent the last years of his life in bed, his long legs angled to the wall, under a framed photograph of his Metropolitan police class at Hendon College. A yellow spot attached to the glass identified his own face in the picture. You could still see the fine figure of a man that Gatesman had been – 6ft 2in with broad shoulders and a strong, handsome face. But he had ceased to speak, and could no longer move his own limbs. His daughter Deborah and his wife, Doreen, could only communicate with him through touch, or his occasional grunts, moans and howls. “I always talk to him and treat him as if he understands us,” said Deborah, shortly before her father died. “I think of it as almost like locked-in syndrome – that he is in there. I worry about what we discuss in front of him.” When his wife paid for him to have music therapy, Gatesman responded to the Gilbert and Sullivan tunes he used to love with noises and movement of his hands. That confirmed Deborah’s belief that he was more aware than he seemed. Gatesman was diagnosed in 2003, but Doreen recalls odd behaviour on a holiday in Australia in 1996, when he wandered away from their group and nobody knew where he was. In later years, his behaviour became unpredictable, and he refused to go to a doctor. “That was probably the worst time,” she said. “Where do you go for help?” Eventually Gatesman had to see a GP because of an ear infection, and ended up in the memory clinic. He had a brain scan and was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. The progression was slow but inexorable. He was on Aricept for a year, but that was stopped when he was sent to a residential assessment centre – a care home where people with dementia spend some weeks or months while their condition and needs are determined. Instead, he was put on the drugs that are too often used to control the sometimes bizarre and agitated behaviour of dementia patients – antipsychotics. “He was throwing chairs around and he did pull a handrail off the wall,” Doreen says. When they visited him, he was no longer walking, but sitting in a reclining chair. “He was a bit of a dribbling mess,” said Deborah. “The antipsychotics were turning him into a zombie.” By the time he was moved to the long-term home in Hertfordshire, he was underweight. Doreen insisted the antipsychotics were stopped, and he regained not just his weight, but his spirit. Then “they had quite a lively character on their hands. He would run off down the corridors,” said Deborah. Or he would speak to the Polish nurses in the Flemish and German he had learned while in the RAF, in the war. The Alzheimer’s Society has campaigned to reduce the use of antipsychotics – often referred to as the “chemical cosh” – in care homes. Dr Doug Brown, the organisation’s research director, says prescriptions have markedly reduced as a result, though “we wouldn’t say the problem has gone away. We still need to keep an eye on it”. The Society has piloted staff training in more than 100 care homes for “person-centred care”, which appears to cut the use of drugs dramatically. It involves taking the trouble to understand the triggers for an individual’s distress – such as the man who gathered all his furniture in the centre of his room every day and became upset when staff put it back. He was a decorator. Given a brush and a bucket of water, he spent contented hours thinking he was painting the walls. The overuse of antipsychotics is one outcome of the past neglect of dementia, and further evidence of the real need for a drug that will do more than just quieten patients down – one that will slow the progress of a devastating disease and eventually, hopefully, cure it.
Brexit would lead to more expensive flights and holidays, Cameron says David Cameron has ramped up his warnings about the cost of leaving the EU, telling workers their jobs could be at risk and the prices of holidays and basic goods could rise. The prime minister made the prediction on his third campaign visit since striking a deal to give the UK a new relationship with Brussels and naming the date of the EU referendum last Saturday. For the first time, he used the claim of the Britain Stronger in Europe camp that prices in shops could go up and echoed the warning of easyJet’s chief executive, Carolyn McCall, that the EU has benefited holidaymakers by driving down the cost of flying. Cameron said: “I think there are some quite retail points we should focus on. Since we joined the EU, the cost of flights, the cost of holidays, has come right down. That’s something we benefit from. “We’ve also got to think about the issue of the prices in our shops. Being part of a single market keeps our prices down. I think there’s a real risk that, if we leave, we would see fewer jobs, less investment and higher prices.” Speaking to workers at BAE Systems in Preston, Lancashire, on Thursday, he urged them to consider the risk of companies losing trade and cutting jobs if the UK exits the EU. Asked directly if leaving the EU would threaten jobs at the defence company, which employs thousands of people in the UK, he said: “I am saying that we are better off in a reformed European Union. I think jobs would be at risk – there are three million jobs that in some way depend on our trade with the European Union.” Leaving the EU would put defence cooperation with countries like Italy, France and Gemany at risk, Cameron said. “The more partnerships we have, the more we are likely to maintain and enhance our skills base here in the UK and so if we were to leave the EU, of course that does not technically take you out of the Typhoon programme or take you out of other collaborations you can do with other European countries. “But I think it would make it more difficult because the fact is, sitting around that European Union table with the French, the Germans and the Italians, that is where we have many of these conversations. And so it could put at risk some of the defence collaboration we have today.” Cameron said it would be possible to cooperate with the French outside of the EU, “but would the French be as enthusiastic about it if we were not sitting around that table with them, working out how to bring our muscle to bear on the problems of the world? I think they would be less interested and less willing.” The prime minister also repeated his previous claims that the UK is better able to stand up to Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, and Islamic State from inside the EU, while adding that cooperation to stop British ships being captured by pirates is also vital. Cameron has repeatedly described the prospect of leaving the EU as a “great leap in the dark”. Brexit campaigners have accused Cameron and others fighting to keep the UK in the EU of engaging in “project fear” – a strategy of frightening people into voting to stay in the EU. Cameron has clashed several times with cabinet colleagues in the leave campaign over his arguments for staying in the EU. On Thursday, he slapped down Iain Duncan Smith, the work and pensions secretary, for claiming that the emergency brake on migrant benefits will not work, insisting it will be a key part of the government bringing down net migration to its target of tens of thousands, not hundreds of thousands, a year. The day before, he rejected the argument of Michael Gove, the justice secretary, that his EU deal is not legally binding and dismissed the suggestion of Boris Johnson, the London mayor, that a vote to leave could lead to better renegotiations with the EU. But the prime minister appeared to concede he would be keen for further renegotiations when treaties are reopened in future. “Is it the end of the need for reform in Europe? No. And the next time there’s a full-on discussion of treaties and treaty changes, I think we could go even further and say: ‘Right, we’ve sorted out getting out of the single currency, we’ve sorted out staying out of the Schengen no-borders agreement, we’re now out of the ever closer political union.’ “And at the next set of discussions, there may be more arrangements that Britain wants to confirm or strengthen.”
Gordon Brown enters EU debate with passionate appeal to Labour voters Gordon Brown has waded into the European Union referendum debate with a stark warning that Britain will only retain its EU membership if Labour and other non-Conservative political parties deliver a majority of votes. In an impassioned speech at the London School of Economics, the former prime minister argued that co-operation across Europe was at the heart of what it meant to be British, and called for a more upbeat tone to help turn out millions of voters who were opposed to the Tories. “While the Conservatives have 11 million voters, the other parties between them will probably have to deliver the majority of votes and my appeal to the Labour voters is a positive one,” said Brown, who defended the efforts that the party’s leader, Jeremy Corbyn, had made in the referendum battle. He said it was the splits within the Conservative party that had led to the referendum, and argued that it must now be used to settle the question once and for all. Brown talked of the country’s “Dunkirk spirit” and quoted Shakespeare in a article, before using his speech to say he wanted to take head-on the picture of Britain that had been painted by out campaigners. “There is another view of Britain that is more in tune with our patriotic ideas about ourself. It is of a Britain that has always been outward looking and not inward looking. It is a Britain that, for all its faults, has been internationalist not isolationist. “It is a Britain that has always been engaged with the world rather than a Britain that stands apart and aloof.” Brown said voters should think of the Britain that fought a war against fascism, and whose soldiers walked into concentration camps at the end of the second world war and were determined to tell the world that evil like that should never be repeated. Addressing charges of antisemitism within his own party, he said he would not be a “rent-a-quote” but it was crucial that a clear message was sent that it was wrong and should be punished, adding he believed that Corbyn would make the same argument. In a speech that was aimed at replicating his powerful intervention in the Scottish referendum, Brown quoted John F Kennedy saying: “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” He also spoke about Nelson Mandela. Brown echoed a warning from David Cameron about the risks to peace of leaving the EU. “You’ve got to think of the sweep of history here. For a thousand years nations and tribes of Europe were fighting to the finish murdering and maiming each other,” he said. “There is no century except this one where Europe has been at peace and where nations, whether it be Germany or France or Spain or the Netherlands or Britain or Russia, were not vying for supremacy.” He spoke of parents and grandparents and great-grandparents fighting wars and said the European Union had been a huge success in maintaining peace. “What has happened is not a temporary truce, it is not simply a ceasefire, it is not simply a peace held together by the threat of arms,” he said. “It is the development and evolution of a new structure of decision making ... where people battle only with arguments and ideas. Where we managed to find a way of making decisions that prevent conflict arising. There has been no war between European members at any point in the last 70 years.” Asked about immigration by an FT journalist, he pointed out that the newspaper focused more on trade and economics than freedom of movement issues, but conceded that he had to convince voters who were worried about the issue by making a positive case. He said he would be happy to take on Boris Johnson on the issue. “I think Boris is making statements today that if set against statements a year ago or two years ago or five years ago might make him look like he’s saying different things ... than when he was more enthusiastic about the European Union,” he said.
Breasts are not always best for body image Though envying the freedom boys had physically and socially, and, as a child, trying to be as boylike as possible, I have never rejected being female. But like Jack Monroe (Being trans isn’t a phase you go through, 20 May), I felt dismayed as I lost my prepubescent body. Small breasts might have been acceptable, but I was blessed with large ones, which I tried to disguise with loose tops. Last year, on turning 70, a second bout of cancer resulted in my losing both breasts. Without them I feel younger and happy in my body for the first time in my life since childhood. My heterosexual marriage is a happy one and has not been affected. The only person upset was my wonderful surgeon, who had looked forward to reconstructing me. Vaughan Melzer London • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
Election diary: excusing Trump, (official) secrets of risotto, and Obama the linguist There seems no end to the excuses that Republicans can find for Donald Trump’s boasts about groping women. Former Republican candidate Ben Carson suggested not enough people have been exposed to such sexually overt language. “Maybe that’s the problem,” he said on CNN. Over on MSNBC, interviewer Chris Hayes asked: “If a tape came out with Donald Trump saying that, saying ‘I really like to rape women,’ you would continue to endorse him?” Texas Republican congressman Blake Farenthold replied: “Again, it would, I – that would be bad, and I would have to consider – I’d consider it.” He later apologised, claiming he had been thrown off by a hypothetical question. Republican-supporting actor Jon Voight tried it this way: “I don’t know of too many men who haven’t expressed some sort of similar sexual terms toward women, especially in their younger years.” Back on CNN, former New York lieutenant governor Betsy McCaughey called Clinton a “hypocrite” for attacking Trump for his use of “lewd and bawdy” language while being a Beyoncé fan. McCaughey said: “In fact, [Clinton] likes language like this: ‘I came to slay, bitch. When he eff me good, I take his ass to Red Lobster.’” Asked if Clinton actually expressed a liking for those lyrics, she replied: “That happens to be a line from Beyoncé, her favorite performer, who she says she idolises and would like to imitate.” *** The Pentagon Papers … Watergate … Snowden … John Podesta’s risotto. A hack of the Clinton campaign chairman’s emails has failed to produce a smoking gun but it has delivered a steaming plate of Italian rice. It reveals how Peter Huffman, who used to work at the Clinton Health Access Initiative, wrote to him: “So I have been making a lot of risotto lately … and regardless of the recipe, I more/less adhere to every step you taught me. Why can’t you just add 1 or 2 cups of stock at a time b/c the Arborio rice will eventually absorb it all anyway, right”. Podesta wrote back: “Yes and no. Yes it with [sic] absorb the liquid, but no that’s not what you want to do. The slower add process and stirring causes the rice to give up it’s [sic] starch which gives the risotto it’s [sic] creamy consistency. You won’t get that if you dump all that liquid at once.” Podesta’s email is timed at 2.50am. Trump has been criticised for tweeting at 3am, but anyway. Good to know that if President Clinton has to take the 3am call, there will be a risotto chef on standby. *** Barack Obama is a tough act to follow as an orator but not impossible to beat as a linguist. The language-learning app Babbel asked foreign embassies and expat organisations to rate the president’s attempts at their native tongue. His Spanish is “almost perfect”, according to the Spanish embassy, which awarded him 4 out of 5. He got the same score from the Indonesian embassy, probably due to his childhood in Indonesia. He was awarded 4.5 for Persian, 4 for Swahili, 3.5 for Arabic, Dutch and Greek, 3 for German, 2.5 for Hindi and only 1 for French. The Arab American Institute in Washington said: “When you listen to him, you think, ‘Boy, he really emphasised that second part, the alaikum.’ It’s interesting that even in another language, the president’s signature voice and mannerisms are still prevalent. It’s hard to explain, but his Arabic comes out sounding very Obama-like, as if an Arabic-speaker were to do an impression of the president in Arabic.” And this from the French-American Foundation: “Unfortunately, we cannot give President Obama high marks for his pronunciation. It was nice that he used the French words, but they may as well have been American.” Clinton, as her campaign constantly reminds us, has visited 112 countries, so probably picked up some phrases along the way. Trump is speaking a language of his own already. *** Cat woman. Hillary Clinton in San Francisco on Thursday: “There’s hardly any part of America that he’s not targeted. Now it makes you want to turn off the news. It makes you want to unplug the internet. Or just look at cat gifs. Believe me, I get it. In the last few weeks I’ve watched a lot of cats do a lot of weird and interesting things.” *** Among Washington’s lesser-known museums is the Belmont-Paul Women’s Equality National Monument, located on Capitol Hill and home to the National Woman’s party since 1929. Its exhibition of political cartoons by Nina Allender, champion of the suffragist cause, is worth the visit alone. There’s also a section devoted to the 19th amendment which, passed by Congress in 1919, gave women the right to vote. What would the ghosts in this place make of #repealthe19th? The Twitter hashtag took flight this week after Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight website published a map showing that if only men were allowed to cast their ballots, Trump would cruise to the presidency with 350 electoral votes against Clinton’s 188 (in a women-only election, Clinton would win 458-80). Even some women said they would surrender their right to vote if it meant a Trump victory. **** Frank Luntz is America’s favourite focus grouper – that’s grouper, not groper – and has every political geek’s dream home. A Hollywood Reporter profile shows him sitting in a replica Oval Office at his six-bedroom, 14,000 sq ft house in Los Angeles. The Republican pollster also has a replica of the Lincoln bedroom, speakers that blare Hail to the Chief at the touch of a button and a dizzying array of memorabilia that includes a version of the blue dress notoriously worn by Monica Lewinsky. Asked what keepsake he would like from 2016, Luntz replies by email: “I’d actually like to forget this election as quickly as possible. But the one piece that got away was a sample ballot from the Iowa caucuses or the New Hampshire primary that had all the presidential candidates listed. (I have an original 1928 election ballot with my great grandfather A S Luntz on it. He was running for justice of the peace. He won.)” If anyone is still looking for ideas what to get Luntz for Christmas, there’s something else. “But the item I want the most is an Andrew Johnson impeachment ticket from 1867. I’m one of only about ten people to own an impeachment ticket from every day of the Bill Clinton trial. I’d like to put the two impeachment tickets next to each other.” *** Gaffe “Don’t tell me, if you said that, that you remember September 11, 2001. I remember September 11, 2001. Yes, yes, you helped to get benefits for the people that were injured that day. But I heard her say one day she was there that day. I was there that day. I don’t remember seeing Hillary Clinton there.” Rudy Giuliani later apologised for accusing Clinton of saying she was in New York on 11 September 2001; she had said nothing of the sort. *** Zinger “It is cruel. It’s frightening. And the truth is, it hurts. It hurts. It’s like that sick, sinking feeling you get when you’re walking down the street minding your own business and some guy yells out vulgar words about your body. Or when you see that guy at work that stands just a little too close, stares a little too long, and makes you feel uncomfortable in your own skin.” – Michelle Obama on Donald Trump’s alleged assaults on women *** Tweet Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump It is so nice that the shackles have been taken off me and I can now fight for America the way I want to. 10:00am – 11 Oct 2016 *** Number 33 states have contacted the Department of Homeland Security to discuss and evaluate any potential vulnerabilities in their election systems amid fears that Russia will try to hack and manipulate the result. **** Photo
Trans mission: how to tell our stories on stage and screen There’s a reason trans people say cis people shouldn’t tell trans stories. It’s not that it can’t be done, because it can: if we didn’t have cis-trans collaborations, we wouldn’t have Tangerine or Laverne Cox. But when you’re cisgender – when your gender identity aligns with what you were assigned at birth – the stakes become higher for everyone. Cis people have had a long history of profiting from their interpretations of trans stories, which is why many trans people feel that the use of their stories equates to theft. The criticism levelled at Dallas Buyers Club and The Danish Girl showed the ways in which getting it wrong can really hurt the trans community, and the great financial failure that was Stonewall served as a warning to creators of and investors in poorly appropriated stories. As trans issues begin to permeate pop culture and the arts, conversations about representation become more and more important. Rough Drafts is a prestigious program presented by Sydney Theatre Company, which offers workshops to successful applicants to develop new pieces of theatre, and offers the public a rare glimpse at the works in progress. One of the latest, Something for Cate, had a public showing this month after just a week in development. It explores the life of the former cricket commentator and 2015 Queenslander of the Year Cate McGregor, who was a lieutenant colonel in the Australian defence force when she came out as being transgender in 2013. Although the play is very much in its nascent phase of development, it offers an insightful look at a timely question: how can cis people ethically tell trans stories? The director, Priscilla Jackman, approached the Sydney Theatre Company to produce the piece after meeting McGregor and finding her stories electrifying. The script comes directly from those interviews. Hearing vignettes of McGregor talking about cricket, it’s clear why Jackman was struck by her subject: McGregor tells a damn good story. But letting McGregor dictate the narrative is a good move for another reason: it reduces the potential damage to trans people that comes when their stories are appropriated from outside the community. In Something for Cate, McGregor talks about how she has felt confronted by trans people who do not “pass” for the gender they identify as; and growing up, she says, she was taught to believe that trans people were unstable and mentally unwell. She knows that this internalised transphobia has shaped how she behaves towards herself and others; being trans, she also knows how confessions like this can be dangerous and alienating. But they would be more dangerous and alienating out of the mouth of a cis person, so putting McGregor front and centre is smart. Casting is another important consideration. In Something for Cate, some monologues are read by a single actor – at the Rough Drafts public performance, the cis actor Kym Vercoe – but often McGregor’s words are distributed among other cast members, so McGregor seems to be a disembodied spirit in the room. This Greek-style chorus minimises some of the damage that can occur when casting cis people in trans stories. Here’s why that’s a problem: every time a cis woman is cast in a trans woman’s role, the trans aspect of the character is effectively erased – no matter how good an actor she is. At best, this can feel like a calculated decision to ensure that cis audiences don’t feel confronted, as McGregor did, with the reality of a trans person. At worst – such as in 2005 film Transamerica, starring Felicity Huffman – the casting of a cis woman reinforces the narrative’s prejudice, implying that only some types of bodies can belong to women. The casting of a cis man in a role for a trans woman can be even more damaging: in The Crying Game and Dallas Buyers Club it fostered the idea that trans women are just men in drag, bolstering the kind of prejudice that can snowball into deeply oppressive laws. Many directors justify their casting decisions in the same way: they argue that there simply aren’t any trans actors with the clout or ability to tell our stories. On a show like Transparent, this is understandable: the part of Maura called for an actor in his 70s who hadn’t medically transitioned. To try to find a trans woman of that age who was not only happy to be outed and interested in acting, but also with the talent to carry a lead Netflix role wouldn’t have been easy. For a local theatre production, of course, that justification is harder to sympathise with. There are talented emerging trans actors who would have relished the opportunity to be a part of Rough Drafts – which is, after all, about fostering new talent. All it would have taken was a call-out in the community (trans actors are often locked out of casting pools). Casting trans people in trans roles has another benefit: it gives a leg-up to trans people who can then make room for others in the industry. By casting Laverne Cox, for instance, Orange Is the New Black provided a huge platform for her to advocate for trans people – especially trans women of colour, who are among the most disadvantaged people in the world. Cis actors, on the other hand, are free to walk away from the community after the spotlight shifts. Which brings us to another issue: Priscilla Jackman is an undeniably talented director who has approached this narrative with good intent. But by choosing her project over a trans-led one, Sydney Theatre Company is denying opportunities to the exact group of people who are the most skilled and equipped to take a story like this on. This won’t have been a concerted effort to lock trans people out, of course – but unless there is a holistic approach to representation, trans people face the equivalent of a glass ceiling. Consultation with the trans community isn’t always the answer, either: it can insulate a creator from blame and can pit trans people against each other – particularly when that consultation doesn’t produce inclusive results. Those funding productions and those creating them need to push for more significant and less tokenistic inclusions of trans people in their stories. In Something for Cate, McGregor is in raptures when she recounts the 2011 Sir Donald Bradman oration by the former Indian cricket captain Rahul Dravid, in which he likens cricket to war and talks about the strong resilience of both India and Australia. It’s a fascinating segment of the play that presents an opportunity to examine how McGregor’s femininity and womanhood existed – and continues to exist – in spaces that are rooted in jingoism and rigid masculinity. There’s a temptation to focus on the vignettes of trans experience that titillate and humour cis audiences – but with such a fascinating, complicated subject at its core, who is defined by so much more than her gender, Something for Cate has the opportunity to make a powerful impact. • Find out more about Sydney Theatre company’s creative development program Rough Drafts here • Read more about the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia (#Idahot)
Trump campaign chief Steve Bannon is registered voter at vacant Florida home Donald Trump’s new presidential campaign chief is registered to vote in a key swing state at an empty house where he does not live, in an apparent breach of election laws. Stephen Bannon, the chief executive of Trump’s election campaign, has an active voter registration at the house in Miami-Dade County, Florida, which is vacant and due to be demolished to make way for a new development. “I have emptied the property,” Luis Guevara, the owner of the house, which is in the Coconut Grove section of the city, said in an interview. “Nobody lives there … we are going to make a construction there.” Neighbors said the property had been abandoned for several months. Bannon, 62, formerly rented the house for use by his ex-wife, Diane Clohesy, but did not live there himself. Clohesy, a Tea Party activist, moved out of the house earlier this year and has her own irregular voting registration arrangement. According to public records, Bannon and Clohesy divorced seven years ago. Bannon previously rented another house for Clohesy in Miami from 2013 to 2015 and assigned his voter registration to the property during that period. But a source with direct knowledge of the rental agreement for this house said Bannon did not live there either, and that Bannon and Clohesy were not in a relationship. Bannon, Clohesy and Trump’s campaign repeatedly declined to answer detailed questions about Bannon’s voting arrangements. Jason Miller, a Trump campaign spokesman, eventually said in an email: “Mr Bannon moved to another location in Florida.” Miller declined to answer further questions. Bannon is executive chairman of the rightwing website Breitbart News, which has for years aggressively claimed that voter fraud is rife among minorities and in Democratic-leaning areas. The allegation has been repeated forcefully on the campaign trail by Trump, who has predicted the election will be “rigged” and warned supporters that victory could be fraudulently “taken away from us”. But it is not clear that Bannon is actually entitled to vote in Florida, one of the most important prizes for Trump and Hillary Clinton in their quest for the 270 electoral votes they need to secure the White House in November’s general election. Details of the apparent breach of election laws by Trump’s campaign chief came as it was revealed that Bannon was once charged with misdemeanor domestic violence after a violent argument with his first wife. Court documents first obtained by Politico describe how, in 1996, his wife was left with red marks on her neck and wrist after the New Year’s Day argument at their home in Santa Monica, California, which began when she woke early to feed their twin daughters and he “got upset at her for making noise”. The case was closed after Bannon’s ex-wife failed to appear in court to testify to the accusations. Five months later, she filed to dissolve their marriage. In a police report of the 1996 altercation, she described three or four previous arguments that “became physical”. Bannon, who only recently came into the Trump camp in a move to reset the ailing campaign, is now under fresh scrutiny over his right to vote. Under Florida law, voters must be legal residents of the state and of the county where they register to vote. Guidelines from the Florida department of state say that Florida courts and state authorities have defined legal residency as the place “where a person mentally intends to make his or her permanent residence”. Wilfully submitting false information on a Florida voter registration – or helping someone to do so – is a third-degree felony punishable by up to five years in prison. Election officials in Miami-Dade make clear to prospective voters that they are required to actually live in the county and to use their home address in election paperwork. “You must reside in Miami-Dade County,” their website states. It adds: “When you register to vote, an actual residence address is required by law.” A county spokeswoman did not respond to questions relating to Bannon’s situation. Three neighbors said the house where Bannon is currently registered to vote had been abandoned for three months. When the visited the property on Thursday a large window in the front aspect was missing. A soiled curtain was blowing through it. The driveway was a mess of tree branches and mud. Bannon never appeared at the house, according to the neighbors. One of them, Joseph Plummer Jr, who lives next door, said Clohesy lived at the house until earlier this year and that a man of Latino appearance in his 20s was the only male ever seen there. Asked whether a man of Bannon’s description stayed at the house, Plummer said: “No, that was not that individual, not at all.” The same arrangement was in place at the previous house in Miami. The $5,500 per month rent was paid via Bannon’s accountants in Beverly Hills, but “he was never there,” according to someone with direct involvement in the rental arrangement, who requested anonymity for fear of repercussions from Bannon. “In my opinion, he was not living there,” said the source. “He maybe came around twice a year for a couple of days at best, but he did not live there.” The source’s account was supported by another neighbor, who declined to be quoted for publication. Bannon owns no property in his name in Miami-Dade, according to records held by the office of the county property appraiser. As recently as last week he was reported to be a resident of Laguna Beach in Orange County, California, where, according to public records, he owns a house. From October last year until he joined the Trump campaign this month, Bannon was the lead presenter on the Breitbart News Daily talkshow, which airs seven mornings a week on SiriusXM. A Sirius spokeswoman said Bannon hosted the show live from Washington DC or New York. Records from the Orange County registrar of voters state that Bannon was registered to vote there from the 1980s until 2014, when he cancelled his registration and began registering in Miami. He had voted in most general elections by mail in California but, according to records, did not vote in the 2012 presidential primary, when eventual nominee Mitt Romney beat candidates including Newt Gingrich, Bannon’s fellow rightwinger and Trump ally. Bannon also co-owns a condominium in Los Angeles and is known to stay at the so-called “Breitbart embassy”, a luxurious $2.4m townhouse beside the supreme court in Washington DC, where his website’s staff work from basement offices. A Bloomberg profile of Bannon published last October, with which he cooperated, stated that Bannon “occupies” the townhouse and described it as being “his”. But according to records at the DC office of tax and revenue, the Breitbart house is actually owned by Mostafa El-Gindy, an Egyptian businessman and former member of parliament. Gindy has received favorable coverage from Breitbart News, which styles him as a “senior statesman”, without an accompanying disclosure that he is the website’s landlord. Neither Bannon or Clohesy, his ex-wife, responded to requests for comment for this article. Acquiring Florida residency is often attractive to outsiders to the state due to Florida’s lack of state income tax. This allows people with a residency to legally avoid paying state income tax on so-called “unearned” income, such as dividends, interests and retirement benefits. Attorneys often advise people seeking Florida residency that it helps to assign their voter registration to a property in the state. Clohesy, who has worked on conservative films produced by Bannon since their divorce, also has a voting arrangement that appears to contravene Florida regulations. Rather than register to vote from her rented homes in Miami, she was and continues to be registered to vote in neighboring Broward County from a mailbox at a shipping facility in the city of Pompano Beach. The use of such mailbox addresses is not allowed by Broward County, which requires that residents use their home address. “You have to give the address where you live, so you can’t use a PO box,” said Tonya Edwards, a spokeswoman for the county supervisor of elections. Clohesy appears in the county election register as living at 102 Governmental Center, which is actually the address of the elections supervisor’s office. Edwards, the spokeswoman for the office, told the this designation was intended for homeless people. This article was originally published on 26 August 2016 and updated on 13 November 2016 after Bannon was named chief strategist for Donald Trump’s White House.
US-EU bond is enduring and unbreakable, John Kerry says The US will maintain an “enduring and unbreakable” partnership with the European Union, according to the US secretary of state, John Kerry, while Boris Johnson insisted Britain was not abandoning its “leading role” in Europe. Kerry spoke after meeting the EU foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, and the EU’s 28 foreign ministers in Brussels, including Johnson, who made his debut on the world stage as the UK’s top diplomat. The agenda was dominated by the failed military coup in Turkey and terrorism, following the attack in Nice on Bastille Day. The US was a major supporter of Britain’s continued EU membership but has been at pains to show that diplomatic ties with Europe will not be knocked off course by Brexit. In a rousing tribute to the EU, touching on the history of the second world war, Kerry said the EU-US relationship was strong and would remain so in the future. “It is enduring and it is unbreakable,” Kerry said, noting his visit on Sunday to the US military cemetery in Luxembourg, where more than 5,000 American soldiers are buried. “I ask anyone who questions the importance of the EU or its relationship with the United States to never forget, not just the history that I articulated, but the increase of prosperity, the rise in the standard of living, the better healthcare, the better education opportunities, the better promotion and protection of rights throughout the EU as a consequence of what we have done together.” The Brexit vote had created uncertainty, he said, while adding that all sides – the US, the UK and the EU – had an interest in “the smoothest possible transition”. “We are collaborating now as intensely and as widely as we ever have and I am convinced we will continue to do that.” Kerry’s impassioned tribute to the importance of working with the EU was in striking contrast to Johnson, who recently compared its goals to those of Adolf Hitler. Arriving at the meeting on Monday, Johnson struck a different tone from that he adopted during the campaign. He stressed that Britain’s decision to leave the EU “in no sense means that we are leaving Europe”, nor “abandoning our leading role in European co-operation and participation of all kinds”. Johnson was on his first outing as the UK’s foreign secretary, and it was a meeting that brought him to the same table as his French counterpart, Jean-Marc Ayrault, who has accused the former mayor of London of lying to the British people during the referendum campaign. Ayrault said he had had a “frank, but useful” telephone call with Johnson on Saturday. “I will always speak to Boris Johnson with the greatest sincerity and frankness,” he said, adding that France had one goal: “to avoid Europe moving into a situation of uncertainty as regards the future of relations between Britain and Europe.” Kerry’s visit was said to be the first time a US secretary of state had attended a formal EU foreign affairs meeting. Speaking afterwards, he described the meeting as helpful and constructive, and suggested it was “something we ought to be doing on a regular basis”. Mogherini responded straight away with one word: “Deal.” But ties may not always be so smooth. Kerry promised to visit Brussels in the coming months to press the case for TTIP, the transatlantic trade deal mired in controversy. TTIP remained “a high priority” for the president, Barack Obama, and had become even more important following the Brexit vote, Kerry said. “TTIP actually becomes more important,” he said, suggesting it could be a counterweight to difficulties the UK might have in negotiating a trade deal with the EU. “[TTIP] has a very significant ability to act as a counter to whatever negatives may or may not ultimately attach themselves to whatever construct is negotiated between the UK and Europe.” Doubts are growing about TTIP after multiple rounds of inconclusive discussions. France has threatened to veto the deal and negotiations remain bogged down by disagreements. Kerry said he “respectfully disagreed” with people who said the deal could not go forward. “I think as people learn the facts there will be an important opportunity for us to take steps forward.”
Barclays and Credit Suisse pay biggest ever fines for dark pool trading Barclays and Credit Suisse has been fined $154m (£108m) following an investigation into the banks’ “dark pools” private trading exchanges exploited by “predatory, high-frequency traders” at the expense of the bank’s traditonal customers. Eric Schneiderman, attorney general of New York state, said the fines were a “major victory in the fight to combat fraud in dark pool trading” and would help protect investors from “the most aggressive and predatory high-speed traders”. Barclays will pay $70m, the largest ever fine for operating a dark pool, and has admitted that it misled investors and violated securities laws and has agreed that it will install an independent monitor to oversee its “Barclays LX”. The fine settles a high profile lawsuit Schneiderman brought against Barclays in June 2014 as part of his office’s “Insider Trading 2.0” crackdown on electronic trading in the wake of Michael Lewis’s bestselling book and blockbuster movie Flash Boys. Dark pools are private exchanges for trading stocks and bonds, but unlike traditional markets there are no public prices and trades can be carried out in secret which can favour high speed traders. Schneiderman said Barclays had told its dark pool clients that it monitored for high-speed trading, but it didn’t and it actually favoured high-speed traders. This meant that traditional players thought they were only up against other traditional traders when actually they were facing “the most aggressive and predatory high-speed traders,” he said. Barclays and Credit Suisse each made “false statements and omissions in connection with the marketing of their respective dark pools and other high-speed electronic equities trading services,” Schneiderman said in his news release. “This effort, which began when we first sued Barclays, includes co-ordinated and aggressive government action which forced admissions of wrongdoing from the parties,” Schneiderman said. “We will continue to take the fight to those who aim to rig the system and those who look the other way.” Mary Jo White, the chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), said: “These cases are the most recent in a series of strong SEC enforcement actions involving dark pools and other alternative trading systems.” White said the SEC would continue in its efforts to “shed light on dark pools to better protect investors”. Andrew Ceresney, director of the SEC’s enforcement division, said: “Dark pools have a significant role in today’s equity marketplace, and the firms that run these venues must ensure that they do not make misstatements to subscribers about their material operations.” Barclays, which has a big operation in New York, said the bank was pleased to resolve the case. “The agreement will enable us to focus all of our efforts on serving our clients,” the bank said. Credit Suisse was fined $60m fine split between the SEC and NY attorney-general’s office, as well as a further $24.3m in disgorgement — which is designed to make it pay back ill-gotten gains - in relation to its dark pool called “Crossfinder”.
An ashtray for President Tito: after the fall, the staying power of Yugoslav art “An artist must be good-looking,” says Marina Abramović, staring into the camera and furiously brushing her hair. “Art,” she says, “must be beautiful.” Beauty is in short supply in Monuments Should Not Be Trusted, the largest exhibition in the UK to focus on the art of the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. It is a country that no longer exists, yet the art it produced continues to resonate. The exhibition takes us from the 60s to the late 80s, before the dissolution of the communist state, the wars and years of chaos. Abramović is one of several artists appearing in German film-maker Lutz Becker’s 1975 Film Notes, a record of performance and statements about art and socialist society, in the wake of the 1968 student protests and subsequent loosening of state control. On a wall nearby, a photograph shows Abramović lying inside a five-pointed star, made from a wooden trough filled with burning wood shavings and petrol. During the 1974 performance in Belgrade, she passed out from lack of oxygen and had to be rescued as the flames reached her legs. The revolution, her work proclaims, devours its children. The art and film, the clips from TV pop music programmes, the photographs and records of performances in Monuments Should Not be Trusted are by turns innocent, angry, sarcastic, ludicrous and critical. Some of it – matchboxes painted with pictures of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones – seems very slight. Karpo Godina’s film, in which members of the poetry and dance collective Pupilija Ferkeverk lark about in a shallow lagoon, while a topless woman rides a swing over the water, accompanied by a blues-rock number by Rory Gallagher and Taste, ends with people ostentatiously taking LSD. Banned for a number of years owing to its drug reference, the film has also lost what subversive edge it once might have had, but retains a period charm. Hippy rebellion, sexual liberation and nudity begin to be used as signal to a greater cultural openness and transparency, an idea rejected by bands like Borghesia in the 80s. Borghesia’s video On (Him) combines synth-heavy new romanticism with BDSM scenes in which sex is displayed as a performance of control and subjugation. All this is in stark contrast to the most monumental objects in the exhibition, which aren’t so much untrustworthy as objects of jaw-dropping witlessness: a brass hammer and sickle table-lamp, a matchbox holder in the form of a partisan resting on a rock, ashtrays, a model of a mountaineer’s hiking boot, and numerous other unsolicited gifts for “President for Life” Josip Broz Tito to keep on his desk. An object of inadvertent surrealism – a pair of gleaming dentures fixed to a polished wooden base (a gift from the Alliance of Dentists of Yugoslavia) – grins at nothing at all. Tito’s popularity might be measured in the amount of junk that factories and unions, associations and individuals kept sending him as gifts, much of it now enshrined in Belgrade’s Museum of Yugoslav History. Appearing in the final section of the exhibition, these weighty gewgaws represent a kind of artistic nadir, signal to a narrow and mediocre official culture. A school student also sent the president a flag made out of the same number of matchsticks as there were words in one of his speeches. Weirdly, this isn’t so dissimilar from Sven Stilinović’s wretched little 1984-85 flag of grubby cotton wool, and another made from razor blades, both materials chosen for their associations with pain and injury. In her 1982 video Personal Cuts, Sanja Iveković cuts holes in the stocking that obscure her face, each cut interspersed with archival footage of the history of Yugoslavia. Iveković returns throughout the show, with her sly and subversive reworkings of commercial imagery depicting women. The complications and contradictions of the Yugoslav state, with its relative freedoms and “utopian consumerism”, its non-aligned status between the cold war superpowers of east and west, are documented here through art that, as often as it is critical of the status quo, had its own kinds of socialist and revolutionary fervour. It was also very much a product of its times. People garbed in white are doing daft things with white geese, white sheep and white mice squirming in flour. Two men suck at the same length of spaghetti, till their mouths come together and they kiss. Another pair get wrapped in aluminium cooking foil and bounce about. Amid the nakedness and soap-suds, the message of White People, a 1970 film by Slovene group OHO, is all to do with oneness and merging, and its protagonists eventually head off into the sea and snow, just as many members of the group headed into nature to live in a commune. Wonderfully daft, White People has a beguiling innocence. You can also relate it to Italian arte povera of the same period. Another film has the OHO group manoeuvring a large truck tyre from one place to another, in a performance of stupendous effort, scrabbling against the inertia of a dumb object – that familiar comedic trope of the little man and the big machine. In Karpo Godina’s 1971 film, Litany of Happy People, the inhabitants of the ethnically diverse autonomous province of Vojvodina pose for the camera in front of their rural dwellings. Priests in their vestments proclaim how healthy the state is. Beautifully shot, you might at first assume this was a tourist film for the region, with picturesque peasants smiling, jocular families, young and old proclaiming their love for the Hungarians, the Slovaks, the Croats, Gypsies, the Romanians and the Russians – and how much they are loved in return. One group not mentioned in this imaginary bucolic love-fest is the Serbs. On the jaunty soundtrack musicians sing “Let the Eastern Bloc as a whole, be buried deep in a hole.” This terrific film, and the great freewheeling film experiments of Želimir Žilnik, are worth the visit alone. In one, he invites six homeless men to share his family home, and questions people on the street about what he should do for them. Another focuses on young workers singing bawdy songs and playing ferocious drinking games. Žilnik’s films, like Godina’s, were part of Yugoslavia’s “Black Wave” of film production. Far from being underground or countercultural works, they had a degree of official sponsorship, even though the results sometimes got their makers into trouble. Film is the strongest medium in the show. It is a great pity Lazar Stojanović’s 73-minute 1973 feature Plastic Jesus can only be viewed on a monitor, and with nowhere to sit. This encourages no one to watch. Mixing scenes of the everyday life of a disaffected non-conformist with sometimes horrifying footage from Nazi propaganda and documentary films, Plastic Jesus led to the artist, a member of the communist party, being imprisoned for three years and the film itself being suppressed until 1990. There is much here that is useful to see for the first time. Raša Todosijević’s long 1995 Edinburgh Statement, pinned to the wall, asks who profits from art and who gains from it: the factories who produce materials, the art dealers, clerks, bankers, politicians, “critics, theoreticians and other quacks” and just about anyone else caught up in the web of social, political and economic relations the production and consumption of art creates. More than a conceptual art statement, Todosijević’s statement makes salutary reading today. Debates about the purpose and usefulness of art, and of museums, continue. Rather than being a historical snapshot, Monuments Should Not Be Trusted feels more like a continuing debate. It has no end. • Monuments Should Not Be Trusted is at Nottingham Contemporary until 4 March
Stoke and Bojan Krkic deny West Ham victory as home troubles continue Many criticisms have been levelled against the London Stadium since West Ham made it their home in the summer and this weekend was no different. The latest problem? The pitch is too slow. After crowd violence and trouble with segregation, stewarding and fans who refuse to sit down, the Hammers were able to enjoy a relatively calm afternoon off the pitch on Saturday. Extra stewards and police in the ground for the first time maintained a controlled atmosphere. But both managers were in agreement that a slow surface helped to disrupt the action on the field, contributing to what in the end was a tepid Premier League draw. A second-half own goal from Glenn Whelan and a smart equaliser from the substitute Bojan Krkic meant a point apiece for both sides before the international break. The result, however, will better serve Mark Hughes’s resurgent Stoke, now unbeaten in six league games, than Slaven Bilic’s Hammers, who sit in 16th place in the division and now face a torrid run of fixtures. “We’re on a good run at the moment”, said Hughes. “Our confidence was high coming into the match and I wanted to see that carried into our performance, which I did. We were clear in our own minds as to what the atmosphere would be like here and I think the fans enjoyed the experience. “One thing I would say, though, is that maybe the pitch is a bit slow. Whether that’s through design I don’t know, but it didn’t help us with the way we want to play. It’s difficult to get the ball down and pass and play at a high tempo. I feel that’s probably the same problem for West Ham.” Bilic, whose next four opponents are Spurs, Manchester United, Liverpool and Arsenal, concurred with his rival. “The pitch was a little bit slow but that shouldn’t have stopped us playing,” he said. “We were slow in the first half. We simply took too many touches, we were flat, we weren’t winning second balls. “In the second half we changed after 60 minutes, we put a couple of strikers up and they give us energy. Our best part of the game was between the goals. When we scored we knew they were going to put bodies up, but that we would get space. Then we gave away a very cheap goal and, at the end, you have to say it was a fair result.” Most neutral observers would agree with Bilic’s assessment. His unfamiliar-looking West Ham side, with Cheikhou Kouyaté playing at right-back and left-back Aaron Cresswell almost operating at left-wing, struggled to string passes together. They faced a typically redoubtable Stoke side for whom Joe Allen was once again outstanding in his unique defensive No10 role. Dimitri Payet and Manuel Lanzini were once again subdued, although the Frenchman had the first half’s best chance when presented with a free-kick in his preferred area, only to curl it a good yard over the bar. The playmaker Lanzini was withdrawn on the hour, alongside André Ayew, making his first league appearance since August, and the energy of the replacements Ashley Fletcher and Edimilson Fernandes immediately penned Stoke back. The Hammers won a corner and played the ball short to Payet on the edge of the box. He jinked to his right to cross and find the dependable forehead of Michail Antonio. The England international’s header came off Whelan to deceive goalkeeper Lee Grant. It was adjudged an own goal and denied Antonio his sixth headed strike of the season. Hughes responded to the goal with his own double substitution, also changing his shape to 4-4-2. Krkic has been the player to suffer for Allen’s good form, but with the Welshman withdrawn to the middle of the park the Spaniard returned to the field and scored within five minutes. Charlie Adam’s clever long pass caught the West Ham defence flat-footed as Jonathan Walters bore down on the ball. Adrián made the fateful decision to come off his line and his foul on Walters would have been a penalty had Krkic not already turned the Irish forward’s looped cross into the net. The final 10 minutes were more energetic than any that had preceded it and Adam might have won it for the visitors with a long-range shot that Adrián did well to save.
Trump Foundation cannot dissolve amid investigation into charity spending Donald Trump cannot move ahead with his plan to dismantle his charitable foundation because state prosecutors are investigating whether the president-elect personally benefited from its spending, the New York attorney general’s office said on Tuesday. “The Trump Foundation is still under investigation by this office and cannot legally dissolve until that investigation is complete,” said Amy Spitalnick, spokeswoman for the state attorney general, Eric Schneiderman. The statement came after Trump announced that he wanted to dissolve the Donald J Trump Foundation, part of what his presidential transition team says is an effort to erase any potential conflicts of interest before he takes office on 20 January. But the foundation’s inner workings have been the subject of Schneiderman’s investigation for months and could remain a thorny issue for Trump’s incoming administration. Democrats nationally have said they are ready to raise any legal or ethical issues from Trump’s global business empire during his presidency. The foundation had long been a political football during the campaign. It was reported then that Trump used $258,000 of the foundation’s money to pay for personal legal settlements. The president also spent charitable funds on multiple portraits of himself as well as an autographed football helmet. Trump’s charity has admitted that it violated IRS regulations barring it from using its money or assets to benefit Trump, his family, his companies or substantial contributors to the foundation. The admissions by the Donald J Trump Foundation were in a 2015 tax filing made public after the presidential election in which it was revealed that Trump has used the charity to settle lawsuits, make a $25,000 political contribution and purchase items, such as a painting of himself, that was displayed at one of his properties. The 2015 tax filing was posted on the non-profit monitoring website GuideStar on 18 November by someone using an email address from the foundation’s law firm, Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, said a GuideStar spokeswoman, Jackie Enterline Fekeci. In the tax filing, the foundation acknowledged that it used money or assets in violation of the regulations not only during 2015, but in prior years. But the tax filing does not provide details on the violations. Despite bearing Trump’s name, the president-elect had not donated to it since 2008. Instead, the charity relied on donations from other Trump associates, most notably professional wrestling magnates Vince and Linda McMahon, who gave $5m to the Trump Foundation. Linda McMahon has since been announced as Trump’s nominee to lead the Small Business Administration. Schneiderman, a Democrat, launched his investigation into the charity after reporting by the Washington Post drew attention to some of the foundation’s purchases. Trump asserted on Twitter late on Monday that his foundation was run efficiently. “The DJT Foundation, unlike most foundations, never paid fees, rent, salaries or any expenses,” the president-elect tweeted. “100% of the money goes to wonderful charities.” When asked for comment, a transition spokesperson simply referred back to a passage from the president-elect’s statement on Saturday that read “president-elect Trump has directed his counsel to take the necessary steps to effectuate the dissolution”.
Online abuse: 'existing laws too fragmented and don’t serve victims' The chief constable leading the fight against digital crime is calling for new legislation to tackle an “unimagined scale of online abuse” that he says is threatening to overwhelm the police service. Stephen Kavanagh, who heads Essex police, argues it is necessary to consolidate and simplify offences committed online to improve the chance of justice for tens of thousands of victims. “There are crimes now taking place – the malicious use of intimate photographs for example – which we never would have imagined as an offence when I was a PC in the 80s. It’s not just the nature of it, it is the sheer volume. “The levels of abuse that now take place within the internet are on a level we never really expected. If we did try to deal with all of it we would clearly be swamped.” Speaking two days after Adam Johnson was found guilty of sexual activity with a 15-year-old girl, having groomed her via a series of WhatsApp messages, Kavanagh said the range of legislation used against online abusers did not serve victims well. It includes at least one law that dates back to the 19th century. “No police chief would claim the way we deliver police services has sufficiently adapted to the new threat and harms that the internet brings,” Kavanagh told the . Recently introduced new offences such as revenge porn were welcome, he added, but piecemeal. A group of cross-party MPs will introduce a private member’s bill into parliament on Wednesday to update the law on cyber-enabled crime. The draft legislation, being introduced by Liz Saville Roberts, a Plaid Cymru MP, calls for a review and consolidation into one act of all the legislation currently being used against digital crime. It also calls for new powers to outlaw the use of spyware or webcams on digital devices without permission. Digital-Trust, a charity working with victims of online abuse and the organisation that drew up the bill, said there was a confusing array of more than 30 pieces of legislation currently being used against online crimes. These include the Contempt of Court Act 1981, Protection from Harassment Act 1997, Malicious Communications Act 1988, Communications Act 2003, Offences Against the Person Act 1861, Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 1992, Crime and Disorder Act 1998, Computer Misuse Act 1990, and the Criminal Justice Act 2003. Harry Fletcher, the criminal justice director at Digital-Trust, said: “Criminals and abusers readily use technology and it is imperative that the criminal justice system catches up. Existing laws are fragmented and inadequate.” Earlier in the week, it emerged that the Crown Prosecution Service in England and Wales has turned to Twitter for help as it faces a worrying increase in the use of social media by perpetrators to commit crimes against women and girls, including rape, domestic abuse and blackmail. Kavanagh said the status quo did not serve victims. “Often victims don’t know how to articulate what happened to them, they aren’t clear what the offence is if there is one,” he said. “When they then get an ambiguous response from the police, it undermines their confidence about what has happened. It is not just about officers and staff being confident, it is about victims being confident that what has taken place is a crime. So the law needs to be pulled together and the powers consolidated into a single place.” Online abuse is also hugely under-reported. A report by the Greater London Authority suggested only 9% of online hate crimes nationwide were investigated. Its victims include those suffering racist and homophobic abuse, as well as women and girls suffering harassment, online stalking, threats, blackmail and sexual abuse facilitated via social media. The scale of misogyny, racism, and other hate crimes on the internet is such that the threshold set by the director of public prosecutions for prosecuting the abuse is very high. Most cases under section 1 of the Malicious Communications Act – relating to indecent and grossly offensive and threatening messages – are not prosecuted. But Kavanagh said such abuse ruined lives, and there needed to be clear lines drawn to establish what was and was not criminal. “Individuals are using the internet around domestic abuse, for harassment all the time. We are seeing teenagers who are bullied commit suicide because of the threats that are taking place,” he said. “The police, with victims’ groups, with user communities, need to identify these thresholds, and once they are exceeded we need to get to the stage where whether you are reporting in Essex, Manchester, or Devon and Cornwall, you can be confident of receiving a consistent approach. That has to happen.” There are also serious concerns over the lack of skills and capability to properly investigate online abuse. Just 7,500 out of about 100,000 police officers in England and Wales are specially trained to investigate digital crime. Yet, he believed the idea of creating a specialist national unit on digital crime was not the answer. “70% of the population has access to a smartphone for accessing the internet, and if you are getting access to the internet you can use it for all kinds of things. This needs to be mainstream so that all officers understand what digital crimes are and how to investigate them effectively. “The challenge we have is to increase the level of knowledge and confidence around social media hate crime in all officers, so they know how they can secure the evidence and what they need to do to investigate. They don’t all know that at the moment. The police do need to step up and understand the quality of service to victims of these types of digital crimes is not good enough.”
Manchester City 4-0 Crystal Palace: Premier League – as it happened That was so comfortable for Man City, and yet they weren’t at their sizzling best. Wayne Hennessey made a bad error for the first goal, and City never looked back: they played fine, and they looked solid in defence, but Palace made it easy for them. That’s now five games without a goal for the Eagles, and Alan Pardew has problems. David Silva looked good for City, though, and Aguero took his goals well. City go back to the top – at least for a bit. Thanks for reading. Bye. And there’s the whistle. 90 min +1: Delph boots it out of play, and that should be it. 90 min: Two minutes of stoppage time. De Bruyne spins Cabaye, and this should be a red card, but Jon Moss does him a huge favour and keeps the card in the pocket. That was a certain second yellow. Lucky Yohan! 89 min: A bad tackle from Cabaye on Otamendi, and a clear booking. That was pretty crude – extremely late as Otamendi released the ball. No argument from Cabaye. 88 min: Puncheon kicks David Silva, and then raises a hand in apology. One player for City who has been under-par is Kevin de Bruyne: lots of sloppy passing today. Is he going through a lean spell? 86 min: City fancy a fifth. Palace are glum. Weirdly, City haven’t been brilliant today; they were probably better against Everton. And yet they’re 4-0 up! Zany, huh? 85 min: That’s Aguero’s last action, and he’s replaced by Jesus Navas. Lee Chung-young is on for Wilf Zaha, too. 84 min: Wonderful unselfish play from Aguero, and this is turning into a rout. Palace sent everyone forward, but it was cleared, and suddenly City were away: Aguero just burned Soare for pace on the break, and then tapped it across for Silva, in support, who took a touch and fired home, with Hennessey out of the game. Great play. … and make it four. 83 min: Aguero’s touch is heavy, and in trying to win it back he’s late on Puncheon. Free kick to Palace, and everyone goes forward. Puncheon takes, but City clear, and they can break at speed … 82 min: It is Toure … but it’s into the wall. Disappointing. 81 min: Silva, who’s been at the heart of City’s best work, is fouled about 25 yards from goal. Ledley doesn’t like the decision, but it was the correct one. Toure to try one? 80 min: Palace bring on Jordon Mutch for James McArthur. Obviously the game’s beyond them, but a Palace goal would be really welcome. 79 min: Aguero runs at Joel Ward on the left flank and wins a corner. Silva takes, but the ball curled out of play, and it’ll be a goal kick. 77 min: Oh my, what a wonderful effort from Yohan Cabaye, and so unlucky: he took a touch and slammed one from about 30 yards, with so much swerve, and it was this close to a goal. Hart dived full length, but wouldn’t have saved it. Really unlucky. 76 min: Ooh, sloppy from De Bruyne: he tried to play in Aguero, who would have been clear on goal, but the pass was massively overhit. “That was not a difficult pass,” says Davie Provan on commentary, with typical understatement. 74 min: Delph has been busy in midfield, and that’s a nice body swerve to beat his man and find Zabaleta on the right. City happy to keep possession, although there are more goals in this if they fancy. 73 min: Great control from Silva to accept Aguero’s drilled pass in the box, but his shot is wide, and he lets out an anguished cry. Decent chance. 71 min: Palace look completely downcast, and Chamakh is booked for diving. Demichelis got tight to him in the box, and maybe there was a little clip, but Chamakh went down dramatically, and Jon Moss brought out his yellow card. Chamakh looked sheepish. No argument from him. 69 min: David Silva did superbly to tackle Cabaye cleanly, and he eased forward before feeding Aguero on the edge of the box. Aguero found Toure, who played a beautifully disguised pass for De Bruyne, free on the right, and De Bruyne was really unselfish, cutting it back across the six-yard box for Aguero, who tapped home. Excellent play from City’s quartet of premier performers. That’s a wonderful team goal. 66 min: We’re in a sloppy phase. Both teams keep giving it back to each other. Delaney bumps into the linesman on the left side, and everyone has a laugh. It was funny! 64 min: Zaha did really well to take on Clichy and fire in a cross … but Palace had too few bodies in the box! That was great play from Zaha. More of that required. Change for Palace: Chamakh on for Wickham, who’s found it tough going. 62 min: City look comfortable, but that’s a nice combination between Joel Ward and Wilf Zaha: Ward comes forward, exchanges passes with his team-mate and shoots for goal … it’s wide, but that was positive. 60 min: So, an hour gone, and still Palace can’t score. This isn’t terminal, but it’s worrying: they’re solid, and have pace in the side, but at the moment they don’t look like they can hurt defences. Sako, Wickham, Zaha, Gayle, Chamakh and Campbell are willing, but perhaps short on quality, and the midfield, Cabaye aside, is stodgy: Jedinak, Ledley and McArthur aren’t known for their passing. Alan Pardew has some things to think about. 57 min: Poor cross from the left from De Bruyne, who’s been less than his usual effervescent self today. 56 min: Another change for Man City, and Yaya Toure replaces Iheanacho on for his 250th Man City appearance. It hasn’t really happened for Iheanacho today, although he will be credited with an assist for Aguero’s goal. 55 min: There’s a lull. Palace have been pretty good in these 10 minutes, but haven’t worked Joe Hart so far. Zabaleta crosses from the right after good work from Silva and Delph, but the ball is claimed by Hennessey. 53 min: Good win from Fernando, and David Silva completes the clearance. 51 min: Finally Clichy is ready to come on. Kolarov leaving on a stretcher. That was a dumb sequence, though – why did it take Clichy so long to get ready? Whole minutes elapsed before the substitution was made. Kolarov gestured to the bench immediately, and Clichy just sat there gormlessly. Anyway, we’re ready to continue, and Soare wins the corner after a run down the left. Soare wanted a penalty – it seemed to hit Demichelis on the arm, but nothing doing. 50 min: Kolarov can’t continue, and is making angry signs at the bench, because Gael Clichy is nowhere near ready. This is a farce! Kolarov’s just gone down on the pitch, but Alan Pardew is spewing, because it’s not a head injury, and there’s no reason to stop the game. 48 min: Kolarov puts the ball out play, and it looks as though he’s hurt his ankle. No sign of Gael Clichy warming up, but Kolarov is struggling. Zaha puts a great ball in, but Wickham can’t quite make it count. Palace have begun really well in this second half. 47 min: Slightly nervy defending from City, and Scott Dann is screaming for a penalty. He felt as though Otamendi grabbed a handful of his shirt. Jon Moss shakes his head, though. In weather news, it’s snowing! Moderately sized flakes falling in Manchester. 46 min: City kick off, and then give it away immediately. Palace force a throw in City’s left-back slot, and then they win a corner. Good start from the visitors. Some half-time scores elsewhere: A strange sort of half: City are in control of the match, but haven’t really played that well, that little five-minute flurry at the end of the half apart. Palace started really well, created one really excellent chance, and were absolutely in the game, but then the goalie made a rick, City got lucky with a deflection for the second, and Palace are looking rather forlorn. Football, eh? It’s tough at the top. That’s the whistle. 45 min: Just over from Aguero! It fell to him on the left foot, and he went for goal, but it was a couple of inches high. 44 min: It’s cleared, but City are buzzing, and they force another one. 43 min: Ooh, that was lovely from City, and David Silva was at the heart of it: Kolarov, De Bruyne were involved, too, but then Silva quickened the pace, played a lovely one-two with Aguero, but Delaney, I think it was, did well to block the shot. City’s best piece of play, and it’s a corner. 42 min: Well, City are in command here. Iheanacho went clear down the left, but lacked support, so he held it, and found Aguero on the edge of the box. Aguero took a touch, tried to place one from 22 yards or so, and it deflected off Scott Dann’s head to deceive Hennessey. On first glance it looked as though Hennessey had made another error, but the deflection was decisive. City lead by a couple, and yet they haven’t really opened Palace up. Strange. Aguero’s first goal against Palace! 39 min: De Bruyne with City’s second corner, but it’s cleared. Delaney is down for a moment, but he’ll be OK. He’s hard as nails, eh?! 38 min: Ooh, that looked like a penalty! Ledley bumped Aguero from behind, and didn’t get the ball. Aguero did well to play on, and fire off a shot that went just wide, but that was clumsy from Ledley. He’s taking a chance! 36 min: Palace have been really nice in their build-up, and they’ve seen a good amount of the ball: almost 50%. Puncheon and McArthur team up down the left, but Puncheon takes too long, and it’s out for a goal kick. Interestingly, Puncheon hasn’t scored this season. He got six last year – is he short on confidence? 34 min: That was a chance for Iheanacho, actually: he tried to make space for himself by taking it on the chest, but the control let him down, and he missed his subsequent kick completely. 33 min: Palace are so good at winning first balls from set pieces, aren’t they? Again, a Palace head is first to it, but they just can’t quite make it count. Then City counter, and Delph looks for Iheanacho, who was free in the box, momentarily, but he over-elaborates, and the chance is lost. 32 min: Cabaye with it, and Hart pushes it round the post. Good effort, and Hart moved his feet well and got across to palm it clear. 31 min: A bit of space for Puncheon, and he finds Soare on the left flank, in space, but the cross is disappointing. Now Ledley tries to cross from the left, and the ball is cleared, but Delph is then whistled for a trip on Cabaye. Really nice range for Palace here: dead centre, about 25 yards out. 29 min: Wickham breaks for Palace, but he’s a lone Eagle among five sky blue shirts, and the chance is lost. Pardew looks fed up, and well he might. 28 min: Free kick to City on the left. Kolarov’s ball is in fabulous, but Palace do just enough to shuttle it clear. 26 min: Palace are unlucky to be behind here, and Hennessey should have saved that Delph effort. Delph hit it well, but it just ran through Hennessey’s hands. Not a great bit of play from the goalkeeper. 24 min: Palace force a corner. Dann is absolutely free, and wins the header, but it’s straight at Hart: he was quite a long way out and couldn’t get the power. Then a strange moment: Hart was in a hurry to release the ball, and he tried to kick it from his hands, but McArthur got in the way, and the ball ran loose. Delaney was alert to react, and tried for goal with his left foot, but couldn’t get the control on his effort: it was more of a tackle than a shot, really, and it flew over. But there was no whistle, and it would have counted. Another chance! 23 min: Well, what a moment. There was no danger, Palace looked good in their defensive shape, and Delph hit one from long range, more in hope than expectation – and Hennessey let it slip through his hands. A bad error, unfortunately, the goalkeeper’s second in a week, and City lead, undeservedly. Out of nothing! 20 min: Silva looks unimpressed with this wide left position he’s being asked to take up. Jesus Navas and Sterling are the more natural wide players in this system, of course, but they’re on the bench. Did Pellegrini pick the wrong starting XI? 19 min: Not much intensity from City so far. Silva looks for Aguero running in beyond, but the ball is overhit. It’s not happening for them so far. Manuel Pellegrini looks puzzled. 17 min: City are becalmed. It’s quiet in the stadium. Jason Barnard has some useful Kevin information: “In France the name has become incredibly popular since the limit on first name restrictions was lifted last century (1990?) One of these guys will follow Zinedine, don’t you think? Kevin was far and away the most popular boy’s name in 1990, by the way. So all those Kevins are 25 now.” 15 min: Second Palace corner, and Dann has this incredible knack of winning the first ball. It pings around in the area, and Wickham’s rushed effort is over the bar, but Palace look characteristically dangerous from set plays. 14 min: Nice from Palace, and Puncheon looks for Wickham in the box. Demichelis is smartly over, but he can’t stop the corner. Here’s Kevin Smith: “Does Kevin-Prince Boateng count? Not saying he’d be No1, just curious if the name counts.” Yes, I’ll allow it. 12 min: This is more like it from the home side, and they’ve pushed Palace back on the edge of their box. Silva larrups one from long distance, and it’s blocked, but City are pressing. Zabaleta robs Puncheon and feeds Aguero, but the striker takes too long and is crowded out before he can produce a shot. 10 min: A spell of possession for City, and Iheanacho does really well to wriggle away from a posse of defenders down the left. A slight suspicion of a trip by Soare on the Nigerian in the box, but no call, and De Bruyne’s cross looks for Aguero at the back post … corner. Well defended by Ward. De Bruyne’s ball in, but it comes to naught. 8 min: This is really good from Palace. City have barely had an attack. The Etihad is quiet. 7 min: Cabaye’s ball in is a good one, with dip and pace, but Otamendi does well to win the header, and then the whistle goes for pushing. Just looking back at the Delaney chance. A free header, absolutely unmarked, but he pushed it straight at Hart. Grr! 6 min: Palace have begun confidently, and Wickham wins a free kick when Otamendi makes a dumb foul from behind, as is his wont. Another opportunity for Palace to get the ball in the box. 5 min: City can’t get on the ball, and Palace hit it long from a free kick on halfway. Dann wins it, but City clear the second ball. De Bruyne brings it clear, but can’t make anything of it. 3 min: Really positive start from Palace. Delaney, the skipper, will be cranky, though: he had time, and it was a free header from six yards. A real missed opportunity. 2 min: Dann jumps high, but Iheanacho does well to clear the danger. And what a magnificent chance for Palace! The visitors recycled it from the corner, Wickham got free down the left and played in a wonderful ball, but Delaney couldn’t find the finish! Great save from Hart, but Delaney should have scored. 1 min: And we’re under way. City in sky blue shorts and white shorts, Palace in red-and-blue stripes with blue shorts. McArthur runs at Kolarov and wins a corner inside a minute. Chance for Palace. Actually, scrap that. That question is inane. Keegan, perhaps? And Hector, Sheedy and Phillips were good in their day. Teams are in the tunnel. Joe Hart, standing next to – and towering over – Pablo Zabaleta, shouts: “Come on Kevin, get on that ball! Get on that ball, Kevin!” Question. Is M. De Bruyne football’s best ever Kevin? Anyone got any thoughts? About anything? And Palace? 4-2-3-1, we think: Wickham will try to hold the ball in attack, and bring in Puncheon and Zaha, while Yohan Cabaye, Palace’s best player by a distance, will pull the strings in midfield and provide Palace’s main threat from set pieces. It looks as though it’s 4-4-2 for Man City today, although there’s some contention over how the midfield will line up. Expect Iheanacho and Aguero to start as a conventional front two, but De Bruyne and Silva can flit and raid while Delph and Fernando try to keep the back door shut. Kolarov should, as always, be an attacking threat, too. David Silva is back in action for Man City today. He didn’t start against Everton, and he hasn’t been himself since coming back from injury, which is a shame, because he’s such a wonderful player to watch, and arguably an underrated one, too. He’s also a big fan of Raheem Sterling: Four other Premier League games today, of varying engrossment. Simon Burnton has all the latest with the clockwatch: Sunderland are having another bad day away from home. Follow it here! So! Some changes for Man City. Pablo Zabaleta comes in for Bacary Sagna, Aleksandar Kolarov comes back for Gael Clichy, Yaya Toure and Raheem Sterling begin on the bench, and Kelechi Iheanacho gets a starting spot. For Palace, just one change: Connor Wickham starts up front in place of Bakary Sako. Man City: Hart, Zabaleta, Otamendi, Demichelis, Kolarov, Delph, Fernando, De Bruyne, Silva, Iheanacho, Aguero. Subs: Sagna, Sterling, Caballero, Jesus Navas, Clichy, Toure, Humphreys. Crystal Palace: Hennessey, Ward, Dann, Delaney, Souare, Ledley, Cabaye, McArthur, Puncheon, Wickham, Zaha. Subs: Speroni, Campbell, Lee, Jedinak, Mutch, Chamakh, Kelly. Referee: Jon Moss (W Yorkshire) Man City did everything but score against Everton on Wednesday, but they won’t have impotence issues today, will they? City take on Palace at the Etihad with the chance to go back to the top, albeit on goal difference, and they’ll fancy victory: Palace have been decent this season but have suddenly forgotten how to get goals. (They’ve failed to score in four straight Prem games.) City were very impressive in the week, and they’ve shown signs of cranking it up again after a little end-of-2015 wobble: if Silva, De Bruyne, Aguero and Touré can combine and rove and weave, Palace’s defenders and goalkeeper could be in for an afternoon of furrowed brows and downcast looks. Then again, this Premier League season has been weird. So who really knows? Kick off’s in about 45 minutes. Join us! Tim will be here shortly. In the meantime, here’s Manuel Pellegrini on why City are not predictable: “One of the things this team is not is unpredictable – we have so many ways of playing,” he said. “We continue being the highest scorers in the Premier League for the last three seasons. Not only at home, but away we also try to be an offensive team. “Teams are always waiting with eight or nine players behind the ball, waiting for us to play. We always try to play with a high tempo – it’s not always easy against eight or nine players near their box. It’s not tempo you need, you need accurate passes in the final third. If we don’t have possession, that can be a matter of pace but we normally have possession in games.”
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice review – dark days in Metropolis Director Zack Snyder’s sporadically impressive 2013 Superman reboot Man of Steel flirted with some intriguingly adventurous ideas before descending into a thunderingly dull third-act punch-up between all-but indestructible – and indistinguishably uninteresting – adverseries. Little has changed with this latest instalment, which sees DC Comics characters gearing up for future “Justice League” outings, hoping to give Marvel’s saleable screen universe a run for its money. Assorted Avengers need not worry; despite a slow-burn start and portent-heavy script (endless references to false gods and monsters) Batman v Superman never flies. Ben Affleck may make a strong fist of his role as the screen’s grouchiest Batman but Snyder (who is no Christopher Nolan) mistakes “murkiness” for “darkness”, leaving his stodgy antiheroes stomping around in a Stygian quagmire of quasi-religious imagery, superficial set pieces, and – most damagingly – incoherent storytelling. We open on familiar ground with the young Bruce Wayne being orphaned yet again, this time in the shadow of a movie theatre pointedly playing Excalibur. From here, we cut (after a pop video-style vision of bats) to Metropolis, where the collateral damage of Man of Steel’s climactic battle is replayed from the point of view of the adult Bruce, watching in horror as his own tower tumbles. Then we’re off again, to “Somewhere in the Indian Ocean” and thence to Africa, where Lois Lane (Amy Adams) awaits rescue by a man in wet-look spandex. “He answers to no one, I think, not even to God,” declares one naysayer of Henry Cavill’s supremely uncharismatic Superman. Meanwhile Batman’s habit of branding villains with the “mark of death” earns him a reputation as unaccountable judge, jury and executioner. Two crusaders (“black and blue, night and day”) with matching PR problems and mirrored mummy issues – it’s bound to end in tears. Enter Jesse Eisenberg’s upstart Lex Luthor, surely the most irritating screen villain of the year, a twitchy symphony of babbled lines and out-of-context laughs which suggest that Snyder told him to “Do that guy out of The Social Network… only more so!” Luthor wants Holly Hunter’s Senator Finch to let him weaponise kryptonite; I just wanted her to slap him and be done with it. But there’s much cross-cutting, cape-flapping and pouty breast-beating to come before anyone heads for the exit, reminding us that with great power comes not just great responsibility, but even greater length. Never mind the quality, feel the running time. Somewhere in this overcooked, underlit, indecipherable pudding of a movie there are a couple of nice performances struggling to get out. Jeremy Irons is fleetingly fun as Bruce Wayne’s trusty sidekick Alfred, but unlike Michael Caine (or indeed Michael Gough) he’s given no opportunity to graduate from endearing chippiness to engaging pathos, settling instead for the eyebrow-raising disdain beloved of John Gielgud’s Hobson in Arthur (maybe that’s what the laboured Excalibur nod was all about). Amy Adams struggles to inject life into Lois Lane but Snyder and screenwriters Chris Terrio and David S Goyer seem content to leave her staring wistfully into broiling skies and generally needing to be rescued – a recurrent fate of women here, despite a heavily trailed, allegedly empowering appearance by a female DC icon. Elsewhere, Snyder draws on the oily lessons of 300, with Affleck and Cavill parading their naked chests like angry cockerels – a scene in which Batman prepares for the ultimate battle by dragging a truck tyre across the floor and hitting it with a sledgehammer cries out for a cameo by Spandau Ballet, urging our antihero to “work till you’re musclebound, all night long”. Amid endless flashbacks there are hallucinogenic dream sequences too, although given the shoddiness of the storytelling it’s hard to tell what’s meant to be real or make-believe. As for the overworked Easter-friendly subtext, Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ was understated by comparison. Thus we lumber slowly, inevitably, toward a face-punching confrontation in which our all-but-indestructible – and by now equally uninteresting – adversaries hit each other while monsters roar, worlds collide, and franchises rise and fall. Fans may find something of value in the sheer scale of it all but, despite the gargantuan expense, it’s hard not to feel short-changed. For all its overcranked spectacle, I emerged from Batman v Superman in a soporific state; foggy of head, heavy of heart, wondering if it was all just a bad dream.
Readers recommend playlist: songs about community Below is this week’s playlist – the theme and tunes picked by a reader from the comments on last week’s callout. Thanks for your suggestions. Read more about the format of the weekly Readers recommend series at the end of the piece. First, some context for my week selecting the songs for readers recommend: there were deaths in Kashmir, political turmoil in the UK and US and as the topic was launched on 14 July, the atrocity in Nice was followed by a coup attempt in Turkey the following day … as the world went insane, reader Mogdog echoed the feelings of much of the RR community by saying: “Thank you RR for giving me something to think about on my cycle to work other than the news and current affairs.” It seemed an ideal time to celebrate the shared values of a community, then, and this welcome nook on the internet that we have all discovered – much as Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young did with Woodstock. Then, who better to laud the joys brought about by the love of music and its sharing than Grateful Dead, as they invite us to come join Uncle John’s Band. While the Kinks seem to take a slightly Luddite view in their Village Green Preservation Society, Anorak Girl sings of people discovering each other through the internet in Billie’s Joined the Fan Club. The need for a way out from the edge of darkness is echoed by 10,000 Maniacs in their cover of Cat Stevens’s Peace Train. Adopted by the followers of Liverpool, as well as fans of many other sporting outfits across the globe, the monster sing-along You’ll Never Walk Alone by Gerry & The Pacemakers is up next as Al Martino invites us to Come Share the Wine: “No one is a stranger here, they’re your friends and mine / Everyone’s your brother … we need each other, have no fear, you’re welcome here.” Right on, say Funkadelic, adding if You and Your Folks [dig] Me and My Folks like we dig them, then we got a good thing going. And after all, aren’t we all the same? Just Everyday People who are the same whatever we do, as Sly and The Family Stone point out. Different strokes for different folks, but we all have to live together. Our voices, sing Slim Cessna’s Auto Club, will shout it out to the sky that This is Our Land as Fingers Inc lay out the story of the birth of house music in Can You Feel It? “You see, no one man owns house because house music is a universal language, spoken and understood by all.” And closing the playlist is the hard rocking Saxon who underscore the universality in Denim & Leather. “It was you that brought us all together. It was you who set us all free.” Amen to that. New theme The theme for next week’s playlist will be announced at 8pm (UK time) on Thursday 21 July. You have until 11pm on Monday 25 July to make nominations. Here’s a reminder of some of the guidelines for RR: If you have a good theme idea, or if you’d like to volunteer to compile a playlist from readers’ suggestions and write a blog about it, please email matthew.holmes@theguardian.com. There’s a wealth of data on RR, including the songs that are “zedded”, at the Marconium. It also tells you the meaning of “zedded”, “donds” and other strange words used by RR regulars. Many RR regulars also congregate at the ’Spill blog.
Ice Age: Collision Course review – animated franchise loses its cool This is the fifth in the animated movie franchise about ancient beasts lumbering onward and battling extinction. The time has come to call it a day. Actually, the time to call it a day probably came way back in the Jurassic period of 2002, when the credits were rolling on the (perfectly decent) first film. Now it’s running on empty.  We’re back with Sid the Sloth (John Leguizamo), Diego the Sabre-Toothed Tiger (Denis Leary) and Manny the Woolly Mammoth (Ray Romano). Sid has romantic crises and Manny is worried about his daughter’s impending marriage to someone he doesn’t like much. The nerdy little squirrel Scrat, whose unending quest for an acorn always provides a silent-comedy parallel plot – and who is now the least insufferable thing about these films – finds himself accidentally whooshed away into space in an alien ship, and he triggers a meteor shower that may wipe out all the comedy talking animals on Earth. If only.  This could provide some small-screen entertainment for bored kids on a rainy day. But really: enough.
White House seeks its first ever chief information security officer The Kellogg cereal company, the state of Colorado and Cook County, Illinois, all have someone in charge of keeping the hackers out. In 2016, the US government will too. On Tuesday, the White House is expected to announce that it is seeking to hire its first chief information security officer, a role filled at many companies and local governments but one that has long been absent at the federal level, despite complaints from security experts and lawmakers. In its absence, the government has sometimes struggled to coordinate a jumble of three-letter agencies as it has sought to respond to the latest breach. (See: Office of Personnel Management, 2013 and 2014. Or State Department email system, 2014. Or a Department of Justice computer system, this week.) It’s arguably a long overdue step for the Obama administration as it has pushed private companies to beef up their own defenses. The role, which the government said it expects to fill in two to three months, will focus on coordinating cybersecurity across federal agencies and will be housed within the Office of Management and Budget at the White House. The move shows how the government is increasingly placing a greater priority on cybersecurity in the Data Breach Age. But it also illustrates that, in Washington, the solution to any problem is to put another person in charge of fixing it. For instance, the government already has several offices in charge of making sure hackers stay out of government systems. There’s the special assistant to the president for cybersecurity, the Department of Homeland Security’s deputy undersecretary of homeland security and, yet still, the information assurance directorate within the National Security Agency. White House officials said the new federal CISO exclusively will be in charge of making sure government workers do basic things to improve computer security. So-called “cyber hygiene” includes decidedly unsexy things like making sure agencies patch computer security flaws and that government users employ two-factor verification to log into government accounts. Such steps might have prevented a hacker from recently breaking into a DoJ computer by tricking a government help desk into giving him a log in token. “We’re still sort of understanding what happened there,” Michael Daniel, the current special assistant to the president for cybersecurity said on the press call.
How a power trip could doom the agency that took down Wells Fargo The resignation last week of the chief executive of Wells Fargo should have been a high point for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). The CFPB announced in early September that it would receive the lion’s share of a $185m fine levied on Wells Fargo as punishment for encouraging employees to open millions of savings and credit accounts for customers without their knowledge or consent. The rest went to Los Angeles regulators and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. Then came congressional hearings, at which Stumpf – one of those rare individuals whom Democrats and Republicans could agree was a villain – embarrassed himself by fumbling the questions and passing the buck up to his board of directors and down to the rank-and-file employees who actually opened the accounts. Nor was that the only highlight for the CFPB of late. The agency has issued new rules governing prepaid cards, an alternative to checking accounts used by large numbers of “unbanked” Americans who can’t afford the rising fees traditional banks levy on checking accounts, or for whom banks decline to open accounts. As the wealth gap has widened, the prepaid industry has soared, from being worth $1bn in 2003 to $65bn by 2012. Users tend to be among the more vulnerable members of society: making less than $50,000, renters rather than homeowners, minorities and women, according to research by the Pew Charitable Trusts. In other words, they tend to be vulnerable to abuse or simple misunderstanding. The CPFB’s new rules will require clear disclosure about what fees the card issuer will charge to check a balance, for instance, and ensure that losses will be limited to what a conventional debit card holder would face if their card was lost or stolen. So far, so good for the CPFB. A US appeals court, however, rained on the agency’s parade, while members of Congress and others raised questions about whether the CFPB has embarked on some kind of power trip. The court was considering an appeal in a case involving whether the CFPB had the right to impose a $103m fine on mortgage service PHH, for allegedly taking kickbacks for directing customers to a particular insurance company. The case reached the US court of appeals for the District of Columbia, where a three-judge panel headed by Brett Kavanaugh, a George W Bush appointee, handed down its ruling last Tuesday. “Unconstitutional”, Kavanaugh thundered. Not the CFPB itself, but its structure, which is headed by a single individual, Richard Cordray, who serves for a fixed term. Typically, heads of such agencies serve either at the president’s pleasure or as part of a group, such as the five-member Securities and Exchange Commission. So much for the brief, fleeting moment of bipartisanship as Democrats and Republicans joined in bashing Stumpf. If you believe Republicans, the CFPB – part of the Dodd-Frank reforms that followed the financial crisis of 2008 – is, in the words of Kavanaugh, a “grave threat to individual liberty”, a phrase he used once every three pages or so in his 98-page decision. Investor’s Business Daily agrees. The CFPB is an “out-of-control” and “dangerous” entity, it wrote – “the Frankenstein’s Monster of federal regulatory agencies” that is “almost entirely unaccountable to the public”. Translation: the CFPB’s critics want to shut the agency down lest it become even more effective, and are taking a weird and sometimes mutually contradictory variety of approaches to doing so. When the CFPB has been slower than it might have been to act, as in the case of Wells Fargo, Republicans have taken delight in accusing it of being “asleep at the switch”, in the words of Texas representative Jeb Hensarling, the CFPB’s chief critic in the House. When the CFPB has been proactive in its core areas – mortgage lending, credit cards and student loans – this has also attracted criticism. For instance, while its mission didn’t include looking at for-profit colleges, the agency’s emphasis on student loans led it realize that a disproportionate number of problems were tied to entities such as Corinthian colleges and ITT Technical Institute, which took advantage of the student loan system while at the same time misrepresenting graduation rates. It sued both schools for predatory lending, prompting their collapses. Still, in at least one case, a federal judge (another George W Bush appointee) denied the agency access to information about how an accreditor signed off on programs offered by these colleges. “Although it is understandable that new agencies like the CFPB will struggle to establish the exact parameters of their authority, they must be especially prudent before choosing to plow headlong into fields not clearly ceded to them by Congress,” tsk-tsked US district judge Richard J Leon. Last week’s ruling could have been a lot worse, and Hensarling is probably gnashing his teeth in fury, wishing that the DC court had gone further. Cordray will now serve at the president’s pleasure, rather than for a fixed five-year term – unless the agency appeals and the decision is overturned. This isn’t impossible: it’s hard to argue how the presence of a single individual at the helm of an agency offers a threat to liberty, unless the agency under that individual restricted the ability of those it regulated to access the court system to complain about its judgments. The fact that PHH did precisely that in this instance is evidence that there’s no tyranny at work. What Hensarling and his buddies are really irate about is that the CFPB gets its funding independently – that’s the lack of accountability that Investor’s Business Daily was getting huffy about. In other words, it’s not politicized: the CFPB doesn’t have to grovel to Congress annually to keep its budget. The agency has reason to be concerned. Even as Dodd-Frank expanded the list of SEC responsibilities, Congress, perhaps under pressure from the financial services industry, actually cut the amount of money it had to work with. The SEC’s 2017 budget will be unchanged, it now seems. But yet again, that entity only narrowly escaped a cut. In contrast, the CFPB is financially independent of Congress, being funded directly by the Federal Reserve (and collecting its fines, as other agencies do) and that drives Hensarling and other opponents crazy. They may characterize that as being “unaccountable” to ordinary Americans, but I think it actually enables the agency to listen to ordinary Americans rather than to the Very Loud Voices of the lobbyists who have a disproportionate impact on Congress. So far, at least the CFPB doesn’t seem to be using any “superpowers” it might have to threaten my life, liberty or pursuit of happiness.
Sixty-five people a day in UK die early from diabetes complications – study Sixty five people a day in the UK are dying early from complications arising from diabetes, which is the “fastest-growing epidemic of our time”, according to a charity. The number of adults with diabetes in the UK has risen by more than 1.5 million in the past decade to more than 4.5 million, including an estimated 1 million who have type 2 diabetes but do not know it. Diabetes UK analysis of official figures found that 20 people a day underwent diabetes-related amputations, and about 80% of these procedures were preventable. It also said 203 people a day suffered heart failure, 78 suffered strokes and 39 needed dialysis or kidney transplants, and that people with diabetes were more likely to develop these problems. To mark World Diabetes Day, the charity is seeking to raise awareness of the life-threatening complications of the condition. “It is the fastest-growing epidemic of our time,” said Chris Askew, the chief executive of Diabetes UK. “The more you know about diabetes, the better. Cutting your risk of developing devastating complications is crucial.” He said that as a result of research into specialist eye tests, diabetes was no longer the leading cause of blindness in the working age population, an example of how complications could be avoided when diabetes is managed properly. Research has found only a small minority of people with diabetes are taking courses designed to help patients manage the symptoms, and others are missing out on health checks. Diabetes is caused by too much glucose in the blood, or the inability to process glucose. About 10% of people with the condition have type 1 diabetes, meaning their bodies cannot produce insulin, the hormone that breaks down glucose. Type 1 diabetes is treated by daily insulin doses and usually affects children or young adults. Between 85% and 90% of people with diabetes have the type 2 strand, meaning they do not produce enough insulin or the insulin they produce doesn’t work properly. The condition can be managed by following a healthy diet and increasing physical activity. The decade-long increase in the number of adults with diabetes in the UK is largely due to an increase in type 2 diabetes. People are more likely to get type 2 if they are overweight, and it usually occurs in later life. The number of cases is predicted to continue to rise dramatically in the next five years, and Askew said governments and health bodies had a responsibility to take action. “Significant investment in diabetes care and prevention by UK and national governments and the NHS begins to recognise the scale of the challenge,” he said. “This needs to be sustained to provide enough effective care for everyone living with diabetes and tackling the rapid rise of type 2.” Diabetes UK has a specialist helpline that can be contacted on 0345 123 2399 or helpline@diabetes.org.uk.
Corbyn: leadership team is stopping online abuse of opponents Jeremy Corbyn has said his leadership campaign is working hard to prevent any supporters from targeting opponents via social media, declaring that online abuse must be dealt with. Speaking at the launch of his digital democracy manifesto, which sets out policies including a push for nationwide access to fast broadband and mobile connectivity, the Labour leader was asked why this did not include any specific commitments to combat online abuse. During the leadership campaign, Corbyn has faced calls to take more action against online insults and threats, especially those targeting female Labour MPs. Corbyn’s team says abuse and harassment is covered in a part of the digital manifesto connected to a “people’s charter of digital liberties”, and the leader said he was committed to tackling it. “It is appalling,” he said. “I have set up a code of conduct on this. The Labour party has a code of conduct on this, and it does have to be dealt with. “Everyone should learn that when they put something on Facebook or Twitter or online in an email, that is exactly the same as if you’d put it in the print media in any other way, with exactly the same protective laws of libel or slander. “Many people use instant access to Twitter more or less like they’re continuing a pub conversation, and deeply regret the abuse that they sent to people at that time. Unfortunately, it’s there for eternity, in some way or another, on the internet. And so there does have to be quite strict codes of conduct. “There also has to be an educative process about how people do things. I absolutely will not allow any sort of it, whatsoever, anywhere around our campaign. We do chase it down and we do stop it. And we will continue to do that, because it’s simply wrong.” More widely, Corbyn said he was worried about the use of social media among some young people to carry out mass bullying. “You wouldn’t gather around a young person and all shout abuse at them,” he said. “That would be seen to be crude, brutal, violent and rude. But they do it on Facebook and they do it on Twitter and they do it online.” Speaking in east London, Corbyn unveiled a series of ideas to “democratise the internet”, including an online learning hub; publicly funded software and hardware to help teach programming; a voluntary “digital citizen passport” to create a secure portable identity; and more use of technology to debate and devise legislation. Corbyn said the plans would “rebuild and transform Britain so that no one and no community is left behind”. In parallel, the Labour leader said new technology could transform the party’s election chances, saying he would use innovations pioneered in his leadership campaign against Owen Smith, such as a digital phone canvassing app which allows volunteers to make calls from anywhere, whenever possible. The phone bank app was devised by a group called Coders for Corbyn. They have released a “toolkit” for volunteers to spread the message, including a database of Corbyn-themed emojis, called “Jeremojis”, and a Twitter tool to automatically block fake accounts purporting to be those of Corbyn supporters. Corbyn said some of his strategy was based on the campaign of Bernie Sanders. The Vermont senator built a similarly energised support base in challenging for the Democratic presidential nomination. Corbyn said the fact Sanders eventually lost to Hillary Clinton did not mean valuable lessons could not be learned. “The Bernie Sanders campaign was amazing in the number of people who attended rallies, the number of people who were mobilised, and the fact he was totally counterintuitive to the whole norm of US politics, which is to appeal to the base that votes and to appeal to the interests of those voters that actually take part,” he said. “What the Bernie Sanders campaign did was to energise a whole lot of people – in a sense, the way that Barack Obama did in 2008 – by broadening the electoral base, and involving very large numbers of people, and he did that by a combination of digital technology and public rally appearances all over the country. “No, he didn’t win the nomination, that we fully understand. But he’s changed the Democratic party a great deal. The presidential platform on which Hillary Clinton is fighting the election is radically different compared to what it would have been had she not faced the challenge of Bernie Sanders.” Corbyn said he had enjoyed “long discussions with many people” in the Sanders campaign, saying it had transformed US politics. “It is a genie that cannot be put back in the bottle,” he said. With leadership ballot papers due to be sent out in the next few days before voting, which closes on 21 September, both Corbyn and Smith have been touring the country and announcing policy initiatives. Corbyn has made announcements on the arts, education and transport. Smith has given pledges on policies for young people, Brexit and the NHS. The victor – Corbyn remains the bookmakers’ favourite – will be announced at the annual party conference on 24 September.
Who is the pharmacist doubling up as the new NHS poster boy? He’s the face of the NHS as it battles to fend off a winter crisis. Smiling reassuringly out of a poster at a bus stop near you, Roger Humbles is urging us to make sure we get our prescriptions filled in good time for the Christmas holidays and consult a pharmacist if we feel peaky. Crisp white coat, NHS badge, stripey shirt and spotty tie – Humbles looks like a pharmacist from central casting. But he’s the real deal: a lifelong professional who has run his own high-street pharmacy in Herne Hill, south London, since 1999. He’s also an accomplished jazz saxophonist, having played at Ronnie Scott’s and the Royal Festival Hall and toured in the UK and abroad with his own quartet as well as many top bands. The pharmacy, he jokes, is just his hobby. So how did Humbles, a 58-year-old father of three, end up as an NHS poster boy? He’s not too sure. “I’m not seeking to promote myself and although I am a semi-professional musician, I’m not comfortable standing up in front of an audience and putting myself in the limelight,” he says. “The general consensus is amusement all round that I’m actually doing this.” He may be protesting too much. Last year, he agreed to audition and was chosen to play himself in a TV advertisement for a brand of allergy nasal spray (he wasn’t paid as that would have been against professional rules). That performance, which included talking to camera and a very convincing sneeze, led to him being used by NHS England as one of four healthcare professionals in a Stay Well This Winter poster campaign a year ago, which was aimed specifically at older people and others with long-term health conditions. This winter, he is the sole face of the campaign, now broadened to the public as a whole. The clear subtext is to try to ease pressure on hospitals and GPs by urging people to ensure they have sufficient supplies of regular medication and to go to their local pharmacist for health advice in the first instance. Humbles thinks more of us are heeding the message about making the pharmacist our first port of call and are becoming more aware of the full range of services on offer, including – through local agreements in many areas – a growing range of medicines that were previously prescription-only. But he admits that people still have a strong instinct to go straight to their GP when they feel ill, even if there is little to be done. “Lots of patients will go to the GP if they have a cold, but the GP can’t do anything that we can’t do.” One thing casting a cloud over Humbles’s burgeoning promotional career is the threat to the future of high-street pharmacies posed by a 12% cut in their overall funding, which started to take effect this month. Humbles has calculated that his own business will see an immediate 25% drop in dispensing fees, rising to 40% by the end of the decade, though this will be partially offset by other factors. He will survive, he hopes, but he fears for other pharmacies in low-income neighbourhoods that will be unable to cushion the blow with revenue from counter sales. “If it was really a good idea to have a pharmacy cull, the way to do it would be to do a needs assessment of each area,” he says. “This will just hit those local pharmacies in less affluent areas and drive people to travel to use the big chains.” Join the Healthcare Professionals Network to read more about issues like this. And follow us on Twitter (@GdnHealthcare) to keep up with the latest healthcare news and views.
Depression doesn’t stop when you go to work. It shouldn’t be taboo to tell your boss Depression affects millions of people around the world. It destroys lives, it ruins marriages and it also impacts on how we work. Yet mental health problems, including depression, are still often a taboo subject in the workplace, which is odd when you consider that one in four adults will experience a mental health condition in any given year. It can be difficult for a person suffering from depression to report the issue to their employer for a number of reasons. Depression can wrongly be seen as a selfish condition, or mistaken for a short period of sadness. Sometimes managers and even HR departments don’t understand, or aren’t trained to deal with mental health issues. For those who have never experienced the illness, it’s difficult to contemplate exactly what the sufferer is going through or why they can’t just snap out of it and pull themselves together. Unfortunately depression doesn’t work like that. My experience with depression is better than most. I’ve been lucky enough that it hasn’t had too dramatic an impact on my working life and I’ve been able to build a career. It hasn’t been easy, and I’ve been fortunate enough to not only work for some very forward-thinking employers, but also to be in a position where I can influence policy regarding workplace mental health. All employers have a responsibility for their employees’ health and safety in the workplace, including pre-existing mental health conditions and conditions brought on by work. How can employers ensure they meet this responsibility? I would suggest that the best way is to remove the taboo around depression and other mental health conditions and encourage their employees to come forward and seek help. Living with depression can be very lonely, and it will only be made worse if you feel that you have to hide your illness from your bosses. A lot of people suffer in silence until the problem gets too much, compounding their feelings of helplessness and isolation. I’ve had my own issues with depression for a long time, but I have some great friends and family who have offered me help and advice, as well as knowledgeable and compassionate managers. Even so, I’ve still experienced days where I’m overcome and I can’t get out of bed. I’ve felt lower than I thought possible, I’ve thought about killing myself and I’ve done or said things that I never would have if I’d been having a good day. On days where my condition gets the better of me, minor issues at work become major issues. My mind is a dark pool where the little annoyances that we all experience will swim around like sharks, devouring any suggestion of levity until they grow too big and overwhelm me. Then I shut down. My brain stops. Whatever task I’d been consumed with becomes unimportant as I sink deeper and deeper. My head is no longer on the job, which, depending on where you work can have serious health and safety impacts not just for you but also for your colleagues. I have had to work hard to recognise when this might happen, and to take action to ensure I never put myself or others in a position of serious harm. My manger was aware of my condition and afforded me the flexibility to work in a way where I could best manage it. The company helped me fight my illness by offering me advice, resources and support. And importantly, by not making me feel selfish or ashamed for suffering from a condition beyond my control. They recognised that I’d have days where I couldn’t be productive, and helped me manage my workload to compensate. Due to the confidential nature of workplace illness, and the reluctance for sufferers to come forward, it’s really important that employers build a culture of acceptance and support. Managers can find it difficult to discuss issues like depression, so it’s important for companies to help them with robust policies, procedures and training. With the cost of replacing staff lost due to mental health conditions reported to be £2.4bn per year in the UK alone, it makes sense for employers to help their employees combat the illness, even if just in a fiscal sense. My experience with depression at work is one of the better ones, but it’s easy to find numerous examples of people suffering from mental illness who have been discriminated against, let go or passed over for promotion. Sometimes the employer is aware of the condition when they do this, sometimes they’re not. Sometimes, instead of making their employer aware of their condition an employee will have several unauthorised absences until the employer is forced to terminate their employment. This can tip a person on the precipice of self-harm over the edge. If you’re suffering from depression and you don’t feel you can talk to your employer about it, I urge you to seek an alternative source of help. There’s plenty out there. Just remember that the worst thing you can do is suffer alone, and you don’t have to. • In the UK, the Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Hotline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14. Hotlines in other countries can be found here • Jordan Oldbury is a freelance writer and blogger from Perth, Australia
Arsenic in Bangladesh: how to protect 20 million from the world's largest poisoning It’s the largest poisoning of a population in history (pdf). More than 20 million people are thought to be at risk of drinking water contaminated by arsenic in Bangladesh. Arsenic occurs naturally in groundwater supplies throughout parts of Bangladesh, India and Nepal. It was first identified as a problem in Bangladesh in 1987, and concentration levels in some places exceed 50 milligrammes per litre (mg/l) – way beyond the maximum level recommended by the World Health Organisation of 10 mg/l. Each year, an estimated 43,000 people die from arsenic poisoning in the country. The government has taken a number of steps and made policies to try to address the problem. But despite a country-wide campaign and social mobilisation activities by the government and NGOs (pdf), knowledge and awareness levels among communities remain far below expectations. We know that there are cheap and potentially life-saving solutions to this problem. What we need to do now is promote these solutions, and increase access to them. An invisible problem Arsenic doesn’t change the taste or colour of water so the first problem we encounter is making people understand that it is present in their community. From skin lesions, stomach cramps, diarrhoea and vomiting blood, to cancers of the bladder, lungs, skin and kidneys, the symptoms and effects of arsenic poisoning are debilitating and palpable. But without a proper diagnosis, often people do not know whether they are suffering from typical diseases or ones caused by long-term exposure to arsenic. It is even more difficult, therefore, to make people realise that prolonged contact with arsenic-contaminated water may cause illness or even death. Liza Akhter, a 21-year-old girl in Bagerhat District, south-west Bangladesh, said to one of my colleagues: “The thing about arsenic is you get poisoned slowly, so you don’t know who has been affected around you already. Arsenic kills you every day, slowly.” It is the poorest who face the biggest problems and those suffering from the symptoms of arsenic poisoning often find themselves in a vicious circle. Even though they may be suffering from multiple debilitating diseases, they often cannot afford to get treated. Many do not have enough land to install a water point so they are reliant on community points or the traditional untreated shallow tube wells. Often the roof of their home is not strong enough to support a rainwater harvesting system. Those who are better off are more involved in the decision-making process and therefore have more control over where water is distributed. Very often, they can afford to install deep tube wells on their own land and access safe sources of water below the contamination levels. So what can be done? In affected areas Practical Action has been working to educate people about the symptoms of arsenic poisoning. We have provided testing kits so that people can check if their water supply is contaminated and, if need be, install arsenic-removal systems or look into alternative safe water supplies. Arsenic removal systems, where contaminated water if filtered through four chambers, are one available option. Due to a lack of testing systems, however, households don’t often know whether the removal system is working properly. We also find that the distribution of these filters is usually done in an ad hoc manner through government projects or by NGOs. The distribution of arsenic removal systems should be linked with suppliers to ensure post-installation services for repairing, replacing and changing the filter for long-term sustainability. Proper pricing plans are also essential for running a community-managed water point sustainably, and ensuring they are not abandoned due to financial problems. Rainwater harvesting does offer an alternative, but a lack of rain and the deterioration of water quality and taste during the dry season make it less popular. Usually, the equipment is not cleaned properly before the monsoon season which means that the water can become contaminated, causing sickness and diarrhoea. Other alternative sources of water could be found through “conjunctive use”, where surface water is stored in a groundwater basin in wet years, and withdrawn in dry years. Facilities to test water quality are also needed at home along with a national testing mechanism; science clubs in schools or laboratory facilities in colleges could even be explored for establishing such facilities. Most importantly, an integrated approach between the health and water sectors is needed for working with the communities in arsenic affected areas. We would also like to see government mapping of awareness levels among communities, as this is something we just do not know presently. All patients suffering from arsenic poisoning – arsenicosis – have less capacity to work, their income reduces, and their households are gradually marginalised. The provision of safe water alone is not enough; proper treatment for arsenic poisoning is also essential. We know that there are solutions, but we need to scale up this work so that the 20 million people in Bangladesh, and millions more in India and Nepal, who are at risk from arsenic poisoning, can at least take a drink of water without worrying it is killing them. Join our community of development professionals and humanitarians. Follow @ GDP on Twitter, and have your say on issues around water in development using #H2Oideas.
Julieta review – Almodóvar’s five-star return to form Spanish auteur Pedro Almodóvar’s latest, his most moving and entrancing work since 2006’s Volver, is a sumptuous and heartbreaking study of the viral nature of guilt, the mystery of memory and the often unendurable power of love. At times, the emotional intrigue plays more like a Hitchcock thriller than a romantic melodrama, with Alberto Iglesias’s superb Herrmannesque score (the director cites Toru Takemitsu, Mahler and Alban Berg as influential) heightening the noir elements, darkening the bold splashes of red, blue and white. Three short stories from the Canadian author Alice Munro’s 2004 volume Runaway provide the source material, but the spirit of Patricia Highsmith looms large as strangers on a train fuel the circling narrative (one character even observes that he is becoming a Highsmith obsessive). I was also startled to find echoes of George Sluizer’s Dutch-French 1988 chiller Spoorloos in the depiction of a life defined by the disappearance of a loved one, although there is a tenderness here wholly lacking from Sluizer’s altogether more unforgiving work. Emma Suárez is fabulous as Julieta, a beautiful, erudite, middle-aged woman leaving Madrid for Portugal to start a new life with Lorenzo (Talk to Her’s Darío Grandinetti). But a chance meeting with a childhood friend of her estranged daughter, Antía, sideswipes Julieta’s future plans. Instead of moving forward, she returns to the apartment block where she and Antía once lived, to write the story of their tragic, quasi-mythical odyssey. Transported back to the 80s, we meet the younger Julieta, now played with equal vigour by Adriana Ugarte, one of the film’s many talismanic doublings. For this spiky-haired classics teacher (Greek myth flows through these stories), a nocturnal train journey provides a fateful brief encounter with love and death, laying the tracks for all that is to come: her relationship with Galician fisherman Xoan (Daniel Grao), the birth of their beloved daughter, Antía, and the predestined separation from both. Almodóvar initially planned to use Munro’s stories as the basis of an English-language feature, yet bringing the material to Spain puts the writer-director on fertile home ground. As with 1997’s Live Flesh and 2011’s The Skin I Live In, Julieta may have a literary source but the result is entirely Almodóvar’s own. We open on a close-up of the undulating folds of a crimson dress, resembling both a heart and flower, signalling the thicker-than-water themes that will course through the narrative. As Julieta moves back and forth through time and space, Sonia Grande’s costumes and Antxón Gómez’s production design tell their own story – the stark lines of a room in which the past has been erased contrasting with the noisy clutter of a space filled with memories; the fragmented patterns of a gown matching the jagged edges of a torn photograph that Julieta sticks together to face her past; a blue garment framing a crimson cake that is ritually binned as another lonely birthday passes. After the exhaustingly camp sociopolitical satire of 2013’s I’m So Excited!, it’s a relief to find Almodóvar returning to the more introspective themes of such superior work as All About My Mother or The Flower of My Secret. Yet for all the director’s avowed “desires for containment” in a drama that he insists contains no “humour or any mixing of genres”, Julieta still manages to unite the disparate elements of Almodóvar’s unruly career. As the current BFI Southbank retrospective reminds us, he’s come a long way from the punky bawdiness of Pepi, Luci, Bom. There is a Bergmanesque quality to Almodóvar’s focus on Suárez’s face in Julieta which speaks volumes about his journey from enfant terrible to elder statesman. As portrayed by Ugarte, however, the younger Julieta would not have seemed out of place in Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! or High Heels, a reminder that the ghosts of Almodóvar’s back catalogue (highlighted here by the iconic presence of longtime muse Rossy de Palma) are as present as the past lives that haunt our heroine. Deftly conjoining the two central performances is a breathtakingly simple sequence that encapsulates Almodóvar’s genius. As a young Antía dries her devastated mother’s hair, Ugarte’s face disappears beneath a towel and re-emerges as that of Suárez, Julieta’s youthful visage transformed by grief. Whether through coma, depression or dementia, this is a drama littered with characters living an underworld existence, trapped by the great silence that is the true villain of the piece. Having been swept along by Almodóvar’s vision, I felt that silence deserved to be broken by tumultuous applause.
Sam Allardyce calls on Sunderland to secure survival against Everton Some Sunderland supporters are already planning post-match parties on Wednesday night but Sam Allardyce has cautioned that his players may not find beating Everton quite as straightforward as advertised. Victory against Roberto Martínez’s faltering yet still gifted side at the Stadium of Light would relegate Newcastle United and Norwich City while sealing the Wearside club’s Premier League safety. To Allardyce the fixture spells stress as well as opportunity. “It’s still big, big pressure,” he said. “We’ve got two games left to secure Premier League status but knowing we can kill everyone else off on Wednesday is pressure in itself. Can we handle it?” Yet even if his team drop points against Everton, they still have the trip on Sunday to Watford. Moreover their superior goal difference dictates that, in order to retain any hope of capitalising on another Wearside stumble at Vicarage Road, Newcastle would have to beat Tottenham at St James’ Park on the same day. Norwich’s even more slender hopes rest on winning their final two games of the campaign and their two rivals stalling. With safety almost painfully close, Sunderland’s manager dreads both complacency and nerves. “Everton will be out to spoil our celebrations,” he said. “We’ll need a big performance. Roberto’s players will fight all the way because of the criticism they received after their defeat at Leicester at the weekend. We’ll need to really be on our top game to beat an Everton side that’s performed better away than at home this season.” Winning would spare Allardyce the torture of an agonising afternoon at Watford. “The relegation battle could still go down to the final day,” he said. “So it would be a great relief for me if my players can beat Everton and finish it. If you need points on the last day of the season, things become very unpredictable. With the pressure involved you just don’t know who is going to do what.” If, as expected, Sunderland end up still in the top tier it will be the fourth year in a row they have dallied with the drop only to save themselves at the 11th hour. “Let’s do it for a fourth time and then say: ‘Let’s not let it happen again,’” Allardyce said. “Us being part of the Premier League is massively important for the city of Sunderland. I think there’s growing support for this team – it’s the biggest thing in and around the city and we’re getting sell-out crowds even though we’re near the bottom. If we can survive, and then get better and more exciting players in and try to achieve something, that support will keep growing.” Sunderland’s impressive fan-base – crowds this season have averaged well over 40,000 at the 50,000-capacity Stadium of Light – not only highlights the club’s potential, but also helped defeat Chelsea last Saturday. “The atmosphere here plays a big part,” Allardyce said. “It makes the hair on the back of the players’ necks stand up. Against Chelsea they got cheered for every tackle, every interception, every good pass, shot or cross. There’s still anxiety in the dressing room, knots in the stomach, real anxiety, but the atmosphere makes you play well. It’s these atmospheres you miss most when you finish playing. These are the experiences you don’t forget.” Martínez is in real peril of losing his job at Goodison Park and Allardyce feels dismayed. “A manager should be allowed a disappointing season,” he said. “Roberto should be allowed time to overcome it. He should be defined not by this season but by what he’s done during his career – and for Everton since joining them. “We all sometimes don’t quite get the results we want. It happens to experienced managers. And Roberto is experienced enough to learn from this and to take Everton forward to better things, to greater heights. There seems to be talk about them needing a new manager who is better at spending money than he is. It’s ridiculous. Why is Roberto suddenly not good enough to spend the money?” Like Martínez, Allardyce has done his fair share of fretting lately. “The players do worry but they don’t worry as much as you do as a manager,” he said. “As a player I worried about myself more than anything else but as a manager, staying up is your responsibility and you worry about the whole football club. Survival is far more important for the club than my CV showing I’ve never been relegated from the Premier League. It would be a big relief for me – and it would mean the players can go and celebrate.” He will have no problem if the alcohol starts flowing after 10pm on Wednesday night. “Will I let them go on the pop,” he queried? “Why not – I’ll join them.”
Gender pay gap to remain for thousands, says Conservative MP David Cameron will fail to deliver on a pledge to close the gender pay gap within a generation, according to a senior Conservative MP who used to be the Cabinet minister for women and equalities. Maria Miller, chair of a parliamentary select committee that scrutinises gender equality, told the : “The government thinks the issue has been resolved, and it has for women working full-time under the age of 35 but not for thousands of others. “The gender pay gap is particularly acute for women over 40 – and that is because of the lack of quality part-time working and lack of effective shared parental-leave policies. The evidence is clear. The government needs to take a long, hard look at their policies.” Miller highlighted that although the government has introduced parental leave, statistics showed that “at most 8%” of men will take up the option of extended time off with their newborns. Speaking before International Women’s Day, she added: “Without the support of men, women won’t see the gap eliminated.” She said there was an urgent need for more jobs that were flexible and for a bigger push to ensure men share the burden of childcare. It came as a survey of more than 8,000 people by the Fawcett Society found that 46% think women become less committed to their job after becoming mothers. That compared with just 11% who thought the same of men, while 29% of respondents said fathers became more committed to work. The poll by Survation found that three-quarters of men take leave of two weeks or less after the birth of a child, with a third taking just one to five days. It found that women still do the lion’s share when it comes to childcare. The women’s rights group said the figures revealed that women suffered a “motherhood penalty” while fathers were granted a “daddy bonus”. Sam Smethers, the chief executive of the Fawcett Society, said: “We need a decent, dedicated period of leave for dads, paid closer to replacement income rate so that they can afford to take it.” A government spokesman said: “The gender pay gap has been falling almost continuously, is at the lowest on record, and has been virtually eliminated for women under 40 working full-time. Thanks to the reforms this government is introducing, we expect that trend to continue. “Only last month, we unveiled a raft of measures requiring companies with more than 250 employees to publish their gender pay gap and we are extending that duty across the public sector. We must all be ambitious and take action to close the gap once and for all.” The survey results come amid calls for a change in parliament to allow job sharing among MPs. The campaign is being spearheaded by the shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, who said: “Job sharing for MPs is an idea whose time has come. It will help open up the opportunity for disabled people to serve as MPs and make the Commons more representative of the community we are supposed to represent.” Women’s rights are at the centre of the debate over women’s future in the European Union, with polls suggesting that most undecided voters are female. Labour MP Emma Reynolds said: “The campaign so far has been dominated by men. It is clear that women are more receptive to other women making the arguments. Women need to be more visible in this campaign. “The aggressive tone of the debate risks switching off women voters. Arguments about abstract notions of sovereignty don’t strike a chord with many women. We need to make granular arguments about how the EU affects women’s lives and their families.” Reynolds, and other female voices supporting the in campaign such as Green party MP Caroline Lucas, argue that the EU secures guarantees for women around part-time work and maternity leave. But the out campaigners will be pushing for women’s support as well on Tuesday, as they set up a new group called Women for Britain. The Conservative minister Priti Patel will give a speech comparing her fight to that of Emmeline Pankhurst. “As a suffragette, Pankhurst fought for the rights of women to have a vote, a voice and a say in how their society is governed and who governs it,” she said. “In many ways, Women for Britain are fighting for the same cause.”
Bank inquiry: some ANZ customers not told about banned advisers The head of ANZ has admitted that some of the bank’s customers have not been advised that their financial advisers have been banned by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission. Shayne Elliott, the ANZ chief executive, has also revealed the ANZ board is now considering ending political donations, just as National Australia Bank has done. Appearing on the second day of the Turnbull government’s bank hearings in Canberra, Elliott used his opening statement to apologise to ANZ customers, saying the bank had not always met the standards it set for itself. On credit cards, he conceded that the headline interest rate on ANZ credit cards may be too high, and he was open to restructuring. He said he was also open to the idea of a “one-stop shop” bank tribunal for customers with serious complaints, joining the Commonwealth Bank chief executive, Ian Narev, who had expressed a similar sentiment during Tuesday’s bank hearing. But he appeared to be under more pressure than Narev had been the day before. Narev had emerged unfazed from the first day of bank hearings on Tuesday, having answered all of his questions easily. Elliott spent much more time defending his bank’s actions and explaining why customers had been let down. At one stage he was asked by the Labor MP Matt Thistlethwaite about one financial planner who had been banned for 10 years for falsifying documents, and about another who was contesting a one-year ban after resigning from the bank. Elliot admitted that the clients of those advisers had not been told they’d been banned by Asic. “We have not, to date, specifically advised those clients,” Elliot replied. “We are going to. There is a gap in our process, we should [advise the clients].” When asked about Asic’s claim that ANZ had engaged in alleged unconscionable conduct and manipulating the bank bill swap rate between 2010 and 2012, Elliot defended the bank. He said two employees had been fired for violating the bank’s code of conduct but the rest had been reinstated after initially being stood down. He also tried to explain the numerous breaches that had occurred at ANZ between 2013-15 – including one in which customers’ superannuation money was allocated to wrong the accounts for up to 12 months. Later in the hearing the Greens MP Adam Bandt asked Elliott how ANZ justified to shareholders donating more than $1.6m to the Coalition and Labor between 2004-2005 and 2014-15. “That’s a very good question,” Elliott said. “We justify it on the basis that we are supporting the democratic process in the country.” Bandt asked him if ANZ had plans to stop making political donations. “We are having discussions at our board about the role of political donations and what our position is on that,” Elliot replied. NAB has decided to stop making political donations to all levels of government and to political entities. According to its policy statement on political donations, the bank’s board of directors “resolved in May 2016 that the making of any political donations would cease with immediate effect”. It says the board recognises the bank has an important role to play in Australia’s political process, and in the development and promotion of policy, and it now believes that can be better achieved by avoiding making political donations altogether. “From May 2016 NAB ceased making political donations at the commonwealth, state and local government level,” to document says. It means the federal Liberal, National and Labor parties will lose a crucial source of political funding. The prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, defended his decision on Wednesday not to hold a royal commission, telling 612 radio in Brisbane that annual bank hearings would be a good way to hold banks to account. “I’ve seen it reported in the press that this was designed to stave off a royal commission, that’s nonsense,” Turnbull said. “I understand the banking industry and I understand what’s wrong with it. “I understand that what it needs is greater accountability and transparency. So what we’ve done is ensure that the banks go up before that committee at least once a year – it could be two or three times a year, it’s up to the committee.”
Why 3,000 bank branches must close I’m the Money editor of the , but have not made a single visit to my bank this year. My deputy has called in at his branch about three times. Web Money editor Hilary Osborne says she’s been just twice, each time simply to deposit a cheque, and regarded it as a faff. How long before bank branches go the same way as video chain Blockbuster? You sort of remember visiting, forgot about it after Netflix appeared, and pretty soon they had all disappeared. This week Nationwide director Graeme Hughes drew me a graph of the network a bank needs to connect with the population. You start with a branch in the centre of Glasgow (Nationwide’s busiest location), then you keep adding until you have 600 branches in the biggest towns and cities. At that point you have 85% of the population covered – and further branches bring diminishing returns. Towns with a population much below 10,000, it seems, are not really worth having a branch in. If you work in one of any of the 6,479 branches of Lloyds, Barclays, HSBC, NatWest and Santander, this is going to make for grim reading. If one applies Hughes’ yardstick, that’s around 3,200 too many. Nationwide’s own network is, rather neatly, around 650-strong – but data body CACI also reckons that 600-650 is about right for every bank. In 2011 there were 478m “customer interactions” in Britain’s bank branches. This year it will be less than 280m. Tumbleweed blows through some branches – the average one now handles only 71 customers a day, with some seeing just a handful of people. We used to regularly feature the Campaign for Community Banking Services, as it battled against branch closures in rural communities. Tellingly, Derek French, who ran the campaign, is now closing down its website. Many will be angry, especially the very elderly, for some of whom smartphone banking and contactless cards hold few attractions. Age UK says 4.5 million over-65s are not online, and journeys to branches are getting longer. Not that bank chiefs want every branch to go. Hughes is actually a strong proponent of the 650-branch network, citing a peculiar fact about how we regard banking. When Nationwide opens a new branch, the number of people using its smartphone app in the area increases considerably. It seems a bank branch has a halo effect, giving us reassurance and confidence about the institution, even if we never go inside. He adds that the quality of transactions inside branches is increasing. Tiny numbers pop in with passbooks to deposit a small sum. Instead, branches are for the big-value transactions we are not (yet) happy to do on a smartphone. One small Nationwide branch in Caversham, near Reading, was slated for closure. It certainly couldn’t warrant a full-time mortgage adviser and other experts. But the society instead installed Skype-style screens so customers could come in and speak to experts directly, if remotely. It was a big success – sales rocketed – and “Nationwide Now” screen-based advice is being rolled out in every branch. Locations once considered borderline are now secure. But how long before we just do the screen-call from our homes? Much as one is sympathetic when a community loses its last bank, the next generation will regard bank branches as about as handy as a high street telephone box: quaint, but entirely redundant.
Why did NatWest issue a threat to Russia's RT news channel? What was NatWest bank thinking of when it sent a letter to the RT UK news channel saying it was preparing to close its accounts? We don’t know because the bank, which is part of the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) group, has not offered any public explanation beyond a bland statement. Although it said such decisions “are not taken lightly”, did it not realise the likely press freedom implications and the likelihood of it generating conspiracy theories? This is a Russian outfit after all (formerly known as Russia Today). In such circumstances, the immediate reaction from RT was entirely predictable. Editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan said: “It’s completely obvious that this is a political decision and a result of the wild pressure on RT in Europe and Britain”. I am assured that the British government, overtly or covertly, had nothing to do with the bank’s letter, so I think Simonyan was wide of the mark. But whatever lies behind the bank’s reasoning, the wording of the letter strikes me as clumsy, high-handed and tactless. If it had genuine concerns about RT UK’s accounts, then it would appear reasonable to write saying it was reviewing its banking arrangements. Then discussions could have taken place. Instead, NatWest appeared to have decided the result of the “review” in advance by stating that RT’s accounts would be closed in December, that the decision was “final” and that it was “not prepared to enter into any discussion in relation to it.” The Russian government may have overreacted by responding with a threat of its own, saying it will be forced to retaliate in kind. That is par for the course. In its political culture, a partially state-owned bank - which is the case with RBS - would be highly unlikely to exercise autonomy. It has therefore assumed that there is a sinister plot and a denial of press freedom. In reality, of course, RT’s existence is of little consequence to the UK government. Its audience is small. Its output is largely uncontroversial (and monitored, doubtless, by Ofcom for fairness). So there is no reason to harass the channel. With NatWest having stumbled into this diplomatic mess, some transparency would be welcome. Some may well believe that the bank is likely to have been concerned about risk management and compliance. But there is no evidence to suggest any such problem. RT UK, given its ultimate Moscow ownership, is not an ordinary customer, and it appears that the bank has unnecessarily, if naively, stumbled into, and thereby, stoked up, an international row. However, there should be no illusion: there are no press freedom implications.
China's internet censorship chief steps down China’s top internet regulator, who oversaw a severe tightening of internet freedoms during his tenure, has stepped down, reports said on Wednesday. Lu Wei – named as one of the world’s 100 most influential people last year by Time magazine – had been in charge of supervising controls on online expression since taking over as head of the Cyberspace Administration of China in 2013. China censors online content it deems politically sensitive, while blocking some western media websites and the services of companies including Facebook, Twitter and Google. Lu will be succeeded by Xu Lin, a deputy from the same department who joined in 2015 and previously served two years as the minister of propaganda for the city of Shanghai. “Xu Lin has replaced Lu Wei as the head of the Office of the Central Leading Group for Cyberspace Affairs,” the official Xinhua news agency said, citing an official statement but providing no further details. Xu worked alongside China’s president, Xi Jinping, in Shanghai in 2007, when the latter was the city’s communist party chief. Jamie Metzl, a senior fellow at thinktank the Atlantic Council, said: “It’s impossible for outsiders to know what Lu Wei’s departure might mean, but it’s clear that the space for open expression in China continues to shrink.” Colleague Roger Cliff, Senior Fellow: “Lu Wei is not in any political or legal trouble, but Xi simply decided he wanted someone closer to him to be in charge of internet policy. I certainly would not interpret this move as a repudiation of Lu Wei’s approach to internet governance. “If anything I would expect to see a further increase in the Chinese government’s efforts to monitor and control the internet within China as well as to influence the content of the internet outside of China.” Jon Huntsman, a former US ambassador to China, told Time in April last year that Lu imposed tougher regulations because of “social-stability concerns”. “Lu’s choices will either provide greater access to online freedom or further suppress the natural curiosity that thrives beneath the surface in China. Whatever he does, the gregarious former propaganda chief is certain to affect the lives of billions,” he wrote. Last year, a report by the American pro-democracy thinktank Freedom House found China had the most restrictive internet policies of 65 countries studied, ranking below Iran and Syria. Lu was a powerful figure at home and abroad, where he commanded the attention of global technology companies eager for a piece of the Chinese market. He was personally received by Mark Zuckerberg in 2014 at Facebook’s Silicon Valley headquarters, and appeared in the front row of a “family photo” alongside Xi and top executives from American tech giants such as Amazon when the head of state visited the US in September last year. It remains unclear whether Lu, who retains his position as deputy head of the ruling Communist party’s Central Publicity Department, will take on additional roles.
Senior civil servants are being told to bypass pro-Brexit ministers Sir Jeremy Heywood, the cabinet secretary, is facing allegations that he is acting in a constitutionally improper manner as Whitehall sources confirmed that senior civil servants are being told to bypass ministers who want to leave the EU. Bernard Jenkin, the chairman of the Commons public administration select committee, said Heywood appeared to be acting in an “unorthodox and unprecedented” manner. Heywood is expected to face pressure on Monday amid signs that John Bercow would grant an urgent question in the Commons about guidelines banning civil servants from showing official papers related to the EU referendum to Brexit ministers. In a move aimed specifically at Iain Duncan Smith, Heywood issued new guidelines last week to ban civil servants from preparing new research for anti-EU cabinet ministers that could be used in the EU referendum campaign. No 10 had feared that Duncan Smith, who has strong doubts about the welfare elements of the prime minister’s EU reform plan, would seek to ask his officials to assess the credibility of the plan. Senior Whitehall sources said Heywood had gone further and advised the most senior civil servants in departments headed by Brexit ministers that there would be occasions when they would have to bypass their ministers and deal solely with him. At least one permanent secretary is understood to have raised concerns with their Brexit secretary of state that Heywood may be acting in a constitutionally inappropriate manner because secretaries of state, technically at least, are solely responsible for their departments under a seal granted by the Queen. Officials in Heywood’s office are also contacting the private offices of ministers who have yet to declare which side they are supporting in the referendum, asking to make their intentions clear. This is designed to work out whether they are entitled to see all papers in their department related to the referendum. Duncan Smith urged David Cameron to reverse the Heywood guidelines. The Brexit ministers hoped No 10 would face strong pressure to back down on the Heywood guideline on Monday following signs that the Speaker would grant an urgent question to Bernard Jenkin. The chairman of the commons public administration select committee declined to comment on whether he was seeking to table the question. But Jenkin said that any attempt by Heywood to bypass a secretary of state would be unconstitutional and could be unlawful by infringing the Carltona principle, which says that officials in a department work “under the authority of ministers”. Jenkin, whose committee will question Heywood on Tuesday, said of the cabinet secretary’s guidelines: “This is unorthodox and unprecedented. In law the minister is indivisible from his or her department.” In calling for the ban to be reversed, Duncan Smith told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show: “I think that this can’t possibly apply in the sense of not knowing what is going on in the department because we are responsible for the departments.” Philip Hammond, the foreign secretary, defended the ban. He said: “Those ministers who want to argue another case are being allowed to do so but the civil service can’t support them in doing that. They’ll have to find their own external support.” The row over the role of Brexit ministers came after the leave camp were angered by a personal attack on Boris Johnson in the House of Commons last Monday. Cameron suggested that the mayor of London had decided to campaign to leave the EU as a way of boosting his chances in the Tory leadership contest. Duncan Smith advised Cameron to focus on the issues and to step back from personal attacks. He said: “The prime minister deserves some credit. This is a generous offer to let cabinet ministers break ranks and debate this because it is the biggest issue. But the general view at the time and I think should remain now is don’t play the person, play the ball. We should take a deep breath and ask ourselves a simple question. This is about Britain not us.” However, he accused the prime minister and George Osborne of talking down Britain after they issued a series of warnings about the threat to the economy if the UK voted to leave the EU. “I say this to those who want to remain in: I have never heard such a lot of pessimistic downsizing of Britain. Britain is a phenomenal country, the fifth largest in the world. It has stood alone and fought for freedom, it has traded, it has been a global trader. It can yet again be a global trader. Why would we have such a low opinion of the British people that we go out and talk about leaping into the dark, we talk about profound shocks? We talk about being too small. I have a different view. Britain is a great country.” A Cabinet Office spokesman said: “The cabinet secretary and his office are in regular contact with permanent secretaries and private offices on a range of issues. “The prime minister made an exceptional exemption to collective responsibility on the specific issue of the referendum question, and the guidance makes a clear distinction between ministers campaigning to leave the EU and those campaigning to remain. Departments and the Cabinet Office therefore need to know which ministers will be subject to the new processes. “There is no separate process for departments whose ministers are campaigning to leave the EU beyond the guidance published on Monday. Day-to-day business will continue to be conducted in the usual way and all ministers will retain access to any papers relevant to their departments other than those specifically regarding the in-out question.”
Your cheat sheet for the Arizona and Idaho primaries and Utah caucuses Since 1 February, 62 primary elections have been held to choose the presidential candidates for the next US election – and there are another 47 primaries to go. Here’s a quick primer on the next five – two Republican and three Democratic – being held on Tuesday. In total, 98 Republican and 159 Democratic delegates are up for grabs on 22 March. That might not sound like many (1,237 delegates are needed to win the Republican nomination and 2,383 to win the Democratic one) but the timing of these primaries raises their significance. If Donald Trump picks up enough delegates, public perception about the inevitability of his election could be bolstered (those perceptions could, in turn, affect voting). And these states offer Bernie Sanders the chance to gain some much-needed ground in the Democratic race – if he fails to do so, it becomes much more unlikely that he can stop Hillary Clinton from winning the nomination. So, what are their chances? Arizona Primaries: Republican and Democratic presidential primaries Delegates: 58 Republican delegates, 85 Democratic delegates Things to watch out for: This will be the most important result of the night, partly because delegates from the Republican primary will be awarded on a winner-takes-all basis but also because of the sheer number of delegates available. There isn’t a lot of polling data available to help figure out who’s ahead – the averages on Real Clear Politics are based on just two recent polls conducted with voters in the state. But the numbers that are available suggest a sizeable win for Clinton in the Democratic race. If the poll numbers are correct, she could finish with 53% of the vote, 30 percentage points more than Sanders, which would leave the Vermont senator scooping up only a handful of delegates. In the Republican race too, the shaky polling evidence points to the leading contender winning in Arizona, with Trump 13 percentage points ahead of Cruz. Demographics: Arizona’s electorate is 27% Hispanic, one of the largest voting blocs in the country. Exit polls from the Texas primary have suggested that may work against Sanders (he only got 33% of the Hispanic vote there) but in Nevada, Sanders led 53-45 with Latino voters who helped him to secure 15 of the 35 delegates available. It’s also worth noting that aside from the size of its Hispanic community, Arizona’s demographics are pretty similar to those of Michigan where Sanders defied all polling numbers and won big last month. Idaho Primaries: Democratic presidential caucus Delegates: 27 Democratic delegates Things to watch out for: When the Republican primary was held here on 8 March, it produced a big win for Ted Cruz who got almost half of all the votes. That might indicate just how conservative Idaho’s conservatives are; Cruz is graded as more ideologically conservative than Trump on the economy, defense and individual rights according to On The Issues. Those aren’t the only political question marks here. Only one poll has been conducted in Idaho – it shows Sanders two percentage points ahead of Clinton but that’s simply not enough data to make any kind of forecast. Demographics: Idaho’s electorate is overwhelmingly white – a factor that polling has suggested would work in Sanders favor. What’s more, the fact that voters here have a household income that’s $5,796 below the national median might mean that they are more receptive to Sanders’ messaging on economic justice. Utah Primaries: Republican and Democratic presidential caucuses Delegates: 40 Republican delegates, 37 Democratic delegates Things to watch out for: Utah could also be a state where Sanders can try to catch up with Clinton. Although only 37 Democratic delegates are available here (out of a total 4,763), reporting on these results tends to be focused more simply on “winners” and “losers” – Sanders could well benefit from more frequent portrayals of the former. The last poll conducted in Utah suggests Sanders is eight percentage points ahead of Clinton but there isn’t enough other data available to show whether or not that number is reliable. Among Republicans, two surveys conducted in March have suggested that Cruz has a healthy lead here of between 21 and 24 percentage points. Demographics: Utah’s electorate is wealthier and whiter than national averages. The fact that voters here are wealthier could help explain Cruz’s lead (Trump voters tend to have a lower income) and the fact that they’re whiter could explain Sanders’ apparent lead (polling has suggested that Sanders will perform best in states that are both highly white and highly liberal).
Team GB to win six fewer medals at Rio 2016, predicts Goldman Sachs The UK will win six fewer medals at the Rio 2016 Olympics than in 2012 when Britain hosted the games, according to economists at Goldman Sachs. In a report that partly uses macroeconomic conditions to predict each country’s performance, the economists said Britain’s medal haul would fall without the boost that countries typically get from home advantage. Team GB will win 23 gold medals – six fewer than four years ago – but its tally of other medals will stay the same, sending the total down to 59 from 65, Goldman said. The UK will still be third in the medal rankings behind the US in first place and China in second, Goldman predicted. The US will win one fewer gold medal, but its total will rise by three to 106. China is predicted to pick up two fewer golds with its total rising by one to 89. Brazil will gain from hosting the games, adding five medals, including two golds, to take its total to 22, the company forecast. However, the $10bn spent on infrastructure and logistics to prepare for the games will not be enough to stimulate the $1.8tn Brazilian economy, which is in a deep recession, Goldman said. The biggest loser in medal terms will be Russia, which is embroiled in a doping scandal that will result in many of its athletes being barred. Goldman predicted Russia would win 24 fewer medals than in 2012. The Goldman economists predicted the UK’s medal tally correctly in 2012 and the top 11 nations for total medals won. They admitted beginner’s luck and the randomness of small samples may have played a part in their success. The economists argue that countries with healthy economies and political systems should do better at the games and that “a country is more likely to produce world-class athletes in a world-class environment”. They also look at population size, previous medal success and the effect of hosting the games. The report said: “Without an in-depth knowledge of elite athletes, recent performance metrics, and event details, it would be surprising if broad econometric exercises based on macroeconomic relationships weren’t only a very rough guide to predicting Olympic success. “Still, the predictive success of our last effort suggests that at least at the level of a country it may be possible to identify the ingredients of winning.” The economists from the world’s top investment bank said their report was meant as a piece of “summer fun”. City analysts do not have a good recent record for predicting major events. Despite commissioning exit polls on the day of the EU referendum, banks were caught out by the vote to leave.
Benefits brake is 'red herring' in EU debate, says Labour The Labour party believes that the emergency brake on in-work benefits that lies at the heart of David Cameron’s EU renegotiations is a “red herring” that will do little to reduce migration. But in a briefing note sent to all Labour MPs, Jeremy Corbyn, Hilary Benn and Alan Johnson implicitly accept the emergency brake as they voice support for the principle of “fair contribution”. The note, which is designed to help Labour MPs answer questions about the EU referendum, marks a change by Corbyn, who last year rejected the prime minister’s plan to ban EU migrants from claiming in-work benefits for four years. The Labour leader said at a meeting of the Party of European Socialists in December: “If somebody is working, paying taxes, doing a job just like anybody else, then surely they deserve access to exactly the same benefits as anybody else.” The document compiled for the parliamentary Labour party (PLP) says Labour supports EU membership principally as the best way to protect economic growth, safeguard jobs and protect UK security. The document also makes it clear that Labour will accept the prime minister’s emergency brake on in-work benefits. Under the deal agreed at an EU summit last Friday, the UK will be able to restrict access to in-work benefits to EU migrants on a sliding scale for four years. The brake can be in place for seven years. The PLP document says: “We support the principle of fair contributions towards social security where people are able to do so, and action by government to prevent the exploitation of migrants to undercut the going rate in Britain. “But the emergency brake will be ineffective in its stated aim of reducing migrant numbers. The evidence does not back up the claim that in-work benefits are a significant draw for workers who come to Britain from across the EU. “This referendum is not about the red herring of an emergency brake, which even government ministers do not claim will reduce inward migration. It’s about the far greater question of whether to remain in the EU.”
Transformers: The Last Knight trailer – this time it's serious The title of Transformers: The Last Knight carries a certain finality to it. And that makes sense. After all, the franchise is now a decade old, and the appeal of watching indistinguishable robots punch each other interminably wore off about three and a half films ago, so it makes sense for the series to wrap itself up before the wheels come off completely. The first Transformers: The Last Knight trailer shares a similar air of finality. Could this really be the end? Let’s take a closer look. This certainly looks final, doesn’t it? I mean, blood dripping from a crucifix isn’t the sort of imagery you can just drop midway into a franchise that’s historically been largely about urinating robots and girls in tight shorts. No, this feels serious. This feels like the end of something. As does this. The first half of the trailer is almost exclusively concerned with the entire history of human violence. We see soldiers creeping through the woods with flaming arrows. We see knights on horseback. And we see the rise of nazism. This isn’t going to be any old Transformers movie. No, this one has something important to say about the human condition. And, more final than anything, we see the frozen carcass of Optimus Prime spinning through space. Our hero is dead. All our heroes will die. This is the end, make no mistake of that. This just cements the new, serious Transformers. The first Transformers film had Megan Fox bending over a car in a pair of tight shorts. Transformers 5, meanwhile, has Sir Anthony Hopkins waxing poetical in a church about the nature of sacrifice. This is going to be a very powerful, very serious meditation on some very big themes. Themes like the individual’s ability to effect profound societal change, as evidenced by this scene of Bumblebee punching a military drone unit in the face. Bumblebee is us, you see, rising up against an increasingly totalitarian state. And, yes, admittedly this does just look like Mark Wahlberg firing a giant gun in a really cool way. But, you know, maybe the gun represents society. Did you ever think of that? And there’s quite a lot about this one really cool robot with a massive sword who swings it around a lot and it’s all like “Raaaargh!” I mean, you probably don’t need to concentrate too hard on why a giant metal robot needs to have a sword as a weapon, because that’d ultimately be the same as watching two medieval knights joust with uncooked sausages. But, anyway, look, it’s really cool and stuff. BLAM! Take THAT, police car! That gun was all like DUGGA DUGGA DUGGA and the police car was all POW I’M GETTING OUT OF HERE and Mark Wahlberg is going HEEE HEEE HEEE and this is all so cool and it’s probably an allegory for Guantanamo Bay or something but mainly OH WOW FIRE. And Optimus Prime isn’t dead either! That was just a fakeout! Optimus Prime will never die. Never ever. And this isn’t the last Transformers film, either. There’s going to be this one, and then the year after that Bumblebee is getting his own spin-off, and then the year after that there’s going to be another Transformers film. These films make a billion dollars each. Why would they stop making them? Now STAB HIM, OPTIMUS PRIME! STAB HIM REAL GOOD! WHEE!
Everton’s new majority shareholder Farhad Moshiri likely to increase stake Farhad Moshiri will become the majority shareholder at Everton, with his purchase of a 49.9% stake in the Premier League club only the start of his takeover. Bill Kenwright’s decade-long search for investment ended on Saturday when it was announced Moshiri, a British-Iranian businessman who is valued at £1.3bn by Forbes, the American business magazine, had agreed a deal to become Everton’s major shareholder. The 60-year-old sold his stake in Arsenal to his business partner, Alisher Usmanov, on Friday before paying about £87.5m for the Everton shares. The deal values the Goodison Park club at £175m. Subject to Premier League approval, which is expected to be a formality following his investment at Arsenal, Moshiri will acquire Robert Earl’s 23% stake in Everton, plus shares from Kenwright and the director Jon Woods, both of whom are to dilute their respective shareholdings of 26% and 19%. There is an agreement in place, however, for the Monaco-based businessman to increase his stake over time and become the majority owner. Everton’s new investor will work alongside Kenwright, who is to remain as the club chairman, for an interim period. In a statement confirming the agreement, Kenwright said Moshiri “brings the promise of new investment” and it is expected the summer transfer budget for the manager, Roberto Martínez, will rise as a result. Everton hope the extra funds will encourage players such as Romelu Lukaku, John Stones and Ross Barkley to resist any overtures at the end of the season. Martínez has stated Everton plan to offer new contracts to Barkley and Stones this summer. Also high on Moshiri’s agenda is a resolution to Everton’s stadium saga. The club have failed with two stadium projects during Kenwright’s tenure – to King’s Dock in 2003 and out of the city to Kirkby in 2009 – and are seeking support from the cash-strapped Liverpool city council for plans to relocate to nearby Walton Hall Park. Those proposals sparked a public row in November when Everton’s chief executive, Robert Elstone, blamed the council for the lack of progress only for the city’s mayor, Joe Anderson, to reveal Everton had not submitted any detailed plans for a stadium. Anderson met Kenwright, who has been suffering from ill health for the past year, in London last week. “It’s great news for Evertonians and good news for the city,” said the mayor. “It was good to see Bill looking so well when we met. He updated me on what was going on and that a deal was close. Let’s really hope that the club can achieve big things now.” Kenwright has held talks with several potential investors over the years, including the American businessmen John Jay Moores and Charles Noell. The pair remained in dialogue with the Everton board following the end of a six-week due diligence period in January but it is understood Kenwright favoured a single investor rather than a consortium. Moshiri’s parents fled Iran just before the 1979 revolution. A chartered certified accountant, he was educated at University College London and holds UK citizenship but is based in Monaco with his wife and two children. He met the Arsenal shareholder Usmanov in the early 1990s and the pair have worked on several projects in the UK and Russia. Everton’s impending major shareholder said: “I am delighted to take this opportunity to become a shareholder in Everton, with its rich heritage as one of Europe’s leading football clubs. “There has never been a more level playing field in the Premier League than now. Bill Kenwright has taught me what it means to be an Evertonian and I look forward with excitement to working with him to help deliver success for Everton in the future.” Kenwright added: “After an exhaustive search I believe we have found the perfect partner to take the club forward. I have got to know Farhad well over the last 18 months and his football knowledge, financial wherewithal and true-blue spirit have convinced me that he is the right man to support Everton.”
FGM campaigner Fahma Mohamed to receive honorary doctorate The teenager who led the -backed campaign to end female genital mutilation (FGM) has been awarded a doctorate for her campaigning work. Fahma Mohamed, 19, who will be a doctor of law, is one of the youngest people in the UK to receive the honorary degree, which will be presented by Bristol University on Friday. Mohamed said she was ecstatic at being awarded the doctorate. “This has been seven years of hard work, we had so many obstacles to overcome and struggles at the beginning because it was so taboo,” she said. “It was fighting against something people were in denial about, it was hard for people to understand our point of view and for people in the community to be able to come out and say I am against this, too. “But now people have completely changed. Of course there are still people out there who might not agree. But there are many people who have said that our work has broken the cycle of abuse in their family. I am so glad and thankful to everyone I have met on this journey, [who] has been willing to listen to me and others doing this work and given me the opportunity to help young girls out there.” Mohamed was 14 when, along with the Bristol-based charity Integrate, she started the campaign to end the practice of FGM in Britain. Two years later she fronted a national campaign with the and Change.org to stop the abuse. She met the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, who praised her work. Her campaign in the UK culminated in compulsory training for public sector workers to help teachers, doctors and social workers identify and assist girls at risk. According to government figures, more than 20,000 British girls a year are thought to be at risk of being cut. Despite previous government promises to stop FGM, experts have warned that not only are girls still being taken abroad to be cut during the holiday “cutting season” but some are being mutilated in Britain. Medical groups, trade unions and human rights organisations estimate that there are 66,000 UK victims of FGM in the UK and more than 24,000 girls under 15 are at risk. Victims can be just a few weeks old. The fight against FGM, described by Germaine Greer in the late 1990s as “an attack on cultural identity”, became front-page news, endorsed by David Cameron. Jaha Dukureh, a 26-year-old American woman originally from the Gambia, was also key to putting the issue at the top of the political agenda. She said: “Because of our success with the in the Gambia, we are scaling up what we did in the Gambia to other parts of the world and empower the people that will bring real change.” Dukureh along with the campaign platform Change.org, Equality Now and the have already persuaded the Obama administration to conduct a national survey on the prevalence of FGM in the US, where it is estimated that 500,000 girls are at risk.
Ozzy Osbourne undergoing 'intense therapy' for sex addiction Ozzy Osbourne is undergoing “intense therapy” for sex addiction, which caused his separation from his manager and wife of 34 years, Sharon. The Black Sabbath frontman’s representatives released a statement saying he had been dealing with sex addiction for the last six years,but that since his “relationship” with hairstylist Michelle Pugh had been exposed, he had sought treatment. When Osbourne moved out of the family home in May, it was suggested he might have relapsed in his drugs and alcohol addictions. Osbourne himself said: “I have been sober for three and a quarter years. I have not touched drugs or alcohol in that time. Any reports that I am not sober are completely inaccurate.” Pugh had spoken effusively to People magazine about her relationship with Osbourne. “When I say he gave me the greatest love of my life, I mean it,” Pugh told the magazine. “He made me feel like the most beautiful and worshipped woman in the world.” Osbourne, however, distanced himself from her. “I’m sorry if Ms Pugh took our sexual relationship out of context,” he said in his statement. “I’d also like to apologise to the other women I have been having sexual relationships with. Out of the bad comes good. Since the press exposed this, I have gone into intense therapy. I am mortified at what my behaviour has done to my family. I thank God that my incredible wife is at my side to support me.” Sharon Osbourne explained on the US TV show The Talk that Ozzy had been having outpatient treatment for three months, and would spend three months as an inpatient after the current Black Sabbath tour finishes. She said sex addiction was more embarrassing than drug addiction. Pugh, meanwhile, has filed a defamation lawsuit against Osbourne’s daughter Kelly, according to TMZ. She claims that a series of tweets Kelly sent after the affair was revealed “slut-shamed, bullied and harassed” her, causing emotional damage, and loss of business in her work as a celebrity stylist.
Are you a closet Donald Trump voter? Tell us why You wouldn’t bring it up in the office. You might not tell your friends (or even your partner). You might claim to #feeltheBern or support #Rubiomentum. But secretly, you’re hoping Donald Trump wins the Republican nomination and then goes all the way to the White House. We know you’re out there and we want to chat with you (anonymously!) for a story we’re working on. We’re particularly interested in why you support Trump – is it because of something he’s done or said? Is it because of other candidates? What appeals most about him? Was there a particular moment when you become a Trump supporter? Who have you voted for previously? Email your thoughts to amber.jamieson@theguardian.com (and we might reach out with some follow-up questions). No identifying information will be published without permission.
What are four of the top social media networks doing to protect children? According to recent report from NSPCC, ChildLine conducted 35,000 counselling sessions for low self-esteem between April 2014 and March 2015. The report blames “a constant onslaught from cyber-bullying, social media and the desire to copy celebrities,” as key reasons. Julia Fossi, senior analyst for online safety at NSPCC says that while most platforms are taking steps to improve safety, social networks must be held more accountable for the content they host. She says that social sites, which often use tracking technology for adverts and marketing could use a similar technology “to identify potential bullying issues and help determine what an effective intervention would look like.” With reports of cyberbullying on the rise and girls more likely to be affected, Will Gardner, CEO, Childnet International says that the area is “challenging” but agrees that sites must continue innovating with technology to tackle the issue. Here, we look at what four of the biggest social media networks are currently doing. Facebook Facebook’s rules states under-13s can’t sign up, but research from EU Kids Online and the LSE found half of 11 to 12-year-olds are on Facebook. . Announcing the recent formation of the Online Civil Courage Initiative – a partnership between Facebook and NGOs to fund counter speech campaigns against terrorism and bullying – Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg said that, “hate speech has no place in our society — not even on the internet”. Facebook polices the content on its own site on a report by report basis, relying on users to report posts to its “around the clock” global support teams. While Facebook claims it has improved its reporting transparency with a user dashboard that lets users know how their complaint is being dealt with, there is no available open data on how many reports are resolved satisfactorily and how many abusive users and pages are removed. The network does have a family safety centre with information aimed at teens and parents, and encourages users to block or unfriend anyone who is abusive. Twitter In a leaked memo in February last year, former Twitter CEO Dick Costolo claimed that Twitter “sucks at dealing with abuse and trolls”. Since then, the company says it has streamlined the process of reporting harassment and has made improvements around reporting other content issues including impersonation and the sharing of private and confidential information. Crucially the site has updated its enforcement procedures too, claiming to use both an automated and human response to conduct investigations and follow appropriate actions swiftly. The site says it will take action against abusers depending on severity, ranging from requiring specific tweets to be deleted to permanently suspending accounts. Like Facebook, there is no public data showing the effectiveness of its policies and reporting. Last year Twitter launched a safety centre where users can learn about staying safe online, with sections created especially for teens, parents and educators. It also recently announced a partnership with mental health charity Cycle Against Suicide to promote online safety. Snapchat A report from last year’s Safer Internet Day found that Snapchat is the third most popular messaging or social media app among the 11 to 16 age group (behind Facebook and YouTube). The app has community guidelines which outline what users shouldn’t send others, including harassment, threats and nudity, and as with other sites and apps, users can block people and report abuse. It has a safety centre with safety tips and advice, produced in partnership with experts from iKeepSafe, UK Safer Internet Centre and ConnectSafely. And in November, the app partnered with Vodafone to raise awareness of cyberbullying by offering users emojis designed to be shared as an act against online abuse. Still, according to the NSPCC’s Net Aware guide, “64% of the young children we asked think Snapchat can be risky”. Instagram Owned by Facebook since 2012, Instagram has community guidelines and tips for parents that address questions such as, “who can see my teen’s photos?”. Like Facebook, users have to be aged 13 or over, though it’s easy to lie about your age and sign up. Instagram encourages users to report those underage via an online form or through in-app reporting. This reporting also applies to abusive content, impersonation and hate accounts. The company claims it monitors reports 24/7 to investigate abuse, shut down accounts and report to relevant authorities. Again there are no public stats to enable an accurate measure of effectiveness. The ability to follow accounts of people you don’t know and access unsuitable material has been highlighted by the NSPCC, although the charity says most content is deemed low risk.
Alan Rickman would have been proud Eye in the Sky was last role Alan Rickman would have been proud that his last on-screen performance will be in the upcoming thriller about drone warfare, Eye in the Sky, according to co-star Helen Mirren. Mirren said the film, which follows the progress of a drone strike from multiple viewpoints and features Rickman as a British general trying to get authorisation for a strike, suited the late actor’s “intelligence”. “It was the Alan that I know: the witty, thoughtful Alan rather than the villain that he played so brilliantly,” she told the Radio Times. “I hope I don’t speak out of place, but I think that if Alan had the choice, he would have been proud of this as his last movie. “The subject matter is absolutely where his intelligence was. He was very politically aware, conscientious and thoughtful. I’m sure that’s why he would have chosen it in the first place.” Rickman died from cancer at the age of 69 in January. He was one of the UK’s most loved actors, achieving global fame through roles such as Bruce Willis’s nemesis Hans Gruber in Die Hard , and more recently Professor Severus Snape in the Harry Potter films. Eye in the Sky, which is released on Friday and also stars Breaking Bad’s Aaron Paul, is dedicated to Rickman’s memory. The film is Rickman’s last on screen, however he will voice a character in the Alice in Wonderland Sequel, Alice Through the Looking Glass, which is due for release next month. Mirren was a contemporary of Rickman’s and starred “rather disastrously” with him in a theatre production of Anthony and Cleopatra in 1989. In Eye in the Sky, Mirren plays Colonel Katherine Powell, who is directing the strike. She said one of the things she enjoyed about the film was its attempt to explore different sides of the debate, and shift sympathies between characters. In one instance a female politician argues against killing civilians, only to justify her stance based on the need to win a propaganda war against the enemy. She said: “She comes out with the most unbelievably cynical reasoning, … But then again, it’s true: you do have to win the propaganda war. But that’s the beauty of the film. You see the issue from all sides.”
Rex Tillerson: an appointment that confirms Putin's US election win Rex Tillerson’s nomination as the next secretary of state confirms Vladimir Putin as one of the strategic victors of the US presidential election. Barack Obama has ordered an inquiry into covert Russian intervention in the campaign, which the CIA says was designed to secure a victory for Donald Trump. But whether or not Russian intervention made a significant difference to the outcome, a Tillerson appointment would represent a significant gain for Moscow. He must be confirmed by the Senate. While the other leading candidates for the job held largely traditional and adversarial views on Russia, the outgoing chief executive of Exxon Mobil has a history of close business ties to Putin, who bestowed the Order of Friendship on Tillerson in 2013. The Wall Street Journal reported: “Friends and associates said few US citizens are closer to Mr Putin than Mr Tillerson.” The 64-year-old Texas oilman spent much of his career working on Russian deals, including a 2011 agreement giving Exxon Mobil access to the huge resources under the Russian Arctic in return for giving the giant state-owned Russian oil company, OAO Rosneft, the opportunity to invest in Exxon Mobil’s operations overseas. Tillerson is also friends with the head of Rosneft, Igor Sechin, a former interpreter who worked as chief of staff for Putin when he was deputy mayor in St Petersburg in the mid-1990s. Sechin, sometimes described as the second-most-powerful man in Russia, is now under US sanctions. He has said that one of his ambitions is to “ride the roads in the United States on motorcycles with Tillerson”. The 2011 Exxon-Rosneft agreement was frozen when sanctions were imposed on Russia in 2014, following the annexation of Crimea and covert military intervention in eastern Ukraine. Exxon Mobil estimated the sanctions cost it $1bn and Tillerson has argued strenuously for the measures to be lifted. “We always encourage the people who are making those decisions to consider the very broad collateral damage of who are they really harming with sanctions,” he said, at a shareholders’ meeting. In June, two years after sanctions were imposed and in an apparent show of support for Sechin, Tillerson reportedly turned up at a St Petersburg economic summit. If the sanctions were lifted, the Arctic project would probably go ahead and Tillerson’s retirement fund of Exxon Mobil stock would increase in value. He would most likely have to divest himself of stock by the time he entered the office on the seventh floor of the state department. It might be harder to divorce his judgments entirely from the oil company where he spent his career. “Trump’s choice of Rex Tillerson suggests he wants to make good on his promise to cut deals with Russia instead of containing it,” said Thomas Wright, who has written extensively on Trump’s foreign policy at the Brookings Institution. “Tillerson has a relationship with Putin and he opposed the sanctions imposed on Russia after the annexation of Crimea. This will alarm those worried about Russian intentions in Europe.” Praising Tillerson in an interview with Fox News Sunday, Trump said: “To me a great advantage is that he knows many of the players in the world and he knows them well.” Lest there be any doubt about which players the president-elect had in mind, Trump added: “He does massive deals in Russia not for himself, but for the company.” ‘A culture of intimidation’ In a very real sense, Tillerson has been a head of a state within a state. Exxon Mobil is bigger economically than many countries. It has its own foreign policy and its own contracted security forces. As a state, it has much in common with the one run by Putin and Sechin. “Reporting on Exxon was not only harder than reporting on the Bin Ladens, it was harder than reporting on the CIA by an order of magnitude,” said Steve Coll, who wrote about the company in a book, Private Empire. “They have a culture of intimidation that they bring to bear in their external relations, and it is plenty understood inside the corporation too. They make people nervous, they make people afraid,” Coll, now a journalism professor at Columbia University, told Texas Monthly. Running the state department would not be like running Exxon Mobil, however. For a start, Tillerson would have to audition in front of a sceptical Senate. Even before Trump announced his decision on Tuesday, leading Democrats were painting Tillerson as a Moscow stooge. The New Jersey senator Bob Menendez said on Twitter: “Rex Tillerson as secretary of state would guarantee Russia has a willing accomplice in the president’s cabinet.” With a slim 52-48 majority, it would only take three Republican senators in revolt to cast Tillerson’s job in doubt. He would face aggressive questioning from Republican foreign policy hawks, led by John McCain. “I have obviously concerns about his relationship with Vladimir Putin, who is a thug and a murderer, but obviously we will have hearings on that issue and other issues concerning him will be examined and then it’s the time to make up your mind on whether to vote yes or no,” the Arizona senator told CNN on Saturday. McCain’s former chief of staff, Mark Salter, was far more blunt on Twitter. “Tillerson would sell out Nato for Sakhalin oil and his pal, Vlad,” he wrote. “Should be a rough confirmation hearing, and a no vote on the Senate floor.” Even if Tillerson would not take over the state department with a free hand to rewrite policy. He would face a striking culture clash with the institution, the bastion of foreign policy orthodoxy, which would have an ally in the secretary of defence nominee, retired general James Mattis, who is likely to oppose any erosion of Nato solidarity in the face of Moscow’s assertiveness in Europe. Nevertheless, Dmitri Trenin, director of the Carnegie Endowment Moscow Center, argued: “Tillerson as secretary of state would signify the greatest discontinuity in US foreign policy since the end of the cold war. “Not just in US-Russian relations: a Trump-Tillerson foreign policy would be squarely focused on US national interests, rather than on its global pretensions or any ideology.” Trenin added: “It would be hard-nosed and no-nonsense, not averse to the use of force, but in response to a real rather than imaginary threat. In one word: realist.” That is a change that would be undoubtedly be welcomed by Putin, whose vision of foreign policy centres on spheres of interest controlled by global powers, run by strongmen like himself. Andrei Kozyrev, a former Russian foreign minister, argued that the Kremlin should be careful what it wishes for. “The paradoxical situation now is that Russia is hoping for a US foreign policy based on realpolitik rather than on values, but that would be a disaster for Russia,” said Kozyrev, who is now at the Wilson Center thinktank in Washington. “Why? Because the only interest America has in ending the conflicts in eastern Ukraine … or in Syria is actually in American values … that America should be concerned and do everything to alleviate the humanitarian situation and they should help nations to find their path to democracy. “The realpolitik situation is that Russia is stuck in both military conflicts. If you look at this with a cold eye, you say: ‘Let them go on and let them enjoy the disaster they have in eastern Ukraine,’” Kozyrev said. “Look at Syria. By realpolitik the Americans would rather sit and wait while Russia draws on its resources and gets into bloody conflict.”
FTSE 100 now above pre-Brexit vote levels Leading London-listed shares have recorded their biggest daily rise since October 2011, regaining all their losses and more since the Brexit vote, with nearly £60bn added to the value of Britain’s top 100 companies. Despite warnings from economists that the UK’s decision to leave the European Union could cause a new recession, the FTSE 100 jumped 3.58% to 6360, taking it above the 6338 level it closed at on Thursday before the polls closed. Analysts said the initial panic selling had been reversed as investors realised any departure from the EU would not happen for months, given the turmoil in the UK government. In the meantime it was more or less business as usual, they added. Bargain hunters had also come out in force, believing the recent falls had been overdone. On top of that, there were suggestions that central banks, notably the US Federal Reserve and the Bank of England, might cut interest rates further to fend off any economic downturn. Chris Beauchamp, senior market analyst at online trader IG, said: “The contrarian nature of markets has never been more apparent than in the past few days. We could all understand the selloff seen on Friday and then again at the beginning of this week, but the storming rally on the FTSE 100, which has seen the index rally over 7% from Monday’s low, is much harder to explain. “The market has certainly been quite sanguine in its assessment of the situation, noting that, technically, nothing has really changed in the UK’s relationship with the EU, and that even negotiations about negotiations have yet to start.” He added: “Of all the post-Brexit outcomes discussed across the City over the past few months, ‘buying frenzy’ was not one that was viewed as very likely.” The buying was spread over most sectors, from companies that earn in dollars which will benefit from the recent falls in sterling, to housebuilders and banks which bore the brunt of the initial selling following the vote. But dealers pointed out that in dollar terms, the FTSE 100 was still down since Thursday given the decline in the pound, which despite a 1% rise on Wednesday has still fallen from around $1.4 before the referendum to $1.34. And the FTSE 250, which consists of companies more focused on the UK economy than those in the FTSE 100, has not recouped its post-Brexit losses. Despite a 3.2% rise on Wednesday it is still down 7.6% since the result of the vote.
Departure review – mum packs up, son comes out Alex Lawther gave a compelling portrayal of the young Alan Turing in The Imitation Game two years ago, and his character here is almost a modern-day equivalent. Elliot is a fey, literate, closeted teenager, given to wandering lonely as a romantic poet in the French countryside, in his vintage army jacket, while his clearly distraught mother (Juliet Stevenson) packs up their holiday home and her marital dreams. “You’re a bit of a cliche,” Elliot’s new French buddy/boy-crush observes, pre-emptively. The dynamics are given plenty of time to play out in this delicate, somewhat laboured character drama, which could almost be seen as a hymn to the great British art of not really talking about stuff. But there are just enough unanswered questions and bursts of dramatic incident to stop us wandering off ourselves.
Cult heroes: Tindersticks – downtrodden poets of scabrous indie cabaret Before “starving artist” meant living with your parents until you’re 47, scraping a living doing webcam porn while dreaming of making 0.00002p for 127m Spotify plays, the phrase had a certain romance. That was when it meant turret-room melancholy, dope-den songwriting sessions and recording thrift store instruments around kitchen tables with the scratching of rats in the walls for percussion. It was early Tindersticks, the sound of downtrodden poets in dead men’s suits making drowsy, heartbreaking chamber ballads on what sounded like two-string violins, toothless pianos, tea-chest drums and gallons of recreational cough syrup. Their music was clogged by urban filth, bruised by urban violence and not so much lo-fi as scratched into Formica with nicotined fingernails. For those of us hammering out experimental novels through a heartbroken whiskey blur, as this writer was in 1993, Tindersticks were like some out-of-control inner monologue. They spoke to us through the bottom of bottles and haunted our hangovers. Their self-titled debut double album was a masterpiece of down-at-heel sophistication and rakish menace recorded entirely, it seemed, in a Nottingham slum basement – the nocturnal buzz, the drunk trumpeters, the fliptop click of cigarette lighters, the wicked men playing rickety upright pianos last tuned shortly before a fire in an east London music hall in 1932. The early single Marbles, a bedlam of overlapping spoken-word poetry, came on like a visit from a gangland bailiff – “Men in suits and black shiny shoes moving in, kicking, stamping, bland expressionless faces, a handful of marbles thrown in a dustbin”. City Sickness was a pop symphony on a ready-meal budget. They even managed to throw in elements of Lee Hazelwoodesque country noir without coming over like mutton-chopped Midlands hicks clodhopping around working men’s clubs on Nashville night. By turns suave, lovelorn and animalistic, this was an album of lust, love and violence, of – as their own song titles had it – Blood, Jism, Whiskey & Water, washed down with dashes of honey. Through it all, cotton-mouthed singer Stuart Staples cut a dolorous, unsettling figure. He was a plaintive victim in scratchy breakup ballads like Blood and Patchwork, a repentant alcoholic wifebeater on Drunk Tank and, in the twisted narrative of Tyed, an arthouse Ted Bundy: “The sheet that was cut and caught the blood was opened, dried and stretched out, hung on the wall.” Channelling the demonic seduction techniques of Nick Cave, PJ Harvey and Tom Waits, Tindersticks were a ramshackle cabaret crew press-ganged into the devil’s work, and Staples was their mumbling Mephistopheles. Like most evil cults, they played on our obsession. Collectibility was key, and their singles were rare artefacts. Bagging ultra-limited first editions of the Marbles and Unwired EPs was a source of great joy to deluded students who wrongly equated ownership of obscure indie singles with guaranteed sexual success. Back when Record Store Day was barely a glint in the eye of the nation’s manufacturers of bacon-flavoured vinyl, these were the markers of true musical insight and dedication. Even today it would take an inordinate eBay sum to make me part with my Tindersticks vinyl. I’d feel a little violated by the thought of anyone else hearing my personal copy of Marbles’ B-side, For Those …, which is Tindersticks’ best song and still the most wonderful use of chamber strings I’ve ever heard in pop. A tangle of violins, instruments usually associated with plush precision, sounded detuned and broken, straining for notes in reflection of the song’s “not so beautiful” people, for whom “hearts are not given as gifts but earned”. It’s a hobo concerto, all the more beautiful for its hang-nails and split ends. A Fontana di Trevi of flaws. Which is why, for me, Tindersticks are one of very few bands that were better unknown. I’ve never been one of those ultra-possessive, I-saw-them-first dicks who ditch a band the second they sell their 14th record or Jools Holland decides they’d be vastly improved by a bit of boogie-woogie piano. But as Tindersticks’ popularity grew, so did their high-art ambitions. Now they could afford to record proper orchestras at Abbey Road rather than their sole violinist Dickon Hinchliffe in an outside privy, they gradually scraped away that layer of filth, poverty and cruelty that still keeps their debut among my five favourite albums of all time. Their second, also titled Tindersticks and very nearly as brilliant, signposted their plan to ditch the shabby whiskey saloon for the members’ bar – the artwork showed the band getting fitted for suits and the music leavened their darker, stickier deviances with orchestral arrangements that wouldn’t send Burt Bacharach running for his cocktail-stocked safe room. By 1999’s Simple Pleasures, they had begun to introduce comfy soul and jazz elements, musical antibiotics designed to hunt out and destroy the sort of abnormalities that had originally made Tindersticks so engrossing. Melodically they still bordered on the sublime but, in Jennifer Connelly terms, they were more He’s Just Not That Into You than Requiem for a Dream. It took a five-year hiatus and losing half of the band between 2003’s Waiting for the Moon and 2008’s The Hungry Saw to nudge them back towards the edge. The latter’s title track detailed the course of a serial killer’s hacksaw through their victim’s body, while Mother Dear sounded like an electric guitarist having a psychotic meltdown during an otherwise sedate Sunday night down the Jazz Cafe and smashing his Fender into the art deco light fittings. Come 2012’s The Something Rain they were revisiting the lengthy mood poems of their early albums in the form of Chocolate, a long-winded and rather more explicit Lola, climaxing (as it were) with the deathless line “My lips moved up her legs … What the fuck? I had a large hard dick poking me in the eye. ‘Shit! you’re a chap!’” These, and modestly experimental new album The Waiting Room, are still slick and soulful records, but with a glimmer of the old sedition. They may no longer be starving, but Tindersticks have got some of their hunger back.
Technology killed the video star: the end of the VCR Name: VCR. Stands for: Video Cassette Recorder. Age: 45 years. Function: To record and play films and television programmes in the home. So it’s like a hard disk recorder? Yes. Except it doesn’t store movies. You have to keep them separately in a library somewhere, and use blanks to record something new. Ah. I get it. More like a DVD system then? Yes. Except the video is recorded on a spool of magnetic tape, a VHS, meaning that the picture and sound quality is terrible, and over time gets worse. Plus you have to spend ages rewinding and fast-forwarding to find the bit you need. And the cassettes themselves are huge. OK. So basically it’s a terrible old machine. You young folk don’t know you’re born! The VCR was wonderful! It’s a sad day now that we know its era is about to end. You mean its era is still going? Just. The last Betamax cassette was made in March. And one Japanese company – Funai Electric – still makes VCRs, often for other brands such as Sanyo. But they’ve now announced that production will stop by the end of the month. Just 750,000 of Funai’s new machines were sold last year, mostly in China. And this is sad because … VCRs were where it all started, man! When they first became affordable in the 1980s, it created a new world of home entertainment and exploration, not to mention a new institution: the video shop. You used to have to go to a shop to rent a film? Yes. Although often when you got there, someone else had rented it first. And you had to take it back afterwards, or you ended up paying more. Happy days. They were, although of course we didn’t know it at the time. And who could forget VHS v Betamax? The greatest-ever format war! I’m not really a connoisseur of format wars. Never mind. The VCR also opened a golden age of extreme horror movies and pornography. Um … Great. You may scoff, but some of the old “video nasties” are worth a lot of money now. The moral panic that surrounded them turned out to be quite wrong, too. I’m not really a connoisseur of moral panics, either. Fair enough. Do say: “You can’t beat the little grey lines and the authentic wobble of lovely old VHS.” Don’t say: “Pah! VHS is mainstream. I prefer Video 2000.
The rise and rise of international diplomacy by WhatsApp When the world’s nations sit down to talk nowadays, there is a distinct difference to the way diplomacy is done. Influence is no longer defined only by special relationships and old alliances, but which WhatsApp group you are invited into. The rise of WhatsApp diplomacy is transforming the negotiating chamber. There are countless groups of allies and virtual huddles, exchanges over policy statements and fine print, and fair amounts of banter and even emojis (Vladimir Putin is referred to by widespread use of a grey alien avatar). “You can form small groups of like-minded allies, take photos of annotated documents, ask people what they think without the whole room knowing,” a senior western diplomat said. The tool is useful for communicating with allies who might not be sitting close to them, diplomats say, as well as for agreeing negotiating tactics during difficult sessions and for organising break-out huddles in a way that avoids offending those left out. One notable recent example of WhatsApp summitry occurred at last month’s breakthrough talks in Kigali, Rwanda, about banning HFCs. At these talks the instant messaging tool owned by Facebook was used widely to coordinate meetings, discuss strategy during talks and drum up support for different policy positions, said a consultant who was present. The adviser said the kinds of exchanges included: “Let’s meet outside to talk about x,” or “Make sure you interrupt now,” or “Speak at the plenary in support of x.” “You might have a country making a proposition and then there’ll be another opposing proposition, so you’d line up your allies on WhatsApp to say ‘make sure you express your view’ so there’s a lot of support. And if there are a lot of voices in favour of a proposition it can get through.” The consultant first started seeing WhatsApp used at high-level diplomatic events two years ago but said that recently she has seen more diplomats and lobbyists using it, because of the availability of Wi-Fi and the app’s convenience. “You don’t have to leave the room to have a chat ‘outside’,” the consultant said. “It allows some discretion if you don’t have to be seen grouping in a corner.” Used by a billion people worldwide, WhatsApp is tailor-made for modern diplomacy. It is as fast and intuitive as texting while the group feature, by which several users can share messages, allows for the formation of fluid informal alliances. And it is secure, with end-to-end encryption since April this year. “You can send a more secure message through WhatsApp now than most government information systems,” said Jon Alterman, a former state department policy planning staff official now senior vice-president at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies. WhatsApp use has flourished particularly in multilateral institutions such as the UN and at EU headquarters, where there are large numbers of diplomats needing to communicate rapidly and secretly. Furthermore a lot of business in these international settings is done inside large buildings with deep basements where there is no mobile phone reception but strong Wi-Fi signals, favouring WhatsApp over texting. An internal report at the UK’s Foreign Office this year found that rather than make use of specially tailored government encryption, many British diplomats use WhatsApp to discuss sensitive issues. There is a WhatsApp group for British diplomats working around the world on Syria issues, for example. “Even 10 years ago the standard form of diplomatic lobbying would often start with a note verbale, a heavily scripted and formulaic diplomatic message sent from an embassy to a foreign ministry,” said the report’s author, Tom Fletcher, a former British ambassador to Lebanon. “The ambassador would then wait for the response, and follow up with a meeting or occasionally a telephone call. Now, all of that can be short circuited by text message – or, more favoured by diplomats as it is seen as more secure – WhatsApp. “Most of my day-to-day communication with Lebanese leaders was done in this way. Of course there is no substitute for the rapport and trust built up by face-to-face encounters. But a huge amount of diplomacy can now be handled in this way, and any ambassador who doesn’t have the ability to WhatsApp key ministers will quickly fall behind.” Fletcher, the author of Naked Diplomacy, that calls for a new generation of “digital interventionists” abroad, added: “The smartphone is now as essential a part of the modern diplomat’s armoury as courage, patience and a strong stomach. But it is also a threat to the diplomat – heaven forbid that leaders should start WhatsApping each other direct, without needing to go through their diplomatic envoys.” “When you are sitting around a table, negotiating a document, you are not necessarily going to be sitting next to like-minded countries. This is a way to communicate while the negotiations are under way,” a senior diplomat said. “It can be used for practical organisational stuff, to say we’re meeting in a huddle outside this room,” the diplomat said. “Or for lighthearted venting, taking the piss out of a colleague or sending around a picture of someone who’s fallen asleep.” WhatsApp conversations are increasingly punctuated by emojis, which are evolving as a diplomatic shorthand. The full array of flags are ideal for that purpose as are the dove, and of course, the shaking hands, symbolising a done deal. Vladimir Putin is frequently embodied as a grey alien face emoji. In Brussels, WhatsApp is used for organising some of the EU’s many meetings. Messaging services have been used by officials for planning an out-of-town meeting for 28 national ambassadors or getting an EU leader from summit table to press podium without any glitches. One embassy started using WhatsApp after the Brussels attacks as a way of sharing information quickly. However flexible, informal and secret WhatsApp may be, Alterman argues that no messaging system can ever be a substitute for eyeball-to-eyeball diplomacy. “It still matters if you are in the room with someone. It’s hard to read body language from a text message. Text doesn’t communicate intonation at all,” he said. “The challenge of text-based communication is that people read into it what’s not there, and miss what is there.”
Is a second referendum a bad idea? Not if we ask the right question Let’s be clear about second referendums. There are “good” ones and “bad” ones. A bad one is a desperate attempt by the government of the day and its allies to negate a first referendum it did not like. This was practised by Denmark (1993) and Ireland (2009). It worked, which is why the anti-Brexit lobby, now supported by Tony Blair, likes the idea. Such a referendum was at least better than France in 2005, where a vote against the Lisbon treaty was simply ignored by the established parties, with consequences that may yet prove dire. A good second referendum is quite different. It seeks approval for whatever deal is reached as a result of the first one. It seeks to take forward the first decision, not negate it. The fury in some quarters that greeted the UK vote on Brexit last June swiftly morphed into a demand that voters be immediately re-polled, as if they would then repent the error of their ways. It was the arrogance of the old politics on parade, laughably led by certain members of the House of Lords. It showed how thin is respect for democracy (mostly) on the left in Britain. Now comes a different question. The referendum said yes to the UK “leaving” the EU. David Cameron and Theresa May rightly accepted that decision, as they said they would. The divorce would proceed without hope of reconciliation. But divorce is a clumsy metaphor. Neighbouring countries do not marry and divorce. They become more or less separate, hence the shorthand of “soft” and “hard” Brexit. There is a world of difference between these two outcomes – so much so that pundits vie with each other in claiming the impossibility of both. The world must go on. At some point some sort of deal, however messy, will have to be done between Britain and the EU. There is no such thing as a wall in the Channel. Certainly the May government could fail in its negotiation. It could seek a general election mandate that could trump the Brexit referendum. But that is not a second referendum. Ideally, when tempers have cooled, a deal will be reached that removes the UK from the institutions of the EU but reformalises trade and population movement. The likelihood is that such a deal would anger the “hard” Brexiters more than the “soft” ones, but either way it would be controversial. As such, it would best be authenticated by a second referendum. This would not be an attempt to reverse the first referendum, merely to validate its outcome. It would be a “good” second referendum.
Baftas 2016: The Revenant and Mad Max maul competition as Carol snubbed Leonardo DiCaprio’s emotionally and physically gruelling performance as a vengeful frontiersman finally won him a best actor Bafta as his movie The Revenant dominated the marquee awards at the 2016 British film ceremony. DiCaprio had been here three times previously, losing for The Aviator, The Departed and The Wolf of Wall Street. This year the prize was his and he remains hot favourite to win at the Oscars. Accepting the award DiCaprio said he had been hugely influenced by British actors including Tom Courtenay, Gary Oldman, Peter O’Toole and Daniel Day Lewis. The actor thanked many people but touchingly, he reserved his biggest thanks to the person who most helped him go from growing up in a rough neighbourhood, to being a superstar – his mother. The Revenant won five awards in total including the most prestigious: best film. Its director Alejandro González Iñárritu, who also won best director, said its Bafta success was “overwhelming”. The 19th-century set film has generally and not cheerfully been described as a “living hell” by people who worked on it with the shoot intensified by Iñárritu’s determination to only film using natural light. DiCaprio himself has described some of the scenes as the hardest he has ever had to do, not least the unforgettable bear-mauling scene in which the animal keeps on going back for more. His other experiences include sleeping naked in a horse carcass, gorging on raw bison liver and going in and out of a freezing Canadian river. After The Revenant, honours were spread widely with success for Mad Max: Fury Road in the craft categories and prizes to Room, Steve Jobs, Bridge of Spies and Brooklyn. There was nothing, though, for much-admired and widely tipped Carol. It was an evening over which the Oscars diversity debate loomed large with a small protest staged outside the ceremony. The #baftablackout protesters carried a banner which read: “The TV and film industry are male, pale and stale. In fear of diversity, opportunity and inclusion.” Sacha Baron Cohen joked he was presenting the “leading white actress award”. To cheers it went to Brie Larson, who was absent filming King Kong in Australia, for her astonishing performance as an imprisoned mother in Room. She won from a list that also had Alicia Vikander, Cate Blanchett, Maggie Smith and Saoirse Ronan. Kate Winslet won her third Bafta – after Sense and Sensibility and The Reader – for her role as Apple marketing executive Joanna Hoffman in Steve Jobs. Winslet said she was “overwhelmed” to win in what had been an “extraordinary year for women”. Later she revealed the extraordinary “advice” given to her at school. “When I was younger, when I was 14, I was told by a drama teacher that I might do ok if I was happy to settle for the fat girl parts. “So what I always feel in these moments is that any young woman who has ever been put down by a teacher, by a friend, by even a parent, just don’t listen to any of it, because that’s what I did – I kept on going and I overcame my fears and got over my insecurities.” Mark Rylance, meanwhile, won his first film Bafta, best supporting actor for his performance as a Russian spy in Steven Spielberg’s Bridge of Spies, triumphing from a strikingly strong list of Idris Elba, Benicio del Toro, Christian Bale and Mark Ruffalo. Spotlight won one award, best original screenplay, with co-writer and director Tom McCarthy dedicating the award to the reporters on the Boston Globe, who broke the story of the Catholic church paedophile priest cover-up, and the survivors of the abuse. The Big Short also came away with one award, best adapted screenplay for Adam McKay and Charles Randolph. Unusually, no British film was up for overall best film but there was still the outstanding British film category, won by Brooklyn – Nick Hornby’s adaptation of Colm Tóibín’s award-winning novel. Mad Max almost cleaned up in the craft categories. It won four Baftas for hair and make up, editing, costume design and production design. The documentary award was won by the hotly tipped Amy, about the life and death of Amy Winehouse. Its director Asif Kapadia said it was a difficult film to make. “In the end it was all about Amy, we really fell in love with her. The aim was to tell the truth, to show how witty, intelligent, beautiful she was before it all went out of control and things got crazy.” Ennio Morricone, now 87, won the best music award for Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight – his sixth Bafta, although his last one was some time ago, Cinema Paradiso in 1991. Star Wars triumphed in the special visual effects category while one of its stars, Peckham’s John Boyega, won the only award decided by the public – the EE rising star. Boyega thanked God, Bafta and the public. Afterwards Boyega, who begins work on the second Star Wars from 6am on Monday, addressed the diversity debate. “I think it is important that the conversation around diversity carries on,” he said. “Keep talking and keep doing and that’s something that we should definitely fixate on and I believe things will eventually change because I’m trying to work and nobody’s going to stop me.” A less serious spin on it came from comedian and actor Rebel Wilson, presenting best supporting actor. She joked she had been “practising my transgender face” in the hope of securing an award in coming years. “I’ve never been invited to the Oscars,” she continued deadpan “because as we know they are racists.” She went on to praise Bafta’s drive to increase its mix of voters. “We all like to see diverse members.” As if that were not enough, Wilson spoke of how she hoped Idris Elba might win. “I’m programmed to want chocolate on Valentine’s Day. In the other awards, Inside Out won best animated film; the outstanding debut award went to Naji Abu Nowar and Rupert Lloyd for Theeb; Wild Tales won best film not in the English language; Edmond won best British short animation; and Operator won best British short film, which led to possibly the first ever Bafta thank you for the Fire Brigade’s Union. The top mishap of the starry evening was Julie Walters losing an expensive loaned earring “probably worth the same price as my house”. And there were numerous excruciating moments including host Stephen Fry inelegantly joking that Mad Max costume designer Jenny Beavan had come “dressed as a bag lady”. Carrie Fisher’s scripted joke about needing subtitles for the Irish accent. And worst of all a Valentine’s Day “kiss-cam”, which honed in on various random pairs of celebrities including Michael Fassbender and Alicia Vikander who, grimly smiling, refused to go anywhere near each other. This year’s Bafta fellowship was given to Sir Sidney Poitier, who turns 89 on Friday; and a special award for outstanding British contribution to cinema, went to Angels Costumes, a family-run theatrical costumiers, this year celebrating its 175th anniversary.
My hero: Victoria Wood by AL Kennedy You may be old enough to remember when Victoria Wood appeared on New Faces on ITV. It was 1974 and Wood was transgressive, warm, intelligent, subversive, joyous, surreal and bloody funny. My gran knew she was funny, my mum knew she was funny, I knew she was funny. Everyone did. For more than four decades she gave us that: the unforeseen, triumphant joy of real comedy, heart and mind. When most TV comedy was still using female performers as busty set dressing, Wood was in charge of her funny; its sheer quality setting her beyond all usual restrictions. When posh boys riffed on life’s absurdities and scholarship boys joined them – there was Victoria Wood. When much working-class and club comedy was caught in a headlock of self-loathing, misogyny and general hate – there was Victoria Wood. Like all genuinely transcendent comedians, she was completely herself, saying what she felt was true. Gently, self-deprecatingly, she could overturn the world, be northern, be female, be Ann Widdecombe dancing. She was part of the creative impetus that broke UK writers and performers through into that wonderful, crazed explosion of “alternative comedy” in the 80s. As a writer, Wood created extraordinary roles – often for women – and had an exemplary, generous eye for other talented actors and comics. She put the music into beautiful and useful lines, whether in a drama such as Housewife, 49 or a song such as “Let’s Do It”. She could be real without dragging humanity in the gutter, she could be angry without bullying, she could be serious without being smug. She lit my world and I thank her.
Untold: Britain's dirtiest murder cover-up has become a must-listen podcast ‘This is not a whodunnit,” says Peter Jukes. “It’s a story about the biggest cover-up in the history of British police, and how they got away with it.” Jukes is talking about his new podcast Untold, which probes the brutal murder of private eye Daniel Morgan in the car park of a south London pub in 1987 – and the three decades of intrigue that followed it. The serial is on its third episode, and is topping the iTunes charts. Morgan’s is the most investigated murder in British history, and yet you probably haven’t heard of it. This is believed to be because the case involves not only the Metropolitan police and private detectives, but also – crucially – the News of the World newspaper owned by Rupert Murdoch that would later be at the centre of the phone hacking scandal. It has been described by an assistant commissioner of the Met as “one of the most disgraceful episodes in the entire history of the Metropolitan police service.” The media hasn’t touched it – but now, this crowdfunded podcast is tackling the murky, complex truth over 10 episodes. Inevitably, everyone is looking for the next Serial – and with renewed appetite for true crime stories with the success of Making a Murderer and The People v OJ Simpson, plus a wave of new podcasts, Untold has already been dubbed the “British Serial”. It’s certainly on the right track: it’s already been downloaded more than 200,000 times in the UK – and over half a million in the US. Morgan’s body was found in the car park of the Golden Lion pub in Sydenham. He’d been struck three times with an axe in the back of the head. His Rolex had been stolen, but there were £1,000 in his jacket pocket. Southern Investigations, the company Morgan set up with his business partner Jonathan Rees, was known to be working with the police and News of the World journalists. It is thought that Morgan was ready to expose corruption in Scotland Yard by giving information to the News of the World. These are just some of the myriad details revealed in the opening episodes. The case remains unsolved: five inquiries (costing £50m) have come to no conclusions, thousands of lines of inquiry have been pursued, over 750,000 documents inspected, and three men charged with the murder were cleared before their trial started. The Daniel Morgan Independent Panel is currently in place and is taking submissions, though it can’t summon witnesses to testify. Jukes and Alastair Morgan, Daniel’s brother, hope their podcast will lead to a new judicial inquiry that will “look at the whole system,” says Jukes. “The bad guys can’t get away with it. This story will now be heard. It’s like Gladiator – Alastair now has the people on his side.” Until three years ago, Jukes had not heard of the case. It was when he was working on the phone-hacking trials and getting to know “the dark arts of intrusion” that he came across it. “Usually, the media will expose police corruption,” says Jukes. “Here, the media was deeply involved in the story,” which is one of the reasons it hasn’t been told, he adds. Alastair Morgan has been doing his own investigation and demanding justice for 30 years. He is convinced that “we’re only scratching the surface,” and has shared his full findings about the case with Jukes. Jukes is investigating “completely independently” thanks to the £10,000 they crowdfunded from the public (the only private donor that has come forward with their name is Hugh Grant). He sees the podcast format as a way to “bypass those media organisations”. The current season will culminate in the Leveson report. In episode six, there will be a shocking connection between Morgan’s murder and another, more recent violent death after which “the picture will become much clearer,” says Jukes. They haven’t completed the recording, but will “respond to events and to people coming forward”. Anyone with information can get in touch here. While they see the parallels with Serial, Jukes argues “I feel more like I’m a modern historian than an investigator.” Years after the murder, Southern Investigations would become the “cradle of the dark arts”, as journalist Nick Davies has described them. Morgan is convinced that his brother’s murder “has had really bad consequences for this country,” and led to industrial scales of illegally obtained information. “The hacking scandal evolved from that relationship,” he believes. Both men insist that the problem is not only the original murder, but the 30 years since. “It’s not so much about getting the case reopened,” says Jukes. “It’s about transparency and justice in the whole system, and making sure this never happens again. Eventually, I think the conspirators will break. There are so many who know, that we hope will come forward.” Morgan is more concerned, he says, about “the British media as a whole, and oligarchs owning such a huge proportion. Anything that can expose the unlawful activities of the media is a good thing. I want the full extent of the News of the World and police’s relationship to be exposed by this.” Listen/subscribe to Untold: the Daniel Morgan Murder here
The dubious science of Dr. Luke's Core brand: inside the premium bottled water industry You may have seen Core water in any number of music videos. Katy Perry has been quoted as endorsing the “nutrient enhanced” bottled water, which advertises its “science based ingredients”. You may even have bought it at a nearby Whole Foods or 7-Eleven, where the company claims it is “locally made” from nearby municipal tap water. Manufacturers of premium bottled waters in the US bend over backwards to differentiate themselves. The brand Smartwater positions itself as high-tech: “We one-up mother nature by adding in electrolytes for a clean crisp taste”, reads the product description. Essentia bottled water claims that it is “hydration perfected”. Core, which is owned by Dr. Luke (aka Lukasz Gottwald) along with partner and bottled-beverage entrepreneur Lance Collins, relies on so-called “brand investors” – mostly musicians, actresses and fitness buffs – to push the product on social media. Musicians Becky G, Adam Levine and G.R.L. have all gone so far as to feature the drink in their music videos. (Gottwald has been most recently in the news for lawsuits brought by pop star Kesha, who is suing him in two states for sexual assault, battery and harassment.) Water that has been fortified or enhanced – also known as “functional water” – makes up an estimated 11% of the $19.8bn dollar bottled water industry in the US. That’s a considerable chunk of the stateside market, given that functional waters make up less than 6% of the global $107bn bottled water industry, according to data from Euromonitor. So do Core and its competitors provide a more hydrating, healthful version of water than what flows from the tap? The short answer is no. “If you’re eating a normal diet, you’re not adding anything magic [by drinking these waters],” says Michael Sawka, a professor at the School of Applied Physiology at Georgia Tech. Sawka studies hydration and fluid-electrolyte balance among other topics. Core’s ingredient list says its BPA-free bottles contain reverse osmosis water, calcium chloride, magnesium chloride and potassium bicarbonate. Reverse osmosis is a treatment process that removes dissolved solids, including metals and minerals, as well as pesticides and chemicals such as benzene, when they are present. Minerals such as magnesium and potassium, which also happen to function as electrolytes, are then added back in to the treated water, creating what is essentially mineral water. The added minerals “are in there for taste and preference, but not for health”, Sawka says. “As far as them being more hydrating, that’s not the case,” says Allison Childress, a program director and instructor of nutritional sciences at Texas Tech University. Childress says it’s possible that waters with added electrolytes, amino acids or B vitamins could confer a slight benefit to people with poor health, but that benefit would be minimal. “I don’t necessarily think it’s harmful or hurtful, but I don’t think it necessarily works the way they say it works,” Childress says. Core water declined to comment because “they aren’t at a point where they can share evidence on the water”, according to an email from a press officer from the agency that represents the company. Coca-Cola, which owns Smartwater, and Essentia did not respond to requests for comment. In most cases, premium waters – and traditional bottled waters – originate from tap water, says Childress. “The number one ingredient is water,” she says. In fact, the ingredients are so commonplace that it’s possible to approximate the taste of waters such as Core at home. Readily available under-sink reverse osmosis systems can treat tap water, and additives like calcium chloride, magnesium chloride and potassium bicarbonate are all readily available online. Recipes abound for matching the taste of distinctively flavored mineral waters of Europe. Core also describes its water as having the perfect pH level of 7.4, making it slightly alkaline, though an asterisk on the label indicates that number is an approximation. “As more health conscious consumers become more aware of the harmful effects of an acidic diet and seek ways to bring their body fluids within an acceptable range, Core serves up a solution as it works in harmony with your body’s natural pH balance,” reads a press release from Core’s launch last year. Essentia water is even more alkaline, with a reading of 9.5. The notion of that an acidic diets create “harmful effects” is one reason alkaline diets, which emphasize whole fruits and vegetables and eschew some wheat and dairy, have been gaining popularity. But since the idea of eating according to pH was first considered in the 1930s, little conclusive proof has emerged that this type of diet would lead to improved health. (An article from May of that year is titled: “Where once we prated about calories and vitamins we are now concerned with an alkaline balance.”) Much of the research on alkaline diets shows that eating according to pH only changes the pH of urine, not of the body’s blood. “We can’t really change the pH of our body,” Childress says. As for a carefully calibrated water pH, Barry Popkin, professor of nutrition and economics at the University of North Carolina, says: “I see no reason and value in this. There is so little scientific evidence that this matters for health.” Although they are often similar in content, bottled water – including functional and premium water – is regulated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), while tap water is regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). (As an example of how they differ in their approaches, the FDA does not lay out pH requirements, but the EPA recommends a pH range for safety, not health, of 6.5-8.5.) Mae Wu, an attorney and chemical engineer with the Natural Resources Defense Council who testified on the problems with bottled water before a senate subcommittee in 2008, says the agencies also differ in the number of employees they devote to enforcement and inspection. The number of EPA inspectors who oversee drinking water dwarfs the number of agents who do the same at the FDA. Wu says that diminished regulation leads to one of her main concerns about bottled water: it’s a common misconception that “if you can buy it at a store it means someone has okayed it”. “You shouldn’t assume that your bottled water is way better,” Wu says. In fact, the opposite is often true. “I don’t know of any health benefits of bottled water but I do know of many adverse consequences on the environment and on climate,” says Joseph Graziano, a professor of environmental health sciences at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. “The production of one bottle of water requires (on average) a third of a bottle of oil to produce it.” Consumers may feel drawn to bottled water following the crisis in Flint and the investigation of contaminated water at schools in New York and California. “I think that Flint brings up the problem of our aging infrastructure in the US and the need to look again at the regulations, to revamp the Lead and Copper Rule,” says Gretchen Onstad, a professor of environmental and occupational health sciences, who focuses on environmental pollution and drinking water. “I think that if the EPA regulations on drinking water according to the Safe Drinking Water are upheld, that tap water is very safe,” Onstad says. Consumers in Europe may be justified in having more confidence in their bottled water because the European Commission maintains a list of approved waters by country, from Krusmølle Kilde in Denmark to Vichy Catalán in Spain. The commission sets the labeling requirements and concentration limits for mineral and spring waters. The FDA, on the other hand, maintains no such list in the US. This article was amended on 10 April to correct the place of origin for Krusmølle Kilde. The article was further amended on 12 April 2015. An earlier version said incorrectly that Essentia was owned by Coca-Cola.
Melt Yourself Down: Last Evenings On Earth review – frenzied jazz-punk fusions On their self-titled debut, Melt Yourself Down frontman Kushal Gaya exorcised his demons in Mauritian, French Creole and his own invented language. Its follow-up features lyrics in English, and some strikingly graphic imagery: “I’ve got the rot,” he meditates on Dot to Dot, as if goading the grim reaper, “Cancer me, I say!” This almighty eruption of creativity is led by saxophonist Pete Wareham of Acoustic Ladyland and Polar Bear, and its central themes are disease, death and war, after the band lost several loved ones in the space of a year. But it refuses to be conquered by misery or contemplation: a frenzy of north African instrumentation, punk and deranged jazz leads a collision of sounds that channels the spirit of revolution, and the heat and claustrophobia of a politically fractious city. Communication is filled with frenzied chattering; Jump the Fire is an almighty industrial wallop. A sickly sense of overwhelming and exhaustion runs throughout.
Premier League fans’ verdicts – the run-in, part 2: Newcastle United to West Ham NEWCASTLE UNITED Mood among fans? Near desolate, with just Rafa keeping some hope in the hearts of supporters. We’re running out of matches and our lack of firepower will probably prove our undoing. Simply put, we’ll need a miracle to survive. Manager? It’s too early to judge him on performances, but Rafa’s appointment has excited the fans and he boasts the calibre and gravitas that the club deserves. His departure will make relegation feel even crueller, as we’ll be left thinking what could have been if he’d been given a few more games to turn things around. Shining lights? Rob Elliot has proved invaluable and Chancel Mbemba has been an excellent acquisition, while January arrivals Andros Townsend and Jonjo Shelvey have at least injected some spirit into a listless squad. Ayoze Pérez could have played an important part too, if he’d been given more game time. Unimpressed? A collective lack of passion, ability and guile makes it difficult to pick on anyone in particular, but Moussa Sissoko deserves special mention for his lacklustre displays in crucial games. Champions League? He’s having a laugh. Finish? 19th. Why? Keeping faith with Steve McClaren for far too long, no defenders recruited in January leaving us threadbare at the back, the lack of Premier League class up front, a long-term transfer policy that is fatally flawed … Predictions Top 4 Leicester, Tottenham, Arsenal, Man United. Bottom 3 Norwich, Newcastle, Aston Villa. Run-in 2 Apr Norwich A 9 Apr Southampton A 16 Apr Swansea H 19 Apr Man City H 23 Apr Liverpool A 30 Apr Crystal Palace H 7 May Aston Villa A 15 May Tottenham H NORWICH CITY Mood among fans? A worthy draw against Man City and the win at The Hawthorns have lifted spirits immeasurably at a time when the belief of many was starting to wane. Two weeks ago the tunnel was pitch black; now there’s a glimmer of light to be seen, especially with our two main relegation rivals still having to come to Carrow Road. Manager? Alex Neil has made mistakes and the learning curve has been a steep one, but, of late, he has rediscovered his mojo. But there is more than a little something about him and even if the worst were to happen he is the man to take us forward. Shining lights? Robbie Brady and Jonny Howson have been at the forefront of all that has been good and will be fighting it out for the PotS trophy. And recently, January signing Timm Klose has proved to be a positive influence on a back four that had been plagued with inconsistency and individual errors. Unimpressed? Neither Youssouf Mulumbu nor Graham Dorrans – two signings from West Brom – have been able to have the impact they, or we, had hoped. Finish? It all boils down to our upcoming home games against Newcastle and Sunderland, but this is no time to be timid (or overly honest), so I’m clinging to the belief we can scramble to 17th. Predictions Top 4 Leicester, Tottenham, Arsenal, West Ham. Bottom 3 Sunderland, Newcastle, Aston Villa. Run-in 2 Apr Newcastle H 9 Apr Crystal Palace A 16 Apr Sunderland H 30 Apr Arsenal A 7 May Man United H 11 May Watford H 15 May Everton A SOUTHAMPTON Mood among fans? Very good after back-to-back wins against direct rivals for a European place and that extraordinary comeback against Liverpool last Sunday. Our run-in is likely to be tough, with games against teams in the top five and bottom five and very little in between, so not many games against opponents with nothing to play for. Manager? Koeman has an unerring ability to make a significant change to the system that halts a slump in form and in that regard he’s a massive step up from any manager we’ve had in my lifetime. A massive thumbs up from me. Shining lights? Virgil van Dijk has proved to be an excellent signing, almost to the extent that losing Toby Alderweireld to Spurs hasn’t been noticed too much (had he not excelled there). Of the players who were here previously, Shane Long has been superb and added more of a goal threat to the team attributes he brings. Unimpressed? Two players linked with moves away, Victor Wanyama and Sadio Mané, have largely been letdowns. Wanyama seems to turn it on only in big games and his attitude and discipline has been atrocious in other games. Mané just seems to have been lacking a bit of confidence. Finish? Fifth. West Ham are in good enough form to keep above us and Man United will probably eke out enough results even if they don’t play well. Predictions Top 4 Leicester, Tottenham, Arsenal, Man City. Bottom 3 Norwich, Newcastle, Aston Villa. Run-in 3 Apr Leicester A 9 Apr Newcastle H 16 Apr Everton A 23 Apr Aston Villa A 1 May Man City H 7 May Tottenham A 15 May Crystal Palace H STOKE CITY Mood among fans? On the whole it is one of total excitement. It is, without a doubt, the best team in a generation and it is genuinely exciting knowing that on our day we are capable of tearing apart the best teams in the country. There is a reason that we aren’t running away with the league and that’s consistency – you just don’t know what you are going to get from one week to the next and that is where there is a slight degree of frustration. Manager? Mark Hughes is doing really, really well. I sometimes wish he would fly a little lower under the radar as it would be a real body blow to lose him in the summer. He has transformed the image of the club in the past three seasons Shining lights? I could make a case for virtually every single player. From Butland between the sticks, Wollscheid at the back through to Imbula bossing the midfield and moving forward to the magician that is Affelay to Arnautović, who has transformed from Mr Inconsistent to Mr Consistent. Unimpressed? I really can’t make a case for a player that has left me unimpressed, every one has given their all this campaign. The only minor gripe I have with the club at the moment is their seeming reluctance to expand the stadium. Finish? 9th. Predictions Top 4 Leicester, Tottenham, Arsenal, Man United. Bottom 3 Norwich, Sunderland, Aston Villa. Run-in 2 Apr Swansea H 10 Apr Liverpool A 18 Apr Tottenham H 24 Apr Man City A 30 Apr Sunderland H 7 May Crystal Palace A 15 May West Ham H SUNDERLAND Mood among fans? It is looking a wee bit grim. Our inability to hold a lead at Southampton and Newcastle may well do for us. The next three games (West Brom and Leicester at home and Norwich away) will define the level we play at next season. Seven points is the minimum - and that includes a win at Carrow Road. This fan is worried. Manager? He has done well with the poor materials he was confronted with when he arrived. The players he brought in the January window have improved us, but poor recruitment in the summer (M’Vila excepted) has made it very difficult. Sometimes Allardyce is a tad too cautious, but the positives far outweigh any negatives. Shining lights? Jan Kirchhoff has been outstanding since he arrived in January and so has Lamine Koné. Had they been with us in August, we would not be in this mess. Vito Mannone has justified his No1 spot and Jermain Defoe continues to be a threat. Yann M’Vila has been a good player and also a well-behaved boy. Unimpressed? Some are just not good enough but Jeremain Lens is and has not really shown it. Jack Rodwell underwhelmed until recently, but has been much more involved recently. We are playing some decent football - shame we can’t close a game out. Finish? I hope for 17th. Note the word hope. Predictions Top 4 Tottenham, Leicester, Arsenal, Man City. Bottom 3 Crystal Palace, Newcastle, Aston Villa. Run-in 2 Apr West Brom H 10 Apr Leicester H 16 Apr Norwich A 24 Apr Arsenal H 30 Apr Stoke A 7 May Chelsea H 11 May Everton H 15 May Watford A SWANSEA CITY Mood among fans? It’s been a season to forget. A change of manager wasn’t expected before the midway point as the board and fans were hopeful of something similar to last year’s eighth place. It was the complete opposite. Entertaining performances from us have been very few and far between and we will breathe a huge sigh of relief when the season’s over and we’re still a Premier League club. Manager? Guidolin has come in and done what was asked of him – simply to keep us up. He wasn’t asked to deliver good, attacking and entertaining football – it’s been anything but. Some have criticised our poor performances under the Italian, but he, along with Curtis’s guidance, has tightened up the team. Shining lights? You can always rely on Leon Britton to put in 100% effort and desire when it is really needed. Curtis brought him back into the team when Monk was sacked and he helped us get back to our passing game. Gylfi Sigurdsson’s goalscoring form has also played a huge part in our recent results. Unimpressed? Ki and Gomis haven’t performed, and you wonder whether Angel Rangel has another season in him. Finish? 15th. It would an incredible achievement to finish above Crystal Palace, the way our season has gone. Predictions Top 4 Leicester, Tottenham, Arsenal, Man City. Bottom 3 Norwich, Newcastle, Aston Villa. Run-in 2 Apr Stoke A 9 Apr Chelsea H 16 Apr Newcastle A 24 Apr Leicester A 30 Apr Liverpool H 7 May West Ham A 15 May Man City H TOTTENHAM Mood among fans? Lots of jaunty confidence before Sunday’s 3-0 win. “We’re gonna win the league by two points ... by goal difference ... by early next month ...” were typically blithe predictions. I’m not so sure. There are quite a few games coming up that we traditionally fail to win: Liverpool away, Man Utd at home, Chelsea away. And we never do finish above Arsenal. Manager? Pochettino has been fantastic. Rarely have I seen players improve so much and all at the same time. We have scored the most and conceded the fewest, which proves he has got it right throughout the team. The spirit is exceptional. Several managers have said Spurs are the best team they’ve played this season and he must take the credit for that. Shining lights? The lights have shone on several players but the main spot should be fixed on Alderweireld . His anticipation, tackling, distribution, all-round awareness have been staggering. Unimpressed? It is surprising how low Bentaleb has fallen in the pecking order. Whenever he has played, his passing has been dangerously sloppy. Finish? Given my experience of Spurs over the years, we’ll finish third. I don’t see much depth of squad in midfield or attack. If we have to replace Dembélé, Alli, Dier, Kane with Mason, Carroll, Son, Chadli we become much weaker. Witness the West Ham and Dortmund games. Predictions Top 4 Leicester, Arsenal, Tottenham, Man United. Bottom 3 Norwich, Newcastle, Aston Villa. Run-in 2 Apr Liverpool A 10 Apr Man United H 18 Apr Stoke A 25 Apr West Brom H 2 May Chelsea A 7 May Southampton H 15 May Newcastle A WATFORD Mood among fans? No group of supporters ever agree about anything. At the moment there is competition from the Good (we’re probably safe and had a great start to the season), the Bad (we’re only probably safe despite the great start to the season) and the C’moooooorrrrn (Palace in the semi-final). Manager? He’s taken a side that nobody noticed get promoted, changed the style of play entirely, incorporated a huge number of new players, got us into mid-table more-or-less safeness and still looks cool. What’s not to like? Shining lights? A number of players have impressed – Odion Ighalo, perhaps, more startlingly during some periods of the season than others. The nailed on successes have been Heurelho Gomes – a great keeper and a huge personality, Miguel Britos and Craig Cathcart – elegant, precise centre-backs, Ben Watson – the general at the back of the midfield. And Troy Deeney, obviously. Unimpressed? With such a large influx of players it was inevitable that some wouldn’t click straight away. Obbi Oularé and Steven Berghuis have yet to establish themselves … Both are younger players and neither has been afforded much of an opportunity to fail to impress. Finish? Higher than any time since 1987. Predictions Top 4 “Come on” Leicester, Arsenal, Tottenham, Man City. Bottom 3 Norwich, Newcastle, Aston Villa. Run-in 2 Apr Arsenal A 9 Apr Everton H 16 Apr West Brom A 20 Apr West Ham A 30 Apr Aston Villa H 7 May Liverpool A 11 May Norwich A 15 May Sunderland H WEST BROMWICH ALBION Mood among fans? The feeling is we are safe with very little to play for but trying to beat our highest points total since the Premier League started, which would be a good achievement given the mess Pulis took over and is still battling with. Manager? Mixed feelings. While Pulis has done well to get us to where we are, it is very often difficult to watch. The hope is that he will add some creativity to our undoubted excellent organisation and professionalism and make next year more entertaining. Shining lights? Jonny Evans has been fantastic, one of the best signings for anyone in the division. Darren Fletcher has led us well on and off the pitch. Pulis has also made Craig Dawson a consistent and very good full-back. Unimpressed? Saido Berahino has some way to go to make up for his stubborn reaction to not getting a move last summer. His attitude has improved of late, but he has let himself and the club down this season and wasted his undoubted talent. Finish? I reckoned 14th at the start of the season and I still feel that is where we will end up. Predictions Top 4 Leicester, Tottenham, Arsenal, Man United. Bottom 3 Norwich, Newcastle, Aston Villa. Run-in 2 Apr Sunderland A 9 Apr Man City A 16 Apr Watford H 21 Apr Arsenal A 25 Apr Tottenham A 30 Apr West Ham H 7 May Bournemouth A 15 May Liverpool H WEST HAM Mood among fans? It’s incredibly positive, typified by the whole ground singing, “We’ve got Payet!” A long unbeaten run at home, some great away performances at the big teams, the nostalgia of leaving the Boleyn Ground and luncheons at Ken’s Café have all contributed to the feelgood factor. Incredibly, we’re still in with a chance of Champions League qualification and if we can beat Man United, we’re in the semi-final of the FA Cup at Wembley. Manager? Super Slaven Bilic, a cavalier to Sam Allardyce’s respect-the-point roundhead, has united the club and appeals to the fans’ sense of romance. He’s instilled a real sense of positivity and away from home we now go to Man United and Chelsea thinking we can win. Shining lights? In case you just don’t understand, we’ve got Payet, Dimitri Payet — a world-class player who could get in anyone’s team. Lanzini has produced skill and goals, while Michail Antonio works tremendously hard and has scored some invaluable goals. The underrated (at least by Hodgson) Mark Noble has had a great season, while Aaron Cresswell is a superb crosser and deserves an England call-up. Unimpressed? For once, no one has really underperformed, which, for a West Ham fan, is a very strange sensation. Finish? Fifth (though hoping for fourth!) Predictions Top 4 Leicester, Tottenham, Arsenal, Man City. Bottom 3 Norwich, Newcastle, Aston Villa. Run-in 2 Apr Crystal Palace H 9 Apr Arsenal H 17 Apr Leicester A 20 Apr Watford H 30 Apr West Brom A 7 May Swansea H 10 May Man United H 15 May Stoke A
A pyrrhic victory? Boris Johnson wakes up to the costs of Brexit “If we are victorious in one more battle … we shall be utterly ruined.” Like the good intellectual that he’s vigorously pretended not to be of late, Boris Johnson will probably know that line. It’s from the Greek historian Plutarch’s account of the battle that gave us the phrase “pyrrhic victory”, the kind of victory won at such cost that you almost wish you’d lost. In theory, Johnson woke up on Friday morning having won the war. After David Cameron’s announcement that he would step down come October, Johnson is now the heir presumptive – albeit at this stage very presumptive – to the Tory leadership, perhaps only four months away from running the country. He has everything he ever wanted. It’s just that somehow, as he fought his way through booing crowds on his Islington doorstep before holding an uncharacteristically subdued press conference on Friday morning, it didn’t really look that way. One group of Tory remainers watching the speech on TV jeered out loud when a rather pale Johnson said leaving Europe needn’t mean pulling up the drawbridge; that this epic victory for Nigel Farage could somehow “take the wind out of the sails” of anyone playing politics with immigration. Too late for all that now, one said. The scariest possibility, however, is that he actually meant it. That like most of Westminster, Johnson always imagined we’d grudgingly vote to stay in the end. That he too missed the anger bubbling beneath the surface, and is now as shocked as anyone else by what has happened. “People talk about reluctant remainers, but I think there have been a lot of reluctant Brexiters around, people who voted leave thinking it wouldn’t happen but they’d be able to vent and to tell all their friends at dinner parties they’d done it,” said one Tory minister. “He thought what all those reluctant Brexiters thought: it would be a vote for remain, he would be seen as having stood up for a principle.” After which leave’s newest martyr could simply have bided his time for a year or so before being triumphantly installed in Downing Street. It’s perfectly possible, of course, that the Tories on both sides who suspect Johnson was never an outer in his bones are plain wrong, that the anonymous Labour MP who hotly accused him on Friday of jeopardising thousands of ordinary people’s jobs just to secure one for himself was doing him a terrible injustice. Perhaps Johnson really did have a last-minute epiphany, declaring for leave in the sober realisation that this was always how it might end – Scotland demanding independence, Northern Ireland’s fragile political settlement at risk, Marine Le Pen jubilant, the Bank of England stumping up £250bn to stabilise the market. Perhaps he’s still convinced all will be fine eventually. And let’s hope to God he’s right. Any remainer who doesn’t pray to be proved wrong about Brexit is callous, wishing disaster on people who are unable to afford it. But right now, what scorched earth Johnson stands to inherit – a nation febrile and divided, teetering on the brink of economic and constitutional crisis. It’s all over for David Cameron now. But it feels, too, like the end of a broader modernising movement to which both he and Johnson belonged. The deeper fear among Tory remainers now isn’t just of a recession. It’s about the rise of something new in British politics, unleashed when politicians with scant respect for truth meet desperate voters; and for the backlash to come, when it sinks in that Brexit hasn’t ended immigration overnight or magically given depressed communities their futures back. Already, one wonders what those who voted desperately for change make of being told there’s no rush to invoke article 50. No wonder Tory leavers wanted Cameron to stay for a bit while they scratched together a plan for dismounting safely from the tiger they’ve been riding. But control is what the Brexiters said they wanted. Now they’ve got it, and they’re about to find out how it feels. It’s not over yet, of course. There are plenty of Tory MPs grimly determined to make them pay for whatever dark furies they have helped unleash; to lie down in front of the Boris bulldozer. The obvious name flying around the “anyone but Boris for leader” camp on Friday morning was that of Theresa May. Some of those who backed George Osborne before the chancellor knowingly burned what remained of his ambitions by publishing that fantasy Brexit punishment budget will now back her, as will some Tory women worried that female voters distrust the philandering Johnson. The women’s minister Nicky Morgan is also testing the water, but May probably has a headstart. The home secretary’s mysterious absence from the airwaves during the referendum campaign disguised a fair bit of local-level campaigning for remain, reaching activists likely to support her. There is also the glimmer of an alternative emerging in Stephen Crabb, the work and pensions secretary endorsed by his good friend the Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson, who leads a small but interesting group of working class Tories keen to tackle the economic insecurity exposed by the Brexit vote. But he’s a relatively unknown quantity even inside Westminster, let alone outside. The blunt truth is that nobody else in Conservative politics gets begged for selfies as Johnson did on every walkabout; none has his charisma or his reach. If his name is on a shortlist of two put forward to Tory members, few doubt he would be the runaway winner. And if MPs conspire to keep him off that list during the preliminary stages of the contest? Well, imagine the consequences for those who have already outraged constituents by voting remain. Imagine the rage, the mass defections to Ukip, were Johnson to be seen to be blocked by yet another elite afraid of ordinary people getting it wrong. So don’t imagine his colleagues haven’t noticed Johnson’s casualness with the facts during this campaign, or the unsavoury company he sometimes kept. Don’t think they don’t resent an old Etonian journalist on £250,000 a year playing the anti-establishment hero, or hope for something else to turn up. But don’t imagine either that some aren’t wearily wondering if this couldn’t be made to work. Johnson is far from a buffoon. He’s an agile thinker, gifted communicator and natural opportunist who made a reasonable fist of governing London after recruiting some reliable deputies (enter Michael Gove). He’s smart enough to have learned from the recent Labour leadership campaign – in which managerially competent candidates were slaughtered for being on the wrong side of a visceral grassroots argument – that elites only survive in this febrile climate by pleasing the masses. Perhaps somehow it will all come together. It’s just that on Friday morning Johnson didn’t look like a man with a plan that’s all working perfectly. He looked more like a king unable to take more such victories.
Meet the vicar who’s swapping the sacristy for the surgery For rector Sarah Lunn, it’s only a stone’s throw from the small sandstone church of St James to the purpose-built surgery in the tiny Cumbrian village of Temple Sowerby where she often meets troubled parishioners referred to her by one of two GPs. Lunn, who looks after 12 agricultural parishes nestling between the Lake District fells and the Pennines from her home base at Long Marton, is not at the surgery to talk to patients about Jesus, but simply to listen to whatever they feel they need to get off their chest – and at the same time take the pressure off struggling local primary health services. The GP practice run by doctors Jo Thompson and Helen Jervis is up against it – like many others in Cumbria – because it is two doctors down and can’t attract anyone else to replace them, despite the beauty of the area. A report on the difficulties facing the region indicates that 47% of GP partners are planning to retire within the next 10 years and a third of practices have applied to NHS England for vulnerable practices funding because of the high ratio of patients to GPs. Health service managers in Cumbria are drawing up plans to recruit refugee doctors to work as GPs and the area is offering trainee GPs “golden hellos” of £20,000 on top of their salaries, in a bid to fill gaps. The free service that Lunn offers is for any local resident (whether a churchgoer or not) who needs to talk but does not need to see a doctor. Quite simply, if Lunn talks to patients who have been going to their local surgery on a regular basis to chat, the GPs she works with find that these people stop asking for doctors’ appointments. “It’s going back to the way that it was in the past, when the GP and the minister worked together to look after families’ wellbeing,” says Lunn. “It is all about trust. Because our rural community is small and everyone knows everybody, the vicar is not just for those who go to church. I’m the vicar for everybody.” As part of a scheme called the Listening Ear, the project emerged from Lunn’s participation in a church leadership programme which helps lay and ordained leaders from all denominations to develop creative, entrepreneurial skills to operate more effectively in rural areas. Lunn knew that doctors in her area were hard-pressed, so she sought a placement with the Temple Sowerby practice – and the idea was born. Another three years of development and wrangles about safety and confidentiality issues followed before its launch in September 2014. Listening Ear now comes under the auspices of Cumbria Council for Voluntary Service, after being vetted by Cumbria Clinical Commissioning Group, and involves 12 clergy (including one Methodist minister) covering five GP practices in the Eden Valley. More want to join even though they are not paid to do it. In Temple Sowerby, patients who Thompson and Jervis think might benefit are offered the chance to see the rector at the surgery. If they are willing, Lunn contacts them to fix an appointment. Most of the issues she deals with are related to bereavement, isolation or making a difficult decision. So far, Lunn has seen 12 people. In all, Listening Ear has helped more than 50. This may not seem big numbers but, as Lunn says, “it represents a shift in mindset by GPs”. Aren’t there some issues that it may not be appropriate to discuss with a person of the cloth, such as whether or not to have an abortion? Lunn says a young woman came to her with this dilemma. She gave the woman the chance to air her thoughts in a safe place, without it being repeated around the whole district, where everyone knows everyone else. She is clear that she is not there to give her religious views (unless they are asked for) or to pass judgment. As Jervis explains: “There is a big stigma about anything like anxiety around here and you cannot be anonymous in this community.” Lunn is both respected and trusted in this predominantly sheep-farming area, because she keeps sheep herself (grey-faced Dartmoors called Pinky and Perky) at the back of her rectory, alongside guinea fowl and blue and black runner ducks. At the parish coffee morning she can move easily between farmers and other locals, picking up news of who is not well, who is suffering from falls in stock prices and who has died. Any concerns can be taken back to the relevant surgery for a GP follow-up. “I thought we would have a problem with the religious bit,” Jervis admits. “But Sarah is high-profile round here because of her work during the Cumbrian floods and her support for the Gypsies, and they trust her.” Building on the project’s success, the Temple Sowerby practice has plans to run a dressings clinic in the nearby village hall to coincide with the church coffee mornings, to which people are brought from local farms and villages by volunteer drivers. And Lunn, representatives of the local clinical commissioning group and NHS England have been discussing how Listening Ear could be rolled out across the NHS. It is not the only intervention by the church in health and social care, as services come under sustained pressure. The bishop of Carlisle, the Rt Rev James Newcome, is developing Caring for Carers, with the Church of England’s mission and public affairs director, Brendan McCarthy, to harness the social support being given informally by church members to people caring for those with dementia and other chronic conditions, in order to turn it into a national scheme. Newcome is the House of Lords spokesman on health, lead bishop on health and healthcare, and member of a Lords select committee looking at the sustainability of the NHS. He is clear that what he calls “low-level” initiatives like Listening Ear make a significant difference to people’s health and wellbeing. “People have got to get real and appreciate the fact that we are facing a £3bn deficit in the NHS – and that things we have had in the past may no longer be available in the future,” says Newcome. “We have to do things that are not expensive, but that will bring help and comfort to people.”
Gringo: The Dangerous Life of John McAfee review – proto-Trump figure chills the blood Right now it is tempting to find parables and parallels everywhere for the current US situation. With this documentary from Nanette Burstein, the zeitgeist-paranoia is justified. Her film is about a man who, in political terms, was John the Baptist to the non-Jesus that is the president-elect. One of the candidates running for the US presidency in the early stages this year was a very rich, entitled and arrogant businessman with a huge social media presence, what this film suggests is a troubling attitude to women, a strong “eccentricity” (rather than the simple madness of lesser, poorer people) and a tendency to get riled by the media. This was John McAfee, the 1980s antivirus software tycoon who had retired in the noughties to run a yoga retreat on his vast Colorado estate. After apparently losing a bundle in the crash of 2008, he emigrated to Belize where he jokingly told reporters he was going to be like Kurtz in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. According to this documentary, he proceeded to pay off the cops, put dozens of local gangsters on the payroll as armed bodyguards, nurse crazy schemes to develop new-age medicines from indigenous plant life and cultivated psychopathic levels of paranoia about being kidnapped – he appeared to become a would-be king of the Central American jungle. He then became wanted in connection with the murder of neighbouring US national, as well as, according to the claims made by one of Burstein’s interviewees, having a horrendous case to answer concerning sexual assault, and the now notorious “gringo” McAfee went on the run in Guatemala. He finally made it back to the US, where he found the Belize government did not have the evidence to pursue extradition, and without a scrap of humility, penitence or self-awareness he relaunched himself as a hip, Ted-talking online privacy guru with a spurious rebel cachet and a monster Twitter following. Then he got it into his head to run as an independent candidate for the White House. (Authorities in Belize fiercely deny any suggestions of impropriety and maintain McAfee is not a suspect in the murder.) One of the most grimly funny parts of Burstein’s film is squad-car footage of McAfee being pulled over in 2015 for drunk-driving and telling the cops his name and assuring them they must surely have heard of him. His fame appears hugely important to him: it feeds what seems to be a deeply creepy, scary fanaticism. Burstein tells the story of her contact with McAfee through her Facebook messaging with him. His emails suggest a queasy mix of neediness, prickly aggression and serpentine malevolence. With patient interviewing, and in the face of some deeply nasty threats – McAfee actually sent her some covert surveillance photos he’d taken of her and her camera crew – Burstein uncovers some very important circumstantial evidence concerning his behaviour. But actually bringing him to court seems an impossibility. Getting nowhere near the presidency was by no means a foregone conclusion for this nasty bully. His story is a very enlightening and important one; Burstein tells it well. McAfee had a proto-Trump quality of arrogance, yet was not quite rich enough or cunning enough, or indeed famous enough, to make it big. Maybe he could still be picked as a White House special adviser on cybersecurity.
Villagers: Where Have You Been All My Life? review – delicate songwriting laid bare Conor O’Brien has recently made a couple of unusual moves. First, the Villagers frontman released atypically frank album Darling Arithmetic in April 2015, to share his experience of life as a closeted gay man in Ireland. Then he transferred that album’s pared down arrangements to this new release, made up of past material and recorded in one day in a London studio. The resulting songs – most of them laid down on the first or second take, apparently – maintain their loose shapes, anchored by his gossamer-light voice and plucked guitar lines. As is always the case with live sessions, there’s nowhere to hide and O’Brien’s delicate songwriting is laid bare. He makes the odd misstep, with Hot Scary Summer’s slightly hackneyed melodies and The Soul Serene’s vague meaning lessening the album’s overall rawness. But, as with Bright Eyes, Damien Rice and other artists to whom Villagers are often compared, O’Brien shows signs of a visceral intensity. He’s going about this his own way.
The Rolling Stones: Blue & Lonesome review – more alive than they've sounded for years Last week, a US journalist interviewing the Rolling Stones offered up a 21st-century spin on the old ‘Can white men sing the blues?’ argument. Wasn’t the Stones’ early repertoire, heavy on the songs of Willie Dixon, Jimmy Reed, Slim Harpo, Muddy Waters et al, just an example of cultural appropriation, he asked? You might charitably describe Keith Richards’ response as a little confused. At one juncture, he appeared to suggest that the blues was actually “quite Jewish”, but the bulk of the answer consisted of Richards insisting that he was, in fact, black: “Ask any of the brothers.” Tireless on your behalf, I’ve researched this thoroughly and can exclusively reveal that he isn’t. But equally, the charge of cultural appropriation feels deeply unfair. The biggest band of the British blues boom were always among the loudest cheerleaders for the real deal. They never pulled the grim Led Zeppelin trick of claiming they’d written songs they’d clearly swiped from old blues artists, never missed an opportunity to take BB King on tour or to try to educate their audience about the artists they were paying homage to. “I think it’s about time you shut up and we had Howlin’ Wolf on stage,” suggested Brian Jones to the presenter of US TV show Shindig! in 1965, after the Stones had agreed to appear only if the show also booked Wolf and Son House, a ballsy move in a country where the Voting Rights Act hadn’t yet been passed. The issue is being raised again because, for the first time in their career, the Rolling Stones have elected to release an album consisting entirely of blues covers. A sceptical voice might suggest it finally confirms what their last album, 2005’s lacklustre A Bigger Bang strongly hinted at: that, as songwriters at least, the Jagger/Richards partnership is out of juice. A less cynical observer’s first thought might be to wonder why they didn’t do something like this sooner: the opening cover of Buddy Johnson’s I’m Just Your Fool comes barreling out of the speakers, sounding more raw and vibrant than the Stones have done in years. Their second thought might be that Blue & Lonesome sounds surprisingly like Mick Jagger’s show, which rather goes against the commonly held belief that Keith Richards is the band’s R&B heart and Jagger is a fashion-conscious dilettante who’d have the Stones recording tropical house with Kungs and Seeb if he thought it would make them seem relevant. You can see how that notion came about, but while there are fantastic contributions from Richards and Ronnie Wood – the grumbling twin guitars of Little Rain; the taut interplay that powers Hate to See You Go; and, especially, the woozy, chaotic backdrop they conjure on a version of Lightning Slim’s Hoo Doo Blues – it’s Jagger’s voice and harmonica that really drive Blue & Lonesome. At his least inspired, Jagger can sound like a man who isn’t singing so much as rearranging a well-worn series of mannerisms and tics, but here his vocals are extremely powerful and genuinely affecting, as if he’s digging deep within himself to find the emotions to fit the material. You expect him to be able to summon up the kind of swaggering lubriciousness requisite for Everybody Knows About My Good Thing, originally recorded by Little Johnny Taylor, which he does; more surprising is how authentically wracked he sounds on All Your Love, Hate to See You Go and the Memphis Slim-penned title track. There’s a really striking moment on the last one where he sings the line “Baby please come on home to me”, drawing out the word “please” into a chilling, agonised, vulnerable howl. Moreover, you wonder if Jagger’s fashion-conscious dilettantism might account for the album’s sound: Blue & Lonesome feels very much a record piloted by someone who’s heard the White Stripes or the Black Keys, or the raw blues releases on which Mississippi label Fat Possum’s reputation was founded. The sound is appealingly visceral and live: the guitars are spiky and slashing, the drums punch hard, everything – including Jagger’s voice – is coated with a thin, crisp layer of distortion, as if the band are playing at such volume and with such force that the microphones can’t quite take it. The obvious point of comparison would be the recordings the Stones made in the brief period between their rise to fame and the full flowering of Jagger and Richards’ songwriting. But if at least one track, a version of Willie Dixon’s Just Like I Treat You, might have slotted neatly onto 5 x 5 or The Rolling Stones No 2, for the most part Blue & Lonesome doesn’t really feel or sound much like the stuff the Stones made half a century ago. They wouldn’t have thanked you for saying it, but back then, their skill lay in a perhaps unwitting ability to transform gnarled rhythm and blues into thrilling teen-friendly pop: listen to Muddy Waters’ original version of I Just Wanna Make Love to You next to their 1964 version and you hear a very grownup, slow-burning record, made by a man already in middle age, converted into something urgent and wired, the soundtrack to an overexcited fumble in the back of a Ford Anglia. Now in their 70s, men who by anyone’s standards have lived a bit, they frequently seem to tap into something deeper about the music: they really inhabit its sense of hard-won experience. The last thing you hear on the album, after a version of Willie Dixon’s I Can’t Quit You Baby crashes to a halt, is Mick Jagger asking uncertainly “was that OK?” He sounds like a man who’s still slightly awed by this music in its original form; who knows he’s still paying homage to artists he can never entirely grasp, whatever Keith Richards thinks. But the answer to his question is an unqualified yes: it’s more than OK, which is not something you can say about many Stones albums over the last 30 years.
YouTube video channel SBTV links with PA for youth news service Jamal Edwards’ popular YouTube video channel SBTV is linking with Press Association to launch a youth-focused news service. The launch of SBTV News is part of a strategy to expand the 10-year-old channel from its roots in music – it was an early champion of acts including Ed Sheeran and Jessie J – into a more mainstream multichannel video business. It has echoes of digital upstarts such as Vice which in 2014 made a highly successful move to move into the news market with the launch of Vice News. “SBTV News will be a fantastic opportunity to expand on our existing service which already covers the most important breaking news on the web,” said Edwards. “Our audience is young and hungry to learn, with interests beyond music. We aim to become the go-to news destination for our followers, just as we have for discovering the best new music.” The news service – which will launch at SBTV.co.uk on Wednesday – will expand into areas such as sport, politics, technology, showbusiness and entertainment. A team of 25 journalists will create the content – four SBTV-based reporters, two of whom will be seconded from PA, and 21 from PA’s digital service Snappa – with plans for an average of about 10 stories a day. “We are very excited to have formed this digital partnership with Jamal Edwards and SBTV which will combine the multimedia content, resources and experience of PA and the unique strength among young audiences of SBTV,” said Press Association chief executive Clive Marshall. “We see this as a great opportunity to gain insights into the needs of youth audiences and to ensure our services are relevant to this demographic.” The partnership will be managed by a joint SBTV-PA board chaired by Colin Morrison, the former senior Emap, Hearst and Future publishing executive. In 2013, Edwards’s SBTV brought on board its first backer, private equity firm Miroma Ventures, which invests in technology and music businesses.
The price of failure: Yahoo's Marissa Mayer could leave with $137m What’s the price of failure? For Yahoo’s boss, Marissa Mayer, it could be about $137m. Bids are now in for the ailing tech company – and no matter who gets it, Mayer is set to be one of the biggest winners. Mayer has taken home $78m since she was installed as CEO in 2012, according to stock analytics firm MSCI; if she’s dismissed from the company after a buyout she’s set for another $59m, based on the terms of the company’s most recent proxy statement. Mayer’s performance pay and vested options peaked in 2014 at $48m (double the previous year’s salary). Yahoo has yet to finalise this year’s pay package so the final figure is yet to be determined, but few are expecting her to take home just her base salary, in excess of $2m. Yahoo’s earnings are scheduled for Tuesday after the close of the New York Stock Exchange. Mayer and the board are under siege, but they have recently retrenched: in March the company added two new board members without consulting Starboard Value, the activist investor that has openly criticized Mayer’s management. Starboard is now calling for the company’s entire board to be replaced. Despite the company’s fundamental problems – it has lost the ad wars to Google and Facebook and bet billions on new businesses that have failed to take off – Yahoo’s share price is still in better shape than it was when she started. The rally in the stock price is entirely due to its holding in Alibaba, China’s largest e-commerce company. Shares are close to their mid-2014 levels, in fact, and that almost certainly means Mayer is owed further cash whether she keeps or loses her job or the company is sold. Mayer has benefited from a low “strike price” for her stock options: $18.87, the cost of the company’s shares on 29 November, 2012. According to Yahoo’s most recent proxy, the last time those shares were sold, 27 February 2014, they were worth more than twice that. “It looks like there were six separate tranches reported at this time, based on a combination of the year of the award versus the year of vesting versus the portion of the original offering involved,” said MSCI’s Ric Marshall of the 2014 proxy filing. “For example, one tranche would be for the 2014 vesting of the 2013 ‘make whole’ award, and so on. But all are based on the same exercise price of $18.87 per share.” Mayer’s original contract provides for an annual equity award, a “make whole” award to compensate her for the share options she lost when she left Google, her previous employer, and a one-time retention award. All three are spread out over different parts of her five-year term of employment, and all are based on the company’s share price on November 29, 2012: $18.87. The awards are $12m, $14m and $30m respectively, based on her offer letter. Marshall is MSCI’s executive director of environmental, social and governance research at the firm and he says much of the eventual compensation depends upon the decisions of the board: “What you can’t say is how the committee will evaluate the performance and what percentage of the original target they will deem as having been met,” he said. The board’s assessment of her performance is expected later this month. Given that there are bids open for Yahoo’s core assets, however, experts say that filing may be delayed. While nothing is cut and dried yet, the smallest amount Mayer could make at the company is about $80m if she receives absolutely no more of her long-term incentives – $78m plus her base salary of $2m. “Until the new proxy is out it isn’t really possible to say how much Mayer will ultimately end up making, or to what extent she will be entitled to any additional severance amounts,” said Marshall. Investors see the board as unduly supportive of Mayer. There is reason for shareholders to worry: Starboard thinks that the net value of the “Yahoo stub”, that is to say, Yahoo without its stake in Alibaba, is worthless. With the amount of money a purchasing company would have to pay Mayer to leave in the event of a change in ownership – $59.3m in numbers adjusted for share price from the company’s most recent proxy filing – Yahoo’s value by Starboard’s reckoning would be negative. “The firm buying her knows all about this,” said Alan Johnson of compensation consulting firm Johnson Associates. “They’re not going to pay for it. That’s coming out of the hide of Yahoo’s shareholders – everybody’s got that in their spreadsheets. They look at this as another sunk cost, like a bad lease.” In a word, Starboard is afraid shareholders may end up having to pay someone to haul Yahoo away. Marshall told the he’s seen that happen in the past. “It has been proven more expensive to sell a company because of the change in control than it is to just bankrupt it.” He hopes it won’t be the case at Yahoo, he said.
Pauline Hanson tells government to back broadband cable for Norfolk Island Pauline Hanson has asked the Turnbull government to underwrite a plan to connect Norfolk Island to a new fibre optic cable stretching between Australia and New Zealand. She said the new $300m Hawaiki cable linking the United States, Hawaii, Australia and New Zealand, would pass within 100 km of Norfolk Island. She wants the government to back a proposed 90km fibre optic spur that would connect the island to that cable. “There still exists a very small window of opportunity for Norfolk Island to connect if the Australian government is able to assist it either financially or through an underwriting agreement, such as the precedent set by the Norfolk Island/Air New Zealand underwriting agreement, which secures air travel to and from the island,” Hanson said in a letter to the communications minister, Mitch Fifield. “I am aware of private sector interest and capacity to fund the connection of the cable, however they are seeking some guarantee that the connection will be supported, rather than excluded by the NBN on the island.” Hanson said initial evaluation of the underwriting option indicated a “possible win-win” for Norfolk Island and Australia because the connection would enable greater economic development for the island, helping it to generate local revenues and reduce financial dependence on Australia. She made her request after a “fact-finding” trip to the island last week, where she was briefed on the island’s communications facilities. Documents supporting her letter claim the NBN’s Sky Muster Satellite, which the island relies on, cannot deliver on the promise of video streaming nor the low latency network connectivity required for interactive and business use. “To exhaust the Norfolk Island capacity of SkyMuster using HD TV would take just 25 simultaneous users,” the document says. “Assuming the average family of five, parents and kids watch different shows, this bottleneck would be reached very quickly, with a take-up and usage during peak times by less than 13 families on the island.” The document was written by Ken McDonald, an engineering consultant who is based in Mornington Victoria but who has a home and office on Norfolk Island. McDonald says his expertise is in the design of high speed real time software-based control systems for the telecommunications industry. At the last census in 2011, Norfolk Island’s total population (excluding visitors or tourists) was 1,796. Hanson’s trip to the island occurred just days after she was given a position on the joint standing committee for the National Broadband Network. The Turnbull government removed veteran Nationals senator John Williams from the committee to make room for her. Last week Hanson called on Malcolm Turnbull to sack the government-appointed administrator of Norfolk Island, Gary Hardgrave, accusing him of misleading the Australian parliament, a claim he dismissed as “nonsense”. Hardgrave was appointed by the government to oversee the island’s transition from being an external Australian territory to becoming a part of the commonwealth. Hanson toured the island last week on the invitation of Norfolk Island People for Democracy, a group opposed to the Australian government’s revoking of the island’s autonomy and who are fighting to have the decision overturned.
Politics doesn’t need a brick through the window, or civility. It needs basic fairness After the death of Jo Cox several articles were published drawing a connection between that atrocity and the “toxic” state of political discourse. When Cox’s alleged killer recited the slogan “death to traitors, freedom for Britain” in court it seemed to echo the rhetoric of leave campaigners who had denounced opponents as “traitors”. Though it’s not a direct cause of violence, such overwrought language is likely to fuel rather than defuse anger. The conclusion that many seemed to reach is that anger is the problem. That political discourse, in general, has become too emotional and that rage is too frequently directed at individual MPs and journalists. What is needed is for us to all calm down and approach things more rationally. A hashtag was launched, #thankyourMP, to encourage people to say positive things about their elected representatives. This week, Labour leadership candidate Angela Eagle arrived at her constituency office to find a brick had been thrown through the window. Several MPs have spoken about receiving death threats and dealing with stalkers, and fears for their safety no longer seem unfounded. Several journalists have reported similar experiences. I’ve received email and social media threats of physical and sexual violence that made me concerned about my safety, though in hindsight I don’t believe the senders had any intention of coming out from behind their keyboard. In the rush to condemn such toxic behaviour, however, I think a subtle distinction has been lost. Actions can certainly be morally unacceptable. In my opinion, emotions cannot. Really, it’s a manifestation of extreme privilege to insist that people engage with politics in a calm and emotionless way. The further you are from experiencing any negative effects of the policy you’re debating, the more cushioned and secure your social position, the easier it is to adhere to the Oxford Union norms of cool detachment and skilful argument. MPs might only be human, but they also hold a power over the lives of 70 million fallible, vulnerable human beings. Telling people that they’re wrong to feel anger towards an individual who voted to restrict housing benefit and place them at risk of homelessness is patently absurd. Similarly, journalists hold an unusual level of social power that makes them a reasonable target of scrutiny. If we think social media discourse can influence behaviour, why would that not also be true of mainstream media? The question isn’t about the level of anger that is acceptable, it’s about the forms of expression of that anger that should be condoned. Obviously, physical violence isn’t justified. Similarly, racism, sexism and other forms of prejudice don’t become more or less acceptable depending on the specific target of the slurs. What about other insults, though? Is it OK to describe a politician as “evil”, for instance, or is a blanket condemnation of an individual always toxic? Does it make a difference whether comments are addressed to politicians rather than made about them? There has been a tendency to group too many different sorts of comments into a broad category of “abuse”, which draws equivalences I don’t believe exist. John McDonnell stated on Tuesday, in reference to the MPs who’ve been attempting to oust Corbyn as Labour leader, “as plotters they were fucking useless”. Though I think there’s reason to question the wisdom of such a comment, it does not belong in the same category of behaviour as sustained, targeted harassment or graphic rape threats. This week I was asked on Twitter if I thought it was OK for someone to call me a “fucking useless journalist”. My honest answer is yes. I might not like receiving such a comment, and it’s unlikely to lead to any sort of constructive dialogue, but I think it counts as a morally acceptable form of self-expression. Not all anger can be considered equally justified, but if we insist on civility as a requirement for having a voice then we inevitably exclude those who are at the end of their tether – and they’re the ones that should be listened to most keenly. The other issue with this argument for civility, when it’s taken as far as prohibiting moral condemnation of politicians, is that it empowers defenders of the status quo while neutering critics. Broadly speaking, there are two forms of political argument. Either you defend a specific policy as the rational, logical option in the circumstances that exist, or you question the rules of the game. People on the political right are prone to presenting things such as spending cuts as morally neutral decisions, determined by economic reality. Leftwing criticism commonly argues that logic presented as natural is really no such thing, but rather that it’s a question of priorities. Political priorities are, unavoidably, a moral issue. None of which is to say that I think calling Theresa May a “monster” is a productive, useful form of political commentary. I simply think that anger is a natural, human response to circumstance. Condemning petty name-calling more vigorously than we condemn the suffering and disempowerment that often leads to such expressions of frustration seems topsy-turvy to me. Jo Cox wasn’t simply any politician, she threw herself into defending refugees, migrants and other marginalised groups. No MP deserves to be a victim of violence, but what the politicians actually do with their power does matter. That’s the point that hashtags such as #thankyourMP seem to miss.
Experts sound alarm over mental health toll borne by migrants and refugees The grief of losing a child made more unbearable by the knowledge that you decided to take them in a boat that capsized; nightmares about torture; depression induced by the awfulness of living in a camp, unable to go forward or back. As concern mounts about the conditions faced by refugees and migrants in camps across Europe, and more people die trying to reach the continent, the mental health of those who have risked everything in the hope of starting a new life in Europe is gaining more attention. A report last year by the German Federal Chamber of Psychotherapists said 40%-50% of people arriving in Germany suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), with half also suffering from depression. “They have nightmares or flashbacks to pictures or scenes. These memories feel very intense, and it is just like they are reliving the traumatising experience,” the report said. Other symptoms include jumpiness, sleep disorders, problems with concentration, and emotional numbness. “It is shameful that people suffering with such psychological injuries do not get the help they need,” the report said. Post-traumatic stress is just the tip of the iceberg. “PTSD is very important, but it is also the disorder that everyone jumps to, including the media. We see much more depression and anxiety disorders, and also, surprisingly, a lot of epilepsy and psychotic disorders, including schizophrenia,” said Dr Inka Weissbecker, global mental health and psychosocial adviser at the International Medical Corps in Washington. “There are huge amounts of anxiety – we see children bursting into tears when helicopters or airplanes fly over the camps, and we can’t understand why, until we realise what they’re associating it with,” said Harriet Zych, a nurse with Doctors of the World who worked in Idomeni – site of Europe’s largest informal refugee camp, on Greece’s northern border with Macedonia – before Greek police moved people to other locations in May. “We came across many people in a state of collapse, whose problems turn out to be psychological rather than physical,” she said. “One man hit himself with a rock on his head until he became unconscious when he found out he couldn’t cross the border.” Nikos Gionakis, a psychologist with the Athens-based mental health unit Babel, tells the story of Hassan, 34, who fled Syria with his four children. “Passing from Turkey to Greece, he was forced to get into a boat by smugglers. Two of his kids drowned as the boat sank. He was referred to Babel because of depression. He blames himself for not having been able to protect his kids,” Gionakis said. The UN refugee agency, the UNHCR, says mental health disorders can hinder integration into host populations, creating long-term problems for European countries that are accepting refugees fleeing from conflicts in Syria and elsewhere. In a paper to the European commission last year, the European Psychiatric Association said: “Acute and long-term psychiatric care needs to be provided to all asylum seekers in order to avoid reaching chronic conditions of mental disorders.” Aid workers in Greece say diagnosis, never mind treatment, is almost impossible in the chaos of the camps and detention centres in southern Europe. “You cannot say how many people are suffering from PTSD because diagnosis takes too long, and with such a stream of people, it is impossible. I am a trained psychologist with 40 years’ experience; it would take me two and a half hours to diagnose someone with PTSD,” said Renos Papadopoulos, director of the Centre for Trauma, Asylum, and Refugees at Essex University, who recently returned from Greece. “There is no evidence [on the prevalence of PTSD] because there cannot be evidence. The situation is complete chaos.” “We don’t do diagnosis,” said Zoi Marmouri, a psychologist working for Médecins Sans Frontières in Idomeni. Even if diagnosis were possible, World Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines stipulate that clinical treatment is not appropriate for refugees on the move. “Therapies should not be started without assurances that there can be follow-up. You have the potential to retraumatise people,” said Claire Whitney, Middle East mental health and psychosocial support adviser at the International Medical Corps. The most effective treatments for PTSD include cognitive behaviour therapy with a trauma focus, eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing therapy, as well as narrative exposure therapy. But these take time as they involve slowly exposing people to their trauma, while building up their capacity to deal with it. “It cannot be rushed,” said Whitney. “When people actually have PTSD, it is one of the most complex problems to treat.” The WHO says refugees and migrants needing diagnosis should be referred to existing non-governmental or state services. But even for those who make it into host communities, cost, stigma and language problems can lock them out of treatment. “We have serious lacks in the services we can provide. If they need hospitalisation, there aren’t any specialised units for this,” said Gionakis. International funds have been pledged for psychosocial support, although neither Britain’s Department for International Development nor the EU were able to provide a full breakdown. Some experts warn there is a risk of overdiagnosing PTSD. “They are distressed, yes, but is this PTSD? Often it will not be. These are instead normal reactions to an abnormal situation,” said Papadopoulos. The UNHCR and other agencies say much of the emotional suffering experienced by refugees and migrants is directly related to present-day stresses and concern about the future. “People live in very difficult and inhumane conditions here in camps that are too crowded. Basic needs are not met,” says Gionakis. The UNHCR advocates “psychological first aid”, which encourages those interacting with refugees to respond in a culturally sensitive and humane way that avoids distressing people further. “The humanitarian principle of ‘do no harm’ is a huge part of it,” said Whitney. “What everyone was advising, for the most part, was really to focus on the most basic kinds of support, which do contribute to mental health. Often, basic needs must be provided before people are ready – and willing – to engage with therapy.” This article was amended on 13 June 2016 to add that Harriet Zych works for Doctors of the World.
Harry Kane’s double sinks Aston Villa as Tottenham close in on leaders Whatever the rights and wrongs of Mauricio Pochettino’s decision to field a weakened team at Borussia Dortmund, the Tottenham Hotspur manager could seize on this restorative victory as vindication of sorts as two goals from Harry Kane, either side of half-time, brought a first top-flight title in 55 years back into view. Kane has 22 for the season in all competitions, including 18 in his last 21 league games, and it will not escape Roy Hodgson’s attention that the gifted Dele Alli set up both goals for the England striker, the first with a quickly taken free-kick and the second courtesy of an inviting low cross that was going to end in only one place. It could hardly have been more comfortable for Spurs against the Premier League’s bottom club, so much so that it was tempting to wonder whether Pochettino could have rested players for this fixture, not the Europa League tie in Dortmund. All that can be said for sure is that Spurs at full-strength – Pochettino made seven changes from the Dortmund game – had far too much class for Villa and from the moment that Kane scored his first the outcome seemed inevitable. Victory was imperative for Spurs and closes the gap at the top on Leicester to two points. Spurs have played a game more than Claudio Ranieri’s side but Pochettino and his players are entitled to feel that this win, which was only their third in eight games, turns up the pressure on Leicester, who host Newcastle United at home on Monday . Against a team as short of confidence as Villa it was all so easy for Spurs, who were able to stroll through the second half. Kane, who also hit the crossbar, is playing with supreme confidence. Alli was an elusive presence throughout and with Mousa Dembélé controlling midfield alongside Eric Dier, and Toby Alderweireld so impressive at the back, Tottenham never looked like slipping up. As for Villa, their disastrous season cannot end quickly enough. This was a fifth successive defeat, their 20th of the season in the league, and the mood among the supporters is mutinous. The biggest cheer of the day was reserved for a “Lerner Out” banner which reappeared in the North Stand in the 81st minute after it had previously been confiscated by stewards. In a show of solidarity Spurs fans started chanting “We want Lerner out” which not surprisingly was met with applause by the home supporters, who promptly joined in on an afternoon when Brian Little, who has been appointed as an adviser to the Villa board, and David Bernstein, who has joined the board, were looking on from the directors’ box. A penny for their thoughts as Villa’s owner and Tom Fox, the club’s chief executive officer, came under fire. On the pitch Villa huffed and puffed their way through the game, yet Rémi Garde’s side look so toothless going forward. If anything summed up their dismal season it was the moment six minutes from time when Jordan Ayew’s shot clipped the upright and dropped for Rudy Gestede, who was inside the six-yard box and had the goal at his mercy but somehow contrived to hit the crossbar. Garde was unhappy his side “conceded two goals in the worst period you can imagine” yet the Villa manager admitted the real damage was done with Kane’s first, not the second. From the moment Villa’s resistance is broken the players’ body language changes, heads drop and a second goal feels like only a matter of time, as was the case at Manchester City last Saturday. “We know currently that when we concede we become fragile,” Garde said. The Alli and Kane double act had prised Villa open as early as the fourth minute when the striker ran on to a threaded pass and lobbed Brad Guzan, only to see his shot bounce off the top of the bar. Erik Lamela hit the post later in the first half and Kane also had a first-time shot saved by Guzan before Spurs took the lead. Alli caught Villa sleeping with a free-kick that picked out Kane, who had drifted out to the left flank. With Alan Hutton caught the wrong side of the striker and Jores Okore playing him onside, Kane took a touch and drilled a low, left-footed shot beyond Guzan. Three minutes after the break Spurs had a second following a slick, incisive attack that opened Villa up with alarming ease. Kane was instrumental once again as he fed Lamela, who set Alli free. With time and space aplenty on the left, Alli delivered a low cross that found Kane, who nipped in front of Aly Cissokho to stab the ball into the roof of the net from six yards. For Villa, there was never likely to be any way back. Man of the match Harry Kane (Tottenham Hotspur)
Ex-RBS Libor trader banned by FCA The Financial Conduct Authority has banned a former Royal Bank of Scotland trader from working in the financial industry for submitting false Libor rates at the request of traders. Paul White was RBS’s main Libor submitter for the Japanese yen and Swiss franc Libor – the benchmark rate for lending between banks used to set $300tn (£210tn) of contracts globally. The FCA said that between March 2007 and November 2010 White acted on requests from RBS traders and outside brokers to change the rate submitted by RBS reflecting the bank’s borrowing costs in the market. White combined his role as Libor submitter with his own trading, which also influenced his actions, the FCA said. Libor – the London interbank offered rate – was compiled by the British Bankers’ Association, based on banks’ own reporting of their cost of borrowing from other lenders. The crude process, since reformed, left Libor open to manipulation by traders betting on rates. In 2012 the banking industry was engulfed in scandal when it emerged traders at RBS, Barclays and other banks had sought to manipulate the rate during the financial crisis. The watchdog publicly censured White and barred him from carrying out any regulated financial activity. He would have been fined £250,000 if he had not been suffering severe hardship, the FCA said. RBS fired White and three other traders in late 2011 over their alleged role in the scandal. The Serious Fraud Office is continuing to investigate Libor, including the actions of former RBS traders. In the period covered by the ruling, White received 68 recorded communications from RBS traders asking him to make submissions to benefit their trades. He also sat next to a trader who asked him weekly to change submissions and took into account requests from outside brokers acting for a yen derivatives trader. Tom Hayes, a former yen derivatives trader at UBS and Citi, was jailed last year for plotting to rig Libor and was described as the ringleader who asked traders at other banks for favours to benefit his deals. The FCA’s judgment made no reference to Hayes. The FCA said in June 2010 White and an external broker had this conversation via the Bloomberg trading terminal: External broker: “u got a bit less emotion in the 3’s fix [yen] today?” White: “unchanged should be the call, u want higher?” External broker: “yah, if not a msve prob” White: “will c what we can do, maybe up a pip” External broker: “nice, much appreciated.” Mark Steward, the FCA’s director of enforcement and market oversight, said by allowing his submissions to be set by traders with a financial interest in distorting Libor, White recklessly risked corrupting the rate’s integrity. Steward said: “As a Libor submitter Mr White had an obligation to ensure the submissions he made were proper ones. This ban should reinforce the message that working in financial markets entails obligations and responsibilities and that serious failures will result in substantial penalties including fines and prohibitions.”
Ade Edmondson may join Star Wars: Episode VIII Ade Edmondson has reportedly landed a role in Star Wars: Episode VIII. According to the Sun, the Bottom star secured a part after impressing JJ Abrams and director Rian Johnson. The actor will join fellow new recruits Benicio del Toro and Laura Dern in the film. A source claims that Abrams, who is involved in the forthcoming instalment, is a big fan of British talent. Edmondson’s involvement follows that of Simon Pegg, who had a small role in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. It maintains a comeback to acting for Edmondson who recently starred in the BBC adaptation of War & Peace. Edmondson, who was also known for comic performances in The Young Ones, has become more closely linked to factual and reality TV, appearing in Celebrity MasterChef and presenting Ade in Britain and Ade at Sea. The next Star Wars film reunites the surviving cast members from Episode VII and brings Johnson to the director’s chair. His credits include Looper and Brick. Little is known about the plot, but British star John Boyega, who played a rogue stormtrooper in Episode VII, has claimed it will be “much darker”. Star Wars: Episode VIII is set to hit cinemas in December 2017.
EU migrants have no negative effect on UK wages, says LSE The rapid increase in migration from other EU countries has not had an adverse impact on the wages and job prospects of UK-born workers, according to research by the London School of Economics. The study found areas of Britain that have seen the biggest rises in workers from the rest of Europe have not suffered sharper falls in pay or seen a bigger reduction in job opportunities than other parts of the country. The LSE study, part of a series in the buildup to the EU vote on 23 June, also said that goods and services consumed by migrants raised the level of demand in the British economy and created opportunities for UK-born workers. Workers have seen their real wages suffer over the past decade, but the economists at the LSE’s centre for economic performance said the cause was the deep recession that began in 2008, rather than the more than tripling in immigrants from other EU countries between 1995 and 2005. The research said that median real wages for those born in the UK had grown robustly from the late 1990s until the global financial crisis – a period when migration into the UK was boosted by the accession to the EU of former communist countries such as Poland. Since then wages had fallen by about 10% – a decline unprecedented since the 1950s. The LSE researchers said the fall occurred when EU immigration was rising – but added that the big pre-crash gains in real wages for UK workers had also coincided with rising migration. As a result, they concluded that the fall in wages was caused by the “great recession”. Jonathan Wadsworth, one of the co-authors of the report, said: “The bottom line, which may surprise many people, is that EU immigration has not harmed the pay, jobs or public services enjoyed by Britons. “In fact, for the most part it has likely made us better off. So far from EU immigration being a necessary evil that we pay to get access to the greater trade and foreign investment generated by the EU single market, immigration is at worse neutral and at best, another economic benefit.” Iain Duncan Smith, the former work and pensions secretary who is campaigning for Britain to leave the EU, said earlier this week that uncontrolled migration was hurting the poorest people in Britain. The study said there was little effect of EU immigration on inequality through reducing the pay and jobs of less skilled UK workers, while changes in wages and unemployment for less skilled UK-born workers show little correlation with changes in EU immigration. “EU immigrants pay more in taxes than they use public services and therefore they help to reduce the budget deficit. Immigrants do not have a negative effect on local services such as education, health or social housing; nor do they have any effect on social instability as indicated by crime rates.”
Before he was Trump's running mate, Mike Pence led the anti-LGBT backlash Mike Pence first rose to the national stage during a crisis that pundits said had “exploded”, “plummeted” and “crumbled” his chances of representing the GOP in the next presidential election. It was March 2015 and same-sex marriage was on the verge of becoming legal nationwide – carried by probably the swiftest change in public opinion in US history – but the Indiana governor and establishment favorite going into 2016 was standing firm. The state’s residents, big business and the rest of the country had quickly turned against Pence for signing into law a religious freedom bill that was interpreted as state-sanctioned discrimination against LGBT people and a bad faith reaction to the legalization of same-sex marriage in Indiana against the governor’s wishes. But today, as his party’s vice-presidential nominee, Pence’s name now sits just below Donald Trump’s on bumper stickers and placards stuck in front yards across the country. On this ticket, Pence is the GOP’s steady pair of hands compared with the politically inexperienced Trump, but the impact of the religious freedom battle lingers, and his decades of anti-LGBT attitudes that preceded it remain. “I have seen no growth, no change, no evidence of nuance,” said Sheila Suess Kennedy, an Indiana University professor who first met Pence as a guest on his radio show, which was broadcast from 1994 to 1999. Like Pence, Kennedy was the Republican candidate for an Indiana congressional seat, but she lost her 1980 race and has been an Indiana political insider ever since. “He is convinced that God doesn’t like gay people and that’s it.” Pence failed to win two congressional elections in 1988 and 1990 (his latter campaign is remembered as one of the nastiest in Indiana history) – but finally made it to the Capitol in 2000, where he began a 12-year congressional career defined by relentless conservatism. “I was Tea Party before it was cool,” he explained in 2011. As a congressman, he advocated for a flat tax rate, defunding Planned Parenthood and defining marriage as an act between a man and a woman. In a 2006 speech to Congress, Pence cited a Harvard sociologist to make his case for defining marriage. “Societal collapse was always brought about following an advent of the deterioration of marriage and family,” Pence said. This message was in keeping with his 2002 campaign platform. Pence wrote then that Congress should oppose same-sex marriage, oppose efforts to give LGBT people anti-discrimination protections and stop giving federal money to Aids/HIV groups that “celebrate and encourage the types of behaviors that facilitate the spreading of the HIV virus”. A year later, Pence supported a controversial part of George W Bush’s program to fight Aids across the globe which specified that 33% of funds would be spent on abstinence and monogamy programs. The plan was enacted with the stipulation intact (this year, researchers found the $1.4bn spent on abstinence programs failed to change sexual behavior). “The timeless values of abstinence and marital faithfulness before condom distribution are the cure for what ails the families of Africa,” Pence told Congress in 2003. “It is important that we not just send them money, but we must send them values that work.” Three years earlier, in his 2000 campaign platform, Pence had even advocated for taxpayer money to be diverted from supporting groups providing critical HIV/Aids care to vulnerable people to “those institutions which provide assistance to those seeking to change their sexual behavior”. This has been widely interpreted to refer to groups that provide controversial gay conversion therapy treatments, which have since been outlawed in five states. Pence’s campaign did not respond to a request for clarity on his current position on gay conversion therapy, and there has been no evidence to suggest a shift in his views since 2000. Pence has often said that he is “a Christian, a conservative, and a Republican, in that order”, and that Christian values message permeates his congressional record. But his convictions were never enough to drive successful legislation. Of the 90 standalone bills he introduced in Congress, only 21 were agreed to by the House of Representatives and were “simple resolutions”, which do not have the power of a law and are often used to elect people to a committee or do things like name a room in the Capitol. “As far as I know, his entire tenure in Congress was being a cultural warrior,” said Kennedy. But now, this “cultural warrior” is on the ticket with a Republican presidential nominee who has been married multiple times, opposes laws that permit discrimination against LGBT people (but also opposes same-sex marriage) and stopped being pro-choice sometime between 1999 and 2011. Republican strategist Charlie Black, who served as a senior adviser to presidents Ronald Reagan and George HW Bush, said it is the vice-presidential nominee’s role to adopt the nominee’s positions – even if they are out of step with his own beliefs. “Pence accepts Trump’s view, which is that Trump is open to all lifestyles and that Donald Trump is not going to try to legislate against anybody’s lifestyle,” said Black. The Trump campaign and Indiana governor’s office did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Black said that in this presidential election, the first since same-sex marriage was made legal nationwide, the party had to recognize the culture had changed to be more accepting of LGBT people. “Even if some of us don’t agree with all of the public policies surrounding lifestyle issues, we accept it and we move on,” Black said. “It is our job to have goodwill toward everyone.” He said Pence also had that attitude. “The courts, and the government, and the public has spoken on this and he [Pence] was a little behind the curve, that is all,” Black said. Leslie Lenkowsky, who has known Pence for 20 years, agreed. He does not think Pence would say he discriminates against LGBT groups, but that his positions are firmly rooted in another time. “Small-town Indiana today was not small-town Indiana when Pence grew up,” Lenkowsky said. “He’s defending those who he feels, whose voice he feels, doesn’t get sufficient attention in the national political debate,” said Lenkowsky, a professor of public affairs and philanthropic studies at Indiana University. But for some of Pence’s colleagues in the Indiana statehouse, Pence’s views toward the LGBT community have been harmful to its citizens. Democrat Tim Lanane, the state senate minority leader, said that while Pence is warm and cordial, he is “hostile” towards LGBT rights. “It made Indiana look like we were backward, intolerant and that we sanctioned discrimination against people of the LGBT community,” said Lanane of the Religious Freedom Rights Act (RFRA) battle from March 2015. LGBT rights campaigners saw this legislation as a response to same-sex marriage being made legal in Indiana in October 2014 through a surprise supreme court decision. Pence fuelled this feeling with an interview on ABC’s This Week where he was given six opportunities to say the RFRA was not meant to discriminate against LGBT people, but failed to do so. “RIFRAs have become a symbol of the resentment of a certain slice of right-wing Christianity that feels its social hegemony and privileged cultural and political position slipping away,” wrote Steve Sanders, a professor of constitutional and family law at the Indiana University Maurer School of Law, in a March 2016 blogpost. The backlash was led by major businesses that threatened to cancel plans for expansion in Indiana, or leave the state completely, unless the bill were changed. Mayors of cities including Seattle and San Francisco called for a boycott of Indiana. Pence eventually amended the bill, but has failed to instill confidence that his internal beliefs had changed. “He’s done nothing to indicate a change of attitude on whether or not LGBT should be added to our protections,” Lanane said. “I don’t think you could expect him to be very enthusiastic about championing those rights, however they might exist or play out on a federal level,” said Lanane. The vice-presidential candidate’s role during a campaign is ultimately to reflect his running mate’s views. As such, Pence’s history has faded into the background. “Trump does not have a problem with the LGBT community and never has,” said Black. “He’s always been very open about his views on it. “So that’s now Mike’s obligation to reflect Trump’s views.”
Paul Simon: Stranger to Stranger review – a five-star tour through new sounds “It’s hard working the same piece of clay, day after day, year after year,” sings Paul Simon on the title track of Stranger to Stranger, his first album since So Beautiful Or So What in 2011. But his tenacious pursuit of new sounds, such as the unique microtonal instruments of composer Harry Partch on Insomniac’s Lullaby, and juxtapositions such as the gnarled blues guitar (played by Simon) and cello on The Riverbank, make this album as rewarding as anything he’s done. The creaky slide guitars, distant train whistles and street-corner harmony groups on songs such as Wristband and The Clock hark back to the records of the 1940s and 50s. Yet the samples and loops amid the album’s dusty ambience mean it’s no exercise in nostalgia. Simon’s lyrics are finely honed, from the conversational The Werewolf to the confessional title track, a moving exploration of his creative process. “Just a way of dealing with my joy,” as he puts it.
Letter: Dave Swarbrick obituary Dave Swarbrick regularly appeared at Fairport Convention’s Cropredy festival in Oxfordshire long after his obituary was printed prematurely in the Daily Telegraph. At a public rehearsal before the festival one year, he turned up, hard of hearing, and with the oxygen cylinder that he needed to cope with his emphysema. Fairport started a song, Swarbrick came in late, and they all stopped. “That’s all right, Dave,” said the guitarist and vocalist Simon Nicol. “If the Grim Reaper can wait for you, so can we.”
Robots rub up with Davos delegates Thomas Mann called it The Magic Mountain, but this week it will be more like the Magic Robot. The World Economic Forum at the Swiss resort of Davos sees the great and the good and the not so good gather to discuss the burning issues of the day, and this year’s theme is the fourth industrial revolution. Which means the impact of robots and artificial intelligence. Of course, the global market meltdown, the collapse in the oil price and concerns about Chinese growth will also be on the agenda. The chairman of BP, various bankers including Jiang Jianqing from the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and economists such as Nouriel Roubini will be in attendance. Other delegates are set to include Leonardo DiCaprio, who will receive an award relating to his foundation’s work on the impact of climate change, rock star Bono (of course), musician will.i.am and prime minister David Cameron. But German chancellor Angela Merkel, a regular attendee, will apparently not be there this year. Elsewhere, there will be a cello concert “celebrating intercultural dialogue and trust”, a day in the life of a refugee and a chance to learn “how to reach peak performance” with Formula One racing driver Sebastian Vettel at an alpine retreat on the Rinerhorn Mountain. And back to the fourth industrial revolution, there is a session called Meet the Robots. R2-D2 once turned up at a CBI conference – perhaps Davos will get BB-8? Gloom at Goldman with bonuses set to shrink Jamie Dimon, chief executive of JP Morgan Chase, and his team are likely to be quite pleased with themselves as they wander around Davos. The bank announced better than expected fourth-quarter earnings last week and saw its full-year figures come close to a Wall Street record, albeit one rather helped by cost cutting. But executives from Goldman Sachs may well be more gloomy as they mingle with their counterparts in the Alps. Goldman is due to unveil its latest figures on Wednesday, and it is already clear they will be pretty grim. Initially, the bank was expected to reveal a 12% drop in fourth-quarter earnings to around $1.9bn (£1.3bn). But late last week it announced it had agreed to pay more than $5bn to settle claims it had mis-sold mortgage-backed securities to investors during the financial crisis. It said the payment would cut its fourth-quarter earnings by $1.5bn, leaving them even lower than forecast. So Goldman’s bankers are likely to see lower bonuses this year, which could cause some consternation in the City of London’s wine bars if the champagne is swapped for prosecco as a consequence. Knorr adds some extra ingredients to the soup More Knorr in emerging markets. That was one message analysts took away from a Unilever presentation in Manila and Singapore towards the end of last year. The consumer company feels its food business is lagging behind its personal and home care products in emerging markets, and is planning a push to improve that situation. The company believes its existing distribution network in the area can be better used for its food business and gives it a key competitive advantage, according to analysts at Investec. Of course, emerging markets have seen a lot of turmoil in recent weeks, and Unilever is far from immune. Its fourth-quarter results on Tuesday are expected to show sales growth of more than 4%, down from the 5.7% reported in the previous three months. The third-quarter figures were flattered by favourable weather in Europe, as well as stocking up in Brazil in advance of price increases, said Investec. For the full year as a whole, Credit Suisse is predicting sales growth of 3.8%, adding: “We expect management will indicate a similar level of organic sales growth in 2016, and a margin improvement of around 30 basis points, although flagging the uncertain economic outlook in several emerging markets (Brazil, China, South Africa, Russia).”
Mauricio Pochettino tells Tottenham fans to dream following win at City Mauricio Pochettino said Tottenham Hotspur supporters should dare to dream of a first league title since 1961 following the 2-1 victory at Manchester City which took them to two points behind the leaders Leicester City. While this was the fifth consecutive league victory for Pochettino’s side, Manuel Pellegrini was left unhappy at the officiating of Mark Clattenburg. The City manager insisted afterwards that the referee was wrong to judge Raheem Sterling had handled Danny Rose’s cross and award a 53rd-minute penalty from which Harry Kane opened the scoring. After Kelechi Iheanacho equalised on 74 minutes Christian Eriksen’s late goal secured three points for Spurs. The north London club’s best finish of recent years was third place in the old First Division in 1989–90. Yet Pochettino, who celebrated with the travelling fans at the end, said: “The supporters are right to dream of the title. They showed big support from the beginning of the season and I say thank you to them. It is important for our supporters to believe. “It is a very important moment to share with our fans. They are always fantastic and you need to show and say thank you in different ways. This is the way that is most important for them to appreciate and show they are very important for us. “Always in football the supporters are the most important thing and they deserve, from our position, to say thank you. It was a very important victory. Our players deserve full credit for the performance. Like always you need to try and improve every day and we are now in a position, but is too early to talk about titles.” He added: “Before the game people [said] it was a big test for us and it is important to show we can win. It is important to tell you that we are the youngest squad in the Premier League. It is important to start to feel that you can win in a stadium like Manchester City’s against a big, big team and you can win.” Pellegrini was clear, though, Kane should not have had the chance to open the scoring. “It was a penalty that referee Mark Clattenburg wanted to signal for and he gave the signal. It was absolutely the wrong decision, it hit the back of Raheem Sterling then his elbow. Sterling was not even seeing the ball. It was the same referee in the first game where they were two clear goals in offside and we lost 4-1. “It was the key moment that decided the game, before that they did not shoot towards our goal and did not have any chances. We took the risks, the spirit of the team was good but it was not enough. Unfortunately for us it was the same referee – Clattenburg – as we lost against Tottenham in the first round with two goals offside. It was decisive for the game. I don’t have nothing more to say. The Chilean believes Clattenburg should not have been handed the match given his claim regarding the two goals in September’s reverse. “For me I don’t think it is a good decision to have the same referee,” said the manager. Pressed further on Clattenburg, Pellegrini offered a terse reply. “I am finished with the referee,” he said. This was City’s second consecutive defeat following last week’s 3-1 home loss to Leicester. They have still failed to beat any of the top six and the noticeably irritated Pellegrini said: “I think they are better teams. We cannot beat them but we will see at the end of the season which is the best team.” City remain six points behind Leicester in fourth. “We are going to continue fighting until the end,” insisted Pellegrini. “We still have 36 points to play for.”
The Who: My Generation super deluxe box set review – contains buried treasure The Who’s first album is an oddity, because it doesn’t capture the breathless pace of the band’s development through 1965. It excluded I Can’t Explain and Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere, their thrilling debut and its light-years-jump of a follow-up – as well as Substitute, which came out in 1966, even as My Generation was still being plundered for singles. This successor to 2002’s deluxe edition (which restores the original mix ditched from that version) offers plenty of developmental context – mono and stereo editions of the album, mono and stereo versions of bonus tracks, and a disc of Pete Townshend demos (though no Substitute). Some of the most thrilling music of British rock’s golden age is in there, but you do have to plough through some less-thrilling stuff to find it – it feels as if there are a great many more than five versions of Daddy Rolling Stone here. But there is buried treasure: the demos of My Generation show, in one case, that every aspect of the song, right down to the speed-blocked stutter, had been worked out by Townshend; and in another that he could make even that most aggressive of songs sound like an outtake from the Beach Boys’s Smile. Incredible, too, is the demo of The Good’s Gone that turns it into a foreboding drone. It’s not one for the casual fan, but completists will be in heaven.
Win (home) tickets to Leicester City v West Brom in the Premier League This competition is now closed. The has teamed up with Barclays, proud sponsors of the Barclays Premier League, to give away a pair tickets to Leicester City v West Bromwich Albion on Tuesday 1 March, to thank one lucky home fan for the passion and support they show to their club. This season LifeSkills created with Barclays have teamed up with Tinie Tempah and the Premier League to give young people the chance to fulfil their passions and work at a range of famous football clubs and music venues. Your Passion is Your Ticket – with hard work and dedication young people can realise their dreams with a helping hand from Barclays LifeSkills. To apply for the work experience of a lifetime visit www.barclayslifeskills.com/work-experience-of-a-lifetime/. You can join the conversation throughout the 2015-16 Barclays Premier League by visiting facebook.com/barclaysfootball or following us on Twitter at @BarclaysFooty for exclusive content and the latest Barclays Premier League news. Terms and conditions 1. The competition is closed to employees of any company in the Media Group and any person whom, in the promoter’s reasonable opinion, should be excluded due to their involvement or connection with this promotion. Entrants must be 18 or over. 2. Answer the question correctly and complete your personal details on the online form and your details will be entered into a free prize draw. Only one entry per person. 3. Entries must be made personally. Entries made through agents/third parties are invalid. Entry indicates acceptance of terms and conditions. 4. The prize is one pair of tickets to Leicester City v West Brom on Tuesday 1 March 2016. Travel to and from the venue is not included, nor is accommodation. 5. No purchase necessary to enter. Fill in the online application form with the necessary details, name and mobile number. 6. All entries must be received by 10am on Thursday 25 February 2016. 7. Winners will be notified before 10pm on 26 February 2016 by telephone or email. Prize winners’ details can be obtained by writing to Sport at News & Media Limited, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU, UK. 8. Stamped addressed envelope required. 9. Winners will be the first entry drawn at random from all qualifying entries by an independent judge on 25 February 2016. The judge’s decision is final. 10. There is no cash or other alternative to these prizes in whole or in part. Prize is not transferable in whole or in part. Prize is not for resale. 11. The winners will be required to participate in all required publicity, including any presentation ceremony. 12. The decision of the promoter in all matters is final and binding and no correspondence will be entered into. 13. The promoter is not responsible for any third party acts or omissions. 14. We cannot guarantee that the event will be free from disruptions, failings or cancellations. We are not liable for such disruptions, failings or cancellations unless they are caused by our negligence. Any requests for refunds or compensation arising from them should be sent to the operator of the event. We can provide you with their details on request. 15. The promoter reserves the right to cancel or amend this promotion due to events or circumstances arising beyond its control. 16. Prize tickets are subject to the terms and conditions listed above. 17. GNM accepts no responsibility for any damage, loss, liabilities, injury or disappointment incurred or suffered by you as a result of entering the Competition or accepting the prize. GNM further disclaims liability for any injury or damage to your or any other person’s computer relating to or resulting from participation in or downloading any materials in connection with the Competition. Nothing shall exclude the liability of GNM for death or personal injury as a result of either party’s negligence. 18. GNM reserves the right at any time and from time to time to modify or discontinue, temporarily or permanently, this Competition with or without prior notice due to reasons outside its control. 19. The Competition will be governed by English law. Promoter: News & Media Limited, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU, UK.
Fiery perfectionist Walter Mazzarri can raise Watford to greater heights Walter Mazzarri and Quique Sánchez Flores both have dark hair and come from southern Europe. There the similarities end. At the end of last season Watford cast adrift a diminutive, slender, softly spoken, friendly Spaniard and hired in his stead a stocky, spiky, snarling Italian, a man who both smokes and fumes, is renowned for furious outbursts on the touchline and admits that “I’ve always been an unpopular coach”. Mazzarri has been out of work, if not money, since being sacked by Internazionale in November 2014, the sole significant blot on his managerial record. The Italians continued to pay his €3.5m a year salary until the end of June, allowing Mazzarri to, among other things, spend the last six months of last season in Manchester, immersing himself in Premier League football, living with an English family and studying the language with Sean Warren, co-author of the book English for Football. Though given his workaholic tendencies Mazzarri surely did not want for effort, his linguistic skills remain very much unproven. In a stilted video message to Watford fans following his appointment, he admitted he will need to start the season with an interpreter by his side. The 54-year-old has a reputation as a firm disciplinarian, a man who to those not in his inner circle or his dressing room appears forever frosty, but who is faithful both to his players and to his tactics. Though he will work on alternatives – “Coaches are clever and figure you out,” he said at Inter, “over time I’ll try to get my players comfortable playing at least two more formations” – he has always preferred to play with three at the back. Wing-backs provide width both in attack and defence, with Juan Camilo Zúñiga, who performed with distinction for Mazzarri at Napoli, recently signed on loan to reunite with the coach in Hertfordshire. Two central midfielders – Valon Behrami, who also worked with the coach in Naples, is on hand – are augmented when necessary by a deep-lying forward, the role played at Napoli by Marek Hamsik, with two strikers waiting to turn in the chances. And if Mazzarri is known for one thing, it is the regularity with which they do so. Time and again, club after club, he has coaxed a succession of strikers to career-defining success. In his single season at Livorno he transformed Cristiano Lucarelli, a player who had previously been only fitfully impressive, into a lethal forward who scored 25 goals as they were promoted from Serie B and was the top scorer in the top flight the following year. Lucarelli has described Mazzarri as “a hero” who “is still one of the best Italian coaches”. “He is so meticulous in the way he prepares for matches,” Lucarelli said. “It’s amazing how he prepares for them and how during games he can fix things that aren’t working. There are few coaches who can change the course of matches like he does. I’ve seen how he works, how he influences the team. Along with Antonio Conte he is the best coach that we’ve got, in Italy and beyond.” The following year Mazzarri moved to Reggina, where in 2006-07 he had one of his greatest triumphs, taking an unheralded and apparently doomed club that started the season with an 11-point deduction as a result of the Calciopoli scandal to the safety of 14th (without the deduction they would have finished eighth). His first-choice strike pairing of Rolando Bianchi – who in his entire career had scored five league goals in 69 injury-affected matches – and Nicola Amoruso were responsible for 35 goals, earning the former a move to Manchester City. “He always gives everything, on and off the pitch,” says Amoruso. “He manages to get the whole team pulling together and he’s particularly good at transmitting his enthusiasm and his determination to the players. He’s a master at match preparation and he’s also a very technical coach who puts in a lot of work on the training field.” At Sampdoria he turned Giampaolo Pazzini, a player who had never reached double figures in a single season, into the team’s top scorer, with 19 league goals in 2008-09. “With him I made my breakthrough,” Pazzini said. “I’ll never forget how much I enjoyed training. I mean, he is a coach who puts his players at ease. There’s no specific thing that he does but there is a collection of things: he talks a lot with his players and devotes himself fully to the team. By giving the maximum he pushes you to do your best. “Most of all he’s a perfectionist. I have never met a coach who focuses so much on small details. He prepares you well for every situation in the game. I think the best thing about him is that he is never happy. On television he often seems dissatisfied, sometimes he mumbles and that’s the way he is. He always sees something to improve and this attitude transmits itself to the players.” His most famous success story is Edinson Cavani, a player who had never scored more than 14 league goals in a season but who in three years for Mazzarri managed 26, 23 and 29, and a total of 104 in 138 games, shattering along the way Napoli’s then 78-year-old single-season goalscoring record and helping the team to a first Coppa Italia and to second place in Serie A. There have been defensive successes – most notably, while at Livorno, he gave a debut to the 17-year-old Giorgio Chiellini – but it is for flourishing forwards that Mazzari is best known. Such a forceful personality cannot be popular with everyone. The former Napoli midfielder Walter Gargano, whose fury at being substituted led to a falling-out with Mazzarri, was one critic: “He always wants to get his own way. He’s got a particular character and we were young and a bit rebellious. He didn’t like it when we drank maté in the dressing room or that we listened to our own music. That was how we did things but he hated it. One time Ezequiel Lavezzi tried to punch him and I stopped him. Mazzarri never thanked me.” In 2013 Mazzarri walked out on Napoli to take over at Inter. “He’s a great coach, and a lovely man,” said the Napoli chairman, Aurelio De Laurentiis, “but there are two people in a marriage. A man can convince a wife to stay by offering money but, if she wants to screw another man, she’s going to screw another man.” It turned out to be a bitter and brief fling. Until his appointment in 2013 Mazzarri had tasted only success. It is surely no coincidence that this was his most high-profile and high-pressure appointment and the only time he has inherited a squad used to a high level of achievement. Marco Materazzi’s criticism of Mazzarri – “I would have expected a lot more respect” – said as much about the player’s attitude as his manager’s. Mazzarri eventually won an unimpressive 39% of his 49 league games at the club and certainly did not refrain from criticising his players as the situation rapidly turned sour. His charges were publicly reprimanded for “showing off and playing more for the crowd than to get goals”, being “sluggish and lazy” and having “concentration limits”. He also said Massimo Moratti was “not even worth listening to”, prompting the club’s former owner to quit as honorary chairman. In the weeks before he left, Mazzarri, having run out of more convincing excuses, was being openly derided for blaming a defeat on the rain. “I’ve never seen a coach become so unpopular at a club before,” said Moratti. “He’s a good person but his character didn’t help him.” What also probably did not help was the fact that while at Napoli he had been drawn into a prolonged spat with the then Inter manager, José Mourinho. Mourinho said of Mazzarri that “a donkey can work hard but will never become a thoroughbred” and derided him for “never winning anything, not even the Coppa Lombardia or the Tuscan Cup”. Mazzarri said his rival was obsessed with “slogans”, “talks, talks, talks, so much rubbish” and was “the creation of the media, always talking about money and budgets”, further insisting that, “if you compare the teams we have managed, my results are definitely better”. The pair eventually reconciled after Mazzarri joined Inter, although their patched-up relationship may once again be tested by the rigours of the Premier League. “Apart from tactics I am quite similar to Mou,” he said later. “We clashed because we both grab hold of anything and everything to defend our sides and that is one thing that unites us. Every coach has his own way of working but I see myself very close to Mourinho’s style.” Whether he will have a similar impact on English football remains to be seen but, if he can add, say, Odion Ighalo – who for parts of last season appeared but a few short steps (and perhaps the occasional pass) from the genuinely spectacular – to his list of striking transformations, these could be exciting times at Vicarage Road – combative and occasionally confrontational but exciting.
BBC trained ex-Premier League star Dion Dublin 'using £50k diversity funds' Former England and Premier League star Dion Dublin was reportedly trained for his role as a BBC TV presenter with £50,000 from a fund that aimed to boost on-screen ethnic minority representation. Dublin, who earned tens of thousands of pounds a week in a 20-year career at clubs including Manchester United and Aston Villa, is the biggest single beneficiary of the BBC’s Diversity Creative Talent Fund, the Sun reported on Wednesday. The 47-year-old then joined the team at daytime show Homes Under the Hammer, where he made his debut in April last year. Despite the BBC training, Dublin he got off to an inauspicious start, with viewers and critics complaining about his abilities. Early criticism on Twitter prompted Dublin to reply that he would “try and do better” in his new career. The BBC’s fund, launched in 2014, provides £2.1m a year to help develop potential talent from ethnic minority groups that are under-represented on TV. “We’re proud the fund has helped develop a significant number of presenters, writers and producers from ethnic minority backgrounds to make sure that the BBC fully represents the UK,” said a BBC spokesman. “Money from the fund is used to support training and development of new talent – none has gone to Dion directly.” The BBC was criticised recently for advertising two scriptwriting traineeships on Holby City for ethnic minority applicants only. Following his retirement from football Dublin worked as an occasional pundit and commentator for Sky Sports and has also co-presented 606 on BBC Radio 5 Live and football highlights show Match of the Day 2.
Trump’s vision of America is ugly and dark. Clinton should respond with hope Political conventions in the US nominally exist so that a political party can choose its presidential nominee, but in reality simply ratify decisions made by voters in state primaries and caucuses. The real purpose of conventions is to give each political party four days to present its best possible face to the world. But if last week in Cleveland is any indication, no one gave this message to the Republican party. Rather than present a positive, aspirational image to the US people, voters were subjected to the ugliest, angriest, nastiest, most nativist, disorganised, terrifying and fascistic political convention in modern American history. I’d like to say I’m exaggerating, but I don’t think I’m doing justice to the ugliness that took place in Cleveland. Republican delegates regularly chanted “lock her up” in reference to Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee for president. In most stable democracies, rooting for your political opponents to be thrown in prison would be considered completely unacceptable. In Cleveland, it was the convention’s dominant mantra, often egged on from the podium. When Republicans weren’t calling for Clinton to be fitted with a prison jumpsuit, they chanted “USA! USA! USA!”, an empty and charmless paean to patriotism. Or: “Trump!, Trump!, Trump!”, an empty and charmless paean to the authoritarian leader who is now the standard bearer of the party of Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan. Still, for all the ugliness of the first four nights of speakers at the convention; for all the incessant and dishonest threat-mongering about Islamic terrorists; for all the xenophobic attacks on immigrants and refugees; for the myriad misstatements, exaggerations and lies told and re-told by convention speakers, it paled in comparison with Trump’s repellent acceptance speech on Thursday. Since the announcement of his intention to seek the Republican nomination for president, Donald Trump has trafficked in the basest political impulses in American society. He kicked off his campaign by attacking undocumented Mexican immigrants to the US, who he said were rapists and criminals. He pledged to build a wall to keep out the alien hordes and deport the 11 million undocumented immigrants who overwhelmingly work, pay taxes and raise their families. In December, when the gunman who pledged loyalty to Islamic State massacred 15 people in San Bernardino, California, Trump responded with a ban on not just Syrian refugees, but on all Muslims entering America. He attacked his primary opponents with belittling names – Low Energy Jeb (Bush), Little Marco (Rubio) and Lyin’ Ted (Cruz). He derided past Republican presidents and presidential nominees, such as Mitt Romney, as a “loser”. He even mocked 2008 nominee John McCain for being held as a PoW during the Vietnam War. He incited violence at his political events, stated his desire to punch protesters in the face and offered to pay legal fees of supporters who did just that. He threatened to use the Department of Justice to investigate political opponents and newspapers that wrote critical articles about him. He refused to denounce neo-Nazis and white supremacists such as David Duke, who have gravitated to his campaign, or apologise when he tweeted antisemitic imagery. Yet somehow in his acceptance speech he descended further into a fetid political sewer. Trump’s vision of America, as expressed in Cleveland, and bolstered by all those who spoke before him, is not hopeful or optimistic. It’s a dark, bleak, foreboding place riven by chaos and lawlessness. It’s a land in which illegal immigrants walk the streets intent on snuffing out the lives of hard-working, God-fearing Americans. It’s a place in which jihadi terrorists lurk in the shadows prepared to strike at a moment’s notice. It’s a place where Americans can’t walk in safety because of the omnipresent threat of violence. Never mind that since 9/11 fewer Americans have been killed on US soil by terrorists than the number slain in gun violence on a typical US weekend. Pay no attention to the fact that crime rates in the country are historically low or that few illegal immigrants break the law. America is on the knife’s edge, said Trump. And there’s only one man who can repair the breach: Donald Trump. “I alone can fix it,” said Trump. “I am your voice”; “I’m going to make our country rich again”; “I will restore law and order to our country.” “When I take the oath of office, Americans will finally wake up in a country where the laws of the United States are enforced.” The party that has long railed against the “nanny state” gave its support to a man whose overriding message was that he’ll take care of them. Trump offered few policy proposals and few ideas for how he would “fix” America. Rather, he told the American people: “Believe me, believe me.” There was no evoking of enduring American values; no call for shared sacrifice or national unity in pursuit of American renewal, but rather a pledge that by electing Trump, America will be restored and made “great again”. This is the authoritarian mindset that has infected the Republican party – spurred on by hate-mongering and de-legitimising attacks on “others” and political and cultural opponents. It’s one thing to see Trump’s rise as a sickness of the Republican party and his nomination for president as the logical outcome of decades of growing Republican extremism. But it’s hard not to see Trump’s rise as an indictment of America, writ large. What does it say about the world’s most powerful democracy that in 2016 a man such as this can be nominated for the highest office? This presents a unique opportunity for Hillary Clinton. When she travels to Philadelphia this week to accept the Democratic party’s nomination for president, she will do so with the political wind at her back. The Republican convention, for all its sound and fury, was so clearly geared toward those who are planning to vote Republican that it’s hard to imagine any voters leaning towards Clinton being swayed by it. And at a point in the race when Trump’s unfavourability ratings are the worst in modern US history – and he needs desperately to expand his support beyond the approximately 40% of citizens who currently support him – Cleveland was a historic missed opportunity. It will not be difficult for Clinton to present to the country a more optimistic, hopeful and tolerant vision of America. And armed with the knowledge that the 30% of non-white Americans will vote for her in overwhelming numbers, she begins the race as a huge favourite to win. But her challenge is larger. This race is now about something greater than her pursuit of the presidency. It is about destroying the sickness of Trumpism. Every American, whether they love or hate Trump, is sullied by his rise to power. The question now is: what are we going to do about it? Michael Cohen is the author of American Maelstrom: The 1968 Election and the Politics of Division
Crystal Castles: Amnesty review – digital cacophony from synth antagonists That synth antagonists Crystal Castles are even releasing an album in 2016 is something of a surprise. In 2014, vocalist Alice Glass announced “the end of the band”, citing problems with “self-expression” and working difficulties with founding member Ethan Kath. So central to the band’s abrasive sound were Glass’s half-cooed, half-screamed vocals that many fans would have assumed that that was game over. Two years later though, Kath has returned with a fourth Crystal Castles album and a new vocalist, Edith Frances. On the surface, Amnesty suggests that little has changed. All the usual hallmarks of a Crystal Castles record are here: violent blasts of chiptune and industrial noise set against moments of sweet melody, as on the glitchy, undulating Enth. Yet, where Glass’s powerful vocals used to cut through the digital cacophony, too often Frances’s blend into it, such as on the thumping Fleece. The result is an album that, while impressively intense, lacks the human urgency of their earlier work.
How a failed attempt to get porn off the internet protects Airbnb from the law Airbnb, like pornography, is a business based on selling a fantasy. Porn offers the simulacrum of a sexual encounter; Airbnb, that of being “a local” in a city not one’s own. There’s less fuss, less muss, and a much reduced chance of STDs and irritated neighbors. At least, there’s less fuss for the visitors. Cities around the world, however, are waking up to the headache of hosting transient populations in previously residential neighborhoods, and attempting to crack down. But while local politicians in Reykjavík, Berlin and Barcelona are taking a stand against Airbnb, their counterparts in the United States have struggled to come up with regulations that have teeth. On Monday, Airbnb sued San Francisco in federal court, seeking to prevent the city from enacting a strict new law that would put the $26.5bn company on the hook for ensuring that its listings comply with local regulations. Suing its hometown is a tricky move for a company that has attempted to brand itself with the sense of belonging, but legal experts tend to agree that Airbnb is in the right: Airbnb is protected from much local regulation by a twenty-year-old federal law that was originally intended to purge the internet of porn. How Section 230 changed the internet In the summer of 1995 – back when it took at least an hour to download a decent nude photo from the internet, let alone a video – senator James Exon of Nebraska took to the floor of the US Senate to deliver a prayer over the “virtual but virtueless reality” of internet pornography. “Almighty God, Lord of all life, we praise You for the advancements in computerized communications that we enjoy in our time,” he intoned, before beseeching God to guide the Senate in regulating indecency out of the internet, or as he put it, “consider ways of controlling the pollution of computer communications”. Exon’s prayer was answered with the passage of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, a much-maligned law that was decried by free speech advocates, dismissed as a “departing Senator’s half-baked notions” by the New York Times editorial board, and swiftly struck down by the supreme court. Twenty years later, what remains of Exon’s quixotic quest for a godly cyberspace is Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a last minute addition to the legislation that nevertheless has become the linchpin of the modern, open internet. Section 230 holds that providers of “interactive computer services” cannot be held liable for the content that users post on their sites. That means that Yelp cannot be held liable for users leaving negative reviews of your business and eBay cannot be held liable if you bid on an autographed baseball that ends up being counterfeit: the platforms are held to be neutral intermediaries and their tantalizingly deep pockets are out of reach. Senator Ron Wyden told the that he and Chris Cox, then a Republican congressman from Orange County, California, wrote Section 230 “to allow the internet to grow and flourish, and prevent lawsuits from crushing new platforms for commerce, education and speech”. “At the time, I certainly thought it would be useful and create jobs in the digital economy, but did not imagine its impact as a cornerstone of internet law allowing for the existence of social media and numerous other types of online businesses,” he added. Indeed, internet advocates credit Section 230 with enabling the web we have today, in all its diversity. “What does the internet look like in a non-Section 230 world?” asked Eric Goldman, a professor at Santa Clara University School of Law. “It looks like online classified ads. Think how much better our lives are because we have online marketplaces instead.” Attempts to crack down on Airbnb The internet may be governed by federal law, but the acceptable uses of an apartment or house (or any structure or piece of land) are very much the province of local governments, many of which either ban or curtail short-term rentals. Almost all short-term rentals in San Francisco were illegal until 2014, unless the host obtained a permit to run an old-fashioned bed and breakfast. Even after the city legalized short-term rentals – if hosts registered with the city and followed certain rules – less than a quarter of the approximately 7,000 Airbnb hosts signed up. New York state law forbids renting an entire unit in an apartment building for fewer than 30 days, which means a significant percentage of short-term rentals in one of Airbnb’s largest markets are illegal as well. As cities attempt to crack down on the bad actors, Airbnb is an obvious target. The company knows who is renting units, and when, and could much more easily discover and punish anyone breaking local rules than government workers can. “It’s just shameful that when Airbnb knows that cities are struggling to maintain their stock of affordable housing and keep tenants in housing, that they refuse to work with cities and states to have their platform not be used for illegal rentals,” said New York state assembly member Linda Rosenthal. The fact that Airbnb has the capacity to act on behalf of the government does not mean it should do so, however, argued Lee Tien, a senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. “We’ve always had intermediaries. Long before the internet came along, there was the phone company, and that was the place that cops and regulators would go to find out who was doing what,” Tien said. “Imagine if the phone company were actually legally liable for everything that phone users said. The protection of intermediaries is very important to protecting any kind of privacy that we have.” Airbnb is not the first online platform to earn money off potentially illegal activity, to the consternation of local officials. Several states have tried to crackdown on online sex work advertisements and online ticket scalping, only to run into Section 230. “StubHub has been sued a gazillion times and there are a whole lot of people saying they are facilitating the circumvention of anti-scalping laws,” Tien said. “I suspect that the percentage of transactions on StubHub that violate some state’s anti-scalping law are pretty high, but that doesn’t matter because of Section 230.” “The Communications Decency Act doesn’t render all business laws moot simply because a business happens to operate on the internet,” said Matt Dorsey, press secretary for the San Francisco city attorney, which will defend the city’s law at a hearing on 1 August. Regulators versus the online marketplace While San Francisco prepares to defend its bill in court, other cities are wading into the legal morass as well. The Los Angeles city council is considering regulations that also attempt to put Airbnb on the hook for ensuring the legality of its users listings. If San Francisco’s law is thrown out by a judge, other cities may head back to the drawing board and try a new approach. That’s typical for local regulators confronting a new online marketplace, Tien said. First, they go after the platform, then after they realize the limitations imposed by Section 230, they move onto another strategy. “I’m hoping that we’re moving into the second phase,” he said, “into areas that will not run afoul of the values that 230 is trying to protect.”
Europe's banks 'not investable' says top banker amid Deutsche Bank crisis One of Europe’s most senior bankers has said the embattled sector is “not really investable”, in remarks that underline the difficulties the continent’s big banks could face if they have to raise new funds. Tidjane Thiam, chief executive of Credit Suisse, issued the warning about the problems the sector faces as the focus remained on Deutsche Bank and its battle to reduce a $14bn (£10.5bn) penalty from the US authorities for mis-selling mortgage bonds. On Wednesday the German government raced to deny a report that it was preparing a bailout plan under which it might take a 25% stake in Deutsche Bank, which is the country’s biggest bank. With assets half the size of the German economy it is regarded as the bank that poses the biggest risk to global financial stability. Shares in Deutsche Bank have plunged to near-30-year lows this week amid reports – which were then denied – that it had asked for German government intervention to help reduce the punishment from the US Department of Justice (DoJ). Their decline was arrested on Wednesday, when the bank sold a UK insurance company for €1bn; they closed 2% higher at €10.76. Thiam told a Bloomberg conference that Europe’s banks were in a “very fragile situation” and said there was doubt that European banks still had a viable business model. Concerns about rock-bottom interest rates and how much capital banks should hold meant returns to investors were too low, making banks “not really investable”. Credit Suisse is among a number of other banks, including Barclays, facing a penalty from the DoJ. Fears that Deutsche Bank might have to tap its investors for cash are among the reasons its shares have plunged, and raised fears that it could present a Lehman Brothers-style moment for the markets. However, top bankers and policymakers all played down the prospects of a repeat of the collapse of Lehman in 2008. John Cryan, the Briton who has run Deutsche Bank for 15 months, spoke out to insist he had not asked Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, for help in dealing with the DoJ in an attempt to arrest the decline in the bank’s shares. “At no point did I ask the chancellor for support. Neither did I suggest anything like that,” he said. Such a request would be “out of the question” and he could not understand how “anyone could claim that”. The claims were raised last week in a German magazine. Within hours of his remarks to Bild newspaper a report in Die Zeit set out a two-stage plan being prepared by Merkel’s government for the “worst case scenario”, under which the DoJ settlement is not reduced and Germany’s biggest lender fails to raise enough capital. In an article to be published on Thursday, Die Zeit claims that the first stage would involve attempting to find a solution, with Deutsche Bank selling parts of its business to a German or foreign company, and the state issuing guarantees for potential losses. The second stage, which would only apply if such a private solution were to fail, would involve a state-backed bailout. According to Die Zeit, the German government is “debating a state takeover of as much as 25%” of the bank. This might facilitate a merger with Commerzbank, which is 15% state owned. The reportwas denied by the German finance ministry and financial regulator. Martin Jäger, a spokesman for the German finance ministry, said: “The German government is not preparing a rescue plan and there is no reason for such speculations.” Cryan gave the interview as Deutsche Bank sold its Abbey Life insurance business, with 735,000 UK policyholders, for €1bn (£860m). This will generate an €800m loss for the German bank, but improve its financial strength by making it smaller. The bank also told its staff that it was not planning to raise capital or in need of state aid, although speculation about possible options for its future included a bid from a new Turkish national wealth fund. Bloomberg reported that Yiğit Bulut, a chief adviser to the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, had suggested Germany’s largest lender should be made into a Turkish bank. Christine Lagarde, managing director of the International Monetary Fund which has ranked Deutsche Bank as the world’s riskiest bank, said state help was not needed. Speaking to CNBC, Lagarde said: “I don’t see that particular institution as ... at a stage where state intervention is absolutely called for at the moment. I would hope that the right measures are taken internally so that the whole financial sector in Germany is solid and that systemic players [are] strengthened.” Axel Weber, the chairman of UBS and former president of the German Bundesbank, said fears of a rerun of the 2008 banking collapse were misplaced. He said banks had between seven and 10 times more capital than eight years ago. The deputy Bank of England governor Minouche Shafik also played down any comparison. Weber told Bloomberg TV: “There is a much more stable system. In my view the system is much more stable now. I think we are very far in how solid banks are now, from where were in 2007 and 2008.”
How we made Highlander: 'Connery opened his homemade whisky on the plane' Russell Mulcahy, director I’d made dozens of music videos when EMI came to me with Highlander. Its original title was The Dark Knight. I loved its graphic novel quality and this idea of an immortal who can never fall in love again, because he’d had to watch his first wife grow old. Lots of names were bandied around for the part of Connor MacLeod, the lead. I was flipping through a magazine and saw this picture of Christopher Lambert in Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan. I said: “This is the guy!” His eyes had a timeless quality. The fact he couldn’t speak English didn’t really matter. So we ended up with a Frenchman playing a Scotsman, and Sean Connery as the Spanish-Egyptian immortal who trains him. We didn’t bother changing Sean’s accent – this was Sean Connery! These guys had been around for centuries. They could have picked up accents from wherever. We shot fast – in Scotland, London and New York. The budget was just $13m so it was guerrilla-style film-making. When we were in Glen Coe, the producer had to run down the mountain with a pocket of change to call the studio from a phone box. On the plane up, Sean brought out a bottle of homemade scotch a friend had given him. “C’mon, laddie,” he said, “have a nip of this.” It blew my brains out. When Sean and Clancy Brown, who plays the villain, had their first big fight, Clancy was meant to burst in and slice the table in half with his sword. But he struck it with the flat of the blade and it broke. A shard shot over Sean’s head. He was on the verge of walking. He put on his dressing gown and called a meeting. Clancy said: “I’m so sorry. I was so nervous because it’s Sean Connery.” Sean was gracious but said: “Maybe we’ll use my stunt double more.” There was very little CGI in those days. But because I grew up in theatre, I knew a lot about tricking the eye. For the fights, we strapped car batteries to the actors’ legs and wired them up so they’d spark when a sword struck. After about three takes, the sword handles would get really hot and we’d have to stop. In another shot, Sean and Clancy are climbing some steps and a wall just breaks up and falls away. We did that by having a load of guys with fishing lines attached to each stone. On the count of three, they pulled the rocks down. The sky behind was a painted backdrop you’d normally see in an opera. It was a one-take affair; it would have taken all day to set up again. I was at a point in my career when I could call in a few favours. Queen had done a great score for Flash Gordon, so we gave them a 20-minute reel of different scenes and they went: “Wow!” We’d only expected them to do one song, but they wanted to write one each. Freddie Mercury did Princes of the Universe, Brian May did Who Wants to Live Forever, Roger Taylor did It’s a Kind of Magic. The US release was a disaster. It had one of the worst posters ever: a black and white closeup of Christopher. It looked like he had acne. You thought: “What the fuck’s this about?” But at the premiere in France, there were 30-foot cutouts of Sean and Christopher all the way down the Champs-Elysées. The audience went apeshit. It became an enormous hit in Europe. Christopher Lambert, actor My English wasn’t as good as it is today. When I met the producers, the way I was speaking was probably a bit shocking. They expected someone who could do mid-Atlantic English. So I worked with a dialect coach for months: four hours of accents in the morning, then four hours of swordfighting in the afternoon, letting all that stress go. I was training with Bob Anderson, who’d been Darth Vader’s stunt double. I’m very short-sighted and was nervous. We started with plastic swords, then wood, then aluminium, then light steel, then heavy steel. When you miss with heavy steel, it can be bloody. You have to practise – a lot. It was my first time in Scotland. Insurance people completely forbid drinking on set, but try that up there and you’ll get shot. I’m not saying Scottish people drink all the time, but if they drink, they drink. It’s not a sip of wine, it’s a quarter of a bottle of scotch. There were 1,000 extras for the battle scenes and they went at it for real. After each shot, the cries went up: “Doctor!” “Nurse!” When my brother died of cancer, I had the same feeling I had during Highlander, with its idea that you cannot get the past back – life has to go on. If Connor MacLeod can get through five or six lifetimes, we should be able to manage one. • The 4K restoration of Highlander is available to download now and is out on DVD and Blu-ray on 11 July.
Mourinho v Guardiola: their poisonous rivalry finally hits the Premier League Twenty years, an entire European club football mini-era and one grand, toxic backstory in the making: this is the one we’ve waited for. When José Mourinho and Pep Guardiola walk out at Old Trafford on Saturday for the first Manchester derby of the season it seems fair to say the surrounding machinery of the Premier League, from clubs and fans to sponsors, broadcasters, hacks and hangers-on, will feel a sense of pieces falling into place, a plotline resolved. José versus Pep is a match the Premier League has circled relentlessly, a thrillingly poisonous sibling rivalry entwined for the past eight seasons around Europe’s grandest clubs. And now at last it’s ours. A little past its ripest point, a little out of time as the age of the preening superstar manager begins to fade, but with its key personalities poised at a fascinating point in their careers. Never mind the match is likely to be a cautious affair, with any managerial interaction dialled back to suit the occasion. The re-gearing of the Pep-José franchise is a significant step in itself for a footballing culture that prizes above all the operetta of pure personality. Not to mention another staging point in the league’s own aggressive expansionism, a supremacy measured out in advertising eyeballs, social media heft, global TV audiences, Taiwanese rolling news crews, US magazine covers and the sheer commercial event-glamour of a meeting of the current Big Football A-listers. At the heart of it all is that two-hander, the itch that refuses to be scratched. The story of Pep-José, with its deeply personal animus, its shades of light and dark, has been told many times but it remains a deliciously cinematic affair. The essence of any great TV sitcom is the main characters should appear convincingly stuck together, incapable of leaving one another’s orbit. So it is with the world’s two highest-paid football managers. It has been three years now since Mourinho and Guardiola shared a stretch of touchline. The sense of sibling claustrophobia has never left them. Even in his most significant moment of recent triumph in May 2015 Mourinho chose not to dwell on Chelsea’s league title or the immediate space around him, talking instead about the state of the Bundesliga. “I could choose another club in another country where to be champion is easier. Maybe I will go to a country where a kitman can be coach and win the title.” Ah yes. Pep The Kitman. You get the feeling José, stung by those “Translator” jibes, really had thought about this one. It is a fraternal obsession forged in the extraordinarily fecund Barcelona coaching ranks of the mid-1990s, a footballing Camelot from which Mourinho would eventually be exiled, Guardiola enthroned in perpetuity. Mourinho first turned up at Barcelona as Bobby Robson’s bagman in 1996. Guardiola was a senior player, a European champion, a Catalan. Even here it is easy to detect an evolving battle of favourite sons. Robson would later recall his first sight of José with a fond chuckle: “This young, good-looking ex-schoolteacher who spoke very good English and had a minor Portuguese coaching certificate.” Bobby’s first impressions of Pep, meanwhile, were stingingly chaste and respectful. “I liked Pepe, as we called him. He knew the game and he knew how to conduct himself. He always had something to say in the dressing room at half-time. Pepe had class. He had bearing.” Mourinho, a little less taken, preferred the company of Hristo Stoichkov. He stayed long enough to learn at the feet of Louis van Gaal, then built his own coaching legend elsewhere but Barcelona would still in its own way come to define him. Mourinho had assumed the Barça job was his for the taking in 2008. Guardiola, the insider, was hired instead. And so an easy dichotomy presents itself. On one hand José the dark angel, the bastard stepson, avenging Edmund to Pep’s entitled Edgar. On the other cosseted Pep, the natural heir with every advantage from his own Catalan nationalism to a supreme playing career given ignition by Johan Cruyff himself, who famously appeared unannounced at a youth game and instructed Carles Rexach to move the skinny right midfielder to the more central, tactically vital pivote role, from where Guardiola has surveyed the world ever since. The contrasts between the two, personal and tactical, have perhaps been a little overplayed down the years, magnified by the epic tensions of Mourinho’s time at Real Madrid. At times there has been a cartoonishness, a sense of an extreme, exaggerated position being taken. If Barcelona must always seek to mean something, to project a slightly cloying notion of beauty, a love affair with the ball itself, then Mourinho would be the opposite, a manager for whom the only meaning was in winning, the ball a bore. It is tempting to conclude the most satisfying moment of his career to date, Peak José, is still that brutally pared-back 1-0 defeat with Inter at the Camp Nou in 2010 with 10 men and just 19% possession, enough on the night to knock Pep’s Barcelona out of the Champions League. Even in his second spell at Chelsea Mourinho will perhaps be remembered best for the gleefully smothering 2-0 win at Anfield that derailed Liverpool’s title challenge, an act of tactical spite from which Brendan Rodgers never really seemed to recover. In professional middle age it is instead the similarities between these managerial siblings that become more interesting. Both are above all exhausting, obsessive personalities. For all his beatific visions of fluid and inventive football there is a little darkness in Guardiola too. As early as last summer at least one regular inside the Bayern boardroom was talking about the club’s eagerness to appoint a more easy-going, less draining replacement. This is the nature of relentless high-end football management. The lines of style and tone and texture blur. What remains is simply a desperation to win. So too with tactics and ways of playing. Like Guardiola, Mourinho knows the value of possession and “resting on the ball”. In England he was an innovator, the man who finally killed 4-4-2, who won the league title with a high-speed three-man forward line, and whose best teams have been defined by creative, goalscoring midfielders from Deco to Frank Lampard, Wesley Sneijder, Mesut Özil, Eden Hazard and Cesc Fàbregas. Similarly some of Guardiola’s most inventive work has come with his defence, from Carles Puyol and Gerard Piqué to Jérôme Boateng, given licence at times to pump long lofted passes forward from the back, another note of evolution beyond the pure possession fetish of his early years. There is another note of sympathy. For all the fanfare both men come to Manchester having edged out now beyond the usual 10-year sustained success cycle that has defined so many of the great managers from Shankly to Clough to Sacchi. Both carry with them a pleasantly antsy need to push on and rebuild and maintain. Guardiola’s Bayern played some sublime football but the fact remains his last really tangible triumph came five years ago. Mourinho has two league titles in the same period but in his last year at Chelsea he seemed to be entering his supernova phase, still giving out heat but oddly toxic and doomed. There is a line of thought he got the United job only because of the Pep-José narrative, the arrival of Guardiola across town forcing United’s hand, compounding Mourinho’s value like the slightly less famous partner in a celebrity marriage of convenience. Beyond this even the basic idea of the grand, maestro-like uber-manager can look a little overblown, a little pomp-rock. Doing more with less is the thing now: Seville-era Unai Emery or the stripped-down, punkish brilliance of Diego Simeone. Meanwhile the Premier League has just booked Led Zeppelin and the Eagles. The sense of a plateauing out, of an overripeness to both men’s legends lurks just beyond all this. Certainly it is hard to envisage a situation where both get to emerge from this victorious. Not that too much should be read in to Saturday’s game beyond the basic spectacle. These are a pair of brittle, evolving teams. There is a waiting game around City’s midfield, with Ilkay Gündogan only just gaining fitness. How Guardiola deploys his cast of slightly underwhelming full-backs, a key Pep role, will also be fascinating. The most interesting note to date has been his revitalising effect on some of the attackers at his disposal, with the banned Sergio Agüero already in mid-season bloom, and Raheem Sterling showing the benefits of the kind of tight, detailed, no quarter coaching that seems to bring the best out of him. For Mourinho there are loose joins and new combinations all over the pitch, plus the apparently compulsory question of what exactly to do with Wayne Rooney. Not to mention the key issue of what Mourinho’s own persona will be at United. Perhaps in time he may even be able to claim a slightly absurd kind of underdog status given United’s absence from the Champions League, a position that has always best suited his team-building qualities. For now, as football’s grandest theatrical duel cranks up its engines once again it is time simply to sit back, enjoy the big fat schmaltzy notes, the fine-point detail, and above all the enduring syzygy of football’s most toxic managerial siblings.
PinkNews publishes stories removed from Google under 'right to be forgotten' Gay news site PinkNews has published a list of 19 stories it says have been removed from Google search results under Europe’s right to be forgotten rules, claiming the legislation is an “infringement of press freedom”. The stories include allegations of homophobic comments by a BBC star and a report about a gay porn actor attempting to smuggle crystal meth on a transatlantic flight to the UK. Europe’s right to be forgotten rule has proved controversial, with freedom of information campaigners and media organisations complaining that it is effectively a form of censorship. The rules were introduced in 2014 to allow people to request that articles containing outdated information about them from the results of searches using their name are deleted. Google’s transparency report says it has received 380,919 requests to remove about 1.3m pages since the rules came into force in May 2014, and that it has complied with around 42% of requests. An editorial statement accompanying the PinkNews list said the site regularly refused requests to change or take down articles, and only did so if they proved inaccurate or their removal was ordered by court. The publication said it stands by the accuracy of all the articles on the list. The statement added: “While the media has a legal obligation to be factually correct, the ‘right to be forgotten’ as established by the European Court of Justice instead hinges on the loosely-worded concept of ‘relevance’. “PinkNews believes these rules are an infringement on press freedom, and have a chilling effect on freedom of speech.” PinkNews is not the first publisher to respond to having articles de-listed from results by publishing new stories. However, the UK Information Commissioner’s Office ruled last August that articles containing lists of removed articles should also be excluded from results when a person who had made a request under the rules was searched by name. This means the list from PinkNews will also be removed from such searches. At the time, deputy information commissioner David Smith said: “We understand that links being removed as a result of this court ruling is something that newspapers want to write about. And we understand that people need to be able to find these stories through search engines like Google. But that does not need them to be revealed when searching on the original complainant’s name.”
Claudio Ranieri savours Leicester glory ‘like a good wine’ Claudio Ranieri pulled up a chair at the training ground and cast his mind back to that special moment at Stamford Bridge less than 24 hours earlier, when Eden Hazard swept the ball into the top corner to break Tottenham Hotspur hearts and complete the Leicester City fairytale. “I was watching at home,” Ranieri said, smiling. “In my armchair at first but then on the ceiling!” Leicester, 5,000-1 outsiders at the start of the season, were on their way to being crowned champions and Ranieri, whose appointment as Nigel Pearson’s replacement last summer drew such a negative reaction, had his hands on the first top-flight title of his career at the age of 64 – and in the most extraordinary circumstances. Over in Melton Mowbray, at Jamie Vardy’s house, where most of the Leicester players had gathered to watch Chelsea fight back to draw 2-2 with Spurs, there were wild celebrations and Ranieri loved watching those images from his home in west London. He saw the same spirit and togetherness that has propelled Leicester from the foot of the table to the Premier League title in the space of little more than 12 months. “Amazing, that is the real picture of the team,” Ranieri said, sounding almost like a proud father. With television crews from all over the world descending on Leicester, and supporters flooding to San Carlo restaurant in the city centre, where the manager and his players enjoyed lunch with the club’s Thai owners, it was a surreal and chaotic day – at one point a Jamie Vardy lookalike was invited on to the team bus – and there was a point when Ranieri sounded like he was struggling to comprehend the enormity of what has happened. “This is a moment when you have to leave a little more time and taste slowly, like a good wine, and savour it,” Ranieri said. “Maybe now is too early to think what we have done. Maybe one or two years could be better to understand but now it is important to stay high in the world. “I am very happy to win because when you start to make a manager you hope you can win some league. I won the most important league in Europe, I think, not just Europe but the world, the Premier League. It is a fantastic achievement, my career is fantastic but I want to achieve a little more if it is possible.” Anything seems possible now. Leicester’s story is inspirational in so many respects and Ranieri needs no telling that it transcends football in its wider appeal. “Everywhere it’s crazy, not just in England,” he said. “Everyone’s second team in Italy is Leicester. In Thailand the first team is Leicester. I’ve received letters from Paraguay, Uruguay, Brazil – everywhere ‘Leicester, Leicester, what a legend’.” How Leicester have managed to break up the established order is a fascinating question and Ranieri offered his own thoughts on their remarkable achievement and some of the reasons behind it. “There are so many keys,” he said. “One is the humility from the dressing room, they help each other in the bad moments. They play with the heart and soul, they play as 11. “I love the English spirit because when I was a player I was an Englishman, I was fighting and you had to kill me if you wanted to win. I love this. I said we’d maintain the spirit and I maintained the Italian tactics. I changed the full-backs, [Danny] Simpson on the right, [Christian] Fuchs on the left and the team was more solid. It was solid because everyone understood there was two ways: one when you have the ball and the other when you don’t have the ball. With modern football everyone has to work hard. We are not the best but we are 11, we are a team. We play like a team and look what happens against the others.” It has been a season full of highlights for Leicester, yet if there is one moment that resonates with Ranieri more than any other it is the 3-1 victory at the Etihad Stadium on 6 February. Leicester were outstanding that afternoon and Ranieri privately wondered if his players were starting to sense something special was on the horizon. “I was so satisfied when we won at Manchester City,” he said. “We made a fantastic performance away. Unbelievable. Maybe when we won there 3-1, maybe my players believed in something: ‘Maybe we can win, maybe we can fight until the end’. I never spoke about this to them. I said: ‘OK, clean everything, next match. Start again.’ So when I said to you [the media] we play match by match, it was true.” After facing Everton on Saturday in the last home of the season, when Wes Morgan will be presented with the Premier League trophy, Ranieri takes his team to Stamford Bridge on the final day in what promises to be an emotional occasion for the Italian. He has not forgotten how the Chelsea players lined up to salute him before his last game in charge in 2004 and, as manager of the champions, Ranieri can look forward to a similar reception on Sunday week. “It is good because the last time I left the Premier League I walked through my players and they made the guard of honour. It was amazing. Now I will come back in the same way. It is unbelievable. I am satisfied, of course, [to go back as a Premier League winner] but not in terms of ‘it is revenge’. No, no, no. I am not a man who wants revenge. I know my job very well and sometimes maybe the owner wants to change you because you don’t fit in with him. I have, I had and I will have a good relationship with [Roman] Abramovich. Every time I came back to watch, I called the man of Abramovich and every time I was in the stand. It was fantastic.” One of the major challenges for Ranieri is to keep the Leicester team together and hold on to his star players – Vardy, Riyad Mahrez and N’Golo Kanté in particular. Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha, Leicester’s vice-chairman, has outlined the club’s determination to resist any offers from elsewhere and Ranieri issued a warning to those who could be tempted to move on that the grass may not be greener elsewhere. “I would like to maintain all my players but if one of my players says to me I want to go, I try to keep him,” said Ranieri, who insisted he would not be signing any “superstars” this summer. “I suggest to everybody this is a fantastic club, we won the title, we can do something good in the next few years. If you go away you don’t know what happens, here you are the king. It is much better to stay here one year more and look what happens, then maybe you can go anywhere. “The Champions League is another important league to compare yourself to the other champions, you maybe change a team and go in the big teams , maybe you don’t start very well and stay outside the first 11, you slow down. “It is important to chose very well because now, for me, the lads are my sons. If they come to me I say this: ‘Be careful.’ Leicester in the long term will go in a very high position. I hope to keep all the players and all the first XI stay together.”
Monte dei Paschi mulls rescue bids as EU banks await stress-test results The world’s oldest bank, Italy’s Monte dei Paschi di Siena, is racing to finalise a rescue deal ahead of the result of an official assessment of its financial health that is expected to expose a need for billions of euros of extra capital. European regulators will release the results of a stress test on MPS, Italy’s third largest bank, and 50 others across the EU that are being assessed after the close of US markets on Friday. The results have already been sent to the banks, which include British high street banks and major lenders such as Deutsche Bank, but will only be made public at 9pm GMT on Friday. They will be closely followed by investors around the world but particularly in Italy, where worse than expected news could set off a chain of events that may have drastic consequences for thousands of ordinary Italian investors who bought debt in the bank. There is concern that an acute banking crisis in Italy, led by troubles at MPS but possibly other banks as well, could ignite European and global banking crises. Ahead of the stress-test results, the MPS board met to weigh up two potential solutions: a last-minute offer received on Thursday night from the former chief executive of Intesa Sanpaolo, Corrado Passsera, and the Swiss bank UBS; and a rescue plan co-ordinated by JP Morgan and Mediobanca. The board is likely to reject the UBS offer, sources told Reuters. According to the Italian business newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore, the European Central Bank will give the green light to the JP Morgan plan, under which the bank would unload about €9bn (£7.6bn) of bad debt – loans that have not been repaid – and receive an injection of €5bn in capital from private sources. A new Italian banking fund created to help shore up smaller struggling banks, called Atlante, or Atlas in English, would also be involved in the rescue. Il Sole reported that Bank of America, Credit Suisse, Citi and Goldman Sachs might join JP Morgan and Mediobanca in coordinating it. MPS is also scheduled to release its latest results just hours before the outcomes of the stress tests are formally announced. The Italian banking system is the main focus, but the results of the tests will be scrutinised for an indication of the financial health of other major lenders, including Deutsche Bank, Germany’s biggest bank and the institution the IMF has deemed to be the biggest systemic risk to the financial system. The stress tests have become a focus since the 2008 banking crisis and were previously conducted in 2011 and 2014. This time, there is no pass or fail hurdle this time and only 51 banks rather than 124 two years ago have been assessed for their ability to withstand economic and market shocks. The European Banking Authority saidthe 51 banks covered about 70% of the EU banking sector. No banks from Cyprus, Greece or Portugal are big enough to fall within the scope of the test, which looks at four main risks: a rise in bond yields; rising public and private sector debt; weak profits at banks; and stresses from outside the banking sector. Italy will receive much of the scrutiny, given that its banking system has been weighed down by its failure to unload about €360bn in bad debt, much of which was accrued over years of recession, when large and small companies were unable to pay back loans. Italy’s finance minister, Pier Carlo Padoan, however, insisted as late as Sunday that the country was not facing a banking problem. Italy has sought to convince Brussels for weeks to allow it to bail out the bank without triggering relatively new banking regulations that were put in place to dissuade such national bank rescues. Without waiving the rules, the investments of thousands of Italians who bought debt in MPS, many of whom may not have realised that they were risky, would be wiped out under the EU rules. If financial markets ultimately support the rescue of MPS and show confidence that the plan is sufficient, it will not only be welcomed by ordinary Italians. It will also relieve pressure on the country’s prime minister, Matteo Renzi. He would have liked to spend the summer bolstering his case for a critical autumn referendum on constitutional reforms he supports, but instead he has been forced to grapple with the banking issues. His constitutional reforms referendum faces significant resistance from his political rivals, and he has said he will resign if it fails. It is increasingly looking like a vote of confidence in the prime minister, who came to power following an intra-party coup and has never faced a national election. It is far from clear whether Renzi will survive the vote, but a banking crisis would make the referendum’s package much more difficult.
The ‘three black teenagers’ search shows it is society, not Google, that is racist This week Twitter user Kabir Alli posted a video of him carrying out two specific searches on Google. The search for “three white teenagers” produced smiling and happy generic images of white teenagers, while the search for “three black teenagers” produced some generic happy images too – alongside far too many mug shots and what could be perceived as negative images of black teenagers. The video of the search was put up without any explanation, and people predictably reacted emotively; it’s been shared more than 60,000 times. It brought back an internet meme I debunked back in March this year, in which, on the basis of such search results, people on social media called Google “racist”. The outrage towards Google as a result of those searches makes sense if a person isn’t aware of the nature of search engine optimisation (SEO), algorithms, alt tagging and stock photography. But once you have that knowledge, it enables you to direct your outrage more accurately. In short, Google doesn’t produce or tag the images themselves. Google is a search engine; search engines collect data from the internet. The most popular and most accurate search results make their way to the top. Websites and companies use SEO to get their images, products and articles to the top of the search engine. So you, the viewer, can see them. Alt tags are the descriptive words attached to an image or article by its producer, ie, a human, and Google uses these alt tags to bring you “accurate” results. For this particular search the images that appear tend to come from two sources: stock photography and news sites. Stock photography involves a photographer taking generic images of models and then tagging the images in order to sell them to advertising companies. Black people make up 13% of the US population and 3% of the British population. That means there are far more white people in each population, which means far more companies potentially looking to buy images of smiling white teens. The demographic breakdown of society isn’t, in itself, racist. However, the fact that companies don’t think white people would buy their products if they had black models advertising them seems like a reflection of society’s prejudices. For instance, when the US clothing brand Old Navy used an interracial family in its advertising, it was bombarded with racist tweets. Whenever a news site publishes an article writers will describe the pictures in the caption and alt text, and these news pictures form the source of many of the “negative” images and mugshots that appear. So, if a story is about a white or black teenager committing a crime the image which accompanies it may well be associated with the phrase “black/white teenager”. News organisations want page views, and sadly many see the promotion of fear as a great way to reach a big audience. In western countries one of the fears some seek to exploit is the perception of black men as “dangerous”. This perception is evident if you compare the media’s depiction of young black men Tamir Rice and Trayvon Martin, who were 12 and 17 respectively when they were shot dead, and that of Brock Turner, 20, who has just been convicted of sexual assault. The two black teenagers were depicted as criminals and their deaths were blamed on themselves. This narrative was supported by images chosen to portray them with the “young black thug” stereotype. Turner has been depicted as the wholesome white swimming star with a bright future ahead of him – except for the moment he decided to try to rape an unconscious woman. The media portrayed him with a smiling college photo rather than his mugshot. A study by the US campaign group Color of Change found that black people account for 51% of those arrested for violent crime in New York City. However, the arrests of black people receive 75% of the news coverage. Why? Because a calculation has been made – even if subconsciously or inadvertently – that these stories are of particular interest to a news audience. So, is Google racist? No. But society is still racist. Not in the same way as the obvious and profound segregation seen in the US before the civil rights movement. But in more subtle, insidious ways, manifested through advertising, the media, film and policing. We have to accept that computers and search engines do not think for themselves. They are a reflection of their creators, and in the case of search engines, a reflection of those who use them – us. Negative images of black teenagers aren’t at the top of the search results because Google is racist, but because society reflects our institutional and subconscious prejudices. If people want to see positive images of black young people they are going to have to start writing, searching, reading and sharing them. This is the only way to change the negative perception of black teenagers, and black people.
Sing Street review – pop goes the playground “Your problem is that you’re not happy being sad…” When it comes to capturing the strange, romantic magic of making music, few modern film-makers are more on the money than John Carney. In his note-perfect 2007 drama Once, he gave us a beautifully unconsummated Dublin love story played out over the composition and recording of songs such as Falling Slowly, which went on to win an Academy award. In 2013’s underrated Begin Again, Keira Knightley played an adrift singer-songwriter who winds up recording her music to the backing of New York street sounds, spurred on by Mark Ruffalo’s formerly washed-up A&R man. Now Carney returns to Dublin and his youthful heyday of the mid-80s, where the delightful Sing Street spins its warm and uplifting fairytale, tugging at our melancholy heartstrings like a piece of classic bubblegum pop. Ferdia Walsh-Peelo is Conor, a bedroom Bob Dylan struggling to turn the background noise of his parents’ collapsing marriage into songs. When his dad’s work hits the skids, Conor – later Cosmo – is sent to the Christian Brothers’ Synge Street school, where his private education manners (“Restaurant? You mean the canteen? You’re not in France now, you bleedin’ spanner!”) strike a bum note. Bullied by skinhead Barry, and smitten by mysterious outsider Raphina (Lucy Boynton), Conor decides that “we need to form a band”, and sets about rounding up local talent who can provide the perfect soundtrack to his VHS-era love story. “I’m a futurist!” declares Conor after conceding that John Taylor’s bass proficiency does indeed lend a funky edge to Duran Duran, a mantra he has learned from his stoner big brother, Brendan (Jack Reynor), who insists that, like the Pistols, “you need to learn how not to play – and that takes practise”. The bittersweet, “happy sad” drama that follows has drawn inevitable, if misguided, comparisons with The Commitments, yet tonally this is closer to the teen spirit of Todd Graff’s 2009 film Bandslam (to which David Bowie lent an approving cameo) or even Richard Linklater’s sublime School of Rock. As Carney has proved previously, he knows how to straddle the line between the sound in the room and the sound in your head – a sequence that segues from bedroom composition to living room rehearsal (with tea and biscuits) to full studio production perfectly negotiates the space between kitchen-sink realism and musical fantasy in which this lovely, lyrical movie casts its spell. There’s a touch of Michel Gondry’s Be Kind Rewind or Garth Jennings’s Son of Rambow in the band’s attempts to reproduce the high-gloss sheen of Russell Mulcahy’s pop videos in a Dublin backstreet, armed only with a silk scarf, a cowboy outfit and an abundance of eyeliner. As the film progresses, the videos become more ambitious, mutating into a dreamscape reminiscent of Back to the Future’s climactic prom, setting the tone for Sing Street’s own fabulist finale. But it’s the fact that Carney wisely keeps one foot on the ground that gives the film its emotional heft. Having served time in the Frames, Carney understands the practicalities of writing, rehearsing and performing pop songs. Here, he enlists former Danny Wilson frontman Gary Clark to (co-)write original material inspired by Conor’s ever-changing playlist, from the Cure to the Jam, Joe Jackson, Spandau Ballet and beyond. Reminding us that most great pop songs are written by channelling existing hits, Drive it Like You Stole It neatly echoes the triplet bass riff from Hall & Oates’s already derivative Maneater to finger-popping effect, while the band’s dress sense changes with the winds of the latest Top of the Pops (some chronological liberties notwithstanding). Providing the backbone – both musical and fraternal – for Conor’s education is Reynor’s affectionately observed Brendan, his lost dreams and rich experience fuelling his younger brother’s rite of passage. Typical of Carney, too, to lend a gentle ear to even the most seemingly unsympathetic characters, with Barry’s bullying behaviour contextualised as a product of his own battered horizons. In this hazy, street-lamped world, no one is beyond the redemption of a good tune. With its inclusive 12A certificate, Sing Street should strike a chord not only with those ageing 80s nostalgists underwhelmed by the locker room Americana of Everybody Wants Some!!, but also with tween audiences who have long outgrown their Camp Rock DVDs and are ready for a little more grit amid the glitter. Happy sad indeed. I laughed, I cried, I bought the soundtrack album.
Abortion in Ireland: ‘Silence is breaking 12 hearts a day’ Ireland’s abortion regime has been responsible for a litany of tragedies in recent years. The death of Savita Halappanavar, denied a life-saving abortion during her miscarriage; the state-sponsored abuse of Miss Y, a suicidal teenage asylum seeker and rape victim, forced to carry her pregnancy to viability and deliver by C-section; a brain-dead woman kept alive, effectively as an incubator, against her family’s wishes. And there are plenty more mundane, yet nonetheless heartbreaking, stories of approximately 12 women a day who travel to the UK to access abortion services. In the last year, something fundamental has shifted. The Irish pro-choice movement is getting loud. Actors and writers including Tara Flynn, Helen Linehan and Susan Cahill have shared their abortion stories, bravely breaking taboos. An “abortion bus” flouted the law to tour Ireland distributing medication. Comedian Gráinne Maguire had us all tweeting details of our periods to the taoiseach, Enda Kenny. Activist Anna Cosgrave designed distinctive Repeal jumpers, so that on any given day in Dublin you will see supporters with their commitment to repealing the 1983 eighth amendment to the constitution emblazoned across their chests. That’s just the tip of the iceberg. The last two weeks have seen some of the most extraordinary activism yet in the campaign to repeal the eighth amendment. Under the Twitter handle @twowomentravel, two friends live-tweeted their journey to England so that one of them could access an abortion, turning a personal crisis into a powerful political action. Answering my questions, on the condition that her anonymity was preserved, the companion explained that while planning the journey her friend decided she wanted something good to come from it for Irish women. “What’s the alternative?” she asks, “Silence? Silence is breaking 12 Irish hearts a day. Silence is trapping migrant women in desperate situations, silence has the blood of Savita on its hands, silence is the shape of Miss Y’s devastation. Silence has devastated the women and girls of Ireland, but now it’s time to talk, and get real.” They certainly got real. The pictures they shared were striking in their ordinariness: boarding a plane in the cold grey of dawn; views from taxi windows; waiting rooms with magazines; a basic hotel. They tagged Kenny in each. The most controversial image is a lightly bloodstained sheet, which they felt was important to show: they were certainly not the first women to face a long trek home, bleeding and sore. “The anti-choice brigade have been all over that photo,” the friend tells me. “The realities of women’s bodies have been glossed over for too long. We bleed, and we birth, and it’s not pretty, but that’s life, and that reality needs to be brought to the fore. There’s no realism in the philosophical focus of the anti-choice side. They can speculate until the cows come home about when life begins. In fact, they have speculated so loudly and for so long that real lives of women and girls have ended unnecessarily.” When #twowomentravel returned, 48 hours later, they had tens of thousands of Twitter followers and were making international headlines. “We could never have expected the response we received. It was surreal. Where do you even begin thanking people for standing with you in that situation?” They believe that Kenny saw their tweets: “He stopped posting updates on the Olympics, which he had been doing regularly,” she says. In her view, Kenny going offline speaks volumes. In any case, they are not surprised by his silence. “He has no compassion, no interest in the lives of women. There are more than 100,000 women who went before us. He could have listened to any number of them, and he didn’t. He owes over 3,000 women a year a whole lot of money and remorse.” The #twowomentravel hashtag was brimming with gratitude and solidarity. But there were also, inevitably, anti-choice pundits aggressively shaming the women. “We were showing photos of waiting rooms, taxis, flights. In response we got bombarded by violent rhetoric accusing both of us of murder, bombarded with pictures of mutilated foetuses.” Perhaps the strangest criticism came from detractors who refused to believe that the anonymous women existed. Seemingly, even though a dozen women a day make this journey, the notion that one of them would refuse to be shamed into silence defies logic. The friend I interview is scathing of such critiques: “Nobody has to believe us. Our dignity does not rely on that. But I will say this: if you are sceptical of an eloquent, salient, honest and cutting telling of the travesty that faces so many Irish women, you are a sexist. If you doubt the ability of women to tell their stories with ferocity and confidence, even in crisis, you are a sexist. If you doubt us because we have succeeded in defying you, you are a sexist. We are not meek, and we owe no explanations.” Right now, the friends are processing everything that has happened – one healing and taking time out following her abortion, the other dealing with media. They intend to keep fighting. “We have to break the hold of silence. We can no longer whisper. We have been failed for too long. Now is the time to be loud.”
This is the hollowed-out heart of America: pain, rage and Donald Trump Nobody thinks Donald Trump will win the election, but we do tend to gloss over the fact that we still expect something like 50 million people to vote for him. Some of them are my neighbours. I live in Meigs County, Ohio, which will probably vote for Trump if history is any indication. Its population, of 23,500 or so, has a per capita income of around $18,000, and 20% of my neighbours live below the poverty line. It’s one of those places where the coal dried up a few decades ago. And, however depressing it sounds, it’s better than it was. The house my children will grow up in was built in 1900 by their paternal great-great-grandfather. It’s belonged to the family ever since, each generation building on as needed from its original single room. There are a few houses like that in the family, and we moved into this one mostly because we wanted our kids to grow up as he had, running barefoot through the woods and catching tadpoles in the stream behind the house. Meigs is still an old, old place like that. It’s not uncommon for friends our age to live in houses recently made available by a family death. We buy groceries from a general store, but it’s miles to the nearest gas station or supermarket. Some people here would vote for a Disney villain if they ran on the Republican ticket – party affiliation is an inherited trait in many families – some just like Trump. He “says what he’s thinking”, his supporters say, which baffles many observers, given what the man says, but makes perfect sense if you realise that most of my neighbours don’t pay nearly as much attention to politics as I, who’s writing this and you, who are reading it. Many people are uncomfortable with a lot of the stuff they’ve heard about him but accept it as a necessary evil: the main thing is to tell Washington elites that they’re not safe in their sinecures any more, that the common man is about to have his day. It’s all gone too far off the rails. Pomeroy, the county seat, lies just over the river from Mason, West Virginia. Walmart tried to come to Pomeroy but the council voted against it because they didn’t want to lose the small businesses lining the main street. The company went to Mason instead and pointedly positioned its store at the end of the bridge; Pomeroy’s intentionally quaint riverfront downtown now features a rundown laundromat, some bars, a liquor store, empty storefronts and a few improbably expensive shops. All the tax revenue from the Walmart goes to Mason. People talk about economic insecurity and usually they’re imagining some angry white man upset that someone somewhere (probably a minority, and a woman to boot) is getting more help than him. But I picture that Walmart, where it didn’t really matter what the people wanted. They made their stand; they got run over anyway. That’s a fair description of life in a place like this one. People who admire Trump for his business acumen are simply pointing out that no matter the ambiguity about his balance sheets this is a man who flies around on a gold-plated jet, which to someone making a few hundred dollars a week seems like unimaginable wealth. Our society values a human based on their material worth; why then are we surprised when many people define “winning” and “valuable” and “admirable” accordingly? Trump is a Rorschach test of America’s fears. To the ageing population here, his slogan about making America great again brings memories of last century, when the downtown bustled and anyone could make a solid living, assuming they weren’t too lazy to present themselves at the mine. It wasn’t ever an easy life, but it wasn’t ever this hard either. It’s difficult to remember, given everything that has happened since, but Trump exploded on to the stage with the first primary debate by telling us that the political system really is as rigged as we’d feared: that politics is about who you can buy and sell, whose influence you can tap. We have all known it; Trump said it. And that’s where he built his base. It’s been three years since I wrote a post online about America’s poverty trap that went viral and led to a book deal. I now have the luxury of paying attention to the world around me. But when I look at my hands I see the scars from knives and slicers and hot grease, and I remember the rage that I could not name after a decade and a half of low wages and no hope, because we all say that we live in a meritocracy and we all know it’s bullshit, but it keeps people sinking regardless. An unfortunate fact of capitalism, or at least the kind we practice in the western world, is that we below are turned against each other. There is political value in racial strife. As long as we can teach white people to hate nonwhite people, then we don’t have to worry about poor people realising they outnumber the rich ones. Racists came to love Trump because he speaks openly of the racial strife that politicians have been exploiting and stoking for decades to great electoral effect. That’s what people mean when they complain about political correctness, after all. You’re supposed to hate and fear a bunch of people but not talk about it, which is nonsensical except in the lens of politics, where perception matters far more than substance. Trump can behave as badly as he wants. It’s no worse than people expect from the power elite. America, as seen from Meigs County, is a place where bankers can unfairly foreclose on your house and then get paid by Washington for doing it – and then Washington will demand you sign the bill. His business shenanigans don’t register as shocking because it’s assumed that to get even close to that level you’ve already sold your soul; that’s just how it works. None of the bankers went to jail, and now the banks pay Hillary Clinton the equivalent of 37 years of the median wage in this county per speech to lecture for them. The year 2016 will be political shorthand, in the way you can say “2008” and people think of Lehman and Bear and bailouts. There will be Before, and After. This year is forcing us to grapple with a lot of realities we’d been conscientiously avoiding. Trump will still walk away from this thing a winner by his lights if Clinton wins – not leader of anything, with a reputation left in pitiful dirty tatters, but as head demagogue. He’ll have millions of adoring fans and a revenue stream. He will avoid responsibility for what is to come. Pain and rage and fear and hate are all closely connected; unleashing them all in an unexamined pulsating mass of conspiracy-laden megalomania was ill-advised at best. We have already seen violence, and we will see more. It was bound to happen eventually that a candidate running on fear and division would take us this far into the realms of the unacceptable. We can’t stop it now. The only thing we can do – the thing we must do, if we are to save ourselves – is begin to understand that if the system is broken, it’s broken for enough of us that we can together insist on changes that suit the populace, instead of merely those candidates and donors who can afford to buy all the rivals they see on a primary stage. Few people think Trump will fix anything but a lot are willing to vote for him. Because whatever you think of him, he’s not a vote for the status quo.
Small businesses should switch banks to get the best deals Even before the EU referendum, our Federation of Small Businesses members were reporting tough business conditions across the country, with small business confidence at a four-year low. Firms were less optimistic, cutting headcount and curbing investment intentions. To head this off we now need to do everything we can to support small firms to grow, create jobs and weather any harsh economic headwinds ahead. This includes ensuring more is done to support the development of stable and resilient UK finance markets. Being able to access finance not only provides firms with greater certainty to invest and employ more people, it also helps to support the UK economy’s long-term growth. One of the key obstacles to achieving this is the overly concentrated nature of banking provision. Unfortunately, the combined market shares of the four largest providers of business current accounts (BCAs) have declined by only a couple of per cent since 2012. As well as posing risks to financial stability, the high level of concentration restricts competition and choice. The news that RBS and Natwest has written to 1.3 million businesses warning they may face charges on deposits as a result of low interest rates is deeply concerning. It sends an unsettling message to firms whose investment and growth aspirations are already being tested by current conditions. Yet in spite of this there are some encouraging signs. Credit is cheaper and more readily available, with FSB’s Voice of Small Business Index showing that 71% of credit applications were accepted in the previous quarter. Much of this reflects the increased availability of alternative forms of finance, which small business owners are increasingly making use of. To be fair to RBS and NatWest, their interest rates warning to business customers was part of a broader message that the number of tariffs and charges were being simplified. We know BCA charges have been extremely complex, making it difficult for small businesses to identify the cost of their BCA, let alone find out if they’re getting the best deal. Until now, not enough small business have been switching. From startups to firms whose free banking period has finished, small firms tend not to search – let alone switch. Research in 2015 from the Competition and Markets Authority, an independent regulator currently running an inquiry into the retail banking market, found that 35% of small and medium sized businesses dissatisfied with their bank still did not consider switching. The clear message to small businesses is that they should shop around regularly to see where they can deposit funds more cheaply. The current account switch service is a quick, easy and free way to move your BCA. And there are more resources out there to help. Business Banking Insight is an independent website designed to share micro, small and medium businesses’ banking experiences online to provide information about the best banking institutions, products and services across the UK. I would encourage small firms to consider whether it’s worth switching to a more competitive BCA. Equally, all finance providers holding deposits from small businesses have a responsibility to update customers concerned about any changes to their BCA. This includes providing them with all the options they need to find a better deal elsewhere. Sign up to become a member of the Small Business Network here for more advice, insight and best practice direct to your inbox.
Services sector growth allays Brexit vote fears A strong performance by the UK’s services sector in September has allayed concerns that a rebound after the Brexit vote panic would prove temporary. The sector, which accounts for about three-quarters of the economy, beat City expectations with buoyant new order books and a rise in employment, continuing a post referendum recovery that followed a dramatic contraction in July. The pound steadied on the news after falling earlier in the week to a fresh 31-year low of $1.27, while the FTSE 100 index of top companies retained most of its recent gains, losing 41 points to finish at 7033. Markit, which compiled the services industry data, said the strength of the recovery meant the chances of a recession in the second half of 2016 had “all but evaporated”. Combined with strong results in September for the manufacturing and construction sectors, the services data also dispelled any lingering fears that the Bank of England might cut interest rates before the end of the year. The financial data provider said the purchasing managers’ index (PMI) for the sector expanded at a slightly weaker rate than August’s 52.9, but stayed above 50, the boundary between growth and contraction, at 52.6, and the slump to 47.4 seen in July. Much of the boost came from a rise in new business, which rose at the fastest pace since February, helped by the fall in sterling. But Markit warned that the measure of company expectations remained very low by historical standards and businesses remained wary that the rebound could fizzle out. Britain’s car industry enjoyed a record September for new vehicle sales, but said Brexit uncertainty could weigh on future demand. The 66 plate helped to lift new car sales by a modest 1.6% last month compared with a year earlier to a total of 469,696, according to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT). Fleet sales increased 7.3%, offsetting a 1.7% decline in private buyer sales. It was the highest number on record for September, typically a strong month for sales because of the plate change. The top three best sellers were the Ford Fiesta, Vauxhall Corsa and Volkswagen Golf. Chris Williamson, the chief business economist at IHS Markit, which compiled the service sector survey, said: “The survey results suggest the economy has regained modest growth momentum since the EU referendum, with further service sector expansion accompanied by a return to growth in construction and an especially strong revival of manufacturing. “Across the three sectors, the pace of economic growth signalled was the strongest since January, fuelling greater job creation as companies shrugged off short-term Brexit worries and enjoyed the benefits of a weaker currency.” Samuel Tombs, chief UK economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, said the economy was still growing at levels well below those seen between 2013 and 2015. “On past form, the index in September is consistent with quarter-on-quarter growth in services output of just 0.2%, still a long way below its 0.6% average between 2013 and 2015. “But fears that the slump in business and consumer confidence after the vote would translate immediately into lower spending appear to have been unfounded,” he said.
Photographers on their best Trump shot: 'I think he's a damaged person' Harry Benson: ‘He walked into the casino vault and took out $1m’ I’ve been photographing Trump for over 30 years now and I’ve never heard him say no to anything. You can go the extra mile with him. He’s obliging, he’s got a sense of humour, though you would never tell him a joke. I once shot him on top of Trump Tower. He had a shirt and tie on and did a boxer stance. I’ve always wished I’d asked him to take his shirt off. He would have done it. This was taken in the Taj Mahal, a $1 billion casino he opened in Atlantic City in 1990. When he told me there was over a million dollars in the “cage”, the place where the money is kept, I said I’d never seen that much cash. So he just went right into the cage and took out a million dollars. But it’s completely out of bounds, even if you own every brick in the building. Only the authorised – and I mean really authorised – can go in it. But he didn’t care. He wants it, he takes it, he gets it. He was showing off but then, as a photographer, that’s what you want. He is vain, yes, terribly vain. But then I’m there paying attention to him and pointing a camera at him. I know I’m going to have to get him to do something special when I go to the White House, get him to jump on the table or something. Election night was quite a night. My friends are shocked and crying. He spun the whole thing. It was unbelievable, all very disconcerting. I think he’s going to be well-behaved, though, for a while anyway. Harry Benson’s CV Born: Glasgow, 1929. Studied: Glasgow School of Art. Influences: “No other photographers. Lord Beaverbrook, who gave me a job.” High point: “Going to America with the Beatles.” Low point: “Bobby Kennedy: I was right there when he was killed.” Top tip: “Buy a guitar instead!” This photograph appears in Harry Benson: Shoot First, out in US cinemas, Amazon Video and iTunes on 9 December. Chris Buck: ‘I see this as a portrait of a broken man’ I like to take awkward, vulnerable portraits. They’re more human than heroic ones, which were very much the thing when I was starting out in the 1980s. This shot is a particular success. It was taken for Philadelphia magazine in 2006, to accompany a piece about Trump getting into property development in the area. We were in a big dark conference room and the multiple mirror was one of the few things I could use. It adds a layer of complexity. He looks confident and strong in the reflections, but vulnerable in real life. During the presidential campaign, people got really excited about this portrait, because it says something about him. They would talk about “the many faces of Trump” and I can see where that comes from. I found him offputting and obnoxious in The Apprentice – and in interviews, he’ll start off saying one thing then change his mind halfway through. But having met him a couple of times, I can say he’s very different in private. He was quite charming, especially with a small audience of extras, gracious, funny and positive. His public persona in this election has been aggressive, though, and he’s been alienating whole groups of people. I see this as a portrait of a broken man. That’s my personal interpretation. Even the fact he ran for president is bizarre. I think he’s a damaged person. I don’t think he really wanted to govern, he just liked the idea of being president. I’m shocked by the result. I thought it was a joke. But I do think he is a good negotiator and a great salesman: he might strike good deals behind closed doors. While he wasn’t my choice, he’s now my president and I’m going to wish him the best – and pray he does a great job. Chris Buck’s CV Born: Toronto, 1964. Trained: Ryerson University, Toronto. Influences: Irving Penn, Anton Corbijn. High point: “A sitting with Obama in 2013.” Low point: “Right after I got married, I had a tough couple of years financially.” Top tip: “Good work always rises to the top, if you take your work seriously.” William Coupon: ‘I had to clean bird poop off his sleeve afterwards’ This was taken in 1983 to go with an article in Manhattan Inc, a prestigious and influential magazine throughout the 1980s. It pretty much invented this idea of businessmen as celebrities. In the article, Trump expressed his desire to be a peace negotiator between the Israelis and Palestinians. So we decided to get this bird to symbolise peace. It worked great graphically – though I had to clean up the poop that eventually ran down Trump’s sleeve. He’s not a very gracious guy. He’s temperamental, gets rather uppity. Every time I’ve met him, he’s had an off-putting attitude. I saw him playing golf while in Palm Springs, Florida, about three years ago. I showed him this picture on my iPhone and he said: “Loved the picture, hated the article.” I shot him again in 1992, for the Jewish Defence League. He was holding a small baby tree. He looks a lot more suave and mature than here. His intention both times was to be some kind of broker. It didn’t ever happen though. It was just another one of his intentions. He’s a big-minded guy. His whole MO is thinking big. Everything he does is oversized. He’s maintained his pro-Israel ties, so I don’t know what’s going to happen with this Iran nuclear deal. There’s a lot of other issues: privatised social security, the supreme court. This is a radical shift in American politics and I don’t know what’s going to happen. Back when Roosevelt won, radio was the medium. Kennedy had TV. Obama had the internet. For this guy, it’s social media, the manipulation of Twitter. He played it incredibly – it was amazing how he went at it solo. He’s not very collaborative. His win was the result of this silent angered majority in most of middle America, and even some of the cities, where there’s been a lot of unemployment. Trump represented change. But I don’t know why they think he’s their pied piper, this shady New York character. He’s the guy everyone loves to hate. But I never thought he’d be the kind of person people would love to vote for. William Coupon’s CV Born: New York, 1952. Trained: Self-taught. Influences: Irving Penn, Richard Avedon, Diane Arbus. High point: “The 80s – the Reagan years, money was no object.” Low point: “This morning!” Top tip: “Follow your vision.” Nigel Parry: ‘He wouldn’t pose side-on, maybe due to the comb-over’ This was for American Esquire magazine last year. They wanted to run a three-portrait cover – of him, Hillary Clinton and Marco Rubio – looking like they were part of Mount Rushmore. When it got down to Trump, this was the result because he refused to do the three-quarter angle. “No, Nigel,” he said. “It feels like a profile shot to me.” No, Donald, I can see your other eye, so it’s not a profile. Why didn’t he like being in profile? Maybe he doesn’t like the wattle beneath his chin. Maybe he thinks people are trying to get a good shot of his comb-over. So I got him to follow my hand, which I moved all around the camera. Then I got him to look straight back into the camera and this is what we got: his face in repose, the expression he thinks is strong. It looks a bit aggrieved though – rather pouty. To finish off, I put him up against a mirror. “Nigel, this has never been done before – this kid’s good!” Given I’m only 10 years younger than he is, I thought that was kind of hilarious. This whole thing lasted maybe four minutes, for four different setups. His mood was fine – as long as you’re moving fast and jumping to what he wants, he’s agreeable. But I wouldn’t want to go down the pub with him, like I wanted to with President Bush Jr, who is cracking jokes all the time. Trump isn’t a joke-cracker, but he’s not trying to pull the wool over your eyes. He’s himself. Bernie Sanders would have got my vote. Trump and Clinton were the two worst candidates who could have been put up. It was only because the voting room was so hot that I didn’t write an essay on my ballot paper and spoil it. Nigel Parry’s CV Born: Barnsley, 1961. Training: As graphic designer at London College of Printing. Influences: David Bailey, Richard Avedon, Henri Cartier-Bresson. High point: “Taking this kind of photo.” Low point: “Digital photography. The future is bleak because of falling standards due to saturation of dreadfully bad plates of food on Instagram.” Top tip: “Before you lift your camera, before you go to the shoot, work out what you’re trying to say.”
EDF still at table but nuclear could be critical for Osborne What if EDF says no to Hinkley Point? What if the French power generator, under pressure from its unions and potential lenders, decides it can’t finance the £18bn project, even with the Chinese chipping in? After all, the disgruntled French workers make a reasonable point. EDF’s last big foreign adventure, in Finland, is nine years behind schedule and massively over-budget, so why risk another expedition? EDF’s share price, remember, is down 85% since 2004: the company is in a weak position to resist its local critics. The short answer is that the UK’s nuclear strategy would be in tatters if EDF backs out. If EDF can’t get financing for Hinkley, then Sizewell C, the company’s intended follow-on project in Suffolk, would also bite the dust. The same goes for the next plant at Bradwell in Essex, where Chinese constructors are supposed to be taking the lead but are relying on Hinkley’s and Sizewell’s infrastructure and momentum. And, if the UK’s nuclear strategy becomes a non-runner, then the government’s entire energy policy is dead. By the mid-2030s, Hinkley and other new nuclear plants are supposed to have replaced the current clapped-out fleet and added capacity on top. Onshore wind couldn’t fill the gap, and anyway the government hates turbines on land. Offshore wind is currently more expensive than nuclear. Building a new generation of gas-fired stations would, almost certainly, mean missing the legally binding targets for reducing carbon emissions. George Osborne could, of course, decide that the Treasury should finance Hinkley, but that would be a monumental U-turn. It would mean abandoning the core principle that Hinkley’s costs must be kept away from the public debt. UK taxpayers would be exposed to the same potential cost overruns that are causing so much angst at EDF. The position is not yet that dire for the government. EDF is still at the table and the French government, when push comes to shove, tends to be supportive. The best guess – still – is that the funds will be forthcoming. If not, Osborne’s difficulty with Google’s tax bill would look like a storm in a tea cup. All the subsidies, and the grovelling for Chinese cash, would have yielded nothing except proof of the horrible economics of nuclear power in the 21st century. Worst is not yet over for RBS Put away the bunting. Royal Bank of Scotland will not be announcing a profit for 2015 next month. In truth, such an outcome was already an outside bet, but chief executive Ross McEwan removed all doubt on Wednesday by serving yet another dish of write-offs and provisions, covering payment protection insurance, the Coutts private bank and mortgage-backed securities in the US. By way of novelty, there was an unfamiliar side order in the form of £4.2bn to cover the deficit in the pension fund. That doesn’t hurt the profits line, but the others all do. It will be the eighth year of losses. Can shareholders – in other words, us – dare to dream that the worst is over? Not yet. When finance director Ewen Stevenson speaks of “a few more bumps” this year, neither he nor anyone else can know whether the biggest bump will throw RBS into a ninth year of losses. The big unknown is the settlement with the US Department of Justice on those same mortgage securities. It could be £2bn, but could be £6bn, and current provisions cover only non-DoJ actions. RBS can absorb the latest hits, and even the DoJ’s heftiest blows, because its capital position is strong. The City, though, had started to dream of dividends or a share buyback in 2017. Those hopes are still alive but Wednesday’s fresh scars are a serious setback. George Osborne, in retrospect, did well to flog 5% of RBS shares at 330p last August. But, at today’s 256p, a three-year low, he only has one option: sit back and wait – again. Shell’s BG suit wears thin for dissenters Ben van Beurden, Shell’s chief executive, says he is “delighted with the positive shareholder vote and the confidence that shareholders have shown in the strategic logic of the combination of Shell and BG”. Well, yes, 83% is an overwhelming majority, but 17% dissent is on the high side. Shell is a corporate titan and this was, in effect, a vote of confidence in the board’s judgment. The company also had some of the world’s most powerful investment banks acting as whippers-in. The real test is where Shell stands in two years time and whether it can maintain its dividend. Van Beurden knew the sliding oil price made his BG pitch harder to sell – but he would surely have hoped to keep the scepticism in single figures.
Zoolander 2 has box office malfunction as Zombies perish and Deadpool thrives The winner: Deadpool Hollywood’s association with Marvel has produced pretty reliable returns for Paramount (early films in the Avengers series) and Sony (Spider-Man), and Disney’s $4bn acquisition of Marvel Entertainment in 2009 has proved a cash bonanza for the studio, with more Avengers films, s of the Galaxy and Ant-Man. Over at Fox, which arguably kick-started the current cycle of comic-book blockbusters with 2000’s X-Men, results with Marvel characters have been more mixed. X-Men 2 (£20.7m) and X-Men: Days of Future Past (£27.3m) are the only two in the series to crack £20m at the UK box office, while two attempts at Fantastic Four never got the formula quite right. Spinoffs X-Men Origins: The Wolverine and The Wolverine managed £16.4m and £13.8m respectively. Based on the performance of those films, expectations might have been modest for Deadpool, a spinoff featuring a character briefly introduced in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and starring an actor (Ryan Reynolds) who had already commercially failed as a superhero in DC Comics’ Green Lantern. Director Tim Miller, known for animation and visual effects, had never helmed a feature film, and Deadpool didn’t look an obvious fit for the Valentine’s Day audience. At the Baftas on Sunday night, with Rentrak returns flooding on to attendees’ hand-held devices, executives across the UK film industry confessed themselves stunned by the Deadpool numbers. A debut of £13.73m including previews of £3.76m – that result is way bigger than anyone expected. It’s bigger than the opening weekends of all three of Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man films (although Spider-Man 3’s £11.8m debut has the edge if Deadpool’s previews are stripped out). It’s pretty much dead level with the opening of Iron Man 3 (£13.71m including £2.32m in previews), and far ahead of the debuts for Iron Man and Iron Man 2. s of the Galaxy kicked off with £6.36m, including £1.37m in previews – numbers that were considered a surprise success at the time. Deadpool is rated 15 for “strong bloody violence, strong language, sex references” and its tone and content clearly distinguishes the film from other Marvel properties. While that represented a risk for Fox, its distinctiveness was also an opportunity to offer audiences something different in an increasingly crowded space. The risk has paid off handsomely. The runner-up: the Chipmunks Fox has even more to smile about this week, as Alvin and the Chipmunks: the Road Chip is convincingly winning the battle for the half-term audience. The fourth film in the series begins its run with £4.30m including previews of £1.70m. Previous entry Chipwrecked began in December 2011 with £2.36m including £675,000 in previews, when it faced direct competition from Arthur Christmas, Puss in Boots, Hugo and Happy Feet 2. Predecessor The Squeakquel kicked off with £5.35m including very extensive previews totalling £4.00m. The Road Chip is benefiting from its February half-term release date – a key slot that in past years has been nabbed by big hitters such as Big Hero 6, The Lego Movie and Wreck-It Ralph. Alvin is facing off against family adventure Goosebumps and lesser titles. Third place: Zoolander 2 Although the original Zoolander film enjoys significant affection with film fans, it was commercially modest on its cinema release (2001), grossing just £2.18m in total in the UK. Still, the same is also true of the first Anchorman film (grossing £1.59m here) and the sequel went on to huge success (£14.51m). Paramount had every reason to expect a big opening for Zoolander 2, with media happily exploiting images of Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson and other cast members performing photo stunts at a series of premieres (technically billed as “fan screenings”) all around the world. The result: a UK debut of £2.09m, including previews of £670,000. While Paramount will take comfort from having already almost matched the lifetime of Zoolander, it must surely be disappointed not to have pushed the number higher. Zoolander 2 enjoys a weak 5.3/10 IMDb user rating and a 35/100 MetaCritic score. Prospects do not look great for a strong sustain, although this week’s half-term holiday will work in the 12A-rated film’s favour. The flops Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, adapted by the book credited to Seth Grahame-Smith and Jane Austen, was always a risky proposition: would fans of Austen’s Georgian-era romances be enticed by the addition of zombies, and would genre fans be intrigued by the mash-up with the world of the Bennett sisters and Mr Darcy? It didn’t help that Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, similarly adapted from a Grahame-Smith work, commercially underperformed. In this instance, the risk has not paid off, since the tonally unusual film has debuted here with a poor £357,000 from 332 cinemas, including £65,000 in previews. A quick exit looks likely. Concussion, starring Will Smith as an African-born doctor taking on the American football establishment on the issue of head injuries, always looked a very tricky sell in the UK. Awards attention would have helped push the film across to audiences, but Concussion made no headway at the Baftas or Oscars, and a Golden Globe nomination for Smith wasn’t enough to create excitement. Sony released the film in 169 cinemas, achieving an opening gross of £112,000. Jem and the Holograms, based on the 1980s American TV cartoon series, pretty much evaporated on contact with cinemas, beginning with £8,900 from 98 venues, yielding a woeful £91 site average. The indie alternative: A Bigger Splash Landing just outside the top 10, A Bigger Splash begins its run with £348,000 from 101 cinemas, including previews of £43,000. Comparisons are tricky since director Luca Guadagnino’s previous feature I Am Love was primarily in Italian, despite Tilda Swinton in the lead role. That film began with a robust £172,000 from just 35 cinemas, on its way to a lifetime total of £927,000. A Bigger Splash, starring Swinton, Ralph Fiennes, Matthias Schoenaerts and Dakota Johnson, is an English-language film, and a loose remake of 1969 French title La Piscine. The future Thanks to Deadpool, grosses overall are 135% up on the previous frame, and also 15% up on the equivalent weekend from 2015, when Fifty Shades of Grey exploded with a £13.55m debut. Cinema bookers will be hoping for a strong hold from Deadpool and solid returns from family titles this weekend as kids prepare to go back to school next Monday. As for newcomers, How to Be Single should play both as a date movie and a chick flick, while John Hillcoat’s nicely cast Triple 9 should skew more male, as will the 18-certificate Bone Tomahawk, starring Kurt Russell and Patrick Wilson. Coast Guard rescue true tale The Finest Hours has already opened softly in the US. Alternatives include indie drama Freeheld, with Julianne Moore and Ellen Page. Top 10 films February 12-14 1. Deadpool, £13,729,803 from 543 sites (new) 2. Alvin and the Chipmunks: the Road Chip, £4,296,291 from 585 sites (new) 3. Zoolander 2, £2,089,678 from 477 sites (new) 4. Dad’s Army, £1,304,048 from 579 sites. Total: £4,875,369 5. Goosebumps, £1,072,028 from 526 sites. Total: £4,180,487 6. The Revenant, £717,860 from 431 sites. Total: £19,620,532 7. Dirty Grandpa, £565,700 from 341 sites. Total: £4,622,065 8. Spotlight, £451,302 from 345 sites. Total: £3,656,210 9. Star Wars: the Force Awakens, £442,768 from 360 sites. Total: £121,447,648 10. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, £357,444 from 332 sites (new) Other openers A Bigger Splash, £347,704 (including £42,631 previews) from 101 sites Fitoor, £132,320 from 55 sites Concussion, £111,993 from 169 sites Oddball and the Penguins, £23,835 from 141 sites The Iron Giant: Signature Edition, £13,729 from 120 sites The Monkey King 2, £12,494 from 8 sites The Survivalist, £9,298 from 27 sites Jem and the Holograms, £8,869 from 98 sites Jil Jung Juk, £6,936 from 4 sites Romeo & Juliet: San Francisco Ballet, £2,683 from 15 sites I’ll See You In My Dreams, £1,951 from 10 sites America Wild: National Parks, £1,499 from 1 site Noble, £1,197 from 27 sites Homme Less, £728 from 1 site Welcome to Leith, £255 from 1 site Survival Instinct, no data available The Green Inferno, no data available Meru, no data available Miruthan, no data available Paavada, no data available Thanks to Rentrak All figures relate to takings in UK and Ireland cinemas.
Newcastle display signs of renewed traction in Rafael Benítez’s road test There was a moment, with Newcastle a goal down and on the ropes to a greater degree than they would be at any other point in the evening, when one wondered whether familiar failings were lining up to emerge en masse. A haphazard, rushed 40-yard slash over the bar from Daryl Janmaat, with team-mates waiting in the middle, six minutes from half-time spoke of the timidity with which they usually respond to ill fortune; but it never got too much worse than that on an evening when, if nothing else, there was enough to suggest Rafael Benítez has it in his power to instil the kind of discipline that will have to be the bare minimum over the next nine games. Benítez had emerged from the tunnel deep in friendly conversation with Claudio Ranieri but his team came out in rather more adversarial tone. If the level of effectiveness and interest that can be coaxed from Moussa Sissoko is a handy litmus test for the abilities of any Newcastle manager, there were promising early signs when the midfielder – deployed on the left in front of Jack Colback in a combination seemingly designed to combat the wiles of Riyad Mahrez – almost chased down a sloppy Wes Morgan backpass within six seconds. Shortly afterwards he let N’Golo Kanté, put forward in some circles as a candidate to replace him in the France squad, bounce off him before laying on a half-chance for Colback to shoot wide. There was a palpable sense, as Benítez cajoled from the edge of his technical area, of a team straining to be on its very best behaviour and there was certainly never any question of the downing of tools that helped Manchester City, Crystal Palace, Everton, Chelsea and – in November – Leicester run away with victories of three goals or more earlier in the season. “I was really pleased with Sissoko,” Benítez said after the game, singling out a player who is emblematic of the deep frustration engendered by this Newcastle side. “I was telling him that he had to go, to get into the box and he was there getting chances. There were lots of positives from players that want to be seen and want to be important.” It is certainly true that nobody in a white shirt shied away from what developed into an attritional battle, a fact not lost on a set of away supporters who have been unaccustomed to hanging around to give ovations in recent months but afforded their team the privilege this time. “I know we talk about the 12th man but the fans will be crucial for us,” Benítez said. Sissoko, though, might have craved invisibility when he fluffed the chance to lay on a clear shot for Aleksandar Mitrovic before the hour and, if there could be one complaint, it was that three days had clearly not been enough for Benítez to inject a measure of final-third composure into his new charges. Shortly after Sissoko’s missed chance a statistic flashed up to show that Newcastle had held 84% of possession in the previous 15 minutes. They failed to build on promising beginnings with the ball, Jonjo Shelvey generally ushered away from areas of influence by Kanté and Mitrovic an outlet who, after a busy start, became characteristically uncertain. Benítez’s bugbear was that they had lacked the ingenuity to complement their sense of control, the second-half introduction of Andros Townsend doing little to add fluidity, and too many moves broke down through a loose final pass or miscommunication. “I am trying to tell the players they have to play with great commitment like today, working really hard, but they have to use their brain and try to play football,” he said. “Maybe in this way we can create chances.” There is the sense that this game, with Sunday’s Tyne-Wear derby assuming monumental proportions regardless of the outcome here, was to some degree a free hit for Benítez. He would have been forgiven a more passive involvement for his first test, perhaps with a member of the coaching staff putting in the hard yards while he watched from upstairs. Fronting up this early set an important example and perhaps the endeavour with which he was rewarded against the leaders bode well for what – their appalling recent form against their rivals aside – is the more winnable contest. Another pivotal-looking trip to Carrow Road follows the week after Easter and it will have done Benítez-era Newcastle no harm to warm up in a reliably high-octane King Power Stadium before plunging headlong into the dogfight. If this was a road test, then, Newcastle came through in fair shape. Benitez spoke of “correcting little details” over the next few weeks and there remain concerns that the form of Mitrovic, who passed up on a late chance to shoot when decently placed, and their other front players may take more than a few tweaks to put right. But, on this evidence, the foundations for a successful battle against relegation may be more solid than expected. Midway through the first half Ayoze Pérez slipped over after a challenge near the dugouts and Benítez, perpetually in motion, scurried to help him to his feet so that Newcastle could defend the throw-in. Benítez’s evident appetite to right Newcastle’s structural issues – and perhaps issues of desire and intent, too – may yet serve to be the perfect pick-me-up.
Donald Trump in favor of immigration reform, softening stance on his signature issue In comments that run counter to his previous stance on the signature issue of his presidential campaign, Donald Trump told Fox News host Sean Hannity that although undocumented immigrants living in the United States will get “no citizenship”, they will pay back taxes in exchange for legal status provided “we get the bad ones out”. “They’ll pay back taxes, they have to pay taxes, there’s no amnesty, as such, there’s no amnesty, but we work with them,” Trump said, in remarks set to air tonight on Hannity’s show. “Now, everybody agrees we get the bad ones out,” Trump said of his immigration policy, which heretofore has called for the construction of a 2,000-mile wall along the US southern border and a “deportation force” that would remove the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants currently estimated to live in the country. “But when I go through and meet thousands and thousands of people on this subject,” he continued, “and they’ve said, ‘Mr Trump, I love you, but to take a person who’s been here for 15 or 20 years and throw them and their family out, it’s so tough, Mr Trump’. I have it all the time! It’s a very, very hard thing.” Trump’s current position is identical to that of primary rival Ohio governor John Kasich, who opposed citizenship for illegal immigrants but supported a path to legal status, and to the right of Texas Senator Ted Cruz, who eventually endorsed mass deportation and banning anyone in the country illegally from becoming a citizen in the course of his hard-fought primary campaign against Trump. The remarks are further indication that Trump is reversing his previous stance on illegal immigration, after a meeting with Latino Republicans over the weekend led multiple outlets to report that Trump had vowed to move beyond his pledge to deport all undocumented immigrants from the country. But the Trump campaign threw cold water on those reports at the time. Steven Cheung, a spokesman for Trump, said on Saturday: “Trump said nothing today that he hasn’t said many times before, including in his convention speech – enforce our immigration laws, uphold the constitution and be fair and humane while putting American workers first.” Since fall of last year, Trump vowed to create a “deportation force” to eject undocumented migrants from the US, but campaign manager Kellyanne Conway, a new addition to the campaign after a leadership shakeup earlier this month, waffled on whether the candidate still embraced that idea on Sunday. “As the weeks unfold, he will lay out the specifics of that plan that he would implement as president of the United States,” Conway, a former supporter of comprehensive immigration reform, told CNN. Asked about whether those specifics included a “deportation force”, Conway replied: “To be determined.” John Weaver, former senior strategist for the presidential campaign of Ohio governor John Kasich, told the that Trump’s newfound openness to legal status for undocumented immigrants reads highly familiar – despite Trump decrying the position as tantamount to amnesty during the Republican presidential primaries. “He has jack rabbit trailed his way to John Kasich’s correct view on immigration,” Weaver said. “But, alas it won’t last. It’s like George Wallace joining the editorial board of the New York Times. Not going to last.” Trump’s flip-flop also drew scorn from those Republican diehards opposed to him. Rick Wilson, a senior adviser to independent candidate Evan McMullin and a hardcore #NeverTrump Republican, told the : “Donald Trump supporters, who flocked to him in droves for a hard line, punitive ‘deport them all’ promise must have whiplash. His new handler Kellyanne Conway has pushed him to the left of the Gang of Eight and his new amnesty plan is sure to cause heartache with his nervous fans.” In contrast, Lorella Praeli, the director of Latino Vote for the Clinton campaign, jabbed at Trump from the left over his remarks. “Yesterday in Texas, Trump doubled down on his dangerous immigration policies and once again falsely painted Latinos as criminals. Here’s a message for Trump: Latinos can see through your cynical ploys – no play of words can hide the fact that you’ve built your entire campaign on a dangerous agenda that seeks to demonize immigrants, deport 16 million people, build a giant concrete wall and send a deportation force into our communities.”
My exhausting meditation retreat: 10 days of Vipassana, silence and spiders I signed up for a Vipassana course in a moment of quiet desperation. I was coming up on close to a year of insomnia. I found myself exhausted by the anxiety of not sleeping, yet unable to find any meaningful rest. For the first time in my life I was having panic attacks. Nightly, they were triggered by the dawning realization that sleep would elude me yet again. I was also dealing with chronic pain. A bad accident as a kid followed by a series of rib fractures and back injuries over the years generated a state of permanent hurt made worse with the lack of sleep and an excess of cortisol. I chose this specific course, which took place in New Zealand, because despite the trendiness of meditation classes and apps, Vipassana seemed to be about equanimity, discipline and hard work – right up my alley. I am not the most woo woo of humans, and the idea of a giant drum circle of positive thinkers made me want to run away screaming. Vipassana is different from mindfulness meditation, which focuses on awareness, or to transcendental meditation, which uses a mantra. Instead, it dictates a blanket command of non-reaction. No matter the pain as you sit, or the fact that your hands and legs fall asleep and that your brain is crying for release. You are instructed to refocus attention on the objective sensations in your body, arising and falling, as you do a scan of your limbs in a specific order. By doing so, over 10 days, you train yourself to stop reacting to the vicissitudes of life. While descended from Buddhism, the modern-day courses are secular in nature. The father of these retreats is the late SN Goenka, who was raised in Myanmar and learned Vipassana from monks there. When a friend asked me why I was willingly heading into solitary confinement, especially since I had never meditated before, I told her I wanted to break my brain and put it back together again. “I need to defrag my hard drive,” I quipped. “It isn’t running efficiently.” I compared it to hiring a personal trainer to help me at a first-ever gym session. She disagreed. “No, it’s like running a marathon having never run before. Jodi what are you doing to yourself?” On the first day, a bell rang outside my door at 4am, reminding me that despite the darkness, it was time to wake up. I was not, nor will I ever be, a morning person. I felt a rush of anger rise up in me when I heard that sound, and fantasized about taking the gong and flinging it into the forest. So much for equanimity. I tumbled out of my cot and got ready for the 4.30am meditation session. The first day’s focus was on awareness of breath. That’s it. When your mind moved from that awareness you brought your mind back to the fact that you breathe. The simplicity of this instruction felt incredibly futile. I had a hard time focusing on my breath because of the persistent burning in my back. Regardless of how many pillows I piled under my knees, it bubbled up until it hit a crescendo. You are allowed to speak to the teacher during office hours, and I went that first day, knotted in pain and panic. Eyeing me serenely, he asked how long I had been meditating. Sheepishly, I explained that I hadn’t actually meditated before. Plus my back was falling apart. Plus I didn’t know how to focus on my breath. I should leave, right? With total calm, he told me to disassociate my panic from the pain. I was making it worse for myself by focusing on the hurt, which only magnified it for me. He told me to do my best, whatever that was. I snorted before I could help myself. “Oh, you’re one of those,” he said with a soft smile. “Perfectionism won’t help you here.” I trudged back out of the meditation hall and into the bright New Zealand sunlight, reeling. The teacher offered a wooden L-shaped contraption to help prop up my back during the meditation. As to whether I was meditating correctly, he was silent. The message was clear: I was competing against my best self, not anyone else’s. After the first three days of focusing on breathing, we were introduced to Vipassana. This involved sequences of long body scans in a specific order. Throughout, we were instructed to be aware of the sensations or pain we feel. By not allowing ourselves to react to what our bodies felt, we were training our minds to build a barrier against blind reaction. A simplistic example of the Vipassana technique: if your leg falls asleep as you are scanning your neck for objective sensations, your mind may wander to whether you’ll ever stand up again. You don’t move your leg to compensate. Instead, you refocus on the neck and ignore the part of your brain that is begging you to give attention to the leg pain. You remind yourself that the pain is temporary, just like everything else. In addition to the body scans, day four marked the beginning of “hours of strong determination”. They occurred three times a day, during which we were not allowed to move. Your leg hurts? Too bad. You itch like mad on your nose? Can’t scratch it. For the entire hour, you sit and you scan your body. Along the way if there are points of pain, you observe them impersonally as your scan reaches those points, knowing they are impermanent. In response to these new requirements, a wave of people left the course. It took all of my energy not to walk out myself. I tried to remind myself it was only 10 days. Surely I could handle 10 days of repetition and focus? I held on by a thread, until day five. An arachnophobe walks into a Vipassana meditation course When I was two, a family member took me to see Raiders of the Lost Ark. I had nightmares about spiders for years, waking up screaming in the middle of the night. My arachnophobia has never waned, and I am ashamed to admit that it has dictated some of my travel plans. Before the meditation course began I worried about the long days of silence. I did not worry about spiders. This was a mistake. The course was on a bird sanctuary outside Auckland, and I arrived only to find that spiders carpeted the wooden buildings, inside and out. When you take a Vipassana course, you agree to abide by five precepts: no killing, no stealing, no lying, no sexual misconduct and no intoxicants. No writing, no talking, no eye contact, no communicating. At the end of day one, I noticed a daddy longlegs struggling on the carpet but heading toward the door. I reached for the course schedule, only to realize I was about to kill something with a document that says you won’t kill anything. Instead, I took a deep breath, skirted around the creature, and opened my door. I stood there silently cheering its departure from my room. In the meditation hall, daddy longlegs dropped from the ceiling, feeding my anxiety. Huge black spiders dotted the corner of the room where we picked up our pillows, watching over us as we shuffled into yet another meditation session. In response, the organizers provided us with a “spider catcher”. This was a Tupperware container plus a piece of paper to slide under it for ease of transport. I did not find this helpful. Then, on day five, I hit peak spider. Just before bed, I caught a glimpse of a bulbous black spider in my peripheral vision, dropping out of a tiny hole near the ceiling. Unlike the many spiders on the veranda, this one was huge. I leapt out of bed in a panic. Every time I tried to reach the spider, it would crawl in the hole again and disappear. I left the light on, drifting off only to dream about spiders and wake up breathless. Finally I shut the light decisively. At 2am, I awoke to a feeling of deep alarm and turned the light back on. The spider was dropping from the ceiling, right above my head. Gasping, I fell sideways out of the bed. The spider, as startled as I, hastily clawed its way back toward the ceiling. I watched in horror as it spent the rest of the night eating other spiders in my room. I did not sleep at all. Studies have shown that people who are blind or deaf have heightened ability in other bodily senses. When the brain is deprived of one input source, it is capable of reorganizing itself to support and augment other senses, a phenomenon known as “cross-modal neuroplasticity”. I felt a small, temporary version of this phenomenon at the course. I could not speak or write, but my mind was whirring away at an alarming speed. Trapped in a cognitive cycle of shame and blame, my phobia of spiders was magnified. The next day, I swallowed my pride and broke my noble silence. I begged the female volunteer leader to let me switch rooms. At that point in the course several people had left, and I was able to move to a different cabin. For the rest of the week, as everyone else sat on the grass enjoying the sun between sessions, I stayed in my room, too scared to leave. It’s funny what your brain can do to you. A friend once said that in life, worrying ahead of time was futile, because what you are scared of never manifests. Instead, what you least expect creeps up behind you and scares you out of your mind. Or in my case, drops down from the ceiling in plain view. I wish I could say that the spider incident was a turning point. It was simply a bump along the way. I did fulfill my goal of making it to the end, but the course remains one of the most difficult things I’ve ever chosen to do. By day six, I felt exhausted by the pain, the sleepless nights, and a mind slowly unspooling. Some people talk about intruding memories of childhood or overly sexual thoughts during their Vipassana experience. For me, the challenge was suppressing the urge to run around like a toddler. Instead of doing a body scan, I fantasized about flinging off my pillows and running through the empty space in the center of the hall, screaming like a banshee. I daydreamed of doing snow angels on the worn carpet, making a mockery of the meditation. Day eight was the first time I sat through a “strong hour” without moving. When the gong rang, I was covered in sweat from the effort of thinking past the pain. By the end of the course, students often report feeling full body flow of energy during meditation. I did not. I felt shelves of pain along the way, no fluidity between them. But by the last day I could scan fluidly through arms or my right leg. More importantly, I could refocus my mind away from the pain. It was progress. Lessons learned I emerged from the course a calmer, temporarily less anxious version of myself. I started to sleep again. The relief of rest was palpable. I wrote down the following takeaways once I was reunited with my pen and paper: 1. Our collective obsession with finding happiness is not a reason to meditate. Logic and neuroscience might ground the modern rationale for meditation, but to meditate in order to be happy is counterintuitive. The practice is a counterweight to the jagged peaks and valleys of the human experience. To remain stable when life goes awry is a happier result than grasping for whatever society tells you will make you happy. 2. So much of what complicates our lives comes from assumptions we make and our reactions to them. In the quiet of those 10 days, you see how much your mind distorts the reality you perceive. You don’t know the background of the people taking the course with you, but you create lives for them in your mind. You project your fears on to their perception of you. For me, this meant creating inaccurate stories about the other participants, as well as their reactions to me. I kept falling asleep during morning session, keeling over into the person next to me. I heard the snickers of the group as I righted myself again, and vowed to apologize to that woman as soon as the course was over. When I did say sorry, the woman looked at me askance. “What? Don’t apologize – it was the only thing that made me smile during the last 10 days!” In the strangled silence, my brain had lost perspective. Often, anger or fears are reactions to a reality we have created in our own minds. A reflection of the stories that we tell ourselves. We take sensory input as objective, but what we see, hear and feel is not objective. It is colored by what we have known, and the grudges we hold without even realizing them. 3. You have to do the work. Shortcuts exist in life, but to train your brain you need put in a significant amount of effort. The first few days are devastating because the work is both mindless and extremely taxing. But you can see a change in a mere 10 days, with disciplined practice. 4. Perfectionism can be dangerous. Believing that doing your best isn’t good enough is dangerous. There is no perfect, and there is no objective measure of what “right” can be. The course reminded me that if you have a value system that thrives on making decisions with integrity, for the right reasons, doing your best is good enough. 5. Training yourself to stop reacting can help in tolerating pain. As someone with chronic pain, this lesson was important. I would not have come to this conclusion without the course either, because I’m far too stubborn. I can see with hindsight that by obsessing over the pain, I exacerbated it tremendously. Sometimes we hold on to what we fear and hate. While I still ache, that ache has less power over me. The distinction sounds slight but it has been liberating. One year later The Vipassana did not cure me of insomnia or anxiety permanently. Instead, it provided me with a valuable tool: it showed me that I could manage my mind more than I realized. By doing so, I felt more in control of the catastrophizing, despite the fact that it is always there. A full 10 days of constant meditation created a barrier between the worrying and me. It allowed me to observe the anxiety more objectively. The whole process calmed me at a deep and inexplicable level; I am still the same neurotic person I always was, but it imbued me with a sense of perspective I now maintain and am deeply grateful for. Would I do the course again? Definitely. A yearly 10-day silent course is recommended for those who meditate, but given the way that this one tested my body and mind, I suspect I’ll wait a little longer. Maybe 2017 is a good year to schedule my next brain defrag. A longer version of the piece can be found at legalnomads.com
For the 48%, this was a day of despair On the eve of the vote, as if this were the first act of an Elizabethan drama, a mighty storm thundered over the capital city. It seemed a tempest was raging as the kingdom prepared to decide its fate. A little more than 24 hours later, we learned of our decision. For some, that has meant jubilation. Witness Nigel Farage’s call for 23 June to become a public holiday: independence day. But for those of us who wanted to remain – the 48%, as we shall now be known – it felt like a bleak midsummer. After the initial numbed shock has come sadness, alarm and, at times, despair. The economy is part of it. The pound has plunged, the country’s credit rating may be downgraded, and major employers look likely to soon relocate away from post-Brexit Britain – just as the supposed scaremongers of “project fear” warned they would. You look at those graphs, with their cliff-edge drops, and you think: a recession is coming, one we inflicted on ourselves. The politics are part of it too. When a prime minister resigns, it can be the trigger for a wonderful feeling of catharsis, at least among his – or, famously, her – opponents. But David Cameron’s appearance at the Downing Street podium didn’t feel like an occasion to cheer. Lord knows, he’s to blame for this disaster: too weak to stand up to his own Euro-fanatic right, he instead handed them a referendum for which there had been next to no public clamour. And yet, Cameron fought doggedly for the right result these past few weeks and was gracious about going. We also know who’s coming next: Boris Johnson will surely be in Downing Street by the autumn. How perverse that, thanks to a plebiscite about ending unelected power in Brussels, we shall have an unelected ruler in Westminster. And we saw who applauded and who wept. Our friends in Paris, Berlin and Washington were stunned and disappointed. Cheering were the French Front National leader Marine Le Pen, far-right Dutch MP Geert Wilders, the Austrian far-rightist Norbert Hofer and, of course, Donald Trump – fittingly the first international visitor to this new land of Ukipania. And no doubt allowing himself a lupine grin, far away from the cameras, was one Vladimir Putin. As if to deepen the despair, we know now that the United Kingdom is set to unravel – just as we alleged doom-merchants warned it would. Nicola Sturgeon has set in train the process for a second Scottish independence referendum – and who can blame her? Scotland voted to remain in the EU and is about to be dragged out against its will. It makes perfect sense for the Scots to break free of Farage’s UK to stay in the EU. The SNP will have its referendum and it will win it. There might be a ballot in Northern Ireland too. Pretty soon it may only be England and Wales left: we are becoming little Britain. But it is not only in the physical sense that our country feels diminished. Somehow the horizons have got smaller. Four years ago, in that unforgettable Olympic opening ceremony, London welcomed the world. It presented itself as a truly global city, perhaps the greatest one – and the whole country revelled in that open-armed gesture to the world. Britain’s biggest cities have long felt that way too. What helped was the belief that these places were linked to something larger, that they were links in a chain that stretched across the channel or the North Sea and on to the continent. The Brexiteers insist that will remain true, that geographically we are not going anywhere. But maps exist in the mind too. And our participation in the common enterprise of the EU these last four decades bound us closer together. Sheffield, Birmingham, Leeds or Bristol may be separated by water from their continental counterparts, but we were all points of light in this shared venture. No longer. I suspect this is one of many reasons why the young voted so overwhelmingly to remain, a choice in which they were thwarted by the old. The next generation sees Europe less as a source of meddlers, migrant hordes and other monsters of the tabloid imagination, and more as a vista of possibilities, a place beyond these shores where they might work or travel or move freely. And now a barrier has been placed in their way. So this has felt like a day of despair for the 48%. We look at our economy, our politics and the shape of the realm, we hear Farage’s promise to bring down the entire EU – a structure that has transformed a continent of conflict into a continent of co-operation – and we tremble for the future. The funny thing is, it’s not just the 48%. There are leave voters who confessed to reporters that they never thought their side would actually win, that their vote had only ever been intended as a protest, presumed to be safe because surely everyone else would vote the other way. The BBC spoke to leavers in Manchester who admitted that they woke up thinking, “What have I done?” A Twitter user came up with a new coinage for this rapid form of buyer’s remorse: Regrexit. It’s understandable. After all, many were not really offering a settled view about the EU, so much as using the referendum to answer a set of questions not printed on the ballot paper. Just watch the video reports compiled by my colleagues John Harris and John Domokos, and you soon see that, for many Britons – especially those with low incomes – living in rundown English towns that were left behind decades ago, the questions on their mind were more concrete and direct: are you content with the status quo? Are you comfortable with immigration? Do you feel you have anything to lose? If the answer was no to any or all of those questions, then leave was the box to cross. And already it’s become clear that the verdict they delivered will not answer the questions they want answered. Note the outrage as Farage greeted the sunrise by announcing that it had been a “mistake” to suggest £350m a week could now be spent on the NHS and that, in fact, no such funds would be available. When some of those leave voters see that Brexit has not brought back the good jobs of old, that housing is still in desperately short supply and that a migrant family still lives round the corner, the Regrexit sentiment will grow. So what now? There will be negotiations. Johnson seems open to pursuing an arrangement that gives Britain much of what it values, perhaps an “associate membership” of the EU. But the first signals from Europe’s leaders are not encouraging. They want Britain gone, lest it spread its secessionist contagion to others. And yet, the regret that is palpable the morning after the storm will not dissipate soon. It will grow, as Britons contemplate all that they once cherished and which is now about to disappear, as if swept away in a summer tempest.
The European elite have developed a death wish ‘Good news for Europe,” read the first line of the analyst note. If I tell you it was from an investment bank that backed eurozone austerity to the hilt, you might guess what the good news is. Yes, François Fillon (the French Thatcher) stands poised for a runoff with Marine Le Pen (the French Mussolini) in next year’s presidential election. What could be better news for the investment banking community than having all non-fascist voters, left, right and centre, obligated to vote for a politician who wants to slash the welfare state, sack workers and extend the working day? Berenberg, the German private bank that issued the note, could not wait to celebrate Fillon’s success in the primary. “With luck,” its chief economist, Holger Schmieding, assured clients, “2017 could be more of an opportunity … than a risk.” The “opportunity” is for a Fillon government, with no credible socialist opposition, to enact “pro-growth” measures – attacking wages, hours and welfare, and enriching the people who hold €40bn in the private bank. It is symptomatic of the huge political miscalculation that the European political elite is making. The European Commission president, Jean-Claude Juncker, told an Austrian newspaper on Sunday that there would be no letup on federalising Europe; no national opt-outs from the stagnation economics administered from Brussels. Next Sunday, we get to see whether European centrism’s “double-or-quits” strategy will pay off. In Austria, where far-right populist Norbert Hofer is neck and neck with a Green candidate in the re-run of the election for the ceremonial presidency role, the left and centre are frantically trying to mobilise party-loyal working-class voters. They may fail. In Italy, on the same day, the centre-left government looks set to lose a referendum designed to strengthen the power of the executive over parliament. If the prime minister, Matteo Renzi, steps down and the markets crash, and Europe imposes a bank rescue plan that raids ordinary people’s savings, then you could get both a domestic banking and a eurozone crisis by Christmas. To complete the pattern of wilful idiocy the International Monetary Fund (IMF), according to Greek government sources, chose this week to press Greece for yet more public spending cuts – on pain, again, of the enforced collapse of its banking system. Oblivious to the neo-Nazi assaults on migrant camps in the Greek islands, the IMF in Washington – like the commission and the ECB – can only see rules and balance sheets. It feels, in short, as if the European centrist elite has developed a death wish. And once you understand European culture this morbid possibility is not so far-fetched. In his 1912 novel Death in Venice, Thomas Mann portrays the death-wish of cosmopolitan European culture through the love-obsession of a sick old man. The protagonist, Aschenbach, checks himself into a cosmopolitan hotel in plague-ridden Venice, to fulfil his wish to die. Writing two years before European cosmopolitanism did indeed die, Mann was already on top of the reasons why it might. In the novel, city authorities deny the existence of the plague – and, in so doing, create the conditions for its spread. Often read simply as a parable about love and loss, the novel in fact deals explicitly with the self-destructiveness of what Mann called the “European soul”. Mann’s settings in this and other novels – the Lido hotel, the Swiss sanatorium – emphasise the fragility of a transnational culture once crisis breaks out. For Mann, the carefully crafted polycultural world of the hotel lobby – where the Poles speak French, the Italians dress in Parisian fashion, and the band plays selections from Hungarian operetta – is a fragile illusion. When just one piece of it falls apart, everything does. Today our polyculturality is not so fragile as in the belle epoque. The Schengen freedoms are, for white people at least, real. The Erasmus programme, the EU’s student-exchange project, cross-pollinated the lives of more than three million students. Alongside the staid and worthy “city of culture” programme, Europe’s young people have been creating the real thing: in the Berlin arts scene, in massive music festivals such as Benicàssim in Spain, in the wild nightlife of contemporary Belgrade. But even this grassroots culture of globalisation is breakable, if you try hard enough – because it can only exist in a space sealed off from official politics. At the typical European bar, beach or coffee shop, tolerance exists because educated people leave their nationality and religion at the door. The assumption among the young – implicit but strong – is that all politics is bullshit and does not matter. Now politics and nationality have begun hammering on the door. And initially they have produced mainly paralysis and fear. When I asked the young people I met in Ferrara, in northern Italy, in September how they would respond to the new xenophobic wave, many spoke about “genuino clandestino” – a back-to-the-land movement that advocates disconnection with the official economy as a survival strategy against austerity. “It’s over, it’s impossible, the right has won,” are responses you will hear everywhere among the young, once you stop speaking to activists and listen to small-town kids wasting away their 20s in their grandmother’s spare room. So Fillon v Le Pen is not “good news for Europe”. Neither is Juncker’s promise to double down on all the mistakes that led us here; nor the IMF’s insistence that Greece should destroy its democracy some more; nor Renzi’s decision to play shit or bust with the Italian banking system. This is no longer a confident, transnational elite, revelling in Samuel Huntingdon’s famous description of national governments as “residues from the past whose only useful function is to facilitate the elite’s global operations”. And they are now up against a far-right international movement – Trump, Farage, the Breitbart media folks – whose coherence waxes as the globalists’ coherence wanes. We can stop this. But only if we reject the incessant demand for austerity, privatisation, longer hours, lower wages and the theft of a young generation’s future. That’s why the centre-left, in the short time available, must find the French people somebody better than Fillon.
Burt Reynolds: my family values Dad was my hero but he thought acting was for sissies. I hoped he’d get over it, but well into my career he asked when I was going to get a real job. He never acknowledged I was any good at acting, and I felt that no amount of success would make me a man in his eyes. Dad always had a job, even during the Great Depression, and would do anything to put food on the table for my mom and sister, Nancy Ann, who was born in 1930. I came along in 1936. My sister was a lot like Mom: quiet and strong. She was a terrific gal, but we never got to know each other well, I guess because of the age difference. During the second world war, Dad was a lieutenant in the field artillery and earned a chestful of medals for his role in the Normandy invasion and the Battle of the Bulge. He never talked about it. After VJ Day, he stayed in the army for three more years as part of the occupation of Japan. He was a colonel by then and the army promised to make him a general if he stayed on for another three. On hearing this, Mom said, “You may be a general, but you won’t be my husband.” Mom carried a lot on her shoulders when Dad was overseas and handled it with grace and good humour. Dad was strong but Mom, who was a head nurse, was the boss. Shortly after he came home, she announced we were moving from Michigan to Florida. He didn’t want to go, but she put her foot down. When we settled in Palm Beach County, Dad got a job in construction and I went to work with him. One day a wire caught on his finger and sliced it off from the knuckle to the tip. He didn’t even say ouch, he just picked it up, wrapped it in a handkerchief, and stuck it in his pocket. “When we get home tonight, remind me to give this to your mother,” he said. Mom was only a little surprised. She knew how he was. Dad was later appointed chief of police. One night he took me to a bar where he had to arrest two hard guys armed with knives. He told them to put the weapons down, then jammed one of the knives into the bar, snapping the blade. “Lousy blade,” he said, throwing the handle at its owner. I thought we’d have to fight our way out, but instead one of the men said, “Your dad’s a hell of a man.” I fell in love with the actress Sally Field when we worked on the 1977 film Smokey and the Bandit. Sally and I proposed to each other more than once, but every time I wanted to get married, she didn’t and vice versa. If we had married, I think we would have been like fire and gasoline. Loni Anderson and I got together after Sally and I broke up. She asked me to dance and whispered in my ear that she wanted to have my baby. We called it quits in 1993 and the press went into high gear. Princess Diana sent me a thank-you note for keeping her off the cover of People magazine. The worst part of the divorce was losing custody of Quinton, whom we’d adopted. He was only six when we split up and the judge decided he’d be better off with his mother. I was determined to be the opposite of my dad, so I made sure he knew how much I loved him. He knew he was adopted from an early age because somebody close to us decided to tell him. It’s been hard because he lives across the street from his mother. I don’t think he’s heard the greatest things from her about me. We talk on the phone, but it’s not a great relationship. I love him so much and I think he loves me, but we don’t spend as much time together as I’d like and it’s hard. Mom died in 1992, when she was 90. Dad died in his sleep exactly 10 years later, aged 95. He never said he loved me, but he did finally say that he was proud of me. And that was enough. • But Enough About Me by Burt Reynolds and Jon Winokur is published by Blink Publishing, £20
John Cale review – the Velvets' epic sound electrifies the Welsh valleys For Wales to launch its Festival of Voice – later to include a stage shared by Bryn Terfel and Van Morrison – the land of song must reach for its master-minstrel. “He’s ours,” said one fan, though John Cale left the valleys more than five decades ago, later to found the Velvet Underground. “Are you rejoining Wales, John?”, shouted another between songs; “Every time I come back, I rejoin you,” he replied. But it was not the cogency of Cale’s Wales that made this occasion remarkable, overwhelming at times. It was the relentless innovation with which Cale reworks, rewinds, remoulds, and endlessly recreates his now capacious catalogue of music-without-borders. This time, his band and its epic sound was supplemented by a choir for which Cale had assembled local classical singers alongside the House Gospel Choir from London, and a chamber orchestra. The chorus were given the lyrics and urged to sing as they felt, and the effect was electrifying: seeming to bring together Harlem soul, the Welsh National Opera and the traditions of chapel, coal-mine and rugby oratorio into a fusion reactor of both careful crafting and live spontaneity. Plus, of course, the epic, organic potency of Cale’s now regular LA-based band and the sophistication – sometimes dense, sometimes icily sparse – that Cale can bring to a string section, as when he premiered the orchestration of his album Paris 1919 here a while back, again writing the scores himself. Time Stands Still opened the show, with an orchestral overture that seemed to blend the Velvets’ drone with Alban Berg, before presaging the electro-symphonic and foreboding soundscape of the night. A matter of weeks ago at the London Roundhouse, Cale sung his searing If You Were Still Around as a longing, yearning ballad – but tonight, it opened with a choral line that could have come from Schnittke and proceeded into a gospel anthem. The only Velvet song on the playlist was Nico’s painfully beautiful Sunday Morning, which Cale had not sung himself until a performance of the “Banana” album in Paris a month ago – lyrical then, but sung and played tonight as though a storm was brewing over the coming day. A brass section joined in for Thoughtless Kind, and the vastness of Cale’s electro-symphonic scale, which reached critical mass for Ship of Fools, was redacted to naked intimacy for I Keep a Close Watch, stroking our exposed nerves just roughly enough. There were guests, and how. Michael Sheen recited Dylan Thomas’s And Death Shall Have No Dominion in a manner that seemed to sing atop the choral lines, while Charlotte Church turned the often reflective Gravel Drive into a puissant aria of operatic drama by Bellini. The core of the evening was, arguably, the terrifying Wasteland, with its bursts of gunfire, huge chord movements and chorus line, “You comfort me”, sung so as to be utterly comfortless. Of late, Cale has amplified this song to sound like a requiem for the rubble of places like Warsaw or Dresden in 1945, Sarajevo, Grozny or Homs in our time. But a filmed backdrop of bare, windblown trees and frenzied insects gave it a fearsome new suggestion of environmental armageddon. Cale’s now established band, his best ever, has perfected the sheer quality of its sound, but is never content to rest without further adventure and exploration. Guitarist Dustin Boyer (by far Cale’s longest running partner) at times unleashed himself into glorious solos, but was all about sonority tonight, stretching the instrument to its limits – pounding the strings as though they were a keyboard, on his lap, for the usually skittish, tonight haunted, Hanky Panky Nohow. Joey Maramba growled and bowed his bass to formidable proportions, driven on by Deantoni Parks’ drumfire. Unlike so many major musicians of his generation, Cale – now 74, voice eerier and more vehement that ever – is unable to play or sing on a treadmill, to do anything the same again. If it is not “dirty-assed rock and roll”, or orchestrations of his repertoire, or even amplification from flying drones (as at the Barbican recently), it is this music from a rapacious range of sources which – as Cale’s timbres and colours evolve with time – becomes more ominous, perturbed, apocalyptic; a place where ennui and power collide, in music dense with subliminal inspirations and warnings, swirling with undercurrents and rip-tides. Whatever next? The mind boggles. • Festival of Voice, Cardiff, continues until 12 June.
My fertility problems made me feel like a failure When I started trying to conceive aged 26, I knew it wouldn’t be easy – I had endometriosis, polycystic ovaries and periods so infrequent that if everyone were like this, the birth rate would plummet. For a year, nothing happened. My initial (misplaced) optimism gave way to nervousness, and then dejection crept in. One by one, my friends got pregnant, while I still hadn’t even had a period. I got married, went on honeymoon, and then I began to bleed. The pain was so acute that I couldn’t stand up straight. I bled for a month. I thought it was just my endometriosis again. One morning, I couldn’t get out of bed. I was having an ectopic pregnancy. There was a huge amount of internal bleeding. I lost my fallopian tube and along with it, the pregnancy. The woman in the hospital bed opposite me was having an ectopic pregnancy with twins. This was her second twin ectopic in six months. She was about to lose her remaining fallopian tube and, with it, her chance of conceiving naturally. About 10 members of her family were standing around her bed, shouting recriminations at her as though she had done it just to spite them. That night, staring at the ceiling after the surgery to remove the pregnancies and the fallopian tube, she began to wail. A nurse moved me to an empty ward, apologising for the woman’s raw, agonised howls. I didn’t need an apology, I completely understood her reaction. For a year following the ectopic pregnancy, my career, marriage and other relationships suffered. I couldn’t concentrate at work, I didn’t want to go out with my friends, I found it impossible to focus on anything but the need to be pregnant. I was grieving the loss of the ectopic pregnancy and I was full of self-loathing at my failure to conceive. I took Clomid, which is supposed to regulate periods, theoretically increasing the chances of getting pregnant. I took it for six months and every time it failed, I hated myself. I was stupid, I had failed, I should have done something differently (although what I could have done differently, I still don’t know). A year after the ectopic pregnancy, almost to the day, I started IVF on the NHS. I was given a set of needles and a blue box to put them in. Before I could start injecting myself, I took Provera to make me have a period. Nothing happened – no period. I did a pregnancy test in the toilets at work. When I called my GP, I told her it must be a mistake – had the Provera given me a false positive? She laughed. After two years of trying, I was really, actually pregnant. I now have two children. Two kids that look like potatoes. I know how lucky I am. I still can’t quite believe they’re real. I had NHS counselling after the ectopic pregnancy, arranged by a sympathetic junior doctor as I lay in my hospital bed following surgery. Five years later, I’m still hugely grateful to the doctor and to the counsellor for her kindness and support. Sometimes you need to speak to someone who’s neutral, who doesn’t love you, and so won’t feel miserable that you’re miserable. You don’t have to worry that you’re upsetting them. The lost pregnancy isn’t their lost grandchild or niece or cousin. They’ll listen without trying to fix the problem for you. When I look back on that time, I still find it terribly sad that I believed it was my fault. I want to cry when my friends who have experienced infertility think the same. It’s not their fault. It wasn’t my fault. According to the NHS, one in six couples – about 3.5 million people in the UK will have trouble conceiving. Yet it still isn’t widely discussed. I have many friends who have struggled with fertility issues, but who are reluctant to talk about it to anyone. They feel ashamed. They think it’s their fault. In some cases, even their own parents don’t know what they’ve been through. Infertility is horrible and awful, and when people say IVF is a “lifestyle choice” that shouldn’t be available on the NHS, I stare at them in disbelief. Having a child isn’t like buying a yacht or going on holiday to the Bahamas. This dismissive, scathing attitude perpetuates the sense of shame around infertility, as though you’re self-indulgent for wanting a child. I find it baffling and maddening when I hear arguments like “get a puppy” or “there are too many people in the world, anyway”. Are you really that crass and insensitive? I assume that people who make such statements have never seen someone they care about suffer the pain of infertility. Nobody should be mocked or called selfish for wanting to have a baby. If people were kinder towards those who are struggling to conceive, and if individuals with infertility problems talked about it more openly, perhaps this would dispel the sense of shame, and reduce cases of anxiety and depression among sufferers.
Stephen King's Shining sequel to be adapted for big screen Doctor Sleep, Stephen King’s sequel to The Shining, is to be brought to film. The novel, which became a bestseller upon release in 2013, is being adapted by Akiva Goldsman, who won an Oscar for adapting A Beautiful Mind and also wrote the scripts for Batman & Robin and Practical Magic. The plot follows Danny Torrance years after the events in the Overlook Hotel as he suffers from the trauma of what happened to him and his family. He develops a psychic link to a 12-year-old girl who he must save after she gets involved with a sinister group of paranormals. King will be an executive producer on the project while a director is still to be confirmed. It’s one of a number of King adaptations on the way. Later this year sees the release of Cell, with John Cusack and Samuel L Jackson while It and The Dark Tower, starring Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey are also heading towards production. King has confessed that he’s not a fan of Stanley Kubrick’s take on The Shining. Last year, he spoke to Rolling Stone and called the movie “misogynistic” for presenting Wendy Torrance as “a screaming dishrag”. He was also involved in a TV miniseries based on the same book, starring Steven Weber and Rebecca de Mornay.
What could happen if the article 50 legal challenge is successful? What is happening in the article 50 court case? Judgment is awaited on whether parliament or the government has authority to give formal notification under article 50 of the Treaty on the European Union of the UK’s intention to leave the EU. The government claims it is entitled to do so under the executive powers it has inherited from the crown under the royal prerogative. How does this tie in with the article 50 case in Belfast? A similar claim, which additionally stressed devolution law, has already been heard in the high court in Belfast. The 1998 Good Friday Agreement prevents Brexit being imposed on the people of Northern Ireland, Ronan Lavery QC told the court earlier this month. The former Northern Ireland justice minister, David Ford, nationalist and Green politicians have brought the claim. Judgment in that case is also awaited. Both claims, whichever way they go, are expected to be appealed directly to the UK’s supreme court in Westminster. A hearing, probably in front of at least nine justices, has been pencilled in for early December. Who has brought the cases? While attention has focused on the lead claimant in London, 51-year-old Gina Miller, a Guyanese-born and British-educated businesswoman, there are scores of other litigants and interveners. The second lead claimant there is Deir Dos Santos, a London hairdresser. Both Miller and Dos Santos are British citizens. Others funding the challenge include people living in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, British expatriates living in the EU, Gibraltarians worried about the future status of the Rock and the children of non-EU nationals. All worry that Brexit may deprive them of existing rights. Death threats have been made against claimants, prompting the judges to warn that those interfering with the case could be imprisoned for contempt of court. If they win, could this stop Brexit? Victory for the claimants would hand responsibility for triggering Brexit to MPs. Whether a majority would have the nerve to delay or defy the referendum result is unknown. Many, though personally committed remainers, may feel bound by the popular plebiscite. Other politicians might respect constituency pressures. Both the Scottish and Welsh devolved governments retained barristers on a watching brief at the London hearing. They could join the case at the supreme court, reinforcing legal opposition to Theresa May’s executive action. How worried is the government? It is difficult to predict the outcome of a case. The attorney general, Jeremy Wright QC, the government’s most senior legal adviser, led its team of lawyers in London to demonstrate political commitment to Brexit. The judges hearing the case include the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, who at one point in the three-day hearing admitted that he was “slightly baffled” by government lawyers’ arguments. Sir Terence Etherton, the new Master of the Rolls, asked whether the fact that parliament had not specified the precise limits of the royal prerogative meant that “the government can remove common law rights?” The claimants have exploited the Bill of Rights 1689, a piece of legislation revered by Eurosceptics, pointing out that it “expressly prohibits the use of the prerogative in circumstances where its exercise would ‘suspend’ or ‘dispense’ statutory law”. The outcome is hanging in the balance. If it goes to the supreme court, then what? Technically, there could be an appeal to the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg, the EU’s highest court, on a point of law. No one, however, wants the EU to decide on the limits of parliamentary sovereignty. If the supreme court rules against the government, parliament is likely to be given a vote on when, and possibly how, to trigger Brexit. Who’s paying? Miller, who is an investment manager, has been funding her claim. Much of the additional cash has come from various crowdfunding websites.
Seth Rogen's animated film Sausage Party is provocative food for thought Over the years, the SXSW film festival has become known for its work-in-progress screenings, in which a major film that’s allegedly not finished is previewed, months ahead of its actual release date. Past highlights have included Bridesmaids, Trainwreck and Furious 7 – but though they were billed as incomplete, they were basically finished products, save some color correcting and sound tinkering. But this was not the case for Sony’s R-rated animated comedy Sausage Party, from Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, who co-wrote This is the End. “To the work-in-progress nature of this, I’ve heard people say: ‘Yeah, it’s a work in progress,’ and they haven’t like color timed it or some shit,” Rogen said when introducing the film to a packed house in Austin on Monday. “This is a fucking work in progress. You will very quickly see this is not semantical trickery – it’s not fucking done.” He wasn’t kidding. The loony opening song number, which sees every food item in a grocery store spring to life to sing a profanity-laden song about the “great beyond” (the place they believe they go after the checkout counter), appeared scrappy, with unfinished computer visuals and the occasional still frame. The same went for the the film’s gonzo finale. But that in no way distracted from the inspired lunacy Rogen, Goldberg, and directors Conrad Vernon and Greg Tierana, have managed to conjure up in Sausage Party. Rogen voices the aptly named hot-dog Frank, who eagerly awaits the day he’ll reach the “great beyond”, so he can be freed from his package to slip inside his sexy girlfriend hot-dog bun Brenda (Kristen Wiig). His dreams are thwarted following a brutally realized shopping-cart collision (picture the opening of Saving Private Ryan with food products instead of soldiers) that sees Frank separated from his fellow wieners, and thrust onto a quest to learn what really happens when food leaves the store. This is distinctly non-Pixar territory, despite its core similarities to Toy Story. The lead villain is an actual douche (voiced by Nick Kroll), Salma Hayek features as a lesbian taco with the hots for Brenda and Edward Norton does his best Woody Allen impression to play a Jewish bagel who butts heads with an Arabic flatbread. As they did with their controversial comedy The Interview, Rogen and Goldberg upend racial and cultural stereotypes to deliver a film that delights in being as politically incorrect as the MPAA would allow. (“You can show food fuck!” Rogen gleefully said when asked how Sony got Sausage Party past the censors.) Despite its provocative nature, Rogen insisted during an onstage Q&A that Sausage Party “honestly came from an innocent place”. “People like to project their emotions on to the things around them – their toys, their cars, their pets,” said Rogen. “That’s what Pixar’s done for the last 20 years. So we thought: ‘What would it be like if our food had feelings?’ We very quickly realized that it would be fucked up.” Sausage Party also offers food for thought amidst all the crude humor. In addition to being a film about our food, it is also a film that questions the existence of god – and the harm religion can breed. Rogen said that the theological aspect of Sausage Party came into focus as he and Goldberg developed the project over eight years. “It’s so weird to say that about a movie where you just saw a turnip blow a radish,” said Rogen. Vernon said the animation will be completed in a month, with lighting effects finished in May. Legendary composer Alan Menken (Aladdin) is set to handle the score. “He’s deeply ashamed of this,” Rogen joked. Sausage Party opens in the US on 12 August.
Zynga in deeper chaos as CEO Mark Pincus resigns again Mark Pincus has stepped down as CEO of his struggling online gaming company Zynga for the second time. Replacing him is gaming veteran and current Zynga board member Frank Gibeau, the company announced on its blog. Pincus, an affable Silicon Valley character whose wealth is estimated at about $1bn, founded the company seven years ago and first resigned in April 2014 after a dramatic fall in the company’s stock market value. He returned as CEO in April 2015, but this second stint only lasted less than a year. Zynga stock has fallen 85% from its 2012 high. Zynga’s fortunes soared with the massively popular game Farmville, one of the first big social media gaming phenomenons. It has since struggled to find similar hits, in part because people tire of games and quickly find new ones, which flooded the market, including King’s Candy Crush and Rovio’s Angry Birds. Also, users began shifting toward mobile games, while Zynga had made its splash with desktop. And probably more than anything: Facebook, its primary distribution platform, continued tweaks to Facebook’s newsfeed have had the effect of demoting Zynga’s content. Pincus stepping down isn’t entirely unexpected. He has had to cut staff from 3,500 to about 2,300, and put the company’s iconic headquarters up for sale on 23 February. A massive seven-story building in San Francisco’s Design District bought for $228m in 2012, the site includes a basketball court, gym, candy shop, and old time Winnebago. Parties at the headquarters (and there were always parties) were spectacular, and its closure marks the end of a certain heady era for those who believed wacky viral games could become viable businesses. Gibeau’s background is in mobile gaming, including two decades at games stalwart Electronic Arts. He’ll be pushing on some of Zynga’s more successful ventures like their slot-machine games, which have in the past year become a major focus for the company. News of the new CEO sent stock up after hours more than 7%.
Letters: where are the politicians who will challenge the consensus? I have been reading the since the age of 14. Now nearing 70, I was reminded why by Nick Cohen’s razor-sharp and deeply rational analysis of the rise of populism and its pervasive influence over current political direction (Comment). Read in conjunction with Andrew Rawnsley’s plea to at least give a fair hearing to Blair and Major with their 17 years of experience at the summit of political decision-making and we have a powerful if depressing landscape upon which to cast our eyes. I almost cheered when Cohen reminded us that what in the past kept demonstrably despicable regimes in power was the idea that “you can only vote for them once”. It is perfectly reasonable to change one’s mind. It is not unusual to consult “the people” again once the facts are known. It is understandable to want to revisit a decision when the stakes are so high. So where are the contemporary politicians with the courage, integrity and sheer guts to stand up to the bias and toxicity of the rightwing press and speak out? And when we find them (Tim Farron, Caroline Lucas, Kenneth Clarke), why do the wider media, particularly the BBC, not have the balls to give them proper coverage instead of parading the likes of Nigel Farage constantly before our gaze? Have the moguls at the corporation stopped reading the ? I haven’t. Dr Rod Paton Southampton Can Nick Cohen really be serious when comparing Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon to Recep Erdogan and Donald Trump, or the true Finns, and suggesting that they are in some way “rightwing nationalists”? Their crime: daring to challenge the palpably nonsensical idea that Scotland might not be able to survive as an independent state. He then goes further and suggests that the progressive, social democratic, secessionist movement in Scotland is creating a climate of intimidation and intolerance. His arguments are also somewhat inconsistent: the winners of the referendum in Scotland are being ignored, in the way the losers of the UK referendum are. His call for the British people to have the right to a second opinion presumably would not extend to the Scottish people having a second independence referendum, despite having returned 56 SNP MPs out of 59, in a general election the year after the referendum. Michael Mullen Glasgow Build a better Britain Mike Gotch is surely wrong to suggest that housing should be built “close to centres of employment” – that is, over the green belt (Big issue). The unconstrained free market means that London and the south-east have acted for several decades as an economic black hole, sucking in jobs, people and housing. This has led to overbuilding, traffic and pollution and a lack of investment – productive and cultural – in much of the rest of the country. The solution is a national policy to support the regions, aiming to give every part of the country good jobs, homes and infrastructure. This should have happened 40 years ago, but such planning was then ideologically unfashionable. It’s not too late to start now. Mark Hurtwell Woking Let’s all be flexible Katie Allen is right to identify flexible working as part of the solution to the UK’s productivity problem (“Hammond needs to look beyond road-building to lift UK’s productivity”, Business). In our annual survey, two-thirds of working mothers consistently say they would think about childcare arrangements before taking a new job or a promotion. But, actually, shifting the starting point so that all jobs are advertised flexibly as the norm rather than the exception would propel flexibility from being a favour to mothers to being the accepted way of doing business. Hiring managers would think through the best way to get the job done and what workers can realistically achieve in the hours allocated to the role. Those employers who have already embraced flexibility as their modus operandi report increased engagement, motivation, loyalty and, hence, productivity. Sarah Jackson Chief executive Working Families London SE5 Damned statistics Much as I admire William Keegan, I worry I will soon be seeing him driving around Britain’s high streets in a bus with the slogan: “Only 28% of the population voted for Brexit!” (Business, last week) painted on the side. I think he is in danger of destroying his case with the dubious use of figures; after all, one could say that fewer than 28% of the population voted Remain. Andrew Jukes Eye, Suffolk Next door to Alice Born and bred in Alice Bacon’s Leeds constituency, I was reminded by Rachel Reeves’s fascinating article (Comment) of her winning slogan in the 1945 general election: “Alice Bacon knows your needs, send her back for North-East Leeds”. Moira Redfern London W3
Readers recommend playlist: songs about climate change Below is this week’s playlist – picked by a reader from the comments on last week’s blog. Thanks for your suggestions. Read more about the weekly format of the Readers recommend series at the end of the piece. In 1974, Jackson Browne’s celebration of the back-to-the-land movement, Before the Deluge, which starts this week’s playlist, contained this one eerily prescient verse that served to dampen the spirits of that generally optimistic generation: Some of them were angry At the way the earth was abused By the men who learned how to forge her beauty into power And they struggled to protect her from them Only to be confused By the magnitude of her fury in the final hour The idiosyncrasies of 20th century weather could be the topic of comical pieces, such as Flanders and Swann’s engaging A Song of the Weather, or the blackly humorous Hard Day on the Planet by Loudon Wainwright III which includes the lines: In California the body counts keep getting higher It’s evil out there, man, that state is always on fire As we approached the turn of the millennium, however, there was a greater sense of accountability for the problems of the planet. Our waste, our emissions, our extractive industries, our sheer numbers were threatening the ecosystems we depended on. You can hear the grief in Tracy Chapman’s haunting song that accuses us of just standing by and watching The Rape of the World, you can hear the anger in Michael Jackson’s Earth Song, and you can hear the profound sadness in New Model Army’s Ballad, accompanied by a fabulously mournful harmonica: When they look back at us and they write down our history What will they say about our generation? We’re the ones who knew everything still we did nothing Harvested everything, planted nothing I chose the next three songs because they seem to me to represent the spirit of enquiry that was the next important step. Corb Lund’s song The Truth Comes Out is an observent but low-key song about the effects of climate change on wildlife in the foothills of Alberta. As Baylor Fox-Kemper’s nomination suggests Andrew Revkin’s Liberated Carbon provides some geological background, and Melissa Etheridge’s passionate anthem to personal responsibility, I Need To Wake Up, was used in Al Gore’s influential climate change documentary An Inconvenient Truth. Next up are two contrasting songs – one angry, one resigned nevertheless both looking towards a very changed planet and a very difficult human future. The Restarts insist there is No Escape from global warming, and French for Rabbits sing an elegy for a home Claimed by the Sea. I can’t completely explain the reason I chose to end this playlist with Harry Belafonte’s Turn the World Around. Several nominated songs made me feel hopeful for the future but none more than this one. I appreciated the simplicity of the message, we need to get back to the basic elements of life, and I was inspired by his amazing, never-give-up energy. Enjoy the music. New theme The theme for next week’s playlist will be announced at 8pm (UK time) on Thursday 28 April. You have until 11pm on Monday 2 May to make nominations. Next week’s playlist will be compiled by Andrew Morrissey, who posts in the comments as Makinavaja. Here’s a reminder of some of the guidelines for RR: If you have a good theme idea, or if you’d like to volunteer to compile a playlist from readers’ suggestions and write a blog about it, please email matthew.holmes@theguardian.com or add it here via Witness. There’s a wealth of data on RR, including the songs that are “zedded”, at the Marconium. It also tells you the meaning of “zedded”, “donds” and other strange words used by RR regulars. Many RR regulars also congregate at the ’Spill blog.
Protesters take to streets near Conservative conference in Birmingham Thousands of trade unionists and other activists have marched through Birmingham to protest at the start of the Conservative party conference in the city. Carrying banners largely protesting at austerity and cuts, but also referring to Brexit and a host of other issues, the crowd was marshalled by a heavy police presence and, in the main, kept its distance from the conference venue. Some reports said up to 20,000 people took part, though police did not have their own estimate. A West Midlands police spokesman said there had been one arrest, of a 17-year-old for an alleged breach of the peace after running through crowds with his face covered. He was being held until his parents arrived, the spokesman said. Much of the march was organised by trade unions and there was representation from leftwing parties. Chants supporting the Labour leader began before the protesters even arrived in Birmingham, with “There’s only one Jeremy Corbyn” breaking out on the platform at London’s Euston station. In one of the speeches, a senior union official called for the mandatory re-selection of Labour MPs, reopening one of the divisions debated at that party’s conference in Liverpool last week. Speaking from the top of a fire engine, John McInally, vice president of the Public and Commercial Services Union, said: “Let’s get this clear, it is not bullying and it is not intimidation to call for mandatory re-selection of MPs. That is nothing more than a basic democratic demand. “Being an MP is not a career for life, and those who say they want to represent the Labour movement should be accountable to the Labour movement. And just imagine if those MPs fought the Tories with the same determination that they are fighting Jeremy and John [McDonnell, the shadow chancellor].” Away from the main march, several other groups were allowed to protest closer to the conference venue. Just outside the security cordon stood a group of women protesting against changes to women’s pensions, increasing the age at which they can claim. Nearby was a group calling for an renewed inquiry into the 1974 pub bombings. Closest of all to the security cordon was an intrepid pair of Ukip activists, handing out leaflets and inviting Tory delegates to “come home”. “We’ve not had any conversions today,” said one of the men, in a yellow Ukip T-shirt. “But a few people have taken leaflets. So you never know.”
Bob Arum says he wants to promote Donald Trump v Bernie Sanders debate Veteran boxing promoter Bob Arum has offered to promote a possible debate between Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. “It’s the debate of the century between two of the top pound for pound politicians in the country: Mr Trump, the Republican Party’s presumptive nominee and Senator Sanders, the Democratic candidate,” Arum said in a release issued Thursday. “We have two contenders ready, willing and able to go mano a mano over the most important issues facing the United States. And I am ready to promote it.” The idea of a debate between Trump and Sanders has gained steam in the day since it was first proposed during Trump’s appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live on Wednesday night. “If I debated him [Sanders], we would have such high ratings, and I think we should take that money and give it to some worthy charity,” the presumptive Republican presidential nominee told the late-night TV host. Trump, who on Thursday crossed the threshold of delegates needed to secure the party’s presidential nomination, seemed to waver on his willingness to debate Sanders after initially doubling down on them at a morning press conference in North Dakota, where he said: “I’d love to debate Bernie – he’s a dream.” Sanders’ response on Twitter confirmed his interest, but a Trump aide later clarified that the candidate was joking and had no intent of debating the senator from Vermont. Arum said 80% of the net proceeds will go to the charity or charities of the candidates’ choice, agreed upon in advance, with a minimum donation of $20m. The moderator or moderators will be subject to the approval of the candidates, though Arum has recommended Hillary Clinton, Ted Cruz and Mitt Romney. The 84-year-old chairman and CEO of Top Rank Promotions is no stranger to the political arena. As a Harvard Law graduate working as an attorney in the tax division of Robert F Kennedy’s Justice Department during the mid-1960s, Arum abruptly changed careers after he audited a fight and saw how much money could be made. He’s been a major force in boxing since, promoting such towering figures as Muhammad Ali (27 fights), Marvin Hagler (20), George Foreman (14) and Sugar Ray Leonard (seven).
New band of the week: Cabbage (No 115) – butt-naked political truth-talking Hometown: Mossley. The lineup: Lee Broadbent (lead vocals), Joe Martin (vocals, guitar), Eoghan Clifford (guitar), Stephen Evans (bass), Asa Morley (drums). The background: Cabbage have been described as “Manchester’s most exciting new band”, a phrase still guaranteed to tantalise, even if you happen to believe the last musical aggregate of note the city produced was a quarter-century ago. It wouldn’t be hard, on the 40th anniversary of the Sex Pistols laying siege at the Lesser Free Trade Hall, to argue that Manchester has produced more great music than anywhere else in Britain these last four decades. So the idea that Cabbage – from Mossley, an insignificant dead zone eight miles east of Manchester – might be the next in line after Buzzcocks, Magazine, the Fall, Joy Division, New Order, A Certain Ratio, the Smiths, Happy Mondays, 808 State and A Guy Called Gerald makes them at least worthy of investigation. Actually, turns out they’re more like a northern version of Fat White Family’s southern uproar, with a dash of the Fall’s garage rumble and Shaun Ryder’s dingy surrealism. The name Cabbage suggests they’re steeped in the banal minutiae of British life and so it proves, with their songs about dinner ladies and austerity, but there is a political inflection that gives them an angry charge. They call it an “idiosyncratic, satirical attack in the form of discordant neo post-punk”, and there is a similar sense of literate but degenerate transgression to FWF, with a penchant for juvenilia, if not outright scatology and coprophilia. In one song the protagonist, a male food operative at a public school, does end up having a “wank in the quiche”, and in the video to another they liquidise a bunch of food detritus and pour the resulting brown goo all over themselves, with shades of Earl Sweatshirt’s gob-smacking video to Earl. Perhaps not surprisingly, they’re fans of the vile, vilified GG Allin. “GG Allin is a big inspiration,” says singer-guitarist Joe Martin, whose dad went to school with Thomas “Mensi” Mensforth of Oi! band the Angelic Upstarts. “Lee [Broadbent, lead vocals] showed me a video of him on stage, having a shit and getting his little willy out, and it fascinated me. He’s a true heart-on-sleeve original, who died for his cause. It may not have been a very focused cause, but he was artistically great.” Martin considers the other Cabbagers “a bunch of scruffy bastards”, adding, “I was instantly at home when I found them – I realised I wasn’t the only one who hadn’t had a wash.” He likes “the thought that anything can happen” at a Cabbage gig, and indeed concerts have seen all the members disrobing, although in his defence this is largely because “it gets really hot”. It’s not, he argues, premeditated, merely the corollary of their going-for-it attitude that is itself the result of them getting wound up by matters both trivial and titanic. “Unless you’ve had your head in a washing machine for your entire adult life, how are you not writing about something political?” wonders Martin of his disengaged indie peers. “It’s baffling. No bands are saying anything whatsoever.” Cabbage have mixed feelings about their home turf, aware that the city’s future cannot merely be based on its admittedly impressive history. “It’s dying from resting on its laurels,” moans Martin, who prefers the doomy, dark Manchester of Joy Division to the acid-house happy iteration of the Roses et al. “We’re not claiming to be bastions of originality, but it doesn’t seem to take much effort to step away from the past. Manchester got that big, exploded, and the ashes are everywhere. Someone needs to blow the cobwebs off. You only have to walk down the street and see all the Liam Gallagher-alikes with their sideburns flapping in the wind to see it. It’s 20 years since Knebworth, and people are still talking about it. Tony Wilson said, ‘We do things differently here.’ That’s died a death.” One response to this moribund state is the acrid grotesquerie of Cabbage’s music and videos. A class-war diatribe, new single Dinner Lady – out now on Tim Burgess’ Ogenesis label – opens with one of the band vomiting into a bin. In Kevin, which explores the nature of consciousness and “the debate between reproduction and immortality”, bassist Stephen Evans plays a religious cult leader who violently inducts the other members into his sect before brainwashing them. From their Le Chou EP, Contactless Payment and Austerity Languish examine what it’s like to live in Brexit Britain with no money or prospects. Musically, Cabbage haven’t alighted upon a new paradigm to match, say, the Mondays’ squalid funk and scabrous disco, but new songs Necro Flat in the Palace and It’s Grim Up North Korea, which draws parallels between British working-class life and Kim Jong-un’s DPRK, indicate a move in the right direction, the latter evincing a degree of motorik propulsion. And Corbyn rant Terrorist Synthesiser will, promises Martin, find them “experimenting in other musical realms”. But you get the impression Cabbage eschew hipster genres like krautrock in favour of opting for something more primitive. All the better to simply communicate their bleak message: that this age is a mess. But are they as unruly as they seem? “No, we’re very polite,” reassures Martin, who studied music journalism at college, so he can’t be all bad. “Our northern-boy charms will get us a long way.” The buzz: “Manchester’s most exciting new band.” The truth: They’re a scabrous object in the path of the obvious. Most likely to: Throw light on the parlous sociopolitical situation in this country. Least likely to: Throw up. What to buy: Dinner Lady is out now on Ogenesis. File next to: Fat White Family, Egyptian Hip Hop, Happy Mondays, Wu Lyf. Links: ahcabbage.bandcamp.com/album/le-chou Ones to watch: Puppy, Alexandra Savior, Exploded View, Kinder, Nova Twins.
Male contraceptive jab is really the elixir of eternal youth Perhaps you expect us to know that “French painter Vigée le Brun” is Louise Élisabeth Vigée le Brun (Rare appearance for portrait of Emma Hamilton, 24 October). The artist’s gender is crucial to this painting’s many observational subtleties and thematic ironies, not least because here a celebrated woman artist (uncommon, to put it mildly, in 1790), in depicting a woman who famously made a career out of presenting herself in “attitudes” for the male gaze (here “Lady Hamilton as Ariadne”), shows us – wittily but not bitchily – how this sitter also confronts the gifted appraising eye of another woman. John MacInerney London • One of my grandchildren went to the Globe with school, no doubt to enjoy “the conditions within which Shakespeare and his contemporaries worked” (Letters, 27 October). Her mother asked what she thought of the performance. “It rained,” said the child. “Well…?” from her parent. “No fucking roof,” was the reply. Christine Hawkes Cambridge • Side effects: acne, depression and increased libido (Male contraceptive jab effective in trials, 28 October). Have they finally stumbled on the elixir of eternal youth? Jean Glasberg Cambridge • Katy Guest (The Week in Books, Review, 29 October) reports that David Cameron has sold his memoirs for book publication, but is still in need of a title. Could I suggest Laugh Out Loud? John Pawsey Milton Keynes • Could I suggest Making a Pig’s Ear out of a Silk Purse. Dave Crook Birmingham • My GPs’ surgery now refuses to accept magazines on the grounds of “health and safety” (Letters, 28 October). I have managed to sneak a few in, though. Rosalind Clayton York • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
Tickets trader Viagogo criticised for 'callous resale profiteering' The ticketing website Viagogo has been branded “disgusting” for seeking to profit from a charity event hosted by the actor and comedian Peter Kay to raise funds for Cancer Research UK. Criticism of Viagogo came as it emerged that the company and its competitors faced being questioned by a parliamentary select committee amid a political crackdown on ticket touting. Tickets for Kay’s Dance for Life events went on sale last weekend at a face value of £28.50, with all profits donated to the cancer charity. Hundreds of fans tried to buy tickets as soon as they went on sale, but missed out and thensaw tickets for the events appear on Viagogo minutes later and for hundreds of pounds. There has been growing scrutiny of touts who use a variety of specialist methods to harvest hundreds of tickets within seconds to sell at a profit via secondary ticketing platforms such as Viagogo. Tickets for the Dance for Life event appeared on Viagogo’s website over the weekend. One ticket, at the Ricoh Arena in Coventry, was listed for £9,745.95, including VAT and a “booking fee” of £2,062.50 that would go directly to Viagogo if a buyer were found. Industry insiders said the highest priced tickets tended to be listed as a publicity stunt rather than with an expectation of a sale, but that many other tickets listed for hundreds of pounds were likely to sell. Viagogo, which has a large call centre in London but has headquarters in Geneva, typically takes up to 25% on the value of tickets sold. Claire Rowney, director of Stand Up To Cancer, at Cancer Research UK, said: “All the money we raise will help fund vital research that will accelerate new treatments and tests to UK patients and save more lives, more quickly. We’ve been made aware that tickets are being sold for much more than the set ticket price, with the profit going to the seller and not to the charity. “Cancer Research UK relies entirely on the generosity of the public to fund our life-saving research and so we encourage anyone who is buying a ticket, to support the event, to be aware of any sellers who are not donating all the profits to Stand Up To Cancer.” The Conservative MP Nigel Adams, who recently tabled an amendment recommending criminalisation of the use by touts of software called “bots” to harvest tickets, called on Viagogo to donate its profits to Cancer Research UK. “I would like to think that Viagogo would do the right thing and donate [an] appropriate margin from their commission towards the charity. I’m sure Peter Kay would be interested. If they don’t it would be a sad reflection on them.” Kay did not respond to requests for comment. Adams added that he hoped to talk in person to executives from ticket resale firms such as Viagogo, StubHub, GetMeIn and Seatwave. “I’ll be pushing for a further select committee enquiry into ticketing because technology has developed. Industrial touting and the fleecing of fans continues apace. I’d like to see all the ticketing sites appear before the inquiry.” The Labour MP Sharon Hodgson, who has campaigned for reform of ticketing, said: “It seems that nothing is beyond their grasp and greed. And their willingness to exploit some of the most vulnerable in society whilst they are in a life or death battle – such as cancer patients – by profiteering in such a callous fashion, shows the very worst aspect of their business model.” Fans expressed their disappointment on Twitter after missing out on tickets and seeing them resold at a profit. Kiah Smith, 19, from Leeds, said she, her mother and a friend tried to get tickets for the Lancashire comedian’s dance-a-thon the morning they went on sale but were unsuccessful. “I am absolutely disgusted tickets that were originally bought for the original face value of £28.50 are now being sold for £100 and above,” she said. “There are genuine fans and people who want to go to the show to see Peter Kay and raise money for charity, and ticket touts are making a large margin of profit from them … it’s horrible. I was hoping to buy these tickets for my family as a Christmas present and now no one gets to go and these people are making a fortune out of it. It is even more disgusting because this is an event for charity and those able to pay upwards of a £100 per ticket could spend that extra money at the event and donating it to charity.” Viagogo, which has also been warned that it could face legal action for advertising tickets before they go on sale, did not respond to a request for comment. Last month, the ticket resale websites Seatwave and GetMeIn, both owned by Ticketmaster, agreed to remove tickets for the BBC Children in Need Rocks for Terry event from their website. Seatwave lists tickets for the Peter Kay Dance for Life event, but has pledged to donate all of its commission from their sale to Cancer Research UK. However, those using Seatwave to sell the tickets could simply bank their profits. Secondary ticketing has come under scrutiny in recent weeks, following the tabling of an amendment to the digital economy bill that would usher in jail terms for touts who use “bots” to grab tickets within seconds of their going on sale. A government-backed review by Mike Waterson, an economics professor at Warwick University, warned this year that websites could be flouting consumer rights law. Viagogo is the brainchild of Eric Baker, 43, an American tech expert who co-founded the ticketing website StubHub which he sold to eBay for $310m (£254m), a deal believed to have made him more than $30m. Viagogo has grown rapidly, capitalising on the huge demand for live events by providing a marketplace for people to resell tickets – often at a hefty mark-up – and taking a commission. A fundraising effort in 2009 valued the company at $300m but it is believed to have grown significantly. However, since it moved from the UK to Switzerland in 2012 its financial accounts have been private. The company’s investors include the tennis players Steffi Graf and Andre Agassi, Bernard Arnault, chief executive of the luxury brand LVMH, and the financier Jacob Rothschild. It also secured investment from Saul and Robin Klein; the latter is on the board of Tech City UK, an initiative set up by Britain’s former prime minister David Cameron.
Me Before You fights off Julia Roberts and Melissa McCarthy at UK box office The winner: Me Before You It may have only landed in third place in the official comScore chart on its opening weekend, but teary chick-lit adaptation Me Before You is sitting pretty at the summit for its second session, as rivals including Warcraft: The Beginning and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows fall away. Me Before You, based on the 2012 Jojo Moyes novel, fell a slender 17% in its second frame, for a 10-day total of £4.48m. The result is certainly good news for the film’s star, Sam Claflin, whose claim to be a bankable leading man had looked pretty tenuous. Previously, he’s had supporting roles in hit movies, including the Hunger Games and Huntsman franchises, but films where he featured in the lead role have been commercially modest at best. Hammer’s The Quiet Ones managed £1.6m lifetime in April 2014. Love, Rosie, despite being based on a bestseller by PS I Love You author Cecelia Ahern, delivered a poor £1.2m. While the success of Me Before You is no guarantee of future box office for Claflin, it’s always handy to have a bona fide hit under your belt. Ditto for co-star Emilia Clarke, still best known for TV’s Game of Thrones, whose previous film credits include Terminator: Genisys and Dom Hemingway. The challengers: The Boss and Mother’s Day With Euro 2016 kicking off on Friday, film distributors zeroed in on the date as an opportunity to release female-skewing titles. Universal offered the latest Melissa McCarthy comedy The Boss, while Lionsgate had multi-strand ensemble comedy Mother’s Day. Neither posed much of a challenge to Me Before You, which outgrossed the pair of them put together. The Boss, like predecessor Tammy, features both McCarthy and husband Ben Falcone in its writing credits, and is directed by Falcone. Tammy opened with £471,000 from 338 cinemas n July 2014. The Boss offers a modest improvement on that number, with a debut of £595,000 from 439 venues. But both figures are a far cry from the openings for McCarthy comedies directed by Paul Feig, such as last summer’s Spy (£2.56m including previews of £198,000). As for Mother’s Day, Lionsgate faced the challenge that the holiday the film ties into occurred here in March. In the US, Mother’s Day fell on 8 May, and the movie opened the previous weekend, grossing $8.4m (£5.9m) in its first frame and $11.1m in its second. Lionsgate UK did not have the option of releasing the film in time for our Mothering Sunday on 6 March. Even if it had been ready, a US distributor would never allow a foreign partner to jump the gun by two months and risk the domestic market being penetrated by pirate sites. Mother’s Day suffered a very poor 18/100 score at MetaCritic, and so was relying on the cachet of its premise, star cast (including Jennifer Aniston and Julia Roberts) and brand value of the “Day” franchise from director Garry Marshall. Regarding the latter, any affection for 2010’s moderately amiable Valentine’s Day may have been rather dissipated by 2011’s less than fully achieved New Year’s Eve. Mother’s Day opened with £420,000 including previews of £25,000. That compares with a debut of £1.29m (including previews of £175,000) for New Year’s Eve and a stonking £3.73m for Valentine’s Day. Strip out the previews, and Mother’s Day opened at just 11% of the Valentine’s Day debut number. Distributors for these films didn’t even have the alibi of being hit by sunny skies, since the weekend weather was pretty poor across the UK, which may have been a factor in relatively modest declines for many titles. The Ghibli picture: When Marnie Was There StudioCanal has been re-releasing vintage Studio Ghibli titles on a weekly basis since April 29, and will continue to do so until the end of July. But that policy went on hold at the weekend as the distributor instead offered the new release, When Marnie Was There, directed by Hiromasa Yonebayashi. As usual, the film was presented to audiences in both dubbed and subtitled versions. Opening gross was a healthy £99,000 from 53 venues including £9,600 in previews. That compares with a debut of £69,000 from 44 cinemas last year for StudioCanal’s previous Ghibli release, The Tale of Princess Kaguya. The year before, The Wind Rises began with a more impressive £200,000 from 59 sites, including previews of £11,000. StudioCanal returns to its weekly Ghibli rereleases this Friday with Princess Mononoke, followed by Spirited Away, then Howl’s Moving Castle. The documentary battle: Michael Moore v Fire at Sea At first glance, the opening numbers for new Michael Moore film Where to Invade Next – £86,000 from 127 cinemas – look underwhelming. But that’s because a large chunk of those venues played it only once, on Friday evening, with a live Q&A from the film-maker coming from its UK premiere at Sheffield Doc/Fest. Only 43 cinemas had the film for general release. Moore’s last feature film was Capitalism: A Love Story. Released in the UK in February 2010, it began with £29,600 from 15 venues, on its way to a lifetime total of £137,000. Moore’s best result remains Fahrenheit 9/11, with a UK total of £6.55m. Although Where to Invade Next was generally well reviewed, it was eclipsed by the notices for Gianfranco Rossi’s Fire at Sea, winner of the Golden Bear at the Berlin film festival earlier this year. Capturing life on the Italian island of Lampedusa, the first port of call in Europe for many immigrants from northern Africa, the documentary began here with £13,000 from 15 sites. The flop Also slipped out at the weekend, and bidding for audiences not otherwise distracted by Euro 2016, was Miracles from Heaven, starring Jennifer Garner and Martin Henderson. Based on the memoir by Christy Beam, the film tells the story of a family whose daughter suffers from a rare digestive disorder and is seemingly miraculously cured following an accident. Miracles from Heaven was a notable hit in the US where it was able to access the large faith-based market, grossing $61m this spring. There, the debut was $14.8m. A UK equivalent result would be around £1.5m, going by industry rule of thumb, but that was never on the cards, given the more secular society here and much less awareness of Beam’s book. In fact, Miracles from Heaven debuted here with just £20,400 from 110 cinemas. It’s fair to say that distributor didn’t bet the farm on marketing, and no one will be very surprised by the outcome. The future Thanks to a paucity of strongly commercial new releases, overall takings are 49% down on the previous frame and a dismal 68% down on the equivalent weekend from 2015, when Jurassic World stomped its way to the top of the box office. Total grosses represent the fourth worst weekend from the past 52, and the worst since the weekend before the arrival of Star Wars: The Force Awakens in mid-December, when almost nothing of any consequence opened. For most cinemas, the big event this coming session is animation The Secret Life of Pets from Illumination Entertainment, who made Despicable Me. The film begins previews this Saturday. Also likely to command large audiences is The Conjuring 2, which this time investigates the “Enfield haunting” that occurred in north London in the 1970s. Alternatives include fantasy actioner Gods of Egypt, comedy sequel Barbershop 3: A Fresh Cut, Matteo Garrone’s fairytale compilation Tale of Tales, American civil war drama The Keeping Room, 18-rated French teen flick Bang Gang (A Modern Love Story) and UK indie The Violators. Top 10 films 10-12 June 1. Me Before You, £1,453,859 from 529 sites. Total: £4,478,000 2. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows, £840,868 from 515 sites. Total: £4,801,767 3. Alice Through the Looking Glass, £832,914 from 572 sites. Total: £8,306,639 4. Warcraft: The Beginning, £728,168 from 509 sites. Total: £5,022,284 5. X-Men: Apocalypse, £703,505 from 456 sites. Total: £17,067,686 6. The Nice Guys, £641,684 from 510 sites. Total: £2,232,634 7. The Boss, £594,672 from 439 sites (new) 8. Angry Birds, £579,144 from 543 sites. Total £9,430,115 9. Mother’s Day, £419,532 from 401 sites (new) 10. The Jungle Book, £412,358 from 439 sites. Total: £45,111,681 Other openers When Marnie Was There, £99,352 (including £9,641 previews) from 53 sites Where to Invade Next, £85,505 from 127 sites Embrace of the Serpent, £41,387 (including £9,907 previews) from 21 sites Te3n, £35,905 from 30 sites Learning to Drive, £32,539 (including £6,157 previews) from 80 sites Miracles from Heaven, £20,420 from 110 sites Fire at Sea, £13,156 (including £3,037 previews) from 15 sites Dhulla Bhatti, £5,522 from seven sites Globe on Screen: The Merchant of Venice, £2,964 from seven sites Once Upon a Time in Amritsar, £2,595 from six sites The Stanford Prison Experiment, £1,790 from four sites Thanks to comScore. All figures relate to takings in UK and Ireland cinemas.
How You Can’t Always Get What You Want became Donald Trump’s bizarre theme song Name: You Can’t Always Get What You Want Age: 47. Appearance: As the B-side to Honky Tonk Women, initially; on the 1969 album Let It Bleed, subsequently; latterly, wherever Donald Trump is. You mean the next Presid … nope, still can’t say it. President. Of the United States. Of America. Yes, him. Why is an old Rolling Stones tune following Trump around? It’s his campaign theme. He used it at rallies, and after his speech at the Republic national convention, and again after his victory speech. Isn’t it an odd song for Trump to adopt? Why? How many reasons do you need? It’s an export; it’s a 60s countercultural anthem; it’s 7½ minutes long; its very title implies that the candidate is a less than wholly desirable proposition … Yeah, well, he won, so it worked for him. Tell me something else about the song that Trump probably doesn’t know. Stones producer Jimmy Miller played the drums on the track, instead of Charlie Watts. I never figured the Rolling Stones for Trump supporters. They aren’t. Then why did they give him permission to play their music? They didn’t. In fact, the group repeatedly asked him to stop using the song, but he ignored them. That sounds like Trump. He has also used songs by Adele, Queen and REM, in defiance of the artists’ objections. Republicans do this sort of thing a lot, don’t they? They do, ever since Lincoln adapted the old folk song Rosin the Bow to create a campaign theme tune called Lincoln and Liberty. Reagan briefly tried to co-opt Springsteen’s Born in the USA, and George W Bush received a cease and desist letter from Tom Petty for using I Won’t Back Down. Still, I wouldn’t want to pick a fight with Jagger and/or Richards. Apparently, it’s not the first time. During a sponsorship row over a Steel Wheels tour stop in Atlantic city, Trump’s security people reportedly squared off with the Stones’ crew. I would so pay to watch something like that right now. Well, you can’t always get what you want. Do say: “But if you try sometimes, you just might find … oh God, this is a nightmare.” Don’t say: “I groped her today at the reception.”
EU petition on Barroso's Goldman Sachs job signed by more than 150,000 More than 150,000 people have signed an EU staff petition demanding that the former European commission president José Manuel Barroso loses his pension for taking a job at Goldman Sachs. A delegation will present the petition on Wednesday to the main EU institutions: the commission, parliament and council, which represents EU governments. Nearly 152,000 people have put their name to the declaration, which accuses Barroso of “morally reprehensible” behaviour over his decision to join the US investment bank. Since its launch by a handful of EU employees in July, the petition has spread far beyond Brussels staff, becoming a lightning rod for concerns about senior politicians taking lucrative private sector jobs. The petition comes ahead of a keenly awaited investigation by an EU ethics committee into Barroso’s job. A three-person panel, comprising an ex-EU judge, ex-MEP and ex-official, will advise the commission on whether Barroso broke the EU’s code of conduct, which states that ex-commissioners must act with “integrity and discretion” during and after they have left office. Barroso, who led the commission for a decade until 2014, took a job at Goldman Sachs in July to advise the bank’s clients on Brexit. The current commission president, Jean-Claude Juncker, questioned his predecessor’s decision, saying he did not have a problem with Barroso “working for a private bank – but maybe not this bank”. The New York-based bank has come under fire for its role in helping the Greek government hide the extent of its budget deficit, as well as selling sub-prime mortgages, a trigger of the global financial crisis. Barroso and the bank have strongly refuted claims of any unethical behaviour. Such claims are “baseless and wholly unmerited ... discriminatory against me and against Goldman Sachs”, Barroso wrote to Juncker in September. Goldman Sachs has also stressed that it followed “strict rules” set by global regulators. “José Manuel took the role after an 18-month restriction period following the end of his term at the European commission, a longer period than that imposed by most European institutions”. The EU staff, who have drafted the petition, are calling for tighter rules on politicians moving into the corporate sector, once they have left their EU jobs. These calls have been broadly backed by the EU ombudsman, Emily O’Reilly, who has argued that the right to work should be balanced by “the public right to an ethical administration”. Speaking to the and European newspapers recently, she said: “You could have a much stronger code of conduct pour encourager les autres.” O’Reilly, who has also served as Ireland’s national ombudsman, argues the EU should eventually set up an independent body to oversee appointments of ex-officials, similar to Ireland’s Standards in Public Office Commission. “That is the natural progression, that it moves away from the commission and other institutions themselves.” She predicted the Barroso case would have a permanent impact on the EU institutions. “Nothing has ever been so big, or has captured the public imagination in the same way. I think eventually this [case] will make the commission deal with the revolving doors issue in a more serious way.” One of the petition organisers suggested their action had set a precedent that would make ex-politicians think twice before taking certain corporate jobs. “It is a precedent, in the culture of the EU institutions this will remain.” The official said it was the first time EU staff had publicised criticism of their former bosses for actions, which they argue, have tarnished the EU’s image. “We are deeply committed to the European Union and we want to defend it.” The petition organisers, who wish to remain anonymous, will be represented at handover by a group of retired EU officials and staff unions. At the same time, campaigners from Transparency International and the Alliance for Lobby Transparency and Ethics Regulation, will deliver a separate petition criticising the “revolving door between the European commission and big business”. The commission’s ethics panel is also investigating Neelie Kroes, the former EU competition commissioner, who failed to declare a directorship in an offshore firm, in breach of commission rules. The panel is expected to take around six to eight weeks to reach a conclusion on both cases.
'Helping your country do better': what patriotism means in 2016 In light of Donald Trump’s “law and order” speech at the Republican national convention, Jon Stewart offered a strong riposte to the idea that patriotism only belonged to Republicans. We asked you for your thoughts on the matter – whether you identify as a patriot, what it means, and how your beliefs translate into actions in your everyday life. Your answers are below. Michael Bain, 58, ranch manager, New Mexico Patriotism takes hard, thoughtful, informed, dedicated, humble, steady work. Patriotism means supporting and being responsible for your family, your community and all levels of government with your willingness to work, to volunteer, to pay your share of taxes and pay with your life if need be. It means the majority rules, but the majority protects the rights of the minority. It means respecting your neighbor’s opinion, but not letting yourself be run over by it. It means thinking for yourself, but also seriously working to educate yourself. To be patriotic, you need to learn and understand where the biases in information you receive are coming from. Is the information objective, or captured by special interests on the left or right, or in between? I volunteer, I pay my taxes without griping, I vote, I obey the law. I read something of real intellectual value everyday – generally in economics, finance or ecology (and I am no intellectual nor academic). I do not wear my patriotism on my shoulder wrapped in a flag, nor do I run around with a gun (although I own several), but I try to practice patriotism honestly, knowledgeably and quietly every day. Jacob C, 26, office worker, California I think Jon Stewart is wrong. I think conservatives do own patriotism, at least in its contemporary manifestation. When I think of a self-described “patriot”, I imagine a loud, belligerent man who drives an oversized pick-up truck complete with both an American flag and a “Don’t Tread on Me” flying from poles mounted in the flatbed; this man responds to any dissenting opinion about America being “No 1” with the phrase “Love it or leave it!” and occasionally sports a tricorn at political rallies. Hence why I would never self-identify in terms of patriotism. Benjamin Pollack, 31, stay-at-home husband with a disability, Oregon Patriotism means standing up for views contrary to my own, and for people unlike myself, because diversity is the greatest American characteristic. From the earliest days of the republic, we have been a nation as varied politically as we are geographically. Losing sight of that richness and complexity threatens to undermine the very essence of our national character. Patriotism means never letting go of the multiculturalism that informed the birth of this great country, and showing up to dutifully stand in the face of tyranny in any form. Jill Denison, 65, writer and retired CPA, Ohio To me, patriotism means supporting the values set forth in the constitution, helping to ensure that everybody – regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, religion – has the opportunity to enjoy the democratic freedoms of our nation. It’s about working not just for oneself, but for the good of all. Understanding that equality means everybody, not just a chosen few. I live out my patriotism by helping people wherever and however I am able. I have neighbors who are refugees from Syria and I try to help them with everything – from dealing with everyday issues such as the electric company to agencies in regards to their residency. I write a blog and also publish in an online publication, speaking out against social injustices around the world. I share what I have with those in need. I try to give more than I take. I try to always be kind and have a smile for everyone. Mark Offtermatt, 30, librarian, Washington I am not patriotic. I am not excited that I am an American. I live here; it is the hand I was dealt. The rhetoric from the patriots is simply gross, ugly, xenophobic isolationism. They really do sound like fascists, and in fact display a lot of characteristics of earlier fascist states. This indignant belief that we are right because we are American and our way is best is inflammatory and destructive. The famous scholar of Russian studies Robert Service stated: “Communism may be the young god that failed, but American democracy has yet to work for most of the world’s people most of the time.” We export this democracy to other countries, using our patriotic belief that one size must fit all. This is dangerous, tone-deaf, and ethnocentric (all negative characteristics encompassed by Donald Trump). This country is a mess, and there is very little to be proud of right now. Caitlin B, 33, works in communications, Maryland Whatever patriotism means, it’s not blind acceptance of the status quo. Patriotism means constant vigilance and asking whether the direction your country is headed in is the right one, and whether that direction makes your country a better place. Patriotism is a spirit of comradeship for those who share your country, regardless of their background or walk of life. Patriotism is knowing when your country is faltering, and helping it to do better. Patriotism is representing what is best about your country, and putting its best face forward, to the rest of the world. Patriotism isn’t about believing your country is always right. It means apologizing when your country has been wrong, and learning from the mistakes of the past to make a stronger future. I work in philanthropy, so I am constantly deploying resources to make my community a better place to live, and hopefully creating a more tolerant society in the process. When I travel, I think I’m a good public diplomat, able to communicate what is good about America, and what is bad – while still being a proud American. George Reed, 73, retired electrical engineer I’m not sure what patriotism means to me anymore. When I was an enlisted sailor on a submarine, it was easy. Now I’ve watched a lot of wars take place over the years because of our “national interest” that seemed wrong, I’m thinking that perhaps the US is not such a nice place. Patriotism, in this case, would be working to align the values of tolerance and peace with our foreign policy. And working to instill tolerance in the US population. Loren Ettinger, 41, wholesale wine broker, California Patriotism is owning both the fact that the US was the first modern democracy, but also a democracy that still struggles with representing all facets of its plurality. Patriotism is embracing with love the fact that America is not just white Christian men, but a melting pot of all walks of life from every corner of the globe of all creeds, religions and races. We are all Americans and America is made great by all of us. Cormac Breathnac, 40, self-employed, Kentucky Patriotism is pride in and love for your country. But patriots don’t wear red, white and blue and beat their chests about how great their country is. Patriots work to make their country better. And that starts at home. Sam Morrison, 62, library assistant, Illinois As a boomer, I grew up in the age of patriotism. I took President Kennedy’s statement “And so, my fellow Americans; ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country” seriously. My father was a navy lifer and both my parents lived and served during the second world war. So yes, I love my country, warts and all. But to me patriotism is more than following a flag and the politicians who wave it. It also means defending the constitution and the bill of rights, and being willing to sacrifice myself for any of my fellow American sisters and brothers. Our democracy is unique. There isn’t another one like it, and I want to preserve it for our future. Anyone who is an American is entitled to all of the freedoms that were given to us, fought over, died for. I come from a long line of patriotic ancestors. Their lessons and sacrifice have taught me well. James DeSocio, 67, retired social worker, New York Where to start? How about the first world war, the second world war, Korea and Vietnam. Fought and paid for (for the most part) by regular Americans (patriots). The Tennessee Valley authority, Hoover dam, our beautiful national and city parks and the statues and monuments that were built and paid for (for the most part) by regular Americans (patriots). How about Ike, who authorized the nation’s infrastructure bill during the 1950s, connecting the coasts with the highway system that we all use. Yes, it was built and paid for (for the most part) by regular Americans (patriots). Public hospitals, public libraries, public schools and colleges, public transportation, municipal museums and the post office and the maintenance of roads, bridges and waterways. There for everyone to use, and yes, pretty much built and paid for by regular Americans (patriots). Nasa? Everybody loves Nasa and very few Americans complain about funding it (patriots). So being a patriot involves some type of contribution and a recognition of past and present efforts that remind us of what holds us together in the national interest. Jason Green, 50, sales manager, Wisconsin I emigrated from England at age 12. I later went to the army recruiting office and joined the US army, and proudly served in Germany from 1988 to 1990. I obtained my US citizenship in Milwaukee while on leave. I had tears in my eyes as I raised my hand a second time to swear the oath to defend the constitution, wearing my dress uniform. I later volunteered for duty in Saudi Arabia during desert storm. To me, patriotism is the heartfelt belief that you are willing to give and sacrifice, to support and defend the values, honor and privileges that make this country so unique and inspiring above all others. Debbie Tam, 45, editor, New York Patriotism is often confused with blind pride in one’s nation. Patriotism is love of one’s nation. It is a love without conditions. It comes with the understanding that when you look back on history, there will be things that one can point to and be proud. It also comes with the understanding that when you look back on history, there will be things that were regrettable. Patriotism knows that these moments bring growth and progress. That these moments are acknowledged as lessons learned and shape the nation to be what it is today and all it will be in the future. One can be frustrated, but patriotism understands that the work never ends – that the nation is always a work in progress. Carolyn, 34, academic and mental health worker, Wisconsin Patriotism is a word I fear. It is often used in speeches to inspire solidarity to some kind of ideal nation-state we call America. It is used to justify rigid sensibilities of who to love and who to hate. I have no love of country that would supersede my love and concern for the wellbeing of all people, that would supersede the cause of peace, that would supersede human dignity, human rights and our collective/shared stewardship of this planet. I treat all people with respect. I advocate peace and environmental protection. I help those who have been disadvantaged and marginalized. Most importantly, I work on myself – my prejudgments, my own sense of peace, and I pay attention to how I show up in the everyday. Contributions have been edited for length and clarity
Yes, Donald Trump. The electoral system is 'rigged' – against black Americans With each passing day, Donald Trump’s poll numbers continue to fall, and the specter of defeat in November looms larger. Perhaps in preparation for that outcome, the Republican presidential nominee claims that if he loses it won’t be due to his ineptitude. Instead, he says the electoral system is “rigged” against him. This argument is not only absolute nonsense, but threatens the stability and integrity of our society. Rigged elections have been a hot topic this election. Hordes of Bernie Sanders supporters claimed that the Democratic primaries were “rigged” against him. They cite the DNC email scandal, which showed some party staffers seeking to undermine Sanders, as evidence. To reinforce his spurious claims, Trump has said that the recent striking down of Republican-sponsored voter ID laws and other voting impediments that have proven to be purposefully discriminatory will result in rampant voter fraud. “People are going to walk in there, they’re going to vote 10 times, maybe. Who knows? They’re going to vote 10 times,” said Trump to Fox News on Tuesday. Not only is Trump spreading outrageous conspiracy theories, but he is arguing that the removal of discriminatory voting practices would bring about electoral instability and invalidate our democratic process. Never mind that these laws directly benefited the Republican party and rigged elections in their favor. Just last week, the US court of appeals for the fourth circuit invalidated North Carolina’s strict voter ID laws. The court stated that their elimination of same-day voter registration and other voting restrictions had “targeted African Americans with almost surgical precision”. “When a legislature dominated by one party has dismantled barriers to African American access to the franchise, even if done to gain votes,” continued the court’s decision, “‘politics as usual’ does not allow a legislature dominated by the other party to re-erect those barriers.” Despite this, Trump argues enfranchisement for African Americans and other minorities would constitute a “rigged” system that could invalidate our democracy. That is a deeply hypocritical position. Republican leaders have remained silent throughout all of these outlandish statements. Both Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell and speaker of the House Paul Ryan have declined to comment, and RNC chairman Reince Priebus’ office redirected questions back to Trump’s campaign for additional clarification. Yet Republican leaders may be incapable of sternly denouncing Trump’s accusations because they have heavily campaigned for new voting restrictions. Today’s Republican party has directly benefited from intentionally tipping the electoral scales in its favor. Its last Republican president was elected without winning the popular vote and under a cloud of documented voting improprieties, especially in Florida where the disenfranchisement of African Americans was rampant. Trump’s possible path to victory grows narrower by the day. He trails Hillary Clinton in Utah – a state that has gone Republican in the last 12 presidential elections – and analysts speculate that he’ll need to sweep Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania and North Carolina to win. Roger Stone, a longtime Trump adviser, has even encouraged Trump to “constantly” discuss voter fraud, and has said that there will be “widespread civil disobedience” and a “bloodbath” if Clinton were to “steal” the election from Trump. No one should be surprised that Trump and his surrogates are already projecting a narrative of “rigged” elections in three of those states. Trump projects himself to be a “winner” so when he loses the opposition must have cheated. Trump’s rhetoric will only grow and become increasingly irrational and dangerous as defeat becomes more likely. Trump is a desperate candidate who is willing to say absolutely anything, regardless of how irresponsible it may be, and the Republican higher-ups are incapable of reining him in. They are also unwilling to denounce him because in many circumstances they are tacitly complicit with the lies, propaganda and rigged elections that Trump espouses. America’s democracy has definitely been rigged to disenfranchise African Americans and other minorities, and these undemocratic policies have regularly been endorsed by Republican politicians. Trump’s latest claims are not only built upon lies, but they could encourage violence, anarchy and an erosion of democracy. Trump wants to take us back to a more violent, undemocratic America because in today’s inclusive, equitable and enfranchising America he, and the rest of the Republican party, may become losers. He’s willing to dismantle our democracy in his quest to Make America Great Again. America cannot afford to let this happen.
You can’t blame Jeremy Corbyn for the Brexit vote – or can you? As the result of the referendum became clear, politicians who campaigned for remain conceded not only the vote but the argument. Yesterday, Jeremy Corbyn said he would not support a second referendum and effectively abandoned membership of the EU as a live political issue. In doing so, he also abandoned Scotland and any hope that the Labour party will form a government in the foreseeable future. As democratic deficits go, leaving 48% of voters without a voice is pretty significant. We are all being urged to accept the result. But I refuse to abandon a deeply held belief that it is better for the UK to be a part of the European Union, economically, politically and culturally. I want to hear an articulate and informed critique of the alternatives before us. I want to hear politicians who will speak for me and 16 million others. I want a party that will look to Europe not simply as a business opportunity, but as a part of our heritage and our future. Peter Martindale Grantham, Lincolnshire • I find it extraordinary that the response of the parliamentary Labour party is to attack Jeremy Corbyn instead of doing something constructive. Can’t they see that it is the PLP that needs to move in response to the electorate? Who will they choose as leader that will do better than Ed Miliband? The referendum vote was a cry of pain by Labour voters who have been callously left behind by globalisation. The PLP may think Corbyn is unelectable, but it has no credible alternative. Chris Jeynes Guildford, Surrey • Jeremy Corbyn’s sacking of Hilary Benn well illustrates his political naivety. Corbyn must surely realise that after a year in office he really doesn’t make it as a credible leader. Neither can he pretend that his “remain” campaign was at all successful. He did his best but it wasn’t good enough, and he should resign. The PLP should allow a maximum of two candidates to present to the wider Labour party. It is vital that we have an opposition leader that might make a respected prime minister. Tony Ward Loughborough, Leicestershire • I voted to leave the EU – an unaccountable, self-serving institution. The punitive reaction of some of the Brussels elite to the decision of the British people reinforces my view. But I did not vote for Johnson et al, against immigration or in favour of a neoliberal offshore tax haven. The constitutional train crash now unfolding offers a unique opportunity to build a fair settlement for the provinces south of Hadrian’s wall. To do that requires all progressive parties to form a coalition to force and win a general election, support Scotland and Ireland in choosing their own destinies, and introduce a proportional voting system in England and Wales. The Labour leader needs to seize this moment. We also need maturity and patience from Brussels. Allusions to divorce and loveless marriage are not helpful. England and Wales can become a permissive and platonic partner to the US of Europe but it needs time to find itself. Howard Watson Scarborough, Yorkshire • While I’ve dutifully signed the petition on the referendum result, this is a pointless and self-indulgent exercise. The only way to legitimate way to reverse the idiocy of 23 June is to have a general election. Labour must then take big and bravest action since Attlee’s government. We must have a campaign fought on two issues, the retention of EU membership and the transition from austerity. This could join Labour, Greens, Plaid Cymru and the Lib Dems, even the SNP and liberal Tories, in explicit electoral pacts. There must be no preconditions around Scottish independence or proportional representation or anything else that diminishes the clarity of the issue. Clearly, this will be impossible for Labour to lead while Corbyn and his acolytes are in place. But we still have a very short period before the hatred, despair and fear behind the majority vote last week triumphs over the better nature of our country. Malcolm Ace Burley, Hampshire • Polly Toynbee’s column (25 June) strikes an unacceptable tone. Not only did Corbyn campaign tirelessly to remain in the EU – while rightly admitting its shortcomings – but the note of personal invective actively contributes to the deterioration of the political climate. Professor Geoffrey Greatrex Ottawa, Canada • In his report, Labour’s Future: Why Labour lost in 2015 and how it can win again, Jon Cruddas warned that the parliamentary Labour party was losing touch with its natural support in the country. The overwhelming sentiment in the PLP in favour of staying in the EU obliged Jeremy Corbyn, against his own reservations, to accept the arguments of the remain campaign. As we now know, his reservations reflected the party’s constituency very much more accurately than did the PLP. Now the PLP is moving against him, even though it is clear that he enjoys the support of a huge majority among the party membership. W Stephen Gilbert Corsham, Wiltshire • The Blairite faction who are trying to unseat Jeremy Corbyn need to look up the dictionary definition of leader. It is not to do all the work yourself. It is not to make every speech and public appearance. A leader is a conductor, a director, a ringleader, a counsellor. Labour’s priority should be to put together policies which are in the country’s interest and which resonate with Labour voters. Now is not the time for a leadership contest, Labour needs to put together a team to support Corbyn and gain the support of electorate. Phil Tate Edinburgh • Corbyn’s critics seem to think that the working class in the north of England, and elderly voters everywhere, were so undecided about immigration that they would have been influenced by a strong Labour defence of the EU and the free movement of labour. Perhaps, but in which direction? Where euroscepticism is deeply ingrained, an enthusiastic endorsement of the EU by Labour would simply have led more of its traditional supporters to see it as out of touch. John Stocks Newport-on-Tay, Fife • What is clear is that Jeremy Corbyn is not out of touch with Labour voters over the EU referendum. The shadow cabinet members and others pushing for remain were the ones out of touch. Richard Bryant-Jefferies Epsom, Surrey • Once again a Benn is seeking to lead the Labour party into oblivion. Talk about hereditary privilege. Colin Challen Scarborough, Yorkshire • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
Don Broco review – album blowout bash turns boisterous Performing an album in its entirety is a popular move for veteran acts with at least one classic, not a young band with two moderately heralded long players. However, on alternating nights, Bedford’s Don Broco are touring their 2012 debut, Priorities, and last year’s Automatic. It’s an intriguing gambit which does unfortunately highlight an apparent identity crisis between the amiably chugging, post-hardcore, Bring Me the Horizon-supporting rockers of their debut, and their more scrubbed up recent incarnation, who bagged an arena support slot with pop-punk boyband 5 Seconds of Summer. This being Priorities night, singer Rob Damiani’s cry of “How ya doin’, Leeeeeeeeeds?” is greeted by a sea of surging, air-punching moshers who sing along with almost every word. The band’s Bastille-sized choruses and lyrics such as “we’ll never get fat, ’cause we jump around like prats” have a direct line to the soul of the boisterous, sweaty, tattooed teen. A ceiling pipe malfunction which showers everyone with water prompts further rejoicing. It really isn’t high art, but the vested frontman is something of a plummier, Bedfordshire Dave Gahan, impressively conducting affairs like a musical gym instructor. The odd unlikely 80s jazz-funk lick aside, the music mostly sticks to default mode. At some point, they’ll probably have to decide a course and stick with it, but perhaps they can unite their conflicted fan base. When Damiani yells, “Who’s coming tomorrow?” at least half the audience raise their hands in glee. At the Key Club, Leeds, 4 August. Then touring.
'The whole process is a travesty': readers on the EU referendum Claire Phipps wrote in Wednesday’s EU referendum morning briefing that “the leave campaign had lobbed another immigration story into the morning papers” – it’s fair to say our readers caught the idea of an “Australian-style points based immigration system”, tossed it around the field a bit and generally enjoyed developing their own spin. Here we look at that and two other conversations about the EU referendum happening below the line: you can read about them here and click on the links to get involved, or head over to our EU referendum live blog to follow the news and conversation as it happens. Also worth a look is Wednesday’s Opinion live debate, which asked readers whether this has been the most abusive political campaign ever in Britain. 1. EU referendum live: Vote Leave plans points system and mandatory English for migrants On Wednesday’s Politics live blog it was that immigration plan from the Leave team that dominated the conversation. But whatever your feelings on immigration policy, many of you saw problems with importing a system from down under and agreed with our home affairs editor Alan Travis, who writes that “it is bizarre that Conservative leave campaigners want a system that would actually double immigration to Britain”. And, hold on, is the idea of a points based system in the UK a new one at all? Join the debate here. 2. EU debate: the most abusive political campaign ever in Britain? Every Wednesday our Opinion and Community desks run a live blog where readers can discuss the issues of the day with writers. Today’s theme? The EU referendum, no less. The focus was on the behaviour of politicians. Michael White said referendums “bring out the divisive worst in us all – leaving a bad, lingering smell” – and many of you agreed. Some good historical context was discussed here: Not everyone thought things were as bad as all that, though. There was also intrigue in voices from our readership living in, but not from, the UK and who aren’t eligible to vote. Read more of the debate here. 3. Brexit could spread shockwaves through global economy, says OECD Knock-on consequences of a potential Brexit were postulated in analysis by the OECD, which found that the UK economy would be just under 1.5 percentage points smaller in 2018 than it would be if the country voted to stay in the EU. There was some scepticism among readers not about the figures but about how politicians use economic arguments and policy to score political points rather than influence people’s lives. Join the debate here. Before we go, just one more comment to highlight from the latest in our ‘What has the EU ever done for my …’ series: today on TV viewing. We’ll be back tomorrow with another roundup of what you’re talking about in the comment sections on the EU referendum.. You can help inform what we report on by filling in the form below.
Money: Suicide Songs review – despair and catharsis on epic second album Manchester band Money’s second album certainly aims big. Drums erupt like cannons, guitars, brass and strings echo around the sky, and the instruments employed appear to include an exploding cathedral. The sound is vast, yet ornate and pretty: a supersized cross between Spiritualized and Echo and the Bunnymen at their most orchestral. It’s uplifting, and needs to be – stripped of all those sonic baubles, Jamie Lee’s words might appear maudlin. As it is, however, his euphoric falsetto makes his musings on mortality and existence come across as cathartic yells in the face of despair. The bleary-eyed Cocaine Christmas and An Alcoholic’s New Year bears the hallmarks of Shane MacGowan’s piano ballads from the edge, while the sublime All My Life finds Lee pondering guilt, judgment and the afterlife over a massive gospel choir. If Suicide Songs has a flaw, it’s that there aren’t enough songs with tunes the while wide world will learn and sing, but it’s still a glorious cry from the heart that delivers a real emotional wallop.
Neil Young cancels tour of Australia and New Zealand, Bluesfest set in doubt Neil Young has cancelled plans for a tour of Australia and New Zealand next year and Bluesfest is not confirming whether he will still be headlining the Byron Bay festival in April. The musician is scheduled to play a three-hour set on the Friday night of the five-day festival with his latest backing group Promise of the Real. In October Frontier Touring announced on Facebook that Young and his backing band would also perform shows in indoor arenas and special outdoor shows in Australia and New Zealand while he was here. But the company announced on Tuesday that these shows would no longer be going ahead. It did not give a reason for the cancellation. “Frontier Touring regret to advise that Neil Young will unfortunately no longer be undertaking a 2017 headline tour of Australia and New Zealand as previously ‘teased’ on our social media,” the company said in an emailed statement. Bluesfest declined Australia’s request for comment about whether he would still be appearing. On Monday Young – who performed in November at the Dakota Access pipeline protest site – published a long post to Facebook co-written with the actor Daryl Hannah, urging Barack Obama to intervene in the pipeline standoff, and criticising the “unnecessary and violent aggression” faced by protesters at Standing Rock. “We are calling upon you, President Barack Obama, to step in and end the violence against the peaceful water protectors at Standing Rock immediately,” he wrote.
Ex-HSBC banker denies fraud charges brought in US A former HSBC banker facing charges of fraudulently “front-running” a $3.5bn (£2.7bn) currency trade has denied the allegations in a New York court. London-based Stuart Scott, who left HSBC in 2014, was named alongside HSBC’s Mark Johnson, who was arrested by the FBI on Tuesday at New York’s JFK airport as he tried to board a flight to London. While Johnson is out on $1m bail in New York after spending Tuesday night in prison, Scott has not been arrested, and his lawyer, Gerallt Owen, a partner at the law firm Withers, said: “Our client strongly denies the allegations. Given there are ongoing proceedings, it would be inappropriate to comment further at this time.” According to documents filed in the eastern district court of New York, the Britons are alleged to have bought pounds before doing so for a client which wanted to convert $3.5bn into sterling. The client was not named in the US courts, but it is thought to be the London-listed exploration company Cairn Energy, which was selling its Indian operation, Vedanta, in 2011. According to the US Department of Justice, HSBC generated profits of $8m from the transaction: $3m from front-running and a $5m fee from the client. “The complaint alleges that Johnson and Scott caused the $3.5bn foreign exchange transaction to be executed in a manner that was designed to spike the price of the pound sterling, to the benefit of HSBC and at the expense of their client,” the DoJ said. It said Johnson exclaimed “Ohhhh, fucking Christmas!” when told the deal was going through in December 2011. The prosecutors claim the pair had discussed how far they could “ramp” the price of sterling against the dollar before their client would “squeal”. The bank is understood to have reviewed the Cairn transaction as part of an internal investigation that took place when regulators and prosecutors were scrutinising the foreign exchange market. HSBC found no wrongdoing. However, the regulators’ investigation resulted in huge fines for a number of major banks, including HSBC, which was made to pay £389m by US and UK regulators. Scott was fired by HSBC in 2014, shortly after the fine was levied. He had been head of foreign exchange trading for Europe, the Middle East and Africa. His lawyer would not comment when asked about his current employment. Scott reported to Johnson, who remains on HSBC’s payroll. The bank refused to say whether it was supporting Johnson or providing legal assistance. According to remarks reportedly made by his lawyer during a court appearance on Wednesday, Johnson is in the process of moving to the US. Bloomberg reported his lawyer telling the court: “The irony of this case, your honour, was that he was in the process of being transferred by his employers from London to the US.” The lawyer, Frank Wohl, said: “He has spent the last few weeks preparing to move his wife and six children to the US.” Johnson, 50, who was to become head of foreign exchange and commodities of HSBC’s US operations, has surrendered his passport. He is staying in an apartment near New York’s Central Park, which has a 24-hour concierge, children’s playroom, pet spa and health club. He did not answer the door on the second-storey of the building to reporters. So far, he has not been given a date by which to enter a plea, and his bail includes $300,000 in cash being lodged with the courts. HSBC has been trying to repair its reputation after a string of hits caused by a variety of controversies, including leaks to the about tax evasion activities in its Swiss arm. The US authorities still have an official monitor at the bank as part of the terms of a £1.2bn fine in 2012 for a money-laundering scandal. According to a US Congressional report published earlier this month, British officials urged the US not to prosecute HSBC at the time for fear of a “global financial disaster”. The DoJ would not say whether it intended to seek the extradition of Scott. Catalogue of HSBC scandals HSBC has incurred almost £10bn in legal bills and fines in the past five years, according to research published earlier this week. While this is not the biggest tally for a UK-based bank, HSBC has been embroiled in a series of scandals that have dented its reputation: A £1.2bn fine in 2012 after the US regulators found it had allowed terrorists to move money around the financial system. A monitor was imposed on the bank to ensure systems changes were made to stop this happening again. This month, a US Congressional report found the UK had intervened to stop the bank being prosecuted for fear of it sparking a “global financial disaster”. Last year, the and other media outlets disclosed that HSBC’s Swiss banking arm helped wealthy customers dodge taxes and conceal millions of dollars of assets, doling out bundles of untraceable cash and advising clients on how to circumvent domestic tax authorities. Earlier this year, HSBC was found to have created 2,300 companies through the Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca, although the bank said that only 5% of these companies were still in existence.
Having a dry January? Your all-or-nothing thinking is a mistake ’Tis the season to be abstemious. Christmas is over, most of us over-indulged, and now we need to recover. Enter the period of good intentions, characterised by a surge in gym-going and dieting before most of us fall off whichever bandwagon we jumped on and revert to our old patterns of eating and (in)activity, often with an added sense of guilt and failure. Happy New Year, indeed. There’s a lot of debate about the merits of enforced abstinence. Initiatives such as dry January may feel virtuous but they won’t necessarily do a lot to help you understand your relationship with alcohol and the factors that influence your consumption. And, of course, there’s the possibility that you’ll feel so good about your teetotal month that you overcompensate for it in February. Two-thirds of those who participate in dry January report a reduction in consumption that is sustained six months later, but the evidence is not conclusive. We know that asking people how much alcohol they drink typically results in under-reporting by some 40%-60%. No wonder even the BMJ is asking, “Could campaigns like dry January do more harm than good?” This isn’t limited to alcohol. Low-carb and “raw” diets, for example, are all the rage – and although they may help you lose weight in the short term, the British Dietetic Association (BDA) warns against such “quick fixes”, highlighting that they are often rooted in poor science and focus excessively on appearance, at the expense of good health. Additionally, the cost of replacing everyday foods can be prohibitive, and the expertise of those who lend their voices to restrictive diet plans may be questionable. Gillian McKeith is surely not the only person in this area to overstate their credentials. Similarly, the BDA states categorically that detox diets are “nonsense” and describes them as “marketing myth”. The idea that there is a secret to weight loss is understandably seductive: as Matt Fitzgerald writes in his book Diet Cults, the proponents of strict diets can have an almost hypnotic power over the rest of us. He suggests that people have a natural tendency to make moral judgments about the food choices that others make, and that we form “tribes” on the basis of these choices. Having chosen the tribe we want to be part of, we then cherry-pick the evidence that supports our beliefs, avoiding any data to the contrary. In his view, there is no such thing as the healthiest diet because we have evolved to be able to adapt to differing environments and our needs will vary based upon a range of factors. In short, he says, it’s possible to be healthy in many ways, and anyone who tells you their way is the only way is lying. It’s true that initiatives such as dry January can act as a kickstarter to a healthier way of life, but their popularity may also suggest that many of us are unfamiliar with public health guidance relating to diet and nutrition and that even if we are not, we find it difficult to follow. In some ways, it’s much easier to cut out what we think of as bad foods than to be consciously aware of everything we’re eating and drinking. It takes willpower and a considerable amount of motivation to maintain a diet that is balanced. Given enough time, it may become habitual to avoid cakes and to take more exercise, but a group of researchers from University College London (UCL) suggest this could take between two and three months. Food is a complex issue, and for many of us it is linked intrinsically to our emotional state. There are reasons many of us reach for chocolate or wine when we’re low or stressed, and cutting out entire food groups – many of which provide us with intense pleasure – is likely to set you up to fail if you have no alternative coping mechanisms. The simple fact is: there is no quick, easy, one-size-fits-all way of improving your health. Like all significant changes, it takes time and patience and concerted effort. The “magic bullet” is appealing but, in this case at least, it probably doesn’t exist.
YouTube's latest hit: neon superheroes, giant ducks and plenty of lycra The latest YouTube craze is a channel where adults don Spider-Man and Elsa from Frozen outfits and ride giant ducks, grow Pinocchio noses and lick enormous lollies. Webs & Tiaras’ first video was only published in March 2016 but the channel, which promises “compilations of your favourite superheroes and princesses in real life”, has already notched up 1.7bn video views. In May, it was the third most-viewed YouTube channel in the world according to online-video industry website Tubefilter, based on stats from analytics company OpenSlate indicating Webs & Tiaras was watched 544.7m times that month. The channel is seemingly aimed at children, who have become one of the biggest drivers of YouTube viewing over the last two years. Other characters featured include Batman and The Joker, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Captain America. The videos have background music but no dialogue, which may be buoying their appeal to a global audience rather than just English-speaking children. According to its YouTube profile, Webs & Tiaras is based in Canada. The channel’s rocketing stats have led to concern in some quarters that it is somehow gaming the system: for example, spending money on “view bots” to artificially inflate its viewing figures. There is currently no evidence to prove that is the case, however. In May, YouTubers Ethan and Hila published their own video questioning Webs & Tiaras’ success, while tracing its roots back to another “toy monsters” channel on YouTube, which had been generating significantly less viewing. More puzzling is the fact that there are several near-identical channels on YouTube, as outlined in this Reddit thread discussing the phenomenon. Toy Monster, The Superheroes Life and The Kids Club all have the same neon-heavy outfits and video formats. YouTube is no stranger to peculiar new crazes, from ASMR to toy-unboxing – the latter genre accounted for 20 of the top 100 YouTube channels in March. You can now add the “toy monsters” genre to that list.
RBS takes biggest knock of UK banks in EU-wide financial stress test The Royal Bank of Scotland has taken the biggest hit to its financial strength of any UK bank subjected to European-wide health checks on major banks. The 73% taxpayer-owned bank insisted that despite being the third-most affected of any of the 51 banks, it was well on the way to becoming stronger and more risk-averse. Its capital ratios fall by more than seven percentage points under the tests imposed by the European Banking Authority and, under the imaginary scenario, ends up with an 8% capital ratio. The absolute minimum is 4.5%. It means that RBS, like Barclays, is among the 15 weakest banks tested. But the tests do not allow the banks to take any actions, such as selling off risky operations between the test period of 2015 and 2018. The Bank of England, which will conduct its own tests later in the year, said: “The results for the four banks [RBS, Barclays, Lloyds Banking Group and HSBC] are consistent with those of previous Bank of England stress tests. “They provide evidence that major UK banks have the resilience necessary to maintain lending to the real economy, even in a macroeconomic stress scenario.” Ewen Stevenson, RBS’s finance director, said the stress test results showed the bank’s “continued progress towards transforming the balance sheet to being safe and sustainable”. “We are confident that in delivering our strategy, we will transform RBS into a low risk, resilient bank,” he said. The Edinburgh-based bank, which publishes its results on 5 August, is braced for a penalty from US regulators for the way it sold mortgage bonds in the run up to the 2008 banking crisis, which could amount to £8bn.
Crystal Palace beat Southampton to ease pressure on manager Alan Pardew A day that began with talk of Alan Pardew getting the sack ended with the Crystal Palace manager musing on peanut butter. What a difference a 3-0 victory makes. An unspectacular but well-organised win over Southampton gave Palace their first three points in the Premier League since September. It also brought an end to a run of six straight defeats and earned the Eagles their first clean sheet of the season. Two goals from Christian Benteke bookended a rare strike from James Tomkins, but according to Pardew the victory had been made possible by a lively week on the training ground. Reports before the game had suggested that Palace’s players had taken control of Friday’s final training session, so desperate were they for defensive drills. Pardew denied insurrection but confirmed he and his players had found a shared appetite for solidity. “We had a training session on Thursday that was the complete opposite of today. Sometimes you need that on the training ground,” he said. “You’ve got frustration: we were tight, giving the ball away in our team play. “On Friday, it wasn’t so much the team wanted defensive work, they needed it. At times, when you’re getting the criticism you’re getting, it’s like your favourite peanut butter or something – you long for it. They longed for defensive work and I wasn’t going to let them down.” Pardew stressed that defensive solidity had been “the only box to tick” in this match. That was borne out by a team selection that brought Damien Delaney and Joe Ledley back into the side. Ledley’s energy disrupted Southampton’s normally smooth passing game but it was Delaney who made the difference. The Republic of Ireland international used all of his 35 years’ experience in a performance that was as intelligent as it was combative. “He’d be the first to admit he’s not blessed with masses of talent,” said Pardew of his centre-half, “But he’s got masses of personality, of desire and of leadership. The back four was better for having him in it today.” After a cagey opening to the game, Palace took the lead in the 33rd minute thanks to a gift from the pitch and from Fraser Forster. Southampton were in possession and, as is their wont, had pushed their defensive line up high. The right back Cédric Soares found himself under pressure on the halfway line and turned the ball backwards, forcing José Fonte to chase the ball back to his own corner flag. The Portuguese then tried to play a simple back pass to Forster but it lacked enough power to reach the keeper, himself under pressure from Benteke. As Forster approached to clear, the ball hit a divot, spinning up and over his clearing boot. Benteke gathered the ball and needed no invitation to turn it home. Given recent events that include last week’s 5-4 surrender at Swansea, Palace’s opening goal was not a cause for wild celebration at Selhurst Park. But, two minutes later, the fans allowed themselves to erupt as the home side doubled their lead. A deep free-kick was launched into the box – a consistent tactic from the home side – and was cleared behind by Fonte. Jason Puncheon opted to drill the corner low across the box, which caused chaos in the Saints backline. After two deflections, the ball fell to Tomkins, who could barely believe his luck. He hit his shot at Forster but still the ball squirmed into the net. From that point on Saints dominated possession but clearcut chances were few and far between. Charlie Austin should have done better with a near-post header, while substitute Shane Long saw his first touch, also a header, turned wide by Wayne Hennessey. But Palace, led by Delaney and their captain, Scott Dann, stood strong under the pressure. With four minutes of the match remaining the Eagles wrapped it up, Puncheon’s alertness to a deflected shot embarrassing the Saints defence. His cut-back provided Benteke with a second finish only marginally more difficult than his first. Claude Puel blamed his side’s defeat as much on the state of the Selhurst Park turf as anything else, though this will no doubt be born of frustration at his side’s inability to deliver a win that could have cemented their place in the top half of the table. “It was the bad pitch that gave opportunities to the opponent,” he said. “It’s not an excuse for us; we did not play well in the first half. But to play the second half on a bad pitch against a team that was 2-0 up was impossible.”
Eight things you need to do right now to protect yourself online 1. Use unique passwords for all your accounts What: Stop kidding yourself that you only re-use passwords on accounts that don’t matter, or that you have an unbreakable password scheme that no one else can guess. Every single thing with a password needs to have a unique password, shared with nothing else. Why: Services get hacked, with entire databases of passwords published in the open. People get “phished”, tricked into entering their passwords into shady imitations of the sites they intended to visit. If this happens, you want to limit the damage, ensuring that only one site gets breached. How: Unless you absolutely categorically have a reason not to … 2. Use a password manager What: Software like LastPass (free) or 1Password ($2.99/month or $49), which will store your passwords, generate secure random ones for you, and sync them across multiple devices. Why: If you can memorise all your passwords, you can almost guarantee that they aren’t varied enough to be secure. A password manager may feel like putting all your eggs in one basket, but it’s a padded secure basket kept up-to-date by the best minds in the basket business, and what you’re doing right now is more like juggling the eggs above your head while blindfolded. How: Download the password manager, install it on your desktop (you can do mobile later), and start running it. You don’t even have to change your passwords all at once: the manager will notice when you log in, and ask you whether you want to save the new password. That should be your cue to create a new one. 3) Use random passwords What: Once you’ve got your password manager, use it to generate secure random passwords for you, rather than trying to invent your own. Why: You aren’t as random as you think, and “brute forcing” passwords – systematically trying every variation until you succeed – is getting quicker at the same rate computers are. If you have a handy method for creating passwords, like “take the first letter of every word in a line of poetry”, then someone else has probably also realised the same thing, and written a programme to automatically guess those passwords. Try searching Google for “tbontbtitq” (or “to be or not to be, that is the question”) if you don’t believe me. How: You’ve already got your password manager set up, yes? Even if you haven’t, some browsers will do it for you. Apple’s Safari, for instance, will happily generate random passwords when signing up for new accounts, then store them in iCloud Keychain. 4. Turn on two-step verification everywhere you can What: Many services, including Facebook, Google, Twitter, Tumblr and more, let you enable two-step verification, also known as two-factor authentication. As well as a password, you need to prove you have access to a second trusted device, normally a phone, to log on. How you prove that varies: sometimes a text is sent, sometimes you use a special app, sometimes you just hit a notification on your phone. Why: Two-step verification prevents a third-party from logging in to your accounts even if they have managed to steal your password. It’s an added layer of security, which makes it very difficult indeed to hack in to protect accounts. How: Every service has a different method for enabling the process, which hurts take-up, but handy resource Turn On 2FA will walk you through it for all the sites you use. 5. Update your software What: Most software has an automatic update function. Use it. Why: Most hacks are carried out by attacking software using weaknesses that were known, and fixed, long ago. It’s like we’ve invented vaccines, but you’re still catching smallpox. Particular focus should be paid to your operating system, web browser, and Adobe Flash. How: Enable automatic updates. 6. Put a six-digit PIN on your phone and set it to wipe if it’s guessed wrongly too many times What: Your phone has the ability to require a PIN before it is unlocked it. Use it. Why: If your phone gets taken while it’s unlocked, there’s not much you can do. But if it’s locked when it gets stolen, you can prevent the bad loss of hundreds of pounds of technology from turning into the loss of enough personal data to have your identity stolen too. How: On an iPhone, open settings, hit Touch ID & Passcode, flick on Erase Data, and click Change Passcode to set it to a six-digit PIN. Almost every Android is different, but look for a “security” menu in the settings app, sometimes under “personal”. Then, head to the “lock screen” menu to enable the auto-erase feature. 7. Enable full-disk encryption What: Your computer’s hard drive can be set to automatically encrypt when it’s turned off. Why: You think the risk of identity theft is bad when your phone is stolen, just think what happens when your computer is lifted. How: On a Mac, enable FileVault; on Windows, turn on BitLocker. 8. Back-up to an external hard drive What: Everything on your computer should be stored on a physically separate hard drive under your possession. Ideally, everything on your phone should be stored on your computer which should then be etc etc. Why: If the worst happens, and you lose everything, you need to be able to restore. This could happen because of a ransomware attack, because someone decided to personally ruin your life, or just because of a literal lighting strike. Cloud storage will help, but cloud platforms go bust unexpectedly, are just as vulnerable to hacking, and have an annoying tendency to “mirror” your computer – meaning something deleted from your local storage can be deleted from the cloud at the same time. How: Buy a cheap USB hard drive. If you use a Mac, just leave it plugged in and enable Time Machine; if you have a Windows PC, plug it in and follow these instructions. Yahoo hack: 1bn accounts compromised by biggest data breach in history
Co-op Bank chairman defends Niall Booker's £4m pay after loss The chairman of the Co-operative Bank has defended his chief executive’s pay package after Niall Booker was handed almost £4m for a year in which losses more than doubled to £611m. The bank’s pre-tax loss for 2015 widened from £264m a year earlier as it suffered £121m in losses on unwanted assets and costs for compensating customers mis-sold payment protection insurance (PPI) and consumer loans rose by more than £100m. The bank will make further losses this year and next, it said. The loss at the long-term core operation narrowed to £15m from £79m a year earlier and it will make a profit before the end of 2017, it predicted. As a result of the higher charges and other factors, including prolonged low interest rates, the bank said it would take a year longer than expected to reach required levels of capital strength. The revised plan, stretching to 2020, has been approved by the Bank of England’s Prudential Regulation Authority. Booker’s pay rose to £3.85m from £3.1m a year earlier, mainly because of a £502,000 bonus under an annual incentive plan, the bank’s annual report showed. Booker, a former senior HSBC banker, joined the bank in June 2013 when it was on the edge of collapse. It said retail banking customer numbers fell by 300,000 last year to 4 million. Dennis Holt, the chairman, said Booker had earned his pay. “You have to understand the context of this bank,” he said. “We have experience of taxpayers turning around Lloyds and RBS and others. If you go back to 2013, this bank was on the brink of following them and it was on the brink of being an expense to the UK taxpayer. It was this team who did the necessary work to prevent that outcome and for what this team has achieved their pay has been more than justified.” Last year campaigners protested against Booker’s pay for running the Co-op Bank, which has its roots in the mutual movement and presents itself as an ethical alternative to the big high street lenders. His pay is close to the £3.8m handed to Ross McEwan, the boss of Royal Bank of Scotland, which is a far bigger bank and suffered a £2bn loss last year. Booker said he was in demand from other companies when he joined the bank and that his pay reflects his value in the market. “My position has always been that I had other options and I suspect it’s a bit like any other commodity. It’s subject to the law of supply and demand.” The Manchester-based bank is looking for a new chief executive as Booker’s work in turning around its core business nears completion, Holt said. It could face disruption if senior managers brought in to deal with the crisis leave suddenly, it warned. Booker said members of his team could leave because the work they were hired for was done and likened the task to emergency surgery. “One of the things about a turnaround is that the early phase is a triage phase and some people’s skills are really suited to that but as you move into a phase of stability it’s more like long-term care. You don’t get trauma surgeons who treat you for ever. Sometimes the two don’t mix.” The Co-op Bank nearly collapsed in 2013 after losses from bad debts on commercial property opened up a £1.5bn hole in its finances. Bondholders took control of the bank, turning its longstanding owner, the Co-operative Group, into a minority shareholder. Its financial woes were compounded by revelations that its former chairman, Paul Flowers, took class A drugs. Booker, whose contract runs until the end of the year, has cut costs, sold risky loans and almost halved the bank’s branch network while updating computer systems. The average number of bank employees fell to 5,714 in 2015 from 6,402 a year earlier.
Aston Villa’s Rudy Gestede leaves Leicester regretting Riyad Mahrez miss The best-selling thriller author and ardent Aston Villa fan Lee Child edited the programme for this match, and he must know that the result leaves his club in a predicament from which even Jack Reacher, the indomitable hero he created, would struggle to escape. But Villa’s never-say-die attitude, which enabled them to fight back against a Leicester team that went to the top of the league with the draw, at least showed the players still believe. Leicester’s once-preposterous title dream remains alive, too, but Riyad Mahrez could have brought it a touch closer to reality by converting a first-half penalty that would have put the visitors two goals in front, Shinji Okazaki having given them the lead in the 28th minute. Instead the Villa goalkeeper, Mark Bunn, made a smart save to foil Mahrez from the spot and spur the home side into a revival. When Rudy Gestede equalised 15 minutes from time, it was no more than Rémi Garde’s team deserved. Villa, showing a degree of slickness on top of their admirable mentality, then looked the more likely to snatch a winning goal. But they could not muster one and, owing to results elsewhere, ended the day nine points behind 17th-placed Newcastle, further from safety than they had been in the morning. “I can see great spirit in the last two games, we have the right attitude to save this club from relegation,” said a defiant Garde. “We have 16 games to go, it’s not too late. It’s going to be very difficult but we are still believing and you saw that here.” Having overseen a victory against Crystal Palace in midweek, the first win of his reign, Garde named an unchanged side for this match and Villa made the brisker start. But Leicester were the first to threaten, Jamie Vardy heading wide from a Marc Albrighton free-kick in the 13th minute. Three minutes later the striker again got to the ball before any Villa player, this time chasing a flick-on before being upended by Bunn. The goalkeeper had charged out of his box expecting to beat the rapid striker to the ball, raising questions as to how closely he has been paying attention to Vardy’s feats this season. Fortunately for Bunn, the referee deemed a yellow card sufficient punishment. Bunn made the most of his reprieve by saving Albrighton’s ensuing free-kick. Then Leicester enjoyed a let-off. Robert Huth dabbed a back-pass into the path of Libor Kozak, who ran clear on goal but shot weakly from 10 yards. Kasper Schmeichel saved and Kozak attempted to feed the rebound to Jordan Ayew but Wes Morgan intervened with a sliding tackle. It was generally a tight game but Villa’s problem, in addition to a lack of balance and poor finishing, is that they can unravel at any moment. They did so here in the 28th minute and were made to pay. Vardy was allowed to run on to a punt from Schmeichel and aimed a delicate lob over Bunn, who backtracked well to claw it off the line. But Okazaki reacted faster than any defender to convert the rebound. Leicester should have put Villa away four minutes later after Aly Cissokho blocked a shot by Mahrez with his arm. Mahrez tried to dupe the goalkeeper from the spot but Bunn improvised a fine save. “A second goal would have closed the game but the miss gave Villa new energy,” said Claudio Ranieri. Two minutes after the penalty miss Ayew headed inches wide from an Ashley Westwood free-kick. Villa pieced together a nice move early in the second half but Schmeichel batted away a powerful shot from Ayew. Leicester invited pressure, retreating deep to protect their lead while making space for the breaks at which they excel. That plan could have been undone on the hour, when Huth caught Kozak in the face with a swinging arm as he tried to cut out a cross into the box from Westwood. Villa demanded a penalty, the referee saw nothing awry. Villa kept coming. Ayew dribbled brilliantly to the byline in the 65th minute before pulling the ball back to Leandro Bacuna, who failed to shoot with enough power to beat Schmeichel. Moments later Leicester nearly scored on the break, but Bunn denied Vardy. Garde introduced Gestede alongside Kozak up front. Villa’s doggedness was soon rewarded when the powerful striker collected the ball at the edge of the area, barged past Huth and benefited from a slice of luck when his shot took a nick off Morgan and continued into the net. Villa deserved their equaliser, and went looking for a winner. But they came up just short.
The Europe debate matters most to millennials – and we want to stay in These are not easy times to be in education in the UK. College closures and travel costs mean many students are struggling to afford further education. University, which our parents enjoyed for free, now requires sinking into more than £27,000 of debt. Rents are skyrocketing, and buying a house is nothing but a fantasy for many, all while most students are spending their entire income on just putting a roof over their head. On top of this, changes to voter registration rules mean students are suffering from unprecedented political marginalisation, reducing the incentive for politicians to take meaningful action on issues affecting us. Despite such insecure conditions, ours is an optimistic and broadminded generation. We are instinctively internationalist, as lives lived online do not respect national frontiers. We travel, work, and study abroad to a greater degree than previous generations. Politically, we involve ourselves in global struggles, such as climate change, international development and global justice. We utterly reject any course of action that would increase our economic and political insecurity, or that would close off our country and our minds from the rest of the world. This is why Britain’s young people are the most pro-European generation, and why we view leaving Europe as a fundamental threat to our wellbeing and our values. The EU is of immense value to Britain’s students. The Erasmus programme allows young people studying in Birmingham to spend a term or a year in Berlin at no extra expense. In 2013-14, more than 15,000 British students took advantage of this offer – the highest in history. Institutions benefit massively from European research funding, in 2013/14 British universities secured nearly £700m in EU funding, a fifth of the total. Who knows what upward pressure would be brought to bear on tuition fees if access to this cash was lost? The opportunities created for us by the EU are not just academic, but economic. Exports and investment are dependent on our place in the world’s largest tariff-free trade zone, with the free movement of goods, services, and capital. All this means one thing – jobs. Young people leaving colleges and universities to enter the world of work want decent, well-paid jobs, and that is exactly what Europe helps to provide. Quitting the EU would damage our economy and put much of this at risk, especially given that those who want us to leave have no clue what our alternative trading arrangement would be. Furthermore, being in the EU supports apprenticeships and further education. Between 2007 and 2013, £2.5bn of European social fund money was invested in skills and apprenticeships in England alone, helping over half a million young people into employment, education, or training. Those who want us to leave Europe would rather ignore this vital funding that supports Britain’s young people. Millennials cherish the ease of travel provided by the EU. Free movement means we do not need costly visas to cross the channel, and once in one European country we can travel freely through the others. The competition created by the EU’s single market means budget airlines can provide cheap flights, and when we want to phone home EU legislation means the price is not prohibitive. Pulling up the drawbridge, as Nigel Farage would like us to do, would put all this at risk. The EU advances and protects the values that Britain’s young people believe in. By enshrining LGBT rights in its treaties, the EU is a force for tolerance and respect. The same is true of discrimination on the grounds of race, gender, religion, or anything else. Tolerance must never be taken for granted, and Britain should be proud to belong to an organisation that demands tolerance of all its member states. Remaining in Europe is the right choice for Britain’s young people, in terms both of our values and our material wellbeing. We will live a long time with the consequences of the vote, and would be harmed most if Britain voted to leave. They say decisions are made by those who show up. The time has come for Britain’s young people to get involved, make their voices heard, and lead the campaign to keep us in the European Union.
Clean Hands review – drug-dealing goes Dutch Surely, there must be some contractual reason why this punnet of greasy genre junk-food cinema from the Netherlands is getting a theatrical release in the UK. After all, it’s highly doubtful there will be more of handful of punters interested in seeing it here, unless perhaps a fleet of buses containing Dutch holiday-makers decide to camp next to a multiplex showing it and find themselves with nothing else to do on a rainy Saturday afternoon. Should that happen, they would be rewarded with a committed, laudably nuanced performance from Thekla Reuten as the see-no-evil wife of Jeroen van Koningsbrugge’s middle-management drug dealer. After years of trying to look the other way, Reuten’s Sylvia finally admits to herself that her husband is a violent psychopath whose line of work is putting their teenage children (Bente Fokkens and Nino den Brave) in danger. The blood bubbling up from the toilet is sort of a giveaway. Director Tjebbo Penning seemingly never met a heavy-handed symbol he didn’t want to deploy, but he’s good on action sequences.
Netflix races ahead of Amazon and Sky with 5m UK households Nearly a quarter of UK households subscribe to Netflix, with 1.4 million joining the streaming service in 2015 alone to watch popular series such as House of Cards, a report has said. More than 5 million households, or 24% of the total, subscribed to Netflix at the end of 2015, compared with 14% in 2014. Netflix is far ahead of competitors such as Amazon’s Prime Instant Video or Sky’s Now TV, and is continuing to grow faster than the other services. According to the data, there are about 1.6 million households subscribing to Amazon’s service in the UK, up about 300,000 over 2015, and fewer than 1 million signed up to Sky’s Now TV. In total, more than 6.5 million households are signed up to some sort of video-streaming service. Though the figures from the TV ratings firm Barb are based on survey data and will not correlate exactly with the number of Netflix subscriptions, they show both the scale of Netflix’s reach in the UK, and its lead. The report said: “Netflix is by some margin the market leader and its growth continues to easily outpace the other services.” Netflix and Amazon are investing heavily in content designed in part to attract UK viewers, with the former’s big budget royal biopic The Crown costing £100m, and the latter reportedly spending £160m to secure the services of the former Top Gear presenters Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May. The survey also found that while 82% of Netflix households only subscribed to one streaming service, about half of both Amazon and Now TV subscribers were also signed up to another provider. Now TV is seen as a response by Sky to growing interest in cheaper internet-based video options, but the broadcaster says it is primarily aimed at consumers who would not sign up for a Sky subscription. Barb said that subscribers to services such as Netflix and Amazon are not using it to replace traditional TV viewing, including pay TV. The report says that Netflix and Amazon Prime households are “significantly more likely to be cable or Sky subscription homes than average”. However, this is not true of Now TV, which is specifically targeted at those consumers who only have terrestrial services. However, the figures also show that almost a fifth of households that do not have a TV do subscribe to a video-streaming service.
Trump's terror boast: ‘I called it’ Donald Trump bragged that he had “called” an explosion in NYC’s Chelsea neighborhood on Saturday, hours before it was confirmed. “I should be a newscaster because I called it before the news,” Trump said on Fox. Trump blamed Hillary Clinton’s “failed policies” for the attack and called for racial profiling by police. A spokesman warned “the only thing we can expect from a Clinton presidency is more attacks”. Trump upsets ‘Les Mis’ creators Our local police, they know who a lot of these people are. They are afraid to do anything about it, because they don’t want to be accused of profiling … You know, in Israel, they profile. They have done an unbelievable job, as good as you can do, but Israel has done an unbelievable job and they will profile. They profile. – Donald Trump In a press conference, Clinton urged Americans to “be vigilant, but not afraid” and said “the kinds of rhetoric and language that Mr Trump has used is giving aid and comfort to our adversaries”. ‘Aid and comfort to our adversaries’ “He’s still lying about it today,” Clinton said of Trump’s claim that Barack Obama was born outside the US. “He refuses to apologize to the president, his family and the American people.” Trump allies defend ‘birther’ BS I hope that someone will ask Donald Trump: when you were doing that, did you believe it? And if you believed it, how could you have been so gullible, or conspiratorial? And if you didn’t believe it, what were you doing dragging us back to the most painful chapter in American life, who were you trying to appease by doing that? – Clinton running mate Tim Kaine A prosecutor trying a “Bridgegate” case – for the closure of traffic lanes on the George Washington Bridge as political retribution – said New Jersey governor Chris Christie, now best buddies with Trump, knew about the closures, which Christie has denied. Christie ‘was in the loop’ The George Washington Bridge, he knew about it. How do you have breakfast with people every day of your lives, they’re closing up the largest bridge in the world ... They never said: ‘Hey boss, we’re closing up the George Washington Bridge today,’ no, they never said, they’re talking about the weather, right? Then, so he knew about it, he knew about it, totally knew about it. – Donald Trump, December 2015 With polls showing millennials eyeing third-party candidates instead of her, Clinton made a direct appeal: “I need you as partners, not just for winning this election, but in driving real change over the next four years.”
I’m a golf-playing businessman, Liam Fox. We’re definitely not lazy If you’re self-employed and running your own business, you tend to work very long hours. People put themselves under tremendous pressure. The upside is there is sometimes flexibility in the working week, compared to the traditional 9-5. If that gives you the occasional Wednesday off, from my point of view that’s a good thing. Liam Fox’s remarks about fat, lazy businessmen who would rather play golf than make deals draw attention to the odd Friday afternoon off rather than the working weekends or the laptops taken on family holidays that I think are far more common. I’m one of three owners of a company importing food from all over continental Europe, selling mainly to supermarkets. Our turnover is £51m, we directly employ 32 people and many more indirectly. This year we are growing at more than 20% in terms of volume, but the issue is profit margin. I typically work a 10-hour day, which is fewer hours than I used to work, and far fewer than many others. But when you have your own business you can almost never switch off. You’re always checking your mobile phone for emails, or maybe for the exchange rate. Customers need dealing with and deliveries get stuck at Calais – or a few times, recently, we’ve had stowaways on our trucks discovered at our depots. The world of British retail expects you to react almost instantly: a presentation is often demanded at very short notice. I think the culture has become quite macho; I’ve worked an 80-hour week for the sake of it. The industry could probably function quite well under less pressure, but the big four supermarkets, who are key customers, are under huge pressure from competition with one another and the discounters, so it’s not their fault. I’m a mediocre golfer. I’ve been playing for eight years and other than family and work it’s one of the biggest things in my life. I try to play every weekend. Our local pub has a golf society and I play a few times a year with them too. Do I play on weekdays? Very occasionally. It’s bizarre to associate golf with being overweight or lazy, because golf is a form of exercise, and good golfers are incredibly skilled. The reason I love golf is because it’s so hard – you’re hitting a little ball with a big stick and when it goes right it’s the best feeling in the world, but it so often goes wrong. For me, being outdoors is the most important thing. It’s a relief to spend three or four hours in the open after 12 hours in the office. And I think it’s a good fit for people who work in business because we have a competitive streak. Fox was talking about exporters, but it felt like a cheap shot at all businessmen. To talk about fat, lazy politicans would probably be an equally cheap shot. Golf is such an easy target – it has a slightly elitist, Jaguar-driving image that, like most stereotypes, has some truth to it. But it’s less like that than it used to be. Our former chairman, who is now in his 70s, did a lot of deals on the golf course, but I don’t think I’ve ever done one. There are a number of people in my industry who like golf, and once or twice a year we might meet and play, but that wasn’t my reason for taking it up. It can be a useful topic for small talk in the lift on the way to a meeting, but it’s not the only one. I’m not the only person who is working very hard and is very disappointed by the decision the British people took on 23 June. As an importer, Brexit is definitely bad for us. Why Fox chose to put down the very people he said were going to benefit from us quitting the EU, I don’t know. He must have had PR training – didn’t it stretch to not saying stupid stuff? One of the main reasons given to encourage people to vote leave was that Brexit would fix the trade balance, so we’d export more and import less. So it’s a self-destructive gaffe like Gerald Ratner saying his products were “total crap” to attack the exporters who are supposed to make a success of it.
Four Seasons Health Care reports £264m annual loss Britain’s biggest care home group, Four Seasons Health Care, has reported a £264m annual loss, highlighting the crisis in the social care industry amid rising costs and falling fees from local authorities. The company’s chairman, Robbie Barr, insisted that it was improving the quality of its care and was pressing ahead with a turnaround plan, despite the loss and Four Seasons’ debts of more than £500m. Four Seasons, which cares for 18,500 elderly people and has 31,000 staff, has fallen deep into the red after writing down the value of the care homes it owns by £224m, roughly a third of their value. This followed an independent valuation of Four Seasons’ estate and reflect the industry as a whole, according to the company. The care home operator owns roughly 55% of its 440 sites, with the rest rented from a landlord. Barr said: “It’s been a pretty challenging year for the industry as a whole.” Care homes are being squeezed by a decline in the fees that cash-strapped local authorities pay towards residents’ care and a rise in staff costs caused by the introduction of the £7.20 an hour “national living wage”, which came into force on 1 April. Four Seasons said councils needed to raise their payments by 5% in order to cover the increase in staffing costs. It claimed that there had been a real terms fall of 5% in fees over the past five years. The chancellor, George Osborne, has allowed councils to increase council tax by an extra 2% a year to help fund social care, and more than 90% of local authorities have introduced the levy by the maximum amount allowed. However, these funds are yet to flow through to care homes. Barr said: “We are now running at 87.5% occupancy, which is in line with historic levels and pretty close to where the sector is. But the bigger issue is the funding from local authorities; there is a deficit to where the cost of care is.” Four Seasons has been at the forefront of the crisis facing the industry, not only because it is Britain’s biggest care home group, but because of its debts, on which it paid interest of £52.1m last year. Credit rating agency S&P has warned that Four Seasons will run out of cash in 2016 unless it undergoes a radical financial restructuring. The performance of the care home provider has prompted criticism of the role of private equity in social care. The company is owned by Terra Firma, Guy Hands’ private equity firm. However, Ben Taberner, the chief financial officer of Four Seasons, insisted that the company would not run out of cash. “I spent alot of time explaining to them [S&P] that [what they said] wasn’t correct,” he said. “We would have run out of cash by now if it was correct. This group has medium-term flexibility in its finances.” Barr maintained that the quality of care at Four Seasons, which also owns Brighterkind and Huntercombe care homes, had not suffered as a result of the financial pressure. The number of Four Seasons homes that have been blocked by the Care Quality Commission from taking on new residents has fallen to three from 28 two years ago. “The strategy we have put in place for the business is working,” Barr said. “There has been a significant increase in the quality of care in the business. There are really encouraging signs that the focus on care is filtering through to other metrics [such as financial].” Elli Investments, the owner of Four Seasons, reported sales of £688m for 2015, down from £713m the previous year. The group made a pre-tax loss of £264m, compared with a £70.1m loss in 2014 and a profit of £52.3m in 2013. Excluding the impairment charge on its property, Four Seasons reported underlying profits of £38.7m, down by 40% on the previous year. Barr declined to say how many homes could close this year as a result of the financial outlook, saying it will depend on the company’s performance as 2016 progresses. “It really is wait and see, it’s moving quickly in the sector,” he said. Four Seasons sold off 18 homes last year. But Barr admitted that the company was looking to restructure its finances. “We announced last October the appointment of financial and legal advisers to consult on improving the group’s financial position,” he said. “Following their work over the last six months, [Four Seasons] has started to engage with certain key stakeholders, or their advisers, to explore a long-term solution for the debt and capital structure of the group, which we hope to resolve during the course of 2016. “Whatever the outcome, the group continues to have medium-term finances for its needs and we don’t envisage this process having any effect on the day-to-day care provision in our homes, hospitals and specialist care centres.”
The Flick: Annie Baker's play about cinema is really a love letter to theatre Some months ago, a friend and I walked into the wrong auditorium at a multiplex and found that, although all the seats were empty, a film was playing. There was something eerie and disconcerting about it. Why was the movie playing to a deserted room? Had the entire audience stood up and left? It felt like stumbling across the Mary Celeste. It made me think of how one of the significant differences between film and theatre is the nature of the audience. In the theatre, our presence and interaction is necessary. We make every performance different; the material may be the same but we help to shade it. If a theatre entirely emptied during a performance, it is unlikely that the show would go on. Yet in the digital age, when not even a projectionist is required, a film can continue to play on regardless, unchanged even in the absence of the human eye. Or indeed the absence of the human heart. If the theatre audience deserts a show it has an effect on the performance, but if the cinema audience for one of the NT or RSC digital screenings were to leave en masse, it would make not a jot of difference. I thought about this while watching Annie Baker’s stupendous play The Flick, which is set in an ailing cinema in Massachusetts, and playing at the National’s Dorfman theatre. Baker’s play and Sam Gold’s gloriously precise production have been much commented on for their length, the length of their pauses, and the way they locate the poetry in the everyday world of work. It is a play full of almost Chekhovian yearning and disappointment. It broke my heart. It also plays cleverly with the idea that a film takes us completely out of ourselves. It also raises questions about reproduction and authenticity and the nature of the live and lived experiences. As the character of Avery wonders: “Who is myself? What is real?” There is a moment towards the end when the latest recruit to the staff of the cinema is being shown by old hand Sam how to clear the auditorium of spilled popcorn and other detritus after a movie. The youngster suddenly stops and moves down the aisle to the screen – invisible to us in the theatre audience – and raises his hand to it. For a moment, it feels as if he is going to reach out and break the fourth wall and touch us. Sam asks the boy what he’s doing and he replies: “I always have this urge to touch it, don’t you?” “No,” says Sam incredulously. Using the screen as the fourth wall is one of many strokes of brilliance in Baker’s play. It melds a lament for the passing of film in the digital age with a consideration of what such cultural shifts mean for millions of people doing low-paid jobs, people like Sam, Avery and Rose, who work in the last non-digital cinema in the state. They are being swept away, like the rubbish left behind by moviegoers. While investigating the consequences of the transition from celluloid to digital, the play is also a love letter to theatre and liveness itself. There’s a paradox in the fact that it is playing at the NT, which has pioneered digital screenings of theatre around the world. In a rather bashful programme note, David Sabel, the founder of NT Live, says: “I love the tradition of film and there are inevitably certain things lost in the transition to digital. However, it must also be acknowledged that digital has had huge benefits on audiences’ experiences in terms of the range and breadth of programming available to cinemas and, in the case of event cinema, it has paved the way for a completely new innovation. National Theatre Live has brought the work of the National Theatre and many other theatres to millions of people in cinemas large and small around the world, all of which wouldn’t be possible without digital projection.” It wouldn’t. But what are the consequences? The Flick isn’t a nostalgia fest, or a piece with a Luddite view of technological advances. But it does chart the losses and potential costs of the shift from film to digital, while reminding us that there is a difference between seeing the Mona Lisa in the Louvre and looking at a postcard reproduction. The question it poses is: how do we know what is the real thing – in art, in life, in our own emotional responses? It does this in the most theatrically vivid way possible. From its opening moments, this is a piece that could only ever take place in the theatre. A flickering beam of white light from the projector dazzles our eyes in the darkness; the music from the soundtrack of an unseen movie swells and we imagine everything that is happening on screen but that we can’t see. Then the house lights of the cinema go up and we in the theatre audience are faced with the drab reality of the empty auditorium of an ailing cinema It is, as Baker has described it, a “face-off” between the reality of the play and the theatre audience watching it. As Sabel notes, digital film projection has brought many benefits, not least financial. In the same way that an NT Live screening reduces the substantial costs of touring a show all over the UK and beyond, so digital reduces the need for film companies to make and distribute thousands of expensive prints. But The Flick reminds us that in our enthusiasm for digital’s benefits, we must take care that something valuable about the audience experience is not being destroyed – both for film and theatre. As Nick James, editor of Sight and Sound magazine, has observed: “The crucial difference for the champions of real film is that the chemical process is tactile, physical, substantial, whereas the digital process is a virtual simulation.” You could say the same about live and digital theatre. Writing about the shift from celluloid to digital, film director Christopher Nolan said: “For some reason, it has become acceptable for cinemas to provide this empty room with a TV in it, and to just let audiences watch a film.” This, he said, diminishes the audience experience, adding: “I don’t think people are being made aware enough that any digital transfer from film is only going to be a translation of the original material. There is always a difference.” There is, and those of us who cherish live theatre need to remember it, too.
O surto da Zika: compartilhe suas histórias, opiniões e experiências Nós gostaríamos de ouvir a opinião dos leitores que estão em países afetados pelo vírus Zika. Aqui estão algumas perguntas que gostaríamos que considerasse: Como você tem sido afetado? Quais são os seus medos em relação ao vírus? O que você mudou na sua vida por conta disso? Você está preocupado com a notícia de que pode ser sexualmente transmissível? Os políticos em seu país estão abordando a questão de uma forma efetiva? Como isso está afetando o debate sobre o aborto em seu país? Como isso afetará os Jogos Olímpicos? Compartilhe as suas opiniões, histórias e experiências com a gente no link abaixo.
Tomorrow I Was Always a Lion review – ingenious journey inside mental illness Just over a decade ago, Belarus Free Theatre began its extraordinary existence with a production of Sarah Kane’s 4.48 Psychosis. Now it returns to the subject of mental health with Vladimir Shcherban’s adaptation and staging of a memoir by a Norwegian psychologist, Arnhild Lauveng, recording her own experience of schizophrenia. It is performed with the company’s usual physical expressiveness, yet it also left me wondering if theatre is the ideal medium for recapturing a prolonged curative process. Five actors sit in a circle and take turns in embodying Lauveng’s experiences. As a schoolgirl, she shows all the symptoms of mental disturbance: she imagines jumping off tall towers, sees wolves in the hallway, suffers a crisis of identity and hears voices. In one of the most telling passages, she records the presence of another self she calls “The Captain”, who rebukes her for her failings, physically attacks her and squats on her back as she tries to go about her daily life. One advantage of theatre is that it can make Lauveng’s experiences manifest: when she talks of the fog that surrounds her, the actors blow smoke rings that slowly envelop her, and the images that fill her head are ingeniously projected on to a screen through a copy of the very memoir she has written. When Lauveng is institutionalised, we also get a vivid idea of her initial resistance to much of the treatment: the morning workouts, the confinement to an isolation ward, the meaningless tasks that, at one point, involve her in routinely rolling earplugs. All this is graphically and imaginatively shown. But the production also raises several questions. The story has a positive note in that Lauveng eventually overcomes the illness (today describing herself as a “former schizophrenic”) and fulfils her dream of becoming a psychologist. But in an 80-minute show it is difficult to record every stage of the curative treatment and Lauveng’s leap from afflicted patient to qualified expert is sudden and only partly explained. The production also seems intended to stir us into action on patients’ rights. At the end we are invited to sign postcards protesting at the increased use of physical restraints against mental health patients. That seems entirely just. But, since Lauveng explicitly says she wouldn’t be alive today if force had not been used to prevent her from harming herself, it is difficult for the layman to know at what point restraint is appropriate. This is the first Belarus Free Theatre production to use an all-British cast and the five actors involved perform with exemplary lack of inhibition. Emily Houghton, Grace Andrews, Samantha Pearl, Oliver Bennett and Alex Robertson all switch easily from representing Lauveng herself to the doctors and staff who attend her. But, while the show enhances our awareness and understanding of schizophrenia, it also disturbs one in another sense. By condensing the treatment into a limited time, can theatre ever convey the arduousness of treating mental illness? And, as spectators, are we equipped to make instant ethical judgments on practical issues? Vibrant as this show is, I remain deeply unsure. At the Arcola, London, until 29 October. Box office: 020-7503 1646. Then at the Albany, London, in rep until 12 November. Box office: 020-8692 4446.
How a writer’s first film script inspired Idris Elba to become its star Even in his wildest dreams, Leon Butler never imagined that he would make a film with Idris Elba – one of Britain’s biggest stars of film and TV. As a quantity surveyor and property developer, Butler had no connections with that world, let alone with an actor on the wishlist of most casting directors. Yet Butler’s first screenplay inspired the star of crime series Luther and The Wire to waive his usual fee to both star in it and produce it. The film, 100 Streets, is a drama about modern city life. It is set in London, on the streets around the Albert Bridge, Chelsea and Battersea. Elba plays a former rugby superstar who has lost his way since his glory days and is on a downward spiral with a disintegrating marriage. Other characters include a small-time drug dealer who strikes up an unlikely friendship with an ageing actor, and a cab driver torn apart by an accident. Relationships and loyalties are pushed to the limit. Butler, 42, told the that watching Elba bring to life his character was just “surreal”. He recalled: “There were many times on the set where I would pinch myself.” He will be walking up the red carpet at the film’s charity premiere in London on 8 November, three days before its release in UK cinemas. It was Elba’s compelling portrayal of the complex but deadly lieutenant of a Baltimore drug empire in The Wire that propelled the actor to international fame. His depiction of the complex anti-hero Detective Chief Inspector John Luther in the crime series Luther earned him Golden Globe recognition, among other awards. His films include Mandela: the Long Walk to Freedom. But he was drawn to the novice scriptwriter’s work, helping to shape it, advising on the musical score and producing videos expressing his enthusiasm for the project, to entice investors. His involvement immediately opened doors. He introduced Butler to sales agents, distributors and other key players. Butler said: “It’s a very difficult world out there for independent drama. Without Idris, [the film] would be nowhere … with Idris, of course that’s how we got Sony to buy worldwide distribution. I owe him everything.” In the film’s production notes, Elba says: “I respected Leon’s drive and wanted to try to help make the project happen. It’s so important that smaller-scale British films still get made … and I was keen to do my bit.” He also brought in other A-list actors, including Gemma Arterton, who starred alongside Daniel Craig’s 007 in Quantum of Solace and was Elba’s co-star in Guy Ritchie’s gangster film RocknRolla. In 100 Streets, she plays Elba’s estranged wife. Butler said: “She worked with us for a couple of weeks. You couldn’t have found a more professional young woman.” The son of a builder and architect, Butler grew up in Bedfordshire before studying quantity surveying and commercial management at Manchester University. He then moved to London, working on “high-end refurbishments”. A sports injury led indirectly to his change of career. While he was convalescing, and unable to do anything else, he was urged by a friend to occupy himself with a screenwriting course. He had always loved watching films, but he never had a burning desire to write one until then. When he later started to raise money for his film, he approached friends from school and the City. Their initial reaction was one of disbelief. But he inspired them with his enthusiasm. One friend, a financial adviser, introduced him to a leading casting director, Ros Hubbard, after he happened to organise her mortgage. She has cast about 140 films and TV productions, including The Da Vinci Code. She read the script, and loved it so much that she became one of its producers and showed it to Elba. Butler recalled: “She said that Idris would love to meet you. That was a real buzz.” He added: “It’s difficult to walk into an industry armed with a first draft of a script. Idris does these huge movies in Hollywood now, but he’s very keen to show real stories about real people.” 100 Streets conveys the loneliness of life in a big city. “Even when living cheek by jowl with other people, we can all be lost,” Butler said. Elba believes that the film “will appeal to a worldwide audience as the characters are familiar to all city life. If there’s a message, it’s mainly that, although city life can be lonely, we can all be part of something. People are always willing to help you in your hour of need. It’s a complex, but ultimately a positive film.” DEBUT CLASSICS Citizen Kane (1941) Orson Welles produced, co-authored, directed and performed the lead role. It won an Academy Award for best writing. Rocky (1976) Sylvester Stallone’s first screenplay became the highest-grossing film of 1976 and won three Oscars. Reservoir Dogs (1992) Quentin Tarantino wrote and directed the cult classic, his first feature-length film, later named the greatest independent film of all time by Empire. Little Miss Sunshine (2006) First-time writer Michael Arndt won the Academy Award for best original screenplay. It was also the joint feature film debut of husband-and-wife team Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris. Juno (2007) Diablo Cody’s debut script won an Academy Award and a Bafta for best original screenplay. Rebecca Ratcliffe
Theories emerge for pound's 'flash crash' against dollar Just after midnight in the UK on Friday morning, when most of Europe was asleep, foreign exchange dealers in Asia were jolted out of their routine contemplation of the currency markets by a sudden, inexplicable plunge in the value of the pound against the dollar. The UK currency had been under renewed pressure since Sunday, when Theresa May said she would trigger article 50 by next March and hinted at a hard Brexit – putting immigration controls at the forefront of EU discussions at the expense of remaining in the single market. With investors worried about the subsequent outlook for the UK economy, the pound had already dropped to a new 31-year low. But at 7.07am Hong Kong time on Friday, when traders were just starting work and little business is usually done, sterling suddenly fell off a cliff. It dropped more than 8% from $1.26 to $1.1491 in just eight minutes – a huge plunge in a market where a single cent is a big change. Dealers said there were only a small number of trades, possibly just a few hundred, made during that time. At one point the fall looked even worse, down 10% to $1.1378, before the cancellation of what was said to be a rogue trade. Even so, the slump was undeniably the worst one-day drop since the 10% fall in the immediate aftermath of the result of the Brexit vote in June. After several minutes of chaos on the trading floors, a semblance of calm returned and buy orders started to come in. Just 30 minutes later the pound had recovered to $1.24, but shell-shocked traders were scrambling to find a reason for the sudden “flash crash”. “I’ve been trading the pound since 1978 through every crisis it has seen, and I’ve not seen anything like this,” said Ian Johnson, a foreign exchange strategist at financial analysis firm 4Cast. Naeem Aslam, the chief market analyst at Think Markets, said: “What we had was insane. Call it a flash crash, but a move of this magnitude really tells you how low the currency can really go. Hard Brexit has haunted sterling.” The falls will have hit both investors and companies. Sports Direct issued a profit warning on Friday afternoon, saying the overnight flash crash had cost the company £15m, or 5% of its annual profits. . It was not long before theories began to emerge. The most popular was that computer-driven algorithmic systems – known as algos – were the cause because they are programmed to sell the pound on negative Brexit headlines. According to this theory the algos had picked up on a report in the Financial Times quoting the French president, François Hollande, as saying that Britain would have to suffer for the Brexit vote in order to ensure EU unity. Kathleen Brooks, the research director at the financial betting firm City Index, said: “Apparently it was a rogue algorithm that triggered the sell off … These days some algos trade on the back of news sites, and even what is trending on social media sites such as Twitter – so a deluge of negative Brexit headlines could have led to an algo taking that as a major sell signal for the pound. “Once the pound started moving lower then more technical algos could have followed suit, compounding the short, sharp, selling pressure.” The FT said its report was published seconds after, rather than before, the pound’s fall began. Even so, many prominent City figures believe computerised trading was behind the fall, with programs called Cowpox and Triple Threat mentioned as possible instigators of the slide. Earlier there had been speculation that the fall was due to a “fat finger” trade, where a dealer types an incorrect figure into their terminal, which could also have set off the computerised sell programmes. Dealers pointed out, however, that such trades would have since been cancelled if that were the case. Others said the fall may have been linked to a technicality, the expiry of foreign exchange options on Friday, with banks hedging their exposure to anticipated currency movements. On top of that, major institutions often have instructions in place to sell investments if they fall below a certain level, and some of these so-called stop-losses could have been triggered by the sudden plunge in the pound. A definitive answer may never emerge, because the foreign exchange market has no central trading system, which makes it difficult to track deals. The Bank of England, which had already been on alert for the impact of computer trading on markets, is investigating. It said: “We are looking at the causes of the sharp falls overnight,” and later added it had asked the Bank for International Settlements – which represents the world’s central banks – to look into what prompted the flash crash. Sterling struggled to regain ground during the day, but recovered to $1.2461 after worse than expected US employment figures hit the dollar. Analysts expect the currency to remain under pressure thanks to the uncertainty around Brexit – and they said another sudden drop was not out of the question. Brooks said: “This highlights the drawback of machines making trading decisions. However, it is the reality, and it is only getting more popular. Thus, another flash crash is possible. If there is , the pound is vulnerable because such unstable forces are driving it.” Sean Callow, a senior currency strategist at Westpac, said that sterling had been on a precipice since May’s speech at the Conservative party conference. “I think we’ve underestimated how many people had money positions for a very wishy-washy Brexit, or even none,” he said. Speaking in Washington, the British chancellor, Philip Hammond, said: ,“It has taken us a little while to persuade the markets and investors that Brexit will happen. This week the final foot dropped. Those who thought it is not going to happen have taken on board that it is going to happen.” Hammond said he did not expect market turbulence to drive the pound consistently lower. Accepting that there would be “bumps in the road” during the negotiations, he said the currency would have ups and downs as people weighed up the opportunities as well as the costs of leaving the EU. The HSBC strategist David Bloom said he expected the pound to fall to $1.10 and to parity with the euro by the end of 2017. Analysts at the Japanese financial group Daiwa were more pessimistic: “Sterling’s all-time low against the dollar was $1.05. If the government keeps careering headlong into a hard Brexit, a return to those lows is not unimaginable.” So bad news for sterling, and holidaymakers, with or without another flash crash.
To children, the news can be confusing and scary. They need our reassurance For adults, the news can be shocking. But our life experience enables us to mentally file it away in the “Very sad but doesn’t affect me” box or the “Not this again!” box. For children trying to make sense of the world, the news can be desperately alarming. I was not surprised at all to learn about the rise in calls to ChildLine from children feeling anxious about events in the news. While many of us would like to wrap up our children in cotton wool and shield them from the wider world, sadly that horse has already bolted. We are surrounded by news. There are 24/7 news channels, radio, newspapers, the internet and smartphones (the average age kids get their first phone is seven and a half). The world is at their fingertips. Even if you have done a great job of activating all the parental controls (and your tech-savvy offspring hasn’t simply switched them off again), chances are that bad stuff in the news will be the talk of the playground. As a parent, or grandparent, it is almost impossible to censor the stories that reach your child, or gauge how they are interpreted. It’s misinformation that is the problem – be it half a story from a friend at school, or a sensationalised headline, or an inaccurate report. As the responsible adults in their lives, we need to be sure that they are getting accurate, impartial information, which is written for them and doesn’t sensationalise or scaremonger. It needs to be truthful yet reassuring. That’s where First News comes in. We don’t shy away from reporting a story because we know children will have heard about it anyway. A note on this: be careful about your own casual conversations in front of children. A throwaway comment among adults in the car about how Donald Trump being elected as president could result in world war three, or that Brexit will bring Britain to its knees, could silently terrify those in the backseat for weeks. Far better to discuss these issues with your children and give them a chance to talk about their worries. That way you can reassure them. Last year we surveyed more than 2,000 children and they said that their single biggest fear was terrorism. It is desperately sad that they should be so troubled by the threat, even when the statistics show that it is highly unlikely to impact on most of our lives. We point out that kind of stuff. First News covers all the major headlines that we know children are hearing about. We have a daily bulletin on our new online channel and two-minute explainer videos called I Don’t Get It!, covering topics such as the migrant crisis, the Zika virus and Islamic State. The newspaper, which comes out every Friday, addresses every story head on. We tell the truth in everything that we do, but we don’t scaremonger, sparing the graphic details where they are unnecessary. We always put the story in context, explaining the background. And we point out that stories are often only in the news because they are rare, and that our everyday lives are barely ever touched by such events. For instance, after the Paris attacks, we highlighted the fact that the chances of actually being caught up in such violence are incalculably small. After a plane crash, we remind readers that, at any one moment, half a million people are criss-crossing the skies in thousands of planes that take off and land safely. Unlike many other news sources, First News is really careful to ensure our coverage is balanced. We make sure we carry a plethora of positive and uplifting stories. Good news is news, too. The fact is that there is far more good in the world than bad, and it is our responsibility to report that – and not just for children – for the mental health of the nation. Nobody wants to read or watch the news and feel thoroughly depressed about the planet we live on. Most people are decent and kind – we never forget to tell children that.
Spotlight: the reporters who uncovered Boston's Catholic child abuse scandal On the homepage of the Boston Roman Catholic archdiocese website, next to information on preparing for marriage, is a box labelled “Support, Protection and Prevention”. You have to scroll to see the first reference to children and click a link to find any mention of abuse. In 2002, the Boston Globe’s Spotlight team, a group of five investigative journalists, uncovered the widespread sexual abuse of children by scores of the district’s clergy. They also revealed a cover-up: that priests accused of misconduct were being systematically removed and allowed to work in other parishes. The team’s investigation brought the issue to national prominence in the US, winning them the Pulitzer prize for public service. The journalists’ story, and those who suffered at the hands of the clergy, are the subject of Spotlight, a Hollywood movie starring Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo and Rachel McAdams. It is a love letter to investigative journalism and a reminder that, 13 years and some $3bn in settlement payments later, survivors in Boston and beyond are still waiting for satisfactory long-term action from the Vatican. “The Catholic church often talks about this as pain that’s in the past,” says Spotlight’s co-screenwriter, Josh Singer. “I think the survivors would tell you they’re less interested in the church trying to make amends and more interested in the church protecting children in the future.” Singer, who was a writer and editor on The West Wing, calls the Spotlight journalists of 2002 a “championship team”. Their player-manager was Boston native Walter “Robby” Robinson. His high school, which was across the road from the Boston Globe’s offices, employed three priests who were later suspended for misconduct. In the film, Robinson, played by Michael Keaton, represents the Globe’s old guard. He’s navigating a community that’s very Catholic and very close-knit, working on a contentious story for a paper that he says at the time was “too deferential to the church”. “Every major city in the US has two things in common,” Robinson tells me. “They have an archdiocese and they have a major newspaper. I don’t know of a single city where, in hindsight, clues that this was going on didn’t surface way back when. If we’d been more open to the notion that such an iconic institution might have committed such heinous crimes I think people would have got on to this sooner.” It was this implicit deference by the police, attorneys and, to some degree, the press that interested Singer in the story. In a key scene, a lawyer who represents the victims says: “It takes a village to raise a child. It takes a village to abuse one.” “That collective looking away was always interesting,” Singer says. “How had the community fostered this? That seemed to have bigger power and resonance, because that is similar to what’s still going on with Penn State or Jimmy Savile at the BBC”. “Sometimes we need to question a little more when we are part of an insider group,” he says. “To listen to the outsiders.” Phil Saviano was battling to get his story heard long before the Spotlight team’s stories were published. Saviano, a survivor who was abused by his parish priest from the age of 12, had sent the Globe information on the Boston clergy that reporters originally missed. In the film, Saviano (played by actor Neal Huff) tells the Spotlight team that, for a kid from a poor family in Boston, being groomed by his priest was like being singled out by the Almighty: “How do you say no to God?” Saviano, now in his 60s, was one of the victims who refused a settlement from the church and retained, unlike others, his right to speak freely about his experience. He’s the founding member of the New England chapter of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests. After the Spotlight investigation, Snap’s membership swelled to more than 22,000 as victims came forward, according to its executive director, David Clohessy. “Before Spotlight’s work, Snap members were usually ignored,” he says. “They were unsuccessfully trying to warn parishioners, parents, police, prosecutors and the public about this massive, ongoing danger to kids. After Spotlight’s work, people started to pay attention.” Michael Rezendes, played by Mark Ruffalo in the film, is the only journalist involved in the investigation still working on the Spotlight team. Rezendes describes the experience of having his story turned into a movie as “strange and intrusive”, but he’s a big fan of the finished product. “We call Boston the biggest small town in America,” says Rezendes. “Everybody seems to know everyone. The film-makers probed that pretty deeply, and were able to make a statement about the collective ability to speak out when you see wrongdoing.” “I had huge reservations about letting Hollywood fictionalise our lives,” says Sacha Pfeiffer, another member of the Spotlight team, who is played by Rachel McAdams. “We talk on the phone, we do data entry, we look at court records. Good luck making that interesting!” But there was no need to sensationalise the story, says the screenwriter – the procedure and the scale of the scandal were compelling enough. Still, the film is more All the President’s Men than Broadcast News (“Watergate was a local story, so was this,” says Singer). There is no bitching, little jostling, only the occasional glimpse of ego. Working at the dawn of online news, the team spend hours rifling through giant church directories, begging to use the state legislator’s photocopier. Just as they are ready to print, their editor (Marty Baron, portrayed by Liev Schreiber) tells them to stop and take stock. The Spotlight team had identified 12 priests who they knew had been implicated in child sex abuse. They wanted to get the names out there, but Baron told them to hold their fire and aim for the bigger target: the Catholic church itself. “Would an editor have that sort of restraint now?” asks Singer. “As opposed to just throwing what you have up on the web? If you’d just run those names it would have been a he-said-she-said with every single one. Instead of talking about the bigger story, which is the system.” “The internet has forced us to think in short bursts,” says Robinson. “We seldom have time to get a really strong grasp on what the full story is. Everybody’s trying to get morsels out there, instead of the full meal.” The Spotlight story got told because Baron, newly arrived from the Miami Herald, told the locals how to see their city. The Globe’s new editor was an outsider who questioned a norm: that the church was untouchable. That confidence – to follow a difficult story through against the prevailing wisdom – is a rare quality, says Robinson. And the investigative reporting that followed was expensive. “Editors tend to cut it first,” says Robinson, “But ask a daily newsreader what is most important to them and they’ll say investigative reporting.” Spotlight has been well received by survivors (“It’s re-energised many who have been discouraged by the intractability of the church”, says David Clohessy), and the church itself has been broadly supportive. When asked if the archdiocese of Boston endorses the film, Terrence Donilon, communications officer to the city’s archbishop, Cardinal Seán O’Malley, said the archdiocese “would not discourage people from seeing the film”, but viewing it “should be an individual choice”. Since the Spotlight investigation, the Vatican has moved to establish a tribunal to hear cases of bishops accused of perpetrating or covering up child abuse. Critics say its remit is foggy and its powers unclear. Pope Francis’s visit to Boston last September was marred by his comments the week earlier that US bishops had shown “courage” in facing the scandal. Survivors responded with anger and incredulity. Generally, it is thought that the church still has a lot to learn about transparency. “It’s been 13 years since we published our stories,” says Michael Rezendes. “So far, for survivors, there’s been a tribunal that hasn’t taken any concrete action. Over the last 10 years the Vatican has defrocked something like 850 priests and sanctioned maybe 2,500 more. But in terms of policy, there has been very little systemic change.”
Liverpool v West Bromwich Albion: match preview With Liverpool’s sights raised this season Jürgen Klopp might not lead thechorus-line celebrations in front of the Kop should his team salvage a point in added time against Albion this time. “But everything is possible,” he admitted. The last three meetings between the teams have been drawn but, having defended Manchester United’s long balls on Monday, Klopp believes Liverpool are better equipped to deal with the Tony Pulis approach that caused him and his players such consternation last season. Adam Lallana is fit to start and improve the urgency and accuracy that was missing from Liverpool’s display against United. Andy Hunter Kick-off Saturday 5.30pm Venue Anfield Last season Liverpool 2 West Bromwich Albion 2 Live BT Sport 1 Referee Neil Swarbrick This season G4, Y18, R0, 4.50 cards per game Odds H 3-10 A 12-1 D 5-1 Liverpool Subs from Manninger, Mignolet, Can, Klavan, Sturridge, Lucas, Moreno, Ings, Stewart, Randall, Grujic, Brannagan, Origi, Ejaria Doubtful Wijnaldum (hip) Injured Gomez (knock, unknown), Ojo (back, unknown) Suspended None Form DWWWWD Discipline Y14 R0 Leading scorer Milner 4 West Bromwich Albion Subs from Myhill, Rose, Robson-Kanu, Morrison, Gardner, Brunt, Galloway, Leko, Field, Wilson Doubtful None Injured Berahino (match fitness, 29 Oct) Suspended Evans (one match) Form DLWDDD Discipline Y20 R0 Leading scorer Chadli 4
Shorten endorses Clinton for US president, saying Trump would be 'very difficult' The Labor leader, Bill Shorten, has endorsed US Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton over presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump, saying Trump would be “very difficult to deal with.” He criticised the Greens leader, Richard Di Natale, for calling for Australia to rethink its foreign policy, independent of the United States. “We will stick to the American alliance full stop,” Shorten said on Tuesday. “The Labor party sees as part of our foreign policy the strong ongoing maintenance of the American alliance.” Di Natale spoke at the Lowy Institute on Tuesday, and told its audience that if Australia wanted to be a “confident and courageous country” it must forge a more independent path in the region, free of the entanglements of the US alliance. He said Australia’s tight-knit alliance with the US had made the country more prone to threat than if it was unaligned. By failing to pursue an independent foreign policy “we renounce our ambition to be a confident 21st century country and undermine our own national interests”, he said. Shorten criticised that argument on Tuesday, dismissing it as another “silly” Greens idea. He then risked inserting himself into the US political debate by saying he knew who he would vote for in the upcoming presidential election if he had the chance. “I have to say that if I was in America I would be voting for Hillary Clinton,” Shorten said. “Whoever America elect we’ll work with, but there’s no doubt in my mind that Trump would be very difficult, I think, to deal with.” Former prime minister John Howard was heavily criticised in 2007 when he warned that the election of then-US Democratic presidential aspirant Barack Obama would be a boost for terrorists in Iraq. “If I was running al-Qaeda in Iraq, I would put a circle around March 2008, and pray, as many times as possible, for a victory not only for Obama, but also for the Democrats,” Howard said at the time. Obama said the attack from Howard was a “just a bunch of empty rhetoric” unless Australia put more troops on the ground in Iraq. Shorten also criticised Malcolm Turnbull for his decision to delay the start date of its so-called backpackers tax by six months, which puts it off until well after the election. Labor has said it wants to scrap the tax but won’t commit to doing so until it sees modelling of the true amount of revenue that would be forgone. It says the measure cannot raise $540m because the tax is deterring holidaymakers from coming to Australia. “The budget was barely two weeks ago and the wheels are falling off it. What a shemozzle,” Shorten said. On Tuesday the assistant treasurer, Kelly O’Dwyer, announced the government would delay the backpacker tax for six months until 1 January 2017. The delay would cost $40m, she said.
Hillary Clinton's potential vice-presidents defend her over emails Four of Hillary Clinton’s potential vice-presidents defended her on Sunday morning, one day after the FBI interviewed the presumptive Democratic nominee about her use of a private email server while secretary of state in the Obama administration. All four men dodged questions on whether they were being vetted by the campaign, but spoke positively about Clinton’s participation in the investigation. The Ohio senator Sherrod Brown said he was “not worried” about Clinton being indicted, noting that she has turned over more than 30,000 emails and released her tax returns – unlike her Republican rival for the presidency, Donald Trump. “She’s always been willing to talk to authorities,” Brown told ABC’s This Week. The New Jersey senator Cory Booker told CNN’s State of the Union Clinton would not be indicted. “That’s just not going to happen,” he said. It is unclear how much longer the email investigation will last or whether Clinton will be prosecuted, although many observers believe her interview signaled that the investigation was near its end. The Democratic National Convention begins in Philadelphia on 25 July. On Saturday, Clinton’s campaign said she was interviewed for three and a half hours on Saturday at FBI headquarters in Washington. She later told MSNBC she had been “eager” to participate and “pleased to have the opportunity” to help the justice department conclude the investigation. Critics have questioned the independence of the investigation, following a meeting between the attorney general, Loretta Lynch, and Bill Clinton at a Phoenix airport this week. Lynch, who said the meeting had been unplanned and informal after the two politicians’ planes happened to land on the same tarmac, acknowledged that the meeting “cast a shadow” on the investigation. She said she would “fully accept” whatever recommendations were made by the FBI and prosecutors. “It’s important to make it clear that that meeting with President Clinton does not have a bearing on how this matter will be reviewed and resolved,” Lynch said, speaking at the Aspen ideas festival in Colorado earlier this week. On Sunday morning, Xavier Becerra, a Democratic representative from California also touted as a possible Clinton vice-presidential pick, said the Lynch-Clinton meeting would not be an issue in the investigation. “The fact that the attorney general, whose integrity is not even in question, has said that she’s going to rely on the recommendations of the FBI investigators and the career prosecutors at justice is a clear sign that it won’t be an issue here,” Becerra told Fox News Sunday. “Because those who are doing the investigation, those who know the facts, are going to make the final call.” On Saturday, Trump tweeted: “It was just announced – by sources – that no charges will be brought against Crooked Hillary Clinton. Like I said, the system is totally rigged!” He has said repeatedly that he would indict Clinton if he becomes president. On Sunday, the former Republican senator and presidential candidate Rick Santorum, who has endorsed Trump, would not say he agreed with Trump’s declaration that the investigation was “rigged” in Clinton’s favor. He did, however, imply that her relationship with the White House could affect the investigation. “The fact that [Obama is] going to campaign for her in the face of the looming investigation and potential indictment says maybe he knows something that the rest of us don’t know,” Santorum said, on ABC. There was a “cozy relationship” between the White House and Clinton, Santorum said, that would prevent her from being appropriately prosecuted. “If she was not Hillary Clinton … if she was an undersecretary of state that had done the same types of things, number … she would have been fired.” Clinton’s use of a private email server was first revealed in March 2015, a month before she launched her bid for the presidency. “I have said that I’m going to continue to put forth my record, what I have stood for, do everything I can to earn the trust of the voters of our country,” Clinton told MSNBC in an interview first broadcast on Saturday. “I know that’s something that I’m going to keep working on.” The labor secretary, Tom Perez, another possible Clinton vice-president, told NBC’s Meet the Press people did not trust Trump and said the support Clinton has received so far showed people were looking beyond the email issue. “And what it reflected was people understand that she is running for president because she wants to break down barriers of opportunity,” Perez said. The show’s host, Chuck Todd, also asked Perez about Clinton’s position on trade – in opposition to that of the administration in which Perez serves – and his own foreign policy credentials as a potential VP. “Well, I haven’t run a Miss Universe pageant and I don’t own any golf courses in Scotland,” Perez said, “so I don’t have what Donald Trump has, and I’m very sorry about that. “But, you know, it’s all about judgment. And Donald Trump is such a volatile individual. And what I have seen working with Secretary Clinton is that she is a steady hand.” Perez continued his attack on Trump, calling him a “train wreck” on the minimum wage, trade, immigration and “American values”.
Dancing in the dark: the growing trend of gigs with the lights off Jamie Lidell is purring words of welcome in our ears, but we can’t see him. We can’t see much, because we’re all wearing blindfolds emblazoned with the words “Pitchblack Playback”. Lidell isn’t actually here but the Transatlantic soul artist has chosen to unveil his latest album, Building A Beginning, at this lights-off event. The atmosphere shifts in the shadows, as his new songs start playing; the concrete bunker bar at Shoreditch’s Ace Hotel even feels warmer. Basslines go deeper in the dark; voices make you tingle; the silences hit you harder. We’ve apparently become hooked on doing stuff in the dark, whether it’s TV cringe-fest Dating In The Dark, or “blind tasting” restaurants (what could be more sensual than stabbing yourself in the face with a fork?). Music in the dark sounds more appealing, and Pitchblack Playback creator Ben Gomori was inspired to launch a new listening session where the songs would be the sole (loud) focus. So far, it’s hosted new music from Explosions In The Sky, Ian Brown and Warpaint. “The darkness is a way to underline that desire to cut yourself off from other distractions, but also to create a shared experience,” explains Gomori. “A few songs in, you’ve forgotten where you are; it’s meditation, basically.” Music in darkness can offer thoughtful perspectives; the Royal National Institute of Blind People has just hosted its latest See Through Sound gig, which supplied its audience with specs to simulate sight-impairment. The Blackout gigs founded by former Late Of The Pier member Sam Potter also highlight the creative possibilities of darkness. As well as immersing you in pitch-black, its live acts remain anonymous, adding further mystique. “I was into the idea of creating a mythology around a gig,” says Potter, who works with scent designers and sensory scientists to concoct olfactory and aural effects to accompany the music. “The darkness shortens the distance between the music and your imagination.” The experiment does have stumbling blocks; I felt nervous at my first Blackout, hand-held into the gig by a guide with infra-red specs; maybe that was a flashback to childhood fears. Being in the dark creates a tightly heightened intimacy that can amplify irritants, too, such as the glow of phones. But if you long to luxuriate in a full album, or an unpredictable live set-list, it’s a minor distraction. As Potter insists: “There’s a respect for the darkness when you’re in there.” At the very least, there’s a respect for the idea of an antidote to the sensory overload of everyday gigs. Time to go to the dark side? Blackout is at Illuminations festival, Oval Space, E2, 30 October; for more information on Pitchblack Playback see pitchblackplayback.com
Ian McKellen: 'Why has no openly gay man ever won the best actor Oscar?' Ian McKellen, the veteran British actor who found global fame through the Lord of the Rings movies, has cautioned that homophobia is as much of an issue among Academy voters as racism. Commenting on Monday on the current row over the lack of diversity among both Oscar voters and this year’s nominees, McKellen suggested prejudice was the reason no publicly out man had ever received an Academy award for best actor. He expressed sympathy with black actors angry that they were “being ill-treated and underestimated,” but said the issue was a wider one. “No openly gay man has ever won the Oscar; I wonder if that is prejudice or chance,” he said, with the implication that he felt it tended towards the former. Tom Hanks, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Sean Penn have all won best actor Oscars for playing gay men. “How clever, how clever,” said McKellen. “What about giving me one for playing a straight man? “My speech has been in two jackets … ‘I’m proud to be the first openly gay man to win the Oscar.’ I’ve had to put it back in my pocket twice.” McKellen was first nominated for the best actor award in 1998, missing out to Roberto Benigni for Life is Beautiful; and for best supporting actor as Gandalf in the first Lord of the Rings film (Jim Broadbent won for Iris). He had been felt by many to be a potential contender this year for his acclaimed role as an ageing Sherlock Holmes in Bill Condon’s Mr Holmes; but he missed nominations from most major awards bodies. As it stood, said McKellen, the Oscars voting system was not fit for purpose. “If you are trying to have a career, as a black or Hispanic actor in a state – California – where white people are now the minority, and you are being judged by an Academy where the vast majority are white, male, middle-aged and old … well, perhaps that is the wrong yardstick.” This year is the second in succession that the Oscars have produced all-white acting shortlist. The growing row prompted the Academy to announce on Friday a “sweeping series of substantive change” with the number of “women and diverse members” of the Academy doubled by 2020. That is too late for some, however, with Will Smith joining his wife Jada Pinkett Smith in vowing not to attend this year’s ceremony. Host Chris Rock over the weekend restated his commitment to the event, but producers have suggested he will be tackling the issue in his opening monologue. McKellen was speaking at the London launch of a BFI Shakespeare season which will include his 1995 film of Richard III, in which he starred and adapted the text. He also had a big say in who starred alongside him, turning down a 12-year-old Eddie Redmayne for a part as one of the princes in the tower. “Eddie Redmayne is a bloody good actor even though I had the privilege of denying him his first film part,” said McKellen. “I didn’t think he was good enough … I can’t remember why. We turned down this little Eton boy.” McKellen did, however, give another Eton-educated actor his first film role: Dominic West, who played the Earl of Richmond. McKellen said Eton alumni had an in-built advantage in that their school had a theatre which would “satisfy the needs of somewhere like Derby”. It was concerning, he said, if working-class people could not afford to study acting. “It would be dreadful if only the privately educated could get to Rada.” The BFI will screen Richard III and re-release it on DVD. On the suggestion of McKellen, it will also organise a bus tour of the film’s London locations including Hackney gas towers, Battersea power station and what is now Tate Modern. McKellen himself will be the tour guide, although probably only on one occasion. BFI head curator Robin Baker said it was likely to be the most oversubscribed event the BFI had ever organised. The Shakespeare season in April and May, marking the 400th anniversary of his death, will include many screenings as well as an international tour of 18 British Shakespeare films visiting 110 countries including Cuba, Iraq and Russia.
Public Service Awards 2016 health and wellbeing winner: Derventio Housing Trust “Quite often people are in hospital and they’ve got nothing: no food, no clothes, no toiletries,” says Kate Gillespie, Derventio Housing Trust’s strategic lead for its Healthy Futures initiative. “We get all that sorted out, so people at least have a bit of dignity when they are discharged.” That’s just the start of the scheme’s work with homeless people due to leave hospital. Many have multiple, complex needs, such as mental health problems and addictions, and are trapped in a vicious cycle of ongoing health issues and repeat admissions. Over a 12-week period, staff work intensively to find housing for patients, settle them into their new homes and help them live independently – while making better use of primary care, rather than relying disproportionately on acute services. “Sometimes it’s because they don’t manage their health, so they actually get ill enough to need to go in [to hospital] all of those times,” Gillespie says. “We’ve also got people who are going in because it’s their social contact. They’re so isolated that the only kind of love and nurture they get is a trip to A&E, where they get a sandwich and a cup of tea and a ‘there, there’ from the nurses. When someone has nothing else they’re going to keep coming back for it. “It’s like they’ve got a dependency on acute care. We transfer that dependency to us, and then take the time to wean them off it. If we get someone who’s in A&E three times a week, the next step down from that is a walk-in centre. Then their GP, then the pharmacy.” Healthy Futures, which also offers brief interventions to help with the timely discharge of inpatients with less complex housing and support needs, has worked with more than 330 patients since it began in October 2013. Some 170 patients have received ongoing community-based support. In the six months before becoming Healthy Futures clients, those patients had been admitted to acute beds on 487 occasions, had gone to A&E 616 times, and had called 999 and been taken there by an ambulance 364 times. The project has led to an 88% fall in avoidable admissions of clients, a 90% drop in clients’ visits to A&E, and 84% fewer 999 ambulance transfers. Hospital stays have also been cut by an average of 16 days. Two thirds of patients felt their physical health had improved, and the same proportion reported better mental health. Healthy Futures’ achievements come despite working in a climate of cuts to adult social care, at a time when finding housing is harder than ever. Key to getting funding has been its use of robust data proving its impact and efficiency. Patients give consent for their health records to be accessed, so their use of acute care before working with the project can be tracked – and commissioners can clearly see the positive effect. Great staff are also vital, Gillespie says. “They’re just amazingly capable and patient and resourceful. I’m immensely proud of them.”
Inside Trump Treasury nominee's past life as 'foreclosure king' of California Lights flashing, three police cars showed up to Bill Montes-Pack’s quiet suburban street on the morning of 15 December 2015. The Benicia, California, man had stayed up all night waiting for the sheriff’s office to evict him from the house his grandparents had owned since 1971. “It was really, really traumatic,” Montes-Pack recalled one year later. Standing outside the locked front door, the 49-year-old peered into the empty living room that holds his earliest Christmas memories and surveyed the overgrown ivy damaging the house’s facade. The foreclosure – which he said was based on a predatory loan and improper paperwork – originated with lender OneWest Bank, at the time run by chairman and CEO Steven Mnuchin. The veteran Wall Street financier’s foreclosure practices are receiving fresh scrutiny this week after president-elect Donald Trump announced him as the nominee for US Treasury secretary. “Rather than shaking up Wall Street, he installs the very person that was part of the financial mess,” said Montes-Pack, who has effectively been homeless since the foreclosure. “I’m just thoroughly disgusted.” ‘It’s elder financial abuse’ Mnuchin, who is also a Hollywood movie producer, earned the nickname “foreclosure king” after he purchased distressed mortgages during the financial crisis and evicted thousands of homeowners. The former Goldman Sachs banker, worth an estimated $40m, has no government experience, and critics worry that, as Treasury secretary, his policies could benefit the wealthiest people and roll back critical bank regulations. One controversial source of OneWest foreclosures is the corporation’s reverse mortgages, which are loans to elderly homeowners that enable them to borrow against their home equity. These types of mortgages have been aggressively marketed to seniors as a way to help them stay in their homes, but some don’t understand the risks and can’t afford associated fees. In 2006, Montes-Pack’s grandparents bought a reverse mortgage from IndyMac Bank, the predecessor to OneWest, which he said took advantage of his grandfather, who suffered from dementia. After his grandparents died in 2012, Montes-Pack moved in, but the corporation – by then OneWest and run by Mnuchin – quickly began foreclosure proceedings. The bank’s case, he said, relied on a document signed with the name “Bryan Bly”, who has been widely reported in numerous investigations as a so-called “robo-signer”. Robo-signers are individuals whose signatures are wrongfully used to automatically authenticate thousands of mortgage documents that they haven’t read and are in some cases falsely notarized. The document, which an auditor determined was improper, makes his foreclosure illegitimate, Montes-Pack said, adding: “It’s elder financial abuse.” His family is still fighting the foreclosure, but in the meantime Montes-Pack’s mother has been forced to live in a nursing home. The California Reinvestment Coalition, a non-profit that has scrutinized OneWest, found through public records requests that the bank disproportionately foreclosed on seniors. The firm was allegedly responsible for 39% of reverse mortgages in recent years even though it only has 17% of the market. From 2009 to 2015, the bank was responsible for more than 36,000 total foreclosures in California, according to the coalition. Julie Cheney, a California resident whose parents lost their home to a OneWest foreclosure stemming from a reverse mortgage, testified against OneWest before it merged with a company called CIT Group last year. (Mnuchin earned millions from the sale). “It’s so wrong,” Cheney said, explaining that the bank sold her parents a mortgage they didn’t need while her father was dying of cancer and on pain medication and her mother was suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. Her family’s unsuccessful court battle against OneWest was a huge strain on her mother right before she died, Cheney added. “It was the worst time of my life.” Maeve Elise Brown, executive director of Housing and Economic Rights Advocates, said some of the cruelest OneWest evictions she has observed involve foreclosures against recently widowed homeowners. “It’s unimaginable. People are still traumatized from the death of their loved one,” she said, “and then they are faced with the second largest loss, which is the roof over their head.” CIT Group and Trump’s transition team did not respond to requests for comment. Turning homes into ‘trash’ Foreclosures aren’t the only way OneWest has inflicted harm on vulnerable people, according to critics. In November, two non-profits filed a complaint against the bank, alleging that it has violated the Fair Housing Act by failing to locate branches in communities of color and providing disproportionately low rates of loans to Asian Americans, African Americans and Latinos in California. In non-white neighborhoods, OneWest was far more likely to foreclose on homes than make loans available, according to the charges, which claim that in 2014 and 2015, the corporation offered only two loans to black borrowers. The complaint, which calls for an investigation by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, further accuses the corporation of allowing foreclosed properties to become blighted and abandoned in communities of color, while properly maintaining and marketing homes in white neighborhoods. “There is a very high price to pay in terms of the health and safety of the neighborhood,” said Caroline Peattie, executive director of the Fair Housing Advocates of Northern California, which filed the complaint alongside the reinvestment coalition. In white neighborhoods, OneWest properties generally had “manicured lawns, securely locked doors and windows, and attractive, professional, ‘for sale’ signs posted out front”, according to the complaint. In communities of color, the foreclosed houses “were more likely to have trash strewn about the premises, overgrown grass, shrubbery, and weeds, and boarded or broken doors and windows”. Blighted properties can attract garbage, crime and public safety hazards, she said, adding that studies have found that living near foreclosures is linked to higher blood pressure. “It’s as if a lender has turned the person’s home into a piece of trash,” said Brown. “Any lender who does not maintain the property is victimizing the entire neighborhood.”
The Dictators NYC review – spiky proto-punks ramp up the incorrigibles “Good evening, England. We’re the Dictators NYC” roars “Handsome Dick” Manitoba, who has the band’s name beautifully painted on the back of his leather jacket. The 1975 album The Dictators Go Girl Crazy! created a prototype punk rock, and they hung out with Blondie in CBGBs. The grinning frontman remembers how Bruce Springsteen once wore a Dictators T-shirt on stage and dedicated Born to Run to the band. Slightly before their time and more interested in fun, the Dictators influenced countless bands, without ever achieving success themselves. However, they’re still touring, albeit in a remodelled version (hence “NYC”) built around Manitoba and founding guitarist Ross “The Boss” Friedman, whose hair, riffola and impressively raised eyebrow defy his 62 years. Most of the time, the eyebrow levitates at the antics of the charismatic, rugged singer, who is the same age but gleefully points out that he is playing 20 shows in 21 days and can still manage a “boner”. Manitoba is incorrigible but good value. He points out that “Of 320 million Americans, we got Donald Trump!” but also speaks movingly of his sadness at the decline of rock’n’roll culture, which he compares to the fall of the Ottoman empire. Their energetic racket has dated in places, but Stay With Me, Who Will Save Rock’n’Roll? and even the new Supply and Demand are terrific, spiky anthems that should be more widely heard. “After all these years, we’re still the Next Big Thing,” cackles Manitoba as the band storm ahead triumphantly. • At Think Tank?, Newcastle upon Tyne, Wednesday 3 August. Then on UK tour.
What Europe is really listening to SWEDEN: THE FOOO CONSPIRACY The first boyband to contain two different members called Oscar (along with an Omar and the rather ominously named Felix Sandman), the Fooo Conspiracy started off with a cover of Bomfunk MCs’ Freestyler and a song called King Of The Radio, which rather perplexingly namechecked Zane Lowe. They supported Justin Bieber in Sweden, won a Swedish Grammy and an MTV Europe award, and recently embarked on a more sophisticated sound after signing with the team behind Niki & The Dove and Zara Larsson. Their song Run With Us was sadly not a cover of the Raccoons theme. GERMANY: CRO What do 2.1 million Facebook fans like so much about Stuttgart-based rap superstar Cro? The panda mask has to help, but they also like the way he mixes rap and pop in a genre he likes to call – make sure you’re sitting down for this one – “raop”. The 26-year-old, whose breakthrough single Easy hit almost 50m YouTube views, is doing all right for himself: he’s scored three No 1 singles and albums, a nomination at the 2015 MTV Europe music awards, plus he has his own fashion label and a collection with H&M. NORWAY: ASTRID S At 19, singer-songwriter Astrid S is currently waiting in the wings of global stardom and seems well-placed to do a Tove Lo in 2016. Her 2014 single 2am went double platinum in Norway and hit 100m worldwide streams on Spotify – she recently supported Troye Sivan on tour and has been making further international waves by working with Avicii and Matoma, as well as guesting on last year’s Shawn Mendes album. She was voted best Norwegian act at least year’s MTV EMAs, which isn’t bad for someone who came fifth in Norway’s version of Pop Idol. DENMARK: CHRISTOPHER The vaguely chinny-reckon story goes that Christopher was signed on the spot after turning up at EMI’s Copenhagen offices with a guitar. His third album hit No 1 in Denmark two months ago and his most recent single – his fourth No 1 – wasn’t messing around: it’s a mix of Justin Bieber, the Weeknd and Justin Timberlake. The Gunvad remix of Limousine is readymade for global airplay and All About Sex also sounds like an international hit, though it does contain the lyric “Although while you’re talking I’m just staring at your tits / But that’s just called thinking with your dick”. FRANCE: MYLENE FARMER She’s frequently referenced as the French Madonna, but a close look at Mylène Farmer’s phenomenal achievements makes you wonder if Madonna isn’t just the American Mylène Farmer. This icon’s still got it, too – across her four-decade career, 10 of her 15 No 1s have been from the last decade. Farmer’s music frequently deals with death, sex and desolation, and her elaborate tours are dwarfed only by the ambition of her videos (the Luc Besson-directed Que Mon Cœur Lâche video showed Michael Jackson being crushed by a crucifix, and God sending his best angel (Mylène) to Earth in place of Jesus because “last time was a disaster”). Mylène also introduced the world to her protege Alizée, who achieved global success with acceptable-in-the-2000s dubious banger Moi… Lolita at the age of 15. GREECE: DESPINA VANDI Despina has knocked out 10 albums and well over 50 singles in the last 22 years, but it wasn’t until her third album that she hit the No 1 slot, after beginning a lengthy creative relationship with Demis Roussos-tutored songwriter Phoebus. Deka Endoles from 1997 began a run of five multi-platinum albums; her 2000 single Ipofero became Greece’s most successful single of all time. She was one of four coaches on two seasons of the Greek version of The Voice, which means she must be at least as important as Jessie J. SPAIN: ALEJANDRO SANZ With a voice best described as “raspy” and worst described as “Good grief – try a Strepsil, mate”, this 47-year-old Latin pop behemoth has 15 Latin Grammys – and three Actual Grammys – to his name, was the first Spanish artist to record an MTV Unplugged, and has duetted with the likes of Shakira and Alicia Keys. While his last six albums have all hit No 1, it doesn’t look as if he’ll ever match his earlier success (1997’s Más, his fifth album, went a casual 22-times platinum in Spain), but he’s rumoured to be recording his first ever English language album and remains Spain’s most commercially successful singer of all time. ITALY: FEDEZ Award-winning, multi-platinum, frequently shirtless Italian idol Fedez has found success in a strange place between hip-hop, pop and EDM, and has been a judge – alongside Mika – on the last two seasons of Italy’s version of The X Factor. He was added to the Italian version of Ariana Grande’s One Last Time single (a record label trick that’s often a good indication of local artists’ popularity) and his new album is expected this year, after 2014’s Pop-Hoolista hit No 1 – and went quadruple platinum – back in 2014. As a rapper he might not quite be Fedex, but you can’t fault his delivery. OH COME ON!
BBC to make Les Misérables for TV with War and Peace team The BBC is to make a six-part adaptation of Les Misérables with the team behind War and Peace, including producer Harvey Weinstein and screenwriter Andrew Davies. The new six-hour drama will be based on the 19th century classic novel by Victor Hugo, rather than the award-winning musical, and will air on BBC1. Weinstein described Les Misérables as “one of the greatest novels of all time” with “contemporary relevance to what’s going on in the world today.” Davies, who adapted the original version of House of Cards for BBC1 and was an executive producer on its Netflix remake, said: “Les Misérables is a huge iconic title. Most of us are familiar with the musical version which only offers a fragmentary outline of its story. “I am thrilled to have the opportunity of doing real justice to Victor Hugo at last by adapting his masterpiece in a six-hour version for the BBC, with the same team who made War and Peace.” Announcing the new adaptation on Thursday, the BBC said the story of former convict Jean Valjean and police officer Javert’s cat-and-mouse relationship, against the epic backdrop of France at a time of civil unrest, had a “striking intensity and relevance to us today”. Charlotte Moore, director of BBC content, said: “Andrew Davies’ extraordinary skill for adaptation will bring the world famous Les Misérables into powerful focus for a modern audience with a multi-layered re-telling of Victor Hugo’s masterpiece. “BBC1 viewers can expect the same quality and scale from the team behind War and Peace in this epic tale of redemption and the healing power of love.” The series will be made by BBC Studios and independent producer Lookout Point, in association with Weinstein Television. The three partners previously worked together on Davies’ adaptation of Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace, which aired on BBC1 earlier this year. Weinstein said: “Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables is one of the greatest novels of all time – and while the musical is one of my favorites this will be completely different. “An intense and serious drama that will find contemporary relevance to what’s going on in the world today. I’m thrilled to be reunited with Faith Penhale and Simon Vaughan, my partners from War and Peace, with Charlotte Moore from the BBC, and of course, with Andrew Davies who wrote War and Peace. “I think the BBC and Weinstein Television collaboration are a new paradigm in the telling of classics – they’re modern and yet respectful. And, with the exception of James Bond, nobody does it better than Andrew Davies.” BBC Worldwide will distribute the series with Weinstein Television distributing in the US and China.
Riyad Mahrez’s missed penalty allows Bournemouth to frustrate Leicester After the feast comes the famine for Leicester City, whose momentum at the top has been checked after they failed to score for a third successive match on an afternoon of immense frustration for Claudio Ranieri and his players. Jamie Vardy was denied by the woodwork, Wes Morgan filed a contender for miss of the season and Riyad Mahrez picked a bad day for that wonderful left foot to let him down – from the penalty spot of all places. The temptation from outside the club will be to say the bubble has burst, yet the margins were so fine it would be unfair to write off Leicester. Vardy looked as annoyed as anyone that he failed to score, with the England international booting the same upright that his toe-poked first-half shot had cannoned off, while only Mahrez knows why he hesitated during the run up to a penalty that was struck at a comfortable height for Artur Boruc to repel. For Bournemouth there was a sense that justice was done with that penalty save, given Simon Francis clearly got the ball when he made a last-ditch attempt to stop Vardy in his tracks as the Leicester striker bore down on goal. Andre Marriner had deemed otherwise, the referee pointing to the spot and showing Francis a straight red card that forced Bournemouth to play the final half-hour with 10 men. Leicester poured forward in that period but Eddie Howe’s team showed spirit and resilience to hold on and it was not until the closing moments that Bournemouth hearts were in mouths. Vardy again went down, this time under a challenge from Dan Gosling, and some players thought Marriner had awarded another penalty. Instead he gave a goal-kick and Leicester’s hopes of snatching a late victory disappeared. Ranieri refused to be too downbeat despite a third successive game without a win, with the Leicester manager promising champagne for his players to celebrate the fact they have reached 40 points and challenging them to try to do even better in the second half of the season. “When you play at a high intensity you can make mistakes, we made a lot of mistakes with the last pass – we were too anxious to score a goal,” said Ranieri, who is close to completing the signing of Demarai Gray from Birmingham. “But it’s OK, 40 points, clean sheet, champagne for my players. If we did 39 points in the first half of the season we try to make 40 in the second half. We are safe. We are doing a fantastic season, why not believe anything is possible?” Bournemouth started brightly and had two excellent chances in the opening 45 minutes. Josh King wasted the first when he headed wide from inside the six-yard box after Junior Stanislas did well to cut back Francis’ deep cross. The second opportunity fell to Gosling, who scooped over the bar from 12 yards after King had outpaced Robert Huth and rolled the ball perfectly into the midfielder’s path. In an open and entertaining game Vardy could have put Leicester ahead in between those two moments. Leonardo Ulloa’s miscued effort rolled into his path and Vardy’s instinctive shot hit the inside of the post and bounced to safety. Vardy, to his credit, kept coming back for more and it was his low curling shot that forced Boruc into the save that led to Morgan, no more than four yards out, volleying a Christian Fuchs corner over. Then came that contentious penalty decision. Running on to Danny Drinkwater’s measured pass, Vardy looked to be clear but just as he entered the area Francis made the tackle that Marriner penalised so harshly . Howe, who described this point as a “huge result” for Bournemouth, felt the referee got it wrong. “Simon has got a difficult job there, Vardy is goalside of him, going towards the goal at full pace,” he said. “But Simon has come from the side and got a clear touch on the ball, timed it superbly and it’s not a penalty or a free-kick. It was a difficult one for the ref because he’s the other side of the pitch.”
IMF's own watchdog criticises its handling of eurozone crisis The IMF’s handling of the financial crisis in the eurozone has been criticised by the organisation’s own independent watchdog in a report that says the fund failed to spot the scale of the problem, was guilty of over-optimistic forecasts and left the impression that it was treating Europe differently. While accepting that sorting out the problems of Greece, Ireland and Portugal “posed extraordinary challenges”, the IMF’s Independent Evaluation Office (IEO) said the fund had missed the buildup of banking system risks in some countries and shared the widely held “Europe is different” mindset. The report looked into how the IMF handled the eurozone crisis, which began with the May 2010 bailout of Greece, but subsequently spread to Ireland, Portugal and Cyprus. It found that the “IMF’s pre-crisis surveillance identified the right issues but did not foresee the magnitude of the risks that would later become paramount”. The IEO added that by May 2010 the fund was worried about the risks of contagion and had to “modify” its own rules to allow exceptional financing for the government in Athens. The terms of the bailouts for stricken eurozone countries were organised by the so-called troika of the IMF, the European commission and the European Central Bank. According to the IEO this was an efficient mechanism for conducting discussions with governments but at the expense of the IMF’s “characteristic agility as a crisis manager”. Greece has seen the size of its economy shrink by about 30% over the past six years, a much worse performance than the fund anticipated. The IEO concluded that “IMF-supported programmes in Greece and Portugal incorporated overly optimistic growth projections; lessons from past crises were not always applied”. Noting that conducting the evaluation had been “challenging”, the IEO said there had been a lack of clarity about what it could or could not evaluate. “The IMF’s handling of the euro area crisis raised issues of accountability and transparency, which helped create the perception that the IMF treated Europe differently.” The IEO made five specific recommendations, including that the fund’s management and executive board should develop procedures to limit political meddling in the organisation’s technical analysis; that processes should be strengthened to ensure agreed procedures are followed and only changed after careful deliberation; and that there should be a renewed commitment to accountability and transparency. Christine Lagarde, the fund’s managing director, said: “Overall, the conclusion I draw is that the fund’s involvement in the euro area crisis has been a qualified success.” Lagarde added that the crisis in the euro area was unprecedented and that fund-supported programmes had “succeeded in buying time to build firewalls, preventing the crisis from spreading, and restoring growth and market access in three out of four cases” (Ireland, Portugal and Cyprus). The IMF managing director admitted that with the benefit of hindsight, assumptions about growth in Greece had proved much too optimistic. “Greece, however, was unique: while initial economic targets proved overly ambitious, the programme was beset by recurrent political crises, pushback from vested interests, and severe implementation problems that led to a much deeper than expected output contraction. “On the other hand, Greece undertook enormous adjustment with unprecedented assistance from its international partners. This enabled Greece to remain a member of the euro area – a key goal for Greece and the euro area members.” Lagarde said she did not accept that there had been political interference in the fund’s technical analysis but gave the IEO recommendations either full or qualified backing. “In summary, the crisis in the euro area was extraordinary,” Lagarde said. “It posed unprecedented challenges that, with the global financial crisis providing tinder, could have rapidly spread through Europe and beyond. The fund, in conjunction with our membership, our partners in Europe, and the wider global community, took steps that averted what could have been a much more severe European and even global crisis.”
Trump amplifies personal attacks on Hillary and Bill Clinton post-debate Lest there be any doubt, Donald Trump made clear Monday that he is running a scorched earth campaign for the next month. Speaking in a high school gym in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, his first public event since the leak on Friday of his 2005 comments about groping women without their consent, Trump amplified his rhetoric from Sunday night’s debate and attacked rival Hillary Clinton and her husband – former president Bill Clinton – in starkly personal terms. Trump, who invited four women who claimed to be the victims of misconduct by the Clintons to be his guests at the debate on Sunday, renewed his offensive against his Democratic opponent. The Republican nominee called Bill Clinton “a predator” and said his wife enabled him “instead of trying to stop it, she made possible for him to take advantage of more women, she put more women into harm’s way”. He also threatened that “if they want to release more tapes saying inappropriate things, we’ll continue to talk about Bill and Hillary doing inappropriate things.” Trump also referenced the Chappaquiddick incident – in which a woman died after a car being driven by the late senator Ted Kennedy went off a bridge in 1969. Trump cited the incident as another example of Democratic scandals covered up by the media. The speech came as Republican leaders increase their efforts to distance themselves from their party’s nominee. Speaker Paul Ryan told members of the House GOP caucus on Monday “you all need to do what’s best for your district” and seemed to write off Trump’s chances of winning, saying he would “spend his entire energy making sure that Hillary Clinton does not get a blank check with a Democrat-controlled Congress”. After widespread condemnation over his debate threat to jail his political rival, Trump did not explicitly renew his calls to jail Hillary Clinton if he was elected. Instead, he took a somewhat milder tone and merely called for a special prosecutor to investigate Clinton. Trump also suggested – without evidence – that the NSA might have the missing emails that Clinton deleted from her personal email server. But Trump also attacked Clinton on policy grounds. He railed against the Democratic nominee from the left on entitlement reform and claimed that she wants to “knock the hell out of Medicare and Medicaid”. The former secretary of state has committed to expanding both programs. He also attacked Clinton for her support for “open trade”. “You know what that does to your community,” Trump asked the crowd. “It’s the end.” He also returned to familiar attacks and falsely claimed Clinton is “for radical unlimited immigration”. Trump once again offered a vague, evidence-free warning of voter fraud in Pennsylvania. He told the almost entirely all-white crowd “it’s so important that you watch other communities because we don’t want this election stolen from us”. He has made this statement several times in the past in the Keystone state, seemingly based on a popular rightwing conspiracy theory that Mitt Romney was the victim of voter fraud in Philadelphia in 2012. The theory, which is a dogwhistle reference to African American voters, is premised on the fact that in 59 precincts in majority black neighborhoods, Romney did not receive a single vote. There are 1,687 precincts in the city and Obama received over 85% of the vote there in 2012. While a new NBC/WSJ poll showed the Republican nominee falling behind Clinton by 14 points in a two-way race, Trump supporters in Pennsylvania were unfazed by the nominee’s growing woes. Instead they took heart in what they saw as a dominating debate performance, one which former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani told the crowd was “the best performance any presidential candidate had in the history of debates”. Joe Tedeski, a Trump supporter who watched the debate, thought his candidate won while Clinton was “the greatest liar I’ve ever seen”. He dismissed concerns about Trump’s remarks saying “people change, attitudes change” and insisting that Trump’s graphic description of groping women without their consent was “just talk” and that he had never actually engaged in that behavior. This was echoed by Isaac Foldi of Bloomingdale, Ohio, who was decked out in Trump merchandise for the event and praised his candidate’s performance. In particular, Foldi pointed to Trump’s line that Clinton was “no honest Abe” as an effective zinger. While the Trump supporter thought the nominee’s 2005 comments were “not acceptable”, he found them insignificant compared to Clinton’s sins. “It makes little sense to go after him for saying some crude things when Hillary humiliated women raped and assaulted by her husband.” Trump is scheduled to hold another rally in Pennsylvania on Monday night before spending the next two days in Florida.
EU lawyer says all members must approve sweeping trade deals Any sweeping trade deals the EU wants to sign with other countries will have to be approved by member state governments, a senior EU lawyer has said, in an opinion that could deepen complications over Britain’s post-Brexit future. Eleanor Sharpston QC, an advocate general at the European court of justice, argued in a ruling released on Wednesday that an EU trade deal with Singapore could only be finalised by the EU and member states, and not by Brussels institutions acting alone. In practice, this means the deal may have to be ratified by at least 38 national and regional parliaments, including the EU’s 28 national parliaments, at least five regional and linguistic parliaments in Belgium and at least five upper houses, including those of Germany and Italy. Sharpston’s opinion does not bind the Luxembourg-based court, which is expected to issue its judgment in early 2017. But the court follows the views of advocate generals in a majority of cases. If her opinion prevails, the EU could find it trickier to sign wide-ranging free-trade agreements. Life would also be harder for the British government, as any post-Brexit trade deal with the bloc could potentially require the approval of at least 38 national parliaments. This scenario could add years to finalising a trade deal, leaving the British government facing the nightmare possibility that any one regional or national assembly could block a deal. A taste of the possible drama to come was hinted at earlier this year when the Walloon region of Belgium threatened to veto an EU-Canada trade deal following seven years of tortuous negotiations and legal drafting. The current case hinges on whether an EU trade deal with Singapore can be finalised by the European commission alone, or whether the approval of national governments is also needed. The European commission, which negotiates trade agreements on behalf of the EU’s 510 million people, argues it has the power to sign agreements. But national governments contend that the trade deal touches on national competences and requires their approval. Sharpston said the Singapore agreement, under discussion since 2010, could only be concluded by the commission and member states together. “While the advocate general notes that difficulties may arise from a ratification process involving all of the member states alongside the EU, she considers that that cannot affect the question of who has competence to conclude the agreement,” she wrote. She distinguished between EU competences and national ones. The European commission may take comfort from the fact it was deemed to have exclusive power to negotiate trade agreements on a wide range of issues, including trade in goods and many services, foreign-direct investment, many intellectual property questions and competition policy. But the commission must give member states a say if a trade agreement covers trade in transport services, aspects of public procurement, as well as provisions affecting labour, social or environmental policy, Sharpston said. A European commission spokesperson said: “This is an important element contributing to the court’s reflection, so we are of course carefully analysing it. However, it must be clear that no definitive conclusions can be drawn until the court itself issues its final opinion.” The EU currently has 34 trade agreements covering 60 countries. EU trade negotiators have embarked on 19 separate trade negotiations covering 52 countries, including the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership with the US, now put into the deep freeze following the election of Donald Trump. These trade deals have evolved from relatively simple agreements centred on cutting tariffs to far-reaching accords covering everything from mutual recognition of environmental, safety and labour standards to public procurement. As a result, national governments are increasingly challenging the EU’s sole competence to conclude such sweeping trade agreements, amid a growing public backlash against free trade and the power of obscure trade tribunals to settle disputes between governments and large corporations.
The doomsayers are wrong – our debt is well-regulated, and sound If debt is such a threat to global economic stability, why don’t we all pay it off? Get rid of it. Eliminate the source of financial sector instability. Think about a scenario where every cent of your mortgage, credit card and university debt must be paid off. Then apply that debt elimination plan to the government sector … and then the corporate world. If debt is so evil, pernicious, and threatening something akin to a 1930s Great Depression, surely the answer is to pay off debt and have none. The debt debate has stooped to fresh lows in recent weeks, with a number of money managers and commentators joining the usual suspects to highlight the peril for the Australian economy of housing debt. A couple of years ago it was government debt that was the problem, but that scare faded as common sense prevailed, even though government debt has continued to grow at a steady pace. Let’s stop there and think about debt. It goes without saying, or at least it should, that debt is a good thing for the household sector, governments and corporations. It is essential. It allows each segment of the economy to invest and bring forward spending that would otherwise not occur. I can’t be sure of this but I would hazard a guess that every major infrastructure project in the world has been financed by debt and every business has had debt at some stage of its being. With no debt, think of a government taxing people for years to accumulate the funds to build a power station, hospital or to build roads. Absurd, isn’t it? What about consumers buying a car, let alone a house? Not many people, particularly the young, have saved the cash needed to buy a house. So too for corporations who are dependent on debt to invest, expand, innovate and grow. And saving, don’t forget, can’t exist without debt because someone’s savings are another person’s debt. If I deposit $100 in a bank, the bank has debt of $100 to me. Which simply means that deposits cannot exist if there is no debt – they are opposites of the same balance sheet. Debt is not the problem. The problem, to the extent there may be one, is the regulations that apply to debt. If debt is sought and provided on the basis of robust due diligence – that there is no fraud and deception and that only creditworthy borrowers are forwarded the funds by creditworthy lenders – then it matters little whether debt is 10% of household income or 200% of income. Some people borrow six, seven or even eight times their income to buy a house, and it turns out to be a prudent decision. Others default on a $50-a-month debt linked to a mobile phone contract. It is only when too much money is carelessly lent to high-risk borrowers that problems unfold. This was the case in the lead into the banking crisis in 2008 when in the US, UK and other countries (not Australia) anyone on any income could get a mortgage. It wasn’t debt that was the problem, but inept and foolhardy banking practices, financially ignorant borrowers who signed up for loans, and the regulators who let all this happen. Australia’s banks, having seen the disasters of the US, Irish and UK banks in the crisis, have tightened their lending standards. In addition, regulators have tightened the rules for investor mortgage lending, albeit belatedly, but with an express objective of reducing the risk that the wrong people get access to debt. Provisions of bad debts and non-performing loans from the banks and other financial institutions remain at near-historic lows, meaning the health of the debt market, at least for householders, is sound. Which goes back to the starting point. Debt is an essential aspect of the economy, delivering growth, employment and rising living standards. The anti-debt campaigners seem to overlook this when they argue the perils of debt, not just in Australia but around the world. Stephen Koukoulas is a Research Fellow at Per Capita, a progressive think tank.
Meet Viv: the AI that wants to read your mind and run your life So I’ve arrived late at the office of Viv, an artificial intelligence company based in San Jose, California. I missed my train from San Francisco after dawdling leaving my apartment and then finding the taxi service app on my phone wouldn’t work. Dag Kittlaus, who I’ve kept waiting, looks on the bright side. “Your trials of getting here are a perfect illustration of how Viv will be helpful,” he says. “Wouldn’t it be nice to say ‘I need to get to San Jose, give me my options’ and Viv would know how close you are to the train station, when the next train is coming, where the nearest cars, how much it was going to cost…” Kittlaus is the co-founder and CEO of Viv, a three-year-old AI startup backed by $30m, including funds from Iconiq Capital, which helps manage the fortunes of Mark Zuckerberg and other wealthy tech executives. In a blocky office building in San Jose’s downtown, the company is working on what Kittlaus describes as a “global brain” – a new form of voice-controlled virtual personal assistant. With the odd flashes of personality, Viv will be able to perform thousands of tasks, and it won’t just be stuck in a phone but integrated into everything from fridges to cars. “Tell Viv what you want and it will orchestrate this massive network of services that will take care of it,” he says. It is an ambitious project but Kittlaus isn’t without a track record. The last company he co-founded invented Siri, the original virtual assistant now standard in Apple products. Siri Inc was acquired by the tech giant for a reported $200m in 2010. The inclusion of the Siri software in the iPhone in 2011 introduced the world to a new way to interact with a mobile device. Google and Microsoft soon followed with their versions. More recently they have been joined by Amazon, with the Echo you can talk to, and Facebook, with its experimental virtual assistant, M. But, Kittlaus says, all these virtual assistants he helped birth are limited in their capabilities. Enter Viv. “What happens when you have a system that is 10,000 times more capable?” he asks. “It will shift the economics of the internet.” Matthew Wong, a research analyst at CB Insights, which tracks private investment in the tech sector, says the virtual assistant is an area where the big companies are currently doing battle. The tech giants are hungry to acquire new technology to make their products more sophisticated because there is money to be made in automating everyday processes. If they can pull it off we will spend more time with our phones – which means more ad revenue or device sales. It makes it a potentially lucrative area for startups. “Companies are hearing from Facebooks and Googles as soon as they announce what they are doing,” says Wong. Wit.ai, which turns speech and text into actionable data, had only existed a little over a year when it was acquired by Facebook in January 2015 for an undisclosed sum. Its technology has helped build M. “We are going to be talking to our computers,” says Oren Etzioni, who heads the Seattle-based Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence, set up by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, adding that this includes phones. “But the truth is, all the devices that exist today are short on actual ability compared with the kind of capabilities we want.” The future, as Etzioni sees it, belongs to the company that can make a personal assistant something like a good hotel concierge: someone you can have a sophisticated dialogue with, get high quality recommendations from and who will then take care of every aspect of booking an evening out for you. Viv’s ancestor Siri was created after Siri Inc spun out of Silicon Valley non-profit research lab SRI International in 2008. Kittlaus had been working on the early mobile internet when, in 2007, he was hired by SRI International as an entrepreneur-in-residence. It put him in close contact with software engineer Adam Cheyer, who was leading the Calo project (Cognitive Assistant that Learns and Organises), a $200m, five-year AI effort to help soldiers, funded by the Pentagon’s research agency, Darpa. Kittlaus convinced Cheyer that Siri was perfect for mobile phones and they honed the idea, building a prototype before adding another technical co-founder, Tom Gruber. The iPhone app Siri launched in early 2010. Out of tinted windows through a line of slender palm trees touched by the late afternoon sun, Kittlaus points out the building that was home to Siri Inc. He recalls the day he nearly missed a call from Steve Jobs, Apple’s then CEO, because he couldn’t get the slide bar on his iPhone to work. “He said, ‘We love what you are doing. Can you come over to my house tomorrow and talk to me about it?’” says Kittlaus. The co-founders joined Jobs for more than three hours the next day. “We sold it to Apple because Steve sat us down and said, ‘Let’s change the way the world works together’, and that was pretty irresistible,” he says. For the next year and a half, Kittlaus ran the Apple team preparing Siri for the iPhone, with Cheyer and Gruber the engineering leads. The day after it launched – and the day Steve Jobs died – Kittlaus left for family reasons. Cheyer stayed for another nine months before following Kittlaus (Gruber is still there). The idea for Viv, the Latin root for “life”, came around mid-2012 as Kittlaus, Cheyer and another Siri Inc software engineer, Chris Brigham, who had left Apple around the same time as Cheyer, were brainstorming what to do next. It was Brigham, frustrated with the way existing personal assistants were constrained both technically and for business reasons, who had the initial insight for Viv. “We collectively decided Siri was only chapter one of a much bigger, longer story,” says Kittlaus. Kittlaus pulls out his phone to demonstrate a prototype (he won’t say when Viv will launch but intimates that 2016 will be a big year). “I need a ride to the nearest pediatrician in San Jose,” he says to the phone. It produces a list of pediatricians sorted by distance and with their ratings courtesy of online doctor-booking service ZocDoc. Kittlaus taps one and the phone shows how far away the Uber is that could come and collect him. “If I click, there is going to be a car on the way,” he says. “See how those services just work together.” He moves on to another example. “Send my mom a dozen yellow roses.” Viv can combine information in his contact list – where he has tagged his mother – with the services of an online florist that delivers across the US. Others requests Kittlaus says Viv will be able to accomplish include “On the way to my brother’s house, I need to pick up some good wine that goes well with lasagne” and “Find me a place to take my kids in the last week of March in the Caribbean”. Later I test out how well both Siri and Google’s virtual assistant perform on these examples. Neither gets far. Viv can be different because it is being designed to be totally open, says Kittlaus. Any service, product or knowledge that any company or individual wants to imbue with a speaking component can be plugged into the network to work together with the others already in there. (Dozens of companies, from Uber to Florist One, are in the prototype). Other virtual assistants are essentially closed. Apple and only Apple, for example, decides what capabilities get integrated into Siri. Viv’s biggest secret is the technology to bring the different services together on the fly to respond to requests for which it hasn’t been specifically programmed. “It is a program that writes its own program, which is the only way you can scale thousands of services working together that know nothing about one another,” says Kittlaus. Other personal assistants generally have their responses programmed by a developer. They are, essentially, scripted. There was no choice but to do things differently, says Kittlaus. To think of every combination of things that could be asked would be impossible. Viv will also include elements of learning; it will adapt as it comes to know your preferences. Expect a phone app initially, says Kittlaus, but the loftier ambition is to incorporate Viv into all manner of devices, including cars. He imagines Viv’s icon becoming ubiquitous. “Anywhere you see it will mean you can talk to that thing,” he says. Of course this will require time: for companies to volunteer their services, and for users to come on board. But Kittlaus says some of the world’s largest consumer electronics companies are “very interested in plugging in”. Viv has the potential to upend internet economics, says Kittlaus. Companies currently spend billions to advertise online with Google, and much traffic arrives based on web users’ keyword searches. But if instead requests are directed at Viv, it would cut out the middleman. The team are still exploring different business models, but one involves charging a processing fee on top of every transaction. Etzioni at the Allen Institute was impressed by an early demo of Viv and applauds the company’s vision to bring about a paradigm shift in the capabilities of virtual assistants. “They are hunting big game and if there was any team that I would bet on to do that it is them,” he says. But he also adds the jury is still out as to whether Viv will achieve its ambitions. “It is a high-risk enterprise,” he says. Etzioni singles out Viv’s ability to go beyond simple utterances and engage in a sophisticated two-way dialogue as a particularly hard AI problem. Viv might, drawing on a review site, suggest a “good” bottle of wine that can be obtained on a particular route, but users are bound to want complex clarifications. Is the bottle within their price range? “There are so many nuances, you want something that handles those,” he says. Viv also faces competition not only from the internet giants upgrading their personal assistants but from other startups with their own takes on the theme. Will Viv, as was the case with Siri, sell out to one of the tech titans? Kittlaus isn’t ruling anything in or out. “Our goal is to be everywhere, we want ubiquity… We are not going to say there is a certain path to that.” Either way, I for one will be happy just to get to San Jose on time. Bring it on, Viv. The competition: today’s virtual PAs Name: Siri Company: Apple Communication: Voice The original personal assistant, launched on the iPhone in 2011 and incorporated into many Apple products. Siri can answer questions, send messages, place calls, make dinner reservations through OpenTable and more. Name: Google Now Company: Google Communication: Voice and typing Available through the Google app or Chrome browser, capabilities include answering questions, getting directions and creating reminders. It also proactively delivers information to users that it predicts they might want, such as traffic conditions during commutes. Name: Cortana Company: Microsoft Communication: Voice Built into Microsoft phones and Windows 10, Cortana will help you find things on your PC, manage your calendar and track packages. It also tells jokes. Name: Alexa Company: Amazon Communication: Voice Embedded inside Amazon’s Echo, the cylindrical speaker device that went on general sale in June 2015 in the US. Call on Alexa to stream music, give cooking assistance and reorder Amazon items. Name: M Company: Facebook Communication: Typing Released in August 2015 as a pilot and integrated into Facebook Messenger, M supports sophisticated interactions but behind the scenes relies on both artificial intelligence and humans to fulfil requests, though the idea is that eventually it will know enough to operate on its own.
Christian Eriksen doubles up as Spurs ease to victory against Sunderland Before this game Sam Allardyce had said Tottenham did not have the nerve to challenge for the title, yet despite falling behind and in the face of an impressive performance by the opposition goalkeeper, Jordan Pickford, they demonstrated how to win comfortably when not at their best. Christian Eriksen scored twice but both goals carried a dollop of good fortune, while Mousa Dembélé and Harry Kane punished Sunderland further after Patrick van Aanholt had put Allardyce’s team in front. Mauricio Pochettino’s side responded well from the midweek defeat to Leicester and they undoubtedly controlled the flow of this game throughout. For Sunderland, who remain in the bottom three, this was a tale of two league debuts. Pickford’s, even though he conceded four, was excellent but that cannot be said for the substitute Jan Kirchhoff. The German defender lost his confidence when Eriksen’s 25-yard shot deflected off his leg and looped in over Pickford, before conceding a needless late penalty. Sunderland were left ruing the fact that Lee Cattermole could only bundle the ball into his own net shortly after Van Aanholt’s opener, allowing Eriksen to equalise immediately following a frantic few minutes. If they had held on until half-time with a lead, the afternoon may have been different. “It was a very important victory, a good reaction,” said Pochettino. “I’m very happy because it was important to take the three points after Leicester. It’s early to start speaking about the title, we need to learn a lot and improve a lot. “But we have to keep working hard. That [title talk] starts when you have 10, nine, eight games until you finish the league. That’s the realistic moment when you can start talking about it.” Things did not come to life until Van Aanholt’s opening goal. Until then, Spurs had dominated but created little, having 70% possession in the first half yet frustrated for the most part. Pochettino had made three changes to the side that lost to Leicester, Dembélé returning in central midfield with both full-backs changing. Van Aanholt’s strike was a goal out of nothing but a fine one nonetheless. No pressure was put on Adam Johnson and the Sunderland player slid a precise pass through the Spurs defence, catching Dele Alli off-guard in the right full-back position, and Van Aanholt ran on to it before finishing past Hugo Lloris at his near post. Sunderland celebrated, but the supporters were not dancing for long as less than two minutes later Spurs hit back through Eriksen, whose goal capped a manic period after much mundanity. A slick exchange of passes meant Kane was through on goal but his shot was saved well by the onrushing Pickford. However, with the goalkeeper off his line, Eriksen followed up with a shot into the ground that Cattermole appeared likely to cut out. Unfortunately for the Sunderland captain, calmness deserted him and he could only clumsily deflect the ball into the net. Allardyce, who went to a five-man defence in the second half, said: “When we went behind we opened up far too much. We allowed the opponent to get in the game and play where they wanted to: around and through us instead of being the tight and compact unit we were up until the second goal.” On Pickford, he added: “He handled it well. He might not play too many more games this season because Vito Mannone has done a fantastic job. The rest of the team up to 65 minutes were doing the job right, but in the last 20 they failed miserably.” The lead was overturned 14 minutes into the second half. Pickford saved well from Kane and, from the resulting corner, the Sunderland goalkeeper palmed away a curling shot from Danny Rose. However, the ball fell to Dembélé on the edge of the penalty area and the Belgian cut inside on to his left foot and drove into the bottom left corner. Things were all over soon later. After another period of sustained possession Eriksen retrieved the ball in midfield and assessed his options. Not much was doing so, 25 yards out, he let one go and it took a crucial deflection off Kirchhoff, looping over Pickford, glancing off his left-hand post and in. In the 79th minute Kirchhoff went in late on Rose and conceded a clear penalty allowing Kane to complete the comeback.
Theresa May’s rejection of Enlightenment values Following the referendum result, leave campaigners gave assurances that a post-Brexit Britain would remain “open to the world”. Instead, we have witnessed increasing signs over the last few days of a Powellite drift towards insular nationalism, with UK universities as easy targets. We have seen proposals for restrictions on the number of overseas students and for organisations to be forced to reveal the proportion of their workforce which is “foreign”. And most recently (Foreign experts are excluded from advising UK on Brexit, 8 October) evidence has emerged that UK-based academics will be excluded from consultations with government on particular issues if they are not British citizens. For centuries, scholars have considered themselves part of an international community of learning. Universities have thrived when – like British institutions in recent years – they have been able to play a full part in this international exchange of ideas and people. But when, for ideological reasons, governments have sought to isolate them, they have stagnated, and with them the intellectual and creative life of the societies they served. This will be Britain’s fate unless we defend the outward-looking nature of our universities, and the rights and dignity of all academics in this country. It might be naive to hope that the undertaking to maintain the UK’s engagement with the rest of the world will be honoured. But it would be nice to think that not all the promises of the Brexiteers were outright lies. Professor Philip Murphy Director, Institute of Commonwealth Studies • In attacking world citizenship in her dictum, “If you believe you are a citizen of the world, you’re a citizen of nowhere”, Theresa May is in effect repudiating Enlightenment values as a whole, for cosmopolitanism is the apex and indeed the glory of Enlightenment philosophy, encompassing liberty, equality, fraternity, and all our human rights. The greatest of all Enlightenment thinkers, Immanuel Kant, proposed the ideal of world citizenship as a means to achieve perpetual peace. In the 20th century, his views underwrote the founding of the United Nations, an organisation which invokes world citizenship as a means to attain world peace. The very different, pejorative sense of cosmopolitanism adopted by Ms May, however, originates in German antisemitic discourse. It emerged in the 19th century: the “rootless Jew” was seen as a “cosmopolitan” citizen from “nowhere”. This view is echoed in that most vile of all antisemitic texts, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion (1903). Subsequently, the prejudice was adopted by the Nazis, and used to justify the slaughter of the Jewish people as “non-citizens” and “non-persons” in the Holocaust. Is that where our xenophobic PM wants to lead us, this time by scapegoating “foreigners”? I don’t appear to be the only one who senses echoes of 1933 in our brave new Britain. Jeremy Adler King’s College London • Theresa May’s assertion of the need to tax “citizens of the world and of nowhere”, presumably referring to foreign investors in the UK, may have been “felicitous” as Simon Jenkins says (May has the party’s adoration for now. That won’t last, 6 October). Curiously, however, a Google search (deleting the second “of”) suggests that the phrase originated as an epithet for the Roma people, albeit not intrinsically a pejorative one. It also bears a striking similarity to the more sinister term “rootless cosmopolitans”, deployed by Stalin to justify his late 1940s purge of Jewish intellectuals. One can only hope that these connections are indicative merely of a cloth-eared speechwriter, rather than of a dog-whistle aimed at the sharp ears of the racists who are already walking tall in Brexit Britain. Rob Sykes Oxford • As a British citizen living and working in Europe, I have long kept my faith that the rise of rightwing, xenophobic populism will ultimately be checked by democratic forces. Following a conference in which the Conservatives seem hellbent on driving an alarmingly reactionary agenda into the heart of British society, I am not so sure. I can only hope that a majority of the British public will remind this political elite that it does not share such shoddy values. Brexit or no Brexit, this is not the sort of leadership any self-respecting country should tolerate in times like these. Ben Horsbrugh Oldenburg, Germany
Sean Paul review – another spell in the sun “If you love Jamaica, make some noise!” demands Sean Paul. “I come from the islands,” he adds, perhaps unnecessarily. There’s a Jamaican flag on his DJ’s set-up, two dancers twerking authentically either side of him, and the palpable sense that Jamaican dancehall – the party variant of reggae at which Sean Paul excels – is, once again, having one of its many recurrent spells in the sun. Though this mixed London crowd may roll its eyes at such a claim, the city being one of the biggest Jamaican enclaves outside Jamaica; dancehall never really goes away when you host Carnival. Even the heatwave has got the memo: the Electric Ballroom’s ventilation makes little headway on the tropical humidity. The next big tune Paul does is Like Glue, a nagging hit from Dutty Rock, the 2002 album that established him as a global star the last time dancehall went international. Actual dancing detonates all over the hall. A little later, Crick Neck, a Paul track from five minutes ago, doesn’t get quite the same physical recognition. But it can’t be long now. Paul’s latest single combines a new dance move (cricking one’s neck to ogle a pretty girl), killer electronic stabs, and a request to “call the chiropractor”; it bodes well for the forthcoming album, even though Shakira and David Guetta are said to be on it. Paul, who last graced the A-list a decade ago, is hot, then: the kind of hot that needs three changes of towel, and the other kind. Tonight’s gig – sold out in half an hour, says the evening’s MC, Ras Kwame – celebrates Paul’s recent signing to Island Records after a spell working independently. (Island, of course, popularised reggae outside Jamaica in the 70s.) Paul just headlined a night at Bestival. He went to No 1 in the US Billboard charts last summer on Sia’s Cheap Thrills – a party tune that, reprised tonight, remains hard to fault. Throughout this slick set, Paul scatters little references to Island, how he did some “thinking” about “inking” with them after taking his “medication” (that’ll be weed). He even sings a little Bob Marley off the cuff. His long-time choreographer Tanisha Scott, widely credited for spreading dancehall moves into mainstream pop videos, prances around in an Island Records T-shirt on I’m Still in Love. The slackness of her moves is undercut by the furry key-ring poking out of the pocket of her torn shorts. The atmosphere is unreconstructed but good-natured. Reunions are rife, but pop comebacks of Paul’s magnitude are actually quite a rare thing. Paul’s most recent album, 2014’s Full Frequency, did not sell well. But thanks to a path out of the wilderness provided by numerous collaborations – Major Lazer’s 2014 hit, Come on to Me, for one; it’s up first tonight – and the alignment of fellow stars, the 43-year-old soon-to-be father has a handle on the zeitgeist once again. A diagram of the Caribbean’s ebb and flow throughout the last decade of US pop music would be vast, but a partial precis might link the progress of world beats DJ/producer Diplo (also in Major Lazer), of megastar Drake, his home town Toronto (another of the largest Jamaican cities outside Jamaica), and specifically his producer Boi-1da (a Jamaican-Canadian); of Rihanna and her Barbadian lilt, and Trinidadian-American Nicki Minaj toasting as well as rapping. Non-Caribbean artists have taken note with great enthusiasm, and notable bandwagon-jumpers have included Miley Cyrus (twerking) and Justin Bieber (the “tropical pop” of Sorry, and its nearly 2bn YouTube views). Both have been called out for cultural appropriation, not least by Paul himself, who is fed up with dues not being paid to Jamaican artists. Paul’s ire is backed up by his own cross-pollination with other reggae acts, (although the less said of Paul’s Little Mix collaboration, the better). Crick Neck features young MC Chi-Ching-Ching. If Paul instinctively inhabits the flirtatious, pop end of dancehall, tonight’s guests add scope: Ghanaian-British rapper Fuse ODG on Dangerous Love, while MC Stylo G comes on for his more hard-hitting Call Mi a Yardie. It all ends, quite suitably, on Temperature, a Sean Paul mid-00s tune that argues hardest for dancehall – and Sean Paul – never having gone away. There’s no encore: someone decisively rips the Jamaican flag off the decks.
Bill for PPI mis-selling scandal tops £40bn Banks and financial services companies have racked up more than £40bn in costs to handle the payment protection insurance scandal. The costliest mis-selling bill in UK financial services history became even more expensive on Thursday after Barclays set aside a further £600m to handle the cost of claims. Data compiled by the thinkthank New City Agenda shows that this top up for Barclays has pushed the total provisions incurred by the industry to £40.2bn. Lloyds Banking Group makes up £17bn of that total. The size of the payouts have already been cited as a reason for booming car sales and holidays. As one penny off income tax costs about £4bn, it could be regarded as a boost to household income. Not all the money has gone straight into consumers’ pockets. The latest data from the Financial Conduct Authority shows that from January 2011 – when claims started to be made – until the end of July about £25bn had been distributed by the banks and other firms which sold PPI. Claims management companies have, according to the National Audit Office, received up to £5bn of the payouts. The banks have also incurred billions of pounds of costs in handling the claims. They have not used all the money they have set aside in anticipation of more applications for compensation. More than 50m PPI policies were sold, according to the former City regulator the Financial Services Authority. Banks sold most of them – around 45m policies, worth £40bn. A consultation run by the FCA into setting a deadline for claims closed earlier this month and could result in a cut-off point of June 2019 for remaining customers to make their case. It will also herald an advertising campaign, expected to cost £40m, to encourage customers to come forward and beat the deadline.
King Creosote: Astronaut Meets Appleman review – cosmic, earthy and mischievous Fife singer Kenny Anderson’s breakthrough 2014 album, From Scotland With Love, was essentially a stirring love letter to his homeland. The follow-up continues his creative roll, and recording in the Isle of Mull and County Down has given the album a real Celtic swing: you can almost smell the Highlands in the harps, cellos and bagpipes. The songs swing from cosmic and ethereal to mischievously earthy: Anderson sings about wind turbines and the constellation of Orion, plus love, lust and a hint of bondage, and there are some rollicking one-liners: “Her jealous accusations know no bounds / Scarlett Johansson was never in the house.” In the gloriously anthemic Love Life, Cupid’s arrow whacks him in the eye; Peter Rabbit Tea finds him crafting his baby daughter’s gurgle into orchestral magnificence. In this form, as a Scottish predecessor once sang, everything is possible.
Attempts to elevate the Brexit debate following MP's death begin to fray The murder of Jo Cox, the British MP shot and stabbed to death in her Yorkshire constituency last week, was supposed to have raised the maturity level of the UK’s traumatizing debate on whether or not it should sever its 43-year relationship with the 500 million-strong European Union (EU). And so it did for 24 hours, patchily for a few days longer. Political leaders shelved their differences to visit the crime scene together, as the mentally unstable loner charged with her killing gave his name in court as “death to traitors, freedom for Britain”. On Monday David Cameron, the prime minister, and Jeremy Corbyn, opposition leader of the Labour party, led tributes in a specially convened session of the House of Commons. Colleagues of the idealistic and much-liked new MP wept. They were far from alone. The death of a lively young mother in her native town struck a deep chord. But on Sunday night TV it was a different story, when Cameron was harried by a live studio audience. One middle-aged man likened him to Neville Chamberlain, the pre-war prime minister who tried and failed to appease Hitler. In vain did Cameron invoke Chamberlain’s towering successor, Winston Churchill: “He didn’t quit on Europe.” British prime ministers do not command the automatic respect given to French or US presidents as heads of state. That nod goes to the Queen. Deference, fast fading before the current surge of populist nationalism, has taken fresh knocks in this campaign. The response from the studio audience prompted a defensive Cameron to promise to try harder regarding his government’s failure to check net immigration into Britain. The country’s 65 million population is up 5 million in barely a decade, much of it migrant driven, in a country only slightly larger in geographical terms than Idaho (population 1.65 million). Currently running at 300,000 a year – around half of it attributable to the EU’s open borders policy – immigration is the main driver of widespread popular antipathy to the continued link to the EU. Brexit campaigners have been neither coherent nor convincing in explaining how they propose to stem what is a Europe-wide tide. But their slogan “take back control” has struck a resonant chord, especially among voters who feel economically left behind by globalizing markets or recoil from the multiculturalism that has accompanied it, often transforming old neighborhoods in the process and piling pressure on public services. Free from the restrictive monetary policies and laggard recovery of the single currency eurozone, which Britain declined to join in 2002, the number of people with jobs in the UK has boomed to 31.58 million in early 2016 for natives, and 3.34 million for migrant workers (2.15 million from the EU) alike. At 5.1%, unemployment is half the rate in France. But, as in the US, many jobs are low-paid and insecure. Voters worry for their children’s future; anxious hearts rule heads. Heads of the pointy variety line up in ever-greater numbers to warn against the risks of a shrinking economy and wider political instability if voters back Brexit in Thursday’s referendum. This weekend Nobel laureates joined more business leaders, the head of England’s beloved soccer Premier League, the prime minister of Ireland (which would become the EU’s only land border with Brexit Britain) in the chorus of worldwide advice – all saying the same thing: in a fragile world, please don’t do it. Are the English ready for self-government, asked one Irish writer? The pro-Brexit Donald Trump is a conspicuous exception and his appeal is a more raucous version of that offered by Nigel Farage, leader of the UK Independence Party (Ukip), Britain’s Tea Party which appeals to tax-averse rightwing libertarians and blue-collar defectors from Labour. World leaders do not impress an insular wedge of the electorate. Ukip got 13% of the vote in Britain’s 2015 general election, but only one MP: the first-past-the-post voting systems shared by the US and UK are tough on third-party insurgents. Farage was again rejected personally in his fifth attempt to become an MP. Ironically, the EU’s proportional voting system has ensured him a seat (and salary) in the European parliament in Strasbourg since 1999. Now 52, the ex-commodity broker from a privileged background revels in “politically incorrect” soundbites, complete with cigarette and foaming pint of beer. Country club geniality has served him well, his Strasbourg parliamentary insults instant hits on Facebook, though Farage handles dissent within his party more ruthlessly. On the day of Cox’s murder, Farage unveiled a billboard poster shot of Syrian refugees with the implication that all are heading towards Britain. “Breaking Point: the EU has failed us all,” declared the accompanying slogan. Even his allies in the Brexit campaign were appalled by the Trump-style nakedness of its appeal. Three days later, Lady (Sayeeda) Warsi, former chairman of Cameron’s party and a Muslim lawyer of Pakistani stock, quit the Brexit campaign over its “divisive and xenophobic” tactics. Harry Potter’s creator, JK Rowling, has called it “the ugliest debate” of her lifetime. But the Brexiteers know they cannot win the economic argument, even if they can persuade voters to ignore EU/Nato cohesion over terrorism or Putin. In the past few days opinion polls have seen the “Remain” camp regain ground as wavering voters assess the risk, as they do when invited to take a gamble with the status quo. So even Brexit’s more respectable adherents, cabinet colleagues of Cameron, have been forced to play Ukip’s immigration card. Much of what they say by way of remedy is no more plausible than Trump’s Mexican wall, but that is not the point: it addresses feeling and fear, not dry policy of the sort which has failed to deliver on oversold promises. Farage’s response to Cameron’s calls for a more moderate tone that will allow the country to unite behind Friday morning’s verdict? The prime minister has left it to others to suggest that Brexit’s conspiracy-soaked narrative that speaks of treason and betrayal by national elites may help push unstable minds towards violence. Like the French National Front’s leader, Marine Le Pen, Farage has flipped the argument: it’s the contempt of elites for ordinary people that drives then to violence. Faced with the awkward circumstances of the death of Cox, a pro-Remain campaigner, Farage accused Cameron of exploiting it for political ends. After Orlando, that might sound familiar to American ears. Three days to go. Michael White is a former political editor and Washington correspondent of the
I used my negative mental health experience to give hope to others It was a dreary February day and I was thinking about my diagnosis of borderline personality disorder. At work and miserable, I turned over the possibility of using my negative experience for good. Some of the best writers in history have found inspiration on their darkest nights. In this world, where the media are always encouraging young people to strive to look better and improve themselves, the beauty of who they are is often overlooked. Even in one’s professional life, discrimination towards those with mental ill health is a huge problem, especially when it comes to borderline personality disorder. So, while browsing the web on my break, I was surprised to find Time to Change Wales, the Welsh campaign for ending the stigma and discrimination surrounding mental health. Its website provided information about how to get involved. The idea of becoming a “volunteer champion” stood out to me. The charity offered training that would allow you to talk to colleagues and employers about your mental health, culminating in a talk to a roomful of people. I found the idea of being able to tell my story exciting, but also nerve-wracking. I am a shy, awkward person and I was afraid to let people in on my experience with this disorder. Nevertheless, I took the plunge and signed up. The training took place over the summer and before I knew it, I was ready to tell my story. I didn’t think the charity would find me a place to speak so quickly, but just a month later it had a request from a local service user group. However, the day before I was due to speak my disorder reared its ugly head again and I wound up in A&E after a suicide attempt. I couldn’t do this, could I? My mother had to accompany me to the venue or I wouldn’t have gone. I didn’t think my talk was going to have any impact. I was trembling and the words came tumbling out rather too quickly, like water boiling over in a pan – but I did it. I managed to make it to the end without losing my audience’s attention. Parts of my experience were particularly painful to talk about. Hallucinations are a pretty taboo subject, but I knew I had to convey that this was n0t a case of attention-seeking or playing games, as some professionals so kindly put it. Breaking my silence about having been sectioned was a tough step too. But perhaps the most frightening part was revealing my suicide attempts. I found that speaking openly about the times I had nearly killed myself brought a greater appreciation of the life I still have. I was able to re-evaluate my life through the eyes of my listeners, and realised that I could help those who might be considering suicide. By the end of the talk I felt drained, but I could see that I had made a difference to those listeners who had also struggled with mental ill health. They – and I – had realised that honesty is not always something to be feared, that by opening up, those of us who were struggling alone with mental ill health could begin to heal. They knew I could say, “I understand”, and mean it. My talk even inspired an audience member to sign up to be a champion. I am only a tiny way into my recovery, but I made a difference to the people in that room by sharing my story. By telling them that I was rediscovering a life worth living, despite my daily struggles with my disorder. That there was hope for all of us. Louisa Tanner is a Time to Change Wales champion In the UK, the Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Hotline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14. Hotlines in other countries can be found here. The day I made a difference is the Voluntary Sector Network’s series that showcases the work of people involved with charities. If you have a story you want to share email voluntarysectornetwork@theguardian.com with a short summary of your experience. For more news, opinions and ideas about the voluntary sector, join our community - it’s free!
More foreign holidays will mean more skin cancer, scientists predict The number of Britons developing the two most common forms of skin cancer will increase as a direct result of people getting tans on foreign holidays and in salons, experts are warning. The number of people diagnosed with non-melanoma skin cancer (NMSC) will rise from the 213,217 seen in 2010 to 380,002 cases a year by 2025, according to a study in a medical journal. That predicted 78% increase could also see the NHS’s costs of treating the disease rise to as much as £465m a year. The British Association of Dermatologists (BAD) said the greatly increased number of people with NMSC would be mainly due to prolonged exposure to UV rays causing cancer years afterwards. “There is no single cause [of NMSC]. But the UK has an ageing population and as we get older skin cancers become common, particularly NMSC, which is largely caused by cumulative sun exposure,” said Nina Goad, a spokeswoman for the BAD. “More affordable foreign holidays, the widespread desire for tanned skin and increased use of sunbeds have all had an impact and we are paying the price now for decades of excess sun exposure.” NMSC does not usually claim lives, although they did account for 781 deaths UK-wide in 2014, figures suggest. The new estimates for future cases of squamous cell carconoma (SCC) and basal cell carcinoma (BCC), the two cancer types that together are known as NMSC, are contained in new research in the British Journal of Dermatology. On current trends cases of BCC across the UK will rise from 180,725 in 2010 to 298,308 in 2025, the researchers say. It is the commonest form of NMSC but is usually non-fatal. The number of diagnosed cases of BCC rose by 133% between 1980 and 2000, coinciding roughly with the British boom in foreign travel. Similarly, cases of SCC are expected to increase from 32,492 to 81,694 over the same period, according to Dr Peter Goon and colleagues who included Dr Nick Levell, the president of the BAD. SCC is much less common than BCC and is the second most dangerous form of skin cancer after melanoma, which the study did not look at. Melanoma is much less common but much more deadly than SCC or BCC. Mortality rates from it have increased by 156% since the early 1970s. A Public Health England spokesman said: “There are simple steps you can take to reduce the risks from sun exposure in the summer months or on holiday. These include seeking shade, covering up and wearing sunscreen.”
Female-dominated production company launches to tackle Hollywood gender gap Jessica Chastain, Juliette Binoche and Catherine Hardwicke have joined the advisory board of a newly launched non-profit production company aimed at improving opportunities for women in Hollywood. We Do It Together hopes to close the gender gap by focusing on film and television projects that empower women. Other board members include rapper-turned-actor Queen Latifah, Slumdog Millionaire actor Freida Pinto, the British director of Belle, Amma Asante, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon superstar Zhang Ziyi and Katia Lund, the Brazilian co-director of City of God. Chastain has spoken regularly of her disgust at gender pay disparity and the manner in which Hollywood sexualises women in action movies. In December she wrote about the positive experience of working on her forthcoming film, The Zookeeper’s Wife, which boasted a largely female crew. Hardwicke was, at one point, the director of the highest-grossing film made by a female film-maker, 2008’s Twilight. She has spoken about her first-hand experience of Hollywood sexism, after being told that producers of the Oscar-winning boxing drama The Fighter were only considering men for the director’s seat. “We hope in the future we won’t have a need for dedicated niche financing for films by and about women,” founder and board member of We Do It Together, Chiara Tilesi, told the Hollywood Reporter. “All of us involved in We Do It Together recognise the vital role of the media and entertainment in both shaping and challenging societal norms. Film has always possessed the power to defy convention and change hearts and minds, and this power and potential must be harnessed to challenge the current archaic norms related to women within the entertainment industry. We feel that the way to make this a reality is to give women from around the world a concrete way to express themselves and an ongoing structure that will ensure that these stories will be financed and distributed.” We Do It Together hopes to announce its first feature project at the Cannes film festival in May. The organisation’s founding follows a year of uncomfortable headlines for studios on the issue of gender discrimination in Hollywood. Patricia Arquette highlighted pay inequality last February during her best supporting actress acceptance speech at the Oscars, while stars such as Meryl Streep, Keira Knightley, Carey Mulligan, Romola Garai, Geena Davies and Amanda Seyfried have all raised the issue of Hollywood sexism. In October it was revealed that US equal opportunities officials are to interview dozens of female film-makers as part of a historic probe into gender discrimination in Hollywood.
A vote to leave is a vote to needlessly destroy our legal system Among all the distortions and untruths of this referendum campaign, leave’s battle cry, “take back control”, is the greatest. And yet, unlike the lies about immigration and spending, this claim that we can regain our sovereignty by leaving the EU has rarely been challenged. Perhaps this is because David Cameron believes it too. Or perhaps because our politicians have decided it is too difficult to explain how the laws of the EU really affect us, or what our legal system might look like if we were to leave. As Joshua Rozenberg put it this week, books could be written on the subject. Without wishing to deny the complexity of the issue, there are powerful rebuttals to the foundation of the leave campaign that must be made if we are to vote with our eyes open. First, let’s be clear about leave’s proposal for our future relationship with the EU. They flirted initially with the half-in models of Norway and Switzerland. Those countries are members of the European Economic Area, benefiting from the European single market. While they are not members of the EU and have no say in the development of its laws, they are bound to observe its rules. If we were to adopt this model, and give up our ability to influence the laws of the EU, we would suffer a significant loss of sovereignty. This is why the leave campaign has ultimately favoured withdrawal from the single market – they could not plausibly have championed “control” in the face of such an obvious loss of power. Assuming that the leaders of the leave campaign would conduct the exit negotiations with the EU, we would be leaving the single market and would no longer have any formal legal obligation to harmonise our laws with that of the EU. Parliament would be expected to repeal the European Communities Act of 1972, which gives EU law supremacy over UK law. And with that, sovereignty would return to the UK parliament and devolved assemblies. Or would it? Before anyone confidently asserts the triumphant return of our sovereign powers, they need to understand what EU law regulates and how it is enacted in UK law. EU legislation is predominantly regulatory and standard setting – think of mandatory emissions standards for cars, toy safety, regulation of chemicals, food, medicines. But it also creates substantive protections for consumers, businesses, workers and the environment – imagine a system without guarantees of parental leave, or non-discrimination. EU law takes two main forms: directives, which the UK must implement through legislation passed by parliament; and regulations, which are directly applicable in UK law without the need for any implementing legislation. What effect would repealing the European Communities Act have on the status of EU-derived law in the UK? It would not undo the implementation of EU directives that have become acts of parliament or statutory instruments. Those would remain in force unless they were repealed. While sovereignty might theoretically have returned to the UK, it would be meaningless unless every EU-derived statute was reviewed and a decision taken about whether it should be replaced with home-grown legislation. Given that the UK has positively embraced much EU law (voting for over 90% of it in the EU council), and often enhances EU standards in our national legislation, the process of review and repeal would be an exercise in the absurd. Directly applicable regulations pose an even greater dilemma. On repeal of the European Communities Act they would cease to have effect, leaving a continent-sized hole in our regulation of fundamental aspects of our business, work and environment. Parliament could enact legislation giving EU regulations the status of UK legislation, but this would defeat the whole purpose of the leave campaign. We can hardly claim enhanced sovereignty if we simply adopt the same EU laws we had before we left. And if the regulations are to be replaced, they would be replaced by lower standards, inspired by a Ukip approach to law-making, leaving us with impoverished legal protection. Take air quality. For years, the government has failed to implement measures to lower levels of nitrogen dioxide to the standards imposed by EU environmental legislation. In April, the UK supreme court was able to use EU law to order the government to do better. We know that unhindered by EU rules, the government would choose lower standards of environmental protection that will harm our health. If we are to “take back control”, assert our sovereignty and remake these laws ourselves, as the leave campaign says we must, we need to be clear that a vote to leave is a vote for the needless destruction of our legal system. It is a vote for a process that would consume years of parliamentary time, divert precious public resources to battalions of lawyers, and jeopardise the effective governance of our country.
Ed Sheeran sued for allegedly copying Marvin Gaye classic Let's Get It On Ed Sheeran has been accused of copying elements of Marvin Gaye’s Let’s Get It On for his hit single Thinking Out Loud. The track, which became the first to spend a full year in the UK top 40 and has been streamed more than 1 billion times on YouTube, became Sheeran’s first number one single, and went on to top charts in Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, Denmark, the Netherlands, Slovakia and South Africa. It also won song of the year at the 2016 Grammy awards. An infringement lawsuit has now been filed by Ed Townsend, who composed and co-wrote the lyrics to Let’s Get It On in 1973, according to the complaint filed in federal court in the Southern District of New York. Townsend has requested the suit is assessed at a jury trial, and alleges the harmonic progressions, melodic and rhythmic elements central to Gaye’s track formed the structure of Sheeran’s hit. “The defendants copied the ‘heart’ of ‘Let’s’ and repeated it continuously throughout Thinking,” the lawsuit said according to Reuters. “The melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic compositions of Thinking are substantially and/or strikingly similar to the drum composition of ‘Let’s.’” A spokesperson for Sheeran has yet to respond to a request for comment. Gaye’s family last year won $7.4m after successfully suing Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams for copyright infringement over their single Blurred Lines. The attorney Richard Busch, who triumphed on behalf of Gaye’s family, is also representing Martin Harrington and Thomas Leonard in another case surrounding Sheeran. The pop songwriters claim Sheeran’s Photograph “note-for-note” copies their 2009 song Amazing which was released as the third single by Matt Cardle, winner of the 2010 season of The X Factor. Sheeran has not publicly responded to that claim.
Liverpool’s James Milner spot-on again to sink Swansea City There was plenty to smile about for Jürgen Klopp in the end as his team climbed to second in the table on the back of a fourth successive Premier League victory, yet the Liverpool manager made no attempt to sugarcoat a first-half performance that prompted the temperature to rise in the visitors’ dressing room at the interval. Whatever Klopp said at half-time – the German admitted he was “very angry” – it did the trick as Liverpool, who were unrecognisable from the team that toiled in the opening 45 minutes, turned this game on its head to condemn Swansea to a defeat that leaves Francesco Guidolin clinging to his job. James Milner delivered the crucial blow six minutes from time with his fourth penalty of the season, after Roberto Firmino had equalised early in the second half, and from that point on it was tempting to wonder what was going through the minds of Steve Kaplan and Jason Levien, Swansea’s American owners, as well as Guidolin’s. Kaplan and Levien had flown in to watch this match in a visit that had been planned for a while but which took on far greater significance amid the speculation about Guidolin’s future. Ryan Giggs and Bob Bradley are both on a shortlist as part of a managerial search that has not always been conducted behind closed doors. In fairness to Guidolin, Swansea were excellent in the opening 45 minutes and the Italian, judging from the number of times that his name was chanted, still has the support of a sizeable number of the club’s supporters. Yet the harsh reality is that this was a fifth defeat in seven league games, with Swansea collecting only one point from a possible 18 since winning at Burnley on the opening day. Those are the sort of statistics to worry any Premier League owner, irrespective of the fact that Swansea have played extremely well in patches in their last two fixtures, against Manchester City and now Liverpool. While the visitors were much the better team after the interval, Swansea should have had more to show for their first-half efforts than Leroy Fer’s fourth goal of the season. Borja, the club’s £15.5m record signing, squandered two excellent chances, the second of which came after Fer had put Swansea ahead. Mike van der Hoorn could still have salvaged a point in injury-time but the central defender – the wrong man in the right place – sliced wide with the goal at his mercy. It was some turnaround from Liverpool in the second half and strange to reconcile the team that dominated that period with the one that looked so out of sorts early on. Liverpool were so pedestrian in their build-up in the first 45 minutes and seemed to be taken by surprise when Swansea played them at their own game by pressing aggressively all over the pitch. To compound things for Liverpool they lost Adam Lallana to a groin injury early on and Daniel Sturridge was booked for diving. Klopp talked afterwards about how he sensed that his players had lost their discipline and composure, right down to “moaning about decisions that were absolutely right”. Borja could, and should, have put Swansea ahead after five minutes but the Spaniard, who was totally unmarked as he got in between Joël Matip and Nathaniel Clyne, inexplicably headed over the bar from the edge of the six-yard box. It was a poor miss and there was another to come from the same player in the 26th minute, when he nodded Gylfi Sigurdsson’s free-kick wide of the post. By that stage Swansea were ahead after Fer exposed a familiar weakness in Liverpool under Klopp. Sigurdsson’s deep corner kick was headed back across goal by Borja and Fer, via a slight touch from Van der Hoorn, stabbed over the line. It was the 16th set-piece goal Liverpool have conceded since Klopp took over as manager last October – only Swansea have shipped more in that period. The second-half, however, was a different story. Liverpool took control of the game and it was no surprise when Firmino levelled. Jordan Henderson lofted the ball back into the area after Philippe Coutinho’s free-kick came back of the wall and Firmino, with the freedom of the penalty area as the Swansea defence pushed out, guided his header into the corner. It was now one-way traffic, with Swansea pinned back. Coutinho stroked a lovely effort from the edge of the area inches wide and Sadio Mané saw his shot deflected over the bar by Kyle Naughton’s superb challenge as Liverpool continued to press. Swansea looked like they might cling on but with the clock ticking down Àngel Rangel clumsily bundled into Firmino and Milner made no mistake from the spot. Then came Van der Hoorn’s awful late miss. With that the game was up for Swansea and it remains to be seen if the same is true for Guidolin.
Middlesbrough v Watford: Premier League – as it happened So, we said at the start that this was the kind of game that Middlesbrough needed to win. They’ve lost it. They were awful. They are in trouble. Goal difference is keeping them out of the bottom three and the worry for Aitor Karanka must be that his team never looked like scoring. Watford did enough, snatching the points thanks to a Jose Holebas wonder goal and they move up to ninth place. Not bad at all. Thanks for reading and emailing. Bye. It’s all over! The Middlesbrough fans greet the final whistle with boos. 90 min+4: Ayala hoofs a cross miles over for a goal-kick to Watford. 90 min+3: Watford are wasting time deep in Middlesbrough territory. 90 min: There will be six minutes of added time. Six! We’ll now test my theory about Middlesbrough’s goalscoring capabilities. 89 min: Jordan Rhodes comes on for Middlesbrough, joining Alvaro Negredo up front. He’s replaced De Roon. The home fans cheer ironically. Too little, too late? Is Aitor Karanka too cautious? Middlesbrough look like they could play until next week without scoring. 88 min: Ben Watson replaces Isaac Success, who’s just been named Man of the Match on Sky. 87 min: Downing’s poor corner is claimed by Gomes. What a let down. 86 min: Friend wins a corner on the left. 85 min: Christian Kabasele replaces Miguel Britos for Watford. 84 min: Miguel Britos, struggling with an injury, is down for a second time. His afternoon is probably over. 83 min: Oh no. The feed is back. Middlesbrough are still losing. 80 min: In a worrying turn of events, heavy rain in London has disrupted my feed. This is arguably more entertaining than anything taking place on the pitch. 79 min: Downing curls in a cross from the right, De Roon flicks a header wide. Middlesbrough haven’t created a noteworthy chance. 76 min: The tricky Success produces a couple of stepovers to beat Chambers on the left before shooting straight at Valdes. 72 min: Watford bring on Juan Zuniga for Amrabat, who was on a booking. 71 min: A Watford corner on the left. It’s cleared as far as Capoue, whose drive is deflected into the six-yard box by the unwitting Negredo. It spins just too far in front of the unmarked Success, who would surely have scored. He attempts to keep the move alive but his cross from the right is booted clear. 69 min: Middlesbrough bring on Adama Traore and Daniel Ayala for Christian Stuani and Antonio Barragan, who has somehow managed to avoid a red card this afternoon. 68 min: Friend swings a dangerous cross into the area from the right. Negredo’s header is weak and mistimed. Gomes gathers and there’s a stoppage in play because Holebas is down with a head injury. 66 min: Fine, it’s October. Fine, there are more than 20 minutes left. But I’ve not seen much evidence to suggest that Middlesbrough are going to stay up. They have been so average. 65 min: Amrabat is booked for a bodycheck on Friend. 62 min: Stuani digs a cross out on the right and finds Ramirez at the near post. He tumbles, claiming he’s being pulled by Britos. Nothing doing. “You better believe I showered my living room with gold coins after that Holebas goal,” says JR in Illinois. “I’ve got him on my fantasy team.” 57 min: “I once worked for Carluccio, Jacob,” says William Hargreaves. “He explained that each pasta shape is specifically designed to transport the sauce to the mouth. Spaghetti is used for large lumps of stuff - it can be twirled around the fork above a meatball or vongole (clams), for example. Pappardelle, very thick strands, or tagliatelle, thick strands would be used for a thinner, meaty sauce. When they are twirled they entrap the sauce. And herbs are rarely used in these sauces - they taste better without. Here endeth the lesson, as Sean Connery might say.” 55 min: Looking for an immediate response, Forshaw skews a shot wide from 25 yards. He’s no Holebas. Out of nothing, Watford take the lead thanks to a moment of magic from Jose Holebas! They were still grumbling about Roger East’s refusal to award them a penalty when Forshaw appeared to trip Success, who had made a mug out of Barragan again, when the ball ran to Holebas, 20 yards out. He took a touch and then struck a fierce shot with his left foot, the ball swerving away from Valdes and into the top right corner, a bolt from the blue that has left Middlesbrough in utter shock. 53 min: Stuani runs on to a flick from Negredo and shoots wide from the right. This is a bit better from Middlesbrough. “I can hear the gasps already, sorry to state the blatantly obvious but perhaps chorizo sausage,” says Suzie Racine. “But then again I love chorizo in paella. I blame my Irish heritage on this blasphemy.” Are you Jamie Oliver in disguise? 52 min: Negredo slides a clever pass through to Stuani, who jigs inside and lays it off to Forshaw. His careful shot is politely placed straight at Gomes from 20 yards. 49 min: “‘Twas only last week I was regaling a colleague regarding my mum who used to cut spaghetti in half to make it fit the pan, but at that point in time spaghetti hoops were seen as exotic,” says John Tumbridge. Keep sending your bolognese memories in. 48 min: Excitement! Momentary excitement! Negredo bursts past the Watford defence. Amrabat, the last defender, toes the ball away from him, though. 46 min: Off we go again. I’m armed with a big pot of coffee now. “Anything ‘controversial’ going in your bolognese later?” says Bruce Jackson. “And will you be having it with the traditional British accompaniment of spaghetti?” Firstly I can’t confirm that we’ll be having spaghetti yet. It could be something Indian and vegetarian. If not, what ingredient would you say constitutes controversial in a bolognese? A Hobnob? Time for a quick nap. 44 min: I’m thinking of making bolognese later. 42 min: Younes Kaboul, who is in total clown mode, tries to clear Ramirez’s cross. Instead he slips and heads it to Negredo, who swivels and shoots straight at Gomes. Moments later, Ramirez is booked for pushing Behrami after a disagreement between the pair. 38 min: Stuani is booked for ... pulling back Pereyra. Explain that one. “Perhaps the chess game this match will wind up resembling will be the famous “American Beauty” game between Levitzky and Marshall,” says JR in Illinois. “Marshall made a move so stunningly beautiful that he was showered with gold pieces after Levitzky resigned. Well, we can hope.” 36 min: Stuani goes down clutching his face after a tussle with Holebas. He’s made rather a lot of that. 34 min: You suspect that Watford are going to give the ball to Success and get him to run at Barragan at every opportunity. 31 min: This is absurd. Success steams past Barragan on the left and the Middlesbrough right-back, booked for a foul on the same player 10 minutes ago, pulls him back cynically. That has to be a second yellow card. It’s not a debate. It just has to be. Instead, though, Roger East errs on the side of leniency, contenting himself with delivering a stern lecture to the extremely fortunate Barragan, who’s a lucky boy. Watford can’t believe it. 27 min: Chambers needlessly concedes a free-kick with a stupid shove on Success, who was going nowhere on the left. From the resulting delivery, Negredo decides he’d like to boost his confidence in front of goal and nods narrowly over his own bar. Whoops. Middlesbrough survive a moment of near farce. He totally mistimed that. In the end, it’s just a corner for Watford and it comes to nothing. 25 min: Barragan hooks a cross into the area from the right. Downing tries to head it back into the middle from the left and there’s a shout for handball against Amrabat. Downing’s header did hit his hands but it looked accidental. Roger East isn’t interested in the penalty appeals again and play continues, with the ball falling to Downing, who cracks a shot wide. It’s all Middlesbrough. 23 min: Negredo falls theatrically in the Watford area. Roger East is not interested. Younes Kaboul did have an arm around Negredo but the fall was a tad exaggerated. 21 min: The new camera angle has, of course, been in place all season. It’s just that they’ve switched sides. This is the first Middlesbrough game I’ve watched live. It’s a new experience for me. The camera used to be in the stand that houses the dugouts. Now we’re opposite the dugouts. While I was discussing that, Barragan was booked for a foul on Success. 20 min: Friend’s teasing cross is meat and drink for Gomes. Plenty of effort from Middlesbrough. Little quality. 17 min: Barragan wins a corner on the right for Middlesbrough. It comes to nothing. 15 min: A free-kick to Middlesbrough on the left. They try a clever one from the training ground, Downing rolling it inside to Ramirez, who can’t thread a second pass through the Watford defence. 13 min: Exclusive video of this game. 11 min: Watford have tried a couple of long throws. Middlesbrough are unflustered. 9 min: Emails please! 6 min: Younes Kaboul, who always seems to be on the verge of a costly error, even when he’s playing well, drops his own team in it by losing the ball near the Watford area. Gaston Ramirez exchanges passes with Alvaro Negredo and drags a poor shot wide, though. 5 min: There’s a decent atmosphere inside the Riverside, the home fans trying to roar their team on. Middlesbrough have settled nicely here. 3 min: This is an open start. George Friend scoots down the left and clips a low first-time cross into the area. Stewart Downing scoops over from 15 yards. 2 min: What do we think of the new camera angle at Middlesbrough? How do we feel when a new camera angle is unveiled? Strange? Emotional? And we’re off! Watford, kicking from right to left, get the game underway. Walter Mazzarri has made a big decision, preferring Isaac Success to Odion Ighalo up front. Almost immediately, Watford’s new look attack are threatening, with Troy Deeney bursting on to a flick on in the home area. He’s denied by Ben Gibson. The teams are out. Middlesbrough in red, Watford in white. The visitors will be hoping that Middlesbrough’s defenders still haven’t recovered from Dimitri Payet pulling their pants over their heads two weeks ago. Middlesbrough: Valdes; Barragan, Chambers, Gibson, Friend; De Roon, Forshaw; Stuani, Ramirez, Downing; Negredo. Subs: Guzan, Ayala, Bernardo, Clayton, Fischer, Rhodes, Traore Watford: Gomes; Kaboul, Prodl, Britos; Amrabat, Capoue, Behrami, Holebas; Pereyra, Success; Deeney. Subs: Pantilimon, Mariappa, Kabasele, Zuniga, Watson, Guedioura, Ighalo. Referee: Roger East. Hello. No disrespect to Watford, but you suspect that this is the kind of game that Middlesbrough need to win if they are going to stay up. The problem for Aitor Karanka is that they’ve not been doing much of that lately. After starting the season with four points from their first two matches, drawing at home with Stoke City and winning at Sunderland, Middlesbrough have slipped since then, drawing two and losing three of their past five matches. Defeats to Everton and Spurs were understandable enough given the quality of their opponents, it must be said, and Crystal Palace were at the start of a terrific run when they won at the Riverside, while Middlesbrough’s sturdiness was in evidence during away draws with West Brom and West Ham. But the pressure is on. Yet to win at home this season, Middlesbrough need to start somewhere. And where better than against a side whose last away fixture ended in a dispiriting 2-0 defeat at Burnley, with Walter Mazzarri tearing into his players afterwards? Hold on just a moment, though. Other than that disappointment at Turf Moor, Watford have been quietly impressive this season, enjoying eye-catching wins over West Ham and Manchester United last month. They’ve been playing some decent stuff under their new Italian manager. While goals have been hard to come by for Middlesbrough, Watford’s front two of Odion Ighalo and Troy Deeney remain a nightmarish proposition for any defence when they are in the mood, while Roberto Pererya could be one of the buys of the season. You know what they say. No easy games in this league*. *You can say that with a straight face now Aston Villa have gone. Kick-off: 1.30pm BST.
'Well done Corbyn for attacking Farage': readers on the EU referendum As referendum day nears we continue our daily look at your views on the campaign headlines, with a final scramble for votes well under way. Here we discuss your reactions to a speech by Jeremy Corbyn in Manchester, the relationship between bookies’ odds and polling as we attempt to get to grips with what might happen, and thoughts on the latest celebrity to tell us how they are going to vote. Click on the links at the end of each section to get involved, or head over to our EU referendum live blog to follow the news and discussion as it happens. 1. EU referendum live: Corbyn says Labour ‘ready’ for an early election after EU vote Jeremy Corbyn took Labour’s case for remain on the road to deliver a speech in Manchester. He talked about the economy after George Soros predicted a black Friday, and in a Q&A session addressed the perceived concerns of some of his party’s voters on free movement of labour. He also attacked Nigel Farage’s anti-migrant poster and criticised tabloid newspapers for denying the public a serious debate about immigration. After Corbyn’s speech, some of you wondered whether the remain campaign might be missing a trick. He had said “Labour has had a problem with the media being focused on the problems in the Conservative party”. Corbyn looked to the future, and impressed many of you. Join the debate here. 2. Should you trust the pollsters or the bookies on the EU referendum? The only thing pollsters seem to agree on is that the vote is going to be close, but this piece examines the reasons bookmakers seem a little more sure of things. There are a few nifty graphs showing spread betting predictions were more accurate than polling in the 2015 general election, and a discussion of a study which found today’s voters are more open to changing their minds than at any point in the last 35 years. Your discussions focused on polling methodology, but also manipulation of figures to suit different campaigns before voters even get the chance to make their minds up. You can click the links on any of these comments to join the conversations. Lastly on this point, an idea ... Join the debate here. 3. David Beckham comes out in favour of remain The latest high-profile figure to tell us how they are voting – and have this leapt on as an endorsement/attacked as an irrelevance (delete as appropriate) – was David Beckham. He’s for remain, saying in a Facebook post that “we should be facing the problems of the world together and not alone”. However seriously you take celebrity voices, the former England captain certainly got you talking. Join the debate here. We’ll be back tomorrow with another roundup of what you’re talking about in the comment sections on the EU referendum. You can help inform what we report on by filling in the form below.
Online abuse: how different countries deal with it Online abuse is rife on social media and other sites across the globe but countries are attempting to deal with it in very different ways. As part the ’s Web we want series investigating the dark side of the internet – and the efforts people are making to clean it up – we look at what different legislatures are doing. China With more internet users than any other country – 688 million, according to the government’s last count – China provides fertile ground for online abuse. The most notorious form is the so-called “human flesh search engine”, by which internet users club together to identify and then publicly humiliate online targets who have been accused of anything from corruption to infidelity or animal cruelty. Ding Jinhao, a teenager from the city of Nanjing, understands the dangers better than most. In May 2013 he was the target of a furious online campaign after another internet user accused him of carving the phrase “Ding Jinhao was here” into an ancient Egyptian temple while on holiday. Tens of thousands of Chinese internet users shared reports of Ding’s infraction. His personal details and school address were published online to shame him and his school’s website was hacked. So ferocious was the offensive against Ding that his family was forced to issue an online apology for his behaviour. “We want to apologise to the Egyptian people and to people who have paid attention to this case across China,” his mother told a local newspaper. Beijing, despite boasting an immense army of online censors and perhaps the most sophisticated internet censorship apparatus on Earth, has been slow to react to the growing tide of online abuse. Scholars warn that human flesh search groups, which first appeared more than a decade ago, have in many cases become “online lynch mobs”. But China still has no specific law to counter cyberbullying, says Zhou Zongkui, one of the few Chinese academics to have studied the issue. Zhou describes cyberbullying on social media groups such as Weibo or Weixin as a serious and growing threat to his country’s youth. In a study of nearly 1,500 secondary schools he found that almost 35% of respondents admitted to having bullied someone online while nearly 57% said they had been bullied. “They spread rumours about you or defame you online in order to isolate or marginalise you,” said Zhou, a specialist in teenager cyber psychology and behaviour from the Central China Normal University. “It is hard for people that age to bear and it makes them depressed.” Tom Phillips Beijing. Additional reporting by Christy Yao Russia The problem with online abuse in Russia is often not so much that the authorities do not take it seriously, but that they may actually be behind it. Ruslan Leviev, a blogger who has used open-source information to chart Russian military manoeuvres in Ukraine and Syria, has been on the receiving end of many online threats on Twitter and Facebook. A “patriotic” website also published an home address and phone number that it attributed to him. “Recently I’ve been getting a lot of calls from people saying they’re going to come and get me,” he said. So far, none of the threats have turned into real physical action. He has not contacted police about the threats, believing it is unlikely that anything would be done. “Anonymous murder threats by phone or internet are almost never investigated, the police aren’t interested in such ‘petty’ crimes, because the evidence is weak for a court case.” Additionally, given the political nature of his work, he believes it is unlikely that he would find allies among the police. “If I feel that there is a real danger for me, then I would go to the police, but not so that they’d solve the case, but merely so that when I do get attacked in future I can show that I did go to the police.” Even in cases where abuse comes from non-official sources, the legal framework can act as an aggravating factor. Gay rights activists cite the controversial 2013 laws against “homosexual propaganda” as contributing to an environment where online and real-life harassment of gay people is encouraged. Russia has no specific laws on online abuse but the phenomenon is theoretically covered by standard laws against threatening violence or murder. For cases of revenge porn, Russians are often reluctant to go to the police, with just a handful of cases each year. “Often people will come to us but will then decide not to go public when it becomes clear that it will involve the police investigating their private affairs and so on,” said Damir Gainutdinov, a human rights lawyer. Online abuse in Russia can be sophisticated and multifarious. At Russia’s notorious “troll farm” in St Petersburg, thought to have shadowy links to the country’s authorities, hundreds of people put in all-day shifts on social networks and online comment forums, spamming the internet with pro-Kremlin views on the issues of the day. Many of the trolls also spend their days curating fake personal blogs; one former troll told the how she was instructed to post blog entries hectoring opposition leaders or unfriendly public figures on her accounts, among more innocent posts about trivia and daily life. Shaun Walker Moscow UK “I call the internet and social media the ‘wild west’,” says Nik Noone, CEO of Galop, London’s LGBT anti-violence organisation. “People are in this territory that changes quickly but rules or norms are not evolving at the same pace. The criminal justice system and legislation has struggled to keep up with the pace of change and the reality of what people are experiencing.” Online abuse in the UK can be broadly broken down into two categories. The first is the more targeted abuse that is directed towards someone often by a partner, ex-partner, colleague or classmate. Noone’s group places revenge pornography as well as stalking into this category. “It’s very targeted, very persistent, potentially extremely dangerous and can have a very powerful impact,” she says. It is often women, victims of domestic abuse and LGBT people who are the victims of these targeted attacks. “There’s quite a hidden LGBT element in terms of revenge porn,” adds Noone, who says attackers will sometimes threaten to post pictures “outing” someone to family and friends unless blackmail demands are met. “An ex-partner can put a photo online that would out someone, even if it’s not sexually explicit and police might say ‘What’s the problem with that, it just shows a nice cosy picture of two people snuggling on a couch.’ But that threat is part of a coercive situation. “That for me harks back to a pre-legalisation world,” says Noone. But this targeted abuse is beginning to be tackled by legislation. In April 2015, revenge pornography – the sharing of private sexual photographs or films without consent – became a criminal offence. In the six months after it was introduced, nearly 200 cases of revenge pornography were reported to police across England and Wales, leading to 13 convictions – of 12 men and one woman. In March, a senior police officer dealing with cyber crime called for new legislation to deal with online abuse, which he said was occurring on an “unimagined scale” that could overwhelm the police service. Other steps, such as the introduction of a national stalking helpline and national revenge pornography helpline have assisted victims. In a promising step, in March 2015, the Crown Prosecution Service updated its guidelines to cover a wider range of cyber-related crimes, including those involving people setting up fake profiles in the names of others. The second element of online abuse in the UK is related to more general abuse directed towards someone in a public online space. This can be targeted at someone with a public profile, such as the death and rape threats directed at activist Caroline Criado-Perez via Twitter in 2013 for her campaign to have Jane Austen featured on banknotes, which led to two convictions. Or it can be aimed at less prominent figures, for example by shaming and ostracising people in particular online communities – Facebook groups for particular subcultures or Tumblr communities, for example. This abuse is often difficult to prosecute, but makes people “scared and distressed in their virtual communities,” says Noone. “When these things happen they feel very frightening and overwhelming, they come into your pocket; they come into your home, where you’re supposed to feel safe,” she says. Kate Lyons Colombia Colombian internet users face the same issues as those elsewhere – harassment, stalking, revenge pornography and blackmail, largely aimed at women. But in the South American country, which has been plagued by long-running conflict, the situation is complicated as this abuse sometimes comes from paramilitary groups who threaten to take the abuse from the computer screen to the victim’s home. Olga Paz Martinez, coordinator of the Take Back the Tech project in Colombia, says such online violence is often directed against women’s rights campaigners and in particular those who speak out about sexual violence against women. Between 2009 and 2012, Colombian feminist organisation Mujeres Insumisas received a series of online threats about the work they were doing campaigning for women’s rights. The abuse occurred through emails and mobile phone messages and at least three women working for the NGO were victims of sexual violence, harassment and stalking during this period, which they believed to be connected to the online abuse. During this time, the NGO also received 12 threatening emails from paramilitary groups urging them to stop their work. One email threatened the group, saying “we will not be respsonsible for what might happen to the leaders of these organisations ... we have begun to exterminate each one of them without mercy”. The situation in Colombia is also complicated by a deeply-rooted cultural machismo, which prizes hierarchical notions of gender and traditional family roles. In some cases of abuse against women who have spoken out against sexual violence, says Paz Martinez, the victim’s husband has been contacted and told to “make your wife shut up” or the abuse will continue. In this culture, many women who are the victims of revenge pornography, return to their former partners or give in to other blackmail demands to protect their reputation and safety, says Paz Martinez. In 2008, a landmark piece of legislation was introduced in Colombia which addressed violence against women, but there is no specific mention of technology-related violence and the law is ill-equipped to help people who are the victims of online harassment and abuse. Kate Lyons Sweden Shortly before Christmas in 2012, nearly 30 pupils were arrested during a full-scale riot outside a secondary school in Gothenburg, Sweden’s second city. The spark for the brawl was an Instagram account, “Sluts of Gothenburg”, set up that week by two girls aged 15 and 16, which asked people to send in photos of other local teenagers along with allegations about their sexual history. About 200 photographs, of both boys and girls, were published on the account. Many of the pictures were accompanied by names, and most included accusations of promiscuity. At their subsequent trial in June 2013, the two girls were found guilty of defamation, sentenced to juvenile detention and community service, and ordered to pay 15,000kr (£1,450) compensation to each of 38 victims identified by the court. The case, which attracted massive media attention, is perhaps Sweden’s best-known incidence of online abuse and harassment – and a rare example of successful prosecution by police and judicial authorities battling, campaigners say, inadequate legislation and technology they do not fully understand. A study published in June 2015 by the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention (NCCP) suggested that across all categories of online threats, abuse and offensive behaviour, only 4% of complaints may result in prosecution, often because the incident does not constitute a criminal offence or, in more than 40% of cases, because of difficulties identifying perpetrators and obtaining evidence. The study found that the most common platform for online abuse was Facebook, particularly among young people. Among adults, abusive and threatening emails were also frequent. The NCCP study found that men and boys were most often victims of offences that could be classified as defamation (being described as a criminal, paedophile or rapist, for example) or threats to the person, while offences against women were mostly molestation (posting derogatory remarks or sexual images). Some 44% of incidents reported by women involved a present or former partner, while nearly half of those reported by children involved a friend or classmate. Only a third of all abuse was anonymous. According to Angla Eklund, project manager of the Institute of Law and Internet, a non-profit organisation set up to help victims of online abuse, part of the problem for authorities was that existing laws were often not up to the job. “For example,” she said, “the highest court in Sweden has ruled that publishing a naked or sexual image of a woman does not in itself constitute defamation, which is defined as ‘exposing someone to the disrespect of others’ – it is normal for an adult to be sexually active.” A bill is going through parliament to address many of these issues and make prosecution of online abuse easier. In the meantime, Eklund’s institute, founded in 2013 by a leading law professor, Morten Schultz, has pursued through the civil courts several cases that have failed to make it to criminal trial. “Suing people forces the system to confront the problem,” Eklund said. “But in the end, this is about information and education. People need to understand that the law will apply to abusive behaviour online just as it does offline. You cannot hide behind anonymity or a screen.” Jon Henley Australia Australia has broad criminal laws that could be used to prosecute individuals for online abuse, but a consistent problem raised is education across the board. The most important federal law that covers this area is an offence in the Criminal Code that makes it illegal to “menace, harass or threaten” using a carriage service. This has been used to punish serious cases of abuse on social media sites such as Facebook or Twitter. Recently a 25-year-old Australian man, Zane Alchin, was charged after allegedly making rape threats on Facebook. It is alleged that Alchin made the threats after one of his friends shared a Tinder profile of a woman on his Facebook page with an explicit caption, and an argument broke out on the social networking site. He has pleaded not guilty. In Alchin’s case, the response from police, rather than the law itself, has raised bigger concerns. The woman who made the complaint, Paloma Newton, said police were not responsive to her allegations and she was initially rebuffed by officers. “The training needs to be way better,” she said. “The cop I spoke to didn’t even have Facebook – explaining to her the post, the reposting, the screenshotting, the comments, was harder than it needed to be.” There is also a plethora of state and territory laws that can operate in different circumstances. In some states, such as New South Wales, making threats is an offence in itself. Although mere words won’t generally be considered assault, in some very serious cases they have been found by courts to be sufficient to constitute an offence. Revenge pornography is a less clearly covered area in Australian law. While two states – Victoria and South Australia – have introduced their own laws to criminalise the sharing of intimate photos without consent, there’s no federal laws covering everyone. In February, a Senate committee recommended the federal government introduce a national law to criminalise unauthorised sharing of intimate photos. Paul Farrell Sydney Democratic Republic of Congo In the Democratic Republic of Congo, which has staggeringly high rates of sexual violence, online abuse against women is not taken seriously. “People see that you are still walking and able to do whatever you used to do, so there is a denial of emotional, psychological, moral pain. The only violence that is recognised as such is the cruellest and most visible sexual violence done in relation with armed conflicts,” says Francoise Mukuku, executive director of Si Jeunesse Savait, one of seven organisations that took part in Take Back the Tech research. Despite this, problems with online harassment are significant in the country, in particular the non-consensual sharing of intimate images. Women and LGBT people are frequently targeted for abuse. There are no laws that specifically protect people against online harassment, and prosecution for these crimes is non-existent. The situation is made more difficult by corruption within the system, says Mukuku. She says police officers will often ask women for bribes before taking on their case and victims who report crimes to police risk being prosecuted for ruining the reputation of their attacker. Because of this, as well as a lack of understanding of the issues and fear for their reputation, most victims do not report abuse to the police. One example of the lack of recourse available to victims was seen in the recent case of a young student who was filmed by her boyfriend, without her knowledge, while they were having sex. The video was shared online and her family made her flee the country out of “shame”. No prosecution was brought against the boyfriend, who has since graduated from university. Campaigners want online abuse recognised as a significant issue. “We want decision-makers to recognise that although online abuse might not cause actual physical harm in all instances, it can also cause significant emotional and psychological harm, as well as impact on issues such as mobility, employment and public participation, which are equally important factors to address,” says Mukuku. Kate Lyons US In 2014, the journalist Amanda Hess chronicled her efforts to engage with the American criminal justice to end two cases of cyberstalking. The first time she went to police, in 2009, it was after a reader began issuing graphic rape threats online and then escalated this to phone calls; the police refused to do anything unless the man making the threats showed up at her apartment. She was eventually able to use a then-recent change to the law that allowed her to file for a civil protection order in family court. The order lasted for a year; he started to contact her again as soon as it expired. The second time, in 2013, an anonymous Twitter user promised her: “You are going to die and I am the one who is going to kill you.” The police officer who arrived asked her to explain what Twitter was. Hess never found out if the anonymous Twitter user was her original harasser, or someone else. These cases aren’t unique: there have been numerous cases of online harassment reported to police, including Anita Sarkeesian, Zoe Quinn, Brianna Wu and Rebecca Watson – with little effect. Research into online abuse by Pew in 2014 said that 40% of people had experienced some form of harassment on the internet – and that young women were among the most commonly targeted groups. In June 2015, the US supreme court decided in favour of Anthony Elonis, who posted graphic depictions on Facebook of his desire to kill his estranged wife, saying they weren’t a crime if he didn’t intend to follow through and the trial hadn’t established Elonis’ intent. Prof Danielle Citron, an expert in law and online harassment, told Fast Company that there was an small upside to Elonis’ win: “It implicitly suggests that threats online are no different [than threats made via other interstate communication methods]” – which was not the case before the decision. That’s little comfort to victims of online harassment, who still face uninterested or uninformed law enforcement officers when they report, a patchwork of laws that makes harassment difficult to prosecute across state let alone international lines, and a civil process that is expensive and time-consuming even when it works at all. Citron suggested a few solutions, including making sure that laws are technology and platform agnostic; allowing prosecutors to present to judges and juries a totality of the abuse; and increasing penalties for those convicted. Megan Carpentier New York
Tacita Dean’s Event For A Stage muses on art and life Anger management The essence of drama is conflict. Thus, Tacita Dean’s 16mm film portrait of an actor begins with Stephen Dillane circling the stage: a black silhouette waiting to be filled in, swearing liberally. It establishes bad feeling (real, faked?), between Dillane and the artist seated in the audience and is the first of their many plays on art, life and the grey areas in between. Method in the madness Dean cuts between four performances, with Dillane’s wigs registering the changes. He shifts mode just as quickly, from Shakespearian swagger to naturalism. A kind of magic With the emphasis firmly on illusion and delusion, we get the magician Prospero, a story about puppets and reflections on Dillane’s parents’ dementia; or is this also simply part of the script? Talk the talk The charmed circle of the stage is repeatedly conjured and destroyed, but the film offers more than Brechtian alienation amped up to 11. It’s weighty with provocative insight, not least the comparison between the actor, uniquely free to flit between different texts, and people with dementia in a home, enjoying conversation without knowing what it is they’re talking about. Tacita Dean: LA Exuberance, Frith Street Gallery, W1, to 4 November
Former Lloyds boss Eric Daniels hired by Funding Circle Eric Daniels, who ran Lloyds TSB during the financial crisis and presided over a £16bn mis-selling scandal, has emerged as a director of the peer-to-peer lender Funding Circle. Daniels, 65, retired from Lloyds in 2011 after eight years in charge of Britain’s biggest retail bank. In 2008 he oversaw Lloyds TSB’s rescue of HBOS to form Lloyds Banking Group and a government bailout that left taxpayers owning 43% of the company. Lloyds was the biggest seller of payment protection insurance (PPI) during Daniels’s tenure. The bank has had to set aside more than £16bn to compensate buyers of the product, which was often sold without the buyer’s knowledge and failed to pay out. Three years ago Lloyds claimed back most of Daniels’s £1.45m bonus for 2010, leaving him with £300,000, as the bill for PPI claims mounted. Daniels told MPs in 2013 he thought Lloyds was on “the side of the angels” on PPI and that most of the policies his bank sold to cover people during illness or unemployment were sold correctly. Daniels, who likes to wear coloured shirts with white collars and cuffs, was briefly shortlisted in 2011 to be chairman of the insurer Aviva but was reportedly dropped after opposition from investors unhappy about the HBOS takeover. He will serve on Funding Circle’s risk and audit committees, he told Bloomberg News, which was first to report his appointment. “There has been a sea change in traditional banking,” Daniels said. “New capital and risk-weighting requirements have turned the industry upside down, and it’s become difficult for institutions to continue lending the way they did before. That’s left an opening, and Funding Circle has deftly taken advantage of that.” Funding Circle is one of the biggest of the peer-to-peer lenders that have sprung up with the avowed purpose of taking business from the big banks. It specialises in funding businesses ranging from chocolate makers to small housebuilders and has arranged $2.5bn (£1.9bn) of loans mainly in the UK but also in the US and Europe. Peer-to-peer lenders match borrowers with lenders online, promising higher rates for lenders than bank savings and cheaper deals for borrowers. They flourished after the financial crisis triggered a period of low interest rates and reluctance by some banks to lend to small businesses. The appointment of Daniels, a former mainstream banker, appears at odds with peer-to-peer lenders’ claims to be shaking up the lending market with new levels of transparency. But the sector has edged into the mainstream by becoming subject to regulation and in some cases receiving government backing. Samir Desai, Funding Circle’s co-founder and chief executive, said: “We are a financial technology business, but our objective is to bring in a lot of experience and get the best of both worlds.” Since leaving Lloyds, Daniels has taken consultancy jobs with CVC Capital Partners, a private equity firm, and StormHarbour, a financial advisory firm. He is also a non-executive director at Russell Reynolds, a recruitment firm.
The government is breaking promises on child mental health If mental health is the Cinderella service of the NHS, then child and adolescent mental health services (Camhs) is the Cinderella service of the Cinderella service. It’s a cliche that bears repeating, because the reality of children’s mental health services in this country still falls woefully short of the vision set by the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives during the coalition government. One in 10 children suffers from depression, anxiety or another diagnosable mental health problem, and 75% of mental illness starts before the age of 18. Intervening early with effective, evidence-based support can not only stop a child’s condition deteriorating to crisis point, but also have a transformative effect on long-term recovery and life prospects in adulthood. When mental ill health costs the economy an estimated £105bn every year, the economic as well as the moral case for prioritising children’s mental health is unanswerable. But when I became minister, I was horrified by what I witnessed. For too many people, help is not available when they need it. Nearly a quarter of young people referred to specialist Camhs services are turned away, often because they fail to meet outrageous eligibility thresholds. The anorexic teenager is denied treatment until she becomes dangerously thin. The boy with OCD is told there is no specialist support until he has experienced repeated suicidal thoughts. And those who do get treatment are often faced with excruciating waiting times, which can vary dramatically across the country. As well as being morally indefensible, it is the antithesis of the important principle of early intervention. We have ended up with a grossly inefficient system designed to treat rather than prevent mental ill health in children. Fragmented, tiered services are complex and dysfunctional, while the perverse financial incentives in the system fail to encourage a focus on prevention and instead push children into specialist acute settings where NHS England picks up the bill, rather than local clinical commissioning groups. Determined to address this appalling situation, I set up a task force. The result was Future in mind: a blueprint for the modernisation of child and adolescent mental health services, backed by extra funding of £250m each year until 2020. At its heart is a significant shift towards the prevention of ill health, working with schools to strengthen resilience and improve support before health deteriorates. Attracting support from across the political spectrum, it was subsequently endorsed by NHS England’s own five-year plan for mental health. The Conservative government, however, has shown little drive to deliver on this golden opportunity. In the first year of the promised investment, only £143m was released instead of the £250m expected. Mental health providers have reported that the money failed to reach frontline services, with many still seeing cuts to their budgets. Worse still, the government chose not to make up this £107m shortfall in the second year of the programme. Nor was the money that was allocated to clinical commissioning groups ringfenced, so there is a real risk that it will leak out to other local priorities such as A&E waiting times. It’s hardly surprising that we’ve not seen the progress many had hoped for. The Education Policy Institute’s commission on children’s mental health, which I chair, recently published its final report, highlighting that excessive waiting times and treatment thresholds are still commonplace. There also remains a dreadful cliff edge at the age of 18 when young people make the transition from Camhs to adult services. The health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, recently pledged his commitment to Camhs, which he rightly identified as the “biggest single area of weakness” in the NHS. But rhetoric is not enough. It’s now time for a bold statement of intent, otherwise all momentum will be lost. We need to see a bold programme of reform – implementing the principles of Future in mind – with an ambitious focus on schools and prevention, early intervention, and improving access to high-quality services. The EPI commission called for the government to use the additional £250m a year as a lever to drive continued change, making receipt of the money conditional on areas demonstrating that all the money is being spent on children and that there is an ambitious programme to shift resources to prevention. Each area should also be expected to demonstrate that they have delivered on their plans. The chronic underfunding of children’s mental health services must be consigned to history. Despite receiving a paltry 0.7% of the total NHS budget, Camhs is too often at the front of the queue when there are cuts or “efficiencies” to be made. The health secretary should make it his priority to reverse this scandalous disinvestment, pushing and cajoling the NHS to ensure that every last penny of the extra money secured by the Liberal Democrats is spent as intended. Children and young people have been let down for too long. We know what an effective and modern children’s mental health service looks like, and we have a roadmap for how to get there. Responsibility now lies with the government to deliver on it so that all young people receive the support they need to flourish and achieve their full potential. Join the Healthcare Professionals Network to read more pieces like this. And follow us on Twitter (@GdnHealthcare) to keep up with the latest healthcare news and views.
Football transfer rumours: Joe Allen to Manchester United from Liverpool? You have to go back 52 years in the record books to find a player who was directly transferred between Liverpool and Manchester United. Phil Chisnall’s £25,000 move to Anfield from Old Trafford in 1962 acts like some kind of footballing time capsule, a symbol of friendlier times, when the two clubs could still just about do business without being accused of doing a dirty dance with the devil by their own fans. So it would take an extraordinary man to make an unswerving leap across the divide these days. Step forward Joe Allen, a player who has been doing extraordinary things all summer with Wales replete with biblical stylings. José Mourinho has taken one look at his middle men and decided that while the ramshackle collection of ideas that is Manchester United’s midfield might pass as modern art in some corners of the footballing world, he’d rather have a few straight lines and steady performers in there (plus Paul Pogba) who could at least be on the same page once in a while. Allen is nothing if not steady. But it’s safe to say #JoeAllenAppreciationDay might not be remembered so fondly on Merseyside if the little passing machine chooses to walk the line. Then again, Jürgen Klopp might just ignore all calls from 0161 numbers. If he does, expect Allen to be flogged back to Swansea, or to West Ham, Stoke or Sevilla instead, for around £15m. By all accounts Pogba is still inching his way to Old Trafford, but let’s not bother with that one. As for Liverpool, they’re prodding and poking their way around Newcastle United’s first team like a ravenous vulture, looking for whatever tasty morsel they can find. They may have to battle with nouveau riche Crystal Palace for the signature of Moussa Sissoko but in any case they seem to prefer the cut of Georginio Wijnaldum’s jib. Mike Ashley would be only too happy to accept £20m for a player whose value still leapt up £5.5m in a relegation season. Meanwhile, Ragnar Klavan has decided he would quite like to be the new Martin Skrtel. The 30-year-old centre-back is ready to board a flight to John Lennon airport after Klopp smiled at Augsburg suits until they accepted a £4.2m offer. Arsenal may have to fend off pesky bids from Bayern Munich for Laurent Koscielny after contract talks with the defender over a £90,000 a week deal stalled like a rusty old Austin Maestro. But that’s not the only bad news Arsenal fans can expect. Arsène Wenger’s valuation of Gonzalo Higuaín is just the £30m short of Napoli’s £80m. But, seriously, the Mill’s with Wenger on this one, in what world is a soon-to-be 29-year-old centre-forward who was described in February by Napoli president Aurelio De Laurentiis as being so overweight that “it is like running with a block of concrete” worth that much money? Oh, this one. Thanks TV rights. Poor old Leicester City. Having watched N’Golo Kanté spurn Champions League football with the champions of England to join mid-table Chelsea, they look likely to lose Riyad Mahrez. If Barcelona don’t snaffle the creator of Leicester’s fairytale, then expect Arsenal to pick up the slack and do what they couldn’t do with Jamie Vardy. Even Everton want to get in on the act of smashing up all that was good about the Premier League last year. In a move so lazy it resembles Dimitar Berbatov tracking back, the wealthy Toffees want to whisk Steve Walsh away from the King Power Stadium (we’re talking about the scout who found Mahrez, Kanté et al, not the 51-year-old former striker). If they don’t persuade the former schoolteacher to join the Goodison revolution as director of football, then Jordi Cruyff will become Ronald Koeman’s kind-of boss instead. And yes, that is a bit weird. Elsewhere, Juventus want £50m from Manchester City for silky centre-back Leonardo Bonucci. City may also be minded to send £15m c/o West Ham to ruin the burgeoning career of 17-year-old holding midfielder Reece Oxford. Enner Valencia may be heading for the Hammers exit door too, with Swansea and Lazio both interested, although not interested enough to part with £15m for the striker. Burnley have been sniffing around Charlie Adam. The Mill’s not sure what that smells like but one man who has turned his nose up at the prospect of accepting any cash for the 30-year-old barrel of overhit passes is the Stoke manager, Mark Hughes. Real Madrid and Barcelona will pull muscle-man poses in front of Valencia’s midfield maestro André Gomes until he chooses to join one of the La Liga giants for the sum of £54m. And that’s your lot.
James McArthur laments Crystal Palace plight and urges turnaround at Watford James McArthur has conceded that Crystal Palace’s game at Watford on Boxing Day has become a “must win” match as Alan Pardew’s beleaguered side desperately seek to reinvigorate their season after a miserable run of results. The defeat against Chelsea on Saturday was Palace’s eighth loss in 10 top‑flight games, and a 22nd of the calendar year, to leave the south London team hovering just above the relegation zone. All the optimism generated by an active summer in the transfer market, during which the club broke their transfer record first to sign Andros Townsend and then Christian Benteke, has long since evaporated with scrutiny intensifying on the manager’s position. Pardew must still convince the club’s co-owners and investors that he is the right man to instigate a revival, with the likes of Sam Allardyce and Chris Coleman mooted as potential replacements, and identify new players to arrest the decline in January. But the squad have been left intensely frustrated by a year of poor results and recognise that in the wake of narrow defeats against Manchester United and Chelsea, they cannot afford to lose against an inconsistent Watford at Vicarage Road. “We stayed in the game against Chelsea, defensively we were very sound, and we passed the ball better than we have for a long time, but now we have to take those qualities to Watford on Boxing Day,” McArthur said. “That’s now a massive game for the club. It’s another chance to turn our season around. It’s not nice being down there, I’m not going to lie, but instead of doom and gloom, we need to look at the next game as an opportunity to turn it round. There are a lot of games to go but, right now, we are in a relegation scrap and we’re not hiding away from it. “In that changing room, everyone is confident we have more than enough quality to climb the table. We have some big characters and it only takes one win for us to pick up and build momentum. But we know Watford is a must win for us. Our last two defeats have been against top-class sides and we pushed them both all the way, but need that killer instinct. There is no doubting the effort and determination is there to turn our season around – the spirit here is incredible – but we’ve got to take those qualities into the next few games.” Those sentiments are shared by Pardew, who continues to liaise with the chairman, Steve Parish, over the recruitment of a left-back and forward next month. “You have to be realistic and say that, this year, the results have not been good enough really, so we need to make sure they are better in the next year,” said Palace’s manager of almost two years. “We had a great 2015, a brilliant 2015. And we now need to replicate that in 2017 in the second half of this season and the first half of next season. We can do that. We accept the stats everyone is throwing around at us and we have to put it right.”
Junior doctors could be struck off over industrial action, warns GMC Junior doctors have been told by the General Medical Council (GMC) that they should call off their planned five-day strike for later this month and that putting patients at risk of significant harm could lead to them being struck off. The GMC issued the unusually severe warning on Monday in advice issued to doctors contemplating taking part in the strike, starting on 12 September, and to other doctors who may be affected by the industrial action. It expressed reservations before previous walkouts by junior doctors this year, but today’s statement is its bluntest yet, prompted by fears that the length of the strike, the relatively short notice given about it to management and the fact that emergency care is included mean that the risk of patients suffering is greater than before. The GMC does not have the power to prevent doctors from going on strike, but it exercises considerable power as a regulator and its statement contains an implicit threat that doctors who withdraw care could be putting themselves at risk of being sanctioned, including possibly struck off, for unprofessional conduct. In a statement urging doctors to call off at least the strike planned for September Prof Terence Stephenson, chair of the GMC, said: “We know that doctors will again want to do their utmost to reduce the risk of harm and suffering to patients. However … it is hard to see how this can be avoided this time around. “We therefore do not believe that the scale of action planned at such short notice can be justified and we are now calling on every doctor in training to pause and consider the implications for patients.” Junior doctors have already staged six walkouts this year as part of their campaign against the proposed new contract being imposed on them by the government, but Stephenson said the BMA was now planning “a substantial escalation” of the dispute. From 12 September junior doctors will go on strike for five days in a row, from 8am until 5pm each day, with emergency care as well as elective care affected. Further five-day strikes are planned starting on 5 October, 14 November and 5 December. In its advice to doctors contemplating strike action the GMC said they must take “reasonable steps” to satisfy themselves about the arrangements being made to protect patients while they are not working. “Given the scale and repeated nature of what is proposed, we believe that, despite everyone’s best efforts, patients will suffer. In light of this, the right option may be not to take action that results in the withdrawal of services for patients.” Senior doctors and managers had to be given enough time to put in place alternative arrangements, the GMC said. “Action without warning or with inadequate warning is not acceptable.” The GMC also said in its advice that, if it became clear in a particular area that patients were at risk because of inadequate medical cover and that if doctors were asked “in good faith” to return to work, the GMC would expect them to do so. In a statement issued alongside the advice, Niall Dickson, the GMC’s chief executive, said it was being issued to doctors under the authority of the 1983 Medical Act and that doctors could face sanctions if they acted unprofessionally. He said that doctors had a right to take strike action, but that they also had a duty to make the care of patients their first concern and that “the question each doctor must ask … before taking action is whether what they are proposing to do is likely to cause significant harm to patients under his or her care or who otherwise would have come under his or her care.” He went on: “The GMC has powers under the [Medical] Act to investigate and apply sanctions to any doctor whose behaviour has fallen consistently or seriously below the standards required. Where we are presented with evidence that a doctor’s actions may have directly led to a patient or patients coming to significant harm, we would be obliged to investigate and if necessary take appropriate action.” In its press notice setting out the advice, the GMC said that its job was to protect the public, not doctors. The Department of Health said it would not comment specifically on the latest GMC guidance. But a spokeswoman provided a previously distributed statement which read: “As doctors’ representatives, the BMA should be putting patients first not playing politics in a way that will be immensely damaging for vulnerable patients ... cooperation not confrontation is the way forward to make sure patients get the best treatment and the NHS is there for people whenever they need it.”
Adult Jazz: Earrings Off! review – awkward, exhilarating avant pop Earrings Off! might not be the easiest of listens, but then it’s unlikely anyone looking for an easy listen will be plumping for an artist called Adult Jazz in the first place, let alone one whose music attempts to examine ideas surrounding body image, gender archetypes and liberation from masculinity. At its best, this mini-album aligns the London-via-Leeds quartet’s wildly experimental tendencies with a twisted pop nous that recalls Dirty Projectors, Björk or Strange Mercy-era St Vincent. The title track alone features squealing synthesisers, abrupt rhythmic changes and a melody line that gets unexpectedly pitch-shifted downwards. It’s awkward yet exhilarating, like the best adventurous pop music should be. Earrings Off! is as much art project as it is pop album, though, and three of these seven tracks are brief instrumentals that don’t attempt to soften their avant ambitions. (Cry for Home) could be an exploration of the theories of Julia Kristeva for all we can tell, but it still sounds like a five-year-old’s first euphonium lesson being played backwards, which might be a bit much for some.
Trump campaign denies reports he is rolling back proposed Muslim ban – as it happened The US supreme court struck down one of the harshest abortion restrictions in the country and potentially paved the way to overturn dozens of measures in other states that curtail access, in what might be the most significant legal victory for reproductive rights advocates since the right to abortion was established in 1973. The 5-3 ruling will immediately prevent Texas from enforcing a law that would have closed all but nine abortion clinics. But in a coup for abortion rights supporters, the court also in effect barred lawmakers from passing health measures backed by dubious medical evidence as a way of forcing large numbers of abortion clinics to close. Hillary Clinton immediately hailed the decision as a “victory for women across America”. Donald Trump did not immediately comment on the decision. “By striking down politically motivated restrictions that made it nearly impossible for Texans to exercise their full reproductive rights, the court upheld every woman’s right to safe, legal abortion, no matter where she lives,” the presumptive Democratic presidential candidate said. Donald Trump, meanwhile, hasn’t tweeted since this morning, on abortion or any other subject. Clinton and Elizabeth Warren used their first joint appearance on the campaign trail to make a decidedly populist appeal to voters in the battleground state of Ohio, and to cast Donald Trump as a narcissist less concerned with working-class Americans than his own profitability. Before a raucous crowd of nearly 2,000, cheers reverberating across the half-dome of Cincinnati’s historic Union Terminal, Clinton took the stage with the senator from Massachusetts, a hero to many progressive voters. Warren laid into the presumptive GOP nominee, characterizing him with a now familiar line as a “small, insecure money-grubber who fights for no one but himself”.“I’m here today because I’m with her,” she said, as Clinton stood by her side. “She doesn’t whine. She doesn’t run to Twitter to call her opponents fat pigs or dummies. The Trump campaign pushed back hard on reports that the presumptive Republican nominee was modifying his proposed ban on Muslims entering the United States Monday.“This is not accurate,” said Hope Hicks, a spokesperson for the campaign. “There has been no change from the exchanges over the weekend.” CNN had initially reported that Trump was planning to roll back his December proposal for “a total and complete shutdown on Muslims entering the United States” and Trump national spokesperson Katrina Pierson, a frequent television surrogate for the campaign, seemed to agree with reports while trying to spin them. Although Pierson insisted “it’s only really a change if you never knew what the ban was to begin with”, she seemed to focus on the vetting process. “If you are coming into this country and you cannot be vetted, then you should not be allowed in until you can be vetted. This is not rocket science,” she said. Donald Trump’s new communications chief hasn’t always been the biggest fan of the presumptive Republican presidential nominee - particularly on Twitter. Thanks to the magic of the Internet, his now-deleted posts criticizing Trump as “#SleazyDonald” are still readily available: The Trump campaign pushed back hard on reports that the presumptive Republican nominee was modifying his proposed ban on Muslims entering the United States. “This is not accurate,” said Hope Hicks, a spokesperson for the campaign. “There has been no change from the exchanges over the weekend.” CNN had initially reported that Trump was planning to roll back his December proposal for “a total and complete shutdown on Muslims entering the United States” and Trump national spokesperson Katrina Pierson, a frequent television surrogate for the campaign, seemed to agree with reports while trying to spin them. Although Pierson insisted “it’s only really a change if you never knew what the ban was to begin with”, she seemed to focus on the vetting process. “If you are coming into this country and you cannot be vetted, then you should not be allowed in until you can be vetted. This is not rocket science,” she said. She claimed the Muslim ban was “simply an immigration position” and said of Trump: “the initial ban on Muslims immigrating into the country that can not be vetted, he still does not want to come into this country. If you can be vetted, it’s a different story.” Pierson also wrongly claimed that there wasn’t an existing vetting process, telling CNN “we’re not going to base national security off PolitiFact or even the United Nations”. The idea of a Muslim ban has long been controversial and has been condemned by Republican party leaders, including speaker Paul Ryan. The ban proposal stated that there be “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on”. Trump added: “Until we are able to determine and understand this problem and the dangerous threat it poses, our country cannot be the victims of horrendous attacks by people that believe only in jihad, and have no sense of reason or respect for human life.” The Trump campaign brought on a top Republican operative this evening as the presumptive nominee continues to professionalize his campaign. The has learned that Trump has hired Jason Miller to serve as senior advisor for communications. Miller was a top advisor on Ted Cruz’s primary campaign, serving the Texas senator as senior communications advisor and overseeing the Cruz press shop. The move comes just a week after Trump fired his former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, who had long urged Trump to continue the unconventional insurgent tactics which defined his primary campaign, and put veteran operative Paul Manafort fully in control. Lewandowski had long pushed against Trump assembling a traditional media operation and instead, the presumptive Republican nominee’s only media contact was long Hope Hicks, a 27-year-old public relations professional who had never worked in politics before joining the Trump campaign. Although Trump also employs Tea Party activist Katrina Pierson as a national spokeswoman, Pierson does not serve as a contact for reporters and instead is a full-time surrogate on cable news for Trump. Miller, a veteran of a number of congressional and statewide campaigns as well as Rudy Giuliani’s unsuccessful 2008 presidential bid, will help further professionalize Trump’s campaign in the run up to the general election. In recent weeks, Trump has been starting to send out rapid response emails and take a far more active role in pushing messages and rebutting attacks from Hillary Clinton to reporters. For most of the campaign, Trump had been his own rapid response person, using his Twitter account to blast rivals. Elated cheers rang out from steps of the supreme court this morning as the justices handed down a decision that overturned a slate of restrictions that would have closed all but a handful of abortion providers in Texas. The landmark ruling is considered one of the most consequential and sweeping legal victories for reproductive rights since the court handed down Roe v Wade in 1973. Hillary Clinton immediately hailed the decision as a “victory for women across America”. Donald Trump did not immediately comment on the decision. “By striking down politically motivated restrictions that made it nearly impossible for Texans to exercise their full reproductive rights, the court upheld every woman’s right to safe, legal abortion, no matter where she lives,” the presumptive Democratic presidential candidate said. Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, who was defeated by Clinton in the Democratic primary, also applauded the decision. “After all the progress we have made on women’s rights, we cannot go back to the days when women in America did not have the right to control their own bodies,” Sanders said. Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards said that the opinion would be a “defining issue” for female voters, a group that Trump is struggling to court. “I think we are going to see a record gender gap in November and this is going to be one of the main reasons and the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, as well as others, will be making this an important point in the months to come,” Richards said on MSNBC after the ruling. The group has criticized the presumptive Republican nominee for his silence following the decision - Trump has not tweeted anything since 9:39 am EDT. Was Brexit the finest example of people power successfully upending political elites, or definitive proof that the world needs even-tempered leadership in a moment of crisis? Across the Atlantic, where Democrats and Republicans are in the midst of a bruising presidential election, it depends upon who you ask. Politicians have always been skilled at finding a fragment of fact to support their arguments and demonstrate how unexpected world events chimed exactly with what they had been saying all along. Britain’s decision to leave the European Union has sent spasms through the global economy and exposed obvious parallels between a divided Britain and the deeply divided US electorate . Donald Trump, who has defied the political establishment, riding a populist wave to the top of the Republican ticket, hailed the referendum decision as a “great victory” and commended Britain for rejecting what he called the “global elite” in the US and around the world. Trump, who was in Scotland visiting his Turnberry golf course, said: “I think really people see a big parallel. A lot of people are talking about that. Not only the United States but other countries. People want to take their country back. They want to have independence in a sense.” He later sent a fundraising email to supporters with the subject line making the comparison even more explicit. “These voters stood up for their nation – they put the United Kingdom first, and they took their country back,” Trump said of the Brexit vote. “With your help, we’re going to do the exact same thing on Election Day 2016 here in the United States of America.” Hillary Clinton’s campaign seized on Trump’s handling of the situation to prosecute its most successful recent tactic, saying he can’t be trusted to stay calm in a crisis or put the nation’s interests before his own. Hours after the results of the voting were announced, as global markets were crashing, Trump convened a press conference in Turnberry to extol his golf course. “When the pound goes down more people come to Turnberry,” he told reporters. Bill Kristol is just throwing things against a wall at this point: In light of the news that Donald Trump’s campaign is “clarifying” his position on Muslim immigration, in the words of spokesperson Katrina Pierson, here’s the ’s interview with Sam Clovis, the national co-chair and senior policy adviser for the Trump campaign: Clovis said that while “it would be very easy to say we don’t want any immigration from a predominantly Muslim country”, he noted, “there are people who have tried to commit terrorist acts that come from EU countries” and that a broader approach was more appropriate. He said: “There is a crisis of confidence in America to make sure we can keep this country safe” and this would allow the United States to “stop, take a break, have a look and make sure everything is cool”. Clovis added that then “we can start again” to admit Muslims to the United States. The campaign adviser expressed confidence that it would be easy to determine if those seeking to enter the United States were Muslim because immigration officers could simply ask the question. “I don’t think there is anything wrong about asking about religious affiliation,” said Clovis. He noted you could use the person’s name to determine their religion as well. Clovis said: “If they lie to you, that’s a chance you take, but you have to have some semblance of background checks to verify this.” Democratic platform committee member Neera Tanden, told the Nation that the party’s platform has done a little bit of movement in the direction of Bernie Sanders’ policy goals - but that they’re not going nuts. The platform represents a good-faith effort - more than good faith, really - to accommodate many of Sen. Sanders’ ideas. But we also thought it appropriate to make sure it represents some of Secretary Clinton’s ideas, where they differ, because, well, she won the primary. Donald Trump campaign spokesperson Katrina Pierson told CNN this evening that the candidate’s well-documented proposed ban on Muslim immigration to the US isn’t “changing,” despite reports that Trump will release a statement altering the proposal to only include countries with “known links” to terrorism. “It’s only really a change if you never knew what the ban was to begin with,” Pierson told CNN. “It was simply for Muslim immigration, and Mr. Trump is simply adding specifics to clarify what his position is, as opposed to what the media has been reporting what it is. There has been no change to this - Mr. Trump still wants to stop individuals from coming into this country who can not be vetted.” This is, in a word, incorrect. Trump originally proposed the “total and complete shutdown” of Muslims entering the US in December of last year, after a terrorist attack in San Bernardino, California, in which 14 people were killed. Since then, the candidate has defended his controversial proposal repeatedly, describing it as “temporary.” A majority of Republicans would prefer a different nominee at the top of the party’s ticket this Election Day, according to a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll that shows a mere 45% of Republicans are satisfied with Donald Trump’s nomination. According to the survey, conducted June 19-23, 52% of Republicans said that they would prefer a different nominee. The results are neatly flipped for Democrats, 52% of whom are satisfied with presumptive presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and 45% of whom wish someone else had been nominated. The survey breaks down Trump’s support by educational cohort, finding that a solid 58% of Republicans with a high-school education or less are satisfied with Trump as the party’s presumptive nominee, compared to 60% of Republicans with a college degree wishing for a different nominee. The numbers will likely add fuel to the #NeverTrump fire, with some Republicans opposed Trump’s nomination pushing for the inclusion of a so-called “conscience clause” in the rules of the upcoming Republican National Convention in Cleveland, which would allow delegates bound to Trump to vote for an alternative for reasons of conscience. Nearly six in 10 white Republicans think there is too much attention paid to race in the US these days, according to a report released today. By contrast, a majority of black Americans believe race is not discussed enough. The report, conducted earlier this year by the Pew Research Center, looked at opinions of race and race relations among people who are white, black and Hispanic. With Obama’s historic tenure as the nation’s first black president coming to a close, 63% of white Republicans said that the president’s policies had worsened race relations compared to 5% of white Democrats. Just over half of black people surveyed believed Obama made progress towards improvement and 34% said he tried. Obama has been vocal about the impact of racial inequality on the United States, especially via his criminal justice reform efforts. “By just about every measure, the life chances for black and Hispanic youth still lag far behind those of their white peers,” Obama said during a speech to the NAACP last year. Meanwhile, national tragedies such as the massacre of nine black worshippers in a South Carolina church last year or the killings of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown and other unarmed black men have made discussions of race a greater part of the national conversation in the past few years. From CNN’s Jim Acosta: Pete Coors and Mike Shanahan, the kingpins of Colorado’s twin cultural pillars (beer and football, respectively) are set to host a fundraiser this coming Friday for presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump in Denver. According to the Denver Post, the entry price for the fundraiser will be steep: $10,000 per couple to attend the lunchtime event at Shanahan’s 25,000-square-foot Cherry Hills mansion, and $50,000 for a photo reception with the candidate. Coors is a brewery executive and scion of the eponymous beer dynasty, whose own run for political office in 2004 ended in failure; Shanahan is the former coach of the Denver Broncos. Donald Trump’s son, Eric, has sent out a fundraising email denying that his claims about the campaign’s previous fundraising emails are a fiction. “Hillary Clinton’s campaign machine and her liberal media allies are desperate,” the junior Trump wrote in an email with the subject line “They Say We’re Lying.” “First, they claimed we raised too little. Then, when donors like you helped us to raise $11 million in just a few days, they claimed we were lying,” he continued (bold and italics included.) “The truth is we did better than $11 million and no amount of spin from Crooked Hillary’s machine can change that fact. We cannot let them get away with this.” Trump wrote in the email that the campaign has set the “Trump-sized goal” of raising another $10 million before the Federal Election Commission’s next fundraising deadline on Thursday. “Afterwards, our results will be covered heavily by the media,” Trump concluded. With its tiny mailing list compared to other campaigns and lack of technological sophistication, experts in digital fundraising have questioned Trump’s claims that the presidential campaign was able to raise more than $3 million off of a single email. In yet another indicator that Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders’ campaign is functionally over, the Vermont senator’s press secretary has officially left the campaign. Symone Sanders - no relation - told CNN that there were no hard feelings about the departure, which was effective Sunday. “I just believe my time with the campaign has come to an end,” she said. “I’m very proud of the work we have done and am now looking forward to helping elect down-ballot Democrats and do all I can to ensure a Democrat is the 45th president of the United States.” Sanders’ decision to leave, first reported by Fusion, comes nearly three weeks after the end of the Democratic primary season, in which the senator won the hearts of millions of voters, particularly college students, but failed to close a 3.7 million-vote gap between himself and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. Although Sanders has declared that he plans to vote for Clinton in the November general election, he has not yet officially suspended his campaign or endorsed Clinton. The ’s Ben Jacobs has more on Ohio governor John Kasich’s convention plans... Ohio governor John Kasich has not asked for a speaking slot at the Republican National Convention in his home state in July and has “zero expectations” of receiving one, the has learned. The absence of Kasich, the popular Republican governor who was one of the last remaining rivals to Trump in the presidential primary, would be an almost unprecedented snub and represent a major blow to Trump’s efforts to unite the GOP around him. In a statement, top Kasich adviser John Weaver told the : “We have not asked for a speaking slot and have zero expectations of receiving one.” Weaver added: “Governor Kasich will have a full schedule of events around the convention aimed at helping Republicans keep control of Congress and winning down ballot. Of course, this will be on top of his responsibilities as governor in regard to security issues in Cleveland.” Kasich’s statement comes the day after Trump told the New York Times that he would require the Ohio governor and Texas senator Ted Cruz to endorse him in order to speak in Cleveland. “If there’s no endorsement, then I would not invite them to speak,” Trump said of Kasich and Cruz, his last two opponents for the Republican nomination. Political conventions normally give prize speaking slots to major political figures in the state where the convention is held. In 2012, Florida senator Marco Rubio introduced Mitt Romney when he accepted the Republican nomination in Rubio’s home state in Tampa, while other major Florida elected officials like former governor Jeb Bush and Representative Connie Mack got prized slots earlier in the evening. In 2008, Minnesota senator Norm Coleman spoke on two different nights when Republicans assembled in St Paul. But, in addition to being Ohio’s governor, Kasich is also a former presidential candidate. Traditionally, defeated candidates for the nomination get speaking slots as well even after the most bitter and hard-fought campaigns. John McCain had a major speaking role in the 2000 Republican National Convention in Philadelphia despite waging a vicious primary battle against George W Bush. In not speaking at the convention, Kasich joins a number of other prominent Republicans who also will not be appearing, including Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn and Utah representative Mia Love, once considered a potential vice-presidential pick for Trump. The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Former Massachusetts senator Scott Brown called on Elizabeth Warren, who defeated him in the state’s senate race in 2012, to take a DNA test to prove that she is part Native American, as Donald Trump continued to refer to Warren as “Pocahontas”. “As you know, she’s not Native American. She’s not 1/32 Cherokee,” said Brown during a conference call with reporters organized by the Republican National Committee in response to Hillary Clinton and Warren’s first joint appearance. Trump revived the controversy over Warren’s ancestry earlier this year after the Democratic senator lambasted him as “loud”, “nasty” and “racist”. During the 2012 senate race, Brown made an issue of Warren’s Native American ancestry, which she could not prove and struggled to defend. The campaign implied then as it did again on Monday that Warren may have benefited from affirmative action based on her claim that she was Native American. “Harvard can release the records, she can authorize the release of those records, or she can take a DNA test ... It’s a reverse form of racism, quite frankly,” “ Brown said, referring to Warren’s time at Harvard law school. Brown was among the earliest Republicans to endorse Trump, and the billionaire real-estate developer has said the former senator would make a “very good” vice president. Brown also said on the call that it “awkward” and “uncomfortable” to watch Warren, hailed as the scourge of Wall Street, campaign alongside Hillary Clinton, who he called the “Queen of Wall Street”. “I found her audition to be very uncomfortable… how does [Warren] reconcile these differences?” Brown said of the possibility of her joining Clinton on the Democratic ticket. Brown said Clinton and Warren’s alliance after the senator withheld her support during the primary race was evidence that the Democrat had a “Bernie Sanders problem”. Here’s a sampler of reaction on Scottish Twitter to Donald Trump last week tweeting how wild the country was going over the Brexit vote. “Soggy expired dog food coupon” is pretty good. But they missed some! And not all the razzing was on Twitter: Developing... New York governor Andrew Cuomo has shared a photo of his afternoon at the NYC Pride march with Hillary Clinton, New York City’s first lady, Chirlane McCray, and a pride flag. (Cuomo and NYC mayor Bill de Blasio have a running big, ugly, public fight, currently less active it seemed.) Scott Brown, the Trump surrogate rolled out by the Republican national committee to rebut Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Warren, has made a splash with a very Trumplike call for DNA evidence proving that Warren has Native American heritage (see earlier). On a call with reporters organized by the RNC, Brown demanded evidence from Warren: Update: Note that Brown first made Warren’s claim to Native American heritage a campaign issue during the 2012 Massachusetts senate race in which he lost to her. Clinton: “a great day to hit the campaign trail”: Using the verb “reverts” may imply there was more of a hiatus than there actually was. Trump tweeted dyspeptically about Senator Elizabeth Warren this morning, saying she “lied on heritage” but not calling her “Pocahontas” as is his wont. The nickname is a reference to Warren’s disputed Native American heritage. Trump is standing by the nickname, the hurtful connotations of which appear truly invisible to him, unless he is simply indifferent to them. “We call her Pocahontas for a reason,” Trump says in an interview with NBC: Warren was once listed on a roster of Harvard law school professors as having Native American heritage, a centerpiece of her family lore, but that heritage has been called into question and she has not identified a specific Native ancestor. A discouraging update: Bernie Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver and Hillary Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook have been bonding in almost-daily phone calls and they met for dinner Friday night in Burlington, Vermont, AP reports: It seemed like a surprising party of two. There was Robby Mook, Hillary Clinton’s top campaign aide, known for his calm temperament and fiercely disciplined ways, and Jeff Weaver, a combative political fighter often called Bernie Sanders’ alter ego, sharing a Friday night dinner at The Farmhouse Tap & Grill in Burlington, Vermont. But over the long months of a frequently contentious primary, the two rival Democratic campaign managers struck up an unusually friendly relationship, founded on exhaustion, goofy jokes and a shared affection for their home state of Vermont. They talk almost daily, text frequently and email often. Now, as Sanders lingers in the presidential race, refusing to concede the nomination to Clinton even as he says he’ll vote for her on Election Day, the competing campaign managers have become a powerful political odd couple, responsible for engineering a graceful conclusion to a hard-fought Democratic contest. “I’ve really come to respect him,” Mook said. “There were some tense moments, but he was always honest, straightforward and very easy to work with.” Weaver is equally effusive in his praise. “I think he’s the kind of guy who is doing what he does for the right reasons,” Weaver said about Mook. “He believes in the cause and he believes in making the world a better place.” Read the full piece here. Here’s kind of an interesting line of attack by the Trump campaign on the emergent Clinton-Warren axis. Trump accuses Warren of selling out her beliefs and “pandering to the Sanders wing” by standing next to Clinton, whom Trump says is a vessel for Wall Street interests and a proponent of trade agreements that hurt the American worker. “Warren’s campaigning for Clinton stands in stark contrast to the liberal ideals she once practiced,” Trump says. Here’s the full statement from the Trump campaign, titled “Sellout Warren”: As Clinton tries to salvage support among the Bernie Sanders wing of the Democrat Party, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) has become a turncoat for the causes she supposedly supports. While Warren claims that Wall Street businesses have too much influence in D.C., by paying “barely disguised bribes,” through campaign contributions. The Clinton campaign has accepted over $41 million this cycle from Wall Street interests. Warren is also campaigning for the author of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a deal she has routinely slammed. This is a trade deal that Clinton has expressed support for in over 45 public speeches. Warren’s campaigning for Clinton stands in stark contrast to the liberal ideals she once practiced. This sad attempt at pandering to the Sanders wing is another example of a typical political calculation by D.C. insiders. Mr. Trump has been against TPP from the start of his campaign because he understands how detrimental it would be to American workers. He will continue to fight for the American people and serve them over the special interests in Washington, D.C. (h/t: @bencjacobs) Update: that didn’t last long: This is confusing. Trump spokesperson Katrina Pierson defends her boss’s handling of the Brexit vote by alluding to criticism of Clinton’s handling of the Benghazi incident: Trump will travel to Ohio after all. After coming in for criticism for making no visits to the Buckeye State since March, Trump will participate in an upcoming rally in St Clairsville, a 95% white blue-collar town with more in common with West Virginia across the river than the Ohio metropolises to the west. Trump will be up against the spectacle this morning in Cincinnati of Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Warren onstage together. Update: as for Trump’s planned visit Tuesday to Monesson, Pennsylvania, Nate Cohn of the New York Times observes that the city lies on a fault line separating blue Obama territory and red territory, and Trump could conceivably flip it. Trump plans to speak on trade, “Declaring American Economic Independence”, his campaign reports: In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court has vacated a conviction on corruption charges of former Virginia governor Bob McDonnell, who was originally found guilty of taking $175,000 in cash and gifts – a Ferrarri loaner, for example, and payment towards a daughter’s wedding – from a businessman, in return, a jury decided, for McDonnell’s arranging access to officials. The businessman was hawking a dietary supplement. McDonnell’s lawyers argued there was no quid-pro-quo and that the governor’s actions did not violate federal bribery statutes. The court found that the conviction hinged on instructions to a jury that were too broad. The case raises questions about what kinds of gifts, exactly, a politician may accept, and what constitutes a favor in return. It appears more politicians may be about to get Ferrari rides: The 1996 Republican nominee is up and tweeting: The House select committee on Benghazi, led by dogged truth seeker Trey Gowdy, a Republican from South Carolina, earlier this month had to postpone the release of a summary report on its investigation into Hillary Clinton’s role in the disaster and the contents of her email. The Democrats on the committee are out with their side today. They accuse the Republicans on the committee of “grave abuses” including concealing exculpatory evidence: Republicans excluded Democrats from interviews, concealed exculpatory evidence, withheld interview transcripts, leaked inaccurate information, issued unilateral subpoenas, sent armed Marshals to the home of a cooperative witness, and even conducted political fundraising by exploiting the deaths of four Americans. In one of the most serious abuses, Chairman Gowdy personally and publicly accused Secretary Clinton of compromising a highly classified intelligence source. Although the Intelligence Community quickly debunked his claim, Chairman Gowdy has yet to apologize to Secretary Clinton for his slanderous accusation. Read further: Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor, used the Survivor song Eye of the Tiger without permission at a rally he held for Kim Davis, the Kentucky clerk who refused to issue same-sex couples marriage licenses. Huckabee got sued and had to pay out $25,000 in a settlement, CNN reports. (h/t @bencjacobs) In a 5-3 ruling, the Supreme Court has prevented Texas from enforcing a restrictive anti-abortion law that would have closed all but nine abortion clinics in the state. “The Supreme Court’s decision in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt is a victory for women across America,” Clinton said in a statement: By striking down politically motivated restrictions that made it nearly impossible for Texans to exercise their full reproductive rights, the Court upheld every woman’s right to safe, legal abortion, no matter where she lives. The statement drew a contrast with Trump: Donald Trump has said women should be punished for having abortions. He also pledged to defund Planned Parenthood and appoint Supreme Court justices who would overturn Roe v. Wade. Today’s decision is a reminder of how much is at stake in this election. The Trump campaign has yet to issue a statement on the ruling. A high concentration of political gravity in one hug: You’ve heard Clinton and Warren make their argument. Now listen to the other side, from the mouth of... brief US senator Scott Brown. The Republican national committee has scheduled a conference call with media this afternoon with Brown, who won a special election to the senate in 2010 before losing to Warren for senate in Massachusetts (2012) and then losing to Jeanne Shaheen for senate in New Hampshire (2014). We’ll listen to Brown and let you know what he says. Clinton delivers a sustained criticism of Trump as conclusion to her speech: “I have this old fashioned idea. If you’re running for president, you should say what you want to do and how you will get it done,” she says. Ask yourself what are Donald Trump’s plans? Well, best I can tell, he has no credible strategy for creating jobs... he says he’s for our workers. But Trump’s own products are made in countries that are not called America.” This time she names Trump suits, furniture and barware, all manufactured overseas. That’s not “America First”, she says. Then Clinton runs down a list of ways she says Trump is wrong, from “playing coy” with white supremacists to mocking people with disabilities, favoring banning Muslims, abolishing gun-free zones at schools, defaulting on the national debt, rolling back marriage equality... I could go on and on.. Whose reaction to the horrific mass shoting in Orlando was to publicly congratulate himself... and on Friday [after Brexit announcement], he crowed from his golf course about how the disruption could end up creating higher profits for that golf course, even though within 24 hours Americans lost [tens of billions] from their 401Ks. “He tried to turn a glogal economic challenge into an infomercial,” Clinton says. “Imagine him being in charge.. imagine him trying to figure out what to do in case of an emergency”. Clinton is describing the America of tomorrow that she envisions, under her presidency. It will have the most competitive auto-parts industry in the world, every home will have high-speed broadband Internet and the USA will be the clean-energy superpower of the 21st century. She’s coughing a bit. She continues: “Cincinnati is already one of the biggest cities in the country to run 100% on clean energy. Congratulations!... I hope you don’t mind if I go around across the country and say if you can do it in Cincinnati you can do it anywhere!” Clinton deploys the “Woman card” line: If fighting for families is playing the woman card, deal me in”. People chant along and there’s lots of clapping and a “Hillary! Hillary!” chant breaks out. Clinton: “I got into this race because I wanted to even the odds for people who have the odds stacked against them...” We’ve got to go big and we’ve got to go bold. We need to take the frustration, the fear, the anxiety and yes the anger... we’ve got to work together. Let’s set five ambition goals for the economy, Clinton says, lapsing into the economic policy program she’s laid out elsewhere: 1/ jobs and infrastructure spending; 2/ debt-free college & college debt relief 3/ profit-sharing & less outsourcing 4/ tax Wall Street & Buffett rule 5/ family leave & health care Then Clinton makes a classic campaign-trail tax pledge, notable for the political comfort she feels at drawing such a line. She promises to tax the rich and not to tax the middle class: I’ve made a pledge: I will not raise taxes on the middle class, but we are going to raise taxes on corporations and the wealthy.” Clinton, perhaps targeting the kind of frustrated blue collar voter whose support for Trump has been apparent, calls Warren a premier defender of the disenfranchised: Some of the best TV since Elizabeth came to the senate is actually on CSPAN.... She is speaking for every American who is frustrated and fed up. She is speaking for all of us. And we thank her for that. Clinton also expressed admiration for Warren’s ability to attack Trump: And I must say. I do just love to see how she gets under Donald Trump’s thin skin. As Elizabeth made clear, Donald Trump proves every day, he’s not in it for the American people, he’s only in it for himself. And Elizabeth reminds us of that.. because... she exposes him for what he is. Temperamentally unfit and totally unqualified to be president of the United States. “Elizabeth and I came of age around the same time,” Clinton says. Warren appears to have left the stage. Clearing the way for the candidate. Clinton says “no one works harder to make sure Wall Street never, never wrecks Main Street again...” She talks about Warren’s consumer financial protection bureau. “It has already returned over $10.8bn to 25m Americans who have been hurt by illegal financial practices,” Clinton says. “We need to make sure that basic bargain is alive and well in 2016. Elizabeth is leading the fight to liberate millions of Americans from the burden of student debt and to make sure Washington never again profits off our students.” Warren leads the crowd in a “Hillary! Hillary!” cheer. Donald Trump cheats his workers and wants to abolish the minimum wage. HIllary Clinton believes no one should work full time and live in poverty and that means raising the minimum wage.. Hillary fights for us! Donald Trump calls African Americans thugs, Muslims terrorists, Latinos criminals and rapists and women bimbos. Hillary Clinton believes racism .. and bigotry have no place in our country. She fights for us and we will fight for Hillary Clinton. The crowd is into it. Thank you Cincinnati! Clinton says. That’s a tough speech to follow. Warren with a sharp attack on Trump: Donald Trump says “we’ll make America great again.” “It’s stamped on front of his goofy hat. You want to see goofy? Look at him in that hat.” [Trump has taken to referring to Warren as ‘goofy Elizabeth Warren”.] When Donald Trump says great, I think, great for who, exactly?... For families that don’t fly to Scotland for golf? ... He means make it even greater for rich guys like Donald Trump... great for the guys... great for the guys who always want more... Watch out because he will crush you into the dirt to get whatever he wants. That’s who he is. Then she repeats her “small, insecure moneygrubber” line about Trump and the crowd really cheers. What kind of a man? A nasty man who will never become president of the United States. Because Hillary Clinton will be the next president of the United States.... She knows how to beat a thin-skinned bully who is driven by greed and hate. She knows you beat a bully not by tucking tail and but by standing ground and fighting back. Warren says Clinton has been hit by “one right-wing attack or another for 25 years, but she has never backed down. She doesn’t whine, she doesn’t run to Twitter to call her enemies fat pigs or dummies. No...” she remembers the people who need her most. Hillary has brains. She has guts. She has thick skin and steady hands. But most of all, she has a good heart. And that’s what AMerica needs. And that’s why I’m with her. “Hillary Clinton is a granddaughter of a factory worker who’s going to make it all the way to the White House,” Warren says. It’s an applause line. Clinton is standing next to Warren as Warren speaks. Clinton is nodding attentively as Warren talks about “fat tax breaks for CEO bonuses”. Here’s Warren and Clinton in Cincinnati. They’re both wearing Democratic blue ( Clinton appears to be more in purple, many photos above to review). Warren is calling for protecting and expanding social security. She’s talking about her biography and professional background. Here’s a live video stream of the Clinton-Warren event in Cincinnati, which is scheduled to start soon: We’re trialling our first US politics Snapchat update from the Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Warren event today. Sabrina Saddiqui is recording live in Ohio. She’s behind the scenes at the event, speaking to the crowd and commenting on the speeches. Follow her and watch the event by adding guardian_us as a friend on Snapchat, or scan the code. Send us a message and let us know how we’re doing. Bernie Sanders supporters may not include many “party-unity-my-ass” types, in the model of the Hillary Clinton Pumas, who, in 2008, resisted backing Barack Obama after he beat her to the nomination. The 81% of Sanders backers who now say they’re with her, in a new Washington Post-ABC poll, “is a higher number than in any poll of 2008 Clinton backers who rallied to Obama”, writes the Washington Post’s Aaron Blake. “The high that year was 74%, in October”. Sanders has done a bit to rally his followers, if not behind Clinton then at least against Donald Trump, whom Sanders has repeatedly said must be defeated at all costs. The Clinton camp would say there’s a lot more to be done. A second poll backs up the WaPo/ ABC finding: Look who’s tweeting. Donald Trump usually refers to Elizabeth Warren as “Pocahontas”, in reference to the senator’s disputed Native American background. But this morning he’s behaving: Warren now “lied on heritage”. Trump is telegraphing discontent with the media this morning, in what seems to be a bit of a bender of focus on the forces Trump perceives to be arrayed against him, namely pollsters and the media. On Sunday night, Trump tweeted negatively about a new ABC / Washington Post poll finding that nearly two-thirds of Americans think he is unqualified to be president. He called the poll “dirty” and a “disgrace”. Trump has been grappling with seriously bad polling numbers for a couple weeks now, and the struggle has been something to watch from the outside. At first he used the word “phony” to describe the polls, then he said “I haven’t started yet”, and now it’s “dirty” and “disgrace” with a side helping of a media conspiracy against him: Trump pays special tribute to CNN, which last week hired the campaign manager Trump fired. Somehow Trump knows what’s on CNN, though he does not watch it: Hello and welcome to our live-wire coverage of the 2016 race for the White House. Senator Elizabeth Warren will join Hillary Clinton for their first joint campaign event today in Cincinnati, Ohio, a key toss-up state Clinton has been visiting regularly since sewing up the Democratic nomination. Donald Trump has not visited the state since March. “Trump has now visited Scotland more than Ohio since becoming the Republican party’s presumptive nominee,” local WCPO Cincinnati observed on Monday morning. Perhaps Trump figures he can get all the Buckeye fuel he needs out of next month’s convention in Cleveland. Trump is not entirely neglecting a traditional swing-state campaigning strategy, however. His team announced an event on Tuesday outside Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, a state the Clinton camp has expressed confidence about keeping in the Democratic column even as a pro-Clinton Super Pac makes eight-figure ad buys there. If Trump’s strategy is “you never know”, Clinton’s is “you can never be too sure”. Speaking of swing states: a CBS News/YouGov poll of four swing states out this morning finds Clinton and Trump basically tied in Colorado and North Carolina, and Clinton a bit ahead in Florida and Wisconsin. Here’s the breakdown: The Clinton campaign is out with a new ad hitting Trump for his Scotland golf course do on Friday as the world awoke to news that Britain had voted to leave the EU. “In a volatile world, the last thing we need isa volatile president,” the narrator intones. At the weekend, Trump campaign manager (is that his title these days?) Paul Manafort teased some news to come: “This week we will be making some major announcements about people that are taking over and major positions in our national campaign and state campaigns,” he said. Clinton walked briefly in the Pride march in New York City on Sunday. As Clinton passed the corner of Christopher Street and Bleecker, the ’s Nicole Puglise wrote, an announcer asked the crowd to “make some noise if you’re voting for Secretary Clinton”. Attendees shouted and whooped. Barack Obama is suddenly quite popular, his approval rating continuing to climb. It would help Clinton if he can keep this up: The same poll found that almost two-thirds of Americans think Trump is unqualified to be president while 61% think Clinton is qualified. Trump did not say the poll was “skewed”, but he did call it a “dirty” and a “disgrace”: McConnell mum on Trump ‘qualified’ question “Our primary voters have made their decision ... there’s a lot of work to be done”. Thanks for reading and please join us in the comments.
Tarantino's father to donate to police: 'Quentin's ignorance really upset me' Quentin Tarantino’s father has promised to give 10% of the proceeds of Prism, a forthcoming independent movie he has written and directed, to the Los Angeles Police Protective League, in response to his son’s comments about police brutality. Tony Tarantino, the estranged father of the Hateful Eight director, told the New York Daily News: “Quentin’s ignorance [about] law enforcement and his inciting so much hate towards [police] really infuriated and upset me to the point where speaking out is not enough ... That is where the idea came from and we have worked on it since then to logistically put it together.” Prism, which is described as “a drama about law enforcement fighting drug cartels”, is based on the novel Color of the Prism by Thomas J Nichols. Tony Tarantino is credited as writer, director and producer, and also has one of the lead roles. He is hoping to secure a December release slot for the film. Quentin Tarantino was met with a tide of protest from police unions, after he spoke at an anti-police brutality rally in New York in October 2015, saying: “I have to call the murderers the murderers.” Police unions called for a boycott of The Hateful Eight, and claimed a victory after the film failed to do well at the box office. Tony Tarantino added his voice to their protest in November, saying that he had relatives in the police and that what “[Quentin] did and what he said is dead wrong, I’m 100 percent on that”. Quentin Tarantino is unlikely to be impressed at his father’s efforts, having stated publicly that he was raised by his mother in a single-parent family and that Tony “was never part of my life. I didn’t know him.” And most cuttingly of all: “He wanted to be an actor ... Now he’s an actor only because he has my last name.” • This article was amended on 28 January 2016 to remove an incorrect date for the publication of the novel Color of the Prism. Tony Tarantino’s representative would like to point out that his client appeared in a movie in 1960, before Quentin Tarantino was born.
Heart of a Dog review – Laurie Anderson's paean to a canine friend Starting as a lament to her deceased rat terrier, Laurie Anderson’s eccentric, erudite essay-film flits and meanders to some unexpected places, from an eerily transporting explanation of the Buddhist view of death to some astonishing childhood anecdotes to an absurd scene of her blind dog playing the piano. If there’s a common thread, it’s storytelling and memory – “Every time we tell a story, we forget it more,” is one nugget of wisdom – but it’s an aural experience as much as a visual one. Anderson’s hushed, mellifluous voice and shifting electronic compositions merge with the treated stream-of-consciousness imagery to powerful, often poignant effect. It’s less like a lecture than a waking dream, perhaps even a form of hypnosis.
First Republican 'faithless elector' announces intent to vote against Trump A Republican presidential elector has become the first to announce that he intends to defect from Donald Trump when he casts his vote as part of the electoral college, vowing to try and block the president-elect from reaching the White House. Writing in the New York Times, Christopher Suprun has declared that he will break ranks with his fellow Republican electors in Texas and cast his vote for a GOP candidate whom he deems to be more fit for highest office. He argues that under the electoral college system he has the constitutional duty to vote according to his conscience, not just according to party loyalty – and his conscience tells him that Trump is unfit for the presidency. Citing the Federalist Papers, the historic documents that laid out the principles behind the electoral college system, Surprun, who as a firefighter was one of the first responders to the Pentagon on 9/11, says that each elector must decide whether “candidates are qualified, not engaged in demagogy, and independent from foreign influence … Mr Trump urged violence against protesters at his rallies during the campaign. He speaks of retribution against his critics.” He adds: “I owe no debt to a party. I owe a debt to my children to leave them a nation they can trust.” Suprun’s declared defection from Trump marks the first time that a Republican has broken ranks in this election cycle to become what is known as a “faithless elector”. Up to now only Democratic electors within states won by Hillary Clinton have expressed the intention to vote against party affiliation as a form of protest against Trump’s imminent ascendancy to the White House. Until Suprun’s defection, seven of the 538 electors across the country had indicated that they intended to become faithless electors by breaking ranks with party affiliation. However, they were all Democrats within states won by Clinton. Under the electoral system laid down by the founding fathers, US presidents are not chosen directly by the popular vote of the American people. Instead, they are elected indirectly by 538 electors who selected by the political parties within each state. In contemporary America, it is widely assumed that the electors will simply vote according to their party affiliation in tune with which candidate won their state. Thus in Texas, which has been assigned 38 of the 538 electoral college votes, it was assumed that all 38 electors would vote for Trump who beat Clinton in the state by 52% to 43%. However, one of the Texan electors, Art Sisneros, has already resigned from the state’s electoral college delegation on grounds that Trump does not satisfy his religious and moral principles. Now Suprun says that he will go further – he will show up on 19 December when the electoral college assembles in each state and actually cast his ballot against Trump, by writing in an alternative Republican candidate of the likes of John Kasich, the governor of Ohio. “I believe electors should unify behind a Republican alternative, an honorable and qualified man or woman such as Gov John Kasich of Ohio,” he writes. The idea that several of the 538 electors might take it into their own hands to attempt to sway the outcome of an election that involved more than 127 million voters has proven to be quite contentious. Some have taken the view that it is in itself a deeply retrograde and undemocratic step; others have lauded it as exposing the implicit undemocratic nature of the electoral college itself that imposes an indirect barrier between presidential candidate and people. Either way, few expect that this year’s rebellion of electors will have any definitive impact on the outcome of the race. Though it looks like being historically large in number, it is most unlikely to tip the balance of electors from Trump to Clinton, who currently hold 306 to 232 electoral votes respectively. Suprun’s breach with convention has been brewing for some time. In August, he told Politico that he was so worried about Trump’s candidacy that he was contemplating the move. His defection was welcomed by fellow faithless electors on the Democratic side. Bret Chiafolo, a cofounder of the group known as Hamilton electors who believe members of the electoral college must vote according to their conscience as set out by the founding fathers, said that Suprun was acting as a true patriot. “He is showing that there are patriots of all stripes left in this country, that if all sorts of people can set aside their party divisions we still have hope of saving this country from a demagogue,” said Chiafolo. He is an elector in Washington state, which was won by Clinton, but he intends to vote against her in a protest move directed firmly against Trump.
Stephen Hawking baffled by rise of 'demagogue' Trump Astrophysics, yes. Donald Trump, not so much Stephen Hawking, perhaps the world’s most famous living scientist, said he finds Donald Trump’s popularity inexplicable. “He’s a demagogue who seems to appeal to the lowest common denominator,” he told Britain’s ITV earlier today. Trump, meanwhile, is anticipating the court-ordered release of records relating to Trump University. The Republican presumptive nominee launched a pre-emptive attack on the judge in the case, Gonzalo Curiel, describing him on Twitter as “totally biased against me.” On Tuesday, Trump’s campaign will also release the figures on a veterans’ fundraiser he held in place of appearing at a primary debate in Iowa in January. Trump’s popularity inexplicable and Brexit spells disaster, says Stephen Hawking Trump’s campaign manager: a ‘mercenary’ lobbyist and valuable asset Donald Trump’s campaign manager, Paul Manafort, was a mercenary, narcissistic boss, says former colleague Riva Levinson. But he was also effective, she says, lobbying the US government on behalf of international clients accused of killings, rapes and other atrocities. David Smith finds that when Manafort was a principal at the lobbying firm Black, Manafort, Stone and Kelly, he had no qualms about doing business with the “murderous dictator” of Somalia, Siad Barre.Manafort was “arrogant, narcissistic, egotistical, brilliant – all of that I can handle in Paul. But it is Paul’s mercenary attitude that puts us at odds.” Levinson told the : “Paul is brilliant and he’s one of those people that can put together a strategy at 30,000ft and then execute with precision at the detail of a chess game. Asked if Manafort has a moral compass, Levinson replied: “I don’t know what drove Paul.” Trump chair Paul Manafort: ‘mercenary’ lobbyist and valuable asset Harambe killing questioned The killing of Harambe, the 17-year-old, 400lb silverback lowland gorilla who was shot at the Cincinnati Zoo after a child fell into his enclosure, has been defended by the zoo’s director after a petition calling for the prosecution of the child’s parents reached 100,000 signatures. “This was not a gentle thing,” said the Cincinnati zoo director, Thane Maynard, of Harambe. Maynard said criticism of the zoo on social media was “Monday morning quarterbacking” and said anyone who disagreed did not understand primates and was “not there”, having to deal with the emergency. Cincinnati zoo director says shooting of gorilla to protect child was ‘right decision’ Eric Holder says Snowden performed ‘public service’ The former US attorney general Eric Holder has offered conditional support for Edward Snowden’s NSA leaks. Holder, speaking on a podcast hosted by David Axelrod, a former campaign strategist for Barack Obama, said Snowden performed a “public service” with the NSA leak and credited the whistleblower for starting the debate over surveillance. He maintained, however, that Snowden should be punished. “We can certainly argue about the way in which Snowden did what he did, but I think that he actually performed a public service by raising the debate that we engaged in and by the changes that we made,” Holder said. Meanwhile, ex-CIA director Michael Hayden has said that spies are more tolerated in the UK than in the US. Eric Holder says Edward Snowden performed ‘public service’ with NSA leak Iraqi troops retake parts of Falluja The long-awaited military offensive to take back the city of Falluja from Isis appears to have gained ground even as US-coalition forces worry that the Islamist militants may use human shields as a defense. The forces appear to have taken three out of nine districts in the militant redoubt west of Baghdad. Lt Gen Abdelwahab al-Saadi, the commander of the operation, told AFP: “Iraqi forces entered Falluja under air cover from the international coalition, the Iraqi air force and army aviation, and supported by artillery and tanks.” Iraqi troops seize control of districts of Falluja from Isis Locator signal from EgyptAir heard Egyptian authorities have confirmed a distress signal was received from EgyptAir flight 804 when it crashed in the Mediterranean on 19 May. A posting on Egypt’s State Information Service website said investigators had “received satellite reports indicating receiving an electronic distress call from the plane’s emergency locator transmitter (ELT)”. The signal was picked up by five satellites, triggering an alert to a ground station in Cyprus that confirmed the identity of the Airbus A320 and narrowed the possible crash area to about three miles. Distress signal from EgyptAir flight 804 confirmed by authorities in Cairo and US Child sex abuse: a Filipino family business Tens of thousands of children are thought to be victims of live-streaming abuse, some of it being carried out by their own parents, according to a special report by Oliver Holmes in Manila. The United Nations estimates the trade is worth $1bn, with some entire communities living off the proceeds. Next month, Unicef will launch a campaign to educate young people about the risks of the online world. The UK’s #WeProtect project, an international alliance to fight online child abuse, has promised £10m to the campaign. How child sexual abuse became a family business in the Philippines Child-related shootings spur gun safety measures in Detroit A spate of shootings involving children, often with weapons left loose in the home, is behind new calls for increased safety measures and prosecutions. Detroit prosecutors say eight children have been killed or seriously injured using weapons left lying around. But should parents be punished? Ryan Felton reports. ‘A wake up call’: child-related shootings fuel Detroit’s tough gun safety stance Snoop on Roots: ‘I can’t watch none of that shit’ Snoop Dogg has come out against the remake of Roots, posting a video on Instagram suggesting African Americans should not watch it. The rapper said that he was fed up with watching films and TV shows that depicted the abuse of black Americans. “12 Years a Slave, Roots, Underground, I can’t watch none of that shit,” Snoop Dogg said. “They just want to keep showing us the abuse that we took hundreds and hundreds of years ago. But guess what – we’re taking the same abuse. Think about that part.” Snoop Dogg lambasts Roots remake: ‘I can’t watch it’ In case you missed it … Porn and the reality of relationships Olivia Solon considers whether online porn is ruining us for real-life sexual experiences. Thousands of men, and some women, report that their compulsive use of internet pornography is negatively affecting their real-world relationships. Solon meets Gregor Schmidinger. He was eight when he first viewed a porn magazine, found in a rubbish bin in his home town in Austria. Schmidinger, now 31, says by his 20s he found that faced with real sexual partners, he couldn’t function. So he avoided sexual entirely. “Porn was always my sanctuary. That was the space where ‘it’ worked,” he says. Getting off offline: when porn gets in the way of a real-world relationship
Thatcher pushed for breakup of welfare state despite NHS pledge Margaret Thatcher secretly tried to press ahead with a politically toxic plan to dismantle the welfare state even after a “cabinet riot” and her famous declaration that the “NHS is safe with us”, newly released Treasury documents show. The plan commissioned by Thatcher and her chancellor Sir Geoffrey Howe included proposals to charge for state schooling, introduce compulsory private health insurance and a system of private medical facilities that “would, of course, mean the end of the National Health Service”. Some of her cabinet ministers believed they had buried the plan, drawn up by a seconded Treasury official, Alan Bailey, from the Central Policy Review Staff (CPRS), at a special cabinet meeting on 9 September 1982. Nigel Lawson in his memoirs said the paper of “long-term public spending options” had been buried after what he described as “the nearest thing to a cabinet riot in the history of the Thatcher administration”. In her own memoirs, Thatcher claimed to have been “horrified” by the CPRS paper and insisted that she and her ministers had never seriously considered it. The CPRS paper had been partially leaked and she was only able to quell the subsequent furore by famously pledging the “NHS is safe with us” at the October 1982 Tory party conference. Downing Street briefed that the toxic plan had been “shelved”. But Howe’s Treasury private office papers released by the National Archives on Friday confirm that not only had that special cabinet meeting taken place to discuss the plan but that two months later, far from being buried, Thatcher was still secretly trying to press ahead with it. The Treasury papers show that once a clutch of tricky byelections were out of the way she was keen to keep pushing the plan and held a series of meetings in December to “to soften up the big three spenders” under her chairmanship “to resolve any immediate political anxieties”. The papers also show after the 9 September cabinet showdown Howe rejected an approach from the Adam Smith Institute, the rightwing libertarian thinktank, to back their “slightly oddly-named Omega Project” despite it being personally endorsed by Thatcher’s own economic adviser, Sir Alan Walters. The Omega Project papers said the plans were modelled on research by a rightwing US thinktank for the incoming Ronald Reagan administration. It also argued for many state services to be replaced by “more efficient alternatives from the private sector”. Howe rejected the approach in a note on 29 September not because he objected to their proposals to dismantle the welfare state but because he feared its “ill-researched proposals, which will be portrayed as strongly resembling our own, might prove an embarrassment”. The then chancellor added: “Every proposal will be seized on and hung (round) our necks. Cf CPRS Report. I see v. (underlined twice) great harm.” The Treasury papers show that “no real action” was taken on the CPRS “radical right manifesto” until November 1982. “The prime minister (we understand privately) did not want to stir this up before the cabinet discussions on the 1982 survey, nor risk any adverse publicity while the last two byelections were pending. The leaks of the CPRS report did not help,” a senior Treasury official, Peter Mountfield, told Howe in a confidential note entitled “Follow-up of cabinet discussion on long-term public expenditure”. “The prime minister has arranged a series of meetings with the main spending ministers to discuss the follow-up to the discussion in cabinet on 9 September. The ministers involved are Sir Keith Joseph (7 Dec, 11 am), Mr Fowler and Mr Nott (14 Dec, 9.30 and 15 Dec 5.30.). You and the chief secretary will be invited to each meeting.” Joseph was education secretary, Norman Fowler was health secretary and John Nott was defence secretary. The CPRS paper proposed to cancel Trident and halt the growth in defence spending. “The only paper formally before the meetings will be the original interdepartmental report on long-term trends in public expenditure ... The CPRS paper on options is technically a non-paper, but will be in everyone’s minds (and no doubt in their briefing folders too),” Mountfield told Howe. The chancellor was told the objective of the meetings was “designed to soften up the three big spenders. Without their support the operation will not work. Your main aim, I suggest, should be to ensure that no sacred cows are prematurely identified. Given the prime minister’s concern about the NHS, this may be difficult. But we want to make sure that the ministers concerned do not close off any options at this stage, and, if possible, put their personal weight behind the exercise.’’ These papers flatly contradict Thatcher’s claim that the CPRS proposals were never seriously considered by ministers. The Treasury files released on Friday do not record what happened at the meetings with the big three spenders. But a Treasury official’s note on 28 October 1982 to the then chief secretary to the Treasury, Leon Brittan, gave an indication of the depth of internal opposition Howe and Thatcher faced. “DHSS (health and social security) officials say there is no chance that Mr Fowler would agree to a further study of this idea. I imagine in the circumstances, and especially given the prime minister’s speech at Brighton it is difficult to press them.” In his memoirs, Howe reflects that although the row had postponed the “fundamental debate” he had hoped to start, until after the 1983 general election, “nothing from the Treasury’s point of view is ever as quite as bad as it seems”. He reported that the impact of what he called the “CPRS furore” had ensured ministers made no new spending pledges and had “set the pace for our forthcoming 1983 manifesto”.
'Nobody's looking': why US Zika outbreak could be bigger than we know If you were bitten by a mosquito, and within two weeks had a fever, bloodshot eyes, a rash and felt generally achy, you would have four classic symptoms of Zika. But if you or your sexual partner didn’t travel to Latin America, you might also have a hard time getting tested. That’s because Zika tests are complicated, time-consuming, sometimes inaccurate and expensive. These obstacles have led some scientists to believe that several states at risk for spread of the disease may already have Zika outbreaks, without even knowing it. “There is not active surveillance going on in the at-risk states in the United States,” said Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Texas. “I think there’s not just Zika transmission going on in Miami, it’s going on all up and down the Gulf Coast and in Arizona, it’s just that nobody’s looking.” The only confirmed cases of Zika caused by local mosquitoes in the continental US are in Miami, Florida. Federal officials have since issued a travel warning for the area, asking pregnant women or those hoping to become pregnant to avoid the Wynwood neighborhood. There, local mosquitoes infected 15 people with the virus. Other Gulf coast states are also considered to to be at high risk for local transmission of Zika virus. That is because Aedes aegypti mosquitoes are endemic, and multiple travelers have returned with the infection. But with laboratory limitations, even states with disease-spreading Aedes aegypti mosquitoes may not be able to surveil non-travelers for the virus. “There is a limitation, and local transmission could slip through, but it’s the best we’ve got,” said Frank Welch, the medical director for Louisiana’s center for community preparedness. Louisiana, long known to be a haven for mosquitoes, is considered a state at-risk of Zika transmission. There, 22 cases of travel-related Zika has been confirmed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). “The big fear, of course, is we’ll figure this out seven, eight, nine months from now, in the spring of 2017, when we start seeing babies show up with microcephaly,” said Hotez. Meanwhile, for community health centers in another Gulf Coast state, Texas, the virus recalls an earlier epidemic that left public health officials flat-footed. “We’ve never faced something like Zika before. We faced, what was it? H1N1,” said José Camacho, executive director of the Texas Association of Community Health Centers. Member clinics serve about 1.3 million low-income Texans. “Overnight we were overwhelmed, and I guess nobody was ready for that either. And we’re fearful that some of the same things are playing out here.” When H1N1 broke out in Texas, the CDC told doctors that they were required to test for the flu strain before prescribing antivirals, Camacho said. He recalls the first H1N1 case occurred on a Friday night. By the weekend, the CDC arrived. Then, it was discovered a standard flu test couldn’t detect the strain. So the CDC provided new H1N1 tests. Five of them. For all 1.3 million of the Texans served by Camacho’s member organizations. “Number one, in terms of screening, there’s very limited resources,” Camacho said. “We saw the same thing in H1N1, where the flu test did not work. They actually had to develop a test and eventually change the protocols to not require a test, but delegate it more to the physician’s knowledge at screening.” Officially, the CDC recommends that patients with three of the aforementioned Zika symptoms be tested if the patient is a pregnant woman, or a woman trying to get pregnant, who lives in or has traveled to an area where Zika is being actively spread. That means that many people who do not fit this profile, especially men, may be left untested even though the disease is spread sexually. Some public health officials, like Welch, said testing more Americans would require exorbitant resources. “Let’s say this test was incredibly available – we would have to test every single person in the US where there is the possibility of Aedes,” said Welch. “We would not only have to test them today, we would have to test them for the duration of the summer.” “A once a week Zika test for everyone in the southern United States and California –that would be more expensive than building a wall across both our Mexican and Canadian borders,” he said. “So, you would have to decide, since the test is in fact limited in availability and expensive.” Scientists don’t expect large-scale outbreaks in the continental US, like those that have taken place in Puerto Rico or Brazil. Texas also recently updated its guidance to include recommendations to test people who are symptomatic, but haven’t traveled to Latin America. Even so, Zika presents its own challenges. Only one in five people infected with the disease are symptomatic. So in order for public health officials to locate a Zika case transmitted by local mosquitoes, a symptomatic patient (already just 20% of the infected population) would need to seek medical treatment. There is no guarantee a patient would even feel the need to see a doctor, since symptoms are generally mild. Then, doctors would have to rule out all other causes of such common symptoms. “Say, for example, that person did show up at a healthcare provider,” posits Welch, “They wouldn’t be automatically turned away,” he said. “[But] you probably know the symptoms of Zika are pretty close to about 6 million other diseases.” In the Wynwood neighborhood of Miami, for example, clinicians went over and above CDC guidelines to test a symptomatic patient who showed up at an emergency room without traveling abroad. “We’re not going into community health centers, we’re not going into emergency rooms, we’re not going into clinics identifying people with fever, or a rash, and seeing if they have Zika,” said Hotez. “It’s not being done.” In part, this is because of the limitations on Zika testing methods. The two most common ways to test for the virus are both manpower intensive. “They absolutely take a specialized skill,” said Kelly Wroblewski, director of infectious diseases for the Association of Public Health Laboratories. Tests for past infections can be particularly tricky. “You’re going to get more false positive results, that’s just the way it works with any kind of assay.” In the meantime, Camacho is rationing 50,000 bottles of donated mosquito repellant to the roughly 400,000 women of child-bearing age served by his organizations. Hotez is meeting about testing guidelines, and cities and states are increasingly broadening their testing guidelines. “It’s still patchwork quilt,” said Camacho.
Pro-leave economists urge May to embrace unilateral free trade Theresa May’s new government should reject concerns that leaving the European single market will damage Britain’s economic prospects and embrace unilateral free trade to boost exports, according to a group of economic analysts. The Economists for Brexit group, which campaigned for Britain to leave the European Union, said a unilateral free trade deal would allow the UK to import cheaper goods and gain access to new markets, delivering greater prosperity. The plea came as departing prime minister David Cameron said every effort should be made to stay inside the EU’s single market, to retain existing trading links with the continent. Most economists have argued Brexit will damage the economy. Business leaders and remain campaigners have also urged May to seek a deal with Brussels that lowers tariff barriers while meeting the concerns of voters who want to restrict EU migrants from working in the UK. Brexit economist Gerard Lyons, who advised former London mayor Boris Johnson, said: “We need to ensure we send a clear message and vision of a global Britain – and this is possible with a points-based migration system, returning sovereignty to Westminster but being outside the single market. An EU-lite policy would not be the best policy economically and is likely to disappoint the electorate.” The group attacked dire predictions for the UK economy in the Treasury’s economic report on Brexit, which it said was “grossly exaggerated”. Prof Patrick Minford, co-chair of Economists for Brexit, accused Bank of England governor Mark Carney and chancellor George Osborne of issuing unjustified warnings over the damaging economic impact of “uncertainty”. Economist Neil MacKinnon said a unilateral free trade deal would also help to curb the “quite substantial costs” to the UK economy caused by unskilled migrants on minimum wages. He said the group’s latest estimates showed that they cost £30,000 per year for a worker with a family, totalling £7.4bn. Minford said economic growth would be largely unchanged by the Brexit vote and predicted UK gross domestic product (GDP) to hit 2.3% this year, before reaching 2.7% for 2017 and 2018, and then growing to 2.8% in 2019 and 3.4% in 2020. He said the forecasts were based on Britain leaving the single market, taking a tighter grip on migration and benefiting from long-term unilateral free trade. A well known monetarist economist and supporter of Margaret Thatcher, Minford said the collapse in sterling triggered by Brexit had acted like a “shot of adrenaline in the arm” of the UK economy. He said the benefits of rising exports and increased wages helped to counter the negative impact of delayed business investment, while the view that uncertainty caused by the Brexit vote was hampering UK economic growth was “coming out of nowhere”. The fall in the value of the pound, he said, “adds to inflation and it adds to wage inflation. It offsets the uncertainty factor with a stimulus to net exports. It leaves the economy more or less where it was.” The International Monetary Fund and Paris-based thinktank the OECD have cut their forecasts for the UK’s growth this year to below 2%, while credit ratings agencies, which judge a nation’s creditworthiness, have downgraded the UK’s status in their global rankings. Minford said the panic was misplaced and had largely bypassed consumers, who had maintained their spending. He said the plunge in the pound also meant there was no need for Bank of England governor Mark Carney to take “rapid action” and cut interest rates. The group has predicted inflation to notch up to 1.3% this year, before rising to 2.9% next year, 3.3% in 2018, 2.8% in 2019 and 2.1% in 2020. Minford said an “EU-lite” model, which would see Britain remaining a member of the single market, would not deliver the same “substantial benefits and flexibility” of unilateral free trade. The EU has made it clear that Britain can only remain a member of the single market if it accepts immigration from member states through the free movement of people. “What are the trade relationships that satisfy voter demands? Well clearly not EU-lite,” he added. “The only actual option that seems to be available that would satisfy voter demands is this unilateral free trade option. It generates control of borders, it generates democratic control of laws and regulations.”
Louis van Gaal’s Manchester United must deliver this week or be done After more false starts and failed recoveries than most supporters would care to remember a crucial week could finally have arrived for Louis van Gaal at Manchester United. Once West Ham in an FA Cup quarter-final on Sunday afternoon has been followed by the visit of Liverpool for more Europa League business on Thursday, the manager will either have something to show for his efforts this season or he will have to stop boasting about being in three competitions and finding it difficult. This is Manchester United, for goodness sake. They are generally fighting on three fronts at this time of year and they are not supposed to complain but get on with it. One is often tempted to wonder what Sir Alex Ferguson privately thinks about the way his once mighty club is now struggling to meet fairly ordinary challenges. Perhaps Liverpool in Europe does not fall comfortably into that category but United arrived in the Europa League only by virtue of failing to make the Champions League cut and then being given a fright by Midtjylland. A home FA Cup quarter-final would not normally be a cause for concern, even if United did draw Premier League opponents and West Ham are having an unusually good season. Many would suggest it was about time Manchester United got a proper game in any case. The way Van Gaal tells it makes it sound as though his team have come through hell and high water to reach the FA Cup last eight, whereas in fact they have accounted for Sheffield United, Derby and Shrewsbury. Given that Manchester United are not exactly achieving their objectives in the Premier League, where a top- four finish now looks unlikely again after Manchester City’s points total was matched a couple of weeks ago, Van Gaal’s mantra that the club remain in three different competitions is not as grand a claim as it sounds. On the basis of the performance at Anfield it might not be a sustainable one for much longer either. The one area where Van Gaal deserves a little sympathy is in only having a couple of days to come back from an exhausting night at Liverpool. “We have to recover very quick and recover very good,” he said. “West Ham did not play in midweek. When you see our schedule and then look at theirs you can see who will be the most rested.” That is true, although the money United spent over the summer reflected the fact they thought they would be competing at Champions League level at this stage and, had they still been involved in the main European competition, there would not be the feeling that a stuttering season will come crashing around Van Gaal’s ears should they go out of the FA Cup on Sunday evening. The FA Cup knows its place these days. No one minds missing out if there are more exciting avenues to explore but United have put themselves in Arsenal’s position, hoping that a season that ends with a day out to Wembley will temporarily mask deficiencies elsewhere. While there is room for argument over whether Arsenal’s FA Cup default strategy is more permanent than temporary, at least they keep reaching Wembley and keep winning the trophy. Van Gaal would not silence his critics with FA Cup success either, though that prospect is still a way off. The alternative is vastly more unpalatable. Should United go out of the FA Cup the first time they came up against opponents at their level, then follow it later with a European exit at the hands of Liverpool, their season would be over early and in all probability so would Van Gaal’s career in England. United used to relish matches coming thick and fast at this time of year and it was often said Ferguson’s team did not get going until early spring. Obviously competitions get more difficult the further one progresses, and the old United used to embrace that happily. If it turns out the new version cannot handle the heat being turned up in the later stages – and Van Gaal admitted his side could not cope at Anfield – then drawing attention to still being in three competitions is the ultimate hollow boast. “If we can create an atmosphere like the one at Liverpool, anything is possible,” Van Gaal said, surely clutching at an unattainable straw. “We might beat West Ham, we might even score three goals against Liverpool. We haven’t lost too many games at Old Trafford and we have to keep our belief. I cannot deny I was disappointed with the performance at Anfield but I am hoping it was an isolated incident. It was not what we normally deliver.” That might serve as an unofficial motto for Van Gaal’s time at Old Trafford. It remains to be seen whether “Not What We Normally Deliver” becomes an epitaph but a great deal could depend on the next two results.
The Do-Over review – Adam Sandler misfires in identity-theft yukfest With his second direct-to-Netflix endeavor, The Do-Over, Adam Sandler has found a way to warp time. No, the story does not offer useful guidelines on how one can revert to one’s youth, as the title suggests, but creates a set and setting in which time magically moves at a fraction of the normal rate. Surely this movie must be almost over, you think, as you jab the pause button on your remote – only to find you are at the 50-minute mark with another 58 to go. It’s a remarkable feat, as so little else in this picture has anything noteworthy happening at all. It starts out simple, but moderately amusing. Charlie McMillan (David Spade) is a milquetoast loser who bumps into his old, cooler friend Max Kessler (Sandler) at a high school reunion. McMillan wears the same nerdy clothes and drives the same awful car and even holds the same humiliating job he did in high school: working in a bank inside a supermarket. (Old ladies ask him where they can find kitty litter. After explaining, again, that the bank is independent from the market, he sighs, reduced to his fate: aisle two.) McMillan is stuck in a rut. His faithless wife is still shacking up with her ex, but McMillan is raising their bratty twin sons. Kessler, a slightly toned down version of Sandler’s hard-partying jerk persona as seen in That’s My Boy (a film some are brave enough to admit is not that bad), convinces McMillan to come hang out on his yacht one weekend. (Kessler works for the FBI, so he’s got a boat. Why not?) After introducing a Bud Light Party Ball (“Put your ear next to it and you can still hear someone puking at a Def Leppard concert!”) the pair unwind. A musical montage of fun includes shouting “Show us your tits!” to a neighboring boat of (in the parlance of the film) “hotties” who comply, then respond: “Show us your dick!” The ladies take one look at what McMillan is packing and shout “Boo!” so Kessler fires a flare at them, forcing them to dive overboard. This is, depending on your point of view, even-handed good-natured ribbing or gross male hostility. Whatever your decision, know this: it comes during the “good” plot-light and schtick-heavy part of the movie. (Unlike director Steven Brill’s last picture, the quite spry Blake Edwards-ish Elizabeth Banks vehicle Walk of Shame, The Do-Over becomes completely unraveled once things get complicated.) Kessler has a plan, you see. He blows up the boat, enabling the two to fake their own death. Won’t authorities look for bodies? They will but, as it turns out, Kessler doesn’t work for the FBI – he is a coroner, and had access to two age-appropriate corpses that no one will miss. Kessler and McMillan can assume their identities and start a new life. Kessler maxed out his credit cards and has enough dough for them to float for a while, but there was also a safety deposit box in the rectum of one of the two men, you see. This leads to an enormous cache of cash and the keys to a mansion in Puerto Rico. “There’s like five houses in this house!” McMillan (now called Dr Fishman) shouts with glee. On permanent vacation (“Play Who Let The Dogs Out!”, McMillan drunkenly suggests at a resort bar) there’s dancing and hookups, one of which involves a bit of homosexual panic when sweat from Luis Guzmán’s scrotum drips all over David Spade’s glasses. The gay jokes (and there are many) come encased in layers of “not that there’s anything wrong with it!” disclaimers, but one has to wonder why this is such a recurring theme. Another source for yuks: libidinal geriatric Renée Taylor, whose topless scene will similarly land as either cruel or “all in good fun” depending on where your personal line is drawn. The frivolity comes to an end, though when an acrobatic German hitman comes calling. I mean, they are living in luxury in the Caribbean, clearly the men whose lives our heroes stole are involved in either drugs or weapons, so the second half of the movie becomes a would-be Statham-like actioner. The plot, which now involves the real Dr Fishman’s widow (Paula Patton), is convoluted, but it’s not worth worrying too much about. It’s not like they’re curing cancer. Oh, but they are! In a second-act reveal it’s discovered that our two doofuses have stumbled into an enormous corporate conspiracy to repress a miracle cancer drug. No amount of shouting “do over!” at the screen can turn the plot around, as it suddenly becomes a quasi-serious thriller to save mankind. With Sandler and Spade. On a direct-to-Netflix budget. Despite an idiocy metastasized into the marrow of its script impervious to any radiation, there is, as with many of Sandler’s productions, at least something of an upbeat quality to its reprehensibility. While scoping out his own funeral he sees an Asian man. “My dry cleaner showed up?” It’s a creaky, racist joke, but then there’s the follow-through. “I didn’t see that one coming,” he mumbles. And then, brightly, “I love that guy!” This movie is nothing if not begging for you to reconsider it.
What’s wrong with ‘New York values’? Cruz’s charge against Trump misplaced New York is not a usual topic of discussion in a Republican debate. It has been firmly Democratic since 1988. But there was an interesting discussion of the Empire State on Thursday night. Specifically, a discussion of “New York values”. Ted Cruz has been accusing Donald Trump of having these New York values over the past week. Cruz makes the values sound sinister. But he hasn’t specified what he actually means. All he’s said is that New York values are “not Iowa values” and “not New Hampshire values”. On Thursday during the Republican debate, Cruz finally elaborated on what his problem was with New York. His answer suggested his beef was mainly with New York City. When asked to explain his comments, Cruz initially insisted, “People in South Carolina know what New York values are.” It’s a “socially liberal” place, he said, with “a focus on money and the media”. Cruz added that: “Not a lot of conservatives come from Manhattan.” There’s a lot wrong with New York City. There are rats (who steal pizza). There are clubs where a beer costs $15. There is Williamsburg. There’s soy milk and almond milk and all the other kinds of milk. But New York City has done a lot. What about the Stonewall riots? The demonstrations by the LGBT community are seen as the one of the most important events in the fight for same-sex equality in the US. What about the United Nations? It’s based in New York City. Among its achievements are the Montreal Protocol which reduced the emissions of CFCs to help protect the ozone layer. The United Nations Children’s Fund has also won the Nobel Peace prize and says it has helped save more than 90 million children worldwide. These might not be Cruz’s favourite topics. But there are also things that Cruz and the other candidates should really like. America’s Parade, for example. It’s the largest celebration of veterans in the country. There’s Wall Street. Cruz’s wife, Heidi Cruz, is an investment banker for Goldman Sachs. It would make sense for the Cruz’s to like it there – the bank even provided a huge loan to bank-roll his Senate election campaign. There’s One World Trade Center: the tallest building in the country, the tallest building in the western hemisphere. And New York City was also the site of the worst terrorist attack to occur on American soil. Surely a lot of empathy remains for the people affected by 9/11. Trump scored a powerful rhetorical point when he described watching the Twin Towers collapse – “We saw death and the smell of death was in the air for months,” he said – which left Cruz left awkwardly applauding Trump’s invocation of the terrorist attack and those who died as the New Yorker went on to describe Cruz’s comments as insulting. So Cruz might be well advised to stop his denigration of a city of nine million people and a state of 20 million people. While Cruz may have been the champion debater on stage, Trump clearly came away the better from that exchange. Aside from all the above, US data editor Mona Chalabi has pointed out a New York Times graphic that shows the state is not as safely Democratic as you might think: whole swaths of the north and west of the state are pretty strongly Republican.
Could social media be tearing us apart? There’s nothing new about swings in political ideology but there is something different about the way these debates are playing out across the world. While social media channels were hailed as great unifiers that would connect and bring people together, now they seem to be making us more divisive than ever before. Can the internet giants really be to blame for our eccentric political scene and, if so, do they have a responsibility to do anything about? Thousands of years of democracy have been marked by striking changes in the dominant political opinion – driven by economics, immigration, charismatic leaders, emergency crises, other hot issues and at times even good marketing. The majorities commanded by many modern governments don’t equate to a true majority of the popular vote but, for better or worse, the system seems to have held together far longer than its Greek creators would ever have expected. Yet in the aftermath of Britain’s own Brexit vote, and as the US gears up for a debate just as divisive, the strength of opinions on all sides of the argument seems to be being hugely amplified. Social media channels have been inescapably linked to political debate since their conception. Indeed they have played a public role in giving persecuted minorities voices to be heard and even in catalysing entire revolutions. Of course by the definition of free speech you cannot pick and choose who you give it to, so such platforms have also bred new types of trolls and enabled terrorist organisations to spread their rhetoric and recruit. Yet it isn’t just that they allow the sharing of controversial opinions – there’s a real worry they may be fuelling the development of them too. One increasingly discussed issue is that social media naturally organises us into bubbles of people with the same opinions. Far from breaking down global barriers and exposing us to challenging new opinions, these platforms simply make it easier to find like-minded people in whatever corner of the world they were hiding before. It’s the opposite effect of real life where all sorts of social and political differences can be swept aside when you happen to live next to someone, work in the same building as someone or meet with a mutual group of friends. If you’ve got a passion for an obscure type of traditional tapestry, it’s of course wonderful to connect with others who share the same interest – but such connections can also radicalise darker debates. In person, we’re well adapted to conversational debate – or polite avoidance of it if it’s really unresolvable – and are able to build relationships on the overwhelming common ground that we do share. Through the flat reality of a computer screen, it’s far harder to get to that place: any sort of written debate comes across as a much more direct challenge; we share a lot less so don’t get to see the breadth of commonality; when people share opposing opinions it’s a natural behaviour to simply want to unfollow, or even block them; and ultimately there’s something inherently disarming about face-to-face contact which doesn’t seem to apply online. This leads rapidly to a context collapse where your news and information is no longer shared alongside a representative range of opinions, but filtered to reinforce your own beliefs. It’s very hard to judge the mood of the entire country by looking at your Facebook feed, because unless you’ve done a very good job of building a diverse network, it’s probably filled with many people saying the same thing. In the context of recent polls which suggest social media is overtaking traditional channels as the preferred source of news, this isn’t merely a biased side conversation, it’s a complete whitewashing of your main news channel. A bad workman blames his tools but it does seem these tools are also colluding against us more than people realise. If you think the trending section of Twitter is your window to the wider world, then you may be surprised to learn that by default that too is showing you personalised trends most likely to interest you. The algorithms which all major social platforms use to control which content you see optimise automatically around the content you best respond to, almost certainly again further filtering out opposing opinion. This doesn’t just mute opposing opinions, it begins to have the effect of amplifying your own side of the argument too. These echo chambers of opinion can slowly reinforce specific angles of an argument and even encourage the public sharing of more controversial suggestions which you might be hesitant to do with a greater chance that they would be challenged. The short attention spans encouraged by ever-updating feeds no doubt play a role here, too, elevating headlines and pithy tweets to have more importance than deep articles, fleshed out policies or manifestos. It moves the news agenda into emotive issues where headlines are shaped to be heart-grabbing clickbait, which people are more likely to share than a measured take on a complex issue. Beyond the algorithms there’s also a wider trend in social content actually being curated by humans – Snapchat’s public stories, Twitter’s moments and Facebook’s trends are put together by hands, not pure algorithms. Facebook went through a recent scandal when it was accused of actively hiding right-wing stories from the feed and, while investigations have shown no evidence, the worry remains. In fact there’s really no reason why platforms couldn’t have a bias, traditional media has done so for years and companies such as Buzzfeed have been outspoken in not receiving ad dollars from politicians they disagree with. The difference here is that social platforms present themselves, and are perceived to be, neutral pipes through which content and thoughts can flow. If they wish to exert a bias they should probably find a way of being more open about that. Ultimately, it’s easy for animosity and hatred to develop against people you don’t see. You see it in offices every day when strings of annoyed emails melt away into collaboration when colleagues finally talk things through face to face. It’s easy to hate an abstract concept but much harder when that person materialises as a friend, as a neighbour, as a colleague or as a relative. Negative views of immigration tend to be weaker in areas with very high levels of immigration, where you are more likely to be friends with a diverse group, than those with lower levels – it’s easier to blame a group when you’re not personally engaging with them. There are always going to be big political issues to discuss but, if recent events have shown us anything, it’s that we need to be careful about how radically the nature of that debate is unconsciously changing and playing by new rules. Increased availability of information and freedom of speech a good thing, and breadth of opinion is essential to agitate and move us forwards. My day job is convincing marketers to spend more time and money advertising through social platforms. For a change, it’s worth acknowledging when we need to put our phones down. To get weekly news analysis, job alerts and event notifications direct to your inbox, sign up free for Media & Tech Network membership. All Media & Tech Network content is editorially independent except for pieces labelled “Paid for by” – find out more here.
A mentor in shamelessness: the man who taught Trump the power of publicity Donald Trump is a man who likes to think he has few equals. But once upon a time, he had a mentor: Roy Cohn, a notoriously harsh lawyer who rose to prominence in the mid-1950s alongside the communist-baiting senator Joseph McCarthy. His tactics would often land him in the papers, but Cohn was unafraid of being slimed by the press – he used it to his advantage. A devil-may-care-as-long-as-it-gets-a-headline attitude was Cohn’s trademark in life. Trump, in our time, has made it his. His careful manipulation of negative attention is something that Trump noticed immediately when the two met in 1973. Trump and his father had just been sued for allegedly discriminating against black people in Trump’s built-and-managed houses in Brooklyn, and sought out Cohn’s counsel. Among other things, Cohn advised that Trump should “tell them to go to hell”. Cohn was hired, and one of his first acts as Trump’s new lawyer was to file a $100m countersuit that was quickly dismissed by the court. But it made the papers. This was the beginning of a long and close relationship. Trump relied on Cohn for most of the legal matters during a particularly tricky decade. Cohn drew up the pre-nuptial contract between Donald and Ivana when they married in 1977 – a famously stingy contract that only gave Ivana $20,000 a year. Cohn also filed a suit brought by the United States Football League in 1984 against the NFL, seeking to break up the monopoly held over American football. Trump owned a USFL team and was widely seen as the force behind the suit; the initial press conference about it was a tag-team show performed by Cohn and Trump. “I don’t kid myself about Roy. He was no Boy Scout. He once told me that he’d spent more than two-thirds of his adult life under indictment on one charge or another. That amazed me,” Trump wrote in The Art of the Deal. The unabashed pursuit of power, quick resort to threats, a love of being in the tabloid spotlight – all of these are things Trump took from his mentor. In fact, if you’re familiar with Cohn’s history at all, their friendship starts to seem an even greater influence on Trump than any other. Today, Cohn might be most remembered as a character in a TV series: Al Pacino played him in HBO’s version of Tony Kushner’s Angels In America. In Kushner’s vision we meet Cohn only when he is old and ailing, lying about being gay and having Aids. (Despite being known to have many gay lovers, and his diagnosis of Aids being an open secret in the months before his death, Cohn denied it to all but his closest intimates.) As played by Pacino, his bombast is already pathetic, self-deluding. “You want to be nice or you want to be effective?!” he shouts at an idealistic acolyte. “You want to make the law, or be subject to it? Choose!” But it wasn’t always that way for Cohn. There was a time when he was thought bright and powerful. As Senator Joseph McCarthy’s chief counsel, he was a kind of stage director of the major events of the red scare: the trial of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg and the McCarthy hearings. Another man would have let himself be an invisible functionary in those proceedings, but not Cohn. He made himself visible. He wanted to be front and center, even when the press turned on McCarthy’s tirade. He befriended gossip columnists and used the tabloids. Shamelessness was, in fact, Cohn’s defining trait. And it was a shamelessness that Trump picked up and ran with. Cohn was born in the Bronx in 1927. His father was appointed to the New York state courts by Franklin Roosevelt. His mother, Dora, adored him, and in one of the quirks of Cohn’s life, he lived with her until she died. Cohn started his career as a federal prosecutor, but it was his performance in the trial of the Rosenbergs – who were tried and convicted of espionage in 1951 – where he made his real reputation. According to David Greenglass, Cohn pressured him into testifying against his sister Ethel. In an interview with 60 Minutes in 2003, Greenglass admitted he’d lied on the stand. He testified his sister typed notes sent on to the Soviets, but in fact she hadn’t. He also said that Cohn was the one who’d pushed him to incriminate Ethel. Greenglass’s testimony led to his sister’s execution. The Rosenberg trial was really the moment where Cohn’s cynicism first came out in public. He was willing to twist the facts to serve himself, even if it meant sending someone to the electric chair. Not long after the trial, he began working for McCarthy and the FBI director, J Edgar Hoover. Between the three of them, they managed to orchestrate one of the biggest stains on American history: the famed interrogations of suspected “reds” under the auspices of the Senate permanent subcommittee on investigations. The committee made Cohn a household name. It also marked his first real adventures in the tabloids. Along with his fellow committee member David Schine, he embarked on a kind of European tour, with the mission to root out communists abroad. Cohn and Schine proceeded to make giant fools of themselves in the press. The , among others, made merciless fun of the spectacle of two young Americans invading Radio Free Europe “like the Chauvelins of the French Revolutionary Committee of Public Safety” to look for communists among the staff. The Financial Times called them “scummy snoopers”. Cohn and Schine also reportedly left hotel rooms trashed and had public fights. After such a slew of negative attention, most men would have recoiled in shame, gone into hiding, spent less time trying to chat up tabloid columnists and getting themselves further into the spotlight. This was not Roy Cohn’s way. He and Schine continued to appear at the McCarthy hearings, including the disastrous episode where McCarthy decided to investigate the US army and the press finally turned on him. Cohn eventually resigned, but he always defended the hearings, once writing an article for Esquire titled, “Believe Me, This Is the Truth About the Army-McCarthy Hearings, Honest”. This piece was widely acknowledged to stretch the truth; letters of complaint poured in. One called the piece “a disgrace; it certainly does little honor for Esquire to publish it”. But for Cohn, the article achieved its purpose: to keep arguing that he had behaved mostly honorably, as a man under siege. These sorts of antics, in the age of reality television, no longer seem quite as shocking. In fact they even pale when put against Trump’s own press adventures in the matter of his hair, his marriages, his pre-nuptial agreements and his bankruptcies. Trump has been fiercely mocked in the media since the 1980s. But Trump learned from someone to let all the mockery roll off his back, that the negative publicity was still publicity.
Living in Britain: what issues affect you the most? If one thing is clear from the EU referendum result, it’s that most people in the UK made their decision based on the issues that directly affected them. As John Harris wrote in the the day after Britain voted Brexit: in stark terms, “If you’ve got money, you vote in ... if you haven’t got money, you vote out.” Many were shocked by the referendum outcome, but should we have been? We would like to reach out to people in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to find out about the issues and beliefs that led to your EU referendum decision and to understand more about your hopes and fears for the future. We also would like you to tell us what you feel is under-reported in the media – and whether politicians represent your needs. Sunday’s editorial stated: “The referendum became an opportunity to make grassroots anger felt in a way that could really hurt a perceived uncaring, unresponsive political elite. So what if the IMF warned we will get poorer? For too many, it could not get much worse. So what about globalisation? How have free markets benefited the steel worker put out of work by the EU-sanctioned dumping of cheap Chinese products? Seen from Wearside or the Welsh valleys, booming London and the south-east, with its Monopoly money property prices and £70 a head restaurants, resembles Goldrush City, a foreign and hostile land.” Depending on whether you live in London or Lerwick, Llandudno or Liverpool, the issues that people care about – and why they voted – are very different. This goes for neighbourhoods too; Liverpool city centre backed remain but the further you get from the city centre, the stronger leave became: 51.56% in Knowsley, 58.02% in St Helens. Wigan, in the metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, voted 63.9% for leave. For many, the reasons they voted were clear-cut and obvious, but there seems to be little understanding of why other people voted differently. Now seems a good moment to examine why and how the UK is divided. It seems the right time, too, to reflect on whether Westminster politicians and political parties are out of touch with many of the UK voters they serve. Help us document and understand the divisions in the UK - region by region, town by town and rural areas too - by sharing your views in the form below. You may remain anonymous if you wish; it’s your experience that’s important. This is a community project and stories will be told from your perspective.
Louis van Gaal accepts unhappy truth as Wahbi Khazri inspires Sunderland Louis van Gaal seemed strangely out of character. Chastened, resigned, humbled even, Manchester United’s manager cut a somehow diminished figure as he answered questions about his team’s latest setback. Whether or not José Mourinho is to succeed him at Old Trafford, a coach who once revelled in being the Pep Guardiola of his day appears to accept the end-game has begun. Gone was the defiance, the bristling in the face of journalistic inquiries and, perhaps most startlingly, the old antipathy towards Sam Allardyce. After agreeing that, yes, it would be extremely difficult for United to finish in the top four this season, Van Gaal suggested their best route back into the Champions League would be by winning the Europa League before hastily offering a caveat. The standard of football in Europe’s secondary competition is high, he cautioned, lifting the trophy cannot be seen as anything remotely near a foregone conclusion. Last season he had taken offence when Allardyce, then in charge of West Ham, accused United of deploying long balls and subsequently produced diagrams intended to debunk that outrageous notion. Now, though, Van Gaal was praising an old foe, lauding the controlled aggression, stellar set-piece execution and accurate long-ball delivery of this relegation-threatened Sunderland side before acknowledging United were falling short of minimal expectations. “The top four will be very difficult now,” he said. “You cannot close your eyes to that. Everybody’s very sad. We couldn’t cope with Sunderland’s aggression and set pieces. We didn’t deliver and we feel disappointed and we feel sad. You cannot close your eyes from the top four being a minimum requirement.” Seated on a little stage in the Stadium of Light’s media room, Van Gaal looked tired. He seemed in need of some sun on his back and heat in his bones. Instead he must head to central Denmark where United play the first leg of their last-32 tie against Midtjylland on Thursday. In contrast Sunderland are bound for the bling and bright blue skies of Dubai, with Allardyce now confident the restorative properties of the Arabian sun will be transposed into relegation-averting points. After succeeding Dick Advocaat in October, he initially struggled to make the desired impact on Wearside but appears to have shopped very well in January. Here the outstanding Wahbi Khazri – a Tunisia playmaker signed for £9m from Bordeaux – scored the opener courtesy of a curling, thoroughly deceptive, 30-yard free-kick and then delivered the corner from which Lamine Koné’s header forced David de Gea into an own goal. Although Anthony Martial registered a fine, delicately dinked and tightly angled, equaliser, the excellence of Koné – a £5m purchase from Lorient – alongside John O’Shea ensured Vito Mannone remained well protected. Despite United enjoying a period of first-half dominance, their passing was too slow and complicated to inflict serious damage on hosts who sensibly piled pressure on Van Gaal’s novice full-backs, Donald Love – on after Matteo Darmian dislocated a shoulder– and Cameron Borthwick-Jackson. With Yann M’Vila increasingly showing off his influential central-midfield poise, Sunderland were deserved winners at the end of an awful week dominated by the sacking of Adam Johnson. “It was a massive three points,” said O’Shea. “We’re a lot closer to safety. We saw Wahbi’s ability the minute he joined us, he puts in quality dead balls every time. He’ll be a big asset, you can see us scoring a lot more goals from set pieces.” It was Sunderland’s first home league win against United since 1997 and O’Shea, who spent so many years at Old Trafford as part of Sir Alex Ferguson’s defence, was suitably delighted. “It’s special,” he said. “Manchester United are still a very good team so we deserve a bit of credit but they don’t have as many players as they used to and they aren’t where they want to be in the table, that’s for sure. Given the budget, the money spent, qualifying for the Champions League is the minimum expected of them, it’s the given. But they’ve lost some very important players to injuries and the quality of the Premier League is increasing, as is the intensity.” A few yards away Allardyce was savouring the reality that O’Shea and Koné had succeeded in making Wayne Rooney look ordinary. “John and Lamine have struck up a good partnership,” he said. “John will sweep around and cover, Lamine will head anything and intimidates centre-forwards.” It was suggested Koné’s performance was reminiscent of those once produced in the 1970s and 1980s by a centre-half known as “Big Sam”. Sunderland’s manager laughed. “Lamine’s a bit better on the ball than me,” he said. “My second touch was a tackle.” Man of the match Wahbi Khazri (Sunderland)
Scotland enjoys the rebirth of its idyllic island life In those far-flung outposts of Britain’s influence where diplomats circle the Chesterfields of an evening and gossip over brandy, an old story is never far away. It is the story of a meeting – never recorded – that took place between officials of Britain and Norway to discuss the matter of how one might go about depopulating one’s islands. It is whispered that the government of Norway, restored once more following the Nazi occupation of the second world war, approached the UK seeking advice on a robust strategy towards its islands. Happily for future generations of Norwegians, their postwar government ignored what Britain told them, which was to evacuate the islands on the grounds of cost and security and gradually cause them to run down. Norway’s island communities thrived and became a powerhouse, while Britain’s suffered from a policy that has since been described as one of “benign neglect”. In Scotland, which has 99 populated islands – two-thirds of the UK’s total – it wasn’t until the creation of the Highlands and Islands Development Board in 1965 that its islands began to thrive once more. Still, the cost of public services in these areas, per head of population, is higher than anywhere else in the UK. Islands are an economic and administrative nightmare for those countries who were bequeathed them in the Earth’s infant years. So much toil and trouble for so few people: why can’t folk just be sensible and live on the mainland where they can be reached much more cheaply? Don’t they realise how difficult it is to defend these places? Earlier this month, the tiny Hebridean island of Muck (population: 30) sent out a global appeal via social media for a primary teacher for its seven children. The school’s popular teacher had quit and none of the initial six candidates followed up on their initial interest, as the reality of life on an island without a shop and cut off from the mainland for several months in the year began to dawn on them. Yet following the Facebook appeal, Highland Council has been swamped with applications from all over the globe for the £35,000 a year post, which brings with it a three-bedroom flat and, in the opinion of the last teacher, Julie Baker, “a short commute and stunning views over the sea to Ardnamurchan Point”. These places might be remote and require small triumphs of human endurance, but people will always want to live in them. The hi-tech accoutrements of modern life and the instant gratification that they bestow might once have been considered a threat to an island existence, rendering it all but obsolete; instead it has brought a renaissance in remoteness. The internet and social media have made life on an island that little bit less remote and made the task of running a business on it a lot less costly. In the last census the overwhelming majority of Scotland’s islands saw their populations increase. Mike Russell, Scotland’s new Brexit minister, is the MSP representing Argyll and Bute in the Scottish parliament. He might also reasonably be called the UK’s minister for islands, as 23 of them lie within the boundaries of his constituency. “The economy and business of the islands is not just important to the people who live and work there,” he said, “but they are also of crucial importance to the economy of Scotland and the UK. Around two per cent of Scotland’s population lives on our islands and we, as a government, have a moral duty to ensure that they are treated equally and that our public services, which the rest of us take for granted, are accessible to them too.” Russell is married to an islander and lived in the Western Isles for several years. He is acutely aware of the lazy assumptions and mocking antipathy that sometimes characterises mainland attitudes towards islanders. “In all my years living among islanders and dealing with them I have found them not to be any different than anyone else. The myth of curious and strange island ‘ways’ is just that – a myth. Certainly, you need to be possessed of a degree of endurance to prevail in climatic extremes, but there are great rewards too.” Mainland UK, it seems, has never been more attuned to the economic importance of the islands. Last week the Scottish government announced that legislation for its long-awaited islands bill would be brought forward within the next 12 months and that a wide-ranging public consultation would help shape it. Scotland’s island constituency numbers around 250,000 people and they are beginning to make their views known. Like many others during the referendum on Scottish independence, they were engaged and enfranchised by the debate. A common theme running through the hundreds of responses to the legislation was that a “one-size-fits-all” approach to legislation, policy and services does not pay heed to the unique requirements of life on Scotland’s islands. Residents want government legislation affecting public services to be “island-proof”, meaning that it must exhibit greater understanding of island issues. This, according to the Scottish government, would bring “more sustainability; greater accountability of authorities; empowerment of communities; consistency with European provision; more efficient use of resources; and wider benefits to the Scottish and UK economies”. On Arran, the seventh-largest Scottish island, there is optimism that some recent depressing trends can be reversed. This gorgeous island is bounded by the Ayrshire coast on one side and the Argyll peninsula on the other. It has been described as “Scotland in miniature” and a one-hour drive over its sinewy roads tells you why. Mountains, lochs, fields and oceans are gathered in and around an island of breathtaking beauty. Laura Helliwell, born and bred in Arran, had, like many others in her Arran High School class, moved away from the island, but recently returned to manage the Ormidale Hotel, which has been run by three generations of her family since the 1930s. “It wasn’t just the hotel that brought me back, it was the opportunity to bring my children up in this environment. The schools on the island are great and there is a real community spirit conveying values that I want my children to be exposed to. “Even if they move away from here I want their values to be shaped by having spent their childhoods here. The vast majority of my classmates growing up have all moved from here but, in recent years, some of them have begun to return, probably for the same reasons as I did.” Like other islands around the UK, Arran has become a haven for retired people. When you add some very tasty house prices on the island into the mix, it doesn’t look like the population will be getting any younger any time soon. The island’s population stands at around 4,600 and the trend is pointing towards further depopulation as the elderly diminish in number and its young people leave. Yet local businessman Derek Shand, who is also a contractor for Business Gateway Services in Arran and Cumbrae, is optimistic about Arran’s future. “Last year we had 41 business startups and 39 are still with us and reporting good outlooks. We have 165 employers employing 1,645 employees. Their biggest challenge is sourcing staff and securing affordable accommodation. The island can also employ almost 500 seasonal staff, and recent tourism trends tell us that the season is growing and the shoulder months are reducing.” In last week’s Arran Banner, the weekly newspaper that has served the island since 1974 and which is bought by more than 90% of the island population, the latest excellent academic achievements of Arran High School are recorded and celebrated and there are signs that, though many will pursue careers on the mainland, some will return with children and try to build a life here. Shand says: “The current trend shows returning children of islanders buying or leasing their own businesses or taking over from their parents. For the first time in many years we have a very strong young farmers’ club with sons and daughters returning from mainland colleges. There are still 63 registered farms or smallholdings on Arran.” The introduction of the road equivalent tariff, which caps ferry fares at the same rate as bus travel, has been a boon to the Scottish islands. As the ferry fares have reduced, so the footfall has increased. Some businesses, such as the renowned Arran Aromatics and the Arran Brewery, have seen an increase in customers. An island development officer has been appointed and there is a recognition, at last, that a traditional island community can thrive and be fit to meet the challenges of the 21st century. Laura Helliwell is pleased with the bookings she has taken for the season so far. “I think people are now beginning to recognise that new technology and the internet have the potential to be good for remote island communities. It has brought our places to the doorsteps of people living continents away. “They can see us on their laptop screens and then make a booking without worrying about the language barrier. Prestwick airport is nearby, bringing cheap Ryanair flights, so that helps too.” On a pier surrounded by fields and mountains and where you first encounter Arran, a new ferry terminal is beginning to take shape. Further up the road, land for a new island helipad is being developed. There are four hotels for sale and three restaurants. There are “for sale” signs on handsome dwellings perched on their own little Edens all over the island. There are opportunities in these places to detach yourself from the world, but to remain in touch all year round. OFFSHORE HAVENS Lindisfarne Population: 180 A tidal island off the north-east coast of England and one of the most famous of the UK’s ancient places of pilgrimage. It was a centre of Celtic Christianity, especially under Saint Aidan and Saint Cuthbert. St Agnes Population: 82 St Agnes is the southernmost populated island of the Isles of Scilly, and Troy Town Farm on the island is the southernmost settlement in the UK. It is regarded by many as one of the most beautiful of England’s small islands. Lewis and Harris Population: 20,500 The largest island off the coast of the UK and Ireland. Despite the name’s suggestion, they are one and the same island in the Outer Hebrides. The famous Callanish standing stones are in Lewis, the northern part. Summer Isles Largely uninhabited The Summer Isles are an archipelago lying in the mouth of Loch Broom. The largest, Tanera Mòr, is currently being sold at a cut-price £1.9m by the owner and his family, who owned a small aquatic sports business and several holiday cottages on the islands. Skye Population: 10,008 The Isle of Skye, recently voted fourth-best island in the world by National Geographic magazine, is perhaps Scotland’s best-known and most romantic island, with its rugged landscape, tiny fishing villages and medieval castles. It is the largest and most northerly major island in the Inner Hebrides.
Florence + the Machine / Kendrick Lamar at BST review – sublime, riotous clash of heavyweights It must he hard to headline a festival knowing that the primary attraction lies beneath you on the bill. Florence + the Machine may be the titular main draw at this British Summer Time one-dayer, but the huge sense of anticipation is surrounding Kendrick Lamar. With three No 1 albums to her credit and a vast, evangelical fan following, Florence Welch is Britain’s biggest-draw female live attraction after Adele. Yet today she is up against a rapper who is flying home after this show to headline the White House’s Fourth of July barbecue at the express request of President Obama. It’s quite the clash of the heavyweights. The Compton rapper is undoubtedly the hottest property in hip-hop right now, and Florence is in danger of being upstaged here. Early in the day, Cat Power sets the bar less high. Looking like a weary 21st-century Patti Smith, she appears to accept that her solipsistic singer-songwriter musings are more suited to an intimate club than to these wide-open spaces. “Don’t worry,” she reassures after one moody number. “You’re going to have a lot more fun than this!” Jamie xx’s collage of house beats, dubstep, drum-and-bass and digitally treated steel drums may be anathema to dance-music purists, but his DJ set in blazing sunshine shows he knows how to get a festival crowd moving. Except that, this being British summer 2016, the heavens then open, reducing the field to a sodden sea of brollies and EU flags. To Pimp a Butterfly, Lamar’s extraordinary third album, topped the charts on both sides of the Atlantic last summer. It is a magisterial melding of rap, 1970s protest soul, politicised funk and freeform jazz. When he appears, a diminutive form in branded sportswear, he looks an unlikely figure to have produced such a coruscating state-of-the-nation address. Yet it soon becomes evident that he is a righteous, restless ball of tension. Parliament-Funkadelic are an acknowledged influence, and the voice of George Clinton features large on the personal-political Wesley’s Theory, while a sample from a 1970s Blaxploitation film declares that “every nigger is a star”. As ever at Hyde Park gigs the muted volume is an issue, but Lamar’s externalised inner monologues of angst and anxiety are transfixing. The sultry These Walls opens like an OutKast-style sex song, all R&B beats and treated vocals, before diverting into a barbed critique of the US jail system. King Kunta transplants the slave hero of Alex Haley’s 1976 novel Roots into the modern day and is a fantastic slice of Sly Stone-like funky militancy. Lamar’s rage is all the more powerful in that it is delivered with ice-cool, forensic precision; when he leaves, the applause is tumultuous. Yet despite Lamar’s brilliance, Florence + the Machine have been knocking around the block for 10 years now and are not easily overshadowed. Whatever the failings of their overwrought, bombastic pop operas, the redoubtable Florence Welch is never less than riotously entertaining. Barefoot and flame-haired in a diaphanous gown, she gallops across stage during the histrionic Ship to Wreck as if on an invisible pony. Her formidable, pitch-perfect vocal on Delilah could strip the paint from the fence at the back of the field. The muted noise levels suddenly seem less of an issue. The blaring Queen of Peace sees an outbreak of ye olde Pan’s People-style interpretive dancing, then Welch ends her rollicking set with an earnest post-Brexit-vote pep talk, before urging us to remove an item of clothing and hug a neighbour. Unlike Kendrick Lamar, she is rarely sublime but she remains endearingly ridiculous.
RBS named worst bank for customer satisfaction Royal Bank of Scotland has been ranked bottom out of more than 30 rivals for customer satisfaction, despite pledges by the bailed out bank to improve its battered reputation. The survey, carried out by consumer group Which? between September 2015 and January 2016, asked more than 20,000 people how satisfied they were with their current account, savings account, credit card and mortgage provider. As well as placing RBS last, the results put NatWest (which is owned by RBS) in the bottom 10 alongside Barclays, Bank of Scotland (part of Lloyds Banking Group) and Clydesdale, which was recently listed on the stock market. Lloyds is tenth from the bottom. Which? said the gap between RBS at the bottom and First Direct, owned by HSBC, at the top was 21 percentage points, illustrating the battle faced by the 73%-taxpayer owned bank. The consumer group published the survey as part of its campaign to encourage the Competition and Markets Authority to rethink its ongoing investigation into the banking sector. Which? is concerned the competition watchdog is too focused on encouraging customers to move between providers rather than on dealing with the way banks treat their customers and charge for overdrafts. Which? executive director Richard Lloyd said: “It’s high time the industry put its customers first, and the competition inquiry needs to ensure banks are held to account for the way they treat them. The big players in this market need to get on the front foot and improve services instead of waiting to be forced into action.” The CMA investigation has already been delayed beyond its deadline of May. When this was announced, Alasdair Smith, chairman of the retail banking investigation, said: “A number of new suggestions have been made, including proposals aimed at achieving better outcomes for current account customers with overdrafts”. The findings from Which? will be seen as a blow to Ross McEwan, chief executive of RBS, who has said the bank needs to win back support from customers. He has attempted to make the bank’s products easier to understand by scrapping “teaser rates” and 0% credit card transfers. But customers have also had to contend with IT failures at the bank, including on New Year’s Day when debit cards were declined in shops. Les Matheson, who runs the personal and business banking operations at RBS and NatWest, said: “While we are disappointed in these results, we are determined to do more and are working with Which? to support its campaign, including raising awareness and education of products, not just for our customers but across the banking industry.”
Ray Tomlinson obituary Ray Tomlinson, who has died aged 74, put the @ sign in your email address, and thus invented the name@host convention now used by billions of people every day. His logical but entirely personal choice of the asperand made a little used keyboard character into what the Museum of Modern Art in New York called a “defining symbol of the computer age”. At the time – the early 1970s – Tomlinson’s idea did not seem much of a big deal. He was a computer scientist at Bolt, Beranek and Newman, one of the US government contractors developing the Arpanet computer network, a precursor of the internet. Users of BBN’s PDP-10 minicomputers, such as BBN-TenexA, could send each other messages, but only to people who were using the same physical computer. They couldn’t email colleagues who were logged on to the identical computer right next to it, say BBN-TenexB. It would obviously be useful if they could and Tomlinson introduced that capability in 1971, as a side project to his real job, which was extending the minicomputer’s operating system. He developed the world’s first network email system by integrating two smaller programs. The first was Sndmsg, which allowed users to send messages to other people on the same type of computer. The second was his own Cpynet, which copied files between networked computers. But how would each machine know where to send its message? Tomlinson’s answer was to create email addresses in the username@computername format. Most people have done it that way ever since. Tomlinson wrote later: “I am frequently asked why I chose the @ sign, but the @ sign just makes sense. I used it to indicate that the user was ‘at’ some other host rather than being local.” The asperand was available because it wasn’t being used for logon names – BBN staff weren’t calling themselves C@tbert or W@t$0n, for instance – or for programming the Tenex operating system. Tomlinson evidently did not know that it was used to delete lines in the Multics operating system, and he admitted that this “caused a fair amount of grief in that community”. The grief extended well into the 80s, because dial-up email systems, such as BT’s Telecom Gold, still used @ to mean “delete this line”. Tomlinson started by sending test messages to himself before introducing the system to his colleagues, so the first significant email said, in effect, “You’ve got email.” The system might have lived and died on the nascent Arpanet, which then comprised about 18 computers, but Tomlinson got lucky. Larry Roberts, the director of the US Defense Department’s Advanced Research Projects Agency, took a shine to the system and began doing all his communication by electronic mail. As Forbes ASAP magazine said in 1998, “that in turn forced researchers dependent on Roberts for their funding to get online, and the system quickly went from being a convenience to an essential tool”. Later, Tomlinson’s addressing system worked brilliantly when AOL and other closed messaging services connected to the internet. Millions of users could just add @aol.com to their screen names and start using email. Tomlinson was born in Amsterdam in New York state, the eldest of three brothers. His father, Raymond, worked in carpet mills before opening a grocery store, while his mother Dorothy (nee Aspin) worked for a dry cleaning company. Tomlinson graduated from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute with a BSc in electrical engineering in 1963, and in 1965 gained an MSc at MIT, where he developed a natural-sounding speech synthesiser. In 1967, while studying for a PhD, he joined BBN (now Raytheon BBN Technologies) in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He worked there until his death. He is survived by two daughters, Brooke and Suzanne, from his marriage to Ann, which ended in separation (though not divorce), by his partner Karen Seo, whom he met at BBN, and by two brothers, Gary and David. • Raymond Samuel Tomlinson, computer scientist, born 23 April 1941; died 5 March 2016
The Witch: the blood, the gore, the goat – discuss the film with spoilers Horror fans are an undernourished bunch. There’s the tantalisingly cruel promise of something worth having nightmares about on an almost weekly basis, but what’s offered up is usually subpar. Recent months have been littered with stinkers including The Forest, Victor Frankenstein, Paranormal Activity 6, Sinister 2 … the list goes on. But critics have fallen under the spell of low-budget supernatural chiller The Witch (it boasts an unusually high 89% rating on Rotten Tomatoes) and many have called it one of the few contemporary horror films they would wholeheartedly recommend. It’s now been unleashed on UK audiences, and here’s a forum to discuss the main plot points. There are spoilers ahead, so if you haven’t seen the film yet and want to remain blissfully ignorant, look away. The witch One of the most surprising elements of the film is just how early we’re shown the witch herself. After the family at the centre of The Witch are excommunicated from their puritanical Christian plantation, they move to a remote farm on the edge of a foreboding forest. Early in the film, their baby goes missing while in the care of their eldest daughter, Thomasin. Rather than keep us guessing, we see the culprit is a grotesque creature from the woods who, in arguably the film’s most shocking moment, kills it and uses the blood. It’s a disturbing reveal of the film’s black heart, and lets us know early on, what evil lies in the woods. But was it too much too soon? And is the subsequent appearance of the witch, as a beautiful young woman who appears to the older son, a bit cliched? Or, as some have suggested, is the witch merely a manifestation of the family’s religious fervour? The genre As previously stated, horror has long been overpopulated but undervalued, with jumps and cliches taking the place of anything resembling fresh storytelling and genuinely nightmarish imagery. But those very genre expectations have disappointed many audiences of The Witch. The film’s effect isn’t necessarily immediate, but it haunts you long after credits have rolled. It’s rare to see horror films, especially those released on such a wide scale, do this. Reports of people walking out of screenings and unintentional laughter suggest that audiences don’t necessarily agree with the critical assessment (the film received a C- rating in the US from the audience-survey company CinemaScore). Do audiences now reject the slow-burn scare? Or have critics been overly lauding it from The Witch’s initial rapturous Sundance screening? Whether something is “scary” is incredibly subjective, so can any horror film ever be considered universally effective in this regard? The goat Referred to as “the breakout goat” by the Hollywood Reporter, Black Phillip, or Charlie as he’s known off screen, is easily the most divisive character of the film. Kept to the sidelines while much of the mayhem occurs, his importance is revealed only as the story progresses. While Thomasin is unfairly labelled the villain, it’s Black Phillip who is infecting the family. He’s been targeting the young twins, and eventually kills the father before he reveals his voice to Thomasin. It’s a scene that will either send a chill down your spine or cause awkward laughter, depending on your level of investment in the film at that stage, which brings us to … The ending The finale is another scene that has provoked discussion, including many angry tweets. After Thomasin finally hears from Black Phillip and his satanic nature is revealed, she is led out to the woods, where she signs her name in his book and joins a coven of other witches. For some it may have been overly literal, for others it’s a smart subversion of our expectations (she is not a witch from the outset, but is led to witchcraft following the wrongful suspicions of her family) And for a few viewers, it’s an empowering and bizarrely happy ending. Satanists have given the film their stamp of approval for its “declaration of feminine independence” against oppression. Thomasin, whose sexuality had been repressed by her puritanical family, was left embracing her femininity – albeit nude in a forest with a bunch of witches. But what do you think about The Witch? Did it scare you? How was it received in the cinema? Let us know in the comments below.
SNP veteran Michael Russell appointed Scottish Brexit minister Nicola Sturgeon has brought a combative and veteran former minister back into government as her new minister for Brexit. Michael Russell, a former education secretary and Scottish National party chief executive under Alex Salmond, will lead the first minister’s efforts to influence the shape and detail of Theresa May’s deal on leaving the EU after nearly two years on the backbenches. His appointment follows strong signals from Sturgeon earlier this week that she is switching the focus from planning a fresh independence referendum as her chief priority to accepting Scotland will probably leave the EU with the rest of the UK. As she named Russell as her Brexit minister on Thursday, Sturgeon said: “In the period ahead of article 50 being triggered, influencing the UK position will be crucial to our efforts to protect Scotland’s interests and our relationship with Europe, especially the single market.” Russell will stand aside as a part-time professor of Scottish culture and governance at Glasgow University – a role created for him after he left his post as education secretary following Salmond’s resignation as first minster when he lost the 2014 independence referendum – while he remains in government. A pragmatist on the centre-right of the Scottish National party, Russell is by some distance one of the most experienced figures at Holyrood and in the SNP. He served as party chief executive under Salmond before devolution, and held several ministerial posts. His role as minister for UK negotiations on Scotland’s place in Europe, where he will report directly to Sturgeon, will focus on building political alliances in Scotland to strengthen his hand in any policy conflicts with the UK government in London. “Following the overwhelming vote in Scotland to remain in the EU, it is essential that Scotland comes together to defend our national interest. Accordingly in these discussions, it is important that the nation speaks, as much as possible, with one voice,” Russell said. “I will therefore want to listen and learn from the widest range of individuals, communities, organisations and companies about their hopes and fears for the future.” Scottish Labour’s Europe spokesman, the MSP Lewis Macdonald, said Russell’s first task should be to release all Scottish government minutes on Sturgeon’s meetings in Europe and any legal advice on Brexit’s impact on Scotland and its future in the EU. “The Scottish people have a right to know what was discussed in Brussels. Anything less would be unacceptable from the SNP,” Macdonald said. “Labour gave Nicola Sturgeon our full support to negotiate with the UK government and EU institutions to find the best deal for the people of Scotland. That support came with an expectation of transparency.” The Scottish government’s switch of emphasis away from a second independence vote, which has also included the SNP postponing a heavily trailed plan to launch a pro-independence project this summer, came as the latest official figures confirmed the country has a huge budget deficit. The government expenditure and revenue Scotland data, released on Wednesday, disclosed an increased £14.8bn net fiscal deficit between tax raised and public spending last year, equal to 21% of overall spending and 9.5% of its GDP – more than double the figure for the UK as a whole, which fell last year. Critics pointed out that this would probably leave Scotland with the largest deficit in the EU if it became independent – higher than that of Greece, and three times higher than the 3% deficit limit set by EU rules. Derek Mackay, the recently appointed finance secretary who is also due to oversee preparations for a possible independence referendum, insisted that was no bar to Scotland staying in the EU. Implying that if Scotland did become independent, its membership would be a continuation of the UK’s current membership, he said on BBC Radio Scotland that no one had asked the UK to leave after the financial crash in 2008. “Take financial year 2009/10. Coming out the financial crisis, the UK deficit in terms of relative to GDP was over 10%,” Mackay said on Good Morning Scotland. “No one suggested the UK was bankrupt then and would have to exit the EU.” Murdo Fraser, a Tory MSP, said the SNP plan regarding the deficit was to “shut their eyes as tight as possible in the hope everyone else does too”. “If ever an independent Scotland did seek EU membership, it would need to convince other EU nations that it had a plan to bear down on the huge deficit we’re running. The last thing the EU would want is to take on the risk of another bailout,” Fraser said.
Death of a troll Everyone who played Epic Mafia knew Eris, or at least knew of him. In real life, he was a 32-year-old computer programmer, who lived alone with his border collie in upstate New York, but in the tight-knit online gaming community of Epic Mafia, he was a celebrity, the impresario of the site’s many forums, constantly flirting, philosophising, gossiping. In the seven years since the site had launched, he had formed many intense friendships with people he had never met, but who had come to depend on him. Eris had the gift of easy intimacy. He asked real questions. He wanted to know you. And best of all, he was always right there when you needed him: online. “Many people will probably wonder why I’ve decided to do this,” read the beginning of the suicide note that Eris had scheduled to appear on his Tumblr on 27 April 2015, two days after his death. “I was sexually abused as a child … and have dealt with the consequences of that my entire life. Imagine going through life with an ever-present shadow hanging over you, worrying if you too might be like the people who destroyed your childhood and life.” Eris’s suicide note was unusual for a number of reasons. For one thing, it included an apology to the many players he had abused online over the years. Eris was one of Epic Mafia’s most popular members, but he was also its most notorious troll. Most of his transgressions were juvenile. He liked to post innocent-looking links that led to a photo of a My Little Pony doll he had jerked off on. He could also be malicious and vengeful. On the Epic Mafia forum, Eris once responded to a post by an African-American player by posting a picture of King Kong. In the heat of an online feud, he had been known to hack into people’s accounts and delete them. And he routinely doxxed other players, using his programming skills to reveal details about their offline identities – their weight, their age, even photographs of their home. His defenders insisted that Eris’s activities were innocuous. Most of these revelations never left the forums; they were more a token of his affection – he cared enough to dox you! – than the kind of thing that would damage someone’s reputation. But others felt he went too far. After a prolonged argument with one of Epic Mafia’s game moderators and another player, Eris submitted their Skype addresses to AddMeContacts.com, so they would be flooded with contact requests from strangers. The other player was a 17-year-old girl, which stoked accusations of sexual harassment. Eris claimed it was a harmless prank, and just retaliation for the pair logging in to one of his websites without permission, but many players were not sure who to believe; in the world of Epic Mafia, lying was not just part of the game, lying was the game. * * * Compared with the web’s most popular multiplayer games, Epic Mafia is not all that epic. Although 400,000 accounts have been registered, the number of players rarely rises above 4,000 per day. The site’s founder, a software engineer who goes by the handle Lucid, holds a full-time job at Uber and describes Epic Mafia as only “slightly profitable”. (He did not want to disclose numbers.) Yet it is based on what is probably the world’s most popular modern parlour game. In its 30-year history, the original Mafia game has spawned a television series in Latvia, a chain of bricks-and-mortar gaming clubs in China and a world championship event in Las Vegas. Mafia was created in a Soviet dormitory in 1987, by a psychology graduate student named Dimma Davidoff, but today it (and its sci-fi spin-off, Werewolf) is a popular pastime with the entrepreneurial set – particularly those involved in tech and venture capital in Silicon Valley. (“It has infected almost every significant tech event around the world,” said a 2010 article in Wired. “During lunch at San Francisco’s giant Game Developers Conference, or in the bars after closing at ETech, games of Werewolf break out spontaneously.”) There are no boards, dice, or cute moulded pieces in Mafia, only one player’s word against another’s. The parlour game begins with people being randomly divided into two groups: Mafia and Innocent Civilians. The Mafia are known to one another; theirs is the power of knowledge. Civilians are ignorant of anyone else’s role, but hold a large majority; theirs is the power of numbers. An omniscient moderator leads players through the two alternating phases of the game – day and night. During the “day”, the players interrogate one another until a majority decides upon a Mafia suspect to send to the gallows. At “night”, the civilians must close their eyes, while the Mafia reveal themselves to each other by remaining “awake” and silently indicate to the moderator who they wish to “kill”. A player’s true identity is only revealed upon their death, and the game continues until the civilians succeed in rooting out all of the mafiosi, or the mafia outnumber the remaining civilians. As the death toll rises, so too does the feeling of paranoia and desperation. This is by design. When Davidoff was growing up, most Soviet games were inspired by the “us v them” dynamic of the cold war, but Davidoff wanted Mafia to serve as a metaphor for the darkest years of the communist regime, when anyone – your boss, your neighbour, your lover – could be an informant. The real enemy, he believed, was to be found within. Change the word “Mafia” to “KGB” and you have life under Stalin, writ small. It is hard to imagine an immersive experience like Mafia, with its elements of improv theatre and courtroom drama, working online. To lovers of the live game, Epic Mafia might seem like a letdown. Unlike the high-powered tech whizzes who play the parlour game, the people who play Epic Mafia tend to be high-school and college students looking for a good way to waste time. Players are represented by raisin-sized avatars bearing names like Hipsteresque and MrStealYoGrill. Deathblows are delivered or averted via a live-message interface. The aesthetic is aggressively Web 1.0; it might best be described as “Craigslisty”. In 2010, two years after the game launched, Lucid introduced a webcam feature so that online players could finally experience the face-offs of the live game, where the slightest twitch or misplaced glance can give players away. He was sure it would be a huge hit, but the webcam went largely ignored. (It has since been disabled.) For many Epic Mafia players, anonymity was a plus. Your body could no longer betray you; Mafia was distilled to its purest form. Anonymity also heightened the game’s already paranoid atmosphere. It became easy to cheat: players could form secret alliances, revealing their roles by sending one another off-site messages. And it opened the doors to the usual internet rogues – trolls and doxxers, catfishers and con artists. For the 50 or so most hardcore players, who spent hours every day on the site, outing the personal identities of these camouflaged miscreants became a sport. They exposed frauds such as a man who was pretending to be a teenage girl, and a woman who claimed to have suffered a traumatic brain injury but offered multiple explanations (car crash, electrical surge, illness) on different forums. Soon, however, Epic Mafia’s vigilantes began to cast their net wider. The focus shifted from people telling potentially dangerous lies to those telling commonplace ones, like the player ostracised for claiming to be from Australia when she in fact lived in Florida. (They traced her IP address.) Eventually, the slightest misstep – being friends with the wrong player, leaving a comment that was deemed annoying – could land one on the hitlist. Life on the site was becoming more like the game itself: no one’s identity was trusted, and no one’s identity was safe. I experienced this mistrust firsthand when I first contacted a player who, having been doxxed, asked to be identified only as Home Slice. “Is there any way you can provide incontrovertible proof that you’re you?” wrote Home Slice in response to my interview request. “I’d ask you to craft a specific tweet in real time or take a picture of yourself holding up a piece of paper with something written on it.” But rather than scare players away from the site, Epic Mafia’s peculiar culture only made it more addictive. “This sounds absurd and melodramatic, but I think there is some truth to the concept that EM becomes a second reality. (Clearly, for some people, it turns into a surrogate social life.) Compound this with the reasons for which serious players presumably take interest in Mafia – deception, detective work, etc – and the traits you need to be good at the game – charisma, cunning, analytic horsepower – and you get someone with a proclivity for political/interpersonal drama.” “Eg,” Home Slice wrote, “Eris.” * * * Eris had long been the most powerful mischief-maker in Epic Mafia. He was a computer prodigy. He began programming at age 11 on a hand-me-down Commodore 64, an early home computer popular in the 1980s. By age 16, he had taught himself half a dozen programming languages. Within the world of Epic Mafia, Eris quickly became known as a programming ninja and the “mods” would sometimes ask him to help them identify cheats. He created a discrete website which provided them with access to more detailed user data, allowing moderators to track all of the accounts a player might have created under alternative names. But Eris – who took his username from the Greek goddess of chaos, strife and discord – also used his skills to punk the mods, exploiting the site’s many security loopholes. He turned players against moderators he didn’t like. He boobytrapped emails with hidden scripts that caused moderators to inadvertently unban penalised players. He hijacked mod accounts and reversed the results of games. And throughout all this, he continued to post private information about players’ personal identities. “He kept enough lies circulating that we could never really be sure what was true and what wasn’t,” one former site administrator said of Eris. “To him it was all a big game.” In late autumn 2014, Eris was permanently banned from the site for locking all the mods out of the site’s forums for a day. The game’s forums were more than just a place to socialise – they were the main venue for moderators and players to communicate, a kind of open-air court where grievances were aired and adjudicated. Many of the mods still admired Eris, but now he had crossed the line from nuisance to outright menace. Of course, at the time they had no way of knowing the impact such a ban would have on him. Six months later, Eris was gone. * * * Even in death, Eris could not quite let go of his preoccupation with the game, its players and their real-life identities. His note included the following coda: “I’ve left all my skype logs and other personal data, after expunging the truly innocent, to a third party I can trust … I’m afraid a great many of you will be ruined should the things I knew see the light of day, especially several of you who are doing things that I feel the authorities would be deeply interested in, you know who you are.” “Protecting your secrets is no longer my problem,” the note continued, “Whether or not your sins come to light is hardly relevant to me at this point, but I do know that if there is a hell, I’ll be seeing many of you there, I’ll keep the fires stoked.” To seasoned players, it seemed as though Eris had turned his suicide into a posthumous round of Epic Mafia. Was he a “civilian” trying to flag legitimate danger? Or was Eris actually “mafia”, throwing shade on innocent players by implying they were hiding dark secrets? Shocking things had happened to members of the Epic Mafia community before. On 21 November 2011, a popular Epic Mafia player – 22-year-old Lauren Susanne Smith, who went by the name Pafff (a portmanteau of “pancakes” and “waffles”) – disappeared after being dropped off by her cousin at a residence in the rural community of Leon, Virginia, for what she said was a house-cleaning job. She carried with her several thousand dollars in cash and a small handgun. The Madison County Sheriff’s Department launched an investigation, and Smith’s family set up a “Help Find Lauren Smith” Facebook page. Smith has never been found. In 2014, however, her Epic Mafia account suddenly came to life. Someone who had Pafff’s password – but who did not act like Pafff at all – began posting disjointed and disturbing messages to her account page, things like, “feed me pls, i’m all bones”, and “I am the christ”. The impostor managed to play a few games of Mafia under Pafff’s name before the site administrator was alerted and locked her account for ever. Still, when the link to Eris’s suicide note was posted in the forums, no one mentioned his dark insinuations. Perhaps the Epic Mafia community had simply grown immune to drama, or maybe no one believed that Eris, known as a notorious gossip, was capable of taking secrets to his grave. The only thing that mattered was that Eris was dead. Even members of the Epic Mafia community who never knew Eris personally confessed to being affected by his death. “For four-and-a-half years you were a father figure to me,” one player wrote. “You were like the older brother I never had,” said another. Eris’s enemies were finally contrite – “Not gonna lie,” a former hater named SirAmelio wrote, “i didn’t like you at all, but no one deserves this” – and his flaws burnished. Eris was “one clever f*cking dude”, “gross and out of line, but always hilarious” and one of the “best trolls of the 21st century”. His friends, meanwhile, were left to grapple with the randomness and inadequacy of their final encounters (“it’s pretty weird thinking that the last conversation i ever had with you was about constipation …”). They tried to come up with a fitting memorial. “Can we start some sort of fundraiser in his honor?” wakemeupxo suggested the day after Eris’ death was announced. “He was brilliant at doxxing. Maybe start a small scholarship for computer science majors or something?” How does one commemorate a troll? No one had a good answer to that. * * * In the wake of Eris’s suicide, past interactions took on a tragic new significance. One player with the username GordonRamsay, in a post on the memorial thread, described a phone conversation he had years earlier in which he talked Eris out of killing himself: “I felt like, in the matter of less than an hour, I had made a real impact on his life.” But Gordon said that he had flaunted the accomplishment, turning Eris into “an anonymous character in anecdotes I’d tell people to brag”. Now his pride felt shameful; he hated himself for never following up. Others feared they might have actually played a role in Eris’s decision. One such player was the creator of the site, Lucid, a polymath who had launched a startup and earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering and a graduate degree in medicine, all before the age of 30. When Lucid learned that Eris had been banned, he was concerned. He told me that he’d had enough experience with people “whose lives are so involved with the internet that it’s their only social life” to fear what might happen should he be permanently cast out into physical reality. To the frustration of the site administrator and the dozen or so moderators, Lucid had always been fond of Eris, who he considered the site’s honorary jester. Two weeks before Eris’s suicide note appeared, the two spoke by phone. “I could already tell he was very sullen and depressed,” Lucid recalled. “I knew [Epic Mafia] meant a ton for him, and … if I could just get him back on the site everything [would] be fine”. So Lucid offered the mods a deal: he would do some coding on the site, closing the security holes that Eris had exploited, and in return, they would lift the ban. But the moderators were tired of playing whack-a-mole with Eris; if Lucid insisted on protecting him, they threatened to quit en masse. A few days before news of Eris’s suicide broke, Lucid had promised to call him with an update on the negotiating effort. Lucid was still confident he could get the ban reversed, but he needed more time. The call never happened. Lucid does not remember why; maybe he was too busy, or maybe he simply did not want to be the bearer of bad news. “Then Tuesday came along, and I went to work, and that morning I received a phone call.” It was a close friend of Eris’s, a player named runwithfire, calling to say he was dead. His co-workers watched Lucid go pale before he excused himself from the office. “Of course I felt awful because my thought was that I didn’t do enough for him,” Lucid said. But the administrator whose decision it was to permanently ban Eris from the site felt neither guilty nor responsible. Vancy, a blue-haired college student from Canada, had long seen the suicide coming. They had been Skype-chatting about Eris’s depression for months, like in this conversation on the morning of 25 October 2014: Vancy: Are you okay? Eris: I am not Eris: okay Eris: I am Eris: rather suicidal today Vancy: What’s wrong? Vancy: ah Eris: and this site Eris: isn’t helping me Eris: at all Eris told Vancy that he had been taking antidepressants for years, switching from Prozac to Welbutrin, but the drugs left him numb, and though drawn to the idea of therapy, Eris was too much of a cynic to believe it would do him much good. “Like I remember I actually spoke to the psychologist my doctor recommended to me,” Eris wrote in a Skype chat with Vancy, “and I basically told him psychology is just like, witch doctory for westerners and I might as well go sacrifice a chicken or a goat and pray to the loas or something.” “In a way,” Vancy said of Eris’s death, “I thought he might finally be at peace.” Even though Eris had never met any Epic Mafia players in the flesh, he developed intense relationships with many of them. In his suicide note, he addressed a number of players directly, including runwithfire: “Know when I said I loved you I meant it.” The 20-year-old college student from Kansas denies ever having a romantic relationship with Eris, even though they did “joke about having babies”. She does admit, however, to being emotionally dependent on him. “He was, you know, my diary,” she told me. They Skyped constantly. “I don’t remember what we talked about or anything like that. We just kept each other sane,” she said. “In a way.” Runwithfire knew about Eris’s childhood abuse and his depression, but unlike Vancy, she was stunned to learn of his suicide. When a mutual friend, a player named Probably Not Rose, called with the news, she immediately burst into tears. Like many other players, she Googled Eris’s real name only to find an obituary in the Sullivan County Tribune stating that the date of his cremation had already passed. She didn’t go to college the next day. Or the day after that. Instead, runwithfire barricaded herself inside the home she shared with her parents, spending hours crying and Skyping: [4/27/15, 11:34:04 AM] probably not rose: i cant stp crying probably not rose: i threw up probably not rose: twice Katie: I dont know Katie: What go do probably not rose: im ljust rocking back and forth probably not rose: and hoping its not reall y happening For three days, runwithfire gathered memento mori. She pored over Eris’s old text messages. She asked mutual friends to send pictures of him. She even called his mobile phone in the hope of getting hearing his voicemail message – “He just has such a specific voice and I loved it” – but it had already been disconnected. She did not know if she was going to be able to “pick herself back up”. Life, runwithfire had come to feel, “was a very dark place without him”. On the Tuesday following Eris’s suicide, runwithfire had just finished having lunch with her father, the first time she had ventured out of the house since she heard the news. They were talking outside his office when she received a text message and began hyperventilating. She managed an excuse and ran outside. “I was just heaving and I couldn’t breathe,” she said. There was a man standing nearby who was looking at her in open alarm. “I leaned over in a bush. I thought I was going to throw up.” “I couldn’t not talk to you,” the text said. It was Eris. * * * It had taken Eris two days to create an entire fake news site to host his fake obituary. The suicide note wouldn’t be enough, he realised. What if his friends thought he had just overdosed on pills, and was alive somewhere, half-comatose? Without convincing evidence that he was already dead, they might try to save him. So he made up a name, bought the “Sullivan County Tribune” URL, and seeded it with articles from other news outlets. He took care to mention that his remains would be cremated (no body, no grave), and fudged some of the details about his family (who had no idea of his “death”), and his exact location (he said he had died in a nearby town). In Epic Mafia, there is a word for the act of scanning someone’s messages for clues as to whether they are mafia: scumreading. Careful inspection of the Sullivan County Tribune website might have revealed that listed among the newspaper’s staff was one Nikita Petrov – a Russian historian acclaimed for his books about the Soviet secret police, who Eris was known to admire. But no one scumread Eris’s suicide note. Or his obituary. His clues were never found. Over the years, Eris had grown tired of his toxic online persona, even come to hate himself. He realised a lot of his activities on Epic Mafia could be “classified as mildly to moderately dickish”. As to why he was such a dick, he wasn’t really sure. He had always loved pranking people. That photo of the ill-used My Little Pony? He hadn’t really jerked off on it; the “ejaculate” was just guar gum, an ingredient commonly used to thicken toothpaste, mixed with a little egg and flour – a recipe he found on Reddit. Besides, exploiting Epic Mafia’s security loopholes was also a way of reporting them, a “win-win”. As for the doxxing, it only grew out of wanting to know people better. “It’s rather odd to me that we live behind all these fake identities,” Eris told me via Skype chat. “I was just curious, more than anything, about who people were behind their handles.” Soon, however, trolling and doxxing became a form of self-medication, a “way to ease some of my bad feelings”. Then even that stopped working. He grew increasingly stressed out and depressed. There was one other motivation for Eris to fake his own death. After Eris was banned from the site, some of the mods, fearing Lucid would reinstate him, came up with their own idea of how to keep Eris away from Epic Mafia. They would trawl the web for his personal information and put it up for public view; they would finally dox Eris. When a friend tipped him off about the plot, Eris panicked. It was impossible to know how far such a campaign might go, but he had given the mods little cause for mercy. Mostly, he worried about his family. “I grew up in a fairly small town with more cows than people. Not saying they don’t know anything, but it would still freak them out to have random strangers from the internet calling them.” His enemies seemed to have boxed him in, unless he could find a way of calling Game Over. “I really hadn’t wanted to be myself for some time, but it’s rather impossible to cease being yourself in real life,” said Eris. “I figured I’d just beat them to the punch and dox myself via fake suicide.” His obituary would reveal certain personal information that he would rather keep private, but it would also stem the worst of the damage by shaming his enemies into abandoning their hunt. After all, what kind of monster would dox a dead man? It never occurred to Eris that he had chosen the trolliest means possible to quit being a troll. “Now it just seems, very bizarre and a tad messed up,” Eris admits, but faking his suicide made sense at the time. His real life and his virtual life were completely separate. His socialising took place almost entirely online; in real life, he had few friends and preferred to be alone. Even if he used his legal name in the obituary, no one he interacted with in person would discover it. “If I had to be surrounded by books or people,” Eris admitted to me, “I guess I’d take books.” And yet, Eris still craved human interaction. He came to Epic Mafia for the game, but he stayed for people like runwithfire, whom he describes as “the best friend a person could have”. Some of these friends wanted to meet in person, “crossing the divide”, as Eris puts it, but he always refused. “To be honest, the idea is still a tad strange to me.” Eris also found it hard to believe that news of his suicide would have “much of an impact on people I’ve never met before”. And so he posted his obituary, disconnected his cell phone and watched his plan unfold. Then he promptly went back to playing Epic Mafia – under a new name. * * * Faking your death, coding an entire bogus newspaper, posting a dramatic suicide note full of conspiracy theories – these things all seem extreme. And yet, being a fly on the wall at one’s own funeral is a commonplace fantasy. Now Eris was experiencing that fantasy in real time, a living man scrolling through shocked reactions to his own death. As he did so, he discovered he wasn’t the only fantasist haunting the forums. “Cloudminion said I’d sent him some sort of package like with a stuffed rabbit in it?” Eris said. “I was like WTF? And also ummmm …” He claimed the exchange had never happened. Nor, he said, had GordonRamsay talked him out of killing himself. “I would say it was some sort of guilt response,” Eris told me, “but neither of those people had any reason to feel guilt.” (Neither Cloudminion nor GordonRamsay responded to my interview requests, and neither user has logged on to the site in the past six months.) Eris’s own guilt, however, had started to grow as he realised the psychological toll his death was taking on those who cared about him. “I saw people were having issues dealing with it,” Eris said. “It was very strange, also touching. I didn’t realise I’d had an impact on so many lives.” Plus, “well, i cared about them”. So five days after killing himself, Eris picked up the phone to make his first call. “I don’t think he understood to what level it would upset me,” runwithfire said of Eris’s revelation. “Are you serious?” she recalls thinking. “We’ve been friends for years.” At first she had trouble accepting the fact that Eris was really alive. In the days that followed Eris’s supposed suicide, she would burst into tears thinking about him before realising that he was no longer dead. Even now, when discussing him, she still catches herself lapsing into the past tense. There was, runwithfire told me, no model for the peculiar process she was undergoing: the five stages of ungrieving. Sometimes she tried to work through these complicated feelings with Eris: runwithfire: okay runwithfire: this is really weird runwithfire: half of me is still mourning >.> runwithfire: you literally ruined my head Eris: sorry Eris: i love you, please stop mourning for me, men in my family live forever unless we die tragic deaths Eris: by tragic i mean like getting stabbed by an immigrant in their bar and bleeding out Nonetheless, runwithfire, whose Twitter bio reads, “Just a broken person trying to love Jesus and other broken people better,” decided to forgive Eris. “When God gives you a second chance in life,” she said, “you don’t waste it over anger.” Lucid, who admits to being a “soft-hearted guy” was also more relieved than anything else to learn that Eris was alive. And the tech-nerd part of him cannot help but admire Eris’s skill. “I knew I was conned,” Lucid laughs. “I think it’s crazy, but I’m happy.” Not everyone was so understanding. A close friend named Sach – whose own uncle had killed himself a week before Eris’s “suicide” – hung up on him when he contacted her via Skype. “He’s done some pretty dickish stuff,” Sach told me, “but this is the worst.” Vancy, a good friend of runwithfire, also refused to forgive Eris for toying with her emotions. Most of his friends were simply angry and confused. They told him they had taken time off from work or school as a result of his actions, that news of his death had left them feeling broken. But beyond the site’s inner circle, the majority of players still had no idea Eris was alive. (“Epic Mafia coolness is measured by how soon thereafter you were informed that [Eris] faked his death,” one player later joked on the forums.) Three months after his death, Eris was outed. He had been up one night Skyping with a player named “Clandestine”, when she confessed that she had just swallowed a handful of pills. Because Clandestine would not give up her street address, Eris contacted an Epic Mafia administrator, who could only be cajoled into accessing Clandestine’s account information after he revealed his true identity. But, according to Eris, when the police arrived at Clandestine’s house, she told them she was fine and sent them away. The next day, news that Eris was alive spread through the forums. “So that,” he said, “was sort of the end of my pseudocide.” In the discussions that eventually followed, players seemed more weary than surprised that Eris had tried to log himself out of existence. Maybe nothing on the internet surprised them any more. “Yo can someone fill me in on the last 3 years?” one long-absent player posted on the forums. “All I know is that [Eris] left a suicide note but didnt kill himself.” “Everything sucks and nothing matters,” replied someone named ScubaSteve. “The end.” Almost nine months have passed since Eris faked his death. Since then, both Vancy and runwithfire have quit the site. “Last year my notion of volunteering was leading a website full of unappreciative overdramatic teenagers,” Vancy said. “Now it’s helping kids with special needs at the local YMCA.” Runwithfire started graduate school this fall. “I finally got busy,” she said, with some measure of relief. As for Eris, he is feeling better – a change he credits to a new regime of antidepressants and returning to church. Not so much for the God-worshipping part, but because it’s nice to “sit and listen to a sermon and maybe talk to people afterwards”. A month ago, Eris also found a new girlfriend, a woman he met through Epic Mafia and whom he describes as being as “dark, morbid and kind-of screwed up” as he is. “When I told her about [my fake suicide] she thought it was kind of funny.” They have not met in person yet, but she lives in Pennsylvania and Eris hopes she will soon make the drive to New York, so he can take her out on a proper date. “The old ways are the best,” he said. He’s thinking dinner and a movie. Illustrations by Paul Blow • Follow the Long Read on Twitter at @gdnlongread, or sign up to the long read weekly email here.
Josh Frydenberg welcomes Trump's vow to lift restrictions on fossil fuel exploration Australia’s environment and energy minister, Josh Frydenberg, has welcomed Donald Trump’s commitment to lift Obama administration’s restrictions on fossil fuel exploration within his first 100 days in the White House, saying the move will be a boon for consumers. Frydenberg was asked about Trump’s declaration about various executive actions he would take in the opening phase of his presidency during an interview with Sky News on Wednesday. In a message posted on YouTube on Tuesday, Trump declared he would cancel “job-killing restrictions on the production of American energy, including shale energy and clean coal” to create jobs. The environment minister was asked whether that move would impact the global task of reducing carbon emissions. Frydenberg’s response was that Trump’s decision would be good news for consumers. “I’m always in favour of cutting red tape and regulation,” he said. “I absolutely welcome efforts to reduce regulation and to encourage gas exploration and energy development.” He said state governments in Australia should follow suit. “In fact this is one of the problems we are having in Australia and I’ve been outspoken on, which is the effective moratoriums on gas development both in Victoria, my home state, and in New South Wales. “This is good news for consumers in the United States because they have gone through the shale gas revolution where they are paying only two to three dollars a gigajoule for gas, whereas in Australia we are paying eight to nine dollars. “This hurts households and investors, so we need more gas, more exploration.” Frydenberg was also asked about a signal Trump sent in an interview with the New York Times when he said he had an “open mind” about the Paris climate agreement despite campaigning against it during the presidential race. Trump said asked about the agreement: “I’m looking at it very closely. I have an open mind to it.” Frydenberg reacted cautiously to the abrupt volte-face. The Australian government has said previously it would take the US four years to withdraw from the Paris agreement in the event Trump decided to pull out. Malcolm Turnbull said when he announced that Australia would ratify the Paris agreement that the government would follow through regardless of what the US did. Frydenberg said Australia would collaborate with the US on climate change with or without the Paris deal. “I don’t want to pre-empt what Donald Trump and his administration will do, other than to say Australia will continue to work very effectively with the United States in reducing global emissions and lifting efficiency standards,” he said.
Star Wars: The Force Awakens overtakes Skyfall to become UK's biggest ever film After just over three weeks in cinemas, Star Wars: The Force Awakens has become the biggest ever film release in the UK and Ireland. Released 22 days ago, the seventh instalment in the intergalactic series has overtaken the £103.2m earned by the previous title-holder, Skyfall, Sam Mendes’s 2012 James Bond adventure (which took 66 days to hit its final tally). The announcement marks the end of a strong day for The Force Awakens in the country in which it was filmed. Earlier it was revealed that the film has been nominated for four Bafta awards, all technical, as well as the rising star award for its lead, John Boyega. Earlier this week, JJ Abrams’s film overtook Avatar to become the biggest release in US box office history. So far the film has taken over £1.59bn globally and broken multiple records, including becoming the fastest film to hit $1bn and enjoying the biggest ever opening weekend in the UK and opening worldwide. It is also the film which recorded the highest advance bookings of all time and had the biggest ever single day at the box office, with £9.7m. On Friday it was announced that the film’s star, Harrison Ford, had reclaimed the title of the highest-grossing actor in the US. He has been locked for some years in a battle for the crown with Samuel L Jackson, who starred in the film’s prequels, and – more recently – in many Marvel movies. But the epic numbers for The Force Awakens returned Ford to the top of the list.
Back to the future: economy becomes battle between Reagan and Bill Clinton While Donald Trump is accused of hypocrisy over his personal tax affairs, an increasing feature of his campaign message is that sparing more of America’s richest from taxation would be good for everyone. According to his advisers, the theory – ridiculed by Hillary Clinton as “Trumped-up trickle down” – harks back to the 1980s, when Ronald Reagan sought to stimulate wealth creation with tax cuts. Yet new analysis by an independent Washington thinktank, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, estimates that if Trump’s proposed tax cuts did not bring about the promised Reagan-style boom, they would risk adding $5.3tn to the national debt. Democrats recall a contrasting economic approach, that of Bill Clinton in the 1990s, which they claim is about restoring the spending power of the middle class rather than giving reckless tax cuts to the rich. With some taxes raised as well as spending, estimates suggest Hillary Clinton’s economic plans would add $200bn to the national debt. Her supporters argue that this closely echoes the fiscal caution of her husband. This new ideological battle, between Reaganomics and Clintonomics, exploded last week at a debate in Washington between two economic veterans. “This is a very fundamental difference between trickle-down economics and bottom-up economics,” said Gene Sperling, who was director of the National Economic Council during the Bill Clinton administration and is now an economic adviser to the Hillary Clinton campaign. “We believe that a stronger middle class is what leads to greater economic growth. [The Trump campaign says cutting] taxes for the most well off will lead to dynamic growth that will trickle down to the middle class. There is no evidence that this has worked.” Perhaps the only thing both sides agree on is that the difference between them is huge. “This is a night-and-day election,” said Stephen Moore, a senior economic adviser to Trump who argues the Reagan tax cuts led to the “one of the biggest booms in American history”. “You couldn’t have two more opposing economic outlooks,” he said, adding: “Yes, we borrowed a lot of money in the Reagan years but we rebuilt the American economy in an incredible way. We want to cut taxes to make the economy grow. She wants to raise taxes to make the government grow.” Both parties are less keen to trumpet the economic policies of the last two presidents, who took similar paths to their party predecessors, with more mixed results. Trump advisers argue that Clinton is complacent about slow wage growth under Barack Obama, a measure that has improved recently but which remains flat given growing employment and share prices. “Most Americans feel that this recovery has been no recovery at all,” Moore said. “If people feel pretty good in November, when they go to the polls, then Hillary will win. But if people want real change, and I think they do, then Trump will win a landslide election.” Democrats point to the legacy of the financial crisis under George W Bush – which saw a contraction of 7.6% in GDP as Obama took office. Their swift action to prop up the economy, they say, was the only thing that saved it. “The problems we have stem mostly from the financial crisis,” Sperling said, “which was not a failure of progressive policies but stemmed from a period of cutting taxes for the most well off and a hands-off approach to Wall Street.” Sperling, who also served as a senior adviser to Obama, conceded that economic and wage growth could be much better. But he rejected the notion that the US is simply entering a slower phase in its development. “I do believe you can have 4% private sector growth because that’s what happened under Bill Clinton,” he said. “That was while he raised taxes from 31% to 39.6%. Everybody said it would tank the economy, but there is no evidence it did.” Trump supporters also argue that their approach is misunderstood, insisting that cutting corporation tax to 15% and offsetting income tax reductions by closing loopholes would not necessarily reduce overall taxes for the rich. “A lot of rich people own small businesses,” said Moore. “But you know what? They hire people. The evidence is overwhelmingly clear that to get higher wages you need business investment. And that’s not what is happening right now. “If we do this, we think we can see rising incomes not for the rich but for middle-class Americans. We feel very proud of that. We feel it’s the centrepiece of our plan.” The Trump campaign claims the outcome will not be the rising inequality feared by Democrats but $2tn of new investment and a 9% increase in average wages. Clinton wants to spend heavily on infrastructure and job programmes she says will boost the economy by putting more money into the pockets of middle-class consumers. Both projections depend on a host of imponderables. The advisers of 2016, therefore, are looking to re-fight the battles of the 1980s and 1990s. Reaganomics v Clintonomics Years in office: Reagan 1981-1989, Clinton 1993-2001 Flagship bill:1986 Tax Reform Act vs 1993 Deficit Reduction Act Budget record: $1.4tn deficit vs $63bn surplus Average GDP growth: 3.64% vs 3.82% Average monthly job growth: 166,000 vs 242,000
First Direct wins gold for customer satisfaction First Direct has been voted the best bank for customer service in a new poll – but HSBC, its parent company, was ranked the worst. More than 8,000 users of Martin Lewis’s MoneySavingExpert website took part in the survey, which is carried out twice a year. It focuses on what people think about the service offered by their current account provider, and excludes some of the smaller players because a minimum number of votes are required. Once again, First Direct topped the poll with 91% of those customers who voted rating its service as “great”. Only 6% said it was “OK” and just 3% described the service as “poor”. MoneySavingExpert said First Direct had comprehensively trounced its rivals by winning every banking service poll it had ever conducted. Nationwide came in second with a 79% “great” score, with the Co-operative Bank and its Smile online brand in third place with 72%. Santander and TSB were just behind, each scoring 71%. In last place was HSBC, which took over ownership of First Direct in 1992 when the former bought Midland Bank. MoneySavingExpert said HSBC had been ranked as the “worst” current account provider, coming 13th out of 13, with only 38% of those who voted rating its service as “great”. Of the remainder, 44% said the service was “OK”, while 18% called it “poor”. In the last survey, six months ago, HSBC came 11th and Barclays was at the bottom. This time, Barclays came 12th, with 43% of customers who voted describing the service as “great” and 21% saying it was “poor”. First Direct also came joint top in the most recent survey of bank customer satisfaction carried out by consumer body Which?, achieving 82%. Norwich & Peterborough building society managed the same score. In that poll, HSBC achieved a customer score of 58%, putting it ahead of several high-street rivals including NatWest and Barclays. Guy Anker, managing editor of MoneySavingExpert, said the events of the last few days, with Santander slashing the rate of interest on its popular 123 current account by half, and other banks threatening cuts, “show the importance of keeping on top of your current account”. He added: “Our index shows once again the strength of First Direct’s service. However, the bottom of the pile is dominated by many high-street banks. This should be seen as a stark warning that they risk losing customers if they don’t raise their game. “Anyone unhappy with the service they are getting from their bank needs to ditch it, especially as some of the best deals are from banks with good service. Switching is no longer the chore it used to be – all your direct debits and standing orders can be moved within seven working days, and any payments made in error to your old account will be auto-forwarded.” The website quoted HSBC as saying it was “disappointed to hear the results from the latest MoneySavingExpert poll”. The bank added: “We always want to provide the best possible experience for our customers, and we welcome the opportunity to hear how we could improve their experience when banking with HSBC.”
NHS plan to reassess value of cancer drugs alarms patient groups Patient groups have reacted with alarm to plans to reassess the value to the NHS of many cancer drugs, which is likely to mean that some will be phased out because they do not offer value for money. A board meeting of NHS England has endorsed proposals that will impose much tighter control of spending on cancer drugs, requiring all those that have been paid for by the government’s £340m Cancer Drugs Fund to be re-evaluated by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice). Of the 47 drug treatments now available through the fund, Nice has already rejected 23 for general NHS use in the past because it found they were not sufficiently cost-effective. The Rarer Cancers Foundation said the changes would set “cancer treatment back by a generation”. It claimed that nearly 22,000 people would be denied treatment per year. However, NHS England said this figure was “clearly not right” because it included patients on drugs that were no longer paid for by the fund. “In reality, it is the price pharmaceutical companies charge the NHS that will also often drive whether a drug gets on to the new fund. Patients need the pharmaceutical industry to price their products responsibly,” said a spokesperson. The Cancer Drugs Fund has been continuously overspent. It was launched in 2010 in fulfilment of an election promise by David Cameron, responding to the regular outcry from cancer patient groups when a drug was rejected for NHS use by Nice because it was too expensive and offered insufficient value for money. Nice was given a threshold of around £30,000 for a year of good quality life or £50,000 for a drug at the end of life. Many new cancer drugs are put on the market at prices that are far higher. Proposals to reform the fund have been under discussion for some time, but NHS England has now officially adopted a plan that puts Nice at the centre of decision-making. Breast Cancer Now is one of the patient groups that reacted with dismay. “The current CDF proposals unfortunately represent a major relapse for patient access to breast cancer drugs in the UK. It is indefensible that the CDF’s long-awaited successor may actually result in fewer – rather than more – drugs being made available to patients,” said Baroness Delyth Morgan, Breast Cancer Now’s chief executive. “These proposals do not offer sufficient reform on the existing Nice appraisal process. With the last six breast cancer drugs to be assessed by Nice being rejected, and with key issues left unaddressed, we’re concerned that clinically proven drugs will continue to struggle for approval on the new fund.” But NHS England took a robust stance, arguing that the new arrangements would put pressure on the companies to lower their prices. “The Cancer Drugs Fund has helped thousands of people and we are determined to respond to the demands of parliament, and the cancer care community, that we put it on sustainable footing for the future,” said a spokesperson. “Under these measures, patients will get faster access to the most promising new cancer treatments and tax payers will get better value from drugs expenditure. “Drug companies will need to price their drugs responsibly and we make no apology for maintaining the pressure on this point on behalf of the public. Companies keen to work with the NHS for patients will get a new fast-track route to NHS funding for promising new drugs, backed by a speeded up and more transparent Nice assessment process.” While the smaller patient groups voiced alarm, Cancer Research UK supported the new plan. “Cancer Research UK welcomes today’s decision to move forward with reforms to how the NHS makes certain cancer drugs available to patients. We see this as a positive step in creating a more sustainable and flexible system,” said Sir Harpal Kumar, its chief executive. “Importantly, we believe the proposals will bring more certainty to patients and doctors about the drugs that can be prescribed, and swifter access to promising drugs.”
A tumultuous year: the 2016 global economy in 10 charts The price of Brent crude tumbled below $30 per barrel for the first time in 13 years at the start of 2016 as worries over a supply glut intensified. The lifting of sanctions on Iran in January meant the oil producer could ramp up crude exports into a market already awash with supplies thanks to high production from US shale oil and the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec). But prices recovered as the year progressed on signs of diminishing stocks and on growing expectations Opec would limit output. An agreement to cut supplies was reached at the end of the year between Opec and a number of non-members, sending oil to a 17-month high above $57. The price is up 54% over the year. A tumultuous year in global politics boosted demand for gold – seen as a safe haven in troubled times – and sent its price soaring for much of 2016. Appetite for gold was also boosted by low interest rates. Investors could get little or no return on cash and other assets that pay interest and so instead sought out investments such as gold. The precious metal lost some of its shine after markets digested Donald Trump’s victory and the prospect of big government spending and interest rate rises in the US. As the US dollar and bond yields eased off in the final days of 2016, gold got a small fillip, ending slightly higher over the year as a whole. The pound has tumbled since the EU referendum, hitting 31-year lows this year. A US interest rate rise in December led the dollar to extend gains against sterling. The pound is down around 17% against the dollar since the Brexit vote. Conversely, the FTSE 100 share index has soared to record highs. Much of the FTSE’s rise has been down to the pound’s weakness: many of the firms listed report in dollars and so their earnings are flattered by the currency movements. The weak pound also encourages international investors to pick up UK-listed stocks and other assets such as property. The US stock index has soared to new highs in 2016, flirting with the 20,000 level. Worries about a potential wave of protectionism under president-elect Donald Trump have been more than offset by Wall Street’s hopes that huge infrastructure spending and deregulation will boost the US economy – in the short-term at least. Since the election, banks have been among the top risers on US stock markets, helped by rising interest rates and expectations that Trump will relax regulations. The Baltic Dry index is looked to for early warning signs of trouble for the global economy. It measures dry freight costs for commodities such as coal, rice and wheat and, when it drops, economists start worrying about a slowdown in world trade and, by extension, in global economic activity. February was one such moment, when the index hit a record low of 290 points. It recovered as the year went on, with a spike in November after Trump’s victory but, at 961 points, it remains well below its peak of 11,793 points in May 2008. The year began with fresh concerns about the extent of China’s economic slowdown, sending shockwaves through global markets. Economists expect GDP growth for the full year to come in at under 7% again and fall further next year, in a marked contrast to the expansion of 14% experienced a decade ago. The slowdown was widely expected as China’s economy matures but the nature of its growth has worried investors. As growth falters, Beijing has turned to debt-fuelled stimulus. That government spending drive combined with soaring property prices and record bank lending has prompted warnings about China’s debt mountain. Mexico’s currency had the dubious honour of acting as a barometer for Donald Trump’s chance of victory in the US presidential race. After the Republican candidate threatened to build a wall between the US and Mexico and to scrap or rejig trade deals, the peso came under repeated pressure and slumped to an all-time low against the dollar after Trump’s win. More recently, the peso has steadied as Trump appears to rein in his campaign trail rhetoric but analysts warn the Mexican currency faces more volatility once the new president is inaugurated in January. Low interest rates make it harder for banks to make a profit on the difference between the rates that are paid on savings and the rates that can be charged on loans. For evidence of what that means for banks’ share prices, look no further than Japan in 2016. Japanese banking stocks were already under pressure from years of electronic money printing by the central bank and tumbled further early in the year as the Bank of Japan imposed negative interest rates on them to encourage lending to businesses. But in September, the bank changed tack from its aggressive stimulus programme and shares across the sector staged a recovery on hopes the pressure on their profitability will now ease. The European Central Bank has taken unprecendented measures to bolster anaemic growth in the currency bloc and to push up stubbornly low inflation. Despite ultra-low interest rates and a vast programme of electronic money printing, inflation remains well off the ECB goal of “below, but close to, 2%”. Economists also point to core inflation, which excludes volatile items such as energy, and has stuck around just 0.8% since the summer, suggesting there is little underlying upward pressure on prices. The ECB recently announced it was curbing the amount of stimulus it provides but its president, Mario Draghi, insisted the central bank remained ready to beef up its support if inflation fails to pick up. The crushing defeat for the Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi in a referendum on constitutional reform in December came amid stagnating living standards and one of the highest unemployment rates in the eurozone (pdf), at 11.6%. The situation among under-25s is worse still, with youth unemployment at more than 36%, compared with 29% five years ago. France has also experienced a rise in youth unemployment in recent years – the latest figures put it above 25% – a trend expected to influence voting patterns in the 2017 presidential election.
Sam Smith quits social media over Oscars acceptance speech Sam Smith has announced he’s taking a break from social media, after being widely mocked following his Oscars acceptance speech. Smith faced criticism after he received the award for best song for the James Bond film Spectre, and suggested on stage that he might be the first openly gay man to win an Oscar. “I read an article … by Sir Ian McKellen and he said no openly gay man had ever won an Oscar,” Smith said at the time. In fact, McKellen was talking specifically about the best actor award. Previous openly gay winners of academy awards include Elton John, Stephen Sondheim and director Dustin Lance Black, who won an Oscar in 2009 for his film Milk. The latter criticised Smith on Twitter, saying: “If you have no idea who I am, it may be time to stop texting my fiance [Tom Daley].” Smith responded to the furore, saying: “Second openly gay man to win an Oscar or third or fourth or 100th, it wasn’t my point. My point was to shine some light on the LGBT community who I love so dearly.” He also apologised to Black and has decided to take a break from social media, writing: “I’m logging off for a while. Some martinis shaken not stirred are definitely in order.”
This week’s new live music Kano, On tour Contemporaries such as Wiley have had a love-hate relationship with the mainstream, and have now reverted to a raw “grime revival”. Kano, AKA East Ham’s Kane Robinson, has never bothered the charts in quite the same way, but after the strangely operatic tone of his last album, 2010’s Method To The Maadness, you get the feeling that he’s not taken much persuading to return to a style that privileges bars over production for his latest release, Made In The Manor. Kept onboard is pal Damon Albarn, with whom Kano regularly swaps guest appearances, but otherwise it’s all appealingly no frills. Concorde 2, Brighton, Wed; Waterfront, Norwich, Thu; The Marble Factory, Bristol, Fri JR DIIV, Birmingham & London Guitars, modelling assignments, hard drugs, police raids: from the core elements alone, one might possibly imagine we were talking about the imperial years of messrs Jagger and Richards. In fact, all this seems to be de rigueur for today’s iteration of the indie band. Much like ex-Girls frontman Christopher Owens, who makes crystalline and precisely articulated guitar music in the throes of personal debauch, the innocent breeziness of DIIV’s retro rock is in striking contrast with the recent exploits of singer Zachary Cole Smith. For a certain type of listener, this decadent legend might be encouragement enough to get behind the band. Really, though, DIIV are principally worth investigating for their blend of clean guitars and quietly insistent tunes. Their obligatorily troubled second album Is The Is Are deals more in mystique than melody, but is reminiscent at times of MBV and particularly the Cure. O2 Institute Birmingham, Thu; Heaven, WC2, Fri JR Ellie Goulding, On tour Indie crooners looking to embrace electropop could do worse than follow Ellie Goulding’s lead. A strong singer-songwriter with a not unattainably cool image, she’s managed to conquer the mainstream without turning into a super-stylised robot. This is world-class arena pop with all the drama, fireworks, podiums and backup dancers that the genre requires, but it is also recognisably hers: she sings and plays actual instruments, throwing herself clumpily into dance routines. This is Goulding’s USP: as someone who made a name for herself as a writer and featured artist first, her growth as a solo performer is the kind of duckling-swan story that people like to get behind, an upbeat tale that’s surely at the root of her appeal. Sheffield Arena, Sat; Motorpoint Arena, Nottingham, Sun; First Direct Arena, Leeds, Tue; Metro Radio Arena, Newcastle upon Tyne, Wed; The SSE Hydro, Glasgow, Fri; touring to 25 Mar JR Soft Machine, On tour Back in the 1970s, Soft Machine dominated the Canterbury psychedelic scene alongside the likes of Hatfield And The North with an improv-heavy style and malleable lineup. The group pictured below are a tangential reformation that sprouted around a decade ago, boasting the same roots as the original trippy prog-jazz influencers, and featuring many of its original members. Previously operating as Soft Machine Legacy under the leadership of guitarist John Etheridge, the band seem to have lost the Legacy qualifier somewhere along the way, reverting to their original moniker of late. Three veteran members – drummer John Marshall, bass player Roy Babbington and Etheridge – are joined by sax, flute and keyboard player Theo Travis for a run of six UK dates, beginning at Friday’s fourth annual HRH Prog festival in north-west Wales, where their Kent contemporaries Caravan also play. Hafan Y Môr Holiday Park, Fri, touring to 1 Apr JA Melody Gardot, Bristol Philadelphia-born Melody Gardot spent 2004 in hospital bed recovering from brain damage after her bike was hit by a car. Music therapy and sheer grit led her to write her first EP, before going on to find 00s stardom purring million-selling love songs. Last year, the singer took on a new, tougher persona as the frontwoman of a rugged blues and soul band, and also tackled themes including racism, poverty and life on the margins in a new album, Currency Of Man. As she brings this compelling agenda to the opening night of this year’s Bristol jazz and blues festival (various venues, to 20 Mar), expect a funky, eccentric, blues-steeped show, and a world-class curtain-raiser for the weekend. Colston Hall, Fri JF George Benjamin, London George Benjamin’s music is superbly crafted, each piece meticulously planned and realised in the finest detail. As such, the performance of a new work by the composer is a major event. This UK premiere of his latest, Dream Of The Song – a song cycle for counter-tenor, female voices and orchestra – provides the starting point for a two-day focus on his music at the Barbican. First performed in Amsterdam last autumn, it sets texts by three poets closely associated with Granada in southern Spain. It’s Benjamin’s first work since his 2012 opera Written On Skin, and was composed for the counter-tenor Bejun Mehta, who created the role of the Boy in that work. This time it will be sung by Iestyn Davies, while the following evening Benjamin himself will conduct the Mahler Chamber Orchestra in a concert performance of Written On Skin. Barbican Hall, EC2, Fri & 19 Mar AC
Cameron names referendum date as Gove declares for Brexit – as it happened • David Cameron has called for his referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU to take place on 23 June, after the cabinet formally agreed to campaign to stay in despite several minister openly supporting Brexit. Speaking from outside Downing Street, the prime minister said he had secured a good deal with Brussels to give the UK a special status and leaving the EU would “threaten our economic and national security”. • Michael Gove has said that the European Union is encouraging extremism across Europe as he joined five other cabinet ministers in breaking ranks with David Cameron to campaign to take Britain out of the EU. The justice secretary, one of the prime minister’s closest political friends, posed for for a photo with his cabinet colleagues at the headquarters of the Vote Leave campaign group shortly after a rare Saturday cabinet meeting. • A marathon round of talks over two days, during which the prime minister managed just three hours of sleep in the early hours of Friday morning, led to an agreement for the UK shortly after 9pm on Friday. In a lengthy statement, which will form the basis of his main message in the referendum, the prime minister said that he had strengthened his key demands since the European council president, Donald Tusk, outlined his draft agreement on 2 February. • Angela Merkel has said that the UK’s European Union deal had demanded “a lot of willingness for compromise”, but that such compromises were easier to justify if they meant Britain was more likely to stay in the EU. The question of “ever-closer union” had proved a particularly sensitive subject, the German chancellor said, because it was “an emotional issue” although one she is in favour of. As the so called “gang of six” of Tory cabinet ministers backing a vote to leave the UK posed next to a signed banner saying: “Let’s take back control”, Boris Johnson has been keeping Downing Street waiting about which way he will jump in the referendum campaign. The ’s Nick Watt reports: Amid some irritation in No 10, the London mayor is expected to wait until the prime minister outlines his plans to re-assert the sovereignty of parliament before announcing his plans. Johnson said last week that he would endorse one side in the referendum campaign with a “deafening éclat” soon after the prime minister reached a deal in Brussels. The mayor appears to have been wrongfooted by the prime minister’s decision to confirm within an hour of his deal in Brussels on Friday night that Gove would be campaigning for Brexit. The move by Gove puts immense pressure on the London mayor to join the leave side. He had hoped that the prime minister’s new parliamentary sovereignty initiative would give him an option to campaign for remain. Here’s a potentially interesting development in the race to become designated as the official campaign advocating for a vote for Britain to leave the European Union. Vote Leave has been competing with the rival group Leave.EU to be designated as the official Brexit campaign by the Electoral Commission. Figures from the cross-party Grassroots Out campaign, UKIP and Leave.EU - but not including Vote Leave - have formed an umbrella group which will pitch to become the official campaign. Crystal clear? Good. Get ready to see a lot more of that tie. Describing the deal negotiated by David Cameron in Brussels as “pathetic,” UKIP leader Nigel Farage has issued a statement welcoming the decision to hold the referendum: The 23rd is our golden opportunity, let battle be joined. Mr Cameron keeps on telling us that Britain would be better in a ‘reformed Europe’. But he fails to point out that there is no reformed European Union on offer here. The Prime Minister’s EU deal is pathetic. We must look forward to work with everybody who cares about our future, a future where the people of Britain controls her own borders, where we can make our own trade deals and make our own laws. We have the prospect of a free, secure prosperous and exciting future outside of the EU Not quite as exciting, perhaps, as the announcement of PJ Harvey’s return to Glastonbury, but an important one nonetheless for anyone under the impression that they could cast their referendum vote at the festival: So what can be expected over the next few months as that June 23 vote on EU membership approaches? The ’s Chris Johnston has put together a useful timetable. You can read it in full here, although below are some highlights: Monday 22 February The prime minister will address the House of Commons, which must formally approve the date for the referendum. March/April Secondary legislation that follows theEuropean Union Referendum Act 2015 will come before parliament to Six weeks to go In the run-up to the vote, there is a formal campaigning period during which rules on campaigning, spending and finances apply. The Electoral Commission will publish a timetable showing the dates and deadlines for the referendum Thursday 5 May Elections for devolved parliaments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will be held, along with the vote to decide’s London mayor and for control of many councils in England. Thursday 23 June Millions of voters will cast ballots to answer the question: “Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?” July and beyond If a majority vote to leave, the UK could do so two years after notifying the European Council of its intention. However, the process would not be simple and would still involve “complex and probably lengthy negotiations”, according to a parliamentary briefing paper (PDF). Staying with Scotland for a moment, the ’s Libby Brooks points out how there are a few Scottish #indyref cobwebs on some of the slogans being deployed by David Cameron at the outset of the European referendum. Scotland’s First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, has pledged that the Scottish National Party will lead a “positive and upbeat” campaign to keep Scotland in the EU. She said that the referendum has been driven by the Conservative Party’s longstanding internal divisions on Europe and the challenge to the party from UKIP, rather than by the specifics of David Cameron’s renegotiation. Sturgeon added: We made it clear to the Prime Minister that we were opposed to a June 23rd referendum, given the overlap with our own Scottish election – but now that that date has been named we will get on with the job of campaigning for an ‘in’ vote. It’s important that the campaign to remain in the EU learns the lessons of Scotland’s independence referendum, so that it does not lapse into scaremongering and fear – that is why the SNP will be a leading voice in the weeks and months ahead in making the positive case for Scotland and the rest of the UK remaining in Europe. She was never a politician that could easily be caged in though.. A good round-up of initial reactions across the European press to the UK-EU agreement is also here, courtesy of Vincenzo Scarpetta, a policy analyst at Open Europe. Le Figaro’s front page editorial, headlined: ‘The kiss of death’ jumps out: If Britain remains in the EU on the conditions it has been offered, it kills it. If it leaves, it kills it too…As it is not combined with a project of collective relaunch, the Brussels compromise puts the worm into the fruit. No-one has reason any longer to bend to the common rules, since one can escape them by means of a little blackmail. In Italy, Adriana Cerretelli, Brussels correspondent for business daily Il Sole 24 Ore, doesn’t think the deal will change much at all though: In the end, the agreement arrived – without winners or losers. A deal between opposed weaknesses, shared by both those who want more Europe and those who want less. Perhaps it wasn’t worth wasting so much time changing something that would change almost nothing. From Germany, the ’s Philip Oltermann draws attention to quite a strong comment piece in the newspaper, Die Zeit, where Matthias Krupa offers a damning critique of David Cameron’s strategy: He [Cameron] evoked the image of cumbersome Brussels bureaucracy because he is feeling the pressure at home. But this Brussels is yesterday’s cliche. While Aleppo is being bombarded and hundreds of thousands are fleeing their homes, Cameron has forced the EU to spend months engaging with the minutiae of the British benefits system. [...] The British prime minister isn’t the only one in the EU is questioning the union at the moment. But rarely has a national leader been so shameless in formulating and pursuing his national egotism as Cameron. If others follow his example, the union will not become stronger, but much weaker. The odds are strongly in favour of a vote for Britain to stay in the EU - but could change dramatically should Boris Johnson come out on the side to leave, according to the bookmaker, William Hill. Its Current odds are 2/7 for Britain to remain in the EU, and 5/2 to leave. Of the three regions in the UK William Hill is currently offering bets on, the odds suggest England, at 9/4, is more likely than Wales, at 3/1, and Scotland, at 6/1, to vote to leave. The social media war continues. Here’s a fresh tweet from David Cameron, framing his argument for a vote for Britain to remain in the UK, and linking to his statement earlier following this morning’s cabinet meeting: Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orban, has been framing the negotiations as a success from his country’s point of view. Dan Nolan reports on a press conference by Orban, who was a key negotiating partner for David Cameron over the past 12 months: Orbán said “The success of the negotiations is underlined by the fact that Hungarian workers will continue to have access to benefits, free from discrimination. Thanks to the results achieved at the negotiations, they will continue to be eligible for everything that they have paid for to date. The regulations on foreign workers have also remained unalterable. For those who have taken up employment in Britain and who have families, the negotiating parties have succeeded in ensuring that if their children live in another EU Member State they should be eligible for social benefits adjusted to the standard of living of the country of origin. Families whose children live in the United Kingdom will be eligible to all the benefits that are available to children in British families. “We have done everything we could; the decision now lies with the British. “The media hasn’t really evaluated it yet, as they have been so focussed on the immigration crisis until now,” according to Mariann Öry, a journalist at the pro-government Magyar Hírlap. She told the on Saturday afternoon that “I think yesterday evening the main question in all the newspapers was ‘what the hell should we write on the cover about the European conference?’” Hungarian Socialist Party MEO István Újhelyi called the deal “humilating” for Viktor Orbán, who “has never really cared about those he interests of young people and families who have left Hungary for the UK. They are even constantly lying about the numbers,” he added. There’s a view emerging in France that David Cameron came out on top during tussles in Brussels, reports Bruce Crumley, who has been looking at reactions for the In his own post-agreement comments on Friday French President François Hollande argued that nothing granted to London compromised any EU founding principles. “There were no exceptions (given) on single market rules, no revisions for treaties, there is no United Kingdom veto for the eurozone” Hollande declared, stressing Paris’ rejection of changes that could lead to The City gaining regulatory breaks or advantages that other European financial centres don’t enjoy,” he said. Not everyone was buying that claim of firmness, however. In his coverage, Libération’s Brussels’s correspondent Jean Quatremer quoted politicians from EU states criticizing the deal, and warned “concessions envisaged by the 28 (members) to avoid Brexit risk creating a dangerous precedent.” The story quoted Belgian Socialist Paul Magnette fretting the accord may mark “a potential unraveling” of the EU as other states similarly seek tailored rules. Magnette also spanked Hollande for caving in on fundamental issues he’d pledge to defend. “(The EU) should have been firm and told London, ‘Political declarations, perhaps, but no engagements that risk reversing European integration. Certainly not’,” Magnette said. Libération also quoted French centrist European MP Dominique Riquet complaining “the spectacle created by (threatened) Brexit is pathetic… It’s simple after all: if Great Britain doesn’t want to be in, then it’s out!” That latter view jibed with the majority of reader responses to coverage of the agreement – along with the prevailing sentiment that Cameron got the better of Hollande and other EU leaders. Bernard Monot, an EMP from anti-EU National Front agreed, told le Figaro that based on Cameron’s deal, “Frexit will be pasted from the Brexit model, and we’ll demand the same concessions as the United Kingdom.” So we’ve got the June 23 date for the referendum confirmed. But what’s it going to face in terms of competion? Well, for starters, there’s Glastonbury, which takes place on June 22-26. Make sure you arrange a postal vote as well as putting aside a pair of wellies. Plus it’s slap bang in the middle of the European Championships, which last from June 10 to July 10. Whether England or Wales will still be competing that that time is another matter (cough).. It’s doubtful that the reforms reached in Brussels by David Cameron will significantly bring down migration from the rest of the EU, according to the influential think tank, the Institute For Public Policy Research, which has released an analysis. IPPR Research Fellow, Marley Morris, adds however: Our research suggests that the public care about the issue of benefits in principle, because they see the current rules as unfair on Britain, and so the changes are an important part of the final deal. On the other hand, when discussing the draft deal with some of our research participants in Peterborough, they were unimpressed with the details of the emergency brake - particularly when they discovered that its use had to be authorised by other member states. The question now is whether, in the public’s mind, these changes will be perceived as a credible effort to address concerns or as too complicated and insubstantial to fully convince. Can David Cameron remain as leader and prime minister if the UK votes to leave the EU? “Yes he can stay, and he must,” Chris Grayling told BBC Radio 4. That would put Cameron in the position of having to be at the forefront of renegotiating Britain’s new position outside of Euope, something which he has described as a leap in the dark. Cameron is expected by many commentators to fall on his sword in the even of a vote to leave. Grayling said earlier that it wasn’t a question of not trusting the prime minister’s judgement, insisting that the Conservative Party would not be divided over the coming months. “We are friends and colleagues. We are not going to allow this to rip the Conservative party apart,” he added. Here’s a little more of what he said to Mark Mardell on the BBC’s World At One: Chris Grayling says David Cameron had moved mountains but that there is only “so much change” that the EU is willing to countenance. Speaking to BBC Radio 4 in the last few minutes, the leader of the House of Commons, said that the UK would be bit “part players” if it continued to remain in the EU. “There are whole series of key decisions which I think we need to be take in our national interest, and which we have given to the EU,” he added. He said that he had known for a long time that he would campaign against remaining in the EU, having sat through five years of “frustrating” meetings in Brussels. He instanced new pieces of legislation that he said added extra levels of bureaucracy, health and welfare costs. Does Michael Gove really add the intellectual heft to the ‘Leave’ side? John McTernan, a former adviser to the Blair government, is among those who think so: You can read Michael Gove’s statement in full here by the way Chris Grayling, the Leader of the House of Commons, has also been outlining his rationale for backing a vote to leave the EU. Glaringly at odds with the insistence of David Cameron (and notably, Theresa May) that Britain’s security considerations are better served by remaining in the EU, Gove says in his 1,574-word statement: Far from providing security in an uncertain world, the EU’s policies have become a source of instability and insecurity. Razor wire once more criss-crosses the continent, historic tensions between nations such as Greece and Germany have resurfaced in ugly ways and the EU is proving incapable of dealing with the current crises in Libya and Syria. He goes on to say that even though the UK is outside of the euro, it is still subject to an “unelected EU Commission which is generating new laws every day and an unaccountable European Court in Luxembourg which is extending its reach every week”. After going on to insist that the UK can “take back billions” it gives to the EU and forge new trade deals and partnerships with nations across the globe, he concludes the lengthy statement by saying: This chance may never come again in our lifetimes, which is why I will be true to my principles and take the opportunity this referendum provides to leave an EU mired in the past and embrace a better future. The Justice Secretary, Michael Gove, has released a statement explaining why he will be backing a vote for the UK to leave the EU. His starting point is simple, he says: I believe that the decisions which govern all our lives, the laws we must all obey and the taxes we must all pay should be decided by people we choose and who we can throw out if we want change. If power is to be used wisely, if we are to avoid corruption and complacency in high office, then the public must have the right to change laws and Governments at election time. But our membership of the European Union prevents us being able to change huge swathes of law and stops us being able to choose who makes critical decisions which affect all our lives. Laws which govern citizens in this country are decided by politicians from other nations who we never elected and can’t throw out. The Gang of Six? Let the bidding begin for the title of the Cabinet members on the ‘Leave side’. Or how about the “The Secessionist Six” ? (Copyright Tim Montgomergie) That’s a total of six cabinet members at the Vote Leave headquarters : Michael Gove, Priti Patel, John Whittingdale, Chris Grayling, Iain Duncan Smith and Theresa Villiers. It’s a pretty extraordinary photo, vividly illustrating that there will be a split in the cabinet until June 23. It’s an image that’s not without its problems however, noted by the New Statesman’s Stephen Bush : Michael Gove has arrived, with three other cabinet ministers, at the headquarters of the Vote Leave campaign, which tweets this picture: International development secretary, Justine Greening, will campaign for the UK to stay in the EU (as expected), “on the basis of safeguarding British jobs and influence.” Another minister for the ‘Vote Leave’ campaign: John Whittingdale, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport Andrea Leadsom, Minister of State for Energy at the Department of Energy and Climate Change, confirmed she will vote to leave the EU. If the UK chose to remain in the EU, Leadsom said that it would increasingly go from being a “senior partner” to a country whose views “count for little in Brussels and yet whose parliament is increasingly subservient to EU legislation.” Details of the ‘inners’ and ‘outers’ from the cabinet are filtering out now, putting to rest some doubts. Those backing an “In” include Sajid Javid, Business Secretary, and Jeremy Wright, Attorney General. Cameron confirms - as expected - that the referendum will take place on June 23. The prime minister said that the question will be about whether the UK “will be safer stronger and better off working in a reformed Europe or out on our own.” As expected, it was an address that was heavy on warnings of the risks to leaving the EU. Britain would be better able to fight crime and terrorism by remaining in the EU. David Cameron is now speaking outside of Downing Street, beginning by announcing the cabinet’s decision to back his deal, and saying that he wants to “speak directly to the British people.” “We are approaching one of the biggest decisions we will face in our lifetime - whether we want to remain in the European Union or leave,” he says, adding that it is about jobs, financial security and how we cooperate to keep our country strong. My responsibility is to speak plainly about what I believe is right about our country, says Cameron. Echoing a line he has used more than a few times in the past few months, he adds: “I do not love Brussels. I love Britain. I am the first to say that there are many ways for Europe to improve.” David Cameron has tweeted: Other than their opposition to the EU, those backing a Brexit are most obviously united by their unpopularity, according to the New Statesman’s New Statesman, George Eaton, who has written an interesting piece on the ‘Out’ campaign. George Galloway, Nigel Farage, Michael Gove and Iain Duncan Smith are all “15 per cent, not 50 per cent politicians,” he adds. He added: There is just one figure left who could notably improve the Out campaign’s standing: Boris Johnson. Polls have consistently shown the Mayor of London to be the country’s most popular politician (a status that reflects his lack of responsibility, some Tory MPs grumble). An Ipsos MORI survey this week found that only Cameron would have a bigger influence over how the public voted. There is no politician that the In campaign fears more. He can reach parts of the electorate that other Tories can’t, boasting the invaluable talent of making voters feel good about themselves. A podium has appeared outside 10 Downing Street. David Cameron is expected to come out within minutes. National newspaper reaction in the UK to David Cameron’s European Union deal was largely viewed through the prism of Michael Gove’s decision to out himself as an outer, according to Roy Greenslade. Here’s his round-up. Pro- or anti-EU? The ’s Rowena Mason has filed a handy guide to what we know so far about the stance of those within the cabinet. It includes three figures whose stance remains unclear: Robert Halfon, Conservative deputy chairman Halfon is a staunch Eurosceptic, telling Buzzfeed last year: “Yes, I would vote to leave but I genuinely want to see what Cameron does.” Since then, he has had a rapid rise under the sponsorship of Osborne, so it is possible he could be persuaded to back the remainers. Jeremy Wright, attorney general The government’s most senior lawyer is said to be torn about which side to support. Boris Johnson The London mayor is not a minister but he sits in Cameron’s political cabinet. He is thought to be an instinctive in-campaigner, but has flirted heavily with Euroscepticism in recent months and could make the leap to lead the out camp if he thought it had a chance of winning. To lead a victorious leave campaign would bolster his prime ministerial ambitions. The Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, has been talking about the approach he will take to the referendum, insisting that there has not been a “change of heart” by him on the issue of the European Union. Asked how he voted in the 1975 referendum on Britain’s membership of what was then called the European Economic Community, Corbyn said that he had voted against the UK’s continued membership, but told Sky News in the last few minutes: Things have obviously changed particularly in the sense of the economic direction in this country and the number of jobs that are dependent on Europe. If Britain was not part of the EU there could be enormous difficulties. Asked if it was important that the EU existed as a unit in the first place, he responded: I think the EU is a strong economic unit and it is important that it is a strong economic unit but it has to deliver for all. David Cameron and others in the EU, he said, were pursuing an “austerity agenda”. Labour was opposed to this and wanted to work with others in the EU for change. In relation to the referendum, he added There is not going to be a joint campaign . There is going to be a Labour campaign asking people to vote in the direction I have indicated. Asked what the approach would be towards members of the party who disagreed with his position on Europe and the upcoming referendum, he replied. Every member of parliament and the shadow cabinet will make up their minds. There won’t be any sanctions against people who take a different point of view. So far, notable Labour MPs who will be campaigning for Britain to leave the EU include Kate Hoey and Frank Field. Doubts still remain about Corbyn’s enthusiasm too however: From Spain, Stephen Burgen reports that the Spanish media has yet to get too worked up about last night’s deal, although here’s a line from Eliseo Oliveras in El Periódico: The concession to British blackmail consolidates the EU’s double standards: a generous accommodation of the demands of the powerful countries (Great Britain, Germany, France) and the implacable imposition of diktats on the weak (Greece and Spain). The veteran Tory eurosceptic MP, Bill Cash, has been attacking the deal this morning, describing it as a “spin operation on very flimsy and insubstantial grounds.” The bottom line is that it’s not legally binding and irreversible. There is no reference to irreversibility and that matters When the British voter goes to the polls on the basis of this package they will want to have a guarantee that what has actually been negotiated will actually happen - and the answer is no, there is none. It’s “the emperor with hardly any clothes on,” he added. Some reaction from Poland now. That country’s Europe minister, Konrad Szymański, told Polish journalists in Brussels overnight that the deal reached in Brussels will consolidate his country’s links with Britain as an ally against French, German and Euro zone dominace of the EU. He said: The presence of Great Britain in the EU has a huge meaning because of the political balance Poland brings into the EU. This is particularly important for central Europe because there is a shared sensitivity concerning both transatlantic relations and the common market. Alex Duval Smith reports for the : Poland’s current foreign policy priority - which has topped the agenda in the government’s talks with Cameron ahead of the EU deal - is to secure a permanent Nato troop presence on its territory. The position is supported by the broader so-called Visegrad group, including the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia, and by the Baltic States. But historic agreements prevent Nato from creating bases in countries of the former Eastern bloc. The current solution, which Britain has signalled it will support, is a calendar of rolling troop exercises in central Europe - with a focus on Poland - that would, de facto, ensure there are always alliance troops in Poland. The Polish prime minister,Beata Szydło, welcomed the deal. She told Polish journalists in Brussels overnight: “There is an agreement and it has not been reached at any price. This was our starting point. When we went to Brussels we had the goal of defending the rights of Polish workers and citizens living and working in Great Britain. I can say with satisfaction that after difficult negotiations we have succeeded in realising out goals.” The issue of benefit payments collected by Poles working in Britain and sent home as part of remittance payments has receded in recent years, amid evidence that Polish emigration to the rest of the EU is in decline due to improved economic opportunities in Poland. The ’s Berlin Bureau Chief, Phillip Oltermann, reports on reaction in Germany to Friday night’s deal. According to German weekly Spiegel, what looked like a staged drama came close to being a real tragedy: “It was the Cameron show we expected. With numerous crises facing the EU at the moment, it was in no one’s interest that the Brits leave the union and weaken it further. Therefore many observers expected EU leaders to put in a little drama even if an agreement was as good as certain, so that Cameron could present himself as the winner. Only then, the calculation went, he could sell the deal to his people as a roaring success.” But when Greek PM Alexis Tsipras threatened his veto, however, it became clear: “this is no longer a show. The unity of the EU really was hanging in the balance.” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung doesn’t believe that Britain opting out of “ever closer union” has anything but symbolic value: “Sober realpolitician Merkel knows of course that neither the stated goal of the treaty or its newly agreed interpretation have any legal significance”. In the light of this, the paper’s Brussels correspondent wrote, it was nonsense to pretend the deal implied the kind of “thorough reform of the EU” that Cameron had originally proposed. In tabloid Bild, commentator Nikolaus Blome is pleased to both Brits and EU leaders finally came to their senses: “Luckily, both the EU commission and other leaders eventually realised that while the Brits would damage themselves with a Brexit, the EU would practically be destroyed with it. That’s a change from a year ago, when the impression was that the Brits were “only” threatening us with their own suicide”. Here’s a round-up of political reaction from MPs, world leaders and others to the deal reached in Brussels. The Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, has described the deal which David Cameron negotiated in Brussels as a “sideshow”, but reiterated that Labour would be campaigning to keep Britain in the European Union. Here’s a statement issued by his office Despite the fanfare, the deal that David Cameron has made in Brussels on Britain’s relationship with the EU is a sideshow, and the changes he has negotiated are largely irrelevant to the problems most British people face and the decision we must now make. His priorities in these negotiations have been to appease his opponents in the Conservative Party. He has done nothing to promote secure jobs, protect our steel industry, or stop the spread of low pay and the undercutting of wages in Britain. Labour’s priorities for reform in the EU would be different, and David Cameron’s deal is a missed opportunity to make the real changes we need. We will be campaigning to keep Britain in Europe in the coming referendum, regardless of David Cameron’s tinkering, because it brings investment, jobs and protection for British workers and consumers. Labour believes the EU is a vital framework for European trade and cooperation in the 21st century, and that a vote to remain in Europe is in the best interests of our people. Sajid Javid, another member of the cabinet who some commentators had thought was on the fence, will also back the campaign for the UK to remain in the UK, according to The Spectator. James Forsyth writes: Those familiar with the Business Secretary’s thinking say that what has swung Javid to IN is his sense that it is just too risky for Britain to leave right now given the parlous state of the global economy. I suspect that he will be deployed by the IN campaign to try and persuade those crucial swing voters who are attracted to the idea of getting Out of the EU but are worried about the risks in doing so. Tim Shipman, Political Editor at the Sunday Times, tweets his thoughts on that: It’s going to be interesting to see how the Vote Leave campaign deals with Theresa May’s emphasis on security as convincing argument for why she is supporting a vote to remain in the EU. What a difference four months makes however. Back in November, UKIP leader Nigel Farage was saying that he would be delighted if the Home Secretary wanted to lead the official campaign for Britain to leave the European Union. Here’s Theresa May’s statement on why she is backing David Cameron’s deal and will be campaigning for the UK to remain in the EU: It means we keep control of our right to decide which criminal justice measures we participate in. It strengthens our ability to deport dangerous foreign criminals. And while European countries must work together to tackle terrorism, it makes clear that our national security is ultimately our responsibility, not Europe’s. The EU is far from perfect, and no one should be in any doubt that this deal must be part of an ongoing process of change and reform – crucial if it is to succeed in a changing world. But in my view - for reasons of security, protection against crime and terrorism, trade with Europe, and access to markets around the world - it is in the national interest to remain a member of the European Union. Home Secretary Theresa May is to campaign to remain in the EU. It’s a potentially key development as, at one point last year, she was thought to be a possible leader of the ‘Leave’ campaign. Michael Gove has arrived at Downing Street, but told reporters as he left his home earlier that would be making a statement after the cabinet meeting today. Senior figures in the out campaign, and others, believe there are as many as five cabinet ministers ready to swing behind their drive to exit the EU. These had been thought likely to include be Chris Grayling, Iain Duncan Smith, Priti Patel, Theresa Villiers and John Whittingdale. However, the headlines today will focus on those currently regarded as ‘swingers’, such as Sajid Javid. Here’s a wrap, from our team in Brussels and London, of events over the past 48 hours and that happens next. David Cameron is expected to call his referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU after a meeting with cabinet ministers on Saturday morning, following days of negotiation with European leaders on the UK’s status in the organisation. After securing a deal with 27 other EU leaders to change Britain’s relationship with Brussels, the prime minister is likely to name the date for an in/out vote as 23 June, allowing less than four months for campaigning. The emergency cabinet meeting on Saturday morning will end collective responsibility that forces ministers to back Cameron’s negotiating strategy, meaning those who want to leave will soon be free to start making their cases for Brexit. Here’s a recap of what David Cameron wanted to get in Brussels... and what he got: The inclusion of Michael Gove in the ‘Leave’ campaign will give it some intellectual credibility, according to the SNP MP and former Scottish First Minister, Alex Salmond. He told the BBC in the last few minutes that Gove will give Brexiteers some weight, even if he wasn’t a populist or charismatic politician, and contrasted him with what he felt might be a negative impact from George Galloway. Salmond was also eager to keep up pressure on David Cameron however, accusing him of obsessing, as a result of internal Tory divisions, over “minutiae” such as the question of benefits which EU migrants could draw in the UK. What really mattered in the debate, he said, were issues like free trade and European peace and security, adding: It will require a considerable gear change from the Prime Minister and it remains to be seen whether he is up for speaking about the big issues rather than concentrating on the marginal ones. He also sounded a warning about pitfalls which might be in store for the ‘Stay in the EU’ campaign however, saying: If both sides engaged in the negativity we have seen so far then I think there is a real danger that the ‘leave’ campaign will get some additional traction. George Galloway’s suprise appearance at last night’s Grassroots Out rally in London, which caused a walkout by some of those in the crowd, continues to cause ripples in pro-Brexit circles. However, here’s the Ukip MP Douglas Carswell -- not always a happy camper alongside others campaigning for Britain to leave the EU, and that’s perhaps an understatement -- borrowing from some 1994 Galloway comments to Saddam Hussein. The Conservative MP he’s corresponding with, Conor Burns, tweeted last night: Oliver Letwin, who was a noted eurosceptic in the past but is now a key player behind Cameron’s strategy, has told Sky News that he will be voting for the UK to remain in the EU. Hardly a shock, but worth noting (and it least shows that sometimes reporters get an answer to a shouted question in the street). The cabinet meeting has been set for 10am. One particular figure of interest is the Justice Secretary, Michael Gove, who is expected to come out afterwards as a supporter of a vote for the UK to leave the EU Speaking in Brussels on Friday night, David Cameron sought to make light of Gove’s imminent decision to campaign to leave the European Union, saying he is “disappointed but ... not surprised”. During a press conference after striking a deal at the Brussels summit, Cameron said: Michael is one of my oldest and closest friends but he has wanted to get Britain to pull out of the EU for about 30 years. “So of course I am disappointed that we are not going to be on the same side as we have this vital argument about our country’s future. I am disappointed but I am not surprised. The BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg tweets: There are slightly more cameras than usual at Downing Street than other Saturday mornings. Ministers have been arriving at Downing Street for what will be the first cabinet meeting to be held on a Saturday since the Falklands War. Osborne is already there, as are a number of others, for what will effectively be the starting gun in the campaign for the Prime Minister’s referendu. We’ll hear a little later what date has been set for the EU referendum - although even the dogs in the street will tell you that the most likely one is June 23. George Osborne was also challenged to convince Boris Johnson - who has yet to announce publicly on which side of the EU referendum he will come down on. He didn’t sound entirely optimistic that Johnson was going to line up beside him and David Cameron though. Boris will make his own decision. The great thing is that Boris and I each have one vote and there are millions of people listening who can make their own decisions and they have an equal vote too. Osborne came under pressure to reject suggestions that the deal’s restrictions on benefits for the families EU migrants in Britain was based on a “straw man” - specifically on the basis of HMRC figures showing that only 16 percent of migrants who arrived between 2010 and 2014 claimed tax credits. Have a listen to John Humphreys tackling Osborn on that: Osborne’s interview gave clear signals of how the government intends to pursue the campaign. There was a lot of emphasis on the word “special status” while the words “security” and “risk” as well as the phrase “leap in the dark” were also used. Under pressured to defend the deal, he added that “of course it has its faults and can be improved” but he asked of Britain’s place in the EU: Do we leave… do we go for that leap in the dark, with all the risk to our national security… that is the question which everyone is listening, will have to make. The Chancellor of the exchequer, George Osborne, has been trumpeting the package which David Cameron has brought back from Brussels. Speaking in the last 20 minutes on BBC Radio 4, Osborne came under intense pressure to justify how the deal is as radical as David Cameron had been hoping for. Osborne said: It’s a change to the fundamental treaties which underline the European Union which says that Britain is no longer part of ever closer European Union. For as long as I can remember, Britain has been a reluctant partner [in the EU and its predecessors] partly because we have been committed to this ever close union and we have always been uncomfortable with that Successive prime ministers have always kept us out of things like the Euro… But what David Cameron has achieved and what no Prime Minister has achieved , is that Britain is no longer committed to that ever closer integration, a European super state [John Humphrys splutters] We are not part of it now and I think that is a fundamentally more comfortable position that the UK is in this morning. This is Ben Quinn picking up the blog now. You can follow me on Twitter at @BenQuinn75 Reaction is continuing from political figures across Europe. Shadow foreign secretary Hilary Benn said the renegotiation was purely designed to deal with Conservative dissent, but welcomed elements of the deal and said Labour stood solidly behind continued EU membership. Mr Cameron “has done what he decided he had to do because he was too weak to stand up to his political party”, he told BBC Radio 4’s Today - saying the “red card” and protections for non-euro countries had been Labour demands. He said only a very small number of Opposition MPs would campaign for “Leave”. He added: “The vast majority of Labour MPs, the Labour movement, the Labour Party conference, the trade union movement, supports our continued membership. “Why? Because being in the EU has given us jobs, investment, growth. It gives us security and it gives us influence in the world. Why would we want to exchange all of that for a leap into the unknown?” Meanwhile, Nicola Sturgeon has pledged that her Government will be at the forefront of making the argument for keeping Scotland in the European Union. The First Minister said it is more important than ever that those who support Scotland’s membership speak out, following David Cameron’s reform deal struck after marathon talks in Brussels. Ms Sturgeon said: “The conclusion of an agreement at the European Council means the focus can now shift to the bigger and much more important matter of why our continued European Union membership is overwhelmingly in Scotland and the UK’s best interests. “For more than 40 years, individuals, businesses and communities across Scotland have experienced the many social, economic and cultural benefits of EU membership.” A round-up of views from the media today shows, as you might well have anticipated, that opinion is very much divided on the scale/nature/existence of Cameron’s achievement in Brussels. The The don’t-knows are likely to care a lot about the outcome that was confirmed on Friday and are right to do so. Their verdict will move votes one way or another. The fact that Mr Cameron, one of the few politicians with positive ratings, is recommending it may weigh with them too … Mr Cameron did not need to take the route he has taken on Europe in the first place. The whole renegotiation was a gambling of Britain’s place in Europe in the case of Tory party management. But, having embarked on it, he has delivered a package that those who have not made up their minds should take very seriously indeed. The Times [David Cameron] wants, he says, a “live-and-let-live” Europe. This at least captures the essence of a Europe in which Britain could be socially comfortable and an engine of prosperity without chafing under unsolicited red tape and undemocratic laws. A live-and-let-live Europe is what Mr Cameron promised along with a referendum. His problem, and Britain’s, is that he has not delivered it. He has hitched himself instead to a Europe whose eastern members remain determined to keep access to the British labour market on favourable terms, and in which France resents the dominance of the City and wants to cut it down to size. Read it in full here. The Telegraph The EU is arcane and sclerotic – and the events of the past few days have proved it. It cannot adapt to suit changing circumstances or to meet the demands of political crises. Now the British voters have their chance to pass a verdict not only on this deal but the entire European project. Hopefully the pro-EU and Brexit activists will rise to the occasion, offering a campaign rooted in facts and reason rather than fear mongering. Britain has an opportunity, finally, to take its destiny into its own hands. Whatever people might think of the strengths and weaknesses of this deal, Mr Cameron deserves credit for giving us that much. Read it in full here. The Daily Mail One thing is clear. Nothing agreed in Brussels will tempt a single voter to cross from the Out to the In camp (though it may swing some people the other way). Nor will these renegotiations begin to serve the cynical purpose for which Mr Cameron embarked on them. For far from healing the Tory Party’s age-old rift over Europe, it promises only to increase the bitterness. Indeed, the prime minister comes out of this sorry saga badly wounded, just eight months after his surprise election triumph made him look all but invincible on the domestic political battleground. But it is not too late for him to redeem himself. He should tell voters, humbly and frankly, that he has tried hard but failed to secure a deal worth having. Read it in full here. If you’re just joining the blog, welcome (were you up all night reading EU documents, or something?). Here’s where we’re up to so far on Saturday, as we await David Cameron’s weekend cabinet meeting. What we know David Cameron has claimed victory and pledged to campaign with “all my heart and soul” to keep Britain inside the EU after a deal was struck on Friday evening to redraw the terms of the UK’s membership. Leaders of the other 27 member nations agreed to a deal that will see: a seven-year term for the emergency brake to restrict EU migrants in the UK claiming in-work benefits. child benefit payments indexed to the cost of living for children living outside the UK for all new arrivals to the UK, extending to all workers from 1 January 2020. any single non-eurozone country able to force a debate among EU leaders about ‘problem’ eurozone laws – though they will not have a veto. an unequivocal opt-out stating that EU treaty “references to ever-closer union do not apply to the United Kingdom”. What we don’t yet know The date of the in/out referendum, widely believed, but not confirmed, to be 23 June. Whether Michael Gove will make the leap from eurosceptic to full-blown no campaigner – and which other prominent Conservatives, such as Boris Johnson, might also range themselves against their party leader. Cameron signalled that he expected Gove to go his own way, saying on Friday night: Michael is one of my oldest and closest friends but he has wanted to get Britain to pull out of the EU for about 30 years. So of course I am disappointed that we are not going to be on the same side as we have this vital argument about our country’s future. I am disappointed but I am not surprised. What happens next Cameron has summoned his cabinet to a meeting on Saturday morning – reportedly the first time the cabinet has met on a Saturday since the Falklands war. The prime minister will announce that the government endorses the deal and will campaign for the UK to stay in the EU – but this lets off the leash those members of the cabinet who oppose membership and will now be free to campaign for a no vote. The later edition of Saturday’s front page caught the deal being sealed: As a counterpoint to those EU leaders applauding the deal, those favouring Brexit said it was not enough to sway them. Ukip leader Nigel Farage wasn’t won over: Labour MP Frank Field said he would be campaigning for a no vote in the referendum: The vote no campaign saw the deal as further grist to its mill: Eurosceptic Tory MEP Daniel Hannan suggested the last-minute agreement was an act of showmanship: And Rupert Murdoch – like Cameron – seemed convinced that Michael Gove will be campaigning for Brexit: David Cameron’s tweet claiming “I have negotiated a deal to give the UK special status in the EU” has been knocked back by others involved in the deal, Jennifer Rankin reports. EU officials downplayed Cameron’s claims, pointing out that the agreement confirmed Britain’s place as the country with the largest number of opt-outs and exclusions from EU law. “Having a special status is not a reason for divorce,” said one senior official. European council president Donald Tusk said: The special status of the UK is nothing new – in fact, it is the essence of our common history. Jean-Claude Juncker pointed out that: The UK has always had special and specific status. EU officials stressed that the “self-destruct clause” remains intact, meaning that if Britain votes to leave the European Union, the deal will disappear. European leaders have expressed their support for the deal – some more enthusiastically than others. Donald Tusk The president of the European Council said the deal had been unanimously agreed by all 28 leaders: I deeply believe the UK needs Europe and Europe needs the UK. But the final decision is in the hands of the British people. We didn’t walk away from the negotiating table. We were willing to sacrifice part of our interests for the common good, to show our unity. The #UKinEU settlement addresses all of David Cameron’s concerns without compromising our fundamental values. Angela Merkel The German chancellor said the British deal was a fair compromise that introduced “a number of very interesting and valuable changes to the EU”: We believe that with this we have given David Cameron a package with which he can campaign in Britain for Britain to stay in the European Union… I wish David Cameron all the best in the coming weeks and months. She said Germany would consider introducing similar restrictions on child benefit and rejected criticism that “we’ve given away too much” – although she conceded that the the issue of ever-closer union had been difficult to agree: That’s an emotional issue. I am one of those who are for it. Jean-Claude Juncker The president of the European Commission said the deal was fair to Britain and the other member states: The deal does not deepen cracks in our union, but builds bridges. Beata Szydło The prime minister of Poland, whose citizens in the UK are likely to be among those most affected by the rule changes on benefits, tweeted in cautious support of the deal: Today’s agreement is good news for Europe. We took care of the interests of the Polish people benefiting from social security in the member states. Enda Kenny The Irish taoiseach said he supported strongly the idea that Britian should stay in the EU, but cautioned: This is only the start of the process … The campaign begins here and it will be very challenging, given the circumstances that apply in Britain. Matteo Renzi The Italian PM sounded pleased that the summit was over: The fact that we can go home now is also a step forward because at a certain point even that wasn’t a given. If you’re after up-to-the-minute coverage of the aftermath of David Cameron’s EU deal – secured in a late-night coming-together in Brussels on Friday – as the prime minister takes the detail of the agreement to his fractious cabinet, then happy Saturday: you’ve come to the right place. What we know David Cameron has claimed victory and pledged to campaign with “all my heart and soul” to keep Britain inside the EU after a deal was struck on Friday evening to redraw the terms of the UK’s membership. Leaders of the other 27 member nations agreed to a deal that will see: a seven-year term for the emergency brake to restrict EU migrants in the UK claiming in-work benefits. child benefit payments indexed to the cost of living for children living outside the UK for all new arrivals to the UK, extending to all workers from 1 January 2020. any single non-eurozone country able to force a debate among EU leaders about ‘problem’ eurozone laws – though they will not have a veto. an unequivocal opt-out stating that EU treaty “references to ever-closer union do not apply to the United Kingdom”. What we don’t yet know The date of the in/out referendum, widely believed, but not confirmed, to be 23 June. Whether Michael Gove will make the leap from eurosceptic to full-blown no campaigner – and which other prominent Conservatives, such as Boris Johnson, might also range themselves against their party leader. Cameron signalled that he expected Gove to go his own way, saying on Friday night: Michael is one of my oldest and closest friends but he has wanted to get Britain to pull out of the EU for about 30 years. So of course I am disappointed that we are not going to be on the same side as we have this vital argument about our country’s future. I am disappointed but I am not surprised. What happens next Cameron has summoned his cabinet to a meeting on Saturday morning – reportedly the first time the cabinet has met on a Saturday since the Falklands war. The prime minister will announce that the government endorses the deal and will campaign for the UK to stay in the EU – but this lets off the leash those members of the cabinet who oppose membership and will now be free to campaign for a no vote. Morning reading list Cameron will put ‘heart and soul’ into staying in EU after sealing deal David Cameron’s EU deal: what he wanted and what he got Teabags and treachery: how the talks unfolded Natalie Nougayrède: Cameron must now show he can be a constructive EU player Matthew d’Ancona: Cameron’s dogged work won tussle in Brussels – now he faces fight at home John Crace: Grassroots Out unites politicians – the ones we normally try to avoid
Activists urge US to end ban on gay men donating blood after Orlando massacre HIV experts and LGBT advocates across the country are calling on the US government to end its “discriminatory” ban on blood donations from gay men, with a renewed policy push emerging from the mass shooting that killed 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando. Some advocates hope the harsh reality in Orlando – that gay men can’t donate blood to support those suffering from one of the worst attacks on LGBT people in American history – will push lawmakers and the FDA to end its ban altogether. On Tuesday, which was World Blood Donor Day, a group of Democratic lawmakers sent a letter to the FDA noting that there is a dire need for blood in Orlando and urging federal officials to eliminate the 12-month regulation. Supporters pushing for reform argue that the FDA could end its restrictions without legislation. Scott Wiener, a supervisor in San Francisco who is gay and who has criticized the restrictions, said the time was right to enact reforms. “It adds insult to injury. Here we have someone who murders 50 of our brothers and sisters, and then our own government turns around and says we’re not allowed to help them simply because we’re gay,” he said Tuesday. “There is no basis in science for this ban, and that is pure and simple discrimination.” Despite the call from some in Congress for federal officials to “swiftly” end the ban and establish a “less discriminatory system”, the FDA on Tuesday said that it had no plans to change its policy. “The FDA has examined the possibility of eliminating all deferrals for HIV and simply relying on testing of donated blood or reducing the deferral window; however, scientifically robust data are not available to show that this would not lead to decreased safety of the blood supply,” the agency said in a statement to the . “Therefore, deferral policies continue to have an important role in ensuring the safety of the blood supply.” The statement said the FDA would reevaluate its policies “as new scientific information becomes available”. In the wake of the deadliest US mass shooting in modern history, which also left more than 50 people injured on Sunday, local blood banks in Florida issued urgent calls for donations. But gay men who wanted to donate blood to people recovering from the attack at Pulse nightclub were unable to offer their support. That’s because the FDA bans men who have had sex with men in the previous 12 months from donating blood – despite repeated testimony from medical experts arguing that the restriction is not supported by scientific evidence. “This really is an important moment, and we need to call it what it is, which is an irrational ban,” said Paul Volberding, director of the Aids Research Institute at the University of California at San Francisco. “This is based on fear and stigma, and there’s no other way to see it.” But Hyman Scott, research scientist with Bridge HIV, a program of the San Francisco department of public health, said there are no studies showing that shorter bans or no bans would increase donations of HIV-infected blood. “The tools we have available don’t support that the one-year ban is necessary.” In December, the FDA eliminated its longstanding lifetime ban barring gay and bisexual men from donating blood, instead requiring that they abstain from sex for a year before they can donate. But LGBT activists have argued that the one-year waiting period is effectively a ban on queer men and is a discriminatory rule that continues to unnecessarily block a huge segment of the population from giving blood without any public health justification. Testing technology has improved dramatically since the donation restrictions emerged in 1983 during the HIV/Aids epidemic, and experts contend that HIV-positive donors can now be screened out. The American Medical Association argues that the deferral periods should be rooted in science and that the government should consistently apply the rules based on donors’ risk factors – not their sexual orientation. Argentina ended its ban on gay and bisexual men donating blood last year, and Italy has also transitioned away from a total ban on gay men, instead assessing individuals based on risk. The UK and Australia have similar policies as the US, with 12-month deferrals. For some LGBT people who were eager to donate blood, the ban has exacerbated the trauma of the violence at Pulse that resulted in the deaths of dozens of queer people and Latinos. “This was a very important and tangible way we could go and support other members of the community,” said Jeff Sheehy, an HIV advocate on the board of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine. “To be denied that by an outdated rule that’s really based more on prejudice than science at this point is hurtful … It reminds us that in many ways, our civil rights are still not fully recognized throughout the country.”
Adele headlines Saturday at Glastonbury 2016 – review Adele as Glastonbury’s Saturday night headliner is an intriguing choice. On the one hand, it feels like a coup for the festival: she’s unequivocally the biggest pop star in the world at the moment. On the other, as she herself notes early on in her set: “I don’t have a lot of upbeat, happy songs, which is why I think people were annoyed at me playing. But fuck them, eh?” The audience seem to agree: up against fairly stiff competition around the site, including New Order and James Blake, the crowd is immense, even by Pyramid Stage headliner standards. Adele herself seems genuinely and rather touchingly overwhelmed; she lets out a squawk of “fuckin’ ’ell” midway through the opener, Hello – its lyrics amended to mention the festival – and, for the first few songs at least, she confines her on stage chat to mutters of “this is mad”, before announcing that it’s “the best fuckin’ moment of my life”. She talks about visiting the festival when she was seven and shows a clip of her first performance here – in the ’s Live Lounge tent nine years ago, to a handful of people. As it turns out, her performance works really well. There’s something endearing about the vast contrast between Adele the singer – slick and professional, and, almost uniquely among mega-selling divas, not given to rococo embellishments – and Adele the person who speaks into the microphone between songs, who swears so profusely that, she proudly announces, the BBC have had to put a warning out about her language before broadcasting the show live, and who inquires about the state of the front row’s bowels. She puts up quite a charm offensive: plunging into the crowd and reappearing wearing a fez; addressing them as “my darlings”; dragging audience members on stage for selfies; appearing to be on verge of tears when the crowd raise their mobile phones during her cover of Bob Dylan’s Make You Feel My Love. The set, meanwhile, is comprised almost entirely of hits, the familiarity of the songs ameliorating the almost total lack of anything you can dance to, a potent version of Rolling in the Deep notwithstanding. If rolling out the baby photos on the big screens during When We Were Young feels a bit mawkish, her Bond theme Skyfall and Set Fire to the Rain both sound gripping and dramatic. She ends with Someone Like You, leaving the stage before the song ends. There’s no encore. It’s her most famous track, but in a way, it’s still an oddly downbeat conclusion: going out not with a bang, but a sombre piano ballad, albeit one that turns into a vast communal singalong. But the audience don’t seem to mind: they drift off into the night, still singing the chorus en masse.
Donald Trump threatens to freeze US-Cuba thaw days after Castro's death Donald Trump has threatened to reimpose sanctions on Cuba that had been lifted by the Obama administration, but has provided no details or explanation. The threat came – like many of the president-elect’s statements since his upset victory on 8 November – in the form of a tweet, that raised more questions than answers. The tweet, coming two days after the death of Fidel Castro, appeared to restate threats made during the election campaign to reverse the opening to Havana made by the Obama administration over the past year, including an end to the travel ban, the resumption of commercial flights and the relaxation of some trade restrictions. Some analysts said they did not expect Trump to rescind the executive orders that relaxed the half-century embargo on Cuba since Castro came to power, citing the pro-business lobby in the Republican party and Trump’s own commercial instincts. However, conservative Cuban Americans – including Mauricio Claver-Carone, a hardline member of Trump’s transition team – have said the regime run by Raúl Castro, Fidel’s brother, is just as repressive, and argue that some or all of the sanctions should be reinstated. Reince Priebus, whom Trump has appointed as his White House chief of staff, said that Trump would reverse US policy on Cuba if there are not greater political reforms. “These things need to change,” Priebus told Fox News on Sunday. “This isn’t going to be one way. I think the president-elect has been clear on this.” Ana Quintana, a policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation who advocates a tougher policy towards the Cuban government, said: “All the indications are that he will roll back many of the executive actions – if we look at the appointments to his transition team, like Claver-Carone, who is a very vocal advocate against the opening, and rightfully so.” “Trump’s business sense and business acumen will overwhelmingly draw him to roll back on the opening,” Quintana added, saying that some other foreign companies who have started doing business in Cuba recently have had their assets confiscated. Peter Harrell, a former undersecretary of state for counter-threat financing and sanctions, said: “Trump and others are talking less about rolling back sanctions, as much as demanding things from Cuba to avoid rolling back.” However, in the absence on concessions from Havana, Harrell predicted the incoming administration could cut back aspects of the Obama policy initiative that involved dealing directly with the Cuban government. “There are some deals with Cuban entities with links to the military and with government entities. I think these would be higher on the chopping block than people-to-people exchanges,” said Harrell, now an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security. It will be hard, though not impossible, to roll back the easing of travel restrictions which seem to have pretty broad support.” On Monday, the airline company JetBlue made the first commercial flight from New York to Havana in more than a half century, and American Airlines flew its first service from Miami.
The view on Donald Trump’s malign influence on the world The latest furore over Hillary Clinton’s alleged misuse of private emails when she was secretary of state in 2009-2013 has thrown a tumultuous and unedifying US presidential election into even greater confusion, with little more than a week to go before voting day. The FBI’s unexpected and very public revelation that it is recommencing its investigation into Clinton’s conduct may not be politically motivated, but its timing certainly makes it appear that way. The row represents yet another hammer blow to a democratic process whose credibility has been repeatedly challenged, principally by the unscrupulous Republican candidate, Donald Trump. Despite this new firestorm, stoked by Republicans and rightwing media, it remains likely that American voters will deliver a clear, possibly resounding, rejection of Trump on 8 November. Although opinion polls show the race tightening nationally and nothing is certain as a febrile campaign climaxes, Clinton is ahead almost everywhere that matters – and she is the sane and reasonable, if uninspiring, choice. A Trump defeat will be richly deserved. As we have noted previously, he is not a fit and proper person to serve in the White House. His behaviour during a long, raucous and often embarrassingly vulgar campaign made that abundantly plain. Yet consigning “the Donald” to the rubbish bin of electoral history is easier than getting rid of Trumpism. This is likely to take a lot longer. Trump’s platform was based not on thought-through policies and careful analysis but on prejudice, grievance, ignorance and fear, spiced with opportunism. His unexpected success in winning the nomination, despite the Republican establishment’s hostility, reflected his close identification with mainly white, working-class and lower-middle-class voters who, like him, feel angry, undervalued and alienated. While public figures such as Barack Obama, Trump’s failed Republican rival Jeb Bush and Clinton appear to this constituency to be remote, out of touch and uncaring, Trumpism peddles the delusion that the candidate is “on their side”. Again and again, in Ohio, Florida and elsewhere, disaffected voters claimed that only Trump could be trusted to tell the “truth”, only Trump would keep his promises, only Trump could make America great again. Oblivious to paradox, irony, history or facts, Trumpism projects a distorted vision of American greatness. The Trump doctrine decrees that a nation built by immigrants, that became the most powerful on Earth is so scared of migrant and refugee hordes that it must build a 2,000-mile wall with Mexico. Trumpism holds that a great nation that incorporated religious tolerance into its groundbreaking constitution and bill of rights must now shatter its own principles and deliberately discriminate against Muslims to keep itself safe. As general concepts, Trumpism makes an enemy of the “other”, equates nationality with homogeneity, calls honest critics liars and seeks to threaten, jail or harm opponents. It says individualism outweighs state authority, as in the unfettered right to bear firearms, but not, perversely, in the case of a woman’s right to choose abortion. Trumpism distrusts and fears foreigners. It believes free trade, international treaties and economic globalisation in general are loaded dice intended to rip off Americans. Paranoid Trumpism holds that long-term allies such as Germany and Japan get a free security ride at America’s expense. Trumpism admires the domestic authoritarianism and international bullying of dictatorships in Russia and China. Vladimir Putin is a strong leader standing up for his people, national beliefs and way of life. Any inconvenient truth that contradicts this or other Trumpist narratives is inherently mendacious, part of a web of lies and falsehoods spun by the treacherous mass media conspiring with the establishment to dupe honest citizens. And don’t forget: Trumpism cannot be fairly defeated. If it loses, it was cheated for sure. Trumpism appeals to the worst in people, cynically exploiting and fanning the anger, grievances and prejudices of the economically disadvantaged, the embittered, uneducated and plain ignorant. It appeals to base instincts, to lowest common denominators. Its is political dumbing down writ large. It is underpinned by a pervasive and comprehensible insecurity, engendered across the west by post-2008 economic injustice and social division, the growing gulf between rich and poor and incompetent, unfeeling or corrupt governance. Fear is the common enemy, but fear is Trumpism’s friend. This phenomenon is not confined to America. European countries, including Britain, experience variations on the theme. In Germany and France, concern about rising immigration has boosted hardline nationalists whose appeal and disturbing ideology extend far beyond the cathartic issue of Syria. In Greece, Poland, Austria and Hungary, rightwing extremists’ evil, dehumanising ideas about refugees, migrants and foreigners in general have become a commonplace of political discussion. In Britain, Ukip, provides a noisy echo-chamber for some of Trumpism’s most divisive, chauvinistic and discriminatory refrains. If Trumpism is indeed a transnational pestilence, it would be wise to look for a common remedy. But first, the symptoms must be accurately diagnosed and its long-term effects should not be exaggerated. Much of the political turbulence and iconoclasm witnessed of late in America and Europe is the direct result of continuing, negative economic fallout from the 2008 financial crash. Hard times, austerity cuts, high unemployment and low wages are the manure in which political aberration takes root. But as history shows, they sometimes, yet rarely, lead to disaster. When economies improve, generally speaking, so too does the quality of political discourse. Ensuring all people benefit equally from such an improvement is the one certain antidote to extreme politics. While protest movements share characteristics and aims, it is also evident that they are not all the same as each other. Trumpism is an infection others can catch, yet it is also unique to America. Before panicking about the advance of the far right and far left in Europe, commentators in Britain and elsewhere should remember that, when all is said and done, mainstream politicians such as Angela Merkel, Alain Juppé, Mariano Rajoy and yes, Hillary Clinton do, on the whole, get elected or re-elected. Notwithstanding Greece’s epic upheavals, the centre does mostly hold. More than anything else, Trumpism will fade and fail because, ultimately, it is a minority pastime, pandering to bigotry, which runs against the grain and spirit of the times, Brexit notwithstanding. Trumpism decries the impact of globalisation, yet globalisation, for all the dislocation and often unwelcome change it brings, is the inescapable way ahead for a more integrated, more connected and more mutually responsible and caring world. For good or bad, this clock cannot be turned back. Closed borders and closed minds, crude nationalism, trade barriers, xenophobia, religious, racial and sexual discrimination – these are old mistakes and old hatreds that, while still in evidence everywhere, belong to times past. The world is moving forward, not back. In the end, Trumpism and all its ghastly incarnations, dwelling in fear and darkness, will, like Trump himself, be exorcised.
Donald Trump releases his healthcare plan in campaign statement Republican frontrunner Donald Trump has released his healthcare platform, which the candidate claims “will broaden healthcare access, make healthcare more affordable and improve the quality of the care available to all Americans”. In a seven-point list of initiatives, Trump calls for The repeal of the Affordable Care Act, more popularly known as Obamacare, as well as the individual mandate that requires Americans to purchase health insurance. Allowing the sale of insurance across state lines by repealing the McCarran–Ferguson Act. Allowing individuals to fully deduct health insurance premium payments from their taxes, as businesses can. Allowing all individuals to use health savings accounts, rather than just those with high-deductible health plans. Requiring “price transparency” from healthcare providers, including doctors, clinics and hospitals. Turning Medicaid into a block grant to the states, decentralizing the social welfare program from federal control. Removing “barriers to entry into free markets for drug providers that offer safe, reliable and cheaper products”, weakening control of the pharmaceutical industry and the Food and Drug Administration over drug testing, production and approval. “The reforms outlined above will lower healthcare costs for all Americans,” Trump said in a statement released by his campaign, alluding to “other reforms that might be considered if they serve to lower costs, remove uncertainty and provide financial security for all Americans”. Trump also points to other areas, both administrative and legislative, wherein a Trump administration would move to lower healthcare costs and expand access to insurance and care. “Enforcing immigration laws, eliminating fraud and waste and energizing our economy will relieve the economic pressures felt by every American,” Trump said, calling his immigration proposals part of “the moral responsibility of a nation’s government”. “Providing healthcare to illegal immigrants costs us some $11 billion annually,” Trump writes. “If we were to simply enforce the current immigration laws and restrict the unbridled granting of visas to this country, we could relieve healthcare cost pressures on state and local governments.” “To reform healthcare in America, we need a president who has the leadership skills, will and courage to engage the American people and convince Congress to do what is best for the country,” Trump concludes. “These straightforward reforms, along with many others I have proposed throughout my campaign, will ensure that together we will Make America Great Again.”
The fight against Zika: 'We need a proactive global health agenda' 1 | Take a proactive approach Zika poses a problem for global health because, like Ebola, it highlights the extent to which health policy is still reactive to crises instead of addressing the underlying issues that allow these crises to emerge in the first place. Zika and other neglected diseases only receive attention when they threaten to become problems for the most developed nations. We need a more proactive global health agenda. João Nunes, lecturer in International Relations, University of York, York, UK @Dr_JoaoNunes @UniOfYork 2 | Put Zika in perspective Zika is definitely not a new Ebola or HIV. The Zika illness usually runs an asymptomatic or mild course. The fast distribution on a large scale of an illness for which there is no vaccine or treatment by a vector with wings may seem frightening; however, it is the complications of this infection that merit our full attention. Ralph Huits, Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp, Belgium 3 | Understand the risks for women This emergency is exacerbating existing social and gender inequalities. Several Latin American governments have advised women to postpone getting pregnant for the time being. But the responsibility for safer sex lies with both women and men, so public health advice needs to acknowledge the role of men and boys. Messages and actions in the response should challenge, rather than reinforce, existing gender inequalities and harmful gender stereotypes. This is an opportunity to promote women and girls’ empowerment. Eugenio Donadio, emergency coordinator, Plan UK, London, UK 4 | Clarify the link with microcephaly We need to look at evidence of Zika infection in newborns with microcephaly and without microcephaly, using case control study design. Also, we need a larger number of cases where the virus has been detected, otherwise there is the potential that we are missing something. For example, something else may be causing increased microcephaly, but Zika is so common we have found it in the cases we have looked at. Nicola Wardrop, research fellow, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK 5 | Understand the drivers of infectious diseases We are grossly underestimating the problems of both local man-made environmental change and globalisation as drivers of infectious disease. We are right to pay attention to global warming, but this must not distract us from the local environmental problems that are actually the dominant trend in many locations. So it is misleading to describe Zika as “yet another outbreak to claim for global warming”. Jo Lines, reader in Vector Biology and Malaria Control, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, London, UK 6 | Recognise the role of poverty The disease started spreading in areas with reduced access to clean water and sanitation. The mosquitos don’t discriminate between rich and poor, but poverty-stricken areas are conducive to disease spread. Maryam Z. Deloffre, assistant professor of political science, Arcadia University Philadelphia, United States 7 | Take a holistic approach to vector control Wiping out mosquitoes is probably not an option. However, at an individual level, protecting from mosquitoes is effective. At a community level, reducing the breeding sites is essential. During outbreaks, spraying to kill adult mosquitoes plays a role in limiting transmission. Denis Coulombier, head of unit, surveillance and response support, European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, Stockholm, Sweden 8 | Use pesticides responsibly At a particular site in a developing country we may use a pesticide that is suddenly cheaply available thanks to the global interest or panic. But once the furore dies down and the focus shifts elsewhere, what’s left behind are mosquitoes that are resistant. As aedes in particular are ubiquitous, the simple scale of pesticide usage that would have to be ramped up is not practical. Combining safe and proper use of pesticides with improved sanitation, waste and water management, and empowering people with knowledge, are far more effective tools. Dino J. Martins, entomologist, Mpala Research Centre, Nanyuki, Kenya 9 | Engage the community Ensure that negative responses of communities to a new threat, including myths and misinformation, are recognised and addressed. For any disease response that engages communities, it is essential that communication is based on the community’s understanding of the virus and also provides them with practical strategies to both mitigate the risk and make health-seeking decisions. Jamie Bedson, international director, Restless Development, Seattle, United States, @RestlessDev, @JamieBedson1 10 | Work together Zika (and the recent Ebola outbreak) has galvanised action from many different sectors: research, government, community development, etc. It is has also shown how important it is for different partners to come together, including multi-disciplinary teams and to rapidly engage and share knowledge. It requires both international and local communities to work towards tackling the Zika virus. Dino J. Martins Join our community of development professionals and humanitarians. Follow @ GDP on Twitter.
Prince William appears to signal support for remaining in EU The Duke of Cambridge has said Britain’s ability to work with other nations is the “bedrock of our security and prosperity”, in remarks that will prompt speculation that he is endorsing the UK’s continued membership of the European Union. In a speech to British diplomats at the Foreign Office in London, the second in line to the throne said common action was essential in a troubled world. Prince William told recipients of the inaugural Diplomatic Academy awards: “In an increasingly turbulent world, our ability to unite in common action with other nations is essential. It is the bedrock of our security and prosperity and is central to your work. “Right now, the big questions with which you wrestle – in the UN, Nato, the Middle East and elsewhere – are predicated on your commitment to working in partnership with others.” Kensington Palace said the duke was not talking about the EU. “This speech was not about Europe,” a palace spokesman said. “He does not mention the word Europe once.” A royal source added: “Talking about ‘working in partnership’ and ‘our ability to unite in common action’ is not expressing a political view. “The only specific examples he spoke about were the Commonwealth and the illegal wildlife trade. The speech was praising the work of young diplomats.” The speech will draw comparisons with remarks made by the Queen on the eve of the Scottish independence referendum in 2014 in which she asked voters to “think very carefully about the future”. The Queen spoke after an appeal from Downing Street amid fears that the yes campaign could win the referendum. The foreign secretary, Philip Hammond, who welcomed William to the awards, will know that an intervention on the eve of the EU summit to discuss the proposed UK deal will be seen at the very least as an endorsement of full UK participation in multilateral organisations. But Downing Street had no knowledge of the contents of the speech, suggesting that the government was not involved in any attempt to sign up William to the pro-EU side. The prince used the words partner or partnership six times in the speech, showing his support for the defining feature of the UK’s post-second world war foreign policy: direct involvement in four multilateral organisations. He mentioned three of those – Nato, the UN and the Commonwealth – but diplomatically glossed over the EU. He was careful, as the Queen was in 2014, not to explicitly endorse one side in the referendum. But he made clear that Britain had always been “outward looking” and had never retreated. “I thought I might … take a moment to say something about what I interpret to be our shared values: internationalism, tolerance and service,” he said. “For centuries, Britain has been an outward-looking nation. Hemmed in by sea, we have always sought to explore what is beyond the horizon. “That sense of mission and curiosity is something that I know continues to drive our economy, our cultural and educational exports, and our armed forces and diplomatic service. And wherever we go, we have a long and proud tradition of seeking out allies and partners.” William said his campaign to crack down on the illegal trade in ivory and rhino horn “cannot be solved without nations working together in new ways”. A Ukip source said it would be wrong to suggest that William had been endorsing a particular side in the referendum campaign. But the source said the party would be concerned if ministers had played any role in drafting the speech. “If the government’s fingerprints are on any spin saying Prince William supports the EU after a very bland statement about international organisations such as the UN, Nato and the Commonwealth, then that is extremely poor form on the part of the FCO [Foreign and Commonwealth Office] and they should know better,” the source said. Liz Bilney, chief executive of the Leave.EU group, said: “His royal highness’s talk to diplomats about maintaining partnerships as crucial to our country’s interests is of course right, but it is taking a leap to suggest that this means we have to stay inside a failing institution like the European Union that does not always represent our interests or our views. “Commentators with a keen eye might have noticed that he listed organisations he presumably felt valuable, such as Nato and the United Nations, but did not explicitly state the European Union. “I could just as easily claim that this commission signalled Prince William believes we should not give any importance to the EU, but I would not wish to be so presumptuous.” William also paid tribute to his grandmother in his speech. “As the Queen approaches her 90th birthday, it is worth reflecting on the unparalleled role that the Queen has played in foreign relations and with world leaders during 63 years of unbroken service to the nation and Commonwealth,” he said. “This is the same duty to nation and commitment to the wider common good that I see in Her Majesty’s diplomats as I travel around the world. “That association between the diplomatic service and the Queen holds true for me, too. In many ways, your mission is also mine.” Royal ‘interventions’ Apart from the comparison with the Queen’s Scottish independence remarks, William’s comments echo an arguably more explicit plea from his grandmother during her state visit to Germany last year, praising Britain’s “irreversible” friendship with Germany. They also show that, like his father, William is not afraid to cross diplomatic borders. In October, just hours before a state visit to the UK by China’s president, he told Chinese people to stop buying illegally traded wildlife products. The acorn doesn’t fall far from the tree: a cache of secret memos between Prince Charles and senior government ministers released last year showed that conservational interests, ranging from the Patagonian toothfish to badgers, were close to William’s father’s heart too. Last year, Charles also claimed that French artisanal cheese could disappear because of the “bacteriological correctness” of European regulators. But William has some way to go before he can match his father’s observations on war. In November, Charles said climate change might have contributed to the civil war in Syria.
Slimani opens his account with a double as Leicester ease past Burnley Islam Slimani scored two goals on his Premier League debut as Leicester completed a restorative week both at home and abroad. The Algerian striker converted two headers either side of half-time to help the champions to victory over a dogged but blunt Burnley. A Ben Mee own goal concluded proceedings, to make it two 3-0 victories in a week for Leicester following their Champions League win at Club Brugge on Wednesday. It also gives them some confidence after the first four league games of the season had produced four points. Claudio Ranieri, whose saying “Dilly ding, dilly dong” has now been turned into a song to the tune of Yellow Submarine by Leicester fans, said he was very pleased with the result, and the decisive manner in which it was achieved. “It was important to win again after the Champions League victory and against a good team, a very well organised team,”he said. “To score at the end of the first and beginning of second half made it much better for us and after that we controlled the game. It was a good performance for Slimani, but good for everybody.” The club’s record signing, for £29m from Sporting Lisbon, Slimani received the loudest cheer from a raucous crowd when the teams were read out. The Algerian, tall, rangy and powerful, took their cue and looked to get off on the front foot, creating the first chance of the match for Marc Albrighton in the second minute, but the winger’s cutback was blocked. For much of the opening stages, however, there was not much between the sides. Leicester were struggling to pull off the quick, direct combinations necessary to break down the well-drilled visitors. The Burnley manager, Sean Dyche, said: “If you were a fan of football you’d have thought ‘There’s not a lot between these teams.’” Then came the spell either side of half-time that Dyche described as four minutes of madness. The game had looked like it might trickle out to half-time only for Albrighton to draw a needless foul from Burnley right-back, Matthew Lowton, in the first minute of added time. Albrighton dummied the free-kick and allowed Christian Fuchs to drive the ball across superbly and find Slimani, who had ghosted beyond his man and headed home from six yards. At the restart, the game was still in the balance and Leicester needed more from Slimani, as well as Jamie Vardy and Riyad Mahrez. The talented trio duly obliged within three minutes. Mahrez won possession in the middle of the park and bore down on goal. He found enough room to escape the attentions of Stephen Ward and put in a cross. The ball deflected behind Vardy, but the England striker is never one to decline an invitation to improvise and he flicked the ball beyond him with his heel to the back post where Slimani was waiting once again. He produced a firm header and the lead was doubled. From this point, Leicester were happy to sit back and Dyche tried to shake things up, going 4-4-2 with the addition of Sam Vokes and the Iceland winger Johann Berg Gudmundsson. Sadly for Dyche, his switch did not result in Burnley having any more of the ball. Instead, and without really having to try, Leicester wrapped up the match. Once again Mahrez was up against Ward and able to cut the ball low across the six-yard box, but while no blue shirt was anywhere near making a connection, Mee still felt the need to intercept and turned the ball into his own net in so doing. Dyche was full of praise for Mee and partner in central defence, Michael Keane, determined to keep the confidence of his young English duo up. “He was excellent, really high quality, and Keane dug in alongside him,” he said. “There’s no particular blame attached to him for that goal, but from a defensive point of view we know you can’t make the errors that we did in this match. “You get punished for a lot at this level and the hardest challenge for me is to try to win enough games to stay up while also developing the players. “It’s that assuredness that you need to thrive in the Premier League. It’s not just about tactics and technical ability, it’s about mentality, that belief you can walk in a stadium and play with authority. It’s breaking out into that, an inner belief. It’s not far away, but the margins are tight about how a mentality grows over time.” Ranieri knows all about growing a mentality and he will feel his Foxes are back in the hunt.
Justin Timberlake to join Kate Winslet in Woody Allen's 48th film Justin Timberlake is the latest major addition to the growing cast of Woody Allen’s next film, which Kate Winslet will star in. It was announced on Wednesday that they’ll be joined by James Belushi and Juno Temple. As with all of Allen’s recent films, plot details on his 48th feature are being kept largely under wraps. All that’s known is that takes place in 1950s New York and that shooting is due to begin this fall. Allen’s last film, Cafe Society, premiered to mostly favorable reviews on the opening night of Cannes. The ’s Peter Bradshaw called Allen’s tribute to golden-age Hollywood “amiable, if insubstantial”. It’s set for release on 15 July in the US. Additionally, Allen is almost near completing his first-ever television show: an untitled six-episode series he wrote and directed for Amazon starring himself, Miley Cyrus and Elaine May. It will premiere exclusively on Amazon Prime Video later this year. The 80-year-old film-maker found himself once again at the center of controversy at the Cannes film festival in May, following repeated allegations from his son (Ronan Farrow) – which were firmly denied by the film-maker – that he abused his daughter Dylan Farrow. Timerbake next appears on the big screen in DreamWork’s Trolls, while Juno Temple just recently concluded her run on HBO’s Vinyl, which was cancelled. Belushi heads the upcoming thriller The Whole Truth, co-starring Renee Zellweger and Keanu Reeves.
Heurelho Gomes own goal gifts Stoke win against lethargic Watford The frustration for Watford was less that they played badly, more that they failed to play at all, allowing Stoke City to push them around and win thanks to a moment of gamesmanship from Charlie Adam. Too many of Walter Mazzarri’s players looked less than enamoured with the idea of a midday kick-off on a cold day in Hertfordshire and there was little justification in Watford hiding behind Bobby Madley’s refereeing performance as a cover for their inert showing. They did have a legitimate grievance with Stoke’s goal given that Adam confessed to a push on Valon Behrami before his header hit a post and rebounded in off the unfortunate Heurelho Gomes. Mazzarri felt that Madley made too many questionable calls yet the Watford manager’s argument that his team played well enough to merit a point was unconvincing. There were precious few panicky moments for Stoke’s defence. The hosts were indisciplined. Nordin Amrabat picked up a booking for dissent in the first half, Miguel Britos received a late red card and what should trouble Watford is the disgruntled reaction from their supporters at the final whistle. It would have been harder for Stoke not to win for the first time since 31 October. The visitors played with greater imagination, defended stoutly and created the better openings but they also lacked a cutting edge and scored a winning goal that could have been disallowed, all of which reflects poorly on Watford. Mark Hughes smiled when he heard about Adam’s admission. Stoke’s manager preferred to focus on his team’s resolute performance. They were alert from the first whistle, pinning the hosts back and forcing them to make sloppy errors in dangerous areas. Gomes saved an early effort from Bruno Martins Indi and Giannelli Imbula threatened, bending a shot inches wide. Imbula’s unchallenged dribble was a sign for Mazzarri that his midfield was being overrun. Stoke had the measure of Watford’s 3-4-3 system and dominated possession in the first half, with Hughes responding to Glenn Whelan failing a late fitness test by moving Xherdan Shaqiri inside from the right. “They surprised us a lot in the midfield,” Mazzarri said. Troy Deeney and Roberto Pereyra were peripheral in attack for Watford and the excellent Martins Indi rose to the occasion in the absence of the injured Ryan Shawcross, Stoke’s defensive leader and captain, while Marc Muniesa delivered a quietly impressive performance. Watford’s lethargy was encapsulated by the moment when Christian Kabasele apparently forgot that there was a chance he might have to participate in a football match at some point. Younès Kaboul went down with an injury, signalled that he could not continue and Watford tried to make a quick change. Sitting on the bench, though, Kabasele was not ready and Watford were forced to continue with 10 men for a couple of minutes. Mazzarri looked bemused, a PE teacher trying and failing to understand how his pupil could have left his kit at home. A minute more and Kabasele would have been doing laps of the pitch in his underpants, but he eventually emerged to ironic cheers. Then, hoping to redeem himself, the Belgian defender chopped down Marko Arnautovic. Eight minutes after Kabasele’s inauspicious arrival, Stoke scored when Shaqiri delivered a corner from the right and Adam gave Behrami the slip. Mazzarri brought on Odion Ighalo after the break and moved him next to Deeney, who sent a late header over. Yet although Watford turned the game into a physical scrap, their hopes of an equaliser drifted away when Britos picked up a second booking for a cynical foul on Shaqiri.
How viral video companies can turn pizza rats into boatloads of cash If you have heard of the viral video company Jukin Media, it is probably because of pizza rat. Pizza rat, for those who have been living under a rock for the last six months, is a clip of a New York City rat hauling a slice of pizza down a subway staircase, struggling in a manner that is both disgusting and humanizing. It is a perfect viral video, and Matt Little, the man who took out his phone and filmed the rat, was quickly inundated with calls from various media outlets wanting to use it. Jukin included. Little, an actor and writer, was savvier than most viral video creators, and knew that Jukin could do for him what would be nearly impossible to do on his own: extend the reach of his work and monetize it. “If someone is on a TV show, and it goes into syndication, this is kind of the same thing,” he told me. “If it still has legs then you do have the potential to keep earning, but all of that is so completely out of your control. Someone else – Jukin, in this case – will pick that up.” Little wouldn’t say how much he’d earned from his partnership with Jukin, only that “some people I’ve read online think I’m a millionaire now”. Jukin Media is often described as a viral video factory, which implies that the company has a hand in making either the videos or their virality. Neither is entirely true; but neither is entirely false, either. The company identifies and attempts to purchase online videos that are already on their way to becoming very popular, trending on Reddit or YouTube or Facebook and other sites. Sometimes the video is barely trending, but folks at Jukin whose job it is to stare at internet videos all day (twentysomethings, nearly always) see some promise in it, some core emotion that makes this video break through all the millions of others. Employees then locate the video’s creator and make them an offer that’s hard to refuse, which is, mainly, that this is all the company does: sell bits and pieces of videos. They couldn’t possibly handle all the phone calls and paperwork involved to make as much, potentially, as Jukin might make. Once Jukin has licensed a video, it works hard to squeeze as much money from it as possible, re-editing it, repackaging it, reselling it, spreading it through traditional media channels, even repackaging it years later for advertisements (some Jukin-licensed videos even appeared in Super Bowl ads). Jukin, in other words, is engaging in a kind of arbitrage. Or, viewed more darkly, it’s a video chop shop. Whatever it is, it’s making a boatload of money where there wasn’t much before. In total, the three-year-old company has paid out more than $5m to viral video owners. Nicky McAllister, a mother of two who lives in Michigan, is one of them. In 2013, she looked on as a tow truck operator struggled to maneuver the Mazda sedan lying in the middle of the road. Her son and his friend hadn’t been hurt in the incident, and that was the important thing. But the tow truck guy didn’t seem to know what he was doing. McAllister had brought a video camera to document the damage, so she started filming the operator’s struggles. “Little did I know. Little did I know,” she said, thinking back on that day and what happened next. The operator had managed to drag the car up on to its side, but the triumph didn’t last. Crash: the car falls. Bang: the car, in neutral, its breaks disengaged, rolls forward. The little white Mazda barrels off road, tumbling and flipping as it disappears into the thick roadside foliage. McAllister then utters what we’re all thinking: “You have got to be kidding me.” Back at home, she had a pal upload the video to YouTube so she could post it to Facebook and share it with friends. “My son, being more savvy than me, had some sense of what I’d captured and linked the clip to Reddit,” she said. Within an hour, the video was the third most popular post on the website. An hour after that, her phone rang. It was man with a young voice, asking all sorts of questions about the video, trying to make sure it was hers, that she’d shot it, and could claim sole ownership. He was from Jukin, of course, and they wanted to license it. “We’ve all been watching it, and we think it’s going to be big, and we’re interested in being your agent,” McAllister recalled the man on the phone telling her. He offered her $300 up front, then a split of earnings after. She’d get 60%, Jukin would get the rest. “Three hundred sounds lovely, and I’m already a winner, but a 70-30 split would sure be better,” McAllister told the man. She had worked in sales for years, and knew instinctively how to drive a bargain. “Have you been talking to anyone else?” he asked her. She hadn’t. They had a deal. In the weeks that followed, she watched her clip appear on Jay Leno, Ellen and Comedy Central. It racked up millions and millions of views. It has made her, in two years, $15,000. This is not life-changing money, she readily admitted, but still, she laughed. The experience was unreal. On a recent morning, I visited Jukin’s headquarters in Culver City, in Los Angeles. The day began with a sort of mini internal clip show for staffers to watch. We watched a garbage truck on fire, then explode; a GoPro-captured dirt bike ride through a student’s high school (“this kid just peaked”); a drone race, which had a combined total of 40m Facebook likes (“Facebook is just crushing YouTube,” someone muttered); an insane rope swing constructed 18-stories high off an abandoned building in Russia (“this sort of thing always happens in Russia”); a dog saying cheese, a dog doing a cartwheel, a dog train of corgis, a dog with its head stuck in a couch. The kernel linking each video was not just some deep lizard brain emotion but the extremely human urge to share with someone else (I made note of the corgi conga line, and, after the meeting, texted the link to my fiance). Jonathan Skogmo, the company’s founder and CEO, has spent more than a decade refining his search for such dumbly compelling footage. In 2005, he was working for County Fried Home Videos, an America’s Funniest Home Videos knockoff, pawing through DVDs and VHS tapes viewers had submitted for consideration. It was wildly inefficient, and drove him crazy. “So I did what any 22-year-old kid would do, probably. It’s so obvious today. I went online looking for content, video content.” But, in Skogmo’s telling, it was all shady, “all Jackass wannabes, guys lighting their nuts on fire”. He had a hard time finding anything family friendly and, when he did, it was difficult to find out who owned it. “Back then it was just craziness,” he said. “This is where Jon’s brain is so important, that institutional knowledge locked up in there, that clip show business knowledge,” Lee Essner said. Essner, Jukin’s president and chief operating officer, explained that today, with a digital network that sprawled to a billion and a half views per month, finding videos that were particularly compelling and sharable was easier than it had ever been, certainly easier than in those early, wilder days. Part of it was that YouTube and its ilk had grown up: now everyone uploaded nearly everything. More importantly, Jukin had working relationships with so many media companies that, he said, “we’re able to hone our efforts and make sure that we’re acquiring just the right content for our business.” The business wasn’t exclusively licensing, either, but programming for their online channels and, even, traditional television clip shows. The latest move was building a database for all these clips, a sort of Getty Images, one-stop shop for the raw, non-professional, compelling, viral moving images to resell and plug into advertising and marketing campaigns. “If a brand comes to us and says, ‘I want content that is completely not relevant to us in our day-to-day business,’ they give us a creative brief, we go out and we acquire that. Or we go back and take it out of our library,” Essner said. Skogmo, excited, leaned forward, nearly out of his chair. “It’s authentic, it’s 100% organic. You can’t recreate these moments, right? They’re non-manufactured. And everyone wants them – they’re big, and it’s growing. We have commercials, Super Bowl campaigns … We have one, one of my favorites, a girl seeing the rain for the very first time. This cute little kid she’s just smiling and the rain’s coming down. How do you recreate that? You can’t.” Matt Little, of pizza rat fame, knows this all too well. He captured lightning in a bottle. It almost certainly will never happen again. “One thing it’s taught me is to look up more, to watch what’s going in the world around me. But mostly,” Little continued, “it taught me that I don’t have a clue about the way the world works. And I’m fine with that.”
Readers recommend playlist: your songs about iron and steel Here is this week’s playlist – songs picked by reader Marco den Ouden (who runs the Marconium website) from your suggestions after last week’s callout. Read more about how our weekly readers recommend series works at the end of the piece. Iron is the most abundant element in the Earth’s crust. Not surprisingly then, it has been used as an industrial metal since ancient times. But pure iron is a soft metal ... in practice, it is almost always mixed with carbon to produce steel. Although knife-like implements date back at least 2.5m years, it wasn’t until the bronze age that knives were forged from metal, and mass production of swords to equip armies started in the 13th century BC. Tenpole Tudor sing this weapon’s praises and begin our playlist with Swords of a Thousand Men: “Hoorah, Hoorah, Hoorah, Yea!” Bronze horseshoes have been dated from 400BC and the first ones incorporating iron date from ancient Rome. It was apparently when a blacksmith became archbishop of Canterbury in the 10th century that they acquired cultural significance as talismans of good luck. Caracol’s Horseshoe Woman personifies that. Steel production was commercialised with the invention of the Bessemer process in the 1850s and further developed with the open-hearth furnace in the 1860s – leading directly to the second industrial revolution. The development of steel rails spurred the growth of the modern railroad; in those early days, track was laid by hand and the prowess of steel-driving men such as John Henry was celebrated in song. Several versions of this classic were suggested. I liked the one by Harry Belafonte. The romance of the rail had locomotives fondly called “iron horses” and singers such as Arlo Guthrie have eulogised rail in song: “The sons of Pullman porters and the sons of engineers ride their fathers’ magic carpets made of steel” is from Guthrie’s City of New Orleans. Modern steel production also brought the production of modern guns. A band appropriately called the Steeldrivers ask whether this weapon really deserves its sobriquet of Peacemaker. Sung from the point of view of the gun, it laments that “I coulda’ been a hammer or a railroad spike. I coulda’ been a train rollin’ through the night.” But until the “lion lays down with the lamb, I’m a cool 3lbs of cold blue steel. I shoot even deader than the way I feel.” Indeed, as long as there are those like Blondie’s gang plotting the heist of an armoured car (“25 tons of hardened steel”), guns remain a necessity to keep the peace. The Hardest Part of their plan is figuring out how to get to the “big man of steel behind the steering wheel”. The skyscraper was another revolution propelled by modern steel production. In New York, the men of the high steel were a special breed. In Steel Monkey, Jethro Tull sings the praises of these fearless men. With the advent of the second world war, men went off to fight and women were needed to work in the factories, building ships and planes. They were celebrated in song and film as the iconic Rosie the Riveter. The Four Vagabonds sing this tribute to the feminist icon. After the war, a Swiss engineer revolutionised the production process. Instead of blowing air through pig iron to create steel, he blew pure oxygen. This simple change reduced capital costs and smelting time, increasing labour productivity by a factor of 1,000. And the industrial prowess of Asia grew as China rose from insignificant player to producing over half of all the steel made today. So even as worldwide production tripled in the last 50 years, these changes led to a drastic decline in the west. In the following decades, there were dozens of songs written on the subject, often referencing the staggering decline in employment rates in the industry – and plenty were nominated. They include Big Country’s Steeltown, Mischief Brew’s Jobs in Steeltown and Bruce Springsteen’s history of Youngstown, Ohio, one of the towns hardest hit by the steel employment crisis. The most disturbing song about this era is undoubtedly Pete Atkin’s story of a skilled machinist who, discarded after 40 years, maintains his dignity: “The hands on his chest flared more brightly than his name for a Technicolor second as he rolled into the flame.” Suicide by blast furnace. The Carnations on the Roof are the flowers on the roof of the car that leads his funeral procession. But rather than end on such a downer, let’s note that iron and steel have been and remain symbols of toughness and strength in popular lore. The iron man triathlon ; the man of steel; the iron man. We close with an upbeat reggae number from Bob Marley, who is on the run but vows to be tough as Iron like a Lion in Zion. Note: not all songs appear on the Spotify playlist because some are unavailable on the service. New theme: how to join in The new theme will be announced at 8pm (GMT) on Thursday 1 December. You have until 11pm on 5 December to submit nominations. Here’s a reminder of some of the guidelines for RR: If you have a good theme idea, or if you’d like to volunteer to compile a playlist from readers’ suggestions and write a blog about it, please email matthew.holmes@theguardian.com. There is a wealth of data on RR, including the songs that are “zedded”, at the Marconium. It also tells you the meaning of “zedded”, “donds” and other strange words used by RR regulars. Many RR regulars also congregate at the ’Spill blog.
Manchester United’s Matteo Darmian finishes off limp Crystal Palace Louis van Gaal is currently all about the result and not the display as Manchester United try to chase down Arsenal and Manchester City in the hunt for a Champions League place. On Wednesday night the manager was given both as his team cruised past a soporific Crystal Palace, who judging by this effort are fifth-bottom for good reason. The victory takes United to 59 points, one behind Arsenal and two behind City, though the Gunners have a game in hand, hosting West Bromwich Albion on Thursday. Asked if this display was perfect before Saturday’s FA Cup semi-final against Everton Van Gaal stuck to his script. “I want three points. That is the most important thing,” he said. “We needed three points and that is what I said to my players. We have to win and we must win and now is another game. First you can enjoy but you must recover also because within two days you have to play again.” Yet given the high stakes of this contest it was played out in a strangely muted atmosphere before an Old Trafford that was hardly packed. This reflects the apathetic feeling towards Van Gaal’s tenure and will surely trouble the executive should more numbers stay away in the final two home matches. Asked about this Van Gaal said: “I didn’t see quite a lot of empty seats but you have seen it because you want to see it. Then you have to write it tomorrow in your paper.” After City dropped two points at Newcastle the task for United was to take advantage and keep up their challenge for a top-four finish. Before this the first question concerned how Van Gaal’s men would line up. An XI that showed only Morgan Schneiderlin as a bona fide central midfielder meant the manager was shifting shape from his usual 4-2-3-1 to a loose 4-1-4-1, in which the middle quartet formed a diamond with Wayne Rooney at its tip behind Marcus Rashford. If this was designed to wrongfoot the visitors, it worked inside five minutes. Old Trafford was still settling when Matteo Darmian, United’s left-back, moved along his flank and pinged over a cross. It appeared innocuous but not to poor Damien Delaney. He stabbed at the ball, then watched in dismay as it beat Julián Speroni to the visiting goalkeeper’s right. Van Gaal has drilled his players incessantly in the art of keeping the ball and smothering opponents and for the next 10 minutes or so United pinned Alan Pardew’s team in their own half. When Palace finally made it into United territory the foray was over in a flash and United again threatened along the right, via Jesse Lingard. The closest Palace had thus far managed was a move engineered by Wilfried Zaha. The winger hit a ball in from the right, Lee Chung-yong headed back across goal, and Emmanuel Adebayor shinned his shot wide of David de Gea’s goal. As the contest meandered and the stadium went close to quiet there was a jocular moment when Pardew hopped in irritation at a United challenge and the manager dropped his ever-present notebook on the pitch. At the interval it remained 1-0 so United needed to convert their chances to kill Palace off or they would be vulnerable to a sucker punch that Pardew’s side had delivered at Arsenal on Sunday. Perhaps this was the message Van Gaal gave his team because as soon as the action recommenced Rooney came close to doubling the lead. A shot with his left foot was goalbound but at the last moment out came Papa Souaré’s leg and the ball was cleared. The next time United threatened they did have a second. This came after Adrian Mariappa dispossessed Rashford in the area, the ball rolled to Juan Mata and his shot won a corner. When this came over from the left the ball broke to Darmian and the Italian finished with a sweet 20-yard effort that pinballed in off Speroni’s right post for the Italian’s first goal for the club. This was a goal to go with his earlier assist though this did not come as a shock to Van Gaal. “Darmian was surprising me on Monday in the training session,” he said. “We did a sort of finishing session and he was the top scorer in that time and we tried to exercise with his left and right foot and he did it also with his left foot like he did tonight.” From here it was a keep-ball exercise for United. They now travel to Wembley to meet Everton with morale high, especially given their opponents’ trouncing by Liverpool. Palace also have a semi-final, on Sunday against Watford. Pardew said: “The FA Cup for United is a big event. For us it is a huge event. I could see a bit of blurred focus from our players. I can understand that.”
Celebrities protest at 'crazy' redundancy of Age arts critic The arts community has come out fighting in support of Melbourne critic Philippa Hawker, who was one of 30 journalists to be made forcibly redundant by Fairfax Media this week. A petition to the paper’s editor-in-chief, Mark Forbes, to retain Hawker, who has been writing about film and the arts since 1997, has been signed by hundreds of readers, including actor Geoffrey Rush, writers Helen Garner and Christos Tsiolkas, comedian Magda Szubanski and broadcaster Phillip Adams. “Philippa Hawker is one of the most astute and engaged of the critics working in Australia. Her dismissal is a stupid and short-sighted decision driven by panic not sense,” said Tsiolkas. Garner said: “This is a crazy waste of a fine talent and decades of experience.” The Sydney Morning Herald, the Age and the Australian Financial Review are losing more than 80 journalists in this round of cuts, 30 on the AFR alone. Artists have been particularly hard hit – the SMH’s Rocco Fazzari, the Age’s John Spooner and the Fin’s Rod Clement are all leaving. Among those writers taking a package are aviation journalist Jamie Freed, careers specialist Fiona Smith, SMH national affairs editor Tom Allard, Age environment editor Tom Arup and Sunday Age senior writer Jill Stark. Greg Hywood’s paper cut In the same week he was losing some of his best talent, Fairfax Media CEO Greg Hywood was in talks to merge Fairfax’s New Zealand business with APN News & Media and was involved in a pow-wow withindustry rivals to talk up the newspaper business. Newspaper Works – representing News Corp Australia, Fairfax Media, West Australian Newspapers and APN News & Media – not so subtly changed its name to NewsMediaWorks on Tuesday, dropping the word “newspaper” along the way. It all points to Hywood pulling the plug on printing the Monday to Friday papers, perhaps as early as February next year. News Corp’s Logies logic No one seems to care when The Block host Scott Cam or Today’s Karl Stefanovic win the Gold Logie, a publicly-voted award for the most popular person on television. But when Waleed Aly won it on Sunday night all hell broke loose in some quarters. Almost as if on cue News Corp Australia columnists Andrew Bolt, Miranda Devine and Rita Panahi devoted their columns to how “ludicrous” Aly’s win was. Panahi even called for an end to the Logies: “This cringe-worthy affair has long been mocked as a lame irrelevancy but it well and truly jumped the shark last night and not just because the top award at TV’s ‘night of nights’ went to a divisive co-host of a lowly rating program”. In her piece titled “Waleed Aly Mustafa screw loose somewhere” Devine blamed it all on the “self-loathing of the left and their relentless need to elevate themselves above the mob”. Bolt said that Aly’s success “is a walking contradiction of claims that Muslims or people from Middle Eastern families are invariably the oppressed” and The Project co-host should just have said “thanks”. The Bolt Report: is there anyone out there? The first 11 episodes of The Bolt Report, Andrew Bolt’s new show at 7pm weeknights on Sky News, averaged 23,254 viewers nationally. On Sky News alone, even Alan Jones (36,122) and Paul Murray (30,186) are more popular. Meanwhile over on The Project on Channel Ten Aly and Carrie Bickmore get about 700,000 viewers in the five major capital cities alone, rising to close to a million when the regional numbers are added in. Just saying. Mark Colvin on the road to recovery The ABC’s PM host Mark Colvin is taking a few weeks off work after cancer surgery and radiation treatment. After a nasty skin cancer was removed from his head Colvin continued to broadcast his daily program on RN and local radio but radiation therapy has taken its toll and he is now very tired, he tells Weekly Beast. After his final treatment next week he will take a month off to recover. Colvin assures us the prognosis is good and he is looking forward to finishing off the last few chapters of his book and returning to work in late June. What a time to have a book deal We are only in the first week of the federal election campaign but already one of the journalists on the campaign trail has signed a book deal. BuzzFeed’s political editor Mark Di Stefano is writing a book for MUP titled What a time to be alive: That and other lies in the 2016 campaign. MUP describes it as “the ugly and un-sanitised diary behind the curtain of the double dissolution election campaign”. The former ABC reporter will document the day-by-day activities of an election campaign and what goes on behind the scenes. Good Weekend’s murder mystery We’d love to know what went on behind the scenes at the Good Weekend when its cover story “Sue Neill-Fraser and the murder that divided Tasmania” was published in the Sydney Morning Herald and the Age on 7 May. Written by Greg Callaghan the story was about a trial in Tasmania in 2010 in which Neill-Fraser was found guilty of murdering her partner, Bob Chappell, on board the couple’s yacht on Hobart’s River Derwent. The story has been covered by multiple outlets as it has been labelled a miscarriage of justice on the scale of a Lindy Chamberlain. But the Callaghan story completely disappeared from the website shortly after it was published. GW editor Amelia Lester wasn’t giving anything away when we asked what happened. “We are reviewing the story and during this time it won’t be available,” Lester said. Betting the house on independent media Pleas for financial support from independent media are common and we’ve become used to emails from Crikey and New Matilda asking us to support them by subscribing. But one email from NM publisher Chris Graham on Sunday certainly stood out. “Buy A House And Boost Independent Media!” Graham said. “If you’ve ever thought about buying a house to fund help fund independent media that doesn’t kowtow to corporate and government interests, now’s your chance,” Graham wrote under a picture of his $719,000 Canberra house. “No kidding! I’m selling my house in Canberra. You can view it in all its Mawson loveliness here. It’s not an entirely random and shameless free plug – the proceeds from the sale will be invested into New Matilda, to keep our journalism fierce and independent.”
Watch: Lizzo's video for the euphoric Humanize The Minneapolis rapper, gospel singer and classically trained flautist Lizzo received praise for Big Grrrl Small World – an album that is filled with enlightenment and activism but, according to the ’s Alexis Petridis: “never feels like a lecture. Quite the opposite: what makes it such a great album is how gleeful it all sounds.” Now she brings us her latest single Humanize, a futuristic blend of pop euphoria and hip-hop production which describes an internal struggle to accept intimacy. Take a look at its video, premiered below.
'Ruth Davidson owned Boris': readers on the EU referendum A record 46,499,537 people are eligible to vote on Thursday, and many of them have been debating the whats and whys of the opposing campaigns in the comment sections of the leading up to their big moment in the polling booth. You’ve fact-checked politicians, digested debates and possibly even changed your minds in response to your sage fellow commenters. Here, in the last hours of campaigning, we take a final look at the things that have got you talking today. Click on the links at the end of each section to get involved, or head over to our EU referendum live blog to follow the news and discussion as it happens. Electoral law says you can’t tell us on polling day, but readers have been discussing which way their vote is going in this week’s Opinion live debate. See you on the other side. 1. EU referendum live: remain and leave make final push in last day of campaign After a live BBC debate from Wembley Arena in which Ruth Davidson shone, for many of you, and Boris Johnson floundered over his facts, we entered the final day of campaigning with, as ever, some soundbites to digest. Would the referendum be “independence day” for the UK (that one from Johnson) or was the whole leave campaign (summed up as it was by Sadiq Khan) a “project hate”? Below are some of the comments that provoked the most reaction on Wednesday morning. You can click on any of the links on these comments to join the conversations. Claims made during the latest TV debates naturally provided the jumping off point for most of your conversations. Many of you reacted to Johnson’s claim that Scotland couldn’t export Haggis to the US because of the EU. It’s actually because of a US Department of Agriculture regulation. As well as reacting to fact checks, you talked a little about your own plans. This one’s almost as fishy as Boris’s haggis claim … Is was Johnson who also inspired this comment. Join the debate here. 2. EU referendum: are you in or out? – live debate As well as asking which way you were voting, this debate tried to get to the bottom of why you fell on your particular side of the fence. Maybe you were even undecided, but whichever it is, who or what was influencing you? Readers and writers came together to postulate and do the arithmetic. Here are just some of your discussions’ starting points – you can click through to see where things went, and also have a look at some of our anonymous contributors’ thoughts above the line. Read the full debate here. 3. The polls called last year’s election wrong. Will they get the referendum right? Finally, impatient and anxious to learn what future we will awake to on the sofa with the TV on on Friday morning, we look to the polls for answers. But after what happened in 2015, should we trust them? Peter Kellner says in this piece that “as things stand, some pollsters seem certain to be more embarrassed than others” – which seems tricky to argue with. Some of you shared memories of past referendums, and some discussed possible reasons for methodological flaws and quirks of skewed results. Join the debate here. As many readers go to the polls we’ll be listening to what you are talking about and what you want us to report on relating to the EU referendum. You can help inform our coverage by filling in the form below.
Breakdown review – preposterous geezer-gangster panto Here’s the year’s first Brit geezer-gangster nonsense panto, featuring a fair bit of torture porn. It features Craig Fairbrass, Tamer Hassan and James Cosmo; Danny Dyer’s duties in Albert Square probably prevented him from taking part. Fairbrass plays granite-faced Alfie, a tough ex-army guy made good, devoted to his wife and teenage daughter, but trying to keep them from the reality of his work: killing people for a military-style assassination unit with the fascistic name of Home Front, run by Albert Chapman, played by James Cosmo, whose monopoly on this kind of role in this kind of film is one of British cinema’s enduring curiosities. Alfie’s targets happen to be mostly nonces and drug dealers, which is why he’s supposed to be sort of the good guy, and the poor sensitive chap is suffering from the beginnings of a breakdown – plagued with visions of his old victims. Soon, his employers turn on him and it all kicks off. Breakdown becomes more and more preposterous and embarrassing as it goes on. A certain climactic shotgun blast in a caravan is, in its way, a comedy highlight of the year.
One way or another, Brexit will bump up the size of the state Brexit is good news for consultants. Their pay this summer is up 9% in a year, as companies demand more handholding and strategic advice. And viewed purely as a job opportunity, there is cheer, too, for parts of the public sector after the UK’s decision to leave the European Union, with tens of millions of pounds needing to be spent on additional civil servants The UK cannot leave the EU customs union without HMRC and Border Force employing thousands more – at least 5,000 more customs staff, according to consultancy KPMG. There is, despite what some technology-utopians say, no IT fix; you can’t leave companies to self regulate and choose whether or not to declare goods subject to duty. As for control of people, tighter migration policy doesn’t just mean more booths at Heathrow. It also requires more command of emigration, more staff to round up overstayers and illegals and closer checks on who leaves the UK. And that’s before any of the social policy implications of Brexit are taken into account. Leave aside campaign lies about extra funding for the NHS, there are plenty of Tory MPs who would vote to boost public services employment in areas where migration has been significant in recent years. It’s up to chancellor Philip Hammond and his autumn statement whether they will get the chance this year. But sooner or later, Brexit must bump up the size of the state. The thinktank British Future says today’s £28 annual spend per person on managing migration will have to rise, if the status of the UK’s 3.5 million EU nationals is to be sorted out and the borders made more secure. Border Force staffing has risen since this division of the Home Office was created in 2012. But only a few months ago, on these pages, Lucy Moreton of the ISU, the union for borders, immigration and customs, complained about poor morale and intolerable pressure on her members, especially in Dover and Calais and at Heathrow. The UK has 5,000 customs staff and Border Force has 8,000: a very lean operation by international standards. The Home Office will have to recruit. That’s pretty much what Mark Harper, former immigration minister, told an audience at the Institute for Government. Brexit has to mean more bodies. Administering work permits is going to be complicated under whatever system emerges, and will bring a lot more intervention in firms’ recruitment schemes. Some say policy logic leads back to where former home secretary David Blunkett found himself 12 years ago, introducing identity cards – at a cost then of up to £3.1bn. Theresa May’s line when she was at the Home Office was that visa charges ought to cover the cost of immigration and border control. But today’s gap – income from visas at £1.3bn and spending at £1.8bn – can now only grow. Also, migration control is likely to bring more work for the police. That might be impossible with today’s staffing levels: police numbers have been cut by 14% since 2010. Some Leavers were libertarians, claiming that emancipation from the EU would see government further reduced. That’s the position adopted by Liam Fox and David Davies. It’s now plain that “taking back control” – of borders and customs – brings bigger not smaller government. Talk to us on Twitter via @ public and sign up for your free weekly Public Leaders newsletter with news and analysis sent direct to you every Thursday.
Trump's meeting with congressional Republicans inspires divided response Republican opponents of Donald Trump in Congress described meetings with the presumptive GOP nominee as awkward on Thursday and sparred with him, while Trump’s supporters raved about his visit to Capitol Hill. Trump held separate meetings with both the House and Senate caucuses on a sweltering summer day as he tried to continue to unify the GOP behind him. The Republican nominee, accompanied by his daughter Ivanka, son-in-law Jared Kushner and chief strategist Paul Manafort, started the day by meeting with House Republicans at the Capitol Hill Club. Cable news pundit Larry Kudlow introduced Trump, who also joked and exchanged hugs with Paul Ryan, although the speaker has long been unenthusiastic about the real estate developer’s candidacy. Some House members left the private meetings giving a highly positive account of Trump’s comments. Ralph Abraham of Louisiana said his party’s nominee talked about “growth, security and prosperity, all the good things” while fellow Louisiana congressman and Senate candidate John Fleming said there was “a lot of positive energy” and “the entire conference was uniting behind Donald Trump”. In his remarks, Trump reportedly addressed a number of policy issues while also harping on what he felt was unfair media criticism over his praise for Saddam Hussein killing terrorists in recent days. His grievances were shared by many in the room. Trent Franks of Arizona, a self-described “former critic” of Trump, complained to reporters afterwards: “You missed all the ugly things he said about Saddam Hussein but if he says he [Saddam] kills terrorists he’s in love with Saddam Hussein. Of all the stupidity and misappropriation of the truth.” Although Trump received multiple standing ovations, he may not have been the most popular member of his family in the room. When Peter King of New York said members had their choice who to take a picture with, they flocked towards Trump’s daughter, Ivanka. “She’s the star,” King said. But there were also critics in the room. Mark Sanford of South Carolina mocked Trump afterward for referencing article XII of the US constitution in response to a question about article I, which delineates Congress’s powers. There are only seven articles in the constitution. Other longtime Trump detractors were left unimpressed, too. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, an Iraq war veteran, grimaced at Trump’s unprompted mention of the Saddam controversy. Charlie Dent of Pennsylvania rolled his eyes in describing Trump to reporters. “He complained about the media, shocking,” said Dent. Dent also noted that Trump proclaimed: “Hispanics love him.” Dent noted that this statement was not borne out in any polls. In a meeting afterwards with senators only a few blocks away, things got more heated. Jeff Flake of Arizona, who has pointedly refused to endorse Trump, reportedly confronted the Republican nominee. Flake noted that he was the Arizona senator who wasn’t captured, a reference to Trump’s disparaging remarks last year about John McCain, and Trump responded by predicting Flake would fail to win re-election. Mark Kirk of Illinois, who has withdrawn his endorsement of the nominee, later told reporters: “I think Trump will get a vote like Alan Keyes got in Illinois, around 28%,” a reference to the sacrificial lamb candidate who ran for the Senate against Barack Obama in 2004. Other Republicans tried to play down the exchanges between Flake and Trump. John Thune of South Dakota told reporters that they were simply the kind of “frank exchange you have inside the family”, while Thom Tillis of North Carolina insisted that this was “a perfectly appropriate discussion” that only made up a few minutes of a longer meeting. Yet despite those conflicts, many senators enthused about the meeting. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, a longtime supporter of Trump, said “there were a massive number of converts” after the meeting. After the gathering, Trump held a one-on-one meeting with primary rival Ted Cruz and asked the Texas senator to speak at the convention. Cruz, who has yet to endorse him, agreed. Others attending praised Trump’s policy chops. Tim Scott of South Carolina thought the discussion was “meaty” and there was “a lot of policy” while senator Bob Corker of Tennessee noted that Trump showed “there’s a lot more nuance to his positions than people realized”. However, there was a tendency for the presumptive nominee to ramble, as Sen Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma noted: “You’ve watched him; he talked about every issue.” Yet all that policy detail still didn’t woo the most diehard never-Trump member of the Senate. Ben Sasse has long been vocal about his opposition to Trump and in a statement, a spokesman for the Nebraska senator said: “Senator Sasse went to today’s meeting ready to listen. Senator Sasse introduced himself to Mr Trump and the two had a gracious exchange. Mr Sasse continues to believe that our country is in a bad place and, with these two candidates, this election remains a dumpster fire. Nothing has changed.”
Burn Your Maps review: if the kid from Room wants to be Mongolian, let him Few actors working in Hollywood today have a more expressive face than Vera Farmiga. With a crooked smile or a slightly tilted head, she has the uncanny ability to convey complex emotions in even the briefest reaction shot. Lucky we are, then, that this newest film, Burn Your Maps, offers a rich character, roiled in tumult, and plopped in an extraordinary setting. This isn’t to say this movie is a masterpiece, but it’s one that doesn’t just tug on the heartstrings it yanks on them like a streetcar passenger afraid he’ll miss his stop. We open in suburban Chicago, where young Wes (Jacob Tremblay) has for some reason become fascinated with everything Mongolian. He watches YouTube videos, is teaching himself the language, listens to throat-singing and takes his older sister’s Uggs and makes them into shepherd’s boots. It’s all very cute, and images of him riding around on his bicycle with goats and eagles made from toilet paper are adorable. Our first glimpse of Wes’ parents Alise (Vera Farmiga) and Connor (Marton Csokas) is in a brutal couples’ therapy session. They are still shellshocked from the loss of their infant daughter, and it’s here where writer-director Jordan Roberts (screenwriter behind Big Hero 6 and March of the Penguins) makes a gutsy choice. Despite eventual triumphant sequences of a euphoric boy riding a horse at magic hour, this isn’t an average kids’ film; the first scene of dialogue involves a conversation about oral gratification, but in a non-lascivious way. I’m no child psychologist, but I think the way it’s done here is perfectly okay. Wes’s infatuation with Mongolia reaches the point where he only feels comfortable in traditional nomadic garb. (A later zing comes when we learn most working goat herders on the Steppes actually wear jeans and ballcaps.) He begins referring to Mongolia as “home” and soon Connor, always in a suit and tie, decides to put an end to this foolishness. Alise, who teaches English as a second language to immigrants, is just happy to see the boy excited about something. Soon Wes befriends one of Alise’s students, Ismail (Suraj Sharma), who has aspirations to be a documentary film-maker. One taped testimonial later and surreptitious crowdfunding scheme later and Ismail, Alise and Wes are off to Mongolia for a “return”. Burn Your Maps, despite the best intentions, is as orientalist as it comes. While respectful of Mongolian customs and beliefs, it is undeniable that it exploits everything about the country and uses it to help a group of well-off white people get their groove back. For some, this will make the film altogether off-putting, and it is hard to argue against that. For a long stretch in Mongolia they don’t even meet any Mongolians! Their coterie includes a “retired” nun (Virginia Madsen) and a driver/guide who is a self-described Puerto Rican from New York (Ramón Rodríguez) who plays salsa music as they ride through the very photogenic locations. We can debate if Burn Your Maps merely fetishises a different culture or holds it in true reverence, but I’d like to give it the benefit of the doubt. If nothing else, the performances are terrific all around. Jacob Tremblay is just the sweetest kid there is and Farmiga is in superior form as a grieving mother who wants nothing more than for her surviving children to be happy. Csokas, ostensibly the villain, is still quite sympathetic, wanting so much to reconnect with the wife who just wants him to leave her alone. The family counselling sessions (led by a very funny Valerie Planche) are some of the more intriguing I’ve seen in quite some time, and, let’s be honest, this is usually just a screenwriting crutch to get exposition out. Mental health jargon bleeds over into every day family life, and the family is upfront about everything except, naturally, the root of their pain. A life-affirming journey to a far off land may be a bit far-fetched, but this is the movies. We’ll take any kind of healing we can get.
Why I Hate the Internet found so many readers Among the poetry racks on the second floor of San Francisco’s legendary City Lights bookstore, an audience member is confronting the author Jarett Kobek with a spirited defense of the revolutionary power of Twitter and Bernie Sanders. His harangue, delivered during a book reading in February, was in atavistic beatnik dialect. “I do Tweet about it, Jack!” he shouted, stirring an erstwhile polite audience to shout things like “Sit the fuck down!” and “Let him talk!” It’s hard to imagine a more appropriate reception for Kobek’s second novel, I Hate the Internet, a savage satire of internet culture set in 2013 San Francisco.. It centers on the fallout from a surreptitious recording posted to Youtube, its narrator describing real-world events of the city rendered in the hyperbolic language that has come to represent online interactions, and diverging into off-topic invective to expose its “ intolerable bullshit”. More funny than obnoxious, the novel has become a sleeper sensation – a more or less self-published book that landed a favorable review above the fold on the front page of the New York Times’ arts section (something Kobek believes is a first for a self-published book). It has dipped into the Amazon top 500, and appears set for a wider international release in six languages. San Francisco’s independent bookstores, pinched for years by online competition and soaring commercial rents pushed up by the city’s tech boom, have pushed the book hard. “With this cover, I think the book would have sold OK even if the pages were blank,” says Kobek. It’s easily spotted on the city’s buses and in its parks, wielded as a talisman against the epidemic of smartphones. But the reception has exceeded his rosiest expectations. “The ironic thing, of course, is that this has all mostly happened on the internet,” said Kobek, 38, of his book’s unlikely success. His shaved head is glinting in the afternoon light of a dingy cafe in San Francisco’s North Beach. He points to a photograph of American Psycho author Bret Easton Ellis reading his book in bed, and a mention on music site Pitchfork as catalysts for the book’s surge in sales. Sales on Amazon, both digital and paperback, and attention from the New York Times are laden with irony. The novel describes them respectively as “an unprofitable website dedicated to the destruction of the publishing industry,” and “transitioning from America’s paper of record into a website that catered to the perceived whims of affluent, youthful demographics.” Over the course of the novel, its author gradually reveals an ambivalence towards the internet belied by its stark title. Early on Kobek writes: “This bad novel, which is a morality tale about the internet, was written on a computer. You are suffering the moral outrage of a hypocritical writer who has profited from the spoils of slavery.” Later, during a long mountain-top soliloquy by a semi-autobiographical character, a scene which openly parodies the climax of Ayn Rand’s libertarian novel Atlas Shrugged, the reader learns: “I know what the internet was like before people used it to make money. I am the only literary writer in America with a serious tech background! I am the only literary writer in America who ran Slackware 1.0 on his 386x!” Kobek admits that his experiences both using technology and working for tech firms have been formative . “The internet is as much a part of me as anything,” he says. “I’ve done just about every low-level, high-paying job the internet has to offer, from web design to systems admin. I was a big Unix guy at one point, in my late teens. “But my relationship with it started divorcing around the time social media started. Really the book could be called ‘I hate four companies and social media’ – but that is a bad title.” What the book taps, says Kobek, is a visceral emotional impulse he encountered frequently on his just-concluded national book tour, its ranting tone and merciless humor attempting to offset a feeling of powerlessness commonly felt by internet users The book defines this as “intellectual feudalism produced by technological innovation arriving in the disguise of culture”. Kobek blazes with brutal rhetoric, but described the narrator’s desperate attempt to understand an impossibly complex and fluid situation. “I knew people hated the internet,” he said, “but I didn’t realize how deeply wounded people are by it. Everyone knows someone who’s had just horrible experiences. It’s been exhausting, at times it has felt like group therapy,” he said of his recent book tour . Kobek lived in San Francisco from 2009 through 2014 before decamping to Los Angeles. “The preparation was, unfortunately, being tortured by San Francisco for four years,” says Kobek . “When I come back now, I just feel overwhelmingly sad. As much as I shit on it, San Francisco has enormous charm. But it’s like a city with Alzheimer’s, it still looks the same but there is something missing.” He writes of the city with wrath. “San Francisco had two distinctions: One, it was the most beautiful city in America. Two, it was filled with the most annoying people in America. It had always been like this, from the beginning. The merit of any moment in San Francisco could be measured by a simple question: was the beauty of the city outweighing its annoying citizens?” But the success of Kobek’s bleak book is a story of hope and entrepreneurial pluck. Stymied in his early attempts to get it published, he co-founded a small press in Los Angeles called We Heard You Like Books, designing the cover and writing the Kindle and Nook files himself. He even created a prequel in the form of “an agitprop video game” cassette for beloved British microcomputer the ZX Spectrum. The book will be released in the UK this fall by Serpent’s Tail, and in Germany by Fischer Verlag. His next book, which takes up with the same characters during in an earlier era in New York City, has been sold to Viking. In I Hate the Internet, Kobek identifies with the tragic experience of comic book artist Jack Kirby, who created Captain America and many other superheroes but never financially benefitted from the business that he helped build. “The internet, and the multinational conglomerates which rule it, have reduced everyone to the worst possible fate. We have become nothing more than comic book artists, churning out content for enormous monoliths that refuse to pay us the value of our work.” With this novel, Kobek seems to have found a way to make sure that doesn’t happen to him “As long as you have something to sell,” he says, “they can’t really hurt you.”
Hillary Clinton says Donald Trump 'doesn't hold women in high regard' Hillary Clinton delivered her first speech as the presumptive Democratic nominee for president on Friday, not in a major electoral battleground but before hundreds of advocates for reproductive rights. Addressing the Planned Parenthood Action Network in Washington, she warned that Donald Trump would return America to a time “when life for too many women and girls was limited”. Days after becoming the first woman in US history to lead a presidential ticket for a major party, Clinton drew upon a series of bellicose remarks made by Trump in reference to women – from calling them “pigs” and “disgusting animals” to suggesting they should be punished for having abortions – as part of a blistering indictment of her Republican opponent. “Anyone who would so casually agree to the idea of punishing women – like it was nothing to him, the most obvious thing in the world – that is someone who doesn’t hold women in high regard,” Clinton said. “Because if he did, he’d trust women to make the right decisions for ourselves. “We’re in the middle of a concerted, persistent assault on women’s health across our country. And we have to ask ourselves and ask everyone we come in contact with: do we want to put our health, our lives, our futures in Donald Trump’s hands?” A crowd of roughly 800, gathered in the cavernous ballroom of the Washington Hilton that was lit in neon pink to mark the occasion, booed at the very mention of Trump’s name. Standing before activists whose organization Republicans have repeatedly sought to defund at federal and state levels, Clinton reinforced her longstanding commitment to Planned Parenthood and its work in providing women’s health services. “As president, I will always have your back,” Clinton said. “We need to defend Planned Parenthood against partisan attacks. “If rightwing politicians actually cared as much about protecting women’s health as they say they do,” she added, “they’d join me in calling for more federal funding for Planned Parenthood.” Trump has said he would strip the group of its funding and has adopted a hard line on abortion – sparking uproar earlier this year when he agreed that women who underwent the procedure where it was illegal should be punished. Trump quickly walked back that comment, but still stated that doctors who performed abortions where it was outlawed should be punished. Clinton advocated expanded access to safe and legal abortion. She also cited increasing sex education and access to contraception as issues inextricably linked to lower rates of abortion and unwanted pregnancies. A Trump presidency, she argued, would hark back to a time when abortion was illegal and “opportunity and dignity were reserved for some, not all”. “Well, Donald, those days are over,” she said. Clinton’s attacks against Trump have grown sharper as she has pivoted toward the general election, a choice she has defined as a battle for America’s identity as a nation. Her remarks on Friday served as a second policy address to contrast her agenda with that of Trump. Last week, the former secretary of state delivered a scathing takedown of his approach to national security and lack of foreign policy credentials. On Friday, Clinton also directed salvos at the Republican party more broadly, citing efforts among GOP-controlled state legislatures across the country to defund Planned Parenthood and enforce strict restrictions on abortion. “They are for limited government everywhere except when it comes to interfering with women’s choices and rights,” she said. One of the most restrictive laws, passed in Texas in 2013, has led to the closure of at least 40 abortion clinics in the state and is now at the center of a supreme court case for which a ruling is expected this month. Referring to the lawsuit as “the biggest challenge to Roe v Wade in a generation”, Clinton used the gravity of the pending decision to remind the audience that Republicans in the US Senate are still refusing to hold a hearing on Merrick Garland, the judge nominated by Barack Obama to fill the supreme court vacancy left by the death of conservative justice Antonin Scalia. Trump, she said, would appoint justices who would seek to overturn Roe v Wade, the 1973 ruling that established the right to have an abortion. Clinton holds a steady image among women voters, among whom in recent elections a majority have voted Democrat. Republicans have struggled to make inroads among women and could reach new lows with Trump at the top of the ticket. Some polling has given the real estate developer an unfavorability rating among women of 70%. Questions about what life for women would be like under a Trump administration were no longer hypothetical, Clinton said. “Every woman and everyone who cares about women,” she said, “will answer them when they vote in November.”
Kano review – playing with time like a cat with a mouse Rapping has a spectrum. At one end are ultra-conscious rappers, mulling over social issues in knotty, verbose rhymes; at the other end are junglists, not so much spitting as salivating a near-meaningless torrent of syllables. In the middle are battle MCs, mink-sporting crooners, laconic chronic smokers and more. Only the greatest can straddle these multitudes, but Kano makes a superb attempt at this homecoming gig, just the other side of the River Lea from the East Ham of his youth. He is thought of as a grime MC, but this is narrow minded. His early hit P’s & Q’s, played here in a riotous encore, shows his roots in the light-footed rhythms of UK garage. Champagne was the drink of choice in that scene, and the music was as frothy; grime was the sound of its bubbles gone flat, a sour, metallic taste rinsing around the palate. It’s represented here in a gigantic middle section that takes in lairy Gameboy-accented curio Boys Love Girls (its title nodding slightly at his future collaborator Damon Albarn) and Ghetto Kyote, his take on the Freon-blooded Kamikaze instrumental, complete with a guest spot from Ghetts, who flounces around the stage with a man bag. Kano’s mic is kept at a redlining level, adding a tangy spot of distortion to his rhymes. The peak of the grime bangers comes with recent single 3 Wheel-ups, a delirious celebration of UK MC culture with shouts to D Double E, Mike Skinner and the aforementioned junglists threaded through a manifesto for an authentic, anti-bling lifestyle. Its title references the ultimate affirmation of a garage or grime track – being wheeled back to the start to get played again – but it’s huge enough to merit the four plays it gets here, with Kano on point each time. Giggs arrives for wheel-up three, eschewing his usual gruff register for a mid-range that’s almost girlish in comparison. Kano also does dumb party bangers as well as most, as on Garage Skank, with its promise to “leng down” bar mitzvahs and hen dos, but the rest of his set shows just how broad a talent he is. The conflicted patriotism of This Is England is paradoxically his most US-style track, with an imperial Jay Z-style flow and beat, while T Shirt Weather in the Manor and My Sound aim at Jamie xx’s wistful tropicalia. For the Madlib-esque Strangers, a tale of a friendship dented by fame, Kano sits on a monitorin a spot of Jackanory. Brown Eyes is sent out to the “gyaldem”, who are in raptures throughout given that Kano is easily the UK’s prettiest MC – an impala-eyed face softened further by his shy smile at the crowd’s loudest exhortations. And in grime you never need a hype man: this occasionally moshing audience are always word perfect enough to finish each bar. But while his variety makes him rounded, it’s Kano’s flow itself that anoints him with greatness, playing with time like a cat with a mouse. Rather than marching his lyrics steadily along bar divides, he shoulder-barges through them, then dashes back to set them right again. Paired with an equally asymmetric beat on New Banger, the effect is of spinning plates. It makes his American peers’ current fetish for neat double-time rhymes look painfully conservative by comparison. The gorgeous A Roadman’s Hymn aside, his one weakness is the killer pop chorus that might catapult him to wider fame, but the perpetual motion of a track like Drinking in the West End instead holds its own satisfaction. As an MC, Kano remains all things to all men – or perhaps mandem. At Rescue Rooms, Nottingham, 22 March. Then touring until 12 June.
Cuttin' It review – streetwise drama evolves into fierce FGM statement It all begins so innocently and with such high-spirted puppyish energy, as if it’s just another acutely observed and smartly written streetwise coming of age story about the budding friendship between two teenage girls. But don’t be deceived, there is nothing cosy about Charlene James’s gripping, heartfelt and heartbreaking look at female genital mutilation (FGM) in the UK. This is often startlingly funny in its depictions of everyday life as seen through the eyes of a smart teenager, but it is also fuelled by an anger that really makes it fly. It is dedicated to the 500,000 women estimated to be living with the consequences of FGM in Europe, many in the UK. Muna (Adelayo Adedayo), high-spirited and popular at her secondary school, loves Rihanna and seems to walk the streets as if she owns them. She’s excited about her six-year-old sister’s upcoming birthday. New girl Iqra (Tsion Habte) is shy and timid, still processing the deaths of her entire family in her native Somalia, and living with a woman she calls “auntie” in a concrete tower block where the lift is always out of order and the glass in the entrance door is shattered. Iqra is very concerned that a child playing may cut herself on that glass. But when the girls make a chance connection on the bus, it turns out that they have more in common than they realised: Muna was originally from Somalia too, and she has a secret that she can’t share with her other friends, a secret that stops her even seeking help at the doctor. Worried that when her little sister turns seven she too will be mutilated, she confides in Iqra. But although Iqra’s experience of FGM in Somalia left her with emotional as well as physical scars, she argues that it’s tradition. “We do it because it is our culture. We have done it for so long. It is who we are. It has to happen.” James clearly thinks it doesn’t, and so does British law. FGM has been illegal in the UK since 1985, but there has been only one (failed) prosecution in that time, and as Cuttin’ It puts it, there are still little girls lying in their own blood like some “messed up Sleeping Beauty” in the back bedrooms of ordinary homes. Mothers sometimes book their daughters in together, to take advantage of a group discount. There are many kinds of betrayal explored here. The writing is always sharp and increasingly fierce and urgent, and the play unfurls almost like a thriller as Muna tries to save her little sister. The two young actors are outstanding, and Gbolahan Obisesan’s production, played out on Joanna Scotcher’s concrete wasteland design, is admirably restrained until its final harrowing minutes and devastating concluding image. See it and weep, and then do something. • At Young Vic, London, until 11 June. Box office: 020-7922 2922.
I am dying and I want everyone to talk about it For 16 years I have known I’m terminally ill. I’ve had to come to terms with the fact I won’t grow old with my husband, or see my grandchildren become teenagers. I’ve seen my body change; I am slowly wasting away. I have faced the mental struggle of being told I’ve 18 months to live, only to see myself outlive the prognosis. I take 38 tablets every single day and rely on an oxygen tank to breathe. My spine is crumbling; I’ve shrunk by two inches. My skin is covered in painful psoriasis, and I have a growth in my stomach the size of a 30-week pregnancy. And yet, despite this, my biggest challenge is trying to talk to you about the fact that soon, I will die. There’s something about death that people can’t face. We thrive on life; we celebrate it at every opportunity whether it’s a birthday or a christening. And yet, even though everyone who lives will die, death remains the elephant in the room. It’s a stigma, something we need to tiptoe around and leave to care professionals. This is a plea – to my family, my carer, doctors and specialists; to my friends and neighbours, and the people I’m yet to meet: start talking about death as much as you talk about life. Think of death as something you can control, where you can live out your last wishes safe in the knowledge that the ones left behind will be able to cope without you. Start talking to your children about death as a natural process, not something to be scared of. Children are taught about sex, drugs and taxes, but not how to cope with death. We need to have conversations about dying – because yours could happen before mine. I was in my early 20s when I was diagnosed with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). I was enjoying my life as a singer and music teacher and was newly married with two young children. It was a challenge, but manageable. That was, until around my 38th birthday when I was told COPD would, one day, take my life. There have been some close calls. On more than one occasion I’ve had chest infections so severe we’ve had to prepare, as a family, to say our goodbyes. I pulled through, but next time I might not. My sons and my husband are living with this disease as much as I am, and it’s taking its toll. My husband recently had a heart attack and I was powerless to help him. I couldn’t even visit in case I picked up an infection. We sleep in separate rooms and are more like friends than husband and wife. My youngest son has Asperger’s, but rather than me care for him, he’s learning how to help me cope with my illness. My eldest son has children of his own. My granddaughter, who’s just two, lights up my life but even she is aware of my condition. I worry about what will happen to these people when I’m gone. I’ve planned my funeral. Everything is organised other than the type of coffin I’ll have. I like to go to parties, so we’ll hold my wake before I’m gone. When my death will be, no one knows. I’ve fought my disease for years but I’m at the point where I’ve run out of energy. I’m not giving up, but the battle will now take place from my bed – or my wheelchair, on the days I have enough motivation to get out of the house. I’m making the choice to die at home, not in hospital, because I’m so afraid I’ll lose control of my death if I’m on a ward. I’ve come across a lack of understanding of my dying wishes; simple education of care professionals could improve this tenfold. How would you like the end your own life to be, and how do you expect that to happen if things don’t change soon? While some choose to turn a blind eye, many people deeply care about this subject. Organisations are coming together to approach fundraising in unique and different ways, to help bring about significant change. This is everyone’s concern. We can all come together to make a difference by talking about the end of our lives. Talking about death won’t make it happen to you – if it did, I’d have died a long time ago. I have wishes, like you do. But while yours might be to travel the world or meet your hero, mine are simpler. I wish to live in a world where we talk openly and frankly about death; where, through discussion, those nearing the end of their life are understood, listened to, treated with respect and have the death they want whether that’s at home, in hospital, or in a hospice. Is that too much to ask? This is an edited version of a post that first appeared on Care2Save. If you would like to write a piece for Blood, sweat and tears, read our guidelines and get in touch by emailing healthcare@theguardian.com. Join the Healthcare Professionals Network to read more pieces like this. And follow us on Twitter (@GdnHealthcare) to keep up with the latest healthcare news and views.
The New European to continue publishing after making profit Pro-EU newspaper the New European is to continue publishing beyond its four-week trial period after beating its sales targets, its publisher has announced. Billed as the newspaper for the 48% of the UK that voted to remain in the EU in the 23 June referendum, the New European’s first edition is thought to have sold more than 40,000 copies. Subsequent issues have also sold well, leading publisher Archant to decide to continue producing it on a rolling basis, though the company has made it clear it will pull the plug if interest wanes. By contrast, daily sales of The New Day newspaper, which launched last February, quickly sunk to an estimated 30,000 before it was closed in May. Its publisher, Trinity Mirror, had been targeting a circulation of about 200,000 copies. Contributors so far have included novelist Howard Jacobson, the ’s Jonathan Freedland, venture capitalist Saul Klein and former Labour spin doctor Alastair Campbell, who called for the UK to hold a second referendum. “We’re thrilled at the reaction and support we’ve seen for this most unorthodox newspaper launch,” said Archant chief content officer Matt Kelly. “We will continue to publish into the zeitgeist until that moment passes.” Archant is primarily a regional publisher, but has shown a willingness to experiment with focused projects such as the “pop-up” New European. The company claims that the newspaper went from concept to hitting shelves in just nine days. Archant chief marketing officer Will Hattam said: “We have the scale to produce a quality print product for a national audience, but also the agility to turn things around fast and cost effectively enough to profitably service a community that has popped into existence overnight. We’ll only produce the paper for as long as our readers still want it.”
The Purge: Election Year – a shlocky alternative to Clinton versus Trump What better way for a newly minted US citizen like myself to celebrate the fact than with a third helping of The Purge? Or, as I think of it, Murder: Legal For A Day! It was easily the most American movie I could have watched over the Independence Day weekend, and also, handily enough, easily the most anti- or un-American. Purge the first, from three summers ago, didn’t seem to realise what a great premise it was sitting on – a corrupt patriarchy, the New Founding Fathers of America (NFFA), plucked from a rib of The Handmaid’s Tale, permits an annual 12-hour suspension of the taboo against murder – and instead positioned itself as a domestic siege movie in the mode of Assault On Precinct 13. The Purge: Anarchy from 2014 remedied that shortcoming with a vengeance, imagining the Purge’s evolution into a Darwinian, state-sponsored ethnic and social cleansing pogrom, with the champagne-swilling One-Percenters cheering on the mayhem from the safety of their armoured compounds. It also benefited from the addition of Frank Grillo, whose face and bearing recall any number of hardy, ill-shaven B-movie and comic-book platoon sergeants, and whose arrival switched the franchise from a defensive stance toward the offensive tendencies of the follow-ups. The besieged took to the streets, some reluctantly, others for sport, and took the fight to the enemy, usually in tooled-up RVs and buses, so that stationary Precinct 13 gives way to kinetic, headlong Race With The Devil, by way of The Omega Man. In The Purge: Election Year, Grillo’s Leo Barnes is chief of security for a senator (Elizabeth Mitchell) aiming to end the Purge, who is thus Target No 1 for the NFFA. You get the picture: the compound is betrayed and Leo and Senator Roan must face the minatory streets, populated by a cohort of “murder tourists” from such morally compromised nations as South Africa and Russia, as well as the usual hordes of spree-killers and gang-beef score-settlers, plus the heavily armed NFFA execution squad. Most of the fun lies in the adornments – the crazed costuming, the emblems on the NFFA uniforms (circular swastikas, Confederate flags) – and the psychoticisation of pretty much everything emblematically American: gun-toting Uncle Sams; “PURGE” painted in blood on the Lincoln Memorial. Sure, it has its moralistic cake and eats it too, abhorring and embracing its own chaos, but who cares? I haven’t seen this much wickedly pointed social commentary in a pure drive-in movie since Dawn Of The Dead in 1978. Perfect fare for a sceptically minded New American.
Scott Morrison to announce banks will pay for restored Asic funding cuts Banks will foot the bill for the reinstatement of funding cuts to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission as the government prepares to announce measures to bolster the corporate regulator in an effort to head off calls for a royal commission into the sector. The treasurer, Scott Morrison, will announce a levy to raise $120m over four years for Asic, the same amount of money that was cut by the former prime minister Tony Abbott in the 2014 budget. “This will strengthen it [Asic] further,” the finance minister, Mathias Cormann, told Sky News on Wednesday. “The cost will be borne by the banks.” The new measures will help give Asic a “sharper edge to tackle wrongdoing”, the prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, told 5AA Radio. But those pushing for a royal commission say the money does not go far enough. “[The money is] effectively returning some of the resources that they stripped away,” the Greens leader, Richard Di Natale, told ABC Radio. “That’s not going to do the job.” Morrison is also expected to announce a new commissioner, who will be tasked with investigating banking misconduct, and a strengthening of the role of financial services ombudsman. Earlier this month Labor announced it would hold a royal commission into banking impropriety if it wins the upcoming federal election. Opinion polls released this week show that the proposal has broad support in the community. Turnbull insists the government’s new measures for Asic are “not a response to anything that has happened recently”. “This is an issue we’ve been addressing methodically,” he said. “My focus has been on getting action here.” The prime minister on Tuesday faced unrest from his backbench over the need for stronger action against the banks. The Nationals senator John Williams, who has long called for a royal commission into banking behaviour, said the new measures are “a step in the right direction”. “The banks ... want to clean up their act as well. I think these are good measures that Scott Morrison will put in place,” he told ABC Radio. He acknowledged that Asic had “lifted its game” but did not rule out pushing for a royal commission in if banking scandals continue. “It may well be on the agenda in the years to come,” Williams said. Labor will continue to push for a broad-ranging inquiry. “The truth of the matter is nothing less than a royal commission will be satisfactory,” the opposition leader, Bill Shorten, told Channel Nine. “The banks don’t want a royal commission and Mr Turnbull doesn’t want a royal commission but there are tens and thousands of customers who have been ripped of. “We hoped things would get better but they haven’t so I do believe that a royal commission with its wide-spread powers will get to the bottom of it.”
'I'm insisting that things be done my way': readers share their birth stories Natassja, Mountain Ash: ‘I had a truly lovely and very enjoyable home birth’ I felt that home birth was the best option for me. I felt my body would be at its best in my home environment feeling safe, calm, and empowered. My midwife was very supportive of my home birth, being a low-risk mother with a positive previous birth in the midwife-led unit in Aberdare, which has since closed. The only concern was a potential lack of staff to cover my birth. I was told during the later stages of pregnancy that, when the time came, I may well phone up to be told that staff were unavailable, and so I would have to come into Prince Charles hospital in Merthyr Tydfil. There are sadly no birth facilities in my local hospital in Mountain Ash. But a midwife was available and I went on to have a truly lovely and very enjoyable home birth. The midwife attending me was lovely and respectful. She even stayed to have a cup of tea and a chat after the birth. During my pregnancy I did not receive much information about birth options and had to make my choice based on my own beliefs, research and feelings. I found the Home Birth Reference site to be very helpful for birth stories, information on home water births and practical preparation. I realise there are big staffing issues in many places, which currently make this difficult to carry out. But I hope that in the future health organisations will do more to promote home birth. The effect of a traumatic birth in hospital on a woman can be devastating. Equally the effect of a positive birth can be extremely empowering and fulfilling. This is very important to a woman’s wellbeing as she enters new motherhood. I hope many more women go on to have happy, enjoyable births in the future, in the setting they feel is best, when provided with all the information needed to make an informed and balanced choice. Anna, Manchester: ‘My GP was shocked that I had been allowed a home birth for a first child’ I was never informed about the option of a home birth. But being a Dutch national I know it is the norm in the Netherlands for women to give birth at home if there are no complications. At every antenatal appointment at Central Manchester hospital doctors would try and persuade me to have a hospital birth instead. I was asked time and again to reconsider, that pain relief was limited (for instance there is no option for an epidural at home) and that the hospital offered a ‘homelike’ environment which was the safest for me and my baby. This was particularly difficult for my husband, who became worried about the idea of a home birth. Also friends and family (though obviously not from the Dutch side) struggled to understand my choice and the sentence that I heard most before the birth was ‘ ... but what if something happens ... ’ It was a good job that I was so absolutely convinced. My decision to have a home birth was made easier by the fact I only lived about 10 minutes away from the hospital, so that in the case of an emergency I could be taken there very quickly. The quality of care was amazing. I had the support of a qualified, experienced midwife and a trainee midwife exclusively looking after me during the birth. The birth of my son Christiaan could not have been better. Home births seem to have an undeserved stigma. If there are no complications or risks it is an amazing option for both the mother and father. You just can’t get the comforts and freedoms in a hospital, let alone the personal and exclusive care from the midwife. During one of the first checkups with my GP after the birth, she was shocked to hear that I had been allowed a home birth for a first child. With these attitudes, it will be difficult to get more women to choose this as a real alternative to hospital births and this needs to change. Fran, Glasgow: ‘Home births were not promoted by the antenatal teams’ I had my first baby, Nessa, in Glasgow’s now closed Southern General hospital. The labour was long and it wasn’t an easy experience. So I decided to have a home birth for my second child, Ciaran. Being as relaxed as possible during labour and birth was a priority for me. A home birth, where I knew my caregivers and, more importantly, they knew me and my wishes, was the best way for me to try to achieve this. The care for my home birth was excellent, much better than for my hospital birth. I saw one dedicated midwife from the home birth team at the recently shut down Victoria Infirmary throughout my pregnancy. She also visited me at home on a number of occasions for appointments. In my previous pregnancy, I regularly waited up to three hours for a routine antenatal hospital appointment. In my experience the resources for my home birth were far superior to those for a hospital birth. It is the best care I have ever received from the NHS. A lot of a ‘successful’ births can be down to luck, rather than preparation. I did a lot of preparation for my second birth, but I also felt extremely well supported by my caregivers. This helped give me the confidence that I could have a different birth than my previous one. There was no mention of having a home birth at any early antenatal appointment. My baby was quite big and at my 20-week scan the sonographer even said: ‘I take it you’ll be having a C-section.’ Home births were not promoted in any way by the general antenatal teams. My initial information about home births came from private ‘Positive Birth’ social media groups. My physical and emotional recovery was far quicker after the birth of my second child. I attribute this to the relaxed circumstances surrounding my baby’s birth and my aftercare. Amy, Durham: ‘It felt like a very personal service’ I gave birth to my first daughter, Florence, two years ago at Durham University hospital without complications, so this time around my midwife suggested having a home birth. At first I thought it was a ridiculous idea, as I assumed it would be safer in hospital. But after some research and talking to a friend who had a home birth, I became more open to the idea. It helped that we only live 10 minutes from the hospital so I wasn’t worried about something going wrong as we would be able to get there quickly. When I went into labour, I rang the ward at the hospital and they told me a midwife would ring me. She did and we had a few phone calls before she came over just in time for the birth. I gave birth to my second daughter Hazel in a water pool at home with just my husband and two midwives present. My quality of care was excellent and the Durham midwives were exemplary and very supportive. It felt like a very personal service. Emily, London: ‘The midwife unit seems a good halfway point between a home birth and a hospital birth’ I like the idea of a home birth but, as this is our first baby, I would like the reassurance of being in close proximity to the hospital delivery suite if baby or I need it. The midwife unit seems to be a good halfway point between a home birth and a hospital birth. I am also very keen to use the birthing pool if possible and these are not available in the hospital delivery suite. During my first midwife appointment the options were explained to me very well: home birth, hospital birth or midwife-led unit. I was encouraged to ask questions and reassured that I could change my mind at any time. I felt it was enough information at that stage, and subsequent appointments have always provided the opportunity to discuss it again. Our baby is due in late March and we will be going to the Carmen suite at St George’s hospital in London. One of the main draws of the Carmen suite is that if I change my mind about pain relief or if there are any unforeseen complications, the main hospital labour ward and delivery suite is directly opposite and there is the option to go there at any time. We would have been happy to attend antenatal classes at the hospital, but the timings were not compatible with our work commitments, so we are doing classes with a privately run company called Doctor and Daughter. Edda, Wolverhampton: ‘The community midwives put their own needs above mine’ I initially chose to have a home birth for my son Douglas but, despite being perfectly healthy, I had resistance all the way through my pregnancy. A midwife told me they were struggling to have enough staff to facilitate a home birth service so I think that’s why. Around my due date a midwife attempted to diagnose me with gestational diabetes without a consultant, and told me I would be induced two days later. I stood my ground and requested to see a consultant who told me they had never suggested an induction. Another consultant told me I didn’t have gestational diabetes after all. I went into labour shortly after that but the midwives kept being evasive on the phone and insisting I come into the hospital despite my home birth being booked. Eventually they came over two hours after I called them, despite the hospital only being 15 minutes away. Their delay had caused my baby’s heart rate to slow. I had to be rushed by ambulance to have an emergency ventouse which was incredibly terrifying and painful. I still feel completely let down by the community midwives. They put their own needs above mine. By contrast the hospital staff at New Cross hospital were very professional and caring. One of the doctors at the hospital ignored the midwife’s demand that a C-section was needed. Because of him I wasn’t operated on needlessly and I’m very grateful. Lucy, Leeds: ‘I felt empowered to request and decline certain procedures’ I see childbirth as a natural process and wanted this to take place somewhere I felt relaxed and in ownership of the space. It was my first baby, but I felt that I would be much less nervous at home. In the end my baby didn’t rotate enough to deliver naturally. After 24 hours in labour I was transferred into Leeds General Infirmary for a forceps delivery as my baby got stuck facing sideways. Leeds has a dedicated home birth team who use woman-centred care. They are an absolute asset to the NHS. Because I had read up a lot on what my rights and options were, I felt empowered enough to request and decline certain procedures when they were offered and the midwives were understanding and supportive of me. I would have liked a water birth at home but in the end had an epidural, forceps and large episiotomy. Were it not for this intervention things could have gone much worse. The home birth team were very encouraging to consider home birth even for first time mums like me. They all had a non-judgmental and positive attitude. Even though I had to transfer into hospital in an ambulance, I got the benefit of labouring at home which made the whole experience better than if I’d been labouring in hospital for that long. Sara, London: ‘I am insisting that things be done my way’ I’m expecting my second baby in early March this year. Having had an emergency caesarean section with my first child, Henry, at St Thomas’ hospital, I have been given careful guidance on options for this birth. I insisted on this after the trauma of my first one. Midwives and doctors have been excellent in providing this guidance this time around. However, I strongly feel that in the run-up to and during my first birth I was simply left to see what happened. This ended up leading to a prolonged, uncomfortable, stressful and less-than-ideal birth. Due to the likely large size of baby number two, and to avoid a similar scenario to my first birth, I am opting for an elective C-section for this one. The mental healing process has been long for me, hence a nearly five-year gap between my children. I feel that many women are not listened to in the run-up to giving birth and certainly not during it. Emotional and mental aftercare, especially for more difficult births, is severely lacking. That can play a very important role in the overall healing process. I think the care is better this time around because both my carers and I are using the knowledge learned from my first delivery to prepare better. Having a thorough debrief with consultants about the problems of my first delivery has allowed us to really think through things and plan for more eventualities. I have wanted more control over this pregnancy, so I am insisting that things be done my way which, as a first-time mother, you simply don’t know you can do. Kerry, London: ‘We were relieved to have such speedy access to doctors and resuscitation equipment’ My partner Lex gave birth to our son in Homerton hospital on 2 January. We are a gay couple and spent over £18,000 on three cycles of IVF treatment before falling pregnant on the third try. Because Lex is 41 we were advised on numerous occasions that we did not meet the criteria for the midwife-led birth centre or a home birth. Despite the many references to fathers instead of partners in antenatal classes and hospital literature, we found the NHS to be very supportive of us and received outstanding care throughout. One of the consultant midwives contacted my partner and asked if she wanted to come in to discuss the decision for doctor-led care and explain Lex’s options in detail. Following this she felt much more comfortable and in control. Lex’s birth plan was followed to the letter. She laboured for about seven hours in the birth pool until, close to delivery, the monitor showed the baby’s heart rate dropping to dangerous levels indicating distress. Midwives helped Lex out of the pool and the doctor attended immediately. They encouraged Lex to deliver naturally but eventually they skilfully delivered the baby with ventouse. In the end we were relieved to have such speedy access to doctors and resuscitation equipment. Postnatal care was also first class and every member of staff we came across was 100% supportive of us as a couple and as equal parents. We will be forever grateful to all the amazing people who helped bring our beautiful son into the world.
Top graduates missing out on banking jobs for lacking 'polish' Graduates with first-class degrees from elite universities are being “locked out” from jobs in investment banking if they commit the crime of wearing brown shoes, look uncomfortable in a suit, or have the wrong “polish” or “aura”, according to a new study into social exclusion. The exclusion process is even more brutal for non-privileged candidates from non-elite universities and schools, found the report by the Social Mobility Commission, which uncovers a world where, according to one interviewee: “There are some areas in the bank … where the concept of diversity is about taking a different year group from Eton or from Harrow; if some of the departments are really ambitious they might include St Paul’s and Westminster school.” In its report, Socio-Economic Diversity in Life Sciences and Investment Banking, published on Thursday, the commission, chaired by former minister Alan Milburn, reveals that the mainstream recruitment and selection processes of investment banks has “set up barriers for individuals from non-privileged backgrounds”. By “non-privileged”, however, the report aims high, by defining “privilege” as having rich and important parents who could be useful to the banks, going to a select few private schools – and an even more select few universities – having completed three or four periods of unpaid work experience by the age of 17, and social skills honed by attending drinks and dinner parties from an early age with their parents. “It is important to note again that these processes are becoming more pronounced within the sector,” noted the report. “Banks acting alone may be reluctant to reverse this trend for fear of their competitors capturing all the ‘best’ candidates at an early stage.” Preparing for a successful career in banking starts early, the report found. Candidates for front-office roles in banks must have scored 520 points in the old A-level tariff, equivalent to two A* and two As. “Students who achieve strong grades at a target university but have performed less well at school, may be automatically eliminated during rigid pre-screening,” the report notes. Applications from these students will not even be read by banks, even if the student is on track for a first-class degree. While achieving these A-level results, students must also be able to show a variety and often extensive list of extracurricular activities on their CV, including leading societies and sporting clubs. From school, candidates must attend the very narrow group of universities in the UK from which investment banks prefer to select, including London School of Economics (LSE), University College London (UCL), Imperial College London, and Oxford, Cambridge and Warwick Universities. Just 7% of all UK children attend fee-paying schools but 34% of new entrants to the banking sector who were educated in the UK had attended a fee-paying school, rising to almost 70% of new entrants in private equity. More than 50% of current leaders within the banking sector who are from the UK were educated privately. Oxbridge entrants to the City are more likely to be privately educated than Oxbridge graduates who go elsewhere: 42% of all Oxbridge graduates went to private schools but 65% of Oxbridge entrants to the banking sector went to private school. During their time at the university, aspiring bankers are expected to continue expanding their CVs with extracurricular activities. These requirements have, the report says, “arguably contributed to a relative ‘arms race’ as, faced with increasing competition and an ever increasing need to stand out, aspirant bankers engage in increasingly focused efforts to build their CV”. The report says that “in other careers, university might provide the environment in which students from non-privileged backgrounds can identify and refine their career aspirations, ready to apply to internships during their second year. Yet for investment banks, students from non-privileged backgrounds who apply at this point may be competing against others who have already added several internships, Spring Week programmes, and/or insight days to their CV.” Furthermore, those who want to work in investment banks have often already been spotted by the time they have got to university after having attended several school programmes and unpaid work experience for one to six weeks, during which time they must be based in London. According to one report, “top first-year [university] students often don’t just do one spring internship. They do two, or three, or four” This requirement is becoming more pronounced. But these periods of work experience and internships, which may lead to permanent jobs, are frequently offered to individuals whose friends and family are of strategic importance to the bank, including in relation to the expansion of their business on a global basis. One interviewee said: “It’s not nepotism the way we actually think about it. It’s actually very calculated, profit-motivated, rational thinking.” Internships, however, are not for learning the ropes: they are for climbing into already formed networks. “It is possible to build networks during internships [but] existing social networks may also play a role as interns seek to build internal networks within the bank and secure all-important ‘face-time’ with influential senior bankers … [while] impress[ing] a sufficient number [of current traders] who would act as referees for a permanent position,” the report says. Even for candidates who get this far, there is another hurdle to scale: that of “comportment”. This, the report notes, are opaque modes of speech, accent, dress and behaviour which are “actively sought by hiring managers during the selection process” and which, a senior member of the profession revealed, are best learned alongside one’s parents while at school, at dinner and drinks parties. These attributes, the report adds, are undefinable – and therefore, unachieveable for the non-privileged – but can be described as a “polish” or “an aura”. Not having that “aura” can be exposed, said one interviewee, by a candidate simply “not saying much or if they do say it, they’re not quite saying it the right way”. Another interviewee added: “People without this polish will be just be crushed underfoot.” These opaque codes of conduct also extend to dress. For men, the report found, wearing brown shoes with a business suit is generally considered unacceptable. Unless you come from continental Europe. “Interviewees suggested that [these issues] do play a material role in the selection process, once again, as a demonstration of [a candidate’s] ‘fit’ [inside the bank],” said the report. One interviewee said it was easy to spot candidates from non-privileged backgrounds: “From my experience [they] … don’t have a haircut … their suit’s always too big … they don’t know which tie to wear,” they said. Another interviewee, from a non-privileged background, described feedback he received from a mentor after an interview: “He said: ‘You interviewed really well.’ He said: ‘You’re clearly quite sharp, but … you’re not quite the fit for [this bank] … you’re not polished enough’ … he looked at me and said: ’See that tie you’re wearing? It’s too loud. Like you can’t wear that tie with the suit that you’re wearing’ … what kind of industry is this where I can be told that I’m a good candidate, I’m sharp, but I’m not polished enough?” Another interviewee agreed: “[In corporate finance] if you’ve got the wrong cut of suit, if you are wearing the wrong shoes, or tie, or you look awkward in a suit, you’re done before you start. And unfortunately, if you’ve never worn a suit before in your life, how are you going to do it? … You go there, you stick out like a sore thumb.”
Princess Leia: can Star Wars makers keep Carrie Fisher's beloved character going? Carrie Fisher’s unexpected death has not just left Star Wars fans heartbroken – it may thrust the Disney film studio into a dilemma over the fate of her iconic character Princess Leia as it moves forward with the film franchise. Fisher, 60, enjoyed a new round of fame when Princess Leia, Harrison Ford’s Han Solo and Mark Hamill’s Luke Skywalker were reunited on screen for 2015’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which sold more than $2bn in tickets at the global box office. Fisher had finished filming for the 2017 release of Star Wars: Episode VIII, Disney said. Plot details have remained a closely guarded secret. Fisher was also expected to play a key role in the ninth instalment of the sci-fi saga, due for release in 2019. A Disney spokeswoman on Tuesday declined to comment on whether Leia would appear in films beyond Episode VIII. Star Wars director Colin Trevorrow had said in a January 2016 interview that he was excited “to find new places that we can take” the characters of Princess Leia and her on-screen twin brother Luke Skywalker. “They are icons but they’re also people that have suffered tremendous loss and challenge over the course of all these films,” Trevorrow told celebrity news outlet Entertainment Tonight. Amid grieving over Fisher’s death, Star Wars fans have speculated on how the battle between good and evil in the Galactic Empire could continue without Fisher playing Leia, a fearless Rebel Alliance fighter who in The Force Awakens had become a general. Leia appears briefly in the standalone movie now in theatres, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, as a digital recreation of the young princess. The late British actor Peter Cushing, who died in 1994, is also brought back to life as Death Star commander Grand Moff Tarkin for Rogue One using computer generated imagery (CGI). Under a 1985 California law filmmakers must get permission from the estate of a celebrity to use his or her image for up to 70 years after death. Other possibilities include redrafting the plot of Episode IX, reshooting scenes from Episode VIII, or casting someone else, as the makers of Harry Potter did when Richard Harris, who played headmaster Albus Dumbledore, died after filming the first two movies. Some fans have suggested that singer Stevie Nicks could play Leia in future movies. But others said the character should be given a glorious screen death. “I swear they better find a way to write Princess Leia out of the movies, cause if they try and recast there will be hell to pay,” a fan identified as Kaitlin tweeted.
For Leicester City a Champions League place is no longer good enough It was at this exact stage last season, with nine matches to go, that Leicester City mounted their great escape. Almost 12 months on and Claudio Ranieri’s team took to the field against Newcastle United hoping for a similar points haul over the last nine fixtures but with a very different target in mind. Winning the title, rather than staying up, is the aim and this felt like another significant step towards that improbable dream. Leicester may not need anything like the 22 points Nigel Pearson’s side earned in that remarkable finish to last season when avoiding relegation to the Championship was greeted with such a sense of achievement. So much has changed in that respect, with the league table virtually turned upside down since; yet a glance through the squad also reveals that so much remains the same at the club. While Shinji Okazaki, Christian Fuchs and the outstanding N’Golo Kanté have all made major contributions this season, the key gamechanger in the extraordinary story that has unfolded has to be Ranieri. It is almost comical to think back to his appointment in the summer and remember how on the day he was unveiled at the King Power Stadium, Susan Whelan, Leicester’s chief executive, sat alongside the Italian and pleaded for supporters to trust the club’s judgment. Everything about what has happened since seems surreal. Early in the season, when the Midlands club first broke into the top four, BBC Leicester began their matchday radio coverage with the Champions League theme tune and vowed to keep doing so until the club slipped down the table. Little did they realise that seven months later the soundtrack would be a permanent fixture on their station. But playing in Europe’s premier club competition is no longer enough for this group of players. They are five points clear at the top of the table with 720 minutes of football left to play and it has got to the stage where, ridiculous as it would have sounded at the start of the campaign, finishing second would almost feel like a disappointment for Leicester. Gary Lineker talked about a title that would go down as “possibly the most unlikely triumph in the history of team sport” and that has to be Leicester’s sole focus. The mind games have started and on the eve of this game Mauricio Pochettino said the pressure was now on Leicester. Ranieri’s side now have a wonderful chance to turn the tables on their nearest rivals with a win at Crystal Palace on Saturday. Tottenham Hotspur, who host Bournemouth on Sunday, will be chasing down an eight-point deficit if that turns out to be the case. Ranieri, however, is not the sort of man to waste energy speculating on what may or may not happen in the future. The Leicester manager thinks only about the here and now, which is why he was so animated in the closing minutes against Newcastle, when the anxiety and tension inside the stadium was tangible. His response was to throw his arms in the air and implore the supporters to get behind the team. They obliged and moments later there were raucous celebrations when the final whistle was blown. Leicester’s last three victories have all been by a 1-0 scoreline, which says something about their defensive resilience and the players’ ability to hold their nerve and see games out. So much is made of the fact that Leicester have never been in this position before and lack the experience of winning titles, yet there are some strong characters in Ranieri’s dressing room and this is not a team that looks as if it is going to crack. The winning goal was a beauty and it was difficult to think of a more popular scorer than Shinji Okazaki. It was only Okazaki’s fifth in the league this season but the forward’s contribution is measured in much more than goals. A tireless worker and a perfect foil for Jamie Vardy with his ability to drop into the pockets of space that open up when the Leicester striker stretches defences with his pace, Okazaki has adapted seamlessly to the Premier League and epitomises everything about the spirit running through Ranieri’s team. Vardy deserves credit for the wayhe showed such determination to head the ball back across goal but Okazaki still had much to do. With his back to goal the Japan international improvised brilliantly as he executed a superb overhead kick to beat Rob Elliot from about eight yards. Signed from Mainz in the summer, Okazaki is one of the few players in this Leicester side who did not feature in that relegation scrap at the end of last season. Indeed eight of the XI that started against Newcastle were Pearson’s players, which seems like a compliment to the former Leicester manager as well as to his successor, Ranieri, who must feel as if he can do no wrong. To finish the previous campaign like a train was one thing but to keep the momentum going throughout this season is quite another. Leicester have taken 82 points from their last 38 games, across this season and last, which is comfortably more than anyone else in the league. They have, in other words, been playing like champions for 12 months. Now they just need to see it through.
Friends Reunited website to close after 15 years Friends Reunited was a pioneer of social networking when it launched in 2000, but on Monday founder Steve Pankhurst announced its closure. In an emailed entitled “the sunset of an era”, Pankhurst wrote that “the world is now a very different place” and that Friends Reunited is no longer able to compete with Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. The site, Pankhurst writes, still has a “handful” of users but that its continuation would not be viable. “It is clear that the site is no longer really used for the purpose it was built for … therefore, it is with a heavy heart, that we have decided to close the service down.” Pankhurst, who co-founded the service with business partner Jason Porter, was approached by Friends Reunited’s current owner, comic producer DC Thompson, to buy the site back. A trial takeover period did not prove successful. In 2005, Friends Reunited was bought by the broadcaster ITV for £175m ($250m) but was later sold to DC Thompson for just £25m in 2009. The site will remain live for another month to allow users to download photographs they may have stored on the service. Whether anybody will be able to remember their passwords is another matter. People have reacted to the news of Friends Reunited’s demise with a mixture of nostalgia and snark on Twitter (welcome to the internet): Pankhurst’s new venture is a network called Liife, which will allow users to plot key life events on a chart. Although in a post on Medium, he admitted the idea was “not unique”. However, he hoped the greater element of privacy specific to the service would prove popular. • ITV sells Friends Reunited to DC Thomson firm for £25m
Lights, camera, action: the unexpected rise of live online video Live online video seems to have shot unexpectedly to the top of the media industry’s priorities this month, but experts who missed the subject off their trends lists needn’t feel embarrassed. In a rare interview, Facebook’s senior management recently admitted that even they only saw the opportunity themselves when they were reviewing internal data back in February. Twitter’s Periscope app is a perfect fit with its aspiration to be the best possible “live connection to culture” for users (and indeed for non-users), but its recently announced NFL live streaming sponsorship is a radical new play beyond that. Twitter will no longer just be a place to discuss the live TV you’re watching, it will be the place you go to watch that content in the first place. Facebook’s own Live video launched last year for influencers, and its immediate success put its engineers into a five-week lockdown to build out new functionality rapidly, allowing them largely to achieve parity with Twitter’s more established offering. The newsfeeds of 1.6 billion users provide a huge audience for live video to play out through, and the launch of a new Live API allows this functionality to be built out into a wide range of services or even devices. Where Twitter will continue to have the advantage, though, is the higher percentage of those user streams that will be shared publicly and not just among friends. However, it is misleading to call live video a new trend. Data from Pivotal Research Group shows that almost 80% of US video viewing still takes place through live TV, while digital video recorders account for 9%, and computers, mobiles and other devices represent just over 10% in total. For a long time, social platforms have experimented with being the “second screen”, but now they’re looking to go one further. Live online video takes many forms – it can be professional broadcasts from studios, it can be behind-the-scenes footage, it can be citizen journalists, and it can of course be people sharing relatively throwaway moments in their lives. It’s hard to predict exactly what content will come to dominate, and so far an English puddle has captivated Periscope and more than 800k people watched Buzzfeed’s exploding water melon. A growing problem for social platforms is not people’s willingness to watch video, but their ability to produce it – newsfeeds are increasingly dominated by video posts but few of them come from friends. Setting up, recording and uploading a video is a much bigger undertaking than just snapping a picture, and for all but the most spontaneous of moments it’s a process that requires more thought and effort that we’re willing to give, not to mention the pressure to produce something as good as professional content that is being shared. With this in mind there’s a slightly less optimistic perspective to be had on Facebook’s sudden live obsession – rather than just being an exciting new opportunity, it might represent a fix to a real problem. Recent reports have highlighted that original sharing (ie user-generated content) has been rapidly declining and this has the potential slowly to undermine the platform’s entire value proposition. At the recent Facebook developers’ conference executives acknowledged this trend, but argued that for the most part users were simply using a wider range of platforms (dominated by its other properties Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp) to communicate as well, and the amount of time all users spend on the platform continues to increase. Live is the perfect antidote to this, because by its very nature it’s rough and unrehearsed. Mark Zuckerberg describes use of the feature as “a new, raw way that people wanted to share on a day-to-day basis. We’re seeing this especially with young people and teens.” This is a generation that finds the weight of perfectly curating their social presence so draining that they’re turning to places where they can instantly be forgotten, or at least private in their embarrassment. More than anything it’s this willingness to share fleeting live moments that has fuelled Snapchat’s growth, so while Facebook Live video may look like a rival to Periscope its target is perhaps more squarely aimed at that yellow messaging app. You can be sure that marketers will be jumping on this opportunity with events and stunts to generate live content. Some will succeed and become industry case studies, but there’s caution that live video’s rise doesn’t necessarily mean brands have to also start producing their own, which will often be a costly and impractical task. If live video streams succeed in getting more eyeballs to social platforms and keeping them there for longer then that simply means there are more opportunities for marketers to communicate their own messages within that. Twitter’s Amplify product already allows advertisers to run pre-roll video in front of live content and they are turning that into a far more scalable product that can be activated against almost any video on the platform. In this way advertisers can be at the very heart of moments without having to create them themselves. Facebook will need to build out a clearer monetisation route but, until then, if Live is bringing people back to their newsfeeds more often then it’s already helping create more opportunities for traditional promoted posts to be shown. If you’re still thinking about social media marketing purely as a way of engaging fans then you’re increasingly missing the point – truthfully, that’s a far smaller opportunity than reaching millions with rich storytelling content. The Facebooks and Twitters of today are no longer text update platforms to stay in touch with your friends, they’re mobile video channels that are gearing up for the biggest fight of their lives: the one where they try and persuade you to look away from your TVs. To get weekly news analysis, job alerts and event notifications direct to your inbox, sign up free for Media & Tech Network membership. All Media & Tech Network content is editorially independent except for pieces labelled “Paid for by” – find out more here.
Increase in IVF complications raises concerns over use of fertility drugs Increased numbers of women suffered from a serious complication of IVF last year, according to official figures that raise concerns about the use of powerful fertility drugs. In 2015, 60 women were admitted to hospital with severe ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome (OHSS), a 40% increase on the previous year. The condition, which is triggered when the ovaries swell up and leak fluid, is potentially life-threatening. Symptoms include abdominal swelling and pain, nausea, dehydration and blood clots in the legs. Leading fertility doctors warned that the trend could be driven by doctors giving women stronger drugs to harvest more of their eggs, with a view to boosting the chances of a successful pregnancy. Professor Geeta Nargund, a senior consultant at St George’s Hospital in London and medical director of Create Fertility, said: “OHSS is a preventable condition. The number should never go up, it should always go down in modern fertility practice.” In the past decade the numbers of OHSS cases have been steadily falling as clinics have shifted towards milder treatments, but the latest figures suggest a reversal of this trend. Nick Macklon, professor of obstetrics and gynaecology at the University of Southampton, believes the increase could be linked to recent improvements in embryo and egg freezing technology. In theory, the ability to freeze eggs and delay transferring embryos until the ovaries have settled down should help avoid serious cases of OHSS, which can be worsened by pregnancy. However, it also provides a greater incentive for clinicians to obtain as many eggs as possible to maximise a couple’s chances of success, he said. “This escape route may have encouraged clinicians to return to harder stimulation regimens,” said Macklon, adding that recent Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) figures showing higher pregnancy rates when around 15 eggs are obtained may also have played a role. During IVF, a woman is typically given injections of drugs designed to stimulate the ovaries into releasing eggs, which are then harvested, fertilised and either transferred back to the patient or frozen for future use. Some women are more sensitive to the drugs, however, and their ovaries are sent into overdrive, causing them to enlarge and release chemicals into the bloodstream. Fluid from the blood vessels leaks into the abdomen, and in severe cases, into the space around the heart and lungs. Mild OHSS is common, affecting about one in three women, but the condition can result in serious health problems and -extremely rarely - women have died. Blood tests are now used by clinics to predict who is at risk of OHSS, based on their natural levels of a hormone called AMH. “We might reasonably expect that the trend in incidence should therefore be down rather than up, so I think there is likely to be a real cause rather than statistical artefact behind the rise,” said Macklon. “The overall numbers remain very low compared with the past, but I think there is a message in these data to remain vigilant about preventing OHSS by avoiding high dose stimulation where possible.” According to HFEA data, in 2014, 42 cases of severe OHSS were recorded, compared to 46 the previous year, but last year the figure rose to 60 cases. The regulator classifies severe OHSS as a grade B adverse incident, one level below the most serious category, which includes the death of a patient or an embryo being transferred to the wrong woman. Professor Adam Balen, chairman of the British Fertility Society and a spokesman for the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, said: “OHSS is a potentially serious complication of fertility treatment, particularly IVF. Most women will recover with pain relief; however, for severe cases, women may need to be admitted to hospital and given treatment to reduce their risk of developing blood clots, which is a serious complication of the condition.” HFEA figures show a steady upward trend in the number of IVF cycles carried out annually, rising from 68,000 in 2014 to around 72,000 in 2015 (roughly a 6% increase), which might explain part of the increase in adverse incidents last year. “I said ‘call my mum,’ and then ‘no, call an ambulance.’” A decade ago, Lee Cowden, a primary school teacher from Surrey, was newly married and lying in bed with her husband, Iain, after a weekend away in Norfolk. “I remember sitting up in bed gasping and saying to my husband ‘I can’t breathe.’” she said. “We hadn’t been married that long and I said ‘call my mum,’ and then ‘no, call an ambulance.’” Lee later discovered she had suffered a heart attack as a result of OHSS. At 25 she had decided to start trying for a baby, because her diagnosis of polycystic ovary syndrome meant she would need fertility treatment. She had been prescribed stimulation drugs to induce ovulation, but when it hadn’t worked the clinic had doubled the dose. The first sign that she was suffering OHSS was abdominal pains, but the clinic told her this was probably due to a benign ovarian cyst. In fact, her ovaries had become severely over-stimulated and this eventually led to a blood clot forming that travelled to her heart. “I felt a stabbing pain between my shoulder blades, which I knew was a sign of a heart attack, but I thought: don’t be ridiculous, you’re 25,” she recalls. Since then, she said, she has met many others who have suffered from milder forms of OHSS. “So many women ... think overstimulation is part and parcel of treatment,” she said. “It’s not acceptable.” Lee, now 37, made a good recovery - although she will take daily heart medication for the rest of her life - and went on to have IVF treatment using milder drugs. She conceived her daughter, Molly, who is now nearly ten. Two years later, she conceived naturally, and her second daughter, Ruby, is eight.
'The lull before the tsunami': economists on the Brexit watch data David Blanchflower, professor of economics at Dartmouth College, New Hampshire, and former member of the Bank of England’s monetary policy committee (MPC) from June 2006 to May 2009: These are still early days to determine what has happened to the UK economy after the Brexit vote because there are lags before any impact is felt; lags before there are measurable effects; and even longer lags until the data gets published. We only have hard data through August. The bad news already is prices are rising, wage growth is slowing and unemployment is up. The volume of retail sales was flat in September versus August. The fall in the pound has already generated a pick-up in inflation. The consumer prices index was up from 0.6% to 1% in the latest ONS release and is expected to trend steadily higher soon. This is especially bad news for workers whose real wages are still about 7% lower than they were at the pre-recession peak in 2007. Real wages have been on the rise for the last couple of years as inflation tumbled. The latest data for the month of August shows that annual wage growth, not adjusted for inflation, was 2%, down from 2.4% in July. The concern is that by the middle of 2017 prices of goods will start to rise faster than wages, lowering living standards. Unemployment is on the rise again, although it is somewhat unclear by how much because the ONS data is so bad. Estimates range from 10,000 to 144,000 on the month. The ONS last week published data for unemployment for the average of June to August, which it compared with the average of March to May and claimed that the number of unemployed rose by 10,000. But it seems the real jump was likely a lot larger than that. Deep inside the ONS website you can find the underlying monthly data. Here it is in millions. March: 1.73m April: 1.58m May: 1.62m June: 1.71m July: 1.55m August: 1.69m Averages March-May: 1.64m May-July: 1.63m June-August: 1.65m The data shows from the latest single month estimate, which is what every other major country in the world publishes, that unemployment rose 144,000 between July and August. This may be too high, given that these monthly numbers are unstable. If you average the months together as the ONS does, then it is true that unemployment jumped by 10,000, from 1,646,000 in March-May to 1,656,000 in June-August. But that doesn’t seem the right comparator. If you compare the rolling quarter of May to July with June to August, which seems much more sensible, the rise is actually a really worrying – and more believable – 25,000. Whether the true rise in unemployment is 10,000; 25,000 or 144,000 the rise is bad news of course, as unemployment hurts. This is surely the lull ahead of an oncoming Brexit tsunami. Andrew Sentance, senior economic adviser at the consultancy PwC and former member of the Bank’s MPC from October 2006 to May 2011: Since the referendum result we have seen some mixed economic indicators. On the consumer side of the economy, growth has been resilient. Even though retail sales were fairly flat in September, third-quarter retail sales volumes were 5.4% up on a year ago. This is roughly in line with the post-crisis high in the fourth quarter of 2014, and before that we have to go back to 2003-04 to find stronger retails sales growth. Consumers, however, have continued to benefit from very low inflation. That is now changing – with CPI inflation picking up to 1% in September – though this is the tip of the inflationary iceberg created by the recent fall in the pound. CPI inflation is set to rise to at least 2.5-3% by the end of next year – and possibly higher. So consumer spending is likely to slow down over the next 12-18 months as inflation bites into the growth of spending power. An economic slowdown is already apparent in the labour market, with job growth easing – though it remains positive and the unemployment rate is still below 5%. But the key test of how well the economy holds up during the Brexit process will be investment spending. At present, we have limited information about how investment has performed post-Brexit vote. There is anecdotal evidence that businesses are becoming more cautious about investment – particularly in sectors which could be affected by the UK leaving the EU, such as manufacturing and financial services. But it will take a while for this to feed through to real spending decisions in the UK economy. It will not be until 2017 or 2018 that we see the full investment implications of the uncertainty created by the Brexit referendum decision. Our PwC growth forecast remains at around 1% for next year, about half the recent UK growth rate. That will push the UK down the G7 growth league, below the US, Canada, Germany and France. So our economy will be taking a hit over the next year or two in the form of lower growth, but an outright recession should still be avoided.
Ukip-controlled group 'misspent' €500,000 on Brexit campaign A Ukip-dominated group in the European parliament has been found to have misspent more than half a million euros (£427,000) of taxpayers’ money following an investigation by European parliament officials. The Alliance for Direct Democracy in Europe, a Ukip-controlled group, was asked to return €172,655 by a committee of senior MEPs on Monday night, after officials found the party had breached EU rules by pouring money into the UK 2015 general election and the EU referendum. The group will also be denied €248,345 in grants it could have secured if it had followed the rules, a damaging blow to the cash-strapped party. Once misspending by Dutch and Belgian parties was taken into account, the ADDE and an affiliated foundation were found to have misused €500,615 of EU grants. Senior MEPs endorsed the report of the parliament’s finance team, a document seen by the last week, which concluded the ADDE had funnelled cash into Nigel Farage’s failed attempt to win a seat at Thanet South, as well as opinion polls to test the public mood in the run-up the EU referendum campaign. EU rules ban parties from spending European grants on national elections or referendums. “The activities of the ADDE were found to breach the rules for European party financing,” a European parliament statement said, citing opinion polls funded by the ADDE in British constituencies before of the 2015 general election, as well as public opinion surveys before June’s referendum. Meeting in Strasbourg on Monday night, a European parliament management committee led by its president, Martin Schulz, approved a report that had been drawn by finance officials, which had found “a substantial number of activities” of “non-eligible expenditure”. No one from the ADDE or Ukip was immediately available for comment, but the party has vowed to fight the claims in the European court of justice. Ukip MEP Roger Helmer last week accused the parliament of “revenge for Brexit”, although officials counter they are just following the standard audit procedure. One European parliament vice president said Ukip had clearly broken the rules. Ulrike Lunacek, a German Green MEP, said: “Ukip has spent years accusing the EU of being corrupt and of wasting taxpayers’ money. The hypocrisy is breath-taking.” The parliament launched an investigation into the finances of Ukip’s European party and an allied foundation, the Institute for Direct Democracy in Europe, after auditors at EY (formerly Ernst & Young) refused to sign off the accounts. The auditors reached a “qualified opinion” on the ADDE’s accounts, as part of their annual audit of European political parties and foundations for 2015. Auditors raised the alarm partly because Ukip’s pan-European group lacked other sources of funding such as membership fees and donations, a condition of obtaining EU grants. Officials at the European parliament concluded that the ADDE was almost bankrupt and are expected to call for “financial improvement” within a month. The decision to endorse the report’s findings came just hours after the dramatic exit of former leader Diane James. Ukip has been in turmoil since she stood down after only 18 days in charge, with Farage called in as interim leader to steady the ship. Adding to the sense of chaos, French prosecutors are investigating an altercation between MEPs Steven Woolfe and Mike Hookem that landed Woolfe in hospital for three nights last month. The EU has been funding pan-European political parties since 2004, as part of an attempt to boost interest in European elections. Ukip banded together with fellow Eurosceptics in 2014 in the hope of obtaining a European cheque totalling €1.5m. The British Eurosceptics went on to find allies with Germany’s hard-right Alternative für Deutschland and a former member of the French National Front, but remained dominant in the group. The decision to create a pan-European group was controversial within Ukip and six of the party’s MEPs declined to join. But Ukip’s top leaders, including Farage and the man most likely to succeed him, Paul Nuttall, are listed as members. The ADDE was awarded a €1.2m grant for 2015, with 80% of the money paid in advance in line with the parliament’s standard procedure. The remaining 20% was due to be paid in 2016 after the accounts were signed off. This money has now been lost, but the ADDE retains EU funding worth €820,725 for 2015. The grant for 2016, covering the EU referendum and official campaign, is due to be audited next year. Ukip also benefits from EU funds through a separate group that manages the day-to-day business of Farage and his allies in the European parliament, known as the Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy.
Pork pies and stilton under Brexit threat, says Nick Clegg Melton Mowbray pork pies, stilton cheese and British-made chocolate such as Cadbury’s could be under threat from Brexit, the former deputy prime minister Nick Clegg has warned. Speaking to a food and drink industry conference on the impact of leaving the European Union, Clegg said it was possible that European rivals would start producing lookalikes to British foodstuffs if they lost the legal protection from imitation offered by EU rules. “Outside the EU they won’t enjoy the appellation bestowed on those products and I would have thought other countries would take advantage of that pretty quickly and put products into the European market that directly rival those protected brands,” Clegg said. Melton Mowbray pork pies have protected geographical indication status, which acts just like a trademark or appellation d’origine contrôlée and stops manufacturers from outside a region copying a regional product. Stilton is covered by a protected designation of origin, which is linked to the region a product comes from. Gloucestershire Old Spot pork is protected under a third system – traditional speciality guaranteed – which the Birmingham balti is currently applying for. There are 73 such protected food names in the UK, including wines, beers, ciders and spirits, as well as wool. The list of protected foodstuffs includes Cornish pasties, Whitstable oysters, Scotch beef, Jersey royal potatoes and Anglesey sea salt. Clegg also warned that British chocolatiers could soon face difficulties in exporting to Europe for a different reason. Cadbury’s-style chocolate, which has a higher vegetable fat and milk content than most continental rivals, only won the right to be sold as chocolate across Europe in 2003 after a 30-year battle. Before that, a number of EU countries, including Spain and Italy, banned chocolate that contained vegetable fat instead of pure cocoa butter. Clegg said: “I would have thought that, relatively quickly, European chocolate manufacturers will say ‘let’s just tweak the chocolate definition’ … then suddenly [British-style chocolate] cannot be called chocolate any more.” The former deputy prime minister, who is now the Liberal Democrat spokesman on Brexit, recently produced a report warning that foods including chocolate, cheese and wine would soar in price if the UK pursued a hard Brexit outside the single market. He said that the promise from “Brexit enthusiasts” that a “low-cost bonanza beckons” as the UK strips away trade tariffs was unrealistic. “This ludicrous utopia is simply not going to happen,” Clegg said. “It is a disservice to the debate for anyone to predict that.” Clegg said that food import tariffs were there to protect British as well as German and French farmers. He added that it would not be in the national interest to unilaterally remove them as this would remove the UK’s bargaining power when it was trying to gain access with trade partners for exports such as legal services and accountancy. He warned that the government needed to develop a trade strategy that would reassure businesses that would increasingly be demanding the same treatment promised to Nissan. The car manufacturer recently committed to further car production in the UK after receiving a promissory letter from the government. He warned the government against “making commitments without the power to deliver them”. “If this carries on, we will just get a series of untransparent, potentially expensive, lopsided jumble sale deals between the government and one sector after another. You can’t run such a complex economy as ours in such a piecemeal fashion,” Clegg said.
Italian banks damaged by referendum result, says Fitch Plans by leading Italian banks to raise billions of euros from investors to boost their financial strength have been damaged by the outcome of Sunday’s referendum, a leading ratings agency said on Tuesday as it downgraded its outlook for the sector. Fitch – which said it had a negative outlook on the Italian banking industry for 2017 – said profitability in the sector was already frail before the referendum result that sparked political chaos and forced the resignation of the prime minister, Matteo Renzi. “The referendum result could also damage the recapitalisation plans of some Italian banks, most notably Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena (MPS) and UniCredit, and have negative implications for the broader banking sector, whose attractiveness with investors has already reduced significantly during 2016. The sector’s ability to access the institutional markets for funding and capital, which has become more difficult and expensive this year, could deteriorate further,” Fitch said. The ratings agency delivered its verdict on the sector, which is weighed down with €360bn (£304bn) of bad debts amid attempts to find investors to inject up to €5bn into MPS, the world’s oldest bank. Senior officials from MPS, which was the weakest of the 51 subjected to stress tests by regulators earlier this year, were in Frankfurt to meet executives from the European Central Bank ahead of an end-of-year deadline to boost its financial health. But expectations that the government will step in boosted sentiment, with the index of Italian banking stocks jumping 9% and pushing bank shares across Europe higher. Shares in MPS were briefly suspended after falling 5% before ending up 1%. Shares in Unicredit, which has been expected to launch a €12bn cash call next week, rose 13%. Renzi’s resignation has been temporarily frozen by the president, Sergio Mattarella, until the senate passes a budget, perhaps on Wednesday, when a new prime minister from his Democratic party is expected to take over until elections are held. The referendum, which rejected constitutional reforms favoured by Renzi, was held at a crucial time for the fresh injection of funds into MPS, where the US bank JP Morgan is helping to broker a plan to attract investors to buy its shares. Tomas Kinmonth, fixed income strategist at ABN Amro, said a €1bn complex debt structuring completed on Tuesday “will assist in the capitalisation of the struggling Italian bank”. “This is a crucial step, and perhaps enough to tempt the equity consortium to help rescue the bank,” said Kinmonth. The Qatar Investment Authority – the gulf state’s sovereign wealth fund – is among the investors that MPS has hoped to convince to participate in the cash call. But the political uncertainty may deter such a private sector rescue and Italy is said to be preparing a package of measures under a “precautionary bailout”. Some €2bn of debt is held by private investors who would be required to take losses under new EU rules. According to reports, however, a plan is being devised under which the first €100,000 of their investment could be protected, as would be case if they were depositors with the bank.
Stormont assembly's consent required before Brexit, court told The formal consent of the Stormont assembly would be required before Brexit because the process would “drive a wedge” between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic, the supreme court has been told. On the third day of the politically sensitive hearing, legal consensus over the UK’s unwritten constitution began to fray as lawyers from Belfast and Edinburgh argued that even parliament on its own cannot trigger article 50 of the treaty on European Union. Submissions by Northern Ireland QCs and Scotland’s lord advocate introduced an extra dimension of political and legal complexity into Theresa May’s attempt to take the UK out of the EU. If successful, they would force the government to obtain the support not only of MPs and peers at Westminster but also the approval of the devolved legislatures. So far most of the dispute inside the packed, neo-Tudor courtroom has focused on whether the government or parliament has legitimate authority to trigger Brexit by giving formal notice to Brussels under article 50 of the UK’s intention to depart. Because of the urgency and significance of the constitutional issues, for the first time 11 justices are sitting together on the supreme court bench to hear the case. There was passing reference in court to the House of Commons debate on Brexit held on Wednesday, but Lord Pannick QC, who represents the lead claimant, Gina Miller, told the justices: “Only an act of parliament can lawfully confer power on the [government] to give notification under article 50. The law is not altered by a motion in parliament. A motion in parliament cannot effect the legal issue in this case.” The government’s QC, James Eadie, has already indicated that any bill put before parliament would only contain a “one-line” statement. David Scoffield QC, who represents politicians and civil rights groups across Northern Ireland’s divided community, told the court that leaving the EU would involve “driving a wedge” between the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland. He agreed with arguments presented by other claimants that ministers could not trigger Brexit on the basis of residual prerogative powers and that parliamentary authority would be required. The government’s assertion of its powers “are cavalier – with both a large ‘C’ and a small ‘c’,” Scoffield said, referring back to the English civil war and 17th century battles between parliament and the crown. But he then went on to argue that the Good Friday agreement and the 1998 legislative settlement of the Troubles had created additional rights for the people of Northern Ireland, many aspects of which, like the north-south ministerial council, stipulated close cooperation within the EU between governments in Belfast and Dublin. “The agreement expressly said that the UK and Ireland would develop close cooperation as partners operating within the EU,” Scoffield said. “It required the implementation of EU programmes on an all-Ireland and cross-border basis.” Numerous bodies have a “clear operational remit” to work together across the island. “The [Good Friday] agreement makes it clear that the elements hang together and are interlocking,” Scoffield added. Even control over international relationships with the Irish Republic has been transferred to the Northern Ireland assembly. Ronan Lavery QC – who represents Raymond McCord, a campaigner for victims’ rights in Northern Ireland whose son was killed by loyalist paramilitaries – went further, telling the supreme court that Good Friday agreement transferred sovereignty out of parliament’s hands. “It would be unconstitutional for the UK to withdraw from the EU without the consent of the people of Northern Ireland,” Lavery said. “Being part of the EU was part of the [1998] constitutional settlement. There has been a transfer of sovereignty under the Good Friday agreement and the Northern Ireland Act. The people of Northern Ireland now have sovereignty over any constitutional change rather than parliament. The notion that parliament is supreme or has primacy has gone.” Triggering article 50 without the agreement of the Stormont assembly, Lavery said, undermines the principle of “consent and self-determination” expressed by the Northern Ireland Act. James Wolffe QC, Scotland’s lord advocate, who represents the views of the SNP government, referred to the Sewel convention, which says that if Westminster is introducing legislation on issues that have been devolved it “normally” has to seek the consent of the devolved assemblies in Edinburgh, Belfast and Cardiff. “I do not assert that the Scottish parliament has a veto on withdrawal from the EU,” Wolffe told the judges, “but the question of whether the Scottish parliament consents is a matter of constitutional significance.” The Sewel convention, he said, “entitles these legislatures to have a voice in the decision”. Earlier Dominic Chambers QC, who represents Deir Dos Santos, the second main claimant, told the court that if Theresa May triggered Brexit without proper parliamentary approval she would be acting “unlawfully”. “Parliament is supreme,” Chambers said. “No person or body can override or nullify legislation. These EU law rights [acquired through the 1972 European Communities Act] are enshrined in parliamentary legislation. “By triggering article 50 these statutory rights will be nullified and overridden. The absence of parliamentary authorisation for the executive to override primary legislation ... will be contrary to the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty and therefore it will be acting unlawfully.” Chambers said that the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty was “forged on the battlefields of the 17th century in the [English civil war] between crown and parliament”. During the hearing, Lord Sumption’s ties have drawn pointed comments from those watching online. On Wednesday, he sported a colourful 2012 Olympic Team GB tie. On another day Sumption had what appeared to be a piano keyboard design dangling from his neck. Was the Olympic tie a subliminal message to reassure patriotic readers or a gesture of support for the master of the rolls, Sir Terence Etherton, one of the three high court judges condemned by the Daily Mail as “enemies of the people”? Etherton was an Olympic fencer. The hearing continues.
The Eagle Huntress review – feathery documentary needs sharper claws The Eagle Huntress is a documentary that has won golden opinions on the festival circuit, about a bright teenage Kazakh girl called Aisholpan who breaks with tradition to hunt with an eagles – a traditional art generally pursued by boys, so that her talent is much frowned upon by grumpy older menfolk. Being an eagle huntress (the film a little superciliously insists on that “-ess” suffix) involves stealing a three-month-old eaglet from its nest, training it, hunting with it, then letting it go after seven years. This is a very nicely filmed piece of work. Aisholpan is very personable, and there are some eagle-vs-prey scenes that could go into Planet Earth II. Michael Morpurgo could write a children’s novel about it, from the eagle’s point of view. But it’s a documentary with no surprises, no challenges, nothing to startle or upset you. It requires of you nothing but the risk-free liberalism necessary for endorsing the idea of gender-neutral eagle hunting in Asia. It sometimes feels like a beakless, clawless Kes. You naturally know what you are supposed to think about Aisholpan being an eagle huntress, you naturally know whether she is going to win a local competition and go on to prove herself in the wintry mountains. It’s a film that comes with a sealed and laminated happy ending. Well, Aisholpan has found her vocation: good for her.
‘Whitewashing’ row over Scarlett Johansson's Ghost in the Shell role reignites Scarlett Johansson has been plunged into a fresh Twitter storm over her casting in the Hollywood remake of classic Japanese anime Ghost in the Shell. The first image of the Hollywood star as cyborg policewoman Major Kusanagi hit the web on Thursday as production began on the live-action reworking, reigniting a “whitewashing” row that has been rumbling ever since her casting was announced. Last year, campaigners angered at the paucity of roles for east Asian actors in Hollywood launched a petition calling for Johansson to be dismissed from the forthcoming remake. It has thus far been signed by more than 65,000 supporters. High-profile critics of the first image of Johansson included the actor Ming-Na Wen, who portrays Melinda May in superhero TV show Agents of SHIELD and was the voice of Disney’s Mulan. “Nothing against Scarlett Johansson. In fact, I’m a big fan. But everything against this whitewashing of Asian role,” she wrote. California-based comic-book writer Jon Tsuei said Hollywood had failed to comprehend the totemic nature of Ghost in the Shell within Asian culture. “Ghost in the Shell, while just one film, is a pillar in Asian media,” he wrote. “It’s not simply a sci-fi thriller … This casting is not only the erasure of Asian faces but a removal of the story from its core themes.” Others noted Johansson’s appearance in the film was almost identical to the original anime’s presentation of Kusanagi, apart for her race. There were also suggestions of east Asian Hollywood actors, including Oscar-nominated Pacific Rim star Rinko Kikuchi, who might have been cast instead. The original Ghost in the Shell, as well as the comic book on which it based, centres on cyborg detective Major Motoko Kusanagi. It is not clear whether Johansson’s version retains the same given name, with press releases referring to her character merely as “Major”. The US actor, whose star has risen following standout turns in Lucy and Marvel Studios’ Avengers series of superhero films, was reportedly offered $10m (£7m) to take the role for Snow White and the Huntsman director Rupert Sanders. Hollywood is regularly criticised for casting white actors in east Asian roles, notably in the case of M Night Shyamalan’s misfiring 2010 film The Last Airbender. The dubious tradition runs all the way back to 1956 epic The Conqueror, in which John Wayne starred as a suspiciously midwestern-accented Genghis Khan, and 1961’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s, with a bucktoothed Mickey Rooney as the shamefully offensive Japanese caricature IY Yunioshi. Last year, Ridley Scott was forced to defend his biblical epic Exodus: Gods and Kings against accusations of whitewashing following the veteran British film-maker’s decision to cast famous European actors such as Christian Bale and Joel Edgerton as characters from the Middle East and north Africa.
Finding Dory to Cars 2: Pixar's greatest hits and misses Inside Out (2015) By the time the credits rolled on Pete Docter’s boisterous existential satire, it was easy to imagine that we all have a Star Trek-style “bridge” inhabited by colourful motivators representing different aspects of the human persona, from Joy and Sadness to Anger and Disgust, inside our minds. Pixar’s ingeniously simple idea smartly reimagined a child’s inner turmoil as an epic white-knuckle ride through conflicting emotions and memories, as 12-year-old Riley Andersen desperately tries to adjust to strange and terrifying new experiences (such as broccoli infested pizza and hipster California classmates) with the help of the funny little people in her head. The sublime anarchy of the human condition beautifully rendered in dazzling primary colours. ★★★★★ Up (2009) The best Pixar movies are often the ones the merchandise department must have struggled with the longest: it seems unlikely that Disney stores have sold many Carl Fredricksen and Russell toys over the years. Only Pixar would make a film about the friendship between a curmudgeonly old widower determined not to give up his home to the ravages of corporate greed and a perky boy scout with daddy issues. A movie to brush away cobwebs from the soul, remove cataracts from the eyes and remind us that the spirit of adventure can never be entirely grounded, no matter how old we are. ★★★★★ WALL-E (2008) Like HG Wells’ The Time Machine, Andrew Stanton’s clarion call to the dangers of consumerism imagined a future in which we have lost our humanity through the horrors of indolence. But there are no terrifying Morlocks to menace the corpulent Eloi of the Axiom, only evil robot feeder types determined to keep their human charges in contented slothfulness for the rest of eternity. WALL-E himself makes for an unlikely, Chaplinesque hero, built entirely from mechanical parts yet somehow emerging as by far the story’s most ardently human participant. ★★★★★ Toy Story (1995) Video never did quite kill the radio star, but Toy Story’s Oscar-winning CGI revolution really did wipe out the gilded Hollywood tradition for hand-drawn animation (though there have been occasional, sporadic rumblings of life in recent years.) However, an even more radical shift in the zeitgeist may have been the film’s relative absence of songs. Before Toy Story, most animated movies were musicals. After Woody, Buzz et al made their presence felt, the genre was able to climb out of its box and begin talking a whole new language. ★★★★★ Toy Story 3 (2010) The real joy of this unexpected sequel lay in its ability to invent a meaningful circle of symmetry for the saga, Pixar boss John Lasseter throwing a curveball by reconfiguring the trilogy around Andy’s story arc, rather than that of his colourful playthings. But, before the soon-to-be freshman can say goodbye to his toys for ever and begin the pathos-drenched journey into adulthood, there’s one last adventure to be had thanks to the nefarious plotting of the saga’s greatest villain yet – an evil bear who smells of strawberries. ★★★★★ The Incredibles (2004) A meta-infused take on the superhero movie that reimagined Alan Moore’s Watchmen for a younger generation and established Brad Bird as a talent to watch, after the film-maker’s brilliant, earlier non-Pixar effort The Iron Giant. Does The Incredibles hint that parents should strain against the conformity that might have turned them into identi-dads and mums by letting their offspring in on the secret of their younger selves? Perhaps this explains all the kiddies raving at Glastonbury these days. ★★★★★ Ratatouille (2007) What a strange confection this foodie feast represents. Despite its Francophile framing, Bird’s paean to epicurean pleasures feels fiercely Dickensian in its depiction of a naive young cuisinier vying to make his way in a cynical world (with the help of a gourmet rat). It was released in a golden age for Pixar during which the studio, by now owned by Disney, won the best animated film Oscar four years in a row. ★★★★☆ Finding Dory (2016) Andrew Stanton’s return to animation after the disastrous response to John Carter does far more than just tick all the sequel boxes. Finding Dory’s genius (though some might call it cheating) is to find preposterous ways to bring the watery world of clown fish and blue tangs closer to our own as Ellen DeGeneres’ forgetful fish goes searching for her long-lost parents in a coastal oceanarium populated by grumpy octopi, helpful sea lions and a godlike disembodied voice known only as Sigourney Weaver. A fresh catch as bountiful as this is an encouraging sign that Pixar is entering a new, rich vein of form. ★★★★☆ Toy Story 2 (1999) Disney wanted a quick, cheap, straight-to-DVD sequel to Toy Story, and part two of Woody and Buzz’s adventures, in which the rootin’ tootin’ cowboy is stolen by a toy collector and reunited with the Roundup Gang, was almost a disaster. Only Pixar’s refusal to compromise and its commitment to work around the clock to meet release deadlines allowed the final film to live up to the quality of its predecessor. With a fresh focus on the existential dread of the abandoned plaything, the sequel gave us perhaps the most emotive segue in animated history: Jessie the cowgirl’s tearful lament When Somebody Loved Me. ★★★★☆ Monsters, Inc. (2001) No compendium of childhood eccentricities would be complete without taking in the night terrors, so Pixar invented an entire world of menacing creatures whose job is to scare the living daylights out of poor little kiddies. John Goodman and Billy Crystal’s incomparable double act as Sulley and Mike brought a warm humanity to the freaky netherworld of Monstropolis, whose titular grand factory of ever-shifting doors, each one leading to a child’s bedroom, represented a masterful feat of outlandish conceptual thinking. ★★★★☆ Finding Nemo (2003) Marlin the clownfish’s fishy odyssey across the ocean in search of his missing son was the first Pixar film to really go in hard on the age-old animated staple, the death of a family member. But, while Disney classics such as Bambi and The Lion King balanced grief with an abiding sense of fate and glorious birthright, director Andrew Stanton used it as fuel for comedy, as dear old dad is forced to leave the safety of the reef for open waters populated by all manner of wickedly vivacious creatures, from vegetarian sharks to surfer dude turtles and garrulous Aussie gulls. ★★★★☆ Brave (2012) Pixar’s sole foray into medieval fantasy is a rambunctious, vivacious affair that celebrates the power of non-conformity while pecking away at the nagging scab of childhood rebellion. Sister studio Disney Animation may have attracted more attention, with the following year’s Frozen, for reminding us that young women are not entirely reliant on romance and the willing arms of a charming suitor. And yet, with this lively, Oscar-winning tale of Caledonian pluck, Pixar was the first to split the arrow. ★★★★☆ The Good Dinosaur (2015) A long and tortuous production process saw this tale of talking apatasauruses delayed by more than a year, with original director Bob Peterson removed to allow Pete Sohn to take charge. It’s part western, part coming-of-age story, with dino Arlo forced to find his own way in the world following the death of his hardworking dirt-poor farmer daddy. There are some nice touches, from sociopathic, parasitic pterodactyls to unexpectedly decent cowboy tyrannosaurs, but you wonder if the film suffered from the high bar Pixar had set for itself. It is noticeably superior to rival studio Dreamworks Animation’s own prehistoric fable, The Croods. ★★★★☆ A Bug’s Life (1998) Like its controversial rival Antz, Pixar’s second film came into being because insect-like shapes and surfaces were among the few styles of animation that nascent CGI technology could do really well. Unfortunately for the studio, Dreamworks Animation’s venture had Woody Allen on board and a smarter storyline that used insects as a metaphor for the rigidity of human societies. Yet A Bug’s Life is decent enough entertainment, and in visual terms at least it has dated better than its competitors. ★★★★☆ Monsters University (2013) Monsters Inc’s genius was to imagine that the monsters hiding in childhood closets are mostly just friendly, freakish-looking fellows going about their jobs. But this unnecessary prequel insisted on showing us what happened to Sully and Mike before they accidentally extracted little cutie Boo from her cosy bedroom. Tales of student debauchery can make fine R-rated comedies and semi-raunchy 80s frat boy romps, but they are far from logical material for a children’s animated film. ★★★☆☆ Cars (2006) Perhaps the most all-American of Pixar’s films, Lasseter’s petrolhead paean to forgotten small towns probably makes more sense if you have driven along route 66 and seen some of these abandoned communities in the heart of America. Except even then, it is not all that interesting. Lightning McQueen may have been seduced by the hokey old charms of provincial life, but by the end most viewers were willing him to get back to the bright lights of the LA racetrack as soon as possible. ★★☆☆☆ Cars 2 (2011) If Lasseter’s fondness for American car culture was the inspiration for the first movie, it’s not hard to suspect that the billions of dollars in resulting merchandise profits inspired the creation of a sequel. The follow-up completely departs from its roots via a shark-jumping gear shift into spy movie territory, as Mater the hillbilly tow-truck is accidentally recruited by some motorised British secret agents to help explore an international conspiracy involving motor fuel, while his good buddy Lighting embarks on a visually spectacular tour of global race tracks. After the late noughties golden era, this was the movie with which Pixar slipped lazily into reverse gear. ★★☆☆☆
Why seeing really is believing The characters lending their support to either side of the EU referendum campaign sometimes seem to attract more attention than the facts themselves. But even if you aren’t already sick of the sight of Farage, Gove and Cameron arguing to leave or remain, it may be worth turning off the TV and listening to their opinions on the radio instead. This is because what we see can have a significant effect on what we hear. A famous scientific phenomenon known as the McGurk effect shows that vision is more powerful than hearing. In an experiment, someone was recorded saying “ba, ba, ba”. When this was played to people with no video, they heard it correctly. But when it was played with a video of someone mouthing “fa, fa, fa”, the participants heard that instead – proof that our auditory system can be overridden by our visual system. This is a technical example, but it shows how influential seeing who is saying something can be on how we hear it. Who knows what sort of effect the fluffy nebula of Boris’s hair – or Farage’s garish ties – might be having on their listeners. Dr Daniel Glaser is director of Science Gallery at King’s College London
Experience: I was accused of carrying out the Paris attacks It was 3am on 14 November 2015, and I had just woken up at my home in Toronto. I couldn’t get back to sleep, so I logged on to Twitter to check my messages. As I scrolled through, I read the details of the brutal terrorist attacks that had taken place in Paris hours earlier. Then I saw that my account had been flooded with notifications about a Photoshopped picture that made me look like a terrorist; it had gone viral. The picture looked like a selfie of me wearing a suicide vest, holding a Qur’an and smiling. The caption said I was one of the terrorists who had carried out the attacks in Paris. I immediately knew it was a bad Photoshop of a picture I had tweeted in August. You just have to look at it for a few seconds to realise it’s fake, because I’m clearly holding an iPad up to a mirror and not a Qur’an – it’s not possible to take a selfie using a Qur’an. It wasn’t the first time I’d been targeted in such a way, so my first thought was, “OK, I’ve got to mitigate this before it spirals out of control.” I shared the Photoshopped picture on Twitter and asked those who follow me to report it. Then I pinned a tweet to my feed to explain the situation. I joined Twitter in 2011 to build my reputation as a journalist covering gaming and entertainment. I created #StopGamergate2014 in response to #Gamergate, formed by men who attacked women working in the video game industry. A fan art cartoon of myself was Photoshopped in early 2015, to make it look as if I was standing in front of the burning twin towers in New York. But this was different, because my name and face were shown and the media soon picked up on it. In Spain, La Razón newspaper published a headshot of me on its front page captioning me as one of the terrorists. A few days later, many publications reported that the picture was fake; one traced the image of me back to Gamergate supporters. La Razón published an apology on its Twitter account, but that was it. In the end, I decided not to pursue a case for defamation; you put more money into court fighting than you get out of it. And even if I had won, money can’t undo the emotional repercussions. On Christmas Eve, six weeks after the Photoshopped selfie first went viral, I got a death threat on Twitter. The tweet said, “Let’s go kill at”, and then listed my home address and phone number. I immediately asked all my followers to report the account and was able to get the post deleted quickly. But it’s hard permanently to block people; they can create a new account. Someone later tweeted the worst possible racial slurs to me. Several neighbours found out about the death threat and reported it to the Toronto police that night. They suggested I leave Twitter and use a pen name when writing. But I’m a freelance journalist, and I didn’t want to use a fake name. I have always had depression, anxiety and OCD, but after the death threat, it got worse. I became hesitant to leave the house alone. I was invited to a New Year’s Eve party hosted by a governor in Toronto, but I didn’t go. I was grateful for the invite, but it was problematic: I had been invited for being someone who didn’t cause the Paris attacks. It’s only since March that I’ve started going out on my own again. But that same month, Brussels airport and Maalbeek metro station were attacked. People started sharing that picture again and tweeting stuff like, “Did the police not catch you?” and, “Are you still bombing places?” I reported several of these tweets to Twitter’s support team, but I don’t think it’ll make any difference. The police can’t do much, because the people harassing me are from all over the world. I’ve made some amazing friends through Twitter, and it has given marginalised people a voice – #BlackLivesMatter couldn’t have existed without it. But there’s also a lot of hate. The last time I tweeted from my account was in December, and even though I really want to go back, I don’t know if I will. • As told to Hiba Mahamadi Do you have an experience to share? Email experience@theguardian.com
Frexit, Nexit or Oexit? Who will be next to leave the EU Now there has been a vote for Brexit, there are calls in other countries for people to have their say on the European Union. But, though they have inherited the pithy naming formulation – from “Frexit” and “Nexit” through to “Oexit” – the proposed referendums vary depending on what they want, what they’re motivated by, and how likely they are to happen. Netherlands On Brexit morning, Nigel Farage suggested that the Netherlands might be the next country to quit the “dying” EU. “We may well be close, perhaps, to a Nexit,” he said. However, a poll published on Sunday by peil.nl found a slim majority against holding a referendum (50% to 47%) but also, to Farage’s likely chagrin, a majority for staying in the EU (46% to 43%). Among voters with the lowest educational profile the appetite for Nexit was much stronger – 69% favour holding a referendum and 64% would vote leave. “If a referendum is held we would expect that, just as in Britain, the turnout among lower educated voters will be relatively high,” said poll organiser Maurice de Hond. Those voters are also more likely to support far-right leader Geert Wilders, whose Freedom party has a substantial lead in the opinion polls. Wilders pledged on Friday to make a UK-style referendum one of the key issues in the Dutch general election campaign next March. A Nexit referendum before then is very unlikely. No other Dutch political party supports such a move and the prime minister, Mark Rutte, dismissed the idea as “utterly irresponsible”. He has urged his European colleagues to work towards a settlement with Britain that prioritises stability and “reflects the friendly cooperation of the last 40 years”. France Marine Le Pen, leader of the Front National, has suggested that France could follow Britain in leaving the EU, hailing the Brexit vote as the beginning of “a movement that can’t be stopped”. Le Pen has said that if she wins the French presidential election next April, she will hold an in/out referendum on the country’s membership of the EU within six months. That, though, remains a big “if” – even though she is expected to comfortably reach the final round of the presidential runoff. To all mainstream politicians, however, the idea of a Frexit is abhorrent. François Hollande, the president, is in favour of France remaining within the EU, as are his opponents on the centre-right. Hollande said in the wake of Britain’s vote: “This is a painful choice and it is deeply regrettable both for the UK and Europe.” Italy For Brussels, the biggest threat from Italy comes from the anti-establishment Five Star Movement, which recently had candidates elected as mayors of Rome and Turin and wants a referendum on leaving the eurozone. Trouble is, no matter how much Beppe Grillo, the comedian who founded the M5S, might push the plebiscite, most Italians – 61% according to a poll in March – support remaining in the single currency. The other main Eurosceptic force in the country is the anti-immigration Northern League, whose leader, Matteo Salvini, tweeted last week: “Hurrah for the courage of free citizens! Heart, brain and pride defeated lies, threats and blackmail. THANK YOU UK, now it’s our turn.” Salvini said it was time for Italians to be allowed a referendum on the issue of EU membership and the party will start a petition calling for a referendum. But the Northern League’s support is limited – at the last general election in 2013 it scored a miserable 4% – and its calls will not be heeded. The prime minister, Matteo Renzi, is a committed, if critical, Europhile who launched an emotional plea to the UK to vote remain on the eve of last week’s referendum. Austria Norbert Hofer, the far-right candidate who narrowly missed out on winning the Austrian presidential election last month, has said that his country should have a referendum on EU membership if, within a year, Brussels makes any moves towards political “centralisation” and fails to refocus on its original role as an economic and trade alliance. The Austrian media have dubbed the potential vote “Auxit” or “Oexit” – a reference to Österreich, which means Austria in German. But the Austrian chancellor, Christian Kern, has said there will be no referendum. Hofer, from the anti-immigration Freedom party (FPO), said in an interview on Sunday that the EU should be about economic rather than political cooperation and any moves toward centralisation should be resisted. He has gone further in his comments than the FPO leader, Heinz-Christian Strache, who has said that an Austrian referendum on the issue might become a party objective in the future. Hofer is challenging the result of the presidential election that he narrowly lost, alleging there were irregularities in the counting of postal ballots. However, even if the FPO’s challenge is successful, the president alone does not have the power to order a referendum. Sweden The leader of the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats, Jimmie Åkesson, has said he hopes that Sweden might be able to renegotiate its relationship with the EU and then hold a referendum on membership. “I see nothing negative about leaving this supranational European Union,” said Åkesson, who has repeatedly called for Sweden to “become a sovereign state again”. The Sweden Democrats hold the balance of power in Stockholm. The party attracted 12.9% of the vote in the 2014 election, but saw their support rise to about 20% last year as Sweden took in a record number of asylum seekers and tensions around immigration flared. All of Sweden’s mainstream parties, including the Social Democrat-Green government and the centre-right opposition, the Moderates, support the Scandinavian country, which joined the EU in 1995 after a 1994 referendum, continuing as a member of the EU. Germany Beatrix von Storch, an MEP for the rightwing populist party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), celebrated Brexit as “Great Britain’s independence day” and has previously called for a similar referendum to be held in Germany, saying the German people “should be given a voice”. After the referendum result was announced on Friday, she also called for Martin Schulz, the president of the European parliament, and Jean-Claude Juncker, the head of the European commission, to resign. However, despite a recent growith in support for the AfD, the German people remain broadly in favour of remaining in the union, with about 40% believing a referendum on the subject should be held and less than 35% saying they would vote to leave. Denmark The powerful far-right Danish People’s party (DPP), which hailed the Brexit vote as a “stinging slap to the whole system”, has said it wants a Danish referendum on less binding conditions of EU membership – not on membership itself. But Denmark’s centre-right prime minister, Lars Løkke Rasmussen, who relies on the support of the DPP to prop up his minority administration, said there would be no such vote. This article was amended on 27 June 2016. An earlier version said a poll in the Netherlands found a slim majority in favour of holding a referendum (50% to 47%). It was the other way around. This has been corrected.
How electronic records can transform community care GPs hold overviews of their patients’ healthcare, while hospitals and mental health providers have detailed information on specific treatment. But community healthcare, which helps to join up primary and secondary care, often suffers from lacking access to information from other parts of the NHS. Health boards in Wales and Scotland provide all NHS services in their areas, and Cardiff and Vale NHS health board has issued its community healthcare staff with laptops, allowing them to access patient records. But in England, care is split between clinical commissioning groups for primary care, trusts for acute care and a range of trusts and social enterprises for community care, all with separate records. A few areas have responded by setting up shared record systems linking all NHS and social care providers in an area. While this helps all health and social care professionals, it has particular benefits for community healthcare. The Connecting Care partnership covering Bristol, south Gloucestershire and north Somerset links up three acute trusts, two mental health trusts, three clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) and more than 100 GP practices, the out-of-hours provider, three local authorities and three community healthcare providers, all of which are community interest companies. Planning for Connecting Care started in 2011, with work by the provider Orion Health starting in March 2013 and the system going live that December for urgent and unplanned emergency care. It allows professionals to see, but not change, elements of the data held by the other organisations. Sue Romain, a heart failure specialist nurse at Bristol Community Health, says the system is particularly useful to her during home visits to those who have received hospital cardiology care. Through a tablet computer, she can see their blood tests and recent GP and hospital appointments as well as outpatient and inpatient information for both of Bristol’s acute hospitals. “What I haven’t got yet, because I always want more, is access to their discharge letters,” she says. The Connecting Care team is working to add this in 2016. This access allows Romain to provide more coordinated care. For example, she is able to see if and when patients have a cardiology review booked and plan her treatment accordingly. However, the most valuable data is the ability to check blood results: “That helps me make decisions about what tablet changes I make for that patient, so it’s given me as much information as I need to make clinical decisions,” she says. Access to blood test results also lets Romain see if any tests are still to be taken and, if so, take the required samples immediately. This data comes via GP systems, but a planned upgrade will provide Romain and colleagues with direct information from the pathology labs. Andy Kinnear, Connecting Care’s programme director at NHS South West Commissioning Support, says other community care staff save time in triage and assessment and in calling GP surgeries for information. “There’s a real industry in the health service of people just making calls for information,” he told last year’s EHI Live conference, estimating that the system could save £155,000 a year if all of its planned 10,000 users made just one telephone call less a week. The system also saves community care nurses from making unnecessary home visits, as they can see if a patient has been admitted to hospital. Based on the rate of saved visits in pilots, this could save NHS provider organisations £68,000 a year. Other areas are working along similar lines, some with funding from NHS England. One area with a particular motivation to do so is Greater Manchester, which will gain control of its £6.2bn health and social care spending under the so-called Devo Manc project. It already has an information sharing system, the Manchester care record. Ed Dyson, assistant chief officer for Central Manchester CCG, says the record is being used to focus on the 1.5% of the population who use 30% of emergency care provision. It shares summary records on GP, secondary care and social care activity, along with integrated care crisis plans and recently-added end-of-life plans. Dyson told EHI Live that one 78-year-old man often attended a hospital’s emergency department with urinary tract infections. He cares for his wife who has dementia, and when he was in hospital she would often be admitted too. “We had two admissions due to a urinary tract infection,” he said. Now, information sharing has allowed his condition to be managed by community-based staff, with no emergency admissions since this started. Another patient with cancer hoped to end her life at home. A community care nurse read the end-of-life plan and spoke to the patient’s hospital consultant, leading to her to go home. “It’s a good outcome by chance, by one person being an advocate,” says Dyson. End-of-life plans are being added to the Manchester Care Record so this happens more often. Although the project only covers the city of Manchester at present, other Greater Manchester councils are working on similar projects, and Dyson says the hope is to join these up: “There’s huge enthusiasm within Greater Manchester to create shared care records. It’s one of the key things we want to do.” Join our network to read more pieces like this. And follow us on Twitter (@GdnHealthcare) to keep up with the latest healthcare news and views.
New band of the week: Blackash (No 129) - acid rock meets acid house Hometown: Birmingham. The lineup: Blackash 1, Blackash 2, Blackash 3, Blackash 4, Blackash 5, sometimes Blackash 6. The background: Not much is known about Blackash, AKA BL▲CK▲SH, other than that they “spell” their name with capital letters and black filled-out triangles, and they don’t want to reveal themselves individually. “We’re incognito,” says one of them, describing himself as “a representative” of Blackash. “There are five or six members in our collective of creatives,” he adds vaguely. “We all have alternative ‘positions’ and that’s why we don’t want to draw attention to who we are as people, just as musicians. Some of us are involved in the music industry as artists, making different styles of music to what this sounds like …” Indeed, he explains that the collective includes within their ranks a “space-rock producer”, an “acid house pioneer”, a “dark lord of the drum’n’bass club scene”, the “driving force of a far eastern sleaze-rock outfit and “a shape-shifting couturier prophet”. Most importantly, though, he says, “We’re all heavy musos.” “Heavy” is the operative word for what Blackash do. Their representative offers one further tidbit of information: they’re from Birmingham. This is a very Birmingham sound. Or at least, Birmingham via Detroit and Düsseldorf. It’s the sound of hard, heavy rock at its sludgiest – Sabbath at their blackest – with a dose of Stooges riffing and the twin motorik propulsions of techno and krautrock. It’s acid rock meets acid house, drenched in “ambience and psychedelic filth” as him from Blackash puts it. But it’s the sheer molten blackness of it all that stays with you. As he says: “Coming from Birmingham, it’s hard to pick up an instrument and not sound really dirty and gritty.” The members met at the Lunar festival, in the Warwickshire village where Nick Drake is buried, at a club night called Sensateria, about a year ago. They soon started work on the Black Witch EP, involving themselves in every aspect of its creation. The vinyl iteration comes “in the blackest card available to man”, using the paper left over from the printing of a Jimmy Page tome. So intent were Blackash on getting every detail of their EP right, they are losing money on every one of the 333 copies they have printed. “Each one cost us £15 to make, so it’s not a great plan,” he says, agreeing that as business models go, it makes the famous Blue Monday farrago look prudent by comparison. “It is,” he stresses, however, “a great piece of art.” It also comes with a wrap – not a drug one, although God knows the music has the swirling, narcotic atmosphere of music made by people familiar with the rules and rituals of drug-taking – inside which is black ash hand-picked, apparently, from a crater of Mount Etna. We have never met any of Blackash, but when asked whether they resemble Hawkwind circa 1972, their rep immediately replies, “Yeah, definitely.” He tells us the collective – “shamanic psychedelic warriors” to a man – are as “into numbers and mathematics” as they are music. “Music is wave forms,” he (sort of) elucidates. “Even reverb and delay, it’s all to do with numbers. Bass frequencies are low numbers, treble frequencies are high numbers. We like to explore mathematics.” So why 333? “It’s nothing to do with 666,” he cautions. “It’s to do with what time you go to bed.” Really, though, it’s do with the music. From the EP, Black Witch is 10 minutes of fuzztone, heads-down, no-nonsense, mindless drone-rock, like a loop of Loop playing one-chord biker boogie for all eternity. Mesmeric is one word for it. The singer intones balefully about “losing all sense of time and space” and seeing visions of a woman who appears to have “crawled out a hole in the ground”, but it turns out it’s a song – as most rock songs tend to be – about a love affair turned sour and a woman who “done him wrong” (actually, the song’s chord progression is a simple, conventional blues one, even if in terms of pace it’s pure motorik). Mediation Number 3 (which lasts a presumably significant 3:33) is a showcase for all those bass and treble frequencies, shifting liquidly between space-rock and electronica, its ambience quite churchy. Anthropocene could be the Stooges in 1969 or Spacemen 3 in 1989, its intimations of the apocalypse tapping nicely into current global developments, where danger is a Dionysian pleasure, or something. Finally, there’s Mediation Number 9, another 3.33 of motorik madness, the fuzzy deep bass growl providing the EP’s signature sound, its leitmotif. So why Blackash? “It’s just a feeling with our group of people,” says our man from the Midlands. “It’s dirty, from the street. Real. Let’s see where it goes. This is five or six people who had a special moment, did a high five and decided to go on a journey. Let’s see where that takes us. We just know it will be somewhere good.” The buzz: “Skull-crushing psych thrills” – Clash magazine. The truth: It’s Dudley via Detroit and Düsseldorf. Most likely to: Join a biker gang. Least likely to: Join Byker Grove. What to buy: Black Witch EP out on Swordfish Records available via all good records shops and www.black-ash.co.uk. File next to: Loop, Hawkwind, Can, Goat. Links: black-ash.co.uk/ Ones to watch: Park Hotel, Elsa Camona, Islet, Phobophobes, Dark Globes.
Brits 2016: Coldplay, Adele, the Weeknd and more – every performance reviewed Coldplay – Hymn for the Weekend Coldplay wind music critics up with their sixth-form poetry, positive outlook and wealth, because we’re all impoverished, jaded and our sixth-form poetry was the last time we truly felt anything apart from antipathy towards James Bay’s hat. But actually, they’re not so bad as all that. They perform Hymn for the Weekend, which is the one with Beyoncé on, though she’s not about to upstage them again – generous! Instead their bald drummer sings her bit, and it doesn’t scream “fierce”, but no matter. With their tales of getting drunk and high, along with photos of sunsets, and flower garlands draped everywhere, this is like going round to the house of a 21-year-old after they’ve got back from their gap year: it’s a bit naff, but you nod along fitfully and smile. Justin Bieber – Love Yourself/Sorry Justin Bieber, rising like a phoenix in a drop-arm vest, is proof that you can do literally anything when you’re young and it doesn’t matter: crash your car, neglect a monkey, think Eenie Meenie is a viable follow-up single. He’s recording the best pop songs of the moment, bolstered with a redemption story, and if you’re one of the few people who still thinks he’s not a viable artist, pipe down and keep your stagnated personal growth to yourself. Unfortunately, tonight he’s performing Love Yourself, which is a good line in search of a song, and it’s compounded by the presence of James Bay, who is of use only for making a census of Britain’s most basic people from his Facebook likes. But luckily this passes, and it’s time for a bit of the beautiful Sorry around a campfire – in the ever-unfolding Bieber bildungsroman, this presumably represents the pyre of his old life, while the gyrating dancers acknowledge an undimmed libido. Probably. He saved the real A-game tracks for the Grammys, then, but it’s still probably better than most of the other performances this evening. Jess Glynne – Ain’t Got Far to Go/Don’t Be So Hard on Yourself/Hold Your Hand You know her from Rather Be, Hold My Hand, and her blurred sexuality confusing the Daily Mail. Channeling equal parts Grace Coddington and Sideshow Bob with a megashock of red hair, she does a trio of Ain’t Got Far to Go, Don’t Be So Hard on Yourself, and Hold Your Hand, she rather overestimates the audience’s knowledge of her lyrics, but the pipes are in good condition, and there’s something endearingly big-eyed and butterfly-chasing about her decidedly 90s dancepop. A pleasant throwback to middleweight Brits female stars such as Tina Cousins, Lisa Stansfield and Beverley Craven. James Bay – Hold Back the River Not since James Morrison has such a lovely voice been put to the service of such middling songs. But get your gravitational wave detectors out because the faintest of praise is incoming: Hold Back the River is his best, and its rousing gospel chorus cannot help but stir even the most Bay-resistant hack, even as it merely simulates religious-level feeling rather than actually living it. There’s a gigantic cheer for his efforts, despite them being only 1% more impassioned than the recorded version. The hat meanwhile, surely the product of a worried major label styling meeting to try to inject some temporary pizazz, has become the hair of Samson, a mysterious totem whose power cannot be fully understood. It’s a bit like the button in Lost – he dare not stop wearing it lest some catastrophe occur. Large parts of Clapham and Jack Wills warehouses might spontaneously collapse, perhaps. Rihanna – Consideration/Work Last year I ruined an entire morning’s work by repeatedly shouting “YASS QUEEN” at Rihanna, boobs hoisted to her hairline, doing Bitch Better Have My Money at the iHeartRadio awards show – the styling was Miss Saigon meets Rhythm Nation, and violent kleptocracies have been run with less scorn. Suffice to say my anticipation for this was high, and her missing the Grammys only heightened it. She performs Consideration as if through some partially open blinds in a strip club, seguing into Work for some heavily Bajan-accented gyration. She steamrolls its beautiful little “No one texts me in a crisis” line, but this is an awards show, and subtlety will always be smothered; her laziness in the chorus lines is made up for by nailing the jazzy delivery of the verses. This is Rihanna at her most free and unimpeded by expectation, for better and worse. Drake comes out to apply a defibrillation paddle to the pair’s by now rather stale sexual chemistry, but they gamely rut like a pair of Crufts champions who have disappointed their owners. Little Mix – Black Magic Jason Derulo suitors Little Mix here, who, in between providing the Sun’s Bizarre column with a stream of staggeringly unremarkable but at least regular content, make the occasional solid gold pop banger – of which Black Magic is undeniably one. It initially gets a exoticised voodoo-tribal update, which is swiftly dispensed for the chorus, which reverts to the perky fantasy-scribbled-on-A4-school-binder vibe of the original. There’s lots of floor-humping a la Destiny’s Child’s Survivor and equal amounts of Amazonian sass-power. Zero danger compared with Rihanna’s enjoyably loose performance, but if you like absolute steel-tipped professionalism, you’ll have clapped along delightedly. Lorde’s Bowie tribute Surely nothing will be worse than Lady Gaga’s well-meaning but misjudged tribute at the Grammys, which was like Liza Minnelli trying to shout off a bout of sleep paralysis; cruise missiles and Kanye tweets have connected with more subtlety that the segues between its songs. It was basically Hallo Spaceboy! The David Bowie Musical Jamboree (Coming to Broadway spring 2017), and only underlined how Bowie’s star quality had been made truly ineffable with his death. What can the Brits offer? Well, there is certainly nothing more quintessentially Brits than the words: “Please welcome Annie Lennox!” She pays testament to “a fixation in the British psyche” in a speech that straddles cliche and insight. The cut to Graham Coxon munching a canape takes the gloss off somewhat, but no matter, here’s Gary Oldman to join the remembrance. He is predictably articulate, picking a choice quote from Bowie on his own music: a “Sublime means of communication when I want to touch people; it has been both my doorway of perception and the house I live in.” Whether you think this public grief bomb needed to be detonated, it’s dignified. Clench for the music … and all is much better than the Grammys. Space Oddity begets Rebel Rebel begets Let’s Dance – it’s a megamix, but far more deftly handled (by Bowie’s own band, no less) than Gaga’s lurching. Lorde sings Life on Mars, and she can’t capture Bowie’s blend of music-hall singer and travelling bard – it’s a little breathily earnest and pedantic. But there’s still something sumptuous and soulful about her take, and again, it’s dignified. Is “dignified” too safe for Bowie? Well, he was never a punk – honesty and feeling is just right. The Weeknd – The Hills The wonderful Earned It turned the Weeknd from a pervert who induced Q4 jitters, to a viable Michael Jackson stooge going out with Bella Hadid, and as such vies with Bieber for the best international male career turnaround gong. He performs The Hills, which is textbook Weeknd: pitch-black, coke-bloated chirpsing drenched in distrust that leads, eventually, to dead-eyed sexual congress. The swear-bleep man cheerfully lets “I only fuck you when it’s half-past five” into ITV land, as the arrangement embraces the gnarliness with some ultra-heavy guitar and big smashed-glass visuals. It’s short but energetic and edifying, exactly unlike the intercourse it sounds like he indulges in. Adele – When We Were Young The problem with Adele’s Grammy performance wasn’t the twanging piano strings (negligible) or the tuning errors (miniscule), but rather her increasing tendency to project everything in a colourless, bleating cadence; where once she’d denote emotional complexity with a sudden coo or breath, now she’ll make some sassy hand gesture do the heavy lifting, like a young cousin losing an argument. Here she performs When We Were Young, which plays to her quivering low register and that lovely ruminative midrange, saving the (slightly hectoring) upper notes for the chorus. The peak top note isn’t crystal; the squeaks and deliberate note-breaks could easily become mannered. But the guttural shove she gives the final chorus is pure soul, and ultimately this is big satisfying balladry, like custard and crumble. And at her best, she gives lyrical platitudes back their universal meaning.
Donald Trump's most recent attacks on women point to a history of misogyny A succession of disturbing attacks on women have raised fresh questions about Donald Trump’s credibility as a presidential candidate and are an ugly reminder of his long-standing deeply questionable attitudes. In the space of a single week he has insulted an opponent’s wife’s looks, defended an aide for manhandling a female reporter and said women should be punished for having abortions. But his persistent attacks on women, which have caused widespread outrage, and have heightened alarm about him within the Republican party have not come from nowhere. From flippant offensive comments about women to serious allegations of assault from those he has encountered through his relationships and career, Trump stands accused of misogyny to a degree that has not been seen in mainstream American politics for decades. Having boasted in the 1990s that it did not matter what the media said about him “as long as you’ve got a young and beautiful piece of ass” and “women – you have to treat them like shit”, Trump has indicated during his presidential campaign that his values remain unchanged. “Look at that face!” he said of his Republican opponent Carly Fiorina. “Would anyone vote for that?” Republicans who fear the effect of Trump have been almost leading the chorus against him. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, the highest ranking Republican woman in Congress, said this week that Trump’s remarks on women were “hurtful to the party”. An anti-Trump group convened by former aides to Mitt Romney, the party’s 2012 presidential nominee, and Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor steamrolled by Trump in this year’s contest, released their own attack advertisement featuring female actors reading from a dossier of Trump’s past offensive remarks about women he described in terms such as “fat pig” and “bimbo”. Republicans also fear the resurfacing of more serious allegations about Trump’s conduct towards women. One woman who worked with Trump on a business venture in the 1990s told the earlier this year that she stood by allegations in a 1997 federal lawsuit that Trump sexually assaulted her and tried to rape her. The woman, whose identity we did not report, said in that lawsuit Trump touched her intimately without consent and left her “emotionally devastated [and] distraught”. The woman accused Trump of entering into the business venture, which included beauty pageants, as a vehicle for seeking sex from women. At one stage, she alleged, Trump asked that she “provide [Trump] with access to a 17-year-old Czech contestant whom he described as a ‘sex object’”. At another point Trump “made denigrating, lewd comments about all women in general as ‘sex objects’”, according to the woman. Shortly after Trump announced his presidential candidacy it also emerged that his first wife, Ivana, had alleged in testimony during their divorce that he had raped her in 1989. When the allegation, first reported in a 1993 biography, resurfaced in the Daily Beast, a lawyer and aide to Trump told a reporter that the claim was moot because “you cannot rape your spouse”. In a 1993 statement issued through Donald Trump’s lawyers, Ivana confirmed she had felt violated but said: “I referred to this as a ‘rape,’ but I do not want my words to be interpreted in a literal or criminal sense.” The abortion dispute was only the latest flashpoint in the sharply controversial campaign for the White House being waged by the property developer and reality television personality. He has defended himself by repeatedly saying: “I cherish women.” Yet when his campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, was charged with battery on Tuesday for yanking the arm of a female reporter as she tried to ask questions, Trump responded not by dismissing his aide but assailing the reporter, Michelle Fields. He falsely accused Fields of changing her story and defended Lewandowski, who had falsely denied touching Fields. Critics suggested Trump employed the type of language often used to discredit complainants in sexual assault cases. As Lewandowski was charged at a police station in Florida, Trump was still dealing with the fallout of his decision to insult the appearance of Heidi Cruz, the wife of his leading opponent Ted Cruz and a partner at Goldman Sachs bank. Trump reposted to Twitter a supporter’s split-screen image featuring an unflattering picture of Heidi Cruz next to a shot of his own wife, Melania, a former model, from a GQ magazine photoshoot in 2000. “A picture is worth a thousand words,” the post said. Trump had already issued a vague threat to “spill the beans” on Heidi Cruz, an apparent allusion to a past experience of depression. Ted Cruz, an ultraconservative senator from Texas whose unpopularity among the Republican party establishment seemed unmatched until Trump’s entry to the presidential campaign, reacted furiously, ordering Trump to “leave Heidi the hell alone”. The attack on Cruz’s wife followed a string of inflammatory remarks from Trump about Megyn Kelly, a prominent US news anchorwoman whose line of a questioning at a televised debate he objected to. Despite widespread outrage at his suggestion that Kelly was combative towards him because she was menstruating, Trump has continued using his Twitter account to publicly insult Kelly, whose network Fox News is one of the most influential powerhouses in US conservatism. “Trump’s problems with women – especially after the abortion comment – seem insurmountable,” Professor Jennifer Lawless, director of the Women and Politics Institute at American University, said. “His sexist commentary and anti-woman statements, coupled with the Republican policy positions he espouses, make it virtually impossible to envision any scenario whereby 50% of female voters would cast their ballots for him.”
The new cool: how Kamasi, Kendrick and co gave jazz a new groove To the outsider, jazz can seem less like a living form of music than a set of signifiers: music played to an older audience, aware of its own history, redolent of the cool of a half-remembered, semi-fictionalised past. Dig a little further, and a different set of signifiers emerge: “difficult” music, often improvised, played in small clubs, to audiences of chin-stroking beardies. What the word “jazz” rarely summons is the idea of music that isn’t just perfectly of the moment, but helping to shape and influence groundbreaking artists in other genres. But that’s what it has become, thanks to a new generation of jazz musicians for whom working across disciplines is as natural as improvising in front of hardcore fans. As the Los Angeles saxophonist Kamasi Washington puts it: “We’ve now got a whole generation of jazz musicians who have been brought up with hip-hop. We’ve grown up alongside rappers and DJs, we’ve heard this music all our life. We are as fluent in J Dilla and Dr Dre as we are in Mingus and Coltrane.” The influence cuts both ways – from jazz to hip-hop and back again. Jazz musicians have always improvised over different rhythms but, if you go to a jazz gig these days, you’re likely to hear a lot of musicians playing over the “slugging” beat popularised by the hip-hop producer J Dilla. It’s that wonky, slightly drunken-sounding funk beat that seems to have joined the arsenal of rhythms used by jazz musicians, alongside such mainstays as swing, bossa nova and the jazz waltz. “It’s basically the sound of someone sampling a funk beat on an Akai MPC sampler and editing it wrong,” says Rob Turner, drummer in the Mercury-nominated Manchester jazz trio Go Go Penguin. “Instead of starting the sample at the ‘transient’ – the start of the beat – it starts fractionally after that point. So the snare drums and hi-hats are all in slightly the wrong place. It sounds sluggish and disjointed and slightly screwed up, but it also sounds quite cool. And it’s something that young jazz drummers have worked out how to play. Go around music colleges and you’ll hear student drummers dividing up a bar into countless subdivisions and working how to ‘slug’ fluently – somewhere between ‘swung’ crotchets and ‘straight’ crotchets. Nowadays, so many young jazz drummers have learned to play like that we’ve started to call it the ‘college beat’. It shows you how jazz musicians have thoroughly internalised the hip-hop they’ve grown up with.” Hip-hop’s love affair with jazz goes back more than 30 years, when the likes of Stetsasonic, Gang Starr, A Tribe Called Quest and Jungle Brothers were sampling heavily from jazz records and explicitly drawing connections between the two African-American art forms. Rappers such as the Notorious BIG (who was mentored by the New Orleans saxophonist Donald Harrison), Nas (the son of jazz musician Olu Dara) and Rakim (who studied the saxophone) have talked about how jazz influenced their phrasing and diction. However, when jazz musicians such as Herbie Hancock, Miles Davis, Branford Marsalis and Roy Ayers reciprocated, they always did so as curious outsiders: as “tourists” rather than native speakers. Younger jazz musicians, however, treat things differently. Washington has become the poster boy of this bilingual generation. Not only is his own spacey hard bop outfit filling out festivals and concert halls around the world – including a recent Prom – but he has also worked closely with hip-hop musicians, working as the musical director for Kendrick Lamar’s album To Pimp a Butterfly, the landmark 2015 album whose stellar cast also included trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire, guitarist Keith Askey, bassist Chris Smith, drummer Robert Searight and producer Terrace Martin – all of whom have worked in the worlds of jazz, R&B and hip-hop. “A lot of us grew up playing with Snoop Dogg’s band, the Snoopadelics,” Washington says. “And we all played in big bands and jazz quartets and so on. I never had a problem moving between jazz and hip-hop. People like to compartmentalise music, especially African-American music, but it’s really one thing. One very wide thing. I mean, it’s like all those great records by Marvin Gaye and James Brown back in the day – there are tonnes of jazz musicians playing on them. When I first played some Coltrane-type stuff on the Pimp a Butterfly sessions, Kendrick got it immediately. ‘I want it to sound like it’s on fire,’ he’d say. That’s the kind of common ground that the best jazz and the best hip-hop have.” “There’s a tendency for the old guard to sneer at hip-hop,” says Robert Glasper, the pianist who also featured on To Pimp a Butterfly. “But jazz can learn so much from hip-hop. I’m reminded of how Miles Davis, when recording Miles Smiles, told [pianist] Herbie Hancock to not use his left hand at all. It made Herbie approach playing in a different way – he couldn’t play chords, so it forced him to find other ways to express himself. And it’s the same when you’re working in the world of hip-hop. You have to use repetition, you have to play sounds that cut through. Sometimes that can be even more difficult than the most complicated improvisation. “If you want to create a great breakbeat, for instance, there is a sonic language and a feel that you have to understand. For instance, you can’t do it with an 18-inch bass drum [the standard size for jazz drummers]. You need one with a 20- or 22-inch diameter. You have to tune your snare drum differently. You can’t crash your cymbals every eight bars. Instead of adding fills, you have to remove components of that beat, or add juddering bass beats. And so on. If you’re not a hip-hop head, you won’t know that something’s wrong. The jazz musicians who have grown up with hip-hop, however, know this implicitly.” You’ll find dozens of examples of this from young jazz musicians in their 20s and 30s. Check out pianist Kris Bowers and his solo versions of Kendrick Lamar songs on prepared piano; or drummer Dan Weiss’s solo versions of tracks by the likes of Busta Rhymes or Big Punisher; or Chris “Daddy” Dave recreating hip-hop breakbeats. The bassist Thundercat is another example. As well as playing a key role on To Pimp a Butterfly (along with his brother, the drummer Ronald Bruner Jr), he makes his own, spacey soul-jazz albums and also collaborates with the LA producer Flying Lotus (himself a nephew of John Coltrane). “Whether I’m working with Herbie Hancock, Kendrick Lamar or Flying Lotus, I try to get on that person’s soundwave and keep my mind open to what he or she is hearing,” he says. “You might be a gifted jazz improviser, for instance, but hip-hop will teach you how to edit yourself, how to connect to an audience, how to service a song. That is always crucial.” Speaking nearly 20 years ago, the British saxophonist Courtney Pine once remarked, in frustration, that jazz musicians would often enthuse about their love of funk, reggae or punk in private but never mention it professionally. “Put them in front of a camera or a journalist,” he said, “and they’d talk about Art Blakey and Duke Ellington, but they’d clam up if you asked them about Burning Spear or Diana Ross. They were ashamed of that side of their musical formation! And I think it’s why some jazz music stagnated.” That seems to have changed . “The generation that emerged in the 1980s had to be a bit like that,” says London-born saxophonist Shabaka Hutchings. “Guys like Wynton Marsalis were young players who were keen to be taken seriously by an older generation of jazz musicians, and keen to assert that jazz was a high art form. Mentioning reggae or hip-hop might seem to dilute that commitment. So you ended up with a somewhat dogmatic genre, one that was quite self-contained. “The difference now is that my generation don’t feel the need to solely identify ourselves with one genre. We’ve grown up with rave and electronica and hip-hop, and have no qualms about integrating that into our music. And those artists who have collaborated with Kendrick Lamar are perfect examples of that.” To Pimp a Butterfly was certainly on the radar of David Bowie and the jazz musicians with whom he recorded his final album. “It was an album that David talked about a lot, both with me and with producer Tony Visconti,” says saxophonist Donny McCaslin, the musical director of Blackstar. “It is a staggering piece of art. And oddly, I found Kendrick’s rapping – his intonation, his rhythms, his syncopation, the spirit of his phrasing – heavily influenced my own saxophone playing, both on Blackstar and on my new album. David was very much intrigued by a musician like Kendrick who was creating a personal vision: something that was a mix of many genres, but not really sounding like any of them. I guess it’s something that he has always done. I mean, what is Blackstar? It’s not a jazz record or a rock record, it was David’s personal vision. And it’s the same with To Pimp a Butterfly.” Blackstar producer Tony Visconti has suggested that only jazz musicians could keep up with Bowie during his most creative moments. “That’s very kind of Tony to say that,” says McCaslin, with a laugh. “But, with David, the collaboration was very organic. He has been a big fan of jazz since he was a teenager – he’d talk about how he was obsessed with Stan Kenton and Gil Evans and Charlie Parker and Maria Schneider and whatnot. And he was comfortable in a jazz setting. It was like we were a four-man basketball team and he was the fifth member who fitted in seamlessly. Because that’s what jazz musicians do – one guy plays something, another hears that and moves in a different direction, a third covers for them both, and so on. And David was always in the heart of the action, a participant among these jazz musicians. “I was doing a joint interview with Tony around the release of Blackstar, and he observed that jazz had always been present in David’s music – it’s just that it had always been a deeply embedded component. My own band have been exploring his catalogue and have started playing a few Bowie songs in our live sets, as a tribute – Warszawa, Look Back in Anger, Hello Spaceboy, A Small Plot Of Land, as well as Lazarus. There is a lot of interesting harmonic information, a lot of interesting intervals. As a jazz musician, they are very satisfying to play.” Again, McCaslin’s own music draws as much from hip-hop and contemporary music as it does from jazz. His new album, Beyond Now, features versions of songs by Aphex Twin, MuteMath and deadmau5, while there’s a rhythmic sensibility that comes from being immersed in music by the likes of Squarepusher and Skrillex. What is astonishing about all of these jazz musicians is the sheer number of radically different projects in which they are involved. Since finishing Blackstar, McCaslin has recorded his own new album, toured with Mike Manieri’s fusion band Steps Ahead and found time to play with Maria Schneider’s big band. Glasper has, in the past year alone, soundtracked Don Cheadle’s recent Miles Ahead movie and a Nina Simone biography, put together a Miles Davis tribute with assorted singers and released a new album of soul-jazz covers, ArtScience. He is also co-producing Herbie Hancock’s upcoming album. Hutchings seems to be taking more work than even McCaslin and Glasper. As well as the Comet Is Coming – his Mercury-nominated collaboration with ravey synth-and-drums duo Soccer96 – he fronts his futuristic marching band, Sons of Kemet, and leads a new collaboration with a group of South African jazz musicians called the Ancestors. And that’s not to mention his work with the jazz-punk outfit Melt Yourself Down, the DJ/producer Floating Points, the hip-hop-influenced trio Thousand Kings, the Sun Ra Orchestra or the Sun Ra-influenced Heliocentrics. “It’s just a function of growing up liking lots of different music,” he says. “Be it bashment or hip-hop, or Björk or Antony and the Johnsons, or Fela Kuti or Thomas Mapfumo. And all that influences how you approach jazz. With the Comet Is Coming, for instance, we play in much clubbier venues than we might with Sons of Kemet. You see how stand-up audiences respond to certain rhythms, and that takes you in a certain direction. “What I always find frustrating is that so many jazz musicians have forgotten how to write decent melodies. They are often so keen to show off their chops and their harmonic knowledge that they forget how to connect to an audience. That’s something that pisses me off. In fact, it was working with the Ethiopian musician Mulatu Astatke that really gave me the confidence to play simple, strong melodies – drawing from folkloric music. That’s something that all jazz musicians can benefit from.” What seems to unite many of this new generation is the idea that jazz is less a genre and more a sensibility. “The thing that keeps jazz from being old is the fact that you can apply it to where you’re at,” says Thundercat. “Being a jazz musician is a mentality as well as an ability. It’s like being able to speak different languages – jazz is a tool that helps you, allows you to understand more, and can take you to different places.” Donny McCaslin, Robert Glasper and the Comet is Coming all play during the London jazz festival, from 11-20 November. More details here.
General Medical Council behaving like a modern inquisition We are concerned that Dr Waney Squier, perhaps Britain’s foremost scientist in the field of paediatric neuropathology, who has been a consultant at the John Radcliffe hospital for 32 years, was struck off the medical register by a General Medical Council panel on Monday, based on her testimony in so-called shaken baby syndrome (SBS) cases (Report, theguardian.com, 21 March). She was accused of various things, including showing too little respect for the views of her peers. Every generation has its quasi-religious orthodoxies, and if there is one certainty in history it is that many beliefs that were firmly held yesterday will become the object of knowing ridicule tomorrow. Whether this will be the fate of SBS, time will tell. However, the case of Dr Squier follows another troubling pattern where the authorities inflict harsh punishment on those who fail to toe the establishment line. It is a sad day for science when a 21st-century inquisition denies one doctor the freedom to question “mainstream” beliefs. It is a particularly sad day for the parent or carer who ends up on the wrong end of another doctor’s “diagnosis” that an infant was shaken, when the child may have died from entirely different, natural causes. Michael Mansfield QC, London Clive Stafford Smith Human rights lawyer, London Dr Thomas L Bohan President, Forensic Specialties Accreditation Board; President, American Academy of Forensic Sciences, 2009-10 Dr Harry J. Bonnell Forensic pathologist, California Dr Lina Davidsson Stockholm Keith A Findley Co-director, Wisconsin Innocence Project Dr Steven C. Gabaeff Diplomat Emeritus, American Board of Emergency Medicine (1983-2014) Dr Jennian Geddes Retired reader in clinical neuropathology, Queen Mary, University of London David B Hirsch Lawyer, New Hampshire Dr Zhongxue Hua Forensic pathologist and neuropathologist, New York Charles J Hyman Retired clinical professor of pediatrics, California Katherine Judson Shaken baby syndrome litigation coordinator, Wisconsin Innocence Project Dr Patrick E Lantz Winston Salem, North Carolina David J. Lansner Lawyer, New York Anya Lewis Barrister, London Dr Marvin Miller Professor of pediatrics, ob/gyn; affiliated professor of biomedical engineering, Dayton, Ohio Dr John Plunkett Diplomate, American Board of Pathology Dr Miguel Reyes-Múgica Marjory K Harmer Endowed Chair in Pediatric Pathology, Pennsylvania Dr Irene Scheimberg Consultant paediatric pathologist, London Dr Joseph Scheller Child neurologist, Maryland Carrie Sperling Co-Director, Wisconsin Innocence Project Peter Wilcox QC, London Dr Edward N Willey Florida Jenny Wiltshire Managing Partner, Hickman & Rose, London Dr RK Wright Forensic pathologist, Florida • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
One-hour time slots and robot couriers woo today's consumers How many times have you heard the words, “Oh I’d much rather shop elsewhere but it means I can get next-day delivery”? It’s fair to say that Amazon, and other online behemoths, have transformed the e-commerce world in terms of delivery and customer satisfaction. And while we might be a way off (though possibly not that far) having our flat whites delivered by drone, the delivery landscape is changing. And this has changed the consumer model considerably, with customers prizing convenience above almost everything else. In fact, research from delivery management tech company Metapack in 2014 found that 59% of consumers are less likely or unlikely to order from a retailer ever again if they have a negative delivery experience. People now expect to know when their parcel will arrive. And they’ll go elsewhere if they can’t get the information. It matters. In recent PwC research, 17% of consumers believed their favourite brand to be innovative when it came to delivery. Services such as time-slot delivery service On the dot, UberRush (run by Uber but connecting consumers to couriers instead of taxis), Starship (which offers self-driving delivery robots) and Nimber and PiggyBaggy (both of which make use of people already on their way somewhere to transport goods) are helping smaller retailers set themselves apart from competitors by providing a much more convenient service and better delivery options. Patrick Gallagher, CEO of courier service CitySprint and chief executive of On the dot, says: “The days of telling people when their order is likely to arrive are changing – customers now seek a personalised customer experience, from first browse to the final purchase in hand.” On the dot offers a one-hour time-slot delivery service for retailers, allowing the customer to track delivery from store to door, with email notifications along the way. Gallagher says: “Customers have come to prize convenience above almost everything else in the e-commerce experience. You can book a holiday on your commute, or buy a new wardrobe from your mobile. The brands, products and services that can save people time and make their lives easier are the most likely to succeed.” But this kind of convenience is no longer just for retail giants like Argos or Amazon, who have large and expensive supply chain networks and distribution centres built into their business. Around 70% of On the dot’s customers are small businesses. One of On the dot’s first customers was luxury homewares retailer Lords at Home (Lords). Lords started with a single store in Notting Hill and in 2015 decided to expand across the capital. It now has six stores in greater London. As part of its expansion, Lords knew that while it could not always compete with larger competitors on price, its differentiator was good customer experience. Lords became a retail partner of the On the dot’s consumer website and later moved to using a web portal designed for retailers, allowing them to arrange deliveries for customers in store and over the phone. Shaun Bridgeman, head of e-commerce at Lords, says: “We always try to put our customers first and delivery is an integral part of this.” He says the service has helped the company to move from telling the customer when they can have a delivery to asking when they would like it. Since using the service, says Bridgeman, the company has seen a 528% increase in delivery sales. He adds: “We have even been able to implement new sales campaigns, such as bulk orders with a staggered, specified hour delivery on our customers’ terms. Now customers can shop freely without having to worry about how they will get purchases home.’’ Deliveroo is an on-demand delivery service for quality restaurant food. It has recently launched RooBox, an off-site delivery kitchen initiative, bringing popular restaurants to areas with low restaurant density. Will Shu, Deliveroo co-founder and CEO, says: “Traditionally, expanding a restaurant business comes at significant risk, and substantial cost to small businesses. Owners would need to make large commitments to a new site and its development. RooBox frees small business owners from this, enabling them to test locations through a delivery-only offering while simultaneously growing their customer base, revenue and brand in new areas.” Valgard Sorensen, owner of Tommi’s Burger Joint, which uses the service, says: “It offers our business a fantastic opportunity to promote itself in areas beyond our normal reach. It’s enabled us to test a local market and make informed business decisions.” However James Newman, marketing director at Red’s True Barbecue, another Deliveroo customer, says while these types of delivery services fit a consumer need, “they come at a price for businesses jumping in. As the market grows and more competitors enter, that can only be a good thing for both restaurants and consumers.” Providing specific delivery windows is a vital element of the EatFirst service, which allows customers to choose a specific 30-minute time slot for delivery of chef-made meals in London. To do this the business developed an algorithm to work out the quickest routes for their drivers. This takes into consideration current traffic and weather forecasts. EatFirst’s 50 delivery drivers are employed directly by them. Founder Rahul Parekh says: “This gives us full control over the delivery chain and ensures we provide a reliable service.” The company currently delivers for lunch and dinner, seven days a week, covering practically all neighbourhoods in Zones 1, 2 and 3 in London. “With every improvement to our delivery options we have seen the number of orders we receive increase, and our new weekend and brunch service is expected to grow the business 25% in only three months.” David Senior, sector director, retail, EMEA (Europe, the Middle East and Africa) at retail engagement specialists OpenMarket, says: “Being able to complete a purchase online anytime is not enough for an optimum customer experience. From the moment the customer places an order and until that order is delivered to their door, timely, relevant and personalised two-way communications are expected.” Senior adds: “Consumers may expect a brand to update them on delivery times, give them the option to leave the parcel with a neighbour, or offer the ability to reschedule a delivery for a different day. Businesses need to have the right communications mix in place that includes phone calls, email, SMS, apps and social media to ensure they engage with consumers on the right channels.” Sign up to become a member of the Small Business Network here for more advice, insight and best practice direct to your inbox.
Bank of England to close personal banking service for employees Bank of England employees will lose a 300-year-old job perk after it was announced that a small staff bank within Threadneedle Street is closing. Staff had been able to access Bank of England accounts for personal use, even after retirement. But the Bank has confirmed that the service is coming to an end following a cost-cutting review initiated by its governor, Mark Carney, soon after he arrived in 2013. The Bank’s internal bank concluded that it could not compete with the range of services, including online banking, offered by high street institutions, and said all staff accounts would be closed by next year on grounds of costs and practicality. Until recently, account holders had received Bank debit cards and chequebooks, distinguished by the sort code 10-00-00, underlining its position as the grandest branch in Britain. The bank has two dedicated cash machines inside the Bank’s building. The days of personal banking at Threadneedle Street had been numbered since the launch of an efficiency review, which resulted in the loss of 100 support jobs. No new accounts were allowed to be opened during the consultation. A Bank spokesperson said: “After a full consultation process, the Bank confirmed to customers in November 2015 that it would close its personal banking service. This followed the Bank’s withdrawal from providing retail banking services to government departments and other corporate customers. Many customers have now moved to other banks and we expect the exercise to complete during 2017.” Long-term customers were reportedly writing as many cheques to friends as possible in order to generate souvenirs of the threatened bank within the Bank.
New Zealand GP who offered $400,000 job flooded with hundreds of 'trash' applicants The New Zealand rural GP advertising a NZ$400,000 (£190,000) job at his practice has been overwhelmed by the response but says he is feeling “tired, pissed off and dispirited”. Dr Alan Kenny of the small town of Tokoroa in the North Island has been looking for a junior doctor for two years. He is offering a generous package including a $400,000 income, three months of annual leave and no night or weekend work. Since the story was picked up by the media on Tuesday his practice has fielded hundreds of calls from Brazil, Central America, Poland, Ukraine, India, Bosnia, South Africa, Canada and France along with emails and texts from interested applicants, 99% of whom, Kenny said, “were trash”. “It is all I can do to carry on today, this is an abominable situation which is very distracting and quite ugly,” he told the by phone. “The town has reacted with great hostility to my situation and the knowledge of what medical professionals earn. There is trash talk about me all over Facebook, and a lot of hostility from the town itself. “I feel very stressed, my patients are unhappy and my staff are feeling under a lot of pressure. I have a throbbing headache and if a meaningful candidate emerges from this horrible experience I will be very surprised.” Kenny said he had immediately ruled out any doctors applying who could not speak English or did not practise medicine – of which there were “dozens and dozens”. But there were a couple of candidates with “rigorous qualifications” who he was considering. The Waikato district health board also fielded a number of calls from interested applicants, as did the NZ rural general practice network, which said on Tuesday the demand for doctors in rural New Zealand was “constant and growing”.
15 fun things to type into Google Google’s easter eggs – funny little images, programs or widgets – are legendary, but many of them lie dormant, just waiting for users to type the magic words into the search box. Are they clever? Some are. Are they useful? Most aren’t. But they’re all a welcome distraction from working. They all work in Chrome on desktop, most work on mobile too, and some of them also work in other browsers. Enjoy. . Barrel roll An oldie but a goodie. Typing either “do a barrel roll” or “z or r twice” will make the Google search page roll flip 360 degrees. Why? For fun of course. Both phrases are a reference to Star Fox, in which you had to hit the Z or R button twice to roll your fighter left or right. Tilting Typing “askew” into Google sets the whole page off at a tilted angle. “Tilt” also used to work, but I couldn’t get it to do anything in my testing. Star Wars text Have you ever wanted your Google search results to scroll down the page mimicking the Star Wars opening text? No, me neither, but you can by typing “a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away”. Blinking Typing in “ ” searches Google for blink and then makes every instance of the word blink in the results … blink. Yep. Google like it’s 1998 Do you remember what Google looked like when it first lurched onto the open web in 1998? The aesthetic was similar, but 2016’s web is quite a few leaps forward in design over the late 1990s web. Type “google in 1998” to show what the search engine was first like and conduct searches like you’ve just lost 18 years. Zerg rush! Bored at work and the only thing you have access to is Google? Type “zerg rush” into the search box, hit enter and prepare to frantically click on a surge of little Google “o”s as they attempt to eat your page. Zerg rush was a tactic employed by Zerg players in the 1998 strategy game StarCraft, which involved the sending of hundreds of cheap, low-level units to overwhelm an opponent. Breakout Brick breaking at its best. Type “atari breakout” into Google’s image search to start up an impromptu game of image search result bricks. Conway’s Game of Life British mathematician John Horton Conway devised the Game of Life as a cellular automation, where the player sets the starting parameter and then watches as evolution takes over. Typing “conway’s game of life” into Google and hitting enter spawns a small version of the simulation in the browser. Super Mario Bros A common search, but did you know that the question box that flashes below images of the original 1985 game is actionable? Type “super mario bros” into the search box, hit enter and click the flashing box to make the iconic coin collect chime ring out, as if Mario himself had just hit the box. Flip a coin We’ve all been there in our increasingly contactless, cashless society. You need to decide something and you simply don’t have a coin handy. Google to the rescue. Type “flip a coin”, if you trust Google not to be biased, of course. Roll a die Perhaps you need something a bit more advanced than a coin, but you don’t have any dice to hand. Search for “roll a die” and Google will do it for you. Bacon number The Bacon number or degrees of Kevin Bacon are the number of links between yourself or a famous person and actor Kevin Bacon. It rests on the assumption that any individual can be linked through his or her roles in film or TV to Bacon, and it’s always surprising how often that is true. Typing “Bacon number” followed by the name of a famous person will try and calculate their degrees of Kevin bacon. Simple. Top trumps with food If you’re on a diet, or just want to compare foods like top trumps, putting a search such as “apples vs oranges” will list their specs side-by-side so you can see which one wins in a breakdown of calories, sugar, salt, vitamins etc per portion. Google’s funny languages Google has some fun with languages. There’s pirate Google, Elmer Fudd Google and hacker Google, but my favourite is Klingon Google. Good luck working out what all that means. Just put “?hl=xx-klingon” at the end of your Google URL (google.co.uk/, for instance) and ylnej in Klingon. Recursion Google’s programmers enjoy a good nerd joke more than most of us. Searching for “recursion” asks you whether you meant “recursion”, which when you click on it, asks you whether you meant “recursion” recursively. How to use search like a pro: 10 tips and tricks for Google and beyond
Indiana primary: Donald Trump looks poised for a win – and the nomination Donald Trump only needs to win Indiana on Tuesday by a single vote to be the likely Republican nominee. One recent public poll had the real estate mogul up 15 points over rival Ted Cruz, giving Trump plenty of margin for error. If Trump wins the 30 delegates that Indiana awards the winner of the state’s popular vote (the winners in each of the state’s nine congressional districts receive three delegates apiece), only a huge upset by Cruz in California can stop him obtaining the 1,237 pledged delegates needed to clinch the nomination on the first ballot. By Monday, Trump had 996 pledged delegates. Considering the frontrunner is expected to win New Jersey’s June primary, which awards all 51 delegates to the winner, a win in Indiana would mean that Trump could seal the nomination even with a mediocre performance in California. The result is that campaigns have gone all-in in the Hoosier State. Desperate anti-Trump forces pressured the state’s governor, Mike Pence, into an endorsement of Cruz, while Trump has trotted out the legendary Indiana University basketball coach Bobby Knight as a supporter, along with a constellation of the state’s other sporting celebrities. The stakes for Cruz have grown so desperate that, in an unprecedented move, he announced former rival Carly Fiorina as his running mate in Indianapolis last week in an attempt to gain momentum. The bitterness and rancor between Cruz and Trump has reached epic proportions. Cruz, who once described Trump as a “friend”, is now slamming him as someone who wants to let grown men “in the little girls’ restroom” as well as being a liar and a New York liberal. In contrast, Trump has long labeled Cruz “lyin’ Ted”, a shout that is given constantly at the frontrunner’s rallies. Trump has even attacked the appearance of the Texas senator’s wife. Many supporters of each candidate wouldn’t consider ultimately voting for the other. Michael Strawn, a 52-year-old mortgage banker from Carmel, Indiana, who supports Cruz, told the : “Donald Trump scares me. He is unpredictable and self-centered.” A lifelong Republican, Strawn said he would have a hard time voting for Trump if he was the nominee. “I know what the worst case is with Hillary. I don’t like it but I can manage. With Trump I just don’t know.” In contrast, Danny Buechler of Greenfield not only couldn’t imagine voting for Cruz, but he couldn’t imagine voting for anyone besides Trump. The long-bearded biker, who wore a black cowboy hat with “Trump” written in silver, said he had last voted for Richard Nixon in 1968. To him, the Republican frontrunner represented “truth and change”, and Buechler took reassurance in the fact that the mogul “ain’t a politician yet”. Many Trump voters shared this suspicion of politics as usual. One calling himself Tom told the at the frontrunner’s rally in Indianapolis on Wednesday: “We need someone that’s not a puppet, that’s not bought.” To him almost every politician going back over a century was bought. This included Reagan, “who was a decent president, but he was still on leash”. Trump was different, Tom reckoned. The Trump rally was certainly different. In a performing arts center built to look like an old-fashioned theater, the frontrunner seemed in high spirits as he used uncharacteristically populist language for a Republican. “Frankly, I don’t like the rich people so much.” As much as he liked attacking “lyin’ Ted”, Trump seemed to be pivoting to a general election, echoing Bernie Sanders in saying former secretary of state Clinton had “bad judgment”. But mostly Trump seemed to be taking a victory lap. He insisted: “If we win Indiana, it’s over – they’re finished, they are done. “And if we don’t I’ll win it next week or the week after or the week after. They have no path and I have a very easy path.” He even bragged about how good he would be in the Oval Office after Bobby Knight said “Trump’s going to be a great president”. Trump responded: “I can’t say that about myself but OK, I’ll say it.” In contrast, Cruz held an election eve rally in a half-full barn on the Indiana state fairgrounds. Whereas Trump rallies can feel like rock concerts – with college-age white men in Make America Great Again hats and vendors outside selling vulgar T-shirts about Hillary Clinton – Cruz’s events can often feel like church meetings. The room was packed with families. It seemed almost as many people were holding children on their shoulders as Cruz signs over their heads. The Texas senator dismissed Trump as a bully who depended on the type of language one might expect from an after-school special. “Bullies have a empty hole inside they fill by trying to find someone weaker than they are, picking on them, abusing them.” Mostly he adhered to his repeated arguments that he was the real conservative and Trump was a fake, repeating a stump standard “that Donald Trump has been supporting liberal Democrats for over 40 years”. Cruz even came close to accusing Trump of being pro-rape, noting that the frontrunner had praised former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson, whom Cruz noted “was a convicted rapist, who spent three years in prison here in Indiana for raping a 17-year-old girl”. The most powerful moment in Cruz’s speech came when he discussed his confrontation with pro-Trump protesters at a campaign event in Marion earlier in the day. He related his experience where he went over to try to persuade them of the error of their ways. As Cruz described it, “on one side we had a civil, respectful conversation”, on the other the Trump supporters repeatedly called him a liar. Cruz expressed his befuddlement as he contrasted his record on the second amendment, immigration and gun control. The response was to be repeatedly called a liar. Cruz defiantly insisted that “truth matters” to a cheering crowd at his own rally, and seemed to express more sadness than anger about how his opponent’s supporters responded to him. But while the Texas senator may still be breathing defiance, others within the party are starting to make peace with the idea of Trump as the nominee. Establishment doyens such as Jon Huntsman, who mounted a failed presidential bid in 2012 trying to push the GOP to more moderate positions, and Ron Kaufman, a longtime confidant of Mitt Romney and George HW Bush, are already calling for the party to rally around Trump. But Brad Armstrong, a two-term county commissioner from Hancock County, Indiana, may best typify the movement towards Trump. Armstrong, who was on the ballot for a third term on Tuesday, was an avid Fred Thompson supporter in 2008 and was supporting representative Todd Young, the establishment choice, in the state’s Senate primary on Tuesday. He said he was supporting Young over Freedom Caucus member Marlin Stutzman because “we don’t want another Richard Mourdock scenario”. This was a reference to the 2012 Republican Senate primary where a Tea Party candidate upset six-term senator Richard Lugar and then lost the general election to the Democrat. Armstrong was voting for Trump. It may not be happening nationally yet but, at least in one corner of Indiana, it seems the party has decided.
RBS pays £846m fine to US regulator for role in 2008 banking crisis Royal Bank of Scotland is to pay $1.1bn (£846m) to a US regulator to resolve allegations it missold mortgage bonds to credit unions in the run up to the 2008 banking crisis. The settlement with the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) board is one of three major issues facing the bailed-out bank relating to the way it sold so-called residential-mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) before its £45bn taxpayer bailout. The sum is included in the £3.8bn of provisions the bank has already made to tackle upcoming litigation, but the bank’s chief executive, Ross McEwan, has been warning that RBS faces other penalties from the US authorities. In a presentation on Tuesday he said settlement talks were under way with the NCUA and the Federal Housing Finance Agency but not with the US Department of Justice (DoJ). Analysts have estimated a settlement with the DoJ could amount to £9bn. Anxiety about the scale of the penalty facing Deutsche Bank from the DoJ has helped drive shares in Germany’s biggest bank to near 30-year lows. As it announced the settlement with the NCUA, RBS reiterated it might need to increase its provisions. It said it was responding to “investigations by the civil and criminal divisions of the US Department of Justice and various other members of the RMBS working group of the financial fraud enforcement task force (including several state attorneys general). “As previously stated, RMBS litigation and investigations may require additional provisions in future periods that in aggregate could be materially in excess of the (current) provisions,” the bank said. McEwan had hoped to have resolved the discussions with the DoJ by now but the bank has signalled this might not happen until next year. On Tuesday, before this settlement was reached, McEwan had warned issues from the past were “going to result in substantial additional conduct provisions and noise, but we remain focused on the task at hand of continuing to build a really good bank for customers and investors”. The bank’s shares have been knocked by Deutsche’s woes and closed around 175p – well below the 502p average price the taxpayer paid for its 73% stake in the bank.
Salt in their veins and fire in their bellies: fishermen battling for Brexit William Whyte has a new flag flying from the rigging of his vast blue-hulled trawler, its fabric snapping in the brisk breeze coming in off the North Sea. It features the cartoon of a militant-looking fish wearing armour, a union jack shield at its waist and the legend “Fishing for Leave”. These flags are appearing on boats around Britain’s coast. The country’s trawlermen are placing themselves in the vanguard of the campaign to quit the EU. There is talk of a flotilla massing on the Thames, as the country’s fishing fleets press the case for Brexit. For Scottish trawlermen such as Whyte, the EU referendum is a godsend. Striding over long, brightly coloured coils of rope, netting and sun-bleached floats laid out on the quayside at Fraserburgh, north of Aberdeen, Whyte hopes the UK will vote to leave the EU, finally releasing his industry from the constraints, the wheeling and dealing, and complexities of the common fisheries policy (CFP). The owner of a 210ft-long (64 metres) mackerel and herring trawler, the Forever Grateful, Whyte said he has “salt in my veins”. His great-grandfathers were fishermen 110 years ago; his semi-retired father left the sea in 2003 yet still repairs and recycles fishing nets just steps from Whyte’s boat. Whyte said his “biggest gripe” is with the unelected European commission official in Belgium who fixes the quotas for mackerel and herring on which his livelihood depends – whoever that official might be. “He doesn’t know me. I have never met him. My thinking is he needs to know how my boat works, and how I fish, before he negotiates,” he said. “Our guys can whisper in this guy’s ear, but the Dutch guy is also whispering in his ear and the Spanish guy is whispering in his ear. How can we keep all these people happy?” Fishermen’s leaders and pro-EU fisheries ministers dispute Whyte’s account. They insist that elected governments negotiate, and that the CFP protects them, even shielding it against powerful competing interests in Whitehall likely to trade UK fishing stocks for other concessions. But Britain’s trawlermen appear unanimous that quitting the EU is a necessity. The referendum has unified an often fractious, routinely competitive business. Skippers from ports such as Lerwick and Inverness to the north, Whitby and North Shields in the north-east of England, Folkestone and Rye in the south-east, and Southampton, Brixham and Penzance to the west, up to Fleetwood in Lancashire, and across to Newry and Coleraine in Northern Ireland, have signed up to the Scottish-led Fishing for Leave campaign. Trawlermen see themselves as the worst affected by the UK’s membership of the EU. They talk of shrinking quotas, of backroom deals with the Spanish, Danes or French, and most of all, a sense that UK fisheries ministers have been too soft with their competitors. The UK fleet has shrunk as controls on overfishing and competition have bitten, and as efficiencies have improved output: there were less than 6,400 registered vessels in 2014 compared with more than 7,000 in 2004, employing just under 12,000 fishermen, 12% down on 2004. Yet it is becoming more profitable, largely after the quota for mackerel grew sharply: in 2014, the total value of landings by UK vessels within the UK and abroad rose to £861m – its highest yet, while the volumes increased, too, to 756,000 tonnes overall. Much of that is landed at Peterhead, Fraserburgh and Lerwick in Shetland: Scotland’s ports generated 64% of the UK’s landings in 2014, thanks largely to the huge mackerel and herring boats based there. Even so, said the UK government’s Marine Management Organisation, the industry is actually only worth some £426m to the UK’s GDP, down from £542m in 2010. That makes it worth 4-6% of the UK’s entire agriculture, fisheries and forestry output – making it vulnerable when the UK’s overall economic interests are at stake, despite its political and cultural importance. David Milne, 52, also works out of Fraserburgh. While Whyte makes his money hauling in 9,000 tonnes of mackerel and herring a year during three tight fishing windows each autumn and winter, Milne’s trawler works year round for cod, haddock, whiting and hake, staples of Britain’s kitchens. His son was out skippering it last week. Himself the son of a trawlerman, and a skipper for 30 years, Milne was a member of the Scottish Fishermen Federation delegation to the CFP quota talks in December. “You can see things happening which shouldn’t be happening,” he said. “We’re always told that it’s mostly science, everything is based on the science, but when it comes to the 11th hour, it is a political agreement. The commission will buy off Denmark or wherever, and the UK will roll over, buying into whatever the commission wants.” Milne acknowledges that North Sea fish stocks, cod in particular, are improving. Fisheries experts say that is because the common fisheries policy is finally working correctly. Scottish ministers will argue that Scotland’s strategy of implementing closed fishing areas to protect stocks, in a deal brokered with trawlermen, has played a part, too. Milne said the improvement means the Dutch and Danish want a greater share of fish in British waters, as do Norwegians, who must negotiate quota shares from outside the EU. “They’re getting more and more out. We’re getting very little in return, I would say. We’re basically getting the crumbs,” he said. If the UK does vote to leave the EU on 23 June, Milne believes the UK should introduce a regional management system in British waters, where local trawlermen, ministers and fisheries expert assess stock levels, and parcel out quotas to suit local circumstances. “That’s the way forward for our stocks: manage our own destiny,” Milne said. “Because the fishing will be here long after the oil. It’s how we manage it. That’s the key thing for us.” Cornwall The same sentiments can be heard 720 miles south on the southern tip of Britain in Newlyn, a bustling white fish and shellfish port beside Penzance in Cornwall. And among the fish merchants gathered for the 6am daily market, the idea of remaining in Europe provokes grimaces and unamused laughs. One or two expressed their stance with phlegmy spits. “You’ll struggle to find anyone around here who’s for remaining,” said Julian Bick, a buyer. “The EU has been terrible for this industry. It’s got too big and it’s corrupt.” The fishing waters off the south-west coast are some of the richest in the world. Boxes of brill, wrasse, ray, John Dory, smooth hounds (a small shark), crab claws, megrim are whisked off to luxury hotels in the south-west of England, restaurants in London or via the Channel tunnel to mainland Europe, mainly France and Spain. Dave Stevens, who has worked out of Newlyn in the Channel for 26 years, is also a Fishing for Leave activist. From his boat, the Crystal Sea, he usually works well within the UK’s 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone that their campaign believes should be brought solely into the UK’s sovereignty. It rankles with Stevens that these grounds are managed as zone VII under EU law and that he is fishing alongside boats from mainland Europe much more often than alongside fishermen from Cornwall or elsewhere in Britain. “These are no longer British waters – they are EU waters,” he said. He believes the French and Spanish were much better at securing good deals for their fishermen than the UK. “It means that our fleet has declined and places like Newlyn are nowhere near what they used to be,” he said. “As a nation we seem to have forgotten how innovative and how good we are at getting out in the world and trading. I believe we are being held back by Europe.” About 40% of Stevens’ fish is sent to Spain or France but he does not worry that the market will be closed to him if the UK does leave. “If they deny us access to their market, we will be within our rights to completely deny them access to our waters,” he said. The industry’s political leaders are split down the middle: George Eustice, the Eurosceptic UK farming and fisheries minister, is campaigning for Vote Leave. He joined Nigel Farage, the Ukip leader, at a Brexit rally in Aberdeen’s fisheries expo last week. Eustice argues that UK the could assert itself as a leading power in the north-east Atlantic, able to exercise its authority independently and strike favourable deals with neighbours such as Iceland and Norway. He insists, however, that quotas would remain in force for conservation and economic reasons. The case for leaving, he said, is overwhelming. “At the end of the day, fishermen are just not the sorts of people to be spooked by trite, pro-EU campaigns that try to tell them they should be scared of the open sea,” he said in a recent blog. His view is disputed by Richard Lochhead, who stood down as Scotland’s fisheries minister this month after nine years in the post. He supports the EU for a range of reasons, including to protect Scottish agriculture. International law and quota deals, he argues, would impose their own restrictions on a post-Brexit UK, adding fresh, different complexities. “It’s like untying a very complicated knot,” he said. “There’s a whole web of negotiations out there, involving lots of countries and lots of stocks, which would have to be unwound. There could be benefits there, potentially, but there would be wider consequences and no one can foresee those costs.” Some fishermen do openly favour the EU, as does Marine Harvest, the Norwegian-owned aquaculture giant that dominates Scotland’s £630m salmon farming industry. Some fishermen rely on fast access to Spanish and French restaurants for their sought-after live produce, such as the langoustine creelers off western Scotland or the crab fishermen in Shetland. In Lough Neagh, Northern Ireland, there is the eel fishery. This is the UK’s largest freshwater lake and here, most will be voting remain. Northern Ireland The Lough Neagh Fishermen’s Co-operative exports £3m per year of brownish green eels, which slither and slide around plastic boxes each day, and air-freight their live catch to customers in the Netherlands and Germany, or to Billingsgate fish market for London’s jellied eel trade. On a murky morning inside their huge building at Toome, Pat Close, the co-op’s chairman, said that market reinforced the need to remain within the EU single market. “It just makes sense given that we export 80% of our eels to northern Europe, mostly the Netherlands and a bit in Germany,” he said. “The big concern among fishing communities here on the lough is the fear of the unknown – the fear about what might happen if the UK votes for Brexit. Will we be hit with import tariffs if we are no longer in the EU? Will our competitors on the continent who, unlike us, produce their eels in eel farms, try to squeeze us out of the market?” Many in the fishing industry who do favour the EU are keeping their heads down, according to Teresa Portmann, a fishing industry consultant based in Plymouth. “Because those that want to leave are so militant and so vocal, people feel awkward about putting their heads above the parapet,” she said. She said the idea that foreign fishing vessels would suddenly vanish from around the UK’s coasts while European markets remained open for fishermen such as Stevens was nonsense. “Foreign trawlers have historically fished our waters before the common fisheries policy. We don’t know what the legal basis would be to stop them in the future.” And if foreign boats were banned, Britain simply would not have the naval vessels, planes and helicopters to patrol vast areas of open sea. “It would be impossible to police,” she said.
Sanders camp says Trump is 'chickening out' of debate – as it happened We get it - your boogie board is packed, your cooler is filled, your interest in minutiae about the race to become the leader of the free world is waning. But before you head out for the three-day weekend, here’s a quick rundown of the biggest news from the campaign trail today: Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump officially put the kibosh on the possibility of debating Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders ahead of the California primaries, declaring that it “seems inappropriate that I would debate the second place finisher.” “There is a reason why in virtually every national and statewide poll I am defeating Donald Trump, sometimes by very large margins and almost always by far larger margins than Secretary Clinton,” Sanders responded. “There is a reason for that reality and the American people should be able to see it up front in a good debate and a clash of ideas.” A once-robust seeming Hillary Clinton lead over rival Sanders in California, which will award 475 Democratic delegates in a 7 June primary, has been whittled to a toothpick, according to a Public Policy Institute of California poll. Clinton leads Sanders by only two points, 46-44, in the poll. The state will award its delegates proportionally. “We are going to win here in California!” Sanders said at a Santa Monica rally this week, described in a recommended Atlantic piece titled “This is how a revolution ends.” As he launched his ill-fated presidential run, Marco Rubio decided not to run for re-election to his Florida senate seat, saying that while he liked his job, he believed that it was important to signal his intentions of winning the presidency, without a fallback option. It appears now that Rubio may be reconsidering a reelection run, although he has called the idea “a joke” even as he explores it aloud. Another thing Rubio is no longer kidding about? Supporting Donald Trump. Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has declared that he will help alleviate the years-long drought that has stricken California by “opening up the water.” “If I win, we’re going to start opening up the water so you can have your farmers survive, so that your job market will get better,” Trump said at a Fresno rally. “We’re going to get it done and we’re going to get it done quick, don’t even think about it, that’s an easy one.” Trump blamed the current drought on environmentalists, who “shove [the water] out to sea” to protect “a certain kind of three-inch fish.” That’s it for today - enjoy your weekend! Vermont senator and Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has issued a statement on what his campaign called Donald Trump’s “on-again, off-again” position on an historic bipartisan primary debate: “In recent days, Donald Trump has said he wants to debate, he doesn’t want to debate, he wants to debate and, now, he doesn’t want to debate,” Sanders said. “Given that there are several television networks prepared to carry this debate and donate funds to charity, I hope that he changes his mind once again and comes on board.” “There is a reason why in virtually every national and statewide poll I am defeating Donald Trump, sometimes by very large margins and almost always by far larger margins than Secretary Clinton. There is a reason for that reality and the American people should be able to see it up front in a good debate and a clash of ideas.” Marco Rubio is feeling a little... touchy about his past #NeverTrump positions. Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has declared that he will help alleviate the years-long drought that has stricken California by “opening up the water.” “If I win, we’re going to start opening up the water so you can have your farmers survive, so that your job market will get better,” Trump said at a Fresno rally. “We’re going to get it done and we’re going to get it done quick, don’t even think about it, that’s an easy one.” Trump blamed the current drought on environmentalists, who “shove [the water] out to sea” to protect “a certain kind of three-inch fish.” “We’re going to solve your water problem. You have a water problem that is so insane. It is so ridiculous where they’re taking the water and shoving it out to sea,” Trump said. “They don’t understand - nobody understands it,” he said, adding that “there is no drought.” California has been in the grips of its worst drought in 1,200 years. Well, that’s that. Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has officially put the kibosh on the possibility of debating Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders ahead of the California primaries, declaring that it “seems inappropriate that I would debate the second place finisher.” “Based on the fact that the Democratic nominating process is totally rigged and Crooked Hillary Clinton and Deborah Wasserman Schultz will not allow Bernie Sanders to win, and now that I am the presumptive Republican nominee, it seems inappropriate that I would debate the second place finisher,” Trump said in a statement. “Likewise, the networks want to make a killing on these events and are not proving to be too generous to charitable causes, in this case, women’s health issues. Therefore, as much as I want to debate Bernie Sanders - and it would be an easy payday - I will wait to debate the first place finisher in the Democratic Party, probably Crooked Hillary Clinton, or whoever it may be.” British prime minister David Cameron said today at the G-7 meeting in Japan that the so-called “special relationship” between the US and the UK will endure even Donald Trump’s election to the presidency. “I believe in the special relationship,” Camerson said. “I believe the special relationship will work whoever is in whichever jobs in the UK and the US.” Cameron told reporters that he had no intention of entangling himself in American politics. “I’m not going to get involved at all in the American election,” Cameron said. “It’s a matter for the American people to choose their next president.” The statement comes after a week that saw a strained relationship between the Republican presidential hopeful and the UK. Cameron’s relative equanimity on the issue of Trump’s possible election marks a change in tone from December, when Cameron said of Trump: “If he came to visit our country, I think he would unite us all against him.” In an interview with Piers Morgan on Monday, Trump was asked whether Cameron was damaging the countries’ relationship. “It looks like we’re not going to have a very good relationship, who knows?” Trump said Bernie Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver has declared that the presidential candidate is prepared to accept Donald Trump’s offer for an unprecedented bipartisan presidential primary debate. “Our campaign and the Trump campaign have received two offers by broadcast television networks to host the Sanders-Trump debate that we suggested,” Weaver wrote in a statement. “Both offers include a major contribution to charity.” “We are prepared to accept one of those offers and look forward to working with the Trump campaign to develop a time, place and format that is mutually agreeable. Given that the California primary is on June 7, it is imperative that this all comes together as soon as possible. We look forward to a substantive debate that will contrast the very different visions that Sen. Sanders and Mr. Trump have for the future of our country.” The CEO of a New York-based tech company has offered to put forward the $10 million “charitable donation” proposed by Donald Trump in order to facilitate a debate between himself and Bernie Sanders. “Yesterday, Mr Trump asked for a $10 [million] donation to charity in order to accept Mr Sanders’ challenge to debate him,” said Richie Hecker, chairman and CEO of Traction and Scale, told BuzzFeed News. “We are willing to offer that $10 [million] donation in return for the opportunity to host the debate.” Traction and Scale is an investment group that emphasizes emphasis in design and technology, or, as its site puts it, a “stage-agnostic investment firm investing in transformative businesses that make people’s lives easier.” “We would host the debate as a physical event and live stream it to the world,” Hecker said in his statement. “The debate format would focus on compromise and solutions. We would invite the candidates to look at the forum less as a debate, and more as a negotiation for the future of America.” “We believe that Mr Sanders and Mr Trump collectively represent the voice of the American people,” he concluded. “We are confident that convening the voice of the people in a nonpartisan forum will spark the revolution and make America great again.” The bipartisan primary debate, unprecedented in modern American politics, was first floated to Trump during an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live. Trump’s team later said that he had been joking, but not before Sanders accepted Trump’s proposal. Trump then later walked back his walkback, telling reporters that he would be open to the debate if it raised money for a charitable cause. “Opening up the water.” Hillary Clinton stopped for a breakfast event this morning at Home of Chicken and Waffles, a popular black-owned restaurant in Oakland, California, the city Donald Trump recently called one of the “most dangerous” places in the world. Sitting at a restaurant table with biscuits in front of her and diners with breakfast plates behind her, the former secretary of state discussed gentrification and displacement, the Bay Area housing crisis, and job opportunities for the formerly incarcerated. “We have a big problem in affordable housing and in keeping neighborhood character and opportunities for people who have been living in Oakland for years,” Clinton said. “There are advantages, of course, to fixing up neighborhoods, but it’s a big price to pay” if people are displaced, she added. “How do we help to support the existing neighborhoods?” “Our cities are great magnets for people to move in,” she continued. “They are driving the market up.” In attendance was Oakland mayor Libby Schaaf, who made headlines last week when she tweeted that “the most dangerous place in America is Donald Trump’s mouth”. Oakland has one of the fastest rising rents of any city in the US. “We are ground zero of the affordability crisis,” Schaaf said, noting that the city was focused on building more housing. “We don’t want to build a wall around our city.” “It would be great if Oakland could show the way,” Clinton said, adding that she didn’t realize there was such a great disparity in housing affordability and rising costs here. The mayor and presidential candidate also discussed efforts to “ban the box” - initiatives to help ensure that formerly incarcerated people aren’t denied job opportunities because of their criminal records. A majority of employees of Home of Chicken and Waffles employs are people who have criminal convictions on their record. “Because of rules and regulations, a lot of people are denied housing,” Clinton said, adding that she supports initiatives that provide opportunities for people reentering society after prison. “Law enforcement has a big stake in supporting these kinds of programs,” she said, adding to restaurant owner Derreck Johnson, “I really applaud you for giving people the confidence and support they need.” Schaaf told the earlier that she felt obligated to respond to Trump and stand up for Oakland, the city across the bay from San Francisco. “I’m not just being funny when I say Donald Trump’s mouth is the most dangerous place in America,” she said. “When you have someone at that level saying things that are so ignorant, so mean-spirited, so factually inaccurate and insulting, that is dangerous.” Schaaf said Trump’s negative comments about crime in Oakland and Ferguson, Missouri were clearly racist. “Oaklanders are sick and tired of being tainted in this negative, one-dimensional light. There are so many great things about this city. And I also believe there is a racist undertone to Trump’s comments - the fact that he picked Oakland and Ferguson - two cities seen as predominantly African-American cities.” The California primary is 7 June. As he launched his ill-fated presidential run, Marco Rubio decided not to run for re-election to his Florida senate seat, saying that while he liked his job, he believed that it was important to signal his intentions of winning the presidency, without a fallback option. It appears now that Rubio may be reconsidering a reelection run, although he has called the idea “a joke” even as he explores it aloud. The speculation was stoked on Thursday by Rubio’s expression of support for presumptive nominee Donald Trump, to the consternation of backers who agreed with his earlier assessment of Trump as a “con artist”. Trump himself tweeted “Run Marco!” on Thursday night: (Rubio’s senate seat appears to be one of the most ripe for capture this election cycle by Democrats, in the party’s fight to demolish the current Republican majority.) Rubio did not effectively tamp down the reelection speculation in an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper that was broadcast Friday. Tapper noted that the deadline to file for a reelection run was 24 June. “It’s a joke,” Rubio said, explaining that “I have a really good friend I’ve known for a long time” in the race – lieutenant governor Carlos Lopez-Cantera – and that he wouldn’t run against his friend. But what if Lopez-Cantera weren’t running, Tapper asked. Would Rubio reconsider? “Maybe. Sure, maybe,” Rubio said. “I enjoy my work in the senate.” Rubio’s aides continue to insist he will not seek re-election, irrespective of the mounting pressure for him to reconsider. The senator’s suggestion that he might run if Lopez-Cantera weren’t in the race could nonetheless create a headache for his friend, who will now likely be urged by party leaders to step aside for Rubio. Marco Rubio is engaging on Twitter with conservative fountainhead Bill Kristol and journalist Philip Klein (columnist Jennifer Rubin gets in there too) over Rubio’s decision to support Donald Trump. Rubio dismisses Klein, who de-registered as a Republican when Trump emerged as the nominee, as a “keyboard cowboy”. Klein replies that his opposition to Trump has made him the target of “constant anti-Semitic hate” from Trump supporters. As a target for anti-Semitic hatred from Trump supporters, Klein is the rule, not the exception. Journalists to have written about the wave of anti-Semitic attacks they encountered after publishing material deemed critical – or not sufficiently laudatory – of Trump include Julia Ioffe writing for GQ and the New York Times’ Jonathan Weisman. Weisman’s account of attacks directed at him is disturbing. Here’s the top of a piece he wrote for the New York Times magazine: THE first tweet arrived as cryptic code, a signal to the army of the “alt-right” that I barely knew existed: “Hello ((Weisman)).” @CyberTrump was responding to my recent tweet of an essay by Robert Kagan on the emergence of fascism in the United States. “Care to explain?” I answered, intuiting that my last name in brackets denoted my Jewish faith. “What, ho, the vaunted Ashkenazi intelligence, hahaha!” CyberTrump came back. “It’s a dog whistle, fool. Belling the cat for my fellow goyim.” With the cat belled, the horde was unleashed. The anti-Semitic hate, much of it from self-identified Donald J. Trump supporters, hasn’t stopped since. Trump God Emperor sent me the Nazi iconography of the shiftless, hooknosed Jew. I was served an image of the gates of Auschwitz, the famous words “Arbeit Macht Frei” replaced without irony with “Machen Amerika Great.” Holocaust taunts, like a path of dollar bills leading into an oven, were followed by Holocaust denial. The Jew as leftist puppet master from @DonaldTrumpLA was joined by the Jew as conservative fifth columnist, orchestrating war for Israel. That one came from someone who tagged himself a proud future member of the Trump Deportation Squad. Read the full piece here. What is it about Trump and Nazis? Just today you can read BuzzFeed’s Rosie Gray writing about her experiences “Inside A White Nationalist Conference Energized By Trump’s Rise” – or read Yamiche Alcindor in the New York Times, quoting an LA voter who muses on the dramatic quality of changes a president Trump might usher in, “even if it’s like a Nazi-type change”: For further reading: The Surge Of Trump-Fueled Anti-Semitism Is Hitting Jewish Reporters Who Cover Him Bernie Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver told CNN that talks with the Donald Trump camp about a potential debate between the candidates have not progressed: There’s a little bit of foot-dragging now it seems on their side,” Weaver said. “It may be that, you know, there may be some chickening out or, you know, an unwillingness to stand on stage and really debate with Bernie Sanders because they know Bernie Sanders is going to do quite well in that debate, frankly.” Having clinched the Republican presidential nomination, Donald Trump takes a moment to remember all the people who said it couldn’t be done: Trump’s right: what sort of ill-informed wretch would ever have doubted Trump’s chances of winning the Republican nomination? Remember Trump Shuttle, Donald Trump’s short-lived airline? Neither do most people: Trump controlled the airline for only about two-and-a-half years, from 1989 to 1991, leaving it under a pile of debt. Luckily for everyone, the Boston Globe has reported a colorful history of the airline, from takeoff to, ha. There actually was one crash-landing before the company fell apart: a front landing gear once failed to deploy on a plane in Trump’s fleet (described by one source as “21 of some of the oldest, worst maintained 727s then flying”) but the pilot managed to bring it in softly and no one was hurt. Here’s the Globe’s Matt Viser on how Trump put his personal touch on his airline: On airplanes that were worth about $4 million each, Trump spent about $1 million apiece to redesign them. He wanted a T on the tail of the plane as big as possible. A giant TRUMP was painted on the side. The in-flight magazines featured Trump on the cover. The labels on the wetnaps had Trump Shuttle on them. New seat belt buckles were made of chrome, and he wanted all flight attendants to have necklaces with real pearls. (After warnings that would be too costly, they gave out fake strands.) Trump also designed new uniforms that, for the flight attendants, turned out to be impractical. “We had this pretty white blouse that showed a little cleavage,” said Catalano, the former flight attendant. “You can’t have that kind of a uniform. As a flight attendant, you’re bending down or picking things up. “Many of us put safety pins in the back to keep them closed,” she added. “They had to change the style after enough of us complained.” The idea for real marble sinks in the lavatories didn’t work either. Read the full piece here. When does the law of diminishing returns apply to unearthing old clips of Donald Trump saying sexist things? Never? To watch for yourself, skip to the three-minute mark in the video on the Comedy Central site here. The Clinton campaign has launched what it bills as the first in a series of mock-formal messages from “your possible next president” featuring Donald Trump saying things. The clip is intro’d and then abruptly outro’d by a brief clip of Hail to the Chief. In the first one Trump says that pregnancy “is certainly an inconvenience for a business.” A once-robust seeming Hillary Clinton lead over rival Bernie Sanders in California, which will award 475 Democratic delegates in a 7 June primary, has been whittled to a toothpick, according to a Public Policy Institute of California poll released Wednesday. Clinton leads Sanders by only two points, 46-44, in the poll. The state will award its delegates proportionally. “We are going to win here in California!” Sanders said at a Santa Monica rally this week, described in a recommended Atlantic piece titled “This is how a revolution ends.” Clinton does not need to win California to maintain her delegate lead over Sanders, and, counting superdelegates, she may cross the threshold of 2,383 committed delegates needed to clinch the nomination before the California result is reported. Clinton currently sits at 2,309 delegates, including superdelegates (see below); Puerto Rico, where Clinton support runs deep, will award 60 delegates on 5 June; and polling stations in New Jersey, with 126 delegates to award, close on 7 June at 8pm ET – three hours before the polls close in California. A loss in the country’s largest and most diverse state, however, would be a significant blow to the Clinton campaign, raising questions about her ability to mobilize Democrats for a general election fight against Donald Trump. Both Sanders and Clinton have been adding California rally dates to their schedules in a race to the wire. Clinton is in Oakland today while Sanders is in San Pedro. Sanders will campaign tomorrow in Fresno. Sheila Foster Anthony, sister of the late Vince Foster, who killed himself in 1993 after becoming Bill Clinton’s deputy White House counsel, has written an op-ed in the Washington Post decrying Donald Trump’s amplification of conspiracy theories attached to her brother’s death. “It is beyond contempt that a politician would use a family tragedy to further his candidacy, but such is the character of Donald Trump displayed in his recent comments to The Washington Post,” Anthony begins: In this interview, Trump cynically, crassly and recklessly insinuated that my brother, Vincent W. Foster Jr., may have been murdered because “he had intimate knowledge of what was going on” and that Hillary Clinton may have somehow played a role in Vince’s death. How wrong. How irresponsible. How cruel. [...] Trump was canny enough to hedge — he’s not the one raising questions, he said, but others have. He noted that Vince “knew everything that was going on, and then all of a sudden he committed suicide.” The circumstances of Vince’s death, he observed, were “very fishy” and the theories about possible foul play “very serious.” This is scurrilous enough coming from right-wing political operatives who have peddled conspiracy theories about Vince’s death for more than two decades. How could this be coming from the presumptive Republican nominee for president? Read the full piece here. On the Paul Ryan / Marco Rubio spectrum – in which Ryan says he’s not ready to endorse Donald Trump and Rubio says he’ll release his delegates and support Trump at the national convention – former presidential candidate Ted Cruz seems to fall closer to Ryan. Cruz has repeatedly declined to back Trump in an interview Friday morning on Oklahoma radio, reports CNN’s Teddy Schleifer: The Texas Tribune’s Patrick Svitek is listening, too: Cruz ended the race with 559 delegates. Releasing them to back Trump in a first round of voting at the Republican convention would allow for a show of party unity in the form of overwhelming majority backing for the nominee. On his own, Trump appears on track to capture less than 60% of the delegates at stake, depending on his performance on 7 June; Rubio’s 165 delegates could help push Trump closer to 70% in the first round of convention voting. Hello and welcome to our live-wire coverage of the 2016 race for the White House. Will House speaker Paul Ryan pay for his slowness to endorse presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump? Sarah Palin has warned that Ryan would get “Cantor’d”, meaning lose his primary race in Wisconsin’s first congressional district to a challenger, in this case Paul Nehlen (such a fate befell former House majority leader Eric Cantor in 2014). A Free Beacon poll out this morning brings some good news for Ryan: he appears to be leading Nehlen by 73 points, 80%-7%. But the primary isn’t until August. Hillary Clinton has tamped down speculation that her rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, Bernie Sanders, might meet Donald Trump in a debate in advance of the 7 June California primary, saying “I don’t think it’s going to happen.” “You know, I know they’ve gone back and forth on this, and they seem to be saying it’s some kind of joke. Trump doesn’t sound very serious,” Clinton said in a call-in interview on MSNBC. “But I can tell you, I look forward to debating Donald Trump in the general election. I can’t wait to get on that debate stage with him.” Sanders and (a bit more elusively) Trump, meanwhile, seemed game, with Sanders tweeting “let’s do it in the biggest stadium possible”. Veteran boxing promoter Bob Arum offered on Thursday to promote the showdown. Sanders appeared on Thursday night on late-night jokester Jimmy Kimmel’s show, where Trump agreed in principle to the debate the night before. Kimmel posed a question to Sanders he said was direct from Trump: given how mistreated Sanders has been by the Democratic party (Trump said), would he consider running as an independent? “Well, I think there’s a little bit of self-service there from Donald Trump,” Sanders said. “You think he’s really worried about me?” Elsewhere, Barack Obama has made the first-ever visit to Hiroshima by a sitting president. He greeted survivors of the atomic bombing and called for an end to the nuclear era. “Amongst those nations like my own that own nuclear stockpiles,” he said, “We must have the courage to escape the logic of fear and pursue a world without them.” Trump spoke on energy policy in Bismarck, North Dakota, on Thursday afternoon, promising to revivify the coal industry and repeal environmental regulations put in place by the Obama administration. “We’re going to cancel the Paris climate agreement,” he said. Finally, in an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper, Florida senator and former presidential candidate Marco Rubio backed away from possibly serving as his party’s vice-presidential nominee this cycle, although he left the door open on running for office again in the future. “It’s a safe assumption,” Rubio said of his chances of seeking office, although he ruled out running for re-election to the senate in this cycle. “If there’s an opportunity to serve again in a way I feel passionate about it, I’ll certainly explore it.” Today Trump is campaigning in San Diego, where reporters Rory Carroll and Nicky Woolf will be on hand to bear witness. Sanders is also in California, appearing in San Pedro. Hillary Clinton will take a part in a discussion with community leaders in Oakland, while on the other side of the country, her husband is campaigning in Edison, New Jersey. Thank you for reading and please join us in the comments throughout the day ...
Premier League: 10 things to look out for this weekend 1) Wenger’s anniversary should not mask significance of derby On a weekend when much will be made of Arsène Wenger’s 20th anniversary as Arsenal manager, the Frenchman would not be human if he didn’t recall the manner in which Chelsea ruined the occasion of his 1,000th game in charge. It was March 2014 and on a strange afternoon at Stamford Bridge, Andre Marriner sent off Kieran Gibbs in a case of mistaken identity, as José Mourinho’s side hit their visitors for six without reply. Arsenal had already lost 6-3 at Manchester City and 5-1 at Liverpool that season, capitulations that rendered Wenger’s team and any aspirations they had towards a title win a laughing stock. With apologies to Leicester fans, this is the second big test of Arsenal’s credentials as potential title winners in six games. They have already failed the first, against Liverpool. Should they fail this one, against likely fellow contenders for a top four spot, the weekend airwaves will echo to the sound of seething Gooners repeating their forlorn and familiar lament that it’s once again time for Wenger to go. BG • Barney Ronay: Wenger should have won more but English football owes him • Amy Lawrence: Wenger at Arsenal – a journey of joy and frustration • Wenger’s 20 years at Arsenal – in pictures and his own words 2) Carrick’s steady hand could allow Pogba to flourish Michael Carrick turned 35 in the summer, but how much does that matter when his role has always been more about speed of thought than the speed in his legs? Even now he could be the cure for Manchester United’s midfield ills. While the clamour for Wayne Rooney to be dropped grows, the England captain has not been the only issue for a team that seems unable to take control. Indeed Rooney’s struggles have lessened the focus on other issues. Paul Pogba needs to be freed. While Marouane Fellaini has done a job, Carrick’s measured play in a holding role could hand the world’s most expensive player the chance to take the shackles off. Pogba has not exactly impressed so far, but he needs a chance to roam rather than hold and if Rooney remains undroppable, then swapping Carrick, who was steady against Northampton, for Fellaini seems the obvious route for the visit of Leicester. AS • Mourinho hits out at ‘football Einsteins’ for trying to undermine him • Jonathan Wilson: Mourinho is no longer the bright young iconoclast • Rooney insists he can deal with ‘rubbish’ criticism 3) Another Anfield beatdown for Hull? Hull have never won a competitive match at Liverpool in 10 attempts and have been subjected to some ferocious beatings on their trips to Anfield, conceding three or more goals on no fewer than six occasions. Jürgen Klopp’s side have scored 11 goals so far this season, third in the scoring charts behind Manchester City and Arsenal, having faced tougher opposition. Liverpool have already played the teams who finished first, second and third last season, while Chelsea are unlikely to be far off the pace this time around. Having put four past both Arsenal and Leicester, with EFL Cup smitings of two Championship sides thrown in for good measure, the potential for another thrashing of Hull at Anfield seems high. And yet … and yet, Mike Phelan can always point to Liverpool’s sole reverse this season, an inexplicable and entirely unexpected defeat at the hands of Burnley, when the hunger, passion and iron will of a side that took full advantage of their opponents’ generosity with the ball helped to ensure the minnows prevailed. BG • Jürgen Klopp calls on Liverpool to be ‘angry’ against Hull City 4) West Ham seek on-field tonic after explosive week It’s been a tough week for West Ham fans. After all the problems that have beset their new stadium, watching the footage and photos of their beloved Boleyn Ground being blown up on Tuesday for a new Pierce Brosnan film called Final Score – described by producer Marc Goldberg as “Die Hard in a soccer stadium” – must have been heartbreaking. Their side limping to a 1-0 win over League Two Accrington Stanley on Wednesday, before which many season ticket holders struggled to gain entry to the ground, won’t have helped matters. With all eyes trained on the London Stadium this Sunday, West Ham desperately need both a positive performance and result against Southampton, if only to distract people from off-field issues for 90 minutes. It won’t be easy; Saints come into this game off the back of three consecutive wins in all competitions and West Ham’s only fit left-back, Arthur Masuaku, was taken off on a stretcher against Accrington. Scoring is also a concern: only Michail Antonio has netted from open play since the first league game of the season, and Dimitri Payet cannot be expected to score a last-minute free-kick every match. MB • West Ham beat Accrington Stanley after Payet’s last-minute strike 5) The start of two big months for Janssen While Harry Kane takes an enforced but apparently much-needed rest after damaging ankle ligaments against Sunderland last weekend, Vincent Janssen will be given his chance to shine. The Dutch striker enjoyed a timely confidence boost by getting off the mark in Tottenham’s EFL Cup rout of Gillingham and can relax into his temporary role as Tottenham’s go-to goal merchant safe in the knowledge that, barring a calamity, the position is his for up to two months. The omens for Janssen are good. Aged just 22, he was awarded this year’s Johan Cruyff Trophy for Dutch talent of the year and has an admittedly brief history of scoring in bursts. Various fallow periods (some as long as one match) for AZ Alkmaar last season were punctuated by a run of three goals in two games, four in three, six in three, seven in seven, five in two and two in two. While goals in the Premier League are generally harder to come by for strikers making the transition from the Eredivisie, Janssen’s past form suggests a goal glut is imminent. BG • Danny Rose commits to Tottenham Hotspur with new five-year contract 6) Everton’s steely (league) portcullis In their first four games of this Premier League season, Everton conceded two goals. In the corresponding fixtures against Tottenham Hotspur (h), West Brom (a), Stoke City (h) and Sunderland (a) last season they shipped 10, five times that number. Last weekend they conceded a decidedly contentious one against newly-promoted Middlesbrough to bring their tally of goals conceded this season to three in five matches, making theirs the second tightest defence in the division, behind only Spurs. While much of the credit for this commendable turnaround – midweek defeat aside – can be attributed to the club’s decision to replace Roberto Martínez with Ronald Koeman, a particularly mean defender in his playing pomp, the seamless introduction of Ashley Williams to the Everton back four is already making the £11.9m purchase of the 32-year-old Wales skipper look like one of the signings of the season. With their combined age of 66, Williams and Phil Jagielka have forged quite the steely portcullis in the heart of Everton’s defence, even if their team has only faced two teams from last season’s top 10, one of whom finished ninth and is currently propping up the league. Against a Bournemouth side who are the joint-lowest scorers in the Premier League, this pair of old-timers seem unlikely to have a particularly testing afternoon. BG • Koeman rules out prospect of Niasse rescuing Everton career 7) Time for Kelly to find his wings This is a make-or-break season for Martin Kelly. Entering the final season of his three-year contract at Crystal Palace, the former Liverpool defender failed to hold down a regular starting role under Alan Pardew last season, but has deputised well for Pape Souaré recently, after the Senegalese left-back suffered an horrific car crash earlier this month. However, with James Tomkins and now captain Scott Dann sidelined through injury, Kelly will be expected to hastily form a partnership with Damien Delaney in the centre of defence. On Wednesday it did not go well at Southampton, Kelly conceding a penalty just 15 minutes after coming on for Dann. No other team have scored fewer this season than Palace’s opponents on Saturday, Sunderland, but Kelly will need to adapt quickly if he is to extend his short-term stint in the first team and his long-term future at the club. MB • Sunderland and McNair rally to see off QPR after Sandro strike 8) Sobhi can add some sparkle to stodgy Stoke Perhaps the only positive for Stoke to take from a fifth defeat in a row, against Hull in the League Cup on Wednesday, was the performance of Ramadan Sobhi. The Egyptian winger appeared fearless on debut and considering the rut Mark Hughes’s team find themselves in he may be worth a punt against West Brom in Tony Pulis’s 1,000th game. It is hard to put a finger on what the matter is for a squad that is arguably stronger than last season’s but the Potters require fresh impetus and Sobhi can bring that to the party. Hughes described the 19-year-old’s performance against Hull as “fantastic”, adding that “he was always a threat”. Factoring in the stodginess of West Brom’s defence and Stoke’s paucity in front of goal so far (which may have been overlooked to a degree because of their leaky back line), it could be a gamble worth taking. AS • Hughes retains support of Stoke City board despite frustrating form 9) Another needless kit change? For anybody who didn’t catch Manchester City’s 2-1 win over Swansea City in the EFL Cup on Wednesday, Pep Guardiola’s side wore a monstrosity of a third kit – a purple and orange number which, according to the club, “blends two unexpected colours to create a distinctive look that reflects the vibrancy and creativity at the heart of both club and city”. Nice try, but it’s not exactly the sort of thing you’d expect to see in Moss Side. Perhaps it will get another showing on Saturday as City return to south Wales – their black away shirt perhaps deemed too close to the Swan white colours of their hosts. Earlier this season, we saw what should have been a red Arsenal sport a black-and-yellow third kit away at Watford, presumably with the aim of flogging a few more shirts – and while City’s third kit won’t clash with Swansea, it might clash with supporters who feel they continue to be seen as customers, not fans. MB • Kompany injury sours Manchester City’s victory at Swansea 10) Burnley v Watford on Monday night In the absence of anything more stand-out to write about before this game than the imposition of a seven-and-a-half-hour round coach trip for travelling Watford fans, let’s take a trip down memory lane. Just over 15 years ago, on a day remembered for the attacks on the Twin Towers, Sean Dyche got kicked in the head while playing for Millwall against Gillingham in a League Cup match and felt his nose shatter. “My memories of that were crystal because of what happened, not only that event but the bigger-picture event, 9/11,” the Burnley manager would later recall in a fascinating interview with his former team-mate turned journalist and pundit Richie Sadlier, the season before last. “I remember getting home and hardly being able to breathe and thinking ‘two planes crashed into a building.’” It’s a vignette that offers some insight into the perspective on life of a man happy to operate with the Premier League’s smallest budget and who, in the same interview, illustrated what his side were up against by pointing out that Ángel di María cost Manchester United more money than Burnley had spent on players in their entire history. They failed to stay up that season, but are back in the Premier League with few managers more secure in their jobs than Dyche. Despite their surprise win over Liverpool in the second game of the season, the signs are that Burnley will struggle again and with three of their next four matches against Arsenal, Everton and Manchester United, the acquisition of a point or three against Watford under the Turf Moor lights would be welcome. BG • Mazzarri praised for instilling a ‘winning mentality’ at Watford
Shock figures show Tory plans are ‘making social care worse’ The full extent of the crisis facing social care is revealed by an investigation which demonstrates the government’s flagship policy to keep elderly people out of hospital is failing in most parts of the country. The findings – amid claims from senior NHS figures that “we are going backwards in many places” – come as ministers face calls to provide an urgent injection of extra cash to local councils to avoid services buckling under increasing financial pressure. The Tory chair of the Commons select committee on health, Sarah Wollaston, said ministers should act immediately to prevent more suffering for elderly people, their families and other patients. She also demanded all-party talks on the future of the NHS and social care. “We are at a tipping point,” she said. “We are seeing indications of the great stresses in the system and these need addressing now.” The ’s investigation reveals that the landmark government scheme designed to relieve the strain on overcrowded hospitals – the Better Care Fund – is failing to deliver its aims of keeping older people healthy at home and so cutting “bedblocking”, despite £4bn a year being poured into it. Theresa May and the health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, have repeatedly claimed that the fund, and a separate policy of allowing councils to raise more money for social care by increasing council tax, are jointly addressing the spiralling problems in social care. Responses to freedom of information requests submitted to 151 local councils reveal that in England 58% of targets for improving care in people’s homes and local communities were missed. In another blow to ministers, new figures from the King’s Fund thinktank show English councils will raise just a fraction of the sums required to plug gaps in their budgets by increasing council tax bills. Better care at home is universally accepted as the way to keep people out of hospital and free pressure on beds. With so many elderly people and others having no alternative but hospital, services suffer a chain reaction of lengthening waiting lists and cancelled operations for other patients. Data from 98 of the 151 local authorities in England with statutory responsibility for social care show that they met only 218 (42%) of 515 targets to improve social care in their area and missed the other 297 (58%). Under the Better Care Fund councils receive money, mainly from the NHS budget, in return for introducing schemes to reduce demand for hospital care. This is done, for example, by providing better care for people in their own home or in care homes. But the FoI responses reveal that councils met barely a quarter of their targets in 2015-16 for reducing non-elective (emergency) admissions to hospital. One senior NHS boss, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the disclosures raised the possibility that the fund was turning out to be “a waste of money”. Chris Hopson, chief executive of NHS Providers, which represents hospitals, said efforts to improve out-of-hospital care were “going backwards in many places”. He added: “These findings show that the Better Care Fund – a key government scheme to increase out-of-hospital care – is not delivering as intended. The findings are echoed in the fact that more than 50% of NHS trusts told us in a survey conducted last week that reductions in care facilities beyond hospitals have made it more difficult for the NHS to meet the demand it faces. “Just at the point when the NHS desperately needs more out of hospital care, we seem to be going backwards in many places. That can’t be right,” Hopson said. Stephen Dalton, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, said: “These figures are very worrying as we head into what could be a very tough winter for the NHS. We only need a significant dip in the weather, which has been mild so far, and people would become more vulnerable and we would see a big spike in demand. We have a perfect storm going on at the moment of unprecedented demand for care, the fact that we have reached a tipping point in terms of the demographics, and cuts to local councils that are among the biggest in their history.” Oxfordshire council performed worse than in 2014-15 against all six targets, while Bracknell Forest, Wolverhampton and North Yorkshire each did worse against five of the targets. The new data from the King’s Fund shows councils across England will raise £382m a year as a result of their ability to increase council tax to pay for social care in 2016-17, a fraction of the funding gap they face this year. The social care “precept” allows councils to charge up to an extra 2% on council tax bills from this year in order to fund social care services. But King’s Fund analysis shows it will raise less than 3% of what councils will spend on social care, which does not even cover the extra £612m cost they face as a result of the “national living wage”. The King’s Fund figures also show the social care precept will widen inequalities in access to care services, contributing further to fears of a developing two-tier system. The 10 most affluent areas will raise more than two and a half times (£41m) the amount of the 10 areas with the greatest level of pensioner need (£17m). Tower Hamlets, the council with the highest level of pensioner need as measured by pensioner income deprivation, will raise just £7 per head of its adult population, compared with the £13 per head that will be raised by Wokingham, with the lowest level of pensioner need in England. This week ministers are rumoured to be preparing to increase further the amount that councils can raise to pay for social care. But the Tory chairman of the Local Government Association’s community wellbeing board, Izzi Seccombe, said this would not be an adequate response, as she warned that the country was facing the “worst ever funding crisis” in social care. “Extra council tax-raising powers will not bring in enough money to alleviate the pressure on social care and councils will not receive the vast majority of new funding in the Better Care Fund at the end of the decade,” she said. “Even with this extra money, we have estimated the funding gap amounts to at least £2.6bn. This includes £1.3bn needed right now to stabilise the provider market and a further £1.3bn by 2019-20.” A Department of Health spokesperson said: “We are giving local areas access to up to £3.5bn extra for social care by 2020. While many areas are already providing high quality services within existing budgets, the Better Care Fund, which brings together health and social care provision locally for the first time ever, will get additional funding in the next few months to raise standards further. This government is committed to ensuring those in old age throughout the country can get affordable and dignified care.
Twitter wants you to see the 'best' tweets first At first, Twitter was changing the timeline, and then it was not changing the timeline, and then not changing the timeline next week. But Twitter has now confirmed it has introduced a new feature that does change the way users view messages in their timeline, pushing algorithmically selected “best” tweets to the top. Some users responded badly to reports of the new feature over the weekend, saying Twitter should prioritise bugs and dealing with harassment on the site. But Twitter’s senior director of product, Jeff Siebert, said reports about the timeline were wrong because the change would not “insert tweets throughout the timeline or completely shuffle them so there’s no order”. It will be called “show me the best tweets first”, and the selection will show in reverse chronological order at the top of the timeline. All other tweets will show in the next section, again in reverse chronological order. The feature will be accessible on the web and on Twitter’s iOS and Android apps. When a user opens the app, it will select what it thinks are the most important tweets and show those at the top of the timeline. The number and type of tweet depends on the user’s behaviour, how long they have been away and how often they tweet. Twitter says that in testing, it encouraged more users to tweet and retweet posts. The new feature has been launched to all users as a new option, but after several weeks it will be on by default. It can still be switched off in settings, Siebert said. “We set out to solve a very special problem on Twitter. Hundreds of thousands of users say Twitter is an essential and engaging part of their daily life, but when they wake up on a Monday or come out of the gym, there’s a lot to catch up on. We heard that, and felt that users were missing important tweets.” Siebert said he anticipated the new feature would be greeted much the same as the introduction of hearts, which replaced stars to mark out favourite tweets on the service. “People didn’t like it at the time but it has been a massive success, and millions of people who had never used the favourite feature have now used hearts.” Some Twitter users reacted in characteristically colourful language to the introduction of hearts as well as rumours of changes to the timeline, the latter prompting the hashtag #RIPTwitter. Siebert said: “We’re honoured to have a customer base that cares so deeply about the product, and that can use our own platform to give us feedback on the product.” Siebert said feedback would be combined with data and the experiences of a group of test users who have been using the new feature for several months, though he would not say how many had used it. Twitter has been under huge pressure from investors frustrated by lack of user growth. The service had 320 million monthly users in September 2015 – the last month for which Twitter released figures – but grew from only 284 million in the last quarter of 2014 to 307 million a year later. Rampant growth among Twitter’s rivals has made investors question the advertising and product strategies of its leadership: Facebook has 1.59 billion users and Instagram 400 million every month, and Snapchat at least 100 million every day. Unlike Instagram, whose aesthetic has quickly attracted advertisers, Twitter has been relatively cautious in its implementation of advertising, offering promoted tweets, promoted trends and promoted ads. Its revenues have been healthy, with advertising up 58% to $569.2m for the third quarter of 2015. Other changes have been mooted by CEO Jack Dorsey, including increasing the character limit from 140 to 10,000 characters. Dorsey said Twitter had noticed users posting pictures to post longer messages but the information could not be searched or analysed in image form. Siebert would not comment on the character limit but agreed that it could present challenges to both Twitter’s design and navigation, as well as make more data accessible and searchable. In its latest initiative, Twitter tackled one of its most controversial issues, establishing a new safety council to help develop its management of complex harassment and safety issues of its users. The council includes the Samaritans, the Internet Watch Foundation and Feminist Frequency. In another new development, Twitter is also introducing a new ad format that drops a video ad at the top of a user’s feed.
Bitcoin: Craig Wright promises new evidence to prove identity Craig Wright, the Australian computer scientist who claims to have created the cryptocurrency bitcoin in 2008 under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto, has promised to provide fresh evidence to back up his claim. In a blogpost on his website, Wright says “over the coming days, I will be hosting a series of pieces that will lay the foundations for this extraordinary claim”, including transferring bitcoin from “an early block” and posting “independently verifiable documents”. “You should be sceptical. You should question. I would,” Wright adds, concluding: “I will present what I believe to be ‘extraordinary proof’ and ask only that it be independently validated. Ultimately, I can do no more than that.” When he first publicly claimed to be Nakamoto, in interviews with the BBC, Economist and GQ Magazine, Wright promised to post proof on his website. But the material he posted was far from convincing for many experts: most damningly, the cryptographic evidence appeared to have been directly copied from a 2009 bitcoin transaction. Wright’s promise of further proof doesn’t address the oddities in his original blogpost, except for obliquely claiming that he would post evidence “addressing some of the false allegations that have been levelled”. But for some of his original supporters, those discrepancies are already enough to prompt disavowals of Wright’s claims. Gavin Andresen, formerly the chief scientist at the currency’s guiding body, the Bitcoin Foundation, had been the most important backer of the man who would be Satoshi. All the initial reports cited Andresen’s belief of Wright, which was based on a private demonstration in April, as an important point in his favour. But following Wright’s bizarre initial blogpost, Andresen expressed doubt, telling security researcher Dan Kaminsky: “I was as surprised by the ‘proof’ as anyone, and don’t yet know exactly what is going on.” “It was a mistake to agree to publish my post before I saw his – I assumed his post would simply be a signed message anybody could easily verify,” he added. “OF COURSE he should just publish a signed message or (equivalently) move some [bitcoin] through the key associated with an early block.” For some, such as academic Zeynep Tefekci, even the evidence Wright is now promising may not be enough to overcome the doubts instilled by his initially underwhelming evidence. Moving bitcoin from an “early block”, for instance, would only conclusively prove that Wright held the private keys of Nakamoto if the block was the very first one made: the so-called “genesis block”, containing the first 50 bitcoins ever mined. In his latest post, Wright wrote at least one thing that everyone can agree with. “For some there is no burden of proof high enough, no evidence that cannot be dismissed as fabrication or manipulation.”
The 50 best films of 2016 in the UK: No 4 A Bigger Splash David Hockney’s celebrated painting of the title doesn’t actually appear in A Bigger Splash, but the same sense of sunbaked, febrile waterside sexuality permeates this beautifully atmospheric chamber drama from Italian director Luca Guadagnino. It’s actually a remake of a Jacques Deray film from 1969, La Piscine, with Alain Delon, Romy Schneider and Jane Birkin; in Guadagnino’s version, the emphasis is altered to make Schneider’s character Marianne – now reinvented as Tilda Swinton’s near-mute, Bowie-ish rocker – the pivotal figure. In what is essentially a four-hander, Swinton’s Marianne has retreated to a holiday home – equipped, of course, with a limpid swimming pool – on Pantelleria, the Italian island not far from Africa. She is trying to preserve her voice after an operation, and has for company hunky film-maker Matthias Schoenaerts. Into this idyll slimes Ralph Fiennes’s Harry, a motormouth record producer and former boyfriend of Marianne, clearly attempting to win her back by driving a wedge between her and her new beau. His main weapon: slinky Dakota Johnson, his daughter, whom he subtly aims at Schoenaerts. The main pleasure of Guadagnino’s drama – apart from the languorous beauty of its location – is the shifting sands of the four-way interaction, as the goodwill and affection eddies and swirls between each character. Swinton and Schoenaerts are robust performers in their different ways, we know, managing to establish a palpable chemistry; Johnson, in what is admittedly the thinnest role of four, is good at projecting a sort of artless dissatisfaction. But it’s Fiennes that is the showstopper here: the scene where he goes on an extended freakout to the Rolling Stones’ Emotional Rescue is certain to pass into cinema legend. Coupled with his turns for Wes Anderson (in Grand Budapest Hotel) and the Coen brothers (in Hail, Caesar!). Guadagnino also injects a distinctive note of uncertainty and distaste into the mix by alluding to the presence of the human migrant tide washing up on the island, as well as the brutishness of the local police: it was this aspect that earned it a smattering of boos on its debut at the Venice film festival. That hostile reception is actually a tribute to A Bigger Splash’s unnerving nature: few films have established such exquisitely judged unease to such great effect. • More best films of 2016 in the UK
New band of the week: Sälen (No 123) – bitter-edged synthpop with fangs Hometown: London. The lineup: Ellie Kamio (vocals), Paul Taylor Wade (bass), Simon Milner (keyboards/guitar). The background: Funny to see people being sniffy this week on social media about the return of Bros in 2017, saying they were bland and as such, on a (boring) par with Curiosity Killed the Cat and Johnny Hates Jazz et al. What, a pair of Aryan-blond brothers whose debut single was a Warhol-worthy disquisition on the imminence – not to mention immanence – of celebrity? Not interesting enough for you? Apart from their immaculate, perfectly postmodern image, there was their thrillingly hypercute Michael Jacksonesque pop. Those first four singles! When Will I Be Famous! Drop the Boy! I Owe You Nothing! I Quit! Up there, surely, in the greatest introductory quartet-of-45s stakes with the Sex Pistols, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, ABC and the Smiths. Sälen may not include in their ranks twin Levi’d mannequins – or indeed wear Grolsch bottle caps on their shoes – but they can boast Ellie Kamio, a singer with a sweet voice and a somewhat scabrous vision of humanity. Pertinently, they have just issued their fourth fine single on the bounce. I’m in Love With My Best Friend was the one that introduced this east London trio earlier this year, to Kamio’s effortless warble and Paul Taylor Wade and Simon Milner’s deceptively pleasant late-night balladtronica. Deceptive because Taylor Wade and Milner’s gentle sonics and glossy productions barely disguised Kamio’s art of darkness. Because there she was, on second single Diseasey, her honeyed coo hovering above the lightly throbbing beat, sighing ominously about “the teeth dying in my mouth” as she told a tale of marital deceit that found her declaring, “I’m into your sickness” and demanding that her lover “infect me with your weakness”. “Simon and Paul are very good at encouraging me to be confident in what I have to say,” Kamio tells us. There’s something jolting about her choice of language in the seemingly mellifluous context, with its references to “kiss[ing] your husband on the neck” and his “touch being diseasey”. The word “bint” – probably last deployed in a public sphere in an episode of The Sweeney – is especially jarring. “That was my mum,” Kamio explains. “My dad cheated on her and the word she used to describe the woman was a ‘bint’.” Fair enough. What does her mother make of Sälen’s music? “She likes it, although she didn’t like the Diseasey video. She thought it was a cumshot.” Beg pardon? “You know – a cumshot. There was a comment underneath the video on YouTube that said, ‘Porn video – I hate.’ That was our favourite. “It was meant to be vomit,” she adds of the glutinous liquid dribbling down her face at the start of the promo. How about the blood-red stuff that follows? “Oh, that’s medicine and edible glitter.” The third single, The Drwg – young people today with their idiosyncratic orthography – is their best yet, with its pristine pulse, aching chord sequence and portents of the unpleasant things that people do in the name of love. “Nobody makes me feel as good as you do,” Kamio breathily intones. “No one can make me do the things that I do when I’m with you.” The chorus is an insidiously pretty killer: “You’re the drug that I’m in love with / You’re the way that I waste my time.” Been listening to REM’s The One I Love lately, have we? “I do know that song,” she admits. “But it didn’t influence me. I just wrote down loads of things that relate to being in love.” Single No 4 – and the one that puts them in the Bros bracket – is Copper Kiss. As with its predecessors, it nails its colours to the deliciously tuneful/lyrically poisonous duality. This really is a litany of lacerating imagery: “Let’s bite until our lips are split … You’re so gross you make me sick … I’ll lose your taste with my spit … When you crack your bones I hope they snap in half.” What’s it all about? “I don’t really know,” she replies. “Biting someone when you’re kissing them cos you don’t really like them.” Then why kiss them? “Everyone has needs. I was being a bit sassy – in a brutal way. People say our music is quite pretty in some ways, with soft vocals, but the lyrics are very dark.” Sälen are named after a town in Sweden (“We threw a dart at a map and that’s where it landed”) and are doing well on Spotify – Diseasey is fast approaching 1.5m streams, which you might like to know is more than any Bros single apart from that epochal debut. We went to see them in June at a venue in London called Birthdays but couldn’t get in, such was the queue around the block. People like Sälen. But do Sälen like people? “I’m a feminist, but not a feminazi,” Kamio says. “I love men.” She’s less keen on Taylor Swift. “She’s meant to be the golden girl of pop, but she’s so boring. Rihanna once said something like, ‘I wouldn’t want to be your child’s role model – if you want a role model, look at Taylor Swift.’ I thought that was cool. She’s so wet.” Kamio’s role models include her mum, and Richard Hell (Love Comes in Spurts could almost be a Sälen lyric). How about Kamio herself, with her lip-biting and vomit down the face – is she a good role model? “If I do get a platform, I’ll be good at letting girls understand it’s OK to be a bit weird,” she decides, looking forward to filming the video to Copper Kiss because it features a python. “It’s good to be gross.” The buzz: “Ultra-cool and seductive electronics.” The truth: It’s sweet sugar-pop with a bitter aftertaste. Most likely to: Bite your lip. Least likely to: Shake the diseasey. What to buy: The Drwg and Copper Kiss are out now. File next to: AlunaGeorge, New Portals, Oh Wonder, Say Lou Lou. Ones to watch: Kadhja Bonet, Newmoon, Love Zombies, Mallrat, Wendy Bevan.
MPs question G4S about 'red doors' policy for asylum seekers - Politics live Here are the key points from the hearing. Keith Vaz, the chair of the Commons home affairs committee, has accused the boss of the company involved in the “red doors for asylum seekers” controversy of acting in a “Pontius Pilate-like” manner. Vaz said that many people seemed to be aware that residents were unhappy about this, but that Stuart Monk, managing director of Jomast, was refusing to accept there was a problem. See 4.42pm. Monk has claimed that the issue was “blown out of all proportion”. He said that the homes in question had had their doors painted red 20 years ago, that there was no policy of identify homes occupied by asylum seekers in this way and that there was no record of people complaining about this. But, in response to questioning, he accepted that he had not asked all his 40 employees if they were aware of complaints; instead he had just asked his son, who managed that side of the business. Vaz asked him to check more thoroughly to see if any complaints had been received. That’s all from me for today. Thanks for the comments. Vaz tells Monk he found his evidence unsatisfactory. He says Monk blamed ministers, G4S, the Times and at one point apparently the people of Middlebrough for what went wrong. He asks Monk to find out if his employees did know about complaints. Monk several times he personally was “not aware”. And Vaz tells the G4S executives that this committee is disappointed that the firm is involved in another controversy. And that’s it. I will post a summary shortly. Keith Vaz is summing up. He says the committee will want to look at this again. Q: How many asylum seekers are in hotels? Whitwam says 322 are in hotels, typically two or three-star hotels. Q: Do you foresee a crisis in this sector? Neden says over the last three years G4S has gone from housing 9,000 asylum seekers to 17,000. It is getting harder finding accommodation for them, he says. Keith Vaz asks Monk to ask his son about the case of Ahmad Zubair. See 4.51pm. Vaz also says he has clarified the point about the complaints line being free. It is free, but that was because Ofcom insisted on this last year. Q: Do you give asylum seekers a freephone number? Yes, says Whitwam. Q: I was told it was an 0800 number that costs £1 time. Whitwam says he thinks the number is free to call. But he will clarify this, and report back to the committee. Whitwam says people who move into G4S properties are given a welcome pack, in one of eight languages. They have a number to call if there are problems. And there are inspections once a month. Victoria Atkins, a Conservative, goes next. Q: How many employees do you have? Monk says he has more than 200 employees over all, but about 40 in the asylum sector. Q: So there are probably only around 40 email accounts. Have you checked them all to see if you have had any complaints? Monk says he has asked his son, who runs this part of the business. His son told him he had not received any complaints about this. Q: Did your son ask all 40 employees? Monk says he thinks he did. Q: So you cannot be sure that there were no reported incidents? Monk says employees have a duty to log recorded incidents. And they get sent to G4S. Q: But you have not checked, and your son has not checked, with the 40 employees? Monk says they have checked to see if there is a record of incidents. Keith Vaz asks Monk to check with employees and to report back to the committee by Friday. James Berry, a Conservative, goes next. Q: Not all your homes have red doors. So what decides what colour door a home has? Whitwam says 60% of the homes in Middlesbrough have red doors, and 53% in Stockton. That is too high, he says. He says he would like to ensure people cannot identify asylum seekers from the housing they are in. Q: A question for G4S. Why are so many asylum seekers housed in Middlesbrough? Whitwam says companies like his have to first to go local authorities, and then find landlords who have property available. Then the local authority has to approve the property. And it gets inspected regularly. Q: So why are so many asylum seekers in Middlesbrough, accounting for more than one in 200 of the local population. Whitwam says Middlesbrough council has asked for those numbers to come down. Q: You profit from deprivation and people’s need for refuge. To many people, that seems unseemly and unsavoury. Monk says the accommodation needed is not available in the market place. Labour’s Chuka Umunna goes next. Q: You buy up cheap homes and you house people in some of the poorest areas of the country. Is that right? No, says Monk. He says he provides some of the best accommodation for asylum seekers in the country. Q: But you do buy cheap homes, don’t you? Monk says he buys accommodation in appropriate locations. It’s a sophisticated business, he says. He has to spend money on his properties. He says his accommodation is, by a significant margin, better than other accommodation for asylum seekers in the UK. He says in recent years 90% of of his investment has been in Newcastle and Gateshead, and not in the poorest areas. Monk says about 30% of his business involves asylum seekers. But this part of the business is not particularly profitable, he says. Labour’s David Winnick goes next. Q: [To Monk] Do you think this has been blown out of all proportion? Yes, says Monk. Q: So you think James Brokenshire, the Home Office minister, was wrong to tell MPs last week this was a matter of concern? Monk says the community police officer did not know asylum seekers were housed behind red doors. He says his firm has some information that suggests some of the reports about this might not be correct. Q: A Times reporter visited 66 homes with red doors in Middlebrough and 62 of them housed asylum seekers. Monk says the community welcomes asylum seekers. Q: The Sunday Times says your wealth is worth £175m. If you were an asylum seeker with a red door identifying you, would you take the same “complacent attitude”. Monk says he is not being complacent. Q: But you are repainting the doors. That is because of the concern expressed. Monk says this has become an issue, and his firm has responded. Previously it was not an issue, he says. Q: There has been evidence given to the committee about very inappropriate comments being made to residents by G4S staff? Whitwam says he does not think that is the case. Q: Were you failing to treat people with dignity and respect? Neden says if G4S had known than, as it does now, that this caused offence, it would have acted sooner. Burrowes reads a statement from G4S a few days ago saying that it reviewed this matter at the time and that it decided that it was not significant enough to merit action. But G4S went on to say that decision was ill-judged and that the doors were being repainted. Q: Do you accept the original decision not to act was ill-judged? Neden says if G4S had known then, as it does now, that people objected, it would have repainted the doors. David Burrowes, a Conservative, goes next. Q: Do you agree that asylum seekers should be treated with dignity and respect? Of course, says Peter Neden. They should also be given adequate accommodation, says John Whitwam. Whitwam says the Compass contracts with the Home Office for the provision of accommodation for asylum seekers is worth £60m. But G4S makes a loss on it, he says. Stuart Monk says the doors will be repainted over the next couple of weeks. Q: James Brokenshire said last week that it would take much longer, three months or more? Monk says the company decided to speed things up. The hearing has resumed. John Whitwam, the G4S managing director, immigration and borders, is speaking now. He says Suzanne Fletcher raised this in 2012. The company looked into this, and found there was no policy of housing asylum seekers in homes with red doors. The issue was raised again. Again, G4S looked into this, and again found there was no policy. When the Times broke the story, G4S went up to count its homes. It has 298 homes in Middlesbrough. Some 175 had red doors, or 59%. Q: Why are you painting the doors if there was nothing wrong? Whitwam says G4S found no linkage between red doors and anti-social behaviour. It spoke to the police who said the same thing. But, as a precaution, G4S decided to repaint the doors. This is what Keith Vaz said to Stuart Monk about why Jomast should have been aware of the complaints. This morning I spoke to Ahmad Zubair, one of your former tenants, who was an asylum seeker, and he told me he had gone to your staff and told them specifically, over the years - this was two years ago - that he was suffering abuse because the door of his house was red and the door of other asylum seekers was also red. He then went with a pot of paint and he painted his door white because he was fed up of having people abusing him because they identified the property as being the property of an asylum seeker. Your officers then went round and repainted the front door red. That’s not acceptable behaviour, is it? Monk said he was not aware of reported incidents regarding red doors. And G4S did not receive any complaints either, he said. But Vaz did not accept this. He went on: Former councillor Suzanne Fletcher approached you, approach parliament, approached representatives of G4S, and she, a local councillor, said that this was the case. This morning, on BBC Radio Middlesbrough, the former member of parliament for Redcar, a member of the public accounts committee, two years ago said that he was concerned that asylum seekers were subjected to abuse because the doors of their property were painted red. So it appears that everyone knew about this. Here are the main points so far. Stuart Monk, the owner and managing director of Jomast, says there was no policy to paint the doors of homes housing asylum seekers red. He said his properties had their doors painted red 20 years ago, before asylum seekers were housed in them. He claimed that he had not received complaints about this. But Keith Vaz said he had spoken to a tenant who was an asylum seeker who had repainted his door because having it red led to him being abused. Vaz accused Monk of being “Pontius Pilate-like”. The hearing has been suspended because there is a vote in the Commons. It will resume in about 10 minutes. Vaz says Monk should have acted in a humane way when this was brought to his attention. He suggestions Monk is acting “Pontius Pilate” like. Monk says that he did not receive complaints about red doors. He says he has more than 300 properties in Middlesbrough. Q: How many have red doors? Monk says it is 59%. Vaz says people living in Middlesbrough knew that asylum seekers had their doors painted red. Monk says he had no complaints about this. Q: So the first you knew about this was when you read it in the Times yesterday? Monk says he was contacted by the Times, but that he was not allowed to comment. Stuart Monk says that the doors of his properties were first painted red 20 years ago. He says there was no policy of using red to identify the homes of asylum seekers using red doors. Keith Vaz, the committee chairman, says that he spoke to a tenant who decided to change the colour of his door. But then Jomast came back and painted it red again. There are three witnesses giving evidence. Peter Neden - G4S’s regional president John Whitwam - G4S’s managing director, immigration and borders Stuart Monk - owner and managing director of Jomast The Commons home affairs committee is about to take evidence from G4S and Jomast, its contractor, about the policy of putting asylum seekers in Middlesbrough in homes with red doors. Here is our original story about the case. And here is our most recent story, about how the doors are being repainted. Labour’s national executive committee has postponed a decision on giving the NEC more say over policy making, the BBC’s Lewis Goodall reports. The Electoral Commission has announced that groups and individuals who want to spend more than £10,000 campaigning in the European referendum will be able to register from 1 February. In a news release, it also said this about donations. Campaigners should also start recording all donations received and loans entered into on or after 1 February 2016 for referendum campaigning that are over £7,500 because these will be reportable by registered campaigners in pre-poll reports. Spending on referendum campaigning before the start of the referendum period does not count towards a campaigner’s spending limit. Once registered, campaigners must follow the rules on checking permissibility of donations and loans before they accept them. A London council is going to become the first publicly-elected body in Britain to vote to leave the EU, Ukip claims. There are six Ukip councillors on Havering borough council in north East London, but they are acting with Conservative and independent councillors and Lawrence Webb, leader of the Ukip group, says he is “quietly confident” that they win a vote tomorrow night on a motion saying: Due to the negative impact that EU directives such as the agency working time directive and EU procurement rules have on the ability and cost of Havering council to fulfil its obligations, this council agrees that Britain would be better off outside the European Union. The full council meeting agenda is here. Webb said: Many of the 22 Conservatives on Havering council - covering Romford and elsewhere - are firmly in favour of the UK leaving the EU and have indicated their support for this motion as have a number of the independent local residents’ representatives on the Council, so we have sufficient numbers to carry this, and we will lay down the gauntlet for councils up and down the country to follow suit. Here are the regulations that will determine the conduct of the EU referendum that have been published today. And they include, in schedule 4 at the end, a picture of what the ballot paper will be like. Tony Blair has given an interview to a French radio station in which he said that, if Britain votes to leave the EU, Scotland will vote for independence. He told them: In my opinion if the United Kingdom votes to leave Europe, Scotland will vote to leave the United Kingdom. One of England’s most senior judges has strongly criticised court fee increases, saying people could be denied access to justice as a result. Giving evidence to the Commons justice committee, Lord Dyson, Master of the Rolls, singled out the decision, confirmed in January last year and implemented in March, to raise the fee to issue proceedings for the recovery of money to 5% of the value of all claims over £10,000. This could have a severe impact on small businesses and people on modest income, he said I’m afraid that the risk of denying access to justice to a lot of people is so intense in those proposals. As the Press Association reports, Dyson said he was “particularly concerned” about people on modest incomes who do not qualify for help with charges known as fee remission. They are the sort of people I think would be inevitably deterred from litigating. I don’t say in all cases of course. But I am particularly concerned about the small and medium enterprises. I take the example of the builder who is seeking £50,000 from a client, he now has to pay £2,500 up front as a condition of starting his claim. Dyson said this as a “massive increase” compared to the previous system, in which the builder would have faced a fee of around £800. It is bound to be severely deterring. Obviously not the really rich people - it won’t deter them. But the small businesses, the sort of businesses actually this government says time and time again they want to encourage because they will be the engine that provides the growth that this country so needs - they are the very people many of whom are most at risk and who are most likely to be put off. HMRC has defended its tax settlement with Google. Speaking to the World at One, Jim Harra, HMRC’s business tax director general, insisted that Google had agreed to pay all the money due. We only accept the full amount of tax, interest and penalties that is due, otherwise if we can’t reach an agreement on that amount we will go to tribunal. We certainly don’t apply any rate of tax other than the statutory rate that parliament has published. At its regular lobby briefing Number 10 also defended the deal. (See 1.30pm.) But John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, wrote to George Osborne demanding a full explanation as to how it was decided that Google should pay £130m. McDonnell told Sky News: People will be extremely angry about this, particularly other businesses that pay their way in this country, pay their taxes and are not getting this sort of deal from HMRC. It looks as though the settlement of £130m is about a 3% tax rate over the last 10 years, when other companies are paying anything between 20% and 30% so you can understand why people are angry. The government has revealed what the ballot paper will look like in the EU referendum. Andrew Bailey is cutting short his tenure as deputy governor of the Bank of England to become the new head of the City regulator which has been without a full-time boss since September and is embroiled in a row about relaxing its approach to wrongdoing in the banking industry. The government has finally abandoned its controversial policy of imposing benefit cap penalties on full-time carers for adult relatives, two months after a court found it unlawfully discriminated against disabled people. The Labour MP Gareth Thomas has used the 10-minute rule procedure to present a bill saying employees should be entitled to a share of firm’s profits in some circumstances. He says that in France firms have to share 5% of their profits with staff. (Sadly, here at the , such a provision would be unlikely to be of much use.) Here are the main points from the Number 10 lobby briefing. Downing Street insisted that there was no split between David Cameron and George Osborne over the merits of the tax deal with Google. “The prime minister and the chancellor are of the same mind,” the prime minister’s spokesman said. “It is a good deal”. The spokesman declined to describe it as a great deal, or a “major success” (the term used by Osborne at the weekend, but not yesterday, by when he was talking about it in less triumphalist terms). Given the front page of today’s Financial Times, the Number 10 clarification is 24 hours too late. The spokesman defended HMRC’s tax settlement with Google, saying that under its litigation settlement strategy (a public document) HMRC is not allowed to reach a settlement with a firm if it would expect to get a larger settlement by taking the company to court. The spokesman also played down the implications of reports saying the French authorities are trying to get a settlement from Google worth three times the UK one. As yet, the French have not struck a deal, the spokesman said. The spokesman refused to comment on reports that Thursday 23 June is the government’s favoured date for the EU referendum. “I’m not going to speculate on dates,” the spokesman said. He also refused to comment on the Times story about the split between the Germans and the British over the proposed curbs on welfare payments for EU migrants. (See 10.41am.) Ministers are planning further help for the North Sea oil industry, the prime minister’s spokesman said. This was discussed at cabinet, where Amber Rudd, the energy secretary, gave a presentation about the problems facing the industry because of low oil prices. “Part of the discussion focused on how we can continue to support the industry,” the spokesman said. Ministers will publish “single departmental plans” setting out their departmental priorities, and what progress they are making towards achieving their goals, “shortly”, the spokesman said. At cabinet Oliver Letwin, the Cabinet Office minister, gave a presentation covering what the government’s priorities were. The spokesman said one guide to the government’s priorities was the prime minister’s speech to the Conservative conference, highlighting the importance of economic security, national security and life chances. The spokesman sidestepped questions about whether the UK government agreed with the assessment of the US Treasury that Russian President Vladimir Putin is corrupt. Asked about this, the spokesman said that David Cameron was clear about how difficult relations with Russia are in his statement last week following the publication of the report into the murder of Alexander Litvinenko. Russia was one of the topics discussed at cabinet, with presentations from Philip Hammond, the foreign secretary, and Theresa May, the home secretary. The spokesman hinted that the government would seek to reverse yesterday’s defeat on the welfare bill when the bill returns to the Commons. “The Commons has made clear its view,” he said. Asked what was wrong with publishing income-related figures for poverty, the spokesman said the government wanted to focus on measures relating to long-term life chances. Asked what was wrong with publishing the income-related poverty data alongside the life chances poverty data, the spokesman said the prime minister was clear that he wanted a focus on life chances. The Home Office has published plans to allow police and crime commissioners to take charge of fire and rescue services. The Department for Culture has published figures saying that the value of the creative industries grew by 8.9% in 2014 - double the rate of the economy as a whole. The Highways Agency has published a consultation on plans for a new bridge or tunnel across the Thames to relieve pressure on the Dartford Crossing. In the Commons Jeremy Hunt, the health secretary, has been responding to an urgent question about the death of the one-year-old William Mead. I’m just back from the Number 10 lobby briefing. I will post a summary of it shortly. The Green party has written to the BBC complaining that it has not been allocated any party political broadcasts for the elections in England. It says the decision to allocate three broadcasts to the Lib Dems but none to the Greens is “manifestly unfair”. This is from Natalie Bennett, the Green leader. The political landscape is fracturing as more and more people demand real change to deliver a safe climate, a public NHS and a fair economy. These proposals fail to recognise that, increasingly, people are rejecting the Westminster status quo and want to hear more about Green values and policies. This is the year that we turn the ‘Green surge’ in to Green seats. We are a vibrant, united party committed to our values and, driven forward by our passionate members and supporters, in 2016 we are looking forward to increasing our number of seats on the London Assembly, putting in our best-ever performance in the London Mayoral contest, gaining a seat on the Welsh Assembly and growing our representation on councils across England and Wales. I’m off to the Number 10 lobby briefing. I will post again after 12.30pm. You can read all today’s politics stories here. As for the rest of the papers, here is the PoliticsHome list of top 10 must-reads, and here is the ConservativeHome round-up of today’s politics stories. And here are three articles I found particularly interesting. The Times (paywall) says Germany wants restrictions on EU migrants claiming in-work benefits to apply just to those earning less than £7,000. Britain and Germany are locked in a stand-off after Angela Merkel’s government suggested that only employees earning less than £7,000 should be barred from claiming tax credits. Downing Street believed that a German plan to toughen the EU-wide definition of a worker marked a breakthrough because it would allow Britain to block low-paid migrants from Europe claiming tax credits on top of earnings. However, Germany wants to set the threshold at a level that is politically unacceptable for No 10. Tom Scholar, the top Downing Street official working on the renegotiation of EU membership, was told by German officials that they want a “worker” defined as someone employed for more than 20 hours a week at the minimum wage. In Britain, this would allow anyone earning £6,968 or more to keep tax credits, meaning few curbs in claims among the vast majority of EU migrants. Downing Street has been trying to move the bar much higher. “The initial suggestion from Germany is 20 hours times the minimum wage, which is about £7,000. Downing Street was worried this was way too low and are pushing for something closer to £13,000,” a British official said. The Financial Times says Sir Danny Alexander is set to take up a job in China helping to run the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. Danny Alexander, the former Treasury minister, is poised to move to Beijing in a hotly contested carve-up of senior posts at China’s new Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. Germany has fared better than Britain in the initial distribution of jobs at the AIIB, despite the fact that George Osborne, chancellor, took a big political gamble by giving his backing to the project at an early stage. But Sir Danny, the former Liberal Democrat Treasury chief secretary, is expected to be named as one of five Beijing-based resident vice-presidents of the bank: China’s version of the Washington-based World Bank. The Scot implemented the coalition government’s austerity programme but lost his seat at the general election; he has been rewarded by Mr Osborne who nominated him for the big international post. James Kirkup in the Daily Telegraph says Tory MPs are beginning to think that they might be better off with someone new as their next leader, not George Osborne, Boris Johnson or Theresa May. Among those being considered for the part, in the Cabinet, Sajid Javid, the Business Secretary, attracts much speculation, but most expect him to seek a seat at Mr Osborne’s right hand instead. Cabinet colleagues say it’s almost certain Nicky Morgan, the education secretary, will run as a social reformer continuing Mr Cameron’s One Nation agenda. Others tip Stephen Crabb, the Welsh Secretary whose talents demand a bigger job. One admirer also notes his life-story (from council estate to Cabinet, by way of an MBA) has real meritocratic appeal to a party whose pre-Cameron upwardly-mobile leaders include the daughter of a shopkeeper (Thatcher), the son of a circus performer (Major) and the son of Romanian immigrants (Howard). Below Cabinet rank, the name most mentioned is that of Priti Patel, the employment minister and fierce critic of the EU. MPs say she has started asking colleagues what they would think if she ran. A prominent role in the campaign for Brexit may yet establish her as the champion of the Tory Right and a powerful force in what may be a fractured post-referendum party. Mr Crabb was first elected in 2005, Mr Javid, Ms Morgan and Ms Patel in 2010. Some Tories wonder if their next leader might come from an even later generation. One prominent member of the 2015 intake has been approached by colleagues urging him to run, but is so far resisting temptation. Yesterday the Today programme interviewed Lord Rose from Britain Stronger in Europe. This morning it was the turn of John Moynihan from Vote Leave. Here are the main points he made. Moynihan accused the In campaign of scaremongering. The point is the other side of trying to create FUD, fear, uncertainty and doubt, they’re trying to say, ‘Oh it’s terribly dangerous, a leap into the unknown to Leave’. Nothing will happen. As Stuart Rose himself has said, they day we vote to leave the EU, nothing will happen. We still still have the same relationship. Then we’ll enter into a negotiation, at the end of it we’ll still have a relationship with the EU. It’s highly unlikely that it will be the sort of disastrous that they claim. He claimed that there had never been a “serious discussion” about Vote Leave merging with Leave.EU and that there was no need for a single, overarching Out campaign. I don’t think there was ever any serious discussion of that, we think that Leave.EU is one of many very good organisations. I don’t think there’s any need for the kind of monolithic group that people talk about, Leave.EU has a very good constituency but we don’t need that. There are plenty of campaigns and they are all very good campaigns. There are plenty of other organisations who are doing very good work in bringing to a segment of the population. Vote Leave and Leave.EU are both competing to recognised by the Electoral Commission as the main Out campaign. Vote Leave is more Westminster-focused, while Leave.EU is more grassroots-focused. Vote Leave is accused of being too establishment-orientated, while Leave.EU is accused of being too Ukip-orientated. I’ve taken the quotes from PoliticsHome. According to Francis Elliott in the Times (paywall), Britain Stronger in Europe, which is campaigning for Britain to stay in the EU, has hired Jim Messina, the American political consultant whose micro-targeting expertise helped the Tories win the election in 2015. Here’s an extract from Elliott’s story. Jim Messina, who was paid almost £400,000 by the Conservatives to help to identify and target key voter groups, has been appointed to the cross-party “remain” campaign group. Mr Messina’s involvement underlines the extent to which the in-out referendum is likely to mark a further switch to digital campaigning with tailored messages for different groups. It is understood that Mr Messina, a key figure in President Obama’s re-election to the White House, is already piloting campaign material and researching how it should be best delivered to target audiences. Ukip doesn’t usually poll well with minority ethnic voters, but in a bold speech today Steven Woolfe, Ukip’s immigration spokesman is going to argue that those campaigning for Britain to leave the EU should appeal to them directly. Minority ethnic voters are “feeling the strain” caused by migration from the EU, he believes, and they are unhappy about the way the immigration system favours EU citizens over Commonwealth citizens. This is what he told the Today programme this morning. [Minority ethnic voters] want prosperity, they want their culture protected, they want freedom and they also want to be secure. They see the European Union as something that damages that ... If granny wants to come over from Pakistan or India for a wedding, they have got more difficulties in terms of visas and getting visas than would a granny from either Spain or France. If you look at the black community, they are more likely to be struggling on low wages in the low skilled and unskilled areas, and that’s the area that has been affected by large-scale migration. And in his speech later today he will say: If [the campaign to leave the EU] paints a positive and rational picture of what our border policy will be outside of the EU, we can win over the moderate majority of the black mixed ethnic community of which I am a member. The British black, mixed and ethnic community have a crucial role to play in our quest to reclaim our independence - and they will vote leave in their thousands if they believe they are voting for an outward-looking, prosperous and secure future. Here is the agenda for the day. 9.45am: Lord Dyson, Master of the Rolls, gives evidence to the Commons justice committee. 10am: Mark Carney, governor of the Bank of England, gives evidence to the Commons Treasury committee. My colleague Graeme Wearden will be covering this on his business live blog. 11am: Steven Woolfe, Ukip’s migration spokesman, gives a speech on why ethnic minority voters should support Brexit. 12 noon: Number 10 lobby briefing. 2.30pm: Liz Truss, the environment secretary, gives evidence to the Commons environment committee. 4.10pm: Philip Hammond, the foreign secretary, gives evidence to the Lords EU committee. 4.15pm: G4S and contractors Jomast give evidence to the Commons home affairs committee about the “red doors” policy for asylum seekers in Middlesbrough. At some point today Labour’s national executive committee will also be meeting to discuss rule changes that would give the NEC a greater say over policy making and the recruitment of Labour party staff. As usual, I will also be covering breaking political news as it happens, as well as bringing you the best reaction, comment and analysis from the web. I will post a summary at lunchtime and another in the afternoon. If you want to follow me or contact me on Twitter, I’m on@AndrewSparrow. I try to monitor the comments BTL but normally I find it impossible to read them all. If you have a direct question, do include “Andrew” in it somewhere and I’m more likely to find it. I do try to answer direct questions, although sometimes I miss them or don’t have time. Alternatively you could post a question to me on Twitter.
Swallows and Amazons review – sails on merrily, despite spy ballast Arthur Ransome’s wholesome prewar classic of children’s literature is all about fresh-faced girls and boys sailing dinghies around the Lake District with no health-and-safety nonsense about flotation jackets. The 1930 novel is now given a good-natured, if self-conscious period adaptation that grafts on a new grownup plotline of treachery and derring-do, probably closer to Enid Blyton’s Famous Five or John Buchan. It is as if the children’s innocent fantasy world of pirates and adventurers isn’t enough. The action must be ramped up. They have to get real baddies to vanquish, but this new and implausible line in melodrama is taken at the same pace and treated the same way as the children’s innocuous high-jinks. There is even a frankly bizarre and not entirely logical chase sequence aboard a train in which sinister trench-coated figures behave strangely – to say the very least – though somehow without drawing attention to themselves. Kelly Macdonald plays Mrs Walker, who is taking her boisterous four children away for a summer holiday in the idyllic Lakeland fells while her husband, an officer in the Royal Navy, is away in the far east. They are Susan (Orla Hill), Roger (Bobby McCulloch), John (Dane Hughes) and Tatty (Teddie-Rose Malleson-Allen) – her name was “Titty” in the original, and rather coyly changed. On the way, the children chance across the mysterious Mr Flint (Rafe Spall) who appears to be being hunted down by an equally enigmatic figure played by Andrew Scott – and the casting of these two principals should probably tip us off as to which of them is the good guy. The family arrive at their cottage run by a hatchet-faced comedy yokel couple, Mr and Mrs Jackson, played deadpan by Harry Enfield and Jessica Hynes. And the children beg to be allowed to sail to an island in the middle of the lake in Mr Jackson’s dinghy, the “Swallow”, and camp there – only to find that two other children, Nancy (Seren Hawkes) and Peggy (Hannah Jayne Thorp) have already staked a claim to it, and have a dinghy of their own, called the “Amazon”. A high-spirited battle commences, complicated by the unlikely danger they are in from the adult world of espionage. Swallows and Amazons was always treasured for its innocent charm, and maybe Golding’s Lord of the Flies made this kind of story unfashionable even before our modern preoccupation with the danger that unaccompanied children can be in. There’s no point updating the story, of course, and in fact the girls do in any case take a reasonably bold and assertive role in the adventure. Perhaps what there is to like about it is the simple, almost action-free shots of people sailing their little craft across the rippling lakes. And in fact nothing in the film rivals the very real catastrophe of the children’s wicker basket full of picnic food being lost overboard. This is despite the deployment of a failed “man overboard” rescue manoeuvre – although in trying this out, the children have in fact perfected it, and it is to come in useful when there is a real man-overboard emergency. This Swallows and Amazons is decent enough: but probably best savoured on the small screen after tea on a rainy Sunday.
Bibio: A Mineral Love review – balmy, surreal soundscapes Stephen Wilkinson’s fifth Warp release is a spritely collection of balmy, surreal soundscapes in which he channels his fascination with nature, nostalgia and the type of strutting funk affiliated with brown nylon flares. His most intricate album to date, A Mineral Love is delicately constructed like tiny cells of a flower. A strange summer of love permeates the tipsy album opener Petals, and a light dose of bossa nova on C’est la Vie creates the sentiment of a soft sigh rather than a grand declaration, while quirks and oddities resound, such as the Ariel Pink-esque lo-fi lounge pop on the title track and the reimagined 70s kids’ show theme, Wren Tails. Other than the Gotye-sung melodrama of The Way You Talk, these short, sweet songs are without indulgence. Gasoline & Mirrors, featuring Wax Stag, is the album’s most sprawling moment. At almost six minutes long, it brims with glistening majesty and bizarre romance without coiling up in its own cleverness.
Donald Trump Illinois delegates reveal leadership chaos ahead of convention Illinois delegates elected to represent Donald Trump have voiced fears about chaotic organisation and a lack of leadership in their state as Republicans prepare for what could be the first contested convention in decades. During a torturous two-hour conference call on Thursday night, the delegates struggled to figure out how to help the frontrunner at the Republican National Convention in July, wondering how best to contact the campaign in Wisconsin for tips. Anxiety was mounting throughout the conference call about the lack of organization in the Land of Lincoln for Trump. As one person said “There is no Trump team in Illinois, it’s us”, a statement echoed by pro-Trump activist Doug Ibendahl when he pointed out on the call “we don’t have any leader, it’s just us.” The understands the delegates also tried to deal with the mysterious disappearance of former Trump state chair Kent Gray from the campaign’s operations. Before leaving the campaign, Gray had tried to keep rival campaigns from making the ballot in Illinois but failed because he had not filed the paperwork in a timely manner. They also spoke about fears the #nevertrump movement would use “riffraff” to steal delegates and were uncertain about what to do next to help secure the GOP nomination for Trump. In the state’s primary election on 15 March, Trump won 39% of the vote and 53 of the state’s 69 delegates to the convention. There were a lot of questions about what the infrastructure in Illinois would be in a general election for the real estate mogul in the state and what type of organization was there in the state. As people on the call noted, Bill Graff – the replacement for Gray – was a volunteer who was seemingly dragooned into taking a leadership role by the national Trump campaign. Many of those on the calls were Trump loyalists, including one ready to move to a new country if Trump didn’t win. Callers also spent time mourning that Pat Brady, former Illinois state GOP chair, won a delegate slot because of anti-Muslim prejudice among Trump voters. What was imagined to be an effort to mount a diverse slate of Trump delegates led to several candidates for Trump delegates with “Muslim-sounding names”. They underperformed in Illinois’ complex primary election because of what one caller described as many “people avoiding the guy with the Muslim-sounding name”. As a result, Brady, a Kasich supporter, “snuck in”. Trump’s campaign is trying to ensure that the bombastic billionaire gets the 1,237 delegates necessary to win the nomination on the first ballot. In the event of a contested convention, it’s expected that Trump would face major obstacles on a second ballot for the nomination as many pledged delegates for him will not actually support Trump when given a free vote. As the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday, the frontrunner has already lost ground in Louisiana, a state that Trump won on primary night. • This article was amended on 27 March to clarify that Pat Brady is a former state chair for the Illinois Republican party, and not the current one.
Hello, Vlad? It’s me, Donald Was it an audacious play to steal attention from the increasingly glam Democratic convention? In any case, the GOP nominee blitzed news cameras Wednesday morning with a passel of ... bold ... opinions. Trump: hack Clinton A visibly peeved Trump said a theory linking Russia, a damaging DNC emails hack and his campaign was “far-fetched”. Then he asked Moscow to please dig up emails deleted from Hillary Clinton’s private server. Trump to female reporter: ‘be quiet’ Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press ... They probably have her 33,000 e-mails that she lost and deleted ... I hope they do ... because you’d see some beauties there. – Donald Trump This has to be the first time that a major presidential candidate has actively encouraged a foreign power to conduct espionage against his political opponent ... This has gone from being a matter of curiosity, and a matter of politics, to being a national security issue. – Clinton policy adviser Jake Sullivan In a statement issued by Mike Pence after the news conference, the Trump campaign in effect conducted rapid response against its own candidate. If it is Russia and they are interfering in our elections, I can assure you both parties and the United States government will ensure there are serious consequences. That said, the Democrats [have] been exposed as a party who not only rigs the government, but rigs elections. – Trump running mate Mike Pence Russia is a global menace led by a devious thug. Putin should stay out of this election. – Brendan Buck, spokesman for House speaker Paul Ryan In Trump’s fiery presser, he called Obama “our most ignorant president in our history” whose “views of the world, in his words, don’t jive”. He said torture “works”. And he said Clinton veep Tim Kaine, a Virginian, was from New Jersey. Asked whether he would recognize Crimea as part of Russia and lift sanctions, Trump said he “would be looking into that”. Then he said he didn’t know Vladimir Putin, despite previously having said he knew him “very well”. I think it’s time for Hillary Clinton to do a press conference. – Donald Trump, concluding his news conference The president was slated to speak on behalf of Clinton on the convention stage on Wednesday. Also on the list: VP Joe Biden, Clinton veep Tim Kaine, Sigourney Weaver and Lenny Kravitz.
Parliamentary BHS report will complete Wright’s ‘worst of Britain’ series Iain Wright has been a busy man. Like a university student cramming to get his essays done before school’s out for summer, the chairman of the business, innovation and skills (BIS) select committee has been knocking out reports during the final few days before the parliamentary recess. On Friday, the committee’s take on the working practices at retailer Sports Direct was released, which pulled few punches, and contained words such as “punitive”, “appalling”, “unreasonable”, “excessive” and “contempt”. Anyway, Wright’s work will be back in front of the invigilators again on Monday, with the publication of the investigation into the collapse of BHS, which the BIS committee has conducted jointly with Frank Field’s work and pensions gang. It is hard to envisage this making great reading for Sir Philip Green, the former owner of BHS, or Dominic Chappell, the “Walter Mitty” who Green decided was a suitable buyer of a business safeguarding 11,000 jobs and a £571m pension deficit. Westminster gossips suggest the BHS report will be even punchier than Sports Direct. All of which wraps up Wright’s coursework for the year, which might one day form part of some weightier thesis. How about “the worst of British business” as a possible title? Arrests, falling shares, gloom – that’s banking Another terrible few days for the banks, which obviously pains us all. Last week, Mark Johnson, a British citizen and HSBC’s global head of foreign exchange trading, got nicked by the FBI and charged with fraudulently rigging a multibillion-dollar currency exchange deal. Meanwhile, back in the UK, more mundane problems persist. Shares in Virgin Money, which is run by Jayne-Anne Gadhia and reports numbers this week, are wallowing near all-time lows, while the stock of Lloyds Banking Group (still 9% owned by the UK taxpayer and also reporting this week) isn’t doing much better. This is an inconvenience to Lloyds’ dashing chief, António Horta-Osório, who everybody assumed would be mounting his black horse for a victory lap by now. But Brexit and low interest rates are making his life pretty tough. Lloyds shares closed on Friday at 55.58p, some way below the taxpayer’s supposed break-even price of 73.6p. Still, if you count the dividends, fees and other proceeds we’ve received, there’s a view we could get our money back by flogging the rest of our stake for 8.4p a share. That’s if you believe Hargreaves Lansdown – which might make a few quid from any retail offer. Has ARM’s new owner gone out on a limb? “It would be a dreadful shame if this acquisition followed form – job losses, investment drain and, worst of all, new technologies and skills ebbing out of our economy. [The business secretary] must surely be regretting dragging his heels on his promised Cadbury law [which would make it more difficult for foreign takeovers to succeed].” It is a topical view, following the announcement of the £24bn takeover of UK chip designer ARM Holdings by Japan’s SoftBank last week, even if the words were said about Vince Cable in 2011 by Unite’s Tony Burke. Burke, of course, was speaking about US technology giant Hewlett-Packard, which had just taken over Cambridge-based software firm Autonomy, then the darling of Britain’s tech sector, for £7bn. Yet if anybody is regretting HM government’s inaction on that one, it is probably HP boss Meg Whitman, since the US group ended up taking a $5bn charge on the deal. That is not to say that the ARM transaction will also be unsuccessful – or that Burke’s view is invalid – but it does illustrate that these things can work both ways. Anyway, there’ll be plenty more scope to debate this one, starting this week. With delicious timing, ARM’s half-year results are due on Wednesday.
Trump Foundation: the allegations against Donald's charity, explained Donald Trump’s namesake foundation has done a lot of good for one man: Donald Trump. Missing, it would appear, is a philanthropic mission and evidence of charitable work. The Trump Foundation has come under increased scrutiny after a series of revelations by the Washington Post that the Republican nominee may have improperly spent donations intended for charity. On Monday, Trump’s foundation suffered another major blow when the New York attorney general’s office ordered the charity to immediately suspend fundraising in the state, and warned that refusing to do so would be “continuing fraud”. What are the allegations against the Trump Foundation? An ongoing investigation into the Trump Foundation by the Washington Post has found that the foundation has not been funded by Trump or his family since 2008 and did not obtain the proper certification under New York law, which allows charities to solicit money from the public. As a result, the Trump Foundation has not undergone the external audits or been subject to the kind of oversight required by the state of charities seeking donations of more than $25,000 from the public. The paper has uncovered that Trump gave $25,000 from his charity to a political group supporting Florida’s Republican attorney general, Pam Bondi, who was weighing whether to launch an investigation into Trump University, his defunct, for-profit educational enterprise that is at the center of a class-action lawsuit brought by former students. Bondi ultimately declined to open an investigation. Trump’s foundation reported in IRS filings that it had made the donation to a charity with a name similar to the political group supporting Bondi. Trump paid a $2,500 fine to the International Revenue Service for the tax law violation. In a string of later revelations, the Post revealed that Trump used $258,000 of his charity’s money to settle legal disputes, including one involving the height of a flagpole at his Mar-a-Lago club. Other notable expenditures involving charitable money include $12,000 on a helmet signed by football player Tim Tebow, $20,000 on a six-foot portrait of himself and some years later, $10,000 on another portrait of himself. The Washington Post’s David Fahrenthold began looking into the foundation after Trump solicited donations at an Iowa fundraiser for veterans. The candidate claimed he raised “$6m” from the fundraiser, which he held in lieu of attending a Republican debate, and pledged the money would be distributed to veterans’ groups. The campaign later conceded he raised less. Still later it was revealed that much of the money was not distributed to veterans’ groups until after the paper raised questions about the whereabouts of the donations. Who is investigating the allegations? The New York attorney general, Eric Schneiderman, issued a notice this week after the Post reported that the charity did not have the correct paperwork to solicit donations. According to the notice, the Trump foundation must immediately cease fundraising and soliciting contributions in the state, wrote James Sheehan, the head of the charities bureau in Schneiderman’s office. The foundation has 15 days to provide the bureau with the proper documentation and paperwork, including delinquent financial reports for previous years, according to the attorney general’s office. Failure to do so “shall be deemed a continuing fraud upon the people of New York”, Sheehan wrote. In a statement, campaign spokeswoman Hope Hicks replied: “While we remain very concerned about the political motives behind AG Schneiderman’s investigation, the Trump Foundation nevertheless intends to cooperate fully with the investigation. Because this is an ongoing legal matter, the Trump Foundation will not comment further at this time.” Last month Schneiderman, a Democrat supporting Hillary Clinton, launched a broad investigation into the Trump Foundation amid a string of reports that raised questions over its practices. Schneiderman is also suing the Republican nominee over Trump University, alleging that the businessman ran a fraudulent online education program that bilked students. What does this mean for Trump? It’s not yet clear how this will affect Trump’s presidential ambitions. A failure to comply could lead to further action by the attorney general’s office. Past controversies have failed to dent his appeal to his supporters, but the the cease-and-desist notice follows a particularly bruising week for the Republican nominee. Trump’s week on the campaign trail, dubbed his worst of the presidential race, was marked by a poorly reviewed debate performance, a Twitter-fueled feud with a former Miss Universe, who he shamed for gaining weight, and a stunning report by the New York Times that the Republican may not have paid federal income tax for 18 years after declaring nearly $1bn on his federal income tax returns. A slate of recent national and battleground state polls show that support for Trump has dropped, giving Clinton a significant lead. The controversy around Trump’s foundation came up during Tuesday night’s vice-presidential debate. Governor Mike Pence, Trump’s running mate, defended the foundation: “They give virtually every cent in the Trump Foundation to charitable causes.” Clinton’s running mate, Senator Tim Kaine interjected: “A $20,000 portrait of Donald Trump?”
If you knew my son, you’d sign the petition for a meningitis B vaccination This week parents have been sharing photos of their dangerously ill children, following the death of two-year-old Faye Burdett from meningitis. A petition to give all children the meningitis B vaccine has becomes the most signed in parliamentary history. I know the devastating effects that this illness can bring about, and thought I would explain a little about what can happen when a child is struck down by what is now a vaccine-preventable disease. Until December 1999, I had a perfectly healthy five-month-old baby, happily sitting on his 91st centile line after a normal, uneventful birth. This was until he got the flu, the kind of flu that makes me snort with derision when people with a cold say they’ve got it, the kind that saw me take him to the doctor’s three times in one week because I was worried: worried about him dehydrating; worried that he had a chest infection; just really, really worried. I was pooh-poohed each time and told he was fine. He woke up on Saturday 11 December noticeably iller than he had been the day or night before, pale to the point of waxiness, really quiet and faintly blotchy, like cold winter skin on your thighs but without a temperature. Alarm bells rang, but I couldn’t place them. He didn’t seem to mind the light. At five months old, he was too young to tell me if his neck was stiff, or whether he had a headache. There was no rash. After messing around with the doctor’s out-of-hours service (which is another diabolical story altogether), I took him to hospital. I assumed at this point he had pneumonia, and although he didn’t wake up once on the journey there, I wasn’t yet beside myself until the point at which he was seen by Triage (which was thankfully immediately) – who told me to follow them, and to run. So run I did, to Resus, at which point the doctors stripped my son of his clothes to discover the unmistakable petechial rash around his groin. As luck would have it, Barnet hospital were extraordinary, but they also had St Mary’s paediatric retrieval team there, who spent over six hours resuscitating him and getting him stable enough to transfer to St Mary’s. The journey from Barnet to Paddington took 15 minutes in rush hour, pre-Christmas traffic. God only knows what the driver was on –but I’ll be forever thankful for his speed. His heart monitors stopped at one point, and there was not a peep from my poor boy. It transpired later that he did have a chest infection too – a bad one, one that meant that the septicaemia that was shutting down his body and stopping him breathing. The infection was having a field day. He spent a week in hospital and a further 10 days on intravenous antibiotics, and then he was fine. Except he wasn’t. I won’t detail each part of the last 16 years, partly because it would too long and partly because I really can’t bear to. He is profoundly deaf in one ear, and suffers horrendous tinnitus; he has dizziness and bouts of seizures, and his immune system is screwed. He has been diagnosed with type 1 diabetes and coeliac. God only knows what else is in store. I haven’t even touched on how this has affected him psychologically, but needless to say various psychologists, a psychiatrist and CAMHS have been involved. So it was bittersweet when the meningitis B vaccine was revealed. Because its too late for him, too late for me, too late for our family. Too late to stop a disease that during that week in December stole my perfectly healthy, happy baby and left me with a different baby altogether, a different child – and now nearly a different man. I love him; of course I do, as I did before. But I mourn the loss of something that might have been so different for him, something kinder and easier and a little bit safer. So when you’re debating whether or not to vaccinate, whether its for meningitis or measles, remember that by vaccinating your children you are protecting other people’s children too – those who are too young to be vaccinated or who are medically unable to be. Its very easy to forget that measles remains one of the biggest killers of young children globally, and that’s not counting the lasting effects it can have, which are not entirely dissimilar to those of meningococcal septicaemia. Thankfully meningitis B is rare, but if the situation were to arise now, and I discovered someone had refused the vaccine and put my child in the situation he is now, I’m not really sure what I would do. Something quite unspeakable probably, using filthy language and a large amount of violence. So if you haven’t signed the petition about the meningitis vaccine, please think about doing so.
What's it like to live with anxiety? We are living in a so-called era of anxiety. In 1980, 4% of Americans suffered a mental disorder associated with anxiety. Today half do. In the UK a third of Britons now experience an anxiety disorder at some stage in their life. But, despite its growth, how well do we really understand anxiety? The internet abounds in information and misinformation about everything from phobias to panic attacks — with lots of advice (some helpful, some not) on how to cope. There are also a lot of misconceptions about what having an anxiety disorder really means and how you can break free of it. We want the people with anxiety to help us dispel some myths and explain what it really feels like. What are the worst things you can say to someone with anxiety? What makes your life harder and easier? How does your anxiety manifest? Share your experiences and views with us in the form below – and we will use responses for an article that will appear online. As this is a sensitive topic, please be reassured that we will not share or publish any personal details without obtaining contributors’ permission first.
Trump calls for end to federal minimum wage as views shift Donald Trump has called for the elimination of the federal minimum wage, as he retreated from primary promises and once again refused to release his tax returns because of “a link” to an audit. The presumptive Republican nominee for president repeatedly said he would support a higher minimum wage, a reversal from his position when he had conservative opponents. But he insisted on Sunday that states should decide such wages. “I like the idea of ‘let the states decide’,” Trump told NBC’s Meet the Press. “But I think people should get more. I think they’re out there. They’re working. It is a very low number.” Asked “should the federal government set a floor” – a national minimum wage – Trump replied: “No, I’d rather have the states go out and do what they have to do. “And the states compete with each other, not only other countries, but they compete with each other.” In a November debate, the businessman, who claims his net worth is worth more than $10bn, said: “Taxes too high, wages too high, we’re not going to be able to compete against the world.” He then told Fox News: “We were talking about the minimum wage, and they said ‘Should we increase the minimum wage?’ And I’m saying that if we’re going to compete with other countries we can’t do that because the wages would be too high.” But on Sunday he expressed sympathy for people who struggle to survive on the current federal minimum wage. “I don’t know how you live on $7.25 an hour,” he said. “But I would say: let the states decide.” Similarly, he told ABC’s This Week: “I haven’t decided in terms of numbers. But I think people have to get more.” Trump readily admitted that he had given up his previous position. “Sure, it’s a change,” he said, framing his willingness to abandon one position as a negotiation tactic. “I’m allowed to change. You need flexibility. But my real minimum wage is going to be I’m going to bring companies back into this country, and [people are] going to make a lot more than the $15, even.” Looking toward a general election against Hillary Clinton, the prohibitive favorite to be the Democratic nominee, Trump similarly retreated from tax proposals that would benefit the most wealthy Americans and heavily tax the poor. On Sunday, he said he intended to tax the wealthy. “For the wealthy, I think, frankly, it’s going to go up,” he said, saying he would likely pay more taxes himself. “When it comes time to negotiate, I feel less concerned with the rich than I do with the middle class.” But Trump was unwilling to discuss taxes he has already paid. He again refused to release his tax returns, citing an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) audit into some of them and “a link” between audited returns and returns not being investigated. No law exists that forbids the release of tax returns under audit. The IRS has stated: “Nothing prevents individuals from sharing their own tax information.” “I have very big tax returns,” Trump said on Sunday. “They’re extremely complex.” He said he hoped to release the returns before the general election, but would not pledge to do so. “I’ll do it as fast as the auditors finish,” he said. The former reality TV star insisted that “you don’t learn much from tax returns” and that his “financials” show a value of more than $10bn. His financial filings with federal officials, however, do not always correspond with other declarations of his worth. For instance, in a financial disclosure made when he announced his run for the White House last year, Trump listed a New York state golf club at $50m. But in a lawsuit, as part of his argument that he should pay 90% less tax on the property, he told a judge the same club was worth only $1.4m. Trump also shares an address with Hillary Clinton and more than 285,000 companies in Delaware, at a building that has become famous for helping businesses avoid taxes through the so-called “Delaware loophole”. Presidential candidates have traditionally released tax returns to the public, though sometimes with great reluctance. The 2012 Republican nominee, Mitt Romney, worth an estimated $250m, eventually released two years of returns. He has since become one of Trump’s most prominent adversaries, suggesting in February that Trump is hiding “a bombshell” in his returns. “Either he’s not anywhere near as wealthy as he says he is or he hasn’t been paying the kind of taxes we would expect him to pay,” Romney said. “Or perhaps he hasn’t been giving money to the vets or to the disabled like he’s been telling us he’s doing.”
In Pursuit of Silence – noise annoys in a paean to quiet This documentary is calling for a nothing less than a global audio detox; it’s about reclaiming the lost virtue of silence. The film occasionally hits a rather loud note of passive-aggressive piety, but it is very persuasive. The great violinist Yehudi Menuhin used to tell his pupils to cultivate and appreciate silence: musicians need it the way painters need a blank canvas. But the canvases of our lives are increasingly splodged and muddled with traffic noise, street noise, loud music from other people’s houses and cars, not to mention our own, TVs and radios. Then of course there is the even more insidious digital white noise we fill our heads with – the frantically insecure smartphone-checking chatter on Facebook, Twitter, etc. (I am on this final point of righteousness shamefacedly letting the first stone fall from my hand.) It’s a cultural tinnitus and the film is right to complain, although it could have suggested more in the way of practical remedies, and I could frankly done without the vow-of-silence guy hitchhiking across the States, holding up handwritten statements to the camera and thereby announcing his moral superiority loud and clear. Well: silence is golden. Maybe this film could have been released in an alternative silent version.
How do women really know if they are having an orgasm? In the nascent field of orgasm research, much of the data relies on subjects self-reporting, and in men, there’s some pretty clear physiological feedback in the form of ejaculation. But how do women know for sure if they are climaxing? What if the sensation they have associated with climax is actually one of the the early foothills of arousal? And how does a woman know if she has had an orgasm? Neuroscientist Dr Nicole Prause set out to answer these questions by studying orgasms in her private laboratory. Through better understanding of what happens in the body and the brain during arousal and orgasm, she hopes to develop devices that can increase sex drive without the need for drugs. Understanding orgasm begins with a butt plug. Prause uses the pressure-sensitive anal gauge to detect the contractions typically associated with orgasm in both men and women. Combined with EEG, which measures brain activity, this allows for a more accurate picture of a woman’s arousal and orgasm. When Prause began studying women in this way she noticed something surprising. “Many of the women who reported having an orgasm were not having any of the physical signs – the contractions – of an orgasm.” It’s not clear why that is, but it is clear that we don’t know an awful lot about orgasms and sexuality. “We don’t think they are faking,” she said. “My sense is that some women don’t know what an orgasm is. There are lots of pleasure peaks that happen during intercourse. If you haven’t had contractions you may not know there’s something different.” Prause, an ultramarathon runner and keen motorcyclist in her free time, started her career at the Kinsey Institute in Indiana, where she was awarded a doctorate in 2007. Studying the sexual effects of a menopause drug, she first became aware of the prejudice against the scientific study of sexuality in the US. When her high-profile research examining porn “addiction” found the condition didn’t fit the same neurological patterns as nicotine, cocaine or gambling, it was an unpopular conclusion among people who believe they do have a porn addiction. “People started posting stories online that I had falsified my data and I received all kinds of sexist attacks,” she said. Soon anonymous emails of complaint were turning up at the office of the president of UCLA, where she worked from 2012 to 2014, demanding that Prause be fired. Does orgasm benefit mental health? Prause pushed on with her research, but repeatedly came up against challenges when seeking approval for studies involving orgasms. “I tried to do a study of orgasms while at UCLA to pilot a depression intervention. UCLA rejected it after a seven-month review,” she said. The ethics board told her that to proceed, she would need to remove the orgasm component – rendering the study pointless. Undeterred, Prause left to set up her sexual biotech company Liberos, in Hollywood, Los Angeles, in 2015. The company has been working on a number of studies, including one exploring the benefits and effectiveness of “orgasmic meditation”, working with specialist company OneTaste. Part of the “slow sex” movement, the practice involves a woman having her clitoris stimulated by a partner – often a stranger – for 15 minutes. “This orgasm state is different,” claims OneTaste’s website. “It is goalless, intuitive, and dynamic. It flows all over the place with no set direction. It may include climax, or it may not. In Orgasm 2.0, we learn to listen to what our body wants instead of what we think we ‘should’ want.” Prause wants to determine whether arousal has any wider benefits for mental health. “The folks that practice this claim it helps with stress and improves your ability to deal with emotional situations even though as a scientist it seems pretty explicitly sexual to me,” she said. Prause is examining orgasmic meditators in the laboratory, measuring finger movements of the partner, as well as brainwave activity, galvanic skin response and vaginal contractions of the recipient. Before and after measuring bodily changes, researchers run through questions to determine physical and mental states. Prause wants to determine whether achieving a level of arousal requires effort or a release in control. She then wants to observe how Orgasmic Meditation affects performance in cognitive tasks, how it changes reactivity to emotional images and how it compares with regular meditation. Brain stimulation is ‘theoretically possible’ Another research project is focused on brain stimulation, which Prause believes could provide an alternative to drugs such as Addyi, the “female Viagra”. The drug had to be taken every day, couldn’t be mixed with alcohol and its side-effects can include sudden drops in blood pressure, fainting and sleepiness. “Many women would rather have a glass of wine than take a drug that’s not very effective every day,” said Prause. The field of brain stimulation is in its infancy, though preliminary studies have shown that transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), which uses direct electrical currents to stimulate specific parts of the brain, can help with depression, anxiety and chronic pain but can also cause burns on the skin. Transcranial magnetic stimulation, which uses a magnet to activate the brain, has been used to treat depression, psychosis and anxiety, but can also cause seizures, mania and hearing loss. Prause is studying whether these technologies can treat sexual desire problems. In one study, men and women receive two types of magnetic stimulation to the reward center of their brains. After each session, participants are asked to complete tasks to see how their responsiveness to monetary and sexual rewards (porn) has changed. With DCS, Prause wants to stimulate people’s brains using direct currents and then fire up tiny cellphone vibrators that have been glued to the participants’ genitals. This provides sexual stimulation in a way that eliminates the subjectivity of preferences people have for pornography. “We already have a basic functioning model,” said Prause. “The barrier is getting a device that a human can reliably apply themselves without harming their own skin.” There is plenty of skepticism around the science of brain stimulation, a technology which has already spawned several devices including the headset Thync, which promises users an energy boost, and Foc.us, which claims to help with endurance. Neurologist Steven Novella from the Yale School of Medicine uses brain stimulation devices in clinical trials to treat migraines, but he says there’s not enough clinical evidence to support these emerging consumer devices. “There’s potential for physical harm if you don’t know what you’re doing,” he said. “From a theoretical point of view these things are possible, but in terms of clinical claims they are way ahead of the curve here. It’s simultaneously really exciting science but also premature pseudoscience.” Biomedical engineer Marom Bikson, who uses tDCS to treat depression at the City College of New York, agrees. “There’s a lot of snake oil.” Sexual problems can be emotional and societal Prause, also a licensed psychologist, is keen to avoid overselling brain stimulation. “The risk is that it will seem like an easy, quick fix,” she said. For some, it will be, but for others it will be a way to test whether brain stimulation can work – which Prause sees as a more balanced approach than using medication. “To me, it is much better to help provide it for people likely to benefit from it than to try to create fake problems to sell it to everyone.” Sexual problems can be triggered by societal pressures that no device can fix. “There’s discomfort and anxiety and awkwardness and shame and lack of knowledge,” said psychologist Leonore Tiefer, who specializes in sexuality. Brain stimulation is just one of many physical interventions companies are trying to develop to make money, she says. “There’s a million drugs under development. Not just oral drugs but patches and creams and nasal sprays, but it’s not a medical problem,” she said. Thinking about low sex drive as a medical condition requires defining what’s normal and what’s unhealthy. “Sex does not lend itself to that kind of line drawing. There is just too much variability both culturally and in terms of age, personality and individual differences. What’s normal for me is not normal for you, your mother or your grandmother.” And Prause says that no device is going to solve a “Bob problem” – when a woman in a heterosexual couple isn’t getting aroused because her partner’s technique isn’t any good. “No pills or brain stimulation are going to fix that,” she said.
Izzy Stradlin on not touring with Guns N' Roses: 'They didn't want to split the loot' Last week, Axl Rose explained why Izzy Stradlin was not part of the Guns N’ Roses reunion tour, saying the guitarist was simply not the kind of man to be pinned down. Now Stradlin has hit back, saying Rose’s remarks were “bullshit”. In a Brazilian TV interview before the band’s run of South American shows, Rose said: “I don’t really know what to say about Izzy. It’s, like, you could have a conversation and think it’s one way and the next day it’s another way. And I’m not trying to take any shots at Izzy. It’s just his thing is kind of his thing, whatever that is.” Stradlin, however, offered a simpler explanation. His absence from the reunion, he tweeted, was about money: “They didn’t want to split the loot equally. Simple as that.” The Not in This Lifetime tour has featured Rose alongside two fellow original Gunners – lead guitarist Slash and bassist Duff McKagan – with drummer Steven Adler making occasional appearances. Stradlin’s absence had been remarked on and complained about by some longtime fans. As well as being the rhythm guitarist, he was also a key songwriter during Guns’ original lifespan, writing Patience, and co-writing songs including Mr Brownstone, Pretty Tied Up, Don’t Cry, You Could Be Mine, Paradise City and Sweet Child o’ Mine. Rose is currently on the road with AC/DC, finishing off their Rock or Bust world tour with five US shows, concluding in Philadelphia on 20 September.
Readers recommend: share your songs about sinners This week we want to hear about music about sinners – repentant or otherwise – taking into account song titles, lyrics or deeper meanings wither you have interpreted or musicians have spoken about. Nominate and tell us why in the comments. You can find a list of all songs previously picked and so ineligible here. You have until 11pm on Monday 9 May to post your nomination and make your justification in the comments. A regular RR contributor (this week, chippiparai) will then select a playlist from your recommendations. If you would like to volunteer to compile a playlist from readers’ suggestions – and potentially blog about the process/selection for the – please email matthew.holmes@theguardian.com, or make yourself known in the comments. Here’s a reminder of the guidelines for RR: Tell us why it’s a worthy contender. Quote lyrics if helpful, but for copyright reasons no more than a third of a song’s words. Provide a link to the song. We prefer Muzu or YouTube, but Spotify or Soundcloud are fine. Listen to others people’s suggestions and add yours to a collaborative Spotify playlist. If you have a good theme, or if you’d like to volunteer to compile a playlist from readers’ suggestions, please email matthew.holmes@theguardian.com. There’s a wealth of data on RR, including the songs that are “zedded”, at the Marconium. It also tells you the meaning of “zedded” (picked for a previous playlist so ineligible), “donds” and other strange words used by RR regulars. Many RR regulars also congregate at the ’Spill blog. We’d like to learn a bit more about you and what you love. Each week, alongside RR, we’ll be asking you to tell us more about the songs you’ve nominated through our Witness page. We want to hear the stories, see the photos – of gigs, of moments, of your record sleeves – that you associate with the songs you have nominated. You can also share your theme ideas.
Disaffected rust belt voters embraced Trump. They had no other hope The rust-belt rebellion that is propelling Donald Trump into the White House has been a long time building. The fact that it surprised so many politicians and pundits only shows the unbridged canyon between the urban elites who thrive on the globalised economy and the millions of Americans who live in its wreckage. A decade ago, even before the 2008 recession, I interviewed workers in Dayton, Ohio, where Delphi, the global auto parts maker, was about to close four of its five plants and lay off 5,700 workers. I found some of them toying with the ideas of Lyndon LaRouche, a fringe, leftwing demagogue. In my book about Dayton and other hollowed-out old industrial cities, I warned: “Globalisation is made to order for demagogues. By its nature, it exposes the vulnerable to distant and mysterious forces. It enriches a new class of global citizens, but undermines a way of life for middle-class workers who can’t understand what is happening to them and don’t feel they deserve it. This is not the way life was supposed to be, and they seek someone to blame.” Dayton is in Montgomery County, which voted for Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012. This year, only seven of Ohio’s 88 counties stayed Democratic. Montgomery wasn’t one of them. Like dozens of industrial counties across the midwest, it gave its votes – and thus the election – to Trump. The industrial midwest is the vast sweep, from western Pennsylvania through eastern Iowa, that drove the American economy for nearly a century. The great industrial cities, such as Chicago and Detroit, led the way, but it spread into hundreds of small towns and cities – from the steel mills of Ohio to the auto parts factories of Michigan and Wisconsin and the appliance makers of Iowa and Illinois. This was Hillary Clinton’s blue wall, the states she had to win to become president. Of the 11 swing states that decided the election, five – Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa – lie in this battered old industrial heartland. If, as expected, Trump’s lead in Michigan holds, she lost them all. How did it happen? There are many reasons. The Clinton team barely campaigned there and in Wisconsin until it was too late. Misogyny played a role. So did Clinton’s personal unpopularity and the relatively low turnout. But the real reason is that the industrial era created this region and gave a good middle-class way of life to the people who worked there. That economy began to vanish 40 years ago, moving first to the sun belt and then Mexico, before finally China. The good jobs that were left increasingly went to robots. Factories closed. So did the stores and bars and schools around them. The brightest kids fled to universities and then to the cities – to New York or Chicago or the state capital. Those left behind worked two or three non-union jobs just to stay afloat. Families broke up. Drug use increased. Life spans shortened. And nobody seemed to care – until Trump. But does he really? Who knows? He said he did. His tirades – against trade, against elites, against Obamacare, against immigrants, against the Clintons – sounded like unhinged rants in cities and on campuses, which never took him seriously. In the old industrial zones and withering farm towns, he echoed their own resentments. Mitt Romney couldn’t do this; neither could John McCain. But Trump did, and so they embraced him. Why was this such a surprise? It’s impossible to overstate the alienation between the two Americas, between the global citizens and the global left-behinds, between the great cities that run the nation’s economy and media, and the hinterland that feels not only cheated but, worse, disrespected. For the major media, almost all the campaign reporting focused on the candidates and polls. Almost nobody bothered to talk to the voters. The Chicago Tribune, the midwest’s biggest newspaper, doesn’t even have a midwestern beat any more and seldom sends reporters outside the Chicago metro area. Yet this was where the election was decided. Illinois may have voted Clinton and five of the six counties in Chicago’s metro region went Democratic, but of the 96 others, 91 voted for Trump. The Tribune missed the story and so did its readers. Clinton campaigned for expanded healthcare, for equal rights for women and the LGBT community, along with a rational foreign policy. Her website explained well-reasoned policies. She defended the nuclear deal with Iran and, until challenged by Bernie Sanders, new trade deals with Asia and Europe. Trump barely crafted any policies at all. In the swing counties of the midwest, voters cared about none of this. They just wanted to be noticed. They didn’t care about equal pay for women: they wanted jobs and, with luck, rising salaries for everyone. In traditional towns that are just getting used to the idea of same-sex marriage, the right to choose one’s bathroom was simply frivolous. Trade was a huge issue. Democratic and Republican administrations both hew to the mantra of trade economists: that free trade may cause some local pain but boosts society as a whole. This teaching simply doesn’t jibe with the lived reality of workers who have seen imports replace the things they used to make. Whenever I asked people in old industrial towns – not only workers but managers, too – what had happened, I usually got a one-word answer: “Nafta!”, spat out, like an epithet. They knew that something was happening to their lives and they blamed trade. In Newton, Iowa, I interviewed Ted Johnson, a United Auto Worker official at the Maytag appliances plant, which Whirlpool had closed, with most of its 3,800 jobs going to Mexico. “We’ve got these terrific trade agreements,” he said. “They open up the whole world to third world countries with American incentives. They put impoverished workers to work, then sell the stuff back to the United States. Our government doesn’t even want us to have a decent standard of living.” Newton is in Jasper County, which went for Obama in 2012 and, like 93 of Iowa’s 99 counties, for Trump this year. Across the Mississippi river, Galesburg, Illinois, lost 7,000 jobs, including 1,600 jobs when its own Maytag plant closed. Galesburg is in Knox County, which gave Obama a 58-41% victory margin in 2012 and voted for Trump this year. Mostly, this was a backlash against cities, as any electoral map – an ocean of red with a few atolls of blue – can show. In my book, I quoted Iowa agricultural blogger David Kruse who fumed that “ethics mean more in rural America than they do in urban America. What I see … are arrogant, liberal, urban elitists … that think they are smarter, more sophisticated, and better than those of us living in rural America. They think Washington and Des Moines know best and we poor dumb folks out here need their guidance and education.” These industrial jobs aren’t coming back. Globalisation isn’t going away. Cities will keep growing, the hinterlands shrinking, filled with people who have lost everything except their vote. If this country is to survive Trump and the wrenching economic changes he has exploited, attention must be paid.
Acting FCA boss withdraws from race for top job The acting boss of the City regulator is to face a grilling from MPs later this month about whether the watchdog is softening its stance towards bankers even though it has emerged she has withdrawn as a candidate to take over the helm of the Financial Conduct Authority. Tracey McDermott, who earned a reputation as a tough operator after imposing huge fines on banks during the Libor crisis, pulled out of the race to be chief executive of the FCA at the final stage just before Christmas. She was forced to admit she no longer wanted to be the chief executive of the FCA after the chancellor, George Osborne, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Thursday she did not want the job full time. Even so, she has been called to give evidence to the Treasury select committee on 20 January and face questions about whether the regulator is taking a new softly-softly approach to the banking industry. McDermott has been acting FCA head since September after Osborne forced out her boss Martin Wheatley. His exit was seen as sign that the Treasury wanted to strike a more conciliatory tone with the City. Her withdrawal was unexpected. She had been taking a higher profile since taking over from Wheatley, who left in September when Osborne did not renew his contract in July. She has delivered a number of high-profile speeches, including a set-piece address at the Mansion House in October. After Osborne’s remarks on the radio, McDermott said: “It has been, and remains, a privilege to lead this organisation. However, going through the recruitment process has made me reflect on what I want to do with the rest of my career. As a result I have decided that this is not the right job for me at this stage of my career. This was a decision taken after many months of careful thought and was not one that I took lightly.” The FCA has recently been embroiled in controversy about a decision to abandon a review of the culture in City, which led to accusations that the Treasury had intervened in an attempt to impose a less aggressive approach to the banking sector. Andrew Tyrie, chairman of the Treasury select committee, had told the Today programme just hours before Osborne’s remarks that he intended to call witnesses from the FCA to explain the decision to abandon the review. McDermott is being called alongside the FCA chairman, John Griffith-Jones. “I’m concerned that, as we move further and further away from the crash and those awful events, time dims the memory, and therefore it is absolutely essential that we keep in mind all the time that we are trying to get this right,” Tyrie said. After his BBC interview, Tyrie said: “The FCA has a tough job. Just as the banks are in the process of sorting themselves out, so are the regulators. There is a long way to go. The crash exposed shortcomings in standards in regulators almost as bad as in banks.” The Treasury denied it was involved in the review being dropped, although it has been involved in changing some of the tougher rules being used to clamp down on bankers. Among the changes is a decision not to reverse the burden of proof on bankers, which would have forced them to prove they did the right thing. Commenting on McDermott’s decision, Griffith-Jones said: “I understand and respect the decision Tracey has made. The board and I will continue to work together with her until the new chief executive is in post.” Osborne gave no indication when the post would be filled.
Trump wins Washington primary as protests erupt by Albuquerque rally – as it happened Donald Trump won the Republican primary in Washington, with over 77 percent of the vote, bringing him closer to the magic 1,237 delegates required to secure the nomination Earlier in the day Trump was endorsed by former presidential candidate Rick Santorum But his victory was marred by violence and chaos in Albuquerque, as protests against Trump’s immigration policies turned violent, with bottles thrown at police, fires lit, and the glass door to the convention center where Trump was speaking smashed. Police on horseback, riot units, and reportedly pepper spray were all deployed to disperse protestors as the situation devolved into something approaching a riot Police massed on the streets to disperse stragglers - described by Albuquerque police as those wanting to “cause trouble” - block by block outside the convention center and in the surrounding streets, as protestors in cars spun their tyres as a form of noise- and smoke-creating protest “At least one” arrest was made from the protest, police told the Pepper spray was seen to be deployed several times against protestors, though only one arrest was reportedly made - and that from inside the Trump rally itself Hillary Clinton won the Democratic primary in Washington, though - unlike the Republican primary - the victory carries no delegates because the state party held caucuses in March. It bears noting, however, that Clinton won more votes in Tuesday’s meaningless primary than the entirety of votes cast in the March caucuses for all Democratic candidates combined Trump tweets about his event, without mentioning the protests: Albuquerque police just confirmed to the that “at least one” arrest has been made during tonight’s protest, on top of the arrest made inside the Trump event Despite the violence we’ve seen on the streets of Albuquerque, only one arrest has reportedly been made so far tonight - and that was from inside the rally itself. This picture from earlier shows riot police responding to the protests: The streets of Albuquerque are filling with smoke right now from several different sources. Partly, protestors are smoking their tyres: ...and partly, police are deploying smoke grenades as well as pepper spray: A front-row view from NBC’s Frank Thorp of police pepper-spraying protestors: Pepper spray is being deployed against protestors now, CNN’s Dan Scavino reports, along with live footage of a woman who took a spray directly to the face who is being treated with milk to the eyes. Dozens of protestors are still on the streets. At the same time, Trump’s social media director has tweeted about the protestors, calling them “thugs”: A big part of this protest so far - which has several times prevented CNN reporters from successfully connecting to outside broadcasts because of the noise it makes - has been cars spinning their wheels on the streets of Albuquerque: Protestors are being removed “slowly, block by block”, according to CNN’s Jim Acosta, though there are still dozens - down from hundreds - on the streets currently, including trucks, which are spinning their tyres to create smoke and noise. Police on horseback are slowly moving people out of the area. Albuquerque police, on their Twitter feed, are now implying that those remaining protesters are there “to cause trouble & be destructive.” Some more pictures from tonight’s events in Albuquerque: Albuquerque police, on their Twitter feed, have denied deploying tear gas. However this photo appears to show them deploying pepper spray against protesters: Meanwhile, in Albuquerque, the near-riots have simmered down to an uneasy calm. Meanwhile, in Albuquerque, the near-riots have simmered down to an uneasy calm. Hillary Clinton’s victory in tonight’s Washington primary is interesting, because while due to a bizarre quirk of the state party it is entirely meaningless, she is currently winning by considerably more votes than the entire turnout of the March Washington caucuses - which Bernie Sanders won, netting himself 74 delegates. The protests are focussing on Trump’s stance on Latinos: Protests are still on going in Albuquerque, according to reports on the ground, where there are still a large number of protesters outside the convention center where Donald Trump spoke earlier. But things do appear to be calming down from the violence we saw earlier. ...though this doesn’t in fact matter in the slightest, as the Washington Democratic delegate allocation was decided in March in the state’s caucuses. Also on the ballot in Washington state are John Kasich and Ted Cruz, both of whom dropped out of the primary race after the state ballots had already been printed. As of 8:20pm PST, with 69 percent of precincts reporting, both of the former candidates had won roughly ten percent of the vote each. Ben Carson, who dropped out some while ago, was also on the ballot in Washington, reportedly because his campaign failed to file the requisite paperwork with the state party informing them that he had dropped out. He is currently winning just under 4 percent of the vote. The flare-up at Trump’s rally just as he wins the Washington primary may be a sign of things to come. Andrew Gumbel reported Tuesday that after Albuquerque Trump heads to the “riot-happy” city of Anaheim, California - so tonight may just be a harbinger. Andrew reports: Anaheim may be the home of Disneyland and a reliable source of affluent, conservative white voters in the suburban tracts an hour south of Los Angeles, but it is also bubbling over with tensions, as a restive and growing Latino minority clamors for greater political representation, a less repressive police force and a more tolerant environment for immigrants and their families. In February, protesters furious at Trump’s hesitation to disavow the support of the white supremacist movement clashed with members of the Ku Klux Klan in an Anaheim park, resulting in three stabbings and two other vicious assaults. Two months later, on the eve of Trump’s first visit to southern California as a presidential candidate, the Anaheim city council came to blows over a proposed resolution to denounce Trump’s rhetoric against immigrants, Muslims and women. You can read the whole piece here. Trump finishes first in the Washington primary, the Associated Press projects. Track results as they are reported in the Washington Republican primary here: Forty-four delegates are at stake – not enough to push Donald Trump over the top. He has to wait until the next Republican primary voting on 7 June. Reporters inside the Albuquerque convention center, the Trump rally location, tweet that they are not allowed to leave: The Associated Press reports tear gas in the air at the Trump event in Albuquerque: [update: police deny tear gas; it’s just smoke they say.] The Albuquerque Journal hosts this video of the scene: From the Albuquerque Journal report: Dozens of officers in riot gear are trying to contain an increasingly angry crowd of Donald Trump protesters outside a Trump rally in Downtown Albuquerque. A group of about 100 protesters forced their way through a police barricade and tried to storm Albuquerque’s convention center minutes after presidential hopeful Donald Trump took the stage for his rally. Read further here. Police in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where Trump is hosting a rally, report that protesters outside the rally are “throwing bottles and rocks”: Footage of the scene reveals gaslike smoke [update: police deny tear gas; it’s just smoke they say.] and general mayhem: Tennessee senator Bob Corker, the chairman of the foreign relations committee and one of many whose names has popped up on lists of potential Trump running mates (he met with Trump in New York yesterday), is under federal investigation for “stock transactions involving one of the nation’s top developers of shopping centers and malls,” Politico reports: [Corker] failed to report millions of dollars in assets and income on his annual financial disclosure until the Wall Street Journal revealed the discrepancy last fall. In the wake of that report, Corker was forced to revise years’ worth of disclosure reports. Corker has denied any wrongdoing. Read further here. Trump is campaigning tonight in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where it seems that early talk of his possibly locating a running mate in governor Susana Martinez has foundered on the shoals of her unwillingness to endorse him, her refusal to meet him while he’s in town – and, now, an attack on his part: Two hours till ballot dropoff sites close in Washington state, which is holding a vote-by-mail Republican primary tonight. In a parallel universe, one in which Trump had not prevailed in Indiana, his path to 1,237 delegates was not clear, and in which Ted Cruz and John Kasich had stayed in the race, the race tonight may have been vested with considerable suspense. That didn’t happen. Prominent Donald Trump supporter Peter Thiel, the billionaire co-founder of PayPal and a self-reckoning libertarian, has been financing a lawsuit by former pro wrestling entertainer Hulk Hogan against the media site Gawker, Forbes reports. The has not independently verified the report. Gawker founder Nick Denton said earlier Tuesday that he suspected there was anonymous money behind multiple lawsuits targeting Gawker. The New York Times reported: At first, Nick Denton, the founder of Gawker Media, thought it an unlikely conspiracy theory. Now, he’s starting to believe it himself. Forbes reports that Denton was very right. A report by Ryan Mac begins: One of Silicon Valley’s best-known investors has been footing a former wrestler’s legal bills in lawsuits against a shared enemy. Peter Thiel, a PayPal cofounder and one of the earliest backers of Facebook, has been secretly covering the expenses for Hulk Hogan’s lawsuits against online news organization Gawker Media. According to people familiar with the situation who agreed to speak on condition of anonymity, Thiel, a cofounder and partner at Founders Fund, has played a lead role in bankrolling the cases Terry Bollea, a.k.a. Hogan, brought against New York-based Gawker. Hogan is being represented by Charles Harder, a prominent Los Angeles-based lawyer. Read the full Forbes report here. Read more about Thiel’s support for Trump: Rick Santorum, the former Pennsylvania senator whose appeal among conservative Christians and values voters fueled his victories in 11 states in the 2012 Republican presidential nominating race, has endorsed Donald Trump for president. Santorum said that a list of 11 potential supreme court nominees released by Trump had settled the issue for him. Reuters reports: Santorum, who dropped out of the presidential race in February and threw his support to Senator Marco Rubio, told Fox News: “The most important issue is preserving the Constitution of this country and a liberal Supreme Court will destroy it.” Last Wednesday, Trump unveiled a list of 11 judges he would consider, if elected, to replace the late Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court. A federal judge ruled Tuesday that cuts to early voting in Ohio, under a law signed by governor John Kasich, were unconstitutional and disenfranchised African Americans in particular. In throwing out the law, the judge said it “results in less opportunity for African Americans to participate in the political process than other voters.” ThinkProgress has this background on the Ohio law: Since President Obama won reelection in 2012, Ohio’s Republican lawmakers and Secretary of State have voted to eliminate the days and times of early voting that were most convenient for those working full time: the weekend before election day, weekday evenings, and what’s known as “Golden Week,” the time about a month before election day when the registration period and the early voting period overlap. Both Bill Clinton and the Hillary Clinton campaign hailed the judge’s ruling: From Hillary Clinton’s communications team: Hillary Clinton today said that one reason Donald Trump may be refusing to release his tax returns is that he has not “paid ever any federal income tax.” ABC News points out that Trump certainly did pay federal income tax – in the 1970s at least: Washington state Republicans will award 44 delegates tonight after tabulating the results of the state’s mail-in primary. Even if Trump wins every one of Washington’s delegates, he won’t cross the 1,237 threshold to claim a delegate majority. For that he’ll have to wait until the final Republican contests on 7 June. Hillary Clinton says that she has “seen parts” of the hourlong film accompanying the latest Beyoncé album, Lemonade, which explores themes including marital infidelity and betrayal, and “I do like it”. Donald Trump announced a $1m gift to a veterans’ charity Monday night, following days of attempts by the Washington Post to figure out where Trump had donated a gift of that size that he announced in January. On 29 January, a day after boycotting a presidential debate hosted by Fox News and holding a competing event billed as a veterans’ benefit, Trump announced he had personally contributed $1m out of a total of $6m raised. “Donald Trump – another great builder in New York, now a politician... Donald Trump gave $1million,” Trump said. But four months later, it was still unclear where Trump had sent the money – or whether he had sent the money. Last Friday, Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski said the money had been disbursed: “The money is fully spent,” Lewandowski said. “Mr. Trump’s money is fully spent.” On Monday, the Post reported, Trump pledged the $1 million to the Marine Corps - Law Enforcement Foundation. The Post confronted Trump about the timing of his donation: When asked if the Monday donation was in response to questions from the news media, Trump said: “You know, you’re a nasty guy. You’re really a nasty guy. I gave out millions of dollars that I had no obligation to do.” Donald Trump has responded to a Hillary Clinton attack of earlier today in which her campaign accused him of having cheered on the 2008 housing market crash. As reported earlier in this blog, Trump, in a 2006 audio book, said he hoped to “go in and buy like crazy” so he could “make a lot of money” when the real estate and housing markets failed. “I sort of hope that happens because then people like me would go in and buy” property and “make a lot of money,” Trump said. Trump has defended those remarks with a statement released Tuesday. “Frankly, this is the kind of thinking our country needs”, he said: California continues to put up the noisiest resistance to the Trump campaign, reports Andrew Gumbel. By holding a rally in Anaheim, the Republican nominee is “wishing for chaos.” If Donald Trump is eager to avoid the large, impassioned, noisy protests that almost derailed his last visit to California – and maybe he’s not – he has certainly picked the wrong location for his return trip on Wednesday. Anaheim may be the home of Disneyland and a reliable source of affluent, conservative white voters in the suburban tracts an hour south of Los Angeles, but it is also bubbling over with tensions, as a restive and growing Latino minority clamors for greater political representation, a less repressive police force and a more tolerant environment for immigrants and their families. In February, protesters furious at Trump’s hesitation to disavow the support of the white supremacist movement clashed with members of the Ku Klux Klan in an Anaheim park, resulting in three stabbings and two other vicious assaults. Two months later, on the eve of Trump’s first visit to southern California as a presidential candidate, the Anaheim city council came to blows over a proposed resolution to denounce Trump’s rhetoric against immigrants, Muslims and women. Relations between the Latino community and the police, which will be spearheading security at the Trump rally, have been punctuated in recent years by high-profile officer shootings, riots, and one court filing accusing the police department of behaving “like a death squad” in targeting suspected gang members. Gustavo Arellano, the editor of the alternative Orange County Weekly and a well-known activist for Latino immigrant rights, described Anaheim as a “riot-happy city” and added: “With this move, we now know that Trump is actively wishing for chaos to happen.” Corey Lewandowski, campaign manager for presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, told CBS News today that the real estate tycoon pays “the lowest possible” amount in federal income taxes, saying that it highlights his business acumen. “Mr. Trump is proud to pay a lower tax rate, the lowest tax rate possible,” Lewandowski said. “He is going to pay the smallest amount of taxes possible, which I think the American people also understand. Every deduction possible. He fights for every single dollar.” “That’s the mindset you want to bring to the government.” Trump has so far refused to fulfill a promise he made at the beginning of the presidential campaign to release his tax returns, citing an IRS audit of his taxes. Opponents, including likely general election opponent Hillary Clinton, have challenged this, citing the fact that even Richard Nixon, himself under audit, released his own tax returns in 1973, at the height of the Watergate scandal. Lewandowski said that Trump will release that information once the “routine audit” is done. “Let the IRS finish their work,” he Lewandowski. “As soon as that’s done, he’s going to release those taxes.” Republican National Committee (RNC) chair Reince Priebus and presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump have announced the candidate’s “Trump Victory” leadership team, which will provide coordinated support to Trump’s campaign. “We are proud to have put together an experienced and motivated leadership team which is going to raise the support our nominee will need to win the White House,” Priebus said in a statement. “We still have a lot of hard work ahead of us to defeat Hillary Clinton and the Democrats, and I know this team is committed to raising the additional resources that will make the difference in producing victory this November.” “It is my great honor to help raise money for the Republican Party to ensure Hillary Clinton is defeated in November and Republican candidates maintain the majority in the House and Senate,” Trump added. “This is an impressive leadership team comprised of talented individuals working together to unite the party and win what will be the most important election of our lifetime. The money raised is an investment in the Republican Party and the future of our country, which, as President, I am going to make better and stronger than ever before.” Trump, whose fundraising apparatus is years behind that of his likely general election opponent, will need to raise as much as $1 billion to maintain a competitive campaign against Clinton. With a finance team of some of the Republican party’s most powerful donors finally coalesced, he and Priebus hope that they can hold off Clinton’s financial juggernaut. The biggest recruit: Woody Johnson, top fundraiser for former nominees Mitt Romney and John McCain, owner of the New York Jets and heir to the Johnson & Johnson consumer products empire. Also making the list are several high-profile Republican donors, including Wisconsin roofing billionaire Diane Hendricks, former Chris Christie finance chief Ray Washburne and former ambassador Ron Weiser. Tomorrow, the committee will host its first fundraiser at the Los Angeles home of investor Thomas Barrack. One of the US’s largest unions has voted to use political pressure to fight climate change, citing events such as Hurricane Sandy, the California drought and the water situation in Flint, Michigan, as examples of how the phenomenon disproportionately affects its members, report the ’s Jana Kasperkevic and Oliver Milman. Members of the two-million-strong Service Employees International Union (SEIU) voted to add environmental justice to the list of the union’s priorities and to use its powerful voice at the state and federal level to put climate change on the political agenda in 2016. The SEIU previously succeeded in making the fight for $15 minimum wage a national issue and was able to get it on the legislative agenda in a handful of US states and cities. Its campaign led to major victories for the minimum wage movement in states including California and New York. The union now hopes to do the same for climate change – a subject that has been largely absent so far from the 2016 presidential campaign. The proposal could prove controversial with some in the labor movement considering that more than100,000 energy-related jobs have been lost in the last year and a half. According to the SEIU, climate change disproportionately affects low-income and minority communities, where many of its members live. As such, the union is committing its resources to “broadening environmental justice”. The SEIU international president, Mary Kay Henry, said: “SEIU members live and work in some of the most polluted zip codes in America and are part of communities that are most impacted by climate change. We know first hand that our fights for economic, racial and immigrant justice are inextricably linked to the fight for environmental justice. The Republican Jewish Coalition has, somewhat belatedly, issued a statement regarding what it called the “troubling increase of anti-Semitic invective” aimed toward Jewish journalists covering the presidential campaign, after weeks of antisemitic, vitriolic and threatening messages sent to reporter Julia Ioffe from supporters of Donald Trump. “We abhor any abuse of journalists, commentators and writers whether it be from Sanders, Clinton or Trump supporters,” the statement reads. “There is no room for any of this in any campaign. Journalists, regardless of their race, religion or ethnicity should be free to do their jobs without suffering abuses, anti-Semitic or otherwise.” “At the RJC, we will be making the case that Jewish values are American values and American values are the Republican values of free markets, peace through strength and unwavering support of Israel. Now more than ever our political process should be geared toward a civil discourse focused on solving our most vexing and intractable problems as a country.” Vermont senator Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign has requested a recanvass in Kentucky, following a razor-thin margin in the state’s presidential primary that has given former secretary of state Hillary Clinton a lead of less than one-half of one percent. Sanders’ campaign has asked the Kentucky secretary of state to review electronic voting machines and absentee ballots. Clinton currently leads over Sanders by a record 1,924 votes, out of 454,573 votes cast. The race has still not yet been called by the Associated Press, although the Clinton campaign declared victory on the evening of the election. Under Kentucky state law, a recanvass is essentially a retabulation of votes without reexamining the ballots. Each county board of elections reviews votes, depending on the original method used by voters, meaning that if an electronic voting system was used, all votes would be retabulated. If Sanders were to gain votes during the recanvass, he could ask for a full recount, which would include reexamining ballots for possible tabulation issues. Both Clinton and Sanders received 27 delegates in the primary, although one delegate remains to be allocated. Three women who have previously accused former president Bill Clinton of sexual misconduct gave a joint interview with conservative pundit Sean Hannity on his radio show on Monday, reiterating their past accusations against the former president and declaring likely Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton complicit in covering up the alleged misconduct. In 1999, former nursing home administrator Juanita Broaddrick alleged that Bill Clinton raped her in 1978 when she was looking to volunteer on his campaign for governor of Arkansas. Clinton’s attorney denied the allegations on his behalf at the time, and Broaddrick herself had testified in a deposition that Clinton did not make unwelcome sexual advances. In 1994, former Arkansas state employee Paula Jones sued Clinton for sexual harassment over an alleged 1991 incident in which she said he exposed himself to her. Jones’ lawsuit was thrown out, but during the appeals process, Clinton settled out of court for $850,000 and no admission of misconduct. Jones was characterized as having “won” her lawsuit by Hannity in the interview’s preamble. In 1998, former White House volunteer aide Kathleen Willey claimed that the president sexually assaulted her in the Oval Office during his first term in the White House in 1993. Clinton denied Willey’s accusations. In their first joint interview, pegged to Hannity’s interview with presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump in which the candidate resurrected those same allegations, “It’s hard for me to say the word ‘rape.’ I always usually say sexual assault,” said Broaddrick. “But rape is the perfect terminology for what happened.” “Hillary Clinton once said that women who make allegations should be believed and trusted,” Hannity said later in the interview. “I guess, except in the case of anybody who makes an accusation against her husband.” “I think it’s just disgusting what she’s saying, and what she’s doing, and I’m so appreciative to Donald Trump for bringing it ... I couldn’t, it’s very difficult to bring it forward.” After a few minutes of flirty banter, during which Jones assured Hannity that he gets “checked out” all the time (“You’re just not noticing!”), Jones hung up the phone after reporting that there was a sheriff’s officer at her door, and Hannity moved on to speak with Willey. “When he assaulted Juanita, he was the attorney general,” Hannity said. “When he did this with Paula, he’s the governor. Now he’s the president of the United States. He knew you, correct?” “On top of that we have consensual incidences,” Hannity said. “The affair with Gennifer Flowers and other women, and then the whole Monica Lewinsky thing comes up! So you’re talking about a serial predator. That’s what the three of you are describing, not somebody that’s changed over time.” The Clinton campaign has stated that Trump is running a “campaign from the gutter,” but has otherwise not elaborated on the comments by Broaddrick, Jones or Willey. On a conference call, Congressman Tim Ryan of Ohio and Mayor Bob Buckhorn of Tampa, Florida, joined forces with Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign in the hopes of raising attention to recent revelations that, prior to the 2008 financial crisis, presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump had publicly rooted for the collapse of the US housing market. In 2006, Trump said he hoped to “go in and buy like crazy” so he could “make a lot of money” when the real estate and housing markets failed. “If there is a bubble burst, as they call it, you know you can make a lot of money,” Trump said in the 2006 audio book, How to Build a Fortune. “If you’re in a good cash position - which I’m in a good cash position today - then people like me would go in and buy like crazy.” On the call, Ryan and Buckhorn discussed how Trump’s “cheerleading” of the economic crisis “disqualified” him from serving as president. “Trump said he was excited about the housing market collapse in 2007,” Ryan said. “We don’t know if Trump ever made money... because he refuses to release his tax returns, something all major candidates have done for decades.” “These are real human beings in real communities that are just trying to get ahead, and they need a president who will root for them, not against them,” he concluded. “This crisis was disastrous for middle-classers and the working class,” Buckhorn said, highlighting the impact of the sub-prime mortgage crisis on his Florida constituents. “We were ground-zero for this mortgage meltdown... housing prices wiped out 51%.” “In the middle of this calamity, Trump aimed to do what Trump does best - he put himself above all,” Buckhorn continued. “The last time information about his tax returns went public, we found that he paid zero federal income taxes - let me say that again, zero - for multiple years.” “Donald Trump is only out for himself at the expense of working families,” Buckhorn said, and that a proper steward of the American economy doesn’t “root for it to fail so that you can make a quick buck.” The call is part of a series of activities in more than half a dozen battleground states, including Ohio, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Florida, New Hampshire, Iowa, Colorado and Nevada, as well as a new Hillary for America web video, highlighting Trump’s history with sub-prime mortgage loans. Illinois congresswoman and US senate candidate Tammy Duckworth has called out secretary of veteran’s affairs Bob McDonald for what she called his “unbelievably tone-deaf” remarks comparing wait times for appointments at VA hospitals to lines at Disneyland. “Comparing abhorrent wait times to a trip to Disneyland is unbelievably tone-deaf and hurtful to American heroes desperately in need of care,” said Duckworth, a combat veteran of the Iraq War and former assistant secretary of veteran’s affairs. “Our troops didn’t make us wait before putting their lives at risk to keep us safe, and it is simply not acceptable for the VA to make them wait for the care they have earned.” “As I urged when I sat down with him last week, the Secretary needs to comprehensively address the VA’s systemic problems - and that means reducing wait times, improving care and increasing patient satisfaction,” she said in her statement. During a Christian Science Monitor breakfast in Washington yesterday, McDonald compared the time it takes for veterans to receive medical treatment to the “experience” of Disneyland guests waiting for a ride. “When you go to Disney, do they measure the number of hours you wait in line? Or what’s important?” McDonald said. “What’s important is, what’s your satisfaction with the experience?” Barack Obama has urged Vietnam to abandon authoritarianism, saying basic human rights would not jeopardise its stability, after Hanoi barred several dissidents from meeting the US leader. In a sweeping speech, which harked back to the bloody war that defined both nations but also looked to the future, Obama insisted that “upholding rights is not a threat to stability”. Vietnam ruthlessly cracks down on protests, jails dissidents, bans trade unions and controls local media. But the US leader, speaking to a packed auditorium including Communist party officials, said bolstering rights “actually reinforces stability and is the foundation of progress”. The visit is Obama’s first to the country and the third by a sitting US president since the end of the Vietnam war in 1975. Direct US involvement in the conflict ended in 1973. Tim Kaine, the Virginia senator tipped as a potential running mate for Hillary Clinton, has said it is “of existential importance” that she wins the presidential election. The Democrat gave a speech about cybersecurity this morning at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. Afterwards he was asked about a possible run for the vice-presidency under Clinton. “It’s just speculation,” he told the . “The only role I’m playing for the campaign is just to get out on the trail and help her win, especially in Virginia because if she wins Virginia, she’s going to be president.” “I think she will win Virginia. I like what I do, I’m not looking for another post, but her winning is of existential importance to me and to the nation right now.” Despite playing down the running-mate talk, Kaine offered a glimpse of his battle readiness for the contest with Republican presumptive nominee Donald Trump. “Just thinking about values like religious freedom - we have this tradition of no one is punished or preferred because of how they worship or not,” Kaine said. “Trump’s proposals would take that first amendment and subvert it.” “Bringing torture back: That’s an existential choice that we would have to make as a country,” he continued. “Do we want to have a commander in chief who goes around saying the American military is a disaster? I don’t think our 1.6m people who serve who want a commander in chief who talks about them with disrespect. So there’s all of these issues that are stark and I know all of us up there feel that way.” Pressed on what his response would be if Clinton called, the affable Kaine replied: “I like my job and I’m not looking for another one.” Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat currently under federal investigation over potentially illegal campaign contributions, is attempting to distance the FBI probe from his ties to likely Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. “There are no wrongdoing allegations that have been made,” McAuliffe told reporters at the State Arboretum of Virginia this morning. “If you read the story yesterday, they have some questions about a donor - my legal team fully vetted this individual, he’s been a green card holder since 2007, so we’re very confident.” CNN reported yesterday that the FBI, as well as the Justice Department’s public integrity unit, is investigating a $120,000 campaign donations to McAuliffe’s 2013 gubernatorial campaign from Chinese businessman, as well as McAuliffe’s role on the Clinton Global Initiative. McAuliffe, however, was quick to dismiss any connection. “This has nothing to do with the Clinton Foundation,” McAuliffe said. “This was an allegation of a gentlemen who gave a check to my campaign. I didn’t bring the donor in, I didn’t bring him into the Clinton Foundation, I don’t even know if I’ve ever met the person.” Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump may dismiss climate change and sea-level rise as “very expensive bullshit” on Twitter, but according to Politico, the real estate tycoon is more circumspect on the issue when it comes to risk-management for one of his coastal properties. The candidate’s company has applied to construct a coastal seawall that would protect the Trump International Golf Links & Hotel Ireland, in County Clare, from “global warming and its effects.” Citing a major storm that hit the course days after Trump acquired it in 2014 that eroded as much as eight meters of frontage from the resort, Trump submitted a planning application in the hopes of gaining approval for construction of the two-mile wall. The application included environmental impact statement declaring that erosion along the coast will only accelerate with sea-level rise associated with melting ice caps and climate change. The application filings run counter to opinions the candidate has had on the validity of climate-change science in the past and present: Marco Rubio, the Florida senator who suspended his presidential campaign after losing his home state, reflects on where it went wrong, what he learned and what’s next with the ’s Sabrina Siddiqui. While Donald Trump was wrapping up the Republican nomination for president at the beginning of this month, Marco Rubio was more than 6,000 miles away, touring the Middle East and far removed from the process that had engulfed the past 11 months of his political career. The Florida senator, who suspended his presidential campaign in March after losing his home state, was no longer beholden to the grueling schedule that required him to barnstorm as many as three states in one day in the pursuit of votes. And so he made use of a weeklong recess from the US Senate to instead travel from Qatar to Iraq to Turkey, to apprise himself of the latest developments in the battle against the Islamic State and discuss the deep-rooted sectarian divisions in the region. It was an official trip that had all the trimmings of a presidential visit, from sitdowns with local officials to a meet-and-greet with American troops. But even if Rubio will not be the next commander-in-chief, the senator seems at peace. During a recent interview in his Senate office, Rubio reflected on where his campaign went wrong, what he learned from his recent overseas trip and why he would rather make the most of his remaining seven months in federal office than opine about the state of the 2016 race. “A lot of times it feels almost like the guy who built this really strong building,” Rubio said of the Republican contest, “and it was in the right place, and it was the way these buildings have always been built, but he got hit by a Category 5 hurricane. “It’s not that we lost, it’s that Donald Trump won … It was just a very unusual political year.” Ken Starr, the former independent counsel whose investigation into then-president Bill Clinton led to the president’s impeachment, has praised Clinton’s “redemptive process” and lambasted the populism that, he said, has divided the county, according to the New York Times. “His genuine empathy for human beings is absolutely clear,” Starr said at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia last week. “It is powerful, it is palpable and the folks of Arkansas really understood that about him - that he genuinely cared. The ‘I feel your pain’ is absolutely genuine.” Describing the years-long investigation into Clinton’s professional and personal life, which eventually lead to his impeachment by the House of Representatives, as “the unpleasantness,” Starr complimented Clinton as “the most gifted politician of the baby boomer generation.” “There are certain tragic dimensions which we all lament,” Starr said of the controversies of Clinton’s administration. “That having been said, the idea of this redemptive process afterwards, we have certainly seen that powerfully ... President Carter set a very high standard, which President Clinton clearly continues to follow.” Clinton’s tenure has been under increased scrutiny since presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has repeatedly targeted Clinton’s personal history as a way to discredit his wife, former secretary of state and likely Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. Fiscal responsibility is a hard line to take when your ill-fated presidential campaign is still $900,000 in debt nine months after you threw in the towel. The latest federal filings shows that Wisconsin governor Scott Walker, who famously won three elections in four years in a blue state, still has nearly $900,000 in debt from his unsuccessful run for the Republican nomination. Walker, who is likely to attempt for a third term as the Badger State’s governor in 2018, planned on paying off his campaign debt by the end of this year - but if the slowdown in donations to retire that debt are any indication, he may not have such an easy time. Walker’s presidential campaign took a mere $71,000 in April, down nearly half from the $128,000 received in March. Donald Trump may be making an appearance in Albuquerque tonight, but the state’s high-profile Republican governor has told local news that she’s going to sit this one out. New Mexico governor Susana Martinez, whose name has been floated as a potential vice presidential pick since before the Republican party had even settled on a nominee, told NBC affiliate KOB4 that she’s too busy to see the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. “I’m really busy and I’m the governor of New Mexico and I’m really focused on what’s going on here in New Mexico,” she said, citing employment announcements and education initiatives. “I mean, those are the things I’m concentrating on and I’m going to keep concentrating on.” Asked if Trump’s campaign had reached out to her, Martinez responded, “No, he has not.” Good morning, and welcome to the ’s politics liveblog, where we’re expecting an escalation of hostilities between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, the presumptive and likely nominees for the Republican and Democratic parties, after Trump doubled down on his decision to make Clinton’s marriage a target of his latest attack ad. The advert is on Instagram, and it raises allegations of sexual harassment or assault by Bill Clinton. In 1999, Juanita Broaddrick, one of the women whose voice was used in the Trump ad, alleged that Bill Clinton raped her in 1978 when she was looking to volunteer on his Arkansas gubernatorial campaign. Clinton’s attorney denied the allegations on his behalf. Kathleen Willey, whose voice was also used, has claimed that the president sexually assaulted her during his first term in the White House. Clinton settled out of court with Jones for $850,000, and denied Willey’s accusations. Trump defended his use of unsubstantiated rumors and personal attacks on his likely opponent’s spouse on The O’Reilly Factor last night, telling host Bill O’Reilly that the Clintons were “dirty players” who had backed him into a corner. “I don’t like doing that, but I have no choice,” Trump said. “When she hits me on things, I just have no choice. So you have to do it. It’s unfair. And you know they’re dirty players. they’ve been dirty players historically, and I have to fight back the way I have to fight back.” O’Reilly didn’t ask about Trump’s decision to raise conspiracy theories that the suicide of White House counsel Vince Foster was actually murder. Here’s what to expect from today: Bill Clinton will campaign for his wife in Española, New Mexico, this evening. Doors open at Plaza de Española at 5.30pm local time, with the event beginning at 6.30pm. New Mexico’s Democratic primary is on 7 June. Hillary Clinton will tape her appearance on the Ellen DeGeneres Show, which airs tomorrow, and will then campaign in Riverside, California. The event begins at 5.30pm local time at the Johnson Family Practice Center on the UC-Riverside campus. California’s Democratic primary is also on 7 June. Donald Trump will hold his first campaign fundraiser in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in conjunction with the Republican National Committee. The event, which requires a $10,000 donation for entry, will be hosted by funeral parlor magnate Kevin Daniels. From there, Trump will to head to Los Angeles, where Lebanese-American real estate investor Thomas Barrack Jr. will host a $25,000-a-plate fundraiser for the candidate at his home. Bernie Sanders has a full plate today, hosting rallies in Anaheim, California, at 10am local time, in Riverside at 2pm, and San Bernardino at 7pm. Stick with us for live coverage throughout the day ...
As Amazon takes on the UK grocery market, can it deliver a profit? After years of expectation, Amazon finally launched its Fresh grocery service in the UK last week, parking its tanks on the lawns of the country’s biggest retailers. It promises “everything you need for your weekly shop”, from artisanal Stilton to tangy cheese Doritos, delivered to your door in a cool box. Some analysts are predicting the US online giant could grab up to 3% of the UK grocery market by 2020. That would represent £1.4bn of sales, much of which would be stolen from the already struggling traditional supermarkets – Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury’s and Morrisons. “I genuinely believe this is a game-changer,” says grocery market analyst Bryan Roberts at TCC Global. Amazon has begun delivering to just 69 north and east London postcodes, but Roberts says its blueprint of same-day deliveries, access to high-quality local stores (such as Gail’s Artisan Bakery, Daylesford Organic and chocolatier Paul A Young) combined with relatively low prices and Amazon’s strong service record, could prove a “huge draw”. While 3% might sound like a tiny share of grocery sales, Amazon will be directly cutting into what has become one of the few growth avenues for traditional players, who are seeing shoppers gradually desert big supermarkets in favour of online and local shopping trips. The online grocery market is expected to nearly double in value to £17.2bn between 2015 and 2020, according to food and grocery research body IGD, while supermarket and hypermarket sales will fall by nearly 3% to £69.6bn. Pure online businesses Amazon and Ocado are expected to benefit the most from the change as the current market leader Tesco, which controls about 40% of the online grocery market, loses out. Amazon’s service ambitions could also force the whole market to raise its game. That may be good news for shoppers, but is likely to put another dent in the profits of suffering supermarkets. Amazon is offering refunds as well as substitutions for items which are not in stock and a huge list of 130,000 products – something the main operators do not currently match. Ocado offers about 48,000 items, less than 40% of the range Amazon can boast, while Tesco has about 70,000. The average Asda or Sainsbury’s superstore carries less than 40,000; Morrisons less than 22,000. Amazon’s promise of same-day delivery is something only Ocado currently offers in certain cities, although Tesco and Asda have been trialling a same-day service for “click and collect” orders. “It’s very unhelpful and inconvenient for the mainstream players,” says Neil Saunders of retail consultancy Conlumino. “Amazon is very good at the service side of things and deliveries. It is going to make other players pull their services up when grocery online is already not very profitable, and profits are under pressure with price cuts.” Its potential influence on service could be comparable to the impact of discounters Aldi and Lidl on prices. They now jointly hold about 10% of the UK market – less than 4 percentage points more than three years ago – yet in that time traditional supermarkets have been forced to slash prices to try to match the discounters on key items to prevent shoppers deserting them in droves. Profits have suffered accordingly. Saunders adds: “In a market where there is really no overall growth in volume, if anyone else comes in, even if they only take a small share, that will be coming off someone else.” But Amazon should not look forward to an easy ride. In the US, where it has been offering its Fresh service for more than eight years, the company accounts for less than 1% of grocery spending, according to analysts Conlumino. Geographical expansion has been slow, with the service now available only in Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York City, San Diego and Philadelphia. Expectations had been for it to be in 50 US cities by now. “This does not look to be a massive disruptive competitor in the short term,” says Dave McCarthy, a well-regarded retail analyst at HSBC. “If Amazon is 50% the size of Ocado in five years it will have done well, but would still be well under 0.5% market share.” One industry insider says Amazon may have an advantage from not playing by the same rules as its traditional rivals in terms of profit expectations and tax payments, but it will face six strong competitors. “Selling short-life fresh foods is very different to books. It will burn a lot of money,” the insider says. McCarthy argues that most shoppers are more interested in low prices than home delivery. Amazon has promised “competitive” prices: a basket of key items last week came in just below the prices of the big four. In the UK, many fresh food items – more than 2,400 products including pies and pizzas as well as fruit, vegetables and meat – will be supplied by Morrisons. That relationship will help Amazon offer a relatively cheaper range of products than in the US, although it will still be more pricey than Aldi and Lidl. Amazon will also have to be able to deliver on its service promises. Early reviews have pointed to multiple items being out of stock, and suggested its method of using coolboxes in ordinary vehicles rather than refrigerated vans may prove problematic in a heatwave - although Amazon said that the system has been shown to work well in hot weather in California. While same-day delivery may appeal to some, Amazon’s deliveries will not be the cheapest. Those wishing to use Amazon Fresh must be signed up to Amazon Prime at a cost of £79 a year, and then pay £6.99 a month for unlimited deliveries of orders worth more than £40. That would take the annual cost of getting the groceries to £162. That compares to a 12-month anytime delivery pass costing just £60 a year at Sainsbury’s and Tesco. As most online grocery shoppers choose to stick with the brand whose physical store they already visit, the prospect of a three-figure fee may be another hurdle in the way of changing habits. McCarthy’s argument is supported by the fact that Amazon has been offering a range of groceries online for some years – from cleaning products to biscuits – without setting the market on fire. Analysts at Bernstein estimate those sales currently add up to about £300m. The new service gives additional convenience and the ability to do a full weekly shop, as it includes fresh produce, dairy and bakery goods not previously on offer, but it will mainly appeal to those already paying for Amazon Prime. One of its main benefits to Amazon may be to keep such customers locked into the company’s growing “ecosystem” – buying films, music and now groceries through the same route. Vanessa Henry at IGD says: “Amazon has expanded through organic growth in the US and is present in densely populated urban areas, where demand is highest. We expect Amazon to follow a similar strategy in the UK in the short term, which means that its impact on existing players will be limited. Over time Amazon could make an impact, but we don’t expect things to change overnight. For Amazon it will be more about driving loyalty and frequency of shop for its existing customers with the new service.” If the service takes off, however, one of our smallest supermarket chains could be a beneficiary. Andy Higginson, the chairman of Morrisons, says he has no idea if Fresh will be successful but he hopes to benefit from being introduced to a new kind of shopper – particularly in London, where the Bradford-based chain has few stores. “They have proved very determined in other parts of their business,” Higginson says. “If you are going to back any horse you would say Amazon is going to be a good one to put money on.”
UK will not block closer EU defence ties, says Boris Johnson Britain will not seek to obstruct greater European defence and foreign policy cooperation as it prepares to leave the EU, Boris Johnson has pledged. The foreign secretary said the UK was not bent on the destruction of the EU, and would not adopt a “dog in the manger” manager to disrupt member state cooperation if they continued to meet the goal of spending at least 2% of their GDP on defence. Other UK ministers have opposed greater EU defence integration, warning that it could represent a threat to the primacy of Nato. But Johnson said: “It is not part of our agenda to seek to undermine or to be dog in the mangerish about the EU. “There is a conversation going on now about the EU’s desire to build a strong common security defence policy. If they want to do that, fine. Obviously it would be important to get 2% spending on defence. But we are not there to block or impede further steps towards further EU integration if that is what they so desire.” Some Tory Eurosceptics have openly called for the EU to break up under the pressure of populist revolts in a succession of countries, but the Foreign Office is aware that such an aggressive stance could hamper Brexit negotiations with Brussels. Johnson gave a strong hint that he remained committed to leaving the EU customs union, saying the UK needed the capacity to strike its own trade deals and act as a “protagonist” for free trade. He said Theresa May’s previous remarks on the EU had “given a very clear picture of how we are going to proceed if you understand the working of the EU”. “We have already said we are going to cease to apply European law in this country – the judgments of the European court – and we will use this moment to do free trade deals, and be an agitator for global free trade,” Johnson said. “From those two points you can draw all the necessary conclusions about how we see the future.” It is widely accepted that if the UK stays inside the EU customs union, it cannot legally strike its own free trade deals with third parties. In a wide-ranging speech at Chatham House in London, quoting Robert Burns, Harry Potter, Lord Curzon, Talleyrand, Tolstoy and AJP Taylor, Johnson tried to present a picture of the UK as a continuing global player in spite of Brexit. In a central passage of his speech, he urged the rest of the world to interpret the EU referendum vote as a demand for democratic control, and not an as an expression of xenophobia or isolationism. He said too many people had tried to psychoanalyse the British vote to leave the EU, “imputing bad motives, with too many people too quick to draw comparisons with populist movements across the world”. He said: “Such glib analogies should not be allowed to replace individual analysis. Discontent can have subtly different wellsprings. There are plenty of people that voted to leave the EU not because they dislike or fear foreigners but because they believed in democracy and, after 43 years, they had not come to endorse the finalité politique of the EU. “It is my passionate belief there is no contradiction whatsoever between a trust in the nation state as the key building block of the global order, and a generous and open mindset to the rest of the world.” He said the UK would “refuse to be defined by this decision” and was fated to be outward looking. “The UK was defined a wanderlust of aid workers and journalists, traders diplomats and entrepreneurs. Whatever that feeling is, it is not xenophobia. “We are not some bit part, some spear carrier on the world stage, we are a protagonist running a truly global foreign policy.” He solicited the support of ambassadors in the Chatham House audience to refute claims he had told a group of foreign representatives at a breakfast this week that he favoured the free movement of people within the EU. He insisted he had told the group: “Important though that EU migration had been, we had to have control. I am a liberal internationalist. I believe immigration can do great things,” adding when he was London mayor he saw the strength and dynamism that immigration gave to the UK economy. With the US president-elect, Donald Trump, and the likely winner in the French presidential election, François Fillon, seeking closer ties with Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Johnson gave little ground, saying the new era must not be handed to strongmen opposed to liberal values. In dealing with Putin, he said, “you have got to be strong and you have got to be firm. People push and push and push until they meet a push back. So when it comes to sanctions or whatever, you have got to remain absolutely solid in what you are doing, and not be afraid to be so.” He also gave no ground on the longstanding British demand that President Bashar al-Assad stand down as part of a transition to political order in Syria. Trump has suggested he will allow Putin to keep Assad in power, and the near collapse of east Aleppo makes this outcome a near certainty. But Johnson said: “After five years of slaughter, Bashar al-Assad is responsible for the overwhelming majority of the 400,000 deaths. There are millions of people in that country who will not accept rule by him again, and the answer has got to be a political answer. “We have to move away from Assad’s rule and find another way that retains a future for Syria that retains a united country. With the best will in the world, I cannot see that happening under Assad.”
The view on Amazon grocery stores: the cost of convenience Amazon has made convenience king, offering shopping from your workplace, armchair, or even while commuting with a single click and delivery to your door, perhaps within the hour. Now it is trialling a queue-less, cashier-less grocery store. Sensors will track which items customers pick up and bill their account as they walk out. The benefit to those in a rush is obvious – but it means another lost opportunity for social contact, in the queue with fellow shoppers, with cashiers or the staff overseeing erratic self-checkouts. Such connections, fleeting as they are, can be life-saving for the chronically lonely and good for others too, reminding us that polite interaction matters as much as getting what we want this second. About a million older people go a month without speaking to a friend, neighbour or relative, and loneliness is linked to mental and physical health problems, imposing a broader social and economic strain. Researchers at the University of Hertfordshire this month suggested introducing checkout “slow lanes” for older people who may feel isolated. Amazon’s approach may make better business sense by appealing to our impatience, but it comes at a human cost.
José Mourinho’s Manchester United start: first impressions as club heads to China On Tuesday afternoon José Mourinho becomes the third manager in four summers to lead Manchester United on the club’s pre-season tour as they fly to China. The Portuguese follows David Moyes in July 2013 and Louis van Gaal in July 2014. Mourinho is confident he can be the man to take the club into a new era of sustained success following the fallow years after Sir Alex Ferguson’s retirement in 2013. Yet Van Gaal and Moyes, as they set off for Thailand and America respectively, also felt they could deliver glory. Below is a snapshot of where each manager was as his first tour began … 1 Itinerary DM 10 July–30 July Moyes’s sole summer trip was a three-continent, four-country, five-city slog that took in Thailand, Australia, Japan and China, and remains the longest in United’s history. The schedule was inherited from Ferguson and Moyes could have done without it as he grappled with succeeding a manager par excellence at one of the world’s largest clubs. As the former Everton man flew off with his new squad the issue of a disaffected Wayne Rooney loomed large and there was also an ageing defence to consider: two problems “bequeathed” him by his predecessor. And in Ed Woodward, Moyes also had a new executive vice-chairman who was a novice in the transfer market. LVG 18 July–4 August This was shorter in time but still took in California, Colorado, Washington DC, Michigan and Florida and had Van Gaal already complaining at his opening press conference in Pasadena before the curtain-raiser against LA Galaxy. The Dutchman’s mood was further soured by in-tour logistics he believed hampered his preparations. A prime illustration was Van Gaal being half an hour late for that media briefing at the Rose Bowl due to the team being located in a Beverly Hills hotel and having to fight gridlocked traffic out of the city. JM 19–26 July By United’s standards this is a lightning affair and Mourinho has Van Gaal to thank due to his predecessor’s unhappiness with the previous tour. United travel between only two cities – Shanghai and Beijing – and have only two games, against Borussia Dortmund on Friday and Manchester City on Monday. Conversely Mourinho added Saturday’s friendly at Wigan Athletic to the schedule because he felt Van Gaal’s build-up was a little light. 2 Expectation DM As the six-year contract Moyes signed with United suggests, his task in his first season was merely to show he could handle following Ferguson by ensuring the champions finished in a Champions League place. After 34 Premier League games Moyes was sacked, the Scot lasting a mere nine months. Welcomed as “The Chosen One” he left, in what is a cruel business, as “The Failed One”. LVG After the disastrous Moyes tenure Van Gaal’s initial challenge was to take United back into the Champions League. He did so at the end of 2014-15, in fourth place, but then fell down by overseeing elimination at the group stage of the competition and a fifth-place Premier League finish last season in a campaign that from December onwards was a long and difficult-to-watch stumble towards his sacking. Not even winning the club a 12th FA Cup in May could save him. JM When Mourinho began his second tenure at Chelsea in the summer of 2013 he was clear that winning the Premier League would be the aim for 12 months down the line (which he delivered). There has been no similar calming of expectation with United, so it seems fair to conclude the 53-year-old is targeting a 21st title for the club this season. If not, his side must be serious contenders in May or Mourinho has failed. 3 Transfers by time of tour DM Moyes can – and did – curse his luck that United’s chief executive, David Gill, also stepped down when Ferguson left as this left the inexperienced Woodward to work for him in the transfer market. The new manager was culpable of blunders, though, especially over the summer-long attempt to buy Leighton Baines and Marouane Fellaini as a package from his former club, Everton. All of this meant Moyes had no major new signings with him as United landed in Bangkok, none as they returned to Manchester three weeks later and, at the close of the window on 31 August, only Fellaini had arrived. But as there was no World Cup, Copa América or European Championship that summer, Moyes’s only absentees for the tour were due to injury. LVG As United flew into LAX Airport two years ago, Van Gaal had already acquired Luke Shaw and Ander Herrera so could have no complaints about Woodward, though this did not stop him moaning at the new arrivals for their play on tour. This was a World Cup summer but, as England were knocked out of Brazil 2014 in the group stage, Shaw plus Rooney and the rest of his international team-mates were present. The early recruitment of Herrera and Shaw kicked off a transfer window in which Ángel Di María, Radamel Falcao, Marcos Rojo and Daley Blind were also added. JM Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Eric Bailly and Henrikh Mkhitaryan were all signed by 6 July and Mourinho believes he has a good chance of buying Juventus’s Paul Pogba. This has to put several springs in the manager’s step as United fly out despite those players involved in Euro 2016 and the Copa América being absent. Ibrahimovic is one of those afforded further rest. 4 The Ferguson shadow factor DM Being Ferguson’s first choice proved an arsenic-dripping chalice once Moyes’s results went south. As he was the man who followed the man, the last thing the Glaswegian needed was to be backed by him. Furthermore United were reigning champions which made their plunge to the seventh place Moyes left the side in when sacked seem all the more dismal. LVG Ferguson’s shadow receded after Moyes’ failure and this allowed Van Gaal extra grace. Yet finishing fourth in the first season would never be enough to dissipate the Scot’s aura. What the Dutchman required was a title triumph. Instead United regressed into fifth position and Ferguson was again a key powerbroker in the club’s saga over appointing Mourinho. JM Until Mourinho – or anyone – claims that first league title since Ferguson’s 13th in 2013, the knight’s legacy will always hover over United. For the moment Ferguson may have been edged to the periphery by Woodward finally giving Mourinho the job, despite the Scot’s indifference to this decision. But fail like Moyes and Van Gaal and Mourinho will be gone, too – while the Ferguson legend will be even stronger. 5 Auguries as the tour plane was boarded DM Moyes’s unveiling was littered with declarations of faint-hearted “hope” regarding what his team would do. This may have been an attempt to respect Ferguson and the institution he was taking over but the result was the new man sounded cowed. It became the story of his tenure. LVG Van Gaal was the diametric opposite in his opening display. He was not daunted by the size of the club and came across as the archetypal chest-out, alpha-male manager United were desperate for. Yet the giveaway here was the one-eyed stance regarding the club’s commercial operation. His players liked him as a man but as a man-manager they found Van Gaal difficult to fathom and hard to play for. Dismal displays and results followed. JM Unlike Moyes and Van Gaal, Mourinho has squeezed a game in before United took off on Tuesday. Saturday’s 2-0 win at Wigan was largely academic apart from a telling caveat: the instant rapport between the away fans and Mourinho. Unlike the permanently seated Van Gaal, Mourinho virtually lives in the technical area so this allowed him to respond to their chants. His opening press conference was laced with what felt like a good blend of charm and pugnaciousness: again in contrast to his two predecessors. But, as always, all that matters is results. If he wins, he is doing all the right things brilliantly. If not, then…
Sun editor defends 'Queen backs Brexit' headline as watchdog rules it inaccurate The editor of the Sun has insisted that the Queen “strongly” believes the UK should leave the EU, despite a ruling by the press watchdog that his paper’s “Queen backs Brexit” headline was inaccurate. Tony Gallagher maintained that the paper had not made a mistake despite a ruling by the Independent Press Standards Organisation that the headline was “significantly misleading”. “Do I accept we made a mistake?” Gallagher told Radio 4’s Today programme on Wednesday. “In all conscience I don’t.” Asked if he had made a journalistic error in approving the headline, he said: “I don’t accept that we made an error at all. We made a judgment that the headline was right and that it was backed up by the story. “We knew more than we put in the public domain. The sources were so impeccable that we had no choice but to run the story in the way that we did.” He added: “I don’t think were I doing this again tomorrow I would act in any way differently whatsoever. Given what I know about the detail of the sourcing and given what I know about the detail of the conversation, frankly, we would be better packing up and going home as journalists if we didn’t actually put these things in the public domain.” Gallagher insisted the paper was right to run the story, saying: “We were in no doubt that the Queen’s views were strongly of the opinion she would want to leave the European Union.” Buckingham Palace complained to Ipso about the story, which was published on 8 March. It detailed an occasion when the Queen allegedly vented her anger with Brussels at the strongly pro-EU Nick Clegg during a lunch at Windsor Castle when he was deputy prime minister. The Ipso verdict – that the newspaper’s headline had breached clause 1 (accuracy) of the editors’ code of practice – was printed in an article on page two of Wednesday’s edition of the newspaper. The front-page article, which was headlined “Queen backs Brexit”, was described by the paper as an “exclusive bombshell”. Written by the Sun’s political editor, Tom Newton Dunn, it quoted “a senior political source” and “a highly reliable source” as saying that people who heard the conversation “were left in no doubt at all about the Queen’s views on European integration”. It said two unnamed sources had claimed that the Queen made critical comments about the EU at two private functions – first with Nick Clegg at a lunch for privy counsellors at Windsor Castle in 2011, and at a reception for MPs at Buckingham Palace. At the time, the former Liberal Democrat leader Clegg dismissed the report as “nonsense”, while the Palace said: “The Queen remains politically neutral, as she has for 63 years. “We will not comment on spurious, anonymously sourced claims. The referendum is a matter for the British people to decide.” The justice secretary and pro-Brexit campaigner, Michael Gove, refused to rule out being the source of the leak. The Sun said it stood by its story and planned to defend against the complaint “vigorously”. Ipso said that while the article itself did not breach the code, the headline did as it was “a factual assertion that the Queen had expressed a position in the referendum debate, and there was nothing in the headline, or the manner in which it was presented on the newspaper’s front page, to suggest that this was conjecture, hyperbole, or was not to be read literally”. Gallagher told Today on Wednesday: “The headline is only misleading if you exclude the words ‘bombshell claim over Europe votes’, which are in capital letters on the front page. I emphasise the word ‘claim’ … so they reached the ruling by disregarding those words.” The Sun’s article reporting the ruling – ordered by Ipso as a remedy for the inaccuracy – said: “Ipso acknowledged the importance of headlines in tabloid newspapers. “However, it did not follow from the comments the article reported that the Queen wanted the UK to leave the EU as a result of the referendum: that suggestion was conjecture and the committee noted that none of those quoted in the story were reported as making such a claim. “The headline was not supported by the text. It was significantly misleading – given that it suggested a fundamental breach of the Queen’s constitutional obligations.” The complaint was the first by a reigning monarch to the official press watchdog in the UK. The decision is also the first time Ipso has ruled on the newly-revised clause 1 of the editors’ code of practice, which makes specific reference to “headlines not supported by the text” as an example of inaccurate, misleading or distorted information. Commenting on the adjudication, Ipso chief executive Matt Tee said: “Clause 1 of the editors’ code was amended in January 2016 with specific reference to ‘headlines not supported by the text’. “The editors’ code committee clearly wanted Ipso to pay close attention to the use of headlines, something we have done in the period since the new code was issued. “The Sun’s headline was significantly misleading and represented a failure to take care not to publish inaccurate, misleading or distorted information.” He added: “Ipso will continue to carry out our work without fear or favour and will continue to support those who feel wronged by the press, whoever they are.” Evan Harris, joint executive director of press reform campaigners Hacked Off, said Ipso’s action was “grossly inadequate”. He said: “This ruling shows everything wrong with Ipso - it was a clear and obvious code breach but the remedy is grossly inadequate. “Millions of people read the false front page banner headline and they deserve to see the truth. But only a small proportion of them will read the adjudication to learn how they were misled, because the front page reference and the page 2 headline are both small and neither correct the record. “The burying of the adjudication on page 2, the absence of an actual correction and the absence of an apology all demonstrate that Ipso, like the PCC before them, strives to protect the newspapers that control them at the expense of the public interest. “The code requires ‘due prominence’ corrections and while the public think this should be ‘equivalent prominence’, Ipso thinks it means ‘buried inside prominence’.” Buckingham Palace declined to comment on the ruling.
New band of the week: Essaie Pas (No 87) Hometown: Montreal. The lineup: Marie Davidson (voice, keys), Pierre Guerineau (keys, production). The background: While the world waits for the return of LCD Soundsystem, you could always while away the time listening to the output of DFA, the label founded by James Murphy. Essaie Pas – French for, we think, “don’t try” – will be a godsend if you like pulsating electronic dance music past and present, from Sheffield to Dusseldorf and beyond: the dystopian synth-futurism of early Human League, Cabaret Voltaire circa Sensoria, Propaganda’s Teutonic lullabies, Giorgio Moroder’s theme from Midnight Express, the more recent darkwave disco of Xeno and Oaklander and Cold Cave. It is icily industrial with the sensual throb of techno. Something – possibly a reflex association with the letters in the DFA imprint’s name – brings to mind electro-brutalists DAF. Still, it’s not all hard body music and death by sequencer. There are ambient tones and atmospheric textures amid the rhythmic violence. According to DFA, Essaie Pas’ forthcoming album Demain Est une Autre Nuit (“Tomorrow Is Another Night”) was influenced by EBM and other acronymous dance music genres (IDM, say, although probably not EDM) as well as film soundtracks, with “sensually delivered lyrics exploring the themes of fantasies, obsessions, and the feeling of ‘the void’”. Punishing and propulsive, much of their music sounds as though it was designed for Sheffield nightclubs in 1981 or Berlin nightclubs in 1991. But it is also, as DFA say, often quite filmic, imbued with the intense shadowplay and faraway stares of French new wave cinema: you could easily imagine Marie Davidson and Pierre Guerineau, who are partners in and out of the studio, in a remake of Un Homme et une Femme – only with Francis Lai’s theme remixed by Throbbing Gristle. They’re clearly into French literature, too – there’s a track on the LP called La Chute, which Camus fans will “Fall” for (hur). As that quote above suggests, Essaie Pas are wonderfully pretentious, self-consciously arty, sublimely moody and intent on taking themselves very seriously indeed. We can’t recommend them highly enough. The buzz: “Darkly sexy.” The truth: They’re the new Gallic – with a tinge of Germanic – dance duo of the week. Most likely to: Add their voice to the sound of the crowd. Least likely to: Lose their edge. What to buy: Demain Est une Autre Nuit is released by DFA on 19 February. File next to: Xeno and Oaklander, Propaganda, Cold Cave, the Juan Maclean. Links: essaiepas.bandcamp.com. Ones to watch: Wyvern Lingo, Mothers, Dude York, Meeting By Chance, Jarryd James.
James Bond producer: Daniel Craig still first choice The team behind the James Bond films want actor Daniel Craig to return to the role, one of the producers had told the BBC. Speaking on Radio 4’s Today programme, executive producer Callum McDougall said Craig was “absolutely the first choice” of series producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G Wilson. “I know they’re hoping for him to come back,” said McDougall, who has worked on nine Bonds, including all of those on which Craig has worn the tuxedo: Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace, Skyfall and Spectre. Speculation has been intense about who might replace the actor, following his failure to commit to another instalment, the departure of Skyfall and Spectre director Sam Mendes – and Craig’s assertion that he’d “rather slash my wrists” than make another movie. Earlier this month it was reported that the producers had offered Craig $150m for two further movies; this figure was subsequently debunked by some. Other names anecdotally linked to the part include Tom Hiddleston, Idris Elba, Jamie Bell and Tom Hughes.
Artificial intelligence brings its brains and money to London Deep in the heart of Imperial College, London, a computer is learning how to play Pac-Man. Like many humans, it struggles to get the hang of the classic 1980s video game at first. With time though, experience helps it decide which manoeuvres will allow it to evade the clutches of a relentless gang of animated ghosts. This is just one of dozens of artificial intelligence (AI) projects slowly transforming the UK into the global hub for a technology that elicits fascination and fear in equal measure. The point of teaching a computer to master Pac-Man is to help it “think” and learn like a human. That is a prospect not everyone feels comfortable with. Fears have been voiced by scientists as eminent as Professor Stephen Hawking that computers could become so clever that they turn against their makers. Murray Shanahan, professor of cognitive robotics at Imperial, believes that while we should be thinking hard about the moral and ethical ramifications of AI, computers are still decades away from developing the sort of abilities they’d need to enslave or eliminate humankind and bringing Hawking’s worst fears to reality. One reason for this is that while early artificial intelligence systems can learn, they do so only falteringly. For instance, a human who picks up one bottle of water will have a good idea of how to pick up others of different shapes and sizes. But a humanoid robot using an AI system would need a huge amount of data about every bottle on the market. Without that, it would achieve little more than getting the floor wet. Using video games as their testing ground, Shanahan and his students want to develop systems that don’t rely on the exhaustive and time-consuming process of elimination – for instance, going through every iteration of lifting a water bottle in order to perfect the action – to improve their understanding. They are building on techniques used in the development of DeepMind, the British AI startup sold to Google in 2014 for a reported £400m. DeepMind was also developed using computer games, which it eventually learned to play to a “superhuman” level, and DeepMind programs are now able to play – and defeat – professional players of the Chinese board game Go. Shanahan believes the research of his students will help create systems that are even smarter than DeepMind. Both DeepMind and its successors involve “deep reinforcement learning” – giving computers the tools to draw conclusions based on large amounts of data, in the way that humans make assumptions based on experience. The potential applications are vast, from helping doctors diagnose patients to spotting faults in infrastructure such as transport networks – and other uses that even its inventors are yet to conceive of. But measuring progress in AI is not easy. The layperson usually cites the Turing test, developed by Bletchley Park codebreaker Alan Turing in 1950. It focuses on whether a computer can convince a human in a blind test that they are talking to another human. But that test, says Shanahan, is more about “tricking” people through mimicry than developing AI genuinely capable of learning. Nor does AI come down to the abilities of one machine in isolation. In another corner of the labyrinthine Imperial campus, researchers are working on a very different piece of the puzzle. Aerial robotics lecturer Dr Mirko Kovac and PhD student Talib Alhinai recently emerged triumphant from Drones for Good, the closest thing there is to a World Cup of drones. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), to give them their less sinister title, are controlled by humans so do not, in themselves, constitute AI. But Kovac says his drones could form part of whole AI towns, where basic services are performed by a web of AI-driven systems. His team’s most recent design was a UAV capable of identifying a leak in a gas or oil pipe and plugging it with polyurethane foam, which could spare a human engineer the time, effort and danger. A drone plugged into an AI network, he says, could in theory spot someone having a heart attack and call an ambulance. Kovac and his team have developed a valuable patent portfolio that could become a tasty morsel for a corporate giant investing in future technologies. With British universities producing this level of talent, it is no surprise that the DeepMind deal has been followed by further evidence that an AI industry is flourishing from an academic base. As well as the DeepMind takeover, London’s place at the intersection of business and academia has been highlighted by Microsoft’s $250m (£177m) takeover of predictive keyboard app SwiftKey, which started life at University College, London. The app’s ability to predict users’ next word – based on analysis of their writing style – has proved a worldwide hit. Uses for AI in big business – and therefore the potential for investment – are significant: a recent report by Bank of America Merrill Lynch estimated that the AI industry will be $70bn by 2020. Only last week, Royal Bank of Scotland unveiled Luvo, an AI system that will help call-centre staff answer customers’ questions more quickly and efficiently. And for businesses looking to take advantage of new technology, London colleges such as Imperial and UCL – coupled with Oxford and Cambridge – offer a trove of talent and ideas. This burgeoning network of academic excellence has attracted some of the world’s brightest minds, all keen to be part of an environment reminiscent of San Francisco’s web startup hub. “This is a scene where everyone knows each other. You can’t help being caught up in the excitement of it,’ says Shanahan. His PhD student Marta Garnelo is a regular attendee at London.AI, a weekly event where enthusiasts come for seminars and talks given by experts, followed by beer and pizza. London.AI was founded Alex Flamant and John Henderson, both of whom are involved in identifying startups with the potential to be the next big thing. Tickets cost £5 and all proceeds go to Code Club, a nationwide network of volunteer-led after-school coding clubs for children aged 9-11. Flamant says there are usually a few corporate talent-spotters at such events, which are the ideal place for talented young people to show off their skills. He is about to join venture capital firm Notion Capital, where he will specialise in identifying the next big thing in AI. “There’s nothing like London. If you have an idea and you want to get it funded, London’s the best place,” he says. “The grey matter is here, the money is here, the young passionate entrepreneurs from all over Europe are here. The legend of London.AI is that if you go there, you get acquired shortly after.” And just as Silicon Valley attracts the best talent from around the world, London’s AI ingenues have a global pedigree. Imperial’s students come from countries such as Greece, the UAE, Thailand, Spain and Iran, signalling the appeal London now has an academic centre of excellence in this field. But what is striking about these students is their awareness that their projects could one day become multimillion-dollar business propositions. “We’re part of something bigger than academia. We’re close to the market and we can interact with industry,” says Iranian post-doctoral student Feryal Mehraban Pour Behbahani. “It gives young people with ideas the feeling that they can pursue them. Now there’s a momentum that wasn’t there a couple of years ago.” Fellow post-doctoral student Anastasia Sylaidi, from Greece, agrees that the capital is the hot place to be for AI. “London is a startup hub and it’s interesting to be exposed to what’s happening in industry while you’re working in research.” These highly intelligent and articulate students are not here because they expect to become multimillionaires. But it’s hard to escape the feeling – in the wake of DeepMind and SwiftKey – that they if they want to, the door is open. CASE STUDIES One reason corporate behemoths are willing to spend so much money on artificial intelligence is that the global talent pool is still relatively limited. London has proved a particularly good hunting ground for Silicon Valley stalwarts ready to spend big on the most promising AI inventions and, most importantly, on the people who came up with them. DEEPMIND When Google spent £400m on machine-learning startup DeepMind, it was a ringing endorsement of the wealth of talent in London’s artificial intelligence scene. The firm was founded in 2010 by chess prodigy and neuroscientist Demis Hassabis with University College London colleague Shane Legg and Mustafa Suleyman. They are said to have turned down an offer from Facebook before agreeing to the Google deal, which was reportedly overseen personally by the company’s then chief executive, Larry Page. For Google, the deal was as much about acquiring the most talented brains in artificial intelligence as getting its hands on DeepMind’s technology. DeepMind is about reinforcement learning, or teaching computers to learn skills at the speed a human can. Google thinks this technology will become central to our lives. DeepMind’s creators would show it classic computer games, then find ways to help it learn to play them more quickly. Last October, DeepMind’s AlphaGo program became the first to defeat a professional player at Go, the traditional Chinese board game: it defeated European champion Fan Hui 5-0. This week it will take on Lee Sedol, who has been the world’s top Go player for a decade. SWIFTKEY The other big takeover of a British AI firm was Microsoft paying $250m for mobile-phone keyboard creator SwiftKey. Jon Reynolds and Ben Medlock, who founded the firm in 2008, reportedly pocketed $30m each. The price tag was extraordinary for a company that had just reported a fall in revenues, from £9.9m to £8.4m, after making its app free. But the appeal for Microsoft lay in the potential to export that technology to other parts of the empire. Microsoft wanted to integrate that technology with its own Word Flow keyboard app, and was prepared to pay top dollar for the privilege. SwiftKey is more than just an alternative keyboard: it uses high-quality predictive text, based on artificial intelligence, to suggest the word a user will type next, having analysed their writing style. The keyboard supports more than 100 languages and has been used by astrophysicist Stephen Hawking, for whom the company built a special tool to assist him in giving lectures. AI ON THE BIG SCREEN According to researchers at Imperial College, one of the most realistic cinema portrayals of artificial intelligence is the 2015 film Ex Machina, written and directed by Alex Garland. The film charts the efforts of a young programmer to assess the abilities of a humanoid AI system built by an eccentric scientist. What’s different about Ex Machina, they say, is that it offers a relatively accurate depiction of the long and laborious process of building and tweaking a robot, with the techniques and processes researchers are using today. AI is the process of building a machine that can learn, and replicate, human behaviour - Ex Machina details this in all its frustration and, admittedly, existential horror. AI has been around for a while in Hollywood: the prime example of film’s obsession with machines that think is Hal, the computer in 2001: A Space Odyssey. adapted from the novel by Arthur C Clarke, raised the prospect of humans being supplanted by machine intelligence, with the line, “I’m sorry Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that,” summing up a new human insecurity, as Hal refused to open the pod bay doors. The notion of an uncooperative robot was explored more comically in Douglas Adams’ Hitchhikers’ Guide To The Galaxy, which was also adapted for the big screen. Adams gave us Marvin, a robot with “a brain the size of a planet”, who also happened to be depressed. In 1999, The Matrix toyed with the difference between human and machine intelligence by posing the hypothetical question of whether human reality is just a construct built by machines to keep us quiet. And 2013’s Her explored the potential endgame of human interaction with machines, with its hero falling in love with a hyper-intelligent operating system.
Antonio Conte’s culture of unity on and off the pitch soothes Chelsea self-doubt Rewind, briefly, to the tipping point. Antonio Conte’s initial reaction to that heavy defeat at Arsenal back in September had been one of fury. He was livid, humiliated, crushed and, in the emotional heart-to-heart he conducted with his coaching staff, he questioned himself and the task he had taken on at Chelsea. It took a while for those emotions to simmer down and rational thought to return but then, as he surveyed the scene in the away dressing room, he recognised broken players still haunted by the trauma of underachievement last season, and realised something had to change. Now return to the present. Chelsea were rugged and resilient across the capital at Crystal Palace on Saturday and courtesy of their first headed goal of term, produced by Diego Costa just before the interval, secured a club record 11th league win in succession. A group of players who had been torn to shreds at the Emirates Stadium have achieved nine clean sheets in that sequence. If there had been initial doubts in the demands being placed upon them by a manager who insists upon total commitment, then they have allayed. These days, this team’s players are utterly convinced in their head coach’s philosophy and methods. To latch on to one of the Italian’s buzzwords, they clearly “work”. The celebrations conducted in front of the away support in the corner of the Arthur Wait stand were a show of unity and reflected a remarkable transformation. “To come here and take on Crystal Palace, this physical game and have the right behaviour, understand the way to win, to fight in the same way Palace do is not simple for me,” Conte said. “You can see players with great talent but also with great commitment, this will to fight for every ball. Something changed in me, in the players, in the club, with those defeats by Liverpool and at Arsenal. I like to win and to see my players have those two bad losses – we deserved two bad defeats – I had to try to find the right solutions on and outside the pitch. We had to show why we deserved to be better than last season.” Plenty has been made of the switch in formation, instigated at the interval at Arsenal when that contest had already been surrendered. Adopting three at the back has clearly been a masterstroke, even if it was a tactical tweak Conte had been reluctant to implement. “I knew our formation [a back four] wasn’t good to face Liverpool tactically, and we paid for this,” the manager said. “Also against Arsenal. I always had the will to change it but I waited until the right moment. I had players who had only played with four [in defence]. In the [recent] history of Chelsea, they had never played with three central defenders. To change that, you have to go slowly, slowly, to put the idea across.” The adaptation, in truth, has been smoother than he could possibly have imagined. Palace, who went into the weekend as the division’s fifth‑top scorers, rarely had a sight of goal, so stifled were they in their approach. Yet just as significant has been the atmosphere Conte has built within Chelsea to dissipate all the tension that lingered from last season’s desperate toils. He has succeeded in creating a more family-like atmosphere at the club, something akin to that generated by Carlo Ancelotti during his spell at Cobham. It was Conte who insisted the squad and coaching staff should go on relatively regular evenings out for group meals, whether at hip venues such as Nobu or at the manager’s adopted Italian eateries in town. There have been at least three such get-togethers since the limp defeat at Arsenal. As bonding exercises, they been beneficial. Then there has been his desire to weave himself into the fabric of a club that can, at times, appear an awkward blend thrusting together a highly paid playing squad, a slickly run commercial machine and an administrative staff who can go easily forgotten. Employees from Cobham and Stamford Bridge had gathered at the stadium’s music venue Under the Bridge, situated beneath the East stand, last Thursday for their Christmas party, with Conte having pre‑recorded a video message that was to be broadcast to those present. However, at some point over the course of the day, the manager determined such an impersonal appearance would be inadequate. Instead, he arrived at the event and addressed the room, thanking everyone for the part they have played in reinvigorating this club, over a two‑hour stay. That is only one relatively small example of a manager who sees the bigger picture – but cultivating that unity, removing all the “us and them”, is a skill. Conte had inherited a tense situation but by ensuring he is in no way aloof, he has ensured everyone feels in this together. Now, almost three months on, all that tension after the defeat by Arsenal, when Chelsea were gripped by self-doubt, has gone. This team suddenly seem unstoppable, their conviction swollen and the manager a man inspired. A Premier League record of 14 successive wins is very realistic. Times have changed for the better.
Artist publishes spoof photos despite fear of being sued by Trump Artist Alison Jackson has said that she chose to self-publish spoof photographs of Donald Trump as part of a protest against the potentially chilling effect a “litigious” president could have on artistic freedom. The celebrity lookalike specialist said she was warned by her lawyers against publishing the images, some of which feature a Trump lookalike in compromising situations, and that no book publisher was prepared to release a collection of the Trump images. Vanity Fair and the Mail Online have published some of the images. However, no publisher has shown some of the most politically sensitive pictures she has produced, including one in which a Trump character is depicted with members of the Ku Klux Klan and another where he is shown holding a rifle. “It is a little frightening. Nobody wants to end up in litigation with the president. But I find it outrageous that artists should be under threat from a president in the US,” Jackson said. “I wanted to publish photos that I wanted to shoot but it’s very difficult to get other publishers to publish a work if they feel any type of threat or if they are worried in any shape or form. I don’t even think it’s a question of taste … It’s legal.” Jackson self-published her book, Private, which was released at the end of October. Previously Penguin has published coffee table editions of her work featuring apparently intimate spoof pictures of the Royal family, Tony Blair and the Clintons as well as celebrities from the Beckhams to Kanye West. According to newspaper analysis during the election, Trump and his businesses had been involved in at least 3,500 legal actions over the past three decades. Since his election, Trump has spoken warmly of British libel laws. His wife, Melania, is currently suing the Daily Mail and a blogger for $150m (£119m) over allegations about her modelling career. Earlier this year, artist Illma Gore received thousands of death threats after her images of a naked Trump with a small penis went viral. The LA-based artist asked a London-based gallery to manage the sale of the painting but was threatened with legal action from an anonymous filing under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in the US if she sold the painting. Jackson was outraged by the case, comparing Gore to Ai Weiwei, the Chinese dissident artist arrested at Beijing airport in 2011 and held for 81 days without charge. “Of course I’m worried about being sued,” said Jackson. “It is horrifying to find out that you could be sued by a president,” she said. “But that is better that not being able to work.” Some of Jackson’s images of Trump are explicit – one depicts the US president-elect having sex with Miss Mexico in the Oval Office. “If we start compromising artistic freedom, that’s not a happy place,” said Jackson. “Whether it’s artists or cartoonists or satirists, there has to be free and radical thinking. Without that we get into the realms of dictatorship.” The British artist said she has never faced legal threats before. “This is a whole new arena,” she said, pointing out that increased scrutiny was part of being in the public domain. “Isn’t it unprecedented to think that a president would take legal action?” As part of her preparations, Jackson staged a fake presidential cavalcade in New York with the fake Trump and scantily clad “first ladies” ahead of his election. The exercise quickly created a scene, she added. Jackson said: “The ‘Trump’ in NY was extraordinary and I nearly didn’t do it at all as everyone was so frightened of what might happen.” Despite being stopped several times by the police, members of the public formed “flash mobs”, which meant that the police “ended up escorting us to the Trump Tower.” All kinds of artistic endeavour, from the cast of the Hamilton musical to Saturday Night Live have also come under fire from Trump directly. Most recently the Saturday Night Live sketch starring Alec Baldwin which imagined the president elect constantly tweeting unknown teenagers and possible bigots while in the middle of a security briefing provoked Trump who tweeted: Forced to consider the threat of legal action by her lawyers, who have never given such warnings before, Jackson said she had to fight against self-censorship. “It makes you frightened, it makes you put the brakes on and that is very worrying.” She admits that she will probably “think very carefully” about future work. “I don’t want to be sued and I really don’t want to be sued by the next US president.”
EasyJet in talks with regulators to continue flying in the EU EasyJet has applied to a number of European countries for authorisation to fly throughout Europe following the UK’s vote for Brexit, but the airline said it had no plans to move its headquarters from Britain. The budget carrier said it has had talks with regulators outside the UK about gaining an air operator certificate (AOC). If Britain lost access to the European aviation market, an AOC from another EU country would let easyJet continue to fly across Europe while its UK certificate would enable it to fly domestic routes. If the UK secures access to the single market in talks then easyJet’s position would be unchanged. EasyJet said it was planning for all outcomes following last week’s Brexit vote and that it would not decide what to do until Britain’s relationship with the EU was cleared up. It already has a Swiss AOC as well as a British one, as Switzerland is not in the EU. To gain an AOC would require easyJet to post a handful of employees at most in the country in question, a spokesman said. Whatever it decides to do, easyJet’s head office and about 1,000 employees there would remain at Luton airport, the spokesman added. Carolyn McCall, easyJet’s chief executive, has told other business leaders it is almost inevitable that the company will move its headquarters, Sky News reported. But the spokesman said such a move would be a technical matter that would not affect day–to–day operations. The company said: “As part of easyJet’s contingency planning before the referendum we had informal discussions with a number of European aviation regulators about the establishment of an AOC in a European country to enable easyJet to fly across Europe as we do today. “EasyJet has now started a formal process to acquire an AOC. We have no plans to move from Luton – our home for 20 years.” The company’s shares have fallen sharply this week after easyJet warned on Monday that consumer caution following the Brexit vote was likely to add to existing problems such as cancelled flights and concern about terrorist attacks. EasyJet said it was lobbying the EU and the UK to keep access to the free market.
European far right hails Brexit vote Europe’s far-right parties have rejoiced at the UK’s vote to leave the European Union, hailing it as a victory for their own anti-immigration and anti-EU stances and vowing to push for similar referendums in countries such as France, the Netherlands and Denmark. France’s Front National (FN) hailed Brexit as a clear boost for Marine Le Pen’s presidential bid next spring, as well as a move that gave momentum to the party’s anti-Europe and anti-immigration line. “Victory for Freedom! As I have been asking for years, we must now have the same referendum in France and EU countries,” Le Pen wrote on Twitter. A jubilant Le Pen delivered a Brexit victory speech from her party’s headquarters outside Paris, styling the UK referendum result as just the start of an unstoppable new wave of support for parties and movements like the Front National. “The UK has begun a movement that can’t be stopped,” she said. Le Pen swiftly changed her social media handles to the Union flag and stated her “warmest and friendliest” congratulations to “very brave” Boris Johnson and the leave campaign. Specially printed Front National Brexit posters showed hands breaking free from chains, with the caption “Now it’s France’s turn”. Le Pen, who has been calling for a French EU referendum for three years and is expected to comfortably reach the final round of the presidential election in April, had seized on the UK’s EU referendum to bolster her critical stance on the bloc and on Brexit as a new opportunity for the far right to win over new French voters. She has said that if if she wins the French presidency, she will within six months hold an in-out referendum on the country’s membership of the union and campaign for a French exit, or “Frexit”. “Europe will be at the heart of the next [French] presidential election” Le Pen said. Brexit, she said, was also about a wider resurgence of what she called “patriotic” movements across Europe. On Friday many of those movements – rightwing, far-right, and Eurosceptic parties – appeared similarly emboldened and energised by the Brexit vote. In the Netherlands, the far right and anti-immigration leader Geert Wilders called for a referendum on Dutch membership of the EU. “I think it’s historic,” he told Dutch radio. “I think it could also have huge consequences for the Netherlands and the rest of Europe. Now it’s our turn. I think the Dutch people must now be given the chance to have their say in a referendum.” In Germany, Beatrix von Storch, an MEP for the rightwing populist party Alternative für Deutschland, welcomed the result. “The 23 June is a historic day. It is Great Britain’s independence day. The people were asked – and they decided. The European Union as a political union has failed,” said Storch, who was recently expelled from the Tories’ party group in the European parliament after suggesting German police might be within their rights to shoot refugees trying to cross the border. The far right Sweden Democrats, meanwhile, who hold the balance of power in Stockholm, tweeted: “Congratulations to Britain’s people on choosing independence! Now we are waiting for a #swexit!” The powerful far-right Danish People’s party congratulated the British people on their “bold” choice, which, it said, was a “stinging slap to the whole system”. The DPP’s spokesperson Kenneth Kristensen Berth told Danish media: “These European bureaucrats have been unusually adept at avoiding any possible confrontation with the massive popular opposition to the project. The [British] signal cannot be overheard.” The DPP has said it wants a Danish referendum on less binding conditions of EU membership. But Denmark’s centre-right prime minister, who relies on the support of the DPP to prop up his minority administration, said there would be no such plebiscite. In Athens, Golden Dawn, Europe’s most violent rightwing party, rejoiced at the referendum result. Predicting it would further empower “nationalist forces” across Europe, the neo-fascist group welcomed what it described as “the brave decision of the British people” and said it hoped a similar referendum could take place in Greece. “Golden Dawn welcomes the victory of the nationalist and patriotic forces in Great Britain against the European Union, which has been transformed into the doleful instrument of loan sharks,” said the party’s leader Nikolaos Michaloliakos. Debt-stricken Greece, the eurozone’s weakest link and until now most volatile member state, has been bailed out three times since 2010. “I hope that sometime a referendum can be held in Greece, which has been brought to its knees economically and enslaved, assigning its national sovereignty to the Europe of usurers,” the leader, an ardent admirer of Adolf Hitler, added. Amid signs of growing anti-European sentiment in the country, there are fears that Golden Dawn, currently Athens’ third biggest political force, will be bolstered on the back of anger over a new round of gruelling tax increases, wage and pension cuts expected to kick in this year. In other parts of Europe the reaction even among Eurosceptics was more measured. Italy’s anti-establishment Five Star Movement, which won a remarkable 25% of the vote in the 2013 national election and this month gained new momentum when its candidates were elected mayors of Rome and Turin, reacted to the Brexit vote with a lengthy critique of Brussels. The EU should change or else it would die, said the movement, which has been demanding a referendum on the single currency for years. “The Leave of the United Kingdom sets forth the failure of political communities facing austerity, and the egotism of the member states, incapable of being a community … We want a Europe which is a ‘community’ and not a union of banks and lobbies,” said the party, writing on the blog of founder Beppe Grillo. Additional reporting by Philip Oltermann in Berlin, Gordon Darroch in the Hague, David Crouch in Gothenburg, Helena Smith in Athens and Rosie Scammell in Rome
Gino Pozzo’s smooth ownership of Watford hits a bump in the Vicarage Road Last year, on the occasion of Watford’s promotion to the Premier League, Gino Pozzo gave Troy Deeney a watch. Not just any watch either, a Rolex, which the club’s owner presented to the striker in acknowledgement of a great achievement: scoring 20 goals in three consecutive seasons. “Since Troy did not get the trophy for player of the year from the Football League, I hope this compensates,” Pozzo told the club’s end-of-season dinner. “I have been a bit surprised by the lack of recognition for the hard work our guys have done this season. Since we don’t get the recognition from this league, I think we had better stay up.” Pozzo might well find himself muttering the same words today. Watford are under investigation by the English Football League for the alleged use of a falsified document, relating to a letter allegedly supplied when Pozzo assumed full ownership of the club from his father, Giampaolo, in 2014. A guilty verdict would likely result in a fine. There is no indication the Pozzo family were aware of the letter. Such a development is a rare bumpy moment in an otherwise serene journey up the football ladder for Watford since Pozzo Jr took over. Indeed, success has been a hallmark throughout the 51‑year‑old’s career, during which time he has carved himself a reputation as one of the most forward-thinking but also interventionist owners in football. Often described as the brains of the Pozzo clan, and hailed by Udinese’s head of recruitment Andrea Carnevale as “the best owner in the world”, Gino graduated from Harvard before becoming involved in the Serie A club, the family’s first footballing purchase, in 1993. His time at the Friulani coincided with a decision to implement a meticulous global scouting system that soon became the envy of the world, unearthing players such as Alexis Sánchez, Medhi Benatia and Kwadwo Asamoah. It was also the son who persuaded his father to expand the family’s football portfolio with the purchase of Granada in 2009. Then stuck in the third tier of Spanish football and burdened by debt, within three years under the Pozzos the club had made it to La Liga and profitability. The same pattern has been evident during Gino’s time at Watford. His first season in sole charge brought promotion to the Premier League. Last term the club stayed up with ease and enjoyed a run to the FA Cup semi-finals. This year they sit in the top half of the Premier League table and have a win over Manchester United to their credit. Pozzo is based in England, having relocated from Barcelona with his Catalan wife after his move from Granada. He works out of Watford’s Vicarage Road offices and their training ground that sits next door to Arsenal’s in the Hertfordshire countryside of Colney. This already sets him apart from many owners in the Premier League, but his day-to-day involvement in the club goes far deeper than just the location of his desk and he has been personally involved in decisions that have surprised many in football. When Pozzo arrived at Watford he gave a rare interview in which he boasted that his family, contrary to Italian type, “always create stability around a manager”. In their promotion season, however, Watford went through four managers: Guiseppe Sannino, Óscar García, Billy McKinlay and Slavisa Jokanovic. García resigned because of illness but McKinlay was sacked by Pozzo after just eight days and Sannino left less than a month into the season after winning four of the club’s five league games. Rumours of discord in the dressing room abounded but there was a competing story; that Pozzo had struck after studying the training data and finding Watford’s players ran less than anyone at their sister clubs. More recently, Quique Sánchez Flores was removed this summer despite the club enjoying such a successful return to the top flight. Then there are the transfers. Gino Pozzo takes personal charge of overseas player recruitment at Watford and on his arrival made clear that he thought recruitment should not be the preserve of a manager. “If you are looking at the long term, especially in a smaller club,” he told the Watford , “you want to retain as much knowledge on how to recruit a player as possible. If you only give that to a manager, then once the manager leaves he leaves with all that knowledge. It is not the club’s knowledge.” That the club, or rather the family, are in possession of a lot of knowledge is well-known and evident by their subsequent activity. In the first year of Pozzo family ownership in 2012-13 Watford brought in 14 loan players, several from the sister clubs, in an act that prompted the Football League to change its rules on loans the following summer. Inter-Pozzo transfers have continued over the years, including Odion Ighalo from Granada and, this summer, Isaac Success, who made a £12.5m transfer from the Spanish side at the same time as the club transferred ownership to a Chinese investment group. There have been other deals which have seen players acquired by Watford and immediately loaned out to the continent, such as Venezuelan prodigy Adalberto Peñaranda, currently at Udinese, who has now been on the rosters of five different clubs at the ripe old age of 19. Other business has been even more unusual, one such being the summer 2014 signing of Juanfran. The Spaniard was bought from Real Betis for a hardly earth-shattering £1.7m but was loaned out in the very same window to Deportivo La Coruña for two years. This summer, at the end of that deal, the Spanish club bought the defender for just under £3m. Since their arrival in the UK the Pozzo family have managed to steer clear of the spotlight (Gino has given only three interviews to the media in four years). But with this week’s allegations that looks likely to change. Their model of ownership, however, looks very much set for the long term.
As football ticket prices soar, clubs pocket millions – no wonder fans are walking out The Liverpool fans who walked out of Anfield on Saturday in protest at proposed ticket price increases reflect the wider discontent of football supporters across the country, who see clubs making millions from TV revenues while they pay more at the gate season after season. In an ideal world, the extra millions coming into the game from next year’s TV deal should be good news for the whole of our game but in reality, talk of trickle-down, extra cash for the grassroots and the strengthening of our national game is the same spin that the Premier League has put on every TV deal since it was formed, 1992. The reality is that the 20 clubs in the Premier League gorge themselves at the table heavily laden with TV cash paid for by supporters’ subscriptions while fans are asked to pay more, often much more, to watch the game they love. No wonder supporters are protesting. Ground walkouts are significant, but are they enough? Liverpool’s owners may have agreed to a price freeze this time, but those holding the purse strings don’t have to listen to protests when they can fill grounds with more affluent fans willing and able to afford the increasing prices. The FA is not going to act. The interests of owners of just 20 clubs now effectively control the strategic direction of our national game. Rising ticket prices and fans being treated as an afterthought is a failure of regulation. You cannot blame these 20 owners for looking after themselves. It’s what they do. The FA has failed in its role as guardian of the game. The advent of the Premier League was supposed to hail a new era of success for English football, but the reality has been stagnation in development of talent and deepening exploitation of supporter loyalty. Effective regulation would see the TV revenue invested in developing the structure of the game and subsidising match ticket costs – creating pathways for playing talent on the field while nurturing the next generation of fans too. Many fans have started to take matters into their own hands. Seeing their clubs moving further and further away from the ordinary supporter, they have set up their own clubs under supporter ownership or have walked away from top-flight football altogether to follow the non-league game. Non-league football is more affordable and supporters generally feel closer to the action on and off the pitch. The quality on offer in the lower leagues is better than you might think. And, when you have a stake in your club, the excitement and involvement is much more apparent. Nowhere is this more the case than where clubs are owned by supporters themselves. Thanks to AFC Wimbledon, Exeter City, Portsmouth and Swansea’s Swans Trust, fans have some successful examples as they begin to gain a meaningful stake in a growing number of clubs. A toe-hold has become a foothold. At FC United we celebrated 10 years as a supporter-owned club last year with the opening of our own ground. Our aim is to build a club model that is responsive to fans’ concerns and we have worked hard to create suitable vehicles for raising serious amounts of funds for the club too. Our ticket prices are affordable. It’s just £9 for an adult to watch a game, £5 for concessions and £2 for under-18s. Our pay-what-you-can-afford season ticket scheme has seen us sell more season tickets this season than ever before. Our average attendances are up by 65% on last season and we have 5,300 members, the largest of any supporter-owned club in the country. Involving supporters in the running of the game and owning your own club works. Crucially it is the fan ownership aspect – ordinary football supporters doing extraordinary things – that has made the difference and got us to where we are today. It has been recognised by many as offering a real alternative to the way football is run and financed. With half of our new ground’s cost of £6.3m raised by ordinary supporters, we have proved the power of fan ownership. Our success has been based on creating social impact backed by a solid business plan. Social investment is not just about a financial return it’s also about empowering local communities through strengthening involvement in the things that are important in people’s lives. The alternative to rising ticket prices and fans being priced out of the game is supporter ownership and tighter regulation. At the end of the day, it is about priorities. In whose interests should the game be run? Our priorities at FC United and at other supporter-owned clubs are fans and the wider community, not raising profits and increasing market share.
Bowie's album cover designer tells of the 'finality' of his Blackstar cover The designer of David Bowie’s Blackstar album cover has explained the reasoning behind its stark appearance. “This was a man who was facing his own mortality,” Jonathan Barnbrook told the design magazine Dezeen. “The Blackstar symbol [★], rather than writing ‘Blackstar’, has as a sort of finality, a darkness, a simplicity, which is a representation of the music.” Barnbrook, who also designed Bowie’s covers for Heathen, Reality and The Next Day, as well as the Nothing Has Changed series of compilations, said the use of abstract shapes was a development from the controversial cover for Bowie’s previous album, The Next Day, and the black star itself referred to Bowie’s awareness of his own mortality. “The idea of mortality is in there, and of course the idea of a black hole sucking in everything, the Big Bang, the start of the universe, if there is an end of the universe,” he said. “These are things that relate to mortality.” Even the vinyl version of the cover, with the star cut from the sleeve, referred back to mortality: “The fact that you can see the record as a physical thing that degrades, it gets scratched as soon as it comes into being, that is a comment on mortality too.” Barnbrook also spoke about his working relationship with Bowie, and the singer’s interest in cover design. “He understood the value of the image on a record cover, when other people had forgotten about it,” Barnbrook said. “We had a renaissance in the 1970s and 1980s of album covers because the format of vinyl, but then it dropped when CDs were introduce. There are still good record/CD covers around, but a lot of time nowadays the cover just had to be ‘nice’, it wasn’t a thing that provoked discussion, our covers wanted to have that discussion again. Some people hated them, some people really liked them.” He revealed that Sony, Bowie’s label, had been unhappy with the cover for The Next Day, which featured the cover of his 1977 album “Heroes”, with Bowie’s face obscured by a white square on which was printed the album’s title. “They were quite shocked with the cover, and they were pretty sure that it wasn’t going to work,” he said. “It actually became a very successful viral campaign.”
Football transfer rumours: Leicester's N'Golo Kanté to Real Madrid? Say it ain’t so, N’Golo! Today’s edition of Google Translate says that N’Golo Kanté will begin the break-up of Leicester’s league-winning team by moving to Real Madrid. Kanté will follow other Feeder League stars of the past 15 years – Ronaldo, Alonso, Beckham, Gravesen – and serve as a replacement for Claude Makélélé, just 13 years after Madrid sold him in an act of egregious hubris. But he also has the option of going to Paris Saint-Germain, should he so wish. Real Madrid’s coach, future Bond villain Zinedine Zidane, also wants the occasional genius of Eden Hazard. He’ll offer £40m plus human pawn Álvaro Morata. While they’re getting rid of Belgians, Chelsea will also consider offers in excess of sanity for Thibaut Courtois. According to Mundo Deportivo, new Manchester United manager José Mourinho will do anything for Neymar. Even that. In the new series of Surprise Surprise, Jürgen Klopp will be reunited with Dortmund defender Neven Subotic. Backstage, Sam Allardyce and Mark Hughes will grumble about how they wanted Subotic first. Allardyce is one of 472 men touted for the England job in today’s papers, a list that also includes Arsène Wenger, Glenn Hoddle, Jürgen Klinsmann, Laurent Blanc, Luiz Felipe Scolari, Steve Bruce, David Beckham, Gareth Keenan, Richie Aprile, Jeffrey Lebowski and Jessica Fletcher. Wenger has reportedly “refused to rule out” a move for Lyon striker Alexandre Lacazette, a stance the Arsenal manager determinedly maintained even when being tortured via the medium of cattle prod by impatient hacks in need of a scoop to partially justify their existence. Crystal Palace want Christian Benteke. Liverpool want £30m. As you were. Napoli want the artist formerly known as Radamel Falcao. Pep Guardiola is still desirous of John Stones, and will offer Manchester City misfit Wilfried Bony as part of a potential deal, but only if Everton sell Romelu Lukaku first. Newcastle’s attempt to return whence they came will be aided by the signings of Dwight Gayle from Crysal Palace and Matt Ritchie from Bournemouth, though Andros Townsend is likely to do one, possibly to Palace. Some final bits and bobs: Japan striker Takuma Asano says he has been approached by Arsenal; West Brom would like Atlético Madrid’s Borja Baston, and their interest will spark an unlikely friendship between Tony Pulis and Diego Simeone that will eventually manifest itself in an offbeat buddy movie directed by Shane Black and called Two Banks of Four; and Norwich want to make Sunderland’s unwanted striker Steven Fletcher feel wanted.
The Stone Roses: All For One review – lacking the stardust of the band's peak The message from the band wasn’t exactly overflowing with detail: “The Stone Roses will release a new single tonight at 8pm,” it said. Well, they always could be a bit terse. Yet it said enough. After the Twitter rumours, the snaps of band members hurriedly entering Paul Epworth’s north London recording studio and a series of lemon posters erected in their hometown of Manchester, we’re finally here: All For One is the first new material from the Stone Roses in 21 years. And on paper, it has plenty of Roses touchstones: psychedelic vocals, a brilliant Squire solo that doesn’t overstay its welcome and a lyrical theme of solidarity – “All for one, one for all/If we all join hands we’ll make a wall” – that harks back to their rave roots. It’s surprisingly rocking – Reni’s drums flinging it along at a frantic, clattering pace – and the chorus will be bellowed loudly in fields by many a middle-aged man this summer. But the Stone Roses were never about ticking off points on a checklist. What made them such a life-changing force was how far beyond the sum of their parts they could venture – giving their simple melodies both a depth and a featherlight grace that wasn’t replicable by their countless imitators. In truth, this feels more like an imitation than the real thing – it has the swagger but it’s heavy handed too, toiling away like a bog-standard Britpop rocker. It’s a disappointment only because of what the band once were. To this day, their self-titled debut album remains one of the most perfect statements ever made in British pop music, marking a point where classic 60s-inspired songwriting collided with the stardust-sprinkled headrush of acid house’s second summer of love. But by its follow up, 1994’s muso-leaning Second Coming, their magic seemed to have dissipated. For that reason, many fans were anxious about the release of new material in 2016. After all, if they could make that much of a mess of things in five years, god knows what they might do given 20. After a handful of listens, All For One doesn’t sound like the reputation-shredding disaster some feared. It will please the Madchester faithful, who don’t require a fresh take on what these musicians are about, but rather something that, on the surface at least, could slot neatly onto a Shine compilation from the era. But for those who crave the magic of the band at their peak, the wait goes on.
Jewish employee of Trump's son-in-law writes open letter over antisemitism row A Jewish employee of a newspaper owned by Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law, has written an open letter to Kushner accusing him of “tacit approval” for a culture of antisemitic hatred surrounding Trump, and challenging Kushner to do something to break it up. Dana Schwartz, an entertainment writer at the , wrote “An Open Letter to Jared Kushner, From One of Your Jewish Employees” on Tuesday. The is a New York City-based paper that Kushner, the billionaire scion of a real estate family, bought in 2006. Schwartz writes that she became a target of antisemitic hate speech after she took issue with a Trump tweet posted Saturday that included an image that Paul Ryan, the House speaker, on Tuesday called “antisemitic”. Schwartz challenges Kushner as a fellow Jewish member of the media to face what is happening in the barely concealed underbelly of his father-in-law’s campaign. “I’m asking you, not as a ‘gotcha’ journalist or as a liberal but as a human being: how do you allow this?” writes Schwartz: Because, Mr Kushner, you are allowing this ... But when you stand silent and smiling in the background, his Jewish son-in-law, you’re giving his most hateful supporters tacit approval. Because maybe Donald Trump isn’t anti-Semitic. To be perfectly honest, I don’t think he is. But I know many of his supporters are, and they believe for whatever reason that Trump is the candidate for them. Trump’s eldest daughter, Ivanka Trump, converted to Judaism to marry Kushner in 2009. Kushner has played an increasingly high-profile role in Trump’s campaign, participating at a high level in the decision last month to fire the former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, among other decisions. Kushner responded to the letter in a statement late Tuesday. “My father-in-law is an incredibly loving and tolerant person who has embraced my family and our Judaism since I began dating my wife,” the statement said. “I know that Donald does not at all subscribe to any racist or anti-semitic thinking. I have personally seen him embrace people of all racial and religious backgrounds. The suggestion that he may be intolerant is not reflective of the Donald Trump I know.” The controversy began when Trump tweeted an image of Clinton with a rain of cash behind her and the words “most corrupt candidate ever” inside a six-pointed star. A short time later, the tweet was deleted and reposted with a circle replacing the star. Though the original image was deleted, Trump did not apologize for it, or admit that it was derogatory, instead claiming that the star was a “sheriff’s star, or plain star”. The Trump campaign’s social media director, Dan Scavino, also tried his hand at cleaning up the mess, saying that he had lifted the image from an online source but it wasn’t hate speech and he would never offend anyone. (The image in Trump’s original tweet was traced by Mic to a white supremacist message board.) The explanations, wrote Schwartz in her public letter, were “inane” and “condescending”. “Look at that image and tell me, honestly, that you just saw a ‘Sheriff’s star,’” writes Schwartz. “I didn’t see a sheriff star, Mr. Kushner, and I’m a smart person. After all, I work for your paper.” She continued: The worst people in this country saw your father-in-law’s message and took it as they saw fit. And yet Donald Trump in his response chose not to condemn them, the anti-Semites who, by his argument were obviously misinterpreting the image, but the media. In the letter, Schwartz shares screen grabs of antisemitic hate speech that confronted her after she objected to the image online. They referred to ovens, invited Schwartz to kill herself, and used images of Anne Frank and other Jewish caricatures. Schwartz notes that Trump’s campaign has a way of attracting “hateful individuals”, and challenges Kushner to imagine his own family as the target: Mr. Kushner, I invite you to look through all of those images in the slideshow above, the vast majority sent in your father-in-law’s name. Right now, this hate is directed to one of your employees, but the message applies equally to your wife and daughter.
Former trader Jérôme Kerviel wins unfair dismissal case A French tribunal has ordered Société Générale to pay €450,000 in damages for unfairly firing the rogue trader Jérôme Kerviel, whose unauthorised trades spiralled into massive losses in 2007 and 2008 and almost bankrupted one of Europe’s biggest banks. Kerviel, 39, whose deals lost the bank €4.9bn (£3.82bn), sued for wrongful dismissal and the tribunal agreed. It ruled he was fired “without real or serious cause” and that the bank had full knowledge of his shady dealings long before he was fired in 2008. The judgment – described in France as spectacular – is the first positive verdict for Kerviel in his eight-year battle to throw the spotlight back onto the bank which he claims was well aware of his trading which initially generated profits before going wrong. The Kerviel case was one of the biggest bank trading scandals in history but he maintained that he was just one cog in a rotten machine and had been made a scapegoat for the bank’s whole system. In October 2010, Kerviel was sentenced to three years in jail after being convicted by a Paris court of breach of trust and fraud in the loss of €4.9bn in equity derivatives trades that went wrong in 2008. He was released in September 2014, with an electronic bracelet, after spending less than five months in prison. Kerviel continues to claim his superiors knew what was going on and deliberately turned a blind-eye as long as the profits kept rolling in. The bank has insisted it was not aware of his actions. SocGen’s lawyer, Arnaud Chalut, said the employment tribunal ruling for unfair dismissal was “scandalous” and the bank would appeal against a decision that he said ran counter to the law. Kerviel’s lawyer David Koubbi told Reuters that the tribunal’s decision “restores justice and tears apart the story that Société Générale has presented from the beginning”. The public image of Kerviel, who came from a working-class family in a small town in Brittany before working his way up at the bank, has gradually been transformed from villain to a kind of folk hero fighting against the power of the banking world. Before his prison term, he met the Pope and walked from Rome to France in a kind of pilgrimage against the excesses of the financial system. A separate civil case is due to open this month before an appeals court to decide how much Kerviel has to pay the bank towards the losses. He had initially been ordered to pay €4.9bn in damages to the bank, the full trading loss, but that was overturned. French investigators are also currently weighing Kerviel’s request for a retrial of the criminal case. Kerviel mounted a fresh legal challenge after Nathalie Le Roy, the police officer who led the Kerviel investigation in 2008 and 2012, last year expressed concerns about how she was pressured to focus solely on evidence that would incriminate him, and said Kerviel’s superiors must have known what he was doing. The financial police contested her account.
Everton’s James McCarthy off at Crystal Palace in limp goalless draw It is probably just as well these clubs have FA Cup semi-finals on the horizon to enthuse them because, at present, there is precious little joy for either to be had in the Premier League. The point secured here was arguably a minor triumph for Everton, a team whose top-flight form has rather collapsed of late, given they played most of the second period a man down. Even so, both these sides are staggering towards an unsatisfactory conclusion to the campaign. Roberto Martínez, perhaps inevitably, would disagree but his insistence that the timing of his team’s performance had been “perfect” felt rather baffling. Admittedly there was much to admire in their rugged refusal to wilt when Crystal Palace finally built up a head of steam late on. The goalkeeper, Joel Robles, was outstanding and the centre-half pairing shielding him were stubborn and effective. “It’s great to see we’re learning from hard lessons,” Martínez said, “and to keep a clean sheet and manage the game in that way was perfect timing. It’s now you want to hit your top level. You want to shine in the last few weeks of the season and we showed the solid approach today.” Yet, given this was a contest between teams who now have four league wins between them from 26 games in 2016, to hear him lavishing such praise on the display was more a reflection of Everton’s recent lull. His team had offered flashes of their threat as Ross Barkley struck the crossbar from distance, might have won a penalty when Séamus Coleman was tripped, and tested Wayne Hennessey throughout the first period. But their approach was undermined by James McCarthy’s dismissal for fouls on Jason Puncheon and Yannick Bolasie to ensure the last 38 minutes became an exercise in concentration. There is probably no easier team in the division to nullify with depleted numbers, though, than this gummy Palace lineup. It was the sight of the hosts’ substitutes combining nine minutes from time that best summed it all up. Emmanuel Adebayor rose gracefully above his marker on the corner of the six-yard box and nodded down for Connor Wickham with Everton momentarily out of shape and there for the taking. The opportunity seemed easier to take than miss, only for Wickham to mistime a swipe with his right foot and scuff the ball on to his standing leg. The majority inside the arena howled in frustration, though they will have recognised the profligacy. Palace’s approach play can be exhilarating but there is no consistent bite with which to capitalise. Alan Pardew pointed to the rustiness affecting Wickham, recently back from a thigh complaint, and Dwight Gayle. Adebayor, too, has been struggling for fitness and he guided a series of late headers wide. Puncheon might also have added to Saturday’s much-needed winner against Norwich City, but the zip had gone from Palace’s approach. Both Bolasie and Wilfried Zaha had off-nights. “They’ve been the key to this team since I’ve been here, and have to offer a bit more for us than they did out there,” said the manager. Certainly the collective will have to raise their game if they are to claim anything from daunting trips to Arsenal and Manchester United in the week ahead. The date with Watford at Wembley follows those games and, 11 points clear of the bottom three, at least Palace can approach that occasion with more optimism that they have done enough to remain in the division after their recent 14-match winless run. “Five points from the last three is not too bad,” added Pardew. “We have to accept that after the run we’ve been on.” Yet Watford, another side on the slide, will hardly be quaking in their boots and neither will Manchester United at the prospect of confronting Everton. That is telling.
Premier League TV rights investigation dropped Ofcom is set to scrap its two-year investigation of the Premier League’s multibillion-pound TV rights auction, a move which complainant Virgin Media says will lead to price hikes for football fans. The media watchdog launched the probe in 2014 after Virgin Media lodged a complaint arguing that the Premier League should make all 380 matches live on TV. Virgin Media maintains that by making just 41% of matches available – in contrast to other countries such as Germany and leagues such as the NBA which make all games available – the Premier League is keeping prices artificially high and restricting choice to consumers. Ofcom announced on Monday that it is dropping the investigation concluding that its “resources could be used more effectively on other priorities to benefit consumers and competition”. The Premier League has said that it will increase the number of matches available live in the next auction, starting with the 2019-20 season, from 168 to 190, according to the Daily Telegraph, which broke the story. It had been speculated that any substantial increase in the matches on offer could require the football authorities to abandon the 2.45pm to 5.15pm broadcasting blackout on Saturday afternoons that has been in place since the 1950s to protect lower-league attendances. Ofcom said that the Premier League’s intention to increase the number of matches available at the next auction and its own research into the views of match-going and TV watching fans supported its decision to drop the investigation. The research found that while 20% of fans wanted more matches on TV a similar proportion were happy with the overall number of live games broadcast, but wanted to see different games shown. Among match-going fans over two-thirds said that the Saturday 3pm kick-off was their preferred time to go to a game. “We believe that a balance would need to be struck between the potential benefits of releasing more matches for live broadcast, and the potential disruption on match-going fans due to these games being rescheduled to be broadcast outside of the ‘closed period’ [of 2.45pm top 5.15pm on Saturday],” said Ofcom. “Due to the range of views expressed in the consumer research, significant further work – including additional research among football fans – would be required to conclude this investigation. Given the considerations outlined above, we have decided to close the investigation. Ofcom’s resources could be used more effectively on other priorities to benefit consumers and competition.” Under the three-year contract that begins next season, Sky and BT will pay £5.1bn – an almost 80% increase on the current deal. Virgin has argued that by effectively limiting the supply of matches the Premier League has inflated the price that broadcasters have to pay and that cost is then passed on to consumers. Virgin Media chief Tom Mockridge, the former head of Sky Italia and ex-member of Sky’s board, has said that making all matches live may not bring down costs for consumers but it could act as a brake on inflation and allow fans more choice. Mockridge hailed the Premier League’s decision to increase the number of live matches for the next auction by 22 – on top of 14 more matches made available in the 2016-17 season over the previous deal – as a victory of sorts. “Football fans will now be able to watch more live action on TV,” he said. “We are pleased that after a two year campaign the Premier League has agreed to offer more TV games.” The Premier League said that it is upping the minimum number of games a season that must be aired by a second rights holder (Sky is the primary rights holder) to at least 42 matches in the next auction. The governing body is also introducing a new rule that will mean that a minimum of 30 matches a season will have to be made available to the second rights holder for broadcast on the weekend. “We welcome the certainty that this Ofcom decision brings,” said a spokesman for the Premier League. “From 2006 to 2013 our UK broadcasting rights were sold in line with commitments given to the European Commission, with subsequent sales processes having been conducted on an even more pro-competitive basis. The Premier League will continue to structure and auction its UK broadcasting rights in ways that are compatible with applicable competition law.”
Mel Gibson and Sean Penn to play creators of Oxford English Dictionary Mel Gibson and Sean Penn are set to star in Professor and the Madman, a real-life drama about the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary. According to the Hollywood Reporter, Gibson bought the rights to the bestselling novel The Surgeon of Crowthorne: A Tale of Murder, Madness and the Love of Words by Simon Winchester and will play Professor James Murray, who started to compile the dictionary in 1857. Penn is in negotiations to play retired army surgeon W C Minor, who submitted more than 10,000 entries to Murray while imprisoned at an asylum for the criminally insane. Gibson had originally intended to make it himself but the film will now be directed by Apocalypto writer Farhad Safinia, who also wrote and produced the TV show Boss, starring Kelsey Grammer. Later this year Gibson will appear in front of the camera in the revenge thriller Blood Father and behind for the second world war drama Hacksaw Ridge. In June, it was announced that he is working on a follow-up to The Passion of the Christ. Penn’s recent offering as a director, the aid worker romance The Last Face, was met with largely negative reviews at this year’s Cannes film festival. His voice was also recently heard in The Angry Birds Movie.
What I’m really thinking: the person with ME I have myalgic encephalomyelitis. If you think it is hard to say, try living with it every day. Yes, I understand that your aunt had chronic fatigue, and that she took some B-vitamins and is all-better now. No, it isn’t adrenal fatigue because that doesn’t exist. Oh yes, how fantastic that your friend’s friend was really tired after a virus, but she tried acupuncture and cut out wheat and dairy from her diet and next week she is running the London marathon. I don’t have what they probably had, you see, because only 5% of people recover from myalgic encephalomyelitis. It is sometimes called chronic fatigue syndrome, but that’s a bit of a misnomer. I’m not just tired. The paralysis was the first worry. Then all the muscle pain. Then the memory loss. Then losing the ability to speak without stuttering. I started to forget what words meant. Or who my boyfriend was. Then the fatigue came to kick me when I was down. Then the nausea. Then the constant, unrelenting joint pain, headaches, and flu-like symptoms. Ah yes, I know. You were so tired last weekend, you just fell asleep on the sofa. But were you so tired that you slept solidly for 22 hours and then spent an hour getting from your bedroom to the bathroom and back again before sleeping for another 22 hours? I thought not. I’ve improved a lot in eight years. But I’ve been told this is as good as it gets. I will never recover unless medicine has a breakthrough. And I have accepted that, so why can’t you? I appreciate your sympathy. Your advice and suggestions are well meant. But please, back off. • Tell us what you’re really thinking – email mind@theguardian.com
Bond traders, Trots and Mumsnetters must unite against Farage’s mob It wasn’t the doomy medical diagnosis that caused F Scott Fitzgerald’s mental breakdown. It was moment the doctors told him he was going to be OK. “After about an hour of solitary pillow-hugging,” wrote the novelist in 1936, “I began to realize that for two years my life had been a drawing on resources that I did not possess, that I had been mortgaging myself physically and spiritually up to the hilt.” Come the day of the supreme-court judgment on Brexit, the progressive part of Britain could be forgiven if it succumbed to a Fitzgerald-style “crack-up”. Nigel Farage will mobilise 100,000 racists and xenophobes to intimidate the court; the justices will probably ignore them and uphold the high-court verdict. But it is beginning to feel as if liberal democracy in Britain is, too, “drawing on resources it does not possess”. Across the world, a succession of near-catastrophes has over the past two years begun to drain progressive politics of its resilience. Anti-racists, globalists and believers in the virtues of science over mumbo-jumbo are still winning elections. But the effort is going to exhaust us unless we become more radical. In America, whether he wins or loses, Donald Trump’s candidacy – by sidelining the respectable right and creating a mass movement based on hate – has eroded American democracy to a new and fragile baseline. All the right needs to do in 2020 is to find a more respectable candidate and, until then, unleash a resistance struggle against the legitimacy of Clinton, her supreme court appointments and any Democratic majority in Congress that emerges. It’s important to understand the new cross-fertilisation that has begun between Trump’s white-supremacist revolt and the revolt being planned by Ukip. Virtually nobody in mainstream politics a decade ago used the term “white working class”. Now it’s common to hear even BBC presenters parrot the phrase, as if the separation between white and non-white populations in Britain’s post-industrial towns were an accomplished fact, not a far-right fantasy. In Britain, since the high-court decision, and with the tabloids ramping up their attack on the judiciary, people have been asking: what do Jonathan Harmsworth, owner of the Daily Mail, and Rupert Murdoch want? What would make them stop? The answer is: they want Britain ruled by a xenophobic mob, controlled by them. The policies are secondary – as long as their legal offshore tax-dodging facilities are maintained. They also want a Labour party they can control and a Tory party they can intimidate. In pursuit of that, they have created what the sociologist Manuel Castells calls a “switch”. You create a constituency of angry rightwing voters, assembled around using language no respectable politician could utter, and you switch them on, or off, against the government of the day as long as that government does your bidding. It’s facile to call Trump and Farage “fascists”. They are elite, rightwing economic nationalists who have each stumbled upon the fact that a minority of working-class people can be fooled by populism – especially when the left refuses to play the populist game. And they are moving forward fast. So we need to catch up. “We” is no longer about leave versus remain, still less Corbynistas versus the rest. “We” should include everybody who wants this country to be run by parliament, with the judiciary guaranteeing the rule of law, to remain engaged with the multilateral, global institutions and be tolerant to migrants and foreign visitors. The first thing we have to make is a rhetorical break with neoliberalism: the doctrine of austerity, inequality, privatisation, financial corruption, asset bubbles and technocratic hubris. It is entirely possible to construct a humane pro-business version of capitalism without these things. There doesn’t have to be a bunch of apologies and confessions. You could assuage a large part of the anger that’s driving the ultra-right simply by a demonstrable change of path: pump money into communities and hope will follow. Likewise, get HMRC on to the case of the tax-dodging rich, and off the backs of small-business owners. The next thing is to do something radical about the inequality of voice in Britain’s media. Enact Leveson. Ask companies such as British Airways why they are distributing the Mail mid-Atlantic, for free, as a kind of “unwelcome to Britain” card for visitors. People with resources should set up – or, even better, acquire through hostile takeover – mass-circulation newspapers that champion democratic values, tolerance and restraint. Plus we need to challenge supine editorial leadership of the BBC. There are no minutes of a meeting where the BBC’s bosses decided to give free rein to hate speech and intimidation on programmes such as Question Time; no instructions exist that say reporters should run unchallenged vox-pops with racists, back to back. But this is what’s happening. It would take one email from the director general, Tony Hall, to stop it. The philosopher Walter Benjamin wrote in the 1930s that the success of the radical right was fuelled by the failure of the radical left. Benjamin took it as read that the business class would either support, or flip over to, fascism once the demagogues had created a street movement and an atmosphere of crisis. Today, however, the vast majority of business leaders, professionals and educated people operate in a world regulated to global standards, where markets depend on freedom and the rule of law. Today, therefore, it is the failure of the radical centre that’s the problem. It needs, like Fitzgerald after his famous “crack-up” to recharge its batteries. If Nigel Farage leads 100,000 people to intimidate the supreme court, I intend to be on the other side of a police crash barrier opposing him. I don’t want to be flanked by only my anti-fascist mates from 30 years ago: I want to see an alliance of the left and the radical centre on the streets. That means bond traders from Canary Wharf, arm in arm with placard-carrying Trots. Masked-up Kurdish radicals alongside Mumsnet posters. Eighty years on from Cable Street, we don’t have many dockers and miners around, to help face down rightwing intimidation. Puny as we are, it’s up to us.
Keep Our NHS Public role not undemocratic There is no secrecy and nothing in Labour party rules to prevent it from seeking advice from non-party members (Labour health advisers angered by John McDonnell’s parallel group, 30 June). I am a recently retired consultant paediatrician and director of children’s services in Lewisham when Jeremy Hunt tried to close our hospital. I am a member of no party. Dr Louise Irvine, a GP and chair of the Save Lewisham Hospital Campaign, who stood against Hunt at the 2015 election, probably did more for the NHS than any other candidate by making a principled defence of a publicly funded and provided, and accountable NHS. Keep Our NHS Public is part of an effort to build a broad consensus to win back a national health service and which helped establish Health Campaigns Together. Following a meeting at the House of Commons in April with the then shadow health secretary, Heidi Alexander, John McDonnell and their teams, our request for an ongoing conversation was agreed by them. Full minutes, including a paper I myself authored about this planned forum, are on the HCT website. So where is the secrecy? At a time when the NHS is being deliberately underfunded and contracts worth over £10bn have gone to private companies since 2010, it is important that the Labour party leads the fightback. There is nothing undemocratic in offering an array of talent from health policy, journalism, clinicians, patient experience and law to the shadow team. Who is trying to undermine such a worthwhile initiative and to use it to undermine the elected leadership? Dr Tony O’Sullivan Co-chair, Keep Our NHS Public and member of HCT
Seven tricks to speed up Google Chrome Many would say Chrome is the best browser out there. It’s certainly the most popular, used by more than half of the online world. But it’s a beast that can slow your computer to a crawl if left unchecked. Multiple tabs, dodgy extensions and over-active plugins can leave you feeling like you’re using Windows 3.1 on a pre-Pentium 486, without the turbo switched on. So here are few quick tips to help bring Chrome back under control, reduce its impact on your computer and speed up your browsing. 1) Get rid of any plug-ins you don’t use One of the easiest ways to speed up browsing is to cut back on your plug-ins. Type the following into the Chrome address bar and hit enter: chrome://plugins Click disable on any plug-ins you want to turn off. If a page requires a particular disabled plug-in it will have a notice saying so instead of the video or audio element. 2) Make your remaining plug-ins ‘click to load’ For the plug-ins you want to keep, you can still do more to reduce their impact on Chrome. You can stop media that requires plug-ins, like Flash, from loading without your explicit say so. There are a variety of extensions to do it, but Chrome’s built in settings for plug-in control are easy to activate. In the Settings menu under “Show advanced settings” and Privacy, click on Content settings and scroll down to Plug-ins. Check the button for “Let me chose when to run plug-in content”. When something like a Flash video attempts to load, all you have to do is right-click on the disabled plugin image and select “Run this plug-in” if you want to see it. 3) Remove or disable unnecessary extensions Extensions are one of the best bits about Chrome, but each one adds bloat to the browser and therefore can eat up more of your computer’s memory and slow it down. Click the hamburger menu in the top right of Chrome, mouse over “More tools” and click on “Extensions”. Or you can type the following into the address bar and hit enter: chrome://extensions Either uncheck the “Enabled” box to simple disable to extension, or click on the trash bin to fully remove the extension. Disabling it allows you to re-enable it at any time, which is useful for extensions that you use only every once in a while, such as a rolling full-page screenshot utility. Removed plugins can always be reinstalled from the Chrome Web Store, but it’s a few more clicks. 4) Suspend your tabs Chrome can be quite manageable with only two or three tabs open, but when you have upwards of 10 open at any one time it can bring even the most powerful computer to its knees by sucking up all the available memory. There are two approaches to handling multiple tabs. Extensions such as the Great Suspender allow you to suspend the tab and remove it out of memory after a certain length of inactivity without closing the tab in your browser. A suspended tab can be reloaded by simply clicking on it, and that way you don’t lose what you were looking at but also don’t cripple your computer with dozens of active tabs. The downside is that if the site changes or you go offline you can’t recover the suspended tab. The Great Suspender allows you to whitelist some sites, stop a tab being suspended if it’s receiving input such as a text box or prevent a tab from being suspended on an ad hoc basis. 5) Create saved browser sessions Instead of suspending tabs individually extensions such as TabCloud+ and Session Buddy allow you to save a whole browser window full of tabs at once. You can then close them all at once, dramatically reducing Chrome’s load on your computer. When you want to resume working on the saved tabs you can reload them all exactly the way they were in one complete browser window. It carries the same downside as the Great Suspender, meaning restored tabs are loaded fresh from the internet, so if anything has changed or the site’s no longer available then you won’t be able to restore the tab. 6) Turn off background prefetching Somewhat counter intuitively, if your computer is struggling to handle Chrome, turning off Chrome’s automatic prefetching service, which attempts to predict where you’ll go next and loads at least some of that page in the background, can actually speed up your computer by reducing Chrome’s load. To try it out, in the Settings menu, listed under “Show advanced settings” and Privacy, uncheck the box marked “Use prediction service to load pages more quickly”. It could slow down your browsing by stopping prefetching, but it could help the rest of your computer by reducing Chrome’s load on it a little. Only recommended for very slow computers. 7) Use data saver And finally, if it’s not your computer slowing your browsing down but your internet connection, Google’s Data Saver service can help. It puts all non-encrypted internet traffic through a compression system hosted on Google’s servers, reducing the amount of data Chrome downloads per page and speeding up page loading on slow connections. It will also reduce your overall browsing data usage, which can be helpful for metered connections. To use Data Saver simply install the extension. Be aware that all pages visited that are not using HTTPS connections of incognito tabs will be seen by Google if using Data Saver. How to use search like a pro: 10 tips and tricks for Google and beyond 10 quick questions about installing Windows 10 – and how to block it Should I buy a PC or Mac for working from home?
What does it mean to be a music critic in the age of the stealth release? I am talking to a music business PR, having a conversation that’s become increasingly familiar over the past few years. He’s informing me that reviewers won’t be given advance copies of the new album. The artist he’s working with isn’t, by any stretch of the imagination, a globe-straddling megastar of the Beyoncé or Adele variety. She’s never had a hit single, her albums scrape the lower reaches of the charts. You’d describe her as critically acclaimed, but even she’s decided not to bother courting the attention of critics. But, the PR assures me, “I’m working really hard to try and get you a stream on the day of release.” Why? I ask. What’s the point? I’ll be able to listen via the usual digital streaming services, as will everybody else on the planet. You can pinpoint the moment when artists decided that critics were expendable to the release of Radiohead’s seventh album In Rainbows in 2007. Up to that point, artists and critics were locked in a symbiotic, if sometimes strained, relationship. Albums were occasionally released without advance copies, but the excuse was always that this was to combat piracy. Frontman Thom Yorke, on the other hand, happily admitted that the reason Radiohead weren’t doing it was because he didn’t want the album reviewed in advance, or as he called it, “all that bollocks”. “Whoever gets their opinion in first has all that power … it just seems wildly unfair,” he said. That turned out to be a far more influential idea than the “pay what you feel” approach to In Rainbows’ pricing. No one’s tried the latter since, Radiohead included, but this year, virtually no big album release has bothered with advance copies. From Rihanna’s Anti to Radiohead’s A Moon-Shaped Pool, by way of Kanye West’s Life Of Pablo, Beyoncé’s Lemonade, Skepta’s Konnichiwa and Drake’s Views, critics have heard them at the same time as fans. I’d be genuinely astonished if that didn’t become the norm within a few years. Much as I would prefer to have weeks to prepare a review – listening to an album over and over until I feel I know its strengths and flaws inside out, writing notes, polishing lines, not having to have conversations with PRs about whether or not getting your own personal stream on the day counts as preferential treatment for which you should display unending thankfulness – I find I can’t begrudge artists not doing it. If I was an artist, I’d probably wouldn’t do it either. It’s a win-win. If the reviews that appear in the hours after the release are positive, then they add to the sense of occasion and excitement. If they’re negative, then they can now be more easily dismissed: how can anyone possibly form a meaningful opinion in such little time? Yet the weird thing is that people still seem to care about reviews, even ones written at short notice – at least if the number of page views and shares of the stuff I’ve had to write in those circumstances are anything to go by. It’s required a fairly serious overhaul of the way I work. You can actually do some preparation. As soon as you hear the rumour someone is about to stealthily release an album – there’s always a rumour – you can think around it; about the artist’s recent career, the role they play within the scene. You can reacquaint yourself with their back catalogue: mull over the themes that run through their work, the ideas they’ve abandoned, those they’ve stuck with. None of this seems to quell the five minutes of mad, sweaty panic that descends the moment an album is released, during which I’m temporarily gripped by the absolute certainty that I’m not going to be able to write anything at all in the time allotted. You have the opportunity to play the album once or twice, listening intently, taking notes: lyrics that catch your ear, music that recalls something in their past oeuvre or the work of another artist, how what’s there fits the wider perception of whoever made it, how it chimes with, or jibes against, current trends. People will say that two listenings aren’t enough to make up your mind definitively about an album, and they have a point. It’s enough to form an opinion, but we’ve all formed an opinion about an album then changed our mind. But I’m not sure that people are looking for a review to be a definitive evaluation of an album’s worth any more. They want something engaging and thought provoking to read while they’re listening for the first time. They want something that functions, to paraphrase the writer Anthony Lane, like the opening line of an argument. Were readers ever really looking for a review to offer a definitive evaluation of an album? I’ve long thought that artists tend to overestimate critics’ power: if everyone cared so much about our opinions, the charts would look exactly like the critics’ end of year lists, which they clearly don’t. A number of artists who enjoy hugely lucrative careers would long ago have been forced to go back to civvy street and there would be no need for the phrase “critically acclaimed” with its implication of commercial failure. Perhaps the rise of the stealth release album hasn’t changed things so much after all.
Five factors that explain what Duncan Smith’s resignation is really about Ministerial resignations are rarely straightforward affairs. Matters of policy, personality and timing all normally play a part. What really explains Iain Duncan Smith’s decision to resign? 1) Often it is best to take what politicians say at face value Duncan Smith says he is resigning because he cannot accept the cuts to the personal independence payment (PIP), and his argument on this sounds sincere. He says the cuts are “a compromise too far” (meaning a compromise with austerity too far). He says he cannot justify the cuts if they are part of a budget that also cuts taxes for the rich. Duncan Smith has questioned the way cuts have been targeted in the past; before the election he let it be known that he thought there was a case for putting the squeeze more on wealthy pensioners, and means-testing the winter fuel payment, so it is not as if his concerns are 100% new. But nevertheless it is odd that he has decided to resign now, when his department announced the PIP cuts a week ago. 2) Partly it’s about the PIP cuts being ‘the final straw’ Resignations are not normally triggered by a single event, and Duncan Smith’s decision to go is the culmination of a feud with the Treasury that has been going on for years. It has been focused on universal credit, Duncan Smith’s flagship policy at the Department for Work and Pensions, and a measure that is currently being rolled out nationwide. Universal credit is supposed to simplify the welfare system, by combining six benefits in one, but, crucially, it was also intended to increase the incentive to work, by ensuring that working always pays more than staying on benefits. However, under pressure from the Treasury,the mechanics of universal credit (tapers, the work allowance etc) have repeatedly been changed, with the effect of making the benefit less generous and the work incentives much weaker. A recent report from Civitas said universal credit had been watered down to such an extent that “if creating an incentive to work is the goal, the present system [ie, what was in place before universal credit] meets that goal more effectively”. Duncan Smith’s key legislative achievement has been undermined. He does not mention this directly in his resignation letter, but he alludes to it when he says: “There has been too much emphasis on money saving exercises and not enough awareness from the Treasury, in particular, that the government’s vision of a new welfare-to-work system could not be repeatedly salami-sliced.” 3) It’s personal too – and Duncan Smith has had it with Osborne Duncan Smith blames George Osborne and the Treasury for undermining universal credit. But this is partly personal too. Relations between the two have never been entirely harmonious since Matthew d’Ancona published his book about the coalition in which he quoted Osborne telling allies that he thought Duncan Smith was “just not clever enough”. 4) The EU split is a factor Duncan Smith’s resignation is not directly related to the EU referendum. But he is one of the six members attending cabinet who is backing Brexit, and for him fighting the EU is one of the great causes of his political career. Normally a sense of collective enterprise helps cabinet ministers to stick together even when they disagree strongly, but what the EU referendum has done is loosen those bonds. It may not have triggered Duncan Smith’s resignation, but the fact that he and Cameron have been publicly feuding for the last month over the EU almost certainly made it easier for him to walk out. 5) The desire to jump before he was pushed may have been a factor too David Cameron is expected to hold a significant reshuffle if he wins the EU referendum (if he loses, it will be another prime minister’s reshuffle) and Duncan Smith was widely expected to be moved or sacked at that point. In the last parliament Cameron tried to get him to move from DWP to Justice. On that occasion Duncan Smith said no, and his status as a former party leader helped keep him in post, but after more than six years in office this summer, he would no longer be in a strong enough position to resist. Sensing that his career at DWP was coming to an end anyway, he may have decided it was best to go on his own terms.
Amy Schumer removes gun scene from film after Orlando shooting Amy Schumer has reportedly cut a scene from her new film in the wake of the Orlando terror attack. The Trainwreck star is currently filming an untitled action comedy with Goldie Hawn and has decided to remove a sequence involving a character shooting a gun at people, according to E! News. The film, directed by 50/50’s Jonathan Levine, centres on a mother and daughter who encounter trouble while on holiday in Hawaii. Schumer has been a public advocate of gun control, working with her cousin, senator Chuck Schumer, to call for higher restrictions on sales. She also introduced the hashtag #aimingforchange to highlight loopholes in legislation that can allow violent criminals and people with severe mental illness to buy guns. Last summer, two people were shot dead during a screening of her film Trainwreck. “When I heard about this news, I was completely devastated … then I was angry,” Schumer said last year. “My heart goes out to [the victims] Jillian and Mayci, to the survivors, to the families and everyone who is tied to the tragic, senseless and horrifying actions of this man who shouldn’t have been able to put his hands on a gun in the first place.” After the mass shooting at an Orlando gay club on Sunday, Schumer tweeted that she found the news “sickening” and has since shared a number of tweets reinforcing her position on gun control.
Why Nirvana's In Bloom is busting out all over The lyrics couldn’t be more plain. “He’s the one who likes all our pretty songs,” sang Kurt Cobain, “and he likes to sing along / And he likes to shoot his gun / But he don’t know what it means / When I say …” In Bloom, from Nirvana’s second album, Nevermind, is a song by someone who’s come to represent something he doesn’t recognise; someone who looked at his audience and saw it changing from a small coterie of the Seattle underground to beefy guys who liked to mosh, who loved that Nirvana kicked ass, and who five years earlier would have been bellowing along to Mötley Crüe. And who thought: who are these people? Why are they following me? The great unspoken fact of music is how uncomfortable musicians get with their audiences. It’s not that they don’t want to be admired and recognised – rare is the artist who craves obscurity – but more that once their image is formed in the public mind it becomes a straitjacket, or an iron lung, as Thom Yorke put it. It’s what gives them a livelihood, but it’s also what confines and suffocates them. “I always assumed it was written about the distance Kurt felt from his fans, as well,” says writer Everett True, a friend and frequent interviewer of Cobain. “I assumed it was directed towards the fans who would show up at concerts with signs saying Evenflow [a Pearl Jam song] on one side and Rape Me – I think – on the other: the fans who did not understand there was a point of difference between Nirvana and other Seattle bands or media representations of grunge. I’ve always associated the song with [In Utero single] Rape Me. Like they’re a pair.” In Bloom began as a markedly different song to the one that emerged with the release of Nevermind on 24 September, 1991. Nirvana had been hammering a C90 in their touring van; on one side was the Swiss extreme metal pioneers Celtic Frost, on the other was the New Jersey powerpop band the Smithereens. “That tape was always getting played, turned over and over again. I think back now and go, ‘Yeah, maybe that was an influence,’” bassist Krist Novoselic told Rolling Stone in 2002. The earliest versions of In Bloom, he said, sounded like the hardcore punk band Bad Brains, before it was slowed down. Nirvana first recorded the song in April 1990, at Smart Studios in Wisconsin, with Butch Vig producing – that version eventually emerged on a Sub Pop video compilation the following year. Vig realised immediately that the band had undergone a change since recording their debut album, Bleach. “They still had the punk attitude, but they were really really hooky songs,” he said. “In Bloom was an amazingly hooky song when that chorus comes in.” A little over a year, they reunited with Vig at Sound City in Los Angeles, where the Nevermind version was recorded. In Bloom continues to resonate with musicians. The Grammy-nominated country star Sturgill Simpson – a man whose audience is likely to include fair proportion of men who like to sing along and shoot their guns – performs it on his new album A Sailor’s Guide to Earth, in a version that starts as a weeping country ballad, before transforming into a southern soul belter. Ezra Furman has taken to performing it in concert, in a Motown-inspired version, alongside his own punk-rock-goes-doo-wop originals, and his covers of the Velvet Underground, Arcade Fire and the Replacements. “It wasn’t until I started performing it that I remembered what first made me like the song a lot – the chorus,” Furman says. “That idea of there being people in the audience who do not get our band, they’re into it but totally missing the point of it.” As his profile has risen, Furman has faced his own straitjacket: he’s become the chaotic kid in makeup and women’s clothes. He’s found himself turning up to magazine photoshoots in men’s clothes only to be told he has to wear a dress, because someone else wants to present a particular vision of him. Though his audiences, certainly in the UK, seem to pour out their love for him, he detects a disconnection between the complex, manic personality he’s trying to express in his songs and what people are hearing in the joyous, old-fashioned rock’n’roll he’s playing. “I don’t think they are all people I would want to be friends with or particularly get what I’m about as a person,” he says. “As an artist there are always people who are there who want to sing along to all the pretty songs – and they don’t know what it means.” The result, he says, is “creative dysphoria”. “I am frustrated at misconceptions of me, and being cast in a role,” he says. “I was sorting that out in my songwriting and performances from the start. I could tell right away how I was perceived by people, which is inherent I guess in trying to do something real in a society that does not value reality.” Simpson’s version seems to have a less complex genesis. “I remember in seventh or eighth grade, when that album dropped, it was like a bomb went off in my bedroom,” he writes in the liner notes to his new album. “For me, that song has always summed up what it means to be a teenager, and I think it tells a young boy that he can be sensitive and compassionate – he doesn’t have to be tough or cold to be a man. So I wanted to make a very beautiful and pure homage to Kurt.” But he, more than Furman, is someone who’s been trapped by public and critical perceptions of him. Simpson’s second solo album, Metamodern Sounds in Country Music, saw him hailed as the man to return country music to its prelapsarian state, to strip away the beers-and-guns trappings of “bro country” and revive the outlaw spirit of hard country. But being acclaimed as the genre’s saviour was something that made him desperately uncomfortable. Like Cobain, he had been someone very much on the outside, who suddenly found his hand being shaken and his back being patted at every turn. “Nashville is a very insider town. And I was definitely on the outside at the time,” he told me last year. He said that he didn’t have a problem with the bro country and pop country worlds – after all, music is a business, and country music is very much a business – but he also said: “It seems to me that country became fashionable and trendy, and I looked round [and saw] all these people in costumes, cos that’s how it’s supposed to be. And that’s great. For the tourists.” And as for being the saviour of country music, as writers had started to claim: “There’ll be another one along next year. They said the same shit about Steve Earle 20 years ago.” Maybe Simpson did want to record the song to send a message of compassion to teenagers. But given that southern soul, not Waylon Jennings, is the dominant influence on his new album, it’s not a stretch to think he’s also sending a message with his recording of In Bloom. And while he changes the final line of the chorus – from “You don’t know what it means when I say …” to “You don’t know what it means to love someone,” he told Zane Lowe on Beats 1 that it had simply been a mistake that wasn’t noticed until after the album was finished. What makes the song distinctive, Furman says, is its “odd, grungey chord progression”. The verses – based around two spirals, one descending, one ascending, both from B flat – create a mood of tension, released on the chorus, which shifts between the B flat and a G fifth, a classic power chord. The result – an irony Cobain must have been aware of – was a song to which it’s all but impossible not to sing along. Which is where the men who like to shoot their guns come in …
Deal or no deal? Cameron bid to reform EU hits fresh obstacles The moment of truth has arrived, and tonight the serious talking will begin. When David Cameron and Donald Tusk, president of the European Council, sit down for a three-course dinner and fine wine at Downing Street this evening both men will have one overarching objective. They may come from different political traditions and have views about Europe that are, in many respects, profoundly at odds. Cameron leads a trenchantly Eurosceptic party, much of which is deeply hostile to Brussels. Tusk, on the other hand, is a bearer of the European torch, a true believer who boasts a string of medals for his contribution to European integration, including one awarded by Jean-Claude Juncker in 2013 for his role in facing down Eurosceptics in his native Poland. Yet the prize they both crave over the next few weeks is precisely the same: to find common ground and a deal that will keep the UK in a reformed EU, averting a “Brexit” that would constitute the biggest blow to the European project in its history. Around the table there will be “six a side”, as one insider put it. Cameron and Tusk, plus five close advisers each. Neither team will be under any illusions about what is at stake or how difficult the talks will be. One senior government minister close to the negotiations on the UK’s demands said last week that, for all Cameron’s months of shuttle diplomacy between European capitals, no one yet knew precisely what would be on offer from Tusk on the most important issue of all – the prime minister’s demand for a four-year ban on EU migrants claiming in-work benefits. Next week Tusk will send out a legal text to all 28 EU leaders, and then some clarity might emerge. “But we really genuinely don’t know what will be offered or how it will all work.” He admitted that, with many opinion polls showing the “ins” only narrowly ahead of the “outs”, it was also difficult to predict with any certainty at all whether the UK would be a member of the EU in six months’ time or not. These are tense times at the top of government. Cameron wants, ideally, to hold his promised in/out referendum as early as June but, for that to happen, a deal must be struck at a Brussels summit in less than three weeks. It is a race against time. A large band of Tory MPs who want out of the EU are ready to pour scorn on anything that is put on the table. Last week former cabinet minister John Redwood described leaked plans aimed at addressing the UK’s demands on immigration as a “sick joke”. To trump such inevitable derision, Cameron must deliver something convincing, but he is not there yet. After talks over lunch with Juncker on Friday, a travel-weary prime minister admitted as much, saying there was a long way to go in a short time. “It is going to be hard work,” he said. In several areas Cameron has secured what he wants, largely because these demands were always going to be relatively easy to meet and fairly uncontentious. Despite objections from federalist countries, led by Belgium, he will secure an opt-out for the UK from the EU commitment to “ever closer union”. The powers of national parliaments to block or delay EU legislative proposals will be increased as he wants, and there will be safeguards for non-euro countries who fear that decisions of single-currency members will adversely affect their economies. Yet these achievements, while significant, are already largely factored in. The “in” side promote them as hugely significant and the “outs” as utterly trivial. However, the debate that really matters on immigration and welfare has hardly begun. Since the moment Cameron set out his demands for a four-year benefits ban more than a year ago, there has been intense resistance. Eastern European countries, led by Tusk’s Poland, have strongly opposed such a move, saying it would discriminate against their citizens, because Polish workers arriving in the UK would receive less than UK workers. It would be a breach of EU rules on freedom of movement. Last week, however – to the obvious irritation of the UK government – sketchy details were leaked in Brussels of what seemed like a compromise offer. Plans could be developed for an “emergency brake” under which the UK or any other member state would be able to impose a ban for up to four years on migrant workers claiming benefits if the country applying to pull it could show that EU migration was placing excessive pressure on its welfare and social systems and its public services. A majority of member states would need to agree. Nevertheless the plan begged more questions than it answered. Charles Grant, director of the Centre for European Reform, says the emergency brake is fraught with difficulties. “British officials want to be able to use the brake immediately. Yet the mechanism could well require EU legislation, which often takes more than a year. Second, according to what criteria would use of the brake be permissible? The British will want the criteria to be vague enough for them to be able to pull it easily; the commission and other member states will try to make the criteria objective and hard to satisfy. “Most difficult of all, who decides whether a government can pull the brake? Initially, the commission insisted on that power for itself, which was unacceptable to Cameron. The current idea of a vote in the council of ministers may be more palatable.” There is another potential problem. How will ministers be able to say there is intolerable pressure on services, including schools and hospitals, when their current line is that both are coping very well? Jonathan Portes, director of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, said: “There simply is no remotely credible evidence that current levels of migration, from inside or outside the EU, are an ‘emergency’ for UK public services. In fact, schools in London, where the pressures are greatest, have outperformed the rest of the country by a considerable margin, as ministers have rightly highlighted. Pressures on the NHS are very real, but are overwhelmingly due to older Britons, not migrants – who are mostly young and healthy. Waiting times are no higher in areas with most immigrants.” Cameron knows he cannot sell the deal as outlined so far, as it is full of holes and lacks detail. Over dinner, he will tell Tusk that an emergency brake would have to apply “immediately”, meaning it could be triggered the day after the referendum result in UK (assuming the vote is to stay in). Brussels will struggle to agree to that. He will also say it should apply to current levels of immigration and should be in place for long enough to resolve the underlying problem. And, crucially, a senior government source said he would also demand that it only be a temporary measure on the road to a more permanent solution. But what the permanent solution might be is not clear at all. A government insider said: “The prime minister will tell Tusk that the ‘brake’ proposal sketched out so far does not go far enough and will need to be significantly strengthened if it is to be as powerful as the prime minister’s four-year proposal.” In the face of vague and seemingly ill-thought-out offers, Cameron needs to talk tough, to avoid the idea taking hold that he is being sold a duff agreement by Brussels. In recent days, around 15,000 Labour activists have received a letter from the former cabinet minister Alan Johnson – who is heading the party’s “in” campaign – containing orders for the EU campaign. “Winning that referendum and keeping Britain in Europe will be key to our country’s future,” Johnson tells them. The problem is that, without knowing what the meat of the deal on immigration is, they are hamstrung. Writing in the today, shadow home secretary Andy Burnham expresses fears about the deal and about how the case for staying in is being made. The spirits of the “in” campaigners are only partly lifted by the fact that the Brexit supporters are arguably in even worse shape, with claims circulating of an attempted coup against Dominic Cummings, the chief executive of the Vote Leave campaign, following rows over strategy. In the next three weeks Cameron will hold further discussions with Germany’s chancellor, Angela Merkel, and the French president, François Hollande, as well as other EU leaders. He would like a deal in February at a summit in order to prepare for a June referendum. But the substance is more important than the timing. Cameron does not want to be remembered as the British prime minister who took the UK out of Europe after securing a reform deal that he could not sell. If that were to happen, he knows that the SNP could call a second independence referendum and the UK could lose Scotland too. Last week one senior government official was gloomy about the prospects of a breakthrough soon, complaining that many in the EU don’t understand British politics, and the real risk of a Brexit. But many in the EU would say that the UK does not understand the EU, and that is the heart of the problem.
How to write a banger for Beyoncé There are people who will tell you that writing a hit single is easy, that pop music has been dumbed down and all you need is a checklist of club-based phrases, a generic dance beat (tropical house should do it), a guest rapper (Sean Paul) and away you go. Sometimes those people are right – but, for every depressingly generic toe-tapper, there’s an immaculately realised, era-defining megabanger. In many ways, Ryan Tedder – who typically knocks out the latter – has Simon Cowell to thank for his position in the top tier of pop’s songwriting fraternity. Tedder formed OneRepublic in Colorado in 2002 as a sort of homage to Manchester bands such as Doves, but he was catapulted into the pop sphere five years later when Cowell picked Tedder’s song Bleeding Love for X Factor winner Leona Lewis. The song went on to sell more than 5m copies in the US alone. After following that with globe-straddling hits for Beyoncé (Halo), Ellie Goulding (Burn) and Adele (Rumour Has It), he is currently involved in the sessions for U2’s new album. Inspired by his extracurricular songwriting, Tedder and OneRepublic ditched the indie stuff in favour of full-blown pop, culminating with 2013’s UK No 1 Counting Stars. With a new OneRepublic album due later this year, and current single Wherever I Go providing another example of his knack for a radio-dominating chorus, Tedder gives us his 10-point guide to creating a proper banger. The artist should be the focus, not the producer The night before I work with an artist, I read about them, I channel them. I’m desperately trying not to give them my sound. The producer Paul Epworth paid me one of the best compliments I’ve ever had: he had heard I was working with Adele on 21, and he was like: “Oh shit, he’s going to do Halo part two and it’s going to take over the whole thing.” But then when he heard Rumour Has It, he said he didn’t know it was me. There are so many producers who say: “My sound! My drums! My this!” They plant a stake and say: “This is my sound.” But so what if you own pop music for two years? That sound then becomes passé – the world moves on and you’re left pitching songs that sound like 2008. Nothing is less cool than sounding like last summer’s dance hit. Always match a song with the right singer If you don’t get the right vocal take, you’re done, so never give the right song to the wrong singer. Max Martin, the producer and songwriter, has said how important that part of a song is. A couple of times, I’ve yanked songs from artists because, no matter how hard we tried, we couldn’t get it right. If it’s not a 10, then it’s not worth doing. People react to humanity in songs Wherever I Go was one of the hardest songs to do because there’s a razor-thin line between oblique pop that’s super-programmed – often done brilliantly by a handful of amazing Swedes – and what OneRepublic is, and what a band is in 2016. For Wherever I Go, anything we would program we then had to redo live, but we would make it as tight as what’s around at the moment. Doing that puts humanity in the song and people react to that. I don’t want to always reference Adele, because it’s like pointing to the unicorn in the room, but obviously there’s humanity there. If I was staring at the Top 40 now, I could tell you which ones are intentional pop records that embrace their popness, and which ones are bucking the trend. Lukas Graham’s 7 Years bucked the trend. Take from the past, but keep it authentic It’s rare in modern music to hear a live hi-hat cymbal or drum featured on a record. Or even an electric guitar. We had that for years in the 80s and 90s, so certain things date a record, but whatever becomes throwback eventually becomes nostalgic – which itself eventually comes back. The 90s are huge right now. I see all these new bands wearing Nirvana T-shirts and I find it funny – name more than two songs, I dare you. If you’re going to make EDM, take some time over the lyrics Electronic dance music (EDM) has got into the water supply of everybody. I don’t care who you are: you could be the most folk act on Earth and somehow it is in your DNA now. But all the EDM guys – Zedd, Galantis, David Guetta, Diplo – they know the need to have quality lyrics. The reason Sia continues to have dance hits is because she writes these fantastic ballads that are set to EDM tracks. Once a year, I’ll write for an EDM producer, but they don’t send me dance tracks – they send me an acoustic or a piano track. They crave real songs. If you write to an EDM beat, you end up with a Pitbull record. He can get away with murder and write the same song over and over again lyrically – but, since he has his own vibe and style, it works. Try to harness the creative chaos Anyone who has been in a session with me would describe it as barely controlled chaos. It’s super-high-energy, without coffee. The spirit has entered the room and I’m doing anything I can to stop it from leaving. I was raised in church choirs, surrounded by music, so I’m genuinely chasing goosebumps. I’m operating at a very rapid pace, so I don’t immediately think about whether a lyric needs to be changed because under-18s might not understand it, for example. If I make a reference to Nikita Khrushchev [the former leader of the Soviet Union] because I like the Sting song Russians, I’ll get rid of it later because people will be like: “Who the hell is Khrushchev?” It’s not my job to give history lessons. Be aware of what’s happening around you I pay attention to what’s going on. I’m a culture vulture; I read incessantly. That informs more or less what not to talk about and maybe inadvertently allows me to see what feels cliched or dated. I know writers in LA who specifically drop in cultural references, or who namecheck whatever drink is popular, but I don’t do that shit. It’s cheesy. Write about love, by all means – but be clever about it I try to avoid cliches whenever possible. I always try to find the clever way to say something – ultimately, you’re talking about love in different forms. Let’s say the concept of a new song is that I’m madly in love with you and I’m free-falling from a 60ft building – and then at the end I say: “And I don’t want a parachute.” You need that turn of phrase. I come from a Nashville school of writing; I was getting my ass kicked by these brilliant songwriters when I was 19, always whipping out these incredible phrases. If I have a concept, a verse and a melody, then I’m desperately seeking the phrase – one that I can relate to and that people in general use, but don’t realise [the power of] it. Try not to repeat yourself If I sense that I’m doing something too often, I’ll back away. So, with four-to-the-floor beats, I realised OneRepublic had released three singles in a row that fit that template, so for the next 15 months I avoided it completely. It was played out. That’s why I can’t take folk pop any more – all the clapping and stomping. Before the Lumineers’ Ho Hey and Avicii’s Wake Me Up came out, we [as OneRepublic] already had Counting Stars, but I was sitting on it because I was feeling that was where music was going. Good ideas come in threes, so those songs all came at the same time. When in doubt, copy the Scandinavians I’m obsessed with the Scandinavian use of melody. The Americans and the British just borrow from each other. You guys yank from our gospel and urban culture, then we yank from your Mancunian bands and Brit rock. The Scandinavians, meanwhile, have been up there chilling and not giving two shits about what we’re doing. Wherever I Go is taken from OneRepublic’s fourth studio album, which is out later this year
NHS squeeze can be reversed by applying some radical thinking As Polly Toynbee scathingly pinpointed in her splendid article (Jeremy Hunt saves his own skin as he lets the NHS sink, 26 July), the NHS is as dependent on injections of foreign labour as a drug user is on heroin. According to the OECD report Health Workforce Policies in OECD Countries, published in March, Britain is the world’s second largest importer of health workers after the US, with more than 48,000 doctors and 86,000 nurses in 2014. While 5% of Italy’s and 10% of Germany’s doctors were born overseas, the figure for the UK is a shameful 36%. Shameful because in 2010, along with all WHO members, we signed the Global Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel, which “encourages countries to improve their health workforce planning and respond to their future needs without relying unduly on the training efforts of other countries, particularly low-income countries suffering from acute shortages”. Clearly, Jeremy Hunt has a lot to do. Explaining why 12,000 British doctors prefer to work abroad might be a good place to start. David Hughes Cheltenham • Polly Toynbee refers to Jeremy Hunt “talking up the scandal in Mid Staffs” in order to “encourag[e] the Care Quality Commission to set higher nursing and doctor numbers per ward”. The CQC does not set staffing ratios; we make recommendations for practical actions to improve care, based on detailed inspections involving clinical professionals. It is the responsibility of the leadership of individual trusts to determine how best they implement our recommendations in a way that ensures the delivery of high-quality care within the resources available. Trust boards are ultimately responsible for the future of their organisations and must use the CQC’s reports to help them plan that future – this includes taking a rounded look at staffing. Boards must ensure that there are sufficient medical and nursing staff to meet the needs of patients; it is for them to determine whether this is best done through additional recruitment, or whether demand could be more effectively managed by making changes to their model of care – as we have already seen some trusts successfully achieve. In an increasingly challenging context, the CQC is committed to supporting the NHS in the delivery of good, safe care that is clinically and financially sustainable: the care that we would want for ourselves and our families. David Behan Chief executive, Care Quality Commission • The plan you refer to (Overspent hospitals are told ‘reset’ means they must make cuts or face punishment, 22 July) is another blow in the unspoken agenda to destabilise the NHS. Why not “Underfunded hospitals struggle to provide safe care while budgets are cut”? The Department of Health has returned an average of £2.5bn a year to the Treasury for the last three years. Why don’t the managers get together and ask for more money, and say they would resign rather than continue to attempt to fulfil the demands of NHS England and the DH? I am told that the average length of stay for a CEO in an NHS hospital is three years, so what have they got to lose? Portraying the NHS as failing when it is being systematically undermined by government policies in order to bring in the private sector is dishonest and affects those Theresa May said she wanted to help. Can we ask her to look at what has been happening to the NHS over the last six years and apply some radical thinking to restore its funding? Wendy Savage President, Keep Our NHS Public • The easiest way to resolve overspent hospital budgets is just to stop treating patients with minor or non-life-threatening conditions or “voluntary” disorders such as sporting injuries. Patients who already suffer from these conditions should be treated. Healthy people should be advised to take out insurance. No private organisation pretends that it can do more and more with less and less resources. If politicians want to spend money on armaments, railways and nuclear power etc, and to merely write off the cost of their extremely expensive mistakes in the NHS, they must bear the public opprobrium for reducing what can be provided free at the time of use. Professional staff should no longer compromise either their health or their standards by trying to do too much. Dr Richard Turner Harrogate • We urgently need a Labour party that is prepared to undo the damage done to our NHS by successive governments. Cuts, privatisation and opening the NHS up to the market, against public and professional opinion, has made the NHS less safe, less efficient, and at risk of becoming less caring. The Health and Social Care Act 2012 speeded up a process of destruction that had already started. The junior doctors’ dispute, still unresolved, reflects the impossibility of providing the same level of routine services over seven days, when the resources scarcely exist to provide this over five. So we, as NHS doctors from all branches of the profession, whether we are in the Labour party or not, urgently need an opposition that is united, with clear policies to increase funding to the NHS, repeal the Health and Social Care Act, reverse the privatisations, and get rid of markets in healthcare. Jeremy Corbyn and his shadow secretary of state Diane Abbott have declared an intention to do all of this, and have displayed exactly the type of decisive leadership the NHS is calling for. We believe the re-election of Corbyn as leader of the Labour party is essential for the very survival of the NHS. Dr Kambiz Boomla General practitioner, London Dr Jacky Davis Radiologist, London Dr Louise Irvine General practitioner, London Dr David Wrigley Chair of Doctors in Unite, Carnforth, Lancashire Dr Ron Singer Retired GP, London Dr Youssef El-Gingihy London Dr Anna Livingstone GP, London Dr Yannis Gourtsoyannis Specialist registrar, infectious diseases; junior doctors committee, BMA, London Dr Aislinn Macklin-Doherty Oncology, London Dr Pete Campbell Acute medicine, Newcastle Dr Megan Parsons Junior doctor, Manchester Dr Jackie Applebee GP, London Dr Pam Wortley Retired GP, Sunderland Dr Haroon Rashid GP, Ilford Dr Saul Marmot GP, Bromley by Bow health centre, London Dr Sasha Abraham GP, London Dr Gerard Reissman General practitioner, Newcastle upon Tyne Dr Sheila Cheeroth GP, Limehouse practice, London Dr Robert MacGibbon Retired GP, Westleton, Suffolk Dr Maureen O’Leary Retired consultant psychiatrist, Sheffield Dr Jack Czauderna Retired GP, Sheffield Dr Mona Kamal Ahmed Forensic psychiatrist, London Dr Muna Rashid GP, London Dr Alex Hardip Sohal GP, London Dr David Kirby Retired GP, London Dr Robert Hirst Emergency medicine, London Dr Iain Maclennan Consultant in public health and retired GP, Sandown, Isle of Wight Dr Hennah Bashir Emergency medicine, London Dr Kelly Cruickshank Psychiatry, Salford Dr Max Thoburn Junior doctor, Manchester Dr Kathryn Greaves Anaesthetics, London Dr Shamira Bhika GP, London Dr Mary Edmondson Retired GP, London Dr Rishi Dir Orthopaedics, London Dr Helen Murrell GP, Newcastle upon Tyne Dr John Puntis Consultant paediatrician, Leeds Dr Thabo Miller Paediatrics, Somerset Dr Ben Hart GP, London Dr Paul Hobday GP, Horsmonden, Kent Dr Hilary Kinsler Consultant, old age psychiatry, King George hospital, Ilford Dr Michael Fitchett GP, London Dr Soraya Boomla GP, London Dr Kevin O’Kane Consultant, acute medicine Emma Runswick Medical student, Salford Dr Coral Jones GP, London • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
Senior Tory urges Eurosceptics to show integrity and vote to leave EU A senior Tory has urged Eurosceptic MPs to show integrity and vote to leave the European Union, as David Cameron prepared to hold a crucial meeting to finalise the renegotiation of Britain’s EU membership terms. Former defence minister Liam Fox increased pressure on figures such as Boris Johnson and Michael Gove by pointing out that they will be judged on their decisions as the UK moves towards an in/out referendum. His comments have been timed to coincide with a crucial meeting between the prime minister and Donald Tusk, the European council president, who was due at Downing Street on Sunday for a working dinner to discuss the details of proposed reforms ahead of a summit in February. A proposed “emergency brake” on EU citizens claiming welfare in the UK is expected to be discussed – but the proposal has already been dismissed by Tory Eurosceptics. In an interview with Radio 4’s The World This Weekend, Fox said Eurosceptic figures must maintain their integrity and vote to leave the EU, or risk political consequences. “Remember that the judgment you make will reflect upon your judgment, politically, for the rest of your career. Go with what you actually believe because, whether it is popular or unpopular in the short term, be protected by the cloak of your own integrity. In the end, MPs need to do what they believe is right for the country, not what is right for them,” he said. Government sources say Cameron is prepared to hold out for as long as it takes to get a proper deal he can sell to the British public, even if it means pushing back the referendum to next year. The emergency brake proposal has been put forward by Brussels as an alternative to Cameron’s original plan to impose a unilateral four-year curb that other member states ruled out as discriminatory and in breach of the freedom of movement principle. The prime minister cancelled a trip to Scandinavia to fly to Brussels to discuss the idea with the EU commission president, Jean-Claude Juncker, and the president of the European parliament, Martin Schulz. Cameron said the mechanism was “not good enough” in its current form and he is expected to seek assurances that present levels of migration will be deemed sufficient to trigger it and that it could remain in place “long enough to resolve the underlying problem”, perhaps for up to seven years. Cameron will insist it should only be regarded as a “stopgap” while a more permanent solution is worked on. Hilary Benn, the shadow foreign secretary, claimed Cameron had not seen the “big picture” if he was willing to leave the union over welfare reform proposals for EU citizens, which are expected to be published within days. Benn told the Murnaghan programme on Sky News: “To have brought the whole future of our relationship with the European Union down to this one issue shows that the prime minister, I think, is missing the big picture.” The shadow foreign secretary said Cameron should have pointed out that the EU has given the UK jobs, investment, growth, security and influence. “The idea that you would say ‘Well, if I don’t get just this one thing in the perfect form I am seeking, then we are off’ is not actually the leadership we should expect from our prime minister.” Reaching a deal at the summit on 18-19 February is seen as vital if Cameron wants to hold an early referendum on EU membership because an agreement at a later date would make it hard to schedule a vote before the school summer holidays. Cameron, however, has insisted he would not do a deal “at any price” and is prepared to hold off with the plebiscite – which must be held by the end of 2017 – if he considers the deal on the table to be inadequate. Eurosceptics have dismissed the proposals on the table as “pretty thin gruel” that would do little or nothing to stem the flow of would-be workers arriving in the UK, notably from eastern European states. Steve Baker, the co-chair of the anti-EU Conservatives for Britain group, said Cameron was engaged in a “synthetic” row with Brussels and dismissed the renegotiation as a “farce”. Speaking on the BBC’s Sunday Politics, Baker indicated there would have to be major changes within Vote Leave to maintain support from MPs. At the heart of the internal dispute is the role of Cummings and his insistence that they should not join forces with Leave.EU, which is closely aligned to Ukip. Both groups are fighting to achieve official designation from the electoral commission as the main out campaign group – which would entitle them to public funding of more than £500,000. Asked about the leadership of Vote Leave, Baker said: “Given the severe concerns of my colleagues it’s quite clear there are going to have to be material changes in Vote Leave in order to carry parliamentarians with the campaign.” It is thought that the proposed benefit ban would be available to all EU states, and be activated when migration levels were deemed high enough to put public services or welfare systems under severe strain. It is one of four areas where Cameron is seeking reforms, alongside the lifting of member states’ commitment to “ever closer union”, measures to protect non-euro states and improve EU competitiveness, and greater powers for national parliaments. He is expected to press for the current proposals relating to all four areas to be strengthened further, as well as for action to tackle “back door” immigration into the UK and other “abuses” of free movement rules.
Clean Bandit claim Christmas No 1 with Rockabye Bucking the trend for charity tracks and X Factor winners, this year’s Christmas No 1 has been revealed as Clean Bandit’s tribute to single mothers, Rockabye – a dancehall-inspired song featuring Sean Paul and Anne-Marie. The classical crossover group who formed at Cambridge University managed to stave off competition from Brits critics choice winner Rag’n’Bone Man, One Direction’s Louis Tomlinson and pop group Little Mix – a remarkable feat bearing in mind the track entered the chart nine weeks ago, before climbing to the top spot for a seven-week reign. Rockabye – dedicated to “all the single mums out there / Going through frustration” – is one of 2016’s biggest hits across downloads and streams, with combined chart sales of 589,000. “To have been No 1 for seven weeks is something amazing in its own right that we are all incredibly proud of, but to now be Christmas No 1 is mind-blowing,” Clean Bandit said in a statement. “It’s something we never imagined would happen with Rockabye when we were writing and recording it. Thanks to everyone who has made this happen!” Speaking about the track’s poignant lyrics, guitarist and keyboard player Jack Patterson, told the OfficialCharts.com: “It’s weird actually. My mum has got this theory about the song, about “Rockabye, baby” being about Jesus, and that Jesus is the baby. She’s talking about this woman who’s looking after the child on her own and saying it’s a bit like Mary … and Joseph is kind of there, but not.” In recent years, a mix of charity tracks and Simon Cowell-created pop acts have taken the top spot, with the Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Choir at No 1 in 2015, X Factor’s Ben Haenow in 2014, and Sam Bailey in 2013. Elsewhere in the charts, Rag’n’Bone Man is at No 2 with Human, One Direction’s Louis Tomlinson and Steve Aoki slip down to No 3 with Just Hold On, Little Mix’s new single Touch jumps 19 places to No 4, and Mariah Carey’s classic track All I Want For Christmas Is You rounds off the Top 5. Other vintage Christmas tracks to re-enter the top 40 thanks to streaming services include the Pogues’ and Kirsty MacColl’s Fairytale of New York, in at No 15, Shakin’ Stevens’ Merry Christmas Everyone at No 22 and Chris Rea’s Driving Home For Christmas at No 26 – his highest chart position to date. Rangers football supporters delivered the highest charting fan-led campaign this week: Glad All Over by the Dave Clark Five is back in the Top 40 at Number 31 in support of striker Joe Garner. Top of the album chart are Michael Ball and Alfie Boe whose record Together had a huge pre-Christmas surge, with 98% of their sales being physical copies. Combined sales to date are 466,000. “It’s a dream come true,” Ball and Boe told OfficialCharts.com. “There’s only one thing better than having a No 1 album and that’s having a Christmas No 1 album. A huge thanks to everyone who bought the album. Our hearts go out to you all for Christmas. We hope we entertain you with the album for Christmas and lots of love to everyone.”
Interest rates may be cut again, new Reserve Bank governor says The new Reserve Bank of Australia governor, Philip Lowe, says the official cash rate may be cut again, despite it sitting at a record low already. Lowe also spoke about the housing affordability crisis, saying it was not in society’s interest for prices to keep rising much faster than incomes, as has taken place over the past decade in most Australian capitals. He also said he would like Australia’s banking industry to regain its reputation of being a strong service profession, where staff behaved in ways that benefited clients, and where banks were trusted and considered custodians. Speaking at a parliamentary hearing on Thursday, Lowe said it was possible that interest rates could be cut again in Australia, from a record low 1.5% to an even lower 1.25%. He said financial markets were factoring in a 50% probability of another rate cut. “That’s possible, it’s going to depend on a whole range of factors, like what happens overseas, what the next inflation data look like, how the labour market’s performing, how the housing market’s performing,” he said. “Certainly there are scenarios where rates would fall again, there are scenarios where they wouldn’t need to fall again.” It was the first time Lowe had appeared publicly since becoming RBA governor. He replaced Glenn Stevens on Sunday. Lowe told the House of Representatives economics committee that he wanted banks to regain their reputation for being deeply trusted organisations. He said bank bosses should structure their remuneration for staff to encourage behaviour that benefited clients as well as banks. “There have been too many examples of poor outcomes, particularly in wealth management and insurance industries, it’s disappointing to us all,” he said. “I think it comes down to incentives within the organisations, and that’s largely remuneration structures, and that’s the responsibility of management. “What I would like to see is really kind of, banking return to be seen as a strong service profession, I don’t know how far away from that we are. “Banking historically has been a profession, a profession of stewardship, custodians, service, advisory, and counsellor. It’s not a marketing or product distribution business.” Lowe said he would like to see more people to sign up to the banking and finance oath. On house prices, Lowe said it was not in society’s interest for prices to keep rising a lot faster than incomes, because it progressively corroded the health of our balance sheets. “As a father of three children, I worry about that because people are paying so much for their housing,” he said. “[But] the solution to that, and I’m going to sound like a broken record here, is housing supply, and investment in transportation infrastructure. We pay a lot for our houses ... the value of our land relative to income is incredibly high. “Why is that? Because we all want to live in these fantastic cities close to the coast and we haven’t invested enough in transport, so the locational value of land is really high, and that’s the underpinning factor to high house prices.” He also said it was unlikely that the RBA would need to use highly unconventional monetary policy to encourage growth. But he said monetary policy had stopped working globally because governments and businesses did not want to use low interest rates to increase their spending. He urged private businesses or governments to use low interest rates to invest, using their balance sheets to facilitate infrastructure spending.
Aston Villa 0-6 Liverpool: Premier League – as it happened! Read Andy Hunter’s match report: Let’s start with the positives. Liverpool put a patchy run behind them with an accomplished performance, sharing the goals out as they moved up to eighth, and giving their goal difference a welcome shot in the arm. If Philippe Coutinho and Daniel Sturridge can stay fit, brighter days lie ahead for Jürgen Klopp. The final scoreline was, however, more a sign of Villa’s disintegration than Liverpool’s brilliance. The hosts looked like losing from the moment Sturridge opened the scoring, and lost their way spectacularly in the second half, conceding four goals in 15 minutes. On a day when history is relevant, it’s worth noting that in 185 previous meetings, Liverpool never won by this big of a margin. Villa are out of their depth, and the next top-flight encounter between these two may be a long time coming. Thanks for reading, and be sure to join Gregg Bakowski for Man City v Spurs, live, now. Bye! That concludes Aston Villa’s worst home defeat in the league since 1935. Liverpool were good – very good at times – but they had to be no more than competent. Villa were awful, and are going down with a whimper. 92 mins: Villa fans, to their eternal credit, are still vocal – even if it’s mainly in anger. One final, fitful attack for Liverpool, with Clyne feeding Origi, who dallies waiting for a cross, and lets the ball run out of play. 90 mins: Philippe Coutinho picks up the man of the match award, which is fair enough. Liverpool are a much stronger side with him in it. The central trio of Henderson, Can and Milner, meanwhile, were as dominant as any midfield unit I’ve seen this season. 88 mins: Stewart loops the ball out wide to Clyne, who again cannot be stopped by either Veretout or Cissokho. His cross is cleared by Okore, with Benteke set to pounce. Oh, Merse. 85 mins: Alan Hutton replaces Micah Richards, making his comeback from injury. “A silver lining for the hosts” suggests the commentary, seriously pushing the boundaries of the term “silver lining”. 84 mins: From the free kick, Liverpool clear and break in second gear, with Origi searching for Clyne with a diagonal pass. Lescott gets across well to cut the pass out. 83 mins: Villa are showing a bit of fight, albeit against a Liverpool team that have downed tools for the day. Stewart goes into the book for a clumsy foul on Gueye. 81 mins: Villa’s next four league games: Stoke (A), Everton (H), Man City (A), Tottenham (H). 79 mins: Ah, that’s unlucky. Lescott, on the edge of the Liverpool area for some reason, backheels into the path of Sinclair, who bends an excellent shot that crashes off the angle. “The other half of the crowd stayed for their last chance to boo Benteke for a couple of years” quips Mark Turner. Benteke’s entrance was met with little reaction, save for the stunned silence that’s been the theme of this second half. 76 mins: Liverpool stroke it around as Klopp himself stifles a chuckle. Veretout is booked for a risible hack on Stewart. 73 mins: CHRISTIAN BENTEKE IS ON! He replaces Firmino, who had just exchanged rabonas with Jordan Henderson. In the stands, Villa fans are actually laughing. 72 mins: Clyne broke forward again, and saw his cross turned away by Cissokho. The competent defending didn’t last, as Henderson’s corner found Touré, unmarked, who crouched to direct the ball into the net. Kolo Touré makes it six with a free header. Humiliation complete. 69 mins: About half of the home crowd have left. I’ll be honest, I’m surprised that the other half have stayed. Elsewhere, the team news is in for Manchester City v Tottenham – you can join Gregg Bakowski for that one, which should be a bit more competitive. 67 mins: I think Villa’s mini-revival might be over. Kevin Stewart is on for Liverpool, in place of Coutinho. For Villa, Jordan Lyden is thrown in at the deep end, in place of Leandro Bacuna. It’s a third goal in eight minutes for Liverpool, Clyne wandering unopposed through the Villa area, forcing a fine save from the unfortunate Mark Bunn, but bundling in the rebound as nobody could be bothered to clear it. 63 mins: Ashley Westwood is booked for a frankly horrible tackle on Origi, letting his frustration get the better of him. Don’t worry, Villa fans, it can’t get any worse, right? 62 mins: Villa are sleepwalking, and Moreno’s routine through ball puts Origi clear of the defence. He composes himself, and slots the ball underneath Bunn. Well, that didn’t take long. 61 mins: Liverpool substitution: Divock Origi, not Christian Benteke, is on for Daniel Sturridge. 60 mins: Liverpool ease off defensively, and Villa almost snatch a goal back, with home fans heading for the exit. Gueye threads the ball to Bacuna, whose cross-shot is parried into danger by Mignolet – but Gueye can’t reach the rebound. He complains he was held back by Moreno, but it’s a hopeful appeal. 58 mins: Bacuna dallied on the ball and was dispossessed by Firmino, then held him back. Neil Swarbrick played a tidy advantage, allowing the Brazilian to roll the ball across the D, into the path of Can, who swept a first-time shot into the bottom corner. And now it’s three, courtesy of a lovely strike from Emre Can! 56 mins: An extended break in play as Agbonlahor requires further treatment. He looks in a bad way, and is going off, replaced by Scott Sinclair. 53 mins: Milner, who alongside Henderson has been excellent, weaves along the right-hand side of the area, his low cross almost ricocheting to Sturridge – but Bunn, who has done little wrong, punching the ball clear. A third goal is starting to feel inevitable. 52 mins: Agbonlahor is carrying on. Liverpool are still having the run of midfield, with Moreno and Clyne stationed thirty yards from the Villa goal. Coutinho threads the ball to the former, whose cross is punted clear by Cissokho, under little pressure. 48 mins: Coutinho shapes to shimmy past Richards, but the Villa captain pre-emptively puts him on the deck. Agbonlahor is down injured – hardly ideal, with Scott Sinclair the best attacking option on the home bench. Keinan Davis, the teenager signed from Biggleswade Town, is the other. 46 mins: Bacuna goes for a change of pace, cutting inside and striking a left-footed shot that Mignolet holds at the second time of asking. The second half is under way, with Bacuna offering another inaccurate cross from the right which Mignolet plucks out of the air. “Jürgen Klopp must have been told off by his doctor for the wild celebrations” reckons Ezra Finkelstein. “Even Wenger gets more animated than that Milner goal reaction. Disappointing.” While we wait for the second half, here’s Sachin Nakrani with five talking points from the Emirates: Talking points from Villa Park: Liverpool have been very good, Aston Villa less so. After a lukewarm start, it’s been easy for Liverpool ever since Danny Sturridge nodded home after 15 minutes. Former Villan James Milner made it two when his crossed free kick drifted in, and as the whistle goes, the home fans’ boos are reserved exclusively for current Aston Villa players. Back in a jiffy. 45 mins: Two added minutes for Villa to cling to this two-goal deficit. Henderson looks for Sturridge with a cross from an unconventional angle but it’s smothered by Bunn. 43 mins: Liverpool knocking once again, and Milner has acres of space down the left, where Richards has been shoddy in his defensive duty. His cross is turned away, but only to the feet of Sturridge. The striker curls a shot towards the far corner, but Bunn beats it away. 42 mins: Bacuna picks up a booking for holding up Coutinho. From the free kick, the Brazilian finds Moreno with a no-look pass down the left, and Okore does very well to clear the ball from under his own crossbar. 40 mins: Villa are building some momentum as half-time approaches, with Bacuna offering a more dangerous ball in that’s hacked away by Sakho. “I very much doubt Benteke will get booed. As soon as he started playing regularly for us, it was obvious he was a much better player than the rest of the squad and it was only a matter of time before he left” says Tom Adams. “He stuck around for longer than we expected, and dug us out of a lot of holes. He left with the minimum of fuss and thanked the fans as he went. He was the mirror image of Delph’s departure and I’d expect a round of applause from the Villa faithful when he comes on.” 38 mins: Richards moves upfield again, but with two Villa players to Liverpool’s six in the area, he pokes the ball out wide to Bacuna, who is in space and in the right place to whip in a cross. His effort rolls into Mignolet’s gloves, to audible groans. 36 mins: Coutinho has had a hand in both goals, and his very presence is giving Aston Villa a headache, their midfield afraid to go forward and defenders nervous in his vicinity. As a result, another spell of home possession becomes a Liverpool half-chance, Coutinho robbing Okore and firing in a speculative cross that’s cleared away. 33 mins: No matter, as Villa are toying with the self-destruct button again, giving away an unnecessary free kick 35 yards out. Coutinho is the only Liverpool player over it, and bends an impressive effort that flies a foot wide of Bunn’s near post. 32 mins: Lovely interplay from Moreno and Firmino, with the left-back haring forward, picking out Firmino on the left, who returns the favour with a prodded cross towards the near post. Moreno gets there ahead of Bunn, but his shot is gathered by the keeper. 29 mins: Should have been three. Firmino drops deep and lifts a diagonal pass to Milner, who had romped into the space left by Micah Richards, stranded upfield. Milner flicks the ball to Henderson, close to the penalty spot, but his shot is deflected wide off Okore’s arm, admittedly from very close range. 27 mins: Jürgen Klopp’s back in the dugout, the players are pinging the ball around midfield, and their fans are in full voice. All rosy in Liverpool’s garden right now. 25 mins: It started with Okore trying, and failing, to shepherd the ball out on the goal-line. He lost possession, then upended Coutinho in his efforts to redeem himself. Instead of a goal kick, it’s a free kick, and Milner curls it in from the left, beyond Lescott, a dazzled Mark Bunn and inside the far post! This is a goal from nothing, and truly embarrassing from Aston Villa. 22 mins: Cissokho’s cross is cut out by Toure, and Westwood takes on a speculator that, on first appearance, looks much, much closer than it was. Gil is now playing as a second striker, just behind Agbonlahor, but theirs are the only claret shirts getting into the Liverpool area. 20 mins: Gil is over another free kick, and again delivers a testing long ball into the box – but Henderson is on hand to nod it back to Mignolet. 18 mins: The hosts’ gameplan, which was working well, will now have to be ripped up. A pretty good day for Roy Hodgson so far, with Welbeck and Sturridge both on the scoresheet. 16 mins: Liverpool stroke it around in midfield, before the ball is whipped out to Coutinho on the left. He stepped inside, curled an inviting cross into the area, and Sturridge peeled away from Joleon Lescott, giving himself an easy header, six yards out, into the far corner. That solid start for Villa is, needless to say, over. Now Liverpool have started, and it’s Danny Sturridge with a header from point blank range! “Wonder if Benteke will get booed if he comes on” wonders Ezra Finkelstein. My guess is yes, but not as much as Fabian Delph. 13 mins: A slow start for the Liverpool front three, with Firmino and Coutinho taking turns to misjudge passes to Sturridge, who is weaving from right to left in search of an opening. While this one’s simmering, here’s Barney Ronay on Arsenal’s dramatic win over Leicester: 11 mins: Cissokho digs out an inswinging cross that Mignolet comes to punch, not entirely convincingly. A solid start from the hosts, although Liverpool haven’t really got started yet. 9 mins: Carles Gil looks the most likely to create something for Villa, almost bamboozling the back four with a slaloming run, then directing a promising attack which ends when Gueye’s pass is overhit. 7 mins: Every Villa player back in their own half, and Liverpool struggle for a breakthrough, with Moreno hauling a limp cross into Bunn’s arms with the penalty box deserted. 5 mins: ...from which Gil picks out Lescott, unmarked, but his header back across goal is cleared away. 4 mins: A lively tempo so far, both teams shuttling the ball neatly around the halfway line. Richards gallops forward, and is needlessly shoved over by Moreno. Villa with a chance to put the ball into the box... 2 mins: Henderson picks out Clyne, pushed high up the right flank, but his cross is flicked away by Richards. There’s a potentially troublesome patch of sunlight square in front of Mark Bunn’s goal. 1 min: Firmino starts in the central role where he’s impressed recently, with Sturridge out on the right. Liverpool knock the ball around their back four in the opening seconds. Neil Swarbrick blows his whistle and away we go, with Liverpool in their all-white away kit, and Villa, of course, in claret and blue. About five minutes until these two step out tentatively for their slot on Super Sunday. Will it be a thriller, or filler, at the Villa? I had a sneaking feeling for a score draw, but that Coutinho-Firmino-Sturridge frontline, making their first Premier League appearance together, looks a little spicy for the hosts. My prediction: Villa 1-2 Liverpool. Danny Welbeck has scored a last-minute winner for Arsenal. It’s up for grabs now! History From the future to the past, and as discussed, Aston Villa v Liverpool is a true top-flight fixture (although the one time it was played in the second tier sounded pretty decent too). You’d have to go back to January 1981 to find the last time it was a true title decider, when Tony Morley’s dancing feet helped Villa to a 2-0 win that put them above defending champions Liverpool, and on course for a title won with just 14 players. Villa’s best effort since that season was the Premier League’s opening year, when they battled Manchester United and Norwich for the title, eventually coming home second. On their way, they knocked over Liverpool in a madcap 4-2 win, capped by that Ronny Rosenthal miss – the kind of occasion we have to thank for the watercooler farce that remains the Premier League’s hallmark. Recent years have been less dramatic, but no more predictable. Villa have beaten Liverpool just the once at home in 18 years, but have triumphed SIX times away from Villa Park, including last year’s Rodgers v Sherwood affair at Wembley. On home turf, it’s been largely binary dominance for Liverpool, so we have to turn to the 2002 League Cup for a real thriller. Back to Villa Park, and Keinan Davis is on the home bench, looking for a Premier League debut the day after his 18th birthday. Credit to him for being in any kind of condition to play. Here’s a nice roundup from the Birmingham Mail of Villa’s other teenage Premier League players, from Gareth Barry to Jonathan Bowers. Make that Arsenal 1-1 Leicester. By the way... Latest score: Arsenal 0-1 Leicester, but the visitors are down to ten men. It is, to say the least, a big twenty minutes in the Foxes’ title bid. Join Gregg Bakowski, but hurry back. Christian Benteke will begin his return to Villa Park from the safety of the bench – but Daniel Sturridge starts, as does Philippe Coutinho, who came through the Cup defeat to West Ham unscathed. They replace Joe Allen and Adam Lallana in the team that drew with Sunderland, with Kolo Touré in for the injured Dejan Lovren. Villa are unchanged from the 2-0 win over Norwich. Aston Villa: Bunn, Richards, Okore, Lescott, Cissokho, Bacuna, Gana, Westwood, Gil, Veretout, Agbonlahor. Subs: Guzan, Clark, Sinclair, Richardson, Hutton, Lyden, Davis. Liverpool: Mignolet, Clyne, Toure, Sakho, Moreno, Henderson, Can, Milner, Firmino, Sturridge, Coutinho. Subs: Benteke, Caulker, Origi, Ibe, Stewart, Flanagan, Ward. Referee: Neil Swarbrick (Lancashire) Hello. Liverpool and Aston Villa arrive here in different predicaments, perched at either end of the Premier League’s lower half, but with a fair bit in common too. Both are entitled to hope for the best, with the odd hint of forward momentum, but expect the worst, based on their shiftless seasons to date. There are two accomplished continental types in the dugout, but they have yet to really impose themselves, stymied by quiet Januarys, restless fan bases, and defences that could drive the coolest heads to distraction. Save for a few choice subplots (the return of Christian Benteke to Villa Park, the return of Daniel Sturridge to actually playing football) this fixture could suffer from its scheduling, the faintly unappetising meat in today’s Big Four Super Sunday sandwich. These two clubs deserve better. Both are top-flight leviathans, contesting 206 seasons in the elite between them, and battling for honours since 1894, long before we’d ever heard of Rupert Murdoch, Leicester City and in-play betting. This is the 93rd league game between the two at Villa Park, and the 92nd in the top tier. Given Villa’s current plight, who knows when the next one will be? Let’s enjoy it while it’s here. Both teams can at least give this timeless first division fixture an appropriate send off, and perhaps light a fire under current affairs in the process. Kick-off is at 2.05pm; teams and nostalgic vibes to follow.
Scottish Labour calls for new federal state to unite UK after Brexit Kezia Dugdale, the Scottish Labour leader, has called for a radical reshaping of the UK into a federal state with Scotland taking control over fisheries, farming and social rights now covered by EU laws. In a speech in London, Dugdale said the UK needed “a new political settlement” to prevent it splitting apart over Brexit, and to tackle an erratic and uneven distribution of power between its regions and nations. It would be underpinned, she told the Institute for Public Policy Research thinktank on Wednesday, by a new act of union designed for a post-Brexit era, to replace the treaty signed by England and Scotland that unified their parliaments 300 years ago. This new structure would be designed in part by a new “people’s constitutional convention” of civic and political groups that would mimic the Scottish civic convention that helped frame the 1999 devolution settlement, which led to the creation of the Scottish parliament. “This would mean a radical reshaping of our country along federal lines where every component part of the United Kingdom – Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the English regions – take more responsibility for what happens in their own communities, but where we still maintain the protection of being part of a greater whole as the UK,” Dugdale said. “It would involve significant changes to how central government operates.” Answering questions after the speech, Dugdale said the confusion of Brexit provided the ideal opportunity to “renew the mission” of the UK be looking at what powers were exercised where. “Much of the debate around that has been about the threats of Brexit to Scotland, of which there are substantial concerns, but also there’s an opportunity here,” Dugdale said. “The United Kingdom is leaving the European Union, and there will be powers coming back from Brussels. I think it’s important to start now to talk about where those powers go.” Dugdale said she would not be meeting the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, while in London, but was in “regular contact” with him. She had “talked him though the basic bones of the speech” last week, she added. “While this is an argument I’m putting forwards as leader of the Scottish Labour party, it’s very much the trend of what Jeremy Corbyn has been saying,” she said. Dugdale’s agenda, intended to help strengthen her party’s faltering popularity while undermining preparations by Nicola Sturgeon’s Scottish government for a possible second independence referendum, echoes proposals from the former Labour prime minister Gordon Brown. Earlier this year, Brown called for the House of Lords to be replaced by an elected senate and floated proposals for a federal system, bringing himself alongside similar plans set out by Liberal Democrats in Scotland. Similar proposals were also mooted by Dugdale and senior Scottish Labour figures including the former lord chancellor Lord Falconer immediately after the referendum revealed a deep split between Scottish and English voters over the EU, when Scotland voted heavily to remain. Dugdale said core tax, state funding and social policies would still be controlled in London – a policy framework often nicknamed devolution-plus. She added that after the UK leaves the EU: Scotland should take control over fishing and agriculture – areas overseen now by the EU, but coordinated with the rest of the UK. Scotland take charge of employment rights covered now by the EU social chapter, and be empowered to top up a basic minimum wage. The UK government would retain control over foreign affairs, overseas aid and defence. Core funding would still come from the Treasury in London while state pensions, or major taxes such as corporation or inheritance tax, would remain under the control of a federal parliament. Dugdale said this structure would preserve the sharing of resources and the principles of solidarity that Labour was set up to champion. “The UK provides the redistribution of wealth that defines our entire Labour movement, and it provides the protection for public finance in Scotland that comes from being part of something larger. Something good. Something worth fighting for,” she said. Dugdale’s speech was designed to rebuild her personal profile as well as Labour’s declining popularity in Scotland, which has worsened under Corbyn’s leadership. A YouGov poll for the Times last week said 32% of Scottish voters had no opinion on Dugdale’s leadership qualities, while 42% thought she was doing badly. She has been outmaneouvered by Ruth Davidson, the Scottish Tory leader, who has positioned herself as the champion of the union, while critics inside the Scottish Labour party have accused Dugdale of being too weak on the constitution and post-referendum policy. Linda Fabiani MSP, a former Scottish government minister who sat on the Smith Commission which agreed Holyrood’s new £14bn tax and welfare powers after the 2014 independence referendum, said Dugdale’s proposals were “just the latest version of the same old song.” “Labour has been promising a supercharged, powerhouse, federalism-max for years – and consistently failing to deliver it. In fact it was Labour politicians that specifically blocked the powers over the minimum wage they are now asking for,” Fabiani said. “Kezia Dugdale is always quick to accuse others of obsessing over the constitution, but Scottish Labour’s default answer to bad polling numbers is to promise powers that they don’t deliver. Billions of years from now I half expect Labour politicians to be staring into the dying sun calling for a constitutional convention.”
Anthony Martial’s winner against Everton sends Manchester United fifth Manchester United’s victory over Everton on Sunday was derived from the youth and zest of Marcus Rashford, Timothy Fosu-Mensah and Anthony Martial, who combined for the last of these three to score a sweet winner that ensures United maintain pressure on Manchester City in the race for the final Champions League berth. After West Ham United drew on Saturday Louis van Gaal’s side took full advantage to overtake them into fifth place with seven matches remaining. As the manager said: “I have said in the dressing room after the match that it was very important to win, otherwise the victory against City [in the derby] was worthless. We keep in touch, one point behind. We keep in touch with Arsenal, five points behind. We have to play Tottenham [on Sunday], not an easy match but normally we are playing very well against the top teams. If we continue like that I am very happy.” Van Gaal was relieved as he detected fatigue following the international break, having to remove Marcos Rojo for Fosu-Mensah at half-time due to “jet lag”, and Blind towards the end to give him a breather. “It was more or less a stolen victory. We didn’t play so well, it looked like we were not fresh,” he said. “Daley Blind has played [virtually] every match and he is at the end of his strengths. I shall give him two days off.” United were fair value for the win, though they hardly convinced that they will romp home to the maximum 21 points and closing total of 75 that would surely secure the top-four finish they crave. The afternoon began with the South Stand being renamed after Sir Bobby Charlton and the injured Wayne Rooney bashfully waving a red flag along with the rest of the support to greet this tribute to one of the club’s legends. The on-field action commenced after the same XI that won the Mancunian derby strode out for United. It meant that day’s hero, Rashford, continuing as the No9, with Juan Mata and Martial either side of Jesse Lingard in the attacking trident behind. Everton had begun by swarming over United. In this period Gerard Deulofeu was their most potent option. Twice the Spaniard dismantled the home defence by skating beyond Rojo but each time there was no reward. Roberto Martínez dropped Muhamed Besic and Ramiro Funes Mori from the side that was beaten 2-0 by Arsenal at Goodison Park a fortnight ago, instead selecting John Stones and Deulofeu. Given the array of talent – led by Romelu Lukaku, Ross Barkley, Stones, Seamus Coleman and Phil Jagielka – available to Martínez, it seemed a poor return for his team to arrive on 38 points from 29 outings. Yet as the opening half wore on and United pinned Everton back the clue to this low yield was in the lack of control offered by a midfield manned by Barkley, James McCarthy and Tom Cleverley. Instead Morgan Schneiderlin and Michael Carrick provided the platform on which Martial, Lingard, Mata and Rashford buzzed in and around the visitors’ area and when the referee, Andre Marriner, blew for the break Everton were fortunate still to be level. A stark fact, though, was that this was the 10th league game of 15 here that arrived at the interval goalless. As United began the second half hoping to break the deadlock and in search of their 1,000th Premier League goal in this stadium, Fosu-Mensah replaced Rojo and he popped up early on to deliver a cross. When United finally made the breakthrough the Dutchman was pivotal. Fosu-Mensah had swapped with Matteo Darmian, who moved into Rojo’s former role as the 18-year-old operated at right-back. It was from here that Fosu-Mensah again roved forward as Mata trapped the ball neatly and passed inside to Rashford. The striker’s back-heel into Fosu-Mensah was as clever as the cross that found Martial at the far post and he tapped home for a 13th goal of the season. Jagielka came close to puncturing Old Trafford’s joy instantly and relief. The visiting captain rose highest from a corner to beat David de Gea but the bar saved United. As the end neared Fosu-Mensah did the same when Everton pressed hard, superbly turning away a dangerous Coleman cross and United hung on. At the final whistle the visitors were booed off by their fans, a response Martínez suggested was understood by the team. “You can hear our boos in the dressing room,” he said. “The frustration is we all see the quality we have.” Next Sunday Van Gal’s men hope to deflate Spurs’ title challenge and keep up their own bid to qualify for the European Cup. It promises to be another close affair. Man of the match Anthony Martial (Manchester United)
'Worst case of chickenpox' sparks call for rethink on vaccination A mother whose two-year-old son spent five days in hospital fighting a severe case of chickenpox has called for anyone who wants them to get vaccinations on the NHS against the disease. Sarah Allen urged ministers to rethink eligibility for immunisation, under which only those looking after children with a weakened immune system, for example because they are undergoing chemotherapy, can receive it. Allen, a nursery manager in Cambridgeshire, spoke out after doctors said her son Jasper’s chickenpox was the worst case of the usually mild illness they had ever seen. The toddler became so ill last month that staff at Hinchingbrooke hospital in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, put him on an intravenous drip and gave him antibiotics, antiviral drugs and morphine. Allen claims that Jasper was initially denied treatment when her GP practice refused to let her see a doctor. “When I first called our local GP’s surgery, I spoke to the receptionist to make an appointment for Jasper, but when I told her it was chickenpox, she said to me, ‘Every mother thinks their child has bad chickenpox.’ I knew I wasn’t being a neurotic mother. I have two children and have run a nursery and seen hundreds of kids with chickenpox before, so I knew this wasn’t normal. “When Jasper was admitted to hospital, it was scary, but I was also relieved I was actually being taken seriously and that they were doing something about it. We couldn’t hold him for three days because he screamed every time we touched him.” Jasper’s chickenpox was so severe that he has had scans of his heart to ascertain whether he has suffered any long-term damage as a result, she added. Immunisation against the disease is not part of the government’s childhood vaccination programme. Jabs are given only to adults and children who are in close contact with someone who is either immuno-suppressed or would otherwise be at risk if they got chickenpox. Public Health England, which oversees NHS vaccination schemes, indicated that no change of policy was imminent. A spokesman added: “The expert advisory body the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation is currently undertaking a review of a childhood vaccination programme against chickenpox in the UK, based on the available scientific evidence, including consideration of the cost-effectiveness of any programme. This review is likely to be concluded next year.” Cambridgeshire Community Services NHS Trust, which runs the children’s inpatient ward at Hinchingbrooke, where Jasper was treated, said in a statement that: “We can confirm Mrs Allen’s statement that Jasper Allen was treated on our children’s inpatient ward for five days with a severe case of chickenpox.” Cambridgeshire and Peterborough clinical commissioning group, which oversees GP services in the area, said it could not comment on any individual patient’s treatment. It has not received a complaint from Allen about her local GP surgery refusing her an appointment. In a statement, it said: “Chickenpox is usually a mild illness from which most children recover on their own. Symptoms include a high temperature, aches and pains, and a rash of blisters. These usually pass within a week or two, and the blisters dry up and fade. “The best treatment is to use soothing creams and/or appropriate doses of paracetamol to ease any discomfort, while keeping your child hydrated by giving them lots to drink. “It is highly advisable that parents and carers keep a watchful eye on children who have chickenpox, as complications, although rare, can develop, especially in children who are very young, are on other medications, or who may have a weakened immune system.”
The Ramonas review – spirited foursome are more Runaways than Ramones Nostalgia was kryptonite to punks, who would have been appalled if they could have foreseen the range of events planned for 2016 – and supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund, no less – to mark punk’s 40th anniversary. The first is the 10-day Resolution festival at the 100 Club, scene of 1976’s Punk Special showcase, which saw the movement shift from gobby subculture to culture-altering new broom. Resolution’s lineup is filled with the handful of first-wavers still working, including UK Subs and, on opening night, the Ramonas. The original Ramones – whose last surviving member, drummer Tommy Erdelyi, died in 2014 – probably would have relished the idea of the flag being kept flying by four young British women called Cloey, Rohnny, Pee Pee and Margy (the last named in memory of Tommy’s replacement, Marky). The Ramonas have had their work cut out since forming in 2004: not only must they cleave to the spirit of 76 – whipping out 30 Ramones songs in an hour while radiating impassive delinquency – they also need to correct the belief held by many millennials that the Ramones are just a logo on a Topshop T-shirt. Tonight there’s no fear on the latter score. The smallish crowd, some wearing bondage pants and rigid Mohicans, are old enough to remember things as they were. A six-man moshpit forms at the front and enjoys thrusting laterally; Sheena is a Punk Rocker encourages it to near-combust. The Ramonas rip through Cretin Hop, Rockaway Beach and the other hits, plus murky outliers such as Somebody Put Something in My Drink. Their renditions are faithful to the letter, though Scottish singer Lisa “Cloey” Breyer diverges from the static Joey Ramone template by hurtling across the stage. Yet what comes to mind isn’t the Ramones so much as their contemporaries the Runaways and riot grrrls L7. You leave wondering what this spirited foursome would sound like performing their own material. • At Brudenell Social Club, Leeds, 25 February. Box office: 0113-275 2411. Then touring.
Roberto Martínez criticises Everton team but praises Matthew Pennington Roberto Martínez’s future at Everton appears increasingly bleak and issued a damning assessment of his team’s latest woeful performance byhe admitting that Matthew Pennington, a 21-year-old academy graduate who was recently recalled from a loan spell at Walsall, was the only player to emerge from the 3-1 defeat at Leicester with his reputation intact. “We played last week and we had all the attributes you need to win a football game,” Martínez said. “Saturday is a contrasting performance, we got caught up into what was a celebration for the home team and we didn’t look ready. “A young player who could maybe have been caught by the occasion was Matty Pennington and he was the only player who played with intent, with meaning and desire and it is a shame no one else on the pitch could match that focus.”
How choreographer Ann Yee got Andrew Scott and Ralph Fiennes into the groove Ralph Fiennes struts like a chicken, shimmies his bum, communes with the Mediterranean sun. In the film A Bigger Splash, he plays Harry, a music producer who erupts into the summer retreat of a rock star played by Tilda Swinton – and his impromptu dance to the Rolling Stones’ Emotional Rescue establishes him as a disruptive, disarming life force. This short, luminous sequence was created with Fiennes by the questing theatre choreographer Ann Yee. Speaking on the phone from Ohio, Yee insists this is her first ever interview, but her unforced eloquence makes it clear how she establishes a connection with actors. When she began working with Fiennes, nothing was fixed. “We didn’t know what the number would be until we filmed it,” she admits. “There was a great moment in London when Luca [Guadagnino, the director] said, ‘I need you just to play.’ We were in a studio, and I sent Luca little videos of our explorations. There was one where Ralph disappeared behind a curtain – Luca was, like, ‘That’s genius! I’m putting it in the film.’” It is indeed a jolt to see Fiennes pop out, the holiday’s jack-in-the-box. Fiennes has described Yee as “this great spirit”, while Guadagnino considers her work as “psychoanalytic choreography.” Harry seems to be the holiday’s life and soul, but also its lonely heart of darkness. You sense it as his dance comes to an end. “It’s a very simple move that you’ll have seen a million times,” Yee says. “He flings his arms wide, like Jesus on the cross, and the sun hits his face – and you can’t help but imagine what he’s feeling.” Fiennes admits: “I like making an arse of myself on the dancefloor.” So how do you help a non-dancer speak through his body? “Every actor is different,” Yee says. “I open my mind and go: where is this person’s availability? I see what they’ve got, and I always tell them, ‘Let me be very clear – nothing you do is wrong, or a mistake.’” Fiennes, she confirms, “doesn’t consider himself a dancer, but his connection to his body is profound”. Fiennes sought out Yee after seeing her release another actor into transfixing movement. In 2014, Andrew Scott played an increasingly unhinged rock star in Simon Stephens’ Birdland at the Royal Court, and much of his glittering charisma radiated through dance – a feral shuttle you could feel in your bones. “I wanted to know who got him to look that good,” Fiennes said. Scott looked so fine that I assumed the snake-hipped skills were all his own, but Yee says: “Andrew did not think he was a dancer. But he trusted me. I have done so many different forms of movement, so I can go, ‘Here, what about this tool?’ and feel confident that I have whatever they need. We worked on a skeleton of movement sequences and ideas, so that he had a freedom of movement within a structure.” Yee does far more than coax actors into throwing new shapes. She has worked on major musicals (The Commitments), full-throated opera in Salzburg and new writing such as the delirious cult hit Mr Burns at the Almeida, in London. It is, she accepts, “such an eclectic career. I feel super fortunate – I don’t know of another choreographer who has straddled so many versions of it”. From Ohio, in the midwestern US, Yee grew up in a family of five children. She left for Europe planning to start her own contemporary dance company. “I was also really into text and movement, so thought I should work with a theatre director.” A happy meeting with Daniel Kramer (now artistic director at English National Opera) led to her working with him on Woyzeck at the Gate in Notting Hill and a career in British theatre. “It was really lucky. It’s a combination of opportunity and perseverance.” One reason for her diverse, zigzagging career path may be an openness to what might come. I mention the freelancer’s tic of saying yes to almost everything, but she says it’s more than expediency. “There are artists on this planet who go: I know what art I need to make … What emerged [for me] was the kind of person I want to be. I want to be the kind of person in a room that allows for creativity: I don’t want to be a dictator, a tyrant, a bully.” We saw choreography as coercion in PPE, a bristling film in the ’s series of microplays with the Royal Court in London. Created with director Hamish Pirie and playwright Tim Price over only a couple of days (“We were making split-second decisions”), it distilled our disenchantment with professional politics, corralling citizens into a routine of faux-accessible gestures. Not a word was spoken – but, Yee maintains, “the body has a language which is as valuable and articulate as the language in our mouths”. Even when that language is by Britain’s greatest writer, Yee can help make it sing. She is a key collaborator on Phyllida Lloyd’s trilogy of all-female Shakespeares, set in a women’s prison. Julius Caesar (2012) and Henry IV (2014) will be followed this autumn by The Tempest. Casts led by Harriet Walter claim a language of power in word and fraught movement. “Each play gives you something to chew on,” says Yee, “politics, betrayal, legacy, ownership. They all get pretty hot.” Although Yee anticipates the day when no one bats an eyelash at all-female Shakespeare, Lloyd’s productions liberate his power-grab plays. “Phyllida is definitely one of a kind,” Yee adds. “A combination of curiosity, discovery, passion and point of view.” Their latest collaboration is the toxic non-romcom of The Taming of the Shrew, staged in New York’s Central Park with Janet McTeer and Cush Jumbo. Yee steers the abusive story towards a riotous finale set to Joan Jett’s Bad Reputation. “Whew!” exhaled Ben Brantley in the New York Times. “[The cast’s] relief at finally being unconfined lights up the night.” Yee deflects any compliments to the “phenomenal performers” she collaborates with. “I would go to the depths of the ocean for these actors,” she says. “I’m still really curious about other human beings … The work that sought me out is the work I wanted to do. I’ve just had the best ride.” A Bigger Splash is available on DVD and Blu-Ray from 27 June.
Mofo 2017: Peaches to bring her one-woman Jesus Christ Superstar to Hobart festival The electropop provocateur Peaches takes on Jesus Christ Superstar for next year’s Mona Foma, the summer festival of Tasmania’s Museum of Old and New Art. More than 200 artists from a dozen countries as far-flung as Azerbaijan will feature in the five-day festival in Hobart. (Mona Foma is an acronym for Museum of Old and New Art: Festival of Music and Art, and is often further shortened to Mofo.) Peaches, the Canadian electronic musician and performance artist, will perform Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s 1970 rock opera as a one-woman show at the Theatre Royal. Peaches Christ Superstar has been performed sporadically since 2010 but the Mofo performance will be its Australian premiere. Left-of-centre collaborations and premieres jump out from the lineup, with some Australian musicians reaching outside their comfort zones for the avant-garde festival. Brian Ritchie, the bass guitarists for the Violent Femmes and the festival’s curator, said the artists on the 2017 bill had been encouraged to cross media and extend their practice. Many will be appearing at the festival in “artist-in-residence” mode, responding in real-time to the inspiration of the site. The Australian rock band Regurgitator will reinterpret the Velvet Underground’s debut album, with the addition of synth and Chinese zither. Jim Moginie, the guitarist from Midnight Oil, will perform with the German theremin virtuosi Carolina Eyck and a piano accompaniment. As previously announced, Mike Patton, the frontman of the California rock band Faith No More, will bring the live world premiere of tētēma: the fruits of his collaboration with the experimental composer Anthony Pateras, in their only Australian show; and Maynard James Keenan, best known for his work as vocalist in the bands Tool and A Perfect Circle, will perform with his elaborate side project Puscifer on Mofo’s outdoor stage – in costume and with a wrestling ring. The opera collective Foundation IHOS Amsterdam will premiere a new work during Mofo, titled Before the Flame Goes Out – subtitled a “memorial to the Jewish martyrs of Ioannina, Greece”. The DJ Z-Trip, a pioneer of the mashup movement, is also on the bill, as is Germany’s Pantha Du Prince, who fuses house, techno and indie. Artists and punters alike will be able to interact with art, science and music installations and exhibitions in and around Hobart for the festival’s duration. Highlights include a “wet analogue” synthesiser created by the Australian artist Guy Ben-Ary from his own body cells, and an “interactive endurance walk on amplified salt inside a shipping container”, brought to Mofo by Mick Douglas. The program is rounded out by markets, parties and dining experiences inspired by “Salvador Dalí’s cookbook”. Will Hodgman, the Tasmanian premier and its minister for tourism, said Mofo 2017 would transform the city of Hobart and its surrounds “into a somewhat surreal stage”. The festival will take place between 18 and 22 January, with tickets on sale from 17 October. Tasmanian residents are eligible for a “locals’ discount”.
The 10 best things to do this week TV Happy Valley (BBC1, Tuesday, 9pm) Sarah Lancashire returns in Sally Wainwright’s gripping but somewhat hardcore crime thriller set in West Yorkshire’s Calder valley. The appalling Tommy Lee Royce is safely behind bars but who is his mysterious lady visitor and what does she want? Meanwhile, a case of sheep-rustling quickly gives way to something far more sinister, which plunges our heroine back into another grim investigation. Wainwright’s writing is brilliant but Lancashire’s jaw once again must remain set against the coming horrors. Julia Raeside FILM Unfaithfully Yours: The Comedies Of Preston Sturges (BFI Southbank, London, to 16 March) Few directors wrote their own material in the 1940s, but Preston Sturges was an exception in every way. He sold his script for The Great McGinty for $10 in exchange for the chance to direct it, and he clearly knew what he wanted, which is about the same things audiences today want: polished repartee, energetic screwball comedy, cheese-free romance and sharp social satire. This season showcases his work, from his masterpiece, Sullivan’s Travels – as fine a film about film-making as has ever been made – to those that tested the boundaries of the era audaciously. In The Miracle Of Morgan’s Creek, a woman can’t remember who she’s married (and she’s pregnant). In The Palm Beach Story, a woman marries someone richer in order to bankroll her first husband; and in McGinty itself, a homeless cheat finds himself in political office. Steve Rose All this week’s best film events MUSIC Floating Points (London, Manchester) Like Kieran Hebden, Sam Shepherd is a UK DJ-producer whose music roams a sort of record collection of the mind: from funk to jazz, to electronica, hip-hop and post-rock. In 2010, the former neuroscientist was making records such as Post Suite, which took inspiration from 60s jazz and the epic intimations of soundtrack music. His 2015 debut album Elaenia found him working with a great many different inspirations, but possibly in a more subtle way, finding the connective tissue between Detroit techno, electric Miles Davis and kosmische music of early 70s Germany. It’s head music for the feet: live strings and brass add spice. John Robinson All this week’s best live music COMEDY Romesh Ranganathan: Irrational (Tring, Margate, Leicester, Lincoln, London) There are loads of comics who do material about the struggle of coping with family life and the pressures of being a dad. And there are also loads of comics who mine their ethnicity for laughs. Romesh Ranganathan does both of these things (among others), but you never get the feeling he’s serving up something you’ve seen before. That’s partly because the gloriously deadpan glumness of his delivery makes him seem so much fresher and more vital than other ostensibly similar acts; it’s also partly the sheer quality of the gags he comes out with. Whereas some comics use charisma to cover moments of weaker material, you get the feeling that Ranganathan is bringing a scientific rigour (appropriately enough, given that he’s a former maths teacher) to each of his jokes, ensuring that every one is carefully designed to yield as many laughs as possible. James Kettle All this week’s best live comedy ON DEMAND Lucifer (Amazon Prime) Turns out the devil is actually all right. Slick going on slimy, but handsome, charming and, on the basis of this new Amazon original, essentially benign. Miranda star Tom Ellis lands the plum role of Lucifer Morningstar in this pleasingly daft romp based on a character in Neil Gaiman’s comic book The Sandman. Lucifer is an immortal demon, bored of life as the Lord Of Hell and trying his luck in the glossily corrupt City Of Angels. His infernal past won’t let him go but, for now, he’s enjoying his self-created role as part-time crimefighter and full-time ladykiller. Phil Harrison EXHIBITIONS KAWS (Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Wakefield, Saturday to 12 June) The Brooklyn-based artist KAWS spent his formative years tagging the downtown walls and freight trains of Manhattan. Later he conceived the skull with crossbones and crossed-out eyes that helps to identify his work. Here, in his first UK museum exhibition, he has developed his cast of characters into immaculately constructed sculptures, some reaching up to 10 metres in height, scattered across the hillside and towering above willingly intimidated visitors. Fashioned from bronze, fibreglass, aluminium and wood, his bulbous animal-human hybrids might be uncannily reminiscent of jovial cartoon personalities, but they tend to stand alone in poses of slightly disorientating pathos. Robert Clark All this week’s best exhibitions TALKS Pretentiousness: Why It Matters (Spike Island, Bristol, Thursday) It’s a word that’s often used pejoratively, but pretentiousness should be worn as a badge of honour. In fact, there’s a strong argument for claiming that it’s just another word for creativity. After all, isn’t imagining that you might be equipped to create art, music or film that may mean something to someone else the ultimate in pretentiousness? The late, lamented David Bowie is worth considering here. Retrospectively, of course, he’s treasured, but as he unveiled each of his brilliantly outlandish character constructs, it’s easy to imagine more earthbound observers sneering at his wild imaginings. Co-editor of Frieze Dan Fox has written a book on this subject; it amounts to a spirited defence of pretentiousness and he’ll be discussing it here. He argues that pretentiousness is a crucial stimulus to innovation in the realm of art, and that without it our creative industries would flounder. Arguably, from the Beatles, through Brit-art, to the demanding TV epics of this century, the public has been surprisingly receptive to recondite ideas. So maybe it’s time to stop giving pretentiousness a bad press. PH All this week’s best talks THEATRE Doctor Faustus (Royal Shakespeare Theatre: Swan, Stratford-upon-Avon, Saturday to 4 August) Maria Aberg is a fearless director who has done some of the best RSC productions of recent years, including a thrilling and distinctive King John and a very enjoyable As You Like It. Now, she turns her attention to Marlowe’s great play of vanity, greed and damnation, a drama that rivals anything in Shakespeare. The play offers two equally meaty but contrasting roles, and this production allows each lead actor the chance to have a bash at both. Two fine and distinctive actors, Sandy Grierson and Oliver Ryan, will alternate the roles of the scholar Faustus, who is tempted by the prospect of discovering all the most precious secrets of the universe, and the demon Mephistophilis, who offers him what seems to be a good bargain. But there is a high price to be paid for knowledge in a play that is rich in both poetry and tension. Lyn Gardner All this week’s best theatre FILM Trumbo Putting memories of Walter White behind him, Bryan Cranston gets his teeth into the eloquent, dapper, chain-smoking screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, who defied his Hollywood blacklisting by ghost-writing a string of 1950s hits, usually from his bathtub. There’s little curiosity about Trumbo’s communism here; it’s more of a self-congratulatory tribute to Tinseltown nobility, celebrity impersonations and all. But Cranston deserves his Oscar nod. SR All this week’s new film releases CLUBS Superstition X Giegling (Village Underground, London, Saturday) Initially a club night in Weimar that lasted for just four parties, Giegling has had quite the afterlife. Seven years on, it is now one of the most cherished techno labels in Europe, putting out productions that are unashamedly deep and emotional, even whimsical (the dust from its house parties was scattered on the cover of one release). So don’t expect haunted-foundry doom, but rather delicate pulses, acres of space between the elements, and architects making eyes at each other on the dancefloor. While cornerstones such as Prince Of Denmark and Edward are missing, two of the core crew appear here: DJ Dustin, who lets giddy melodies surge around elegant microhouse; and Konstantin, who as well as DJing plays a live set with his duo Kettenkarussell (expect Villalobos-style minimalism in pastels). Also bringing a live set is headliner Vril, whose work is positively lairy in comparison, with big, uptempo snares and the kind of ravey stabs that accompanied scaremongering early-90s ecstasy documentaries. Ben Beaumont-Thomas All this week’s best club nights
Kanye West now knows what I've learned: Twitter fights lack winners The latest entry into the category of “celebrity Twitter contretemps”, unleashed upon a joyful world Wednesday afternoon, may actually hold lessons for we ordinary non-Kanye West plebeians: that despite an urge to immediately seek some imaginary form of internet “justice” for public disrespect, such justice does not exist. Take away the fame and the talent and the drive and the money and the power behind West’s high-profile tiff with rapper Wiz Khalifa, and you’ve got a pretty ordinary schoolyard spat, best remedied by walking away. But because Twitter amplifies everything a kajillion times over, these arguments take on the solemnity and importance of battles between modern Greek gods – except Hades has a lot of neck tattoos and Zeus has a branded line of sneakers. The curious power of Twitter is to elevate the ordinary to the extraordinary, in 140 characters or less. And I must say I am neither a Kanye nor a Wiz nor an Amber Rose – the very beautiful model and activist, the mother of Wiz’s child and a much-maligned Kanye ex, who was pulled into the fight to glorious effect. Nor am I a Nicki Minaj, Taylor Swift or Neil Degrasse Tyson. But I too have been seduced by the power of the Twitter fight. It’s a medium that provides the illusion of true power. It feeds one’s ego and narcissism, and it certainly gives one the deluded sense of being Right when The Other (whomever they may be) is most decidedly Wrong. And while I am not a famous person or a wealthy person, I am a comedian of minor note. I say and do things on the internet for laughs, and sometimes money. I write things for screens big and small. A couple months back, I was alerted by an internet stranger (that most trustworthy of species) that someone had said a not-nice thing. The someone does not matter; the not-nice thing does not matter. What matters is that the not-nice thing was said in a public forum, amplified by the power of a minor media platform. It was actually a series of not-nice things – a variety of criticisms of my character, concluding in a bizarre fantasy about my death. It was from a person I haven’t seen or spoken to since the first Obama administration, a person about whom I had forgotten – and that last bit is, I suspect, what motivated the tantrum. In my own defense, I can simply say that I cannot make everyone my boyfriend. Many have sought this high position; few have been chosen. Hell hath no fury like an open mic comedian scorned. At any rate, I got upset that someone would say such nasty things. It felt random and cruel. I cried and I got embarrassed, and I felt mortified and scared. I went into a weird spiral of shame spiked with anger and regret. And then I felt the urge to tweet about it. This is where things took a potentially dangerous turn. I could’ve tweeted right at him, calling him out (there’s nothing the internet loves more than a good callout. Witness any number of political debates by your less reality-inclined relatives on Facebook). I could’ve said a number of nasty things. I could’ve marshaled my relatively minor crew of Twitter followers and a few people would’ve probably said, “Ooh! I’m bored at work!” and attacked him. Then I decided to appeal to Higher Powers. I asked two women – one my publicist, the other a well-known friend – to tell me not to flip out online. My well-known friend, who is well-versed in the art of being attacked in public (if I am a high school freshman at this, she has a PhD) said, “The only thing you can do is keep doing your work. You can try to fight back, but you won’t win. There’s no way to win.” And my publicist used a glorious old adage: “Sara, a Twitter fight is a pissing contest, and everybody gets soaked.” And so I got off the internet for an hour, took a walk around the block and listened to some music, paid my Geico bill and remembered that my 2010 Toyota Camry could use an oil change. And then I went back to work. We don’t all have the distinct modern pleasure of being degraded in public by name by a bitter person who was once rewarded the honor of seeing us naked. But having had my own taste of that glorious experience, I say unto thee, Kanye West, that in this and many other things, I feel you. I understand you. I’ve been there. In so many ways, we are basically the same person, except I respect Amber Rose and you drag her by name on the radio. But as you tweeted yesterday, “You have distracted from my creative process.” And when you’re a genius like you and I, Kanye, this is the most unforgivable sin of all. So we must take deep breaths, and feel our feelings, and then move forward, serene in the knowledge that we are very good at what we do, and that, as you said yesterday, “The Devil can’t stop us.”
Doomed to return: Dad's Army victor at UK box office despite scathing reviews The winner: Dad’s Army Family adventure Goosebumps may occupy the top spot in the official Rentrak UK box-office chart, but it does so via £1m of previews that inflate its opening gross. In fact, the weekend was won by Dad’s Army, with a solid £2.08m from 585 cinemas. The logic behind the belated big-screen reboot may be guessed at. Movies featuring ensemble casts of older actors have done well lately, notably with the two Best Exotic Marigold Hotel films. Films spun off from sitcoms have had variable results, but the Inbetweeners and Mrs Brown’s Boys movies demonstrated the power of a TV comedy brand with a loyal, enthusiastic audience – and Dad’s Army, over more than five decades, has proved an enduring winner. The casting in the Dad’s Army film of one Best Exotic actor (Bill Nighy) and one Inbetweener (Blake Harrison) may be viewed as talismanic. Dad’s Army’s opening gross compares unfavourably with the debut of Mrs Brown’s Boys: D’Movie (£4.30m) back in June 2014, but very favourably with the first weekend of The Bad Education Movie (£595,000) last August. An older audience skew should see solid results on weekdays. Matinees and early evening showtimes should be robust; late evenings, not so much. The new Dad’s Army is in fact a second big-screen outing for the Home Guard volunteers of Walmington-on-Sea. The original cast appeared in a film version in 1971. The half-term battle With most schools breaking up for February half term this Friday, distributors are competing for the biggest share of the family audience. In terms of chronology of release, there’s seemingly an inverse relationship to box-office potential, with the weaker titles grabbing some cash off the table ahead of the arrival of more formidable competition. Judging by the size of its preview takings at the weekend, Alvin and the Chipmunks: the Road Chip looks set to win the box-office war. The preview number will be reported next time, after Road Chip’s official opening this Friday. Meanwhile, Goosebumps, adapted from the RL Stine books, has begun with a decent £1.68m plus £1m in previews. Capture the Flag, which has enjoyed a week longer in cinemas, has notched up a rather lacklustre £1.01m so far. The half-term holiday should see an improvement, because even if the space-themed animation ends up being second or third choice, families may well get round to seeing it by the end of the school break, having exhausted everything else. The awards-corridor contest With £1.21m in its fourth weekend of play, The Revenant has now reached £18.35m after 24 days of release. That’s enough to overtake Mad Max: Fury Road (£17.40m) in the UK, and thus become the second highest-grossing of the eight best picture Oscar nominees, behind only The Martian (£23.52m).The Revenant, Spotlight and The Big Short may fairly be termed the frontrunners for the best picture oscar, and all are competing currently at UK cinemas. Site averages are in a similar ball park, with The Revenant earning £2,265 per venue at the weekend, Spotlight £2,286 and The Big Short lower at £1,614. All are playing in at least 300 cinemas here. Cumes to date are £2.64m for Spotlight and £4.11m for The Big Short. Relative to the US, The Revenant is doing particularly well in the UK – especially when you consider that, to the degree that the film’s subject Hugh Glass is known at all, it’s in his home country. Also, if The Revenant is a western (Fox’s marketing department might say otherwise), that’s a genre that traditionally underperforms here. The Revenant, which went wide in the US on 8 January, has so far grossed $150m there – an equivalent result in the UK would be £15m, and it’s 20% ahead of that. Room ($11.3m in US, £3.05m in UK) and Brooklyn ($32.3m in US, £5.54m in UK) are two more best picture Oscar contenders that are doing relatively better in the UK. With particular respect to those two titles, it’s worth remembering that Ireland is included in all reporting of UK box office. The awards hopeful: Trumbo Arriving rather in the tail end of awards season, and privileged with just a single Oscar nomination (for actor Bryan Cranston), Trumbo always had a fight on its hands in the UK market. Distributor eOne seemingly recognised that fact by releasing on a relatively tight 92 screens – heavily skewed to the boutique indie chains and key indie cinemas that usually deliver healthy numbers. An opening gross of £146,000 – yielding an average of £1,588 – might be considered rather soft. The wipeout: Point Break Landing in ninth place is Point Break, a remake of the Kathryn Bigelow action hit. The original Point Break debuted with £777,000 from 273 cinemas back in November 1991, eventually reaching just over £4m. Now, despite the benefit of two-and-a-half decades’ worth of ticket price inflation, the remake begins with £422,000 from 364 cinemas, yielding a poor average of £1,159. The new film stars Luke Bracey in the Keanu Reeves/FBI agent role, and Edgar Ramirez as Patrick Swayze’s surf guru/suspected criminal Bodhi. A rapid fadeout looks likely. The future February begins rather gently, with grosses 12% down on the previous frame, and also 10% down on the equivalent weekend from 2015, when Shaun the Sheep Movie and Jupiter Ascending were the highest new entries. This coming session, there are an audience-bamboozling 25 new releases listed at the Film Distributors’ Association own website, including three live events being transmitted into cinemas. Of the 22 new films, Zoolander 2 has already enjoyed paid previews at the weekend – rather dismayingly for critics, since reviews are officially embargoed until Wednesday morning this week. Marvel’s edgiest superhero Deadpool gets the jump on the weekend competition by landing in cinemas on Wednesday. A day later, genre mash-up Pride and Prejudice and Zombies unleashes a plague of undead into Georgian England. Will Smith stars in Concussion – an awards-bait prestige drama that has been ignored by most awards voters, although Smith did pick up a Golden Globe nomination. Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip is the top attraction for families, although Jem and the Holograms might score with tween girls. For indie venues, top choice is likely to be A Bigger Splash from I Am Love director Luca Guadagnino, starring Tilda Swinton, Ralph Fiennes, Matthias Schoenaerts and Dakota Johnson. Top 10 films, 5-7 February 1. Goosebumps, £2,686,105 from 510 sites (new) 2. Dad’s Army, £2,077,942 from 585 sites (new) 3. The Revenant, £1,213,805 from 536 sites. Total: £18,350,699 4. Dirty Grandpa, £944,369 from 423 sites. Total: £3,656,658 5. Spotlight, £864,199 from 378 sites. Total: £2,641,478 6. Star Wars: The Force Awakens, £759,950 from 428 sites. Total: £120,686,051 7. The Big Short, £556,988 from 345 sites. Total: £4,109,325 8. Ride Along 2, £535,795 from 392 sites. Total: £5,137,791 9. Point Break, £421,818 from 364 sites (new) 10. Daddy’s Home, £251,777 from 313 sites. Total: £16,742,333 Other openers Trumbo, £146,105 (including £2,712 previews) from 92 sites Ghayal Once Again, £58,782 from 29 sites From Vegas to Macau 3, £31,755 from 17 sites Sanam Teri Kasam, £31,444 from 21 sites Rams, £26,869 from 20 sites Janis: Little Girl Blue, £16,375 (including £2,698 previews) from 13 sites Bangalore Naatkal, £5,018 from 5 sites Strangerland, £2,318 from 9 sites Lee Scratch Perry’s Vision of Paradise, £2,131 from 9 sites Taking Stock, £577 from 6 sites The American Dreamer, £107 from 2 sites • Thanks to Rentrak. All figures relate to takings in UK and Ireland cinemas.
What are the highest paid jobs of 2016 in the UK? Have you got one of the best paid jobs in the UK? The Office of National Statistics (ONS) has released its Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings 2016, and we’ve looked at the top 10 highest paid jobs in the country and what you need to do to get one of them. To obtain the data, the ONS surveyed a random sample of 1% of all the workers who carry out each occupation, using 2015/2016 pay-as-you-earn (PAYE) tax records. This means bonuses are included, but self-employed workers and celebrities who don’t appear on company payrolls are excluded. Information about niche occupations – for example, salaried professional footballers or TV presenters – has also been suppressed by the ONS to avoid identifying individual pay packets. So which jobs have made it into the Top 10 this year? Who got the biggest pay rise? And how does the pay of the highest earners in the land compare with the average pay of all full-time employees in the UK, who, according to the ONS, earned £34,414 and typically received a 2.3% pay rise this year? 1. Brokers Includes: Stockbrokers, traders on the stock exchange, foreign exchange dealers, insurance brokers. Average pay before tax: £133,868. Pay range: Data about the lower, middle and upper pay range of brokers was not deemed reliable enough to be published this year, due to the relatively small number of brokers in the PAYE system. Annual change: Up by 6.2% (£8,300). The Wealth Management Association, which represents small firms of stockbrokers, says the remuneration of stockbrokers is “a market issue”. It declined to offer any reason for the above-average increase in pay. Entry requirements: There are no formal academic requirements, although many employers will require you to possess a degree or equivalent qualification. Training is typically undertaken in-house. 2. Chief executives Includes: Vice-presidents, chief medical officers, civil servants (grade 5 and above). Average pay before tax: £123,577. Pay range: £41,875 (10th percentile) to £142,686 (75th percentile). Median is £89,932. Annual change: Down by 0.6% (£741). Shareholders can take the credit for this, a spokesperson for the Confederation of British Industry says. “Shareholders now have a binding vote on executive pay policies and, encouragingly, we are seeing them become more active in this area. High remuneration at executive level must always be squarely linked to outstanding performance.” Entry requirements: Years of relevant experience and a strong track record of good business decisions. An MBA and/or a financial qualification might help. 3. Marketing directors Includes: Sales directors. Average pay before tax: £87,890. Pay range: £44,654 (20th percentile) to £110,010 (80th percentile). Median is £74,994. Annual change: Down by 2.5% (£2,197). Tim Bourne, chairman of the Marketing Agencies Association, says businesses are making efficiency cuts in response to increased competition from rival brands and pricing pressure from retailers. Entry requirements: A degree, and years of experience as a marketing or sales manager. You may also need a qualification from the Chartered Institute of Marketing. 4. Aircraft pilots Includes: First officers of airlines, flight engineers, flying instructors, helicopter pilots. Average pay before tax: £86,915. Pay range: £68,354 (30th percentile) to £89,928 (60th percentile). Median is £86,855. Annual change: Down by 0.6% (£521), which is reflective of the increase in budget airlines, says Brian Strutton, general secretary of the British Airline Pilots Association (BALPA). “Wages in these companies tend to be lower, therefore this reduces the average pilot wage across the board.” Entry requirements: BALPA recommends good GCSE passes in maths, English, science and a second language and at least two good A-levels. With a Class 1 medical certificate and a private pilot licence with 170 hours of flight time under your belt, you can then obtain a commercial pilot licence, which typically costs more than £100,000 and takes two years. You must build up 1,500 flying hours to fully qualify as a commercial pilot. 5. Financial managers and directors Includes: Investment bankers, Treasury managers. Average pay before tax: £84,675. Pay range: £29,793 (10th percentile) to £104,849 (80th percentile). Median is £64,432. Annual change: Up by 2.4% (£2,032), reflecting the concerns of businesses before the Brexit vote. “Demand has risen for candidates with the right financial skills – it’s not just about the bottom line and balancing the books now, it’s about looking ahead and identifying risks and opportunities,” says Anthony Walters, spokesperson for the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA). Entry requirements: A relevant degree typically, and a recognised accountancy or corporate finance qualification from a professional accountancy body, such as the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, or the ACCA. 6. In-house lawyers Includes: Attorneys, legal consultants. Average pay before tax: £80,210. Pay range: £36,610 (10th percentile) to £94,458 (75th percentile). Median is £69,058. Annual change: Down by 1.1% (£882), following a decline in the number of in-house vacancies in the run-up to the EU referendum. “Candidates are more aware that to make the move from private practice to in-house they do have to take a cut on their basic salary,” says Rebecca Garland, spokesperson for in-house legal recruitment agency Barclay Simpson. “In-house legal departments have also been more inclined to stick rigidly to their salary budgets.” Entry requirements: A law degree or postgraduate diploma. You will then need to complete a legal practice course (LPC) and win a two-year training contract. 7. Air traffic controllers Includes: Air traffic service assistants, flight planners. Average pay before tax: £81,132. Pay range: £84,877 (median) to £88,645 (60th percentile). No other data about the pay range of air traffic controllers was available this year. Annual change: Up by 3.8% (£3,045). A spokesperson for NATS, the main air navigation service provider in the UK, says salaries are high because individual controllers have responsibility for thousands of lives at one time. “It’s important we’re able to attract the best people.” However, he says the pay rise NATS offered to its own employees was “definitely lower” than 3.8%. Entry requirements: Five GCSEs and a valid air traffic controller’s licence, which typically means passing the NATS vocational course. Fewer than 0.5% of applicants (15 out of 3,300) are successful each year. 8. Medical practitioners Includes: Anaesthetists, hospital consultants, GPs, paediatricians, psychiatrists, radiologists, surgeons. Average pay before tax: £78,386. Pay range: £30,291 (10th percentile) to £132,613 (90th percentile). Median pay is £74,885. Annual change: Down by 2.5% (£1,960). “The pay of all doctors has been steadily squeezed by successive pay freezes and cuts, with salaries falling back to levels seen around 10 years ago – despite rising patient demand and declining budgets for patient services,” a spokesperson for the British Medical Association says. “The starting salary for the vast majority of doctors is around £23,000. Many will not receive the salaries outlined by the ONS at any point in their career.” Entry requirements: A university degree from a medical school recognised by the General Medical Council. The British Medical Association then says to become a doctor you must undertake two years of foundation training, then another two years of core medical training, then between four and six years of specialty training or three years of training as a GP. To stay registered with the GMC, all doctors are expected to demonstrate their fitness to practise through gaining continuing professional development points every year. 9. IT and telecommunications directors Includes: Technical directors of computer services. Average pay before tax: £78,071. Pay range: £42,471 (10th percentile) to £84,306 (75th percentile). Median is £71,161. Annual change: Up by a huge 9.1% (£7,104), which Geoff Smith, managing director of IT workforce solutions provider Experis, says is no surprise. “IT professionals are in short supply, and with competition for top talent at an all-time high, companies are increasingly willing to pay more to bring in individuals with the right skills.” Entry requirements: A degree (typically in programming, computer science or a related field) and several years of relevant experience. 10. Financial institution managers and directors Includes: Bank manager, insurance manager. Average pay before tax: £75,169. Pay range: £29,530 (10th percentile) to £91,543 (80th percentile). Median is £53,322. Annual change: Down by 8.2% (£6,164). “All banks are frantically trying to cut costs,” says Sarah Butcher, editor-at-large of eFinancialCareers.com. “A combination of low interest rates, political uncertainty and the need to make big investments in technology infrastructure has been eating away at banks’ bottom lines.” Entry requirements: You do not necessarily need a degree, just years of experience in the banking or the financial sector. You must also be an “approved person” to control a bank. That means passing the Financial Conduct Authority’s “fit and proper” test. The average salary shown is the mean. Only full-time employed workers who stayed in the same job over the course of the entire 2015/2016 tax year were included. Reliable data was not consistently collected by the ONS for the 10th and 90th percentiles, so the pay range stated is the broadest available. • This article was amended on 4 November 2016 to clarify details of the entry requirements for medical practitioners.
I went to the Super Bowl and all I got was this lousy picture of me and Grumpy Cat In which I find myself, at this station in life, sitting in the lobby of the Fairmont Hotel petting something called “Grumpy Cat” while her owner tells me they are here at the Super Bowl because one of the teams has a cat for a mascot… I scratch Grumpy Cat’s head. She sniffs my finger. She licks her nose. And I pray this morning that the geological fault far beneath my feet does not shudder, that the earth does not shake and the Fairmont’s walls will not collapse for that means the final act of my career’s work is to ask an elfin cat with a pouty face if she even knows what a Carolina Panther is. Grumpy Cat’s manager, a man dressed all in black and handing out businesses cards that identify him as Ben Lashes, scrolls through his phone to show me a picture of Grumpy Cat throwing out the first pitch at an Arizona Diamondbacks game. “They won that night,” Grumpy Cat’s owner Tabatha Bundesen gushes. “I think they should have us throw out the first pitch every night.” Until this week I had not heard of Grumpy Cat. I did not know that she is a thing. That she has 8.4m likes on Facebook and 1.2m followers on Instagram. That she goes, every March, to the South By Southwest festival and is considered the star of the week. That she has her own plush toy. That she has her own doll. That she spent four weeks in Vancouver shooting her own full-length feature movie called Grumpy Cat’s Worst Christmas Ever and that the comedian Aubrey Plaza did her grumpy kitty cat voice. All of this changed when my phone rang early on Tuesday morning. “I’m calling on behalf of Grumpy Cat,” a public relations woman chirped, adding that she was offering me a special one-on-one interview “with the official spokescat of Friskies!”. “What’s Grumpy Cat?” I asked. When I recounted this conversation to the editors at the ’s San Francisco office they squealed. “You never heard of Grumpy Cat!” they shouted all at once. “Grumpy Cat is huge,” one said. The three editors shook their heads solemnly. Their expressions said that Grumpy Cat had a much bigger impact on their lives than Peyton Manning. This was confirmed by my friend, Clif, whose life actually is impacted greatly by Peyton Manning. “Uh yeah, she’s probably the biggest superstar in social media,” he texted. “She’s the Michael Jordan of memes.” Now, two days later, I am in the lobby of the hotel that was the setting for the 1980s TV series Hotel, looking at a cat the size of my palm and trying not to laugh as Tabatha tells me her cat’s real name is “Tartar Sauce.” Tartar Sauce was born on 4 April 2012 with feline dwarfism that made her the runt of a litter that included other cats named “Soy Sauce” and “Ketchup”. Bundesen worked at in a restaurant and would occasionally being home condiments; it seems clear which cat liked which seasoning. Tartar Sauce probably would have lived a long and anonymous life dodging Honey and the other dogs in Bundesen’s suburban Phoenix home had her brother, Bryan Bundesen, not come to visit that September from his home in Oho. Bryan snapped a photo of Tartar Sauce and posted it on Reddit. He called her “Grumpy Cat”... and the internet melted. Soon Grumpy Cat was everywhere. The local television stations in Phoenix raced to Tabatha’s home to get exclusives with their hometown celebrity. Then the Today show called and Grumpy Cat was being led on a media tour of New York. Lashes called Bryan, a deal was struck – and Grumpy Cat quickly had her own manager and Friskies endorsement. Her wide blue eyes, shrunken nose and downturned mouth were everywhere, and somewhere along the way Tabatha realized she had ceased to be Grumpy Cat’s owner. “She owns me,” Tabatha says. Tabatha quit her job at Red Lobster and Bryan left his as a technician for a cable company, and together they made Grumpy Cat their full-time employment. This was necessary. There’s so much to do with twice-monthly appearances, meetings with Lashes and managing as many as four support staff at every events. “The reason we are here is because Grumpy Cat got to meet the Carolina Panthers’ mascot, Sir Purr,” Bryan says, hitting his corporate talking points perfectly. I ask him if he can really say this with a straight face. He cannot. It turns out that it’s tough having a famous cat around the house. Though Tabatha insists that Tartar Sauce is “just a normal cat” most of the time when they are home, you have to be careful when that normal cat is also the golden goose. Tartar Sauce is tiny – not much bigger than a large kitten – and she is forever getting lost. The other day she disappeared for an hour and Tabatha panicked, frantically scouring the house for Grumpy Cat only to find her curled up at the bottom of a big shipping box of cat food sent by the Friskies people. Sitting nearby, Ben Lashes smiles as Tabatha tells this story. Grumpy Cat’s manager says his job is to work with “viral celebrities”. He helps them to market their viralness. His first great celebrity was Keyboard Cat. But as big as Keyboard Cat was, nothing is quite like Grumpy Cat. She has left every other internet cat sensation in the dust. “There is only one Grumpy Cat,” he explains. “She’s changed everything for the internet cat culture. She is like the Mother Teresa of memes.” Dear God. Then someone mentions the emails and letters. These come by the hundreds, pouring in from around the country, mostly from sick people – many of them elderly women – telling Tabatha and Bryan about the joy Grumpy Cat brings them. They send photos of themselves lying in hospital beds, holding photos of Grumpy Cat. Their hair is gone. Their bodies are frail. But they are smiling. Tabatha tells the story of a little girl, suffering from cancer, who desperately loved Grumpy Cat. They sent her plush toys and photos and would get letters in return. The little girl was getting better. The cancer was going away. She wanted them to know how much she loved looking at Grumpy Cat. “I finished my bachelors degree,” Tabatha says. “It’s in psychology. At the time I wanted to help people but I think Grumpy Cat does that. She helps people get through things.” I look at the sofa where Grump Cat/Tartar Sauce lies curled peacefully on Tabatha’s lap. Her face is serene. She isn’t grumpy at all. And while this had started as the most ridiculous assignment of my career – Grumpy Cat meets Sir Purr – there was something powerful in that ball of fur. If a cat’s face can brighten days, cure cancer and provide a sustainable income for a handful of people maybe this won’t be the worst story I will do all year. “Would you like to take a selfie with her?” Tabatha asks. “Get one smiling and one grumpy. Everyone does.” A selfie. “Why, yes,” I say. I think I will.
Christmas is an isolating time for people with mental health problems Christmas is a time for joy, celebration and bringing together family and friends to share this merriment. While taking nothing away from this much needed festivity, spare a thought for those who are less advantaged – particularly those with mental health problems. Mental illness transcends all ages and backgrounds. Almost one in four adults have a mental illness at some point in their lives, such as stress, anxiety, depression or psychosis. An individual’s emotional health can also have a great impact on physical health, and poor mental health can lead to problems such as alcohol and drug abuse. And so, at a time when the rest of the nation is busy celebrating, there are many who just cannot, rather than will not, be able to do so because of their mental ill health. Indeed their inability to join in on the fun can exacerbate their isolation. The environment we live in plays a crucial role in the genesis of mental illness. Austerity is certainly not good for mental health; it affects those in lower income brackets, and those at particular risk of mental disorders, the hardest. Public spending cuts have hit some of the most vulnerable sections of society – those in receipt of social care or on pension credits, and disabled and unemployed people. So where might someone go, if their mental health is failing? NHS commissioning for mental health services has been nothing short of a disaster and an abject failure in many places. The Independent Mental Health Services Alliance found that high demand and mounting financial constraints has resulted in the average deficit of NHS mental health trusts increasing by 6.3% over the last two years. The King’s Fund concluded in its analysis of services across England that around 40% of mental health trusts experienced a cut in income in 2013-14 and 2014-15. A leaked report by a government taskforce uncovered the scale of the crisis in England’s mental health services.. But here’s the double whammy. In austere times, commissioners do not pump more money into the system; rather they tend to raid mental health budgets to plug the growing deficits in the acute hospital sector. Despite the crucial importance of mental health services, they have always been the poor relation in any health system in general and the NHS in particular. These services, which are underfunded, demoralised and struggling with demand, are not to be seen and preferably not to be heard. This may sound dramatic, but the reality is that there has been long-term neglect in addressing the many problems that most NHS mental services and their patients are faced with – access to timely appointments, access to local beds, services that are joined up and in one place like other NHS services are, and enough doctors and nurses in the system. The list goes on. The scale of the mental health challenge has been underestimated. NHS England has set out its plan for achieving recommendations made in its Five Year Forward View for Mental Health (pdf) to improve mental healthcare by 2020-21. It has committed to transforming mental health services with an extra £1bn a year. Those at the coalface know this is yesterday’s money – demand is ever increasing, and the historic deficit in funding can only be addressed if politicians and senior managers can have frank conversations. Back to Christmas then. Though this is a challenging time for those with mental illnesses, statutory and voluntary organisations are there to support these individuals and therefore it is vitally important to ask for help. Despite the pressures on the system, services are there for those who need urgent help or are facing a crisis – the doors won’t close to them. And for those with less serious issues, there are measures that can be taken without resorting to statutory and voluntary services. Family, friends and individuals can watch out for abnormal behaviour, such as panic attacks, and try to restore calmness by getting away from noisy, busy places and doing breathing exercises. Avoid having an argument, the tension will almost certainly ease. Finding a place for shelter, a warm meal, and ensuring youngsters are protected are not impossible goals, though at times it might seem like that. Depression and stress can make one unnecessarily pessimistic, although simple measures such as not indulging in alcohol and drugs or spending within means can reduce the plight of those who are not in a good place. An uplifted spirit will bring back that joy and hope, and trigger off a feelgood factor that can be the springboard to happiness. Good mental health brings with it a whole lot of goodies in Santa’s stocking, because after all, physical fitness and wealth are meaningless without it. And let’s hope Santa has something for struggling mental health services. Join the Healthcare Professionals Network to read more about issues like this. And follow us on Twitter (@GdnHealthcare) to keep up with the latest healthcare news and views.
Where to Invade Next review – Moore's upbeat socialism is a welcome corrective This isn’t what you might expect, though it’s quite in line with what Michael Moore has said before. There’s a more positive, upbeat note than usual, though. Moore has created a punchy and exhilarating tribute to the various liberal-welfarist traditions of nations from Europe and elsewhere. He cheerfully tours around, “invading” these countries and pinching their good ideas, with a view to bringing them back to the US, ideas such as France’s healthy school meals, Italy’s statutory paid holidays and Germany’s worker participation in boardrooms – defending them as tax-efficient and socially necessary. This movie is a cousin to his excellent Sicko, an attack on America’s private health insurance, and in its scepticism about America’s military spending it’s also a distant relative of his Fahrenheit 9/11 – and yet again I repeat my admiration for that film, which in 2004 attacked the invasion of Iraq before it was fashionable, and was at the time derided by the same jumpy commentariat who later quietly accepted Moore’s line as the truth. So is Moore naive about these nations? At times, they look almost news-less in their utopian calm, even when Moore is talking about the Norway’s Breivik massacre or Iceland’s financial collapse. And he appears to take at face value the protestation of Italian employers that they are “happy” to give their workers benefits – after an Italian trade unionist has told him that these benefits have had to be fought for. But this is such a bracing and optimistic and doggedly idealistic film, simplistic in the sense that it believes that things like feminism are simply right.
Indigenous health: a third of disease is preventable, says study More than a third of the burden of disease experienced by Indigenous Australians could be prevented, with tobacco and alcohol use, high body mass, physical inactivity, high blood pressure and diet contributing to their illnesses, data released by the Australian Institute and Health and Welfare shows. The institute examined the number of years of healthy life lost through living with an illness or injury, described as the non-fatal burden, and the number of years of life lost through dying prematurely from an illness or injury, described as the fatal burden. Using 2011 data from the Northern Territory, Western Australia, New South Wales and Queensland, it found that chronic diseases such as diabetes and heart disease caused 64% of the total disease burden among Indigenous Australians. Mental and substance use disorders were responsible for 19% of this burden followed by injuries including self-harm (15%), cardiovascular diseases (12%), cancer (9%) and respiratory diseases (8%). Assoc Prof Aunty Kerrie Doyle from RMIT University’s school of health and biomedical sciences said it was “disturbing” that the third most common cause of deathfor Indigenous people were injuries, such as through suicide, violence including domestic violence, and alcohol poisoning. “We must address this, it’s just so sad,” she said. “We need to address mental health and social determinants of health, certainly through looking at things like social inclusion, community inclusion. “We need to think about how we can foster resilience in our Indigenous youth, and we need more mental health clinicians and, specifically, Indigenous mental health clinicians who are trained to the same standards as everyone else.” While the gap in disease burden between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians remained significant, Friday’s report found that between 2003 and 2011 the total burden of disease in the Indigenous population fell by 5%, with an 11% reduction in the fatal burden. Infant death rates have fallen, which Doyle said was thanks to a reduction in maternal smoking rates, better access to healthcare and effective maternal education programs. But there was a 4% increase in the non-fatal burden over the same period, suggesting a shift from dying prematurely to living longer with disease. Prof Ian Anderson, the foundation chair in Indigenous health at the University of Melbourne, said the report was “critical” because it highlighted where governments needed to invest. “Until 2008 there hadn’t been a significant investment in Australia in anti-smoking programs for Indigenous Australians at a national level,” he said. “Based on an earlier analysis of burden of diseases it was obvious smoking was a major factor in diseases, and as a result the investment was made.” The Heart Foundation’s spokesman for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander heart health, Simon Dixon, said the report highlighted that many barriers existed in regard to service access and delivery of best-practice care. More than one in four Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people had problems accessing health services, he said. “For historical, geographical and cultural reasons, healthcare services remain under-utilised by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples,” Dixon said. “As a result, poorer health and lower quality of life become the ‘norm’ until a critical event like a heart attack happens, which, unfortunately, is too late for many. “It has been estimated that if Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples achieved the same level of cardiovascular health as non-Indigenous Australians, this mortality gap could be closed by 6.5 years.” Matthew Cooke, the chair of the peak Aboriginal health organisation, the National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation, said the report revealed that “we still have a massive challenge to address”. “In a wealthy country such as Australia, I am appalled by the unacceptable gap in the health of Aboriginal people and non-Aboriginal people,” he said. “We need to act before another generation of young Aboriginal people have to live with avoidable diseases and die far too young.” “If we are serious about turning this crisis around we need sustained investment in evidence-based programs for Aboriginal people, by Aboriginal people, through Aboriginal community controlled health services – a model we know works.” The NT and WA had higher rates of Indigenous burden of disease than NSW and Queensland, the report also found.
Drake publishes open letter in response to Alton Sterling killing by police Drake has responded to the fatal shooting of Alton Sterling with an open letter commenting on the “strained relationship” between US police and “black and brown communities”. Sterling, a 37-year-old black man, was shot and killed by Louisiana police following a confrontation outside a convenience store in Baton Rouge on 5 July. Mobile phone footage of the shooting emerged, which appeared to show Sterling being shot in the chest from point-blank range after being wrestled to the ground. A second video appeared to show officers removing a gun from Sterling’s pocket, after he had been shot. The Department of Justice is to investigate the killing, which has prompted protests in Baton Rouge. Drake posted an open letter on Instagram in response to the killing. He wrote: I am grateful to be able to call America my second home. Last night when I saw the video of Alton Sterling being killed it left me feeling disheartened, emotional and truly scared. I woke up this morning with a strong need to say something. It’s impossible to ignore that the relationship between black and brown communities and law enforcement remains as strained as it was decades ago. No one begins their life as a hashtag. Yet the trend of being reduced to one continues. This is real and I’m concerned. Concerned for the safety of my family, my friends and any human being that could fall victim to this pattern. I do not know the answer. But I believe things can change for the better. Open and honest dialogue is the first step. My thoughts and prayers are with the Sterling family and any family that has lost someone to this cycle of violence. Be safe out there. More life.”
Pharmacists were meant to be the face of the NHS - but now our jobs are at risk I am a community pharmacist. In an average week I carry out a legal check on hundreds of prescriptions, and in depth clinical checks on upwards of 1,500 medications. I give flu jabs, emergency contraception, review prescriptions and how patients use their medication as well as provide whichever other pharmaceutical services the NHS currently deems cost effective. I stand up for 10 hours a day, either hunched over my work desk or running from patient to patient. All this with only a quick 20 minute lunch break to forage for some sustenance, while still having to check prescriptions. Somehow, between rushing from task to task, pharmacists are able to have a massive impact on patient care – yet the chances are that the patient will never know. I have lost count of the number of times that I have been passed a prescription that has been incorrect, or even harmful. I’ve uncovered so many mistakes in consultations with patients that I begin to wonder what prescribing doctors and nurses actually do. I’ve witnessed one patient, when asked to demonstrate inhaler usage open their mouth and use the device to spray their outstretched tongue. The patient had been using the inhaler completely incorrectly for more than five years and had been reviewed by their GP many times without it being rectified. More than once, I’ve seen a prescribed drug dosage which could have proved fatal if it had made its way to the patient. Usually these patients are the very young or the very elderly. Yet when faced with clinical errors, can the pharmacist take action? No, we have to phone the GP surgery and wait on the line for 15 minutes like everyone else. We have an impact on patient care, but it feels like the public don’t know or care. In an all too common week, I have had a drug misuser threaten me, I’ve been screamed at by an elderly woman for not being able to source a discontinued medication and I’ve been called incompetent because I’ve taken longer than 41 seconds to complete a clinical check and hand out a prescription to a patient. Patients demand an instant service in a pharmacy when they’re willing to wait for a hospital or GP appointment. What the public see when they look from the outside is a person in a supply role. The prevailing feeling I get is that I am there to order medications and then pick them off the shelf before putting them in a nicely folded bag. I am a fully fledged healthcare professional; tie, master’s degree, professional body et al. I was educated and trained to provide a clinical service, which I do – helping many patients further understand their medications and potentially saving them from harm. This disparity between public perception and the actual job role has sparked a much larger fire. Recently the government managed to slip through a proposed 6% cut in pharmacy funding. This 6% doesn’t sound like much until you realise it equates to £170m. That is a gargantuan chunk of cash which will potentially mean pharmaceutical services, the ones which use my clinical expertise and benefit patients, may be cut. It will probably mean pharmacy closures, job losses and worsening pay for those of us left in the sector. While it is unclear what exactly will change, we have had some grim examples of the future – pushing pharmacies towards a supermarket service model seems a strong contender for saving the government money as well as devaluing our profession. If funding for services is lost, we will face a self-fulfilling prophecy – we are seen only as suppliers of medication, so we will become just suppliers of medication and won’t be able to provide the service we currently do. What hurts more is that the media, public and even other pharmacists have seen this proposal passed with little more than a bat of their eyelids. Remember the furore when junior doctor pay cuts were proposed or when nurse bursary cuts were put forward? At one point we were promised that we would be the new frontline face of the NHS yet here we are forsaken by the government, overworked day to day and often contemplating our fast ebbing job security. So next time you use your local pharmacy, please spare a thought for the pharmacist behind the counter. They’re probably stressed, tired, hungry and scared for their future. There is a petition to stop cuts to pharmacy funding and support pharmacy services that save NHS money. If you would like to write a blogpost for Views from the NHS frontline, read our guidelines and get in touch by emailing healthcare@theguardian.com. Join the Healthcare Professionals Network to read more pieces like this. And follow us on Twitter (@GdnHealthcare) to keep up with the latest healthcare news and views.
Jarett Kobek: ‘The internet has been enormously detrimental to society’ When the novel I Hate the Internet came out in the US earlier this year, it had every likelihood of sinking without trace. It was self-published, it was by a young unknown – Jarett Kobek – and its main selling point was naked, gleeful contempt for the devices and technology platforms that are an essential part of all our daily lives. “Nothing says individuality like 500 million consumer electronics built by slaves,” he says at one point. “Welcome to hell.” Hell, for Kobek, a 38-year-old American of Turkish heritage, became daily life in San Francisco, where the novel is set. Along with many of the city’s artists and writers, he found himself driven out by the forces of gentrification, moved to Los Angeles, where he’s now based, set up his own small press, and wrote this book – a scorching satire of how a few hypercapitalist companies in Silicon Valley have come to dominate everything. I Hate the Internet didn’t sink without trace. It found a readership thirsty for its funny, acerbic edge, got a rave review in the New York Times, went to the top of the bestseller charts in Germany and has now been published here by Serpent’s Tail. So, do you actually hate the internet, Jarett? Not particularly. There’s part of it that I find really contemptible. The title is offered like the sneer of a 15-year-old into Twitter, after they’ve just seen a meme of someone having sex with a chicken or something. I hate parts of it. I certainly think it’s been enormously detrimental to society. You seem particularly down on Twitter. It’s not Twitter per se. It’s the undue amount of importance that very serious people put on Twitter. That, to me, is what’s infuriating. It’s a social network that makes everyone sound like a 15-year-old and then very serious people take it way too seriously. And that’s not how to run a society. That’s not how to effect change. You say: “One of the curious aspects of the 21st century was the great delusion… that freedom of speech and freedom of expression were best exercised on technological platforms owned by corporations dedicated to making as much money as possible.” And yet you’re not exempt from that: your novel is available as an ebook… Ah, yes. Ultimately, we live in a very dark moment where if you want to be part of any extended conversation beyond a handful of people, you do have to sign on to some things that, ultimately, are very unpalatable. Every era has its unanswerable questions, so maybe the thing to do, which is what I did in the book, is to just acknowledge the inherent hypocrisy of all of it. Though maybe that’s an easy dodge. One of the things that comes up time and again is the undercurrents of misogyny and racism that seem to have been enabled or unleashed by technology. Do you think there’s something fundamental about that? I do think it has to be acknowledged that this technology which seems to be really good at enabling misogyny and abuse of women was created in rooms where there were no women. The people who seem to be the recipients of the most abuse online look like the people who were simply not in the room when all of this stuff was being created. If the book does anything, it acknowledges that. It seems like a particularly interesting moment to think about that in terms of where we’re at now. Would Trump have been possible without the internet? Of course not. Look who benefits from all the endless newspaper inches about how the oppressed peoples of the world are going to be liberated by technology. I’ve just been on book tour to a lot of battleground states where I spent a lot of time 10 years ago. And if you want to look what hypercapitalism looks like, do a before and after of the Midwest, with a 10-year-break in between. It’s so devastated. Was it always a wonderful place to live? Probably not, but was it sort of like a road of ruination and emptiness? No. And I think the internet has been really good at aiding that process, certainly in destroying jobs. Reading your book made me think that we simply haven’t even had the language to criticise the internet until now. That there’s been no outside to the internet. No place to oppose it from… I think the outside is publishing, actually. I mean publishing in the most Platonic sense of the word, rather than the squalid industry that we have. I think that books actually can be anything. Publishing’s response to the internet has been completely pathetic, but God, if there’s going to be an opposition, a response, it’s not going to come in the form of tweets. You claim writers have chosen to ignore the dominant story of the 21st century and have instead rolled over and embraced Twitter as a marketing device. Do you think there’s just been a complete dereliction of duty? Not from everyone, but yes, if you see the literary novels that have been coming out even in the last two or three years, very few of them have much of a connection to anything now. How many of the literary novels published by the four major companies in the US have much to do with a world after which Trump wins the presidency? Have they published even a single working-class writer? I can’t think of one. You’re pretty scathing about some of the technology companies. You say that the idea that Google and Twitter contributed to the Arab spring is like saying the Russian revolution was sponsored by Ford... I went to Egypt in 2011, about four weeks after Mubarak fell and no one mentioned Facebook or Twitter. What they were talking about was money, and how they didn’t have any. At the same time, I was living in San Francisco, where there were Facebook employees who seemed to believe they were bringing enlightenment and freedom to the oppressed masses of the world, evicting Latino families who’d lived in the same place for 60 years. It’s just absurd to think that a complex, social thing, like a revolution, happening 7,000 or 8,000 miles away was being fuelled and generated by some stuff some nerds put out on a cellphone. You had to make legal changes to the UK edition, which you’ve done with the device of writing [JIM’LL FIX IT] where you’ve redacted passages such as those about Google’s Larry Page and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos. How did that come about? I didn’t want to delete the text per se, and I’d just read Dan Davies’s biography of Jimmy Savile and it really fascinated me, because in the US you’re constantly being told everything is a conspiracy and actually nothing ever is. Rich people tell you what they’re going to do and then they do it. Whereas here, there really was a conspiracy. It really did happen. I Hate the Internet is published by Serpent’s Tail (£12.99). Click here to order a copy for £10.65
Bad Santa 2 review – ho ho? No! As chaotic, cantankerous 2016 prepares to slope off the stage, one would be forgiven for wanting a wholesome Yuletide treat to warm our hearts and reset the world’s moral compass. Instead, we get Bad Santa 2, in which Billy Bob Thornton’s jaundiced St Nick gulps whisky from his flask and proceeds to mount Christina Hendricks in the alley by the dumpster. This probably makes it the Christmas film we deserve, a fitting finale for the year as a whole, although is it too much to wish that the gags had been sharper and the plot (something about a scheme to rob a Chicago-based charity) just that little bit more developed? Released in 2003, Terry Zwigoff’s original had a dirty, disreputable charm. The sequel, by contrast, blows in like some unloved, drunken uncle arrived late to the party. It’s a font of tired jokes and off-colour routines; aggressive one minute, maudlin the next. Steer this one gently into a darkened room.
NHS's first 'national guardian' resigns after two months A chief nurse who was appointed more than two months ago as the first “national guardian” with a remit to support NHS whistleblowers has resigned from the post. Dame Eileen Sills said she had to step down due to her commitment to patients and staff at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS foundation trust, where she was chief nurse. “It has been a very difficult decision to take, but after two months it is very clear that it is not possible to combine the role of the national guardian – and establishment of the office – with the increasing challenges NHS providers face, while doing justice to both roles,” she said in a statement posted on the Care Quality Commission (CQC) website on 4 March. Predicting that her new job would be “difficult and challenging”, Sills pledged last month to help deliver “a new culture of transparency and openness”. At the time of her appointment, she said she would work two days a week in her new role, adding: “It is very important to me that I remain present in my NHS trust. My new appointment has to give credibility to the role, but I also need to be there for staff.” Her decision to step down was seen by some as inevitable amid expectations that the guardian’s position should be a full time one. The CQC said that non-executive support to the office of the national guardian had been offered by a CQC board member, Sir Robert Francis QC, until a new appointment is made. “The office of the national guardian is a vital element in the drive to change the culture of the NHS to one which welcomes and supports staff who raise concerns,” he said. The need for an independent national guardian for whistleblowers was first highlighted in Robert Francis’ review across the health service in 2014. He found that NHS staff who blow the whistle on substandard and dangerous practices were being ignored, bullied or even intimidated in a “climate of fear”.
Safe-standing initiative given a lift by Premier League mood swing We are yet to hear chants of “stand up if you love safe standing” echo around Premier League grounds but there is undoubtedly a groundswell of opinion building behind an idea that even five years ago was habitually dismissed by clubs as a non-starter. Survey after survey has shown the vast majority of fans welcome the idea of safe-standing areas – rows of so-called rail seating as popularised in the Bundesliga almost two decades ago and successfully introduced at Celtic Park for almost 3,000 fans this season – that are a world away from the unsafe, crumbling, concrete terraces of yore. But it is among the clubs that the mood has now begun to shift, and rail seating will be an agenda item at a Premier League meeting of all 20 clubs for the first time on Thursday. Their motivation is, unsurprisingly, not altogether altruistic and the slow gathering of momentum behind the idea is built on a number of factors. One is football’s shifting economics. Less income is now derived from match-going fans but, paradoxically, they have never been more important. It is the high-octane atmosphere they create that is sold around the world in TV contracts that bring in £8.3bn over three years. As with the recent decisions to cap away-ticket prices at £30 and introduce rules that require clubs to place away fans close to the pitch, part of the appeal of rail seating – which effectively replaces each existing seat with a standing spot (and flip-up seat) behind a chest-high rail – is the possible beneficial effect on the atmosphere. West Ham United’s David Gold – ironically, perhaps, the least able to do something to bring about safe standing given that his club do not own their stadium – has been the most vocal owner in favour but many more are privately supportive and would support some sort of trial. Arsène Wenger said recently he would welcome their introduction. Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur have designed their mooted new stadiums to incorporate rail seating if it is allowed – construction timetables being another potential driver of progress. Crystal Palace, Watford, Sunderland, Swansea City and Burnley are among other clubs believed to be supportive. The arguments made down the years by a small group of campaigners whose views have slowly become mainstream also have an inescapable practical logic. Ironically it is the status quo that is potentially more dangerous. Thousands stand, or spend the game being told not to, at Premier League grounds up and down the country every weekend. That has led to incidences of cuts, bruises and worse when a goal is scored. And while at most grounds a situation has evolved by osmosis where standing is tolerated in some areas and not in others, the recent situation at West Ham’s new stadium showed that when the unspoken rules are not clear it can lead to heated exchanges and obscured views for the elderly and families. The history of the debate has been well-rehearsed. All-seater stadia were recommended by the Taylor Report as a means of dragging the game into the modern age, while it also recommended in vain that ticket prices be pegged at a reasonable level. Taylor’s report also found unequivocally that poor crowd management and an unsafe stadium were responsible for the Hillsborough disaster, rather than standing per se. Yet able to fill their grounds as a matter of course, wary of the legitimate issues around offending those affected by the Hillsborough disaster and – as is always the case in modern football – unable to see much immediate economic benefit, top-flight clubs have been content to let the naturally conservative instincts of the Premier League executive chairman, Richard Scudamore, set the tone. But even that shows signs of shifting and Scudamore has always insisted he will take his cue from the clubs. “We’re not immune to the fact that this is a topic and therefore it is in discussion with our clubs. They are all looking at the issue and at some point it will come around our table and we will see if there’s a point at which we might open up discussions with government to see what their view is on it,” he said last week. “It’s very much individual clubs sensing for themselves where they are with it and we may or may not facilitate that discussion in the weeks and months to come.” Scudamore is of the view a change in the law would be required, but there is an alternative view that if flip-up rail seats were introduced on a one-for-one basis then that would not be the case if it was determined they could be defined as “seated accommodation”. Either way, a firm view would have to be given by the government – in her sport strategy published last December the sports minister, Tracey Crouch, effectively parked the subject, but the DCMS is watching the implementation of safe standing by Celtic closely. One sensitive area remains the continued opposition of the Hillsborough Family Support Group to the introduction of safe standing. Liverpool are understandably taking their lead from the HFSG but their supporters’ trust, Spirit of Shankly, has now started a consultation on the topic that will lead to a formal position. The Hillsborough Justice Campaign has said it supports a “full and objective” debate. The issue was effectively, and rightly, parked during the Hillsborough inquest that belatedly delivered delayed justice to those who lost loved ones in the disaster but the debate now appears to be gingerly moving on. Jon Darch, a long-time campaigner for safe standing who has taken his roadshow of rail seats around the country for years in an effort to build support, said he believed the Premier League meeting was a significant step forward. Darch, who began as a campaigner but now stands to make a small commission on the sale of rail seats by a particular manufacturer if they are eventually brought in, said: “I am delighted to see that the Premier League will be discussing the possible introduction of rail seating. “You know, they sometimes get a lot of criticism from fans, but credit must be given where credit is due. And things like the away fans’ fund, the £30 away-ticket cap, moving away fans closer to the pitch and now a willingness to look at safe standing seem to me to indicate a new desire to collaborate with organisations like the Football Supporters’ Federation to address issues about which thousands and thousands of fans feel so passionate. “They’re therefore to be applauded for putting safe standing on their agenda and I look forward to hearing the outcome of their discussions.” History suggests the Premier League is unlikely to move quickly. Perhaps the best that supporters of safe standing can hope for is a working group and a commitment to review the Celtic experience – Manchester City and Manchester United have sent delegations north of the border – at the end of the season. But there is a wider feeling abroad that it is an idea whose time has come and that if momentum can be maintained then ultimately the logic behind it will be inescapable. Premier League clubs’ opinions on safe standing Arsenal A matter for government Bournemouth No comment Burnley Supportive if legislation permits Chelsea Will consider it if legislation permits Crystal Palace In favour Everton Not thinking about it at present Hull City Supportive if legislation permits Leicester City Open-minded Liverpool No comment Manchester City Open to the option Manchester United In favour in principle Middlesbrough No opinion until the parameters are clear Southampton Unclear Stoke City Open-minded Sunderland Understood to be broadly supportive Swansea City Supportive but final decision rests with the local council Tottenham Hotspur Supportive if legislation permits Watford In favour of trials West Bromwich Albion In favour West Ham United In favour
Sonita review – a refugee's dreams of superstardom Like many other 18-year-old girls, spirited Sonita Alizadeh wants to be a star and rap about her life. In her dreams, Michael Jackson and Rihanna are her parents and she’s free to pursue her recording career. In reality, as revealed in this wrenching, delicately told documentary, she’s a refugee from Afghanistan living in exile in Tehran, whose while her family back home are arranging to sell her off in matrimony for $9,000. If she won’t go along with the plan, they will beat her until she does, like the families of so many of her friends at the Tehran centre for refugee girls. Her mother is willing to give her a six-month stay of execution if someone like the centre or even the film-makers themselves – like so many Iranian films, this one also operates on a meta level – agree to pay $2,000. Despite the fact it’s illegal for women to sing in public in Iran, eventually Sonita makes a video of one of her songs with help from director Rokhsareh Ghaemmaghami, and that changes the whole story. What’s especially laudable is that the film never oversells her talent: there are scenes of recording industry professionals coolly assessing her work, and telling her she has a lot to learn. But the kid is a force of nature, and it’s impossible not to be swept along by the powerful tide of her story.
Government's Lloyds share sale takes stake to below 7% The British government has cut its stake in Lloyds Banking Group to below 7%, raising the amount recovered to more than £17.5bn of the £20.3bn of taxpayers’ money used to bail out the bank during the financial crisis. The sale of a further 1% of Lloyds shares on Tuesday reduced the government’s stake to 6.93%, from a peak of 43%. Simon Kirby, the economic secretary to the Treasury, said: “Selling our shares in Lloyds Banking Group and making sure that we get back all the cash taxpayers injected into it during the financial crisis is a key government priority. So I am pleased that we have continued to reduce our stake in Lloyds.” The chancellor, Philip Hammond, announced in October that he was abandoning his predecessor’s plans to sell the remainder of the Lloyds stake to members of the public at a discounted rate. Since then, the Treasury has been selling its remaining shares on the stock market, reducing its stake in stages from 9.2% to 6.9%. The aim is to have sold all its shares within a year, with the proceeds being used to reduce national debt. The current sales are taking place at a price lower than the 73.6p average price paid for the stake during the crisis, but Hammond has said he expects to recoup the full amount injected into the bank. Lloyds shares are trading at just above 61p. A spokesperson for Lloyds said: “Today’s announcement shows the further progress made in returning Lloyds Banking Group to full private ownership and enabling the taxpayer to get their money back. “This reflects the hard work undertaken over the last five years to transform the group into a simple, low-risk and customer-focused bank that is committed to helping Britain prosper.” While the government is selling off its stake in Lloyds, it retains a 73% stake in Royal Bank of Scotland which it also bailed out during the financial crisis. Hammond said in October that the time was not right to sell its stake in the Edinburgh-based bank, in which a 5% stake was sold in August 2015 at a £1bn loss.
US government investigating blood lead levels in New York's public housing The US Department of Justice (DoJ) announced an investigation into the general health and safety of New York City housing authority (NYCHA) developments Wednesday, including a probe for evidence of elevated blood lead levels among residents. NYCHA, whose buildings house more than 400,000 of the city’s residents, is also being investigated for potentially having made false claims to the US government related to public housing conditions. The investigation dates back to November, when the office of US attorney Preet Bharara made a civil investigative demand to the city’s department of health and mental hygiene, and was denied. On Wednesday, federal judge Deborah A Batts ordered the city to produce the requested information as it relates to “unsafe, unsanitary or unhealthful conditions”. Nick Paolucci, a spokesman for the city’s law department, said the department of health is cooperating in the investigation. A spokeswoman for NYCHA had no immediate comment. Lead is a potent neurotoxin that can cause a battery of long-term cognitive and physical health effects, especially for young children. Public attention to lead contamination has been on the rise since the water crisis in Flint, Michigan, became national news in late 2015. Since then, officials and experts have been grappling with just how large the scope of the problem might be nationwide. On Thursday, the New Jersey department of environmental protection is expected to release a report suggesting that lead levels exceeding normal limits had been found in about 250 samples of water in Newark city schools in the past four years. Reports already available show more than 50 results over the acceptable threshold in just the past year. Newark, the most populous city in the state, will offer free blood lead testing for parents of students in the district starting Friday. In New York, the concern over contamination is not related to drinking water but rather lead-based paints that were commonly used in residential units before it was banned by the federal government in 1977. The vast majority of the city’s 328 public housing developments were built during this era, leaving thousands of residents at risk for poisoning. NYCHA is technically responsible for removing the contaminated paint when units test positive for it, but a 2013 New York Daily News investigation found that the agency was far behind on these requests, and sometimes claimed that tests for lead were negative while health department testing found them positive. Like the population in Flint and Newark, residents of New York’s public housing are predominantly Black and Latino, and nationwide the issue of lead poisoning is often described as an example of environmental racism. According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, black children in the US face twice the risk for poisoning compared to white children. The scope of the DoJ investigation in New York goes beyond just lead poisoning, and actually extends through a laundry list of potential housing-related health stressors including “leaks, water damage, mold, particulate matter peeling paint in pre-1978 buildings, lead paint, rodents or insects, and all documents reflecting any response to, investigation of or evaluation of such complaints”, according to the New York Times. The DoJ investigation is also looking at conditions in New York’s homeless shelters. Reuters contributed to this report.
Stage v screen: is theatre better in the cinema? It has, in the past, taken all too little encouragement for me to express my bad-tempered and contradictory views concerning the theatre: namely, that it is pricey and divisive compared to cinema’s democracy; and furthermore, that livestreaming theatrical events into cinemas is gimmicky and a pale reflection of the flesh-and-blood experience (which I have only just finished slagging off as pricey, divisive, etc). So, in an attempt to kill both bees in my bonnet at the same time, the Garrick theatre in London’s West End and the Picturehouse cinema group challenged me to an experiment. I would watch the first half of Kenneth Branagh’s production of Romeo and Juliet in the theatre. And then at the interval, instead of settling down in the snug bar with a G&T in the traditional manner, my wife and I would exit the theatre and be hustled across town, with motorcycle outriders if necessary, to watch the second half in the cinema. I’ve got to admit it – this was a revelation. In the first half, I found myself really enjoying the openness, candour and freshness of Branagh’s production, which my colleague Michael Billington praised for its “pulsating energy”. Lily James is a black-belt Shakespearian actor in the role of Juliet, while her former screen Cinderella co-star Richard Madden is winning and winsome as Romeo; Meera Syal gets some big laughs as the Nurse, and Derek Jacobi is tremendous left-field casting as Mercutio, an ageing queeny guy who still likes hanging out with young men and, with a drop taken, fancies himself as a brawler. (Branagh was reportedly inspired by DH and Frieda Lawrence’s encounter with an inebriated Oscar Wilde.) As ever, when I see a Shakespeare production, I am struck by how much I remember from schooldays, but how little I actually understood at the time. And how is it possible that I have only now noticed the resemblance between the Queen Mab speech and that comparable set piece, the Seven Ages of Man monologue from As You Like It? How have I thus far missed the resemblance between Lady Capulet telling Juliet to buck up and stop moping and Gertrude saying the same thing to Hamlet? But anyway, I enjoyed the various Italianate touches: period frocks and Vespas that appeared to come from the Fellini 1960s, though the electropop party sequence was surely inspired by Paolo Sorrentino’s 2013 film The Great Beauty. Once in the cinema for the second half, though, various things dawned on me. I hadn’t realised that the livestream was going to be in black and white. After a little while, I grasped this was an intentional directorial touch, an explicit reference to the cinema of Antonioni and Fellini, an extra layer of interpretation unavailable to theatregoers. The problem was that the monochrome didn’t look like film. It reminded me of TV from the 50s and 60s – the age when you could watch high-risk live productions of stage plays. There is no danger of Acorn Antiques-style scenery wobble. Everything runs smoothly. But I think they could have transmitted in colour and we would still have appreciated the filmic touches. The differences were weirdly and immediately obvious. On the cinema screen, the set looked gigantic in a way that it hadn’t in the theatre. It was like something for Wagner’s Twilight of the Gods. In the theatre, I was aware of the audience somehow crowding and bristling intently forward to the edge of the stage. In the cinema, the audience are absent until the end, when the sharp clatter of applause comes as a surprise. And there was something at once relaxing and yet coercive about the syntax of the screen: the wide-shot, the closeup, the occasional slow zoom to emphasise a speech’s crescendo. You are being told what to see and when to see it. My first-half theatregoer brain resented that a bit. But then I appreciated things I hadn’t before the interval. For example: Romeo, Juliet and Lord Capulet wear exactly matching tiny crucifixes round their necks … hinting at a dysfunctional emotional triangle, perhaps? Intriguing. The death scene was presented in the cinema with a big overhead shot. You lose, I think, the pure concentration on the poetry in the cinema, but gain in the visual sense, as the unitary view of the proscenium arch is broken and reframed over and over. Actually, I think I have been thinking about this the wrong way. Instead of worrying about it as culture, how about comparing it to sport? I had left Centre Court and taken up my position on Murray Mound. And being on Murray Mound turned out to be pretty exciting. People watching a football match on TV as opposed to in the stadium can still have a great time – without worrying that it’s inauthentic, or that they have somehow made a wrong or disloyal choice. And, as my wife pointed out to me, at concerts and festivals, there are always screens. Screens are now part of the live experience. That moment when Juliet died was the moment of my Damascene conversion. Livestreaming is opening up theatre to new audiences. It’s a boost to cinemas and probably stimulating theatre ticket sales as well. So I’m converted. Romeo and Juliet is at the Garrick theatre, London, until 13 August and livestreamed in cinemas on 14 August. Buy theatre tickets from the Box Office. Telephone: 0330-333 6906.
The $14bn Deutsche Bank fine – all you need to know Shares in Deutsche Bank, Germany’s largest bank, took a dive after news that the institution faces a $14bn (£10.5bn) charge over mis-selling mortgage securities in the US. Here are some of the questions raised by the bank’s latest spat with regulators. Why is Deutsche Bank in trouble? The prospect of a $14bn penalty from the US Department of Justice has rattled investor confidence in Deutsche. Sentiment was already weak following a turbulent start to the year when prospects of a slowdown in global growth and lower interest rates raised questions about the bank’s future profits and dented the share price. The penalty aims to settle allegations, dating back to 2005, about the way the bank selected mortgages, packaged them into bonds and sold on to investors. These bonds are known as residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS). Can Deutsche afford the bill? Deutsche Bank has been quick to describe the fine as an “opening position” from Washington. It is easy to see why. It would be one of the largest ever fines levied by the US. It could also strain the bank’s finances. For 2015, the bank reported its first annual loss since 2008 and could be heading for another loss this year regardless of the threatened justice department fine. According to Tomas Kinmonth, an analyst at Dutch bank ABN Amro, a settlement on that scale could impede Deutsche’s ability to pay coupons – or regular interest payments to investors – on a special type of bond. “Not only are clouds over their profitability still above them, but the fine announcement will come as very unwanted news indeed,” said Kinmonth. The bonds are known as AT1s, which are intended to shore up Deutsche in a time of crisis. The bank, though, has made clear it has no intention of agreeing to a fine at this level and has stressed it has the resources to keep making payments on the bonds until 2017, at least. However, one analyst told Reuters that any fine topping €5bn would force it to raise fresh funds in the financial markets by tapping shareholders for cash. Is this the end of Deutsche Bank’s regulator troubles? The bank has set aside €5.5bn for litigation costs but does not spell out exactly what that sum is for. It is battling more than 7,000 legal cases, although the ones gaining most attention are the RMBS case and one relating to activities in Russia, where the bank is facing an investigation into so-called mirror trades, where clients bought shares in Russia and simultaneously sold similar shares abroad in foreign currency. Regulators are investigating whether or not these trades skirted international sanctions against Russia by turning Russia-held roubles into dollars held outside the country. Why have shares in RBS taken a dive as well? For at least a year, the bailed-out UK bank has been warning the City it faces a penalty over RMBS. Only on Monday, finance director Ewen Stevenson told investors that its $5.6bn provision for various claims relating to these mortgage bonds might not be enough. “This provision does not include or reflect potential penalties and compensatory damages that may be imposed by US DoJ, which may be substantial,” Stevenson said. The potential scale of the penalty facing Deutsche has raised anxiety about the possible fine facing RBS, which is 73% owned by taxpayers and yet to make an annual profit since its bailout in 2008. Could other European banks be affected? Deutsche is the first European bank that appears to have started talks with the DoJ over RMBS. Barclays and the Swiss bank UBS are among others waiting for settlement talks to be concluded. Their shares also fell on Friday.
UK visa policy for India could gamble away much-needed goodwill The demand for significant concessions by the UK government on visas for Indian visitors and migrants – whether to do business, work or study – has long been considered a major potential sticking point in any new trade deal, either with the EU or a Brexit Britain. Before Theresa May’s first official visit outside Europe as prime minister, Indian business leaders made clear the single most important “open for business” sign she could make would be to cut the £330 cost of a two-year visitor visa to the UK to £87 – the same rate as China gets. Karan Bilimoria, chairman of Cobra Beer, declared such a move would “make the visit a success at a single stroke”. Instead the Home Office ham-fistedly announced on Thursday that Indian companies wishing to move employees to the UK would face a higher salary threshold from the end of November because of concerns that the “intra-company transfer” route was being used to undercut the wages of British workers. Indian companies, especially in the tech sector, make the most use of that route, accounting for 72% of the 40,000 visas issued each year to skilled staff to work in the UK. So a decision to raise the minimum salary threshold from £24,800 to £30,000 a year for those who come for less than 12 months and to abolish this short term altogether from next April impacts particularly on Indian companies. Against this background, May’s announcement that Indian businesspeople who regularly travel to Britain would be among the first to benefit from the “registered traveller scheme” cut little ice. For the select few “high net-worth individuals”, the process of applying for a visa will be quicker with fewer forms to fill out and they will be able to join the EU/EEA queue at passport control, meaning a swifter passage through the airport, but May was silent on any moves to boost the number of visas issued to Indians to come to Britain. “The figures show that we issue more work visas to India than I think the US, Australia and China put together. Nine out of 10 visa applications from India are already accepted. We have, I believe, a good system,” the prime minister said. As the Hindustan Times reported on Monday, May offered the prospect of increasing visa numbers only in return for greater cooperation over illegal immigrants in Britain. “The UK will consider further improvements to our visa offer if at the same time we can step up the speed and volume of returns of Indians with no right to remain,” she said on Monday. Student numbers show the stark impact May’s own policies of reducing net migration to below 100,000 have had on the flow from India to the UK over the past six years. The number of Indian students coming to UK universities and higher education colleges has fallen sharply, from 39,090 in 2010-11 to 18,320 in 2014-15, partly as a result of the squeeze on post-study work visas for non-EU students. Over the last decade, Indian visitor numbers to the UK have remained static at about 400,000 a year while France has become Indian tourists’ European destination of choice, with more than 500,000 visitors in 2015. During this period, Britain’s market share of Indian tourists halved at a time when the market was growing at 10% a year, the UK tourist industry has complained. When it comes to work, Indians make up 57% – 53,548 – of the 93,935 skilled visas that were granted in the 12 months to June 2016, but the threat of closing the short-term intra-company transfer route will make a severe dent in those numbers. In light of Indian demands for cheaper and more visas, May’s offer of a fast-track channel at Heathrow for the wealthiest of India’s businesspeople is unlikely to generate the kind of goodwill a post-Brexit Britain is going to need to forge new trading relationships.
Jamie Vardy’s double keeps title dream alive for Leicester against Liverpool It is the story that keeps on giving and to think the Hollywood screenwriter who plans to make a film about Jamie Vardy was in the stands to watch the latest chapter in this remarkable tale unfold. Roy Hodgson was also among the crowd and unable to suppress a smile as Vardy scored twice – the first a contender for goal of the season – on a night when Leicester looked like authentic title contenders in every sense. Vardy was magnificent and this was some way to celebrate the new three-and-a-half-year contract he will sign this week. He has now struck 18 Premier League goals this season and will probably never score a better one than the outrageous 25-yard volley that left Simon Mignolet clutching at thin air on the hour mark. It was a breathtaking moment of improvised brilliance and a strike Adrian Butchart, who was behind the Goal! movies and looking on from Vardy’s executive box, will do well to recreate. Vardy, however, was not finished and added a second from six yards out, in the 72nd minute, to put the game beyond Liverpool and maintain Leicester’s three-point lead at the top of the table before Saturday’s pivotal game at Manchester City. “England’s No9” and “We’re gonna’ win the league” chanted Leicester’s jubilant supporters at the end. On this evidence, it is hard to disagree with either notion. Leicester were superb and played with incredible intensity throughout, Claudio Ranieri’s players chasing every ball as if their lives depended on it. Yet they also produced some moments of genuine class, including a wonderful passage of one-touch football prior to Vardy’s second goal that would not have looked out of place at Camp Nou and ended with Shinji Okazaki going down in the area and appealing in vain for a penalty. It was certainly some start to a trio of matches that many believe will define Leicester’s season and determine whether they really can go on and do the unthinkable – win the league. After their trip to the Etihad Stadium, Leicester travel to Arsenal the following Sunday and if they can come through those two fixtures still enjoying the view from the top, Leicester supporters can really start to dream. This turned into a chastening experience for Liverpool. Jürgen Klopp prides himself on creating teams that press aggressively and cover every blade of grass, but the Liverpool manager was beaten at his own game here as Leicester worked tirelessly to close down their opponents, pinch possession and break with alacrity. “We didn’t give the Liverpool players time to think,” Ranieri said. Fast and furious, the game was played at a breathless pace at times, in particular in the opening half hour, and the only surprise was that it took so long for the first goal to arrive. Mignolet had something to do with that, the Liverpool goalkeeper producing two outstanding first-half saves, pushing Okazaki’s point-blank header on to the bar, from Vardy’s exquisite cross, and then tipping Riyad Mahrez’s sumptuous curling shot over later in the first half. Liverpool had their moments in the opening 45 minutes and got into some promising positions but lacked conviction when it mattered most. Mamadou Sakho and Roberto Firmino were playing a game of head-tennis in the Leicester area at one stage when either man could have gone for goal and Alberto Moreno should have done better with a wild left-footed shot shortly before half-time. Early in the second half Emre Can had a low 10-yard effort deflected wide after one of Liverpool’s best moves of the game. Klopp’s team were beginning to take control at the start of the second half and Leicester, for the first time, looked a little ragged, but Vardy’s bolt from the blue changed everything. Mahrez, who is looking more and more like his old self after a dip in form over the festive period, deserves more than a passing mention for the vision and technique he showed to pick out Vardy’s run with a lofted pass from deep in the Leicester half. It was the sort of ball that Vardy relishes yet this was no ordinary sprint into the channel. Sakho seemed to be pointing to Dejan Lovren to try and get across and put some pressure on Vardy as he stretched his legs but the England striker had his mind on only one thing and after letting the ball bounce thumped an audacious volley that flew into the near top corner. Liverpool never recovered from that blow and conceded a second 11 minutes later. The industrious Okazaki tried his luck with a shot that deflected into the path of Vardy and the 29-year-old finished clinically, lifting a left-footed shot beyond Mignolet and into the far corner. Little wonder Hodgson looked so happy.
Dark web departure: fake train tickets go on sale alongside AK-47s Machine guns, class-A drugs, stolen credit cards and … a return ticket to Hastings. The shopping list of the “dark web” consumer, more used to a wild west better known for the highly illegal and illicit, appears to have taken a more ordinary diversion. At least that’s the impression left by an investigation into the sale of forged train tickets on hidden parts of the internet. BBC South East bought several sophisticated fakes, including a first-class Hastings fare, for as little as a third of their face value. The tickets cannot fool machines but barrier staff accepted them on 12 occasions. Dr Sin Wee Lee, a computer scientist and senior lecturer at the University of East London, has spent years investigating dark web retail. He says train tickets are an unusual item – he hasn’t seen them before – but he has witnessed an explosion in what is available. “At the time of our investigation last year, the biggest player was a marketplace called Agora, which sold about 30,000 products, 80% of which were drugs,” he says. “Currently, the largest player, Alpha Bay, sells about 200,000 products.” These marketplaces make up a fraction of what constitutes the dark web, which operates in parallel to the traditional web and typically requires invitation or special authorisation to access. Up to 30,000 dark websites were estimated to exist in analysis done last year, Dr Lee says. “Only 50 were marketplaces. The rest could be file-sharing or private forums, for example.” Other parts of the dark web, including Tor, operate as benign lifelines for citizens in authoritarian states. Dr Lee and fellow researcher Andres Baravalle have come across AK-47s sold in parts delivered by separate couriers for reassembly by the consumer, as well as what Baravalle describes as “special services” – instructions, for example, on how to evade the police while committing particular crimes. But fake stuff, including drugs, dominates, including forged passports for sale for £800, as well as exam certificates and bank statements. “Anything you need to create an identity,” Baravalle says. The academics are in talks with their university’s lawyers and other bodies about the ethics of buying such products to examine them. The academics say the sites, once accessed by invitation or via dark-web search engines (there’ll be no hyperlinks here) resemble typical marketplaces such as Amazon or eBay, and that customer service is improving. “Agora was invitation-only but many of these marketplaces are easily accessible if you know how to search,” Dr Lee adds. “I think any secondary school student who knows how to use Google could get access – and that’s the danger of it.” The unnamed group selling the forged train tickets claimed to be getting one over on deficient rail companies for the good of customers. That may not wash with the British Transport Police’s increasingly busy cybercrime unit, which is investigating the trade.
US justice department accuses Barclays over mortgage mis-selling The US department of justice has accused Barclays of jeopardising the financial position of millions of American homeowners over a decade-old mortgage bond mis-selling scandal. The DoJ is now taking the bank to court, in what was thought to be the first time an institution had failed to reached a settlement with the US authorities over the sale of residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) in the run-up to the banking crisis. Responding to the news on Thursday night, Barclays said it would fight the case. Loretta Lynch, the US attorney general, said: “Financial institutions like Barclays occupy a position of vital public trust. Ordinary Americans depend on their assurances of transparency and legitimacy, and entrust these banks with their valuable savings.” As the DoJ issued its civil claim in the New York courts, Lynch said: “As alleged in this complaint, Barclays jeopardised billions of dollars of wealth through practices that were plainly irresponsible and dishonest. With this filing, we are sending a clear message that the department of justice will not tolerate the defrauding of investors and the American people.” No figure was released about the sum that the DoJ had been seeking from Barclays for settling the complaint, which was announced amid speculation that Deutsche Bank was close to reaching an agreement over the mis-selling scandal. Deutsche Bank has been facing a $14bn settlement with the DoJ over similar allegations and when the size of the potential penalty leaked in September the shares in Germany’s biggest bank tumbled to new lows. Deutsche’s chief executive, John Cryan, has repeatedly insisted that it will not agree to pay such a penalty for a mis-selling saga that dates back to 2005. Earlier this week Reuters reported that the Swiss bank Credit Suisse had been asked to pay between $5bn and $7bn to settle the long-running investigation. Bailed-out Royal Bank of Scotland has repeatedly warned that it too faces a penalty from the DoJ over the investigation that reflects an attempt by outgoing president Barack Obama to hold banks accountable for selling the bonds – which packaged up home loans – without telling investors about the risks. Analysts have calculated that RBS could face a bill of up to £9bn. Since the election of Donald Trump – who takes office next month – analysts have been to trying to gauge what impact this might have on outstanding investigations. In an announcement that will be released to the London Stock Exchange on Friday, Barclays said it would fight the DoJ. “Barclays rejects the claims made in the complaint. Barclays considers that the claims made in the complaint are disconnected from the facts. We have an obligation to our shareholders, customers, clients, and employees to defend ourselves against unreasonable allegations and demands. Barclays will vigorously defend the complaint and seek its dismissal at the earliest opportunity.” But Bill Baer, principal deputy associate attorney general, said: “The widespread fraud that investment banks like Barclays committed in the packaging and sale of residential mortgage-backed securities injured tens of thousands of investors and significantly contributed to the financial crisis of 2008. “Millions of homeowners were left with homes they could not afford, leaving entire neighbourhoods devastated. The government’s complaint alleges that Barclays fraudulently sold investors RMBS full of mortgages it knew were likely to fail, all the while telling investors that the mortgages backing the securities were sound.” The complaint covered the period between 2005 and 2007 and includes allegations of misleading staff against two Barclays staff. The scheme involved 36 RMBS deals in which $31bn worth of loans were packaged up in securitisations. The DoJ more usually reaches settlements with major financial firms over its investigations and has done so in relation to RMBS with a number of US banks, including JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Citi. The US has recouped $48bn so far as a result of the mortgage bond mis-selling. Barclays has set aside £4bn for upcoming fines and litigation but did not have a specific provision for RMBS. Bloomberg reported that Barclays had hired law firm Williams & Connolly to run its defence against the DoJ.
Adele signs £90m contract with Sony Adele has signed a multi-album contract with the Sony record label with a headline value of £90m, which if paid out in full would make it the biggest record deal in history. The 28-year-old singer-songwriter, who was the best-selling artist in the world in 2015, was poached by Sony after her original contract that she signed at the age of 19 with British independent label XL expired. Adele is already worth an estimated £85m, having generated extraordinary sums from her albums, included more than £35m in sales generated by her latest album 25. Released in November last year, 25 has been credited with single-handedly reviving album sales across the globe, having sold more than 19m copies to date worldwide. In the US, the album claimed the largest single-week sales for an album since records began in 1991; while her second album, 21, released in 2011, has now sold more than 30m copies globally, making it the most successful album of the past decade. The deal was brokered by Adele’s manager, Jonathan Watkins, just before Christmas, but until now its very existence – never mind its financial terms – has been kept under wraps. Neither Sony Music, XL Recordings or Adele’s management would comment on the singer’s move. However, industry sources said that Sony had “secured Adele, who’s without doubt the biggest music star in a generation. This is massive”. The source said the £90m deal had been arranged through Columbia Records, one of the US labels owned by Sony and “gives Sony the rights to release her future music exclusively around the world”. Artists usually promise to release several albums as part of any new contract and typically the deal would pay out in full only if certain targets were met. The last comparable record deal was the £80m contract Robbie Williams signed with EMI in 2002; it also eclipses the most valuable ever signed by a female artist – Whitney Houston’s £70m contract with Arista in 2001. Over the past year, Adele has dominated the charts and award ceremonies across the world. She swept the Brit awards, was named songwriter of the year at the Ivor Novellos last week and picked up five prizes – including top artist – at the Billboard awards in Las Vegas on Sunday night. Tim Ingham, industry commentator and founder of Music Business Worldwide, said now felt like the “perfect time” for Adele to move to a major label. “Up till now, Adele has been given the freedom to become a blockbuster artist on her own terms, predominately on an independent label who recognised and nurtured her talent,” said Ingham. “She’s established that she knows who she is, the music she wants to make and nobody can tell her what to do – which makes it the perfect time to sign to a major label. “Adele will be able to exert more influence on her own career whilst also getting guaranteed blockbuster spending and promotion. And from Sony’s perspective, Adele is the closest thing it comes to a guaranteed bet.” Ingham said it was likely the £90m deal was for three albums, with the ability to option any future records after that. He said the only thing Sony needed to be “extremely careful” of was Adele’s reluctance to put herself in the public eye too often, preferring secrecy when songwriting. Having taken more than four years to produce each of her albums, he said the singer proved she needed to be treated with patience, something “that doesn’t particularly fit into major label market demands”. He added: “So long as Sony appreciate that – and vitally continue to understand that in years and decades to come – I think it will be a great relationship.” It also means that Adele was already signed to Sony when she publicly criticised the label at the Brit awards for their treatment of singer Kesha, who was not allowed to be released from a contract tying her to producer Dr Luke. “I’d like to take a quick second just to thank my management and my record label for embracing the fact that I’m a woman and being encouraged by it,” said Adele at the ceremony, in a statement that could now be taken as a warning shot to her new label. Adele is the richest British female singer of all time, although her refusal to take on any endorsement deals means her overall earnings lag well behind American counterparts such as Beyoncé and Taylor Swift. Her current world tour will generate an estimated £100m. However, music industry analyst Mark Mulligan said that even though Adele was currently the most bankable artist in the world, the £90m deal was still a financial risk for Sony in the current uncertain music industry climate. “Some people could make the argument that 21 was a peak for Adele,” he said. “This is an artist who doesn’t like touring that much, which is usually a big way of making money, and she’s not all that prolific – so this is a massive bet on her putting out at least another two or three great albums.” The deal is likely to have an impact on the British independent label sector, which has been boosted for the past few years with what’s become widely referred to as the “Adele money”. Adele’s former label XL is part of the Beggars group of labels, which has released records from the White Stripes and Basement Jaxx. Mulligan added that one of Adele’s lasting legacies was having helped build the independent sector over the past five years.
Brexit could put Britain's environment at risk, says Stanley Johnson A move out of the EU would leave Britain’s environment open to the legislative whims of a Conservative government that has shown little inclination for good stewardship, according to a leading ‘green’ Tory. If Britons vote to leave in the June referendum, many British environmental laws currently transposed from EU regulations would be open to the discretion of the UK parliament. Stanley Johnson, who held a European seat for the Tories during the 1980s, said the current government’s form was a poor recommendation for the repatriation of these powers. “I’m a bit suspicious,” said Johnson, whose son Boris is a leading leave campaigner. “I’ve been a Conservative for years and years and years. But you know, you cannot honestly say that environmental policy has been top of the agenda of this Conservative government. “I don’t think it has and I would be deeply worried to see a Treasury-led push to increase British competitiveness on the basis of a deterioration of environmental standards.” On the contrary, said the pro-Brexit environment minister George Eustice, leaving the EU would allow British lawmakers to reform “clunky” environmental legislation. “It would be pretty much the same, but you would have the flexibility to change things, to improve things, to make things better, to try new ideas,” he said. Eustice’s government has consistently asserted that it has been the “greenest government ever”. “I just think it’s a funny idea to get into which says that democratic government is a bad thing for the environment,” said Eustice, noting the large membership of the RSPB. “This country is passionate about animal welfare and wildlife. There will still be a very strong political lobby for high standards of environmental protection in this country.” Johnson, who co-chairs the cross-party campaign group Environmentalists for Europe, said: “It would be nice to have that kind of trust in the British people ... National politicians are inevitably looking at short term issues. The uniqueness of the EU is that there is real, supranational power. “Environmental policy is really too important to be left purely to local people or purely to national people. You actually have to have a global or international approach to some of the issues.” Johnson turned up to meet the brandishing a copy of the EU’s 1992 habitats directive – legislation he helped to author and one of a tranche of “colossally important” laws he said would cease to govern Britain’s environment should voters decide to exit the EU. Any Brexit scenario would mean the UK would leave the common agriculture and fisheries policies. It would also remove itself completely from habitat and water quality directives. The Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP) report in March found that a complete departure from the EU “would create identifiable and substantial risks to future UK environmental ambition and outcomes”. According to the IEEP, EU legislation stops states from watering down national standards in order to advantage local manufacturers. It also takes a long time to pass, but when it does it usually remains constant. This builds confidence in the industries that are affected and allows them to plan for sustainability. Contrast this with the Conservative government’s mercurial green energy policies – described as “economic and climate lunacy” by the former energy secretary Ed Davey and decried as a “unholy mess” by advocates of clean and dirty energy alike. The risk to the environment is lessened if a seceded UK remains within the European Economic Area (EEA) because many of the UK’s laws regulating the behaviour of industry are governed by the EEA’s free trade agreement. The country would continue to fund the EU budget, but would lose the opportunity to negotiate changes to laws, which are decided by the European parliament. Despite strong social and environmental arguments for remaining within the union, Johnson said the remain campaign had fixated on the narrowest economic terms because “deep down Conservatives are interested in money”. Eustice said no matter what trade arrangement was struck, Britain’s stewardship of nature would continue to be defined through the Bern Convention. But James Thornton, chief executive of the environmental law NGO ClientEarth, said the removal of EU law amounted to a significant stripping away of protection. “International conventions are a type of law, but they are fairly soft. EU law is actually real law,” he said. “You need real and enforceable law because things that are voluntary or soft have never worked in the arena of the environment.” Thornton said history showed that Britain – once known as the “dirty man of Europe” – had been a poor custodian of nature when left to its own devices. He cited Britain’s mid-20th century enthusiasm for overfishing as an example of the country’s exploitative zeal. “I suppose it could be enlightened now, but that wasn’t the experience in the past,” he said. “Brexit is the most dangerous political threat to the environment that we are facing in the UK,” said Thornton. “Why are people saying we should leave the EU? Well because we should be free from regulations. It’s a very primitive, unsophisticated, uncivil way of thinking.” In more recent years, he said, “in every case I’m aware of since this government has come in, the action has been contrary to environmental protection”. He said the UK’s failure to ameliorate breaches to air pollution limits – over which ClientEarth has successfully taken the government to court – was clear evidence of the need for EU oversight and the function of enforceable legislation. “If you have a country in which the government is clearly happy to let 40,000 people a year die of air pollution, we need some external guidance to help them take care of their own citizens,” he said. Responding to Eustice’s description of the continent’s regulatory regime as “clunky”, Thornton said that “in fact, the EU’s environmental laws are extremely well-designed” although they could be stronger. In the key policy area of climate change, the chair of the UK’s Committee on Climate Change John Gummer, another leading Tory, said leaving would give away influence over continental and international ambition. The UK has lobbied the EU to increase its carbon cuts from 40% to 50% on 1990 levels by the year 2030. “If we are not part of the encouragement for them to do it,” said Gummer. “Then not only will we not be helping the rest of Europe to do it, but we won’t do it ourselves.” In international climate negotiations, the UK currently negotiates as part of the EU bloc, which was a leading force for strengthening the Paris agreement in December. “The people who believe in Brexit do not accept a world in which you no longer have the sort of national power that we had in 1945 or 1900. You now operate within groupings. And if you are a powerful member of the most powerful grouping, you can get a great deal done,” said Gummer.
Sanders campaigns in New Hampshire as Clinton flies to Flint – as it happened We’re going to wrap up our live blog campaign trail coverage from New Hampshire for the afternoon. Here’s a summary of what’s happened: New Hampshire votes on Tuesday. At least three Republican candidacies appear to be hanging on a thread here. On Sunday the candidates zipped around the state, racing to make closing arguments before America tunes out of politics – and tunes into Super Bowl 50 tonight. New Jersey governor Chris Christie kept up his attack on Marco Rubio, whom he steamrolled at a GOP debate on Saturday night by pointing out what he said was the empty consistency and consistent emptiness of Rubio’s speech. Christie expanded his attacks to Ohio governor John Kasich, whom Christie said had not had to deal with media scrutiny the way he, Christie, had. Kasich, meanwhile, made the pitch to voters that he was a conservative candidate who could yet win voters like a centrist in a general election. Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor, got in on the slapfight, too, calling Donald Trump a “loser” – to the joy of his overflow morning crowd. Big crowd for Jeb. Yuge. Marco Rubio, for his part, waking up to headlines announcing his debate disaster, said he wished that footage of his supposed #fail – repeating verbatim a line about Barack Obama – would be replayed even more, because he really meant it. Donald Trump, for his part, mocked Bush for having his “mommy” campaign for him. Trump also said he would never refer to the Iranian ayatollah as “supreme leader” because he’s not Trump’s supreme leader. Vermont senator Bernie Sanders set a large crowd on fire, figuratively, in a rally at a community college in Portsmouth. New Hampshire is #feelingtheBern. Hillary Clinton traveled to Flint, Michigan, to speak on the water crisis. Bill Clinton campaigned in her stead in Keene, advising voters that the imminent primary election was like 1992 “on steroids”. Polling continued to show Sanders and Trump with double-digit leads in their respective races. Kasich, who is hoping for a dramatic finish here Tuesday, appeared to be bobbing toward the top of a pack fighting for second place. We’ll be back tomorrow. Don’t go away. Bill Clinton is asking New Hampshire voters to reimagine the 1992 Democratic primary and make his wife, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, a “comeback kid,” writes the ’s Lauren Gambino from inside a Keene, New Hampshire, rally: “I hope New Hampshire will remember, this is 1992 on steroids,” said Clinton, whose 1992 campaigned sparked to life with a second-place finish in the Granite State. “You need to respond on steroids and you’ll never regret it.” Bill Clinton delivered a low-key speech to a packed crowd at Keene Middle School, where Hillary Clinton previously held a town hall to discuss the regional heroin epidemic. Clinton said his wife’s attention to issues such as the opioid epidemic and Flint water crisis were examples of how she would tackle big issues – the economy and foreign policy – without forgetting about the smaller ones. Clinton criticized Sanders’s for labeling the groups that have endorsed his wife “establishment”, especially Planned Parenthood. “We need a debate, not name-calling,” he said. “We need anger and answers,” he said. “We can start with resentment but in the end results are all that matters.” In a final pitch, Clinton returned to one of his favorite lines. Everywhere she’s ever gone she’s made something good happen. Everything she’s ever touched and every person she’s ever touched she’s made better,” Clinton said. “You will never have a chance – never – to vote for a better change-maker.” Sanders closes: “We have an enormous amount of work to do together. And the path forward starts in New Hampshire this Tuesday. Thank you very much!” Sanders is out. Bowie is on: And the crowd chants, “Feel the Bern! Feel the Bern! Feel the Bern!” This is true, Ed Henry / Fox News is here. Is Fox feeling the Bern? Henry starts recording his live spot just as the crowd erupts in huge applause at Sanders’ line about the Iraq war: “I was right, and Hillary Clinton was wrong!” Action meanwhile at a Rubio event in Hudson, New Hampshire, per the ’s Sabrina Siddiqui – Voter tells Rubio all illegal immigrants are “criminal aliens.” Rubio says we should prioritize “the violent criminals” in enforcing law. Rubio has lately mentioned his infraction for drinking in park at age 18 when asked about targeting of minorities by law enforcement. Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, is at a church in Flint, Michigan, to talk about the water crisis, reports columnist Lucia Graves from the scene: “I feel blessed to be here but I wish it were for a different reason,” Clinton said, taking a stage flanked by purple-robed members of the church choir and surrounded by a sea of nodding heads. “But I am here because for nearly two years, mothers and fathers were voicing concerns about the water’s color and its smell, about the rashes that it gave to those that were bathing in it. And for nearly two years Flint was told the water was safe,” she said to applause and shouts of ‘amen.’ The introduction she received for the speech was light, with the pastor joking the baptismal water was from the Flint river and he’d experienced no rashes, only a little ash. Clinton seemed at some pains to emphasize to the audience her lasting commitment to the issue, saying “I will fight for you no matter how long it takes,” and “this has to be a national priority not just for today and for tomorrow.” “This is no time for politics as usual,” she said. “Flint should start making the repairs you need to restore safe water as soon as possible.” Rings true after a few nights of sitting in front of New Hampshire TVs– Here’s Sanders talking about gay marriage at the rally: Sanders says Republicans have a strange definition of “family values.” “With a couple days left in the primaries here in New Hampshire, you see a lot of Republicans running all over this state,” he says. “Go away!” a guy yells, to applause. “That’ll happen in a couple of days,” Sanders says, to laughs. “Many of these guys talk about – although not so much here, they will more when they go down South – family values. I want everyone here to be very clear on what they mean by that,” he says. What they mean is no woman... should have the right to control her own body. I disagree... It means they want to defund Planned Parenthood. I want to expand funding for Planned Parenthood. ... What they are saying is that our gay brothers and sisters should not have the right to get married. I disagree. “You ready for a radical idea?” Sanders asks. Somebody yells, “Preach!” “We are going to create an economy together that works for working families, not just the 1%!” Sanders says. Earlier Sanders said that the Walton family, which owns Wal-Mart, controls wealth equivalent to the bottom 40% of US families, and yet Wal-Mart pays employees so little that its workforce represents the largest single bloc of welfare recipients in the country. “So I say to the Walton family: get off of welfare, pay your workers a living wage.” And here’s what we mean by big cheering: Sanders turns to the “grotesque level of wealth and income inequality in America.” Washington bureau chief Dan Roberts is with the blog in the room: “Do we have the courage to take on the billionaire class?” Sanders asks. “The government belongs to all of us and not just a small number of wealthy people!” Big cheering and applause. “They have endless supplies of money and power, but at the end of the day, we have something they don’t have. We have the people.” The “big cheering and applause” comes so regularly – in response to any line Sanders stops long enough on to allow it – that from here on out you can just assume that there is big cheering and applause throughout. If some line is unexpectly greeted with confused silence, we’ll note it. Sanders acknowledges a critique that the overhaul of tax policy, health care and financial regulations he recommends is just too much for any president to pull off. “We will get them done, because people will demand that they get done!” Sanders says. Another big applause line. Sanders says 20 years ago, if you told them that same-sex marriage would be a right in 2015, “somebody next to them would have said, ‘what are you smoking?’ Which raises another issue,” he deadpans. It’s a joke he’s used before but the crowd enthuses wildly anyway. “That’s how change happens.” Twenty years ago, Republicans were running entire campaigns about how gays were going to take over the world and destroy America. They don’t talk about it anymore because they know it’s a losing issue. Sanders slides into his stump. “In order to bring about the changes that the American people want, we need a political revolution. And the concept of a political revolution, that’s not just rhetoric, that’s reality.” Sanders rips his jacket off and the crowd goes nuts. Here’s his entrance: Heeere comes Bernie - pure pandemonium in the room. “This is a loud and boisterous crowd,” Sanders begins. “Thank you!” The Bernie Sanders rally where your blogger is posted up has yet to properly start. Palpably more energy – and physically more people, maybe twice as many – in the room, we’d note, than at Hillary Clinton’s morning get-out-the-vote event yesterday in Concord. Here in Portsmouth there are full bleachers and a properly packed gym floor and a media pack to dwarf what Clinton had. That Trump event in Plymouth continues to seem lively. The candidate is mocking a rival’s mother. Or mocking the rival for having a mother? Trump continues via Ben: Trump: “I am not calling him the Supreme Leader, he’s not my Supreme Leader” Trump now says “there’s something strange going” because Obama refers to Khamenei by his title of Supreme Leader Trump now says “there’s something strange going on” because Obama refers to Khamenei by his title of Supreme Leader Back at the Sanders event, a state legislator is warming up the crowd. “Just like 1776, Americans are saying, enough is enough!” Big cheering. Sounds like they just won the state meet. The ’s Lauren Gambino is at an event with Bill Clinton in Keene, New Hampshire. Hillary Clinton is in Flint, Michigan, today, for an update on the local water crisis. Bill Clinton has just said that Hillary Clinton’s primary race is like his “on steroids,” Lauren writes: @hillaryclinton didn’t say who do you want me to blame, she said what do you want me to do.” @billclinton columnist Lucia Graves is in Flint tailing Hillary Clinton: Donald Trump has been speaking to a packed house at Plymouth State University, in Holderness, New Hampshire, reports Alan Yuhas. He’s talking about a rigged system … just like Bernie Sanders does. He says that insurance companies would “rather have monopolies in each state” than compete, and that they’ve divvied up the country into various regions like a cartel. “I know these people,” Trump says. “The insurance companies say, ‘I want to take New York, you take, you take some other place. You take Iowa.’ “But they have lines around the states,” he says, apparently meaning they’ve drawn borders between their respective regions. “And New Hampshire has the same thing. And for those of you who have businesses it’s very hard to get competitive bids … I have thousands of employees. So hard for me to make deals on healthcare because I can’t get bids.” He throws a little red meat to the Republican crowd – “Obamacare is a disaster, and it’s expensive, and it’s no good, and it doesn’t work” – but then he pulls off a Sandersian riff about the corrupting power of money in politics. Moneyed interests make “tremendous political contributions to the guys that I’m on the stage with,” Trump says. “Whether the insurance companies or the drug companies or the oil companies, it’s all the same thing.” Later he talks about how we need to protect the environment and our “clean, beautiful air”. He mocks Obama for flying on a large jet, just like his private jet. (He doesn’t mention his own private jet.) There’s some isolated screaming from the back. Some are “friends” but one is a shirtless guy with “Trump is a racist” draw in marker on his back. He gets tossed out. “Get ‘em out,” Trump laughs. “They’re lost, they’re lost people.” “We kid and joke,” he says. “If we can’t smile at ourselves, and we can’t smile at how stupidly we’re being run, then we’re just not gonna make ourselves feel so good.” The crowd loves it. “Trump. Trump. Trump. Trump. Trump.” Hillary Clinton’s campaign has continued to accuse Bernie Sanders’s of misleading voters, running advertisements and sending mailers that make it appear that he has been endorsed by groups that have not actually endorsed him, writes Lauren Gambino in Keene, NH. Calling this a “pattern of deceptive campaign tactics”, Clinton’s team blasts Sanders for abandoning his promise to run a positive campaign and has demanded he stops. “It seems the Sanders campaign has shifted from insulting and dismissing people who don’t support him to falsely claiming their support,” said Clinton communications director Jen Palmieri. “Despite being called on deceptive campaign tactics and misleading ads for weeks now, Sanders has now chosen to mislead voters on a veteran and veterans’ group’s support. Enough is enough—voters deserve better.” (Read more about the ongoing dispute over endorsements here.) Also, MSNBC has reported that Sanders attended a fundraiser in 2007 in Martha’s Vineyard that was attended by the very lobbyists he now rails against. The piece shows just how difficult ideologically purity can be in the dirty game of politics. It’s warmer in New Hampshire than it was yesterday but still this demonstrates admirable physical stoicism: The protester took off his shirt to reveal an arrow pointing at his ass: Harry Enten is an analyst with the data-journalism-and-so-much-more site FiveThirtyEight, whose handicapping of the New Hampshire race looks good for Trump: Hard to disagree with this analysis: political reporter Sabrina Siddiqui has followed Florida senator Marco Rubio from Londonderry to Bedford, New Hampshire. Among other topics, Rubio touches on one close to his heart and on everyone’s mind this weekend: the Super Bowl. Rubio to Bedford crowd: “Tom Brady’s 38 years old. Why is he still playing? There should be mandatory retirement ages.” A 9 year old asks Rubio what he’s going to do about the national debt. Rubio blames “people in Washington that don’t care right now.” political reporter Sabrina Siddiqui flags a fresh poll of the Republican race in New Hampshire published by Monmouth university. It shows a fight for second. And Trump in runaway first, gobbling nearly a third of votes of support. In two days we’ll know. Real Clear Politics polling averages have Trump in first by 15.7 points and Rubio instead of Kasich in second – though Rubio-Kasich-Cruz are packed into a four-point band in the averages, tight tight tight. political reporter Ben Jacobs is at a Donald Trump rally in Plymouth, New Hampshire, with his hands on the tweetboard: Donald Trump: I have no friends as far as I am concerned [What about the Mexicans and Muslims and Chinese and members of the media and everyone else he claims as close friends before he shivs them?] Trump: Even in the Wild West, you’ll get shot. They’ll shoot you but they won’t cut your head off. With two days to go until New Hampshire votes, the Republicans are turning on one another like underfed house pets (got a better analogy? Self-publish in the comments – that’s what they’re there for!). Jeb Bush has turned Trump’s preferred imprecation back on the source. LOSER. And the crowd loves it! He should bring up the wall? Well-observed. A good night’s sleep has not slackened New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s thirst for the attack. Here he is at a rally in New Hampshire today speaking at length about how much he admires Ohio governor John Kasich – before throwing him under the bus. He says Kasich’s record has not been combed by local media. “The interrogation by the Akron Sun ain’t doin’ it.” Ahem. It’s the Akron Beacon Journal, governor. “I’m just better. I’ve been tested,” Christie says. He points out that New Jersey is one of the toughest media markets in the world. He implies that he’s survived nicely. In fact barrels of ink have been spilled by the regional press describing and decrying Christie’s shortcomings, and he’s deeply unpopular in his home state. But at least he’s vetted? We’ve relocated the blog for the moment to Great Bay Community College in Portsmouth, New Hampshire – we’re in the gym – where Bernie Sanders is scheduled to appear in about 45 minutes for a get-out-the-vote rally. Packed house here. “I don’t think that we’re gonna get a seat,” says one arrival. She’s extremely right. Pre-rally music includes the under-heard Steve Earle song The Revolution Starts Now. And now it’s Neil Young. Click on this video, it will be like being here – but with seats! Feminist writer Gloria Steinem has apologized for her remarks made this weekend about young women who support Bernie Sanders over Hillary Clinton. On Sunday Steinem posted to her Facebook page that she “misspoke” and did not mean to imply “young women aren’t serious in their politics”. In a case of talk-show Interruptus, I misspoke on the Bill Maher show recently, and apologize for what’s been misinterpreted as implying young women aren’t serious in their politics. What I had just said on the same show was the opposite: young women are active, mad as hell about what’s happening to them, graduating in debt, but averaging a million dollars less over their lifetimes to pay it back. Whether they gravitate to Bernie or Hillary, young women are activist and feminist in greater numbers than ever before. On the Bill Maher show late on Friday night, Steinem said: “Women are more for [Clinton] than men are. Men tend to get more conservative because they gain power as they age, women get more radical because they lose power as they age. “They’re going to get more activist as they grow older. And when you’re younger, you think: ‘Where are the boys? The boys are with Bernie.’” More than 3,000 people signed a petition – entitled “Walk it back Ms Steinem – we aren’t here for the boys” – asking Steinem to apologize for the remark. An event in North Hampton this morning showed that Chris Christie has essentially pinned his primary hopes on his performance in last night’s debate, in which he pummeled Marco Rubio for repeating the same canned lines over and over. On Sunday Christie had one message. It boiled down to: “I was good in the debate last night.” He repeated it a lot. “I decided to engage last night and how do you think it went?” Christie asked the crowd in an event in a school. They thought it went well. Of Washington DC, Christie asked: “Does the place need to be burned down?” They believed that it did. “Yeah it does, and I’m a good as arsonist as anybody you saw that last night.” Of Marco Rubio, Christie said he like him. But the Texas senator is just too inexperienced, he said. “The lights were bright last night and all of America saw whose ready and whose not I’m ready he’s not.” Christie’s performance in the debate - where he came out firing at Rubio and carried on pulling the trigger for two-and-a-half hours - had resonated with the crowd, as well as with himself. “You were on fire last night!” a woman shouted out as the New Jersey governor took questions. “And I don’t intend to cool off until I beat Hillary Clinton.” The importance of Christie’s debate prowess, he says, is that he is the only Republican who can beat Clinton in a one on one. He offered an extended metaphor where he compared himself to an old truck. Sometimes when people buy a new truck but it doesn’t get through mud as well as their old truck, he said. “You nominate this old truck and I tell you what’s going to happen, I’m going to get through that mud. I’m going to run her right over on my way to the White House.” After Saturday’s Republican debate the talk of the trail has been Marco Rubio’s difficulties with pre-prepared lines, their tone-deaf repetition, and how to handle Chris Christie when the governor barrels into the middle of those lines like a heavyweight champion scenting blood. It may be easy, in all that excitement, to forget that before the debate Rubio was emerging as the favourite to take the “establishment” mantle and challenge Donald Trump and Ted Cruz for the nomination. Here’s one of many, many talking heads – David Frum, once a George W Bush speechwriter, now senior editor at The Atlantic – on CNN’s GPS with Fareed Zakaria, discussing what Rubio has to do, surving debate blunders aside. The “lane” Frum refers to is the part of the nomination race occupied by such “mainstream”, “establishment” or, whisper it, “moderate” candidates as Christie, Jeb Bush and John Kasich. Rubio is certainly … leading in the group it is most lucrative to be leading in. You would certainly like to be his finance chairman in the week after Iowa. But … a lot of things have to go right for him … There’s a tendency to report as if OK, it’s now all over because … he is now leading in the most lucrative lane. He has to dominate that lane very quickly. He has to persuade the other people in that lane to exit soon and graciously. He has to persuade George – sorry, Jeb Bush, not to use his $50m remaining of Super Pac money to destroy Rubio in a way that they have been doing until now. And he has to find some way to get Donald Trump to exit the stage without smashing all the scenery on the way off the set. Challenging. Here, meanwhile, is Frum discussing his most famous bit of work for Bush. More from Chris Christie, who exuded confidence during his tour of the shows, after his debate takedown of the double-downing Marco Rubio. That was, after all, the go-to debate footage for all the shows to show on Sunday. Appearing on Fox News Sunday, the New Jersey governor looked to parlay the debate-stage blows he landed so heavily on Rubio into New Hampshire votes, handy things to have when the state is central to the survival of one’s campaign. He did so in part by suggesting the Florida senator would be the wrong guy to send into a presidential debate against Hillary Clinton. Christie asked: do Republican voters want someone who can “absolutely answer” every point made by Clinton – or Bernie Sanders, Chris, or Bernie Sanders – or do they want someone who will “crumble” when the former secretary of state – or the senator from Vermont, Chris, or the senator from Vermont – turns up the heat? Christie then finished his appearance by telling Fox host Chris Wallace: “Thanks for coming on.” Cue much hilarity and hilarious banter between interviewer and interviewee, in an exchange almost – but not quite – as amusing as ABC’s debate intro fluff or subsequent Fox guest John Kasich’s live-to-the-nation struggle to detach himself from his microphone and let incoming governator Jeb Bush sit down. Wallace then said he felt like “a barber”, his chair constantly filled – in this case, by presidential candidates with lovely, thick heads of hair. “I need a haircut,” said Bush. And then the red-hot political debate – politichat? politifun? – resumed. Trump defends his defense of torture. He says “In terms of getting information, it works.” NBC host Chuck Todd doesn’t mention the comprehensive Senate report that found torture didn’t work, and even produced false information, but it was released way back in 2014 so maybe he’s forgotten. But he does ask shouldn’t the US be better than subjecting prisoners to mock drowning and other torture techniques? “OK they can do it but we can’t?” Trump asks. “Look when they fly planes into the World Trade Center and kill many thousands … you can do waterboarding, and you can do a step beyond waterboarding, it wouldn’t bother me a little bit.” Donald Trump is also on the NBC program, and Chuck Todd asks him the same thing CNN asked how he feels about his Iowa loss to Texas senator Ted Cruz. Does he need victory in New Hampshire? “I would say that I would like to win but I don’t know that it’s necessary,” Trump says. “I don’t know that I need it, I hope that I get it.” He’s quiet about the malfeasance of the Cruz campaign in Iowa, where staffers falsely told voters that Ben Carson had dropped out of the campaign. I think what happened was very unfortunate. I think it was very unfair to Ben, and in a certain way it was unfair to me … I was a strong second, but I’m not thinking about Iowa, I’m thinking about New Hampshire, I’m not thinking about it any more. “I worked hard there, I really liked Iowa, I liked the people of Iowa,” he goes on. “I like this system much better in New Hampshire where you go out, you like somebody and you vote.” He says he’s $50m under budget, and that he’s given his staffers unlimited access to the bank to get out the vote. Hillary Clinton’s now on NBC’s Meet the Press. Host Chuck Todd asks about a comment made yesterday by former secretary of state Madeleine Albright in support of Clinton on Saturday, namely: “There’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help each other!” “Madeline has been saying this for many, many years,” Clinton says. “She believes it firmly, in part because she knows what a struggle it has been, and she understands the struggle is not over.” “I don’t want people to be offended,” Clinton says, but when asked whether she understands why someone might take offense she channels the spirit of anti-political correctness so familiar to Republicans. “Good grief we’re getting offended by everything these days!” she says. “People can’t say anything without offending somebody.” Clinton says people can take Albright’s “light hearted but very pointed remark” however they see fit. It doesn’t change her admiration for Albright: “She has a life experience that I respect.” John Ellis Bush, aka Jeb, is on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace, who’s just very awkwardly ushered John Kasich away after repeatedly telling the Ohio governor to leave. Bush talks about eminent domain and Donald Trump: “He tried to take the property of a 75-year-old woman to tear it down,” Bush says, “to turn it into a parking lot for limousines for high rollers going to his failed casinos.” Wallace asks about Rubio, who was Bush’s ally and some say protege back in their days together in Florida. Rubio “came across as kind of robotic”, Bush says. “He’s gifted but he’s never had the chance to actually make a tough decision.” Bush then tries to top Chris Christie’s boasts about dealing with Hurricane Sandy, saying he’s faced “eight hurricanes and four tropical storms in 16 months”. He also brags about his conservative bona fides: “I’m going to support the Republican nominee, even if it’s Donald Trump, to show you how commit—” Wallace cuts in: “How crazy you are!” Bush finishes: “—mitted I am to the Republican party. … Hillary Clinton would be an unmitigated disaster for this country.” Marco Rubio has defended his performance in Saturday night’s Republican presidential debate, writes Sabrina Siddiqui from Londonderry, New Hampshire, one day after he was widely panned for coming off as scripted in a tense exchange with Chris Christie. In an interview with ABC’s This Week, the Florida senator was asked to explain why he repeated the same line – about Barack Obama intentionally weakening America – at least four times in the first hour of the debate, when pressed by Christie on his relative inexperience. Rubio, according to most observers, played directly into the New Jersey governor’s attack that he is rehearsed and incapable of straying from the same set of talking points. “Actually, I would pay them to keep running that clip, because that’s what I believe passionately,” Rubio said, reiterating once more his point about Obama deliberately harming the country. Host George Stephanopoulos interjected, telling Rubio he was “getting pounded” for having repeated himself. Rubio pushed back, noting, as his aides did the night before, that his campaign raised more money online in the first hour of the debate than any previous event. “As far as that message, I hope they keep running it and I’m going to keep saying it because it’s true,” Rubio said. “It’s one of the reasons I’m running for president.” Obama was changing the country, he said, “in a way that is robbing us of everything that makes us special”. “I’m going to keep saying that, because not only is it the truth, it is at the core of our campaign.” Pressed by Stephanopoulos again on his repetition, as Christie taunted him for that very attribute, Rubio again doubled down: “It’s what I believe and it’s what I’m going to continue to say.” “This is the greatest country in the history of mankind because of a set of principles. Barack Obama wants us to abandon them.” Speaking a town hall in Londonderry, before a packed crowd at a high school cafeteria shortly after his ABC appearance, Rubio brought up the debate criticism himself. “People said, ‘Oh you said the same thing,’” he said. “I’m going to say it again. “These things [Barack Obama’s] done to America are not accidents.” Picture editor Sarah Gilbert has collected together some pictures of Donald Trump’s most enthusiastic supporters. As the example following shows, there isn’t much more to say… The full gallery is here: “Do you think this is a Marco Rubio coronation? Or do you need someone who’s been tested? Tested by a Democratic legislature? Tested by hurricane Sandy. Tested by a hostile media in New York City?” That’s Christie, talking about sinister media folk like us. Not by name though. Finally Tapper asks how the campaign has changed Christie. He says it’s “taught me just how profound the problems are in our country.” And taught me again just how to be a better listener … Whatever happens in this race, I’ve been content with the way I’ve done it.” At long last we have our final CNN candidate: New Jersey governor Chris Christie, whose debate performance was “something to behold”, Tapper says. Christie’s sitting next to the host, who apparently ensconced candidates all over his New Hampshire studio this morning. The governor says he hopes the debate shows he’s the best person to take on Hillary Clinton in a general election. “I think the whole race changed last night, because there was a march especially among the chattering class, to anoint senator Rubio,” Christie says. “The race is so unsettled now. You can’t trust senator Rubio to be the nominee of this party.” Kasich bats around some ideas for people to head up the IRS: “Bloomberg, somebody said Mitt Romney, who knows!” When he gets Tapper’s “how has the campaign changed you” question, Kasich describes a sort of Voters Anonymous experience at town halls. It’s forced me to slow down even more and listen to people. … They talk about excruciating stories of their kids, their own problems, they cry. They tell me sometimes in front of other people, sometimes privately. “No one listens to them. No one celebrates when they win and no one [cries] with them when they lose.” More from today’s 2016 output… Lauren Gambino has written a lovely piece about Geno’s Chowder & Sandwich Shop in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, “an idyllic spot on the banks of the Piscataqua River” which is also the place where any Republican presidential candidate who is anyone – and Ross Perot – has pitched up over the years, the better to make their pitch to voters. The accompanying video is here and is worth a minute-20 of your time: Lauren writes, meanwhile: Barry Goldwater was the the first candidate to visit, Fernald said. Since then, the small-shingled building in liberal Portsmouth has hosted Ronald Reagan, Bob Dole and his wife Elizabeth Dole, Ron Paul, Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney and Carly Fiorina, to name but a few. She was also present in October, when Jeb Bush – remember him – spoke at the shop. Memories, memories… “In this business things go up, things go down, you gotta put your feet on the ground.” Kasich the rhymester. Tapper asks him about why he accepted a Medicaid expansion under Barack Obama’s landmark healthcare program. “Obamacare’s a bad program, it doesn’t control the driving cost of medicine,” he says. He adds: “Reagan expanded Medicaid five times.” But Kasich says he’s got a whole plan for a new healthcare system, and that he’s “rejected Obamacare”. We’re at candidate number four on CNN. It’s Ohio governor John Kasich. He’s asked about whether Marco Rubio’s poor debate performance is good for his chances as “the establishment” candidate. “I’m not the establishment,” Kasich says. “I make the establishment very nervous because I’m a change agent.” “We’ve got to reform welfare for the rich,” he goes on. “I’m reforming the Pentagon when we have a Republican president. But he says he’s baffled by why some Republicans don’t consider him a conservative. (Might be that New York Times endorsement.) “I have had so many Democrats come up to me and say hey, we like you, we hope you’re the candidate,” Kasich says, though he says those voters admit they’re not going to vote for him. Whoever’s gonna like me, I consider that to be a good thing. But it shows my ability, perhaps, to reassemble that old Reagan coalition …It might send out a signal that it’s safe if you’re a Democrat and you’re a conservative, to look at a Republican. Tapper asks Clinton about whether some pundits are sexist in how they talk about her. She says that there’s no doubt a double standard still exists for women. Then he asks the softball: has the campaign changed you? Clinton’s response: Having gone through this now twice, I think I am a different person than I was back in ‘08. I think the experience I had as secretary of state has given me a perspective and understanding of a lot of the issues and gives me the confidence to know I could do every part of the job. “Anger’s not a plan, and venting’s not a strategy, and we have work to do,” she continues. “We’ve got to make sure the economy works for everybody and not just those at the top.” “We are the premier problem solvers of human history, and we have got to get back to that.” Clinton is asked about the mailers sent out by Sanders’ campaign. The flyers have an excerpt from a book by senator Elizabeth Warren, and Sanders just said that that’s what Warren thinks, not him. “That’s their typical artistic smear,” Clinton says. “It’s really getting old. They can’t point to anything. They’re grabbing at straws.” She says she wants to set the record straight “once and for all”. When she got to the Senate in 2001, she says, “I was deluged, not as a senator, not as a first lady lobbying, working against this bill.” “The version of the bill that was going to be voted on did not protect child support, did not protect women and children from what would happen to them if their partner, their spouse, went into bankruptcy. That’s why she voted the way she did on the bill in question by Warren, Clinton says. She adds that she put out a statement back in 2001 that anyone can read. She turns to question Sanders’ “Why did he vote to deregulate swaps and derivatives, one of the key reasons for Lehmann Brothers” to collapse, she asks. “I don’t understand why he doesn’t join me,” she adds. “We have to look at the shadow banking industry.” Back in real time, Tapper introduces Hillary Clinton, who the camera suddenly reveals is sitting right next to the CNN host. They talk about Flint, Michigan, whose residents have been suffering with lead-tainted water for nearly two years. CNN is going to host a debate there, and Clinton is going to visit the city later today. Tapper gets to the campaign. Can Clinton win in New Hampshire, where Sanders has such a huge lead? I don’t know. I don’t know. I’m just going to work as hard as I can. I love the New Hampshire primary because the interaction you have with voters in every setting is so rewarding. Finally Tapper asks Sanders the same thing he asked Trump: has the campaign changed you? “It really has,” Sanders says, “in the sense that I perceive more than ever how far removed the Congress is, and you know I’m in the Senate, and the establishment media is, from where everybody else is.” He recalls a campaign stop in Iowa, “a small town, a woman gets up and she’s trying to make it on $10,000 a year … she talks about the pain, the embarrassment of trying to make it on $10,000 a year.” Then he remembers two elderly Iowans who came up to him at an event: “They’re saying we want to live long enough to come out and caucus for you. What do you think that does?” He says he was moved. “I happen to like Hillary Clinton,” Sanders says, “but I am astounded by some of the people she is hiring, including David Brock.” The senator’s talking about a man who once worked hard to bring the Clintons down and later converted to their cause, calling himself an “ex-conservative” and a former “rightwing hit man”. Brock “used to be a rightwing guy” who attacked “people like Anita Hill,” Sanders said, referring to the civil rights professor. “He admitted, he said I lied about it. This is the guy who Hillary Clinton is making the head of her Super Pac?” NB: campaigns are forbidden by law from cooperating with Super Pacs. In practice it’s murky. “I just don’t understand where the Clinton people are coming from hiring somebody like that,” Sanders says. “Every day they’re attacking us.” What about “Bernie bros”, Tapper asks Sanders. “We don’t want that crap,” the senator says without hesitation. “Anyone who’s supporting me and doing sexist things, we don’t want them. We don’t want them. That is not what this campaign is about.” We’ve got, of course, a lot of 2016 reading for you today. The following is from Suzanne McGee, our personal finance columnist, who writes… Congratulations, Lloyd Blankfein, on giving the presidential bid by Vermont senator Bernie Sanders a big boost! Oh, that wasn’t what you meant to do? Whoops … It’s not a bad intro, at the end of a week of back and forth over Hillary Clinton’s ties, or otherwise, to Wall Street. More from Suzanne: [The Goldman Sachs CEO], speaking to CNBC’s Squawk Box, didn’t endorse Clinton outright – that might have been the kiss of death. It’s just that any additional kind of linkage between Wall Street and Clinton could prove another nail in the coffin in the latter’s attempts to woo millennials at a critical moment in her campaign… You can read Suzanne’s full analysis here: Sanders has no opinion at all about whether Clinton should release the transcripts of her speeches to Wall Street banks, including Goldman Sachs. During the last Democratic debate a moderator asked her whether she would release the text of those speeches, many of which earned her hundreds of thousands of dollars after she left the State Department in 2012. Asked about why his campaign sent out an excerpt of a book by senator Elizabeth Warren, who once accused Clinton of voting according to Wall Street’s influence, Sanders demurs. He says that’s what Warren thinks, and suggests that it’s up for voters to make up their minds about it. He adds that, “for the record”, there’ve been a lot more attacks on him than his campaign has made. During the last debate Clinton accused Sanders’ campaign of “innuendo” and an “artful smear” regarding her knotty history with Wall Street. Moving on to Hillary Clinton’s ties to Wall Street, Sanders is quick to say that he’s only stated a fact about her contributions and is letting people – her campaign included – draw conclusions from there. “What I said is that she has a Super Pac, and she recently, according to her [campaign filings] received $15m from Wall Street.” He talks about corruption and campaign finance, linking Republicans’ contributions from fossil fuel interests to their aversion to discussing climate change. “I do not have a Super Pac, Jake. I do not want one, I do not want their money.” Why is it that we pay the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs … has 1300 lobbyists and contributes a lot in campaign contributions? “Of course I do,” Tapper says. Sanders stumps a little. “Big money controls what goes on in Washington, every American understands that,” he says. “They just want to have fun and contribute that money? But that is different than saying this candidate took money and voted this way, that is not what I’m saying.” We’re on to Bernie Sanders, who met up with Tapper for an interview filmed Saturday. He asks the senator from Vermont about whether he ever thought Larry David and he had anything in common. Sanders: “I admired him, I loved his television show, but no, I did not make the connection. … He plays me a little bit better than I play me.” Tapper asks about Sanders’ 20-point lead in New Hampshire, per poll averages. Sanders: “Don’t make me nervous, and don’t jinx me! … We’re working really hard.” Have you learned anything from the trail, Mr Trump? I’ll tell you what I have learned, the people in this counrty are amazing, they’re great. … The people that are with me are with me. They’re with me through thick and thin. But the people of our country are great people. He says he’s sad that products like those of Apple are made in China. “We’re gonna bring companies and we’re gonna bring jobs, like Apple, back here, and we’re gonna do it big league.” Tapper: Are you surprised that your’e competing with Bernie Sanders for independent voters? Trump says he and Sanders agree on trade deals with Asia and Central and South America, which the billionaire says are terrible for the US. The difference is I’m going to do something about it. I’m going to renegotiate those deals and make them good. And believe me they will be good. … Bernie won’t be able to do anything, it’s not his thing.” Trump says he’s got the Midas touch. “I’ll create absolute gold out of those deals, whereas right now we’re losing billions, even tens of billions,” he says. “I will create gold.” “Hey, look, the theme is Make America Great Again,” Trump tells CNN. He talks about voters. “They want to see intelligence, they want to see good deals, not bad deals … We don’t win on trade, we don’t win on war, we don’t win on Isis … We’re going to start winning again.” Tapper asks about what kind of campaign operations Trump has – the ballyhooed “ground game” of phone calls, mailed papers, targeting the likeliest voters with data, etc. “I didn’t know the term ground game too much” before Iowa, Trump says. “We had a ground game, maybe not the greatest ground game.” He repeats: “My second place finish which again I say was first place.” Tapper asks about how Trump would bring back waterboarding when it’s been deemed illegal. Trump said he’d bring back the torture method and “worse” during the debate last night. Trump says that he’d get a law passed, no problem. He says what’s more important is that terrorists are “cutting off the heads of Christians”, so “beyond waterboarding is fine with me.” Tapper: do you need to win New Hampshire after your loss in Iowa? “That wasn’t a loss, I came in second and I only came in second because Cruz took a lot of votes from Carson,” Trump says, alluding to calls made by Ted Cruz’s campaign that falsely told voters Ben Carson had dropped out of the race. Carson and Cruz are competing largely for the same bloc of very religious, largely evangelical voters. “I came in second out of the original 17 candidates, I don’t consider that a loss,” Trump says. First up this Sunday morning we’ve got Donald Trump on CNN’s State of the Union. Host Jake Tapper is extremely excited because he’s got five candidates on the show and no commercials. Back to Trump. Tapper asks about Rubio’s performance. ‘Well I don’t want to criticize anybody,” Trump says. “After four times that was a lot [of repetition], so that was a little bit, but, you know, I’m not one to comment on somebody else’s performance.” Tapper says Trump seems mellow. “Well I dunno,” Trump says. “ I’m trying to be a nice person, I am a nice person. I’ve had good relationships with people.” Politics is an interesting thing. I’ve been doing this for seven months and I’m having a lot of fun doing it but much more importantly, you know, my theme is Make America Great Again,” Good morning, and welcome to our live coverage of the final sprint for New Hampshire on the marathon race that is the 2016 campaign trail. It’s the morning after the last debate before New Hampshirites vote, in this case yet another contest between Republicans. The evening had an ignominious start: broadcaster ABC muffed up its introductions of the candidates, and an unfortunate end for Marco Rubio, the senator from Florida who has been gathering the scattered voters of his rivals into the semblance of a conservative coalition. But Rubio recited scripted talking points over and over during the debate, and was ridiculed by Chris Christie and others for his “scripted” lines and lack of experience. Will voters see him as the robotic, “Republican Obama” that his enemies say he is? Or will they care that Donald Trump, the frontrunner in the state, promised to bring back things worse than waterboarding if elected to the White House? We’ll get the first hints of it today, with a team on the trail and a healthy dose of skepticism for the candidates who try to recover and/or capitalize on the morning talk shows. There’s Washington bureau chief Dan Roberts, national affairs correspondent Tom McCarthy, political reporters Sabrina Siddiqui and Ben Jacobs and official US 2016 election campaign selfie correspondent Adam Gabbatt. And more. On the Democratic side of the ledger, Saturday night saw Bernie Sanders, the insurgent eating up the percentage points behind Hillary Clinton nationally – and leading handily in New Hampshire – appear on Saturday Night Live. He did so with the comedian many believe is either actually him, or his doppelgänger: Larry David. US live editor Paul Owen’s take on that epochal event is here, and video below.
Chelsea’s Guus Hiddink stresses virtues of attack before Louis van Gaal duel One of Louis van Gaal’s tasks when Manchester United travel to Chelsea on Sunday is to ensure that the away fans do not find themselves identifying more with the home manager, Guus Hiddink, a long-standing philosophical rival of Van Gaal. The United manager needs to win hearts and minds as well as matches and will be keenly aware that his style will be compared and contrasted to that of Hiddink, who has for years been seen as a champion of the sort of adventurous football for which United fans have pined throughout much of this campaign. Van Gaal insisted on Friday that United have become “sparkling” in recent weeks, while Chelsea have rarely been able to make such claims despite their improvement since the departure of José Mourinho, so there is a chance that this match will not offer a stark clash of styles. But the managers still see the game very differently. “There’s a different approach and a different view on the game, that’s obvious,” said Hiddink of the distinction between him and Van Gaal. Hiddink was wary of triggering a verbal battle with his compatriot but readily acknowledged his positioning in a debate with which he has been engaged for years and which has this season found echoes at Old Trafford. “There was once also, not just in Holland, that we looked at the figures and said: ’We had 65%, 67% and 70% possession’ but there were opponents who said: ‘We don’t care how much possession you have, we have the score on our side.’ That’s why you must not overrate the percentage of possession. It’s what you do with your possession. “Most of the teams want to have the ball but what do you do with the ball? Do you secure your way of playing or do you go as soon as possible on the attack. The latter option is the one I prefer.” He did not need to add that Van Gaal seems to prefer the former. Hiddink did suggest, however, that he knows why United fans have grumbled at the play they have witnessed sometimes this season. “They like to see also what we like to see – more goals, they like to see also more play in the box.” Hiddink believes fans in England help serve as an antidote to excessively cautious managers and that any coach who seeks to eliminate risk is doomed to be unpopular in the country. Hiddink approves of this culture, which he believes stops football from becoming too boring. “It’s nice,” he says. “The influence of a manager is there but the culture of English football is also there. “People like the pace. If managers want to break that down, the public and everyone doesn’t accept that. Of course the manager determines a lot and shows the way but in the end the public and the players probably decide what to do. The managers are important, but if we like in England the pace of the games and the fight and the box-to-box, that’s the style which is for England. That’s why this league is very important. There is no moment where you have to wake up your neighbour while he is sleeping. It’s nice that the influence of coaches is limited, to that extent.” Hiddink says that Pep Guardiola, who takes charge of Manchester City this summer, belongs to his school of thought in that the Catalan marries possession with aggressive use of the ball. “He likes to play attractive football. When possession is there, just play possession in your back four with a goalie and you play wide, wide, wide without having any intention to go vertical, then this is a country that doesn’t allow that.”
'Dylan towers over everyone' – Salman Rushdie, Kate Tempest and more pay tribute to Bob Dylan Jarvis Cocker: ‘His sense of humour is often overlooked’ I’m very fond of Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right – I got into Bobby Bare’s version first (Steve Mackey and I put it on a compilation called The Trip that we put together in 2006). It’s a great break-up song: he’s making light of it, but one or two little digs show that he is actually a bit upset. My favourite verse goes: “I wish there was something you would do or say / To try and make me change my mind and stay / But we never did too much talking anyway /Don’t think twice, it’s all right.” I think Dylan’s sense of humour is often overlooked – when we did a BBC 6Music Sunday Service to mark his birthday a couple of years ago, a lot of the archive clips were hilarious. A great choice by the Nobel committee. Salman Rushdie: ‘I intend to spend the day playing Mr Tambourine Man’ We live in a time of great lyricist-songwriters – Leonard Cohen, Paul Simon, Joni Mitchell, Tom Waits – but Dylan towers over everyone. His words have been an inspiration to me ever since I first heard a Dylan album at school, and I am delighted by his Nobel win. The frontiers of literature keep widening, and it’s exciting that the Nobel prize recognises that. I intend to spend the day playing Mr Tambourine Man, Love Minus Zero/No Limit, Like a Rolling Stone, Idiot Wind, Jokerman, Tangled Up In Blue and A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall. Cerys Matthews: ‘He’s never predictable, always on fire’ According to the liner notes on his recent compilation The Cutting Edge, Dylan had been writing a book of prose poetry in the early 1960s. That all changed with Like a Rolling Stone in 1965, when he said he did not need to divide his talents – a song could contain as many ideas as a novel or a poem. And then he proved it possible, over and over again, for decades now, never predictable, always on fire, the most cunning wordsmith and the most cunning magpie. As far as I’m concerned, he has no equal. From tender love songs like Make You Feel My Love, that resonate even with the Snapchat/Instagram generation, to the prophetic A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall and everything in between, I’m in awe. I’m delighted about this news. Andrew Motion: ‘His words are at once extraordinary and inevitable’ This is a wonderful acknowledgement of Dylan’s genius: for 50 and some years he has bent, coaxed, teased and persuaded words into lyric and narrative shapes that are at once extraordinary and inevitable. In the process, he’s managed to become a voice of the world, yet those of us who love his work still feel he is in some sense individually “ours”. Which in turn means we can feel a curiously personal kind of pleasure in this tremendous honouring of him. Kate Tempest: ‘Let the lyrics speak for themselves’ My favourite Dylan lyrics ... please run as much of It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding) as you can. Rather than me saying why I like them, I’d rather just leave space to let the lyrics speak for themselves. Darkness at the break of noon Shadows even the silver spoon The handmade blade, the child’s balloon Eclipses both the sun and moon To understand you know too soon There is no sense in trying Pointed threats, they bluff with scorn Suicide remarks are torn From the fool’s gold mouthpiece the hollow horn Plays wasted words, proves to warn That he not busy being born is busy dying Temptation’s page flies out the door You follow, find yourself at war Watch waterfalls of pity roar You feel to moan but unlike before You discover that you’d just be one more Person crying.” Will Self: ‘Hopefully Bob will have the nous to follow Sartre and refuse the award’ Dylan is a great enough artist that his polymorphous talents include literary ones – the lyrics are amazing, although far better nasalled by the man himself than read on the page. The memoirs are not inconsiderable literary works. I have a vexed relationship with popular music – so much so that I barely listen at all for years at a time; but my relation with Dylan’s art has been consistently intense and rewarding. No, my only caveat about the award is that it cheapens Dylan to be associated at all with a prize founded on an explosives and armaments fortune, and more often awarded to a Buggins whose turn it is than a world-class creative artist. Really, it’s a bit like when Sartre was awarded the Nobel – he was primarily a philosopher, and had the nous to refuse it. Hopefully Bob will follow his lead. Billy Bragg: ‘To hear Mr Tambourine Man was like uncovering a lost parchment’ The last couple of stanzas of Mr Tambourine Man opened my eyes and ears to the idea that music and poetry could exist together: “Take me disappearing through the smoke rings of my mind / Down the foggy ruins of time / Far past the frozen leaves / The haunted frightened trees / Out to the windy bench / Far from the twisted reach of crazy sorrow.” I heard them when I was 14 and they opened my mind to the possibility of pop being something more than background music. I was a Saturday boy in a record shop at the time, and in my lunch hour I would sit in the listening booth with a sticky bun listening to music – I was into singer-songwriter stuff like Simon & Garfunkel. One day, the guy who ran the shop decided to spin me Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits – the original one, with the book on the cover. Mr Tambourine Man blew my mind. Whenever anyone asks me to give an example of poetry – not poetry in music, but poetry, period – I always go back to that. He introduces Blakean imagery into rock music and becomes in one bold step the psychedelic Woody Guthrie, which is how people still think of him. To hear that was like uncovering a lost parchment – it opened so many doors for me at the time as someone who was writing poetry and wanted to be a songwriter. Emmy the Great: ‘Dylan’s lyrics were a new world, with windows constantly opening’ In my early 20s I had a group of friends I would see every weekend. They used to sing Tangled Up in Blue around a piano, and I used to try and keep up with the lyrics. Whenever we got to the line “written by an Italian poet in the 13th century”, I knew where I was. Dylan’s lyrics were a new world, with windows constantly opening inside it. I keep all his stories with me and they remind me of my own: Then she opened up a book of poems And handed it to me Written by an Italian poet From the 13th century And every one of them words rang true And glowed like burning coal Pouring off of every page Like it was written in my soul from me to you Tangled up in blue” Billy F Gibbons of ZZ Top: ‘There’s something in the air that brings Dylan’s words to mind’ There’s something in the air that seems to permeate the atmosphere far and wide which brings a couple of Dylan’s line’s to mind … namely, Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right. Well, it ain’t no use to sit and wonder why, babe| Even you don’t know by now And it ain’t no use to sit and wonder why, babe It’ll never do somehow But I wish there was somethin’ you would do or say To try and make me change my mind and stay But we never did too much talking anyway But don’t think twice, it’s all right.” Guy Garvey: ‘To finish a song with “I said that” is so cheeky’ My favourite lyric has to be: “Some of the people can be all right part of the time / But all of the people can’t be all right all of the time / I think Abraham Lincoln said that ‘I’ll let you be in my dreams if I can be in yours’ / I said that” from Talkin’ World War III Blues. To finish a song with “I said that” is so cheeky and clever and confident and present and full of youthful rancour. It lodged in my heart the first time I heard it. And at that moment so did Bob. Andrew O’Hagan: ‘Workingman’s Blues #2 has lines as good as anything in American poetry’ The Nobel committee plays a strong game when it comes to subtle political assertion. Seamus Heaney used to call it “the Stockholm intervention”. From their field of candidates, they have a habit of finding the writer whose sublime virtues are most necessary to the times, and essential to the place. Thus, did Czesław Miłosz win the prize in 1980, after years of being banned in Poland, in the same month as the the trade union Solidarity was founded. It wasn’t planned, but it wasn’t a coincidence either. The award to Heaney came, too, at a perfect moment, when his grace and tolerance, sifted over a lifetime of beautiful work and “ethical depth”, was manna to Ireland in 1995. And so, the award to Bob Dylan is a great boon to lovers of fair-minded compassion, fellowship, and common decency, which step forward at the perfect moment to do battle with the egotistical, bigoted, greedy, misogynistic spitefulness of Trump’s America. He’s a lyricist of genius and I’m off to play Workingman’s Blues #2, with lines as good as anything in American poetry: In the dark I hear the night birds call I can feel a lover’s breath I sleep in the kitchen with my feet in the hall Sleep is like a temporary death.” Jonas Mekas, film-maker It was about time! Dylan’s “lyrics” to his songs for decades now, by poets especially, have been considered as great poetry. It’s not only poetry: it’s poetry that reminds us that poetry is not only what’s published in the poetry books. Same as in cinema: some of the most inspiring cinema is outside of the industrial cinema. Elijah Wald, author of Dylan Goes Electric! I’ve always had mixed feelings about the people who call Dylan a poet, or call his songs literature, because songs tend to reach far more people, and often touch them more deeply, than poetry or novels. Dylan transformed the role of lyrics in popular music, and it is hard to argue that any writer of the last 50 years, in any form, has been more influential. But millions of people, all around the world, have loved Dylan’s recordings without understanding the words. So I think the honour is deserved, but I hope he brings his band to Stockholm.
Django Django's David Maclean's Record Store Day suggestions Étienne De Crecy – Super Discount 1 I was 16 when this came out, and it was on constant rotation at house parties, on my walkman on the way to school, on the common-room tape player … it was a big favourite with me and my pals. French house was quite big at the time, with Cassius, Daft Punk and I:Cube, and this had the classic filtered disco sounds with an added dubbiness. I sampled one of the tracks recently for my Jellyman remix of our track Reflections and it made me start listening to the whole LP again. Brings back great memories of school days in ’96! Fleetwood Mac – Alternate Tusk I must listen to Rumours more than any other LP, but this is possibly my favourite Fleetwood Mac song. I remember being pretty chuffed to find the 12-inch in a charity shop years ago. I always wanted to do an edit and stretch some of the parts out. The drums are amazing. I think they recorded it with a college football band, and there’s a video on YouTube of the playing it. Such a strange track but totally amazing. Joe Mensah – Cry Laughter Everyone’s done that thing where you’re crying and someone tries to cheer you up so you kind of cry and laugh at the same time. It happened to me as a kid when my older brother would take toy-fighting too far, then try to cheer me up so I didn’t run off to my mum. Anyway, I hadn’t heard this before and it’s a very tasty slice of African jazz funk. Outkast – Elevators 1996 was a good year for music and especially for hip-hop. Outkast’s ATLiens was a seminal record that really put the dirty south on the map. I was aware of the hip-hop scene in Atlanta and down south, but a lot of what I remember was ultra-aggressive, violent stuff with those really bad early photoshop covers of a bunch of crazy-looking guys surrounded by diamond encrusted fonts, money and guns. Outkast were on a different trip all together though. They were making brilliantly crafted modern soul and funk that had the tough southern edge of the Atlanta ghetto (or trap, as they called it down there) but sounded like nothing else. I remember this record took a while to grow on me. It wasn’t as instant as the NYC boom bap stuff I was into but I kept returning to it. By the time Stankonia came out I was hooked on Outkast, and I’m still a huge huge fan of all their records. You can probably buy the original 12-inch of this for dirt cheap on discogs, but if the Record Store Day release opens up young hip-hop fans to their incredible back catalogue then it’s more than welcome. Find out more about Record Store Day’s releases, Django Django’s Unreleased Versions and Remixes Vol 1. The band’s album Born Under Saturn is out now on Because Music.
'Everyone screamed at the snake': backstage at North Korea's f​​ilm festival There is no red carpet at the Pyongyang international film festival. In 2014, when Hong Yong-hee, the star of the 1972 North Korean classic The Flower Girl, walked into the capital’s International Cinema Hall, she walked on the concrete like everyone else. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea doesn’t build hype around their film stars. “There isn’t that culture over there,” says Vicky Mohieddeen, creative projects manager of Koryo Tours. Mohieddeen, 34, hails from Scotland and lives in Beijing. “It’s a quite odd festival compared with others,” she says. PIFF, with its 15th edition opening on 16 September, is not your typical smorgasbord of industry schmooze. Networking is scarce in a country where foreigners are supervised by personal guides 24/7. With three screenings a day in seven theatres across Pyongyang, the majority of films are foreign titles for a local audience. North Korean filmgoers are so excited when the theatre’s doors crack open, they literally run for a seat. Some are left standing in the aisles, some sit on the floor, and many seats have two people squeezed into them. “It really is the only opportunity to see international films,” said Mohieddeen. People bring in street food or popcorn, which was introduced in 2014, flown over from China by Koryo Tours. The Beijing-based company co-present PIFF, which was founded in 1989 by British film-maker Nick Bonner, who co-directed North Korean film Comrade Kim Goes Flying in 2013. A film festival in a hermit kingdom has its restrictions. With one of the worst human rights records, the DPRK could be seen as its own horror film, from its poverty to its lack of free speech and political prisoners trapped in brutal labour camps. There’s a lot outsiders don’t know about North Korea. The same is true of PIFF. The lineup is never announced. “We don’t usually know the programme until we get there,” says Mohieddeen. Past screenings have included Bollywood films (such as Ram-Leela, similar to Romeo and Juliet), Vietnamese fantasy flicks (the martial arts-fuelled Blood Letter) and Thai thrillers, such as Mindfulness and Murder, which Mohieddeen remembers seeing at PIFF in 2012 due to one scene in particular. “It was overt that two men in the film were having an affair, and there was a little bit of a sex scene,” she said. “But people were more shocked by a snake coming out of a wicker basket. The audience screamed right through that and not at the sex scene.” Popular genres are romance (but generally no hanky panky), dramas (such as British TV drama Sherlock Holmes) and sports movies, which work well “because of a team spirit, versus an individual,” said Mohieddeen. “That’s a common theme.” The first Japanese films screened in 2000 with eight titles by Japanese director Yoji Yamada, which was the first break in North Korea’s 50-year ban on Japanese cultural imports. They also show a small run of DPRK-produced films, such as The Schoolgirl’s Diary, which was distributed in France in 2007. The festival is a rare opportunity to mingle with the North Korean people – and to see how they react to cinema. “People cry,” said Mohieddeen. “They’re a lot louder than western audiences with their ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’.” While it’s no secret the DPRK’s former leader Kim Jong-il was a film buff, the film festival was founded as a cultural exchange between countries of Non-Aligned Movement in 1987. Since 1990, it has been held every two years, screening roughly 100 features, shorts, documentaries and animated films from 40 countries. In a pdf for applying film-makers, the festival committee stresses the “exchange and cooperation between world film-makers with the ideal of Independence, Peace and Friendship”. The film selection process remains a mystery, though there are obvious restrictions around political content and conflict. American and South Korean films have never been screened. The closest thing there’s been to a US film was a screening of The Cross, a 2010 short about an illegal Mexican immigrant who is captured while trying to cross the border to the US, by Korean-American-Canadian director Christina Choe. “Obviously they’re not going to show a film that’s challenging their viewpoint directly,” said Mohieddeen, who handles the foreign film submissions in the tour group’s Beijing office. “But we don’t have a list of rules saying, ‘This is what we won’t show.’” The festival’s opening ceremony at Ponghwa theater is like seeing the DPRK version of the Oscars – a glamorous woman in a short dress and a man in a suit introduce the festival in English and Korean. They stand together on a blue-lit stage next to a sculpture of a dove and a rainbow. It’s an evolution from previous years, said Mohieddeen, who has attended four PIFFs since her first visit in 2008. “It used to be very traditional, with two North Korean hosts in traditional dress,” she said. “They’re definitely presenting themselves differently.” The Torch prize, an Olympic-style cup with flames, is awarded for best film, director, actor and actress, among other categories. The most recent feature winner was a German film called My Beautiful Country, which is set during the Kosovo war. The international jury has a rotating cast of five industry professionals. In the past, it has included French film producer François Margolin, Russian film director Mikhail Kosyrev and Russell Edwards, a Sydney film critic who sat on PIFF’s 2012 jury. He remembers flying to Pyongyang to watch 16 features and 10 shorts in a special screening room. “It was like being in an isolation chamber within an isolation chamber,” he recalls. And the jury used that chamber to dispute the films. “The discussions were so intense and even heated,” says Edwards. “The North Korean jury member, who was a film professor from Pyongyang University, was very reserved and didn’t offer much. The rest of us argued about every film.” Despite the food shortages in a country that had a famine in the 1990s, and last year’s drought, which cut food production in half, the festival has still had fancy dinner parties for festival delegates with fresh vegetables, bread rolls and bottled drinks and gourmet portions of cucumber and beef. Even in a country with no film celebrity culture, there was a Taedong Boat Cruise with North Korean actors and actresses. For the locals, it costs roughly 75p to see a film in a country where the average income is about £50 a month. Foreigners – only 10 tourists are allowed to visit the festival – pay £1,500 for a five-day visit to Pyongyang and fly in with North Korea’s one-star national airline. Despite the hefty fee, the festival is for locals, so the tour group cannot have full access to all films and cinemas, “just one or two,” said Mohieddeen. To compensate, they visit the Pyongyang Feature Film Studios, which Koryo Tours calls “the Hollywood of the DPRK” and attend Q&As with DPRK actors. Most films are not subtitled in English. “If films are in a third language and don’t have English subtitles, they tend not to add them,” said Mohieddeen. “In that way, you’re reminded it’s not for foreigners at all.” But is the festival just a big propaganda exercise? Edwards strikes a similarity between PIFF and other film festivals. “All governments and corporations invest in the arts as a way to offset the other things they do. Cannes, Berlin and Sundance partially exist to promote local industry interests and to show the sophistication and refinement of the people who bankroll them,” said Edwards. “Why should Pyongyang be any different? It was Mussolini that invented film festivals, after all.” • This article was amended on 27 September 2016. An earlier version misquoted Vicky Mohieddeen as saying the audience screamed during a sex scene in the film Mindfulness and Murder. In fact she said they did not, but screamed through a different scene.
Nigel Farage makes £12m referendum play for anti-EU donors Nigel Farage is seeking to drum up support among anti-EU donors by saying that Ukip and its allies offer the only guarantee of a unified referendum campaign, which could spend up to £12m, matching or even outpacing the remain side. Amid continuing bickering between anti-EU groups, the Ukip leader said the campaign to take Britain out of the European Union would be jeopardised if the rival Vote Leave became the main campaign group. It may only be able to spend £7m in the referendum campaign. Farage, who consulted lawyers before explaining his thinking, is telling donors that few people seem to have noticed the significance of the Electoral Commission’s funding rules, which could hand a major advantage to the leave side. If donors back Ukip and its allies, Leave.EU and Grassroots Out (GO), who are funded by the Ukip donor Arron Banks, they could spend up to £12m in the campaign. The two lead campaign groups on either side in the referendum, which will be granted official status by the Electoral Commission, will be allowed to spend £7m each. In addition, political parties are able to spend money on the campaign, including Ukip, who will be allowed to spend £4m. Farage is saying that if his allies in GO win official designation, a unified campaign with the ability to spend £11.7m will be formed. This would be formed of £7m for GO, £4m for Ukip and anther £700,000 for the Leave.EU group. Other registered campaign groups, which do not win lead status but are officially registered with the Electoral Commission, will be allowed to spend £700,000 each. By contrast, the Vote Leave group has wrapped all its ally groups under one umbrella, which means it will be limited to spending £7m if it wins official designation. Ukip and its allies could then spend £5.4m (£4m for Ukip, £700,000 a piece for GO and Leave.EU) on an entirely separate campaign. The Ukip leader is seeking to woo donors with another key message. Farage said the anti-EU side should exploit the inability of the Conservative and Labour parties, both of whose leaders are expected to endorse a vote to remain in the EU, to exercise their right to spend an extra £14m on the remain campaign. The Conservative party will not be able to spend a single penny on the campaign after David Cameron was forced to concede that the Tories would remain neutral. It could spend up to £7m if it wishes to. The government will formally support a vote to remain in the EU if the prime minister succeeds in his EU negotiations. Labour will struggle to raise anywhere near its £7m limit, a process complicated by the decision of Unison, one of the UK’s biggest trade unions, not to adopt a formal position until its conference on 19 June. The referendum is expected to be held on 23 June. Ukip does praise Vote Leave for what it regards as its most successful coup of the campaign so far: forcing the prime minister to concede that the Tories would remain officially neutral. A party source said: “The best thing that Vote Leave ever did is to get the Tories to go neutral. That means they can’t use the machine. One does congratulate them for doing what they did.” Tim Bale, a professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London, said the leave campaign was likely to have in mind the out campaign in the 1975 EEC referendum campaign, which was hugely outspent by the in side. “In 1975, it was absolutely no contest in terms of money,” he said. “The yes side had so much more money than the no side that they beat them out of sight.” But Bale said he did not expect differences in funding to have a large impact. “It is significant, but probably not determinative,” he said. The squabbling among and within anti-EU groups is causing dismay among many Eurosceptics, who fear that it is inflicting severe damage on their chances in the referendum campaign. The differences are caused by a combination of political calculation and personality clashes. The Vote Leave group, which is led by the former TaxPayers’ Alliance chief executive Matthew Elliott and Michael Gove’s former special adviser Dominic Cummings, was established to be the main cross-party vehicle for the anti-EU side. It has tried to outline a positive vision of Britain as a confident trading nation outside the EU. This strategy is designed to win a key 20-30% of middle-ground voters who would instinctively like to leave the EU, but have concerns about the impact of a Brexit on jobs. The rest of British voters divide between a third who would like to leave and a third who would like to remain. Elliott and Cummings believe that the voters they are seeking to target are concerned about immigration, but it is not a key issue for them. As middle-ground voters, they are alienated by Farage, whom they see as a liability. Banks launched the rival Leave.EU last year. He said Vote Leave was an elitist Westminster-based campaign and pledged to run a grassroots campaign across Britain. When it became clear that Leave.EU was closely associated with Ukip – jeopardising its chances of winning lead campaign status, which is only granted to cross-party groups – Banks offered financial support to GO. This group has succeeded in winning cross-party support because its launch coincided with internal feuding in Vote Leave amid anger at the abrasive manner of Cummings. Kate Hoey, the veteran Eurosceptic Labour MP, became exasperated with Cummings and abandoned Labour Leave for GO. Bale said: “Aside from the personalities, there has always been a fundamental tension between the Little Englander, sovereigntist side of the Eurosceptic argument on the one hand, and on the other, the hyper-globalisers whose main interest is in Britain becoming a Hong Kong. Although the two can be put together – the right to determine the rules under which your economy operates also has to do with sovereignty – when it comes to immigration, it plays into that split. “The Hong Kong side have got more chances of appealing to young voters [by not focusing on immigration] than they have if they make a culturally conservative appeal. And the leave side knows it has more trouble appealing to younger voters.” Bale said the squabbling between the rival groups is less damaging than their principal weakness: the lack of a charismatic leader. “If they had someone who was seen as an appealing face of the campaign it wouldn’t matter so much that they are seen as divided. “They need some sort of mainstream, as well as a charismatic, figure. That is why Nigel Farage would be such a problem. Of course he is going to mobilise people who already agree with him, but he is toxic to a lot of voters and not just young liberal voters. He is toxic to possibly a majority in the country. So they really need someone who is not him. That is why they are so keen on the idea of Boris doing it. Whatever the opposite of Marmite is, Boris is it.” One leading Tory Eurosceptic said the anti-EU campaign was experiencing a bumpy patch because many figures had been waiting decades for this moment. “The challenge at the moment is that there are lots of people for whom this is the culmination of years and years and years of work. This is Christmas and birthday and Easter and the moon landing and the second coming of Christ all at the same time, and they absolutely want to be at the heart of it. It is too exciting a gift to let go of,” they said. Farage indicated that there were no signs of a reconciliation between the rival groups when he criticised Vote Leave at a Brexit conference in Westminster during the week. Speaking from the same platform as Steve Baker, a Tory supporter of Vote Leave, the Ukip leader said: “One of the absolute crying shames and tragedies is that one of the groups seeking nomination for the designation in the referendum absolutely refuses point blank to work with anyone else. What a shame that is. Despite the machinations of Westminster and the careers of the apparatchiks, the British people, it would appear, are ignoring all this.” Political parties that won more than 30% of the vote in the 2015 general election – Labour and the Tories – will be allowed to spend a further £7m on the referendum. Parties that won between 10 and 20% of the vote – Ukip – will be allowed to spend £4m, while parties with 5-10% – the Liberal Democrats – will be allowed to spend £3m. The SNP, the Green party, Plaid Cymru and the Northern Ireland parties, which won less than 5% of the vote, can spend £700,000 each.
Donald Trump hits delegate count needed for Republican nomination – as it happened On the one hand, the Hibernia Bank building in San Francisco’s gritty Tenderloin neighborhood was a perfect venue for Hillary Clinton’s Thursday afternoon rally. It survived the 1906 earthquake, endured decades of vandalism and neglect. Recently renovated, it is beautiful, useful, ready for yet another turn on this graceful city’s architectural stage. A phoenix. That’s right, up from the ashes. On the other hand, maybe it’s not that great of an idea to pump up a few hundred supporters in an 1892 relic with terrible acoustics. The building is old. An historic landmark. Its glowing, stained glass dome and intricate gilt moldings shout … antique, dated, of an earlier era, long, long ago. Which is an image the former first lady must shake to appeal to the millennials who have flocked to Bernie Sanders’ camp. The1990s nostalgia for her husband’s administration, critics say, must give way to an image and campaign of her very own. On Thursday, she mixed a yearning for America of a generation ago – “We can just go back 25 years….Everybody prospered together.” – with a dose of anti-Trump fisticuffs. What happened to that vibrant economy, she asked? “Then came the Republicans with their failed economic policies,” she continued. “Trickle down economics. It didn’t work then. It won’t work now. That’s all Donald Trump is offering.” And she finished with a catalogue of promises for the future that brought down the lovely, landmark house, one pledge at a time. “I will defend a woman’s right to make her own health care decisions,” Clinton cried, and the crowd cheered. “And I will defend planned parenthood.” Ditto. “I will defend marriage equality.” See above. “I will defend voter rights...appoint Supreme Court justices to overturn Citizens United... fight for the right of unions to organize... for comprehensive immigration reform with a path to citizenship... for criminal justice reform. “And,” she said, rounding out the list, “I will stand up against the gun lobby.” Thanks to some unpledged delegates boarding the Trump Train, Donald Trump now has 1,238 delegates – one more than he needed to clinch the Republican presidential nomination. “We had a very productive phone call, I’ll leave it at that,” House speaker Paul Ryan told reporters at a news conference after the news, when asked about a phone chat with Trump following Ryan’s denial yesterday that he was preparing to endorse Trump. In response to a later question, Ryan returned to a distinction he has made repeatedly – between “real party unity” and fake unity: “The point is I want real party unity, and that’s what I’m most concerned about.” Politico reports the Republican party is spending $750,000 on a convention after-party that will feature none other than rock band Journey. The event, slated to take place at Cleveland’s State Theatre, will be the capstone of the four-day Republican National Convention at Quicken Loans Arena in mid-July, when Donald Trump is expected to emerge as the party’s nominee. The Bernie Sanders campaign has issued a statement saying it is satisfied with the primary result in Kentucky, where it had called for a recanvassing. “We accept the results in Kentucky. We are very pleased that we split the delegates in a state with a closed primary in which independents cannot vote and where Secretary Clinton defeated Barack Obama by 35 points in 2008. In an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper, Florida senator and former presidential candidate Marco Rubio backed away from possibly serving as his party’s vice presidential nominee this cycle, although he all but guaranteed that he will run for office again in the future. “It’s a safe assumption,” Rubio said of his chances of seeking office, although he ruled out running for reelection in this cycle. “If there’s an opportunity to serve again in a way I feel passionate about it, I’ll certainly explore it.” Two US senators have warned that a new bill would vastly expand the FBI’s warrantless access to Americans’ online records. Although the text of the 2017 intelligence authorization bill is not yet available to the public, two members of the Senate intelligence committee have said the bill could expand the remit of a nonjudicial subpoena called a National Security Letter (NSLs) to acquire Americans’ email records, chat or messaging accounts, account login records, browser histories and social-media service usage. While NSLs typically apply to phone or banking records and email addresses, the bill, which cleared the Senate intelligence panel on Tuesday by a 14-1 vote, appears to change the scope of the longstanding term “electronic communications transaction records”. Senator Ron Wyden criticized the change as a sweeping expansion of warrantless surveillance. “While this bill does not clearly define ‘electronic communication transaction records’, this term could easily be read to encompass records of whom individuals exchange emails with and when, as well as their login history, IP addresses, and internet browsing history,” Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon who voted against the bill, told the . Wyden’s colleague on the panel, Democrat Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, said in a Thursday statement that the measure represents “a massive expansion of government surveillance that lacks independent oversight and potentially gives the FBI access to Americans’ email and browser histories with little more than the approval of a manager in the field”. Donald Trump, on monuments: “I don’t want a wall named after me, but that’s okay. I want a statue in Washington, D.C. Maybe share it with Jefferson. Greta Van Susteren’s “Meet the Trumps” special on Fox News has drawn sharp criticism from media figures: For his first major energy policy remarks, Donald Trump would quote, almost verbatim at times, from an op-ed published in the Grand Forks Herald earlier that morning. But Trump was not the author. The byline belonged to local congressman Kevin Cramer, the longtime champion of his state’s oil and gas industries. North Dakota has boomed and busted right along with the price of gas. Trump would start his speech by telling the state’s oil executives that they were standing at the “forefront of a new energy revolution” powered by Trumpian deregulation and protectionism. As if it had been dredged from the Bakken Formation still dripping with crude, this was a speech both from and of North Dakota. Before the newly confirmed Republican nominee took to the stage in Bismarck, Cramer, a self-professed climate sceptic, had been invited up in front of the press and praised by Trump as a “talented person” bound for a role in his administration. “You’ve changed my life,” Cramer said. “I appreciate your comments on energy, and I’m looking forward to hearing the rest of it.” But of course, Cramer had heard it all before. Saying he was “very excited” to debate Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders told a Ventura College rally this evening that he looked forward to asking the presumptive Republican presidential nominee “why he thinks wages for American workers are too high.” “We’re going to ask him why he thinks climate change is a hoax when the scientific community is almost unanimous that climate change is causing devastating problems,” Sanders said. He also said he looked forward to asking the presumptive Republican presidential candidate “why he thinks that in a nation where our diversity is our strength he thinks it is appropriate to be insulting Mexicans and Latinos.” “We are holding rallies just like this up and down this state,” Sanders continued. “By the end of this campaign here in California I am confident we will have personally met and spoken to over 200,000 Californians. This is a grassroots campaign of the people, by the people and for the people.” Donald Trump pledged to cancel the Paris climate agreement, endorsed drilling off the Atlantic coast and said he would allow the Keystone XL pipeline to be built in return for “a big piece of the profits” for the American people. At an oil and natural gas conference in North Dakota on Thursday, just minutes after he had celebrated hitting the 1,237 delegate mark needed to formally clinch the party’s nomination, Trump gave a speech on energy policy that was largely shaped by advice from Kevin Cramer, a US representative from the state. In a press conference before the event, Trump praised the advice of oil tycoon Harold Hamm. Hamm and Cramer then introduced him onstage. Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club environmentalist group, was taken aback by Trump’s address. “I have never heard more contradiction in one hour than I heard in the speech,” he told the . “There are pools of oil industry waste water that are deeper than Trump’s grasp of energy.” Trump gave the speech – which Brune also called “a jumbled collection of oil industry talking points that are devoid from reality in the market place” – in a packed arena that generated an atmosphere more like that of a campaign rally than a staid industry conference. As he hit a number of familiar talking points, a crowd filled with his supporters raised chants of “build the wall”. He did not directly address manmade climate change, which he has in the past called a hoax invented by the Chinese, but he took veiled shots at those who are concerned about global warming. In addition to his pledge to pull out of the Paris climate deal, Trump promised to only work with “environmentalists whose only agenda is protecting nature” and to “focus on real environmental challenges, not the phony ones”. He contrasted this approach with that of Hillary Clinton, whose plan to combat climate change he called “a poverty expansion agenda”. Trump also attacked renewable energy sources, claiming that solar energy was too expensive and attacking wind turbines for “killing eagles”. Without outlining any policy specifics, Trump argued for a focus on clean water and clean air. In January, asked by the about the Flint water contamination crisis, he said: “A thing like that shouldn’t happen but, again, I don’t want to comment on that.” On Thursday, Trump also made a unique argument about the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, which would pump shale oil from Canada into the US. Republicans have long supported the pipeline, which was opposed by environmentalists and cancelled by the Obama administration. In exchange for his approval of the pipeline, Trump said, the US would need a “significant piece” of its profits. Shortly after that statement, though, Trump said: “The government should not pick winners and losers.” Trump also seemed unsure whether high oil prices were good or bad. Although at one point in his speech he took credit for oil hitting $50 a barrel, he later enthused about the need for cheap energy. The crowd in Bismarck did not seem confused, though. Cheering wildly, they gave Trump a spontaneous standing ovation. “I will give you everything,” he promised them, adding: “I am the only one who will deliver.” They seemed to believe it. Well, there’s one person who isn’t taking the idea of a pre-primary bipartisan debate between Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders seriously - former secretary of state Hillary Clinton. “Oh, Wolf! This doesn’t sound like a serious discussion!” Clinton eyerolled at CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, when he asked the Democratic frontrunner about the current public negotiation over the possibility of a “charity debate” between the two candidates. “I don’t think it’s serious,” she continued via telephone. “It’s not going to happen.” On more important matters, Clinton addressed fallout from an inspector general’s report that she violated rules by using a personal email address for work communication during her tenure as secretary of state. “This report makes clear that personal email use was the practice under other secretaries of state, and the rules were not clarified until after I had left,” Clinton said. “I hope voters look at the full picture of everything that I’ve done, and the full threat posed by a Donald Trump presidency, and if they do, I have faith that they’ll make the right choice.” Writing in the Washington Post, the sister of late White House associate counsel Vince Foster says that presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump should be ashamed about using her brother’s death as a pretext for attacking Hillary Clinton, writing in the newspaper that Trump’s comments are “beyond contempt.” “It is beyond contempt that a politician would use a family tragedy to further his candidacy, but such is the character of Donald Trump displayed in his recent comments to The Washington Post,” Sheila Foster Anthony writes. “In this interview, Trump cynically, crassly and recklessly insinuated that my brother, Vincent W. Foster Jr., may have been murdered because ‘he had intimate knowledge of what was going on’ and that Hillary Clinton may have somehow played a role in Vince’s death.” “How wrong. How irresponsible. How cruel.” Calling Trump’s accusations “craven,” Foster Anthony details her brother’s years-long struggle with depression, which ultimately led him to take his own life in 1993 - as confirmed by the results of five investigations. “These outrageous suggestions have caused our family untold pain because this issue went on for so long and these reports were so painful to read,” she writes. “For years, our family had to wage a court fight to prevent release of photographs of Vince’s dead body. My heartbroken mother was plagued by harassing phone calls from a reporter.” “Through all this time I have not spoken publicly about this matter, out of an effort to maintain our family’s privacy,” Foster Anthony concludes. “I am now, because The Post sought my reaction. I have donated to Hillary Clinton’s campaign but have not had contact with anyone at the campaign about my decision to go public.” When Donald Trump declared that “You have to be wealthy in order to be great,” who was he talking about? Let us know in the comments. Bernie Sanders’ campaign manager told MSNBC this afternoon that “backchannel conversations” are already happening between the Vermont senator’s team and that of presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, regarding a possible bipartisan debate between the two candidates before the California primaries on June 7. “I think it would benefit voters from across the country and I have to believe it would be one of the most-watched debates in presidential politics,” said Jeff Weaver. “Let’s see if he has the courage to go one-on-one with Bernie Sanders.” The possibility of an unprecedented two-party primary debate first arose last night, when Trump joked on Jimmy Kimmel’s show that he would be willing to debate Sanders. The Trump campaign has since gone back and claimed that the comment was only in jest, although Trump himself later claimed that he was totally serious about the possibility. Sanders, for his part, is more than interested: In an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper, Florida senator and former presidential candidate Marco Rubio backed away from possibly serving as his party’s vice presidential nominee this cycle, although he all but guaranteed that he will run for office again in the future. “It’s a safe assumption,” Rubio said of his chances of seeking office, although he ruled out running for reelection in this cycle. “If there’s an opportunity to serve again in a way I feel passionate about it, I’ll certainly explore it.” Rubio also said that he plans to attend the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio, this summer, although it’s not a sure thing. “My sense is that I’ll go to the convention,” Rubio said. He’d even be willing to speak on DOnald Trump’s behalf, telling Tapper “Yes, I’d certainly - yes,” when asked. “I want to be helpful - I don’t want to be harmful.” Before losing his home state’s primary and dropping out of the race, Rubio told the that Trump’s nomination would mean the Republican party would “pay a big price in November and beyond.” “I think he’s already an embarrassment,” Rubio said at the time. “People around the world are watching this debate and this campaign and wondering what’s happening here, because the things he says are nonsensical. “When you’re the most powerful and important nation on earth, you’re not always going to be popular,” he added. “But the question is, are you respected? And I don’t think Donald Trump is going to be respected.” Vermont senator and Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders wants to face off against presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump in the biggest venue the unlikely duo can find. Trump said earlier today that he would “love” to debate Sanders, telling reporters in Bismarck, North Dakota, that the candidate is “a dream.” “If we can raise for maybe women’s health issues or something - if we can raise $10 or $15 million for charity, which would be a very appropriate amount - I understand the television business very well,” Trump said. Later, an aide to Trump confirmed to the ’s Sabrina Siddiqui he would not, in fact, debate Sanders – despite the Vermont senator’s willingness to do so. Then, Trump himself walked back that aide’s walkback, which that the possibility of an unprecedented cross-party debate is now ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Speaking this afternoon to a labor union conference in Las Vegas, Hillary Clinton called Donald Trump an “urgent threat to our rights and our country,” and thanked Bernie Sanders supporters for “challenging us” and laid out proposals to help working families. “Donald Trump likes to say I’m playing the ‘woman card,’ ” Clinton said. “Well, here we are in Las Vegas, right? If fighting for equal pay, paid family leave and affordable childcare is playing the woman card, then deal me in.” The audience included about 300 organizers from the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW), the country’s largest private sector labor group representing 1.3 million US grocery store and retail chain employees. They offered scathing boos when Clinton mentioned a union-busting effort inside the Trump hotel in Las Vegas. “I was proud to join those workers on the picket line last fall,” she said, drawing raucous applause. “I’m even prouder because they overcame Trump’s intimidation campaign.” “So to everyone who has faced hostile management, a hostile legislature, a union busting governor or all three, help is on the way.” There was also an interesting response to Trump’s old remarks about profiting on the housing crisis. “He was rooting for the housing crisis,” Clinton said. “He said profiting while working families get kicked out of their homes and lose their jobs would be a ‘good result’.... Our country is full of honorable men and women who run businesses and don’t take pleasure in other people’s misery, but not Donald Trump.” UFCW members voted to endorse Clinton before the nation’s first caucuses in January. And before today’s speech, Barb Caruso, an union administrator from Cleveland, said she supported Clinton because she “understands the issues that surround working mothers.” Caruso also expressed dismay over anti-union momentum from Republican legislators. “I’ve been in the labor movement for 41 years,” she said. “So I’ve experienced the drastic change in the political environment towards unions. It’s in every major city and suburb in the country.” Clinton’s speech followed a private meeting with UFCW members who have experienced workplace intimidation and unpredictable scheduling at corporate chains like Macy’s and Albertson’s. She closed her remarks with a conciliatory nod to Sanders, whose waning campaign continues to bruise Clinton from the left, while Trump consolidates support among Republicans. “The only thing standing between Donald Trump and the Oval Office is all of us. And I mean all of us,” said Clinton. “We’re coming to the end of the Democratic primaries. I applaud Senator Sanders and his supporters for challenging us to get unaccountable money out of politics and take on the crisis of income inequality and I look forward to coming together to unify our party to stop Donald Trump and move our country forward.” The appearance included no mention of the yesterday’s state department report acknowledging that Clinton broke agency protocol by using a private email server during her tenure as secretary of state. The report revealed that Clinton expressed concern about her email accounts potentially being hacked in November 2010, telling a top aid at the time that they needed to discuss shifting onto the state department’s email system. Trump’s Bismarck, North Dakota, press conference was intended to be a victory lap, where the presumptive nominee was preceded on to the podium by over a dozen unbound North Dakota delegates who had pledged their support to Trump in Cleveland. While waiting for Trump in the windowless conference room under bleachers in an arena, several delegates jokingly bickered over which one was the 1237th before Trump made his entrance. But the presumptive nominee spent surprisingly little time taking a victory lap. Instead, he started pivoting towards a general election, hedging on previous positions like a ban on Muslims entering the United States and his support for ethanol. Trump also flip-flopped yet again on a potential debate with Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders, now saying that he would consider doing so before the California primary but if only the Sanders campaign promised to raise $10 million. The Sanders campaign has issued a statement saying it is satisfied with the primary result in Kentucky, where it had called for a recanvassing. “We accept the results in Kentucky. We are very pleased that we split the delegates in a state with a closed primary in which independents cannot vote and where Secretary Clinton defeated Barack Obama by 35 points in 2008. “I thank the people of Kentucky very much for their support.” It’s true. Politico reports the Republican party is spending $750,000 on a convention after-party that will feature none other than rock band Journey. Politico: The event, slated to take place at Cleveland’s State Theatre, will be the capstone of the four-day Republican National Convention at Quicken Loans Arena in mid-July, when Donald Trump is expected to emerge as the party’s nominee. Will Clinton staffers sneak in? Here they are celebrating her 15 March wins: The ’s Ben Jacobs reports from the room in Bismarck: Context: Further: Trump is asked about attacks on him by Senator Elizabeth Warren, who most recently went after Trump for rooting for the 2008 housing market crash. Trump likes to refer to prior claims by Warren, who was touted as having Native American roots when she was on the Harvard Law faculty, to have Cherokee or Delaware heritage. “Pocahontas? Or is that offensive? I’m sorry about that? Pocahontas. Elizabeth Warren,” Trump says. “She is a senator that is highly overrated. She has passed little legislation,” he says. But he would debate her: “I’ll debate anybody. I don’t care. I’d debate her. And she has done very little for Massachusetts... she said she was Native American but she wasn’t able to document it... she then, I don’t know if you’d call it a fraud... “I think she’s as Native American as I am, that I will tell you. But she’s a woman that’s been very ineffective, other than she’s got a big mouth.” Trump is challenged for having, several days ago, repeated claims that the death of Vincent Foster was a “murder,” despite conclusive evidence that Foster, deputy White House counsel to Bill Clinton, was a suicide. Trump says he was asked about Foster, but didn’t know anything about it, so he decided to repeat what he heard. I really know nothing about the Vince Foster situation. Haven’t known anything about it. A lot of people have been very skeptical... I know nothing about it... I don’t think it’s something that should be part of the campaign. But again if you people reveal something to me, I’ll answer it the appropriate way. How does it feel to cross 1,237 delegates? “I’m so honored. I’m so honored by these people, they had such great sense. Trump’s asked what he’ll do in his first 100 days. “We’ll have many things to do. Number one, I’ll be unwinding various executive orders.” Pertaining to “the border”. “We’re going to start rebuilding our military. ... nobody’s going to mess with us, very simple.... we’re gonna have a lot of fun that first 100 days. We’re going to start the process of making America great again.” Trump says he would build the Keystone XL pipeline and “make our country rich again.” Yes we will absolutely build it... but I want a piece of the profits for the United States. That’s how we’re going to make our country rich again, just one way out of thousands. A lot of times pipelines are so much better... instead of going on trains.... I want it approved for jobs, and the concept for pipelines is OK. Trump once again is asked whether he still supports a ban on Muslims – but he will not answer: “As of this moment, I am very unhappy, when I look at the world of radical Islam... we’re going to find a solution... Obama could never find a solution... I have many Muslim friends, they said to me, thank you, thank you. “We have to have turn-ins,” Trump says, of people who would report terrorism suspects. Trump said he had “a very good conversation” with House speaker Paul Ryan. “That’s moving along, he’s a good man,” Trump said of a prospective Ryan endorsement. Trump is asked about Manafort’s assertion that his proposed Muslim ban was merely a conversation starter. Trump says Manafort was misquoted by the Huffington Post. “I don’t read the Huffington Post... I’m sure he was misquoted. I didn’t think they covered politics?” But Trump won’t repeat his call for a ban on Muslims entering the United States. “We’re going to look at a lot of different things. But we have a big problem... and we have to find a solution. And we have to be vigilant...” Trump reverses his campaign statement that said he was joking when he said he would debate Bernie Sanders. “I’d love to debate Bernie, he’s a dream. I said, and I said last night ... I’d love to debate him but I want a lot of money to be put up for charity, women’s health issues. If we can raise $10 or 15m for charities. “The problem with debating Bernie is, he’s going to lose. His system is rigged ... it’s so unfair. The biggest problem I have is that Bernie’s not going to win, but I’d debate him anyway. We’ve actually had a couple of calls from the networks already. “I’d love to debate Bernie, but they’d have to pay a lot of money for it. I’d love to debate him. Every single poll, on every single debate – I’ve won every single debate.” Here’s Trump last night on Jimmy Kimmel: Trump predicts that he will win Pennsylvania, Maryland, Connecticut, Delaware, Rhode Island, Indiana – “so we’re gonna have tremendous successes. “We were supposed to be going into July... and here I am watching Hillary fight, and she can’t close the deal. And that should be such an easy deal to close. And she cannot close the deal. And we’ll see what happens.” Trump says he’s been audited for 15 years. “The IRS has been very professional.” Trump says he’s willing to release tax returns after his audit is done. “Hopefully it’s going to be before the election, I’m fine with that.” “Probably illegal, we’ll have to find out what the FBI says about it. But bad judgment. It’s devastating... it’s a very, very harsh report... it’s shocking to see, it’s shocking to see what she did.” Trump thanks the crowd. He says he won’t forget North Dakota. Behind him is a group of Republican party officials whom Trump says “got me over the top”. Trump opens it for questions. He’s asked about Obama’s remarks at the G7 that the world was “rattled” and surprised by Trump’s nomination. “He’s a president who’s done a horrible job,” Trump replies. “Everybody understands that. It’s unusual that every time he gets a press conference, he’s talking about me. “He shouldn’t be airing his own [politics] where he is right now.” Trump shot down a contention in a Huffington Post interview by his “convention manager,” Paul Manafort, that he would not consider a woman or minority as a running mate because that would be “pandering.” Trump says he was likely to consider a woman or person of color. “We’re looking for absolute competence,” Trump said. As for Manafort: “He’s been misquoted a lot.” Trump enters the room and approaches the lectern. Live stream here. Donald Trump was joking when he offered on late-night TV Wednesday to debate Bernie Sanders, reports politics reporter Sabrina Siddiqui: An aide to Trump said he would not, in fact, debate Sanders – despite the Vermont senator’s willingness to do so in the absence of Hillary Clinton, who has declined to participate in a final Democratic debate. Each Memorial Day weekend, hundreds of thousands of motorcyclists converge in Washington DC for a downtown procession to honor military veterans. Donald Trump is going, his campaign has announced. “I am doing it in honor of the great bikers who have been totally supportive of my campaign and now I want to be supportive of them,” Trump said in a statement to Bloomberg Politics. “I look forward to it!” Trump is due to speak any moment in Bismarck, North Dakota – in his first remarks since he clinched the Republican presidential nomination. A live video stream is below. The ’s Ben Jacobs is at the scene. Clinton cues a fundraising callout to Trump clinching. When it became clear that Donald Trump would claim the Republican presidential nomination, party chair Reince Priebus had two choices: resign or get behind the nominee. Bloomberg Politics’ Joshua Green gets inside that decision and much more in a newly published profile titled How to Get Trump Elected When He’s Wrecking Everything You Built. The piece is tidbit-rich. In an interview with Trump, Green asks what Trump thinks the Republican party would look like in five years. “Love the question,” he replied: Five, 10 years from now—different party. You’re going to have a worker’s party. A party of people that haven’t had a real wage increase in 18 years, that are angry. What I want to do, I think cutting Social Security is a big mistake for the Republican Party. And I know it’s a big part of the budget. Cutting it the wrong way is a big mistake, and even cutting it [at all].” The piece continues: He explained the genesis of his heterodox views. “I’m not sure I got there through deep analysis,” he said. “My views are what everybody else’s views are. When I give speeches, sometimes I’ll sign autographs and I’ll get to talk to people and learn a lot about the party.” He says he learned that voters were disgusted with Republican leaders and channeled their outrage. I asked, given how immigration drove his initial surge of popularity, whether he, like [Alabama senator Jeff] Sessions, had considered the RNC’s call for immigration reform to be a kick in the teeth. To my surprise, he candidly admitted that he hadn’t known about it or even followed the issue until recently. “When I made my [announcement] speech at Trump Tower, the June 16 speech,” he said, “I didn’t know about the Gang of Eight. … I just knew instinctively that our borders are a mess.” Read the full piece here. Well that’s an unfortunate choice of stock photo. “We had a very productive phone call, I’ll leave it at that,” House speaker Paul Ryan tells reporters at a news conference, when asked about a phone chat with Donald Trump following Ryan’s denial yesterday that he was preparing to endorse Trump. In response to a later question, Ryan returns to a distinction he has made repeatedly – between “real party unity” and fake unity: “The point is I want real party unity, and that’s what I’m most concerned about.” In the same Huffington Post interview in which he said that his boss Donald Trump’s call for a ban on Muslim travel to the United States was merely a conversation-starter and not an actual policy proposal, Paul Manafort, Trump’s convention manager, said that Trump would not choose a woman or a member of a minority group. “In fact, that would be viewed as pandering, I think,” Manafort told the Huffington Post. Manafort said that Trump’s running mate search is active. “He needs an experienced person to do the part of the job he doesn’t want to do. He seems himself more as the chairman of the board, than even the CEO, let alone the COO.” “There is a long list of who that person could be,” Manafort added, “and every one of them has major problems.” Read the full interview here. A press release from William Hill explains that the bookmaker, who had quoted Trump at 33/1 to win the Republican nomination, and at 150/1 to win the race to the White House, “now make him just 7/4 (36% chance) to become the next President of the USA”: ‘Mr Trump’s progress towards the nomination has been an astonishing transformation from complete outsider in the betting to red hot favourite’ said Hill’s spokesman Graham Sharpe. ‘Once he is confirmed as the Republican candidate we can begin paying out to those who were shrewd enough to bet on him – and there are plenty of them.’ Donald Trump has announced plans to hold a victory news conference in just over an hour in Bismarck, North Dakota (it’s the capital), where politics reporter Ben Jacobs is laying in wait. DT Jr celebrates victory: Others register disbelief: Thanks to some unpledged delegates boarding the Trump Train, Donald Trump now has 1,238 delegates – one more than he needed to clinch the Republican presidential nomination – and – confetti. The AP reports: Trump was put over the top in the Associated Press delegate count by a small number of the party’s unbound delegates who told the AP they would support him at the convention. Among them is Oklahoma GOP chairwoman Pam Pollard. “I think he has touched a part of our electorate that doesn’t like where our country is,” Pollard said. “I have no problem supporting Mr. Trump.” A state department inspector general’s report on Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email address and secret home server during her time as secretary of state reveals that Clinton, who along with top aides declined to be interviewed for the probe, maintained the server as a secret from all but her inner circle for months after the clintonemail.com domain was first registered. The report also reveals that state department staffers raised concerns about Clinton’s private server when they found out about it, on the grounds that emails handled by the server might not be preserved for the public record, as required by federal regulations. But those concerns were dismissed by a senior official. The Associated Press reports: In one meeting with [John A. Bentel, then director of the Office of Information Resources Management], a staff member worried that messages sent or received using the private server could contain documents that needed to be preserved under federal regulations. Bentel told the staff member that State Department legal staff had “reviewed and approved” the server— though the inspector general’s review found no evidence such a review had ever occurred. In that meeting and another that Bentel had with a different staff member who raised concerns, Bentel directed the staff members to “never to speak of the secretary’s personal email system again.” In January 2011, a Bill Clinton aide wrote to a Hillary Clinton aide saying that the server had been the target of a hack attack: “Someone was trying to hack us,” the aide told [top Clinton aide Huma] Abedin. Later the same day, it happened again. “We were attacked again so I shut (the server) down for a few min,” he said. The next day, Abedin warned [Cheryl] Mills and [Jake] Sullivan not to send Clinton “anything sensitive” in their emails. The AP has further: The State Department inspector general’s release of the 83-page report provides new insights into the server: Who knew about it, its vulnerabilities and the bureaucratic mismanagement that allowed the secret system to operate outside normal channels throughout Clinton’s tenure. The findings — more than a year in the making — also show how the use of private emails by Clinton and other top aides caused internal headaches for the few State Department officials who knew of its existence and for an agency that has long struggled to comply with federal cybersecurity and record-keeping requirements. Read AP’s latest report on Clinton’s emails here. The Washington Post this morning has published a scathing assessment of the state department probe findings: HILLARY CLINTON’S use of a private email server while secretary of state from 2009 to 2013 has been justifiably criticized as an error of judgment. What the new report from the State Department inspector general makes clear is that it also was not a casual oversight. Ms. Clinton had plenty of warnings to use official government communications methods, so as to make sure that her records were properly preserved and to minimize cybersecurity risks. She ignored them. “There is no excuse for the way Ms. Clinton breezed through all the warnings and notifications,” the Post concludes. “While not illegal behavior, it was disturbingly unmindful of the rules.” An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll of the American public last October found that 47% of respondents thought Clinton’s use of a private email server was “important”. Hello and welcome to our live-wire coverage of the 2016 race for the White House. Bernie Sanders has responded in the enthusiastic affirmative to an offer of unclear seriousness from Donald Trump to debate him before the 7 June California primary. Appearing on late night funnyman Jimmy Kimmel’s show on Wednesday, Trump said he would be glad to debate Sanders mano a mano – for charity. At which Sanders, whose supporters routinely cheer his stump speech attacks on Trump, and who has failed to lure Hillary Clinton into a similar California showdown, tweeted that he was game: Meanwhile Trump’s campaign manager, Paul Manafort, told the Huffington Post that the candidate’s proposed ban on Muslims entering the United States was just a conversation-starter: He’s already started moderating on that. He operates by starting the conversation at the outer edges and then brings it back towards the middle. Within his comfort zone, he’ll soften it some more. He’ll still end up outside of the norm, but in line with what the American people are thinking. Barack Obama, speaking at the G7 summit, said that the world was “surprised” by the prospect of Donald Trump as the Republican nominee for president: They are rattled by it and for good reason. Because a lot of the proposals he has made display either ignorance of world affairs, or a cavalier attitude, or an interest in getting tweets and headlines. Trump is to speak today in Bismarck, North Dakota, with the ’s Ben Jacobs at the scene. Later Trump will travel to Montana. Hillary Clinton is to speak in Las Vegas this morning – with the ’s Dan Hernandez reporting – and San Jose and San Francisco, California, where our reporter Sam Levin will be in attendance, this afternoon. Bernie Sanders will speak in Ventura, California. Thank you for reading and, as always, please join us in the comments.
Conservative rift over EU risks widening as attacks on David Cameron intensify The Conservative party’s divide over the EU referendum is in danger of widening in the wake of a series of personalised attacks by Brexit heavyweights Michael Gove, Boris Johnson and Priti Patel on David Cameron’s credibility. Johnson insisted the prime minister was having a “corrosive” impact on public trust in politicians, while employment minister Patel accused the leaders of the remain camp with “luxury” lifestyles like Cameron of being too rich to care about people’s concerns regarding migration. The public division in the Tory party came as a survey for the found that nine out of 10 of the country’s top economists – working across academia, the City, industry, small businesses and the public sector – believe the British economy will be harmed by Brexit. An Ipsos Mori poll of more than 600 economists, the largest study of its kind, found 88% said an exit from the EU and the single market would most likely damage Britain’s growth prospects over the next five years. But in a series of pointed comments made by a number of leave campaigners in Sunday newspapers, Gove told the Sun on Sunday the prime minister’s “apocalyptic warnings” on Brexit would test his credibility if they turned out to be false. In a sharply worded open letter to Cameron in the Sunday Times, the justice secretary and Johnson accuse him of failing in the renegotiation with Brussels, and urge him to tell the truth about what remaining in the EU would mean for border controls and the power of foreign judges over the UK. “There is also the basic lack of democratic consent for what is taking place. Voters were promised repeatedly at elections that net migration could be cut to tens of thousands. This promise is plainly not achievable as long as the UK is a member of the EU and the failure to keep it is corrosive of public trust in politics,” the letter states. With 25 days to go until polling, Patel also took a swipe at remain campaign leaders Cameron and the chancellor, George Osborne, in the Sunday Telegraph, even though she did not directly name them in the article. “It’s shameful that those leading the pro-EU campaign fail to care for those who do not have their advantages. Their narrow self-interest fails to pay due regard to the interests of the wider public,” Patel writes. “If you have private wealth or if you work for Goldman Sachs you’ll be fine. But when public services are under pressure, it is those people who do not have the luxury of being able to afford the alternatives who are most vulnerable,” she sayswrites. “Getting your child a place in your local school becomes more and more difficult; there is more competition for jobs; wages are held down.” As the war of words heightened, the Tory former PM Sir John Major accused the leave side of telling deliberate untruths. “They have – knowingly – told untruths about the cost of Europe. They have promised negotiating gains that cannot – and will not – be delivered. “They have raised phantom fears that cannot be justified, puffing up their case with false statistics, unlikely scenarios and downright untruths. To mislead the British nation in this fashion – when its very future is at stake – is unforgivable,” Major writes in the Mail on Sunday. In another dig at the prime minister, the justice secretary ridiculed Cameron’s insistence that Turkey was not set to join the EU, saying: “You’re having us on.” Gove indicated this was the latest in a series of “lies” regarding EU membership. He told the Sun on Sunday: “People are fed up with being told, don’t worry, this thing isn’t going to happen and then they wake up a year or two later and it has. “They were told in 1975 when we joined the common market that it wasn’t going to mean anything for our democracy and our parliament and for all of us. That was a lie. Now we’re being told don’t worry, Turkey won’t join.” The justice secretary also hit back at claims theleave campaign is fuelled by prejudice. “When people fling the charge of racism, what they are actually doing is attacking working-class people for wanting to maintain a decent standard of living. I think that’s wrong,” he said. Cameron was cheered by a survey of more than 600 economists who agreed with him that Brexit would damage the UK economy. More than 80% of the economists surveyed by Ipsos Mori for the believed withdrawal would have a negative impact on household incomes, while 61% thought it would fuel unemployment. Labour former prime minister Tony Blair told wavering voters considering Brexit: “If you’re not sure, don’t do it,” as he wrote in the Sunday Times that withdrawal would be a “betrayal of British interest”. However, Conservative MP Andrew Bridgen said Cameron was “finished” as Tory leader because of the way his “Operation Fear” tactics had divided the party. In an interview with the BBC, Bridgen said that pro-Brexit Tory MPs were so angry about the “exaggerated” claims made by Cameron during the campaign that it was “probably highly likely” that at least 50 would demand a no confidence vote – the number needed under party rules to ensure one takes place. If remains wins the EU referendum, Cameron would probably win a confidence vote quite comfortably. But a sizeable vote against him could fatally weaken his authority, possibly forcing him to name a date for his departure from No 10.
Why isn't Labour debating Brexit at its conference? Is it true that Labour won’t be discussing Brexit at its conference? Yes and no. Britain’s vote to leave the EU is widely seen as the biggest historical event in a generation and as such, of course, it will be discussed at Labour’s conference. But it is not on the formal agenda as a conference topic. Why is it not on the agenda? The party picks eight subjects for discussion. Four are chosen by trade unions and the remaining four are selected in a ballot of constituency Labour parties. What are they discussing? The four subjects picked by the unions were employment rights, industrial strategy, public services and energy. The top four subjects selected by the constituency parties were grammar schools (18.32%), housing (16.44%), child refugees (15.53%) and the NHS (15%). Brexit was one of many subjects on the ballot, but as it did not feature in the top four it does not make the formal agenda. Why was Brexit not picked? The simple answer is that trade unions and constituency parties care more about the subjects that they picked, such as employment rights and housing. But, more importantly, Brexit is a politically awkward subject for the party. Jeremy Corbyn backed remaining in the EU but with reservations. And his lacklustre campaigning on the issue was one of the key reasons for a challenge to his leadership. The vast majority of Labour MPs backed remaining in the EU, but many of Labour’s heartland areas, such as the north-west, north-east and Wales, voted to leave. The party does not want to alienate these areas by suggesting they got it wrong. But at the same time Labour does not have a clear stance on what it wants to see from the Brexit negotiations. Is Corbyn likely to set out a Brexit strategy? No. “He doesn’t see Brexit as a central issue and he doesn’t have a very fixed position of what the policy should look like,” said Simon Usherwood, a reader in European studies at the University of Surrey. “If someone was bold enough to set out a vision then I think they could go a long way. But Jeremy Corbyn is not going to be that man,” Usherwood told Agence France-Presse. So is the subject of Brexit off limits at the conference? No. It is one of the key talking points at the sidelines of the conference, in fringe meetings, and it will feature heavily in the speeches of key Labour figures. Emily Thornberry, the shadow foreign secretary, will focus on the subject during her speech on Monday, when she will say that the party wants to spend billions of pounds on regeneration, among other projects, to make up for the loss of EU funding. “The communities who stand to lose out most from Brexit must be looked after first,” she will say. Will Labour become the party of the 48% who voted for remain? No. Unlike the Liberal Democrats, it would be very difficult for Labour to campaign for a second referendum, because so many of the party’s traditional supporters voted to leave. The former leader Ed Miliband dismissed talk of Labour becoming the party of the 48% as “nonsense”. He said: “I don’t just think it’s nonsense electorally, but it is incidentally because more than 400 seats in the country voted for leave, but it’s nonsense in principle because it buys into the same problem people were objecting to in their vote, which is the old: ‘We’re right, you’re wrong.’ I was for remain, don’t get me wrong, but we’ve got to hear people’s message that they’re telling us.” The former shadow welfare secretary Rachel Reeves summed up the party’s dilemma on Brexit, saying: “The big challenge now is between respecting the result of the referendum and maintaining some of those things about the European Union that most of us campaigned for.” Is Labour being seen as out of touch by not putting Brexit on its conference agenda? Yes. The result of the ballot on conference topics surprised commentators as it appeared to ignore the biggest political issue facing the country. The ConservativeHome founder, Tim Montgomerie, said the absence of Brexit from the agenda showed the perils of giving members more say than MPs on key decisions. “They have not even chosen Brexit to be debated this week – it [the membership] is not representative of the country as whole,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Westminster Hour. ITV’s political editor, Robert Peston, also expressed incredulity at the decision.
Glastonbury 2016: Friday as it happened – Foals, ZZ Top, Skepta and more And that’s it for the liveblog this evening! We’ll be back at noon tomorrow. Join us then for the big day! And to bid adieu, here’s a picture of some people dressed for Where’s Wally? Rae of light Caspar Llewellyn Smith has gone to Avalon! And there he saw Corinne Bailey Rae! With the late evening sun penetrating the fringes of the rammed Avalon tent, Corinne Bailey Rae’s soulful vibes provide an uplifting delight, but a calming one. When she says “A lot of us feel the country isn’t going in the direction we want it to, but we are the people and people have the power,” the reaction is muted. By now at the festival, people are looking for simple good times, no less and no more.” A proper pop goddess Craille Maguire Gillies popped up to the Park stage to have a look at Ronnie Spector: ‘Don’t leave me baby. Don’t tell me it’s over, Ronnie Spector sings with something like a smile. ‘You said you loved me … I’m going to miss your loving arms.’ Who knows if she had the Brexit in mind, but the former Ronette had already lulled everyone at the Park stage into something like carefree joy. No one was letting anything burst their little bubble of rollicking, nostalgia-tinged bounce. ‘Look,’ Spector said, peering out from the stage at the sky, ‘the sun came out just for me.’” Why do Foals fall in love? Harriet Gibsone has been in front of the Pyramid stage, where she’s been feeling a little horse. (Here all week, try the lamb). And this is what she’s been thinking about the whole experience: It’s a burly beginning to Foals’ Pyramid stage set – a sturdy metal assault starts the show, before the groovy, aquatic funk of Olympic Airways bleeds beautifully amid the sunset. With so much fury loaded in their music you’d assume some type of political statement would be inevitable – and yet we’re told to “forget about all that stuff” and have a good time (we’re not ones to speculate but it’s worth noting frontman Yannis Philippakis had previously shared his concerns regarding Britain remaining in the EU). Perhaps what’s most exciting about tonight’s performance is the prospect that Foals could be one of the few contemporary bands to ascend; their status as potential Glastonbury headliners seems very possible given the vast and adoring audience tonight. While lacking in warmth and showmanship, their set is full of brilliantly danceable, anthemic hits during which the audience know each and every word. Tonight the Oxford band provide an indie disco on the grandest of scales.” Did they survive? Disaster for one unlucky punter, sucked into a sinkhole. Or a cesspit. One or the other. Don’t watch that, watch this! We’ve been out canvassing people in wellies about geopolitics. Is this the worst cover version ever? I’ve got BBC4 on in our cabin, which is currently bringing us highlights of the Lumineers’ set. Which includes their rendering of Subterranean Homesick Blues, on object lesson in taking a great song of wild foreboding and shoulder shrugging disdain and turning it into Compulsory Fun Around the Campfire. Do you hate it as much as I do? Bring me metal! Sheffield’s foremost practitioners of grinding noise, Bring Me the Horizon, are currently rocking the Other stage. Kate Hutchinson is there, on the grounds that she was nu-metal fan, and sends us these words STRAIGHT FROM THE FRONTLINE: The Sheffield metallers pummel out a refreshing, thrashing wall of riffage. Frontman Oli Sykes, mouth bleeding, is impressed with the turnout: ‘And here was me thinking Glastonbury was a bunch of fucking shite,’ he yelps.” I saw Bring Me the Horizon at a festival in Johannesburg a few years back. They followed a band singing in Afrikaans about the fatherland. Which was unnerving. Later tonight! The Pyramid stage headliners tonight are Muse. We are currently running a book in the cabin on whether or not Matt Bellamy will be passing comment on the referendum result. The big money is on him saying: “Fucking get in! Free from the Euro lizard overlords at last!” Alexis Petridis will be reviewing the headline set and offering his thoughts shortly after Teignmouth’s premier sci-fi conspiracy theorists finish their work. While you ponder that, here’s a lesson from the Ken Tamplin vocal academy on how to sing like Matt Bellamy. It’s hard to disagree There are flags. And there are flags. Politics update! John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, is not not turning up tomorrow. He was due to be doing the John Barnes rap during New Order’s set, when they played World in Motion. Or talking about something serious in Leftfield. One or the other. ZZ Top boogie the mud away! Gwilym Mumford has been to Pyramid stage to see the grizzled veterans of the Texas boogie … Skepta this ain’t, but ZZ Top’s somewhat more mature audience seem to be having at least as much fun as the lads in the moshpit earlier today. The dress code of bandanas and – yep – novelty beards is scrupulously adhered to and the mood is buoyant as zer Top rattle through the classics: Sharp Dressed Man, Foxy Lady et al. “Is everybody having a good time?” Billy Gibbons yelps. In truth it was a question that barely needed asking. Greetings! Welcome to the evening from Glastonbury – Michael Hann taking over from Harriet here. Because of all the Brexit business, we’re not doing our usual thing of handing to someone in front of a telly in London for the night. We’re going to keep on here till 9, then collapse. Here’s Ben Beaumont Thomas, who had a nice musical massage at Protoje. With a pleasingly summery skank and a nice line in anti-Brexit patter, Protoje brings together every demographic under the intermittent Glastonbury sun. Whether the proximity to the overpowered cider bar is a factor or not, the vibes flow freely, as the Jamaican singer - who straddles poppy dancehall production and classic roots rhythms - runs through a perfect summer afternoon set. It sort of all blends into one, but this is a soft head massage of a set after a few hours of rain. John Harris has spent his time at the festival talking to Glastonbury revellers about Brexit, from youngsters who say they feel they feel disconnected to those who voted Leave, to some older Welsh steel workers who break into a celebratory song. There is, however, one thing they agree on: Coldplay’s performance is unlikely to lift spirits. I know what you’re all thinking: give me a visual interpretation of the Glastonbury lineup created by an abstract expressionist artist from Belfast with synaesthesia, please! Jack Coulter, who has a rare sensory, neurological condition which allows him to “hear” colour, has created a piece of art based on a Deezer playlist of this year’s lineup. Here’s what he has to say: “I listened to the harsh dualities of each and every unique artist’s individual sound, responding to the specific songs that truly resonated with me emotionally. I wanted to capture the beautiful atmospheric element of this year’s artists, while simultaneously paralleling the darker undertones of melancholy ambience.” “Aside from those who are unable to attend Glastonbury, I was inspired to create an immersive visual experience for deaf individuals, and those with impaired hearing. If my painting can induce a visual auditory experience of Glastonbury in even the slightest sense, that would be very special. My visual auditory senses bleed in harmony to create an incomprehensible life form on canvas. I want this painting to be viewed as a sole visual of musical sign language.” Take a look at the image below. Ezra Furman at the Park Furman has words of sympathy for those who are finding 200,000 people stuck in mud to be a trying experience. If you’re on hallucinogens and finding things hard, he assures us, we’re on your side. As ever, he defies you to mock, introducing a taut Restless Year with an apocalyptic monologue of non sequiturs that begins: “Glastonbury … festival … Tentative stab wound.” It’s odd to see people punching the air to a chant of “Death is my own Tom Sawyer!” He’s utterly compelling, although I do overhear a complaint about his “obnoxious voice”. Even so, he’s till pop’s premier cross-dressing, gender-fluid, observant Jewish, doo-wop-influenced punk rocker ... Our fashion writer Morwenna Ferrier is on site and has the following to say about what’s IN and what’s OUT this year. An athleisure, sportswear and hiking-wear aesthetic – one of the year’s sleeper trends – has taken over. Most significantly, this has resulted in a distinct lack of flower crowns. Once a festival essential, the identikit accessory is seemingly, and thankfully, on the wane. One wearer we spoke to en route to the Pyramid stage admitted that she recycled hers from last year, suggesting the trend is now practically retro. The same cannot be said of denim cutoffs and Hunter wellies, which have dominated the site so far. This year it feels as if practicality has trumped high fashion. The vintage stalls here – and there are plenty – are empty. Instead, revellers seem to be taking subtler cues from athleisure, a stylish take on the loucher side of sportswear (think logo tees, monochrome tracksuits and, sometimes, cashmere loungewear) popularised by Chloé on the catwalk and sports brands on the high street. Vince Staples at West Holts Our Gwilym Mumford has been all the way to the West Holts stage and back and reports: Come for the hip-hop, stay for the standup. Few people do between song patter like the California rapper. Midway through his set, he halts proceedings to try and identify the species of a plastic bird being held aloft on a stick by one audience member (a heron, as it happens). Later on he notes the amount of mud on show and slyly quips: “At Glastonbury everyone is brown.” Book him in the comedy tent as well next year, Mr Eavis. The Glastonbury Free Press says ... The festival organisers produce their own daily newspaper for those on site. Here’s their line on this morning’s News from the Outside World. So let’s trudge on through the mud. And sing out loud our protest songs. Meanwhile, also from their own Instagram account, here’s something for those people holding out for a hero. Up at the Park: Unknown Mortal Orchestra Conditions are dire up at the Park stage; so dire so that wading up the swampy hill feels like cruel army training. But the classic soul-rock fusion of Unknown Mortal Orchestra pulls an enormous audience – such a mass of hipsters, hippies, frazzled rockers and families that it feels as if the Kiwi group are on the fringes of something professionally significant. Prone to the odd moment or indulgent noodling, the group – mostly solitary and silent between songs – look like real rock stars; enigmatic frontman Ruban Neilson is captivating with his trademark Lennon shades, hiding all multitudes of brain-fried exhaustion after years on the road. In fact, such is their authentic rock and roll presence that today’s set is like watching a classic 70s group re-form but with renewed relevancy. Later, ZZ Top play the Pyramid stage. Billy Gibbons spoke to me earlier about how to care for your facial hair and the perils of Mexican fondues. Grime guvnor! All day today, the Sonic stage in Silver Hayes has been given over to the UK’s angriest music, grime. Kate Hutchinson has been around there, and tells us that Novelist has just led the crowd in a chant of “Fuck David Cameron!” If you want to read more about grime and politics, have a read of this excellent piece by Dan Hancox. Christine and the Queens – our first report Alexis Petridis went to the Other stage to see the woman whose appearance on The Graham Norton Show propelled her album up the charts. He was impressed. The heavens open during Christine and the Queens’ Other stage set: from the lip of the stage, Christine shakes her fist at the clouds. But nothing can dissipate how great her performance is. She somehow manages to pull off a set that’s both heavily stylised and choreographed, and heartfelt: she dances up a storm, throws flowers at the crowd “because this is a first date”, announces herself to be a “hashtag tiny French angry thing” and interpolates versions of Technotronic’s Pump Up the Jam and Stardust’s Music Sounds Better With You into her own material. But it’s the latter that’s the most striking aspect of the show: Tilted and Saint Claude sound anthemic – a repeat of the kind of stardom she’s already found in France looks increasingly likely. Here’s something cheerier The intermittent and often heavy rain, meanwhile, has not deterred quite everyone. The Spectator is reporting that the referendum result, and the consequent questioning of his leadership of the Labour party, has led Jeremy Corbyn to pull out of his scheduled appearance at Left Field on Sunday, “to focus on the issues thrown up by the ‘momentous’ EU result”. We’ve asked the Glastonbury organisers for confirmation. UPDATE We have now been told that Corbyn will indeed not make it to Worthy Farm – not this year at least. The view from Left Field We’ve got not one but TWO Serious News Reporters down here this year. Here’s Serious News Reporter Lisa O’Carroll, who’s been listening to the talk in Left Field. Despite the political tumult, Jeremy Corbyn’s support was undimmed in Left Field, where immigration was centre stage with Norfolk South Labour MP Clive Lewis calling for “progressives” to show Nigel Farage his vision of Britain was not desirable. The mere mention of Jeremy Corbyn, whom Lewis supported, prompted loud cheers from the audience. “At a time like this people need to be resolute and strong. We need to show leadership because we now have a challenge,” he said. “The England that Nigel Farage represents is not the UK I want to be part of, that I have a vision of, and we are going to tell him that. We need to rebuild a progressive place in this country.” He called for healing of divisions in the Labour party. “What we have had here is a political riot and people have smashed their own windows because winter is coming. We need to stand together because there is a storm coming.” He said Michael Gove and Boris Johnson had “a cheek” to say they’re standing up for working people. “Pull the other one.” Emerging in a brocaded tunic like some grime-scene Hugh Hefner comes Skepta, armed with a series of gunmetal bangers that turn the sky grey. Moshpits open up, teenage girls in expensive sunglasses point fingers, and the stage is eventually mobbed by the Boy Better Know crew including Novelist, Frisco and Jammer riding a BMX round the stage. The likes of Crime Riddim flex satisfyingly, while That’s Not Me and Man are butch and laser-guided, all of it totally opening up the energy of the day.” Meeting your audience Here’s Tim Booth of James, deciding that the best way to perform is to lie down on a sea of hands, during Getting Away with It. Après le deluge It just started raining, prompting a rush of people back from the Pyramid stage, where they’ve been watching Skepta. The consensus seems to be that he was terrific. Ben BT will supply some thoughts on the matter forthwith. A new performer speaks! Frankly, I have no idea who Rocky Nti is (his Facebook page says: “I make noise for a living”). But you’d have to have a heart of stone not to think this Twitter update is sweet. Mosh! Skepta’s set on the Pyramid stage has provoked what appears to be the first moshpit of the festival. Our own Ben Beaumont-Thomas has been at that one. We await discovering whether his shirt has been ripped off in a frantic burst of energy with like minded souls. Whether the weather There’s nothing like a bit of sunshine to up spirits. Back before noon, when the rain was coming down, and bands were appearing late. Now the view from the front of the stage is rather cheerier – just look at those bare arms! Check out those smiles! Let joy be unconfined! All change! Hello! Harriet Gibsone has signed off, and it’s Michael Hann here to guide you through the next couple of hours. Our team is scattered around the site – most of them seemingly gathered at the Pyramid stage for French hitmaker Christine and the Queens right now. We will, naturally, let you know who’s good. Me, I’m waiting to see if the great Billy F Gibbons of ZZ Top makes good on his promise to find the cabin and answer some silly questions. Bastille are a nice group of guys, aren’t they? Not the sort of men who would smuggle their way into a festival, or hang around with someone who’d commit an “emergency defecation” at a silent disco, surely? Dan Smith and Will Farquarson shatter all of our preconceived illusions in a quick Glastonbury Q&A above. A moment of magic in the mud … Something strange happened last night. On the way back from watching Lekkido Lord of the Lobsters – an experience some might regard as unusual in itself – I spotted a hysteria on the road ahead. As I closed in on the commotion I realised it was Michael Eavis, Glastonbury founder, driving around in his red Land Rover, with adoring disciples clawing at his car window. Caught up in the madness, I decided to get in on the action. Only, what started as a quick selfie for social media evolved into what some on-site are calling the greatest (platonic) love affair of all time. Here’s what happened: 10.55am – Five minutes to stage time, and the front of the Other stage is fenced off. Lorries are delivering woodchips. 11.00 – Announcement from the stage: “We’re still having some trouble with the ground here. It should be resolved very soon.” 11.16 – A lorry delivers a truckload of woodchips to the front of the stage. 11.29 – Michael Eavis starts striding around the stage, clutching a pair of scissors, hoping to begin cut the red ribbon across the lip of the stage. 11.39 – Michael Eavis is still loitering on the stage. 11.42 – Eavis says we are five minutes from opening the stage. 11.47 – The fences are taken away and the crowd flood in. 11.49 – James take to the stage. 11.50 – Eavis declares the stage open. 11.51 – James begin playing. The play several songs from their new album, to a distinctly underwhelmed crowd, who are being rained on. Come Home gets the middle-aged knees bobbing to the baggy shuffle, guitarist Saul Davies gets a cheer when he tells the crowd: “It is with incredible sadness that we stand here today, unified in sadness that our country has turned on people. Fuck them!” They rouse the crowd with a closing Laid. They don’t play Sit Down. No one would have, anyway. Too wet. It’s hard to gauge the mood and get a real sense of how 200,000 people feel about the referendum result. Walking around the Glastonbury site this morning it’s certainly the chief topic of conversation. I woke up this morning to hear one nearby tent crying: “We’re leaving the EU! Cameron’s gone! Can we all just stay in Glastonbury forever?” Marta Bausells, who asked festivalgoers about the result, found the mood was almost unanimously depressing – except for a few “no comments” and a young man named Tom who confessed to being “a really self-absorbed person” and said he will “feel sad about it in a few days,” when back in the real world. “These outfits were supposed to be a celebration of the EU – now we’re commiserating. We didn’t actually think it was going to happen,” said Jess from Leeds, with her friend Kate from London, covered with a EU flag and dressed in Tirol-like fancy dress respectively. Should Glastonbury become independent? “It would be the best country in the world!” says Kate “... And Boris Johnson stays far away.” Poppy and Josh from Kent and the Midlands respectively, say they were “upset” and “disappointed.” “We were Remain. But I kind of knew it was going to be Leave,” says Poppy. “At my age, social media is big in terms of seeing who everyone supports. In the general election everyone in my feeds was for Labour, and I felt confident they would win. Now, I was seeing everyone up for Remain. I suspected it would happen again.” James, 26, from Leeds, wasn’t planning to come in fancy dress – but ended up sporting a big peace sign and anti-Nigel Farage T shirt. He sums the situation up as “pretty shit.” A simple set up – drums, a guitar and a synth – adds a surreal, sorrowful spirituality to the Park stage opening. Consisting of songs from Gwenno’s Welsh language album, Y Dydd Olaf, the former Pipette’s 30-minute show is broken up by humour, but an overriding sense of heartache in the wake of the referendum results fuels her performance. Throughout the set she protests the patriarchy, dedicates a song to whistleblower Chelsea Manning and touches on the voting system. “It’s devastating that 16 to 18 year olds can’t vote” she says. The show still flickers with optimism amid her fear, however. “I still believe in people, that’s all I want to say,” Gwenno laments at one stage. “Don’t forget that your heart is in the revolution.” Gwenno: the ex-Pipette is leading the Welsh-speaking music revival Early contenders for best dressed band at Glasto goes to Twin Tones, the Mexican backing band to former Green On Red man Dan Stuart. Immaculately dressed in matching waistcoats and bow ties, they look a fair bit smarter than the bleary-eyed crowd assembled for this opening John Peel stage set. Their southern-fried take on Stuart’s soulful college rock isn’t too shabby either. Stuart, LA-born but currently living in Mexico City, offered an outsider’s take on last night’s referendum result. “It’s a sad day for Britain today”, he said. “Very sad day. You can’t go home, you can’t go back” Before there is any live music on the Pyramid stage, the crowd is treated to the video of Portishead’s tribute to Jo Cox, their amazing cover of ABBA’s SOS. It feels like some kind of tone has been set. Then Damon Albarn walks on stage to introduce the Orchestra of Syrian Musicians – whose appearance here is an extraordinary story in itself – with the words: “So here we are, Friday. Reasons to be cheerful? Ok, it’s not raining!” He talks about the musicians’ journey to get here, then says: I have a heavy heart today. Democracy has failed us. Democracy has failed us because it was ill informed. And I want all of you to know that when we all leave here, we can change that decision. It is possible. The orchestra itself is fabulous – the swooping strings on the track known as Mounir Song quite heart stopping – while guests include a number of the musicians who have appeared regularly with Albarn’s Africa Express, who have made this gig possible. They include the magnificently dressed Tunisian singer Mounir Trodi, ngoni player Bassekou Kouyate with kora player Seckou Keita, Albarn himself – with a version of Blur’s Out of Time – and rappers Kano and Bashy. Some of the Syrians played here with Gorillaz when they headlined the same stage in 2010, a show that lost chunks of the audience; this morning, even when there are some flecks of rain, the reception is pretty rapturous. The forecast for the rest of the day? Further bursts of optimism possible. Hello everyone. We’re back on site at Worthy farm, where after a couple of days of often rainy preamble, the proper stuff begins today. The first artists have just taken to the stage, so very shortly we’ll be updating you on Damon Albarn and the Orchestra of Syrian Musicians, Gwenno, James, Dan Stuart and Twin Tones, all of which packed their sets with a political punch. It’s not all earnest, however. Some people chose to start the day with a session which billed itself as EDM yoga, but looks more like a group of sleepy toddlers gently rocking back and forth.
League of Awkward Unicorns: a podcast that mixes mental health with laughter They say that misery loves company, but based on the podcast The League of Awkward Unicorns, misery also loves a good a story, honest conversation and a whole lot of laughter. A few awkward unicorns don’t hurt either. Why you should listen The origin story of the League of Awkward Unicorns goes something like this: over one long brunch, friends Alice Bradley and Deanna Zandt realized that they were both struggling with their emotional wellbeing. “We were having a discussion about being depressed and anxious and we wanted to create something that was about depression, but would be funny,” said Bradley. “Both of us had wanted to do a podcast forever, so it just came out, and we realized we should do it together.” Zandt is an illustrator and had come up with the drawing of an awkward unicorn on a whim, having nothing to do with the show, but it felt like it was meant to be. “Deanna showed it to me, and I said, ‘that’s the name of our podcast,’” said Bradley. “It was like it was waiting for us to get on board and invent something to go with it.” As for what an “Awkward Unicorn” is exactly, Bradley explains: “It’s a person who is vulnerable and quirky and OK with both of those things.” The illustration depicts it perfectly. “It’s a bucktoothed unicorn,” said Bradley, laughing. “It’s this beautiful, rare thing with a really goofy aspect to it.” Being part of a league means that no one is left to struggle alone, but instead is part of a larger community who help each other through their dark days. Considering that recent surveys have shown that one in five adults in the US lives with a mental illness, and 16 million had at least one major depressive episode in the past year, it’s a timely – and much needed – addition to the podcast roster. This isn’t Bradley’s first public outing as someone who struggles with emotional wellbeing. She has documented her depression and anxiety in a variety of publications and on her popular blog, Finslippy, which she has written for 12 years. “I didn’t really talk about it too much in the beginning, but when I did it really resonated with my readers,” she said. “I talked about it in detail. I was going off certain medications. I went on others. People really responded to that.” Fans of Bradley’s writing will appreciate the podcast because it gives her a chance to create a broader context for her thoughts. “People’s response to the podcast has been really strong,” said Bradley. While Bradley was open about her depression and anxiety, Zandt was less public about hers – until she wasn’t. “Even though I was friends with Deanna, I didn’t know that she was a sufferer as well until I saw a comic that she did about getting on medication,” said Bradley. The comic, titled Meditation vs Medication: Facing Depression, documents Zandt’s journey as she comes to terms with a diagnosis of major depression and the decision of whether or not to take medication to alleviate her symptoms. The comic is funny, honest and informative, and helped Zandt open up about her struggles to the point that she now celebrates her Prozac-iversary and, of course, hosts a podcast about depression. In their frank, funny, accessible way, on each episode of the League of Awkward Unicorns, Zandt and Bradley discuss all aspects of mental health, from medication to unhelpful comments to knowing the difference between clinical depression and just “feeling bad because everything is legitimately terrible”. They also have guests like Fusion editor Anna Holmes, who talked about her own experiences with depression, author Sara Benincasa, comedian Paul Gilmartin, and artist A’Driane Nieves who uses art to manage her bipolar disorder. They also throw in weekly reminders that the world is not actually a horrible place, whether that’s a funny YouTube video, a particularly good book, or even another podcast. In keeping with the show’s candid theme, Bradley and Zandt are also completely honest about their mistakes, like when Bradley forgot her computer, which delayed the show’s second episode. “I feel like we learn so much each episode,” said Bradley, laughing, including getting used to listening to their own voices. “That is the worst thing,” said Bradley. As they’ve streamlined their process and learned the podcasting ropes, they have their eye on what’s next. “We have big plans for the future,” said Bradley. Part of their drive comes from the fact that they have a platform and the freedom to share their experiences honestly. Bradley and Zandt both have jobs where it’s OK to talk publicly about their mental health, a fact that they don’t take for granted. “We both feel like we have almost an obligation to discuss these things, because there are lots of people who don’t have that privilege,” said Bradley. “We feel obligated to be loud about this, because this affects tons of people and people you may not suspect are being affected by it. I want people to know that none of us are alone, even in our weirdest, strangest thoughts. I hope it reduces shame, but I also hope it’s entertaining. We want to help.” Where to start: You Know What Your Problem Is? Subscribe to The League of Awkward Unicorns on iTunes
Food, travel, pets and selfies push Instagram to almost 100m posts a day The revolution will be #filtered: Instagram’s explosive growth is showing no signs of slowing, with close to one hundred million photos and videos now being shared on the platform every day. New figures show the photo-sharing platform’s monthly active user base has more than doubled in size over the past two years, with 500 million people a month worldwide now using Instagram. Three hundred million – just shy of the entire population of the United States – use the app every day. By comparison, Facebook had 1.65 billion monthly active users as of 31 March 2016 and about 1.1 billion daily active users – about three times Instagram’s figures. But Facebook also owns Instagram, having bought it for US$1bn in cash and stock in 2012. Analysts now believe it could be worth as much as US$37bn – not a bad return on a company that, just four years ago, had 13 employees. Instagram has been the fastest-growing major social network for some time, with the Pew Research Centre finding “significant growth in almost every demographic group” in the two years to 2014. More than 95m photos and videos are now shared on the platform on average per day, drawing 4.2bn likes. That’s about 44 favourites for each post – though before you deem your latest work a write-off, Selena Gomez and her ilk will be throwing the average off. The former Disney star is the most-followed celebrity on the platform, with 85.4m followers. Gomez’s most recent picture, a candid shot taken behind the scenes of her Revival tour, has 2.5m likes. It certainly puts your most successful selfie into context. The explosion of growth in recent years follows companies embracing the platform as a marketing tool. Businesses either reach potential customers directly through their own, often heavily hashtagged presences, or via product placement with “influencers” with significant followings on the platform. The recent rollout of an algorithm-driven feed is pushing advertisements further, with a greater focus on sponsored posts reported in the new timeline. But the findings publicised on Wednesday show – in among the ads – there’s a world waiting to be explored in square, filtered photographs, with 80% of Instagram’s users outside the US. A more specific breakdown of users by country was not available, but Instagram flagged some topics of particular interest in places around the world. Barber accounts are big in the Dominican Republic, longboarders in Taiwan, sneakers in Morocco and Algeria, “wilderness skills” in India and golden retrievers more or less everywhere but especially Brazil. As Instagram has grown, trends have emerged within fashion, music, food, travel and pets – the effectual “pillars” of the platform. In five years, there have been more than 82m posts tagged #outfitoftheday or #OOTD, while #WhereIStand has captured users’ globetrotting adventures. In five years of Instagram, 381,000 users got their #firsttattoo ... ... More than 82m “outfits of the day” have been posted ... There have been more than 32m #throwbackthursdays, including this one of Taylor Swift dressed up as Laa-Laa the Teletubby ... 169,000 people have posted about #mostwonderfultimeoftheyear (usually, but not always, Christmas) ... Nearly 1bn people #love someone, or something, like this hamster (#hamstergram) ... And 4m people have posted a picture of a cute animal every week with the hashtag #weeklyfluff
Scientists sniff out new antibiotic - inside the human nose Nose-dwelling microbes produce an antibiotic which kills the hospital superbug MRSA, scientists have discovered. The finding suggests that the human body might harbour a rich variety of bacteria that could be harnessed in the fight against antibiotic resistance. Antibiotic resistance is a growing cause for concern, with experts warning of an impending “apocalyptic” situation in which patients die following routine surgery because of infections that can no longer be treated. Among the superbugs of concern are strains of Staphylococcus aureus that are resistant to a number of antibiotics; these strains are known as MRSA. Now scientists say they have discovered a bacterium lurking in the nose that fights MRSA by producing its own antibiotic. Andreas Peschel, co-author of the study from the University of Tübingen, described the discovery as “totally unexpected”, as most antibiotics in use have come from soil bacteria. The finding, Peschel adds, opens up a new preventative approach to tackling bacterial infections. One possibility, he says, is that harmless bacteria could be genetically modified to produce the new antibiotic, and then introduced to patients carrying S.aureus. That, the authors note, could prove a boon, as resistance is growing towards existing antibiotics used to kill off MRSA in patients awaiting surgery. Published in the journal Nature by scientists from the University of Tübingen, the research reveals how the new antibiotic was discovered following the analysis of nasal swabs from 37 individuals. With around 30% of humans carrying S.aureus in their nostrils, increasing their risk of infection after surgery or illness, the team scanned bacteria from the swabs to explore whether other nasal-dwelling microbes were putting up a fight. The results reveal that a strain of the bacterium Staphylococcus lugdunensis can kill off S.aureus, even when it is outnumbered ten to one. That, the researchers found, is down to the production of an antibiotic, named lugdunin. Moreover, further investigations revealed that the genes necessary for the production of lugdunin appear to be present in all strains of S.lugdunensis. “It’s really the first human-associated bacterium where the whole species is able to produce such an antibiotic,” said Bernhard Krismer, another co-author of the study. As well as killing off a range of S.aureus strains, the new antibiotic defeated a host of other bacteria, including Streptococcus pneumoniae, which can cause meningitis and bronchitis among other conditions. Lugdunin also killed strains of Enterococcus, a bacteria that can cause inflammation of the heart, urinary tract infections and bloodstream infections, that are resistant to the antibiotic vancomycin.. What’s more, when applied to mice, the new antibiotic was found to clear or reduce skin infections of S.aureus. To probe whether humans carrying S.lugdunensis had a lower chance of carrying S.aureus as well, the team collected a further 187 nasal swabs from hospital patients. The results revealed that the percentage of patients who carried S.aureus was almost six times lower for those who carried S.lugundensis (17 patients) than for those who did not. “This [research] is showing that same competition that happens in the soil - where bugs are trying to kill each other to gain space and access to niches and habitats - is happening in the body,” said Mark Webber, co-head of the Antimicrobials Research Group at the University of Birmingham, who was not involved in the study. Scientists say the new research adds weight to the idea that the human body itself could offer up new possibilities in fight against antibiotic resistance. While S.lugundensis can itself cause infections, the authors say one approach would be to insert the genes for the new antibiotic into harmless bacteria which could then be introduced to humans. Alternatively, lugdunin itself could eventually be produced commercially. But there is a drawback: the newly discovered antibiotic only kills gram-positive bacteria, a type of bacteria that lacks an outer cell membrane. “It doesn’t have any activity against gram-negative bugs, things like E. coli,” said Webber. “Those are the ones that are causing most of the infections and are the hardest to treat.” While Webber agrees that the new discovery could open up a fresh avenues for tackling antibiotic-resistance, he warns that lugdunin is “a million miles away from being a useful drug”, adding that antibiotics typically take decades to develop. Despite the lengthy wait, the University of Tübingen has already applied for a patent for the new antibiotic. And there may be more discoveries to come from the human-dwelling bacteria, believes Peschel. “Lugdunin may be just the first example of such an antibiotic,” he said. This article was edited on 28 July to correct a possible ambiguity. To clarify: only certain strains of Staphylococcus aureus are known collectively as MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus).
Scritti Politti review – slightly shambolic, wholly endearing Green Gartside is such a natural performer and raconteur it seems bizarre that he suffered from stage fright so severe that it prevented him from playing live for two decades. This show sees each song accompanied by a hilariously bathetic anecdote – about the early days of Camden squats and “men’s group” meetings organised by the Young Communist League (“we would berate ourselves for being men”); about hit singles inspired by Nietzsche and Roland Barthes; about asking Kraftwerk if they’d play The Sweetest Girl as a duet with Gregory Isaacs. (Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider told him: “We hate reggae.”) Tonight, Gartside’s quartet try out new material (a medley of six song fragments, working from squelchy synthpop to limpid folk to funk-rock) and also perform several Scritti songs that have never been heard live before. A punky B-side called 28/8/78, which featured a Radio 4 news report from that day, is revisited with veteran newsreader Harriet Cass rerecording her original broadcast. A gleefully ramshackle version of the 1982 beatnik pop single Jacques Derrida is preceded by Gartside apologising for mispronouncing the French philosopher’s name with the stress on the second syllable (“I think this confirmed my status as an autodidact”). Before a delicious rendition of Brushed With Oil, Dusted With Powder, Gartside recalls how he started writing the song in the Hollywood Hills – on Joni Mitchell’s guitar, given to him by Peter Asher – and went on to finish it “in a flat above a dentist’s in Newport, Gwent”. There were some technical problems – not being able to hear his voice in the monitors, Gartside uncharacteristically strays out of tune a few times. But this slightly shambolic edge not only endears him to the crowd but seems to suit the Scritti ethic. It’s fitting that they leave out the band’s biggest US hit single Perfect Way, instead choosing as their encores two unreleased songs. Slow Deceit is a nursery rhyme set to a thumping beat, while By Close of Day is an oriental synthpop instrumental that Gartside admits he hasn’t finished yet. Even at the age of 60, this contrary post-punk experimentalist is still a work in progress.
Graveola: Camaleão Borboleta review – pioneering fusion sounds from Brazil The opening ceremony of the Rio Olympics included a tribute to the Tropicália movement, and rightly so, for the ideas of “cultural cannibalism” and experimental fusion promoted by Gilberto Gil and his colleagues still play a major part in new Brazilian music. Graveola are from the inland city of Belo Horizonte, where they pioneered a style that once involved toy instruments and lyrics about social issues. The latter are still part of the mix, as shown by such new political songs as Indio Maracanã, but their current style combines angry and surreal lyrics in an easygoing, melodic style that features bursts of pop, jazz and rock. To this they add unexpected rhythm patterns from Brazil’s north-east or the Cape Verde islands, along with a dash of reggae. It’s an original, gently subtle set that sounds better with every listen.
Dobson's switch at Schroders: corporate governance, anyone? Well played, Michael Dobson, that was a terrific 14-year innings as chief executive of fund manager Schroders, one of the few grand old City names to flourish in the modern world. A loss-making company in 2001 now makes profits of £600m. Take a bow, throw a party and enjoy your retirement. Hold on, Dobson isn’t retiring at all. He is merely moving into the chairman’s office, a switch that – as usual on these occasions – looks like a triumph of chumminess over common sense. There are good reasons why the UK code on corporate governance – born as a reaction to ancient boardroom scandals like Polly Peck and Maxwell – states baldly that “a chief executive should not go on to be chairman of the same company”. One individual can end up with too much power and resist new thinking. Boardroom virtues of independence and openness can be lost. The new chief executive operates under a shadow. Schroders says it seeks “stability and continuity”. Almost any company, after a good run, could make the same plea. They all think their boardrooms contain only strong personalities. It is rarely a persuasive argument. The code, it should be noted, is not an absolute prohibition. Non-compliers are told to consult their major shareholders. But, in Schroders’ case, this is hardly onerous. The family controls 44% of the stock and Bruno Schroder, a board member since 1963, has given a thumbs-up, which will tend to dampen outside dissent. If they really don’t like it, non-family shareholders can sell their shares. But there is wider principle here. Schroders, managing £313bn of other people’s money, is a firm we expect to read the riot act on governance to quoted companies. That job has just become harder. Schroders says there are cases where, having assessed the merits, it has approved of a chief executive becoming chairman – for example at Wood Group in 2013. But it was in the oppose camp in 2014 at Experian, the last time this issue blew up at a FTSE 100 company. The point remains. Dobson’s experience may be hard to replicate, but a firm of Schroders’ standing should be able to attract a top-notch chairman who is properly independent – and see the sense of doing so. Has Costa run out of steam? Little can be read into a single month’s sales figures, said Alison Brittain, chief executive of Whitbread, at the end of last year. Fair enough, a warm November seemed a reasonable explanation for why Costa Coffee’s like-for-like sales growth had slipped to 2.5%, the slowest quarterly increase for five years. But here comes Costa’s latest reading, covering the next 11 weeks to mid-February – it’s even slower at 0.5%. Brittain is sticking to her line about “lower footfall on the high street and an unusually warm winter” but this is starting to look like more like a trend rather than a blip. Maybe the UK is simply saturated with coffee shops. This would not be surprising if the entrepreneurial classes have been reading Whitbread’s accounts. The last set showed a return on capital for Costa of 46.3%, a ratio so fat it invites independent operators to try their luck. The average hipster lacks Costa’s buying clout but the chance of a 20% return on capital, or even 10%, is worth a shot. From Whitbread’s point of view, there is a fair argument that actual growth at Costa – as opposed to same-store increases – is more important. On that score, the rate is still 10.5%, so this is a long way from being a crisis. And, anyway, Premier Inn is far more important to Whitbread in profit terms. But you can also understand why Whitbread’s share price has fallen from £54 a year ago to £38, down 6% on Thursday. Costa, having outrun all competitors with ease over the past decade, is suddenly looking tired. Definitely maybe at Hinkley Point Is Hinkley Point, the planned £18bn nuclear power station in Somerset to be built by French firm EDF, a runner or not? Here’s the latest dispatch from the Anglo-French summit: “EDF is currently devoted to prepare [sic] all necessary elements for the announcement of a FID [final investment decision] for Hinkley Point C in the near future, with the full support of the French government.” Top marks for ambiguity and obfuscation. In the mouth of EDF, “in the near future” could mean next year, which is what the latest stories of delays have suggested. Last October, remember, the company said the contract was ready to sign within weeks. As to the actual decision, “France and the United Kingdom welcome the major progress made in recent months with a view to confirming the project.” A view to confirming? Call that a definite maybe. It would be funny if our government hadn’t based its entire energy policy for the 2020s on Hinkley and neglected to draw up a back-up plan. The sooner the Hinkley farce is called off, the better.
Hunt insists he will impose new contract on NHS doctors Jeremy Hunt has inflamed the dispute with junior doctors by insisting “the matter is closed” and he will impose the new contract on them, despite unprecedented protests by medics. The health secretary also insisted that history would judge him right to force new terms and conditions on England’s 45,000 junior doctors, despite the wave of concern across the NHS and medical profession that his move has triggered. “The matter is closed. We have been trying to discuss this now for three years, and I think the wrong thing to do in the face of unreasonable behaviour is to say, ‘Well, in that case, we’re going to back down,’” the Health Service Journal (HSJ) reported him as saying. His comments emerged [see footnote] as medics below the level of consultant took part in the second day of their fourth strike against the new contract, which is scheduled to come into force in August. Hospitals said that 42.5% of junior doctors had turned up for work on Thursday, a lower number than the 46% who did so on Tuesday. Hunt said the planned new contract was “much safer” than the current one. He added that he was “more in tune with doctors” than the British Medical Association (BMA), their union, “because I really care about the things that doctors care about – the safety of patients”. The health secretary was speaking at an event held last month and organised by the HSJ. “It’s inevitable when you are painted as the evil bogeyman by the BMA, who are brilliantly clever at winding everyone up on social media, that you are not going to be Mr Popular,” he said. “But what history will judge in five or 10 years’ time is, did I and did this government make the long-term strategic calls necessary to help the NHS offer the highest possible quality of care for patients?” There is growing frustration from patients about the cancellation of appointments and alarm about the threat of junior doctors withdrawing cover from all areas of care, including A&E, on 26 and 27 April. The Department of Health said 5,156 procedures and operations had been postponed as a result of this week’s 48-hour strike, which is set to continue until 8am on Friday morning. Junior doctors are providing emergency care only in the fourth stoppage in their long-running dispute with the government over a new contract. They plan to escalate the dispute on 26 April with another two-day strike, including a walkout from casualty units. Dr Johann Malawana, who chairs the BMA’s junior doctors committee, accused the government of failing to prevent the latest strike. Hunt has refused to discuss the strike since it began on Wednesday. Patients who have had tests and operations cancelled urged both sides to return to the negotiating table. Lee Caller, from east London, blamed Hunt and the BMA for an “anxiety-ridden week” after his cancer diagnosis was delayed because of the strike. Gill Shaw from Wokingham in Berkshire said her mother’s heart operation had to be cancelled, despite being described as urgent. Speaking to BBC News she said: “I think the discussions should reopen. I think the doctors should communicate better to patients why things are being cancelled when they’ve been described as urgent. “That’s when families and patients become distressed and find it difficult to reconcile the disruption and strike action with their needs. What happens if my mum doesn’t make it to the operation?” Shaw also expressed alarm about the BMA’s threat to withdraw emergency cover. “I’m very concerned about the A&E walkout. What happens if we have a [terror attack like] Brussels? They really need to start the conversations again, they have to.” Isabel Barnard, from south-east London, said she was distressed and annoyed after a biopsy appointment for rare liver disease was cancelled because of the strike. “It is not fair on us awaiting urgent procedures and tests,” she told the BBC. But she added: “I doubt the politicians proposing this would be happy if they were to work the additional unsociable hours with no extra pay, so I can understand their [doctors’] reasons for being so angry.” Asked about the threatened A&E walkout, she said: “That’s going to have a detrimental effect. I really don’t think junior doctors should take that strike there, but I can understand why they have got to do something for themselves.” Nick Hulme, chief executive of Ipswich hospital NHS trust, said the impact of the walkout on patients was increasing. “This is the fourth strike that we’ve had, so the cumulative effect of patients’ [appointments] being cancelled, their families being disrupted is starting to have an effect on the hospital as a whole,” he told BBC Radio 4’s World at One programme. “It is not getting any easier and as these strikes escalate into the full walkout in three weeks’ time, clearly, I am becoming increasingly concerned about that. We are working up our contingency planning, but clearly taking junior doctors out of A&E, ICU [intensive care units] and maternity services does cause significant risk and, though I’m confident we will be able to safely manage patients, it will require consultants, nurses, therapists, other doctors to work very differently.” The major sticking point in the dispute has been over weekend pay and whether Saturdays should attract extra unsocial hours payments. Currently, 7pm to 7am, Monday to Friday, and the whole of Saturday and Sunday attract a premium rate of pay for junior doctors. • The following footnote was added on 8 April 2016: Jeremy Hunt’s remarks were reported in the Health Service Journal’s weekly print edition dated 6 April 2016, but had previously been reported on the publication’s website on 23 March.
YouTube star PewDiePie forms 'squad' to play games – and make them YouTube star Felix “PewDiePie” Kjellberg is turning online-talent mogul, by launching his own network of gamers called Revelmode. Described as an “Avengers-like talent squad”, it will sit within Maker Studios, the multi-channel network (MCN) to which PewDiePie has been signed since 2012. Kjellberg has signed up eight of his fellow YouTubers for the launch, including popular stars Sean McLoughlin (creator of the JackSepticEye channel), Mark Fischbach (Markiplier), Emma Blackery and Ken Morrison (CinnamonToastKen). Revelmode will focus on developing “premium” content: online-video shows that may sit within subscription services like YouTube Red, for which Kjellberg is already making a horror-themed series called Scare PewDiePie. The first Revelmode series will be an animated show featuring all the squad members. However, those stars – who also include the creators of YouTube channels CutiePieMarzia, Dodger, Jelly and Kwebbelkop – will also appear in their own games, sell merchandise, and raise money for charities including Save the Children and Charity:Water. While the names of these creators may not be familiar outside the games world, they are hugely popular online: PewDiePie alone has 41.5 million subscribers and 10.9bn lifetime views on YouTube, while the other eight Revelmode members have 35.3 million subscribers and 9.7bn views between them. “I have seen many challenges and successes in growing a brand and authentically communicating with an audience, and wanted to take what I’ve learned and create something unique,” said Kjellberg. “The idea of Revelmode was built from my own experiences and will aim to bring together an Avengers-like talent squad to work and grow a business together.” Those experiences include fronting his own mobile game, PewDiePie: Legend of the Brofist, and partnering with publisher Penguin to release a book, This Book Loves You – both in 2015. “From my perspective, Revelmode is a shift in how talent can approach a digital company and work together for a common good,” he said. “Together we will focus on creating – from one-off videos to original series to gamey games to animatoons, music, clothes, charity drives, and more – really anything that’s awesome in the eyes of the fans.” Maker Studios chief Courtney Holt described Revelmode as the company “doubling down with Felix”, after reports in 2014 that Kjellberg was considering going it along and setting up his own MCN. “I’m in touch with a couple of people who I think would be so right for this. I’m eager to get it all up and running. So far, all the networks have been managed in such an incredibly poor way, it’s embarrassing really. I’d like to help other YouTubers,” he told Swedish magazine Icon in October 2014. 16 months on, he’s doing that within Maker Studios rather than outside it: the YouTube equivalent of a music label giving an artist their own imprint to sign bands they like, or a broadcaster striking a development deal with a star actor’s production company. For an MCN like Maker Studios, which is owned by Disney, keeping hold of its stars is important – particularly for gaming, which has become one of YouTube’s most popular categories alongside music and children’s content. In November 2015 alone, the 100 top games channels on YouTube’s videos were watched nearly 6.4bn times, led by PewDiePie’s 319.9m views that month. YouTube has been throwing its weight behind these creators, launching a standalone YouTube Games app in August 2015, and encouraging talk of gaming videos as an alternative to traditional entertainment. “It is a lot more attainable to be the next PewDiePie than it is to be the next Tom Cruise,” said YouTube’s chief business officer, Robert Kyncl, in a keynote speech at the CES technology show this month. While Revelmode’s launch squad is made up of established online stars, it will also be seeking out emerging YouTube creators who are taking Kyncl up on that challenge. • PewDiePie interview: how he clocked up 40m fans and 10bn views
Fantastic Beasts still No 1 in UK as A United Kingdom and Allied start strong The winner: JK Rowling With £30.14m in 10 days, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them has become the quickest film to reach £30m at the UK and Ireland box office since Star Wars: The Force Awakens last December. The JK Rowling-scripted film grossed £8.89m at the weekend, a decline of 42% on the opening frame. For comparison, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Captain America: Civil War – which are the other two films this year that came particularly fast out of the gate – fell respectively by 68% and 67% in their second sessions. Deadpool was sturdier, with a 43% drop on its second weekend. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is the tenth release this year to crack £30m – after Bridget Jones’s Baby (£47.8m), The Jungle Book (£46.2m), Finding Dory (£42.8m), Deadpool (£37.9m), Captain America: Civil War (£36.9m), Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (£36.6m), The Secret Life of Pets (£35.9m), Suicide Squad (£33.6m) and The BFG (£30.6m). In addition, 2015 release Star Wars: The Force Awakens grossed £35.9m in calendar year 2016, so that would be an eleventh. The question now is whether Fantastic Beasts will burn through its audience and fall short of the year’s biggest hits, or sustain nicely through until Christmas. Based on the performance of Harry Potter films as well as a 7.9/10 user rating for Fantastic Beasts at IMDb, you’d suspect the latter. Competition for the family end of the audience arrives on Friday with Disney Animation’s Moana, which opened in the US at the extended Thanksgiving weekend with a muscular $81m. Rogue One follows on 16 December. The runner-up: Brad Pitt With a debut of £1.30m (plus £33,000 previews), Robert Zemeckis’s second world war spy romance Allied grossed just 15% of the Fantastic Beasts number at the weekend, but that was still enough to land in second place, given weak competition from other titles in the marketplace (everything else earned less than £1m in ticket sales at the weekend). This is the third film for Brad Pitt set during the second world war, following Inglourious Basterds and Fury. Neither are particularly apt comparisons for Allied, but for the record those two films opened respectively with £1.9m (plus £1.69m previews) and £2m (plus £698,000 in previews). Pitt had a supporting role in The Big Short in January. His previous lead was in romantic drama By the Sea, co-starring and directed by Angelina Jolie. That creative and commercial misfire grossed a dismal £46,000 in its entire UK theatrical run last December. The indie battle: Paterson v A United Kingdom Two new releases targeted the indie market: Jim Jarmusch’s Paterson and Amma Asante’s A United Kingdom. The latter was positioned much broader, with a release by Pathe/Fox into 419 cinemas, including a wide swath of upscale multiplex sites. Soda put Paterson into a more targeted 62 venues, mixing boutique chains (Picturehouse, Curzon, Everyman) and selected plex venues with key independents. Given its wider release, A United Kingdom unsurprisingly achieved the bigger box office: £619,000 (including £54,000 previews), compared to £170,000 (including £42,000 previews) for Paterson. Stripping out previews, site averages are £1,345 and £2,103 respectively. Director Asante has achieved her biggest ever opening gross. Her previous film Belle began in June 2014 with £407,000 from 408 cinemas, including negligible previews of £4,000. That film went on to a UK lifetime total of £1.95m. Jarmusch has enjoyed rather patchy commercial success at the UK box office. His previous fiction feature Only Lovers Left Alive began with £124,000 from 68 cinemas on its way to a lifetime of £315,000. Arguably, the earlier film, with a cast including Tom Hiddleston as a vampire rock star, appeared to be a more commercial prospect than Paterson, with Adam Driver as a New Jersey bus-driving poet, so Soda should be happy with the outcome. Jarmusch’s biggest hit in the UK remains 2005’s Broken Flowers, with £1.94m. The director is also currently in cinemas with Iggy Pop documentary Gimme Danger, which has reached £53,000 so far. Mum’s List struggles to make an impact The challenges of releasing what might best be described as a small mainstream film are confirmed once again with the release of Mum’s List, starring Rafe Spall and Emilia Fox. The film is adapted from the memoir by St John (aka “Singe”) Greene, celebrating the legacy left by his wife Kate, who died of breast cancer in 2010. Not a natural fit for independent cinemas, the film recounts Singe and Kate’s early courtship, life raising two young sons, her battle with cancer, and how Singe coped as a widower and single parent, honouring the titular list of instructions, wishes and thoughts left by his wife. But to succeed in multiplexes, a film needs a highly visible – and likely expensive – marketing campaign. Case in point, the recent A Street Cat Named Bob, which Sony has pushed, via bus sides and television, to £3.91m so far. Mum’s List has opened with a poor £25,600 from 110 sites, yielding a location average of £233. The film will probably find a happier home on DVD – it should be on sale just before Mother’s Day next year – and on television. The highest climber: Your Name Surging from 29th position to 15th in the box-office chart, Your Name saw grosses nearly quadruple from the previous session. The Japanese anime began in a rather low-key way, exclusively at 17 Showcase cinemas. Then it expanded for one night only last Thursday into more than 100 venues, before contracting again at the weekend to 23 sites. Weekend gross was a solid £66,000, yielding a location average of £2,990. Cumulative total to date is £204,000. André Rieu breaks concert record Encore showings of André Rieu: Christmas with André 2016 played on Sunday, grossing a handy £304,000. That takes the total for the event to £1.53m, beating the previous record holder for a concert in cinemas, which was set earlier this year by the Dutch violinist’s summer Maastricht concert (£1.45m). More cinemas are set to encore the event before Christmas, and distributor CinemaLive is looking for a final tally around £1.6m. The future Given the lack of major new releases, it’s no surprise to see the overall market contract – by 32%, in fact – from the previous session. However, box office is down just 1% on the equivalent weekend from 2015, when The Good Dinosaur, Bridge of Spies and Black Mass were the top new releases. Cinema bookers will be looking for a big improvement this coming weekend with the arrival of Disney Animation’s Moana, plus Clint Eastwood directing Tom Hanks in Sully, well-regarded teen flick The Edge of Seventeen, and Miles Teller in boxing drama Bleed for This. Alternatives include Spike Lee’s Chi-Raq, the Dardenne brothers’ The Unknown Girl and a rerelease of festive animation The Nightmare Before Christmas. Targeting the UK’s large Polish population is Pitbull: Tough Women, the sequel to Pitbull: New Orders, which grossed more than £500,000 in UK cinemas earlier this year. The film opens in more than 100 Odeon venues, and has already achieved more than £100,000 in advance ticket sales, reports distributor Phoenix. Top 10 films, 25-27 November 1. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, £8,892,489 from 666 sites. Total: £30,136,276 2. Allied, £1,331,919 from 501 sites (new) 3. Trolls, £834,362 from 552 sites. Total: £21,798,376 4. Bad Santa 2, £799,156 from 423 sites (new) 5. Arrival, £778,449 from 487 sites. Total: £7,334,028 6. A United Kingdom, £618,652 from 420 sites (new) 7. Doctor Strange, £454,088 from 417 sites. Total: £22,281,264 8. André Rieu: Christmas with André, £303,520 from 313 sites. Total: £1,532,269 9. Dear Zindagi, £171,497 from 64 sites (new) 10. Paterson, £169,911 from 61 sites (new) Other openers Almost Christmas, £60,991 from 121 sites Mum’s List, £25,616 from 110 sites Dobara Phir Se, £13,477 from 26 sites The Unmarried Wife, £13,242 from three sites Ikinci Sans, £5,347 from three sites Kavalai Vendam, £5,192 from 15 sites Creepy, £2,756 from four sites Thoppil Joppan, £1,990 from two sites The Wailing, £1,613 from eight sites Magnus, £899 from four sites Szkola Uwodzenia Czeslawa M, £760 from seven sites South, £508 from five sites Vanishing Time: A Boy Who Returned, £325 from one site The Incident, £152 from one site Aanandam, £129 from one site • Thanks to comScore. All figures relate to takings in UK and Ireland cinemas.
UK cancer death rates after diagnosis drop 10% in ten years Death rates from cancer in the UK have dropped by 10% over the last decade, thanks to progress in diagnosing and treating the disease, but the number of deaths keeps rising because more people are falling ill. The figures, released by Cancer Research UK, show the four major killers – breast, bowel, lung and prostate cancer – have become less deadly relatively speaking. In 2013, the latest year for which full figures are available, 284 out of every 100,000 people in the UK died from the disease – around 162,000 people. A decade ago the death rate was 312 in every 100,000. But the growing numbers of people being diagnosed with cancer as the population ages and obesity, a sedentary lifestyle, smoking and drinking take their toll, has climbed, which means the actual number of deaths each year has risen over the last decade. Some cancers continue to pose a major problem: the death rates from liver and pancreatic cancer are rising, not falling. “It’s important to remember that even though the death rates are falling, the overall number of people dying from cancer is expected to increase,” said Sir Harpal Kumar, chief executive of CRUK. “This is because the population is growing and more of us are living longer. Too many people are still being diagnosed with and dying from cancer, not just here in the UK but around the world.” There are troubling variations in the outcomes for patients around the country. Cally Palmer, the new national cancer director appointed by NHS England, told the in her first interview in the job that she wants all patients to have equal outcomes and a good experience at the hands of the NHS, wherever they live. “I want to be able to say we have the best cancer care available anywhere in the world,” she said. “We’ve made huge improvement but there’s still a place to go in eradicating variation and keeping up to speed with changes in cancer treatment.” She will oversee a big shakeup in the way cancer treatment is organised. Palmer, who has been appointed to implement the national cancer plan published last July, wants to bring GPs, public health experts and hospital staff working on cancer together, so that they look at the cancer issues in their area and address them as a team. All would have access to a dashboard of results, which will show them what is going well and what is going badly. Cancer survival rates in Britain still lag behind other comparable countries in Europe, in part because all countries are improving. But the regional variations are sometimes shocking. In some areas, people diagnosed with lung cancer are four times more likely to die than in others. That is partly because in some less affluent places, lung cancer caused by smoking is more common and people have more advanced disease when they finally see the GP. But there are also variations in standards of care. “We know that compared with most of the countries we would choose to compare ourselves with, we have survival rates that are not so good,” Kumar, who headed the independent taskforce that produced last year’s cancer plan, told the . “We are closing the gap in breast cancer, which is the most commonly diagnosed cancer, but not in colon cancer and others. “There is huge variation in outcomes around the country. If we could just sort out the variability, that would make a huge difference.” Palmer has two immediate priorities: earlier diagnosis, partly by enabling GPs to send patients directly for tests without referring them to specialists first; and giving all those involved in cancer care in an area better data so they can see how they are doing. “I would like them to have an integrated dashboard that shows how they are performing through primary care and diagnosis into acute delivery of care and follow-up and recovery and so forth for patients, so that they are looking at the whole thing together and they are managing resources together,” Palmer told the . Hospitals, GP practices and those in public health who are trying to educate people about the causes of cancer, such as smoking, poor diet, obesity, lack of activity and drinking will form alliances, she hopes. These are being tested out in pilot projects which NHS England calls Vanguards in London and Manchester involving three big cancer hospitals – the Marsden, where Palmer is chief executive, UCLH also in London and the Christie in Manchester. “It is loosely based on the accountable care organisations (ACOs) in the US,” said Palmer. The ACOs were part of the Obamacare reforms and focus on preventing disease as well as treating it, encouraging populations to take exercise and look after themselves better. “What they have shown with some of the pilot ACOs is that in really quite under-privileged areas, so the Bronx is one that we looked at, this different approach to providing care to a population with responsibility for creating performance improvement and financial improvement has worked,” Palmer said. “It doesn’t just work in well-resourced communities. It works for communities where traditionally they’ve had performance problems and there’s a high degree of lack of access to services and the community’s relatively under-privileged. “It’s a big shift in the model and it will require a big shift in behaviour and certainly having an integrated dashboard looking at how we’re performing across communities will be essential, so that we’ve got the intelligence behind that model to say OK, so we’re great on breast cancer and two-week waits but we’re not so great on speed of access for patients with pancreatic cancer and here’s the evidence. “And then if ultimately people can’t improve, then you look at whether someone else provides the service – ultimately. But the idea is that if people have that data as a community then they can work out their improvement trajectory and that would start to tackle variations.” Kumar said another priority is staffing. “A place like the Marsden or the Christie or UCLH can easily attract really high-quality staff,” he said. “We know that we have a shortage in this country of well-trained professionals, whether we look at medical oncologists or surgeons or radiologists. Some of the less celebrated centres have difficulty recruiting these people. There are parts of the country that struggle to get any medical oncology input at all. There are real problems. That is why one of the things we suggest is shared expertise across different trusts. “It is really only in the last 15 or so years that cancer has become a more interesting profession to go into. Prior to that, most people thought cancer was a death sentence. It has become much more interesting because there is so much more we can do now. The other factor is that demand has increased so much.”
Fantastic Negrito: The Last Days of Oakland review – a bluesy howl for modern America Xavier Dphrepaulezz has the kind of backstory legends are made of – leaving home at 12, living as a hustler in LA, getting a major label deal as an R&B artist, in a coma after a near-fatal car crash – but that’s just something to pique the curiosity, because anyone hearing his first album as Fantastic Negrito will realise that, in the words of Berry Gordy, “it’s what’s in the grooves that counts”. The Last Days of Oakland is blues, but reconfigured as a scream of rage rather than sadness. “What happened, America?” he asks at the opening of Hump Thru the Winter, before howling: “I’ve been working three jobs just to pay my bills … I’ve been working so hard just to get ahead, but they still won’t let me live.” His question throughout the record is: how did America come to this? It sets the question not to a straightforward blues, but one crossed with hard rock, blues and samples – voices babble in and out between songs and over the start of them. Given the context, a reading of Leadbelly’s In the Pines seems less likely to be about faithlessness than homelessness. But it’s never an overbearing or miserable album; Fantastic Negrito wants answers, but he wants you to ask the questions, too.
Brexit causes resurgence in pro-EU leanings across continent Two weeks after Britain’s EU referendum, Europe has defied predictions that the UK’s vote to leave would inspire a surge in copycat breakaway movements, with establishment parties enjoying gains and populists dropping points in the polls. In Germany, the Brexit aftermath has seen Angela Merkel’s popularity ratings surge to a 10-month high, almost returning to the level the chancellor enjoyed before the height of the refugee crisis last September. An Infratest Dimap poll published on Friday also marks a two percentage point gain for Merkel’s party, the centre-right CDU, and a one point gain for the centre-left Social Democratic party. Rightwing populist party Alternative für Deutschland, meanwhile, has seen its ratings drop by three percentage points to 11%. The anti-refugee party’s struggles may lie in its leader’s failure to contain an internal rift over an antisemitism scandal. “The Brexit debate has fostered a more pro-European climate among the German population,” said Infratest Dimap’s managing director Michael Kunert. “The government is profiting from this trend while populist, eurosceptic parties are suffering.” In the Netherlands, seen as one of the countries that could potentially follow Britain’s example, support for the Freedom party of far-right politician Geert Wilders has fallen to its lowest level since last autumn. One poll suggests Wilders could win 30 out of the 150 seats in parliament if an election were held now, three fewer than a week ago, though his party remains the most popular in the fragmented Dutch political landscape. Wilders this week pressed ahead with his vow to make a “Nexit” referendum one of the key themes of the general election next March, calling the EU “a totalitarian, Soviet-like institution”. Though Brexit may partly explain Wilders’ declining fortunes, the poll also reflects Dutch voters’ lukewarm attitude to Brussels; the main winners were the Socialist party, which advocates a eurosceptic approach but stops short of wanting to pull out of the EU. The centre-right Christian Democrats and the pro-European liberal D66 group also did well. The resulting political chaos and economic uncertainty of Brexit appears to have had a direct effect on attitudes in Austria, where a eurosceptic populist candidate will stand in the repeat presidential elections on 2 October. In a Gallup poll on 5-6 July, 52% of Austrians said they would choose to stay in the EU if given a vote, while only 30% would vote to leave. A similar poll the previous week had shown a more balanced picture, with 51% in favour of remain and 49% in favour of leave. The change in mood appears to have also affected the views of the anti-immigration Freedom party’s presidential candidate. Having previously advocated a referendum if the EU were to take steps towards further integration, Norbert Hofer told Die Presse on Friday that he was “not in favour of an Austrian exit from the European Union”. “I have been annoyed for days that this is being insinuated. I was not amused. It would undoubtedly damage Austria if it were to leave the EU,” Hofer said. In Denmark, support for EU membership has risen to 69%, up from 59.8% in a poll held before the British referendum, while support for a membership vote has fallen from 40.7 to 32%. In Finland, voters seem to have been put off the idea of a “Fixit” vote, which had been called for by some politicians including former foreign minister Paavo Väyrynen. After polls carried out in March indicated that 43% of voting Finns wanted a UK-style referendum, and only 56% were inclined to vote to remain, an Iltalehti survey carried out on 28-29 June registered a pro-European shift, with 59% of Finns saying they did not want an in-out referendum and 68% saying they would vote to stay. The picture is more balanced in southern Europe. In France, the far-right, anti-EU and anti-immigration Front National has remained stable in the polls. Its leader, Marine Le Pen, is widely expected to get through to the final round of the presidential race in spring 2017 but is not predicted to win the run-off. In Italy, the political landscape has shifted over the last two weeks, but there have been both losses and gains for eurosceptic parties. Support for the far-right and anti-immigration Northern League, whose leader Matteo Salvini has called for a UK-style referendum, has slipped by 0.7% to 12.4%, according to a poll published earlier this week. Italians are increasingly likely to favour the anti-establishment Five Star Movement, now the country’s most popular party with 30.6% of the vote, while the ruling Democratic party has fallen to 29.8%. The Five Star Movement has not called for a public vote on EU membership, but instead backs a non-binding referendum on the euro. While there is widespread scepticism of Brussels, a majority of Italians believe they are better off in the EU. One poll carried out since the Brexit outcome found 66% of Italians would vote to remain in the EU, with just 26% opting to leave and 8% undecided.
Situs inversus and my 'through the looking glass' body What links Catherine O’Hara, Enrique Iglesias, Donny Osmond, and me? At face value, at least, not a lot. Look beneath the skin, however, and you would see a striking similarity: our hearts beat on the right, not the left. In fact it goes beyond mere dextrocardia, which would mean only the heart is transposed; instead, all our organs are placed in mirror image to the norm. We are linked by abnormality: we all have situs inversus. Situs inversus is a rare congenital condition in which all of an individual’s internal organs in the thorax and abdomen are positioned on the opposite side to where they should be. The liver, for instance, is now on the left, the spleen on the right. Flipped, for want of a better word. In some cases a person can live most of their life without realising they have situs inversus. Indeed, it has been reported that Donny Osmond was only aware of his condition after his case of appendicitis was overlooked because his appendix wasn’t where the doctor expected it to be. As such, and with an estimated occurrence of one in every 10,000 births, situs inversus totalis - the full term for complete anatomical reversal - has intrigued scientists for centuries. Many believe the condition holds clues to understanding how our bodies differentiate right from left, and the significance behind such a preference. I was diagnosed with situs inversus totalis at six months old. Often, recorded signs of a reversed anatomy are dismissed as an error of the x-ray technician, the left and right labels supposedly mixed-up. It was only when I was taken to hospital with unrelated breathing problems that doctors began to consider the possibility that I had situs inversus. “Sit down and listen to everything I tell you”, the doctor told my parents, who, even after listening intently, were left in a state of disbelief. Several medical staff hurried into the room, excited. Medics may only come across one case of situs inversus in their careers, and I was later invited to take part in a Guess What’s Wrong With The Baby trainee doctor event. For the last twelve years I have worn a MedicAlert bracelet on my left wrist to notify people of my rare condition. Turn it over and emergency medical staff are informed that I have “Complete Situs Inversus Normal Ciliary”. Rather than being simply an accessory or conversation piece, it serves the valuable purpose of preventing the somewhat unfortunate-sounding possibility of having an operation on the wrong side in an emergency. Since all my organs have assumed the exact opposite location, situs inversus does not affect my overall health. I was very lucky; had only a few of my organs moved, or had they grown in random positions - as is the case with situs ambiguus - the condition would have been very serious. Of those born with situs inversus, 25% have Kartagener Syndrome (also referred to as primary ciliary dyskinesia), a defect in the cilia that line important organs and tracts, such as the respiratory tract, causing bronchitis, and reducing male fertility. In other circumstances, the failure of one of the organs to move to the other side can further complicate the individual’s health, by causing entanglement. This often proves fatal. There is also a strong probability that people born with situs inversus have heart problems. Speaking with adult congenital cardiologist Dr Dan Halpern at New York University’s Langone Medical Centre in July, I began to fully understand the condition’s implications. “You are the rarity,” he said, before delving into an animated description of the cardiovascular impact a reversed anatomy can have. The most common heart problem, Halpern told me, is the transposition of the great arteries: instead of the great vessels arising from the heart criss-crossing over each other as they should, they lie in parallel. Alongside this, the main ventricles of the heart are inverted, or the great vessels arise from the wrong chamber. In the event of heart surgery, situs inversus can involve complications, since organs such as the heart are chiral - ie. they can be distinguished from their mirror image. Just think what would happen if you tried, for example, to attach a left hand to a right wrist. A similar geometric problem occurs if a donated heart from a non-situs inversus donor is transplanted into someone with situs inversus. The donor’s heart must be placed into the reversed position, and the surgeon needs to consider aspects such as the different weighting and the need to ensure the reattachment of the asymmetric blood vessels. It is almost like trying to complete a jigsaw puzzle with the wrong pieces. Thankfully, twenty years on from my surprise diagnosis I have been able to lead a perfectly normal life - albeit one with a growing curiosity for what situs inversus entails; the history of its discovery, its wider cultural implications and why it occurs. Although Aristotle cited two cases of transposed organs in animals, situs inversus was first discovered in Naples by the anatomist and surgeon Marco Severino, in 1643. A century later the Scottish physician Matthew Baillie recorded the reversal as situs inversus, from the Latin situs, as in “location”, and inversus for “opposite”. Situs solitus is the normal structure, while isolated levocardia refers to when the heart alone remains on the left - an even rarer condition. Baillie’s 1788 account of the discovery during a seminar at the Hunterian School of Medicine conveys the shock the room of young doctors felt as they were faced with the mirror image. His text explains that from the outside the deceased man appeared to be of normal disposition, but that “upon opening the cavity of the thorax and abdomen, the different situation of the viscera was so striking as immediately to excite the attention of the pupils”. While the right lung is usually divided into three lobes, the pupils discovered “‘exactly contrary to what is found in ordinary cases”. He goes on to explain that “the apex of the heart was found to point to the right-side nearly opposite to the sixth rib, and its cavities as well as large vessels were completely transposed.” The account also tells of the “considerable pains” Baillie took to establish how the condition had affected the man while he was alive. In researching the life of the deceased it was established that “the person, while alive, was not conscious of any uncommon situation of his heart.” It seems probable that if such a finding had been made in medieval times, a person with situs inversus would most certainly have been branded a witch or demon posthumously. Artists and writers have explored the implications of situs inversus. Understandably so: it makes for a cracking plot twist. The titular character in Ian Fleming’s 1958 James Bond novel Dr No is saved from a bullet because of his dextrocardia. In Her Fearful Symmetry, Audrey Niffenegger introduces situs inversus during the postmortem of a twin. During the period 1452-1519, Leonardo Da Vinci is alleged to have been one of the first to depict the situs inversus anatomy - but then again, he did write back to front. We consciously seek to attribute symbolism to structures that are formed in nature, investing our belief in the left-right asymmetry norm. Most notably, the heart and its position has always held an important cultural significance. America’s pledge of allegiance relies on the belief that the heart veers to the left of the thorax. In the Middle East, placing a hand over one’s heart after shaking hands with someone conveys respect, but also forges trust. The playground promise “cross my heart and hope to die”, started life as a religious oath, Christian in origin. “Hand on heart” suggests a sense of truth. Are these pledges and customs compromised if the right hand covers flesh and nothing more? Of course, bodies come in many forms. Beneath the skin the illusion of regularity can be overturned, the body’s complexity brought to the light.
Everything you need to know about Trump and the Indiana Carrier factory Donald Trump scored an early public relations win this week as he took the credit for persuading a US firm not to outsource jobs to Mexico. But the case – and its implications – are more complex than they first appeared. How did an air conditioner manufacturer become a big political story? In February, United Technologies, parent company of Carrier Corporation, a furnace and air conditioner maker, announced the closure of a plant in Indianapolis with the loss of 1,400 jobs, along with a factory in the northeastern Indiana city of Huntington with a further 700 casualties. A video of angry workers being informed about the decision soon went viral. Carrier told Indiana officials that it would save $65m a year by shifting production to a 645,000-sq foot factory under construction outside Monterrey, Mexico, where wages are much cheaper. Carrier rejected a tax incentive package from the state. Enter Republican candidate Donald Trump, who sued Carrier over a malfunctioning air-cooling system at the Trump International Hotel in New York in 2007. On Twitter he condemned the company and said such closures would not happen if he was president. Indiana governor Mike Pence blamed federal regulations as a factor, but Democratic senator Joe Donnelly blamed the action on the company seeking to cut labour costs. Why didn’t the issue go away? Trump turned Carrier into a punchbag during his election campaign crusade against globalisation, trade deals and outsourcing to Mexico, promising to restore manufacturing and “put America first” in his appeal to blue collar workers in the midwest. Since 2000, Indiana has lost 150,000 manufacturing jobs; 5m disappeared nationally over the same period. In April, Trump was cheered at an Indianapolis campaign rally when he said he would impose a stiff import tariff on goods made by American manufacturers that moved jobs offshore. He essentially clinched the Republican nomination by winning the Indiana primary election on 3 May. But Carrier and the United Steelworkers Local 1999 union reached a severance package deal for the Indianapolis plant workers, including reimbursement for education and technical training. Job cuts were scheduled over three years starting in 2017. What changed? Trump stunned the world with his 8 November election win. On 24 November, Thanksgiving Day, he tweeted: “I am working hard, even on Thanksgiving, trying to get Carrier A.C. Company to stay in the U.S. (Indiana). MAKING PROGRESS - Will know soon!” Union leaders admitted they were not optimistic about success. But then, on 29 November, Carrier said it had reached an agreement with Trump, who promised on Twitter: “Great deal for workers!” Trump personally called Greg Hayes, the CEO of United Technologies, to seal the agreement and this week jokingly asked Hayes: “If I lost, would you have picked up the phone?” What was that deal and who really won? Carrier will keep 1,100 jobs at the Indianapolis plant, although that includes 300 positions that never were scheduled to leave the country. But it still plans to send 1,300 jobs to Mexico and shutdown the factory in Huntington, Indiana. Trump’s boasting did not acknowledge that. For him, however, it was low hanging fruit in PR terms before he even takes office. Washington Post columnist James Hohmann wrote: “The vast majority of Americans will see nothing more than the headline that just says Trump saved 1,000 jobs. For the president-elect, that is mission accomplished.” Why did Carrier change its plan? Officially because Indiana agreed to give the company $7m in tax incentives over 10 years, while the company has agreed to invest $16m in the state, where Pence remains governor until 20 January, when he becomes vice-president. Carrier said the deal depends on employment, job retention and capital investment. But there was also speculation that parent company United Technologies had been threatened with the loss of defense contracts. A Washington Post report suggested not, however, quoting defense analysts as saying Trump could not legally steer contracts or punish the company through the Pentagon’s highly regulated acquisition system. “The Federal Acquisition Regulations are thousands of pages long and run through an often stifling bureaucracy that determines requirements, puts out requests for proposals from industry, then embarks on a lengthy selection process that can take months, if not years,” the paper wrote. How has the news gone down? Trump toured the plant in Indianapolis on Thursday and shook hands with workers on an assembly line. Some yelled, “Thank you Mr Trump!” and “Thanks, Donald,” as he greeted them, Reuters reported. Pence, also present, exulted: “When Donald Trump was running for president he said that if he was elected president of the United States America would start winning again. Well today, America won and we have Donald Trump to thank. I got a feeling, working beside this extraordinary man, this is just the beginning.” Trump admitted he didn’t mean it when he first pledged to stop Carrier moving jobs; he claimed that Carrier was initially only a “euphemism” for his wider message. He thought it was too late to change the company’s plans and it wasn’t until a week ago that he took his promise seriously, after watching a report about Carrier on the nightly news. Trump, who styles himself as a deal maker, claimed his talks with Carrier as a shining example of how he will approach other US companies threatening to shift jobs abroad. “These companies aren’t going to be leaving any more,” he told workers. “They’re not going to be taking people’s hearts out. They’re not going to be announcing, like they did at Carrier, that they’re closing up and they’re moving to Mexico.” So an unmitigated triumph for Trump? No. Some accused the president-elect of meddling and social engineering. Although Obama stepped in to rescue car manufacturers after the 2008 financial crisis, that was an entire industry, not a specific plant. Republican congressman Justin Amash of Michigan tweeted: “Not the president(elect)’s job. We live in a constitutional republic, not an autocracy. Business-specific meddling shouldn’t be normalized.” To critics, deals like the one at Carrier are unlikely to stem the job losses caused by automation and cheap foreign competition. They say the agreement is unsustainable on a big scale and could set a worrying precedent for companies looking for tax concessions. Senator Bernie Sanders, of Vermont, who lost the Democratic nominating race to Hillary Clinton but won in Indiana, wrote scathingly in an op-ed for the Washington Post: “Trump has endangered the jobs of workers who were previously safe in the United States. Why? Because he has signaled to every corporation in America that they can threaten to offshore jobs in exchange for business-friendly tax benefits and incentives.” James Pethokoukis, the DeWitt Wallace Fellow at the conservative thinktank American Enterprise Institute, wrote in The Week magazine: “This is all terrible for a nation’s economic vitality if businesses make decisions to please politicians rather than customers and shareholders. Yet America’s private sector has just been sent a strong signal that playing ball with Trump might be part of what it now means to run an American company.” What’s the view in the White House about Trump acting like he’s in charge already? The Obama administration did not criticise Trump but could not resist trying to pop the balloon. “That’s obviously good news and an announcement that we would welcome,” said press secretary Josh Earnest, adding pointedly: “Mr Trump would have to make 804 more announcements just like that to equal the standard of jobs in the manufacturing sector that were created in this country under President Obama’s watch. “Just a little rough math would indicate that if President Trump is fortunate enough to serve two terms in office for eight years, he’s probably going to have to average two of these announcements a week, every week of his eight-year presidency in order to meet the same standard. So the bar’s high.”
Billie Piper webchat – your questions answered on Madonna, fertility and Doctor Who boobks 37m asks: Who was your childhood hero? Who’s your hero now? Silke Plovier asks: Best moment in your life? Silke Plovier asks: I think your one of the only actresses that can make me cry. Any tips for actors/actresses who are still learning? Katheriness30 asks: You inspire me. What is your life philosophy and work mantra? Rory00 asks: If you could travel in time to the past what would you say to your younger self? BewilderedMark asks: I loved Penny Dreadful, although the final season did seem to end rather abruptly. Were you gutted to have had no screen time with Timothy Dalton? tinyconfusion06 asks: Would you classify Lily Frankenstein [in Penny Dreadful] as a villain? krumstets asks: How would you equate the fandomness that you experienced as a pop star and that of being in Doctor Who? Sophie24601 asks: How is Yerma different to the other theatre you’ve been involved in? Emily Metcalfe asks: Considering you’re a mother, was it difficult getting into the mindset of your character for Yerma? Allegra Giannini asks: If you could play one role in your life, what would it be? (I would love to see you as Lady Macbeth!) Allegra Giannini asks: Do you have any tips for beating stage fright? Do you picture the audience naked to calm your nerves? tinyconfusion06 asks: What’s your favourite hip-hop song? Spluuuuurgh asks: My first recollection of you was in an advert where you just sort of appeared shouting “Pop!” and that’s all I remember. Can you tell us more about it and what it was for? Dawnelle Drewek asks: I think you always add such an air of elegance to all of your roles. But why are they always sort of bittersweet?! In Dr Who I almost cried when you had to leave the Dr and in Secret Diary I was shocked that you walked away from love and Penny Dreadful left u abruptly with nothing. tinyconfusion06 asks: Why did you decide to do Yerma? tinyconfusion06 asks: Did you ever think Rose Tyler would be as loved as she still is now? tinyconfusion06 asks: You always seem to play strong female characters. Do you think it’s important and necessary? Why? 0hmyst4rs asks: Is there a character you’ve played or an acting or singing job that you feel taught you a lot? PonyBoyUK asks: Do celebrities have celebrity crushes? Or is it more like an office romance? realitytake says: Thought you made a great speech at the Remain rally in central London recently. Given that it now turns out that 64% of the young voted do you think that they would be better heard if they set up a pro-European party? tinyconfusion06 asks: What did you want to be when you were a child? Did you always want to be an actress? Jennyfer Aguillar says: I loved your acting in Doctor Who (we love all you in Brazil), but my question is about your general career: what was the most difficult job that you have done? waldegrave asks: How did you rate Chris Evan’s slot in Top Gear and who is your nomination to replace him in the next series? Hubert O’Hearn asks: I truly think your best work was on Penny Dreadful as Lily became a fascinating proto-feminist. Was that always in the plan for the character, or did you have input into her development with the showrunner John Logan? vammyp asks: Have you ever been mistaken for Paloma Faith? Anastacia Good asks: Do you want sometimes not to be famous for a few days? Anastacia Good asks: What/who inspires you? typernotfighter asks: How do you manage to keep up the high standard you achieved in the Smash Hits ad where you danced around a plastic flower? Billie Piper is with us now – answers to questions shortly With her infectiously peppy Because We Want To, Billie Piper launched phase one of her career back in 1998, becoming the youngest ever artist to debut at No 1 in the UK. But after two hit albums, she segued into an acting career that has eclipsed even her music success. Adored by Doctor Who fans for playing Rose Tyler, companion to David Tennant’s Doctor, she’s also known for taking on the role of sex worker Belle de Jour in Secret Diary of a Call Girl, and as Brona Croft in Penny Dreadful. She has enjoyed regular stints on the London stage – rejoining Call Girl writer Lucy Prebble for The Effect, and starring in Richard Bean’s phone-hacking drama Great Britain. Next up is the lead role in Yerma, a Lorca tragedy updated by the iconoclastic Simon Stone. With Yerma opening at the Young Vic on 28 July, Piper is joining us to answer your questions about it and anything else in her career, from 1pm BST on Wednesday 13 July – post them in the comments below.
The Secret Life of Pets review – silly but funny Comparisons are inevitable between this film and Disney’s Zootropolis, which opened earlier this year. But although both are populated with wisecracking animals, The Secret Life of Pets is closer thematically to Pixar’s Toy Story. Both the dynamic between pets/toys and owners/children and the rivalry between established favourite and new usurper feel as though they have been lifted from the John Lasseter film. The latest picture from the Despicable Me director Chris Renaud, Pets might not have quite the same wit and polish in terms of screenplay as Zootropolis. But it does deliver brilliantly when it comes to visual jokes, action set pieces, physical comedy and unabashed silliness. The sight gags come so thick and fast in this tale of a small terrier, his oversized, hirsute roommate and a despotic rabbit with a grudge against humanity that it’s hard to take them all in on first viewing.
Premier League 2015-16 review: pundit of the season Welcome to theguardian.com review of the 2015-16 Premier League season. Now that the campaign has ended we would like you to help us choose your favourite goal, the best referee and the best manager, and other winners in a total of 10 categories. We have nominated some contenders but this is just to get the discussion going: we would like your suggestions so that we can compile the best into final polls that you can vote on. The polls will be published at midday on Tuesday 17 May, so please tell us what you think. Thanks Jamie Carragher Sky’s Monday Night Football is the best gig in punditry, the hour before kick-off representing the finest opportunity on mainstream British television for tactical analysis. Unlike their counterparts on the BBC’s Match of the Day, Sky’s squad get plenty of time to dissect the weekend’s action, and the freedom to concentrate on a few key matches and incidents rather than an obligation to cover every game. Gary Neville was outstanding in this environment, but then he left it in January for an ill-fated spell in Spain and hasn’t returned (yet), probably ruling himself out of the running for this particular prize. Carragher has held the fort ably, while a succession of guests have padded out the team without making compelling cases to join it permanently. Graeme Souness Four-and-a-bit years older than Mark Lawrenson, the BBC’s one-man joke-free Statler and Waldorf tribute show, and two years older than the now retired Alan Hansen, Souness refuses to simply fade away. Instead he continues to combine enthusiasm, expertise and a still-terrifying intensity. There was a brief pause in mid-season after he was hospitalised for what his wife described as “a minor cardiac procedure” but he swiftly returned to our screens, analytical functions and killer stare still very much in full effect and still sounding fresher and more relevant than the many voices of his generation who have been and continue to be gently ushered towards the exit, a fate that remains in the very long-term future for Souness. Danny Murphy Murphy and Jermaine Jenas are the jewels in the BBC’s footballing tiara, the quality of their analysis a couple of steps ahead of the corporation’s other regulars. Murphy is particularly eloquent, and admirably unlikely to stumble into random footballspeak. Overall, however, the BBC’s punditry remains a little off the pace. They are constrained at times by the formats they work in – Saturday’s Match of the Day will always be a slightly rushed slog up a mountain of highlights sherpaed by pundits who cannot possibly have seen the games in their entirety – but Sunday night’s MOTD2 would surely benefit from a rethink. It is puzzling that in the four years since Sky adopted the current Chamberlin/Neville-fronted studio-based Monday Night Football format the BBC hasn’t seriously attempted to match it, and Mark Chapman and his guests are surely better than they are allowed to appear, shackled as they are to an uninspiring treadmill of highlights and chatter. Murphy, Jenas and a couple of others regularly emerge with dignity not only intact but enhanced, which is to their great credit. Danny Higginbotham Higginbotham is moving gradually up the punditry ladder, his playing experience – he came through Manchester United’s youth system before making significant contributions at Derby, Southampton and Stoke and a few international appearances, unexpectedly, for Gibraltar – being sufficient to earn respect, but clearly not an immediate job with a major national broadcaster. Two seasons ago he was mainly to be heard on MUTV – his second career also starting, in a manner of speaking, in Manchester United’s youth system; last season he was given a chance by BT Sport, and for this season he switched to Sky, where he concentrates on the Football League with occasional Saturday afternoon Premier League co-commentary duties, as well as popping up on TalkSport. Further progress is likely for a broadcaster who speaks with a clarity and understanding not always obvious among many of those whose voices continue to be heard more often. Don Hutchison “You know you can get a feeling and a vibe from someone, when you’re listening to someone – whether it’s on the radio or on the telly – that they know exactly what they’re talking about.” So said Hutchison a couple of weeks ago, during the Player’s Lounge, Matt Holland’s Friday night TalkSport show on which he is a regular. He was describing Jamie Carragher, but he exudes a similar authority himself, combining personal experience, obvious expertise and refreshingly straight talking. In addition to his TalkSport appearances Hutchinson does regular match commentary – all sorts of European games for BT Sport, and Premier League matches mainly for broadcast abroad – and writes a column, focusing on the region’s two (current) top-flight sides, for the Chronicle in Newcastle. Though BT Sport frequently ask Michael Owen to handle co-commentary duties on their big games, Hutchison is invariably more enlightening. “Whatever I do I do it 100%,” Hutchinson says. “I work as a pundit now and as an analyst and I do that to the best of my ability. So I watch so much football it’s incredible. I watch so many leagues around the world. I dedicate myself to doing my job.” The effort is apparent. Check out the other categories: Player of the season Manager of the season Goal of the season Match of the season Signing of the season Flop of the season Referee of the season Gripe of the season Innovations for the future
Think of the wider world and vote to stay in Europe Faith is about integration and building bridges, not about isolation and erecting barriers. As leaders and senior figures of faith communities, we urge our co-religionists and others to think about the implications of a Leave vote for the things about which we are most passionate. The past 70 years have been the longest period of peace in Europe’s history. Institutions that enable us to work together and understand both our differences and what we share in common contribute to our increased security and sense of collective endeavour. What’s more, so many of the challenges we face today can only be addressed in a European, and indeed a global, context: combating poverty in the developing world, confronting climate change and providing the stability that is essential to tackling the migration crisis. We hope that when voting on 23 June, people will reflect on whether undermining the international institutions charged with delivering these goals could conceivably contribute to a fairer, cleaner and safer world. Rt Rev Rowan Williams, former archbishop of Canterbury; Rabbi Laura Janner-Klausner, Movement for Reform Judaism; Miqdaad Versi, assistant secretary general, Muslim Council of Britain; Jasvir Singh, chair, City Sikhs Network Rt Rev Dr Ian Bradley, Church of Scotland & Reader in Church History and Practical Theology, University of St Andrews Baroness Butler-Sloss, Chair, Commission on Religion and Belief in Public Life The Rt Rev Professor Lord Harries of Pentregarth, Emeritus Professor of Divinity, Gresham College, Honorary Professor of theology, King’s College London & Former Bishop of Oxford The Rt Rev Paul Bayes, Bishop of Liverpool Ben Rich, Former Chief Executive, The Movement for Reform Judaism Rabbi Danny Rich, Chief Executive, Liberal Judaism Laura Marks OBE, Co-Chair, Nisa-Nisham, The Jewish-Muslim Women’s Network Fiyaz Mughal OBE, Chair, Faith Matters Vivian Wineman MBE, Former President, Board of Deputies of British Jews, Co-Chair, Interfaith Network Dr Ed Kessler MBE, Director, Woolf Institute for the study of Interfaith Relations Bharti Tailor, Executive Director, Hindu Forum in Europe Manoj Ladwa, Founding Trustee, Sewa Day Lord Bhikhu Parekh, Emeritus Professor of Political Philosophy, University of Westminster and University of Hull; Former Vice-Chairman, Commission for Racial Equality Rt Rev Dr Robert Innes, Bishop of Gibraltar In Europe Rev Dr Richard Frazer, Convener Church and Society Council, Church of Scotland The Very Rev Dr John Arnold OBE, Dean Emeritus of Durham, Former President, European Conference of Churches Anthea Sully, National Coordinator for England, Ecumenical Forum of European Christian Women in England and Scotland Fiona Buchanan, National Coordinator for Scotland & Central Committee member, Ecumenical Forum of European Christian Women in England and Scotland The Rev Dr Ashley Beck, School of Education, Theology and Leadership, St Mary’s University Twickenham The Rt Rev Thomas McMahon, Bishop Emeritus of Brentwood Oliver Robertson, Clerk, Quaker Council for European Affairs The Very Rev Michael Sadgrove, Dean Emeritus of Durham The Rt Rev Stephen Conway, Bishop of Ely The Most Rev Dr Barry Morgan, Archbishop of Wales Dr Hari Shukla CBE, Former Chair, Inter Faith Sub Committee of the Tyne and Wear Racial Equality Council Imam Qari Muhammad Asim MBE, Chief Imam, Makkah Mosque Leeds Rev Steve Chalke MBE, Founder and Leader, Oasis Global & Senior Minister, Oasis Church Waterloo Mona Siddiqui, Professor of Islamic and Inter-Religious Studies and Assistant Principal Religion and Society, University of Edinburgh Steve Miller, Founder, Tzedek & Senior Consultant, Faith Based Regeneration Network Dr Deesha Chadha, Committee Member, Hindu Forum of Britain Khurshid Drabu CBE, Former Chairman, Medina Mosque Stephen Platten, Rector of St. Michael, Cornhill, Assistant Bishop, Diocese of London & Chairman, Governors of the Anglican Centre in Rome Rt Rev Dr John Inge, Bishop of Worcester Green is the new black It’s good news that the world’s largest oil companies at last realise there is “tremendous growth” in the renewable energy sector (“Green really is the new black as Big Oil gets a taste for renewables”, Business, last week). Despite the fall in the price of oil, 2015 saw a new record for global investment in renewables – more than double the amount invested in new coal and gas power plants. In Italy, for instance, more than 39% of gross electricity generation came from renewable sources in 2015. In Germany, the figure was 32.5% and the department of energy and climate change recently announced that the UK’s renewables sector won 24.7% of the country’s total generation last year. This month alone, Portugal has managed to run entirely on renewables for more than 100 consecutive hours. Quite suddenly, Europe’s future looks both cleaner and safer. This investment not only ensures lower carbon emissions, but it also has implications for the EU’s energy independence and the knock-on effects of that independence on security. A burgeoning renewables sector is cutting our import bills for energy and helping to keep the price of oil low. Consequently, Russia will be less likely to threaten to stop the flow of its gas to Europe and less able to indulge in military adventures on the EU’s eastern borders. Equally, certain Gulf operators will be less able to afford peddling pernicious versions of Islam around the world. The growth in clean energy promises improved security and a more robust diplomacy. Eurof Thomas Cardiff Gentrification of the Co-op I was pleased to read that the Co-op is to relaunch its food business with not only a revived logo but also, in an attempt to attract a million more members, a reintroduction of the “divi” and other rewards schemes (“Co-op hopes to leave the past behind with revival of its classic 60s look”, Business, last week). In recent years, the latter have been sadly lacking. However, I am not convinced that these measures will be enough to revive the Co-op’s fortunes. The movement has abandoned its former customers (working people) for the more expensive convenience market that they, for their main shop, cannot afford. It is my view that the Co-op, like the Labour party, no longer serves its historic constituency. The Rochdale Pioneers of 1844 would not have approved of what can only be described as the gentrification of the Co-op, something that also appears to have happened to Labour. The Co-op needs to get back to its core values. I do support its mutuality, its community ambitions and the changes outlined in Angela Monaghan’s excellent article, but these will not be enough to restore the Co-op to its rightful position. Roger Frost Burnley, Lancs For crying out loud Shame on you for omitting Truly, Madly, Deeply, the best British weepie in living memory, from your list of “films that made us cry”. Viewing it for the first time, it grabbed me by the throat so viscerally that it took all my might to hold back what threatened to be a wave of uncontrollable sobs, leaving me awash in sweet sadness – and, like all those around me, silently mopping copious tears from the corners of my eyes.  Ms Lee Robinson  London N19 Jennifer Lawrence is no starlet Misogyny alert! To quote: “Jennifer Lawrence ‘the Oscar-winning starlet’, who ‘seems to delight in mocking herself during interviews’” (Palais gossip, New Review, last week). Does Nigel Smith hanker for the 1950s, when “starlet” was an acceptable term for women actors, featured more for their skimpy clothing than their acting? Jennifer Lawrence has rightly stood up for equal pay for men and women actors. She’s won an Oscar, for heaven’s sake. But Mr Smith seems not to rate her intelligence. Margaret Waddy Cambridge
Britain must lead the way in the battle of ideas that will defeat Isis The wrong people are definitely cheering Donald Trump. Not just the odious Nigel Farage – but Islamic State commander Abu Omar Khorasani who declared this week that the “maniac” in the White House would increase terrorist numbers by thousands. With victory in Mosul on the horizon, now is the time for government to stop dithering and produce a new plan to tackle extremism that has a simple idea at its core: it’s time to move on from the neocons. With Isis battered in Mosul, Britain’s EU security commissioner, Julian King, is warning that defeat in the Middle East “may lead to the return to Europe of violent Isis fighters” – now armed with Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric to seduce fresh recruits. Last year Isis attacked 252 cities, killing 6,141 people. After the massacre in Nice in July, Isis’s three-month killing spree saw an attack every 82 hours. When MI5 chief Andrew Parker says “there will be terrorist attacks in this country”, he’s not mucking about. He’s deadly serious. Figures released on Wednesday by the Institute for Economics and Peace show a 650% surge in terror attacks on the west. And London mayor Sadiq Khan is warning that our border security isn’t tough enough to stop terrorists smuggling in weapons. So where is the government’s plan? The counter-extremism bill has been delayed and the so-called Casey review on integration has vanished. In the vacuum, while Islamophobia spirals out of control, British Muslims despair. As my friend Shabana Mahmood MP puts it, many British Muslims feel surrounded by “supremacists” national supremacists who declare you can’t be British and Muslim, and religious supremacists who say you can’t be Muslim and British. One lot try to deny Muslims their country. The other crowd seek to deny Muslims their faith. With Trump heading for the White House, it’s time for our government to move on from the neocon philosophy of David Cameron and renew a counter-extremism plan that stands a chance of working. It needs a simple idea at its heart. There is no epic clash of civilisations between Islam and the west. This is a fight between the civilised and a cult. Never forget al-Qaida has killed seven times more Muslims than non-Muslims. Since January 2014, Isis has murdered more than 19,000 Iraqis. That means it is time for Theresa May to drop the Cameron doctrine that there is some kind of “conveyor belt” between religion and extremism. It’s this philosophy that has inspired ministers to draw up a definition of “extremism” so broad that the archbishop of Canterbury says it would classify him as a criminal. I have spent a year talking to my constituents about fighting extremism, interviewing counter-terror police and intelligence experts, and visiting the frontline in Iraq and Palestine. I’m now convinced we need a new model of radicalisation that reflects the fact that it is grievance, not God, that inspires many to turn to violence. Anger can be a good thing. It is, after all, the source of social progress. Little was achieved by the contented in life. Lots of us get angry. But we tend to arrive at some great moral junction. One path leads to peaceful campaign for change. The other path leads to violence. Isis targets the violent people. That is why as many as two-thirds of its recruits in some countries have a criminal past. The goal of good policy must be to manoeuvre those who thirst for justice down the path to peaceful change and away from violence. We will need a battery of school reforms for a population that is hugely more diverse. We should boost integration by creating universal community service; spread “character” education and change the way we teach history to remind everyone that 400,000 Muslim soldiers once fought to keep our country safe. Crucially, we need to transform child and adolescent mental health. Figures I have seen suggest 50% of children referred to the deradicalisation programme, Channel, have some sort of mental health issue. And yes, we do need to reset Prevent, to sharpen the focus on safeguarding. Decent integration policy is a prerequisite. We need new ways of celebrating our country together. Unity is strength. We need a more inclusive Englishness, so let’s start with a bank holiday for St George’s Day for a celebration to which everyone is invited. We should be prepared to party in pursuit of progress. And why not cap it all with a magnificent new British bill of rights with a statement that not only enshrines the European convention on human rights, but comes complete with a bold statement of British ideals, including free speech and compassion, to enshrine the “best of British” which we hold in common. The war against Isis is a generational struggle. Its roots, after all, stretch back deep, over a century. But we cannot kill our way to victory – any more than we can arrest our way to peace. Peace comes from politics and to win in politics we need to win a battle of ideas. That seems unlikely to come from the next occupant of the White House – so Britain should help lead the way. • Liam Byrne represents the largest Muslim constituency in Britain. His book Black Flag Down: Counter-Extremism, Defeating Isis and Winning the Battle of Ideas, is published by Biteback Books today
Ricky Gervais in Special Correspondents: watch the first trailer for the Netflix film After the celebration of hardhitting investigative journalism that Spotlight represented, and the somewhat rowdier shenanigans of foreign reporting in Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, the trailer for Ricky Gervais’s Netflix-backed feature Special Correspondents has arrived – and demonstrates it has a somewhat different purpose in mind. Written and directed by Gervais, as well as featuring him in one of the two lead roles, Special Correspondents is clearly designed to take journalists down a peg or two. Gervais plays a sound engineer for a local radio station in New York, and Eric Bana a shades-wearing star reporter. Apparently filing their broadcasts from some sort of war in Ecuador, Gervais and Bana are actually holed up in New York. But then, as the trailer reveals, they are reported “missing”, sparking a major international manhunt – forcing them to make the trip to South America for real. Special Correspondents marks the latest move from the streaming-service giant into the feature film arena, following recent premieres of the Adam Sandler comedy western The Ridiculous 6, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon sequel Sword of Destiny and the latest Pee-Wee film, Pee-Wee’s Big Holiday. Future Netflix product includes the Brad Pitt starrer War Machine and Mascots, the latest improv comedy from Christopher Guest. Special Correspondents will premiere on Netflix on 29 April.
Fact checking Trump's Republican convention speech: what was true? Donald Trump promised “the plain facts that have been edited out of your nightly news and your morning newspaper” in his speech to the Republican convention on Thursday night. In many cases he was right, and the GOP candidate delivered few downright lies, although he also traded in what he once referred to as “truthful hyperbole”. Unsurprisingly, he systematically excluded statistics often quoted by the White House that paint a sunnier picture of American recovery since the 2008 financial crisis. Trump’s speech as emailed to the press came with 282 footnotes that leaned heavily on conservative aggregators, opinion columns and cherry-picked statistics. The Washington Post was cited 17 times in Trump’s speech, compared with a mere eight attributions for Fox News, eight for the Wall Street Journal and five for Breitbart News. Politico was cited five times, as were the Daily Beast and the Des Moines Register. Among the claims Trump made were these: “Decades of progress made in bringing down crime are now being reversed by this administration’s rollback of criminal enforcement. Homicides last year increased by 17% in America’s 50 largest cities. That’s the largest increase in 25 years.” Short term yes but long term no. There has been a recent spike in murders in 36 of the 50 biggest cities in America (in 2015 the homicide rate increased 54.3% in Washington and 58.5% in Baltimore). But in the first three months of 2016, the picture was more mixed, according to the Major Cities Chiefs Association: New York, for example, recorded a 25% fall in homicides. The Brennan Center responds: “Over the past 25 years, crime in major cities has fallen 66%. In the country as a whole, violent crime is half of what it was in 1991, and has gone down 26% in the last decade. Property crime is down 43% in the past 25 years. No single year change has reversed that trend. Instead, the murder rate for 2015 remains close to 2012 levels – just barely above recent, historic lows.” “In the president’s hometown of Chicago, more than 2,000 have been the victims of shootings this year alone. And almost 4,000 have been killed in the Chicago area since he took office.” There have been 2,242 shootings in Chicago so far in 2016, according to the city’s police department. The death toll claim is also accurate. “The number of police officers killed in the line of duty has risen by almost 50% compared to this point last year.” An emotive claim in the wake of the recent shooings in Dallas and Baton Rouge but not a true one. The Officer Down Memorial Page, which monitors police fatalities, says that 68 police officers have been killed so far this year. This is actually one fewer than the 69 who were killed in the same period last year. “Nearly 180,000 illegal immigrants with criminal records, ordered deported from our country, are tonight roaming free to threaten peaceful citizens.” Trump is basing this on an official report from the Department of Homeland Security. But what crimes the 180,000 committed is not documented. Only a minority are likely to have been charged with violent offences but that did not suit his argument. “The number of new illegal immigrant families who have crossed the border so far this year already exceeds the entire total from 2015.” Correct, according to Customs and Border Protection. It said 51,152 families have been apprehended at the Mexican border in the first nine months of the fiscal year, compared with 39,838 in the last fiscal year. But it is also worth noting that the totals in 2012, 2013 and 2014 were significantly higher. “Two million more Latinos are in poverty today than when President Obama took his oath of office less than eight years ago.” Trump is using sleight of hand by citing figures from 2008, when Obama was elected, rather than 2009, when he actually took office. From March 2009 to March 2014, the number of Latinos in poverty increased 750,000, according to the Census Bureau. But this has to be seen in the context of a fast-rising population. The percentage in poverty has actually declined from 25.3% to 23.6%. “Fifty-eight percent of African American youth are not employed.” Not so. The unemployment rate among black people aged 16 to 19 was 31.2% in June this year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. “Household incomes are down more than $4,000 since the year 2000.” Taking inflation into account, median household income in 2000 was $57,724, while in 2014 it was $53,657. That is a drop of $4,067, which chimes with what Trump said, but based on census data from 2014. The White House would be quick to point out that income has jumped since then. A Sentier Research report found median annual household income in June was $57,206 – almost back to parity with 2000. “Our roads and bridges are falling apart, our airports are in third world condition, and 43 million Americans are on food stamps.” America’s roads and bridges remain among the best in the world but there are undoubtedly signs of decay. Airports in New York and other major cities have long been bugbears compared with those in the Gulf or Asia. The number of people using the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program is accurate, according to government figures, but well down from the peak in 2013. “America has lost nearly one-third of its manufacturing jobs since 1997, following the enactment of disastrous trade deals supported by Bill and Hillary Clinton.” The numbers are accurate but politicians and pundits will debate whether the North American Free Trade Agreement, which had the backing of Democrats and Republicans, can be held responsible. Supporters of Bernie Sanders may feel that way but Barack Obama has argued that technology plays a crucial part. “Our trade deficit in goods reached nearly – think of this, think of this – our trade deficit is $800bn last year alone.” The 2015 deficit in goods was $763bn last year, based on Census Bureau data. So nearly true, if some rounding up is allowed. The total trade deficit last year was only $500bn because of a trade surplus in services. “My opponent wants sanctuary cities.” Clinton has criticised sanctuary cities – those that have opted not to detain immigrants arrested locally for federal immigration violations – in some cases but generally said they can promote public safety. “The irresponsible rhetoric of our president, who has used the pulpit of the presidency to divide us by race and color, has made America a more dangerous environment for everyone than frankly I have ever seen and anybody in this room has ever watched or seen.” Trump, 70, ad-libbed here and made the claim that America is more dangerous now than in the lifetime of anyone in the room. This overlooks the turbulence of the Pearl Harbor attack and the second world war, the riots of the 1960s, the violent crime of the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s, and the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001. “My opponent, in Syria – think of this, think of this, this is not believable but this is what’s happening. A 550 percentage increase in Syrian refugees on top of the existing massive refugee flows coming into our country already under the leadership of President Obama. She proposes this despite the fact that there’s no way to screen these refugees in order to find out who they are or where they come from.” Clinton has said she wants to “move from what is a good start with 10,000 to 65,000”, so the 550% claim bears scrutiny. But she has emphasised that there would be careful screening. Politifact says: “What Trump gets wrong, however, is that we have ‘no way’ to screen refugees. The screening might not be foolproof, but it does exist. We rated this claim Half True.” “While Hillary Clinton plans a massive, and I mean massive, tax increase, I have proposed the largest tax reduction of any candidate who has run for president this year, Democrat or Republican.” Who will be affected by Clinton’s tax plan, and whether the increase will be “massive”, is open to dispute. Trump is right to say he would go in the other direction. An analysis by the Tax Policy Center found his plan would decrease government revenue more than any other candidate running in 2016. “America is one of the highest-taxed nations in the world. Reducing taxes will cause new companies and new jobs to come roaring back into our country. Believe me, it’ll happen and it’ll happen fast.” The claim seems counterintuitive for a bastion of the free market, ever suspicious of big state socialism and it is wrong. America is not among the top 30 highest-taxed countries in the world, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Most recent data ranks the US 31st of 34 industrialised nations for tax revenue as a percentage of GDP, well behind Denmark, the UK, Germany and Luxembourg. The US ranks 17th for corporate tax revenue, and 19th for tax revenue per capita. “This was just prior to the signing of the Iran deal, which gave back to Iran $150bn and gave us nothing – it will go down in history as one of the worst deals ever negotiated.” The deal does not directly give Iran money, but by easing or ending sanctions, it would allow Iran to have access to many billions of dollars of its own money frozen in overseas accounts. The treasury department says the value is in the range of $100bn to $125bn. “My opponent wants to essentially abolish the second amendment.” False. In both her 2008 and 2016 campaigns for the presidency, Clinton called for tighter gun controls while saying she “believes in the second amendment”.
Precious Cargo – nonsensical thriller A crass B-movie that seems to have been entirely constructed from car chases and misogyny, this thuddingly dull-witted thriller makes it to our cinemas on the power of Bruce Willis’s name and little else. Employing a retina-searing colour palette to distract from the fact that the heists make no sense, this production clearly ploughed all its budget into a few slick action sequences and the cameo from Willis. It’s a pity the film-makers didn’t invest in the screenplay. The characters seem to have been assembled by some kind of random quirk generator: Jack (Mark-Paul Gosselaar) likes to hit golf balls into the sea, which makes him a) a maverick and b) needlessly wasteful with sporting equipment. His sidekicks include a drunk, a badass female sharp-shooter and a browbeaten ex-con who would rather die in a hail of bullets than spend another minute with his wife.
Suge Knight sues Dr Dre for $300m – and claims Dre allegedly tried to have him killed The continuing saga of Suge Knight’s murder trial has taken another turn, with the former rap impresario issuing a lawsuit demanding around $300m (£245m) from Dr Dre and alleging that his former protege has tried to have him killed to avoid paying money owed. The suit – waved away by Dre’s attorney Howard King – is a response to a wrongful death lawsuit filed against Knight, Dre, Ice Cube and Universal Music. That case was brought by Lilian Carter, the widow of Terry Carter, who was run over and killed by Knight’s truck during filming of the NWA biopic Straight Outta Compton. Knight also faces a murder charge for Terry Carter’s death. “Marion ‘Suge’ Knight’s murder trial has been shrouded in much mystery. This cross complaint reveals why,” wrote Knight’s attorney, Thaddeus L Culpepper, in the new complaint. Knight claims Dre was responsible for the incident in which Carter was killed, claiming he was trying to escape men who were trying to kill him. He also claims Dre was behind a gun attack in a Hollywood club in August 2014, in which Knight was shot multiple times. The reason for Dre’s alleged animus, Knight claims, is that when Knight and Dre ended their business relationship in 1996, Dre agreed to a lifetime management agreement, entitling Knight to 30% of Dre’s earnings for the rest of his career. The fresh suit is claiming that percentage of Dre’s income from the $3bn sale of headphone company Beats to Apple, and his profits from Straight Outta Compton. The suit claims that Cle Sloan – one of two people Knight alleges tried to attack him on the night Carter was killed – was hired to “handle the Suge Knight problem” on Straight Outta Compton, and he in turn brought in 100 gang members as security. According to Rolling Stone, Howard King, acting for Dre, said in a statement: “Given that Dre has had zero interaction with Suge since leaving Death Row Records in 1996, we hope that Suge’s lawyer has lots of malicious-prosecution insurance.” Universal Music as reportedly not yet responded to the latest legal action.
Swiss Army Man review: dead Daniel Radcliffe farts Paul Dano to safety In Swiss Army Man, a Sundance debut from first time feature directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, Paul Dano’s Hank, trapped on a deserted island and ready to do himself in, spots a corpse (Daniel Radcliffe) rolling in the surf and figures the young man with decaying blue skin probably felt the same way. First he yanks Radcliffe’s belt (better for strangling himself) but he notices the body is explosive with intestinal gas. Like the monkeys with the bone in 2001: A Space Odyssey, Dano rides Radcliffe like a jet ski, his fricative flatulence propelling him to civilisation. Believe it or not, the movie’s only about to get weirder. Finding themselves lost in a wooded area, Radcliffe is squeezed for the fresh water his open jaw collected in the rain. Is any of this actually possible? Before you can think on this too much, Radcliffe is soon revived (a revenant!) and, while no less helpful, also something of an inquisitive boy. Calling himself Manny, the stonefaced Radcliffe learns about life, love and Netflix from the world-weary Hank, but when it comes time to learn about sex, Manny’s phallic responses are more than just a gag: his tumescence proves to be the directional radar the pair need to find their way home. Manny sees the photos on Hank’s phone and is drawn to them. Is this a woman Hank deserted? An ex-girlfriend for whom he still pines? In time we’ll discover Hank is actually another of cinema’s lonely boys that border on creepy, powered by their urgent, unrequited affection. Along the way, though, the directors (credited at the start of the film as Daniels) keep things creative with a sort of Michel Gondry-like spirit, shattering reality with crafty set-pieces drawn from the characters’ imagination. Soon the pair are drinking and dancing, “going to the movies” and maybe falling in love? I could never prep you enough for the degree to which farting plays a pivotal role in Swiss Army Man. In addition to its plot contrivance (it’s the gas that keeps these lost men on their voyage) the taboo of passing wind (as well as masturbation) becomes the central metaphor for the need to be true to oneself. It’s coarse and it’s stupid, but it is, thanks mostly the two good performances and some stylish use of music and editing, a little bit moving. Profound gas, indeed.
Talking Heads – 10 of the best 1. Love -> Building on Fire In the beginning, there was just a freaky outsider called David Byrne. Born in Dumbarton in Scotland and raised near Baltimore, Byrne was a wiry misfit with an interest in rock’n’roll and experimental performance art that extended to once shaving off his beard (bloodily) using beer for foam while a friend played Pennies from Heaven on the accordion. He met future Talking Heads husband-wife rhythm section Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth in 1973 while hanging out on the peripheries of the art and music scene at Rhode Island School of Design. They began jamming together, originally as the Artistics (later the Autistics, a sporting appropriation of a campus joke). Drilled into a tight live band after moving to New York, with rehearsals in Weymouth and Frantz’s Lower Manhattan loft apartment and frequent gigging at nearby CBGB, they signed to Sire Records in November 1976, then grew to a quartet after wooing Harvard architecture graduate and former Modern Lovers member Jerry Harrison to join on keyboards and guitar. Love -> Building on Fire (the squiggle in the middle means (“goes to”) became Talking Heads’ first officially released piece of music in February 1977. Recorded before Harrison joined, it’s an illuminating insight into how the band – then still very inexperienced in the studio, and thus inclined to accept some of producer Tony Bongiovi’s more traditionalist rock band impulses (the Stax horns work well, but as time would prove, were distinctly un-Talking Heads) – might have been remembered as little more than a new wave obscurity had they not gone on to rail so firmly against songwriting and recording doctrines of the age. There’s a hint of the wacky novelty about the refrain, presaged by the canned birdy noises in the intro: “I’ve got two loves / And they go tweet tweet tweet tweet tweet tweet tweet tweet tweet / like little birds” But elsewhere more familiar and lasting Talking Heads tropes take root between harpsichord-like phased guitars and foot-stomping drums. Byrne elliptically comparing love to his face, which is a building, which is on fire, prefigures a natural discomfort towards dealing with affairs of the heart as a lyrical subject in anything other than the abstract. A live version documented on the 1982 compilation album The Name of This Band is Talking Heads shows why Love -> Building on Fire quickly became one of Harrison’s favourite songs to play after he joined the band, with its intricate Televisionesque guitar weaves. 2. Psycho Killer In those early, pre-New York days, the group attracted attention with this twisted, jerky, initially acoustic number (“Alice Cooper doing a Randy Newman-type ballad” as Byrne described it), which quickly became one of their signature playthings. Psycho Killer was eventually toughened up and committed to tape for Talking Heads’ 1977 debut album 77, with Bongiovi’s efforts to slather the song with psychedelic strings wisely resisted. Starting with one of the most instantly identifiable bass riffs in all of rock, supplemented by suitably stabbing guitars and topped with a brilliant half-gibberish gibberish chorus lyric, Psycho Killer scarcely wastes a note. Its spasmic middle eight, sung in French and intended to illustrate the narrator’s split personality, were Weymouth’s contribution. 3. Found a Job “Damn that television, what a bad picture!” Years before the video for Once in a Lifetime made them early MTV stars, Talking Heads wrote this strange and fascinating number about a couple who freshen up their dull lives and save their flagging relationship by making their own ratings-winning TV show. One of the standouts of the Heads’ second album 1978’s More Songs About Buildings and Food – their first to be produced by Brian Eno, whom they had met and hit it off with on tour in the UK the year before – Found a Job captures a band on the brink of multifaceted greatness. Under Eno’s tutelage, punk upstarts became funky sophisticates capable of flavouring meta-aware lyrical narratives with danceable beats and esoteric influences. Taking its cues from minimalist composers such as Philip Glass and Terry Riley, then hip touchstones on the New York art scene, the instrumental outro of Found a Job is ingenious in its esoteric simplicity: a skipping cyclical pizzicato melody repeated for two full minutes without variation, to hypnotic effect, over scratchy chords and an awkward chord progression, eventually fading out as if it would continue ad infinitum even after the needle has left the groove. 4. Cities In their determination not to become just another new wave singles band, by 1979 Talking Heads – egged on by Eno – had begun to entirely rip up the rulebook. Instead of hunkering down in a studio to record the follow-up to More Songs About Buildings and Food, they instead retreated to Weymouth and Frantz’s loft to work up some more tightly wound jams. Running cables out of the window to a van from the Record Plant studio parked outside, over two days that spring the four members laid down all the basic backing tracks for what would become Fear of Music, with Eno weighing in heavily with conceptual codification and electronic treatments. On the surface of it, Cities is a fairly straightforward song about searching for somewhere to live, weighing up various places’ good points and bad points (of Birmingham – England or Alabama, it’s not clear which – Byrne oddly comments: “Look over there, dry ice factory / good place to get some thinking done”) and, it would seem, slowly losing one’s mind in the process (“I’m a little freaked out”). Always one for treating lyrics as servant to a song’s melody and structure, Byrne clearly enjoys himself inserting some goofily witty wordplay (“Did I forget to mention, forget to mention Memphis, home of Elvis and the ancient Greeks?”). Some of Cities’ most atmospheric tics are in the production – the way the track fades in and fades out for instance, as if we’re privy to just a small part of our flaky narrator’s trip. Frantz’s quicksilver drumbeat and Weymouth’s slinky-melodic bassline are pure cocaine disco, but with a starched stiffness befitting the song’s fussy subject matter. 5. Once in a Lifetime To fully appreciate the radical and revolutionary transformation to their music making process which Talking Heads – guided by Eno – instituted with Remain in Light, it’s worth referring to Right Start, an early sketch of what would become Once in a Lifetime. A potent but scrappy instrumental, it bares only passing resemblance to probably Talking Heads’ most iconic song. Like all of the backing tracks hastily recorded at Compass Point Studios, Nassau, in a seemingly random discontinuous process in the summer of 1980, these base elements were laid down effectively blind by the band to Eno’s direction. Eno and Byrne subsequently rearranged the constituent parts into glorious new shapes through a process of fading in and out contrasting but complimentary rhythmic and melodic phrases over one another in different combinations, in what was effectively a crude exercise in sampling and looping. Between Weymouth’s spacious yet forceful bassline, Eno’s gurgling synth drones and Harrison’s climactic organ flourish, all pieced together puzzle-like in unusual and disorientating rhythmic intervals, Once in a Lifetime is a thing of dizzying power, beauty and mystery. Over it all lies Byrne’s head-scratching half-spoken half-sung vocal about living in a beautiful house with a beautiful wife, days going by and water flowing underground, written ad-hoc to Eno’s placeholder mumblings and inspired by the call-and-response style rantings of American radio evangelists. You can read Once in a Lifetime as an art-pop rumination on the existential ticking time bomb of unchecked consumerism and advancing age. Or simply as a fierce groove with a clutch of nonsense lyrics dashed on the top. Either way, it sounds like nothing else in the history of pop. 6. Crosseyed and Painless Another soaring triumph of Remain in Light’s composite cosmopolitan groove-based formula, Crosseyed and Painless might be Talking Heads’ most deliriously danceable song, not to mention the blueprint for a clutch of future New York bands from the Rapture to LCD Soundsystem. Weymouth’s popping bassline, Byrne’s stuttering, disjointed riffs, added “stunt guitar” solos from Adrian Belew and assorted staccato guitar rhythms and keyboard chirps all circle one another over a congas-and-cowbells beat. Like Once in a Lifetime, the song features not a single chord change in all of its four and a bit minutes, but instead simply shifts vocal melody to denote a chorus. Byrne sings a fidgety, paranoid lyric about being driven to the verge of a nervous breakdown in a search of some inscrutable inner truth (“Lost my shape / Trying to act casual / Can’t stop / I might end up in the hospital”). The half-rapped “facts” middle section was a downtown homage to the nascent rap music emanating from the Bronx, specifically Kurtis Blow’s The Breaks (beating Blondie’s Rapture, that other much more famed punk-band appropriation of rap to release by several months). 7. Life During Wartime (live) How do you pick 10 of the best Talking Heads songs without it substantially resembling the setlist to Stop Making Sense – the greatest concert movie ever made, capturing the New York post-punk band at their peak in the winter of 1983? You can’t. By the time the film was made, long-simmering inter-band tensions had already begun to boil over towards an ultimately litigious endgame. Stop Making Sense, shot by Jonathan Demme across three nights at Hollywood’s Pantages Theater on what would prove to be Talking Heads’ final major tour is the definitive document of one of America’s greatest bands. Some of the tracks featured in what are arguably their definitive versions, a practically aerobic performance of apocalyptic dance band jam Life During Wartime for one. Originally featured on the 1979 album Fear of Music in more sterile form, its driving disco beat, chewy keyboard riff and sharp angles were perfect fodder for the expanded live Heads line-up, which added a crack squad of American funk musicians in Parliament-Funkadelic founding member and synthesiser guru Bernie Worrell, percussionist Steve Scales, guitarist Alex Weir and backing vocalists Lynn Mabry and Ednah Holt. Byrne’s twitchy lyric, inspired by Patty Hearst and the Baader-Meinhof gang, imagines a kind of hipster revolutionary surveying a postapocalyptic landscape, with lines like “this ain’t the Mudd Club / or CBGB / I ain’t got time for that now” wiring it into the downtown New York alternative scene in which the band had been forged. 8. This Must Be The Place (Naïve Melody) (live) “I have written a love song, in this film I sing it to a lamp,” Byrne said of the closest thing you’ll find to a Talking Heads ballad, as he interviewed himself in a video promo for Stop Making Sense. Meeting his new girlfriend and future wife Adelle Lutz in 1982 presumably encouraged him to give writing love songs a go, with the knock-you-sideways pretty and since widely covered and sampled This Must Be The Place – albeit in his own off-kilter kind of way, by piecing together a bunch of affectionate sounding non sequiturs each romantic in their own ambiguous fashion (“The less we say about it the better / We’ll make it up as we go along”, “love me ’til my heart stops / Love me ’til I’m dead”) but wholly unrelated as a narrative. The music, aptly characterised by the band themselves in the parenthetical subtitle Naïve Melody, is almost laughably spare and simple: a guitar and a bass synth repeating a single four-bar figure in steady unison, an unshowy 4/4 drumbeat, a playfully pitch modulation wheel fiddling lead keyboard melody. Little else. Magical as the studio original may be, it’s trumped by the Stop Making Sense version, thanks to added luscious harmonies by Mabry and Holt and Weir’s slippery guitar ornamentation. Paying homage to Fred Astaire, Byrne does sing and indeed dance This Must Be The Place to a tacky-looking chain-store floor lamp, which apparently had to be frequently replaced on the tour after falling victim to some of Byrne’s more adventurous moves. 9. And She Was Mastery of the four-minute verse-chorus pop song was always well within Talking Heads’ powers, and they proved it with 1985’s Little Creatures, their most successful album, which sold more than 2m copies in the US alone. Or more specifically Byrne did – he’s listed as the sole author of Little Creatures’ nine songs, with the band credited only with arrangements. The album closes with one of Talking Heads most successful singles, the drive-time radio ubiquitous Road to Nowhere. It opens with this deceptively clean-cut major-key jangler which, in the grand tradition of smuggling references to illegal drugs into chart hits, tells the story of “a blissed-out hippie-chick in Baltimore” whoused to drop acid in a field by the Yoo-hoo chocolate soda factory and fly high out of her mind above the city. There’s something sweetly innocent and transcendent about her trip, “a pleasant elevation” that becomes an out-of-body experience a she watches herself below “like a movie”. Just because Talking Heads made writing songs like this sound easy doesn’t mean it was. 10. (Nothing But) Flowers “And as things fell apart, nobody paid much attention.” When this line was quoted at the start of the film of American Psycho in 1991, Talking Heads practically came full circle. The lyric could have applied to the ultimate fate of the band itself: by the release of Naked, their final album, in 1988, relationships between Byrne and the other three had long since wilted, with major touring firmly a thing of the past, though it would take until 1991 before Talking Heads’ split was officially announced. But they did at least leave a last few fragrant moments to savour, (Nothing But) Flowers – a standout from the largely underwhelming Naked – for one. Something of a collectors’ item for featuring Johnny Marr on trademark chiming guitar and Kirsty MacColl on backing vocals, it’s a shimmering, upbeat Afropop dance song bearing one of Byrne’s most laugh-out-loud, funny-acerbic lyrics. As if a direct inversion of Joni Mitchell’s Big Yellow Taxi, Byrne sings from the standpoint of a man embittered by society’s regression from first world technological luxuries, commercialism, consumerism and globalisation into a landscape reclaimed by greenery, as he pines for the Pizza Huts, 7-Elevens and electric labour-savers of the past (“If this is paradise / I wish I had a lawnmower”). Imagined in the context of 1988, it reads like he could be throwing sarcastic shade on some of the more sanctimonious save-the-world rock stars of the era.
Premier League will resist attempts to play Champions League at weekends Richard Scudamore has insisted the Premier League will “pull out all the stops” to resist any attempt to play Champions League matches at weekends or introduce guaranteed places for bigger clubs. Both ideas have been floated by senior Uefa insiders as European football’s governing body considers how to revamp the competition from 2018-19 onwards and head off renewed talk of a breakaway competition among bigger clubs. In light of the increase in viewers and profile sparked by moving the final to Saturday one idea being mooted is to move some Champions League matches to weekends during the later rounds. Another suggestion from some sides, also being discussed by the European Club Association, is that qualification would be based on a side’s record over three seasons – making it less likely that the usual contestants would miss out. But Scudamore said the Premier League would strongly resist any such suggestion. The organisation’s executive chairman said that, if other European leagues wish to consider awarding their Champions League places in a different way, they can but that the English top flight would remain “an open competition”. “If you land in the first four places, you are in the Champions League and it is as simple as that. The idea you might average the qualification over a number of years just seems completely ridiculous.” Given the Premier League’s new £8.3bn TV deal, much of the pressure for changes to European competition has come from clubs in Spain and Italy and Scudamore said he was perhaps minded to let national associations decide for themselves in conjunction with Uefa. “We are quite happy with our qualification system in England for our places.” Scudamore, who was effusive about the effect of Leicester’s title win on the competition, also said the idea of moving European matches to the weekend was a nonstarter. “Look, in 1888 people used to tip out of factories at lunchtime on Saturday to play professional football on Saturday afternoons. Fundamentally we are a weekend competition,” he said. “Again it is in nobody’s interests running leagues anywhere in the world that the calendar is altered in that way. These are all things that are being bandied around and they are nowhere near coming to fruition and we would resist and fight and pull out all the stops.” Scudamore also said he had no concerns over Brentford’s decision to scrap their academy, predicting that other Football League clubs would follow suit as the changes brought in under its £340m elite player performance plan overhaul took effect. “I think it’s a brave move by Brentford. At the end of the day it’s a matter for them if they think the late-developer model is the one for them. In some ways it is odd that we’re running 91, 92 academies,” he said. “This is not our intention or our ambition but who is to say 92 is the right number? Who is to say 20 category-one [academies] is the right number.” Scudamore was unapologetic about the fact that the best talent would flow to the biggest clubs with the best academies, but said the changes were designed so that Football League clubs would be compensated over time if players who moved to bigger clubs made it to the first team.
Oscar nominations 2016: as it happened And that’s it for the Oscar nominations liveblog. Check out theguardian.com/film later for our special episode of The Dailies, in which Catherine, Ben and Henry will be screaming “WHERE’S THE LEGO MOVIE?!?!” a lot (that joke, brought to you courtesy of 2015). The 88th academy awards will take place on 28 February. Join us for a night of glitz, glamour and gastroenteritis after – befuddled by a night of feverish typing – we use the break afforded by the in memorium section to pounce on a sweaty cheeseboard. See you then! A quick run down of what’s nominated for what here, in the form of very pretty pictures: And now for the real news! Which giant media company gets to slap itself on the back the hardest for gathering the most nominations? And the reddest, rawest backs belong to ... the executives at Fox, which has picked up loads of noms for The Martian, Joy and The Revenant. How delightful! Nothing for Netflix, nor Amazon Studios. Our lofty predictions about 2015 being the year streaming won over the establishment were way off the mark. Vanity Fair’s Katey Rich has a message for all the Hardy haters: While Indiewire’s Anne Thompson agrees ... Hard to argue You can read news on the nominations here: It’s an ever so white year again! Nothing for Idris Elba, who was a hot favourite for best supporting actor or Will Smith or Michael B Jordan who were potential best actor nominees. Plus Straight Outta Compton was denied a best picture nomination. Twitter isn’t happy: The breakdown by film is as follows: The Revenant – 12 Mad Max: Fury Road – 10 The Martian – 7 Carol – 6 Spotlight – 6 Bridge of Spies – 6 The Big Short – 5 Star Wars: The Force Awakens – 5 Room – 4 The Danish Girl – 4 Brooklyn – 3 The Hateful Eight – 3 Sicario – 3 The snubs continue... As well as missing out on a best picture nomination, the highly touted Carol also missed out on a best director nomination for Todd Haynes. Aaron Sorkin’s very, very, very wordy screenplay for Steve Jobs was also overlooked, as was Quentin Tarantino’s even wordier script for The Hateful Eight. Charlotte Rampling was feared to be a snub after failing to be nominated for either a SAG or a Golden Globe, but she scored a best actress nomination for her devastating work in 45 Years, our film of 2015. Here’s our chat with her last year: Here’s our chat with best director nominee Lenny Abrahamson, whose film Room surprised with four nominations: It’s over! It’s good news for The Revenant with 12, Mad Max: Fury Road with 10 and The Martian on 7. Surprising snubs for Carol, which lost out on a best picture slot, and Idris Elba, who didn’t get a nomination for best supporting actor. Surprising inclusions are Tom Hardy for The Revenant and Lenny Abrahamson for best director for Room. The Big Short Bridge of Spies Brooklyn Mad Max: Fury Road The Martian The Revenant Room Spotlight Bryan Cranston – Trumbo Matt Damon – The Martian Leonardo DiCaprio – The Revenant Michael Fassbender – Steve Jobs Eddie Redmayne – The Danish Girl Cate Blanchett – Carol Brie Larson – Room Jennifer Lawrence – Joy Charlotte Rampling – 45 Years Saoirse Ronan – Brooklyn Adam McKay – The Big Short George Miller – Mad Max: Fury Road Alejandro González Iñárritu – The Revenant Lenny Abrahamson – Room Tom McCarthy – Spotlight Embrace of the Serpent Mustang Son of Saul Theeb A War Best original score Bridge of Spies Carol The Hateful Eight Sicario Star Wars: The Force Awakens Best original screenplay Bridge of Spies Ex Machina Inside Out Spotlight Straight Outta Compton Best adapted screenplay The Big Short Brooklyn Carol The Martian Room Best production design Bridge of Spies The Danish Girl Mad Max: Fury Road The Martian The Revenant Best film editing The Big Short Mad Max: Fury Road The Revenant Star Wars: The Force Awakens Spotlight Best visual effects Ex Machina Mad Max: Fury Road The Martian The Revenant Star Wars: The Force Awakens Jennifer Jason Leigh – The Hateful Eight Rooney Mara – Carol Rachel McAdams – Spotlight Alicia Vikander – The Danish Girl Kate Winslet – Steve Jobs Christian Bale – The Big Short Tom Hardy – The Revenant Mark Ruffalo – Spotlight Mark Rylance – Bridge of Spies Sylvester Stallone – Creed Technical noms have shown that there’s a lot of love for Mad Max: Fury Road. Can this continue into the major nods? We’ll see now Early surprises: two animated feature films that have flown under the radar. Boy and the Wild and When Marnie Was There haven’t been talked about much, but are next to bigger films such as Inside Out and Anomalisa. Bad news for The Good Dinosaur. Anomalisa Inside Out Shaun the Sheep Boy and the Wild When Marnie Was There Best animated short film Bear Story Prologue Sanjay’s Superteam We Can’t Live Without Cosmos World of Tomorrow Best live action short film Ava Maria Day One Everything Will Be Okay Shok Stutterer Best makeup and hairstyling Mad Max: Fury Road The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Diasappeared The Revenant Best documentary – short subject Body Team 12 Chau Beyond the Lines Claude Lanzmann A Girl in the River Last Day of Freedom Best sound mixing Bridge of Spies Mad Max: Fury Road The Martian The Revenant Star Wars: The Force Awakens Best sound editing Mad Max : Fury Road The Martian The Revenant Sicario Star Wars: The Force Awakens Best costume design Carol Cinderella The Danish Girl Mad Max: Fury Road The Revenant Amy Cartel Land The Look of Silence What Happened, Miss Simone? Winter on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom Best original song Earned It – 50 Shades of Grey Til it Happens to You – The Hunting Ground Writings on the Wall – Spectre Manta Ray – Racing Extinction Simple Song 3 – Youth Best cinematography Carol Hateful Eight Mad Max: Fury Road The Revenant Sicario You can also watch a live stream of the nominations right here: After last year’s nominees were announced, #OscarsSoWhite immediately trended, and kicked off a conversation about why the academy seemed so reticent to reward actors of colour. (It was the year when David Oyelowo was snubbed for Selma.) Will this year be any different? Idris Elba is the most likely actor to stop the hashtag with his performance in Beasts of No Nation predicted to pick up a best supporting actor nomination. It’s also possible that Straight Outta Compton could score a best picture nod, and Will Smith has an outside chance of sneaking in with a best actor nom for Concussion. Here’s a quick reminder of how great Elba is in Beasts (a film that deserves more than one nomination today) Early last year, we made some ambitious predictions for who might end up on 2016’s list of nominees. While some were rather off the mark (Meryl Streep and Jake Gyllenhaal), we are standing by the others (Leonardo DiCaprio, Cate Blanchett) This year’s nominees are to be announced by the unlikely gang of John Krasinski, Guillermo del Toro, Ang Lee and academy president Cheryl Boone Isaacs. Our top prediction for mispronounced name is poor old Saoirse Ronan, likely to be nominated for best actress. During the Golden Globe nominations, Dennis Quaid called her Shisha. This week on The Late Show, she talked about the constant mispronunciation of her name. The worst/best is Saucy, apparently: Last week, a handful of our writers dreamed of their ideal nominations. Imagine a world where Tilda Swinton got recognised for Trainwreck. JUST IMAGINE: The nominations tend to feature a few surprises in among all the predictability. Last year, Bradley Cooper sneaking in for American Sniper and Marion Cotillard getting a nod for Two Days, One Night were deviations from the formula. This year, could Creed shock with nominations for best picture and best actor for Michael B Jordan? Could Charlize Theron nab a best actress nomination for Mad Max: Fury Road? Or maybe love for The Revenant could lead to a best supporting actor nom for Tom Hardy? Someone spent time on this tweet Ever the wallflower, Quentin Tarantino has expressed a desire for at least four nominations for his latest, The Hateful Eight. “I’m hoping I get nominated for best screenplay,” he said this week. “I’m hoping Jennifer Jason Leigh gets nominated for best supporting actress. I’m hoping Sam [Samuel L Jackson] gets nominated for best actor, and I’m hoping Ennio Morricone gets nominated for best composer.” The film has had a mixed reception, and it remains to be seen if the academy will warm to it. Morricone is the most likely nominee. Incredibly sad news today that Alan Rickman has died. Somehow, the legendary actor was never nominated for an Oscar. More here: How have the possible best picture contenders done at the box office so far? If we’re following predictors and Star Wars: the Force Awakens doesn’t get nominated, then Ridley Scott’s Golden Globe-winning film The Martian is out in front with $595m worldwide. Mad Max: Fury Road is up next with $375m, Straight Outta Compton follows behind with $200m and then Bridge of Spies with $154m. After The Revenant opened huge in the US with $39m last weekend, expect it to be up in the same region soon. The host of this year’s ceremony will be Chris Rock. A teaser trailer for the event was released earlier this week, featuring some of the year’s big movies. But is it also a spoiler for potential nominees? If so, expect nods for Joy, Room, Creed, Brooklyn, Trainwreck, Steve Jobs, The Martian, Straight Outta Compton, Jurassic World and Star Wars: The Force Awakens The Hollywood Reporter has used MATHS to figure out which films will be nominated. They’ve used “awards indicators” and previous nominations in their calculations. According to their findings, the frontrunners are Spotlight, Leonardo DiCaprio and Brie Larson. They also predict that Charlotte Rampling will get a best actress nomination despite SAG and Golden Globe snubs, so GO MATH! It’s Oscar nominations day! Stick with us for live updates as the announcement is made and the industry reacts/actors pretend to be surprised
Final aiport expansion vote won't happen for at least another year, says No 10 - Politics live Theresa May will not hold the final vote on airport expansion for more than a year to allow for public debate, with cabinet ministers such as Boris Johnson and Justine Greening allowed to express opposition if Heathrow is the chosen option. As Rowena Mason reports, the prime minister wrote to cabinet colleagues on Tuesday saying the government’s decision on whether to back airport expansion at Heathrow or Gatwick would be taken by a cabinet committee before the end of the month. She said any cabinet minister with longstanding opposition to the chosen option will be permitted to dissent publicly on behalf of their constituents, without campaigning against the government or speaking against it in parliament. At Westminster MPs were expecting the key vote on airport expansion to come this autumn, and the news has prompted speculation about why May appears to have postponed the Commons decision. One theory is that she wants to avoid Zac Goldsmith, the Conservative MP, resigning and triggering a byelection in Richmond Park, as he has threatened to do if Heathrow goes ahead. Today the Evening Standard reports that local Conservatives would back Goldsmith, as would Tania Mathias, the Tory MP for the neighbouring constituency, Twickenham. The Treasury has cancelled plans to let people sell their pension annuities. A member of the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse panel has said she went to the Home Office with concerns about the then chair, Dame Lowell Goddard, in April, months before the Home Office said it was aware of the reservations surrounding her. Parliament is “very likely” to be asked to ratify any future treaty agreement with the European Union, the high court has been told by lawyers for the government. As Owen Bowcott reports, the suggestion that MPs might ultimately be able to exert some control over the final Brexit settlement prompted the pound to surge immediately against the dollar in exchange markets. Details of parliament’s potential role emerged during the third day of a legal challenge over whether ministers or MPs have the power to give formal notification to Brussels that Britain is withdrawing under article 50 of the treaty on the European Union. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has said that 11.5m families set to lose an extra £100 a year from the government’s benefits freeze because of post-Brexit inflation. (See 1.19pm.) The Treasury blocked other government departments from charging diesel cars to enter towns and cities blighted by air pollution, documents revealed during a high court hearing on Tuesday. One of the MPs behind a damning report on Sir Philip Green’s handling of BHS has dismissed criticism of their work by the peer’s lawyers as an attempt to “wiggle off the hook for his responsibilities”. The former foreign secretary William Hague has warned the Bank of England that public anger about the impact on savers of low interest rates is rising and could lead to a revolt that threatens its independence. Jeremy Corbyn has announced more appointments to his frontbench team nearly two weeks after starting the reshuffle. As the Press Association reports, Andy Slaughter and Steve Reed, who were among the 63 shadow ministers who walked out in June, have agreed to serve the Labour leader. Slaughter becomes shadow minister for housing and London while Reed becomes shadow civil society minister. Serving under chief whip Nick Brown to enforce party discipline are Thangam Debbonaire, Nick Smith, Chris Elmore, Karl Turner, Alan Campbell, Mark Tami, Jessica Morden, Judith Cummins, Vicky Foxcroft, Jeff Smith and Nic Dakin. Shadow international trade secretary Barry Gardiner is given additional responsibility for international climate change and Bill Esterson, shadow minister for business, energy and industrial strategy, also takes on the international trade brief. That’s all from me for today. Thanks for the comments. The government has made a second big announcement this afternoon. A key element of the coalition’s pension reforms has been abandoned, the Press Association reports. Plans to allow people to be able to sell on their retirement annuities on have been scrapped by the government because consumers could not be guaranteed that they would get good value for money. Due to be launched in April 2017, the planned changes would have freed up people to sell their annuity income if they want to, without tax restrictions that currently apply, as long as their annuity provider agreed. But the Treasury said that after speaking to the industry, regulators and consumer groups, it had decided not to take forward the plans - saying it was not willing to allow a market to develop which could produce poor outcomes for consumers, such as receiving poor value for their annuity income and suffering higher costs. Here is some more Twitter comment on the airports expansion letter released by Number 10. From the Telegraph’s James Kirkup From the Independent’s John Rentoul From Sky’s Faisal Islam Here is Sky’s Faisal Islam on the Number 10 letter about airport expansion. Turning away from the child abuse inquiry hearing, my colleague Rowena Mason has just come back from the Number 10 lobby briefing. Amazingly, it turns out that the final Heathrow vote will not take place for at least another year. Winnick says that he thinks the committee has been treated in a “shabby way” and that it has been “misled”. Q: It has been reported that Liz Sanderson, a special adviser to Theresa May when she was home secretary, knew about concerns about Goddard well before she resigned. Sedwill says that the same report says he was told about these concerns. But he was not, he says. The report was wrong. David Winnick, the Labour MP, goes next. Q: Should we be satisfied with what Amber Rudd told us in September about why Goddard resigned? Sedwill says Winnick asked Rudd about this in the Commons on Monday. Rudd said she was giving Goddard’s own reason for going. Given Goddard rejects the allegations, we can only go on her own explanation when wanting to know why she resigned. Q: When were your first made aware of the allegations of racism against Goddard? Sedwill says he heard some of these allegations for the first time when he read them in the Times last week. Q: What about the racism allegations? Sedwill says he had not heard about those, formally or informally, before they were in the papers. The complaints he had heard about Goddard had been expressed in general terms. He stresses that Goddard denies these allegations fiercely. Ranil Jayawardena, a Conservative, goes next. Q: Are you satisfied that Goddard was vetted properly? Yes, says Sedwill. She went through a proper vetting process. The Home Office took references from the New Zealand judiciary. He points out that the home affairs committee also took evidence from her. Q: Did you report to Theresa May on the meeting Drusilla Sharpling had with a Home Office director general in April? Sedwill says he did not, because he was not aware of that. He says the point of that meeting was to provide an early warning that things were off track. But Sharpling said at the time that she wanted no action taken. Q: But why wasn’t that reported upwards? Sedwill says the information was provided in confidence. At that point the panel did not want any action taken. They were trying to resolve the problems. Q: Was that a reasonable judgement? Sedwill says that was a reasonable decision for the Home Office director general to take at the time. The Labour MP Lisa Nandy has been tweeting about what has emerged from the hearing so far. Q: Did you have regular discussions with the home secretary about the child abuse inquiry? Sedwill says he had weekly bilateral meetings with Theresa May, when she was home secretary, as he does with Amber Rudd. They discussed child abuse and other issues. But he does not recall specifically discussing how the inquiry was going. Q: John O’Brien, secretary to the inquiry, said it was separated from the Home Office by a “low brick wall”. What did you mean that? Sedwill says Tim Loughton would have to ask O’Brien. He says as far as he was concerned, the Home Office had an arm’s length relationship with it. Q: How many meetings did you have with Goddard? Sedwill says he met her twice. Q: Are you saying you were never told of any concerns about Goddard? Until 29 July, that is correct, says Sedwill. He says Tim Loughton raised the prospect in an interview at the weekend that the Home Office might have picked up on these concerns unofficially. But that was not the case, he says. It would have been wrong for the Home Office to have used back channels to find out what was happening in the inquiry, he says. He says MPs would have objected if the Home Office had been monitoring the inquiry unofficially. Mark Sedwill, the Home Office permanent secretary, is giving evidence now. Q: Amber Rudd, the home secretary, told us in September that Dame Lowell Goddard resigned because she was lonely. Why did Rudd not mention all the complaints about Goddard that led up to this. Sedwill says that Rudd could only go on what Goddard said in her resignation letter. Q: We have been told this afternoon that concerns were raised about Goddard in April? Sedwill says he was not aware of that meeting. He only became aware of that recently. The meeting was with a Home Office director general who did not pass that information on, in accordance with the terms agreed at the time. Frank and Sharpling say they have no concerns about the current chair. (That’s fortunate. She is sitting in between them.) Chuka Umanna goes next. Q: Can you report if you do not the the confidence of victims’ groups? Jay says there are many victim and survivor groups. They do not agree. She knows that some will not engage with it. She is sorry about that. But she thinks she has the support of many of these groups. Sharpling says panel members are being invited to speak to victims’ groups. They are taking up these invitations. Jay says the new approach she announced yesterday is designed to enable the inquiry to reach conclusions more quickly. Tim Loughton is pressing on. From the TV coverage (which briefly had the sound turned down - Parliament TV does not broadcast protests at hearings like this) the man who interrupted the proceedings seems to have been ejected. A member of the public sitting in the inquiry is interrupting. Labour’s David Winnick goes next. Q: You say you cannot give us any details about Ben Emmerson’s suspension. This is a public inquiry. Public money is being spent on it. Do you accept us to be happy not to know why Emmerson resigned? Jay says in his resignation letter Emmerson said he was not the person to take forward the inquiry into the next stage. Q: Aren’t we entitled to know led up to this? Jay says the suggestion Emmerson left because of a disagreement with her was not true. Jay says she has never in her life been accused of tolerating bullying or offensive behaviour. Q: How many people have left the inquiry since it was set up? Jay says she does not have the number. But she does not think the number is significant, or “above average”. James Berry, a Conservative, goes next. Q: Why was Ben Emmerson suspended as counsel to the inquiry? Jay says she cannot comment on this. It is a confidential, personnel matter. Q: Other counsel working for the inquiry have quit. Did any of them mention Emmerson in their resignation letters? Jay says she cannot comment on that, for the same reason. A member of the public at the back interrupts briefly, saying the public has been waiting for results too. Nusrat Ghani, a Conservative, goes next. Q: When will you finish the inquiry? Jay says she hopes to get most of the work done by 2020. There will be an interim report by 2018. And there will be reports on particular aspects of the inquiry’s work as it is going along. She says she will be able to say more about this when she has finished her review of how the inquiry is operating. Q: Did other members of staff raise concerns about Goddard with members of the panel? Sharpling says that is not a question she can answer. Q: Is there anything else the inquiry needs? Jay says she is glad McDonald asked this. It has been looking for premises in London for a hearing centre. She says it has been difficult, because it needs facilities where victims can speak out. But landlords have been very uncooperative. As soon as they hear it is for the abuse inquiry, they do not want to offer property. Q: Has the government made available all the information it needs from the government? Sharpling says she will not go into that, because that is part of the conduct of the inquiry. The SNP MP Stuart McDonald goes next. Q: Was there anything Goddard said that made her unfit of her role? Jay says this is a reference the claims made in the press. She cannot comment on them. Employees are entitled to privacy, she says. Lisa Nandy, the Labour MP who tabled an urgent question in the Commons yesterday, has written an article for the which we have just launched saying the full circumstances of Dame Lowell Goddard’s departure must be given. Sharpling says it is the chair and the panel who are the controlling minds of this inquiry. Jay says she agrees. Jay says 20% of the inquiry staff are former Home Office officials. Q: Can you understand why people think that this is under the control of the Home Office? Jay says these people are doing these jobs because they are knowledgable about the issues. Frank says it is normal for the secretary of an inquiry to come from its sponsoring department. Umunna says in this case some survivors think the Home Office is to blame for what happened. Labour’s Chuka Umunna goes next. Q: Why did you go to the Home Office in April? Sharpling says she does not indulge in gossip. She went to the Home Office because of concerns about the leadership of the inquiry. Frank says a “facilitator” was brought in to help the panel get on with Goddard. Q: Are you saying you needed a mediator? Frank says it was a facilitator, not a mediator. Child sexual abuse inquiry brought in “facilitator” to help inquiry panel communicate with inquiry chair. Q: Why could you not just discuss things with her direct. You are all adults. Sharpling says the panel often spoke to Goddard without a third party. But an outsider was brought in on one occasion. That is not unusual when groups want to improve communication, she says. Labour’s David Winnick goes next. Q: I’m not interested in gossip. But hasn’t the inquiry been an unhappy ship since it was launched last year. Jay says she does not accept that. My colleague Sandra Laville points out that Sharpling’s revelation about going to the Home Office in April with concerns about Goddard undermines the suggestion from the Home Office (in Amber Rudd’s statement to MPs on Monday) that concerns were only raised in July. David Burrowes, a Conservative, is asking the questions now. Q: What has been achieved under Goddard? Jay says the inquiry has got 200 people to give evidence through its truth project initiative. And she says the literature review conducted by the inquiry was good. And there have been preliminary hearings. Frank says the inquiry has put victims at the heart of what it does. Q: Has that been worth £14.7m over the last year? Frank says reducing the level of child abuse in the UK is not a choice. It is an imperative. Drusilla Sharpling, another panel member who is giving evidence with Jay, says she does not want to indulge in discussions of character. But she says there were concerns about Goddard. She says in April she reported her concerns about the leadership of the inquiry to the Home Office, with approval of the panel. She did not want her concerns shared. The panel wanted to manage the issue, she says. Loughton asks Ivor Frank, a member of the panel who is giving evidence alongside Jay, what he thought of Goddard. Frank says it was easier when Goddard was out of the country. Q: Was she a nightmare to work with? Frank says he would not have used that language. Jay says she thought Goddard would rather have sat as inquiry chair on her own. Jay says she thought Goddard did not want to work with the panel that was supposed to be advising her. Tim Loughton, the Conservative acting committee chair, is asking the questions. Q: Dame Lowell Goddard wrote a letter to the committee after she resigned highlighting problems with the inquiry. Did you agree with it? Prof Alexis Jay says she agrees with some of Goddard’s points. But she does not agree with Goddard’s call for the scope of the inquiry to be reduced. And Goddard did not address the other problems that arose. Jay also says Goddard was not right about the inquiry being underfunded, because it did not spend all is budget last year. Q: Do you agree that Goddard should have addressed the problems she identified as chair? Yes, says Jay. Professor Alexis Jay, chair of the child sexual abuse inquiry, is about to give evidence to the home affairs committee. She will be asked about the measures she announced yesterday to make the inquiry more manageable. But she will also be asked about the circumstances that led to the surprise resignation of her predecessor, Dame Lowell Goddard, in August, and the allegations of misconduct against Goddard, which Goddard strongly denies. Politicians love a good election and tomorrow we’ve got four of them in the House of Commons. Five select committee chairmanships have become vacant and, in line with the Wright reforms introduced in 2010 (named after the then Labour MP Tony Wright, who chaired a committee that recommended them), the posts are filled by MPs voting in a secret ballot. Previously it used to be a whips’ stitch-up. Four of the posts are contested, and nominations have just closed. Two of the committees chairmanships have been allocated to Labour and there is a Jeremy Corbyn effect at work; some particularly experienced candidates are standing who would not normally be standing, because in other circumstances they would be serving on the Labour front bench. The contest that will attract most attention is the one to replace Keith Vaz as chair of the home affairs committee. This goes to a Labour MP, and there are four candidates. Yvette Cooper, Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford Caroline Flint, Don Valley Paul Flynn, Newport West Chuka Umunna, Streatham This will be a fascinating contest. Cooper, a former shadow home secretary, Flint, a former Home Office minister, and Umunna, a former shadow business secretary and a current member of the committee, are all strong, mainstream candidates. Flynn, a career backbencher who briefly held two jobs in Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow cabinet over the summer, is more of a maverick, but he is also passionate about the executive being accountable to parliament. There will also be keen interest in the contest to become chair of the new Brexit committee. Again, it has been allocated to Labour and there are just two candidates. Hilary Benn, Leeds Central Kate Hoey, Vauxhall Benn is strongly pro-EU, and Hoey is strongly anti, and so it is straight remain/leave fight. Given the fact that most MPs backed remain, and that he is highly respected in the Commons anyway, Benn seems a dead-cert. There are five candidates for the post of science and technology committee chair, which goes to a Conservative. They are: Victoria Borwick, Kensington Stephen Metcalfe, South Basildon and East Thurrock Dr Poulter, Central Suffolk and North Ipswich Derek Thomas, St Ives Matt Warman, Boston and Skegness And there are just two candidates for the culture, media and sport committee, which also goes to a Conservative. Damian Collins, Folkestone and Hythe Helen Grant, Maidstone and The Weald MPs vote tomorrow and the results will be announced in the afternoon. The fifth committee is the new international trade one. This has been allocated to the SNP and there is just one candidate for chairman, Angus MacNeil. So he’s got the job. Whitehall bade farewell to one of its finest at St Margaret’s church, alongside Westminster Abbey, this lunchtime at the memorial service for Chris Martin, who was principal private secretary to David Cameron. Martin died of cancer last year at the age of just 42, and the church was packed with friends, many of whom are senior civil servants. Cameron gave a Bible reading, before returning to the pews to sit near former Labour leader Ed Miliband, underlining the best civil servants’ ability to serve politicians of all stripes. Cabinet secretary Jeremy Heywood also spoke; and the address was given by historian of Number Ten, Anthony Seldon, who said Martin’s rapid rise to the very top of the British establishment, via his local comprehensive and Bristol university - not the standard public school and Oxbridge route - should light the way for others. The BBC’s Kamal Ahmed has written a helpful blog on the Heathrow decision. Here’s an extract. Philip Hammond, the chancellor, has been careful not to express a view, but senior Treasury officials have made it clear they believe Heathrow is the better option for boosting economic growth. That is because it is closer to many more population centres in the UK compared to Gatwick, including Bristol and the South West, the Midlands and the north of England. One other Cabinet minister told me: “I would do both Heathrow and Gatwick - that would tell the world Britain is open for business.” That option is not officially on the table, although if the government does back Heathrow, it could make positive noises about Gatwick expansion in the future. Julian Glover, a former Conservative transport adviser (and a former journalist), has used a post on Twitter to point out that although the government might want to expand links with China, visa rules are still a significant obstacle. A post-Brexit promise from the prime minister to Northern Ireland’s two leading politicians has caused a political storm in the region today. Details of Theresa May’s letter to first minister Arlene Foster and deputy first minister Martin McGuinness have been made public. In her message to the Democratic Unionist and Sinn Fein ministers, May made yet another commitment to maintain freedom of travel for Irish and British citizens not only across the border in Ireland but between the two states. She said: The UK government, the Northern Ireland executive and the Irish government have all been clear that we wish to see the continuance of the free movement of people and goods across the island of Ireland and the maintenance of the common travel area across the whole of the UK and Ireland, which has served us well. Although she cited five key areas where her government will address for Northern Ireland - including the border, the agri-food sector and the energy market - the prime minister was vague in her letter about specifics of how London will help Belfast with any negative post-Brexit impact on the economy and society. The fact that the letter only became public this morning on BBC Radio Ulster’s The Nolan Show has angered other politicians at the Stormont parliament in Belfast. Colum Eastwood, the leader of the Social Democratic and Labour party, has asked why the reply to Foster and McGuinness, who wrote to the Prime Minister in August outlining their concerns, was not debate in the Assembly yesterday. The cross community Alliance party also criticised the lack of “concrete” proposals from Downing Street over Foster and McGuinness’ concerns. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has published a short analysis this morning looking at the impact of rising inflation on those claiming benefits. Normally benefits are uprated in line with inflation, but the government has frozen most working-age benefits and tax credits until 2020, which means that higher inflation makes them ever less generous. Here is the key passage from its analysis. Figure 1 shows how the size of the expected cut in generosity resulting from the four-year cash freeze has increased in the light of upwards revisions to forecast inflation. As of March 2016 the freeze represented a 4% cut in the value of those benefits affected relative to previous plans (given OBR inflation forecasts). As a result, 11.5 million families were expected to lose an average of £260 a year, saving the government £3.0 billion in 2019–20. Given the latest inflation forecasts from the IMF, the policy now represents a 6% cut to affected benefits. The same 11.5 million families are now expected to lose an average of £360 a year (£100 a year more than expected in March), saving the government £4.2 billion in 2019–20 (i.e. an additional £1.2 billion over what was expected back in March). Greater losses are found among families – typically those on lower incomes – who receive more in benefits: for example, ignoring the 3.2 million families who only receive child benefit, the average loss from higher inflation rises to £140 per year (from £330 to £470). Some 11.5m families set to lose an extra £100 a year from the government’s benefits freeze because of post-Brexit inflation. And here is the chart quoted in this passage. The IFS also says that freezing benefits has become “something of a habit” for the government but that it is bad policy. From the benefit recipient’s perspective, there is a reason that benefits are uprated in line with prices by default – since one purpose of benefits is to provide a minimum standard of living, their level should reflect the cost of purchasing the goods and services required to provide that minimum standard. While it is perfectly reasonable to argue – as the 2015 Conservative Party manifesto did – that the working age benefit system should be made less generous over this parliament, it is hard to see why the appropriate size of cut should be arbitrarily determined by the impact of movements in sterling on prices. Here is my colleague Jessica Elgot’s story on the airports announcement. Number 10’s decision to announce that it will be suspending collective responsibility over the airport expansion decision is being taken in the lobby as Downing Street all but admitting that the government will decide to go ahead with the third runway. This is from the Evening Standard’s Pippa Crerar. This is from the Daily Mail’s Jason Groves. And this is from Faisal Islam. The government will make the final decision on airport expansion at Heathrow or Gatwick next week, the prime minister’s spokeswoman has confirmed. In the strongest signal the government is preparing to expand the third runway at Heathrow, Theresa May told colleagues at cabinet on Tuesday morning that opponents of whatever decision is made will have a “set period” to speak frankly about their opposition. Both foreign secretary Boris Johnson and education secretary Justine Greening are vocal opponents of Heathrow expansion. Downing Street would not confirm whether that would mean ministers would have a free vote in Parliament to oppose any decision. Crucially, the cabinet committee which will make the decision next week has no London MPs among its members. On the committee are Theresa May, chancellor Philip Hammond, business secretary Greg Clark, transport secretary Chris Grayling, communities secretary Sajid Javid. Scottish secretary David Mundell, environment secretary Andrea Leadsom, chief whip Gavin Williamson and party chair Patrick McLoughlin are also on the commitee. Number 10 has announced that the decision about building a third runway at Heathrow will be taken next week. And ministers will be allowed a free vote, my colleague Jessica Elgot reports. Turning back to William Hague and the Bank of England’s independence (see 9.31am), Ben Chu, the Independent’s economics editor, has been responding to Hague’s article on Twitter. Here is a story from today’s Financial Times (subscription) about the US chambers of commerce report that Ben Bradshaw raised with Boris Johnson. And here is how it starts. (See 11.54am.) US companies with almost $600bn of investments in the UK are reviewing their plans for expansion in the UK amid concerns over its post-Brexit access to the EU’s single market, the largest US business group has warned. The US Chamber of Commerce, in a document due to be presented to the UK’s Cabinet Office this week, warns that a post-Brexit UK would need “unfettered access” to the European market in goods and services to retain and attract US investments. The warning from the world’s largest national business lobby group, which represents companies with investments worth some $590bn in the UK, follows similar warnings from the Japanese business community. It highlights the delicate balance that Theresa May’s government faces to retain foreign investors’ confidence while working to deliver on the wishes of the majority of UK voters who opted to leave the EU in June. Emily Thornberry, the shadow foreign secretary, asks about the article Johnson wrote backing EU membership. Why does he no longer agree with himself? Johnson says people have have read the article conclude that it actually makes the case for leaving the EU. Labour’s Ben Bradshaw asks about an American Chambers of Commerce report due out that will reportedly say American firms are thinking of leaving the UK after Brexit. Johnson says he has not seen the report yet. He says he has no doubt the UK will be able to strike a fantastic deal with the EU, while also becoming more attractive to other countries by striking a great set of trade deals. Alex Salmond, the SNP international affairs spokesman, asks what Johnson’s stance is on Turkey joining the EU. Johnson says he is in favour - provided the UK has left the EU by then. Salmond says Johnson argued for the UK to have full participation in the single market after Brexit during the EU referendum campaign. So why is it wrong for MPs to demand this? Johnson says no government lets the Commons have a vote on its negotiating position in talks like this. Boris Johnson is taking questions in the Commons now. He is talking about Brexit. Lucy Allan, a Conservative, asks what assurances have been given to Japan about Brexit. Johnson says investors can be sure we will get the best possible deal. The SNP’s Chris Law asks what the timetable is for support being given to Scotland to help them cope with Brexit. Johnson says this was a UK decision. We will get a “fantastic deal for this country”, he says. Alberto Costa, a Conservative, asks for an assurance that Italians will be able to stay in the UK after Brexit. Johnson starts by responding in Italian. Then, in English, he says EU citizens will be able to stay in UK provided their is reciprocity. Three economists from the University of Warwick have published some fascinating research on the Brexit vote. Sascha Becker, Thiemo Fetzer and Dennis Novy argue that austerity was a key factor in the vote and that, if public spending cuts had been moderately less severe, remain would have won. They reached his conclusion by studying the referendum results at local level and cross-referencing the results against various socio-economic factors. You can read the entire 62-page paper (Who voted for Brext? A comprehensive district-level analysis) here (pdf). And here is a summary. (I’m grateful for acme in the comments for flagging this up BTL yesterday.) The academics claims that if the government could have won the referendum if it had spent £3bn more on public services. Our results indicate that modest reductions in fiscal cuts could have swayed the referendum outcome ... The analysis suggests that just a slightly less harsh regime of austerity aimed at cutting benefits could have substantially reduced support for the Vote Leave campaign and overturned the result of the EU referendum. We find that the quality of public service provision is also systematically related to the Vote Leave share. In particular, fiscal cuts in the context of the recent UK austerity programme are strongly associated with a higher Vote Leave share. We also produce evidence that lower-quality service provision in the National Health Service is associated with the success of Vote Leave ... Our regressions allow for a counterfactual analysis. We find that relatively modest reductions in fiscal cuts at the local authority level (less than £50 per person) may have been sufficient to lead to the opposite referendum outcome, pushing the Vote Leave share below 50 percent. The overall reductions in fiscal cuts would have amounted to less than £3 billion in total for the UK. In contrast, even major changes to immigration from Eastern Europe would have been very unlikely to sway the vote in any meaningful way. They claim that immigration from Eastern Europe increased the leave vote, but not immigration from other EU countries or from outside the EU. But they say reducing immigration from Eastern Europe may not have affected the result. A reduction in migration from Eastern Europe, which could have been achieved by opting to phase in freedom of movement in 2004 (which much of the rest of Europe did), could have also reduced the margin of victory for the Leave campaign, but would have been unlikely to overturn the referendum result ... We also find strong evidence that the growth rate of migrants from the 12 EU accession countries that joined the EU in 2004 and 2007 is tightly linked to the Vote Leave share. This stands in contrast to migrant growth from the EU 15 countries or elsewhere in the world. We therefore conclude that migration from predominantly Eastern European countries has had a distinct effect on voters. However, we cannot identify the precise mechanism – whether the effect on voters is mainly economic through competition in the labour and housing markets, or rather in terms of changing social conditions. They say that the UK’s first-past-the-post electoral system contributed to leave winning. Anti-EU parties, in particular the UK Independence Party (Ukip), have seen strong popular support in European parliament elections that are based on proportional representation. However, despite significant popular support for Ukip, the party is essentially not represented in the national parliament, implying that a significant share of voters lack formal access to the political system through representation of their views. At the same time, the strong popular support has rightfully attracted media attention. But it has come with no obligation for far-right politicians to assume roles of responsibility towards their electorate by exercising executive power ... We argue that the ‘Westminster bubble’ is key to understanding the voting outcome. The under-representation of anti-EU parties in the British parliament is likely a crucial contributing factor to the lack of attention paid in the political process to struggling areas, especially in England and Wales. As a result of the first-past-the-post voting system, Ukip currently only has one member of parliament in the House of Commons out of over 600, despite the fact that Ukip came first in the most recent European Parliament elections. Ukip representatives are therefore hardly in positions of political responsibility and thus largely escape media scrutiny. It may therefore be appropriate to consider ways of introducing more proportional representation into British politics. But, remember, just because something gets published by academics, that does not mean it is necessarily correct. Chris Hanretty, a politics lecturer and elections expert, has published a critique of the paper arguing that the Warwick authors have confused correlation with causation. Here’s an extract. The problem (which the authors recognize) is that “local authority cutbacks” are a bit like “purchases of value brands” in the example I gave above: they’re a consequence of an underlying problem, rather than a factor in their own right. As the authors write, geographic variation in the size of the fiscal cuts captures the underlying baseline degree of demand for benefits: the places with highest demand for benefits were naturally more affected In other words: cuts were more severe in poorer areas. If poorer areas were more likely to vote Leave, then anything which is associated with poorer areas will also (probably but not necessarily) end up being associated with the Leave vote, and might therefore emerge as a predictor of the Leave vote purely in virtue of this connection. Oh, by the way — poorer areas were more likely to vote Leave. Here are some quotes from Ed Balls’ interview on the Victoria Derbyshire show. Balls, the former shadow chancellor, said that he feared Jeremy Corbyn was unelectable. He said it was possible that Corbyn could make himself electable, but that so far there was no evidence of this happening. I think that Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters have got to persuade people they actually really want to be in government, because if you want to be in government you’ve got to persuade those sceptical people in the middle to trust you. Now, Jeremy Corbyn has been re-elected as the leader. It looks like he will fight the next election. I am fearful that the way he’s going about it means that Labour is currently unelectable. But he’s still got a chance to turn that round ... It’s not impossible for Jeremy Corbyn to reach into the centre. But it means he’s got to show he’d be tough on public spending, he’s got to listen to people on national security. He’s got to work with business, rather than be an anti-business figure. So far, we’ve not seen signs of that, but I think he’s got to be given a chance now. He said the leadership challenge against Corbyn was “premature”. Balls said it was possible Corbyn could decided to stand down before the general election. I think the interesting thing will be if Jeremy Corbyn realises that being supported by thousands of cheering supporters, your members, is not the same as appealing to voters in the country, who are generally too busy with their own lives to come to one of your rallies, and realises that actually this is not for him, and for him to stand aside and therefore have another leadership election before the next general election. I think that is not impossible, and I think that it’s something that he might think about very hard. He said Dan Jarvis could be a credible leadership candidate in the future. I think Dan Jarvis is a really good guy. He’s got an amazing experience of public service for our country round the world. I think he’s at the still early stages of his political career. He’s chosen not to be a candidate in previous Labour leader elections. I don’t know, he could be, he could be one of the people who might in the next 10, 15 years emerge. I don’t know. I’ve taken the quotes from PoliticsHome. Ed Balls seems to be on TV far more often these days talking about his role as a Strictly contestant than he ever was talking about his job as shadow chancellor. He has just been on the BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire show, and he said he thought Jeremy Corbyn might stand down as Labour leader before the general election. David Coburn, Ukip’s only MEP in Scotland, is one of the UK’s more, er, unvarnished politicians. He has not, until now, features in lists of the runners and riders for the next Ukip leader, but this morning he told Good Morning Scotland, that if the call came, he might be willing to serve. This is what he said when asked if he would be a candidate in the leadership contest. Can I lead the party? If I were asked by colleagues then of course I would do my best, but it’s not about who is governing, it’s to do with getting a group of people together, a collegiate group of people who are going to run the thing. That’s much more important. Politics is not about individuals, it’s about the collective; what we want is an agenda for the future. My colleague Marina Hyde has tweeted this response. For another pen portrait of Coburn, I’ll quote this item from Michael White’s Labour party conference diary two years ago. After Ed Miliband’s tough conference week it’s now the others’ turn on the ducking stool, starting with Ukip which cheekily meets on the Labour leader’s home patch at Doncaster racecourse tomorrow. Judging by the sound of his noisy telephone conversation on a London-bound train this week, David Coburn, newly-elected Ukip MEP for Scotland, is certain to enliven any debate. Though colourful Coburn complained about leaks from inside Ukip his frequent references to “Nigel” alerted fellow passengers. In quick succession he was heard calling the Greens “a cult-like scientology,” referred to Labour’s Scottish leader, Johann Lamont, as a “fishwife” and to her Tory rival, Ruth Davidson, as “a fat lesbian”. Asked for comment by the , Coburn, 55, said he often travels on trains, talks a lot and can’t remember it all. Fat lesbian? “Well, she is a lesbian, what about it? I’m a homosexual.” Only in Ukip. Here is a chart from the ONS bulletin showing changes to CPI inflation over the past year. The inflation figures are out, and there has been a sharp increase. The rate of consumer price index inflation rose to 1.0% in September from 0.6% in August, the Office for National Statistics said. Here is the ONS bulletin. And here is my colleague Graeme Wearden’s business live blog, which is covering this in more detail. The Conservative party conference was dominated by what the party said about immigration but one of the most intriguing lines to emerge was what Theresa May said about monetary policy and quantitative easing. In remarks that seemed highly critical of the Bank of England, and its QE policy, she said: “While monetary policy, with super-low interest rates and quantitative easing, provided the necessary emergency medicine after the financial crash, we have to acknowledge there have been some bad side effects.” Downing Street later had to clarify that she was not trying to interfere with the Bank’s independence and that QE policy was a matter for them. But it would be unwise to think that that is the end of the matter, and this morning a powerful voice has come to the aid of those in Number 10 who think it is time for a QE rethink. William Hague, the former Conservative leader and former foreign secretary, has used his column in the Telegraph to suggest that the Bank of England should raise interest rates or lose its independence. He also lists 10 problems with the Bank’s continued reliance on QE. Here is an extract. I am not an economist but I have come to the conclusion that central banks collectively have now indeed lost the plot. The whole point of their independence was that they could be brave enough to make people confront reality. Yet in reality they are blowing up a bubble of make-believe money to avoid immediate pain, except for penalising the poor and the prudent ... Some central bankers would mount a strong defence of their approach. They would explain that there is a global glut of savings, so interest rates are in any case kept low by market forces. This is true, but it does not mean those rates have to be driven to zero, or even below zero now in some places, by the authorities ... I have bad news for them. The accumulating effects of loose monetary policy globally are intensely political. When pension funds renege on promises, or inequality widens further, or savers become desperate, huge public and political anger is gong to burst over the heads of the world’s central banks. The only way out is for the US Fed to summon the courage to lead the way to higher interest rates, and others to follow slowly but surely. If they fail to do so, the era of their much-vaunted independence will come, possibly quite dramatically, to its end. Where this will lead, I don’t know, but it is strong stuff, and an interesting indication of how the debate is shifting fundamentally on monetary policy. It is also worth imagining what the reaction would be if Jeremy Corbyn or John McDonnell had written this. When they made much milder suggestions last year about interfering with the Bank’s independence, there were howls of protest in the City. It is a relatively quiet morning at Westminster, but Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary, is taking questions in the Commons later. And this afternoon I will be covering the home affairs committee hearing into the child sexual abuse inquiry in detail. Here is the agenda for the day. 9.30am: Inflation figures are published. 10.45am: The Polish ambassador Arkady Rzegocki and and his Romanian counterpart Dan Mihalache give evidence on Brexit to a Lords committee. 11.10am: Tim Farron, the Lib Dem leader, campaigns in the Witney byelection. 11.30am: Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary, takes questions in the Commons. 11.30am: Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, takes part in an LBC phone-in. 2.15pm: Professor Alexis Jay, chair of the child abuse inquiry, gives evidence to the Commons home affairs committee. At 3.45pm Mark Sedwill, the Home Office permanent secretary, gives evidence to the committee. 2.30pm: Jeremy Hunt, the health secretary, and Simon Stevens, the NHS England chief executive, gives evidence to the Commons health committee 3.30pm: Margot James, the business minister, gives a speech to the Resolution Foundation on low pay. As usual, I will be covering the breaking political news as it happens, as well as bringing you the best reaction, comment and analysis from the web. I will post a summary at lunchtime and another in the afternoon. If you want to follow me or contact me on Twitter, I’m on @AndrewSparrow. I try to monitor the comments BTL but normally I find it impossible to read them all. If you have a direct question, do include “Andrew” in it somewhere and I’m more likely to find it. I do try to answer direct questions, although sometimes I miss them or don’t have time. Alternatively you could post a question to me on Twitter.
From Rio to film polls, we can’t get enough of competition Here’s a poser for you. Two polls were announced on Tuesday. In one, Mulholland Drive, the surreal headscratcher from David Lynch, was voted the best film of the century so far. In another, daft, farty sitcom Mrs Brown’s Boys was named best British sitcom of the same period. Which was voted for by critics, and which the public? As the universally panned Suicide Squad tops the box office for yet another week, the gulf between the two sets of judges has rarely seemed wider. Reviewers are keen on showing off their appreciation of the impenetrable; audiences, to misquote Basil Fawlty, are keen on the bleedin’ obvious. The battle lines are gouged, the possibility of rapprochement ever less likely. And that’s just how we like it. For nailing our colours to the cultural mast has become central to our sense of self. As politics leaves us confused, people seek definition instead through their taste in TV, movies and music. There is no real rationale behind these comparisons of vaguely contemporaneous works of art. All such forms of competition are ludicrous. We might like to write them off as the brainchild of wily studios, intended to drum up interest in their products, but such contests would wither were it not for the fact they allow us to indulge our appetite for competition. We grab the opportunity for posture and mutual grooming, and to squash underfoot whomever thinks the South Korean filmmaker Kim Ki-duk isn’t a patch on the kooky American Wes Anderson. The timing of both polls was artful. For up until a couple of days before their release, we had the ultimate corrective to such madness. The Olympics is one of the few places where competition is correct. People square off against each other. You give them a score and tell them definitively where they rank. Lovely if you win, of course. Less so to have the definite and immediate knowledge, should you lose, that those four years of training weren’t worth it. The rest of us blunder through life uncertain as to the wisdom of our decisions. Such absolute vindication – or the opposite – rarely arrives. And perhaps that’s preferable. Optimistic fogginess could be bliss. Scarface I’ve recently acquired an above-eye scar suggestive of a knife fight. I picked it up in France on my holidays, meaning my new top tip for anyone feeling peaky is to hotfoot it there immediately. Even without an EU health card, emergency care across the Channel is incredibly cheap, quick, easy and efficient. Such no-nonsense scalpel work! Just five days for a comprehensive pus analysis to be posted home! Swarms of Brits evidently stagger through their casualty doors over the summer eager for such treatment. This is indicated by the posters on the waiting room walls, which advise how to keep cool in the heat and come in various languages, the wording on each subtly different. For the French: drink more water and eat well. For the Brits: avoid all exercise and any alcohol. Gone with the wind Of all possible causes of death, “bagpipe lung” must be one of most specific and horrific. A new study has warned of the dangers of regular tooting, prompted by the awful case of a man who developed fatal hypersensitivity pneumonitis from fungi lurking in his drones. But the phlegmy reality of wind instruments will come as a shock only to those unfamiliar with such puffing. My childhood flute practice always ended with a grisly minute of draining each tube, then poking hopelessly away with a sort of absorbent wand. Enrol in a school band, and the finale of each session involves a shower of flicked spittle. Art always has a price.
The 2016 Mercury prize shortlist: hear the albums – and see what our critics thought of them Anohni – Hopelessness What we said: “Anohni, who previously preferred to record against soft piano with the occasional instrumental flourish, has changed tack for Hopelessness, teaming up with the avant-electronica producers Hudson Mohawke and Oneohtrix Point Never. The results are astonishing, treading a line between underground electronica and the most cutting-edge pop and R&B productions: fizzing synths, beats that skitter along or thud like heartbeats. I Don’t Love You Anymore – with its organs and gunshot cracks – sounds like a church service during the breakout of apocalypse.” Read Ben Beaumont-Thomas’s interview with Anonhi here. Bat for Lashes – The Bride What we said: “[The Bride} has a concept. It revolves around a woman whose fiancé dies on his way to their wedding, and her subsequent experiences of life after love … This is a collection of darkly intriguing dirges, a battle for dominance between Khan’s intimate, exquisitely beautiful vocal and subtly unnerving sonic dissonance at its heart.” Read Kate Hutchinson’s interview with Bat for Lashes here. David Bowie – Blackstar What we said: “You’re struck by the sense of Bowie at his most commanding, twisting a genre to suit his own ends … The overall effect is ambiguous and spellbinding, adjectives that apply virtually throughout Blackstar. It’s a rich, deep and strange album that feels like Bowie moving restlessly forward, his eyes fixed ahead: the position in which he’s always made his greatest music.” Read Alexis Petridis’s appreciation of David Bowie here. Jamie Woon – Making Time What we said: “Five years after his debut, Mirrorwriting, Making Time finds Woon creating music that is surprisingly minimal: he has spent that time absorbing the output of Theo Parrish and fellow Brit Floating Points … Woon might have been expected to return with a dancefloor-focused second album, but instead he’s taken the soul road, and it sounds like a brilliant statement of intent.” Read Harriet Gibsone’s interview with Jamie Woon here. Kano – Made in the Manor What we said: “While the likes of Stormzy and Novelist have concentrated on harder, myopic tracks that reference their world and little else, here Kano offers more accessibility. Some of that jars, including a slow, trudging ode to his sibling (Little Sis), but others – such as standout A Roadman’s Hymn – show an MC who has become an artist. As grime continues its ascent, Kano’s new approach might be catnip for those who want something more mature.” Read Ben Beaumont-Thomas’s interview with Kano here. Laura Mvula – The Dreaming Room What we said: “It should be much harder work than it is. But like Joanna Newsom, Mvula pulls the listener along with her through the most serpentine songs: however winding their routes, the melodies are almost always beautiful; however much the musical scenery shifts, it is always striking. You do wonder what its commercial fate will be. Despite the discrepancy between its advance publicity and its contents, Sing to the Moon went gold, but there are moments here strange enough to make Sing to the Moon sound like the work of the new Adele by comparison. Or perhaps audiences will be seduced by The Dreaming Room’s invention and originality, which would be entirely fitting.” Read Tom Lamont’s interview with Laura Mvula here. Michael Kiwanuka – Love & Hate What we said: “Unlike his own debut, Love & Hate never feels like an album screwing its eyes shut and trying to make believe that it’s 1971. The retro affectations are bound up with stuff that sounds very modern: the ambient electronics that open I’ll Never Love; the warped acoustic guitar that drives the title track; the way the sound plays with distortion, suddenly whacking it on Kiwanuka’s vocals at moments of high drama, or slathering it over the guitar on closer The Final Frame until it sounds like it’s short-circuiting. You might even say that Falling weirdly resembles one of Kiwanuka’s old folk-soul heroes had they somehow been exposed to the latterday oeuvre of Radiohead. A beautiful melody, wrapped in gauzy textures, it’s a fantastic song, exquisitely arranged, something Love & Hate is packed with: the work of an artist coming into his own.” Radiohead – A Moon Shaped Pool What we said: “Radiohead’s previous attempts at creating a rousing call to arms have been hobbled by their innate pessimism, as exemplified by 2001’s You and Whose Army?, on which Thom Yorke somehow contrived to sound utterly deflated while offering Tony Blair out for a punch-up in time-honoured ‘come on then’ style. Here, however, the stuff about how the future is inside us and people have the power sounds authentically stirring. It also sounds like Radiohead achieving something they’ve never achieved before, a quarter of a century into their career: long may their neuroses keep them in constant motion.” Savages – Adore Life What we said: “When it works, Adore Life works incredibly well: there’s a slight opacity, a warmth to the sound and the words that comes as a welcome change from the icy blast of Silence Yourself. At one extreme, the fragmented guitar riffs and echoing noise of Mechanics perfectly conjure a brooding, bruised atmosphere; at the other, the disco pulse of Evil is propulsive and hard to resist. Equally, however, there are a couple of moments when Savages’ push forward from their debut doesn’t quite come off: tracks on which their edge just appears to have been dulled without anything being added to compensate; on which, with the distorting intensity dialled down, they sound somehow more like the sum of their influences than before.” Read Laura Snapes’s interview with Savages here. Skepta – Konnichiwa What we said: “For all that the album self-evidently has one eye fixed on the States, you never get the sense of an artist subjugating his own personality to succeed abroad. It’s not just that the lyrics throughout are dextrous and sharp and funny, although they are. It’s that even his most virulent braggadocio is underscored by a very winning, very British kind of bathos. Held in custody on Crime Riddim, he becomes concerned by his desire to ‘spend a penny’; among the list of menaces detailed on Corn on the Curb lurks the threat to ‘shower man down like Fireman Sam’; and while enumerating his many bad-boy credentials, he brags that he sometimes smokes in no-smoking areas.” The 1975 – I Like It When You Sleep, For You Are So Beautiful Yet So Unaware of It What we said: “The real strength of the album isn’t much different to that of their debut. It’s stuffed with really good pop songs, their writers clearly unencumbered by fear of a certain melodic gaucheness … You’re left with an album that fancies itself as a challenging work of art, but turns out to be a collection of fantastic pop songs full of interesting, smart lyrics, but also peppered with self-conscious lunges for a gravitas it doesn’t really need.” Read Michael Hann’s interview with the 1975 here. The Comet Is Coming – Channel the Spirits What we said: “Sixty years after Sun Ra released his debut album, the influence of the late avant garde jazz musician and ‘cosmic philosopher’ persists. In the intervening decades artists as diverse as Spiritualized, Krautrock pioneers Amon Düül and electronic minimalists Silver Apples have attempted to emulate his freeform style. But now in 2016, his true heirs may just have arrived … Powered by Arkestral cosmic forces, the Comet Is Coming. Brace for impact.”
A different country: why 2016’s exciting new Americana is Antipodean Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains are country music’s Bowery: a landmark that everyone orbiting the genre – from Dolly Parton to Fleet Foxes – cites, regardless of whether they’ve been or not. On the other side of the world, however, perhaps it won’t be long until another blue-hued range is on the country map. Julia Jacklin hails from the Blue Mountains outside Sydney, and her debut, Don’t Let The Kids Win, evokes a millennial Gillian Welch. Put the two together (plus some terrible national stereotypes) and you envisage the young Jacklin strumming on a porch, harmonising with the dingos. But Australia isn’t in thrall to the States’ singer-songwritery heritage. “I’d say the [definitive] sound where I grew up was Australian hip-hop or soul music,” says Jacklin. “There’s not an indie-folk scene there.” And yet 26-year-old Jacklin is now part of a bold young Oceanic Americana cohort. After moving to Sydney to study, she went to record her debut in New Zealand, working with producer Ben Edwards because she loved his work on Auckland strummer Aldous Harding’s debut. There she met Port Chalmers’ Nadia Reid, whose songs are full of haunted yearning, and Marlon Williams, who’s released volumes of country covers alongside his rousing original material. Back home, meanwhile, there’s Sydney’s Gene Clark acolyte Caitlin Harnett and Melbourne’s Dylan-indebted Fraser A Gorman (his mantra: “Country music sounds to me like rock’n’roll!”). Jacklin rejects the suggestion that this thoughtful songcraft is a reaction against prevailing wiggier guitar trends down under, nor does she think it owes much to heartland Australian country music. To her, it’s just the product of supportive communities. Mercifully absent from their output are the tweed waistcoats and civil war fetishisation beloved of the Mumfords et al: this lot bring dark humour and self-awareness to what can often be a painfully earnest genre. “If I am bound for something/ Honey, won’t you know that I always take the shortest fucking road,” Nadia Reid avers on Reaching Through, while Jacklin finds a pessimistic revelation in Leadlight: “I didn’t know that the grass was not only greener/ Upkeep is cheaper when you embrace the rain.” Rather than follow Fleet Foxes’ rustic trail signs, Jacklin says that discovering Father John Misty marked a turning point in her songwriting. Specifically, “that it was OK to inject humour and sarcasm and to put ideas into his music,” she says. “I’m not a very serious person, and getting up and playing serious music was boring to me.” Best tell the folks in Blue Ridge, there are new kids on the block. Julia Jacklin’s Don’t Let The Kids Win is out on 7 October on Transgressive
Medical experts call for global drug decriminalisation An international commission of medical experts is calling for global drug decriminalisation, arguing that current policies lead to violence, deaths and the spread of disease, harming health and human rights. The commission, set up by the Lancet medical journal and Johns Hopkins University in the United States, finds that tough drugs laws have caused misery, failed to curb drug use, fuelled violent crime and spread the epidemics of HIV and hepatitis C through unsafe injecting. Publishing its report on the eve of a special session of the United Nations devoted to illegal narcotics, it urges a complete reversal of the repressive policies imposed by most governments. “The goal of prohibiting all use, possession, production, and trafficking of illicit drugs is the basis of many of our national drug laws, but these policies are based on ideas about drug use and drug dependence that are not scientifically grounded,” says Dr Chris Beyrer of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, a member of the commission. “The global ‘war on drugs’ has harmed public health, human rights and development. It’s time for us to rethink our approach to global drug policies, and put scientific evidence and public health at the heart of drug policy discussions.” The commission calls on the UN to back decriminalisation of minor, non-violent drug offences involving the use, possession and sale of small quantities. Military force against drug networks should be phased out, it says, and policing should be better targeted on the most violent armed criminals. Among its other recommendations are: Minimise prison sentences for women involved in non-violent crimes who are often exploited as drug “mules”. Move gradually towards legal, regulated drug markets which are “not politically possible in the short term in some places” although they predict more countries and US states will move that way, “a direction we endorse”. Ensure easy access to clean needles, oral drugs such as methadone to reduce injecting and naloxene, the antidote to overdoses. Stop aerial spraying of drug crops with toxic pesticides. The commission comprises doctors, scientists and health and human rights experts from around the world. It is jointly chaired by Prof Adeeba Kamarulzaman from the University of Malaya and Prof Michel Kazatchkine, the UN special envoy for HIV/Aids in eastern Europe and central Asia. Its report says scientific evidence on repressive drug policies is wanting. The last UN special session on drug use was in 1998, under the slogan, “a drug-free world – we can do it”. It backed a total clampdown, urging governments to eliminate drugs through bans on use, possession, production and trafficking. The commission says that has not worked and that the casualties of that approach have been huge. The decision of the Calderón government in Mexico in 2006 to use the military in civilian areas to fight drug traffickers “ushered in an epidemic of violence in many parts of the country that also spilled into Central America”, says the report. “The increase in homicides in Mexico since 2006 is virtually unprecedented in a country not formally at war. It was so great in some parts of the country that it contributed to a reduction in the country’s projected life expectancy.” Prohibitionist drug policies have had serious adverse consequences in the US, too. “The USA is perhaps the best documented but not the only country with clear racial biases in policing, arrests, and sentencing,” the commissioners write. “In the USA in 2014, African American men were more than five times more likely than white people to be incarcerated for drug offences in their lifetime, although there is no significant difference in rates of drug use among these populations. The impact of this bias on communities of people of colour is inter-generational and socially and economically devastating.” The commission cites examples of countries and US states that have moved down the decriminalisation road. “Countries such as Portugal and the Czech Republic decriminalised minor drug offences years ago, with significant financial savings, less incarceration, significant public health benefits, and no significant increase in drug use,” says the report. “Decriminalisation of minor offences along with scaling up low-threshold HIV prevention services enabled Portugal to control an explosive, unsafe injection-linked HIV epidemic, and probably prevented one from happening in the Czech Republic.” Beyrer told the the commission was “cautiously optimistic” that it would have an impact on the UN meeting, although it was aware of forcible opposition there to decriminalisation. “There certainly are a number of countries and some powerful countries like the Russian Federation that are vigorously opposed to any reform of current drug regimes and they will do anything they can to influence UNGASS [the UN special session],” he said. “UNGASS is going to be a real struggle but there are a number of governments and civil society organisations that are really seeing the need for change.” In the US, the issue of overdose on prescription opioid medicines has become part of the presidential contest, he pointed out. “I think this is a moment. It is a once-in-a-generation opportunity,” said Beyrer. At a release of the paper in New York, researcher Joanne Csete of Columbia University said she believed that US actor Philip Seymour Hoffman, who died of a heroin overdose, “would be alive today” were it not for regressive drug policies that she said made safe opioid maintenance almost impossible to obtain. “Our report is about political choices,” she said. “The failure to invest in programmes that can help people always inject with sterile equipment is a political choice,” she said. “We’re dealing with a war on drugs … These policies have their roots in a racist and reactionary calculation.” Prof Carl Hart, a research psychologist also at Columbia University who is well-known for activism against the war on drugs, echoed Csete’s comments. “One in three black males can expect to spend some time in prison,” Hart said. “I have three sons, one has spent time in prisons, and in part because we have vilified drugs, and [convinced the public] that drug users deserve that kind of punishment. So I can’t be silent this is personal.” In Britain, the Home Office said drugs were illegal when there was scientific evidence they were harmful to health and society. A spokesman said that the approach was to enforce the existing law, prevent usage and help addicts recover. He added: “There are promising signs this approach is working, with a downward trend in drug use over the last decade and more people recovering from dependency now than in 2009/10. Decriminalising drugs would not eliminate the crime committed by their illicit trade, nor would it address the harms and destruction associated with drug dependence.” Norman Lamb, a former British government minister and Liberal Democrat MP, said that he supported the Lancet commission’s findings: “The war on drugs has failed and it is Liberal Democrat policy to decriminalise the personal possession and use of all drugs, and introduce a regulated, legalised market for cannabis. Drug use should be treated as a health issue, not as a criminal issue.”
Crystal Palace 4-1 Stoke City: Premier League – as it happened That’s all from me; I’ll leave you with Dom Fifield’s piping hot match report from Selhurst Park. Bye! For Crystal Palace, there are clear signs of improvement after a dreadful few months in the league either side of their run to the FA Cup final. Andros Townsend ran the show, and Palace’s front four were all excellent, relentlessly pressing and interchanging to leave Stoke in disarray. They climb to eighth, and their slow start is a distant memory. Stoke’s rock-bottom confidence has taken another hit today, but they at least have a forgiving fixture list; aside from a trip to Old Trafford, their next league opponents are West Brom (H), Sunderland (H), Hull (A) and Swansea (H). No need to panic just yet, but the table makes for grim reading. That’s it. Stoke at least ended their scoring drought at the death, but there was little else to cheer as Crystal Palace dominated the game. Those hardy Stoke fans who are still here get their reward, as Bony’s cross deflects into the path of Arnautovic, who fizzes the ball inside Mandanda’s far post! 91 mins: From a Stoke attacks, Zaha picks up the ball near the corner flag, and races the entire left of the field, before his shot is deflected behind, denying a breakaway goal even more remarkable than Townsend’s. 89 mins: Allen finds Walters who motors beyond Kelly, shifts the ball onto his left... and fires wide of the far post. That should have been 4-1. Three added minutes. 86 mins: This one is winding down, with Palace fans singing themselves hoarse. Stoke are trying to carve out a consolation goal, but their hearts aren’t in it. The teams are in for Spurs v Sunderland, which you can follow with Rob Smyth right here: 84 mins: Townsend, who has been brilliant, is replaced by Lee Chung-yong. 83 mins: Flamini gets caught napping by Diouf, who tees up Bony, unmarked in the middle. The striker slips as he tries to control it, allowing Delaney to get back. Bony desperately needs a goal. 81 mins: If the score stays the same, this will be Palace’s first win by a four-goal margin since the 5-1 win over Newcastle last November, and Stoke’s first defeat by a four-goal margin since last Saturday. 80 mins: Bony sums up a poor day, struggling to get the ball under control before blootering it into the stand from an admittedly tight angle. 78 mins: Joe Ledley, industrious in midfield all afternoon, has picked up a knock apparently – along with Tomkins’ injury, the only negative for Palace today. Bringing on Delaney and Flamini at least shows the hosts have a bit of squad depth these days. 76 mins: Puncheon is booked for a lunge on Arnautovic, and there’s a change for Palace, with Mathieu Flamini coming on for his home debut in place of Joe Ledley. Yes, I’d forgotten about that one, too. Townsend breaks at blistering pace down the left, before cutting inside, then changing direction with an outrageous heel-flick, sending Joe Allen and Ryan Shawcross skittering into different postcodes, then curling the ball inside Given’s far post from 20 yards. Magnificent. What a goal from Andros Townsend, the man of the match by some distance! One for the dubious goals panel (if that’s still a thing), as McArthur collects the ball from the free kick and fires on goal. It’s curling towards the far corner, but Geoff Cameron intervenes to make sure, the ball deflecting in with Given heading the other way. Game over! 70 mins: Arnautovic has had to continually track back to deal with the marauding Townsend, and his frustration gets the better of him, giving away a cheap free kick on the right... There’s been a goal in the other top-flight game going on right now: Charlie Austin has given Southampton the lead at home to Swansea. 68 mins: A change for Stoke, around an hour too late, with Diouf on in place of the ineffective Bojan to offer more support to Bony. 66 mins: ...from which Palace fans appeal for two penalties in quick succession, firstly when Benteke is barged over by Cameron. We’ve seen similar given in the league this season. Ledley is then brought down by Bojan, who slipped with the ball rolling out of play – that would have been very harsh. 65 mins: Townsend, the best player on the pitch so far, has Martins Indi on the back foot, before cutting inside and firing a shot that deflects behind... 63 mins: Puncheon is able to gallop deep into the Stoke area, before slipping the ball to Zaha, who sees his angled shot deflected wide. Martins Indi deals with the corner. 62 mins: Craig Pawson has had a decent game, but he misses a clear foul on the edge of the Palace area, with Walters getting his heels clipped by Ledley. Stoke do win a free kick some 20 yards further back, and Johnson hits a daisy-cutter straight at Mandanda from a long way out. 60 mins: A first yellow card, as McArthur takes one for the team, bringing down Walters in midfield to prevent a dangerous Stoke break. From the free kick, the ball ricochets to Bojan, who tries a cross from the right. It drifts out of play, with only Bony in the penalty area anyway. 58 mins: Zaha comes back to challenge Bojan, but he shouldn’t have bothered – he clatters him to the ground, giving away a free kick which Martins Indi flicks up artfully and volleys at goal. It’s deflected wide, and from the corner, Shawcross shins the ball wide at the far post. 55 mins: Bojan has a half-chance, firing a foot wide of the near post from an unforgiving angle. The game is getting stretched. 53 mins: Delaney robs Bony of the ball and Palace fly forward again, with Townsend crossing from an angle when he could have shot. Stoke are forced to scramble it away, before another excellent Towsend delivery causes havoc – Shawcross coming mighty close to toe-ending the ball past Given, who makes a good reaction save. 52 mins: Bojan had to intervene there; Shay Given was out of position. Stoke have really missed Jack Butland. 50 mins: Palace are more than capable of striking on the counter, and Benteke leads a break upfield, which results in a free kick. Townsend is in place to whip another ball in with his left foot – it’s terrific, zipping across the six-yard line and causing chaos in the Stoke defence. Palace win a corner, and Dann gets on it, but Bojan, all 5’7” of him, clears off the line! 48 mins: Arnautovic wins a corner as Stoke start on the front foot. Bojan takes it, after Craig Pawson has a word with Jon Walters and Martin Kelly about penalty-area grappling. It’s aimed at Shawcross, but Palace get it away... 46 mins: Whelan gets down the right, and forces McArthur into a skewed clearance behind the goal. From the corner, Shawcross gets a header on goal, but it’s straightforward for Mandanda. It’s a shot on target, at least. No changes for the visitors, but one for the hosts: Damien Delaney is on, replacing James Tomkins, who picked up a knock at the end of the first half. Since Xherdan Shaqiri equalised at Middlesbrough on 13th August, Stoke have scored just once in the Premier League – Bojan’s consolation penalty against Manchester City. Will Mark Hughes chuck on Peter Crouch or Mame Biram Diouf at half-time? Palace dominated the opening stages, going 2-0 up after 12 minutes, but it’s been a more even contest since Stoke woke up around 35 minutes in. It’s not quite over yet. Back in a few. 45 mins: The free kick is cleared, and Palace end the first half on the front foot. Tomkins, who scored the first goal, is limping as he heads off the field. 44 mins: Stoke are making things harder for the hosts in midfield now, as the first half comes to a scrappy conclusion. Stoke win a free kick out on the right touchline, after Benteke concedes a foul. One minute of added time. 43 mins: Both managers said before the game that they wanted to see calm, controlled possession. Both managers will be disappointed. 41 mins: Palace’s full backs get forward, with Martin Kelly looking for Joel Ward at the far post. Martins Indi heads the ball away, before Zaha hauls Arnautovic down. Both wingers have given away cheap free kicks as Stoke have tightened up defensively. 40 mins: Stoke have had one touch in the Crystal Palace penalty area. One! Perhaps Alan Pardew is onto something with his penalty area entries chat. 38 mins: Palace pick up the ball in midfield and flood forward, but Townsend, running into a dead end, gives away a free kick. Palace are pressing really well; Stoke are somehow finding themselves outnumbered all over the pitch. 36 mins: Allen’s delivery looks overhit, but drops sharply at the far post, forcing Dann to head away with Shawcross closing in. Stoke corner, but they play it short, and give the ball away. Baffling. 34 mins: Walters chases down Cameron’s diagonal ball, and after his first cross is cleared, he wins a free kick. Plenty of bodies up from the back for Stoke... 32 mins: Palace have eased off the gas a little after that breathless opening spell. Stoke fans: what exactly is going on this season? 30 mins: Wilfried Bony has been isolated so far, and Walters’ low cross from the right towards the striker is collected by Mandanda, prompting shouts of “Steeeeeeve” from the Selhurst Park faithful. 26 mins: Zaha battles Martins Indi for the ball, and draws a cheap foul from Bojan. Townsend whips it towards the far post, where Tomkins almost gets his head to it. If it ain’t broke, etc and so on... 24 mins: Townsend, who has made a terrific start, moves back to the left and lofts a cross inches over Benteke’s head. Stoke need to get their act together here; Palace are dominant. 23 mins: Applause around Selhurst Park for Pape Souaré (squad number 23) who is recovering after a car accident last week. 22 mins: Palace charge up the other end, Townsend switching to the right and drawing a clumsy foul from Martins Indi. He takes the free kick himself from the right corner of the penalty area – and almost catches Given out with a swerving shot on goal. 21 mins: Dann gives the ball away, allowing Bony to dart forward and shoot on goal, but he scuffs his effort wide of Mandanda’s far post. 19 mins: Palace putting unnecessary pressure on themselves with a couple of loose touches at the back, but Stoke’s fleeting spell of pressure is ended when Bony drifts offside. 18 mins: Martins Indi skips forward, but is immediately swamped by red and blue shirts. Palace break, and Benteke holds the ball well before teeing up Puncheon, whose 25-yarder is struck firmly, but straight at Given. 16 mins: Palace again roll past Stoke’s two-man midfield, and Puncheon forces a corner off Arnautovic. Benteke gets a head to the ball under pressure from Shawcross, but it loops harmlessly towards Given. 14 mins: Bony tries a flick-on into the path of Arnautovic, but Joel Wards gets back to cover. The Austrian gets up gingerly after the full-back’s challenge. Two set-pieces where Stoke just didn’t get organised, and they find themselves two goals down after less than 15 minutes. Mark Hughes looks absolutely furious. And another! This time, it’s Palace’s other centre-half, rising to head home from a corner, with Stoke’s defence all at sea. Palace won a free-kick to the right of the area, having kept Stoke under pressure. Townsend swings it into a tricky spot close to the far post, and with Jon Walters leaving it for Shay Given, and Given staying on his line, Tomkins nips in to prod the ball home! Palace take the lead through new man James Tomkins! 7 mins: The corner is cleared, but worked back to Zaha, who shimmies to the byline and crosses. The ball hits Glenn Whelan just below the shoulder. His arm was raised, but Craig Pawson isn’t interested. 6 mins: Bojan presents the ball to Andros Townsend with a careless sideways pass, and the winger sprints to the touchline, with Johnson getting back well at the expense of a corner... 4 mins: Stoke spray the ball around midfield, before Martins Indi, stepping in from the left, almost cuts the Palace defence open with a through ball – but Jon Walters is a yard offside. 2 mins: Bruno Martins Indi, who has moved across to left back from central defence, is drawn out of position by Jason Puncheon, who finds Zaha down the right. He wins a corner, which Stoke almost break from – but Arnautovic can’t get the ball under control. ‘Glad All Over’ rings out, before Craig Pawson gets us under way. Five minutes until kick-off. Why not pass the time with a quick game of ‘spot the manager’, featuring this Tom Jenkins shot from the 1990 FA Cup final: Mark Hughes speaks! “We’re pleased to have Glen [Johnson] back, he gives us that calmness in possession. Bojan has shown really good intent in training, so we’re pleased he’s back as well. We’ve played three of the top five, so it’s been tough... we have talent in the group, so we’re looking for a result here. We haven’t been resolute in our games so far, and we’re trying to reshuffle our defensive personnel.” There was a late goal at Vicarage Road... where it’s finished Watford 3-1 Manchester United. Things looking distinctly brighter for Watford than at half-time against West Ham, but that’s three defeats in eight days for José Mourinho. Alan Pardew speaks, using the phrase ‘penalty area entries’ in his pre-match spiel: “We’ve spent a lot of money on him, and he needs to come into the team and show his worth… I’m trying to ask them to play with more composure and more control of the game. Our penalty area entries have been very good. Connor is fit, and we’re starting with Christian, so that bodes well. We can’t expect to win today, but we want a fine performance. I think the start could be crucial for both teams” Today’s strikers, Christian Benteke and Wilfried Bony both arrived in the Premier League from the Low Countries and immediately boosted their reputations, before big-money moves backfired spectacularly. Between them, they’ve scored 83 Premier League goals, and cost clubs a total of £113m. Here’s what they’ve had to say: Benteke: “I will work really hard to come back as I was before. When you’re playing at 100%, you feel free... when you score goals, you feel unstoppable. It was obvious that [Jürgen Klopp] didn’t trust me, but he has his way of doing things.” Bony: “I’ve had the best pre-season for five years... at Swansea, I played every week. [At Manchester City] I knew I wouldn’t play every game, but I got injured... [Pep] Guardiola told me he would be playing a lot of midfielders, and it would be difficult for me to play. It’s been good for me to be involved in games again.” Watford 2-1 Manchester United! Juan Camilo Zúñiga has scored with his first touch, and United have five minutes to avoid a third straight defeat. James Tomkins is making his first league start for Crystal Palace today, after joining from West Ham over the summer. Plenty of eyebrows were raised when he moved for an eight-figure sum, but judging by the Hammers’ defensive efforts without him, £10m was a steal. 40 miles up the M25, it’s currently Watford 1-1 Manchester United, with Marcus Rashford equalising just a few moments ago. You can join Rob Smyth for that one, and it’s always worth taking in David Hills’ Said & Done: Just one change for the hosts, with summer signing James Tomkins replacing Damien Delaney in central defence. Christian Benteke leads the line, with younger brother Jonathan dropping off the bench, replaced by the returning Connor Wickham. Mark Hughes makes two changes from the defeat to Spurs, with Glen Johnson replacing Erik Pieters and Bojan coming into an attacking line-up, in place of Giannelli Imbula. Crystal Palace v Stoke Crystal Palace: Mandanda; Ward, Dann, Tomkins, Kelly; McArthur, Ledley, Zaha, Puncheon, Townsend; C Benteke. Subs: Flamini, Hennessey, Lee, Fryers, Wickham, Sako, Delaney. Stoke City: Given; Johnson, Cameron, Shawcross, Martins Indi; Whelan, Allen; Walters, Bojan, Arnautovic; Bony. Subs: Bardsley, Pieters, Adam, Diouf, Imbula, Crouch, Grant. Referee: Craig Pawson The season has barely started, but in the Premier League, there must always be a manager on the brink. This week, the axe dangles above Stoke’s Mark Hughes, with the Potters bottom of the pile. He’s certainly playing the part, sending out teams devoid of direction and phoning in a touchline tantrum against Spurs. Today he faces Alan Pardew, a similarly irascible sort who has been in his shoes many times. These two clubs have trodden similar paths too – both deploying Tony Pulis to secure mid-table status after decades pinballing around the leagues. Both fanbases seem to have gained perspective along the way, by and large turning up, singing loud and enjoying themselves. It can’t last. Leicester have changed the rules, and both teams are discovering the dangers of treading water. Stoke’s starting eleven is too expensive to be so inconspicuous, while Palace’s home record (12 wins in two seasons) is hard to explain or excuse. These teams can be breathtaking and blundering in equal measure, so any result seems feasible. Kick off is at 2.15pm BST; team news to follow.
European parliament plans to spend £2.8m on in-house car service The European parliament has come under fire over a plan to spend millions of euros on a fleet of cars and drivers for MEPs. Administrators at the parliament want to create an in-house car service for transporting 751 MEPs around Brussels and Strasbourg. The car fleet would add €3.7m (£2.86m) to existing transport costs, bringing the total bill to €10.6m. Under the draft plans, which have not been approved, 110 new drivers would be hired and €116,000 a year spent on uniforms, almost nine times the current outlay on chauffeurs’ outfits. Eurosceptics seized on the plans as a textbook case of MEPs blowing taxpayers’ money, but a member of the parliament’s influential financial scrutiny committee said the budget was “fairly certain” to be revised down. Ukip’s leader, Nigel Farage, said: “If ordinary taxpayers knew how their money was being blasted around in Brussels they would come and burn this place down to the ground in disgust. The EU is a racket to take money from those who don’t work for the EU and transfer it to people who do work for the EU.” Catherine Bearder, a Liberal Democrat MEP who sits on the committee that scrutinises the parliament’s internal rules and finance, said she would call for the plan to be sent back to the drawing board. She was “fairly certain” the plans would not be approved in their current form. “I am really concerned about the figures they have come up with,” she said. “Budget time always throws up things and that is why we have to be on the ball and, as MEPs, be scrutinising the budget that [administrators] present.” The car fleet plan is likely to come under the microscope when MEPs go through the parliament’s 2017 budget later this month, ahead of a plenary vote in April. If MEPs agree, the car service would start on 1 January 2017. Even if the plans pass, MEPs will not be getting into the kind of stretch limos that clog up central London. The draft plans refer to “limousines”, which in French means a saloon car. More likely is “a nice Audi or BMW or something”, said one source. Parliamentary sources argue that changes are needed to tighten security. Currently, two companies in Brussels and Strasbourg are contracted to drive MEPs, but EU security services cannot carry out background checks on chauffeurs. Officials think it is too easy for unknown people to drive into the parliament’s underground car parks. When the pope visited the European parliament in Strasbourg in 2014, French and Italian officials insisted on more rigorous security: they found five MEP drivers with undeclared criminal records, including one with a manslaughter conviction. All five lost their jobs once their convictions came to light. “A minority of cases have raised some major risks, which are cause for concern,” said Marjory van den Broeke, a spokeswoman for the parliament. She added that officials also had concerns about the pay and working conditions of contract drivers. The draft car pool plan speaks of “reputational risk” for the parliament following complaints over low pay. In 2015, three drivers for MEPs held a press conference in Strasbourg, alleging their employer, Biribin Europe, paid wages below the legal minimum. Biribin Europe said at the time the claims were wrong. Both sides in the EU referendum used the story, which was first reported by EU affairs website Politico, to bolster their arguments. Bearder said the row showed why the UK needed to stay, because Brexit would mean losing any say over how the EU spends its money, including the European parliament’s annual €1.7bn budget. “Even if we left, we would still have to be paying in, as Norway and Switzerland do – so that budget is really important and we should make sure the budget is fit for purpose.”
Financial Ombudsman still receiving thousands of PPI complaints The £37bn bill for payment protection insurance mis-selling by Britain’s banks is likely to escalate further after the Financial Ombudsman revealed that it continues to be inundated with complaints. In the first half of 2016, the number of PPI cases taken on by the Financial Ombudsman was 91,381, only slightly down on the 92,667 in the previous period. The chief ombudsman, Caroline Wayman, said expectations that PPI complaints would start to drop have been proved wrong. “Although it’s a few years now since PPI complaints peaked, we have been receiving over 3,000 a week for six years running – despite wider expectations that numbers will fall. And we’re continuing to deal with the issues and uncertainties around PPI which remain a significant challenge for everyone involved.” Britain’s banks have been lobbying regulators and government to cap PPI claims by imposing a deadline for complaints. But the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) stunned the banks in August when it proposed a deadline of June 2019, rather than the spring 2018 cutoff it had suggested in October. The later deadline, plus the figures from the ombudsman, are likely to mean banks will have to increase provisions. Lloyds Banking Group has paid out most, about £16bn, but analysts predict its final bill could be at least another £1bn. Lloyds and its Bank of Scotland subsidiary were the subject of by far the most PPI complaints to the ombudsman in the first half of 2016. The combined group saw 33,984 PPI cases, compared with 9,371 at Barclays, 6,975 at HSBC and 2,756 at Nationwide. PPI complaints made up 54% of new cases brought to the Financial Ombudsman in the first six months of 2016. The “uphold rate” for PPI cases – where the complaint is found in favour of the customer – was 57%. There was an 8% increase in complaints other than PPI to 77,751, led by a surge in cases involving payday lending. WDFC, the parent group of Wonga, was the subject of 821 complaints, up from 361 in the same period of 2015, while Instant Cash Loans received 285 complaints.
Turnbull's all the way with Donald J – what could possibly go wrong? During their first private conversation after Donald Trump won the US presidential election, Malcolm Turnbull stressed the attributes the two leaders had in common. “I suppose as both being businessmen who found our way into politics, somewhat later in life, we come to the problems of our own nations and, indeed, world problems with a pragmatic approach,” Turnbull told reporters in his courtyard shortly after the call. “Mr Trump is a deal-maker. He is a businessman, a deal-maker and he will, I have no doubt, view the world in a very practical and pragmatic way.” As is often the way in politics, Turnbull in recounting his rapport strategy, was pretending to talk about Trump, while talking about himself. Enough about him, more about me. Practical and pragmatic. You can write that down, people. But setting aside the default egoism that prime ministers tend to possess in abundance, the business metaphor is worth pursuing. The concept I want to get to here is entrepreneurialism and risk. Trump’s presidency is a punt, both for the candidate, and the world; a throw of the dice, a genuine innovation, which may or may not yield a benefit. His ascendancy has, quite literally, set the world on its ear. The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, has deftly redefined the terms of her country’s engagement with Washington, which we can summarise as Berlin doesn’t have a problem with you, Donald, just so long as you don’t believe, or seek to implement, the craven nativist nonsense you’ve just spouted for the last 18 months. The Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, for his part has cantered post-haste to New York to test out the seriousness of Trump’s various campaign pronouncements about making allies in the Asia-Pacific pay more for help from US forces. And for Turnbull, the initial rush has been to normalise Trump. No equivocation, no side-of-the-mouth asides. The Australian prime minister, without skipping a beat, has welcomed the new president’s might-is-right approach in the Asia-Pacific, which, according to the advance publicity, involves a substantial US naval deployment to face off against Chinese assertiveness. You don’t have to think too hard to fathom the potential risks associated with an aggressive regional US military posture, particularly in tandem with the trade war Trump has threatened to bring on by slapping large tariffs on Chinese products entering the US. It really doesn’t require too much imagination. Thinking about the worst-case scenarios could, in fact, produce an involuntary shudder. But Turnbull didn’t miss a beat. “A stronger United States means a safer world,” the prime minister said in reply to a question about whether he was concerned about the proposed military buildup. All the way with The Donald. No public distancing, whatsoever. Turnbull these days is a constrained figure. He governs by consent of conservative enemies. His leash is short, and he knows it. But periodically he acts out. He’s acted out recently by signing the Paris climate agreement. (Stick that up your jumper George Christensen.) He’s also acted out against the default extremism that resides in some quarters of the government by trying to extract some of the wretched souls out of Manus Island and Nauru. Turnbull has pulled this off while sheltering behind the po-faced obduracy of Peter Dutton – who is like a human shield between the prime minister and the night-time mutterings of Andrew Bolt – who pines for Tony Abbott in his small broadcast cupboard on Sky News. This long punt on Trump also feels like pure Turnbull. Mr Harbourside Mansion, as he was cruelly dubbed by Peta Credlin during the winter campaign, is, intrinsically, a risk/reward player. As the entrepreneurs say, big risk, big reward. Turnbull is, as my longtime parliamentary press gallery colleague Michelle Grattan puts it periodically, a venture capitalist of politics. Turnbull is clearly punting that Trump will turn out to be Ronald Reagan, or perhaps Ronald Reagan lite, rather than a deranged despot. It’s both a gut play, and a strategic calculation that Australia’s interests are best served if the plucky middle power can clamber inside the new Trump tower now being constructed, appointment by appointment, in shell-shocked Washington. The rationale goes if we are on the inside track, we can perhaps influence some of the decision-making. Turnbull will think aggressive rhetorical simplicity in public won’t mitigate against nuance uttered in private rooms, and won’t mitigate against Australia taking out its own insurance in the event things go to poop. He will see it like this: if modest public fandom is the price of entry to the new world order, then so be it. The other interesting development rounding out phase one of the Turnbull government adjusting to the new Washington involved a trade pivot. While Turnbull was out with his loud hailer affirming the marvellously opportune rise of Trumpism in the Pacific, the trade minister was clambering more quietly in the direction of China on trade. Australia this week dumped its previous energetic proselytising about the Trans-Pacific Partnership and latched on to the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific – the Beijing-backed proposal. This quickstep is either a prelude to trying to draw the US into a new regional trade agreement Trump hasn’t campaigned against – or a bit of low-key regional bet hedging on economic diplomacy. So having charted out our various compass points, let’s draw together the sum of the parts. On the trade liberalisation front, Australia has no real choice but to look to plan B. The TPP seems, as Tony Abbott would term it, dead, buried and cremated. To safeguard future prosperity, we need an option B, and we need to be on the ground floor of regional reconsideration of what plan B is. Being friendly to Trump helps Turnbull with the constant nightmare of the Coalition’s internals. If the task is keeping conservatives sated enough to prevent open insurrection, being sanguine about the Trumpocalypse is another bone to throw to MPs currently basking in the triumph of vindication – the folks who have welcomed the new global political age of unreason as the left’s just deserts. On Turnbull’s big, bold calculation: that Trump is Reagan, not a lunatic intent on occupying the White House in order to act out some Nietzschean ubermensch fantasy – it’s a big, risky call. Trump over the last 18 months has shown the world he can do or say anything, and not suffer any adverse consequences. The president-elect will be flush with that singular achievement, which literally rewrites the rules of democratic politics. Trump’s zero-sum world view has also been remarkably consistent over his lengthy public life. And as the Economist pointed out in an excellent piece this week, there is a key difference between Reagan and Trump as presidential figures. Reagan’s America looked outwards, while Trump has vowed to put America first: “Reagan’s America was optimistic: Mr Trump’s is angry.” Turnbull’s self-avowed venture capitalist political philosophy is try something – whatever you do, don’t die wondering. If it doesn’t work out, no matter, move on to the next thing. This instinct – never mind the steadiness, never mind the values, let’s see where this new adventure takes us – has led Turnbull into trouble more than once. Turnbull might well be proven right. This guy may be all piss and wind, someone to be indulged before the American people turn on him viciously for failing to deliver an agenda that looks, from this distance, manifestly impossible to deliver. But he also may be a deeply dangerous president, fully capable of wedging Australia uncomfortably between his own cynically nationalist fervour and China’s nationalist fervour – which is a game of chicken no one wants to be in the middle of. Defining the terms of our relationship with Washington now looms as a major test of Malcolm Turnbull – his diplomatic dexterity, his political skills, his judgment on the fly. This is not a parlour game. It is some serious geopolitical brinksmanship. The stakes could not be higher, and Australia may yet regret how the story ends.
Almost half the world cooking as if it were the stone age, WHO warns The good news is that more people have mosquito nets, and better access to clean water and toilets. The bad news, says Dr Maria Neira, head of public health and the environment for the World Health Organisation (WHO), is that populations have grown fast and little progress has been made in the past 10 years to prevent illness in developing countries. “Yes, we are spending more on treating TB, malaria and diarrhoea than we were 10 years ago. But we are not spending anything like enough on building good sanitation and water systems. Only 3% of our health spending goes to stop people becoming sick; 97% is spent when people are sick.” The global disease figures, released last week in a major WHO report, are stark, says Neira. The environment now contributes to more than 100 of the most dangerous diseases and kills 12.6 million people a year – nearly one in four of all deaths. One in five cancers are linked to environmental causes, as are one in four strokes. The number of people dying from poisonous air in burgeoning cities is rising fast. Most of these environmental diseases are entirely preventable, according to Neira. “We have failed in the last 10 years to help developing countries avoid making mistakes in cities; we have failed to help them avoid congestion and air pollution, and we have failed dramatically to increase the number of people using clean cooking stoves,” she says. The report, conducted once a decade to show broad health trends, identifies a significant shift from deaths caused by infectious, parasitic and nutritional diseases to non-communicable diseases (NCDs) including strokes, cancers and heart illness, which are linked to sedentary lifestyles, cities and pollution. “This shift is mainly due to a global decline of infectious disease rates, and a reduction in the environmental risks causing infectious diseases – a higher share of people having access to safe water and sanitation, and a lower share of households using solid fuels for cooking,” explains the report. But, says the WHO, 23% of all deaths and 26% among children under five are still due to modifiable environmental factors. Heading this list are stroke, heart disease, diarrhoea and cancers. “This environmentally mediated disease burden is much higher in lower-income countries, with the exception of certain NCDs, like cardiovascular diseases and cancers, where the per capita disease burden is greater in the developed world.” Of the 12.6m deaths now caused by poor management of people’s environments, 8.2m are from NCDs. For low- and middle-income countries, says Neira, this shift to chronic diseases, which last for a long time and progress slowly, will shape national approaches to health for years to come. “Until now we were focusing on communicable diseases, like dengue, TB, even Zika. The key message now is that we are talking about diseases like strokes, cancers and heart illnesses. “Communicable diseases are largely the same as 10 years ago, but population has increased. They are still the main problem, but NCDs are much more costly because they require long-term attention and more hospitalisation,” she says. Air pollution in developing countries has become a major public health issue. “We have 3.7 million people dying a year from outdoor air pollution, and 4.3 million from household pollution. Almost half the world is still cooking like in the stone age. “For many years [everyone talked ] about access to clean water. But now we realise access to clean air is also fundamental to health. Ambient air pollution is getting worse. In the past we were thinking this only led to respiratory diseases. Now we know air pollution gets into the bloodstream and leads to strokes and heart diseases. That is a big shift. When we have 7m deaths a year, then it’s a major public health issue.” Developing countries, she says, must act now to avoid a catastrophic decline in health as they urbanise and become more prone to diseases that are linked to sedentary lifestyles. “We are are creating a situation where millions are dying, creating environments that are responsible for one-quarter of all deaths. All these 12m deaths from unhealthy environments are preventable, and most are in the poorest countries. “We must understand that health is linked to how we live as much as [to] how much we expose ourselves to risk. Health is coming from the type of agriculture we do, the type of pesticide we use, the food we eat, the type of transport we use in daily life. It’s about living in places where we can walk, and do not develop diseases like diabetes. It’s about changing our consumption patterns, energy saving and sanitation.” All investment needs to be directed very strategically to preventing environmental disease, adds Neira. “Air pollution, access to clean water and sanitation, and the planning of cities are key to all future development. “Health needs to go into every equation for development. If we take the wrong choices now, our health will be devastated in terms of death, lack of quality of life and economic costs.”
Meat Loaf webchat – your questions answered on his health, Rocky Horror and method acting Meat Loaf has left the building. Thank you all for your questions. If you’ve just joined us, read his responses below – and look out for Bat Out of Hell: The Musical in summer 2017. s1nnah asks: Whats the average yearly royalty on something like Bat Out of Hell … you must still be selling copies? BewilderedMark asks: I have a vague recollection of you killing two US presidents in an episode of The Outer Limits. I think it involved time travel and someone pretending to be Abraham Lincoln. Was I imagining it? SwindonNick asks: 1) Are you fit, healthy and feeling OK? 2) You were on Celebrity Apprentice with Trump, what’s your view of him? 3) How did the Rocky Horror Picture Show role come about? HearAndSpeakNoEvil asks: How’s your health? Do you consider yourself a singer who can act or an actor who can sing? Do you ever regret the fallout with Jim Steinman, it seems you two made a good team, for a while anyway! karlcronin asks: How do you deal with fame, instant recognition, lack of privacy? Doug Neilson asks: You still tour and perform. Do you like/need to do that? Do to plan to go on forevermore? Put your feet up and play the records. RaoulChateaubriand asks: Do you still think you should have been given Total Eclipse of the Heart? 25aubrey asks: Mr Meatloaf, have you ever been offered to have a sing off with Noddy Holder about who could shout “It’s Christmas!”the best? Borucs asks: I read somewhere that you were taken aback by the raciness of Rocky Horror during its final rehearsals. Surely nothing would shock after performing in the musical Hair? Spock asks: When I was 19 in 1979 I was playing darts in a pub. It was the weekend before Led Zeppelin were about to play at Knebworth. When your track, with that incredible guitar solo, on the jukebox came on, I immediately started scoring triple twenties ... slight exaggeration but my motivation went up. Any chance you can write another record like that? Ollie Tipler asks: Meat, would you point me in the right direction to help character development in a live performance? SkavArt asks: Are you now able to talk about Fight Club? And are you in any other movie/TV roles in the near future? JoeUsual asks: Given how hard it was to get the concept of your musical presentation through the door of the commercial music industry, was there anything you abandoned in order to make it? wjelly asks: Which role or song do you wish you got (or still fancy a go at)? noirnoirnoir asks: Is it true you used to have a full-sized gingerbread house a la Hansel and Gretel built in your dressing room before every show in the 80s? glosrfc asks: Are you considering changing your stage name to The Artist Formerly Known As Mince? GAMilnthorpe asks: Are you involved in Bat Out of Hell the musical and are you excited? labellevue asks: Have you ever been to an owl sanctuary? KathyGB asks: Might Bat Out of Hell the Musical be brought to the United States? badflower asks: My friend Dean described you as one of the most charming men he has ever met. Why is that people often seem to be wary of you? Oneleggedpig asks: Could you sum up your life’s philosophy? Liam Quane asks: What was it like working with David Fincher? BetterOffTed asks: How do people address you? Caryl Burton asks: What was it like working with Amanda directing your music video for Going All the Way? Caryl Burton asks: What are your thoughts and feelings now that Jim’s musical is finally going to be staged in the UK? PeteD asks: I hope you’ve made a good recovery [from your onstage collapse], did it shake you up and will it affect future performances, will you be holding back a bit and being more cautious? Matt Price asks: What makes you happy? What excites you the most these days? vambeefco asks: Have you ever been in the presence of a spectre’s todger? Irene Gruenauer asks: What advice would you give to a young actor? Gooseladyann asks: I missed your last tour of the UK. Are you feeling better after a brief ‘rest’ and hopefully some treatment for your back and knee? And will I really need to go to the States to see you ever again? DenkiBran asks: Could you please share your best meatloaf recipe? bryfox asks: Is it right you once offended Pavarotti by saying he’d stolen your act? 35 Kanyon asks: Do you think rock music still has a future or do you feel, like Gene Simmons, it has no future? Courtney Marshall asks: How do you still go on? And will you be making another album? OleksandrOK asks: What does music mean to you? vambeefco asks: British satirist Chris Morris was kind enough to give you a shout out during the 1994 Comedy Awards – just wondering if you had any nice words for him? JennyHorner says: YO LOAF – If Axel [sic] Rose can perform with AC/DC on stage with a broken leg in a chair you CAN continue even if you require a knee replacement! qqqqqqmn asks: Where is the motorcycle from RHPS? Cheryl Lawrance asks: What do you consider to be your favourite track for live performances? Samuel Smith asks: Will you ever guest on an Anthrax record? Meat Loaf is with us! With his energetic strutting, mighty physical heft and near-operatic voice, Meat Loaf remains one of rock music’s larger than life characters. His breakthrough came with The Rocky Horror Show in 1973, but it was his 1977 album Bat Out of Hell that made him a star, eventually selling 43m copies worldwide. Its sequel album featured the single I Would Do Anything For Love, which went to number one in 28 countries; he has also taken numerous film roles, including a memorably voluptuous turn in Fight Club. He’s bounced back from an onstage collapse this year with new album Braver Than We Are, while a musical version of Bat Out of Hell is heading to London’s West End in summer 2017. His songs form the backdrop to a post-apocalyptic story of star-crossed lovers, penned by his longtime songwriting partner Jim Steinman. As he helps launch the project this week, he’s joining us to answer your questions in a live webchat on Wednesday 2 November at 1pm GMT – post them in the comments below, and he’ll answer as many as possible.
Surge in travellers buying holiday money before EU vote Holidaymakers nervous about what may happen to the pound after Thursday’s EU referendum are rushing to stock up on foreign currency, with the Post Office reporting a 380% surge in online orders. The Post Office, which accounts for one in four of all UK foreign exchange transactions, said currency sales had risen by 74% year on year since the weekend. It said branch sales were up by 48.8% on the same period a year ago, while online purchases had increased by 381%. The pound has made some gains in recent days and continued to creep higher on Wednesday. In August 2015, £1 bought about €1.42; last week it was about €1.26, while on Monday it was €1.29, and at lunchtime on Wednesday 22 June it was €1.30. A vote to leave the EU could cause the pound to plummet. In February, investment bank Goldman Sachs claimed the value of sterling could fall by up to 20%. A surge in transactions was also reported by FairFX, which specialises in prepaid currency cards that can be loaded with money in advance and allow people to lock into a rate now. It said many people heading to Europe or the US in the coming weeks were buying now to guarantee their exchange rate ahead of the referendum result. FairFX said the amounts being loaded on to US dollar cards, plus orders of dollar banknotes, were up almost 300% this week compared with the start of last week. It has also seen a 100%-plus increase in euro cards being loaded over the same period. The firm said that while many holidaymakers appeared keen to buy now to pin down their exchange rate, on the corporate side there had been a slowdown. Ian Strafford-Taylor, chief executive of FairFX, said: “While it is impossible to predict, the behaviour we’ve seen with optimistic clients and strong momentum from the remain campaign seems to have clients confident that the pound will see a relief rally following a clear win for remain. Some suggest we could see the pound strengthen as much as 5% following the results from Thursday’s referendum.” On Monday, Caxton FX, another foreign exchange specialist, said this year people were buying holiday money in smaller amounts but more frequently. Analysis of its customer data showed that the average amount of euros loaded on to a prepaid card in a single transaction had fallen this year, though the overall amount loaded had increased, as people were doing more top-ups. The firm said: “This suggests people are nervous about what is happening to the euro in the run-up to the referendum and are holding off buying too much in one go.”
Screen gods, guilt and glamour: actor Claire Bloom on her life in the limelight ‘Terror! Vice! Violence!” howls the poster for Claire Bloom’s 1953 film The Man Between, co-starring James Mason as Ivo Kern, shadowy smuggler of secrets and people in postwar Berlin. In the poster, he is putting the moves on Bloom, whom the artist has depicted reclining in rumpled sheets, hair down, thighs bared. “It is fairly misleading!” says Bloom when I show her the poster she’s never seen before during lunch at Blakes hotel in Kensington. She’s right. Carol Reed’s follow-up to The Third Man is an existential meditation on human corruption. One that is being revived for a new audience. Bloom was 22 at the time, and near the start of a remarkable career during which she would star with, among others, Chaplin, Gielgud, Burton, Olivier, Steiger, Brynner, Hopkins. “And some great women, too,” she adds, such as Kathryn Hunter and Eileen Atkins. She was also on the brink of a romantic odyssey anatomised in her 1996 memoir Leaving a Doll’s House. During it, she would marry three times (Rod Steiger, producer Howard Elkins and novelist Philip Roth), and have other affairs and dalliances, sometimes with her leading men, including Olivier, Burton and Brynner, not to mention a night of folly with Anthony Quinn. Today, she is elegantly dressed and proves witty, friendly company; she is, generally, prepared to put up with the odd impertinent question. Only occasionally – say when asked about whether she and Burton were an item on the set of Alexander the Great – does she snap incontrovertibly: “Let’s not talk about that.” But moments later gives me the gossip anyway. “I am,” she tells me several times, “of a certain age” (she is 85), and that serves both as a get-out for her garrulousness and a justification for forgetting some of the details of her career. For instance, she can remember many things about the 63-year-old The Man Between, but not the name of the character she played. She was Susanne Mallison, a naive young Englishwoman who poses as a prostitute to avoid capture by Soviet thugs. “I loved that scene,” she laughs. “It was a great relief from being the nice, nice girl.” When Bloom arrived in Berlin for filming, the producer and director Alexander Korda had just put her under contract. After training at the Guildhall and the Central School of Speech and Drama, she had played Ophelia in Stratford and Juliet at the Old Vic. The most celebrated critic of the day, Kenneth Tynan, wrote that hers was “the best Juliet I’ve ever seen”. Bloom made her screen debut with a small role in Gainsborough Pictures’ 1948 film The Blind Goddess. Soon after, she enrolled – like Dirk Bogarde, Petula Clark and Diana Dors – in J Arthur Rank’s “charm school”, set up to manufacture British movie stars along Hollywood lines. In 1952, she got her cinematic break. Chaplin had been searching for someone with “beauty, talent and a great emotional range” to play a suicidal ballerina suffering from hysterical paralysis who is rescued from the brink by, you’ve guessed it, his once-famous stage clown. He found those qualities in Bloom and the resulting film, Limelight, gave her an international profile. The following year, with The Man Between, she was being groomed for stardom by Korda. Later, she wrote: “I believe that if he [Korda] had lived, I might have had films built around me that were suited to my qualities.” But initially he gave her a role she didn’t think suited her. “I didn’t want to play the young English innocent, but that’s what I did and it worked.” It was only in her second film with Korda, his 1955 adaptation of Richard III in which she played Lady Anne opposite Olivier, that she got “everything I could have wanted”. She thinks the film still holds up. “In that second scene of Richard there’s an extraordinary kind of magnetism between us and it comes over to this day.” After Berlin, she returned to the Old Vic in London, where, between rehearsals, she fell in love with the married Richard Burton. At the time, if her memoirs are anything to go by, she remained the young English innocent. She wrote of her and Burton’s first night together: “I was almost ignorant about sexual matters, and found this first experience perplexing … Richard left me in the early morning to go back home and I went to sleep childishly thrilled that I was a ‘woman’ at last.” Though their romance soon ended, their careers were long after intertwined. In the 1956 sword-and-sandals epic, Alexander the Great, Bloom played beautiful mistress Barsine to his all-conquering Macedonian. In Look Back in Anger, Tony Richardson’s 1959 adaptation of John Osborne’s play, Burton played Jimmy Porter, and Bloom was Helena, who becomes the angry young man’s mistress. She loves the role. “She was a woman of today.” Bloom was given a freedom on set by Richardson she’d never experienced before. “I’d say: What do you think I should do?’ He’d say: ‘What do you think you should do? Do what you like.’” In 1964, Burton and Bloom appeared together in the film adaptation of John le Carré’s The Spy Who Came in from the Cold. By then, Burton was married to Elizabeth Taylor and Bloom to Steiger, with whom she would have a daughter, Anna, now a renowned opera singer. Bloom relates how Burton told her that to wake and find Taylor on his pillow was like having Christmas every morning, “a sentiment”, wrote Bloom hilariously, “that raised in me urges akin to murder”. “It didn’t make me feel too good,” she laughs. She has starred in more than 60 films, not to mention plays and TV dramas including Doc Martin, Midsomer Murders and Doctor Who. Among her most famous roles were the girls – Juliet, Ophelia, Susanne from The Man Between. Then the women, starting with Look Back in Anger’s sexually confident Helena and then her performance as Nora in A Doll’s House, a role that allowed Bloom to “fuse two conflicting sides of my nature – spoiled-child wife and the determinedly independent woman”. She, like Nora, had to slam the door on a husband – but in her case, it happened three times. The year after her Broadway triumph as Nora in the early 70s, she starred as the sexually troubled, fading southern belle Blanche DuBois in Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire. Bloom argues that she would never have understood the character properly but for her relationship with her second husband, Elkins, whose “entire being appeared to be centred on sexual gratification”. Another significant performance has been her narration of Leonard Bernstein’s “Kaddish” Symphony No 3, in a performance conducted by his protégée Marin Alsop in 2013. It’s intriguing both as an exploration of Bloom’s Jewish heritage and as a near-sacrilegious work in which Bernstein writes verse raging against the Almighty for His feebleness at ending human suffering. “I was told by a composer friend that the kaddish is ‘Bernstein fights with God. Bernstein wins,” laughs Bloom. Throughout lunch, I’ve been checking to see if she is still wearing the snake ring Roth gave her in the late 1980s. The couple had been living together for more than a decade when he presented her with the manuscript for his novel Deception. He then left it with her in their New York apartment. She read it in mounting fury because it depicted an actor called Claire from a self-hating Jewish family whose writer husband cheats on her with a series of women Bloom describes as “east European seductresses”. When he returned, Bloom says she was shaking with rage, while Roth presented her with a gold snake ring with an emerald head he’d just bought from Bulgari on Fifth Avenue. Deception was published in 1990, the same year they were married (they divorced in 1995). It was only when Roth agreed to remove her name from the novel that she accepted the ring as “his guilt offering”. Does she still read Roth’s books? “I don’t find it easy. I have gone back to read American Pastoral, which I had not read at the time. It’s a lovely, wonderful book. I find it hard.” How about I Married a Communist? “I certainly didn’t read that, if that’s what you’re asking.” In that 1998 novel, Eve Frame exposes her ex-husband as a communist during the McCarthy years. And then the outed commie takes his revenge. “Did she imagine,” snarls Roth’s narrator, “this openly aggressive hot head was going to do nothing in response?” Linda Grant in her review of the novel (under the heading “The wrath of Roth”) wrote that behind that question was another: “And did you, Roth is asking Claire Bloom, not expect me to retaliate?” “I’ve nothing to say about Roth,” says Bloom, who has lived for the past 20 years in London. Though she goes on to tell me about a time, a few years ago, when she was at a loose end in Montreal, having arrived early for a movie she was to film, and spent the week at the cinema. She saw an adaptation of one of Roth’s novels – “The one with Nicole Kidman in it.” She means the 2003 adaptation of The Human Stain, in which Nathan Zuckerman, Roth’s fictional self-projection, is holed up in a New England cabin after suffering divorce and prostate cancer. “And the person who was supposed to be playing Philip was no more like him than you and I!” Zuckerman was played by Gary Sinise, who at the time was in his late 40s, while Roth would have been 70. Writing in 1996, Bloom said she wore Roth’s ring “to this day”. But I notice she is not wearing it today. “A friend of mine said: ‘As long as you wear that ring you’ll never be free,’ so I sold it – immediately,” she says, before adding with a smile: “For very little.” • A newly restored edition of The Man Between is available on Blu-ray, DVD and VOD from 2 January.
Marlon Williams review – delicious, oddly uplifting misery It’s hard to work out quite how the debut album from the young New Zealander Marlon Williams manages to be so uplifting. It features covers of Teddy Randazzo’s none-more-woebegone 1964 ballad I’m Lost Without You, and a version of the death ballad When I Was a Young Girl – a traditional number derived in part from the equally miserable folk standards Streets of Laredo and The Unfortunate Rake – alongside originals that don’t ladle on the cheer: “I lost my wife in 1989 to a certain kind of undetectable cancer,” opens Strange Things. But Williams has a delicious lightness of touch, and his take on a mythic America, which blends alt-country, 60s pop and 19th-century folk, never gets bogged down in a quest for authenticity. After the opening hoedown of Hello Miss Lonesome, he ploughs straight into the bouncy guitar pop of After All. The overall effect is something akin to what the Byrds were doing in 1967: it’s not that the album sounds like Younger Than Yesterday or The Notorious Byrd Brothers, more the sense of someone trying to synthesise contrasting musics into a single coherent identity.
John Barnes: Gove says I’ll be voting leave. He’s wrong – and here’s why It was with great surprise that I received a text from my son on Tuesday telling me that Michael Gove had told the world I was supporting the leave campaign. This simply is not true. While I had done an interview about a month ago about the effects on English football players if we were to leave the EU (most likely it would benefit our football), I had made it clear to a campaign representative that I would not be supporting their cause. While I think a British exit might help football players, I don’t think it would necessarily help the rest of the country. I never expected to hear from them again. But then Gove raised the subject, and I feel I have to set the record straight. I hadn’t even felt that strongly about it previously – that’s why I hadn’t made it public knowledge that I was supporting remain. I’m a normal person, a layman, so when they’re talking about the economic arguments on either side it’s hard to follow. When 90% of analysts are saying we’re better off in, but the other side say that isn’t true, it’s hard to be sure what to believe. So my reasons for supporting remain are probably different from those of many others: immigration. And I don’t believe this is an issue that the leave campaign should be based on. Leave is preying on people’s fears, telling the same story we’ve heard over the years about black people from Africa and the Caribbean coming to steal our jobs. Now we hear the same thing about Poles. If leave wanted to say that companies are paying migrants less than British workers, and so allowing them to take our jobs, then it should be looking at raising the minimum wage – not stopping migrants entering the country. The problem has nothing to do with the Polish workers – it is an issue about our labour laws. Yet leave maintains its focus on immigration. Mass migration and the refugee crisis is one of the biggest problems facing the world. In this country we assume that everyone just wants to come to the UK – but it’s an issue in Germany, Greece, Sweden, all across the EU. Why should we be the first to turn our backs on the problem? We have to think not only about what would happen to those unfortunate people, but to the rest of the planet too. What kind of example would we be setting? We should be the first to help disadvantaged people. What would happen if other countries decided to follow our example? Britain has always told the world that being British is about the humanity, compassion and moral fortitude that we have. All great things that we are supposed to have spread across the world. A leave vote now says that we don’t really care about anyone else, we don’t care what happens to the European Union. Why should the Germans be able to show more compassion than we do? Leave says it doesn’t want to stop immigration entirely – it only wants people who can help us, who have the qualifications and skills that we need. But what about the other people who are displaced or disenfranchised? Don’t we have a responsibility to help them too, especially when they are fleeing countries whose problems we have helped to create, such as Syria, Afghanistan or Iraq? We cannot just wash our hands of the situation. We are the first on the frontline to go into countries to liberate people in the name of freedom – that’s what we’ve claimed. And now, all of a sudden, they need our help and we turn them away. Yet the rest of Europe stands ready to help. Why are we the first to jump ship? And when politicians talk about welcoming different, more skilled immigrants – who are they talking about anyway? If there were thousands of blond-haired, blue-eyed Americans landing at Dover, seeking refuge, I think many of us would be straight down there to help. So many groups of people, whether they be from Africa or the Middle East, have been demonised and dehumanised because they don’t look like us. I’m not accusing anyone of being racist. I’m black, I was born in Jamaica, but this affects me too. I know I would feel more empathy with that boat of white American refugees than I do with the thousands fleeing Syria. It’s because of what we have all been told and the environment that we live in. I don’t look like a white American any more than I do a Syrian – but I was brought up in a society that has taught me to empathise more with them. There might be strong arguments to say we should leave Europe for our sovereignty – because Germany or France are bullying us and have more of a say in the EU than we do. Perhaps we would even be better off as a nation if we left. And maybe I could have supported a vote to leave if that were the case being made. But that’s not what the campaign chooses to look at. It focuses on immigration, which can only lead me to think that those other arguments don’t hold enough strength to support an out vote. They talk about what makes Britain great. How we are morally right, the people who will do the right thing. Well that should be helping others in need, setting an example to the world – not running away at the first sign of trouble.
Javier Bardem in talks to play Frankenstein's monster Javier Bardem is in talks to play Frankenstein’s monster in a new series of films from Universal Studios revivifying its classic horror heroes. Variety reports that Bardem was in talks for Frankenstein, with the journalist later confirming on Twitter that he was referring to the doctor’s creation, not the doc himself. Universal is currently in development on Frankenstein as well as Bride of Frankenstein. There are also rumours that Mary Shelley’s characters might make an appearance in the Tom Cruise-starring The Mummy, which is about to end shooting. The monster has already featured in 48 films, most recently 2015’s Victor Frankenstein, with James McAvoy as the surgeon and Daniel Radcliffe his trusty assistant, Igor.
Who will write the front page this nation needs? On Wednesday night the infinite number of monkeys that usually write the editorial for the Daily Mail had fallen victim en masse to the zika virus. And so, having made something of a name for myself in Fleet Street, having filled in for David Mitchell here these past few months, I was called in at short notice to articulate a Daily Mail front-page question of profound significance to our destiny as a sovereign nation. A nation, let us not forget, with justifiable and fair provision for successful businesses to establish their principal trading bases in Bermuda and Jersey. Yea, I was to ask indeed a question significant profoundly also unto the fate of our children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, great-great-grandchildren, great-great-great-grandchildren, great-great-great-great-grandchildren, great-great-great-great-great-grandchildren and Michael Caine. Whom wilst spakey for England? And, of course, by “England”, like Leo Amery MP in 1939, I meant the whole of the United Kingdom, although I did suggest to the paper’s proprietor, Viscount Biscuit, that the Scottish Daily Mail’s cover should not perhaps, in the current climate, feature the words “Whom Wilst Spakey For England” in massive letters. So instead, Biscuit raided the padlocked underground safe where the imaginary photos of the magician’s excited dog are kept to provide a picture of Simon Cowell staring woefully into Cheryl Fernandez-Versin’s ear. Nonetheless. I was to ask again. Whom wilst spakey for England? And again askest I. Whom wilst spakey for England? It was a question inspired by one of the most dramatic moments in the history of journalism. The date was 2 February, 2016, the day after David Cameron returned from Europe, having just made an ambivalent statement regarding spurious migrants’ benefits, and waving a draft agreement from Brussels, saying to anyone who would listen, “I have in my hand a piece of paper.” Next door to Harrods, the Daily Mail’s editor Paul Dacre was incensed and bellowed across the Tardis-like dimension-defying pen wherein his infinite and comatose monkeys slept: “Whom Wilst Spakey For England?” And so, with my help, he hoped the entire front page of Thursday’s Daily Mail would do just that, voicing anger over the premier’s reluctance to enforce new obligations to Brussels, as surely as Neville Chamberlain had failed to constrain the paper’s old friend Adolf Hitler, chancellor of Nazi Germany, in 1939. I was not, of course, to suggest there were any parallels whatever between the Nazis and the EU. Indeed, the Daily Mail would argue that one of the Union’s great achievements, along with Nato, has been to foster peace in Europe. But I did realise it would play well with my temporary Daily Mail paymasters if I could somehow create the association of the EU and the Nazis in the subconscious minds of my readers, without appearing to endorse the idea officially. But, I was prepared to suggest for money, just as in 1939, we were once more at a crossroads in our island history, and hopefully not at a roundabout, where all the exits have been blocked off, except the one where you have to go into a Euro-style cafe and be force fed accurately measured Toulouse sausages by women in French maid’s outfits and Islamic veils. Whom wilst spakey for England? In the small hours of Wednesday night I sat high above Kensington High Street and looked at the sleeping, sweating monkeys. And I knew that if I could pull off this front page, I could have their jobs. And if Viscount Biscuit paid me only a fraction of their daily monkey banana bill, I would still be rich beyond my wildest dreams. Now was the time to write the most brilliantly incendiary front page ever, driving billions through the Daily Mail’s website, both those in furious, bewildered agreement and those who would be clicking through only to check if my insane opinion was for real. Now was the moment and the moment was now. For in perhaps as little as 20 weeks’ time, ill-informed voters, stuffed with incoherent arguments, like hissing geese force-fed nostalgia and hate to produce an inedible pâté of groundless opinion, would be asked to decide nothing less than what sort of country we want to live in and bequeath to those who come after us. Our children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, great-great-grandchildren, great-great-great-grandchildren, great-great-great-great-grandchildren, great-great-great-great-great-grandchildren and Michael Caine. Whom wilst spakey for England? I would ask again. And again. Whom wilst spakey for England? But could I write the inflammatory piece that would secure my financial future? Could I live with myself if I consolidated the Daily Mail’s case? Could I sleep soundly if my ambition tossed those infinite monkeys on to an infinite heap of banana skins? Would our liberty, security and prosperity be better assured by submitting to a statist, unelected bureaucracy in Brussels, accepting the will of unaccountable judges and linking our destiny with that of a sclerotic Europe that tries to achieve the impossible by uniting countries as diverse as Germany and Greece? Or would our liberty, security and prosperity be better assured by submitting to an elected Bullingdon bureaucracy here at home, accepting the will of demonstrably unaccountable politicians, and linking our destiny with that of a sclerotic Eurosceptic camp that tries to achieve the impossible by uniting personalities as diverse as Theresa May, former Ukip hat-wearer Winston McKenzie, and Michael Caine? Whom wilst spakey for England? Who for England wilst spakey? Were we to be a self-governing nation, free in this age of mass migration to opt out of the attempts of the wider European community to cooperate to solve the greatest refugee crisis since the second world war, strike trade agreements with tyrannical dictatorships whenever we choose, and dismiss codes of practice regarding environmental safeguards, pollution and human rights if they displease us, like some pusillanimous ostrich, sticking its stupid head into the rapidly dissipating sands of time? Whom? Whom wilst spakey for England? For England whom wilst spake? For years, we have been bombarded with propaganda from one side, principally the Daily Mail, and from the Daily Express, whose tangential relationship with the very notion of a newspaper hinges only on the slim fact that it contains words. Should I be part of the problem? Or part of the solution? Whom wilst spakey for England? For England whom wilst spake? I nailed my courage to the sticking plate. I banished the monkeys from my mind and wrote the editorial. The rest is already history. Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle (Series 4) will be on BBC2 soon
Healthcare staff: tell us about the inappropriate demands on your time Healthcare professionals often complain about people using NHS services for the wrong reasons or at the wrong time. It’s an issue that’s repeatedly come to light in submissions from frontline healthcare professionals. GPs talk of patients asking for new pairs of shoes; paramedics claim that most of the patients they take into hospital don’t need to be there; 999 call takers complain of people calling to tell them their dog is unwell; and A&E nurses and doctors tell stories of people claiming the antibiotics they were given five hours ago are not working. A lack of communication, education and the sometimes poor availability of services can lead to patients being unsure of who they should turn to. Meanwhile, there’s a parallel problem of patients not attending scheduled appointments. As pressure continues to mount on health and social care services, we want to hear about those times when you know you’re not the most appropriate professional to be treating the patient in front of you. Please fill in our form below. A selection will be used in our reporting. You may remain anonymous, if you wish.
Trump begins filling environmental posts with clowns Come on, you can admit it. I admit it. I admit that after Trump’s election victory, I secretly hoped and even though that his rhetoric was worse than its bite. He only said those crazy things during the campaign to get elected. He wouldn’t really follow through on his plans to completely gut the US commitment to keeping the Earth habitable. Oh how naive we were. Trump’s plan to fill positions in his administration shows things are worse than we could have ever feared. According to recent reports, Trump has picked long-time climate denier and spokesperson for the fossil fuel industry Myron Ebell to head the Environmental Protection Agency transition. This basically means the EPA will either cease to function or cease to exist. It also appears that the US will pull out of any agreements to limit greenhouse emissions. It means we have missed our last off-ramp on the road to catastrophic climate change. That may sound hyperbolic, but I study the rate that climate change is happening – the amount of heat accumulating in the Earth’s system. We didn’t have any time to waste in implementing Obama’s aggressive plans, and Trump will result in a decade of time lost. So who is Myron Ebell? He is a director at the Competitive Enterprise Institute and chair of the Cooler Heads Coalition. Where did he get his PhD in science? Nowhere. In fact, he isn’t a scientist at all, but he does have a degree in economics. Yeah! Is there any conflict that Ebell’s Competitive Enterprise Institute is funded by companies such as ExxonMobil and groups such as the Charles Koch Charitable Foundation? Surely not. Myron Ebell is not new to obstructing action on climate change. Years ago, it was reported that he favored editing Bush-era scientists’ reports on climate change. It isn’t just Ebell. Trump has other insiders, some of who represent fossil fuel companies, working on the transition. What this selection also tells us about Trump is that he is surrounding himself with people who are not knowledgeable in a topic and will not effectively educate him. Not that educating Trump was ever possible. But there was always the outside chance he would take his contrarian streak to a new level and be contrarian to the contrarians. We now see that is not going to happen. If Trump listens to anyone, it will be people who think like he does and represent special interests who would be most affected by his policies. We have a fox guarding the hen house. I know Trump won’t listen, but I have a wager for him. I could randomly pull an Earth scientist’s name out of a hat and any name I pulled would be better than Myron Ebell. I challenge Trump and his administration to actually include real scientists in forming legislation and action on environmental issues. And I am not talking about scientists that are connected to rightwing thinktank groups. I am talking about independent unaffiliated scientists. Cripes, just go down to the neighborhood university, pick anyone – they will be better than what you have now. Or Trump could attend the world’s largest geophysics meeting, which occurs in just a few weeks (American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting). He could walk around with a TV camera and a clipboard. Ask any random 10 scientists any question on climate change. Let’s see how their answers compare to the information he is going to get from his handpicked insiders. Let’s put it on TV; Trump likes TV. Maybe someday Trump will realize that he actually could be the savior of the Earth. Could you imagine the transformative power of a Republican president getting the Republican party to find solutions to climate change? It would fit a megalomania frame. It would be powerful and inspiring. However, the chances it will happen are about as good as the chance we can avoid our targeted 2C temperature rise (almost zero). Not if you surround yourselves with foxes as you go in to raid the hen house. At the risk of losing objectiveness but keeping candor, we are fucked.
Impact of poverty costs the UK £78bn a year, says report Dealing with the effects of poverty costs the public purse £78bn a year, or £1,200 for every person in the UK, according to the first wide-ranging report into the impact of deprivation on Britain’s finances. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) estimates that the impact and cost of poverty accounts for £1 in every £5 spent on public services. The biggest chunk of the £78bn figure comes from treating health conditions associated with poverty, which amounts to £29bn, while the costs for schools and police are also significant. A further £9bn is linked to the cost of benefits and lost tax revenues. The research, carried out for JRF by Heriot-Watt and Loughborough universities, is designed to highlight the economic case, on top of the social arguments, for tackling poverty in the UK. The prime minister, Theresa May, has made cutting inequality a central pledge. Julia Unwin, the chief executive of the foundation, said: “It is unacceptable that in the 21st century, so many people in our country are being held back by poverty. But poverty doesn’t just hold individuals back, it holds back our economy too. “Taking real action to tackle the causes of poverty would bring down the huge £78bn yearly cost of dealing with its effects, and mean more money to create better public services and support the economy. UK poverty is a problem that can be solved if government, businesses, employers and individuals work together.” Responding to the research, a spokeswoman for the government pointed to the former chancellor George Osborne’s introduction of the “national living wage” for over-25s and May’s pledge to share out economic gains more fairly. “We’re committed to creating a Britain that works for everyone and that means tackling the root causes of poverty,” the spokeswoman said. “Employment is key and we’ve made good progress – there are now more people in work than ever before, millions are receiving a pay rise thanks to the national living wage and we’ve doubled free childcare to 30 hours. “But there’s more to do and we’re taking action across other areas like education and family breakdown so we can help more people to succeed in life.” The JRF report, called “counting the cost of UK poverty”, estimates that 25% of healthcare spending is associated with treating conditions connected to poverty. In education, an extra £10bn – 20% of the schools budget – is spent every year to cope with the impact of poverty through initiatives such as free school meals and the pupil premium, which is funding given to schools to help children from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds improve their academic performance. Police and criminal justice account for £9bn of the annual poverty cost, due to the higher incidence of crime in more deprived areas. An estimated £7.5bn of spending in children’s services is associated with poverty. This represents 40% of the early years budget and 60% of the children’s social care budget. The report’s authors said their estimates did not include the full cost of benefits aimed at preventing poverty or helping people to find a way out of it, such as working tax credits or jobseeker’s allowance. Nor did they include the amount that experiencing poverty in adulthood costs the public purse through reduced tax revenue. The estimates for lost tax revenue that the report included were only based on individuals who grew up in poverty. Prof Donald Hirsch from the Centre for Research in Social Policy at Loughborough University said: “It is hard even to estimate the full cost of poverty, not least its full scarring effect on those who experience it. What our figures show is that there are very large, tangible effects on the public purse. “The experience of poverty, for example, makes it more likely that you’ll suffer ill health or that you’ll grow up with poor employment prospects and rely more on the state for your income. The very large amounts we spend on the NHS and on benefits means that making a section of the population more likely to need them is extremely costly to the Treasury.” The researchers noted that a concerted effort to eradicate poverty “may well involve spending more initially on services that help break the long-term cycle of family poverty and its consequences, but bring longer-term social and economic benefits”.
Ten ways to cope with referendum anxiety I don’t know about you, but I’m having a really relaxing, productive day. After going into the polling station, I returned home and compulsively ate Kettle Chips for an hour as I contemplated a post-apocalyptic future, and wondered whether everything will be upside down and on fire this time tomorrow as voters react to the fact that they didn’t get the result they wanted. It’s an anxious time for all of us, and since the referendum was announced at the start of the year families have been ripped apart, throwing Jersey Royals at each other over the dinner table as they row about whether high-end potatoes are protected or threatened by our current EU member status. The constant coverage has put us all on edge. I genuinely can’t work out whether this is the most important political event to happen in my lifetime, or whether it’s just that I’ve chosen to become so obsessed that I am personally no longer capable of forming a sentence that doesn’t feature the word “Euro”. I’m almost certain that the advert with Danny Dyer saying “Vote, yeah? Or I’ll send the boys round,” was just an anxiety dream. But I’m equally certain that I really saw Jeremy Paxman shouting at Sandie Puppet-on-a-String Shaw on telly last night. While the country is in limbo, we have to work out a way of keeping our referendum fever in check. We won’t have any answers until tomorrow morning, so here’s how we can distract ourselves until then. 1. Guess the C-list celebrity votes Last night’s you-had-to-see-it-to-believe-it Channel 4 debate showed us that a surprising number of “famous people” – and I use that expression very loosely – have unpredictable, strong views on whether we should stay or go. Enlist a friend who is also in urgent need of distraction, and one of these lists – with a prize for the greatest number of correctly guessed preferences and double points for outliers like darts legend Bobby George and Chloe off Ex on the Beach. 2. Turn a family member into a meme “Keith” took to Twitter to claim that when he took his 93-year old-blind mother to the polling station she asked “‘Which box for out?’ and a cheer went up from waiting voters.” We’re not sure if his mum, or in fact Keith, is real, but #KeithsMum is helping us all at this difficult time. 3. Don’t rely on one poll The secret of meteorology is that you have to keep looking for new weather forecasts until you find the one that tells you exactly what you want to know. Similarly, there are so many referendum polls available that it’s possible to keep Googling them until you find one with the results you want. 4. #DogsAtPollingStations Social media may be a platform for fury, fights and political discord, especially right now, but this particular hashtag is taking the tension out of the day, because it’s impossible to feel animosity towards someone who is voting the opposite way from you when they are bringing a sweet little spaniel or staffy to the polling station. Today this country is going to the dogs – and it’s a good thing. 5. Buy currency for holidays you might go on Has your trip to the polling station given you a taste for standing in a queue while quietly muttering to yourself? Why not head to your nearest Post Office and beat the anticipated sterling currency fluctuations by stocking up on euros, US dollars and Vietnamese Dong? This is also a great way to find inspiration if you’re working out where to go when you leave the country permanently, should the results not go your way. 6. Pay a tax bill Or check your bank statement, or get a filling, or call your Uncle Reg like you promised to six months ago, to tell him about how the Cloud works. I’m planning to work through my referendum angst by taking an old toothbrush to a mouldy bath mat. 7. Watch Passport to Pimlico You could spend this evening watching the results come in, holding your breath and hiding behind the sofa, or you could put on this informative Ealing comedy, just in case you need instructions for establishing your own principality come Friday morning. 8. Jump in a puddle We don’t yet know whether or not puddles will be subject to new regulation or taxation in the event of major societal change. The weather outside is frightful, so enjoy while you have the chance. 9. Use your hands If you have any nails left, try to keep busy in order to preserve them. It’s a great time to take up cross stitch, by sewing a simple “IN” or “OUT” on to an old tea towel. If you’re too agitated to thread a needle, find a manicurist who will physically threaten you with cuticle scissors if you attempt to check Twitter during the treatment. 10. Obsess over which box you ticked Know that no matter what your views are, there’s a 50% chance that you’ve ruined your own future by accident, which is comforting.
HSBC chairman says scandals show banks must raise standards HSBC needs to do more to protect the financial system from “bad actors”, the bank’s chairman admitted to shareholders on Friday. Addressing investors during often heated exchanges at the bank’s annual general meeting, Douglas Flint referred to the 2,300 companies that Britain’s biggest bank and its affiliates had created through the Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca. Only 5% of the companies were still in existence, he said, and insisted it was no longer possible to open such accounts without transparency. The unprecedented leak of 11.5m files from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca has prompted anger worldwide at the way wealthy individuals can hide their money offshore. Flint said the revelations predated the tougher rules about financial crime, regulatory compliance and tax transparency standards implemented in recent years. “We are taking steps to align our customer base with these higher standards, relinquishing clients unable or unwilling to furnish full transparency of their affairs,” said Flint. “We are committed to working with the relevant public authorities to fight financial crime and keep criminals out of the financial system.” However, he admitted there was more to do. “We are, however, not yet where we need to be … HSBC’s determination to address emerging risks and enhance our ability to identify bad actors remains resolute,” said Flint, who has said he will leave HSBC next year after 20 years on the board. He provided little information about when his successor might be chosen. The non-executive director rumoured to be being lined up for the role - Henri de Castries, the outgoing boss of French insurer Axa - refused to comment on whether he was a candidate. At the meeting Flint had an ill-tempered exchange with one private investor who regularly attends the AGM, Michael Mason-Mahon, who waved handcuffs as a “US bonus” – a move Flint said was “completely out of order”. Mason-Mahon said he would vote against the chairman’s re-election to the board, although 96% of shareholders voted in favour. HSBC’s admission in its annual report that an official monitor had raised “significant concerns” about the slow pace of change to its procedures to combat crime sparked questions from shareholders about whether the bank would lose its US banking licence. The monitor was imposed by US regulators after the bank was fined £1.2bn in 2012 for failing to implement money-laundering controls, allowing Mexican drug traffickers to deposit hundreds of thousands of dollars a day in HSBC accounts. Flint insisted the bank was doing everything it could to appease American regulators and likened the monitor’s report to his own school reports – “a report card that says we know you’re committed … but there’s more to do”. Unlike last year, when one in four investors failed to support the remuneration report, this year the bank averted a row over pay by announcing changes to cut pay by 7%. This year 90% voted to support the pay report – covering last year’s rewards – and 96% for the pay policy, which covers pay deals for the next three years. The pay of chief executive Stuart Gulliver was reduced to £7.3m in 2015, a year in which profits remained flat at £13.2bn. The share price was 611p at the time of last year’s AGM but is only about 468p now. The bank reiterated its warning that it would move jobs to France if the UK voted to leave the EU. Flint said there would be a “period of great economic uncertainty in the event of a vote to leave and should the UK economy slow and economic conditions deteriorate as our research suggests, in at least the short to medium term, this would affect many of our customers in the UK and the economic environment we operate in”.
Goodbye Rick Parfitt, you were one of rock's heroes There he would be, stage right, dressed almost always in a shirt – usually white, or blue denim – with one too many buttons undone, untucked over blue jeans, white sneakers on his feet. His white Telecaster would be held with its neck at a 45-degree angle – the better to synchronise swinging it with his Status Quo bandmate of decades, Francis Rossi – and from it would come riff after riff after riff after riff, unyielding, implacable. I dare you to laugh at Rick Parfitt. People did, often and long, but they were wrong. Parfitt was one of the greatest British rock’n’rollers, and if Status Quo had long since passed into light entertainment, so what? They had earned the right to make money, playing to appreciative crowds; they had earned the right to do whatever they wanted. It’s just a shame Parfitt couldn’t be with them on stage until the end – at their gigs in the run-up to Christmas, illness had made him an absentee. You didn’t go to Quo for chameleonic reinvention, like Bowie. You didn’t expect a mastery of styles and intoxicating sexuality, as with Prince. You’d look long and hard for insight into Cohenesque insight into the human condition. But what you did get, especially from the classic “Frantic Four” line-up of the 1970s, was rock’n’roll as a physical force, something that hit you like a cannonball. Their breakthrough album, 1972’s Piledriver, was aptly named. When the Frantic Four reunited for a series of gigs in 2013 and 2014, they were a reminder of what Quo had been, and a lesson that it was well within their powers to return to that. And at the centre of that bludgeoning onslaught was the rhythm guitar of Parfitt, his downstrokes turning his right hand into a blur, hitting the barre chords again, again, again, again. And when he took to the mic to perform one of his own songs, Rain, it was as heavy in its own way as anything I had ever seen on the stage at the Eventim Apollo, or Hammersmith Odeon, or whatever you want to call it – as crushing as Slayer or Iron Maiden or Judas Priest or Them Crooked Vultures. It was breathtaking. Quo’s music – so often characterised as “heads-down, no-nonsense, mindless boogie” – was hardly sophisticated, but it gets treated with a contempt it really doesn’t deserve. It’s true that even in their heyday their albums could be patchy, but at their best they were punk before punk, their dedication to stripping away the fripperies as wholehearted as the Ramones, and their willingness to turn the blues into a hypnotic drone making them something akin to a Norwood Neu!, as Saint Etienne’s Bob Stanley once suggested to me. It would be fair to say that Parfitt never seemed to make any great claims for profundity. He appeared happy enough for Quo to be A Bit Of A Larf – hence the appearances in ropy films (Bula Quo!), the cheerful admission that he and Rossi were off their nuts on cocaine through the recording of Band Aid – rather than one of the building blocks of British rock music. Beneath it all, though, and for a long time, there was darkness. His two-year-old daughter drowned in 1980; he had recurrent health problems – a heart attack and a quadruple bypass in 1997, another heart attack, another heart attack. And the drugs and drink years turned out not to have been a non-stop party. “Through the late 70s and all through the 80s I was a bit of an ogre,” he told our own Simon Hattenstone in 2007. “I fell into the sex, drugs, rock’n’roll big time, and Richard, my eldest son, saw me at my worst. It was a big shock for him and he deserted me. I don’t blame him ’cos I was just not with it, I wasn’t here … Richard has described me as turning into a Mr Hyde. He said, you just became a different person, and it was almost like being out of a movie where you’d wake up and all the facial hair had gone and the claws had been drawn back, and you wake up and you’re this normal person for a very short space of time until you decide to drink the potion again. For three or four years he didn’t talk to me, and he came back to me at about 14. Wisely his mother kept him away from me.” So the cheery, laughing man you saw on stage had won the right to that persona. And for all his rock star affectations – the flapping shirt, the bling, the golden mane that had started to look a bit out of place quite a long time ago – the thing about Parfitt was that he didn’t seem like a rock star, so much as what an ordinary bloke would be like if he were transformed into a rock star. That might account for the love people had for Quo, for they really were a group who were loved. That’s why they could continue playing arenas – because they were, in a way that only hard rock bands really can be, a “people’s group”. They were reminiscent of things that people like, rather than the things they aspire to – a night at the pub, rather than on the dancefloor at Studio 54; a day trip to the seaside, instead of a month in Mustique; chewing the fat with your mates, not trying to think of something to say to a supermodel. And at the heart of it was what seemed to be a deep and genuine love between Parfitt and Rossi, bandmates for almost 50 years, and friends for longer. Mystery and magic have a place in rock’n’roll, of course they do. But so, too, do their less exciting counterparts – familiarity, reliability, certainty. Parfitt and Status Quo embodied those characteristics, and they shouldn’t be scoffed at. No one says of Nile Rodgers, “Yes, but all he does is disco.” They celebrate the fact that he took one thing and took it to a state of perfection. Of course, disco is glamorous; it’s flashing lights and beautiful people and New York and the thrill of the night. Status Quo were last orders and the geezer in the tour T-shirt and Croydon and the bus home. But that’s life. To be perfect at one small part of music’s great display is a colossal achievement in itself. Goodbye, Rick Parfitt. You were one of rock’s heroes.
Pardew hopes Dwight Gayle can follow Ian Wright’s lead for Crystal Palace The performance demanded the question was asked, and there was no one better than Alan Pardew to answer it. Dwight Gayle burst relatively late into professional football, his reputation forged in non-league as a quick, tricky and prolific striker. He has endured lengthy periods on the fringes at Crystal Palace this season, more latterly through injury, but there is no more instinctive finisher in this club’s ranks. Manchester United await in the FA Cup final at Wembley. Palace, and Pardew, have been here before. For Ian Wright in 1990, read Gayle 26 years on. “Well, you said it, and of course there are comparisons to be made,” offered Palace’s current manager, a team‑mate of Wright’s when the forward plucked from Greenwich Borough, where he had been earning £30 a week, for the cost of a set of dumbbells, sprung from the bench to score twice in the showpiece against Sir Alex Ferguson’s side. “Dwight did a great job out there and has given me a question mark about the team. I’m going to play him at Southampton [on Sunday] and, if he gets another couple of goals, I’ll really have a problem.” Gayle has been at Palace for three years and in each campaign, now that Saturday’s pair has swollen his season’s tally to seven, has finished as leading scorer in all competitions despite finding himself largely used as an impact substitute in league games. He is a victim of the team’s preferred structure, a player who might flourish alongside Glenn Murray or Connor Wickham if Palace regularly played two up front. He has pined for game time to the extent that he was open to a transfer last summer, albeit not to Bristol City when a £9m fee was agreed. Norwich City’s interest, on deadline day, surfaced too late. Yet, with a burst of late form, his timing might actually be in before his club’s second FA Cup final, against United once more, later this month. Palace secured him to new terms last month, albeit on the understanding his position will be reviewed if suitors emerge who might offer him more regular football, and, of all Pardew’s team, he was the one who displayed eye-catching urgency throughout against Stoke. His goals duly secured his team’s top-flight status. “It was important the contract side of his situation was sorted out and [the chairman] Steve Parish managed to do that,” said Pardew. “That made the job easier for me. I feel a bit for Gayley this year in that he hasn’t had enough game time. “But we had a great first half of the season and it was difficult for him to get into the side. Then he had injuries and we lost him for a time when we really, really needed him. Now he has come back and, of all my players, he is the one with a freshness about him because he hasn’t had a lot of football. That is a great thing for us as we look to Wembley.” It was his combination with Wickham that really caught the eye, offering the management a potential Plan B for the Cup final. There is certainly a partnership there in the making to which they could turn if chasing the game on 21 May. While Palace breathed a sigh of relief at survival, Stoke’s campaign continued to fizzle out. A six-match winless run has come as an unpleasant surprise for Mark Hughes and his players, who were briefly bolstered by Charlie Adam’s first league goal in almost a year before fading. “It’s frustrating,” Peter Crouch said. “We were asking questions in the dressing room there but we can’t really put our finger on what has happened. Today we were not at it, and the collapse in the second half was not good.” Hughes departed scowling. Palace, in contrast, can focus on a glittering final ahead. Man of the match Dwight Gayle (Crystal Palace)
Italian cabinet gives green light to Monte dei Paschi di Siena bailout The Italian government has agreed to a bailout of Monte dei Paschi di Siena (MPS) after the world’s oldest bank admitted that it had failed to raise €5bn (£4.25bn) from private investors as part of a last-ditch plan to rescue the bank. Paolo Gentiloni, Italy’s new prime minister, announced in the early hours of Friday that his cabinet had agreed to the rescue and would be dipping into a €20bn fund that had already been approved by the parliament earlier this week in the event that MPS needed to be saved. The government announced that its first step would be to strengthen the bank’s ability to procure liquidity. If necessary, the bank can move ahead with a sale of state-backed bonds. Pier Carlo Padoan, the finance minister, did not specify how much the rescue would cost the Italian state, but he said funds would be sufficient to cover the bank’s capital requirements. “This will secure MPS’s capital needs and allow the bank to continue its industrial plan. Italy’s third largest bank will finally return with force to operate in support of the Italian economy and in a contest of full tranquillity for its savers and its employees,” Padoan said. The government said junior bondholders – who under new EU rules must take a hit before any state intervention – would be able to convert their bonds into shares, which will then be converted into senior debt. The announcement brought to an end months of uncertainty about MPS’s fate after the bank embarked on an attempt to first raise billions of euros on the private market. In a statement on Thursday night, MPS said that the attempt “has not ended with success”. “In particular, there were no manifestations of interest on the part of an anchor investor who could have put a significant investment in the bank and this negatively affected decisions of institutional investors,” MPS said. MPS’s board met on Thursday night after it failed to secure an anchor investor, thought to be the Qatar sovereign wealth fund. Within hours of that announcement, Gentiloni convened his cabinet and formally approved the state rescue plan. The bank also announced that the two investment banks that tried unsuccessfully to arrange the private investment – JP Morgan and Mediobanca – would not receive any fees for their work. Shares in the bank were volatile during the day, lifting off record lows but then falling back in the confusion surrounding the next steps. The shares – down 85% this year – slumped by 7.5%. MPS is under instruction from the European Central Bank to bolster its finances after it was found to be the weakest of 51 European banks subjected to stress tests. The failure to convince Qatar to inject up to €1bn means that Italy will have to impose losses on bondholders before it can stump up cash because of new EU rules intended to prevent taxpayers from picking up the bill for bank losses. However, about €2bn of the bonds are held by private investors, and the government suggested that arrangements were in place to protect those junior bondholders. The bailout is not just a financial issue. It is also expected to have political consequences for Italy’s controlling Democratic party and Matteo Renzi, the former prime minister who stepped down from office earlier this month after he was roundly defeated in the referendum on 4 December. While Gentiloni has taken over as interim prime minister, Renzi is expected to run for election again as early as next year. Wolfango Piccoli, an analyst with Teneo Intelligence, said a government rescue might not be immediately damaging politically, in large part because public attention will be diverted from the issue during the Christmas period. But the issue could become “politically toxic” later, once it becomes clear how many of the bank’s junior bondholders are eventually compensated for their losses, and how long it takes for them to be paid. “In terms of the junior bondholders, let’s see what happens. it will eventually be decided by Brussels,” Piccoli said. Once MPS is saved, a number of other banks could also require government support. “This will drag on for some time. If we have elections in May or June, it will be used then [against Renzi’s Democratic party], and there is no way to deflect that,” he added. The bail-in of bondholders should help reduce the amount of funds the Italian government must contribute to MPS. Analysts at Barclays said any state intervention for MPS may not be enough to solve the problem facing the banking system, which has amassed bad lending at a time when the economy has been stagnating. They said the six largest banks could need €30bn to clean up their balance sheets and even if the €20bn “were to represent sufficient firepower to plug the hole, we doubt the decision to deal with MPS through a public sector solution will represent a template to be unrolled across the system quickly”. The €5bn fundraising from private investors was complex, involving a cash call on shareholders, asking bondholders to swap their investments for equity, and also parcelling off bad debts. The €4.25bn Atlante fund – set up by Renzi and backed by larger banks to prop up banks – had been expected to hoover up the problem loans.
Adam Lallana strikes at the death for Liverpool in 5-4 thriller at Norwich It is a good thing that celebrating players did not smash Jürgen Klopp’s glasses until after the ninth goal because it would have been a shame for Liverpool’s manager to have missed the chaos that preceded Adam Lallana’s winner five minutes into added time. This was, as the German said, “spectacular, wild football” featuring marvellous attacking and slapdash defending. Analysts will spend the next few days trying to make sense of it. Others will need time to get their breath back. No one can deny it was entertaining. The losing manager, Alex Neil, found words hard to come by after seeing his side relinquish the 3-1 lead they took early in the second half. “I don’t know what to say, it’s just really, really frustrating,” said the Scot. Klopp admitted: “A draw would have been deserved for both teams. But a few days ago we lost a game we should not have lost against Manchester United so here we took something back.” Yet for much of the match it looked like Liverpool were intent on giving things away. Luckily for them, Norwich outdid them in that regard. The visitors took the lead against the run of play in the 16th minute, through a superbly crafted goal at odds with their sluggishness up to that point. After a zesty move featuring Jordon Ibe, Alberto Moreno and James Milner, the latter nudged the ball through to Roberto Firmino, who shot across the advancing Declan Rudd and in off the far post. Liverpool were transformed, their play infused with new energy. Milner should have increased their lead moments later after being sent clear by Firmino, but the midfielder’s dawdling allowed Robbie Brady to poke the ball away. Liverpool were made to regret that miss all the more when their difficulty with defending set-pieces re-emerged. Klopp’s men floundered as they tried to clear, and when Brady nodded the ball back into the box, Dieumerci Mbokani collected it with his back to goal, held off Mamadou Sakho and then backheeled the ball through the Frenchman’s legs and into the net from seven yards. Klopp was outraged at his defenders for not exposing the striker as offside. “You have to be offside, it’s not possible, it’s unbelievable,” he said. Liverpool’s defence seemed on the verge of breaking down several times thereafter, as Norwich attacked with gusto. They took the lead in the 41st minute. A rapid advance down the right culminated with Wes Hoolahan collecting the ball on the edge of the area and slipping a cute pass through to Steven Naismith, who lashed a low shot into the far corner. It was the perfect way for the striker to announce himself to his new home crowd following his £8m transfer from Everton. Naismith won a penalty early in the second half, although it would be more accurate to say that Moreno conceded it with a ludicrous foul. The Spanish full-back is prone to rashness but the two-footed lunge from behind on Naismith was senseless even by his standards. Hoolahan was a model of composure as he dinked the penalty down the middle as Mignolet dived left. The Carrow Road faithful were still crowing about their two-goal lead when Liverpool cut it in half. Nathaniel Clyne hurtled down the right and delivered a cross that Firmino flicked on to Jordan Henderson, who had darted into the box undetected by any defender. He swept the ball into the net from 12 yards. Klopp replaced Ibe with Adam Lallana before the hour and the change made a difference, playing a key role in the equaliser. The move was started and finished by Firmino, who followed up excellent recent performances with another here. After flipping the ball to Milner near halfway, the Brazilian spun and dashed towards the box. Thus he was on hand to receive the ensuing cross from the left by Lallana and clip the ball past Rudd. There was still more than half an hour to play and more goals looked likely.Neil cursed the way the next one arrived, as Russell Martin inadvertently put Milner through on goal with a reckless back pass. Unlike in the first half, Milner took the chance, slotting past Rudd to trigger jubilation among the away players and fans. But it was not time for them to celebrate just yet. Because two minutes into stoppage time Bassong plundered an equaliser with a ferocious low shot from 20 yards. “Well done Norwich, but I couldn’t believe it,” said Klopp. Fortunately for the manager who had complained to the fourth official about five minutes being added for stoppages, Liverpool came out the right end of the final twist. Steven Caulker, introduced up front again by Klopp, made a nuisance of himself in the Norwich box and one of his shots was cleared only as far as Lallana, who battered a bouncing ball first‑time into the net. Now Liverpool could celebrate in style, and as their players and staff staged a mass pile-on on the sideline Klopp’s glasses were crushed. The manager was not bothered by that but admitted to concern about his team’s tendency to concede at set-pieces. “It’s not always possible to score five; after the game it feels funny but it’s really rubbish what we are doing and we have to solve this.”
Co-op chief's trumpeted 60% pay cut does not complete until 2017 Richard Pennycook, chief executive of the Co-operative Group, has asked for a 60% cut in his multimillion-pound pay package – but the much trumpeted change will not complete until next year, the has established. The mutual announced with great fanfare on Thursday that Pennycook, who earned a total of £3.59m last year including an annual bonus of £1.12m, had asked to reduce his salary and rewards package by 60%. The company said the cut came after the rescue of the business had finished and the rebuild was “well under way”. It also comes after Co-op members protested against high executive pay at last year’s annual meeting. A prominent chart in the Co-op’s annual report published on Wednesday indicates Pennycook’s total rewards will fall to £1.5m. Allan Leighton, chairman of the group, said: “The move by Richard to reduce his pay shows the Co-op difference in action, as we champion a better way to do business for our members and their communities.” But analysis of the report reveals that Pennycook is still in line for total rewards of just over £3m this year. A planned cut in basic salary from £1.25m to £750,000 does not take effect until July, halfway through the company’s financial year. Reductions in potential bonuses for Pennycook do not begin until 2017. This year, the former Morrisons executive can earn up to 200% of his salary in annual and long-term bonuses if he meets performance criteria. From 2017, that potential annual bonus will be reduced to 40% of salary and the lon-term incentive bonus will fall to 50% of salary – both currently stand at 100%. A source close to the Co-op admitted that the information on Pennycook’s pay package was not easy to understand, but added: “We have tried our best to be as clear as possible in a complex situation.” Confusion over the pay package comes after a long history of disputes over executive remuneration at the Co-op. Last year, about a third of members failed to back the company’s pay report in protest at multimillion-pound payouts to executives. Former chief executive Euan Sutherland left after a leak to the revealed the Co-op planned to pay him more than £3.5m in his first year in the job despite the group’s £2.3bn losses. Hefty salaries for Pennycook and other executives are likely to prove controversial for Co-op members at the annual general meeting in May. This year’s annual report reveals £1m-plus pay packages for the Co-op food business boss, Steve Murrells, its chief operating officer, Pippa Wicks, the general counsel, Alistair Asher, and the consumer services chief, Rod Bulmer. Consultancy AlixPartners was paid £1.25m for the services of Wicks, with Murrells earning £2.2m and Asher £1.4m. Jim Lee, a former secretary of the Scottish Co-operative party and long-term Co-op activist, said: “We recognise that there’s a market in retail managers but nonetheless this pay seems to be exceptionally high.” He suggested that executive pay should be limited to a multiple of that earned by the lowest-paid workers within the Co-op and that members should be given more say over remuneration. Leighton said: “I don’t think Richard Pennycook was paid too much at all. The pay everybody received was for rescuing this organisation that was long gone and dead and the fact we can sit here today and say the business is growing and confident about the future.” The Co-op revealed a 10% rise in underlying profits to £81m in the year to 2 January, as sales and profits rose in its grocery store and funeral care businesses. Sales and profits fell at its insurance, legal services and online electrical products divisions. Total sales at the 2,800-store Co-op chain were steady at £7bn as it closed 91 larger stores and opened 97 smaller ones. Underlying sales, which strip out the impact of openings and closures, rose 1.6% as the company said shoppers were welcoming £155m of price cuts and improvements in own-label products. This year the company plans to open a further 100 small stores and close or sell off a similar number as well as investing in improving the quality of own-label products and another £45m in price cuts. Murrells said: “For most of last year deflation [in the food market] was running at 1.5% and I see nothing to suggest that’s going to ease up.” Funeralcare revenues rose 9.9% to £399m. The Co-op said high death rates meant it had the busiest year since 2008. Underlying profits rose 18.2% to £78m, with 25 funeral homes opened. The group plans to open a further 200 homes over the next three years, taking the total to 1,100.
Ruth B: six seconds about Peter Pan that made her a star It’s a Thursday afternoon and 20-year-old singer-songwriter Ruth B finally has a free weekend. “I’ve been out on the road for so long that it really feels good to be sleeping in my own bed. It’s nice to be home.” Her brief respite comes in the middle of what’s been a whirlwind three months after her debut single, Lost Boy, unexpectedly scaled the American charts. It’s currently at a new peak of No 33 after three months on the Billboard Hot 100, quite an achievement for an unknown singing a tender piano ballad about Peter Pan. The song has rapidly catapulted Ruth Berhe from just another Canadian student looking forward to college to a breakout star. Lost Boy must be the first-ever hit to have its origins on Vine, an app where users can post six-second videos. “I had just graduated high school and saw that a friend from one of my science classes had posted a Vine on Twitter,” Berhe says. “I was like, ‘What is this?’ Vine was super new at the time, so I checked it out and downloaded it never thinking anything would come from it.” Growing up in Edmonton, the quiet capital city of Canada’s Alberta province, Berhe always loved music. “It was as normal for me as breathing; not something I wanted to do, but needed to do.” However, growing up she regarded it as just a hobby. “I was never chasing to make a career out of it, but every day after school I’d go to my keyboard and play for four hours and make up songs. It was a constant part of my life.” One day early in 2015, Berhe was feeling inspired after watching the TV drama Once Upon a Time. “It’s all about fairytales, so that day when I went to my keyboard that’s what was on my mind.” She then improvised some songs about Snow White and Rumplestiltskin. However, it was a lyric about Peter Pan that resonated. “I came up with, ‘I am a lost boy from Neverland, usually hanging out with Peter Pan” and recorded that simple line on my phone. I watched it back and thought it was kinda cheesy and I was actually going to delete it. But I thought ‘Whatever, it’s catchy’.” Berhe wound up posting the video on Vine. Within a week, those two lines, (length: a mere six seconds) had gone viral. “It got such a huge reaction with so many likes and that had never happened to me before,” she says. “It inspired me to keep going because the majority of the comments were, ‘We want to hear more of this!’” Giving her new fans what they wanted, Berhe posted another six-second video with a new set of lines – and another, and another. “Eventually I had a chorus and I put it all together on YouTube.” The full version of Lost Boy was even more popular, launching Berhe from bedroom obscurity to a worldwide audience within weeks. (She only played her first live show two months ago in Los Angeles.) “I’m just really overwhelmed and shocked that people gravitated towards that particular Vine,” she says. “Most importantly, I was super excited that it was something that I had written and not a cover. It’s been incredible to go on this journey and release snippet by snippet of it. I think that’s why people like it, because they have a piece of the song. The fans are the ones who told me to write it and they saw the genesis of it in real time.” The viral success of Lost Boy has propelled Berhe far beyond Vine. With the song becoming a constant presence on the radio, the track has successfully transitioned into the mainstream – no easy feat considering the countless hopeful artists who find success on Vine and then have a difficult time shaking the app from their identity. “What I wanted to make sure of is that I wasn’t just tagged as a Viner,” she says. “The app was my way of getting my voice out of Edmonton and into the world. When I got my first email from a record label, I decided I didn’t want to go in with just one song, so I sat down and kept on writing.” Those songs have since resulted in her popular debut EP, The Intro. And luckily, throughout her growing success, inspiration keeps on flowing. “When I first started writing a year ago, I’d come up with a topic, then a melody and then write a song. Now every time I leave my house I feel like I’m bound to run into a song. Whether it’s a look on someone’s face or something I go through; there’s a song in every experience now.”
Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Monumental review – an almighty revelation Post-rock is a loudly ponderous, insistently serious kind of music: all brooding soundscapes, apocalyptic themes and long, instrumental songs that are fanned into vast fire-fronts of noise. Everything emotes. Once I thought it to be very important music. But the drama that sucked me in eventually spat me out. At a gig, I found myself furiously agreeing with a guy who yelled “crescendo is cheap!” I had chewed the colour and flavour right out of it. Post-rock all tasted the same. Formed in Montreal in 1994, Godspeed You! Black Emperor takes post-rock’s tropes to the hilt. They answer interview questions as a collective, play in the dark and have song names such as Piss Crowns Are Trebled and We Drift Like Worried Fire. So why, then, did I so thoroughly enjoy not one, but two Adelaide festival events featuring them? The first was a dance piece called Monumental by fellow Canadians, Holy Body Tattoo. When it was originally performed in 2005, Godspeed was on hiatus so the piece was scored with the band’s recorded music. When Godspeed reformed in 2010, Adelaide festival director David Sefton saw his chance to have some chats and align some stars. Thus, Monumental was resurrected – this time with Godspeed live onstage. Choreographers Dana Gingras and Noam Gagnon are known for pushing dancers to their limits. Only then are the body’s secrets truly illuminated, they say. Still, you think, this is contemporary dance. The abstract and the ambiguous is a given. Not at Monumental. Its language is direct and confronting. For most of the show the dancers stand on individual pedestals, sometimes gesturing like Communist dictators but more often than not, suffering. They twitch, scratch, pant and cower, knead their aching shoulders and tear at their hair. Even poses suggestive of yoga, tai chi and prayer are repeated joylessly; it is an exhausting drill. An A to Z of disorders is insinuated: anxiety, anger management, obsessive compulsive disorder, paranoia, Tourette’s syndrome and Trichotillomania (where people pull out their hair). The duets speak of intimacy troubles and betrayal. Lord of the Flies springs to mind during the ensemble pieces. The dancers jerk, lurch, run in mindless circles and trip each other over; marionettes to a spiteful puppeteer. It sounds unpleasant but it is electrifying instead. Watching Monumental is like holding on for dear life to a power line downed in a storm that keeps thrashing and sparking. Jenny Holzer’s existential text art escalates the onslaught of ideas. Her observations glow on screens, such as: “Even with your eyes closed you can see someone approaching. His shadow shows on the inside of your eyelids.” The show is not without dated moments, such as time-lapse photography of clouds and highways – but why look when below the screen a dancer is in freefall? Monumental’s maximalism gives you no reason to focus on the parts you don’t like. Which brings me to Godspeed You! Black Emperor, who play at rock-show volume in a theatre that offers no earplugs because it has never had to. The governor of South Australia is here and perhaps other dignitaries too and there is an odd texture to the closing applause. Some patches are thunderous; others are sputtering. It’s the sound of a polarised audience. I’m sure this would please Godspeed. Surely they did not want to please each and every patron and corporate sponsor? This is a band associated with anarchist politics who were famously (and erroneously) arrested as terrorists while touring America in 2003. They revel in their outsider status and terminal disenfranchisement, and once said: “Turn on the radio, and it’s a fucking horror show. The things our governments do in our name, just to fatten themselves on our steady decline.” Godspeed’s rightful place in this dance piece is a revelation though. It seemed unlikely their massive drums and sad, soaring crescendos could score such frantic dance moves, but there is synchronicity even during spoken-word piece, Dead Flag Blues. Moments when it all comes at you – the dance, the words and the music – are like diving too late into an enormous wave and getting swept up in the surge. And it’s always a joy to hear a band preach to the unconverted. Dance attracts a wholly different audience to epic post-rock gigs. But because Monumental’s themes on the perils of individualism and neocapitalism are aligned with Godspeed’s, the band has reached a mainstream audience with integrity intact. Perhaps more late-career post-rock acts could find a place doing something similar? Godspeed’s show on Sunday night, by contrast, is great for more obvious reasons. Band members mosey out one at a time and sit in a circle, facing their foldback speakers. They play for two hours with no encore and not a work spoken. Kudos to the Thebarton Theatre (also the venue for Unsound) who mixed the sound so well – advisable when there are four guitarists, two drummers, a double bass and a fiddle. The mighty riffs of Mladic from Godspeed’s 2012 record Allelujah! Don’t Bend! Ascend! would alone have been worth coming, as were the doomsday visuals, wrangled in film reel by a guy behind the sound desk. Post-rock may not find a place on my home stereo anymore. But live, and in the hands of a band that created many of its formulas to begin with, I could surrender to a sound I once loved.
I want to unfriend someone on Facebook but I don't want to hurt their feelings I want to unfriend someone on Facebook but I’m worried I’ll hurt their feelings. What should I do? First, a caveat: I may take a more callous approach to this than the average social media user. But I believe that no online friendship is a given; that every follow is earned. Curate your timeline, and do so rigorously. On Twitter in particular I may unfollow someone in a fleeting fit of intolerance, possibly to reconnect if they pick up their game in future. Easy follow, easy go is the word – Twitter can be bad enough without voluntarily weathering the worst of it. This doesn’t apply as easily to Facebook, where the worst offenders can be blood ties and a hasty unfriending is more likely to create problems “in real life”. But even there it is worth being mindful about your network. That’s not just for the sake of your own enjoyment (although removing former schoolmates, one-time acquaintances and any racists can improve the Facebook experience immeasurably). It’s also for the security of your information. Remember: people are creeping. Don’t make it any easier for them than you have to. A few years ago, when I accepted and requested people on Facebook more freely (it was the first year of uni – I was making these ties for life!), I had 800 friends. Then one day I watched an acquaintance scroll down her timeline. I was dismayed to discover my activity was everywhere, from the stupid pages I’d liked – “Going to the Winchester, Having a Pint and Waiting For This All To Blow Over”; “Getting Inappropriately Drunk in Low-Key Situations”, as was the style of the time – to my comments on the statuses of people she didn’t know. My response was twofold: I became a lot more circumspect about what I posted on Facebook and I culled a lot of friends. I figured that if they didn’t already know I liked getting inappropriately drunk in low-key situations, they shouldn’t be able to find out online. My rule of thumb, which I continue to follow, is if a year has passed since we’ve seen each other, and I wouldn’t stop and chat if we were to pass on the street, they are out of the fold. I may have gotten carried away. It’s been seven years since the Great Cull of Winter ’09 and I am still 170 Facebook friends shy of the number I started out with – the body count wouldn’t have looked out of place in a Game of Thrones finale. I had also, perhaps, been naive about how personally many people would take this. I had some former friends messaging me – some hurt, some angry – to ask why they’d got the chop. It pays to ask yourself if this is a conversation you’re prepared to have when you go to unfriend someone or, even better, when your friendship is first requested – it’s a lot harder to sever ties than it is to form them in the first place. These days, I am more circumspect about whose requests I accept. People tend to understand if you maintain a tightly guarded social media presence, only for close friends and family. It’s when they get cut from the team that it can turn ugly. Perhaps to help with these types of tough calls, in recent years platforms have introduced less antagonistic ways to manage your contacts, without them knowing. On Facebook, “unfollowing” someone – the tab next to “friends” on their profile page – means you won’t see their bad content. It will be sort of like they don’t exist until you get a notification that it’s their birthday – a timely annual reminder to assess whether it’s worth maintaining your online friendship. Muting (which has recently been extended to keywords and conversations) achieves the same on Twitter – and is an arguably more effective weapon against trolls than blocking, which I think can give them a sense of achievement. But, as I said, your sense of obligation to others will likely exceed mine. If you regret hurting someone’s feelings by unfriending them, apologise and reconnect – or take the coward’s route: claim you were “hacked”. If you have a question about online etiquette that needs damage control, email elle.hunt@theguardian.com or tweet her at @mlle_elle.
George Martin and the other Fab Four So now we have it. Modernisation equals longer hours and reduced working conditions: “John Lewis is planning to shut staff canteens and introduce longer shifts for hundreds of delivery drivers to cut costs and modernise its business” (Report, 10 March). Peter Nicklin Newcastle upon Tyne • Not only did George Martin (Editorial, 10 March) launch the careers of four Liverpudlian lads but also five or so years of fun and minor fame for four Abingdon schoolmasters. His records of the Master Singers’ The Highway Code and The Weather Forecast have been heard all over, from Dutch and British TV to an Icelandic jukebox. Many thanks Sir George. Helen Keating Gatehouse of Fleet, Dumfries and Galloway • If the cost of a customer drinking a whole pint of beer is not double that of one drinking a half pint (Letters, 8 March), why does my second pint cost as much as the first? Keith Penn Ely, Cambridgeshire • The Tory squabbles and the bogus arguments around sovereignty (Report, 9 March) are surreal when it’s recognised that the goal of both sides is to secure the nation’s future role in the global economy as British Isles, North Cayman branch. Dave Hunter Bristol • The best defence of the exclamation mark (Should children be told to not use exclamation marks?, 8 March) ever written is surely Chekhov’s short story of that title, where its function is revealed as expressing “delight, indignation, joy and rage”. Nicky Morgan may find a kindred spirit in Collegiate secretary Yefim Perekladin, though I hope she escapes his fate!!! Donald Mackinnon Newport, Gwent • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
Brussels isn’t the bad guy. Tory cuts cause Britain’s troubles Don’t blame the EU for your troubles, blame Tory austerity. This is the message Labour voters should hear from Jeremy Corbyn. It is a message Ed Miliband could have made more forcefully during his term as Labour leader, when the conversation on the doorstep turned to immigration. Instead, he appeared to choke with embarrassment. Corbyn has a higher embarrassment threshold. He could look the immigration question in the eye and not blink. Unfortunately, the Islington North MP considers debating immigration off limits. So, last week, Corbyn tried to persuade voters that the EU is the workers’ friend and a bulwark against a bonfire of employment protections. That’s not an unreasonable position. Yet if immigration is the main source of anger outside the south-east, and if it is driving the Brexit campaign to a possible victory, the subject needs to be tackled head-on. If you think Britain is a great place to live that has been ruined by an alliance with other EU nations, you are mistaken and Labour needs to make that point. Here are five reasons that the former coalition government and the current Tory administration are to blame, and not Brussels. Jobs It is easy to walk around an engineering practice in London, a hospital in Leeds or a leek farm in Lincolnshire and conclude that foreigners are stealing “our” jobs. But, in the main, the roles would be unfilled if they were kept out. The work would probably go abroad. On one level, the fault lies with consumers and employers, large and small. Consumers would buy a foreign leek before one grown here picked by a Brit who was paid more and treated better. Employers are at fault for not training school leavers, older workers and job switchers because it’s cheaper to hire foreigners. Profits are calculated on this basis. Moreover, without cheaper labour there would, in many cases, be no business. So foreigners allow employers to expand the number of jobs. That’s what the figures tell us. Compared to this time last year, there are 461,000 more people in work. People from the rest of the EU grabbed a majority of the jobs, but the substitution effect with UK nationals was only at the margins. Overall, the number in work just keeps going up and the UK now has a record employment rate of 74.2%. Look a little closer and it is clear the government has played a big part by cutting skills and training budgets, laying waste to further education and demanding workers accept precarious employment, whether it be zero-hours contracts or self employment. Vacancies Job vacancies are running at a higher level than we have seen at any time this century. A small dip in recent months still leaves the number at 750,000. Most are for services jobs, as one might expect, with the largest number among retailers and wholesalers. Car repair firms reported a 143,000 shortage. The NHS and social work sector accounted for 119,000 of the total. Finding a mechanic, or hiring a nurse, is as much a problem in Leeds as in London. It’s not just about a lack of skilled jobs being created in the north, but also a mismatch of people to jobs – not a problem invented in Brussels. Wages Adjusted for inflation, average wages have collapsed since the 2008 crash. Workers absorbed cuts in overtime and basic hours to keep their jobs. Since the recovery got into full swing in 2014, wages have nudged ahead of inflation, but not enough to fill the gap. Part of the reason is the lack of investment by employers who rely on cheap workers. But the UK, like all developed economies, is also suffering from the effects of globalisation, which allows multinationals to invest where subsidies are most generous. Ford has centred much of its European operations in Turkey for that reason. Without investment in skilled jobs there will be no increase in wages, but that is not on the Tory agenda. Housing If the worry is that housing is either poor quality or too costly, for yourself and your children, blame successive governments for failing to support good quality state-sponsored housing. The taxes from migrant workers could be used to fund it, but the current and previous governments have preferred to reduce the top rate of tax and protect pensioners’ benefits. There is no evidence in the last 100 years that shows private builders can meet the nation’s needs. This means housing associations have to find funds to build – but ministers are denying them access to finance, and councils can’t offer builders land when they are forced to sell to the highest bidder. Health service If the queue at the hospital and GP is a problem, this is the result of austerity measures that cut spending growth from 4% a year in real terms to 1% since 2010. The NHS, coping with an ageing society, was supposed to implement reforms to fill the gap but, to no one’s surprise, this project has so far failed. Worse, in his last budget, George Osborne slashed council spending on health by £800m. That’s cash used for local mental health services and preventative policies, such as tackling obesity. He told local authorities to put up council tax by 2% to fill the gap. It’s cuts that lead to queues – in a race to the bottom that Osborne, despite his rhetoric, thinks is just fine.
EU referendum morning briefing: Farage's flotilla sets sail as Osborne counts cost of Brexit The big picture So much for letting the sunshine in as we edge towards the final week of campaigning. Wednesday’s dial is set firmly to doom as chancellor George Osborne says Brexit could rip open a £30bn hole in the UK’s public finances. At an event this morning Osborne will appear alongside remain pal Alistair Darling to ramp up warnings that the Treasury would be forced to fill the gap though higher income tax, alcohol and petrol duties; and by slashing funding to the NHS, schools and defence: Far from freeing up money to spend on public services as the leave campaign would like you to believe, quitting the EU would mean less money. Billions less. It’s a lose-lose situation for British families and we shouldn’t risk it. Osborne will say this could mean a 2p rise in the basic rate of income tax to 22%, a 3p rise in the higher rate to 43%, and a 5% rise in inheritance tax to 45p. Some leave supporters reacted angrily, with Conservative backbencher Liam Fox denouncing what he described as a “punishment budget”: It would damage the chancellor’s credibility and would be putting his own position in jeopardy. I think the British public would react adversely to such a threat based on the chancellor being afraid they will vote the wrong way in his opinion. Some commentators weren’t too concerned: The official Vote Leave campaign pointed out that Osborne’s doomsday plan would necessitate him breaking seven pledges from last year’s election manifesto. But Darling will say that others outside the UK are already recognising the potential risks: For the first time ever, we saw German government bonds offering a negative yield – in other words, investors are paying Germany to look after their money as they seek safe havens. As this report spells out: The impact on shares in London and across the continent was dramatic as stock markets tumbled and one analyst declared that “the stench of Brexit was stalking the streets of the City”. The pound also tumbled 1.2% to below $1.41, its lowest for two months. Against that, Vote Leave (still insisting it isn’t an alternative government?) offers its blueprint for a post-23 June future: limit the powers of the European courts. switch money saved from EU contributions to the NHS. end automatic right for EU citizens to come to the UK. begin efforts to secure a trade deal with Europe by 2020. On the campaign’s other main theme, immigration, there are signs of a change of heart/panic (delete as appropriate) among remainers, with reports that Downing Street is considering a last-ditch pledge to reconsider the free movement of workers within the EU. Labour’s deputy leader, Tom Watson, yesterday joined Ed Balls in saying more limits on migration would be on the table even if remain wins through next week. And in the midst of all this, Nigel Farage will come sailing up the Thames at the head of his pro-Brexit flotilla. I’ll leave you to check the weather forecast and your personal preferences to determine whether this one is filed under sunshine or gloom. You should also know: Leavers Boris Johnson and Priti Patel were the winners of last night’s Telegraph/YouTube debate, says the Telegraph. Brexit is a “huge negative” for Japanese companies in the UK. Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull says the possibility of Brexit is creating “uncertainty in global markets”. England players have been discussing Brexit around the Euro 2016 dinner table. And the Leave.EU BPoplive concert is tragically cancelled. Poll position The FT poll of polls today pegs leave on 47% and remain on 44%. A TNS poll yesterday followed recent trends by finding leave ahead, this time by 47% to 40%. And a new BMG online poll has the gap at 45%-41% in favour of leave. Diary At 11am George Osborne and his No 11 predecessor Alistair Darling appear together to deliver that budget warning. From 11am to 2.30pm, Nigel Farage and co take their flotilla of protest along the Thames. At noon it’s the last PMQs before the referendum. This evening at 6.45pm Michael Gove is on the BBC in Nottingham for a Question Time EU referendum special with David Dimbleby. Read these In the Economist, Bagehot says remainers should not give up hope just yet: In such moments – when faced by a choice between an imperfect status quo and a leap into the dark – Britons have, in the past, rarely chosen the latter. To defy that tradition, Leave has to disguise a vote to quit the EU as the safer, more small-c conservative option. Yet here too, the polling (judging by YouGov’s tracker) suggests that the campaign has failed. For all its bogus claims that Turkey will soon join the EU, I have yet to see proof that it has persuaded voters that the dangers of continuing in the club are greater. That most voters rightly consider the choice before them on June 23rd more significant than that at a general election suggests that they will be particularly risk-averse next week. Dutch daily newspaper Algemeen Dagblad has issued a plea to British voters: please stay. Nobody in Europe appreciates your culture more than we do. The Beatles, Bridget Jones, One Direction, EastEnders, Brideshead Revisited, we love it all. Many of us know Monty Python’s Dead Parrot sketch by heart. We admire your stiff upper lip. And every year we remember, with the greatest respect, all those who have fallen to liberate our country. Now you are thinking of leaving us. Sailing out your floating country towards distant shores, so says your largest newspaper, the Sun. Talking as a Dutch uncle, we have to tell you this is not a good idea. We not only love you, we need you. Who else supports us in keeping some common sense on this turbulent continent of ours? An EU without the UK would be like tea without milk. Bitter. So please, stay. Stay with us. Baffling claim of the day The Sun front page, refusing to let up after its endorsement of leave yesterday, now warns of “nasty Euro moths” – a “massive swarm of super-moths from Europe”. The paper urges readers: Vote Leave to protect our country … and our cabbages from nasty crop-ravaging Euro moths set to hit the UK. Brexit would definitely stop the diamondback moths – as they’re technically known – coming over here and taking our cabbages, because the British Isles would be towed further away from the mainland continent. Also the moths would not have passports. Celebrity endorsement of the day The day in a tweet If today were a novel ... It would be Three Men in a Boat, a comic tale of a Thames-based escapade, with plenty of pubs along the way. Plus, as the ’s list of 100 best novels put it, “an unconscious elegy for imperial Britain”. And another thing Would you like to wake up to this briefing in your inbox every weekday? Sign up here!
Thomas Cohen's playlist: Laura Nyro, Kate & Anna McGarrigle and more Judee Sill – That’s the Spirit I found out about Judee Sill through the Radio 4 show The Lost Genius of Judee Sill, and instantly fell in love with her music and her world. That’s the Spirit is from her third album, Dreams Come True, which was unreleased in her lifetime. It sounds like her freest piece of music as there are so many other musicians playing on it, whereas on her previous albums she generally did everything. Erich Kleinschuster – Communion My friend introduced me to this when we were working together in central London. It’s from the Jazzman spiritual jazz compilations. Beautiful late-60s European jazz with a strong Purcell-like apocalyptic choir outro! Kate & Anna McGarrigle – Heart Like a Wheel I think I came across this song first on Spotify. One of those rare occasions where banjo and heartbreak work so well. Truly beautiful arrangement from the McGarrigle sisters’ 1976 debut album. Alain Goraguer – Strip Tease Alain Goraguer is a French composer who was part of Serge Gainsbourg’s crew. This is taken from the Fantastic Planet soundtrack. Laura Nyro – The Confession Lastly, Laura Nyro, from her incredible album Eli and the Thirteenth Confession. I chose this song because it displays what a genius she is – all the instrumentation and emotion in her vocals, climaxing in a chant about love being gospel.
Rebel Wilson: from Pitch Perfect to a pitch-perfect West End debut Performers often remark on the reserve of British theatre audiences compared with the whooping of their US counterparts. But when Rebel Wilson tottered on stage in London on Thursday night as Miss Adelaide in Guys and Dolls, it might as well have been Broadway. Before she had delivered a single line, the crowd could not contain itself. Wilson spent the next two and a half hours proving she deserved the hysteria. The 36-year-old Australian actor’s emotional openness on screen, in hits such as Bridesmaids and the two Pitch Perfect movies, has always been simultaneously monstrous and moving, terrifying and tender. That quality converts easily to the stage. She has perfected the distinctive nasal squawk required to play Adelaide, who has a permanent cold, which it is suggested is caused by having been engaged for 14 years without any sign of a wedding. She looks as if she could tear her fiance, Nathan Detroit (Simon Lipkin), limb from limb as easily as she plucks the petals from the dancers’ costumes in a game of he-loves-me, he-loves-me-not. One of the show’s highlights comes during the song Sue Me when she mimes choking him to death, dragging out the crime to ridiculous lengths. But she also makes it clear that Adelaide is missing important protective layers. The director Gordon Greenberg cast her as a way of returning the show to its audacious origins. “These days it seems quaint,” he explains. “But I wanted to recapture the danger and the racy tone that it had in 1950, when the language and the sheer exposure of flesh made it pretty bold. I needed someone who would bring a fresh, young, vital energy to the show. Rebel is very smart and strategic about the work she does and you can see instantly that she connects with the audience in the way the young Bette Midler did. She’s amazingly perceptive. She’s that interesting creature who always knows what’s happening in every corner of the room.” It has been hard to escape her this year. She was very winning within her natural habitat – the female-oriented buddy-movie – in How to Be Single, where she brought the odd moment of rage to her over-sharing, cheerfully disinhibited shtick. Then she popped up in two British comedies: Sacha Baron Cohen’s dismal spy caper Grimsby, in which she was wasted in a tiny role, and Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie, where she had heaps more fun as a budget airline flight attendant who squares up to the indomitable Patsy (Joanna Lumley). Mandie Fletcher, who directed Ab Fab, was immediately impressed by Wilson. “I found her rather touching,” she says. “It’s not easy to come on to a set at the end of a shoot where everyone already knows one another. But she’s incredibly self-possessed. She knows herself very well and has lots of ideas. Then once she gets in front of the camera – well, she lights up like a flipping candle. She’s one of those people whom you know is absolutely in the right job.” Wilson, who was born in Sydney and trained as a lawyer, carved out a successful comedy career for herself on Australian television. Her legal background stood her in good stead for negotiating contracts and protecting her business assets. Working on an Australian TV sketch show, for instance, she was the only person who made sure she owned the rights to all her characters. She first came to the attention of international audiences in the 2011 hit Bridesmaids, in which she played the mildly unhinged sister of Matt Lucas. Another newcomer might have been daunted by the prospect of appearing alongside talents such as Kristen Wiig and Melissa McCarthy but Wilson made this small, odd role her own. The otherworldly inflections of her accent, best described as sedated English, combined with the character’s brazenness, left viewers reeling slightly from shock. Her evident ease with her larger-than-average size was also an undoubted part of the charm. “I saw my size as being an advantage,” she said, “whereas so many women see it as a disadvantage.” With that brief, startling appearance a career was born. From that point on, Wilson became prized as the obliviously uncouth party girl, at once cuddly and abrasive, who says what no one else would dare – the ball of fun with a core of steel. She carried the out-of-control persona with her from Bridesmaids into the 2012 comedy Pitch Perfect, where she played Fat Amy, one of a group of young women who enter an a capella tournament; she stole the film and its sequel from her co-stars and will doubtless do so again in the third instalment, which starts shooting as soon as her eight-week stint in Guys and Dolls is up. The one departure from the Wilson narrative of good-natured raucousness has been her decision to sue parts of the Australian press over its accusations that she embellished stories of her ordinary middle-class upbringing and lied about her age. It’s hard to know whether Wilson has a strong case with her claim that the coverage cost her work. With her sharp legal mind, though, it would be foolish to rule it out. Wilson’s career so far has been dominated by films that have used her to provide a brief, electrifying jolt, from What to Expect When You’re Expecting to the third Night at the Museum movie. But she has been frank about her ambitions to win an Oscar. “I have to transition into drama,” she said recently, “because I can’t fucking win an Oscar for Pitch Perfect 3, can I?” For many of her fans, this move will be overdue. “She does this wonderful job of undercutting, coming in and stealing the scene,” says Fletcher. “But now I think it’s time for her to take the lead in something.” Greenberg thinks an Oscar is perfectly within Wilson’s grasp. “She’s still evolving as an artist and the fact that she has her sights set on a very highfalutin goal is a good thing. She certainly has the soulfulness, intelligence, curiosity and talent to get herself there. This is just the beginning.” Potted profile Born 2 March 1980 Age 36 Career Sydney-born actor, graduated from the Australian Theatre for Young People in 2003, became a homegrown TV star before moving to Los Angeles and landing a part in Bridesmaids. Since then, she has been the go-to girl for any film needing a rejuvenating shot of comic wildness. High point Playing Fat Amy in the Pitch Perfect comedies. Presenting at this year’s Baftas (“I have never been invited to the Oscars because, as you know, they are racist …”). Low point Suing Australian publications that accused her of lying about her age. What she says “There’s something about me that people like laughing at.” What they say “You feel because she’s so good at playing hot messes on film that that’s what you’ll get in real life. What you get is a woman who doesn’t drink when she goes out with the cast after the show. She has a Coke, talks for a bit and then goes home to work on her craft.” Gordon Greenberg, director of Guys and Dolls. Rebel Wilson plays Adelaide in Guys and Dolls at the Phoenix theatre, London, until 21 August. The production is booking until 30 October. Box office: 0844 871 7629.
Fifty Shades of Black review – don’t go there… As if Scary Movie, Epic Movie, Vampires Suck et al weren’t bad enough, here comes another depressing “cinema parody” that isn’t half as amusing as the film(s) it wants us to laugh at. “How do we make this funny?” muses co-writer/star Marlon Wayans in the production notes. “The key was to im agine ‘What if Christian Grey were black?’” Cue jokes about wallet and car theft, fried chicken and Bill Cosby, alongside glasshouse/brick complaints about EL James being a rubbish writer. When it all runs out of steam, the cock-and-ball routines downshift into riffs from Whiplash and Magic Mike, but sadly, these aren’t funny either.
The New Man review – painfully intimate British film-maker Josh Appignanesi turns the camera on himself and his wife Devorah to document their much-longed-for pregnancy. His candid introspection and self-interrogation strikes a chord, but doesn’t, at first, reveal anything particularly novel about impending parenthood. Then the pregnancy becomes complicated, the happiness is stalked by tragedy and the immense generosity of Appignanesi and his wife in sharing this most intimate of journeys becomes clear. Told simply through snatches of conversations with friends and family, and subtle sound design, this is a profoundly moving and revealing study of a life-changing event.
Arsenal draw a blank against Southampton to fall further off the pace For Arsenal a tremor that started as a festive flinch has turned into a full-on winter wobble. A goalless draw with Southampton on a fretful night at the Emirates leaves Arsène Wenger’s team without a goal in their past three league games and with a title challenge that looks increasingly snarled in the midwinter gloom. Fraser Forster was brilliant, a goalkeeper who combines prodigious size and brawn with a balletic agility producing a full range of saves from the athletic to the instinctive. But Arsenal were also lacklustre for the first hour and hesitant in their finishing even as the chances began to flow, with an attack that looked more than ever like one elite German playmaker plus a group of mid-ranking hopefuls. Despite a blizzard of chances in the final 20 minutes Southampton were largely undisturbed, with Forster a thrillingly resolute yellow wall. “He was magic,” Ronald Koeman purred. Four points clear of Manchester City on Christmas Day, Arsenal now find themselves in fourth place having won two of their past seven league games, a run that began with the 4-0 Boxing Day defeat by Southampton. Wenger’s excuses this week for that flaccid performance – “it was Christmas” – seemed a little odd, but they came with the promise Arsenal would look to start with purpose here. Or not, as it turned out. There are times where the more potent atmosphere of a smaller, less commercially accessible stadium might be a genuine asset to this team. Instead, in almost total silence from London’s largest home crowd, it was Southampton who began with more composure, James Ward-Prowse drawing an early save from Petr Cech with a driven free-kick. Arsenal made seven changes from the FA Cup victory against Burnley, the most notable the return of Mesut Özil to start alongside Alexis Sánchez for the first time since November. It was Özil who had Arsenal’s first chance with 12 minutes gone, running on to Sánchez’s floated pass and taking the most beautiful stone-dead touch only for Forster to save well with his legs as he shot. Southampton came to the Emirates having not conceded a goal in 200 minutes of league football, and they looked intent on keeping it that way with Oriol Romeu and Victor Wanyama a muscular double bolt in midfield. Arsenal went wide, Héctor Bellerín skating outside Cédric Soares and producing a fine cross that Olivier Giroud headed back across goal. Özil flicked towards an apparently gaping net from five yards out only to see Forster, spreading his arms, produce a genuinely stunning save. With half-time approaching Özil was again crowded out inside the six-yard box after good work from Joel Campbell. But it was Southampton, composed in defence and intermittently energetic in support of Shane Long, who looked the happier team at the break. Arsenal returned energised – these things are relative – and almost scored straight away, Forster again outstanding. This time it was after a fine driving run by Ramsey, Forster leaping high, superhero-style, to palm away Giroud’s hooked shot. Still, though, Romeu, Wanyama and Ward-Prowse kept a grip on central midfield, while Sadio Mané flickered at the other end. Giroud looked cumbersome linking the play, Campbell energetic but vague. With Sánchez still finding his gears and Ramsey filling a hole in central midfield, Wenger’s starting team here looked alarmingly dependent on Özil for creativity. Theo Walcott came on just past the hour mark, a man for a crisis perhaps, but a man also with one Premier League goal since September. Walcott drew a double save from Forster, the first a weak low shot with time to think, the second a thrash at chest height. Moments later Laurent Koscielny headed Özil’s fizzed cross over the bar from three yards out. Suddenly the chances were coming. Romeu kicked off the line after Sánchez’s neat turn and poked shot. Özil and Sánchez combined only for Forster, again, to claw the ball away. Chasing a goal at the last Wenger sent on Francis Coquelin who was immediately booked for an angry tackle on Long. Six minutes of added time brought a strangled roar of hope from the home fans but Southampton remained spiky and resilient to the end. Arsenal will feel they should have won this match, but there has been a sense of declining momentum about them since Christmas. Missing Santi Cazorla’s guile – and to a lesser degree the urgency of Jack Wilshere and Danny Welbeck – it seems increasingly odd even the famously parsimonious Wenger could look at this squad over two transfer windows and decide against going all-out for a first-team-ready outfield player. With new arrivals, new eras, fresh rounds of likely acquisitions announced elsewhere in the Premier League this week, it was a particularly galling night to come up short again.
Oculus Rift and the uses and abuses of VR In muggy Tokyo, a man wearing a virtual reality headset crouches in front of a blank-faced mannequin and fondles her breasts. On screen, an animated cartoon version of the girl (despite her nurse-like professional attire, it is unquestionably a girl) smiles coquettishly while a skeletal depiction of the man’s hands move rhythmically, as if testing a nectarine for ripeness. According to the organisers of last month’s Tokyo Game Show, it is the year of virtual reality. For a number of exhibitors at the show, however, it seems more like the year of digital lechery. Such was the outrage on social media at the spectacle of this dummy-groping, the software’s developer was told by event staff to remove the touch sensors from the mannequin’s breasts. It was a diluted compromise. The lascivious, snaking queues remained. The only difference was that now the mannequin didn’t know when she was being felt up. A year ago, Palmer Luckey, who invented the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset in his garage while he was a student (Luckey is currently embroiled in a lawsuit that disputes the claim), appeared on the cover of Time magazine. The photograph captured Luckey barefoot, his face partially obscured by his invention, leaping into the air, as if joyfully skipping through a dream. Beneath it, the headline: “The Surprising Joy of Virtual Reality and why it’s about to change the world”. VR has certainly changed Luckey’s life. Facebook bought his company for $2bn in 2014, when the inventor was just 21 years old. Since then he has apparently been using that fortune to help effect change. Last week, just days after the launch of the consumer version of the Oculus Rift in the UK, it was reported that Luckey donated $10,000 to the non-profit organisation Nimble America, which operates the Reddit channel r/The_Donald, a place where alt-right memes promoting white supremacy are created and shared in support of Donald Trump’s candidacy for president. The news caused a number of developers to withdraw their support for the Oculus Rift and, after a few days, drew a statement from Luckey, posted on Facebook, in which he stated that he was “deeply sorry” – not for supporting neo-Nazis exactly, but for “negatively impacting the perception of Oculus”. While for many Luckey’s political views can be separated from his invention, the relationship is more complicated when considered in the context of his stated beliefs about the power of virtual reality to, as Time put it, “change the world”. In 2014, at a Silicon Valley VR conference, Luckey spoke of the “moral imperative” that he feels to bring VR to the masses. “Everyone wants to have a happy life,” he explained, “but it’s going to be impossible to give everyone everything they want.” VR, he said, gives less privileged people (“Chinese workers or people who are living in Africa”) the chance to “escape the real world” and experience life as “good as we do here… in California”. For Luckey, VR is not merely a tool for immersive entertainment, but a mechanism to democratise privileged experience. It is, in this way, disruptive to social order, a trait it shares, some might say, with Trump’s candidacy. Luckey’s idealism has, however, been misplaced. He funded Nimble America in order to support “fresh ideas on how to communicate with young voters” but, in doing so, gave money and legitimacy to white supremacists. And he’s brought into the world a technological platform to democratise lived experience but, in doing so, has given sexual misfits the chance to fondle virtual girls of an age that would make Nabokov blush.
BT Broadband, Plusnet and others face second day of outage BT Broadband and Plusnet customers are facing a second day without internet access, as the UK’s largest internet service provider, and its competitors, struggle with further power issues. After a day of disruption on Wednesday, which saw 10% of BT’s 9 million customers’ internet usage affected for hours, the ISP has been struggling to maintain normal service again this morning, leading users to vent frustration on social media. A BT spokesperson said: “We’re sorry that some BT and Plusnet customers are having problems connecting to some internet services this morning. This is due to Telehouse North, one of our internet connection partners in the Docklands, suffering a substantial power failure. This is affecting BT and other providers. “We are redirecting traffic to reduce the impact on customers and the issue is now affecting less than 5% of customers’ internet usage. Engineers are on site and we hope will be able to fix the problem shortly.” A Telehouse spokesperson said: “We are aware that there has been an issue with the tripping of a circuit breaker within Telehouse North that has affected a specific and limited group of customers within the building. The problem has been investigated and the solution identified. Our engineers are working with our customers on the resolution right now.” BT.com and BT’s service tracker were experiencing intermittent outages, preventing users from seeing the areas affected or resolution status. TalkTalk’s status page was also unavailable. The website Down Detector received reports of outages starting at about 6.00 am on Thursday from across the country and steadily climbing as users attempted to log on. The second consecutive day of internet access disruption comes two days after a warning from MPs that BT must “put its house in order” or face a break-up after failing to invest in its Openreach network arm, potentially in the region of hundreds of millions of pounds a year. BT said Tuesday that it had invested more than £1bn a year in its infrastructure. Openreach provides more than 25m telecoms lines across the UK between the company’s exchanges and homes and businesses and services BT Broadband, Plusnet and other competitors such as TalkTalk and Sky. Ofcom, the UK’s telecoms regulator, is due to decide whether Openreach should be split from the rest of BT, which now owns the UK’s largest mobile phone provider EE. A BT spokesperson said later: “Internet usage is now back to normal for consumer and small business customers. A small number of larger businesses may still be experiencing some limited internet access. Engineers should have these fixed soon.” The view on broadband Britain: take internet infrastructure away from BT Nils Pratley: Let’s see BT Openreach’s workings
Tories on Europe: the ins, the outs and the not clears THE IN SIDE Confirmed: David Cameron The prime minister declared he would campaign “heart and soul” to keep Britain in the EU after achieving his deal with the 27 other leaders of member states. He says it is vital for the UK’s prosperity and security. George Osborne, chancellor The chancellor has taken a big personal role in the EU negotiations alongside Cameron and is ideologically as well as practically in the remain camp. He told the BBC’s Today programme that Cameron had negotiated a “special status” for the UK, while Brexit would be a “leap in the dark”. Theresa May, home secretary She fuelled speculation that she could campaign to leave, with a conference speech that talked of the difficulties of reducing immigration from inside the EU. However, May confirmed on Saturday morning that she backed the deal. She said it included “important reforms to end the abuse of free movement” and it “strengthens our ability to deport dangerous foreign criminals”. Jeremy Hunt, health secretary The health secretary once said he would vote to leave the EU if Cameron did not negotiate to his satisfaction – but he has now confirmed he believes the agreement is a good one. He tweeted: “PM deal means sovereignty & £ protected. British voice 4 freedom, democracy &human rights stronger if we stay. Am supporting @reformineurope. Justine Greening, development secretary The development secretary was named as a possible outer but she spoke firmly in favour of Cameron’s Brussels deal after its contents was revealed. “PM has got a good deal for Britain to stay part of a reformed EU. Time for millions of British people to have their say in this referendum,” she said. Greg Hands, chief financial secretary to the Treasury Hands has always been considered strongly Eurosceptic but he actually explained in 2013 that he was never against membership of the EU – just in favour of radical reform. He has tweeted: “This deal is best for UK future.” Oliver Letwin, Cabinet Office minister The chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster had said he was prepared to vote to leave the EU, but that there was probably an 80/20 chance that the renegotiations would succeed and satisfy him. He told Sky News that it was a “good deal” and that he would be on the remain side. Michael Fallon, defence secretary The defence secretary said last year that the whole cabinet was Eurosceptic. But his reputation as a very trusted lieutenant of Cameron means he was expected to keep quiet and toe the party line. A source close to him confirmed he is backing remain. Patrick McLoughlin, transport secretary The transport secretary has said there are frustrations about Europe but it does not affect him too much in his job, which are not the words of a Eurosceptic. In October, he urged the government and media to do more to make the positive case for EU membership rather than “always looking on the negative side”. Elizabeth Truss, environment secretary Truss has described herself as a Eurosceptic but made a speech to farmers in January that sounded like she was backing Cameron’s deal. After the meeting, she said: “I am backing remain as I believe it is in Britain’s economic interest and means we can focus on vital economic and social reform at home.” Nicky Morgan, education secretary Morgan said early on that she found it difficult to imagine voting for the UK to leave the EU. She was one of the first to confirm support for the prime minister, saying she wanted to make a positive and clear case for the remain campaign. David Mundell, Scottish secretary Mundell had argued that Scotland benefited from the terms of Britain’s EU membership, and would have been aware of the dangers for the union if the UK votes to leave. He confirmed his support for Cameron’s deal on Saturday. Sajid Javid, business secretary The business secretary had been striking a very Eurosceptic note of late, refusing to rule out campaigning to leave, berating the CBI for being too pro-EU, saying he would not shed a tear if the UK left and telling the in campaign that the costs of staying in the EU currently outweighed the benefits. However, he has fallen into line with his old boss Osborne, with the Spectator reporting he was too concerned about the risks given the parlous state of the global economy. Stephen Crabb, Welsh secretary He recently said that Welsh businesses are “huge winners” from EU membership. Following the cabinet meeting, he tweeted: “Let’s crack on with the #euref debate. EU deal means it wont be a vote on the status quo. Ever closer union no more. Strong grounds for in.” Matthew Hancock, Cabinet Office minister Hancock is a loyalist and former chief of staff to Osborne, so it was always difficult to see him breaking rank. “Britain is better off in a reformed EU, without the risks for years that exit would bring,” he said after the deal. Anna Soubry, business minister Soubry is outspoken in her support for staying in the EU, having described many Eurosceptics as obsessives who have an unhealthy tendency to “live, eat, drink, sleep” the campaign to pull Britain out. She has been retweeting Stronger In messages all morning. Greg Clark, communities secretary Clark is a quiet loyalist who has previously written in support of renegotiation with the EU. He said after the cabinet meeting: “I back Britain staying in. Our future is brightest in a free trading Europe while keeping control of our borders and our currency.” Robert Halfon, Conservative deputy chairman Halfon is a staunch Eurosceptic, telling Buzzfeed last year: “Yes, I would vote to leave but I genuinely want to see what Cameron does.” Since then, he has had a rapid rise under the sponsorship of Osborne. Likely in: Philip Hammond, foreign secretary The foreign secretary is regarded as a turncoat by Eurosceptics, as he is widely expected to ditch his former reservations about the EU to back the in campaign. He once had a reputation for Euroscepticism, having said he would vote to leave the EU as it stands because the status quo is “simply unacceptable”. Amber Rudd, energy secretary Rudd was barracked during a recent Question Time appearance for not having shown her hand but it is highly likely she will end up supporting the prime minister. “I would like to see a reformed EU, and then I’d like to campaign to stay in,” she told the Telegraph recently. Mark Harper, chief whip As chief whip, he is engaged in the Downing Street operation to persuade wavering Tory MPs to make sure they are on board with the prime minister. Jeremy Wright, attorney general The government’s most senior lawyer was said to be torn about which side to support in the run-up to the prime minister’s announcement. The BBC reported he had confirmed Brexit support in the Saturday cabinet meeting but it now appears he has swung behind the remain camp. NOT CLEAR Boris Johnson The London mayor is not a minister but he sits in Cameron’s political cabinet. He is thought to be an instinctive in-campaigner, but has flirted heavily with Euroscepticism in recent months and could make the leap to lead the out camp if he thought it had a chance of winning. To lead a victorious leave campaign would bolster his prime ministerial ambitions. THE OUT SIDE Confirmed out: Michael Gove, justice secretary Number 10 thought they had won over Gove, who is a loyal friend of Cameron and Osborne but he wavered over the thinness of the deal. The prime minister confirmed that Gove would campaign on the opposite side to him in the referendum after the deal was announced, expressing disappointment. Iain Duncan Smith, work and pensions secretary The work and pensions secretary was the most likely cabinet ministers to campaign for an exit. A committed Eurosceptic, he was one of the original Maastricht rebels. Chris Grayling, leader of the House of Commons The leader of the house is another long-term Eurosceptic who has said leaving the EU is not a frightening prospect. He has already been moved to a lesser cabinet role from his previous job as justice secretary, meaning he had less to lose in terms of prospects of promotion under the current leadership. Theresa Villiers, Northern Ireland secretary The Northern Ireland secretary was another of the most Eurosceptic members of the cabinet. Having represented London for six years as a Eurosceptic MEP, she was unlikely to want to pass up the chance to campaign for a British exit. Priti Patel, employment minister Patel is a former communications chief for the Referendum party and a staunch Eurosceptic. It is highly possible she could become one of the main faces of the leave campaign. Before becoming a minister, she said the British public “want less Europe and more Britain”. Andrea Leadsom, energy minister Shortly after the prime minister spoke outside Downing Street, Leadsom released a statement on her website confirming should would vote to leave the EU. She said: “This is not a decision that I have made quickly or easily, as I have been a strong advocate for reform within Europe for many years.” John Whittingdale, culture secretary The culture secretary is an old-time Eurosceptic and was thought to be prepared to back the out-ers. He was pictured with fellow Brexit supporters at the offices of Vote Leave on Saturday.
Only staying in the EU can defeat TTIP Leaked documents on the EU-US TTIP trade negotiations (Report, 2 May) prove what the Green party has been arguing for several years: TTIP is less a trade treaty, more a corporate power grab. The US is seeking access to European markets on entirely its own terms. The unprecedented attempt by multinational corporations to overwhelm the will of European citizens is laid bare. In areas as wide-ranging as the prohibition of GM food, the abolition of the EU process of chemical safety based on the precautionary principle, and the ban on cosmetic testing on animals, US demands go right to the heart of our systems of environmental protection. The documents confirm our worst fears: TTIP is a race to the bottom on environmental and social standards. Greens have been leading the fight against TTIP and are determined to keep our country a part of the EU so that we can defeat TTIP together. This treaty cannot be pushed through without the agreement of the European parliament or all 28 EU members. There is huge momentum to stop TTIP across Europe and 3.5 million EU citizens have signed a petition calling for the deal to be abandoned. UK campaigners have played a vital role in the fight against TTIP, so leaving the EU would only weaken these efforts. We now need the Labour party to join the fight against TTIP. We urge it to support the efforts of Greens and other progressives working to stop this toxic trade deal in its tracks. Jean Lambert MEP Green, London Molly Scott Cato MEP Green, South West England Keith Taylor MEP Green, South East England • As a member of the libertarian Free Democratic party I am a staunch supporter of free trade. There are 50 million small and medium enterprises in the US and in Europe, but only 260,000 of these are involved in transatlantic trade. Therefore the TTIP is as a tremendous opportunity. Finally we can abolish the rules that prevent more trade. The different rules and simple things like bureaucracy make it unnecessarily difficult for small and medium enterprises to participate in transatlantic trade. And these enterprises are the motor of innovation on both sides of the Atlantic. But there are also differences between the political and economic cultures of Europe and the US. So prudent negotiations and penetrating analysis are necessary. An overhasty agreement, which was promoted by President Obama during his visit to Germany, would not be a good idea. Michael Pfeiffer Neuhausen auf den Fildern, Germany • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
Turn RBS into a building society says Co-op party chief Royal Bank of Scotland should be mutualised to overhaul the culture of the bailed-out bank and bolster high street competition, according to an MP. With the 73% taxpayer-owned bank on course for its ninth consecutive year of annual losses since its £45bn bailout, Gareth Thomas argued that turning it into a mutual like a building society would “conserve the strength and credibility of one of our major financial global players whilst injecting a much needed dose of competition and diversity into British banking”. Chairman of the Co-operative party, Thomas will make his case in a 10-minute rule bill – a way for MPs to put their case for new legislation – on Tuesday. In a comment piece for the , the MP for Harrow West said: “Turning it into a mutual with its assets protected from the so-called carpet-baggers who championed building society demutualisation in the 1990s would substantively change the culture at RBS and, crucially, make banking more competitive.” He argued that RBS should become a “people’s bank, which every tax-paying British citizen would have the right to become a part-owner of”. Ever since its rescue, a number of ideas have been floated for the bank, which also owns NatWest and Ulster Bank. In February 2010, in the run-up to the election that year, the Conservatives set out plans to sell RBS shares at a discount to the public. The following year, the Liberal Democrats set out ideas to give shares to everyone on the electoral register. In 2013, the PolicyExchange thinktank published a proposal to allow 48 million taxpayers to apply for shares in both RBS and Lloyds Banking Group, possibly worth £1,650 per person, which they would pay for later. When George Osborne was chancellor he commissioned work on breaking up RBS into a “good” and “bad” bank, which stepped back from a full carve-up. He later sold off a 5% stake at a £1bn loss. Last month, RBS failed its annual health check from the Bank of England and Philip Hammond, the chancellor, has already said he cannot sell the remaining 73% taxpayer stake. The bank faces a large penalty from the US Department of Justice over a decade-old mis-selling scandal and is still trying to sell off 300 branches to meet the state aid terms imposed by the EU. “The suspension of the sale and reprivatisation of shares in RBS offers a new opportunity to put in place an alternative to either state or private ownership,” said Thomas. There had been calls to consider mutualisation of Northern Rock but the idea was rejected and the “good” part sold to Virgin Money. The government is in the process of disposing of its last remaining stake in Lloyds Banking Group by selling them on the stock market.
Premier League, Real Madrid 4-2 Athletic Bilbao and more: clockwatch – as it happened La Liga Real Madrid 4-2 Athletic Bilbao Serie A Empoli 1-2 Frosinone Bundesliga Borussia Dortmund 1-0 Hannover 96 Darmstadt 1-2 Bayer Leverkusen Stuttgart 2-0 Hertha Berlin Werder Bremen 1-1 Hoffenheim Wolfsburg 2-0 Ingolstadt Celtic 2-0 Ross County Motherwell 0-2 Kilmarnock Hamilton 0-0 Dundee United QPR 1-3 Fulham Blackburn Rovers 0-2 Hull City Brighton 3-2 Bolton Bristol City 2-1 Ipswich Town Charlton Athletic 0-0 Cardiff City Derby County 0-1 MK Dons Nottingham Forest 0-2 Huddersfield Town Reading 0-0 Burnley Rotherham United 0-0 Birmingham City Sheffield Wednesday 4-0 Brentford Wolverhampton 1-2 Preston Championship table Despite their win over Manchester United, Sunderland remain in the relegation zone. It was a good day for the Maclkems, mind: they’re on 23 points, seven clear of Aston Villa and one behind Norwich and Newcastle (who play Chelsea in less than 30 minutes). Following their defeats, Swansea and Bournemouth are just three and four points clear of the thick black line respectively, while Chelsea are only six clear of the drop zone, with West Brom and Crystal Palace two points ahead of them on 32 points each. Matt Ritchie could only grab a consolation for Bournemouth as goals from Giannelli Imbula, Ibrahim Afellay and Joselu made it an easy afternoon for the Potters. Norwich City remain in the relegation zone after blowing yet another two-goal lead at home. Robbie Brady and Wes Hoolahan put them 2-0 up after 65 minutes, but Dimitri Payet scored one and created another as Mark Noble rescued a point for West Ham. Everton had over 30 attempts on goal, but lost at home again as West Brom converted the one and only shot on target they’ve mustered in - I think - their past five games. Emmanuel Adebayor scored his first goal for Crystal Palace, but Troy Deeney’s brace wrapped up the points for the visitors. Shane Long’s goal earns Southampton three points as Southampton goalkeeper Fraser Forster keeps his sixth consecutive clean sheet. Crystal Palace left-back Pape Souaré gets sent off for a silly two-footed lunge on Valon Behrami. It remains 2-1 to Watford. Chelsea: Courtois, Ivanovic, Cahill, Terry, Azpilicueta, Fabregas, Matic, Pedro, Willian, Hazard, Costa. Subs: Begovic, Baba, Mikel, Traore, Kenedy, Remy, Loftus-Cheek. Newcastle: Elliot, Janmaat, Taylor, Coloccini, Aarons, Shelvey, Tiote, Sissoko, Wijnaldum, Townsend, Mitrovic. Subs: Colback, Lascelles, Perez, Saivet, Darlow, Doumbia, Riviere. Referee: Roger East (Wiltshire) GOAL! Real Madrid 4-2 Athletic Bilbao Derby’s woes continue as they go a goal down to MK dons, with Jake Forster-Caskey inflicting the damage. Derby fans can at least console themselves with the knowledge that their good friends at Nottingham Forest have just gone 2-0 behind at home to Huddersfield Town. It remains Real Madrid 3-1 Athletic Bilbao with less than five minutes to go, but the home side are down to 10 men. Sid Lowe has the latest ... Troy Deeney controls the ball on his thigh before smashing home his second goal of the day to put Watford ahead at Selhurst Park with eight minutes to go. League One: Peterborough 0-4 Bradford City, Coventry City 6-0 Bury League Two: AFC Wimbledon 4-1 Luton Town National League North: Telford 5-1 FC United Payet turns creator to tee up Mark Noble, who smashes the ball home to make it all square at Carrow Road. Are Norwich about to throw away another two-goal lead at home? Norwich fans are set for 15 minutes in the wringer after Dimitri Payet celebrates his lucrative new deal by pulling a goal back for West Ham at Carrow Road. Bah! Bah! Bah! Bah! Bah! Bah! Bah! Bah! Bah! Bah! Bah! Bah! Bah! Bah! Bah! Bah! Bah! Bah! Bah! Bah! Bah! Bah! Bah! Bah! Bah! Bah! Bah! Bah! Bah! Bah! Bah! Bah! Bah! Bah! Bah! Bah! Bah! Bah! Bah! Bah! Bah! Bah! Bah! Bah! Bah! Bah! Bah! Bah! Bah! Bah! Bah! Bah! Bah! Bah! Another Irishman scores, as Shane Long heads Southampton into the lead against Swansea City at the Liberty Stadium. Norwich City’s Dublin contingent are digging them out of a hole today, with Wes Hoolahan adding to Robbie Brady’s opener to make it 2-0 to the Canaries against West Ham after 65 minutes. Brighton go ahead once again in what sounds like a real thriller at the Amex - Beram Kayal strikes in the 58th minutes to give them the edge with the odd goal of five. Championship latest QPR 0-3 Fulham (result) Blackburn Rovers 0-1 Hull City Brighton 3-2 Bolton Bristol City 2-1 Ipswich Town Charlton Athletic 0-0 Cardiff City Derby County 0-0 MK Dons Nottingham Forest 0-1 Huddersfield Town Reading 0-0 Burnley Rotherham United 0-0 Birmingham City Sheffield Wednesday 3-0 Brentford Wolverhampton 0-2 Preston Dedryck Boyata doubles Celtic League against Ross County. Matt Ritchie uses his sweet left foot to give Bournemouth a glimmer of hope. Graziano Pelle gets the ball in the net for Southampton, but referee Jon Moss rules out - incorrectly, by most accounts - for a foul on Swansea goalkeeper Lukasz Fabianski. Robbie Brady gives Norwich City a much-needed lead against the Hammers at Carrow Road. Ibrahim Afellay and then Joselu score two goals for Stoke City in the space of three minutes to consign Bournemouth to almost certain home defeat. Lyle Taylor has just put AFC Wimbledon 4-0 up against Luton Town after 49 minutes. French full-back Maxime Medard scores a try under the posts for France and it’s converted. Follow the final 10 minutes here ... Spain: Real Madrid 3-1 Athletic Bilbao (half-time) Italy: Empoli 1-2 Frosinone (result) Germany: Borussia Dortmund 1-0 Hannover, Darmstadt 1-1 Bayer Leverkusen, Stuttgart 1-0 Hertha Berlin, Werder Bremen 1-1 Hoffenheim, Wolfsburg 1-0 Ingolstadt (all after 74 minutes) It remains France 3-9 Ireland after 64 minutes of what looks a thoroughly attritional battle. France are currently laying siege to the Ireland try line and you can follow the action with Dan Lucas. Meanwhile at The Liberty Stadium, Swansea City and Southampton appear to be playing out the most boring scoreless draw in the history of football. It sounds like desperate fare. You can get all the latest scores by clicking on the link above. Leigh Griffiths bags his 30th of the season in all competitions to give the league leaders a half-time lead. Emmanuel Adebayor scores his first goal for Crystal Palace, rising high to nod home a Scott Dann cross and restore parity at Selhurst Park. That’s his 97th Premier League goal. Penalty shout! Bournemouth new boy Benik Afobe is brought down on the edge of the Stoke City box, but referee Graham Scott is unmoved by the protests of several Bournemouth players, who wanted a penalty. Chance at Goodison Park! Despite being a goal behind to West Brom, Everton are dominating proceedings at Goodison Park. They’ve gone close a few times, but never closer than just now, when Ross Barkley smashed an effort against the post. The deadlock between Celtic and Ross County remains resolutely unbroken, while it remains scoreless in the day’s other two fixtures: Motherwell 0-0 Kilmarnock and Hamilton 0-0 Dundee United. It’s Real Madrid 1-1 Athletic Bilbao as they approach the 30-minute mark at the Bernabeu. Cristiano Ronaldo opened the scoring for Real after three minutes, but Javier Eraso equalised for the Basque side seven minutes later. Game on! League One latest: Blackpool 0-2 Shrewsbury, Scunthorpe 1-0 Southend United, Coventry City 3-0 Bury. It’s 0-0 in all the other fixtures. League Two latest: AFC Wimbledon 1-0 Luton Town, Accrington Stanley 0-1 Crawley Town, Dagenham & Redbridge 0-1 Barnet, Morecambe 1-1 Oxford United, Portsmouth 1-0 Bristol Rovers, Stevenage 1-0 Cambridge United. The other fixtures remain scoreless. Championship: Brighton 1-1 Bolton - in the week when their former chairman Phil Gartside passed away at the age of 63, Emile Heskey restores parity for the Trotters at the Amex. QPR 1-3 Fulham (result), Brighton 1-0 Bolton, Bristol City 1-0 Ipswich Town, Nottingham Forest 0-1 Huddersfield, Sheffield Wednesday 1-0 Brentford, Woves 0-1 Preston. It’s 0-0 in all the other games. More on that Watford penalty: Mile Jedinak was penalised for dragging Troy Deeney to the ground in the penalty area and the Watofrd striker promptly picked himself off the ground to fire past Wayne Hennessey. James McClean wins a corner for West Brom, which is played to the near post. KJonas Olsson gets the flick to the far post, where Salomón Rondón bundled the ball over the line with his chest. I suspect it may have crossed the line before the Venezuelen intervened. Crystal Palace’s woes continue as they concede a goal against Watford at Selhurst Park - Troy Deeney has opened the scoring with a penalty in the 16th minute. Three penalties from Jonny Sexton have given the defending champions a 9-3 lead at half-time in Paris. Follow the second half here with Dan Lucas. Championship: Jamie Murphy slots the ball past Ben Amos after a 30yard solo run to put Brighton 1-0 up against Bolton Wanderers. Giannelli Imbula repays a chunk of his transfer fee with the opener against Bournemouth at Dean Court. League One: Shrewsbury have taken a 1-0 lead over Blackpool with an overhead kick from Nathaniel Knight-Percival. Moments later, Shrewsbury make it 2-0, with Shaun Whalley doubling the Shrews’ lead. Andre Gray has missed a splendid opportunity to put Burnley 1-0 up against Reading in the Championship. He was leaning back as he struck the ball and sent his effort high over the bar. Football matches have begun the length and breadth of Britain and the first chance of note has fallen to Norwich City, with Russell Martin shooting just over the bar in his side’s game against West Ham. At Goodison Park, 25% of West Brom’s centre-backs, Jonas Olsson has done well to block a goal-bound Seamus Coleman effort. “I don’t understand how Tony Pulis is meant to be able to field a competitive side with only four centre backs available to choose from,” he muses. “Of course he’s starting them all but what if one gets injured? It seems very unfair. I have faith in him though. Perhaps he can figure out a way to get a second goalkeeper on.” Burn. “Yet another huge game for Dundee United today as they travel to face Hamilton in a game they really must win to continue their survival bid,” writes this afternoon’s guest Scottish Fitba correspondent. “A run of three wins in four games (two of those wins were in the cup, but still) has given long suffering Arabs that most dangerous of things, hope. Three points today, and then three more in a rearranged fixture against Motherwell on Tuesday, and it’ll be the first day of spring. There’s a lot of ‘ifs’ there, I know, but as Mr Ranieri says, we should dare to dream. And who am I to disagree? Other SPFL games are Motherwell v. Kilmarnock and Celtic v. Ross County. Hearts v. Partick has been postponed due to a waterlogged pitch. In Scottish League Two first play third as Dunfermline host Ayr.” That’s a great result for the Mackems, who move above Norwich City in the relegation zone courtesy of goals from Wahbi Khazri and an own goal rather harshly attributed to David De Gea, who was unable to keep out Lamine Kone’s towering header. A huge, huge win for Sunderland. Celtic: Gordon, Lustig, Boyata, Sviatchenko, Tierney, Bitton, Brown, Mackay-Steven, Johansen, Armstrong, Griffiths. Subs: Izaguirre, Kazim-Richards, Rogic, Mulgrew, Bailly, McGregor, Forrest. Ross County: Fox, Fraser, Robertson, Quinn, Foster, Martin Woods, Irvine, McShane, Franks, Gardyne, Boyce. Subs: Reckord, Graham, Murdoch, Gary Woods, Schalk, De Vita, Goodwillie. Referee: Kevin Clancy (Scotland) Lamine Koné has just thumped a free downward header past David De Gea to give Sunderland a 2-1 lead over Manchester United at the Stadium of Light. You can follow the remaining six minutes with Scott Murray. Fulham have had an easy win at Loftus Road, where first half goals from Ross McCormack, Moussa Dembele and Tom Cairney consigned QPR to defeat. Tjaronn Chery scored a late consolation for QPR in injury time. That win leaves Fulham in 17th place, seven points clear of the relegation zone. QPR are 13th with 39 points. Norwich: Ruddy, Martin, Klose, Bassong, Brady, Howson, O’Neil, Redmond, Hoolahan, Naismith, Jerome. Subs: Mbokani, Bamford, Rudd, Jarvis, Dorrans, Olsson, Ivo Pinto. West Ham: Adrian, Byram, Collins, Ogbonna, Cresswell, Noble, Song, Obiang, Antonio, Valencia, Payet. Subs: Randolph, Carroll, Moses, Emenike, Oxford, Parfitt-Williams, Browne. Referee: Mike Jones (Cheshire) Swansea: Fabianski, Rangel, Fernandez, Williams, Taylor, Britton, Cork, Ayew, Sigurdsson, Routledge, Paloschi. Subs: Amat, Ki, Fer, Nordfeldt, Gomis, Naughton, Barrow. Southampton: Forster, van Dijk, Fonte, Bertrand, Ward-Prowse, Clasie, Romeu, Targett, Steven Davis, Long, Pelle. Subs: Cedric Soares, Yoshida, Mane, Tadic, Juanmi, Stekelenburg, Austin. Referee: Jon Moss (W Yorkshire) Crystal Palace: Hennessey, Ward, Dann, Delaney, Souare, Mutch, Cabaye, Jedinak, Zaha, Wickham, Adebayor. Subs: Speroni, Mariappa, Campbell, Lee, Chamakh, Kelly, Boateng. Watford: Gomes, Nyom, Prodl, Cathcart, Ake, Capoue, Watson, Behrami, Amrabat, Ighalo, Deeney. Subs: Mario Suarez, Paredes, Guedioura, Pantilimon, Anya, Abdi, Holebas. Referee: Robert Madley (West Yorkshire) Everton: Robles, Coleman, Funes Mori, Jagielka, Oviedo, McCarthy, Barry, Lennon, Barkley, Cleverley, Lukaku. Subs: Baines, Kone, Mirallas, Deulofeu, Osman, Pienaar, Howard. West Brom: Foster, Dawson, Chester, Olsson, Evans, Sessegnon, Yacob, Fletcher, McClean, Rondon, Berahino. Subs: Gardner, Anichebe, Brunt, Myhill, Pocognoli, Pritchard, Sandro. Referee: Michael Oliver (Northumberland) Bournemouth: Boruc, Smith, Francis, Cook, Daniels, Surman, Stanislas, Gosling, Arter, Pugh, Afobe. Subs: Iturbe, King, Federici, Distin, Grabban, Ritchie, O’Kane. Stoke: Butland, Johnson, Wollscheid, Muniesa, Pieters, Whelan, Imbula, Diouf, Afellay, Shaqiri, Walters. Subs: Ireland, Odemwingie, Joselu, Teixeira, Crouch, Krkic, Haugaard. Referee: Graham Scott (Oxfordshire) Sunderland opened the scoring after just three minutes through Wahbi Khazri, who was somewhat fotuitous to score from a free-kick that bounced twice on it’s way past the unsighted David De Gea. Manchester United’s equaliser came courtesy of Anthony Martial after 39 minutes. In rather less good news or United, Matteo Darmian was taken off with what looked like quite a nasty shoulder injury. Follow the second half with Scott Murray’s minute-by-minute report. It’s been announced that luxuriantly mulleted former Bulgaria defender, Euro 96 legend and general cult hero Trifon Ivanov has died, aged just 50. A visually distinctive and much-admired free-kick specialist (special as in: he took a lot of them but scored very few) who will be all too familiar with football fans of a certain age, the Bulgarian Wolf won 76 caps for his country in an international career spanning 10 years. Rest in peace, sir. The Premier League’s two most important matches might be scheduled for tomorrow, but there’s plenty of potentially fascinating action on today’s undercard. It’s currently 1-1 at the Stadium of Light, where Sunderland are taking on Manchester United in today’s early kick-off, while several other teams currently flirting with relegation alongside are involved in the 3pm kick-offs. On a busy afternoon for sport, we’ll be keeping a beady eye on what’s going on in the Championship and bring you any noteworthy updates from League One and League Two, while also monitoring goings-on in Scotland, Spain (Real Madrid v Athletic Bilbao) and Germany. Rest assured I’ll also be keeping tabs on the Six Nations rugby match between France and Ireland in Paris. Premier League Sunderland 1-1 Manchester United (latest score) Bournemouth v Stoke City Crystal Palace v Watford Everton v West Brom Norwich City v West Ham Swansea City v Southampton Chelsea v Newcastle (5.30pm GMT) Championship QPR 0-3 Fulham (latest score) Blackburn Rovers v Hull City Brighton v Bolton Bristol City v Ipswich Town Charlton Athletic v Cardiff City Derby County v MK Dons Nottingham Forest v Huddersfield Town Reading v Burnley Rotherham United v Birmingham City Sheffield Wednesday v Brentford Wolverhampton v Preston Scottish Premiership Celtic v Ross County Hamilton Academical v Dundee United Hearts v Partick Thistle (postponed due to waterlogged pitch) Motherwell v Kilmarnock
John Foxx's ambient playlist – with John Cage, Popol Vuh, Elgar and more Brian Eno gave it a name and mapped much of the territory, an early recognition that the need was already in the air – a search for some new equivalent to classical music, but one more abstract and spacious, as well as intimate and modern, capable of providing a tranquil space in an increasingly crowded, pressurised world. Jazz had fallen into its own set of cliches and conventions, classical constantly retrod old ground. Pop and dance music both tended to grab you by the lapels. There was a need for something that addressed that other part of the spectrum – tranquillity. 1. Erik Satie – Gymnopédie No 1 (c1885) This is where it all started, for me and many others. I first heard Gymnopédies when I was at art school in 1965 – a beautiful June day, avenue of trees at Avenham. A girl I knew played it on the old lecture theatre piano. In that moment, the promise of art, youth, joyous tranquility and sunlight on the green, green leaves of the colonnade, all combined with the most beautiful music I’d ever heard. Changed my little life. 2. John Cage – In a Landscape (1948) Cage was living and working through his theories of music as organised noise, sound as a spiritual, magnetic field, and art as a Zen awakening. His father, an inventor, had taught his son: “If someone says ‘can’t’, that shows you what to do.” That son also became an inventor – and he reinvented modern music. I love the range of his work and all the stories of his life. This piano music illustrates a tranquil, contemplative period. I’m a lifelong subscriber. 3. Harold Budd, Brian Eno, Daniel Lanois - The Pearl (1984) A holy trinity of the most innovative recording artists of their time. Daniel Lanois – the Capability Brown of soundscaping. Brian Eno – well, Brian has a bright idea about every 20 minutes. Here, both are working around the core of Harold Budd’s visionary version of piano for the modern world, through the lens of cool, west coast jazz, European art music and Cagean minimalist philosophy. Classical music for the future. 4. Popol Vuh – Aguirre Parts I, II, III (1972) A seminal band who, almost inadvertently, invented a new and vital aspect of music – the hybrid human/electronic chorale. Popol Vuh are also a perfect example of how technology, music, context and ideas can all mate like cats in heat. At the end of the 1960s an inventive band in Germany fortuitously gets an instrument that is a little like a Mellotron, but sounds different and better – it has better engineering and voice loops, for a start. The context is that German postwar youth were frantically remaking their culture, having no choice after those toxic war years. All film-makers, artists, musicians and writers were firmly in cahoots. A positive revolution. So, a friend gives Popol Vuh a commission to provide some film music. The film was Aguirre, the Wrath of God, the friend was Werner Herzog, and the music – well, this is where electronic technologies meet Tallis, where the stage for Music for Airports is firmly set, and a long, still promising stream of music reaches back to evolutionary infinity and forward to technologically enabled choirs of unlimited size, in notional cathedral architecture of infinite dimensions. It’s all possible now, so it will be done. Popol Vuh were there first. 5. Thomas Tallis – Spem in Alium ( c1525) Tallis was a contemporary of Shakespeare and of equal standing, a British man who wrote music easily as wonderful as Palestrina’s in Rome. This was an incredible attainment at that time, when we had no visual artists of any real merit, for instance, and no sculptors and few architects capable of rivalling the Europeans. Tallis explored and developed chant, the most ancient form of human music. He worked in the way that all art was made in that time, through intellect, calm deliberation and a deep philosophical and technical engagement. He created luminous harmonic structures that will last as long as our civilisation. 6. Benge – 20 Systems (2008) This is a serious documentation of synthesiser evolution, through the playing of pieces that demonstrate the sonic textures unique to each instrument, and Benge also revels in it all. It was the revelling I really liked, because he’d also made a piece of calm, beautifully textured sound-as-music. Cage would have loved it. Benge was one of the first to understand that the world had abandoned analogue synths for new digital technology far too early, before their true potential had been properly explored. So he adopted discarded instruments and constructed a safe haven laboratory in an east London basement. This is the man who rescued an entire genre from a skip. 7. Virginia Astley – It’s Too Hot To Sleep (1983) Each year the album From Gardens Where We Feel Secure gains even more potency, like a piece of found Super 8 film. It’s an unaffected and affectionate sonic portrait of a lost summer in Oxfordshire, where Virginia and her brother lived in the sunshine and fresh air of their family home. They rode bicycles, recorded owls at night, birdsong at dawn, and made music on flute, recorder and piano. It’s where I would really like to have lived, but I was lost in a grey and filthy London at the time. Oh, how I envied them. 8. Chant (since the 11th century) The relationship between voice, architecture and space has fascinated me since I was in the school choir and came across a few sonic phenomena – and a few emotional and psychic responses – that I’m still learning from. Chant is architectural music. Music that requires some sort of huge, resonant architectural space to interact with. The architecture responds by delaying the reflections of the voice, just enough for us to begin to harmonise with those delayed reflections as they return to us, and so an exciting and challenging harmonic loop is created, which can also lead to thrilling adventures with resonant frequencies, multiple delays, standing waves – and which causes that contemplative state of being completely atomised and gloriously recreated as part of something far bigger than our wee selves. Understandably, religions often tend to claim this effect as their own, but it is pursued in many religions, all around the world. I prefer to take the secular view, because I think it’s actually a normal part of human experience. Whatever the reasons and causes, we continue to explore these effects – now using voices extrapolated from our own, in notional spaces of infinite size, all allowed by new electronic technologies. This is where technology mercifully becomes a bit like swimming and a bit like landscape gardening. 9. Aphex Twin – Ambient Works 2 (1994) Aphex took up the ambient thing a bit late for my generation, but he was actually evolving the music and connecting it to the next generations by importing his own analogue acid abstractions and lone explorer ethos. He made superbly minimal and emotionally adept pieces, occasionally referencing Brian and Roger Eno’s splendid An Ending (Ascent). The bass frequencies in these recordings are gorgeous and the recordings are rough and beautiful in a way that was, at the time, unfamiliar to hi-fi lovers, and has now become an inverse mark of “quality”. Burial is the natural successor to Aphex – another photo-shy rough diamond, the restless side of ambience, even though much of his work veers into a fiercer cut-up dubstep. Titles such as Rough Sleeper, Fostercare and Stolen Dog update and return to the true urban edge of Britlife at this moment. Listen to In McDonalds: you enter a world just under the skin of worn-out London, of shiny wet streets, fried-chicken shops, traffic. Alone and grateful at 3am. A strange calm after the last tube. I had to mention these two together – they both move in mysteriously similar ways, bringing a sort of Banksyism to the music. They prove that the art of inventive instrumental music is alive and living under the floorboards everywhere. 10. Elgar – Nimrod, from The Enigma Variations (1898) This – along with Barber’s Adagio for Strings – is both precursor and touchstone of this strange, so called ambient thing. The part of the emotional spectrum they address is reflection, pleasurable melancholy, recollection in tranquillity. The appropriate visual equivalent might be Turner’s majestic skies. We Brits like to pretend we are not much good at art, perhaps being too self-conscious, but a merciful strain of absolutely transcendental beauty can occasionally break out of our restricted souls. • John Foxx’s The Complete Cathedral Oceans deluxe vinyl book set is out now on Edsel records‎, available here‎.
Rogue One: Death Stars, plot holes and a darker side of Star Wars – discuss with spoilers Rogue One might be the perfect Christmas present for the Star Wars fan who has everything, or thought they did. Where George Lucas’s prequels tried desperately to twist the long-running space saga into exotic new forms, Gareth Edwards’ bleak, electrifying entry takes everything we love about 1977’s Star Wars and imagines what might have been going on in the movie’s peripheral vision, an inch or two either side of the main action. It’s a gap-filler of a film, a plot hole-plugger, an examination of a famous event from the opposite side of the mirror. That this event is the destruction of the first Death Star is probably the only reason the film works, because Star Wars is so deeply embedded in the cultural consciousness that we’re more than willing to luxuriate in an unexpected additional episode that relies almost entirely on its predecessor for meaning. In many ways, Rogue One does not even feel like a movie, but more like TV. I was reminded of the Lost episode The Other 48 Days, in which the mystery show rewound to the beginning to present the story of another group of survivors of Oceanic Airlines Flight 815 – even though the show’s previous 20 hours or so has been spent in the company of the established characters. All this makes Edwards’ movie a strangely discombobulating experience, despite all those luxurious Easter eggs and electrifying visits to gorgeously imagined planets. And yet the critical consensus is that Rogue One has succeeded where Lucas’s prequel trilogy failed. The new movie, the first Star Wars spin-off, currently boasts a rating of 85% “fresh” on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, only just down on The Force Awakens’ 92% and higher than all other episodes bar Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back. Where would you rate it in the canon? And how does the new film bode for the future of the looming Star Wars cinematic universe? Here’s your chance to give your verdict on the movie’s key talking points. The dark and sombre tone From the opening scene in which Jyn Erso’s mother found herself mown down by Deathtrooper bullets, Rogue One set out its stall as a Star Wars movie for mature audiences, the grimmest entry since 1980’s The Empire Strikes Back. The original trilogy always balanced the horrors of the dark side with a sense of hope surrounding Luke Skywalker’s endeavours. But Edwards’ film never balks at showing the desperation of the Rebel Alliance and their allies, the misery of the downtrodden peoples of the galaxy and the bloody fate likely to be faced by anyone who gets on the wrong side of the Empire. By the time the credits roll, every member of the Rogue One crew has met a horrible death, just to give Luke Skywalker the chance to blow up the Death Star. Warn your friends with young children now, this is not one for the kids! The plot hole-filling Has there ever before been a movie created almost entirely to paper over the cracks of one of its predecessors? The preposterous convenience of the exhaust port on the original Death Star that can be used to blow the entire space station to smithereens has been a talking point for decades. Now we know that Galen Erso built it that way deliberately to take revenge on Krennic and his Imperial buddies for making him build the giant planet-killing superweapon in the first place. Might Disney be on to something here? Expect a future Star Wars spin-off to explain why baby Luke was sent to live on his dad’s home planet and never warned to keep his famous surname a secret, despite the obvious dangers of Vader discovering his identity. And perhaps we can get another instalment that explains Obi-Wan Kenobi’s inability to recognise R2-D2 and C-3PO in the original Star Wars, despite having known both for decades. The fan theories now torpedoed Here are a few theories about Rogue One that can now be filed away for ever in a box marked nonsense. Supreme Leader Snoke’s true identity is not explained (he’s not even in it), Rey is not Jyn Erso’s daughter (as far as we know) and the Rogue One crew will not end up as the Knights of Ren (they all die). In fact, Edwards’ movie seems to leave very few threads hanging that were not picked up in 1977’s Star Wars, so we’ll all just have to wait another 12 months for Episode VIII to arrive and (hopefully) plug all the gaping logic chasms in The Force Awakens. The completely misleading trailers What is the point of releasing trailers for Rogue One when very little of the footage in them appears to have made the final cut? Whatever happened to Saw Gerrera hinting that Jyn might end up turning to the dark side in the debut teaser, or Mon Mothma discussing the junior Erso’s shady past in the same trailer? Felicity Jones’s awful “I rebel” line is absent. It’s well known that early trailers are often made with footage that ends up discarded, but October’s final trailer for Rogue One featured completely different takes of Jyn rousing the rebels from those seen in the final movie. In the trailer, Jones is upbeat and optimistic; in the final cut, these scenes are doom-laden. The overall picture presented was of a much cheerier film than the gloomy, darkling entry that ended up in cinemas. Peter Cushing’s CGI-assisted return from the dead (and other Easter eggs) This was a far greater feat of digital wizardry than Captain America: Civil War’s depiction of a teenage Robert Downey Jr, or those scenes in Westworld featuring a “young” Anthony Hopkins. Cushing seems to have at least as much screen time in Rogue One as he did in the original Star Wars. The scenes were apparently shot with Holby City actor Guy Henry stepping in for the Hammer horror icon, with the images altered in post-production. On the giant Imax screen at the Empire in Leicester Square, London, there were moments when you could just about see the strings holding up this digital puppet, but the differences between fake Cushing and the real thing were so microscopic as to be virtually negligible. Did you also enjoy the brief glimpse of Mos Eisley gangster Cornelius Evazan? How about Luke Skywalker’s future X-wing pilot comrades, or the superbly rendered Mon Calamari commander Admiral Raddus, who appears to be a distant relative of Admiral Ackbar? Perhaps the piece de resistance here was the miraculous final shot featuring a young Carrie Fisher, even if it must have made a seriously incomprehensible ending for anyone who has not seen Star Wars. Then there was Darth Vader’s swashbuckling revival. The scene in which the charred remains of Anakin Skywalker are seen in an Imperial take on Luke Skywalker’s bacta tank from Empire Strikes Back was an unexpected sideswipe into body horror territory that summed up Rogue One’s obsession with the grimmer corners of the Star Wars galaxy. And the Sith Lord’s arrival on Leia’s ship gave us the lightsaber battle that no Star Wars movie should be without, even if it was pretty one-sided. The future of Star Wars Where does Rogue One leave Disney’s mooted cinematic universe? If Edwards’ movie hits the magic $1bn mark – signs look positive – it will have proved that Star Wars can flourish without Skywalkers, Jedi Knights and miraculous feats of telekinesis, as well as putting the lie to the suggestion that the long-running space opera is just for kids. Rogue One’s thrillingly raw and downbeat veneer might even allow room for the upcoming young Han Solo movie, not to mention Episode VIII, to dip into duskier territory than we might have imagined. More than anything, the film’s success will have proved that passion for further Star Wars adventures has remains undimmed, almost four decades after the original episode ushered in the blockbuster era, and that the Mouse House was right to suggest that the saga’s potential for future spin-offs is almost infinite. A new Star Wars film every year? At this rate, Rogue One makes that task look easier than bullseyeing a womp rat.
The day the NHS saved my life: my baby was born in our bathroom Two years ago I was expecting my second child. Fourteen days after the due date, I was scheduled to be induced. That morning I woke up, went downstairs and had my first contraction. I realised immediately I was beginning to go into labour. You’re always told your second child will take less time. My first took about 21 hours, so I expected my second would arrive in about 10 hours. But, 10 minutes after the first contraction, I realised things were happening too quickly. By the time my husband had taken my eldest daughter to nursery and come back, we realised it was much too late to drive to the hospital and called an ambulance. The person on the phone talked to me the whole time as we waited. Sitting in our bathroom, I instinctively knew it was too fast. The feeling to push is overwhelming and you can’t control it. At one point, the 999 call handler was telling us my husband might need to deliver the baby. Fortunately, the ambulance arrived. The paramedics took one look at me and realised I was crowning in the bathroom. Usually they take you to hospital, but they knew there was no way they were going to be able to move me. And so my youngest daughter was born on our bathroom floor. She was grey. There was nothing, no crying. Because she was late, she had swallowed meconium and wasn’t breathing. The paramedics had set up in the kitchen, where they immediately whisked her away to try to resuscitate her. It was horrible. A woman stayed with me, trying to keep me calm. After what felt like for ever, they came back and told me she was breathing, but they needed to get her to hospital immediately. They took her in one ambulance while we waited for another to take me. The moment I stood up, we realised I had lost a huge amount of blood. As we live on a tiny road, the ambulance couldn’t get all the way down, so the paramedics had to carry me there. The whole time, they were trying to keep me calm, joking they’d put on the blues and twos because it would be more fun that way. Looking back, I know I was in trouble but they didn’t want me to panic. My experience of the A&E ward is fuzzy because I’d lost so much blood and I was in shock. Doctors kept me updated on my daughter, who still wasn’t breathing properly. They told me she was really cold and they were trying to get her body temperature up. Eventually, they managed to stabilise her. At that point, I hadn’t even held her. I was in so much pain, but I couldn’t have any strong painkillers because I had lost so much blood. The head midwife suggested what I really needed to do at that point was hold my baby. It’s hard to explain what happened next. When they brought her to me, it was quite magical in many ways. I stopped hurting. It felt as though everything we had been through just melted away. And the 30 or so people who had been taking care of us that day just disappeared, without any need for thanks. All these people who had helped us just vanished to save the next person. I never thought people could be so incredible and save two lives without even waiting to be thanked. All the staff who treated us acted amazingly, both in terms of their professional experience, but also in their calmness and positivity. I will never forget it and I will always be thankful I was lucky enough to have had them on my side that day. If they hadn’t been there, we would have lost her. She has just celebrated her second birthday, thanks to the NHS.
Dwayne Johnson: a graceful and complex comedy heavyweight The bad news about Central Intelligence is that you’ve seen it all before. It’s a mismatched buddy-buddy pic in the line of heritage that stretches all the way back to 48 Hrs (or back to Two Rode Together, if that’s your bag), and their many, many rip-offs and retreads. It works the racial-difference angle, even though its leads are both, technically speaking, people of colour. And it adds the now obligatory post-Apatow bromantic sweetness element between its male leads, along with what looks like a lot of material improvised on the set. It’s the same movie as Melissa McCarthy’s Spy, released this time last year, and we could probably go back 10 years and find its counterpart in every summer release schedule. Many of them are simply other Kevin Hart vehicles. The good news about Central Intelligence is that sometimes you can teach an old dog new tricks. And that dog would be The Rock, now known exclusively by his real name, Dwayne Johnson, and finally coming clean as a natural-born comic lead. He was always the funniest man in the WWF: no one can forget his raised eyebrow, which was also the only breakout star of Be Cool. We all remember “The Rock Obama”, and he gave good funny in the underrated Get Smart reboot. Here, everything is on a broader scale, but Johnson delivers a complex portrait of courage and brains undermined by childhood bullying. He and Hart have switched lives since high school. Hart’s Calvin Joyner – then nicknamed “The Golden Jet”, star of track, field and classroom, and voted “the boy most likely to” – is now a bored, married accountant, embarrassed to attend his 20th-anniversary reunion. Johnson’s Bob Stone (born Robbie Weirdicht), back then a friendless oft-humiliated tub of lard, is now a buffed-out mountain of handsomeness who may or may not be in the CIA. But he retains an adolescent high regard for the hero of his old school, and is overly tactile, childlike and nerdly – though he finishes a mean bar fight when one arises, much to Calvin’s bemusement. Kevin Hart, the comedy professional in this set-up, spends most of the movie in scrambling, reactive mode, as Johnson, with his size (especially next to his diminutive co-star), his grace of movement and his megawatt charisma, is its ever-revving V8 engine. The rest, of course, is everything you’d expect: betrayals, double-crosses, mucho silliness, but the strength of the relationship, and its oddness and sweetness, lend a little extra weight and heft. I’ve completely forgotten it already, though, and I’m now busy wondering what next summer’s version of this movie will be called.
Council tax rise is no solution to social care crisis There is another even stronger reason not to look to council tax to pay for social care (Councils spend less than ‘floor price’ on social care for elderly, 13 December). Poor people would have to meet the cost. This is due to abolition by the coalition government of their previous entitlement to council tax benefit – and successive governments’ failure to get the better-off to pay their fair share by revaluing properties to reflect current values and introducing new higher tax bands. The government’s transitional grant for the discretionary relief scheme which replaced council tax benefit was soon withdrawn at the same time as government grant to local authorities was being cut – and is soon to disappear altogether with termination of the revenue support grant which used to be the main source of government funding. Few councils are now able to support poor council tax payers to the level of the old benefit entitlement. In most parts of the country almost everyone has to pay council tax, including people on jobseeker’s allowance, employment and support allowance, income support and pension credit. Poor people cannot afford to pay what is already demanded of them, let alone more. Council tax is now so regressive as to mirror the poll tax. No wonder so many authorities are reluctant to raise the full social care precept and increase further the already steep growth in proceedings for arrears of council tax, with its attendant misery. The government must face up to the crisis and increase its funding to local authorities through progressive taxation. The most vulnerable members of our society are suffering untold misery without relief in sight. Are we a civilised society or not? This is the major test of us as good neighbours in deed as well as word. David Plank Cambridge • To provide desperately needed funding for social care, the government plans to allow councils to increase council tax. We must care for those who are disabled, ill and infirm, but the problem is that council tax is regressive – falling hardest on poorer people, because it takes up a much greater share of their income. We must not increase the load on those who are already struggling to stay afloat. Tax is the price we pay for a civilised society. In a civilised society, we look after those who need care. In a civilised society, we also give more if we can afford more. In the context of cuts to taxes on corporations, avoidance of tax by the wealthy and a £370m refurbishment of Buckingham Palace, the government must find a way to share this necessary burden more fairly, so that those who are struggling are not made more desperate. Angela Dennis Kingston upon Thames • Odd, isn’t it, that a country pleading poverty, a country refusing to afford proper care for its people, readily affords boundless care for places? Though only special places, of course. Those like Jersey, the Caymans, the British Virgin Islands, Bermuda, the City, the Isle of Man and on and on. When will Mrs May acknowledge that tax-dodging, money-laundering and routine corruption cost this country far, far more than caring for people ever will? And when will she do something about it beyond reinventing the poll tax? John Smith Sheffield • How to meet the spiralling costs of adult social care? To put it on the council tax will not even scratch the surface of the problem in Lincolnshire, where we have the highest proportion of senior citizens in the east Midlands and one of the lowest council tax bases. To suggest this is a cop-out. We need to take the politics out of this and stop just passing the buck. The only way to finance a problem that will not go away is for us all to make a greater contribution, through national insurance contributions and/or by biting the bullet and paying higher income tax. It may now be time to combine spending on health and social care as well. John Marriott North Hykeham, Lincolnshire • The growing crisis in social care is generally described in terms of the impact on the wider healthcare system, with some commentators also acknowledging the anxiety caused among the huge number of frail and vulnerable residents of care homes and their families who could find themselves being victims of a market failure. But there is another equally large group of people who will be badly affected if the system does collapse under the weight of governmental lack of interest and blame-shifting – the many thousands of people, predominantly in low-paid work, who stand to lose their jobs. When it looked like Nissan was considering whether to continue manufacturing in the north-east, ministers pulled out the stops, and deals were done to calm corporate nerves. If things are as bad as they seem to be in the care sector then far more jobs are now at stake – the difference being that they are not all in one town, and the workforce is overwhelmingly female. The time for ministerial intervention has come. Les Bright Exeter, Devon • If it wasn’t already obvious, the Conservative government have all but admitted that they don’t know how to fix the problems with social care provision. So why don’t they ask Ed Miliband what he was planning to do before the 2015 general election, when he was the one talking about addressing the upstream problems with social care funding that were in turn putting additional burdens on the NHS (as opposed to just promising to throw money at the NHS as the Conservatives and Lib Dems said they’d do)? They’ve pinched most of his other manifesto policies already, so what difference will pinching another make? David Wall Northampton • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com • Read more letters – click here to visit gu.com/letters
Baby Boxes: pro-life campaigners bring the 'abortion alternative' to America A few days ago, strange fixtures began appearing in the walls of fire department buildings in Indiana: metal slots with pull-down lids. For donations, perhaps? Old clothes? Books for charity? No. The slots open to reveal “baby boxes”– heated, padded, incubator-type holes in the wall where, according to Safe Haven Baby Boxes Inc – one of the pro-life organisations behind the initiative – desperate mothers or fathers can deposit a newborn anonymously and walk away, reassured that it is safe. Once a baby has been deposited, an internal alarm alerts firefighters on duty to come and pick it up. “We did the blessing of the boxes and now we are testing them and they are working perfectly – response time is two minutes 15 seconds,” said Monica Kelsey, an ardent pro-life campaigner who runs Safe Haven Baby Boxes. The two baby boxes in Indiana are the first of their kind in the US though they do exist in other parts of the world, despite disapproval from the UN. Kelsey says she plans to have 100 more in the state by the end of the year, and would like to expand around the country. The next two are destined to be installed in Gary and Indianapolis, Kelsey said. Indiana is a likely place for Kelsey to launch baby boxes in the US. It is one of the most conservative states for cracking down on abortion provisions and restricting access to reproductive healthcare and birth control. Most schools in the state teach abstinence-only sex education. Indiana also recently became the second state to pass new laws banning abortions because of genetic abnormalities and mandated that an aborted fetus be buried or cremated. The state is being sued to block the law by Planned Parenthood and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Kelsey and other pro-life, anti-birth control groups who believe in baby boxes fought for new legislation that passed in Indiana last year, over some opposition from health experts, permitting their installation under the umbrella of existing safe haven laws. But despite the new legislation, Indiana Democratic senator Jean Breaux says the baby boxes are extremely problematic, and speak to growing extremism in the state. “It’s just another extension of this state’s fanatical view of anti-abortion, when Roe v Wade is the law of the land. They would rather have a baby born and abandoned than pursue some alternative to that. “The bottom line is that even with baby boxes I contend that you will still have babies put in trash cans and put out in the cold because the parent is in the midst of an overwhelming experience, full of fear and anxiety,” she said. “The likelihood of someone saying ‘let’s drive over and get a baby box’, I just think it’s unrealistic. Instead let’s equip our young people with the tools they need to make the best choices and you will find that baby boxes will be unnecessary.” Indiana also spends federal dollars meant for needy families on a controversial anti-abortion, pregnancy advice contractor based in Pennsylvania called Real Alternatives. But Breaux said the state “has its fair share of poverty”, which leaves teens more vulnerable to the risk of unwanted pregnancy. And Indiana has a shortage of doctors and health centers, she said. Each Baby Box costs $1,500-$2,000. The first 100 are being funded by the Knights of Columbus, a zealous Catholic brotherhood organization that vigorously supports anti-abortion causes. There are no official figures recording the number of newborns abandoned in the US every year in unsafe circumstances, but Kelsey said her organization tries to track it based on news reports and crowd-sourced information and estimates that it adds up to between 73 and 100 babies, the majority of whom do not survive. Kelsey herself was adopted at eight weeks old and has always been a strong Christian, she said. But when she was 37 she sought out her birth mother and was told the staggering news that her mother had become pregnant with her after she was brutally raped. Abortion was illegal then, in 1973, and Kelsey says her mother almost had an illegal abortion, but changed her mind at the last minute. The knowledge that she was the product of a rape convinced Kelsey that rape should not be an exception in laws banning abortion. Today, Kelsey is adamant that all abortion is murder. She wants it made illegal across the US without any exceptions. “We have to make it not only illegal, we have to make it unthinkable … I feel this is God’s mission for me. I’m saving abandoned babies, innocent lives, I’m exactly on the path where Christ needs me to be,” she said. Long a pro-life campaigner, she then had the baby boxes epiphany when she saw something similar at a church in South Africa on a visit there in 2013, where the pastor of a church told her some boys had found a baby in a duffel bag and handed it in to him. The pastor never wanted a baby to be left like that again in his parish, so he took action. “Now they have what they call a door of hope. They’ve saved hundreds of babies,” she said. She came back to the US determined that this was the answer for America too. She spent the next two years researching and designing the baby boxes, saying she tried eight different designs and 23 different combinations of electronics before hitting on the style of container that has just been installed. Kelsey will not disclose which states she is targeting next for the right to install baby boxes, but said there are seven in her sights immediately and in four of them there is no additional legislation needed to go ahead with installing the boxes. “We are not going to be able to have a baby box on every corner, but we believe in our mission,” she said.
Readers recommend playlist: songs about Elvis Below is this week’s playlist – the theme and tunes picked by a reader from the comments on last week’s callout. Thanks for your suggestions. Read more about the format of the weekly Readers recommend series at the end of the piece. Elvis is rich material for singers and songwriters. Some try to connect with his humble beginnings and simple humanity; others take issue with the glorification and the commodification of the man. He had an impact on many musical genres – rock’n’roll, country, pop, gospel – and, like a chameleon, he changed himself to fit the rapidly changing music scenes of the 50s, 60s and 70s. Some concerts drove audiences crazy with infatuation and reverence. But then there were those final concerts that mostly made us pity him. I chose songs for this week’s playlist trying to capture that wide range of responses Elvis awakens. The very first song nominated was a blue suede shoe-in, because Marc Cohn’s Walking in Memphis is about the many musical epiphanies that city can host, all presided over by the “ghost of Elvis”. The next was by a group new to me, Over the Rhine, but their song The King Knows How was utterly compelling. Brilliant slide guitar, driving rhythm, nifty percussion, and through it all the smooth legato voice of Karin Bergquist – like a river of bourbon. Neil Young’s voice is more like backwoods moonshine, but who could resist this joyful celebration of all the many sides of Elvis the performer, and the chanted insistence that, no matter what, He Was the King. Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, in their song Elvis Presley Blues, show how a sad death like his can cast a fatalistic shadow over our memories of a life. For contrast, the next song, a ghoulish march by Inner City Unit, offers a chilling scenario where future armies dig up and rally around the Bones of Elvis. An unpleasant extension of celebrity worship perhaps? More dystopian visions prompted by Elvis kitsch appear in Dead Kennedys’ rant A Growing Boy Needs His Lunch: In lonely gas stations with mini-marts You’ll find rows of them for sale Liquor-filled statues of Elvis Presley Screw his head off and drink like a vampire The next two songs use the iconography of those uber-classy 50s automobiles. John Hiatt’s Riding With the King was based on a dream his friend Scott Matthews had about flying in an old airplane with Elvis but not being able to see his face because of the light flashing off his rhinestone jewellery. Drive-By Truckers use Carl Perkins’ Cadillac to underscore the glitz in the music industry that Elvis fell for. I chose the next two songs – Phil Lynott’s King’s Call, which grieves Elvis’s death, and Mark Knopfler’s Back to Tupelo, a tender take on how dreams turn to disillusionment – because both feature a superbly poetic guitar line (both played by Knopfler), as if acknowledging that we keep Elvis alive not with kitschy statues or velvet paintings, nor, fortunately, by digging up bones, but simply by playing the music. I love Wanda Jackson’s cover of Hard Headed Woman. She makes me want to get up and shake and dance, and reminds me that one of the best things Elvis added to music was all that bodily energy. And finally Queen. A tour de force live performance of their rockabilly song Crazy Little Thing Called Love, with Brian May on three different guitars, a screamingly appreciative audience and Freddy Mercury doing a brilliant vocal impersonation of The King in the first two verses, then letting it rip in his own voice for the last verse. That’s how you pay your respects. And that’s how you pay it forward. The list in full 1. Marc Cohn: Walking in Memphis 2. Over the Rhine: The King Knows How 3. Neil Young: He Was the King 4. Gillian Welch and David Rawlings: Elvis Presley Blues 5. Inner City Unit: Bones of Elvis 6. Dead Kennedys: A Growing Boy Needs His Lunch 7. John Hiatt: Riding with the King 8. Drive-by Truckers: Carl Perkins’ Cadillac 9. Phil Lynott: King’s Call 10. Mark Knopfler: Back to Tupelo 11. Wanda Jackson: Hard Headed Woman 12. Queen: Crazy Little Thing Called Love New theme The theme for next week’s playlist will be announced at 8pm (UK time) on Thursday 14 July. You have until 11pm on Monday 18 July to make nominations. Here’s a reminder of some of the guidelines for RR: If you have a good theme idea, or if you’d like to volunteer to compile a playlist from readers’ suggestions and write a blog about it, please email matthew.holmes@theguardian.com. There’s a wealth of data on RR, including the songs that are “zedded”, at the Marconium. It also tells you the meaning of “zedded”, “donds” and other strange words used by RR regulars. Many RR regulars also congregate at the ’Spill blog.
Cats v dogs: which animal owns the internet? Somewhere in the history of the internet, cats became its rulers. Simultaneously aloof, amusing and a bit weird, cats seemed the natural choice as the web’s unofficial mascot. From Lolcats to keyboard cat, our feline friends were quickly everywhere. But as the internet has aged and changed, another animal has gained ground. Could the cat finally be dethroned, and at the paws of its sworn enemy no less? Is the dawn of the dog upon us? Now don’t get me wrong, cats on the internet, at least Western, English-speaking internet, are still very much a thing. Grumpy Cat’s still going strong and Maru the cat’s still being watched climbing into boxes. But dogs are increasingly the subject of memes and weird internet obsessions. They are very much on the cats’ territory. Take Doge – the quizzical-looking shiba inu. It was such a successful meme, even the BBC’s flagship highbrow radio news programme, Today, had an entire item dedicated to “the grammar of Doge”. More recently, a slew of popular Twitter accounts dedicated to posting only pictures or videos of dogs, every day, have cropped up. One of the best, We Rate Dogs, does just what it says on the tin. In the age of “relatable” internet – where everything is tagged with the caption “me IRL” or “same” – goofy dogs appear more in tune with the internet’s psyche than too-cool-for-you cats. And, in the same way as LolCats had their own dialect, which shaped some early online communications, so too do the internet’s dog enthusiasts. Dogs become “doggo”, “floofs” and “puppers” and they “bork” rather than bark. Weighing up the popularity of dogs v cats on the internet is more of an art than a science, so I spoke to some experts. Enter Jason Eppink. Last year, he curated How Cats Took Over the Internet at New York’s Museum of the Moving Image. He documented the online feline’s history, from LolCats to Keyboard Cat, sifting through posts on various platforms. Here’s the thing: he found, in terms of posts correctly tagged “cats” or “dogs”, the numbers are actually fairly close. On four of the five platforms he looked at, it was pretty much equal between the two. Tumblr was the only place where cats outnumbered dogs, 3:1. If that’s the case, how did cats become synonymous with the internet in the first place? He says: “In the West at least, cat ownership has been looked down on. We have this really pejorative term ‘crazy cat lady’, which is also gendered. “We don’t have a term for that about people who own dogs. “I read a lot and heard a lot from people who felt shamed about their passion for their cat and have said that this attention and this ability to be passionate about their pet online has allowed them to be more vocal about it.” In 2014, BuzzFeed’s Jack Shepherd described the internet as a “virtual cat park” when asking why content related to cats seems to gain so much traction online (he conceded animal writers such as himself may have helped perpetuate the cat hype). If anyone knows which animal curries the internet’s favour, it’s Tumblr’s Amanda Brennan. She has become known as the Meme Librarian for her work at the microblogging company and at Know Your Meme. For her, the virtual cat park theory definitely has merit. “Cat content does dominate because you get to see inside these people’s homes,” she says. “If you want to see weird things dogs do, you just walk outside.” Since the days of I Can Haz Cheezburger around a decade ago, there have been two big changes. One: the rise of autoplaying video; two: the age of the smartphone. “You take your dog outside, of course you’re going to have your phone with you. You’re going to want to catch that great moment of your dog doing something cool,” she says. While there are, of course, great cat videos, Brennan believes dogs are just so much better suited to video. “I do believe that video is the tipping point. Cats are so weird - their personalities tend to come across better in still images. “My default idea of a dog is something that’s super hyper, jumping around and very excited. A cat is like laying around and doing weird things. “To experience the dog, sometimes you need the video.” There’s another theory. When people decided cats = the internet, it was a very different place. It was much smaller, for starters. It wasn’t mainstreamed in the way it is today. Back in 2011, games and culture writer Leigh Alexander wrote a piece called “Why the internet chose cats” where she argued dogs weren’t as widely celebrated on the image boards where memes often spring from. Five years on, things are very different. Nowadays, the internet’s a lot more mainstream. “I never thought Facebook would become the home of the most cutting edge memes while underground image boards became nerdy and tired,” says Alexander. “I think the rise of the dog – friendly, warm, human’s best friend, who people can love earnestly and sincerely and without fear of being made fun of for the sentiment – is a good representation of the mainstreaming of the internet.” Dogs on Facebook are truly having a moment. There’s an enthusiastic community called Dogspotting, with strict rules and even its own mock court for the rulebreakers. Elsewhere, the Facebook page of a sanctuary for old dogs in Tennessee gained a lot of attention earlier this year for being generally delightful. Alexander says: “Back when I was growing up online, everything had to be weird, gross, uncomfortable or indirect, because only people who were uncomfortable with normal social stuff were on the internet. “Cute, furry, smiley things belonged to the real world. But now the internet is the real world, and dogs are as beloved online as they are anywhere!” Then again, cats have the upper hand of a long-association with the internet, which could be hard to shake. “Cats = the internet is always going to be around,” says Brennan. “It’s kind of how meme culture started. “Doge gave us a different kind of language, but without lolcats, we never would have had Doge.” So there we have it. The next time you assume the internet belongs to cats, maybe think again. Or perhaps all this talk of cats and dogs is very 2015 and actually that era is gone. Maybe the internet truly belongs to gorillas now. Lonelygirl15: how one mysterious vlogger changed the internet Harambe: the meme that refused to die
Toxic chemicals in outdoor products of leading brands, Greenpeace study finds Outdoor types, known for their love of the wilderness and healthy lifestyles, are contributing to the accumulation of toxic and long-lasting synthetic chemicals that are now found in everything from remote lakes to human breast milk. Perfluorinated compounds, or PFCs, have been found in 36 of 40 outdoor products tested by Greenpeace, including bags, jackets, trousers, tents and sleeping bags by a number of leading brands. PFCs are chemicals used to make surfaces repel water and oil. They do not occur naturally, do not degrade, many last indefinitely in the environment, and are eliminated very slowly from humans and other animals. Since they started being used in the 1950s, PFCs have been found everywhere from foetal cord blood to breast milk as well as in wilderness areas. Laboratory studies have linked the chemicals to reproductive and developmental problems in animals. Last year more than 200 scientists signed the Madrid Statement calling for PFCs to be phased out. Responses from manufacturers of products that contain PFCs were mixed. The FluoroCouncil, which represents companies making PFCs, rejected the statement, saying PFCs were “critical to modern life” and phasing them out was unrealistic. However some outdoor product manufacturers made statements saying they planned to develop alternatives to PFCs, with the aim of phasing them out. To step up pressure on the industry, Greenpeace collected 40 products including bags, jackets, trousers, tents and sleeping bags from leading outdoor brands and sent them to an independent laboratory for analysis. All but four of the products were found to contain PFCs. And 18 of the products contained the more harmful and persistent long-chain PFCs, which most of the tested brands have stated they no longer use. “We found high levels of PFOA, a long-chain PFC that is linked to a number of health effects, including cancer, in some products from [brands] the North Face and Mammut. This substance is already restricted in Norway. These are disappointing results for outdoor lovers who want their clothes to be as sustainable and clean as the places they explore,” said Mirjam Kopp, Greenpeace’s Detox Outdoor project leader. “Brands like the North Face and Mammut are not walking their talk of love and respect for nature when it comes to the chemicals they use in the production chain. Together with the outdoor community, we challenge them to show us what true leadership and respect for nature means: stop using hazardous chemicals and detox their gear now,” said Kopp. The Greenpeace report said the four products that were PFC-free showed it could be done. One small outdoor company, Páramo, joined the Greenpeace campaign, and said it had already eliminated PFCs from its products. “Most outdoor brands, with the exception of Páramo, are still wedded to the use of PFC-based water repellents. These materials are either directly released or they break down to form extremely toxic and persistent PFC chemicals which have migrated to the furthest reaches of the world,” Páramo said in a statement. “Páramo asserts and has proven that high waterproof performance does not require PFC pollution.” Mammut told Australia it intended to eliminate PFCs from its products but could not give a timeframe since it still needed to find “an alternative to PFC that fulfills the needs of alpinists”. In August last year North Face said it had a general goal of moving towards a PFC-free supply chain. This week North Face said it would aim to do so by 2020, which would have knock-on effects for the entire outdoor industry. “We know that once our suppliers convert to non-fluorinated DWR, they will be able to provide that option to other brands, and together, we can help advance the industry in the right direction,” North Face said. Kopp praised North Face for recognising the problem but said 2020 was not soon enough. “The deadline they have set doesn’t really show the leadership that the outdoor community is asking them for,” she said. Presenting the report at an outdoor trade show in Munich, Gernmany, Greenpeace also launched a global campaign calling on outdoor brands to phase out PFCs. Several of the brands mentioned in the report were approached for comment.
Ursula K Le Guin documentary maker turns to Kickstarter for funds The director of the first documentary to explore the “remarkable life and legacy” of the novelist Ursula K Le Guin has launched a crowdfunding campaign to raise the last tranche of money needed for the film to go ahead. Arwen Curry has filmed “dozens” of hours of interviews with Le Guin over the last seven years, capturing one of science fiction’s most respected authors in the “spectacular real-life places that inspired her fantastical worlds”, the director and producer said. The documentary, which also features interviews with Le Guin’s fans and fellow writers Michael Chabon, Margaret Atwood and Neil Gaiman, will explore the novelist’s life, from her early years into becoming a writer Curry said is “one of the most important feminist voices on the American literary scene”. Called Worlds of Ursula K Le Guin, the feature documentary was awarded a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities last summer, but the funds will only be released once the entire production budget for the project has been raised. So Curry has turned to Kickstarter to crowdfund the remaining $80,000 (£56,000) that the film needs in order to be completed. With $6,000 already raised just hours after the fundraiser opened, and backers able to pledge everything from $15 for a Le Guin badge to $1,000 for a one-minute recording from the author responding to a query on writing or life, Curry said the Kickstarter “seems to be doing well so far”. “I based the goal on our need and on the campaigns of similar feature docs, particularly recent ones about Edgar Allan Poe and the Raisin in the Sun playwright Lorraine Hansberry, both of which were also funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities. So I’m hoping it’s a reasonable benchmark,” she said. Curry described Le Guin, author of the much-loved Earthsea fantasy series, as an important influence in her life since she was young. “Seven years is a long time to wave a camera in someone’s face. I’ve filmed Ursula in the now-infamous high desert of southeastern Oregon, on the rocky coast, and at her family’s home in the Napa Valley, where she first heard many of the legends and tales that would come to influence her fiction,” she said. “We’ve also filmed a lot in her living room, and shared some meals. As a person, she’s an incredibly wide-ranging but firmly planted person, and always paying attention. As a writer, she opened doors for generations of fans and younger writers, both inside and outside of genre fiction. She made that boundary porous in a way that enriched literature for all of us, without ever spitting on her genre roots.” Chabon, interviewed for the film, which is due out in mid 2017, called Le Guin “one of the greatest writers the 20th-century American literary scene has produced”, saying that “each world, each planet, that she creates is a kind of experiment, a laboratory”. “People always say ‘when did you decide you wanted to be a writer?’ And I never wanted to be a writer. I just wrote. It’s what I did. It’s the way my being was,” says Le Guin in another interview filmed by Curry. The author of novels including The Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed also tells Curry that “any kind of imaginative fiction trains people to be aware that there are other ways to do things, other ways to be”. “In the film, we’ll accompany Le Guin on an intimate journey of self-discovery as she comes into her own as a major feminist author, inspiring generations of women and other marginalised writers along the way. To tell this story, the film reaches into the past as well as the future – to a childhood steeped in the myths and stories of disappeared Native peoples Le Guin absorbed as the daughter of prominent California anthropologist Alfred Kroeber and author Theodora Kroeber,” writes Curry on her Kickstarter. “Le Guin’s story allows audiences to reflect on science fiction’s unique role in American culture, as a conduit for our utopian dreams, apocalyptic fears, and tempestuous romance with technology. More than ever, we need to perform the kinds of thought experiments that Le Guin pioneered, to ask how we should behave as our technologies transform us beyond the wildest dreams of our grandparents.”
'Everyone is catching it': Venezuelans fear the worst as Zika infections rise You can spot them by their warm winter clothes, despite the tropical heat. Inside a dingy public health clinic in the Libertador municipality of Caracas, half a dozen people are waiting to find out if they have the Zika virus. “It’s the chills that are the worst,” says Angy, 21. She displays a scarlet rash on both her upper arms. Alongside her, her mother, Belkis Carillo, a nurse, needs no convincing. “Everyone is catching it,” she says. “My sister, my cousin, my nephew. They’ve all had it.” Zika has arrived in Venezuela with cruel timing, in the midst of the steepest recession in living memory. The crash in the price of the country’s only significant export, oil, has brought the long-mismanaged economy closer to total collapse. The International Monetary Fund predicts inflation will hit 720% in 2016. Many economists say a default before the end of the year is more likely than not. As its government runs out of dollars, all imports, including medicines, have been radically cut back. At the Libertador clinic, handwritten notes plead with patients not to bother asking for HIV or hepatitis tests until further notice. The test kits ran out months ago. And, just as the authorities are accused of being overly secretive as to the real state of the economy (the official inflation figure – more than 140% – was only released in January after a 12-month delay), critics say a cover-up over the severity of Zika is under way too. All the medical staff the spoke to at the Libertador clinic said they had been strictly instructed not to give any details on the number of patients confirmed infected. The official health ministry count of the number of Zika infections nationwide is between 4,500 and 4,700. “We Venezuelans have a name for that,” says Belkis. “It’s called a ‘fantasy figure’.” Doctors agree. A private association, the Network to Defend National Epidemiology, estimates that it is more likely Venezuela has 400,000 cases. Neighbouring Colombia, has reported 25,645 cases of Zika. One possible indication of the prevalence of the virus is that the first known sexually transmitted case in the US has a Venezuelan connection. The infected patient’s partner is understood to have contracted the disease during a recent visit. On Tuesday, China confirmed that the only case it has so far detected is a man who travelled to Venezuela in January. A couple of miles down the road from the clinic there is another queue, of perhaps 50 people, at the vast Concepción Palacios maternity hospital. Julimar Beumon, 19, is four months pregnant and waiting for a check up. “I’m worried,” she says. Venezuelan authorities are looking into one recent case of microcephaly, the birth defect in which babies are born with unusually small heads, which is suspected of being connected to the Zika virus. The baby was born on 27 January at the infant maternity hospital in the El Valle district of the city, which is now named after the late president Hugo Chávez, who died in 2013. Inside its cavernous entrance, a huge poster of Chávez comforting a young child is on display. “Only possible in Socialism”, reads the script underneath. Accessible healthcare for all was one of the boasts of his political movement. But now the hospital is another example of the severe strains Venezuela’s health system is facing. Workers the spoke to inside the hospital, who asked not to be identified, complained of a chronic shortage of medicines – and even more basic supplies: one worker said that there had not been running water at the hospital for more than a month. The Venezuelan Pharmaceutical Federation has said that 70% of basic medicines in the country are in short supply. Venezuela’s health minister, Luisana Melo, has also indicated that there has been a notable spike in the number of cases of Guillain-Barré, a rare disorder in which a person’s immune system attacks nerve cells, which may also be linked to Zika. About 255 cases are being investigated; 55 of those affected are in intensive care. Their treatment is complicated owing to a nationwide shortage of immunoglobulin, one of the therapies for the condition. Families of those affected have made appeals on social media for supplies. The state-run pharmaceutical company Quimbiotec, the only national producer, reportedly shut down production last August, owing to a lack of raw materials. It has said operations will restart soon. Julimar says at her home there are mosquitoes everywhere, and always have been. The protection she takes is in the form of a treasured bottle of mosquito repellent. She uses it sparingly; repellent, like everything else, is in short supply. A search for the most common brand, OFF!, on the website of the two main pharmacies in Venezuela shows zero availability. A further challenge is that most homes in Venezuela, like public buildings (including hospitals), have only intermittent running water; the result of an ongoing drought and years of inadequate investment and maintenance. That means Venezuelans are used to storing water; inadvertently creating breeding grounds for mosquitoes. The government has pledged an information campaign and is increasing scheduled anti-mosquito fumigation visits. Back at the Concepción Palacios hospital, another woman, Karelys Pulgar, holds her belly. She is pregnant with her sixth child, and says she is praying everything will be OK. And, in the absence of any other option, she has started her own low-tech routine. She burns empty egg cartons inside her home. “The smoke scares off the mosquitoes, I hope,” she says.
NHS ambulance service forces elite paramedics to take non-urgent calls An NHS ambulance service has been accused of endangering patients’ lives by scrapping a system under which specialist paramedics responded to the most urgent 999 calls, such as strokes, heart attacks and car crashes. A leaked memo from the South East Coast ambulance service (Secamb) shows its most highly trained paramedics will have to deal with minor ailments because it cannot cope with soaring demand for care and ambulances are taking too long to reach patients. The move has angered Secamb’s 60 critical care paramedics (CCPs), who warn that lives could be lost because they are busy dealing with non-urgent callouts, such as back pain, instead of life or death emergencies. The paramedics, who have all gained a postgraduate certificate in critical care after a year’s extra study, specialise in administering drugs and performing procedures that standard ambulance crews are not trained to do, including advanced resuscitation techniques. They have saved countless lives during the 10 years the CCP system has existed. Secamb, which provides NHS ambulance services in Surrey, Sussex, Kent and north-east Hampshire, has 725 general paramedics and 90 paramedic practitioners. The latter specialise in treating patients at home so they do not have to go to A&E. In the memo sent last week, which the has obtained, Geraint Davies, the service’s acting chief executive, admitted the move “will cause some anxiety and uncertainty”. Unions representing Secamb ambulance crews have voiced deep unease and one CCP, who did not want to be named, criticised the change as “shortsighted, risky and not right”. “People will suffer because of it,” he said. “The risk is of death among patients who could have been saved, maybe because we were tied up dealing with a minor ailment such as a cold, toothache, period pain or any of the other rubbish that people dial 999 with [which obliges Secamb to respond]. “It could be that we’re with Mrs Jones who, after having back pain for four years, suddenly decides to call an ambulance about it. Secamb have kept us away from stuff like that for years; that system has worked, we have saved a lot of people as a result of that, including resuscitating people who were in effect dead, and now this.” Nigel Sweet, a Unison steward for Secamb, said: “There is always a possibility that in the case of a very serious incident such as a road traffic collision or cardiac arrest, where CCPs are crucial, they won’t be available. Instead they will be responding to a standard callout. That could threaten that patient in that situation. That’s the concern.” In his email, sent on 20 December, Davies defended the change, saying: “It is essential that we utilise all of our resources to the maximum benefit of all of our patients. “It has been agreed to remove the critical care paramedic regional cover plan and place CCPs back into the trust system status plan [general workforce]. This will mean that CCPs will now be available to respond to all categories of call.” Then, in a passage that critics say shows Davies is ignoring the evidence for continuing to let CCPs concentrate only on life or death cases, he said: “While the quality impact assessment rightly recognises the valuable clinical contribution that CCPs make to seriously ill and injured patients, the [Secamb] executive [team] felt that, while demand is high and while our response performance is poor, we could not continue with the current CCP model that, in essence, ‘holds back’ CCPs from responding to some categories of patient.” The change came into effect on Wednesday 21 December and will continue until the end of March, at which point it will be “reviewed”, he said. It is part of Secamb’s “trust recovery plan” after it was put into special measures in September. In July, the Care Quality Commission described it as inadequate and said the service’s urgent and emergency care was “unsafe”. A Secamb spokeswoman said: “We have little evidence at this stage to know whether CCPs being in the plan or out of the plan will be more or less beneficial to our patients, which is why it was felt prudent, given the challenges the trust is facing and our shortage of paramedics, to look at this.” No final decision on the role of CCPs would be taken until March, she said. On Monday, Richard Webber, Secamb’s on-call strategic incident commander, said it is “struggling” to cope with a 10% year-on-year rise in the number of 999 calls. The situation is exacerbated by the service having 138 vacancies for paramedics, up from 105 last year. Secamb was revealed in February to have secretly brought in a pilot system for three months in 2014-15, under which it delayed sending an ambulance to some 999 calls transferred from the NHS 111 telephone service so it could assess their condition. The patients involved were at the level below those deemed to be in a life-threatening condition. Jon Ashworth, the shadow health secretary, said: “In recent days I’ve been warning of the extent of the national paramedic shortage. And now we learn of the drastic action this trust is taking in order to cope. “The redirection of critical care paramedics will raise fears for patients in need of the most urgent, emergency attention and the trust must urgently explain its rationale for this decision.” A Department of Health spokesperson said: “No patient should have to wait longer than necessary for an ambulance and NHS England is working closely with the services to improve response times. We’ve recruited 2,200 more paramedics since 2010 to reduce pressure on services and have increased the number of training places this year by 60%.” Meanwhile, the British Medical Association has warned that the NHS will struggle to cope if the government fails to tackle the social care crisis. Health and social care services are “desperately trying to prop up” one another, but are “cracking under the weight”, said the BMA chair, Dr Mark Porter, in his new year message. The warning comes as analysis by the doctors’ trade union showed there will need to be £26bn of cuts from health and social care costs by 2020-21 to balance spending. Health managers in 44 areas of England have been ordered to draw up strategies, setting out how they will cut costs, change services and reduce care after the NHS ran up a record £2.45bn deficit in the past financial year.
Donald Trump tore up the rulebook of American politics – and is winning He always said he was a winner; winning was his brand. And on Tuesday night in New Hampshire, Donald Trump finally got to live up to his own hype. Reality and the brand came together at last. It was, first, a victory over his opponents. Keen to show magnanimity in triumph, Trump was quick to tell a victory party jammed with supporters how there were “some very talented people” among the rivals he had defeated – a tribute whose gracious exterior could not conceal the utter condescension within. But Trump’s victory was over much more than the trailing pack of senators and governors squabbling over the right to consider themselves Trump’s challenger – who, in that very process, only confirmed his message that he stands on a plane above mere politicians. His was also a victory over the norms and conventions of US politics. Trump did not just tear up the rulebook in New Hampshire: he shredded it and burned its remains. His defiance ran to both the large and small. Conventional wisdom says that the voters of New Hampshire can only be won over one at a time, by retail politics of the most intimate kind: they won’t give you their vote unless they’ve seen you, eyeball to eyeball, ideally several times. That was the logic that informed Ohio governor John Kasich’s dogged campaign – he did more than 100 “town hall” meetings in the state – and which brought him a handsome second place finish. Trump was having none of it: the tiny meetings or drop-by visits to diners of New Hampshire folklore were not for him. He flew in on his private jet for big rallies in big arenas and promptly flew out again; it’s said that he did not spend a single night in the state. Such disdain is meant to be punished. But not for Trump. Similarly, Republicans comply with a golden rule: thou shalt not cross Fox News. Trump did – and it did him in no harm at all. If anything, it won him more favorable coverage from Fox’s cable rivals. The political handbook says that you’re not meant to use vulgar language in public: such crudity looks “unpresidential”. Yet, Trump called one of his opponents, Senator Ted Cruz, a “pussy” on Monday night before a vast audience. The moment guaranteed Trump yet more attention and airtime, and seemed only to make his supporters admire his disregard for “political correctness” – or what others call courtesy – all the more. Received wisdom would say that no politician can breezily promise the earth, offering no details, without being dismissed as a charlatan. But Trump’s brazenness on this score is breathtaking. “We’re going to win so much, you’re going to be so happy, we’re going to make America great again,” he told his victory party. He speaks in a similar vein on every topic. While others might feel an obligation to sketch out something at least approaching a policy, Trump feels no such constraint. On unemployment: “I’m going to be the greatest jobs president.” On the Middle East: “We’re going to knock the hell out of Isis.” On drug abuse, a particularly sharp problem in New Hampshire: “We’re going to end it. It’s going to be over. We’ll get it done.” How? Don’t even ask. He’ll surround himself with smart people – “the best” – and they’ll fix it. “Believe me.” And the extraordinary thing is, many thousands of Americans are ready to do just that – to believe Donald Trump. To believe that he will be, as Stephen Stepanek, a Republican member of New Hampshire’s House of Representatives put it to the , “our savior”. It’s a strong word, but it captures well the wave that Trump rode to victory in New Hampshire. It defies the usual laws of political gravity. And right now it’s not obvious who or what will stop it carrying him all the way to the White House.
UK better inside EU, says GlaxoSmithKline chief GlaxoSmithKline’s chief executive, Sir Andrew Witty, has waded into the EU referendum debate, saying that Britain is “much better off inside the EU than outside”. Witty backed the prime minister’s efforts to renegotiate the terms of Britain’s EU membership. But whichever way the negotiations go, he stressed the importance of remaining in the European Union. “We regard Europe as a significant economic bloc, it is important to us from a regulatory perspective, but it also creates some levels of predictability. Could it be improved? Of course it could be improved, we would encourage the government to work hard to improve it, but we believe it is better to be in and improving than to be on the outside and trying to plot a new course,” he said. Witty was speaking after the pharmaceutical company unveiled a 6% rise in 2015 sales to £24bn and stuck to its target to return to double-digit growth in core earnings in 2016, following a 15% decline last year. The company is paying an ordinary dividend of 80p a share and a special dividend of 20p for 2015 and pledged payouts of 80p for 2016 and 2017. While sales of GSK’s asthma drug Advair continue to slide due to generic copies coming on to the market, prescriptions for the new Breo and Anoro inhaled lung drugs have increased in the key US market after a slow start. GSK’s meningitis and other vaccines, along with new HIV drugs and the consumer healthcare business, all performed strongly. Sensodyne toothpaste now makes sales of nearly £1bn a year. Some investors have called for a breakup of the £70bn pharmaceutical group including the fund manager Neil Woodford, who compared its structure to “four FTSE 100 companies bolted together”. Witty did not rule out spinning off the consumer healthcare division, which is run as a GSK-controlled joint venture with Novartis, but said it would be “unwise” to make a definitive decision now and described it as a question “for the future, not for today”. He is keen to boost margins first and pointed out that GSK is only in the first year of its three-year turnaround plan following a $20bn (£13.7bn) asset swap with Novartis. Ketan Patel, an associate fund manager at EdenTree Investment Management, which owns GSK shares, said: “The question for long-term investors is whether it makes sense to sell [specialist HIV company] ViiV, the fastest growing business and the consumer healthcare division, which like all GSK businesses uses the same distribution network. The pipeline, with more than 250 products, remains a key driver, but needs to begin to deliver a return for long-suffering investors and fend off calls for a breakup.” GSK, under pressure to replace its portfolio of ageing treatments, made sales of £2bn from new treatments last year and now expects to reach its £6bn target for new product sales by 2018, two years earlier than expected. Witty said GSK is conducting feasibility studies on the rapidly spreading Zika virus, declared a global public health emergency by the World Health Organisation. French drugmaker Sanofi announced on Tuesday that it would start work on a vaccine, building on the research it carried out for its recently approved vaccine for dengue fever, another mosquito-borne disease.
Holograms replacing cadavers in training for doctors Surgeons are embracing technology’s cutting edge, using the latest in augmented, virtual and mixed reality to transform medical training. Among the devices the Royal College of Surgeons is planning to explore is the Microsoft HoloLens, a mixed reality headset, released to developers this year, which shows hovering 3D holograms. The college said it was teaming up with education group Pearson to harness immersive technologies for training students. Mark Christian, the global director of immersive learning at Pearson, said the HoloLens headset enabled them to explore the possibility of creating realistic holograms to allow students to practise surgical procedures. He said the approach could avoid traditional cadaver-based training. “You have schools like Case Western Reserve University that have that as their stated goal – within two years to do away with wet labs,” he said. The potential for such technologies would be further boosted through the development of haptic technologies, which let wearers of the HoloLens and other devices, such as virtual reality headsets, experience other sensations, such as touch. Immersive technologies could also prove a boon in the field of imaging; doctors using the HoloLens could explore entire brains, in images built up from MRI scans, floating in front of their eyes. “It’s there, [in] actual 3D,” he said. Shafi Ahmed, council member of the Royal College of Surgeons, said the technologies were the future when it came to education. “[In the next five years] I think most people will be taught with this AR, VR, mixed reality,” he said. “Learning will change immeasurably. “We are rebuilding [the college] for 2020. In that new classroom environment, there will be no space for cadavers; it’ll be case-based anatomy, it’ll be teaching and learning using HoloLens and virtual reality – really disrupting 200 years worth of surgical training.” But it might be some time before cadavers are completely replaced by technology. Andrew Reed, the chief executive of the Royal College of Surgeons, said the college would continue to offer cadaveric courses elsewhere in the UK in partnership with other faculties. Ahmed, who is a cancer surgeon at Barts Health NHS trust and co-founder of Medical Realities, a company working with augmented and virtual reality, is a pioneering figure in the world of medical technology. In April 2014, he live-streamed an operation using the augmented reality device Google Glass, and in May this year he live-streamed the first 360-degree video of an operation. His vision, he said, was to shake up surgical training and do away with traditional approaches where students in theatre barely catch a glimpse of procedures, while democratising access to training across the world. “Two-thirds of the population, five billion people out of seven billion, do not have access to safe and affordable surgery,” he said. Among other devices under development around the world are alternative approaches to hologram technology. Holoxica, for example, aims to project 3D holograms into a space without headsets. Augmented reality is also finding its niche. Xpert Eye by Ama is based on smart glasses that allow doctors to remotely provide advice and support to those wearing the glasses, in what the creators dub a “see what I see solution”. Ahmed, said that immersive approaches could aid patients as well as doctors. “The real value of this stuff is already shown in patients with anxiety attacks, phobias, pain relief, and also in patient education,” he said, pointing out that VR headsets offered patients a chance to see what would happen to them during a procedure or even watch a recording of their surgery. Christian agreed, saying technologies such as the HoloLens could offer patients a view of the inside of their own bodies. “I think people rationalise things more in a visual way,” said Christian. “We know that an informed patient [has] better outcomes.”
Scarlett Johansson: talking about the Hollywood gender wage gap is 'icky' Scarlett Johansson has become the latest female actor to discuss her thoughts on the Hollywood gender pay gap but believes the conversation needs to be given a broader context. Promoting her roles in both The Jungle Book and Captain America: Civil War, the actor told Cosmopolitan why the discussion can make her feel uncomfortable. “There’s something icky about me having that conversation unless it applies to a greater whole,” she said. “I am very fortunate, I make a really good living, and I’m proud to be an actress who’s making as much as many of my male peers at this stage.” Johansson is one of the industry’s highest paid actors, with a rumoured paycheck of $17.5m (£12.4m) for her role in the upcoming action thriller Ghost in the Shell. She worries that her status makes it difficult for her to speak out against pay inequality. “I think every woman has [been underpaid], but unless I’m addressing it as a larger problem, for me to talk about my own personal experience with it feels a little obnoxious,” she said. “It’s part of a larger conversation about feminism in general.” Her comments echo those of Jennifer Lawrence, who raised a similar point in her emotive letter about the issue for Lena Dunham’s newsletter Lenny. “It’s hard for me to speak about my experience as a working woman because I can safely say my problems aren’t exactly relatable,” Lawrence wrote. It is estimated that women in media roles earn 85% of what their male counterparts take home, and that female stars tend to see their earnings drop after the age of 34 while men see a change after 51.
Lamine Koné’s return to form a factor in Sunderland’s renaissance Jermain Defoe and Victor Anichebe have done their bit but it is no coincidence that Sunderland’s run of three wins in four games has coincided with Lamine Koné’s return to central-defensive form. In those three Premier League victories – at Bournemouth, against Hull City at home, and the 2-1 defeat of Leicester City on Saturday – Koné has been paired with Papy Djilobodji, who has switched from being a big part of David Moyes’s problems to becoming a key element in the Sunderland manager’s prospective solution. If relegation is to be avoided, he needs Anichebe and Defoe to keep creating and scoring goals, while Koné and Dilobodji – who have been subjected to frequent, private, afternoon tutorials on the art of defending from their tracksuited manager – stay defensively strong. Against Leicester that pair set an encouraging template, with Koné reminding everyone why Everton were so keen to spend £18m on him during the summer and Djilobodji demonstrating the qualities which once made him a Chelsea player. The 28-year-old Senegal international never actually threatened to establish himself in the first team at Stamford Bridge but Moyes invested £8m in the pacy left‑footer. The only drawback was that Djilobodji’s positioning, decision-making and concentration were somewhat wayward, while Koné seemed to have lost focus after signing a lucrative new contract to stay at Sunderland. The 27-year-old Ivory Coast international looked a shadow of the player signed for £5m from Lorient by Sam Allardyce last January and who played a key part in the successful avoidance of relegation last spring. It seems the security of that bumper new deal initially bred complacency. “I think it was when he signed the new contract,” Moyes said.“I just don’t think his performances were up the same standard everybody told me they had been last season bBut now I think Lamine’s turned a corner. We’ve been putting an awful lot of work into Lamine and Papy and they will not thank me for having them out in the afternoon as much as I have done. But Lamine has a lot of quality and his positional play has got better. They’ve both improved but they’ve quite often been doing double training sessions because if we’re going to have any chance of staying up, we need our centre-halves to play well. We’ve always got a chance if we defend well.”
Brexit and the new devolution crisis: what are the issues? Why should Brexit affect the UK’s internal arrangements? The last week has seen a flurry of interventions by Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland arguing for a greater say in how the UK government conducts negotiations to leave the European Union. In the supreme court, Northern Ireland QCs and Scotland’s lord advocate argued it was not only MPs and peers in Westminster who deserved consultation, but also devolved legislatures in Stormont and Edinburgh. Meanwhile, Labour’s leader in Scotland, Kezia Dugdale, wrote in the of the need for a “people’s constitutional convention” to re-establish the UK for a new age. She gave a speech calling for many EU powers to be repatriated to Edinburgh rather than Westminster. Politically, this all reflects the referendum’s varying results up and down the country. “We are a united Kingdom in name only,” said the London Labour MP and remain campaigner Chuka Umunna. Legally, Brexit has opened a constitutional can of worms. “Britain has two sovereignty problems: one relating to the internal sovereignty of Westminster over the regions of the United Kingdom, and the other external, the relationship between Westminster and the European institutions,” says Sir David Edward, a Scottish former judge at the European court of justice. Shouldn’t it be called Ukexit? Even the name is not agreed upon. Political scientist Brendan O’Leary has argued Brexit is a logically impossible misnomer since it is not Britain trying to leave the EU, but the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. It is less catchy than Brexit – which caught on after Greece’s threatened departure from the EU became known as Grexit – but he calls for the term Ukexit to be used for more than just pedantic reasons. “To use Brexit is to do verbal violence to the nature of the UK, which is a double union, not a British nation state,” wrote O’Leary in a provocative paper discussing the unlikely option of Northern Ireland and Scotland possibly staying inside both the EU and UK. Isn’t there a law about all this? In the absence of a single written constitution, many of the answers to these questions lie in the interpretation of case law, some of it going back centuries. As Dominic Chambers QC told the supreme court on Wednesday, the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty was “forged on the battlefields of the 17th century in the [English civil war] between crown and parliament”. But devolution that began under Tony Blair has established a growing body of more recent law, with significant consequences. A 2016 amendment to the 1998 Scotland Act, for example, establishes that the Scottish parliament and government are a permanent part of the UK constitutional arrangement. The so-called Sewel convention, which recognises that the UK shall not normally legislate with respect to devolved matters without consent of the Scottish parliament, is now statute as well as good manners. Richard Gordon QC, for the Welsh government, told the court: “The force of the Sewel convention is not its legal enforceability but that it’s a dialogue between legislatures.” Similarly, in Northern Ireland, which lost devolution powers and gained EU membership at the same time in 1972-3, has since had much of its independent relationship with Brussels enshrined by referendums leading up to the Good Friday agreement, and by the UN-recognised British Irish agreement and the Northern Ireland Act of 1998. “You can’t get away from the fact that the UK now has a partially written constitution in the form of statutes, and making it work requires respect on all sides,” explained Sir David Edward in a panel discussion at City University law school this week. What is Westminster’s response? So far, the Tory government in Westminster is showing limited patience for any notion of further complicating its already difficult negotiations with the EU. The chancellor, Philip Hammond, a cabinet moderate, was recently dispatched north from London to rule out any prospect of Scotland winning special concessions on trade or immigration in the Brexit deal. “This is a United Kingdom issue and the will of the people of the United Kingdom was to leave,” he told reporters shortly before holding talks with the first minister, Nicola Sturgeon. “We’re clear that we can’t have a different deal or a different outcome for different parts of the United Kingdom.” But with the possibility that the supreme court may add Edinburgh and Stormont to the list of parliaments that need to be consulted before article 50 is invoked, this may not be a sustainable position. “The real problem is that cohesion of the United Kingdom is uncertain and treading softly on eggshells is what is required,” said Edward at City Law. “There is no point in making big, noisy declarations.” Where is the rub? As James Wolffe QC, Scotland’s lord advocate, told the supreme court, there is little realistic chance of wielding a veto over Brexit. It is more a question of being consulted. Some see this as a chance to push for a “soft” Brexit where the UK remains in the single market, but another set of bargaining revolves around devolved powers that are currently shared between the EU, Westminster and national executives. The Scottish government, for example, is responsible for agriculture, forestries and fisheries in conjunction with the EU, not London. “The most interesting question concerns exclusive and shared EU competencies that will be repatriated by Brexit, but are they to be exercised by Scotland as devolved competencies?” asked Edward. “Does it mean that when powers are repatriated in relation to fisheries, that the Scottish government and parliament acquire exclusive competencies, because none of them are reserved, or will the UK be able to re-reserve some of the competencies that are coming back?” A battle over fish may seem an anti-climactic end to the constitutional crisis, but it hints at new ways for Scotland to gain power over its own affairs without necessarily going down the route of a second independence referendum.
Why we voted to get rid of Zac Goldsmith Zac Goldsmith may have wanted the Richmond Park byelection to be a referendum on Heathrow expansion, but local voters had other ideas. The Lib Dems’ Sarah Olney won after a marathon local campaigning effort focusing on Brexit, with the party’s remaining big guns spending significant time in the borough. When we asked local readers to tell us why they backed the Lib Dem candidate, we heard from tactical voters alongside longstanding party supporters. Brexit came up more than any other issue, followed by anger and revulsion at Zac Goldsmith’s divisive campaign to succeed Boris Johnson as mayor of London. Here is a selection of our readers’ views. ‘When will progressives start boxing as clever as our enemies? Labour couldn’t win in Richmond Park. Only Sarah Olney had a chance to overturn Zac Goldsmith’s majority. Labour’s blinkered decision to field a candidate in the face of these political realities – unlike the Greens, to their lasting credit – speaks volumes about the party leadership’s inability to recognise the enormity of the crisis Britain faces today – the gravest since the Second World War. Our foes, by contrast, are under no illusions about the stakes hence the Tories and UKIP allowing Goldsmith a free run. When will progressives start boxing as clever as our enemies? Barry Langford, Richmond ‘The fact Ukip supported him said it all’ I used to respect Zac as a good constituency MP, despite never voting for him. However, after his racially divisive mayoral campaign and his support for Brexit I feel he cannot represent me. The fact that Ukip supported him said it all. I’m a Labour party member but feel the Labour candidate had no chance here. Labour’s response to Brexit has been disappointing. I’m looking for a strongly pro-EU party to support, and the Lib Dems seem like the best option. Tim Young, 40, Richmond ‘It’s never been more important for liberal voices to be heard’ I joined the Lib Dems in 2015 because of their unapologetic pro-EU stance. It may be a flawed institution, but to me the European Union represents everything that is good about co-operation for mutual benefit and has acted as a bulwark for decades against the politics of nationalism and division. I believe that it has never been more important in my lifetime for liberal and internationalist voices to be heard, and winning this by-election sends a powerful message to the Government to temper its hard Brexit plans. Ewan Maddock, 29, Richmond ‘Goldsmith showed his true colours’ Goldsmith’s disgraceful mayoral campaign, support for Brexit, choice of cronies (Johnson, Rees-Mogg et al) and recent voting record on issues such as disability benefit cuts (which saw him dropped as patron of a local charity), showed his true colours, and they’re hideous. This year he’s proved himself to be so self-serving, posturing and petulant that I now think he only cares about about Heathrow because the flight path goes over his house. I cast my vote as a protest against everything Goldsmith has revealed himself to represent. Susan Ward, 33, Richmond ‘I don’t understand why Labour didn’t go in with the Lib Dems’ I’m a Labour member and can’t understand why they didn’t go in with the Lib Dems against Zac Goldsmith. Labour doesn’t have a chance in this area sadly. Zac has been a great MP. I respect that he stuck to his promise of resigning because of Heathrow but to make that issue the thing he campaigns on just after Brexit ... I also cannot forgive him for the way he managed his London mayor campaign, aggressive and a real ‘nasty party’ tone. I emailed him a few times asking him to support a debate in parliament about rent control and he refused, despite this being a massive issue in his constituency and London as a whole. Rebecca Patterson, 29, Richmond ‘Brexit is national suicide’ I am a Labour Party member and have supported the party since I leafleted with my father for the 1945 election. This time I’m voting Lib Dem because I voted to Remain. I’ve been on pro-EU marches and am very against Brexit, which to me is tantamount to national suicide. Not all older people are Brexiters who want to return to a mythical 1950s. Lynne Hall, 79, Richmond ‘Goldsmith’s mayoral campaign was squalid’ I voted Lib Dem – very reluctantly. A party canvasser told me that “honesty is overrated” when I challenged him about his party’s support for ‘austerity’, student fees and the bedroom tax. But Zac is far worse. He has the temerity to claim about being a local but refused as a non-dom to contribute of his fair share to public services – especially invidious when he campaigns outside local schools such as the one my son goes to. His mayoral campaign was squalid. Sanjiv Sachdev, Richmond ‘I voted for Goldsmith at the last election but not this time’ I voted for Zack Goldsmith at the last election but not this time, principally because of his support for the Leave campaign. He claims to be a constituency MP who listens to his constituents - the reason we are having this byelection in the first place. However, whilst 72% of his constituents voted Remain (a far more significant issue for the country at large), he persisted in advocating the Leave campaign. John Gaylor, 46, Richmond ‘His stance on Brexit is completely at odds with the borough’ Other than the Heathrow expansion, there’s nothing Zac Goldsmith represents that I don’t disagree with. His mayoral campaign was a disgrace, he voted for the disabled benefit cuts while a patron of a disabled charity, and his stance on Brexit is completely at odds with both myself, and also the borough as a whole. As someone from an absurdly privileged background, who’s never had a job that wasn’t created for him, I don’t feel he’s qualified to represent ordinary people I understand the criticism of the Lib Dems for their capitulation in the Cameron government, but what’s important is we saw off Goldsmith. Jason Regan, Richmond ‘Labour fielding a candidate showed a lack of strategic understanding’ I have voted Labour since 1971; except for prior tactical voting (against Tories), and am a member of the Labour Party. However, I am intending to cancel and join the Lib Dems , because I loathe what Corbyn and McDonnell have done to the Labour Party. The fact that they fielded a candidate in this byelection shows they have no strategic understanding, no big vision and no belief or plan for how to counter the Tories. Wendy Knight, 63, Richmond Some names have been changed
On my radar: Gavin Turk’s cultural highlights Artist Gavin Turk, 49, found fame in the 1990s as a key figure in the Young British Artist (YBA) movement. Born in 1967 and raised in Surrey, he studied at the Royal College of Art but was refused his postgraduate degree because his final show, Cave, comprised a whitewashed studio featuring a single blue heritage plaque that read: “Gavin Turk, sculptor, worked here 1989-1991.” This brought him to the attention of influential collectors including Charles Saatchi. He has since won international acclaim for his sculptures and installations exploring authenticity and the myth of the artist. Pop, a life-size waxwork of himself as Sid Vicious, is a case in point. Fellow YBA Damien Hirst began acquiring Turk’s work in 1998 and will present Who What When Where How and Why, Turk’s first solo exhibition since 2002, at his Newport Street Gallery, London SE11, from 23 November to 19 March 2017. 1 | Art The Infinite Mix at The Store, London WC2 I’m not sure I fully understood or fully identified with all of the things I saw in this video installation show staged by the Hayward Gallery in a temporary space, but I liked the idea of it. It’s a strange collage of different artists making quite specific works – it was a bit like flicking through YouTube. You walk around a building which is split up into different floors and different areas. There’s an amazing black and white multiscreen piece by Ugo Rondinone – a film of a beat poet, John Giorno, reading one of his poems, dressed in a tuxedo. The video flashes from one screen on to the next, the tuxedo flicking backward and forward, as the poem is delivered. It’s exciting. There’s also a piece by Jeremy Deller that’s quite like a pop video. I went to the show at an interesting time to see art, too, after dark. The venue was hosting the after-party for the launch of David Shrigley’s Really Good sculpture, his big thumb on the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square. I thought the thumb was fun but I was slightly distracted by the pop-up shop selling Really Good merchandise right next to it. The piece is such a large, stand-alone, bombastic joke and it seemed slightly compromised by the strange little shop. 2 | Dance To a simple, rock’n’roll… song, Barbican, London EC2 I was bowled over by Michael Clark’s new show. It was gorgeous and the Bowie tribute breathed a new energy, a new dynamic into Blackstar. Then, afterwards, I wondered whether I liked it because it seemed familiar – I’m a fan and it was good old-fashioned Michael Clark. When I looked around the audience and saw lots of people from the 90s, I found myself thinking, “Where’s the new audience?”, “Where’s the new dancing?” But maybe that’s not Michael’s job. When I would first go to his work it seemed to be really avant garde and now it seems almost establishment. That’s an accusation that’s levelled at lots of the artists that came out in the 90s – Tracey Emin or whoever – “Oh, they’re just art establishment now, they’re not really out-there any more”. 3 | Venue The Institute of Light, London E8 This is a very bijou cinema with a bar and a restaurant in an archway round the corner from my house in east London. I think the idea behind it was, if you could get a cheap railway arch, what could you do with it? You could set up a place where people can hang out and go for a drink or food or see a film. They’ve also got a big record collection. It’s all very local and casual somehow. I just went to a Halloween event there where they had all sorts of spooky art films and archive footage playing on a loop. There was Loie Fuller’s Serpentine Dance, from 1897, in which she’s wearing a dress that changes colour and moves up and down, almost like a flower or a bird. It’s quite hallucinogenic. Then there was The Cabinet of Dr CaligariCORR, bits of Nosferatu, stuff like that. The venue has bank seating with aeroplane chairs and sofas and things. You could sit in the cinema or there was a party going on next door. 4 | Theatre Paper Music by William Kentridge, the Print Room, London W11 The Print Room stages small-scale theatre performances at the Coronet theatre in Notting Hill. It holds a very small audience, so you feel like you’re part of the action. I’ve seen a few things there. This show by the artist William Kentridge tied in with his exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery. Kentridge himself actually got out of his seat at one point and did a reading but otherwise there were two singers on stage, a pianist and an animated film. It pushed the boundaries of both theatre and art at the same time. Kentridge’s work is generally very theatrical anyway, and I think some of that can get lost in an art gallery. 5 | TV/Streaming HyperNormalisation on BBC iPlayer I tried to get through Adam Curtis’s HyperNormalisation in one sitting. I really liked his Bitter Lake documentary, I enjoyed his ability to join up bits of cultural history happening in different parts of the planet, and how they affect one another. It’s all very clever. HyperNormalisation does that too, but it’s nearly three hours long and quite heavy. I got slightly bugged that he kept talking about the problem of oversimplification but he was also possibly suffering from oversimplification. But I’ll go back to it. I like how he shows parallel histories and asks you to look at your own historical compass and readdress it. 6 | Radio Jarvis Cocker’s Sunday Service on BBC 6 Music Yes, we’re friends, and yes, I’ve been on his show, but I do think Jarvis has a great talent for making radio. He gets an amazing range of people on as guests, people from very different walks of life. The one that comes to mind is Richard Hines, the brother of Barry, whose experiences with kestrels inspired Barry’s book A Kestrel for a Knave. The interview explored the idea of northern identity; it brought back something from Jarvis’s past and, in a way, our shared cultural past. I’m incredibly impressed that he has kept going with the show because it’s not easy to keep finding content every week and it’s not really “pop starry” stuff. It’s just about him following his nose, and it makes for really, really good radio.
Deutsche isn't the only drama in banking's new negative-yield world Deutsche Bank’s shares rose 10% on Wednesday. Is the panic over Germany’s biggest bank over? Well, a quick bounce in the share price is a useful start but any other reaction would have been alarming given the force of the verbal counter-offensive. Chief executive John Cryan had declared Deutsche to be “absolutely rock-solid” and Wolfgang Schäuble, the country’s finance minister, was obliged to lend a hand by saying he had “no concerns” about the bank. Even after these proclamations, Deutsche’s shares are still down 33% since the start of the year and the bank is priced at half its book value. So, no, the crisis is not over – not for Deutsche and not for the wider banking sector. There are specific worries about Deutsche – the cost of litigation and restructuring, and possible write-offs from bad loans to energy companies – but the deeper worry for all banks is simple. Are their business models damaged if we are tip-toeing towards a world of negative interest rates? In the old world of near-zero interest rates there was an easy way for banks to generate capital: borrow some of that cheap money and park it a safe long-term asset, such as a respectable government bond, offering a higher yield. But those opportunities are rapidly evaporating in the weird world of negative rates in which short- and long-term yields are falling in tandem. Some $6tn worth of government debt – mostly in Japan and the eurozone – is now calculated to be trading at a negative yield. That financial upset is clearly dramatic, but nobody knows the consequences if it lasts for long. If the European Central Bank, desperately trying to generate inflation and stimulate lending, takes a further step into negative territory at its meeting next month, would the woes of Deutsche and the banking sector deepen? It seems entirely possible if the outlook for the global economy is still weakening. Morgan Stanley’s analyst yesterday quoted the view of Axel Weber, chairman of UBS, from last month on the challenges presented by ultra-low and negative rates. “The side-effects of the medicine are getting stronger and stronger, the curative effects are getting weaker and weaker,” said Weber. Fair comment. Arm reaches for the future The microchips we design aren’t just bought by Apple, and they aren’t found only in smartphones. Arm Holdings has been singing this tune for a while, but with little effect on its share price. The UK’s finest technology company has been a wonderful investment on a 10-year view but the stock has gone roughly sideways for the past three years, even as profits have risen from £364m in 2013 to £511m in 2015. Perhaps the latest variation on the theme will do the trick. Cars as “supercomputers” certainly sounded more compelling than past lectures on the wonders of the internet-of-things, an idea that always seemed just a little too loose. The big idea is that the average vehicle will soon be carrying $150 worth of chips. That is easier to understand because we can see the evidence: modern cars come packed with aids for drivers and elaborate entertainment systems. The computing power in each vehicle is set to increase a hundredfold, says Arm, which seems as good a prediction as any. In terms of the automotive market as a whole, the company reckons it’s looking at an increase from $10bn to $15bn in five years. That’s an opportunity for the medium term. In the short term, investors will continue to fret about China, Arm’s exposure to a saturated smartphone market (still 45% of its business), and a possible slowdown in consumer spending that would slow royalty receipts. Take a step back, though, and another decade of growth for Arm seems assured as the licensing deals continue to flow. Few would describe a valuation of 30 times last year’s earnings as cheap – but, by tech standards, that’s not bad. Friction over oil The idea that Russia and Saudi Arabia would agree to co-ordinate cuts in oil production always seemed fanciful. And here comes Igor Sechin, chief executive of Kremlin-controlled Rosneft, to throw more cold water on the notion. Sechin, as well as taking a side sweep at “robot traders” – traditional bogeymen in tough times – blamed Middle Eastern producers for deliberating creating the current position of low oil prices and then sticking to the policy. It’s not the sort of thing you would say if were trying to lay the groundwork for a deal and turn on the charm. From a mechanical point of view, the joint removal by the Saudis and the Russians of 1m barrels a day of production would probably bring the oil market into balance. But, without a thawing in the political relationship, it’s not going to happen. The International Energy Agency had it right earlier in the week when it said: “Persistent speculation about a deal between Opec and leading non-Opec producers to cut output appears to be just that: speculation.” The economic incentives for both countries might change if $30-a-barrel oil became $20. At the moment, though, everyone is wedded to their view that $50-ish will be seen by the end of this year as rising demand for oil meets lower investment. If that’s their genuine view, there’s no Russian/Saudi deal.
Theresa May set to appoint female allies to key cabinet positions Theresa May is preparing to promote a string of female Conservative colleagues, including into key cabinet positions, after she is invited by the Queen to form a new government on Wednesday. Allies including Amber Rudd, currently the energy secretary, and Justine Greening, the international development secretary, are among those expected to be in line for prominent positions as the second female prime minister shakes up the team running the government. The incoming prime minister will announce the reshuffle on Wednesday after she moves into Downing Street with her husband, Philip. May will take up residence at No 10 after an audience at Buckingham Palace where the Queen will confirm her new role. Cameron will face the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, in the House of Commons for one final prime minister’s questions before making his outgoing remarks on Downing Street. Sometime thereafter he will head to the palace to formally resign. May will make the opposite journey, meeting the Queen for the tradition of “kissing hands”, which usually involves a handshake. She will make her first speech as Britain’s 54th prime minister as she makes her way into Downing Street [see footnote]. The appointments are intended to create a more gender-balanced cabinet, which has been called for by campaigners as a way to improve policymaking. Some of the most senior roles in the cabinet will be occupied by women. “It was Theresa who set up the campaign to elect more female MPs to parliament, and she has always believed that there should be more women in prominent government positions,” said a spokeswoman for May. Speculation in Westminster suggested that a woman could be under consideration for the role of chancellor for the first time, although the frontrunners so far include the foreign secretary, Philip Hammond, and Chris Grayling, leader of the House of Commons. Cameron had made some progress with the gender balance during previous reshuffles, with his final senior team having seven women serving as full members, almost a third of the total. But May intends to go further: other women tipped for ministerial promotions include Harriett Baldwin, Margot James and Karen Bradley, who worked with May at the Home Office as head of the modern slavery bill. On Monday, May delivered a speech about social justice that included an attack on the government’s industrial strategy, widely interpreted as a swipe at George Osborne. Some were suggesting that he could be moved from the Treasury to the Foreign Office. Officials within the Home Office suggested Grayling could become home secretary, although Rudd is considered a contender to succeed May in taking responsibility for immigration policy. It was unclear whether May would keep Michael Gove in his job as justice secretary following a number of clashes under Cameron’s premiership. However, she is likely to try to unify a party divided by the EU referendum campaign and appoint some senior Brexit campaigners such as Boris Johnson, Liam Fox, Andrea Leadsom and Priti Patel alongside Grayling. Cameron will bow out and make a speech in which he will hope to cement a legacy beyond the EU referendum, and will urge May not to drop the commitment to spending 0.7% of GDP on international aid. May’s spokeswoman said work was already under way to set up a new department dedicated to negotiating Britain’s exit from the EU. “Civil servants have already been charged with finding a building to house the Brexit department – an indication of Theresa’s commitment to get on with delivering the verdict of the EU referendum. Brexit means Brexit and we’re going to make a success of it,” she has said. The prime minister in waiting spent her final day as home secretary planning her entry into Downing Street and also addressing staff at the Home Office. She highlighted areas of policy reform including measures against terrorism and the investigatory powers bill, also known as the snooper’s charter. May then told civil servants she believed the “social justice agenda” had been at the heart of her tenure, naming inquiries into the Hillsborough tragedy, undercover policing and child sex abuse as proud achievements. Telling officials that “there will always be a little bit of the Home Office inside me”, May said her department had focused on the most vulnerable in society. May is expected to make the life chances strategy – a cross-government policy that Cameron hoped would be his flagship reform had he carried on as prime minister – a priority for the new government. The strategy is being led by the Department for Work and Pensions and includes reforms that affect a child’s earliest years, including access to high-quality childcare, a focus on schooling, university, rehabilitation for offenders and work opportunities. Lauding the policy in cabinet, May then told Cameron that he had the “warmth and respect” of colleagues, and that he had led the country through a difficult time, with particularly tough economic circumstances. Later, the incoming prime minister went to Conservative headquarters and told staff that it was “an honour and a privilege to be the new leader of this great party”. She thanked staff for their work and set out her priorities. “Now, more than ever, we need to work together, to deliver on Brexit, to build a country that works for everyone, and to truly unite our party and our country,” she said, attacking Labour as a party that had brought the country to bankruptcy. In combative language, May claimed it did not matter whether Tony Blair, Gordon Brown or Jeremy Corbyn led the Labour party, because “when Labour prospers the country suffers”. During her time as home secretary and as part of the coalition, May clashed with the then deputy prime minister and Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg, particularly over the controversial snooper’s charter and other anti-terrorism legislation. Alex Dziedzan, who worked for Clegg as an adviser, said: “There were lots of disagreements between Theresa May and the Liberal Democrats on asylum, immigration and issues involving human rights. “But she is the toughest negotiator I have ever seen and she was the most formidable person we ever came across in government without a shadow of a doubt. I expect her to be much more forceful in delivering her policies than Cameron ever has been.” James Cleverly, the Tory MP for Braintree, said he suspected it would be a “balanced cabinet”, arguing there were able people who satisfied a number of demographics. “Then you can stop thinking about tick-box exercises,” he said. • This footnote was added on 13 July 2016 to clarify that Theresa May will be the 54th person to be a British prime minister. If the number of times the prime ministership has changed hands is counted, she will be the 76th. Some prime ministers have served more than one term non-consecutively.
London Stock Exchange in merger talks with Deutsche Börse - as it happened A slide in the oil price as Saudi Arabia seemed to rule out hopes of production cuts sent stock markets sharply lower again after Monday’s rally. Brent crude is currently nearly 4% lower at $33.32, while West Texas Intermediate is down almost 5%. Meanwhile the pound continued to come under pressure on Brexit fears, falling to $1.4022. Commodity companies were among the day’s big fallers, on renewed concerns about a slowdown in China and news that BHP Billiton was slashing its dividend. Standard Chartered was also a big faller, down nearly 7% after reporting its first loss in 26 years amid worries about its exposure to emerging markets. The final scores showed: The FTSE 100 finished 75.42 points or 1.25% lower at 5962.31, despite a near 14% rise in London Stock Exchange shares on news of a proposed merger with Deutsche Börse Germany’s Dax dropped 1.64% to 9416.77 France’s Cac closed down 1.4% at 4238.42 Italy’s FTSE MIB fell 1.95% to 17,163.46 Spain’s Ibex ended 1.42% lower at 8267.6 In Greece, the Athens market added 1.2% to 493.97 On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is down 178 points or just over 1%. On that note, it’s time to close for the evening. Thanks for all your comments, and we’ll be back tomorrow. Sterling has hit a new seven year low against the dollar of $1.4044, following Bank of England governor Mark Carney’s comments suggesting UK interest rates could be cut. The UK currency has also come under renewed pressure on the uncertainty over the forthcoming referendum on whether Britain should leave the European Union, which Carney also referred to. Crude continues to weaken as Saudi oil minister Ali Al-Naimi suggested production cuts were not on the cards. He told a conference in Houston that cutting production would not happen, but major producers would freeze output to help the market rebalance. Saudi Arabia and Russia recently agreed to freeze output at January levels in an effort to deal with the supply glut which has sent crude prices tumbling. He said in Houston that he hoped there would be more agreements on freezing in March, when more meetings will be held. He said “most of the countries that count” would freeze, according to Reuters. Earlier Iran had apparently dismissed the proposal as ridiculous, despite the country seeming to support it last week. Al-Naimi said the price rout would ease although he did not know when. And he added that he was not banking on cuts “because there is less trust than usual”, said Reuters. Brent is currently down 3% at $33.62 a barrel while West Texas Intermediate - the US benchmark - is 4% lower at $32.03. Jasper Lawler at CMC Markets said: Oil prices turned lower after the Iranian oil minister’s colourful description of the output freeze between Russia and Saudi Arabia as “ridiculous.” Iran and its plans to ramp up output after the lifting of sanctions is proving a thorn in the side of other producing counties which appear to be reaching consensus that production should stay at current levels. Tensions are clearly rising in the cartel as the Saudi oil minister reposted that “not all the countries will freeze. The ones that count will.” The day’s confidence figures show how fragile sentiment is at the moment, says analyst Connor Campbell at Spreadex: Whilst the [US] existing home sales figure actually saw a mild increase month-on-month, from 5.45 million to 5.47 million, more notable was the sharp decline in the CB consumer confidence number. Coming in at 92.2 against the 97.4 last month the figure, like this morning’s year-low German Ifo business climate data, highlights just how entrenched the market’s current fears are, despite the sporadic surges that have taken the global indices to a variety of recent highs. There was to be no such surge this afternoon, however, the Dow Jones dropping over 100 in light of that literal knock to the index’s confidence. Over in the UK the FTSE fell past its earlier lows as the afternoon progressed, declining around 50 points to trickle underneath the 6000 mark following the weak US open, a drop exacerbated by Brent Crude slipping under $34 per barrel once again. Back with the London Stock Exchange, and analysts at Numis point to a number of problems facing its proposed merger with Deutsche Börse: This represents the third time the LSE and DB have attempted to merge, first in 2000 then in 2004. Although no details were given, a merger is expected to provide enhanced growth, significant customer benefits as well as substantial revenue and cost synergies. However, we see a number of challenges in completing this deal, namely: (1) the competition authority is likely to ask a number of questions as it would create a dominant player in exchanges and clearing in Europe – the EC blocked a similar deal between Deutsche Börse and NYSE Euronext in 2012 citing competition concerns; (2) both have differing views on how to structure their respective clearing businesses – LSE backs open access (i.e. trading and clearing can occur on different platforms) whereas DB does not; (3) national pride – would UK politicians be happy with the main UK exchange being owned by a foreign entity. So whilst we see the obvious benefits from such a deal (namely cost and revenue synergies), we remain mindful of the challenges that would need to be overcome for it to complete. The Richmond manufacturing index has also disappointed, coming in at -4 compared to the 2 which analysts had been looking for. However US existing home sales have beaten expectations, up 0.4% in January compared to a forecast fall of 2.5%. US consumer confidence figures for February have come in much lower than expected, as the recent market volatility outweighs the benefits of cheaper oil. The index fell from 97.8 in January - itself revised down from 98.1 - to 92.2. Analysts had been expecting a figure of 97. This is the lowest level since July. Dennis de Jong, managing director at UFX.com, said Despite relatively healthy numbers over recent months, onlookers will be concerned with the worrying dip in this month’s consumer confidence data. It’s surprising that US shoppers have kept their wallets in their pockets for another month, especially considering that low gas prices continue to help them save. While the slip may have a short-term negative affect on the US Dollar, if gas continues to stay low, it’s only a matter of time before US consumers get the spending bug again. Meanwhile US stock markets have opened lower, in line with the dips on European exchanges. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is down 40 points or 0.2% after another fall in oil prices - West Texas Intermediate is around 2% lower after a report Iran’s oil minister called the proposed output freeze ridiculous. At the open the S&P 500 is 0.3% lower and Nasdaq down 0.4%, ahead of the latest US consumer confidence figures. Back in Europe the FTSE 100 is currently down 22 points or 0.3%, but would be another 4 points or so lower if not for the 16% jump in the shares of the London Stock Exchange. It was not always so friendly between the LSE and Deutsche Börse: And here’s the BBC’s story from the time. Here’s our first take on the LSE-Deutsche Börse merger plan: The London Stock Exchange is in talks to merge with Germany’s Deutsche Börse in a deal that would seal an alliance first discussed at the turn of the millennium. The LSE confirmed on Tuesday it was in detailed discussions with its German rival about an all-share merger. Under the proposed structure, Deutsche Börse shareholders would own 54.4% of the combined company and LSE shareholders would hold 45.6%. The UK exchange said: “The boards believe that the potential merger would represent a compelling opportunity for both companies to strengthen each other in an industry-defining combination, creating a leading European-based global markets infrastructure group.” The exchanges have considered combining forces before. They agreed to merge in 2000 before a rival bid for the LSE from Sweden’s OM Gruppen scuppered the deal, but was then rejected. The LSE then rejected a formal £1.3bn offer from Deutsche Börse in January 2005. The full story is here: David Cheetham of City trading firm XTB.com says a merger between the LSE and Deutsche Borse would create one of the world’s biggest financial trading platforms. “Shares in London Stock Exchange Group have soared by over 17% in the past hour as news that they’re in talks with Deutsche Boerse have been confirmed. If the deal were to go ahead it would create a clear market leader for European and one of the largest exchanges in the world for trading and risk managing derivatives. The timing of this development appears coincidental as the possibility of a Brexit has become increased in recent days now that a referendum date has been set and Boris has joined the Out campaign.” The news that Britain’s stock exchange could soon merge with its German rival has startled the City, especially given the upcoming EU vote. Mike van Dulken, head of research at Accendo Markets, tweets: It’s official! The London Stock Exchange has just confirmed that it is talking to Deutsche Börse about a merger deal. It says: Further to the recent movement in LSE’s share price, the Board of LSE and the Management Board of Deutsche Börse confirm that they are in detailed discussions about a potential merger of equals of the two businesses. This would create “a leading European-based global markets infrastructure group”, it claims, adding: The combination of LSE and Deutsche Boerse’s complementary growth strategies, products, services and geographic footprint would be expected to deliver an enhanced ability to provide a full service offering to customers on a global basis. Under the plan, Deutsche Börse shareholders would hold 54.4% of the new company, while LSE shareholders would hold 45.6%. The LSE’s shares are now up 17%, valuing the group at almost £9.5bn. Deutsche Börse shares have also jumped, by around 3%, following the reports of merger talks with Britain’s LSE. And Euronext, another stock market operator, has seen its shares rally by 4%. Investors may be anticipating a bidding war. Here’s the Reuters story that sparked the move: BREAKING: Takeover speculation has just driven shares in the London Stock Exchange up by 9%, to the top of the FTSE 100 leaderboard. It has been trigger by a Reuters report, that the LSE is in talks over a possible merger with German rival Deutsche Börse. Nothing official yet, though. More than a decade ago, the LSE rejected Deutsche Börse’s advances.... The timing of these talks is quite intriguing, given the uncertainty which the EU referendum is casting over the City.... Analysts at Scotia Bank have predicted that the UK pound could slump to just $1.30 if the Out campaign win June’s vote. That would be its lowest level in around 30 years, worse than the selloff after the 2008 financial crisis. They have also suggested that consumer confidence would be badly hit, as economic growth slowed sharply.. Sterling is dropping back towards the seven year low it struck on Monday. The pound has lost half a cent against the US dollar, dipping below the $1.41 mark. Yesterday, it weakened to $1.4057, before a late revival. Mark Carney’s warning that investors are protecting themselves against future sterling weakness (details here) may have reminded traders that we face months of uncertainty. Dominic Stewart, sales trader at ETX Capital, says: Sterling has remained vulnerable after falling nearly 2% yesterday - its biggest one day drop in almost six years - amidst fears that Britain may leave the European Union. The Treasury Committee session is now over, and Mark Carney and colleagues have been released back into the wild. But if you want more EU referendum action, check out our Politics Live blog. Andy Sparrow is on deck, covering a speech from David Cameron right now: Cameron: EU referendum is a ‘once in a generation’ decision - Politics live readers have known for a while that the Bank of England was working on contingency plans for the EU referendum. Back in May 2015, the Bank of England accidentally emailed us the details of Project Bookend, including how to deny it existed. #oops We wrote at the time that: The email indicates that a small group of senior staff are to examine the effect of a Brexit under the authority of Sir Jon Cunliffe, who as deputy director for financial stability has responsibility for monitoring the risk of another market crash. Cunliffe also sits on the board of the City regulator, the Prudential Regulatory Authority. James Talbot, the head of the monetary assessment and strategy division, is involved in Project Bookend, drawing on his past work as an adviser on European economic policy. The Bank of England is engaged in contingency planning for the EU referendum, Mark Carney tells the Treasury committee. He also reveals that the Prudential Regulation Authority is keeping abreast of the contingency plans that UK banks are making ahead of the June 23 vote. Further details will discussed on March 8, when the governor testifies to the committee specifically about the referendum. [The PRA supervises Britain’s financial sector, to ensure they are “safe and sound”, so they will be keen to avoid any firms being caught out by the referendum]. Rachel Reeves MP asks Mark Carney whether he expects the recent falls in sterling to continue. The governor reiterates that investors have been buying downside protection to protect themselves against falls against the pound, especially against the US dollar [rather than the euro, because it could also suffer if Britain leaves the EU]. Governor Carney concludes: It is safe to say that an element of referendum premium has come into sterling. Rachel Reeves MP reminds Carney that the latest Inflation Report states that interest rates are likely to rise, not fall. How can he can so confident? Mark Carney gives a rather dovish answer, says the Bank expects interest rates to rise, gradually, over the forecast horizon. But of course, if risks increased and the global economy deteriorated, that would have implications. So do you expect the next move to be up, not down? Carney replies that the UK domestic economy is positive, but that must be balanced with disappointing signs from abroad. We must weigh the two up, and we’re not taking a policy decision today. Mark Carney moves swiftly to crush speculation that the Bank of England could hit UK banks with negative interest rates. We have absolutely no intention, no interest, in doing that [imposing negative rates]. He adds that mortgage rates in Switzerland have actually gone up, even though the Swiss central bank have imposed negative borrowing costs. Can you explain the impact of negative interest rates on banks in simple terms, Steve Baker asks? MPC member Gertjan Vlieghe outlines how banks have assets, which are loans, and liabilities, which are deposits. They make a profit by charging borrowers more than they pay to savers. So far, no commercial bank has passed on negative interest rates to its depositors. So...as you lower interest rates more and more, the return on the assets goes down and down but there is no way to balance that with lower returns to savers. In conclusion: The lower interest rates go, the harder it is for banks to make a profit. Q: And do you need to abolish cash to allow negative interest rates to be imposed? Deciding whether people are allowed to hold cash is not one of our tools, Vlieghe replies. Steve Baker MP asks what the distributional impact of negative interest rates would be. It’s too early to say, replies deputy governor Minouche Shafik. Central banks in several areas, including Switzerland, Denmark, Japan and the eurozone, now charge banks to leave money with them. However, this has not generally fed through to consumers - so we don’t have the data to show the impact on the public. Gertjan Vlieghe adds that it’s very hard to say how banks will react to negative interest rates - it depends on each institution. Mark Carney also insists that the Bank could launch fresh stimulus measures. It could cut interest rates closer to zero, from 0.5% today, or buy more assets though QE. Martin Weale says the Bank of England has more tools in the toolbox to stimulate the UK economy if needed. That could include fresh asset purchases though its QE programme [which the Bank has used to buy £375bn of UK government debt]. Jacob Rees-Mogg MP asks whether the recent fall in bank share prices reflects the macro-economic environment. Or something else? Mark Carney says it is primarily due to the macro picture. He cites ‘mildly disappointing’ data and uncertainty about the policy stance in emerging and advanced economies. That caused a “renewed appreciation” that we are in an environment of low nominal growth -- a difficult environment for banks. On top of that, Carney adds, there are some concerns in investing circles about the impact of negative interest rates on bank profitability. Dr Gertjan Vlieghe, a member of the Monetary Policy Committee, now warns MPs that the uncertainty over the In-Out EU referendum could hurt the UK economy. Asked about the impact of the weaker pound, he says that on its own, a weaker currency should boost inflation and growth. But the current situation is more complex, given the possibility of Brexit . Vlieghe tells the Treasury Committee that: We think the exchange rate is falling because of increased uncertainty about what’s going to happen in the period leading up to, or the period following, the referendum. It is possible at some point that increased uncertainty from foreign exchange investors also ends up manifesting itself in increased uncertainty by households and businesses which may, or may not, delay or reduce their spending. So far we haven’t seen very clear evidence of that, but we are watching very carefully. So it’s not at all obvious that a weaker pound is a net boost to the economy, concludes Vlieghe, who worked for a hedge fund before being appointed to the MPC last summer. Back to the pound.... and Martin Weale says the recent fall in sterling should push inflation up (as it makes imports more expensive) Mark Carney says he agrees, adding that the recent fall in the pound is partly due to the EU referendum [reminder, it hit a seven year low on Monday]. Carney addes that the Bank “will take the exchange rate as given” --[ie, it will not make predictions about the referendum result, and its impact on sterling]. And the Bank’s agents across the UK will be watching for signs that business confidence has been hit by exchange rate moves. The committee is keen to find out whether the Bank of England will make a profit or a loss on its bond-buying quantitative easing programme. After all, the richest households have certainly benefitted, because QE drives up asset prices. And we know who holds them..... Tyrie then turns to Britain’s banks - is Carney confident that they are robust enough to rise out another crisis? He points out that Sir John Vickers, who conducted a major inquiry into the UK financial sector after the 2008 crisis, has warned that the banks haven’t gone far enough. What’s your view, governor? Carney insists that the UK banks have met the new capital requirements. So why have bank shares fallen so sharply? Carney blames worries about profitability, not solvency: Since the start of the year bank stocks have been under pressure. There are a variety of causes of that but what is not a cause, what it does not indicate in my view is concerns about the resilience of the institutions. “The fundamental concerns are about the returns of the institutions.” Andrew Tyrie does have one question on the EU referendum: Q: Has the Bank modelled the impact on sterling if the Out campaign win, given what’s been going on in the markets in recent days? Mark Carney says the bank will treat the June 23rd referendum “exactly like we treat any other political event”. That means the Bank will monitor developments in markets and confidence, and feed those changes into its models. The Bank won’t take any judgements about who will win, or assess the consequences of a leave vote. Q: So what would I see if I looked at your models? We don’t make forecasts about the future value of the pound as part of the model, Carney says. But he then points to the recent volatility in the foreign exchange and options markets, as investors brace for the In-Out referendum in four month’s time. There have been movements, obviously, in sterling, since the timing of the referendum became clear, says governor Carney, adding: Particularly, there has been a sharp increase in risk reversals - buying more downside protection against future falls in sterling around the referendum date as opposed to upside protection. They have spiked to levels consistent with around the height of the Scottish referendum. And they’ve been particularly concentrated against cable...the sterling/dollar options market. That’s as far as Carney will go today - we may need to wait until next month’s hearing for more.... Andrew Tyrie, committee chairman, says he doesn’t want to linger on the Brexit issue for long - as Carney is going to testify about it on 8 March. Panic averted - the session is starting now... The FT’s Emily Cadman reports that Mark Carney is behind schedule.... Looks like there’s a small delay with the web feed of Mark Carney’s session at parliament (hurry up chaps!). Helpfully, Reuters are on the case -- with some comments from deputy governor Minouche Shafik: She’s predicted that UK interest rates will rise, in due course, rather than being cut to fresh record lows. BANK OF ENGLAND DEPUTY GOVERNOR SHAFIK SAYS IF LABOUR MARKET CONTINUES TO TIGHTEN, EXPECT WAGE GROWTH WILL PICK UP BANK OF ENGLAND’S SHAFIK SAYS DIFFICULT TO PREDICT TIMING OF WAGE PICK-UP BANK OF ENGLAND’S SHAFIK SAYS BELIEVES NEXT INTEREST RATE MOVE WILL BE UP The governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, is about to take his seat in the Thatcher Room at the Houses of Parliament. He’ll be quizzed by the Treasury committee about the Bank’s latest inflation report, in which it slashed its UK growth forecasts and suggested interest rates may not rise this year. But we’re also hoping to hear Carney’s views on the UK’s EU referendum. You can watch the hearing live, here (right-click to open in a new tab). Carney is accompanied by: Dr Minouche Shafik, Deputy Governor, Markets and Banking, Dr Gertjan Vlieghe, External Member of the Monetary Policy Committee Martin Weale, External Member of the Monetary Policy Committee Bloomberg economist Maxime Sbaihi is alarmed by the fall in German business confidence this month: The euro just hit a three-week low, losing 0.3% to $1.0993 against the US dollar. The single currency is being dragged down by this morning’s weak German business confidence report and the knock-on effect of Britain’s EU referendum (as discussed earlier) Morale among Germany’s business leaders has hit a one-year low, after falling at its fastest rate in over four years this month. IFO, the Munich-based think tank, has reported that German corporate chiefs are much gloomier about future prospects, due to the slowdown in China and recent stock market volatility. IFO’s business sentiment index has fallen for the third month running, to 105.7 from 107.3 in January. That’s the lowest since December 2014. It was driven by a slump in business expectations, suggesting firms are worried about prospects this year. Carsten Brzeski of ING is calling it a “wake-up call”, adding: Global events have finally reached German companies’ boardrooms..... Expectations have taken another sharp hit from recent market turmoil, the adverse impact of low oil prices and renewed concerns about a slowing of the Chinese economy, dropping to 98.8 in February, from 102.3 in January. There’s a lot of chatter that the Britain’s EU referendum could spark a sterling crisis. And that’s because the pound (like the English cricket team) has a worrying history of occasionally collapsing under pressure. Hat-tip to Bank of New York Mellon, and Bloomberg, for this chart: The pound is hovering around $1.413 this morning, having hit a seven-year low of $1.4057 yesterday. FXTM research analyst Lukman Otunuga believes the pound could fall further in the run-up to June’s vote, and take the euro with it. The growing speculation that a Brexit may spillover to the Eurozone and threaten the future of the European Union has already encouraged bearish investors to attack the Euro across the global currency markets. Shares in Standard Chartered are sliding sharply after it posted its first annual loss since 1989. The bank has lost $1.5bn, and warned that it faces a “broad range of challenges and uncertainties....notably China and commodities”. The loss is partly due to a $1.8bn restructuring charge as Standard Chartered tries to address the slowdown in emerging markets (the bank is a big player in Asia). The City aren’t impressed -- shares slumped by 11% as investors digested the details. They’re currently down 6%. More to follow later... Over in Frankfurt, the German DAX has slid by 103 points, or over 1%. Investors aren’t impressed by the first fall in German exports since 2012. Each of the 30 companies on the DAX is down, led by energy and utility firm RWE (-2%). Deutsche Bank has shed 1.5%. European stock markets are sliding in early trading. In London, the FTSE 100 has shed 48 points, or 0.8%. The blue-chip index is being dragged down by mining shares, after BHP Billiton reported that £4bn loss and warned that commodity prices will remain weak. Conner Campbell of SpreadEx says BHP’s decision to slash its shareholder payout has shocked investors: It doesn’t help that the mining sector got its own unwelcome surprise; whilst it was expected that BHP Billiton would post its first half year loss in 16 years (coming in £4 billion in the red) analysts were still looking for a 31p dividend. Instead BHP slashed its interim payout by 75% to 16p, whilst also sacrificing its progressive dividend policy in order to protect its credit rating. The company’s subsequent 3.5% slide helped ensure its mining peers started the day at a loss, dragging the FTSE down by nearly 50 points after the bell. Ralph Solveen, an economist at Commerzbank AG in Frankfurt, is concerned that German exports fell by 0.6% in the last quarter of 2015. He told Bloomberg that: “Investment was rather solid. On the other hand, given the rather weak development of exports, you can see that there’s a problem for the German economy.” Germany has suffered a fall in exports as the powerhouse European economy is hit by the global downturn. The Federal Statistical Office has revealed that exports shrank by 0.6% in the final three months of 2015. Economists had expected a dip of 0.3%. That, according to the Financial Times, is the first decline in three years. Imports rose by 0.5% during the quarter, suggesting that Germany was propped up by its domestic economy. ING’s Carsten Brzeski fears that German consumers might struggle to sustain this performance in 2016: Today’s figures also confirmed that Germany grew by an unspectacular 0.3% in the final three months of 2015, with growth dragged back by its negative trade performance. Government spending grew by 1% during the quarter - perhaps partly due to the cost of helping the refugees who arrived in Germany last year. Asian stock markets have fallen today, as the recent rally in shares subsided. And it could be a downbeat day in Europe too, with the main indices expected to fall. Shares are being pulled down by the oil price, which has dipped by almost 2% this morning - erasing its own recent gains. And mining giant BGP Billiton has added to the pessimism, by reporting a stonking loss of £4bn for the last six months - and slashing its dividend by three-quarters. Reuters has the details from Asia: MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan fell 0.2%, after earlier rising 0.4% to its highest level since January 8. Japan’s Nikkei erased morning gains to close down 0.4%. Korea’s Kospi, which started the day higher, and Australia’s ASX 200, which opened little changed from Monday’s three-week high close, both ended the day with losses. Chinese stocks , which opened little changed, were last trading down almost 1%. Oil markets jumped as much as 7% on Monday as speculation about falling U.S. shale output fed the notion that crude prices may be bottoming after their 20-month collapse. But they retreated on Tuesday on concern that any cuts to U.S. production may be countered by rising output from Iran. U.S. crude futures fell 1.9%, and the international benchmark Brent slid 1.6% on Tuesday. City firm IG reckons European markets will fall at the open. Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of the world economy, the financial markets, the eurozone and business. Coming up today..... Britain’s In-Out EU referendum continues to cast a shadow over the markets, after Brexit fears sent the pound sliding to a seven year low yesterday. The prospect of months of heated debate and uncertainty over the UK’s future is already weighing on the pound in early trading, as some investors continue to sell sterling. Overnight, a group of UK business chiefs have signed a letter backing the In campaign. But crucially, others have declined to get involved. The bosses of Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Morrison all remain firmly on the fence.... Bank of England governor Mark Carney should be quizzed about the European vote, when he testifies to MPs at 10am GMT on the Bank’s latest inflation report. Deputy governor Minouche Shafik, and fellow interest rate-setters Martin Weale and Gertjan Vlieghe should be providing support. On the economics front, new German trade data is being released this morning. We also get the latest IFO measure of business confidence in the eurozone’s largest economy, at 9am GMT. Standard Chartered, the bank with a big exposure to emerging markets, is reporting results at 8.15am. And in the afternoon, the latest US consumer confidence figure are released. They’ll show how much damage has been caused by the stock market turmoil earlier this year. We’ll be tracking all the main events through the day...
Joan Collins – A Life in Lipstick: lessons in how to live glamorously Errol Flynn, Gary Cooper, Ava Gardner: no name from Hollywood’s golden era is left undropped in Joan Collins – A Life in Lipstick (Radio 2). If this two-parter came alive, it would reach out of the radio with perfectly manicured red nails and raise a glass to a great existence. It’s everything a celebrity profile should be as Collins slips out controlled confessions and snippets of gossip, all wrapped up in a very glamorous life philosophy. Collins narrates her own story, touching on her early life when she picked up shrapnel during the war and was evacuated to Bognor Regis. She grew up to be “the coffee bar Jezebel” who left Rada at 17 for a career in films and became the antidote to the frail, blond English rose. There are glorious tales of Hollywood in the days when the press were respectful and stars still dressed up. She dated Warren Beatty. “He wasn’t that beautiful,” she shrugs. “He had spots.” Wifely life wasn’t for her, but she describes life with Anthony Newley as “the children, a lot of fun and a lot of parties”. Sure, she’s had more husbands than most, but she justifies it simply. “Life’s short and life is very sweet and it’s not going to be too sweet if you’re saddled with a man that makes you sick.” This is a woman who gives good philosophical soundbite. The second part of the documentary is where Collins comes into her own as she busts through the age barrier and makes her grand comeback in Dynasty. Back in the 80s, 35 was considered old in Hollywood, but Collins has the air of a woman who breezes through life’s barriers, not even realising she’s smashing them down. As a 45-year-old mother-of-three, she starred in risque flick The Stud. “Practically every actress at that time was taking off their clothes,” she says, dismissively. “I bore the brunt of sizzling disgrace.” And then came that big, soapy break. “When Joan walked into Dynasty, she ate the furniture,” says Stephanie Beacham, her on-screen sparring partner. “She tore it up.” Collins played Alexis Carrington like a man and says she based the character on Donald Trump, facing a battle to make her likable. At 83, Collins is still bubbling along like a fine champagne, playing the showbiz game, letting out secrets and having a whole lot of fun.
'Less sex? We just have less to prove': millennials on sexual encounters Millennials – people born between 1980 and 1995 – will be familiar with studies making claims about them, from observations on their eating habits to their anxiety levels. But now their sex lives, or lack thereof, are also being put under the microscope. A US study suggests that young people born in this bracket are less sexually active than previous generations. This was found to be particularly true for younger millennials born in the 1990s, sometimes referred to as the Snapchat generation. Eight young people shared their views on this story, based on their experiences: Helen, 25, Hampshire: my generation is very comfortable talking about sexual identity I don’t think millennials are having less sex. In my group of female friends, we talk about sex openly and are very comfortable discussing our sexual identity (there is very little or no judgment on this from others). There should be more information about female sexual pleasure. Websites such as OMGyes should be given more attention. We are really lacking in proper sex education too, especially information about sexual identity and female pleasure. My biggest fear around sex is getting pregnant. My partner and I practise the withdrawal method (I couldn’t cope with the psychological effects of the pill or the implant). We both hate using condoms. Having had more than my fair share of brief encounters, sex for me is infinitely better in a long-term, loving relationship. It’s much better when you can be completely honest about what you like and dislike, and let yourself go. Hatty, 25, London: to millennials, the older generation’s obsession with sex seems really backward Millennials are not less interested in sex, we just have less to prove about it. In the UK at least, 1990s “ladette” culture saw young women proving their feminist credentials by being more like the boys and having more casual sexual encounters than they might actually have wanted to. Millennials, on the other hand, have no pressure from family to remain virginal (my mum put me on the pill and bought me condoms without batting an eyelid), but also no pressure to be sexually liberated either. There is also less pressure on men to be macho about sex. I have a male friend who waited until his early 20s to lose his virginity, because he wanted it to be within the context of a loving relationship and he wasn’t afraid to tell people that. To millennials, the older generation’s obsession with sex and their highly restrictive gender-normative approach seems backward. Abby, 24, London: young people lack information about sexual pleasure and orgasms for women Millennials are as interested in sex as any other generation and they want it just as much. Whether or not we are doing it as much, I am not sure, but a quick search on Tumblr will show you that there’s no shortage of interest. The difference is perhaps that asexuality is now more acknowledged and accepted. People are more comfortable admitting that they have no interest in sex. Before I started having sex, my biggest fear was that I would be a virgin forever. Now that I’m in a relationship, I don’t have any huge fears or anxieties, apart from worries about getting pregnant. But I’m on the pill and I’m careful, so I’d have to be very unlucky for that to happen. Young people lack information about sexual pleasure for women. There’s so much information on the internet, if you know where to look, but there are lots of teenage girls and young women who are too focused on male pleasure. It’s important for women to enjoy sex too. Floarin, 25, London: we now live in an overly sexualised world – maybe that’s led to sex fatigue I don’t think young people are less interested in sex. We may be even more interested in it. Attitudes have changed and we can speak about it more openly than perhaps our parents did. That said, society is saturated with sexual imagery, so much so that we’ve almost become desensitised to it. That could have an impact on our sex lives. Almost a form of fatigue, where we think about it often, but don’t necessarily engage in it as much. But that’s very much conjecture. They’re just extrapolations. You only have to look at what they allow before the watershed now, in comparison with only 10 years ago, to see that we live in an overly sexualised world. Jordan, 26, Essex: nowadays people prefer to stay in, rather than go out and interact There are many reasons why millennials are less into sex, the main one being the rise in technology. Social skills are dependent on human interaction, and nowadays people do not make effort to go out and meet others, they prefer to stay in and interact online instead. This coupled with worries about contracting sexually transmitted diseases means a lot of people would rather just stay in and watch porn. Brian, 33, London: our generation has a very different view around sexual identity. We are much more open I believe interest in sex has increased massively due to the internet and social networking sites. People can now interact with anyone they like through a variety of dating apps. Our generation also has very different views around sexual identity. We have more words to describe sexual identities and lifestyles, such as bi, trans, asexual, polygamous etc. We are much more open. Alice, 21, Newcastle: I feel really insecure about sex, and there’s less attention given to this Perhaps my generation is less interested in it – I certainly am. I feel insecure about having sex and there’s less attention given to this. I think advice about performance would be helpful. Instead, people think the only thing young people worry about is sexually transmitted infections and getting pregnant. Sex has become less important, possibly because of our overexposure to it – it’s all over TV screens, in films and on the internet. We have become less interested in the intimacy of it as a result. As a generation, we also have a lot of other sources of stress that impact on our desire to have sex. I do also think technology has made us less likely to engage in real human interaction, which includes sex. Bella, 19, Scotland: we’re much more worried about sex People are just as interested in sex, but we’re just so much more worried about it. I’m still a virgin, I’ll admit that, and it’s not that I haven’t had the opportunity or that I don’t want to have sex, it’s that the idea of engaging with someone like that scares me. I felt all our sex education was very much done in the spirit of scaring us away from pregnancy and STDs. It felt almost like we were being taught abstinence. Dominic, 26, China: online porn really put me off sex Many friends, myself included, are choosing not to have relationships and feel no social pressure to have casual sex. I’d like to think that this is because we’re more interested in other things, but these other things may well be Netflix and pointless mobile apps. The last generation were promiscuous, in part, to be rebellious in the eyes of their peers. Nowadays, there’s no social pressure to have sex. Perhaps now we are having sex as much as we actually want. Online porn really put me off sex as a teenager. I gradually started to find it disgusting and addictive until I quit for many years. But now I understand that it can be part of a healthy sex life if it is not overconsumed. I am looking for a relationship instead of brief sexual encounters now. I enjoy those special moments when you realise you might like someone, the first nervous touch of their hand or a shared smile. I love how messy and complex love can be, but in my mind, sex and love are two separate things. Katie, 26, London: I don’t feel like my sexuality belongs to me, it’s just something people use to sell products The ubiquity of sex has made us a generation obsessed with it, but terrified of the reality of it. We’re also a generation without privacy. As a young woman, I don’t feel like my sexuality belongs to me, it’s just something people use to get clicks or sell products. Just look at the recent Marc Jacobs ad – who is this for? It’s for men, so they buy it for their girlfriends. I’m lucky enough to be in a happy same-sex relationship, but there’s no privacy in shared houses and there’s nothing sexy about hearing your flatmate snoring/wanking/watching Game of Thrones in the background as you try to have an intimate moment. And as there are far fewer real life spaces for gay women to meet other gay women now, before I found my partner I felt isolated and like queer sex between women was more about men being entertained online, rather than a real and meaningful experience between two people. Jennifer, 23, London: people have become really bad at having flings and casual relationships As a historian who focuses on the history of sex and sexuality, I can tell you that the enjoyment and desire for sex is timeless. What I think has happened is that people have become really bad at having flings and casual relationships. One night stands are pretty limited to nightclubs, and who goes to nightclubs any more? Plus no one is interested in mediocre one night stand sex. But there has become such a fear culture surrounding relationships. Guys are scared to see girls more than twice, in case they accidentally end up with a girlfriend. Girls are scared to admit to guys that they are just looking for a fling or a casual arrangement, in case they look easy and it decreases their value as a woman. Deep down, we know it’s all bullshit, but we’re all inadvertently feeding this commitment-phobe madness. Some names have been changed
What do you make of the Richmond byelection? The Richmond Park byelection was triggered Zac Goldsmith’s resignation from the Conservative party over the planned expansion of Heathrow. Goldsmith, who is standing as an independent, has campaigned on the issue or airport expansion. He says the vote is a chance “to send a message via the ballot box both to Heathrow and the government”. Other candidates see the election differently. The Lib Dems, mindful that Richmond is a seat that voted Remain, see this as a ballot on ‘hard’ Brexit. Their candidate, like Goldsmith, opposes Heathrow airport expansion. Goldsmith, meanwhile, is a hardline Brexiter. Both the Conservatives and Ukip chose not to field a candidate against Goldsmith. Meanwhile local Green party members have criticised their party’s co-leader Caroline Lucas for backing the Lib Dems, citing the party’s record as part of David Cameron’s coalition government. Instead, they have called on their members to back Labour’s Christian Wolmar instead. We want to hear from local voters and supporters from across the political spectrum for their take on the byelection. What are the main issues you are considering when deciding to vote? Have you been impressed with Goldsmith as a local MP? If you’re a Ukip or Green party supporter, what do you think of your party’s decision not to field a candidate? And do you think the vote will have wider implications? You can share your views by filling out the form below. We will use a selection of your responses in our reporting.
Treasury to guarantee post-Brexit funding for EU-backed projects Philip Hammond is to guarantee billions of pounds of UK government investment after Brexit for projects currently funded by the EU, including science grants and agricultural subsidies. The chancellor’s funding commitment is designed to give a boost to the economy in what he expects to be a difficult period after the surprise result of the EU referendum in June. The Treasury is expected to continue its funding beyond the UK’s departure from the EU for all structural and investment fund projects, as long as they are agreed before the autumn statement. If a project obtains EU funding after that, an assessment process by the Treasury will determine whether funding should be guaranteed by the UK government post-Brexit. Current levels of agriculture funding will also be guaranteed until 2020, when the Treasury says there will be a “transition to new domestic arrangements”. Universities and researchers will have funds guaranteed for research bids made directly to the European commission, including bids to the EU’s Horizon 2020 programme, an €80bn (£69bn) pot for science and innovation. The Treasury says it will underwrite the funding awards, even when projects continue post-Brexit. Hammond said the government recognised the need to assuage fears in industry and in the science and research sectors that funding would be dramatically reduced post-Brexit. “We recognise that many organisations across the UK which are in receipt of EU funding, or expect to start receiving funding, want reassurance about the flow of funding they will receive,” he said. “The government will also match the current level of agricultural funding until 2020, providing certainty to our agricultural community, who play a vital role in our country.” The chancellor added: “We are determined to ensure that people have stability and certainty in the period leading up to our departure from the EU and that we use the opportunities that departure presents to determine our own priorities.” One key funding pot that it had been claimed was at risk was the EU Peace programme in Northern Ireland, a community development project to help victims of the conflict. The pledge to fund EU programmes in the UK until 2020 was made during the referendum campaign by senior figures in the leave camp, including Boris Johnson and Michael Gove. However, academics have said that EU programmes for research have benefits that go beyond funding, including international collaboration opportunities and mobility for researchers. According to the Treasury, EU funding for a range of projects amounted to more than £4.5bn in 2014-15, with businesses and universities winning a further £1.5bn through competitive bids. During the referendum campaign, concerns were raised that the government would be unable or unwilling to compensate bodies for the loss of money from Brussels when Britain eventually leaves the EU. Hammond’s spending pledge is an attempt to allay those fears and at the same time head off the threat of recession. Hammond’s commitment comes after Liam Fox’s Department for International Trade was forced to delete a confusing statement posted on its website, which appeared to announce that the UK would continue to trade with the EU under World Trade Organisation rules post-Brexit “until any new trade deals are negotiated”. Businesses have previously warned that trading under WTO rules would be disastrous, meaning the imposition of steep tariffs on goods exported to the EU, including 10% on cars and 12% on clothing. Chuka Umunna, the Labour MP who chairs the Vote Leave Watch campaign group, said being forced to trade under WTO rules would be “a hammer blow for the British economy, and would demonstrate once and for all the hollow nature of Vote Leave’s promises”. The department said the post had been issued in error. The Treasury is keen to support the Bank of England in its attempts to stimulate activity and the chancellor has already said he will “reset” fiscal policy – taxation and public spending – in his autumn statement if he deems it necessary. Hammond hopes that the guarantee to continue funding EU-backed projects will ensure a flurry of activity over the coming months, thus providing a boost to both demand and confidence. The government is also aware that much of the EU money spent in Britain goes to help poorer parts of the country, which voted for Brexit in the referendum. Treasury policy has shifted markedly since the period before the referendum, when then chancellor George Osborne warned that leaving the EU would lead to a recession that would force him to impose savings of £30bn in an emergency budget. Since 23 June, the emergency budget has been ditched, plans to put the public finances into the black by the end of this parliament have been scrapped, and hints have been dropped of higher spending on infrastructure to be announced in the autumn statement. British scientists receive around £1bn annually from the EU, including through Horizon 2020. In leaving the EU, British access to those funds will be a matter for debate. Already the ramifications of the Brexit vote have been felt. Jo Johnson, minister of state for universities and science, told scientists in June that “the referendum result has no immediate effect on those applying to or participating in Horizon 2020. UK researchers and businesses can continue to apply to the programme in the usual way.” However, those in British academic institutions paint a very different picture. Since Britain voted to leave the EU, a number of scientists have revealed that they have been asked to leave existing collaborations for fear that the British share of project funding was at risk, while others say they have been excluded from taking part in new bids. Andrew Graham, co-founder of OC Robotics in Bristol, said the news would be a huge reassurance to European colleagues and partners in consortia bidding for European commission funding that having a UK partner in those projects would not be a risk to the project. “I and my colleagues have been campaigning hard for an assurance like that,” he said. “There have been some instances of clear reluctance on the part of some partners in those consortia – this should do a great deal to allay any fears they have about what having a UK partner means for the project. It’s fantastic news for a great many small and medium-sized enterprises and academic institutions across the country.” Alistair Jarvis, deputy chief executive of Universities UK, said the pledge would offer “much-needed stability for British universities during the transition period as the UK exits the EU, and provide an important signal to European researchers that they can continue to collaborate with their UK colleagues as they have before”. Jarvis added that the next stage would be to address the uncertainty faced by EU students considering applying to British universities. He said the government needed to “confirm that those beginning courses before we exit the EU will be subject to current fees levels and financial support arrangements for the duration of their course”.
Alan Rickman obituary The world became fully aware of the sly, languid and villainous charms of Alan Rickman, who has died aged 69 of cancer, as the self-parodying Sheriff of Nottingham pitted against Kevin Costner in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991). However, the actor had already established himself as a star name at the Royal Shakespeare Company in the mid-1980s and as the hilarious German terrorist, Hans Gruber, in the action thriller Die Hard (1988) with Bruce Willis. Rickman appeared as the cello-playing, dearly departed ghost in Anthony Minghella’s sensual, taut and wonderfully muted Truly, Madly, Deeply (1990), with Juliet Stevenson as his grieving partner. At the RSC, he had been sensational as the predatory, dissolute Vicomte de Valmont in Les Liaisons Dangereuses, Christopher Hampton’s brilliant adaptation of Choderlos de Laclos’s 18th-century epistolary novel that started small in the RSC’s Other Place in Stratford-upon-Avon and trailed clouds of glory to the West End and Broadway in 1987; Rickman was a pivotal figure in a company that included, at that time, and in that production, Lindsay Duncan, Stevenson and Fiona Shaw. Having first trained and worked as a graphic designer, Rickman was a late starter as an actor, attending Rada between 1972 and 1974, and winning the Bancroft gold medal, before working in rep and the RSC in small roles at the end of the 70s. He began making waves as Anthony Trollope’s devious chaplain Obadiah Slope in BBC television’s The Barchester Chronicles in 1982. Then he was, for a new generation entirely, the sinister potions master Severus Snape in the eight Harry Potter movies, for a decade from 2001. Snape had secrets, and this inner life infused one of the outstanding performances in the series as he stalked the corridors and back passages at Hogwarts like the ghost in Hamlet, smelling a rat at every turn, his noble face contorted with mysterious loathing and curious motivation. However, it would be wrong to typecast Rickman as a villain. He was an outstanding Hamlet at the Riverside Studios and on tour in 1992, a mature student whose rampant morbidity masked an intense, albeit perverse, zest for life. And in Antony and Cleopatra at the National Theatre in 1998, he was fabulous opposite Helen Mirren’s voluptuous serpent of old Nile – shambolic, charismatic, a spineless poet of a warrior. It was his misfortune to have both these great classic performances displayed in productions that met with considerable critical hostility and public indifference. Tall, commanding, extremely funny when required, he was never above sending himself up either on stage or in the movies. He had talent to burn, a glorious voice that sometimes blurred in slack-jawed articulation, if only because everything he did seemed to come so easily to him. He was a central figure in the life of the little Bush theatre on the London fringe, at the Royal Court in the Max Stafford-Clark era of the 80s, as well as at Trevor Nunn and Terry Hands’s RSC, and he was a continual source of inspiration, and practical support, to his colleagues. He proved also to be a fine stage director, and directed two films. In the second of them, A Little Chaos (2014), a handsome 17th-century costume drama of love among the landscape artists at the newly constructed palace of Versailles, Rickman himself presided in his bewigged pomp as Louis XIV, the Sun King. The son of a factory worker, Bernard (who died when Alan was eight), and his wife, Margaret (nee Bartlett), he was of Irish and Welsh descent, raised on a council estate in Acton, west London, with three siblings (he was the second child), and educated at Derwentwater primary school in Acton, a Montessori school, and Latymer Upper. He studied graphic design at Chelsea School of Art – where he first met, aged 18, his future life partner, Rima Horton – and the Royal College of Art. With three friends, he ran a graphic design studio for three years in Notting Hill before going to Rada at the age of 26. Rickman made his first impact with the Birmingham Rep, the first regional company to visit the new National Theatre’s home on the South Bank, when he played the upright Wittipol, disguised as a Spanish lady, in Ben Jonson’s The Devil Is an Ass in 1976, and also at the Edinburgh festival. Small parts in the RSC season of 1977-78 were followed, in 1980, by leading roles as a distraught sponsor of a pop concert in Stephen Poliakoff’s The Summer Party at the Crucible in Sheffield, with Brian Cox and Hayley Mills, and in Dusty Hughes’s anatomy of the Trotskyite left in Commitments, at the Bush. Rickman was a lifelong Labour party activist, while Rima, an economist, with whom he lived from 1977, was a Labour councillor in Kensington and Chelsea for 20 years from 1986. In the early 80s, he was an ideal, doggedly English Trigorin in Thomas Kilroy’s otherwise Irish version of Chekhov’s The Seagull at the Royal Court; a coruscating Grand Inquisitor in Richard Crane’s adaptation of Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov at the Edinburgh festival; and a cheerfully stoned pragmatist on a Californian dope farm in Snoo Wilson’s The Grass Widow, also at the Royal Court, laying bare the capitalism of the drugs world as a sort of displaced Howard Marks, alongside Ron Cook and Tracey Ullman. Everything about his acting came into sharp focus in the 1985-86 RSC season, when Les Liaisons Dangereuses was in repertory with three other plays. In As You Like It, he was the perfect “Seven ages of man” Jaques with Stevenson as Rosalind and Shaw as Celia; in Troilus and Cressida, Achilles never sulked so mightily in his tent; and in Ariane Mnouchkine’s superb version of Klaus Mann’s Mephisto, translated by Timberlake Wertenbaker, he nailed the dilemma of a creative artist in the censorious climate of the Third Reich: “What can I do? I’m only an actor.” He took the next big job. He was both rooted in his own theatre world and internationally curious. Guided by the producer Thelma Holt, he played a reclusive, abandoned actor in a derelict cinema in Kunio Shimizu’s Tango at the End of Winter, a beautiful poetic drama of memory and illusion directed by the Japanese maestro Yukio Ninagawa, at the Edinburgh festival in 1991; and buckled down to Hamlet with Robert Sturua, the great director of the Rustaveli theatre in Georgia who had made waves in western Europe. In the earlier part of his career, Rickman had supervised several shows with the comedian Ruby Wax, whom he had met at the RSC, and had recommended a play by Sharman Macdonald to the Bush; he expanded his directing work with Wax into a new play he commissioned from Macdonald, The Winter Guest (1995, West Yorkshire Playhouse and the Almeida in London), a tone poem in a Scottish seaside town, with no plot, for the superb quartet of Phyllida Law, Sheila Reid, Sian Thomas and Sandra Voe; he also directed a film version (1997) with an overlapping cast. But film had begun to take precedence, Robin Hood leading to big roles and billing in Tim Robbins’s satirical Bob Roberts (1992), about a rightwing folk singer running for the US Senate; as Colonel Brandon in Ang Lee’s fine version of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility (1996), with a screenplay by Emma Thompson; and as Eamon de Valera in Neil Jordan’s Michael Collins (1996), starring Liam Neeson as the IRA founder. Even with the Harry Potter franchise under way, Rickman managed a triumphant return in 2001 to the West End and Broadway in Noël Coward’s Private Lives, displaying what the New York Times called a virtuosity of disdain as the squinting, wounded egomaniac Elyot Chase opposite Lindsay Duncan’s blonde ice queen of an Amanda Prynne; this was the best pairing in the roles since Robert Stephens and Maggie Smith 30 years earlier. His last stage roles, both critically acclaimed, were as Ibsen’s John Gabriel Borkman at the Abbey in Dublin (with Duncan and Fiona Shaw) in 2010 and as a celebrity teacher in a writing workshop in Theresa Rebeck’s Seminar on Broadway in 2011. In between, he directed My Name Is Rachel Corrie at the Royal Court, the West End, the Edinburgh festival and on Broadway in 2005-06. He compiled the show with Katharine Viner, now editor-in-chief of the , from the writings and emails of the American activist Corrie, who was killed by a bulldozer operated by the Israeli army in Gaza in 2003 while protesting against its occupation. This sense of political justice and civic responsibility informed his life as a citizen, too. Rickman will be remembered latterly as Thompson’s husband in Richard Curtis’s Love Actually (2003), the voice of Marvin the paranoid android in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (2005), as Judge Turpin in Tim Burton’s wacky movie version of Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd (2007) and as (another voice) Absalom the Caterpillar in Burton’s Alice in Wonderland (2010). But he was a committed vice-chairman of Rada, a patron of the charity Saving Faces, dedicated to helping those with facial disfigurements and cancer, and honorary president of the International Performers Aid Trust, which works to alleviate poverty in some of the world’s toughest areas. He married Rima in 2012. She survives him, as do his siblings, David, Michael and Sheila. • Alan Sidney Patrick Rickman, actor, born 21 February 1946; died 14 January 2016
Susanne Bier: 'I would probably cut off my ear to do James Bond' You could think of it as a bit of bait-and-switch spycraft – while we watched The Night Manager, thinking that Tom Hiddleston, with his nice suits and topless scenes, had just turned in a six-hour audition tape to become the next James Bond, rumours surfaced this week that it was actually his director, Susanne Bier, who would get a shot at the most famous British spy. The Radio Times reports that Bier, who directed the recent BBC adaptation of John le Carre’s novel about a hotel manager who infiltrates an arms dealer’s inner circle, was on the shortlist of directors for the next Bond film. “I would probably cut off my ear to do James Bond. But really, I would love to do any kind of action,” she said earlier this year. Much has been made of the fact that Bier would become the first woman to direct a Bond film. Simon Cornwell, one of the executive producers of The Night Manager, who approached Bier, had no such issues with the director’s gender. “It’s a bit pathetic to think of that as a bold step.” Instead, he says, “the bold step for her and for us was for her to go into new territory, and I really think it paid off. If eyebrows were raised, it was because Susanne had never directed a thriller before.” There was also her wobbly entry into Hollywood. Two of her recent English-language films – Things We Lost in the Fire, starring Halle Berry and Benicio del Toro in 2007, and 2014’s Serena, with the usually winning combination of Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper in depression-era America – received tepid reviews and did not do well at the box-office. More successful were the films, mostly in Danish, that Bier had become known for: intense, contained, emotional dramas (as well as a few comedies) that, when zoomed out, said something wider and more political about the world. It was this that attracted Cornwell, who with his brother Stephen (they are the sons of le Carre) set up a production company. “We felt that the way she tells stories through characters and relationships was particularly exciting, and also very good fit with le Carre and with longer-form storytelling, where you have more time to spend with people and you can go deeper,” he says. He had enjoyed In A Better World, which won Bier an Oscar for best foreign language film in 2011, about a Swedish doctor who divides his time between dealing with the horrors of a refugee camp in Sudan and coping with his disintegrating family in Denmark. But he also liked her next film, Love Is All You Need, a comedy despite its subject matter (its heroine is a cancer survivor who falls in love with Pierce Brosnan’s grumpy widower character). “[It] showed a lightness of touch. In The Night Manager, it was important to achieve a sense of light and shade.” Bier’s work often features family dramas, and dysfunctional relationships, which she has said is something she has always been obsessed with. “I am very close to my family and there’s something life-affirming about that. Even if you feel completely different from them, and have totally different views on politics and ethics, you’re still family and have that immediate acceptance.” She was born into a Jewish family in Copenhagen in 1960. Her father’s family had fled Germany in 1933, and when the Nazis invaded Denmark, her mother’s and father’s families escaped to Sweden. After the war, they returned to Denmark, which is where they met and raised their family. Although Bier has said she had a happy childhood, the trauma of the war and what it meant for her family and community was inescapable – and has informed her work. “We have a lot of fun, a lot of wonderful things but there’s always the awareness that catastrophe could happen any time and, in my work, there’s always that element of everything being turned upside down in a split second,” she said in an interview in February. Bier went to Israel to study art, then London where she went to study architecture, which sparked an interest in set design, which then led to an interest in filmmaking. Back in Denmark, she went to the National Film School and a year after graduating directed her first feature, Freud’s Leaving Home, a comedy drama about a Jewish family in Stockholm and an emotional reunion. Over the next decade, she made several films in Denmark and Sweden. Her 1999 Danish comedy The One and Only was a big hit, but it was her 2002 film Open Hearts, a departure from romantic comedy and made under the austere Dogme 95 movement rules, which gained international attention. About a woman whose fiancé is paralysed in a car accident, she ends up falling in love with the doctor who treats him (who also happens to be the husband of the woman who caused the accident), the film was written by Anders Thomas Jensen, who has become Bier’s closest collaborator. “We’ll build the story little by little,” she says of their work. “We never have a synopsis. We don’t do treatment either. We can’t actually make the movie until we have the matter of the characters.” They worked together on five of Bier’s next seven films, including the Oscar-nominated After The Wedding, and the Oscar-winning In A Better World. The Swedish actor Mikael Persbrandt played the lead role. He had known her before – Scandinavia’s film community is small – and had seen her films. Working with her, he says, “was something I wanted to do, of course.” Did he ever get the sense she was desperate to be accepted by Hollywood? He says they didn’t really talk about that. “I think she wants to do good movies, I don’t think she’s bothered if it’s Hollywood or England or Sweden or Denmark.” He says: “[On set] she is very focused, she knows what story she wants to tell. It can be a sunset on a beautiful beach and I have a smile on my face and I say ‘what’s the complication in this scene?’ And she says, ‘you don’t have to know that, because I’m making my movie. Just walk the beach.’ She’s strong, she knows what she wants to say and you can be confident in that [as an actor] and enjoy it, and do complicated stories about human beings. There were lots of laughs, even when we had hard scenes. The work was carried out in a joyful, peaceful atmosphere.” She’s not a shouter? “No, she’s not. She’s hard but not a shouter. She’s very sharp, intelligent and funny.” Cornwell notes Bier’s intelligence too. Effectively, The Night Manager was a hugely complicated six-hour film, he says. “We had a large cast and each of those characters had their own story,” he says. “Susanne was able to keep everyone’s story and the way in which it developed clear and distinct throughout the process. When you’re dealing with 350 pages of script, you need to be very smart about it.” The Night Manager, widely critically acclaimed and a ratings success – it has just finished a successful run on US TV – has proved that Bier can capably take on big-budget action spectaculars. She has said the reason so few women are asked to direct this genre is because producers are “making conventional choices. Whoever chooses the directors of these kinds of things are making comfortable choices as opposed to courageous choices.” Although she has said she hasn’t felt like she has been treated in a different way, she has also been outspoken about the opportunities afforded to women more generally: “In Hollywood there are quite a lot of important female executives but there is still a lack of female directors. It is sad that in society in general there is a lack of females in important positions in all industries. I think it still has to do with many young women having to choose between career and kids. I have two kids and luckily I have never had to make that choice and never wanted to make that choice.” Cornwell says Bier would be “brilliant” as the next director of the James Bond series. “I think she has a real sense of how to create tension and excitement, has a very good sense of how to handle action as well as character. I would love to see a James Bond film that Susanne has directed.” CV Born: Copenhagen, 1960 Career: After graduating from the National Film School of Denmark, Bier directed her first film Freud Flytter Hjemmefra (Freud’s Leaving Home). A number of other Danish films followed, including her first commercial hit The One and Only (1999). Her Dogme film Open Hearts (2002) brought international acclaim, followed by Brothers and After the Wedding, which was nominated for an Oscar. Her 2010 film In A Better World won an Oscar. Her foray into Hollywood, with Things We Lost in The Fire, and Serena, haven’t fared as well. Her six-part adaptation of the Le Carre novel The Night Manager aired on UK and US TV this year to critical and commercial success. High point: Winning an Oscar and a Golden Globe for In A Better World Low point: There were high expectations for her Hollywood film Serena but it flopped She says: “I have never been career-minded thinking this is where I want my career to go. I have always been someone who has got hooked on projects and hooked on stories.” They say: “Susanne is a crusader for the truth and has an extraordinarily rigorous compass for what seems natural and plausible as sequential storytelling. I don’t think I have ever worked with a director who has such an incredibly instinctive authority over what she will allow in terms of what she believes” The Night Manager star Tom Hiddleston
When I think about leaving medicine, it's the people who make me stay “Why do you want to work as a doctor?” someone asked me recently. It caught me off guard – I had not been asked that question for years. The last time was seven years ago and it was the first question in my interview for medical school. It was a time of hope, of promise, but also of great uncertainty. A career as a doctor lay ahead of me but I wondered if I could do it or if it was the right road for me to take. It’s fitting that seven years later, I answered that question again, this time on the day of the junior doctors’ strike. The answer was quick and surprisingly simple: “Being a doctor, my friend, is all about the people.” Being a doctor means you meet different types of people, all day, every day. The first people I meet when I start work are my colleagues – my fellow doctors and nurses. These people are the foundations of working as a doctor and without them I could not have survived or enjoyed my job. Some of my fondest memories are of colleagues supporting me before, during, and after my shifts. There are my fellow FY1 doctors, who hide a chocolate bar in the handover book or drive to pick up a takeaway after a long weekend on call. There are the nurses who offer you their secret stash of chocolate or make you laugh on a night shift. There are the consultants who teach you the intricacies of gastric surgery and then simply tell you you’ve done a job well. There are the porters and the ward clerks who offer you a lift on the bed they are pushing back. These are the people who always bring a smile to my face. Less than a year into my career in medicine, my friends and family often ask me if I feel like a doctor yet. Most of the time, when I’m on the monotonous carousel of ward rounds, chasing up requests, and writing discharge summaries, I feel a sense of betrayal to the “Dr” on my badge and the years of training I’ve had. I could spend days diagnosing, prescribing and discharging patients without spending any time with them or talking to patients. Ironically, it’s the times when I don’t do anything medically and scientifically beneficial for my patients but instead sit down and have a chat with them that I feel most like a doctor. It reminds me why I’m a doctor and puts everything I do into perspective. It puts a face to the patient, an actual person to the numbers and scans, and a real suffering to the pain and disease. It’s those times when I feel the responsibility we have as doctors to care for our patients who’ve put the ultimate trust in us at their most vulnerable time. As a doctor, I feel lucky to be surrounded by so many people every day. The main message I took from the junior doctors’ strikes was our incredible community and willingness to support and protect each other. The Harvard Grant Study, the longest study on human life, concluded as one of its points that human connection is crucial to a happy life. Being a doctor allows you that immense privilege to make a connection with someone that only the closest of friends and family are privy to. It is something so human that each and every one of us can relate to. Countless times during my short career as a doctor I’ve wanted to leave the profession, and no doubt I will continue to for the rest of my life. Then I look around me, and it’s the people I meet every day who make me want to stay. If you would like to write a blogpost for Views from the NHS frontline, read our guidelines and get in touch by emailing healthcare@theguardian.com. Join the Healthcare Professionals Network to read more pieces like this. And follow us on Twitter (@GdnHealthcare) to keep up with the latest healthcare news and views.
Britta Phillips: Luck Or Magic review – woozily seductive The formula that the bassist Britta Phillips and her guitarist husband (and former Luna bandmate) Dean Wareham hit upon for their three albums together as Dean & Britta – sumptuous pop arrangements and an even mix of astutely chosen covers and original material – acts as a template for her solo debut. Fleetwood Mac’s Landslide is given a Lana Del Rey makeover; the addition of warm synths makes the Cars’ Drive even ghostlier. The original songs don’t disappoint either: Million Dollar Bill benefits from its sense of urgency while the opener, Daydream, is woozily seductive. But while it’s all elegantly presented, and each song is pleasing enough, nothing ever quite hits the heights Phillips has previously scaled.
Bolshoi Babylon review – breaking pointe at the ballet company One morning in 2013, Bolshoi Ballet artistic director Sergei Filin had acid thrown in his face in the street by a masked attacker. While he endured numerous operations to save his sight and minimise scarring, Moscow police secured a confession from another dancer, Pavel Dmitrichenko, who admitted coveting Filin’s job and paying a couple of thugs to beat him up, although he denied wanting or ordering anything as horrible as acid. Case closed? Not at all. This fascinating documentary suggests the attack was a collective pathological symptom: the tip of modern Russia’s rage iceberg. The Bolshoi (Russian for “big”) has always been a colossal monolith of patriotic importance and cultural prestige, yet behind its dancers’ clenched poise there is suppressed agony. Budgetary and artistic decisions are ratified by unseen Kremlin bureaucrats and directors’ casting prerogatives until recently gave them almost Stalinist powers to change dancers’ lives on a whim. This, added to the fact that decades of corruption have left Russians with a profound mistrust of authority anyway, made Filin’s position uniquely dangerous. The film reveals that while Dmitrichenko was on trial, Bolshoi dancers circulated a petition addressed to Vladimir Putin questioning his guilt, though there was no other suspect. Bolshoi Babylon chillingly hints that the acid-throwing commanded some unconscious support: a pathological gesture of secret despairing resentment at everything and everyone in power in Russia. When Filin returns to work, visibly wounded and wearing dark glasses, his very presence clearly unsettles everyone. A general manager is appointed over his head, a grizzled arts apparatchik called Vladimir Urin who already detests Filin after a professional quarrel elsewhere. He evidently has a “glasnost” brief to make the Bolshoi casting process more transparent and less open to petty obsessive rivalries, yet even this notionally progressive move is managed with autocratic brusqueness. At any rate, the remarkable access the film-makers enjoyed here may be down to this supposed reform: they even get an interview with prime minister Dimitri Medvedev. The end result, interestingly, is to make Filin look even more embattled and enigmatically silent. When I sat down to this disturbing film, I wondered if I was going to compare it to Darren Aronofsky’s ballet drama Black Swan (2010). Actually, I thought more of Michael Haneke’s The Piano Teacher (2001), based on the Elfriede Jelinek novel, a shocking tale of dysfunction, showing that the discipline needed for classical music creates violence and pain as a hidden byproduct, like nuclear waste.
I am funnier and franker on Google chat, but what’s the truth about instant-message me? Right now, I have five chat windows open on my Gmail. Four individual, one group. The first is pinging every few seconds, the second has gone dormant because she’s gone to make tea, and the group chat starts with a Clickhole link followed by a thread of puns, which, although typed with the imperfect syntax of a spam email, read, I feel, like award-winning prose. I think I’m better online. Or rather the avatar, sitting at her screen, calmly creating a funnier, better version of herself, is. I can merrily catfish my friends and colleagues, while I hide my mood, and procrastinate from work until I get caught. Since instant messenger (specifically Gmail’s chat function) moved from a novelty to my constant companion, I’ve become more aware of the gulf between how I talk to people online and how I talk to them in person. My friends would disagree. The one making the tea thinks I lack nuance online. She likes to see my face, and prefers my tone IRL. Another just told me my Gchat persona can be “shirty” (no one’s interested in your opinion, pal). But I still maintain that I am not only funnier but franker and more open. Re-reading some of my chats from over the years – which Gmail helpfully/cruelly stores like subreddits – I can see many examples of emotions running high. One chat from the summer about a breakup shifted from indecision to decision in 369 characters, and is full of such admissions, wretchedness and sadness, I can’t believe we got through it. There’s sexual tension with typos, rows about the thing you couldn’t say in real life, invariably broken up with miscommunication and the word “soz” repeated 14 times. And then there are the rows about things you know you shouldn’t say – “he’s met someone else” – while you await the Brechtian beat before they reply (or don’t – the stress of a ghosted chat is unlike anything else). I usually put #DA (devil’s advocate) before saying anything that could be misconstrued, because it’s so hard to read tone on this sort of medium. It’s similar to what the sociologist Anthony Giddens calls distanciation: it’s easier to shoot someone than stab them because it’s less intimate. Easier to drop a bomb than launch a ground invasion. And while I’m not comparing a heated WhatsApp thread about A Boy with, say, a campaign of shock and awe, there are certainly things I can (and shouldn’t) say on instant chat that I wouldn’t be able to do face-to-face. I’m passionate about maintaining connections, but, since virtual ones can be less traumatic, this interface is likely to inspire unparalleled honesty. You can say the things you wouldn’t ordinarily say. It’s like having sex in the dark. The japes, of course, are key, especially if you work in an office with the right sort. Instant messaging provides a conduit for the Imgurs and jokes that spread sniggers like volcanic gases across the office, leaving those out of the thread curious as to what’s so funny. In real life, I mumble and get nervous when talking to more than one person. Of course, when talking face to face, you can sync your vibes, read the mood, react to gesticulations, know when you’ve gone too far. And, of course, this is a good thing. What does it mean that our 2.0 versions are more sophisticated, wittier versions of our real selves? Perhaps it’s the lite, analogue-bubbled design of online chat that makes it feel so pure. It is uncensored, like brainstorming, like a writer’s room. My love of chat has also come after a gentle shift away from other forums, such as Twitter, where the same sort of brainfarts usually cause me to haemorrhage followers. On Gchat, those same brainfarts get a “LOL”. And whereas my emails are considered and edited, instant messenger is, of course, instant. Not all messaging platforms are one and the same, of course. WhatsApp has a time limit on what you can save, and Snapchat, although fun, is gone in an instant (and should you try and screengrab or rewatch one, it will alert the sender). But they are all about living and interacting in the moment, of Yolo-ing your response. Once, communication was determined by your community. Now, these chats create pockets of microcommunities with no geography or time restriction. It has certainly opened me up in both good and bad ways. It allows us to say the things we can’t say IRL: “I’m sad”, “I’m pregnant”, “I’ve been dumped”, “I’ve been fired”. Then, “no, don’t look at me, I’ll only cry” when you look up from your screen. For a while, my friend and I had a running joke. Whenever something bad happened, we would expel a semi-sensical stream of high emotion into the little box bottom right – “It’s just I’ve realised/I suppose/that they’re entrenched” – and the other would respond: “Haiku?” That line, like a release valve, made everything OK. I think, though, that the follow-up chats, in which I would apologise for being shirty, and aim to be more nuanced and less emotional, were far more constructive, far more considered, even if less funny. Instant messaging has its place, but while you can aim to replicate the same emotion and truth as you do in real life, you probably never can.
Låpsley review – beguiling R&B spells and powerhouse vocals Sometimes artists can arrive just too fully formed. That certainly seemed to be the case when 19-year-old Liverpudlian singer-songwriter and electro auteur Holly Lapsley Fletcher, AKA Låpsley, recently unveiled her buffed and scrupulously tasteful debut album, Long Way Home. The record is an immaculate masterclass in the strain of blanched, spectral R&B that now appears to be de rigueur for all artily inclined electronic artists in the wake of the successes of James Blake and the xx. Purportedly a breakup album, it laments its maker’s loneliness and heartbreak while appearing not to have a musical or emotional hair out of place. Thankfully, Låpsley cuts a far more visceral and formidable figure live. Statuesque in black, she initially emits a surprising gothic cool, although that soon evaporates when she addresses the packed crowd in broad scouse: “I dunno if you’ve noticed, but I ain’t shaved me legs.” Musically, she weaves beguiling spells over simultaneously lush, pristine beats and sumptuous programming. In contrast to the muted murmurs of her album, she possesses a powerhouse vocal, belting out the self-lacerating Falling Short and the accusatory Tell Me the Truth with a pitch-perfect gusto worthy of her world-dominating labelmate, Adele. She is a skilled producer, with a winning trick of lowering and layering her voice until she is performing a male-female duet with herself over the electro twitches and glitches of Station. Operator (He Doesn’t Call Me) could be a great, lost Supremes B-side; Hurt Me boasts the wounded defiance of a classic soul siren. Beneath her perfect surfaces, Låpsley has a lot going on.
Ruth Davidson enjoys her Nicola Sturgeon moment in EU debate It was, some might say, her Nicola Sturgeon moment. Just as TV viewers across the UK were captivated by the SNP leader’s performance in last year’s general election debate, this morning it was the turn of one of Scotland’s other female leaders, the Conservatives’ Ruth Davidson, to enjoy the plaudits after her contribution to Tuesday night’s BBC referendum debate. At the end of an ugly campaign, there has been rare cross-party and cross-country agreement overnight that Davidson, who spoke for remain alongside the newly elected London mayor, Sadiq Khan, and the TUC’s general secretary, Frances O’Grady, turned in a stellar performance: witty, robust, well-informed and passionate. Formidably well-briefed, she pulled apart fellow Conservative Andrea Leadsom’s claims about EU lawmaking, saying: “The other side have constantly lied about Europe. You deserve the truth.” She repeatedly challenged Boris Johnson over leave’s inability to guarantee jobs, saying: “That’s not good enough!” She went on to demolish his attempted critique of EU security, pointing out that she was “the only one on this panel that has ever worn the Queen’s uniform”. (Davidson served as a signaller in the Territorial Army.) Her passion and articulacy garnered high praise across social media, with the Conservative Home founder and committed leave campaigner, Tim Montgomerie, tweeting: Of particular interest to Ruth-watchers were her combative blue-on-blue exchanges with Johnson, after well-sourced press reports earlier on Tuesday suggested Davidson was planning a wholly independent breakaway party in Scotland should he become the next leader. It is certainly the case that Davidson – an early protege of David Cameron – has led an extraordinary resurgence in Scottish Tory fortunes (remember those panda jokes?) precisely because she has worked so hard to distance herself from the more elitist vision of Conservatism that still seems to dominate the Westminster party. She worked hard for Tuesday night’s success, as her close adviser and one of the newly expanded cohort of Conservative MSPs in the Scottish parliament, Adam Tomkins, explains: “She locked herself in a hotel room for four days to prepare for that. She always puts in a big shift. This is the reason why the Tory party is doing better in Scotland than it has done for a quarter of a century, why new people like me have joined the party, why the new Holyrood group genuinely feels like Team Ruth. Imagine having her as your boss!” Tomkins is one of 31 Conservative MSPs elected to Holyrood in May, many for the first time, in what Davidson herself described as a seismic shift in the Scottish electoral landscape, as her party more than doubled its seats and gained votes not only from Labour in urban centres but also from the SNP in more rural seats. Another of those first-time MSPs is Annie Wells, a working-class single mother from a Labour-voting family. “I thought she played an absolute blinder,” says Wells of her leader’s debate performance. “Maybe because she’s been through the independence referendum the fire was more in Ruth.” Wells describes what marks Ruth out from her Westminster Tory peers: “With Ruth, what you see is what you get. She was the most down-to-earth person there last night. She came across as the person to represent hard-working, working-class people and that’s why we got the result we did up here. She comes from a working-class background herself and in no way fits the stereotype of a Conservative. Everything she does isn’t about what’s going to boost her up the ladder, but what will bring success for the people of Scotland.” Both Tomkins and Wells have told the in the past how their leader’s personal popularity and promotion as the only woman to stand up to Nicola Sturgeon cut through powerfully on the doorstep during the Scottish election campaign earlier this year. Activists knocking on doors deliberately introduced themselves as part of “Team Ruth” rather than using the C-word. Davidson’s strategy was also based on an understanding that the constitution remained the defining faultline in Scottish politics, as she targeted undecided voters who had opposed independence in 2014 with her core messages of strong opposition to the SNP and defence of the union. She likewise pledged to oppose a second independence referendum no matter what the outcome of Thursday’s EU vote.
German plan to impose limit on cash transactions met with fierce resistance A plan to introduce a limit on cash transactions in Germany has been met with fierce resistance across the country. Proposals to ban cash payments of more than €5,000 (£3,860) to combat money laundering and the financing of terrorism were revealed by the German finance ministry last week. They face opposition from a broad alliance of political parties as well as the country’s bestselling newspaper. The Bild published an open letter on Monday entitled “hands off our cash”, which, in keeping with the analogue theme, it encourages readers to sign, cut out and post to the finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble. Political groups ranging from the Green party to the liberal Free Democrats to rightwing Alternative für Deutschland have condemned the proposed measures, which also include a ban on €500 notes, as an attack on data protection and privacy. “Cash allows us to remain anonymous during day-to-day transactions. In a constitutional democracy, that is a freedom that has to be defended,” tweeted the Green MP Konstantin von Notz. The head of Germany’s central bank, Jens Weidmann, has distanced himself from the government’s proposals, telling Bild: “It would be fatal if citizens got the impression that cash is being gradually taken away from them.” Cash transaction limits are common in most other EU countries. In France, the limit was lowered from €3,000 to €1,000 last September; in Italy it was lowered to €999.99 in 2011 but raised back up to €2,999.99 under the current government. In Germany, such measures clash with deeply engrained habits and social attitudes. According to a recent Bundesbank study, 79% of payments in Germany are made in cash – compared with only 48% in Britain. Even among 14- to 24-year-olds, two-thirds say they prefer paying in cash to electronic means. In a YouGov survey, 72% of Germans said they considered it safer to pay in cash. Contactless payments are rare in Germany, though a trial of the technology will take place in the Hesse region in the autumn. Whether a limit on cash transactions would be an effective weapon in the fight against the illegal market remains open to debate. The economist Friedrich Schneider of Linz University told Die Zeit newspaper that even a ban on cash transactions would reduce illegal labour by only 2-3%.
Donald Trump flies in for Scotland visit as protesters converge on Turnberry Donald Trump is scheduled to land at Glasgow Prestwick airport after dawn on Friday for the start of a two-day visit to Scotland. He will be greeted with far-from-traditional Scottish hospitality, with no senior British or Scottish politicians prepared to meet him and protesters preparing noisy and colourful demonstrations. US presidential candidates normally go on foreign trips to establish their foreign policy credentials, with pictures taken with world leaders for use later in the election campaign. But this is the only international trip that Trump has made since launching his bid for the White House and it is for business purposes: to formally open his newly refurbished Turnberry golf resort in Ayrshire and to pop into his other golf course resort, north of Aberdeen. While his visit coincides with the result of the EU referendum, his comments so far indicate he has little interest in, or grasp of, the arguments – though he has said publicly he supports Brexit. Keir McKechnie, one of the organisers of the Stand Up to Trump protest planned to take place at the Turnberry Hotel, said: “We want the whole world to know he is not welcome in Scotland because of his toxic, racist views, his Islamophobia, his misogyny and homophobia.” He said protesters had travelled from various parts of Scotland and London to take part. Three busloads were scheduled to leave Glasgow’s George Square at about 6am to reach Turnberry for Trump’s arrival, press conference and formal opening of the renovated hotel. McKechnie, an organiser with Stand Up to Racism, estimated there would be about 200-300 protesters, many of them waving Mexican flags in protest at Trump’s planned wall along the border with the US. They will be accompanied by a mariachi band made up of Mexicans living locally in Ayrshire. They hope to base themselves in the caddies’ car park, within shouting distance of the press conference and other events. One of the biggest campaigning groups in the UK, 38 Degrees, is to fly a plane over the Turnberry golf resort flying a banner saying “Love Trumps Hate”. Kathryn Stribley, a spokeswoman for 38 Degrees, said: “Donald Trump’s views have shown him to be way out of line with the values that 38 Degrees members – and most people across the UK – hold. We’re part of a movement building peace and respect in our country. We’ll do all that we can to make sure he hears that during his visit to Scotland.” Stribley said almost 14,000 members of 38 Degrees had signed a petition calling on Trump to meet Edinburgh Muslims to help educate him about the religion. Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, who has criticised Trump over his remarks about Muslims, is refusing to meet him as are other Scottish party leaders: the Conservative Ruth Davidson, Labour’s Kezia Dugdale and the Liberal Democrat Willie Rennie.
GSK sales rise despite weak pound and Brexit uncertainty GlaxoSmithKline has reported better than expected quarterly results thanks to strong sales of its flu vaccine and a weaker pound. The UK’s largest drug company has emerged as a big beneficiary from sterling’s 18% decline since the Brexit vote. GSK generates 96% of its sales overseas but makes many products in the UK, including Sensodyne and Aquafresh toothpastes, at its Maidenhead factory. Sales rose by 23% to reach £7.5bn in the third quarter. At constant exchange rates, sales were up 8% and earnings rose 12%. Analysts had forecast sales of £7.3bn, according to Thomson Reuters estimates. Another area where GSK could benefit is “parallel trade,” which involves the shipment of drugs from low-cost countries such as Greece and Spain to countries such as Britain and Germany, where prices are higher. The outgoing chief executive, Sir Andrew Witty, who will hand over to the company’s consumer healthcare chief Emma Walmsley at the end of March, said parallel trade could “cease in entirety,” depending on the terms of Britain’s exit from the EU. There had been a decline in parallel trade since the referendum, he said, and “if the pound remains suppressed or at these new lower levels, you would expect to see less import, more export”. GSK’s vaccine sales exceeded City expectations in the third quarter, in particular flu vaccines, while new HIV and lung medicines also sold well, offsetting declining demand for ageing blockbuster drugs such as Advair for asthma. Witty said the vaccine business had “never been healthier,” despite the company’s decision to withdraw its cervical cancer vaccine Cervarix from the US market. Shingrix, a new shingles vaccine which is seen as a potential blockbuster with annual sales of more than $1bn, has been filed for approval in the US and is due to be filed in the EU before the end of the year. Witty said after Walmsley’s appointment a month ago, the “feedback from the overwhelming majority of shareholders has been positive and constructive”. “That is the right response, given Emma’s tremendous credentials for this role and her personal passion for GSK,” he said. Walmsley will be the most powerful woman in the global drugs industry and one of seven female FTSE 100 chief executives. However, her appointment came as a disappointment to some investors who had hoped for the arrival of an outsider to push through a spin-off of the consumer healthcare arm. Witty said GSK was on track to achieve core earnings growth of 11-12% at constant exchange rates this year, marking a turnaround after several years of poor performance and a bribery scandal in China. He said the company saw no need to make any contingency plans around immigration after the Brexit vote. EU nationals account for 14% of GSK’s UK based workforce. Witty was optimistic that “ultimately there are going to be some pragmatic decisions made” that would ensure companies were able to attract global talent.
Jasper Jones first look review – Spielberg meets Stranger Things in Australian coming-of-age tale Craig Silvey’s 2009 coming-of-age novel, Jasper Jones, has enjoyed a recent renaissance, with Kate Mulvany’s stage adaptation seeing three separate productions in as many years: at Perth’s Barking Gecko in 2014; at Sydney’s Belvoir Theatre earlier this year; now at Melbourne Theatre Company, where it runs until 1 September. But it was a feature film adaptation that premiered to an enthusiastic home field audience on Wednesday night at the opening of Western Australian film festival CinefestOz, in Busselton. Set in the fictional town of Corrigan, the film, directed by Rachel Perkins – who previously made Bran Nue Dae – was shot in the WA town of Pemberton with funds from ScreenWest, and is projected for release in early 2017. With its child’s eye view of small town racial prejudice, publicity for Silvey’s book was quick to label it the Australian To Kill a Mockingbird – but it is hat-tips to Harper Lee’s friend Truman Capote that dominate the film’s opening stretch. Moved to investigate the death of a local girl, 13-year-old protagonist Charlie Bucktin (Levi Miller) picks up In Cold Blood at the library, and minutes later is slipped a copy of Breakfast at Tiffany’s – mysterious note inside – by local Holly Golightly-in-waiting Eliza Wishart (Angourie Rice), the sister of the dead girl. Charlie finds out about the death over Christmas 1965, when he is summoned from his bed in the dead of night by Indigenous kid and town scapegoat Jasper Jones (Aaron L. McGrath), who has found his white girlfriend hanging from a tree in the woods. Convinced that he’ll be blamed for her death, Jones enlists Charlie to help him hide the body, and to find information on alternative suspects. As Charlie plays kid detective he begins to see the town with new eyes, and the hypocrisies – both petty and monstrous – of his family and neighbours come into focus. An ongoing debate about the relative virtues of Batman over Superman between Charlie and his friend Jeffrey Lu (Kevin Long) sets out the stakes of the film in crystal-clear terms: Charlie is headed for a reckoning with the true meaning of heroism. If that sounds a little schematic, it is, but the story is a good one nonetheless – and that the screenplay, by Silvey and Snowtown’s Shaun Grant, can offer this level of thematic clarity suggests the strong grasp the film-makers have on their subject. Though Charlie at first seems awfully close to a white saviour figure – he is positioned as consigliore to a troubled black kid, a girl in danger, and Lu, who suffers from the town’s suspicion of Vietnamese migrants – the story has a smart sense of his ability to combat Corrigan’s dark side. By the time Lu announces, right before his triumphant and unlikely performance at a cricket match, that “this town needs a hero”, it’s starting to become obvious that Charlie’s reckoning will be a hard one; that the best he can do is to be a witness and staunch ally to his friends as the iniquities around him churn onward. The setting is the late 60s, but the atmosphere of bike rides, long nights in the woods, questionable adult supervision and small town secrets (along with its distinctively American literary antecedents – Lee, Capote, even Mark Twain gets a shout out) could well appeal to nostalgic fans of Netflix’s Stranger Things, though the conspiracies here are rather more personal than governmental. Perkins, finding the sweet spot between childish goofiness and adult drama, keeps things fleet, funny, and just the right side of suspenseful; tonally, the film is a match for any Spielbergian 80s coming-of-age classic. She’s aided by the rich wide-screen cinematography of Mark Wareham, and a persuasive score by Antony Partos. The cast is uniformly good, especially McGrath and Miller, who gives a remarkably sustained lead performance as Charlie – alhough he’s frequently upstaged by scene-stealer Long. As the decrepit old hermit on the edge of town, Hugo Weaving continues his transition into the Grand Old Man of the Australian screen. But it’s Toni Collette, impossibly vivacious as always, who registers most strongly. As Charlie’s mother – bee-hived, eye-shadowed, and straining at the bonds of a dissatisfying marriage – she switches from tenderness to frustration on a dime. One charming scene has her transforming a mini-tantrum in the kitchen into an opportunity to twist and bop to the radio. Shimmying around in a mustard dress, she almost dances away with the film. • Jasper Jones will be released in 2017
Twitter: 140 characters in search of a buyer Why doesn’t anyone want to buy Twitter? After the company’s board met on Thursday, it told CNBC that there were “no bids on the table” and that instead it was exploring cost cuts – an announcement that drove another sell-off in the stock and pushed it down 6%, as shareholders who had hoped to see a September swoop from a tech or media company were disappointed. On Friday the shares were changing hands at around $18 – 20% down this year and well short of their float price of $26 three years ago. That doesn’t mean, however, that Twitter is not a target. It can boast 313 million monthly active users, of whom 66 million, or 21%, are in the US. But unlike that other social network Facebook, its growth has stalled (user numbers were up just 1% year-on-year in the quarter to the end of June), and it is far from profit, losing $107m on revenues of $602m – although the latter, at least, were up an encouraging 20%. In fact, Twitter, for all its impact on news and communication since its foundation in 2006, has never made a profit since going public in November 2013. A month later its shares hit an all-time high of $69, but have steadily declined since, while losses have worsened; shares handed out to existing and acquired staff count against any profit, and the company has been on a minor acquisition spree to try to expand its video offerings. It’s unlikely to go bust, having a cash pile of $3.6bn. But in financial circles the feeling is that Twitter’s time as an independent entity is running out, because shareholders want to see growth and profit – and co-founder Jack Dorsey, who has been back as chief executive for just over a year, isn’t delivering on the hope his appointment engendered. After the board meeting, Michael Pachter of Wedbush Securities sounded an optimistic note on CNBC. “Twitter has to figure out who they want to be,” he said. “They should want to be the first source of news. Their addressable market is the two-and-a-half-billion people on the internet who want to know about anything.” In his view, “there’s only one strategic buyer, and it’s Facebook … [Twitter is] instant news, and that’s the one element that Facebook is missing. I think Facebook really wants to be a media company, and that’s the one element of media that they’re really sorely lacking.” Certainly the row over Facebook’s censorship of a famous Vietnam war photograph suggests Mark Zuckerberg’s company isn’t good at instant news. But the Facebook founder has repeatedly insisted that his is a “tech company, not a media company”. He might also feel that he could do without the explosive rows Twitter suffers as a result of tweets from misogynists, racist groups and would-be terror recruiters. And $18bn is nearly as much as Facebook paid for communications service WhatsApp, which Facebook is beginning to exploit for advertising. If not Facebook, what about Google? That idea has been around since 2011. Certainly, owning Twitter would bring Google closer to its mission “to organise the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful”. Ben Thompson, an independent technology analyst who writes the Stratechery blog, thinks it makes perfect sense. Google badly needs a compelling product used daily on mobile platforms. (On average, people carry out very few Google searches on mobile compared to desktop; they tend to use apps instead.) However, as Thompson pointed out last week in a newsletter to his subscribers, Twitter signed up in 2015 to use Google’s DoubleClick advertising platform and give the search engine access to the “firehose” of every tweet as they happen, to roll into search results. “This, effectively, eliminated the top two reasons for Google to buy the company,” he observed. As long as those deals exist, Google gets almost all the benefit of owning Twitter without the downsides. What about a media company purchase? After all, if Twitter is a news service, a news company might want it. Pachter at Wedbush suggested Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp would be the best fit; Time Warner and Disney don’t want a pure news feed. “Most of the media companies aren’t actually in the news business, except for News Corp,” he said. But Murdoch will remember his $500m purchase of MySpace in 2005: within a few years, Facebook had trounced it. Microsoft’s purchase of LinkedIn for $26.2bn in June may have heartened Twitter shareholders, but the two companies look very different: LinkedIn makes money, and is comparatively orderly. Twitter, by contrast, is trying to fight longstanding problems with abuse by its users, while also seeking a feature that can’t immediately be copied, and then executed and monetised better, by Facebook – as happened with its livestreaming app Periscope, which Facebook trumped with Facebook Live. “I see [Twitter’s] model as being slightly broken and in need of a fix,” said Pachter. “Give Dorsey another year and let him fix it. If he doesn’t, get somebody who can.” Dorsey might not have any offers to buy – but he might soon want some.
Testing sore throats at pharmacies won’t solve anything Are GPs to throw away the traditional box of wooden tongue depressors? People with sore throats are soon to be offered a new service – at the pharmacy. The NHS Innovation Accelerator, an organisation responsible for helping “with the adoption of promising new treatments and technologies”, has approved a new Sore Throat Test and Treat service that NHS England says is “evidence based and cost saving”. My head is in my hands. This is neither evidence based nor shown to be cost effective, and may actually make pressure on the NHS worse. The pilot study – which occurred in Boots stores (whose head office analysed the data) – was not a randomised controlled trial. It showed it was possible for pharmacies to assess people with sore throats and use a “point of care” rapid antigen test to determine who should get antibiotics. This might sound superficially sensible. But the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) does not recommend this rapid antigen test because it has a poor sensitivity for picking up relevant bugs. It is already known – from randomised clinical trials – that this test does not help beyond normal care. Furthermore there has been no full cost-effectiveness analysis – let alone an independent cost-effectiveness analysis – of the Boots scheme. Without comparing the pilot to usual care, we have no way of knowing whether more or fewer antibiotics were prescribed. It is a travesty of evidence-based policymaking. This scheme may actually increase demand on the NHS, fragmenting services but without improving care. More than half of the patients in the study said that if the pilot had not been available, they would have either have done nothing or treated themselves without assistance. This, if it held true, meant that antibiotics were subsequently used just because the scheme was there. Isn’t that good? Not necessarily. The study concluded that if the pilot hadn’t been available then there could have been a “delay seeking medical treatment when it was needed”. But it didn’t show this, and not all bacterial throat infections need to be treated. In fact, antibiotics reduce the length of time of a sore throat by an average of 16 hours, with only a modest impact on complications such as ear infections. Balanced against common side-effects of antibiotics such as diarrhoea, as well as antibiotic resistance, there is often not a clear-cut reason to prescribe. This scheme expands the market for medicine, without clear benefits. Earlier is not always better. It gets worse. In the pilot, patients paid £7.50 for the test and £10 for “antibiotics if required”. This is a clear subversion of the free at the point of use principle of the NHS. NHS England has not been able to tell me what the funding for the new service will be, where it will come from, or whether patients will still have to pay. Faced with a wait for a free appointment with a GP, it effectively means that people will be able to access care faster if they pay for it. Commissioners with stretched budgets may be content with that. But it should be absolutely resisted. The relentless argument from rightwing thinktanks is that we need to charge for NHS appointments; and that the funding deficit in the NHS is so acute that all options should be on the table. But it is a dreadful argument. People who are poor have the biggest risk of earlier death and earlier disease. The very principle of the NHS – based on need, not ability to pay – subverts the otherwise natural course of allowing better healthcare to be only in the domain of the already better off. This scheme isn’t the kind of change we need in the NHS. Sir Bruce Keogh, NHS England’s medical director, has said of it “innovation is not an option but a necessity if we are to built a sustainable NHS”. But “innovation” should not be an excuse for policymaking that isn’t evidence-based. There are far better ways to ensure that the NHS is sustainable. The NHS does need more money. But it also needs to stop wasting money and effort on inadequately tested – or proven to be non-cost effective – but popular political policies. Take the health checks scheme or dementia screenings, for example – known to be ineffective and even harmful, through causing false positive diagnosis and over-treatment. Millions have been needlessly wasted that should have spent on useful care. Similarly, there are multiple pressures on general practice that have been generated by appalling but avoidable political policy. The current benefits system is associated with worsening people’s mental health and has created an enormous amount of bureaucracy for GPs, which reduces the availability of appointments. And that is even before we get to the money and time spent administering to the competition and commissioning of the Health and Social Care Act, without evidence of gains for patients. We are in the midst of an NHS financial crisis. If we want it to survive, we need real innovation. That means the bravery to stand up for evidence-based policymaking, and ensure that NHS policy always considers harms, and aims to reduce waste – and health inequalities.
Jürgen Klopp content but in no mood for cake on Liverpool anniversary Jürgen Klopp believes he has already confounded some of those who doubted whether he could manage in the Premier League, as he approaches his first anniversary in charge at Anfield, but the German will have no time for reflection as he seeks to keep driving Liverpool forward. Saturday’s 2-1 victory over Swansea was Liverpool’s fourth in succession in the league, maintaining their excellent start to the season, even if the first-half performance had Klopp in a rage at the interval. Goals from Roberto Firmino and James Milner turned the game around and Klopp can now enjoy the sight of Liverpool sitting in the top four during the international break, when he passes 12 months in charge. “I have no time, and I am not in the mood for reflection, to be honest,” Klopp said, when asked about the anniversary. “It’s a year, I’m a year older and all this shit, but everything else is good. Not perfect, but in a good way. That’s what we hoped, that’s what we said. “After one year standing here, we can talk like this. There was doubt, there was a lot of rumour around me. People said: ‘Obviously he was a good coach at Dortmund but a German managing here doesn’t work’ – things like this. That’s better now. “But the thing is, I’m not here for a year, I’m here hopefully for the long term and it means that we have to use all the information we have until now and learn from it. That’s how life works, collecting experience, learning from it and being ready for the next challenge. My year is what, the 8th of October? We will not celebrate, I can tell you that – hopefully nobody brings me a cake!” Milner, whose late penalty was his fourth goal from the spot this season, praised Klopp for the way he dealt with the players at half-time. The former England international admitted there are times with Klopp when “you could say that he is maybe too emotional and that’s something that he could easily have been at half-time”. But the 30-year-old said on this occasion the manager got the balance spot-on. “Against Swansea he wasn’t waving his arms around so much. He was trying to hold in his anger most of the time,” Milner said. “He deserves a lot of credit because before the game he said the right things but we didn’t perform. At half-time he was very angry with the performance. “We knew he was holding it in but he got his information across clearly and got us going again. It’s easy to fly off the handle and not be very productive. We know how emotional he is but he did a great job. He said the right things and we came out and performed how we should.”
The Guv’nor review – unsettling hardman documentary Jamie McLean, the son of bouncer, bare-knuckle fighter and “the toughest man in Britain”, Lenny McLean, attempts to show another side of the man who once bit off someone’s nose during a scrap. But the revelation that Lenny loved his family and was partial to cream cakes rather pales into insignificance next to the fact that he once coughed up bits of human flesh after a fight that nearly killed his friend. You wouldn’t want to be his enemy. This is a slightly prurient documentary, which goes heavy on nostalgia for the good old days of the East End, when big men in sharp suits only hurt their own.
Kent rescue: people could die in Channel, says ex-borders chief The former independent chief inspector of borders and immigration has said lives could be lost in the Channel unless more boats are deployed to patrol for migrants trying to reach the UK. John Vine raised concerns that the UK may be seeing the start of a new trend of people smuggling across the Channel after 18 Albanians – including a woman and two children – and two British people were rescued off the coast of Kent on Saturday night. Vine said he had raised the issue of migrants crossing the Channel with the Home Office when he was chief inspector of borders and immigration but this failed to result in “sufficient resources” being devoted to it. “In the context of small ports, we just don’t know the extent of this,” he told BBC Radio 4 on Monday. “But I think it is reasonable to assume that this is something that might have been happening and if this is now the start of a new trend we certainly need to gather the intelligence and the resources to nip it in the bud.” He said he found the issue “wasn’t a major priority” when he raised concerns in the past. “That is entirely reasonable: if an organisation has limited resources, it has to prioritise where its enforcement activity is,” Vine said. “But clearly if this is now the start of something new, then really that … needs to be reassessed and resources need to be put in. “We have seen the tragedies that have occurred in the Mediterranean. “I am not a nautical person but I would have thought crossing the Channel – with all the hazards in terms of cross-Channel traffic as well as the weather and the sea conditions – are going to mean there is an equal chance of people losing their lives unless this is stopped.” The incident may have political ramifications in the EU referendum as Brexit campaigners claim leaving is the only way to control migration, while the remain campaign argues that the French may not be as keen to maintain a secure border in the event of Britain exiting the bloc. Damian Collins, a Conservative MP for Folkestone and Hythe, said he thought there were sufficient resources to patrol the border but it must be kept under review. “At the moment, it’s a risk we’re aware of and additional resources have been committed to fight it,” he said. But Nigel Farage, the Ukip leader, claims the UK is “likely to find the English Channel becoming a mortuary as economic migrants take to its unpredictable waters in unseaworthy vessels” unless those who have made it to Kent are returned to France. “It is essential that a clear message is sent that no migrant arriving on our shores by boat is allowed leave to remain,” he said. “We have all seen the horrors of the Mediterranean, with thousands crossing and hundreds dying. We cannot allow that to happen off the shores of Kent and Sussex. We could see a migrant crisis coming to the shores of UK if we remain in the European Union. “Only by wresting control of our immigration system from the European Union will we be able to create a fair, equitable, immigration system. We must not make the same mistake as the EU has done over the Mediterranean situation.” The UK Coastguard received a call for assistance just off the coast of Dymchurch in Kent at 11.40pm on Saturday. A search and rescue helicopter was deployed as well as lifeboats and coastguard rescue teams. The rigid-hulled inflatable boat, with 20 people on board, was found at 2am and the matter was handed over to the Border Force. It has been reported the people on board had alerted their families in Calais, who raised the alarm with the French authorities. A Home Office spokesman confirmed a woman and two children were on board. He added that a second vessel, believed to be linked to the inflatable that got into trouble, was discovered on the beach at Dymchurch. The spokesman said: “A total of 20 people were picked up in a search-and-rescue operation. Eighteen were Albanian, and two were British. There was one woman, and two minors. They were taken to Dover and are currently being interviewed by Border Force officers.” On Tuesday, 17 Albanians and a British man wanted on suspicion of murder in Spain were detained after a catamaran arrived at Chichester marina in West Sussex. The 55-year-old man, who was the subject of a European arrest warrant, was also detained on suspicion of facilitating illegal immigration while the 17 Albanian men were held on suspicion of entering the UK illegally. The Albanians have been detained pending Home Office consideration of their cases.
Don't spread 'straight-man cancer', China feminist warns Trump One of China’s most prominent feminists has a message for the US president-elect: “Hey Trump, feminists are watching you.” Zheng Churan, who has been supported by Hillary Clinton for her advocacy, wrote a letter to Trump warming him of the perils of chauvinism as he prepares to take office. Trump famously boasted about using his fame to have sex with women and grope them without prior consent, saying: “When you’re a star they let you do it.” In 2015 Zheng was one of five feminist activists detained by police for more than a month after the group planned a peaceful protest against sexual harassment. Zheng, who is also known as Datu or Big Rabbit, wrote to the president-elect: “Even across the Pacific, in the faraway land of China, there are constantly reports of you and your government’s involvement in sexual discrimination. “We wish you to watch out, the feminists worldwide are speaking, and we are watching you.” Zheng called on Trump to respect women’s rights, warning him not to use his position to spread “straight-man cancer”. The term has become popular in China in recent years to describe a “disease” among narrow-minded men seeking to control women and work against gender equality. “Straight-man cancer” also chastises men seen to cling on to traditional Chinese norms in relationships, such as suppressing women’s rights through official policies, devaluing female labour and branding educated women as unattractive. “In general ‘straight-man cancer’ is the equivalent of ‘male chauvinist pig’ in English,” Zheng wrote. “Just like cancerous cells, straight-man cancer spreads everywhere damaging feminist movements and undermining social equality. It is pervasive.” Clinton supported China’s feminists during their detention, accusing President Xi Jinping of the “shameless” persecution of women’s rights activists. Trump’s eventual election rival became an icon following a 1995 speech she gave at the UN’s Fourth Conference on Women in Beijing. Trump’s record of supporting causes of the persecuted is far less clear – and many advocates in China worry his presidency will prioritise deal-making over human rights. Zheng predicted a hard fall if Trump’s previous sentiments followed him into the White House. “We wish to warn you that those who spread this straight-man cancer will inevitably pay their price for the contemptible comments, violent remarks towards women or actions sexualising women.”
Tony Pulis tells Saido Berahino to ‘squeeze the pips’ at West Brom Tony Pulis would not agree but more than likely guaranteed West Bromwich Albion’s safety. Their contrary performance – not least because they scored more than twice for the first time this season but also defended erratically – pulled them 11 points clear of the teams in the bottom three places and, crucially, Saido Berahino looks sharp again. His stunning goal, after earlier efforts from Craig Gardner and Craig Dawson, was just reward, having apologised 24 hours before the game for threatening to strike at the beginning of the campaign when the club’s chairman, Jeremy Peace, blocked his transfer to Tottenham Hotspur. Pulis reiterated for the umpteenth time he did not blame Berahino for the rigmarole, suggesting it was the people around the striker who were pushing him “from pillar to post”. The manager said the England Under-21 international was not yet fully fit but was optimistic he would end the season – and most likely his West Brom career – in a hot streak of form. “If he plays like he did today everybody will start talking about him,” Pulis said. “His mind is clear and he is set on his football again. The most important thing is that he has a God-given gift and he should squeeze the pips from it, and have a great career. Everything will follow. If he is playing well he will get the recognition – and the move.” It would be overly simplistic to put Crystal Palace’s barren run down to the absence of Yannick Bolasie but his return has at least offered a glimmer of positivity in a season that could yet develop into a relegation fight. Their last league win, at Stoke City on 19 December, was also Bolasie’s last start and it is more than a coincidence they have accumulated a dismal three points from the 10 games since. Palace were three goals down and offered the square root of nothing before the Congolese winger’s introduction for an ineffective Emmanuel Adebayor at the interval. Connor Wickham scored both of their goals but Bolasie was the difference. The formation changed, the approach was far more positive and it would not be stretching things to say Palace are a completely different proposition when he is involved. “You can’t underestimate the psychological damage he does to teams just by starting,” Alan Pardew said – but there is a risk his team’s confidence will sink if they fail to win at Sunderland on Tuesday. Although they have beaten three top-flight teams to reach the FA Cup quarter-finals, where they play Reading, this winless league spell has led to Palace plummeting from fifth to 14th. They are on 32 points and eight clear of danger but a win is needed promptly to allay growing fears. “The next 10 games are massively important for us because we have got to get 40 points,” Pardew said. “This division is unforgiving and we have found that out. Everything was cruising, everything was good for us and even in the Cup we have been cruising that. Then suddenly this has been creeping up on us. We mustn’t let it creep up any more.” He added: “If we had got beaten 4-0, it would have hurt us but the way we responded in the second half was much more encouraging and, looking at my players, I don’t think that is going to be a problem.” He did concede that “defensively, we definitely need to shake a leg up a little bit”. No wonder. West Brom had a three‑goal buffer inside half an hour, leaving Palace with too much to do when they had finally woken up. Man of the match Craig Gardner (West Brom)
The view on the New Hampshire primaries: taking an outside chance The New Hampshire primary has long been the most important early milestone in the US presidential election calendar. But it has not always been a certain guide to the eventual playing out of the contest. So it does not follow that either Bernie Sanders or Donald Trump, who both triumphed in New Hampshire this week, is certain to be on the ballot for president in November 2016. Indeed it is conceivable that neither of them will be. Nevertheless these were both sweeping, decisive wins that pose large questions. And, since a win in New Hampshire has shaped many a past presidential contest, it remains possible that it will again do so this time. Mr Sanders crushed Hillary Clinton by 60% to 38% in a two-horse race in a state where the former secretary of state defeated Barack Obama eight years ago. Meanwhile Mr Trump, with 35%, won by nearly as large a margin in a much more crowded Republican field, with last week’s Iowa caucuses victor Ted Cruz trailing third behind John Kasich. These wins send messages. The challenge is to understand what the messages mean. The immediate meaning for US politics is clear. Both nomination contests are likely to go long and remain intense, which may increase the temptation for a third-party candidate like Michael Bloomberg to throw his expensive hat in the ring. The assumption that Mrs Clinton would quickly get a grip on the Democratic side has been blown apart by the virtual tie in Iowa and this week’s big Sanders win in New Hampshire. The next round of races in Nevada and South Carolina will matter more than in other years, and the contest may not be settled until after a group of key states including Florida, Missouri and Ohio hold their primaries on 15 March. Though Mrs Clinton remains the favourite, not least because of her financial backing, the battle with Mr Sanders is visibly wounding her candidacy and the sense of inevitability that once surrounded this year’s run. On the Republican side, Mr Trump’s defeat in Iowa is now eclipsed by his success this week. He is clearly the frontrunner and he is therefore at this stage the most likely eventual nominee, a thought that sends tremors of fear and disbelief far beyond America – even to the Tories in Britain. But get used to it. Mr Trump is prospering in part because the contest to be his main rival is still a lottery between at least four men. Both Mr Cruz and Marco Rubio have auditioned for the role coming out of Iowa, only to falter in New Hampshire. Mr Kasich’s second place makes him the latest contender, with Jeb Bush still not out of it. Yet the longer it takes the Republicans to find their “anyone-but-Trump” candidate the greater the likelihood that the winner will be no one but Trump. The identity of America’s next president is a subject of worldwide importance. Yet the real message from New Hampshire is more profound even than that. On both sides the results were a vote of no confidence in existing politics. As such they connect with similar populist electoral revolts in Europe and elsewhere, though with a distinctively American twist. Mr Trump is like nothing that either US party has ever seen before. He is not really a politician at all but an immensely rich showman, a leader who would be a kind of Silvio Berlusconi with nuclear weapons. Mr Sanders meanwhile is managing, at least for now, the extraordinary feat of winning elections while proclaiming the kind of statist and collectivist ideas that have been beyond the pale in American politics since the era of Henry Wallace at the dawn of the cold war. His win this week involves a very American cry of pain by the country’s middle class in the face of globalisation and financial stringency. But it is part of a wider process in which significant sections of western middle and working-class voters are revolting against the inability of liberal democracy to discipline the inequalities caused by modern capitalism. Mrs Clinton may beat Mr Sanders in the end, but the anger that has fired his remarkable campaign will not disappear quickly.
Minuscule: Valley of the Lost Ants review – quietly delightful This delightful French-Belgian co-production is one of the more engaging family films on offer over the half-term break. An appealing blend of a live action backdrop, filmed in the spectacular Ecrins national park in south-east France, and a cast of animated bugs and beasties is combined with inventive sound design to tell a story entirely without words. A plucky young ladybird joins forces with a band of ants to appropriate a box of sugarcubes left at an abandoned picnic. But an army of rival red ants have set their sights on the bounty and lay siege to the ant hill. An orchestral score that evokes the early work of Danny Elfman is integral to the storytelling. The gentle humour comes from deft physical comedy and the playful use of sound, a similar approach to that of the first 30 minutes of Pixar’s Wall-E. With very little peril, this is suitable for very young children but will charm all ages.
Goodbye, etc: why the UK government will stop using Latin abbreviations online RIP eg, ie and etc. Henceforth the three abbreviated Latin phrases – which stand for exempli gratia (for the sake of example), id est (that is) and et cetera (and the rest) – will stop being used on Britain’s .gov.uk websites. Eventually they will be replaced in toto by English alternatives such as such as, that is, and so on and so on. Persis Howe of the Government Digital Service announced the change in a blog. Prima facie, you’d think this was simple dumbing down, but Howe did claim a practical reason. “We’ve found that several programs that read webpages for those with visual impairment read ‘eg’ incorrectly,” she explained. They just say “egg”, much to the amusement of the visually impaired. The GDS works under the banner of “plain English”, which is a noble cause. While there is something rather magnificent about Sir John Chilcot and an unnamed spy chatting in quotes from the Aeneid during the Iraq Inquiry, to most of us this stuff is incomprehensible. Worse, it gives the impression that if you want to get anywhere in Britain you have to be able to smile convincingly when someone says “Tendebantque manus ripae ulterioris amore”. However, I do wonder whether Howe and her colleagues ought to think about adding a de minimis rule to the government style guide. I don’t doubt their bona fides. Clearly, in these turbulent times, it is important work to stop blind people sniggering at official documents, but there is also such a thing as fiddling about for the sake of it. When English speakers use words from Latin, or any other language, they become – ipso facto – English words. The GDS style guide does not ban CV or alias or alibi or 6am or 9pm, for the good reason that it would be ridiculous. The existence of an English alternative to eg does not make it de facto plainer. It just makes more work for the government’s style monitors. “Cui bono?” I am tempted to ask.
Jermain Defoe brace seals win for Sunderland to deepen Aston Villa woes It is a year since Jermain Defoe became Sunderland’s highest paid player after arriving from FC Toronto. Since then Gus Poyet, Dick Advocaat and now Sam Allardyce have all struggled to fit the former England striker into their starting XIs and there has been interminable debate about whether he should be off-loaded. Along the way though Defoe has scored a few vital goals and none more so than the pair he registered in the second half here. Accommodated on Allardcye’s team sheet as a lone striker supported by Adam Johnson in a new “in the hole” role, he justified such faith by reviving Sunderland’s survival hopes as they ended a run of five straight defeats. In truth Defoe’s contribution helped airbrush the flaws out of a less than convincing overall Sunderland performance on a day when the expression on Rémi Garde’s face confirmed that his side are all but consigned to the Championship. Villa have still to win since Garde succeeded Tim Sherwood and, afterwards he prompted questions about his future in the Midlands by body-swerving the post-match press conferences. Instead the Frenchman boarded the bus waiting to transport Villa to Newcastle airport. Once there, the temptation to check in to a flight bound for Paris rather Birmingham must have been overwhelming for a manager who declined to shake Allardyce’s hand at the final whistle. Victory kept Sunderland 19th but they now have 15 points, seven more than a Villa side increasingly stranded at the bottom. “Our situation is still dire,” said Allardyce. “We’re still threatened by relegation. We’re a long way from being safe. But when we needed someone to win this game we had Jermain Defoe. “There’s been a big thing about Jermain not being able to play up front but maybe he can play as a lone striker after all. If someone like Adam Johnson plays behind him and gets closer to him, maybe it can work.” Garde had evidently worked out a gameplan targeting Patrick van Aanholt’s defensive weaknesses at left-back. Accordingly Leandro Bacuna ran at him at every opportunity and, at the end of one such advance, Bacuna crossed invitingly to Jordan Veretout at the far post. When Veretout stretched to unleash a low volley, Vito Mannone – once again preferred to Costel Pantilimon in the home goal – did very well to palm it to safety. All clever movement and slick little passes while frequently operating behind Rudy Gestede, Jack Grealish was, albeit all too briefly, lending Villa an air of sophistication. Worryingly for Allardyce, Sunderland’s defence seemed to be having trouble decoding his passing radar. Indeed it was all going rather well for the visitors until Van Aanholt collected Yann M’Vila’s pass, galloped down the flank and dispatched a low, speculative, 25-yard shot which struck Micah Richards and, deflecting off the defender, trickled past a wrong-footed Brad Guzan. In a very Gallic gesture of displeasure Garde wrinkled his nose. Very much against the run of play, this cruellest of deflections arrived at a moment when Sunderland fans had turned decidedly edgy. Yet for all Villa’s dominance of possession, for all the pleasing little individual cameos from Bacuna their final balls – and particularly those to Gestede – lacked the requisite quality. Gradually Grealish also became a cause for concern, fading fast, he drifted to the game’s margins just when Villa needed him most. Allardyce’s manic technical area gum‑chewing suggested he was not overly struck with his own side’s performance either. Quite apart from offering minimal attacking threat Sunderland’s inability to keep the ball prompted alarm. Attempting to deconstruct them, Garde replaced Grealish with Adam Traoré. It was to prove an inspired switch. When Borini conceded possession, Traoré simply hared down Villa’s right, dodged the poorly positioned Van Aanholt and, with Wes Brown also left trailing, delivered a deep cross in Carles Gil’s direction. That dispatch prompted a simply stunning goal. Showing off sublime skill, Gil beat Mannone courtesy of a fabulous volley hooked acrobatically over a shoulder. Wow. Suddenly Sunderland seemed to have one foot in the second tier. The moment had come for Defoe – initially very big on economy of effort – to use all that cleverly conserved energy to remind everyone of his enduring ability and, latching on to Johnson’s pass, the 33-year-old duly obliged. Benefiting from Joleon Lescott’s exceptionally generous defending, he was able to turn goalwards before expertly squeezing a left-footed, near-post shot beyond Guzan. With Villa now looking horribly lightweight, Defoe intensified Garde’s woes after connecting with Ola Toivonen’s cross and sweeping a first-time, 12-yard shot home in stoppage time. A hat-trick beckoned when he subsequently pounced on a mistake from Guzan but the resultant effort was controversially deemed offside. At the whistle, Garde could not wait to beat a hasty retreat.
We’ve seen Donald Trump before – his name was Silvio Berlusconi We keep being told that the Donald Trump phenomenon means we have entered the era of post-fact politics. Yet, I would argue, post-fact politics has been tarnishing democracy for some time. Twenty-two years ago a successful businessman sent a VHS tape to Italy’s news channels. It showed him sitting in a (fake) office. He read a pre-prepared statement via an autocue. The man’s name was Silvio Berlusconi, and he was announcing that he was, in his words, “taking the field”. The first reaction was derision. Opposition politicians saw his political project (the formation of a “movement” called Forza Italia – Go for it, Italy – just months ahead of a crucial general election) as a joke. Some claimed a stocking had been put over the camera to soften the impact of Berlusconi’s face. But Forza Italia soon became the biggest “party”. In the working-class Communist citadel of Mirafiori Sud in Turin, an unknown psychiatrist standing for Berlusconi’s movement beat a long-standing trade unionist. Berlusconi had not just won, he had also stolen the left’s clothes and some of its supporters. That first government was short lived, but Berlusconi would dominate Italian politics for the next 20 years – winning elections in 2001 and 2008 and losing by a handful of seats in 2006. In terms of days in office, Berlusconi ranks as Italy’s third longest-serving prime minister, behind Mussolini and the great liberal of 19th-century Italy, Giovanni Giolitti. The parallels between Berlusconi and Trump are striking. Both are successful businessman who struggle with “murky” aspects linked to their companies – tax, accounting, offshore companies. Berlusconi was convicted of tax fraud in 2013, which effectively put an end to his political career. But business success and huge wealth was part of his political appeal, as they are for Trump. Beyond wealth, Berlusconi, like Trump, always painted himself as an outsider, as anti-establishment, even when he was prime minister. And, like Trump, Berlusconi’s appeal was populist and linked to his individual “personality”. Berlusconi’s personal-business political model has since been followed by others in Italy. It could be argued that both Beppe Grillo’s populist anti-political Five Star Movement and Matteo Renzi’s insider-outsider appeal (until recently) have been created very much in Berlusconi’s image. One could go so far as to say Berlusconi transformed politics. The mass parties of the postwar period had become increasingly irrelevant, but he didn’t need a party just as Trump doesn’t really need the Republican party. So-called gaffes were a frequent part of Berlusconi’s political strategy – a dog-whistle strategy that included frequent recourse to sexist, homophobic and racist stereotypes, and reference to his belief that he was irresistible to women. He flaunted his Don Giovanni image, but also attempted to keep a parallel reputation as a family man, whose main concern was the welfare of his five children. His electoral campaigns were all about him. Nothing else mattered. He dominated the agenda from start to finish. When the former mayor of Rome Walter Veltroni tried to run a campaign against Berlusconi by not mentioning Berlusconi, he was heavily defeated. Silvio’s “gaffes” would usually be followed by claims that he had been “misunderstood” or was the victim of a “hostile media”. He was also reluctant to accept the verdict of the electorate as final when he lost. He would make frequent (and unsubstantiated) claims of electoral fraud and ballot-stuffing. Remind you of anyone? He also created a set of enemies against which he could mobilise his followers: the judiciary, the media (despite owning much of it), politics itself, Communism, women (he often commented on the appearance of female opponents) and the EU and the euro. He presented himself as a victim of political correctness gone mad, an ordinary/extraordinary man speaking his mind. He promised the world, and it mattered little if he was quickly proved wrong, or had no intention of fulfilling any of his promises. Berlusconi knew that many of the electorate had short memories indeed. And as with Trump (at least until the “locker-room” video), Berlusconi’s scandals had little effect on his support. The numerous trials and journalistic scoops regarding Berlusconi’s private and business lives often seemed merely to reinforce his appeal. The message sent out was, for many, an attractive one. Be like me. Don’t pay taxes. Enjoy life and make money. Say what you want. We won’t bother you. He became so powerful at one stage that he even tried to make himself immune to prosecution, through a law passed by his own government. Luckily, Italy’s constitution forbade such a monstrosity. But the fact that it was even contemplated was worrying. Mass opposition to Berlusconi rose and fell at various times, and many took to the streets to protest. Yet his appeal also had roots deep in Italian society – and in a hatred of politics and politicians that has since moved onto other forms of populism. The Berlusconi phenomenon shows that a post-truth politician can rise to power in one of the world’s strongest and richest countries. The lesson for America is that for far too long Berlusconi was treated as a joke and a clown. By the end, nobody was laughing. Twenty years of Berlusconi at the centre of the system had a deeply damaging impact on Italy’s body politic and democratic culture and the wounds are by no means healed. Win or lose, Trump has shifted the terms of political discourse, campaigning and organisation. As with the Berlusconi era, things will never be the same again.
Was Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrong to weigh in on Donald Trump? In an interview published by the New York Times, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the US supreme court justice, became the first justice in decades to publicly provide her opinion of a potential president in the midst of the campaign when she told Adam Liptak: “I can’t imagine what this place would be – I can’t imagine what the country would be – with Donald Trump as our president.” She then added that her late husband would have seen Trump’s election as a reason to emigrate. “‘Now it’s time for us to move to New Zealand,’” she suggested her husband would have said after a Trump win. Ginsburg’s comments ignited the inevitable firestorm, with some commentators – particularly on the right – already suggesting that the justice ought to recuse herself if the November election results in another Bush v Gore-like case before the court. Frequent Ginsburg critic Ed Whelan, who once clerked for the now deceased justice Antonin Scalia and now runs the conservative Ethics and Public Policy Center, told the Washington Post: “I think this exceeds the others in terms of her indiscretions.” Even Dahlia Lithwick, the senior legal correspondent at Slate, expressed surprise that Ginsburg would weigh in on a Trump presidency in 2016. “With an election pending? Wow,” she told the . But Scott Lemieux, a political science professor and US Opinion contributor, said her comments were essentially unsurprising to everyone except for the fact that she stated them publicly. “Did anybody think she’d be a Trump supporter?” he asked rhetorically of the liberal-leaning justice. “I don’t think we need to pretend that judges are apolitical for them to be effective,” he added. Still, with all the uproar, the question remains what, if any, practical implications there are for Ginsburg’s statements – indiscreet or not, and surprising or not? Lithwick noted ethics rules that bind other US judges don’t apply to supreme court judges – so it would be up to Ginsburg to recuse herself. “The justices are arbiters of their own recusals,” she said. The Northwestern University law professor Steve Lubet said: “There would definitely be calls for her recusal in a rerun of Bush v Gore,” if the court were once again called upon to decide the results of a presidential election. But he added: “Under current supreme court practice, the decision would be solely her own, with no appeal or other recourse.” And as Lemieux said: “I’m sure she would say, ‘Who I’d vote for has no bearing on my decision in a legal case’ ... She wouldn’t recuse herself and she’d be right not to.” He added: “Did anyone think that Antonin Scalia didn’t care if George W Bush or Al Gore was elected president? We know Sandra Day O’Connor did,” though her comments came at a private party on election night in 2000. Both justices ruled in favor of Bush on both questions put before the court, in effect granting Bush his win in Florida and thus the presidency. “If no supreme court justice is allowed to have a political opinion, then no one should have ruled on Bush v Gore,” said Lemieux. And there are other, more obvious precedents for politically active judges in recent history: Lubet pointed out that, in the late 60s, “Justice Fortas served as a political adviser to [then president] Lyndon B Johnson,” though since then the justices have “avoided overt political entanglements”. Lubet also noted that, in the past 100 years, judges have been more politically active than Fortas, let alone Ginsburg or Scalia. “Salmon P Chase and Charles Evans Hughes both sought the presidency – the latter resigned from the court to accept the Republican nomination in 1916, and was reappointed to the court [as chief justice] in 1930,” he said. “William O Douglas was said to have sought the vice-presidential nomination in 1944,” he added. “Another contender was former US supreme court justice James Byrnes.”
Pep Guardiola relishes City’s first test against Antonio Conte’s Chelsea Considering Saturday’s high‑stakes visit of Chelsea Pep Guardiola was breezy when discussing the challenge of Antonio Conte’s Premier League leaders. There was a quip about still having hair “a long time ago”, when he played against the Italian in Serie A, and a playful grimace when one questioner confused the former Juventus manager with Carlo Ancelotti, a predecessor at Stamford Bridge. Conte, it is understood, was City’s second choice behind Guardiola to replace Manuel Pellegrini and the Catalan was serious when discussing his counterpart’s quality as well as a challenging December programme which starts with Chelsea and includes Liverpool and Arsenal following a trip to the champions Leicester City. “This month is so important. We’re going to see our level. I’m not thinking about what happens if we win or we don’t win the games,” said Guardiola. “I’m most thinking about what will be our level and if we will be able to fight until the last moments of the season. I’m curious about how we compete, how our football will be against these three, four really good teams. After that we’re going to analyse, to keep going until the end. That is what I am concerned about most in this moment. “I’m not just thinking about three points or drawing or losing the game. I want to see how my team react against the good teams. Against Barcelona for example, in the Champions League, we were OK, we were there, we played good. I’m curious to see my team against top players and top teams. “Conte is without doubt one of the best, maybe the best, coach in the world right now. [Chelsea] were contenders to win the Premier League from the beginning. Now, maybe more than before. It’s a good test for us; it is the first time we are going to face each other. It’s good to play against him. He did an exceptional job in Turin [with Juventus] and in the national job. It doesn’t matter if it is Serie A or the national team, you realise his strengths. “He has started with maybe not good results but they have won their last seven games, conceding one goal. That says a lot about how good they are.” Chelsea are a point better off than City, a surprise perhaps, given Guardiola’s pedigree and the Blues’ travails last season when they finished 10th, having sacked José Mourinho before Christmas. The high regard is clearly mutual between coaches who have yet to face off despite their considerable experience in the dugout. Conte said: “I have great respect for him because Pep likes to study football, to find new solutions always. It’s not easy to transfer these ideas to different teams a few times. But he’s a fantastic manager doing fantastic work with Manchester City. When you see this team, I recognise his idea of football. Saturday, for us, it will be a very tough test.” It will certainly be a contrast in styles; Guardiola’s is a ball-hogging philosophy, while Conte’s is more pragmatic, hoping to hit teams hard on the break. He said: “Every team has its own characteristics or ideas. All Guardiola’s are about possession for many minutes, to find the ball between the lines, to find the one-v-ones on the flank. But I think that every single manager has his own idea of football. Very simply, I’m more straight towards the goal, less possession than in this case. But there are a lot of ways. For this reason I always have great respect for every idea of different managers.” Chelsea’s results have taken off since the 3-0 defeat by Arsenal in late September. Arsène Wenger’s side were 3-0 ahead when Conte pulled off Cesc Fàbregas on 55 minutes and brought on Marcos Alonso. The Spaniard went to left wing-back as the coach switched to a three-man defence that featured Gary Cahill, David Luiz and Branislav Ivanovic. The 3-4-3 shape has been retained ever since, with Cahill, David Luiz and César Azpilicueta lining up as centre-backs. They did not concede a goal until Christian Eriksen’s in the 11th minute in last weekend’s 2-1 comeback win against Tottenham, as Chelsea reeled off a remarkable seven consecutive league victories. Guardiola has analysed the strategy that has transformed Conte’s side. “When they have the ball, they play like a 3-4-3; but they defend with many players behind the ball,” he said. “They have conceded just one goal [in their winning run]. They are doing well. When I was at Munich a lot of teams played with four or five at the back, closing the space down in the middle. They allow you to cross the ball from wide because they have five players in the box. “We will be cautious when they have the ball. When we have the ball we will attack as much as possible. They are so good when they arrive in the box; they score goals. They don’t need to create too many chances to score goals. They are solid but we are going to play with the quality players we have, attacking the best way as possible. All the guys are so good on the counterattack.” Guardiola gave a trademark response when asked whether a draw would be a good result. “It depends on the way we play,” he said. “For example the draw against Middlesbrough was not good, the way we played. Sometimes you deserve a draw because you play badly. It depends on the game. But of course we’re going to play against the top of the league and it will be our level against that team.” Guardiola’s levity even extended to Conte’s feverish touchline antics and whether these are more influential than his own. “I don’t know who moves their arms quicker, him or Pep. Does it help the team? I don’t think so. They don’t hear you,” he said. “I’m not talking about Antonio but I think I [would] confuse them. But I cannot control it. “I don’t think it will help a lot to speak with the players; they play, not me. Sometimes you have to take decisions quickly, sometimes you are involved in the game. You want to help them to make it better, you want to see them, correct something. But you have 10 minutes at half-time. OK you can correct something if the game stops. Hopefully in the future I can improve it – be more relaxed and calm – that would be good for me.”
Rokia Traoré: Né So review – pained and intimate set from Malian singer Rokia Traoré has changed direction, yet again. Her last album, Beautiful Africa, was her most commercial, rock-influenced set to date, memorable for its blend of energy, anger and fine, personal songs. Now she’s back, with the same producer, John Parish, the same instrumental lineup (guitars, including her own electric guitar, bass, drums and ngoni) but a very different approach. The slinky, repeated riffs are more sparse than before, and the mood is darker and more personal, with quietly urgent, thoughtful songs of advice to Mali’s politicians and a rejection of violence influenced by events in her homeland. The best songs are left until last: Kolokani, a reflection on African village life and values; a breathy, soulful reworking of Billie Holiday’s Strange Fruit; and the partly spoken title track, which concerns the refugee crisis. Less commercial than her last album, maybe, but it’s a finely sung, pained and intimate set.
European commission plans to relicense controversial weedkiller The European commission plans to give a new 15-year lease to a controversial weedkiller that was deemed “probably carcinogenic to humans” by the World Health Organisation’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). A draft implementing law seen by the says the commission has decided it is appropriate to renew the licence for glyphosate after a lengthy review, which sparked a scientific storm. Glyphosate is a key ingredient in bestselling herbicides such as Monsanto’s Roundup brand and is so widely used that traces of its residues are routinely found in British breads. The EU’s food watchdog, the European Food Safety Authority (Efsa) ruled in November that the substance was unlikely to be carcinogenic, in a move welcomed by the agricultural industry. But that advice triggered a backlash, with 96 prominent experts, including almost the whole IARC team, taking the unusual step of calling for the Efsa decision to be disregarded. The Efsa ruling had relied on six industry-funded and partly unpublished studies and was “not credible because it is not supported by the evidence”, the scientists wrote in a letter (pdf) to the EU’s health commissioner, Vytenis Andriukaitis. Earlier this week, another 14 scientists signed a consensus statement in the Environmental Health journal, saying regulatory estimates of tolerable exposure levels for glyphosate were based on outdated science. The Labour party’s shadow environment secretary, Kerry McCarthy, said the public had understandable concerns about the possible impact of substances such as glyphosate on their health. She told the : “Public policy should always be evidence based and guided by the best available science. There must be transparency and accountability throughout the process, with the evidence behind the policy making published and made available, so that the public can have full confidence in – or the information they need to challenge – this decision.” The commission’s draft renewal says there was an “extraordinarily high” number of comments from the public and member states during the review. The paper does propose some restrictions on the use of glyphosate. National authorities should enforce risk-mitigation measures such as protective clothing for crop sprayers, and ensure the glyphosate used in herbicides they may authorise is the same variety as was tested by Efsa. The renewal calls for further studies on the endocrine disrupting potential of glyphosate to be completed before August. However, environmentalists said the proposal flew in the face of a censure of the commission by the EU ombudsman, Emily O’Reilly, earlier this week for accepting proof of a pesticide’s safety after its use had already been authorised. Franziska Achterberg, Greenpeace EU’s food policy director, said: “Glyphosate was once described by Monsanto as ‘safe as table salt’. Now science is telling us that it’s a serious threat for our health and the environment. Ignoring the evidence for another 15 years will cost us dearly. Europe needs an exit strategy from chemical pesticides.” EU national representatives will vote on whether to relicense glyphosate at a meeting in Brussels on 7 March. A spokesman for the European Crop Protection Association said: “If the European commission deems a renewal appropriate, we would hope that EU member states would then support such a proposal.” Public fears about glyphosate were evident again this week as about 3,000 boxes of “organic” women’s panty liners were removed from store shelves in France and Canada after they were found to contain traces of glyphosate.
The Republican debate sounded reasonable. That doesn't mean it was Just because it’s quieter doesn’t make it any smarter. Thursday night’s Republican presidential debate in Miami – one of what physics tells us could theoretically be millions – was a subdued affair, especially compared to the flailing, hair-pulling, spitball-shooting daycare fight of last week. But the best thing you can say about it is that a controlled and even-toned insane statement can be just as menacing and just as insane. The immediate concern for the other Republican candidates is that the beast seems to be learning. Donald Trump’s opening statement actually sounded as if it had been prepared and considered, a disciplined departure from his previous free associations about winning, doing the opposite of not-winning, then getting sick of it. Now that the finish line is in sight, the raw, ravening animal that is the spirit of the Trump campaign appears willing to play at looking tame if it will snooker more squares on the way to the ballot box. It doesn’t mean it’s any less threatening. When questioned on a recent incident in which a Trump fan at a rally in North Carolina sucker-punched a black protester in the face, Trump expressed dislike for the incident. But he understood. His supporters “have anger that’s unbelievable. They love this country. They don’t like seeing bad trade deals. They don’t like losing their jobs.” Then he defended violent statements he’d made about protesters in the past by talking about “some protesters who are bad dudes … they are swinging, they are really dangerous … We had a couple big powerful strong guys doing damage to people.” Bottom line: these sorts of things are bad, but when they happen, the protesters have it coming. A decent chunk of the debate audience cheered, by the way. That’s an important thing to remember, because the rest of the GOP field would prefer voters to think that the Trump campaign is a recent, invasive violent species in their ecosystem, rather than a more aggressive mutation of the same species. Demonizing the left, minorities and foreigners as a mortal cancer growing unchecked within the American body politic has pretty much been the playbook since 1968. Angrily rejecting them is not only necessary but a constitutionally protected right for the good sorts of Americans. And if that observation seems a little abstruse, then there was Ted Cruz to clarify it for you. You see, he understands the anger of people at Trump rallies because Barack Obama is an imperial president and “Washington isn’t listening to people”. He understands violence, because he can pivot it to his brand: #MakeDCListen. And as for Trump, Cruz, Republicans in general – they don’t need to take steps to condemn violence themselves, because curbing it is impossible anyway. It’s Obama’s fault. We just have to wait out the clock on his hate-inspiring dystopia. Things did not get any more sensible on foreign policy. When asked to defend his previous statements about going after terrorists’ families and killing them, which is a war crime, Trump said that the United States cannot be hamstrung by laws. Isis can drown people in cages, but we can’t waterboard. Solution: “We have to obey the laws, but we have to expand those laws, because we have to be able to fight on somewhat of an equal footing”. Addington, Bybee and Yoo would be proud. When asked for comment, Marco Rubio distanced himself from Trump by essentially saying the exact same thing. We will not go after the families of terrorists, just the terrorists themselves. We will do that by expanding the army, navy and air force – three notoriously pinpoint-precise entities that historically exhibit near priest-like restraint and never kill things in the same vicinity as terrorists, like families. He also repeated his call to take terrorists to Guantánamo and do everything we can to find out everything we know. It’s a cute allusion to indefinite detention and torture, which is a war crime. Ted Cruz did not repeat his earlier calls to carpet bomb areas of the Middle East where Isis hides – which would not only be just as futile as every other historical incidence of carpet bombing, but would also be a war crime. His followers have probably not forgotten, though. If you want to round out the depressing tour of insanity, there was also Marco Rubio’s statement on climate change, which breaks down to these component parts: America is not a planet. Our doing things does not stop others from doing things, so all action is futile. Renewable energy will only ever cost more money that fossil fuels, and asking people to pay more on their electric bill now will be much more ruinous than, say, relocating tens of millions of Florida residents to high ground later. He lives in Miami, and it is built on a swamp. Singling out Rubio might seem unfair, like physically kicking a rejected contestant out the door, but his responses to what even the American military and intelligence committee considers a massive coming global security and economic crisis are no more or less intelligent than anyone else’s, except Kasich, who matters almost as little. If there is any lesson here, it is that a measured professional-sounding set of stupid ideas is no less dangerous than one screamed from a step-pyramid of upended shopping carts. It just makes it easier for people enamored of unreasonable things to subscribe to such stupid ideas in public. That’s a lesson Donald Trump has learned, and he ended the evening with a Bernie Sanders-esque sales pitch about all the new voters he’s attracting. “Embrace these people, who for the first time ever love the Republican party,” he said. “Be smart and unify.” He just may make it happen.
Michael Gove's wife exposes doubts about Boris Johnson with email blunder Michael Gove’s wife has accidentally emailed a member of the public with worries about Boris Johnson’s popularity with the Tory membership and with media bosses Rupert Murdoch and Paul Dacre. The email from Sarah Vine, a Daily Mail columnist, also contained advice to Gove not to guarantee his support for Johnson’s leadership bid without a specific job offer. Johnson and Gove have been in talks for days about running on what many Tory MPs regard as a dream ticket after their successful campaign to leave the EU. Johnson is expected to announce his leadership candidacy on Thursday, while Gove has been tipped for the role of chancellor, deputy prime minister or foreign secretary and lead negotiator with Brussels about leaving the EU. Passed to the and other media outlets, the email sent on Tuesday morning and entitled “thoughts” was intended for Gove himself as well as advisers Henry Cook and Beth Armstrong. It exposes Vine’s involvement in Gove’s political career and hints that there are potential sources of disagreement already about the role he could play in a government led by Johnson. The email read: “Very important that we focus on the individual obstacles and thoroughly overcome them before moving to the next. I really think Michael needs to have a Henry or a Beth with him for this morning’s crucial meetings. “One simple message: you MUST have SPECIFIC from Boris OTHERWISE you cannot guarantee your support. The details can be worked out later on, but without that you have no leverage. “Crucially, the membership will not have the necessary reassurance to back Boris, neither will Dacre/Murdoch, who instinctively dislike Boris but trust your ability enough to support a Boris Gove ticket. “Do not concede any ground. Be your stubborn best. “GOOD LUCK.” A spokesman for Michael Gove said: “We don’t comment on private email exchanges or conversations.” But a source close to the justice secretary said it was Vine’s personal opinion, adding: “Obviously Boris and Michael have had many discussions about how the campaign will proceed.” Vine gave an account of Gove’s referendum night in her Daily Mail column. She said he went to bed at 10.30pm and slept soundly until his phone rang at 4.45am on the morning of Friday 24 June and he was informed that Britain had voted to leave the EU. According to Vine, “there was a short pause while he put on his glasses. ‘Gosh,’ he said. ‘I suppose I had better get up.’” On the Friday morning, Vine said, she fetched two mugs of strong tea, and as she pulled aside the bedroom curtains she found teams of reporters were already doorstepping them. Live pictures of their house were being broadcast on Sky News. “By now his phone was buzzing and beeping like a demented frog. ‘You were only supposed to blow the bloody doors off,’ I said … In other words, you’ve really torn it now.” A text from a friend warned her: “Whatever you do, don’t do a Cherie Blair. Concealer, blusher, eyeliner, lipstick: the works.” Their hastily abandoned plan for the day had been for their eldest daughter and two friends to go to Gove’s office at the Ministry of Justice, but on the school run she learned that the prime minister had resigned. “This was absolutely categorically not meant to happen. David Cameron was not supposed to go. This was not what this referendum was about; that was not why Michael backed leave,” Vine wrote. She complained about the reaction to the referendum result on social media, saying the vitriol was not from “your average troll”. “In a matter of hours, everything sunny about human nature seems to have been sucked out of the atmosphere and you are drenched in little 140-character balls of bitterness,” she wrote. “Many of the most passionate remainers are well-educated, articulate people in positions of authority, used to getting their own way … Almost overnight those of us on the winning side suddenly found ourselves recast as knuckle-dragging thugs, small-minded Little Englanders whose short-sighted bigotry had brought the nation to its knees while making sweet Italian waitresses cry and stopping small Polish children from going to school.”
Trump transition provokes cries of nepotism – but can anything be done? President-elect Donald Trump’s decision to bring his children into his inner circle, alongside far-right adviser Stephen Bannon, has provoked concerns about nepotism, ethics and national security, and experts worry he will go unchecked in office. Trump can easily ignore calls to act otherwise, experts say, and critics will have few options even after he assumes the Oval Office. On Thursday, his transition team handed out official photographs showing Trump with Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe, in the gilded rooms and hallways at Trump Tower in New York. His elder daughter, Ivanka, and her husband Jared Kushner were in tow, neither of whom have national government security clearance. The photo coincided with news that Kushner has sought legal advice on whether he could join the Trump administration, a move that could violate federal anti-nepotism law and risk legal challenges and political backlash, according to the New York Times. The president-elect has kept his two adult sons, Donald Jr and Eric, close to his transition team as well. He has insisted that, after inauguration, he will let his children run his business interests while he attends to the duties of commander in chief. Bannon, a former Goldman Sachs executive and CEO of the far-right, conspiratorial Breitbart News, was only the first of several highly controversial cabinet appointments. On Friday Trump nominated Senator Jeff Sessions to be attorney general, and the retired general Mike Flynn to be national security adviser, leaving progressives and ethics watchers reeling. Norman Eisen, a former special counsel and ethics adviser to Barack Obama, accused Trump of acting “like something out of a tin-pot oligarchy”. Writing in Fortune, he said “this is not the way we behave” in America. But there is no evidence that Trump intends to heed such criticism, nor that he could have to confront it legally. “The key is, he is smashing norms and making his own, but that does not mean he is violating the law in any way,” Robert Rizzi, a government compliance and ethics lawyer in Washington and a visiting professor at Harvard Law School, told the . This may not even change much once Trump holds the Oval Office. His family, however, will have to tread cautiously. A federal nepotism law, enacted after President John F Kennedy made his brother, Robert, attorney general, prevents a public official from appointing a relative “to a civilian position in the agency in which he is serving or over which he exercises jurisdiction or control”. But as long as Kushner and the Trump children are not federal employees, whether paid or unpaid, but are simply “hanging around the White House a lot”, one ethics expert said, they may dance around the law. The expert, who asked not to be named because of current representation for government figures, said that if Trump’s children and son-in-law continued talking to Trump without giving any administration staffers instructions, then it would be difficult to find a law that they had violated. Hillary Clinton took a formal role in Bill Clinton’s White House to try to achieve healthcare reform, but she had an official position, first lady of the United States. She was able to proceed unimpeded legally, although her efforts failed and she suffered enormous political fallout after the project. Ethics watchdogs may still try to sue Trump if they can find conflicts of interests with his business, apparent nepotism for his children, or efforts to promote his or his children’s brands from the presidential podium. There are many loopholes, however. Kushner, with the ear of the president, can define himself merely as a consultant or an informal adviser – a “wise man” in the style of unofficial senior advisers who had the ear of Lyndon Johnson in the Vietnam war era. Though Trump has defied protocol in the limbo before his inauguration – holding court in a skyscraper, shutting down central Manhattan – his deviations may be shocking, and nothing more. “President-elect Trump is still a private citizen, and it would seem to me that the prime minister of Japan met with a private citizen and a variety of other citizens,” said Ryan Meade, law professor at Loyola University and director of the center for compliance studies. “He is not a government official yet, he can’t rep the United States. He certainly could discuss where his policy would go in future, but he cannot bind the US in any way.” Meade compared the meeting to Trump’s visit with Enrique Peña Nieto, the president of Mexico, during the campaign. “His legal status has not changed. It’s an informal meeting, trying to build a personal relationship, and it’s not technically troubling that there were people in that meeting or the meeting with Abe who did not have security clearance,” Meade added. Once Trump is president, Meade said, he and the people around him will need security clearances to meet foreign heads of state. The expert who requested anonymity noted that Trump has also, apparently, refused assistance from state or defense department officials, who normally start to advise a president-elect. The rebuff would ruffle feathers in Washington, but not in much of the US. “The public does not care. They voted for change,” the expert said. Tradition dictates, too, that the president-elect first call the prime minister of Britain after winning the election. Trump did not know or care. He spoke to many leaders, including Vladimir Putin of Russia, Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and others, before finally having what appeared to be a casual conversation with Theresa May. “It all looks terrible,” the expert said. “His whole transition is a train wreck. Some things will be different when he is in power, but not to the extent some people might expect or like. Don’t conflate norms with what is legal or illegal.”
Transgender people being let down by NHS, say MPs Britain has a long way to go to ensure equality for transgender people, according to the first report on the issue produced by a UK parliamentary committee, which said the NHS is letting down the trans community. The cross-party parliamentary inquiry on the issue was scathing about the health service, which it said was failing in its legal duty in providing equal access to services. The report on transgender equality stated: “GPs too often lack understanding and in some cases this leads to appropriate care not being provided.” It called for a root-and-branch review of the health service’s treatment of transgender people by the summer. The report called on the government to produce a new strategy for full transgender equality within six months, warning that an existing plan issued in 2011 remains “largely unimplemented”. The reported concluded there was overwhelming evidence of serious deficiencies in the quality and capacity of NHS gender identity services, particularly in waiting times for first appointments and surgery – with recent reports indicating waiting times of between two and three years for access to some of the adult clinics. Witnesses who had provided evidence to the parliamentary committee on women and equalities reported how trans people face significant difficulties when accessing general NHS services. Jess Bradley of Action for Trans Health, a campaign group seeking to improve trans people’s access to healthcare, said that in the NHS there was a lack of understanding and lack of cultural competency around trans issues. Bradley said: “We do see a lot of trans people being denied treatment. You find a lot of trans people are passed from pillar to post.” Specifically addressing GPs, Bradley said: “A lot of GPs deny healthcare to trans people illegally, based on the fact that they do not agree with the choices that they [trans patients] have made.” James Barrett, president of the British Association of Gender Identity Specialists (BAGIS), a group of health professionals and scientists, said: “The casual, sometimes unthinking transphobia of primary care, accident and emergency services and inpatient surgical admissions continue[s] to be striking.” NHS England acknowledged the criticism, and wrote to the committee about how historically transgender and non-binary people have reported poor experience of engagement, with the group becoming “hidden”. The health service said it had now established a transgender and non-binary network with over 150 members, while workshops on the issue had been held. After receiving 250 witness statements and five oral sessions, the report listed 30 recommendations for change to improve services for trans people, in a wide range of policy areas. As many as 650,000 people in the UK are “gender incongruent to some degree”, and the report stated the transphobia experienced by some of these individuals had serious results. The report said it is believed that around one third of transgender adults and half of young people attempt suicide. Maria Miller, the committee chairwoman, said: “Our report challenges attitudes towards trans people, calling for them to be treated equally and fairly. Media coverage of transgender issues has improved a great deal in recent years, but it still tends to focus on transgender celebrities. “There is a stark contrast with the day-to-day experiences of many ordinary individual trans people, who still endure routine hostility and discrimination,.” Among the recommendations, the report called for a reduction from 18 to 16 in the age limit for obtaining official recognition of a new gender without parents’ consent; mandatory training for police officers on transphobic hate crimes; and an end to the “outing” of transgender people in court cases. There are calls in the report for an introduction of the option to record gender as “X” in a passport as well as moving towards non-gendering official records – with gender only noted where it is relevant. The report also tackled the issue of language that is used, stating there should be the replacement of the terms “gender reassignment” and “transsexual” with “gender identity” in equality legislation. There were also calls for tougher action on “unacceptable” levels of bullying in universities and further education colleges, including gender identity awareness training for all staff, as well as making sports organisations aware that exclusion of transgender players on grounds of safety or fair competition is rarely justified. The inquiry had heard evidence that numbers of children and teenagers coming out as transgender have increased fourfold over the past five years, and that as many as 1,000 young people have transitioned to a new gender with the support of their parents. As a result, consideration should be given to quicker provision of puberty-blocking drugs – which delay the onset of adulthood to give young people more time to consider whether they want to press ahead with gender reassignment before they develop adult sexual characteristics – and cross-sex hormone treatments, said the report. But the committee stopped short of backing calls for official recognition of changed gender for children aged under 16, warning the government should consider possible risks before taking this step. Jackie Driver, lead director for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) issues at the Equality and Human Rights Commission, said: “We welcome today’s landmark report on transgender equality. Despite the marked progress that has been made towards achieving equality for trans people, prejudice and barriers still remain.” The Gender Recognition Act 2004, which the report says is now outdated, for the first time allowed trans people – who identify with a different gender to the one assigned to them at birth – to be legally recognised in their new gender. The Equality Act 2010 made it illegal to discriminate against trans people.
We still need humans to identify sexually explicit images online – for now When Peter, an analyst at the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), is on “hashing” duty, he might look at 1,000 images of child sexual abuse in a single day. His job is to filter them. Some of the photographs the IWF picks up on its trawls of the web, or that members of the public send to the organisation, fall outside criminal boundaries: one might, for example, show a toddler working on a sandcastle. Others depict monstrous abuse. Sitting in an upstairs office in a Cambridge business park, with the blinds drawn for precaution, Peter – one of 13 analysts at the IWF – dutifully clicks through the daily queue of images and videos, marking the difference. Every hour he takes a break. “Sometimes you see something that takes you by surprise,” says the former RAF intelligence analyst, “and you have to take a long sit-down.” But each photo he hashes as abusive – from Category C (indecent) to Category A (penetrative) – can swiftly be blocked wherever it appears on the public internet. That is why Peter, a father of two, does the job. On Tuesday, Jeremy Hunt suggested it might not be necessary for much longer. Technology exists, he said, that can “identify sexually explicit images and prevent [them] being transmitted”; this could facilitate a complete bar on sexting for under-18s. Well, says Peter, he isn’t redundant yet. “It would be amazing,” he says, in a room across the hallway from where IWF staff have just finished a mindfulness session, “if there was a magic brush that could do this kind of job.” Almost all of the “hashing” process runs automatically. The IWF, along with many police forces, uses PhotoDNA, a service Microsoft makes freely available to them. Once an analyst such as Peter has set it in motion, the software takes a digital fingerprint of the image (the “hash”), and adds it to a list of 130,000 the IWF has logged so far. Running the list against all the images uploaded to their platforms, Google, Facebook and Twitter – among others – locate and wipe out any replicas they may inadvertently be hosting. In the past, paedophiles could mark or change the file format of a photograph to fool the hash. But since PhotoDNA was released in 2009, that has become harder. Analysts now spend less time on the same, endlessly recurring stock of images. If there is any benefit to the process still relying on the interpretation of a human eye, it comes in the rare, overwhelming rush of a possible rescue. Shortly after Peter joined the IWF, in 2015, he saw photographs of a girl he did not recognise from the churn of imagery recycled from old videos. It seemed as if her actions were being prompted from outside the frame. “I shouted,” he recalls. Over the following hours, he and the rest of the team frantically mined the images for clues – the clothes on a handrail, the wallpaper – before passing the results to police. A 12-year-old was found and freed from the man who had groomed her online for years. It felt “amazing”. Mostly, though, the analysts stay sane by learning how to switch off, attending their regular mandatory counselling sessions, and via an impressive, if slightly bug-eyed, sense of corporate cheer. One wall inside the hotline office is covered by a large and forcibly bright mural of Sir Giles Gilbert Scott’s red telephone boxes. On a noticeboard, under the label “pet’s corner”, hang goofy pictures of ducks and horses, next to an academic paper on compassion fatigue. As nobody’s surname is mentioned throughout the organisation (“a lot of people on the internet hate us,” says Chris, the hotline manager. “They think we’re ruining it”), staff choose pictures of up-and-at-’em icons – Tom Selleck, Steve McQueen, Penelope Pitstop – to represent them on the noticeboard. Hourly pauses are more than a welfare policy. Seeing horror after horror, Chris explains, may incline staff to read abuse into innocent photos. Could intelligent, unfeeling machines take the job entirely out of human hands, as Hunt suggests? Historically, most image filtering – especially sensitive material involving sex and violence – has needed human guidance. In 2014, Wired magazine picked up on Facebook’s outsourced army of moderators in the developing world, who checked brutal footage against site guidelines, in return for $500 (£400) a month, and little or no support to cope with the inevitable burnout and trauma. It seemed likely to the Register, a slangy and sharp tech website, that the health secretary had simply misunderstood the field: “telling teenagers they are not allowed to do something in order to stop them from doing it has been a uniquely unsuccessful strategy for parents and governments alike throughout history”. But machine-learning entrepreneurs were less quick to criticise. Though David Lissmyr, the founder of Sightengine, believes teenagers will always find a way to sext, he thinks that in theory, “you could create an app that would block the vast majority of images” in real time. Before 2012, computer image recognition was laughably unreliable. On the messageboards of Y Combinator, a Silicon Valley incubator for start-ups, people swapped stories of software mistaking pastrami sandwiches for pornography. But in that year’s ImageNet competition, an annual geek-off in which teams compete to discern whether, for example, an image contains a tiger or not, one team, lead by Alex Krizhevsky, “crushed the competition,” says Lissymyr. Rather than laboriously teaching an algorithm how to see the world – this is a cat, this a cloud – it fed millions of images to a deep-learning programme and, using “neural networks”, the programme learned on its own. Sightengine’s equivalent, having examined hundreds of thousands of nipples, penises and labias, can tell a client in milliseconds if a photograph counts as “NSFW”. Humans are only involved in the most marginal cases – and these are fed back to the programme, smartening it up further. Lately, Facebook, Google and Twitter have bought up a number of companies such as Lissmyr’s. The results are starting to show. In May, Facebook announced that its AI had reported more offensive images than humans had for the first time. Two days after Hunt aired his thoughts, another AI story broke. A team of researchers at iCop (identifying and catching originators in peer-to-peer networks) announced that they had built a toolkit capable of spotting images of child abuse with a high degree of accuracy. “Instead of looking at thousands of images,” says Awais Rashid, of Lancaster University, analysts may only need to examine “tens”. Stopping teenagers from sexting will always be difficult. But, soon, technology might spare the eyes of more men and women such as Peter.
Tottenham 2-2 Arsenal: Premier League – as it happened Right, that’s it. Thanks for your company and emails, even though I didn’t really get chance to look at them once it all kicked off in the second half. Bye! Arsene Wenger’s thoughts: “I am proud of the spirit the players have shown. We have big regrets because we were completely in control when we went down to 10 men. We told him at half-time because he was on a yellow card. I think Dier deserves a second yellow as well.” The draw is a fair result at the end of an endearingly ramshackle match: a derby in both name and nature. Both teams will have a mixture of regret and relief at the final score. Both should have won; both could have lost. Arsenal responded extremely well to the shock of losing a man and two goals in a mad eight-minute period, and will feel the slate has been wiped clean after a miserable week. Spurs should have won from the position they were in with 20 minutes to go, but they are still three points ahead of Arsenal and Harry Kane’s goal is the kind that reinforces a sense of destiny. Only an eejit would predict anything this season, but we can say with certainty that Spurs are capable of winning the title. So are Arsenal, Leicester – and Manchester City, who despite their best efforts could still end up winning the title. Spurs had a chance with the last kick of the game. Somebody – no idea who, or why – slashed a snapshot wide from 15 yards. That’s it. 90+3 min The BT Sport picture returns just as Mason (I think) makes a wonderful sliding challenge to deny Ramsey a winning goal. That’s a lifesaver for Spurs, and for some unnamed celebrity. 90+3 min Somebody’s getting a P45 for that! 90+2 min BT Sport has gone down! 90+1 min There will be four moments of added misery for both sets of fans. 90 min Alderweireld’s clearing header hits his team-mate Mason, prompting a big shout of handball from the Arsenal fans behind the goal. They had a much better view than Michael Oliver, actually, but then he is one up on them when it comes to impartiality. We haven’t seen a replay so I haven’t a clue. 89 min Arsenal’s final substitution: Campbell on, Ozil off. 88 min Bellerin should have been sent off as well, after deliberately pulling back Alli on the left wing. He’s already been booked. Moments later, Gabriel shanks an attempted clearance onto the roof of his own net! That was so close to becoming a staple of banter-based Christmas DVDs for the next 50 years. 87 min Sanchez curls his free-kick towards the near post, where Lloris punches it away spectacularly. It was a fairly comfortable save. 86 min Wimmer stops the roaming Gibbs with a handball 25 yards from goal. This is a chance, with the free-kick just right of centre. 85 min A fierce long-range shot from Eriksen is touched acrobatically over the bar by Ospina. It was a bit of a showy save, although Eriksen hit it beautifully. 84 min Arsenal could still nick this. Welbeck plays a good ball into Sanchez on the edge of the area, who faffs and eventually tries a return pass that is intercepted. That’s Welbeck’s last touch – he has been replaced by Mathieu Flamini. Welbeck was terrific. 83 min Mason’s long-range curler is deflected behind for a corner to Spurs. 82 min Spurs make their final substitution, with Dembele replaced by Son. 81 min I’m trying to work out Arsenal’s formation. It’s a kind of 4-2-3, with Ozil playing in central midfield with Ramsey. 80 min Ospina makes a relatively comfortable diving save from Alli’s low 20-yard shot. 79 min Dier should have been sent off there. Giroud got away from him on the halfway line, and was trying to drill a long pass when Dier dragged him back by the shirt. I have no idea why Dier wasn’t given a second yellow card. 78 min The excellent Danny Rose is replaced by Ben Davies. As Spurs tried to retreat after originally pushing out, Bellerin slid a lovely angled pass towards Sanchez on the edge of the area. Sanchez got to it first and clipped a low first-time shot across goal and into the far corner. It seemed to go into the goal in slow motion, and many will feel Lloris should have done better. Arsenal are level! Where did that come from?! 75 min Olivier Giroud comes on for Arsenal, replacing Elneny. He had a good game. Arsenal started with two natural holding players; now they have none. 74 min Dier is booked for a deliberate tug on Welbeck. It’s pouring down now, which, as BT’s Darren Fletcher says, adds to the primal mood of the match. 73 min “You failed to mention that the corner which led to the equaliser was needlessly conceded by Ospina,” says Matt Richman. “I have never known a team to have its aim trained so accurately at its own foot. Whatever cliches we heard all week - Arsenal lack “character,” “confidence,” “je ne sais quoi” - it is tough to argue with them now.” 72 min Kane almost scores another fine goal. He played the ball wide to Walker, received the return pass 15 yards out and wriggled away from Elneny before dragging an angled shot just wide of the far post. Lovely play. 71 min Rose, who has been extremely good today, drills a low cross shot a few yards wide of the far post. 70 min After being pummelled for 10 minutes, Arsenal are having a bit of the ball again. Sanchez shoots miles wide from 25 yards. He has been poor today. 68 min Yes, Dele Alli was onside for the goal. As you were, never trust a word you read in the , etc. 67 min Lamela actually pushed Sanchez first, albeit pretty softly. I suppose you could argue he should have had a second yellow card, but I wouldn’t. Lamela’s was a push, Sanchez’s was a firm shove. But Mauricio Pochettino is taking no chances; he replaces Lamela with Ryan Mason. 66 min “Replay shows Alli was onside!!” says Robin Griller. I haven’t seen it again but will take your word for it. A goal like that is better without an asterisk. 65 min Dier’s shot is fumbled by Ospina, and Spurs get another corner. Gabriel heads clear. With the ball dead, a frustrated Sanchez shoves Lamela off the pitch. It’s a yellow card, no more. Lamela did well not to respond because he’s already been booked. 64 min You can’t score from there. Not at that moment, in this game, in this season. That goal has gone straight into Spurs folklore. What an outrageous goal by Harry Kane! He was on the left wing, just outside the area when he received Alli’s back heel, and he sidefooted a wonderful, pacy curler around Gabriel and into the far corner. That is the most glorious goal. But, and there’s always a but, I’m pretty sure Alli was offside when he was backheeled the ball to Kane. This is sensational! 61 min “I expected that Tragically Stupid Red Card against Man U last week, but no, they saved it for an even bigger match,” says Hubert O’Hearn. “It’s Arsenal’s favourite party trick - a sending off in the biggest possible match. One does have to admire how they stick to tradition.” That is a definite contender for the Joy of Six: Moronic Red Cards. The corner was swung in from the left towards Lamela on the six-yard line. His shot was blocked by Gabriel and the ball deflected to Alderweireld, who thrashed an excellent half-volley into the net from the left of the six-yard box. Another corner for Spurs, who have been given an intravenous injection of purpose by that Coqulin red card. And they’ve scored! 58 min Ospina gives Arsenal a breather by kicking the ball out of play and then falling over. He might be injured in fairness, I’ve no idea. 57 min It’s all happening now. Alli’s smart chest and volley is deflected over the bar. From the corner, Ospina blocks Kane’s close-range shot. Kane thought it was a goal – Ospina was behind the line when he saved it – but the technology showed otherwise. Ospina was in such a strange position, and the replay showed that about seven-eighths of the ball was behind the line. Arsenal are down to ten men. Coquelin, booked in the first half, makes a needless, witless tackle on Kane down the Spurs left and is given a second yellow card. That was on the moronic side of unfathomable, a clear booking in modern football. 54 min The collective Spurs subconscious right now (part 2). 53 min The collective Spurs subconscious right now. 52 min Another chance for Arsenal! I have no idea what happened because BT Sport were showing a replay, but they cut back to the action just as Sanchez – who was through on goal – lost the ball to Walker. 51 min Anyone out there? 50 min Walker runs for goal from the halfway line. Lamela makes a run on the outside, and Walker uses him by not using him before drilling a low, swirling shot from the edge of the box that is saved awkwardly by Ospina. It looked like a fumble at first but actually the ball was doing a fair bit. 50 min “Yes!” 49 min Walker takes his time over a cross from the right, carefully, lovingly lining it up – and then curling it straight out of play on the other side of the pitch. 48 min Eriksen, whose crossing thus far has been unusually wretched, woofs another one straight out of play. He has swapped positions with Alli, who is now playing on the left. 47 min Have any celebrities died in the last half hour? Just wondering. 46 min Arsenal begin the second half, kicking from right to left. “Dearest Rob,” writes my lover, Angus Chisholm. “I am doing a sacrificial counter-jinxing non-watch of this match in Australia. It is my hope that, by doing so, Arsenal will remember that they are good at doing football again. Going by the last five minutes, it may be working.” “Surely the difference for Arsenal has been moving Ramsey to the right, allowing Elneny & Coquelin to control the area in front of the back four better,” says Stephen. “Ramsey’ll hate this but he plays well out right - he was there when the gunners were doing well in the league before Christmas. A smart move by Wenger.” Yes it was a good and uncharacteristic move for this particular game. Spurs have been the better side but Arsenal have restricted them to one chance. And after an excellent first 15 minutes, Alli hasn’t been in the game. “Mertesacker sounds ok in Manic as well,” says Niall Mullen. “Morning!” chirps Adam Hirst. “This is now the perfect chance to see if this is New Spurs or just a slightly modified version of the old one. Arsenal we already know about from the last week.” Spurs will wonder how they are behind, having dominated most of the half. But they only created one clear chance and were hit by Aaron Ramsey’s excellent goal. See you in 10 minutes! 42 min Suddenly Arsenal look dangerous with every attack. Ozil and Sanchez combine well before Sanchez’s cut back drifts all the way across the area. And moments later Welbeck heads straight at Lloris from seven yards! Arsenal could have scored four in the last four minutes. 41 min Almost another one for Arsenal! Welbeck is put beyond the defence by a pass from Ramsey, but his first touch is poor and that allows Walker to get back and clear just inside the box. There was plenty to admire about this goal. The excellent Welbeck had a bit of room in the area on the left. Instead of shooting in the selfish style he sidefooted a quick pass all the way across the box to the onrushing Bellerin. He shaped to shoot first time, realised there was a defender in the way and instead played a cool angled pass back across the box to Ramsey. He was eight yards out and flicked the ball behind his standing leg into the net. That was a really clever finish. A brilliant goal from Aaron Ramsey gives Arsenal the lead, and celebrities everywhere are saying their prayers. 37 min Gabriel administers a rollocking to a few of his team-mates, asking for more intensity. Spurs have certainly looked sharper. “Two footballers that are even better in Scouse - Gerardo Torrado and Jerzy Dudek,” says Shaun Wilkinson. Sid Waddell would have said it beautifully too, based on how he described Phil Taylor’s understackers. 35 min Welbeck, who has been beyond reproach so far, wins Arsenal’s first corner with a run down the left. It’s a poor one by Sanchez, who hasn’t been beyond reproach. 34 min Lloris sweeper-keeps effectively, running out of his box to beat Welbeck to the ball and clear with a diving header. 33 min Spurs are incessant in their attacking. They have so much energy. In fact it’s reminiscent of Arsenal in the early days under Arsene Wenger, when they had more energy than their opponents by virtue of the fact they weren’t having steak and pints for lunch and dinner every day. 32 min Glenn Hoddle, one of the BT commentators, reckons Lamela is a red-card candidate. Just passing it on. 29 min Three in three minutes! Yellow cards, that is, with Coquelin being booked for a deliberate handball. Michael Oliver has had an outstanding game so far. 27 min Bellerin is booked for a foul on Rose. It’s a free-kick in a good position on the left, and Eriksen wastes it again by hammering it straight into Ospina’s hands. Lamela is then booked for stopping an Arsenal counter-attack by putting his arms around Welbeck. 26 min Brilliant save by Ospina! Gabriel made a good tackle on Kane in the box, diverting the ball out to the right. Walker smashed it first time back into the box towards Lamela, who adjusted his feet quickly to shin the ball towards goal from 10 yards. Ospina reacted superbly, plunging to his right to push it away. 24 min This game doesn’t yet need a goal, but it could at least do with a chance. 23 min Welbeck is the Arsenal player who has most obviously matched Spurs’ work rate and intensity. But that’s a mixed blessing because much of that work has been defensive, and he’s Arsenal’s sole striker. 21 min It’s a slightly odd game so far, in that Spurs have been miles better yet they haven’t created a clear chance, or even an unclear one. 20 min Rose’s low pass/cross from inside the area is just too far in front of Lamela, and Gabriel hoofs it clear on the six-yard line. 19 min Arsenal’s first prolonged attack of the match ends when Bellerin loses the ball to Lamela on the wing. 18 min After Welbeck almost dispossesses the keeper Lloris, Dembele roars past two players in midfield to launch a Spurs break. Nothing comes of it but it was a lovely run from Dembele. 17 min Arsenal have given away a few free-kicks in dangerous positions on the wing. Here’s another, to be swung in from the left by Eriksen. It’s a poor effort, far too close to Ospina. 14 min Arsenal are really struggling to keep the ball. Spurs have been excellent so far, albeit without creating any real chances. 13 min Alli makes space on the edge of the area and hits a shot that is blocked by Mertesacker. He is getting into some dangerous positions “between the lines”. 11 min “One thing this makes me wonder about is whether it counts in an way as an enjoyable experience,” says Charles Antaki. “The answer, of course, is not, for anyone; and only becomes so for half the spectators (in the wider world) once they’re, say, 3 goals up. Mind you, for the Arsenal supporters that wouldn’t be quite enough. Five, maybe. So a long afternoon of misery lies ahead.” Yes, Nick Hornby wrote a lovely bit about the addictive misery of football in Fever Pitch. 10 min Spurs will be much happier with their start, although Arsenal will be content that Ospina hasn’t had any difficult saves to make. Coquelin is penalised for a sliding foul on Kane. A lesser ref might have booked him; Michael Oliver gave him a last warning. It’s early, but there’s already a sense that if – if – Spurs score early they could overwhelm Arsenal. 8 min “Afternoon Rob, afternoon everyone,” says Richard Williams. “Clearly if these two teams has any self respect and weren’t enemies of football they’d battle out an entertaining yet ultimately frustrating 3-3 draw that leaves the path clear for Leicester to extend their lead. I can only assume Louis Van Gaal has been secretly doing the honourable thing this season too because I’m struggling to find any other reason to explain Manchester Utd this season.” 7 min Kane’s 20-yard shot deflects over the bar for a corner. Spurs are overwhelming Arsenal at the moment, and Eriksen’s excellent corner is nutted behind for another by Mertesacker. 6 min Eriksen plays the ball to Kane on the left. He comes infield, running at Mertesacker, before whipping a curler towards goal from the left edge of the box. It’s straight at Ospina, who pats it down a touch unconvincingly but claims it at the second attempt. Spurs have started superbly. 5 min Kane tries a speculative snapshot from 25 yards, mishitting it straight through to Ospina. “It’s pretty open for a derby,” says Glenn Hoddle. 5 min “While I may be a Spurs fan that’s as much predisposed to egg-shaped or red-leather balls than this lot, I can’t remember a derby this big in my lifetime, and I’m just the wrong side of the big 4-0,” writes Guy Hornsby. “And despite the midweek result, and our team being markedly better in skill, defence and form than the Gooners, I just can’t be that confident. How can we be? Arsenal have an in-built ability to ruin everything for us, so a win today is bigger than enormous, it’s an opportunity to turn the tables in our direction for the first time in 15 years. I’m bricking it.” 4 min A quick long throw from Kane finds Alli in the box. He controls the ball with his chest as it bounces up but can’t get a shot in under pressure from Mertesacker. That was superb from Kane. 3 min It’s been a frantic start, as you’d hope. Alderweireld loses the ball in his own area, but Wimmer does him a solid by lumping the ball into Row M. 2 min “Watching here in Canada where we get the US feed,” says John Pitre. “‘Friendly boos as Arsenal take the field.’ They may not understand this derby at all.” 1 min Spurs kick off from right to left. They are in white, Arsenal and in red. BT Sport have four commentators. There’s a wonderful atmosphere at White Hart Lane, with Spurs fans using the popular practice of singing and chanting to distract themselves from how terrified they are. Shameless plug for my book “Remember when is the lowest form of conversation.” So said Tony Soprano, but then he wasn’t a soccer fan. “I was once bitten by a goose for having the temerity to take a hungover constitutional at 6 am while she and her comrades were abathing,” says Paul Ewart. “So, you can say boo to as many geese as you like: they’re a bunch of hissy-fitting gits. Happened on the same morning as I walked past Jimmy Case and his teammates warming up in the park in Sheffield. Effin’ ‘ell it’s Jimmy Case, said I, to which he responded with an impish grin and a wink. Made my day that did. Before the goose ruined it again. Oh to young and free again. On second thoughts...” Arsene Wenger has just sent me a Snapchat with his thoughts on the game: “I can’t remember a more significant north London derby. We won the title here once. My comments about our confidence have been exaggerated; we know what you can still play well even if your belief is a little bit jaded. “Best title race since 2002 maybe,” sniffs Chris Dale. “But nothing will ever surpass 99-00. Winning the league with over 100 goals and by 18 points.” That doesn’t sound like much of a title race, but actually it was really close until United won at Leeds in February and ran away with it. They didn’t score 100 goals though; I think it was 97. They were even more dominant the following season, but they fell asleep after clinching the title in February. “Given that this is virgin territory for Leicester fans like me, what result should we be backing here?” writes The Pope James Calder. “There something to say for all three, though I’ve got a personal preference for Arsenal getting humped as it would almost certainly knock them out of the race and inflate Spurs’ self-confidence to levels they won’t be able to control, leading to a title run-in meltdown, probably. But then again, if Arsenal win and we beat Watford, we’re six points clear! It’s all so confusing. Any advice?” I’m a Manchester United fan, what would I know about title races? Back the draw. Always. And a mass brawl that leads to multiple suspensions. Tottenham (4-2-3-1) Lloris; Walker, Alderweireld, Wimmer, Rose; Dier, Dembélé; Lamela, Alli, Eriksen; Kane. Subs: Vorm, Davies, Trippier, Carroll, Chadli, Mason, Son. Arsenal (4-2-3-1) Ospina; Bellerín, Mertesacker, Gabriel, Gibbs; Elneny, Coquelin; Ramsey, Özil, Sánchez; Welbeck. Subs: Macey, Chambers, Monreal, Flamini, Campbell, Walcott, Giroud. Referee: Michael Oliver. And some pre-match viewing: In modern football, hype dies last. Everything is big and loud, IN CAPITAL LETTERS, with GROWN ADULTS ACTING LIKE BAIRNS ON LIVE TELEVISION. That, and the human tendency to get lost in the moment, can make it hard to retain historical perspective. To prove the point, some people are already proclaiming this the worst introduction in the history of the Manchester . (Actually they’d be right, so that isn’t the greatest example. Let’s try again.) The point of this shambling introduction is that today’s north London derby is different. Don’t need no hype; don’t need no Jim White. It’s almost too important to function. Some are even saying it’s the biggest north London derby ever. And while those who remember the gloriously intense cup semi-finals of 1987 and 1991 – not to mention Arsenal’s title win at White Hart Lane in 1971 – would dispute that, it’s still a legitimate opinion that should not warrant an aggressive rebuttal on social media from a 47-year-old in his underpants, who once said boo to a goose in real life, and then cried with regret, guilt and shame. What we can say with the certainty of men who spent a happy hour on Statto.com yesterday invetigating this precise subject is that Spurs and Arsenal have never met so deep into a season when both had a serious chance of winning the title. This match isn’t a title decider, but it could be a title eliminator – certainly if Arsenal lose. Yet if they win, they will instantly remove the negativity that has surrounded the club in the last week. The whole thing is so precarious. The result could ultimately decide what has possibly been the best title race since 2001-02. The fragility of both clubs – Spurs historically in this fixture, Arsenal currently – means that there will be panic on the streets of Tottingham this morning, as both sets of fans accentuate the negative. For neutrals, it’s the match of the season so far. Kick off is at squeaky-bum o’clock 12.45pm GMT.
Premier League 2015-16 review: goal of the season Welcome to theguardian.com review of the 2015-16 Premier League season. Now that the campaign has ended we would like you to help us choose your favourite goal, the best referee and the best manager, and other winners in a total of 10 categories. We have nominated some contenders but this is just to get the discussion going: we would like your suggestions so that we can compile the best into final polls that you can vote on. The polls will be published at midday on Tuesday 17 May, so please tell us what you think. Thanks Cuco Martina (Southampton v Arsenal, 26 December) The Southampton right-back was making his full Premier League debut on Boxing Day when he ambled on to Per Mertesacker’s weak headed clearance that skipped up off the St Mary’s turf a couple of times before arriving invitingly in front of him 30 yards from goal in the 19th minute. It’s at moments such as these that bit-part full-backs often get grand ideas of glory before blinking them away and playing safe. Not Cuco Martina. The Dutch-born Curaçao international, who cost Ronald Koeman only £1m, connected perfectly with the sweetest of half-volleys that took off over to the right of Petr Cech’s goal before following the most beautiful of arcs as it swerved around the Arsenal defence like a happy swallow before finding its home in the corner of the goal. There were looks of disbelief among his Saints team-mates as it dawned on them that it was Martina who had pulled off such an audacious feat. The 26-year-old has scored three goals in his career. He may never score another one. He doesn’t have to. Christian Benteke (Manchester United v Liverpool, 12 September) Having endured a wretched season at Liverpool, it is fitting that the £32.5m striker’s one true moment of quality was remembered for all of two minutes. With Liverpool trailing 2-0 and having been abject in the fixture at Old Trafford, Jordon Ibe picked up possession on the right wing and stabbed a cross into the box that Daley Blind could only half-clear, looping a header up and behind him. The ball hung in the air, with the United defenders seemingly expecting Benteke to bring it under control before laying it off. However, he had other ideas. The Belgium striker trained his eye on the ball and watched it fall over his shoulder before leaping and twisting in mid-air with extraordinary athleticism to send a ferocious right-footed scissor-kick whistling past David de Gea. It was the 84th minute. Liverpool were back in the game – and then out of it again when Anthony Martial made it 3-1 in the 86th minute. Benteke’s stupendous strike was pushed into the background in reports and post-match discussion. The forward would become used to that kind of treatment. Jamie Vardy (Leicester City v Liverpool, 2 February) The screenwriter who plans to make a film about Jamie Vardy was in the stands to watch the forward when Leicester faced Liverpool at the King Power Stadium. And, of course, he would be given yet more gold to sprinkle all over the former non-league striker’s story. It was the 60th minute and Liverpool had competed well against Leicester, with the two teams’ pressing games matching each other. Leicester had struggled to spring Vardy in behind the visiting defence with one of their trademark zippy counterattacks. But then Riyad Mahrez decided to launch an attack from deep to surprise Liverpool’s high line. A perfectly weighted 40-yard pass towards Vardy on the inside-right channel cut out Mamadou Sakho but still left Vardy facing a ball bouncing high in front of him 30 yards from goal, with Dejan Lovren racing in to close him down. The Croatian defender hung off at the last second, perhaps expecting Vardy to bring down the ball and look for support. Instead, Vardy spied Simon Mignolet fractionally off his line and put his right foot through it, sending the ball looping up over the goalkeeper and crashing into the near top corner. Pure violence. It will go down well in Hollywood. Dele Alli (Crystal Palace v Tottenham, 23 January) “It will be shown around the world on every TV,” gushed Mauricio Pochettino after Dele Alli set a new high in his fledgling career with a goal that dripped with impudent brilliance at Selhurst Park. With the score at 1-1 in the 84th minute and the pressure on Spurs to keep pace with Leicester at the top, Christian Eriksen cushioned a header towards Alli, who was lurking just outside the penalty area. The youngster, as relaxed as you like, dampened the ball with his instep, sensed Miles Jedinak steaming in and sent him roaring past like an enraged bull with a touch to take the ball over his own left shoulder, before taking one step back and swivelling to unleash an unstoppable right-footed volley into the bottom-left corner of Wayne Hennessey’s goal. It was a delicious slice of playground football in the pressure-cooker environment of the Premier League. A rare and beautiful thing. Dimitri Payet (West Ham v Crystal Palace, 2 April) When West Ham faced Crystal Palace on 2 April, Dimitri Payet already had a showreel of Premier League free-kicks as long as Andy Carroll’s legs. So the reason this particular strike stands out above his others is that teams knew what was coming. That Payet had the ability to alter his technique and seemingly blend the knuckleball style – often used by Cristiano Ronaldo, Gareth Bale and co – with a traditional curler to such devastating effect in this game made it all the more stunning. Rather than send the ball into the corner furthest away from Wayne Hennessey, he whips it over the wall and sends it to the corner nearest the goalkeeper. It looks for all the world as though it is going wide but then bends in wickedly at the last moment. At full speed it looks like CGI trickery has been used, such is its ludicrous trajectory and deceptive arc. Incredible. Check out the other categories: Player of the season Manager of the season Match of the season Signing of the season Flop of the season Gripe of the season Pundit of the season Referee of the season Innovations for the future
Guy Hands accused of 'hazy memory' over EMI deal Guy Hands has been accused of changing his story about events in 2007, when he claims Citigroup misled him over a £4.2bn bid for music group EMI. A lawyer for Citi – which is fighting a £1.5bn claim by Hands’s private equity firm Terra Firma – asked the financier in the high court in London on Thursday whether he wanted to abandon some of his evidence about a meeting in May 2007, just before the bid for EMI was announced. Hands, accused by Citi’s lawyer Mark Howard QC of having a “hazy memory”, declined to do so. Howard asked Hands about the “gross discrepancies” between evidence being heard in London and that previously presented by US lawyers in 2010 to a New York court, where a jury rejected Hands’s fraud claim. He told him the account was “all over the place” and had been changed since the first case in New York. Terra Firma accuses Citi of making fraudulent misrepresentations – allegedly by three then-senior Citi bankers, including David Wormsley, who remains at the bank but at the time was head of UK banking. The takeover of EMI took place just before the credit crunch and Citi – which lent Terra Firma £2.5bn to fund the deal – took control of the business in 2011. Citi also advised EMI on the sale. One of the arguments being pursued by Terra Firma is that Wormsley told Hands there was a rival bid for EMI and that to clinch the deal a bid needed to be tabled at 265p a share. Howard used the second day of Hands’s questioning to examine the days before the bid was made in late May 2007 and to test the financier’s assertion that Wormsley had told Terra Firm the bid should be at that price. “You had a confusion in your mind about where the 265[p] came from and you have sought subsequently to attribute it to Mr Wormsley … The truth slips out. That is the truth,” said Howard. “No, it’s not,” said Hands. It was “something you had made up subsequently,” said Howard. Hands denied this. Howard said during later questioning: “The problem is, Mr Hands, your story is shifting and it is impossible to reconcile these different versions.” The Citi QC read out Hands’s diaries from 6 May 2007, which listed a meeting at 10am in the sitting room of the Woodlands hotel – which Howard said was owned by Hands’ wife – and an entry about a birthday barbecue for his daughter. The 10am meeting was with the then EMI boss Eric Nicoli and Howard asked if this was when the price of 265p was discussed. Howard said the situation was no different from the “false claim” that Hands had tabled against the former Citi chief executive Chuck Prince, who had been named in an earlier court filing but removed for this case. Terra Firma’s case also includes allegations about Michael Klein, who was head of global banking at Citi, and Chad Leat, who was Citi’s co-head of global credit markets. Citi denies it made any dishonest statements to Hands or Terra Firma throughout the auction process for EMI. The case is expected to continue until mid-July.
Greece has its problems with the EU, but it is in no hurry to leave Those who support Brexit often see Greece as an example of the problems within the EU. Nigel Farage has encouraged Greeks to leave the union in order to “take back control and democracy”, in a European project that “is dying”. It is true that Greeks have become very Eurosceptic as a result of the EU’s response to the country’s crisis. Often, this has put them in awkward company. In 2015, the leader of the French far-right Front National, Marine Le Pen, was the first to congratulate the leftist Syriza for winning elections in Greece. Yet, Athens’s relationship with the EU is more complex than some would like to believe. No matter how frustrated the country may be with Brussels, a staggering 75% of Greeks are still in favour of being part of the EU. Unlike the UK, most Greeks are not frustrated with the EU in general but, rather, with the austerity measures that are seen as “imposed” by Brussels. Indeed, Syriza won on a platform of having a “different” relationship with the EU, rather than no relation at all. To understand this “reluctant Euroscepticism” is to understand Greece’s historic ties with the EU. Greece’s relationship with Brussels has always been linked to the country’s democratic coming-of-age. Like its neighbours Spain and Portugal, one of the main reasons that Greece joined the EU in the 1980s was to consolidate its democratic transition from a seven-year long dictatorship. Thirty-five years after Greece’s entry to the EU, little has changed. Greeks continue to view the union as a way to remain stable in what is often an insecure region, but also to bolster their strength in a globalised world and the challenges that come with that, such as migration. In this way, Greece resembles the countries of central and eastern Europe, which joined the EU in order to become part of a club of peace and security. Most important, Greece reminds us of the very reason for the foundation of the union – then the European Economic Community – in the 1950s: to ensure security and stability through cooperation. Of course, the UK’s story is a little different. It has been politically stable far longer than Greece. Nor did the UK experience the two world wars in the same way as many continental countries. This might, in part, explain why the UK was not one of the founding members of European cooperation – but it does not mean the security and opportunities that the EU offers should not be of equal importance to London. There is no question that the EU’s biggest achievement was the creation and expansion of a security zone, which was achieved through cooperation and interdependence. It has made a European war unthinkable and allowed states to pool their power, creating more opportunities and enabling them to better face the challenges ahead. The kind of world we have today makes this cooperation all the more important. The problems that European states face simply cannot be resolved alone. More than ever, issues have become global rather than national. This has not happened because of the EU, despite what many Eurosceptics may claim. Climate change was not brought about by the EU, and neither was international terrorism. It is the irreversible process of globalisation that makes these issues transnational, and regional cooperation is the most effective way of tackling them. This means that staying in the EU strengthens Greece’s – and the UK’s – sovereignty in many respects. Of course, leaving the EU does not prevent cooperation with the rest of the world – but it would make it harder to influence what the EU would look like and do. Take, for example, the argument that the UK should leave the EU because countries from the Balkans or Turkey are lining up to join. Brexit would not make these countries move from the map to a region that will be of no relevance. The UK will remain in Europe and with the same neighbours. The only difference that Brexit would make is that it will be impossible for the UK to influence the very region it is part of – including a veto on which countries are admitted to the EU. Brexit would also mean abandoning a seat at the table of one of the main forums that shapes the world – be it on trade, environmental or other issues. Of course, the EU is not free of problems – which political project is? It is hard to deny that there is a significant gap between European citizens and the EU, which should be of concern. Yet, if history teaches us anything, it is that the EU has developed through crises. Take for example, how, after 9/11, states moved towards greater cooperation on issues of terrorism, including the introduction of the European arrest warrant, which was recently used to extradite the Paris attacks suspect Salah Abdeslam to France and in the past has helped British authorities to extradite suspects to the UK. Jean Monnet, the French diplomat and father of the EU, once said: “Europe will be forged in crises, and will be the sum of the solutions adopted for those crises.” Being a European country, no matter how small or large, choosing to stay outside is a grave mistake. A mistake that, at the moment – and despite the difficulties they have encountered – seems far clearer to Greeks than to the British.
Hadley Freeman: the trouble with Caitlyn Jenner It’s been almost a year since Caitlyn Jenner came out as a trans woman in a TV interview, so let’s keep up with this former Kardashian clan member and see how things have been going since. Just last week it was announced that she is to be the model for H&M Sport, the store’s athletic-wear line. As is the modern way, Jenner announced the news on her Instagram account, praising the campaign as “amazing and inspiring”. This follows an announcement last month that Jenner has partnered up with MAC cosmetics, for a charity lipstick to raise money for trans communities. “Well done, everyone!” announced one website. Truly, the emoji of hands clapping could be the symbol for all coverage pertaining to Jenner. Sure, it’s terrific to see a sixtysomething woman get modelling gigs. It’s wonderful that a trans woman is being lauded as a beauty icon. It’s flat out fantastic that a fashion brand is making such an effort to support trans people. But. BUT. The steep curve rise of trans rights has been thrilling to witness as an outsider and, I can only imagine, extremely heartening to those in the trans community, who have for so long suffered outright abuse. Jenner has become the cipher through which media outlets prove how modern they are, lauding everything she does as “inspirational”, “amazing”, and all the other buzzwords of the BuzzFeed generation. It could be argued that this rush to hyperbole is the due corrective for centuries of transphobia, which still very much exists. Yet not a single other trans person on this planet has enjoyed the privilege and public goodwill that Jenner has received since she came out. Moreover, true equality comes from being treated not as a special case, but as an equal. While the biggest issue for most trans people remains achieving acceptance, Jenner has long since sailed over that hurdle. So let’s treat her as the equal she has said she desires to be. Last February, Jenner was driving her SUV in Malibu and collided with two cars, killing 69-year-old Kim Howe. You probably haven’t heard much about this sad mess, because it doesn’t fit in with the media’s nervy narrative about inspirational Caitlyn. If you have, it was likely through the joke Ricky Gervais cracked at the Golden Globes about Jenner “not doing a lot for women drivers”. He was widely criticised for that, because apparently making a joke is worse than being involved in the death of a woman. After the accident Jenner said she was “praying” for Howe’s family. Of more comfort to them might have been the financial settlement she agreed to pay Howe’s stepchildren. Although investigators determined that Jenner had been travelling at an unsafe speed for road conditions, prosecutors ultimately declined to bring charges against her, deciding there was not enough evidence to secure a conviction. But I’m curious to know how many other women who had been in an accident that left another woman dead are, nine months later, named one of Glamour magazine’s Women Of The Year, as Jenner was. But accidents happen. So let’s get to know Jenner as a person, as opposed to deifying her as a plaster saint. On her reality TV show last week, I Am Cait, Jenner, a lifelong Republican, claimed that Donald Trump “would be very good for women’s rights”. This would be the Trump who is anti-abortion, calls women “fat pigs”, describes breastfeeding as “disgusting”, opposes marriage equality and once mocked a trans beauty contestant on TV. As a brand strongly associated with gay rights and equality, I’d love to know how many other Trump fans MAC hires for its advertisements. No one should demand perfection of anyone. But one of the best things about the breathtakingly brilliant TV series Transparent was how the trans character, Maura, was depicted with all her human flaws: her prejudices, privileges and pettiness. By contrast, Jenner is treated like a cute trans pet, with the media patting her on the head and not listening to a word she’s saying. They can’t even hear her words over the applause they’re giving themselves for being so open-minded. There are millions of trans people out there who don’t endorse politicians actively oppressive to women, gay and trans people. But, dazzled by Jenner’s proximity to the Kardashians, the broadcasters and the big brands keep staring at her above all, without actually seeing her. “I’m not a spokesperson for [the trans] community – I am not. The media puts me in that position. I am only a spokesperson for me,” Jenner has said, with commendable self-awareness. It’s not often I can say that anyone could learn from a Kardashian, but some people could take a lesson here.
Cruz: I’m not Trump’s puppy! For the biggest speech of his (brief) (so far) political career, Donald Trump has elected to be introduced on Thursday night by his eldest daughter, Ivanka, who will become the fourth Trump kid to speak from the RNC stage. GOP on fire The Muslim ban, the border wall – Trump’s big ideas have been prominently absent from the convention so far. Will he bring them up, in accepting the presidential nomination? He’s not saying. Trump faces party divided Facing delegates enraged at his refusal to endorse Trump in his convention speech, for which he was lustily booed, Ted Cruz said he was no “servile puppy dog”. Cruz is betting big, the pundits agreed, that Trump will lose big. Cruz sticks by non-endorsement That pledge [to endorse the nominee] is not a blanket commitment [that] if you go slander and attack Heidi I am nonetheless going to come like a servile puppy dog and say ‘thank you very much for maligning my wife and maligning my father’. – Ted Cruz Did you hear? The vice-presidential nominee spoke on Wednesday night. This morning the Trump camp put out a statement titled: “ICYMI: Mike Pence strikes unity notes in acceptance speech.” Pence calls Mulan ‘propaganda’ The potential next president would withdraw from the linchpin security deal of the postwar global order if allies don’t pay the USA more, Trump told the New York Times. Trump ‘prepared to walk’ on Nato The Hillary Clinton campaign has been unusually mum this week, preferring perhaps to let the Republican convention speak for itself. But Clinton could announce her running mate as early as tomorrow. Who will Clinton pick?
Burnley 2-0 Watford: Premier League – as it happened Here’s your match report. Thanks, and bye! Michael Keane speaks to Sky: It’s a special feeling. It’s a target of mine I’ve been looking to get. I just needed a few set plays. It came at a good time, settled us down and we never looked back from there. I think we’ve got better depth in our squad now, we’ve got better belief this time. [Asked about Defour, who’s standing next to him] He’s a brilliant player. You can see the technical ability he’s got and that calm influence he has on the team. Burnley will win a few points if they can play like that regularly. Just horrible to play against, and if they didn’t exactly create a lot from open play, they didn’t exactly need to. Watford looked like a team that had just beaten West Ham and Manchester United before spending six days reading the glowing reports and inflating their egos. 90+5 mins: Heaton boots the ball upfield and the referee blows his whistle. This won’t have delighted many neutrals, but Burnley complete a deserved win. 90+5 mins: The last kick of the game – bar Heaton’s goal kick – is a shot from Success that flies high and wide. 90+4 mins: Watford are launching all sorts of long balls and hoping for a lucky bounce. This time, though, they just vie away a free kick. 90+3 mins: Burnley’s second substitution sees Gudmundsson go off and Kightly come on. 90+2 mins: Arfield shows Prödl that he’s not the only one who can pull a shirt, and Watford win a free kick deep in their own half. 90+1 mins: Into stoppage time, of which there will be four minutes. Obviously. 87 mins: The last five minutes or so have been good for Watford. So that’s something. 85 mins: Success has probably had more touches in Burnley’s penalty area than any other Watford player. He dances his way to the byline, but his pull-back finds only defenders. 84 mins: Kenedy’s corner is dreadful but the clearance is straight to Behrami on the edge of the area, who shoots just wide. 83 mins: Oooof! Success carries the ball from the left into the area, goes past Keane and slides the ball across goal and just wide of the far post from a silly angle. Someone must have touched it, as a corner has been given. 82 mins: Burnley make their first substitution, Defour coming off after an excellent shift in midfield and of course the two assists, and Scott Arfield coming on. 81 mins: Vokes’ shot rebounds back off a defender, back off Vokes and through to Boyd, who shoots when he might have squared to the unmarked Hendrick, and Gomes saves. 81 mins: He was 40 yards away from any other player at the time, but still, he touched it, so that makes it one of Watford’s best moments of the half. 81 mins: Heaton has just touched the ball. 78 mins: Ighalo has contributed approximately – and I’m rounding down only a little – absolutely nothing to his team today, so far as I can tell. 76 mins: Watford make their final substitution, replacing the nearly-sent-off Pereyra with Kenedy. 75 mins: Burnley are letting Watford have a lot of possession, but are absolutely all over them the moment they get close to a key area. The home side continue to work like hounds, and have made very few mistakes. If anything they’ve been more impressive this half than the last. 73 mins: Pereyra fouls Hendrick in midfield, and Turf Moor demands a second yellow card. The referee doesn’t oblige, but he must have considered it. 70 mins: Andy Hinchliffe, handling co-commentary duties, continues to insist that “this could very easily be turned round”, but there continues to be very little evidence that Watford are about to turn anything, except for TV viewers off football altogether. 67 mins: There didn’t seem much in that, either in terms of intent or contact – though it was certainly a free kick, I’d say – but Ward stays down for a good while, prompting Mazzarri into some angry watch-pointing. 65 mins: Success wins a header, but the arm he raised to lever his way airwards connects with Ward, and he’s booked for his troubles. 64 mins: Success is fouled by Marney and Watford have a free kick 30 yards out, which Pereyra blasts into the wall. It rebounds to a Watford player, whose shot falls to Deeney, whose mishit first-time effort is turned wide by Heaton. 63 mins: A lovely ball into the area from Pereyra finds Deeney momentarily unmarked, but his header towards the far post is weak, and also wide. 61 mins: Oooh! Another free kick is sent into the Watford box, pings around a bit and then Defour slams in a shot that Gomes flaps back out. Vokes and Mee descend on the loose ball, take each other out and Gomes claims. Very nearly a third there. 60 mins: Vokes and Prödl battle for the ball. Prödl tries to pull his opponent’s shirt, and when that doesn’t quite do the trick just kicks him. Free kick. 59 mins: Watford slip into their third formation of the evening, with Success joining Ighalo and Deeney at the top of a 4-3-3. 58 mins: A second substitution for Watford sees Amrabat depart, and Isaac Success arrive. 56 mins: Lowton wins the ball well in midfield and slides Vokes into space in the penalty area. The striker is offside by a distance, but Watford continue to be outrun and outfought in key areas. 54 mins: Watford continue to wobble, Britos this time deciding not to move towards a ball that is passed gently towards him, instead letting a Burnley player run three times as far to take it away from him. 53 mins: Watford will be wanting to sort this out at some point. 52 mins: Watford’s defence don’t appear to be big fans of heading. The corner is cleared, crossed back in again and this time Keane wins the header at the back post, and Burnley double their lead! 50 mins: Defour is found in all sorts of space in the middle of the pitch, runs forward and finds Boyd, who cuts inside and then shoots across goal – it looked like it could have been heading in, until Prödl slid across to deflect it wide. 49 mins: Heaton makes a save! Amrabat is tackled and the ball rolls to Deeney inside the area, who takes a touch and then blasts it goalwards, but it’s beaten away! 46 mins: Peeeep! Watford get the second half under way. Zuniga looks to have gone to right-back in a back four, with Amrabat on the right wing in front of him. Watford are to make a half-time substitution: Camilo Zuñíga is coming on, and Craig Cathcart is going off, which suggests a change of formation. On Sky, Jamie Carragher reckons Hendrick fouled Holebas before heading in the goal, hence the killer-seagull-style flinch. Walter Mazzarri has been pretty good at inspiring second-half improvements from his side this season. And he’s going to have to do it again. It must be said that the world has witnessed finer halves of football, but at the end of it Burnley just about deserve their lead. 45+3 mins: It’s headed into the box, headed out of the box, and before it comes down to earth the half-time whistle is blown. 45+2 mins: Lowton is booked for obstructing Holebas, and Watford have another free kick. 45+2 mins: An effort on goal from Watford! The free kick is played down the right, Pereyra crosses and Ighalo heads at goal. The ball was a bit behind him, he was quite a way out and it would have taken a catastrophic goalkeeping error for it to go in, but still, it was a shot on target. 45 mins: An excellent half from Burnley – fighting, working, playing to their strengths and nullifying their opponents’ – comes towards its conclusion. Two minutes of stoppage time will start with a free kick to Watford, though, after Capoue is fouled. 42 mins: I really want to know what happened to Holebas when that corner was taken. At precisely the vital moment he ducked and threw his hands up above his head as if trying to protect himself from a nonexistent flock of vicious man-eating seagulls. 41 mins: Replays show that Marney wasn’t offside in the move that led to the corner that led to the goal. 40 mins: And nearly another! Burnley have a free kick deep on the right, which is hoisted into the penalty area, won by Mee and Vokes throws out a leg and diverts the ball into Gomes’s chest. The corner’s headed in! It’s sent to the far post, where Holebas is supposed to be marking Hendrick, but just as the ball dips towards them the Greek bizarrely and inexplicably ducks, and Hendrick sends his free header past Gomes! 37 mins: Gudmundsson’s wayward shot hits Marney, who chases the ball down, sends it low into the penalty area and wins a corner. Watford think Marney was offside, and presumably made their point a little forcefully, as Holebas has been booked and I can’t think of any other reason. 35 mins: Watford have had 61% of possession in the last 10 minutes, we’re told. I can’t think of a single notable touch inside Burnley’s penalty area at any stage of the game so far, though. 34 mins: Watford have the ball for a while, pass it this way and that, and then Britos needlessly gifts it to Gudmundsson. 33 mins: For some reason, though, the home fans seem very angry about it. Perhaps Sky’s microphones are just in the wrong places. 31 mins: A third of the way through, and though there has not been a lot of quality from either side, Burnley’s five-man midfield, Boyd’s workaholic tendencies and Gudmundsson’s left-footed delivery from the right wing make them the most likely to make a breakthrough. 28 mins: Capoue tries a high, long crossfield wonderpass, which floats gently into the arms of Heaton. 26 mins: Capoue chips the ball to Holebas on the edge of the area, but his wild left-footed yahoo flies into a defender. 25 mins: Watford win a corner, their first. Burnley have had four. 24 mins: Gudmundsson cuts inside before lashing a low shot just wide of the near post. Burnley are still on top here, harassing Watford during the brief moments of away possession and having a near-monopoly of decent attacks. 23 mins: Prödl v Vokes is the duel of the day here. This time the defender wins the battle to reach Gudmundsson’s cross, but concedes another corner. Which is cleared. 22 mins: Boyd and Pereyra run together down the left, and eventually Boyd quite deliberately steps across into Pereyra and falls over. The referee gives him the free kick, and Pereyra angrily shouts his way to a totally unnecessary yellow card. 20 mins: Boyd hares around the pitch as Watford attempt to play their way downfield, eventually forcing someone to lump the ball aimlessly forward. 18 mins: Lowton crosses from the right, Vokes wins the header but the referee decides that it flicked off Prödl, and it’s another corner. 17 mins: Watford do seem fond of the occasional kamikaze penalty-area pass. 16 mins: The home fans seem a little worked up about Prödl’s occasionally muscular defending, but the referee doesn’t seem to mind it. 13 mins: Watford have a bit of a go down the right again, but neither of Amrabat’s crosses find a team-mate. Burnley are owning the centre of the pitch at the moment, but the wings hold some potential for the visitors. 10 mins: Watford are at sixes and sevens here. The second corner goes straight to a defender, but the clearance is skewed, Cathcart gets the ball and immediately gives it away, and it’s all exceedingly messy if not, in the end, costly. 9 mins: Oooh! The corner bounces off Deeney’s foot to Boyd, whose powerful shot is tipped over by Gomes! 9 mins: Half a chance for Burnley, as Gudmundsson crosses from the right wing with his left foot, and Vokes looks to get to it first. Apparently he didn’t, because the referee has given a corner. 7 mins: Britos hoists it forward again, aiming for Deeney. This seems to be his key instruction. This time Burnley win the ball. 5 mins: Amrabat momentarily has the ball, but Boyd slides it away from him, and in his eagerness to win it back the Moroccan swipes away Defour’s legs and is very lucky to escape without a booking, reward perhaps for the outpouring of apology with which he showered opponent and referee. 4 mins: Britos hoists the ball forward, Deeney beats Mee to the header, and the referee blows his whistle for a push. “Yes, those photos are oddly arousing,” agrees Mike Blackwell. “I thought it was just me, so I’m happy you’ve led the way in confessing your lustful feelings towards pre-winter football imagery.” 2 mins: A good move for the visitors ends with Amrabat being released down the right and, a couple of short passes later, crossing too close to Heaton. 1 min: Peeeeeeeep! Burnley get the game under way! I’ve received nine pre-match photos of players warming up, and every one of them is of Watford players, with their opponents getting totally ignored. Seems that if you beat Manchester United, you’re treated like Manchester United. Anyway, it’s about to start! I’m not sure he can defend, but I do like Nordin Amrabat. He seems exceedingly cheerful. Sky have been so busy letting Jürgen Klopp talk about whatever he wants for as long as he wants to that there’s been no time for any manager interviews. Still, he’s now left the studio and the players have left the dressing rooms – they are now on their way onto the pitch and actual football is but moments away. Sky have started to talk about Burnley and Watford – by asking Klopp about when Liverpool played them. Still, it’s a start, and he’s very enthusiastic both about Sam Vokes and the Watford front two of Troy Deeney and Odion Ighalo. I find these photos curiously arousing. The downside of the increasingly short days is that it’s undeniable evidence that winter is coming. The plus side is that you get to enjoy proper night-time football. This is Jeff Hendrick’s first home start for Burnley – he came on for the last 15 minutes against Hull a couple of weeks back, and played the whole 90 minutes of the 3-0 defeat at Leicester. A few interesting pre-match stats: If you’re in need of a little pre-match reading, you could have a look at my interview with Watford’s Roberto Pereyra from a week or so ago. It’s more interesting than the headline suggests, I promise: Burnley: Heaton, Lowton, Mee, Keane, Ward, Gudmundsson, Hendrick, Defour, Marney, Boyd, Vokes. Subs: Flanagan, Kightly, Bamford, Robinson, Tarkowski, Arfield, O’Neill. Watford: Gomes, Amrabat, Britos, Cathcart, Prödl, Holebas, Pereyra, Capoue, Behrami, Ighalo, Deeney. Subs: Kaboul, Success, Kenedy, Guedioura, Zúñiga, Watson, Pantilimon. Referee: Mike Jones Some team news: Watford are as expected without Janmaat, but Holebas starts. Tonight in Sky’s Monday Night Football random bonus pundit’s seat: it’s only Jürgen Klopp! … which means a lot of talk about Liverpool, and nary a mention for Burnley and Watford. Still, least it’ll be interesting. Hello world! Since the Pozzo family bought Watford in the summer of 2012 and decided that Sean Dyche was insufficiently Italian, showing the gruff-voiced tactician the door and setting him upon the road to Burnley, these teams have met four times. Perhaps because of his deference to his former employers – Dyche continues to be held in very high regard by Watford fans, who appreciate that his 35% win ratio while at the Hornet helm was something of a miracle in unusually testing circumstances – but more likely simply because they have been pretty well matched in recent years, every one of those four games has been drawn. In fact these teams have drawn five of their last six encounters (a 0-0, a couple of 1-1s, a 2-2 and a 3-3 – they’ve covered their bases), which is one more draw than they had experienced in all of history before lateish 2011 (not a very long history, but still 29 games’ worth). As for this season, Burnley surprised the world with a 2-0 win over Liverpool back in August, but we’re still not quite sure what that game meant. Were Liverpool displaying a familiar weakness in games they really should be winning? Did Burnley display a widely unexpected top-flight match-readiness? Or was it just a bizarre and inexplicable gag from the footballing gods in a game where the visitors had 80% of the possession, 89.7% of the shots, and 92.3% of the corners? After all, that afternoon apart Liverpool have been excellent, and Burnley a fair way below average. Only time, and games like this one, will tell. Watford have started the season excellently, emerging from an opening five-game burst that looked exceedingly testy – four of last season’s top six, plus Chelsea – with seven points and in eighth place before this weekend’s matches (a two-goal victory here would send them seventh). They’ve also been quite good fun, both scoring and conceding in every game. For now they appear good enough only to be beaten by teams that are probably pretty decent (only Arsenal and somewhat fortunate Chelsea in the league so far), while remaining The Kind of Team You Don’t Want to Lose To (Especially At Home). Winning here, though, might suggest an imminent upgrade to Watford’s status. “It will be very important for them to win against us. Maybe they will be a little bit aggressive towards us and I think it is going to be a difficult away game,” says Walter Mazzarri’s translator. “We have shown that we can fight against anyone, but the real step forward I want to see is how we will behave against a club like Burnley.” Both sides will be missing key players through either injury or regrettable ancient tweeting. Watford’s Daryl Janmaat, who wasn’t always great in Newcastle’s back four last season but looks a very fine fit in Walter Mazzarri’s preferred back five, has hurt and possibly even fractured a shoulder and will probably be replaced by Nordin Amrabat, who attacks well enough but as Arsenal showed can be a liability in defence. The other wing-back, Jose Holebas, could also miss the game with a muscle strain. Burnley, meanwhile, are without the strikers Ashley Barnes, who is injured, and more importantly last season’s top scorer, Andre Gray, for whom this is the first of a four-game Twitter-related suspension. An evening of thrills, skills and great suspense lies ahead*. Welcome! * No guarantees
Dan Michaelson and the Coastguards: Memory review – magical, melancholy songs The third instalment of a trilogy, following 2013’s Blindspot and 2014’s rave-reviewed Distance, Memory finds Dan Michaelson further expanding his “epic minimalism”. Guitars, bass and piano are now augmented by slightly louder drums, and the new brass provides the warmth of a colliery band. As ever, his voice is central: a world-weary croak that sounds to have been perfected over several days without sleeping. The seven songs find him trying to pin down fleeting, lost personal moments in time: romantic mistakes and fatefully crossed lines. “If I could take you back, I wouldn’t take it on you, but you can’t undo,” he sings, as the marvellous Undo broods as powerfully as the National. If Michaelson’s songwriting were less capable, his melancholy could risk self-parody – when he’s walking her home, the heavens inevitably open. However, these are magical songs, brimming with understated but powerful hooks and the joys of loss lifted and intimacy shared.
CBI warns May that immigration shakeup could harm economy Theresa May must avoid making any new immigration system too bureaucratic or risk harming Britain’s businesses, the CBI director general Carolyn Fairbairn has warned. Sources suggest ministers hope to negotiate a Brexit deal that would allow the government to control high- and low-skilled immigration. But Fairbairn issued a stern warning to Downing Street, saying a new, tougher system outside the EU could create an unmanageable burden for employers and deprive firms of the workers they need. “Whatever new system comes in, and businesses recognise there will be one, make it easy: make it administratively straightforward, and flexible and speedy, because actually if it takes six months to bring somebody in, and your project starts next week, then in terms of productivity it will take us backwards,” she said. Fairbairn said the CBI was in regular touch with the Home Office to impress upon the government the need to make any new controls workable. “We think it needs to be evidence-based; it needs to understand different kinds of migration – students, skilled labour, less skilled labour, different job categories. But whatever system comes in – ease of use,” she said. “Particularly in this fast, flexible, competitive world that we’re in. If it’s just going to be leaden, and heavy, and bureaucratic, we will lose out.” Speaking to the as the CBI launches a new report analysing the factors that make some regions more economically successful than others, Fairbairn urged the government to invest more in boosting school standards in order to help address the financial concerns that led to Brexit. In response to the report’s finding that GCSE results were the key factor in determining local economic performance, she said: “I was really fascinated by this. The dominant factor was educational attainment at the age of 16. It was kind of obvious, and we knew it, but it still brought me up short to see it in black and white.” She argued that replicating the improvement in school performance achieved in London over the past decade elsewhere in the country could help to narrow the economic divide. “If you’re a local business, you are recruiting from your local labour pool, who were educated locally, and educational attainment at the age of 16 is absolutely fundamental. The variability between our schools in our country is huge. “One of the really interesting opportunities is for education to be thought of as part of industrial strategy. And it’s something which I think this government is really open to.” David Cameron’s government published a white paper on improving schools standards in the spring, but the central thrust of May’s approach has been allowing more grammars to open. Productivity was at the heart of Philip Hammond’s autumn statement last week. He pointed out that British workers take five days to produce what their German counterparts make in four - and pledged to borrow an extra £23bn over the next five years to make the economy “match fit” for Brexit. Fairbairn said the CBI’s analysis suggested that the areas where productivity had lagged behind coincided with those which voted to leave the EU. “If you look at where the loudest voices were, and some of the strongest votes for Brexit, they come from those parts of the country that have faced the challenges of globalisation; they have had core, staple industries change and decline over time, not yet to replaced by high productivity new sectors. “We do have some of the biggest differences in regional productivity and living standards in western Europe”. The CBI report suggests that the economy could receive a £208bn dividend by 2024 if areas whose economic performance is weak grew as fast as the best. It finds that a series of factors could help, including improving local transport links to speed up commuting times, boosting firms’ management skills and increasing the supply of affordable homes. Fairbairn said it was important to “create the conditions outside London where businesses can thrive” employing bright, capable young people and with good transport connectivity. “Weak productivity has long been a bugbear of the British economy,” she added, “and successive chancellors have sought to tackle it — but Philip Hammond believes the Brexit vote makes the task more urgent.” The May government’s relationship with big business got off to a bad start. Fairbairn expressed alarm after the prime minister’s conference speech appeared to presage a hardline approach to Brexit and the home secretary, Amber Rudd, appeared to criticise firms employing a large proportion of foreign workers. But she pointed to a change of tone more recently and welcomed May’s decision to row back from her proposal to put workers on company boards, to the dismay of trade unions. “We are sensing a stronger desire to engage with business: stronger than it was at the time of the conference,” Fairbairn said, describing May’s emollient speech to the business group’s annual conference last week as an “important moment”. Labour accused May of caving in to corporate lobbying after the corporate governance proposals were published earlier this week. Fairbairn said: “We have been having conversations with Number 10 and BEIS [Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy] – very productive conversations.”
'Starting a business after having my first child was tough – then I was diagnosed with cancer' Anybody that has ever started a business, had a child for the first time or been diagnosed with cancer will know that any of these events are life-changing. For me all three things happened at once. In 2013 I was a banker working in the City, surrounded by time–poor men that wanted to look good. Dappad seemed to be the solution: an online personal shopping service that enables men to outsource their clothes shopping to a personal stylist. They only pay for the clothes, which are priced the same as in the stores, and shipping is free. It is about taking pleasure in dressing well – after all, the way we dress is our business card before we have even said hello. Dappad launched in February 2015 and only three months later, just as I was about to start an external financing round to expand our marketing efforts, my world was turned upside down. On a bland Tuesday, at what I thought was a routine check-up, I was told I had breast cancer. Luckily, it was early stage, but it was the most aggressive type and had to be treated as such. I had gone to the doctor thinking it was a blocked milk duct from the breast-feeding period. At first I thought, “this can’t be”. I was 36 years old with a nine-month-old daughter. But cancer doesn’t care about any of those things. The next day I dropped off my daughter at nursery, my husband went to work and I continued working. I took comfort in it because it gave me a sense of normality and allowed me to focus on other things. The next six months of chemotherapy treatments were a rollercoaster; I was literally trying to survive and keep everything afloat. My intention was always to keep the business going. I was super lucky to still have people believe in me and one of my old bosses from my banking days decided to make a substantial investment despite my diagnosis – I am really grateful to him. I didn’t handle chemotherapy that well as I got sick and worn down very quickly; some days I could only spend in bed and after working for a few hours I was exhausted. It also affected me mentally. Eventually I lost all my hair, eyebrows and eyelashes and this made me want to hide away. I couldn’t muster up the spark that I normally have, but I somehow managed to keep things afloat. It was incredibly hard to juggle starting a business, being a new mother and dealing with cancer at the same time. Our saviour was my cousin who came to live with us as a kind of live in au-pair and nanny for five months. Without her it wouldn’t have worked. I was too tired to take care of household chores and my husband was working long hours, so she was a saviour taking care of my daughter and making sure the household stayed stable. My time off took its toll on the business and the relationships with the people working for Dappad. Some of my partners blamed me for not being on top of things, which was tough to take and some relationships broke down during this period. In the end this taught me what type of people you need in your team: people who are self-starters, believe in the business and are willing to put in the effort. My advice to anybody going through the same thing is to be really upfront with what you are capable of and what you are not, and tell them what is expected from them. I have been lucky throughout my journey to have a very strong and supportive husband. That said the illness and the pressure to make the business grow put a lot of strain on our relationship and there were times where we really questioned whether it was all worth it. I had gone from being a high-income earner to not bringing any money in and, on top of this, being sick. But we decided to keep going; I figured I hadn’t come this far for nothing. Now I am glad that I did as we have quadrupled our sales from the summer and have almost a 100% return rate of customers. I have now completed six months of chemotherapy, have had my surgery and completed one month of radiotherapy. I am cancer free and hope to stay that way with medication and a healthy and balanced lifestyle. I still want to achieve the things I wanted to achieve before I was diagnosed, but I go about achieving these in a different way. Previously I would always put myself last when it came to life and work but I now try to put myself, my health and my family first, before anything else gets tended too. If we are in good health and feel well, this can only have positive effects on work and business. I am a strong believer in the glass-half-full theory. The only thing that we can control in life is how we react to events around us – everything else is out of our control. Yes I got breast cancer at the midst of starting a business but I am lucky enough to have supportive family and friends, a roof over my head and some of the best treatments available to me. If I can do it, anybody can. Sign up to become a member of the Small Business Network here for more advice, insight and best practice direct to your inbox.
Jobless, jaded, and voting for Trump in Ohio: 'He’ll be different, in some way' A generation ago, a man like David Brunelle would probably be working through the autumn of a long career for the same manufacturer in north-eastern Ohio. A Democrat like Hillary Clinton could probably count on his vote. But having worked for eight companies since he was 18, Brunelle has now been without a full-time job for about eight months. His 50th birthday came and went in May. He tries to stay cheerful, but he’s tired, and he voted for Donald Trump. “There is just constant change,” Brunelle said. “It’s always changing, merging, closing, takeovers and restructuring.” Brunelle is not even confident that Trump would follow through on his quixotic pledges to revive heavy industry in the midwest by rewriting international trade deals, punishing companies for moving jobs overseas and declaring economic war on China. “But he’ll be different,” Brunelle, who lives in the tiny town of Atwater, said hopefully. “He’ll be different, in some way or another.” It is with the support of voters such as Brunelle, who feel belittled rather than empowered by globalisation, that Trump hopes to wrest Ohio back into the Republican column on Tuesday. After a late surge in polls, Trump holds a 2.2% lead in the RealClearPolitics average. The state has backed the winner at every presidential election since 1960, when it picked Richard Nixon over John F Kennedy. Once-proud rust belt cities that have been Democratic strongholds for decades appear to be within the real estate developer’s reach. Only eight years ago, 86% of presidential primary voters in Youngstown and the surrounding Mahoning County, for instance, were Democrats and just 14% were Republicans. This year, the split was 51-49. Under Barack Obama, Ohio’s economy has recovered steadily from the 2008 recession. The number of manufacturing jobs in the state has actually ticked up slightly in recent years, after falling sharply and consistently under the administration of George W Bush. Trump has, however, relentlessly claimed that the sector’s decades-long structural decline was somehow caused directly by Clinton and her husband, Bill, who was president when the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta), which was signed by his predecessor, came into force. The Republican nominee has turned the trade pact into a shorthand for one of the central themes of his campaign: that leaders in Washington, supposedly incapable of standing up to canny foreigners, have left US workers exposed to the ravages of international competition without protection. “Every time you see a closed factory or wiped out community in Ohio, it was essentially caused by the Clintons,” Trump said at a rally in Springfield last month. However untrue, the message has resonated deeply with workers such as Brunelle, who long for the stability enjoyed by their parents and grandparents. “Because of global competition, we have to compete with second- and third-rate countries around the world,” he said, noting that he and his friends discuss Nafta quite a bit these days. Until last year, Brunelle managed a plant in the town of Bedford for Production Pattern, a company which makes moulds for vehicles. But the firm was buffeted by competition from China, he said, where companies could sell finished moulds for less than the cost of the materials he and his colleagues were using to make them. Some jobs at Brunelle’s plant were moved out of state and others went overseas, he said. Brunelle lost his position, which paid him $70,000 a year. Before that, Brunelle was a plant manager for Water Star, a hi-tech manufacturer in Newbury, Ohio. The firm makes anodes and cathodes that are used to purify and treat water. But then Water Star was bought by Tennant, a commercial cleaning company from Minnesota, which wanted the technology for its floor scrubbers. Brunelle lost his job. As he wandered around a state-sponsored jobs fair in Akron on Monday, Brunelle winced at the sort of positions on offer at many of the stands. Packing boxes of potato chips on the midnight shift for $30,000 a year. Helping gamblers use video slot machines at an out-of-town mega-casino for $10 an hour plus tips. Serving sandwiches in a popular fast-food outlet for $9 an hour. Brunelle is a smart man. He knows the arguments in favor of globalisation, knows how difficult it would be for any president to turn back the clock. But as he sets off to wander the aisles for a few more minutes while employers begin dismantling their stalls, it’s just difficult to take. “In the long term, maybe it is good for the world economy,” he said. “But we have to go down for the rest of them to go up. And it hurts.”
Beth Orton: Kidsticks review – sunny side up with a shard of ice Twenty years ago, Beth Orton’s breakthrough Trailer Park correctgently dripped tasteful electronics over folky confessionals. Her latest collection, created in California, dives fearlessly into deeper waters. Although dependent on repetition of small riffs, syllables and phrases, these 10 songs are pleasingly unpredictable, uncoiling languorously around layers of synthetic and organic sounds. There’s grit too – the bass-strafed Petals wrestles with itself until its brawling, bawling end, collapsing into the jaunty single 1973. Orton’s alluring vocals decorate rather than dominate, making chilling lyrics like “the phone book is filling up with dead friends” (Falling) even more shocking when they surface. Despite its sunny origins, there’s a shard of ice speared through Kidsticks, a frost that burns fierce as fire.
Trump's word of honer: in defense of Donald's sloppy spelling It’s hard to take Donald Trump seriously. That’s bad, because he’s terrifyingly close to winning the Republican nomination, which is a very serious state of affairs. The problem is, things keep getting in the way. Mainly things on his Twitter feed. He’s backed the idea that “Too much #Monsanto in the #corn creates issues” in the minds of Iowans who prefer Ben Carson (or was that an intern who “did a retweet”?). He may have confused France with Germany. He’s insulted at least 199 people places and things in language that would fail to impress a grade-school teacher. All this despite the fact that his “IQ is one of the highest – and you all know it!”. Baffling. The latest Trumpism seems to have confirmed in many people’s minds that this man is a clown. He can’t even spell! (I’m putting to one side the possibility that Trump was in fact using the verb “to hone” in an unexpected and rather eloquent way). But here’s the thing. English orthography makes no sense. There’s already an unbridegable gulf between its two largest native-speaker populations over the way you spell this word. Brits like me use honour. For Americans, it’s honor. In this context, honer looks like a reasonable alternative. Maybe New Zealanders could adopt it? While we’re on the topic, why do we need an h at all? It’s not pronounced in any dialect, as far as I’m aware. It would be perfectly reasonable to go one further than Trump and use oner. Speluz ov thuh werld, u hav nuthing tuh looz but yor tshanes. Speakers of other languages often complain that written English doesn’t match what you actually say. My French colleague, Jessica Reed, frequently finds herself “outraged” by the eccentricities of English. This morning she exploded at me over the word plaid (pronounced “plad”). “It should be ‘played’! I am so livid about this!” Jessica’s strong feelings can be traced to the fact that there are very few surprises in written French – the way the orthography corresponds to the sounds that come out of your mouth is regular and predictable (although exceptions do exist, and have to be learned – like the hache aspiré). So why is English such a basketcase (another choice insult deployed by Trump in the debate on Thursday night)? Well, it’s complicated. But mainly it’s because we’ve used writing for a very long time – so long that changes in pronunciation have rippled through the spoken language, while spelling has remained rather conservative. Take words that end in ght – might, light, fought, taught. At one time, these would have been said with a rough, guttural sound at the end –a fricative – meaningfully represented by the gh letter combination. This sound gradually “lenited” to nothing, but the scribes and printers stuck with what they knew. And then there were various attempts at reform – some of which made spelling more complicated. During the Renaissance, scholars sought to emphasize the links between English and the great classical languages, Greek and Latin, by making the spelling of Latin or Greek-derived words more closely reflect their origins. So, f became ph in words like sapphire and while Middle English had endite or indite, by the 17th century indict was being used, by analogy with the Latin indictāre. What about honour/honor/honer, then? British English retains the -our spelling used in Old French, as in other words like arbour, armour and endeavour (though there was lots of variation until dictionaries helped standardize spellings from the 17th century onwards). Americans dropped the “u” in these words under the influence of lexicographer Noah Webster, who argued that “to purify our orthography from corruptions and restore to words their genuine spelling, we ought to reject u from honor, favor, candor, error, and others of this class.” His reforms were widely adopted in the US from the beginning of the 19th century. Since I started writing this piece, Trump has capitulated to the Twitter mob and swapped the e for an o. “Honer” is no more. But maybe he should’ve stood his ground. Have we just lost a latter-day Webster in the making? It was obviously a mistake, not an attempt at reform. But error has always been the wellspring of language change. Trump’s alternative spelling was as valid as any of the others. Fine, I won’t laber the point.
Radiohead: A Moon Shaped Pool review – disintegration at home and beyond Radiohead have long trafficked in existential dread and political anger, and in a wider sense of twitchy bereftness that bends to fit any number of scenarios – their very own aural shade of Yves Klein blue, maybe, just a little more bruised. This arresting ninth album is bathed in it. Overshadowed by the break-up of singer Thom Yorke’s relationship, announced last year, A Moon Shaped Pool finds the band mining their long and deep back catalogue, while pushing their compositional skills relentlessly forwards. Where 2011’s more granular and underrated The King of Limbs revelled in beats, A Moon Shaped Pool marks a frequent relaxation into more conventional songcraft – manna from heaven for a certain stripe of Radiohead fan. Jonny Greenwood’s film score sideline pays dividends, too, in the string arrangements and modern classical introduction to Glass Eyes. The album starts and finishes on two older songs, material reworked in the light of new developments. Dating from as long ago as the Hail to the Thief sessions, Burn the Witch is A Moon Shaped Pool’s most forthright political statement, a warning against scapegoating outsiders that trailed the album’s release with a startling stop-motion animation video. At the far end of the tracklisting is True Love Waits, a relic that has been around since circa 1995. The title may tilt at the religion-inspired US celibacy movement, but the song – now made up of piano, vocals and percussion that sounds like a beetle using a typewriter – is about a fraught sense of love. (The “lollipops and crisps” line refers to a mother who left her young child alone for days with junk food). It climaxes with the words “don’t leave”. You would not want to be so crass as to call this Radiohead’s break-up album; after all, there are four other band members. A song such as The Numbers (formerly known as Silent Spring) uses found sound, a little cosmic jazz, folk-rock acoustic guitar and accusatory strings to seethe specifically about ecocide. Ful Stop, meanwhile, is six minutes of encroaching electronic menace whose lyrics self-flagellate quite mercilessly. But a few songs appear to conjoin macro with micro, with a sense of loss that encompasses disintegration on the home front and in the wider world. Daydreaming is one. “The damage is done,” Yorke sings, even more exhausted than usual. Things have got “beyond the point of no return”, and “this goes beyond me/Beyond you”. The coda is back-masked and sinister: “Half of my life,” it goes, according to people who have played it backwards. At a guess, it’s the 23 years the 47-year-old Yorke spent with the mother of his children, crowning a piano-led ballad in which it is easy to read divorce as well as disaster.
Gay men are battling a demon more powerful than HIV – and it’s hidden It had been three years since I’d met up with my first boyfriend – let’s call him Steven. When he walked into a Brixton pub in June, it was a shock. I’d first met him well over a decade ago, and back then he was sporty, a bit of a health freak: other than the usual occasional student alcohol binge, relatively strait-laced. This Steven had dilated pupils, red marks on his arms, and his head jerked erratically as he spoke manically. He was addicted to crystal meth, and had an abusive relationship with other drugs and alcohol. Steven’s story is all too revealing about a silent health crisis afflicting gay men. The words “health crisis” in conjunction with “gay men” normally conjures up the HIV catastrophe that decimated the gay and bisexual community in the 1980s. In the developed world, HIV is no longer the death sentence it once was, although the treatment can cause health complications, and in the UK an estimated 6,500 men who have sex with men live with undiagnosed infections. A far greater menace is mental distress – impossible to disentangle from a society riddled with homophobia – and the drug and alcohol abuse that can follow. Steven has been clean for 66 days, has enthusiastically taken to treatment and volunteers at his local support group. But why – like so many gay men – did he succumb to addiction? When Steven came out, at the age of 15 years old, his parents drove him to a pseudo-clinic run by fundamentalist Christians to be cured of his homosexuality. But he doesn’t speak with bitterness. “I know they love me and they were doing the best they could,” he says. “They didn’t know what I needed, so they looked to their own experience, a culture that taught that if you were gay it was a disaster. You’d be lonely, you’d get Aids, you’d find life difficult. They felt they were trying to support me.” The problem was far broader than his family, though. Coming out as a teenager in the early 00s meant almost inevitable bullying at school, a lack of awareness of where to find positive role models, and homophobic voices amplified by the media. “Taken together, it meant I was isolated and thought that I was the problem.” Internalising that shame at such a young age inflicts long-term damage – and explains much of his current turmoil. It’s an issue covered by the former Attitude editor Matthew Todd in his utterly brilliant – and disturbing – recent book Straight Jacket. He identifies a number of problems that most gay men, if they were honest, would at least recognise: “Disproportionately high levels of depression, self-harm and suicide; not uncommon problems with emotional intimacy … and now a small but significant subculture of men who are using, some injecting, seriously dangerous drugs, which despite accusations of hysteria from the gatekeepers of the gay PR machine, are killing too many people.” He lists a disturbing number of gay friends, acquaintances and people in the public eye who struggled with addictions and took their own lives. The statistics are indeed alarming. According to Stonewall research in 2014, 52% of young LGBT people report they have, at some point, self-harmed; a staggering 44% have considered suicide; and 42% have sought medical help for mental distress. Alcohol and drug abuse are often damaging forms of self-medication to deal with this underlying distress. A recent study by the LGBT Foundation found that drug use among LGB people is seven times higher than the general population, binge drinking is twice as common among gay and bisexual men, and substance dependency is significantly higher. Why? As Todd puts it: “It is a shame with which we were saddled as children, to which we continue to be culturally subjected.” The problem gay people have isn’t their sexuality, but rather society’s attitude to it. It is “our experience of growing up in a society that still does not fully accept that people can be anything other than heterosexual and cisgendered [born into the physical gender you feel you are]”. There’s the weight of centuries of hatred and bigotry, with legally enforced discrimination only dismantled in very recent times. All gay and bisexual men – as well as women and trans people – grow up hearing homophobic and transphobic abuse. “Gay” is a word used in the playground as the repository for all that is bad. Popular films and TV programmes have largely lacked sympathetic, well-rounded LGBT characters, often resorting to crude homophobic tropes. Even the inability to hold hands with someone you love in almost any public space is a reminder that a depressingly large chunk of the population still rejects you. Coming out – a process that isn’t a one-off, but a wearingly repetitive event in different contexts – involves constant stress. And for those who think it’s all inevitably getting better, since the EU referendum, there’s been a 147% rise in homophobic hate crimes. Society has damaged – and continues to damage – LGBT people. That’s not to overstate the case (and focusing on my experience as a gay man): being gay does not mean being in a state of misery. As Todd puts it, there are lots of contented, successful gay people, and progress in recent times has been astonishing, including equal marriage. Coming out is like coming up for air for the vast majority of LGBT people: the alternative is so much more miserable. But this is a health crisis that is not spoken about enough: the toxic combination of mental distress, drugs and alcohol abuse. It is a crisis that is not being dealt with. Despite the government’s promises to grant mental and physical health parity of esteem, last year Mind reported an 8% real terms drop in mental health services funding since 2010. Cuts, according to health thinktank the King’s Fund, have contributed to “widespread evidence of poor-quality care”. Many LGBT services in particular have been devastated: as the TUC pointed out in 2014, they were “already coping on a shoestring. Some have faced drops in up to 50%.” Because of our internalised shame, LGBT people often find it difficult to talk about the problems we collectively face. The danger is always of reinforcing the damaging stereotypes that have already caused so much distress. But we have to confront a crisis that is damaging health and taking people’s lives. Society has to take responsibility, too: it is its continued refusal to treat LGBT people as equals that is causing so much pain. If Theresa May’s government really does want to prove it isn’t just a pound-shop Ukip tribute band, perhaps it should take this issue seriously and review David Cameron’s cuts. The lives of LGBT people depend on it. • In the UK, the Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Hotline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14. Hotlines in other countries can be found here
Which UK city suffers the most panic attacks? You could be forgiven for assuming that London would be the UK’s panic attack hotspot; after all, it is the city of unaffordable housing and incessant sprawl. However, you would be wrong. A UK-wide survey has found that Swansea, which doesn’t even make the nation’s top 10 largest metropolises, is ranked no1. According to the survey, carried out by a team led by panic disorder specialist Dr David Sinclair, almost one in 10 Swansea residents endure a panic attack at least once a week. The city has more than twice as many sufferers as Liverpool and Manchester, with Londoners experiencing even fewer attacks. Dr Sinclair is the co-founder of bcalm, a device marketed as an inhaler to help deal with anxiety. More than half of the 3,000 urban residents surveyed across 21 cities stated they’d had at least one panic attack in their life, with 14% suffering them at least once a month. Welsh and Midland cities rank highest: Wolverhampton is second in the poll and Birmingham fourth, pipped to third place by the UK’s rainiest city, Cardiff. It’s no surprise that urban environments can contribute to the onset of panic disorder. Noise, jostling crowds, treacherous and painfully slow-moving traffic, lack of green, open spaces, filthy pollution, high crime rates and living costs, and social anonymity are some of the factors city dwellers say make them uneasy. These claims are corroborated by a 2010 review paper which looked at differences in psychiatric disorders between urban and rural people, and found that cities raise the risk of anxiety disorders by 21%. According to the results of the new survey, both cramped public transport and densely populated offices are key triggers – with 46% of people who get panic attacks suffering them on their way to work. Luke Shepherd, 33, from Manchester says that while he can never predict exactly what will trigger a panic attack, “crowded cities, public transport and even cinemas have caused me to have panic attacks in the past”. As a typical example, Shepherd recalls a journey he took on a busy commuter train from Manchester to Telford, via Birmingham. When the train stopped at a station, letting hordes of passengers embark, his symptoms kicked in. “I couldn’t get any air and was struggling to control my breathing,” he recalls. “I ended up sitting on my rucksack and trying to do deep breathing to control the symptoms. One of the passengers asked if I was OK but I’m not sure if I even responded. I was too focused on keeping it together.” After a few minutes, he recovered. Some people with panic disorder report feeling like they’re about to die, and attacks can come on at seemingly arbitrary moments. While the condition isn’t fully understood, one hypothesis is that a structure in the brain essential in controlling how we experience fear – the amygdala – is more active in stressed-out city dwellers than rural folks. The amygdala is regulated by the perigenual anterior cingulate cortex, which also appears to be more active in people brought up in cities. Among urban populations, the link between these two brain regions is less smooth; a condition that has been associated with schizophrenia. People diagnosed with schizophrenia are also more likely to live in cities. The amygdala is implicated in panic disorder in a second way: a jump in acidity in the synapses within the amygdala can invoke panic. And there is a clear urban environmental cause for raised brain acidity: high levels of carbon dioxide. A 2009 study from the University of Iowa showed that “inhaled CO(2) reduced brain pH and evoked fear behaviour in mice”. The same study detailed how people with panic disorder are unusually sensitive to anything that increases brain acidity, carbon dioxide being one of them. So while most participants in their research won’t notice whether their air contains 35% carbon dioxide, the majority of those with panic disorder will experience spontaneous panic in these conditions. Packed public transport, busy offices and meeting rooms, planes, lifts and cars all can have high concentrations of CO2. Many participants in the UK survey cited poor airflow and ventilation as their biggest environmental triggers for panic attacks: 26% would like their employer to improve airflow and ventilation in the workplace. Office blocks are packed full of people exhaling CO2, often with little fresh air coming in from the outside. As well as improving air quality, 35% of people who get panic attacks say they would like their employer to provide a safe, trigger-free space, 13% think that changing the layout of the office would help, and 11% feel that lessening noise would help reduce attacks. But in lieu of such improvements, it seems that taking regular exercise is the best known way to reduce the panic-inducing effects of high carbon dioxide levels. Getting older might help, too. According to the survey, young people are more prone to panic disorder, with 18% of 18 to 24-year-olds having regular attacks. Or perhaps we should move to Leicester which, according to the survey, is the city with the lowest proportion of residents who experience at least one panic attack each week. Follow Cities on Twitter and Facebook and join the discussion
Malaria vaccine study raises questions about effectiveness and dosage Further doubts about the future of the world’s first malaria vaccine have been raised by research that shows the protection given by three doses declines to almost nothing over seven years. As the vaccine wears off, the study shows that children living in areas where there is high transmission of the disease end up with more infections than those who have never had a jab – known as the malaria rebound effect. Unvaccinated children – if they survive malaria – develop some natural immunity over the years. Four doses are known to protect children for longer, but as the protection will still wane, the question that needs to be answered is “are we just kicking the can down the road”? said Prof Philip Bejon, director of the Kemri-Wellcome Trust research programme in Kenya, which conducted the latest study. In spite of the results of the trial in Kilifi, Kenya, which was published in the New England Journal of Medicine, those behind the development of the vaccine said it must still be rolled out in pilot programmes to thousands of children in Africa by the World Health Organisation as planned. The children will be given four doses rather than three. The toll in death and disability from malaria among children is so great that the vaccine still could have a role to play in decreasing the number of cases in the early years of life, say those behind the vaccine’s development. Dr David Kaslow, vice-president for product development at Path, a non-profit international organisation that has been a key player with the pharmaceutical firm GlaxoSmithKline, said up to six doses could be needed to maintain the protective effect. Since children were getting malaria at a later age, he said, “we need to make sure we also have got immunity during that age period as well, verifying the need for a 4th dose and potentially a 5th and 6th dose”. That raises logistical questions. The vaccine is already not given to the same schedule as the other infant jabs, and further doses would entail families bringing their children back many times. It will also significantly increase the costs. Kaslow said: “It is tragic that we have vaccine-preventable diseases and cannot get vaccines into the arms of those who need them. We should be spending more on this, rather than say it is a zero-sum game and we need a Faustian bargain.” But although research has shown that four shots of the malaria vaccine are cost-effective, the need for more could change the picture, and Kaslow acknowledged there was a need for a “very careful cost-effectiveness analysis”. The RTS,S vaccine, as it is called, was greeted as a breakthrough even though it only offers partial protection; 39% among children given four shots starting between five and 17 months of age. Gavi, the global alliance for vaccines and immunisations, said last week it would put up to $27.5m (£20m) into the funding of the pilot projects in three to five locations in Africa, provided that the sum was matched by others. The WHO says the total estimated budget for the vaccine programme is $101m over six and a half years. The WHO pointed out that the new study was a small follow-up of about 400 children who were vaccinated in an early stage of the trials and who only got three doses. “The results indicate that efficacy wanes over time and clearly signal, which is important for policy decisions, the need for a fourth dose of the vaccine,” said a spokesperson. “It remains important to proceed with the pilot implementation programme WHO has advised. By conducting the pilots, the international health community can determine what the role of this vaccine will be for public health.” The trial found that during the first year, the risk of getting malaria in the vaccinated children was 35.9% less than in the control group, but after seven years this protection fell to 4.4%. “We found that three-dose vaccination with RTS,S was initially protective, but this was offset by a rebound in later years among children exposed to higher than average levels of malaria-carrying mosquitoes,” said Bejon. “While our results raise the possibility that being exposed to very high levels of malaria parasites may undo some of the benefits of RTS,S, our sample size was too small to draw any definitive conclusions about the long-term efficacy of the vaccine.”
Gimme, gimme, gimme some hope for the EU: Abba star tells UK to stay Björn Ulvaeus, of the Swedish pop legends Abba, is urging British voters to take a chance on the EU and vote to remain in June’s referendum. Christine Lagarde, Mark Carney and Larry Summers are among some of the world’s most powerful economic thinkers who have waded into the debate to warn about the risks of leaving the union. But as millions of Britons settle on their sofas to watch Eurovision on Saturday night, the Britain Stronger in Europe campaign hopes the intervention of the man who co-wrote such classics as Dancing Queen and Fernando will show its argument is not just about Money, Money, Money. Speaking before this year’s competition, which is being held in Sweden, Ulvaeus told Radio 5 Live: “It would really make me sad if Britain would leave and what that would mean. It’s like someone you love leaving you. It’s emotional.” James McGrory, a spokesman for Stronger In, welcomed Ulvaeus’s statement, saying: “The leave campaign wants the British public to take a chance by turning our backs on the EU and risking our economic security and global influence.” Celebrities in the out camp include the former England batsman Ian Botham and Roger Daltrey, the frontman of the Who. More than 1,000 pro-EU events are taking place across Britain on Saturday, involving all the major party leaders. The latest polling suggests the result of the 23 June vote is too close to call; and with only two options on the ballot paper, the winner takes it all. Eurovision itself, which incorporates non-EU members including Turkey, Israel and Russia, more closely resembles the freewheeling alliance that Vote Leave’s campaign chair, Michael Gove would like to see, than the EU – though the bureaucracy of the voting system could have been designed by Brussels. The views of the other three members of Abba on Britain’s future relationship with the EU are as yet unknown.
Bank levy cuts prove chancellor dances to City's tune, John McDonnell says George Osborne is on the side of the banks and not those who rely on them, John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, has said, responding to reports that the chancellor cut the bank levy after sustained lobbying from the City. McDonnell said the reports were “yet another example of how George Osborne dances to the tune of whatever the bankers call for, and everyone else is a second thought”. Following freedom of information requests, the Evening Standard reported on Friday that the CBI, Royal Bank of Scotland, HSBC and the British Bankers’ Association all called on the government to lower the levy after it was first introduced in 2010 in response to the financial crisis. In his July budget, Osborne announced that the levy – which has raised over £8bn since 2010 – would be reduced from 0.21% to 0.1% by 2021 and would only apply to the UK balance sheets of banks. “The chancellor has an ever softer touch on the banks; cutting the bank levy, slashing corporation tax, selling the publicly owned banks off at a loss, watering down the regulations on senior bankers and staying silent when the watchdog he set up watered down its review into the sector,” said McDonnell. “Customers and taxpayers who bailed out the banks and continue to pay the price for their past actions and excesses will see this as yet more proof that George Osborne is simply on the side of those who run the banks and not those who rely on them.” Responding to complaints from banks that the levy had frequently been raised without warning, Osborne in July set out a timetable for reductions from 0.21% to 0.18% from January 2016 and 0.17% from January 2017, before reaching 0.1% from January 2021. The levy has previously been based on banks’ global balance sheets, but will be changed to focus only on their UK operations from 2021. The Conservative manifesto ahead of last May’s general election pledged that the levy – which had been increased nine times – would be permanent. Following Osborne’s announcement to change it, City analysts estimated the changes would save major international banks such as HSBC and Standard Chartered almost £1bn in tax a year. A spokeswoman for the Treasury told the Evening Standard that “any suggestion of undue influence is wrong.”
Live music booking now Without blinding you with science, it’s literally January now. And, if all goes to plan, in a few months it will be May, meaning the “What festivals are you doing?” question will begin being asked. Early birds, however, are already chowing down on cut-price tickets and sorting transport to places that will definitely be really, really nice when summer starts. One of the most pleasant of these is also one of the most tastefully curated: Gothenburg, Sweden’s Way Out West (11-13 Aug), featuring Sia, M83, Stormzy and Chvrches … Barcelona’s Sónar (16-18 Jun), founded when visiting a European city for a music festival was almost absurdly aspirational, rather than a summer staple, boasts Antony Hegarty’s new project ANOHNI with Oneohtrix Point Never and Hudson Mohawke, grime from Skepta and Section Boyz, and headline turns from Fatboy Slim and New Order … Finally, while perfect weather cannot be guaranteed at Secret Garden Party (21-24 Jul, Abbots Ripton), a facepaint-drenched fun certainly can, with Primal Scream headlining, and a space-y fancy-dress theme confirmed.
GPs battle fatalism in neighbourhood with Britain's worst life expectancy With bright pink plate-glass windows and high walls clad in cream panels and battleship-grey zinc, Possilpark heath centre imposes itself on Saracen Street. There are old sandstone tenements, chemists, chip shops, law firms and licensed grocers along the road, which is known in Glasgow for the wrong reasons. Less than two miles from the affluent, fashionable area around the University of Glasgow, this neighbourhood has the worst life expectancy rates in the UK, and perhaps in western Europe. Epidemiologists with the Glasgow Centre for Population Health calculated that between the years 2008 and 2012 an average man in Ruchill and Possilpark – a neighbourhood of 10,700 people, would die aged just 66 – barely old enough to collect his state pension. And that knowledge breeds a certain dark humour. Fatalism about their life chances is a constant, particularly from the men. “It’s the ‘ach well, if that’s what I’ve got, that’s what I’ve got’,” says Dr Lynsay Crawford, a GP at Balmore medical practice, a highly regarded surgery in the Possilpark building. “I had one patient saying ‘well, you’ve got to die of something’.” Advances in modern healthcare, new and refurbished housing, and slow changes to lifestyle have improved life expectancy in Possilpark, yet the gap with the rest of Scotland remains stubbornly wide. The latest data for 2014 shows men in the wider Scottish parliamentary constituency that is home to Possilpark – Glasgow Maryhill and Springburn – will die aged 72 on average, five years younger than across Scotland; for women life expectancy is 77, against a Scottish figure of 81. And while they may live longer than before they do so in poor health, with complex, chronic illnesses. Clinicians call it premature multi-morbidity: patients who may be life-long smokers living with obesity, lung disease or ailing hearts. “Our patients have multiple chronic diseases about 15 to 20 years earlier than in affluent areas. They are living longer in poorer health,” Crawford says. It is also labelled the Glasgow effect: other British cities have identical levels of poverty, yet their citizens live longer. Glasgow’s figures are a significant factor in Scotland’s poor overall life expectancy rates: Scots still die earlier than in any other west European country, at 79 against 81 in England and Wales, or 82 in Spain, Sweden and Italy. For many Glaswegians, Possilpark has a reputation, one resented deeply by its residents, built on images of drug addicts and alcoholics clustered on street corners, of gaunt men and women with hardened, ruined faces queuing outside pharmacies at 7.30am for their methadone handouts. So the new health centre, built for £10m by NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde two years ago, makes a highly visible statement. It symbolises both an intention and an investment. Set into its cube-like blocks are tall sheet-glass windows, opening on to bright lights, tall, flawless white walls and chrome handrails. The centre is home to two dentists, a podiatrist, an NHS physiotherapist and four GP practices, including Dr Crawford’s, Balmore. Balmore is a leading member in the Deep End, a network of the 100 practices with Scotland’s most deprived catchment areas that campaigns for higher spending and targeted policies. Balmore’s patients live with the third worst deprivation levels of all GP surgeries in Scotland. Four in 10 of Balmore’s 3,511 patients have chronic diseases. While rates are slowly improving, nearly 34% of patients smoke, against a Scottish average of 19.7% and double the UK’s 15.9%; it has 151 patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, double the Scottish average; and almost 200 patients with coronary heart disease, at 5.7% against the Scottish rate of 4.2%. The clinic has made significant progress on high blood pressure rates. They have fallen to 13.6%, while Scotland’s average has risen steadily, and is now higher than Balmore’s. Still, 231 Balmore patients have diabetes, 6.7% versus 4.9% for Scotland; and 296 have asthma, a third more than the Scotland-wide rate. More than 300 have a history of depression, nearly 50% higher than the Scottish average. Possilpark’s dire health statistics may be closely linked to its depopulation, with those in better jobs leaving for other places, so amplifying the scale of the health problems among those who stay. The population for Ruchill and Possilpark fell by 22% between 1996 and 2012, particularly among younger adults, reports the Glasgow Centre for Population Health. There is unanimity among its patients about the issues that underpin the area’s poor health: poor diet leading to malnutrition; poor housing and an addiction to smoking. “There are so many problems: housing, diet,” says John McKibben, 50, a social worker until he retired early after a kidney transplant in 1996. “It’s much easier to buy a bag of frozen ‘heat and eat’ food than a bag of fresh vegetables and make themselves a meal,” he adds. “It all comes down to the opportunities in life for people. I know we’ve never been richer in a global sense but I don’t think that the people of Possilpark feel much of that.” Just across Saracen Road is a building that illustrates this part of Possilpark’s story. Above Houlihans the chemist is a pink sandstone tenement where nearly every flat has its windows boarded with steel shutters and greying sun-bleached chipboard sheets. This is the Possilpark looked down on by other parts of the city. Some patients dislike the health centre’s antiseptic, clinical air but savour its sense of community. Its regulars have a habit of bringing gifts for the Balmore team: scones and crumpets are a favourite. Crawford and her practice partner, Dr Allison Reid, have been colleagues there for some 20 years, meeting nearly 30 years ago as freshers at the University of Glasgow’s medical school. Balmore’s practice nurse, Ruth Campbell, was Reid’s flatmate at university. Balmore’s chief receptionist is Karen Hamilton, 50, a broad, smiling, no-nonsense woman native to Possilpark who knows her neighbourhood and every patient. She quells rows between gangs and warring families who have little inhibition about bringing their disputes into the reception area. “They just want to say what they want to say, they don’t care who’s there,” says Hamilton. “They don’t look down their noses at you, saying ‘who are you talking to me in that tone of voice’. You get quite good respect, to be honest with you.” Her colleague is Margaret Butterly, another Balmore veteran. She knows the patients so well she has been known to report their illnesses to Crawford and Reid before they ask for an appointment. Pamela Ritchie, 30, an insurance claim analyst, remembers Butterly cajoling her into having an immediate cervical smear test when Ritchie appeared at reception in February last year with her sister and nephew. Ritchie was not booked in, but Butterly knew she had ignored a smear test letter two years ago, and had just had a reminder. “Margaret really made me sit down and go for that day,” Ritchie recalls. She had the bad news within a week. From then on things went “100mph but in a good way. They were so fast in getting my appointments for scans.” After months of chemotherapy and radiotherapy, she is now in remission and has 24 eggs harvested for IVF treatment. “If you’d asked me at Christmas [how I was feeling], I would’ve said ‘I’m an absolute wreck’,” Ritchie says. “But starting in the new year I have talked myself into trying not to cry and put it behind me.” The job is often intense and stressful. Balmore’s third partner quit last summer, citing stress because of the hours, and has not yet been replaced. Crawford survives by working a half week, splitting her time with Glasgow’s medical school, where she teaches ethics, communication and professionalism, and clinical skills. Reid too works a short week, seven shifts rather than 10. There are subtle differences in the strategies pursued by Crawford and Reid compared with GPs in more affluent and less troubled communities. At Balmore, a doctor’s dire ultimatums to quit smoking, or to cut down on fatty, sugary foods, will simply fail. Patients will stop turning up. The GPs believe their authority rests very heavily on trust, carefully calibrated negotiation and a lack of judgment about a patient’s lifestyle and history. Getting someone to cut down their smoking or change their diet is by coaxing, negotiation. There is a strong sense that smoking is a rare pleasure in a difficult world; beating addiction is harder with great routine stress in daily life. They have alcoholics with multiple illnesses directly linked to their alcohol abuse, poor diet and damp homes. Those men will often quite candidly describe how heavily they drank the night before. They still need and deserve treatment, respect rather than censure, says Crawford. “I have several patients who are significant alcoholics and know that they’re going to die from that. But they come to you because I don’t make judgments, and they don’t lie to me about how much they’re drinking,” she says. “I suppose you’re trying each time to enable them to finally make that change: that may be one day, you will say something or all the bits will just click into place, and they will say OK. It does occasionally happen. But also you have to accept that if someone does die, that is their life to live, and you can’t have done anything more.” Reid is optimistic that things are improving. The slum clearances and new homes, many with their own gardens, are reducing depression. “This has made a huge difference to people’s health, having access to their own gardens and outdoor space,” she says. “They’re living longer but not in good health, lots of them. They’ve had their triple bypasses which has kept them alive, but then we have them in their 70s with heart and lung disease, and heart failure. I think that health has improved, but not in the way we would see in wealthier areas.”
Tony Blair says his return to British politics is an open question Tony Blair has refused to rule out a return to British politics, in an interview in which he predicts the centre ground will rise again within the Labour party. The former prime minister said he was still trying to find a political role which would help the party become electable. In an interview with Esquire magazine, he said the centre of British politics would rise again and he did not rule out a role in that rise. “I don’t know if there’s a role for me,” he said. “There’s a limit to what I want to say about my own position at this moment. All I can say is that this is where politics is at. Do I feel strongly about it? Yes, I do. Am I very motivated by that? Yes. Where do I go from here? What exactly do I do? That’s an open question. “There’s been a huge reaction against the politics I represent. But I think it’s too soon to say the centre has been defeated. Ultimately I don’t think it will. I think it will succeed again. The centre ground is in retreat. This is our challenge. We’ve got to rise to that challenge.” He reiterated his views on Jeremy Corbyn’s election and re-election as Labour’s leader over the course of a year, saying he had a set of policies that would take the UK back to the 1960s. “Frankly, it’s a tragedy for British politics if the choice before the country is a Conservative government going for a hard Brexit and an ultra-left Labour party that believes in a set of policies that takes us back to the 1960s,” he said. “In the UK at the moment you’ve got a one-party state. When you put it all together (taking into account that the Conservative leader wasn’t elected), there’s something seriously wrong.” His comments will anger many new party members who have blamed Blair’s quest for the centre ground for letting down working-class voters, union members and leading the UK into the Iraq war. Blair has spent the nine years since his withdrawal from frontline politics developing an organisation that employs about 200 people and operates in more than 20 countries. Last month, he announced he would stand down to concentrate on not-for-profit organisations. But in the UK, where he has been criticised for the ways in which he has earned his money and for his role in the lead-up to the Iraq war in 2003, his reputation is low. July’s Chilcot report was damning about the decision-making on Iraq in Whitehall and the way in which intelligence was presented, but did not say that Blair lied about the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Asked whether Corbyn could ever be taken seriously as a leader, Blair told the magazine that the problems within the party ran deeper than a single individual. “This is not about Jeremy Corbyn,” he said. “It’s about two different cultures in one organism. One culture is the culture of the Labour party as a party of government. And that, historically, is why Labour was formed: to win representation in parliament and ultimately to influence and to be the government of the country. “The other culture is the ultra-left, which believes that the action on the street is as important as the action in parliament,” he said. “That culture has now taken the leadership of the Labour party. It’s a huge problem because they live in a world that is very, very remote from the way that the broad mass of people really think. “The reason why the position of these guys is not one that will appeal to an electorate is not because they are too left, or because they are too principled. It’s because they are too wrong. “The reason their policies shouldn’t be supported isn’t because they’re wildly radical, it’s because they are not. They don’t work. They are actually a form of conservatism. This is the point about them. What they are offering is a mixture of fantasy and error.”
Theresa May has benefited from the Tories’ hunger for power There is a reason why the Conservative party is the most electorally successful political organisation in the western world. They have an iron will to power their rivals lack – and they have just shown it once again. Little more than a fortnight after they appeared on the brink of civil war - as their leader resigned and the party’s leading lights turned on each other in a fevered round of betrayal and backstabbing – they have now rallied around a single figure. Soon, very soon, Theresa May will be prime minister and (most of) the Tory tribe will unite around her. Compared to the long, messy and fratricidal battle only just beginning in the Labour party, the Conservatives have moved with surgical swiftness. Andrea Leadsom’s exit was not inevitable. It’s not the case that she was bound to be crushed in a ballot against May and therefore got out now to spare herself the humiliation. On the contrary, and for all her obvious flaws, she had a key advantage: she stood to benefit from the entrenched anti-EU instincts of the 150,000-strong party membership who were poised to decide this contest in a ballot. Past precedent suggested that in any choice, they would prefer the candidate positioned as the most stridently anti-EU. That was her. Nevertheless, she reportedly found the weekend hammering she received over her comments to the Times – suggesting that, because she has children while Theresa May does not, she has more of a “real stake” in the future – too much. That may have been a political judgment, concluding that she had done herself too much damage to win. Or it may have been more personal, deciding that the mockery and scrutiny she had faced, and would continue to face, were too much to bear. Perhaps nine weeks cast as Britain’s Sarah Palin – inspiring both ridicule and revulsion – was impossible to face. In her short statement, Leadsom said the reason she dropped out was that she lacked “sufficient support” in parliament. She said that even if she won among members, it would be impossible to lead the country without the backing of her own MPs. (As it happens, that’s precisely opposite to the stance taken by Jeremy Corbyn.) We can perhaps be sceptical of that logic, given that her lack of parliamentary support was clear last week too. So something else must have changed. It now means that Britain is about to be led by its second female prime minister. It also means a remainer will lead a government whose central task will be Brexit. That could be a recipe for more of the internal tensions over Europe that devoured the last three Conservative premierships. From the very start, May will be under constant pressure from those watching and waiting for her to betray the verdict delivered in the 23 June referendum. With that doubtless in mind, this morning May reiterated her stance that Brexit will mean Brexit. For the country, even non-Conservatives might now breathe a sigh of relief. The most experienced and qualified candidate will take over as prime minister in what is a time of great turbulence. The markets perked up, suggesting they feel reassured – and they will not be the only ones. As for Labour, this will concentrate minds. May’s speech this morning showed they face a formidable opponent, one who has already moved fast to place several tanks on to what should be Labour’s lawn. She spoke about inequality, sexism, racism, the class divide, social immobility and the failure to help those with mental illness. She spoke of the precariousness and insecurity of life for those who may be in work, but feel as if they are only just getting by. She spoke too of the needs of the young who cannot own a home. She promised to fight these “injustices”. Meanwhile, Labour is fighting itself. It’s that age-old Tory will to power. For nearly two centuries, it has shaped British politics. Theresa May shows she has every intention of keeping it that way.
My father died alone in hospital. Our campaign is restoring people’s dignity A little more than two years ago, I was in the kitchen with my friend, Julia Jones, in a state of helpless sorrow. My father, John, was still alive then, although he was in his desolating last stages. His slow-motion dying had gone on for months and would continue for several more. While it endured we half wanted him gone, and when it ended, of course we wanted him back – a living ghost rather than a dead man who might haunt us but would never return. My father’s drawn-out death lasted nine months: he went into hospital as someone living well with dementia; he came out quite lost and broken, and all the love in the world couldn’t have found him or put him together again. It was Julia who suggested (and why hadn’t I thought of this before; why hadn’t it been obvious?) that carers of people living with dementia should have the same right to accompany them in hospital as the parents of sick children: that they should be welcomed by the bedside, to feed them, talk to them, hold their hand, stroke their hair, meet their gaze, be their memory, keep them safe, take them home whole. And after my father died, it was the – which had 50 years earlier championed the demand by parents to be able do just that for their children – which gave me a place where my voice could be heard, and where sorrow, guilt and regret could be redeemed into change and rescue. My father was beyond all help, but there are thousands of men and women with dementia who go into hospital each year and who come out diminished, through no fault of nurses and doctors, but because hospital is a hazardous place for those who are frail. It was nearly two years since I wrote the piece in the that launched John’s Campaign. Founded and run by Julia and me, its aim is simply that carers should be made welcome in hospital. Its beginnings were in a kitchen, but it is now part of a great movement for more enlightened and compassionate care for those with dementia. At a conference last Wednesday dedicated to the campaign, tribute was paid to the paper’s honourable tradition of giving a voice to the voiceless, power to the powerless, hope to those in despair. The hall was full of generous people who had helped us on our journey – people with influence and connections, NHS leaders, consultants, chief nurses, heads of charities – but at the heart of the conference were the people whose voices are not usually heard, whose sorrow and anger and passion get drowned out in the great noise of the world. As James Munro, chief executive of Patient Opinion, said: “Listening is the beating heart of healthcare” and in the act of listening “both speaker and listener are changed”. In a session entitled “Voices”, 10 people, many of whom had never spoken in public before, courageously told of their experiences and were listened to. Sometimes what they said was hard to hear. Their stories, both the ones of anguish and the ones of kindness and optimism, illustrated why we started the campaign. Tommy Dunne, who lives with dementia, described what it feels like to be in hospital, a “strange place surrounded by strangers”, where something tight squeezes your arm and something cold is put into your mouth; where a chicken pie is placed in front of you and then taken away, a mug of tea loudly offered and then removed; where, startled and scared, “you become dehydrated and delirium sets in … and the quick decline in your health begins. Yet no one knows or understands why.” Several carers – partners, children, grandchildren, people who, as one of them had it, were the “voice and the memory” of the person with dementia – spoke about their experiences of heartbreak. Teresa Canale-Parola’s partner, John, was 60 when he died. The hospital in which he spent his final days was too far away for her and her daughters to visit regularly, and – in spite of their battle to get this reversed – there were strict visiting hours, so that for much of the time he was quite alone. In his dementia, John had become violent and was placed under a mental health order. He was medicated and, even when he was placid, he was restrained. He stopped eating and drinking. Soon he could no longer walk. Thirty-five days after his admission, Teresa had a call to say his health had deteriorated: she and her daughters found John, by now starved and badly dehydrated, “restrained in a chair, dying” . It was a brutal way for a man to go. The death of someone with advanced dementia can be a sad blessing for those who have loved them, restoring that person to all the selves they have ever been – but a bad or lonely death makes mourning painfully difficult, full of anger and regret and terrible failure, of almost unendurable memories of distress. Not to be with them, not to comfort them, not to rescue them from abandonment and fear, not to accompany them up to the threshold. Alongside stories of anguish, there were ones of hope: a junior geriatrician (of whom I am the proud aunt) spoke about being part of a cultural change in hospitals. Liz Charalambous – a nurse who has been fighting to get unrestricted visiting for carers for years – said that “one day we will look back in astonishment” at the time when carers were not made welcome. Rebecca Myers, a health professional whose mother had dementia at a cruelly young age, spoke movingly about the “pragmatic empathy” that lies at the heart of healthcare: “One human being connected to another, in the moment, in the environment, for a shared purpose – to take care, of and with, each other.” And Theresa Clarke, a former nurse from Northern Ireland now living with dementia, spoke with clarity and spirit about how people with the condition “need to be part of the conversation … not just spoken about, like an object, but talked with and to”. She certainly did not like her diagnosis, she said, and being left in hospital was “deadly, like being in deep space”, but she urged us all to remember that “we can live well with dementia, we can still contribute to society, our family and the world beyond”. Seeing Theresa, this diminutive firecracker of a woman, hearing her talk, hearing Tommy’s vivid account, was a forceful reminder that people with dementia – who we often reduce to statistics, to costs, to problems, even (horrible words) to “bed blockers”, are not “them” but “us”, valuable and human and precious, with stories to tell and voices to be listened to. The session ended with Kate Kellaway, of the , beautifully and tenderly describing her father’s last weeks. Her words, republished here, illustrate the ideals of our campaign and show how, up and down the country, nurses and doctors are bringing extraordinary compassion and empathy to the lives of people who are vulnerable, and to their deaths: to live as well as we possibly can; to have, as they say in Ireland, a gentle passing. ‘My dad’s care made us believe in the goodness of people’ My father died five months ago at Whittington hospital in Archway, north London – he’d had a fall, broken a hip, had an operation, recovered and been discharged. Then he had another fall and had to be readmitted and it turned out he’d had a silent heart attack. He was 90. He had for some time suffered from chronic kidney disease. So – a medley of misfortunes, including, towards the end, dementia. He had an intermittent belief he was back in the war and that there was a soldier in the bed next to him – he was determined to know the soldier’s name. I helplessly selected “Jim”, which seemed to pacify Dad. But, of course there was no bed and no soldier other than Dad himself, gallantly fighting on. When it was clear he was dying, the Whittington found him a room to himself. And that was just the first of the blessings of being in that hospital during Dad’s final three weeks. The care was, in every way, exemplary. The staff were happy to waive visiting hours without question. We could come and go as we pleased and sit up all night with Dad if that was what we wanted to do. The number of visitors at any one time was left to our discretion. My brother, sister and I were bowled over by one nurse in particular and the compassionate intelligence with which she grasped the emotional picture. Sam Hunt talked to Dad with warmth, respect and gentle humour. She tried to find out how he was feeling. At one point, he admitted he was frightened and she listened, smiled and reassured. And she reassured us too – she made us believe in the goodness of which people are capable. The doctor, Dr Mitchell, was outstanding – a model of intelligence, sympathy and tact. She was exceptionally clear in her information – impressive, in particular, in telling us what she was not sure of as well as informing us about whatever she knew. Towards the end of his life, Dad had given us instructions about not prolonging his life unnecessarily – we had power of attorney. The staff listened to us but as Dad became less and less able to speak, Dr Mitchell never neglected to address him first: “Mr Kellaway, I’m just talking to your daughters about how we can try to make you more comfortable…” The palliative care team was first rate: educating us in the art, or science, of dying comfortably. And when Dad gently breathed his last – it seemed to me that it resembled what a friend of mine once described as pushing your boat out – I was with him, and when he was gone, it was the nurse and doctor I embraced. They had retained the necessary professional distance and yet had allowed us to feel, if only for a moment, that they were – almost – family. Kate Kellaway
Omar Sharif honoured in Oscars ceremony Omar Sharif has been remembered by the Oscars in this year’s In Memoriam section of the Academy Awards ceremony. The Egyptian-born actor never won an Oscar, was nominated for Lawrence of Arabia (as best supporting actor) but, remarkably, not for Doctor Zhivago, the film for which he is arguably best remembered. However, he did win a Golden Globe for both roles. Sharif established himself as an actor in Egypt before making the switch to Hollywood in the early 60s, with the David Lean-directed Lawrence of Arabia, where he featured in the famous shot riding a camel out of the desert. Sharif went on to appear in Funny Girl (opposite Barbra Streisand), the poorly-received Ché! and the cold war romantic thriller The Tamarind Seed. Sharif died in Cairo aged 83 in 2015. His last credit was the educational film 1001 Inventions and the World of Ibn Al-Haytham, but he had experienced a late career revival with the award-winning 2003 drama Monsieur Ibrahim. More on Omar Sharif A career in clips Doctor Zhivago: vehement storytelling which still conjures great romance Agnès Poirier: why I fell for the beguiling Omar Sharif Letter: on location with Omar Sharif
View from Hartlepool: ‘The main reason I voted to leave was immigration’ It’s not only the Scots who want to review their constitutional arrangements with the UK after the EU referendum. The day after it had helped to make UK political history, Hartlepool, perhaps emboldened by its role in the referendum, was also seeking more autonomy. In the early hours of Friday it was revealed that Hartlepool residents had cast 32,071 ballots in favour of leaving the EU while only 14,029 voted to remain, a majority of 69.6% to 30.4%. As such, Hartlepool became Brexit’s poster boy in the north-east, recording the biggest margin of victory in the region for the Leave campaign. Local business chiefs are now seeking to make progress with a devolution deal which is part of the creation of the new Tees Valley Combined Authority. Dave Budd, its chairman, told the Hartlepool Mail that this was now a major priority. “We now need to move forward with regional devolution and give Tees Valley control over its own destiny.” Perhaps he’ll be extending an invitation to Nicola Sturgeon to exchange notes. In the Jacksons Arms pub in Hartlepool late on Friday night, some local people were picking over the bones of the campaign. “The main reason I voted to leave the EU was immigration,” said Tommy Docherty. “And that doesn’t make me a racist. There needs to be a cap on immigrants coming to this country because, as things stand, this country just can’t cope.” Docherty’s skills as a joiner take him all over the country in the gas and shipping industries and he is well aware of the divisions throughout the UK. “I’m originally from the east end of Glasgow and I was astonished that every Scottish region voted to stay in.” His friend and colleague Brian Trotter also voted to leave the EU and, similarly, had no regrets in doing so. “I didn’t think the Leave side would win, to be honest. But I’m delighted that it did. Immigration is also a big issue for me; not the principle but the sheer volume.” As the extent of the Leave side’s victory in Hartlepool became evident, the local business community urged caution, but this was laced with an anxiety that could barely be concealed. This region, like many others across the UK, has been the recipient of hundreds of millions of pounds of EU investment. Now they all must just wait and hope that Boris Johnson and Michael Gove were telling the truth about £350m leaving the UK for Europe every week, and how it will now be reinvested in regions like this. The area relies on every penny it can get. Like other communities up and down this stretch of England’s east coast, it has suffered grievously at the hands of the forces of de-industrialisation and an absence of anything approaching a viable economic plan to fill the void. In the Thatcher era thousands of steel jobs disappeared, just a couple of decades or so after the last ship to be built in Hartlepool sailed in 1961. There was a regeneration of sorts in the 1990s, with a swanky-looking marina emerging from what had been a noisy and dynamic dockland area. What new jobs have been created are not the robust, transferable and hard-wrought ones that were properly paid and could be passed down through generations. Back in the Jacksons Arms, Liam Gallagher is belting out Roll With It on the jukebox and June Robson and Sharon Railton are expressing the same sentiments about the outcome of the referendum. Both women voted Leave and would do so all over again. Like Doherty and Trotter, they were concerned about the volume of immigration. They were angrier, though, about the industrial heart being ripped out of the region. Robson, who works in export packaging, said: “We have lost so many industrial jobs in this area over the years and lots of old skills. Who’s to say that we can’t revive these skills and those industries by making our own trade deals and deciding what our own priorities will be?” Her friend Railton said: “My daughter and her friends recently successfully completed an access course through the dole office. She was told she needed to do this to apply for the jobs she had in mind. But the first time she applied for one she was told not to bother, as they had all now been filled by Romanian people who were probably doing them for less.” Hartlepool was at the apex of those north-eastern and Midlands Labour strongholds that ignored the party’s advice and opted to leave. The town’s health and social indicators show that it is encountering fierce challenges. A survey in 2012 listed Hartlepool as being in the top 2% of England’s most deprived areas. The numbers were based on levels of income, unemployment, health, education and crime. The pattern of despair is one that, by degrees, could be found in many other of those working-class communities that decided to turn their backs on Europe. Of 326 local authorities, Hartlepool was placed fourth highest in terms of being at overall risk of poverty. By every indicator of physical and social health and wellbeing, it is below the national average. In the 71 years since the end of the second world war it has always returned a Labour MP to parliament, apart from five years at the start of the 1960s. Local Ukip activists’ claims that Hartlepool is now under their control are fanciful. Doherty, Trotter, Robson and Railton are all Labour voters and will all continue to be. “Who else is there?” asked Trotter. As he prepared to finish his last lagers of the night – “I’ve got an early shift tomorrow” – Docherty said: “I’ll tell you what happened in places like this yesterday; we sent a message to the people who are in charge of this country that they need to listen to us. If they had been listening before now, then what happened on Thursday wouldn’t have come as a surprise to them.”
City midfielder Aaron Mooy swaps Melbourne for Manchester Manchester City have completed the signing of midfielder Aaron Mooy, one of Australia’s brightest talents, from sister club Melbourne City. The 25-year-old Socceroos star, who signed a three-year deal with the Premier League club, will begin the next stage of his career off the back of a record-breaking A-League season in which he set a new benchmark of 21 assists. He also scored 11 times as Melbourne City finished fourth and went on to make the semi-finals, and his all-round performances for both club and country made an off-season move overseas inevitable. “Aaron was a fantastic contributor to Melbourne City and we must first and foremost thank him for his involvement and impact during his time at the club,” coach John van ’t Schip said. “He is deserving of his new opportunity and we wish him all the best for the future.” English fans not familiar with the A-League were given a chance to run the rule over Mooy during the Socceroos’ international friendly at the Stadium of Light in Sunderland last month, when the Sydney-born player’s stock rose with an assured display that drew plaudits despite the 2-1 reverse to England. Mooy’s chances of winning first-team football under new coach Pep Guardiola are limited though with a number of established internationals ahead of him in the pecking order, but Brian Marwood, the managing director of City Football Services, said Mooy’s development as a player would be the focus. “Aaron is an extremely talented player who possesses the attributes we hope to foster and encourage within the [Abu Dhabi-based] City Football Group,” Marwood said. “With the unique model CFG provides, Aaron’s move to Manchester allows us to further expose him to a high standard of opportunities to ensure his professional growth.” At the same time, Mooy’s fellow Australian Luke Brattan went the other way, returning to the A-League on a season-long loan deal from the two-time Premier League champions. Bratten signed for Manchester City from Brisbane Roar in October last year before being immediately farmed out to Bolton Wanderers. He arrives back in Australia not having made a single appearance in England. Melbourne City also announced on Thursday that Anthony Caceres – who signed for Manchester City in January and was loaned straight back to the A-League club – will stay in Australia for another season.
Masters of puppets: Charlie Kaufman and the subversive allure of stop-motion ‘Yeah, we had a lot of small, silicone penises flying around the office at the time, ending up in weird places,” says animator Dan Driscoll. “There were long discussions about how well-endowed he should be. This one’s too long, this one’s too short. We made multiple sizes.” Driscoll is talking about Anomalisa, his forthcoming animated movie written and co-directed by Charlie Kaufman. As you probably guessed already, it’s not a family show. In addition to unprecedented levels of anatomical correctness, there’s also a trip to an adult store and a protracted, believably awkward sex scene – all of which kept the miniature-penis-crafting department busy. The fact that Anomalisa features stop-motion puppets rather than real actors doesn’t prevent it from being a sincere, profound, ultimately moving study of human relations. At the same time, it’s a strong contender for this year’s best animation Oscar, jostling incongruously with family movies like Inside Out and Minions. Few people would have put money on old-fashioned stop-motion animation surviving this far into the digital age. Compared to modern computer animation, it’s like writing your emails in needlepoint. But stop-motion has not just prevailed, it has moved into new territories. Once associated with children’s entertainment, it has somehow found a new lease of life among “grown-up” film-makers – be they live-action auteurs, or animators dealing in darker, child-unfriendlier content. Anomalisa ticks both boxes, and it’s the tip of an iceberg that’s still growing. Wes Anderson, for example, translated his corduroy-suited sensibility into stop-motion for 2009’s Fantastic Mr Fox. It worked so well that he’s making another one, reportedly about a pack of dogs. In addition, we’ve had a steady stream of horror-tinged stop-motion works like Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride and Frankenweenie, and Laika studios’ Coraline, Paranorman and Boxtrolls. There’s more of that to come too: later this year we’ll have Laika’s Kubo and the Two Strings, an ancient Japanese fantasia with a voice cast including Charlize Theron, Ralph Fiennes and Matthew McConaughey. Coraline director Henry Selick, meanwhile, is working on a new stop-motion comedy with comics Key and Peele. Horror maestro Guillermo del Toro is also developing a stop-motion version of Pinocchio. Explanations for stop-motion’s unexpected stay of execution vary. Could it be that its hand-made aesthetic chimes with our craft-loving times? Or that CG animation has become overly associated with slick family movies? Stop-motion is often cheaper to make than CG but it’s by no means easier. It’s a labour of love, eked out one frame at a time. It invariably involves the crafting of intricate miniature characters, props and landscapes from scratch, moving puppets and cameras fractionally between each take, then running them together to create the illusion of movement. In a good week, Anomalisa’s team produced 10 seconds of footage, says Driscoll, the film’s animation supervisor. Dealing with real-world characters and settings makes it even more complex. “The hard part for us was figuring out how to make these puppets move in a human, naturalistic way,” he says. “How do we give these puppets life without making them look like strange automatons that people can’t relate to?” Extensive research and testing was necessary, Driscoll explains: videotaping human actors to study movements, recording facial expressions, animating minute movements such as breaths and blinks and sighs. The simplest gesture, such as the twiddling of the stem of a martini glass, can represent a technical challenge. But Anomalisa’s use of stop-motion is entirely in keeping with its story. The lead character, Michael (voiced by David Thewlis), cannot distinguish individual faces or voices – until he meets a stranger named Lisa (Jennifer Jason Leigh), hence his attraction to her. Apart from these two characters, every other puppet in the movie has the same face and the same voice – even Michael’s wife and child. This generic every-face was created by blending portraits of 40 of Driscoll’s co-workers into one using Photoshop, whereas Michael and Lisa were modelled on real people. All of this would technically be possible in live-action – there was a similar scene in Kaufman’s Being John Malkovich – but it would be no less challenging. Even more difficult to translate into live-action would be Michael and Lisa’s protracted sex scene. Team America set quite a benchmark for extreme puppet sex, but “we were very adamant that this would not be a comedy,” says Driscoll. “We don’t want people to laugh except where you’re supposed to laugh. It was a painstaking process to create how this would be a very tender and real and loving moment between these two people.” The scene took four months to make, working out how the characters would look, how they would crawl across a bed, rigging points in the mattress to make it look like their bodies had weight. If they were real actors, the scene would be distracting, if not excruciating – ironically it works better in animation. Driscoll is no stranger to the world of R-rated animation. “Most of my career has been spent working on stuff I won’t let my children watch,” he says. Before Anomalisa, Driscoll was animating adult-oriented fare for Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim division, such Robot Chicken, the long-running, pop-satirising sketch show that has generated many spin-offs, including three Star Wars parodies and a whole sub-genre of cult stop-motion adult comedy. “Part of the appeal is you can do whatever you like,” says Driscoll, but it’s also about the medium itself. “The texture of stop-motion lends itself to making the gross factor that much more intense and palpable.” Stop-motion has always lent itself to the dark side. Most animators seek to avoid the “uncanny valley” – that zone where characters take on a creepiness as a result of being almost human, but not quite – but very often, stop-motion exploits this eerie aspect. Compounded by the medium’s relative cheapness, and creative freedom, it has always appealed to loners, eccentrics and subversive. The first acknowledged master of the form, Polish-Russian pioneer Ladislas Starevich, began by animating dead beetles – when he couldn’t get live ones to perform. His surreal, slightly macabre insect stories amazed early cinema viewers in the 1910s. Some even thought he must have trained the insects to perform. Eastern European animators carried the baton for much of the 20th century: Jiri Trnka, Walerian Borowczyk, Jiri Barta and best-known of all, Jan Svankmajer, who made his name with a memorably haunting interpretation of Alice in Wonderland. And even as Aardman revived commercial stop-motion in the UK, practitioners of the dark arts have thrived here, such as the Brothers Quay (who are American but UK-based), bolexbrothers, and Robert Morgan (whose Bafta-nominated short Bobby Yeah is not for the faint-hearted). Stop-motion’s transition to the grown-up mainstream is primarily down to two people: Tim Burton and Henry Selick. Burton, your textbook film-geek loner, had been playing around with stop-motion since he was a kid. In 1982, while working as an animator for Disney, he produced his calling-card short film Vincent, a black-and-white stop-motion revelling in the retro-horror tropes he would go on to make his name with. And having made his name, Burton had the clout, in 1991, to make The Nightmare Before Christmas, Hollywood’s first feature-length stop-motion movie and a cult Halloween perennial. Burton wrote and produced it, but hired Selick, his former Disney colleague, to direct it. “At the time, Disney didn’t have high hopes for the movie,” says Selick. “It was done for a low budget and was a means to get Tim back to Disney after his huge successes with Batman and Beetlejuice. In fact, they were afraid it might tarnish their good name, so it was originally released under their alternate banner, Touchstone Pictures. It was only after many years of ever-growing success as a cult classic (and hundreds of millions of dollars made in merchandizing) that they finally called it a Disney film.” The two have returned to the medium regularly ever since: Burton produced Selick’s Roald Dahl adaptation James and the Giant Peach, then went on to direct his own supernatural stop-motions Corpse Bride and Frankenweenie. Selick struggled with live-action/animation hybrid Monkeybone but bounced back with his best-known work, Coraline – the first feature of Oregon-based Laika studios, who have turned Halloween-friendly stop-motion into an ongoing, big-budget concern. Selick also brought Wes Anderson round to stop-motion. He provided the imaginary sea creatures for Anderson’s The Life Aquatic and was in line to direct Fantastic Mr Fox before leaving to make Coraline. Anderson reluctantly stepped in himself, and clearly developed a taste for it. “Stop-motion can bring anything to life, including dead-looking things and broken things,” Selick says. “There’s something about its twitchy motion that, combined with the right design and lighting, can really raise the hairs on one’s neck. I believe the final form of the Other Mother in my film Coraline can stand beside any of the most frightening live-action villains seen on screen.” You could say stop-motion appeals to a certain type of live-action director. Anderson, Burton, Guillermo del Toro – these are film-makers who’ve pride themselves on their visual signatures. Each has a distinctive, highly controlled aesthetic, achieved through obsessive attention to design details – costume, set dressing, colour, graphics. Their live-action films are often half-way to animation already. Kaufman, too, has often addressed issues of control, either of people (Being John Malkovich, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind) or complete environments (Synecdoche, New York). Could it be that animation also gives these film-makers the omnipotence they seek? Anderson found stop-motion just as unpredictable as live-action. “With an animated film, you can’t predict accidents and surprises,” he said in 2009. “As carefully as you prepare the shot and all the details, frame by frame, every animator comes up with a different interpretation … You never quite know what it’s going to be.” Then again, when Tim Burton was asked why he was remaking Frankenweenie, his tale of a boy who reanimates his beloved pet dog, which he had filmed as a live-action short 30 years previously, he replied, “because I want to get a better performance out of the dog”. “I think it’s the love of the physicality of the medium,” says Peter Saunders, of Mackinnon and Saunders, which has made the puppets for many of these movies, including Fantastic Mr Fox, Corpse Bride and Frankenweenie. They are also developing the characters for Del Toro’s Pinocchio, which promises to be a darker, scarier interpretation of the story, closer to Collodi’s original. “Tim doesn’t particularly like using green screen in his movies; he’d far rather build a set because there’s a tactile reality to it. He loves the tangibility of stop-frame animation, bringing inanimate objects to life. With Guillermo it’s not dissimilar; he comes from a special effects background.” Saunders is as surprised as anyone by the grown-up direction his profession has taken. His Manchester-based company started out making children’s TV characters, such as Bob the Builder and Postman Pat. But they also helped out with Paul Berry’s spooky Oscar-animated short The Sandman in 1991. That caught Tim Burton’s attention and the rest is history. “It’s been par for the course over recent years that we go from “cute fluffy bunny”-type preschool programmes to films about dead widows and the like,” Saunders observes. Despite its old-school traditions, stop-motion has moved on since the days of Starewicz and Svankmajer. Mackinnon and Saunders’ puppets are extremely complex. Beneath their silicone skins, their metal skulls are fitted with innumerable joints and devices “like miniature animatronics”, thus enabling a broad range of facial expressions. Computers also play a part: the faces of the characters in Anomalisa and Laika’s animations are now 3D-printed from computer renderings, rather than crafted from scratch by hand. That way, a character can have a new bespoke face for each frame or a face can be printed off several times for several dolls, so that animators can work on different scenes simultaneously. Miniature costumes are often laser-cut and camera rigs computer-controlled. Some stop-motion movies incorporate CGI backgrounds and effects. It’s a medium that’s still evolving. Talk of a stop-motion “renaissance” is met with scepticism by veterans of the trade, when the stakes are so high, the investment so great and the competition so fierce. “With CG films nowadays, they’re only going to get better, stronger, bigger but hopefully there’ll always be a place for stop-motion,” says Peter Saunders, “it would be like living in a world where there’s nothing but oil paintings. There’s room in animation for many different types of film-making, just as there are many different mediums of painting. We’re another means of creating films which is equally valid.” At the same time, despite the frustrations, stop-motion has a unique appeal, says Henry Selick: “All high-calibre animation requires a large skill-set and infinite patience. What sets stop-motion apart is that it’s the closest to live-action in terms of real sets, lights, props, hair, wardrobe, etc. In stop-motion, every scene that’s animated is an actual performance by the animator through the puppet, recorded one frame at a time, and you’re pretty much stuck with the final result. Funny thing, this is one of the aspects about stop-motion I love the most, this high-wire act of total commitment that gives the animation a vitality not found in the other types.” Anomalisa is released in the UK on 11 March and in Australia on 4 February.
This bank account switching report is a real hassle Considering the historic apathy of the British public when it comes to switching their bank accounts, it seems apt that those tasked with writing a competition report on the topic don’t seem in a terrible hurry to conclude. But on Tuesday the delayed investigation by the Competition and Markets Authority into retail banking reaches a critical phase with the publication of provisional remedies. High street banks will learn of a suite of recommendations aimed at making it easier for customers to move their current accounts –to be followed by another month’s consultation. The investigation, which was originally due to be concluded this month, was announced in July 2014, at a time of heightened political debate about the banking sector. Then Labour leader Ed Miliband was pushing for a break-up of the big four of Lloyds Banking Group, Royal Bank of Scotland, HSBC and Barclays. While these banks still control 77% of current accounts, such drastic moves rarely seem to happen in the banking industry – and almost certainly won’t this week. For instance, despite it being a condition of its £45bn taxpayer bailout in 2008, and numerous aborted efforts, RBS has still to offload its 300 Williams & Glyn branches. Like switching accounts, that is something somebody might some day get around to. Standard Life chief in line for a pay battle And in this week’s “chief executive who irritated his shareholders to the point of revolt” slot, we give you Keith Skeoch, the new boss of Standard Life. He belatedly twigged that he might be in line for a bit of a kicking at Tuesday’s annual meeting, and last week attempted to head off an investor protest over his pay by cutting £700,000 off his potential £3.5m bonus. A clash with investors would be particularly embarrassing given that Skeoch used to run the fund management arm, Standard Life Investments, which holds stakes in listed companies and often speaks out about boardroom excess. Still, the Edinburgh-based insurer announced after the stock market had closed on Wednesday that Skeoch would reduce his potential bonus to £2.8m – 400% of his £700,000-a-year salary – from the 500% that he had previously been awarded. The revision was announced a little over 24 hours before the deadline for shareholders to cast their votes ahead of the AGM. So, will it be enough? Investors are in an aggressive mood, having already voted against pay deals at BP and Smith & Nephew during this AGM season. An offer they can refuse at Foxtons Elsewhere on the list of potential shareholder revolts this week comes Foxtons – the estate agent chain with such a cuddly image that it was once accused of giving its much-disliked sector a bad name. The firm is facing a possible rebellion over a 19% increase, to £550,000 a year, in the basic pay of chief executive Nic Budden, who seems immune to the embarrassment of having presided over a year in which the group’s share price has fallen by more than 40%. Foxtons has argued that Budden had previously been paid at below the market rate, although the sales patter hasn’t quite worked with an audience that seems to be sticking with the well-worn method of assessing estate agent behaviour: you can tell they are trying to shaft you when you see their lips move. Anyway, Institutional Shareholder Services – a shareholder adviser that represents 20% of UK stock market investors – and its rival Glass Lewis are both recommending votes against the remuneration report at the annual general meeting on Wednesday. So shareholders who invested in a company with a reputation for overpricing properties are set to get cross when the company does the same thing with the chief exec.
PTSD more likely to affect people in affluent countries, scientists say People living in affluent countries are more likely to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder than those in poorer nations, according to the results of a study that have surprised researchers. The scientists, from the Netherlands, Australia and London, say they appear to have uncovered a paradox. They expected to find that countries with higher vulnerability to tragic events – because of factors such as malnutrition, poor sanitation and low incomes – would experience higher levels of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Instead, they found that the highest levels were in countries that were far better off. Their paper, published in the British Journal of Psychiatry, finds that Canada has the highest levels of PTSD, followed by the Netherlands, Australia, the US and New Zealand. The lowest levels were found in Nigeria, China and Romania. The findings may have relevance to the response of people in Europe to the violent killings that have been taking place. “PTSD has often been linked to something that violates your expectations,” said Prof Chris Brewin from University College London, one of the authors. “You thought you were living in a world which is basically safe, people are basically well disposed toward you, and something happens that completely turns those ideas upside down. It is thought that makes it really hard for people to get over these events. “But if you’ve been brought up in a very different society, you may not have so many of these illusions to start with. You already see the world as a much more dangerous place and it may not be so surprising when something terrible happens.” It was a paradox because it was very well established that individuals or groups – such as ethnic minorities – suffering from social, economic or educational disadvantage within any country were at higher risk of PTSD than their better-off neighbours, said Brewin. “Everyone assumed that the citizens of countries with fewer economic advantages would similarly be at greater risk and you’d have higher rates of PTSD than in more developed countries. But the interesting thing is we found exactly the opposite is the case,” he added. Countries where more traumatic events occurred, such as wars, natural disasters and accidental deaths, had higher rates across the board. “The very curious thing – and I think we’re the first people to identify this – is that countries which are less well economically resourced and generally have much smaller health services and poorer psychiatric services actually have lower rates [of PTSD] than countries like ours,” said Brewin. The authors said it was not to do with better diagnosis or more treatments for PTSD in the wealthier countries. The data came from representative samples of the populations in all 24 surveyed countries, where people were randomly contacted and interviewed to establish the levels of PTSD. “PTSD is quite a controversial disorder and some people have argued we just don’t measure it properly – it’s a western concept we’re trying to impose on people from different cultures,” said Brewin. “But, in fact, we know know that although there are minor cultural variations, basically people from all over the world show the same syndrome. So it’s probably not that. “And when we looked at figures for depression we found the same pattern: countries with the greater resources had the higher rates of depression as well, and there is not really an argument about how to measure depression cross-culturally – that’s well accepted.” The authors said their findings now needed to be replicated by other studies.
Newcastle United v Crystal Palace: Premier League – as it happened That’s all for now. Thanks as always for following along with us and be sure to check back later for a full match report. Could it be that third-choice goalkeeper Karl Darlow will be remembered as the hero of Newcastle’s campaign to stay up? It was Darlow whose save of Cabaye’s penalty in the 70th minute preserved today’s victory, a development every bit as crucial as Townsend’s wonder strike off a set piece 12 minutes prior. And there it is! The whistle blows on a critical victory for Newcastle United in their struggle to avoid relegation to the Championship. An entire city exhales in relief as the home side is out of the relegation zone for the first time since early February, one point ahead of Sunderland, two clear of Sunderland and 17 above woebegone Aston Villa. 90 min+3: Scary moment for Palace as Hennessey is drawn outside the area as Townsend races onto the ball. Briefly looks like a high foot for Hennessey but no call from Dean. 90 min+1: Ward dispossessed near the halfway line and Newcastle are briefly on the run, but it’s soon coming back the other way as Delaney sends forward a long through pass to Adebayor. But Darlow races off his line to bust up the play and it’s out for a goal kick. 90 min: Five minutes of stoppage time afoot. 87 min: Final sub for Newcastle as Jonjo Shelvey comes on for Vurnon Anita. They immediately win a corner. 85 min: A Newcastle threat abruptly ends when they’re dispossessed and Crystal Palace immediately counters, but a misplayed pass goes past the touchline in the middle third. Some off-the-ball extracurriculars between Mitrovic and Delaney warrants a talking-to from the referee but he declines to put either man in the book. 83 min: A Cabaye effort sails over the crossbar. Newcastle now tantalizingly close to a crucial victory in their relegation battle. 81 min: Perez nearly makes an instant impact as he uncorks a shot and nearly takes advantage of a hesitant Hennessey, but the effort is off target. 80 min: Another substitution for Newcastle United as Gini Wijnaldum exits for Ayoze Perez. 79 min: Palace really beginning to apply pressure on Newcastle after a series of corners. Darlow forced to come off his line and punch away a loose ball caroming around the area. 76 min: Townsend is simply indefatigable. He carries up the right side in the face of relentless defense and tries to cross into the area but no one is there to receive it. 73 min: Three subs here as we move into the endgame. Just one for Palace as Mitrovic enters for Cisse. Two changes for Newcastle: Dwight Gayle and Emmanuel Adebayor replace Connor Wickham and Jason Puncheon. 71 min: Crystal Palace had made all nine of their previous attempts from the spot this season but they fall short today! Newcastle still on top 1-0 with 20 minutes to go. 70 min: Cabaye fires a shot to Darlow’s left and Darlow makes the save! 69 min: Referee blows his whistle. Lots of contact inside the area and ... it appears Mike Dean is pointing to the spot and has ruled it a hand ball. A penalty! Dean rules Sissoko handled the ball and St James’ Park has been silenced in horror. 68 min: Sako’s cross is off target and behind Mbemba and goes out for a Palace corner. Cabaye to take it. 65 min: The action picking up now from end to end. Colback shown a yellow card for a two-handed challenge of an onrushing Puncheon as he carries across the halfway line. 61 min: Delaney wins a free kick from Sissoko on the edge of the Palace box but nothing comes of it. 60 min: Crystal Palace make their first substitution as Bakary Sako replaces James McArthur. Andros Townsend takes a free kick after being hacked down by Scott Dann just outside the area on the right side. Strikes it with the outside of his left foot and it rockets past the outstretched Hennessey into the top-left corner of the net. A moment of brilliance when Newcastle needed it most. The crowd of 52,107 has gone completely ballistic as – at least for now – the home side has broken free from the relegation zone. 55 min: Right-footed thunderbolt from long range by Townsend but Hennessey tracks it all away and easily scoops it in. 51 min: Corner is played short to Townsend, who crosses into the area near the back post where Newcastle threaten to score but it’s headed out for a corner. Hennessey takes charge on the set piece and wrangles the ball before booting it down past the halfway line and, at least temporarily, interrupting the hosts’ sudden momentum. 50 min: Wijnaldum with a turn into the box and uncorks a right-footed shot on goal but it’s parried away. Moments later he’s back on the ball and wins a corner. 48 min: A slow start for both sides with neither able to keep possession for longer than a few passes at a time. 46 min: And we’re off in the second half. And there’s the whistle for half-time with the teams still in a nil-nil deadlock. Plenty more to come from St James’ Park. 45 min+2: Palace midfielders trade short passes while probing for an opening, but ultimately the long entry pass is sent long past the goal line. A false whistle sounds from the crowd but referee Mike Dean urges the players to continue. 45 min: The fourth official signals for three minutes of added time. 44 min: Colback with a left-footed shot from well inside the area, trying to curl it inside the far post but missing by feet. Best chance of the game for Newcastle with a minute or so left in the first half. 42 min: A great shot from Bolasie on the volley and an even greater save by Darlow, who parries it away. Bolasie has been a terror in the final third today. 38 min: Colback sends the ball into the area and Sissoko rises into the air and attempts an acrobatic reverse half-volley flick but just misses contact. What a goal that might have been. 36 min: A patient build-up by Newcastle is quickly blown up by Palace, but the hosts win it back and within moments a long-distance shot from Chancel Mbemba is turned away by Hennessey. Gripping if sometimes loose two-way action here. 32 min: Rapid-fire counter-attack keyed single-handedly by Bolasie. He carries up the left flank into the middle of the pitch before firing a speculative shot that just misses the target. 30 min: Palace taking their good old time on these set pieces and restarts and getting an earful from the St James’ Park crowd. 27 min: A hair-trigger save by Darlow off a shot by Cabaye from close range! Best chance of the match by either side. 25 min: Dummett carries up the left side and tries to cross but it’s blocked out by Ward for a corner. Still, nothing comes of it and before long it’s cleared toward the halfway line. 23 min: Bolasie surges up the left flank and wins yet another corner. Puncheon takes it but it’s immediately cleared. 22 min: The teams have trading possession mostly in the middle third during a bit of a rudderless patch. 18 min: Another corner for Palace, this time won by Bolasie. It’s cleared out beyond the goal line for another corner. 15 min: Two near-chances for the roving Townsend, who has shown a relentless pace and work rate in the final third today if not yet the chances to show for it. It goes out for a goal kick. 12 min: Lascelles matches Dann’s perfectly timed tackle from a moment ago with a challenge that breaks up what looked to be a clear chance for Palace. 10 min: A strong start for Palace, who moments ago put a shot on goal that forces a save from Darlow. Alas, the flag signaling offside was up. 8 min: Wonderful through ball sent into the area to Cisse, who was square with last defender Scott Dann. Looks to be the best chance of the match as the crowd swells, but a last-gasp tackle by Dann disrupts it. 6 min: Newcastle have kept possession and have it down in the final third but haven’t been able to generate a meaningful chance. A vicious challenge by Mbemba as they lose possession and Palace move to counter-attack and he’s shown yellow. 3 min: Palace win the first corner of the match and Cabaye, the former Newcastle man, will take it. It’s sent long and wide of the area where it’s received by Ward, who is fouled. Free-kick opportunity from a distance for the visitors. 2 min: Andros Townsend receives the ball near the halfway line and carries it 30 meters up the right flank, but the cross into the area is mishit and goes out for a goal kick. 1 min: And we’re underway at St James’ Park! Newcastle attacking left to right in traditional home kits, Palace from right to left in red and blue shirts and blue shorts. The big story about today’s match is the return of Alan Pardew to St James’ Park for the first time since leaving Newcastle for Crystal Palace. The 54-year-old can expect a hostile reception today as our Dominic Fifield relayed this week. Alan Pardew initially spoke fondly of his time on Tyneside as the public face of a “beast” of a football club, and even declared he was “desperate” for Newcastle United to survive another season of toil. But as soon as the cameras went off, the shutters came down. There would be “zero questions” permitted from the written press addressing his first return to his former employers, with a manager forever conscious of how the most innocuous of comments might be misconstrued reverting to safety-first mode. Talk instead about Eddie Jones or Mark Clattenburg. Even Crystal Palace. Anything but Newcastle. Those who believe Pardew loves hogging the limelight will presume he is relishing being at the centre of the story again as he emerges into the away side’s technical area at St James’ Park on Saturday. He knows the reception he will be afforded, for all that the locals’ priority will be to roar on their own to a much-needed victory. In truth, since taking up his role at Selhurst Park 16 months ago, the 54-year-old has appeared distinctly uncomfortable whenever the whole Newcastle issue crops up. He spoke on the subject before his first Premier League game in charge after Palace had paid £3.5m to release him from a long-term contract on Tyneside, presumably hoping to draw a line under it all. Seven weeks later the normal pre-match media briefing was shelved before a 1-1 draw with a Newcastle overseen by his friend and former assistant John Carver. Maintaining that theme, he asked his No2, Keith Millen, to address a deflated media in November before sending out a team who spanked Steve McClaren’s visitors 5-1. He has gone out of his way to divert the focus from his connections to Newcastle and Mike Ashley but, for all his deflecting tactics, the theme will be inescapable this weekend. Hello and welcome to today’s match between Newcastle and Crystal Palace at St James’ Park. We’re just about a half hour from kick-off so here’s a look at today’s teams before a run through the plotlines swirling around today’s action. Newcastle XI: Darlow, Anita, Mbemba, Lascelles, Dummett, Townsend, Tiote, Colback, Sissoko, Wijnaldum, Cisse Subs: Woodman, Taylor, Mbabu, Shelvey, De Jong, Perez, Mitrovic Crystal Palace XI: Hennessey, Ward, Dann, Delaney, Souare, Jedinak, Cabaye, Puncheon, McArthur, Bolasie, Wickham Subs: McCarthy, Mariappa, Kelly, Ledley, Sako, Gayle, Adebayor Bryan will be here shortly. In the meantime have a look at Louise Taylor’s match preview. Alan Pardew returns to the club where mention of his name still polarises opinion, in charge of a Palace side who may have reached the FA Cup final but remain on a shocking league run. They do though possess Yohan Cabaye, and Rafa Benítez will be anxious to stop Tyneside’s one-time favourite midfielder reminding the club what they are missing. Cabaye needs to be kept quiet if Newcastle are to secure the victory they so desperately need.
The Republicans and Democrats failed blue-collar America. The left behind are now having their say It is inversion time in America as the people formerly known as the happy middle class rally by the millions for a Republican billionaire who is in love with the idea of national decline. Donald J Trump is possibly the least qualified presidential candidate ever to be chosen by one of our big parties. He is a reality TV star who has never held a political office and has only a vague understanding of how the US government works – a real-estate tycoon who travels on a private jet and lives in a penthouse apartment that is decorated, say reports, in the style of Louis XIV. And yet he has somehow made himself into the voice of the downwardly mobile millions. A big reason for Trump’s amazing success is his shameful and barely concealed appeal to racist sentiment. He has blamed a nonexistent crime wave on Mexican immigrants and pledged to get tough with, yes, refugees from Syria. His ideas of the conditions in which black Americans live seem to come straight out of the 1970s. For some, his repugnant attitudes towards women also seem to be a big selling point in the year of the first female presidential candidate. But what makes Trump the ace is that he has successfully captured the anger of average people who see themselves on the receiving end of a “rigged” system, to use the cliche of the year. He has turned the tables of class grievance on the Democratic party, the traditional organisation of the American left. How did this happen? Let us start with the Democrats. Were you to draw a Venn diagram of the three groups whose interaction defines the modern-day Democratic party – liberals, meritocrats and plutocrats – the space where they intersect would be an island seven miles off the coast of Massachusetts called Martha’s Vineyard. A little bit smaller in area than Staten Island but many times greater in magnitude of wealth, Martha’s Vineyard is a resort whose population swells each summer as the wealthy return to their vacation villas. It is a place of yachts and celebrities and fussy shrubbery; of waterfront mansions and Ivy League professors and closed-off beaches. The markers of lifestyle enlightenment are all around you: foods that are organic. Clothing that is tasteful. A conspicuous absence of cigarette butts. Sometimes, the perversity of the place is capable of slapping you right in the face. I was reminded of this as I strolled through one of the polished, stately towns on Martha’s Vineyard and came across a shop selling reproductions of old T-shirts, sports memorabilia and the like. On the outside wall of the shop hung a poem by Charles Bukowski, because, of course, nothing goes better with tasteful clothing than transgressive poetry. It’s about the horror of blue-collar life, about “men I’ve known” who work in factories and who do the kind of dehumanising labour that no one who passes by here ever does any more. When I think of the men I’ve known who work in factories, I often think of a group of locked-out workers I met in Decatur, Illinois, in 1994, during the early days of the Bill Clinton administration. Their quintessentially average town was embroiled in three industrial actions: in addition to a lockout at Tate & Lyle’s Staley plant, there were strikes at Caterpillar and at Firestone. The contests grew bitter; the police grew violent; the workers made common cause with one another; people started referring to Decatur as the “war zone”. What they meant by this phrase was not merely that cops could be mean, but that capitalism had declared war on blue-collar prosperity itself. As a locked-out worker told me in 1994, after reflecting on industrial struggles of the past: “Now it’s our turn. And if we don’t do it, then the middle class as we know it in this country will die. There will be two classes and it will be the very very poor and the very very rich.” Was he ever right about that. In a scholarly paper about social class published in 1946, the sociologist C Wright Mills found that “big business and executives” in Decatur earned a little more than two times as much as the town’s “wage workers”. In 2014, by contrast, the CEO of Archer Daniels Midland, a company that dominates Decatur today, earned an estimated 261 times as much as average-wage workers. The CEO of Caterpillar, the focus of one of the “war-zone” strikes, made 486 times as much. Caterpillar’s share price, meanwhile, is roughly 10 times what it was at the time of the strike. Other changes to sweep that town since the war-zone days of the 90s are just as familiar, just as awful. For one thing, Decatur’s population has shrunk by about 12% since then. Despite this outflow of people, in early 2015, the place still had the highest unemployment rate in Illinois. In 2015, I went back to Decatur to catch up with veterans of the war zone such as Larry Solomon, who had been the leader of the local United Automobile Workers union at the Caterpillar plant. He went back in after the strike ended but retired in 1998. When I met Solomon in his tidy suburban home, he talked in detail about the many times he got crossways with management in days long past, about all the grievances he filed for his co-workers over the years and all the puffed-up company officials he recalls facing down. Think about that for a moment: a blue-collar worker who has retired fairly comfortably, despite having spent years confronting his employer on picket lines and in grievance hearings. How is such a thing possible? I know we’re all supposed to show nothing but love for the job creators nowadays, but listening to Solomon, it occurred to me that maybe his attitude worked better. Maybe it was that attitude, repeated in workplace after workplace across the country, which made possible the middle-class prosperity that once marked America as a nation. “We were promised, all during the time we worked at Caterpillar, that when you retire, you’re going to have a pension and full benefits at no cost to you,” Solomon recalled. He told about a round of contract negotiations he and his colleagues attended in the 1960s during which a management official complained: “We already take care of you from the cradle to the grave. What more could you want?” Today, that old social contract is gone or, at least, the part of it that ensured healthcare and retirement for blue-collar workers. Now, as Solomon sees it, companies can say: “We want your life, and when your work life is over, then goodbye. We thank you for your life, but we’re not responsible for you after we turn you out.” Mike Griffin had been another outspoken union activist, in his case during the lockout at Tate & Lyle. When we met up last year, we talked about the situation that faces the younger generation in Decatur, people for whom the basic components of middle-class life are growing further and further out of reach. Though they might not always get it politically, Griffin said, those workers can most definitely see how screwed they are. “One of the things that they do understand is that they got shit jobs with shit wages and no benefits and no health insurance,” he told me. “And they understand,” he continued, “that they’re working two and three jobs just to get by, a lot of them can’t own anything and they understand seeing Mom and Dad forced into retirement or forced out of their job, now they’re working at Hardee’s or McDonald’s to make ends meet so they can retire in poverty. People understand that. They see that.” Those awful words are a fairly accurate account of the situation faced by a vast part of the population in America, a population that was brought up expecting to enjoy life in what it is often told is the richest country in the world. It is not really the fault of Barack Obama or Bill Clinton that things have unfolded in such a lousy way for these people. As everyone knows, it is the Republicans that ushered the world into the neoliberal age; that cut the taxes of the rich with a kind of religious conviction; that did so much to unleash Wall Street and deregulate everything else; that declared eternal war on the welfare state. But history works in strange ways. Another thing the Republicans did, beginning in the late 60s, was to present themselves as the party of ordinary, unaffected people, of what Richard Nixon (and now Donald Trump) called the “silent majority”. They cast the war between right and left as a kind of inverted class struggle, in which humble, hard-working, God-fearing citizens would choose to align themselves with the party of Herbert Hoover. And so Republicans smashed unions and cut the taxes of the rich even as they praised blue-collar citizens for their patriotism and their “family values”. Working-class “Reagan Democrats” left their party to back a man who performed enormous favours for the wealthy and who did more than anyone to usher the world into its modern course of accelerating inequality. Everything in those decades seemed to be a class issue, everything, that is, except matters of economics and distribution, where free-market orthodoxy prevailed. In 2004, I went back to my home state of Kansas to ask why it had moved so far to the right since the days of Dwight Eisenhower; the answer, I discovered, was the culture wars – abortion, gun control, obscenity, education and so on. And beneath every one of these culture war issues lay the burning insult of snobbery. A “liberal elite”, it seemed, was forever conspiring against the values of ordinary people, telling them what to do and how to do it without any concern for what they actually believed. The best thing about the culture wars was that they required the Republicans to deliver very little to their growing blue-collar base; the wars were unwinnable almost by definition, a matter of entertainment rather than politics in the traditional sense. The ones who got tangible gains out of this form of populism were the party’s clients among the business elite. In the decades I am describing, Republicans also perfected the ugly art of the concealed racist appeal, which helped them to win many of the southern states and plenty of white votes in other places and whose echoes we hear so distinctly in the Trump campaign. Between that nasty strategy and the working-class outreach I am describing, Republicans enjoyed years of electoral success. At the top of the party structure stood the interests it served – big business, the very rich – and at the bottom was its mass constituency, which seemed to grow more proletarian and more frustrated as the years passed. This mixture of cultural populism and free-market orthodoxy was not a stable one. Doing favours for the rich while encouraging fruitless, culture-based class grievances among working people was a contradiction difficult to sustain, a delicate balancing act that could only be pulled off as long as the economy stayed reasonably good and the price tag of inequality remained bearable. The financial crisis of 2008 and the lingering recession shattered the whole thing. By 2016, as blue-collar wages continued to stagnate and inequality to worsen, the base of the Republican party had lost its appetite for pointless culture crusades: they demanded something real. And of the 17 Republican candidates for president this year, Donald Trump offered exactly that. He railed against a rotten political establishment that did nothing for working people; he promised to defend social security and to renegotiate the trade deals that are widely blamed for the deindustrialisation of the midwest. He also scapegoated Muslims and illegal immigrants, blaming them falsely for all manner of offences. And he did it all in the bluntest terms, with a self-absorbed way of speaking that somehow captured the imagination of this unhappy era. Even his grotesque, bombastic style seemed to confirm his appeal; at the Republican convention in July, I heard him described as a “blue-collar billionaire”. From one perspective, Trump’s rise has merely marked the evolution of Republican populism. It has always been a form of entertainment, and Trump is a captivating entertainer. Traditional Republican leaders, however, regard Trump as a pariah, thanks to his market-offending stands on trade, social security and bank regulation. These leaders have abandoned him in droves, while he has promised to remake the Republicans into a “workers’ party.” But what has also made Trumpism possible is the simultaneous evolution of the Democrats, the traditional workers’ party, over the period I have been describing. They went from being the party of Decatur to the party of Martha’s Vineyard and they did so at roughly the same time that the Republicans were sharpening their deadly image of the “liberal elite”. And so the reversal is complete and the worst choice ever is upon us. We are invited to select between a populist demagogue and a liberal royalist, a woman whose every step on the campaign trail has been planned and debated and smoothed and arranged by powerful manipulators. The Wall Street money is with the Democrats this time, and so is Silicon Valley, and so is the media, and so is Washington, and so, it sometimes seems, is righteousness itself. Hillary Clinton appears before us all in white, the beneficiary of a saintly kind of subterfuge. If there is any hope left in the American system, it lies with a generation of young voters who are gigantically frustrated with the choices offered by two-party politics. Earlier this year, many thousands of them enlisted in the unlikely crusade of Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, a self-described “democratic socialist”, and now they are, it seems, so disaffected with the woman who defeated him that the Democratic party has mounted notable efforts to cajole them back into the fold. Like the blue-collar people of Decatur, these young people know all about our predatory modern capitalism, know that they are fated to toil at some gig job in their crumbling deindustrialised city, slowly paying off the 30 or 40 grand they borrowed to study science technology, engineering and maths at the state U. And they are to be forgiven if they can’t see the promise in the Clinton restoration, or some modern-day Louis XIV, or even in the American way of life. Excerpted in part from Listen Liberal, published by Scribe (£9.99).
Bank​ royal commission: Labor to use tight election result to push policies The opposition leader, Bill Shorten, has revealed Labor will attempt to use the narrow election result to push for its own policies, including renewing calls for a royal commission into banking. But the idea has lost the support of one of its key advocates on the government side, MP Warren Entsch, who told Australia he now preferred a model whereby an independent tribunal could award compensation to victims of financial scandals. When asked whether the opposition would pursue its own bills in the new parliament, Shorten told ABC’s AM on Tuesday that Labor had “clear views on the banking royal commission”. However, royal commissions can only be said up by the executive, not legislation, suggesting Labor may need some other mechanism to increase scrutiny on banks. “I don’t see why the government is so persistent in defending and covering up excesses in the banking sector and financial services industry,” Shorten said. “That issue is not going away – Labor is going to keep pursuing that, for example.” Labor first backed a royal commission in April, following a call for it spearheaded by the Greens and a cross-party grouping including Nationals senator John Williams and independent Nick Xenophon. The Coalition government resisted calls for a royal commission, favouring increasing the power and resources of the Australian Securities and Investment Commission. The idea won support from Williams and Entsch, who said at the time that a full royal commission was required to consider “the profit-driven and immoral activities of the big banks” and ensure “an appropriate level of compensation to clients for past wrongs”. But on Tuesday Entsch said he was concerned that “by the time we get a royal commission up it could take several years”. “My concern is [aggrieved customers] may not be around for any outcome. And that their problem is they can’t get access to any opportunity for retribution unless they go through lawyers, and they are already cleaned out,” he said. Entsch said he preferred a no-cost tribunal that could establish misconduct and make binding determinations to award compensation. A report in May from a Senate committee inquiry into customer loans recommended the banking industry be required to fund such a tribunal if financial institutions did not appoint independent experts to consider restitution for customers who feel they have been ripped-off. Labor senators issued a dissenting report saying the proposal did not go far enough and calling for a bank royal commission to consider “widespread illegal and unethical behaviour” in the industry. Entsch said the government should consider structuring penalties so financial institutions had to pay triple the amount ripped-off from customers, with one-third to go back to customers and the rest to fund the tribunal. “That would be a serious deterrent,” he said. “These banks will play silly buggers until their customers die … and they can’t take the big banks on with a pensioner’s income. “Rather than posture for a royal commission, if we can set this independent tribunal up … I think that would be infinitely more sensible.” At a press conference on Tuesday Shorten said Malcolm Turnbull would be “on probation” from his backbench in this parliament because he has taken the Coalition to a post-election margin of just one seat. He said Turnbull would not be able to stop a royal commission into the banking industry. “I am talking with my senior leadership about the best way to advance the debate of the royal commission into the banking sector,” he said. “Mr Turnbull thinks by scraping across the line by one seat, he can protect the banks from the legitimate scrutiny which Australians are demanding of our banking sector.” The Australian Bankers Association (ABA) favours self-regulation. Its chief executive, Steven Munchenberg, has said that “in the vast majority of cases, customers are happy with their dealings with their bank [in dispute resolution situations], but we recognise this is not always the case”. In early May, he announced banks would ensure they had an independent customer advocate within each bank “to offer guidance and support to customers to resolve complaints quickly”. “Banks will also continue to consult with Asic on its work to improve customer remediation programs. We support expanding these programs from personal advice to cover all types of financial advice and products.” Williams told Australia he was working with the ABA to develop an improved code of conduct but if it didn’t sign up, he favoured a mandatory code and a bank royal commission was still on the table. He supported Entsch’s proposal for a low-cost tribunal to issue binding compensation orders.
Leaving EU could end 'unfair' French fishing quotas, says minister Britain would have an opportunity to upend fishing quotas that give a “disproportionately large” share of catches to France if it votes to leaves the EU, according to George Eustice, the pro-Brexit minister for farms, food and fisheries. In an interview with the , Eustice said that even if it left the EU, the UK would still respect catch limits set out to preserve stocks, some driven to near-extinction by decades of over-fishing. But fish quotas currently shared out between EU nations under the “relative stability” measure could be tweaked to Britain’s benefit, he argued. “In the Channel, North Sea and far south-western waters we get a very unfair share of quota allocations,” Eustice said. “In the Celtic Sea, France gets nearly three times our allocation of dover sole, roughly four times more cod and five times more haddock.” “That is because of the principle of relative stability under which allocations are set in stone and never changed. Whether the overall total allowable catch goes up or down, the French share remains disproportionately large. We need to renegotiate that and would have opportunity to do so if we left the EU.” But proponents of remaining in the EU view the position as wishful thinking because the UK only possesses 13% of the EU’s total sea area, but is allocated 30% of the EU’s current fish quotas. There is no guarantee, they say, that the UK’s access to EU fishing waters – or those of states such as Norway, Iceland and the Faroes – would be any more generous, in the wake of post-Brexit negotiations that could be acrimonious. Conservationists also fear they would be a disaster for stocks, leading to more unsustainable catches. The environment secretary Liz Truss wrote in a recent opinion piece: “If we lose the collective bargaining power of the EU, we would be hard-pressed to get agreements as favourable as those we currently enjoy.” The UK currently exports fish products worth over £1bn to the EU – almost twice as much as the £550m exported to all other countries. EU fish imports to meet domestic processing and consumer demand come to just £227m, according to Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) figures. The Leave camp contends that quotas for North Sea fish are set in the Atlantic fisheries commission, in which the EU has just one representative, despite representing 28 nations. Eustice said that leaving the EU would give the UK its own seat at the table and ensure that British interests could be better represented. However, the UK would still need to continue to recognise the historic right of some countries to fish in UK waters, including within some coastal zones. It would also continue to be bound by obligations under the UN convention on the law of the sea and the UN fish stocks agreement, whether in or out of Europe. Maria José Cornax, the fisheries director of the conservation group Oceana, said that reopening renegotiations on fish catches could have dangerous implications for hard-won rules on sustainable fishing. “It took more than a decade to get a commitment from the EU states to reduce catches to their maximum sustainable yield before 2020 and no individual country would have taken this decision unilaterally,” she said. “We are rebuilding stocks now but if we take a short term political vision instead of a long term, sustainable approach to fish exploitation, we cannot bet on a more sustainable future.”
Ted Cruz threatened with suit over being Canadian and 'a liar' – as it happened The Presidents’ Day live blog of the 2016 race for the presidency is coming to an end: none of the presidential candidates weighed in on where to put the apostrophe. They said some stuff about each other, though. Donald Trump threatened to sue Ted Cruz, his Republican rival for the party’s nomination, over his eligibility and the “lies” recited by his campaign. Because Cruz was born a dual Canadian-American citizen, in Canada, Trump says his eligibility is in question. He also called him “totally unstable”, “a basket case” and “unhinged”. Cruz bookended his day with further attacks on Trump, saying the billionaire must be afraid of losing in South Carolina. He also said that Trump and Marco Rubio do nothing but shout “liar” when anyone looks at their record. George W Bush emerged from retirement to campaign with his brother, Jeb, in South Carolina. The former president will headline an event with his brother on Monday night – his first campaign appearance, and one of his few public appearances, in the seven years since he left office. Bill Clinton appeared at a campaign event for Hillary Clinton, who’s spent the the last 16 years of his retirement working as a senator and former secretary of state (and professional speaker). The ex-president spoke in Palm Beach, Florida, implicitly attacking Bernie Sanders’ plan for free college and selling the audience hard that his wife “realizes that black lives matter”. And Trump, not content with one headline, also made a veiled threat to run a third-party campaign, even though he signed an agreement to stay within the Republican party. That pledge, he said, is “in default” thanks to the large number of “lobbyists and donors” at the most recent debate. The RNC told the that candidates had the majority of seat tickets. NB via Garner’s Modern American Usage: “The spelling with the apostrophe is better and more common. It’s also the original spelling. Until 1971, Lincoln’s Birthday (12 February) and Washington’s Birthday (22 February) were both observed as federal holidays.” Richard Nixon put ‘em together and proclaimed “the Presidetns’ Day” on the third Monday of the month, to honor all past presidents. “Washington’s Birthday is still the name officially adopted by the federal government.” Former president Bill Clinton encounters a Trumpista on the trail. George W Bush’s reappearance in South Carolina heralds a new turn in the race: Bush beat out John McCain in the state in 2000, but it’s been a long 16 years and it’s not clear whether the former president can help his brother’s fortunes. Ted Cruz has given his first response to the enfilade of attacks from Donald Trump today. He’s response is a tweet. On the campaign trail he offered a slightly less polished response, the Wall Street Journal’s Janet Hook tweets. Trump has ended the press conference, which featured not only insults for Ted Cruz but two curious answers to policy questions. The ’s own Ben Jacobs asked about the Voting Rights Act, the heart of which the supreme court narrowly struck down in 2013. From Ben: Asked whether Section V of the Voting Rights Act should be reauthorized, Trump said “I’ll look into it.” Section V, which was effectively invalidated by a 5-4 Supreme Court decision in 2013, required the federal government to give preclearance to any changes in voting rules and processes in a number of states and jurisdictions with a history of racial discrimination in elections. This included South Carolina. The implicit meaning of Trump’s response: I have no idea whatyou’re talking about. Trump was also asked about undocumented people protected by Barack Obama’s DACA orders, and who are colloquially called “Dreamers”. The billionaire surprisingly said “I think it’s great,” but context shows he’s more fond of the dreaming than the deferred deportations. “I want dreamers to come from the United States,” he said. “I want the people in the United States that have children, I want them to have dreams also. We’re always talking about ‘Dreamers’ for other people. I want the children that are growing up in the United States to be dreamers also. They’re not dreaming right now.” Ted Cruz’s attacks on Donald Trump have increased in the last few weeks, as the Texas senator tries to repeat his victory in Iowa with evangelical voters. My colleague Sabrina Siddiqui reports from Florence, South Carolina Texas senator Ted Cruz unveiled a new ad on Monday attacking Donald Trump’s prior stance on abortion, as the battle between the two Republican frontrunners heats up before South Carolina’s evangelical voters. The television spot opens with ominous warnings about the balance of the Supreme Court – a subtle reference to the vacancy left in the wake of Justice Antonin Scalia’s death on Saturday. “Life. Marriage. Religious liberty. The Second Amendment. We’re just one Supreme Court justice away from losing them all,” a narrator says against the backdrop of imagery of the Court. It quickly pivots to an interview with Trump in 1999, in which the real estate mogul insisted he would not outlaw late-term abortions. “I’m very pro-choice,” Trump says in the clip, a position he repeats when pressed again for his view of late-term abortions. The narrator returns to declare: “We cannot trust Donald Trump with these serious decisions.” Cruz and Trump have locked horns in a bitter contest for the Republican nomination. Cruz scored a resounding victory in the Iowa caucuses this month, while Trump overwhelmingly won the New Hampshire primary last week. Cruz has sought to highlight Trump’s past support for liberal policies, seeking to undercut the idea that he is a true conservative. Trump, for his part, has recently pointed to Cruz’s support for Chief Justice John Roberts while serving in former President George W Bush’s administration in 2005. (Roberts has drawn conservative ire for casting the deciding vote to uphold Barack Obama’s healthcare law, in 2012 and 2015.) Trump holds a commanding lead of 38% in South Carolina, based on an average of publicly available polling, while Cruz sits in second at 21%. Within the Republican field, Jeb Bush has led the charge in questioning Trump’s conservatism. The former Florida governor is seeking a comeback in South Carolina, but trails in the polls behind Trump, Cruz and Florida senator Marco Rubio. Cruz, holding an ardent following among grassroots conservatives, is regarded as better positioned to make the case that Trump is simply not credible as a Republican candidate. The coming weeks will determine whether or not the Texas senator is able to succeed Trump’s press conference careens onward. He’s asked about undocumented people living in the United States, and specifically those called “Dreamers” after the executive actions by Barack Obama to protect them from deportation. “I want dreamers to be Americans,” Trump says. But it’s not all nationalism. “I think it’s great,” he says. “I want dreamers to come from the United States” He’s asked about race issues. Barack Obama “has done nothing for African Americans,” Trump says. “He got a free pass, and he shouldn’t have.” What about that defeat in Iowa, a reporter asks. “If they had a strong leader in Iowa in terms of the Republican Party,” the billionaire answers, “they should overturn that election.” He’s asked about his veiled threat – and we’re talking a veil of gossamer – to run a third-party campaign because of his disputes with the Republican National Committee. “This happened twice before,” he says, “and they don’t listen.” “The bottom line is the RNC is controlled by the establishment … by the special interests and the donors … that’s why the Republican party for president has lost so much for so long.” Trump insists: “I don’t have donors, I don’t have special interests.” “Ted Cruz is a totally unstable individual,” begins a Trump campaign statement indicating that the billionaire is fed up by what he calls his rival’s. In a longwinded, first-person statement Trump goes through Cruz’s attacks point by point and tries to refute them. He is the single biggest liar I’ve ever come across, in politics or otherwise, and I have seen some of the best of them. His statements are totally untrue and completely outrageous. It is hard to believe a person who proclaims to be a Christian could be so dishonest and lie so much. Trump statement also goes on: “Cruz has become unhinged and is lying with the hopes that his statements will go unchecked until after the election and he will save his failing campaign.” One of the ways I can fight back is to bring a lawsuit against him relative to the fact that he was born in Canada and therefore cannot be President. If he doesn’t take down his false ads and retract his lies, I will do so immediately. Additionally, the RNC should intervene and if they don’t they are in default of their pledge to me. The statement runs through gun control, the supreme court, etc, and also suggests Cruz is the hypocrite here: “Cruz was responsible for getting Bush to put in the judge that failed to vote against Obamacare twice.” The billionaire is simultaneously giving a press conference in South Carolina, where he says: “what Cruz says is incredible. … I will bring that lawsuit if he doesn’t apologize.” He rants a bit about how Cruz’s campaign called voters in Iowa to falsely say that Ben Carson, another Republican seeking evangelical voters, had dropped out of the campaign. Cruz has apologized for the tactic; Carson has refused to say whether he accepts it (presumably not). Meanwhile Trump responds to Cruz’s criticism of Maryanne Trump Barry, the billionaire’s sister and a federal judge on a powerful appeals court. This morning Cruz suggested that she, like her brother, is neither a conservative nor to be trusted. “First of all my sister has nothing to do with me,” Trump says. |First of all she’s a federal judge at high, high levels.” He calls her “a highly brilliant woman” who doesn’t want any stories written about her. “She’s very much like me in that respect” – the joke wins laughs. “By the way my sister was appointed by Ronald Reagan,” he goes on. “Elevated I believe by the Clinton administration, but appointed, I believe, by Ronald Reagan.” Kansas governor Sam Brownback has endorsed Marco Rubio for president, making Brownback the first current governor to publicly support a candidate. The Rubio campaign announced the endorsement from the ultra-conservative governor. “Just like Governor Brownback, Marco has consistently defended life, small government and free enterprise throughout his career in public service,” spokesman Jeremy Adlers aid in a statement. Brownback also released a statement: “Marco Rubio has a proven track record of protecting life, defending religious liberty, and undoing Obamacare.” Kansas will hold its caucuses on 5 March, just after the 1 March “Super Tuesday” votes in which 13 states will hold their primaries or caucuses. Brownback’s endorsement of Rubio is a blow to Ted Cruz, who has courted extremely evangelical voters and whose own hard-right politics are close to the Kansas governor’s. Brownback has signed three anti-abortion bills since taking office, and last year revoked anti-discrimination protections for LGBT people. He has also signed one of the biggest tax cuts in the state’s history, even though the state is hundreds of millions of dollars in debt. It’s not clear whether Kansans will listen to Brownback: last fall support for the governor dwindled to 18%. Checking in with Florida senator Marco Rubio, who’s being trailed by my colleague Sabrina Siddiqui in South Carolina. Rival Republicans have lambasted Rubio for his work with on a bipartisan immigration reform bill, even though it ultimately failed. Rubio’s trying out his new line of defense: I never wanted that bill to pass anyway. Also of note is that Rubio’s put all his electoral eggs in the presidential basket. He’ll either be in the White House or unemployed in Miami come 21 January 2017. And finally, Rubio gives his usual gentle takedown of Donald Trump: “I don’t think there’s any doubt Donald is not a career conservative.” Like a ghost of campaigns past, George W returns to the trial. Trump has moved on to a Q&A portion of the event, taking questions from voters. My colleague Ben Jacobs is in the room and has managed to get a response from the Republican National Committee about Trump’s hint that he might still make a third-party run. In a campaign event just outside of Charleston, the Republican frontrunner said that by packing the debate audiences with “lobbyists and donors”, the RNC was in default of the pledge that Trump signed last year, promising not to run on his own. A spokesperson for the RNC told the : Each candidate received 100 tickets which is the largest amount so far. The candidates as a whole were the largest group of ticket holders. The language of the pledge is pretty straight forward. [It] simply states the candidates pledges to run as a Republican and support the nominee. Nothing more and nothing less. In the past two debates, Trump has been booed by audiences after tangling with rival Jeb Bush on issues like the Iraq War and eminent domain. The Trump campaign has insisted that the audiences were packed with “donors and special interests”, a claim that has been repeatedly and vehemently denied by party leadership in the RNC. Trump’s threat to run as a third party candidate is unusual, since it comes five days before the South Carolina primary in which the Republican frontrunner is expected to win easily. Normally, threats to bolt the party come from losing candidates, not winning ones. Trump also addressed other topics besides his pledge. The Republican frontrunner spent much of the event railing against Ted Cruz, whom he called “the most dishonest guy I’ve ever met in politics” and promised, if elected, to advocate for Christians in the United States. He also insisted he has no problem staying at a Holiday Inn. “I just want clean. If it’s clean and has a decent bed I’m happy. Clean is number one. “ The billionaire has hinted that his agreement with the Republican party not to run a third-party campaign might not be so agreed on after all. Trump complains that everybody in the debate room on Saturday was wealthy and powerful – the lobbyists and donors whom Trump accuses of pulling politicians’ strings. He says that the debate was “a disgrace from the RNC,” using the abbreviation for the Republican National Committee. He says he signed a pledge, “but the pledge isn’t being honored by them.” “Those tickets were all special interest people. I know ‘em!” He says it was surreal to see familiar faces out in the crowd: “they’re booing me because they’re having fun!” Trump says he knew one guy personally: “he’s going ‘boo, boo!’ And he’s waving at me,” Trump says, mimicking a little wave and snigger, a sort of Republican donor imp. Trump says he couldn’t believe it: “I’m saying this is crazy! But I know many of these people. … That was a wealthy room.” He rhymes, “it’s a double-edge pledge”, though he doesn’t say explicitly say what the Republican party agreed to do regarding the debate crowd. Back to the Republican party: “as far as I’m concerned they’re in default of the pledge.” He throws in another diss at Ted Cruz: “You’ve got a very unstable guy in Cruz, he’s nuts . … So anyway I have to be very careful.” Donald Trump is Trumping in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, talking smack about his rivals to some voters at a Holiday Inn. He’s talking about last names. He prefers a clean, unpunctuated surname: “better than a hyphen, it’s better than exclamation points.” “When it comes to the other candidates, we will do a job. I’m not influenced at all by anything have to do at all with money,” the billionaire businessman says. He says that Ted Cruz, Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio et al are the kind of people who hold a Bible in are “willing to lie about anything”. Plus, “they just put up money like it’s water.” He says Cruz’s donors in particular are “a who’s who”. “Take a look at the gay marriage issue and then take a look at who is donors are,” Trump says. “Take a look at what he said about gay marriage when he was working at law offices in Manhattan. Somehow or other he segues from the Bible to talk about Christianity, which he says: “is being chopped away at: chop, chop, chop.” “We have to give the power back to Christianity,” he says, adding that it’ll be a good thing when it happens. “We’re gonna say Merry Christmas at christmas … cause you can’t say it anymore, you can’t say it!” My colleague Ben Jacobs is at the Inn and tweeting from the scene. Hello, and welcome to our coverage of the race for South Carolina, the third to vote in the 2016 presidential primaries – and the place where a reclusive ex-president will at last jump back onto the campaign trail. George W Bush has returned – his quiet, self-imposed exile of impressionist art ended so that he can help his brother, Jeb!, in one of the most chaotic Republican primaries in modern history. Billionaire realty star Donald Trump remains at the top of the polls, in South Carolina and nationally, despite falling into traps laid by Texas senator Ted Cruz in a debate on Saturday night. “And Donald has this weird pattern, when you point to his own record he screams, ‘Liar, liar, liar,’” Cruz said, attacking Trump over his erstwhile liberal feelings. Trump walked into it. “You probably are worse than Jeb Bush,” he said, adding: “This guy will say anything, nasty guy. Now I know why he doesn’t have one endorsement from any of his colleagues.” But Trump has strolled into disasters before and walked out unscathed. Florida senator Marco Rubio, on the other hand, is still trying to calculate a recovery from mistakes made in New Hampshire. The once ascendant senator is back to basics in South Carolina, alongside the stray candidates in the field: Ben Carson and John Kasich. (Jim Gilmore, whom we all remember fondly vaguely, also quit.) Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton has also brought her family to the frontlines … with mixed results. Her husband Bill, who helped secure his own presidency by telling Americans “I feel your pain”, has claimed to feel your race too. “Unless your ancestors, every one of you, are 100%, 100% from sub-Saharan Africa, we are all mixed-race people,” he told a crowd in Tennessee on Sunday. Clinton’s rival, Bernie Sanders, has meanwhile ramped up operations in Nevada, where he hopes to put up stronger numbers than the southern states where he is not as well known. Clinton has her partisans there too, however: a group calling itself “Hookers for Hillary” is now stumping for the former secretary of state. My colleagues Ben Jacobs and Sabrina Siddiqui are in South Carolina with the campaigns, and we’ll be bringing you all the updates of the day.
Clinton-Trump election could 'scramble' traditional electoral map, experts say In the words of Barack Obama, “there are no red states or blue states, just the United States”. In a general election, though, this is not the case. In such a contest, there are only red states and blue ones. Usually, electoral maps color the east and west coasts and the industrial north a deep Democratic blue, the southern and western states a rich Republican red. But this week, Donald Trump became the presumptive Republican nominee for a general election against, in all likelihood, Hillary Clinton. The success of so divisive a figure as Trump has raised in some quarters the expectation of an electoral map with a very different configuration of red and blue states. “Trump could really shuffle the deck,” said Whit Ayres, a Republican consultant who advised Marco Rubio’s presidential campaign and is pessimistic about his party’s chances of success in November. “We still start with the 2012 map, but Trump could scramble a number of the states on that map.” For Clinton, early battleground maps show a favorable electoral playing field, while Trump’s path to the White House hinges on the states of the Rust Belt. “Trump claims he is going to have a substantial[ly] higher turnout of blue collar whites,” Ayres said. “If indeed he can pull that off, it might put some overwhelmingly white” – and usually Democratic blue – “regions of the Great Lakes, states like Pennsylvania, into play. But both sides get to play this game.” Joel Benenson, chief strategist for the Clinton campaign, has said in interviews that a Clinton-Trump general election could make Democrats competitive in traditionally red states with large minority populations, such as Arizona and Georgia. Strategists on both sides, though, say that wins in such states would be the “icing on the cake”. “None of these states will be critical in getting to 270,” said Mitch Stewart, Obama’s 2012 battleground states director who now runs the firm 270 Strategies, in reference to the number of electoral votes needed to win the presidency. Florida, which offers the most votes of any traditional battleground state, will be a priority for Clinton. A win there would likely hand her the presidency, Stewart said. The Obama 2012 campaign, Stewart said, gamed out 42 possible paths to victory. “Clinton probably has a lot more pathways to 270 with Trump on the ticket,” he said. “But there are also probably new pathways there on the Republican side as well.” ‘We’re constantly assessing and reassessing the race’ Clinton and her allies have been laying the groundwork for a general election battle for some time. Trump has not. The Clinton camp is preparing for a competitive race, drawing up a battleground map that starts where the current president left off. The priorities are the battleground states that twice helped elect Obama: Florida, Ohio, Virginia, Colorado, Nevada, Iowa and New Hampshire. Justin Barasky, a spokesman for Priorities USA Action, the largest pro-Clinton Super Pac, said: “While we’re constantly assessing and reassessing the dynamics of the race and where to invest our resources, at the moment those seven states are where we are most intensely focusing our efforts.” Priorities USA Action has spent tens of millions of dollars on airtime reservations in presidential swing states. Democrats will also keep an eye on other states that traditionally lean their way, such as Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. “We’re not going to take Trump for granted,” said Luis Miranda, a spokesman for the Democratic National Committee. “We’re going to fight to hold him accountable every single day and we’re going to make sure that we don’t let Democrats be complacent about this.” Though Clinton appears to have the edge over Trump, both are historically unpopular. A CBS News and New York Times survey released in March found that Trump and Clinton have the highest unfavorable ratings of prospective nominees since the poll first asked the question in 1984, at 57% and 52% respectively. “Clinton’s numbers are atrocious,” said Amy Walters, national editor of the Cook Political Report, which released its 2016 electoral ratings this week. “Her overall approval ratings are terrible. But for the fact that Trump is in worse shape than she is, she would be in a very different position.” In an election that has already delivered near-daily surprises, political scientists say it is far too soon to predict whether Clinton and the Democrats can realistically expand their appeal beyond the familiar roster of swing states. If anyone is anticipating a Trump defeat of Walter Mondale proportions – the Democrat lost 49 of the 50 states to Ronald Reagan in 1984 – such experts say don’t count on it. “There is no chance of a blowout election, not with the level of polarization we have right now,” said Geoff Skelley, associate editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia Center for Politics. “It’s just not going to happen in this day in age. You’re not going to see Clinton win 47 states. That is absolutely not going to happen.”
Yes Minister Brexit special – Sir Humphrey explains all An office. There is a knock on the door. Sir Humphrey Come in. Minister I’m told I can find the new permanent secretary of the new Brexit ministry in here. Sir Humphrey Indeed you can. Sir Humphrey Appleby at your service. Minister I’m the new minister. Sir Humphrey Which one? Minister Which one? Sir Humphrey Well, I know you’re not the foreign secretary – the hair, you know, big give-away – and you’re not Mr Davis nor Dr Fox. Minister I’m shocked. I thought the civil service would be better prepared than this. Sir Humphrey Normally we are. But normally the prime minister puts one person in charge of a new policy initiative, not a job lot. Minister There is only one secretary of state for exiting the European Union. Sir Humphrey So where is Mr Davis? We haven’t seen him yet. Minister He’s over at Chevening. Sir Humphrey Oh yes, the official residence the PM has ordered him to share with Boris and Liam. Minister Yes. They’re squabbling over who gets the best bedroom. Sir Humphrey So you’re one of the junior ministers. Minister In charge of all legal matters. Sir Humphrey Are you a lawyer? Minister Unfortunately not. Sir Humphrey On the contrary, that is most fortunate. The civil service has always opposed the appointment of anyone with specialised knowledge. Minister Why? Sir Humphrey Their preconceived ideas may not be compatible with government policy. Minister What if the ideas are good? Sir Humphrey Most good ideas are incompatible with government policy. Minister Were you in favour of Brexit? Sir Humphrey I, Minister? I am neither in favour of nor against anything. I am just a humble vessel into which ministers pour the fruits of their labour and their remarkable intellectual endeavours. So tell me – what are we trying to achieve here? Minister Brexit. Sir Humphrey I am fully seized of that notion and completely on board of course. But. What does it mean, exactly? Minister Haven’t you heard the PM? Brexit means Brexit. Sir Humphrey Indeed. So does Brexit mean keeping the City of London involved in some or all of European banking, financial and regulatory activity, or trade tariffs? Does it mean curtailing the movement rights of UK nationals as well as EU citizens? Does Brexit perhaps include revising our own governance as EU law recedes from our sceptred isle? Does Brexit mean the legislation of new health and safety regulations, employment and all other laws where we have lost competence to Brussels, including the drafting of 30 or 40 new bills for each Queen’s speech for a decade or two? Minister Um – not sure – can you clarify that for me? Sir Humphrey Can you clarify it for me? You are one of those who campaigned successfully for Brexit, in the referendum. Minister Yes, but we didn’t expect to win. Sir Humphrey What did you want? Minister Sovereignty. Sir Humphrey We had that already. What else? Minister Control of our borders. Sir Humphrey We had that too. Anything else? Minister Look, when it came to the details, we all wanted something different. But we did agree on one vital essential. Sir Humphrey Which was? Minister Brexit. So how do we go about it? Sir Humphrey The first thing to understand is that there is a European Council and a Council of the European Union. Minister They’re not the same thing? Sir Humphrey No. The European Council, whose members are the 28 heads of state of the 28 member states, defines the general political direction and priorities of the European Union whereas the Council of the European Union, on the other hand, develops the EU’s common foreign policy, in so far as there is any, and security policy, concludes international agreements and adopts the EU budget. Minister Who’s in charge? Sir Humphrey That’s an interesting question. The president of the European Council is in office for 30 months and is in charge of preparing the agenda and chairing the meetings of the European Council, whereas the presidency of the Council of the European Union is held only for six months each, by rotating states, hardly enough time for a part-time president to get his feet under the desk. Which is probably the idea. Minister So who really runs Europe? Sir Humphrey Another interesting question. Well done, Minister! The European Union is run on an intricate and sophisticated system based on an hierarchical structure of interlocking and overlapping jurisdictions designed to separate the powers whilst reinforcing the authority of the departments, institutions and agencies who collectively and separately control and supervise the diverse activities of the Union and its associated organisations. So Europe is not run by the president of the European Council or the Council of the European Union but by the president of the European Commission, who is akin to prime minister of Europe because he is elected for five years and heads a cabinet government whereas the president of the Council, on the other hand, is not elected but appointed, and presides over the meetings of the Council, which is not the cabinet. Minister Who are the members of the European Council? Sir Humphrey The European Council’s membership consists of the heads of member states while the Council of the European Union, on the other hand – which is often still referred to as the Council of Ministers – is the real voice of EU member governments, adopting EU laws and coordinating EU policies. Sometimes it is just called “the Council” in the interests of clarity. And they’re not even trying to be funny. Minister It’s called the Council. Sir Humphrey Yes – but the Council of the European Union should not be confused with the European Council nor with the Council of Europe – nor the Council of Ministers, which is also sometimes just called “the Council”, although it is not the same Council as the other Council and is in fact not an EU body at all. Minister It’s not that simple, is it? Sir Humphrey Would you like us to simplify it for you? Minister I would. Sir Humphrey In that case, just move all the paperwork that we give you from your in-tray to your out-tray. We’ll do the rest. Minister Can I trust you? Sir Humphrey Of course. We are your humble servants ... Minister Yes, yes! I’ve heard all that. But are you in favour of Brexit? Sir Humphrey That depends what it means. Minister Brexit means Brexit. Sir Humphrey Yes Minister.
Trump and Clinton net big wins but Sanders and Cruz also see gains – as it happened This was a big day for second-place candidates, as Ted Cruz and Bernie Sanders grab several morale-boosting states. Marco Rubio may not be able to go the distance, as Ted Cruz maneouvres into the “only candidate who can stop Trump” spot after several dismal showings from the Florida senator, who now is pinning all his hopes on his home state. Bernie Sanders regains some momentum, picking up wins in (admittedly non-diverse) caucuses in Nebraska and Kansas. But Hillary Clinton maintains her commanding delegate lead of around 200, however, with an easy win in the Louisiana primary. Trump really, really wants “to take on Ted, one-on-one.” Which reflects that Rubio’s only real purpose in this race now is to take Florida delegates away from the frontrunner. Ted Cruz won two victories by surprising margins in Maine and Kansas, though Trump put the former down to Maine’s proximity to Canada. The Maine Republican party likes to talk. A lot. Taking maybe 15 minutes to get to the point with their results. Trump supporters alleged voter fraud in Kansas, though Trump didn’t reference it in his speech. What he did reference, however, was his worry that moderate conservatives might run a third-party candidate against him, appealing to conservative worries about Supreme Court justices. “The Democrats would have an absolute free run,” he said. Trump has, he claims, “taken more questions from reporters than anybody who has ever lived.” And Trump is finished. Trump: “we’re going to knock off ISIS so violently, and so fast.” Calls them “a group of animals.” Question asked about waterboarding. “A very touchy subject,” Trump says. “I am very in favour of waterboarding; if we can, I want to do much more than that.” Repeats his statement from earlier that “we are playing a different set of rules than ISIS.” “They drown people in cages, and here we are talking about waterboarding,” he says. “I will be the most presidential candidate in history other than honest Abe Lincoln,” Trump says. “But when I get attacked by these people at a low level, I have to attack back.” “Marco attacked me viciously. So far, everyone who’s attacked me, has gone down. Look at his numbers.” CNN’s Jim Acosta asks Trump about “the thing about the size of your manhood, if you’ll forgive me.” Boos in the room. Trump says “Marco brought it up, the size of my hands. You shouldn’t even be bringing this up, to be honest with you. Everyone says, you have strong hands.” Trump says he has “taken more questions from reporters than anybody who has ever lived.” Which seems unlikely. Update: the question from David was about gay marriage. Now we’re back on Rubio: A reporter called David asks about a position - we can’t hear what. “David. You know my position. David. Sit down. David. Sit down.” Now he takes a few questions from “these dishonest people, the press.” We couldn’t hear the question, but Trump loved it. “Lyin’ Ted! I love this guy. I love this reporter. Where have you been as a reporter?” He goes on a riff against Ted Cruz. Trump mocks Hillary Clinton’s campaign slogan - “make America whole? I think she means, we’re in a deep hole.” Trump is now promising that his nomination for the Supreme Court “will make conservatives very happy.” He’s making an almost plaintive request to conservatives not to run a third-party candidate against him. “The Democrats would have an absolute free run. What does that mean? That means that automatically they are going to appoint very, very very liberal judges.” “I would love to take on Ted one-on-one,” Trump says. “I want Ted one-on-one.” But, he calls for Marco Rubio to drop out of the race. “It’s been an amazing night - I’ve been in competitions my whole life, and there’s nothing more exciting than this stuff,” Trump says. He thanks the people of Louisiana and Kentucky, and praises Rand Paul for “fighting hard, fighting us every inch of the way.” He congratulates Cruz, then makes the easy joke: “he should do well in Maine, because it’s very close to Canada.” Trump responds to the Kentucky call: He’s due to speak any moment now in Florida. On the scene at Trump’s press conference, which has been imminent for a couple of hours now: With almost 70 percent of caucus sites reporting, including Jefferson County, where Louisville is, Trump’s lead is still holding at around four percent in Kentucky. Four percentage points now separate Trump and Cruz in Kentucky. Not much more separates them in Louisiana. Worth noting: with still less than 50 percent of votes counted, Ted Cruz is creeping up behind Donald Trump in Louisiana. Fewer than 10,000 votes now separate them. We may yet see an upset. Rubio spokesperson Alex Conant desperately spinning today’s utterly dismal results for the Florida senator: Trump’s lead in Kentucky remains, but is shrinking. With just under 42 percent of caucus sites reporting, Trump leads Ted Cruz 38.2 percent to 31.9 percent. A false start for Donald Trump’s press conference in Florida: Trump supporters have taken to twitter to allege voter fraud in Kansas. They’re pretty angry. It remains to be seen whether Trump will address this in his imminent press conference. A small helping of good news for the Rubio campaign; early returns out of Louisiana show him outperforming previous polls. A delegate-count update from the Associated Press: Bernie Sanders’ win in Nebraska means he will pick up more delegates than Hillary Clinton. But it won’t dent the substantial lead Clinton has in the overall AP delegate count. With 25 Nebraska delegates at stake, Sanders is assured of receiving at least 14. Clinton will pick up at least 10. Also voting on Saturday were Democrats in Kansas and Louisiana. Up for grabs were a total of 109 delegates. The Democratic Party in Kansas announced Sanders had won its caucus, but had not yet released vote totals. Going into the weekend contests, Clinton had held a comfortable 198-delegate lead over Sanders, based on results from primaries and caucuses. Clinton’s lead is even greater when including superdelegates, the party officials who can support any candidate they wish. Including results from Nebraska, she now has at least 1,076 delegates according to The Associated Press count, compared to 446 for Sanders. It takes 2,383 delegates to win. And on the Republican side: Ted Cruz is nibbling away at Donald Trump’s lead in the race for delegates to the Republican National Convention this summer. Cruz picked up 36 delegates by winning Republican caucuses in Kansas and Maine on Saturday. Donald Trump won 18 delegates, Marco Rubio won six and John Kasich added three. There are a total of 155 Republican delegates at stake Saturday in Kansas, Maine, Kentucky and Louisiana. No GOP delegates have yet been allocated in Kentucky or Louisiana. In the overall race for delegates, Trump has 347 and Cruz has 267. Rubio has 116 delegates and Kasich has 28. It takes 1,237 delegates to win the Republican nomination for president. The Associated Press has called the Louisiana primary for Donald Trump. Trump is expected to speak shortly at a press conference in West Palm Beach, Florida. This came in earlier from Ben Jacobs, about an important endorsement for John Kasich: The full release: Today Michael Reagan endorsed Gov. John Kasich for President of the United States. Said Reagan, “You see many Republicans claiming the label of ‘Reagan conservative’ but not many whose leadership truly embodies my father’s principles and spirit. Gov. John Kasich is a noteworthy exception. As a Member of Congress, he made a name for himself as a problem-solver and a diplomat when he worked across the aisle to balance the federal budget. As Governor of Ohio, he used conservative, commonsense reforms to breathe new life into a state that was undergoing a painful decline. I’m confident that his record of success, his vision for America and his ability to bring people together is exactly what our country needs in the midst of division and uncertainty. To continue my father’s great legacy, I’m proud to endorse John Kasich for President of the United States.” The son of former President Ronald Reagan and Academy-award winning actress Jane Wyman, Michael Reagan is a best-selling author, former radio host of 26 years and prominent national speaker on issues related to conservative politics and adoption. As president of the Reagan Legacy Foundation, he plays an active role in numerous charitable organizations. Said Kasich, “There is no leader I could hope to emulate more than President Ronald Reagan. No one understands his impact on our country more than his son Michael, so to receive this endorsement is a tremendous honor for me. Just as President Reagan’s indomitable optimism and capable leadership filled America with new hope, I will do my upmost to honor his legacy by offering experience and vision that can steer our country to better days.” Marco Rubio, in a press conference, is defending his dismal showing today. The former secretary of state is speaking right now in Detroit, Michigan. “I want you to know that if I’m fortunate enough to be our party’s nominee, I’m going to work hard to bring back the Michigan Democratic party,” she says. Bernie Sanders’s win in Kansas is not surprising – he was projected to win there. But it’s not surprising for another reason, reports John Stoehr. Candidates more or less outside the mainstream of each of the parties tend to perform better in caucus states, because caucuses require much more of party members than primaries. Primaries are secret ballots and can be done as long as the polls are open. Caucuses require party members to listen to speeches and then decide. In some cases, voters have to justify their votes. All in public. Those kinds of demands on party members are not for those only marginally interested in politics. And let’s face it, most Americans are only marginally interested in politics. Caucuses attract the most ideological party voters. Caucuses reward the most ideological voters. Attorneys for Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl have asked Donald Trump for a meeting to determine whether to seek a deposition or call him as a witness at a hearing, reports the Associated Press: Bergdahl’s attorney, Army Lt. Col. Franklin Rosenblatt, asks the presidential contender in a Saturday-dated letter for an interview to discuss his comments about Bergdahl. The letter sent to Trump’s New York office says the interview could determine whether they’ll seek a deposition or have him as a witness. Defense attorney Eugene Fidell told The Associated Press via email that Trump’s comments about Bergdahl could affect his right to a fair trial. Bergdahl, who walked off a post in Afghanistan in 2009, faces charges of desertion and misbehavior before the enemy. A summer trial is tentatively scheduled. Trump’s campaign didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment. The win for Bernie Sanders in Kansas is more proof that his appeal is much broader than liberal New England bastions like New Hampshire and Vermont, reports Dan Roberts. After his win in Oklahoma on Tuesday, this ought not be a surprise, but Clinton’s growing dominance in the national race for delegates can easily eclipse the appeal of the “political revolution” in many parts of the US. Sadly even if Sanders adds Nebraska to that list tonight, he may still end up behind the former secretary of state in delegates for the night due to the outsize impact of Louisiana in the Democratic convention. Perhaps the only result that could really worry the Clinton camp would be a sudden closing of the gap among African American voters in the south. But with the 199 delegate lead she has already built up after Super Tuesday, the underlying maths are unlikely change – even if there is a big boost in morale for the Sanders camp. That’s his seventh state win, and a big boost to morale for the Sanders campaign. Bernie Sanders leads the Democratic caucuses in Nebraska, the party has just announced. 9,665 votes for Clinton so far; 11,703 for Sanders, with roughly 75 percent of caucus sites reporting. The last polls have now closed, in the Louisiana primary. Results will come in thick and fast now on what is turning into a great night for Ted Cruz, who is probably not the Zodiac killer, and a terrible night for Marco Rubio. Now that Ted Cruz has taken Kansas and Maine, the natural question among political junkies is: did Mitt Romney’s anti-Trump speech on Thursday have the desired impact? Maybe. After Super Tuesday, and after GOP frontrunner Donald Trump did, then didn’t, and then did disavow former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke, the Republican establishment decisively turned last week against Trump, and that tide crested during Romney’s speech. But let’s remember that Cruz is pursuing the same electorate Rick Santorum did in 2012. Santorum is a Catholic but a favorite among evangelical Republicans, who tend to dominate caucus states. Santorum won Iowa and Kansas four years ago. Cruz won both this year, while Santorum came in last place in Iowa and dropped out shortly thereafter. Even if Romney had never given his speech – even if the Republican establishment did not turn against Trump – Cruz was likely to win those two states anyway. Politics change, but not that quickly. This is the second victory today for the Texas senator, who is doing very well in the caucus states. Richard Bennett, the Maine GOP chairman, said “this is the first time that we’ve tried this new approach, and there have been wrinkles...” but praises “the extraordinary results in terms of raw people coming out.” Turnout was 18,650, Bennett said, before laboriously counting county by county. Cruz wins with 8550 votes, that’s 45.84 percent. Trump in second, with 6070 votes. Kasich with 2270, and Rubio with just 1492. 12 delegates for Cruz, 9 for Trump, 2 for Kasich. The question now, though, is whether Cruz can maintain his momentum into the winner-take-all primary states over the next few weeks. A crucial win for Sanders, who needs to keep his momentum up in the face of a rapidly-narrowing set of paths to victory over Hillary Clinton. Kansas, though, is a predominantly white state - there’s no sense that his turnout among whites translates to the kind of support he would need among African-Americans to make a real play for the nomination. All quiet in terms of results from the Kansas Democratic caucuses. This is because the Democratic party announced earlier that they would announce the results all at once, between 6 and 7 central time. Decision Desk HQ is reporting, however, that they are being briefed that Bernie Sanders has won. More information for you when we have it. Trump’s lead is increasing in Kentucky as we approach 20 percent of caucus sites reporting. Trump is currently on 42.3 percent, with Cruz trailing behind on 31.2 percent. Rubio is way behind, on just 13.3 percent, with Kasich a few points behind him. This is really not a good day for “Little Marco”. The kids – at least at CPAC – are not all right with Donald Trump, reports Ben Jacobs. In the straw poll that traditionally finishes the three-day conservative event – which is famed as much as a hook-up spot for college kids as it as a measuring stick of the grassroots – Ted Cruz won with 40%. The Texas senator was followed by Marco Rubio at 30% and Trump with 15%. It did not help that Trump canceled on the event in order to hold a rally in a place that his campaign spelled “Witchita, Kanasas”. The Republican frontrunner objected to taking any questions during his scheduled appearance there. Cruz and Rubio received rapturous receptions from the crowd at CPAC, as the room filled to capacity for their speeches. Cruz in particular was received well, the conservative firebrand being repeatedly interrupted by applause. But he and Rubio were clearly favorites at an event where Donald Trump’s name was booed almost as frequently as Hillary Clinton’s. Kyle Foley, a first-time attendee from Orlando, Florida, was wearing a Rubio sticker. He told the he “really liked [the Florida senator] as a person. Nothing I blatantly disagree with.” In contrast, he said: “I have every issue with Trump. He’s a liar on basically everything.” You can read the whole piece here. In Maine, Ted Cruz’s people are reportedly already briefing for a big win. They’re playing the expectation-management game in Kentucky, however: Meanwhile, Marco Rubio - who is being pretty much spanked out there - is staying very quiet. Republican presidential hopeful John Kasich released his partial tax returns for the past several years on Saturday, joining Sens. Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz among the GOP candidates to make public such personal financial records, reports the Associated Press. The Ohio governor’s tax returns from 2008 to 2014 were posted to his campaign’s website. They show Kasich has paid roughly 31 percent of his income in federal taxes. In those seven years, Kasich and his wife, Karen, reported more than $5.3 million in total income. That includes money Kasich earned as governor, as a public speaker, a board member, an author, a Lehman Brothers employee, a Fox News commentator and from the couple’s investments, his campaign said. Since winning the governor’s office in 2011, the Kasichs’ total income reported has ranged from $706,043 to $313,705. Like Rubio and Cruz, Kasich only released the first two pages of his federal 1040 form. Not included in the disclosure are other parts of his returns, including the documents that detail his deductions. Those records would shed additional light on Kasich’s charitable contributions, for example. GOP front-runner Donald Trump has not release his personal tax records, citing an ongoing IRS audit of his returns dating back a dozen years. And, these are the final numbers and delegate-count from Kansas for the Republicans: That means Ted Cruz got three times as many delegates from Kansas than he did in Iowa. Crucially, it gives Ted Cruz the second state he can use to fulfil the RNC’s Rule 40, which states that only candidates who win a majority of the delegations from eight different states can have their name placed into nomination, according to the ’s Ben Jacobs. Trump has five such states. A few results are beginning to trickle in from Kentucky. With admittedly just 5.2 percent of votes in, Trump leads Cruz in Kentucky by just under seven percentage points. Results from the Kansas Third congressional district, which includes Kansas City, are now in, pulling Ted Cruz below 50 percent - and pushing John Kasich above the 10 percent threshold required for him to get a share of delegates, by half a percentage point. The Democratic caucuses in Kansas are later tonight, and the state party is aiming for a faster turnaround in results: Bernie Sanders is addressing a rally in Warren, Michigan. “In this election, it is estimated that the Koch brothers and a few other billionaires will spend approximately 900m to buy this election for candidates who are going to represent the wealthy and the powerful,” he says. “When you have one family and a few other billionaires spending more n the election than the entire democratic or republican party, that is not democracy - that is oligarchy and we are going to stop that.” He hits out at Hillary Clinton again for her paid speeches to Wall Street. “If you’re going to be paid 250,000 for a speech, it must be a fantstic speech,” he says. “A brilliant speech, which you would want to share with the American people, right? Extraordinary speech. Shakespearean speech! So we all look forward to hearing it.” Cruz, during a speech in Idaho, touted his victory in Kansas saying: “The scream you hear – the howl that comes from Washington DC – is utter terror at what We the People are doing together.” Actually, Ted, that scream you here is everyone who watched you eat that booger on live TV during the most recent debate on Thursday night. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Frozen “sno-balls” are a Louisiana specialty, and tiny Abita Springs must have more sno-ball stands per capita than any town in the world. Matt Teague reports… As the sun set on Saturday, Dionne Rouzan and James Barnes settled into bright plastic chairs at Bot & Nola’s stand. They had just finished voting. Did they have a particular issue that motivated them? “Right there,” Rouzan said, nodding to their little boy, Ezra. “I worry about his future. Where the next president will take us.” So she voted for Ted Cruz, she said. “I’m sure Donald Trump is sophisticated when it comes to being a socialite,” she said, “but I just can’t see him comparing on the world stage to a Vladimir Putin or a Benjamin Netanyahu. He’s infantile.” Since Trump increasingly looks like the likely Republican candidate, Rouzan and Barnes said they may consider switching tickets. “I do like Bernie Sanders, now,” Rouzan said. Barnes agreed. “He talks about issues. Poverty. World events. Things that matter.” As opposed to? “Donald Trump’s money,” he said. “Money and power.” Rouzan laughed. She works in healthcare, and Barnes is a disabled veteran. “They all have a lot more money than me,” she said of the candidates. She threw her arms wide. “But why should I care?” As they talked, Ezra put down his sno-ball cup, sheathed his samurai sword, hopped in a plastic car, and pedaled away. This is looking like an excellent day for Ted Cruz. The Texas senator is capitalising on his momentum - in Idaho just now, he called for a “further narrowing of the field,” setting his sights on John Kasich and especially Marco Rubio, both of whom now lag behind Cruz in delegate-count. It’s worth revisiting this - possibly the greatest / worst political ad of all time: Donald Trump’s unstoppable surge to the GOP nomination has all but become conventional wisdom. But tonight is proving that it might not be completely in the bag. Cruz handily won the CPAC poll (which, granted, is taken by an establishment group, a cohort that has looked askance at Trump’s unbreakability); he won Kansas; and he’s on track to win in Maine. At this writing, Drumpf still has an 87-delegate lead. But more victories for Cruz tonight could make the playing field much narrower, paving the way for a two-candidate Republican-off. Trump should probably breathe, but more likely he’ll sound off about the injustice of it all. Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton debate tomorrow in Flint, Michigan. The Michigan primary is on Tuesday. Bill is in Michigan as well, stumping for Hillary: Hillary Clinton met Saturday morning with 21 African American clergy at the Detroit Westin Book Cadillac hotel, according to the Clinton press pool, which reports that she delivered lengthy opening remarks on the themes of the Supreme Court, voting rights and the Voting Rights Act, Flint, auto jobs and her support for Obama’s agenda. She did not mention Sanders or Trump in opening remarks heard by the pool. Here are a few highlights: We have a lot of work to do in our country and it requires reaching out, and lifting up, knocking down barriers, creating opportunities for everyone but particularly for people who have been left out and left behind. We also need to be very focused on efforts that are underway to make it more difficult for many citizens to participate in the important choice of leadership. ‘The Supreme Court is on the ballot. My name may be on the ballot, but the Supreme Court and the future of the Supreme Court is on the ballot,” she said. “President Obama is fulfilling his constitutional responsibility to send a nominee to fill the vacancy that was left with Justice Scalia’s passing, and the Senate needs to do its constitutional duty and receive that nominee and make a decision about that person, who will of course be well qualified.” On the Voting Rights Act: I was in the Senate when it was re-authorized. It passed 98-to-nothing, and President George W. Bush signed it. Because, after careful deliberation Republicans as well as Democrats concluded that there was still a need. It was of course then appealed, by forces on the Republican side, on the right, that didn’t want to see the continued scrutiny that the Voting Rights Act required, to ensure that the legacy of segregation, of Jim Crow, was finally overcome. And the Supreme Court substituted its judgment for the judgment of the United States Congress, and a Republican president … and gutted the Voting Rights Act.” The session opened with her going around the room to greet each person, Rev. Kenneth Flowers of the Greater New Mt. Moriah Missionary Baptist Church in Detroit greeted her warmly as “Madam President.” She laughed and another participant chimed in, “that sounds good.” Then Clinton asked him whether he had “Flowers relatives back in Arkansas. There are a lot of Flowers,” she said. “Not related to those,” Flowers replied, laughing, in apparent reference to Bill Clinton sexual misconduct accuser Gennifer Flowers. “Not related at all.” Clinton laughed too, said “thank you” and moved on. Earlier today, Trump pledged that while he would “follow the law” on torture, including waterboarding, he would seek to broaden those laws. Here’s the full quote: The last morning of every Conservative Political Action Conference is generally a subdued one, as speakers, students and adult attendees alike nurse their hangovers, hang out with their friends, listen to the final speakers and await the results of the annual straw poll, reports Megan Carpentier from Maryland. But in the wake Donald Trump’s last-minute cancellation – to stump, he said, in Wichita, Kansas in advance of a Republican caucus he wasn’t favored to win – exhibitors started rolling up their banners before Senator Marco Rubio gave his Saturday keynote speech. They left behind pamphlets and candy they didn’t want to pay the unionized convention services to ship back to their offices. I grabbed a beer koozie for my father. And though the ballroom was full for Rubio’s moment in the spotlight – albeit maybe not quite as crowded as for Ted Cruz’s barnstormer on Friday – there was more buzz about whether someone, anyone, could keep Trump from sweeping the day’s four Republican polls and cementing the nomination than there was about anything specific Rubio said. And though they are all conservatives of some stripe with more than a few dollars to spare, CPAC attendees are not – and never have been – of a singular mind about almost anything, particularly about which candidate to back, Megan writes. So though there were more than a few “Make America Great Again” hats in the crowd, Trump’s advisers were probably right in their alleged calculation that his post-speech questions from a journalist wouldn’t be softballs and could inspire a less-than-friendly reaction from a boisterous crowd. You can read the whole piece here. Cruz isn’t wrong about Maine. With an admittedly-slim 4.5 percent of precincts reporting, the Texas senator is ahead there by almost as large a margin as his victory in Kansas; 49 percent to Trump’s 35. Ted Cruz is addressing supporters in Idaho following his victory in Kansas. Let me say: God bless Kansas,” Cruz says, grinning. And God bless Maine ... now, it’s a little bit early, the votes are still being counted, but as of today the networks have called the state of Kansas for us. And right now as they’re counting the votes, we have roughly 50 percent of the votes in the state of Kansas. And in Maine, right now on the count in Maine, we have roughly 50 percent of votes in the state of Maine. And the scream you hear, the howl coming from Washington DC, is utter terror at what we the people are doing together. The Texas senator won big here with religious voters - 55 percent of the state describe themselves as “highly religious”, according to the PEW research centre. Kansas is not a winner-take-all state, and the huge turnout has slowed vote-counting to a crawl. But Cruz seems set to take home at least half the delegates here, and looks set to beat his nearest rival by 25 percentage points. John Kasich leads Donald Trump 33% to 31% in the Michigan Republican presidential primary. Ted Cruz is at 15% and Marco Rubio is at 11%, according to a poll conducted by the American Research Group, who report that the results are surprising because Trump was leading Kasich by 18 points in their survey conducted February 19 and 20. According to the pollsters: Kasich leads Trump 34% to 28% among self-reported Republicans (71% of likely voters), while Trump leads Kasich 40% to 30% among self-reported independents and Democrats. Trump leads Kasich 34% to 30% among men (52% of likely voters), while Kasich leads Trump 36% to 29% among women. Playback is very favorable for Kasich on his debate performance Thursday night, while it is unfavorable for Trump’s debate performance. Results of the survey conducted March 4-5 are here. On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton leads Bernie Sanders 60% to 36%. Clinton leads Sanders 66% to 30% among self-reported Democrats (76% of likely voters), while Sanders leads Clinton 57% to 39% among self-reported independents and Republicans. Clinton leads Sanders 64% to 32% among women and Clinton leads Sanders 77% to 21% among self-reported African American voters. Results of the survey conducted March 4-5 are here. The reality TV star Caitlyn Jenner has offered to serve as America’s “trans ambassador” if Ted Cruz wins the presidency – leading many in the LGBT community to express horror at the prospect, reports Amber Jamieson. Jenner said: I like Ted Cruz. I think he’s very conservative and a great constitutionalist and a very articulate man. I haven’t endorsed him or anything like that. But I also think: he’s an evangelical Christian, and probably one of the worst ones when it comes to trans issues. Last year, the Texas senator called the federal government’s support for gender-neutral bathrooms for trans students “lunacy”. Jenner, of Keeping Up With the Kardashians fame and one of the most visible transgender women in the world, has often been criticized for her own lack of understanding of trans issues. Thanks to her money, fame and years of privilege as a successful white male athlete, her experience does not mirror that of most trans people. However, Jenner offered to be a “trans ambassador” for Cruz, with all the girls from her show I Am Cait – the second season of which begins on Sunday – sitting on a trans issues advisory board. You can read the whole piece here. In Washington DC, Ted Cruz has just won the CPAC straw poll. Expect results in the Republican caucuses there fairly soon. Meanwhile, with 9 percent of votes counted, Ted Cruz is also leading in Maine, with 48 percent to Trump’s 35. Maine’s governor, Paul LePage, recently endorsed Trump - was this a kiss of death for the New York developer, as other gubernatorial endorsements have proved so far this cycle? The Kansas Republican caucuses are still slowly drizzling results through. With 26.7 percent of votes in, Cruz is still in the lead, however - 48.5 percent to Trump’s 26.2 and Rubio’s 13.6, and John Kasich is in last with 10 percent. In Baton Rouge, Matt Teague writes, the Young family strolled toward Louisiana State University’s stadium, preparing to watch a baseball game… Abi Young is a freshman at LSU and her parents Louis and Angelle had driven in from New Orleans to visit. “So we voted early,” Louis said. He seemed slightly bashful, when asked how he cast his ballot. “I voted for Carly Fiorina,” he said. “I did. I figure at this point, what’s the difference?” If the Donald Trump steamroller continues through the Louisiana primary, he said, this year’s general election may be the first time he will bypass the voting booth. “I’ve never missed a vote, not once since I was old enough,” he said. “This may be the first time.” His daughter Abi, will be eligible for the first time. She said she would vote – probably. “I’m just like him,” she said of her father. Louisiana is in a financial crisis, with funding cuts to education and healthcare. The cuts are so deep that some hospitals and universities are closing. Some people blame Governor Bobby Jindal – saying he was too distracted by presidential ambitions to pay attention to his home state – but Louis Young said the problems were broader than that. “We have a spending problem,” he said. “Our state budget is $28bn. In Ohio and Pennsylvania the budgets are $27bn to $29bn, and they have three times the population. So something fundamental is out of whack in this state.” At LSU’s enclosure for the school mascot, Marie Claire Perrault and her four-year-old son looked through a fence for Mike the Tiger. Perrault, an insurance claims adjuster, said she probably won’t bother to vote in the primary. “I’m absolutely not for Trump,” she said. But his sweep seems inevitable. “I would have taken any of the three other Republicans.” Perrault’s son spotted the state’s iconic tiger, and pointed: he lay in the shade, snoozing and completely indifferent. Trump is still speaking in Orlando. This, by the way, is not a great look: Some Republican leaders in Kentucky are worried about a low turnout for the state’s presidential caucuses on Saturday — perhaps because their home-state candidate no longer is in the race, the Associated Press reports. The caucuses were tailor-made — and paid for — by Rand Paul. They were created so Paul could run for president and re-election to the Senate without violating a state law that bans candidates from appearing on the ballot twice in one day. The senator is long gone from the presidential race, but he’s still on the hook to pay $250,000 plus other expenses for a contest among four people not named Paul. Vote-counting is beginning in Maine. If Ted Cruz can beat Trump here, it may spell trouble for the gold-plated reality TV star. Meanwhile, back in Trumpland: The first state to finish caucusing on Super Saturday has now done so - excepting some caucus sites with long lines, and others having to print more voter registration forms. As we saw in Nevada, turnout is a tsunami compared with 2012. CNN is reporting that a Republican official says “almost every caucus site” ran out of ballots. 40 Republican delegates are at stake. Republicans are reporting With 6.6 percent of caucus sites reporting, Ted Cruz has an impressive lead, with 49.4 percent of the vote. Update [correction]: the Democrats caucus later today. Back in Orlando, Trump is being near-continually interrupted by protesters: Google has provided some interesting widgets to follow search interest in candidates in all of today’s caucus and primary states. For the Republicans: And for the Democrats: So, here’s what’s happening today. Republicans are grappling for 155 delegates in caucuses in Kansas, Kentucky and Maine, and a primary in Louisiana. Democrats are seeking 109 pledged delegates, with caucuses in Kansas and Nebraska and a primary in Louisiana. Results for Kansas and Kentucky are expected to begin coming back around now, increasing in speed at around 4pm EST, with the rest trickling in over the course of this evening. One percent of Kansas results have been counted for the Republicans. Cruz is leading Trump, but without enough districts reporting to draw any real conclusions as yet. Stay tuned. Now Trump leads a chant of “USA! USA” “Are Trump rallies the greatest?” he asks. The crowd roars. “Where are these people. Oh, there he is! Little wise-guy. Lot of guts,” Trump says, almost admiringly. “I love my protesters. Because these guys-” he points at the media “-never move their cameras.” “We can’t play games. Our country is in deep trouble. We have to beat [Hillary],” Trump is saying. “Bernie is gone. He had his time in the sun.” He says Bernie blew the election when he criticised Hillary’s emails.” Now he’s hitting out at the press again, like always at his rallies. “They are the most disgusting, dishonest human beings on earth.” The audience boos. The rally stops, for some protesters. “Get ‘em out,” Trump says. Donald Trump has taken the stage at a rally in Orlando, Florida, where there is a man dressed up as his vaunted wall. The former reality TV star is skipping the conservative conference known as CPAC to go on the stump in the sunshine state. He is saying that “the one person Hillary does not want to run against is Trump. I can tell you.” Trump is also hitting out against “little Marco,” and boasting that Florida is “truly, truly my second home.” After Trump dubbed Rubio “Little Marco” in last week’s fractious debate, internet users have dug up this unfortunate photo of Rubio sitting in a totally giant, not at all normal sized chair: At Bergeron’s Boudin and Cajun Meats, a meat market and barbecue joint in Port Allen, Louisiana, the sentiment on election day ran as red as hot sauce. Matthew Teague writes… “I’m a Trump man,” said the owner, Kevin Cox. “Trump all the way.” A little over a year ago, Cox instituted a discount for anyone openly carrying a firearm. Since then, he said, the restaurant has become a draw for conservatives from around the country. “Tourists will visit New Orleans, rent a car, and drive and hour and a half out here to see me,” he said on Saturday. On one side of the building Bergeron’s sells traditional Cajun fare: boudin, cracklins, sausages. On the other side there’s the restaurant, and in the back hunters drop off deer for meat processing. Port Allen sits on the Mississippi River and is populated by blue-collar workers employed by factories and plants along the river. “A lot of these guys don’t have college degrees but they’re making $100,000 or more per year,” Cox said. Behind him on the wall a t-shirt advertised his “God, Guns & Gumbo Discount”, and customers streamed in the door. “Do you think these guys want to pay more taxes? For Obama Care? How about an Obama Car? Where does it stop?” At lunchtime a customer named Brandon Johnson, of Baton Rouge, sat down with his family for barbecued chicken on styrofoam plates. He had not yet voted, he said, but he planned to. “Absolutely,” he said. For whom? “Believe it or not I’m still undecided,” he said. “Trump would be a hard pill for me to swallow.” In a general election, though, he said he would embrace Trump warmly. “Anyone but a Democrat,” he said. “My main issue is spending. Overspending, I mean, by the government.” After a moment’s thought, he added: “I would like to see an increase in military spending.” Bernie Sanders is speaking at Institutional Baptist Church in Cleveland. “The hardest economic lesson I ever got is growing up in a house without a lot of money,” the Vermont senator says. “I know there are a lot of families wondering how they are going to feed the kids this week, how they’re going to put gas in the car. Who have struggled with the dream of sending their kids to college.” I know about that. That’s in my heart. That’s why I’m running for President. Hello and welcome to our live coverage of the first primaries and caucuses since Super Tuesday – I’m Nicky Woolf. It’s the beginning of March and the madness continues as the departure of a retired neurosurgeon from the race brings the Republicans down to the final four candidates, meaning today is one of the last few chances for the enemies of Donald Trump to whisk delegates away from the Republican frontrunner. On the Democratic side, today is Hillary Clinton’s chance to secure her dominant lead over Bernie Sanders. Starring: a bombastic and orange-hued billionaire (Trump), an evangelical Texas lawyer who has not specifically denied being the Zodiac Killer (Ted Cruz), a Florida man who makes crude jokes (Marco Rubio), and an Ohio governor whom the others are ignoring but who has described himself as the grownup on the stage (John Kasich). Clinton has hundreds more delegates than Sanders, but the Vermont senator’s surprise win in Oklahoma on Tuesday suggests he has enough support to continue rattling the Democratic race, if not overtake the frontrunner. He and the former secretary of state face off at the polls today and at a debate tomorrow, in Flint, Michigan, where the local mayor has met with Clinton to discuss the city’s lead-poisoned water. Kansas, Kentucky, and Nebraska are holding caucuses to decide winners for both parties, and Maine Republicans will vote in a caucus. Louisiana - where the ’s Matt Teague is on the ground - is holding the day’s only primary. And in Washington DC, conservatives are having a collective panic attack over the ascendance of Trump and the schisms in their party. Ben Jacobs and Megan Carpentier are at the scene at CPAC, and will be reporting on the chaos and campaign speeches there. David Smith and Dan Roberts are also in Washington, where leaders are bracing for an increasingly likely showdown between Clinton and Trump.
National Media Museum’s reach is not limited by its Bradford location The proposal by the trustees of Bradford’s National Media Museum to relocate thousands of objects southwards to the V&A (Report, 4 March) is yet another example of the cultural imperialism and stranglehold that a London coterie imposes upon the rest of us. These same Science Museum Group trustees also rule the Railway Museum in York, and the Science and Industry Museum in Manchester. Most of them were educated and live in the south – few have significant roots in the north of England. Michael Leslie Bingley, West Yorkshire • Why have a collection that nobody sees, asks David Reed, the chair of Hampstead Photographic Society (Letters, 7 March), in support of the move of the Royal Photographic Society’s collection to the V&A. But if correct resources were allocated to the National Media Museum in Bradford, then it wouldn’t have to operate limited view by appointment for this specific archive, and more people would see it. The Science Museum has in fact presided over the running down of film and photography exhibits, proving again that you can get what you want by underfunding for a bit and then bemoaning the results. I feel bad that Hampstead is so remote and cut off from other national archives. Augustin Bousfield Bradford • It’s strange to hear such news coming not from a country at war and in extreme danger of losing its heritage but from a top cultural western institution. One cannot dismember a collection or divide one museum simply to enrich another. Every single piece is a statement of a unique narrative that has been built thanks to the will of donors, curators and workers. And it will take so much time and public money to remake the inventories! On a personal level, when, in 2011, the Cineteca Nazionale (the Italian national film archive) was restoring the first English fiction film, The Soldier’s Courtship (shot by Robert William Paul in 1896), the National Media Museum generously contributed some missing frames. Toni Booth, the museum’s collections manager and associate curator of cinematography, arranged for 11¾ frames in the Kodak collection to be duplicated and sent electronically to us in Rome, so we could integrate them into the timeline. Thanks, National Media Museum, I hope you accomplish your motto: “We aim to be the best museum in the world for inspiring people to learn about, engage with and create media”. Nancy Irela Nunez Bassano Romano, Italy • I was pleased to see many prominent photographers and artists backing the campaign to keep the Royal Photographic Society photographic archive in Bradford (Report, 7 March). Important visual archives must allow easy public access. Bradford has good transport links to the whole of the north of England and is already acknowledged as a centre for the visual arts. The answer is to bring the rest of the archive to Bradford and invest in a truly accessible world-class facility open to all. Nothing less should be seen as a failure by all involved in making decisions on such important cultural assets. Alan Stopher President-elect, Yorkshire Photographic Union • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
Toots and the Maytals: how we made Pressure Drop Frederick ‘Toots’ Hibbert, singer-songwriter After independence in 1962, Jamaica had a new energy. Music started springing up all over the island. People told me I had a good voice, so after leaving school I practised in church, made my own guitar, then started doing gospel, ska and rocksteady. I came up with the name Maytals and worked with hot producers, such as Coxsone Dodd and Prince Buster. Then I was suddenly arrested and thrown in jail for a year. I don’t like to talk about it – it wasn’t a good period for me – but I was innocent. There was a lot of political stuff going on. People were doing bad things to each other. When I got out of jail, I had a sense of injustice and a desire to make up for lost time. Ideas just started flowing. One of my early songs, Do the Reggay, is credited with coining the name – later spelt reggae – for the new music that emerged as rocksteady slowed down even further. I got the name from ragamuffin, the term for people in Jamaica who didn’t dress too good. The idea was that reggae was for everybody. Pressure Drop just came to me on guitar. It’s a song about revenge, but in the form of karma: if you do bad things to innocent people, then bad things will happen to you. The title was a phrase I used to say. If someone done me wrong, rather than fight them like a warrior, I’d say: “The pressure’s going to drop on you.” The song became very popular after it was used in the film The Harder They Come. It’s now been covered by everyone from the Specials to the Clash. That’s great, an honour, although I haven’t always been paid for everything that I have done. Whenever anyone rips me off I just think: “The pressure’s gonna drop on you.” Ha ha. Usually, it does. Clifton ‘Jackie’ Jackson, bass-player When I was a kid, studying piano at music school, I saw the Skatalites play. The moment I saw Lloyd Brevitt thumping away on the bass, I knew that was what I wanted to do. “The piano has 88 keys,” I told my music teacher, “and I only have 10 fingers. I’m switching to bass.” They called me the King of Rocksteady, because I played on all the hits that came out of the Treasure Isle studios. When I was asked to play with Toots and the Maytals, I jumped at the chance. Pressure Drop was our first song. The producer, Leslie Kong, was known as the Chinaman, because he was Chinese-Jamaican. He was an absolute sweetheart. He’d never interfere or tell us musicians what to do. He’d just sit in the control room and let us do our thing, in the belief that this made for the best music. Previously, I’d only worked with singers who laid down their vocals separately, but Toots prefers to record everything live. He loves the kick of singing right there – as the music is playing, as if he’s on stage. All the “Oh yeah yeah yeahs” on Pressure Drop were done by the group live. It sounded riotous in the studio – and that’s the vibe you hear on the record. In 1975, we supported the Who, playing to a crowd of 90,000 people in California. We were absolutely shitting ourselves – because the crowd just stood there staring, like they were going to have us for their supper. We said: “What the hell are we going to do?” Then someone suggested opening with Pressure Drop. The place erupted. • Toots and the Maytals play Manchester Academy on 10 September.
More anti-Trump action planned after second night of protests across US Protesters across the US were on Friday gearing up for weekend demonstrations over the election of Donald Trump, as other activists began work on plans to disrupt the Republican’s inauguration in Washington early next year. Rowdy protests against Trump and his divisive campaign have spread to cities all over the country following his victory on Tuesday, leading to dozens of arrests and a complaint from Trump in one of his first public remarks as president-elect. More than 10,000 people have signed up to attend a noon march on Saturday from New York’s Union Square to Trump Tower, the future president’s home and corporate headquarters, while several other actions are planned for other cities. “Join us in the streets! Stop Trump and his bigoted agenda,” the organizers of the New York event said in a Facebook post. Trump complained in a tweet late on Thursday that “professional protesters, incited by the media” were tarnishing his electoral success, which he said was “very unfair”. Amid intense criticism, Trump said hours later in a second post that he appreciated the “passion for our great country” shown by demonstrators. Activists expressed determination to build momentum for major activity on 20 January, when Trump will officially enter the White House. A “million women” march on the capital is being planned for the day of Trump’s inauguration, amid intense anger that the next US president allegedly sexually assaulted multiple women and boasted of doing so in a leaked recording. Leftwing and anarchist groups were also making plans for protests in Washington on inauguration day, according to flyers circulating online, raising the prospect of chaotic scenes as Trump takes the oath of office. Other activists were biding their time before mounting a response to Trump’s election. Patrisse Cullors, one of the founders of Black Lives Matter, said their movement was “grieving and mourning” following the result. “We are bringing folks together to imagine what kinds of organizing we will need to do under a Trump presidency,” said Cullors. “I do think we can organize as we have been, and build something bigger and stronger than the hate Trump and his team have exhibited towards marginalized communities.” Thousands of people took to the streets from Thursday night into Friday in Denver, Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Portland, Oakland and several other US cities, as well as Vancouver, Canada. The protests were for the most part peaceful and orderly, though there were scattered acts of civil disobedience and damage to property. The rowdiest scenes were in Portland, Oregon, where about 4,000 people marched into the city centre late on Thursday. At least 29 people were arrested after a minority of protesters threw objects at officers, smashed shop windows and damaged a car dealership, the Portland police department said, declaring the demonstration a riot. Officers used pepper spray and rubber projectiles to disperse the crowd, the department added. In Minneapolis, dozens of people marched on to Interstate 94, blocking traffic in both directions for at least an hour as police stood by. A smaller band of demonstrators briefly halted traffic on a busy Los Angeles highway before police cleared them off. Baltimore police reported that about 600 people marched through the Inner Harbor area, with some blocking roadways by sitting in the street. Two people were arrested, police said. One of the largest demonstrations was in Denver, where a crowd estimated to number about 3,000 gathered on the grounds of the Colorado state capitol and marched through the city centre. Earlier in the day, high school students staged walkouts across the country. Authorities told the LA Times that at least 4,000 students from the LA County school system had walked out in protest by Thursday afternoon. Hundreds of high school students in San Francisco walked out of class too, and took to the streets of downtown, shouting “Not my president”, “My body, my choice” and “Love trumps hate” as they marched in the middle of traffic. Malkia Williams, 15, who carried a sign that said “Pussy grabs back” – a reference to a leaked recording where Trump bragged he could sexually assault women because of his fame – said it was important for students to speak out since they could not vote. “A lot of adults voted for Donald Trump and they think we don’t care, but we do,” she said as she marched down a busy downtown street where student activists were temporarily halting vehicles, with many honking in support. “My loved ones and friends could be taken out of this country.” Williams said she was still processing Trump’s victory. “I still don’t feel it’s real. This is not the future we want,” she said. In Oakland, where 30 people were arrested on Wednesday night, a crowd gathered on Thursday but the protests were more subdued than the previous evening, when a series of small fires were set, some windows were smashed and a few people threw rocks at police. Hundreds of protesters took to the streets of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, according to a local ABC affiliate station, WISN 12, a number which later swelled to over 2,000 as the group marched downtown, according to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. Lewis & Clark College student Gregory McKelvey, who organised a protest in Portland on Thursday, told local NBC affiliate KGW: “We think that because Trump is president, it becomes even more urgent for our city to become what people want it to be. It’s an anti-Trump protest but also a call for change in our city because we need to push for progress here.” Elsewhere on Thursday, hundreds protested in Salt Lake City, Utah; San Francisco; Houston, Texas; and in Washington DC, where about 100 protesters marched from the White House to Donald Trump’s newly opened hotel several blocks away. At least 200 people rallied there after dark, many of them chanting “No hate! No fear! Immigrants are welcome here!” and carrying signs with such slogans as “Impeach Trump” and “Not my president.” “I can’t support someone who supports so much bigotry and hatred. It’s heart-breaking,” said 25-year-old Joe Daniels from Virginia. While protesters marched against Trump, at least one group was preparing to take to the streets in celebration. The Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan said on their website they would be holding a “victory parade” in North Carolina next month. Men in KKK-style white hoods were seen walking in the state on the morning after Trump was elected.
Zuckerberg has given Facebook investors all they need. He wants one thing in return: control Mark Zuckerberg has dominated the desktop internet. He’s dominated the mobile internet. Now he’s going to dominate Facebook itself, and the company is probably going to let him. The big news that came out of Facebook’s quarterly earnings report is that the company is making more money, from more users, being shown more adverts – and more profitable adverts at that. The numbers are, well, big. Its userbase grew from 1.44 billion to 1.65 billion. Once upon a time, the number of people on Facebook grew fivefold over the course of a single year; it can’t do that anymore, because there aren’t enough people on the Earth. It can’t even double any more, because there aren’t enough people with internet access. Which lends some necessary context to the company’s philanthropic efforts to push low-cost connections to the developing world through its Internet.org program. More users is nice but that’s not why Facebook is on top of the world today. Instead, it’s about where those users are: on their phones. Way back in 2009, the switch to mobile represented an problem for Facebook. As analyst Ben Thompson wrote in January, the company dominated on desktop, but had just 35 million users on mobile – barely beating Twitter, which had 30 million users. But Facebook saw the writing on the wall and doubled-down on its mobile apps. Even so, it was worried enough to begin a spate of acquisitions that saw it transform from a simple social network to a modern-day General Electric: Instagram, WhatsApp and Oculus were snapped up, and even SnapChat was offered, but declined, a cool $3bn for its business. These days, those acquisitions mostly look important for the breathing space they gave the core business to reinvent itself. Once it owned its biggest competitors, Facebook could take the time to do mobile right. And it did. The company introduced new ad units that let businesses target users based on their location, behaviour and even race – sorry, “ethnic affinity group”. Privacy advocates complained but users carried on clicking in the increasingly well-targeted adverts in ever-greater numbers. They also stayed on the site more. The average user now spends 50 minutes a day on Facebook, Messenger and Instagram, thanks to an increasing push from the company to keep them from clicking away. Goodbye links to news sites, hello “Instant Articles” – the same thing, but served from Facebook’s servers, in Facebook’s app and (often) with Facebook’s adverts. The same switch happened in video, where Facebook aggressively pushed its own video product ahead of links to competitors such as YouTube and Vimeo. Those efforts combined to make the company’s mobile ad revenue jump by 57% in the first quarter, from $3.3bn to $5.2bn, with each user worth $3.32 over the quarter, up from $2.50 last year. The company has costs that offset that, with its overall profit just $1.51. But that’s tripled from last year and helps explain why investors viewed the company’s results favourably when compared with Apple, which pulled in north of $50bn – but on a downward trajectory. Facebook’s achieved all this while under the command of one of the most concentrated leaderships in Silicon Valley. Founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg wields a huge amount of influence in the company, and while the company’s results are this good, investors are happy to let the state of affairs continue. So Zuckerberg is pushing it just a bit further. He already holds a disproportionate amount of “class B” shares, which carry 10 votes in internal debates compared to the one vote guaranteed by a “class A” share. Now, the company has proposed a three-to-one stock split in its quarterly results, which would give each Facebook shareholder two additional, non-voting shares for each single share they already hold. Those non-voting shares can be sold without relinquishing any actual control, which is perfect for Zuckerberg, who has committed to giving away 99% of his Facebook shares to charity over the course of his lifetime. If the plan is approved, Zuck explained to shareholders, “I’ll be able to keep founder control of Facebook so we can continue to build for the long term, and Priscilla [Chan, his wife] and I will be able to give our money to fund important work sooner.” The voting structure will revert to a more conventional system if Zuckerberg ever gives up an “active leadership role” at Facebook. And on the strength of the company’s history so far, that’s not a day you’ll be looking forward to if you are a Facebook shareholder.
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds: Skeleton Tree review – brilliant music on the verge of collapse In One More Time With Feeling, a film about both his new album and the death of his teenage son Arthur in 2015, Nick Cave gently counsels against linking the contents of the former too closely with the latter. He points out that most of the lyrics were written prior to his son’s death, that he was too stricken to write anything worthwhile in the aftermath. Nor should anyone set too much store by the bizarre, apparently premonitory, coincidences in the lyrics: the album’s opening line about a body falling from the sky; the recurring theme of addressing God to no avail – which even disconcerted his main musical foil, Warren Ellis. It’s not hard to understand why Cave is so firm on this. The last thing anyone needs is to have a shattering personal tragedy transmogrified into some kind of spooky rock myth. But the initial response to Skeleton Tree suggested Cave might as well have saved his breath. The album was immediately hailed as an unflinching exploration of grief. For good measure, several reviews threw in the suggestion that the album’s opening line was an explicit reference to both the manner and location of his son’s passing. Then again, you can see why people have felt unable to unpick the songs on Skeleton Tree’s from the events surrounding it, and not just because One More Time With Feeling occasionally seems to marry them. If you’ve seen it, it’s hard to disassociate the sound of Distant Sky from the film’s harrowing conclusion. And there are lines in Magneto – “The urge to kill someone was basically overwhelming / I had such hard blues down there in the supermarket queues” – that would seem like a classic latterday Cave joke, setting the fantastic violence of his early work against the mundanity of everyday life, had you not heard Cave describe being approached while shopping by a well-wisher and wondering when he became “a figure of pity”. It’s worth pointing out that, for the most part, the lyrics deal with the topics Nick Cave lyrics usually tend to deal with. “The song it spins now since 1984,” as Girl in Amber puts it, presumably in reference to the year Cave released his first album with The Bad Seeds. Jesus Alone conjures up the kind of apocalyptic scenario you can find all over his back catalogue, from Tupelo to Straight to You to 2013’s Higgs Boson Blues. On Rings of Saturn, we find Cave, as we so often have on recent albums, helpless with lust, making wisecracks about it – “I thought that slavery had been abolished / How come it’s gone and reared its ugly head again?” – and finding the lady in question coolly unimpressed by his efforts to transform his feelings into writing: “I’m spurting ink all over the sheets, but she remains, completely unexplained.” There is a great deal of calling out to some higher power and hearing nothing back, but then, there always was: We Call Upon the Author, Oh My Lord, God Is in the House. But if the themes that run through Skeleton Tree seem like Cave’s standard preoccupations, the music has a tendency to cast them in a stark new light. The album’s closest sonic relation in Cave’s back catalogue is its predecessor, Push the Sky Away, similarly built around Warren Ellis’s electronic loops, which replaced the usual heft of the Bad Seeds’ sound with an eerie haze: one of the most muscular-sounding backing bands in the business suddenly took on a weightless, ethereal quality. Something similar happens here, only more so. The drums don’t hold down the music, they sound like they’re scattered over its surface. The other instruments feel like they’re loosely gathered together. Barely in time with each other, they’re frequently drowned out by grinding noise. The vocal harmonies are ragged, while the sung-spoken lyrics unexpectedly cram in extra syllables or words, so they jar with the musical backing, jolting out of time with the rhythm of the song. The fog occasionally lifts and the music pulls sharply into melodic focus, to startling effect – on the title track, or Girl in Amber, where the backing vocals suddenly illuminate the chorus. But more often, it doesn’t. For all its stately progress, Anthracine sounds as chaotic as anything the Birthday Party ever put to tape: a rhythm track that bears no relation to anything else in the song fades in and out; a listlessly strummed acoustic guitar appears out of nowhere, then vanishes; the backing vocals moan, the music keeps lapsing into momentary silence, or wails of feedback. And like the Birthday Party, much of Skeleton Tree feels like music that’s on the verge of collapse. The big difference is that the Birthday Party sounded like a band who were tearing each other apart in a sodden frenzy: on Skeleton Tree, the Bad Seeds sound shattered, barely capable of holding themselves together. There is also the matter of Cave’s voice. When he’s reciting the lyrics rather that singing them, he sounds dead-eyed and numb – the opposite of the propulsive voice that snarled the spoken word sections of The Mercy Seat or Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! And when he sings, what comes out sounds strained and parched, drained of its usual power, but with a different, rather more difficult kind of potency in its place. It’s most striking on I Need You, the song that boasts Skeleton Tree’s most beautiful tune. His voice transforms a lyric that, on another Nick Cave album, would be one more of its author’s paeans to elusive women, into something else entirely: a desperate plea to someone not to lose themselves in fathomless misery. The same voice sings the final lines of an album that is no less brilliant, but perhaps less straightforward, than initial reactions suggested: not so much an exploration of grief as an example of how grief overwhelms or seeps into everything – a subtle difference, but a difference nonetheless. “It’s all right now,” Cave sings, over and over again, on Skeleton Tree, but it doesn’t feel terribly reassuring. Like the album it shares its name with, it’s more complicated than it first appears.
EU referendum: Michael Gove on BBC's Question Time EU Special - as it happened Michael Gove, the justice secretary and leading Vote Leave campaigner, accused the of misreporting the views of his father. He spoke out angrily on the BBC’s Question Time EU Special after the published a story saying Gove’s father Ernest has contradicted claims made by his son that the family’s fish processing firm in Aberdeen was destroyed by the European Union’s fisheries policies. Gove accused the of putting words into his father’s mouth and exploiting him to further a pro-EU agenda. (See 8.01pm.) The has responded by publishing a transcript of the interview with Gove snr which backs up the story written by Severin Carrell. (See 8.23pm.) Gove said that he would not vote for the hypothetic post-Brexit emergency budget proposed by George Osborne today. But, when asked if he would support it, he made it clear that he was saying no because he did not think it would be necessary. Asked if he would vote for it he said: No, because I think that what we have heard from the Remain campaign throughout this whole referendum have been dire warnings of the terrible consequences of the British people just taking control of our own destiny. And, the truth is, if we vote to Leave we will be in an economically stronger position. We will be able to take back some of the money that we currently give to the European Union and we can invest it in our priorities. Gove said there will be “bumps in the road” if the UK leaves the EU. However, he refused to say what these would be. He said: If we leave the European Union, yes there will be bumps in the road, inevitably, but we will be in a better position to deal with them. He said the UK rebate would be cut if Britain stays in the EU. He suggested that immigration would not start to fall until after 2020 if Britain voted to leave the EU because withdrawal would not take place until the end of this parliament. He accused the Remain campaign of “ramping up the fear, turning it up to 11”. He said Turkey would “inevitably” join the EU in his lifetime if Britain stayed in. He was criticised by members of the audience, with one man saying he was “off his rocker” and a woman calling him a “wolf in sheep’s clothing”. That’s all from me for tonight. Thanks for the comments. Michael Gove has subtly changed what he has been saying about his father’s business since he appeared on Sky News earlier this month. In his Sky News interview Gove implied the business went bust while his father owned it. He said: My father had a fishing business in Aberdeen destroyed by the European Union and the Common Fisheries Policy, the European Union … If you heard earlier, Faisal, I know what it’s like to see someone lose their job as a result of the European Union. I saw my father lose his job, I saw his business go to the wall, I saw 24 people who he employed also lose their jobs. But Gove’s father told the he sold the business before it had to close. Tonight Gove was careful not to say the business closed while his father still owned it. He said: One of reasons I was able to go to university was because of the sacrifices my family made. One of the things I know about the European Union is that the European Union can destroy jobs. My dad ran a fish business in Aberdeen. The common fisheries policy unfortunately led to the devastation of fishing in Scotland. My dad had to close his business. As a result something that he been built up by by grandfather and maintained by my dad disappeared. So my dad suffered ... My dad has been clear, he was clear to the BBC on Sunday night, he was clear to me when I was a boy, that the business that he invested so much care and time in had to close as a result of the common fisheries policy. This is a full transcript of the interview the had by telephone with Ernest Gove, Michael Gove’s father, on the morning Tuesday 14 June. It has been slightly edited to remove verbal tics and some slight repetition. Ernest Gove: “Hello?” Severin Carrell: Oh, hello, is that Earnest Gove? EG: “Yeah, it is.” SC: Hi. My name is Severin Carrell, I’m the newspaper’s Scotland editor. I’m just phoning to see whether you’d be able to give me some more information about what happened to your family business in the early ‘80s. Just following up on the interviews your son Michael has been giving and the speeches he has made about the CFP [Common Fisheries Policy]. EG: “There’s nothing really to go back about anyway because it just was, when Europe went into fishing, the industry more or less collapsed down and I just packed in and got a job with another firm, you know. That was all that was happening. “That was all that was happening. It wasn’t any hardship or things like that, or what you call it: I just decided to call it a day and just sold up my business and went on to work with someone else, you know.” SC: Right. So there wasn’t any hardship? EG: “It wasn’t because of hardship but I couldn’t see any future in it, that type of thing, the business that I had, so I just said I wasn’t going to go into all the trouble of going hardship, and things like that. I just decided to sell up and get a job with someone else, you know. That was all.” SC: Okay. EG: “And that’s all it was, like.” SC: The reason I’m interested is it’s just that I have covered the fishing industry quite a bit in my work and I was a bit puzzled about whether, how the CFP itself would’ve been the sole cause of problems in Aberdeen because I know from other people in the industry that the biggest issues in the early, mid 1980s were to do with the 200 mile nautical limit, the cod wars; then there was the competition in Aberdeen harbour with North Sea oil and gas, and there was the dockworkers strike, all of that happening making life in Aberdeen much more difficult. EG: “You had all that going on. So, to be quite honest, I just decided to sell up really and then go ahead and try and make a good living out of it, I can get a job with someone I could be more or less employed and know I was going to be employed. “But as I say, yes oil and everything else came along and things like that. I mean, as you understand, that is just what industry does. It goes on and on and on and you go from one to another and to another. As regards my own business, I just decided, as I said, that things weren’t going to work well with me, and I decided to pack it in and that’s all.” SC: Right. OK. When was that? “I couldn’t tell you the dates. It’s eh … I’m getting on for 80 now. So all these type of things is not staying in my head, you know.” SC: OK. But would it have been around 1983, ’84, ’85, that kind of time? EG: “I couldn’t really say because I can’t remember to be honest. But that’s all that I can tell you.” SC: My final question Mr Gove, if you don’t mind. Were you aware that Michael had been saying that the CFP had destroyed your business? And it was solely to blame for the business folding? “Yeah but I’m not saying anything because I’m not going against my son and I’m not going … he’s got his own policies, his own mind, and reasons, and I’m not going to give out any information at all to turn round and say one way or another. No, no, I’m not going to start fighting over [heads](?). “As far as I’m concerned, I decided it wasn’t going to be my way of living, the way things was going, and I decided to change it. That was all.” SC: Alright EG: “Okay?” SC: Thanks very much, I’m grateful. EG: “Okay? Right.” SC: Bye now, bye bye. Here is the key quote from Michael Gove about the ’s story about his father contradicting claims made by Gove himself about the family’s fish processing firm in Aberdeen being destroyed by the European Union’s fisheries policies. Gove told Question Time: My dad was rung up by a reporter from the who tried to put words into his mouth but my dad has been clear, he was clear to the BBC on Sunday night, he was clear to me when I was a boy, that the business that he invested so much care and time in had to close as a result of the common fisheries policy. I remember when my dad ran his business. Two of his employees were lads who were in a care home. They did not have parents. My dad took them in, gave them a job and allowed them to work in his business and to sleep there in a spare room that he made for them. That business closed. Those boys lost their home as a result of what happened. I know what my dad went through when I was a schoolboy and I don’t think that the or anyone else should belittle his suffering or try to get a 79-year-old man to serve their agenda instead of agreeing and being proud of what his son does. Gove on Question Time - Snap verdict: Michael Gove’s appearance on Sky News’s EU referendum special two weeks ago was generally viewed as a success. Personally I felt that his failure to answer key economic questions was a fatal handicap, but generally commentators felt he came across as measured, likeable and persuasive. Tonight did not go quite so smoothly. It did not go badly either, but Gove sounded just a little more edgy and thin-skinned, and at times some of his answers sounded glib. Question Time with David Dimbleby is in a league of its own when it comes to getting members of a studio audience to interrogate politicians in a forensic way, and not just a shouty way, and Gove had several exchanges with people where his answers clearly fell short (eg the woman with the translation business). It was also interesting to note that immigration, which is normally an easy subject for leave, was quite tricky for him tonight, with Dimbleby highlighting the government’s failure to use its powers to curb non-EU migration and a Spanish woman trying to make Gove ashamed of his stance. The highlight, though, was Gove’s attack on the . All of us can understand the desire to protect one’s parents and no doubt many people watching will sympathise with what he said. We will be publishing more on this soon. But as far as I’m aware at no point has Gove, or anyone else, challenged the accuracy of a single word attributed to Gove’s father in Severin Carrell’s story. I’ve worked with Severin on and off for about 20 years and he is one of the most scrupulous and accurate reporters I know. Obviously you would expect me to say that. You’ll have to read his story and Gove’s remarks (which I will post shortly) and decide for yourself who you trust. Q: Do you regret using the £350m a week figure for the amount the EU costs the UK? Gove says some people have criticised. He says that is the amount of money the EU controls. Some of it comes back. But the rebate has been cut in the past, and it will be cut in the future again if we stay in. Gove says UK rebate will be cut if we remain in the EU. Q: You sound plausible, but I can’t help thinking you are a wolf in sheep’s clothing. (She is using a phrase Jeremy Corbyn used yesterday.) Gove says Britain will be stronger, freer and fairer outside the EU. And that’s it. I will post a verdict and a summary soon. Gove says he does not favour deporting anyone who is hard working. But he says a Bank of England report showed wages were being held down by immigration. It is not right to set community against community, he says. He says he objects to the way a member of the audience is talking down people in this country. A member of the audience complains about how immigrants like her are treated in this country. “We are not the enemy, Mr Gove,” she says. Gove says he understands the woman’s point of view. He is in favour of migration, he says. He just wants to control the numbers. The woman says she does not believe him. Gove says he thinks we can secure exit from the EU by 2020. And we can get immigration down in the next parliament. Gove suggests immigration would not be reduced until after 2020 if we left the EU. Q: But the government can control immigration from outside the EU, and those numbers are still well over 100,000. Gove says that is within our control. If we leave the EU, we cannot place any limits on migration from within the EU. Gove says under EU law there are criminals here we cannot deport. If we leave the EU, we can have an Australian-style points system. Q: Are you scaremongering when you say Turkey will join the EU? Absolutely not, says Gove. He says the Financial Times has a story today saying moves to get Turkey into the EU are being accelerated. Q: Cameron says we have a veto on Turkey joining the EU? Gove says that is correct. But it is official government policy for Turkey to join. The government has no intention of using that veto. He says he thinks Turkey joining the EU will “’inevitably” happen in our lifetime unless we vote to leave. Gove says Turkey will “inevitably” join the EU in our lifetime unless we vote to leave. Q: If we get a leave vote, are you confident a prime minister who campaigned for remain will deliver what the country wants? Gove says the referendum is about giving instructions to the prime minister. David Cameron has promised he will abide by the decision of the people. Q: And what will happen to George Osborne. Some 65 Tory MPs say they will not vote for his budget. Will he have to go? Gove says the remain campaign have been “ramping up the fear, turning it up to 11”. Do you want the UK to govern itself? Or do you want it run by the EU and its five presidents, none of whom you can name? Q: I study English literature, and the manipulation of words. All I’ve heard from you is manipulation. Gove says he read English too. Vote Leave has put forward a plan today for what would happen. He says he was able to go to university because of his family’s sacrifices. He says his father lost his fishing business because of EU policies. The EU is a job-destroying machine. That is a tragedy. Q: Today your father is quoted as saying it was not the EU that made him close his business. Gove says his father was rung up by a journalist “who tried to put words in his mouth”. He says he remembers what happened. He says two workers lost their homes. The should not be using a 79-year-old man to suit their agenda, and it should not be belittling what he did. Gove accuses of presenting a twisted view of his father’s comments about how he lost his business. He stands by his claim that the EU was to blame for his father losing his business. Q: I run a small business and more than 50% of my trade is with the EU. How can you guarantee that I won’t lose out? Gove says there will be no reason to think they will impose tariffs. It will be in their interests not to impose tariffs. Q: But I sell to them. I have a translation business. It is much more difficult to work with non-EU countries. And if we become a non-EU country, it will be harder for me. Gove says that will only be the case if EU countries take leave of their senses. It is in the interests of both sides to keep tariffs down. Q: But you tell us the EU does take leave of its senses. You quoted Donald Tusk. Gove says they are trying to scare us into staying, because we pay many of the bills. Q: As a physicist I am terrified what will happen to British science if we succeed. What will we do when our funding dries up? Gove says some physicists think we will be better off outside the EU. And all the EU money going to universities is our money in the first place. He says he does not believe in the scare stories. Donald Tusk says Brexit will lead to the end of Western civilisation. Q: But we get more money out of the EU for science than we put in. Gove says that is not true. Overall we hand over £20bn to the EU. Q: But for science we get more than we put in. The IOP [Institute of Physics] has said that, the Royal Society has said that. Gove says we hand over £20bn, and get £10bn back. Q: The risks are economic. What trading relationship will we have? You want us to lose autonomy, and lose influence over decision making. You are off your rocker if you think we are better off. Gove says the Germans sell more cars to us than we sell to them. Germany won’t punish its car workers. Q: Everything in life has risks. What are the risks of leaving? Gove says the questioner is right. But he thinks we will be better off out. Yes, there will be bumps in the road ... Q: What will they be? Gove says there will be risks if we leave or stay. Q: Are you saying there are now downsides from leaving. Gove says the UK will be in a stronger position if we leave. It won’t be milk and honey. But the British people will be liberated to deal with any risks they encounter. Q: If you value the NHS so much, where was your support for junior doctors? Gove says the NHS will be stronger if we leave. It will have more money, and be under less strain. Q: Why are you dismissing the views of economic experts? Gove says they were wrong about the euro and the ERM. Q: But the IFS did not support the euro. Gove says he wants the UK to take back control of its affairs. Q: How can we trust you when you co-authored a book saying we should dismantle the NHS? Gove says he supports the NHS. He says leaving would allow us to give it an extra £100m a week. Q: But John Major said you want to privatise it. Gove says he cherishes it. Q: But 10 years ago you wanted to privatise it. You have changed your mind. Gove says the book was written by a group of people. He did not write anything in it about the NHS. His commitment to the NHS is absolute. He wants the money to be spent by us, on our priorities. He does not know of a higher priority to the British public. Q: If we vote to leave the EU, will you support George Osborne’s punishment budget? No, says Michael Gove. He says all we have heard from remain have been dire warnings. But the economy will do well, he says. Leaving would be a “win, win” for the economy. The EU has the lowest growth of any continent apart from Antarctica. Q: George Osborne was talking about IFS figures. You respect the IFS. Gove says the IFS did not say there would be a £30bn hole in the budget immediately after we left. Stuart Rose, who leads the in campaign, has said nothing would change if we left, he says. Gove says he would not support Osborne’s post-Brexit austerity budget. But he says he is saying that because he does not accept it would be necessary. Gove says “it’s a shame” the remain camp are talking this country down – with some anger in his voice. David Dimbleby is introducing the programme. They are recording from Nottingham. Tonight’s Question Time is going out live. Normally it records an hour or so before transmission. The Labour MP Emma Reynolds has put out a statement, via Britain Stronger in Europe, welcoming the fact that Michael Gove’s father has said the EU was not to blame for his business going bust - even though this is what Gove himself has claimed. She said: I’m glad that Michael Gove’s father has made clear the EU did not destroy his fishing business. From Boris’ bananas to Gove’s fishy tales, the Leave campaign has dodgy claims and dishonesty at its core. If they can’t be trusted on the basic facts, how can they be trusted with the future of our country? The truth is the only way to secure jobs, lower prices and funding for our public service is to vote remain on the 23rd June. The BBC’s Question Time EU Special with Michael Gove starts in 10 minutes. Michael Gove’s father has contradicted claims made by his son that the family’s fish processing firm in Aberdeen was destroyed by the European Union’s fisheries policies. Turkey has missed an EU deadline that would have allowed its citizens visa-free travel through most of Europe, amid ongoing tensions over a controversial migration deal. The Centre for Economics and Business Research has published a report saying that up to 800,000 jobs could be lost because of falling exports if Britain votes to leave the EU. But we’re not finished. At 6.45pm Michael Gove, the justice secretary and co-convenor of the Vote Leave, is on BBC 1’s Question Time EU Special. I will be covering that live. And this is from the SNP MSP Gillian Martin on the Michael Gove story. Michael Gove has been caught out – he should call it a day on his attempts to spin a tale about his family history. If Mr Gove was as concerned by the plight of the Scottish fishing industry as he says, then he’d never have joined the political party that viewed it “expendable” in the first place. It’s not the EU that’s to blame for the difficulties of the fishing industry, but the indifference of the UK government who sold the industry out. Here is the Lib Dem MPS Tavish Scott on the ’s revelations about Michael Gove’s father denying claims made by his son that the family’s fish processing firm in Aberdeen was destroyed by the European Union’s fisheries policies. Scott said: Michael Gove’s father has just slapped him round the face with a wet fish. He spent hours this week telling anyone who would listen that the EU was to blame for the demise of his family business but now it seems there is something more than a little bit fishy about his claims. MPs have been debating a Labour motion on the economic benefits of the EU. Earlier, in response to a question BTL, I said it looked a bit dull, but reading the Press Association coverage, I see there were some good lines in it. Here are some highlights. John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, said the Brexit campaign had done more damage to capitalism in four days than the SWP did in 40 years. There is a well-founded concern that withdrawal will put jobs, investment, trade and employment at risk. The unpredictability of the outcome of this leap in the dark has united virtually every economist and economic institution of any standing from the IMF to the OECD, the Bank of England to the Institute of Fiscal Studies, to express their concerns at the risk to the economy. We have witnessed in the last 72 hours the reaction of the world markets to shifts in the polls pointing to a possible Brexit. £100bn has been knocked off the value of shares and the value of the pound has dropped. The Brexit campaign in four days has done more damage to capitalism than the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) in 40 years. Nick Clegg, the former Lib Dem leader, said he used to be an EU trade negotiator and knew it was “laughable” to think the UK would get a better trade deal outside the EU. I’ve spent a lot of time with a lot of international trade negotiators - these are very unsentimental folk. And the idea, it’s almost laughable simply to say it, that you can pull out of the world’s largest economic bloc and then say to these unsentimental folk - who have driven such a hard bargain with that bloc of 500m - ‘We want not just the same, we want better deals, a better set of conditions on behalf of an economy of only 60m’. Who do the Brexit camp think these negotiators are? They’re not stupid, they’re not naive. They will just snigger and I look in vain, I’ve scoured the internet this morning, for apparently all these freedom-loving nations who will cut these favourable deals with us as we depart, apparently, to this world of milk and honey where effortlessly people will give us concessions which they didn’t give to a bloc of 500m. Can you find anyone? Have the Indians said ‘Yep, oh sure, we’ll give you what you want’? Have the Americans said it? Have the Canadians said it? Have the Australians said it? Has anyone said it? Not a single country anywhere in the world has said they will give better terms of trade to the United Kingdom on its own than the European Union. Philip Hammond, the foreign secretary, said the Brexiteers were hostile to globalisation. The world’s supply chain has globalised itself and I have to say to you if I’m honest, when I listen to the arguments of some of our opponents in this debate, while they frame them in terms of a hostility to the European Union, I do sometimes wonder whether what I’m hearing is a hostility to the globalisation of our economy. The Conservative MP Oliver Colvile said he was voting Remain because he did not trust France and Germany to run the EU. The reason I will be voting to remain in is because frankly I don’t trust the Germans and the French to run Europe without us being there at that table keeping them at close heel. To my mind our job in Europe is to maintain the balance of power and that is utterly crucial. Because when we have walked away from Europe we have found ourselves having to pay for that with an enormous amount of blood and an enormous amount of treasure. The Conservative MP Sir Bill Cash described the EU as a “kind of dictatorship”. I do believe in peace and I do believe in good relations. What really troubles me however is when the majority voting system and the decisions are taken behind closed doors are so manifestly undemocratic, it is impossible to justify, and it becomes a kind of dictatorship behind closed doors. We in this House make our decisions based upon speeches which are made in public, which are reported, the votes are there, we’re held to be accountable. This is not the case in the European Union. The Conservative MP Sheryll Murray recalled how her fisherman husband died in an accident on his trawler. Whilst I cannot say that Neil died as a result of the CFP [Common Fisheries Policy], I can say it contributed to the economic pressure he felt when deciding to fish alone. These figures, from YouGov’s Joe Twyman, are quite telling. My colleague Severin Carrell has sent me more about Michael Gove’s father denying claims made by his son that the family’s fish processing firm in Aberdeen was destroyed by the European Union’s fisheries policies. Here is some extra material left out from Severin’s story for space reasons because it was written for publication in the paper. Other senior figures in the Scottish fishing industry said Aberdeen’s fishing businesses suffered too from competition from Peterhead, which was offering far better facilities for the fishing fleet, in the 1980s – the time when Gove gave up his company EE Gove and Sons. That competition came at the same time as Aberdeen’s port facilities were under heavy pressure from vessels needed in the rapidly expanding North Sea oil and gas industry; industrial unrest from dock workers, and the impact of the cod wars. John Buchan, one of the organisers of the Fishing for Leave flotilla on the Thames and a vocal supporter of Gove’s Brexit campaign, told the many larger trawler firms in Aberdeen went bankrupt because the new 200 nautical miles territorial limits closed down the Icelandic and north Norwegian fishing grounds after the cod wars. But the smaller trawlers moved to Peterhead, which is now the UK’s largest fishing port. “It all linked up,” Buchan said. Gove Snr confirmed these were factors when he spoke to the on Tuesday morning. “You had all that going on,” he said. “To be quite honest, I just decided to sell up and go ahead and try and make a good living, I can get a job with someone, I could be more or less employed and know I was going to be employed. “Yes, oil and everything else came along and things like that. I mean, as you understand, that is just what industry does. It goes on and on and on and you move from one to another. As regards my own business, I just decided that things weren’t going to work well with me, I just decided to pack it in, that’s all.” Sky’s Beth Rigby has a list of the 65 Tory MP who are now saying they would vote against George Osborne’s hypothetical post-Brexit budget. This morning there were 57 Tory MPs on the list. According to the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg, 65 Tory MPs have now signed the letter saying they would not back George Osborne’s hypothetical post-Brexit budget. Michael Gove’s father has contradicted claims made by his son that the family’s fish processing firm in Aberdeen was destroyed by the European Union’s fisheries policies, Severin Carrell reports. Here’s his story. And here’s how it starts. Michael Gove’s father has contradicted claims made by his son that the family’s fish processing firm in Aberdeen was destroyed by the European Union’s fisheries policies. Ernest Gove told the he had sold the business voluntarily because the fishing industry in Aberdeen was being hit by a range of different factors. Those included competition for space in the port from North Sea oil vessels, the Icelandic cod wars, dockworkers’ strikes and new 200-mile limits to control over-fishing. Michael Gove, who is representing the Vote Leave campaign in a BBC Question Time tonight, has said in speeches and television interviews that his father’s firm “went to the wall” because of the EU’s fisheries policies, and that the common fisheries policy “destroyed” it. John Swinney, Scotland’s deputy first minister, has said pledges that a Brexit vote would lead to more powers for the Scottish parliament are a “Tory con trick,” after Scottish leave campaigners said Holyrood would be liberated by leaving the UK. Speaking after former SNP deputy leader Jim Sillars and ex-Tory MSP Brian Monteith said a Brexit vote would unshackle Holyrood from the EU (see 1.24pm), Swinney said: Those powers would go straight back from Brussels to Westminster, who would have absolutely no obligation to devolve anything. The leave campaign is led by the very same people who have, at every opportunity, resisted the transfer of powers to Scotland – so their hollow offers of more powers are nothing more than a Tory con-trick. The way to get more powers for the Scottish parliament is for Scotland to become an independent nation – not to cross our fingers for a Damascene conversation from Boris Johnson and Michael Gove. The European commission has today put out a statement about relations with Turkey. It is mostly about the deal designed to stop migrants crossing from Turkey to Greece, but it includes a paragraph on accession (Turkey joining the EU) which says: “Preparatory work continues at an accelerated pace to make progress on five Chapters, without prejudice to Member States’ positions in accordance with the existing rules.” The significance of this seems minimal, but Vote Leave has issued a press notice about it. Matthew Elliott, Vote Leave’s chief executive, said: David Cameron wants to “pave the road from Ankara”. It’s disingenuous for him to claim it’s not going to happen when he is campaigning for it, when the commission in their own words are accelerating the bid and when UK taxpayers are paying money to make it happen. Voters want to take back control, not see a border free zone from the English Channel to Syria. This, from the Political Patridge twitter account, has received almost 2,000 retweets. And, equally predictably, the New Statesman has come out for Remain in this week’s edition. Here’s an extract from its editorial. There have been moments in Britain’s history when the country could have withdrawn in relatively benign circumstances. This is not one of them. Should Scotland vote to remain while the rest of the UK votes to leave, a second independence referendum and the break-up of the Union could result. Brexit would threaten the hard-won peace in Northern Ireland by encouraging the return of border controls. The UK’s departure would embolden fascists and populists across the continent, most notably Marine Le Pen in France, and enhance Russia’s revanchist ambitions. It is far from inconceivable that Brexit could set in train the break-up of the EU. To no one’s surprise, the Spectator has come out in favour of Brexit in this week’s edition. Here’s an extract from its editorial. The value of sovereignty cannot be measured by any economist’s formula. Adam Smith, the father of economics, first observed that the prosperity of a country is decided by whether it keeps its ‘laws and institutions’ healthy. This basic insight explains why nations thrive or fail, and has been the great secret of British success: intellectual, artistic, scientific and industrial. The principles of the Magna Carta and achievements of the Glorious Revolution led to our emergence as a world power. To pass up the chance to stop our laws being overridden by Luxembourg and our democracy eroded by Brussels would be a derogation of duty to this generation and the next. Idris Elba is backing Remain. The Trade Union and Socialist Coalition (TUSC), the leftwing group backing Brexit, has put out a statement saying if necessary Labour MPs should vote against the post-Brexit budget measures George Osborne is proposing. In a statement Dave Nellist, the former Labour MP who chairs TUSC, said there would be no point leaving the EU only to carry on with austerity. Ultimately, Brexit on a capitalist basis will produce broadly the same results as Remain on a capitalist basis – continued austerity, attacks on wages and living standards, cuts and privatisation of public services. That’s why TUSC stands for an economy based on democratic public ownership of the major companies and banks (see http://www.tusc.org.uk/policy), a vision of a democratic socialist society rooted in Labour’s old ‘Clause Four’. We stand in solidarity with those Labour politicians who fight for a similar position, in or out of the EU. But TUSC supports a leave vote, firstly because the EU creates an extra layer of legal obstacles to the labour and trade union movement – against workers’ rights and socialist measures generally – and secondly because the referendum gives us a chance to strike a blow at the Tories and the whole capitalist establishment. Six former disability ministers - three Tory, three Labour - have united to sign a joint letter to the saying that the rights of disabled people are “best protected and advanced by the UK’s continued membership of the European Union”. The list is headed by William Hague, who took the landmark Disability Discrimination Act 1995, through parliament, and it includes Alistair Burt, who is currently a health minister. The others are Dame Margaret Hodge, Maria Miller, Maria Eagle and Dame Anne McGuire. Here is an extract. All of our governments have striven to close the disability employment gap. The Disability Discrimination Act 1995 inspired the European Union to adopt EU-wide measures to tackle workplace discrimination against disabled people. In turn, the EU has helped improve our law, ensuring that it covers all employers irrespective of size and offers protection to those associated with a disabled person, particularly helping Britain’s six million carers. Between 2010-14 EU money also supported over 430,000 disabled people –235 disabled people every day - to take steps to move towards paid work. The single market continues to play a vital role in opening up the world to disabled people, building on the Disability Discrimination Act 2005 by pushing the frontiers of accessible travel, products, services and the Internet. It doesn’t make financial or practical sense for the UK to progress these areas in isolation. For example, there would have been little advantage in the UK legislating to demand assistance for disabled people when travelling by air, if this meant people being able to board a plane in Manchester, yet unable to disembark in Malaga. EU-wide measures enable disabled people to travel on business or holiday with much greater confidence. Labour’s deputy leader Tom Watson has said that Brexit would be “even worse than Tory government” and pleaded with voters not to vote Leave because they wanted to “give David Cameron a bloody nose”. In a speech to Labour activists in Kings Cross, London, Watson said: “Please don’t vote Leave to spite David Cameron and end up blighting the country instead.” He acknowledged that Labour’s position on the referendum remains unclear to many supporters, even though the campaign has brought together figures from all over the party, creating some unlikely pairings - he named Jeremy Corbyn and Tony Blair, and Len McCluskey and Peter Mandelson. He argued that the resentment of immigration that has surfaced among many traditional Labour voters is misplaced, laying the blame instead at the door of the Tory deregulation of labour markets in the 1980s. Previous generations of immigrants had not affected wages, but the reforms to labour laws had led to a “race to the bottom”. “This has been going on long before Polish plumbers and Spanish care workers came along,” he said. Channel 4 News’s Michael Crick has picked up an intriguing rumour. George Osborne, the chancellor, has triggered open revolt in the Conservative party by announcing a hypothetical tax-raising “Brexit budget” which he says the government would have to pass if Britain votes to leave the EU. The document illustrates the kind of measures the government might have to take to make up for the shortfall in government revenues that Brexit, and its impact on the economy, would produce. It says: This budget takes the mid-point of the IFS’s estimates, £30 billion, as the likely deterioration in the public finances and shows the types of trade-offs involved in dealing with such a deficit in 2019-20. One plausible scenario shows that: Health spending would be cut by £2.5 billion, defence spending by £1.2 billion and education spending by a similar amount The basic rate of income tax would rise by 2 pence to 22p and the higher rate by 3 pence to 43p Capital spending would be reduced by £2.4 billion Fuel and alcohol duties would increase by 5% The balance between tax and spend would be up to the government at the time. Ironically, Osborne’s forecasts are bleaker than the ones the Labour party produced on Friday last week when it published its own version of what a dire, post-Brexit Tory budget might look like. Unveiling the document at an event with Alistair Darling, Labour chancellor at the time of the financial crash, Osborne said: We have both been chancellor as the economy has faced very difficult times. We know what happens when we lose control of the economy. We both had to deal with the consequences of the public finances collapsing and the difficult decisions we then had to make. But 57 pro-Brexit Tory MPs have signed an open letter saying they would refuse to pass the measures Osborne is proposing. (See 8.29am.) This suggests he would not be able to pass a budget like this in the event of Britain voting to leave the EU. More importantly, it also suggests that Osborne may find it impossible to carry on as chancellor even in the event of Remain winning because his standing with some Tory MPs has been so badly damaged. One theory is that, if Leave win, the demotion of Osborne could be the price Tory Brexiteers demand for allowing David Cameron to continue as prime minister. Jeremy Corbyn has mocked the 57 Tory MPs opposing Osborne. At PMQs he said Labour would oppose an austerity budget of this kind. He went on: Will you take this opportunity to condemn the opportunism of 57 of your colleagues who are pro-Leave - these are members who backed the bedroom tax, backed cutting disability benefits and slashing care for the elderly - who suddenly have now had a Damascene conversion to the anti-austerity movement? Do you have any message for them? Do you have any message for them at all? Cameron replied: Nobody wants to have an emergency budget, nobody wants to have cuts in public services, nobody wants to have tax increases. But I would say this - there’s only one thing worse than not addressing a crisis in your public finances, addressing it through a budget, and that is ignoring it. Because if you ignore a crisis in your public finances, you see your economy go into a tailspin, you see confidence in your country reduced. We can avoid all of this by voting Remain next week. Nigel Farage and Bob Geldof have clashed in the middle of the Thames in rival flotillas campaigning for and against remaining in the European Union. Rolls-Royce has written to staff to say the company wants Britain to stay in the European Union. An analysis of Google searches suggests immigration is a more important issue to people in the EU referendum than the economy. Irish rugby international Rory Best has come out for the Remain side in the EU referendum.The Ulster player has sent a tweet from Ireland’s tour of South Africa supporting an In vote. After the Irish victory over the Springboks, Best tweeted from Cape Town: “Thursday 23rd June is an important date for farmers&the agrifood sector. Support them by voting to stay in EU.” Best’s backing of the In campaigns come on the back of Northern Ireland’s biggest employer, the chicken producer, has also called for an In vote. Moy Park’s chief executive Janet McCollum said: “We are a European business and Europe is our market. Any move way from the free market could increase tariffs, add administrative burdens and limit export opportunities.” Here is a video of PMQs highlights. Britain Stronger in Europe have now sent out a link to the Brexit budget document published by George Osborne and Alistair Darling earlier. The flotilla arrived at Tower Bridge as Greenpeace attacked one of the largest trawlers in the protest, the Christina S from Peterhead, over its role in a £63m fisheries fraud scandal four years ago, the worst yet involving the UK fisheries industry. The joint skippers of the vessel, Ernest Simpson and his son Allan Simpson, were each fined £65,000 and had a total of £725,000 confiscated by Scottish courts in September 2012 after they admitted illegally landing mackerel and herring in Peterhead and Shetland. Earnest Simpson pled guilty to landing more than £2m worth of undeclared fish while his son Allan admitted to more than £2.7m in undeclared fish, in a scandal involving dozens of Scottish skippers and several major processing factories. John Sauven, the executive director of Greenpeace UK, said that it was “an unfortunate choice” to have the Christina S as one of the “showstopper” boats on the protest. It was co-owned by one of the fisheries giants referred to by Jeremy Corbyn at prime ministers questions, Andrew Marr International, which controls 12% of the English fishing quota, with the Marr family worth £122m. Here’s some video footage from the battle of the Thames. Pro-Brexit campaigners in Scotland, led by the former SNP deputy leader Jim Sillars and ex-Tory MSP Brian Monteith, have claimed the country would have far more “democratic sovereignty” and money outside the EU. They released a pamphlet through the Leave.eu campaign headed by Nigel Farage just as an Ipsos Mori poll for STV found the gap between the in and out vote in Scotland had narrowed sharply, by 13 points over the last six weeks. The STV poll still gave the remain vote in Scotland a clear lead of 58% against 33% for leave, with 8% undecided. It confirmed the trend in favour of Brexit at UK level: in April, Ipsos put remain at 66% and leave at 29%. That implies the prospect of a massive pro-EU vote from Scotland helping remain win at UK level is receding. The Monteith and Sillars paper, “Democratic, Prosperous and Free”, openly targets Scottish nationalists – about a third of whom back a leave vote - and Scottish devolutionists by claiming Brexit would allow Holyrood far greater autonomy within the UK because it already significant powers over domestic policy. “We can make decision-making more democratic and accountable by taking control back from Brussels and giving it to the Scottish electorate. For instance, it will mean the powers to manage farming and fisheries coming to the Scottish parliament – why would Scottish politicians wish to be against that?” Monteith said. Here are some more pictures from the flotilla. On the waves outside parliament, fishermen claim they have boarded Geldof’s boat “to tell him the truth”. A police boat is alongside but the pro-Brexit fishing vessel Wayward Lad has pulled up to Geldof’s pleasure cruiser. Parliamentarians are looking on from the terrace, three helicopters, including police hovering above. Nigel Farage has attacked Bob Geldof’s aquatic intervention as “ignorant” and “insulting”. “He doesn’t know anything about the common fisheries policy,” he told the . “You can’t reform it from within. You can’t change it. There is nothing you can do apart from leave.” Asked about the barrage of noise, he said: “It’s just insulting to these people. Some of these lads have come from the north of Scotland, communities that have never been listened to where we have seen tens of thousands of jobs lost and a way of life destroyed and they come here to make their protest and be heard and they get a multi-millionaire laughing at them. Horrible disgusting.” Geldof wasn’t in fact laughing at the fishermen. He addressed Farage’s boat before it reached the fishing flotilla. Geldof said: “Here are the facts about fishing. Britain makes more money than any other country in Europe from fishing. Two. Britain has the second largest quota for fishing in Europe after Denmark. Three. Britain has the third largest landings. Fourth, you are no fisherman’s friend.” Angus Robertson, the SNP leader, gets two questions at PMQs, but they were left out in my minute by minute coverage because I was doing the snap summary. So here they are. Robertson started by asking about the referendum. Does the prime minister agree with me if we want to protect jobs, if we want to protect public services, we must remain in the European Union? Cameron did agree. I do believe the most important argument is about the future of our economy and it seems obvious to me today we have full access to a market of 500m people, for an economy like Scotland which is such a big exporting economy, there’s no way we would get a better deal outside that market than on the inside. Robertson then asked about the impact of Brexit on public services. Cameron replied: Decisions to cut public spending in the UK budget do have an impact, through Barnett, on Scotland. To anyone who says these warnings could be wrong or inaccurate - there were warnings about the oil price before the Scottish referendum, it turned out actually to be worse than the experts warned. Christopher Chope, a Conservative, says he is looking forward to the UK voting for Brexit, so that he can vote against Osborne’s vindictive budget. Cameron says he hopes people will vote to remain in the EU. And that’s it. (Good to see John Bercow’s campaign to extend PMQs by 10 minutes so it last for 40 minutes is going well.) Asked about the North Middlesex A&E unit, Cameron says the health secretary is monitoring this closely. But if we stay in the EU, there will be more money for the NHS. Nigel Adams, a Conserative, says there has been “hysterical scaremongering” during the EU referendum. Will Cameron assure people he will follow the results on the referendum. Yes, says Cameron. He says out means out of the single market too. He says he would say to anyone still in doubt, to anyone uncertain, don’t risk it. Tim Farron, the Lib Dem leader, says the wealthy elite fuelling Leave will not be harmed by the interest rate rise that will follow Brexit. Would Cameron advise his Tory colleagues that there is a long-term economic plan on offer on Thursday - voting remain. Cameron says it says volumes about the Remain campaign that the Lib Dems, Labour, the Greens and others are joining him in backing staying in the EU. Jack Lopresti, a Conservative, says he hopes Britain will vote to leave the EU. Cameron himself said Britain could survive outside, he says. Cameron says of course Britain can survive outside the EU. But the question is, how are we best off? On all the arguments, we are best off in, he says. Siobhain McDonagh, the Labour MP, says M&S workers are due to face an effective pay cut because of the “national living wage”. Cameron says he does not know about the situation at M&S. But he wants to see pay go up, not down. M&S won’t attract good staff if they cut pay. Cameron says we will enhance the power of Britain by staying in the EU. Alasdair McDonnell, the SDLP MP, says the SDLP is backing a Remain vote. The return of a hard border with Ireland would be bad for Northern Ireland. Cameron says is the UK votes to stay in, we know what the situation is. If we were to leave, and make a big issue about borders, then there would be a land border with the EU in Ireland. You would need new border controls between Ireland and Northern Ireland. Or you would have to have controls on people leaving Northern Ireland and coming to the mainland. We can avoid these risks by voting to stay, he says. Robert Jenrick, a Conservative, says his parents set up a manufacturing business. Manufacturers are worried. They will have to sell to the EU, but they won’t have a say in deciding EU standards. Cameron says Jenrick is making a v good point. If you leave the EU, and don’t have say over making those rules, you lose control; you don’t gain control. Labour’s Ruth Smeeth says EU funds have helped her constituency. Does Cameron agree that a Brexit vote would leave us picking up the pieces of a broken economy for years to come. Cameron agree. The UK would have to spend two years leaving the EU. Then it would have to negotiate a trade deal, with could take seven years. So overall it could take a decade to get a new trade deal. He says the potteries industry would be affected by tariffs that would be imposed. Labour’s Carolyn Harris says leaving the EU would be too big a risk. Cameron says he agrees. If the pound were to fall, prices would rise and the cost of holidays would rise. David Nuttall, a Conservative, asks when the government will get net migration below 100,000. Cameron says EU migration was in balance last in 2008. He says the government has introduced sensible ways of reducing immigration. Leaving the EU would not be a sensible way, he says. Cameron says we need to ensure migrants are working. But we should celebrate the contribution they make. PMQs - Snap verdict: A peculiar PMQs, in some respects more interesting than usual, and perhaps most remarkable because Cameron seemed uncharacteristically hesitant and unfocused. Is the pressure getting to him? It would be very odd if it isn’t, although Cameron was only unfocused relative to his usual suave professionalism. It is not really a day for normal party politics and Corbyn responded to that with a series of sharp, reasonable questions that did him credit, but did not go in for the kill. His best line was the one branding the 57 Tory MPs who are opposing George Osborne as converts to anti-austerity. Cameron enjoyed that - perhaps because he has little else to smile about at the moment. Corbyn asks about the flotilla coming up the Thames. He says EU reforms gave new powers to member states over fishing quotes. The UK government has given two thirds of them to just three companies. Cameron says the value of the UK fishing industry has increased in recent years. No country in the world has a trade agreement with the EU that does not involve a tariff on fish. Corbyn says the government still handed quotas over to just three companies. With just eight days to go until the referendum, Labour will be voting remain. He says Labour would oppose any post-Brexit austerity budget. Will Cameron condemn the opportunism of 57 of his MPs who voted for austerity measures but who have now have a Damescene conversion to anti-austerity. Cameron seems to laugh before he gets up. He says on this he and Corbyn agree. When he and Corbyn agree, that really says something. Votes have consequences. If we vote out, there will be less tax receipts. We would need to address the hole in the public finances. There is only one thing worse than addressing a hole in your public finances, and that is by not addressing it. We can avoid that by voting Remain, he saus. Corbyn says he is concerned about the expoitation of migrant workers. Will Cameron commit to outlawing agencies advertising jobs only abroad? Cameron says he and Corbyn agree on the evils of modern slavery. The government will continue to take action to ensure that people are paid what they should be paid. He wants people to get a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work. Corbyn says Cameron did not answer the question. What communities need is practical solutions, like the migrant impact fund. Will Cameron agree it is a mistake to abolish that. And will he reinstate it? Cameron says the government is looking to see if it can ban firms only advertising jobs abroad. The answer to many of these problems is to create new jobs. He says the government has a pledge in its manifesto to create a controlled migration fund. It agrees that it needs to take action to address the pressures created by immigration. Jeremy Corbyn also offers sympathy to the relatives of those killed in Orlando. He attended a vigil to express his horror on Monday, he says. He says three years ago there was agreement for implementation of Section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act. Cameron said three years ago MPs did too much cosying up to Murdoch. Will Cameron keep his promise and implement Leveson in full. Cameron says the government will decide about the second stage of Leveson when all prosecutions are underway. He has met victims. People can accuse him of many things, but not cosying up to Murdoch, he says. Corbyn says he asked about Cameron meeting phone-hacking victims. He says the Leave leaders pretend to be saviours of the NHS. Wasn’t Sarah Wollaston right to criticise them? Cameron says he is glad Wollaston changed her mind. He says he thinks the NHS will be stronger if the UK stays in the EU. Peter Aldous, a Conservative, says a firm has put on hold plans to build a factory in Lowestoft. Cameron says he shares Aldous’s concern about this. Many firms come to the UK to get access to the single market. He hopes people will vote to put our place in that beyond doubt. David Cameron starts with sending his sympathies to the families and friends of those killed in the Orlando attack. It highlights the need to fight the poisonous ideology of Daesh, he says. And this. This is from the Labour MP Tom Blenkinsop. PMQs starts in five minutes. There is no PMQs next week, so it is quite possible - given the rise in support for Leave in the polls - that David Cameron may have announced his resignation by the time he next faces Jeremy Corbyn across the despatch box in the Commons. Nigel Farage has tweeted this about Bob Geldof. Bob Geldof has pulled alongside Farage’s boat and blasted “I’m In With The In Crowd” over a rig of four ear bleedingly loud speakers before taking the mic and declaring: “Nigel, you are a fraud.” The Leave campaigners tried to shout back: “shame on you” but were drowned out. Geldof attacked him as “no fishermans’ friend” as Farage stood at the prow of his boat facing the other way talking to Kate Hoey, the Labour leave campaigner. Geldof’s sonic assault successfully drowned out Farage’s broadcast interviews. Q: 57 Tory MPs have effectively expressed no confidence in you. Would you be around to pass these measures? Osborne says measures like this would have to be passed. He says the only thing worse than not taking action would be not taking action. People need to know this, he says. Q: Would Labour MPs back plans like this? Darling says one of the reasons Labour MPs are fighting for Remain so far is that they precisely want to avoid having to take choices like this. And that’s it. The Osborne/Darling press event is over. The Osborne/Darling event is now on BBC News. Q: Are you sacrificing your job to win the referendum? Osborne says this is not about one politician and his career. This is about the future of our country. What is the point of getting involved in public life if you do not fight for what you believe in? Darling says the impact of a Brexit vote would last for years. The government would have to face up to the consequences of this and take some “pretty unpleasant action”. Q: How quickly would you have to introduce these measures? Within the next couple of months, says Osborne. He says the government would have to show the world it had a serious plan for addressing these problems. Q: Would Labour support these measures? Darling says MPs would have to take difficult choices. The exact choices would be a matter for the chancellor of the day. But there is no one who could avoid the consequences of this. If you create a mess, you have to clear it up. Far better not to create a mess in the first place. The Brexit debate has taken to the waves. As we wait for Nigel Farage to join a flotilla of fishing vessels campaigning for Brexit by sailing upstream to the Palace of Westminster, a smaller fleet of Remain campaigners have embarked on vessels to come alongside, I think that’s the nautical term, and shout them down. Farage’s flotilla of about six vessels tethered near the north bank of the Thames near London Bridge l were just buzzed by the Sarpedon pleasure cruiser stuffed with black flag waving and jeering In campaigners and followed by more on a couple of inflatable ribs. This is what Alistair Darling, the Labour former chancellor, has been saying at the Brexit budget event with George Osborne. (Darling clearly has not seen what John McDonnell has said this morning - see 10.36am.) Rolls-Royce has written to its staff saying it wants Britain to stay in the EU. Here’s the ’s story. And here is Angela Eagle, the shadow business secretary, commenting on it. This is yet further evidence of the benefits membership of the largest single market brings to British workers and businesses. Nine out of ten economists agree that Britain is better off in and that a vote to leave the EU is a threat to jobs and the economy. Rolls-Royce is a world-leading engineering company and employs 23,000 staff in the UK. This letter to staff makes clear that the uncertainty of a vote to leave the EU would be unsettling for the company. And back to the Osborne/Darling announcement. More from the flotilla wars. This is the scene from Bob Geldof’s boat. And here is Steven Woolfe, Ukip’s financial affairs spokesman, on George Osborne’s proposed pro-Brexit budget. If George Osborne thinks he will still be chancellor in the event of a Brexit, he is living in cloud cuckoo land. His conduct during this campaign – culminating in Project Fear’s nuclear bomb today – has been nothing short of disgraceful. Given this fact, his threat to hold a punishment emergency budget which promises tax rises and extra austerity should be treated with the contempt it deserves. As George Osborne announces his hyphothetical Brexit budget, Tory MPs continue to criticise him. This is from Owen Paterson, the former environment secretary, who is one of the 57 Tory MPs who has said they would vote against Osborne’s plans. The Remain campaign have reached panic stations. They have lost all the major arguments and have now resorted to scaring the British people. They are taking us for fools. If the Chancellor thinks he could pass such a punishment budget through the House of Commons he is utterly delusional. I wouldn’t hesitate about voting against it. Here’s another extract from the Brexit budget. Here is the key chart from the document. Journalists have been handed the Brexit budget. George Osborne is about to make his announcement about his proposed post-Brexit emergency budget shortly. David Cameron is trying to arrange a joint pro-EU appearance with his predecessors Gordon Brown, Tony Blair and Sir John Major, Christian Today reports. The story by James Macintyre (who used to be the New Statesman’s political correspondent) says: “Plans are well developed for the prime minister to appear on a platform next week alongside Gordon Brown, Tony Blair and Sir John Major.” But the Mirror’s Mikey Smith is with Bob Geldof on a rival Remain flottila. Here are some pictures from the Brexit flotilla coming up the Thames. And here is a statement from Nigel Farage, the Ukip leader, about the flotilla. The governing principle of the common fisheries policy is that of “equal access to a common resource”. Fish stock is that should be within the UK’s internationally recognised territorial waters are now shared our European Partners. This has led to a 60% drop in oversized landings and the loss of tens of thousands of jobs in our industry. There are now many harbours without a single commercial vessel, not satisfied with that the EU is now regulating our recreational sea anglers. Under and EU regulation issued in December no anglers may take a single bass for tea.This is now leading to a loss of jobs in our charter angling fleet. Compare and contrast all of this with Norway who control all fishing stocks up to two hundred miles within the North Sea and has a booming commercial and angling tourism industry. EU membership has destroyed our industry. Today’s flotilla is not a celebration or a party but a full throttled protest. We want our waters back! It is an opposition day in the Commons, which means the afternoon has been set aside for a debate on a motion tabled by Labour. Their motion, tabled by Jeremy Corbyn and others, is about the economic benefits of membership of the EU. This is what it says: That this House believes that the UK needs to stay in the EU because it offers the best framework for trade, manufacturing, employment rights and cooperation to meet the challenges the UK faces in the world in the twenty-first century; and notes that tens of billions of pounds worth of investment and millions of jobs are linked to the UK’s membership of the EU, the biggest market in the world. John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, said the party would never support such an emergency budget and disowned Alistair Darling’s backing for the approach. This maybe a natural Tory approach but no Labour chancellor would respond to an economic shock in this manner. And neither did Alistair Darling in 2008. Any credible economist would tell you that raising taxes or cutting spending or both in response to an economic shock is the wrong thing to do. It’s deeply worryingly that this suggests the current Tory chancellor thinks this is a sensible response. But it highlights what is on offer under a Tory Brexit as George Osborne is only saying what those Tories campaigning for a Tory Brexit truly believe deep down. Nicola Sturgeon has warned that a Brexit vote next week will lead to “a rightwing Tory takeover” of the UK, allowing a “power grab” by Conservatives who believe David Cameron and George Osborne are moderates. Urging remain supporters to “vote in big numbers” next week, the first minister has said a Brexit vote would leave Scotland “vulnerable to the most rightwing Tory government in modern history.” Her message also appeared aimed at the third of Scottish National party voters thought to back the leave campaign, which is now seeing a clear lead in the latest UK opinion polls. “If we leave Europe, they will take it as a green light to scrap workers’ rights and employment protection, slash public spending as part of their ideologically driven austerity obsession – and would target Scotland for extra cuts,” she added. “Scotland needs to send as strong a message as possible that we reject this right-wing Tory agenda entirely – and the only way to do that is for people to vote in big numbers to stay in Europe. In doing so, we can also help the progressive case across the UK.” Here is a video explaining some of the EU referendum lies, myths and half-truths. It is not all bad news from George Osborne today. And here is the top of the Press Association story about the unemployment figures - although PA are saying unemployment is at its lowest level for eight years, not for 11 years. Unemployment has fallen to an eight-year low as the numbers in work continues to reach record levels, new figures have shown. The jobless total was cut by 20,000 in the quarter to April to 1.67m, the lowest since the spring of 2008. But the number of women out of work was 12,000 higher at 779,000, the Office for National Statistics reported. The final set of official labour market figures before the EU referendum next week also showed that 31.5 million people are in work - the highest since records began in 1971. And here is some Ukip reaction to George Osborne. From Nigel Farage, the Ukip leader From Suzanne Evans Here is ITV’s Robert Peston on George Osborne’s stance. This is probably true, although the idea that Osborne had any chance of merrily carrying on a chancellor if Britain voted to leave the EU was implausible anyway. Although many senior Leave figures say publicly that they would want David Cameron to stay on as prime minister if Leave wins, in reality almost everyone thinks he would resign before the end of the year. And, with Leave winning and Cameron gone, Osborne would be out too. Here is Jonathan Portes, a former senior government economist and now a fellow at the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, on George Osborne’s proposals. This is what journalists are saying about George Osborne’s Today interview, and about his post-Brexit emergency budget proposal generally. From PoliticsHome’s Kevin Schofield From the Telegraph’s Allison Pearson From the Financial Times’ Chris Giles From the Financial Times’ Stefan Stern From Paul Mason, a columnist From Sky’s Faisal Islam From the Daily Mail’s Jason Groves From the BBC’s Andrew Neil From the Times’ Michael Savage From ConservativeHome’s Paul Goodman From the Daily Mail’s Isabel Oakeshott Here is Robert Oxley, head of media for Vote Leave, on George Osborne’s proposed post-Brexit emergency budget. Oxley is referring to the way that, when faced with an economic crisis in 2008, the then chancellor Alistair Darling increased borrowing and cut VAT by 2.5% to stimulate the economy. Here is the Labour MP Gisela Stuart, chair of Vote Leave, on George Osborne’s claims about the need for a tax-raising emergency budget after a vote to leave the EU. She said: I simply can’t believe that Alistair Darling and the Labour party would support an Osborne punishment budget that is designed to hit the poorest hardest. George Osborne’s reckless and shameful proposals would, if not blocked, cut the NHS, cut pensions and cut funding for schools and I will never vote for this and nor do I think will any of my Labour colleagues. I hope the Labour party will now make clear that these desperate proposals would never have our support, and are nothing more than another sorry attempt to scare the British people into supporting George Osborne, David Cameron, and their rich friends who want us to remain in the EU. Iain Duncan Smith, the Conservative former work and pensions secretary and one of the 57 Tory MPs who has signed the letter saying they would vote down George Osborne’s proposed post-Brexit emergency budget (see 8.29am) has told LBC that Osborne’s warning is the most irresponsible thing he has seen from a chancellor. Here are the main points from George Osborne’s Today interview. Osborne dismisses suggestions that the statement from 57 Tory MPs this morning (see 8.29am) meant that the emergency tax-raising budget, which he is saying today would be necessary in the event of Brexit, would never be passed. He said in practice his party would pass this sort of legislation. No Conservatives want to raise taxes, least of all me. But equally Conservatives understand, and indeed I suspect many Labour politicians understand, you cannot have chaos in your public finances. You have to deal with the hole that would emerge if we quit the EU. He also pointed out that Tory MPs voted to raise VAT in 2010. He rejected claims that he was scaremongering, and that the emergency tax-raising measures would not prove necessary. The point is the county does not have a plan if we quit the EU. We would wake up, in just over a week’s time, with no plan for our country, with financial instability, with year’s of uncertainty. And you have to cut your cloth accordingly. The country would not be able to afford the size of the public services we have at the moment and we would have to increase taxes. That is the reality of a country that is not just immediately poorer, because of the uncertainty and the financial markets, but for decades ahead would be doing less trade with its key partners, its key allies, and the rest of the world. He said the fall in sterling and share prices showed that his warnings about what might happen to the economy in the event of Brexit were justified. It was not just that bodies like the Institute for Fiscal Studies and the National Institute for Economic and Social Research were saying Brexit would harm the economy, he said. Just look at the people voting with their own money. They are not British people. They are investors in Britain. All around the world, sterling is falling, money is coming out of our stock market. You have got big companies like Rolls-Royce warning their workforce. You’ve got big property developers saying people aren’t buying homes. You’ve got small businesses worried about their future. This isn’t warnings just from a Conservative chancellor. This is real money out there in the real world. He said that Brexit might be fine for “the very richest”, but that it would be bad for people on low or average incomes. Brexit might be for the very richest in our country. But it is the people on lower and middle incomes who will be affected, it is the people with job insecurity who will lose their jobs. They are the people who will pay the price for this enormous leap in the dark. He said the UK would not be able to rejoin the EU if it left. And by the way, when we walk through that door next Thursday, there is no coming back. We are not going to be rejoining the European Union in years to come when we think we have made a mistake. It will be a one-way exit, and that is going to live with us for decades to come. He said the government was not planning to announce a new initiative on curbing the free movement of workers in the EU ahead of the referendum. Today the reports that Number 10 has been mulling this over as a possible tactic to increase support for Remain ahead of next week. But, when asked if Downing Street had any more of offer on this issue, Osborne replied: The short answer is no, because we have a plan and the plan is to restrict the welfare that people have when they come to this country. And here is Matthew Elliott, the Vote Leave chief executive, on the statement from the 57 Tory MPs. George Osborne’s reckless teenage temper tantrum has proved a step too far. Threatening to vandalise the economy has led to his MPs effectively declaring no confidence in him. The prime minister must reflect on the failure of his appalling scare tactics and stop undermining the British economy for his own political interests. Here is the statement signed today by 57 Tory MPs saying they would vote against George Osborne’s proposed post-Brexit emergency budget. It has been issued by Vote Leave. It says: We find it incredible that the chancellor could seriously be threatening to renege on so many manifesto pledges. It is absurd to say that if people vote to take back control from the EU that he would want to punish them in this way. We do not believe that he would find it possible to get support in parliament for these proposals to cut the NHS, our police forces and our schools. If the chancellor is serious then we cannot possibly allow this to go ahead. It would be unnecessary, wrong and a rejection of the platform on which we all stood. If he were to proceed with these proposals, the chancellor’s position would become untenable. This is a blatant attempt to talk down the market and the country. The chancellor risks doing damage to the British economy in his bid to win this political campaign. And here is the list of the 57 MPs. It does not include government ministers backing Vote Leave, or Boris Johnson. Iain Duncan Smith Liam Fox Cheryl Gillan David Jones Owen Paterson John Redwood Sir Gerald Howarth Tim Loughton Crispin Blunt Sir William Cash Bernard Jenkin Julian Lewis Adam Afriyie Nigel Adams Lucy Allan Steve Baker Bob Blackman Peter Bone Andrew Bridgen David Burrowes Maria Caulfield Christopher Chope Chris Davies Philip Davies David TC Davies Nadine Dorries Steve Double Richard Drax Nigel Evans Michael Fabricant Marcus Fysh Chris Green Rebecca Harris Gordon Henderson Philip Hollobone Adam Holloway Kwasi Kwarteng Jonathan Lord Craig Mackinlay Anne Main Karl McCartney Nigel Mills Anne Marie Morris Sheryl Murray David Nuttall Matthew Offord Andrew Percy Tom Pursglove Jacob Rees-Mogg Andrew Rosindell Henry Smith Derek Thomas Anne Marie Trevelyan Martin Vickers David Warburton Bill Wiggin William Wragg Q: You are trying to scare people. This is a classic case of Project Fear. Osborne says look at what investors are doing. Sterling is falling. Money is being taken out of the stock market. This is real money, in the real world. And that’s it. The interview is over. I will post a summary shortly. Q: How will you get EU migration down? Osborne says the government is addressing abuse of the welfare system. It will be harder for EU migrants to claim benefits. And the government is doing what it can to promote economic growth in eurozone economies. Q: But 57 of your own MPs are saying they would vote against your emergency budget? Osborne says the Today programme was first broadcast in 1957. He doubts there has been a time since then when a Tory and a Labour chancellor have agreed on what might have to happen. Q: But with 57 MPs voting against, you could not pass this budget. Osborne says he does not want to raise taxes. Alistair Darling agrees taxes would have to go up. Conservatives don’t like raising taxes. But they would have to fix the public finances. Q: You would not be able to get this through the Commons. Osborne says the Conservative government would do what was necessary. Q: Voters may not believe you. Or they may think this is worth it. Is there anything more the government can offer on freedom of movement? Osborne says it is all very well for people who are wealthy to say it does not matter if the country is worse off. Osborne says he cares about that. Brexit might be for the very richest in this country. But it is not for others. He says voting to leave would be a “one-way exit”. Britain would not be able to reapply. Q: The is reporting today that Number 10 is thinking of doing more on free movement. Is there anything new you will offer? The short answer is no, says Osborne. He says the government has plans to bring down immigration. Q: But the economy was weak before the EU referendum campaign started. Osborne says the country does face economic challenges. But cutting off your links with your closest trading allies is not the answer to any of those problems. He says lots of businesses are delaying decisions before the referendum. And today Leave are saying it would take four years to negotiate withdrawal. That is being optimistic. But during those four years there would be uncertainty. Q: If you implemented this emergency budget, you would be breaking your law blocking tax increases. Osborne says the government would have to to increase taxes. That is the reality. The country would not just be immediately poorer. It would be poorer for decades ahead. If you are trading less, there is less money coming into the exchequer. Good morning. I’m Andrew Sparrow, taking over from Claire. George Osborne is being interviewed on the Today programme. Q: How can you know what would happen if we leave the EU? Osborne says we have the weight of expert opinion. There are reports from the IFS and the NIESR. Q: But this has never happened before. Osborne says, listen to the market. And listen to what Rolls-Royce is saying today. Sky News is reporting that 57 Conservative MPs say they would vote down a post-Brexit emergency budget of the kind dangled by George Osborne today: Some 57 Tory MPs have written a letter saying they will vote down the Brexit budget, which would contain £30bn of tax hikes and spending cuts, signalling a significant escalation in the Conservative civil war over the EU. The source of the 57 figure isn’t clear, but a number of Tory MPs, including Liam Fox and Steve Baker, have already spoken out against the chancellor’s announcement. Chris Grayling, the leader of the House of Commons, also told Sky News this morning that he did not accept the £30bn figure cited by Osborne. The British Medical Journal has published an editorial – penned by editor in chief Fiona Godlee and colleagues – on why it thinks doctors should vote remain. The authors acknowledge that this is “an unusual move” for the journal: Some readers may wonder why the BMJ is intervening in a political debate. We think this issue transcends politics and has such huge ramifications for health and society that it is important to state our case … It has become increasingly obvious that the arguments for remaining in the EU are overwhelming, and that now is not the time for balance. The editorial says the leave campaign claims about the NHS “are simply wrong”: Its constant claim that the UK sends £350m to the EU every week has been blown out of the water … But perhaps the most laughable untruth is that the NHS would be safer in their hands … Those who want the UK to leave are not unlike the antivaccine lobbyists who, having forgotten the evils of measles, mumps and rubella, turn to the alleged harms of the vaccines themselves. Likewise Brexit campaigners have forgotten the evils of virulent nationalism because Europe has succeeded in containing them. Good morning and welcome to our daily EU referendum coverage. I’m kicking things off with the morning briefing to set you up for the day ahead and steering the live blog until Andrew Sparrow takes his seat. Do come and chat in the comments below or find me on Twitter @Claire_Phipps. The big picture So much for letting the sunshine in as we edge towards the final week of campaigning. Wednesday’s dial is set firmly to doom as chancellor George Osborne says Brexit could rip open a £30bn hole in the UK’s public finances. At an event this morning Osborne will appear alongside remain pal Alistair Darling to ramp up warnings that the Treasury would be forced to fill the gap though higher income tax, alcohol and petrol duties; and by slashing funding to the NHS, schools and defence: Far from freeing up money to spend on public services as the leave campaign would like you to believe, quitting the EU would mean less money. Billions less. It’s a lose-lose situation for British families and we shouldn’t risk it. Osborne will say this could mean a 2p rise in the basic rate of income tax to 22%, a 3p rise in the higher rate to 43%, and a 5% rise in inheritance tax to 45p. Some leave supporters reacted angrily, with Conservative backbencher Liam Fox denouncing what he described as a “punishment budget”: It would damage the chancellor’s credibility and would be putting his own position in jeopardy. I think the British public would react adversely to such a threat based on the chancellor being afraid they will vote the wrong way in his opinion. Some commentators weren’t too concerned: The official Vote Leave campaign pointed out that Osborne’s doomsday plan would necessitate him breaking seven pledges from last year’s election manifesto. But Darling will say that others outside the UK are already recognising the potential risks: For the first time ever, we saw German government bonds offering a negative yield – in other words, investors are paying Germany to look after their money as they seek safe havens. As this report spells out: The impact on shares in London and across the continent was dramatic as stock markets tumbled and one analyst declared that “the stench of Brexit was stalking the streets of the City”. The pound also tumbled 1.2% to below $1.41, its lowest for two months. Against that, Vote Leave (still insisting it isn’t an alternative government?) offers its blueprint for a post-23 June future: limit the powers of the European courts. switch money saved from EU contributions to the NHS. end automatic right for EU citizens to come to the UK. begin efforts to secure a trade deal with Europe by 2020. On the campaign’s other main theme, immigration, there are signs of a change of heart/panic (delete as appropriate) among remainers, with reports that Downing Street is considering a last-ditch pledge to reconsider the free movement of workers within the EU. Labour’s deputy leader, Tom Watson, yesterday joined Ed Balls in saying more limits on migration would be on the table even if remain wins through next week. And in the midst of all this, Nigel Farage will come sailing up the Thames at the head of his pro-Brexit flotilla. I’ll leave you to check the weather forecast and your personal preferences to determine whether this one is filed under sunshine or gloom. You should also know: Leavers Boris Johnson and Priti Patel were the winners of last night’s Telegraph/YouTube debate, says the Telegraph. Brexit is a “huge negative” for Japanese companies in the UK. Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull says the possibility of Brexit is creating “uncertainty in global markets”. England players have been discussing Brexit around the Euro 2016 dinner table. And the Leave.EU BPoplive concert is tragically cancelled. Poll position The FT poll of polls today pegs leave on 47% and remain on 44%. A TNS poll yesterday followed recent trends by finding leave ahead, this time by 47% to 40%. Diary At 11am George Osborne and his No 11 predecessor Alistair Darling appear together to deliver that budget warning. From 11am to 2.30pm, Nigel Farage and co take their flotilla of protest along the Thames. At noon it’s the last PMQs before the referendum. This evening at 6.45pm Michael Gove is on the BBC in Nottingham for a Question Time EU referendum special with David Dimbleby. Read these In the Economist, Bagehot says remainers should not give up hope just yet: In such moments – when faced by a choice between an imperfect status quo and a leap into the dark – Britons have, in the past, rarely chosen the latter. To defy that tradition, Leave has to disguise a vote to quit the EU as the safer, more small-c conservative option. Yet here too, the polling (judging by YouGov’s tracker) suggests that the campaign has failed. For all its bogus claims that Turkey will soon join the EU, I have yet to see proof that it has persuaded voters that the dangers of continuing in the club are greater. That most voters rightly consider the choice before them on June 23rd more significant than that at a general election suggests that they will be particularly risk-averse next week. Dutch daily newspaper Algemeen Dagblad has issued a plea to British voters: please stay. Nobody in Europe appreciates your culture more than we do. The Beatles, Bridget Jones, One Direction, EastEnders, Brideshead Revisited, we love it all. Many of us know Monty Python’s Dead Parrot sketch by heart. We admire your stiff upper lip. And every year we remember, with the greatest respect, all those who have fallen to liberate our country. Now you are thinking of leaving us. Sailing out your floating country towards distant shores, so says your largest newspaper, the Sun. Talking as a Dutch uncle, we have to tell you this is not a good idea. We not only love you, we need you. Who else supports us in keeping some common sense on this turbulent continent of ours? An EU without the UK would be like tea without milk. Bitter. So please, stay. Stay with us. Baffling claim of the day The Sun front page, refusing to let up after its endorsement of leave yesterday, now warns of “nasty Euro moths” – a “massive swarm of super-moths from Europe”. The paper urges readers: Vote Leave to protect our country … and our cabbages from nasty crop-ravaging Euro moths set to hit the UK. Brexit would definitely stop the diamondback moths – as they’re technically known – coming over here and taking our cabbages, because the British Isles would be towed further away from the mainland continent. Also the moths would not have passports. Celebrity endorsement of the day The day in a tweet If today were a novel ... It would be Three Men in a Boat, a comic tale of a Thames-based escapade, with plenty of pubs along the way. Plus, as the ’s list of 100 best novels put it, “an unconscious elegy for imperial Britain”. And another thing Would you like to wake up to this briefing in your inbox every weekday? Sign up here!
RBS to cut 550 jobs as part of plan to automate investment advice The Royal Bank of Scotland is preparing to shed 550 jobs as part of a plan to replace staff who offer investment tips with so-called “robo-advisers”. RBS, which is 73% owned by taxpayers, is shrinking its investment advice team by making the service available only to people with more than £250,000 to invest. Some 220 jobs are expected to go in the division, with a further 200 to follow in its protection team, whose staff offer advice on products such as life insurance. RBS is instead planning to launch a new automated system that will offer customers advice based on their responses to a series of questions. The move is part of an effort to cut costs after the lender racked up its eighth successive annual loss in February, when it fell £2bn into the red. It is also a response to the retail distribution review, an overhaul of financial regulation introduced in 2013 that made it unprofitable for banks to offer investment advice to customers with less to invest. “We want to help as many customers as possible invest their money in the right way for them,” said a spokesperson. “The demand for face-to-face investment advice is changing. Our customers increasingly want to bank with us using digital technology. “As a result, we are scaling back our face-to-face advisers and significantly investing in an online investing platform that enables us to help a new group of customers with as little as £500 to invest.” It comes after RBS learned that it could face a new lawsuit from small business owners who say they were driven under by its global restructuring group (GRG), which handled business customers but has since been shut down. The RBS Litigation Group (RGL) said it had “raised funds to begin the process of building legal claims against RBS”. “Owners of SME businesses damaged or destroyed by the actions of GRG have been looking for a group to take their claims to court and win compensation for their losses,” said James Hayward, chief executive of RGL. “Those who have suffered were not financial institutions or fund managers, but ordinary hardworking people. “RBS’s actions have destroyed businesses, livelihoods and in many cases the lives of their owners, so I am delighted we have funding in place to begin the process towards taking action against those responsible.” The group has hired Enyo Law to advise on the claims. “We believe we have a strong case and will defend these claims vigorously,” an RBS spokesperson said.
Migrants on the NHS: 'You're targeted because you have an accent' When Mary’s 17-year-old son, the oldest of her five children, began complaining of pain and taking medication early last year, she put it down to stress. Though her family had a GP, it was some months before she took the teenager to the surgery to find out exactly what was wrong. What happened next – the scare of a serious illness, the joy of recovery, the shock of a bill for more than £5,000, and the eventual realisation the NHS should not have charged for his treatment in the first place – is, according to some people concerned at ministers’ renewed emphasis on recovering health costs from overseas visitors to the UK, a salutary reminder of the possible consequences. Mary – not her real name – is an African woman in her 40s who has lived in London since 2007. She and her children are “undocumented” so have no official status. Migrants, apart from refugees, asylum seekers, victims of human trafficking and those covered by some form of insurance, already bear the cost of most hospital treatment bar some specific exceptions, including emergency treatment, family planning, life-threatening illnesses and certain diseases. “The doctor gave my son medication for three days and said if there was no change he needed to come back. But at home that night, his condition got worse, so we needed to rush to A&E.” At the hospital, doctors began a series of tests and Mary went home. “In the middle of the night, a doctor phoned and said they had now detected meningitis. He said they needed to admit him because he needed treatment and medication for five days. “After five days they discharged him, but said he was still feeling tired and he needed rest. But he needed to complete his medication, which was administered by drips, and they sent nurses to our home for three days. After he had completed the medication, they wanted him to go to the hospital for checkups. Then they said everything was all right,” Mary said. “I didn’t know what meningitis was. It was only later when my son was back at school that one of his teachers said: ‘What happened to you was serious. You are lucky you are alive.’” In September Mary was sent bills of more than £5,000 for her son’s treatment and was asked to ring the hospital. She talked to staff there three times in total. “They said we needed to pay money immediately, maybe through a bank card or other means. If we failed to pay the money, they would take us to court or something like that. If we didn’t pay before the next three months, they would add charges and after that, if there was still no payment, they would send [the matter] to the Home Office.” Mary added: “I tried to explain I did not have the money and my son was not working. He was still studying so there was no way to pay the bills. But they insisted there was nothing they could do to help. The bill must be paid. “All of us were scared. My mind was not at rest. The money was too much. There was no way I could get it. We have always tried to manage, but how were we going to pay?” Through friends and the local grapevine, she found out about a local advice centre and volunteers there suggested she went to a regular clinic in east London run by Doctors of the World UK, a charity that specialises in helping vulnerable people get healthcare. Within days, volunteers who took up Mary’s case saw her son’s medical records – obtained with her permission from the GP – and pointed out to the hospital that he had had meningitis, a life-threatening condition specifically excluded from charging. The hospital confirmed it had made a mistake and withdrew its bill. Lucy Jones, the UK programme manager for Doctors of the World, is concerned that the system is increasingly confusing for patients and NHS staff. “Most people who come to us are migrants in a vulnerable situation. The vast majority are below the poverty line, in unstable accommodation, a mixture of asylum seekers, refugees, undocumented, [having been] refused asylum or having come in in an irregular way through Calais, or they have overstayed their visa,” Jones said. But health professionals and the managers responsible for following through on charges do not understand the system either, she says. “They administer charges wrongly and wrongly refuse treatment to those who should be entitled to free care … We had a chap recently, an asylum seeker in his 30s, and he had just been diagnosed with terminal cancer,” said Jones. “He needed immediate palliative chemotherapy and they refused it because they had gone to the Home Office and they had said he was undocumented. That information was incorrect. He was an asylum seeker. This guy from Sri Lanka had been tortured.” The first experience of the NHS for many women came when they were pregnant and needed antenatal care, she said. The costs of NHS checks and delivery could run into several thousand pounds. “Almost all the people we see are destitute and don’t have any money. If they have a debt [for treatment] of more than £1,000 they get referred to the Home Office as well and that stays on their record, which they worry about.” Such patients, said Jones, might be so frightened that they never actually go for treatment. “We sort of coach them through the process, although we can’t get rid of the bill. Some do arrange a repayment programme. Occasionally families help but usually the people we see are very isolated, ” she said. “They don’t have networks, they have fled their own country and are just sort of surviving. Quite a lot might be working in exploitative conditions, earning very little money. We work with debt advice charities to try to come up with some sort of repayment plan.” If such people are to be charged, it needs to be done sensitively, according to Jones. “Asking somebody about their status and presenting them with a bill can be terrifying. We see people who are entitled to free treatment, who don’t know they are entitled to free treatment. There are people who are just turned away. “That is a big concern. Just because you have a foreign accent you are targeted. It is a distraction from the real issues. It is complicated and confusing, making decisions on eligibility to get back very small amounts of money and it is causing lots of unintended consequences. We don’t want to bash NHS staff. They are being asked to do something impossible, basically.” The payment rules The NHS has had powers to charge for healthcare since the 1980s. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have their own rules, but it is in England that the government is pressing hardest on the issue and has toughened the system for collecting payments. Ministers who now want to extend charges for overseas visitors and migrants to primary care and emergency services are even testing the water on charging for further aspects of care, such as hospices, insisting the NHS should not lose out on income and that overseas visitors should make a “fair contribution”. An independent report for the health department in 2013 suggested overseas visitors and migrants cost the NHS about £2bn a year. Those who have not paid an annual immigration health surcharge, of £150-£200 per person, introduced in April 2015, or do not have a European Health Insurance Card (Ehic), which allows for medical costs to be recovered from EU member states and other countries within the European Economic Area, are liable to be charged. While those from Europe without an Ehic face paying only the actual cost of treatment, others from the rest of the world without reason for exemption will, under government new proposals, soon face a bill equal to one and a half times the cost of what is provided free to most NHS patients, to help cover costs of recouping the money. Asylum seekers and refugees will remain exempt from charges. No charges are levied for visiting a GP, A&E treatment or family planning – although abortions and fertility services are chargeable. Life-threatening illnesses, some diseases and diagnosis and treatment of sexually transmitted infections and other specified communicable diseases are exempt too. An independent report for the health department in 2013 suggested overseas visitors and migrants cost the NHS about £2bn a year . In the financial year 2012-13, the NHS in England recovered about £88m. The new drive envisages £500m income by 2017-18, of which £100m is expected to come directly from better identification of individuals liable to charges by NHS staff.
Misys to be refloated on London Stock Exchange The banking software company Misys is poised for a stock market return that could value the company at £5.5bn, four years after it was bought by the US private equity firm Vista. In potentially the biggest flotation on the London Stock Exchange this year, Misys said it was targeting an initial public offering in early November. The London-based company was delisted in 2012 when Vista bought it for £1.27bn and merged it with Turaz, the former treasury and risk management software division of Thomson Reuters. Nadeem Syed, Mysis’s chief executive, said it was the right time for the business to return to the stock market, because of the sweeping regulatory changes facing its banking and financial services customers. “We are in a unique position. We provide mission critical systems to customers who have to react to these changing requirements.” He said he was confident the float would be successful despite the uncertainty created by the Brexit vote, because investors understood the opportunities. “So far the feedback has been positive. We look forward to the next chapter in our growth.” Syed said London would retain its status as a key financial market. “London is our backyard. We don’t anticipate that London will be any less relevant. “We are a global company, no single country generates more than 13% of revenue.” Syed said the business was in better shape now than four years ago when it was last a quoted company, more profitable and with faster revenue growth. “There has been a massive transformation of the business over the last four years. The only thing that is the same is the name on the door,” he said. Misys said the £500m it expected to raise from the floatation would be used to reduce debts, affording the company greater financial flexibility to invest in products and staff. At least a quarter of shares will be sold. Syed said: “The return to public markets as a larger, more innovative and more effective company is a logical step in our evolution. We are confident in the significant growth opportunities for the business.” Misys was founded in 1979 as a computer systems supplier to UK insurance brokers and was first listed on the London Stock Exchange in 1990. It now employs more than 4,600 people and has about 2,000 customers in 125 countries. The company said clients include 48 of the world’s top 50 banks by asset size. Misys generated revenue of €811m (£713m) in the year ending 31 May 2016.
Crime rate to double once cyber offences included in figures, says Labour Crime figures for England and Wales will double once cyber offences are included in official statistics, the shadow home secretary has said, launching Labour’s police and crime commissioner campaign ahead of May’s elections. Speaking at a launch event alongside Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn in Birmingham, Andy Burnham said that Conservative claims to have presided over a fall in crime while cutting police budgets would be proved false once cyber crime was routinely included in Office for National Statistics crime figures from July. “Later this year we will have cyber crime added to the crime figures for the first time,” said Burnham. “If you listen to [David] Cameron and Theresa May, they basically say that it’s OK to cut the police because crime is falling … What they don’t say is that crime has been changing. You are now more likely to be mugged online than you are in the street.” Burnham conceded that incidents of burglary and car theft had fallen in recent years, but said: “Crime hasn’t gone away, it’s moved online, and the figures at the moment don’t show that.” “[Cyber crime] will be added [to official statistics] later this year and experts predict that it’ll show crime rates doubled,” he said. “This cannot be the moment that you say it’s safe to cut the police, and that’s not even mentioning the terror threat that the country faces as well.” The Office for National Statistics will be adding a new module to its the official crime survey of England and Wales in March, with the results due out on 21 July. To develop the new questions a large-scale field trial was carried out between May and August 2015. Preliminary results from this field trial showed a 107% increase in crime when cybercrime was included. Shadow policing minister, Jack Dromey, said: “For the last five years the alibi of the government has been, we cut police, but we cut crime. Now the truth will be told. They’re cutting police, but crime is rising.” Labour currently has 13 police and crime commissioners across the country and is hoping to win more in this May’s elections, with an anti-austerity message that opposes cuts to the police force. In his November spending review, the chancellor, George Osborne, said it was “not the time for further police cuts” and that police budgets were to be protected in real terms, following speculation that he would announce major cuts. The home secretary, Theresa May, told parliament that police service budgets would be maintained only if commissioners took full advantage of new powers to raise precepts – the money given to police through council tax – prompting opposition MPs to accuse her of making voters “pay more for less”. “The role of the police and crime commissioner is vital in a changing world,” Corbyn told supporters in Birmingham’s Perry Common, which falls within Dromey’s constituency of Erdington. “We face so many new threats today we must do all we can to ensure there is proper protection. Labour was not necessarily in favour of the establishment of the police and crime commissioner role at first and we made that very clear, but it is a position that is there.” “If we had won the election, there would have been a very strong case to save the money that is being spent on PCCs and reinvest it elsewhere,” said Burnham. “We didn’t, obviously, win the election … and PCCs will be here for the foreseeable future, so let’s embrace the role.”
Terror in Tehran: Under the Shadow and the politics of horror Ever since he can remember, Babak Anvari’s nightmares have always been the same. “I wake up shouting at someone in the corner of the room,” he says. “I can feel someone there, and I’m so convinced of it. It takes me 30 seconds to realise we’re alone. My girlfriend is usually very patient, but I think it drives her crazy.” His sibling, Kiarash, five years his senior, is similarly haunted by night-time visitors. “My brother and I have grown up being scared of everything and anything,” says Anvari. “We’ve both grown up with night terrors, being afraid of being left alone, of being in the dark for too long.” Now 33, Anvari grew up in Iran; his was a childhood defined by the war with Iraq and the emergent authoritarianism of the cultural revolution. When Anvari and his brother were toddlers, their father, a doctor, would leave the tall apartment block in which they lived in Tehran for mandatory stints on the frontline, leaving his sons in the sole care of their young mother, Farzaneh. “My mother came to visit me in London, and I asked her why she had raised such scared boys,” says Anvari. “She confessed she felt almost constantly afraid and stressed during those months when Dad was away, and she’s convinced she subconsciously passed all her fears on to us. She blames herself.” That fraught conversation was the spark for Under the Shadow. Acquired by Netflix before its premiere at this year’s Sundance, Anvari’s debut feature is already being talked of as a horror classic. But it is a film that transcends the genre. Yes, it is fluent in standard-issue horror tropes, but it is most notable for the painstaking way Anvari has evoked 1988 Tehran. The film, researched with photos from family albums, shot in Amman, Jordan, with UK money, and spoken in Farsi, is a wholly authentic social-realist drama that morphs, ominously, into a gothic ghost story. It is a film indebted, simultaneously, to Asghar Farhadi and Roman Polanski, Abbas Kiarostami and Jack Clayton. The opening title credits are accompanied by archive footage of bombs dropping and people scattering on the streets of Tehran, before moving to dramatised evocations of Anvari’s earliest memories. “The war was largely invisible to us, because Tehran wasn’t the frontline,” Anvari says. “We were children, and we didn’t really know what was happening. But I remember sirens wailing and running with my neighbours into the basement of the apartment block. I remember the arguments and rumours that would circulate down there, hearing these distant blasts of Iraqi missiles.” His heroine is Shideh, played by Narges Rashidi, a doctor who has been banned for political activism. When her husband is called to the frontline, Shideh is left in the apartment with their daughter Dorsa (Avin Manshadi). She angrily works out to an illegal Jane Fonda aerobics tape, her resentment building towards her husband and the revolutionary guard that patrol the streets. Then a missile tears through the upper floor of the apartment block, leaving deep, dark cracks in the ceiling of their living room. Like Chekhov’s gun, the unexploded bomb starts to weigh on the home in multivalent ways. Dorsa becomes sleepless and fevered, sees apparitions in the apartment that seem, to her child’s eyes, potent and real. A superstitious, deeply conservative neighbour warns Shideh of the presence of djinn, the wind-born spirits that haunt places already beset by fear. As the other tenants start to flee the building, Dorsa and Shideh are left to confront a malevolent spirit that may or may not be imagined. Rashidi was also born in Tehran, leaving for Turkey, and then Germany, at the age of seven. Like Anvari, she also has traumatic early memories of the city of her birth. “I was no younger than Avin,” Rashidi says. “I remember falling asleep in the middle of the night in my mum’s lap, and waking up to the sound of bombs falling. We’d be taken down to the cellar to hide, and my mum would always play loud music and start dancing. She would make us stand up and dance with her, so she had her tricks to keep us from being afraid. “When I think of the adults in my life at that time, I remember how exhausted they all looked, even as they tried to give us a happy childhood.” Now an actor in Los Angeles, Rashidi found herself re-examining the impact of her own past in order to portray Shideh. “I knew what was going on,” she says of the war. “I was old enough to pick things up. But I never looked into those memories after leaving Tehran. I wanted to try and forget such things – war and revolution – so I could get on with my life. I tried to forget, to put it all away. But it was there. I never lost it, I just never dug into it. I had to do that with this movie. I had to go back to that time, and it was difficult.” For all its scare tactics and creeping atmospherics, Under the Shadow is deeply humanist, and seems in awe of the women who were forced to live, and raise children, under the threat of carpet bombs and the intolerance of the post-revolution regime. In one stunning scene, Shideh flees the apartment in terror when the spirit finally reveals itself, only to be arrested by a patrol of uniformed thugs. Her crime, punishable by lashes, is for venturing into the daylight without her chador – a flowing veil the visiting spirit also seems to wear. “There’s a misconception about Iranian women,” says Anvari. “People think of them as oppressed, ready to be victimised. But Iranian women always fight back. There are so many restrictions in Iranian society, but they never sit back and just accept them. Shideh was inspired by my mother, and the other women I knew when I was growing up. Her strength is a tribute to them.” It is rare to find a horror story rooted in the fears our mothers pass on to us, that captures how trauma can, from one generation to the next, visit us in the middle of the night. And how, with strength and resilience, we can spirit it all away. Under the Shadow is released in the UK on 30 September. See review, page 23.
Two years and 20 candidates later: how the 2016 campaign tore up the rulebook The election the world thought would never end at least began predictably – an hour and 50 minutes after the last one was over. This was how long it took one presidential hopeful, Kentucky senator Rand Paul, to first start campaigning against Hillary Clinton when polling closed two years ago in the midterm elections. It was to prove almost the only thing that went to script. What happened next would change the certainties of American politics forever. That a woman might become a major party nominee and then president of the United States was seen as a historic enough opportunity: a moment to prove once and for all that no job should be a male preserve and no woman need curb her ambition. Yet almost everyone assumed Clinton would be squaring off against one of a pack of Republican politicians. It was hard to conceive that she might stumble on her way to this feminist showdown thanks to Bernie Sanders, a self-described socialist who nearly upended the Democratic party primary. Even more implausibly, Donald Trump, a television reality show host and property developer who was neither a politician nor, arguably, a Republican, would sweep all of his primary election rivals aside in a landslide. No scriptwriter could have imagined how close this would lead America toward what many critics came to fear was a form of fascism. Trump was labelled with other ‘isms’ too – racist, sexist, nationalist – some of them even by his own supporters; all of them disputed by him. But it was his fondness for authoritarianism and flair for demagoguery that led most to unflattering comparisons with the political landscape of the 1930s. Who could have guessed that with some deft mutations for the media age, this virus would come so close to overwhelming the world’s most powerful democracy in the 21st century? Or how grateful many Democrats would be that the American strain arrived wrapped up in a candidate with such obvious flaws? Theories abound for why Trump decided to run for office. Some say he was stung into action by a humiliating tongue-lashing he received from Barack Obama at 2011 White House correspondents’ dinner. Witnesses to the event differ on whether Trump was goaded into seeking revenge or merely flattered by the attention, but he was teased mercilessly for trying to prove the president was born in Kenya. This unlikeliest of public servants began his political life as the anti-Obama candidate, seeking to ride the swinging pendulum away from a high point in racial equality and shifting into opposition to the equivalent moment in women’s emancipation. It was a crowded field. Former Florida governor Jeb Bush was long seen as the Republican frontrunner and raised more money within weeks than his self-described billionaire opponent was ever to contribute to the presidential campaign. Yet Bush was to flop disastrously at the first brush with actual voters. His measly three delegates in the Republican primary election – 0.2% of the total needed to secure the nomination – were to cost $50m a piece. Fifteen other candidates copied his ignominious exit from a one-sided Republican primary that felt like an election all of its own. Despite failing against Barack Obama in 2008, Clinton’s coronation as the Democratic nominee looked so preordained that some worried whether the party would ever find a serious candidate to run against her in the primary at all. Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren was petitioned by many on the left and resisted. Sanders, an independent Vermont senator, stepped forward instead – at first with little hope of winning much beyond his home state, but determined there should at least be a debate about a more progressive alternative to the centrism traditionally associated with the Clinton family. The 74-year-old was to win 22 states and ride a tidal wave of enthusiasm rarely seen in politics. Fueled by anger over economic inequality and corruption, this gruff outsider came close several times to achieving enough momentum to pull off a victory that would have made Trump’s nomination look tame. Like the reeling Republicans, the Democratic party too was convulsed by a wave of populism it first seemed ill-equipped to recognise, let alone respond to. Though a generation of young white supporters “felt the Bern”, his campaign nonetheless never reached escape velocity. Quite apart from its shocking radicalism (at least by modern American standards), it was held back by a lack of early media coverage, limited support among African American voters in the south and determined resistance from the party hierarchy. Despite conspiracy theories to the contrary, Clinton was to win nationally by a clear and convincing majority. But the long, and sometimes bitter, Democratic primary showed its eventual nominee’s vulnerabilities just as much as it also helped shift her manifesto to the left in ways even Sanders could once only dream of. Most of all, it demonstrated the country’s desire for change. New and uncharted territory The electorate’s anti-establishment mood in 2016 can be tracked most clearly by the waves of support for Trump, who vied with Clinton in generating historic unfavourability ratings among voters but also came close to catching up with her in popularity several times. With hindsight, national opinion poll averages show cycles of support that almost look like oscilloscope waves in their regularity. Seven times in 14 months, Trump would surge from a position of distant underdog to draw close to, and sometimes even fractionally ahead of, his opponent – before slipping back again as the country contemplated the shocking implications. Never once was he convincingly out in front. Most recently, this bi-monthly rhythm turned just in time to coincide with the election, when WikiLeaks and the FBI raised new questions about Clinton’s past. Before that, it was the sight of her nearly collapsing in public, a bombastic Republican convention, and an earlier bout of email scrutiny that marked similar upswings in Trump’s fortunes. For Republicans, there were many more heart-in-mouth moments as the polling rollercoaster took a downward lurch in response to some shocking outburst or revelation. Disappointing debate performances, tax scandals, and the emergence of a video of him boasting of groping women helped trigger the last downturn in Trump’s hopes, while attacks on the family of a Muslim war hero and allegations of defrauding students were moments that popped earlier polling bubbles. But the ebb and flow of poll numbers and news headlines only captures some of the drama of the 2016 election. Like many political journalists, I traveled tens of thousands of miles on the campaign trail over the past couple of years, covering more than 100 political rallies, conventions and debates in 28 states – even then, just a fraction of the distance clocked by the candidates. With hindsight, the scenes that stand out, witnessed in person or on television, are mainly the ones that did not fit into the horse-race commentary of who was in front or behind: a binary narrative that seemed so important at time, but irrelevant compared to this week’s actual voting. The highlights instead were the moments when it became apparent America had left the railing and was heading off into some entirely new and uncharted territory. Trump first descended the golden escalator of his Manhattan skyscraper into a flock of reporters hungry for excitement. Compared to the meagre gruel that Republicans had fed the media before his candidacy, this flamboyant 69-year-old made news from the moment he opened his mouth. Where others had sought, for example, to rehash obscure details of Clinton’s role during the 2012 Benghazi terrorist attacks, here was someone who spoke in single-syllable soundbites that made little sense, but loud headlines. “I would build a great wall, and nobody builds walls better than me,” began his announcement speech in 16 June 2015. By contrast, Clinton’s formal debut before an expectant media in April of that year was polished and professional but lacking in big ideas. An excited press pack chased her across the plains of Iowa in a bus they dubbed the “Scooby van”, only to discover a tightly disciplined campaign nothing like the cartoon playing on the other channel. Trump also immediately showed a remarkable gift for offending people. In the same first speech, Mexican immigrants were dismissed as “rapists”, bringing nothing but drugs and crime to the US. Within minutes it was clear this would be a shockingly divisive campaign. But it was a weapon he would wield effectively against Republican opponents. Bush was taunted as “low energy” during a series of debates that played to Trump’s strengths as a TV performer but brought the Grand Old Party down to the level of a schoolyard bully. By the time New Jersey governor Chris Christie joined in by destroying another promising rival, Marco Rubio, it was clear Trump had re-created the brutal dynamic of his reality TV franchise, The Apprentice. Like many bullies, he also showed the thin skin – and small hands – that Clinton would later learn how to exploit in their own debates. She showed early poise, too, in her debates against Sanders, helped by his determination to focus on their many policy disagreements. “The American people are sick of hearing about your damn emails,” he conceded, rescuing his opponent from an early controversy over a private email server she had used while working as secretary of state. It was an issue that was to come back to haunt her again. Though many Democrats agreed with Sanders, the email controversy raised worrying questions about Clinton’s penchant for privacy. Why should she evade rules designed to ensure classified information remained safely stored on government computers – measures that meant embarrassing transgressions might be subject to freedom of information requests? Meanwhile Republicans asked: what did she have to hide? Sanders would not avoid digital controversy either. When staff members were caught looking at Clinton campaign tactics on a shared electoral database, he turned the matter instead into a fight over whether the Democratic National Committee was tipping the scales against him by exacting disproportionate punishment. What sounded paranoid at the time would prove an understatement. Clinton, on the other hand, stuck to a simple message. Hers was, without doubt, one of the most qualified candidacies of modern times. Lawyer, first lady, US senator, presidential candidate, secretary of state: it was a résumé none of the 17 original Republican hopefuls could match. While Sanders and Trump focused on America’s economic divide, Clinton spoke of its social unity. “Stronger Together” was a campaign slogan that sounded empty at first, but more and more powerful as her Republican opponent sought to rip civil society apart. There are many “what if” scenarios to ponder. What if vice-president Joe Biden had not been derailed by the death of his son Beau and had decided to run as a populist with experience? What if Sanders had given a damn about those emails? What if either Trump or Clinton had been up against a candidate with more natural charisma – a regular politician? But early encounters with voters in 2016 quickly made clear this was anything but a regular election. A tumultuous primary season In Iowa, traditionally the first state to pick nominees, the caucuses proved the biggest shock to Democrats. Sanders was to lose to Clinton by a whisker, providing an early indication of her difficulties with white working-class voters. Trump got off to a slow start in Iowa thanks to the evangelical appeal of Texas senator Ted Cruz, but by the time the Republicans got to the next vote, in New Hampshire in February, the anti-establishment revolt was in full swing. Sanders and Trump were to win there by record landslides that continued to worry the Clinton campaign up until the general election. Super Tuesday on 1 March provided much stronger territory for Clinton, who took an ultimately unassailable lead over Sanders by cleaning up across the south. She and Trump won seven states each that night, and the nomination race looked over for each party. There were still surprises to come, some with further potential bearing on Clinton’s vulnerabilities in a general election. Michigan was the biggest shock, pointing to the anger in the industrial midwest over trade policy. Wisconsin and Colorado were other states where Sanders would continue to raise the hopes of his supporters and the eye of Republican strategists come November. But Clinton also demonstrated her strength in diverse, prosperous, metropolitan America. Her wins in New York and California finally extinguished the Bern and showed the power of the multi-racial coalition built up by Democrats. Neither Green party candidate Jill Stein nor libertarian Gary Johnson would gain much traction against such a polarising pair of candidates in the months of bitter slogging that followed the primaries. When things looked bleakest for Trump, he would turn abroad for inspiration. He visited Britain the day after it voted to leave Europe to align himself with the mood of rebellion and invited UK Independence party leader Nigel Farage to campaign with him in Mississippi. He would travel to Mexico to try to prove statesmanship, and developed a bizarre affinity with Vladimir Putin that would lead some to suspect Republicans had nominated a modern-day Manchurian candidate. Trump’s authoritarian streak was most visible during the Orwellian-sounding Republican convention in Cleveland where he proclaimed himself the “law and order candidate”. His wife Melania brought ridicule to the ominous proceedings by plagiarising a speech of Michelle Obama’s, while Cruz, who did not endorse Trump in his speech, revealed just how deep the rift had become with mainstream Republicans. Clinton had the finest hours of her campaign in Philadelphia a week later, basking in the spotlight as the party’s first female nominee and sharing the glow of stellar speakers such as the real Michelle Obama and their two husbands. The party’s two chosen running mates – Mike Pence and Tim Kaine – receded far into the distance in the face of such larger-than-life personalities. Only their vice-presidential debate was to provide a rare moment of normality during a trio of menacing encounters between Trump and Clinton. Despite accusations that TV networks had given Trump too much unquestioning airtime, newspapers showed their investigative mettle. The New York Times convincingly demonstrated how little tax Trump had paid in the 90s, and the Washington Post unearthed the infamous recording of him bragging of grabbing women by their genitals. The revealed that these were not just hollow boasts, interviewing the first alleged victim who claimed he had done just that and foreshadowing a string of damaging sexual assault allegations. Internal Democratic campaign emails obtained by WikiLeaks also created both heat and light, but the website was accused of aiding and abetting a Russian hacking operation. Yet it was the FBI that was to play the most controversial role, revealing at the 11th hour the existence of further Clinton emails found on the laptop of the disgraced husband of her confidante Huma Abedin. Some say the bureau was stung into action after allegations that Bill Clinton had sought to interfere in earlier investigations by meeting with US attorney general Loretta Lynch. Others, including Obama, accused it of improper leaks. Insiders revealed a culture of distrust for Clinton in a conservative-leaning organisation one told the was akin to “Trumplandia”. Just over a week later, FBI director James Comey told congressional leaders the new emails “have not changed our conclusion” that she committed no criminal wrongdoing. None of it compared with the shocking revelations that clouded Trump throughout. Some even wondered if he was going out of his way to sabotage a campaign that had only ever been intended to promote his business interests. But as he headed into the final days of the campaign almost drawing level with Clinton in the polls again, many Democrats worried whether the electorate had grown numbed to his outbursts. They have had to wait until election day to discover whether voters would reject the bombastic populism and embrace a Madam President, or opt to make history in another way.
Sundance 2016: which films are set to reverse festival's box office flameout? For well over two decades, the Sundance film festival has served as the launchpad for the most anticipated independent film offerings. Recent winners of the festival’s biggest honor, the Grand Jury Prize, went to eventual Oscar players (and in some cases, winners): Whiplash, Beasts of the Southern Wild and Fruitvale Station. Last year, however, the annual event hit a bump: its big breakout, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, winner of the aforementioned prize, as well as the coveted Audience award, failed to break through to the mainstream after opening to paltry numbers in the summer. It managed only to earn $6.7m at the domestic box office (Whiplash made double that the year prior). Distributor Fox Searchlight was so sure it had a hit its hands that they spent a blockbuster $12m on buying the film out of Sundance, losing a lot on their gamble in the end. The film was also not greeted warmly by many critics upon its eventual release (the ’s Mike McCahill called the drama “equal parts quirk and fluff” in his two-star review). Dope, another favorite of last year’s festival, likewise flamed out last summer; as did The Diary of a Teenage Girl, which failed to find an audience despite rapturous reviews. So where does that leave the festival, going into its 38th year? Make no mistake about it, the Park City party, founded by Robert Redford, is still by all means a major force, and indisputably the biggest independent film event in the world. Festivals like Berlin, Toronto and Telluride don’t necessarily occupy the same territory that Sundance has for so many years; the majority of Oscar hopefuls to screen at such events already arrive with distribution and awards strategies in place. Sundance differs by serving as the birthplace for films that have zero buzz before their inaugural screening – which adds to the excitement. Last year, director Sean Baker arrived in Park City, Utah with no fanfare surrounding his transgender comedy Tangerine. Cut to a year later, and the industry is still talking about it. The same goes for countless films that have premiered at Sundance over the years: Before Sunrise, Precious and Hustle and Flow among them. Its principal competition is the SXSW and Tribeca film festivals which both follow shortly after. But in terms of quality output, Sundance still trumps its two rivals. This year’s festival arrives after more complaints about the lack of diversity in Hollywood, with the hashtag #OscarsSoWhite being resurrected after there were no actors of colour nominated in any of the awards’ main categories. Sundance has gained credibility in the past by giving premieres to black directors, such as the platform it gave to Lee Daniels’ Precious and Ryan Coogler’s debut feature Fruitvale Station, which saw the beginning of Coogler’s professional relationship with Michael B Jordan. This year Nate Parker’s slave rebellion drama The Birth of a Nation is generating significant buzz, while White Girl, The Land, Sleight and The Fits all feature diverse casts and stories from outside the mainstream. Spike Lee’s documentary Michael Jackson’s Journey from Motown to Off the Wall also has a premiere. Voguing documentary Kiki will put LGBTQ communities of colour at the centre of the story in an 18-month period that’s seen films such as The Normal Heart and Stonewall accused of whitewashing. There’s interest in Southside With You, a drama focusing on Barack and Michelle Obama’s now mythical first date in Chicago. There’s also a focus on reassessing topical issues with Tim Sutton’s drama Dark Night focusing on the aftermath of the 2012 cinema shooting in Colorado, while Stephanie Soechtig’s Under the Gun looks at the firearms problem in the US and the polarized debate that surrounds it. Although last year’s expected crossover films failed, 2015’s Sundance had a number of success stories, including the Blythe Danner vehicle I’ll See You In My Dreams, which made a healthy profit, and of course Brooklyn, the immigration drama which has three Oscar nominations, including best picture and actress (for its star Saoirse Ronan). Key films this year: Certain Women Beloved indie auteur Kelly Reichardt reunites with her Meek’s Cutoff and Wendy and Lucy muse Michelle Williams for one of the starriest films playing at this year’s festival. On top of Williams, the Montana-set drama also features Kristen Stewart and Laura Dern, for an ensemble-driven story based on short stories by Maile Meloy. Christine Antonio Campos was last at Sundance with his 2012 bleak thriller Simon Killer. His latest, Christine, looks to be no lighter in tone. Rebecca Hall stars as Christine Chubbuck, the troubled television news reporter who shocked the world in 1974 after committing suicide during a live television broadcast. Simon Killer got inside the mind of a deeply disturbed murderer; with Christine, Campos is sure to take a similar approach by digging deep into what made Chubbuck tick. Complete Unknown Joshua Marston last won at Sundance with his 2004 drug trafficking drama Maria Full of Grace, which received an Oscar nomination for its lead actor, Catalina Sandino Moreno. Following his strong sophomore outing The Forgiveness of Blood he’s back with Complete Unknown, a high profile step up for the film-maker that sees him work with Michael Shannon and Rachel Weisz for an intriguing character study about “the perils and pleasures of self-reinvention”, according to the festival. Dark Night Tim Sutton’s drama tackles some of the most controversial subject matter of the festival with a look at what happened after James Holmes’ attack at a Colorado cinema that left 12 people dead. Comparisons with Gus Van Sant’s Elephant (which focused on the Columbine killers) are already being batted away with Sutton, who impressed with Memphis last year, bringing his lyrical style to the Next section. Indignation Oscar-nominated producer James Schamus has cultivated a remarkable career, largely thanks to his collaborative history with director Ang Lee, with whom he worked with on The Ice Storm, Brokeback Mountain and many others. Eyes are on him to deliver a solid outing with his directorial debut Indignation, which sees the first-time director tackle a complex story about a man who escapes the Korean war draft in 1951, only to find himself at odds with the morals of the Christian school where he ends up. Heartthrob Logan Lerman and A Dangerous Method’s Sarah Gadon star. Kate Plays Christine The second film to tackle the tragic life of Chubbuk takes a very different approach, by going at the story using the documentary format, with indie darling Kate Lyn Sheil (Sun Don’t Shine) playing herself as she prepares to play the late reporter on screen. Director Robert Greene explored similar terrain with Actress, his 2014 meta documentary that also blurred the lines between reality and performance. Kate Plays Christine is among the most enticing documentaries playing at Sundance, because it promises to be unlike anything else screening at the festival. Kiki A year after hosting a 25th anniversary screening of Paris Is Burning, the trailblazing LGBT documentary that beat Madonna to introduce voguing to the world, Sundance world premieres Kiki, a new film that also examines the birth of the dance style and its enduring power. To offer a full portrait, Swedish film-maker Sara Jordenö follows the daily lives of a group of LGBTQ youth of colour who comprise the “Kiki” scene as they prepare for and perform at at Kiki balls in New York City. If Jordenö’s film manages to capture the same lightning in a bottle that Paris Is Burning did back in 1990, we’re in for something special. Little Men Director Ira Sachs has had a great run of late at Sundance: two years ago, he brought his extremely moving study of old love, Love Is Strange, to Park City, shortly after winning great acclaim for his sexy gay drama, Keep the Lights On, two years prior. Little Men looks to be a shift for the film-maker as it centers on a teenager’s coming of age in Brooklyn. It’s also said to be a timely study of the dangers of gentrification. Lo and Behold Werner Herzog turns his attention to the internet with his latest documentary, which is an exploration of the web’s potential for good and evil. Told through archived interviews and various internet outsiders, Herzog will tackle everything from online harassment to situations that threaten the internet’s very existence. Love & Friendship Whit Stillman’s adaption of Jane Austen’s unpublished early novella Lady Susan sees Kate Beckinsale and Chloë Sevigny in leading roles as a plot featuring dalliances, love rivals and salacious rumours plays out. Beckinsale is in the titular role playing a predatory character who has been described as “not so much a coquette as a cougar”. Oh, and Stephen Fry is in it. Lovesong For Ellen director So Yong Kim’s road trip drama stars Jena Malone and Rosanna Arquette, as Kim weaves a tale of unhappy marriage, friendship, separation and a potentially explosive reunion just before a wedding. Also featuring Riley Keough, Brooklyn Decker, Amy Seimetz and Ryan Eggold, Lovesong has potential for Kim to take another leap forward as she did when she got the best out of Paul Dano in For Ellen. Manchester By the Sea It took six years for Kenneth Lonergan’s ecstatically received Margaret to find its way to cinemas following a raft of creative and legal issues. Hopefully that same fate won’t befall his latest family drama, which world premieres at the festival. Starring Casey Affleck, Michelle Williams and Kyle Chandler, the new film from the You Can Count On Me film-maker follows a plumber whose family secrets begin to haunt him shortly when he returns home. Michael Jackson’s Journey from Motown to Off the Wall Spike Lee’s documentaries often focus on times of seismic change for African Americans, whether that’s racial tensions boiling over into almost unthinkable violence (4 Little Girls) or a natural disaster showing the huge divisions in American society (When the Levees Broke). Here he picks a moment that changed pop music forever: the release of Michael Jackson’s Off the Wall. All-star talking heads such as (no pun intended) David Byrne, Questlove, as well as Lee himself and the Jackson family explain why it was the album that changed Jackson’s career and created the blueprint for modern chart music. Sophie and the Rising Sun Julianne Nicholson was a major standout among her all-male cast in last year’s Black Mass, and she managed to hold her own opposite Meryl Streep in August: Osage Country, so we’re especially keen to finally see her lead her own vehicle in Sophie and the Rising Sun. The period drama sees her play a small-town southern spinster who irks her community after taking a liking to a new Japanese American resident. Southside With You Richard Tanne’s presidential date movie has had more attention than most of the Sundance offerings. The romantic dramedy retells the first date between Barack and Michelle Obama, who went to the Art Institute of Chicago, had some ice cream and saw Do the Right Thing on one evening in 1989. It looks unlikely to be hard-hitting enough to replicate the success that Precious or Fruitvale Station had at Sundance. The Birth of a Nation Ostensibly a biopic about Nat Turner, a preacher and slave who led the deadliest and most successful slave rebellion ever seen in the US, The Birth of a Nation is one of this year’s buzziest offerings. Directed by Beyond the Lights star Nate Parker, who has been mentored by Denzel Washington, he also stars in the film as Turner. The Land The title of this Nas-backed drama is a reference to Cleveland, the city in which it’s based. It’s a coming-of-age tale about a group of young men who try to make it out of the city by becoming skateboard pros but are sidetracked by their dealings with a local drug dealer. Erykah Badu stars. Under the Gun America’s gun violence epidemic is put under the microscope by Stephanie Soechtig, who tries to unpack the partisan, highly charged rhetoric and argument on both sides of the debate. Its producers think it can spark some positive rational conversation; realists point out those are not qualities often associated with the subject. Weiner-Dog What would Sundance be without a new film starring Greta Gerwig? In the latest from writer/director Todd Solondz (Happiness), Gerwig is joined by a formidable ensemble that includes Julie Delpy, Kieran Culkin, Danny DeVito, Brie Larson, Ellen Burstyn, Zosia Mamet and Tracy Letts. The film is billed as a loose follow-up to Solondz’s cult teen comedy, Welcome to the Dollhouse, with several characters from that film returning. White Girl Directed by New York-based Elizabeth Wood, White Girl is a story set in the city which sees the titular white girl Morgan Saylor attempt to get her boyfriend out of trouble with the law. She told Variety that: “My goal isn’t to shock, it’s to be real and authentic. Which can sometimes be shocking.” So expectations are that this will indeed be shocking.
Dictator or liberator? Castro’s Cuba reflects his mixed legacy Rory Carroll and Jonathan Watts have offered a rather sour assessment of Fidel Castro’s legacy (Castro’s legacy: how the revolutionary inspired and appalled the world, 26 November) which mostly ignores Cuba’s enormous contribution as an inspiring model of development. Yes, Cuba is materially poor, but it is socially rich and has shared that wealth internally and internationally. Under his leadership, illiteracy and tuberculosis in Cuba were quickly eradicated and unprecedented models of healthcare and education created that are the envy of the world. A small island nation of 11 million people, blockaded by the world’s last superpower, has punched well above its weight in terms of humanitarianism. The Cuban Henry Reeve contingent has intervened in disasters and emergencies around the world to save 80,000 lives in 20 countries where 7,000 Cuban health specialists have offered their services. Cuba helped break the back of apartheid South Africa. More recently, Cuba has helped broker the peace agreement in Colombia, thus ending one of the longest-running conflicts in the hemisphere. Fidel taught the world an important lesson: that the real wealth of any country is its people and material resources are best applied to addressing social need. In the so-called “developed world” still grappling with recession and austerity post-2008, we could perhaps follow Cuba’s lead and prioritise social justice and compassion over profit and greed. Stephen McCloskey Director, Centre for Global Education • Many on the left of politics have been paying tribute to Fidel Castro because of the socialist aspects of Cuba under his rule. But given that Castro’s Cuba is also strongly associated with abuses of human rights and restrictions on liberal values, it doesn’t make sense for the political left to sympathise with, and praise him. Either such abuses of human rights are necessary for establishing that kind of socialist state or they are not. If they are necessary then the example of Cuba has shown that such a socialist state is unacceptable as a social system. If they are not necessary, then by committing such human rights abuses in Cuba, so that they become associated with the idea of a socialist state, Castro has unnecessarily caused significant damage to that idea. But either way, Castro hasn’t helped the socialist cause and shouldn’t be lauded as one of its champions. David Wall Northampton • The vitriol surrounding the death of Fidel Castro is only possible because of the rewriting of history and forgetting that every time a progressive government emerged in Latin America the US – by direct or covert means – sought its destruction. Currently Cuba’s under-five mortality rate is 1,204 per million, which is the lowest in Latin America and half the rate of seven other countries. Unlike Cuba, the US did not meet the UN Millennium goals of reducing child deaths (0-4) and currently Cuba’s rate is 15% lower than the US rate at 1,384pm. If, in this century, the US had had the same child death rate as Cuba there would on average have been 5,539 fewer dead American children. For the average child it’s better to be born a Cuban than in the US. Prof Colin Pritchard Southampton • While many of us admire the Cuban revolution and the changes it brought by overthrowing the US-backed brutal dictator Batista, and the wonderful health and education systems, I’m not sure that many Cubans wanted to replace one dictator with another or even that Che Guevara ever thought that he fought so that Castro could cede power to his brother as if Cuba were a monarchy. Many leftists still support brutal dictators like Assad. It is time for a democratic left that stands for the people. Mohammed Samaana Belfast • Without presenting myself as an apologist for Castro, let’s get a little perspective here. Despite history being rewritten by the bitter dispossessed mafia-type businessmen who were thrown out of Cuba, Castro’s revolution deposed the worst dictator in Latin America who was hellbent on turning Cuba into the world’s leading supplier of prostitutes (11,500 in Havana alone), drugs and gambling opportunities. Neither the police force nor government officials would do anything without a bribe, and Batista (who himself came to power in a violent coup) made the mafiosi families immensely rich while the people starved. Ejected from the country and their mansions and assets confiscated, they finished up in Florida from where they have conducted a 58-year-long propaganda war, brokered over 500 failed assassination attempts, attempted a pathetic invasion, stole the Barcadi and Tropicana brands from Cuba and generally ensured that its fruit and sugar rotted in the fields. On the plus side, education was among the best in the region, exceeding even the US for literacy rates. There was healthcare for everyone, more doctors were trained than anywhere else, and sent to help in disasters and epidemics worldwide. Everyone in Cuba was fed, at least up to the standards of wartime rationed Britain. There was little they could not have achieved in economic terms had it not been for the blockade. Dorian Kelly Colchester • Castro leaves a mixed legacy. It was Cuban military support of Angola, in particular the role played by Cuban-piloted MiG fighter planes, that halted the advance of the South African apartheid regime’s military into Angola at the battle of Cuito Cuanavale in 1988. This military and psychological defeat helped lead to the independence of Namibia, hence Nelson Mandela’s comment that the battle “marked an important step in the struggle to free the continent and our country of the scourge of apartheid”. Paul Brannen MEP Labour • Perfect timing for the Xmas shopping frenzy: “The consumer society is the expression of a completely irrational mode of life and consumption, and it will never serve as a model for the 10 billion people who will supposedly inhabit the planet when the dreadful oil age is over. That economic order and those models of consumption are incompatible with the world’s limited and non-renewable essential resources ... They also clash with the elementary principles of ethics, culture and moral values.” – Fidel Castro: My Life Mike Bor London • These dreadful Cubans putting people in prison on that island without trial. Our American allies would never do that. Eric Clyne Arbroath • Fidel Castro must have had the last laugh when he saw that the United States had chosen Donald Trump as their new president. Ivor Yeloff Norwich • The question is: did Castro Fidel while Raul learned? Dave Shields Rugby • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com • Read more letters – click here to visit gu.com/letters
Uber to push out 'register to vote' message aimed at young Uber will encourage its millions of users to register to vote in the EU referendum as they wait for a taxi this weekend, amid continuing concerns that many young people will miss their chance to take part in the poll. The taxi app will push out messages to users in more than 20 towns and cities, in partnership with Bite the Ballot, a charity that aims to get more young people interested in voting. In a post to users, Uber will say: “What could you do in the three minutes it takes for your Uber to arrive? How about registering to vote? Around one-in-three eligible 18- to 24-year-olds are still not registered. Put simply, that means they are missing out on having their say.” It comes after a push from Downing Street to get tech and media companies such as Tinder, Facebook, LadBible, BuzzFeed and Twitter to encourage more young people to engage in the EU debate. The deadline to register to vote in the referendum is 7 June. Labour appeared more concerned than the Conservatives before the general election about getting young people to register to vote, warning repeatedly about low levels of registration among young people. However, in the run-up to the referendum, Downing Street has become more concerned about the issue, with polling suggesting younger people are more likely to be pro-EU than older people. Last week Gloria De Piero, the shadow minister for voter registration, said Cameron was playing catchup, as she had repeatedly urged him to take action to prevent students and young people failing to register individually under new rules. “David Cameron has shot himself in the foot by not listening to us earlier,” she said. “Now he is playing catchup because he fears young people will be disenfranchised, when nearly twice as many 18- to 24-year-olds want to remain in the EU as over-65s.” The remain campaign released a video to appeal to younger voters. Set to pounding house music, it flashes up the words “workin, ravin, chattin, roamin” before asking viewers to vote in. It was roundly mocked as patronising by leave campaigners. Research shows under-25s are twice are much more likely to be missing from the electoral register, and much less likely to turn up on polling day even if they are on it. Michael Sani, chief executive of Bite the Ballot, said there were 7.5 million people not registered to vote in the UK, many of them young people. “Bite the Ballot are excited to be working with Uber as part of our #TurnUp campaign to register young people to vote ahead of the EU referendum,” he said. “Through partnering with Uber, an app that millions of people across the UK use, we will be able to empower citizens to register to vote and turn up on 23 June.”
Richard Madden: ‘I don’t want to get up at 4am for something I don’t care about’ Richard Madden can recall with clarity the moment he crossed the line with Idris Elba. The “odd couple”, as Madden describes himself and his Bastille Day co-star, were just days into the action film’s three-month shoot in Paris. The 29-year-old actor plays a pickpocket who becomes the unlikely partner-in-crime of a former CIA agent (enter Elba, giving the Bond audition of his life). They had been rehearsing for a car chase, and were preparing for the first take, when Madden decided to wind Elba up. “I turned to him and I said: ‘Are you going to do it like that on the take?’” Suddenly there was tension in the air. “I could see him thinking: ‘What the fuck’s this guy doing?’ It was great. At the end of the scene, he realised what I was doing and was like: ’You’re a fucker! You’re just trying to fuck me up!’” Madden laughs, then lets out a long breath. “He could have taken it the wrong way…” The opening passage of Bastille Day, in which Elba’s agent chases Madden’s petty thief across Paris, sets a pace that doesn’t let up. But though the film serves up plenty of moments for Elba to showcase his action-man talents, it’s also an effective two-hander. The dynamic between the duo develops into something reminiscent of the odd action couples of old (in Lethal Weapon or 48 Hrs). When, on the verge of big shootout, Madden’s character asks Elba: “Can I have a gun?”, and gets a withering glower in return, it feels like Joe Pesci pestering Mel Gibson. Madden says that he improvised the line, and you can tell he’s proud it made the final cut. Winding up Stringer Bell may be a bold move, but would you expect anything less from the King In The North? Madden’s turn as the ill-fated Robb Stark in Game Of Thrones ended with him being offed in the show’s most famous set-piece. Since then, his biggest roles has been playing the lusty gamekeeper in Jed Mercurio’s TV adaptation of Lady Chatterley’s Lover and the more clean-cut prince in Kenneth Branagh’s Cinderella. But this year looks set to be bigger: as well as Bastille Day, he’s landed a key part in another big-budget TV drama, starring alongside Dustin Hoffman as Cosimo, the charismatic heir to the ruthless Medici clan in Medici: Masters Of Florence. In person, Madden is more self-deprecating than self-assured. Our interview is littered with phrases such as “I’ll keep doing the things I don’t know if I’m good enough to do” or “It will probably slap me in the face at some point”. He confesses that, during the filming of Bastille Day (the release of which was postponed due to last November’s Paris attacks), he kept up his American accent even when off-set, not for reasons of method acting, but so that his colleagues could understand him. His Scottish accent is so broad, he says, that he often plays the American to get by “because even Siri doesn’t understand me! She doesn’t get a word I say. I’m like, ‘What time’s the next train?’ And Siri’s like: ‘Calling: ex-girlfriend.’” Fake accent he may have, but his face is still recognisable to ardent GoT fans. He gets stopped in the street a lot. I suggest he dress in disguise. “I’ve done that before,” Madden nods. “The problem is, you look like someone who is trying to be in disguise and it actually [looks] worse.” He describes the effect of this second-guessing over being recognised as “fucking with your head. You think: ‘I can’t order the fucking spaghetti because there’ll be a photo of me on the internet with tomato sauce down my face,’ and the next thing, no one’s recognised you at all.” Global fame may be relatively new, but Madden had his first big-screen role at the age of 11, in an adaptation of Iain Banks’s novel Complicity. He went straight on to a role on children’s TV, but then stopped. Rather than become a child star, he chose to return to school, picking up drama again at the age of 18 when he enrolled in the Royal Scottish Academy Of Music And Drama. “For the first time in my life,” he says, “I was surrounded by people my age, who loved this acting thing, and it was acceptable. You know [at school], to want to be an actor … you may as well be Billy Elliot. It’s like: ‘What’s that about?’” This is about as close as Madden gets to talking about class. His parents were a classroom assistant and a fireman, but he describes them not as working class but as “old hippies” who found his career choice “completely bizarre”, if only because “there’s no background of creativity in my family; there are no actors or musicians”. He’s reluctant to wade in on the debate over whether rich kids are dominating the arts, perhaps because he’s worked with several of them (including Eddie Redmayne in BBC1’s Birdsong and Douglas Booth in BBC2’s Worried About The Boy). But he does offer an insight into his early years, and they didn’t involve silver spoons. “My school didn’t have a drama department,” he recalls. “I was one of the lucky four children who got to travel twice a week to another school, because our school could only afford one taxi. Now, if I was at one of these private schools, how many more people would have been on a drama course? Undoubtedly there is a difference between people with money having access to the arts that people from working-class backgrounds don’t have, but that’s not their fault. I’m not taking anything away from these brilliant actors who are doing great stuff in Hollywood. A lot of them are my friends.” He’s equally even-handed when I ask him how ambitious he is. “I suppose ambitious isn’t the right word,” he says. “I think hungry’s the word. I’ve not got a plan. I don’t have an ambition to be a superhero. Maybe I’m a shit liar, but I don’t want to get up at 4am every morning for something I don’t care about.” Madden’s next appointment is a return to the theatre, reuniting with Branagh and Cinderella co-star Lily James for a new West End production of Romeo And Juliet. His take on the role is typical. “I was 21 when I first played Romeo and I turn 30 during this run, so does that mean I’m moving forward in life or moving backwards?” I’d say he’s moving forward. Bastille Day is in cinemas now
French prosecutor calls for HSBC to stand trial for alleged tax fraud HSBC could face trial for alleged tax fraud in France over the activities of its Swiss subsidiary. A French prosecutor has called for HSBC be tried for aiding tax fraud in France in a case that relates to files stolen by Hervé Falciani, a former HSBC employee. The and other publications exposed the Falciani documents last year in a series of articles that showed how HSBC’s Swiss banking arm helped wealthy customers dodge taxes. HSBC intends to continue to defend itself against the allegations, which date from 2005-07. The data was seized by tax authorities in 2008. If the case goes to trial, HSBC would face charges that its Swiss private banking arm helped customs to hide assets from the French tax authorities. Magistrates in France must decide whether to proceed with the charges. In a statement on Thursday, HSBC said: “We take note of the recommendation of the procureur de la République financier in France and will continue to defend ourselves vigorously.” HSBC has known since April 2015 that it had been placed under formal investigation when a €1bn bail was set. This was reduced to €100m at a later hearing. The bank said in a long list of legal disclosures attached to its six-monthly results in August that the ultimate financial impact could “differ significantly” from the €100m. It said: “In March 2016, HSBC was informed that the French magistrates are of the view that they have completed their investigation with respect to HSBC Swiss Private Bank and HSBC Holdings, and have referred the matter to the public prosecutor for a recommendation on any potential charges to be brought.” At the time, it also disclosed that it was continuing to cooperate with the US Department of Justice and Internal Revenue Service into investigations into its Swiss arm and that in India. It also listed regulatory and law enforcement authorities in Belgium, France, Argentina and India as conducting investigations and reviews of HSBC Swiss Private Bank. In addition to France, HSBC said it had been placed under formal criminal examination by magistrates in Belgium. It also warned: “In light of the media attention regarding these matters, it is possible that other tax administration, regulatory or law enforcement authorities will also initiate or enlarge similar investigations or regulatory proceedings.”
Why it's time to retire 'disruption', Silicon Valley's emptiest buzzword An experienced, well-educated friend of mine has been looking for a job for close to six months, and I’ve been helping her with feedback on her CV. Throughout her early 20s she worked for a succession of tech startups and app development incubators that came out of the gate roaring, only to dribble out – and cut staff – in a matter of months, leaving her in the frustrating situation of having less than a year’s experience with a single firm. Each new position becomes harder for her to land than the last one. We’re brainstorming her applications, and the plan is to call her “agile”. She can work in upstart environments, she’s eager to learn and can adapt to change. She wants to be part of something that’s growing even if there’s risk involved, she says, trying to find a positive narrative for herself in her employers’ successive failures. “I’m passionate about disruptive tech,” the cover letter reads. Disruptive. Let’s take that one out, I suggest. The Silicon Valley buzzword has the aftertaste of a sucked battery. It doesn’t even mean anything any more. It used to. In the late 1990s, the Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen defined the concept of “disruptive innovation”, a principle whereby entrenched, dominant product or service providers could be unseated in the market (have their leadership position disrupted) by smaller rivals who offered solutions more simply or at less cost. It makes sense at a glance: think about how many people you know who now use Uber in cities like London, where the cost of traditional black cabs has been unaffordable for many for so long. Or: remember when the rise of online price comparison services promised to slash the average costs of air travel, or car insurance? Perhaps your memory even extends far back enough to that dim time when you realized it was more efficient to subscribe at a flat rate to Netflix than to pay for rentals at your local ghost-town Blockbuster? “Disruption” slid easily into startup culture’s notional toolbox, helping small teams without much initial funding believe that they stood a chance of upending industries. There grew a sort of moral halo around the word, too: disruption is about solving old market problems and making solutions easier and more available to new markets, which means it theoretically stands to puncture the kind of bureaucracy and complacency that hampers humanitarian efforts. And so the word “disruptive” became attractive to investors as well as employers (or so my friend hopes). There’s a nifty tangle, though: how often are “moral good” and “attractive to investors” genuinely found in the same room? As so often happens when there is money to be made, the promise of disruption may have been over-estimated. In recent years, academic studies have questioned the central premises of Christensen’s original “disruptive innovation” theory – that outsiders can produce cheap solutions that can displace existing market leaders. Can upstarts really flip the order of things? Do they provide significantly improved or more attainable products or user experiences, or do they simply become the new status quo? Signs point to status quo. In a frequently cited study, only 9% of Christensen’s 77 examples of companies primed for disruption were found to follow the model. Most of the time, the march of innovation continues as normal, with new entrants to any market nosing softly at the needle and offering more choices for consumers, while the primary holders of economic power generally get to keep holding it. There’s no doubt that innovators can do good work with some of the core concepts behind the disruptive innovation theory, looking for ways to simplify market problems with attainable solutions. For example, Miki Agarwal, CEO of THINX, is tackling the taboo around menstruation and their associated sanitary products with discreet, absorbent underpants, an idea that could have particularly useful implications in the developing world, where, according to the UN, girls without access to tampons or pads sometimes just don’t go to school. THINX is also marketing a product line for transgender men, who open up on the official site about the importance of receiving support for gender dysphoria. But it almost doesn’t suit this compassionate innovation to conceive of it as a great wrecking ball smashing into the headquarters of the $15bn tampon industry. Why isn’t it enough to add an important innovation to a space that sorely needs it? Why must the company be characterised as out to crush Big Tampon, especially when it’s inconceivable that any single solution should devour all other options? In the midst of Agarwal’s important work, there’s the word “disrupt”, like a weird leering bull ready to charge. Ian Bogost, professor at Georgia Tech, says: “The big difference between even disruptive innovation and plain disruption is that the former was focused on some improvement to a product or service or sector or community, while the latter is looking first at what it can destroy. “Everything is fire and brimstone. It’s entrepreneurship as Southern Baptism. You can’t just make a product somewhat different or better … and even when it does ‘destroy’, it just recreates the same thing.” Like most buzzwords, this one has little other than chest-thumping left – even Hillary Clinton recently deployed it in a call for Silicon Valley to fight Isis. “Disruptive” always used to be the word for the naughty child at the back of the class ruining it for everyone else. And really, that meaning has never changed. It describes the sort of serial entrepreneur who can ride from one start-up to the next without much fear for his future, or much regard for the young tech workers left in the lurch when each company crumples in. My friend knows too well how that goes. She’s considering looking for work in banking or enterprise software next; when it comes to tech, her life has been disrupted enough.
The view on Tim Farron’s health tax pledge: it’s not enough to love the NHS The hard truth, Tim Farron told the Liberal Democrats in his party conference speech today, is that the NHS needs more money. Actually, that’s a fairly easily stated truth, and widely understood. As Mr Farron made clear, the NHS needs a lot more money – tens of billions of pounds was the Lib Dem leader’s figure. But where is it going to come from? Political parties rarely lose votes by promising to spend more on the NHS, as the leave campaign so spectacularly – and mendaciously – showed in June. Yet in spite of the public’s love for the NHS, party politicians put their credibility at risk if they cannot say how the necessary cash is going to be raised. This is a problem for all parties in all parts of the UK. The answer is too important be perpetually fudged. The Lib Dems’ latest answer is a cross-party commission modelled, with more than a little touch of hubris, on the Beveridge report, plus a pledge that taxes will rise if the commission’s conclusions require it. That may seem a cautious approach, but it is hard to think of an issue where getting it right is more important. Every part of the NHS is bursting at the seams. In England, the Conservative election promise of a seven-day service is undeliverable because there is too little money to pay the junior doctors to operate it. This week, NHS England started trying to squeeze more out of consultants for the NHS by publishing details of their private sector earnings. Meanwhile in Scotland, lack of funding may result in a shortfall of 800 family doctors by 2020, according to GPs, while a lack of nurses in Wales is highlighted in a new survey there. Under David Cameron, the Conservatives just about managed to hold their ground on health by maintaining NHS spending in real terms after 2010 and finding enough extra money in the 2015 autumn statement to get the system through last winter. Theresa May, by contrast, has not yet revealed her hand. Yet a lot of political capital is now being used up in the junior doctors’ dispute and, with hospitals and trusts increasingly sliding into the red, the new chancellor Philip Hammond is under huge pressure to give the NHS a serious boost in this year’s autumn statement, due on 23 November. Whether it will overturn the Tories’ traditionally low trust rating on the NHS is doubtful. Yet Labour has trust issues too. Health is one of the few policies on which Labour scores better with the public than the Tories. Yet Jeremy Corbyn has focused his leadership campaign on the issue of “renationalisation” of the NHS rather than on saying how he would finance an expanded service. His rival, Owen Smith, has been more precise, pledging 4% extra spending and committing to a wealth tax and a financial transaction tax to help pay for it. It remains far from clear where the party now stands on health spending, other than being in favour of it. Extra taxes are rarely a vote winner in modern politics. Can hypothecated NHS taxes break the mould? In Scotland, the SNP remains very wary of them, even though under pressure on health. In England and Wales, with the Tories in trouble on the NHS, the more positive opposition arguments that will be needed in 2020 have barely been heard. The Lib Dems are a tiny party now, with only eight MPs. Yet with Labour distracted, Mr Farron’s approach on paying for the NHS may prove in the end to be the most credible of the party conference season.
Sanders says Clinton's judgment is 'lacking' as candidates eye New York – as it happened We’re going to close our rolling coverage for the day with a summary. Donald Trump’s new top aide accused Ted Cruz of “gestapo tactics” and the Republican frontrunner suggested Cruz bribed delegates with “goodies”. If they don’t get what they want, they blow it up,” convention manager Paul Manafort told NBC. “That’s not going to work.” Barack Obama defended Hillary Clinton in his first interview with Fox News in years, saying: “She would never intentionally put America in any kind of jeopardy.” The president acknowledged “a carelessness” in the way she handled a private email server while secretary of state, but praised her skills and dedication effusively. Obama also said he will keep Merrick Garland as his nominee for the supreme court no matter what happens in the presidential election. He also repeated his call for Republican senators to meet Garland in the public: “I think if they go through the process they won’t have a rationale to defeat him.” The president added that partisan politics endanger the US far more than any external threat. “This can be our century just like the 20th century was, as long as we don’t tear each other apart because [of] our politics, values, sensationalism, conflict.” Bernie Sanders said he has “doubts about what kind of president [Hillary Clinton] would make” and “In terms of her judgement, something is clearly lacking.” But he added he would support a nominated Clinton: “we will do everything possible to prevent this country from seeing Donald Trump or some other Republican in the White House.” Hillary Clinton declined to criticized Sanders returned the favor of hypothetical support: “I’d take him over Donald Trump or Ted Cruz any day.” She also defended her husband’s legacy as president during the 1990s, including his decision to sign a now controversial crime bill. “There were a lot of people very scared and concerned about high crime back in the day, and now we have to say OK, and deal with the consequences.” Hillary and Bill Clinton are campaigning in New York City today, after a black-tie dinner on Saturday night with lawmakers, lobbyists and reporters in midtown Manhattan. Per her campaign’s pool report, the event featured a musical performance by reporters and Leslie Odom Jr, of the cast of Hamilton, and a third act with mayor Bill de Blasio. “Thanks for the endorsement, Bill,” she told the mayor. “Took you long enough.” “Sorry, Hillary,” de Blasio said. “I run on C.P. time.” “Cautious politician time,” she said. “ok, there are a lot of things I could ask you of international, national, city and state importance,” she said. “Will you just fix those MetroCard slots? It took me like five swipes,” she said. “Fix the turnstiles.” On Sunday morning, the former president hit Harlem, with a stop at the Abyssinian Baptist Church on 138th Street. He’s touring the area with Representative Charlie Rengel – seemingly as part of an effort to make up for his confrontation with black protesters in Philadelphia, and subsequent not-an-apology apology last week. At the church, Reverend Floyd Flake praised Clinton for creating more opportunities for black Americans. The presidential candidate also spoke, saying she knows people are “frustrated” with politics and “heartsick” over gun violence. And she concluded by talking about the vicious primary contest she fought against Barack Obama in 2008 – and their eventual reconciliation and teamwork. It sounds like a coded message to any Bernie Sanders supporters in the room, and to the senator himself. “At the end he won, I lost and I supported him,” Clinton said. “He asked me to be secretary of state and I said yes for the same reason: we both love our country.” She threw in a few kind words for the president, too. “I don’t think President Obama gets the credit he deserves. Saving the economy, passing the affordable care act insuring 20 million americans and for doing so much else that has been good.” Stepping away from the campaign trail for a moment, Ed Pilkington has this: The governor of Virginia, Terry McAuliffe, has until midnight on Sunday to decide whether to bring back the electric chair as a compulsory method of execution. Should the Democratic governor sign the bill currently sitting on his desk, the Virginia department of corrections would be empowered to kill condemned prisoners using a contraption known macabrely in the state as “Old Sparky”. Should McAuliffe abstain tonight from doing anything, the law will come into effect on 1 July – only his active veto would stop it. “Like most death penalty states,” Ed writes, “Virginia has struggled in the face of a tight boycott imposed by the European Union and major drug companies that refuse to send medical drugs used in executions to the US on ethical grounds.” Hence, the possible return of the chair, which 300 religious leaders have opposed. Ed also writes this: The dilemma is further intensified by McAuliffe’s close ties to Hillary Clinton, and the likelihood that any decision to facilitate the return of the electric chair will reverberate on the presidential campaign trail. McAuliffe was chairman of Clinton’s last presidential campaign, in 2008, and before that helped Bill Clinton earn a second term in the White House in 1996. And this: The decision confronting the governor is a fraught one, given the dark track record of the electric chair in Virginia’s racially skewed history. The chair was first used in 1908 to kill a black man convicted of the rape of a white woman. Since then, 217 of the 267 people who have died by electrocution have been African American. Here’s Ed’s piece in full: Bernie Sanders makes another appearance, this time on NBC’s Meet the Press. Host Chuck Todd asks about the delegate gap between Sanders and Hillary Clinton – how even though he’s won seven states in a row he’s cut into Clinton’s lead only by 10 delegates. “We’re feeling really good with a path toward victory,” Sanders insists. “New York is extremely important,” but he says he can “absolutely” win the nomination without winning the state. Americans understand that “it’s just too late for establishment politics”, Sanders says. Todd asks about the harsh tone that seeped into the Democratic race last week. “Secretary Clinton has been going after us, along with her surrogates, very, very hard,” Sanders says. He notes a Washington Post headline that read “Clinton questions whether Sanders is qualified”, although Clinton herself never said Sanders was unqualified. She said “he hadn’t done his homework” on specific issues, but the Sanders campaign homed in on the word “unqualified” and made its criticisms in turn. Sanders has walked some of those back, saying Clinton is qualified, but he tells NBC: “In terms of her judgement, something is clearly lacking.” His argument for lapses in judgement: “When you vote for virtually every trade agreement that has cost the workers of this country millions of jobs. When you support and continue to support fracking, despite the crisis that we have. And essentially when you have a super pac that’s raising tens of millions of dollars from every interest out there, including $15m from Wall Street.” Ohio governor John Kasich, meanwhile, is in Greece, New York, where he is “running equal with Donald Trump” and where he says he will win more delegates than he has been winning, which has not been very many. Kasich is a way off the Republican pace, heading for what he hopes will be a contested convention. “If we get blown out in the fall, which I think we could with Cruz or Trump, we could lose the Senate,” he says. He’s the man to stop that, he says. He’s not biting on whether Mitt Romney or Paul Ryan might descend from the heavens on to such a contested convention and take the nomination – he is the second choice of most Trump and Cruz voters, he says. But he does invoke a figure with a certain place in Republican heaven, “old Honest Abe” – Lincoln – who went into his convention in 1860 “third or fourth” and ended up one of the greatest presidents of all. Kasich continues: I’m going to have more delegates than I have now and I am going to be viable. I am the only person who can beat Hillary Clinton in the fall. Are we going to nominate someone who isn’t viable? It’s nuts! He can attract conservative Democrats, independents, he says. But he won’t attack Clinton herself. Everyone else will, John. Kasich is now asked about North Carolina’s controversial anti-anti-discrimination law, which this week cost the state a Bruce Springsteen gig. Would he have signed it? “Probably not.” Religious institutions should be protected, Kasich says, but “when you get beyond that it can become … a contentious issue.” “I wouldn’t have signed that law,” he says. “Nathan Deal, the governor of Georgia, vetoed another one… why do we have to write a law every time we turn around. Can’t we just get along with each other?” Kasich, forever protesting his viability in the face of what Ben Carson would call “horrible numbers”, is perfecting a new mood in this campaign: the genially cross. The affably aggravated. The pleasantly peeved. He’s mad as hell and he’s not going to take it anymore but aw shucks, can’t everyone be nicer to each other? Call it what you will. Todd asks Manafort about how he’s planning on clinching the nomination with 1,237 delegates, which would avoid a contested convention – the scenario that Ted Cruz is hoping for. Who’s running this campaign, you or the manager? “Donald Trump is running this campaign,” Manafort says. “And I’m working directly for Donald Trump, but I’m working with the whole team as well. And a lot of what’s being talked about is much ado about nothing. Yes, there’s a transition. It’s a natural transition.” Manafort says that as the months have worn on, “a more traditional campaign has to take place, and Donald recognizes that.” What about campaign tactics? A friend of Trump recently threatened to send the businessman’s supporters to delegates hotel rooms, for instance. “I’m not giving him my hotel room,” Manafort tries to joke. Todd presses the point – is this kind of rhetoric acceptable? Trump’s top aide doesn’t exactly denounce the implied threat: “It’s not my style, it’s not Donald Trump’s style. But it is Ted Cruz’s style. “You go to these county conventions, and you see the Gestapo tactics, the scorched earth tactics… Todd: Gestapo!? Manafort says the campaign is going to file some complaints, even as it tries to do woo delegates however possible from Cruz. “There’s the law, there’s ethics, and there’s getting the votes.” He says his main strategy is to get Trump talking to delegates more directly. Donald Trump’s “convention manager” Paul Manafort is on NBC’s Meet the Press, where host Chuck Todd asks him about the businessman’s recent defeats in winning delegates in Colorado and Wisconsin. “I acknowledge that we weren’t playing in Colorado, and they did,” Manafort says, regarding Cruz’s sweep of the 34 delegates there. “I acknowledge that they’ve taken an approach to some of the county conventions where they’ve taken a scorched earth policy, and they don’t care about the party. “ “If they don’t get what they want, they blow it up. That’s not going to work. “And in fact, it’s all secondary games, because when your’e talking about delegates, you know to distinguish between actual delegates or Trojan delegates, which are people that are committed to support someone on the first ballot, regardless of who they’re for.” It’s CBS and it’s Bernie Sanders. So how about winning the vote but splitting the delegates with Clinton in Wyoming? “There is no question that we have the momentum,” he says, like he said 15 minutes ago on ABC. Then he was in George Stephanopoulos’s shiny blue studio. He’s now in front of a wall of books, speaking to John Dickerson who is in DC. Does ABC’s New York HQ have a library? A smoking room? You have to hope so. Bernie details his electoral map and says, again, that “our message is resonating” and in the east and west he will do well. Does his lack of appeal in the south damage his chances of being a successful president? “We are waging what we call a political revolution,” he says, which means no president can achieve it all alone. “What we need is a strong political movement, where millions of working people, young people, stand up and fight back.” This is happening with the $15 minimum wage, he says, as it has passed in California and elsewhere. Dickerson turns to the contested convention of 1980, when Ted Kennedy took his “movement” to the convention and fought, and lost. “Obviously we will use our role to shape the platform,” Sanders says – which involves a roll call of his policy positions. So that’s a …yes? Then it’s into the spat over whether Hillary Clinton is qualified to be president again. Sanders says again it was a remark about her judgment, but he “wants to get away from this stuff” and have a proper debate. Dickerson presses. Is her judgment a disqualifying factor for the presidency? “No.” And the press attention to his interviews this week, in which some people said he had no detail about his sweeping calls for reform and revolution, for example on Wall Street. He dodges. Finally, Obama is asked about the 2016 campaign and the movements of frustrated voters who’ve coalesced around Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. “We’re still shell shocked from what happened in 2007 and 2008,” Obama says, alluding to the financial crisis that nearly wrecked the world’s economy. The US has inched back to recovery, he says, “but people lost homes, lost jobs, lost life savings, and they still don’t fully” feel that recovery. When people feel left out, he says, Americans of different politics have different reactions. For conservatives those broken promises – eg to repeal his signature healthcare act – “must be because Republicans were corrupt and not responsive”, influenced by big money, Obama says. “If Democrats get frustrated they say why don’t we have a public option” for healthcare, he continues, noting too that most Americans are covered by their employer and many don’t want a singlepayer system. These frustrations, the president says, obscure successes. “Our economy right now is stronger than any other advanced economy … We have the best workers. We have the best universities. We are the most innovative. We have the most advanced scientific community. “This can be our century just like the 20th century was, as long as we don’t tear each other apart because our politics, values, sensationalism, conflict,” he says. Obama concludes that the US will be in danger when “we don’t have the ability to compromise”. John Podesta is next on ABC – he’s chair of the Clinton campaign and after a video of SNL mocking Clinton over her New York subway snafu this week, he laughs and says: “I think we’re going to win New York.” Of course he does. Podesta says Sanders’ run of seven wins in a row was in territory and voting formats favourable to him, and that in the bigger states now coming along the trail, in primaries, Clinton will put together a run of her own. He also defends Bill Clinton about the 1994 crime bill and says of Sanders: “he voted for this bill… in 2006 he campaigned for the Senate and said ‘I’m tough on crime’ and he pointed to this crime bill.” Podesta is also asked about Hillary Clinton’s enduring problem with being seen as honest and trustworthy by voters of any and every stripe. “As she has said,” he says, “maybe she is better at doing the job than campaigning for the job.” Well, quite. Does she need to get the email issue wrapped up, Stephanopoulos asks? “That’s up to Mr Comey,” Podesta said, referring to the FBI director. “If they want to talk to her they can talk to her but they haven’t.” Then Wallace asks Obama about the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server during her tenure as his secretary of state. “She would never intentionally put America in any kind of jeopardy,” Obama says, before saying that there’s a problem of semantics in how the government does its business. “I handle a lot of classified information,” he says. “There’s classified and then there’s classified.” “There’s stuff that is really top secret top secret, and theres stuff going out to the president or secretary of state, stuff you don’t want on the transom, or going out over the wires,” he continues, but is basically “open-sourced” material. “I also think it is important to keep this in perspective,” Obama said. “This is somebody who has served her country for four years as secretary of state, and did an outstanding job.” He adds, though, that Clinton herself has acknowledged the server was a mistake: “There’s a carelessness in terms of managing emails that she has owned.” No one has suggested, he says, “that that detracted rom her excellent ability to carry out her duties”. Wallace asks about the investigation itself. “I guarantee that there is no political influence in any investigation conducted by the Justice Department or the FBI.” The president is emphatic. “Guaranteed. Period.” Obama is next asked about terrorism, and his call for Americans to live their lives normally in the face of it. Is he not worried about it, Wallace asks. “I don’t think we make too big a deal of the terror threat,” Obama says. “My number one priority is going after Isil,” he adds, using the acronym for the terror group Islamic State. “My point is how we do it is important. That we have to make sure that we abide by our laws. We have to make sure that we abide by our values.” He criticizes Republican candidates for president. “When I hear some candidates saying we should carpet bomb innocent civilians” – Ted Cruz – “that is not a productive solution.” “When I hear someone saying that we should ban all Muslims from entering the country” – Donald Trump – “that is not a good solution.” He boasts of his own record fighting terrorism. “There isn’t a president who has taken more terrorists off the map,” he says, than him. “I’m the guy who calls the families, or meets with them or hugs them or tries to comfort a mom or a dad or a husband or a kid after a terrorist attack. … This is my number one job.” Then he repeats an argument he made after the Brussels attacks, while he was on a historic diplomatic trip to Cuba. “It has been my view consistently: the job of the terrorists in their minds is to induce panic, induce fear, get societies to change you they are.” But he says: “You can’t change us. You can kill some of us but we will hunt you down and we will get you.” “And in the meantime, just as we did in Boston after the marathon bombing, we’re going to go to a ball game. That’s the message of resilience.” It’s over to ABC – home, if you didn’t know, of the great Gore Vidal-William F Buckley debates of 1968, which essentially created what we know of confrontational, partisan, shouty talk show political TV today. So you can blame those two for what follows, if you want. Bernie Sanders is here with George Stephanopoulos, live and in person: “Here’s the point, George: in the last three and a half weeks we have reduced her margin by her third. We are moving to New York, Pennsylvania, California, Oregon – a lot of big states. We believe we have the momentum.” Stephanopoulos asks if he is planning a floor fight at the convention? Sanders dodges, saying it’s really about making sure we defeat “Trump, Cruz or whoever”. But he is most qualified to do so, he says. Of his heated disagreements with Clinton, Sanders says the Clinton campaign has decided to take the gloves off, not him. Asked about his suggestion Clinton is not qualified for the presidency, he mentions – of course he does – Iraq, super pacs, trade agreements, fracking, the minimum wage. And of Bill Clinton and criminal justice reform, a hot topic this week, discussion turns to the 1994 crime bill Sanders himself supported. “It had good and bad things in it”, Sanders says, suggesting if he hadn’t voted for the bill measures within it such as assault weapons bans – in the Senate bill, Stephanopoulos says, not the House where Bernie was – and violence against women would now be brought against him. Interesting exchange. But Bernie’s main problem, he says, is with Bill Clinton’s language about “young blacks” – the “superpredator” issue. ABC then play tape of Sandy Hook families slamming Sanders over his gun control record. Sensibly, he avoids confrontation: “Let me just say this, Bernie Sanders comes from a state with virtually no gun control. I am a D- from the NRA.” He details his support for President Obama’s gun control efforts. He won’t apologise for his opposition to legislation on liability for gunmakers, though. His taxes? “My wife does our taxes and she’s been out on the campaign, she’s been pretty busy. But we’ll get them out.” Is New York a must win? He won’t say so, but he thinks he has a chance. Barack Obama is on Fox News, speaking with Chris Wallace for the first time on the show as president. The interview was taped at the University of Chicago Law School, where Obama taught for a decade and recently spoke about his supreme court nomination, Merrick Garland. That’s what Wallace asks about first: Republican opposition to any nominee. “I think that things’ll evolve as people get familiar with Judge Garland’s record, as it becomes apparent that the overwhelming majority of the American people believe that the president nominates somebody to the supreme court and the Senate should do its job and give him a hearing.” “The questioning that’s being done privately with Judge Garland should be done publicly, in a hearing,” he adds. “Democrats and Republicans have gotten into a fix inside the Senate in which the confirmation promise becomes too much of a tit for tat.” But this scenario is unprecedented, he says. “Never has a Republican president’s nominee not received a hearing, not received a vote. I don’t object to Republicans saying Merrick Garland may be a fine man, may be a fine judge, but I disagree with him philosophically.” “I think if they go through the process they won’t have a rationale to defeat him.” Obama says he will stand with Merrick Garland through the end of his term, no matter what the Senate does or who wins the presidential election. Donald Trump is shying away from national television, but has given an interview with the billionaire and radio show host John Catsimatidis. He went after Ted Cruz, who swept the floor with Trump at the Colorado convention. “Cruz is a guy who hates New York. He hates New Yorkers, and he’s trying to put a different spin on it,” Trump said. The businessman noted that Cruz voted against disaster relief for the north-east after Hurricane Sandy in 2012, but supported federal aid for Texas after it suffered floods in 2015. Cruz has also criticized “New York values”, which he has vaguely defined as liberalism. “He’s a very anti-New York guy, and I guarantee if he ever made it to president, New York would forget about the federal government,” Trump said. He’s also doing media criticism of newspapers that publish full transcripts of their interviews with him. Finally the CNN host asks Sanders about his campaign’s chances against such a large deficit of pledged delegates and superdelegates. “I think we have a path to getting more pledged delegates,” Sanders says. He argues that should his campaign continue to poll better than Donald Trump in a hypothetical general election, “I think a lot of those superdelegates will say what’s most important is we don’t have a Trump in the White House.” “If neither candidate ends up not having the votes they need, yeah, sure,” he says, there will be “a discussion” about the nomination at the convention. Tapper asks Sanders about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the senator’s criticism of how Israel handled its last war with Gaza, in which more than 2,100 Palestinians were killed and 66 Israeli soldiers and seven civilians were killed in Israel. “Was Israel’s response disproportionate? I think it was,” Sanders says. Israel “has the right to live in freedom, independently, and in security, without having to be subjected to terrorist attacks,” he goes on. “But I think we will note succeed in bringing peace to that region unless we also treat the Palestinians with dignity and respect.” Tapper starts to say that this is a remarkably “critical” position for a Jewish politician, and Sanders says it’s “a more balanced position”. “Whether your’e Jewish or not Jewish, I would hope that every person in this country wants to see the misery of never ending, warring conflict in the Middle East” come to an end, he says. Sanders describes himself as “someone who is absolutely pro-Israeli, absolutely 100% supports Israel’s right to exist in peace and security”. “But you cannot ignore the needs of the Palestinian people,” he says, noting the poverty and enormous destruction of Gaza. Bernie Sanders is next up on CNN, also via a pre-taped interview. This one was held along the East River in Brooklyn. Jake Tapper “I appreciate Bill Clinton being my psychoanalyst, that’s always nice,” Sanders jokes. “Ever since Wisconsin, when that became the sixth out of seven states that we have won,” he says, the Clinton campaign has become “very negative”. “We are going to fight back, he says, though he still intends to run an “issues-oriented campaign”. Then he questions her vote for the Iraq war and her highly paid speeches to Wall Street firms. “I have my doubts about what kind of president she would make.” But he says he would still support her as the Democratic nominee. “We will do everything possible to prevent a Donald Trump or some other Republican from entering the White House.” Tapper tries to ask about Bill Clinton’s confrontation with black protesters in Philadelphia. Sanders refuses to criticize the former president or the former secretary of state, noting that she has expressed regret for using the phrase “super predator”. “Not gonna go there, sorry, Jake!” The CNN host then asks Clinton about a few of the issues: minimum wage is first, apropos a law just signed in New York to increase the wage to $15. “I have been in favor of what’s called the fight for $15 for a year. I have been supportive of the unions and activists and officials who come together,” Clinton says. The Sanders campaign has characterized Clinton as coming late to the issue. Clinton adds that she supports “a phase-in” process for states, and that she wants to make the national minimum wage $12. “But I want to encourage places, both locally and statewide, to go further.” Tapper moves on, asking the former secretary of state about Israel and its conflict with Hamas and Palestinians. Clinton says she supports Israel’s right to self-defense. “It did not go seeking this, it was promoted by Hamas.” Then it’s a remark by Sanders’ campaign manager that Clinton’s foreign policy contributed to the rise of the terror group Isis. “That is beyond absurd,” Clinton says. “You know, they’re saying a lot of things these days and I’m going to let them choose to say whatever they choose to say.” And finally it’s back to campaign politics. Is Clinton preparing for a possible contested convention, which Sanders (and Republicans) seem to want? She says she’s “leading [Sanders] in the popular vote, leading him in pledged delegates” – not worried. “I feel good about the next contest and I expect to be the nominee.” Clinton concludes by saying she wants Americans to start thinking about her ideas versus those of a Republican. “Either Donald Trump or Ted Cruz would be a terrible choice for America, so we need to run a unified Democratic campaign.” Hillary Clinton is first on the shows this morning, with a pre-taped interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper on State of the Union. Tapper asks Clinton whether she has any doubst about what kind of president Bernie Sanders would be, and whether she would support him as the nominee. “I’ve said repeatedly that I’d take him over Donald Trump or Ted Cruz any day,” she says. “No, I don’t. I don’t have anything negative to say about him.” Then Tapper asks about Bill Clinton’s confrontation with protesters of his legacy on crime and welfare reform, and of his wife’s 1996 about “super predator” gang leaders. He also made a series of claims about his presidency that my colleague Mona Chalabi fact-checked (see the link below), when pressed about the huge increase in incarceration after his 1994 crime bill was signed. “I think what Bill said is we should all be listening to each other,” Clinton tells Tapper, adding that she says she wants to end the era of mass incarceration. “There were a lot of people very scared and concerned about high crime back in the day, and now we have to say OK, and deal with the consequences. And one of the consequences is people who should not be in the criminal justice system.” She says she wants to “divert people from the criminal justice system” toward addiction treatment or relevant programs. Then Clinton defends her husband, saying he’s “not only a former president, he’s my husband.” “I think he has a great legacy, and if we’re going to talk about those eight years we should talk about everything.” The former president say he “almost” wanted to apologize for the way he handled the confrontation. “Clearly some things happened that were not foreseen and need to be addressed,” she continues. “You never do something and don’t keep asking: is it working?” Hello and welcome to our rolling coverage of the 2016 race for New York, the day after Ted Cruz swept Donald Trump’s shambles of a campaign in Colorado, and after Bernie Sanders edged out Hillary Clinton in the Wyoming caucuses. Cruz won all 34 delegates that Colorado has to offer a Republican candidate, his well-organized campaign a model of contrast to Trump’s haphazard effort and the convention itself. Hundreds of delegates took turns asking to be elected, pitching Coloradans things like “Donald Trump! Buy Colorado weed!” and “the only person better to be president than Ted Cruz is Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ is not a natural born citizen”. By night’s end, someone had accessed the state party’s Twitter account and wrote what many Republicans have been hoping for weeks: “We did it. #NeverTrump”. The New York businessman has kept an atypically low profile on the campaign trail, and has reorganized his campaign to include a new “convention manager”, Paul Manafort, to counter Cruz’s climb in the delegate race. Manafort worked for Gerald Ford in the brokered Republican convention in 1976, and more recently for a twice-ousted, Kremlin-backed leader of Ukraine and a Filipino dictator. John Kasich’s campaign boasted about opening an office in Delaware. In New York, Sanders and Clinton held rival events as they eye the state’s 291 delegates. Sanders’ victory in Wyoming was slimmer than polls predicted, and he and Clinton each won seven delegates. The former secretary of state retains more than 200 pledged delegates ahead of Sanders, who is hoping to cut sharply into that lead with a strong performance in New York. He has struggled, however, to win over superdelegates, the party officials who are not bound to vote according to their states’ results, and who have overwhelmingly chosen Clinton. Sanders and Clinton will both appear on television this morning. The former says the revolution is growing and Clinton should watch out, the latter that it’s time for Americans to think about her versus a Republican. Cruz, Kasich and the mysterious Manafort will also appear, to talk about a possible contested convention and the chaos of the Republican party. Trump isn’t on the schedule, but he has a way of showing up anyway. And President Barack Obama is the special guest on Fox News this morning, giving a rare one-on-one interview with the conservative network.
BBC and Google in online child safety initiative The BBC and Google have joined forces with internet service providers on an initiative to promote online safety for children. The two organisations have become the first official partners of Internet Matters, which was set up two years ago by BT, Sky, Virgin and TalkTalk to teach parents and children about issues such as cyberbullying and protecting privacy. Google and the BBC already run their own internet safety programmes, but Internet Matters claims their support recognises the importance of a collaborative approach. Both organisations are already working with Internet Matters. The BBC is collaborating on an online guide called iWonder and will promote its work at its events. Google will work with the organisation on its visits to UK schools under its pilot Internet Legends programme, which aims to teach 10,000 children about issues such as image sharing and privacy, and could be rolled out further. Other projects are expected to be developed under what Internet Matters has described as a long-term partnership. The UK minister for internet safety and security, Joanna Shields, who is also a former Facebook and Google executive, said the move would “ensure that young people can leverage all the internet has to offer to learn, grow and achieve their potential”. Alice Webb, director of BBC Children, said: “Keeping our young audience safe online has long been a priority for the BBC and we have an important role to play in helping to make sure messages about staying safe online hit home.” Eileen Naughton, Google UK and Ireland managing director, said: “Google believes deeply in technology’s ability to unlock creativity, and we work hard to ensure that parents and children have the tools and knowledge they need to make smart and responsible choices online. We’re excited to be joining Internet Matters, and will continue to work with organisations across the child safety community to ensure that more families are able to safely open up the creativity, learning and fun the internet has to offer.”
British Film Institute receives mystery £87m donation to build new HQ Plans for a new national centre for film and television on London’s South Bank are back on after a mystery investor offered £87m of the £130m project cost. The British Film Institute (BFI) proposal had been backed personally by Gordon Brown and the last Labour government, which promised £45m of public money. But the financial crisis and change of government led to the commitment being withdrawn. The BFI put its plans on ice, remaining in its 1950s building between the National Theatre and the Southbank Centre that it has been desperate to vacate for decades. On Wednesday the BFI announced it had received an “unsolicited” offer of up to £87m for a new centre, which would be built on the nearby site of Hungerford Bridge car park. A spokeswoman said the investor could not be named because of laws around public procurement, as there may now be other potential investors. “If we have an offer that’s made for investment in any part of our organisation, we then have to go to market,” she said. “It is the same for any suppliers we use.” The BFI stressed that such a huge investment would not threaten its independence as a public body. The money is for the building itself, the spokeswoman said. “Whoever invests in this development won’t have any say creatively in how the new centre is run or its content. It is absolutely detached from any creative control.” The investor would, though, have a strong case for having the building named after them. The BFI said the new centre would give visitors “new experiences in film while providing a hub for filmmakers, artists and industry professionals to meet, exchange ideas, showcase their work and develop skills.” A tender process has begun with the aspiration of opening the new £130m building by 2022. The new centre would be on the Thames riverside and create some 6,500 sq metres of new parkland on Jubilee Gardens. The announcement of a new investor comes only three months after the appointment of the Warner Bros studio executive Josh Berger as chair of the BFI, succeeding Greg Dyke. Berger said: “The UK’s thriving film, TV and screen industries are world-class, fuelled by the vision and imagination of extraordinary British talent who are evolving our art form at speed. As the new chair, one of my priorities will be to drive forward the BFI’s new centre to provide the opportunity to showcase British talent, creativity and vision to the world. “It will inspire the next generation of award-wining British talent, film-makers and visual effects geniuses, and give audiences one of the best places in the world to experience film in all its forms.” The BFI’s chief executive, Amanda Nevill, said British film deserved a home “now more than ever – a building that will express our optimism, our confidence and our excitement about Britain’s leading role in the future of film, television and the moving image at home and internationally”. The news was also welcomed by a host of British film stars. Tom Hiddleston said: “I believe this is the most exciting cultural development to happen in the UK for some time. “All the major art forms in Britain quite correctly have national homes except one: film. British film – the tradition which has created and produced so much extraordinary talent both in front of and behind the camera – needs a national home, and the BFI is the organisation to build it.” Dame Helen Mirren said: “The proposal for a new centre is a very exciting one and will bring young people and their energies and understanding of the modern world into this amazing form of culture and of self-expression – cinema.” And Idris Elba said: “Britain is a great centre of creativity and film is at its heart. If we want to see this continue to flourish, then we have to encourage young people from all backgrounds to think about it as a career, which we aren’t going to do if we don’t shout about it. It’s time we had a proper national home worthy of this 21st century art form, and I’m excited for all of the brilliant opportunities this will bring.”
Sean Dyche’s hard work ethic is paying dividends at Fortress Turf Moor Burnley is a homely place and a favourite destination for anyone fond of a trip down football’s memory lane. Most supporters have a soft spot for a stadium surrounded by terraced streets and chip shops, where one can practically park one’s car on Jimmy Anderson’s old run-up at the cricket pitch next door, yet for opposing teams it is becoming a different matter. Ugly and intimidating are the buzzwords of the Burnley squad on Turf Moor matchdays. They have worked out that even the biggest and best Premier League sides can be unsettled by a boisterous crowd and an uncompromising attitude on the pitch. “It’s a difficult place to come to,” their manager, Sean Dyche, explained. “And of course we want to make it more so. We all know our home form is going to be important. We’ve been very good at facing up to all the challenges at Turf Moor.” Fortress Burnley has so far yielded 10 points for the newly promoted club, including wins over Liverpool and Everton, and the record might have been more impressive still but for the debatable late winner that earned Arsenal all the points at the start of the month. Dyche is aware that points away from home would be handy too – “we can start with that easy game at Manchester United next weekend” – but is surely correct in his assumption that winning a decent proportion of home games would allow his side at least a chance of survival. With a clutch of clubs still remaining on single figures Burnley are looking down on the relegation positions whereas it was widely imagined they would spend most of the season occupying one. “I don’t think anyone would have thought we would have 10 points by this stage,” Dyche said after Scott Arfield’s last-minute goal secured an unlikely win against Everton. “We might have been a bit lucky at times but there have been other occasions this season when we have been unlucky. The Arsenal result still sticks in my throat, so it is nice to see things balancing themselves out, but lucky or not we still had to work hard to stay in the game.” Working hard is what Burnley do under Dyche. In his four years at the club he has overseen two promotions and, while there is more to his success than mere tenacity, he always makes it plain that 90 minutes of fight is a minimum requirement. “We are authentic in what we do on the pitch,” he said. “There is no secret about what you are going to get at Turf Moor. You are going to get a tough game. We are not trying to kid anyone we can pass the ball around like Barcelona, because we can’t. But what we can do, and what we will always try to do, is give everything we’ve got to stay in the Premier League.” It is too early to say whether this latest campaign will end any more happily than the last, though it should be noted that Burnley still have some important players to come back into the side. For various reasons Andre Gray, George Boyd and Steven Defour were unavailable against Everton and, when they return, in the coming weeks Burnley should be even stronger as an attacking force. They did not exactly lay siege to the Everton goal on Saturday, though they did accept the couple of clear chances they created. Their visitors applied most of the pressure and set up some promising situations yet apart from an early period when only Tom Heaton’s goalkeeping kept his side in the game Everton were unable to turn their superiority into actual goal threats. “Our intensity dropped a little midway through the first half,” their manager, Ronald Koeman, said. “The reaction in the second half was really good, higher tempo, better football, but they still had one moment at the end and took it.” Everton had been forced to snap out of their first half torpor after going behind, when Maarten Stekelenburg failed to deal with an Arfield shot to leave Sam Vokes a simple tap-in, yet despite getting back on terms through Yannick Bolasie’s emphatic finish, they continued to find Burnley hard to break down. A draw seemed both inevitable and fair until Burnley suddenly went upfield in search of something more just as the fourth official was preparing to indicate four minutes of added time. Johann Berg Gudmundsson’s left foot shot surprised the Everton defence by crashing against the bar, though not as much as Arfield did when he popped up to tuck away the rebound. “A sublime finish,” Dyche called it. It certainly proved an unanswerable one.
Southampton suffer raw deal as Premier League confirms Christmas TV schedule The Premier League have announced a slew of fixture changes in December and January to facilitate live TV coverage, with Southampton perhaps the biggest losers. Claude Puel’s team are to play three times in six days on account of their Boxing Day fixture with Tottenham being moved to 28 December. They also host West Bromwich Albion on New Year’s Eve before travelling to face Everton on 2 January. Spurs’ other two games have been put back. They will now play Watford away on 1 January and host Chelsea on 4 January. Jürgen Klopp has aired his grievances over the alterations, saying it is unacceptable for Liverpool to play against Manchester City and Sunderland with only one day of rest between. City’s visit to Anfield on New Year’s Eve has been moved to a 5.30pm kick-off with their 2 January trip to Sunderland remaining unchanged. “We have less than 48 hours between our game against Man City on 31 December and in Sunderland on the 2nd,” Klopp said. “Forty-eight hours is an interesting idea but less than 48 hours I cannot believe. I learn more and more about this league and maybe I have to ask someone if we can ask if there will be another time for us at Sunderland. “Our job is to do everything we can to win games. I understand tradition – I would never say Boxing Day is not a good idea as I love it and I have absolutely no problem. But now having a matchday with two days between, there should be another possibility. I don’t know why we play Monday. Is 2 January a special day in England?” Liverpool are also off on 26 December – the home game with Stoke has been pushed back a day, starting at 5.15pm. Their trip across Stanley Park a week earlier has been moved from Saturday 17 December to Monday 19, kicking off at 8pm. Arsenal have had six matches changed and the champions, Leicester, will be shown on four occasions during the two months. Five West Ham fixtures have been moved, including the home games against both Manchester clubs and their visit to Anfield on 11 December. Fixture amendments (all times are GMT) Saturday 3 December Manchester City v Chelsea (12.30pm, Sky), West Ham United v Arsenal (5.30pm, BT) Sunday 4 December Bournemouth v Liverpool (1.30pm, Sky), Everton v Manchester United (4pm, Sky) Monday 5 December Middlesbrough v Hull City (8pm, Sky) Saturday 10 December Watford v Everton (12.30pm, Sky), Leicester City v Manchester City (5.30pm, BT) Sunday 11 December Chelsea v West Bromwich Albion (12pm, BT), Manchester United v Tottenham Hotspur (2.15pm, Sky), Liverpool v West Ham United (4.30pm, Sky) Tuesday 13 December Everton v Arsenal (7.45pm, BT) Wednesday 14 December Sunderland v Chelsea, West Ham United v Burnley (both 7.45pm), Crystal Palace v Manchester United (8pm, BT) Saturday 17 December Crystal Palace v Chelsea (12.30pm, Sky), West Bromwich Albion v Manchester United (5.30pm, BT) Sunday 18 December Bournemouth v Southampton (1.30pm, Sky), Manchester City v Arsenal (4pm, Sky) Monday 19 December Everton v Liverpool (8pm, Sky) Monday 26 December Watford v Crystal Palace (12.30pm, Sky), Hull City v Manchester City (5.15pm, Sky) Tuesday 27 December Liverpool v Stoke City (5.15pm, Sky) Wednesday 28 December Southampton v Tottenham Hotspur (7.45pm, Sky) Friday 30 December Hull City v Everton (8pm, Sky) Saturday 31 December Liverpool v Manchester City (5.30pm, BT) Sunday 1 January Watford v Tottenham Hotspur (1.30pm, Sky), Arsenal v Crystal Palace (4pm, Sky) Monday 2 January Middlesbrough v Leicester City (12.30pm, Sky), West Ham United v Manchester United (5.15pm, Sky Sports) Tuesday 3 January Bournemouth v Arsenal (7.45pm Sky), Crystal Palace v Swansea City, Stoke v Watford (both 8pm) Wednesday 4 January Tottenham Hotspur v Chelsea (8pm, Sky) Saturday 14 January Tottenham Hotspur v West Bromwich Albion (12.30pm, Sky), Leicester City v Chelsea (5.30pm, BT) Sunday 15 January Everton v Manchester City (1.30pm, Sky), Manchester United v Liverpool (4pm, Sky) Saturday 21 January Liverpool v Swansea City (12.30pm, BT Sport), Manchester City v Tottenham Hotspur (5.30pm, BT) Sunday 22 January Arsenal v Burnley (1.30pm, Sky), Chelsea v Hull City (4pm, Sky) Monday 23 January Southampton v Leicester City (8pm, Sky) Tuesday 31 January Liverpool v Chelsea (8pm, BT) Wednesday 1 February West Ham United v Manchester City (7.45pm, BT)
Would local government be better off outside the EU? A head to head The EU referendum has divided people in every section of society, including local government, where the vote could have a dramatic impact on local services. We speak to Lawrence Webb, a Ukip councillor in Havering, east London, who tabled the first successful motion on a council declaring the UK would be better off outside of the EU; and to Sir Steve Bullock, mayor of Lewisham, south-east London, and one of 64 Labour council leaders to sign an open letter in the Times claiming that Brexit would harm almost every area of local authority work. Immigration Vote leave For many Brexit campaigners the arguments for leaving focus primarily on immigration, and Webb is no exception. “Go back 20 years, we had a steady level of migration,” he says. “Government and local authorities could plan quite easily for school places, for example.” According to Oxford University’s migration observatory, average annual net migration to the UK during 2004-14 was 245,000, while the annual average during 1991-99 was 65,000. Webb, leader of the six-strong Ukip group on his council, is critical of free movement across the EU. “If a couple is coming with children, they could easily have four or five children in the borough that we weren’t anticipating, with different levels of educational requirement,” he says. “So it’s hard to predict year on year the number of school places you need.” He says that despite a massive schools expansion programme in Havering, he’s increasingly hearing from parents who can’t get their child into their school of choice. He also blames EU migration for the UK’s housing problems: “The housing crisis is simply a supply and demand issue. With more and more people coming in, we will never be able to solve the housing crisis.” Webb, a former electrician, argues that EU migration has pushed wages down in industries such as construction. He concedes that some sectors, such as higher education, may have benefited from EU migration, but advocates a points-based system that he believes will allow for skilled staff such as university professors to access the UK job market. Vote remain As mayor of a London borough, Bullock is no stranger to an expanding population and the demands that places on local government: Lewisham’s population grew by nearly 10% between 2001 and 2011. But he doesn’t think leaving the EU would make much difference. “Lewisham’s population is growing fast,” he says. “As far as we can tell, EU migration is a small part of that. The biggest factor is that our population is getting younger and people are having more babies. Migration from the rest of the UK is more significant.” Housing costs have soared in the capital, and Bullock worries that his council will struggle to recruit enough teachers because they cannot afford to live in London. But he says the answer is to build more home and EU membership is irrelevant to that. Bullock believes one of the biggest success stories of the EU has been the free movement of professionals, citing construction and health as two industries that rely on workers from across the EU to make up staffing levels. “There’s no way London could pull up the drawbridge and be able to sustain itself,” he adds. Bullock believes too many people conflate EU migration with the crisis of refugees fleeing Syria and other war-torn regions. “What worries me is that a migrant or refugee crisis has become what people are going to cast their vote on,” he says, adding that he is dismayed by insufficient efforts of the UK government to help migrants in crisis. Council finances Vote leave Havering council has received £1.9m in EU funds over the past 10 years, a figure Webb scoffs at: “£1.9m is nothing.” Despite repeated warnings of the shock to the economy if Britain were to leave the EU, Webb harbours no fears about economic recession. “If we vote to leave, nothing will happen on 24 June. Absolutely nothing,” he says, pointing to the number of cars manufactured in the UK and the thousands of products made in China on UK shop shelves. Businesses want to make money, and they will look at things such as the cost of shipping and where they can make the best profit, not trade deals, he adds. “Governments don’t do business, people do business.” In fact, Webb believes local government finances can only benefit from a vote to leave. The cost of EU membership could be redistributed and could filter down to the grants paid by central government to local authorities. “If we leave we’ll have that money to spend as we see fit,” he says. Vote remain The open letter signed by Bullock states that leaving the EU will represent a “further funding black hole” for local authorities already struggling after six years of budget cuts. Lewisham will receive £4.4m from the European Social Fund between 2015-18, to be invested in skills. “It’s a significant investment,” says Bullock. “There’s no way we would replace that. I have yet to hear the campaigners for leaving give us any reason to think the current contributions will head our way.” Last year, chancellor George Osborne announced what he described as the biggest transfer of power to local government in living memory, by allowing councils to retain money raised from business rates. Making councils dependent on business rates is a concern for Bullock, who believes coming out of the EU would be detrimental to the British economy and, in particular, London, with a potential serious knock-on effect on council budgets. “When I talk to people from the City of London they are desperately worried that coming out of the EU will damage London as a world financial centre,” he says. “It will push up our expenditure at a time when we don’t have enough money in the first place.” Bullock also points out that, according to business lobby group London First, salaries in the capital are up to £3,100 higher because of EU membership. “That’s a lot of taxes and those taxes pay for things in London,” he says. EU regulations Vote leave One of the things that bothers Webb is that councils are subject to EU procurement rules, which ensure free access on competition across member states, meaning local suppliers do not get priority for UK tenders. This, Webb says, pushes up costs for the council and causes delays because bidders have the right to appeal decisions – another cost the taxpayer has to bear. It also means that contracts tend to go to larger firms as smaller businesses have less ability to tender for deals. The EU energy efficiency directive, Webb claims, has led to the sell-off of old, publicly-owned buildings that the council cannot afford to insulate to EU standards. He also believes the EU working time directive, credited with improving staff working hours, has led to the rise in zero-hours contracts. “Everything in your life, the EU wants to regulate,” he says, adding that a commission could be appointed in the event of a vote to leave, which would look at all EU regulations and decide which of them the UK should keep. While Webb believes that international networks can help countries solve major problems, such as cross-border crime, he says the UK does not need to be in political union with someone to have cooperation. He also believes things will only get worse if Britain votes to remain a member of the EU: we could see the introduction of an EU army or changes to taxation rules. The one thing Webb believes will improve is his party’s membership numbers: “What’s the point of being a eurosceptic in any other party?” Vote remain Bullock, on the other hand, is adamant that EU influence is beneficial. The European health insurance card, the abolition of phone roaming charges, food labelling, equal pay for men and women, forcing a complacent UK government to take action on air quality in London – the political union has been a force for good in many different areas for the UK. “If that’s bureaucracy, well that’s fine by me.” Lewisham council often forms partnerships with other European cities to undertake projects – a recent example is managing urban waterways. This kind of network, which “had its roots in the structures the EU puts in place”, is not impossible outside the EU, Bullock says, but it’s much harder. Councils would end up working with the same people every time instead of forging new links. He concedes that council staff can get frustrated by some of the processes and paperwork imposed on them by the EU and says the EU needs a lighter touch in some areas. But he says councils can work together and share learning to cut down the time it all takes. Ultimately, it’s about the kind of world we are living in. “In an ever more complicated world there are things we can’t do at the very local level,” says Bullock. “I would like us to do locally as much as we possibly can. But we can’t organise defence of the British Isles in Lewisham. We need to do some things as part of a wider group.” Talk to us on Twitter via @ public and sign up for your free weekly Public Leaders newsletter with news and analysis sent direct to you every Thursday.
Vinyl destination: who is actually buying records? Lonely, middle-aged men love vinyl. Before you rush to litter the comments section with gnarly insults under the pseudonym NotAllLonelyMiddleAgedMen, this statement derives from actual data. According to YouGov, the much talked-about record resurgence is driven not by a boom in millennials who want to embrace the novelty of a physical item, but by midlife nostalgia. Those who have recently purchased a vinyl album are most likely to be aged between 45 and 54, apparently. In fact, those in the 18-24 age group are the least likely. It is not just an act of hoarding by hobbyists, either – it has emotional significance: older vinyl buyers are slightly more likely to keep their feelings to themselves (56% of vinyl buyers versus 53% of all UK adults) and enjoy being alone (69% of vinyl buyers versus 66% all UK adults). But are YouGov’s results true? If this blog was a televised news report, the camera would follow me as I walked down the middle of a busy Soho street, wearing a modest grey suit and gesturing wildly before stopping, cupping my hands and saying something authoritative like: “So, let’s take a look.” So, let’s take a look. While the heart of Soho is slowly being drained of its charm and grot – hotels, Eats, Prets and Paperchases now fill the buildings once occupied by independent sellers – a handful of fantastic specialist record shops still remain. (I’d probably ask the camera to stop rolling for the next bit, in which I stand very close to various men in some of these stores and attempt to gauge their age and emotional disposition via observation.) Glaswegian Stuart, 55, whom I follow from Sister Ray (data count: two young women, three middle-aged men) into Reckless Records (data count: eight middle-aged men, one woman, probably in her 20s) is in London for the afternoon for a meeting and is perusing the shops to fill a few hours. Is he a collector, I ask? “I suppose I am,” he says. “I have about 3,000 or 4,000 records.” These records, pictured above (he emailed me the snap, I didn’t follow him home), line his living room walls. His reason for acquiring such a vast number of albums and singles is partly a result of his disposable income: he is now able to buy records he couldn’t afford when they originally came out, and to repurchase items he sold when he was young and skint. “A lot of the stuff I get is late 60s, early 70s, things that came out when I was 11 or 12, things I was probably a bit too young to get,” he says. He agrees that those who purchase records are more likely to be introverts who like their own company, adding: “I don’t smoke, I don’t drink very much. It’s my vice.” Wez, 25, who works at Sister Ray, also believes that many of the customers he encounters fit the YouGov profile. He has, however, noticed a new wave of people influenced by the media hype, people who heard about the comeback and felt compelled to buy back their old records. “From conversations I’ve had, people have got rid of their collection, normally around 1998 or 1999. Customers who once sold their vinyl to buy CDs are now selling their CDs to buy their records back,” he says. That may explain a boom in vinyl revivalists of a certain age. But what about the alleged emotional importance of records? It takes a few seconds in a shop such as Phonica to realise that record stores offer a comforting community of likeminded types. According to Wez, some older customers have taken umbrage with the contactless payment system in particular. Some vinyl fans may feel overwhelmed by the digital world and choose to retreat to the stability of the familiar record sleeve, of items that recall halcyon teenage memories. “I think sometimes it can be filling a void or having material possessions as some kind of comfort,” Wez says. “As a collector myself, I have that, and I think a lot of people do. It’s an easy way to occupy your headspace.” “We’re like their social workers!” pipes up a co-worker from a stack of records. An ICM poll in April revealed that almost 50% of people who bought a vinyl album the previous month had yet to listen to it. The poll also found that 41% have a turntable they never use, while 7% of those who purchase vinyl don’t own a record player. (At this stage of the news report, I would probably be looking gravely concerned while flicking through a stack of bossa nova compilations.) The “trophy” aspect of the revival is something that Jonny, 42, who works in Sounds of the Universe (data count: three midde-aged men) has noticed. “Someone came in recently and said: ‘I don’t have a record player, but I want to buy a Radiohead record so we can put it on our shelf,’” he says. “That’s not a large percentage, but it’s definitely happening. More of the product side, less of the music. We have people saying: ‘I don’t have a record player.’ That’s younger people, not older ones, late teens who are just getting into it.” Fopp, which now dedicates almost an entire floor to vinyl, has a far more varied audience when I arrive. There are couples in their 70s, tourists taking photos, teenage boys and middle-aged women. While the atmosphere is less at ease than the aforementioned stores – Wild Beast’s latest synth- and sex-fuelled pop, rather than noodling jazz, is blasting from the speakers – it is good to see diversity in its customers. None of them look particularly lonely, but nagging psychological trauma is hard to ascertain by standing next to someone for 30 seconds. Elanora, 27, has been walking around Fopp for a few minutes, looking at the variety of records on sale. She is window-shopping, rather than on a spending spree. She doesn’t earn a lot, she says, so collecting records isn’t really an option. “It costs a lot. It’s easy to listen to music by a computer or another way, but the beauty of vinyl is ...” she drifts off into a lovestruck sigh. “I don’t know how to explain – it’s really unique.” My last stop is a shop said to have inspired a fresh generation of vinyl lovers: Urban Outfitters. While giving the illusion of perusing the denim hot pants, I observe a group of teenage girls, who cluster around the Polaroid cameras momentarily, before a dad and his daughter deliberate purchasing a Crosley record player. To the left is a stairwell, a wall of which is stacked with records by Adele, Jeff Buckley, Amy Winehouse and Fleetwood Mac: a mix of contemporary and classics, the essential records for any average collection. Nobody is looking – perhaps because they are merely decoration, some so high up the wall that it would be impossible to touch them. It is pure “art vinyl”. But, given that any attraction to these items could mean more money for the industry and send a few customers into the depths of Soho for more, there is little to complain about. It is no surprise that a demographic more likely than most to have more time and money than most is also the one that spends the most on luxury items such as vinyl. But while my findings suggest YouGov’s results are accurate, in Soho record stores at least, they do not discount the huge number of female collectors and vinyl lovers that exist in reality, in record shops and on online forums. These people are probably working hard at school or in offices. They are certainly not spending their Thursday mornings loitering around the record shops of Berwick Street, flicking through records and avoiding the gaze of a creepy, 30-year-old fake television presenter who is looming over the shoulders of unsuspecting middle-aged men.
Care firm criticised for promoting 'exciting' prison self-harm incidents The UK’s largest private healthcare provider has been criticised after one of its senior executives spoke of the “exciting life of prison medical staff” in reference to life-threatening injuries and self-harm. Dr Sarah Bromley, Care UK’s national medical director for health in justice, said in a staff recruitment video: “If you like life to be exciting, there are always alarm bells going off, resuscitations, self-harming incidents, a lot of chaos that goes on in our prisons.” The remarks, which have been criticised as ill-judged and offensive, come at a time when suicides and self-harm rates are at a record high in prisons in England and Wales. Care UK is the UK’s largest independent provider of health and social care services. Its health and justice arm provides healthcare in 30 prisons in England and Wales, including some of the biggest. It provides healthcare in HMP Leeds, which has seen five apparently self-inflicted deaths in the last year. At Chelmsford prison, where it also operates, an inspection report published this week said health provision was inadequate. Inspectors said self-harm levels were “very high, far higher than at comparator prisons.” This month a coroner said “significant failures” by Care UK had contributed to the death of a prisoner at Pentonville jail in London. Terence Adams, 43, killed himself at the prison last November. Mary Hassell, the senior coroner for inner north London, found medical staff did not take immediate action after Adams’ admission to the jail despite recording a “high risk of self-harm”. Adams had been deemed at risk on a mental health assessment, which should have triggered an immediate admission to in-patient care at the jail. Instead he was placed in a normal cell. He killed himself three days later. The coroner also said a report compiled by Care UK after the death was not shared with the coroner’s office until it was accidentally discovered by lawyers during the inquest. Also this month, the Ministry of Justice published a bulletin on deaths, self-harm and assaults in prisons. In the 12 months from June 2015 there were 105 apparently self-inflicted deaths, a 28% increase on the previous year, and 34,586 reported incidents of self-harm, up 27%. Deborah Coles, the director of Inquest, which supports relatives of people who die in custody, said Bromley’s remarks were offensive to the hundreds of families the charity had represented over the years. Coles expressed concern that the comments demonstrated a lack of understanding of the vulnerability of prisoners and the staff who work with them. “If this is the premise in which staff are recruited to work in some of the most challenging prisons, it is not hard to imagine the quality of training Care UK staff receive,” she said. “The evidence from prison inspectors and the coroner earlier this month is alarming. When will the government stop prioritising profit over quality of service and look at how these private providers are operating on the ground?” A Care UK spokesman said: “The video seeks to explain to healthcare professionals the difficulties, but also the opportunity, of providing complex multi-disciplinary care to vulnerable people, who often have had limited access to healthcare in the past, within what is inevitably a challenging environment. “Whilst seeking to describe the nature of the role and environment appropriately, we are of course sensitive to the perceptions of everyone connected to prison healthcare and we will review our recruitment material accordingly.” After the contacted Care UK about the recruitment video, the company edited the film, removing Bromley’s reference to excitement, resuscitations, and self-harm.
Tiziana Cantone: seeking justice for woman who killed herself over sex tape No one knows why, in April last year, Tiziana Cantone sent a series of sex videos of herself to four friends, including a man she was dating. What is certain is that events quickly spiralled out of her control. The videos – shared on WhatsApp and pornography websites – went viral and within weeks had spread around the world. Words she uttered to an unidentified partner – “You’re making a video? Good.”– became the punchline of countless memes. Cantone, 31, was so widely ridiculed that two Italian footballers – Paolo Cannavaro and Antonio Floro Flores – released their own video set in a supermarket using the phrase as a joke. Cantone tried, but was ultimately unable to stop the tide that was rising against her. In September she hanged herself. Now, not far from where she took her own life, a prosecutor named Francesco Greco is on the hunt to find the parties he believes were responsible for “inciting” Cantone’s suicide. Through a liaison at the US embassy in Rome, he is asking the Department of Justice to intervene and force Apple to give him access to Cantone’s locked iPhone, which he said could give investigators “reasons that caused the suicide”. Unlike battles between the US authorities and Apple, he has emphasised that he is not looking for codes to unlock all phones, just that of Cantone. “It’s important to pursue the case because a serious fact happened and we have to understand the reasons for it – and there is a need for justice,” Greco said. Part of the problem for victims such as Cantone, he added, was how difficult it was to remove images and videos from the internet. “It’s not like you can do it with a magic wand,” he said. “Citizens need to be protected. When something needs to be removed, people are confronted with [technology company] behemoths, which have staffs of lawyers, with headquarters that aren’t even in Italy, so it’s all very expensive.” A judicial tribunal in Naples is examining how the video was disseminated. Greco conceded that the “incitement to suicide” was a difficult case to make, and that the lack of corrresponding laws in the US may hurt his chances of Apple cooperating with his investigation. But there have been other high-profile cases of online sexual bullying in the US that have been the subject of legal action. In 2010 Tyler Clementi, a student at Rutgers University in New Jersey, killed himself after his roommate, Dharun Ravi, and Ravi’s friend Molly Wei watched Clementi kissing another man through a webcam in Clementi’s dorm room and streamed the encounter live on Twitter. Ravi served 20 days in jail after being convicted on intimidation charges, but his conviction was reversed last month by an appeal court. He faces a new trial on charges of violating Clementi’s privacy. Wei was charged with invasion of privacy but struck a plea deal, agreeing to testify for the prosecution and perform community service. For Cantone, who was described as “fragile and depressed”, the nightmare began on the day a friend called to say he had seen some of her videos on a porn site. Days later, they appeared on two other porn sites, and then another. There was a Facebook page dedicated to her, as the “star” of the videos, and fake profile pages using still images from the videos. Cantone said in a legal complaint that she had initially shared the videos as part of a “game”. Her mother believed she was encouraged to make the videos by her boyfriend, according to La Stampa. Cantone did win an important legal victory shortly before her death – a court ordered the videos be removed from certain websites and search engines – but she was then ordered to pay €20,000 (£18,000) in legal costs. She killed herself a few days later. On the day of Cantone’s funeral, as her coffin was taken away, her mother cried: “She never betrayed anyone. She wasn’t a porn star, she wasn’t an escort. Give her back some dignity. • In Italy, the Samaritans can be contacted on 800 86 00 22. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Hotline is 1-800-273-8255. In the UK, the Samaritans can be contacted on 08457 90 90 90. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14. Hotlines in other countries can be found here.
Eight things not to say to someone facing online abuse The only thing nearly as demoralising and frustrating as being bombarded with online abuse is listening to the things people repeatedly tell you when they find out you’re experiencing online abuse. It’s the reason that when the recently published its research into the tone and content of 70m comments on its articles – and the methodology used – I couldn’t bring myself to read the responses “below the line”. Sometimes, it’s well-meaning – when people reassure you that there’s no real risk, for example, they’re trying to make you feel more secure. But at its worst, the way in which we respond to those experiencing online harassment risks normalising it, isolating them further or implicitly blaming them for the abuse. Here are some of the most common responses I’ve heard: 1. I hate it when people disagree with me, too Online abuse is not an intellectual squabble. In fact, it’s marked by a total failure to engage with your argument. It’s often characterised by personal attacks, sexual comments, racism, homophobia or transphobia and threats of physical violence or rape – none of which have anything to do with disagreement. 2. You know they’re only trying to scare you, right? Probably the most common reaction, but one that completely underestimates the psychological toll of trawling through strangers’ fantasies about what weapons they would use to disembowel you, and in what order. Online abuse can have a major psychological impact, whether or not you fear for your immediate physical safety. For many victims, online abuse does indeed spill offline, with their addresses or those of their family members shared widely. If you’re on the receiving end of hundreds of long, detailed, graphic threats, you can’t stop wondering whether just one person might follow through. And when you’ve received a detailed rape threat with an exact time and date in it, it’s very hard not to start looking at your watch as the hour draws near, no matter how rational you are. 3. What did you say to annoy them? People who respond like this imply that online abuse is at least partly the fault of the victim. They assume that it wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t said something inflammatory or provocative. But this plays right into the prejudices of abusers, by casting feminist or anti-racist opinions, for example, as something extreme and challenging. Furthermore, we know that very similar posts made by accounts presenting as male or female get a very different reaction, so it isn’t about what you say, it’s about the prejudices of those responding. 4. Have you thought about shutting down your Twitter account? Oh, gosh, no, that hadn’t occurred to me, thank you! Silencing is the end goal of the majority of abuse. If you suggest that someone who is experiencing it shuts down their social media accounts or stops speaking out, you’re suggesting their freedom should be curtailed because of someone else’s abusive behaviour. 5. Have you reported it to the police? The answer is yes, over and over again. In my experience, they are generally kind, supportive and take it seriously – although clearly this is not the case for everyone, as detailed in Lily Allen’s account of harassment, which started on social media. But it takes a long time and a lot of mental energy to go through the process of reporting a crime like this and unfortunately … 6. ‘What’s a Twitter handle?’ … was one of the first questions a police officer asked me when I was describing a recent spate of abuse and rape threats. Law enforcement has yet to catch up to the wild west of the internet and we need to see both police and social platforms doing more to protect users. 7. It’s just a sad middle-aged single man/a spotty teenage boy alone in his mum’s basement First off, this seems fairly offensive to the vast majority of teenage boys/single middle-aged men. Assigning any particular demographic to online abusers risks letting them off the hook, with implied societal reasons (and excuses) for their behaviour. What’s harder, but necessary, to confront is that many of those who abuse online are people within our communities and friendship groups, not just “weirdos” or outcasts. 8. Don’t feed the trolls Notice how many of these responses focus on policing victims’ behaviour? No matter how well-meaning it might be, telling someone how they should respond plays into the idea that they are somehow responsible for provoking, or capable of preventing, the abuse. If you want to engage with so-called Twitter trolls, go for it. As Mary Beard has proved, in some cases, it works very effectively. If you want to switch off, that’s OK, too. It is tempting to try to respond to online abuse by telling the victim not to worry, or explaining how you think they could solve it. But this can often inadvertently reinforce the very narrative that trolls seek to create. It’s better to respond with support, or to challenge online harassment. Above all, we should focus on stopping online abuse from happening in the first place.
Amazon delivering knives without age checks, investigation finds Amazon is selling age-restricted folding knives, similar to one used by the 16-year-old killer of schoolboy Bailey Gwynne, without checking they are safely delivered to adults, a investigation has found. Last week, a teenager who killed Gwynne in a school in Aberdeen was cleared of murder but convicted of culpable homicide. He had paid £40 on Amazon for a folding knife with an 8.5cm blade. It is illegal to sell a folding knife to a buyer aged under 18 if the blade is more than three inches (7.62cm) long. But the 16-year-old had been able to get around Amazon’s age-verification checks by pinning a note to his front door rather than accepting delivery in person. The posted a similar note on the door of a family home over the weekend and was also able to receive delivery of an age-restricted knife from Amazon without any checks. Backbench Conservative MP David Burrowes said the laws governing knife sales should be tightened up. Burrowes said: “We need a change in the law which introduces a ‘triple lock’ check when selling knives, so retailers can prove whether they have taken all reasonable precautions to prevent underage sales and to avoid committing an offence. The checks would be age verification on delivery; online age verification checks and follow-up offline checks.” The ordered two folding knives on Amazon, each with a blade of 9.5cm. The website made clear: “This bladed product is not for sale to people under the age of 18. A signature may be required on delivery.” Order-tracking details on the website said the knives would be delivered by Amazon Logistics – one to a family home, the other to offices – in a package marked “Age 18”. In fact, Amazon Logistics has no drivers and contracts out deliveries to many small- and medium-sized couriers across the country. A note attached to the front door of the family home asked the delivery driver to drop off the parcel without knocking. Post room staff at the , meanwhile, declined to sign for the knife. In both instances, the knife was nevertheless delivered. A note on the door of the residential house was similar to one that had been left for an Amazon courier by the 16-year-old who killed Gwynne in order to get around the online retailer’s age checks. The boy who carried out the stabbing explained to police how he had bought the knife online “because they don’t check if you’re 18 or not”. He said: “You just leave a note on the door saying there’s no one in and asking for the package to be left in the shed.” The teenager, who was said to be preoccupied with weapons, was also convicted last week of carrying knives and knuckledusters in school. His internet search history showed he had looked up “knife merchant”, “illegal knives UK” and “knuckleduster UK”. Gwynne died in hospital after being stabbed at his school in Aberdeen last October. He had been attacked during a row over a biscuit. His killer was also convicted last week of carrying knives and knuckledusters in a school. Amazon has refused to comment on the sale of the knife used to kill Gwynne. It is now looking into the circumstances around the ’s knife purchases, but again declined to comment. It believes sufficient age restriction checks were made on the knife delivered to the ’s post room. The Home Office said there were “strict laws on sales of knives to under 18s and on how knives can be marketed”. On Monday, the home secretary, Theresa May, met online and high street retailers, including Amazon, to discuss how better to enforce age restrictions on the sale of certain knives. In December, the was also able to buy on Amazon a 1m volt stun gun almost identical to a weapon that weeks earlier had featured in another murder trial. Nathan Matthews, who was eventually convicted of the murder of his step sister Becky Watts, last year told a jury in Bristol how he had bought two stun guns, disguised as torches, on the internet for £18 using his mobile phone. He told the court he had not known they were illegal, but Matthews explained he had intended to use them on Watts until she passed out as part of a kidnap attempt — an attempt that was botched, ending in her death. The stun gun bought by the also doubled as a torch. The Amazon seller — a company in Missouri, America — said in an email: “We are technically not supposed to sell these in the UK”. The weapon was sent anyway. It was promptly handed over to police. The has raised concerns that large numbers of illegal weapons are regularly being sold on Amazon and four months ago seven banned items were removed from the UK site. They including a pair of knuckledusters hidden inside gloves, a keychain that doubles as a martial arts weapon, a high-strength pepper spray pistol, and a blade concealed in the peak of a baseball cap. Pepper spray is marketed in some countries as a self-defence product but is illegal in the UK under the firearms act, and has been used in several violent attacks. Over the weekend, the alerted Amazon to nine further pepper spray products illegally sold on its UK website. In a statement, Amazon said it had removed these listings, adding: “All Marketplace sellers must follow our selling guidelines and those who don’t will be subject to action including potential removal of their account.” In December, the found that Amazon itself had been selling a pepper spray product on its UK site. The company has refused to comment on this or to apologise for such sales. In 2008, BBC2’s Watchdog investigated illegal pepper spray products sold by traders on Amazon.co.uk. The website’s then UK boss Brian McBride told the programme the sale of illegal weapons would not be tolerated, and that any offending items identified would be “removed within the hour”. Since then, pepper spray and other dangerous and illegal weapons have reappeared on Amazon. Most nationwide retailers, including eBay to Tesco, stay in regular contact with trading standards officials through a “primary authority”. This relationship is designed to make it easier to comply with trading standards laws and improve intelligence about regulatory issues. Amazon ended its relationship with a primary trading standards authority five years ago. • This article was amended on 15 March 2016. An earlier version said that in 2014, a 21-year-old bus passenger was attacked with pepper spray and beaten by a man on a journey in Birmingham. In fact a court was told that the man used lemon juice, not pepper spray.
Extremist militias recruiting in fear of Clinton winning election, activists say In the past 12 months, Jessica Campbell has had her car’s fuel line cut and its wheel nuts loosened. Late last year, she had a GPS tracker surreptitiously attached to her vehicle. She is now accustomed to being tailed by unfamiliar vehicles on Interstate 5 near her home in Cottage Grove, just outside Eugene, Oregon. Strangers have regularly come uninvited onto her property; someone even stripped the barbed wire on her fence “just to send a message”. Online, she has repeatedly been threatened with rape and death. And last week, when she showed up at the Canyon City community hall in Grant County, she told me that someone shot at her and her entourage. They misread their GPS, took a wrong turn and stopped to get their bearings when a crack rang out with what Campbell thought was a .22 bullet whizzing by their vehicle. Such threats are part of the pushback her work has sparked in rural Oregon. Campbell co-directs the Rural Organizing Project, a not-for-profit group that sets out to confront the rightwing insurgency that has been bubbling away in parts of rural Oregon and throughout the west. A political organizer since high school, she now coordinates groups attempting to respond to divisive tactics from rightwing activists on immigration, race and public land ownership. This extremist surge received national media attention during the occupation of the Malheur national wildlife refuge by the Bundy group, but it has continued to rise alongside Trump, with his legitimization of white nationalist politics and his apparent inspiration of insurrectionists across the country. The Patriot movement is an overarching description for a range of anti-government groups – from organised militia groups to tax protesters and so-called “sovereign citizens”. They have burgeoned during the Obama years and have carried out actions, such as the occupation of a wildlife refuge to border patrols in Arizona. This year, Patriot members have run for office in rural counties, and at least one militia leader, Joseph Rice, attended the Republican national convention to cast his vote for the Donald Trump. Some sheriffs, such as Glenn Palmer in Grant County, have clear sympathies and links with the movement. Elsewhere, according to Campbell, Patriot sympathizers are moving into communities in order to tip the electoral balance towards far-right candidates. She fears this trend will continue long after a Trump defeat. “I’m seeing a lot of paramilitary groups recruiting on the basis of a likely Hillary Clinton win,” she said. When Trump started talking about rigged elections and how a Clinton win would show that democracy was broken, “it was just amazing seeing how that resonated with people – a sense of democracy being broken, feeling like the candidates don’t represent them or anything they want to see happen in this country,” she added. Campbell would vastly prefer that Clinton wins but acknowledges that it may be like it was “after Obama won, where there was a huge growth in Patriot movement organizing. I’m worried that we are going to see the same thing.” The alleged bomb plot by militia members in Kansas, timed for the day after the election, shows the way in which those fears might be borne out. The Rural Organizing Project is not waiting idly for this tide to roll in. The group has just finished a statewide tour in which they presented a report on the growth of the Patriot movement, which they collaborated on with Political Research Associates, a thinktank that watches the far right. Instead of inviting people to view it online, Campbell and her colleagues went to eight rural towns and delivered the main points in a series of lectures. The tour finished late last week. Each event followed a pattern developed through long experience confronting those who would prefer that progressive voices aren’t heard. At each stop, after Campbell’s brief Powerpoint summary of Patriot movement organizing in Oregon, they invite written comments that are then read out. In Bend, one question asked about the impact of Patriot movement organizing on tourism; in Canyon City, people wanted to know about the economic roots of the far-right insurgency. Small-group discussions follow. The format is designed to de-escalate the tension that has increasingly riven small-town politics in Oregon, and to minimize opportunities for disruption. Campbell and her crew also travel with a highly visible security detail, partly made up of Portland members of the All African People’s Revolutionary Party. Earlier this year, attendees of a workshop were harassed in the carpark outside the event, and they decided that positive, protective steps were needed. The events are hosted by local progressive organising groups, and at the largest events, such as the one in Canyon City in Grant County, 50 to 60 people showed up – a large number in a county of about 7,000 residents. Although many who come represent the active, progressive minority in small towns, resistance to the militia movement has a way of binding people together who may disagree on a range of issues. Campbell says that the Grant County group features people from “across the political spectrum” who share a concern about who is directing county politics. These numbers underscore something Campbell stresses: while media reports often suggest that patriots and the far right are representative of community opinion, they are frequently no more than a vocal minority. ROP’s presence encourages those who disagree to the far right’s prescriptions to rise above the intimidation they use to silence their opponents. There were clear signs that their strategy – which for now Campbell calls “an experiment” – is working to empower locals, and even open up a dialogue with those who have been drawn into the orbit of the far right. In Canyon City last January, Judy Schuette heard about the plans of militia members to meet in Grant County and perhaps spread the occupation there. Schuette called for a response and a public meeting on Facebook. On the floorboards of the community hall, she recalls: “I didn’t know how many people would show up, and we wound up with about 70 people.” After being formally organised in February, the group carried out several actions. They visited Harney County to show support for a protest there, and attended meetings of the county court, the local governing council, to protest increasing militia and Patriot disruption of the body. But ROP’s tour doesn’t just let them put on another big public gathering. Activists also get de-escalation training from the security detail and much-needed information about how to fight and win a long-term campaign against the rightwing insurgency in their community. For Campbell, local organisers like Schuette are the prime movers for making change in rural Oregon. “They’re incredibly dedicated and brilliant. They’re mostly women who care about their community. In Grant County and other counties where people are feeling that their lives could be on the line if they don’t act now, that’s where people are doing the best work.” But Campbell is clear-eyed about the roots of the problem, and her diagnosis cuts through a lot of the armchair debate about where the resentment that underpins rightwing insurgency comes from. “In rural areas the conditions have been ripe for a white nationalist populist movement. Especially in Oregon where we’re facing demographic shifts in a lot of places, and the economy’s hurting so badly, and we’ve had decades of scapegoating of people of colour as the reason why our economies are so bad.” In some Oregon counties, as in other rural areas, libraries are shutting, and sheriff’s departments can’t provide 911 dispatch after dark. Dwindling services lead to a sense of abandonment. The right can easily step in and provide both a clear political narrative to explain this, and a set of simple-seeming solutions. “The Patriot movement is attracting people who feel disenfranchised. It’s real out here, where people feel like they have not been listened to at the state level, and particularly by Democrats,” Campbell says. The same dynamic has been driving the election. “The appeal of both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders was that they didn’t feel like establishment figureheads. It didn’t feel like they were going to uphold the status quo.” Democrats, who hold a rare trifecta of both state houses and the governorship, see no point in outreach to deep red counties in the east and south of the state. “It’s been pretty clear that rural Oregon has been written off. We’re often the only game in town.” The focus of the tour might be the militia movement, but the real goal is addressing this sense of lost political agency. “Our goal isn’t to take down the Patriot movement. It’s to build a rural Oregon where people have some access to democracy and are able to create change and have an impact on their communities.” Helping these communities to demand the resources they need to shut down rightwing insurgencies means having a conversation with them, and not simply dismissing or scapegoating them. It also requires bravery: if you confront the far right on their own turf, you might be threatened, followed or shot at. We haven’t all been given as big a share of courage as Campbell, the rest of the ROP, and local organizers have. But we can at least listen to what they have to say about the origins of America’s rightwing surge.
Donald Henderson obituary On 15 August 1975, the Indian government hosted a lavish party. It had good reason to celebrate: not only was it marking 28 years of independence from British rule, but the prime minister, Indira Gandhi, had declared the date “Independence from Smallpox Day”. For decades, India was considered the endemic home of the disease, accounting for some 60% of globally reported cases. Yet in the space of just one year, infections had fallen from 188,000 to zero, thanks to a combination of disease surveillance, vaccination and publicity. Yet as Donald Henderson, head of the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) global smallpox eradication programme, who has died aged 87, left the celebrations in order to catch a flight to Bangladesh, he received word that the borders were closed. The Bangladeshi military had staged a coup; the president and his family were dead. It was a pivotal moment in the global effort to eradicate smallpox, a disease that had until recently killed some 2 million people each year. To get this far, Henderson and his team had overcome political resistance, ineffective vaccine stocks, floods, famine and civil war. They had stopped cars in the streets of the former Yugoslavia to vaccinate people, and gone house to house in remote regions of India to nip outbreaks in the bud. Now, eight years into the campaign, Bangladesh was the final refuge for Variola major, the most infectious form of the virus, and the country was threatening to fall apart. Fearing that a tide of refugees might trigger fresh outbreaks, or even reimport the disease to India, Henderson deployed large numbers of health workers to the border to step up surveillance, and vaccinate as required. Fortunately, the predicted influx never arrived. A few weeks later, the borders reopened and WHO’s teams went back to work. In November 1975, Bangladesh reported its final case of smallpox and, two years later, the world’s last case was identified in Ali Maow Maalin – a Somali cook from the port city of Merca. The world was finally declared smallpox-free in 1979. Despite our best efforts, smallpox remains the only human disease to have been completely eradicated from the planet. “If the Nobel prize in medicine was not so focused on basic science, Henderson and the smallpox team would surely have shared it,” said Chris Beyrer, Desmond Tutu professor of public health and human rights at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore. “The eradication of that ancient, disfiguring and often fatal viral scourge is surely one of the single greatest triumphs of public health in human history.” Known as “DA” to many, Donald Ainslie Henderson was born in Lakewood, Ohio, the son of David, an engineer, and Eleanor (nee McMillan), a nurse. He graduated from Oberlin College in Ohio in 1950, which is where he met his future wife, Nana Bragg, whom he married the following year. After obtaining a medical degree from the University of Rochester in 1954, Henderson started a residency at a hospital in Cooperstown, New York, but was then required to do two years of military service. Fearing that as a newly qualified physician he would spend his time conducting relatively mundane assessments of new recruits, he instead opted to join the US Epidemic Intelligence Service – a boots-on-the-ground disease detective unit at the then Center for Communicable Diseases (CDC), responsible for identifying the source of outbreaks and clearing them up. In 1961, Henderson became chief of the surveillance section at the CDC, and established a smallpox surveillance unit in 1962. It was the beginning of a relationship with smallpox that would come to dominate his life. In 1966, the World Health Assembly narrowly voted in favour of undertaking a global eradication campaign for smallpox. When Henderson was approached about leading it, he was initially reluctant: he had only recently been given the green light for a smallpox eradication and measles control programme in west and central Africa which he would lead, and the $2.7m allocated for global eradication was not even enough to buy the required vaccine. The prospects of success seemed doubtful, and many – including the director general of the World Health Assembly – expected it to fail. Nevertheless, Henderson accepted the challenge, and moved his family to Geneva to work at WHO headquarters. Having already worked on plans to eradicate smallpox from parts of Africa, Henderson believed that trying to vaccinate everyone against the disease was futile; there wasn’t enough funding nor, as he soon discovered, enough effective vaccine – quality control tests revealed that just 10% of available vaccine actually protected against smallpox. Instead Henderson focused on surveillance and containment. Understanding that smallpox spreads like wildfire, he asked every health centre and hospital to produce a weekly report; as soon as a case of smallpox was identified, a team was dispatched to identify and vaccinate everyone that that person had been in contact with, and their contacts. He also insisted that everyone regularly rotated through the field, regardless of their seniority. “No one was allowed to dictate policy from Geneva or Washington who was not out regularly in the field and engaged in the actual work of the effort,” Beyrer recalled. Henderson himself regularly visited smallpox-affected countries and filed detailed progress reports, although he primarily viewed his role as a catalyst: it was the countries themselves that defeated smallpox. Even then, as Henderson often pointed out, they barely succeeded – and he was sceptical about the potential for ridding the world of other diseases. Three months after the world was declared smallpox-free, Henderson was asked to address a meeting convened to decide which disease should be eradicated next. He said he didn’t think there was any candidate disease. Smallpox was unique in that it was always transmitted person-to-person; you could easily identify who had the disease and who had been successfully vaccinated against it; and there was an effective, heat-stable vaccine that worked even after someone had been exposed to the disease. With smallpox all but gone, Henderson accepted a position as dean of Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health (now Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health) in 1977, although his relationship with the virus continued; he later worked to contain stocks of smallpox in laboratories worldwide, and served as director of the US Office of Public Health Emergency Preparedness in the wake of the September 11 attacks, which involved guarding against the possibility of smallpox being used as a biological weapon. However, he considered his greatest achievement to be establishing the base and impetus for the WHO’s expanded programme on immunisation, the goal of which is to provide universal access to all relevant vaccines for all at risk. “I believe that the important, longer-term contribution of smallpox eradication ... was its demonstration of how much could be accomplished with how little in the control of infectious diseases through community-wide vaccination programmes,” he wrote in his autobiography, Smallpox – the Death of a Disease (2009). Henderson is survived by Nana, their daughter, Leigh, and two sons, David and Douglas. • Donald Ainslie Henderson, epidemiologist, born 7 September 1928; died 19 August 2016
Loyalists and rivals tipped for powerful roles in Trump's cabinet Donald Trump put little emphasis on a transition effort during his idiosyncratic campaign for the White House, as even campaign insiders expected him to lose. Nonetheless, his win now presents an opportunity for a cadre of loyalists, many of whom backed him when few others would, to become some of the highest-ranking officials in the US government. Trump is still an ideological blank slate in many ways, having shifted positions on virtually every issue. Personnel could effectively become policy. Cabinet secretaries and executive officials are likely to have a surprising amount of latitude in an administration led by a president who has shown very little interest in policy nuances. Reports widely tip Reince Priebus, the Republican National Committee chair who has stood behind Trump since he gained the nomination, as favourite to be White House chief of staff. In Trump’s victory speech on Wednesday, he mentioned three former rivals: the New Jersey governor, Chris Christie, the former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee and the neurosurgeon Ben Carson. All could get major roles. Christie even appeared on stage with Trump, where he was notably the person closest to the president-elect outside his family. Although Christie has been tainted by his proximity to the Bridgegate scandal, his appearance was a clear signal that Trump would not be deterred by the investigation that has led to the convictions of four top aides, for shutting down lanes on the George Washington Bridge for political reasons. The vice-president-elect, Mike Pence, is likely to have a major portfolio. It was reported over the summer that Donald Trump Jr had reached out to the governor of Ohio, John Kasich, and offered to make him the most powerful vice-president in history. Now that role may fall to Pence, an ardent social conservative who served as governor of Indiana. Another figure who is likely to take a major role in a Trump administration is the former House speaker Newt Gingrich. A long-time advocate for Trump and, along with Christie, one of the final candidates to be running mate, Gingrich has been widely reported to be a contender to become secretary of state. Trump is also likely to look to the business world. Steven Mnuchin, a former Goldman Sachs banker who oversaw Trump’s finance efforts, is well positioned to be treasury secretary. Other potential cabinet figures from the business world include fracking mogul Harold Hamm. The president-elect has floated the idea of giving 2008 VP nominee Sarah Palin a cabinet position. The Alaskan could become secretary of the interior or secretary of energy. Her own transition from politics to reality television prefigured Trump taking the opposite path. Now she may follow him back to the fray.
One dying patient taught me that doing nothing can be brave “There is something actually, doctor.” I turned around in relief. Anxiously twirling my pen, the piece of armoury I still felt most comfortable with as a junior doctor, I hurried back to her bedside, drug chart poised. Annette was an 82-year-old lady with lung cancer. It was my first month at the hospice. We’d been trying everything to ease her breathlessness. From medications to mindfulness, chest physiotherapy to visits from the chaplain ... nothing helped. And now a lump formed in my throat every morning, as I tentatively roused the frail outline curled into a ball, each day bearing a starker resemblance to a child. Her words were interspersed with a soft, gasping rattle, as I’d ask the same question: “What can I do for you Annette?” I don’t remember learning much about end-of-life care at medical school. Or perhaps I didn’t pay much attention. After all, I went into this job to keep my patients alive. Thinking about death wasn’t a subject that resonated with the newly qualified me, raring to go into action, scenes of bloody heroics reflected in my eyes as I was unleashed onto the wards. I spent six years being trained how to deploy our ever-expanding arsenal of technology. My satisfaction, and my identity as a doctor, came from a feeling of competence. Just as a sculptor feeds his passion by constructing new statues or a carpenter by chipping away at fragile antiques to restore them to their beauty, so I fed my sense of worth by fixing what was in my control. I had just about grasped the choreography of medicine: people agree to become our patients and we agree to try and fix them until the very end, as all manner of machinery trill and beep around their frail figures. But Annette was not being fixed. And I was running out of tools. “Do you know what I’d really like, doc? Some KFC.” As I sat with her later, watching her surprisingly nimble arthritic fingers tear apart a bucket of chicken wings, I couldn’t shake the feeling that we’d surrendered. I knew our battle with death can never be won, but I had a niggling unease that we were retreating prematurely. It soon became a ritual. Every few days I sat with her as she licked her fingertips and painted stories of her childhood. She soon confessed her biggest fear – dying alone at home. She didn’t want us rummaging in our armoury for something else to deflect the grip of death, as it inched closer. So we listened, and we stopped. A week later, Annette passed away, surrounded by her family. I had never before thought of what a good death should look like. But as I stroked her hair with prickling eyes, I knew that I had just witnessed one. I began to change my view of end-of-life conversations. I soon saw an irony in them: when it came down to it, done well, they were not about the end at all. They were more about life than any other conversations I had ever had with my patients. This job has made me contemplate the questions Atul Gawande, a surgeon, writer, and public health researcher, so eloquently asks. Have we built our system around the few patients that exceed survival expectations, at the expense of preparing the rest for a more likely outcome? Through our struggle to curb our medical urges, are we failing to hear what really matters to them at a time when their choices should be most respected? Is there a tendency to preserve every fibre of life, to glorify longevity, over what actually makes our lives worth living? Our lives are stories, and we want to be the authors. And in stories, the endings count. I’ve learnt that, as doctors, we need to be better at shaping those narratives, at helping patients with their endings. After six years of medical school, death is a certainty that I must admit I shrank away from. But a picture of Annette and her bucket of KFC is now etched in my memory. I thank her for the lesson she taught me: that sometimes, doing nothing is the bravest decision of all. If you would like to contribute to our Blood, sweat and tears series which is about memorable moments in a healthcare career, please read our guidelines and get in touch by emailing sarah.johnson@theguardian.com. Join the Healthcare Professionals Network to read more pieces like this. And follow us on Twitter (@GdnHealthcare) to keep up with the latest healthcare news and views.
Sideways author: 'I was ready to shoot myself – then I found pinot noir' In 1998, my life was in the proverbial Dixie dumpster. I was living in Santa Monica in a rent-controlled house. I was dead broke. My indie feature film career had been poleaxed. My wife, who produced and acted in those films, and I had parted company. My mother had suffered a massive stroke. A larcenous younger brother had swooped down to steal what was left of my meagre trust fund. I had a novel that had been doing the rounds of the New York publishing world, to no avail. Messengers started pounding on my door at 6am to serve me lawsuits on old debts. In short, if I could have afforded a gun I would have shot myself. Instead, I thought, this is a good time to alchemise my destitute and despairing life into, uh, er, ahem … well, writers are like thieves: we’re always working. Long story, but I had fallen in love with wine, particularly one variety: pinot noir. Why that over cabernet or syrah or viognier or riesling? To me, it seemed an ethereal grape. When sourced from great vineyards, when vinified with care, it spoke to me like Lorelei of the Lakes. In my lowly state, I had not fallen in love with a woman who was going to be the answer to all my problems. I had fallen in love with a grape – a grape that drove me to lyrical heights. I started attending tastings. It was my only social outlet. I met wine geeks for whom the drink was almost a religion. I related to their passion. The Saturday afternoon tastings at Epicurus in Santa Monica are now legendary. A Brit named Julian Davies worked the floor peddling wine. Julian opened bottles I could never have afforded and taught me much of what I know about wine. Through him, I began to understand that the knowledge surrounding wine was a bottomless ocean that could never be mastered. This wasn’t just an alcoholic beverage anodyne to a miserable life. This was a world of mystery, inhabited by artisans who were in it for the love of the final product: a wine, when made right, could make you levitate, transport you to another world, hoist you to heights of, well, poetry. It set my imagination spinning. Back then, the Santa Ynez Valley was a little known wine region north of Santa Barbara. Maybe 50 wineries – now more than 250. Very little pinot noir had been planted in the 90s when I started sojourning up there, first to play golf, then to get familiar with the wines. I loathed Los Angeles and the cruel film industry that had brought me so much misery. So I would throw my golf clubs in the car and take off. Soon, instead of golfing, I went wine tasting. I hung out at the Hitching Post restaurant and befriended local winemakers. My fascination deepened. I discovered small, ramshackle tasting rooms in this sylvan paradise a mere two hours from the horrors of LA, and I thought: “This is heaven.” On one trip, I brought along my friend Roy Gittens, an electrician on my failed second film. We went wine tasting. I made him laugh. Tasting room after tasting room. More wine. And some golf. And ostrich and pinot at the Hitching Post. At some point during that trip, he suggested I write a screenplay about guys who go wine-tasting. Galvanised, I wrote a screenplay called Two Guys on Wine. I didn’t like it. There was something about it that didn’t work. The rejection letters on my novel continued to pour in. Meanwhile, my publishing agent had come out from New York to Los Angeles to be a book-to-film agent. I had started to write a short story about the Saturday tastings and the wild times with Julian and the group. It was written in the first person, from the standpoint of one Miles Raymond, and related an afternoon where things, well, degenerate into a brawl. When I got to the end of the story, I stood up and exclaimed out loud to the wall: “Wow, Two Guys on Wine will be a novel, not a screenplay. It will be a wine-soaked journey where everything that could go wrong will go wrong.” All their midlife crises – Miles’s inability to sell his novel, his friend’s upcoming nuptials – will be the spine upon which my characters will hold the reins, as if trying to stay on a bucking bronco. Although my book would be filled with depression, despair and sadness (because that’s where my life was), I knew no one would want to read it – unless I made it funny! The greatest wines are those with the perfect balance of acidity and fruit, and my novel would combine those elements. Galvanised, I wrote Two Guys on Wine in nine weeks in an absolute conflagration of creative oblivion. I forgot who I was. I poured in everything: my divorce, my destitution, my failed writing career, my loneliness, my friendship with Roy, and … my newfound love for wine, especially the singularly mysterious pinot noir. When I was done, I felt depressed. I had lived the journey in my imagination, and that was such a wonderful feeling. I had, through the power of words, found a way to make myself laugh, cry and see things about myself that I didn’t know. My agent went nuts for it. My ex-wife, owner of an Academy Award for a short film I wrote, hated it and told me in no uncertain terms: “Burn it. It will end your career.” “But Barbara,” I said, “I have no career.” When Alexander Payne’s film of my book came out in 2004, Merlot went from 20% of the red wine market in the US to a grim 7% because of one line uttered by Miles, played by Paul Giamatti, and pinot noir shot up from 1% to almost 8%. Wine appreciation and tasting became hip. The Santa Ynez Valley, where the film was shot, witnessed a flood of tourism that has not abated. I saw little of the spoils, but I didn’t care. What mattered to me was the validation, the more than 350 awards we won – including the Academy Award for best adapted screenplay. It was a heady time. Several years later, I was approached about doing a theatrical adaptation for a small venue in Santa Monica. I didn’t want to. I thought it would look like I was capitalising on a popular and fondly remembered film that, alas, could only now be enjoyed on DVD. Then I thought: after all the spotlight-hogging and credit-grabbing that had pushed me – and the novel I had suffered to write – to the periphery in a way that only Hollywood can, this could be a way to reclaim my intellectual property. Everywhere I went, I met people who didn’t know me, but if I mentioned Sideways, their eyes lit up. Something about it touched a nerve. I thought, why not? If it fails, well, I’m no stranger to failure! The play was staged at the 50-seat Ruskin Group theatre, in Santa Monica. It was directed by Amelia Mulkey, who had only staged one play. We gave three performances a week, and it ran for a record-shattering six months. I was at the theatre three nights a week for the entire run. I got more love there than in my entire childhood. I got to pour – for free! – high-end pinot noir from all over the world, liberally and profligately, in proper pinot noir stemware! Soon, wine regions around the globe were clamouring for the play. Broadway was calling with its siren charms and dangerously high standards. But I wanted London. I had heard that its off West End scene was one of the most vibrant in the world. My play celebrated language, with Miles’s surreal soliloquies, and the comedy felt rowdily British. As I write this, I have now been in London for less than a week. We have begun rehearsals. One day – with no money and hitting 40 as if it was a wall and I was steering a rickety old car without brakes – I sat down and wrote a novel, a two-decade-long saga of heartbreak, failure and triumph. I helped transform the wine industry and inspired millions of people to seek out what Miles discovered in his beloved pinot noir. I wanted to celebrate that feeling everyone who has fallen in love with wine knows so intimately. And I have a sneaking feeling the journey has only just begun. • Sideways is at St James theatre, London, 26 May-9 July. Box office: 0844-264 2140.
Market turmoil: what are CoCos? Worries about Deutsche Bank’s financial position sent its shares tumbling earlier this week and put the spotlight on so-called CoCo bonds, a financial instrument which has only existed for around three years. What is a CoCo bond? Contingent convertible bonds were introduced after the 2008 financial crisis, to give banks an extra layer of protection if they face renewed strains on their balance sheet. Financial regulators also wanted to prevent a repeat of what happened during the crisis, when taxpayers pumped billions into struggling banks while bondholders mostly saw their investments repaid. How do they work? The bonds allow banks to skip interest payments without defaulting, and can be converted to shares or written down if a bank runs into financial difficulties. Investors in CoCo bonds would therefore bear the losses, but in return for taking the risk, the interest rate payments are higher at up to 7% compared with normal senior bank debt which pays around 1%. CoCos are among the riskiest bank debt, with Fitch giving only a quarter of eurozone CoCos an investment grade rating. How big is the market for CoCos? The market is only around three years old but is now an important source of financing for banks, and is estimated to be worth around €95bn (£73bn) globally. The BBA, the UK banking trade body, says an estimated €40bn of CoCos were issued by European banks in 2015, while Bank of England data shows that the main UK banks issued around £4.5bn during the second and third quarters of last year. Why are investors worried now? The CoCo market is relatively new and untested. The current market volatility has raised concerns that banks may struggle to pay the interest on the bonds, may not buy them back as soon as investors expected or – in extremis – the bonds could become worthless. There are strict regulations governing the bonds, including the trigger points at which they convert to equity or are written down, which are linked to the bank’s overall capital position. For example, to make interest payments on CoCos, banks have to calculate their available distributable items. Deutsche Bank is seen as having less leeway than other large banks, which has helped prompt the current volatility. It insisted on Tuesday its payment due in April was safe, but investors are concerned it may struggle with its 2017 liabilities. This has led to a slump in the value of its €1.7bnof CoCos, which fell to a record low of 70¢ on Tuesday compared with 93¢ at the start of the year. It is not alone: bonds issued by the likes of Royal Bank of Scotland, Barclays, Santander and Unicredit have also fallen. Are there wider implications? Bank shares have been plunging in recent days on fears that negative interest rates will hurt their balance sheets at a time when they are being encouraged to continue lending to businesses to help support economic growth. At the same time there are concerns about their exposure to struggling sectors of the economy such as oil and gas companies. So the prospect of a default on CoCo bonds adds to the current uncertainty over the banking sector, and as well as making further issuance of such bonds a problem, could also undermine other credit markets.
Manchester City 4-0 Aston Villa: Premier League – as it happened Easy as you like for City. The gulf in quality was massive, and the only real surprise was that Sergio Agüero missed the penalty for his hat-trick. Thanks for reading. Bye. That’s the whistle. 90 min +2: Hutton crosses, but it’s deflected off Clichy and Hart gathers with ease. 90 min +1: Ayew forced a great save from Hart in the first half, but Villa have hardly had a shot in the second. 90 min: Sterling fouls Gana. We’ll have three additional minutes. Honestly, what’s the point? 88 min: Fernandinho trips Richards, and the ref tries to play the advantage, but it’s called back for the foul. This game’s been played in a decent spirit, actually. Nothing too snide. Maybe that Veretout foul on Aguero. 87 min: Great ball in from Clichy into a dangerous area, but neither Iheanacho nor Agüero attacked it with sufficient relish. Goal kick. 86 min: We’re playing time. If Lee Mason had any humanity he’d blow the whistle now. 85 min: Gestede with an effort for Villa! But it’s blocked. Solid defending from Otamendi. 82 min: Raheem Sterling’s got so much junk in his trunk, hasn’t he? Add him to the list of ample-arsed professional footballers, along with Mark Hughes, Kevin Davies, Kenny Dalglish, Eden Hazard, Hulk, and Gary Taylor-Fletcher. 81 min: Lee Mason inexplicably fails to give a free kick on the box for a clear bodycheck on Agüero as he raced on to Iheanacho’s pass. Mild disbelief from the striker. Then Sagna strikes one from range, but it’s over the bar. And wide. And terrible. 79 min: Good defending from Hutton to ease Sterling off it. Final change for Man City, and Touré is replaced by Garcia Alonso. Last one for Villa, too: Scott Sinclair on for Jordan Ayew. 76 min: It’s hard not to feel sympathy for Villa. What are they supposed to do? Just send the same team out and keep losing? Should Remi Garde quit? 74 min: It was a clear trip on Iheanacho by Clark, and Agüero stepped forward to complete his hat-trick. He went to Guzan’s left, and tried to place it, but the accuracy was just off, and it came back off the woodwork. I can’t quite believe he missed, to be honest. 73 min: It’s all happening. Leandro Bacuna is on for Jordan Veretout. Off the post! … and Iheanacho is tripped by Clark! 71 min: Man City have had 19 shots. Villa have had just the one. And here comes Sterling, who feeds Iheanacho … 70 min: A couple of changes: Iheanacho is on for David Silva, who has excelled, while Rudy Gestede is on for Gabby Agbonlahor, who hasn’t. 69 min: More than 20 minutes still to play, and City could score six or seven if they want to. Poor old Villa. So easy. Navas went at Cissokho, crossed low, four Villa players missed it, and Sterling tapped in at the back post. That’s four, and Villa are in disarray. 65 min: Sterling is playing through the centre with Agüero. Villa can’t get out of their own half. 63 min: City can’t make the corner count. For Villa, it’s important that they don’t capitulate. City look like they fancy this. 62 min: City change: Raheem Sterling on for Wilfried Bony. And Sterling is into the action almost immediately, forcing Guzan to tip over the bar. 61 min: Simply outstanding from City. Agüero picked up 30 yards from goal, drew defenders towards him before laying it off to David Silva, and Silva’s first-time pass was inch-perfect, right into the path of Agüero, who continued his run and smashed a bouncing ball past Guzan. Lovely goal, but Villa look done in. That’s a brilliant goal! 59 min: Agüero absolutely hammers one from the edge of the box, but Lescott is in the way to block. Lescott has been dogged today. 58 min: Ah, that was a chance for Villa. Agbonlahor was in the box with no support, but completely burned Otamendi for pace and stood one up for Hutton at the back post – but it was overhit, and the opportunity was lost. 57 min: Agüero looks in the mood for more goals, although doesn’t he always? Ayew was a little unlucky there: he went past Kompany but got an unfortunate ricochet that allowed Otamendi to step in. Otherwise he was clear. 55 min: Good forward run from Veretout, and Hutton from the right side looks for Ayew in the box … but Hart comes out to catch well. 53 min: The visitors look downbeat. This does now resemble a training match. Agüero ran in behind, and Touré, I think it was, played it through: Richards didn’t really know where Agüero was, tried to clear, but managed only to smash it against Agüero as Guzan came racing out. The ball just trickled over the line. A bad defensive error, and it’s another long afternoon for Villa. A mix-up between Guzan and Richards, and that’s two. It had been coming. Agüero got free on the right hand side, left Cissokho on the floor, cut it back for Silva, who set up Touré, and his sidefooted effort took a deflection to beat Guzan. A deserved lead. And this time he does connect! 47 min: And already we’re into the same pattern as the first half: City monopolising possession while Villa cling on. Navas goes down the right and wins a corner, and Touré was inches away from connecting! 46 min: No changes as yet, but expect to see Kelechi Iheanacho at some point. Manchester City have had all of the ball, but Villa have clung on determinedly. Not a huge number of clear chances, but Guzan saved well from Agüero and Bony fluffed one after being well found by Clichy. Villa haven’t really been out of their own half, but Hart did save very well from Ayew in Villa’s only chance. See you in 10. 45 min +1: Agüero runs in behind, but his left-foot shot is over the bar. That’ll be time. 45 min: That must be a yellow card for Veretout, and it is: he stood on Agüero’s ankle. That was nasty. Last chance for City to get one in the box. Kompany was round the back and headed it across, but Villa hammer it clear. 44 min: Agbonlahor goes down claiming he was caught by Fernandinho. He was, but it looked like an accidental arm across the face. He’ll be OK. 43 min: Skilful wing play from Jesus Navas, attacking Cissokho with much verve, but Lescott clears the cross. Then Bony, whose influence on this game has been negative, fouls Alan Hutton, and it’s a Villa free kick. 42 min: Clichy, who’s practically been playing as a left winger, sends one in with his right foot but Bony is eased off it by a combination of Villa defenders. 41 min: Not that I want to labour the point or anything, but Villa are so deep here, as if it were the 2008 Uefa Cup final and they were Walter Smith’s Rangers. 39 min: Sagna is fouled, right hand side, and Touré plays it in, but Bony’s header is straight at Guzan. There wasn’t much pace on the cross, so it was difficult for Bony to get anything on it. 37 min: It’s all just a bit tepid. City have totally dominated, but you just get the sense that the intensity isn’t quite there. 35 min: Loose play from Hutton, and City counter: Agüero feeds Fernandinho, but looks for Bony instead of returning the favor, and Villa funnel back to mop up. 33 min: Corner to City, and Bony heads well wide! He was totally free, about 15 yards out, but the direction was all wrong. A decent opportunity. City have made 238 total passes, by the way. Villa have made 74. 31 min: Ooh, Agüero was nearly in: Clichy put the ball in, Otamendi, playing up front for a moment as though he were, I don’t know, Paul Warhurst or someone, attacked it with gusto, and Agüero was inches away from connecting. 29 min: Better from Villa; they’ve just calmed the game down a little. A spell of possession, and City’s immediate threat has lessened. 27 min: Villa have done OK so far, but it’s going to be a long slog to hold out for 90 minutes. Kompany looks for Sagna but get it wrong, and it’s out for a throw. 25 min: That’s a fabulous save from Joe Hart. Clark went forward and fell over, but the ball broke kindly to Ayew, who forced a really smart stop from the keeper, diving to his left. Corner to Villa, but it’s easily cleared. 23 min: Nice link-up from Agüero and Bony, and Agüero flashes one just wide! He hit it well, but just the wrong side of the post. Surely it’s only a matter of time before Man City score. 22 min: Just to give an indication, the pitch at the Etihad is divided into 18 cut strips, nine per half. Villa’s two strikers have spent most of the game inside their own seven sections. City have all had all the possession and all the territory: they’re well on top. 21 min: Agbonlahor gives it away with a gormless pass, and Toure tries one from distance … but it’s well over the bar. 20 min: Taken short to Fernandinho, and it’s a waste. 19 min: David Silva is floored by Micah Richards 30 yards from goal, and it’s a clear free kick. Chance from the set piece. 17 min: Another good clearing header from a Man City corner, but Villa can’t hold it up. It keeps coming back. Shot from Aguero! But it’s well saved by Guzan: he got firm hands to push it well clear, although it was at a saveable height. 16 min: It’s attack versus defence at the moment. Lescott concedes another corner. 14 min: Oh, Bony should score! A wonderful pick-out from Clichy on the left, and Bony got between two defenders, but he couldn’t get the contact on his finish, and it squirted wide! He should have buried that. 13 min: But Villa clear the corner, and then Hutton makes a rare incursion into City territory. Ayew’s ball in looks for Agbonlahor, but Hart catches well. A slight signal of attacking intent from Villa, at least. 12 min: Navas gets away from the full-back and crosses dangerously, but Lescott cuts it out at the expense of a corner. City slowly cranking it up here. 11 min: Guzan hasn’t excelled this season, but that was a great save. Aguero did so well to step inside the full-back and bend one towards goal with his left foot, but Guzan stood up well to palm it over. 10 min: Great tackle from Lescott on Aguero. The Argentinian striker was away into the box, and looked to pull the trigger, but Lescott timed his tackle perfectly. No margin for error. Villa repel the initial corner, but then Aguero is in again, and he steps inside Cissokho, but Guzan tips it over the bar! Super save. Corner, but it comes to naught. 8 min: Lee Mason has been extremely lenient so far: that should have been a yellow for Richards, who scythed Aguero from behind, and was let off with a warning. 7 min: Ayew and Agnoblahor, Villa’s nominal front two, are the wrong side of the centre circle. Villa are deeper than the house music at a Chicago nightclub. Sagna wins a corner off Cissokho, but the visitors hammer it clear. 5 min: City have begun reasonably positively, but Aston Villa are so deep in defence. Not much room to work in so far. 3 min: Then Kompany barges Ayew to the floor after Bony coughed it up, and that was crude: that could easily have been a yellow. Villa were away. I know everyone goes on about how essential Kompany is to City, but here’s an alternative view: what a great big lummox. 2 min: Jesus Navas with a first chance to run at the Villa defence, and Veretout aims a scarcely disguised kick at the Spaniard, but isn’t called for a foul. Lee Mason says no. 1 min: City get us under way. They’re in traditional sky blue shirts and white shorts; Villa in their moderately disgusting custard-yellow away strip. We’re almost ready. Teams just exchanging pleasantries. A Villa legend shows his support: For all their failures this season, City have actually got a pretty decent home record against the poorer sides: 6-1 against Newcastle, 5-1 against Bournemouth, 4-1 against Sunderland, 4-0 over Palace. They should steamroller Villa: City’s problem this season has been against the better sides. It’s finished at the Lane. Two apiece, which means Man City can close the gap on Tottenham and Arsenal with victory today – and Leicester can stretch their lead to five points with a win at Watford. It’s all going off! Four minutes of stoppage time in north London. Time for a winner? Can Man City win the league? They’re 10 points behind Leicester, albeit with a game in hand, and their run-in in so-so: home games against Man United and Arsenal, and an away trip to Chelsea seem to be the most difficult of the lot. We can assume that Leicester, Spurs and Arsenal will drop points, but 10 is a lot to make up, isn’t it? However, they can feel a little better about things with a convincing 5-1 home victory against the league’s worst team. This game at White Hart Lane is compelling. And there’s been another goal! Follow it with the excellent Rob Smyth: So City look like they’re lining up 4-4-2: Wilfried Bony comes in for Raheem Sterling, and will play up front with Kun Agüero. Jesus Navas starts on the right hand side, and Bacary Sagna replaces Pablo Zabaleta at right-back. Gael Clichy keeps his place at left-back; there was some suggestion Kolarov would come back in. It looks like just the one change for Villa: Veretout comes back in to the midfield, and Leandro Bacuna drops to the bench. Expect Villa to play with five in defence. Man City: Hart, Sagna, Kompany, Otamendi, Clichy, Jesus Navas, Fernandinho, Toure, Silva, Bony, Aguero. Subs: Zabaleta, Sterling, Kolarov, Caballero, Mangala, Iheanacho, Manu Garcia. Aston Villa: Guzan, Richards, Lescott, Clark, Hutton, Gana, Westwood, Veretout, Cissokho, Agbonlahor, Ayew. Subs: Okore, Bacuna, Sinclair, Gil, Bunn, Lyden, Gestede. Referee: Lee Mason (Lancashire) Man City have really messed this one up, haven’t they? Back in September, City looked for all the world like champions-elect. Five games, five wins, five clean sheets, and the addition of Kevin de Bruyne, Nicolas Otamendi and Raheem Sterling to an already stellar squad seemed to have sealed the deal. And then they suddenly went off the boil. How does a team with such talent keep losing? Manuel Pellegrini can’t fathom it, and has paid with his job. We can reasonably conclude that a combination of defensive ineptitude, lack of midfield balance and a fundamental brittleness has had something to do with it, but still: this team has some of the best players in the league, and they’re level on points with Man United. Go figure. Villa, by contrast, have really plumbed the depths. They’re probably not as bad as the Derby team that won just one Premier League game in 2007-08, although that’s not saying much. Villa have issues in every department, and the fans are restless for change. It’s not a certainty that they’ll be spending next season in the Championship, but it would take a completely unexpected shift in results and culture to suggest otherwise. This game represents the ultimate home banker, and City desperately need to win if they have any serious hope of winning the title. Aston Villa’s expectations for this game are probably a little more modest, and a goalless draw might represent the pinnacle, but you never know – stranger things have happened. Kick off’s at 3pm GMT, 10pm ET. Join us! Tim will be here shortly. In the meantime, here’s why Manuel Pellegrini isn’t giving up on the Premier League title: “Remember the first season I was here, we needed to win the three games in hand and we won the three games,” he said. “Everyone said we were out of it but we won the games and won the title. This group of players will never give up while we have the option to do it. We have one game in hand but it’s more important not to think about that but just to improve our Premier League performance. “We are not going to give up – it’s a lot of points to the leaders. You never know when you are going to lose points. We must continue as far as we can and add the most amount of points we can, then we can see where we end up. We try to win every time we play – we just had a bad moment but we have another 33 points to try and arrange it.” Read more here:
Donald Trump has lost tens of millions on Scottish golf courses, accounts show Donald Trump has lost nearly £26m ($31.8m) building his golfing empire in Scotland, his company accounts show – a sum that means the Republican presidential candidate has avoided paying any UK corporation tax on either of his two resorts. The latest accounts filed to the UK authorities for Trump’s two resorts, in Aberdeenshire and Turnberry in Ayrshire, also show he has sunk more than £102m ($125m) of his own money into both businesses, despite losing increasing sums on both investments. The accounts suggest he may never make a profit on either resort, although the Trump family insist Turnberry will return to profitability in the short to medium term. There is also an apparent discrepancy between the accounts and his filings last year to the US Federal Election Commission (FEC), the regulator which controls election spending. In his attempt to create a global portfolio of world-class golf resorts, the Republican presidential candidate had invested £62.7m in buying and refurbishing the Open championship resort at Turnberry on the coast of south-west Scotland, between acquiring it in April 2014 and the end of 2015. Meanwhile, his losses at his golf course and boutique hotel at Balmedie, north of Aberdeen, which he once claimed would be “the world’s greatest golf course” and where he plans to build 2,750 homes and holiday flats, also continue to mushroom. Trump’s personal loans to Trump International Golf Course Ltd (TIGCS), which has owned the Aberdeenshire estate where the resort is being built since 2006, increased by £2.6m last year. That took his total investment there to £39.4m – well above the £31.5m valuation he has given for the course and 19-bed hotel. That increased loan was needed to help stem cumulative operating losses totalling £9.7m by the end of 2015. As well as avoiding corporation tax liability due to those operating losses, Trump also avoided paying any value added tax (VAT), the UK sales tax, at the Aberdeenshire course last year. The accounts for both companies, published this week, state that their financial viability rests on Trump’s loans and his continued willingness to underwrite their losses. But neither set of accounts makes any mention of his bid to become US president and the fate of his investments were he to win the White House in November. Trump has said his children would run his businesses if he is elected. In his filings last year to the US FEC, Trump declared that Turnberry generated income of $20.4m (£16.6m today) in 2014 and the Aberdeenshire course earned him $4.4m (£3.6m today). His UK company accounts showed hefty losses on both resorts in that year, of £1.1m at the Aberdeenshire course and £3.6m at Turnberry. Last year’s operating losses at Turnberry were £8.4m. Trump lost a further £2m in dollar-to-sterling currency exchanges, bringing total losses for Trump to £10.5m last year. In 2014, he reports losing £3.1m in currency transactions at Turnberry, bringing his total losses to £6.7m in 2014. The result was an overall loss of £26m. The Turnberry accounts state: “The group is dependent on continuing finance being made available by its ultimate owner to enable it to continue operating and to meet its liabilities as they fall due.” The Aberdeenshire course accounts use almost identical wording. When he bought Turnberry, a world-famous links course with striking sea views on the coast of Ayrshire, in 2014, Trump boasted he would spend £200m on refurbishing the resort, to make it one of the world’s most prestigious and attract Open championship tournaments. However, his new company accounts cast doubt on that spending claim. That work appeared to have been completed in June this year, when he officially reopened the 149-room five star hotel, complete with a new opulent ballroom, a £3,500-a-night presidential suite and entrance-way fountain, and the newly extended and reorganised Ailsa golf course. But his company accounts show that by 31 December 2015, he had spent only £62m on buying the resort, its running costs, and the upgrade and course reorganisation. The accounts show that his New York-based trust, the Donald J Trump Revocable Trust, loaned his Turnberry holding company, Golf Recreation Scotland Ltd, £42m in 2014 and £21m in 2015. Of that, he is reported to have spent £35m buying the business, implying that in order to meet his pledged refurbishment investment of £200m he needed to spend a further £138m in the first six months of this year. The accounts show that this investment only increased the value of Turnberry’s physical assets by £14.4m by the end of last year. He flew into Turnberry in June on his own Trump-branded Sikorsky S-76B helicopter, and the accounts show the 12-seater aircraft was put on Turnberry’s books in 2014 after he moved it from Florida to be permanently based in Scotland. His accounts show the aircraft was bought for just over £1m, by transferring shares from Golf Recreation Scotland Ltd to his Delaware-registered firm DT Connect LLC, which had previously operated the Sikorsky from Palm Beach, Florida. However, the accounts also show the Scottish company valued the aircraft at just £269,000. Trump’s executives in the UK point out that both courses employ significant numbers of people – there are 337 on Turnberry’s staff, earning a total of £5.6m last year, and 95 in Aberdeenshire, earning £2m in 2015. Trump has also spent tens of millions of pounds on local contractors. That spending has added to the Scottish economy. Turnover at both resorts rose last year. Despite the resort’s closure for refurbishments in October last year, Turnberry’s turnover increased by £2.2m to £11.4m in 2015 while the Aberdeenshire course turnover rose by a more modest amount, from £2.8m to £3m. Even so, the operating losses for TIGCS were close to £1.1m, just a bit lower than its similar losses in 2014. In addition to using the continuing losses to avoid paying company tax at both resorts, the accounts show that he has other assets which would allow him to defer corporation tax if they became profitable in future. The accounts for Golf Recreation Scotland Ltd state he also has a potential deferred tax asset of £7.9m but that asset is not recognised in the accounts “as there is no certainty of taxable profits in the future”. The Aberdeenshire course has a similar deferred tax asset said to be worth £1.4m. At the second presidential debate in St Louis, Missouri, on Sunday night, Trump acknowledged that he used a $916m loss reported on his 1995 income tax returns to avoid paying personal federal US income taxes for years. “Of course I do. Of course I do … I absolutely used it,” he said. The Trump campaign has been contacted for comment.
Physio games: how rehab is coming to a screen near you For anyone who has spent months recovering from a shoulder injury, car accident or stroke, physiotherapy can be a slow and painful healing process. It also relies on a lot of repetitive exercises that can bore even the most self-disciplined of patients. Cosmin Mihaiu, a 26-year-old Romanian who co-founded Mira Rehab, knows this well, having broken his arm falling from a tree aged seven and then struggling through six weeks in a cast followed by six weeks of physiotherapy. Mihaiu has channelled this memory to create a prototype for software that would “gamify” physiotherapy. Initially a project to compete in the Microsoft Imagine Cup (they would finish sixth worldwide), he and three colleagues pushed on to see if they could develop something that would have a place in hospitals around the world. “Back then therapists were beginning to use the Nintendo Wii in their therapy, but Wii games are designed for healthy people and for having fun, for play,” says Mihaiu, speaking on the sidelines of a tech festival in Bucharest, the Romanian capital. “There wasn’t a low-cost solution designed for therapy and that’s what we wanted to do. “There is huge potential. Everyone knows someone who has needed physiotherapy at some point,” he adds. Working closely with physiotherapists and clinicians, the founders focused on designing computer games that would promote specific body movements – notably shoulder, elbow, knee and hip movements – needed in therapy. Therapists would be able to set instructions and create individual schedules for patients, with the range of movements and difficulty tailored to specific recovery paths. The company now has 14 games, with another six to be released before the end of the summer, ranging from simple concepts such as picking up digital objects and placing them on a shelf (good for shoulder rotation) to a Space Invader-type game but with birds, a submarine adventure that requires swimming motions, and a game where you bounce across lily leaves as a frog. The games are simple enough that any age group can do them, while fun enough that patients will forget they are undergoing regimented physiotherapy exercises. The software works with a standard computer attached to a motion-sensing Microsoft Kinect, which tracks movements. Unless the correct motion is completed the game won’t register it. “Right now the computer games are quite simple as we want to make sure anyone can understand them, but ultimately we want to add new games and exercises. We have cognitive games in development for mental health,” says Mihaiu. Mira Rehab’s technology has so far been trialled at 50 hospitals around the world and is being used in 25 hospitals. The basic software package costs £2,500 a unit. In early 2016 the company also launched a new system that allows patients to do the “exer-games” at home, with the data sent to therapists for review and monitoring. “If we can use technology to get people to exercise more outside of clinic time it is very important,” says Mark McGlinchey, a clinical specialist physiotherapist at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS foundation trust in London, who has conducted successful trials with Mira Rehab’s software. McGlinchey points to patients recovering from strokes or who have MS, which requires long-term physiotherapy, as those who could really benefit from this kind of technology. “Patients can get bored and we need to keep patients motivated,” he adds. “There is huge potential. I give a lot of talks to older people and they are very interested,” says Emma Stanmore, a lecturer in nursing at the University of Manchester who is halfway through a 12-week trial using Mira Rehab’s software with elderly people living in independent housing. “There is a great need there,” she adds. “You can have a lot of patients using the exer-games at home with the physio reviewing and keeping an eye. With the data that is remotely sent to the clinic you can very easily see if individuals are complying, improving, and if they are not improving whether they need a visit.” While Mira Rehab is not alone in developing computer games for therapeutic purpose, Stanmore says that the company is ahead of the game. For Mihaiu it feels like they have achieved a lot over the past four years, but also that there is a long way to go. “It’s a medical product; adoption of new technology takes a long times,” he says. “At the beginning, four years ago, we were 22-year-olds going into 50-year-old clinicians’ offices saying: ‘Let me tell you about a solution to make your physiotherapy better.’ Some were sceptical but over time that has changed.”
Catholic bishops back anti-abortion candidates in Northern Ireland vote The Catholic hierarchy in Northern Ireland has urged people not to vote for candidates in favour of reforming abortion law in next week’s devolved assembly election. Local bishops advised voters in a statement to follow the church’s teachings on abortion when casting their ballot next Thursday. Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK where the Abortion Act 1967 does not apply due to opposition from the main churches and many of the political parties represented in the Stormont assembly. Abortion is available in the region only when pregnancy poses a direct threat to a woman’s life. The bishops praised local politicians who have been “opposing multiple attempts efforts to legalise the killing of unborn babies”. The Catholic leaders added: “The moral issue here is not whether what is proposed is abortion ‘on demand’ or some form of so-called ‘limited abortion’. The medical prognosis for the life of a child in the womb, or the extent of that child’s disabilities, is no more morally relevant than it is when considering an adult who faces the diagnosis of a life-limiting condition.” The intervention echoes a move by a bishop in Rhode Island last week who urged American voters to back US presidential candidates who were “pro-life” over pro-choice candidates such as Hillary Clinton. A number of women are facing prosecution in Northern Ireland for procuring abortion pills online to terminate pregnancies. One case involves a mother who obtained abortion pills for her underage daughter. Under the Offences Against the Person Act 1861, which still applies in Northern Ireland, anyone carrying out an abortion there can be jailed for life.
For Clinton, a skirmish with history. From Trump, an ambush of the facts In October 2011, as Mitt Romney prepared to win the Republican presidential nomination, his campaign prepared a guiding document outlining what to expect from Romney as commander-in-chief. Troop reductions in Afghanistan would not necessarily end, but their pace would be determined by ground commanders. Missile defenses would again be aimed at protecting eastern Europe from Russia, rather than focusing on Iran, as Barack Obama had shifted them. The country would spend 4% of its gross domestic product on defense. The navy would see a shipbuilding surge to 15 ships annually, up from nine. If many of the details of Romney’s plans were murky – Romney never specified, for instance, which classes of ships the US needed to boost – the presence of generations of experienced Republican advisers aligned with Romney provided assurance that the former Massachusetts governor wouldn’t be winging it (among them, for instance, was Ronald Reagan’s navy secretary, John Lehman). Liberals would find much to dispute, but a dispute could proceed on the merits of Romney’s national security perspective weighed against Obama’s. No one could ever accuse Donald Trump of being Mitt Romney. Before boarding the aircraft carrier turned museum USS Intrepid, Trump gave a speech on Wednesday gesturing in the direction of Republican national security orthodoxies. The army’s active-duty force levels, known as “end strength”, ought to return to 540,000 soldiers, where they were earlier in the decade, reversing a trajectory heading down to 450,000 by 2018. The navy ought to have a fleet sized at 350 ships, beyond its current planning for a 308-ship fleet after 2020. Along with an expansion of combat aircraft and missile defenses, and repealing a budget cap on defense spending known as the sequester, Trump’s enthusiasm for purchasing more military hardware would not sound out of place coming from a typical Republican on the congressional armed services committees. Superficially at least Romney might not have disagreed, either. That was likely the point: to reassure voters Trump possesses a baseline level of familiarity with the basics of military responsibility. By the evening, however, at NBC News’ touted “Commander-in-Chief Forum”, Trump ordered off his familiar campaign menu of word salads. He lied about opposing the Iraq war, criticized Obama’s 2011 withdrawal and repeated his now-boilerplate advocacy of stealing Iraq’s oil – a measure that he evidently believes would require a minimal force presence, despite the certainty that the well-armed locals might have a problem with their principal source of wealth being plundered by a foreign power. Speaking before an audience of veterans, Trump unexpectedly attacked the current generation of generals and flag officers. The current senior officer corps has been “reduced to rubble”, Trump said, and were “embarrassing for our country”. While previously Trump had said he knew better than the generals about fighting Islamic State, this time he intimated that he’d get “different generals” – a habit more typical of caudillos than American presidents. He followed up by saying his ultimate plan to defeat Isis would consist of some parts of his still-unspecified plan and some parts of his unspecified generals’ unspecified plan. He waved away his lack of specifics on a war in which 5,000 US troops are currently serving as not wishing to “broadcast” his plans to the enemy. Trump again lavished praise on Vladimir Putin, pledging a new era of US-Russian cooperation – something both Obama and George Bush attempted and failed to achieve after US and Russian interests diverged. Despite months of the Russian military’s demonstrating in Syria that Putin’s objective is to suppress Bashar al-Assad’s domestic resistance, Trump claimed that Russia wished to defeat Isis “as badly as we do”. Putin might be a dictator – Trump waved away moderator Matt Lauer on this point – but he had “very strong control”, he said. Nor did Trump demonstrate greater mastery of urgent issues of US service members’ health and safety. He interrupted a veteran’s question about veterans’ suicide rates after she gave the correct number, 20 per day, so he could give an incorrect one, 22. Trump fumbled through a question about redressing sexual assault against women service personnel – something he once tweeted was the inevitable result of mixed-gender service, a point he defended on Wednesday. Trump’s reversion to his typical ignorance and certitude obscured a poor showing from his opponent, the Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton. Clinton spent her preceding half-hour grilling on the Intrepid defending herself on her lax handling of classified information, a situation that a former navy lieutenant in the audience correctly observed would spell doom for a low-ranking service member. She acknowledged her vote for the Iraq war was a “mistake” and gestured in the direction of the same for her advocacy of the 2011 Libya war, but waved this away by pointing out Trump’s support for the same disastrous interventions – a baffling decision for a candidate whose central pitch is that Trump is uniquely unqualified to be president. To reassure a progressive veteran in the audience, Clinton offered that she would treat the use of force as a “last resort”. Every presidential aspirant issues that boilerplate – as it elides an explanation of what the candidate thinks is worth fighting for – but Clinton’s long public record, which she uses as a selling point against Trump, gives reason to doubt it. “We are not putting ground troops into Iraq ever again,” Clinton said, as if there were not thousands of them already there. Clinton’s gestures in hawkish directions are at least predictable. Trump is something wilder, less disciplined and far less grounded. Asked about his fitness for diplomacy, Trump boasted of his disastrous meeting in Mexico last week with Enrique Peña Nieto, in which the Mexican president publicly contradicted Trump’s claim that the two did not discuss payment for Trump’s proposed border wall, and which left Peña Nieto diminished at home. For all the derision Romney endured in his presidential bid, at least he never engineered a lose-lose diplomatic summit.
Ivanka Trump wants to see women shine at work. Get ready, ladies There has never been a better time to be a woman imparting #inspiring career advice to other women. First Sheryl Sandberg taught ladies to Lean In. Then came the millennial alternative to Lean In, Sophia Amoruso’s memoir/movement #Girlboss. Now, Ivanka Trump –wife of a very rich man, daughter of a very rich man, and a very rich woman in her own right – is laying her own professional woman cards on the table. She has just announced that she’s writing a “next-generation business book” called Women Who Work: Redefining the Rules for Success. The book is an evolution of #WomenWhoWork, a digital initiative Trump launched two years ago aimed at making “IvankaTrump.com the destination for professional women” through “solution-oriented tips curated for women who work”. This is corporate-speak for: “Let’s put some links to listicles about office productivity on my website, so we can engage with the sort of working woman who might buy my Ivanka Trump line of shoes, pumps and handbags.” But, you know, it would be unfair to suggest that Trump’s empowerment manual is nothing more than an elaborate ad for her shoe collection. Trump explains that, in two years, the hashtag has become so much more than a hashtag and the marketing campaign has become, well, more of a movement. One “that’s inspiring and empowering women to create the lives they want to live”. So obviously the next step in that movement was putting a book out and ensuring women felt inspired and empowered to pre-order it on Amazon. Ladies, I hope you’re feeling #blessed to have this opportunity. But, um, what actually is this opportunity anyway? How is Trump telling us to redefine the rules of success? Well, you’ll have to wait until spring 2017 to read all about it, but the description promises that the “breakthrough book … disrupts the existing narrative of women and work to present a new worldview that celebrates how women work in all aspects of their lives … It’s about working smarter, not harder; integrating our personal passions and priorities with our professional goals in order to architect lives we love.” Insight into the sort of disruptive advice Trump’s book might present can also be found in the content she’s shared over the last two years. This includes hard-hitting career advice such as 3 Ways to Wear Spring Prints to Work and “office-hacks” like sitting up straight. Trump also clearly realizes that success is 1% perspiration and 99% inspirational quotes. She has curated an extensive selection of #WiseWords from the likes of Ayn Rand, truly a fountainhead of feminist wisdom. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not dismissing Trump’s tome as a vapid “Lean In for heiresses” or a “#Girlboss for girls whose dad is the boss”. While it’s true that Trump was born to extraordinary privilege – she has never lived in a building without her name on it – she has made an effort to leave her ivory skyscraper occasionally. Trump worked for someone other than her dad for a whole two years, for example. Armed with this real-world experience, she became vice-president of development and acquisitions at the Trump Organization at just 25. She went on to launch her fashion lines, sit on numerous boards and tirelessly campaign for her father: a man also interested in “disrupt[ing] the existing narrative of women … to present a new worldview”. Skeptics may say that nepotism and money have spurred her success. But I’m sure Ayn Rand would argue that it’s a myth that having millions of dollars and millions of connections gives you an unfair advantage in life. No, success is all down to an individual’s hard work and strength of character. As Trump says in her first book of career advice, The Trump Card: Playing to Win in Work and Life: “We’ve all been dealt a winning hand and it is up to each of us to play it right and smart.” (Definitely don’t let something like structural inequality or the widening income gap convince you otherwise.) Madeleine Albright famously said: “There is a special place in hell for women who don’t help other women.” However, I’m starting to feel that this growing mania for rehashed, hashtagged lifestyle advice masquerading as feminist empowerment is turning into a special sort of hell in itself. We’re bombarded by articles suggesting ways we can readjust our schedules to further our success. Forbes’s article on The Morning Routines of 12 Women Leaders helpfully shows, for example, how, if you wake up at 4.45am and have a bowl of quinoa cereal followed by yoga, you too might be a #girlboss, #ladyleader or #biznesschick. As Dawn Foster points out in her book Lean Out, corporate feminism is obsessed with individual success stories because they provide a narrative convenient to capitalism. Forget about the thornier issues holding women back, just buy a book, do things by the book, eat your quinoa cereal, buy your Trump pumps, and you’ll be CEO in no time!
Ice-cool appearance by Alan Rickman at the Almeida bar In 1995 I left at the reception desk of the West Yorkshire Playhouse a copy of our son Nat’s poems, The Mountain Man, collected by my husband on Nat’s death at 20 in 1992, in the hope that Alan Rickman (Obituary, 15 January) would make time to read the accompanying letter. In it I shared with him how much we had both been moved on attending a preview of his stage production of The Winter Guest the evening before. As I was due to take a party of pupils to a parallel production at the Playhouse the next afternoon, I had the opportunity to leave the package. We had just attended the funeral of an elderly but much-loved relative and were still grieving for our son’s suicide: the themes of love, loss and alienation in the play spoke to us very directly, while the humorous undertow gave us a fillip that helped us rally. Within 48 hours I got a letter in reply that I still treasure explaining that the young members of the cast had greatly appreciated the poems which they had used for improvisations in rehearsal the next day. I will for ever be in Alan Rickman’s debt. Morry Smith Huddersfield, West Yorkshire • I’ve been dining out for years on my joy at standing opposite Alan Rickman in the bar at the Almeida theatre, during the interval of The Iceman Cometh, with Kevin Spacey in the lead role. Now I read that I missed his beautiful voice delivering his order for a glass of red (When Alan Rickman was a star at the bar, Letters, 16 January). I was in the loo. Such is life. However, I am eternally grateful to my husband for positioning us opposite him, as we too sipped our wine. A memory I cherish. Sue Grainger Balerno, Midlothian • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
Kate Winslet so sure she'd lose, she booked massage for after Golden Globes Kate Winslet revealed backstage at the 73rd Golden Globes that she was so convinced she wasn’t winning the best supporting actress honor for her performance in Steve Jobs that she had booked a massage immediately following the show. Winslet said to the press: “I have this recurring neck problem, as I was about to leave the hotel to the carpet, I realized it’s been hurting all day. I went and booked a massage for 9pm, which I think I’ll need to cancel.” Winslet, who won for playing Jobs’ right-hand woman in Danny Boyle’s film, Joanna Hoffman, visibly appeared to still be in shock minutes after accepting her award at at the Beverly Hilton in front of her peers, including her co-star in the film, Michael Fassbender. “I really am so shocked right now,” she said, wide-eyed. “So shocked! I’m never ever going to get used to it. I’m standing here, thinking really this is not happening. I honestly, truthfully did not expect this at all.” During her speech, Winslet commented on 2015 being a banner year for women in film. Asked to elaborate, the actor said: “A lot of us out there still in the game. I’ve been doing this for 23 years, Cate Blanchett probably longer. There’s a real sense of girl power this year.” Winslet looked back fondly on her career, expressing how grateful she is to still be working. “I’ve had an amazing few years,” said the actor, “I think there are amazing scripts out there – I can only speak to that of my own experience. I’ve been very blessed.” She admitted to being so flustered onstage that she forgot to thank Hoffman in her speech. She apologized backstage for her omission, saying: “I forgot to mention her in my speech, because I never thought I’d be making one!” Winslet said she loved playing Hoffman in Steve Jobs because she “looks nothing like me, and is from a world I know nothing about”. Said Winslet: “I wanted a challenge.”
Whatever happens in this referendum, England’s disquiet is set to get a whole lot worse A question may have recently popped into your head: why are we having this referendum? A large part of the answer, of course, is rooted in the internal machinations of the Conservative party, David Cameron’s doomed attempts to quieten things down and the enduring Tory view of the EU as the world’s prime example of bureaucracy and statism gone mad. The timing is surely traceable to the meltdown of the eurozone, the refugee crisis and the sense of a Europe defined by mounting troubles. But there is another factor, which takes us deep into some of the most overlooked tensions in British politics: the condition of England, the 4 million largely English people who last year put jump-leads on British Euroscepticism by voting for Ukip, and a set of deep anxieties and annoyances that panics the political class, while looking likely to get a whole lot worse, whatever the outcome. In other words, if Cameron thinks the referendum will somehow “resolve” most of the key issues and smooth over England’s ferment, he is even more deluded than he increasingly looks. Give or take a small crowd of Euro-zealots – the kind who say things like “I’m more European than British”, subsist on organic food and probably number no more than 20,000 – most people who are supporting remain are focused on a limited set of economic factors, while being well aware of the EU’s serial shortcomings. But talk to leave voters – which I have done lately, a lot – and you will sample a strain of opinion seemingly based in a different part of the human brain: all-or-nothing, visceral and brimming with deep and often completely justified resentments. In February, YouGov reported that of 10 areas – that were all in England – the UK’s most Eurosceptic place was the borough of Havering, on the London/Essex borders. It’s a place nudging parts of outer London, where the pace of change is relentless, and, according to those who know it, somewhere characterised by a feeling that it will be next. But there is also loathing of the EU in places where London and its surrounding areas feel like a different planet: superficially deadened areas, often in the north, which have never recovered from deindustrialisation and are now locked into a kind of silent decline – which brings with it a seething disquiet. What unites voters in these two contrasting realities is pretty clear. There are obvious intersections of age and ethnicity (old-ish and white, bluntly put). If asked, a lot of them self-identify as being English – which denotes a bundle of stuff, as much bound up with class as national identity (“English”, in this reading, partly translates as “not middle class”). When it comes to the EU, immigration, needless to say, is usually in the forefront of their thoughts. Sometimes because they apparently don’t like the idea per se, but more often than not because they feel that it is placing impossible strains on housing and public services, and inflaming the injustices of low-end job markets. But there is also something even more elemental: a conviction that centres of power that seem impossibly distant have let them down, and if there’s a chance to split from the most distant one of all, they will grab it in both hands. All of this was underlined yesterday, when the Office for National Statistics released its latest projections of population change in England over the next eight years, and the awful imbalances it will create. By 2024, say the statisticians, the population of London is likely to have grown by another 14%, taking the total figure to 9.7 million. The number of people in Tower Hamlets will rocket by a quarter; in Barking and Dagenham, by nearly 20%. God knows where these extra people will live. Meanwhile, the figures contain slightly subtler revelations. Between now and 2024, the best part of 2 million people will come to London from elsewhere in England, while 2.6 million will sooner or later go in the other direction, presumably because of the impossible costs of capital living. Aside from those being born in the city, the lion’s share of London’s newest arrivals will therefore be people who have moved there from overseas. The global city-state of some people’s imaginations will be close to reality, but its contrast to other parts of the country will be stark. Which brings us to what some call the provinces. The ONS’s website allows you to go through every one of England’s local authority areas, and sample how they will change. In such population centres as Middlesbrough and Hull, the projected figures for population growth markedly lag behind the numbers for “natural change”, indicating large numbers of people continuing to leave. The same applies to post-industrial Redcar and Cleveland, where there will be no overall growth at all. And in Blackburn and Blackpool (tellingly, numbers four and five in YouGov’s Euroscepticism ranking), and Richmondshire, in North Yorkshire, local populations will fall – at the same time as an ever-ageing population skews the makeup of the people who will be left. In the north-east, for example, there will be a 20% increase in numbers of people over 65, at the same time as the number of 16- to 64-year-olds falls. In socio-political terms, what all this means should be pretty obvious. London will still be endlessly overheating, and the competition for living space in its few supposedly “affordable” areas will be fierce and often toxic. On its outer edges and beyond, particularly in the east, resentment and loss will still define a big part of the public mood. Further afield, most obviously in the north, there will be local and regional economies still dominated by what remains of the public sector, an increasing preponderance of older people – and a sense of decline that by 2050 will have stretched back nearly a century. None of this will cast mainstream politics in a very edifying light: all that Westminster talk about “rebalancing the economy” will look like a series of sick jokes. It would be tempting to soak up all those numbers and conclude that England’s stupid imbalances cannot carry on. But at the risk of sounding comically bleak, they can, and they probably will. The result, now and in the future, will be the English manifestation of much the same tensions that are currently tearing through mainland Europe, and a politics that will neither be polite nor controllable. The referendum is symptomatic of these problems, not any kind of solution. And the morning after the big vote – whatever happens – they will still be there, simmering away.
David Silva’s creativity allows Pep Guardiola to focus on big picture Much has been made of the fact that this Pep‑project Manchester City is a work in progress, a mutable thing, still looking to find its rhythms and shapes. At the Etihad Stadium, for 20 minutes either side of half-time, City seemed to be evolving at an irradiated speed as first David Silva and then Kevin De Bruyne dug their fingernails into this game and wrenched it their way. Until that point Alexis Sánchez had been the outstanding figure on show. So keen right now to assert his own market value, Sánchez had whirled and sprinted at Manchester City’s defence in that familiar amphetamine-crazed Action Man-style,so barrel-chested he looks from a distance like a yellow‑shirted cube, propelled about the place by two furiously pumping pistons, arms paddling the turf. At the other end City were all feints and tickles, cute angles, nice nudged passes but without anyone to apply the swift punch to the solar plexus. With Sergio Agüero still banned, the centre-forward spot was occupied instead here by a revolving peloton of attacking midfielders. At times in the first half City were ten thousand elegantly turned spoons, when all they really needed was a single prong of the knife. Sánchez had produced the telling moment to help put Arsenal 1-0 up, dropping deep into the pocket in front of the centre-halves, reading Theo Walcott’s run and producing a lovely backspun nudged through pass into his path. Walcott’s finish was fine, opening his body and slotting the ball past Claudio Bravo as City’s goalkeeper lay down. What riches right now! The scoring pass to Walcott made it six goals and four assists in his past six games for Sánchez – great news not just for Arsenal and Sánchez himself, but for the mini‑industry of Sánchez-affiliated interests currently chuntering about that move. Right now he and Mesut Özil are in that stage where pre-contract rumblings begin, figures are bandied, demands floated. Both want a serious boost, the kind of weekly wage that would take them from the merely ludicrously well-paid into the real overclass. Sánchez and Özil are both lovely players. But here they were given a lesson in a creative leadership as Silva took this game in the most artfully insistent of headlocks. City went from 1-0 down to 2-1 up in 20 minutes during which he flexed his shoulders and reminded the Etihad Stadium of his own enduring brilliance, aided by some fine moments from De Bruyne. Silva is a venerable old creative ace these days, the bottle of fine wine in that City cabinet – small, dusty, very expansive – who was suddenly everywhere here, floating into the space just behind City’s rejigged twin No10s, Leroy Sané and De Bruyne. The pressure paid off three minutes into the second half as Arsenal’s midfield slackened and three simple passes cut them open. Sané was probably offside but his run, spin and finish were evidence of his brilliantly supple athleticism. The pass floated over the top by Silva was a familiar piece of brilliance. Arsenal looked shocked, unable to rouse themselves into keeping the ball after playing on the break for so long. Özil spent much of this period just walking around the Etihad Stadium, a man with time to kill, just enjoying Manchester, taking in the air. Meanwhile, with a quarter of the game still to go, the transformation was complete. De Bruyne took an instant touch and produced a wonderful diagonal crossfield pass, stretching the play to City’s right wing. Raheem Sterling took the ball in his stride, cut inside Nacho Monreal and found a stinger of a left-foot shot that zipped past Petr Cech. It was a lovely moment for Sterling, who was also a growing source of menace here. He has worked hard on his finishing. This was tangible reward, as was the attention he received from Guardiola in the second half, the manager leaping up to point and shout and instil on the hoof some tactical tinker whenever Sterling strayed to his side. And with that the game was effectively done. Arsenal’s own heavyweights were unable to rouse themselves again for a second push. Silva’s silky little passing triangles, a malevolent, insistent presence, always able to put the ball in the tenderest of spots, remained the dominant image of the second half. For Guardiola this felt like evidence of real progress, if only in his team’s ability to respond so positively to the rejig after half-time. The no-tackles business last weekend was always likely to be taken out of context. Who really does coach tackles at this level anyway? Apart from the English FA in the 1980s, of course, which produced six pages dedicated to tackling in its Winning Formula (sic) coaching guide. In the second half at the Etihad City’s switch to twin No10s, with Silva prowling behind and Yaya Touré a powerful passing presence, was as devastating as any reducer, any statement tackle. Arsenal reeled and found no second wind. By the end Sánchez and Özil were pressed to the margins, outmanoeuvred by Silva in full playmaker mode and by the relentlessly effective De Bruyne, all crisp, clean incision, a pair of creative midfielders restating their own worth as part of this fun, frantically evolving Guardiola team.
The greatest unknown yet: Donald Trump’s foreign policy It is an extraordinary feeling for America-watchers to contemplate a White House with an apparent blank sheet on foreign policy. In an already volatile world, not knowing where to place the United States increases the uncertainty. The two most important pillars of the global system of nation states are security and economic order. The world is looking more unstable because this era of greater freedom, for both states and individuals, has generated a plethora of new actors and strong subjective differences over how they should interact. Identity politics and a reaction to unequal globalisation, creates a forceful trend towards fragmentation. Competition at national and regional levels has bred conflict where governance is weakest, with the bitter consequences on view in Syria and elsewhere. Great power conflict, on the other hand, would be a catastrophe at the global level. The UN has managed to instil a habit of nations talking through differences before resorting to force. History suggests that a century is as much as we can expect this practice to last, unless something unprecedented happens. We are getting close to danger in our 70-year-old system. Can a President Trump serve western interests here? Russia under President Putin will be his first and possibly his greatest test. Donald Trump’s apparent admiration for Putin might suggest naivety, but it will open the door to a discussion if circumstances and politics allow it. The risk in the short term is that Putin, who has no respect for western strategic decision-making, may exploit the American interregnum and challenge Nato over Ukraine or the Baltics. He is certainly going to continue his monstrous bombing campaign in Syria. How carefully will Trump listen to his advisers on the options as he enters the presidency? Or how unthinkingly assertive will his instincts make him? The avoidance of escalation will come at a cost to the US, because Washington has refused since 1990 to regard Moscow as an equal player. Does Trump have the courage, and the political capital, to bring the superpower down to the level of the lapsed superpower and start a constructive conversation? I think there is a possibility there, so long as Trump carries a stick – the doubling up of sanctions – in his other hand and resists any Kremlin scheming to take advantage of his inexperience. A Washington-Moscow interface will make China worry, and possibly react. Beijing too has exploited US hesitation, notably in the South China Sea. The Chinese have difficulty with the unfamiliar, and will be strongly on the defensive in the early days with the Trump administration. Chinese defence can involve aggression. They must be brought into any new Washington outreach – with Shinzo Abe’s Japan, struggling with reform, looking on anxiously. Experienced diplomacy will be needed in all of this, and so confidence in Trump’s early appointments will be crucial. Trump’s references to Nato, unfortunately, will have sapped the confidence of allies that America will be rock-steady in their interests. The Europeans have not earned American loyalty with their distaste for hard power and large defence budgets. Under Trump, this will come home to roost. As with the other great international institutions, Nato’s effectiveness as a political alliance was anyway fading with the passage of time, in part because the US presence as a power in Europe was always going to shrink once the cold war was won. Europe is now just one of several global security theatres for the Americans, ranking no higher than the Asian one. Trump’s America will take decisions on Europe’s defence on the merits of the case at the time, not on any automatic “family” sentiment. We Europeans now have to be sure of bringing something to the American table to earn their partnership. This was always going to happen at some point: Trump’s election, the EU’s introspection and Brexit all bring the reckoning forward. As for the Middle East, will a Trump White House seek to refill the perceived Obama vacuum? Do we have an interventionist here? This is territory where angels fear to tread. Neither intervention, of the Iraq kind, nor non-intervention, of the Syrian kind, will fix the problems of the poor governance and dissatisfied peoples of this region. Time is needed, together with careful exploration of the sensible possibilities – dialogue, exhaustion with conflict, skilful international stakeholder management, the insistence of women on a decent life for their families. Putting the Iran nuclear agreement at risk, choosing sides in regional rivalries, or insulting Muslims, would be a bad way to start. Placing the campaigner Trump and gradualist diplomacy in the same sentence looks odd. But we just do not know what this unusual personality is capable of, good or bad. In the economic sphere, markets are holding their breath. What on earth does this all mean? Big trade deals look more remote, but the Atlantic and Pacific ones were anyway proving hard to deliver and a president Clinton might not have promoted them either. With Republicans in the lead in all branches of government, the US can be expected to act more aggressively in protection of American jobs and businesses, to the point of provoking retaliation from China, the EU and others, and damaging economic growth both at home and abroad. The climate change agreement will come under renewed threat. Above all, the election of Donald J Trump has the feel of an epochal event, of a geopolitical disruption, of planet-wide regime change. It could be the clearest symptom yet of the disadvantage of democracy, that it enables the removal of governments the people dislike, but does not necessarily create the conditions for wiser ones to follow – a phenomenon not so different, after all, from the results of the Arab spring. Those states that have sheltered under a benign American umbrella had better start assessing their own self-sufficiency. There will be no free lunches coming out of Mr Trump’s America.
Angel Olsen review – arresting, off-kilter and on the rise Angel Olsen’s breakthrough album, 2014’s Burn Your Fire for No Witness, brought the St Louis-born songwriter into contact with those she calls “weirdos” – people who have been viscerally affected by her raw Americana-cum-grunge love songs. “How do I wrap my mind around connecting with people who are that lost?” she asked in a recent interview, while promoting her new record, My Woman. Yet Olsen does nothing to discourage her flock. On the first night of her UK tour, she matches the crowd’s adoring heckles with her own form of banter: “If you want to be part of the show, you can join me on stage,” she tells one character, who had shouted at her during a funereal Lights Out, while another collapses into swooning giggles when she suggests meeting afterwards, “[because] you should give me a show”. Her humour is as off-kilter as her music, which has lately been reconfigured to include electronic fuzz and drone alongside her reverb-drenched country-folk. Inspired by a failed relationship and questions around being young and female in America, My Woman slots together lyrics written from an isolated overthinker’s perspective – “even still, there is no escape” goes the tremulous Heart Shaped Face, one of tonight’s highlights – and a slammed-together cornucopia of genres. The climax of this is an encore comprised of two new songs, Intern and Woman – brave move, finishing with new ones instead of a favourite such as Forgiven/Forgotten – that she sculpts into a shape-shifting epic. It slips from Lana Del Rey-ish dark-heart atmospherica to a Can-like drone symphony, in the midst of which she stands calmly, pressing the sustain switch on a small keyboard. Olsen is a hard-to-measure performer. Strapped behind a guitar most of the time, she’s not a bodily vocalist; all the action is from the neck up, as she taps into the Roy Orbison/Patsy Cline country-gothic well. But she’s wholly arresting: intensely feminine as she yearns for her gorgeous friend on Acrobat, luxuriantly exhaling the lyric on Sister. From first to last she commands the stage, and will soon dominate much larger venues than this. At Manchester Academy 14 October. Box office: 0161-832 1111. At Koko, London, 17 October. Box office: 020-7388 3222.
Eurovision song contest 2016: latex, chiffon and a little bit of politics It’s time for the chiffon, the latex and the pyrotechnics, the hair extensions, the semi-clad dancers and the strangely discordant backing vocalists, the terrifying key changes, the neon-white smiles and the political (nul) point-scoring. However, this time the organisers of the Eurovision song contest have conspired to create a much more sombre event. The theme is “come together” and the show will feature a dance sequence evoking Europe’s refugee crisis, as well as a handful of political entries. Mans Zelmerlow, last year’s winner and this year’s co-presenter, told the Swedish broadcaster SVT: “It is more necessary than ever before that we unite and join together, and that is literally what we do in Eurovision, where most of the countries in Europe meet together. “We obviously want to touch upon it: anything else would be to bury your head in the sand. We have shut the borders now, so I don’t know if there’s that much to be proud about.” Sven Stojanovic, content producer of the show, said of the dance routine: “We want to make people think and be left with something to reflect upon after seeing the performance.” Sweden’s ambassador to the UK, Nicola Clase, has made an entirely serious radio documentary, to be broadcast on Wednesday on the BBC World Service, called The Swedish Ambassador’s Guide to Eurovision, insisting that its history is “as much about politics as pop”. She cites the tension this year on and off stage between Russia and the Ukraine. Eurovision rules bar overtly political songs, but Russia has taken a dim view of the Ukrainian entry, 1944, written by the singer Jamala, which never refers explicitly to the Crimean Tatars or the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin but deals with her great grandmother’s experiences in the year when thousands of the Tatar people were exiled. Sunday saw the suitably surreal launch of the Eurovision week, which will climax on Saturday with the 2016 final watched by an expected 200 million people. Members of the Swedish Life Guards regiment raised the flags of 42 countries as the competing artists paraded along a 95-metre red carpet before being whisked away to the opening reception at Stockholm town hall. In true Eurovision style, the first tears have already been shed. There should have been 43 flags and 43 competitors, but Romania was expelled last month from the European Broadcasting Union for failing to pay an accumulated debt of €14.5m (£11.4m). With it went the right to seek Eurovision glory. The unfortunate 24-year-old singer who had already been chosen to represent Romania, Ovidiu Anton, said: “Dear friends, I have finally received the official communication. I am trying to smile and not get carried away, but it is unfair.” It was perhaps a fortunate turn of events. If Romania had won this year’s competition, they would be saddled with the additional debt of paying for the whole show in 2017. The sensible Swedes have dramatically slimmed down the cost of staging the event, since the glory days when Azerbaijan is believed to have staged the most expensive contest ever. In 2012, the country allegedly spent at least $108m (£74m) on preparations, including building a new arena – and renovating an old one in case the Crystal Hall was not ready in time – in the capital Baku. The drama of the final – the organisers insist – has been undergone a major revamp of the already bewildering voting system, separating the scores of the professional juries and the viewers voting by app or text message, “adding a new level of excitement for hundreds of millions of viewers in Europe and beyond”. Ireland, which has the highest number of wins of any competing country with seven victories, including three consecutive years, has since put forward Dustin the Turkey once, and Jedward twice, to guard against any repeat. This year it’s Nicky Byrne, former Westlife star and co-author of the entry Sunlight, described on his own website as “a modern, mid-tempo pop track with an ultimately catchy hook”. The United Kingdom has remained quite safe for many years from the threat of having to host: Electro Velvet picked up just five points in 2015 in Vienna. This time it’s Joe and Jake – who only met last year as contestants on The Voice – singing You’re Not Alone (chorus “uh oh oh wah oh oh”). After their first rehearsal, odds shortened dramatically from 50-1 to 25-1. “They could now be considered a lively outsider,” a spokesman for William Hill said. They should perhaps consider adding a wolf. Minus One from Cyprus have a wolf in their video and howl like wolves on stage, and it remains to be seen whether Ivan from Belarus achieves his ambition of singing naked on stage flanked by a pair of live wolves – in rehearsal he was, disappointingly, fully clothed. “[He] will be naked on stage and there will be wolves,” his manager said firmly. There remains the small issue of the rule, so wisely introduced in anticipation that one day wolves would become a Eurovision thing, which states: “No live animals shall be allowed on stage.” This article was amended on 9 May to clarify that it wasn’t Swedish life guards, but members of the Swedish Life Guards regiment who raised the flags.
Jessy Lanza: Oh No review – wonky pop, peak danceability When Canada’s Jessy Lanza debuted with 2013’s Pull My Hair Back, she was pigeonholed as one of the “future R&B” artists mixing up 90s sounds with new electronics. Understandably, she and co-producer/partner Jeremy Greenspan have made a run for it on second album Oh No and a wider – and weirder – range of influences, from Yellow Magic Orchestra and J-pop to Chicago footwork and New Orleans bounce, shine through their wonky pop prism. Lanza’s smoky sensuality is still there on slow jams such as Begins, Could Be You and I Talk BB, which recalls one of Prince’s syrupiest piano moments. But much of it is, brilliantly, like something from a dusty Dance Mania tape, recognisable only by Lanza’s distinct, vapour-light voice. At times, the production can be overly fussy (see Going Somewhere), but tracks such as VV Violence (squelchy electro-funk by way of girlish electroclash) and Never Enough (a nod to smooth house dude Morgan Geist) demonstrate their ability to team that experimentalism with peak-time danceability. There could be a bona fide pop star in Jessy Lanza yet.
Calvin Harris named world's highest earning DJ – again It’s amazing the amount of money you can make by pressing play. That might be reductive, but that’s the lesson to be learned from Forbes magazine’s latest list of the world’s best paid DJs. The list, billed as the “Electronic Cash Kings”, shows Calvin Harris topping the list for the third successive year, despite his earnings dropping from $66m (£50.8m) to $63m. The key driver of earnings at the top of the DJing trade, as Forbes notes, is the availability of lucrative residences in Las Vegas, where DJs can earn six-figure sums per set. The magazine says Harris is paid more than $400,000 for each of his Vegas appearances. His earnings are also boosted by his being a hitmaker in his own right. At No 2 is the Dutch DJ Tiësto, who earned an estimated $38m, with his 7 Up deal contributing to his income. David Guetta, who has a residency deal with the clubs owned by Vegas magnate Steve Wynn, netted $28m to finish in third. Forbes notes that the total earnings of the top 10 DJs have decreased by 1% from last year, for a total of $270.5m, the first year since it compiled the list in 2012 that the total earnings have fallen. The fifth-placed DJ, Steve Aoki, told Forbes: “The bubble has already burst in America. You can see it in Vegas’s DJ landscape.” Forbes’s figures included not just DJing fees, but earnings from live shows, merchandise, endorsements, recorded music and outside business ventures, and covered the period from June 2015 to June 2016. The full top 10 is: 1 Calvin Harris – $63m 2 Tiësto – $38m 3 David Guetta – $28m 4 Zedd – $24.5m 5 Steve Aoki – $23.5m 6 Diplo – $23m 7 Skrillex – $20m 8 Kaskade – $19m 9 Martin Garrix – $16m 10 Dimitri Vegas and Like Mike – $15.5m
Passwords, phones and privacy settings: how to protect yourself online Sensible people are vigilant about online security as a matter of course, ever alert to the possibility that someone might breach their passwords for the purposes of stealing. Like the ones who drink the recommended number of units and make sure their dogs never have chocolate, I don’t know people like this, but I’ve heard they exist. As bad as theft is, there is a greater peril, which is what prompted video game developer Zoe Quinn to devise Coach, a series of walk-throughs to protect yourself online, and feminist activist Anita Sarkeesian to create her online safety guide. If you are monumentally unlucky, you can find yourself in the eye of the internet’s fury, and the range of things cyber-competent strangers can do to you is wide and extremely nasty. Doxing is when someone hacks into your account and broadcasts your personal details – from there, the death and rape threats that are routine for women with a significant online presence take on a hideous new plausibility. You are vulnerable to acts of baroque vandalism, like swatting – where an emergency call is faked from your address and the police storm your house – and, of course, still theft. While these storms are depressingly often triggered by a feminist moment, Quinn’s case mainly stemmed from the fact of her being female, and the attacks on her were life-alteringly intense, and globally arresting. Most of the other cases I can pluck from memory involve an act of mild feminism: a lawyer objecting to casual sexual objectification; a scientist rebutting the idea that women only go to the lab to fall in love. But the only way you could be sure that you would never find yourself a target would be to avoid not just feminism but any act of strident self-assertion. From that perspective, it is actually easier to protect your passwords. Start by downloading a password management tool – I used LastPass. You go through your accounts in this order: Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Apple, Dropbox, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, PayPal, eBay, Amazon, and then any not-so-universal sites (Ocado and Outnet, basically). LastPass generates new passwords for them, which will then autofill through a snowflake button on the browser. The process of changing is painful; it shames me to admit that, more than once, I incorrectly saved the new password on to LastPass, then had to go through hell to change it again, ending up with multiple versions of the same site in my “vault”. I am still locked out of Facebook but this is for the best, I think. It should take about an hour – it took me about two. Then you register for two-step verification where you can, meaning whenever you want to make a transaction, you are texted a code on your mobile. This sounds like more hassle than it is, since it’s rare for your mobile to be very far away. Even if you are an inveterate non-worrier, you will feel more secure after this. Especially if you are someone whose passwords were all variations on the same formation, and you previously spent your life trying to remember the minute differences, you’ll be amazed at how much free time you now have and can get on with learning an instrument or a new language. Personal data in the public domain is more complicated: if you have a domain name, your details may be accessible through Whoisnet and you will have to contact the service you bought the domain through and establish new privacy settings. Otherwise, the best way to see what’s publicly available is to type your address, in inverted commas, into Google: immediately, you will probably find yourself on Freeelectoralrolls.com, but those of a paranoid bent will have already asked via their local electoral registration office to be kept off the open records. Other than that, the main porosity I found was Companies House. If you are a company director – and this isn’t as niche as it sounds, since it includes organisations with charitable aims but not charitable status – your home address will be listed, unless you have alerted them to some specific threat. In the US, there are also a number of websites that list people’s addresses – such as Spokeo – and you will have to contact each of them directly to ask to be removed. Apart from Freeelectoralrolls.com, this is not such big business in the UK. Other possible breaches are: failure to choose the right privacy settings on your website or chosen social media, and that is relatively simple; or leaks via your family members, especially on a site like Facebook, where you could have the most stringent settings but find that your location could be correctly identified most of the time via your idiot children. You may, if you haven’t lost the will to live, want to go through all these processes with the other members of your household. Hardware compromises are where things become complicated: signs that your computer has been hacked include windows opening on their own, sudden slowness, hard-drive grinding. Mac has a programme called Little Snitch which will tell you when data is being sent from your computer, and Wireshark is a network protocol analyser. Yes, exactly: your paranoia has to be at quite high levels for this level of attention to be worthwhile. The journalist Geoff White and techie Glenn Wilkinson have done some bracing work, meanwhile, on how much data can be gathered about you and your whereabouts via your phone or mobile device. The tech journalist Christian Payne summed this up neatly: the only way to protect yourself from the possibility that someone could steal your identity or discover your whereabouts via your phone is to carry it in a lead-lined wallet and not use it. Incidentally, the same is true of your passport – its details can be read from a distance, and therefore it leaks information constantly. Generally, avoid public Wi-Fi networks, keep your system updated, and download Prey on to every device, so you can wipe it remotely if it is stolen. But there is only one way to avoid all the security breaches presented by a mobile phone, and that is by not having a mobile phone. Despite Quinn’s work simplifying the process, it remains quite an undertaking, and I resented it. Sometimes men launch these attacks on each other, hack each other in displays of techie braggadocio, but it is essentially yet another unwanted cost of being female. Virtual violence raises the familiar arid rage in me that all violence against women does; the frustration that it never ends, only grows new limbs. So I get no satisfaction from my new unhackability, but I do recognise that it was worth doing. If you are targeted online, there are useful guides here and here. They include lists of support services, mainly in the US. If you are in the UK, there is a useful directory of available support here. The ’s head of information security, Dave Boxall, and a systems editor, John Stuttle, will be available from 1pm BST to answer your questions about digital security. Please use the comment thread below to ask your questions – comments that are not questions about security will be considered to be off-topic.
End this misogynistic horror show. Put Hillary Clinton in the White House When I was a girl of 11 I had an argument with my father that left my psyche maimed. It was about whether a woman could be the president of the US. How did it even start? I was no feminist prodigy, just a shy kid who preferred reading to talking; politics weren’t my destiny. Probably, I was trying to work out what was possible for my category of person – legally, logistically – as one might ask which kinds of terrain are navigable for a newly purchased bicycle. Up until then, gender hadn’t darkened my mental doorway as I followed my older brother into our daily adventures wearing hand-me-down jeans. But in adolescence it dawned on me I’d be spending my future as a woman, and when I looked around, alarm bells rang. My mother was a capable, intelligent, deeply unhappy woman who aspired to fulfilment as a housewife but clearly disliked the job. I saw most of my friends’ mothers packed into that same dreary boat. My father was a country physician, admired and rewarded for work he loved. In my primordial search for a life coach, he was the natural choice. I probably started by asking him if girls could go to college, have jobs, be doctors, tentatively working my way up the ladder. His answers grew more equivocal until finally we faced off, Dad saying, “No” and me saying, “But why not?” A female president would be dangerous. His reasons vaguely referenced menstruation and emotional instability, innate female attraction to maternity and aversion to power, and a general implied ickyness that was beneath polite conversation. I ended that evening curled in bed with my fingernails digging into my palms and a silent howl tearing through me that lasted hours and left me numb. The next day I saw life at a remove, as if my skull had been jarred. What changed for me was not a dashing of specific hopes, but an understanding of what my father – the person whose respect I craved – really saw when he looked at me. I was tainted. I would grow up to be a lesser person, confined to an obliquely shameful life. But I didn’t stop asking what a woman gets to do, and so began a lifelong confrontation with that internal howl. The slap-downs were often unexpected. Play drums in the band? No. Sign up for the science team? Go camping with the guys? Go jogging in shorts and a tank top without fear of being assaulted? Experiment boldly, have a career, command a moral authority of my own? Walk home safely after dark? No, no, no. Eventually, I wrestled my way to yes on most of these things, except of course the last one. And the same dread that stalks me in dark parking lots – the helpless fury of knowing I don’t get to be just a person here, going about my business – has haunted all the other pursuits, from science team to career. It’s a matter of getting up each day and pushing myself again into a place some people think I have no right to occupy. My father is very old now. Lately, I brought up our ancient argument about who may occupy the White House, but he didn’t remember it. The world has changed and so has he, urged forward by working daughters and granddaughters. He’s ready and eager to vote for a woman president. But it’s knocked the breath out of me to learn that most of his peers are not. Hillary Clinton has honoured the rules of civic duty and met the prerequisites for a candidate, bringing a lifetime of pertinent experience, an inquiring mind, a record of compassionate service and a sound grasp of our nation’s every challenge, from international relations to climate change; her stated desire is to work hard for our country and its future. Her opponent has no political experience, a famously childish temperament, no interest in educating himself on any subject, a manifest record of shortchanging employees, bankrupting businesses, cheating on wives, dodging taxes and serving absolutely no one but himself. His mission is to elevate the self-regard of some Americans by degrading many others, including Muslims, Mexican immigrants, people with disabilities, residents of African-American communities, women he finds beautiful and women he does not. I’m horrified to watch the bizarre pageant of my nation pretending these two contenders are equivalent. No one really imagines Donald Trump applying himself to the disciplines of the presidency, staying up late reading reams of legislation, instead of firing off juvenile tweets. It’s even harder to imagine Clinton indulging in the boorish self-aggrandisement, intellectual laziness, racism and vulgar contempt for the opposite gender that characterise her opponent. If anyone still doubts that the inexperienced man gets promoted ahead of the qualified woman, you can wake up now. This race is close. Polls tell us most Americans believe Trump has sexually assaulted women (to name just one potential disqualifier). A majority also believe Clinton “can’t be trusted”, for unspecified reasons. We’re back to the ancient conundrum: a woman can’t be that smart and commanding, so either her womanliness or her smartness must be counterfeit. To set that hazy discomfort next to a sexual assaulter and call these defects “equivalent” is causing my ears to ring as I write. Months ago, Trump bragged that he could commit murder and still retain his following. He was right. Legions have clung to this foul troth right up to last month when he declared that we really don’t need to hold an election. “We should just give it to Trump now, right?” Because there is no other candidate – she’s tainted, we don’t need reasons; it goes without saying, the woman isn’t a person. The men orchestrating this misogynistic horror show have combed every inch of Clinton’s lifetime of service looking for some dark deed, finding nothing worse than a mistake about email handling for which she has accepted responsibility and submitted to an exhaustive investigation that found no harm done. (I marvel at her decades of perfect caution. What other person alive could come through such scrutiny without deeper embarrassments?) They’ve broken into her private exchanges, the legal equivalent of burgling and rifling the drawers of her home, dragging stolen goods through the public forum with barefaced entitlement. Through it all, Clinton holds her head high and carries on as if this is the way of campaigns. Listen: it is not politics as usual when one camp continually threatens the other with imprisonment and death, screaming female-specific vulgarities, painting her face on targets, hoisting her effigy being hanged. No candidate in the history of the US, Barack Obama included, has been subjected to so much jubilant violation. I suffer these humiliations as my own and can’t understand why voters stand by with arms crossed, assessing her stamina and valour while Clinton is taking it on the chin. How have we not exploded into a new civil rights movement with women and men together rushing on to the streets to demand that female humanity matters? Where is our primal scream against being bullied, dismissed, reviled for the misdeeds of others and witch-hunted for the crime of being competent while female? More than half the world’s people are female; the principles of democracy suggest we may claim that space as ours. What we get to do now is lock arms and march to the polls to vote for Clinton. My father and I have waited half a century to see our old argument settled. Both of us hope with all our hearts to wake up on Wednesday and see that he was wrong.
Mischa Barton ordered to pay $200k for failing to show up on film set Mischa Barton has been ordered to pay $200,000 (£150,000) after failing to show up on set for the production of a film in 2014. The actor, best known for her roles in The Sixth Sense and The OC, was due to star in sex comedy Promoted but disappeared and ignored contact about her whereabouts, according to TMZ. The film was set to start production on 4 March but the actor’s mother reportedly emailed producers the day before to say that her holiday around Europe would delay the shoot for two weeks. Producers then filed a lawsuit, demanding $320,000 to cover marketing costs, losses and her advance payment. A judge has ordered that Barton pay screenwriter David Lief $200,000 for her failure to appear on set after her social media posts, about her holiday, supported the case. Promoted was ultimately made with Freaks and Geeks star Samm Levine, and Now You See Me’s Justine Wachsberger playing Barton’s role. Barton is also involved in another legal dispute after accusing her mother of deliberately delaying the sale of the $7m home they co-own and refusing her access after changing the locks. It’s the second time the Notting Hill star has taken her to court after originally claiming she stole money from her in 2015. The actor recently drew criticism for an Instagram post paying tribute to Alton Sterling after his death, with a bikini shot on the side of a yacht. She later removed the image, saying she “didn’t mean to offend anyone”. Her upcoming films include horror film The Malevolent and drama Father alongside Daryl Hannah and Eric Roberts.
Brexit could ruin Ireland's food industry, Bruton and Ahern tell Lords The Irish food industry on both sides of the border in Ireland will be devastated if Brexit requires common external tariffs between Ireland and the UK, former taoiseachsJohn Bruton and Bertie Ahern have warned. They said they expected the UK’s departure from the customs union would entail massive bureaucracy, higher costs and the re-imposition of customs controls on the border. The two former Irish prime ministers, who were giving evidence to a House of Lords select committee inquiry into the impact of Brexit on Anglo-Irish relations, said they did not believe EU laws on the single market gave EU negotiators a great deal of latitude on tariffs. Ahern, the prime minister from 1997 to 2008, said he did not know of a single person in Ireland who welcomed Brexit and highlighted how the imposition of an external trade tariff could cripple the food industry and undermine a 40-year trend towards greater economic integration between the UK and Ireland. “The complexity of this is a nightmare and we might as well as accept that fact,” he said. Bruton, who was prime minister from 1994 to 1997, said new customs arrangements were likely to be “a smuggler’s charter” as people tried to take advantage of lower or higher tariffs on either side of the border. He warned: “Uncertainty is the enemy of commerce and legal uncertainty is even more the enemy of commerce.” The relationship between the British and Irish food processing industries was critical since it was so interconnected, Bruton said, pointing out that 30% of the milk produced in the north was processed south of the border while 40% of the chicken produced in the south was processed north of the border. He said: “The supply chain of the food industry is exceptionally interconnected and, if we get into a situation where the common external tariff has to be imposed, that will require us to introduce customs controls of some kind to collect that tariff and, on the UK side of the border, people would have to certify the origins of the produce.” Ahern pointed out that the Tesco supermarket chain took 60% of its cheese and 84% of its chicken from Ireland. The two-way trade of milk is worth £1.5bn per year. He said: “The inter-relationships are enormous. Tariffs could cripple a huge amount of the food industry; the bureaucracy would be enormous – the amount of people involved, the add-on costs of running that kind of system. My concern is people would start going elsewhere for markets and it would really work totally against the entire industry and that would be a huge loss. “Groups like the Kerry Group are 40 years in existence and they have built enormous connections between Ireland and the UK generally. To set up a whole bureaucratic system with high tariffs would cripple the industry and that would be devastating.” Bruton added that “a lot of busy lawyers” were going to make money when different standards on the production of goods and services started to apply on either side of the border. Other areas of difficulty he highlighted included Ireland’s integrated electricity market, fisheries policy, the EU open skies programme, cross-border university research and the disruption posed to EU institutions based in the UK. Ahern rejected the idea that the Irish border could act as the border for the whole of the UK to prevent EU citizens making their way into the UK over the Northern Ireland border. The two men suggested landlords and employers might have to undertake checks at the behest of the UK government to ensure EU citizens had not entered the UK illegally through Ireland. Ahern said it would be a huge concern for the Irish peace process if a border was established with customs posts. “It would have been easier if more thought had been given to this before the referendum had been initiated and during the referendum campaign itself,” he said. Bruton warned that the UK debate on its Brexit negotiations might appeal to the people of Peterborough and Sunderland, but urged UK ministers to focus on what might be good for the whole of the UK. The committee also heard from Lord Green of Hurstpierpoint, the Conservative former trade minister, who expressed fears that the economic and political ramifications of Brexit could be more serious for Ireland than for Scotland, adding that he did not believe there was any serious understanding of the scale of the problem in either France or Germany. In a sign of the potential tensions between Ireland and the UK, the Irish government announced it would bid to host the European Banking Authority which, it said, would have to leave its London location after Brexit.
Zayn Malik cancels gig amid the 'worst anxiety of my career' Zayn Malik has described his struggle with anxiety after it forced the singer to cancel a live performance in London. The former One Direction member, who has since established a solo career, was scheduled to play at Capital FM’s Summertime Ball at Wembley Stadium on Saturday alongside Ariana Grande, Tinie Tempah, Years and Years and Clean Bandit. Ahead of his appearance, however, Malik posted a message to his followers, describing his anxiety, especially surrounding the pressures of performing live. While the singer’s debut album, Mind of Mine, received largely positive reviews, he has played very few solo gigs to support its release. When he performed his new track It’s You on US show The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon in February, his subdued performance received a negative reaction from viewers. Malik has previously commented on grappling with his “intrusive and invasive” fame. In his first interview following his departure from One Direction, Malik described the day he decided to leave the band: “I was always thinking it. I just didn’t know when I was going to do it. Then by the time I decided to go, it just felt right on that day. I woke up on that morning […] and was like, ‘I need to go home. I just need to be me now, because I’ve had enough.’
On the Road review – Michael Winterbottom's erotic music doc is a euphoric joy Michael Winterbottom’s On the Road is his best film in years: romantic, erotic and musically euphoric. This is a sensuously laidback docu-social-realist gem which takes something very difficult and makes it look easy. Winterbottom and his camera crew went out on the road last year with the indie rock band Wolf Alice as they toured the UK and Ireland: a group whose name is taken from an Angela Carter short story. They are Ellie Rowsell (guitar, vocals), Joff Oddie (guitar), Joel Amey (drums) and Theo Ellis (bass). The various tour dates provide a convenient chapter-break structure, and are announced in block capitals on screen: Glasgow, Liverpool, etc. About 80% of his film is a straightforward – and very good – documentary about the tour, recording the live shows, the backstage lives and the band’s weary but patient grappling with press obligations, including going into local radio stations and sportingly playing “live acoustic” versions of their songs around the interview table. But Winterbottom has also inveigled ride-along actors on the tour bus, embedded fictional characters whose backstage lives are intermeshed with the real world captured on film. Their emotions appear to be projected outwards into the heaving mass of real-world fans singing passionately along to the songs of Wolf Alice. They are Joe (James McArdle), a grizzled twentysomething Glasgow roadie and Estelle (Leah Harvey), taking photos for the management website and shepherding the band for media appearances and interviews. Joe and Estelle start talking … and there’s a spark of attraction between them. In Winterbottom’s more explicit movie 9 Songs, the music became a soundtrack to the relationship. Here, the proportion and emphasis are differently weighed and it’s more that the relationship is a soundtrack to the music, or that they work as some sort of counterpoint. This could easily have been a rather fey and arch idea, and at first the obviously fictional feel of Estelle’s dialogue and line-readings, and the shots of her smiling and nodding along to the band’s music seem an uncomfortable fit. But the invented life beds in, and provides an emotional and dramatic perspective on the life of the music; it gives us a way into it. In the best way, Winterbottom lets the music do the work. The songs are the meat of the film and are given space to breathe. But they are never made to bear dramatic significance – tby overtly commenting on the fictional action, or being ironically at variance with it. The film is unselfconscious and uncoercive in its attitude to Wolf Alice. This is not to say that specific dramatic things do not happen. Joe meets up with his brother, who persuades him to pay a visit to his mum, who is not doing well: this is a cameo from Shirley Henderson, who appears drunk and unhappy in a pub. But the scene does not develop into a hammy confrontation-catharsis. It is undramatic and inconclusive – as real life tends to be. There’s another subtle detail, which Winterbottom presents with a masterly lack of emphasis. Estelle (and indeed Leah Harvey) is musically very talented. On a couple of occasions, she gets her guitar out on the tour bus while the other roadies and staff are reading or snoozing, and sings some great songs, evidently of her own composition. And her fellow road crew, particularly the guys, are not especially pleased with her presumption: there are looks that are blank, or disapproving. A taboo of some sort has been broken, and the glances appear to say: the band is the talent, to which we are subservient, and we don’t particularly want to extend that subservience to you. On the Road (the original title was Love Song) does not have any obvious narrative arc: there is anticlimax when the bassist injures his elbow and can’t play in the final gig at the Forum in north London. There isn’t any obvious resolution or development in Joe and Estelle’s relationship, either – but a kind of piquancy and eroticism in its unfinished, lingering quality. This made me a fan of Wolf Alice, and reawakened my Winterbottom fanhood.
Bruce Springsteen: born to write Virtually all rock memoirs follow a similar pattern of rise and fall, before ending with acceptance – brought on by sobriety, spirituality, the death of peers, or just the plain realisation that it’s not worth hating your bandmates any more. Virtually all, too, are at their best in their early pages – covering the early years – when the passion for music still burns bright, when it’s all still fun, when the star is rising, rather than burning out. Bruce Springsteen’s memoir, Born to Run, out at the end of September, looks as if it might be a little different. For a start, there’s his status: no bass player with a second-rate hair-metal band, he. It’s hard to imagine this will be bathos-laden, often one of the only selling points of lesser rock biogs. His status, too, is current: no one else has spent as long as Springsteen selling out stadiums, year after year, to ecstatic receptions. No one else of his stature seems to feel the need to commune with their flock with such frequency. Then there are the precedents: among his generation (and his commercial and critical peers), both Bob Dylan and Neil Young have produced books that steered well clear of the traditional rock volume. Dylan told a meandering narrative that avoided many major events, telling the stories less told. Young’s dwelled heavily on his passions – audio fidelity, green motoring – while his relationship with Crosby, Stills and Nash was dismissed with startling brevity. Less ornery than either of them – in his public image, at least – Springsteen is likely to offer his fans a more straightforward read. The foreword to Born to Run, which he released on his website recently, promises to answer the two questions that occupy the mind of anyone watching someone undeniably great working a stage: how do they do that, and why do they do that? Why, after 50 years as a musician, after more than 40 playing the song that gives the book its name, does Springsteen still need to hear 90,000 people singing “Tramps like us, baby we were born to run!” back at him? The foreword offered some clues: “DNA, natural ability, study of craft, development of and devotion to an aesthetic philosophy, naked desire for … fame? … love? … admiration? … attention? … women?… sex? … and oh, yeah …. a buck. Then … if you want to take it all the way out to the end of the night, a furious fire in the hole that just … don’t … quit … burning.” Springsteen has long appeared one of the most knowable of rock stars. So many of his songs, if not autobiographical, have appeared to give direct insights into his childhood, his family, his town, his country. One album, Tunnel of Love, dealt with his disillusionment with his first marriage. Songs are songs: they are a truth, they are not the truth. But it’s not only in the songs: there are books compiling his many interviews. And this rock Charlemagne has his own Einhard, in the form of writer Dave Marsh, who has conveyed his thoughts to the world. Even while writing this book, he cooperated with Peter Ames Carlin on the really very decent biography, Bruce, published in 2012. So, on the face of it, one really shouldn’t need this book. Don’t we all know about his dad, his struggles, his superstardom and so on? Yes, but we still only know the facts of the legends. Born to Run gives us the chance, at last, to know why Springsteen needed to build those legends. • Born to Run is published on 27 September by Simon & Schuster.
When Marnie Was There review – Japanese adaptation of a very British book Based on a very British novel by Joan G Robinson and transposed, via Japan’s legendary animators Studio Ghibli, to a sleepy seaside town in Hokkaido, this beguiling, bittersweet tale has a bruised maturity that some of the more overtly fantastic Ghibli stories are lacking. The protagonist, Anna, is a teenage girl poised at that vulnerable, half-formed moment in life when every casual cruel word hits like a poisoned dart. Sickly and silent, she is sent for the summer to a foster family. It is there that she meets Marnie, the golden-haired girl who lives in a seemingly abandoned mansion across the bay. The connection between them is instant – Anna has at last found a friend. But Marnie is as elusive as a shadow. And it is a friendship that is not without jealousy, tension and misunderstanding. At times, it feels more of a romantic entanglement than a platonic one, although given later revelations, it is unlikely that this reading is the intended one. The theme of a lonely child and a supernatural companion is a popular one in animation. There are parallels with Coraline, and with the Ghibli production Spirited Away. While Marnie lacks the densely mystical, immersive quality of Ghibli at its best, the film features characteristically exquisite hand-drawn animation and a sensitivity to the precarious, friable quality in an adolescent girl’s self-worth.
Mel and Sue leaving Bake Off: how social media reacted First came the revelation that the Great British Bake Off was leaving the BBC for Channel 4. However, the news that presenters Sue Perkins and Mel Giedroyc will not be going with it has been particularly hard to swallow for diehard fans – if the anguish vented on social media is anything to go by. There was also dismay from former contestants and celebrities. Among them was Richard Burr, who took part in the 2014 series. Another 2014 contestant, Martha Collison, described the duo as “irreplaceable”. Jo Wheatley, the Bake Off champion in 2011, said she was “really hoping this isn’t true” and that “Mel and Sue are as big a part of GBBO as Mary [Berry] and Paul [Hollywood]”. John Whaite, the winner of the show in 2012, was initially eager to dampen down the gloom. But news of the departure of Giedroyc and Perkins caused a change in his mood. “Mel and Sue jump ship. Very sad news,” he tweeted. “They’re wonderful girls who made the show what it is. Now, I’m not feeling so hopeful ...” Perkins and Giedroyc confirmed they would not be fronting Bake Off when it moves to Channel 4 next year, saying in a statement they were “not going with the dough”. They have presented the popular show since 2010 and said they were “shocked and saddened” to learn of the Bake Off’s forthcoming move from the BBC. Amid the inevitable speculation over who will be the new hosts, the odds-on favourite to front the new series is Jo Brand – presenter of spin-off show An Extra Slice. The bookmaker William Hill was offering odds of 6/1. Other popular names in the mix include the actor Jennifer Saunders with 8/1 odds, the comedian Sarah Millican at 12/1 and the comic Ed Byrne at 16/1.
HSBC escaped US money-laundering charges after Osborne's intervention The US government decided not to pursue criminal charges against HSBC for allowing terrorists and drug dealers to launder millions of dollars after George Osborne and the UK banking regulator intervened to warn that prosecuting Britain’s biggest bank could lead to a “global financial disaster”. On Monday, a congressional report published letters and emails from Osborne and Financial Services Authority (FSA) officials to their US counterparts warning that launching criminal action against HSBC in 2012 could have sparked a “financial calamity”. The House financial services committee report said the UK interventions “played a significant role in ultimately persuading the DoJ [Department of Justice] not to prosecute HSBC”. Instead of pursuing a prosecution, the bank agreed to pay a record $1.92bn (£1.4bn) fine. The report revealed that Osborne wrote to Ben Bernanke, who was then the Federal Reserve chairman, and Timothy Geithner, the then treasury secretary, to warn that prosecuting a “systemically important financial institution” like HSBC “could lead to [financial] contagion” and pose “very serious implications for financial and economic stability, particularly in Europe and Asia”. The report said the FSA was “problematic”, “weighed in very strongly” and caused a “firestorm”, which led the then attorney general, Eric Holder, to overrule the advice of his own prosecutors and not pursue criminal action. “FSA has been on the phone for the criminal discussions,” officials wrote in emails released in the House report. “That’s what has caused the latest firestorm. The contents of that discussion are included in the Chancellor’s letter.” If HSBC had been found guilty of the potential charges, the US government would have been required to review and possibly revoke its charter to do business in the US. The FSA repeatedly warned that even the threat of possible charter withdrawal could have caused a fresh global financial crisis. The House report said Holder “misled” Congress about the justice department’s reasoning for declining to prosecute. It said the department had enough evidence to pursue criminal charges against HSBC and pointed out that the bank had already admitted to the US government that it broke money laundering rules. The report said: “Rather than lacking adequate evidence to prove HSBC’s criminal conduct, internal treasury documents show that DoJ leadership declined to pursue [its legal team’s] recommendation to prosecute HSBC because senior DoJ leaders were concerned that prosecuting the bank ‘could result in a global financial disaster’– as the FSA repeatedly warned.” The 2012 settlement detailed how Mexico’s Sinaloa drug cartel and Colombia’s Norte del Valle cartel laundered $881m through HSBC and a Mexican unit. In some cases, Mexican branches had widened tellers’ windows to allow big boxes of cash to be pushed across the counters. HSBC also violated US sanctions by working with customers in Iran, Libya, Sudan, Burma and Cuba. HSBC, the justice department and the US treasury declined to comment on the report.
Salomón Rondón header earns West Brom dogged victory at Crystal Palace On an opening day where the champions were defeated by a team who many had consigned to relegation before a ball was even kicked, it was reassuring to see some things remain completely predictable. An impressive, if unaesthetic, defensive performance from West Bromwich Albion was rewarded by Salomón Rondón’s glancing header to leave Crystal Palace wondering if 2016 really will be their annus horribilis. Having taken only 11 points in a diabolical second half of last season, this inauspicious start from Alan Pardew’s team will do those of a nervous disposition at Selhurst Park few favours. There is no need to get carried away at such an embryonic point but sufficient evidence exists that plenty of work must be done on the pitch and in the transfer market. Yannick Bolasie is expected to complete his £28m move to Everton in the coming days, with Pardew saying: “If his heart is not with us we have to exchange goodbyes.” The manager is targeting a pair of strikers but could also reinforce other areas. Palace will also not meet such stodgy opponents each week. For all the murmurings of uncertainty following Guochuan Lai’s takeover of West Brom a little more than a week ago and Tony Pulis’s insistence his squad needs to be strengthened throughout, normal service appears to have immediately resumed. “We defended as a team very well,” Pulis said, “and we always looked dangerous. In the opening game, you never want to lose but if you can win it’s a great bonus.” That Saido Berahino looked tuned in and interested again was another notable fillip. Joining Rondón up front, the former England Under-21 striker worked hard but was short on sharpness. It looks increasingly likely that with a year remaining on his contract he will now remain at The Hawthorns. “We won’t let Saido go, the club will not let him go until someone comes in,” Pulis said. “We have to get him back to where he was in my first year here, when he was the main reason we survived. We lost him last year but if we can get him back, he and Rondón will be a handful for any team.” Initially Albion had shown plenty of attacking intent, most notably from a leaner and meaner Rondón, but they gradually dropped deeper as the half wore on. The Venezuelan had three good sights at goal before the break, the first met by a splendid Wayne Hennessey save following a Craig Gardner cross. After a tepid start, Palace finished an interminably dull opening period looking a tad more likely. Connor Wickham cast a lonely figure up top, doing little but reinforcing the need for additional options. Yet immediately behind him there were some flashes of excitement. Andros Townsend, making his competitive debut for the club, and Wilfried Zaha worked tirelessly either side of Lee Chung-yong, who was starting in place of Bolasie. When the Congolese was introduced 25 minutes from the end, greeted by the afternoon’s loudest cheer, the game had already shown signs of opening up. Zaha was denied twice in the space of a few seconds by Ben Foster, while Jason Puncheon and Townsend also saw attempts blocked. But West Brom did what Pulis teams have always done: defend resolutely and frustrate their opponents to the extent where they run out of ideas. Then, when few expected it, the goal arrived. James McClean had come on three minutes before to a predictable chorus of boos but his delivery was clinical, picking out Rondón with a lofted free-kick from the right. The header flew into Hennessey’s bottom-right corner, giving the Wales No1 no chance. Bolasie had a penalty claim waved away nine minutes from the end and Townsend completed an iffy competitive bow when ballooning a free-kick wide in injury time. There were some derisive howls at full-time; premature but an indication of the restlessness in south London.
Tesco Bank attack's knock-on effects could be severe Tesco Bank’s chief executive Benny Higgins isn’t paid £2.2m a year (plus fabulous taxi expenses) on a whim. He commands a banker’s princely pay packet because the supermarket chain intends to be big in banking. Expanding in financial services is a sensible strategy if, like Tesco, you think you have three factors in your favour. First, your brand enjoys greater “trust” than those of the old institutions that disgraced themselves in the crash, like Higgins’ former employers HBOS and Royal Bank of Scotland. Second, the regulatory winds are favourable because politicians are desperate to see a few so-called “challenger” banks provide some stiffer competition. Third, Tesco Bank doesn’t have any costly branches. That backdrop is important as Tesco Bank suffers an online bank robbery that, on the sketchy details to date, looks bigger and more alarming than any recent cyber-attack in the sector. Tesco Bank customers hold 135,000 current accounts. Of those, “suspicious” transactions were seen in 40,000 accounts, with around half seeing cash removed. That’s a lot, which is why Tesco investors’ apparently sanguine view of the affair – the share price fell only 1% – is odd. The direct cost of reimbursing customers may be merely a rounding error for a company of Tesco’s size but the knock-on effects, in the form of regulatory intervention and criticism, could be severe. Among the bodies who want to know what went wrong are: the Financial Conduct Authority, the Bank of England, the National Crime Agency and the Information Commissioner’s Office. It’s odds-on that somebody on that list will insist on root-and-branch reform of the systems to detect and prevent fraud. Tesco, remember, has offered current accounts for less than three years and its IT systems ought to be state-of-the-art because they are relatively new. It is early in the adventure to suffer an attack of this magnitude. A repetition might oblige the bank to retreat to the safer worlds of car insurance and credit cards. Judgment must be reserved until full details are clear. But it seems quite likely the fine for the security breach could easily be bigger than the accumulated profits Tesco Bank has made from current accounts to date. In the shoes of Tesco shareholders, you’d surely want to know more about this failure before assuming it’s a hiccup that could happen to anyone. Sports Direct: MPs’ visit kicks off further scrutiny “I have nothing to hide,” Sports Direct founder Mike Ashley declared to the MPs on the business select committee during his appearance in June. Apart, that is, from the camera that was allegedly hidden in the corner of the room where the parliamentarians took sandwiches on Monday. Yes, it’s the latest chapter in the Sports Direct saga, each plotline more absurd than the last. As it happens, Ashley was abroad on Monday so, unless he was relaying orders to his staff, he’s innocent of the charge of attempting to bug the MPs at the end of their unannounced visit to the company’s Shirebrook warehouse. But, if the MPs’ account of events is accurate, somebody authorised the camera wheeze. Wright would be entitled to insist on knowing who. Such matters, however amateurish in execution, are meant to be serious. Either way, the corporate paranoia has probably ensured MPs will refuse to close the book on Sports Direct just yet. It could have been different. A brisk trot around the aisles might have revealed little, allowing the MPs to declare their work to be done and to take their sandwiches back in London. Instead, says Wright, they were received with delays, hostility and “diversionary tactics.” They’ll be back. Sports Direct, it seems, doesn’t know when to stop shooting itself in the foot. Volkswagen’s Pötsch likely to motor on How is the reinvention of Volkswagen after the diesel emissions scandal going? Not well. German criminal prosecutors have widened their investigation into potential manipulation of the market to include Hans Dieter Pötsch, the former finance director who was inexplicably promoted to be chairman of the supervisory board. The investigation may come to nothing, of course, but the probe underlines why the appointment of Pötsch provoked fury among those VW investors who think German carmaker doesn’t understand what proper boardroom reform means. Fund manager Hermes spoke for many at the annual meeting in June when it said it was “struggling to understand” how Pötsch, after 12 years as finance director, could be put in charge of a supervisory board whose duties include examining whether claims could be made against former executives. The probe by public prosecuters concerns the timing of VW’s confession to investors that it had used illegal “defeat” devices to get around emissions tests. As such, it could be deemed secondary to the central question of how the devices were installed in the first place. But secondary does not mean unimportant: VW is aleady inundated with lawsuits that concentrate on the disclosure point. Pötsch’s continuing presence at the top of the company adds complication on complication. In a rational world, he would stand aside until the German authorities have decided whether to bring charges. But he won’t.
Lloyds hit by fresh £1bn PPI bill Lloyds Banking Group has taken another £1bn hit for payment protection insurance, in a move it hopes will cap its bill for the mis-selling scandal at £17bn. The fallout has cost the industry has already reached £37bn and looks likely to rise further in the coming days when other high street banks could add to their existing provisions for mis-selling the insurance product. George Culmer, Lloyds’ finance director, said the £1bn top-up should be the last “big” addition to the bank’s PPI bill and was driven by the decision by the Financial Conduct Authority to set a deadline of June 2019 – rather than spring 2018 – for claims. Lloyds has incurred the largest single bill for the scandal as it also owns HBOS, which it took over during the 2008 banking crisis. The charge for PPI was revealed as the bank reported its profits for the first nine of months of the year, which were 50% higher at £3.2bn despite the PPI charge. In the third quarter, however, profits were down 15% at £811m. Listed among the charges taken by the bank was another provision of £150m for packaged accounts, where products such as travel insurance and roadside assistance policies are bundled up alongside current accounts. The taxpayer still owns a 9% stake in Lloyds – down from 43% at the time of the financial crisis – and the slump in its shares has forced chancellor Philip Hammond to abandon a plan to sell shares to the public at the discount. Instead Hammond has signalled that the remaining shares will be sold to City investors on the stock market. The shares were the biggest fallers in the FTSE 100, down about 2.5%, but regained their losses as analysts digested the implications for the bank returning cash to shareholders next year. The shares are still well below the 73.6p average price at which taxpayers bought them during the crisis. António Horta-Osório, the chief executive, who in August apologised to staff for the hit to the bank’s reputation because of revelations about his private life, said the sale of the remaining stake would not be his cue to leave. “I am very happy at Lloyds. I … like the team here and I like the strategy,” said Horta-Osório, who took the helm in 2011 and immediately began the process of PPI payouts. Lloyds started with a £3.2bn provision, which at the time was thought to have been enough to tackle the compensation payouts. He said: “The hard work undertaken in the last five years to transform and simplify the business has allowed the UK government to sell most of its stake in the group, returning £17bn including dividends on its original £20bn investment. We welcome the recent decision to recommence the sale of its shares.” Since the rescue of HBOS approximately 45,000 jobs have been axed, and Horta-Osório would not be drawn on any further cost-cutting programmes as he said 60% of transactions with the bank could be conducted digitally. Lloyds is the first major bank to report its third quarter results, which cover the period since the Brexit vote, and Horta-Osório played down the impact on consumers, saying: “We don’t see any change in consumer trends.”But, he said, with small business customers “there has been some impact on businesses holding back on investment”. The bank also said its pension scheme had turned from a £430m surplus deficit of £740m as as a result of the plunge in bond yields caused by the low interest rate environment. Culmer said there was no need for immediate action to cut the deficit. Analysts were watching for signals about the size of dividends to shareholders. Gary Greenwood, at Shore Capital, said there was potential for payouts. “The real highlight is a much stronger than expected capital generation, which means that management has reiterated its guidance for the group to deliver full-year pre-dividend capital generation equivalent to 1.6% of risk-weighted assets – around £3.6bn or 5p per share – for the year as a whole,” he said. Horta-Osório also reiterated remarks he made shortly after the EU referendum, hinting that Hammond should announce more spending on infrastructure in next month’s autumn statement. “We strongly believe the economy requires a fiscal stimulus in terms of infrastructure and housebuilding. Interest rates have never been so low,” the Lloyds boss said.
A Space Program review – conceptual artist goes to Mars As Aaron Sorkin, Neil DeGrasse Tyson and Shane Carruth will remind you, Nasa spent millions designing a pen that worked in zero-gravity, while the Russians solved the problem by using a pencil. Unfortunately, the story is apocryphal but it speaks to a broader truth: it pays to be crafty! Nowhere does the melange of cutting-edge science and grade school homework come together as wonderfully as in A Space Program, Van Neistat’s quasi-documentary of contemporary artist Tom Sachs’s 2012 conceptual piece Space Program 2.0: MARS, held at New York’s Park Avenue Armory. In addition to being a funny, invigorating and inspirational ode to being the cleverest kid in the room, it’s a remarkable testament to the suspension of disbelief. I could see that the capsule was made from plywood, I could see audience members in folding chairs, I could see the “Earth” on the screen was a cheap globe from Goodwill, yet it only took 60 seconds for me to completely buy-in that these astronauts were taking off for Mars. Subsequently, I worried for their safe return. Neistat’s film is entirely within Sachs’s larger construct. It is a document of a trip to Mars that, with just a few sardonic tweaks, and once you get past its use of yarn and cassette decks, isn’t all that far-fetched. In fact, if you come to this movie completely cold (as I did), it may take a moment to realize it’s a bit of a goof. (Everyone’s nerdcore glasses are a little too perfect, tipping that they aren’t really scientists.) We get a very tactile understanding of the spacecraft. Its industrial materials are a step up from Scotch tape and glue, but all signage is handwritten. Jack Daniels whiskey is in storage, and the cooling units are hard rubber thermoses. Landing gear is operated with an old Atari joystick and the closed-circuit cameras date from the same era. Sachs himself leads mission control and his two female astronauts, Sam Ratanarat and Mary Eannarino, are “performing” live for an interactive audience. (At a certain point during the “show” the crowd leaves the launch pad to “walk to Mars”.) Things get a little funky when we observe Nasa’s plan to recoup the mission’s expenses by growing heroin on the Red Planet, and there’s another wonderful episode where our two space voyagers (who maybe are a couple?) begin fighting. Neistat intercuts this sequence with a Charles and Ray Eames industrial film An Introduction to Feedback created for IBM. It isn’t meant for hipper-than-thou sniggering, but part of a wider, quite astute understanding of human interaction under extreme circumstances. Somehow this dovetails with an interplanetary version of a Japanese tea ceremony. This isn’t just a grand science experiment, this is an art happening, after all. These tangents in an otherwise straightforward story trajectory is just enough to keep things interesting while keeping Sachs’s stated enthusiasm for bricolage as the real star. You can thus rest assured that the conundrum of moving one’s bowels in outer space gets its time center stage. My favorite scene in Ron Howard’s Apollo 13 (a film I hold in very high regard) is when a group of eggheads need to find a way to “make this fit into the hole for this using nothing but that”. My guess is that Neistat and Sachs feel the same way.
T-shirts designed for the nasty party I agree, plain nastiness on T-shirts is not good (Letters, 5 April). My own range will contain more policy-based slogans. Early plans include “Won’t Tax: Can’t Spend” and “Totalitoryism will be our Ruin”. Any offers? David Lang Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire • After Stuart Heritage’s Are you more cockney than Zac Goldsmith? (G2, 7 April), I do hope Helen Pidd gets equal space for her How non-Londoncentric are you? quiz. I’m happy to supply questions about the north of England and, God forbid, Scotland. John Bromhall Edinburgh • So Trump is the way he is because he is sleep deprived (Shortcuts, G2, 7 April). Does this go for all his supporters too? Margaret Squires (9 hours every night) St Andrews, Fife • Heaven help the new boss at Marks & Spencer (Report, 4 April). I am 75 and their clothes are too “old” for me. Kay Ara Trinity, Jersey • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
Russia interfering in US election is just 'conspiracy theory', Trump loyalists say Some Donald Trump loyalists have bolstered the president-elect’s unsupported claims that US intelligence agencies could be perpetuating a “conspiracy theory” after they reportedly concluded that Russia interfered with the presidential election and strengthened Trump’s run for the White House. On Sunday, Trump dismissed reports in the Washington Post and the New York Times, which stated the CIA had “high confidence” that Russia had interfered with the election, as “ridiculous” and “another excuse” for his surprise victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton in November. The president-elect followed up these remarks with a series of tweets, in which he argued: “Can you imagine if the election results were the opposite and WE tried to play the Russia/CIA card. It would be called conspiracy theory!” On Monday, Carter Page, a former foreign affairs adviser to Trump who was reportedly investigated by the FBI over his close ties to the Russian government, told an audience at the Sputnik news agency headquarters in Moscow that such claims were “a lot of speculation”. Answering questions after a presentation titled “Departing from hypocrisy: potential strategies in the era of global economic stagnation, security threats and fake news”, Page said: “Although there’s a lot of purported evidence that may or may not be out there, there’s nothing hard that really pointed in that direction. “And the security experts, having worked in the Pentagon and knowing a lot of people both from the technology standpoint but also from a national security standpoint and discussing this issue with them, it’s very easy to make it look exactly like it was country X, in this case Russia, that did this, but so I think that’s very much overestimated.” Asked if he was suggesting the hacks were a setup made to look as if Russia was behind it, Page said: “It very well could have been.” “I’ve talked with various IT experts that suggest that that could be a serious possibility, and these guys are pros that can make certain paths that can mislead, and we’ve seen many mistakes from an intelligence standpoint previously,” he said. Page’s comments were mirrored by John Bolton, the former US ambassador to the United Nations and one of those reportedly in the running to become secretary of state in the Trump administration, who told Fox News on Sunday that claims Russia had interfered with the election could be a “false flag”. “It is not at all clear to me, just viewing this from the outside, that this hacking into the DNC and the RNC was not a false flag operation,” Bolton said. Bolton continued then hinted, without citing any evidence, that the Obama administration could be responsible for perpetuating the claim. “I believe that intelligence has been politicized in the Obama administration to a very significant degree,” Bolton added. Alex Jones, the notorious conspiracy theorist who has claimed that the 9/11 attacks were an “inside job” and that the Sandy Hook massacre was a hoax, also lent support to Trump’s claims on Monday. The InfoWars founder, whose support the president-elect actively sought during the campaign, tweeted: “Absolutely no evidence has been produced to substantiate the conspiracy theory,” with a link to an article on his website, written by a contributor, which argued the CIA’s conclusions were an “ongoing effect by detractors on the left”. On Monday, the Republican Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, opened the door to a bipartisan congressional investigation into Russia’s alleged interference, which Senate Democrats and some in the GOP have been pushing for. “Any foreign breach of our cybersecurity measures is disturbing and I strongly condemn any such efforts,” McConnell said. “This simply cannot be a partisan issue.” But the senator from Kentucky refused to engage with Trump’s attack on the CIA and did not offer clear details of what the inquiry would entail.
Republicans might as well deny climate change if they don't plan to address it Let’s call it the non-denial denial. Some Republican presidential candidates are beginning to peer out from behind the wall of climate denial that has defined the party as long as Barack Obama has been in the White House. Finally, it seems, the most open expressions of climate denial – such as dismissing long-established scientific fact – may be seen as a bit retrograde, and possibly embarrassing, even by some who are looking for votes from an increasingly rightwing Republican party. In response to a rare question about climate change in Thursday night’s Republican debate, Marco Rubio offered up an answer that was rarer still in the 2016 campaign. He did not reduce climate change to a punchline or bash the science underlying climate change, as Ted Cruz and Donald Trump have been doing throughout the primary. Rubio spoke instead about policies for fighting climate change – in his case his opposition to cap and trade in his home state of Florida. “When I am president of the United States of America, there will never be any ‘cap and trade’ in the United States,” the Florida senator said. Jeb Bush, Rubio’s fellow Floridian, also steered clear of open climate denial, telling a gathering in New Hampshire on Saturday that he opposed federal government policies to deal with global warming. “The market will work faster. There’s someone in a garage somewhere, parochially I hope it’s in Miami, that’s going to have a clue, to have an answer to this,” Bush said. The fact that both candidates were operating under the assumption that climate change even exists might seem like progress of a sort. As Obama noted last month, the Republican party is the only major party in the advanced world that denies climate change. In many cases, they still are. In the undercard debate on Thursday night, Carly Fiorina dismissed climate change as a silly Democratic party distraction from real security threats. Rubio and Bush openly expressed doubt about the existence of manmade climate change earlier in the campaign. Bush butted heads with the pope. Rubio made his now infamous remark that “America is not a planet”. But there are signs of a shift. The Republican-dominated Congress voted by significant margins in December to extend tax credits for wind and solar power, a decision expected to lead to a boom in renewable energy. This week Republicans and Democrats joined forces on an energy reform bill, the first such bipartisan measure in more than eight years. The White House believes the combination of constant ridicule from Obama and other Democratic leaders and “facts on the ground”, in the form of the clean power plan and other policies enacted through the use of executive authority, will force the next president to deal with climate change, even if a Republican wins the November election. “The next president will not be inclined to be able to [scrap the plan] whether he or she wants to change it,” Denis McDonough, Obama’s chief of staff, told a forum celebrating the Pulitzer Prizes at the Washington Post on Friday. But mere acknowledgement of the existence of climate change is not enough. Neither Rubio nor Bush came forward to say what they would do to fight climate change. Their response to a gathering danger acknowledged by the Pentagon, 196 world leaders at the Paris climate summit and, yes, scientists, was merely to express opposition to the Democratic policy prescriptions already out there. Do they have no policy ideas? Would they leave climate solutions entirely to the market? That’s a huge oversight. And given the abundance of evidence all around us about the dangers of climate change – extreme sea level rise in the Bush and Rubio home state of Florida, the public health emergency of the Zika virus, the climate-fuelled drought in California and super-sized blizzards in the north-east, just to name a few examples – such oversight by candidates is really just another kind of denial.
Kids on the Edge review – an antidote to the hysteria around gender identity What a timely programme Kids on the Edge: The Gender Clinic (Channel 4) has proven itself to be. The first of a three-part series that will look at the mental health of children in the UK, this episode focuses in on the work of the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust’s gender identity development services in London. These services are now greatly in demand: the clinic has gone from 40 referrals a year a decade ago to 1,400 in 2015. This rapid expansion of parents seeking help and advice has, depressingly, led to a kind of small-scale hysteria in recent times about what it means when children might be trans, bringing with it rabid front pages about them being “damaged” or “confused” by a TV show featuring a transgender character, for example. I hope the people who rage about such things might also find the time to watch The Gender Clinic, which does a steady job of dismantling many of the panicked, inaccurate fears around what is clearly a complex process. In it, we follow two families discussing the possibility of hormone blockers for their children, which would pause puberty until, in time, a bigger decision can be made. There is Ashley, a headstrong young girl who was born a boy called Ashton, and her mum Terri, who is attempting to keep her daughter safe from bullying at school. And there is Matilda, who has an autistic spectrum disorder and whose gender identity is less defined, though by the end of the programme he is Matt at school. Rachel, Matt’s mother, is supportive but terrified of making the wrong decision for her child in either direction. As a documentary, this is courageous enough to do what online discussion is often incapable of: explore the subtleties that get lost in the vicious polemics that can dominate the public reporting of such stories. Part of its effectiveness is down to director Peter Beard, who approaches the families with an obvious tenderness. He tells Terri – who is wondering whether to move the whole family again, to better serve Ash’s needs – that “there’s no instruction manual, is there?” His way with the kids is easy and kind. To get to the heart of what Ash is going through, he asks a simple question, made all the more devastating by the response. “What would be the best thing ever?” he asks her, as she plays. “Not being how I am,” she replies, casually, still playing. It does not shy away from the trickier parts of the picture. Consultant psychiatrist Polly Carmichael explains that often, people are seeking certainty, and the reality is that in the case of hormone blockers, there is no certainty; research in this area is not far-reaching yet. The Tavistock’s staff sit cautiously in the middle of the many areas of debate. She talks about the impact of social media on young people seeking answers or reassurance. Ash, who declares that she will go to Sweden to get a womb transplant and then have a caesarian, Googles everything, says her mother. Carmichael says her patients understand the ideas but not the implications. Part of her role is to explain that “physical intervention is not the panacea to all things”. There is a grotesque exaggeration perpetuated by some that the doctors and psychiatrists who treat children questioning their identities are trigger-happy gender-abolitionists, ready to strike every tomboy with a shot of testosterone if they so much as hint at cropping their hair. The reality is that the Tavistock’s team are articulate and circumspect. They deal with impossibly tough situations with a gentle level-headedness. This documentary makes clear that when a child is referred to their care, the process is thorough, considered and done in the best interests of both the child and the family. What contributes to the wider hysteria about gender identity (a hysteria that can be fatal; I am thinking of the death of Lucy Meadows, the teacher who killed herself in 2013 after her gender reassignment became national news) is, in part, a desperate lack of empathy and knowledge. In showing its complicated workings, in showing that professional decisions may take in many different voices over many years, in telling stories that correct misconceptions simply by giving them a human face, perhaps The Gender Clinic might start to redress the balance. Carmichael ends the documentary by admitting that, right now, this is “an evolving picture”. But, she says, she knows one thing: that the young people who have taken this route feel it was right for them.
In a fast-changing media world, quality remains king Forget the media gloom of shrinking circulations, shrivelling revenues, blocked ads and all the woes of change and upheaval. There are reasons – modest but instructive reasons – to be cheerful: good things from 2015 set to get better in 2016. One thing is the price that quality still commands. An old, distressingly pink newspaper, founded in 1888: that would be £844m of Nikkei’s money for the Financial Times. And an even older – 1843 – news magazine founded to fight for the repeal of the Corn Laws: that would be £469m for a mere 50% of Economist action. Two fine, seasoned brands turning a profit and moving to grow digitally as well as in print. Will the Huffington Post still be going strong 127 years down history’s road? Will BuzzFeed be booming come 2187? There’s something unexpected and oddly reassuring about a media landscape where tradition and mission arrive measured by reputation as well as clicks; a world of technical innovation, to be sure, but one rooted in values rather than bucks. (Jeff Bezos didn’t buy the Washington Post to make a new fortune: he bought an American institution in need of restoration, and he’s cherishing it). But the price and continuing success of the Economist goes far beyond durable branding. It’s symptomatic of a market doing splendidly. For here, 36 consecutive circulation rises later, is The Week, bringing together the best home and away analysis of the last seven days. Here’s the Spectator, with an audited circulation of more than 55,000 and a website that wins awards. Here’s the New Statesman, no longer staggering from one crisis to another but making a little money as print sales near 30,000 and the web gathers hundreds of thousands of followers. Here’s Prospect, more than 30,000 sales every month and delivering ideas with elan. The experts at InPublishing surveyed all these news and current affairs mags last month – plus an added blink at Private Eye – and asked a pointed question. Who, in a globe of constant communication, any longer needs magazines that explain, dissect and debate the news? Answer: Apparently we all do. They’re performing as well as anyone can remember. Small and spiky and thoughtful is beautiful. Maybe Time is flagging and Newsweek will never recover, but that’s because their American world has changed. In Britain – and far beyond for the Economist – the combination of wry comment and deeper argument works a treat. Good editors – Jason Cowley at the New Statesman, say – bring the independence of unpredictability to their mix. Clever editors – Ian Hislop at the Eye – know when to leave well alone. (I love the editor of the Spectator’s own blithe take on that: “The commercial model of Private Eye is fantastic: they are pioneers in doing nothing”). And there’s a consistency of overall approach that’s bound to strike any reader. No gimmicks, no frenzied makeovers. Only intelligence matters. And that essential ingredient, of course, applies in the digital-only world as well. Five years ago, Andrew Jaspan, once editor of the , founded theconversation.com from his Australian base. He’d had a simple but daring idea. Universities are full of clever, well-informed people who might love to write topical articles putting their expertise to instant use – and universities themselves, benefiting from the exposure of their talents, might wish to help bankroll a professionally managed website that made such a project possible. Not merely possible, but unstoppable. Today’s Conversation stretches from Australia to a separate UK team in a roof room at City University to a Paris editing office to an all-American hub in Boston University with tentacles reaching right across the States. Some 2.7 million unique users visit the sites every month and 29,300 academic lecturers and researchers have produced one article (or many more) for them. Jaspan isn’t going to get rich from this trust-owned, eminently serious venture. But he will, and already is, changing the interface between university and everyday life. It’s an inspirational idea, skilfully delivered and growing month by month. Which is something you could say, too, about De Correspondent, Amsterdam’s equivalent of the Spectator or Statesman, but web-only and financed in a remarkable way. The site launched just over two years ago and its founders – from Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad – raised €1m from 15,000 benefactors great and small in a mere eight days: a dynamic lesson in crowdfunding. De Correspondent isn’t a huge operation, with only 14 or so editorial people on board, but its ambition to find and promote analysis and long-form commentary puts many far bigger operations to shame. The founding crowd hasn’t dispersed. It’s stuck around. Some 43,000 individual subscribers pay about €60 a year to sustain and enhance the site: that’s €2.5m for an annual budget. No need or wish to chase ads or clicks; no native advertorial. What you see and read is what you get. A single revenue stream – dependent on quality – meets the bills. And, yet again, the same lessons are there on screen, just as on a printed page. If you want to join the Conversation, universities and charitable foundations will open the door. If you want to follow De Correspondent, loyal subscription will do the trick. But financing models aren’t the true beginning of these journeys. They’re a side problem. The real heart of the offering is the quality of the writing and editing they provide. Which you could also say about a 2015 newcomer, Politico Europe, there every weekday morning with news and, better yet, expertly professional analysis that charts the patterns of EU development across 28 countries. I can’t tell yet whether Politico Brussels will match the success of Politico DC. The idea that you can follow the twists and turns of our continent’s politics as easily as you can break down events in 50 states of a real federation seems a bit of a stretch. There are problems of size, cost and cohesion. But, while it strives to gain a foothold, this version of Politico is a good deed in a bad, skimped world. There seems, in sum, no difficulty in finding compelling subjects to write about – and no difficulty in finding readers who wish to follow them. Of course some combinations work better in print than on screen. Of course the short, sharp messages on your mobile give a different shape to the news. But of course, too, that leaves plenty of scope for explanation – which is surely where some of the quality surge comes from. The medium isn’t quite the message then. It’s the message itself that counts – as one other British success story, Monocle magazine, explained in a recent issue. Readers “aged 18 to 29 are the most likely to have read a book, both in print and digital form… There is a new consensus in the industry that print and ebooks have a complementary rather than cannibalistic future among younger readers. “Professor Naomi Baron of the American University in Washington has surveyed 400 university students in five countries for her recent book Words Onscreen: The Fate of Reading in a Digital World. ‘What amazed me was how many millennials all over the world believe that reading in print is a different and preferable experience to reading in digital,’ says Baron. A staggering 92% of those surveyed said their concentration is highest when reading in print.” It’s that cheerfully uncertain verdict again. Did television kill the movies? Not when the Force awakens and breaks historic box office receipts. Did Kindles kill the printed book? Will galloping technology click away the need to discover and understand? No: the mix churns and evolves. Something old, something new: and something constantly human operating just off screen. Which is why, perhaps, the and refugee appeal, topping £2m and breaking all past records, is the most cheering, brand perfect thing of the lot.
Jewish museum relies on Google grant to counter Holocaust denial search results Google grants are relied upon to pay for adverts that counter search results that appear to deny that the Holocaust happened, a Jewish heritage museum said on Wednesday. The marketing director of the Breman Museum in Atlanta, Georgia said it was “nauseating” that Google algorithms directed users to a neo-Nazi site as the top result for the phrase “did the Holocaust happen?” He explained it cost the museum up to $2 (£1.60) a click to direct searchers to its own site via Google’s AdWords programme. The museum later made clear that the Breman is not a paid advertiser of Google, but in fact it receives a grant for free advertising from Google via its ad grants programme, which enables charitable and educational organisations like museums to apply to Google for free advertising to drive awareness and promote educational messages, up to a limit of $10,000 a month. The programme has been running for several years. The director of the Breman Museum, Aaron Berger, said that according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, Georgia was one of the worst states in the US for active hate groups and using AdWords was an “incredibly important part of our approach in getting our site up the search results”. A Google spokesman said last week: “We never want to make money from searches for Holocaust denial and we don’t allow regular advertising on those terms.” It comes after an intense three weeks of pressure on the company regarding its search results. It has consistently refused to take responsibility for directing Google users to hate content including a neo-Nazi site, Stormfront, for a search for “did the Holocaust happen”. Leading academics said it was probably holding firm because to “edit” content on one subject would lead to calls to take action over other controversial topics. Frank Pasquale, professor of law at the University of Maryland, said it would be a tacit admission that it was a publishing company and not a “neutral” platform, as it maintains. On Tuesday, however, Google told a search industry website it had decided to make a algorithmic change to combat the problem. In a story, headlined Official: Google makes change, results are no longer in denial over ‘Did the Holocaust happen?’ a Google spokesman said the company had recently made “improvements to our algorithm that will help surface more high quality, credible content on the web”. But Barry Schwartz, the founder of Search Engine Roundtable, a long-standing industry site, said: “There is no evidence of any change to the algorithm. We track these things very carefully and there’s nothing to suggest they have done anything.” When asked why he thought Google had made the announcement at this time, he said: “It just seems like it must be a PR thing. That’s the only explanation I can see.” Google confirmed that an algorithm change was under way. They said it was an ongoing process and would take some time to apply throughout the system. The said: “When non-authoritative information ranks too high in our search results, we develop scalable, automated approaches to fix the problems, rather than manually removing these one-by-one. “We constantly make improvements to our algorithm that help surface more high quality, credible content on the web, and will continue developing those efforts over time.” Schendowich of the Berman Museum said Google was critical in getting the museum’s message about the Holocaust out: “Search is everything. It’s so powerful. People don’t respond to print. If you don’t show in search you are invisible.” Its website does not show up on the first page of Google’s “natural” – ie not-paid for – search results for “Did the Holocaust happen”. Schendowich said the museum used very aggressive SEO techniques but it was hard because “Google is a big mystery. It’s a black box. Nobody knows how it works. Only Google.” The museum’s director, Aron Berger, confirmed that the museum used the grant it received from Google to help it come higher up the search results than sites such as Stormfront via AdWords by targeting certain search terms. Schendowich said: “We can’t afford to advertise that much because this is a very expensive search. It’s expensive because it’s popular. That’s how it works. You pay more to advertise Nike shoes than some other brand. This is the same. It’s a very hot topic and what bothers me is that a denier site is right at the top. It’s nauseating. Absolutely nauseating. I talk to so many people who survived it … it did happen. We have all the evidence. That’s what we’re doing. That’s why it’s so important.” A Google spokesman said: “We have no interest in profiting from sites or organisations that promote hate, which is why we ban them from using our ads systems. Under some circumstances we allow advertising against offensive terms, typically by organisations whose mission involves educating people about the issues. Those organisations can and do apply for Ad Grants – free advertising to drive awareness and promote educational messages. We give hundreds of millions of dollars worth of free advertising to non-profit organisations through our Ad Grants programme.” This article was amended on 24 December 2016. An earlier version was the subject of a complaint from Google. It stated that the museum claimed the search engine profited directly from displaying search results that denied the Holocaust through paid-for advertising.
Amazon's express delivery service rattles Paris authorities Paris authorities have threatened to take legal action over Amazon’s new express delivery service, claiming it could force local shops out of business. The Socialist mayor, Anne Hidalgo, has vowed to take an “uncompromising” approach to Amazon’s Prime Now service that offers one-hour delivery on a range of products including groceries. Officials fear the service, which operates in 40 cities including New York, London and Rome, could upset the French capital’s “commercial equilibrium”. They also claim they were told about the Paris service only days before it launched last week. Hidalgo said she was urging legislators to examine Amazon’s delivery service to see whether safeguards could be drawn up to prevent it harming independent traders. Paris city hall has also said it will look out for unwanted side-effects of the operation, including increased traffic and pollution. Hidalgo said: “This operation risks seriously upsetting the commercial balance in Paris. This large American company did not see fit to inform Paris until a few days before the launch.” She said there was a need to “define by law, the protections in order to prevent such services becoming an unfair competition to shopkeepers and artisans. Paris will be intransigent vis-a-vis Amazon.” Amazon is offering to deliver more than 18,000 products including electrical items and fresh or frozen fruit and vegetables to subscribers of its Premium service, which costs €49 (£38) a year and promises to arrive within two hours. For an extra €5.90, goods will be delivered within an hour. Items are dispatched from a 4,000 sq metre warehouse in the 18th arrondissement, which was unveiled during Thursday’s launch. The warehouse employs 70 staff. Speaking to French radio, Olivia Polski, one of Paris’s deputy mayors, said the service was a direct threat to local shops. “At first sight it can seem very good news to have a new shopping service, except that it’s not a real shop and is not under the same constraints as over businesses,” she said, adding that the service was not subject to the same taxes and competition rules as physical shops. She said the Amazon warehouse would also “cause a very significant nuisance for local residents, and real issues on deliveries and road clogging”. This is not the first time French authorities have taken umbrage at the retailer’s activities. In 2013, the then culture minister, Aurélie Filippetti, accused the company of being a “destroyer of bookshops” because of its discounted prices and free delivery. France has a book pricing policy that allows a maximum 5% discount to protect independent booksellers. In 2014, after the government passed a law banning Amazon from offering free deliveries, the company announced it would charge customers one centime for books sent to their homes. The activities of another multinational offering quick and convenient services – the car hire app Uber – has also raised the hackles of authorities in Paris in recent months. The company has faced fines, legal challenges and its drivers physical violence since it began operating in the city in 2012.
Barclays bank reaches $100m US settlement over Libor rigging scandal Barclays has reached a $100m (£77m) settlement with more than 40 US states for fraudulent and anticompetitive conduct in relation to the Libor rigging scandal. The agreement, announced by the New York attorney general, Eric Schneiderman, follows the £290m fine imposed on Barclays four years ago by UK regulators – and others such as the US Department of Justice – for manipulating the benchmark interest rate. Barclays is the first of several banks involved in setting the US dollar Libor to resolve investigations with attorney generals across the US. Seven states are not involved in this latest agreement. Schneiderman said government entities and not-for-profit organisations were defrauded of funds because they did not know Barclays and other financial firms were manipulating the rate, which is used to price an estimated $350tn of financial products. “There has to be one set of rules for everyone, no matter how rich or how powerful, and that includes big banks and other financial institutions that engage in fraud or impair the fair functioning of financial markets,” said Schneiderman. “As a result of Barclays’s misconduct, government entities and not-for-profits were defrauded of funds that otherwise could have been used to benefit the people of New York.” The settlement agreement (pdf) included details of emails and conversations between Barclays staff about making changes to the Libor rate during two periods: during the financial crisis when the bank tried to reduce its rate to avoid the idea it was in trouble, and later to benefit the positions of traders. Barclays said it was pleased to have resolved the investigation. “We believe this settlement is in the best interests of our shareholders and clients, and allows us to continue to focus on the future and serve our clients,” the bank said. The way Libor is calculated has been changed since the scandal, but at the time, it was set by a panel of banks making submissions about the rate they thought they would be asked to pay to borrow from rival banks over different time frames. In one exchange in December 2007, a Barclays employee involved in submitting rates told his supervisor: “At the same time that we were setting at 5.30% I was paying 5.40% ... in the market. Given a free hand I would have set at around 5.45% ... My worry is that we [both Barclays and the contributor bank panel] are being seen to be contributing patently false rates. We are therefore being dishonest by definition and are at risk of damaging our reputation in the market and with the regulators.” The settlement is with 43 US states and the District of Columbia.
Collision Conference – watch tech discusson live from New Orleans Thursday is the final day of Collision, the tech startup conference in New Orleans. Naveen Jain, founder of Moon Express, explains why he wants to mine the Moon at 10.10am (CT), and Samsung’s David Eun and Marc Mathieu discuss virtual reality storytelling at 10.50am. Slack co-founder Cal Henderson discusses building a product that scales at 11.50am, and veteran investor Chris Sacca discusses ambition, pitching and shark tanks at 3.15pm. Check out the full agenda for Collision on Thursday 27 April. The programme starts at 9.25am CT (BST -6 hours). The is the media partner for the Collision conference
Mariana trench live feed: engrossing viewing from deepest place on Earth A live video feed of the Mariana trench – the deepest place on Earth – is proving engrossing viewing for those above sea level. The Mariana trench plunges about 11km (seven miles) deep under the Pacific – further down than the summit of Mount Everest is above sea level. Because of the difficulties in reaching such depths, little is known about the area. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) exploration vessel Okeanos Explorer has been conducting a deepwater exploration of the Marianas since 20 April. Video footage from its deep sea remotely-operated vehicle is being live-streamed on YouTube and the NOAA’s website. The vehicle is currently scouring the seafloor of the Mariana trench marine national monument, 3,685m deep, just east of the Philippines. Commentary is provided by scientists identified only as “Chris”, “Kelley” and others, some shore-based, some aboard the Okeanos Explorer. “This is why they turned off the party line,” Kelley apologised on Wednesday, after the scientists were chastised for their banter by the navigator. “Because we’re too loud.” Kelley – who summarised her role in the mission as “I just point and ask for a zoom on stuff” – said the geology was “not very diverse” but abundant. In 20 minutes’ viewing, scientists pointed out a starfish, two sponges, a holothurian sea cucumber of “incredible colour”, up to three different kinds of anemones, some kind of “sediment-dweller”, a tripod fish without tripods, and “our second cusk-eel”. “It’s been a great sponge day,” Kelley said to the 2,900-odd people streaming the feed on YouTube. “We’ve learned a lot.” The location of the ship, which will continue its mission until 10 July, is tracked in real-time online. Updates from each dive are posted daily on the NOAA website, as are highlight videos and images. For the most committed followers, there is a mobile app that promises “to bring the excitement of ocean discovery directly to your smartphone or tablet”. In December 2014 scientists at the University of Aberdeen filmed a new type of snailfish at a depth of 8,145m in the Mariana trench setting a new record for the world’s deepest fish. In 2012 filmmaker James Cameron returned safely from a one-man mission nearly 11km into the trench in his 12-tonne, lime green submarine Deepsea Challenger.
Liverpool v Manchester United: Premier League – as it happened Here’s Daniel Taylor’s match report: Frustration for Liverpool, delight for Manchester United. Liverpool had most of the play and most of the chances, but they lacked a cutting edge and were thwarted by the outstanding David de Gea on several occasions. United smashed and grabbed. They were highly disappointing and barely created a single chance of note until Rooney pounced near the end. There you go. United move up to fifth and they’re two points off Tottenham. Liverpool stay ninth, eight points off the top four. Thanks for reading. Bye. It’s over! Louis van Gaal’s superb record against Liverpool as Manchester United’s manager continues thanks to Wayne Rooney’s winner. 90 min+3: Benteke is caught offside. That should be that. 90 min+1: Mata gives away a free-kick for a handball on the left. Steven Caulker is on for Milner. He’s gone up front. Henderson’s free-kick is headed away. 90 min: There will be a minimum of three added minutes. 89 min: Emre Can seems to have suffered a groin injury. Or not. Suddenly he charges down the right and cuts the ball back to the edge of the area, where Benteke and Milner get in each other’s way. Eventually a shot comes in. It takes a deflection and loops towards Firmino in the six-yard box! He’s not offside! But he can’t bring the ball down and De Gea claims it. 85 min: Rooney, high on confidence now, sends a shot over from 25 yards. 84 min: It should be point out that United’s attention shouldn’t be distracted from their flaws if they win this game. 83 min: A corner to Liverpool on the right. A scramble in the middle. United survive. The Liverpool fans have fallen flat. 82 min: That was Rooney’s first goal at Anfield since 2005. In fact, it was only his second on this ground. 81 min: Liverpool bring on Christian Benteke for Lucas Leiva. United take the corner short. The ball’s touched to Mata, who hasn’t done much until now. But here’s a good cross. It comes to Fellaini in the middle and although his header hits the face of the bar, it bounces down for Rooney, who blasts the rebound past the helpless Mignolet. Liverpool’s familiar failings at set-pieces have hurt them again. United have veered between incompetence and mediocrity, but they lead! 78 min: Martial isolates Toure on the left, but the Liverpool centre-back does well to divert his cross behind for a corner. And... 76 min: Jordon Ibe replaces Adam Lallana. 75 min: Fellaini finally gets his yellow card for a foul on Henderson. 72 min: United make their final change, Mempis Depay replacing Ander Herrera. Liverpool get on with the game. Henderson feeds Milner on the right and his fine cross towards the far post is headed over by Sakho, who just couldn’t jump high enough. 68 min: Lallana skews another shot wide from 25 yards. Is it time for Benteke? 67 min: De Gea makes another wonderful save to deny Can, whose rasping, swerving drive from 25 yards was destined for the right corner until the United goalkeeper pushed it away. The ball runs to Firmino on the left, but De Gea also claws his shot away. Where would United be without him? 66 min: Juan Mata replaces Jesse Lingard. United have one change left. “The whole match is like being on a 800 calorie a day diet in Paris EOM,” says Mark Turner. 65 min: Smalling is booked for pulling back Firmino in the middle. 63 min: Firmino does brilliantly on the left, reaching a ball ahead of Smalling on the edge of the area, then diddling inside, past a couple of challenges, before teeing up Henderson. He sidefoots carefully at De Gea from 18 yards. 62 min: Sakho heads the corner away, Darmian shanks one over the bar from 25 yards. Juan Mata is going to come on soon. 61 min: Rooney whips a low cross towards the near post. Kolo Toure, facing his own goal, manages not to send it past Mignolet. Corner to United. “On the other hand, watching Liverpool is like walking into a steakhouse, smelling the food, staring at it and then having every single waiter drop your filet mignon on the way to your table,” says Linda Howard. 60 min: Firmino shoots. Over. 58 min: “Arlo White has told us not to worry because in 47 meetings between these clubs in the “Premier League era” there has only been one game, in 2005, that ended 0-0,” says JR in Illinois. “So we’ve got that going for us.” Everyone hang on in there. Stay strong. We can do this. 56 min: Borthwick-Jackson crosses from the left. It deflects off Clyne, then off Rooney, before falling to Martial. He pings one just past the far post from the left. United have stepped it up all of a sudden. 53 min: United get Milner’s corner away and Clyne gets a bit excited and wallops a shot miles over from miles out. “Bugger this…watching United these days is like walking into McDonald’s every weekend and coming out with a veggie burger,” says Justin Kavanagh. “I’m off to walk the dog or watch some paint dry somewhere.” 52 min: Toure rumbles forward, dragging players along with him, bodies strewn across the turf. His shot is blocked. Liverpool soon win another corner. 50 min: Firmino finds Lallana, who swiftly turns it to Can on the edge of the area. He suddenly discovers a hitherto unseen turn of pace, using a stepover to fool Smalling and roar past the United centre-back. He’s clear on the left of the United area, but there’s De Gea, to the rescue once more, diverting Can’s low shot behind with his feet. Liverpool have to win this game. 49 min: Liverpool are putting in a lot of crosses. Christian Benteke is on the bench. 47 min: Liverpool quickly win a corner on the right. Milner takes it, nothing comes from it. 46 min: United get the second half underway. That was the 15th first half in which they’ve failed to score this season. Are you excited? And that’s all for now. Liverpool have done well, but they’ve missed a few decent chances and have nothing to show for their dominance. They need more of a goal threat. United have been utterly forgettable. 45 min: Martial skids past Clyne for the first time and speeds into the Liverpool area, but his low shot is blocked by Sakho. There will be two minutes of stoppage time. United still haven’t tested Mignolet. 44 min: Liverpool would be winning this if their good striker was fit. 42 min: Cameron Borthwick-Jackson replaces Ashley Young. He goes to left-back and Darmian will try his luck on the right. 41 min: Young is back on. He’s immediately tackled by Milner again and collapses in pain, holding his injured foot. The Liverpool fans are predictably sympathetic. “As a Liverpool fan I’m very much enjoying Manchester United’s tactic of keeping the ball as far away from Mignolet as possible at corners,” says Niall Mullen. 40 min: Young requires some treatment after being clipped by Milner. 39 min: Blind swings in another cross from the left. It’s useless. Mignolet catches it and sets Liverpool off on another counter with a throw to Can/ He makes up good ground and has options left and right. Yet sometimes he seems to forget that other players are on the pitch. He’s held up by Young, having held on to the ball for too long, but he does well to recover and prod the ball to Firmino. He’s through on goal! Is the breakthrough about to materialise? Nope. A poor touch from Firmino allows the covering Martial to cleanly muscle him off the ball. 38 min: Rooney runs at Toure on the left. This would have been a good race in 2006. Toure concedes a corner. Rooney never looked like getting round the veteran defender. Blind’s corner is a waste of time. 37 min: United are failing to match Liverpool’s intensity. They’re asking for trouble. Begging for it. Can Liverpool capitalise? 35 min: Blind’s corner is headed away by Sakho. Liverpool past the test with flying colours! 34 min: United mount a rare counter-attack after a Liverpool move breaks down. Rooney lifts a high cross to the far post, where Fellaini’s header hits Milner and goes behind. Now here’s a test for Liverpool’s defence. 32 min: Another opening for Liverpool, Milner heading on to Henderson. He volleys wastefully over from 25 yards. All the best moments have belonged to Liverpool. “Liquid football!” says Matt Dony. “Liverpool are suddenly playing some fantastic stuff around the Unites area. Which will only make the inevitable loss of intensity and goal conceded at a corner even more depressing. AND I’ve got to back in to the office later on. I hate Sundays.” 30 min: Clyne burns past Darmian on the right, breezing away from the United left-back far too easily, and drives the ball into the box. Away it goes. But back come Liverpool, eager for more. They carve United open this time. On the edge of the area, Lallana dinks it through to Firmino, who touches it on to Henderson the right. Here’s some space, a rare sight of goal – but Henderson’s drive fizzes inches wide of the far post. 28 min: Moreno jabs a pass into the area for Henderson, who turns and shoots. A deflection takes it through to De Gea. Not much is going on. “If the ‘cultured’ (e.g. not especially effective) Adam Lallana ever fancies a change in career, his ‘acting’ in that Nivea ads is quite something,” says Kevin Wilson. “No matter what the context, he pulls that same odd smiling face. People used to say that Hugh Grant can only play the same role but it never hurt him did it?” 26 min: Can dithers and dithers and dithers and loses the ball. United have Liverpool exposed. Rooney loses the ball. It breaks to Milner in space on the right. He loses the ball. 23 min: Smalling expertly pings a pass through to Mignolet. The service to Rooney has not been very good. 22 min: Darmian miscues an atrocious backpass towards De Gea, who has to scamper across and boot the ball out for a throw before it goes behind for a corner. 19 min: Fellaini knocks a five-yard pass straight out of play, much to the amusement of the Kop. 17 min: Liverpool are on top at the moment. This is a good spell for them. Their movement is causing problems for United, but another flowing move ends with Henderson blootering a shot over from 35 yards out. “Having watched the Liverpool V Man Utd clip you posted from 1990, I can’t think of a single current Liverpool player who would get in that line up (I couldn’t spot who was number 6 but guess it was Hansen, ie better than Toure or Sakho. Or Skrtel or Lovren),” says Tim Woods. “Oh for Peter Beardsley rather than Adam Lallana…” 14 min: A tussle on the right ends with Fellaini and Lucas clashing. This is cooking now! Lucas feels that Fellaini went in with his studs up and he makes his displeasure to the Belgian clear, giving him a shove in the chest. Fellaini responds by jutting his head into Lucas’s and it needs Mark Clattenburg to calm everyone down. Fellaini really is a preposterous individual. “No sign of Jose among the United fans, desperately flashing his knickers at the Directors Box?” says Simon McMahon. “I wouldn’t put it past him, in best Lee Nelson style, to just turn up on the United bench and assume the managers job.” 12 min: Space opens up on the right as Firmino brings the ball down on the left, waits for it to drop, spots the opening and then volleys an inch-perfect diagonal ball through to Milner. Where’s Darmian gone? United look ragged again, but Milner is forced slightly wide on the right of the area and his volley from a tight angle whistles high and wide. 10 min: An instant, Gerrard-esque ball over the top from Lucas catches United’s defence all over the place. Smalling is struggling. Lallana is through. But the ball sits up awkwardly, so he attempts to head it over the advancing De Gea, who easily pushes the ball out. The danger’s not over yet, though, not when the ball runs to Firmino. He composes himself, skips round a challenge and then zips a low shot inches past the right post. 8 min: Emre Can whips a pass inside to no one in particular. Fellaini gets there before Lucas, who arrives a moment too late and ends up heading the Belgian’s head instead. Oof. Fellaini is floored and he’ll need some treatment. 7 min: Phil Jones is in with the United fans today. He’s managed not to accidentally spill a cup of tea over anyone yet, but there’s still plenty of time. 6 min: Liverpool are struggling to put anything together at the moment. It’s been a cautious start from the hosts. 4 min: United are dominating territory and possession in the opening stages. Martial tries to charge inside from the left, but he’s tripped by Henderson. United have a free-kick. Rooney stands over it, but it’s Blind who crosses instead. His ball into the Liverpool area is headed away by Sakho. 2 min: Lingard has started on the right for Manchester United. Martial is on the left. Liverpool won’t have fond memories of his United debut. And we’re off! Liverpool, kicking from right to left and defending The Kop in the first half, get the game underway! Firmino is instantly involved, nipping in front of Darmian deep on the right and trying to win a corner. He can’t manage it, though, strong work from Fellaini earning United a goal-kick. “I saw a stat recently that showed Man Utd gaining more points when Fellani wasn’t playing, therefore, despite me being a Und fan, I expect Liverpool to win today,” says Mark Judd. Here come the teams! Anfield is buzzing. It’s noisy. The Liverpool fans greet the home team with a huge roar, but you can just make out the travelling United fans in the away end as well. For all that these two sides have struggled to recapture past glories in recent times, this fixture hasn’t lost any of its lustre. Jurgen Klopp speaks. “We are not a high pressing game, we press where the ball is. Pressing is not only high pressing. Louis van Gaal has had so much success with the way he likes football.” “Looking at the league table, a five goal victory for Liverpool would take them above Man United on goal difference,” says Simon McMahon. “And still looking at the league table, Leicester are top. And Chelsea 14th. Been quite the season so far, hasn’t it?” Which is all well and good, but Liverpool haven’t had a 5-0 win in this fixture since 1925. Dick Forshaw helped himself to a hat-trick and there were goals from Harry Chambers and Archie Rawlings. Their biggest win in recent years was a 4-0 triumph in 1990, Peter Beardsley scoring a hat-trick. Liverpool have made one change from the draw with Arsenal, Jordon “Jordan” Ibe replaced by the steel of Lucas Leiva. It would appear that Klopp wants better protection for his rickety defence. Christian Benteke is on the bench again, with Firmino up front. Klopp doesn’t fancy him, does he? Maybe he’ll have an impact in the second half. As for Manchester United, they are unchanged, with Ander Herrera behind Wayne Rooney and Marouane Fellaini in a deeper position, which means that Juan Mata, the hero at Anfield last season, is on the bench again. There’s talk that Van Gaal let United off the leash against Newcastle. Has he listened to the critics or was all that excitement just a blip? One concern is that every time United open up going forward, they leave themselves exposed at the back. They’ve not got the balance right yet. Liverpool: Mignolet; Clyne, Toure, Sakho, Moreno; Lucas, Henderson, Can; Milner, Lallana; Firmino. Subs: Ward, Caulker, Smith, Allen, Teixeira, Ibe, Benteke. Manchester United: De Gea; Young, Smalling, Blind, Darmian, Schneiderlin, Fellaini; Lingard, Herrera, Martial; Rooney. Subs: Romero, Borthwick-Jackson, McNair, Varela, Pereira, Mata, Depay. Referee: Mark Clattenburg. Hello. The last time Louis van Gaal lost to Jurgen Klopp, he lost his job as well. That was back in February 2011, at a time when Klopp’s Borussia Dortmund were at the beginning of their development into one of the most invigorating attacking sides in Europe and Bayern Munich were growing weary of Van Gaal’s dogmatic methods, and a 3-1 home defeat to the emerging force in German football led to the announcement, nine days later, that the Dutchman’s contract would be cancelled at the end of the season. The end actually came earlier than that, brought forward by a 1-1 draw with Nurnberg in April, but Klopp put the wheels in motion. Could it go the same way for Van Gaal if Manchester United lose to Klopp’s Liverpool today? It wouldn’t be a surprise if it did. It wouldn’t be a surprise if it didn’t. Having knocked Liverpool off their effin’ perch all those years ago, United have carefully positioned themselves on the fence, and stasis and indecision is threatening to take hold. There have been plenty of opportunities for them to sack Van Gaal in the past few weeks - the Champions League exit, the defeat to Norwich, even the stale FA Cup win over Sheffield United last week - but they’ve kept something resembling faith in Van Gaal for now. That’s partly because of a lack of alternatives and also because of an apparent lack of direction at the top, with United’s chief executive, Ed Wooodward, not exactly convincing. There has been occasional mutiny in the stands because of the paucity of entertainment on offer and Van Gaal is vulnerable. Even he’s admitted that United’s football has bored him at times. There were a few encouraging signs against Newcastle on Tuesday; a thumping strike from Wayne Rooney, a fine goal from Jesse Lingard, just a general sense that the side was playing with more freedom. They’re not far off the top four. They were top at the end of November! It could end well. But it’s fragile. United scored three on Tuesday. They also conceded three. Their defence has been solid in some games, but it has hardly looked secure against sides who have had a proper go against them. Think of how United capitulated against Arsenal and Wolfsburg, or of Paul Dummett’s late equaliser on Tuesday, or of the chaos at set-pieces against Bournemouth. Or Memphis Depay’s attempted back header against Stoke on Boxing Day. Oh dear. Fresh from their exhilarating 3-3 draw with Arsenal on Wednesday, Liverpool could expose those deficiencies. Expect a fast start from them and with Klopp admitting that he had furtive talks about replacing Sir Alex Ferguson three years ago, it could be a case of ‘here’s what you could have won’ for United today. Only one Liverpool player got going in this fixture last season and, well, let’s just say that Steven Gerrard took it a little too far, so they’ll be desperate to make amends. If Roberto Firmino plays as well as he did against Arsenal, anything’s possible. Yet United are not the only side with imperfections. Liverpool’s defence is even more wobbly and though they have had some fine results, beating Chelsea, Manchester City and Leicester, they have been blighted by inconsistency. They’ve been better against the top sides. But Klopp is still working out his best team. The spirit was strong against Arsenal; less so against West Ham. Van Gaal has a 100% record against Liverpool as United’s manager, although all those wins came against Goals on Sunday’s Brendan Rodgers. This is his first meeting with Kop Klopp. And both men will be thinking of that February evening in Munich five years ago. Kick-off: 2.05pm GMT.
UK could clinch trade deal with EU within two years, says expert The UK could strike a trade deal with the European Union within two years but will struggle to win concessions on free movement of labour, according to one of Britain’s most experienced trade negotiators. Roderick Abbott, a former EU ambassador to the World Trade Organisation, thinks the UK might conclude a trade deal with Brussels in 24 months – a faster timetable than estimated by some European leaders, who have warned of talks stretching on for five years or more. Abbott spent four decades of his career immersed in trade policy. He told the that an UK-EU trade deal could be done in two years because negotiators would soon have to tackle the crucial question of how to balance access to the single market against the EU’s demand for free movement of people. “It is likely to be damned difficult,” he said. “I don’t see how you can go beyond two years on that sort of thing, or else you are going to retire and say we can’t get anything.” He doesn’t expect the EU to offer any concessions on free movement of people to keep Britain in the single market. “The EU is in my judgment not going to yield on the free movement of people, which matters very much to some of the newer member states.” Countries such as Poland and Hungary “have got thousands of citizens working in the EU and therefore access to the single market really matters to them. But when things start who knows who will blink.” After a decade in Whitehall as a trade specialist, Abbott began working at the European commission in May 1973, just a few months after the UK joined the then European Economic Community. He went on to become second in command to the EU trade commissioner at the time, Pascal Lamy, and had senior jobs at the WTO in Geneva. The EU negotiates trade deals on behalf of all member states, leaving the British government scrambling to create a department from scratch after 43 years of outsourcing policy to Brussels. The former trade official said the government faced an enormous task. “Not only is there a lot to do, but some of it has to be done reasonably quickly if you want to avoid a vacuum, which is not very good for the economy and trade.” As well as negotiating a trade agreement and divorce settlement with the EU, the UK must re-establish its credentials in the WTO, where it is currently represented by the EU. The UK must also secure the 34 trade agreements negotiated with 60 countries that it takes advantage of as an EU member. Leading Brexiters have promised to sign new trade deals. Before his appointment as secretary of state for Brexit, David Davis claimed it would be possible to negotiate deals worth more than the value of the EU single market within two years. His priorities include the US and China, as well as Hong Kong, Canada, Australia, India and Japan. But Abbott said sophisticated trade deals with such countries would take far longer to negotiate. Offering a “charitable” interpretation, he saidDavis could have been thinking of the absolute zero-tariff deal on goods, meaning deals could be done more quickly. But as soon as negotiators focus on services, which make up 80% of the British economy, they would enter far more complex talks. He added that this type of “second-generation trade deal” focused on regulation would take much longer. Moreover, the UK is barred from signing any deals while it remains an EU member. The government may struggle to have substantive talks with non-European countries while the outlines of a UK-EU deal remain murky. Michael Froman, the US trade representative, has said it is not possible to make progress on a trade deal with Britain without knowing more about the UK’s future relationship with the EU. Abbott thinks the UK is unlikely to be a top priority for the US, which is trying to nail down the controversial TTIP agreement before the president, Barack Obama, leaves office. “In the trade world the size of the market – the number of people who are out there as consumers – that really counts. The UK is only 65 million and you don’t get the same priority even if you are a long-standing friend,” he said.
The Danish Girl puts Gerda Wegener’s art on view to the world Although Gerda Wegener remains one of the most remarkable Danish painters, she was little known in her own country – until recently. Now, thanks to the film The Danish Girl, starring Oscar winner Eddie Redmayne and Alicia Vikander, there is renewed interest in this extraordinary woman and her art. Director Tom Hooper’s (The King’s Speech) film portrays Gerda’s marriage to fellow painter Einar Wegener who was the first person to undergo gender reassignment surgery. Einar modelled for Gerda wearing women’s clothes, enabling him to explore his female side, and this eventually led to his gender reorientation. In 1930 Einar became Lili Elbe. As an artist, Gerda was ahead of her time. She provided adverts and artwork for magazines, and did not care about the strict conventions of the Danish art world at the time. Her evocative portraits of Lili and other sensuous women were considered, by some, too outrageous for Denmark, but she rose to fame in Paris. Now, the largest-ever exhibition of Gerda’s work is hoping to re-establish her at a show running until 16 May at Arken Museum of Modern Art near Copenhagen. Few of Gerda’s paintings are on display in Danish museums, so the Arken exhibition comprises works from private collections. This extensive detective work has resulted in a rich exhibition of Wegener’s work – from throughout her career – but focuses on her paintings of Lili from Paris and Italy. Arken Museum of Modern Art is in Ishøj, an easy 30-minute journey, on public transport, south of Copenhagen: take S-Trains A or E from Copenhagen Central station to Ishøj station, and bus 128 onwards from there. It has a permanent collection of more than 400 artworks (featuring Ai Weiwei, Grayson Perry and Olafur Eliasson) and is a popular spot for cultural trips; it also features a significant collection of pieces by Damien Hirst. The name Arken means The Arc, as the building was originally meant to be built on the beach resembling a large ship washed ashore. However, these plans had to be abandoned, and the museum was moved further inland. In 2016 the museum will celebrate its 20th anniversary by redefining the landscape around it, and will be surrounded by water, as was the original plan. • Skovvej 100, 2635 Ishøj, +45 43 54 02 22, arken.dk. Open Tues, Thurs-Sun 10am-5pm, Weds 10am-9pm, closed Monday, admission £9.40 adults, under 17s free
Flowers: Everyone’s Dying to Meet You review – excessively retrogressive indie It’s hard to sound like you’re an indie band from 2016 – even if you actually are one. London trio Flowers certainly don’t make eluding the spectre of bygone guitar parts look easy. Their second album – the follow-up to 2013’s Do What You Want To, It’s What You Should Do – is a record that seems excessively retrogressive. That’s not just a result of its musical components – frontwoman Rachel Kennedy’s high, clear, almost choral register, which calls to mind Kirsty MacColl and the Cocteau Twins’ Elizabeth Fraser; the twee, jangly and sometimes faintly grungy guitars – but the overall sense of stable, controlled comfort that together they create. C86-style indie was always an anodyne genre, but considering it’s also the soundtrack to the nostalgia-generating, benign-seeming latter years of the 20th century, recreating it feels like niceness squared, and slightly sickly. Flowers might pay tribute with a sound that’s appealing, but they exist in a world of hindsight that isn’t.
BBC gets green light to launch Netflix rival BBC plans to launch a homegrown rival to Netflix and Amazon Prime are a step closer to reality after the government gave it the green light to launch a new paid-for subscription service. Corporation chiefs have held talks with potential partners including ITV and NBC Universal, owner of the producer of shows including Downton Abbey, about launching a new subscription streaming service, as revealed by the in March. Early indications are that it would charge viewers to watch BBC programmes after the 30-day window in which they are currently available to watch for free on the iPlayer has expired. It may also include some original content – the BBC already premieres a small selection of comedies, drama and documentaries on the iPlayer – but the bulk of the material would already have been shown on the BBC. Talks with commercial partners suggest its scope would go beyond BBC programmes, however, creating a UK-based global rival to take on House of Cards broadcaster Netflix and Amazon Prime, which will air The Grand Tour, the new motoring show with former Top Gear presenters Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond, later this year. Currently, viewers who want to watch a BBC programme beyond the iPlayer window can choose to download it from the recently launched BBC Store. Older BBC content can be accessed on a variety of other platforms including DVDs and pay-TV service UKTV, as well as Amazon Prime and Netflix, which has the rights to shows such as Top Gear. Last week’s government white paper on the future of the BBC said it “welcomes the BBC’s commitment to develop and test some form of additional subscription services”. It said it would be up to the BBC to “set to the scope of these plans” but the government said it was “clear that this would be for additional services only”. “Licence fee payers will not be asked to pay for ‘top-up’ services for anything they currently get,” it added. Culture secretary John Whittingdale told the Telegraph: “We’re moving into a different world where more and more content is going to be made available on demand. Collaboration with other broadcasters and other production companies we think is important. If they want to explore that kind of thing, we’d encourage them. “There may come a moment in the future where all television is delivered online, and if you do that it becomes a more realistic practical possibility if you wanted to move towards an element of voluntary subscription, which is why the BBC, who see the way the world is changing, have said: ‘Yeah we will just see for the online provision, whether or not there might be a case for additional new content being delivered on a subscription service, via the iPlayer.’ “That’s something they’re going to look at. It was their suggestion, and they have said they will draw up the scope of the trial.” The BBC has traditionally been wary of introducing subscription services in the UK, which many would regard as signalling the death knell of the £145.50 licence fee, and any new service would have to pass a number of regulatory hurdles. BBC strategy chief James Purnell said two years ago that any move to introduce “subscription payments for its services would lead to ‘first and second class’ licence fee payers and cost £500m to implement”. The BBC white paper also signalled that the government would act to close the £150m iPlayer “loophole” where people can currently watch BBC content for free on-demand if they do not have a TV.
The Avett Brothers: True Sadness review – minor digressions from rootsy rockers The Avett Brothers’ ninth album arrives with an open letter by Seth Avett, in which many words are written but very little is said: True Sadness, he explains, is a patchwork quilt, both thematically and stylistically, wherein “the roughest denim and the smoothest velveteen” entwine. Given their 16-year climb to success, their digression into more unusual textures feels like a bid to break out of the tweed and into something a little more mainstream. This is certainly their most varied release yet: beyond the traditional country, bluegrass and folk, the North Carolina act expand their sonic palette. May It Last is their Pink Floyd moment, while Satan Pulls the Strings reveals their wild side with a crisp, metallic sound. They also shift temperament: the yodelling on Divorce Separation Blues deliberately skewers a serious subject matter with a knowingly frivolous melody. But for all the talk of creative epiphany, their music remains the country-tinged comfort blanket it always was.
The Witch review – an eerie campfire tale that gets under your skin While the phenomenal success of 1999’s low-budget chiller The Blair Witch Project led to a burgeoning in popularity of the found-footage subgenre, it failed to revive witches as villainous big-screen mainstays. Vampires, werewolves and zombies have since thrived, but these resolutely female mythical figures have been curiously under-represented. While Robert Eggers’ Sundance breakout horror is hardly aiming to franchise the witch (the director has already said a sequel will never happen), it makes an eerily convincing argument. Played like a campfire tale (the film is loosely “inspired by folklore”), the plot follows a family in 17th-century New England who are excommunicated from a Puritan community. After setting up a solitary home near a foreboding forest, their youngest child goes missing. Fear and paranoia and accusations of satanism start to tear the family apart, and they must discover where the true threat is coming from. In a genre that too often relies on tired cliches and jump scares, The Witch is something of a gem. Making his feature-length debut, Eggers excels at creating and sustaining a menacing mood without sacrificing story and character. The film provides both opaque suggestions and explicit revelations, along with a set of naturalistic and effective performances. Like any outstanding horror film, its true impact only reveals itself once the credits have rolled and it stays buried under your skin, breaking through every now and then to remind you of its insidious power.
For Russia, Brexit would be an opportunity not a tragedy When it comes to international views on next month’s Brexit referendum, there has been a loud chorus of foreign leaders, including the US president, Barack Obama, calling on Britain to remain in the EU. But there is one notable exception: in Moscow, analysts say, Brexit would be seen not as a tragedy but a major opportunity. Supposed Russian excitement at the prospect of more division in Europe has been used by the remain campaign as a reason for voting to stay. Guy Verhofstadt, a former prime minister of Belgium, wrote in the that Vladimir Putin is “the only leader who would stand to gain” from Brexit. In Moscow, there is little sign that any attempts are being made to influence the upcoming vote, but there is certainly an appreciation that a weaker EU, occupied with dealing with the fallout of a British exit, would be a more malleable negotiating partner. As Europe has struggled with the migration crisis and terror threats in recent months, there has been a certain level of schadenfreude in official Moscow statements. There have even been suggestions that Russia is trying to stoke the tension further, notably with its liaisons with European far-right parties. Moscow could see real foreign policy opportunities if Britain leaves. A Europe dealing with the knotty disentanglement of Britain would be less able to put up a united front on issues such as Ukraine, while Britain itself, traditionally one of the toughest voices in Europe on Russia, could suddenly become more amenable to making new friends. There’s also a domestic reason why the Kremlin would be keen on Brexit, said analyst Sergei Utkin: “Official propaganda tries to tell Russian citizens that they are better off in Russia than in rotten Europe. With migration, security challenges and everything else, life in Russia is better. Brexit would be another piece of this ideological claim that Europe is falling down.” In the Russian business world, there is little real understanding of what Brexit would mean. “There is some curiosity about possible short-term opportunities, but long-term nobody knows what it would mean,” said Tom Blackwell, chief executive of EM Communications, which works with a number of major Russian companies. He said it is usually possible to spot when the Kremlin is particularly interested in an issue if state-linked companies start pushing the message but that this does not appear to be the case with Brexit. “You can usually tell when there’s an order from on high to speak about an issue and we haven’t seen that,” he said. This is possibly partly because any agitation for a British EU exit from Russia could be counterproductive. “Given the way Russia is perceived, it’s not like there is much they could do anyway,” said Utkin. “For the time being, there is nothing Russia can do to influence the outcome, so even though they may be supportive of Brexit, the best thing is to keep their distance.” A delegation of MPs from the parliamentary foreign affairs committee spent three days in Moscow earlier this month, as part of an inquiry into bilateral relations between Britain and Russia. MPs on the trip said the EU referendum did not come up much in their meetings with Russian politicians and officials, with little sense that their Russian counterparts were engaged in the issue. After meeting the MPs, Alexei Pushkov, one of the top Russian foreign policy officials, said Britain had “zero role in Ukraine and a third-rate role in Syria” because of its unconstructive policy towards Moscow. A Britain outside the EU would allow Russia to play this card more, suggesting closer bilateral links with London. In a Europe that was angry at Britain for leaving, Russia could also see opportunities. “If Britain leaves then this could create openings where Moscow could go to the British government and say: ‘You’ve got all these angry voices coming from the EU, who are offended with your decision to leave and you need friends; we are ready to cooperate,’” said Utkin. Western diplomats say the issue of Brexit appears to be at best peripheral in Russian official thinking for now, but one place where the issue of the Kremlin’s response to a potential parting of the ways between London and Brussels is very much on people’s minds is Kiev. “Russia is enjoying the disintegration of Europe; the refugee crisis is in Russia’s interests and Russia is inflaming it,” said Alex Ryabchyn, a Ukrainian MP. He said the British voice inside the EU was vital for keeping pressure on smaller countries to put up a united front against Moscow. “In France or Germany there are strong pro-Russian camps, and Britain doesn’t have that; Britain has always been a strong voice inside Europe advocating for Ukraine with countries like Greece and Spain, without that voice Europe will be much weaker on Russia.”
Ryanair accuses Google of profiting from misleading ads Ryanair has launched a new broadside against Google in its battle with other websites selling its flights, accusing the internet firm of profiting at the expense of consumers through misleading adverts and paid-for search results. The airline called on businesses in the UK and Europe to stand up to Google over practices that it claims breach trust, confuse customers and make firms lose out. Ryanair has been particularly incensed that eDreams, a Spain-based travel booking firm, is displayed first on Google searches for Ryanair, returning a url that includes the airline’s name. It says passengers complain every month when experiencing problems with their travel after booking with the intermediary, as well as having paid unnecessarily higher prices. Writing in the , Ryanair’s chief marketing officer, Kenny Jacobs, said Google was allowing businesses to gain advantages from confusing customers. “It’s a very common occurrence across most industries … Ryanair has no issue with Google lawfully selling advertising, but some advertising … leaves a bitter taste in the mouth.” He continued: “Ultimately, it comes down to trust, a value Google professes to espouse … If Google wants to deliver on its own promise to give consumers the best search results, it needs to get back to where it started and give consumers more reliable search results. “More businesses in the UK and Europe need to stand up to Google and it’s mostly small businesses that lose out, given this is their biggest advertising output.” Jacobs admitted that what he called Google’s “computer says no” attitude was redolent of Ryanair of old, but added: “We’ve recognised we needed to change and then did.” Ryanair launched legal action in the Irish high court last December to attempt to force Google to change the search results. Its main rival, EasyJet, has also complained about eDreams, warning that passengers who book their flights through third-party websites risk not having their details correctly registered and having problems when travelling. eDreams has accused Ryanair of attempting to stop online travel agencies from offering consumers choice in booking flights. A spokesperson said it was “keen to ensure that there is never any potential confusion for customers when they search for flight availability on the eDreams website... A small minority of airlines are trying but failing to stand in the way of consumers increasingly using comparison sites like ours.” Google declined to comment on Ryanair’s latest call, noting that litigation was ongoing, although a spokesman said it was working closely with advertiser partners to make sure their ads do not mislead users.
The Republican party is not dead. Far from it Reports of the Republican party’s death at the hands of Donald Trump have been greatly exaggerated. The party is not just going to concede the presidential election because their voters nominated an unhinged reality television star. Anyone who thinks that clearly hasn’t been paying attention to how the party works. When Trump effectively clinched the nomination, many commentators gleefully wrote fake obituaries for the Republican party, as if one nomination was going to destroy a political party that has been nominating awful people or decades. To be fair, one of the very few redeeming qualities of Trump’s romp through the party this spring was the complete freakout of the Republican establishment. They were rendered completely helpless as Trump tore down their Chosen Ones one after another. But to claim that the party’s members were just going to spontaneously disintegrate after it was over was naive. Let’s put aside for a second how shortsighted it is to declare a party “dead” that currently controls the House, the Senate and the vast majority of statehouses around the country. All you have to do is look at what has happened since Trump clinched the nomination: a string of polls now show him within striking distance of his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton. All those Republican establishment figures who acted offended by Trump a few weeks ago are now inching towards him one by one. Given that Republicans have shown that they don’t have any principles to begin with, it was hard to take all the #NeverTrump statements with a straight face. But still, the speed with which former Trump skeptics have flocked to his corner has been a sight to see. First out of the way were the actual Republican voters, many of whom were telling pollsters that they feared Donald Trump as the nominee and wouldn’t vote for him in any circumstance during the primary season. As the New York TImes reported late last week: “An overwhelming majority of Republican voters say their party’s leaders should get behind Donald J Trump.” So that took … all of two weeks? Next were his former opponents. Lousiana governor Bobby Jindal based the entire latter half of his failed presidential candidacy around insulting Trump for media attention, calling him a “shallow, unserious, substance-free, narcissistic egomaniac” and “a madman who must be stopped”. He now supports him. Rick Perry, who called Trump a “cancer” right before he dropped out of the presidential race, seems to be lobbying to be Trump’s vice-president. Even Senator Lindsey Graham, who recently called Trump a “race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot”, is now privately urging Republican donors to raise money for him. It’s amazing the media ever gave these people any credit at all. Everyone who lavished praise on House speaker Paul Ryan for so bravely claiming he’s “not ready” to back Trump will soon be forced to reckon with the political reality: like the others, he will soon manufacture a way to support Trump too. They’ve already given him an easy-to-use script that should be too predictable: “Hillary Clinton is much too dangerous, Trump has vowed to change his ways …” Yes, there are a few stragglers who will never be converted. But why should Trump care that, for example, George W Bush said he wouldn’t attend the Republican national convention? He’s really only doing Trump a favor, given that Bush left office with a lower approval rating than Trump has had at his lowest moment. (Trump savaged Bush’s record on 9/11 and Iraq during the Republican primaries unlike any candidate ever has, and to great effect.) As Washington Post’s Dave Weigel remarked: “96% of ‘very conservative’ voters back Trump. The other 4% are on cable TV right now.” This is yet another example of why the hysteria in the Democratic party over whether Bernie Sanders supporters will support Hillary Clinton in the general election is so ridiculous. As Donald Trump has proven, it literally does not matter what names candidates call each other: within weeks everything will be back to normal. Sadly our political discourse will return to Red v Blue. Nothing proves that more than the fact that far more Hillary Clinton supporters said in 2008 that they wouldn’t support Barack Obama than the number of Bernie Sanders supporters who currently say they won’t support Clinton. I wish all those Republican obituaries were true, and that we could start preparing the same for the establishment of the Democratic party. But let’s be honest: even with the record number of voters who dislike candidates, that is unfortunately far, far off from reality.
How Brexit hit the book world “Feel as if I’m living in a bad dystopian political thriller,” tweeted the writer Robert Harris at 8.50am on 24 June, a response echoed 10 minutes later by the agent Jonny Geller’s “don’t need to read dystopian novels anymore”. Their reaction was shared by other leading figures from the book world, with prominent independent publishers – Canongate’s Jamie Byng, Faber’s Stephen Page, Bloomsbury’s Alexandra Pringle – joining authors such as Malorie Blackman, Philip Pullman, Michael Rosen and JK Rowling in voicing or retweeting horror and alarm on the morning after. Dismayed executives from the big conglomerates were less visible, but Gail Rebuck, chair of Penguin Random House UK, called it “a disastrous night” and Hachette UK boss Tim Hely Hutchinson was “disappointed”. Even harder to spot were publishers thrilled by the Leave vote (a pre-poll Bookseller survey of the book trade found 78% planning to vote Remain v 18% for Leave), although Biteback’s Iain Dale – publisher of Nigel Farage and the unauthorised Cameron biography Call Me Dave – could predictably be found tweeting enthusiastically. HarperCollins’s chief executive Charlie Redmayne has yet to make a public comment since the result but was reported during April’s London Book Fair to be “equivocal” on the issue, as well he might be since his company is part of pro-Brexit Rupert Murdoch’s empire. To their credit, those who put their heads above the parapet were reacting to what they thought the result said about Britain, and anticipating how quitting the EU would transform the country (Rowling’s first reaction, at 5.25am on Friday, for example, was simply “Goodbye, UK”, expecting that Scotland would seek a second independence vote and “Cameron’s legacy will be breaking up two unions”). Focusing on the repercussions for their industry instead of gazing glumly at the big picture would come across as myopic and narcissistic, so companies and individuals alike have largely avoided doing so, on Twitter and elsewhere. However, the likely immediate implications for the trade had been set out by Waterstones boss James Daunt in a pre-poll email to his staff: the dire economic consequences forecast by the IMF would entail “a significant retail downturn”, he warned, with falling book sales harming publishers and booksellers alike (meaning “cost-cutting” at Waterstones, with “job losses and stagnant wages”). For publishers, though, this downturn has a possible upside in the form of the weakening of sterling – better for exporters, Bloomsbury’s Richard Charkin has suggested, although Oneworld’s Juliet Mabey disagrees. On the other hand, a punier pound will make paper and print imports more expensive, as Neill Denny noted on BookBrunch (small publisher Little Toller Books tweeted “printing costs will soar, we won’t be able to afford to print books anymore. Thanks!”). Other “negative impacts” he projected included “higher costs for prices and contracts denominated in dollars and euros”, and “loss of EU grants” for translations and (especially science) research, hurting both publishers specialising in foreign-language books and academic presses. “If there’s an upside to this, I’m failing to see it,” lamented Bookseller editor Philip Jones, similarly setting out reasons to be woeful in a post that began “publishing’s nightmare scenario has come true”. Others have claimed more luck in discerning silver linings, such as Denny’s contention that UK publishers could “play a starring role again” in “the Anglophone world” that Brexit will “push us back into”. The British Council and culture minister Ed Vaizey (and niche publisher Peirene, which tweeted “foreign lit’re now more important than ever for UK”) were among those floating the idea of literature and the other arts as a kind of divorce mediator, vitally repairing our relationship with continental Europe as we prepare to leave the EU. No one, though, managed to identify a concrete positive consequence; like a Boris Johnson speech, the straw clutchers have stuck to vague, broad assertions that all will be well – or at least less dystopian than the gloom-mongers prophesy.
Sunderland v Arsenal: Premier League – as it happened To paraphrase Sam Allardyce, Sunderland will be respecting the hell out of that point. This goalless draw takes them above Norwich City on goal difference and out of the bottom three. With four games left, they’re also a point above Newcastle United and have a game in hand on their neighbours. As for Arsenal, they stay fourth. But of course. Thanks for reading. Bye. That is that. 90 min+4: Watmore is through. The flag is up. That should be that. 90 min+3: Khazri knocks the ball wide to Van Aarnholt, whose cross is blocked by the first man. Dearie me. Khazri is booked for stopping an Arsenal counter by tugging Wilshere’s shirt. 90 min+2: Koscileny is booked for catching the surging Watmore. Another set-piece for Sunderland. This one is in a central position and it’s probably too far out for a shot. Allardyce is chuckling. 90 min+1: There will be four minutes of added time. And Sunderland have another corner, this time on the right. Khazri’s delivery is only partially cleared and Kone sends an overhead kick over the bar. 90 min: Khazri’s pass towards Van Aarnholt deflects behind for a corner on the left. Is this the moment for Sunderland? Nope. Khazri fails to beat the first man. 87 min: Sanchez drops a shoulder, cuts inside and hammers a low shot towards the bottom-right corner. Mannone pushes it away and the outstanding Kone gets to the rebound before an Arsenal player can pounce. 84 min: Mesut Ozil’s afternoon is over. Please be upstanding for the return of Jack Wilshere, who’s back for the first time since the FA Cup final last season. 82 min: Welbeck takes aim from 18 yards, selling a couple of Sunderland players a cute dummy, but his shot is straight at Mannone. 80 min: This is frantic stuff now; the weaving Watmore tricks his way into space on the right but the flag goes up for offside against Defoe when he plays the ball into the six-yard box. 79 min: Petr Cech claims a cross and boots the ball up field. Kaboul and Welbeck chase it and Mannone comes hurtling out of his area, only to misjudge the bounce and miss his header! Kaboul then appears to push Welbeck over but nothing’s given! That was pure farce. 78 min: Sunderland make their second change, the tiring Jan Kirchoff replaced by Seb Larsson. 76 min: Elneny is booked for tripping M’Vila, a foul he didn’t need to make as the Sunderland midfielder had overrun the ball. 74 min: The exciting Duncan Watmore, who scored against Norwich last week, replaces Fabio Borini for Sunderland. 71 min: Arsenal make a double change. Theo Walcott replaces Alex Iwobi, who was good, and Danny Welbeck replaces Olivier Giroud, who was not. 70 min: Now it’s Arsenal’s turn to threaten. Iwobi heads the ball back into the danger area from the byline but Kone superbly powers a header away. Arsenal keep pressing and Ramsey wins a corner, but nothing comes from it. 68 min: Defoe peels away from Mertesacker on the right and, with Arsenal’s defence all over the place, he tries to roll it across for Borini, who would have had a tap-in. Yet Koscielny reads Defoe’s intentions brilliantly and diverts the cross behind for a corner. What an escape for Arsenal; Defoe really should have done better. But here’s a corner for the hosts. Khazri’s delivery is wicked and, for some reason, Koscielny ducks under the ball inside the six-yard box. There would have been severe embarrassment if M’Vila had arrived in time to smash the ball home at the far post. 65 min: Sunderland have stirred again and it’s Arsenal who are having to defend now, Defoe denied at the near post after a cutback from Yedlin. 64 min: Sam Allardyce finally removes himself from his seat, thinking that Defoe’s cleverly improvised lob over Cech is going in. But Cech’s not worried. It’s a fine effort from Defoe, who was under pressure from Mertesacker, but it drifts wide. 63 min: The Arsenal fans are chanting Danny Welbeck’s name after another poor piece of control from Giroud, who hasn’t scored in the league since 13 January. 62 min: Sunderland have lost some of their spark. This is becoming more of a slog now. 60 min: Arsenal counter down the left after a Sunderland attack led by Yedlin breaks down. Giroud wins a corner. It’s cleared as far as Ramsey, who produces an atrocious shot with his left foot. 58 min: Borini is booked for scraping his studs down Iwobi’s achilles. “Watching Allardyce do his slumped seat thing makes me pity anyone unfortunate to have to sit next to him on a long haul flight,” says Ian Copestake. 56 min: Sanchez darts inside from the right and then opens Sunderland up with a clever pass through to Giroud. He gets there before Mannone, who forces him wide, but the Sunderland goalkeeper is out of position when Giroud spins and hoicks the ball towards the far post. Iwobi looks certain to blast a volley into the keeperless Sunderland goal - and instead he produces a comical mishit miles off target! The danger passes when Ramsey’s feeble shot runs through to Mannone. 55 min: The ball is put out of play so Kirchoff can receive treatment to a hip injury he received from a robust challenge with Giroud. The camera picks out Allardyce in the dugout, arms folded, slumped back in his seat, chewing gum with his mouth open. It’s quite the sight. 53 min: Sunderland contrive to make a spectacular dog’s dinner out of the corner and not for the first time. Khazri’s initial delivery is overhit but retrieved on the right by Kaboul, who promptly lifts the ball back into orbit. Kone does well to stop it going out on the left and gets it back to Khazri, who puts an end to the issue by ballooning a cross behind for a goal-kick. 52 min: The impressive Khazri dribbles inside from the right, uses Van Aarnholt as a decoy and forces Cech to make another save down to his right from 20 yards. Here comes another Sunderland corner. “Having hands that stick out is a function of suspending them on the end of arms,” says Jordan Pickering. “The law is a blunt instrument, and it is necessary to have officials with the ability to use their discretion so that the pedantic application of the law doesn’t become more unjust than the transgression.” 50 min: Kirchoff lifts a fine ball with the outside of his right foot towards Defoe, who scampers clear of the Arsenal defence on the right before unleashing a trademark rocket on target. Cech beats it away brilliantly and has to react quickly moments later to push an awkward, bouncing shot from M’Vila wide for a corner. 49 min: Bellerin is booked for going through Khazri on the halfway line. 47 min: Monreal goes down with an anguished cry after a collision with Kirchoff. But the damage doesn’t appear to be lasting and the pair are soon shaking hands. 46 min: Off we go again. Arsenal get the second half underway. “The rule doesn’t provide any exceptions for reaction time or lack of intent (though Mertesacker should know better than to have his hands out like that),” reckons Prateek Chadha. “The defenders hand stopped a goalbound shot. If not for his hand the keeper would have had a save to make. Therefore, it should be a penalty.” Mike Dean brings an absorbing half to a close. It’s goalless but it’s not been short on incident at either end and both sides could have had a penalty. 45 min: There will be one more minute. 43 min: A replay shows that the sliding Yedlin probably should have been penalised for handling Iwobi’s shot, so that’s 1-1 in penalty reprieves. “As a neutral, Giroud’s exaggerated exasperation at every ball that does not fall at his feet or meet his exacting requirements makes me support the opposition,” says Ian Copestake. “I will not be surprised to seeing him gesture to the bench that he wants to come off, injured as he is by failed expectations.” You watch, he’ll prove all the haters and doubters wrong. 42 min: Sunderland have badly lacked composure when they’ve countered. Too many passes towards Defoe have been poorly executed. 41 min: Now Arsenal want a penalty for handball. Giroud brilliantly tees up Iwobi in the Sunderland area but his shot is blocked. He wants a penalty but Mike Dean isn’t having it again. 39 min: Ramsey is retrospectively booked for pulling back Khazri’s shirt a minute or two ago. “As I sit in my little corner of South America I can’t help but think that previous commenter has mis-spoken, the horizontal thumbs-up is very common all across this continent,” says Mark Turner. “It’s probably where it filtered into the British football culture too, what with young whippersnappery types wanting to emulate Kun, Falcao, Funes Mori...Ulloa (?). For Jon Moss, ask Boy George.” 36 min: After two close shaves, Sunderland finally relieve some pressure, attack and scream in vain for a penalty when Mertesacker handles Defoe’s shot! Borini’s cross towards the far post was inexplicably headed straight to Defoe by Bellerin. The Sunderland striker larrumped a volley goalwards with his left foot and Mertesacker, yards away from him, blocks it with his hand, only for Mike Dean to wave their appeals away. Defoe is furious - Mertesacker’s arms were away from his body, but Dean must have decided that his proximity to Defoe meant that he couldn’t have got out of the way of the ball. 35 min: From the resulting corner, the ball drops to Iwobi inside the six-yard box, seemingly certain to score. Again, though, Sunderland survive, Iwobi’s effort blocked on the line! 34 min: Sanchez whips a low effort past the wall and towards the bottom-right corner - Borini broke from the wall to present the Chilean with a gap - but Mannone dives to his right to push it away! And when Iwobi looks to slam the rebound into the net, Yedlin heroically blocks it behind for a corner on the left! 33 min: Elneny falls just outside the D, with Cattermole in close attendance. Cattermole is aggrieved. He’ll be even more unhappy if Sanchez sticks this one in the top corner. 31 min: The ball pings around alarmingly on the edge of the Sunderland area. Ramsey can’t quite bring it under control quickly enough to get a shot away. Ozil does - but Mannone dives to his left smartly to save the German’s deflected pearoller. 29 min: Realising that they need to hound Arsenal in possession, Sunderland chase after the ball in demented fashion in midfield, forcing the visitors further and further back until Ramsey drills a pass out for a throw. “Where does your other reader stand on the more pressing issue of the use by footballers of the horizontal “thumbs-up” to acknowledge an unsuccessful cross, throughball, etc?” says Ian Copestake. “It is used no where else and inspires in me the sort of disdain expressed in the Sopranos for those who hold their gun in the same way.” 26 min: In space on the right, a quick pass from Bellerin would have left Giroud all alone in the Sunderland area. Instead he takes too long before hitting the first man with his eventual cross. The ball deflects back to Sanchez on the edge of the area but he’s legally bumped off the ball. Eventually Ozil wins a corner. Sunderland deal with that comfortably but the ball is starting to come back at them with increasing frequency. 24 min: Monreal escapes down the left, Borini guilty of ball watching, but Giroud can’t turn his low cross in at the near post. It was a very difficult chance. 22 min: Van Aarnholt’s free-kick hits the post! Cech was completely beaten as the left-back curled the ball over the wall and towards the top-left corner, only for his effort to swing a touch too far, clang against the top of the woodwork and go behind for goal-kick. What an effort. Sunderland are so unfortunate not to be ahead. 21 min: Defoe skips round Koscielny, leaves his leg dangling, invites contact and wins Sunderland a free-kick 25 yards from goal. Where’s Jon Moss? 20 min: Elneny’s harmless shot from 20 yards is easily claimed by Mannone. But it was too easy for Arsenal to play around Sunderland there. 18 min: There are a few shouts from the crowd as Ramsey is allowed too much space on the right. He crosses. Giroud is offside. And relax. 16 min: The volume is increasing; Borini dashes down the right and crosses. Ramsey hooks the ball clear. Sunderland are improving after a nervy start. 14 min: Ramsey is caught dawdling in his own half by Khazri, who pounds towards the retreating Arsenal back four. He aims for the bottom corner, but the ball flicks off Koscielny and bounces wide for a corner on the right. This time, Khazri just sticks it into the mixah. Giroud heads away and Cattermole drives not too far wide from 25 yards. 13 min: M’Vila sends a shot well wide from 25 yards. “On the Wenger issue, I remember my Charlton-supporting mate moaning about Curbishley towards the end of his time there,” says Michael Collins. “He now wastes hours daydreaming about the return of those days. Be careful Gunners. Be very careful.” Yes, but Arsenal would have to work very hard to mess up the succession process. Why be so scared? Learn from where others have gone wrong and pick the right replacement - the foundations are in place for any future manager to succeed at Arsenal. Are we seriously saying that no one would do a better job with this squad or these resources? 11 min: It’s Sunderland 28%-72% Arsenal. In possession. 9 min: Sanchez scoops a glorious pass over the Sunderland defence for Giroud, whose first touch takes him wide. He manages to get a shot away from a tight angle on the right, but Mannone pushes it behind at the near post. From the corner, Mertesacker nuts a firm header straight at Mannone, who probably would have been helpless if the ball had gone either side of him. “Arsene is like the Queen,” says Ian Copestake. “He has been in his job a long time even though no one really knows what it is he does.” 7 min: Arsenal are threatening to slice Sunderland open every time they work the ball into the final third. Sanchez almost breaks through on goal, only to be denied by a last-ditch challenge. Sunderland are up for this but they’re living dangerously at the back. 5 min: Sunderland waste another set-piece opportunity. They take the corner short and when it’s lifted into the area belatedly, the cross from Yedlin is too high. “There is an excellent reason for Arsenal to extend Wenger’s contract: Consistency,” says Ryan Rickards. “Yes, it’s dubious whether they’ll win another league title with him, but that doesn’t change if they decide to let him go and bring in somebody new with different preferences and priorities with regards to the team. I’m a fan of Schalke 04 in Germany, and they form a lovely counter example to Arsenal - in the early 2000s, they were a contender for the Bundesliga title, but never quite got there. So they kept hiring and firing coaches with the horrible result of a bloated, overpaid squad and no identity to their play. Additionally, Arsenal, through consistent play and continuous Champions League qualifications are financially healthy, whereas Schalke has approximately 200m debt. Lots of other factors of course, but letting Wenger go hardly seems worth the risk.” But is there such a thing as too much stability? What’s the end game? Is anyone getting anything out of this any more? It’s a disgrace that they’re not up there with Leicester and Tottenham. 4 min: But this is better from Iwobi. Lovely, intricate football gets him into a shooting position, 20 yards out, and his low drive fizzes inches wide. Mannone looked beaten. This is an open game already. Up the other end, Khazri chests down to Cattermole, who instantly lifts the ball over the top for Defoe. He’s through on goal, Arsenal’s defence all over the place, but Cech claws the ball away from the striker. Yet it comes back at Arsenal, Defoe in space on the left. He wins a corner. 3 min: Arsenal probe for the first time. Bellerin finds Iwobi on the edge of the area, only for the young forward to fall over. “We hear a lot about fixture congestion and too many matches played in England,” says Shaun Wilkinson. “As a solution, I propose that these two teams don’t play at all - Arsenal are simply assigned 4th place from the beginning, and Sunderland are assigned 17th. This could spare a lot of time and effort to reach the same conclusion that will be reached every year anyway.” 2 min: An early chance for Sunderland to test Arsenal in the air; they’ve got a free-kick midway through the Arsenal half. But Bellerin heads Khazri’s delivery away. Allardyce looks disgusted. Peep! A toot of Mike Dean’s whistle and off we go, with Sunderland kicking from left to right. They immediately kick the ball out of play. Start as you mean to go on. The teams are out. We’ll have football soon. “Regarding your thoughts on Wenger—I’ve long thought that Arsene Wenger’s role as a top-flight football manager is the equivalent of David Luiz’s role as a top-flight central defender,” says Stephen Mitchell. “Both Wenger and Luiz are extraordinarily talented, and their respective strengths and weaknesses add a lot of entertainment value to the games they are a part of. You get the feeling that they are both suited for an alternate reality version of football in which the rules are slightly different—a game in which points are distributed on the basis of the technical qualities on display and the time spent in the opposition’s half. I guess what I’m saying is that I think it’s time for Wenger to go...to PSG.” “I don’t think we should all start being negative about Arsene Wenger,” says Raymond Reardon. “In fact, I would like to ask him around for dinner, ask him in and to sit down. I would then proceed to cook him a lovely 12 year slow roast.” There aren’t really many convincing reasons for Arsene Wenger’s contract to be extended when it runs out next year, are there? In fact, nothing that’s happened in the past two seasons justifies the new deal he got after they won the FA Cup in 2014, beating Hull City in a manner that didn’t exactly suggest they were about to finally make good on their much hyped potential. It’s almost time, isn’t it. But what does it all mean? Sunderland are unchanged from the win over Norwich, with the impressive Jan Kirchoff screening their improved defence and Fabio Borini and Wahbi Khazri supporting Jermain Defoe, who has three goals in his past five matches. Arsenal are also unchanged from the win over West Brom, so the best striker in the world, Olivier Giroud, has another chance to score a big goal in a big game. But who’s that on the bench for the visitors? Why, it’s only Jack Wilshere – the debate ends here, get him in that England squad immediately. Sunderland: Mannone; Yedlin, Kone, Kaboul, Van Aanholt; Kirchhoff; Borini, Cattermole, M’Vila, Khazri; Defoe. Subs: Jones, Larsson, Rodwell, N’Doye, Pickford, O’Shea, Watmore. Arsenal: Cech; Bellerin, Mertesacker, Koscielny, Monreal; Ramsey, Elneny; Sanchez, Ozil, Iwobi; Giroud. Subs: Gabriel, Wilshere, Ospina, Walcott, Welbeck, Campbell, Coquelin. Referee: Mike Dean (Wirral) Hello. In the mini-battle to finish in a glorious 17th place, I make Sunderland the favourites to stay up. They’re 18th now but Sam Allardyce is a survival expert, they’ve got a game in hand on Norwich and two on Newcastle, and their fixtures look the kindest on paper. I’m backing Sunderland. But don’t hold me to that. I must have been convinced they were going down in 2014 and 2015, for instance, and look how that turned out in the end. Norwich still have to play Arsenal and Manchester United and they can’t score or defend, which is unfortunate to say the least, and Newcastle play title-chasing Tottenham on the final day, while Sunderland will be at Watford. If Allardyce gets the better of his old chum Arsene Wenger this afternoon, put everything you own on Sunderland staying up. But here’s the thing about relegation battles. The thing about relegation battles is that there’s no point making predictions. Newcastle looked done when they slumped to a 3-1 defeat to Southampton two weeks later. They looked done when Sergio Aguero gave Manchester City a 1-0 lead at St James’s Park on Tuesday night. They looked done when they were 2-0 down at Anfield yesterday. Yet they’ve beaten Swansea City 3-0, drawn 1-1 with City and drawn 2-2 with Liverpool thanks to a spectacular second half fightback. Under Rafa Benitez they have momentum. The beauty of sport is that even when you’re absolutely sure about something, you’re can’t be absolutely sure. Still, Sunderland’s fate is in their own hands. If they win all of their games - unlikely, I know - they survive. And while it will be immensely tough today against an Arsenal side whose attempt to muster something resembling a title challenge has left them fighting for their place in the top four (some things are predictable), Sunderland’s confidence is high after last week’s 3-0 win over Norwich City, they’ve been playing some good stuff in fits and starts, Jermain Defoe is scoring and everyone knows that Sam Allardyce has never been relegated from the Premier League. Then again, the win over Norwich was their first victory since 13 February, which goes to show how much the outlook can change in the space of 90 minutes during the run-in. Back Sunderland? They’ve won one of their past seven matches; you must be mad. Kick-off: 2.05pm.
How has your industry been affected by Brexit? Many businesses are concerned about the effect Brexit will have - or has had already in some cases - on their companies, with some warning of investment cuts, hiring freezes and redundancies. Whether you work in sectors such as accountancy or retail we’d like to hear from you. How has Brexit affected your industry? Is your company thinking of moving its headquarters outside the UK? Are you concerned about the impact it will have on European workers? You can share your thoughts and experiences by filling in our form below. We will feature some of your contributions in our ongoing reporting.
Matt Damon: five best moments Jeremy Renner is no Matt Damon – a point made painfully clear in 2012 after an attempt to revive the Bourne franchise with the spectacularly dull spinoff The Bourne Legacy. Damon’s dialogue as Bourne is often thin on the ground, and his work in the hit trilogy is easy to underestimate. This week, he returns to play the nifty assassin in Jason Bourne, directed by Paul Greengrass. Reviews may be mixed, but Damon is still a capable and engaging action hero – a surprise given how he started out. The actor, producer and Oscar-winning screenwriter’s career has had many high points. And with forthcoming roles in Alexander Payne’s Downsizing and Suburbicon, scripted by the Coen brothers, there may be many more to come. What have been his best performances? Good Will Hunting Damon was impressive in the 1996 film Courage Under Fire (ticking the box for the “role that involves extreme weight loss” early in his career). But it was his work as screenwriter and lead actor in Gus Van Sant’s Good Will Hunting that turned him into a star. As an arrogant but troubled genius, he was an expertly controlled ball of fury and smarts. The Talented Mr Ripley Anthony Minghella’s take on the dark thriller by Patricia Highsmith gave Damon his greatest challenge yet: playing a sociopathic chameleon who struggles with his sexuality and identity. He managed to turn Tom Ripley into a tragic lost-boy figure while also making him a frighteningly devious antihero. The role was played by John Malkovich and Barry Pepper in subsequent film adaptations, but Damon’s performance remains the one to beat. The Bourne Identity His buddy Ben Affleck fell straight into action mode after Good Will Hunting. Damon, however, didn’t seem like a fit for the genre. The troubled shoot and delayed release of Doug Liman’s spy thriller, adapted from Robert Ludlum’s novel, hinted at a disaster. But audiences loved Damon’s action-ready amnesiac in this 2002 film, and the role opened up new opportunities. The Informant! Damon wasn’t solely focused on different ways to flex his acting muscles: he gained weight – and an entirely unflattering new look – for Steven Soderbergh’s underrated corporate comedy. His performance, as a real-life whistleblower whose staggering ineptitude causes a catalogue of unbelievable problems, is a minor comic masterpiece. The role showcased Damon’s total lack of vanity and, yet again, his ability to give depth to often pathetic characters. Behind the Candelabra Working for the sixth time with Soderbergh, Damon again changed tack dramatically in this impeccably acted Liberace biopic. Starring with a career-best Michael Douglas, he was astonishing as the unravelling boyfriend of the famous entertainer.
What's so bad about taking sponsorship money from Big Oil? Even if you didn’t glimpse the BP-branded sea monster that invaded the British Museum during a protest in September, and managed to avoid a naked man being slathered with oil at Tate Britain, you’re unlikely to have missed the bitter guerrilla war raging between Big Oil and sections of the art world. For a while, it looked as if the protesters had the upper hand. In March, BP announced that, owing to an “extremely challenging business environment”, it wouldn’t be renewing a sponsorship deal with Tate that had been in place for 26 years. Activists promptly hailed this as a brilliant victory, and a parting of the ways with the Edinburgh international festival swiftly followed. But then in July, the company indicated that it wasn’t done yet, announcing that it would continue funding other leading institutions to the tune of £7.5m over the next five years. Tate’s loss appears to be the Royal Shakespeare Company’s gain (or, given the politics, possibly it’s the other way around). The controversy got so heated that, earlier in the summer, Arts Council England and campaigning group Index on Censorship produced a report advising organisations on how to head off “ethical and reputational” issues before they reached sea-monster-critical levels. (A parallel report advised organisations on how to coordinate with police forces, should things get really out of hand.) For some people who work in the arts, the issue is clear: oil companies are the enemy, and their support of cherished cultural institutions is a cynical attempt at “greenwashing”. Speaking in October, the actor Mark Rylance suggested that for BP to bankroll museums and galleries was merely a “calculated advertising ploy”. Making a Radio 4 documentary about the tangled issue of corporates and arts sponsorship, I’ve been struck by how the arguments are rarely straightforward. Oil money, for instance, is a tiny slice of the pie – that controversial Tate sponsorship amounted to an estimated 0.5% of the organisation’s annual turnover. Is this evidence that such companies wield far more influence than they pay for – or that the issue has been blown out of all proportion? Then there’s the fact that hard distinctions between “good” money and “bad” are often anything but. In terms of climate change, is being financed by a company that extracts oil worse than being financed by a car-maker, or even by people who drive or fly a lot? What about banks, which caused the financial crisis, or the big accountancy and consultancy firms that stood by and let them? Then there are all those foundations, whose money may be inherited from historically dubious sources – are they off limits? Are arts organisations obliged to probe the bank accounts of individual donors? In short, how clean does clean need to be? Surely there’s a more overriding point: that if funding accomplishes some form of social good, that is in itself an argument for keeping it. A hard-headed question quickly follows: if oil companies stopped pumping money into the arts, where would that cash actually go? Isn’t it better that it helps to subsidise theatre tickets and enable museum loans rather than disappearing into the pockets of shareholders? In New York, I asked the director of the Metropolitan Opera, Peter Gelb, what his view was. He’d love to have such a problem, he sighed – most American energy companies regard opera as too highbrow by half. Few, if any, would come near it. One thing we can be sure of is that this funding controversy will only intensify. Government funding for UK arts organisations has been cut by nearly a third since 2010. According to an increasingly depressing series of reports by the research group GPS, the problem outside London is particularly acute, despite recent attempts by the Arts Council to rebalance things: public cultural spending is £4.91 a head per year outside London, £65.18 within. Much though we might wait for Philip Hammond to take a leaf from the German government’s book and increase arts funding as a response to economic uncertainty, there seems more chance of Beckett’s Godot finally turning up. For those of us who care about the arts, corporate cash might be the best hope. Perhaps there’s one thing we can learn from all this: we are long overdue a proper public debate, one that sees the issues from every side. Making the programme, I was surprised to learn that when three of the four major organisations funded by BP were approached, none would give us an on-the-record interview on the subject, and neither would Tate. As that Arts Council report recognises, too few institutions are transparent about the way they handle corporate funding, or how they police the ethical dilemmas that attend it. Decision-making is often murky, and accountability vague; those of us who love and support the arts aren’t invited to give our view, still less suggest how some of these problems should be solved. No one benefits from a culture of silence. In Business: Corporates and the Arts is on Radio 4 on 22 December. This article was amended on 5 December 2016 to clarify that only three of the four major organisations funded by BP, as well as Tate, received a request for an interview at the time the documentary was made.
Barclays again warns on investment bank results Profits in Barclays investment banking arm will not be as high as last year, the bank said, as it asked shareholders for permission to sell off its African operations. The trading update on the investment operation was contained in a circular being sent to shareholders before the bank’s annual general meeting on 28 April. It intends to call a general meeting immediately after the AGM to facilitate the African sell-off. The Barclays chief executive, Jes Staley, last month told investors he intended to scale back in Africa as he cut the dividend payout by more than 50% for the coming two years. The bank, which admitted last month that profits in the investment banking arm would be down, blamed current market conditions and a particularly strong performance a year ago. “In Barclays’ investment banking operations, income in January and February was broadly in line with the same period last year. However, in light of current market conditions for investment banking and on the back of a particularly strong March in 2015, the board of Barclays does not expect as strong a performance from its investment banking operations for the whole of [the first quarter] of this year,” Barclays said. Staley wants to reduce the bank’s 62% stake in its African operations, which are listed on the Johannesburg stock exchange, over the next two to three years. Former Barclays boss Bob Diamond has been mooted as a possible buyer, though in the circular to shareholders Barclays said the “current intention of the board is to retain a meaningful stake in Barclays Africa”. It wants to reduce its shareholding to below 20% so it can remove the operation from the wider group. Barclays listed a number of reasons for selling the business, which boasts assets of £50bn and made profits last year of £1.1bn, including reducing the need to hold capital against the operation. It cited “stringent UK and US conduct and other regulatory standards which are required to be applied to Barclays Africa’s business in addition to those standards that might otherwise apply to the Barclays Africa Group”. These include EU, UK and US economic sanctions and financial crime rules. The circular refers to a number of legal matters facing the African operations including those at Absa, its South African operation, which has admitted it has “identified potentially fraudulent activity by certain of its customers using import advance payments to effect foreign exchange transfers from South Africa to beneficiary accounts located in Asia, UK, Europe and the USA”. It disclosed that Barclays could be required to pay compensation – yet to be calculated – to the African business for ending services such as credit risk, support services, human resources and technology services. Barclays can renegotiate the use of its name in countries such as Botswana, Ghana and Mauritius, if its ownership falls below 35%. Barclays said it had hired its own investment banking arm as well as bankers from Citigroup and JP Morgan Cazenove to advise on the disposal of part or all of the African operation.
Jermih’s London is an irresistible after-hours roller TRACK OF THE WEEK Jeremih ft Stefflon Don, Krept & Konan London Much like Drake or the most recent Muppets film, Jeremih has turned to London for inspiration – and it’s paid off. In fact, so much so that it’s unlikely anyone will come away from the imaginatively titled London talking about him. The show-stealers are unequivocally Krept & Konan, who provide a pair of low-slung, unflinchingly south London guest verses, alongside fast-rising MC-cum-vocalist Stefflon Don, who is mesmerising on the hook. An irresistible, strangely subdued after-hours roller. Slaves Hypnotised Royal Tunbridge Wells’ answer to Death Grips here, with a fiery anti-establishment reminder that “video games are eating your brains”, yeah? The music packs all the punch of a Super Hans B-side and the lyrics simply echo the sentiments of every student union bar-dwelling stoner who ever bored you senseless ranting about “the scourge of reality TV”. That said, perhaps Slaves are the toothless punk band the all-mouth-no-action clicktivist generation deserves. Justin Timberlake & Anna Kendrick True Colors Remember when Justin Timberlake was sort of cool? When you first heard Sexyback at a school disco and the pounding beat mingled with the smell of your hair gel and for a second you weren’t in primary education but instead a god among men? Remember when Justin Timberlake wasn’t releasing Cyndi Lauper covers tied in with kids’ movies? More sickly than the 18 tins of Quality Street you’ve gorged on this month. Britney Spears ft Tinashe Slumber Party My memories of slumber parties were more stuffed-crust pizza and James Bond: Nightfire than corsets and coquettish foreplay, but in fairness I’m not sure we were working with the same budget as Britney and Tinashe when it came to sleepovers. This sultry banger is clearly the most fun Britney’s had in years, hampered only by the Ann Summers-meets-Ghostbusters aesthetic of the video. Chemical Brothers C-H-E-M-I-C-A-L For those battered souls trapped in a constant acid flashback to Creamfields 1999 this might bring some joy, but for most it will be the musical equivalent of listening to your dad wax lyrical about the one time he did a pill at an outdoor rave in Shepton Mallet. Then again, props to any band who can get away with basing the lyrics of their songs on their own name. Nobody’s pulled that off with such aplomb since Lil’ Bow Wow.
Obama meets Merkel in Berlin to discuss TTIP and Russia in wake of Trump win Barack Obama is meeting Angela Merkel in Berlin to talk about Russian sanctions, the fight against Islamic State and the future of the EU-US trade agreement in the aftermath of Donald Trump’s election victory. The final leg of the US president’s last trip to Europe began on Wednesday night with a three-hour dinner at Hotel Adlon with the German chancellor, who he has described as “my closest international partner” during his eight-year presidency. On Thursday, two working meetings are to be held, in which the leaderswill discuss the treatment of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, the situation in Ukraine, climate change and the future of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, the German government said. In a joint op-ed published on the eve of the president’s visit in the German weekly WirtschaftsWoche, the leaders appealed on behalf of TTIP, the future of which is in doubt after Trump’s election success and protests across Europe, saying “there will not be a return to a world before globalisation”. On Friday, they will be joined by the British prime minister, Theresa May, the French president, François Hollande, the Italian prime minister, Matteo Renzi, and Spain’s Mariano Rajoy. On Thursday morning, the French prime minister, Manuel Valls, warned that Europe was in danger of breaking apart unless Germany and France developed a new basis on which to show their strength. At an event in Berlin organised by newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, Vallssaid France must continue to make reforms, including lowering corporate tax, but the country needed Germany to make efforts regarding investment. Merkel and Obama’s working meetings will be followed by a press conference and a gala dinner with guests including the conductor Daniel Barenboim, the Nobel prize-winning German-American biochemist Thomas Südhof, the football manager Jürgen Klinsmann, and the astronauts Thomas Reiter and Alexander Gerst. Earlier on Thursday, Obama will visit the US embassy and speak to German broadcasters. Large areas of central Berlin have been cordoned off during the visit and the US president will travel to meetings in a 27-car motorcade.
How can I stop Windows 10 asking me for my password? Windows 10 makes me log in with a password at startup, and every time I leave my laptop alone for a few minutes. I have tried to get rid of this but I can’t find a way. Any suggestions, please? Julia The quick and easy answer is to go to the Settings page of your account, look for the words “Require sign-in” and change the option to “Never”. Asking Cortana for “change sign-in requirements” or typing req in the search box will get you to the right place. However, the whole issue of Windows 10 accounts and passwords is so important that it’s worth a longer discussion. It’s not sensible to operate computers without passwords, and there is a strong case for making them compulsory. Passwords help to protect you and your work. By extension, they also help to protect your friends and family, and the companies you deal with online. Using a Microsoft account Windows 10 is a mobile operating system designed to work with a Microsoft account, which provides access to OneDrive cloud storage and a growing number of online applications, such as Calendar, People, Tasks, Office, Sway, etc. It allows you to save files from your PC to OneDrive (eg from WordPad), as well as to create files online. Your Microsoft account also connects your PC with companion apps on Apple iOS and Android smartphones and on other Windows devices. Your Windows 10 authentication (product key) is stored online, as are the decryption keys if your hard drive is encrypted. Windows 10 apps are supported and updated online via the Windows Store, and these include email, Skype, Groove music and Xbox Live. Your Microsoft account also allows you to snoop on your kids, control their screen time, and – if they have Windows smartphones – track their location. In other words, your password isn’t just protecting your Windows laptop, it’s protecting an array of important online connections. Your account should have a strong password. Microsoft encourages you to use a Microsoft email address (Hotmail, Live, Outlook, etc) to log on Windows 10, and offers to create a new Microsoft email address for this purpose. I strongly recommend this. If you want, you can use an invented name for the new address, and you don’t have to provide any personal details, so your privacy is not affected. Also, you are not obliged to use it for email. You can, of course, use another email address, whether it’s from Gmail, Yahoo or anywhere else. Microsoft will send an email to this address to verify that it belongs to you. However, as soon as you click the Mail tab, Microsoft will create a new and separate email service for your third-party address. If you created an account for, say, Julia@gmail.com, your Microsoft Outlook version will send emails that say they are from Julia@gmail.com, but aren’t. (They will actually be from outlook_BF123456789CE4A5@outlook.com or something similar.) Is that really what you want? Amusingly enough, telling Microsoft your real Gmail address probably gives away more of your privacy than creating an anonymous Microsoft account with Outlook. Avoiding passwords Using an email address to log on to Windows 10 does present a problem. Email passwords should be long and strong, but most of us don’t want to use such strong passwords to protect our PCs, even though we should. Microsoft has therefore provided three alternatives: Windows Hello, pins (personal identification numbers), and picture passwords. Windows Hello logs you on automatically whenever it sees your face. It’s fast and works well. The problem is that Windows Hello needs an Intel RealSense or compatible camera, and not many PCs have them. However, some people will be able to use biometrics in authorised companion devices, including smartphones and employee badges, instead. Fingerprint recognition is another option, if your laptop has a suitable reader. So, the simplest approach is to set up a pin or a picture password, as used in Windows 8/8.1. To do this, go to the Settings app, select Accounts, and then Sign-in options. A pin might not be as secure as a strong password, but it’s a lot quicker to type in. Alternatively, if you have a touch screen, you can set up a picture password, using any picture you like. You can then sign in by touching up to three different parts of the picture and/or using finger movements. This might be more secure (unless someone is watching you closely) but I’ve seen people struggle to make picture passwords work. As mentioned above, the Sign-in options page also includes a section headed “Require sign-in”. This lets you set a timer so that you’re asked to sign in if you have not touched your PC for up to 15 minutes. It also offers the option of “Never”. In any event, it is vitally important to remember your Windows 10 and email password. You will need it to change your password options, install new software and, ultimately, to log on to your machine. Password-free accounts If your Windows 10 logon is associated with your email address, then it must have a password. All online accounts for services such as email, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, etc, and all Microsoft, Google and Apple IDs require passwords. Nonetheless, Windows 10 will let you set up a local account that is not password protected. To do this, go to the Accounts page and click where it says “Family and other users”. Next, click the plus icon next to “Add someone else to this PC”. The next screen will ask for an email address or phone number, but you can select “I don’t have this person’s sign-in information”. On the next screen, select “Add a user without a Microsoft account”. Finally, type in a user name, such as LocalJulia, but leave all the password boxes blank. When you click Next, Windows 10 will create a local account for LocalJulia with no password. A local account will not be able to access the Windows Store or use online synchronization and similar app-related features. I don’t recommend it, but it’s probably OK to run a standard account with no password protection, especially if you don’t allow anybody else anywhere near your laptop. A user with a standard account can’t change passwords or other settings, and can’t install software without knowing the administrator’s password. The admin or root password is an important part of the security of all serious operating systems. By asking you to confirm the installation of safe programs, it gives you the chance to block the installation of some malware. If you’re installing a reputable program from a reputable source, a User Account Control (UAC) box will pop up and ask for permission to proceed. If a UAC box pops up at any other time, it may well be something you don’t know trying to install something you won’t like. Passwords requests are a bit like seat belts and traffic lights – you may find them annoying, but they help to protect you. In the long run, passwords reduce the chances of your data – or your identity – being compromised or stolen. Have you got another question for Jack? Email it to Ask.Jack@theguardian.com
Norwich City 0-3 Sunderland: Premier League – as it happened Read Barney Ronay’s match report below … That was a really impressive performance from Sunderland, even if the scoreline flatters them a touch. There was plenty of controversy, but Sunderland controlled the match as it progressed – Cattermole was immense – and crackled with menace on the break. Norwich weren’t terrible, far from it, but conceding just before and after half-time sapped their confidence. Thanks for your company; bye! That’s it. Sunderland move to within a point of Norwich, and with a game in hand. 90+4 min “Did anyone see that?” says somebody who didn’t sign their email. “Camera showed the crowd and in the bottom left of the screen there was a Norwich fan knitting!!” 90+3 min It’s far from beyond the realms that this could go to goal difference, so that third goal might be more than a piece of icing. If this match was a six-pointer, that that’s worth two goals! Norwich were trying to push up after a Sunderland attack when the ball came to Larsson, 30 yards from goal. He played a clever angled pass towards Watmore that took out the defence, and Watmore swerved round Ruddy before hitting a left-footed shot from a tight angle that deflected into the net off Ruddy’s outstretched hand. That’s it! Duncan Watmore seals a huge win for Sunderland. 89 min Yet another penalty appeal! Defoe ran on to a huge hoof from the keeper, and was challenged by Olsson as he tried to get the bouncing ball under control. I don’t think that was a penalty. Just before that, Wisdom went down after a strong block tackle – I’m not sure who it was, possibly Cattermole, but I’d like to see that again as it looked painful. 87 min Redmond, who has been excellent, finds Hoolahan and he helps it on for the onrushing O’Neil at the edge of the box. As O’Shea flies in, O’Neil crashes a first-time shot high over the bar. 86 min Hoolahan’s nice pass finds Jerome on the right of the area, and he screws a cross shot miles over the bar. 85 min Another Sunderland substitution, with John O’Shea replacing the excellent Kirchhoff. 83 min Norwich appeal for a penalty when Bassong falls over in the box. Cattermole did put his hand on Bassong’s back, which was silly, though it probably wasn’t enough to knock him over. 82 min Redmond’s corner bounces up and is headed towards goal by Howson. Mannone would have had it covered but Cattermole lumped it clear anyway. 81 min Redmond’s fierce rising shot is tipped over by Mannone. It was too straight to really trouble Mannone but well struck. The resulting corner is flicked on by Bennett, all the way across the box and out for a goalkick. 78 min Almost a third for Sunderland. Defoe’s high-class angled through pass – he’s not just a pretty good goalscorer – puts Watmore clear on goal. He tries to go round Ruddy but overruns it after an unwitting second touch and it goes out for a goal-kick. 77 min If it stays like this, Sunderland will be a point behind Norwich with a game in hand. They have similar run-ins and both play Arsenal next. At the same time, which is a bit weird. 75 min It’s gone a little quiet. Norwich need something, even a missed chance, to get the fans going. As the commentators have said on BT Sport, Kirchhoff and Cattermole have been extremely good in midfield today. 73 min Norwich’s final substitution: Cameron Jerome replaces Naismith. 72 min Right here, right now, 12.47 per cent of Norwich fans are uttering the phrase “If we get one...” 70 min “Sunderland are surely dead certainties to stay up from here, they’ve been playing consistently well in recent weeks without reward,” says Patrick Wills. “Norwich having to travel to the Emirates and host Man United back to back could well sap their confidence and give Sunderland a lead you can’t see them relinquishing.” 68 min Wisdom and Van Aanholt have a bit of an off-the-ball contretemps, prompting Andre Marriner to rollock them both. 67 min Another Sunderland substitution: Larsson on, M’Vila off. 66 min Defoe now knows how Borini felt in the 58th minute. Watmore and Defoe broke two-on-one, but Watmore tried to go alone and the danger passed, to Defoe’s considerable chagrin. This is breathless stuff. 65 min Two more clearances off the line by Sunderland! I thought Mannone was fouled as he came for a free-kick, but play continued and Mbokani headed the loose ball towards goal. It was headed off the line, and then the follow-up was sneaking in the corner before Cattermole cleared off the line for the second time in three minutes. He celebrated that as if he had scored. 63 min Cattermole clears off the line! Mbokani was through on goal, but Kone stretched to take some of the heat off his shot before it bobbled past Mannone. It would still have gone in had Cattermole not got back to boot clear. Moments later there’s another appeal for a penalty, this time for a push on Mbokani by Kaboul. I don’t think it was a foul. 63 min “Afternoon Rob,” says Simon McMahon. “Hibs could have played me in goal, never mind MVG lookalike Conrad Logan, given the lack of cutting edge Dundee United are currently displaying.” 62 min Norwich are putting Sunderland under a bit of pressure now, and Wisdom’s mishit cross would have sneaked in had Mannone not leapt to flap it over the bar. 60 min Norwich appeal for a penalty when Mbokani goes down in the area under pressure from Kaboul. That’s hard to call. Kaboul did pull him at one stage, and it was a few seconds later that Mbokani went down, having tried to stay on his feet. I’m not sure whether the first contact – which I suspect was a foul – was inside the box. 60 min Wes Hoolahan replaces the disappointing Matt Jarvis. 59 min Crikey, it’s all happening. Olsson and Cattermole are both booked for bad tackles. 58 min Sunderland break, and Defoe has a great chance to find Borini in space in the area. Instead he tries to wriggle clear to set up a shot and loses the ball. Borini is rightly irritated because he had almost the entire box to himself and there was an easy pass on for Defoe. 57 min Redmond hammers an inswinging free-kick from the right with such force that it’s on Naismith too quickly and he can only head it straight up in the air. Then... 56 min “Please tell David Crosweller that law 12 states that a direct free kick or penalty is given if a player tackles an opponent ‘in a manner considered by the referee to be careless, reckless or using excessive force’,” says John Beaven. “Totally irrelevant whether he touched the ball first or not. Maybe you could also tell him to learn the rules and stop making himself look stupid...” Unlike writers, I’m sure he’ll be able to admit he was wrong. 55 min Interestingly, Howard Webb thinks Kirchhoff fouled Bassong as he nicked the ball off him in the build-up to the goal. There was a tangle of legs, so you can see what he means. I can see both sides! 53 min Everybody said Norwich would miss Klose, and his replacement Bassong was badly at fault for the goal. He was faffing inexplicably 40 yards from goal, and Kirchhoff nicked the ball off him before playing it down the right to Borini. He passed a brilliant first-time cross into the corridor of uncertainty, and Defoe at the far post stretched to poke it in from six yards. Jermaine Defoe has made it 2-0! 49 min “Afternoon Rob,” says James Crane. “With reference to shoving/Big Sam/up-with-this-kind-of-thing ness; in today’s other lunchtime kickoff at Hampden Park, Hibs are giving a debut to the wonderfully Falstaffian figure of Conrad Logan - always good to see characters like these share the stage with the ultra-bots that usually play at the top level of the game (ok, this is Scottish football, but you get my point). Do you/the readers have a particular favourite footballer of ’stature’?” This is one of the joys of Payet, although nobody will ever top Puskas. 48 min Redmond hits the post! That was a superb effort, a fierce, bouncing shot with his right foot from 25 yards that beat the diving Mannone and hit the outside of the left post. 47 min A fast start from Norwich, who win a couple of corners in the first 78 seconds of the half. “Watching this game in Delhi,” says Richard. “Lifelong Canaries fan. Not happening for Nasmith - get him off. He is a yard off the pace and does not look bothered. Given the ball away every time in the first half. Redmond or Hoolahan must come on.” Hoolahan is a lovely player; why isn’t he starting? 46 min Norwich begin the second half. Both teams have made substitutions: Duncan Watford for Wahbi Khazri, and Nathan Redmond for Robbie Brady. Khazri was on a yellow card and looking a bit overzealous. “No, he gets the ball first, that is the rule,” says World Cup final referee David Crosweller. “Ball first, what happens next is not designed to prove you are right. Typical response to email/tweet. Never able to admit you are wrong.” Bloody hell. Send me your address and I’ll send you the laws of the game for Christmas. More importantly, Luke Haines did crash Glenn Hoddle’s resignation speech. “I am an Arsenal supporter, so no emotional link in the Norwich vs Sunderland game,” says David Crosweller. “The defender clearly gets the ball first. No penalty. Not sure how you can see anything different.” That’s irrelevant when you go over the top with your studs showing. Half-time emails “G’Day Rob,” says Wiz Khalifa. “I can see the tweet already: Steve Bruce, 17 shoves as player, 6 as manger. Pushy.” “As usual I am catching live updates from Kenya in a small town called Bomet,” says Timothy Korir. “I am loving the Norwich vs Sunderland game. Football is awesome.” “It was mad that Tony Blair got Hoddle the sack for holding crazy religious beliefs,” says Niall Mullen, even supplying relevant links here and here. Hang on, wasn’t there some farce involving Hoddle’s departure and Luke Haines? Or have I been eating too much cheese again? The half-time whistle brings misplaced boos and a chant of “you’re not fit to referee”. Andre Marriner’s brilliant decision to award a penalty allowed Fabio Borini to put Sunderland ahead in a taut match. See you in 10 minutes! 45+2 min We normally say this about a team who are under pressure, but Andre Marriner needs half-time here. When he gets in, he will see a replay and know it was a great decision. At the moment he must have doubts, especially as the Norwich fans are appealing for anything. 45+2 min Sunderland look dangerous now. Defoe, just inside the box on the left, takes him time and picks up Borini, whose first-time shot from 25 yards is high over the bar. 45 min There will be two added minutes. Borini shoots wide from 20 yards, though he’d already been flagged offside. 44 min “If I was a Norwich player now,” says Robbie Savage, “I’d be onto the referee after every challenge.” Fair play, Rob. It was an excellent penalty, sidefooted at pace into the bottom-left corner. Ruddy went the right way but couldn’t get there. The Norwich fans are booing but they’ll change their mind when they see the replay. In fact, Wisdom could even have been sent off for going over the top of the ball. The fact he got a small piece of the ball was thus irrelevant, and his studs plunged into the top of Borini’s foot. He was booked. “Any higher and it was a red card,” says Howard Webb. Borini scores! Sunderland broke two on four. Defoe found Borini with a long cross from the right, and when Borini came back inside he ran into Wisdom. At first it seemed Wisdom had won the ball, and Borini had just bounced off him, but replays showed he went over the ball. That’s a brilliant decision by Andre Marriner. Oh, this is controversial. 38 min “Not defending the witch-hunt but saying that disabled people brought it on themselves in a previous life is pretty bad,” says Nick. “Imagine saying the same about an oppressed minority being to blame for their circumstances. Being entitled to a belief has nowt to do with it.” I agree but I do think that, had he made the comments a year earlier, he wouldn’t have been sacked. 36 min Cattermole wins two tackles, keeps running and then, under a fair bit of pressure, spanks Wisdom’s cross over the bar on the half-volley. He has had a superb game. 34 min “Mention of player personal hygiene reminds me I happened to be staying in the same hotel as Man City when they were practicing at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey in July 2014,” says the precise David Hunter. “My most distinct memory is of riding in the lift and getting an overwhelming whiff of whatever ‘product’ they had used while or after showering. I guess that’s what made them the champs.” At least it wasn’t the late 1970s. When Graeme Souness used aftershave, his room-mate Kenny Dalglish “thought I was a poof”. 31 min Norwich started well but it’s a lot closer now, and the crowd already sound a bit nervous. Khazri is booked for a bad tackle on O’Neil. 29 min “As player and manager do you know whether Big Sam holds the record for shoving top-flight players?” asks Dan Friedman. I’ll get the Opta boys on the case. 27 min Another save from Mannone. Olsson whistles a storming long-range shot towards goal, and Mannone reaches up to his right to palm it over. It was a relatively comfortable save but a brilliant strike. 26 min Mannone makes an important save from his team-mate Kaboul. It came from a terrific low cross by Jarvis, into the corridor of uncertainty. Kaboul had to go for it and unwittingly diverted it towards goal, where Mannone reacted superbly to save. 22 min “For the record and on your point, what a shame for Hoddle, who was onto something special back then,” says Vinny Maddage. “The media almost single-handedly destroyed Hoddle. Footballers and the professionals in the game say and do far worse than Hoddle did in ’99 yet we’ve crucified him for what is a perfectly entitled and well respected (by many in the world) view and belief. By the same standards, footballers who take drugs, commit adultery and far worse (of which there are many in the game today) should be sacked too?” Oh it was ridiculous, and clearly just an excuse to get rid of him. The only thing I would say is that it seemed like he’d lost the dressing-room by then, and England started their Euro 2000 campaign terribly. It’s a shame because, although his man-management was naive at times, England were a bloody good side at France 98, certainly better than any England side since then. And Hoddle gave a masterclass during that Argentina game. 21 min Cattermole’s beautiful reverse pass towards Defoe tempts Ruddy from his line. Defoe gets the first, on the left corner of the box, and fronts up Ruddy before trying to find a team-mate, possibly M’Vila, on the edge of the box. The covering Howson gets there first and Norwich are able to clear. 20 min Sunderland are coming into the game a bit more, and Borini almost latches on to a loose ball in the box. 19 min “Have a writer over to the house?” sniffs Hubert O’Hearn. “Sounds a fine deal, but who to choose? As iIm in Ireland it would make sense to request Berry Glendenning or Paul Doyle – at least they’d be able to find the house – but a question occurs. Does the writer bring his/her own beer? Or may I ask for a list of teetotal writers? Oh stop laughing...” You’d be surprised. They’ve even stopped serving Hofmeister in the canteen. 18 min Sunderland almost steal the lead. A free-kick was lumped forward to the edge of the box, where Kirchhoff won it in the air. It came to Borini, at a very tight angle on the right of the box, and he drove a cross-shot just wide of the far post and just in front of the stretching Defoe. 17 min Another corner to Norwich, who have been much the better side so far. Brady curls it beyond the far post and it’s headed behind for another corner, this time on the left. It’s headed clear. 15 min Kirchhoff is penalised for a tackle on Naismith just past the halfway line. That’s an important battle today. 14 min Brady’s deep cross is headed towards goal by Mbokani, but he can’t get any power on it and Mannone makes a comfortable save. 12 min Glenn Hoddle, the BT Sport co-commentator, has already made four or five excellent tactical points – the sort somebody who hasn’t played would never pick up. He could have been one of the great coaches. 10 min Kirchhoff receives the ball 45 yards out, passes it straight out of play for a goalkick. Jermain Defoe’s face is a picture. 8 min “Good positive start from Norwich,” says Robbie Savage. “62 per cent possession...” Jeez, they got Robbie too. 6 min A Norwich corner on the right is drilled flat to Howson, in space on the edge of the box. He sidefoots a slightly meek volley that is blocked by Yedlin. But it’s all Norwich just now and moments later Brady forces a routine tumbling save from Mannone with a shot from 25 yards. 5 min “Thanks for posting that, Rob,” says Martin Stannard. “I suppose they could just put the whole table there and be done with it..... who has the time to click, for goodness sake?” We’re actually beta-testing a new service where a writer comes round to your house and is your servant for the day. They click links for you, they do a bespoke MBM in your preferred tone. How much does it cost? Oh it’s free. It was Cameron Jerome, the Norwich sub, who Allardyce shoved. Great stuff, we want more of this in football. Yedlin is okay, although his head did hit the board with a thump. Yedlin was shoved into the advertising boards by Brady, and moments later Sam Allardyce was squaring up to and shoving a couple of Norwich players. 3 min It’s kicking off! 2 min An early chance for Norwich. A free-kick from the left was flicked on by Naismith and eventually came to Bennett, who had an open goal six yards out but couldn’t reach the ball properly with his outstretched foot. He ended up stabbing it across goal and Yedlin welted it clear. Turns out Bennett was offside. 1 min Sunderland kick off from right to left. They are in red and white; Norwich are in yellow and green. A plug for something I co-wrote department Here come the players. Some of the Sunderland fans are engaging in pneumonic banter and have come topless. “Just wondering if it wouldn’t be a good idea to put the bottom half of the table next to the commentary of a relegation battle instead of the top half...” says Martin Stannard. “But the guys who design the Grauniad website don’t think like that, do they?” Who said it was designed by men? Or are you using ‘guys’ in the Friends sense? Why am I asking these questions anyway? (It’s automated, and I assume it would be tricky to program it to show the top or bottom half depending on who is playing. You can get the full table with just one click, though.) “Good morning from Belize, Rob!” says David Hilmy. “Not yet mentioned but just as relevant to this match, if Norwich earn at least a point this morning, Villa are relegated.” I find the extent of the focus on when Villa will be officially relegated a bit strange. Last week many reports sai Villa’s relegation was “all but confirmed” by their defeat to Bournemouth, which was kind of true. But then it was all but confirmed about four months ago. In other news, you’re in Belize. I hate you. It’s nice to cover Norwich games, not least because Dan Brigham does our work for us. His Little Yellow Bird Project has a fine preview of the game here. Some news is bad news for Norwich: Timm Klose is unfit, so Sebastien Bassong replaces him. That’s the only change on either side. Norwich City (4-2-3-1) Ruddy; Wisdom, Bennett, Bassong, Olsson; Howson, O’Neil; Jarvis, Naismith, Brady; Mbokani. Substitutes: Rudd, Jerome, Hoolahan, Dorrans, Mulumbu, Redmond, Pinto. Sunderland (4-1-4-1) Mannone; Yedlin, Kone, Kaboul, van Aanholt; Kirchhoff; Borini, Cattermole, M’Vila, Khazri; Defoe. Substitutes: Pickford, Jones, O’Shea, Larsson, Toivonen, Watmore, N’Doye. Preamble Whaddaya hear, whaddaya say? This might be the biggest game between Norwich and Sunderland since the 1985 League Cup final*, when David Corner’s decision not to concede a throw-in proved extremely costly for Sunderland and the ginger community. Both sides were eventually relegated that season – Norwich with 49 points – and, while that could still happen in 2015-16, the likelihood is that only one will go. This match is, if not quite a relegation decider, then at least a relegation suggester. Norwich are four points clear of Sunderland, having played a game more. Their last home game, the 3-2 win over Newcastle, was an orgy of onychophagy. The need of both sides is such that we should not be surprised if there is more demented drama today. And if we could have a goal as good as Marco Gabbiadini’s at Carrow Road 25 seasons ago, that’d be just swell. Kick off is at 12.45pm in both Norwich and Sunderland. * You could make a case for the 1992 FA Cup semi-final as well.
University of Michigan president: 'No place' for anti-Muslim chalk messages The University of Michigan’s president said racial and religious discrimination have “no place” at the institution, after students on Thursday raised concern over anti-Islam and xenophobic messages scrawled in chalk across the campus alongside messages in support of Donald Trump. The messages –“#StopIslam”, “Trump 2016”, and “Build the Wall” – come amid a swell of on-campus protests across the US over racial discrimination and inclusivity, while Republican presidential candidates have pushed divisive proposals that would deeply impact the Muslim community: from ramped-up patrolling of Muslim neighborhoods to an outright ban for non-citizens. The incident followed a separate outcry at Emory University in Georgia, where a series of chalkings in support of Donald Trump has prompted concern and a weeklong debate over free speech. But the messages in the traditionally liberal city of Ann Arbor went farther, taking direct aim at Islam and immigrants. After the messages were written along the Diag, a main pedestrian walkway that cuts through central campus, police responded on Wednesday, but officials didn’t have the messages removed in line with university policy, a spokesman said. “The university has a policy that allows chalked messages on walkways in the Diag where this took place,” spokesman Rick Fitzgerald said. A statement earlier from the university said the anti-Islam messages were “inconsistent with our values of respect, civility and equality”, but added: “We all understand that where speech is free, it will sometimes wound.” A group of students later washed away the messages, with one telling the campus newspaper, the Michigan Daily, the administration’s response “perpetuates these really racist and hateful stereotypes that turn into violence and turn into students of color feeling unsafe on campus”. Arab American students contacted the American-Arab Anti Discrimination Committee’s regional office, whose director said it will defend “against the intimidation of our students everywhere”. “We expect university officials to take proactive measures to ensure safe spaces for our community’s students in these heightened times of Islamophobia and anti-Arab sentiment,” said Fatina Abdrabboh, the regional office’s director, in a statement. In a statement issued on Thursday, the University of Michigan president, Mark Schlissel, said the messages caused “members of our community to feel threatened and unwelcome”. “Racial, ethnic or religious discrimination have no place at the University of Michigan,” he said. “Targeted attacks against groups of people are hateful and serve only to tear apart our university community.” He added: “I want everyone at the University of Michigan – those hurt by yesterday’s message and others who have expressed similar concerns in association with other events – to know that I am committed to fostering an environment that is welcoming and inclusive of everyone, free from threat or intimidation.” After the chalkings at Emory, some accused its students of being too sensitive, including the former US House speaker Newt Gingrich, a Republican and alumnus of the university. On Thursday, Gingrich wrote on Twitter that he’s “worried about the fragility and timidity of some students”. “In the age of Isis how can a name in chalk be frightening?” he said. But if the messages on Emory’s campus were less overt, stating: “Vote Trump 2016”, “Accept the Inevitable Trump 2016”, and “Build the Wall”, the U-M chalkings went a step farther, students said, as they coupled the phrase #StopIslam with support for a presidential candidate who has made anti-Islam sentiment a hallmark of his campaign. Austin McCoy, an activist and graduate history student at U-M, said the messages on campus were tantamount to hate speech. “There’s a difference between free speech and hate speech,” he said. “Free speech is scrawling Trump 2016. If there’s a student on campus, or off campus, who might come in and write that and support Trump, that’s fine in my eyes. He added: “Now you add … #StopIslam that seems more aggressive, and it’s aimed at a whole group of people who practice a particular message or who look like they practice a particular message. I see that as more threatening.” The local chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (Cair) encouraged anyone with knowledge of the messages to contact the university’s department of public safety. “We are concerned that these recent anti-Islam and anti-immigrant messages are creating an environment in which some students, teachers and other university faculty members feel unsafe on campus,” said Dawud Walid, executive director of Michigan’s Cair chapter, in a statement. McCoy said the incident is “bigger than ‘people are using chalk’” to scrawl hateful messages. “If someone were to get a can of spray paint and scrawl the N-word anywhere on campus, there would be outrage,” he said. “And we would consider that hate speech.”
The Shallows review – deep breath: Blake Lively shark-fighting thriller is superb So much of our best trash ends up in the ocean. Jaume Collet-Serra, the Spanish film-maker whose shimmering, cool approach made the dopey horror flick Orphan something of a must-see, serves up a minor, silly masterpiece with The Shallows. Without an ounce of body fat on its script, the timing for this refreshing splash couldn’t be better, coming as it does during a deadening summer of flabby sequels. For a slick 87 minutes, The Shallows delivers on its promise: Blake Lively, in a bikini, fighting a shark. If you haven’t already opened a new browser to immediately buy yourself a ticket, I’ll continue. Nancy (Lively), photographed in a golden haze, bums a lift from an unseen Mexican resort to a “secret” beach. Her travelling companion has stayed behind, having quaffed demasiado tequila the night before. The beach is off the beaten path, but Nancy has a number of pictures dated 1991 of her equally athletic-looking mother at the very same spot. “Mom’s beach?” Nancy’s little sister asks via a FaceTime chat, a cleverly shot but mercilessly short bit of exposition. As if the film needs to fulfil some sort of government-mandated backstory requirement in order to register as a legal motion picture, Nancy’s touch-base with home informs us that she is a medical school dropout struggling with the recent death of her mother. Home is Galveston, Texas, which means she can be both a heartland of ’Murica sweetheart as well as a demon on a surfboard. The almost-a-doctor bit means we’ll buy it when she tears at her wetsuit to create a tourniquet or uses her necklace as a suture. That’s needed because there’s something more treacherous than sick wipeouts or sharp coral in these waters: a giant, hungry shark. But before the nasty beast shows its teeth, we get ample footage of Nancy on cloud nine, hanging 10, in this quiet cove. When two nice locals say adios for the night, she stays behind to catch a few more waves. The remainder of the picture is of her figuring out how to survive when there’s a vicious person-shredder separating her from safety. After the initial attack (in which cool blue turns to Argento red), Nancy spends most of her time strategising on a rock that just so happens to have a nice, scooped-out middle for her lie in and resemble a wounded Greek siren. Kudos to Collet-Serra and his screenwriter Anthony Jaswinski for figuring out a way for Lively to undergo a series of costume changes, despite the storytelling hurdle of never returning to shore. First she’s got the wetsuit zipped, then she’s got it not-so-zipped, then she’s got one arm torn off like an Amazonian warrior etc. The camera photographs her above the water, under the water, through the water and with her legs wrapped around a dead and bleeding whale. It’s an all-or-nothing performance and the movie doesn’t shy from embracing the very physical nature of the scenario. But here’s the key thing: the group of jaded and highly intellectual New York critics that made up the audience at my screening went from snickering at the arguably unnecessary early cleavage shots to gasping, cringing and even murmuring “Oh, no!” as our leading lady suffered increasingly ferocious setbacks. You just gotta jump right in, get your head wet and take this movie on its own terms. The Shallows is a film begging for you to shout back at the screen, and while the premise is ridiculous, it’s anything but dumb. (I choose not to Google whether or not a shark would hover in one area for a day after it has already chomped other humans.) Each step has an internal logic, shot in a clear and visually arresting manner. Collet-Serra has reteamed with cinematographer Flavio Martínez Labiano and they are incapable of giving us a boring setup. There’s also a good bit of humour, thanks to Lively’s scene partner, a wounded seagull, whose deadpan reaction shots recall a feathery Jack Benny. The big finish had the crowd cheering, and some of that excitement was without irony. The conclusion is even a tiny bit touching, and without forcing the issue too much, as in the multiple Academy Award-winner Gravity. This isn’t to compare Lively’s performance with Sandra Bullock’s, but there are ample similarities between the two films in their exaggerated energy and go-for-broke simplicity. What could have been mere summertime chum is actually one of the more cleverly constructed B-movies in quite some time. The Shallows is released in the US on 24 June and in the UK on 12 August.
Brexit means Brexit: the Polish ambassador fights back The Foreign Secretary welcomes the Polish ambassador. Foreign secretary Ah, please come in. Do sit down. I’ve invited you here to discuss these recent attacks on Polish property. And Polish citizens too. We want you to know that the British government takes racism and xenophobia extremely seriously. Ambassador You’re in favour of it, right? Foreign secretary Of course not! Well, I mean, some of my cabinet colleagues, maybe … Ambassador But you, personally, tried to discredit President Obama by suggesting he’s not fully American. Part-Kenyan, you said. Foreign secretary That was just politics. He shouldn’t have come over here and told the British they’d be screwed if they voted Leave. Ambassador But he was right. Foreign secretary That’s completely beside the point. Ambassador And you said the Queen has come to love the Commonwealth, partly because it supplies her with regular cheering crowds of flag-waving piccaninnies. Foreign secretary (Incredulous) Are you saying that’s racism? Ambassador Yes. Plus that stuff about watermelon smiles. Foreign secretary That’s not racism. Ambassador Then why did you apologise? Foreign secretary Political correctness. No choice. Ambassador You know, you remind me a little of Donald Trump. Foreign secretary (Appalled) Me? Ambassador You and your colleagues led a campaign to build a wall to keep everybody else out. Look what it’s led to: our citizens being murdered in the streets by British xenophobes, the Polish Cultural Centre vandalised … hate crimes are up 58% in Britain since your referendum. Foreign secretary I know. Shocking. But if the Poles weren’t here, our yobbos couldn’t beat them up. That’s the reason we want to limit the immigration. For their own protection. Ambassador You think I’m stupid? Foreign secretary No, I think you’re … Polish. Not necessarily the same thing. No offence. Ambassador So tell me: what about the 800,000 Poles who are here already? Are you going to boot them out? Foreign secretary Absolutely not. The home secretary’s been very clear about that. So has the prime minister. They can stay here and take their chances. Jonathan Lynn is the co-creator of Yes Minister. @mrjonathanlynn
Having to show ID for NHS treatment is not a problem I live in Brittany, France. It is routine for hospitals to ask for proof of identity at the start of treatment, either carte d’identité (ID card) or passport, as well as closely scrutinising the means of payment such as the carte vitale (card issued by the state to show entitlement to healthcare) and assurance mutuelle (top-up insurance for conditions not reimbursed at 100% by the state). When I first moved here six years ago I found it strange that you had to go into the finance office with the paperwork before anything clinical happened, but I now accept that it is a necessary part of keeping the well-oiled French healthcare system running. People seeking medical help in the UK should not fear the proposed changes but welcome them as a means to providing what should eventually become a better service (Show your passport for NHS treatment, 22 November). Mark Bennett Billio, France • I have been resident in Peterborough for 30 years. I am all in favour of getting people to pay what they should, but the Peterborough system is cumbersome and annoying. Two questions arise in my mind every time I have to get out the documents and take them with me to the hospital. First, when one has established one’s right once, why can this fact not be put on one’s medical record so that one does not have to do it repeatedly? Second, if one has been on a local GP’s list for some years and been seeing them from time to time, why can this fact not be conveyed to the hospital and put on one’s record? I hope that the accounts people who suppose that Peterborough already has a good answer to the problem of getting people to pay will consider these questions. Jim Haigh Peterborough • I have in front of me my official NHS medical card showing my name, address, date of birth, doctor and NHS number. I have never had to show this to anyone, which makes me wonder why I was issued with it so many years ago. I would not object if I had to produce it in order to obtain medical treatment, even retrospectively after an emergency. Dan van der Vat London • Three times in the past week, I have been asked to prove my identity – once when picking up a parcel, once in a mobile phone shop and once in a bank. And now there’s talk of having to prove one’s identity to get treatment at hospitals. While I applaud these organisations’ attempts to curtail fraud and theft, I’m concerned that all take the same flawed approach. Many of us have passports, of course. Some have the alternative – a photographic driving licence. But no British citizen is required either to have or to carry either of these documents. Those who prefer not to drive and to staycation must find life very hard. And then there’s the need to prove one’s address. Organisations require an original utility bill or bank statement – not one printed at home. But those same organisations are often at the forefront when it comes to cutting out paper and moving us all online. The problem is one of our own making. Some time back, we were told each of us would have to have an identity card. Millions have them in other countries, and find life easier as a result. But this was going to be forced on us, so we Britons objected. Instead, it seems we have to carry an increasing array of bulky documents around with us in case someone wants us to prove who we are. Personally, I’d prefer to carry an identity card – something like a bank card with a chip and a pin. Others might not want one, and that’s fine. It they want to weigh themselves down with paperwork, that’s their choice. It isn’t mine! Colin Maunder Martlesham Heath, Suffolk • It does matter that the NHS is being abused by people from abroad seeking free treatment. I know neighbours who bring relatives in to do just that. It matters because we have to pay abroad and we have paid for this service over three generations. Rachel Clarke (I’m a doctor, not a gatekeeper turning ‘health tourists’ away, 23 November) is being naive – and anyway, what are managers for? Jenny Bushell London • Nye Bevan wrote in answer to Tory critics of the proposed NHS potentially providing free healthcare to foreigners: “The whole agitation has a nasty taste. Instead of rejoicing at the opportunity to practice a civilised principle, Conservatives have tried to exploit the most disreputable emotions in this among many other attempts to discredit socialised medicine.” Ted Watson Brighton • What is the problem? I had to cut short a holiday in France in September after a visit to the local hospital A&E department, where I was advised to go home within three days and arrange for an urgent colonoscopy. I had to show my passport at the admission desk and provide details of where I lived etc. The treatment was excellent and as the French do not appear to use A&E as a proxy GP there were no great numbers in the waiting room. We received a bill one month after we arrived home and can claim back any surplus above what a French national would have paid. The bill was only €138 for four hours’ treatment in the hospital and the advice was spot-on. Letting someone examine my passport seemed a small price to pay. Toni Reilly London • Those who do not travel or those who cannot afford it may not have a passport. But everyone who is registered with a GP should have an NHS medical card and number, which states that it is proof that that person is entitled to NHS treatment. Katharine Makower London • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com • Read more letters – click here to visit gu.com/letters
Claudio Ranieri admits it is all about points, not Leicester performances Claudio Ranieri hailed the spirit of his Leicester City team as they reopened a five-point lead at the top of the Premier League but urged his players to remain calm and ignore the hype around their unlikely title challenge. Shinji Okazaki’s brilliant overhead kick gave Leicester a 1-0 win against Newcastle United on an evening when Ranieri admitted that he got angry with his players because they were playing far too open. With Tottenham Hotspur, their nearest rivals, not playing again until Sunday, Leicester have a chance to extend their advantage at the summit to eight points with a victory against Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park the day before. Ranieri, however, insisted that he was not even looking at the table. “I understand there are so many voices, not just in Leicester but around the world, all the people are talking about Leicester but we must continue to stay clam, do our job and play our football,” he said. “We want to enjoy, we want to continue, our fans are dreaming but I don’t look at the league table. Never we speak about the title. Every time we speak about our performance. I’m pleased with our spirit. The first half I was a little angry because we played so wide when we lost the ball and weren’t so compact with good shape. They went through the middle and so I asked the players to stay a little more compact. The first half we lost so many second balls. It wasn’t so smart but in the second half it was much better.” Ranieri acknowledged that it was not one of Leicester’s more impressive displays but the Italian made the point that, with only eight games remaining, it was all about results now. “I know very well we played better against Aston Villa and in the last match here against West Bromwich Albion. But we drew both matches. At this point of the season the points are important, not how you play.” For Rafael Benítez, Newcastle’s new manager, it was a disappointing start to his reign but the Spaniard emphasised the positives on a night when the visitors got into some decent attacking positions. “If you don’t win, I am not happy,” Benítez said. “I am happy with the performance of the players – the commitment, the work rate. We have to get results but I could see a lot of positives.” Next up for Newcastle is the Tyne-Wear derby against Sunderland on Sunday, when the stakes could hardly be higher. “Every game is important but this one is the most important because it is the next one, it’s a derby,, and because of the position in the table,” Benítez said.“I told the players they have to play without anxiety, because they will make more mistakes. They have to play with great commitment, working really hard, but they have to use the brain and try and play good football. In this way we can create more chances and maybe take more chances.”
The view on Britain’s lack of voice in Europe European leaders will meet in Bratislava next Friday at an informal summit intended to map a new path for the EU in the wake of Britain’s vote to leave. Yet while the unwelcome outcome of June’s referendum was a trigger for the talks, this review, or re-evaluation, of the European project is long overdue. Modern-day Europe faces enormous challenges not remotely envisaged by the EU’s founding fathers when they signed the Treaty of Rome 60 years ago next year. A new consensus on how to address these shared problems, in principle and in practice, is urgently needed as the treaty anniversary approaches. Britain, unfortunately, will have little or no say over what happens next. Theresa May is not invited to Bratislava. The summit will take place without her. The government is not being asked for it views on the crucial issues confronting Europe and, if it chooses to air them, it is increasingly likely, as time goes by, that it will be ignored. The EU wants only one thing from Britain right now, as Donald Tusk, the European council president, reminded May last week: a firm date for starting exit negotiations. And this, unfortunately again, May is unwilling or unable to give them. To pretend the outcome of Bratislava and ensuing discussions will not have a big impact on British interests is to perpetuate the wilful blindness that led to the calamitous Brexit vote. A major struggle, years in the making, is coming to a head. It pits the “old” liberal, open-markets, open-borders EU, led by Germany, France and Italy, against the “new”, conservative, nationalist EU, states such as Poland, Hungary and Slovakia that are more recent entrants. At issue is the future of the EU’s so-called four freedoms – the free movement of labour, goods, services and capital. Claiming to be responding to public concerns about immigration, Islamist terrorism, economic security and the erosion of cultural traditions, the Poles and their allies in the Visegrád group are resisting the migrant quota system championed by Germany’s Angela Merkel. They want greater autonomy for national parliaments, more oversight of transnational corporations and investment, the scrapping of plans for visa-free EU travel for Turks, and greater recognition of what Viktor Orbán, Hungary’s rightwing prime minister, calls “historic, religious and national identity”. These objectives are shared by advancing, populist and nationalist movements across western Europe, too, including the Alternative for Germany (AfD), which humiliated Merkel in elections in her home state last week. And if this agenda sounds familiar, it is. It echoes many of the positions adopted by Leave campaigners and their Ukip allies. How all these issues are tackled really matters for Britain. The irony is, if they had not cut and run, the views espoused by Michael Gove and Boris Johnson would have had much more influence in reshaping Europe’s aims and priorities at this moment. As it is, they, and Britain, have no say. The Bratislava 27 face other tests. One is what to do about the eurozone’s problems, mushrooming national deficits and the widening gap between the wealthier north and poorer south. Yet it is foolish to separate broader, pan-European post-crash worries, such as high youth unemployment and reduced foreign investment, from problems in the global economy, such as lower demand in China. Britain shares these problems. And it continues to have a strong interest in a prosperous, thriving European trading bloc of 500 million consumers, purchasers of 44% of UK exports in 2014. But in this area, too, Britain will have no voice and no say. Agreeing on the need to reform and revive the EU, Bratislava will consider a range of other proposals, including more rather than less integration and, for example, strengthening EU defence and security policy. “It’s time to move forward to a European defence union, which is basically a ‘Schengen of defence’,” said Ursula von der Leyen, the German defence minister, while visiting Lithuania last week. Such statements of intent must ring alarm bells in Whitehall. As the EU’s heaviest hitter on defence, Britain habitually took the lead, prioritising Nato and pouring cold water on previous, often French-inspired EU co-operation initiatives. But soon, London will have no say at all. What price now the Brexiters’ repeated assurances that breaking with the EU would not undermine Nato and Britain’s defences? How will this dismaying abdication of responsibility play with Washington? And how Vladimir Putin must be laughing, as he continues Russia’s military build-up along Europe’s Baltic frontier. May and her ministers have no answers. No summit, no comment.
Amazon updates its terms of service to cover the zombie apocalypse If the world ever ends via a virus that “causes human corpses to reanimate” – a zombie apocalypse by any other name - then Amazon’s got your back, sort of. Amazon’s web services arm has updated its terms of service with a special clause that kicks in in the event of corpses consuming human flesh and the fall of civilisation. The changes come with the release of its new Lumberyard Materials development tools, which allow developers to create games that run on its AWS servers. The terms state that Lumberyard is not to be used with drones, medical equipment, nuclear facilities, manned spacecraft or live military combat in normal times, but have a special exception. Clause 57.10 of the AWS terms of service states: “This restriction will not apply in the event of the occurrence (certified by the United States Centers for Disease Control or successor body) of a widespread viral infection transmitted via bites or contact with bodily fluids that causes human corpses to reanimate and seek to consume living human flesh, blood, brain or nerve tissue and is likely to result in the fall of organised civilisation.” How a game engine is likely to help, on what is presumably short notice of an outbreak that reanimates corpses, is unknown. Training simulations in combating zombies are abundant already, from Last of Us and Left for Dead to 1996’s House of the Dead. Anyone who has watched Shaun of the Dead also knows that a cricket bat to the head is the most effective method of dispatching the undead, a method which needs little training. Either way, the rest of the terms of service for Lumberyard require that it only be used on Amazon’s servers (and there’s no zombie apocalypse exemption there) so if the worst does happen, and Amazon’s servers go offline too, you’ll be out of luck. Size matters: Bitter Bezos takes swipe at Musk over SpaceX rocket landing
Barack Obama tells Samantha Bee a 'spooky story': Trump is the president In a special Halloween-themed edition of Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, Barack Obama told a “spooky story” about what happens when people don’t vote: “Donald Trump could be president.” Dressed as “what happens when young people vote”, Obama said he did the interview on her TBS show to encourage young people to vote. Bee was skeptical. “It turns out that young people actually are more interested and engaged than I think we give them credit for,” Obama said, adding that his daughter Malia just voted for the first time this year. “The pride that she took, I think, in casting her ballot, is a pride that I think a lot of young people feel, but you’ve got to talk to them about the things that they care about,” he said. Bee, impersonating a millennial with vocal fry and uptalk, challenged the president to convince her to vote. “I would hope that you’d be willing to take about the same amount of time that you spend just looking through cat videos on your phone to make sure that the democracy’s working,” Obama said. Bee peppered Obama with pressing questions about his legacy, his gray hair and what Hillary Clinton’s “birther” conspiracy theory equivalent might be during the show’s annual (and also first) Halloween interview with a sitting president. “Is that like white spray paint or fun Halloween cobwebs up there?” she asked, drawing a stern look from the president. “Sam, I’m still president for about three months,” he said. “If and when Hillary is president,” Bee asked later, “what do you think will be the female equivalent of: ‘You weren’t born in this country?’” “That’s an interesting question,” Obama said. Bee takes the compliment and says she has many more interesting questions. “I think the equivalent will be: ‘She’s tired, she’s moody, she’s being emotional,’” Obama said. “There’s just something about her?” Bee offered. “There’s something about her,” he agreed. “When men are ambitious, it’s just taken for granted; well of course they should be ambitious,” he said. “When women are ambitious – why? That theme, I think, will continue throughout her presidency and it’s contributed to this notion that somehow she is hiding something.”
It's time to put Welsh independence on agenda – Leanne Wood The leader of Plaid Cymru has called for the people of Wales to start discussing the possibility of the country becoming independent. Leanne Wood said Brexit was an opportunity to break free from the UK – and though Wales voted overwhelmingly to leave the EU she argued that its citizens would think again if the country became independent. Plaid has long advocated independence for Wales but seen it as a long-term aspiration rather than a short-term goal. Brexit has altered that. Wood said: “Last Thursday’s vote has changed everything. In all likelihood, with Scotland voting to remain, the UK will cease to exist in the near future. Northern Ireland will be considering its future too. “Even though this situation was not of our making, Plaid Cymru believes that redesigning the current UK is the only option. A new union of independent nations working together for the common good. “It is my belief that this independent Wales in a completely different context to last week’s referendum would want to be a part of the European Union. “This is a huge challenge that we face. All of us, whether we voted in or out should be prepared to be bold and confident in being able to forge a new, strong, inclusive, outward-looking future for our nation.” Generally, polls put the number of Welsh people keen on independence at around 10%. Following last year’s Scottish independence referendum, the number fell to 3% in one poll. Wood said she believed attitudes had changed. “It’s time to put independence on the agenda now in order to safeguard Wales’s future. This is about us beginning a national conversation rather than calling for a referendum, though that is where it will end up. “The Welsh economy and our constitution face unprecedented challenges. We must explore options that haven’t been properly debated until now. “Prior to Brexit people were talking about wanting to take more control over their lives and the need for us to have confidence. People in Wales should have control over the decisions that impact on the day to day control of their lives. “I will be outlining the way forward to a special conference of Plaid Cymru members shortly where we will have an opportunity to discuss this further.”
Ran review – Kurosawa’s masterful epic reissued This 1985 film was the last proper epic from Japanese maestro Akira Kurosawa, and it’s a magisterial achievement. An adaptation of King Lear, rereleased in a splendid 4K restoration, it tells the story of Lord Hidetora (Tatsuya Nakadai), an elderly warlord with a history of ruthless slaughter, who entrusts his domain to three sons, rather than daughters, their individual battle regalia – red, yellow and blue – giving the film a striking colour coordination. The increasingly livid, ghostly Noh-style makeup worn by Nakadai highlights the theatricality, as does a somewhat Brechtian performance from Peter (just Peter) as an androgynous fool. Kurosawa’s deployment of huge armies in vast landscapes displays a pre-digital mastery that we can only gasp at today, and the castle siege sequence – arrows flying, blood flowing, stage crimson – is all the more magnificent for the distancing use of Tôru Takemitsu’s sombre orchestral score. Stealing the show is Mieko Harada, chillingly authoritative as the ruthless Lady Kaede.
The Brexit economy: remarkable resilience as spectre of inflation looms The chancellor, Philip Hammond, has been given a boost ahead of his maiden autumn statement by a analysis showing the economy continues to confound gloomy forecasts for a post-referendum slump. A bumper month for retail sales, a steady housing market, broad-based business growth and a drop in the jobless rate have all boosted hopes for a strong finish to the year for the UK economy. Hammond is being warned, however, to look past the signs of early resilience to a challenging 2017 when Brexit talks begin in earnest, rising inflation starts to bite and the world gets to grips with Donald Trump taking over the US presidency. For now, however, the pound has steadied on financial markets and the economic signals point to resilient consumers. That will provide some solace to Hammond as he prepares to deliver his speech on Wednesday, when he will be forced to concede that the longer-term outlook for the economy is gloomier than at his predecessor George Osborne’s budget just eight months ago. To track the impact of the Brexit vote on a monthly basis, the has chosen eight economic indicators, as well as the value of the pound and the performance of the FTSE. The dashboard for November shows a better than expected performance in five of the eight categories. Two were worse than expected and inflation was lower than economists forecast, defying expectations for it to rise swiftly on the back of the weak pound. Five months on from the vote to leave the EU, the latest batch of figures show unemployment dropped to an 11-year low, retail sales rose sharply, house prices picked up, business activity continued to grow and the public finances improved. But Britain’s trade gap with the rest of the world widened and wage growth stalled. The pound has recovered some ground in the latest month, as investor focus shifts away from the UK currency and instead to the euro after Trump’s victory raised fears of similar anti-establishment gains in a host of elections in the eurozone over coming months. Analysts also said the pound may have found a floor, having dropped 10% against the euro and 16% against the dollar since the referendum. On stock markets, the FTSE 100 leading index is off a record high hit in October but is still 8% above it’s pre-referendum level. The more domestically focused FTSE 250 is 2% higher than it was on the day of the referendum. But behind the upbeat headlines there are growing signs the weak pound will push up prices and squeeze household budgets in the months ahead. Wage growth is expected to slow and economists warn that with employment growth already waning, pay will struggle to keep up with living costs next year. Andrew Sentance, a former Bank of England policymaker, said price pressures were clearly rising. “It is clear from the measure of input prices paid by manufacturers that a wave of inflation is coming through the pipeline driven by a weaker pound. We should therefore still expect to see inflation at around 3% or just below by the end of next year. “That will squeeze real consumer spending growth, adding to the slowdown generated by uncertainty affecting investment plans.” Household worries about inflation are already rising after high-profile pricing tussles between supermarkets and big brands such as Typhoo and Walkers crisps. Eight out of 10 consumers said they were worried that changes in inflation over the next 12 months would affect the cost of everyday goods, according to one YouGov poll for Barclaycard. As a result, people’s overall confidence in the UK economy and in their own finances waned. For businesses, the pound’s weakness also weighed heavy. Despite the boost to competitiveness for those selling their goods overseas, exports fell in the latest trade figures while imports rose. At the same time, the weak pound ramped up the cost of importing raw materials and manufacturers started to pass some of that on to their clients. Putting some solid figures behind the rows over Marmite and other foods, the latest official data on manufacturers’ costs showed they soared 12.2% in the year to October, the biggest increase for five years. So-called “factory gate” prices charged to their customers were up 2.1% on the year, the biggest rise for more than four years. That was echoed in the services sector – encompassing shops, hotels, bars and banks – where businesses faced the biggest one-month jump in costs for 20 years in October, according to the closely watched Markit/CIPS services PMI report. Business investment is expected to suffer as company bosses fret about those rising costs, as well as political uncertainty. Economists warn that the nervous climate will translate into firms putting off big spending and hiring decisions. The Bank of England predicts a slowdown in business investment will weigh on overall economic growth next year. Writing in the , a former member of the Bank’s monetary policy committee (MPC), David Blanchflower, said Hammond should heed those longer-term forecasts. “The UK economy is slowing, there is no doubt about it. The incoming data so far though are mixed as it is early days post the Brexit vote,” said Blanchflower, professor of economics at Dartmouth College in the US. “GDP growth isn’t set to slow sharply in the fourth quarter of 2016 but 2017 is likely a different matter.” He urged the chancellor to respond with big initiatives to shore up growth, or risk further antagonising voters. “It is time to condemn austerity into the dustbin of history. It is the unnecessary hang-up with debts and deficits that has got us into this fine populist mess in the first place.” There was little hint of such a change of direction in a Treasury reaction to public finance data on Tuesday showing the deficit was smaller than expected in October. A Treasury spokesman said: “As the chancellor has made clear, the government is committed to fiscal discipline and will return the budget to balance over a sensible period of time, in a way that allows space to support the economy as needed.” Headline growth figures have defied gloomy forecasts made during a bitter referendum campaign and in the wake of the Brexit vote, when many economists predicted a recession. An update on GDP from the Office for National Statistics later this week is expected to confirm its previous estimate that the economy grew a relatively strong 0.5% in the three months following the Brexit vote, down only slightly from 0.7% growth in the run-up to the referendum. But analysts believe details released with this latest GDP report will show business investment slowed following the Brexit vote. Chris Hare, economist at Investec commented: “When economic uncertainty rises, business investment tends to be the first casualty – in such episodes businesses, tend to revert to ‘wait-and-see’ mode and postpone their capital spending plans.”
Little Mix: Glory Days review – perfect chart-pop, with added empowerment While this year’s girl-group hopefuls Four of Diamonds were booted off The X Factor live shows after two measly weeks, 2011 victors Little Mix prove that our appetite for four-part harmony is strong as ever. Their fourth album is a chart-ready triple threat of weepy piano ballads, pop bangers and on-trend, Bieberesque EDM. Themes range from breakups to makeups, but Jade, Jesy, Leigh-Anne and Perrie somewhat make up for failing the musical Bechdel test by irreverently namechecking Game of Thrones and kids animation Blues Clues. Touch, Power and No More Sad Songs offer club drops and shimmery basslines, while Oops combines consciously retro doo-wopishness with a guest appearance from US popster Charlie Puth. Elsewhere, Nobody Like You offers full-on Kleenex-at-the-ready fragility and echoey vocals, and Shout Out to My Ex, which debuted at No 1 on the singles chart at the end of last month, is four minutes of lush, stompy (debatably faux) empowerment. Yes, the message here is probably as substantial as Girl Power once was, but this is chart-pop perfection nonetheless.
How three black women helped send John Glenn into orbit When John Glenn was waiting to be fired into orbit aboard Friendship 7 in 1962, there was one person he trusted with the complex trajectory calculations required to bring him down safely from his orbital spaceflight: Katherine Johnson, an African-American mathematician who worked in Nasa’s segregated west area computers division. “Get the girl, check the numbers,” Glenn said before boarding the rocket. “If she says they’re good, I’m good to go.” Johnson was one of three female African-American mathematicians known as the “computers in skirts” who worked on the Redstone, Mercury and Apollo space programmes for Nasa. Now, thanks to an award-tipped movie, Johnson, Mary Jackson and Dorothy Vaughan are about to become more widely celebrated. The film, Hidden Figures, stars Taraji P Henson of TV series Empire, soul singer and actress Janelle Monáe, Octavia Spencer from The Help movie, and Academy Award winner Kevin Costner. Glenn’s death at the age of 95 last week, coupled with the film industry’s desire to correct last year’s damaging #OscarSoWhite controversy and celebrate how the women broke through the racial and gender discrimination of an all-male flight research team, suggests the film will now have the momentum to launch itself forcefully into the film awards season. Monáe, who plays Jackson, told the that the three women broke through and changed the face of a white male profession. Jackson fought through the courts to join courses that would allow her to even be admitted to the Nasa programme. “These women were told that their dreams were not valid because of their gender and the colour of their skin,” said Monáe. “But these were two things they could not change – and would not want to – because [Jackson] was a proud black woman.” A corresponding breakthrough, said Monáe, was Hollywood’s willingness to make a mainstream film about African-American women. “Most of the time we’re portrayed as the maid, the nanny or the secretary,” she said. “But to be portrayed as brilliant-minded, outspoken, to dress sharply and be the voice of a new generation of women – now audiences are going to see a different side of us.” The filmmakers hope the movie, based on the book Hidden Figures: the American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians who helped win the Space Race by Margot Lee Shetterly, will also help to lift the stigma that is often attached to women in the sciences. “If a girl, of whatever age or ethnicity, is inclined toward science, technology engineering and math, they should be encouraged and that passion should be fostered because if we only had the male perspective, women will continue to be marginalised and objectified,” said Spencer, who plays Vaughan. Monáe hopes Hidden Figures will help to boost the Fem the Future gender-equality project that she launched over the summer with Kenyan-Mexican actress Lupita Nyong’o, who won an Oscar for 12 Years a Slave. Their plans include putting on a women-focused pop and tech festival next year. “We’re out there but it’s going to take all of us coming together – just like going into space – to get it done or it does not get done,” Monáe said. Pharrell Williams, one of the film’s executive producers who also wrote several songs for the film, added his voice to calls for women’s role in science to be more widely acknowledged. “Up until recently, a woman’s contribution to history has often been dismissed, discounted and often at times even erased from public acknowledgment,” he told the Directors Guild of America last month. The story of Nasa’s black female mathematicians has always been celebrated within the agency, but not widely known about beyond. Following an executive order prohibiting racial discrimination in the defence industry, Nasa’s predecessor, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (Naca) began recruiting African Americans with college degrees in the 1940s for the computer pool. The agency considered women more patient and detail-oriented than men – and they could be paid less. They were assigned the work of reading, calculating and plotting test data. But the in the pre-civil rights era, African Americans occupied a segregated wing and used separate facilities. In the late 1980s, a Nasa researcher noticed the black women in agency photographs from the period. The film’s director, Theodore Melfi, explained that parts of their story were known but that the segregated computer group existed only for a short time before IBM brought in the first computers in 1961. “Nasa has never hidden these women and always held them up and celebrated them,” he said. “It’s always been a progressive place and it was always about the value of your brain. The agency was terrifically helpful with the making of the film.” It is believed that Glenn, a former Democrat senator for Ohio, died before seeing Hidden Figures. Melfi said Glenn was supportive of the film and gave the production the use of his photographs for free. He was known to have disliked The Right Stuff, the film of Tom Wolfe’s account of the early days of the space programme that depicted him, he felt, as conservative in contrast to hell-raising colleagues. Details of Glenn’s funeral are still being decided but he is to lie in state in Ohio’s capitol building in Columbus before a memorial service at Ohio State university. He is to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Washington DC.
Facebook teams failed to meet company's rape abuse standards Enforcement teams working for Facebook have failed to meet the company’s strict rules of zero tolerance towards rape threats online, its head of safety said on Monday. Antigone Davis, global head of safety for the California-based tech giant, said in the last nine months her team had been examining whether the tools, resources and policies in place to tackle online abuse were effective. She told a conference organised by the movement Reclaim the Internet that her team had found staff working on enforcement were not upholding the company’s standards. “We found there were improvements that could be made,” she said. “We have a policy against rape threats; Facebook has zero tolerance towards rape threats but our enforcement did not match our policy. So we spent a lot of time looking at the guidelines we provide for people that review these reports to make sure that our enforcement matches our policy.” Davis told the conference of campaigners and politicians that her team had seen a huge improvement in how the policy against rape threats was enforced. But Davis, speaking on a panel with leading figures from Twitter and Google, was challenged with the others about what the companies were doing to measure their performance when it came to tackling abusive misogynistic, racist and homophobic threats and abuse online. None of the companies will publish data on the number of individuals in their enforcement teams across the globe, or any data on how they perform against the number of complaints and take down requests. Jenifer Swallow, of All Rise, an organisation combating cyber abuse, said: “Do you have key performance indicators, for example, that by the end of the year cyber abuse will be x, y or z level? “What is the percentage of abuse on your network, what is it today and what do you want to bring it down to?” She said much more transparency was needed from the tech companies on these issues. Swallow cited research carried out by her organisation into thousands of comments where an individual has reported the content to social media companies. She said 76% of the abuse that was reported was not removed by the platforms. Analysis of YouTube in another piece of research showed 15% of all comments were abusive. Davis said safety on Facebook was a primary concern and as a lawyer who worked on abuse cases, a mother and former teacher as well as Facebook’s head of safety, it was not just her job but a personal issue. Jess Phillips, Labour MP for Birmingham Yardley, called on the tech companies to create tools which meant that when an individual was blocked, the person who blocked them never saw anything related to them or their posts again. Currently that does not happen, she said. She said so-called “dog piling” on social media – where individuals pile in on a victim in a mass trolling exercise – was designed to silence people. “One of the tech solutions I would like to see is that if I have blocked someone, I don’t want to see anyone who responds to that tweet, even if they are sticking up for me. “I also want to see social media platforms working more together to tackle this.” She also called for the companies to get rid of individuals who made money out of the “brand” of abusing women. “We need to take their brand off air,” said Phillips. Labour MP Yvette Cooper, who spoke at the conference, has called for the Labour party and all organisations and institutions to toughen up their responses to social media abusers. She is calling for the NEC to expel any Labour member who was involved in serious harassment and abuse online.
Junior Boys: Big Black Coat review – Ontario electro duo's energetic return Along with Jessy Lanza and Dan Snaith (Caribou), the Junior Boys make up a triptych of Hamilton, Ontario music acts who have given the city a reputation for interesting electronic acts and added a softness to contrast with its steelmaking past. On their first album in five years, the Junior Boys carry on their love affair with dance music and electronica, shifting between edgy Chicago house (M&P), poppy acid (And It’s Forever), sultry electro (C’Mon Baby) and R&B (Love Is a Fire). They say they’ve been rejuvenated after working with Lanza on her Hyperdub albums, and you can tell – he songs here have rawness and energy. Even a cover of Bobby Caldwell’s 1978 blue-eyed soul hit What You Won’t Do for Love doesn’t feel out of keeping with the more dancefloor-focused tracks – it’s that ability to mix elements smoothly that makes Big Black Coat so easy to love.
'Oh, Benito Mussolini': conservative media turns away from Donald Trump “It’s always great when our debates degenerate into meat-gazing,” conservative commentator Kurt Schlichter said on Friday, on broadcast row at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). “Debts, deficits and penis,” quipped Tony Katz, a radio host and contributor to the conservative sites Townhall and the Daily Caller. Both were referring to Thursday night’s Republican debate in Detroit, during which voters who tuned in to hear about the candidates’ policies were instead treated to assurances that Donald Trump’s private parts were up to the task of leading the country. Conservative media is not exactly lining up to support Trump – but its readers and listeners knew that long before the National Review published its now infamous anyone-but-Trump issue in January. While Breitbart is considered by many to be in the tank for Trump – running headlines on Friday like “Trump reassures nation about penis size”, “Debate disgrace: Fox News exposed as a pro-Rubio Super Pac” and even “The nuclear option: Trump’s winning streak baffles GOP losing club for losers”– other big (and growing) conservative sites are not exactly friendly turf for the potential nominee. On Friday, after Thursday’s debate, RedState.com led with posts blaming the “mainstream media” for not showing Ted Cruz playing with his daughter during the debate’s commercial breaks, and suggesting a Rubio-Cruz unity ticket. The Blaze carried coverage of Melania Trump’s response to her husband’s penis-size comments. The Independent Journal-Review broke news of Ben Carson’s new job and mocked Barack Obama for suggesting that America is obsessed with the OJ Simpson case. Over at the Free Beacon, they ran with all-day coverage of tidbits from Hillary Clinton’s campaign expenditure reports. Meanwhile, a Drudge Report poll showed its readers believe that Trump won the debate, and led with news that former senator and one-time Democratic candidate Jim Webb might support Trump in November. In its lack of cohesion, conservative media is much like CPAC itself, where attendees are far from universally friendly towards Trump, relatively inclined towards Cruz and antipathetic towards Clinton. (Trump announced on Friday that he would remain on the campaign trail instead of keeping his promise to appear at CPAC on Saturday morning, leading some to suggest he wasn’t keen to speak before a crowd of conservatives who don’t necessarily support him.) John Hawkins, the owner of RightWingNews, didn’t start off as anti-Trump but is now – especially after the debates. “I covered Trump fairly friendly early on,” he said, noting that he’d seen the businessman speak and met him before he got into the race. “But as you get to see more and more again, you’re like, ‘Oh, Benito Mussolini’.” Hawkins said conservative media could not be blamed for Trump’s rise, but he had seen clearly from where Trump’s support comes. “I have a very Facebook-driven site,” he said. “I see that there are an awful lot of people out there who are instinctively conservative – they’re pro-God, pro-gun, pro-small-government – but they don’t read the National Review. They’re not ideological conservatives.” It’s the “instinctive conservatives”, he said, who support Trump. Kurt Schlichter saw the same dynamic. “As conservatives, we’re ideologically driven, that’s the conservative media and conservative voters,” he said. “A lot of the Republican voters are, by voting for Trump, apparently not so ideological.” But, Schlichter added, it shouldn’t be incumbent on Republican-minded voters to understand conservative ideology; it should be the role of ideological conservatives to try to apply their ideas to the realities faced by voters. “Conservative media, we talk to people in an ideological way,” he said, “and sometimes we forget, like, yeah, free trade’s nice, I like free trade, but there are consequences to folks. “What are we going to do about that? If we don’t have an answer for that, and I don’t know that we tried to answer it, they’re going to find an answer we don’t like.” And that answer, he suggested, might be to vote for Donald Trump. What outsiders don’t necessarily understand about conservative media is that it is not monolithic – and that it is as much a reflection of intra-party tensions as it is a driver of them. Emily Zanotti, digital editor of the American Spectator, said: “There’s a tension between establishment conservatives and the grass roots, though everyone defines that differently, if they define it at all. “Conservative media was instrumental in challenging the establishment and promoting the Tea Party, leading to the tension that we have now at the presidential level.” The tension, Zanotti said, was highlighted and exacerbated by conservative media and “led to the indirect walling off of conservatism, and the balkanization of conservatism” which is reflected in the splits in the race today. Tony Katz bemoaned what could have been. “We take a look at what was: Scott Walker, Bobby Jindal, Rick Perry, conservatives with track records … and now we’re in penis jokes.” “I don’t know who likes this” he added, though he refused to blame Trump or conservative media. “I’m not angry at Trump. I’m just not angry at him. “Republicans and Democrats live in the same society. And a value-less society will, for all of us, have less values.” Schlichter warned, too, that excoriating Trump voters wouldn’t serve conservatives – or conservative media – any better than it would liberal media. “You have to watch out very carefully that your assumptions are not interchangeable with your preferences,” he said. “It is much easier to dismiss people as stupid, emotion-driven, Kardashian-loving fools who just need to listen to someone brilliant.” “These aren’t dumb people,” he added. “They’re people that have different interests than us.”
Sadiq Khan warns hard Brexit will cost millions of jobs across UK The mayor of London has warned the government that its “hard-headed, hard-nosed, hard Brexit approach” is reckless and will cause the loss of millions of jobs, not just in the financial district but across the UK. Sadiq Khan told business leaders that the vote for Brexit did not mean the government needed to choose a route of “economic self-sabotage” and urged Theresa May to approach the UK’s departure from the EU with more pragmatism. “If the proper agreements aren’t negotiated, there will be serious knock-on impacts with jobs and billions of revenue lost – something that would hit the entire country, not just London,” Khan told a City of London Corporation banquet at the Museum of London on Thursday evening. “My motivation is not about protecting old City institutions just for the sake of it or presenting a London-centric approach. It’s about protecting our country’s economy – protecting jobs, promoting growth and safe-guarding prosperity for the next generation,” he said. The mayor expressed concern that the UK could end up without access to the single market – a so-called hard Brexit that blocks the ease with which British businesses deal with the remaining 27 members of the EU. “If the government continues with a reckless hard-headed, hard-nosed, hard Brexit approach, and we end up losing access to the single market that helps make our financial services industry a world leader, the impact would ripple out far and wide,” Khan said. Khan spoke alongside Mark Boleat, policy chairman of the City of London Corporation local authority. Boleat acknowledged that it is inevitable that jobs will be lost. “To the extent that some activities will no longer be able to be conducted from London, there needs to be suitable transition arrangements so that there is not unnecessary harm to employment and the economy generally,” Boleat said. “And it is not a question of the number of jobs being lost in the UK being matched by jobs gained elsewhere in the EU 27. It is already apparent that the biggest beneficiary of any job losses in the UK will be New York, and some employment will simply stop as the volume of business can no longer be supported by the higher costs.” Khan also warned that Brexit could actually lead to businesses being more likely to move to New York, Singapore and Hong Kong than to other cities in Europe. Sir Jon Cunliffe, deputy governor of the Bank of England, has also warned that remaining EU members may not catch the fallout from the City. On the 30th anniversary of the “big bang” – the measures brought in by Margaret Thatcher to revolutionise the City – Khan cited figures showing that banking, finance and professional services contributed £190bn to the UK economy – almost 12%. “Yes, the country voted for Brexit. And of course, that means we’ll be leaving the European Union. But that doesn’t mean unnecessary economic self-sabotage. The government doesn’t have a mandate to jeopardise our economy or the prosperity of millions of people in London and across the country,” said Khan. The London mayor wants the UK to retain access to both the single market – perhaps with so-called passporting rights – and also protecting the working rights of EU citizens already working in the City. Financiers have been concerned not just about the deal that will be negotiated once article 50 is triggered but also whether their staff will be welcomed in the UK, particularly after the home secretary, Amber Rudd, raised the idea of companies disclosing the proportion of foreigners that they employ. The chancellor, Philip Hammond, has insisted that the issue with immigration is not with “highly skilled and highly paid bankers, brain surgeons, software engineers”.
Maarten Stekelenburg the penalty hero as Everton hold Manchester City The Manchester City wobble continues. They should have won this match, and would have done but for an outstanding performance from the Everton goalkeeper Maarten Stekelenburg, who saved two penalties and kept out two more goal-bound efforts from Sergio Agüero and Kevin De Bruyne. Apart from a third successive game without a win, Pep Guardiola will be concerned about his side’s penalty wastage rate – of eight spot-kicks awarded this season, they have converted only four – but mostly he will be worried that City are dominating games without making their superiority count. It is far too early in the season to suggest the former Barcelona manager is becoming desperate, but when, almost laughably, he sent on Vincent Kompany as a striker for the last few minutes it could only be interpreted as a sign of frustration. Guardiola introduced a new formation for this game, three at the back and four across midfield, and when Leroy Sané marked his first league start by whisking past Bryan Oviedo in the opening minutes as if the defender was not there it looked as though City might be about to give Everton a football lesson. It did not quite work out that way. When Stekelenburg dived to his left to keep out De Bruyne’s penalty a couple of minutes before the interval, it was just about the first save the goalkeeper had to make. There had been a routine stop from Raheem Sterling earlier in the game but that was typical of the home side’s first-half efforts. City had virtually unlimited possession and moved the ball around swiftly and intelligently in attempting to swarm all over their opponents, only for a combination of tame finishing and dogged defending to allow Everton to reach the interval unscathed. Phil Jagielka and Ashley Williams deserve credit for a series of blocks on the six-yard line as the hosts kept trying to pass the ball into the net, but ultimately City had to reflect on a long period of dominance that brought no reward. With Agüero left on the bench following international duty Kelechi Iheanacho did not quite provide the cutting edge up front City were seeking and, though Everton could not complain about the penalty awarded when Jagielka left out a leg to trip David Silva, the manner in which De Bruyne placed his attempt at an easy height for the goalkeeper to reach seemed to sum up his side’s indecisiveness in front of goal. Everton could only have been pleased to turn round on level terms after spending almost all the first half on the ropes. With two tricky wingers in the side in Yannick Bolasie and Gerard Deulofeu they might have been expected to at least try to exploit the space behind City’s extremely notional wing-backs, though in fact they barely crossed the halfway line and never managed to send players forward in the sort of numbers to cause their opponents problems. That seemed to change at the start of the second half, as if Ronald Koeman had asked his players to impose themselves more during the interval. Bolasie linked with Deulofeu for the latter to force Claudio Bravo’s first save of the afternoon, before a flick from Iheanacho brought a reaction stop from Stekelenburg at the other end. The Nigerian made way for Agüero shortly after that, and when Koeman sent on James McCarthy for Deulofeu at the same time it looked as though Everton were stiffening their midfield to hang on for a point. Nothing of the sort, as it turned out. A determined touch by Bolasie on halfway simultaneously took out a defender and turned a hopeful ball forward into an opportunity for Romelu Lukaku to run at an exposed Gaël Clichy. To say the striker accepted it gratefully would be an understatement. Lukaku devoured the opportunity, and Clichy with it, losing the defender and finding Bravo’s bottom corner with an alacrity that put the home side’s finishing to shame. Things did not get any better for City when yet another penalty was squandered, this time by Agüero. Jagielka was again the culprit, and it appeared Everton’s lead might last a mere five minutes until Stekelenburg pulled off another impressive stop, proving equal to Agüero’s shot despite the striker’s effort to put him off with a stuttering run-up. When Stekelenburg followed that with a fine save from Agüero from open play he put himself in the running for man of the match and kept Everton on course for an unlikely victory, though of course it could not last. Guardiola’s response to the second penalty miss had been to replace a fading Sané with a fresh Nolito, and within two minutes the substitute put City level, heading home from the six-yard line from Silva’s clever cross. There was still time for Stekelenburg to rescue Everton again by getting fingertips to a tremendous shot from De Bruyne, though even with Kompany sent into the mixer the visiting defence clung on for a deserved point.
Brendon Urie: ‘Everybody wanted out from Panic! at the Disco’ Hello Brendon! Where are you and what’s happening? I’m on the tour bus right now – we’re driving through Pennsylvania. I’m looking out of the window and it’s pretty exciting. [Pause] It’s so boring. It’s just a forest and it’s awful. You seem like a man who keeps a tidy tour bus. We keep it pretty clean. We only ask for some water and some stuff to make sandwiches. That’s extraordinarily reasonable. I can be reasonable. What does it say about you that everyone else has left your band? (1) Because you do seem like a reasonable person. And yet … I must have done something really crazy. I don’t know what it was. Everybody wanted out from the Panic thing. I mean, I respect it; any time anyone wanted to leave, the reasons were there, so it wasn’t just a “fuck you”. Your new album has done very well – in the US, you had your best ever first-week sales, and it was your first No 1 album. (2) What’s that all about? It’s very strange. I like to think I’ve improved in terms of production style and writing. Obviously, I hope for the best whenever I work on something, but I don’t think about it too much until the album is finally out. I’m so fortunate to still be doing what I’m doing. When did you last measure how tall you were? Oh, man. Not since high school, probably. Would you rather be unusually tall or unusually short? I used to be unusually short, and I think I’d prefer that to being unusually tall. If you’re unusually tall, that just seems like you’re fucked – you’re gangly and uncoordinated, you’re ducking under doorways, it all just seems awful. (3) All these years later, would you consider “I chime in with a ‘Haven’t you people ever heard of closing the goddamn door?’” to be one of the best pop lyrics ever or one of the worst? It sits near one end of the spectrum. I love that lyric. I remember thinking: “Fuck it – that’s going in the song.” I still think it’s awesome. Are there dogs in your life, and if so how many? I have a jack russell terrier and a boston terrier. What are their names? Humphrey Bogart and Penny Lane. Absolutely incredible. They’re both maniacs. What happened to the song you did with 5 Seconds of Summer? I’m writing all the time, and whether songs end up on a Panic album remains to be seen, but I had a song and I gave it to 5 Seconds of Summer. They were into it, but I’m not sure what’s happening with it. That happens a lot in the industry, it’s very strange. People will go: “We’ll take the song,” and sometimes things happen … other times they don’t. And it’s called Pretty in Pink? Pretty in Ink, actually. Is it about a lady with a tattoo? Exactly. That’s what it is. When I came up with that pun I was very excited. I still really like that song, it was a fun moment writing it. How many stars would you give Elvis Costello’s autobiography on Amazon? I’d give it a solid four stars out of five. (4) The stories where he talks about hanging out with Tom Waits are fun – going to open mic nights and rapping over the microphone. Apparently, you made half your new album naked. That doesn’t sound very practical. You wouldn’t think so, but it was on my property. After waiting more than 10 years to be able to do it, I just built a studio at my house. When I’m at home, I’m naked a lot. My wife finds it hilarious. Are you looking forward to being 30? I’m so excited for 30. (5) I hear it’s OK. I’ll probably do the same stuff, but I’ll be more comfortable being who I am. Are you not comfortable with who you are now? I’ve always been comfortable in my own skin – sometimes a little too comfortable, which in turn makes other people uncomfortable. I have no qualms: no shame, no guilt, no embarrassment. I tend to act out a lot. When I’m out and about in public and I see someone trying to be the centre of attention, I always think: “What an asshole.” And I suppose that’s how I come off to other people. Having had all this success with your first Panic album as a solo artist, has it occurred to you that you should have got rid of the rest of the band a bit earlier? [Huge laugh] Yeah, right? I should have done this years ago! But it has been crazy, from the first split until now it has been a hell of a ride. I always wrote on my own, then later on I’d bring it to the band and we’d all discuss and compromise. Now I write just the same, then I don’t need to compromise at all. I’ve never been more comfortable in my own shoes, and wearing all these different hats. Are you wearing a hat now? I am. I’m such a rock star! Footnotes (1) Bassist Brent Wilson left in 2006 and was replaced by Jon Walker, who subsequently left along with guitarist Ryan Ross in 2008. Drummer Spencer Smith officially left the band in 2015. (2) Death of a Bachelor includes songs referencing artists such as Frank Sinatra and Queen. It’s quite a listen. (3) The tallest man in the world, Sultan Kosen, also has the world’s biggest hands. (4) Eighty-five reviews give Unfaithful Music and Disappearing Ink an average rating of four stars, although one two-star review notes that the book – the autobiography – is “slightly self-regarding”. (5) Brendon will be 30 on 12 April 2017. On the day Brendon was born, Texaco filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy after failing to settle legal disagreements with Pennzoil Co. Panic! at the Disco play four sold-out shows in the UK in November. Death of a Bachelor is out now on DCD2/ Fueled by Ramen
Meet Donald Trump's feng shui master The offices of feng shui masters Pun-Yin and her father Tin-Sun inhabit a dimly lit basement space, replete with lush plants and gurgling fountains, deep in New York City’s Chinatown. Inside, framed photos decorate the walls, including one taken some 20 years ago. In it, the then 27-year-old Pun-Yin stood front-and-center before a group of people – among them a young socialite called Marla Maples, and a slightly less orange Donald Trump. The caption beneath it reads: “Photo taken at the Trump Int’l Hotel & Tower groundbreaking and blessing Ceremony on June 1995.” Trump, our zealous and erratic Republican presidential nominee, hardly seems to embody the principles of the ancient Chinese philosophy that aims to harmonize people with their physical surroundings. And yet, according to Pun-Yin, for decades, incorporating those principles into his real estate holdings was one of Trump’s foremost priorities. But his reasons were hardly spiritual. Beginning in 1995, Trump hired Pun-Yin and her father to assess the energy of his Int’l Hotel & Tower development project and make the necessary changes to its design, in a calculated move to tap into the burgeoning market of international investors in US real estate from China and Hong Kong. For such respected clients, a building lacking in feng shui could be a dealbreaker. And it seems the famously bullheaded real estate developer met his match in Pun-Yin. An apprentice to her father for 15 years, Pun-Yin made a name for herself when she took on the project, for which Trump invested $230m in revamping the building. “Until I did this project and took off, it was not a female industry at all,” Pun-Yin said, referring to the cult of mostly male feng shui masters. “As a woman, you have to be 50 to 60 years old. So I broke rank not only as a female but also as a young female.” When Pun-Yin saw the Trump Int’l Hotel & Tower, the energy was so bad, she insisted that it had to be her way or the highway. She said, “By the time we went there and saw it, we said, ‘We’re not going to do this project with you unless you follow us completely.’” Not one to miss out on a potential financial opportunity, Trump complied. “It’s just another element in which you can have the advantage over your competitors,” Trump told the New York Times for an article about feng shui in 1994. “Asians are becoming a big part of our market and this is something we can’t ignore.” Keep in mind this is the same man who recently blamed China for “the greatest theft in the history of the world”, and who perpetually accuses the country of manipulating its currency. Yet few have capitalized on the potential investment opportunity that China represents more than Trump. Today, some of the Trump International Hotel and Tower’s most iconic features are the result of the counsel Pun-Yin provided at the time. The metal globe that stands before the building was intended to deflect the negative energy produced by the oncoming traffic in Columbus Circle. And the tower’s tea-colored glassy exterior, which reflects the surrounding sky, was said to absorb the negative energy caused by the wind’s sway upon the building. Pun-Yin also insisted that the entrance of the building face Central Park, which she refers to as the “green dragon of New York City”, instead of its original orientation, which faced Columbus Circle. “The instability of energy caused by traffic coming at the building – it’s almost like bullets flying at you all the time. It’s not stable. It’s not calm,” she said. In fact, Pun-Yin attributes the success Trump found in that project to some seriously good feng shui, made possible by her and her dad. “That’s why the press started coming to talk about this project,” she said. “And then a few years later, with the grand opening, it was the same thing. There were 10 years of international media coming to me and talking about his project.” She added, “That’s why he became the most profitable real estate developer.” To be clear, Trump is neither the most profitable real estate developer, nor is he the largest. But the flurry of media attention from Trump’s tower not only made a name for Pun-Yin, it also introduced the concept of feng shui into the mainstream. Soon after the project broke ground, the discipline – previously a foreign concept in the west – became a household name. A New Yorker cartoon from 1995 depicts a broker, who stands on the balcony of an apartment building with two prospective buyers and says, “A million two does seem a bit heavy for a one-bedroom at first, but this unit has the best feng shui in the building.” In the late 1990s, interior designers began appropriating elements of the philosophy for a western audience, while publishers put out accessible feng shui books with titles like “Dorm Room Feng Shui” to provide college students with “quick and inexpensive feng shui fixes” like putting a pink seashell in the corner of the room to attract true love. But, Pun-Yin insists, much of the true meaning of feng shui has been lost on commercialized gimmicks. Nowadays, Bill Seto, a veteran New York broker who specializes in the Asian-majority market in Flushing, Queens, said that while it was once regarded as an obscure philosophy, feng shui is now a tool of the trade. “It’s heavily practiced in Manhattan. Brokers are starting to take courses in feng shui because it helps them market their property better,” he said. As for Pun-Yin, she has established a robust business for herself with a wide array of clients and projects, ranging from the CEO of fashion label Theory, Andrew Rosen, to projects commissioned by the local government. When I contacted her again – my first interview with her was two years ago – to divine her thoughts on the impending presidential election, I caught her between feng shui consultations. “I’d have to consult with my lawyers to comment on my client,” she said. “And my plate is too full to take this on.”
West Brom’s James McClean checks Chelsea revival with late leveller Chelsea remain unbeaten under Guus Hiddink but this heated match on a cold night ended in much frustration for the champions. West Bromwich Albion had riled both the crowd and Diego Costa, while James McClean’s late goal ensured they stay three points clear of Hiddink’s side in the bottom half of the table. Costa flew into a challenge at the start of the second half and was furious at the final whistle, following a match where West Brom twice pulled level. The Spain forward appeared to hit out at the tunnel after the final whistle following an attempt to confront the opposition goalkeeper, Boaz Myhill, on the pitch. Chelsea showed glimpses of their old self, producing a fair number of chances with Costa moving well up front, but defensive concerns remain and West Brom deserved a point. César Azpilicueta had given the home side the lead – scoring only his second league goal, both against Albion – but twice they were pulled back. Craig Gardner equalised in the first half before McClean cancelled out Gareth McAuley’s own goal with four minutes remaining. “At the end I think it’s a fair result although in the first half after 1-0 we had a few chances to go 2-0, which didn’t happen,” said Hiddink. “Then we conceded an unfortunate goal and let them penetrate too easily. It was a very entertaining game, high speed and intensity from both sides.” On Costa’s frenetic night, he joked: “We can repair that [the tunnel] easily. He’s an emotional guy and I like that very much.” It was the referee, Anthony Taylor, who was the subject of Chelsea supporters’ ire, with Albion taking their time at set pieces and throw-ins throughout the match. Jonas Olsson was one of three changes Tony Pulis made from Albion’s previous league match, the 2-1 win over Stoke City, Salomón Rondón starting up front with McClean in an attacking three behind him, while Pedro replaced the injured Eden Hazard for Chelsea. Costa did well to control and hold up a direct ball after 20 minutes, laying off to Willian who fed Branislav Ivanovic wide on the right. The full-back’s low cross evaded all the men in red and the masked Azpilicueta came flying in at the far post to muscle in and finish. The lead lasted only 13 minutes, however. Gardner, who had been brought on for the injured James Morrison in the seventh minute, received the ball in a central attacking position after Pedro had dawdled in possession on the left, following good hustling from McClean. Gardner took one touch before shooting low into the bottom corner from 25 yards, puncturing the earlier optimism. The half ended with the crowd becoming increasingly frustrated, while Costa berated Taylor after he blew for half-time when Chelsea were poised to launch a counterattack. The ill-feeling on the pitch grew as the game wore on, home supporters vexed by West Brom’s time-wasting. Things did not get easier for the referee either. In the 49th minute Costa, so annoyed before half-time, flew in late and at pace on Gardner, but the challenge resulted in only a yellow card. As the noise increased and the rain began to fall, Chelsea broke swiftly down the left through the substitute Kenedy, who had been brought on by Hiddink to replace Pedro. As the 19-year-old carried the ball forward, Costa was tripped by Claudio Yacob in a central position. The Albion midfielder was already on a yellow but Taylor judged that it was an unintentional foul. Just as West Brom were beginning to look dangerous, Chelsea struck again. Cesc Fàbregas threaded a ball through to Willian, whose low cross was intended for the onrushing Kenedy. The Brazilian surged towards the near post and slid in to finish, but the last touch came off McAuley. However, Chelsea’s lead was once more cancelled out. In the 86th minute Gardner swept the ball infield and it fell to McClean 20 yards out. The midfielder zipped a low shot past Thibaut Courtois and into the bottom corner. Pulis said: “We just felt there were certain things to do during the game that might cause them problems. We didn’t want to sit, we wanted to press. I think that’s the fourth time where we’ve come from behind to get something from the game. That’s good character and spirit.”
FCA chief denies new regime is soft on bankers The City’s top regulator has said a new system designed to hold bank executives to account is “not about trying to get heads on sticks”. The new regulatory regime, which came into force on Monday and holds top executives responsible for failures in banks, has been watered down since it was first proposed, though Tracey McDermott, the acting head of the Financial Conduct Authority, insisted it would still have a major impact. She told the the new arrangements were “not about trying to get heads on sticks – this regime is about trying make sure that banks are run better”. That will be achieved by bosses better understanding their responsibilities. McDermott has been accused of taking a less stringent approach to regulating banks since taking up the role in September, particularly after dropping a review into banking culture. She said: “I completely reject any suggestion I or the organisation is going soft on banks or going soft on the City.” The senior managers and certification regime comes into force alongside a new criminal offence of failing to prevent a bank from collapsing, in an attempt to address the fallout of the 2008 banking crisis where senior bankers were not found culpable. They were born out of ideas presented by the parliamentary commission on banking standards set up in the wake of the Libor rigging scandal in 2012. George Osborne said: “The new criminal offence, which becomes law today, is the latest milestone in my plan to ensure that the British banking industry operates to the highest possible standard. It is absolutely right that a senior manager whose actions causes their bank to fail should face jail.” However, the chancellor, who has talked about having a “new settlement” with the City following the crisis, diluted parts of the regime. In particular, he has changed his mind over the burden of proof required for a finding of wrongdoing by senior bankers. Initially, it had been envisaged that the new regime would require bankers to demonstrate they had done the right thing throughout any banking failure. But after intense lobbying the revised burden of proof will fall on the FCA, requiring the regulator to actively prove wrongdoing by bankers, who are presumed to have acted correctly. McDermott has not decided whether she will stay on once Andrew Bailey, a deputy governor of the Bank of England, arrives to run the FCA. She said she was told of the revisions in advance but not consulted on it and refused to say whether she would have argued against the decision, which was announced in October. The acting FCA boss had been in contention to lead the regulator on a permanent basis, but decided to withdraw from the race. Her decision was disclosed by George Osborne during a radio interview. As of Monday, about 50,000 names will come off the FCA’s public register as whole swathes of staff will no longer be authorised by the regulator but instead “certified” by their managers. Under the senior manager regime, 7,000 senior bankers and 3,500 top insurers will be deemed to be covered. McDermott said the need for a public register could be part of the consultation that will take place when the regime is extended beyond banks and big insurers in 2018. The FCA is facing calls to ensure that it keeps track of the certification process, which could cover 30,000 staff. “Putting the onus on institutions to assess fitness and propriety will no doubt raise its own problems,” said Julie Matheson, regulatory partner at law firm Kingsley Napley. “One firm’s consideration of what meets this standard may differ to another’s. This will always be a matter of judgment for the senior managers involved in assessing issues raised.” Arpita Dutt, a partner at employment lawyers Brahams Dutt Badrick French, said the new rules could put off those seeking promotion. Dutt said: “The senior managers regime places a heavier compliance and policing function on senior individuals compared to the rest of Europe and the main global financial and insurance markets. Inevitably we may see bankers being paid more to justify the additional liabilities they are being required to accept.” McDermott said that those who were already acting in a responsible manner should have little to fear, a view echoed by some lawyers. “Individuals identified as senior managers may be kept awake at night at first, but for those who acted in a responsible way in the first place, there should be no reason to worry,” said Sarah Henchoz, a partner at the law firm Allen & Overy, who doubts that bankers will leave to work elsewhere as a result of the regulations. Three changes came into effect on 7 March Senior managers regime Top executives at major banks and leading insurance companies are put in charge of specific areas of their organisation. Their responsibilities are clearly set out and should something in their area go wrong, they are held to account. They are also approved by the FCA and feature on its register. Certification regime The senior executives who have been approved by the regulator are required to certify that those individuals who could cause “significant harm” are suitable and honest to hold their roles. They are recertified every year. This changes from the current regime where the FCA authorises individuals in a series of different job categories. Criminal offence Section 36 of the Financial Services (Banking Reform) Act introduces a criminal offence for failing to prevent a bank collapse. The individual could be prosecuted if they take a decision that causes the institution to fail, were aware there was risk that the decision could cause the institution to fail, or their conduct fell far below what could reasonably be expected of a senior manager in that position.
Generation Instagram: how nail painting and yoghurt eating became big earners When Essena O’Neill quit Instagram in a blaze of pixels last year, it made headlines well beyond the echo chamber of social media. Not just because of the dramatic way she did it, but because of the startling revelation of the frightening economics of Instagram. O’Neill shared how she made “A$2,000 a post EASY” by publishing sponsored content to her profile, much of which was not explicitly marked as paid-for content. In her very public take-down of the site O’Neill cautioned her followers that if “Instagram girls ... tag a company, 99% of the time it’s paid”. Adding, in a video posted to YouTube titled How People Make 1000s on Social Media: “Why would you tell your followers that you’re paid a lot to promote what you promote?” That it’s possible to make money from Instagram might well be news to those who don’t use the photo-sharing app – and many of the 400 million people who do. But marketers are very interested in this vast, growing and highly engaged community. Twenty-eight percent of all adult internet users in the US use Instagram, and it is particularly popular among women (31% of female internet users visit the site) and non-whites (47% of African Americans and 38% of Hispanics who use the internet visit the site). Significantly, those who use Instagram do so devotedly – half of all Instagram users visit the site daily – and the social media site offers advertisers a way of reaching the coveted Generation Y market; 55% of all internet users in the US aged 18 to 29 (also known as millennials) use Instagram, which gives young Insta-celebrities, or “influencers”, the opportunity to monetise their followings. Mimi Elashiry, 20, from Australia, has more than 806,000 followers on Instagram who like, comment on and – advertisers hope – eventually imitate the life she presents in her posts: relaxing on the beach, eating out with friends, playing with her dog, eating specific brands of coconut yoghurt and wearing particular labels of swimwear. “I think my audience have connected to my lifestyle,” says Elashiry. “I’m not constantly throwing advertisements in their face. I’m like, here’s me with a coffee, here’s my backyard, my dog.” Most of her posts receive about 20,000 likes; some, though followers do not know which, earn her more than A$1,500 (£738) from brands hoping her social media influence translates to real-world sales. She reportedly earns A$10,000 a month from sponsored Instagram posts. Elashiry first started being offered cash and products in exchange for posts when she had only 3,000 followers; for a while, it covered her rent and expenses. It was “great fun”, she says: “I’d just finished school and was like, this is awesome, I’m making money by posting photos.” But her manager, John Scott – to whom she had to explain what Instagram was – taught her to be more discerning. She now turns down offers that don’t suit her brand – like a A$7,000 Cartier bracelet (“My audience of young girls aren’t going to respond to that”). But pre-orders for a sequin mini-dress she designed with an independent designer for her 19th birthday sold out two hours after she posted a picture of herself wearing the sample. She once snapped her order at a Sydney health food cafe; after school that day, Scott says, the cafe was “bombarded” by teenagers. How much an Instagrammer can charge depends on who’s asking. Between $150 and $300 seems standard for Australians with audiences of fewer than a million, and Essena O’Neill’s claim she was making $2,000 a post might have been a one-off, according to Scott and Elashiry. “I think there’s a big myth around the money that people are making out of Instagram,” he says. “Everyone likes to talk up the fact that they’re earning this much per post, but there aren’t many companies that can afford to pay that.” For US and British models such as Kendall Jenner (47.1 million followers), Cara Delevingne (25.8 million) and Gigi Hadid (12.2 million) who can command six figures per post, the ceilings are higher. Danielle Bernstein, 22, charged between $5,000 and $15,000 for a plug on her @weworewhat account when it had 992,000 followers; now she’s passed the 1m milestone, she will be asking “a good amount more”, she told Harpers Bazaar. The appeal of Instagram, says Scott, is partly that consumers relate to other consumers. “I think we’re all very aware of big brands, and we’ve become very discerning. ‘Hey, that girl’s super-cool, I love everything about her life, she’s real. If she tells me that this is a cool brand, I trust her, so I’m going to buy into that’.” Digital influencers, especially on as intimate and engaging a platform as Instagram, have niche, avid followings. Just how avid? A talent management agency recently signed the pet of its popular Instagram star. Health blogger Bianca Cheah has 126,000 followers, her French bulldog Sporte has 16,200 – and now both are represented by IMG. “That’s how desperate it’s got. People are so interested in these people, my God,” said Georgie Summerhayes from BrandData, a company that measures “social hotness”, determining which of more than 7,250 brands, personalities and media outlets have more clout online. Elashiry ranks sixth out of 135 listed Australian “fashion influencers”. What made one influencer more successful than another was strategy. Summerhayes pulled up the profile of the Instragrammer ranked first among “lifestyle influencers”, with more than 1.2 million followers – a grid like so many others of shots of brunch from above and beaches. “You can have one digital influencer who just posts all this shit, and another digital influencer who posts similar shit, but she’s more engaging. That’s why some are flash-in-the-pan, and others do things in a better way.” Not every tag or mention of a brand in Elashiry’s photos is an ad – she says she hasn’t done a sponsored post “in months”. But posts that were paid for look just like those that weren’t. There’s definitely a grey area, she volunteers. She pulls up a recent picture of a vintage Contax film camera. “That looks like I could be advertising something, but I bought that on eBay as a Christmas present to myself.” A picture of her painting her nails “was work”, she says. But for the caption, advertising a competition from Rimmel, it’s indistinguishable from her other photos. “I suppose I blend it all in. I’d never take something that was too overt.” “And they liked that,” adds Scott. “The brand was like, ‘That is so perfect for us’. Subtle.” Most of the time that a post looks like an ad, it isn’t, says Elashiry. “And even if it is, it’s something that I’ve agreed to do because I think it’s awesome.” For the first time, she seems slightly defensive. “At the end of the day, it’s my job, so it makes sense for me to be paid for it. I don’t think that being paid to do it makes it fake at all. Like, I love painting my nails, so I was like, sure, send me orange.” There’s no telling how long this kind of career path will be around. Many influencers are wary of investing too deeply in Instagram or any platform that is not their own website. But Elashiry’s celebrity has eclipsed its unconventional beginnings, with presenting work for MTV, a modelling campaign for a high-street fashion retailer, and a swimwear line among the opportunities to come from her Instagram following. Eventually she’d like to use her following to “give back” – she talks, with no less passion for the lack of specifics, about setting up some kind of charity. But the next step is relocating to the US in a few weeks. She has an O1 visa (“for individuals of extraordinary ability”), and is signed to Next Model Management in Los Angeles. A major film studio is also “very curious” to meet her, says Scott. “As long as it’s fitting with my brand, then I’m completely happy to do those things,” she says. “Given the opportunity to go overseas and model, why wouldn’t you? Why wouldn’t you just go and do whatever you want?” Read on: The trials of Generation Y - the full series
Mayer Hawthorne: Man About Town review – kitsch soul nails 70s sound As a young, LA-based purveyor of kitschy funk and soul, Mayer Hawthorne treads a fine line between parody and sincerity. Out-and-out comedy acts such as Flight of the Conchords have plundered a similar tranche of 70s styles in order to cast themselves as hilariously grotesque singer-seducers; but when Hawthorne samples orgasmic moaning, it serves more as a knowing wink than an actual joke. For the most part, he remains in relatively banal lyrical territory on this fourth album, but what he’s able to do with some aplomb is capture the majestic effortlessness of the Motown sound – and nailing the style alone (on the likes of Cosmic Love and Get You Back) means he is able to draw on its huge appeal. He also makes inroads into other genres from the era, from ersatz reggae (Fancy Clothes), to Band on the Run-style rock (The Valley) – all of it accomplished, but not exactly the genuine article.
The view on Ukip after Nigel Farage: a grievance in search of a leader “It looks like remain have won,” Nigel Farage said as the polls closed on 23 June. To concede defeat on the brink of victory was one of the outgoing Ukip leader’s more erratic actions. Another was the decision to stand down over the party’s weak showing in the 2015 general election and then, days later, retract the resignation. The implication was that Ukip could not survive without Mr Farage but also that Mr Farage could not imagine life after Ukip. He must be glad that he waited another year before quitting again. He now leaves bathed in the glory of a referendum result that he strived for years to achieve, while washing his hands of responsibility for the consequences. He gets invited to appear as the exotic support act at a Donald Trump rally. But he does not have to resolve the question of Ukip’s purpose now that its best-known mission has been accomplished. That task falls to his successor, elected over a two-week period beginning on 1 September. Nevertheless, the need to ponder the party’s place in post-referendum Britain has not been a feature of the Ukip contest so far. Petty factional bickering has instead been the dominant motif. The victor seems likely to be either Diane James, currently an MEP, or Lisa Duffy, a Cambridgeshire councillor. In policy terms, their pronouncements have been unremarkably Faragist. James praises Vladimir Putin; Duffy decries intrusions of Islamic faith into public space. Whatever the outcome of the contest, the trajectory of Ukip is towards more aggressive fomenting of rage, paranoia and xenophobia. The practicalities of Brexit will demand some compromise by the government, against which Ukip will rail. Yet even a thorough severing of relations with the continent will not end migration from overseas, reverse demographic change established over decades or transform economic opportunities for people currently without the qualifications or skills to find security in a competitive labour market. So the economic and cultural drivers of Ukip support will not be removed by any form of Brexit, while the proxy of blaming everything on Brussels will be less available. So new scapegoats will be found. A narrative of Brexit betrayal will take hold. And Euroscepticism is likely to congeal into more pungent nationalism. How far that project can go depends in part on the skill of the leader. At the top of his game, Mr Farage had a knack for packaging poisonous messages in media-friendly banality. He was dangerous because he knew how to push incrementally at the boundaries of tolerable discourse, smuggling far-right idiom into the mainstream. He was also lucky to have David Cameron as a foil – a Tory leader who was distrusted by many of his party’s core supporters and who yielded to Europhobic pressure whenever it was applied. Mr Farage’s successor will have an equivalent opportunity to capitalise on Labour’s turmoil. In the 2015 general election, Ukip came second to Labour in scores of seats, many coinciding with areas of high support for Brexit. A dysfunctional Labour opposition, perceived in its former heartlands as soft on immigration and queasy around patriotism, could be savaged by a well-organised nationalist challenger under shrewd, charismatic leadership. Judging by the Ukip contest thus far, that is mercifully not imminent. There is some potential for Faragism to grow stronger in Britain without Farage. There is also a chance that Ukip will implode in acrimony and slink back to the fringe. The best-case scenario is one in which the parties of the mainstream develop strategies for addressing the resentments that give succour to virulent illiberal reaction. Although the referendum result expressed a depth of grievance with the EU, it would be naive to think that EU membership was the root cause or that Brexit will dissipate all of the pent-up rage against “establishment” politics. Referendum victory has disoriented a party that was fuelled by perpetual frustration. Referendum defeat would have better fitted Ukip’s familiar modus operandi. The future was clearer as the victim of a conspiracy than as the victor with nothing left to say. A party of perpetual protest that gets what it wants has to find other things to protest against. Ukip will now seek to reboot its campaign against liberal values, tolerance and diversity in Britain. That project can only succeed if other parties indulge and accommodate the new leader, repeating the mistakes that gave Mr Farage’s tenure the happy ending even he hadn’t dared to expect.
Southampton’s Sadio Mané in hat-trick romp against Manchester City Not the best preparation for Real Madrid, nor the best message to Manchester United. This was as comfortable a match for Southampton as it was a wretched one for Manchester City, depleted and disconnected while Sadio Mané tore them to shreds. Mané’s hat-trick capped a rampant display from Saints and, while Manuel Pellegrini can rightly argue about being hung out to dry by the Premier League schedule, this result will hardly immerse his squad in confidence before a daunting European semi-final in the Spanish capital on Wednesday. “Are you watching, Real Madrid?” chanted the City fans ironically once Mané had completed his hat-trick, with Shane Long having given Southampton the lead and Dusan Tadic orchestrating things beautifully in midfield. Kelechi Iheanacho was the only City player to emerge with any pride, scoring one goal before half-time and a stunning late consolation. The result meant City finished the day four points above Manchester United, having played a game more, and with their rivals having three matches left to play after their earlier draw against Leicester. Louis van Gaal had conceded some ground in the battle for a top-four place after his side’s match, but this performance means the race is not quite over yet. For City, only three players who started here also did in the midweek first leg against Real Madrid, which ended goalless. Joe Hart, Nicolás Otamendi and Fernandinho remained, and this unrecognisable side were sliced through with ease on numerous occasions. There were too often gaping spaces for Southampton to exploit in wide areas, with Pablo Zabaleta and – in particular – Aleksandar Kolarov regularly abandoning their defensive duties. Tadic caused major problems yet it was Mané who walked away with the match ball. It was his second Premier League hat-trick – his first being the quickest in history, last season – and it propelled Ronald Koeman’s side above Liverpool into seventh. Of Mané, the Southampton manager said: “He is still a young player and sometimes they need to be more consistent and that is why we train and work with all the players. A bit unpredictable but he was focused and clinical. That was one of my critics to all the strikers but we are very productive at home with more chances to score more. “You can talk about the changes of Manchester City but that is not fair. Give all the credit to Southampton because the performance was fantastic. “From the start we caused them a lot of problems with the movement of Sadio and Shane [Long]. Dusan and [Steven] Davis were fantastic.” Fraser Forster had palmed away a Raheem Sterling shot after Iheanacho had outmanoeuvred Virgil van Dijk on the touchline but Southampton were into their stride early on and within eight minutes of that chance for Sterling, City were two down and blue shirts in defence wore vacant stares. The Saints right-back, Cuco Martina, lofted a ball through for Tadic in the 25th minute and, with the Serb flying at pace, he deftly lifted it across goal with a single touch of the left foot and Long prodded past Hart. Seconds later City were cut apart again. Once more the opportunity arose from a lack of cohesion down City’s left, Victor Wanyama breaking up play in midfield and feeding Tadic, who advanced and slipped a precise ball between Kolarov and Eliaquim Mangala to Mané, who emphatically finished past Hart. Iheanacho clawed City back into the match before half-time and the 19-year-old was the only City player injecting a sense of urgency into their play. In the 44th minute he fed Samir Nasri out wide right and headed the resulting ball in past Forster following a ricochet off Martina at the far post. Pellegrini was impressed by Iheanacho but admitted it was unlikely the youngster would force his way into the side for the Real game. “We start thinking tomorrow about what will be the starting XI for Wednesday,” said the City manager. “Kelechi today scored two goals and is doing well in all the games but for the moment I am not thinking about that.” In the 57th minute Southampton had a third. Davis whipped in a corner and, although Van Dijk’s header was tipped excellently on to the bar by Hart, the rebound hit the turf and fell to Mané at the far post who swept home. The Senegalese attacker completed his hat-trick in the 68th minute. Van Dijk outmuscled Iheanacho in midfield and Tadic fed Mané on the counterattack, with the finish once again assured. There was still time for a pearler from Iheanacho on the edge of the Southampton penalty area, but as the home fans sang: “Gareth Bale, he’s coming for you,” Manchester City’s heads dropped and hope faded. Man of the match Sadio Mané (Southampton)
What will President Donald Trump do? Predicting his policy agenda Donald Trump has been short on policy details during his campaign. But already, the president-elect has hinted at an agenda that is as ambitious as it is disturbing on key policy issues. Here’s what he will inherit and how he might respond, from the ’s specialists. Immigration Trump will enter the White House riding a wave of xenophobia and fear driven in no small part by his plans to drastically overhaul America’s immigration system. The president-elect has pledged to implement many tenets of his controversial reform package from day one and will now be emboldened by a Republican majority in both houses of Congress. Meanwhile, countless immigrant communities across America will no doubt be terrified about just how far he might go. Trump’s promise to build an “impenetrable physical wall” across the US southern border will supposedly commence on his first day in office. But the kicker to his now infamous campaign slogan – making “Mexico pay for it” – will prove a near impossible deal to broker as experts predict the cost of such a construction could be four times higher ($40bn) than Trump estimated during the campaign. Aside from the economics, the humanitarian consequences of increasing border security as hundreds of thousands of Central American migrants continue to flee violence at home and seek refuge in the US are near unfathomable. Trump’s administration has pledged to pursue a temporary ban on migration from regions he deems exporters of terrorism and where even his “extreme vetting” will not be sufficient. Although this policy has gone through many iterations, the legality of such a program will almost certainly be challenged in the courts by those who argue it will simply act as a smokescreen to allow discrimination against Muslims seeking to enter America. Nonetheless, Trump is likely to be buoyed by the assistance of Congress. For the 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the US, Trump’s presidency will usher in an era of heightened uncertainty and paranoia, as the president-elect has pledged to ramp up deportations. Trump will triple the number of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and seek to create a “special deportation taskforce”. Although the president-elect has claimed this taskforce will first focus on “the most dangerous criminal illegal immigrants”, Trump has made clear that any undocumented migrants could be affected. Up to 6.5 million people could be at risk of swift deportation. The key question for the new administration will be at what point, if any, can it satisfy the demands of its white, conservative base, whipped up by the rhetoric of the campaign. Oliver Laughland National security Trump now has control over the vast US security apparatus, with all its power to kill, surveil and influence. Trump, whose command of policy specifics is minimal, has made no secret of his inclination to unleash it. Now he faces early tests of how far he will go. Barack Obama will leave office with Guantánamo Bay still in operation as a detention facility. Trump’s election ensures the infamous wartime prison escapes closure, but it will probably cross a constitutional Rubicon. The president-elect has pledged to increase the Guantánamo population, a reversal of Obama’s approach, “with some bad dudes”. Among those “bad dudes”, Trump told the Miami Herald, could be American citizens. His pledge to bring back “worse than waterboarding” threatens to undo the shaky coalition against torture, especially in a GOP Congress, of the late Bush and Obama administrations. The move would be illegal if Trump meant to try Americans in military commissions, and almost sure to be found unconstitutional if Trump meant holding Americans in indefinite detention. In the same interview, Trump also signaled a departure from both Obama and George W Bush in expressing opposition to using the criminal justice system for terrorism cases. Since Trump’s definition of the domestic threat has centered on what he has called “radical Islamic terror”, US Muslim communities, already the target of widespread law-enforcement suspicion since 9/11, would probably find themselves subject to a separate system of wartime justice in which they would enjoy fewer rights. Trump has unapologetically embraced “profiling” as a “commonsense” approach to predicting terrorist threats, by which he means increasing police and intelligence scrutiny of Muslim communities. Trump has endorsed surveillance in mosques and even a database of American Muslims, incendiary proposals that threaten traditional American liberties. The response of the FBI’s leadership – which already has a strong base of support for Trump and a history of teaching its agents to consider Islam itself a danger – will be a pivotal test for justice in the Trump era. So will his choice of intelligence agency leaders, as Trump has attracted little support among experienced intelligence officials outside of the far-right fringe. Another immediate test Trump faces will be a military challenge. Obama will leave 8,400 US troops in Afghanistan. The fortunes of America’s longest war are on a downward trajectory as the Taliban reconquers lost terrain. Trump, who has criticized a withdrawal in Iraq he once supported as a gift to Islamic State, must now choose departure, failure or escalation. Spencer Ackerman Foreign policy Trump spent the campaign threatening to upend what has been called the liberal international order, the network of treaties and multilateral institutions that govern global relations. He has said he would tear up and renegotiate trade treaties, and has even called into question US commitment to the Nato alliance, the linchpin of western cohesion. With a completely new kind of leader preparing to enter the Oval Office, it is already looking like a world turned upside down. The long-negotiated multilateral trade deals the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership with Europe (TTIP) will be the first to be halted. Opposition to those accords was a cornerstone of the Trump campaign. Trump has also said he would take apart the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) that binds the US economically it to its neighbors, Canada and Mexico. In place of such treaties, he has said he would negotiate bilateral deals that would be more favorable for US manufacturing. But he would face hostile trading partners, irritated at the dumping of major agreements. Trump’s America could easily face a trade backlash and a downward economic spiral. The other consistent theme of the Trump campaign was a foreign policy that revolved around his personality. He would bring his self-vaunted skills as a businessman to cut bilateral deals with other world leaders, particularly the autocrats. Trump said he would even talk to Kim Jong-un if the North Korean dictator would travel to the US for the conversation. That is unlikely, but the prospect of an unconditional dialogue between leaders would throw a wild card into a deadlocked and extremely dangerous situation in which Pyongyang is well on the way to developing a nuclear warhead small enough to put on a missile, and a missile able to reach the west coast of the United States. The relationship that will define the Trump presidency, however, will be with Vladimir Putin. Each of them has showered the other with praise. At every turn in the campaign, Trump refused to criticize Russian expansionist foreign policy in Ukraine and Syria. His aides specifically removed language from the Republican party platform about sending lethal aid to Ukraine, and Trump himself has echoed Putin’s denials of Russian military presence in the country’s east. In Syria, he has characterised the Russian and Assad regime bombardment of the opposition as a war on Islamic extremism, again emulating Moscow’s line. Trump’s twin policies on the Islamic State (Isis) were to “take their oil” and “bomb the shit out of them”. The first is impractical without a vast military occupation and the second is illegal if it was suggesting indiscriminate bombing. A dual offensive against Isis is under way aimed at its twin strongholds of Raqqa and Mosul led by US allies, and a President Trump would face serious resistance from the Pentagon if he wanted to put US boots on the ground or carry out joint operations with the Russians. Early on in a Trump presidency, expect a summit with Putin in which US-Russian relations will be reworked along lines the Russian leader has been pushing for, ceding Moscow areas of influence in the Middle East and on Russian borderlands. Such a discussion will shock major US allies in Nato, an alliance Trump has described as “obsolete”. He has questioned whether it would be worthwhile for the US to provide a security umbrella to allies who are not deemed to have contributed enough, in financial terms, to collective security. Turmoil within Nato could meanwhile tempt Putin to make encroachments on its eastern flank. Few are more worried about the global consequences of a Trump win than the residents of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Julian Borger Healthcare The one constant in Trump’s scattershot health policy is his promise to immediately repeal Obamacare. Just last week, Trump said that if elected he would convene a special congressional session to destroy the 2009 healthcare reform. If he successfully repeals the law, which is unlikely, it would disproportionately affect low-income people, according to multiple analyses. The number of uninsured individuals would increase by 16m to 25m, according to the Commonwealth Fund, a research group. It would also increase the federal deficit, according to the same analysis, because the end of Obamacare means the end of taxes the health reform law brings in – adding about $33bn more to the deficit in the first year. There is also the question of what replaces Obamacare. The closest thing the Republicans have to a substitute is a blueprint created by the House speaker, Paul Ryan, who has a rocky relationship with the president-elect. For these reasons and more, it is unlikely Trump would get the congressional approval needed to actually repeal the law, though he and the Republican-dominated Congress could tear away at some of its key provisions. The rest of his health proposals are similarly chaotic. Trump’s seven-point plan for healthcare includes allowing people to purchase insurance across state lines (allowing for greater variation in insurance regulations), deduct health insurance premiums from their tax returns and use health savings accounts. He also aims to require price transparency from healthcare providers, allow more drugs to be imported from overseas and give block grants for Medicaid to states. And his plan would reduce access to abortion, contraception and preventative care. Trump’s ideas “bewilder” establishment GOP health experts such as Robert Laszewski, who told the New York Times in April that the proposals were “a jumbled hodgepodge of old Republican ideas, randomly selected, that don’t fit together”. Amanda Holpuch Women and gender rights Trump enters office with a lot of question marks hanging over his proposals on issues of gender. Will he support a childcare policy that doesn’t leave low-income families out in the cold? Would he continue to enforce the Obama administration’s executive actions on campus sexual assault? Would he preserve executive orders that protect transgender individuals from discrimination? Trump hasn’t answered these questions, but if he follows the lead of the rest of the Republican party, the answer is probably a big “no”. Throughout the election, on issues of major cultural significance, Trump has tacked further and further to the right. After starting his campaign by suggesting that he was open to funding Planned Parenthood, for instance, and that Roe v Wade was settled law, he has come to fully embrace the Republican party line. Supreme court justices? They should be pro-life. Planned Parenthood? He’ll defund it. Trump also opposes the use of Medicaid to cover abortions for low-income women, and with a Republican Congress, he is willing to make that a matter of law. Trump’s journey to the right is by no means limited to abortion rights. Earlier this year, Trump said he had no problem with trans people using the bathroom that corresponds with their gender identity. Later, he backtracked, saying states such as North Carolina should have the ability to dictate which facilities a trans person can use. There is one big exception to Trump’s rightward tilt. For the first time in recent memory, Trump, as the Republican nominee for president, proposed a national plan to guarantee paid family leave. (“Wow!” he said when he announced his plan at rallies.) But the plan doesn’t get you very far if you’re not wealthy, or, in the case of parental leave, if you’re not a woman who has given birth. Trump has proposed giving women six weeks of leave at the same rate as their state’s unemployment benefits. The plan only covers women who have given birth and does not cover fathers at all, nor women who become mothers through adoption or surrogacy. Trump also proposes allowing families to deduct the cost of childcare from their taxes, but economists have criticized the plan as both expensive to taxpayers and of marginal benefit for low-income families. Molly Redden Wall Street Trump has a difficult and confusing relationship with Wall Street and it’s not likely to get any better now that he is in the White House. Stock markets soared the day before the election when the FBI announced it was not going to reopen its investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails, a move investors bet would boost her chances of election. On Wednesday global markets crashed and the US looked set to follow in the wake of his surprise victory but soon recovered on the back of a conciliatory victory speech from Trump. Trump has been seen as bad for business. Big banks don’t like his anti-trade policies and the instability his foreign policies might bring. But in some ways Wall Street could find they have a new friend in the White House, as long as they are prepared to suck up to him. On the campaign trail Trump has consistently railed against Dodd-Frank, the financial rules brought in after the last financial crisis in an attempt to curb Wall Street’s excessive appetite for risk. “We have to get rid of Dodd-Frank. The banks aren’t loaning money to people that need it … The regulators are running the banks,” he told Fox News last October. Wall Street would be happy with less regulation but it might not be so happy with Trump’s tax plans. “The hedge fund guys are getting away with murder … They’re paying nothing, and it’s ridiculous,” he told CBS’s Face The Nation last August. He is proposing to end a tax loophole that allows billionaire hedge fund managers to pay the 20% capital gains tax rate rather than the 39.6% top rate of income tax. He’s also promised to get tough on Wall Street (although confusingly not with regulation). “I know the people on Wall Street. We’re going to have the greatest negotiators of the world, but at the same time I’m not going to let Wall Street get away with murder. Wall Street has caused tremendous problems for us. We’re going to tax Wall Street,” Trump said at a rally in January. But his first test may well be the mega-merger of AT&T and Time Warner. Trump has already called the $85bn deal a threat to democracy. If his first move is to signal that the deal is off, Wall Street may worry that businesses will put future deals on hold as long as he’s in the White House. Dominic Rushe Climate change At a pivotal time when greenhouse gas emissions must be drastically shrunk in order to prevent climate breakdown, the world’s largest economy is now headed by a man who believes climate change is a hoax, perhaps perpetrated by the Chinese. The doomsday moment for a livable climate could well be a step closer with the election of Trump, environmentalists fear. One of Trump’s first tasks is likely to be withdrawing the US from the Paris climate deal, making it an outlier among the planet’s functioning governments, which have all signed up to the accord. The exit process will take around four years, so the US would be on its own in time for Trump’s second term or a new president’s first. The US quitting the Paris deal could bring the whole edifice down, making the steep challenge of keeping the global temperature increase to 2C close to impossible. This would result in a sea level rise that would inundate millions of Americans’ homes, cause punishing heatwaves, trigger the spread of disease and disastrous extreme weather events, and threaten America’s national security. But the worst of these consequences would unfold after Trump’s presidency, so he could concentrate on his other environmental policies. He’s hinted at scrapping the Environmental Protection Agency, tasking Myron Ebell, a leading climate change denier, to head his EPA transition team. Trump has also promised to cut all federal climate spending, which would encompass billions of dollars spent on clean energy development and hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to countries at greatest risk from climate change. Trump has said he will “end the war on coal and the war on miners” in order to reboot the industry, while also expanding drilling for natural gas. He has not explained how these contradictory policies will be achieved, given that the advance of gas has caused the decline in coal, but has insisted upon an “America first” stance on energy. He might also want to start building a sea wall for his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, as he is doing at his Irish golf course. Oliver Milman Gun control Trump’s win is a tremendous victory for the National Rifle Association, which endorsed him early and has been one of his staunchest allies. Trump has pledged to roll back gun restrictions to make gun-carrying legal in more places, including on military bases and perhaps in schools. He said he supports a new federal law that would make concealed carry permits issued in one state valid across the country. This legislation, long a policy priority for gun owners, could undermine the current strict local gun restrictions in states like California and New York. In what was the NRA’s central priority this election, Trump also promised to nominate a staunchly pro-gun supreme court justice to replace Antonin Scalia, which would protect and perhaps even broaden the court’s landmark 2008 Heller decision protecting Americans’ right to own guns for self-defense. To reduce the toll of gun violence, Trump has argued that law enforcement should be “tougher” and has dubbed himself the “law and order candidate”, a stance that cuts against what had been a growing bipartisan consensus that America’s criminal justice system is too expensive and too punitive. “We need to get serious about prosecuting violent criminals,” Trump’s second amendment policy briefing reads. “Violent crime in cities like Baltimore, Chicago and many others is out of control. Drug dealers and gang members are given a slap on the wrist and turned loose on the street. This needs to stop.” Trump has suggested resurrecting a controversial Bush-era federal program, Project Exile, which encouraged US attorneys to use the threat of tougher federal prosecutions for gun crimes to attempt to deter gun violence. He said in August that he believed Chicago police could put a stop to the city’s spiraling gun violence epidemic “in one week” by “being very much tougher”. The key, he said, was “using tough police tactics, which is OK when people are being killed”. Trump has also argued that laws that “empower law-abiding gun owners to defend themselves” are “another way to fight crime”. Lois Beckett Criminal justice Trump comes into office having mostly either antagonized or ignored the growing and vocal number of Americans demanding criminal justice reform. Instead, most of Trump’s campaign promises around criminal justice focused on restoring “law and order”. Trump also frequently made factually unsupported statements about about violent crime rates nationwide and their historical context. Trump has been characteristically vague on justice reform. But he has repeatedly pledged support for police officers and law enforcement in the face of public criticism. Candidate Trump has expressed an interest in the continued privatization of prisons, and has criticized President Obama for cutting short the sentences of long-serving nonviolent drug offenders, calling grantees “bad dudes”. He proposed a law mandating the death penalty for anyone convicted of killing a police officer. Among Trump’s first targets may be rolling back the Obama administration’s unilateral efforts to address mass incarceration. Trump plans to immediately halt the president’s Clemency 2014 initiative, which in 2016 cut short a record number of federal prison sentences. Trump is also likely to undo the executive order signed by the president in May 2015 to curb the transfer of military equipment to police departments. A veto threat from Trump could thwart any potential for passage of the bipartisan Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act introduced to Congress last year by the Republican senator Chuck Grassley. The bill proposes to reduce mandatory minimum sentencing for non-violent crimes. His election, along with the Republican sweep of both chambers of Congress, seems to squelch any hope of more progressive reform from lawmakers. A Trump-led Department of Justice and FBI could also spell doom for federal efforts to track police use of force and killings by the police, as Trump has not identified the current lack of data as a priority at any point during the presidential campaign. Trump could also instruct his justice department to change course on its move away from private prisons announced in August. A Trump presidency surely means the end of any collaboration or mutual understanding between the White House and Black Lives Matter activists and reformers. Trump has repeatedly declared that police ought to be granted more power, rather than less, which runs counter to many reform goals. Various White House initiatives aimed at promoting collaborative reform between police and communities, and finding less punitive solutions to criminal justice challenges are also likely to come to a crashing halt. Jamiles Lartey
EU referendum: Cameron claims leaving EU could make cutting immigration harder - Politics live Alex Salmond, the former Scottish first minister, has said that David Cameron will have to resign if Britain votes to leave the EU. Cameron claims he will stay on to oversee the exit negotiations if that happens. But Salmond told MPs in the Europe debate that that idea was “for the birds”. Referring to the Scottish independent referendum he said: I was the first minister who lost a referendum and then resigned the next day. And I did that because I don’t think it is credible for a first minister or a prime minister to continue in office in these circumstances. I do not believe the Prime Minister, and I don’t think a majority of the public in his party, and certainly not of the country, believes him when he says he would sail on in office with a negative vote to negotiate out of the European Union after telling people it was essential to the security and prosperity of the country, as he put it last week, for us to be in it. The idea that a prime minster could remain in office following such a vote is, to coin a phrase, for the birds, which is exactly of course why [Boris] Johnson is right in one bit of his apparent calculation that an opening would allow a new prime minister as then he puts it, to negotiate our way back into some sort of European construct on better terms. The second half of that probably is for the birds but at least on the first half, a vacancy being available, I think that he has a point. Scottish MP Natalie McGarry was detained and questioned by Turkish security forces on a visit to the country, her lawyer has confirmed. As the Press Association reports, McGarry, who resigned the SNP whip last year after being linked to an ongoing police investigation into missing funds (she denies wrongdoing) wrote on Twitter that she was “safe and absolutely fine” after reports emerged she had been detained in the country. A statement from her solicitor Aamer Anwar said: I can confirm that Natalie McGarry MP was questioned earlier on today but was released shortly thereafter and is grateful to everybody for their messages of support. It appears that a member of the Turkish security forces became alarmed as Natalie had her mobile phone out near a security check point. She was taken away for questioning and it was subsequently explained that she was simply recording the sound of bombs falling across the border in Syria. Local government workers have rejected a “final” two-year pay offer. As the Press Association reports, members of Unison voted against the proposed deal which would give most council staff a 1% increase from April and a further 1% in April 2017. A Unison spokesman said: “Unison has rejected the local government pay offer, but we await the results of both the GMB and Unite consultative ballots before deciding our next steps.” That’s all from me for today. Thanks for the comments. Lord (David) Owen, one of the founders of the SDP, told the Sun today he would be voting to leave the EU. He made the announcement to coincide with the publication of a book he has written, Vote to Leave. E-copies have been sent to journalists. I can’t claim to have read it, but it contains this very useful chart - identifying the various arrangements linking European countries, and showing which country is in which group. BuzzFeed’s Jamie Ross wins the prize for the best EU referendum intro so far. A Ukip MEP has said he wants the UK to leave the EU because his toaster repeatedly produces rubbish toast. The story is about the Scottish Ukip MEP David Coburn. Doubtless he has other issues with the EU too, but it’s a jolly read. Citing this Politico Europe story as evidence, Leave.EU is criticising the European commission for holding back controversial proposals until after the British referndum is over. Leave.EU’s co-chair Richard Tice said: The EU is holding back demands for an extra €20bn, wider access to benefits and public services for EU migrants and a convention granting it new powers to overrule us on issues like prisoner votes until after the referendum. These proposals are a kind of time bomb. With MEPs already threatening to tear up the prime minister’s shabby deal after the poll, Brussels will not hesitate to detonate it once a Remain vote locks us inside their failing union for another forty years. The SNP is also calling on the government to drop its goal of getting net migration below 100,000. This is from Stuart McDonald, the SNP’s immigration spokesman. The UK government’s net migration target is a fantasy, as everybody knows. The government does nobody any favours by pretending otherwise. Instead of pretending the target is achievable or desirable, the government should abandon this unhelpful distraction and instead pursue a fair and sensible immigration policy that recognises the huge benefits of immigration and includes practical action to deal with the challenges. David Cameron has claimed he remains “convinced” that his target of getting net migration below 100,000 remains achievable. He spoke as the Office for National Statistics released figures showing that annual net migration to Britain dipped to 323,000 in September 2015 – 13,000 lower than the record level of 336,000 recorded last June. Speaking at a Q&A at a BAE Systems plant in Lancashire, he listed the measures the government was taking to curb migratrion from within the EU and from outside it. Then he said: I’m convinced if we do all of that we can make a real difference and reach the targets that I’ve set out. He also claimed that leaving the EU could make it harder to control migration than it is now. If we were to vote to leave the EU, the countries outside the EU that have full access to the single market, like Norway, they have to accept the free movement of people. In fact, if we left the EU the deal that I’ve just negotiated doesn’t stand. So we actually have to accept free movement if we’re in the same position as Norway, and we wouldn’t have the welfare restrictions that I’ve just negotiated. Philip Hammond, the foreign secretary, has told MPs that if Britain leaves the EU, other EU countries will not want to help Britain succeed outside. Speaking in a debate on Europe he said: There will also be political elites [in Europe] who are looking over their shoulder at the effects of a British exit, looking over their shoulder at their political opponents in their own country, fearful that the contagion, as they would see it, may spread. And they may not wish to do anything that will help us to demonstrate that Britain can succeed outside the European Union. That is a simple political fact. He also said that a vote to leave would be seen as Britain sticking “two fingers” to EU leaders and that “we can expect the same in return”. Hammond has told MPs that there could be “many years” of uncertainty if Britain voted to leave the EU and that this would have a “chilling effect” on business. He told MPs: The one thing that is becoming crystal clear is that, whatever the end state if there were a British exit, for a period of years, maybe many years, there would be very significant uncertainty, and that would act as a chilling effect on investment, job creation and business confidence in the United Kingdom. Hammond has said he is voting to remain in the EU even though he has “no warmth or affection” for the institution. He told MPs: I have always considered myself as sceptic and I consider myself a sceptic today. Like most people in Britain I don’t feel any warmth or affection for the EU or its institution. I’m irritated by the tone of much of what I hear coming from Brussels and instinctively suspicious of anything that sounds like a grande project. But we do not live in some ideal world. We live in the real world and the EU is part of that real world. Speaking for Labour, Hilary Benn, the shadow foreign secretary, said that he agreed with Hammond about wanting Britain to stay in the EU, but that he thought Hammond was wrong to be so negative about it. Benn told MPs in the debate. I think we should be passionate about that greatest achievement of the European project which was by bringing nations together, originally through coal and steel, to make in the words of the Schuman Declaration future war not merely unthinkable, but materially impossible. Sir Nicholas Soames, the Conservative MP, has said he regularly receives “vile” abuse from anti-Europeans. Speaking in the debate, he said that he was accused of dishonouring the cause of his grandfather, Winston Churchill, because he supports the EU. Churchill gave a speech on the case for a united Europe in Zurich 70 years ago that is regularly interpreted as meaning he would have wanted Britain to stay out of the EU although, as Soames said, the speech is also open to the opposite interpretation. He told MPs: I am daily on the receiving end of some vile emails and whatnot from people telling me that I am a traitor to my grandfather’s memory. Sir Gerald Howarth, a Conservative former defence minister who wants to leave the EU, has accused Cameron of helping those who favour an EU army by arguing the EU has as security role. Speaking in the debate he told Hammond: You and the prime minister are claiming that somehow this deal enhances the security of Europe. May I suggest to my right honourable friends that by asserting that the EU has a role in defence matters of Europe, they are going down an extremely dangerous line by playing into the hands of those like Mr Juncker who want an EU army, supported also by Chancellor Merkel, and that we face a real risk that Nato is going to be undermined. Hammond said he did not accept this. Lord Mandelson, the Labour former EU trade commissioner, has said a trade deal with the EU following Brexit would “not come for free”. He said: I’m sure that the army of trade negotiators in Brussels would turn their full weight of expertise in our direction in negotiating what some people dream of as an alternative to full automatic access to Europe’s single marketplace in a free trade agreement. All I would say about such an agreement is it would not come easily, speedily, it would not at the end of the day cover all the trade that we have access to at the moment and it certainly would not come for free. Cecilia Malmstrom, the EU’s current trade commissioner, has dismissed claims that the transatlantic trade and investment partnership (TTIP - the proposed EU/US free trade deal) is a threat to the NHS. She said: I may be Swedish but I know that the NHS is an expression of the core values of British society. These issues have been particularly present in the TTIP debate. So EU trade deals have watertight guarantees to ensure that it is safe. The commission has made unambiguous commitments on this. They make clear that the government cannot be forced to privatise anything it doesn’t want to. They put no limit on the government’s ability to expand the range of public services it offers. And they do not restrict the government’s freedom to take back previously privatised services into the public domain. Jeremy Corbyn has put frontline community policing at the heart of Labour’s police and crime commissioner (PCC) election campaign saying “reckless” Tory cuts are threatening people’s safety and security. Rough sleeping has increased by almost a third in England over the past year and has doubled since 2010, according to new statistics. As the Press Association reports, “snapshot” figures published by the Department for Communities and Local Government found 3,569 people were sleeping on the streets on a typical night in autumn 2015, compared to 2,744 the year before - an increase of 825 (30%). The equivalent figure in 2010 was 1,768. Communities minister James Wharton has announced that the government will bid for EU cash to help victims of the winter floods. Previously the government had been resisting suggestions it should apply for money from the EU solidarity fund. Cameron says people should not think there is a choice between trading with the EU and trading with countries outside the EU. We should be doing both, he says. He says after four months people will probably be sick of hearing these arguments. But he urges people to be sure to vote, whatever their views. This is the choice of a lifetime, he says. And that’s it. His Q&A is over. I’ll post a summary soon. Q: What has the EU done for the north west? Cameron says it has helped to secure jobs. He says today the government is announcing it will apply to the EU solidary fund for help for those affected by the floods. That could bring many millions into this region, he says. Q: Are you saying jobs here would be in jeopardy if we left the EU? Cameron says he thinks some jobs would be at risk. There are 3m jobs linked to Europe, he says. Of course if we left Britain would still trade with Europe. But would we trade at the same level? He says many foreign firms invest here because it is a launchpad into the European market. Cameron says he wants to see more defence collaboration with other countries in Europe, particularly France. This could happen if Britain were outside the EU. But would the French be as enthusiastic if Britain were not in the EU. Q: [From 5 News’s Andy Bell] Isn’t it time to admit that we cannot control immigration if we are in the EU? Cameron says the figures show immigration “coming down slightly, but it is still too high”. The government needs to take action to curb immigration, from outside the EU and from inside the EU. It is doing both, he says. He says he is “convinced “that if the government does all this, it can meet the target he has set out. If we left the EU, and opted for the Norway deal, we would have to accept free movement, he says. But the “emergency brake” welfare rules would not apply. So Britain would be worse off. Cameron says one of the best ways to reduce immigration is to train up young people to do the jobs available. Cameron claims he is “convinced” that Britain can get net migration below 100,000. (If Cameron really is convinced by this, he is probably in quite a small minority. Today we have seen groups as diverse as the IoD, British Future, the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants and Ukip dismissing the 100,000 target as preposterous.) Q: What is the government going to do to protect the interests of young people? Cameron says the government needs to commit to education and training. Cameron says it says something about Europe that it was willing to meet the demands of the UK. Q: You say there has been a renegotiation. But I have not heard many details of it? Cameron says the government has published a white paper on it. He offers to get the questioner a copy. And he runs through the four main themes of his renegotiation. Here is the government’s 45-page document setting out details of the renegotiation (pdf). Cameron is now taking questions. Q: It is going to take people a lot of time to read up on this. Is it really the sort of decision the public should be taking? Cameron says he thought it was right to have a referendum because Europe has changed a great deal. Yes, there are complicated issues, he says. But he says he trusts “the great common sense of the British people” to take the right decision. Cameron says he trusts the “great common sense of the British people” to take the right decision on Europe. Cameron is running through his stump speech on Europe. It focuses on the argument that being in the EU makes Britain better off, safer and stronger. Voting to leave would be a leap in the dark. Opponents of the EU cannot say how long it would take to negotiate the required trade deals, he says. But it will be your choice, he says. He says he is going to spend the next four months speaking as plainly as he can about this choice. As prime minister, he thinks staying in the EU is best for Britain. David Cameron has just started doing his Q&A on Europe. He is at a workplace in Lancashire. There is a live feed here. Hammond says if Britain votes to leave the EU “the mood of goodwill towards Britain [in the EU] will evaporate in an instant”, he says. He says the political elite in the rest of Europe will have “no desire at all” to show that Britain can prosper outside the EU, he says. Bernard Jenkin, a Conservative, intervenes on Hammond to say that Britain would not need to trigger the article 50 process (which gives a two-year deadline for withdrawal negotiations) to leave the EU. Hammond says he has taken advice since Jenkin raised this point earlier this week, and he has been advised Britain would have to do this. Hammond says the government will regard itself as bound by the result of the referendum, even though it is technically only an advisory referendum. Hammond says there will be no second referendum. “Leave means leave,” he says. If Britain votes to leave, that will trigger the article 50 process leading to Britain leaving the EU. Jeremy Corbyn has responded to David Cameron’s comments yesterday about his dress sense. Cameron is just jealous of the fact that Corbyn can shop on the Holloway Road, he says. In the debate Hammond is running through what David Cameron obtained in his EU renegotiation. Jacob Rees-Mogg, the Conservative “Outer”, asks Hammond to confirm that Cameron did not secure an agreement to stop any child benefit being paid to the children of EU migrants living abroad. Hammond says it is important to consider what Cameron achieved overall, as a package. This is what Philip Hammond said earlier about being “irritated” by much of what he hears coming from Brussels. I have always considered myself as sceptic and I consider myself a sceptic today. Like most people in Britain I don’t feel any warmth or affection for the EU or its institution. I’m irritated by the tone of much of what I hear coming from Brussels and instinctively suspicious of anything that sounds like a grande project. But we do not live in some ideal world. We live in the real world and the EU is part of that real world. The SNP’s Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh complains about Hammond’s comments about Europe. (See 12.21pm.) What will our EU colleagues think of his words, she asks. Hammond says she should accept that people in Britain do not feel the same way about the EU as people on the continent do. Hammond says that if Britain votes to leave the EU, there could be “very significant uncertainty” for “many years” for business. That would have a “chilling effect” on the economy, he says. MPs are now starting a general debate on Europe. It will go on until 5.30pm, but there is no substantive motion and there won’t be a vote. Philip Hammond, the foreign secretary, has just started opening the debate. He said that he did not feel any warmth or affection for the EU. Like many people, he was “suspicious” of it, he said, and “irritated by what it did. But he said that he had nevertheless concluded that Britain would be stronger, safer and better off by remaining in. You can read all today’s politics stories here. As for the rest of the papers, here is the PoliticsHome list of top 10 must-reads, and here is the ConservativeHome round-up of today’s political stories. And here are five articles I found particularly interesting. Francis Elliott in the Times (paywall) says Labour could lose 10 more seats than the Tories under the boundary review. The scale of Jeremy Corbyn’s task of returning Labour to power is made clear by analysis of the data to be used to draw the new electoral map of Britain. Of the 50 Commons seats to be cut Labour loses almost half — 24 — while the Tories suffer only 14 losses in a reorganisation that will pit party colleagues and constituency neighbours into a series of battles for survival, according to research for The Times. The first draft of the new map, based on electoral registers released yesterday by the Office for National Statistics, will be produced by the Boundary Commission in September and finalised two years later. Lewis Baston, a political analyst, offers a first glimpse of the battles ahead using the data to model how the body will draw up new seats that must have no fewer than 71,031 voters and no more than 78,507. His analysis shows that Labour has been hit hard by changes to electoral registration rules that the party says account for the bulk of a 600,000 reduction in the number of people eligible to vote. The full introduction of individual voter registration to clamp down on electoral fraud by scrapping the system where “heads” of households submit all the names has coincided with sharp drops in university cities and deprived areas. The Sun says David Owen, one of the founders of the SDP, is voting to leave the EU. Owen told the paper he was worried about its impact on defence. There can be only one defence organisation that we can sign up to, and that must be NATO. Ever smaller amounts are being spent by EU countries on defence. The biggest problem is the whole pretence of the EU. There are a lot of promises, but very little delivery, and hopeless mistakes are being made.” Field Marshall Lord Bramall, the former head of the army, tells the Daily Telegraph he felt pressurised into signing a Downing Street letter saying Britain should remain in the EU. He said: It is not the kind of letter I would have originated myself, but the Prime Minister’s office presented me with a “fait accompli” saying that many other senior officers had agreed to sign it. What I find really unfortunate is that a really big decision that will affect the country for generations to come has descended into a messy political squabble. Jim Pickard in the Financial Times (subscription) says Unite, the GMB and Unison are refusing to fund Momentum, the pro-Corbyn Labour group. Earlier this month Jeremy Corbyn sported a badge saying “I Love Unions” in homage to the labour movement which helped him to power last summer. But the honeymoon between the unions and the Labour party leader is starting to fade as the increasingly divided party slides to new lows in the opinion polls. At least three of the biggest unions have refused to donate money to Momentum, the pro-Corbyn grassroots organisation, in a sign of the cooling relationship. Marina Wheeler, the human rights barrister (and Boris Johnson’s wife) says in an article in the Times (paywall) that Michael Gove is right about David Cameron’s EU deal not being legally binding. Michael Gove, the lord chancellor, is not wrong. Yesterday he explained correctly that the reform deal struck by the prime minister with the rest of the EU is legally binding in one limited sense: it is an international law declaration between 28 nations. However, what’s important is its status under EU law: if the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg considers any part of the agreement (or measures taken to implement it) to be incompatible with existing EU law, it can strike them down. For example, it might consider the restrictions on in-work benefits in the deal represent too great an encroachment on the principle of free movement of people. Jeremy Corbyn is planning to attend the CND anti-Trident rally in London on Saturday, Rowena Mason reports. In an article for the Times’s Red Box political email, Michael Dugher, who was sacked as shadow culture secretary, says Corbyn’s move is “frankly barmy”. For Jeremy to share a platform with many of Labour’s political opponents – including from the SNP, Plaid Cymru and the Greens – and denounce what is still Labour party policy is quite frankly barmy ... This weekend’s #StopTrident demo might more accurately be called #StopLabourPartyPolicy. Opening up what will inevitably be a divisive row for Labour is as unnecessary as it is indulgent ... Quite simply it is an act of political sadomasochism to find an issue that the public aren’t talking about and then to put it firmly on the agenda in a way that can only damage your own party. Vote Leave has just issued a press notice quoting Priti Patel, the employment minister, on the immigration figures. Patel is campaigning for Brexit and she says: Once again, net migration has gone up – putting pressure on our jobs, housing, and our public services. More than half of the people coming here have come from the European Union – showing that we cannot control our borders while we remain members of the EU. The proposed deal will do nothing to reduce the level of immigration from the EU, and will leave unelected politicians in Brussels and judges from the EU Court in control of our borders. The only way to take back control is to Vote Leave. The Electoral Commission has published figures showing how much political parties received in donations in the final quarter of 2015. The six parties that received the most were: Conservative Party - £5,152,334 Labour Party - £2,669,241 Liberal Democrats - £828,657 Ukip - £196,282 BNP - £180,000 SNP - £54,030 There is more on the Electoral Commission’s website. This chart summarises the figures. In a statement the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants is also calling on the government to abandon its net migration target (getting net migration below 100,000). This is from Chai Patel, its legal and policy director. Overall net migration figures are an unhelpful distraction from good and thorough policy making. The Government should abandon its irrelevant net migration target and instead prioritise crafting an effective, just and fair immigration system that makes the most of UK’s need for workers, as well as upholding the human rights of all residents. With the EU referendum looming, both sides of the EU debate need to be reminded that migrant workers improve the economic position of the UK and are essential for our health service, our construction industry and the burgeoning technology sector. Ukip has issued a statement about the immigration figures. This is from Steven Woolfe, its immigration figures. The prime minister has lost control of our borders and lost the trust of the British people on migration. He has broken his promise to reduce net migration to the tens of thousands per year every quarter for the last six years. Unless we vote to Leave the EU, Britain will be forever borderless. Our schools and our hospitals cannot cope with the number of people entering the country. We must take back control of our borders and introduce a fair, ethical and sensible Australian style points based immigration system, so that we can decide who comes into Britain based on the requirements of our modern economy. In the Commons James Wharton, the communities minister, has announced a U-turn on flooding. The government will be applying to the EU solidarity fund for money to help the flood victims, he told MPs just now in response to an urgent question. Until now the government has been resisting this, arguing that an application would take too much time and that it would only be of limited use. This is from the Press Association’s Jack Maidment. Like British Future (see 10.10am), the Institute of Directors is also calling for a comprehensive review of immigration targets. The IoD has repeatedly criticised the Conservatives for wanting to get net migration below 100,000. This is from Seamus Nevin, its head of employment and skills policy. Commenting on today’s figures he said: These figures show, yet again, why a net migration target makes absolutely no sense. The fact that 94% of the year-on-year increase in net migration is accounted for not by an increase in people coming here, but by a fall in the numbers leaving, shows the futility of trying to measure ‘net’ migration. It means the government’s attempts to hit its arbitrary target are reliant not just on reducing the numbers arriving here but on increasing the number of people leaving this country as well. Ironically, if the UK economy tanked and Britons emigrated in large numbers it would make the target more achievable. That is why the IoD has repeatedly called for a comprehensive migration review, based on the evidence and expert advice, to set out a plan to manage migration in a way which supports our economy, works for our businesses and addresses public concerns. Today’s immigration statistics will undoubtedly get caught up in the public debate about the EU referendum, yet neither the ‘Remain’ or ‘Leave’ campaigns are being straight with the voters. If the British people are to make an informed decision on the future of our country, then both sides in the EU debate need to set out a sensible plan for managing inward migration. The Migration Observatory, a unit based at Oxford University specialising in immigration, has published a statement on today’s figures. It includes a helpful overview. The two largest categories of immigration to the UK were EU citizens arriving for work (30% of inflows) and non-EU citizens coming to study (21%). Other categories were smaller, such as non-EU work (12%) and non-EU family migration (8%). And this is from Madeleine Sumption, the unit’s director. She says it is hard to know what impact leaving the EU would have on immigration. Free movement within the EU is not the only driver of recent high levels of net migration, but it has played an important role. While EU migration is a defining issue in the referendum debate, the truth is that it’s difficult to predict EU migration levels with confidence in either the stay or leave scenario. Whether Brexit would reduce migration will depend in part on the treaties and policies that followed, and these cannot be known in advance. And she says it is impossible to predict whether immigration will remain at current levels or decline. Sustained high levels of net migration raise the question of whether we are experiencing a temporary peak or a ‘new normal’ in the UK. In the short term, the UK remains an attractive destination with low unemployment and robust job growth so there’s no reason to expect a dramatic change to migration levels. In the long run, migration is much harder to predict. It will depend on many different factors from future policy changes to economic growth in other countries. Theresa May, the home secretary, has responded to the immigration figures. She says there would still be a migration crisis even if Britain left the EU. British Future, a thinktank focusing on immigration and identity, says the immigration figures illustrate the need for politicians on both sides of the EU debate to be more honest about the options. This is from Sunder Katwala, its director. When the PM and home secretary are both relieved to see net migration at over 300,000, it shows how far removed from reality the sub-100,000 target really is. It’s no wonder the public don’t trust the government to get a grip on immigration. It means that immigration will be a big issue in the EU referendum – and neither side is being honest with voters about what they can and can’t do about it. If the PM and home secretary keep saying we can stay in, keep free movement and hit the target, nobody will believe them. Leave voices say they will cut immigration significantly – but at the same time say a post-Brexit Britain will welcome more Commonwealth migrants. When non-EU migration is over 200,000 a year, they can’t have both. The government needs to work hard to rebuild trust in its competence to manage immigration. It should start with a long, hard look at the net migration target – what could be done to meet it and what the impacts would be. Targets aren’t bad in themselves, but they have to be grounded in reality. British Future is calling for a comprehensive review of immigration targets. Nigel Farage, the Ukip leader, is highlighting the Bulgarian and Romanian immigration figures. (See 10.02am.) He is also pointing out that David Cameron’s target of getting net migration below 100,000 is as far away as ever. In his interview Iain Duncan Smith, the work and pensions secretary, said that he expected today’s figures (which he had not seen in advance) to show “an ever-increasing number of migrants from eastern Europe”. He was only partly right. The figures are here. This shows there has been no increase in immigration over the last year from the “EU8”, the countries that joined the EU in 2004: the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia. But there has been a significant increase from immigration from the “EU2”, Bulgaria and Romania. UPDATE: This is from Open Europe’s Pawel Swidlicki. Here is the chart from the ONS bulletin summarising the overall trends. Here is more from my colleague Alan Travis. Here is the ONS news release summarising today’s migration figures. Here is the statistical bulletin with the full details (pdf). And here are some of the key points. (I’ve highlighted some points in bold.) In the year ending (YE) September 2015: Net long-term international migration = +323,000 (up 31,000 from YE September 2014) Immigration = 617,000 (up 2,000 from YE September 2014) Emigration = 294,000 (down 29,000 from YE September 2014) The latest increase in net migration was not statistically significant compared with YE September 2014. This net increase was the result of a decrease (not statistically significant) in emigration from 323,000 in YE September 2014 and immigration being at a similar level to the previous year. Net migration in YE September 2015 was 13,000 lower (not statistically significant) than the peak level of 336,000 published for YE June 2015. Net migration of EU citizens was estimated to be 172,000 (compared with 158,000 in YE September 2014; change not statistically significant). Non-EU net migration (191,000) was similar to the previous year (188,000). The estimate of immigration for EU citizens was 257,000, compared with 246,000 in YE September 2014. Whilst this was not statistically significant, there was a statistically significant increase in immigration of EU2 citizens to 55,000 in YE September 2015 (up 15,000). Conversely, immigration of non-EU citizens saw a decrease from 289,000 to 273,000 (not statistically significant). Latest employment statistics from the Labour Force Survey show estimated employment of EU nationals (excluding British) living in the UK was 2.0 million in October to December 2015, 215,000 higher than the same quarter last year. Non-EU nationals in employment increased by 38,000 to 1.2 million and the total number of British nationals in employment increased by 278,000 to 28.3 million. Therefore, nearly half of the growth in employment over the last year was accounted for by foreign nationals. (These growth figures represent the NET change in the number of people in employment, not the proportion of new jobs that have been filled by non-UK workers.) There were 38,878 asylum applications (including dependants) in 2015, an increase of 20% compared with the previous year (32,344). This is the fifth successive year in which asylum applications have risen, although the number of applications is low relative to the peak in 2002 (103,081). The largest number of applications for asylum, including dependants, came from nationals of Eritrea (3,756; +465), followed by Iran (3,694; +1,195), Pakistan (3,254; -722), Sudan (3,014; +1,399) and Syria (2,846; +493). There were an additional 1,194 Syrian nationals granted humanitarian protection under the Syrian Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Scheme. Grant rates vary between nationalities; for example, 86% of the total initial decisions made for those giving Syrian as their nationality were grants of asylum or another form of protection, compared with 20% for Pakistani nationals. This is from my colleague Alan Travis. The Press Association has just snapped this. Estimated net migration to the UK was 323,000 in the year to September 2015, figures published by the Office for National Statistics show. The Daily Telegraph (which is celebrating its 50,000th edition) has a striking splash today. You can read the story here. As you will see, the claim is not quite as robust as the headline suggests. The story is based on comments from one or two (it’s not entirely clear) “ministerial allies” of David Cameron saying they think having Michael Gove remain as justice secretary will be untenable. One told the paper: It is untenable to have a Justice Secretary after the referendum who opposed the legal basis of the prime minister’s deal. It just won’t work. The story does not say that Downing Street figures are tipping Gove for the sack, and this morning a Number 10 source has dismissed the story as “nonsense”. But does that mean Gove will inevitably survive? In truth, no one can be entirely sure. Cameron has indicated that he does not intend to punish ministers who campaign for Brexit, and there has been talk of a “reconciliation reshuffle” after the referendum, but it is impossible to predict quite how much damage the next four months will inflict on relations at the top of the Conservative party. By June the picture may look very different. My colleague Nicholas Watt has more on this in the today. Here’s his article. And here’s an extract. In a BBC interview the justice secretary questioned whether the prime minister’s EU reform package is legally binding when he said that the European court of justice will only ever uphold agreements embedded in EU treaties. Allies of the prime minister said this represented a marked change of gear by Gove, who had initially kept a low profile when he explained his referendum decision in a 1,500-word statement on Saturday. “This is war,” one pro-No 10 Tory said, noting that Gove had acted the day after the prime minister had mocked Johnson by suggesting that he was acting out of a desire to boost his leadership chances. The Office for National Statistics publishes its latest set of migration figures today. These are always contentious but, with the EU referendum campaign now underway (only 119 more days to go), they may be particularly controversial. Iain Duncan Smith, the work and pensions secretary and one of the “gang of six” ministers who attend cabinet and who are backing Brexit, has told the he expects the figures to show an increase in immigration from eastern Europe. And he said David Cameron’s EU deal will not stop this. I would lay even money that they follow the trend over the past two quarters showing an ever-increasing number of migrants from eastern Europe. So is this agreement negotiated in Brussels going to limit the numbers coming into the UK? My answer to that is no. The truth is, there is one clear way that we could be sure to deliver on that manifesto commitment – and that’s to regain control of our borders. Here is the story in full. And here is the full agenda for the day. 9.30am: Immigration figures are published. 9.30am: Cecilia Malmstrom, the EU trade commission, gives a speech on Britain, the EU and trade at an event chaired by Lord Mandelson. 9.45am: Kathryn Hudson, the parliamentary commissioner for standards, gives evidence to the Commons standards committee. 10.10am: Jeremy Corbyn and Andy Burnham, the shadow home secretary, launch the Labour campaign for police and crime commissioner elections in Birmingham. 12pm: The GMB holds a conference on Trident. Around 12pm: MPs begin a debate on Europe. Around lunchtime: David Cameron holds an EU Q&A. I will cover the Cameron event in detail if I can get a live feed and, as usual, I will be covering other breaking political news as it happens, as well as bringing you the best reaction, comment and analysis from the web. I will post a summary at lunchtime and another in the afternoon. If you want to follow me or contact me on Twitter, I’m on @AndrewSparrow. I try to monitor the comments BTL but normally I find it impossible to read them all. If you have a direct question, do include “Andrew” in it somewhere and I’m more likely to find it. I do try to answer direct questions, although sometimes I miss them or don’t have time. Alternatively you could post a question to me on Twitter. If you think there are any voices that I’m leaving out, particularly political figures or organisations giving alternative views of the stories I’m covering, do please flag them up below the line (include “Andrew” in the post). I can’t promise to include everything, but I do try to be open to as wide a range of perspectives as possible.
'Nasty woman' is an insult we know all too well Little girls are made of sugar and spice and everything nice but sometimes they grow up and life corrupts them. They metamorphosize from being sweet little girls into Nasty Women. The most extreme case in point, as Donald Trump helpfully pointed out during yesterday’s debate, is Hillary Clinton. Not only did she get in her pretty little head that she wanted to run for president. She decided to carry on with the charade and answer real questions about policy during the debate. Worse still, she only let Trump interrupt her every few minutes – and I mean, everyone knows how much he respects women, he was just trying to help her out. So while Clinton was explaining her views on funding social security, Trump decided to go ahead and say what everyone was thinking: Hillary Clinton is “such a nasty woman”. While Clinton may be the chief Nasty Woman of the United States, we’ve all been there at some point. There are few women out there who haven’t been informed at some point by a man they are, in fact, a Nasty Woman. It often happens at the bar. A guy comes over to you and pays you a compliment. It’s a real honor; he’s taken time out from socializing with his friends to talk to you! Instead of understanding how much of an honor it is, however, you tell him that you’re not really interested. He informs you that you’re ugly anyway! He informs you, in so many words, that you’re a Nasty Woman. Maybe you do go home with that guy, though. Maybe you just feel like having sex. Some women occasionally do, I’ve heard. That also makes you a Nasty Woman. You didn’t wait long enough, you see. You’re a slut. A whore. He’s a stud, a player. It’s not double standards. It’s just the way of the world. Deal with it. Nasty Women aren’t just wandering our bars. They’re everywhere. Walking down the street, for example. A guy catcalls you, yells a comment. You ignore him. He yells after you, a profanity followed by an uncomplimentary descriptor. Why didn’t you just stop and listen to his compliments? Are you really that rude? Why do you have to be such a Nasty Woman? They’re at work too. Nasty Women speak up too much. They’re too ambitious. Too aggressive. They’re not team players. Let’s be honest, they’re real bitches. They may get to the top, they may climb that greasy ladder, but at what cost? Nobody likes them. They probably never have sex. Their children probably hate them. They probably have no idea how to bake. They’re Nasty Women. Then there’s the internet. The internet is full of nasty women. They have opinions. They voice these opinions. They’re everywhere, these women. They don’t understand that technology is for the guys. They’ve got the vote, they can go to work, what do they need to go online for? Save a little space for the poor men out there. It’s easy to become a Nasty Woman. It can happen in an instant. You can go to bed a perfectly nice person and wake up a Nasty Woman. But this doesn’t have to happen to you. You can remain a Nice Girl if you just try hard enough. Nice Girls let men do the talking. They let men compliment them in whatever language that man might choose. They go to bed with a guy after a certain number of dates have elapsed and they have proved that they are a Nice Girl. They then marry that man. They stand by their man. Nice Girls do not complain. Nice Girls know their place. Nice Girls raise nice children. And Nice Girls definitely do not run for president.
Screening athletes for heart problems does more harm than good, say experts Screening of athletes to prevent sudden cardiac death does more harm than good, experts say. Sudden cardiac death is estimated to occur in around one in 100,000 people aged 12-35, often as a result of rare heart conditions that have not been diagnosed. Such conditions have recently been brought to public attention following the retirement of 26-year old cricketer James Taylor after it was found that he has a rare, genetic heart condition that could be exacerbated by exercise and potentially cause sudden death. A similar heart condition led to the on-pitch collapse of the footballer Fabrice Muamba in 2012 and his subsequent retirement from the sport. But a team of Belgian researchers argue that screening young athletes by examining their personal history, family history, doing physical examinations or carrying out electrocardiograms (ECGs), will do little to prevent deaths from such conditions. “We don’t know if it saves lives because there have been no good studies,” said Hans Van Brabandt from the Belgian Health Care Knowledge centre who co-authored the analysis. “But we are sure that it is harmful.” Writing in the British Medical Journal, the authors summarise the findings of a literature review into the screening of non-professional athletes aged between 14 and 34. The results, they argue, offer little support for the notion that screening saves lives. In an American study, they report, examining personal and family histories and carrying out a physical examination only raised suspicions of a heart disease in 3% of athletes who went on to die suddenly. The use of ECGs, the authors add, is also flawed and would not identify 25% of those who have a disease that could cause sudden cardiac death. What’s more, for the most common conditions picked up at screening, the majority of people “will never experience any symptoms and lead a normal life if the disease is left undetected,” they write. The authors also believe screening programmes can wrongly flag a large number of people as being at risk. That, they say, could lead to athletes being advised to quit competitive sports, take unnecessary drugs and experience anxiety. “It’s controversial but I think it is a valuable counterbalance to the assertion that all screening is good, that all screening is effective in preventing sports related deaths,” said Perry Elliott, professor in inherited cardiovascular disease at University College, London. “They have shown that the jury is still out with regards to the benefits of screening, and that there are potential dangers of screening for some individuals.” The benefits of screening are largely based on an Italian study, published in 2006, that claimed to find a nearly 90% reduction in the rate of sudden cardiac deaths in athletes as a result of screening. The study followed the introduction of mandatory screening of young athletes in Italy in the 1970s. But Van Brabandt and his colleagues believe the study should be treated with caution, arguing that it does not prove that the drop was down to screening and could have been caused by other factors, while the study’s authors have refused to share their full unpublished data. The Belgian researchers are not the first to argue against screening. Last year the UK the National Screening Committee reviewed its policy to prevent sudden cardiac death in 12 to 39 year-olds and concluded that systematic screening should not be carried out. But many UK professional sports clubs currently carry out their own programmes - a practice Van Brabandt also believes should stop. Ultimately, the researchers argue, screening could result in young people avoiding exercise, a situation others also caution against. “The risk to young people participating in regular sport is extremely low,” said Elliott. “Sport and being fit is good for you.” But not everyone agrees. Cardiac Risk in the Young (CRY), a charity that supports sufferers and their families, believes screening is beneficial. Chief executive Dr Steven Cox said:“CRY’s pioneering screening programme now tests around 23,000 young people aged 14 to 35 from both of these groups, and one in every 300 people tested by CRY will be diagnosed with a potentially fatal - and, more than likely, treatable - heart defect. “We have numerous examples of young people who have been identified with potentially fatal heart conditions through screening - and who wouldn’t be alive today if they had not been successfully identified and treated.” This piece was updated on 21 April 2016 to include a response from Cardiac Risk in the Young.
Bruce Springsteen offers free download of Chicago concert Bruce Springsteen had to postpone his New York concert at Madison Square Garden on Sunday due to the blizzard which swept the north-east of America and saw the second highest snowfall ever in Central Park. In response, at 8pm on Sunday, Springsteen announced on social media that the previous date on the tour, during which he plays his 1980 double album The River in full, would be made available as a free MP3 download. Fans have until 8pm on Tuesday to download it for nothing; after that, CDs and higher fidelity formats will be available for a fee. The Chicago show’s 32-song set saw Springsteen paying tribute to the late Eagles co-founder Glenn Frey with a version of Take it Easy, and concluding with a run of hits including Dancing in the Dark and Thunder Road. The ’s review of the evening said: “Clocking in at three hours and 20 minutes, the show is the usual marathon length for Springsteen and, at 66, he may have been sweating but didn’t show it. Sure, his sprints through the audience now are leisurely strolls. Hungry Heart turns into the equivalent of a meet and greet as he clowns with audience members and then, without prompting, turns his back and falls backwards, allowing himself to be crowdsurfed back to the foot of the stage.” The show can be downloaded here.
Loudon Wainwright III: 'I wrote a song about Donald Trump. He’s an easy target' Loudon Wainwright III is just beginning a huge US tour, which runs until April 2017. At his apartment in Manhattan’s Upper West Side, which overlooks the Hudson river, he’s preparing for the rigours of the road. Most of the coming dates will find him alone, as usual. “It’s an economic thing, to a degree,” he admits. “A long time ago, in the 70s, I had a rock band. Primarily I’ve been solo. I don’t go out with a tour manager, I travel alone. It’s getting harder to haul my ass around everywhere, but there are less overheads.” Customarily, he’ll fly and then hire a car if he’s hitting several cities within driving distance. “It’s hard for me to write on the road, just because it takes every ounce of energy I have to get there, rest a little bit, then go up and do the show. Occasionally I can write songs on the road, but it doesn’t happen usually.” So a song such as 1971’s Motel Blues was probably penned when Loudon returned home, able to filter his touring experiences. “I’m always trying to write songs, I’m always thinking about putting out another album,” he says, unsurprisingly. “I caved and wrote a song about Donald Trump. It’s a dirty job … He’s a pretty easy target, I wouldn’t even say he’s a moving target. I’m still learning it, just finishing it. I think that there’s some laughs in it.” Wainwright’s last two albums have markedly different characters. In 2012, Older Than My Old Man Now was steeped in morbid reflection, considering mortality, with any humour, if it was present, being dark indeed. Haven’t Got The Blues (Yet) featured an upbeat band presentation, jumping around to address a wide range of varied subjects, from the weighty to the almost trivial. It sounded like the album of a younger man, as if to recover from the downbeat pall of its predecessor. “It takes me a couple of years to write an album’s worth of songs that I think are good enough to be on a record,” Loudon muses. “I do it song by song, and then kind of shape it, and the record might have a tone or mood. That’s just the way it turned out, and it wasn’t as if I’d planned ahead of time. I don’t do that. I just focus on trying to get the songs together, and then make a decision over how I’m going to produce the record, and who I’m going to use. It’ll find my, or its, audience, one way or another. Or not!” In a drive against complacency, Loudon plans on reviving different song selections as the tour proceeds. “I have more than I need. I have a lot of songs. I’ve been going back and relearning some of them,” he says. “It was great to go back to that very old material, some of which I had to relearn, and completely treat them in a different way. I’m struck by how good they are.” Wainwright grew up in Westchester County, upstate New York. “This is my hometown. I feel comfortable here. I started to play in the clubs here in New York, down in Greenwich Village, the Gaslight [Café], that was the primary club.” This was a significant hive on MacDougal Street, where the likes of Bob Dylan, Dave Van Ronk and Tom Paxton honed their craft and which the Coen Brothers loosely based 2013’s Inside Llewyn Davis on. Loudon just got in there at the Gaslight a few years before it closed in 1971. The place he really got his start though was in Cambridge and Boston. “I used to go up and play, little coffee houses. You start off by doing a few numbers on a hoot, or an open mic: they used to call them hoots. “You don’t have an audience at that point, so you’re really just trying to get noticed, and you’re not getting paid, well virtually nothing.” His luck changed when someone from the Village Voice saw him and wrote up a positive review. “In a matter of months, I had a record deal, so I was extremely lucky. There was not even a year of bumming around, and trying to play shows. “John Peel was very instrumental in getting my career going. He played my first couple of albums a lot. You hear about people struggling for five, or even 10 years: I was good, don’t get me wrong, but I was also extremely lucky.” In June, Wainwright plays a pair of New York City gigs, just below his original Greenwich Village stomping ground, at SoHo’s City Winery, which has been a regular haunt in recent years. The first gig is called Under The Wall And Off The Radar (22 June): “The idea being that I would pick people that I like, that I’ve seen, and that other people may not have seen, but should, that I think are really good.” So far, he’s invited along Dave Hill, Rachelle Garniez, Brian Dewan and Marc Eskenazi, a very diverse crew whose talents veer between writing, singing, guitaring and stand-up, in varying ratios. The second Winery date, on 29 June, is a Family & Friends show, where a possible combination of Rufus, Martha, Lucy or sister Sloan Wainwright may well be involved. A glance at Loudon’s Spotify page reveals a live album, Late Night Calls, as the most recent release, lifted from a 1972 radio broadcast. “That’s a bootleg,” Wainwright fumes. “I have nothing to do with that complete rip-off. That infuriates me. I wouldn’t listen to it, it’d be too depressing. I hate the idea that someone is just getting something for nothing, but also that there’s no quality control. It pisses me off – I consider it thievery. Being the person who did the performing and writing, I feel violated.” For him the important things are easily calculated: it still comes down to playing and writing music. “The exciting part is writing the songs and the fun part is doing the shows. As long as those two elements are in play, and I’m getting paid, I’m perfectly happy.” Loudon Wainwright III is currently touring the US
Manchester United’s Zlatan Ibrahimovic proves double trouble for Southampton These are still early days but already there is the unmistakable feeling Manchester United are on their way back and anxious to make up for lost time. They have suffered more in the last few years than they will probably wish to remember but José Mourinho could be seen saluting the crowd in triumph after this victory. Zlatan Ibrahimovic has two more goals for his personal collection while Paul Pogba, the world’s most expensive footballer, came out of his homecoming with a sunrise of a smile. The only disappointment, perhaps, was that Ibrahimovic could not mark his first appearance at his new ground by taking the matchball home as a souvenir of a hat-trick, and there was a moment after the game when he playfully chastised Pogba for shooting, rather than passing, during a late attack. That, however, was only a fleeting source of regret bearing in mind the buoyant mood inside the stadium and renewed sense of optimism. Pogba showed, in flashes, why United have invested so much in shaping the team around him. Ibrahimovic has scored three times in his first two Premier League games and it says something for Mourinho’s rebuilding that Henrikh Mkhitaryan, another of the club’s summer recruits, was restricted to a late substitute’s appearance, with Michael Carrick, Phil Jones and Memphis Depay among those not even on the bench. Mourinho seemed genuinely pained when he spoke of the players who spent the night “in their nice Paul Smith suits rather than tracksuits”. More than anything there was the sense of more to come. A new team are taking shape, featuring half a dozen six-footers, and Mourinho made the point there was still plenty of room for improvement. The partnership between Wayne Rooney and Ibrahimovic, for instance, can still be better even if they did combine for the Swede’s opening goal. Anthony Martial has started the season slowly and Pogba, as Mourinho explained, was not at the point of optimum fitness even if there were times when the £89m signing showed a mixture of speed, balance and control that had Old Trafford humming its approval. After an amusingly bad first touch Pogba looked as if he had been here years – which, in one sense, was absolutely the case – while Ibrahimovic supplied another clear reminder United have recruited a striker who is capable of outdoing some of the finest central defenders in England’s top division. Wes Morgan can testify for Ibrahimovic’s upper body strength, competitive instincts and prodigious heading ability after the winning goal in the Community Shield and now it was José Fonte’s turn to feel the force. Ibrahimovic’s second goal was a penalty, early in the second half, but his first was another demonstration of his penalty-box menace. Rooney’s cross came from the right and Ibrahimovic, at 6ft 5in, was higher, stronger and more decisive in his leap than Fonte, directing an expertly angled header into the corner of Fraser Forster’s goal. United’s improvement is clear already, given they were facing a Southampton side who had won 1-0 on their last two visits to Old Trafford and aiming to become the only team other than Manchester City to win here three times in a row in the Premier League era. Claude Puel had started with an adventurous lineup, with Nathan Redmond and Shane Long in attack, and Dusan Tadic operating at the front of a midfield diamond. Their preparations were disrupted by an early injury to Oriol Romeu but they held their own early on and threatened sporadically throughout. At other times they looked lightweight in attack while, for the home side, it was clear to see this was a Mourinho team rather than one operating to Louis van Gaal’s rigid tactics. United moved the ball with the kind of urgency that was not always apparent under their previous manager. Their full-backs were given more licence to go forward and it was from one of those attacks that Luke Shaw advanced into a position where Jordy Clasie, Romeu’s replacement, flicked out his foot to clip him for the penalty. Ibrahimovic took the ball – no arguments about who was United’s new penalty-taker – and rifled his shot to Forster’s right. Shortly before, Tadic had turned a header past David de Gea only for the goal to be disallowed because one of the assistant referees had raised his flag. Puel did not complain too vociferously about either decision but Southampton had been entitled to be aggrieved about the penalty and, at 2-0, the home side could start to relax, playing with greater exuberance on the counterattack. Mourinho had said Pogba would not last the entire match but the midfielder did stay on until the end. Marouane Fellaini has been rejuvenated so far under Mourinho and, continuing the theme of newfound unity, Juan Mata was warmly embraced by his manager when Mkhitaryan replaced him for the last quarter of an hour. Ibrahimovic was offside when Antonio Valencia clipped a cross to him at the far post and Pogba drilled a late chance past the post. “You should have passed,” Ibrahimovic pointed out to his team-mate, with mock anger. United had made it back-to-back victories and Old Trafford felt like a happy place.
Beyoncé breaks chart record as each track on Lemonade reaches top 100 Beyoncé has made Billboard Hot 100 history, as she becomes the first woman to have 12 tracks charting simultaneously in the rundown. The songs make up Lemonade, her new album, which reaches the No 1 slot after selling 653,000 copies in the week ending 28 April, according to Nielsen Music. Her showing beats the record of Taylor Swift, who had 11 tracks in the top 100 at the same time in 2010, following the release of her album Speak Now. Only one of Beyoncé’s songs is currently in the top 10, however: Formation – which was released in February – sits at No 10, while Sorry, the most streamed track from Lemonade with 14.2m US streams, is at No 11, with Hold Up at No 13 and 6 Inch at No 18. The other titles are scattered throughout the top 70, with the James Blake collaboration Forward the lowest-charting at No 63. Her success also dominates this week’s R&B/hip-hop chart, with all 12 tracks entering the top 30. Beyoncé will have to go a little further to match her male rivals, however: Justin Bieber beat Drake and the Beatles for the Billboard Hot 100 record in 2015, with 17 songs charting simultaneously following the release of his album Purpose. Beyoncé’s Lemonade arrived on 23 April, along with an hour-long film of the same name. The album was released exclusively via Tidal, the streaming service founded by her husband and rap mogul Jay Z, until 25 April, when it was made available to other digital retailers.
The 5th Wave review – sci-fi war games with few surprises This sci-fi fantasy, from the first book in Rick Yancey’s ongoing YA series, mimics the riffs (feisty heroine, hunky boys, dystopian setting, devious adult corporations, potential love triangles etc) but lacks the cinematic legs of The Hunger Games or The Maze Runner. Chloë Grace Moretz is the likable teenager who finds herself fighting a guerrilla war when space invaders (“we call them ‘others’”) terrorise the planet and the army starts rounding up kids to fight in an ugly war. The British director J Blakeson, who worked low-budget wonders on The Disappearance of Alice Creed, handles the shifts and twists of the plot efficiently enough, but the result remains lumpen and crucially lacking in surprise. At best, this yearns for the youthful grit of Kevin Macdonald’s How I Live Now crossed with the disaster spectacle of 2012, but I was put more in mind of Stuart Beattie’s Tomorrow, When the War Began, which famously failed to find an international audience, thus scuppering the chances of future films in the series.
Taylor Swift gives $1m to help Louisiana flood relief efforts Taylor Swift is donating $1m to Louisiana flood relief after https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/aug/16/louisiana-flood-damage-recovery in the state and killed at least 11 people. Swift told the Associated Press on Tuesday that Louisiana residents graciously welcomed her when she kicked off the US dates of her 1989 World Tour in the state last year. “We began the 1989 tour in Louisiana, and the wonderful fans there made us feel completely at home. The fact that so many people in Louisiana have been forced out of their own homes this week is heartbreaking,” the 26-year-old said in a statement. The flooding is some of the worst in Louisiana’s history, having damaged at least 40,000 homes. More than 60,000 people have registered for disaster aid from the Federal Emergency Management Agency after widespread flooding hit the state, according to Louisiana governor John Bel Edwards’s office. “I encourage those who can to help out and send your love and prayers their way during this devastating time,” Swift said. More than 30,000 people have been rescued since Friday, with more being brought to safety by the hour. The National Weather Service has described the flooding, during which rivers burst their banks after several days of rain, as “a thousand-year disaster”.
Which English teams will be contesting what in Europe next season? So who’s in the Champions League? Leicester City, Tottenham Hotspur and Arsenal have qualified for next season’s group stage. Manchester City will finish fourth and enter the play-off round if they avoid defeat at Swansea or if Manchester United fail to win at home to Bournemouth. United will take that spot if they win and City lose. But can’t Liverpool qualify as well? Yes, if Liverpool beat Sevilla in Wednesday’s Europa League final they will be in the Champions League group stage. The fourth-placed team in the Premier League would not be affected. How many Europa League places are up for grabs? England has three places, which usually go to the FA Cup winners, Capital One Cup winners and the fifth-placed team but this season it is more complicated. Why the complication? Manchester City’s Capital One Cup win earned a place in the Europa League third qualifying round but their league placing of at least fifth (realistically) will entitle them to a place in the group stage as a minimum, so the League Cup place filters down the table. Two of Manchester City, Manchester United, West Ham United, Southampton and Liverpool will finish fifth and sixth. What about the FA Cup? If Manchester United beat Crystal Palace in the final, having finished in the top six, a Europa League place filters down to seventh. If Palace win they are in the Europa League at the group stage. What other difficulties are there? If Liverpool finish in a Europa League place and win this season’s competition, they go into the Champions League. In those circumstances their Europa League place will not filter down the table. Instead England will have only two clubs in the Europa League. Is it true there could be a play-off to settle a Europa League place? Yes, it’s unlikely but possible that West Ham and Liverpool will face a play-off. They will tie for sixth or seventh place (depending on Southampton’s result) if West Ham lose 1-0 at Stoke and Liverpool win 2-1 at West Brom, or if West Ham lose 2-1 and Liverpool win 3-2 etc. If a Europa League place is at stake, a play-off at a neutral venue will then be required if Liverpool lose to Sevilla.
Cameron confident a small lead for remain will settle Britain's EU question David Cameron has warned his Conservative critics that a narrow majority in June’s referendum will be enough to settle the question of Britain’s future in Europe. Speaking at the summit of G7 world leaders in Japan, the prime minister was asked what margin of victory he felt would resolve an issue that had caused deep divisions within his party for decades. “Obviously a referendum is based on a simple majority,” he said. Some Tory Brexiters have suggested the prime minister’s authority would be fatally undermined if the government scrapes through the vote with a narrow majority for staying in the EU. But Cameron sought to isolate those who doubted the validity of his leadership in the wake of a narrow victory as a small group of life-long Eurosceptics. “There are some people whose life’s work and core belief is that Britain must get out of Europe,” he said. “I have respect for people who hold a very strong view and do everything they can in politics to pursue that. “[But] that is not my view; I disagree with them. There will always be some people who go on making that argument.” John Redwood, the former Conservative minister and a longstanding critic of the EU, has argued in an article in the that the prime minister will face a tough task in reuniting his divided party if the public vote to remain. “It will be easier to unite the Conservative party if the UK chooses to leave the EU, as that will put the majority of members in agreement with a majority of the public and lead to the election of a pro-Brexit Conservative leader and prime minister when David Cameron steps down,” he wrote. “Cameron faces a more difficult prospect if remain wins. Many of his MPs will be bitterly disappointed by the result and will want to hold the government to every promise made of an improved deal, and will wish to continue to expose the weaknesses and troubles of EU bureaucracy.” He added: “Whichever way the public votes the next leader of the Conservative party is likely to be a Brexiteer.” Cameron made clear that with less than a month to go before polling day, his biggest fear is that turnout will be low among young voters, who tend to be more pro-EU. “One of the things on the campaigning front that is my greatest concern is doing everything we can in the next week in order to get people to register to vote, particularly young people,” he said. “Because this is absolutely a vote about their future, this vote will determine the sort of country, the sort of economy they grow up in, the sort of opportunities they have.” The remain campaign, which is being closely coordinated by Downing Street, will switch its focus to the benefits of EU immigration on Thursday, pointing out that as many as 250,000 EU citizens work in Britain’s public services, and urging leave campaigners to say what would happen to them in the event of Brexit. Former Labour home secretary Jacqui Smith said advocates of Brexit, including Boris Johnson – whom she described as “Nigel Farage in a blonde wig”– had questions to answer about how they would tackle immigration outside the EU. “Our country is being asked to vote for an economic shock, higher prices, lower wages, a permanently poorer country, weaker security cooperation and a less influential Britain on the world stage – all in return for some unspecified new immigration policy that the leave campaign have not even bothered to think through,” she said. Cameron’s enthusiasm for winning over the under-25s is at odds with the Conservatives’ general election strategy, which was centred on wooing older voters. It has also drawn criticism from Labour, who claim a Tory decision to speed up new rules for voter registration led to up to a million young people falling off the register. Gloria De Piero, Labour’s shadow minister for young people and voter registration, agreed that it was vital for young people to take part and welcomed Cameron’s call for action. “However, it comes after many months of the government ignoring our warnings that young people are the least likely age group to be on the electoral register,” she said. Cameron said the issue of Brexit was likely to “be on the agenda” at the G7 meeting. “But the G7 and G20 have already made clear that it is a threat to economic growth, a risk to the world economy,” he added. News that the Conservatives have received more in donations this year than all of the other political parties put together helped fuel fears within Labour that Cameron is preparing for the risk of a snap general election if his party is severely destabilised by the June vote. New figures from the Electoral Commission showed that more than £6.7m out of the almost £12m reported to the watchdog was given to the Conservatives in the first quarter of this year. Labour took £3.7m while the Liberal Democrats received £592,000 and Ukip raised £187,080. Much of the money will have been raised to help fight the local, assembly and mayoral elections, but the total is much higher than in comparable quarters in previous years, which were averaging about £3m in donations. The fixed-term parliament act, passed to provide stability for the coalition between the Lib Dems and Tories, means the government has been elected for five years. There would need to be a two-thirds majority in parliament to overturn it, but it would be difficult for Labour to turn down the opportunity to attempt to get rid of a Conservative government.
David Cameron: Boris Johnson debate would be 'Tory psychodrama' David Cameron is avoiding a head-to-head television debate with Boris Johnson or Michael Gove because he is concerned about turning the EU referendum campaign into a “Tory psychodrama”. Senior figures at Vote Leave, the official campaign for Britain to leave the EU, in which Johnson and Gove play leading roles, were infuriated by the prime minister’s decision to appear in an ITV programme with Nigel Farage but not to debate either of their men face to face. In an interview with LBC radio, Cameron said: “I want to prove the breadth of the campaign and I don’t want this to become a sort of Tory psychodrama between me and Boris or me and Michael Gove.” However, he hinted that he may appear at a BBC event that could place him alongside one of his pro-Brexit colleagues. Conservatives, including cabinet ministers, on either side of the debate have clashed repeatedly throughout the campaign, exposing the deep rift in the party over the issue, with Johnson accusing the prime minister this month of “totally demented scaremongering”. Cameron said he was keen for the debate not to be reduced to one among his own side. “I want to demonstrate that those arguing to stay in the European Union … include the Labour party, the Green party, the Liberal Democrat party, the trade union movement, most of British industry, the majority of small businesses,” he told LBC’s Iain Dale. Asked whether he was “furious” about Johnson’s decision to throw his weight behind the campaign to leave, the prime minister said: “I am human so obviously I was disappointed.” He added of Johnson: “He says he was torn. He’s told a lot of people that he’d never been a leaver. But look, it’s for him to say.” Cameron condemned Johnson’s decision to compare the EU’s attempts to unite Europe to the actions of Hitler. “I just I think he’s wrong,” he said. “Hitler wanted to snuff out democracy across the continent and the European Union is basically an alliance of countries that share a view about democracy and liberal values.” Johnson later hit back, saying he was a longstanding Eurosceptic. He said negotiations over Cameron’s promise of new legislation to entrench the sovereignty of the British parliament – in the hope of persuading Johnson to back staying in the EU – had descended into “farce”. “It became ever clearer that the government’s exercise of trying to produce a so-called sovereignty bill – in which I was involved – was a farce and would achieve nothing. That is obviously why it has been dropped from the Queen’s speech,” he said. Some backbenchers have become increasingly frustrated at the tone of the campaign, which is being closely coordinated by Downing Street. Steve Baker, the MP who chairs the pro-Brexit Conservatives for Britain group, accused Britain Stronger in Europe of pursuing a “scorched earth” policy.
A&Es are closing and doctors are leaving. It should be Jeremy Hunt who goes Getting ready for work this week, as I grabbed my stethoscope and NHS badge, I caught a radio discussion on the latest crisis in accident and emergency wards and all I could do was shrug in resignation. A&E departments are having to close their doors because of the lack of correctly trained staff required to safely run their departments, with Chorley A&E doing so in April and Grantham looking set to shut at night due to staff shortages. Six years ago, when I started my career as an A&E doctor, departments had plans in place to cope with extreme pressures. If a department became so busy that it was deemed “unsafe” by senior A&E staff, they would request a “divert”, where ambulances would be redirected to other nearby A&E departments until the workload had been eased. Now there is nowhere to divert to since everywhere is in exactly the same position. So when they get too unsafe they have no choice but to turn people away. This is not because too many people are becoming acutely unwell and arriving en masse to well stocked and staffed A&E departments. Departments are being forced to close their doors because they lack the manpower to cope. This is the result of long-term tactics at government level, aimed at changing the NHS as we know it by causing the erosion of both services and the morale of those who are on the frontline trying desperately to make it work. After years of working through various A&E crises, with the backdrop of doom-monger headlines about the care we are providing, I am currently an emergency medicine doctor on respite. I have worked in some of the busiest A&Es in the country and now, for the sake of sanity and well-being, I am having a change. I just needed a breather, time to take stock, to have a life and to re-evaluate. So I am working on a rehabilitation ward, and while my patients recover, so do I. I am not here permanently – it’s a locum position in a rural area that is finding it a challenge to recruit staff. A situation replicated all over the country. I have an A&E job lined up for later in the year, but I have been tactical about where. I am going to Wales. I can’t work in a place where Jeremy Hunt has jurisdiction to implicate his unethical plans. It will mean an upheaval of my personal life, maybe having to pay for two sets of accommodation to make it work and living in a different place to my husband. But these are decisions we are having to make to find ways to keep being A&E doctors. My morale is at an all-time low and I need to get it back to continue to do the job I love. You have to psyche yourself up for every A&E shift, mentally and physically. Get your game face on, focus, blast through and take it as it hits you full force. Times that by 10 for a night shift or a weekend when chances are you won’t know your colleagues as they will be locums brought in to make up the shortfall. We are fed up of hearing about how overcrowded and understaffed hospitals are. The workforce pulls together and makes it work. Even the most senior emergency medicine doctor in the country, Clifford Mann, president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine: after completing his duties in London, he gets on a train, back to his own A&E department in Somerset for a shift finishing late into the night. It’s gruelling work and only for the committed. My A&E colleagues are finding alternatives all around me. Some have left for academia, some have left medicine and some have left the country. Working in A&E, with a severely unwell patient arriving in extremis does not just need someone with a medical degree certificate. It needs expertise, skill and experience. And a significant number of those who fit this brief are leaving. We should be worried. Jeremy Hunt has bulldozed NHS morale into the ground and yet his stampede continues. For the sake of patients and staff, someone who really should be getting a new job is him. As Hunt stays in his role, implementing bullishly his unsafe plans, A&E doctors are leaving theirs in droves.
European Union is a progressive force in controlling pollution In attributing the rise in air pollutants in London to the EU, Nigel Pollitt is being disingenuous (Letters, 6 June). As chairman of the UK Expert Panel on Air Quality Standards for a decade to 2002, I was regularly asked by journalists as to whether diesel or petrol vehicles were better, and always gave the same answer: it depends whether you wish to increase air pollution or to accelerate global climate change, since diesel was more efficient but also more polluting. Thus it would have been Hobson’s choice, were it not for the unasked alternative, which was to get out of the car or, if that was not always possible, to drive the car with the smallest possible engine and to do so with minimal use of accelerator and brake. Mr Pollitt should also know that all the evidence-based air quality standards that our panel proposed to the UK government were passed into law and then used by the EU for setting pan-European standards, resulting in a general reduction of pollution across Europe and in the UK. The recent rise in pollution in London is related to the selfish behaviour of those who purchase large diesel vehicles and use them for short journeys when efficient electric and hybrid vehicles are now available. Anthony Seaton Emeritus professor of environmental medicine, Aberdeen University • Nigel Pollitt seems to have some misunderstandings. Yes, diesel cars do emit damaging particulates, but it is EU regulations that have led to the progressive improvement in particulate removal filters. Furthermore, both petrol and diesel cars emit NO compounds, and these can of course contribute to lung problems. It should also be noted that it is the UK government that has sought exemptions and delays in meeting EU air quality standards in our cities; if we met them our air would be cleaner. Regarding vacuum cleaner power levels, the aim is to increase efficiency and hence reduce electricity demand and consequent CO2 emissions. Indeed. Which tests found that some lower-powered cleaners were better at collecting dust than the highest powered ones. Finally I note his touching faith in our legislative process! Michael Miller Sheffield • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
How to survive a global disaster: a handy guide On 22 June, 2001, Tara O’Toole and Thomas Inglesby of the Johns Hopkins Center for Civilian Biodefense Strategies, organised a war game like no other. The two researchers, working with an array of bodies such as the ANSER Institute for Homeland Security, set out to simulate the effects of a biological attack on the US. The project was called Operation Dark Winter. What they discovered was that the country was ill prepared to cope. Within two weeks there would be enormous civilian casualties, a catastrophic breakdown in essential institutions, and mass civil unrest. Food supplies, electricity and transport infrastructures would all collapse. In short, the world would get medieval on America’s ass. And the same thing would happen all over the globe. These days we’re spoiled for choice in terms of potential catastrophes. Natural and ecological disasters, nuclear weapons, terrorism, experimental technological accidents (“Oops, we’ve accidentally created Skynet”) – they’re all in the game. In 2008 a group of experts met at an Oxford University conference and suggested that there was a 19% chance of a global catastrophic event before 2100 (with super intelligent AI and molecular nanotechnology weapons at the top of the threat list). It was just a bit of fun, and they added plenty of caveats to that figure, but still, something to think about, eh? With all this in mind, the spoke to the academic and author Nafeez Ahmed, who has studied global crises and mass violence, and recently advised Ubisoft on the authenticity of its post-pandemic video game, The Division. We asked him, in the event that society collapses, what should we do. Here’s what he suggested. 1. Don’t hole up alone with hundreds of tins of baked beans “There’s a survivalist response which is ‘I’m going to hide away all by myself’,” says Ahmed. “You’re probably not going to survive like that – you have to cooperate with other people. This may not be obvious at first because you may see others as a potential threat, but the moment you become a loner, you’re likely to lose simply because you’re now part of a dog-eat-dog environment. The more people who band together, the more likely you are to be able to rebuild something like a society. So I’d say share those baked beans. In fact, you don’t even have to stick to baked beans.” 2. You need to go rural … but not too rural You were probably expecting this, but let’s make it clear anyway. Cities are wonderful when everything is functioning but, as The Walking Dead made clear, they’re lethal when there’s no order, electricity or infrastructure. “If you stayed in the city, you’d be in more danger, there’s no doubt about that,” says Ahmed. “Generally speaking, when academics have run these scenarios on predictive models, cities are found to be extremely vulnerable simply because there are so many supply chains that are interdependent, and so many people there with you who are also dependent on these supply chains. People will be competing with each other for these scarce resources, which creates violence.” However, the other extreme – total isolation – may also not be a good idea, for the reason given above. You need a group of differently skilled people who can work cooperatively in order to build your own supply chains and flourish. So, we’re talking ... small market town? “Yes,” says Ahmed, not altogether seriously. “Ideally you’d want to be somewhere in Kent.” 3. You need access to running water and agricultural land In the event of a major global catastrophe, we’re going to have to face the very real possibility that Waitrose will be closed. Within the first few days, roads will be clogged and supermarkets looted, so you’ll be forced to generate your own supplies. “In a scenario such as a pandemic, you need to be somewhere you can access running water and/or other sources of energy,” says Ahmed. This isn’t just for sustenance – fast running water can also be harnessed to provide power – as long as you thought to buy a small-scale hydroelectric generator. The problem is, most of us don’t spend our weekends buying up on personal energy solutions – just in case. “If we’re talking about a sudden collapse, then the chances are you won’t have a solar power generator to hand,” confirms Ahmed. But at least if you’re near water you can drink it. “There’s also the need to grow your own food,” says Ahmed. “Again you’re better off doing that with a group of people on a large area of land where you can apportion labour. That’s not going to work as well in an urban environment.” 4. Establish communications “If you wanted to forge a community and be resilient, you may not necessarily have to communicate with the wider world,” says Ahmed. “However, you may need to know what’s going on. The thing is, in a catastrophic scenario, you don’t know what communications are going to be up and running.” The basic method of acquiring information will be a wind-up or solar-powered radio. However, to actually communicate with the outside world, or with members of your community, you may be back to walkie-talkies, two-way radios or even a citizen band radio – the problem there being that, in the event of a major catastrophe, you’ll only be able to communicate with 1970s truckers. All of these will require electricity, so unless you’ve stockpiled batteries or fuel for a traditional generator you may be stuck. However, we’re now seeing both solar and hydrogen-powered generators – and, of course, there’s the nano membrane toilet which sorts both your power and sanitation issues in one go. What about the internet? According to Peter Taphouse and Matthew Bloch of UK-based server-hosting company, Bytemark, there’s a possibility that many of the tens of thousands of separate networks (or Autonomous Systems) and data centres that make up the backbone of the internet could survive the collapse of civilisation if they had access to local power. However, the content networks and transit providers – big companies such as BT, Sky, Virgin, NTT, Cogent – would be vulnerable to societal collapse. Sure, Google has nice offices and all, but people are less likely to go to work if the city is a death zone of marauding looter gangs. So even though the net is designed as a nonlinear decentralised system, it could be that only military frameworks would reliably survive – and they’re not accessible from your local coffee shop. Your best option, then, may be to set up your own community computer network – and the most sensible technology would be Wi-Fi, as the components are easily available. “You could loot a PC World for broadband routers and then hit a garage or supermarket for some Pringles cans,” says Bloch. “With those, you can probably build a reasonable network across a scorched suburb.” Why a Pringle can? Well, it can be used to create a cantenna which would be capable of boosting a Wi-Fi signal from your computer. “Some students in Kansas made a cantenna that transmitted over 100 miles a few years ago,” says Bloch. He suggests using a cheap Raspberry Pi as the combined communications hub and router (although a basic netbook may be a good alternative). “I ran an old Pi off four AA batteries for four hours just to play a video game a while back, and that was wasting power on bluetooth and speakers. They can shift a lot of traffic, and run little servers, so I imagine you could run tiny hubs off a car battery for 1-2 weeks at a time. “If you ran an old-school email network off those, it’d be quite handy and expandable piece by piece as you contacted neighbouring villages, cleared the zombies out, etc. I guess that’s the nice thing about the internet: the oldest protocols still adapt to this situation. I think some people really want to see this happen, just so they can prove it.” In the Fallout series of post-apocalyptic role-playing games, survivors are able to utilise an old closed network called PoseidoNet, which has survived the nuclear war – there are terminals placed throughout the world. So could we, in real life, somehow access corporate, academic or even military networks to communicate? “Basically Fallout seems about 80% accurate to me,” says Bloch. 5. Don’t necessarily trust the government or law enforcement All major governments have contingency plans in place to ensure their survival after a global disaster. In 2007, for example, George Bush signed into place the National Security Presidential Directive, which claims the power to execute certain orders in the event of a catastrophic emergency – President Obama also signed a National Preparedness executive order in 2012. The thing is, most of those preparations are classified – we won’t know what they are until it happens. What we can be fairly certain of, however, is that it will involve the suspension of constitutional government and the instalment of martial law. To some degree. “Based on the continuity of government plans we have in the US and western europe, there’s no doubt that you would have a visible force presence on the streets to try and maintain order,” says Ahmed. “There would be all sorts of things necessary in a pandemic scenario – the need to quarantine, the need to contain the spread of the virus. “Whatever the situation, there’s also going to be more of a need, as infrastructures fail, for people on the ground to establish and maintain order. We saw this during the Olympics when the security contractor effectively collapsed and the army had to come in. It showed the need to maintain discipline, and it also showed that the army is trained to respond to a situation where systems start to break down.” But here’s a slightly paranoid question: what if it has been decided by contingency planners that civilians are somewhat surplus to requirements? What if the security personnel aren’t actually on our side? “Never 100% always trust the military – especially when they’re in your own territory,” says Ahmed. Instead, we should be using our fledgling communication networks to gather public support and ask questions. “The fact is, we have democracy for a reason – there are checks and balances,” says Ahmed. “The government has said that they need to have these continuity operations and we’ve said, ‘okay I guess we need those’ – we’ve given our consent by not really complaining about it. But at the same time, we know that’s not the way we want the country to run. “So the moment we shift into a state where suddenly the police and army, this unelected minority of people, have all the power, and where all the political processes are suspended then, yes, there is a justifiable level of skepticism. Populations need to be asking, when is this situation going to end? At what point is this temporary suspension of our normal consititution going to lead back to the normal way of things? “This is a totally legitimate inquiry. You don’t necessarily have to be a conspiracy theorist to question authority. In the west, we know there is a certain degree of discipline and accountability that our militaries do have – there are rules of engagement. But we know from history that when you have this sort of situation, there is all sorts of scope for abuse.” 6. You may have to be self-sufficient for a long time So you have your agricultural land, your solar powered generators and Raspberry Pi communications network, but the big question is: how long before civilised modern industrial society is rebuilt? Or in other words, how long before Netflix is working again? “In a global pandemic scenario, you’re looking at a long time before everything is safe,” says Ahmed. “With influenza, for example, we’re talking about a lead time of several years before society can get to grips with it all. If you really wanted to stay safe, I think you’ll need to survive for a decade before civilisation sorts itself out.” So, that’s years spent in a small farming community where there’s only an infinitesimal understanding of what’s going on in the real world? Sounds like your best preparation is to start listening to the Archers.
Gilts plunge as interest rate rises recede A record was broken during the latest wave of selling on the world’s stock markets. As share prices plunged the yield on 10-year UK government gilts fell to levels never seen before. Should he wish to do so, George Osborne could borrow money in the markets more cheaply than any of his predecessors: neither Benjamin Disraeli nor William Gladstone (a particular hero of the chancellor) enjoyed interest rates as low as 1.29%. Osborne will regard record-low gilt yields as evidence that investors have confidence in the handling of the public finances – which up to a point is correct but hardly qualifies as the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. It is certainly the case that low interest rates on gilts are in contrast to rising yields in some of the countries on the periphery of the eurozone, such as Greece and Portugal. But UK bond yields are not that much lower than those in Spain and Portugal, which hit 7% during the worst of the eurozone crisis in 2012. If Britain really was considered a safe haven in times of trouble, sterling would be going up on the foreign exchanges rather than falling against the dollar, euro and yen. There would also be much stronger bids for gilts in the auctions conducted by the government than appears to be the case now. The real reason that gilt yields are so low is that the date for an increase in UK interest rates from the Bank of England has receded so far into the distance that it would take the Hubble telescope to pinpoint it. Gilt yields tend to go up when rising inflationary pressure leads to investors becoming fearful of the Bank of England pushing up interest rates. Inflation is currently 0.2% and its expected rise over the coming months will be checked by the turmoil in the markets, itself a reflection of weakening global growth prospects. Surprisingly few eyebrows were raised when the Economist Intelligence Unit predicted that there would be no increase in interest rates until 2020, the year of the next general election. Indeed, the idea that the Bank’s next move could be to provide more stimulus – either through a cut in interest rates or via an expansion of its quantitative easing programme – is quietly gaining traction. Threadneedle Street believes the UK banks and building societies could cope with a cut in interest rates from 0.5%; it also believes that previous dollops of QE boosted both activity and inflation. An alternative way of achieving the same result would be for Osborne to announce in his budget that he was embarking on a programme to improve Britain’s public infrastructure. He would, of course, have to borrow money (and swallow a large dish of humble pie) to do so. But by continuing to rely on monetary policy alone he could be missing out on a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
Saipem rights issue leaves banks holding €427m in shares Investment banks, led by JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs, have been left with €427m (£331m) of unwanted shares in Italian oil services company Saipem following the closure of its €3.5bn rights issue, after the largest financing of its type so far this year ran into trouble. Shares in the group continued their vertiginous decline on Friday and trading had to be halted on the Milan exchange, after disclosure late last night that more than 12% of the heavily discounted share issue had been shunned by the group’s disgruntled investors. The shares fell 12% in early trading before climbing back slightly on speculation that the bank advisers were buying stock. The company said the unsold rights shares will be offered on the Milan stock exchange from Monday. The shares, which were offered to all existing shareholders at a 37% discount to the prevailing share price at the start of the deal, are now trading above Saipem’s current share price, which has fallen consistently during the process. The issue struggled despite implicit support from the Italian government in the face of volatile markets, an uncertain future for the company and a falling oil price. One of the worst hit by the slide in Saipem’s share price is Fondo Strategico Italiano, an Italian wealth fund. In October it agreed to buy a 12.5% stake in the group previously owned by the heavily indebted Eni at a price of €8.4 a share in a deal that valued the investment at €400m. The shares have since plummeted to below 30 cents. Crucially the stake sale allowed the energy giant Eni to get Saipem’s €3.2bn of debt off its balance sheet. One unnamed hedge fund manager said on Friday: “Having lost in a few months 60% of the value of their investment before the rights issue, investors have now lost a further 12% of their investment in the new shares on day one of trading. If this was the US, there would be multiple class actions.” In its share sale prospectus, Saipem said it might have to review forecasts set last October - which included a market recovery in 2017 – if oil prices remained under pressure. When quizzed about the revenue forecasts in detail, Saipem’s chief executive Stefano Cao, said: “We need to see what is the amount of food in the kitchen, let’s put it this way. Then we need to be a good cook and serve our clients.”
Young self-harm patients tell of harrowing hospital treatment – report Young self-harm patients have reported being treated for their wounds without anaesthetic, and have told stories of being abused and judged by emergency workers, in the first comprehensive report into self-harm among Australian youth. The report, from Orygen, the National Centre of Excellence in Youth Mental Health, said the number of young people admitted to hospital for self-harm was growing: 9,105 people aged 12 to 24 were hospitalised due to self-harm in 2013-14. But hospitalisation rates for self-harm revealed “only the very tip of the iceberg, as most instances of self-harm do not require medical treatment and many presentations to emergency departments do not result in a hospital admission”, the report said. Among a number of measures, the report wants emergency departments to record the number of patients who come into their care due to self-harm so that health services can better comprehend and respond to the escalating problem. The Calvary Mater in Newcastle, New South Wales, is the only Australian hospital to have collected this kind of data. The head of suicide prevention at Orygen and an author of the report, Dr Jo Robinson, described the suboptimal treatment of young people who have self-harmed as “one of the most striking things to come out of this report”. One patient’s wound was stapled without anaesthetic and the emergency department worker treating said it was because “you did it to yourself”. “They felt like they were being punished and judged harshly,” Robinson said. “Some people can’t see past the young person’s behaviour to their distress. “Another youth said they had been pepper-sprayed in their own home to stop them from harming themselves, even though they were not posing a risk to others. “These are people who are young and frightened, and the abuse and judgment that comes from first responders, doctors and nurses can actually be the worst part.” A patient quoted in the report said: “It’s a big step to talk about self-harm and you don’t want [the clinicians] to take it away from you. [You want them to] just listen and understand.” Robinson said although there were many experienced and compassionate emergency department staff, the few who did not respond well to self-harm patients risked isolating them further. The report, called Looking the Other Way, calls for emergency department clinicians and other staff interacting with those who self-harm to be trained to respond more empathetically to self-harm patients. Training should then be delivered every two years to all local health organisations, police, community-managed mental health services and community and acute mental health clinical services. Australia has contacted the Australasian College of Emergency Medicine for comment. Self-harm refers to a range of behaviours, including poisoning and injury, and causes direct harm to the person exhibiting that behaviour, irrespective of the degree of suicidal intent. “For some, self-harming can have an addictive element, possibly due to the natural release of endorphins in response to pain, and possibly due to a lack of alternative coping strategies,” the report said. “While the reasons behind self-harm are diverse, for the most part the behaviour occurs in response to intense emotional pain and psychological distress.” An emergency physician and the vice-president of the Australian Medical Association, Dr Stephen Parnis, said it was difficult for him to detect whether self-harm rates were increasing because “I see it so frequently, every day I’m working”. “But I take comfort in the fact I’m working as part of a team,” he said. “I know the people in the mental health unit of my hospital, and I have confidence in their compassion and their skill. “We can always look to improve our understanding, assessment and the care we provide, but we have also done a lot to improve the situation, such as having dedicated medical health workers such as psychiatry registrars and psychiatric nurses working in the emergency department.” A senior emergency department consultant, who did not want to be named, told Australia that emergency department doctors “perhaps do not have the sympathy in the acute environment that we would have for someone having a heart attack”. “Psychiatric patients can be perceived as taking up a great deal of time in the acute environment, but part of good management for those patients is talking to them, and in a time-pressured environment it can be very difficult when there are other patients clamouring for attention,” he said. He said often the same mental health patients returned to emergency departments repeatedly because there were inadequate services for them in the community. “The emergency department is a great place to come if you’ve been in a car crash, but it should be a place for people suffering from emotional crashes to come to as well,” he said.
Hello, goodbye: Paul McCartney denied entry to Grammys afterparty It may be the moment when rap officially usurped rock as the most powerful force in music. Paul McCartney, co-founder of the Beatles and the man behind the Skype Love Moji sound effects, was reportedly denied entry to a Grammy after party hosted by the rapper Tyga. Footage of the snub was caught by paparazzi – McCartney is captured on video joking: “How VIP do we gotta get? We need another hit.” Tyga, however, says McCartney simply turned up at the wrong party, and he didn’t know McCartney was there. In the video, obtained by TMZ, McCartney, Beck and the Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins attempted to enter via a back door to a post-Grammys party outside the Argyle, in Hollywood, but the group were refused entry. Tyga says he didn’t know the Beatles musician was at the Argyle, and wrote on Twitter: “Why would I deny @PaulMcCartney? He’s a legend. I don’t control the door. I had no knowledge SIR PAUL was there. I just performed and left.” It is believed that McCartney, Beck and Hawkins were instead meant to be at Hyde Sunset Kitchen & Cocktail, where Mark Ronson was hosting a party for Republic Records.
The Guilty Feminist: is it OK to watch Beauty and the Beast in your wedding dress? If you’re going to start listening to The Guilty Feminist (iTunes), why not dive in at the deep end with the latest episode about periods? Sofie Hagen and Deborah Frances-White’s always excellent podcast has covered a range of topics, from promiscuity to porn, but it reaches new heights in the episode on menstruation. Each instalment opens with an illustration of how Hagen and Frances-White feel they’re not quite good enough at this feminism business. “I’m a feminist, but when my four-year-old nephew insisted on me putting on my wedding dress and watching Beauty and the Beast with him, I also put on my tiara, which he had not requested,” confesses Frances-White. Previous “I’m a feminist, but …” moments have involved singing along to Robin Thicke’s Blurred Lines, fat-shaming Disney characters and reading articles called “Why Cheryl Knows Liam Is The One”. Back to periods, and nothing’s off-limits, from the strange way sanitary products are advertised without the mention of blood (“Are you freaks? Because mine’s, like, liquid blue,” says Hagen) to Frances-White’s Mooncup trial. “I can’t get enough of talking about periods … and it makes people so uncomfortable,” says witty guest Evelyn Mok. It’s distinctly for female ears, which makes it very appealing for men to listen in on too. That’s if they want to hear about Rapunzel fantasies and lunches that don’t pass the Bechdel test. The idioms for periods are laugh-out-loud and original, unless, of course, you’ve ever heard: “The communists are in the fun house” before. If the menstrual chat has lured you in, try the episodes on promiscuity, shoes and not having kids. The one-liners bubble along reliably, but it’s when the Guilty Feminists launch into monologues that the podcast reaches new heights. Frances-White talks with searing honesty about inspiring children without having one, and Hagen nails the moment she knew motherhood wasn’t for her. “When my friend had a child and I went to visit her and I realised that it was just always there,” she admits. “Yes, it never stops,” agrees Frances-White. “You put them to bed and they get up.” If being a Guilty Feminist is wrong (like wondering why a one night stand called Big Mike didn’t call or throwing a strop because a man didn’t sext you back), who wants to be right? If you like this, try: Made of Human with Sofie Hagen.
YouTube network's plan to trademark 'react' sparks backlash An attempt to trademark the word “react” has ended badly for the YouTube network Fine Brothers Entertainment, with former fans unsubscribing from the group’s main channel en masse in protest. The network, which was launched by brothers Benny and Rafi Fine in 2007, is one of the most popular on YouTube, with 14 million subscribers. In 2010, they launched the series Kids React, which involved the pair showing children videos – initially other popular vial videos – and filming their reactions. After becoming a hit, the series led to a huge number of spin-offs, including Teens React, Elders React, YouTubers React (featuring other famous YouTubers, some of whom were filmed watching their own videos) and Adults React. In 2014, the quantity of videos had reached a critical mass, which led Fine Bros to spin them off into their own YouTube channel called React. Having established their dominance over the reaction video format, Fine Bros expanded further. In July 2015, they registered a trademark application for the word React, covering “Entertainment services, namely, providing an ongoing series of programs and webisodes via the internet in the field of observing and interviewing various groups of people”. Last month, they announced React World, a new initiative allowing fans to create their own React videos, licensing the rights to the format from Fine Bros alongside production guidance, format bibles and graphics. At the time, YouTube’s VP of content partnerships, Kelly Merryman, praised the brothers for their innovative business plan. “It’s no surprise that they’ve created a unique way to expand the hugely popular ‘React’ series to YouTube audiences around the globe. This is brand-building in the YouTube age – rising media companies building their brands through collaborations with creators around the world.” The problem for the YouTube community is that reaction videos long predate the React format. The concept was most notoriously popularised around the infamous shock video 2 Girls 1 Cup, released in 2007. That year, reaction videos of unsuspecting people being shown the film went viral on YouTube, including family members, loved ones, and Louis CK. As a result, YouTubers are reacting to Fine Bros themselves – without their permission. They fear that the entire concept could be hijacked by the pair, and Tristan Rayner, of tech news site Techly, catalogued a number of protest reaction videos from other members of the site: The fear isn’t unfounded: the pair have frequently spoken out against others they perceive to be stealing the idea from them. They criticised Ellen Degeneres for running a reaction video on the Ellen Show, tweeting that it was “a shame to not have [the show] reach out to us”. And in March 2015, they said it was a “sad day for the web community” when Buzzfeed ran a reaction video of teens watching 90s music. Unrelated reaction video channels, including Seniors React and British Kids React, were forced to take their videos down, apparently after takedown requests from Fine Bros. In the case of Seniors React, that came just weeks before Fine Bros launched Elders React. The has asked Fine Bros for their reaction to the backlash, but has not received a response.
Connecting everyone to internet 'would add $6.7tn to global economy' Bringing internet access to the 4.1 billion people in the world who do not have it would increase global economic output by $6.7 trillion (£4.6tr), raising 500 million people out of poverty, according to a study by PwC. The report, titled Connecting the world: Ten mechanisms for global inclusion, was prepared for Facebook by PwC’s strategy consultants Strategy&. Getting everyone in the world online is not as tall an order as one might think, according to the company: affordability, rather than infrastructure, is the main barrier to internet adoption in most areas. More than nine-tenths of the the world’s population live in places where the infrastructure exists to get them online, but the majority of them cannot afford to do so. For 66% of the world, a 500MB data plan costs more than 5% of their monthly income, the level the report’s authors describe as “unaffordable”. But some people decide to get online despite the cost – in China, just 22% of people can have a high enough income by that measure to make internet access affordable for them, even though 46% of the population is online. Even if it’s expensive, if there’s enough of a reason for someone to get online, they may look past the cost. By contrast, in most of the developing world, the necessary infrastructure is already in place to get internet to the whole population, if they could afford it. China, Brazil and Indonesia all have 100% of their populations covered by internet-capable infrastructure. While cost reductions sound easier to achieve than total infrastructure creation, that can understate the magnitude of the reductions needed. To get 80% of their populations online, for instance, Ethiopia, Nigeria and the Philippines would all have to see a cut in the price of internet access by well over 90%. Improvement of existing technology, or even simply installing existing technology in developing nations, will suffice to bring about much of this cost reduction. For instance, the vast majority of the world’s mobile spectrum is being used to deliver 2G internet: if it was upgraded to 3G or 4G, the cost of mobile data would plummet. But such an upgrade requires money spent upfront, not only by carriers, but also by users, who must buy (comparatively) more expensive phones. The focus on cost reductions marries with Facebook’s own Internet.org project, which is aimed at partnering carriers in developing nations to give low-cost internet access. It has come under criticism, however, from web luminaries such as Tim Berners-Lee, who dislike Facebook’s approach of limiting the low-cost access to a subsection of the web. So-called zero rating, which lies at the heart of Internet.org’s efforts to expand web access, involves allowing internet users to access some websites, such as Wikipedia and Facebook, without paying for the data they use. But the approach is criticised by net neutrality advocates like Berners-Lee, who said: “I tend to say ‘Just say no.’ In the particular case of somebody who’s offering … something which is branded internet, it’s not internet, then you just say no.” But Jonathan Tate, technology consulting leader at PwC, argues that Facebook’s approach is worth it in the long term. While zero rating provides access to a slimmer version the internet than the full web, he says it’s a crucial stepping stone to full access. “The important thing here is to get things moving,” he added. Facebook’s motivation for paying for Internet.org is partially explained by PwC’s estimates of where the benefits of new access accrue. While most of the economic benefits of new internet access come to those freshly online, the consultancy estimates that content providers such as Facebook stand to gain a $200bn (£138bn) opportunity over the next five years. But new technology will still be needed to achieve total connectivity. The reports’ authors estimate that the last 500 million people to get online won’t be able to rely on piecemeal improvements. Instead, they’ll need new “disruptive technologies” being created by companies like Google, with its Project Loon plan to mount internet access points on balloons, and Facebook, with its solar-powered, laser-armed 4G drone called Aquila.
Barclays backs UK launch of Circle money transfer app An app that uses the technology behind bitcoin, the digital currency, is launching in the UK with the support of Barclays. The Circle app will allow customers to transfer money with messages and emojis, and make currency transfers between pounds and dollars. Euros will be added later. Barclays is providing Circle, which is based in Boston and backed with investments by Goldman Sachs, the infrastructure to operate in the UK. Circle has received an e-money licence from the Financial Conduct Authority, which has granted about 80 such permissions although this is the first one for a company operating a digital currency. The FCA does not regulate bitcoin. Jeremy Allaire, co-founder and chief executive of Circle, said customers would not be buying bitcoin through the app, which allows money transfers without fees. Circle uses bitcoin to facilitate transfers for customers outside its own system. Transactions in bitcoin are registered on a blockchain, a kind of electronic ledger, which Circle uses to make transactions. Customer deposits will be held by Barclays, which is also providing the mechanism to make transfers from any UK bank account in and out of Circle. “For the first time ever, any consumer in the US or UK can instantly send value, without fees, and with the convenience of sending an email or text. US dollars and pound sterling are becoming more digital and global,” said Allaire. Circle launched in the US last year although Allaire refused to disclose any information about the number of customers using the service. The Bank of England has warned that the digital currency could pose a threat to financial stability, although one of its deputy governors, Ben Broadbent, has also said Threadneedle Street could become the hub for such digital currencies. The government – which wants to make the UK a centre for innovation in financial technology, known as FinTech – took credit for the launch of Circle. Harriett Baldwin, economic secretary to the Treasury, said: “Circle’s decision to launch in the UK and the firm’s new partnership with Barclays are major milestones. Together they prove our decision to introduce the most progressive, forward-looking regulatory regime is paying off and cements our status as the world’s FinTech capital.” Barclays said: “We can confirm that Barclays Corporate Banking has been chosen as a financial partner by Circle, and we support the exploration of positive uses of blockchain that can benefit consumers and society.”
Ignored by the authorities, emboldened by Brexit, Europe’s far right is surging The result of Britain’s referendum on EU membership has strengthened far-right activism across Europe. In the UK there have been reports of public racist abuse, while far-right-leaning parties across the continent have taken advantage of the situation to call for their own referendums. There is a danger that an already polarised political environment will become even more broken with some individuals choosing a path to violence in response. Extreme rightwing terrorism has been a growing problem in Europe for some time. A recent study by a consortium led by the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) highlighted that when looking at the phenomenon of “lone actor” terrorism in particular (terrorist acts conducted by individuals without any clear direction from an outside group), the extreme right wing was responsible for as many as Islamist extremists. And not all were random one-off killers – Anders Breivik was able to butcher 77 people in a murderous rampage in Norway. What was particularly worrying was the fact that these individuals sat at the far end of a spectrum of extremists that included elements closer to the mainstream. In the runup to conducting his act of terrorism, Breivik claimed to have attended protests organised by the English Defence League (EDL), a group he admired for its stand against what he perceived as invading Muslim hordes in Europe. Founded in the UK in response to a perceived refusal by authorities to clamp down on the noisy extremist group al-Muhajiroun, the EDL became a grab bag of far-right, anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant protesters who would take to the streets. It spawned imitators in continental Europe. The emergence of the EDL, however, came at a moment when more established European nationalist groups such as Front National in France, the British National party (BNP) or the Austrian Freedom party, all became prominent in the public conversation. Far-right nationalist xenophobic sentiment has always been a part of the European conversation, but the strengthening of these groups highlighted how much the ideas they represented had started to slip into the political mainstream, largely off the back of anger with the usual parties of power. But while the far right tried to move itself into the mainstream, its violent edge remained, and as the European debate on immigration and Muslims has become more pronounced, there has been a growth in incidents of extreme rightwing violence. The response from security forces has been mixed. While we have seen an apparent increase in extreme rightwing violence, there has been less attention paid to it by authorities. In the RUSI-led research, a particularly striking finding was that in about 40% of cases of far-right extremists, they were uncovered by chance – the individual managed to blow himself up or was discovered while authorities conducted another investigation. By contrast, around 80% of violent Islamist lone actors were discovered in intelligence-led operations – in other words, the authorities were looking for them. But it is easy to understand why the extreme right wing gets overlooked. Most examples are fairly shambolic lonesome individuals whose efforts to launch terrorist plots seem amateurish at best. But they are still attempting to kill fellow citizens to advance a political ideology. And in the case of lone actors, they are at least as lethal as their violent Islamist counterparts – in our dataset of 120 cases, even when one removed Breivik as an outlier, the extreme right wing was as lethal as violent Islamists. The concern from this phenomenon must now be twofold. On the one hand, the increasing mainstreaming of a xenophobic anti-immigrant narrative will feed the very “clash of civilisations” narrative that groups such as al-Qaida and Isis seek to foster – suggesting that there is a conflict between Islam and the west which they are at the heart of. It will only strengthen this sense and draw people towards them. But there is also the danger of frustrated expectations. The reality is that notwithstanding a rise in anti-immigrant feeling in Europe, the migrants will still come. Attracted by the opportunity and prosperity they see in Europe (which is often a huge improvement on the environment they came from), they will come to seek low-paying jobs – jobs that western economies will still need to fill and are not taken by locals, which offer better prospects than where they came from. This economic dynamic means that people will not necessarily notice a dramatic change in their material environment. Foreigners will continue to come and will continue to be a presence around them – providing a community to blame when individual economic situations do not change or feel like they are getting worse. Here lies one of the more dangerous sides of this new European political environment. A polarised society which does not appear to materially change – frustrating those who feel like they have expressed their political will only to find it unanswered. The result, unless handled properly by the mainstream political community, is a potential for violence that has already reared its head brutally on the European continent, and unless carefully checked will do so again.
How Britain plans to lead the global science race to treat dementia Early next year, Professor Bart De Strooper will sit down in an empty office in University College London and start to plan a project that aims to revolutionise our understanding and treatment of dementia. Dozens of leading researchers will be appointed to his £250m project which has been set up to create a national network of dementia research centres – with UCL at its hub. The establishment of the UK Dementia Research Institute – which was announced last week – follows the pledge, made in 2012 by former prime minister David Cameron, to tackle the disease at a national level and comes as evidence points to its increasing impact on the nation. Earlier this year, it was disclosed that dementia is now the leading cause of death in England and Wales. At the same time, pharmaceutical companies have reported poor results from trials of drugs designed to slow down the progress of Alzheimer’s disease, the most common form of dementia. “Humans have truly wonderful brains that can cope with terrible diseases like Alzheimer’s for decades and can find all sorts of ways to get around defects that are growing inside,” said De Strooper, who is currently based at the University of Leuven in Belgium. “Eventually individuals succumb to the condition and start to display memory loss and other symptoms – but usually only after decades have passed and their brains have gone through considerable changes. This makes it very difficult to treat the disease. That is the challenge that we need to tackle.” Current understanding of Alzheimer’s suggests the disease is triggered when beta amyloid, a protein in nerve cell membranes, starts to clump together. Slowly the brain undergoes metabolic changes as amyloid clumping continues. In particular, a protein known as tau, which is involved in memory storage, is affected. It starts to form tangles inside the brain’s neurons and these die off. Eventually, symptoms – such as severe memory loss – manifest themselves. To date, most attempts at drug interventions have focused on medicines that could prevent beta amyloid from forming clumps, the most recent being Solanezumab, developed by the pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly. However, results of clinical trials of the drug – revealed last month – indicated that it had no significant effect on the thinking abilities of people with mild Alzheimer’s. Solanezumab had also failed in people with more advanced versions of the disease in earlier trials. This double failure has led some scientists to argue that amyloid clumping is not a cause of the disease but is merely a symptom. By targeting it, scientists are wasting time, it is argued. Professor John Hardy, a geneticist based at UCL – who has played a key role in setting up the college’s Dementia Research Institute – does not agree. “All the evidence we have from families affected by early onset dementia indicates that the disease begins with the deposition of amyloid plaques in the brain,” he said. “The trouble is that this buildup starts 15 to 20 years before dementia’s symptoms appear. The drugs we have developed so far offer treatments that are, in effect, too little and too late.” Hardy drew a parallel between cholesterol buildup in blood vessels that eventually leads to cardiac disease and the buildup of amyloid plaques in the brain and the onset of Alzheimer’s. “Unfortunately, we have no equivalent of a cholesterol test to assess how much amyloid is clumping in a person’s brain,” he added. “However, that could change in the near future.” Recent research has pinpointed a group of around 20 to 30 genes that are involved in predisposing individuals to Alzheimer’s. These genes come in different variants. Some variants of a gene predispose individuals to dementia more than other variants of that gene. If a person inherits a package of genes made up of variants that particularly predispose to dementia, they are very likely to develop Alzheimer’s. “We are now within five years of developing a chip that will be able to tell – from a blood test – whether a person is likely to have amyloid plaques forming inside their brains in middle age,” added Hardy. “This would then be followed up by a brain scan to confirm if this is true or not.” This would be dementia’s equivalent of a cholesterol test. The problem is that there is, as yet, no equivalent of drugs which would halt this amyloid buildup in a way that parallels the use of statins to block buildups of cholesterol, once detected, and so head off cardiac illness. For their part, researchers argue that the use of drugs like Solanezumab – although seemingly ineffective on patients in whom amyloid plaques have become established – could be far more effective in the early stage of the condition. Many other issues complicate our understanding of dementia, however. “A good example is provided by the immune system,” said David Reynolds, chief scientific officer of Alzheimer’s Research UK. “There is a lot of evidence now that the immune system is involved in the development of Alzheimer’s after beta amyloid clumps appear.” However, the nature of that immune response is still not fully understood. “We do not know whether the immune system tends to overreact – as with conditions like rheumatoid arthritis in which the body’s own tissue is attacked by its own immune defences – or react weakly and allow amyloid clumps to develop when they could be stopped,” added Reynolds. “Certainly it would be unwise to wade in with drugs until we know exactly what it is we want to achieve.” And this is where the distributed nature of the Dementia Research Institute network could prove important. Based in different university cities (Edinburgh, Oxford and Cambridge are all candidates for units), these outlying centres will focus on different aspects of the disease: environmental factors, care of dementia patients – and immunology. “The creation and direction of these centres will depend on existing expertise at that university,” added Reynolds. “A centre that focuses on immunology and dementia would be particularly useful in finding new ways to tackle the condition.” The Dementia Research Institute network is to be supported, over the next 10 years, by £150m funding from the Medical Research Council – with further inputs of £50m each being made by Alzheimer’s Research UK and by the Alzheimer’s Society. This commitment marks a significant increase in dementia research in the UK, which had already raised its annual funding from £50m in 2008 to £90m in 2012 and is now a world leader in the field. “It is good news but we need to put it in perspective,” said James Pickett, of the Alzheimer’s Society. “In 2012 we spent more than £500m on cancer research; there are five times more researchers working on cancer in the UK; while the number of clinical trials of dementia drugs is less than 1% of those of cancer drugs.” At the same time, the need for some form of treatment to tackle dementia is becoming increasingly urgent. More and more people are living to their 80s and 90s when their chances of getting dementia increase markedly. There are currently 850,000 people with dementia in the UK, a figure that will rise to one million by 2025 and two million by 2051. “We are going to have to be very nuanced in understanding all the risk factors involved in dementia – and in appreciating why factors like education and general health provide some protection against its onset,” said Professor Carol Brayne, of Cambridge. “That is going to be the strength of the institute. It offers us the opportunity, for the first time, to follow so many different avenues and approaches to dealing with and understanding the dementia.” GROWING THREAT • ■ Dementia overtook heart disease as the leading cause of death in England and Wales last year. More than 61,000 people died of the condition in 2015, 11.6% of all recorded deaths. • ■ The Office for National Statistics said the increase had occurred because people were living for longer while deaths from other causes, including heart disease, had gone down. In addition, doctors are now better at diagnosing dementia, and it is appearing more often on death certificates. • ■ The bulk of dementia deaths last year were among women: 41,283, compared to 20,403 in men. • ■ According to the Alzheimer’s Society, dementia is the only one of the top 10 causes of death that we cannot prevent or even slow down. • ■ The leading cause of dementia is Alzheimer’s disease, which accounts for 62% of all cases in the UK: 520,000 of the 850,000 people living with dementia in the UK today. Other forms of the disease include vascular dementia and Lewy Body dementia. ■ • Dementia costs the UK economy approximately £26bn per year, according to the Alzheimer’s Society. • ■ If a drug could be found to slow cognitive decline in dementia, that would delay the need for paid care and reduce the financial burden on families, the NHS and social care.
UK sets ambitious new 2030s carbon target The UK has announced an ambitious new carbon target for the early 2030s, allaying fears that the climate goal would be a casualty of the EU referendum. Amber Rudd accepted the advice of the government’s statutory climate advisers, setting a target on Thursday of reducing carbon emissions 57% by 2030 on 1990 levels. The legally binding “fifth carbon budget” laid in parliament today is tougher than the carbon emissions target the UK is signed up to as part of the European Union, which requires a 40% cut by 2030 on 1990 levels. The commitment should ease anxieties in the green energy sector that last week’s leave vote would water down the UK’s leadership on climate change, or that the decision to approve the budget would be left to the next prime minister. John Sauven, Greenpeace UK director, said: “The government has kept its word to adopt this important target to limit the UK’s carbon emissions.” Business groups said the move was an important step and energy companies said they welcomed the clarity it provided. The renewable energy industry said the budget sent a “clear signal”, a sentiment echoed by the the manufacturers’ organisation, the EEF. Barry Gardiner, Labour’s newly appointed shadow energy and climate secretary, said: “I recognise the difficulties that the energy secretary has faced from many of her colleagues in simply securing this agreement, particularly in the aftermath of the vote to leave the EU.” But he added the government must now bring forward the publication of its plan to bring down emissions, “to reassure investors, plug capacity gaps and keep bills down”. The Committee on Climate Change, which advised on the level of cuts needed, has previously written to ministers to warn that there are not yet the policies in place to meet the target. Sauven said: “It’s no good having numbers on spreadsheets without the delivery to match. The absence of clear government plans and support for action on renewable energy, homes, cars, agriculture and planes shows how far the rhetoric of climate action has drifted from anything real.” Tom Burke, chair of the environmental thinktank E3G, welcomed the budget but said it meant new policies were needed: “It will mean that the government will have to double down on a new cost-effective energy strategy which reduces reliance on imported gas. This means it must make energy efficiency an infrastructure priority to slash energy demand in UK homes by half.” The fifth carbon budget was set as provisional data released on Thursday showed total greenhouse gas emissions were down 6.2% for the year to Q1 2016. Emissions last year fell as coal use plummeted. On Wednesday, Rudd said that the UK’s commitment to tackling global warming was undiminished by last week’s leave vote, but action had been made harder by Brexit. Her energy minister, Andrea Leadsom, a prominent Leave campaigner, also said the UK was committed to the Climate Change Act, the law which mandates today’s carbon budget. Simon Bullock, Friends of the Earth senior climate campaigner, said: “After the huge confusion following the Brexit vote, we welcome the certainty this decision [the fifth carbon budget] gives.” The target covers reductions between 2028 and 2032, and means no more than 1,725m metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (MtCO2e) can be emitted during that period. In 2015, the UK emitted 497 MtCO2e. The target is part of a series of budgets designed to ensure the UK meets the Act’s commitment of bringing emissions down 80% by 2050. MPs on the energy and climate change select committee and a group of 20 Tory MPs were among the many businesses and green groups who have called on minister to accept the steep reduction in emissions.
Premier League launches new ‘visual identity’ for 2016-17 season There may be an unfamiliar look to this season’s Premier League table but the division’s appearance will take on another new sheen from the 2016-17 campaign onwards. The league unveiled a new “visual identity” on Tuesday morning, including a badge that marks a considerable departure from the current emblem, a version of which has always been in place since its inception in 1992. The badge, a bold image that retains elements of the “lion” icon synonymous with England’s top flight, will be launched to tie in with the league’s first season without a title sponsor. Currently known as the Barclays Premier League, it will drop any form of prefix from next season and rely on alternative sponsorship elements. It is anticipated that the new badge, described by the league as “flexible in digital and broadcast formats”, will be at the vanguard of a new phase of positioning by the organisation. The Premier League’s managing director, Richard Masters, said: “From next season we will move away from title sponsorship and the competition will be known simply as the Premier League, a decision which provided the opportunity to consider how we wanted to present ourselves as an organisation and competition. “We are very pleased with the outcome: a visual identity which is relevant, modern and flexible that will help us celebrate everyone that makes the Premier League. We look forward to sharing more details of our new positioning in the coming months.” Alongside the new identity the league released a video, whose subtitles note that “We all have a part to play … every fan … every player … everyone.” The first of those groups has been in the news of late, with Liverpool supporters prominent among those who feel that rising ticket prices are limiting the part they can in fact play in the division’s future.
From ‘the bulldog’ to ‘the next Busquets’: 10 Premier League signings to watch 1) Lewis Cook: Leeds to Bournemouth The 19-year-old Football League young player of the year, arguably the brightest rising star in the Championship, signed a four-year deal with Bournemouth for an initial £6m, potentially rising to £10m. A central midfielder who, as the Leeds’s best player, gave even the most cynical, dejected fans at Elland Road reasons for hope last season, is a product of the Yorkshire club’s academy, where he followed Fabian Delph, now at Manchester City, off the production line. Cook, who is from York and had been tracked by Eddie Howe, Bournemouth’s manager, for some time made 47 appearances in all competitions for Leeds last season and is an England Under-19 international. He is 5ft 9in and lacks scintillating pace but is wonderfully composed on the ball and possesses the happy knack of making things happen. Can also operate in a right-sided attacking midfield role. Elegant with the ball at his feet, Cook looks very much a Howe player. 2) Marten de Roon: Atalanta to Middlesbrough Aitor Karanka has invested around £12m in the Dutch enforcer from Atalanta, who during his debut season in Italy made more tackles than any other Serie A midfielder. With many such interceptions of the wince-inducing variety the 25-year-old is likely to collect his fair share of yellow cards while adding some of the power and physical presence Boro arguably lack in the holding midfield roles. Expect one of last season’s two anchors, Grant Leadbitter and Adam Clayton, to lose their place. It was a lot to pay for someone who is not yet a full international but Italian fans did not dub De Roon “the bulldog”, “the wave-breaker” and “the terrier” for nothing. 3) Ramadan Sobhi: Al Ahly to Stoke City The 19-year-old Egypt left winger is a wizard of the dribble blessed with pace, vision, technique and a varied passing range. On swapping his native Cairo and life with the Egyptian champions for the Potteries, Sobhi was given a most practical leaving present: an umbrella. The £6m recruit promises to prove a key element in Stoke’s transition from the pragmatists of Tony Pulis’s day to the more subtly sophisticated model being constructed on Mark Hughes’s watch. Martin Jol, Al Ahly’s manager, has no doubt that the winger, widely regarded as the hottest young talent in African football, possesses the ability to make a serious impact on the Premier League. Sobhi broke into Al Ahly’s first team as a 16-year-old, earning full international honours a year later. 4) Joël Matip: Schalke to Liverpool The Germany-born Cameroon centre-half – although Matip can also operate as a defensive midfielder – joins Liverpool on a free transfer determined to prove the answer to the Anfield club’s longstanding defensive vulnerability. The 24-year-old is 6ft 4in and, in recent seasons, has established himself as one of the most admired central defenders in the Bundesliga. Jürgen Klopp knows all about his tackling ability, pace and mobility. Comfortable on the ball, Matip also possesses a calm temperament, his long fuse ensuring he collected only two yellow cards and one red during his top-level career in Germany. A cousin of the former Middlesbrough forward Joseph-Désiré Job, Matip is confident he can establish himself as one of Klopp’s most important players. 5) Andros Townsend: Newcastle United to Crystal Palace By activating the £13m release clause in Townsend’s Newcastle contract, Crystal Palace’s Alan Pardew looks to have secured excellent value for money. In a summer when less gifted players are changing hands for more than twice that amount, Palace have gained a two-footed winger who enjoys life on the left wing but remains very comfortable on the right flank. Quick, direct and an excellent crosser of the ball and set-piece despatcher, the 25-year-old also has the incentive of wanting to regain his England place in time for Russa 2018. With Sam Allardyce a fan, the recent bumpy patch in Townsend’s career that saw him sidelined by Tottenham following a fall-out with Maurcio Pochettino and then relegated with Newcastle looks to be over. Despite his ultimate failure to keep the Tyneside club out of the Championship last season, Townsend impressed greatly once Rafael Benítez succeeded Steve McClaren at St James’ Park. Had Roy Hodgson’s England been a genuine meritocracy he would surely have gone to Euro 2016. 6) Johann Berg Gudmundsson: Charlton Athletic to Burnley Part of the Iceland side that knocked England out of Euro 2016, the winger represented a rare bright light in south London as Charlton were relegated from the Championship last season. Sean Dyche, Burnley’s manager, had been tracking the 25-year-old well before Gudmundsson started every game during Iceland’s stunning European Championship sojourn and is delighted to have paid only £2.5m. Despite Charlton’s travails, he created 11 Championship goals last term – making him the second tier’s joint-top assist maker – and is unlikely to be perturbed by the chill Pennine winds blowing in from the moors above Burnley. Born in Reykjavik, Gudmundsson moved to England as a teenager, where he had stints in the youth development systems at Chelsea and Fulham. A brief spell in the Netherlands, with AZ Alkmaar, followed before the switch to Charlton. 7) Ahmed Musa: CSKA Moscow to Leicester The holder of 58 Nigeria caps at the age of 23, the forward has been long coveted by Claudio Ranieri, who has finally got him for £16.6m. Musa’s change of pace is almost certainly speedier than that of Jamie Vardy and in some respects he is similar to his new club-mate. Musa’s rapid acceleration makes him particularly dangerous when operating off the shoulder of the last defender and he is rarely outstripped in a one-against-one sprint. Unlike Vardy, he is as comfortable on the left flank as in a central striking role but remains rather more raw in front of goal than the England forward. Although 18 goals in 44 appearances for CSKA Moscow last season was far from shabby, Ranieri will hope to see a little more composure at times from a player who also contributes his fair share of assists. Only time will tell whether Musa and Vardy will complement each other but that searing pace can only enhance Leicester’s counterattacking style. 8) Matt Phillips: QPR to West Brom The winger, captured for £5m, has impressed everyone at The Hawthorns during pre-season, confirming a general impression that he was far too good for the Championship. Sometimes underrated, the 25-year-old possesses both pace – as a junior athlete he specialised in the 100m – and close control. Moreover, at 6ft 1in he is capable of overpowering full-backs. Although Phillips has slotted into the right wing position vacated after Stéphane Sessègnon’s release, Tony Pulis may also use him in a more central attacking role, thereby plugging West Brom’s striker shortage. The Scotland international scored eight times for QPR last season and can finish incisively but Hawthorns regulars would probably prefer to see him concentrating on his dribbling and crossing. Many observers suspect Pulis’s side will become embroiled in this season’s relegation scrap but Phillips’s arrival at least allows West Brom fans to dream of something a little better. 9) Isaac Success: Granada to Watford At £12.5m the boy from Benin City in Nigeria has become Watford’s record signing. Walter Mazzarri, the latest manager at Vicarage Road, has high hopes for a quick, strong, direct striker who scored 37 goals in 63 appearances for Granada and is blessed with sufficient versatility to be comfortable on both wings. Having helped the Spanish side narrowly avoid relegation from La Liga last season, the 20-year-old is looking forward to playing alongside Odion Ighalo and company. “Yes, the Watford fans will want to see success,” he joked shortly after signing. “But I’m Success.” A headline writer’s dream. 10) Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg: Bayern Munich to Southampton Claude Puel’s marquee £12.8m midfield signing, the Dane has long been regarded among the hottest prospective talents in Europe and was expected to flourish under Pep Guardiola at Bayern Munich. Instead Hojbjerg – whose progress faltered following the death of his father – fell out with the now Manchester City manager and was loaned to first Augsburg and then Schalke. Primarily a defensive midfielder, the 21-year-old from Copenhagen can also operate in a box-to-box role and as a wing-back. In happier days Guardiola hyped him as “the next Sergio Busquets” and raved about the accomplished passing and intelligent reading of the game that the Catalan felt equipped Hojbjerg to become the perfect “pivote”. Bayern’s unfulfilled talent could prove Puel’s ace card.
The view on the big banks: shake them up, please Before plunging into the latest official proposals to overhaul Britain’s banks, let us review some facts that none of the high-street names are likely to put on their billboards. In 1983, 90% of Britons considered the banks “well run”; by 2012 a mere 19% did. That, say the researchers behind British Social Attitudes, is “probably the most dramatic change of attitude” registered in 30 years of their surveys. The four largest banks get some of the lowest scores for customer satisfaction. The latest Which? survey ranks First Direct at 82%, even while Royal Bank of Scotland gets 52%. Yet despite a flood of new competitors over the past decade – from Tesco Bank to mobile-only names such as Atom – the big four have collectively lost less than 5% market share. By the way, current accounts and small business are worth £14bn a year to the big four. What does all that tell us? That the current account and small business market in banking is huge – and very lucrative, with the fees on unauthorised personal overdrafts alone bringing in well over £1bn a year. And that the market isn’t working. In a competitive market, customers move from bad to good and the bad either raise their game or go out of business. In our banking market, only 3% of customers change their accounts in any one year – as against 13% of households who switch their gas supplier. This is the sluggish market that the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) set out to stir up on Tuesday, with a raft of proposals to bring in more transparency and competition. None of them look likely to do much harm – then again, they do not look likely to do much at all. The most eloquent verdict on the proposals came from the market. Had the competition watchdog lived up to its name and brought in more actual competition, shares in Lloyds and RBS – the behemoths of British banking – should have been on the floor. Instead, they went up. And why not? Just look at the CMA’s proposals. It demands a cap on overdraft fees, but allows the banks to determine what that cap should be – a more lax regime than in payday lending. “To transform the market” the CMA wants banks “to provide their customers with the right information”. Behold the watchdog with fangs bared, bravely opposing the dissemination of the wrong information. The only reason customers enjoy free current accounts (if they’re in the black) is because the big banks cross-subsidise them through fees and charges elsewhere. If you want a fiercely-competitive market with lots of “challenger banks”, allowing big hidden subsidies is a shortcut to an oligopoly. No would-be competitor can afford to compete. Wisely calculating that the public won’t shell out for current accounts, the CMA needed to regulate charges and fees. Instead it has taken two years to come up with a series of forgettable proposals. This is the 11th review of banking competition in less than 20 years. It will leave as big a mark as its predecessors, which is to say none. This week the government announced plans to shake up the university market yet again – in tuition fees and teaching standards and to welcome in a whole new wave of competitors. And that is an area less in need of change than personal banking. Higher education is a sector in which Britain leads the world. Banking is not. On this showing, that will not change.
John Cryan: the Yorkshireman at the heart of Deutsche When John Cryan was named chief executive of Deutsche Bank last June, its shares leapt 8% on hopes that the Briton could revive the fortunes of the German institution. But the Yorkshireman’s honeymoon period has been very short - the bank’s shares have plunged 50% since he took charge. The 55-year-old, a fluent German speaker, earned his reputation as a straight-talking, deal-making banker and corporate financier in a three-decade career in the City and at UBS. Cryan was at the centre of many of the big deals between banks and other financial firms, including the now infamous one between Royal Bank of Scotland and ABN Amro. According to one account, Cryan, who was working for the Dutch bank, warned RBS boss Fred Goodwin that the deal could backfire on the Scottish institution. Educated at Cambridge and married to an American lawyer, Cryan trained as an accountant at Arthur Andersen before joining the City broking firm SG Warburg in 1987. Warburg was later taken over by UBS. When the banking crisis was threatening the future of UBS, Cryan was appointed finance director and helped negotiate the government rescue of the Swiss bank. He left UBS in 2011, joining Singaporean investment firm Temasek and taking a seat on the board of Deutsche Bank before he was elevated to chief executive. Cryan has been a harsh critic of bankers’ pay – saying they earned too much for simply turning up to work to handle other people’s money. He added it was doubtful whether bankers – including himself – worked any harder when they were offered huge bonuses: “I have no idea why I was offered a contract with a bonus in it,” he said, “because I promise you I will not work any harder or any less hard ... because someone is going to pay me more or less.”
Next Generation 2016: who did we miss? The esteemed football magazine World Soccer compiled a list of “the 50 most exciting teenagers on the planet” in 2007. A considerable number of those players – Juan Mata, Mesut Özil, Karim Benzema, Ivan Rakitić, Sergio Agüero and Gareth Bale – went on to earn millions, win the sport’s biggest prizes and find global stardom. Others – Giovani Dos Santos, Bojan Krkic and Gregory Van Der Wiel – carved out long, distinguished careers in the game. And a fair few of them – Sadick Adams, Dumitru Copil, Gerardo Bruna, Andrea Russotto, Nour Hadhria – were rarely as famous again. One of them, Breno Borges, was praised for his ability to “stride forward with the air of a Beckenbauer” but ended up in prison after he tried to burn down his own house. Not much has changed in the last decade. Making predictions about teenage footballers remains a tricky business but for the last three years – 2014, 2015 and 2016 – we have assembled a group of experts to select the best young talents at Premier League clubs and academies around the world. A couple of the players chosen in 2014 have already made it on the big stage – Marcus Rashford has won the FA Cup, scored for England and taken his captain’s place at Manchester United, while Ousmane Dembélé has become a France international and earned a €15m move to Borussia Dortmund – but others are still developing and many more will never fulfil the potential we saw in them. In the fullness of time we’ll discover how far these teenagers go but, while we’re waiting, why not join us in the fun of making predictions? Which young players have we missed from our lists – and who will go the furthest in the next decade?
Trump and Clinton to square off at final presidential debate Las Vegas is due to witness its most surreal showdown since Mike Tyson repeatedly bit Evander Holyfield’s ear in the middle of a heavyweight boxing match, as Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton square off in the third and final debate before the presidential election. For Trump, Wednesday night’s debate may be the last opportunity to salvage the dwindling support that in recent weeks has seemingly placed the election increasingly out of the Republican nominee’s reach. The encounter at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, comes as both campaigns are beset by controversy in the final stretch of the most unusual presidential campaign in modern history. Clinton has been forced to contend with the illegal hacking of her campaign chairman’s emails, leaked in tranches by WikiLeaks in what the US government has described as the work of Russian intelligence. Trump has faced even greater obstacles, stemming from an unearthed tape in which he boasted of groping women without their consent that prompted a number of women to come forward with accusations of sexual assault against the real estate mogul over a nearly three-decade period. The debate, moderated by Fox News’ Chris Wallace, will focus on six topics: debt and entitlements, immigration, economy, the supreme court, foreign hotspots and fitness to be president. But as in the last two debates between Trump and Clinton, policy is expected to take a back seat to the unpredictable behaviour associated with Trump. The former reality TV star, who has spent the past week darkly warning of voter fraud, has one more chance to try to staunch his leaking support in the polls. Polling aggregator Real Clear Politics shows Clinton with an average lead of almost seven points in recent polls, a lead comparable to that of Barack Obama over John McCain at a similar point in the 2008 election. Even deeply Republican states such as Alaska, Utah and Texas are within the margin of error in some surveys and the Clinton campaign, buoyed by its momentum, is now investing in conservative battlegrounds that include Arizona, Indiana and Missouri. Clinton has maintained a tradition of burying herself in debate preparation in recent days, thus keeping a lighter footprint on the campaign trail. Trump, by contrast, has been notoriously averse to readying himself for the debates and has suffered through two below par performances. Even so, the Republican nominee mocked Clinton at a Colorado rally on Tuesday as “resting”. “It’s lying down and going to sleep,” Trump said, taking another veiled jab at Clinton’s health despite records disclosed by the former secretary of state last month showing no significant medical issues. Clinton’s campaign said her focus would remain on policy in the debate regardless of Trump’s efforts to rattle her with criticisms intended for a base that routinely engages in chants of “Lock her up” at his rallies. “What we have seen is that when she does do that, the character of Hillary Clinton that’s revealed to voters is someone that is quite capable of standing up to him and defending American values and reaffirming them,” Jennifer Palmieri, a spokeswoman for Clinton’s campaign, told reporters on Tuesday. “We know that [Trump] thought that strategy of scorched earth would depress our vote but, if anything, we have found that it’s helped to motivate our voters.” Trump, having shown himself to be lacking in substance on the issues, will have to rely on his improvisational style to carry him through the 90-minute encounter. But Wednesday night will mark the first time Trump will be questioned before a national audience of this scale about the sexual assault allegations against him, as well as his baseless claims of voter fraud to assert that the election is “rigged”. Several high-profile Republicans have refuted Trump’s claim of illicit activity at the ballot box. Palmieri did not say if Clinton would address the matter at the debate, stating instead that the campaign was “confident in the election”. “We understand the strategy that he is trying to do to explain his loss and also to try to deter voters,” she said, “[but] we believe that it’s going to be easier to vote than ever before.” While most of those on the Las Vegas Strip were busy milling between slot machines and Blackjack tables on the eve of the debate, many acknowledged the gambling would come to a halt on Wednesday evening. The election, several people said, was simply too captivating. Javier Solano, of Yuma, Arizona, said he was on holiday but would not miss the final event. “I don’t know what to expect from Trump,” he said, “but he isn’t a candidate fit to be president.” Solano, who said he was voting for Clinton, had some advice for Trump’s supporters: “You can’t just be angry. You have to make the right choice, thinking not just about what affects you but what affects everyone.” Joe Jessome, of Ontario, Canada, was in town for a conference but also planned to watch the debate. Jessome, who said his American wife and two children planned to cast their ballots for Trump, expects a more “balanced” debate under the helm of Fox News. “I think the moderators are really biased toward the Democrats and Hillary Clinton,” he said. “[Although] Donald Trump speaks before he thinks a lot of the time and made lewd comments 11 years ago … it’s more about the economy and what’s going on in the world. Hillary Clinton, as far as I’m concerned, is ‘Crooked Hillary’.” Brandon Davis, a Trump supporter from California, agreed. “Everyone’s been against him from the beginning,” he said, while noting Clinton had “a lot of baggage”. While the debates have been marked by a bitterness bordering on contempt, Clinton and Trump will meet again at a decidedly more low-key venue on Thursday. Both candidates are scheduled to attend the Alfred E Smith dinner, an annual fundraiser for Catholic charities in New York, less than 24 hours after they share the debate stage. The two will sit on either side of Cardinal Timothy Dolan at the white tie gala.
Why are mattress companies acting like tech startups? If you’ve glanced at the ads for Simba, Eve or Casper, you’d be forgiven for thinking they were flogging some kind of new gadget. They have the aesthetic of tech startups everywhere, tout the research and development that went into their sparkly new products, and offer eye-catching, venture capital-funded deals. If you look more closely, however, you’ll see they’re actually selling mattresses. But why would companies selling foam, springs and fabric be posturing as Silicon Valley brands? The answer is mattress-selling has changed. At the heart of the ad battle is a three-way fight between companies all promising to use the latest technology to both produce and sell you a mattress. British startups Simba and Eve are taking on each other, as well as the better-funded American competitor Casper, in a war of words, technology, and a lot of billboards. To be clear, these companies aren’t selling “smart mattresses”. Those exist, made by companies like ReST and Sleep Number, and are your classic internet of things devices that can record things like your sleep patterns and automatically adjust the firmness of the mattress to help you get a better night. Instead, the mattresses sold by these new startups are, well, mattresses. Nonetheless, Jas Bagniewski, the chief executive of Eve, says his firm sees itself as a technology company. “Whether you think of the technology in the website, the technology used to compress the mattresses for postage, or the technology of the ERP [enterprise resource planning] system that links the warehousing to the stock control,” he says. He likens it to Amazon a decade ago, or his previous employer, the e-commerce site Zolando: just selling things online doesn’t necessarily make you a tech firm, but if you do it with a sufficiently innovative approach, you can be one, even if what you sell isn’t technology itself. Bagniewski concedes that it’s “a stretch” to call Eve’s mattresses “technology”. “Some people would say yes, some would say no. A lot of technology goes in to developing the product. But is a Nike shoe technology? Is Gore-Tex?” James Cox, the founder and chief executive of Simba Sleep, says he “definitely” sees his company as a technology firm. “The mattress market was one of the last venues that hadn’t seen any change. The simple direct-to-consumer offerings that the likes of Casper came up with were clever, but more from the marketing than the product side.” As for Casper itself – no surprises: “Casper is indeed a technology company,” the company’s co-founder Constantin Eis tells me. “We have an army of web developers that allowed us to build and scale software to enable one of the fastest growing brands of all time. Our tech hardware is our sleep product line. The engineering team at Casper is based in San Francisco, where they researched, designed, prototyped, and iterated on the mattress, pillow, and sheets.” Not to be outdone, Cox says Simba’s mattress is “the most advanced in the world”, not only in terms of actually sleeping in it, but also in how it’s built from the ground up to be sold online and posted to customers: even the springs are slightly conical, so that they can be compressed fully flat. “We’re the only ones that have truly used technology to create a superior product,” says Cox. Nonetheless … it’s still foam and springs and fabric. Three types of foam, and conical springs, but still: does making really fancy foam and springs turn you into a technology company? Perhaps not. Perhaps the link isn’t really in the product, or even the way the product is sold, but the way the company is run. “We’re a tech-enabled business,” says Cox: “We acquire clients in the most strategic way possible, and we acquire them for the least amount of money.” That means things like heavily targeted Facebook adverts, smart lead generation for sales and canny investment in growth. Indeed, the attitude to growth is perhaps the single biggest thing that unites all three companies against the Warren Evanses of the world. All describe, in different forms, what’s come to be known as “growth hacking” as core to their approach: rapid experimentation in marketing and development with the aim of quickly identifying and putting into practice methods to build their business. For Eve, that included offering a chunk of its company directly to Channel 4, leading to its first TV adverts; for Casper, branching out from mattresses to similarly fancy pillows and sheets; for Simba, a smart manufacturing line that lets it identify faults from returned mattresses and monitor across batches for similar problems. And behind that attitude to growth is another similarity: the money. All three companies are structured more like a high-growth tech startup than a staid physical goods retailer, and they have the investment to match. Simba shares investors with Made.com and Lastminute.com, Eve with Shazam and Happen, and Casper with Twitter and Snapchat. Until recently, if you wanted to make a $100m (£77m) in a year, you probably wouldn’t have started selling mattresses. But the internet changed that, opening up the possibility of a company like Casper going nationwide faster than ever before – and the money provided by the venture capital system, which matured in the forge of Silicon Valley, made that possible. That, then, is the real technology legacy flowing in to all three companies: the belief that with a big bang and big bucks, it’s possible to jump into a whole new market and fully reshape it in your image. Would you trust a stylist with 50,000 clients to get your look right?
MPs' report condemns 'misleading' EU referendum campaigns Vote Leave, Britain Stronger in Europe and the Treasury have all been accused of misleading voters in the EU referendum campaign in a report by a cross-party House of Commons committee. The Treasury committee was particularly scathing about the leave camp’s flagship assertion that exiting the EU would save £350m a week that could be spent on the NHS, saying that the public should discount the claim and that Vote Leave’s decision to persist with it was “deeply problematic”. The 83-page report, agreed unanimously by a committee that includes MPs on both sides of the referendum debate, will make awkward reading for all the major players. Andrew Tyrie, the Conservative MP who chairs the committee, said: “The arms race of ever more lurid claims and counter-claims made by both the leave and remain sides is not just confusing the public – it is impoverishing political debate.” The report says it is highly misleading for Vote Leave to suggest that leaving the EU could free up £350m a week for the NHS, as it does on the side of its battlebus, because that is a gross figure, making no allowance for the rebate and for EU contributions to the UK. The net figure would be about £110m a week, it says. But even this does not take into account that Britain could end up having to make continued contributions to the EU to secure access to the single market if there was a leave vote, it says. Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s The World at One, Tyrie, who has not yet said how he will be voting, said the £350m figure was not true. Asked what Vote Leave should do about its battlebus, he replied: “Repaint it immediately.” The report says it is misleading for Vote Leave and Leave.EU to claim that £600m a week, or £33.3bn a year, could be saved by not having to comply with EU regulations, because it is not a net cost. “To persist with such a claim is a tendentious representation of the research on which it is based,” says the report, which quotes £12.8bn a year as a more plausible figure for the maximum regulatory savings from a potential Brexit. The report criticises Vote Leave’s chief executive, Matthew Elliott, and its campaign director, Dominic Cummings, for not being fully cooperative with the committee as it conducted its inquiry, saying their conduct was appalling and at odds with Vote Leave’s claim to respect the primacy of parliament. On the Treasury, the report says its decision to argue in a report that Brexit could cost households £4,300 a year by 2030, because of reduced economic growth, was misleading because the figure relates to the impact of lower GDP on households and is not a projected figure for lower disposable income. “The average impact on household disposable incomes would be considerably smaller than this number, which refers to the impact on GDP per household,” the MPs say in their report. “Neither government departments nor other spokespeople for the remain side should repeat the mistaken assertion that household disposable income would be £4,300 lower than if we were to remain in the EU ... To persist with this claim would be to misrepresent the Treasury’s own work.” The report says that the Britain Stronger in Europe campaign’s claim that the cost of imports could rise by at least £11bn in the event of Brexit is implausible and that its suggestion that 3m jobs are dependent on EU membership is “misleading. The committee, which includes Steve Baker, the co-chair of Conservatives for Britain, and Jacob Rees-Mogg, a prominent pro-Brexit Tory, accepts that leaving the EU could trigger short-term economic difficulties. “Following a vote to leave, there would be a period during which the UK’s future relationship with the EU is uncertain. As with much economic uncertainty, it is plausible to suppose that this could weaken the pound, reduce domestic and foreign direct investment, and increase borrowing costs,” the report says. Looking further ahead, it says: “The balance of recent submissions seen by the committee is that Brexit is likely to have a net negative impact in the long term because the costs of a fall in trade exceed the gains in other areas, although the size of that impact varies considerably between different studies. Those who favour leaving the EU would argue that these studies are insufficiently optimistic or imaginative about how the UK would fare outside the EU. They could be right.”
Inside Faraday Future: is it really a big player in the future of electric cars? “When was the last time when we saw a blue sky with white clouds?” mused Jia Yueting, the Chinese internet billionaire with a passion for electric vehicles. “The starlit sky has become a distant memory. We can’t wait to clear the haze from China’s sky. Integrating electricity, intelligence, connectivity and social media in a vertically integrated system will disrupt all existing car products.” It’s an ambitious claim, and all the more so because Jia’s electric car ride-sharing company – the US-based Faraday Future – has yet to show a moving vehicle of any kind. Faraday Future’s proposed $1bn assembly plant in Nevada has stalled for lack of cash, the engineer behind its crucial battery system recently quit, and a former Faraday Future executive told the that the company’s first car will be “no Tesla killer”. While much of the car’s engineering is progressing steadily, Faraday Future is struggling to develop self-driving and entertainment systems for its planned driverless taxi services, according to several former executives who spoke on condition of anonymity. “I think they’ll probably end up trying to license autonomy from someone like Google,” said one of the executives. Based in Los Angeles and with an engineering office in Silicon Valley, Faraday Future was long assumed to be another startup. In fact, it was formed in April 2014 by Yueting, the billionaire founder of Leshi Internet Information & Technology, or LeTV. Jia’s story verges on the melodramatic: born into a rural family that was so poor he holidayed in a steel factory, Jia escaped a life of drudgery by focusing on technology. He worked in a local tax office, then started his own computer training company, a telecoms venture and, in 2004, LeTV. Leshi: LeTV’s mysterious California-based electric car company LeTV, recently renamed LeEco, has been described as the Netflix of China for its success in streaming video, yet Jia’s companies now also make films, televisions, smartphones and even bicycles. Jia took just five minutes to persuade Foxconn founder Terry Guo that the company, which makes Apple gear, should also be building LeTV’s gadgets. Then, at the beginning of 2015, LeTV announced that it was establishing the Leshi Super Electric Car Company to build a smart, internet-based electric car, and that the company already had 260 engineers in Silicon Valley. In August, Jia gave the vehicle a name – Le Supercar – and revealed that it would be designed by a founding member of Lotus China. The company now claimed to have 600 staff working on the vehicle, which would be ready for the Beijing auto show this April. Yet there is no evidence of the Leshi Super Electric Car Company in California, no record of employees or any evidence it as ever operated there, and neither of the former employees the spoke to had seen the car. Instead, all the electric car expertise – and all Jia’s aspirations for vehicles of the future – appear to rest with Faraday Future instead. On 19 February, LeEco announced a joint venture with Aston Martin to develop an electric version of its Rapide S model, though it is not clear whether this work may fall to Faraday Future. Where does LeEco end, and Faraday Future begin? Ding Lei, who was credited last week as co-founder of LeEco’s auto division (although he only joined the company last September), is also the acting global CEO of Faraday Future, according to the executives. (At one point, Apple was rumoured to be using Faraday Future to develop its own electric self-driving car, but no evidence could be found to link the companies.) Faraday Future has never officially announced its senior leadership, and says only that it has “a strategic partnership” and “an independent relationship” with LeEco. The companies suffered cultural clashes from the outset. At one point, LeTV managers proposed calling the new company Fara Faro instead of Faraday Future. “The Americans were like, ‘That is the stupidest name ever,’” remembers an executive. “You had an international team that was experienced and open, juxtaposed with Chinese management that didn’t understand the US market and kept deferring to LeTV.” Nevertheless, Faraday Future grew rapidly. By September 2014, LeTV had bought the company a 124,000 sq ft office building in the suburbs of Los Angeles for $13.25m. Their plans were ambitious: to build a family of 13 super-intelligent electric cars, trucks and minivans sharing a common technical platform. The company has filed for US trademarks for vehicles from FFZERO1 to FFZERO9, and met with officials from California’s department of motor vehicles responsible for autonomous vehicle testing on public roads, the learned through a public records request. But as the realities of developing a new vehicle from scratch dawned, Faraday Future reduced its focus to a smaller group of vehicles. “There were definitely multiple vehicles that were being designed. It would be kind of ridiculous not to take advantage of the variable platform architecture,” said one executive, referring to a chassis that can be modified with different batteries, motors and even body shapes. The first car to be launched is likely to be a luxury vehicle with an extended wheelbase to appeal to business customers. This is about to undergo its first road tests and is scheduled for launch in late 2017. “It’s not really a Tesla killer,” conceded one former executive. “It’ll be much heavier, longer and bulkier than a Tesla but really sculpted and beautiful.” The car has been projected to cost upwards of $150,000. The company had initially hoped to emerge from stealth and unveil a fully working prototype at the CES trade show in January 2016. But by the summer of 2015, it was clear that the technology would not be ready. Instead, Faraday Future would showcase its design prowess with a concept electric race car that would drive into the press conference. But that vehicle too fell behind schedule. Finally, the company had to scramble to produce a non-functioning, static concept car, costing $2m. In January, Faraday Future’s chief battery architect, Porter Harris, quit. “He was the battery,” said one of the executives. “He designed it and did all the patents.” Is the money drying up? There was more bad news ahead. On 7 December, trading in LeTV shares on the Shenzen stock exchange was suspended. This is not uncommon in China, and was supposedly to allow LeEco to incorporate a film distribution company into its listing. The shares were meant to resume trading on 5 January but this was delayed until 31 January, and then again until 7 March. This raised the suspicions of Dan Schwartz, state treasurer of Nevada, where Faraday Future is promising to build a $1bn, 3m sq ft manufacturing facility. “It’s being built by a company that’s in the media and entertainment business and has never made a car in its life,” said Schwartz in a radio interview earlier this month. Following a trip to China, he told the Los Angeles Business Journal: “It’s the emperor’s new clothes. [Jia] isn’t making any money. He certainly isn’t making any money to fund a billion-dollar car facility.” For its part, the company still lists dozens of job openings in Los Angeles, San Jose and North Las Vegas, and insists that it is “working out the details” of its factory deal with Nevada. One former executive said there was never any sign of penny-pinching: “Vendors got paid, paychecks were always there, and lunches were always supplied.” But Schwartz is now insisting that Faraday Future provide a $75m performance bond – essentially a guarantee that the factory will be built – before Nevada starts work on supporting road, rail and utility projects. That bond has yet to appear. Schwartz said Faraday Future did not assure him the $75m would be available even when LeEco shares are unfrozen next month. “Right now, the state is not out any money,” said Schwartz. “We’ll see what happens after the shares begin trading again.” Jia himself has seen his personal fortune tumble from a high of nearly $8bn last year to under $5bn today, according to Forbes. “For years now, Chinese internet entrepreneurs have been able to fuel their domestic and global ambitions on the backs of a red-hot Chinese stock market,” said Joe Paluska, an adviser to the electric car industry. “But now that the bull market has turned into a bear market, they’ve lost the currency to fuel those ambitions.”
Film about nuns who fall in love to be shown in Welsh cathedral A short film that is deeply critical of the church’s attitude to homosexuality is to receive its world premiere in a cathedral with the approval of the archbishop of Wales. The 12-minute documentary, which tells the story of two former nuns who fell in love, only to be ostracised by the church after their relationship was exposed, is to be screened in St Asaph Cathedral in Denbighshire, north Wales. All One in Christ will premiere on Tuesday and is thought to be the first gay film to be screened in a British church. The archbishop, Dr Barry Morgan, said: “This film will not be easy watching for church members as it reminds us how people among us have been ostracised and mistreated because of their sexuality. “By sharing the personal stories of those who have suffered and been hurt, I hope this powerful film will bring home to all the scale of the damage done and ultimately help change attitudes within the church.” The film was produced by organisers of the Iris prize, the world’s largest LGBT short film prize, now in its 10th year. Although it is made with sensitivity, with many of the participants also talking of their undying devotion to the church, its producers acknowledge the venue for the screening could spark condemnation from some quarters. In the documentary, the former nuns Ann and Marika Jane Savage-Lewis describe the outrage of their local bishop after they were outed by a Sunday newspaper about 40 years ago. The local vicar physically blocked their entrance to the church. “That was us out,” Marika Jane Savage-Lewis told the . She said the archbishop was “very brave” for allowing the screening – “particularly in view of the hoo-ha that’s going on”. Other participants include a lesbian priest who was once told by her local bishop that she was a “scandal risk” and a churchgoer who says “the lack of freedom to be ourselves amongst other Christians” takes its toll on mental and physical health. Andrew Pierce, the Iris prize’s chair, said: “We have always been aware of the power of film and here we are days away from the historical screening of LGBT films in a cathedral in north Wales.” Berwyn Rowlands, the Iris prize director, paid tribute to the courage of both the archbishop and the film’s participants. “The idea that we have moved forward and that the Church in Wales in particular is willing for the cathedral to be used to screen this film is amazing,” he said. “What we have here is a process of healing. For those who have faith, I think it will be ground-breaking. “We have considered carefully that there might be some criticism. We are hoping that common sense, humanity and tolerance prevail. Gay marriage is still seen as a problem, but it’s wonderful how the bishops and the archbishop himself have gone out of their way to make it clear that the Church in Wales is a church for everybody.” The film also includes the bishop Stephen Lowe, who says: “The way in which gay and lesbian people have been persecuted is something that the church needs to feel a deep repentance about.” All One in Christ is among 36 films produced in partnership with communities across Wales by Iris Prize Outreach and financed by the Big Lottery Fund. The project works to build tolerance and understanding.
Hell or High Water review – elegiac Texan western that packs a dizzying punch Last year in the Cannes competition, actor-turned-screenwriter Taylor Sheridan delivered us a cracking script for the Tex-Mex drug-lord drama Sicario. Now he repeats the trick with this rangy, violent, and cynical western set in Texas, showing in the Un Certain Regard sidebar. The director is David Mackenzie, the British film-maker whose last film was the much-admired prison drama Starred Up. This continues his winning streak. Hell or High Water is a heist picture with a satirical edge that reminded me of Brecht’s dictum about robbing a bank being a waste of time compared to owning one; it’s also a gloomy reverie about the hostile Texan plain, comparable to the Coens’ No Country for Old Men, or Blood Simple. There’s also a vague sense memory of the 1960s western Lonely Are the Brave, with Kirk Douglas’s cowboy on the run. Chris Pine and Ben Foster are two brothers, Toby and Tanner: one smart and one stupid, but both equally engaged in the high-risk business of robbing banks – early in the morning, taking only small-denomination untraceable bills, making it hardly worthwhile for the bank to press charges. Weirdly, they also stick to branches of one particular bank. Stranger still is that Toby could now theoretically be a rich man, having been the sole beneficiary of his late mother’s will, getting the property on which oil has been discovered but which he has actually made over in trust for his children, after his divorce, in financial conditions which at first glance make his new bank-robbing career even more baffling. Tanner is a career criminal whom his mother hated, so the bank heists could be Toby’s way of helping him out. Meanwhile, Marcus – amusingly played by Jeff Bridges – is the Texas ranger on the boys’ trail, wearing the regulation plain shirt, white Stetson and sunglasses. His partner Alberto (Gil Birmingham) is a Native American in the same getup with whom Marcus does not scruple to make bad-taste jokes about ethnicity. Marcus is on the verge of a retirement that he doesn’t want, and takes a gloomy and almost elegiac pleasure in all the details of this last case; he and Alberto have many a scene in which they enter smalltown restaurants and order coffee with elaborate old-school courtesy from waitresses who are usually charmed, except for one who grumpily insists they have steak because that’s what everyone has, and still angrily remembers some out-of-towner in 1987 who tried to order “trout”. The situation unwinds with a kind of brutal, desperate entropy as Tanner, who has never been under any illusions about how activities like his pan out in the end, tacitly accepts his own end. And it creates a new, interestingly pointed confrontation between Marcus and Toby. Mackenzie’s direction and Giles Nuttgens’s cinematography create a kind of horizontal vertigo in the dizzying sweep of the landscape and there is a great soundtrack with original music by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis. It’s an action-thriller with punch; Bridges gives the characterisation ballast and heft and Pine and Foster bring a new, grizzled maturity to their performances. This article was amended on 14 September 2016 to correct the spelling of elegiac in the headline.
Grace prepares to own pop: 'It's all very surreal to me' It’s a balmy afternoon in Brooklyn and Grace Sewell, better known simply by her first name, is relaxing at her hotel in Williamsburg. “I’ve been back and forth between here and London about five times this month,” she notes. “Life is pretty crazy at the moment.” The 19-year-old is criss-crossing the globe in support of her hit You Don’t Own Me, the cover of a 1963 track by Lesley Gore, who died last year. Grace’s version, which features a verse from the rapper G Eazy, became a top 10 hit across the globe, earning a gold disc in the United States. It has now had a renewed lease of life after being featured on the soundtrack to Suicide Squad, currently No 1 in the US album chart. The idea to re-do Gore’s classic came from Quincy Jones, who masterminded such pop landmarks as Michael Jackson’s Thriller album – and who produced the original. “He wanted to remake the record for a while but never found the right singer or fit,” Grace explains. “Quincy felt the song’s message was one that should be reiterated for this generation.” Gore’s version, which featured lyrics of female empowerment which were bold by the standards of the time, was released just weeks after the assassination of John F Kennedy. It reached the top of the American charts and was only kept from the No 1 spot by the Beatles. Gore was 17 when she recorded the song – the same age as Grace. It was Jones’s idea to turn Grace’s cover into a tribute to Gore after the singer died in February 2015. “I’ve never met someone more accomplished than Quincy Jones,” Grace says of the producer, who has worked with everyone from New Order to Miles Davis. “He’s a household name and legend and arguably one of the greatest producers of all time, but when you sit and talk with him you find that he’s so down to earth and real. He’s all about the music and wants people to learn their craft.” Grace grew up in a creative household in Brisbane, Australia. “My father sings, my grandparents were singers, and my mom was one of those woman who will keep herself busy doing anything from painting to writing poetry or books,” she says. Her brother Conrad is also a pop star. His song Firestone, a collaboration with the Norwegian producer Kygo, was a worldwide hit two years ago. “When I was a kid I always wanted to entertain and show off and do stupid dances or whatever,” she says of her childhood. “I started taking music seriously when I was 14, which is when I signed my first publishing deal and began collaborating with producers and writers, but I couldn’t focus on music full time.” Grace waited until she finished school to dive headfirst into the industry, and was promptly whisked to New York and signed by RCA Records. The unexpected viral success of You Don’t Own Me lead to the release her debut album FMA (short for Forgive My Attitude) this summer. It features songs she’s been working on for the bulk of her life. “I’ve always been subconsciously writing,” she says. “I’ve had a ton of music backed up for many years and as soon as I signed a deal, I was in the studio all the time. We’re just lucky that I already had a body of work because once You Don’t Own Me got traction and people began to find out who I was and search me out, we had it all ready to go.” Later today, Grace is headed for some meetings with her label (“boring stuff”), and after she’ll perhaps visit the pier in Williamsburg which features panoramic views of the Manhattan skyline. “It’s all still very surreal to me,” she says. “When you remake a song it can go one or two ways. People can either appreciate it or be like why did you mess with the original? The saving grace with You Don’t Own Me is that it’s so powerful and so timeless. I don’t want to take any credit, the song was already there and now people are connecting with it again. Whenever you have a record that people can understand and feel, it always does well.”
Meet the student running an online magazine with a difference If you read a lot of fashion and lifestyle blogs, you’ll know it can be difficult to find thoughtful writing about meaty issues among the endless photos of elegantly styled cacti and £40 candles. But Into the Fold is a little different. Unlike a lot of writing found in the blogosphere, in which people show off their flawlessly arranged dressing tables and #blessed lives, its articles tackle some of the darker aspects of being a student and a young woman. The online magazine, which went live last July, showcases a blend of opinion pieces, real-life experiences, style, London tips and some travel. Writers reveal their innermost struggles: from how an exercise addiction affected their self image, to what it’s like growing up in a world in which you’re marginalised because of your skin colour, and being diagnosed with anxiety. Many of the site’s contributors are students with blogs and Youtube channels. The inspiration Camilla Ackley, 19, a second-year philosophy student at Bristol University, started the site after becoming disillusioned with fashion blogging, a world she’d been frequenting since she was 13. Her philosophy degree made her question why, after consuming mainstream media, she was always left feeling like she was doing things wrong as a woman – from how she looked to how she should act on a date. And she knew other students felt the same. Ackley says she was inspired by the American online magazine Rookie, which has been applauded for its compassion and the sensitive way it handles the issues young women face. It’s Dear Diary section, for instance, regularly sees writers coming to terms with their bad habits and flaws. Rookie’s founder, Tavi Gevinson, is the same age as Ackley and one of her idols. “Tavi is very good at putting out articles that you read and think ‘oh it’s not just me, brilliant,’ and pinpointing how you might feel,” says Ackley. How it’s made possible It’s not always easy to juggle running an online magazine with academic work, but Ackley feels it’s worth it. Founding a website like Into The Fold requires skills including writing, commissioning, editing, taking photos and having a business plan. She says she tries to manage her time efficiently to avoid falling down an internet wormhole or sacrificing her social life. A typical day involves launching an article in the morning and scheduling social media posts. She does university work from nine-to-five and continues working on the site in the evening. “I’ll try to stay off Facebook as much as I can during the day because otherwise I find myself looking at viral Unilad videos for four hours,” she says. Ackley is often approached by companies looking to promote their products to young women and has worked with brands including Forever 21, Samsung, Urban Outfitters and Zalando. She produces co-branded content – often personal style posts – and promotes it on social media. “You have to ask if they have a budget because sometimes they do but don’t tell you,” she says. “If they can get it for free, they will.” Ackley makes money from the site but not enough to support herself completely. “I could, but I’d probably have to sell my soul a bit,” she says. At the moment she doesn’t work with brands she doesn’t like – something bloggers are often accused of doing. The best bits of blogging One of the biggest perks of starting the site has been meeting intelligent people whom she wouldn’t have otherwise met. Managing the site has also improved her time-management skills. “It’s made me who I am, given me ambition and a vague idea of what I want to do with my life.” Ackley hopes to make it her full-time job after university and to eventually employ a team. Ackley recognises that Into The Fold can’t represent everyone and encourages other young people to start similar online ventures. “There are endless voices and opinions to be explored and discussed,” she says. “If you aren’t happy with the way our generation is being manipulated or presented by the media, we live in an age where we have the power to try and change that.” What do you think? Has Ackley’s story inspired you to start your own side project while at university? Or does it all sound like too much work? Let us know in the comments section below.
Who needs sex to make babies? Pretty soon, humans won’t I confidently predict that people will still be having sex in 20 to 40 years’ time, but they will be using sex to conceive their babies much less often. Two biomedical advances are going to change how humans reproduce: whole genome sequencing and stem cell technology. For over 25 years now, some babies have been born after something called pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD). Three- to five-day-old embryos have some of their cells removed and subjected to genetic testing. Parents and doctors then decide, based on the test results, which embryos to transfer into the womb in the hope of making a baby. Last year 3,000 to 4,000 babies were born in the US after PGD without any obvious safety problems. PGD will soon get much better, becoming what I call “easy PGD.” Cheap whole genome sequencing is one reason. The first whole human genome was sequenced in 2003 at a cost of about £350m. Today, a whole human genome sequence costs around £1,000; in 20 to 40 years, it will be far less. Before, PGD was able to look at one or a handful of genetic traits; it can now look at an embryo’s whole genome and the futures that genome implies. That will make PGD much more useful to parents. The big problem with PGD, though, has been that it requires in vitro fertilisation (IVF). Invented in the UK nearly 40 years ago, IVF has been a godsend for millions, but it has not been easy. Harvesting eggs from a woman’s ovaries is expensive, uncomfortable, and somewhat risky (life is unfair – sperm collection usually has none of those problems). Stem cell technologies will bypass egg harvesting. Instead we will take a woman’s skin cells; turn them into so-called “induced pluripotent stem cells” (cells very similar to the famous embryonic stem cells but made from living people); turn those cells into eggs, and mature the eggs in the lab. This would not only greatly reduce the cost, discomfort and risk of IVF, but would allow each woman reliably to produce hundreds of eggs (or more). It already has worked in mice and the first steps have been taken with humans. The result will be easy PGD. A couple who wants children will visit a clinic – he will leave a sperm sample; she will leave a skin sample. A week or two later, the prospective parents will receive information on 100 embryos created from their cells, telling them what the embryos’ genomes predict about their future. Prospective parents will then be asked what they want to be told about each embryo – serious early onset genetic diseases, other diseases, cosmetic traits, behaviours, and, easiest but important to many: gender. Then they will select which embryos to move into the womb for possible pregnancy and birth. Easy PGD will not produce super-babies. Genes aren’t that important. But it will produce children who have little or no chance of some serious diseases; better than normal chances of avoiding other diseases; preferred hair or eye colours; slightly better chances of high maths, sports, or musical ability; and who are of the parents’ preferred sex. The health and behaviour differences are likely to be about the same as the average differences between being born to rich parents and poor parents – not enormous, but not trivial. These would not be designer babies. Parents could only select from the genetic traits they carry. New gene-editing technologies such as CRISPR may eventually make it possible to edit embryos, but easy PGD, and its selected embryos, will be safe, effective, and available years sooner. I suspect selection also will be more attractive to those many parents who want children “like themselves” – but like the best of themselves, not the worst. To many people this sounds like fiction. And of course, it does raise difficult and important questions – from safety, fairness, and coercion, to family structures and whether it’s “just plain wrong”. Could it really happen? I think so. Many parents will want it, if only to avoid the 1-2% risk of having a child with a severe early genetic disease. Health systems will find it cost-effective to no longer have to provide care for children who are born sick. Clinics will want the business, and governments will be reluctant to interfere in parental choice – at least in some places. Its reception will vary from country to country. I expect the US, much of east Asia, Australia, and some other countries to allow or even encourage easy PGD. Germany and Italy, probably not. The UK will be interesting. As opposed to America’s wild west, the UK has the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, which has allowed, with limits, new reproductive technologies based on both safety and perceived moral concerns. What will it do with easy PGD? Before long many countries – as well as individual couples – will have to make these choices. Cheap sequencing and stem cell technologies are inevitable, driven mainly by non-reproductive uses. To choose wisely, for ourselves and for our countries, we all need to learn more about this burgeoning of genetic choice, its likely paths and consequences. The time to begin is now.
Forget Mitt Romney. Megyn Kelly is the right's best weapon against Trump Mitt Romney is garnering headlines for throwing barbs at Donald Trump, but the Republican establishment is in real trouble if they think he is their best chance at dislodging this troublesome billionaire. If anything, Romney will drive anti-establishment voters to Trump, because Romney – with his slick hair, pressed suits and Ken doll smile – represents the worst side of the Republican party’s mainstream. But conservatives have a secret weapon in Megyn Kelly. The popular Fox News host is the new face of conservatism, and she’s tough as nails. The last time Trump was on the Fox debate stage, Kelly confronted him about a string of sexist remarks he’d made over his reality TV career. She didn’t back down, yet Trump came away looking like a little whiny baby. Trump complained about being treated unfairly by Kelly because she had the audacity to confront him with his own past remarks. Novel idea. So novel that Cruz and Rubio have started using the tactic, and have released a string of attack ads highlighting things like Trump’s past support for abortion. But the two young senators have failed to make a dent into Trump’s growing support. In last week’s debate the two tried to meet Trump on his own level. It ended poorly for everyone. They ended up embarrassing the entire party and themselves. Rubio’s stump speeches even momentarily devolved into schoolyard humor – accusing Trump of wetting himself – which only gave credence to accusations he’s too juvenile to sit in the Oval Office. That’s why, during Thursday night’s Republican debate, the senators need to leave the heavy hitting to Megyn Kelly. She’d be wise to try and avoid the fireworks that erupted in the last round. But that doesn’t mean she shouldn’t use her intelligence and wit to confront the absurdity that is Trump. Trump has been given a pass by the media thus far. They’ve allowed him to rewrite the rules of the game. He hasn’t laid out policy proposals, yet cable news replays his soaring fantasies – “I’ll build a wall and Mexico will pay for it” – as if any president has the power to turn myth into reality. Trump also hasn’t been pressed on the fact that he isn’t really a Republican. Sure, he’s one now out of political – or, more likely, personal – convenience. But he’s anti free trade, pro-abortion (at least in the past and likely in the near future, once he locks up the Republican nomination and is able to pivot to the center) and has no understanding of the military or global affairs. Jake Tapper was able to unsettle Trump last weekend by merely asking him about the support of David Duke and the Ku Klux Klan. The most revealing part of the exchange was that when confronted with something as repugnant as the support of the KKK, Trump melted down. Trump’s not Teflon. His ego needs constant affirmation. He can’t handle being questioned; it annoys his billionaire sense of reality: if he thinks or says something then that’s the way it is in Trump world. But we’re not in Trump world. We live in reality. Kelly will be given another chance tonight to pull the veil back on Trump’s world and expose millions of viewers to what is evident: that the emperor has no clothes. In fact, he’s no emperor at all.
Arsenal 3-0 Chelsea: Premier League - as it happened A terrific win for Arsenal, who overwhelmed an admittedly poor Chelsea with some lovely football in the first half. Mesut Ozil was wonderful, Alex Iwobi and Alexis were excellent too, and Mustafi and Koscielny looked solid at the back. It’s a very, very happy anniversary for Arsene Wenger – not just the result but the way it was achieved. Thanks for your company; goodnight. 90 min There will be three minutes of added time. 89 min Arsenal’s last league win over Chelsea was that hilarious 5-3 at Stamford Bridge in 2011. 86 min Luiz will definitely be the Bonucci in Conte’s back three. That long through pass to Batshuayi was so good. 85 min Pedro, on the left corner of the box, endangers the denizens of Holloway Road with an abysmal shot. 84 min David Luiz breaks up an Arsenal attack and plays a magnificent left-footed pass to put Batshuayi through on goal. He runs into the box before drilling it low towards goal; Cech spreads himself to deflect it for a corner. He should probably have scored. 83 min Costa is booked for dissent. 82 min Azpilicueta’s long-range shot is comfortably saved by Cech. It might have been going wide anyway. If so, Chelsea still haven’t had a shot on target in this game. 80 min Gibbs clears Alonso’s cross brilliantly under extreme pressure at the far post. 78 min Arsene Wenger makes his final change, with Olivier Giroud replacing the Duracell bunny named Alexis. 76 min “Conte is class,” says William Hargreaves. “A fantastic signing. Agreed he will need time. Maybe he’s been signed with a move towards a longer-term vision in mind? I think that frequently we don’t acknowledge the undoubted intelligence and skill within the plethora of talented managers in the PL. We’re all ‘Einsteins’, I suppose Mou would say.” I hope so. The short-termism in football - and the media are as guilty as anyone here - is pathetic and damaging. 75 min Costa looks weary as he moves down the right. He has been Chelsea’s best player by a mile and can hold his head up high before he sticks it on an Arsenal defender in frustration. 73 min Costa robs Kosicelny on the halfway line, with Pedro picking up the loose ball and scooting towards goal. He’s quick but Bellerin is even quicker and makes a superb interception. 71 min Chelsea move the last two deckchairs on the Titanic: Willian and Hazard are replaced by Pedro and Michy Batshuayi. 70 min Arsenal bring on Kieran Gibbs for the excellent Iwobi. 69 min Courtois makes an excellent save with his right foot to deny Walcott, who beat Alonso after receiving Iwobi’s nice pass. 67 min Ivanovic, 30 yards from goal, mistakes himself for Peter Lorimer. Goal kick to Arsenal. 64 min Cahill, who has had a spectacular stinker, dithers again and hits a clearance against Walcott. It bounces across the idea and Cahill has to hoof it desperately out for a throw-in on the other side of the pitch. Chelsea have been awful. 63 min Antonio Conte is a fantastic manager, who has had instant success in the past. It’s not going to happen here. There’s a lot of work to do with this team, and he shouldn’t be judged or questioned until at least the middle of next season. 61 min Costa can’t get enough purchase on a header from Azpilicueta’s cross and it drifts harmlessly across the box. Chelsea haven’t had a shot on target. 60 min “That’s the thing with Ozil,” says Matt Dony. “He’s not ostentatiously skilful, he’s not a showboater, he’s not one of those dressing room ‘characters’. But he can do ridiculous things with a football. His highlights reel is a thing to behold. On form, he is an absolute pleasure to watch.” He’s a sometimes inefficient genius. There has never been a player quite like him, and Sir Alex Ferguson’s nickname, ‘The Ghost’, is perfect. Crap first touch though. 58 min Arsenal are having a laugh, entirely at Chelsea’s expense. An incisive angled through pass from Ozil is too fast for Walcott to control and it runs through to Courtois. 56 min Arsenal showboat repeatedly during a promising attack: Ozil’s turn, then Sanchez’s scoop, then Iwobi’s dummy. It didn’t lead a goal or anything like that, but it looked nice. And a fourth goal is coming very soon. 55 min Chelsea make their first substitution: Alonso replaces Fabregas, whose performance was soundtracked by Brian Eno. That means Chelsea have switched to a 3-4-3 formation. 53 min That should have been 4-0. Iwobi, Ozil and especially Xhaka played nice passes to free Walcott on the right of the box. He had Sanchez in the middle but hopelessly overhit a lofted cross in his direction. 50 min Chelsea have had plenty of the ball since half-time, though they have produced the square root of naff all with it. 47 min “Arsenal are, in the vernacular of the modern youth, feeling themselves, and Chelsea don’t seem too happy about it,” says JR. “I sense a simmering anger emanating from them. Luiz has already looked like he was on the hunt a couple times. I figure he and Matic are the most likely red cards. I would say Costa was most likely but we all know he’s immune to appropriate punishment.” Feeling themselves? 46 min Peep peep! Arsenal begin the second half, swaggering from right to left. Time, time, time to understand the monster The moral of the first month of the Premier League’s inaugural Superboss Season is surely that even great managers need time. Who knew? “Even Conte’s hair looks cheesed off - it’s lost its bounce and wave,” says Charles Antaki “I wouldn’t be surprised if it refuses to come out for the second half.” That’d be a neat variation on the half-time hairdryer “Rob, watch that Ozil goal again,” says Sam Hankins. “He absolutely, deliberately bounced that ball off the pitch. Every move was intentional. Ozil is...is...Homeric!” You might be right. After growing up watching players like Brian Kilcline and Gary Coatsworth, I just assumed it was luck. There are few players who could pull off such a thing but he is one of them. I remember one astonishingly clever piece of skill to earn a penalty against Bayern in 2013-14. A penalty he then missed meekly, but let’s not dwell on that. Half-time reading After three and a half years without a league goal against Chelsea, Arsenal scored three in a half. Arsenal were as excellent as Chelsea were inept. See you in 10 minutes for the second half. 45+1 min Fabregas’s free-kick from the left is punched meekly by Cech, and Hazard lashes a volley into the side-netting from a tight angle. 45 min What’s the Italian for ‘shambles’? 44 min David Luiz takes out his frustration on Alexis’s left leg, and is lucky not to be booked. 42 min “Well done Arsène for some nifty work in finding someone who looks exactly like Theo Walcott but who tracks back, tackles, wins balls, make timely decisions and scores,” says Charles Antaki. “I suppose the real Theo is bound and gagged somewhere deep in an Emirates broom-cupboard.” Mesut Ozil settles the match before half-time. Ozil turned Kante exquisitely in his own half and loafed forward on a two-on-two break. He played it through to Sanchez on the right of the box, and he returned it with a chipped cross beyond the far post. Ozil watched it carefully onto his left foot, mishit his sidefoot volley completely - and saw it bounce over Courtois and in off the far post. 38 min Costa has been superb for Chelsea, one of the who looks affronted by the score and determined to do something about it. This is a fascinating game, because if Chelsea get one then the Arsenal team will become the Squeaky Bum Collective, yet if Arsenal score next they could administer serious pasting. 37 min Chelsea have given the ball away so often in their own half tonight, and Ivanovic does it again to start an Arsenal attack. Eventually, after neat footwork from Iwobi, Cazorla overhits his pass down the left to Monreal. 35 min “Says a lot about Ivanovic and Cahil when you make Luiz look solid,” sniffs Salman Majid. 34 min “You know how there’s an argument to be made that the most exciting Messi was Messi-with-the-long-hair - not because it was the best Messi, but because potential is always more tantalizing than the realization?” says Phil Podolsky. “Now taking this vague dictum and applying it to Cesc, adjusting for magnitude of talent, is almost too sad. A tired mercenary who’s still good at football, not something you’d invoke the word ‘frisson’ over. Whereas in 2005...” He hasn’t been bad today. He’s been anonymous, which is worse in many ways. 33 min “Evening Rob,” says Andy Bradshaw. “I’m agog, agog I tell you, to see how Arsenal cock this up. I’m going for Costa ripping someone’s arm off & then using it to hit the winner in injury time after Walcott misses an open goal three times.” In one sitting? 32 min Xhaka replaces Coquelin, who looks pretty sad as he hobbles down the tunnel. 30 min Sanchez tries to flip the free-kick over the wall, Koeman-style. Matic jumps and heads it behind for a corner, from which nothing happens. Coquelin is struggling after that thunderous block tackle with Kante and I think he’ll need to come off. 28 min Coquelin makes an excellent block tackle on the edge of the box as Kante tries to shoot. Arsenal break superbly and Ivanovic trips Iwobi in the D after a lovely one-two with Alexis. Ivanovic is booked. 25 min Bellerin’s stinging low shot is deflected behind by the stretching Cahill. One corner begets another but nothing comes of it, not even for those who waited. 24 min Chelsea have stirred. Hazard, who is especially busy, had a 16-yard shot blocked by Koscielny after good play from Costa and Willian. 22 min “It’s interesting the lack of hype around Iwobi... for my money, he is one of the most exciting young talents in years in England,” says Andrew Hurley. “A near perfect technique, stature and a rare awareness for someone of his age. Arsenal have a real gem here...” I’ve only seen him in a few games but I agree. The big thing, as you say, is his awareness. That usually only comes with experience. 21 min Chelsea’s first chance. Hazard combines neatly with Costa before releasing Willian on the right of the box. He has time to take a touch before driving a crisp low shot just wide of the far post. 19 min Sanchez shuffles away from Ivanovic on the edge of the box before dragging a weak shot well wide of the far post. 18 min Chelsea have only two problems: they look terrible with the ball, and even worse without it. That was glorious football. Iwobi and Ozil played a one-two-three just outside the box before Iwobi an angled through pass to Bellerin, who ran off the lazy Hazard and into the box. He fizzed it first time across the area to give Walcott a simple finish from eight yards. That was clean, quick and incisive, though Hazard was negligent in letting Bellerin go. This is a sensational team goal! Arsenal take the lead after a bad mistake from Gary Cahill. He dithered on the ball just inside his own half before shaping to pass it back to the keeper. As he did so Sanchez robbed him and ran clear before chipping the ball gently and sweetly over Courtois. That was a beautiful finish. Unlike the goal against Swansea, there was no suggestion of a foul there. Cahill just had a brainfade. 10 min Fabregas is penalised, though not booked, for a late tackle on Coquelin. 9 min Walcott zooms i to the area, where Cahill makes a good sliding tackle. Bellerin, backing up the play, rakes a shot that is defected behind for a corner. Nothing comes of it but this has been a fine start from Arsenal. 6 min Chelsea, in the parlance of our time, have parked the bus. They are defending deep and in numbers before springing on the counter-attack. There’s already a sense of inevitability about Arsenal having 81 per cent of the possession and losing 2-0. 4 min Cazorla’s swooshing 25-yarder is beaten away by the plunging Courtois, a comfortable save really. Chelsea break and Costa lumbers to the edge of the area before Koscielny trips him. Chelsea have a free-kick on the right edge of the area, but Willian overhits it. Costa’s every touch is being booed with gusto. 3 min As Darren Fletcher points out on BT Sport, these teams are both eight points behind City going into the game. That’s a lot against a team managed by Pep Guardiola. Wenger out! Conte out! Everyone out! 2 min “How Ivanovic keeps getting into the team after more than a year of bad games is beyond me,” says Salman Majid. “He’s slow, has the worst cross and can no longer defend properly.” You should see his pass-completion stats though. 1 min Peep peep! Chelsea, in blue, kick off from right to left. Arsenal are in red and white. Nineteen years ago this weekend... An email! From William Hargreaves! “Who’s to say it will only be ‘one last title under Wenger’, he says, looking around with a ‘well, what?’ look on his face?” Do you want me to break that face? Arsenal (4-2-3-1) Cech; Bellerin, Mustafi, Koscielny, Monreal; Cazorla, Coquelin; Walcott, Ozil, Iwobi; Alexis. Substitutes: Ospina, Holding, Gibbs, Xhaka, Lucas, Giroud, Oxlade-Chamberlain. Chelsea (4-1-4-1) Courtois; Ivanovic, Cahill, David Luiz, Azpilicueta; Kante; Willian, Fabregas, Matic, Hazard; Diego Costa. Substitutes: Begovic, Pedro, Batshuayi, Chalobah, Oscar, Moses, Alonso. Hello. Throughout Arsene Wenger’s time as manager, Arsenal v Chelsea has been a reliable mismatch. For the first eight years, Arsenal always beat Chelsea; for the last 12, since Wayne Bridge Night at Highbury, Chelsea have been specialists in Arsenal. Even last season, when Chelsea were fifty shades of shambles, Arsenal lost home and away to them. They haven’t scored a single league goal against Chelsea in the last three seasons. But, as Johan Cruyff didn’t say, in every negative there is a positive. If Arsenal beat Chelsea today, it will empower them significantly and leave them with one fewer demon to exorcise if they are to win one last title under Wenger. The mutual loathing of these sides is driven largely by their distinct identities. This season, however, they have plenty in common: five games, 10 points, plenty of late goals and a reality check at home to Liverpool. We aren’t much the wiser as to whether they are serious title challengers; today’s match should give us a few more clues. Or Chelsea might just beat Arsenal on autopilot again. Kick off is at 5.30pm.
Trump fans celebrate at New York watch party as results pour in After a barnstorming blitz that involved 14 rallies in 10 states over a 72-hour period, Donald Trump prepared for the election in a midtown New York building that did not bear his name. As the evening’s news got better and better for the Republican – a win in Ohio, then Florida – the cheers in a New York Hilton hotel ballroom grew loud enough to be heard over at Trump Tower, where Trump was in his penthouse, watching with family and friends. With the announcement that Trump had won Ohio, a vital state in his push for rust belt votes, the room erupted. Squeals of delight broke out amongst the cheers as the announcement came over the television, as supporters hugged in seeming disbelief. As they slowly grasped the immensity of the call, diehards said to each other: “We’re going to win this, dude.” Senator Jeff Sessions, who was the first elected federal official to endorse Trump, told the : “There was more support out there than the polls showed.” He added: “I concluded months ago when I endorsed Donald Trump that he was talking to an ignored group of Americans that could decide the next election.” He said these people were “disrespected, ignored and unappreciated” by the Washington establishment. It looked like many of those people were showing up at the polls. As Sessions, of Alabama, heard the cheers from the call of Ohio, he asked what the stir was about. When told, he simply clapped his hands together, emphatically. Later, news networks called Florida for Trump as well. The room broke into rounds of ecstatic cheers. Chants of “USA! USA!” broke out. North Carolina followed, and Iowa. The cheers grew louder and louder. The evening had begun in low-key fashion. Although Trump made a habit of staging primary night events at properties he owned, such as Trump Tower and Mar-a-Lago in Florida, his campaign had reserved a hotel ballroom at a local Hilton. As results trickled in, supporters began to show up, dressed for a formal party. The men were in suits, the women in dresses. The stage featured a backdrop with the flags of all 50 states and a half-dozen American flags. It was flanked on each side by a glass display case holding a red Make America Great Again baseball cap, the symbol of Trump’s campaign. Among key advisers, the mood was sober. Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor and close Trump adviser, didn’t try to second-guess any decisions made by the campaign in an interview with Fox News. Asked about Trump’s apparent weak performance with traditionally Republican women, he said: “I’ll tell you in two days or maybe three or more to figure out if something different had to be done.” He added, though: “Sometimes when you win, you don’t think anything different had to be done.” Campaign manager Kellyanne Conway began to point fingers at Republicans who hadn’t wholeheartedly supported the party’s nominee. This included former president George W Bush, who announced on Tuesday that he and his wife voted for “none of the above”. At least two former presidential rivals announced they hadn’t voted for Trump. Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina announced that he cast his ballot for conservative independent candidate Evan McMullin, while Ohio governor John Kasich wrote in the name of 2008 GOP nominee John McCain. Yet as the night continued and a number of state race remained tight, the mood in the crowd became increasingly optimistic. When Chris Wallace declared on Fox News just after 9pm that Trump could be the next president, the ballroom broke into its first round of cheers.
Jon Stewart on The Late Show: angry and rusty – but still essential When Jon Stewart left The Daily Show last summer, many people wondered how he could step down the year before a presidential election, when his show was always at its most vital. Now that the political contest has turned into the Hunger Games with Super Pacs, he’s probably kicking himself. Luckily Stewart has some friends in high places, so he can come out of seclusion and get a few things about the election off his chest. He did just that last night on The Late Show, where he took over Steven Colbert’s desk to lambast Donald Trump and rip Fox News a new one. Sporting a “hiatus beard” and looking a bit thinner than usual (some extra time for the gym and staying away from the writers’ room donuts sure helps), Stewart literally popped up from behind the desk where he jokes he’s been sleeping since leaving The Daily Show. This is part of a gag that Stewart and Colbert started on Monday night where they make it seem as though Stewart has been in complete seclusion for months. This got tired very quickly, especially when he pretended not to know who Taylor Swift and Kim Kardashian were. Even so, it was still wonderful to hear Stewart expound on the election and he did it in a way that he always did on The Daily Show, by holding Fox News accountable for being a den of hypocrites who doesn’t really bother with the truth and whose opinions seem to be as disposable as Justin Bieber’s Snapchats. His main argument was that conservative pundits always called Barack Obama a divisive, thin-skinned narcissist with little political experience and now they’ve had to change course on all of those stances now that Trump is their nominee. It was a solid thesis and one borne out with copious examples of Sean Hannity (who he repeatedly referred to as “Lumpy”) flip-flopping on his stance on everything from Obama’s use of teleprompters to his elitism. But, if I’m being honest, he seemed a little bit rusty. It was like he was an all-star pitcher who came out of retirement to play in a local charity game and who still has a killer arm, just one that needs a bit more warming up before he’s really throwing fastballs. But to replace his adroitness at delivering scathing criticism Stewart had a certain amount of anger. Usually on The Daily Show his attitude was snarky bewilderment at the hypocrisy of those in power. Here he was just mad as hell and not going to take it anymore. I don’t know if it’s because this isn’t his show, if he kept that anger at bay during his decade on Comedy Central, or because this election will drive even the most rational person to spew rabid invective, but there was an emotion here that seemed unusual for Stewart. It was a good look for him and he summed up many American’s feelings when he said to Fox News and Trump supporters: “You just want that person to give you your country back because you feel like you are this country’s rightful owners. But there’s only one problem with that: this country isn’t yours. You don’t own it.” It was a welcome blast of real feeling, so much so that the word “bullshit” had to be bleeped out (this is CBS after all), and Colbert reminded Stewart they were live. “I’ve never been on a show that had stakes before,” he joked. Oddly, it isn’t the Late Show that really has stakes. CBS isn’t axing the show any time soon and they’re going to give Colbert plenty of time to grow. (And he has been the shining star of the glut of late-night coverage the convention got this past week.) The show that really has stakes is The Daily Show, which continues to struggle with Trevor Noah behind the desk. If Stewart wanted to give his old home a bump in the ratings and some sorely needed authority, his presence could have given it the stamp of approval. Sure that’s like revisiting your high school after graduation, but Noah could have used the bump way more that Colbert did. Still it was great to see Stewart give us the old magic that we’ve been lacking this entire election cycle. Hopefully this will be a regular bit between now and November, and I can see plenty of viewers tuning in every night if they know that Jon Stewart could pop up from under the desk at any given moment. And if this keeps going on, by Halloween he’ll be well-oiled and back in prime condition.
I wanted a new kind of mental health support group – we meet in the pub A happy relationship, a good academic record, a great network of family and friends – these are the things that make most people you meet think “she’s got a good life”. In my final year of university, those were also the things that became the focus of an internal battle that I wasn’t expecting. I suddenly started questioning things. What if my boyfriend leaves me? What if a family member I love passes away? What if I have a brain tumour I don’t know about? About six months later, I was diagnosed with general anxiety disorder (GAD) and depression. For some people, a mental health diagnosis can be a devastating blow, but for me it was something of a relief. What was happening to me had a name, and luckily it also had a treatment. Eventually, I came to realise that GAD also had something else: a community. After my diagnosis, I’d spent a lot of time feeling misunderstood and alone. My thoughts isolated me from others, stopped me from enjoying social situations and became the enemy of my relationships. I’d had countless conversations with friends, family and partners that ended in frustration on both of our parts; their reassurances didn’t work, and I was fed up of hearing “have you tried relaxing?” One day I met with a friend for coffee, and inevitably some of the unfounded anxieties I was having about my relationship came up. Instead of the usual response, “I’m sure that won’t happen, don’t worry about it”, I was met with an answer so refreshing it was like a verbal slap around the face: “I totally get what you mean; I think that all the time too.” Those few words brought more relief than all of the conversations I’d previously had about my anxiety put together. I wanted that feeling again. I turned to Google (naturally) to look for a support group, but found very little that appealed, and mostly they weren’t local. So I decided to start one myself. The paradox of mental illness is that even though I felt alone, there were so many people around me going through the same thing, but I had to reach out and find them. I think Let’s Go Mental (LGM) was born at that very moment. To make this support group happen, I had to find some other people who had experienced mental health issues and convince them to actually come. The quickest way to reach a lot of people in 2013? With a Facebook post. It’s been discussed enough by now that everyone uses the internet to present their “best” side, but I can tell you that earnestly presenting reality is a lot scarier. I wrote to about 800 Facebook friends saying I’d experienced depression and anxiety, and was going to set up a support group for people who’d been through something similar and wanted to hang out. My first thought? How embarrassing it would be if the status didn’t get any likes. But the response was overwhelming and pretty inspiring. I wanted LGM to be different than the depictions of support groups I’d seen on episodes of BBC crime dramas. No sitting around in a circle of chairs in a starkly lit room with a few bourbons and some weak tea. I wanted to recreate the ease of that conversation I’d had over coffee with a friend. Where is the best place to make British people feel at ease? The pub, of course. That’s how it happened, the premise of the group is really that simple. We go to the pub, we hang out and have a drink, and we talk about mental health. It’s informal, it’s relaxed, and it’s geared towards building a group of friends who are just that – friends. Like any other group of friends we talk about House of Cards, Tinder and whether we should have taken that last uber. But when we do want to talk about mental health, we know we’re talking to someone who’ll hear us and say that magic, face-slapping phrase: “I know exactly what you mean.” So what are you waiting for? Why not go out and make someone else’s day by starting a conversation about how they’re feeling. Support groups don’t have to be huge, they don’t have to be awkward, and they don’t have to be complicated to run or to organise. Talking about this stuff is hard, so let’s try and make it that little bit easier.
Bad vibraciones! The pop songs Franco didn’t want Spain to hear For visitors to easy-going, freewheeling Spain, where same-sex marriage is legal and a third of children are born out of wedlock, it’s hard to believe that only 40 years ago it was a fascist dictatorship in the grip of a moral code laid down by the Catholic church. Immediately after General Franco came to power in 1939, books, newspapers, radio broadcasts, theatre and all other cultural activity was censored. The explosion of pop music in the 1960s and the growing permissiveness reflected in song lyrics and album covers meant the censors had their work cut out. From 1960 to 1977 the four censors working the afternoon shift at the Directorate of Popular Culture in Madrid banned a total of 4,343 songs on grounds of their sexual, blasphemous or politically subversive content. A new exhibition in Barcelona, Vibracions Prohibides, documents the often absurd and hilarious justifications for these bans. It takes its title from the Beach Boys’ Good Vibrations, a song that didn’t conjure images of beaches and blondes in the censor’s imagination: “These lyrics come from the underclass of drug addict bands in the USA whose philosophy is based on sex … the vibrations are associated with orgasm. I believe it would lead to many young people dancing in a lewd fashion. It should not be authorised.” The song Donna from the musical Hair includes the line “there was a 16-year-old virgin” and was banned because “it presupposes a mentality that says there are hardly any virgin girls around”. The censors were not native English speakers and constantly struggled with innuendo. Poor English is probably the only explanation for outlawing Bob Dylan’s Just Like a Woman on grounds of its “homosexuality”. It was perhaps also a poor grasp of English that led to the conclusion that the Velvet Underground’s anxious junkie song Waiting for the Man was about a girl waiting for her boyfriend. The same band’s Heroin wasn’t banned for being an ode to drugs, but because the word “foiking” appears (Lou Reed is actually singing “for the kingdom”). The censor complains: “I can’t find the word in any dictionary but believe it is a misspelling of ‘fucking’.” But sex and drugs weren’t the only problem, and pop music’s constant recourse to religious imagery was a headache for the censors. In American Pie, when Don McLean refers to “the father, son and holy ghost”, he’s lamenting the loss of Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and the Big Bopper in a plane crash – the day the music died. In the Spanish version, the reference is bleeped out. When they weren’t removing all trace of nudity and Christian imagery from album covers, the censors were on the alert for political subversion. Thus Joan Baez’s We Shall Not Be Moved was banned, as was Ohio by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young because it criticised the police killing of anti-Vietnam war demonstrators. The Beatles’ The Ballad of John and Yoko was axed because it referred to the couple’s wedding in Gibraltar at a time when Franco was claiming sovereignty over the Rock. To most ears, John Lennon’s Imagine is about tolerance and peace but what the censor heard was: “a totally negative song that suppresses everything, even religion, in the hope that everyone will join in with the idea.” Prohibited! Vibracions prohibides, is at El Born Centre de Cultura i Memòria, Barcelona, until 28 August
'Like an impression of Alec Baldwin': late-night hosts on Trump's debate lines Wednesday night capped off the last of the three presidential debates, or as Jimmy Kimmel put it: “It’s like the last time we saw mom and dad fight before the divorce.” As was the case for the previous two clashes, the majority of late-night shows opted to air live immediately following the debate, to mostly skewer Donald Trump’s performance and offer a general roundup. Kimmel admitted to being “fascinated” while watching Trump. “His eyes were mostly closed the whole time, his voice was at phone-sex whisper,” he said, opening Jimmy Kimmel Live. Referencing Alec Baldwin’s impersonation of Trump on Saturday Night Live, Kimmel joked: “It almost seemed as if he was doing an impression of Alec Baldwin doing an impression of him.” “He said ‘disaster’ and he said ‘bigly’ a couple of times, and he said Mexico is sending some bad hombres over here. I guess those Rosetta Stone tapes are paying off,” Kimmel added. Kimmel’s take on the debate was arguably most creative of the lot: in addition to his kickoff monologue, he also aired a presidential debate edition of his Kimmel Kids’ Out of Focus segment, in which he rounded up three young toddlers – Quinn, Raniya and Franki – to get their thoughts on the candidates’ performances. Raniya was the most opinionated, saying she didn’t enjoy watching the debate because “they argue a lot”, adding later: “It was pretty annoying, ’cause Donald Trump was talking over Hillary.” Kimmel made their visit an educational one: he astonished the children with the revelation that Clinton had attended Trump’s wedding to Melania in 2005, and identified Clinton’s and Trump’s running mates, Tim Kaine and Mike Pence. The group agreed that Pence looks a lot friendlier than Trump, with Quinn adding: “Donald Trump seems like he’s losing his mind every day.” In his Late Show monologue, Stephen Colbert addressed Trump’s insinuation that the Emmys are rigged, which he tweeted about in 2012, 2013 and 2014, following snubs for The Apprentice. Grabbing two of his Emmy awards (he has won nine), Colbert said: “You know, Donald, you really should get one. They’re fantastic. I think this year he might get one. If Trump lost to The Amazing Race, this year, it could go to the amazing racist.” Colbert also blasted Trump’s statement about keeping us in suspense as to whether he will accept the outcome of the election, even though immediately before the debate Pence said Trump definitively would accept the result. “Oh, suspense! Democracy’s going to end in a cliffhanger,” Colbert exclaimed. “I guess we’re all going to have to wait until November 9 to find out if we still have a country, if Donald Trump is in the mood for a peaceful transfer of power. Or if he’s going to wipe his fat ass with the constitution.” The Daily Show got in on the action early, broadcasting a Facebook Live mock debate with two candles in lieu of the candidates, stationed behind podiums in a zen garden. A hand inserted itself into the frame at random intervals to rake the sand. The debate could be heard in the background but was largely drowned out by the sound of trickling water and ambient music. During the ensuing show, host Trevor Noah struck a similar tone as Colbert, expressing horror at Trump’s threat of not accepting defeat. “I’m sorry, keep us in ‘suspense’?” Noah asked. “Am I the only one super freaked out by this? “What do you mean you’ll keep us in suspense?” he added. “Trump is going to run his campaign like an episode of Scandal, only with less black people and less women in power and less understanding of politics. But other than that, exactly like Scandal.” As for Trump calling Clinton a puppet, Noah joked: “Trump thinks all women are puppets, that’s why he’s trying to stick his hand up them.”
BT to spend £6bn on superfast broadband and 4G rollout BT, under pressure from rivals and regulator Ofcom, is to invest £6bn in improving its services, including extending superfast broadband and 4G coverage to more than 95% of the UK by 2020. The UK’s largest telecoms firm laid out its investment plans on Thursday as it reported a 15% rise in pre-tax profits to £3bn for the year to 31 March, helped by stronger demand for its broadband and TV bundles. At least 10m homes and businesses are to get ultrafast broadband through a combination of fibre and copper technology called G.fast, with an ambition to reach 12m. The group is laying even faster fibre-optic broadband lines (called fibre to the premises or FTTP) to 2m customers who want speeds of up to 1Gbps, mainly in new housing developments, high streets and business parks. BT is also investing in customer service, and pledged within a year to halve the number of missed appointments at its broadband infrastructure division Openreach. It vowed to reduce the time taken to fix line faults by 24 hours as well as handling 90% of customers’ calls in the UK by March 2017. Openreach is hiring 1,000 new engineers this year. Its head, Clive Selley, has promised customers “better service, broader coverage and faster speeds”. Earlier this year the telecoms regulator, Ofcom, stopped short of recommending that BT be forced to spin off Openreach, as demanded by rivals including TalkTalk and Sky. Instead, the regulator told BT to help rivals use its infrastructure to lay fibre cables that are faster than its own copper network, as part of a review of Britain’s broadband needs. It also demanded that the company improve broadband services for businesses by installing high-speed business lines more quickly and significantly reducing the price it charges rivals for the lines. Analysts at Haitong Research said that despite BT’s investment plans and “Ofcom helping rivals get easier access to BT’s ducts and poles, we doubt that new large-scale networks will be built”. Rival Sky was not impressed. Andrew Griffith, its chief operating officer and chief financial officer, said: ”Today’s statement shows that BT continues to see copper as the basis of its network for 21st-century Britain. Despite BT’s claims, it is clearer than ever that their plans for fibre to the premise (FTTP) broadband will bypass almost every existing UK home. “This limited ambition has been dragged out of BT by the threat of regulatory action, demonstrating once again why an independent Openreach, free to raise its own long-term capital, is the best way for the UK to get the fibre network it needs.” BT’s £12.5bn acquisition of EE, Britain’s largest mobile phone network, was sanctioned by regulators in January. The company said the integration of the mobile operator was going well. Its consumer business, which supplies broadband, telephone and TV services, posted an 8% rise in full-year sales to £1.2bn, as the number of TV customers grew 28% to 1.5m. BT Sport audiences are up 45%, thanks to its live coverage of Uefa Champions League and Europa League matches. Openreach posted 415,000 fibre broadband net additions, and together BT and EE now control 81% of the market. BT’s chief executive, Gavin Patterson, said: “The UK is a digital leader today and it is vital that it remains one in the future … Networks require money and a lot of it. Virgin and BT have both pledged to invest and we will now see if others follow our lead.” He added: “Customers want their broadband to be affordable as well as fast and we will be able to do that using G.fast.”
Brit awards to be less white next year, pledges chairman The overwhelming whiteness of this year’s Brit awards is to be addressed next year, according to Brits chairman Ged Doherty. The event had been widely criticised for ignoring black British music, with a series of artists – including Lily Allen and Laura Mvula – complaining about the failure to recognise the achievement of black British artists. The Brits controversy generated its own Oscar-copying hashtag, #BritsSoWhite. Doherty has responded to the controversy with an open letter, in which he promises to update the 1,100-strong Brits voting academy and establish an advisory committee featuring “members of the black and minority ethnic music community”. He said he wanted “at least 15% BAME participation [in the Brits voting academy], in line with national [population] trends, as well as being more diverse with regard to age and regionality, so that it can be more truly representative of modern British music.” Ged Doherty’s letter in full The Brit awards 2016 was a night for British music to be proud of. A spectacular show with bestselling British and international artists giving incredible performances. As a Brits veteran of more than 30 years, it was one of the best I’ve seen. But there was an elephant in the room last Wednesday at the O2, and, as chairman of the BPI, the music association which organises the awards, I can tell you that it was sat firmly on my lap. It was an elephant some might characterise as a lack of diversity among the nominees, but which, for me, was more about the lack of recognition of the emerging music that is a huge part of British youth culture. It’s this imbalance that lies at the heart of the criticism directed at the Brits nominations process. There are valid reasons why the nominations took the form they did; in particular, that they tend to honour artists who have achieved the highest levels of popularity and that there are no individual awards for specific genres. But this does not mean that we do not need to change. Britain always prides itself on being one step ahead musically. The most innovative and exciting sounds have come from our shores, from the very birth of pop to the emergence more recently of grime. Britain has led the way and that’s because we’ve always celebrated and loved what’s different. This was not adequately reflected at this year’s Brits, however, and we have been slow to look to ourselves and recognise that the processes behind the awards have somehow become disconnected from this heritage of diversity. The awards should, first and foremost, reward the very best and most popular British music, but the playing field for that judgment must also be even. Everyone, regardless of background, should have an equal opportunity to impress. The transparent Brits voting academy is made up of 1,100 people from across the music industry, but, in truth, it needs to be updated. The basis on which people were invited to join was their music expertise. But while this remains a prerequisite, we recognise this is no longer enough, and that facets of diversity such as age, ethnicity, gender and regionality must also be taken into account if the outcome of the nominations process is to be more closely aligned to social trends. We are therefore surveying its makeup, which, I suspect, is largely white and with a bias towards older men. This does not mean that there is an underlying prejudice at play, but the unintended consequence is that emerging genres of music may not be properly recognised. There is a second issue. Currently, to be nominated you must have achieved Top 40 success – but we must now go further. There are performers, including grime artists, who may not have achieved major chart success but who have attracted large followings, including through social media. This level of engagement is at present not part of Brits eligibility and this, perhaps more than any other factor, has caused the nominations to be seen as unrepresentative by some. The work to put this right has already started. I recently met with artist Stormzy to discuss his concerns, explaining why his December Top 10 hit Shut Up missed out on eligibility by one week, and that it is now eligible for 2017. I explained that the Brits organisers are, with the guidance of a new advisory committee that includes members of the BAME music community, exploring initiatives that will enable the event to more effectively celebrate diverse, breaking and established talent. I was delighted that Stormzy engaged with us on this, and I’ll be approaching other artists and producers with a similar invitation. We are making a further commitment by taking steps to ensure that, ahead of 2017, the voting academy will, wherever possible, have equal male-female representation and at least 15% BAME participation, in line with national trends, as well as being more diverse with regard to age and regionality, so that it can be more truly representative of modern British music. I believe our industry is fully behind these changes, and I’d like to encourage anyone who has a contribution to make to this debate to share their views with us. We’re not the only industry facing this issue. Hollywood is now looking hard at itself after Sunday’s Oscars, and every part of society, not just the entertainment business, needs to step up and make sure it embraces its full range of talent. This is true, not just for awards shows, but for all the businesses that support the creative sector. Music has a better record than most when it comes to the diversity of its talent, but it’s essential that this is more fully reflected across its positions of leadership also. I’m determined the BPI, with the support of the music community, will be an innovative leader of change, and that next year’s Brits will be an event everyone can be proud of.
Catherine Ward Thomas: 'Mum told us don’t swear or talk politics or religion' Hello Catherine Ward Thomas. Let’s start with the basics: how did you and Lizzy meet? (1) Well, we’re twin sisters, so probably in the womb and then at birth. Who’s the elder? I am, by two minutes. How does that fact manifest itself in your respective personalities? Oh, well I’m always two minutes early. No, I think we’re both always more than two minutes late to most things, to be honest. I know you’re not identical, but did you used to dress the same when you were young? We’ve always wanted to have our own personalities and identities so we’ve always dressed very differently. But we do share clothes now; I’ll wear the same clothes as Lizzy but never at the same time. Are you getting sent free stuff now that you’re No 1 in the album charts (2)? No, if only! That would be nice. We spend a lot of money on clothes every year. Maybe just mention some brand names you’re a fan of and see what happens. I’ll have a think …. We do wear a lot of Converse, actually. We wear Converse all the time. It has been quite a big few weeks for Ward Thomas. Can you rate your recent successes in order: being added to the Radio 2 playlist; becoming the first UK country music act to score a UK No 1 album; being interviewed by Gaby Roslin on ITV’s Lorraine? I think the first one would definitely be us becoming the first UK country act to have a No 1. Just because we definitely didn’t expect it and it’s still something we’re trying to question; like, there must be another album chart. Being interviewed by Gaby Roslin is No 2; to be on Lorraine with her was lovely. And to get on the Radio 2 playlist is amazing as well, because they’ve been so supportive to us. When you tell people you went to a convent school (3), what’s usually their first reaction? That it’s stuffy and strict? Or that it’s like Sister Act? I think it depends. Sometimes people think Sister Act. It definitely wasn’t stuffy, although they were quite strict on the uniform and how neat and tidy you had to be. People ended up giving us the nicknames Scruff 1 and Scruff 2 because we were so bad at being neat and tidy. We didn’t have any nuns teaching us, so we didn’t get any cool Whoopi Goldberg moments. Your school had Alison Goldfrapp as an alumna. But your brother went to the same school as Lily Allen, Daniel Day-Lewis, Kirstie Allsopp, Cara Delevingne and the singer from the Kooks. That doesn’t seem fair. He definitely trumps us. It was a bit more of a cool school (4) where cool kids went and ended up being really famous. The school is very quirky and you get to call your teachers by their first names and wear home clothes. We didn’t get to go; apparently girls concentrate more in all-girls schools. Or at least that’s what we were told. You wrote your first song in the sixth form and then started having songwriting lessons – what did that entail? I didn’t know what to expect from our first lesson but essentially it’s just writing a song. The guy we had lessons with, Matt Greaves, is just a great songwriter and he showed us how to structure a song and different rules of songwriting. Those rules were so important to us initially because now we can break them. It was basically just us sitting in a nice room writing songs. You’ve cited the Dixie Chicks as a big influence. They got quite political as their career went on – do you think we’ll see something similar from Ward Thomas? Definitely not. Our mum has always told us the three rules of an interview are be yourself, don’t swear and don’t talk about politics or religion. I think we’ll try and avoid that because there are always lots of different opinions floating around. It’s best to keep it to yourself I think. We’ve learned from the Dixie Chicks to not do that, because it didn’t really have a very good effect on them (5). Good for them, though, for speaking out but it had negative effects; people don’t really want to hear everyone’s political opinions when they go to a concert. So no Brexit anthems? No way. No way. You’ve said previously that your songs are about “good old British stuff”. What do you mean by that? What marks your lyrics out as being British? I don’t think they’re about British stuff as such, we just try and write about our own experiences and our own life lessons. We tend to write about emotions and feelings, and stuff that we’ve experienced. So not about cowboys and old dirt roads. I like that one of your songs is about getting lost in the Essex parish of Ugley (6). Yes. Basically we were using the satnav and it really didn’t work. A lot of it was down to the fact that we’d just played a wedding; I was driving and Lizzy, who had just had a couple of glasses of wine, was in charge of directions. It was a bit of a nightmare. Everyone mentions Taylor Swift when talking about bringing country to the UK pop but what about poor Shania Twain? Everyone’s heard of Shania Twain and everyone knows her songs over here. She was a huge pioneer, but what Taylor Swift did that no one else had done really is open up country music to such a young female audience. Man, I Feel Like a Woman is a tune, though. Oh yeah, that’s timeless. Of course. Are you planning on slowly moving into pop music and disregarding your country roots like Taylor? No. I totally respect Taylor and she obviously wants to have a good time, but we love country music and everything about it. Do you think that country music is still seen as a bit of a joke in the UK? We have said that before. At the Country 2 Country festival at the O2, the first time we went, there were people wearing the whole gimmicky dress. But as the years have gone by people are going to a gig because they enjoy instead of just dressing up. You once said: “We call Lizzy the trumpet and me the French Horn.” Is this about flatulence? No, the only reason we said that is because Lizzy and I have got very different singing voices. Lizzie’s got very much a belting, trumpet-like voice, whereas I have a much lower voice. Trumpets and French horns do sound quite nice together, so hopefully it’s quite a nice comparison. So long as it’s not about farting it’s fine. No, not at all. Completely about the sound of our voices. (1) I knew that really. I’m a professional. (2) With second album Cartwheels. (3) Leading independent Catholic day school Alton Convent in Hampshire. (4) Bedales School in Steep; brother Tom Ward Thomas is an actor and playwright who worked for six months on a horse farm in Australia. (5) After criticising then President George W Bush, Dixie Chicks were blacklisted by some country stations, with disgruntled fans encouraged to bring their CDs to a demonstration where they would be crushed. (6) Town Called Ugley. Key lyric: “Turn right, the Tom-Tom said/ I want to chuck it right out of the car and leave it for dead”.
Cameron accuses EU leave campaigners of telling six lies David Cameron has accused the leave campaign of telling six lies about the EU, amid signs of panic in the remain camp about their opposition gaining momentum. The prime minister made the comments at a surprise press conference on a London rooftop, where he urged people to register to vote in the last few hours before the deadline. “A leave campaign resorting to total untruths to con people into taking a leap in the dark: it’s irresponsible and it’s wrong and it’s time that the leave campaign was called out on the nonsense that they are peddling,” Cameron said. He said it was highly significant that the chair of the US Federal Reserve, the head of the World Trade Organisation, and the chair of Hitatchi were all warning against Britain leaving the EU. “Credible experts warning about risks to our economic security on one side and a series of assertions that turn out to be completely untrue on the other,” he said. Cameron said he called the press conference after watching those warnings being aired on the Monday night news, but he faced questions from the press about whether it was actually a reaction to polls showing a lead in the number of people supporting a British exit. Asked if it was a sign of panic, the prime minister said “not at all” but he wanted to make sure he had debunked all the the untruths being told by leading Brexit campaigners, who include Boris Johnson and Michael Gove. Here are the six leave campaign claims that Cameron says are false, and his refutations: That the UK is liable for future eurozone bailouts. Cameron says his EU renegotiation means Britain is categorically not liable. That Britain’s EU rebate is at risk. Cameron says the British prime minister has a veto on changes to the rebate. That Britain has given up its ability to veto EU treaties. The prime minister says there is nothing in the EU renegotiation that relinquishes the UK’s veto. That Britain cannot stop overall EU spending from going up. Cameron says the EU budget is set in stone until 2020 and can only be changed with the consent of all countries. That the UK is powerless to stop itself becoming part of an EU army. He says Britain has a “rock solid veto” on EU foreign and defence policy. That leaving the EU would save Britain £8bn. He says this claim was debunked on Monday by the Institute for Fiscal Studies, which said a Brexit would mean spending less on pubic services, or taxing more, or borrowing more. His speech amounted to an accusation that some members of his own government, including Gove, Priti Patel and Andrea Leadsom, as well as Johnson, were telling lies in order to secure the UK’s exit from the EU. Pressed on why he had not sacked them if he believed they were deliberately conning the public, Cameron said their actions were simply a result of them not having as much direct experience of the EU as he had as prime minister. Douglas Carswell, Ukip’s only MP, said Cameron’s speech was a sign that the in campaign was “in a blind panic”. “The prime minister says we need a proper debate about the facts but he is too chicken to take on anyone from the Vote Leave campaign head-to-head,” he said. Cameron is due to take part in a TV event at 9pm on ITV, answering questions from a live audience for half an hour, immediately after the Brexit campaigner and Ukip leader, Nigel Farage, has faced the same questioning. Farage said on Tuesday that he would be “telling the truth about what the EU has done to the UK” and arguing for “what’s best for Britain: controlling our own borders, making our own laws, running our own country”. He unveiled a poster in Westminster which showed a picture of Cameron next to the slogan “I want what’s best for the EU” and a picture of Farage with the text “I want what’s best for Britain”.
In 20 years as a footballer, I never heard ‘banter’ like Trump’s comments It’s such an easy thing to use as a defence, isn’t it? It’s just blokes. Locker-room humour. “Banter”. The word should be banned. It makes such a massive generalisation about what is acceptable in conversations between men. And make no mistake – what Donald Trump said is in no way acceptable. It brings the image of the locker room in to disrepute. Clearly the man has no awareness of how that culture has moved on in the past 30 years. You can’t just say, “that’s what blokes do” – because you know what, it isn’t. Even in sport, one of the most “macho” industries. And I should know, I played professional football for nearly 20 years. The locker room is an extreme environment – you have stress, testosterone and nervous energy. The competitive juices are flowing. There are things that are said that you wouldn’t say in public spaces. But it’s self-policing, and there’s still a line that people don’t cross – otherwise you’d be absolutely slaughtered by your teammates. Trump went way beyond that line. Everyone has different levels of where to draw that line, and things have changed since I was young when I remember hearing coaches say things to players to “toughen them up”, things that in anybody else’s eyes would just be seen as racist. In their own perverse way they thought that they were doing the youngsters a favour, but it just perpetuated ignorance. I knew it was wrong even then, and always said to myself that I would never forget it, and would never say things like that, or treat people that way. But the locker room is an incredibly contradictory environment – at one extreme it’s very caring and supportive, at the other it’s hard and brutal. A lot of the humour lies in putting other people down. Players are constantly on at each other, having a joke at someone else’s expense – it’s seen as an initiation process. But there’s the opposite side of that too: an incredible togetherness, loyalty, support when people are going through personal problems. An emotional openness between men that you wouldn’t necessarily expect. The insults and the bragging have a part to play in that. You need to have the ability to release the pressure, as you spend so much time together. And it can help to build relationships – but only if it stays within bounds, otherwise it can destroy the very thing you’re trying to reinforce. That doesn’t mean you have to be racist or sexist or homophobic – there are other ways of making your mark. And that’s partly where the bragging comes in. People project a persona to protect their image and vulnerabilities. Why did Trump say what he said? He was trying to impress Billy Bush. It’s that ego thing. But I’ve never known the level of conversation to descend to the level of what Trump said. Derogatory comments are made – they’re not acceptable – but I’ve never heard women spoken about in such a predatory way. People would have objected. Loudly. Maybe 50 years ago, when Trump was young, that was the language used. But there’s been a huge shift in locker-room culture even since I started playing. Just look at the way issues around race have been tackled. A lot of that has been down to the diversity in the dressing room. But society has far less tolerance of that kind of language, and people have become much more aware of when the bounds of acceptability are crossed. My era was that of Justin Fashanu and the horrible homophobic abuse he suffered. I experienced some of it myself – apparently in part because I read the . People in the locker room weren’t saying those things because they thought I was actually gay: they knew I wasn’t. It was that put-down style of humour taken to an unpleasant extreme. In their eyes it wasn’t homophobic because I wasn’t gay. But in the process they were being incredibly derogatory. At the time I didn’t even have the support within my own dressing room – it was just seen as name-calling. I wonder, if I had been gay, would they have still used that type of abuse? Would it have then crossed their line, beyond just winding people up, and made them aware of the damage that is caused by that sort of language? Regardless, that sort of thing 100% would not happen now. I’m involved with the FA working on areas of equality, and it is treated so differently today. The gay community, and players, have far more protection. And we shouldn’t forget that the locker-room is far from a male-only place. Women play sport too, Donald. One of the reasons I find Trump’s excuse so offensive is that he’s presuming the culture of the locker room is the same as what goes on in his brain, the culture he finds acceptable in his ivory tower. The dressing room hasn’t been anything close to that for a long time, and it was never as bad as the vile language that came out of his mouth. I’ve never experienced in all my time in football anybody who would ever think what he said would be something to laugh at or brag about. It’s so extreme. The reaction on both sides of the Atlantic has proved the point that you can’t be flippant with abusive language and then just try to brush it off as part of a culture you know nothing about.
The B-Side: Elsa Dorfman's Portrait Photography review – Errol Morris takes a charming snapshot There’s something deceptively simple about Errol Morris’ new film. The acclaimed documentary film-maker is interviewing his old friend, photographer Elsa Dorfman, in her studio, going through her work and discussing career highlights. On paper, it sounds limited and perhaps even a little self-congratulatory but, as ever, Morris is a fine judge of his material and even when the focus is close to home, his direction remains on point. Morris is well aware of Dorfman’s warm, self-effacing charm, and he’s confidant that spending the entirety of a film with her will be a rare pleasure for the viewer. Documentaries that are essentially extended conversations with just one subject heavily rely on one’s relationship with the interviewee and Dorfman is so uniquely fascinating that time spent with her is a joy. Morris allows Dorfman to take us through her life and her work with patience, starting with her induction into the world of photography at a time when women were expected to be wives rather than independent entities (in one telling picture of hers, she shows a couple; the man holds his PhD and the woman holds her baby). In the late 1960s, as she entered her 30s, she admits that she was embarrassed not to be married and needed something else in her life. Taking pictures became natural for her, self portraits in particular. She soon progressed to focusing on others, befriending artists and poets of the time, including Allen Ginsberg, with whom she became particularly close. Dorfman values reality over falseness and wants to capture people’s flaws, making her work a perfect antithesis to heavily filtered selfie culture. She tells her story with the pictures she’s taken, and there’s a discovery in her rediscovery with Dorfman herself surprised at what she finds. She’s brutally honest about her work and talks of the importance of possessing pride without becoming arrogant. It’s often a bittersweet process for her, encountering friends who have passed and moments in time that have faded. She revisits the death of her parents, a story told by captions on the bottom of Polaroids. Despite her love for the format, Dorfman was shunned by the company and had to bully her way into their good books. She ultimately got her hands on a rare 20x24 instant camera, a style of photography she became most known for. Her love for Polaroid also has a sad twinge with the fall of the brand and her eventual retirement. But Dorfman isn’t a fan of melancholy and her optimism is contagious. She refuses to take pictures of the broken-hearted and uses photography as a form of therapy both for her and her subjects. At 79, she’s as energetic and passionate as she seems in earlier interview footage. Morris has clear affection for her, but this film isn’t about their friendship, and it only needs the lightest touch from him for it to soar. It’s an endlessly charming film focused on a woman whose view of life is one to be envied. From defying gender expectation in her younger years to refusing to let tragedy shape her as she matures, Dorfman is a force, and spending time with her is an invaluable experience.
US officials downplay impact of Department of Justice hacking US officials have downplayed the impact of the latest hack of government data, this one containing employee information from 29,000 Department of Justice (DoJ) and Homeland Security (DHS) staff. Hackers claimed Sunday night to have stolen sensitive information from some 20,000 people employed by DoJ, including Federal Bureau of Investigation officials, and another 9,000 from DHS. But government sources familiar with the hack said the compromised information paled by comparison to the recent data theft from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM). “The department is looking into the unauthorized access of a system operated by one of its components containing employee contact information,” DOJ spokesman Peter Carr told the . “This unauthorized access is still under investigation; however, there is no indication at this time that there is any breach of sensitive personally identifiable information. The department takes this very seriously and is continuing to deploy protection and defensive measures to safeguard information. Any activity that is determined to be criminal in nature will be referred to law enforcement for investigation.” Hacked data posted anonymously on an encrypted website and reviewed by the included a DHS personnel directory. The information listed included phone numbers and email addresses for individuals who have not worked for DHS in years. Some listings included long-outdated titles. The encrypted DHS directory appeared online just before 7pm EDT on Sunday. The password was “lol”. A person claiming responsibility told Motherboard, which broke the story of the hack, that he or she had compromised a DHS employee’s account and then used the information from it to convince an FBI phone operator to provide access to the DoJ’s computer system. Hackers promised to release information from the DoJ on Monday, and at 4pm EDT a similar list was posted on the same site, with a DoJ staff directory that also appeared to be somewhat out of date. That list also appeared geniune and included working phone numbers for some DoJ staff. During a government-wide meeting Monday morning to assess the hack, an official likened it to stealing a years-old AT&T phone book after the telecom had already digitized most of its data. But knowledgeable officials admit that it should be less simple to obtain an access token by impersonating an official from a different department over the phone to a help desk. “The bottom line is, something broke,” an official said. Things break regularly in government data security. The OPM hack, revealed in June, exposed the deeply researched security clearances of 21.5m current and former government employees and contractors, from phone numbers to fingerprints. Though the DHS breach appears far less severe, it is nevertheless particularly embarrassing given that the department has been designated the point of entry for all corporate data shared with government agencies in the controversial information sharing program between industry and government created by the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act last year. The program, in which private companies share user information with the government in exchange for immunity from regulation, was unpopular from its inception at the DHS, which is left holding the bag in the event of a breach. DHS deputy secretary Alejandro Mayorkas quoted troubling provisions from the bill in a letter to Senator Al Franken sent in July: “The authorization to share cyber threat indicators and defensive measures with ‘any other entity or the Federal Government,’ ‘notwithstanding any other provision of law’ could sweep away important privacy protections,” he wrote. Information for Mayorkas, who has been at DHS since 2013, could not be found in the directory leaked on Sunday. Through a Twitter account apparently used by several people, the person or people responsible for the DHS breach posted a link to an encrypted page with more than 9,300 names, phone numbers, titles and email addresses from the Department of Homeland Security. Jeh Johnson, head of the DHS, was the victim of a hack last year, as was John O Brennan, head of the CIA. The account also posted two screenshots of a web browser logged into a DoJ computer. The perpetrators of more than one recent hack, including this one, say they’re acting out of sympathy for Palestine: the hashtag #FreePalestine has appeared alongside several hacks in the last few months, and the DHS staff directory is prefaced with a quote from English rapper Lowkey: “This is for Palestine, Ramallah, West Bank, Gaza, This is for the child that is searching for an answer.”
HSBC has closed all the accounts of campaign group and won’t say why HSBC, which I have personally banked with since 1964, recently announced that it will close the four accounts we hold for the campaign organisation Searchlight following a “review”. In a follow-up email it insisted there is nothing we can do to change the decision and that it will not give us a reason. Searchlight has campaigned against racism and fascism for 52 years, published a magazine since 1975, and is well respected. We are not aligned to any political party and are multi-faith. We currently work with the University of Northampton and recently launched a research arm, Searchlight Research Associates, with many distinguished patrons. We have no overdraft facility – our income comes from occasional grants, donations and subscriptions and is paid in by cheque, standing order or bank transfer. We have hardly any international transactions. We can think of nothing in our use of the accounts that could possibly give rise to any concerns. The only reason I can think of is that the fascist individuals and organisations that Searchlight combats have maliciously given false information to the bank for the sole purpose of getting our accounts closed, and the bank has accepted it without investigation. Obviously, this is very disruptive and we are applying for new accounts with another bank but we don’t know whether it will accept our application in view of HSBC’s action. Although HSBC is acting within its terms and conditions, its unilateral action is contrary to all principles of justice. GG, Ilford, Essex There’s nothing you can do to change the decision, says HSBC – except write to the media. As soon as I contact the bank you receive a flurry of phone calls and then two senior officials beg a meeting. The upshot is that the four accounts are reinstated with no more of an explanation than when they were closed. Its press office will only comment opaquely: “HSBC aims to provide the highest standard of customer service … where this has not been met we endeavour to work closely with the customer to resolve any issue as soon as possible.” Abrupt closure of bank accounts without explanation is becoming a worryingly frequent issue in my inbox as banks run scared of draconian US crackdowns on anyone deemed complicit in money laundering. HSBC narrowly avoided prosecution by the US Congress, so the chances are it is neurotically reacting to any account with political overtones or foreign transactions, be it owned by a suburban householder or a high-profile campaigning group. You’re lucky. Very rarely in my experience do the banks capitulate and reverse their decisions, however mystifying. If you need help email Anna Tims at your.problems@observer.co.uk or write to Your Problems, The , Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU. Include an address and phone number.
'Strong leadership and clear plan' needed for Brexit says thinktank Parliament’s scrutiny of Britain’s exit from the European Union risks becoming a “chaotic competition for the limelight”, according to a report from a Whitehall thinktank. The Institute for Government has found that MPs and peers are already running 31 separate inquiries into the impending Brexit – even before the election of MPs to a new Brexit select committee. Turf wars over who should scrutinise the Department for Exiting the EU (DExEU) mean the exiting the EU select committee which is supposed to scrutinise its work has still not been set up, the report has found. The report has been released hours after it emerged that Vote Leave supporter Kate Hoey will stand against the former foreign secretary Hilary Benn to be chair of the committee. Entitled Scrutinising Brexit, the paper warns that without strong leadership and a clear plan to engage the Brexit ministers, the select committee risks becoming a large but toothless watchdog. But so far Commons committees have already launched over 18 inquiries into the effects of Brexit, while 13 are underway in the Lords, the report noted. In recent years, select committees have gained a growing reputation for influencing policy and holding government and individuals – such as the media mogul Rupert Murdoch and businessman Mike Ashley – to account. The paper argues that Brexit will either be the issue that unravels this progress or embeds the place of select committees in our democratic system. It concludes that a proliferation of parliamentary inquiries into Brexit will lead to overlapping lines of inquiry, competition for media headlines, and “witness fatigue”. The report has been released before Thursday’s election of new chairs for select committees. Dr Hannah White, the author of the report, said: “Select committee scrutiny of Brexit risks becoming a chaotic competition for the limelight, diverting huge amounts of ministerial and official time which might have been better spent elsewhere. The MPs who sit on these committees – and the new chairs being newly elected on Thursday – face a huge task undertaking scrutiny of Brexit. But they must rise to the challenge, because ultimately better scrutiny will mean better Brexit.” The government has been accused of trying to avoid scrutiny of its Brexit strategy by creating a parliamentary committee that is too big to do its job properly. Twenty-one MPs from every party in the House of Commons except Ukip and the Greens, will sit on the new Brexit select committee. Hoey and Benn – who was sacked by Jeremy Corbyn for disloyalty – have been nominated to chair the Exiting the EU Committee, one of two vacant select committee chairs allocated to Labour. Benn, who campaigned vigorously for remaining in the EU, was backed to chair the exiting the European Union select committee by the former Labour leader Ed Miliband and other senior colleagues, including Angela Eagle, Dan Jarvis and Andy Burnham. Hoey, a long-time vocal advocate for leaving the EU, joined Ukip leader Nigel Farage’s Leave.EU group to make the “leftwing case” for an EU exit. The MP for Vauxhall, south London, counts both leave and remain-backing MPs among her supporters, including the Labour Brexiters John Mann, Frank Field and Gisela Stuart and the pro-remain SNP MP Alex Salmond. The committee will be nearly double the size of almost every other Commons select committee after a deal struck between Conservative and Labour whips. But some senior MPs have claimed that the committee has been made deliberately large so that it is less effective at scrutinising the government’s strategy and less able to reach a consensus.
Letters: Bob Holman obituary Sonia Jackson writes: Bob Holman was almost unique among campaigners for social justice in living his values. He was inspired not only by his faith, but by understanding how people’s lives are shaped by the decisions of politicians and the writings of academics and journalists who have no idea what it is like to live in poverty day by day. He fully recognised how much his work depended on the loving and uncomplaining support of his wife, Annette, who combined a high-level post in local government with taking a full share in his community work. He would be saddened by the low level of the debate on the EU, the emphasis on narrow economic issues and especially the hostility towards immigrants, about which he wrote eloquently. He seldom talked about himself, except in the epilogue to his lovely book Champions for Children. It concludes with a passionate affirmation of support for the ethical ideals of the Co-operative Society, and the many services it offers to its members, which he urges readers to use. Les Bright writes: Forty years ago, while training as a community development worker, I was inspired by Bob Holman’s decision to leave academia to work on a Bath housing estate. Although I never met him, I remained inspired by his writing, not least in his many letters to the that continued to display the same clarity of purpose that took him from a comfortable life in southern England to a tough part of Glasgow.
Kings of Leon: WALLS review – it should be utterly horrendous This is Kings of Leon as you haven’t really heard them before: pop-facing, channelling the guitar sounds of the 1980s. WALLS, their seventh album, starts with a song called Waste a Moment, whose chord progression packs a little nod to Bruce Springsteen’s Born to Run. In the song’s “woah oh oh”s, in its emotive crescendo, you can detect the hand of their latest producer, Markus Dravs, who took Arcade Fire from indie striplings to anthem-mongers; his latest credit is Florence + the Machine. At the opposite end of the tracklisting, the album closer WALLS finds Caleb Followill – hair thinning, a little vulnerable – in ballad mode, pronouncing words as you or I might, rather than with his former cheekful-of-tobacco slur. WALLS apparently stands for “we are like love songs”: the syllable count fits the Kings of Leon album title tradition. Other traditions are looking decidedly more negotiable, however. Here are songs like Find Me, whose 80s-cribbing production recalls, to varying degrees, bands as shiny as the Killers, or as period-perfect as the War on Drugs. You might just detect, perhaps, the needly guitars and galumph of Talking Heads on the verses of Around the World, an autobiographical romp in which the band “go around the world” and “find a girl”. Over, which ends bleakly, rings out particularly rueful and retro, with Followill intoning his words rather than singing. “I face the music,” he proclaims, still atoning, perhaps, for the time he nearly derailed the band back in 2011 with an onstage meltdown and subsequent rehab. This, then, is a big, expansive, commercial album, its hair shorn and occasionally gelled into directional styles, but one keen to bare its soul. The implication of a title like WALLS is, after all, that they should come down. It should be utterly horrendous, the very antithesis of the skinny, hirsute heap of jangling hormones that Kings of Leon first presented 13-odd years ago. Actually, WALLS sounds pretty good, full of jewel-like detail and cogency. It’s as though Kings of Leon’s sound has been put through an unexpected series of aural Instagram filters that really don’t do the band a disservice. Lyrically, Caleb Followill is often downbeat, imagining what would happen if his wife left him. On Muchacho – an unexpectedly lovely piece of plinky-plonky esoterica – he recalls a friend who died. Eyes on You, meanwhile, is the album’s token throwback to Kings of Leon basics, its carefree, bish-bosh swing rekindling memories of the band once dubbed “the southern Strokes”. You can’t get away from the fact that WALLS is a slick offering from rich rock stars. But it remains easy on the ear.
Watford’s Quique Sánchez Flores and Odion Ighalo win monthly Premier League awards Quique Sánchez Flores and Odion Ighalo have been rewarded for Watford’s impressive form in December with the respective Premier League manager and player of the month awards. Flores’s side picked up 10 points in five December games – beating Norwich, Sunderland and Liverpool and drawing at Chelsea – to establish themselves in the top half of the table, and have won plaudits for their style of play. Flores beat fellow nominees Arsène Wenger, Claudio Ranieri and Alan Pardew to the Barclays manager of the month award. Ighalo scored five goals during the month, including two in the emphatic 3-0 win over Liverpool. Also nominated for the player of the month prize were Mesut Özil, Marko Arnautovic, Riyad Mahrez, Romelu Lukaku and Dele Alli to the award. Watford visit Swansea City on Monday.
Xenia Rubinos: ‘I'm saying things about being a brown girl in America' Aside from feeling like a prelude to the apocalypse, 2016 will go down as a banner year for ambitious albums exploring what it means to be a person of colour, especially in America. The timing is no coincidence: racist police brutality persists, and Donald Trump promises to entrench racial divides. The vibe of many of these records, notably Solange’s fluid A Seat At The Table and Blood Orange’s Freetown Sound, has been understated and contemplative. But one lesser-cited standout addresses issues of identity with firework-bright energy. In June, Brooklyn-based musician Xenia Rubinos released her second album, Black Terry Cat, a vibrant voyage through her psyche – “Welcoming folks into the way I hear music,” as she says, calling from tour in Tucson, Arizona. She unleashes MIA-like invective on Mexican Chef, a tart skit about the undervalued work that keeps the States afloat. (“Brown cleans your house, brown takes the trash, brown even wipes your grandaddy’s ass,” she raps with a wink.) On I Won’t Say she quotes from civil rights activist Abbey Lincoln’s 1966 essay Who Will Revere The Black Woman?, and amid See Them’s gnashing synths, Rubinos poses the record’s key question: “You know where to put the brown girl when she’s fuckin’ it up. Where you gonna put the brown girl now she’s tearin’ it up?” Born to a Puerto Rican mother and a Cuban father, 31-year-old Rubinos questions the limitations that other people put on her identity, including the artistic ghettoisation she experiences when her music is labelled “Latin”. Such pigeonholing flattens her sound’s wild abandon and ambition. She graduated from the prestigious Berklee College Of Music with a degree in jazz composition, got her start playing DIY house shows in her Brooklyn apartment, and is currently signed to ANTI-, a division of punk label Epitaph. Indeed, on Black Terry Cat, she thrashes as hard as Shellac, flows like Erykah Badu, and matches the strut of classic Daptone records. Because of this, she says, “It’s infuriating when I feel someone’s not listening and just looking at my face or name and assuming.” That miscategorisation, coupled with the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, inspired Rubinos to investigate her own heritage while writing Black Terry Cat. Tracing her roots back to her Spanish grandfather and African great-grandmother, she began defining as Afro-Latina (rather than the disputed ethnonyms Latino and Hispanic). She says she wasn’t aware of that designation when she was younger, but a surge in Latin media has finally offered proper representations of her background; even listicles about “things you only know when you have a Puerto Rican grandma” help, she says. “Back then, I didn’t see myself [re]presented in media in any kind of way that was relatable or authentic,” says Rubinos. “It’s cool to have these things now to help me navigate my experience.” Since its release, Black Terry Cat’s themes have felt ever more pressing. The emotionally frantic Black Stars was inspired by the death of Rubinos’s father after complications from Parkinson’s disease, but she says its lyrics took on extra meaning after 18-year-old Michael Brown was shot dead by police in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014. The week we speak, there are reports of police killing more unarmed black men in Oklahoma and North Carolina. But, Rubinos says, it’s just as limiting to call her a “political artist” as it is to call her a Latin one. “Because I’m saying things about being a brown girl in America, suddenly it’s a protest album,” she says dismissively. “I’m just talking about real shit that’s happening around us.” She references Nina Simone: “She was socially engaged and wrote a lot of provocative songs, but she was a great composer, a great pianist, a great vocalist. To say she’s protest music, it limits the way people could view the larger scope of what she does.” Nevertheless, Rubinos is hopeful that her record will help people through tricky conversations about race, society and emotion. “One thing I was curious about was how Cubans are able to carry their joy and their pain as if they were the same thing,” she says. “That’s part of this brown-girl magic I wondered if I could harness. In a live show, I feel the weight of what I’m saying, but it’s fun. I’m dancing and we’re all there together. I wish that’s what it could always be like, that we could have that conversation.” In 2016’s musical discourse about race in America, Rubinos’s voice is one we should all be listening to. Xenia Rubinos plays Birthdays, E8, Monday 24 October
Junior doctors make legal challenge to Jeremy Hunt's 'misconceived' contract Jeremy Hunt is facing high court legal action over claims he broke the law and acted “irrationally” by imposing a new contract on NHS junior doctors when he had no power to do so. Five junior doctors are challenging the health secretary’s decision, which they say and was done for political purposes and amounts to him seeking to exercise an unlawful degree of control over the health service. Their lawsuit is an attempt to stop Hunt acting on his threat to force all trainee medics to work under onerous new terms and conditions from August to help deliver the Conservatives’ promise of 24/7 NHS by 2020. They claim Hunt is not entitled to decide the terms and conditions under which England’s 45,000 junior doctors work or to compel hospital trusts to enforce the new contract. More than 5,000 operations have been cancelled this week because of the strike by doctors affected – all those below consultant level – on Wednesday and Thursday, the fourth walkout since January as part of a campaign against the contract. In a 24-page legal “letter before claim” sent to Hunt, the quintet claim: “To have taken a decision of such consequence, in the face of such opposition and escalating industrial action, and in the absence of support from leaders in the NHS, in under 24 hours and without consultation, bespeaks of a plainly irrational approach that failed to take account of the ramifications it was likely to involve.” The challenge is being undertaken by Justice for Health, a company set up by the five junior doctors: Ben White, Francesca Silman, Marie McVeigh, Nadia Masood and Amar Mashru. The quintet have given Hunt until Monday to respond. If he fails to do so, they will seek a high court judicial review of the legality of his announcement in parliament in February that he had decided to impose the contract because there was no hope of a negotiated solution to the long-running dispute with the British Medical Association. In a legal appeal that is being crowdfunded, the five junior doctors allege that “contrary to the impression given by his statement of 11 February 2016, his ‘decision’ was purely of ‘political’ effect and had no legitimate legal effect whatsoever”. Hunt was mistaken in his apparent belief that he has the power to impose the contract, they add, because the structure of the NHS in England means the health secretary cannot tell hospital trusts who to employ or on what terms, including, in particular, junior doctors. Branding his decision “misconceived”, they add that Hunt has no power to tell foundation trust hospitals, local councils or GPs surgeries who to employ. And while he may be able to instruct other NHS trusts, he can only do so after undertaking a public consultation about the effect of his plans, which he has not done, the letter says. Saimo Chahal QC of Bindmans, the London solicitors acting for Justice for Health, said: “We say that he [Hunt] has acted unlawfully in purporting to make a decision about the terms NHS employers were required to offer to junior doctors working in ther NHS from August 2016 onwards. We have asked him to show us what legal authority he was acting under and advised him that we will be seeking orders quashing any decisions which have legal consequences. “The way the NHS is set up, the secretary of state is limited to a strategic, hands-off role, which is mediated through the mandate to NHS England and not by taking decisions about what should be in an individual junior doctor’s contract. “The policymakers may have come to the conclusion that this approach does not work but the law restricting the secretary of state to this role remains in place.” The five junior doctors claim Hunt’s decision was irrational because he took it before terms and conditions for junior doctors were finalised or the Department of Health (DH) had undertaken an equality impact assessment. In addition, Hunt’s claim that at least 18 hospital trust chief executives backed the imposition fell apart when 12 of them made clear they disagreed with it. This legal action is separate to the legal challenge already under way by the BMA, which is contesting the contract on equality grounds. NHS England claimed 46% of all junior doctors worked normally on Wednesday. This week’s 48-hour walkout involves only those working in non-urgent areas of care, though the BMA has decided to escalate the dispute by staging two all-out strikes on 26 and 27 April. The DH rejected the claims in the doctors’ letter and said it would defend Hunt’s actions “robustly”. A spokesman said: “Legal action is expensive for all parties and, in the circumstances, any action which follows from Justice for Health, like the action launched by the BMA, will be totally unwarranted. We reject the challenge that the new contract is unlawful and will be responding robustly to the points they have made.”
Mark Carney changes his tune as consumers dance on What a surprise, the great British consumer did not retreat into a bunker after the vote for Brexit in June. He and she kept on eating, drinking and buying houses as if nothing of great significance had happened. “For households, the signs of an economic slowdown are notable by their absence,” admitted governor Mark Carney, struggling to explain why the Bank of England’s forecast in August that short-term growth in the UK economy would come to a near standstill was wrong by an embarrassing margin. Sympathy for the forecasters should be limited. It is true that referendums, especially ones that lead to the defenestration of a prime minister, don’t happen often. But, come on, it was hardly fanciful to think consumers might disregard, for a while, the dangers of an actual exit from the European Union if the event was pencilled in to happen only in 2019. Real incomes are still rising (for now) and experience suggests UK consumers tend to stay on the dancefloor until the music stops. Such behaviour is possibly imprudent in the face of a 20% fall in the exchange rate but most Britons, unlike Bank officials, do not spend their days modelling inflationary pass-through effects. Indeed, for homeowners with variable-rate mortgages, the first direct financial impact of the referendum was a small reduction in monthly payments after the quarter-point cut in Bank rate in August. Carney and co can take some small credit for a successful intervention but their short-term forecasting misjudgment remains severe. Wisely, the governor did not claim to have saved the nation from the gloom he predicted. The positives “are neither solely due, nor totally unrelated to” the Bank’s actions, was as far as he dared fudge it. If Threadneedle Street couldn’t tell what lay around the next corner, should we trust its projections for 2017 and 2018? Actually, yes, we should. Those inflation models aren’t perfect but it’s not hard to predict what will happen when the pound is down by a fifth. Prices will rise. The Bank foresees a peak for inflation of 2.75% in mid-2018, which is lower than some in the City expect. But it will be quite enough to squeeze living standards. On that score, believe the Bank. Pension Regulator’s patience finally snaps So much for “the light in the tunnel” that Sir Philip Green claimed to spot as long ago as June in his negotiations with the Pensions Regulator over the deficit in the BHS fund. He was still seeing rays of optimism in his interview with ITV a few weeks ago but the regulator told him to check his vision. “We are yet to receive a comprehensive and credible written proposal and have made clear what we require,” it said, hinting that its patience was wearing thin. Now it has snapped. The regulator has launched formal legal proceedings against Green (plus a company controlled by his wife, and also against Dominic Chappell, the former bankrupt whose outfit bought BHS for £1). Green suggests he can’t understand the fuss. He says he’s put forward “a credible and substantial proposal, with evidence and bank confirmation of cash availability”. The Topshop tycoon seems to have misunderstood how the process works. It is not for him to decide what counts as credible and substantial – that’s the regulator’s role. As far as we can tell, the dispute involves fundamental questions, like the size of the initial lump sum to cover the deficit. If so, the regulator is right to issue warning notices. Green first started talking about his plan to “sort” the deficit back in 2014 when he (or, rather, his Monaco-based wife) still owned BHS. The farce has run too long already. It’s now time to discover if the regulator’s powers of compulsion are as strong as they ought to be. FCA picks up baton dropped by CMA The Competition and Markets Authority’s proposals to enliven the banking sector were feeble, almost everybody agrees (apart from the report’s authors, of course). Now, even the Financial Conduct Authority seems to have sided with the doubters. The City regulator will study whether it should impose a cap on overdraft fees, an idea the CMA rejected in its summer report. The two bodies perform different roles, so all sides can pretend politely that there is no fundamental disagreement. But, as the watchful Treasury select committee chair Andrew Tyrie says, it looks as if the FCA is picking up a baton dropped by the CMA. Indeed, the FCA’s inquiry could quickly become a wider review of where else the CMA failed. That would be very welcome.
At least President Trump would ground the drones Britons are never happier than when ridiculing the vulgarity of American politics. Donald Trump’s acceptance speech at the Republican convention in Cleveland last night was therefore a gift. It was as vacuous a catalogue of cliches as Barack Obama’s “Yes we can” speeches in 2008. This is colouring-book oratory, and intended as such. A more serious question is, what would a Trump presidency be like for the outside world? Trump’s foreign policy line has been clearer than his domestic one: it is a revival of Republican isolationism. He attacks Hillary Clinton for bringing “death, destruction and weakness” to the Middle East, citing the interventions in Iraq, Libya and Syria. He refrained from mentioning the role of his Republican forebear George W Bush. But he has indicated a clear rejection of world free trade, immigration, and any notion of American sanctuary. Trump’s hostility to Mexican migrants and incoming Muslims has been only mildly diluted. On collective security, he has attacked “our allies riding on our back”, in a stark invitation to Europe to start thinking afresh about its defence priorities. Trump is right to point out that Obama’s global antics have been ham-fisted. The continuing continuing chaos in the Middle East may be an easy target, but he has persistently opposed these interventions. Obama’s fascination with the drone as a weapon of aggression, his failed “reset” with Russia, the decline in relations with China, and the clumsy remarks about Brexit all illustrated an ineptitude as self-appointed global policeman. Last week American jets massacred 73 civilians, including 50 women and children, in the Syrian village of Manbij. Imagine if Isis had done this. Obama’s wars remain unresolved and immoral. A jolt of realpolitik from an isolationist Republican would be no bad thing. Of course, Bush too was vigorously isolationist in his pre-9/11 mode in 2000, but the days when the world’s collective security hung on a Washington heartbeat are over. Behind the bombast, a period of transatlantic withdrawal and reflection is in order. As far as Britain is concerned, Trump welcomed Brexit, albeit as a token of his own popular defiance against a ruling class. He would presumably honour this by reversing Obama’s end-of-the-queue attitude to a trade deal with Britain. Either way, the tectonic plates are shifting. A Trump presidency would, like Brexit, be a leap into the unknown. But even the darkest clouds can have silver linings.
Accounting watchdog weighs up inquiry into KPMG's audit of HBOS The Financial Reporting Council is considering an investigation into KPMG’s auditing of HBOS, the bank that almost collapsed at the peak of the financial crisis. The accounting regulator said its conduct committee had asked its head of enforcement, Gareth Rees, to make inquiries into whether KPMG committed misconduct when it signed off HBOS’s books for 2007. Rees will examine whether it was correct for KPMG to allow HBOS to be classed as a going concern in its 2007 accounts, and whether major worries about the bank’s viability should have been included in the financial statements. Rees’s inquiries are preliminary and may not lead to a full inquiry but the decision to start the process represents a significant step amid political pressure for a full investigation of KPMG’s role. If a full inquiry goes ahead, the firm and individual accountants who worked on HBOS could face punishment. HBOS, which traded as Halifax and Bank of Scotland, was forced to ask shareholders for £4bn to prop up its finances in April 2008 just two months after its annual accounts gave it a clean bill of health. The bank almost imploded in September 2008 and was rescued by Lloyds in a government-engineered takeover. The combined bank was bailed out by taxpayers a month later at a cost of £20bn. The FRC said it asked Rees to investigate after reading a report by financial regulators into HBOS’s collapse published in November. The FRC has already looked at HBOS’s bad debt provisions and decided there were not grounds for a full investigation but it has come under pressure to look further into KPMG’s conduct. After the HBOS report was published, Andrew Tyrie, chairman of the Treasury committee, criticised the FRC for not conducting a full investigation into KPMG’s auditing of HBOS. Tyrie wrote to the council urging them to get on with an investigation quickly. Tyrie said on Thursday: “This is not before time. A great deal depends on the quality of audited accounts. They were found wanting during the financial crisis. It is essential that everybody fully understands why. That is why this investigation is so important. The committee will be keeping a close eye on it.” Simon Walker, director general of the Institute of Directors business lobby group, said it was essential that investors had faith in the audited accounts of UK companies and that the FRC needed to conduct a thorough review to maintain confidence. Walker said: “Shareholders and customers deserve to know what role the firm’s auditors, KPMG, played in this scandal. External audits must be rigorous and fit for purpose, especially when it comes to systemically important and bewilderingly complex financial institutions. “There is more at stake here than just the integrity of a few regulators and the inquiry cannot just be about spreading blame. Shareholders need confidence in the financial statements offered by companies and they have a right to know that auditors are properly scrutinising the books.” A spokesman for KPMG, one of the big four accountancy firms, said it supported a thorough review of the HBOS affair and that it was important for conclusions to be reached speedily. He added: “We were pleased that the [Prudential Regulation Authority] and Financial Conduct Authority] report issued last November recognised that KPMG provided robust challenge and delivered clear warnings to HBOS and that this resulted in a more prudent approach to provisioning than would otherwise have been adopted. We will continue to cooperate with the FRC as it makes its preliminary enquiries.”
Turkey, the Brexit bogeyman, is not so different from the UK So, it happened. Brexit is upon us. The politics of fear won the day – the Turks are no longer coming. As we come to terms with the idea that the long EU divorce process is about to get going, Turkey – the country whose people Britons are apparently petrified of – is still plodding on with the longest engagement in history. Despite all the bile spewed about the country during the leave campaign, it turns out Britain and Turkey are not so different after all. Like Britain, Turkey blames the EU for many of its ills. The slow speed with which its accession into the union has progressed is often seen as a deliberate move by the British, the US and the EU itself to undermine Turkish power. The EU is frequently referred to as a Christian expansion project, a union that exists to assert Christian ideals and dominance over the world. “Europe, you don’t want us because the majority of our population are Muslim,” President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said at a graduation ceremony in Istanbul on the eve of the Brexit vote. He also suggested holding a referendum on the country leaving the EU before it has even joined – Trexit, of course. “We can stand up and ask the people just like the British are doing,” Erdoğan said. Also like Britain, Turkey sees itself as a country whose ideals are constantly under threat from outside forces. It would be a world superpower, if it weren’t for those pesky Americans, Russians, Europeans … everyone. The idea that British secret service plots work to constrain Turkey is common. “It might sometimes look like it is Russia or the US that is behind things. But they are all controlled by the British secret state,” the televangelist Adnan Oktar, also known as Harun Yahya, – once tweeted. To which the British ambassador to Turkey, Richard Moore, amusingly responded: “So now you know…” Yet, despite all this, Turkey’s EU talks have been championed by Britain. Jack Straw led the negotiations in 2005 when Turkey’s membership talks were officially given the go-ahead. He even hugged the then foreign minister, Abdullah Gül, in celebration, and was later awarded the Order of the Republic – the highest honour a foreign national can receive. Many British politicians have championed Turkey’s bid. David Cameron said in 2012 it was unfair that Turkey was being asked to “guard the camp, but not allowed to sit in the tent”. It’s no wonder then that Turkey felt betrayed at being used as an excuse for Brexit. It was Cameron saying that Turkey will join the bloc “in about the year 3000” that really stung – pro-government journalists scrambled to write things along the lines of “see, told you, everyone hates us”. Speaking on BBC television’s Newsnight programme via video link on Tuesday, Erdoğan’s chief adviser, İlnur Çevik, said: “The French said we don’t want you. Many countries said this. But the way Mr Cameron put it, we feel really, really taken in … That kind of attitude really is deeply hurting the Turks.” “Why should we be flooding Britain,” he asked, on the much touted – but largely mythical – imminent invasion of Turkish migrants to the UK. “We’re not going to go there just because you produce Cadbury’s chocolates and Maltesers, for God’s sake.” Turkey didn’t want Britain to leave, but its exit may well dent Ankara’s EU ambitions enough for it to give up all together. “The fragmentation process of the EU has started. Britain was the first to abandon ship,” Deputy Prime Minister Nurettin Canikli said on Twitter. This all plays right into the hands Erdoğan, who seems to have gone off the EU and instead dreams of building a neo-Ottoman style Muslim union with him at its helm. “The people in Greece, Romania, Bulgaria are saying, ‘Forget about the EU, what could be the new scenario with Turkey,’” another of his advisers, Yiğit Bulut, said this month. “Maybe the governments cannot speak about it because of the German government’s oppression, but people … have started to talk about how they will be ruled from Istanbul.” Ironically for all those who wanted to keep Britain as far apart from Turkey as possible, Brexit could improve relations between the two countries. Britain and Turkey as two fringe nations on opposite sides of Europe – in more ways than one – are united by a growing romantic nationalism. Perhaps Turkey could even pick up some of the trade slack when the UK does eventually pull out – investment and exports between the two countries are already high. If nothing else, Brexit may at least temper claims of the EU being an elitist Christian club. Turkish nationalists understand arguments of sovereignty and have backed the campaign. But with nationalists also threatening the freedoms of Turks who don’t fit their plan – LGBT people and Radiohead fans, to name but a few – is that really a side Great Britain wants to be on?
Barry Lyndon: Kubrick's vision of a compromised life Stanley Kubrick was a connoisseur of truly terrible men. In the midst of the Watergate decade, the era of My Lai, Salvador Allende and the Pentagon papers, when heroism was a bargain-basement deal, Kubrick’s heroes upped the ante in the antiheroic. Starting with Sterling Hayden in The Killing and James Mason’s Humbert Humbert in Lolita, Kubrick had long focused on the morally corrupt. A Clockwork Orange’s Alex, The Shining’s ghost-ridden Jack Torrance, even the rationally murderous computer Hal in 2001: A Space Odyssey, all trace a broader cultural shift towards the dishonourable and troubling protagonist. Perhaps the most ambiguous of this crew is charming Barry Lyndon. Played by Love Story’s all-American dreamboat, Ryan O’Neal, Barry is ostensibly the most attractive of all of Kubrick’s protagonists. He is in possession of a few tarnished virtues: undoubted courage; a few moments of fellow-feeling; an immense love for his son. Yet in the course of the film, Barry nevertheless reveals himself to be a trickster, a deceiver, a snob and a bully. The movie enacts a tragedy of success; Barry’s rise is his fall. Barry Lyndon (1975) stands as a companion piece to two other movies of the era that throw into question the very basis of worldly success – Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather and Martin Scorsese’s Raging Bull. It is fully their equal, indeed in one sense superior to them. For only the sunlit castle gardens and painterly interiors of Barry Lyndon succeed in letting us partake of the allure and enthralling charm of a civilisation hollowed out by its discontents. It lets us share the misery of an elegance that promises a satisfaction it cannot provide. Its hero is born in a colonised Ireland, and the movie delineates a world where we cannot ever feel at home, where displacement is the necessary rule of life. At the mid-70s height of the Troubles, Barry operates as a cuckoo in the nest, undertaking a reverse occupation of England by an Irish outsider. (It has been rumoured that members of the IRA were angry enough with Kubrick for making a film showing British soldiers in Ireland to put him on a hit-list.) Yet Barry cannot find his place in the world, and his attempt to secure permanence always ends in frustration. Kubrick was never prolific. Between 1956 and 1999 he released a mere 11 films; yet each one is some kind of masterpiece. Barry Lyndon was a three-year project, with a year of preparation, and eight months of shooting. The film itself bears the mark of its meticulous origins; watching it, you feel drawn into a fully realised world. It won four Oscars – all richly deserved. In particular, John Alcott’s cinematography and Ken Adam’s designs are flawless. The supporting cast reveals the great strength of British and Irish character acting then, with Murray Melvin, Gay Hamilton, Patrick Magee, Steven Berkoff, Frank Middlemass and the wonderful Leonard Rossiter. In the early 70s Kubrick doubted if there had ever been a good historical movie. His own costume drama gives us film as an instance of time travel, though his 1770s naturally now look very much like a mirror image of the 70s. The movie presents us with an object lesson in cynicism, a world where, Barry’s doting mother informs us, “money, well-timed and properly applied, can accomplish anything”. In adapting Thackeray’s 1844 book, Kubrick replaces the novel’s first-person narration with the objectivity of film and a world-weary third-person narration by Michael Hordern. The director had initially wanted to film a version of Vanity Fair, but decided that the scope of that novel was too vast for a feature film. Instead he gave us a male Becky Sharp, a person living by their wits, making their way in the world through trickery and deceit. In the book of Barry Lyndon, Thackeray performs the virtuoso trick of having his hero expose himself, telling us constantly what a fine fellow he is while we note the bully and swindler beneath. In a letter to the actor Fanny Kemble, Edward Fitzgerald, the poet-translator of The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, compared Thackeray’s disheartening analytical dissection with Dickens’ vibrant casualness. He asserted that he “would choose Dickens’ hundred delightful Caricatures rather than Thackeray’s half-dozen terrible Photographs”. Kubrick’s photograph of Barry Lyndon provokes the right kind of Thackerayan disillusionment, drawing us into a mingled condition of attraction and repulsion where human complexity trumps all judgment. The all-but wordless scene where Barry and Lady Lyndon, who go on to marry, face each other at the gaming table and share their first kiss, stands for me as one of the most superb moments in cinema. Partly it’s the restrained, unhurried step of Schubert’s piano trio, partly it’s Marisa Berenson enigmatic loveliness as Lady Lyndon; it’s the depths hinted at in each surface gesture, how she looks all but ill as she realises she’s falling in love with him, how she distances herself in order to come closer. Most of all, the scene is a candlelit, melancholy masterclass in the art of glances, an object lesson in how film seduces us into looking, and looking again. Admittedly, Kubrick regards events from a distance, and in memory the film offers a series of tableaux and interiors, people grouped in rooms, or marching ranked in battle formation. Close-ups are few, and when they come their rarity renders them all the more powerful. The film’s reputation for chilliness mistakes irony for a passionless lack of engagement. In fact, desire and, in particular, rage energise the film, bursting apart its studied Enlightenment equilibria. At the heart of the movie is the symmetrical, organised violence of the duel. Barry’s father’s death in a duel kicks off the film. This civilised ritual of aggression chimes with the movie’s stately ordering of profound disorder. Even that astounding scene where Lady Lyndon falls in love with Barry seems structured like a kind of duel, the two facing each other, and Barry’s insistent stare a soft challenge that overwhelms his prey. Barry is the self as actor, and a poor actor at that. He plays, by turns, a British officer (aptly called Sir Thomas Fakenham), a Hungarian in Prussia, the Chevalier de Balibari, and, for most of the second half of the film, Redmond Barry – his original name – is changed to Barry Lyndon, a pretender hoping to be the aristocrat that he palpably is not. Barry constantly places himself in another man’s shoes, living as a thief of identities. Such robberies belong to mid-70s Freudianism. Phallic symbols abound: it’s a film where young men tussle over a pencil and an emasculated character loses a foot; when a highwayman robs Barry, he graciously, against standard practice, chooses not to take the young man’s boots. Above all, we watch the palpable oedipal tensions in a young man’s rage at his mother’s second marriage. As far as the ousted son Lord Bullingdon is concerned, he’s trapped in his own version of Hamlet. And Barry himself is on the lookout for father figures – from Captain Grogan to Captain Potzdorf, from the Chevalier de Balibari to Lord Wendover – while being busily intent on displacing another father-figure, the wheelchair-using, possibly syphilitic Lord Lyndon. Desire here can hardly be distinguished from rivalry. The movie permeates its sarcasm with sadness; it is made for the disabused and defeated. It both allows a tender contempt for Barry’s dewy-eyed, moony despondency, and yet lets us accept that such dejection is real. Barry meanders through a wandering and disconnected life, moving, more at less at random, from one adventure to another, finding, for a time, a provisional security, and always seeking a perpetually elusive freedom, an arrival that never can be reached. The film gives us a perfect realisation of the unrealised, a complete portrait of the incomplete. Barry Lyndon closes in 1789, a year of revolution. Barry has striven to scratch his way into a society that it turns out is built over an abyss. The great world’s apparent static permanence is a captivating deception. The movie’s epilogue announces that the story’s protagonists were given over to the equality of death 200 years ago. In many ways, the film now also looks like a cinematic work of a glorious ancien régime, a film content to offer its vision at a measured, reflective pace, unashamed of slowness, allowing a space for the necessary boredoms that give salt and savour to the greatest works of art. For all the brightness on screen, its take on the world is a dark one. No one wins here, nothing coheres. And yet, in imprinting its own version of one of Thackeray’s terrible photographs, the movie gives us an unindulgent, clear-eyed and magnificent version of a profoundly compromised human life. • Barry Lyndon is at the BFI, London SE1, until 11 August and is on selected release. bfi.org.uk.
Lab notes: get the lowdown on Juno probe's stellar success This week’s biggest stories Scientists were elated by the success of Nasa’s Juno mission, this week. After an epic five-year voyage across 1.8bn miles (2.8bn km), the spacecraft approached Jupiter and successfully entered its orbit. Back on Earth, a Danish study had positive news for women undergoing fertility treatment. It found that almost three-quarters of women will give birth with five years of beginning treatment. Experts issued a word of caution though, saying the chances of success are strongly linked to age. Speaking of kids, it’s time for dogs to make way for goats as man’s best friend! Really, no kidding, the gruff animals seek to develop social relationships with us, suggests a study in the Biology Letters journal. Though, there is still no consensus whether this means they need to be on the too clever/too cute to eat list. More news from Science | Sign up to Lab notes _____ Straight from the lab - top picks from our experts on the blog network Toxic legacy: a brief history of poison remedies | Notes & Theories In the past, when the cause of poisoning was poorly understood, all kinds of crazy remedies were tried, often in vain, to save those who were suffering. ‘Unicorn’s horn’, amulets and bezoar stone were once all highly recommended for those who felt their life might be under threat from a poisoner. Dolly the celebrity sheep: a short biograph Having come from a mammary cell, she was named after Dolly Parton, a risqué joke by an animal technician that stuck; much more memorable than her experimental name ‘lamb number 6LL3’. Why science needs progressive voices more than ever the way we do modern science and engineering sits at the heart of some of the inequalities that underline the divisions behind Brexit. Visit the Science blog network _____ Alex Bellos’s Monday puzzle Among the potential casualties of last month’s Brexit vote are the jobs of many British interpreters in Brussels. In their honour, here is a polyglot puzzle. Did you solve it? _____ Science Weekly podcast Following the news this week that the spacecraft successfully dropped into Jupiter’s orbit, Ian is joined by planetary scientists professor Fran Bagenal - a co-investigator on the mission - and Dr Adam Masters to discuss the probe. _____ Eye on science - this week’s top video A gaseous planet with three suns and a mass four times that of Jupiter has been spotted by astronomers. Located 320 light years away in the constellation of Centaurus the planet, known as HD 131399Ab, goes one better than Luke Skywalker’s home planet of Tatooine in the film Star Wars, which famously boasted two sunrises.
Hugh Jackman and Julia Roberts among stars at Clinton Broadway fundraiser If swing state equivocators come across for Hillary Clinton, they will most likely not have been prodded the sparkly, slapdash, occasionally aggravating, often irresistible, and seriously solipsistic Stronger Together, a fundraiser for Clinton created by the Broadway community, live-streamed on several platforms. A haphazard mix of song, story and Hugh Jackman, the show again showed the support of workers in the arts for the Democratic party, a point recently made by the astonishing talent differential at the conventions. (Remember? Alicia Keys, Paul Simon, Meryl Streep, Angela Bassett, Lenny Kravitz, Carole King, Katy Perry v Scott Baio.) On Monday night, plenty of luminaries packed the St James Theatre, onstage and behind it. Jordan Roth, Richie Jackson, Stephen Schwartz and Harvey Weinstein produced the program. Billy Crystal hosted it. Michael Mayer directed with Diane Paulus as special consultant, perhaps because Paulus is a director if passion and verve, perhaps because it would have been a gaffe to exclude women from the creative team. The cavalcade of performers don’t seem to have spent much time rehearsing, so the evening’s tone was uneven as was its execution. The program opened with Billy Crystal performing a Comedy Tonight parody and delivering a Borscht-Beltish monologue in which he compared Donald Trump to a 7-11: “He’s open 24 hours selling us crap we don’t want.” He then introduced a disembodied Barbra Streisand as the “voice of God”, which is pretty much how the Broadway community regards her. Hugh Jackman sauntered onstage to deliver Oh What a Beautiful Morning, a sly reappropriation of the Morning in American slogan. He altered the lyrics to say, “Everything’s going her way,” and encouraged the audience in a singalong. But the next few songs seemed less germane, the fiddle-while-Weimar burns anthems Wilkommen and Cabaret (well at least Joel Grey and Sienna Miller they didn’t choose Tomorrow Belongs to Me) and Been a Long Day, performed by Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick, with an assist from Victoria Clark. More apropos were Anne Hathaway and Kelli O’Hara’s Get Happy/ Happy Days Are Here Again duet, Stephen Schwartz and O’Hara’s For Good, and Josh Groban’s Somewhere Over the Rainbow. Numbers like Emily Blunt’s No One Is Alone, Neil Patrick Harris’s The Origin of Love and Ayodele Casel’s tap routine acknowledged Clinton-Kaine campaign as the humane, all-embracing alternative to Trump-Pence. A high road smackdown was delivered to Trump via Bernadette Peters’s Children Will Listen and a lower one by Anna Wintour, who compared the “hideous ties” sold by Trump to the American-made shirts that fashion designers had created for the Clinton campaign. (Wintour actually wore a T-shirt herself, more or less, a sequin-encrusted version of a Marc Jacobs design.) Sarah Jones gave perhaps the cleverest denunciation of the evening, hailing Clinton as the candidate who “understands Great White Way is not a policy mandate”. Clinton herself did not appear live, but she delivered a video message, saluting the arts for telling us “what we are, where we are going and where we will be”. Chelsea Clinton appeared, making a poised speech, while Bill Clinton delivered a far more rambling one that touched on Bob Dylan, independent bookstores, mental health advocacy, and Shimon Peres, rather than the Lerner and Loewe medley everyone had hoped for. More focused spoken word was provided by Helen Mirren, who recited a speech of Eleanor Roosevelt’s and Angela Bassett, who offered an ardent Sojourner Truth. Jon Hamm and Jake Gyllenhaal provided an enthusiastic, though underprepared seen from It Can’t Happen Here while Julia Roberts went inadvisably off script in the casually profane intro that prefaced her Molly Ivins recitation. Roberts, along with Sarah Paulson, Lena Dunham, Uzo Aduba, Ansel Elgort and Harris returned in an endless sequence in which they traded quotations as in some superlatively dull parlor game. But the evening finished strongly with a riff on Ten Duel Commandments performed by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Renee Elise Goldsberry (“I have only one overwhelming feeling/ Anyone here want to shatter a glass ceiling?”) and a rendition of Battle Hymn of the Republic led by the Cynthia Erivo, which was fittingly and climactically glorious. One might question the purposed of the exercise. Show tunes and spoken word presented by women, minorities, members of the LBGTQ community, and Elgort almost certainly won’t tip undecided voters toward Clinton. But something about that untidy, embraceable mix of performers also works to define the Democratic party as one of inclusivity and liberality, a big, tuneful and frequently spangled tent.
We need better data on FGM, not propaganda Professor Alison Macfarlane (Letters, 28 July) articulates statistical concerns regarding the Enhanced FGM Data Collection annual report and highlights misrepresentation of these flawed data by media. According to the report, the aim of these data is “to help the drive to eradicate the practice, and to provide services and support for women and girls who have had FGM”. A year on, it is evident that, despite claims made about the usefulness of the data, they are not fit for purpose. Collecting data at the point of encounters with clinicians is a futile way of collecting data about the population. It has previously been estimated that around 134,600 women with FGM live in England. The Enhanced Dataset collects data about 1% of these women each quarter. It is unclear how the data collected can be used to achieve the stated aims. Patients disclose sensitive information when a safe, confidential space is created. It can take years for women with FGM to seek medical help. Clinicians are concerned that mandatory collection of confidential information without consent will damage trust in the doctor-patient relationship and discourage women with FGM from seeking medical attention. Separate and detailed data collection systems do not exist in other areas such as domestic abuse and rape. Let’s stop sensationalist headlines. Let’s recognise the limitations of this uninterpretable data collection and question whether the wider cost can be justified; and push for better data rather than peddle propaganda. Failure to do so risks setting back the many commendable efforts to tackle FGM in the UK. Dr Brenda Kelly Consultant obstetrician, Director of Oxford Rose (specialist FGM) Clinic, John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford • As a midwife and founder of the Female Genital Mutilation Clinical Group, I read with interest the response from Professor Alison Macfarlane. Professor Macfarlane correctly draws attention to the misleading wording from the report on Health and Social Care Information Centre’s statistics (First annual FGM statistics show 5,700 new cases across England, 22 July) that should have said 5,700 newly recorded cases of women and girls with FGM. But that is still 5,700 newly recorded cases too many. For the first time, we are starting to record the number of girls and women living in the UK whose lives have been damaged by this abhorrent procedure. The FGM Clinical Group campaigned for the recording of FGM in women and girls living in the UK. FGM is not legal in the UK and, as clinicians, we are trying to support and protect vulnerable women and girls who have had their lives and wellbeing damaged by the procedure. I applaud and support the recording and reporting of FGM as it allows us to start to address the issue. I agree with Professor Macfarlane that we need to be able to plan and commission proper health services and support for women and girls affected by FGM, but we are in danger of missing the point and wasting time if we quibble about the precise numbers and details. It does not matter where or when the woman or girl was mutilated – she needs our help, support and protection now. Yana Richens Midwife; co-editor-in-chief, British Journal of Midwifery; co-founder, FGM National Clinical Group • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
Tech may rule, but the human backlash is coming Into the debate about how technology affects our human existance comes exciting news from Hollywood: Sony announces a new romantic comedy promising to examine “the illusion of choice – and just how hard it is to find the right person in a sea of options”. Its title? Love in the Time of Dick Pics. But then this is no surprise, for few industries – quilting, perhaps; crofting at a push – are as fundamentally tech-sceptic as film. For all the hoo-ha about special effects, when it comes to the digital revolution, the movies refuse to televise. Rather, they lobby endlessly against it. Even the most contemporary romcoms insist meeting cute always beats swiping right. It was inevitable the dating-site enthusiast in How to be Single would fall for the owner of the bar she frequents for its free Wi-Fi. I’d put money on the heroine of Dick Pics finding Mr Right round the corner, rather than amid the genital jpegs. Sci-fi films supply apocalyptic visions of a flatscreen future, which usually conclude with a forced yet ultimately happier return to a luddite age. Cerebral dramas such as Ex Machina, Her and Demonlover caution that emotional investment in artificial intelligence is a slipway to suicide. Why such hostility? Well, the internet is nicking cinema’s business – both by enabling people to watch films at home and by dangling an attractive alternative pastime. Worse still, it kills stories. Screenwriters must concoct loopholes so plots still hold water. For years, all that was required was a quick mention of how reception can be a bit patchy in this part of the woods; shame, what with that axe murderer. Now everything must be set pre-smartphones. Otherwise, all imposter plots are kaput, for a start. Wondering if that Guerre fella is totally kosher? Verification only takes a second with 4G. It’s also, of course, that laptop-tapping is inherently uncinematic, compared to a car chase or beach clinch. No filmic language to cope with that fact has yet been developed, or ever may be. A few films do still have a pop at co-opting software into their narratives. In Lion, out early next year, Dev Patel tracks down his long-lost family in India with the help of Google Maps. But most have put themselves in reverse gear and slammed down the pedal. Nostalgia is their watchword, both in setting and aesthetic. La La Land – the musical that will win the Oscar for best picture next spring – isn’t just a hymn to golden-age Hollywood, it looks like a Fred and Ginger film, had Astaire had stubble and Rogers driven a Prius. The best compliment Mel Gibson has said he’s received about upcoming war epic Hacksaw Ridge is: “‘Wow, it’s like the way they used to make films.’ I said, ‘You mean like back in the 40s?’ And they said, ‘No, like back in the 80s’ – like it’s ancient history!” Film-makers brag about the credibility afforded by aping the ancient. Out this week is Allied, the spy thriller its star Brad Pitt calls “a throwback to the old 40s films, when you’d see people in cars and you’d see the rear screen, and you know they’re just sitting on a set”. Ben Affleck has said similar about his new gangster throwback, Live by Night, ditto Warren Beatty with his screwball Howard Hughes biopic Rules Don’t Apply. The question is: will this work with audiences? Surely, anyone outside Hollywood’s battened-down hatches will find such fogeyism off-putting? I suspect not. For evidence mounts that we are all reacting against the effects of tech – even as our addiction to the technologies themselves persists. Weaning ourselves offline is all but impossible. And we cannot simply maintain hostility, as Hollywood does. But we do seek to humanise tech, in form and function. This week, two new apps were unveiled. One is an extension to Google Maps which feeds in live data to tell you how busy shops and cafes are. The other, the Catholic App, is an interactive church locator designed for those who need to confess, fast. Already dubbed “Sindr”, this official product aims to boost mass numbers and confession stats by offering “a companion that guides you through the digital noise and leads you to a sacred place”. Sex and shopping have long been well served by the internet; now spiritual fulfilment and solitude are getting in on the act. Yet both are antidotes more than additions, attempts to slam the brakes on what can seem like an relentless gallop into a terrifying future. In one of the most famous scenes in Gabriel García Márquez’s Love in the Time of Cholera, a post-coital chap impulsively “open[s] a can of red paint that was within reach of the bunk, wet[s] his index finger” and scrawls the words “This pussy is mine” on his lover’s tum, with helpful arrow. Whether Dick Pics can hit such romantic heights remains to be seen. But I bet it’ll try. Seeing someone get their hands dirty will always trump watching them twiddle their thumbs.
Europe’s unlikely heroes have lessons for Leicester and Claudio Ranieri Back in the rookie days of his coaching career, as a promising young manager taking his first foray into the dugouts of Serie A, the 1990-91 season was a voyage of considerable discovery for Claudio Ranieri. The then 38-year-old, just a handful of years into the job after starting out as a coach in amateur football, had made an impression guiding Cagliari to successive promotions from Serie C1 and into the top tier of the Italian game. Under those circumstances surviving, merely avoiding relegation, was a mission in itself. But that 1990-91 season in Serie A taught Ranieri an unforgettable lesson about football’s eternal sense of possibility. Not only did Cagliari stay up, something else happened in Italy that season that shook up everybody’s idea of calcio’s status quo. This was an era dominated by the excellence of Arrigo Sacchi’s European champions Milan, the scudetto winners from Napoli inspired by Diego Maradona, with muscles flexed by an Internazionale squad that boasted three of the best of the West German world champions in Lothar Matthäus, Jürgen Klinsmann and Andreas Brehme, as well as a Juventus newly boosted with the expensive purchase of Roberto Baggio. Ranieri took his Cagliari team into the world’s most alluring footballing show, where the establishment had feathers more beautiful than anyone else, only to see the winners that season would not be one of the biggest peacocks. Sampdoria usurped all and sundry to win the title for the first time in their history. Something magical occurred. Verona had done it a few years previously – another extraordinary anomaly – and this time a Sampdoria side propelled by the blend of Gianluca Vialli’s insatiable attacking play with Roberto Mancini pulling clever strings behind, backed by a solid defence, overcame the rest. Samp lost only three Serie A matches all season. Their coach, the much-travelled Vujadin Boskov, was known for his quirky humour, but within the camp was admired by the players for his smart coaching, sharp psychology and father-figure inspiration. The president of Sampdoria, Paolo Mantovani, had a plan to take on the big guns based on investing in some of the best young Italian talent. He was popular with the players and would invite them to dinner and ensure they felt valued. Mantovani was also willing to at least match the highest salaries of the day to buy prized young players. Mancini came as a teenager with the golden boy nickname of bambino d’oro. Vialli turned 20 the summer he joined. The technical winger Attilio Lombardo and renowned defender Pietro Vierchowod arrived in their early 20s. They all blossomed into great players in Sampdoria’s classic kit of blue with a flash of white, black and red horizontal stripes. The Serie A success they engineered, remember, was a quarter of a century ago. Since then in Italy nobody without a title already on their honour roll has finished top. First-time winners, clubs without historical pedigree, are an outright rarity to triumph in modern football. A glance around Europe’s top five leagues indicates how unusual it is to have a new champion, a name not previously inscribed on the domestic trophy. Over the past 20 years across England, Italy, Spain, Germany and France, the title has been won by a previous winner 95 times out of 100. The exceptions have mostly come in Ligue 1, which has had the greatest variety of champions in that time. Auxerre in 1996, Lens in 1998 and, most recently, Montpellier in 2012 relished their moment in the sun. La Liga last hailed a new winner in 1999-2000 as Deportivo La Coruña stunned the Spanish game despite being an unpretentious enough set-up that they trained in a local park in Galicia. Ranieri, incidentally, was managing in La Liga at the time so also got to observe once again how a major league can be conquered with an air of the unexpected. The qualities of that Deportivo team were summed up by their long-standing servant, the Brazilian Mauro Silva. “We are a club that still has its limitations. But we have a playing philosophy. As soon as we enter the stadium we are great players who have an appetite for major occasions,” he said. It felt like a freakish season considering Deportivo won the league with just 69 points. Barcelona, defending champions, lost a remarkable 12 times that season. Real Madrid did not even finish in the top four. For any unusual champion it certainly helps if the usual suspects underperform. More recently, Wolfsburg took the opportunity to claim the Bundesliga in 2008-09. That was so unexpected that midway through the campaign their coach Felix Magath agreed to take over a rival, Schalke, at the end of the season. At that time he gave little consideration to a grandstand finish. “I didn’t think we could win the title here,” he said. As it turned out a remarkable run over the second half of the campaign delivered the greatest prize for a team renowned for its tough training regime and feisty attacking football, with Edin Dzeko and the Brazilian Grafite breaking goalscoring records (this was the first time a Bundesliga club boasted two players scoring more than 20 goals in a season). They pipped Bayern Munich by two points. A crest-of-a-wave atmosphere, and a sense that taking on the establishment is something to be relished without fear, are common themes for first time winners. Montpellier’s feat was all the more surprising because they were taking on the nouveau riche Paris Saint-Germain, who had spent heavily in their first season backed by the Qataris who have launched them to the last four Ligue 1 titles. Olivier Giroud was Montpellier’s top scorer, and put their success down to an ability to “build a team through training, through recruiting players who can become something. You have to fight with other values. The collective, the group spirit. Compared to PSG we had a fraction of their budget. We had less money but a lot of quality. To keep going for the whole season was something extraordinary. We had a young group of guys and we told ourselves we achieved something really huge.” Montpellier had to hold their nerve to win the title on the final day, and the tension in their last match at relegated Auxerre jangled as the match was stopped three times for crowd disturbances. The Auxerre fans expressed their discontent by lobbing tennis balls, eggs, toilet paper and flares on to the pitch. The Montpellier coach René Girard described it as “the longest night of my life” as the final whistle on the season eventually blew 41 minutes later than scheduled. If Leicester are to preserve the Premier League lead they have held so boldly for such a long period of this unconventional season, they will join an impressively select group of first-time champions in the modern game. In England it has not happened for 38 years, when Brian Clough cast his spell over Nottingham Forest. For Leicester, and Ranieri, their shot at history goes on. As the Italian says: “You just need to keep an open mind, an open heart, a full battery, and run free.”
The truth about London's air pollution “In the morning, this traffic island is packed with children and pushchairs and they are about a metre from all the exhausts,” says Shazia Ali-Webber. She is walking her three boys to school in Hackney, the eldest of whom, Zain, is eight and asthmatic. Crossing choked Mare Street, where the heavy traffic grinds slowly past, is her biggest concern. “Children’s lung development is affected by air pollution: they have smaller lungs for life,” she says. “The government’s new plan says pollution will not fall to legal levels till 2025. But I don’t have time to wait: Zain will be 18 by then. They are condemning a generation of children to ill-health.” Ali-Webber, like a growing number of people, is alarmed by the illegally high levels of air pollution across London and other UK cities, largely caused by diesel vehicles that meet emissions limits in official lab tests but emit far more on the road. The greatest problem is with nitrogen dioxide (NO2), a pollutant that inflames the lungs, stunting their growth and increasing the risk of respiratory diseases such as asthma and lung cancer. London has an acute problem with NO2, possibly the worst in the world. Putney high street broke its annual emission limits just eight days into the new year, with Knightsbridge, Oxford Street, Earls Court and Brixton all following suit before the end of January. Across the country, the government estimates 23,500 people die prematurely from NO2 pollution. Following Ali-Webber on her walk to school is Duncan Mounsor, of Enviro Technology Services, in the company’s brand new electric van, kitted out with £75,000 of the latest pollution monitoring equipment. The existing static network of monitors is vital, he says, but the van allows him for the first time to track the exposure of people in everyday life. “With the van we can really get amidst the hotspots and raise awareness,” he says. As the van crosses Mare Street, the NO2 reading spikes upwards. Unlike the smoky pollution of the past, NO2 is a hidden killer. “These days you can’t see pollution, you can’t smell it or taste it, so you’d be forgiven for thinking there was no pollution – but there certainly is,” says Monsour. His next stop is a primary school in Poplar, one of the 1,000 schools in London sitting just 150 metres or less from roads on which at least 10,000 vehicles go past. This school is just 10m or so from the roaring A12, where more than 100,000 HGVs, coaches, construction trucks and cars roar past, while others queue for the nearby exit to the equally busy A13. Parents start arriving to collect their children, who stream out noisily. Most are walking but some are in cars – one has “Prince on Board” in the rear window – and the NO2 level rises. At a school in Cheltenham, where many children are picked up by car, Mounsor recently measured a tripling in NO2 levels during the school run. But the more surprising discovery takes place when Mounsor moves off to simulate a car journey home from school. He finds that NO2 levels are 2.5 times higher inside the vehicle than outside. “There’s a concentrating effect of being in a confined space,” he says. Ali-Webber calls it “sweet justice”. “The public health message is, you can’t hide from air pollution inside a car,” says Ben Barratt, an air quality expert at King’s College London (KCL). “We advise the public to leave the car at home whenever possible. This exposes you and your family to lower levels of air pollution, you’re not contributing to the problem, and you’re also getting the benefits of exercise. That’s tackling three of our biggest public health challenges in one go: air quality, climate change and obesity.” The parents at the Poplar school spoken to by the were unaware of the pollution hotspot and the school declined to comment. But the local MP, Jim Fitzpatrick, says: “Air quality is a huge issue. The new cruise ship terminal at Enderby Wharf [which people fear will increase pollution] is a big local issue and reducing emissions from vehicles is another.” Awareness of the invisible problem is vital, says Barratt: “If you have awareness and concern then people are more likely to accept political strategies which will infringe upon their lives. If politicians come along and say they are going to restrict diesels in their city but the population doesn’t believe there is a problem, they will say no.” One measure in place in London since 2008 is the Low Emission Zone, which charges highly polluting vans and lorries for entering London. But it has had no impact, according to Ian Mudway, another of KCL’s air pollution experts. “We found the air quality did not change and when you look at the symptoms of the children [at schools in Hackney and Tower Hamlets], you can show no improvements year on year,” he said. “If anything is a marker that the diesel technology was not working, it was the fact that NO2 did not decrease.” “I am a concerned parent too,” says Mudway. “The whole of central London is non-compliant with EU standards and I live there. I know it and I take precautions. I always take back routes. I always avoid, if I am with my children, walking down busy congested roads. It’s really important because although the individual risks [of one trip] are small they are additive across time.” “The life-shortening effects of air pollution are equivalent if not greater than the risks of inactivity and obesity and alcoholism,” he says. “They should be in that bundle.” Mudway says his litmus test for how seriously authorities take air pollution is if they put new schools, care homes for the elderly and affordable homes for young families by busy roads: “That drives me absolutely insane.” The school in Poplar was rebuilt recently – and moved closer to the heavy traffic on the A12. Simon Birkett, director of the Clean Air in London campaign group, says: “Children are ultimately defenceless. They can’t vote but they are lumped with the health effects for life.” His research revealed that one-third of London’s schools are close to busy roads and suffer illegal levels of pollution: “That was one of the most upsetting things I ever discovered.” For the solution, Birkett cites the great smog of London, which killed 4,000 people over the course of a few weeks in 1952. It led to the landmark Clean Air Act of 1956, which rapidly improved air quality, but recent decades have seen air pollution climb again with the rise of diesel vehicles. “We are back where we were in a sense,” he says. “There were 4,000 deaths from the great smog and we did something about it. Now it’s 4,000-9,000 deaths a year in London.” “We need to ban diesels as we banned coal 60 years ago. That is the only way we can comply with World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines,” Birkett says. Paris is planning such a ban for 2020 and a ban on older diesels in Berlin started in 2010. An Ultra Low Emission Zone (Ulez) coming into force in London in 2020 will charge – not ban – more polluting vehicles but only covers 300,000 people in the capital, not the 3 million living in polluted inner London boroughs. Richard Howard, at the thinktank Policy Exchange, says a complete diesel ban is not feasible. “Diesel vehicles are worse than petrol, but we as a nation have gone out and bought 11m diesel vehicles.” His report, which found a Londoner’s life expectancy is cut by about 16 months by air pollution, was published in December. It says that, on top of the legal and moral reasons for action, there is an equality case too, as poorer neighbourhoods are worst affected. “There is a lot going on, but this is a very difficult problem to solve,” Howard says. “There are no silver bullets.” He says action is needed at EU level, to set and enforce tough vehicle emissions standards, at national level, to reform tax incentives for diesels, and at local authority level, to create low emissions zones. Prof Sir Malcolm Green, founder of British Lung Foundation and an eminent respiratory physician, is in no doubt about the scale of the issue. “London certainly has significant pollution, enough to have effects on health. It is a hidden killer.” In addition to NO2, particulate matter (PM) remains at double the WHO guideline levels. “It’s like inhaling little particles of tar,” says Prof Green. “They go right down into the lungs and can pass through the membrane into the bloodstream”, increasing the risks of strokes and heart attacks. Though levels in London are close to the higher EU limits for PM, no threshold has yet been established below which harmful effects end. But while particulate traps have been fairly effective in cutting this type of pollution from vehicles, standards to cut NO2 emissions have been a huge failure. The Volkswagen scandal exposed devices enabling diesel cars to cheat their way through NO2 emissions tests but most other manufacturers found legal ways to circumvent the regulations, by tuning their cars to emit low levels of NO2 in test conditions but belch out far more when actually on the road. “The car manufacturers told us their vehicles were very clean, but now we know that was not true,” says Prof Green. “I think the VW fiasco may be a blessing in disguise because it has brought the problem to everybody’s attention. I hope and pray it will cause a step change in the regulation of emissions and I really hope it will be a wake-up call for vehicle manufacturers that they will have to spend serious money and energy on improving the emissions from vehicles. I am absolutely convinced it is doable.” On Wednesday the EU passed new standards for diesel emissions but these were heavily criticised for being double the legal limit and followed lobbying from the motor industry. Birkett agrees that the issue is finally getting the attention it deserves and is starting to drive change: “I think we will see some quite dramatic changes by 2020, but anything can go backwards again, so we need to redouble our efforts.” Back in Hackney, Ali-Webber and her small group of concerned parents are ramping up their campaigning ahead of the London mayoral elections. She wants the Ulez expanded to all inner London boroughs, protecting 3 million people, not just the 300,000 covered by the current plan. But the air pollution is not only a political one for her, but also very personal. “I said to Zain don’t run around in the playground so much. But he loves football, so what’s he supposed to do?” How to reduce your exposure to air pollution The first step in reducing your exposure to air pollution is to be aware of peaks in pollution, via monitoring on websites, Twitter or via mobile phone apps. On high pollution days, the government recommends adults and children with respiratory problems such as asthma, adults with heart problems and older people should avoid strenuous exercise. But, across the year, London and other UK cities suffer average levels of air pollution above legal limits, meaning people may want to cut their exposure from day to day. Air pollution largely comes from road traffic, so avoiding busy roads and junctions will help, especially if the street is flanked by high buildings and there is little wind. “Walking along back roads rather than beside busy roads will reduce your exposure,” say the experts at KCL. One recent study also showed that air pollution can be a third lower on the inside of the pavement, compared to the kerbside. Perhaps surprisingly car drivers can be exposed to higher levels of air pollution inside their vehicle than on the pavement, suggesting that walking or cycling could be healthier. For those who need to drive, the British Lung Foundation (BLF) recommends keeping the windows closed and recycling the air in the car, rather than keeping air vents open. The BLF also says: “There is little evidence to recommend the use of face masks. Wearing one can be uncomfortable and can make breathing more difficult.” Choosing when to exercise may be important, say KCL: “The faster you breathe the more airborne pollutants are delivered to your lungs. By changing your exercise routine [to times or places with lower pollution] you can reduce your exposure.” KCL also notes that diet is believed to help protect against pollution: “A study conducted in Mexico City has shown that children eating more antioxidants, from fresh fruit and vegetables, are better protected against the oxidative effects of ozone and other ambient pollutants.”
Megyn Kelly accuses Trump social media director of inciting online abuse Journalist Megyn Kelly, who is under armed guard after receiving death threats, has accused Donald Trump’s social media director of stirring hatred on the internet. The Fox News host urged Dan Scavino, a member of the presidential transition team’s leadership staff, to stop encouraging hostile and abusive elements online. “The vast majority of Donald Trump supporters are not at all this way,” Kelly told an audience in Washington. “It’s that far corner of the internet that really enjoys nastiness and threats and unfortunately there is a man who works for Donald Trump whose job it is to stir these people up and that man needs to stop doing that. His name is Dan Scavino.” Scavino was director of social media for Trump’s bitterly divisive election campaign. He is devoutly loyal to the billionaire businessman who reportedly first spotted him as a 16-year-old cleaning golf clubs, got him to caddie and eventually promoted him to general manager at one of his courses. Now in his 40s, Scavino has speculated that he might become the White House photographer or run its Twitter account. He and Kelly have clashed in public before. In October, after a heated exchange between the presenter and Trump ally Newt Gingrich, Scavino issued an ominous tweet: “Megyn Kelly made a total fool out of herself tonight – attacking Donald Trump. Watch what happens to her after this election is over.” Scavino did not reply to a request for comment from the . Members of the audience at Monday’s night’s event, organised by the Politics and Prose bookshop, were required to undergo body and bag searches by security staff. Kelly said: “The worst part is the security threats that I’ve had to face and, as much as I try to avoid some of that online vitriol, I get lots of it and I really hate it. I find that stuff just soul-killing.” The journalist has had an up and down history with Trump. She recalled that she had been “friendly” with the New York property tycoon until August last year when she aired allegations about his divorce from Ivana Trump. She said Trump raged at her over the phone, quoting him as saying: “You’re a disgrace! You ought to be ashamed of yourself! You’re a disgrace! I almost unleashed my beautiful Twitter account against you and I still may.” A few days later, as a moderator at the first Republican primary debate, Kelly asked Trump about past comments he had made disparaging women. He subsequently launched a social media blitz against her, branding her “overrated”, “angry”, “crazy” and “a bimbo”. In an interview, he later implied that she had been hostile to him because she was menstruating, saying she “had blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever”. Kelly described it as “an attempt at bullying” that failed, thanks to the support of her team at The Kelly File. “It was hard to hold the line night after night after night and not cover him too harshly, because my life was being threatened, and not cover him too gently, because I wanted him to stop the nonsense or to please him.” She received death threats and obscene phone calls, she continued. “When Donald Trump comes after you, it isn’t just a tweet – ‘oh wow, he’s tweeting about her’, and I understand he’s a fighter, he’s a counter-puncher, I get all that – but even then he has such power that a single tweet can unleash hell in somebody’s life. “I’ve been under armed guard for 16 months and my children have been under armed guard and it’s not an appropriate price to pay for hard-hitting journalism.” Kelly’s new memoir, Settle for More, has received particular attention for its account of Roger Ailes, the longtime chairperson of Fox News, who was forced to resign in July over allegations of sexual harassment by several women. Kelly writes that, in 2006, Ailes made numerous sexual comments to her and tried to grab her and kiss her on the lips. She has since done numerous “annoying” interviews, she said, in which she is challenged over why she did not speak out against Ailes sooner. “It’s like, why didn’t you come forward earlier? And it’s like, you know what, can I swear here? Fuck you for saying that!” Ailes, she recalled, was a mentor and often a positive influence on her career, but also made “highly inappropriate sexual references” which she tried to shrug off. “In the book I could have filled four pages with the comments he made. I didn’t want to go there. I included enough so you can decide for yourself whether it was sexual harassment. I submit to you that it was unambiguous.” Kelly described a “terrifying” six months in which she understood that her career at the conservative cable news network was on the line. She claims that eventually, Ailes made a physical advance in his office. “I’d been with the company for 18 months by that point: I’m not the Megyn Kelly of today, I have no power, I mean zero, and he was on the cover of industry magazines as the most powerful man in news. “As soon as we had that physical confrontation in his office and I did not do anything, I ran out of his office, I hired a lawyer and, for the record, I did tell a supervisor, which is what you are supposed to do.” But years went by and Ailes remained unassailable. “I had convinced myself, based on what my supervisor had told me, that he’s not a bad man, he’s just smitten, he might be having a marital difficulty.” Then the anchor Gretchen Carlson went public with an accusation of harassment against Ailes. Kelly, sensing that he would seek to shut down the investigation, decided to come forward. “Honestly, I just said, this will not happen to one more woman at Fox News ever. “I told them the good and the bad about my relationship with him. I didn’t want them to think he was some monster. I just wanted them to know this is real and you need to take an honest look into his behaviour. That’s all I wanted, just an honest review. I figured if there was nothing there, they would exonerate him, and if he went down, he would only have himself to blame. And I believe that’s where things wound up.” Several other women broke their silence to accuse Ailes, leading to his resignation. Kelly condemned observers who have sought to blame the victims. “To the haters who look at those of us with our false eyelashes and our cute little dresses and say, like, ‘You asked for it,’ again, fuck you for saying that. It’s nothing to do with how we dress.” During the election race, according to Kelly, Ailes was in daily contact with Trump, whose similarly faced allegations of sexual assault, harassment or unwanted advances from a dozen women, threatening to derail his campaign. Kelly’s contract at Fox News is up next year. The 46-year-old said she was considering a change due to a desire to spend more time with her husband, Douglas Brunt, a novelist, and their three children, aged seven, five and three. “They mean too much to me. I refuse to miss their childhood just so I can do a job that I love.”
Tom Stoppard shares Czech letter urging UK to stay in EU More than 30 prominent Czechs including the former ambassador to London Michael Žantovský, the supermodel Eva Herzigová and the conductor Jiři Bělohlávek have signed a letter to Sir Tom Stoppard urging the UK to stay in the EU. The letter, addressed to the Czech-born playwright – born Tomáš Straussler – says the UK plays an important “balancing role” in European politics. Stoppard said he was “complimented” and “rather honoured” to have received the letter and agreed with the sentiments expressed. Titled “Reflections on the referendum on the membership of the UK in the EU in a letter intended to have been sent to a gentleman in Dorset”, the letter was written by Žantovský who, before being appointed as the Czech Republic’s ambassador to the UK, was spokesman for the then president Václav Havel. Other signatories include the former gymnast Věra Čáslavská, the archbishop of Prague, Cardinal Dominik Duka, conductor Jiří Pešek and the head of the Academy of Science, Jiří Drahoš. Stoppard said Žantovský was an old friend, which was why the letter had been addressed to him. “I concur with the basic point in the letter but I was also rather touched by the way he wrote about the relationship between Britain and the Czech Republic,” he told the . Stoppard said he too had signed a letter in support of Britain remaining in the EU. “A lot of the debate in this country is about the arithmetic and it is as well to be reminded that arithmetic isn’t everything. Geopolitics in the 21st century weigh more heavily than they ever have done,” he said. The letter says the referendum vote is “obviously a sovereign matter for the people of the UK, and only for them, to decide.” Nonetheless, the vote will affect the people of all the EU’s member countries, the letter says. The letter explores what Europeans and Czechs have in common with the British, and “why we believe that the long-­term considerations of shared culture, history, values and destiny prevail over calculations of short-term costs and benefits of the membership in the union.” It touches on the second world and how many Czechs and Slovaks lost their lives fighting the Nazis serving in British and Allied armies, including Stoppard’s father, Eugen Straussler, who died in Japanese captivity as a prisoner of war. When the Iron Curtain fell and Czechoslovakia became free under the leadership of Havel, “Britain was one of the first countries to offer friendship and support.” It continues: “Britain was one of the first EU countries to have opened its borders to Czech workers, students and entrepreneurs, with benefits shared on both sides. Successive Czech governments shared the British ardour for free markets, open trade and international cooperation. Our troops served together in Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan and other places. The last 25 years of partnership and cooperation were among the best in the history of our two nations.” The letter says exit would be bad for Britain and bad for Europe. “Without the British legacy of democratic institutions, entrepreneurial spirit, common sense and pragmatic approach to problem-solving, the west as we know it would be much weakened, politically and spiritually. “Britain, under the exit scenario, would fare no better. It would be stranded in the middle of the Atlantic, unable to draw on the synergies of the European project. It would be left alone to deal with the ever-present threats of nationalism, populist politics, migration issues and ethnic intolerance. Closing its doors to workers from the EU, it would have to look for manpower, most likely less qualified and less adaptable, in other parts of the world.”
Amir Khan and Canelo Álvarez team up against Donald Trump Saúl “Canelo” Álvarez takes on Amir Khan in Las Vegas on Saturday, and the pair teamed up in their pre-fight news conference to punch back at Donald Trump. Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, stoked tensions earlier this year when he condemned Mexican migrants as “rapists and criminals” before vowing to build a “great, great wall” to stop people coming across the border. Álvarez, the WBC middleweight champion, said that Trump’s words were unhelpful. “I don’t really like getting into political issues but it hurts, it offends, I would like [Trump] to understand us,” said Álvarez. “When I’m out running, I see a lot of my countrymen working hard, they have not come here to rob and steal. We want to show him that we Mexicans come here to succeed and be victorious.” Trump has also called for a complete ban on Muslims entering the US, and Khan, a British Muslim, kept a straight face as long as he could before joking: “You never know – this could be the last fight for me and Canelo here. That’s if Donald Trump becomes president.” Oscar De La Hoya, whose company, Golden Boy, is promoting the event, announced that Trump would be attending the fight, but wouldn’t have ringside seats. De La Hoya said Trump would see “a wonderful, wonderful event with one of the most popular fighters in the world hailing from Mexico, and one of the most popular fighters in boxing – who is Muslim – and we want to show what a great contribution these two fighters can make to the beautiful US of A. “So I have Donald Trump’s seats – he will not be sitting ringside – but he will see the fight.” Trump announced in June that he was running for president, and set off on a lengthy tirade about America’s southern neighbours. “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best,” he said. “They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”
Theresa May’s first pledge as PM was for a 'one-nation Britain'. Can she deliver? As Theresa May was driven into Downing Street from Buckingham Palace at 6pm on Wednesday, she arrived to the sounds of a divided country. A mix of cheers and boos greeted Britain’s second woman prime minister from a crowd outside the gates. Protesters shouted “Brexit now” while a bunch of young people raised EU flags aloft. Events had moved at dizzying speed all week, disorientating everyone involved in Westminster politics and all those outside who tried to keep up. David Cameron had departed in the opposite direction out of Downing Street with his family an hour before, his exit after six years as PM beautifully choreographed to disguise the traumatic circumstances of his leaving. Family hugs and waves from tearful staff created an illusion that Cameron was bidding goodbye as a departing hero and at a time of his choosing. His successor, delivering her first words as prime minister from outside her new home, rose to the moment. She had been installed amid the most turbulent period in British politics anyone could remember and without time for much preparation. The country needed reassurance. May said she would heal the nation’s divisions and build bridges to help the least privileged. A tribute to Cameron was followed by a pitch to blue-collar Britain. Her government would deliver Brexit and refocus its priorities on people whose needs were greatest. “When we take the big calls we will think not of the powerful but you,” she said. “When we pass new laws we will listen not to the mighty but to you. When it comes to taxes we will prioritise not the wealthy but you. When it comes to opportunity we won’t entrench the advantages of the fortunate few – we will do everything we can to help anybody, whatever your background, to go as far as your talents will take you.” Then, with her husband, Philip, she strode inside. The entrance hall was packed with No 10 staff and her key advisers, including Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill, who had arrived earlier in the afternoon as the Camerons were packing their bags and dressing for the cameras. They clapped May in before she headed to the PM’s office, which had been cleared that morning of Cameron’s papers, pictures and family photos. She had decided her first duty had to be to call the man next door, the architect of six years of austerity and cuts which May had just suggested must now give way to a genuinely One Nation programme. “She had to sack Osborne before anything else,” said one of her aides. “That had to be done first before she could begin summoning members of her new team. So that was what she did.” Osborne’s was the first summons in a 24-hour blitzkrieg which laid waste to the old order. The Cameroons were blown away: next morning Michael Gove (who was told by May he had to show loyalty on the backbenches), Nicky Morgan, Oliver Letwin, John Whittingdale, Theresa Villiers and Stephen Crabb followed Osborne out of government. Then in came Boris Johnson – appointed to his own and everyone else’s astonishment to the post of foreign secretary – heading a list of Brexit supporters who would work alongside hard-core Remainers, including new chancellor Philip Hammond. May continued her cull of the “Notting Hill set” over the weekend as the likes of Ed Vaizey, a close Cameron friend and supporter of Gove for the leadership, left the government. So did Anna Soubry, vocal advocate of the benefits of immigration and EU membership. Osborne’s ally, Matt Hancock, lost the right to attend cabinet, shuffled off to a job in charge of digital policy, while Greg Hands, another Osborne ally, was given a role in international trade under the resurrected Liam Fox. It was total revolution, delivered by a politician at the height of her power. But sacking ministers, trotting out a One Nation mantra, and promising to “build a better Britain” will prove to have been the easy part for May. Most prime ministers – even those whose tenures are judged by historians to have been failures, such as Gordon Brown and before him John Major – have enjoyed honeymoon periods of months or years. May will be lucky to have one at all beyond the four days of adulation she has already received from parts of the media. Rarely have a prime minister’s soothing words and pledges on entering office – from her promise to prioritise the least well off in the tax system to that to keep the UK together as it heads out of the European Union – offered more hostages to fortune. She has built her “unity cabinet” with men and women of divergent views on Europe and much else, and exiled to the backbenches a powerful collection of able and still ambitious Tories who will, if she falters, not be shy of seeking revenge. Hard-core Eurosceptics in her party were, within half an hour of her arrival in Downing Street, already insisting that if there was any delay in delivering Brexit (some say it has to be – and can be – done within six months) there will be hell to pay. One prominent Tory rightwinger said he feared that, with a prime minister and chancellor who backed Remain in charge, the right would soon have to resume a battle that the referendum was called to end. “We won the war but are losing the peace,” one said. “Hammond talks about Brexit taking six years. If that is the case, we will not stand for it and nor will the millions out there who voted to leave. There will be riots on the streets, and rightly so.” Brexit was the reason May realised her ambition to become prime minister. It destroyed Cameron’s premiership and wrecked his legacy, creating a void that no Brexiter was on hand to fill in the referendum’s chaotic aftermath. The quiet Remainer May’s moment arrived by chance. But now it gets serious: the task of delivering Brexit and limiting the resulting economic damage is arguably the most daunting to face a prime minister in postwar Britain. May has, cleverly, put lead Brexiters – David Davis, Liam Fox and to a lesser extent Johnson – in charge of masterminding the process. It will be their prize to bring home – or their poisoned chalice, depending on how it pans out. The core problem is that, as yet, no one in it knows what Brexit means, and what it will entail. May’s cabinet is split between the likes of Hammond, who insists that whatever happens the UK must retain as much access to the single market as possible, and others, such as Davis and Johnson, who seem to believe the UK can thrive outside the single market if it has to, and this is the price the country has to pay to extricate itself from the EU’s commitment to free movement of labour in order to control immigration. After being appointed, Hammond said: “We have to make sure in our negotiations with the EU that we have very clearly in our minds the need to ensure access to the European Union single market for our financial services.” On the other hand, Davis, who is heading the new Brexit department, believes that trade deals can, if necessary, be struck with other countries that will serve the UK just as well. The only thing that is certain is that the UK economy faces a prolonged period of what it hates most – uncertainty. Hammond is braced for growth to slow, the pound to fall further and the housing market to stall, with all the effects that will have on consumer demand and tax receipts. And this when his prime minister wants to help the poorest through the tax system. Charles Grant, director of the Centre for European Reform, who talks regularly to senior officials in all other EU governments, says those who believe the UK can have its cake and eat it from Brexit – access to the single market and limits on free movement – are deluding themselves. The Brexit con will soon be exposed: “The other members of the EU are not prepared to give Britain full access to the single market, as Norway enjoys, or large parts of it, as Switzerland has, without our accepting the conditions Norway and Switzerland meet: substantial payments into the EU budget and complete openness to workers from EU countries. “The 27 will be tough with the British on this point because of principle – they regard the ‘four freedoms’ of openness to flows of goods, services, capital and labour as indivisible; and because of realpolitik they do not want the UK to be seen to flourish outside the EU since that could encourage Eurosceptics in many other member states to say, ‘Let us join the British on the outside’. ” Within May’s new cabinet, the faultlines and potential splits are too wide to remain hidden for long. Wherever you look lie potential clashes and impossible dilemmas. What attitude will arch-Remainer Amber Rudd, the new home secretary, take to the UK extricating itself from EU anti-terror legislation in the aftermath of events in Nice? Hammond is a pro-EU fiscal hawk in charge of the nation’s purse strings. But he believes the purse can best be filled – and May’s One Nation vision realised – by retaining as close a relationship with EU markets as possible. How can the SNP’s desire for independence be contained if Brexit means Brexit? Gavin Kelly, chief executive of the Resolution Trust, says the task facing May is daunting across the entire domestic agenda, too, as the UK teeters on the brink of recession. How will voters perceive post-Brexit Britain if services deteriorate, wages fall and May’s sunny uplands fail to materialise? “The new PM has a difficult inheritance, with further deep cuts to tax credits, local government, social care and schools all scheduled – never mind escalating hospital deficits and ailing flagship policies such as universal credit,” says Kelly. “All this, together with the expected economic slow-down, will put great pressure not just on the public finances but also on her relationship with a new chancellor.” May has one political dynamic working unquestionably to her advantage. Labour is on the floor and unable to provide any serious scrutiny. That will offer her a partial shield until the opposition becomes worthy of the name again. But having stamped her mark with such a spectacular demonstration of prime ministerial power in her first few days, her real test must now begin. Her cabinet meets on Tuesday for the first time and will start trying to deliver on her dual promise of Brexit and a better, One Nation, Britain. If, when she leaves Downing Street, whenever that might be, she has achieved both, her reputation in her own party might even surpass that of the first female prime minister to reach No 10. However, if she fails, it is likely to have been Europe that will have done for yet another Tory PM.
Chocolat review – lavish study of fin de siècle racism The French expression être chocolat – to be thwarted, or foiled – comes from the late 19th-century Cuban-born clown who helped revolutionise the discipline as a pratfalling sidekick to Parisian star George Foottit. But it’s Chocolat, played with gangly exuberance by Omar Sy, who’s centre stage, and Foottit, played by Charlie Chaplin’s grandson James Thiérrée, the foil in this lavish and increasingly involving study of fin-de-siècle racism. Initially relying on spiritedly played circus hijinks to drive it forward, the film enters richer character study territory in its second half. Realising his victim role panders to the prejudices of the time, Chocolat – real name, Rafael Padilla – struggles to leave circus behind and play Othello. This never actually happened; compositing in other places too from hints in Padilla’s biography, Roschdy Zem and three other writers occasionally iron over complexities that might have strengthened their themes. Padilla’s wife, for example, wasn’t a saintly widowed nurse as in the film, but controversially left her first husband for him. But Hollywood-style big-top extravaganzas rarely pause for the details, not with Sy – yoking the charisma he displayed in Euro megahit The Intouchables to more sombre shades of introspection – easily able to hold the crowd.
'Leicester's on the map now': fans and residents celebrate remarkable title The hangovers may be long, but the memories will never ebb. Leicester was transformed into a sea of blue on Tuesday as thousands of fans climbed statues, danced in the street and revelled in the fairytale feat of their underdog heroes. In scenes expected to continue well beyond Saturday, when Leicester City will be formally presented with the Premier League trophy, supporters mobbed the club’s coach as it made its way across the east Midlands city. The Leicester City manager, Claudio Ranieri, was besieged by members of the media and fans when he arrived at the club’s Belvoir Drive training ground, hailing his side’s success as the highlight of his long career. Asked what his first top flight title meant to him, the Italian replied: “It means the job is good. I’m very happy now. Maybe if I had won this title at the beginning of my career I would have forgot. But now I am an old man, I can celebrate.” The celebrations went from the sublime to the ridiculous when the Leicester City team bus made a surprise visit to the King Power stadium and stopped to pick up a Jamie Vardy lookalike. The coach sounded its horn as it was chased by flag-waving fans. It then stopped and a club official beckoned Lee Chapman, a postman who bears a striking resemblance to his favourite player – Leicester City’s star striker. Speaking to the minutes before he was whisked away, Chapman said he was “lost for words” at his team’s season. “I’ve not slept. I went in for work at 6.30am and ran my round so I could be here outside the stadium. I’m still supposed to be at work now,” he said. Chapman, a lifelong Leicester City fan who, at 29 years old and 5ft 10in, is the same age and height as Vardy, was spotted as a lookalike outside the club’s stadium eight months ago. Since then, he has been recruited for a Channel 4 documentary, appeared on Sky’s Soccer AM and taken thousands of selfies with fans. “I’m not even a confident lad. I’m lost for words at the fact Leicester have won. I’m a Leicester born, Leicester raised, Leicester fan,” he said. The club shop ran out of replica shirts by lunchtime as hundreds of fans descended on the stadium to carry on the party. Steve Hurst, 43, waved a giant blue flag as supporters posed for pictures with his three-year-old cocker spaniel, Daisy, bedecked in a child’s replica shirt. His 12-year-old son Leicester Hurst – named after the club – was not allowed a day off school, but will be with his dad for Saturday’s celebrations. “Not just Nottingham’s on the map – Leicester’s on the map now,” he said. Walking back from the stadium after renewing their season tickets, Philip Parkinson, 75, and his son Rob, 42, called for streets to be named and statues to be put up in honour of their unlikely heroes. “I’d like to see Ranieri Walk – but that could wait until we pick up the Champions League,” said Philip, a season ticket holder for more than 20 years. It was not only football fans revelling in the moment. Liz Gray, 58, cycled to the stadium because she felt “enthused” by the history making title victory and its effect on the city. “I’m not a football fan at all but this has really inspired me,” she said. “It’s great for the city to have something to celebrate. It’s great for people to have common events. I’ve been caught up in it.” The team bus, with Chapman on board, made its way to the upmarket San Carlo restaurant in Leicester city centre, where hundreds of fans gathered as news of their impending arrival spread. Outside the restaurant, nine-year-old Louis Goodge weaved through the crowds for a glimpse of his heroes. His Leicester-born parents, Ellie and Joe Goodge, took Louis and his younger sister Ivy, six, out of school and drove from Hertfordshire so they could be part of the amazing story. “Louis has only just started watching football this season. It’s inspiring, the fact that anyone, not just big teams, can do it,” said Ellie, as her son beamed. “I’ve just seen Kasper Schmeichel,” he said excitedly. At the headquarters of Leicester city council, a team of officials has been secretly planning a party for months, although no details have yet been revealed. “It will be a big, big, big party – probably even bigger than Jamie Vardy’s party,” said the youthful deputy mayor, Rory Palmer, on Tuesday. “The city’s never seen anything like this. The spontaneous stuff last night gives us an indication of how big it will be – possibly the biggest party in Leicester’s history.” Perhaps the only confirmed detail of Saturday’s extravaganza is that the Leicester City superfan Steve Worthy will have the honour of handing the Premier League trophy to his team before their game against Everton at the King Power. Worthy, a part-time happy hardcore DJ and season ticket holder, won a special competition organised by sponsors Barclays. He was watching Monday night’s game between Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur with his 97-year-old grandmother, Gladys Kenny, and their wider family when the former Leicester City player Muzzy Izzet turned up on his doorstep with the Premier League trophy and a camera crew. “The family and friends were all round. There was a knock at the door. I opened the door and the first thing I saw was the cup – I didn’t even notice it was Muzzy Izzet holding it as well, one of my all-time idols,” he said. “I got to hold it, beautiful cup that it is. What an amazing moment.” Gladys was the original season ticket holder until she reluctantly gave it up two years ago due to ill health. But she will be at the game on Saturday as Worthy presents the silverware to Leicester’s towering captain, Wes Morgan. In their more than 130 years, Leicester City had previously never won the top division nor FA Cup; they have lost four FA Cup finals. But the £22m team has outshone rivals with constellations of stars costing 10 times as much. Next season, with Champions League football guaranteed, the likes of Real Madrid, Barcelona and Bayern Munich could be visiting the King Power. It is a proud moment for the east Midlands as a whole, not just for Leicester, Worthy said, as he reeled off the city’s previously best-known talents: “Kasabian. And, er, whatshisname – Engelbert Humperdinck. Showaddywaddy. David Attenborough. But apart from that, nothing else. “The thing that’s pleasing about it the most is five, 10 years ago, I’d walk round the centre of Leicester and see Chelsea shirts, Liverpool shirts and Man United shirts, and I used to think ‘unless you’re from those places why are you not supporting Leicester?’ “This is gonna be good because there’ll be so many kids [who] will be Leicester fans because of this season. It can only mean good things for the future.”
Renée Zellweger returns in first trailer for Bridget Jones's Baby Bridget Jones is back, and the good news is that she looks pretty much like Renée Zellweger, rather than the unrecognisable impostor who emerged a couple of years ago. A decade older than when we last time we saw her, in 2004’s Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, everyone’s favourite calorie-counting media muppet is still juggling blokes (Patrick Dempsey joins Colin Firth to form the new instalment’s love triangle), but this time has a bun in the oven to boot. Having been jilted at the altar, Bridget is still working in TV, hanging out with bezzie mate Sally Phillips, scandalising mum Gemma Jones and cuddling up to dear old dad Jim Broadbent. Her music tastes might have been updated a little, however. Out with Céline Dion, in with Ed Sheeran, who makes a flash-frame appearance here. The trailer features a very funny scene in which Emma Thompson’s obstetrician has to perform two eight-week scans because Bridget appears to have told both prospective partners that the sprog is theirs. Will there be another almighty man-scrap for old big-knickers’ affections? Will Firth’s Mark Darcy rock another of his famous Crimbo jumpers? And can Zellweger hold on to Ms Jones’s plummy tones until the credits roll this time? We’ll find out when Sharon Maguire’s film is released on both sides of the Atlantic on 16 September.
At my father's bedside, I learned what death looks like My father spent 10 days dying. He was 84 and he had lost his wife – my mother, whom he adored, and without whom he felt life was a lot less worth living – three years earlier. He died of old age, and it was entirely natural. The process, though, did not feel that way at all, at least not to me. Dad had been bedridden for months and was in a nursing home. He stopped eating one day, then started slipping in and out of consciousness. Soon he stopped drinking. For 10 days my sister and I sat by his bedside, holding his hand, moistening his lips. Slowly his breathing changed, became more ragged. During the last few days, the tips of his fingers turned blue. His skin smelled different. His breath gradually became a rasp, then a rattle. It sounded awful. We were sure he was in pain. The doctor reassured us he wasn’t; this was a human body dying naturally, shutting down, one bit at a time. We had not, of course, talked about any of this with Dad beforehand; we had no plans for this, no idea of what he might have wanted. It would have been a very difficult conversation. The doctor said he could give him something that would make him at least sound better, but it would really be more for us than for my father. “My job,” the doctor said, “is about prolonging people’s lives. Anything I give to your father now would simply be prolonging his death.” So we waited. When it finally came, death was quite sudden, and absolutely unmistakable. But those 10 days were hard. Death is foreign to us now; most of us do not know what it looks, sounds and smells like. We certainly don’t like talking about it. In the early years of the 20th century, says Simon Chapman, director of policy and external affairs at the National Council for Palliative Care, 85% of people still died in their home, with their family. By the early years of this century, fewer than 20% did. A big majority, 60%, died in hospital; 20% in care homes, like my father; 6% in hospices, like my mother. “Death became medicalised; a whole lot of taboos grew up around it,” Chapman says. “We’re trying now to break them down.” There has been no shortage of reports on the question. From the government’s End of Life Care Strategy of 2008 through Julia Neuberger’s 2013 review of the widely criticised Liverpool Care Pathway to One Chance to Get it Right, published in 2014, and last year’s What’s Important to Me [pdf] – the picture is, gradually, beginning to change. The reports all, in fact, conclude pretty much the same thing: the need for end-of-life care that is coordinated among all the services, focused on the dying person’s needs and wishes, and delivered by competent, specially trained staff in (where possible) the place chosen by the patient – which for most people is, generally, home. “It’s not just about the place, though that’s important and things are moving,” says Chapman: the number of people dying in hospital has now dropped below 50%. “The quality of individual care has to be right, every time, because we only have one chance. It’s about recognising that every patient and situation is different; that communication is crucial; that both the patient and their family have to be involved. It can’t become a box-ticking exercise.” Dying, death and bereavement need to be seen not as purely medical events, Chapman says: “It’s a truism, obviously, but the one certainty in life is that we’ll die. Everything else about our death, though, is uncertain. So we have to identify what’s important to people, and make sure it happens. Have proper conversations, and make proper plans.” All this, he recognises, will require “a shift of resources, into the community” – and funding. Key will be the government’s response to What’s Important to Me, published last February by a seven-charity coalition and outlining exactly what was needed to provide full national choice in end-of-life care by 2020. It came with a price tag of £130m; the government is expected to respond before summer. In the meantime, though, a lot of people – about half the roughly 480,000 who die in Britain each year – still die in hospital. And as an organisation that has long focused on curing patients, the NHS does not always have a framework for caring for the dying, Chapman says. But in NHS hospitals too, much is changing. There has been a specialist palliative care service – as distinct from end-of-life care, which is in a sense “everyone’s business”, involving GPs, district nurses and other primary care services – at Southampton general hospital and its NHS-run hospice, Countess Mountbatten House, since 1995, says Carol Davis, lead consultant in palliative medicine and clinical end-of-life care lead. People die in hospital essentially in five wards: emergency, respiratory, cancer, care of elderly people and intensive care, she says: “Our job is about alleviating patients’ suffering, while enabling patients and their families to make the right choices for them – working out what’s really important.” Palliative care entails not just controlling symptoms, but looking after patients and their families and, often, difficult decisions: how likely is this patient get better? Is another operation appropriate? What would the patient want to happen now (assuming they can’t express themselves)? Has there been any kind of end-of-life planning? Of course many patients in acute hospital care will not be able to go home to die, and some will not want to, Davis says: “Some simply can’t be cared for at home. If you need two care workers 24/7, it’s going to be hard. Others have been ill for so long, or in and out of hospital so often, they feel hospital is almost their second home. So yes, choice is good – but informed choice. The care has to be feasible.” In 2014, the report One Chance to Get it Right [pdf] identified five priorities in end-of-life care: recognise, communicate, involve, support, and plan and do. (“Which could pretty much,” says Davis, “serve as a blueprint for all healthcare.”) The first – recognise, or diagnose – is rarely easy. How does a doctor know when a patient is starting to die? “There are physical signs, of course,” says Davis. “Once the patient can’t move their limbs, or can no longer swallow.” But, she says, “we have patients who look well but are very ill, and others who look sick but are not. In frail elderly people – or frail young people – it can be hard to predict. Likewise, in patients with conditions like congenital heart disease, where something could happen almost at any moment.” Quite often, Davis and her team face real doubts. “Right now,” she says, “I have a patient in intensive care, really very ill. They probably won’t pull through, but they might. I have another doing well, making excellent progress – but they’ve been in hospital for three months now. They’re very, very weak, and any sudden infection … You just can’t predict.” Which is why communication, and planning, and involving the family – all those difficult and painful conversations that we naturally shy away from – are so very important. It could well be, for example, that my father would actually have wanted his death to be prolonged: he certainly clung on to life with a tenacity that startled my sister and me. We will never know, though, because we didn’t talk about any of it. “It is our responsibility – all of our responsibility – to find the person behind the patient in the bed,” Davis says. “One way or another, we have to have those conversations.”
Ted Cruz v Marco Rubio: campaign fight is getting ugly in South Carolina The simmering feud between Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz intensified in dramatic fashion on Tuesday, as accusations were hurled between the two senators’ campaigns over “underhanded tactics” and an alleged “smear campaign” ahead of the critical South Carolina primary on 20 February. Rubio and Cruz, senators from Florida and Texas, respectively, are locked in a heated battle to overtake the Republican frontrunner Donald Trump. While they have increasingly sparred over issues such as immigration and national security, Rubio has in recent days sought to undercut one of the pillars of Cruz’s candidacy: trust. Speaking with reporters over lunch in Summerville, Rubio said Cruz was being deliberately dishonest with the American public. “This has been a pattern now with Ted,” Rubio said. “He has spent the last two weeks literally just making stuff up.” “I just think it’s very disturbing [that] you can just come and make things up about people and believe no one is going to call you out on it. And it’s now become a pattern, so we have to clarify that we can’t let that stand unchallenged.” Rubio added that Cruz had misrepresented his position on a host of issues, including immigration, funding for Planned Parenthood, and same-sex marriage. Cruz and his allies have launched a series of attacks against Rubio aimed at portraying him as insufficiently conservative – even though Rubio holds one of the most conservative records in the US Senate. By Tuesday evening, Rubio’s campaign spokesman, Alex Conant, was blasting Cruz in a fundraising email with an aggressive subject line: “Ted Cruz is a liar.” “First it was lying about Marco on fundamental issues like life and marriage; now Cruz and his supporters’ attempts to slander and distort Marco’s record have reached a new low,” Conant wrote. One ad by a pro-Cruz Super Pac was pulled down on Monday after a legal review determined it to be misleading in its charge that Rubio supported so-called “sanctuary cities” while shepherding a comprehensive immigration reform bill in 2013. Cruz also asserted that his Senate colleague shied away from standing at the forefront of the fight to defund Planned Parenthood, even though Rubio has voted numerous times to strip the women’s health organization of its federal funding. Rubio’s campaign also believes members of Cruz’s team to be behind a post that appeared on Facebook this week under the guise of Trey Gowdy, the influential South Carolina congressman who is backing Rubio’s campaign. The account, Trey Gowdy Prayers, appears to falsely speak on behalf of the Benghazi committee chairman as switching his allegiance to Cruz after determining his support for Rubio was “a grave mistake”. Gowdy, who is campaigning across South Carolina with Rubio this week, called on Cruz to formally rebuke the tactics in a statement on Tuesday. “In the last week, we have seen a systematic effort by Senator Cruz and his allies to spread false information and outright lies in the hopes of winning votes by appealing to our lowest common denominator,” Gowdy said in reference to the Facebook incident. “I’m demanding that Senator Cruz and his campaign repudiate these dishonest and underhanded tactics. We can have a debate about the future of our party and our country. But we need not leave our integrity behind.” Gowdy will also feature in new robo-calls released late on Tuesday to counter what he says are deceptive tactics by Cruz’s campaign. “I want to alert you to the fact that voters are receiving dishonest push-polls smearing my friend Marco Rubio’s conservative record,” Gowdy says in the call, which according to time.com will reach 500,000 South Carolina phone numbers. While there is no direct evidence linking Cruz operatives to the misinformation, maneuvers of the sort are not uncommon in the rough-and-tumble of South Carolina politics. In his conversation with reporters on Tuesday, Rubio implied that it would not be out of character for Cruz’s campaign to engage in such tactics – referring back to the night of the Iowa caucuses when Cruz’s staffers spread false rumors that retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson was dropping out of the race. “What they’ve been willing to do as part of their campaign … I think people aren’t going to like it the more they learn about it,” Rubio said. Rick Tyler, a spokesman for Cruz, said Rubio’s efforts to undermine their campaign would ultimately fail. “Team Rubio is coordinating a smear campaign,” Tyler said in a statement to the , citing the vast ground game that helped Cruz secure an overwhelming victory in the Iowa caucuses and chalk up a stronger-than-expected third-place finish in New Hampshire. “Marco Rubio has resorted to name-calling and smear tactics because he can’t defend his record. He doesn’t have a similar ground game and won’t have enough money to compete in all the 1 March states like we will, so he thinks he can smear his way to winning. But it won’t work.” Cruz is nonetheless being targeted not only by Rubio but also by Trump, who holds a commanding lead in South Carolina. In protest of a Cruz ad that highlighted the real estate mogul’s past as being pro-choice on abortion, Trump on Monday threatened legal action against Cruz while referring to him as “a totally unstable individual”. “He is the single biggest liar I’ve ever come across, in politics or otherwise,” Trump said in a statement. “It is hard to believe a person who proclaims to be a Christian could be so dishonest and lie so much.” It’s unclear if the knocks on Cruz, whose campaign banners bear the word “TrusTED”, will stick. At a Cruz rally in a national guard armory in Columbia, attendees dismissed the criticism as part and parcel of politics. Voters said they were accustomed to dirtier tricks associated with the Palmetto State’s political landscape and were unlikely to be fazed. One ardent Cruz supporter named Steve, who declined to be identified further because he was skipping work to attend the event, said it was “shameful on Rubio” to cry foul over what he said was fairly standard practice in a tough election. “This is beneath him,” he said. Tony Burks, an undecided voter from Columbia, said it was “just part of the game right now”. “You gotta have your big-boy pants before you come in,” he added.
Will the Republican party suck it up and embrace Donald Trump? He is the party leader who must not be named. A figure so ruinous, yet so powerful, that merely uttering his moniker could spell electoral doom for any Republican running for election this year. And yet, how can you avoid Donald Trump, the most influential person in your own party: the candidate at the top of the ticket, whose popularity – or unpopularity – will seal your own fate? For that matter, how can anyone with a pulse and a phone avoid Donald Trump? Pity the poor Republican politicians who must now decide whether to hang separately, or hang together with the dark lord who believes he could shoot a supporter on Fifth Avenue and still line up more fans behind the corpse. In any case, Donald Trump cannot be named. In statement after statement, Republicans have adopted the fetal position while muttering something about a nameless nominee. Take Kelly Ayotte in New Hampshire. A spokeswoman for the senator explained that she “plans to support the nominee”. But she delicately added later that the senator “isn’t planning to endorse anyone in this cycle”. Huh? Is it possible to support a nominee without endorsing him? Ayotte’s position makes about as much sense as a foreign policy speech by the nominee himself. We can at least credit Donald Trump with unleashing a new wave of creativity in the dark arts of political pretzel-making. In case you hadn’t guessed already, Ayotte (elected in the Tea Party wave of 2010) is running dead even in the polls with her Democratic challenger, Governor Maggie Hassan. At least, she was before Trump became the party leader she supports but refuses to name or endorse. Is it possible to escape the shadow of a nominee who wishes he could date his own daughter? At the same time, is it credible to pretend you don’t belong to the same party? This is the exquisite torture Republican voters have now inflicted on their own elected officials. After years of supposed betrayal – either economic or through purported compromises with the enemy known as Obama – the Republican party’s voters have turned on their own. The result is surely going to destroy the reputations of an entire swath of Republican officials. Here, for instance, is Nikki Haley, the South Carolina governor, denouncing Donald Trump a little more than two months ago for flirting with the racist KKK: “I will not stop until we fight a man that chooses not to disavow the KKK. That is not a part of our party. That is not who we want as president. We will not allow that in our country,” she declared to extended cheers and applause in Atlanta. “That is not who our Republican party is. That’s not who America is”. Now Haley tells reporters that while she is too busy to be Trump’s vice-president, “I have great respect for the will of the people, and as I have always said, I will support the Republican nominee for president.” Way back in 2004, when they were running against John Kerry for president, the Republican party had a word for this kind of thing: flip-flopping. The Republican party duly sent a young staffer to each Kerry event with a giant pair of flip-flops to flap in front of Kerry’s supporters. The simple, yet effective, argument was that you couldn’t trust a politician who reversed himself so easily. Now the entire party wears flip-flops. Governor Brian Sandoval of Nevada lamented the end of John Kasich’s campaign, but gave the nominee – whom he could not bring himself to name – the kind of half-throated endorsement that could only spell doom for everyone involved. “I plan to vote for the presumptive nominee although it is no secret that we do not agree on every issue,” the governor posted on Facebook. “Elections are about making choices and the Democratic nominee is simply not an option.” That’s just the kind of leadership this anti-establishment electorate is looking for: a politician who supports someone he doesn’t agree with. No, wait. That was another cycle. The Trump Affliction is affecting not just elected officials but those who purport to advocate for specific Republican policies. The national chairman of the Republican Jewish Coalition, David Flaum, congratulated Trump for winning the nomination, even though the nominee recently said he wanted to be “sort of a neutral guy” when it came to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “Along with the presidential race, the RJC will be working hard to hold on to our majorities in the Senate and House,” Flaum said, suggesting that the majorities were in danger. “It is critical that these majorities be preserved.” This is an epic moment in American politics. To find anything similar, you might have to go back to 1983 when Margaret Thatcher was heading for her second crushing victory over the socialists running Britain’s Labour party at the time. “The longest suicide note in history,” is how one Labour parliamentarian described his own party’s election platform at the time. Well, the Republican party of 2016 has just signed up for something even more damaging, although they cannot bring themselves to mention its name in public: the most suicidal nomination in history.
NHS partners up with libraries to boost wellbeing “One of my first memories, when I was four, was being taken to join the library in Newcastle upon Tyne,” says Linda Fenwick. Whenever she has moved since, one of the first things she has done is join the local library. “It’s just unthinkable to not have a library,” she says. When her local library at Barton-under-Needwood needed volunteers, Fenwick stepped forward to help run it. On 25 April it became the first in Staffordshire to be run by volunteers, and one of eight that has an unusual partner: South Staffordshire and Shropshire healthcare NHS foundation trust. The trust’s decision to add library management to mental health, learning disability and specialist children’s services will be discussed on Wednesday 13 July at the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals’ annual conference in Brighton. Mark Cardwell, head of business development at the trust, says the idea is to improve community wellbeing, as well as raise the trust’s profile and find opportunities for users of its clinical services. “We can’t just keep salami-slicing our services, we’ve got to look at different ways of doing things,” he says. “Libraries already offer an awful lot that supports the wellbeing of communities and populations.” The trust’s chief operating officer, Alison Bussey, adds: “We are committed to helping people maintain their mental wellbeing and believe this innovative partnership with community libraries and the county council provides a fantastic opportunity to engage and support local people.” Many public libraries offer health advice and some, such as in Coventry, have partnerships with NHS trusts and healthcare charities. Staffordshire county council went a step further to keep all its libraries open while cutting around £1.7m from its annual budget. Volunteers will staff 23 small libraries, with the loss of 41 posts. “While communities love their libraries, it was inescapable when we first looked at this in 2012 that user numbers and physical issues of books were falling sharply, while less than half of our 43 libraries accounted for three-quarters of active borrowers,” says Gill Heath, Staffordshire council’s cabinet member responsible for libraries. “We said from the outset there would be no closures, but that we needed to change radically to reinvigorate our libraries so they were better used and for communities to have a bigger say in what happens to them so they remain relevant to the people they serve.” Staffordshire council consulted with staff and the public, and decided it needed organisations to take on statutory responsibility for the libraries, while it continued to provide the buildings, utilities, books, IT, training for volunteers and a small support team. The South Staffordshire and Shropshire trust had already branched out into new areas, including mental health services to prisons and services to former military personnel. “The trust won our confidence because it could meet all our demands,” says Heath. “It was experienced at working with others to successfully deliver customer-focused services, it was financially stable and it had the flexibility to meet changing demands in different ways.” Under its five-year deal with the council, which can be renewed for further five-year periods and includes a commitment to maintaining opening hours, the NHS trust will receive no payment for running the eight libraries, but retains income from charges. Cardwell says the trust has two employees working on the project, but otherwise the libraries use their existing departmental services. The other three libraries in the first wave of transfers were adopted by local organisations including a Baptist church. More are likely to follow as the trust is not planning to bid for any of the 12 libraries in the scheme’s second wave. As well as taking formal responsibility, the trust provides invaluable administrative support, says Kevin Matchett, a member of Barton library’s steering group: “If we were sitting here from base zero trying to sort out bank accounts, public liability insurance and this and that, it wouldn’t have happened.” Barton’s 23 volunteers have already started to expand the library’s health promotion work, offering more health advice leaflets from the local GP surgery. Marilyn Davis, another steering group member, persuaded the local Co-op to donate £20 worth of fruit for children for West Midlands health information week. The library is next door to John Taylor high school, with a door between the public library and the school. Barton is a handsome, prosperous-looking commuter village, arguably making it a relatively easy place to find volunteers. However, the trust has also recruited 19 volunteers for Glascote, another of its libraries in a poorer area on the edge of Tamworth. Cardwell says the trust is giving volunteer groups three to six months to find their feet. “A lot of the communities were a bit worried that we were going to turn libraries into clinics,” he says. While this is not the plan, the trust intends to get its service users to volunteer, and for home delivery volunteers to be offered training to check that, for example, older people’s houses are properly heated in winter. He mentions a former prison officer with post-traumatic stress disorder who finds it hard to leave his house; his local library is the one place he feels he can visit. “Everybody can walk into a library, it’s non-threatening,” says Cardwell, who volunteers at the trust-run library in Holmecroft. “You can just sit there, nobody’s going to question you and ask why you are there. It’s about making connections between what’s already here, what we can add and what the communities can provide.” Find out more information on volunteering at the trust’s libraries
Mystery Jets – Curve of the Earth: Exclusive album stream Mystery Jets have always been a band fond of making music in unusual surroundings – they first emerged, lest we forget, from the peculiar Eel Pie island in West London. This fifth album is no different. Recorded in a disused button factory, it was also the product of singer Blaine Harrison locking himself away in a cabin on the Thames estuary. Not that it sounds claustrophobic. Rather, the likes of Bombay Blue and the Lennon-esque The End Up have an expansive, widescreen quality about them. The band claim that the album is a result of rediscovering their gang mentality, and could be their most personal recording to date. “We’ve been through quite a lot in the last couple of years,” says guitarist Will Rees, “and there have been certain realisations that come with playing in a band that has been together for over two decades, I think these songs have real feeling about them.” Have a listen using the player below and let us know your thoughts!
Cancer patient mother says she would have kept her baby 'in my tummy' A woman whose baby was delivered 12 weeks early so she could begin intensive treatment for breast cancer without harming the child has said she would have made some very different decisions if she had known her daughter would die. Heidi Loughlin, 32, had been diagnosed last September with inflammatory breast cancer, a rare and fast-spreading form of the condition. Doctors said she could terminate her pregnancy to undergo aggressive treatment using the drug Herceptin, which can harm a foetus, but she declined, beginning a milder treatment instead. When doctors found this had failed to halt the cancer’s spread, Loughlin, who has two sons, opted to have her daughter, Ally Louise, delivered early before beginning the treatment with Herceptin. Speaking about the difficult decisions she faced last year, she told the BBC: “If I knew she wasn’t going to make it ... I would have kept her in my tummy. The Somerset police officer, from Portishead, near Bristol, spoke of how she missed her daughter, and how her two sons kept her going. “With her having such a great prognosis at 28 weeks, it just made sense. And maybe some people would have done things differently but I wanted to make it right for all of them,” she added. “She’s in my mind all the time. I want her to be proud of me. She’s my little girl.” All had initially appeared to be going well and Loughlin had announced the birth in December with a post on her blog, saying: “She came out foot first and is breathing on her own. She weighs 2lb 5ozs. She has a Loughlin nose and she has more hair than me!!!” Four days later she updated her blog, saying her daughter was “doing so well and kicking arse”. However, another post came five days later, with a poem announcing her death. “We kissed you, we cuddled you, we tickled your feet,” it read. “And I know again one day we’ll meet.” Loughlin told the BBC that, in the hours after her daughter’s death, she had questioned the point of having chemotherapy but had been supported by her “completely selfless” partner and was making plans for the future. “It’s about wanting whatever time I have left to mean something and not be swallowed up by the devastation of losing Ally,” she said. “To wake up and breathe was difficult at that point – then I would think it’s for the boys and put one foot in front of the other,” she said.
PGMOL denies referee Mark Halsey was told to avoid reporting incidents The body in charge of Premier League refereeing has denied claims made by the former match official Mark Halsey that he was put under pressure to say he had not seen controversial incidents take place in matches. The 55-year-old, who retired at the end of the 2012-13 season, made the comments on social media, following the Football Association’s decision to hand the Manchester City striker Sergio Agüero a three-match ban for violent conduct following an incident in which the striker appeared to elbow West Ham’s Winston Reid. Agüero was not reprimanded by the referee, Andre Marriner, during the game, although the striker was charged retrospectively and will now miss the Manchester derby on Saturday. City had appealed against the ban on the grounds that Marriner was close enough to the incident to adjudge whether action against Agüero was warranted at the time. Only in circumstances where a referee has not seen a bookable offence can retrospective action be taken against a player. In his post-match report, Marriner said he had not seen the incident, therefore permitting the subsequent video review that brought about Agüero’s three-match ban. Had Marriner seen the incident then such action could not have been taken. “I have been in that situation when I have seen an incident and been told to say I haven’t seen it,” said Halsey on Twitter, adding: “To be fair to the FA … it comes from within the PGMOL” – a reference to the Professional Game Match Officials Limited. Gary Neville, the former England and Manchester United defender, was among those immediately alarmed by the comments, responding: “Is that not corrupt?” Rejecting Halsey’s allegation, the PGMOL said: “Match officials submit their reports, including critical incidents, directly to the FA. Match officials ensure that their reports are a full and accurate description of the incident. There is no pressure from the PGMOL to include or omit anything.” The PGMOL was formed in 2001 to improve refereeing standards and provides officials for across the Premier League, Football League and FA competitions, receiving funding from all three bodies.
Hallelujah! It’s time to talk about the battle for the Christmas No 1 Like a high-street travel agent or a Hotmail account, the concept of a battle for the Christmas No 1 struggles to remain relevant in an age in which it no longer makes much sense. It’s now more or less impossible to walk into a shop and buy a single, and the vast majority of people stream music on subscription services such as Spotify, rather than paying for MP3 downloads. The old-fashioned retail battle for the nation’s spare change is largely a thing of the past. The shift away from traditional single sales does have one exciting benefit: it makes it much harder for X Factor winners to get to No 1. To rack up streams, people actually have to listen to a song, rather than just buy it as a stocking filler for the nan they don’t like, and so, if this year’s X Factor champ is forced to release a dirgy cover of Wires by Athlete (or similar), they’re unlikely to do well. Last year’s winner, Louisa Johnson, missed the top 10 completely. So, the field has opened up a bit. James Corden is the current favourite, with a song about an overworked factory worker who clones himself so he can see more of his family over Christmas. The song, featured on the Sainsbury’s Christmas advert, is an zero-hours take on novelty pop – a sort of I, Daniel Snowflake. The exhausted worker complains about long hours and a full inbox, almost in tears when he sings: “The greatest gift I could give this year ... is me.” All the other Christmas ad songs are in the running, but for those who think Christmas has become too corporate, there’s also Robb Johnson and the Corbynistas, who are throwing their hat in the ring with JC 4 PM 4 Me. It’s as cheery a political campaign song as you’re likely to find, although a bunch of grizzled socialists singing about austerity in Santa hats on a non-denominational festive track might play into certain stereotypes about the Labour leader’s base. The smart money, though, is on Hallelujah, already a Christmas No 1 eight years ago when performed by Alexandra Burke, but now likely to shoot up the charts as a tribute to Leonard Cohen (although it may actually be the more celestial Jeff Buckley version that does well). The song ticks all the boxes: it honours a recently dead legend, it’s sort of about religion and it’s actually pleasant to listen to. Best of all, the widely reported rumour that Simon Cowell purchased the rights to the original version is just an urban myth, so people can listen in the safe knowledge they won’t be giving Scrooge a backhander.
Google to extend 'right to be forgotten' to all its domains accessed in EU Google will begin blocking search results across all of its domains when a search takes place within Europe, in an extension of how it implements the “right to be forgotten” ruling. The “right to be forgotten” ruling allows EU residents to request the removal of search results that they feel link to outdated or irrelevant information about themselves on a country-by-country basis. These edited results will now be shown to anyone conducting name-based searches from the same European country as the original request, regardless of which domain of the search engine the browser is using. Previously, searches using Google’s other domains, including the US domain google.com, remained unaltered. The search giant actively encouraged browsers to use google.com instead of google.co.uk, google.fr or google.de at one stage. Searches outside Europe using the US domain will not be altered. Google has been at loggerheads with several EU data protection authorities since the May 2014 ruling by the European court of justice. In September 2015, the French data protection authority threatened to fine Google if it did not scrub search results globally across all versions of its website, not just European domains. The company claimed doing so would have a chilling effect on the free flow of information, but has now relented. If a German resident successfully requests Google remove a search result under queries for their name, the link will not be visible on any version of Google’s website, including Google.com, when the search engine is accessed from Germany. Google will use the browser’s IP address to determine their location. Google said it has received 386,038 “right to be forgotten” removal requests since the ruling, and has accepted approximately 42% of them. A spokesperson for Britain’s data protection watchdog, the Information Commissioner’s Office, said the change proposed by Google appeared to address concerns it had previously expressed “on the scope of the requirement to de-list”. A spokesperson for the French Commission Nationale de l’Informatique et des Libertés (CNIL) – which chairs a working group of EU privacy regulators – said authorities had been informed of Google’s plans, which showed that the “issue of territorial scope requires careful thought”. Google ordered to remove links to ‘right to be forgotten’ removal stories EU agrees draft text of pan-European data privacy rules
Fears grow for children addicted to online games Medical and addiction experts, charities and parents are becoming increasingly concerned about the amount of time children are spending playing online games as figures show that UK spending on titles such as League of Legends, World of Warcraft and Grand Theft Auto will top £3bn this year. Dr Aric Sigman, a freelance lecturer in child health, said he had heard from a number of doctor’s surgeries that parents were asking for sleeping pills for their children. “Whether you call it an addiction or not, this is an enormous and growing problem,” he said. The charity Action for Children says that a quarter of parents rank their children’s screen time, and how to control it, as their greatest challenge – bigger than the traditional issues of homework or healthy eating. “We were surprised it came top. We hadn’t picked up that it was such a big issue,” says the charity’s managing director, Carol Iddon. “With gaming, children get a lot of satisfaction and positive reinforcement, it can build their confidence. But that can make it become addictive.” Ben Jones (not his real name) a gamer known by his online persona of Onibobo, is part of the growing sub-culture of young people, particularly male, who appear to have become hooked on internet gaming. “League of Legends is my poison. I play it until pretty late,” he said. His gaming sessions normally last about nine hours and typically run right through the night. Aged 27, he’s been a heavy usage player since he was 15, and it has taken its toll. At college he spent more time gaming than studying, and since leaving he has found it tough to hold down a job. “When I’m playing I know every hour I could be doing something else with my life, but it gives you a weird sense of fulfilment, like you’re achieving something,” he said. Jones worries he is probably addicted – his gaming in part led to the break-up of a relationship this year – but he thinks he could stop if he really wanted to. “It’s like smoking or drinking,” he said. “It’s a very bad habit.” The gaming industry is a reluctant to acknowledge any social responsibility, but brands are cashing in on growing demand. Data group Euromonitor calculates that UK spending on games will top £3bn this year, 10 times more than households spend on traditional board games such as Monopoly or Scrabble. “The games are designed to keep you playing,” said Peter Smith, a director at Broadway Lodge, an addiction treatment centre in Weston-super-Mare. Broadway has been helping people with drug and alcohol-related problems since 1974, and for the past three years has opened its doors to people struggling with gaming dependency. Smith says that parents have few places to turn to if they are worried about their children’s gaming. There is no telephone helpline, and GPs and schools, while increasingly aware of the problem, have limited expertise in dealing with it. “If you’re a parent with a 15-year-old who’s playing endlessly, staying up late, not eating properly and then missing school because of it, where would you go for help? There isn’t anywhere,”  he said. Most experts agree that the escapism and socialisation aspects of online gaming are a big part of the appeal. In League of Legends, for example, there is a clan system whereby players can invite others on to their list of friends, and then play as a group against other teams. But it is not necessarily a friendly environment. “If you’re playing and make a mistake, you can have four people on your own team screaming at you, wishing you had cancer or your mother and father were dead,” said Jones. “People take it so seriously, they lose touch.” Children losing touch with reality is the biggest concern for parents, perhaps. But gaming dependency – unlike gambling dependency, for example – is yet to be recognised with a formal diagnosis, and there is limited funding for research. “We’re under-aware of it, and we’re therefore minimising what the potential problems are,” said Smith. When pressed, Jones said he felt bad for his parents, who were concerned about the amount of time he spent in his room online. “You can lose a lot of cash, let alone time,” he said. “And it’s not really a transferable skill. It’s a strange world to be in.”
Harvard scholar: Ted Cruz's citizenship, eligibility for president ‘unsettled’ The legal and constitutional issues around qualification for the presidency on grounds of US citizenship are “murky and unsettled”, according to the scholar cited by Donald Trump in his recent attacks on Ted Cruz. Trump has sought to cast doubt on whether the senator, who was born in Canada to an American mother and a Cuban father, is a “natural-born US citizen”. In doing so he has referred to the work and words of Laurence Tribe, perhaps the most respected liberal law professor in the country. Tribe taught both Cruz and Barack Obama at Harvard Law School. He also advised Al Gore in the 2000 Florida recount and has advised Obama’s campaign organisation. “Despite Sen[ator] Cruz’s repeated statements that the legal/constitutional issues around whether he’s a natural-born citizen are clear and settled,” he told the by email, “the truth is that they’re murky and unsettled.” Tribe has said previously that the question of Cruz’s eligibility is “unsettled”. On Sunday, Trump cited that position in an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press, in which he described Tribe “as a constitutional expert, one of the true experts”. At a rally in Reno, Nevada later on Sunday, the real-estate billionaire, who has said Democrats will sue to stop Cruz running should he win the nomination, described himself as “a PhD in litigation”. Of Cruz’s eligibility, he said: “There is a doubt. We can’t have a doubt.” Article II, section I, clause V of the US constitution states: “No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President.” In his emails to the , Tribe discussed Cruz’s own approach to constitutional issues, noting that under “the kind of judge Cruz says he admires and would appoint to the supreme court – an ‘originalist’ who claims to be bound by the historical meaning of the constitution’s terms at the time of their adoption – Cruz wouldn’t be eligible because the legal principles that prevailed in the 1780s and 90s required that someone be born on US soil to be a ‘natural born’ citizen.” He added: “Even having two US parents wouldn’t suffice for a genuine originalist. And having just an American mother, as Cruz did, would clearly have been insufficient at a time that made patrilineal descent decisive. “On the other hand, to the kind of judge that I admire and Cruz abhors – a ‘living constitutionalist’ who believes that the constitution’s meaning evolves with the needs of the time – Cruz would ironically be eligible because it no longer makes sense to be bound by so narrow and strict a definition.” Tribe said: “There is no single, settled answer. And our supreme court has never addressed the issue.” Trump, who trails Cruz in polls in Iowa, first raised the issue last week. Cruz has since cited a bipartisan Harvard Law Review article by two former solicitor generals, Neal Katyal and Paul Clement, to back his contention that he is a natural-born citizen. Some of his rivals have pushed back; the Kentucky senator and presidential rival Rand Paul and Arizona senator John McCain, the 2008 candidate, have declined to support him. Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee in 2012, tweeted on Friday that Cruz was indeed a “natural-born citizen”. Tribe, who became a hated figure to many on the right thanks to his role in derailing the supreme court nomination of Robert Bork in 1987, gave legal advice to McCain when similar “natural-born citizen” questions arose in 2008. McCain was born in the Panama Canal Zone, to two Americans. Working with Ted Olsen, a former solicitor general in the George W Bush administration, Tribe concluded: “[McCain’s] birth on a US military base within a territory controlled by the US from 1903 to 1979 … under a treaty with Panama probably (although not certainly) qualified him as a natural born citizen, especially because both his parents were US citizens at the time.” On Sunday, he wrote: “That situation differed greatly from the one Sen[ator] Cruz finds himself in.” Asked if he was surprised by Trump’s use of his name, Tribe wrote: “What I find surreal isn’t that a Republican presidential candidate would favorably cite my legal conclusions, but that anyone should find that phenomenon so shocking. “The fact that I’m a lifelong liberal and a registered Democrat who taught constitutional law to President Obama (and, by the way, to Chief Justice Roberts and Senator Cruz) makes my citation by a likely Republican nominee for president surprising only because our political divisions have become so profound and so paralyzing that people no longer believe in the possibility of disinterested legal research. “That’s really sad.”
The magic of Leicester City goes well beyond football Great sport strikes an optimal compromise between excellence and surprise. The pure randomness of throwing dice is never going to draw a crowd. But if the “best” team wins every time, and there is no room for luck and uncertainty, then the drama becomes both boring and depressing. We turn to sport for inspiration and reassurance as well as virtuosity. Football is inherently good at surprise – one reason it’s the world’s favourite sport. Because the value of an individual goal is so huge (even a run in baseball isn’t as important) luck and unpredictability are hardwired. A shot hitting the post, a single refereeing decision, a goal against the run of play: these allow football to sustain justified faith among underdogs, both on the pitch and in the stands. On any given Saturday, the favourite is less likely to win at football than in any other sport. The problem, however, is that over the course of a long season, this unpredictability disappears. The same teams keep winning. The rich ones. That’s why the success of Leicester City, who could win the Premier League title this weekend, has breathed fresh life into football. One telling tribute has come from a segment of principled Arsenal followers. I know several who transferred their allegiance to Leicester, even when their own team still had a shot at the title. Madness? Perhaps. But their logic was in the spirit of Arsenal’s manager, Arsène Wenger. The phrase “financial doping” – the idea that sporting success that has been bought by a super-rich owner is at best semi-legitimate – was first attributed to Wenger in 2005. Leicester stand 17th in the league in terms of wage spending, first by points ranking. By Wenger’s own logic, a Leicester triumph would be more virtuous than victory for his Arsenal. Not everyone has joined the party. Successes such as Leicester’s, gift-wrapped for screenwriters, inevitably inspire a rationalist backlash. “Debunking” the Leicester miracle has now become a popular intellectual counter-rhythm, as though the romantic bandwagon needs to be kept in check. The revisionists have proposed that Leicester’s success is about systems, not romance. Leicester have invested in marginal gains, ranging from a pioneering scouting system to rotational fouling, aimed at reducing yellow cards. This savviness, however, doesn’t undermine the story at all: doubtless David had a very elastic sling when he felled Goliath. Besides, we do not have to turn Leicester into saints to marvel at their success. The Premier League has an especially bad track record at producing improbable title winners. In its 23 seasons, it has coughed up only five champions – with the four giants of Arsenal, Manchester United, Chelsea and Manchester City sharing 22 titles, and a single triumph for Blackburn Rovers (even that victory was powered by an injection of cash). The league’s first two decades were dominated by successive duopolies (Manchester United and Arsenal, then Manchester United and Chelsea), so much so that England’s top tier was less like a sports league and more like the Oxford-Cambridge boat race. Once, while I was giving a speech about competitive equipoise in sport, I read out the successive winners of the Premier League: one, then the other, then the first one again, then the other one. It became so repetitive that it felt only marginally different from saying “Oxford, Cambridge, Cambridge, Oxford.” So while improbable things certainly do happen, they have proved remarkably reluctant to happen inside English football. The Leicester story is timely, both for sport and as a metaphor for success in life. The idea of an establishment, or at least the dominance of entrenched interests, has become the prevailing theme of our times. It is a slippery concept and often mishandled, but sport has done little to undercut the gloomy narrative of the top 1% greedily carving up the booty. There is an 89% correlation between wage spending and league position, as Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski identified. Put differently: financial doping works. A connected point is the burgeoning influence of possessing a glamorous sporting history. It is reputation that drives the club’s brand, magnifying its financial clout. Super-clubs such as the New York Yankees or Manchester United support Thomas Piketty’s theory of capital: they are able to exploit past successes to ensure they keep a grip on present advantages. The sale of Yankees baseball caps is remarkably resilient, even when the team is having a bad season – which inevitably reduces the probability of bad seasons happening. Owning history in sport is like owning London property: you’re pretty much made. Sport’s embrace of ultra-professionalism has created new ways for money to express an advantage. In the late 1970s Brian Clough’s tactical and psychological skills made Nottingham Forest champions of Europe. Since then, rich teams have benefited from the new layers of professionalism – physiotherapy, prehab and all the rest – making it harder for the enlightened maverick to stand out. Elite football, in fact, could almost be a case study in late capitalism. The game as now played (loosely analogous with absolute standards of living) has undeniably improved at dizzying speed. In terms of skill, speed and attacking flair, is it easy to forget how much the game has evolved. The greatest leap forward was the proliferation of the yellow card, which gave the attacker the advantage, not the thug in long spikes. A leading commentator told me that when he watches archives of 1970s football, he estimates that half the players would today be sent off for violent fouls. Yet while the game itself dazzles, the top flight has become an increasingly closed shop. One former footballer, now a leading figure in the sports industry, confided recently: “Each season, I am 1% more in awe of what happens on the pitch. And 1% more disgusted by the industry behind it.” Football has delivered magnificently as a spectacle, but failed at sport’s version of social mobility. Until now, that is. And that’s why Leicester’s success matters beyond the game itself. Sport has never been a level playing field, but it does rely on an essential splash of surprise. There is room for some dynastic continuity, but not a rigid caste system. And every now and then in life, just as in football, an outsider has to steal the show.
Police raise concerns after letting vulnerable patient sleep in patrol car A chief constable has expressed deep concern that a patient with serious mental health problems had to sleep in the back of a police car in a hospital car park because there was no bed available for her. Katie Simpkins, 23, from Corsham in Wiltshire, was detained under the Mental Health Act for her own safety but there was no hospital bed available in the whole of the county. Officers allowed Simpkins to sleep under a blanket in the back of their patrol car and watched over her until a bed became available. She and her husband, Tristan Simpkins, 25, released a photograph of her in the back of the police car to try to raise awareness of the lack of beds available in such situations. The chief constable of Wiltshire police, Mike Veale, said officers were often having to take responsibility for vulnerable people with mental health problems who ought to be in the care of health professionals. He said that in the past week officers had persuaded a 17-year-old girl with schizophrenia to come down from the roof of a car park, only to be told there were no beds available for her anywhere in the county. He also said officers held a man in a cell for more than 48 hours because there was no mental health care facility available for him. Veale said: “A police officer is not the appropriate person to be dealing with a vulnerable member of the public who has an illness and poses a real risk to their own health and wellbeing. My police officers and staff face difficult, stressful and sometimes dangerous situations every day. They are not trained to provide specialist care to people with complex problems. They don’t know the background of these people, their medical history or their personal details. “These issues have always been here for the police, and not just in Wiltshire, but are becoming more acute as austerity bites and there is increased pressure on social care and healthcare services.” Police had detained Simpkins under section 136 of the act early last Saturday when she suffered a mental health crisis. Her husband said police rang round but could not find a place for her in a mental health unit. They took her into the custody suite at Melksham police station until later on Saturday afternoon, when officers were told a bed was available at Green Lane hospital in Devizes. However, when they got there at 5pm they were told it was not ready. Mr Simpkins said: “The hospital suggested she go back to custody and they would call when it was ready, but the police officer said custody is not the right place for her. He didn’t want to risk her missing the bed so he said they’d wait, and he’d wait with us. “Katie had her medication, became drowsy and he let her sleep in the back of the police car with her blanket. When I saw her lying in the back of the police car I felt frustrated, but I’ve become used to it. I feel hopeless.” He praised the way the police had tried to help. “It wasn’t their fault they couldn’t get a bed but these officers were all really lovely with her,” he said. She was finally admitted at 9pm. Angus Macpherson, the police and crime commissioner for Wiltshire and Swindon, said: “This is not an isolated incident. Such incidents are happening once or twice a month [in Wiltshire]. The picture of Katie Simpkins huddled beneath a blanket in the back of a Wiltshire police car has understandably caused concern to the public. I have said it before and I will say it again: custody is simply not the right place for someone in a mental health crisis.” Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS trust confirmed there were only two beds available for people detained under section 136, which gives police the power to take a person from a public space to a place of safety. A trust spokesperson said: “We work closely with the police to ensure they know the availability of places of safety. In this instance we were unable to provide a bed straight away and there clearly could have been better communication. We apologise and will be mindful of this in the future. Once the matter came to our attention, we made contact with Mr Simpkins to give him and his wife our full support.” Last month the government announced that the Avon and Wiltshire trust was among those that had successfully bid for a share of a £15m fund to improve provision of mental health places of safety. A Department of Health spokesperson said: “When a person is experiencing a mental health crisis they need the right care, in the right place and at the right time. We are fully committed to improving mental health services across the country.”
Silencing of immigration debate could lead to 'nasty politics' – Tory minister A Conservative minister has accused remain campaigners of attempting to silence the debate on immigration, warning that failure to address people’s concerns would simply fuel the emergence of a “nasty politics” on the far-right. In an interview with the , Dominic Raab hit out at Tory colleagues including Lord Michael Heseltine and Sir John Major, who he said were starting to sound like “the elite saying we can’t talk about immigration”. In response to Major’s claim that Tories campaigning for Brexit were morphing into Ukip, Raab said: “I’m proud in this country we’ve virtually eliminated the BNP. The risk if we don’t take people’s concerns seriously is not that we start to look like Ukip, the risk is that the really nasty politics emerges.” The intervention intensifies the clash between the remain and out camps on the issue of immigration, as the referendum campaign enters its final month. On Sunday David Cameron accused his own defence minister Penny Mordaunt of misleading the public about the prospect of Turkey joining the EU. The prime minister said Mordaunt was “absolutely wrong” to suggest that Britain had no veto over the accession of new countries. “Let me be clear, Britain and every other country in the EU has a veto on another country joining. That is a fact,” Cameron said in an interview on ITV’s Peston on Sunday. Earlier during a BBC interview, Andrew Marr asked Mordaunt whether Britain had a veto, and she replied: “No it doesn’t.” She then argued: “I do not think that the EU is going to keep Turkey out. I think it is going to join. I think the migrant crisis is pushing it more that way.” Mordaunt told the that her intention had been to highlight the prime minister’s own support for Turkey joining the EU, and to point out that the British public would not be given a referendum if the decision was taken in the future. Campaigners on both sides of the arguments jumped on the interviews to highlight past records of their opponents. Brexiters pointed to Cameron’s statement in 2010 that he wanted to “pave the road from Ankara to Brussels”, while Remainers pointed to Boris Johnson’s claim that Turkey’s accession was not likely to happen. Raab said he was determined not to enter into “tit for tat”. On immigration, he said he was the son of a refugee and married to a woman from Latin America. “I’m not a little Englander, but I want the British people to have confidence in our immigration system.” He said that wasn’t possible while the UK was in the EU because there was no control of numbers, no way to make sure immigrants were self-sufficient and no ability to remove people who had committed serious offences. He talked about the emergence of the far right in France, Austria and the Netherlands, and said the same could happen in the UK. The justice minister also said it was difficult to stop convicted criminals entering Britain. “You are importing risk, and the EU has forced us to import risk, and tied our hands in trying to deal with that risk. There is no doubt that that is the case. You can take a view that that is a price worth paying. I don’t think it is,” he said. The result, according to Raab, is that the terror risk to Britain is higher than it might be post-Brexit. The prime minister has made the opposite argument, saying that cross border co-operation within the EU keeps Britain safer. The question of immigration is at the heart of the Vote Leave campaign, and the subject of part of its referendum broadcast to be shown on Monday. It has a mother and daughter going to A&E and waiting frustratedly to be seen because of pressures resulting from immigration. The video then shows an alternative picture in which the smiling pair leave the hospital quickly in a post-Brexit world. An internal Labour report by Jon Cruddas has said the party risks becoming “irrelevant” to working people if it fails to tackle their concerns on immigration. Cruddas has also contributed to a book being edited by the backbencher Tristram Hunt on why Labour lost the last election.
Aston Villa’s relegation all but confirmed by Bournemouth’s win It was a numbing stay of execution as Aston Villa’s relegation was deferred for at least 24 hours because their eighth consecutive defeat was accompanied by the cold comfort of defeat for their rivals Norwich City at Crystal Palace. Bournemouth’s deserved victory, secured by goals from Steve Cook and Joshua King, took them to 41 points and their own safety. But Villa’s long membership of the top flight, stretching back to 1987, will be over on Sunday should Sunderland, who host Norwich next week, beat Leicester City. But it is more a case of timing rather than plausibility anyway. There is a strong sense at Villa Park that things will get worse before they get better. Supporters booed the names of their own players when the teams were read out before kick-off – except for Jordan Lyden, the academy graduate making his full Premier League debut – and again at half-time after Villa conceded the opening goal with the penultimate kick of the half. Bournemouth have epitomised what a strong team bond allied to purposeful management can bring even for a lesser group of players. In their first season among the elite, Eddie Howe’s players, having lost to Villa on the opening day of term, have long since staved off any realistic threat of relegation, despite losing their last two games. Eric Black, Villa’s third manager of the season, has urged the players to start giving something back to the 31,000 supporters who keep turning up for home games. The caretaker was not critical of their efforts but pinpointed a deficiency in quality at both ends. “We have to be professional to the end,” Black said. “We’ve got some difficult games left against some of the best teams in the world. We have to be professional and I’ll have to constantly demand that. It’s not a great state of affairs and there’s a lot of disappointment in the dressing room. But we have to go again Monday morning and get something back into this wonderful club.” Neither did Black expect supporters to lay off their criticism. “I can fully understand them,” he said. “We’ve won 18 or 19 games at home out of 80, that’s four and a half games a season, so that’s not going to get the fans jumping up and down with confidence. Fans have every right to voice their feelings and I must admit if I was one of them, I don’t think I’d be jumping up and down. I think the time has come for the club to give something back to the fans now. “This club will I’m sure one day come back but it’s going to be a mighty challenge. I went down with Birmingham City and we came straight back up but my goodness it is huge turnaround. “It’s not going to be an overnight fix. There’s a lot of hard work to be done but we’ve got to give the fans something to get excited about.” Villa set up cautiously, which was understandable after conceding 15 goals in their previous four home games. Kieran Richardson, one of five changes from last week’s 4-0 humbling by Chelsea, blasted a shot over from the edge of the area after Idrissa Gueye ran on to Jordan Ayew’s ball wide but Villa were edgy in possession, aware that the home crowd would not take much to turn on them. Sure enough, Villa were jeered off at the interval after conceding two minutes into stoppage time. Simon Francis played a short corner to Matt Ritchie and ran on to the backheel to the byline whence he pulled the ball back for his fellow defender Steve Cook to replicate the kind of finish Jamie Vardy mustered for England against Germany recently with a flick of his right heel behind the left. Villa’s demoralised players were taunted with the accusation “You’re not fit to wear the shirt” as they left the field. Lyden was withdrawn from further trauma at the interval and replaced by Rudy Gestede, who had scored the winner at the Vitality Stadium back in August, as Black resorted to 4-4-2. The Benin target man was one of 12 summer signings made in a £52m attempt to replace the departing talent of Fabian Delph, Christian Benteke, Ron Vlaar and Tom Cleverley, a quartet who had helped Tim Sherwood lead the team to safety and an FA Cup final. But, like so many of the newcomers, Gestede has flitted in and out as Sherwood then Rémi Garde and now Black have attempted to put together a jigsaw that makes a coherent picture. Villa’s latest defeat was in effect sealed 16 minutes from time, when King capitalised on Ciaran Clark’s poor touch and dinked the ball over Brad Guzan. Ayew latched on to Gueye’s pass five minutes from time to score for Villa but Bournemouth were already celebrating. A good day for the visitors was made better when Callum Wilson returned from seven months out with a ruptured anterior cruciate ligament injury. “That was a big moment for everyone connected with the football club,” Howe said. “Callum’s been such a pivotal figure for us.” “We’re Premier League,” sang the travelling fans. It may be a long time before Villa supporters can make such a claim again.
Give HPV vaccine to boys to protect against cancers, experts say Millions of young British men are being denied a vaccine that could protect them from throat cancers in later life. Scientists say the problem is becoming increasingly worrying as rates of human papilloma virus (HPV) – a common sexually transmitted infection and the prime cause of these cancers – are now rising exponentially. Researchers want the government to include adolescent boys in the current vaccine programme that immunises girls aged 12 and 13 against HPV before they become sexually active. HPV in women is known to lead to cervical cancers. The vaccine, if extended to boys, would protect them in later life against HPV-related head and neck cancers. “If we want to eradicate male throat cancers – which are soaring in numbers – we need to act speedily and that means giving them the HPV vaccine we now give to girls,” said Professor Mark Lawler of Queen’s University Belfast. Health experts say increased levels of oral sex are in part responsible for the spread of HPV. “Smoking and alcohol add to risks, but the fact that couples are having more and more oral sex is the main factor,” said Peter Baker, campaign director of HPV Action. A vaccine to block HPV infections was developed a decade ago and from 2008 formed the basis of a programme to inoculate UK schoolgirls to protect them from cervical cancer later in life. At present more than 3,000 women develop cervical cancer a year in the UK. Most other western nations have since introduced similar programmes. “HPV is spread sexually. However, this vaccine will not work effectively if a person has already been infected by HPV,” said Baker. “That’s why it is given to girls when they are 12 or 13 – before they are sexually active.” Tens of thousands of young women are now given the vaccine, although it is too early to say how cervical cancer rates are going to be affected, said virologist Professor Sheila Graham, of Glasgow University. “However, rates of genital warts in women – which are also caused by HPV – are going down, so there is confidence the vaccine will work.” However, the introduction of the HPV vaccine for women has come just as infection rates in men have started to soar, with cases of tonsil cancers and cancers of the base of the tongue – both caused by the virus – rising dramatically. Tonsil cancer cases have tripled in numbers since the 1990s, for example. “Unfortunately, these cancers have very serious outcomes with dreadful morbidity,” added Graham. Scientists say it would cost about £20m a year to extend the current HPV vaccine programme to boys. “By contrast, it costs about £30m a year to treat males for genital warts while the costs of treating the rising numbers of throat cancers are even greater,” Lawler said. “So, in purely monetary terms, it makes sense to give boys the vaccine.” This point is disputed by some health economists. They say the human papilloma virus will have virtually disappeared from sexually active UK women in a few decades, thanks to the vaccine now given to girls at school. As a result men will no longer pick up the virus when having oral sex with women. This effect is known as herd immunity. But Professor Margaret Stanley, of Cambridge University, said the argument was flawed. “Relying on female-only vaccine programmes to remove HPV from the population is risky. “In Denmark the take-up rate of the vaccine recently dropped from around 80% to 20% because of a scare story – which was quite untrue – suggesting the vaccine was spreading disease. We need protection for both sexes to be sure we eradicate HPV.” In addition, reliance on a female-only vaccine programme would mean that gay men would never be provided with protection against HPV, she added. This last point was crucial is persuading health officials in Australia to extend its school HPV vaccine programme to men in 2013. It is the only country to run a free HPV vaccine programme for both sexes. The government’s joint committee on vaccination has been considering extending the HPV programme to boys for several years but is not due to give a ruling until 2017. “Even if it gives approval then, we are unlikely to get the programme extended to boys until around 2020,” said Baker. “By then millions who could have been protected against throat cancers will have lost the chance to get the vaccine.” Stanley was also emphatic the vaccine programme should be extended. “A great many health experts in this field are paying privately to have their sons vaccinated. “It costs £160 for a double shot. I have had my grandson vaccinated. The nature of the problem is obvious. “In any case, it is simply discriminatory not to give a vaccine to men when it could save their lives.”
Spanish consumers win victory over mortgage payments Banks including Barclays and Santander face a €5bn (£4bn) bill after a Spanish court ruled that millions of fixed minimum rate mortgages were null and void because of the “lack of transparency” in the way they were sold during the property boom. The ruling in a Madrid commercial court comes in response to a class action suit on behalf of 15,000 mortgage holders. The mortgages contain what is known as a cláusula suelo, which fixes a minimum monthly payment. So, while still a variable rate mortgage, the bank sets a cut-off point below which payments are not allowed to fall. Some 40 banks are involved, including Caixabank, Barclays, Bankia, and Banco Santander. Caixabank and Bankia abolished cláusula suelo mortgages last year. The decision was anticipated by the banking sector and many have already made provisions for a payout. They have 20 days to appeal against the ruling. The clauses were introduced to protect banks from negative interest rates. Most of the estimated 4m mortgages affected were sold during the 1997-2007 property boom when buyers were paying top prices for their homes. When the bubble burst they were unable to benefit from falling interest rates. It is estimated that those affected pay from €179 (Euribor +0.5%) to €213 (Euribor +1%) more on a €150,000 mortgage than they would if they didn’t have a fixed minimum rate mortgage. As the recession set in and people were unable to meet their mortgage repayments, they were evicted in growing numbers, peaking at an average of 500 a day in 2012. Under Spanish law homeowners cannot claim bankruptcy over a mortgage as it is regarded as personal debt. So even after the banks foreclose and repossess a property the former owner still has to pay off the mortgage, as well as associated legal charges. In May 2013, Spain’s supreme court ruled that the mortgages of this type provided by BBVA, Cajamar and NCG were “abusive”. Thursday’s ruling handed down by judge Carmen González goes further, “condemning the banks in question to pay back the quantities improperly charged under clauses declared null by the supreme court”. This means the ruling is only retrospective to May 2013. The European court in Strasbourg is expected to rule on 26 April whether the banks’ liability should extend beyond that date. The European commission has already said it believes the payments should be backdated to the date the mortgage was signed, on the grounds that if a clause is declared null, it’s null from the beginning. The ruling does not outlaw this type of mortgage but says the existing mortgages are null because of a lack of transparency on the part of the banks which failed to adequately inform clients what they were signing up to. The class action suit was first brought five years ago by the consumers action group ADICAE. Manuel Pardos, president of ADICAE, praised the judge for her bravery.
Monte dei Paschi shortfall €8bn, ECB says The cost of rescuing Monte dei Paschi has escalated after the European Central Bank told the struggling Italian lender that it required €8.8bn (£7.5bn) to mend its finances. The lender, Italy’s third-largest bank, has tried in vain to arrange a €5bn rescue package with private investors but the ECB said the sum would not have been enough. Monte dei Paschi, whose history can be traced back to 1472, said it had asked the ECB to approve a “precautionary recapitalisation”, a type of state intervention that allows the institution receiving it to stay solvent. The government is now expected to inject €6.5bn into the bank, according to reports, taking its stake in to about 70%. The remainder will come from institutional investors seeing their bonds converted into shares, ridding the bank of about €2bn in debt. In a statement, Monte dei Paschi said the ECB had written to the Italian finance ministry warning that the bank’s liquidity position – its ability to turn assets into hard cash – had suffered a “rapid deterioration”. This was partly down to a large number of loans made to people who cannot pay them back, among the factors that saw Monte dei Paschi come last out of 51 banks in stress tests to check lenders’ resilience to economic shocks. “The bank has quickly started talks with the competent authorities to understand the methodologies underlying the ECB’s calculations and introduce the measures for a precautionary recapitalisation,” it said in a statement. Monte dei Paschi said the ECB had told it that the €8.8bn bailout figure was determined by the results of stress tests that the bank failed this summer. It also noted that the bank’s liquidity position had worsened between the end of November and 21 December. The European commission said on Friday it would work with Rome to establish conditions for a bailout of Monte dei Paschi, likely to involve tapping a €20bn rescue pot approved by the Italian government last week. But the proposals have not met with support from more hawkish official in the ECB. Jens Weidmann, the president of Germany’s Bundesbank and a member of the ECB’s governing council, said the Italian government ought to consider whether it should rescue the bank if it was in a bad financial state. “For the measures planned by the Italian government the bank has to be financially healthy at its core,” he said in an article published in the German newspaper Bild. “The money cannot be used to cover losses that are already expected. All this must be carefully examined.” Monte dei Paschi has struggled to recover from the 2008 banking crisis, when it paid Santander €9bn (£7.6bn) for Banca Antonveneta. The deal doubled the size of the lender, transforming it into Italy’s third largest behind UniCredit and Intesa Sanpaolo. Three years ago, Monte dei Paschi’s problems worsened and it was forced to ask the government for €4bn amid a scandal over loss-making derivatives contracts and alleged fraud. It will now go back to the government for funds after talks with private investors failed, with Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund thought to have scuppered the plan by refusing to take part. The Italian government already has a 4% stake in Monte dei Paschi.
Michael Gove and five other cabinet members break ranks with PM over EU Michael Gove said the European Union is encouraging extremism across Europe as he joined five other cabinet ministers in breaking ranks with David Cameron to campaign to take Britain out of the EU. The justice secretary, one of Cameron’s closest political allies, posed for photos with cabinet colleagues at the headquarters of Vote Leave just hours after the prime minister fired the starting gun for the UK’s four-month debate on EU membership. Gove was joined by Iain Duncan Smith, the work and pensions secretary, John Whittingdale, the former Thatcher aide who is now culture secretary, Chris Grayling, the leader of the Commons, Theresa Villiers, the Northern Ireland secretary, and Priti Patel, the employment minister who attends cabinet. The “gang of six” posed next to a signed banner saying: “Let’s take back control” after travelling to the Vote Leave headquarters from a rare Saturday cabinet meeting in which Cameron made his case for the UK’s renegotiated membership of the EU. In a speech outside Downing Street after the meeting, the prime minister said the referendum would take place on 23 June. The manoeuvre came after weeks of rumours about which Tory frontbenchers would break ranks. A notable absentee from the rebellion, Boris Johnson, has kept Downing Street waiting about which way he will jump in the referendum campaign. Amid some irritation in No 10, the London mayor is expected to wait until the prime minister outlines his plans to reassert the sovereignty of parliament before announcing his intentions. Johnson said last week that he would endorse one side in the referendum campaign with a “deafening éclat” soon after the prime minister reached a deal in Brussels. The London mayor appears to have been wrongfooted by the prime minister’s decision to confirm within an hour of his deal in Brussels on Friday night that Gove would be campaigning for Brexit. The move by Gove puts immense pressure on Johnson to join the leave side. He had hoped that the prime minister’s new parliamentary sovereignty initiative would give him an option to campaign for remain. Gove issued a 1,500-word statement in which he said that he has spent weeks wrestling with the most difficult decision of his political life. The former journalist wrote: “It pains me to have to disagree with the prime minister on any issue. My instinct is to support him through good times and bad. “But I cannot duck the choice which the prime minister has given every one of us. In a few months’ time we will all have the opportunity to decide whether Britain should stay in the European Union or leave. I believe our country would be freer, fairer and better off outside the EU. And if, at this moment of decision, I didn’t say what I believe I would not be true to my convictions or my country.” In his statement, which read like a personal political manifesto rather than the light-hearted interventions by Johnson, Gove said that Britain could follow the US in declaring its own independence. Gove said: “Instead of grumbling and complaining about the things we can’t change and growing resentful and bitter, we can shape an optimistic, forward-looking and genuinely internationalist alternative to the path the EU is going down. We can show leadership. Like the Americans who declared their independence and never looked back, we can become an exemplar of what an inclusive, open and innovative democracy can achieve.” The justice secretary showed his unease for the EU by blaming it for the rise of extremism. “Far from providing security in an uncertain world, the EU’s policies have become a source of instability and insecurity. Razor wire once more criss-crosses the continent, historic tensions between nations such as Greece and Germany have resurfaced in ugly ways and the EU is proving incapable of dealing with the current crises in Libya and Syria … All of these factors, combined with popular anger at the lack of political accountability, has encouraged extremism, to the extent that far-right parties are stronger across the continent than at any time since the 1930s.” Gove released his statement after what was described as a good-natured cabinet meeting lasting about two hours. All ministers – the 22 full members of the cabinet plus the eight ministers who attend every week – were allowed to speak in order of seniority. Ministers on both sides of the divide agreed that they would need to campaign in a collegiate way. Duncan Smith, who made his name as a Maastricht rebel in the early 1990s, is understood to have made clear that there is no need nor any appetite for a repeat of the bitterness of those years. Some ministers campaigning to leave the EU are even said to have acknowledged that the new deal negotiated by the prime minister was an improvement on the status quo. Grayling described the cabinet as a “really constructive, grown-up, friendly” cabinet. But he suggested that the positive voices on his side about the prime minister’s EU deal were limited when he said that Cameron had simply won concessions in Brussels. The leader of the Commons told the BBC: “I don’t in any way criticise him for what he’s done. He’s put in a herculean effort to try to deliver change, to get a deal. He has undoubtedly made some progress but what he has discovered over the last couple of days is the limitations of change that we can secure within the European Union. “What the prime minister has done is bring back some concessions that will change parts of our relationship with the European Union. I’ve always supported the process of renegotiation. But what it doesn’t do is give us control of our borders.”
Snooper's charter: wider police powers to hack phones and access web history Powers for the police to access everyone’s web browsing histories and to hack into phones are to be expanded under the latest version of the snooper’s charter legislation. The extension of police powers contained in the investigatory powers bill published on Tuesday indicates the determination of the home secretary, Theresa May, to get her legislation on to the statute book by the end of this year despite sweeping criticism by three separate parliamentary committees in the past month. The bill is designed to provide the first comprehensive legal framework for state surveillance powers anywhere in the world. It has been developed in response to the disclosure of state mass surveillance programmes by the whistleblower Edward Snowden. The government hopes it will win the backing of MPs by the summer and by the House of Lords this autumn. May said the latest version reflected the majority of the 122 recommendations made by MPs and peers, including strengthening safeguards, enhancing privacy protections and bolstering oversight arrangements. She has, in particular, made changes to meet concerns within the technology industry that the surveillance law would undermine encryption. The latest draft makes clear that the government will take a pragmatic approach, and no company will be required to remove encryption of its own services if it is not technically feasible. The likely costs involved will also be taken into account. But the publication of the detailed bill has also revealed that, far from climbing down over her proposals, May intends to expand the scope of its most controversial new powers – the collection and storage for 12 months of everyone’s web browsing history, known as internet connection records – and state powers to hack into computers and smartphones. The bill will now allow police to access all web browsing records in specific crime investigations, beyond the illegal websites and communications services specified in the original draft bill. It will extend the use of state remote computer hacking from the security services to the police in cases involving a “threat to life” or missing persons. This can include cases involving “damage to somebody’s mental health”, but will be restricted to use by the National Crime Agency and a small number of major police forces. Four hours after the bill’s publication the Home Office issued a highly unusual “clarification” claiming that its official response published on Tuesday listing the powers to allow the police to use computer and phone hacking as a “key change” was because they had been missed out from the draft bill. “Documents published alongside the bill today describe the position as having changed as it was not referenced in the draft bill. However it reflects current police practice. The fact that it was not included in the draft bill was an omission that is being corrected in the final bill.” The Home Office said the hacking powers dated from the 1997 Police Act and would most likely only be used in “exceptional circumstances” such as finding missing people. They would require a “double-lock” warrant with ministerial authorisation and judicial approval. However evidence given to the scrutiny committee by the head of the Metropolitan police technical unit, Det Supt Paul Hudson, said such hacking powers were used “in the majority of serious crime cases” but refused to give further details in a public forum. He described it as a “covert activity so nothing that we do under equipment interference would cause any damage or leave any trace, otherwise it would not remain covert for very long”. His colleague said they could provide MPs and peers with data on its use but it was “very confidential” and would have to remain unpublished. Hudson acknowledged that the technology has long moved on since 1997. Legalised hacking now allows a third party to take remote control of a phone’s camera or microphone to record video and conversations taking place. The Home Office’s claim that the legalised hacking powers had been missed out of the original draft bill and so escaped the process of pre-legislative scrutiny was greeted with scepticism by at least one member of the scrutiny committee. The expansion of police powers to access web browsing history as part of their investigations follows pressure from the police, and the use of these powers does not need the “double-lock” ministerial authorisation. The home secretary told MPs she had rejected the committees’ recommendations to exclude the use of state surveillance powers for the “economic wellbeing” of the UK. She also resisted their demand to scrap warrants allowing GCHQ to undertake bulk computer hacking, describing them as a “key operational requirement”. May also underlined the “vital part” played by the security agencies’ “bulk powers” – the mass collection and storage of everyone’s communications data in Britain and the bulk interception of the content of communications of those based overseas to acquire intelligence. The Home Office has made detailed tweaks to the original draft of the bill, including stronger protections for journalists and lawyers, six codes of practice setting out how the powers will be used, and the use of a “double-lock” authorisation of the most intrusive surveillance methods by a minister backed by the approval of a judicial commissioner. The Home Office has acknowledged that the initial costing of the bill, at around £247m, is not set, and a final figure will be published after detailed consultations with industry. May said: “This is vital legislation and we are determined to get it right. The revised bill we introduced today reflects the majority of the committees’ recommendations – we have strengthened safeguards, enhanced privacy protections and bolstered oversight arrangements – and will now be examined by parliament before passing into law by the end of 2016. “Terrorists and criminals are operating online and we need to ensure the police and security services can keep pace with the modern world and continue to protect the British public from the many serious threats we face.” As part of the pre-legislative process, the bill was examined by a draft scrutiny committee, the intelligence and security committee and the science and technology committee. The MPs and peers called for a fundamental rewrite of the draft bill, with the ISC calling for privacy safeguards to be made the backbone of the legislation and the draft scrutiny committee saying the case had not yet been made for the introduction of new powers to store and access everyone’s web browsing history. Eric King, director of the Don’t Spy On Us coalition, which includes Liberty, Privacy International and other privacy and digital rights groups, called for a rethink of the bill. “Rather than a full redraft, we’ve been given cosmetic tweaks to a heavily criticised, deeply intrusive bill,” he said. “Reshuffling safeguards without meaningfully improving protections, authorisations or oversight does nothing to address widespread concerns about mass surveillance. The unsettling absence of a robust, technical, detailed evaluation of those bulk powers means the case still hasn’t been made, and parliament won’t have the information it needs to do its job. “There simply isn’t time for proper scrutiny of all these powers in the time frame proposed. More than 100 experts called on the Home Office to put on the brakes. The government must think again.” Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty, said: “Less than three weeks ago MPs advised 123 changes to the majorly flawed draft bill. The powers were too broad, safeguards too few and crucial investigatory powers entirely missing. “Minor Botox has not fixed this bill. Government must return to the drawing board and give this vital, complex task appropriate time. Anything else would show dangerous contempt for parliament, democracy and our country’s security.” Lord Strasburger, a Liberal Democrat member of the scrutiny committee on the draft bill, said nothing had changed since the committee published its report three weeks ago: “The Home Office just doesn’t do privacy. It does security and ever more intrusive powers they claim will make us safer, but not privacy. The fact that they see simply changing the name of one section to include the word ‘privacy’ as addressing the fundamental concerns about privacy protections in this bill is breath-taking,” he said. “The speed with which the home secretary is trying to force this bill through parliament shows no respect to the joint committee and ISC who worked so hard to give them workable solutions to problems in the draft bill, to parliament, or to the British people.”
UK turns to Canada for advice on striking post-Brexit trade deals with EU The UK has sought advice from Canada on how to secure a trade agreement with the EU following the Brexit vote, the Canadian trade minister has said. Chrystia Freeland told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that her team had been having “technical exchanges” with Britain about Canada’s recently finalised deal with the EU. She was speaking before a meeting with Liam Fox, the UK’s secretary of state for international trade. “As members of the Commonwealth they agreed to build a stronger, closer relationship in a number of areas including trade and prosperity,” a spokesperson for the new department said. “The ministers expressed a wish to work together better to promote the opportunities and benefits of globalisation and to think about how to get more SMEs exporting.” On Thursday, David Davis, the minister for Brexit, said his preferred model for the UK’s continuing relationship with the EU is Canada’s comprehensive and economic trade agreement (Ceta). Speaking on Friday, Freeland said: “We have been sharing, at a technical level, details of how Ceta works.” However, she said securing such deals was “very, very complicated. There are 300 trade negotiators in Canada. It takes a big expert team to negotiate trade agreements.” The UK does not have the expertise to negotiate trade deals, as for decades agreements have been conducted at EU level. Whitehall is scouring business, the European commission, and friendly countries including Canada for trade specialists to help lead talks. The government has said it plans to hire up to 300 staff to try to address a shortage of trade negotiators capable of forging closer economic ties to dozens of other countries. Oliver Letwin, who was going to run the Brexit unit before losing his role in Theresa May’s cabinet overhaul, told the BBC: “We don’t have trade negotiators because the trade negotiation has been going on in the EU so we are going to have to hire a whole – David Davis is going to have to hire – group to deal with the EU negotiations, and Liam Fox, of course, in what I think is an excellent plan of Theresa’s to create a new Department of International Trade.” Gregor Irwin, chief economist at the Global Counsel consultancy and a former chief economist at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, said the government had people who understood trade policy, but did not have negotiators. “No doubt people will have to be brought in from outside. They will look to get people wherever they can find them, and Canada and New Zealand would be good places to look. This is a huge agenda and it’s a long process.” Davis has said that article 50, the formal process for negotiating the UK’s exit from the EU, should not be triggered until the end of the year, from when Britain would have two years to negotiate its trading terms with the 27-nation bloc. Canada took seven years to finalise its deal with the EU and it is not expected to be implemented until 2017. A top US trade official said on Thursday that he had held preliminary discussions with British officials about how the two countries could pursue bilateral trade relations post Brexit. Freeland said Canada had secured a “gold standard” deal with the EU. However, she made clear that while it had secured “ambitious services agreements”, it would not enjoy the same level of “passporting” that the UK currently has as a member state – a status that enables banks and financial services businesses to trade freely. The Canadian deal also does not offer the same level of freedom of movement for professionals as that within EU member states. While the control of borders and worker movement is something Brexiters have argued for, Freeland said: “Canada’s position is to be ambitious in mobility. We think that facilitates trade.”
Ross Barkley issues a perfect response to criticism to inspire Everton The spotlight was on Gareth Barry on his 600th Premier League appearance, the expectation on Idrissa Gueye after an exceptional start to his Everton career and the pressure all on Ross Barkley following a very public dressing down before Middlesbrough arrived at Goodison Park. It demonstrated the latter’s refusal to hide, and lack of ego, that the entire heart of Everton’s midfield functioned as Ronald Koeman demanded. If a half-time substitution at Sunderland last Monday and repeated calls for improvement were Koeman’s way of testing Barkley’s mentality as well as ability, then his satisfaction with the 22-year-old’s reaction was justified. In the closeted, precious world of the Premier League it can be dangerous for any manager to issue public warnings and criticism of their biggest talents. Koeman, like Everton managers before him, had no such concerns with Barkley. “What is testing?” he asked following the 3-1 victory that left his team second in the table. “Yes, maybe Ross was under pressure but if you don’t handle the pressure you can’t play in the Premier League.” Koeman added: “It was an important game for Ross and he responded. You can’t always say what you think about players but I try to be honest with them. He was very good, he played like I like to see. Offensively very strong, and defensively he was very important for the team. Maybe in 90 minutes he lost less balls than he did in the first ten minutes of the last game. “After Monday, first of all you speak to the player and you need to support the player. You expect a reaction from the player too. Players are not so stupid that they don’t know when they play well or not so well. We watched all the clips, we had a good talk and we had a good solution. It was good for the boy to continue. He’s four or five years in the first team now and that means more responsibility in the midfield. He showed how good he can be.” The England international had accepted the Dutch coach’s unflattering analysis of his 45-minute display at the Stadium of Light during their conversation last week. As usual, he put in extra training at Finch Farm and, despite the scrutiny on his every pass and being frequently outnumbered, he drove his team forwards at every opportunity against Middlesbrough. Not everything Barkley attempted paid dividends but not every player would attempt what the midfielder produced at Goodison, certainly not in such pressurised circumstances. A stunning turn outside the visiting area fooled Daniel Ayala and prompted a vital covering challenge from Ben Gibson. When Víctor Valdés thwarted Barkley’s third determined run and shot of the game, the Gwladys Street broke into song about the player they call a diamond. Appreciation is genuine for one of their own, although Koeman is not alone in wanting greater consistency from the midfielder. The manager repeated: “This is his fourth or fifth season in the Premier League. He is not a young player any more.” Phil Jagielka, the captain, who has been alongside Barkley throughout, offered a revealing insight into the boyhood Evertonian’s mindset after his individual setback at Sunderland. “Ross was one of the happiest players on Monday night even though he may not have been particularly delighted with his own performance,” the defender said. “He knows it is a team game. “It was great the manager gave him another opportunity to perform and it may not have been Ross’s most dazzling of games but he got around the pitch, put tackles in and his shirt was absolutely drenched afterwards. “That is what we want from him and what everyone wants from him. We know his qualities and if he puts those performances in week in, week out, the goals and assists will come. First and foremost it is about playing for the team. He struggled with that a little bit on Monday but he is not going to go and crawl into a hole or hide. He has had such a lot of expectation from a young age but he has learned to deal with it. I am delighted for him that he has played a big part in this win.” Once again, Barkley operated in front of an outstanding midfield axis on Saturday as man of the match Gueye and Barry broke Boro’s attempted forays time and again. The veteran struck a timely equaliser, his second goal in five games under Koeman having gone 102 games without a goal before this season, while Gueye’s only error was spraying a pass out to Tom Cleverley. Cleverley was warming up in the technical area, ready to replace Barry, at the time. “He was outstanding, he was perfect in every aspect of football,” Koeman said of Gueye, a £7m signing from Aston Villa. “Yes, he wins a lot of the second balls and tackles but he also showed great composure on the ball – left, right and always trying to play forwards. He is a fantastic signing for the club and I hope we keep him a long time – but I don’t know.”
Brexit weekly briefing: does anyone know what 'Brexit means Brexit' actually means? Welcome to the weekly Brexit briefing, a summary of developments as Britain edges towards the EU exit. If you’d like to receive it as a weekly email, please sign up here (and check your spam folder if you don’t see it in your inbox). The second episode of Brexit Means…, our new Brexit podcast, is out now; Jolyon Maugham QC, professor of EU law Philip Syrpis and the ’s Owen Bowcott and Jennifer Rankin join me to discuss the legal challenges to the government’s use of Article 50, and what happens when it’s triggered. You can listen to that here. Producing the ’s independent, in-depth journalism takes a lot of time and money. But we do it because we believe our perspective matters – and it might well be your perspective too. If you value our Brexit coverage, become a Supporter and help make our future more secure. Thank you. The big picture This is the last weekly Brexit briefing of the year (we’ll be back in the first week of January). It’s almost six months since the referendum. And still no one knows what “Brexit means Brexit” will actually mean. Appearing before the Commons’ new Brexit select committee last week, David Davis said there were still “quite a few decisions to be made” about the government plan, which would be published as soon as possible but “certainly not next month”. The Brexit secretary said he was supremely confident the talks, which he apparently hopes will combine the article 50 negotiations and discussion of a future trade deal, could be wrapped up in 18 months. That’s despite the fact that, by his own admission, pretty much “everything is negotiable” except Britain taking full control of immigration: in or out of the customs union (there are four broad options), transitional deal (only if necessary and once the future relationship is clear), payment for market access (maybe). (Theresa May, reporting back to the Commons on her brief trip to Brussels last week – of which more below – said even less, if that’s possible, although she did repeat her wish that a deal guaranteeing the rights of EU nationals living in Britain and vice versa be agreed “early on”). Meanwhile, the House of Lords released half a dozen reports, some highlighting potentially alarming consequences of Brexit – and of the government’s continuing uncertainty about what it means. The peers said an interim deal on single market access was urgently needed to prevent the loss of tens of thousands of City jobs, and warned new immigration laws could cost London its lead in financial services and start-up technologies. They added that the government had also underestimated the shortcomings in its expertise and the relative weakness of its negotiating position, and was frankly naive to expect a “free lunch” in trade negotiations: The notion that a country can have complete regulatory sovereignty while engaging in comprehensive free trade with partners is based on a misunderstanding of the nature of free trade. Helena Kennedy, the chair of the Lords’ subcommittee looking into acquired rights, warned of “deep anxiety” among EU citizens in the UK and British nationals living on the continent – and called for a unilateral British undertaking to immediately guarantee the rights of the former. The government will presumably now get a brief respite for the Christmas break. But the calls for greater clarity – and for a few fundamental decisions to be taken – will return, louder and more urgent, in the New Year. With Theresa May saying she is determined to trigger article 50 before the end of March, the first three months of 2017 won’t be comfortable. The view from Europe The view from Europe was perhaps never clearer than in a rather sad video from last week’s Brussels summit in which EU 27 leaders laughed, chatted and embraced, while May appeared alone, friendless and with no one to talk to. The image showed once more that the EU 27 have other things on their mind besides Brexit, which featured so high up their agenda that they devoted all of 20 minutes to discussing it at an evening dinner to which May was not invited. To be fair, that’s partly because there’s not a lot they can discuss until article 50 is triggered and the UK says what it wants. Once that happens, many of them reckon – according to the UK’s ambassador to Brussels, Sir Ivan Rogers – that a final EU-UK trade deal could take a decade or more to negotiate, and still fail. An influential German official, meanwhile, said it was “a little bit naive” and “very ambitious” to expect, as some in the government appear to do, that a trade deal can be concluded within two years. Meanwhile, back in Westminster As so often, Westminster’s Brexit week consisted largely of Labour gradually shuffling towards a coherent strategy while government ministers tried to explain as little as possible. David Davis’s appearance before the Brexit select committee (see above) was a fine example of the latter. On the former, the main Labour contribution came a few miles to the east, where his shadow minister Keir Starmer chose the London HQ of Bloomberg – scene of David Cameron’s 2013 announcement that he would hold an EU referendum – to outline his party’s position. It was a tough brief. Labour’s stance on free movement is, to say the least, a broad church, and the best previous explanation of how the party planned to hold the government’s feet to the fire while simultaneously promising to back an article 50 vote whatever happened was by applying “moral pressure”. But, as you might expect from a former barrister and director of public prosecutions, Starmer gave it a good go. Labour had to be the party offering a consensus way between the government’s push towards a hard Brexit and the Lib Dems’ appeal to disaffected remainers, he insisted. This was, he said, “the battle of our times”, and Labour had to do its best to shape Brexit policy using “real opposition in real time”. There are still flaws, but it was the best explanation of the party’s policy yet. Just in time for Christmas, too. You should also know: The British Chambers of Commerce and the TUC made an unprecedented joint demand to Theresa May to guarantee the rights of EU nationals in the UK. The Brexit vote was fuelled by poorer voters feeling they had little control over immigration and general mistrust of politicians and officials, research found. Parliament’s joint committee on human rights said EU nationals in the UK should not be “bargaining chips” and mass deportations would be impossible. Another study found people who have little contact with those from outside their own neighbourhoods were much more likely to have voted Leave. Scottish ministers say they will call a second independence referendum if their concerns about single market membership are brushed aside. On a visit to Japan, the chancellor, Philip Hammond, said the country’s banks were “concerned” about Brexit. Promises made to the UK fishing industry about its chances of cutting the catch sizes of foreign fleets after Brexit were unrealistic, the Lords said. Former Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg said a transitional deal is “completely inevitable” to avoid losing access to vital European intelligence databases. Lego will raise its UK prices by 5% next year as it becomes the latest firm to respond to the plunging pound after the UK voted to leave the EU. Gus O’Donnell, the former cabinet secretary, would have advised the government against forming two new Brexit departments. Read these: In the , Nick Cohen has an eloquent go at the anger and aggressiveness of some Leavers, the “sore winners... They have the victory, the field is theirs, but still they scream bitter abuse” at Remainers: Why are the Leave campaigners so angry? Because they fear the demagogic rage and charlatan tricks they have used against others will one day be used against them. Andrew Rawnsley reckons a long-drawn-out exit – a “half-in, half-out deal” – would probably suit Britain best, but no one can yet bring themselves to admit it: It would be devilishly difficult to negotiate, but it wouldn’t be inconsistent with the will of a people almost evenly divided by the referendum ... Theresa May probably intuits already that is where she will end up. She just doesn’t dare say so yet. And Aditya Chakrabortty says a “Brexit betrayal” is coming and asks what Leave voters will do when “the broken promises of Brexit” start to pile up. He points to “a multitude of frustrations, pushed through a binary vote” and wonders: What happens when [Leave] voters realise that their vote for change – however loosely defined – means more of the same? When that call to take back control ends up with them playing the same old captive market, there to be ripped off by multinational capital. Who will take the blame then? Tweet of the week: Happy Christmas, one and all, courtesy of Nick Brown MP. See you next year...
From Kamala Harris to the Dallas Cowboys: people to watch in 2017 2016 taught us that very little is predictable. But there are a few people worth watching next year, in the likely chance that they’ll have a major role in shaping 2017. Here are the people to keep your eye on, in politics, the arts, media, and sports. Keith Ellison Ellison is one of the new hopes for the Democratic party – or at least for its progressive wing. A former community organizer who serves as a congressman for Minnesota, Ellison has been backed by Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren to be the next chair of the Democratic National Committee. Although one of only two Muslims in Congress, Ellison has pledged to resign his seat in Congress if elected as DNC chair. As party chair he would attempt to hew the Democratic party to the left, focusing on grassroots organizing to “build the party from the bottom up”. He would work towards Sanders-esque proposals on taxing the wealthy and corporations, and on immigration reform, in the hope of tempting back Democratic voters in the 2018 mid-term elections. The DNC will meet over the weekend of February 24-26 to vote for their choice. Ellison is not a shoo-in, however; other names mentioned for the chair include Labor secretary Tom Perez, seen as a more moderate choice, and South Carolina Democratic party chairman Jaime Harrison. Steve Bannon The former executive chairman of unofficial Trump fan club Breitbart News will spend 2017 firmly embedded in the White House and is one of the few people who has the ear of the president-elect. Bannon – who is currently being portrayed as the grim reaper on Saturday Night Live – will serve as Trump’s chief strategist and senior counselor, which is a made-up position but one likely to give him significant power. During the presidential campaign Bannon was said to be the one advisor who could talk forcefully to Trump – a rare position and one that means he may be able to hold Trump to some of the right-wing, populist promises that won him the election. Megyn Kelly Trump’s antagoniser-in-chief ended 2016 by releasing a book, Settle for More, for which she was paid up to $10m, and she is likely to have an even more lucrative 2017. Her contract with Fox News expires in July, and she has reportedly been offered $20m a year to stay. Kelly is also apparently being pursued by ABC, NBC and CNN, although they might not offer her quite as much money. Fox News is one of the few broadcasters, newspapers and news websites that Donald Trump does not actively criticize, so the right-wing channel is likely to be his first port of call for interviews. That means that Kelly – despite not being Trump’s favourite Fox News journalist (see: the Republican primary debates) – would have a rare opportunity to hold the president to account. If she decides to stay. Kamala Harris California’s senator-elect hasn’t taken office yet, but she is already being touted as a potential Democratic presidential candidate in 2020. Harris, whose mother is Indian American and father is Jamaican, is the first Indian woman and first black woman to be elected to the Senate. She will serve on the homeland security and governmental affairs committee and the select committee on intelligence, which could provide important checks on Donald Trump. Seen as a progressive, Harris was endorsed by the outgoing senator for California, Barbara Boxer, and Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren in her Senate run. She hasn’t commented on the presidential speculation. But Barack Obama was another Democrat who endorsed Harris in 2016 – and running for president as a first term senator seemed to work out for him. Dallas Cowboys The Dallas Cowboys have only lost two games so far and have looked to be one of the better teams in the NFL all season. They’ve been propelled towards that record by two rookies: the quarterback, Dak Prescott, and running back, Ezekiel Elliott. Prescott, 23, was only the 135th pick in the draft, and few would have expected him to get much game time. But after the Cowboys’ veteran quarterback Tony Romo broke a vertebrae in pre-season Prescott became first choice, and promptly broke Tom Brady’s record for most consecutive passes thrown without an interception at the beginning of a career. His performances throughout the season have left some NFL commentators wondering if he might be the best rookie quarterback of all time. Meanwhile Elliot, 21, broke the Cowboys’ 39-year-old rookie record for rushing yards this season and has a chance to become the most successful rookie running back in NFL history. If Prescott and Elliott can keep up their form in the playoffs then the Cowboys could win their first Super Bowl since 1995. Elaine Welteroth This year was huge for Elaine Welteroth, who in May was appointed editor-in-chief of Teen Vogue at just 29. That made her the youngest Condé Nast editor-in-chief in history, and only the second African American to hold such a job. Immediately, Welteroth, along with digital editorial director Phillip Pacardi, upped the magazine’s political and social issues coverage, focusing on the election, LGBT, race and feminist issues. Teen Vogue had more females of color as cover stars than any other fashion magazine this year. And Welteroth has been the face of it all, regularly appearing on panels, in interviews or even as herself on the show Black-ish. Over 77,000 people follow her jet-setting life on Instagram. After publishing around a dozen stories a day in 2015, her team now publishes 50 to 70 daily. But Welteroth will face the challenges of a tough media business in 2017. Last month Condé Nast announced the magazine is getting cut back from a monthly to a quarterly, starting in Spring 2017, with a more collectible print edition and a digital focus. Issa Rae Actress, writer and producer Issa Rae created Insecure, one of 2016’s most praised TV shows. Insecure began airing on HBO in October, putting black women and black female friendships front and center, and mixing microaggressions from working in an all-white work place with conversational Drake lyrics. The show has other big names on board: Larry Wilmore is an executive producer, Solange is a music consultant, Melina Matsoukas (director of Beyonce’s Formation) is a director and executive producer. Rae, 31, first shot to fame as a YouTube star, with her 2011 web series Misadventures of an Awkward Black Girl. Her production company, which also includes ColorCreative.TV, offers opportunities specifically for women and minority writers. In 2017, she’s up for a Golden Globe for best actress in a comedy, will be writing and shooting season two of Insecure, and will serve as executive producer on a new comedy show by her production company called Minimum Wage, the story of five employees at a fast food restaurant in LA’s Koreatown. Lorde It’s been a couple of quiet years for the New Zealander who landed a US number one hit in 2013 when she was just 16 with Royals. Lorde (real name Ella Yelich-O’Connor) won a stack of awards, including two Grammys and became part of Taylor Swift’s squad, but has released no new music since 2014. Now she’s 20 and is just finishing off her sophomore album. “The party is about to start. I am about to show you the new world,” wrote Lorde on Facebook about the new album, explaining that was all about her growing up and learning how to be an adult. Jack Antonoff of Bleachers fame is helping produce it. This month Antonoff and Lorde sung a cover of Robyn’s Hang with Me for a Christmas fundraiser for the LGBT charity The Ally Coalition, in New York, a reminder of Lorde’s strong, ethereal pipes. The new album is expected spring 2017.
Mark Carney must hone diplomacy skills – but he's innocent of EU bias Mark Carney is not very skilled at sounding neutral. The governor of the Bank of England enraged Brexit-ers in his testimony before the Treasury select committee on Tuesday. He called a transition out of the EU in the event of a leave vote “the biggest domestic risk to financial stability”. He mused that UK assets could be perceived by foreign investors as more risky. And he added that some parts of the financial services industry could relocate. All of this, admittedly, will be music to the ears of the remain camp. But, come on, the governor is paid to worry about financial stability. It would be odd if Carney didn’t have something to say about the potential consequences of leaving the EU. If you listened to his words – as opposed to the reaction to them – the governor stayed well within neutral territory. The “biggest domestic risk” line may sound dramatic but isn’t. The UK is running a yawning deficit in its current account of 4%, which will not have gone unnoticed by the currency markets. It is quite possible that foreign lenders and investors – initially, at least – could demand a higher rate of return on their UK assets. Of course, nobody really knows how the financial markets would react, but Carney’s broad-brush picture hardly counts as scaremongering. Even half the leave camp concedes that exit could be bumpy in the short term; its view is that the bumps will lead to greater long-term prosperity, which is a perfectly respectable argument. As for Carney’s remarks on foreign banks and financial firms leaving the UK, well, that is just what some of them have said. It is not a revelation. The only part where Carney’s neutrality could be questioned was in his remarks on the prime minister’s renegotiation settlement. The governor said the Bank’s concerns about protections for non-members of the eurozone had been addressed and the central bank would continue to have sufficient powers to do its job. There are reasons to quibble with that analysis because we don’t exactly know what panicky measures the eurozone members would introduce in their next crisis. But Carney shouldn’t be damned for offering his opinion. A cannier operator – such as predecessor Lord King, perhaps – would have found time for a robust passage on the inherent design flaws in the euro. That might have softened some of the Eurosceptics’ criticism. But on the central allegation of loss of neutrality, the governor said nothing out of order. Carney is innocent. Banking Standards Board should invest in some opinions If you call yourself the Banking Standards Board, surely you should have a few standards. And, one would hope, such an organisation would be able to form an opinion on whether the bankers are improving their behaviour or merely talking about it. Do not read the BSB’s first annual review for insights. This curious document appears to be an exercise in stating the bleedin’ obvious and then offering inoffensive conclusions. Take the passage on incentives and rewards, one of six areas where the BSB is supposedly having a good root around. It starts by telling us what we already know (“firms have been adapting to and implementing a wide range of national and global regulatory initiatives”) and finishes with the banal statement that “if a remuneration committee does not factor culture into its thinking, culture is unlikely to be intrinsic to the way that a firm pursues its business”. What use is that? Does the BSB, and its chair Dame Colette Bowe, think parts of the banking industry are still polluted by a culture of personal greed? Indeed, did she ever think that? It’s impossible to tell. Being overly generous, one could say these are still early days for the BSB, a body established last year on the recommendation of a parliamentary commission after the market-rigging scandals. The actual standards are promised to appear some time this year. But the work of establishing credibility needs to start now. The BSB was set up by the big banks, has no statutory powers and membership is voluntary. As such, it will always be open to the charge that its thinking is infected by the banks themselves. The only way to counter that perception, and advance the goal of restoring “trust”, is to avoid platitudes and cause some embarrassment where it is deserved. Bowe needs to acquire some arrows – and then fire them. US justice department fines have to dent VW Here comes Volkswagen’s plea for mercy. Jobs will have to be cut – in the US as well as Europe – if the fines for manipulating diesel emissions tests are too heavy, say the carmaker’s executives. Such a script is very likely. The US Department for Justice is suing VW for up to $46bn (£32.3bn), which is serious money. Actual fines, of course, would probably be substantially lower but could still do “substantial and painful” damage, as chief executive Matthias Müeller put it. But what are the US authorities supposed to do? Forget about the scandal and not apply the country’s environmental laws? Sorry, but that route is paved with moral hazard. There is no point in ruining VW – but, equally, fines are meant to hurt when the offences are serious.
Sergio Agüero hands Manchester City victory against spirited Sunderland Manuel Pellegrini’s extended farewell to Manchester City began on a winning note but he will surely enjoy easier evenings before making way for Pep Guardiola in the summer. Thanks to Sergio Agüero’s first-half winner City’s title challenge remains very much alive, but if Sunderland can keep playing with this sort of sheer bloody-minded determination, a team which merited at least a draw here will not deserve to be relegated. The verve and vibrancy of a quite formidable second-half attacking performance from Sam Allardyce’s players stretched Pellegrini’s side to the limit. With the home debutant Wahbi Khazri frequently fazing the Chilean’s defence, Jan Kirchhoff increasingly imperious in central midfield and Joe Hart performing heroics in the visiting goal, it was small wonder the home manager pronounced himself “gutted”. Pellegrini simply looked relieved. “It was very important to win here,” said a coach whose name was chorused by the visiting fans. “It was a very tough game and a very good result.” Inevitably he was asked about his impending departure. “I’m not thinking about that,” came the reply. “I’m just thinking about having a good season. We’re not thinking about the future; we’re living in the present.” Considering Sunderland are still second bottom Allardyce has reason to fear for the future. “I feel gutted,” he said. “It’s the most disappointed I’ve been since coming here. A point was the least we deserved. We created more chances than Manchester City but Joe Hart showed why he’s the England goalkeeper. Manchester City had one chance and Agüero scored. But I don’t know anybody who has played as well as Jan Kirchhoff in central midfield for anybody this season.” His revamped XI showcased a new look 4-1-4-1 formation featuring Kirchhoff, their new £750,000 central defensive signing from Bayern Munich – who had endured a shambolic debut at Tottenham last month – in the anchoring role behind midfield. It was a job he would become almost astonishingly good at. With Lamine Koné, making an impressive bow at centre half following a £5m move from Lorient, quickly endearing himself to his new public by unleashing a teasing cross from the right which Martin Demichelis was forced to hack clear, Sunderland began reasonably brightly. Even so, local optimism took quite a dent when Yaya Touré and Jesús Navas combined to create Agüero’s 12th goal in his last 10 Premier League appearances. If Agüero appeared every inch the expert marksman as he toe-poked Navas’s deflected left-wing cross into the roof of the net from close range, Billy Jones looked a thoroughly wrong-footed right back. Attempting to make amends, Jones launched into a challenge as the striker shot, his studs raking Agüero down the back of a leg and, following prolonged treatment, leaving him with a badly torn, blood stained, sock. Undeterred, he might have scored a second had his curling shot not taken a deflection off Yann M’Vila. Significantly that opening was conjured by 19-year-old Kelechi Iheanacho who showed precisely why he had been preferred to Raheem Sterling by holding off John O’Shea quite brilliantly before supplying Agüero. David Silva was starting to control the tempo of the game but Sunderland had their moments and, as Kirchhoff was proving, were far from incapable of disrupting the visitors’ rhythm. Koné should have equalised but made an absolute hash of an unmarked close range header following Jeremain Lens’s excellent free kick. Bar accidentally catching Demichelis in the mouth with a stray elbow Jermain Defoe had been fairly quiet, but all that changed when he turned his marker before dispatching a shot which was destined for the bottom corner until Hart dived low to divert the danger. Recovering rapidly, his positioning then prevented Jones from scoring on the rebound. Aware that, for all City’s elegant menace, Vito Mannone had had precious little to do, Allardyce perhaps sensed it might not take all that much to change the narrative. He duly introduced Khazri, his £9m signing from Bordeaux, at half time, the Tunisian replacing the injured Lens. With Pellegrini suspecting that, despite some dazzling footwork, Iheanacho might not be defensively streetwise enough to protect his side’s lead, he sent Fernando on in his stead to bolster central midfield. Sure enough Sunderland were suddenly rampant and Patrick van Aanholt was unfortunate to see an excellent left-wing cross fractionally evade Defoe. If the geometry of City’s short passing exuded class, key performers were tiring fast as the game became slightly spiky. Defoe and Nicolás Otamendi squared up in the wake of an aerial challenge, before a wince-inducing heavyweight collision involving Touré and Koné. Sunderland though retained sufficient focus for Jones to prompt another fantastic save from Hart. The keeper subsequently did extremely well to twice deny Khazri while Otamendi would clear Kirchhoff’s late header off the line, ensuring City continue to cling to Leicester’s coat-tails.
Ruth Negga: ‘I never fitted anywhere – in life or in Hollywood’ On a bright winter morning, actor Ruth Negga sits in the corner of a Soho restaurant, arms folded over a jumper on which two embroidered swifts are wheeling across a grey sky. Although she had small parts in 12 Years a Slave and World War Z, and recurring ones in Misfits and Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD, she enjoys relative anonymity. This time next year – after the release of a film (Loving) that has already been named a contender for the Oscars, as well as a TV series (Preacher) from the makers of Breaking Bad – it will not be so easy. Yet Negga, 33, does not appear to be at ease today. She speaks cautiously, in a gentle Limerick lilt, lingering uncertainly over pronunciations (“Is it ‘intransigence’?”… “‘Quotidian’ – is that the word?”) and interrogating her own responses. “I was on the internet last night and I saw that a refugee boat had capsized, and I started thinking: was that yesterday or last week? I mean, people are dying and even those of us who are sympathetic can still go: hang on, which boat was it?” She does, at least, believe that drama can help. “It’s what drew me to acting in the first place. It can crystallise one story but speak for many. I’ve always thought that art can be a balm.” Her accent transforms that last word into “bam” – an onomatopoeic wallop in the face for any doubters. There can’t be many of those. The past five years or so have seen Negga building spectacularly on the promise of her performance as the pregnant girlfriend of an IRA terrorist in Neil Jordan’s 2004 film Breakfast on Pluto. (“I didn’t know much about her when she came to the casting,” Jordan has said, “but the moment I saw her act, I decided to change the script so that she could appear in the movie.”) She has had a series of eye-catching parts, including Ophelia at the National Theatre and Shirley Bassey in a BBC2 biopic, before playing Raina in Agents of SHIELD. “I loved Raina,” she says. “I envisaged her as someone who had grown up watching femmes fatales and now she was getting to be one herself.” There was a dash of self-sacrifice in the character, not to mention some Cassandra-like clairvoyance. Very Greek. “Yes!” she whoops. “It’s so Greek. All the comic books are. I love the Greeks. There’s no messing around – it’s all do or die with them.” Right now, Negga has a lot on the go, which perhaps accounts for her restlessness. She was in Limerick the day before our interview for a memorial for her aunt, who died last year. Then it was back to London, where she lives with her partner, actor Dominic Cooper. (They met while appearing with Helen Mirren in a 2009 production of Phèdre.) The day after we meet, she will leave for Albuquerque, New Mexico, where she will spend five months shooting Preacher, a violent and garish TV comic-book adaptation from AMC. Cooper, who has been cast as the lead, will be accompanying her. She is an enthusiastic advocate of taking one’s boyfriend to work. “I highly recommend it.” She gives a lucky-me smile. Luck – and smiling, for that matter – are thin on the ground in her new film, Iona. She plays the coiled, pensive protagonist: a woman who flees the mainland under violent circumstances and heads to the small Scottish island where she grew up. The first 10 minutes of the movie elapse without a word; Negga’s sombre, watchful face says enough. “Ruth is able to convey the pressures and tensions that a character feels in a really truthful way,” says Scott Graham, the film’s writer and director. “I think the scenes that work best are the ones where you see her carrying all that emotional weight. But I also needed someone who can remind you instantly of the girl Iona used to be, and Ruth’s brilliant at that, too.” But asking Negga about her feelings toward the film brings a frown. “I found it really difficult to watch,” she says apologetically. “I wasn’t prepared for how bleak it was.” These will not be the quotes that appear on the poster. “People are frightened of bleakness, aren’t they? Having no redemption is quite brave, I think.” The plot of Iona hinges on mistakes made, secrets harboured, resentments left to fester. But Negga rejects my suggestion that the characters’ downfall feels inevitable. “There’s a sense of impending doom in the film,” she agrees, “but I think Iona herself fights against that. I’m interested in the idea that we all start off as these lovely little babies with all this potential but that circumstances mean that we don’t always live the life we should. That’s how I feel about Iona. You see these sparks of joy, these hints of what she might have been.” A few years ago, Negga spent Christmas helping out in a centre for the homeless. “Everyone there had a different story and background. I thought: God, what could you have been if you’d had different options – or any options?” Outsiders are much on her mind at the moment. When we meet, it is still less than a month since the death of David Bowie. “He was my first crush. From the moment I saw him walking down the stairs in Labyrinth …” She gives a sigh. Last year, she worked with Bowie’s son, director Duncan Jones, on the film version of the computer game Warcraft. “I got to wear really nice gowns and be really strong. I’m hoping that, if they make a sequel, I get to become a ninja or something – a ninja queen.” She turns out to be the sister of one of the white characters, which she feels is especially significant. “I’m brown and my brother in the film is white and blond. I think maybe it was important for Duncan because it’s the same with him and his sister.” Daughter to an Irish mother and an Ethiopian father, Negga was born in Addis Ababa and lived there until she was four before being raised in Limerick and London. Her father died in a car accident when she was seven. “Partly my feelings of difference were down to having parents of different races. I had quite a scattered childhood. I was Irish in London, because I had my secondary school education there. I never really fitted anywhere. I didn’t feel it was a negative thing and I was never made to feel different – I just knew I was.” She thinks that is why she is drawn to marginalised characters. “History is written by the winners. My job as an artist is to speak up for those who might be perceived as the losers. Or those who can’t shout. No wonder public-school people always get into politics or acting: they’re taught to shout that much more loudly. That’s such a good skill. It just needs to be made available to everyone. There are a lot of heroes who don’t have loud voices.” Among those heroes, she includes Mildred Loving, a black woman who fought quietly but tenaciously against anti-miscegenation laws after being jailed by the state of Virginia for marrying her white partner, Richard, in 1958. Named after this pioneer, Negga’s film Loving is about the case, and is directed by Jeff Nichols (Take Shelter, Mud, the forthcoming Midnight Special), co-starring Joel Edgerton. “Mildred shied away from the spotlight completely, but she changed the course of American legal history. All she wanted to do was marry the man she loved. It took nine years. Can you imagine taking on the might of the American legal system? They were poor and fairly uneducated, but they just wanted to be with one another.” She thinks Nichols is the ideal director for the material. “They didn’t set out be activists. So Jeff has made it a story about two people in love. His films champion the everyday people. The many.” At the Berlin film festival last month, Loving was snapped up by distributor Focus Features, which paid almost $9m (£6m). And the movie will be released in November to capitalise on the awards season race. It’s unmistakably Oscar material. That the Academy will be desperate to advertise its rehabilitation on diversity surely won’t hurt the film’s – or Negga’s – chances. “Diversity needs to operate on every level,” she says. “It’s great that the Oscars have highlighted it, but black actors getting nominated shouldn’t be the only result. There’s so much more that needs to be done.” She once said that Hollywood didn’t know what to do with her, but when I ask what made her feel this, she says it’s hard to quantify. “I don’t really know. I didn’t expect to be handed anything. I think you just know.” She stares into her coffee. “You just know.” So, has that changed for her? “Definitely – I’m about to go off and play a character who was originally white and blonde and has really big boobs, and none of those things apply to me.” She laughs for the first time. Tulip, her character in Preacher, is the cause for this sudden outbreak of glee. “She’s sort of unforgettable. She has no morals. She’s an agitator assassin, a gun for hire, and she’s written the way male characters are usually written. Conscience is something she buries; obviously she’s damaged. It’s really intriguing. I’d never read a part for a woman like that. They usually have a tender heart or a soft spot for some guy. Not Tulip. You read certain scenes in the script and think: are we allowed to do this? It’s great playing someone unsympathetic and not having to justify her actions.” Negga has been noticing lately how meagre parts are for women. “I was watching Adam’s Rib with my mum and we both thought: why have we lost these sorts of interesting women? Why have we gone backwards? I need to know. I need to go to a class or something. The dialogue is so confident. And the lack of cutting – ah, you can really enjoy the performances.” I put in a word for All About Eve, which turns out to be one of her favourite films. “I love it so much! Bette Davis is my hero. I’m obsessed with her. I base everything I do on her. She’s one of those people – like Bowie or Jimi Hendrix – who seem to say: ‘Look, you’re OK. You’re cracked, but you’re OK.’” •Iona is released in the UK on 25 March
Operation Chromite review – clunky South Korean war thriller Here’s a really old-fashioned war film, a recent hit at the South Korean box office, but creaky and clunky, weirdly reminiscent of big-budget prestige movies of years gone by such as The Longest Day, which used to always crop up on bank holiday TV. Yet this has the faintly sepia-digital tint of a modern period blockbuster. It’s set during the Korean war in 1950 and is all about the secret spy mission that preceded General Douglas MacArthur’s high-risk plan to attack North Korean-held territory at the Port of Incheon. CIA-backed South Korean partisans risked (and lost) their lives behind enemy lines posing as military officials, gathering intelligence about mine placements and other fortifications. Lee Jung-jae plays Jang, the undercover operative working for the west; Lee Beom-su is the brutal North Korean colonel Kim, and Liam Neeson telexes in his silly performance as MacArthur, posing with borderline ridiculous dark glasses and corncob pipe, often finishing a scene with a ferocious scowl, like Lloyd Bridges in Airplane! On the bridge of a warship, MacArthur says things like: “Age may wrinkle the skin, but, if you give up your ideals, it will wrinkle the soul!” Doing too many movies like this could necessitate some kind of spiritual moisturiser.
Mansplaining: how not to talk to female Nasa astronauts When Nasa astronaut and comparative physiologist Jessica Meir tweeted about entering the “space equivalent zone, where water spontaneously boils” last week, one man, whose Twitter bio said he had once been to space camp, responded as follows: “Wouldn’t say it’s spontaneous. The pressure in the room got below the vapor pressure of the water at room temp. Simple thermo.” Naturally, Twitter responded magnificently, with other users queuing up to congratulate him on his expertise and asking him to “please explain science in more detail to the tweeting astronaut”. He wasn’t alone. In recent months, there has been a spate of men stepping up to foist their own, less informed perspectives on far more qualified women. At a rally last week, Donald Trump got in on the act. When former aviation operations specialist and US Marine Corps veteran Rachel Fredericks, who suffers from PTSD, asked Trump what action he would take to “stop 20 veterans a day from killing themselves”, Trump’s immediate response was: “Actually, it’s 22.” Fredericks was left shaking her head as Trump cited statistics less up to date than her own. This came only a month after astrophysicist Katherine J Mack tweeted her distress about the damage being caused by climate change, only for a male blogger to suggest: “Maybe you should learn some actual SCIENCE then.” Luckily, Mack had the perfect response: But even her excellent retort wasn’t allowed to go unchallenged. The man, not knowing when to quit, delete his Twitter account and reconsider his life choices, replied: “Then you should ask for a refund because they failed to teach you the most basics of science”. When Mack fired back with further proof of her credentials, another male tweeter stepped in to instruct her: “Katie, as much as its hilarious, let’s not entertain the trolls.” Because it would have been too much to let the incredibly intelligent and qualified astrophysicist choose her own method of dealing with the problem. Women in a wide variety of fields can encounter this problem, as Olympic cyclist Annemiek van Vleuten discovered when she had a serious crash during the women’s road race in Rio. Tweeter Martin Betancourt offered her this generous advice: “Frst lesson in bicycling, keep your bike steady … whether fast or slow.” Being corrected by less qualified men is a phenomenon reported by many women, particularly those with expertise in a male-dominated area. At the Everyday Sexism Project, we’ve heard from an IT worker whose less experienced male colleagues outline basic computer functions to her in meetings, an engineer who had a man try to explain solar panels to her and a woman who dealt with a customer slowly spelling out her own company policies to her while calling her “honey”. The witty responses to such situations can raise a smile – such as the time one Twitter user tweeted about men explaining things to her, only to have a man respond with a classic mansplain. But there is a serious underlying issue here. These interactions are the visible manifestation of societal assumptions about women’s inferiority in intellectual and professional situations. They represent the same ingrained stereotypes that lead to women being less frequently promoted or hired for certain jobs. The same issues are at play when women find themselves being spoken over in the workplace, when a client directs every question to a junior male colleague or when a woman makes a suggestion in a meeting and is ignored, only for the same idea to be voiced by a male colleague, to loud agreement, moments later. It is what writer Soraya Chemaly has described as “good old-fashioned sexism expressed in gendered socialization and a default cultural preference for institutionalized male domination of public life”. However, as Chemaly points out, the way to fix it isn’t simply to suggest that women need to be more assertive, as we are often told. The problem doesn’t spring from hesitant women wringing their hands and dithering until a heroic man rides in and provides an explanation. The aforementioned astronaut, astrophysicist, Marine Corp veteran and Olympic cyclist hardly fit that description. No, it arises when men are brought up in a world that teaches them that their knowledge and opinions are worth more than those of a far more qualified woman. It happens when some men act on these ingrained assumptions. And its impact, particularly in the workplace, can go far beyond the initial annoyance. The only way to stop it is to change the narrative that sets up male contributions as superior in the first place, not to “train” women to deal with it later on. In the meantime, here is a good rule of thumb for overenthusiastic men on Twitter to follow: if she’s wearing a Nasa spacesuit, take a minute to consider whether you really want to tell her how to do her job. Or, as one tweeter put it, “This lesson went well, I think. But you should have told her to smile more. Women love that.”
NHS has 70,000 fewer staff, new figures reveal The NHS, already struggling to meet rising demand with a chronic lack of staff, has 70,000 fewer personnel working for it than ministers have previously believed, new official figures show. Its own data collectors have found that figures produced in December on the number of people staffing frontline services inflated the workforce. At the time, a total of 1,083,545 full time equivalent (FTE) health professionals were said to be working in the 228 NHS trusts and 209 GP-led local clinical commissioning groups across England. But the NHS’s Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC) now says that the true number was 1,014,218. That means the NHS had 69,317 fewer staff last September than the 1.1 million that ministers identified in December, including just over 15,000 fewer nurses, midwives and health visitors and 3,000 fewer doctors. “These figures reveal that the staffing crisis in the NHS is actually far worse than we had feared,” said Heidi Alexander, Labour’s shadow health secretary. “Patients will rightly be concerned that there are 18,000 fewer doctors and nurses working in the NHS than ministers had thought only four months ago.” The smaller workforce was worrying because “hospital wards are already dangerously understaffed and morale in the NHS is at rock bottom”, she added. “This is impacting on patient care and leaving some staff so overstretched they are unable to complete basic tasks, such as changing dressings or checking patients have finished their meals.” Staff shortages are affecting at least some departments of almost every hospital and many GP surgeries. They have sent the NHS’s bill for agency and other temporary doctors and nurses soaring to £4bn a year, the main reason NHS trusts are set to overspend by £2.8bn in 2015-16. The reduction is the result of the HSCIC changing how it collects workforce data for NHS staff and how it counts those working in hospital and community health services. For example, 17,854 have transferred to the independent sector, while another 26,798 have been redefined as working for NHS support organisations and central bodies. “It is sobering to see that the number of nurses working in the NHS is even lower than previously thought,” said Janet Davies, chief executive and general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing. “This is happening against a backdrop of increasing patient demand and services under growing pressure, and these figures underline the need for a significant increase in the number of vital nursing staff. Without an increase in nursing staff, the strain on services will continue.” The Department of Health declined to comment directly on the lower figures, while highlighting the rise in NHS staff numbers soon after the 2010 general election. “Staffing is a priority. That’s why we have invested in the frontline and there are already more than 22,000 extra clinical staff, including 7,400 additional doctors and 10,600 additional nurses on our wards since September 2010,” said a spokeswoman. This article’s headline and text were amended on 5 April 2016 to clarify that the figures quoted referred to full-time equivalent staff, not headcount.
Brexit and Trump are too important for ‘shadows’ and ‘questions’ Sometimes journalists can’t live by a hand-me-down codebook. They themselves are responsible for what’s published. They live, after all, in the society they chronicle. They are part of that society. And two vivid new examples make the point. One comes from the Nobel-winning economist Paul Krugman, addressing various tales of influence-peddling in Hillary Clinton’s foundation hinterland when she was secretary of state. “As reporters like to say, the sheer size of the [Clinton] foundation ‘raises questions’. But nobody seems willing to accept the answers to those questions, which are, very clearly, ‘no’.” Krugman is particularly upset by a report whose example of alleged cash-for-access was Muhammad Yunus, a Nobel peace prize winner who also happens to be a friend of his. “If that was the best the investigation could come up with, there was nothing there. “So I would urge journalists to ask whether they are reporting facts or simply engaging in innuendo, and urge the public to read with a critical eye. If reports about a candidate talk about how something ‘raises questions,’ creates ‘shadows’, or anything similar, be aware that these are all too often weasel words used to create the impression of wrongdoing out of thin air.” If you’re a US journalist, you may soon be living in a country where Clinton is president. You may discover real problems with that. But raising “shadows” because there’s no evidence to hold up to the light is different. Your newsdesk may want to turn the heat on Mrs C, if only to show they’re “even-handed” after Trump, but there’s still a lingering responsibility – a personal responsibility – to get things right. Which, in a totally different arena, is a Brexit responsibility in Britain too. Whether any of us like it or not, the government will soon embark on two years of exit negotiations. Everyone, from Nobel-winning economists down, has an idea of what that negotiating brief should be. Politicians will be booming and sniping all over the shop. But how do you run a unique, vitally important negotiation with 27 other countries over a minimum of two years? Transparency sounds fine, but it hasn’t lasted two minutes through the junior doctors’ dispute. When the FT negotiates with journalists or the BBC goes deep into union-dispute session, the door closes. Do we want to go into EU battle with running commentaries from Nigel Farage on the Today show? With weekly Times columns from Michael Gove detailing how he’d have handled negotiations? Perhaps not. That doesn’t take away journalists’ need to find out what’s going on. But two years, in daily journalism, is an eternity. There’ll be new leaders in France and perhaps even Germany long before the mists clear. In EU-world, everything is mutable and everything is damnably complex. Another land of “shadows”, you might say: a land of incessantly “raised questions”. But also one we all have to live in, long after the miasmic grind is over. ■ These will be a defining few weeks for the battling little i newspaper under its new Johnston Press ownership. On the one hand, circulation is fine: up to 297,000 in July from 269,000 a year ago (when the Indy still pulled its strings). Good going. But one critical selling point at launch in 2010 was low price in a cold economic climate: the i arrived costing a mere weekday 20p, 10p less than the Sun. But now watch the escalator run through the years … 30p, 40p and henceforth 50p: price parity with the Sun. Will that harm its sales resilience? Editor Oly Duff, citing increased newsprint bills since sterling’s post-Brexit collapse, clearly hopes not. This is expansion time in his book: new jobs to be filled handling education, video production, design, women’s features. Charge more to get more. Which may be fine, but is not quite the original prognosis. Watch this space.
More than third of teenage girls in England suffer depression and anxiety Depression and anxiety have risen among teenage girls in England, with more than a third reporting symptoms of distress, although the rates are stable among teenage boys, according to a major survey of 14-year-olds carried out for the Department for Education. Among the girls, 37% reported feeling unhappy, worthless or unable to concentrate, more than twice the percentage of boys reporting such feelings, a rise since a study in 2005, which was described by the researchers as “an important and significant trend”. The figure for the girls had risen by nearly four percentage points since 2005, while the figure for boys, 15%, had fallen slightly. The rise was pronounced in young people living in single-parent households or with stepfamilies, and those with a long-standing illness or disability affecting their education. Poor sleeping patterns, including sleeping for less than the recommended amount, were reported among many of those reporting other problems, and will be followed up in later reports. A spokesman for the Department for Education said the mental health of the young was a priority area. “Children’s mental health is a priority for this government and we know that intervening early can have a lasting impact,” he said. “We are putting a record £1.4bn into transforming the dedicated mental health support available to young people across the country and are working to strengthen the links between schools and mental health services. “We are also driving forward innovations to improve prevention and early support, by investing £1.5m on peer-support networks in schools so children feel empowered to help one another.” There was some good news in the report, which found that the teenagers were more serious than their predecessors, less likely to be play truant, more convinced of the importance of hard work, and “markedly” less prone to risky behaviour including smoking, drinking and drug-taking. In 2005, 30% admitted to drinking alcohol, but this had fallen to 12%. Reported drug-taking was also down, and truancy had fallen from 21% to 11%. There was a sharp fall – from 23% in 2005 to 16% in 2014 – in teenagers reporting that their parents had kept them out of school for reasons other than illness. The situation outlined in the report, based on in-depth interviews with thousands of teenagers in year 10 in England, was described by Marjorie Wallace, chief executive of the mental health charity Sane, as “a slow-growing epidemic”. Wallace told The Times that her charity had been contacted by worried school heads. “There definitely does seem to be something happening – it’s a slow- growing epidemic,” she said. “Over the period covered by the report we have seen a very disturbing change in admissions to hospital for self-harm in under-16s that have gone up by 52%.” The report found the problems were more marked among both girls and boys of parents educated to degree level, which the researchers said could be partly due to peer pressure and pushy parents. There had also been “a small but statistically significant” worsening in young people’s belief that they could influence their own destinies – more marked in households where at least one parent was out of work. The researchers – who will continue to follow up the group of teenagers interviewed – said there appeared to be less stress, possibly because of lower expectations, among those from more disadvantaged social backgrounds. “There may be some ways in which having lower social status may be associated with lower levels of expectation for school success and lower levels of associated pressure. Another possible explanation is that young people from disadvantaged backgrounds may be more resilient in the face of [stress factors] associated with a more challenging economic and school environment.”
Phishing attack could steal LastPass password manager details A security researcher has released a tool that can steal the login details and two-factor authentication key for the popular LastPass password manager, leaving users potentially exposed. LastPass, like many other password managers, stores user’s passwords in the cloud in an encrypted vault protected by a single username and password. The vault can also be protected using various forms of two-factor authentication. The tool allows hackers to mimic the look and feel of the LastPass browser plugin and site, owing to the way the password manager uses browser pop-up boxes or banners called “viewports” to request a user’s password and two-factor authentication key. Sean Cassidy, chief technology office for Praesidio, presented the attack at the hacker convention ShmooCon in Washington. He said: “I call this attack LostPass. LostPass works because LastPass displays messages in the browser that attackers can fake. Users can’t tell the difference between a fake LostPass message and the real thing because there is no difference. It’s pixel-for-pixel the same notification and login screen.” The attack relies on a user visiting a malicious website or one that has been compromised with a malicious advert or code. It will detect if the browser is using LastPass, mimic a LastPass notification, remotely log-out the user and request their password and two-factor authentication key. The hacker would then be able to gain full access to every password stored in a LastPass user’s vault, change settings, remove a user’s access or hide their access leaving the user none-the-wiser. Catching even the most careful of users Cassidy notified LastPass about the phishing attack, which has not yet been recorded as being used in the wild, in November. The company implemented a system to alert users when they type their LastPass master password on a site that is not run by the password manager, but Cassidy said that hackers can easily block that notification. Cassidy said: “The attack works best against the Chrome browser because they use an HTML login page. Firefox actually pops up a window for its login page, so it looks like whatever operating system you’re on.” The attack is not a vulnerability bug within LastPass itself, but highlights a major problem that could catch even the most careful users out, tricking them to give the attackers their login credentials. LastPass said in a support document about phishing: “The [email] verification process significantly reduces the threat of this phishing attack. The attacker would need to gain access to the user’s email account as well, which could also be mitigated by two-factor authentication for their email account. Should a user see a verification request that they did not initiate, they can safely ignore it.” LastPass has also implemented a fix that prevents the malicious website from logging a user out of their LastPass account. Neither changes prevent the attackers from stealing a user’s LastPass login details, but could prevent them from using those details to access the user’s password manager. The company also said it would be revisiting its notification approach to make it harder to mimic and petitioned Google in 2012 to enable Chrome extensions to notify users beyond the scope of a browser viewport. Phishing scam targets routers that use default security settings How to protect yourself from phishing
The Forgotten Man: a fitting oil painting for Trump's America Obama’s 2008 campaign had Shepard Fairey’s “Hope” poster; if there’s a defining image for Donald Trump’s presidential moment, it could well be The Forgotten Man, an oil painting by Utah-based artist Jon McNaughton. The detailed image takes some unpicking: In front of a twilit White House, with the American flag at half-mast, all the past presidents of the US are gathered. In the left foreground is a Caucasian man in contemporary dress, sat on a bench, his gaze cast downwards, “distraught and hopeless as he contemplates his future,” as the artist puts it. Closest to him stand (presumably) Abraham Lincoln, Ronald Reagan, Thomas Jefferson and George Washington, who hold out their hands to him as they look beseechingly to the figure on the right: Barack Obama. Obama stands aloof, arms folded, looking away, surrounded by an applauding gaggle including Bill Clinton and Franklin Roosevelt. Founding father James Madison beckons towards Obama’s feet in a “What are you doing?” gesture. Under Obama’s right foot is the US Constitution. It won’t win any prizes for either artistic merit or subtlety, but McNaughton’s painting has come to national prominence. Donald Trump even obliquely referenced it in his victory speech last week, stating that “the forgotten men and women of our country will no longer be forgotten”. Later that night, Fox News anchor Sean Hannity, a stalwart supporter of both Trump and McNaughton, pulled up a full-screen image of The Forgotten Man on his show. “He’s the one that has been left out,” Hannity explained. “The people of Wisconsin, Ohio, Iowa, the people of Michigan, Pennsylvania and all across this country, they saw this election for what it was: massive government failure … a precipitous decline in this country, and men and women, our fellow citizens forgotten, like that guy on the bench. That’s what this is about.” A few days later, according to McNaughton, Hannity purchased the painting. He plans to present it to Trump to hang in the White House. Trump will doubtless appreciate The Forgotten Man’s bludgeoned-home political sentiment, but the style of the painting is equally in tune with political zeitgeist. None of Fairey’s hipster pop graphics, thank you; McNaughton’s kitsch realism looks to the past. It winds the clock back to the wholesome, easily legible Americana of Norman Rockwell – which was itself a repudiation of modern art, a retreat into the representational certainties of a time when the US was presumably last great. Before Obama’s presidency, 48-year-old McNaughton was a virtual unknown, specialising in run-of-the-mill landscapes and Biblical subjects. But he took a new, Tea Party-friendly direction in 2009, starting with One Nation Under God, a painting that pretty much sets out the artist’s moral stall. An alternative title might have been “Separation of Church and State, My Ass”. It is a Last Judgment-style composition with Jesus Christ at its centre, holding the Constitution. Behind him is pantheon of patriots, soldiers and religious figures. At his right hand are the righteous modern-day citizens (soldier, mother, doctor, priest), and to his left are the damned, or as the artist put it in his online annotations, “those who have weakened the country”: a judge, a businessman, a news reporter, a lawyer, an actor, a liberal academic holding Darwin’s The Origin Of Species, and a pregnant mother, presumably contemplating abortion. The Forgotten Man came a year later, and McNaughton has been on a roll ever since. His themes are nothing if not consistent: One Nation Under Socialism depicts Obama burning the Constitution, in The Demise Of America, Obama is literally playing the fiddle while Washington burns. The Con Artist depicts Hillary Clinton with an artist’s palette in an pastiche of Munch’s The Scream – in McNaugton’s view she has “painted a careful picture of herself, but behind the brushstrokes lies the truth”. Even more brazen is Wake Up America, in which Obama gives a stump speech while dollar bills rain down and foreign leaders cheer in the background. The enthralled crowd are oblivious to the fact that they are wrapped in chains – all except our “Forgotten Man” figure, who is hacksawing through the links. McNaughton has denied any element of racism in his work but his images do little to support the claim, especially one depicting the US’s first black president as the literal enslaver of a predominantly white populace. American conservatives have routinely worked themselves up into a lather over contemporary art images such as, say, Andres Serrano’s Piss Christ or Robert Mapplethorpe’s explicit gay photography; McNaughton demonstrates they can serve up some offensive imagery of their own, albeit in a fusty, retro style. Robert Hughes might have called it “the shock of the old”. The difference is, neither art critics nor the targets of McNaughton’s brush, take his art all that seriously. It provokes derision and parody more than outrage. But many people clearly do take it seriously – including, potentially, the president elect. If the US is engaged in a culture war, McNaughton’s art represents how far back the front line has been pushed.
Pressure on Cameron as poll suggests voters edging towards Brexit A new poll has suggested more Britons favour leaving the EU over staying in, with 45% supporting “Brexit” compared with 36% against, while a fifth remain undecided. The YouGov poll for the Times was carried out in the two days after publication of an outline deal that David Cameron negotiated which could change the UK’s relationship with Brussels while keeping it within the European Union. The poll suggested the number of voters wanting to quit had risen by three points on the previous week, the Times said. Two polls in December indicated a closer race between the in and out camps, but there is an air of caution around published opinion polls in British politics after their failure to predict the 2015 general election result. The publication of the poll comes as Cameron embarks on a fresh diplomatic dash around Europe to push for support from counterparts in Poland and Denmark ahead of a crunch meeting on the proposals later in February. It follows a series of talks with leaders including the European council president, Donald Tusk, chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and the Polish prime minister, Beata Szydło, in the margins of the London conference on the Syrian crisis Cameron is holding further talks with Szydło in Warsaw before heading to Copenhagen for a meeting with the Danish prime minister, Lars Løkke Rasmussen, to seek support for reform. The prime minister has agreed to meet the heads of the political groups in the European Parliament on 16 February, two days before the leaders’ summit. Meanwhile, divisions have also emerged in Vote Leave, the main group campaigning for Brexit, with leaked emails showing infighting between key members and defection to rival groups. Lord Rose, the chairman of Britain Stronger in Europe, said on Tuesday that he was confident of winning the referendum and suggested that publication of opinion polls should be banned in the weeks leading up to the vote. The YouGov poll had 19% planning not to vote in the referendum to decide whether Britain stays in Europe, the Times said. With the Press Association
Jeffrey Katzenberg: How to make a perfect family film 1 A lovable character “The first thing you need is a great character. Whoever the protagonist is, it’s got to be someone the whole family can connect to, identify with and relate to. “Po, in Kung Fu Panda, is very much one of those characters: he’s this lovable, huggable, charming character. He’s got a big dilemma, a difficulty, and we have to be able to relate to it, so we want to be with him on his journey, so we care about him.” With Shrek it’s a similar story. “People ask me why we all love Shrek and I say it’s because there’s a little ogre in all of us. At the core is a character who wants to be loved and he comes to realise that he has to learn to love before someone else can love him. If he can’t love himself, he won’t find love.” As a child, growing up in New York, Katzenberg says his earliest inspiration was Kirk Douglas in Spartacus, which he saw on Broadway after its release in 1960. “Years later, I found myself in Hollywood making a movie with him so there I was with this incredibly heroic figure who had inspired me. Of all the movie stars I’ve worked with, he was the one I got most excited about – because he was the hero of my boyhood and that stays with you.” 2 An imaginative location “You’ve got to take your audience with you to another place, somewhere exciting and interesting, and the great thing about animation is that it allows us to really release our imagination, to go a lot further than we otherwise could. There are no boundaries with animation: you can take people somewhere they have never been and could not have imagined themselves. “So with Panda, that’s Asia, with How to Train Your Dragon it’s a Nordic location, and with Madagascar it’s an African landscape. “Where we take people to are fanciful interpretations of the world. It’s a journey and the whole family can go together.” 3 An understandable villain “A great family movie is only as good as its villain. We spend a lot of time trying to conceive a villain who will work well in 3D and we need to have a villain who, while his goals are far from admirable, is nonetheless understandable. We have to be able to understand why he is doing what he is doing. We have to understand the end they are working towards and what is their purpose. We need to explain what happened to the villain to bring him to this point.” 4 Inspirational values “You need to celebrate the values that are the best in humanity: that’s something both children and adults can identify with. In the new Panda film, Shifu says to Po: ‘If you only do what you know how to do, you can never be better than you are now.’ And when you think about that, it’s an inspiring notion. Po wants to stand still because he’s happy with how everything is going, so why change? “But the thing is that change is life – there’s no such thing as standing still. So what Shifu is really saying is, you’ve got to grow up. You’ve got to be more than you are today. “In one of the earlier Panda movies, Oogway says: ‘Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift, that’s why it’s called the present.’ “What he really means is: it’s not about the past, it’s not about the future: it’s what you do with today – that is what your life is really all about. And you could say to me, will a four or five year old really understand that? And I’d say to you, well, they’re smarter than we sometimes give them credit for …” In his own life, it’s not difficult to see how much inspiration Katzenberg got from his parents: his father, who is still alive, was a successful stockbroker and “a phenomenal gambler – so gambling is in my DNA” – and his mother was an artist. So his background combined art and business acumen – but it was his drive to succeed, he says, that gave him the edge. “I didn’t understand this until many years later, even recently. But what I’ve always been about is exceeding expectations. Whatever I did I wanted to do it faster, better, more impressively than people were expecting. I didn’t always succeed, but that was always my ambition.” 5 Unforgettable music “Music is the soundtrack of our lives. All of us have memorable moments that are defined by a particular song. For me, one of those is Killing Me Softly by Roberta Flack, which was the first slow dance I had with my wife when we were courting. We’ve been married for 42 years and that’s not something I take for granted. With my wife, with my children, in little ways and big ways, I always try to exceed their expectations. “So music is an essential ingredient. It’s the fabric of the stories we’re creating in movies because it’s inspiring and also because it sets the tone – it brings in the happiness factor. My next movie is, in fact, a musical, Trolls, with Justin Timberlake and Anna Kendrick.” 6 Shared humour “I often say to people, what’s the most beautiful thing in the world for you – and you can’t pick a person? For me the answer to that question is laughter and, in particular, the laughter of a child. You know when you tickle your children because you know hearing their laughter is the most delicious thing in the world? There’s something pure about it … it comes from somewhere within and there’s no filter on it.” “Well, creating laughter is my job and laughter is a big part of a great family movie. When I worked for Disney I became a big admirer of Disney the man, Walt Disney. I never met him but I learned so much from him, and to this day I consider myself his student. One of the things he said, that became my north star when I worked for Disney, was this: ‘I make my movies for children and the child who exists in each and every one of us.’ That’s inspirational and inspired and thoughtful and brilliant. That’s the essence of what he did. “But with DreamWorks, maybe around the time I made the first Shrek in 2001, what I realised was that our animated movies have a slightly different mission, which is, with a nod and a wink to Mr Disney: we make our movies for adults and for the adult who exists in every child. “Because when you think of Shrek, and all our movies, we are more irreverent, we are certainly more subversive and we’re trying to cater for our adult audience as much as for the child audience. “There’s nothing better for a family than a shared experience and this is how to create a shared experience: you might be sitting next to your child and you’re both laughing, but your child is laughing because the physical comedy is so engaging and you’re laughing at the subtext or the innuendo or the irony. And that’s not an accident.” 7 Moving with the times Katzenberg is a grandfather – his first grandchild is a few months old. So how will the family film change for the next generation? “All the core elements are timeless – the values, good storytelling, they never change. But technology changes, and attitudes change, and movies reflect those changes. So in the new Kung Fu Panda movie, for example, Po has two fathers – in a world where 50% of relationships end in divorce, that reflects the reality for a lot of children. So the movies adapt to the times but the central themes, the values – they will always be the same.” • Kung Fu Panda 3 opens in cinemas on Friday 11 March
Zayn: Mind of Mine CD review – sultry songs from the horizontal VIP lounge Over the past half decade, R&B has increasingly staggered off the dancefloor in a daze, landing on expensive soft furnishings to stare into an empty glass. The man mostly – but not exclusively – responsible for this development is Abel “The Weeknd”’ Tesfaye, whose heavy-lidded influence on the mainstream shows little sign of abating. As the success of Justin Bieber’s recent Purpose album testifies, the trend for horizontality in pop has transformed even that former teen irritant into a slinkier figure. Next up is Zayn Malik, whose departure a year ago triggered One Direction’s split. Although Malik reports that much of Mind of Mine was recorded in a mobile studio in the woods, virtually everything on his debut solo seems to take place at 3am in some unimaginably squishy VIP area beyond the VIP area. There’s the convincing, close-whispered seduction of Be Four, which might have cracked the internet when Malik – generally understood to be 1D’s most musical asset – held a sultry high note (and dropped a reference to 1D’s Four album). Witness, too, the fuzzy over-indulgence of Drunk, one of the album’s most involving cuts. Here, Malik rhymes “amnesia” with “I need you” with a velvety slur that exemplifies the unshowy elasticity of his delivery throughout. The album’s intro and interlude find him nodding towards near-eastern vocal styles, an elegant flourish. Then there’s the heartbreak. Malik’s severed engagement to Perrie Edwards is extensively mined on these songs, with Malik looking to Usher for crooning cues. While some of these tracks are a little unmemorable, sticking blindly to Malik’s new template at the expense of imagination, a few have unexpected depths. It’s You boasts churchy organ, Malik’s dulcet falsetto and an arresting lyric. “She don’t/ She don’t/ She don’t give a fuck about what I need,” Malik sings, with little-boy-lost desolation, “And I can’t tell you why/ Because my brain can’t equate it.” Mind of Mine may suffer from this lack of variety, but Malik pulls off his transformation into a brooding, tattooed loverman convincingly. He was always 1D’s most introverted, softly spoken member; an interview last year revealed, however, he’s handy with a crossbow. Malik’s attempts to take 1D into R&B territory were often rebuffed, so it’s easy to read the sultry Like I Would – the album’s most outgoing cut – as an alternative take on 1D’s I Would. If The Weeknd’s wooze imbues this record, other able hands have shaped it. After abortive sessions with Emeli Sandé’s producer Naughty Boy ended in much-publicised bad blood, this record now largely bears the sophisticated stamp of Frank Ocean’s producer James “Malay” Ho. Mind of Mine’s success is something of a no-brainer – its single, Pillowtalk, went to No 1 in umpteen countries earlier this year, despite audibly severing ties with 1D’s sound. But for all its inevitable ubiquity, this downbeat, low-lit album has the bonus of not being in your face at all.
Arrvls: the podcast investigating the moments that change our lives When people think about life’s most transformative moments, births, deaths and weddings are what often come to mind. But something as simple as quitting a job, a talk in a bar or an unexpected move might make all the difference. That’s how it started for Jonathan Hirsch, whose podcast Arrvls tells the stories of unexpected changes, whether leaving an unsatisfactory job, coping with a heartbreaking student exchange, or surviving a plane crash. Each episode tells the story about the revelations that unfurl after a life-altering experience, whether mundane or massive. Why You Should Listen: Fittingly, Arrvls began with a departure: Jonathan Hirsch’s move from San Francisco to New York City. “My wife and I realized that if we wanted to take a stab at living in New York that now was the time,” he said. They packed up and drove to the city. Hirsch, who had applied to graduate school to become an editor, got an entry-level position doing just that. The underpaid position wasn’t a good fit, and his plans started to go awry. Panic attacks struck in the middle of the night, and he didn’t get into grad school. It was a career crisis at 29. “I would call my wife every lunch break out on Fifth Avenue, just losing it,” he said. His wife told him that if he would rather work in a coffee shop, he should quit. “I walked out of the building where I was working and never looked back.” Though Hirsch walked boldly off into the sunset that day, he woke up the next one knowing this was not a fairytale happy ending. “I was 29 years old, recently married, in a new city that I wasn’t particularly enjoying. I expected something very different for my life and I didn’t get it,” he said. “I started panicking.” Hirsch applied for a job in a bar and got caught up in conversation with an employee who had also struggled through an unexpected turn. “He was grateful for that time when he had struggled,” Hirsch recalled. “While he was talking, I felt relief. There was some comfort or solace in that person’s story, and I wanted more of that.” Hirsch asked him to come over for an interview – even though he had no experience in radio or documentary filmmaking. “It became clear to me that I needed more of these stories – lots more,” Hirsch said. “Hopefully each one would provide me with a sense of clarity about what happens in these moments when you don’t know what your next step is in life.” That’s how Arrivls was born. “It was all entirely new to me, but I just took it on and it became everything to me,” Hirsch said. He started work at a restaurant at night, waking up early to work on the show, learn about podcasting, find stories and build episodes. “The bar for entry to radio is really low, but the bar to making good radio is really high.” As he’s learned the ropes, he’s told stories along the way, all on the themes of migration, transformation and change. “Those three anchors for the stories makes it feel like a very creative and fun process,” he said. “I sit with those themes and they are constantly renewed as I think about them and I think about the stories I would like to hear on those themes.” Something as innocuous as a plane flying overhead can give Hirsch an idea. “I started looking for stories of plane crashes, because I wanted to know what it was like to be in that,” he said. “I found a Facebook group where people were sharing their stories.” That’s how he met Robin Holleran, whose story is documented in the episode Ricochet. Another episode tells the story of the Blazing Echidna, a self-made superhero whom Hirsch had met on a train years ago. “I’m looking for the places where stories I’ve heard, places I’ve been, people I’ve met resonate with the themes of the show,” he said. In addition to tracking down stories through news clippings or word of mouth, Arrvls also now takes submissions. As the show turns a year old, Arrvls has branched out into live shows. “My goal is to tell a wider breadth of stories. My goal is tell stories from every walk of life, every type of background, every type of experience.” Currently, though, Hirsch is on a migration of his own. He has left New York for Los Angeles in pursuit of his next story and another transformation. Where To Start: The Blazing Echidna, January 1, 1982, Miss Eva Subscribe to Arrvls on iTunes or Acast
‘Heir to Hendrix’ Shuggie Otis: ‘I could have been a millionaire, but that wasn’t on my mind’ ‘I heard some people heard I’d died. They’ll find out soon that I didn’t,” says Shuggie Otis, making it sound less like a promise than a threat. Otis – the son of rhythm and blues pioneer Johnny Otis – is as close to a living legend as you can get. A bass and guitar whiz who recorded his first album with session supremo Al Kooper and appeared on Frank Zappa’s Hot Rats, both in 1969, when he was 15, he was considered the heir apparent to Jimi Hendrix. As a multi-instrumental polymath flitting between genres and experimenting with drum machines, he was the peer of Sly Stone and Stevie Wonder and a precursor to Prince. He was rock’s most wanted, declining offers to join the Rolling Stones, David Bowie and Blood, Sweat & Tears, and an invitation to collaborate with Quincy Jones. He was wilful enough to pursue his own path, but it was worth it: three albums of baroque ballads, paisley funk, celestial blues and proto-electronic pop followed. His self-titled 1970 debut preceded 1971’s Freedom Flight, which featured the ravishing Strawberry Letter 23, a song that has, he admits, “kept me alive all these years”: it was a hit in 1977 for the Brothers Johnson, used by Quentin Tarantino for the Jackie Brown soundtrack and sampled in 2003 by Beyoncé. Third and best was 1974’s self-produced magnum opus Inspiration Information, hailed today as a lost classic. And then, nothing. Between the mid-70s and the start of this century, Otis – a sort of R&B Syd Barrett or Brian Wilson – did a disappearing act that made his old friend Arthur Lee of Love look like an amateur in the reclusive-genius stakes. Unsurprisingly, it takes several attempts to track down the elusive musician at his home in Santa Monica: six weeks later, he’s on the phone. Less unexpected, having met him briefly in London in 2013, is his slurred speech, a consequence of medication for an ongoing medical condition. On the whole, though, 62-year-old Otis is stoked, and soon to release a new album. It is his first – give or take Wings of Love, an LP of previously unreleased, and largely fantastic, shimmery pop-soul recorded between 1975 and 1990 that accompanied the 2013 reissue of Inspiration Information – for 43 years. That is a record, surely? “Haha, yeah,” he laughs. “I haven’t heard anybody who beat it yet.” There is a taster, Ice Cream Party, on SoundCloud, which finds Otis somewhat tethered to the blues, but he reassures fans of his more out-there funkadelia and sci-fi doodles that the album will be less conventional. “It will be more like the Wings of Love material, or even Freedom Flight,” he teases. The latter LP title, he adds, is still indicative of his approach in the studio, where he prefers to take the reins and do it all himself. He talks a lot about control being a priority, hence the decision to dismiss the overtures from the Stones et al.  “I didn’t want to be a sideman,” he explains. “I wanted to do my own music.” Whatever the cost? “I could have been an instant millionaire, a few times, probably,” he acknowledges, “but that wasn’t on my mind at all.” Otis has few regrets, and harbours little ill-feeling towards the many record companies that spurned his advances from the mid-70s until now (he finally has a deal with Cleopatra Records), despite the fact he had material every bit as good as Prince’s, yet had to find alternative ways to make a living. “I got tired of getting turned down, so I got day jobs,” he says. Rolling Stone magazine announced that he had retired from the business, a claim he would like to clear up. “That’s a misconception – I never wanted to be without a record label. But I couldn’t get one.” Did that sting? “It never hurt my feelings,” he says, then reconsiders. “It embittered me a little bit, although it never made me real mad or made me cry.” He earned a crust doing “menial jobs”, including “a paper route”. Not that he’s embarrassed. Indeed, he admits he enjoyed being out of the spotlight, away from the pressures of being Shuggie Otis, the erstwhile teen prodigy who never quite managed to capitalise on all the acclaim, the one whose praises everyone from Zappa to BB King and Ray Charles had sung. Perhaps he didn’t have the right temperament for success. He talks about being depressed as far back as 1972 and tells me he continues to “suffer” today. The word suffer crops up again while discussing his talent for music-making. “I call it a gift sometimes, and I get very emotional about it and I don’t know what to do – whether to pick up the guitar or bass or just think about it and do nothing,” he says. “It becomes a suffering.” If creative paralysis was a problem, so, too, was alcohol. “I was drinking for 30 years straight,” he says. “I used to have it for breakfast. When I wasn’t working, I’d just stay home and drink.” Sober now for six years, he has “no intention of going back”. There was also a drug phase. “Oh, I tried everything when I was a kid,” he says. Cocaine? “I liked it at first, but it wasn’t the drug for me. It was really horrible. The comedown is a drag, and the high is … I don’t like being up, because I’m a hyper person.” He still smokes weed – he has a legal prescription – and tells a story about being slapped with a DUI, although it’s not clear whether it was for driving under the influence of alcohol or narcotics. Anyway, it climaxes with him trying to park his car and crashing into the one behind, resulting in him being incarcerated for the night. “I was in pyjama bottoms and T-shirt, no socks, and they put me in this jail cell with the air-conditioning up for 21 hours - over nothing!” he relates with good humour. “It was just stupid crap.” There is another tall tale involving angel dust and guns being fired in the air, and a further admission that he is prone to visions of dead people; if he suffers from anything, it is an overactive imagination. The tracks XL-30 and Pling! two decades earlier come from, respectively, “the idea of a fantasy trip ... a little rocket ship going through space” and “just a mood I got in”. He says he writes movie treatments – “Looney Tunesish, some crazy, some serious drama to do with historical facts, mostly kind of silly, with a twist. I like dark humour and science fiction” – but more than anything he loves making music. “I’m so focused on my album, it drives me crazy,” he says. His plan is to finish the album in Europe, but it sounds more like a madcap scheme. “I’m not trying to make myself sound mysterious or anything,” he says, but there’s little chance of that. “I’m always writing, even walking down the street. It’s been an emotional rollercoaster, but thank God I still have the inspiration to make music. Because, if that leaves me, I might as well not be here.” The new album from Shuggie Otis is due later this spring on Cleopatra Records
Sully review: Clint Eastwood and Tom Hanks turn a mile-high miracle into middling drama In person, Clint Eastwood recently has the tendency to come across as brash and combative (in an August interview he derided much of America as a “pussy generation” while telling people to “just fucking get over” Donald Trump’s many controversial remarks). As a film-maker, however, the 86-year-old is the antithesis. His best work – Letters From Iwo Jima, Million Dollar Baby, Mystic River, Unforgiven – all share an understated quality that means the emotional impact of his stories rings authentic. Eastwood’s most recent, Sully, squarely fits that bill. Starring Tom Hanks as Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, the pilot responsible for the extraordinary landing of a plane on the Hudson river in 2008, with no casualties, Sully is an unabashed crowdpleaser about a hero fighting to maintain that title when corporate greed threatens to tarnish his image. There’s little crass audience manipulation in Eastwood’s depiction of the harrowing plane landing and the surprising investigation that followed – he’s the type of director who just gives it to you plain and simple. For audiences, the chance to see an IMAX-shot recreation of the shocking landing of US Airways Flight 1549 in the middle of the river is no doubt a big selling point. In that sense, Sully delivers tenfold. Eastwood and his screenwriter Todd Komarnicki (working off of Sullenberger’s book Highest Duty: My Search for What Really Matters) make the surprising decision to revisit the event multiple times throughout the lean 98 minutes runtime, to offer the perspectives of Sullenberger and his co-pilot Jeff Skiles (Aaron Eckhart), the flight’s passengers and attendants, the air-traffic controllers, and even the emergency-response crew. The reenactments are all equally compelling, although one tracking the experience of the passengers gets marred a bit by overt sentimentalism. Even more horrifying are the nightmare scenarios Eastwood conjures up, during which Sullenberger imagines a fatal outcome had he followed through on the contested strategy of returning to LaGuardia Airport with the plane’s engines failing. Watching an aircraft smash into New York skyscrapers might prove too unsettling for some, recalling in blunt terms the horrors of 9/11. The terrifying sequences do however go a long way to sell that Sullenberger’s actions saved not only the 155 lives aboard, but also countless more. That factor comes into play during the aftermath of the incident, when the National Transportation Safety Board keep Sullenbeger and Skiles hostage in a sterile New York hotel to accost the pair with a barrage of specific questions, ascertaining whether they in fact did the right thing. The interrogations are fittingly infuriating (at one point, Sullenberger is asked if he has troubles at home), albeit a little silly. Mike O’Malley plays one of the lead investigators as broadly evil, smirking his way through the inquisition like a Disney villain. Anna Gunn fares better, lending a needed dose of humanity to her committee member. Sporting white hair to resemble Sullenberger, Hanks delivers an internal and sympathetic performance. Eastwood doesn’t burrow too deeply into his protagonist’s psyche, other than to visibly demonstrate that he’s haunted by the landing. Still, Hanks, who’s uncommonly, well, sullen, for much of the film, goes a long way to convey Sullenberger’s conflicted anguish. As his worried at-home wife, Laura Linney does some admirable phone acting, emoting believably with only a prop to interact with. But it all never quite takes off.
Melania who? Trump's wife a forgotten memory in Slovenian home town The mayor of Melania Trump’s hometown is embarrassed. At 47, Srečko Ocvirk is just a year older than the world’s most famous Slovenian. But even though he was a schoolmate of hers, the mayor of Sevnica said: “I have to be honest, I cannot place her. In those days, Sevnica primary school had a lot of pupils,” he added sheepishly. Born in 1970 to a textile worker and a car spares trader, Melania Trump has lived a life – judging by what is known of it – that could be romanced into that of a phoenix risen from the belching smokestacks of Tito’s Yugoslavia. But the Trump campaign has opted not to go down that route. On a tour of Sevnica, a pretty medieval town that clings to vine-clad hills rising from the Sava river, it quickly becomes clear that the young Melanija Knavs did not stand out from the collective consciousness of the time as someone who would rise to global fame. “In the socialist days we were all the same,” said a woman in the same age bracket as the 46-year-old. By contrast, other residents can seem to make too much of an effort to recall her youth. At the Rondo Pizzeria, a couple of diners seem suspiciously well informed about the supposed early knitting abilities of Trump’s future wife. At the market, a tomato seller named Matej said Melanija wrapped her schoolbooks with pages torn from Italian fashion magazines – only to confess that he learnt that detail from a recent television report. Not only are clues sparse as to Melania’s transformation from model to the Republican presidential candidate’s third wife, but few residents seem to hold strong opinions about her life, her immigration status or the libel lawsuits pending over her references to her pre-Trump past. No one in Sevnica can even confirm the oft-reported tidbit that Melanija’s maternal grandfather developed a red onion variety, the Raka. “Sevnica was very different in the 1970s,” said Ocvirk. “It was a young town, made up of people moving in from the rural areas. “They worked in large numbers at two or three factories, mainly making clothes and shoes. They shopped in Italy and Austria and tried to achieve the living standards of those countries,’’ said the mayor, a Sevnica-born agricultural engineer who was elected eight years ago. Among the incomers who built the town’s industrial base were Viktor and Amalija Knavs and their daughters Ines and Melanija. Businessman Viktor dealt in cars or spare parts or both – no one seems quite sure. Amalija was a pattern cutter at the Jutranjka childrenswear factory and may at some point have gained a promotion to pattern designer. They lived in a five-storey block in the Naselje Heroja Maroka area. Later, Melanija and her older sister went to high school in Ljubljana, 60 miles away, and their parents built themselves a white villa in the pretty hills above the town, far away from the hourly clatter-past of the train. They still own the house but are rarely there, living instead in New York and helping look after Donald and Melania’s son, Barron. The block where Melania once lived has been painted in mellow peach tones. The climbing frame in the playground is Lego green. The splashes of colour are townscape hallmarks of central European countries such as Slovenia that received development funds after joining the EU in 2004. Even the school bears no resemblance to the one Melania attended. With EU funds, it was rebuilt last year, to the annoyance of visiting television crews determined to see her locker. Trainee nurse Drita Mustafai, 21, knows nothing about Melania Trump, but says she “can only be a good thing for Sevnica. It is a lovely town which deserves more tourists”. Mustafai helps out at her father’s ice-cream stand and works in a hotel to help pay for her studies, and hopes to move to Germany when she graduates, because wages are better. Among Sevnica’s 5,000-population, unemployment is 10.3% – roughly the national average. Jutranjka, where Amalija Knavs worked, is no more. Lisca, a lingerie brand named after the local mountain, survives, along with a shoe factory and a furniture company. But they employ fewer than 1,000 people between them. Many residents drive more than an hour to the capital Ljubljana to work. Asked what Donald Trump could do for his wife’s home town, Ocvirk ruled out a skyscraper as “unsuited to our natural beauty”. Instead, with a sweeping arm movement reminiscent of a Trump Tower escalator, he suggested “a golfing and fishing complex, spanning from the hills to the Sava river”.
Workers vote to unionize at Donald Trump's Las Vegas hotel The National Labor Relations Board has officially certified the union election by 500 workers at Donald Trump’s Las Vegas hotel, overruling the objections of the union-averse employer. “We voted for a union so we could negotiate a fair contract with Mr Trump,” Jeffrey Wise, a food server at the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas, said in a statement. “We voted and won – now it’s time for him to listen to us, the voters, and finally do the right thing by making a deal with his employees.” The Culinary Workers Union, which represents more than 50,000 casino and hotel workers in Las Vegas, had sought to capitalize on the Republican presidential candidate’s high profile and anti-immigrant rhetoric to galvanize its organizing campaign. Trump co-owns the hotel with Phillip Ruffin, a billionaire casino owner. In early December, a majority of the hotel’s more than 500 workers voted in favor of unionizing with Culinary Workers. Since then, the union has dogged Trump on the campaign trail and says it has shown up to protest at a half-dozen rallies and debates. “Mr Trump says he wants to make America great again – he has a great opportunity to start right here in Las Vegas at his hotel,” said Geocanda Arguello-Kline, secretary-treasurer of the union. Following the election, the hotel filed 15 objections to the election. After a hearing in January, the hotel withdrew two of those, and an NLRB official overruled the remaining 13. Bethany Khan, a spokeswoman for the Culinary Workers, said the union expects the hotel company to appeal against the certification. If the union survives such an appeal, the hotel would be legally compelled to bargain a contract. “The company is running out of options. Every time they appeal, the workers have won,” she said. “It’s just a matter of time until the company has to sit down and negotiate.” According to Khan, workers at the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas earn on average $3.33 an hour less than workers at unionized hotels. They also have to pay for their health insurance, while union employees have free family healthcare coverage and a pension. A spokeswoman for the Trump Organization did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Michael Gove to stand for Conservative party leadership Michael Gove is to stand for the Conservative leadership, saying he does not believe Boris Johnson has the necessary leadership skills to lead the country. In a statement released just before Theresa May formally announced her candidacy, Gove said the EU referendum result had shown the British people “want and need a new approach to running this country”. Gove, who has repeatedly denied he wants to be prime minister, said he had originally wanted to get behind Johnson’s bid for the leadership. “I have repeatedly said that I do not want to be prime minister. That has always been my view. But events since last Thursday have weighed heavily with me,” he said. “I respect and admire all the candidates running for the leadership. In particular, I wanted to help build a team behind Boris Johnson so that a politician who argued for leaving the European Union could lead us to a better future. “But I have come, reluctantly, to the conclusion that Boris cannot provide the leadership or build the team for the task ahead.” He said he had therefore decided to put his name forward for the leadership. “I want there to be an open and positive debate about the path the country will now take. Whatever the verdict of that debate I will respect it. In the next few days I will lay out my plan for the United Kingdom, which I hope can provide unity and change,” he said. Gove had been expected to be part of a joint ticket with Johnson, most likely to become chancellor or foreign secretary in the event of victory. The culture secretary, Ed Vaizey, said he would back Gove after “agonising on who to back for leadership … Gove has made my mind up,” he said. Nicky Morgan, the education secretary, also said she would back Gove. Michael Fabricant, another prominent leave supporter, said he was switching his support. “I unhesitatingly transfer my support to Michael,” he said. “Although I admire Boris hugely, Michael offers clarity and logic in thought and a socially liberal outlook which will be so needed by our nation’s prime minister.” Andrea Leadsom, another prominent voice from Vote Leave, also confirmed she was standing for the leadership in a tweet sent within minutes of Gove’s announcement. May, the home secretary, was the first to make her ambitions known, saying the country needs a prime minister who can unite the country. One of the key issues for both will be finding a balance between controls on EU nationals coming to the UK, while keeping some access to the single market in goods and services. France’s finance minister, Michel Sapin, has said freedom of movement will be “on the table” in negotiations, even in discussions over single market access. But speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Thursday morning, a key ally of Angela Merkel said the two could not happen together. Peter Altmaier, the head of the federal chancellery in Germany, said any country that wanted to participate in the single market, “basically has to accept the single market as it exists”, including free movement. Speaking on behalf of Johnson on Today, one of his backers, the Tory MP Nadhim Zahawi, said Johnson did not necessarily accept this. “We don’t have to have a trade-off,” he said. “We can actually negotiate on both sides.” Johnson was nonetheless committed to limiting immigration, Zahawi said. “The simple answer, and Boris is passionate about this, is we have to have an Australian-style points system, where we can control our borders and our economy, and we can still get access to the single market, ” he said. The former London mayor was a proven election winner who would unite the party, the MP said: “You will hear a message of hope and positivity, and a message about bringing the country together.” Johnson is expected to pitch himself as someone able to appeal to people across the country. He will highlight his belief in social mobility and compassionate conservatism, signalling he wants to prove his claims during the EU referendum that he stands for helping ordinary people and not the elites. There were indications on Wednesday of tensions between Gove and Johnson. An email sent mistakenly by Gove’s wife, Sarah Vine, to a member of the public exposed her lack of trust in Johnson to give her husband the terms or job he is after. “You must have specific [promises] from Boris,” she wrote. It also expressed reservations about Johnson’s appeal to members and media bosses such as Rupert Murdoch, the owner of the Sun and Times, and Paul Dacre, the editor of the Daily Mail. “Crucially, the membership will not have the necessary reassurance to back Boris, neither will Dacre/Murdoch, who instinctively dislike Boris but trust your ability enough to support a Boris Gove ticket”. A source close to Gove said it was Vine’s own opinion but it chimes with some worries expressed by Conservative MPs about Johnson’s character and appeal. But Zahawi told Today: “Wives have all sorts of pieces of advice for their husbands, as my wife does.” Speaking for May on Today, the Tory MP and former Home Office minister Damian Green said she would hope to negotiate some sort of compromise over free movement and the single market. “What we need to do is negotiate the deal that gives us the best ability to trade in goods and services but also gives us control over the number of people coming in,” he said. “Where we land on that spectrum is clearly what the negotiations will be.” Green said May had been “the most successful home secretary anyone can remember”, and contrasted her steadfastness with Johnson’s occasionally flexible opipnions: “She’s tough, she’s consistent. When she says something today, she’s still going to mean it tomorrow.” There is a significant “Stop Boris” contingent among Tories, including some who backed leave, with female MPs in particular flocking to May’s camp. Two other Tory candidates formally launched their bids for the top job on Wednesday: Stephen Crabb, the work and pensions secretary and remain campaigner, running as a blue-collar conservative; and Liam Fox, the former defence secretary, championing the interests of rightwing Brexit backers. Several others, including Nicky Morgan, the education secretary, and Jeremy Hunt, the health secretary, are all still considering a run. Despite the crowded field, a survey by the ConservativeHome website has put May and Johnson far out in front of other contenders, with the home secretary very narrowly ahead on 29% to 28% of those who responded.
Eric Prydz: Opus review – from aggressive inanity to gigantic satisfaction With a track named after an Ibiza nightclub (Sunset at Cafe Mambo) and others that might as well be (Black Dyce, Floj, Klepht), it’s clear where this Swedish producer’s heart lies: Playa d’en Bossa, surrounded by toned abdominals. Prydz’s gift is in squaring the aggressive inanity of EDM with the passive inanity of progressive house, sometimes making gold from these base metals by plating them with Kraftwerkian pop melody. Across two hours, there’s plenty of dross: techno-leaning tracks lack danger, while others could soundtrack the bland aspiration of a duty-free shop. But just as he sampled Steve Winwood for his number one hit Call on Me, Prydz knows the value of a yacht-rock vocal, and the uplifting Generate, Breathe and Liberate all feature singers surely wearing sunglasses in the studio. His signature flourish, meanwhile, remains gigantically satisfying: a pair of boulder-splitting snares that announce the drop. After four minutes of build on the title track, their arrival is like a glitter cannon to the face.
The ‘real’ Premier League table: Liverpool top, Burnley fourth, West Ham bottom Liverpool fans are no doubt finding the Premier League table extremely attractive but the truth is that at this stage of the season it remains deeply flawed, skewed as it still is towards teams that have had favourable fixtures and a couple of flukey results. Thankfully, though, we have been able to right some of these wrongs, allowing one side to make an incontrovertible case for the title of great overperformer if not, in the end, dislodging Jürgen Klopp’s entertainers from top spot. The biggest problem with the real table is that, in these still early days before every team have played every other team, it does not reflect the quality of opposition each side have faced. This can make quite a difference and quickly alter perceptions of teams’ relative merits. So Swansea’s plight, marooned as they are in 19th place in the table, appears less dreadful with the knowledge that they have had by a distance the most difficult opening 11 games of all top-flight teams. They have already played eight of the top 10, including all the top four, while West Brom have played only four top-half sides, three of them at home. Conversely Pep Guardiola’s impressive start to the season at Manchester City loses some of its lustre with the realisation that his side have probably had the easiest opening run. They alone are yet to play any of the top four sides (obviously being one of them reduces their chances of doing so), and they have beaten only one of the four top-half teams they have faced. Elsewhere, whereas Liverpool are top despite having already visited Chelsea, Arsenal and Tottenham, Arsenal are yet to play an away game against a team ranked higher than Watford’s eighth place. To illustrate the difference in fixture difficulty, Swansea’s first 11 opponents have won 194 points this season and have an average current league position of 7.9, while Manchester City’s have won 140 and sit a lowly 12.3. Probably the fairest way of differentiating between the difficulty of fixtures so far played is to use the total points won by each team’s opponents excluding games in which that team have played, by which metric Swansea, Liverpool, Tottenham and Leicester have had the hardest starts and Stoke, Manchester City, Crystal Palace and Bournemouth the most straightforward. In an attempt to make the table more reflective of the quality of opponents faced, we weighted points according to the quality of the teams they were won from, making a victory wrested from one of the top teams significantly more valuable than a similar result against, say, Sunderland, who until this weekend had been handing points out like lollipops on Halloween. In this reimagined table Liverpool remain top and Sunderland bottom but City drop from third to fifth, Stoke from 12th to 16th and Burnley rise from ninth to sixth. Of course, not all results this season have been deserved, which brings us on to the somewhat vexed issue of Expected Goals. To reach this statistic Opta “measure the quality of a chance and the likelihood a particular shot is scored based on distance to the goal, angle to the goal, whether or not it was a header, whether or not it was assisted and a variety of other factors”. It is regularly dismissed by some commentators, presumably because it sounds patently ludicrous, but has proved an unusually good indicator of actual performance. Having done their sums and simulated all matches played this season 250 times, Opta have found that some teams should really have considerably more points than they do and others have taken more than they really should have. To make our table more reflective of what is properly fair, but without totally redrafting the league based on something that makes Craig Burley terribly angry, we have added or subtracted half the number of points Opta believe each team should or should not have won. This gives us a more reasonable reflection of actual achievement this season to date but no sense of who are achieving more than they really should be. This is where money talks. Obviously one would expect those sides that have spent most heavily on their squads to be the most successful on the field (wages are generally a more reliable indicator but this season’s remain unavailable). Using figures from the CIES Football Observatory we ranked teams by the cost of their current squads and awarded them an additional half a bonus league point for every position away from the top of the profligate table they sit. While most of the top six survived this change, spendthrift Manchester United were sent spiralling down to 13th and bargain basement Burnley suddenly hit the top four. Sean Dyche’s side have had one of the toughest starts and faced it with the division’s cheapest squad, yet they continue to harvest points with rare abandon. In those metrics that tend to mirror fairly closely the quality of the teams who earn them, time and again Burnley stick out for the wrong reasons. So, for example, the Premier League’s real-life top six are also the six teams with the most touches in opposition penalty areas and are all in the top seven teams ranked by average possession and by the difference between the number of shots taken and shots conceded. Burnley find themselves 19th, 20th and 19th on those tables, their abject performance rivalled only by Hull (20th, 17th and 20th). And still they are soaring. They say the table does not lie but occasionally, and for all sorts of reasons, it can be economical with the truth.
Former Gawker editors on the Hogan trial aftermath: 'It's about what journalists can cover' After the verdict awarding former pro wrestler Hulk Hogan $140m in punitive damages following Gawker’s publication of a clip showing him engaged in sexual activities with the wife of one of his friends, the future of Gawker Media remains uncertain. The publication, which for a long time specialised in irreverent web journalism, rebranded itself in 2015 to focus on politics. Here, former Gawker Media writers and editors tell us about the publication’s early days, how the empire evolved to embrace an all-encompassing range of subjects – from women’s issues to tech, media and even porn – and its place in the digital media landscape. Elizabeth Spiers, founding editor (2002-2003) When we launched Gawker in 2002, I would have never anticipated that it would grow into a large media company. Nick Denton and I were friends socially and he pitched me on writing it in exchange for a $1,200-a-month stipend and I thought of it as more of a side project than a job. Initially, it was mostly an aggregator with the occasional opinion piece and every now and then – almost by accident – actual reporting. Even then we ran into some thorny journalistic issues, in part because most people only dimly understood what a blog was and we were not a traditional media company, so it wasn’t obvious that what we were doing constituted journalism in the first place. At the time, I had a throwaway feature I’d do at the end of the day called “Remainders” and it was a link roundup of things readers had sent in that weren’t necessarily relevant to Gawker’s mandate (which was to cover all things New York), but that we thought might be interesting to the audience. I did it mostly to encourage people to send us more tips and signal that we were listening and responding to what our readers were telling us. One of the links I received was to a paparazzi photo on a Dutch site of Catherine Zeta-Jones, topless, pregnant and smoking. This wasn’t the sort of thing we’d cover directly (Gawker was not as celebrity focused then), so I threw it into the link roundup and didn’t think much about it until I got a cease and desist letter from Marty Singer, Zeta-Jones’s lawyer, demanding that we take the photos down. We had to respond that we couldn’t take them down because they weren’t hosted on our site. Singer’s team didn’t understand enough about the web at the time to grasp the concept of a hyperlink. I think that was my first exposure to attempted censorship via lawyer, something Gawker deals with regularly – and so does any outlet that produces entertainment journalism. The easiest course of action in that case is to just cave to legal demands, but Nick has made it Gawker’s business to fight it where appropriate because the stakes aren’t just about the story itself; they’re about what journalists can and can’t cover, and the consequences of that are far more serious than a story about a celebrity behaving badly. Joshua David Stein, after hours editor (2006-2008) Bullshit. Bullshit in all its flowering, self-serving, ridiculous forms. When I worked at Gawker as what we called an after hours editor – which meant only my purview included restaurants and nightclubs as well as creatures of the night and also those of the day, so it was everything, basically – calling bullshit was the site’s mission. In those days, before Nick pivoted toward reaching a national audience, our quarry was primarily the Manhattan-based semi-demimonde, the barely socialites, the sweaty strivers in the antechambers of Graydon Carter’s seven rooms of New York City. Our targets were names that have been swept into the dustbin of history: web celebrities like Julia Allison and journalists like Steve Garbarino and Kristian Laliberte. Working at Gawker made us well-known and even feared among a small circle of New Yorkers. Since I often covered parties, this was made manifest by the sycophancy of many who we mocked, which in turn, simply fed my contempt. In my early 20s at the time, it was thrilling to be feared, but I didn’t know what it meant to be kind. Nevertheless, calling bullshit was then and is now an essential function of media. It can take many names and forms. It can look either like an investigative longform piece by the , or a takedown of a writer making fun of his own son for the pleasure of a byline. What I hadn’t fully realized then but do know is that the power dynamic of the one calling bullshit to the one on whom bullshit is being called is the difference between whistleblowing and bullying. Towards the end of my tenure, I probably flirted with that line. But as Gawker grew in scope and reach it was only fitting that its quarry grew in stature and mustache. Hogan might not have wanted his racist rants and peccadilloes published, but none of us want our bullshit aired. It’s not exactly the Pentagon Papers, but Gawker is still fulfilling its sacred duty. Megan Carpentier, associate editor, Wonkette; editor, Jezebel (2007-2009) Writing for Gawker Media sites was, at least at one point, your shot at getting into journalism without shelling out $100,000 to a journalism school. That was my case. Nick Denton’s vision for what he wanted Gawker Media sites to be was knowledgable of but not beholden to whatever they were covering, from the media (Gawker) to politics (Wonkette) to Hollywood (Defamer) to technology (Kotaku, Gizmodo and Valleyway) and even to porn (Fleshbot). Writers had to be knowledgable but not so invested in their chosen field that they were going to hold their fire to guarantee their next job. Writers often left, at least in the early days, in part because of the meager per-post pay rates (since I left my regular gig at Jezebel in 2009, they began offering salaried positions below the top-of-the-masthead as well as benefits) and partly because writing (well) for a Gawker Media site became a viable stepping stone to writing elsewhere. Gawker Media was breaking new ground not just because it was digital or voice-y or young or even gossipy, but because it was engaging and because it was telling the truth about how the sausage of an industry gets made. It felt like the writers were talking to you and with you, not just at you. Seeing how successful it became, everyone started copying it. After Jezebel’s first year – of which I was but a very small part – suddenly everyone wanted to have a feminist-leaning women’s site. I know TMZ spent a while looking at opening a politics site in DC that was Wonkette-y; a ton of places took ample inspiration from the Gawker aesthetic. In a certain way, it made the idea of being a writer cool (it wasn’t all old guys in blue button-downs and khaki pants like in Spotlight) and that different perspectives could be important and valid, even if there was no piece of paper from an Ivy League school declaring it so. There’s something good and important about ripping the media out of their ivory tower. But after the trial and particularly the depositions shown at trial, it becomes a little difficult not to wonder if maybe Gawker kind of just moved in. Adam Weinstein, senior writer (2013-2015). The first challenge in defending (or savaging) Gawker is to specify which of history’s many Gawkers you’re talking about. Its worst versions were cliquish, immature, dismissive, performative – confirmation of the caricature offered up by the site’s angriest spittle-dripping detractors. At its best, it’s been a treasure trove of vital journalism, trenchant thought and delicious fun. I loved being in a place where, on a given day, I could nail a caddish congressman or anti-privacy neocon – and on another, I could explore nudist theology or the dark cultural origins of the word “thug”. I could also celebrate racist uncles and jerking off vigorously. Not all of the things I wrote were good. Most were quite bad. Is it a blog? A magazine? A conversation? A tasteless drunken boor at a party? Are its writers and editors seasoned pros at the top of their game? Frazzled, terrified amateurs? Pampered, antisocial Brooklynite pricks? Any publication that still raises these questions after a decade and a half is going to be a goddamn interesting read. There are journalistic dilemmas that send graying Poynter Institute instructors into cold sweats, dilemmas that exist only because Gawker has pushed the envelope, pooped in the envelope, sealed it with Fireball, and scrawled, off the top of its head, an eternal witticism on the back of the envelope. I’ve written stuff that only Gawker would have the chutzpah to publish. I’ve looked at stuff Gawker has published and wondered what the hell the editors were thinking. I don’t always share the site’s editorial judgment, and I don’t know whether Nick Denton’s School for Gifted Youngsters can ever be the cultural magnetite it was in its early years. But as long as there are societal punchbowls screaming to be urinated in, I’ll never stop being glad Gawker is around. I’ll also never stop hoping that my meager stock options will be worth something someday.
Labor to interrogate ANZ chief over interest rates and Timbercorp scandal Labor will pressure the head of ANZ bank to answer questions about the Timbercorp scandal when he appears before the Turnbull government’s bank hearings on Wednesday. Shayne Elliott, ANZ’s chief executive, will also be asked about financial planners banned from the bank, and remuneration structures that encouraged staff to offer financial advice unfit for customers. Elliot will face a 10-member committee for three hours on Wednesday morning, a day after Commonwealth Bank’s CEO Ian Narev faced the same committee. Narev was the first bank boss to appear at this week’s highly anticipated hearings, which were set up by the Turnbull government in response to pressure for a royal commission into the banking industry. He emerged unfazed from the grilling, having answered questions easily about controversial incidents at his own bank. It emerged on day one of the hearings that Commonwealth Bank has recruited former Liberal party federal director Brian Loughnane as an adviser. Loughnane, the husband of former Tony Abbott chief-of-staff Peta Credlin, stepped down from his role shortly after Malcolm Turnbull toppled Abbott. “Brian Loughnane is not employed by CBA,” Narev told the committee members. “It’s a matter of common record that he and a number of other people have helped us generally in thinking through how we best respond to a range of issues but, no, he is not an employee of the bank.” ANZ is being pursued in the courts – along with NAB and Westpac – by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (Asic) over unconscionable conduct and manipulating the Bank Bill Swap Rate between 2010 and 2012. ANZ has denied wrongdoing and is challenging Asic, as have Westpac and NAB. Labor MP Matt Thistlethwaite says he plans to pursue Elliott over the Timbercorp scandal on Wednesday. In 2009, two of Australia’s largest agribusiness managed investment schemes (MIS) – Timbercorp and Great Southern – collapsed, followed by other major schemes, including Willmott Forests Ltd and Gunns Plantation Ltd. A senate report from earlier this year, called Bitter Harvest, found forestry management schemes saw $4bn in investment flow into the sector after special tax treatment was given by the Howard government, only for the schemes to collapse. As a result, thousands of people lost their life savings. The principal lender to Timbercorp was ANZ Bank. Investors blame ANZ for its handling of the financing arrangements, and for its handling of Timbercorp’s insolvency with insolvency practitioners KordaMentha.
'Entrepreneurs want a bank that behaves the way they do' The financial crash of 2008 led many to believe it was wrong to have banks so big they were not allowed to fail. What the sector needed, was greater competition and diversity. Since then, Bank of England reforms have made it easier for new entrants to join the market. A new breed of challenger banks have emerged such as Metro Bank, Aldermore, Atom, Monzo and Starling, offering services to both businesses and consumers. These challenger banks have some advantages over their more traditional rivals. They have been able to design digital services from scratch, unencumbered by legacy IT systems, old agreements and physical assets from the past. According to a report from KPMG, released in May this year, by embracing technology, these “digitally focused challengers” are able to provide a more personalised customer service. The report found that the revenues of new entrants are growing rapidly, although they still account for only a fraction of all UK deposits, while the big five UK retail banks are experiencing decline. Good for business Some entrepreneurs appreciate the innovative spirit of these new companies and are switching their business banking accounts. Among them is Lars Andersen, founder and owner of Arty Lobster, which makes 3D sculptors of people’s pets. He moved both his personal and business accounts to Metro Bank, founded in 2010, after becoming unhappy with some of the fees his previous bank, Santander, had charged. “I was slightly concerned about it being a new bank. But I think the requirements for gaining a banking licence in the UK are quite strict, so I don’t think it’s more of a risk than a major bank,” he says. Switching bank accounts should not be an issue for most small businesses. Companies with a turnover less than £6.5m and fewer than 50 staff can move their accounts via the Current Account Switch Service (CASS). The process takes up to seven days but guarantees no payments or direct debits are missed in the process. Andersen says the switching process was “relatively painless” and since then, he’s been particularly impressed with his online account management. “I do internet banking and the Metro’s online services are very good,” he says. “Also, if I need to speak to someone at the branch, which I did a little bit to begin with, it’s fairly quick and painless. These are not words you’d associate with a high street bank. On the whole, I haven’t found it life-changing – it’s just a bank account. But I think it is slightly better in every way.” RMP Construction Services, led by Robert and Rachael Pinchbeck, took an invoice financing deal with Aldermore Bank, established in 2009, in order to finance bigger, more ambitious projects. The £7.9m business, founded the same year as its financier, started off by offering site engineering services and surveys anddiversified into civil engineering and carpentry. But the company’s previous lender, Lloyd’s Commercial Finance, was not prepared to give it the support it needed for some of the larger construction deals. So RMP approached challenger bank Aldermore and found the conversation far more productive. “One of the things we really liked about Aldermore was that they really understood the industry. They came out to see us and we were impressed by how much they understood,” says finance director Rachael Pinchbeck. “We use an invoice discounting service, which enables us to borrow money against our invoices when needed. This is really helpful for cash flow for large construction projects. There’s no other way of handling these contracts and business growth unless you have considerable cash reserves.” Sticking together For some entrepreneurs, the concept of a challenger bank is, in itself, enticing. Small business owners can relate to the little guy taking on the big corporates and may be inclined to back them. For Ben Little, co-founder of innovation consultancy Fearlessly Frank, this was part of the appeal of Monzo. “Entrepreneurs want a bank that behaves as they do, and works at the same speed too – both from a personal point of view and business point of view,” he says. Little uses his pre-paid Monzo card, which he tops up from his current account regularly, for both business and personal use. The card connects to an app on his phone and he receives push notifications each time he makes a purchase. It also itemises all his spending, which he says is useful for budgeting, and he hasn’t experienced any high charges when travelling abroad. “I basically live on a plane and so it’s good to have a card which is accepted everywhere and which doesn’t charge you crazy fees.” Indeed Monzo, formerly Mondo, may be one of the few banks in the world that can legitimately claim to have fans. The business, led by CEO Tom Blomfield, raised £1m via crowdfunding in 96 seconds earlier this year, and has a backlog of people wanting to use its services. Little says he, too, is impressed by the way the bank approaches its market. “I think it’s great to see a company which is promoting itself in an unconventional way. I also like backing a challenger; sometimes it takes people from the outside to remove all the complications and politics and put the user first.” Little says he has instructed his finance director to explore how other challenger banks, such as Aldermore, can benefit his company and believes other small businesses should do the same. “The banks have lost so much trust through the PPI scandal and other problems, it’s right that they face more competition. They could be doing more but they aren’t,” he says. “From an innovation perspective, there are currently more startups than ever before and the market is wide open for banks that want to embrace it, share the vision and behave like us rather than like a corporate.” Sign up to become a member of the Small Business Network here for more advice, insight and best practice direct to your inbox.
Cult heroes: Mary Margaret O'Hara – the genius for whom one album was enough Mary Margaret O’Hara read Ulysses at the age of 11 and thought: “Finally, someone is talking normal”. It’s a tall tale that nevertheless makes a certain kind of sense. At its most abandoned, the music made by this elusive, unclassifiable Canadian singer resembles a new kind of language. O’Hara still works in and on music, but she has not released an album since her debut, Miss America, in 1988 (the soundtrack for the film Apartment Hunting came out in 2001, but was never intended for release, and can’t be regarded as a “proper” follow-up album). This year sees her returning to public view, but only to appear alongside Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Fiona Shaw in The Rising, a biopic of Irish republican Seán Mac Diarmada. Acting is in the blood – her sister is Catherine O’Hara, who played Macauley Culkin’s mum in Home Alone and is a member of Christopher Guest’s repertory of ace mockumentarian – and in recent years we’ve been more likely to see her on the screen than hear her sing. Meanwhile, among her fans the faint but impatient thrumming for another record goes on. One listen to Miss America should explain why. In the late 80s, a friend slipped me a tape of the album with, appropriately enough, some Patsy Cline tacked on the end. The clear, classic tone of Cline was just one of several disorientating elements in the Miss America mix. One minute O’Hara sounded like a heartsore country girl in a gingham dress, whispering in front of a ribbon mic. The next she was jumping between jagged art rock, jazz excursions and classic torch songs. The barely audible balm of You Will Be Loved Again gave way to the jittery funk of Not Be Alright, less a song than an aural anxiety attack. DX-7 rubbed against lap steel. Burbling five-string bass leached into Bill Frisell-like cascades of reverbed guitar. There was session-man sleekness and wild, free-jazz time keeping. All the while, O’Hara fell between purging and purring, both becalmed and berserk. On her rare appearances on stage, she seemed in the throes of some spell – twitching, making nervy jokes, muttering off mic. Naysayers often dismiss her as “kooky”, “ditzy” and all those other gender-skewed pejoratives, but there is a hard and unswerving centre to O’Hara’s music. As beautiful as much of it is, there is something fearful about Miss America, an aura of exorcism. She has talked about “inner and outer voices” and believes in unseen powers. The stunning To Cry About seemed to foresee the death by drowning of a boyfriend – “there will be a timed disaster” – a year before it happened. She shares with Van Morrison the sense of someone whose obsessions outrun mere words. Little wonder, perhaps, that the album had a somewhat tortuous gestation. Some of the songs date back to 1980, when O’Hara was an arts graduate in Toronto playing in local bands. She signed to Virgin in 1983 as a solo artist, but although Miss America was recorded mostly in 1983 and 1984, it was delayed until 1988, hampered by legal struggles with a record company who didn’t quite realise what they had on their hands. Producers ranged from Andy Partridge to Joe Boyd, although the final album is credited to Michael Brook. Because the track list was put together by Virgin, O’Hara has always regarded it as a compromised piece of work. She started a second record but ended up sitting out her contract. Bruised by industry interference and lack of enthusiasm, she has been unwilling to offer up her own material for scrutiny in the same way since. It appears that getting this stuff from her gut to her head and on to tape is just too hard. Instead, she became a serial collaborator, frittering away her genius on relative trifles. Apart from Apartment Hunting, which is half-formed but has some sublime moments, she has taken part in tributes to Kurt Weill, Leonard Cohen, Nick Drake and Vic Chesnutt, sung pirate songs and Christmas tunes, and guested with This Mortal Coil and Tindersticks. She acted in a stage version of The Black Rider, written by Tom Waits and William Burroughs and directed by Robert Wilson. To many, she is still best known for singing backing vocals on Morrissey’s 1993 single November Spawned a Monster. Conventional live appearances are infrequent, particularly on this side of the water. Dirty Three tempted her to All Tomorrow’s Parties in 2007, and she appeared at the Barbican’s Twisted Christmas concert in 2008 (O’Hara loves Christmas, which figures), but it’s unlikely she could ever be persuaded to undertake a classic album showcase of Miss America. Footage of her 2012 performance at the Push festival in Vancouver reveals radically deconstructed versions of her old material. She gives the impression of a woman who keeps moving forward. A download of one new song, This is What I Want, crept out in 2014, but another full-length album seems beyond (or, perhaps, beneath) her. “If you have an idea,” she said once, “Why do you have to make it?” It’s a frustrating but oddly heroic ideology. As she sang on This is What I Want, “What I could give you, you already have / What I could tell you, you already know.”
Kate Mara: ‘If we were up for the same job, our agents wouldn't tell us’ When Kate Mara was 19 she skipped college – a place at the highly respected Tisch School of Performing Arts at New York University – and bought a dog, Bruno, a Boston Terrier with one blue eye. “I knew I would need the company,” she says. “Because where I was going, I knew literally no one.” Rather than remain at home with her big Irish family in New York, she was headed to Los Angeles to be a star. Fourteen years later, we’re at the Broome Street General Store, a small coffee shop in Silverlake, to talk about her latest movie. But Mara’s is not a sentimental story – it’s about ambition. She was a painfully shy girl who loathed school and couldn’t bear the thought of college. “I look back and think, wow, that’s how ambitious I was,” she says. “I was prepared to go through all that. But I’m glad I did. It was worth it.” Today, Mara and her arguably better-known actor sister Rooney are arm in arm on red carpets, A-listers both. But it was Kate, 33, the elder by two years, who first made the leap. Today, wearing a red sundress, she directs me to a shaded table outside. “I’m Irish,” she says. “I burn.” She doesn’t seem the carefree, sundress type – there’s a steeliness to her; precise and clear, with an almost clinical intelligence behind the eyes. As Zoe Barnes in House of Cards, she shone as the ruthlessly ambitious political reporter who stops at nothing until Kevin Spacey shoves her in front of a train. This part has made her a global name. “I was just in London,” she explains, “and every time I took the tube, people would stare.” In last year’s Oscar contender The Martian, she was a computer expert in a crew of astronauts, a nerd among nerds. In Morgan, her latest project, she is excellently cast as Lee Weathers, an icy executive “from corporate” who has been sent to shut down an AI research project that has gone awry. The android (Morgan) has turned violent, and while the scientists who raised “her” (Toby Jones and Rose Leslie) insist that she ought to be given another chance, their heartfelt appeals bounce uselessly off Mara’s pinstriped trouser suit and heels. She’s so tough that, though it seems improbable at first, the petite Mara spends the last third of the movie in a series of brutal fight scenes, getting hurled through windows and suchlike. “I got a lot of bruises,” she grins. “But it was fun. I think when you have a tense movie like this, and you spend all day in a dark house in life-and-death scenarios, you become delirious. We’d be crying with laughter at the most stupid things.” In person, Mara is a good deal warmer than Weathers. When she learns that I, too, have a Boston Terrier, she coos over photos of the dog on my phone. She’s not a reclusive celebrity. They know her here at the general store; regulars come up to say hello, and she’s often seen walking her dogs with her boyfriend, the British actor Jamie Bell. “It’s really therapeutic,” she says. It wasn’t fame that propelled Mara, unlike Bell, to a life of privilege – she was born that way. Her father and his siblings own the New York Giants (estimated worth $2.1bn), and her mother’s side of the family owns the Pittsburgh Steelers (estimated worth $1bn). With sister Rooney she is one of four siblings who enjoyed an idyllic upbringing of football and church and huge family gatherings – her father is one of 11, and there are 22 aunts and uncles in all. She tells me they grew up about an hour north of New York city, in a suburb called Bedford – not to be confused with Bedford-Stuyvesant, where Biggie Smalls grew up. “Haha! No, Martha Stewart lives in Bedford. It’s a bit different,” she says. “Mind you, she went to prison too…” Her greatest challenge growing up was remembering the name of the new baby at Thanksgiving. “There’s always a new baby in our family.” When they were young, their mother would regularly take her two daughters to Broadway shows and the movies. At nine years old, Mara decided she would act. “Rooney was different,” she explains. “She explored other interests. Also, she was much better at school than me.” She was successful even as a 14-year-old, with a bit part on Law & Order, one of the tried-and-tested stepping stones for an emerging actor. But she says she learned a valuable lesson as a teenager: that if one door closes, maybe it was meant to be, because another will surely open. “I was up for a part in The Sound of Music on Broadway, and I was completely devastated when I didn’t get it. It was like someone died. And my mum said, ‘It’s happening for a reason, just wait.’ And soon afterwards I got this part in Random Hearts, a Sydney Pollack movie, which was incredible.” It stood her in good stead when she moved to LA with Bruno. Her fortunes turned slowly but surely – when she was 22 she got Brokeback Mountain, playing Heath Ledger’s daughter, a role that changed the course of her career. “At the audition, I didn’t understand what a big deal it was to read for Ang [Lee, the director], so there was less pressure,” she remembers. “But he was so gentle and quiet, it felt like he was rooting for me.” She likens Lee to David Fincher, whom she worked with on House of Cards. “They’re both very specific directors. Like, don’t blink so much, don’t raise your eyebrows… I crave that now, but making Brokeback Mountain, I didn’t understand. I just thought I was doing a terrible job and I was going to be fired!” Doors started to open. Movies like Transsiberian and 127 Hours got her name ever closer to the poster, and then House of Cards changed everything. Fantastic Four, where she met Bell, followed but wasn’t all smooth sailing – widely panned, it garnered just 9% of positivity on rottentomatoes.com, a hub of movie criticism. Meanwhile, the career of the other Mara – Rooney – was soaring. Twice nominated for an Oscar, she may have entered the business long after Kate, but she has arguably surpassed her in many ways. The rivalry narrative doesn’t wash. “I know conflict is more interesting,” says Mara, “but honestly, I just feel so grateful that we’re both living our dreams successfully and to be able to share that with someone you grew up with – it’s really special.” So they’ve never been up for the same job? They are both the same height, they look somewhat similar… “We would be the last to know,” she says. “Our agents would never tell us. So I don’t think it’s happened. But maybe there are producers out there laughing, saying, ‘Haha, it happened yesterday and we hired your sister!’” It’s not as though Kate’s phone isn’t ringing. These days, she’s preparing to shoot Chappaquiddick, playing the part of Mary Jo Kopechne, the girl who was found dead in Ted Kennedy’s car in a canal after a party in Martha’s Vineyard in 1969. “More politics after House of Cards,” she says. “But don’t ask me about actual politics. I hate what’s happening in this country.” She is also producing her first movie, Mercy, with Ellen Page, about the death penalty. “I spend a lot of my time watching really depressing documentaries,” she says. “What confuses me is why the death penalty is considered the bigger punishment – I think being locked in a box for the rest of your life is worse.” In fact, after this interview she might do some more grim capital punishment research. But there are so many other things to get to – it’s not all about work. A dedicated vegan, she is an outspoken animal welfare advocate, working principally with the Humane Society. Her current campaigns include trying to save chimps in Liberia, putting an end to the dogs of the horrific Yulin dog meat festival in China and protecting the marine life of SeaWorld. “Have you seen Blackfish?” she asks. “That movie destroyed me. I cried for weeks.” And then there are her hobbies. Mara seldom finds a physical pursuit she doesn’t like. For now, she’s busy with ballet and boxing classes – she had to take them to prepare for Morgan, and now she can’t give up. But she’s also into ice skating. “I don’t want anyone to know!” she laughs. “I’m all about looking for the next thing to be good at. Like, I’d love to be a great tap dancer, too.” That fierce ambition that brought her out to LA has mellowed. Some days, she’ll just work out, read a script and then go to dinner. “I don’t know if I’m getting much done, but I love it. When people ask, ‘Where do you want to be in 10 years?’ I just say that I hope I’m still acting. Oh and kids, sure. Kids are compulsory in my family, anyway.” She shrugs and gestures to the street, the hills in the background. “I think what’s changed is that I’m home now. It took a while, but I feel like I belong here.” Morgan is released in cinemas on 2 September
Jürgen Klopp gears up for first visit to Everton by watching Creed Jürgen Klopp has said he is relishing a first visit to Goodison Park after watching the Rocky spin-off Creed. Liverpool make the short trip across Stanley Park on Monday for the 227th Merseyside derby and Klopp’s debut at Goodison. The corresponding fixture last season was Brendan Rodgers’ final game as Liverpool manager and, though his successor watched the 1-1 draw on television, he took more notice of his rivals’ stadium when deciding to watch the Hollywood film after the club’s Christmas party on Thursday. Creed, starring WBC cruiserweight champion and Evertonian Tony Bellew, featured a fight sequence filmed at Goodison Park and left its mark on Klopp, a self-confessed Rocky fan. “Yesterday I watched the movie Creed and that was my first impression of Goodison Park. It will be very special to be at Goodison for the first time,” the Liverpool manager said. “Even though the favourite is from Liverpool I had sympathy with the other guy. I was at Chapel Street with the staff at the Christmas party and when I came home there was nothing to do. I decided to watch a film and it was Creed. I didn’t know it was part of Goodison Park – a complete coincidence. “When I was much younger I tried to use the story of Rocky IV – Ivan Drago and Rocky and that stuff – in a team meeting. And a few minutes into it I realised nobody knew what I was talking about. Rocky is a wonderful story, Maybe sometime I will go the steps in Philadelphia. But not this week.” Klopp, who confirmed Simon Mignolet will retain his place in goal ahead of Loris Karius, admits he is expecting an atmosphere similar to that generated during Everton’s late win over Arsenal on Tuesday. The game, he said, is: “Very, very, very, very big. The good thing around the derby is that I don’t need to say a lot. It is a very important period and moment in the season. “Both teams after the last game are in good mood. We watched the [Arsenal] game together at the hotel in Middlesbrough. You could see the atmosphere was good. We were excited about the game so it was intense. It will be a real battle, two good teams against each other and my first time there at Goodison.” Liverpool are unbeaten in the last 12 derbies – losing only one of the last 19 – and Klopp is acutely aware of the significance of the game in the city. “I’m part of Liverpool,” he explained. “It is really easy for me to accept the importance of the game. I like how Liverpool the city lives with these two big clubs. I never had any issue with any Evertonian fans. All, maybe not all, a lot of nice people support Everton and I respect this. “I’m quite good in adapting in these situations. I’m already in a very positive mood. I’m looking forward to it. These are the games you want. I have said football is not the most important thing in the world but on Monday night for 90 minutes in and around Liverpool it probably is.” The Liverpool manager expects Emre Can to be available against Everton having missed the last two games with a knee ligament problem but Joël Matip remains doubtful with an ankle injury. Matip missed the midweek victory at Middlesbrough and Klopp admits the defender’s recovery has not been straightforward. He said: “It just needs time. There will be no surgery, there is not even a risk of it. It is only about resting the injury or not – try it every day or give it a few days. That is what we already did. “Against West Ham it was possible to play but then against Middlesbrough it was not. Bournemouth he was involved in the squad and then we made the decision. It is in the moment. It is not perfect because we have no time so you can’t say: ‘This game isn’t really important or whatever.’ The other boys are doing really good but we have to see.”
Will we ever really talk with the machines? Like many people nowadays, I do not talk on my iPhone as much as talk to it. That’s because it runs a program called Siri (Speech Interpretation and Recognition Interface) that works as an intelligent personal assistant and knowledge navigator. It’s useful, in a way. If I ask it for “weather in London today”, it’ll present an hour-by-hour weather forecast. Tell it to “phone home” and it’ll make a decent effort to find the relevant number. Ask it to “text James” and it will come back with: “What do you want to say to James?” Not exactly Socratic dialogue, but it has its uses. Ask Siri: “What’s the meaning of life?”, however, and it loses its nerve. “Life,” it replies, “is a principle or force that is considered to underlie the distinctive quality of animate beings. I guess that includes me.” Ten points for that last sentence. But the question: “What should I do with my life?” really stumps it. “Interesting question” is all it can do, which suggests that we haven’t really moved much beyond Joseph Weizenbaum’s famous Eliza program, which was created in the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory between 1964 and 1966. Eliza in fact operated by using a script called Doctor, a simulation of a Rogerian psychotherapist. Thus, if asked: “What should I do with my life?”, it might respond: “Have you asked such questions before?” And so on ad infinitum. Eliza, of course, had no intelligence, artificial or otherwise. That didn’t prevent some people from allegedly becoming addicted to her, but it meant that she posed no existential threat to humanity. The same cannot be said for contemporary manifestations of AI, as represented by the combination of massive processing power, big data, machine learning, advanced robotics and neural networks. Some latterday luminaries – Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk and Bill Gates, to name just three – have taken to worrying about the prospect of superintelligent machines that might, so to speak, have minds of their own – and could therefore regard humans as disposable life forms. Given global warming, the planet may well have reached the same conclusion about humans some time before superintelligent machines walk the Earth and so existential worries may turn out to be moot. But let’s suppose that we survive long enough to develop such machines. How will we communicate with them? Easy, peasy, say the AI evangelists: we’ll just use natural language, ie we’ll talk to them just like we talk to one another. At this point, a whirring noise can be heard: it’s Ludwig Wittgenstein rotating at 5,000rpm in his grave. “What can be said at all can be said clearly,” he wrote in the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, “and what we cannot talk about we must pass over in silence.” And therein lies the problem. Because often what really matters to us humans is stuff that we have difficulty articulating. What’s brought this to mind is an extraordinary interview with Stephen Wolfram that’s just appeared on John Brockman’s Edge.org site. The term “genius” is often overused, but I think it’s merited in Wolfram’s case. Those of us who bear the scars from school and university years spent wrestling with advanced maths are forever in his debt, because he invented Mathematica, a computer program that takes much of the pain out of solving equations, graphing complex functions and other arcane tasks. But he’s also worked in computer science and mathematical physics and is the founder of the WolframAlpha “computational knowledge engine”, which is one of the wonders of the online world. As befits someone who has built such powerful tools for augmenting human capabilities, Wolfram doesn’t seem too concerned about the threat of superintelligent machines. They may be able to do all kinds of things that humans cannot, he thinks, but there is one area where we are unquestionably unique – we have notions of purposes and goals. What machines do is to help us achieve those goals and “that’s what we can increasingly automate. We’ve been automating it for thousands of years. We will succeed in having very good automation of those goals. I’ve spent some significant part of my life building technology to essentially go from a human concept of a goal to something that gets done in the world.” So as machines become more intelligent, and our requirements of them become more demanding, how will we communicate our desires to them? Wolfram’s conclusion is that “it’s a mixture. Human natural language is good up to a point and has evolved to describe what we typically encounter in the world. Things that exist from nature, things that we’ve chosen to build in the world – these are things which human natural language has evolved to describe. But there’s a lot that exists out there in the world for which human natural language doesn’t have descriptions yet.” He’s right. Come back Ludwig, all is forgiven. How is it that you can never find a philosopher when you need one?
Government suffers big defeat in Lords as peers vote to keep income-related child poverty measures - Politics live Ministers have suffered a big defeat in the House of Lords as peers have voted in favour of an amendment forcing the government to publish income-related figures for child poverty. The amendment was tabled by the Bishop of Duham and backed strongly by Labour peers and others. It undermines a key part of the welfare bill, which is intended to abolish income-related child poverty targets and replace them with ones measuring “life chances” instead. David Gauke, the Treasury minister, has told MPs that he could not say what effective rate of tax Google were paying. Replying to an urgent Commons question about Google’s deal to pay £130m owed in taxes to HMRC, Gauke said it was wrong to assume this was equivalent to a 3% tax rage. That figure was misleading, he told MPs. In terms of the 3% figure which you mentioned, that is the very reason why I drew attention to the way that corporation tax is worked out. [Tax is paid] not on the basis of the profits relating to sales in a particular country, it is on the basis of the economic activity and assets held in a country and there are severe dangers were we to move in the direction of it being based on profits relating to sales ... There is no lower special rate for Google or any other taxpayer in this country. But when challenged by Labour’s Diana Johnson if he would say what effective rate Google was paying, he replied: No. The position is because of taxpayer confidentiality. The point I was making in the course of my remarks was that to look at profits from sales in the United Kingdom is not a way in which one can calculate it. The tax rate is currently 20%. That applies to everybody, but in terms of the effective tax rate that depends on the particular circumstances of any business. The Commons Treasury committee has launched an inquiry into tax policy and the tax base. In the Commons Andrew Tyrie, the committee chair, said he thought “fundamental reform of the corporate tax base probably now needs to be considered”. In a statement later he said: The complexity of tax law is turning what should be a straightforward principle – that everybody should pay the correct amount of tax – in to a piece of elastic. For corporation tax, for instance, the problem is exacerbated by the globalisation of economic activity and any liability to tax that accompanies it. A corporation’s duty to shareholders will be to minimise its tax liability. It should be the duty of those making tax policy to find better ways to limit the elasticity. Google may be the symptom, but it is not the cause. There is a lot the government could be doing. Tax policy must be made more practicable and the tax system more coherent. Tax needs to be fair. It needs to provide more certainty and stability. There is a lot to do and a lot for the Committee to examine. Sir Eric Pickles, the Conservative former communities secretary, has joined Labour MPs in urging the government to accept the recommendation from Save the Children to take in 3,000 unaccompanied child refugees. Telling MPs there were parallels with the Kindertransport, he told MPs: There are children out there who are at risk and I would urge the government to look carefully about this. After all this is the 25th of January - a month ago we were celebrating that great Christian festival of children and I hope that that spirit lingers beyond Boxing Day. Lord Parkinson, the former Conservative cabinet minister and favoured protégé of Margaret Thatcher, has died. Here is the ’s obituary. In a tribute to him David Cameron said: [Parkinson] was the first big political figure that I ever worked for and got to know. He was a man of huge ability. He was passionate that what he was doing and the team of ministers that he worked with was about transforming Britain in the 1980s by improving industrial relations, by reforming the trade unions, by making sure that business was in the private sector, by encouraging entrepreneurship. He was someone I really enjoyed working with a great deal. He was part of a great political generation that did really extraordinary things for our country. He will be hugely missed on all sides of the political divide. Enda Kenny, the Irish prime minister, has said that he expects Cameron’s EU renegotiation to succeed. A UK vote to leave the EU would trigger a snap recession, prompt a fall in share prices and house prices and knock as much as 2% off GDP, according to analysts at the investment bank Credit Suisse. The British government is lobbying to change the definition of overseas development aid (ODA) to include more forms of defence and security spending, prompting concerns that the UK aid programme could be used to plug holes in the budgets of other government departments. And this is from Sam Royston, chair of the End Child Poverty Coalition and policy director at the Children’s Society. By seeking to abandon commitments to report on and tackle the number of children living in families on low incomes the government seemed to think it could make child poverty magically disappear. Scrapping the Child Poverty Act and replacing it with measures based on worklessness and low educational attainment is not enough to help the millions of children who are suffering in real poverty now. Income is at the heart of child poverty and the House of Lords has acknowledged that today. In 2010 all the main political parties committed to measure and report on the number of children living in poverty and to eradicate it by 2020. It is not too late for the government to keep this promise. Here’s Alison Garnham, chief executive of the Child Poverty Action Group, on the Lords vote. Today’s vote by the House of Lords shows how much of a mess the government has got itself into on poverty. It’s needed the House of Lords to act and insist that, yes, the government should continue to report to parliament on what’s happening to child poverty and, yes, that when you talk about poverty and life chances, you cannot simply ignore income. The Lords is on the side of the experts and the public here. MPs now have a chance to demonstrate their commitment to tackling child poverty by holding on to the Lords amendment when the Bill comes back to them. The government has just suffered a huge defeat in the Lords, where peers have voted by 290 votes to 198 - a majority of 92 - in favour of an amendment to the welfare bill to ordering the government to publish annual figures for income-related child poverty. This undermines one of the main aims of the bill, which abolishes income-related child poverty targets. There is more detail on the background to the vote here, in this story. Andy Burnham, the shadow home secretary, says no child should be left to fend for themselves. The vast majority of British people would accept that we have a moral duty to act. He urges the government to reconsider its policy of only taking refugees from the camps in countries near Syria, not from Europe. That distinction is getting harder to maintain. Burnham says he understands the claim that this would increase incentives to come to Europe. But that could be dealt with by treating this as a one-off, he says. Sir Eric Pickles, the Conservative former communities secretary, urges the government to take in more refugee children. He says only recently we were celebrating that great festival of children, Christmas. Yvette Cooper, head of Labour’s refugee taskforce, says there rumours that the government will only take child refugees from camps in countries near Syria. But that is not good enough, she says. She says Britain should also take refugee children from camps in Europe. She says many MPs will this week sign the Holocaust Memorial Day commitment. Lord Dubs, the Labour peer, was saved as a child refugee from the Holocaust. We should save more children like him, she says. James Brokenshire, the Home Office minister, is responding to an urgent question from Labour’s Yvette Cooper on child refugees. Yesterday the said the government was considering taking 3,000 unaccompanied child refugees. He says UNHCR generally says it is best for child refugees to remain in the region where they are. But the prime minister has said that the government will consider taking more child refugees into the UK. When that work is complete, ministers will announce their decision. Gauke says there are no sweetheart deals. HMRC does not conduct sweetheart deals, he says. Labour’s Andrew Gwynne says we are talking about firms, not individuals. So confidentiality does not apply. How much does Google owe? Gauke says confidentiality has been part of the tax system for years. If Britain abandoned that, it would be a less attractive place for companies to operate from. Nigel Mills, a Conservative, asks if the government will make firms publish their tax returns. Gauke says the UK has much the same approach to tax confidentiality as other countries. Labour’s Valerie Vaz asks what Google’s theoretical tax liability is. Gauke says Google is subject to the same standard rate as everyone else. Labour’s Helen Jones says this deal is just “an encouragement to tax avoidance”. Gauke says HMRC were working on this for a number of years. They are now satisfied with what they have seen. Gauke says there is nothing to suggest that there was anything other than proper enforcement of the law that led to this deal. Labour’s Diana Johnson says, if Gauke is saying this deal is not about Google paying a 3% tax rate, what rate were they paying? Gauke says he cannot. He was making the point that people were making newspaper calculations based on sales, not profits. Matt Warman, a Conservative, says as a journalist he used to write stories about Google and tax. Has any other country offered Google such a generous deal? Gauke says he is not aware of any other country coming to a deal like this yet. Greg Mulholland, the Lib Dem MP, says if small firms did not pay their tax, they would be sitting down with the police. He says HMRC provides a very poor service. Gauke says HMRC’s service is getting better. There should be fairness to every taxpayer, he says. Labour’s Alison McGovern says small businesses in her constituency have been queuing up to complain about the sweetheart deals for big business. Will he meet her to discuss this problem. Gauke says, as it’s her, he will. Labour’s Chris Matheson says the Conservatives have form on giving “mates’ rates” to banks, hedge funds and big globalised corporations over tax. Gauke says in the last parliament the government increased the tax on banks and hedge funds. Labour’s Wes Streeting says people filling in their tax returns now won’t have the luxury of being able to strike this kind of sweetheart deal with HMRC. Gauke says the claims about sweetheart deals are an insult to HMRC. Mark Field, a Conservative, asks if this deal sets a precedent, or if it is just a one-off. Gauke says an individual deal depends on the facts of the case. But companies are looking at their tax arrangement, and there is a better alignment between tax and economic business. Labour’s Dennis Skinner asks why Italy demanded £1bn from Google, but Britain settled for £130m. Gauke says there is a difference between putting in a claim, and coming to a settlement in accordance with the law. Mark Garnier, a Conservative, asks if Google broke any laws between 2005 and 2011. Gauke says he cannot comment on that. He is not privy to information not in the public domain. Labour’s Caroline Flint says George Osborne said before the election that he would not tolerate big companies avoiding tax. Experts say Google should be paying £2bn, not £130m. This is from the tax campaigner Richard Murphy. Andrew Tyrie, the Conservative chair of the Treasury committee, says his committee is holding an inquiry looking at the corporate tax base. Does Gauke agree that fundamental reform of the corporate tax base probably needs to be considered? Gauke says the government encouraged the OECD to set up the base erosion and profit shifting project to consider this issue. John McDonnell says it was disrespectful of George Osborne to announce this deal by means of a tweet over the weekend without coming to the Commons to make a statement. He praises all those who have campaigned for tax justice. And he says that Google has achieved the feat of uniting him, the Sun newspaper, the mayor of London and even Number 10, according to today’s report, in saying this is not a “major success”. He urged the government to stop cutting jobs at HMRC. Gauke said jobs were not being cut at HMRC. David Gauke, the Treasury minister, is replying. He says the government has taken the lead in getting companies to pay their fair share of tax. It introduced the diverted profits tax, and it invested in HMRC to help them focus on compliance. They have got another £38bn from big business. The government has cut taxes, he says. But is is making sure taxes are paid. This is action that Labour did not take. The Google statement is “solid evidence” that firms are changing their practices, he says. He says corporation tax is charged on profits, not turnover. It is not based on sales in the UK, but on economic activity and assets in the UK. For example, if a car company made cars here but sold them in the US, they would be taxed here, for where the cars were made, not where they were sold. John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, asks for a statement on the tax settlement reached with Google. George Osborne, the chancellor, has paid tribute to Cecil Parkinson. And so has William Hague, the former Conservative leader. Cecil Parkinson was Conservative party chairman at the time of the 1983 general election victory and at that point was Margaret Thatcher’s preferred successor. According to Charles Moore’s excellent biography (the second volume came out last year, covering this period) she called him in shortly before the election and offered to make him foreign secretary, with a view to him becoming chancellor a few years later. It was at that point that he told her that he had a mistress, Sara Keays, who was expecting a child. Thatcher, who was surprisingly liberal on these matters, dismissed this as a problem, and (according to the Moore book) said something about how Anthony Eden was a notorious womaniser. But Parkinson realised that it would be a mistake for him to take the high-profile post of foreign secretary, and instead became trade secretary after the election. His assessment of his prospects of staying in office in the light of his affair was more realistic than Thatcher’s and later that year he resigned, after Keays went public with a claim that Parkinson had gone back on a promise to marry her. Parkinson returned to office later in the Thatcher years, but in relatively low-profile posts (energy and transport) and he left the cabinet when Thatcher stood down. The list of people in British politics who can say that at one point they were the clear favourite as next prime minister is a relatively short one, but Parkinson is on it. Cecil Parkinson has died, the Press Association has announced. Former Tory minister Lord Cecil Parkinson has died after a long battle with cancer, his family has announced. Downing Street has distanced itself from George Osborne’s claim at the weekend that the £130m deal with Google on tax was a “major success”. At the Number 10 lobby briefing, the prime minister’s spokewoman gave it a more qualified welcome. Osborne also seems to have toned down his language, describing it as “good news” in a clip for the BBC. John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, is asking an urgent question on the matter in the Commons at 3.30pm. Lord Rose, chair of Britain Stronger in Europe, has urged David Cameron to call an early referendum on the UK’s membership of the EU. At an event to publicise new claims about the value of the single market to the UK, he said: We will be ready for any eventuality. Once we have a deal, whenever that deal might be, let’s assume it is in February, why would you want to wait? I think there is enough time to get the information out, to get the facts out, to have a healthy debate. Why would you want to wait? Unilever, the consumer goods group behind Persil and Magnum ice-creams, has said it will not scale back its UK operations if Britain votes to leave the EU. Jeremy Corbyn has said refugees at camps in Calais and Dunkirk should be allowed to come to Britain if they have a clear family connection to the country. Corbyn has said that the Labour party is making progress under his leadership and that it is “getting on fine”. ITV’s Robert Peston has published the full text of a report compiled by the pollster Deborah Mattinson for the party into why it lost the election. MPs from across the political spectrum have called on the government to reinstate a fund to help disabled people stand for elected office before May’s local and regional elections. George Osborne, the chancellor, has been talking more about the Google tax deal. He said that it was “good news” that Google was paying tax and that this did not happen under Labour. So if Labour are complaining about it, he said, “they should have done something about it when they were in office”. Rachel Reeves, the former shadow work and pensions secretary, was on the Daily Politics earlier. She said Labour should not be wasting time talking about issues like Trident and the Falklands. According to the BBC, she said: The longer we spend debating these internal issues about how we select the leader, Trident, the Falklands, the less time we’re spending debating things that really matter to people... That is a dereliction of duty as our duty as an opposition party should be holding the government to account and setting out an alternative agenda. She said that Jeremy Corbyn had been successful at attracting new members to Labour. But he had to translate that into success on the doorstep, she said. It’s not been a great day for Lord Rose. As the Press Association reports, in another interview today he forgot the name of the pro EU-membership campaign that he chairs. The chairman of the main group campaigning to keep the UK in the European Union fluffed his lines as he failed four times to get the organisation’s name right. Lord Rose failed to correctly say he was leading the Britain Stronger In Europe campaign, eventually settling on the “Better Stay in Britain Campaign”. The former Marks & Spencer boss first said he was chairman of online grocer Ocado before realising he was being grilled about the EU campaign rather than his business experience. Asked to identify himself at the start of a Sky News interview, he said: “Stuart Rose and I’m the chairman of Ocado, I’m chairman of - sorry - of Stay in Britain, Better in Britain campaign.” Realising his mistake and laughing, he said: “Right, start again.” Having a second attempt at getting the organisation right during the interview at the Brompton cycles factory in west London, Lord Rose again failed to correctly name the group. “Stuart Rose and I’m the chairman of the Better in Britain campaign, Better Stay in Britain campaign.” The name of the Britain Stronger in Europe organisation has been sent up by rival Eurosceptic groups, who have chosen to refer to it by the acronym BSE - a reminder of the difficulties with Brussels over the “Mad Cow Disease” outbreak. David Gauke, the financial secretary to the Treasury, will be responding to John McDonnell’s urgent question on Google, the Treasury says. In his Telegraph column Boris Johnson, the Conservative MP and mayor of London, suggests that George Osborne should be doing more to get firms like Google to pay tax in the UK. Here is an excerpt. The Irish decided they wanted to go for an ultra-low corporation tax, at 12.5 per cent. It was their sovereign ambition to attract the HQ of Apple and others. They wanted Irish taxi drivers to have the honour of ferrying Apple executives around, and they wanted Irish waitresses to snaffle their huge tips. The EU commission is partly excited by the chance to bash a corporate American giant; but mainly it is a chance to attack tax arbitrage between member states – to move ever closer towards uniformity and away from a spirit of healthy competition between jurisdictions. We need that competition. We need the Irish to be able to do their own thing. Otherwise business tax rates would simply rise in lockstep across Europe. We should be resisting the commission’s approach, and we should recognise that the fault in the whole affair lies with our national arrangements – our own system for not getting a fair whack from the tech giants. After years of Labour inertia, George Osborne has made progress. The Google payback is a start. We now need to go further. We want, need and deserve these companies somehow to pay more tax in the UK. But the problem does not lie with the firms, or the Irish government, and it certainly should not need Brussels to sort it out. And this is from the Labour MP Wes Streeting, accusing George Osborne of being “breathtakingly complacent” over Google. Here is Tim Loughton, the Conservative former children’s minister, on the Google tax repayment on the Daily Politics. We are getting a Commons urgent question on the Google tax deal. John McDonnell,the shadow chancellor, has secured it. Here are the main points from the Number 10 lobby briefing. Downing Street did not endorse George Osborne’s claim that the Google tax deal was “a major success”. Osborne used the phrase at the weekend after the £130m tax back payment was announced. The prime minister’s spokeswoman was repeatedly asked if David Cameron also saw this as a “major success”, and she repeatedly declined to use that phrase. Instead she described it as a “step forward” and a “positive step”. She said that this announcement was a consequence of the work done by the government to ensure multination companies paid their tax. Asked if it was enough, she replied: Clearly, there is more for the government to do to make sure that multinational companies pay their tax. The assessments of this are made by HMRC. Number 10 distanced itself from Lord Rose’s claim that David Cameron was trying to bring EU migration to a “standstill” through his renegotation. The prime minister’s spokeswoman said Cameron was looking for ways of “better controlling” migration from the EU, but refused to accept that getting a “standstill” was part of the plan. Asked if Rose was wrong about the renegotiation intentions, she said: “It is for Lord Rose to set out his views.” The spokeswoman said that Cameron believed “you can be British, European and Eurosceptic” all at the same time. She was responding to a question about whether Cameron’s claim in an interview with French TV last week that he feels deeply European contradicted his claim to be a Eurosceptic. The spokeswoman said the government would make its statement about whether it will admit 3,000 unaccompanied migrant children into the UK next month. The spokeswoman played down suggestions from Patrick McLoughlin, the transport secretary, last week that the EU referendum could lead to a further delay in the decision about a third runway at Heathrow. These were “two separate issues”, she said. She said that government had already set out the work that needed to be done before a decision could be taken (an assessment of the air pollution impact, primarily) and that that work should be finished by the summer. The spokeswoman brushed aside Nicola Sturgeon’s claim that holding the EU referendum in June would be a mistake. The process for deciding the date was set out in the Referendum Act, she said Downing Street said officials were examining the latest propaganda video that appears to come from Islamic State. It was a terrorist group that is “clearly declining and in retreat,” the prime minister’s spokeswoman said. George Osborne, the chancellor, has announced the government is spending £500m a year over the next five years on the fight against malaria. Sajid Javid, the business secretary, is today visiting the Airbnb HQ in London to mark the fact the firm has had its four millionth UK customer. Asked if this meant that the government endorsed the firm, the prime minister’s spokeswoman said the visit was about supporting business. Nick Boles, the skills minister, has announced plans to ensure apprentices make up more than 2.3% of the workforce in public bodies in England. I’m back from the Number 10 lobby briefing. I will post a summary shortly. In the meantime, here is Jeremy Corbyn’s full quote when asked about the state of the Labour party on ITV’s This Morning. I am doing my very best to present politics in a human way, to also campaign for Labour to win the general election in 2020. Party members are very happy. I spend a lot of time travelling round the country campaigning and I have the most fascinating debates you have ever heard in your life with some of my colleagues in parliament but we are getting on fine. We have defeated the government on tax credits, we defeated them on police cuts, we defeated them on that appalling idea of running Saudi Arabia’s prisons on behalf of its royal family. We are making progress as a party, don’t worry about that. Everybody’s getting along just fine. Jeremy Corbyn has been on ITV’s This Morning, talking mostly about refugees. (He visited Calais on Saturday.) Here are the main points. Corbyn said that Britain should take in more refugees. He said refugees with a connection to the UK should get priority. He criticised the French police for their treatment of refugees in Calais. He said everyone in the Labour party was “getting on just fine” under his leadership. I’m off to the Number 10 lobby briefing now. I will post again after 11.30am. And here is some Twitter comment on Lord Rose’s interview. From PoliticsHome’s Kevin Schofield From Bloomberg’s Robert Hutton From the academic Matthew Goodwin and the Telegraph’s Peter Foster From the Daily Mail’s Tim Sculthorpe I suppose we should call it the “business leader fallacy”. It is the assumption that, if you are running a political campaign, a successful business leader will make a better figurehead than a politician because businessmen and women are more trusted. It’s true. They are. (Just look at the recent Ipsos MORI veracity index.) And clergymen are trusted more than plumbers. But you wouldn’t ask the vicar to fix your toilet. Likewise, leading a national campaign is politics and it requires a skill set most likely to be acquired by doing this stuff for a living. Lord Rose is heading the Britain Stronger in Europe campaign and he was given a big slot on the Today programme this morning. And he was actually rather poor. It wasn’t that he made any horrendous gaffes; it is just that he failed to project a big message very clearly, he did not deflect the difficult questions very easily, and at time he fell into the trap of of making glib, unsubstantiated generalisations. (See 9.22am.) In Downing Street they will have listened to the interview with some concern, although the one consolation they have is that, as soon as David Cameron’s EU renegotiation is over, Cameron himself will become the de facto leader of Britain Stronger in Europe. Here are the key points from the interviews. Rose claimed that Cameron was trying to negotiate a “standstill” on EU renegotiation. (See 9.22am.) He claimed that research showed that Britain’s trade with the EU was 55% higher than it otherwise would be because of membership of the single market. This was equivalent to £133bn in trade, he said. He said that leaving the EU would be a risk. I’m a bit of a Eurosceptic myself. I understand the imperfections of Europe. I’ve traded in Europe. There are imperfections, but by and large it serves us well. But what we don’t know is: what are we exchanging it for? The reality of what we’ve got today against the risk of what we might not have tomorrow ... Do we want to sacrifice the imperfect reality that we have today for the risk of tomorrow? He said that if Britain left the EU, it would immediately have to start paying tariffs to trade with EU countries. He conceded that trade deals might be negotiated, but he said tariffs would apply in the meantime. As soon as we came out of the single market, new tariffs would be put upon us until we negotiated new deals on a bilateral arrangement with every country that we had to do deals with. He defended a contentious claim that being in the EU is worth £3,000 to every household. Rose repeated this claim recently in an article in the Sun. When Webb said this claim had been rubbished by the Channel 4 FactCheck blog, Rose refused to withdraw it. He said it has been quoted only yesterday by the CBI. It was quoted yesterday by Paul Drechsler who is the president of the CBI. The CBI is a reputable organisation. They represent British industry and they wouldn’t be putting out numbers if they didn’t feel there was some veracity to those numbers and so I won’t withdraw that number. We know it costs us some £340 for every individual to be a member of the EU; we say there’s a £3,000 benefit coming back the other way for every member who is in the EU ... I am going to let the statisticians argue amongst themselves. Here’s an extract from what the Channel 4 FactCheck blog said about this. So should we take this claim that EU membership boosts GDP by up to 5 per cent seriously? We think not. It’s way more optimistic than most other estimates, and we can’t don’t really know how the CBI researchers have arrived at this figure. He refused to say what proportion of Britain Stronger in Europe’s funding came from big banks. But he insisted that the group had wide-ranging support, not just from the City. First of all we are cross party and our membership comes from the people who represent student unions, represent universities, represent trade unions represent the Labour party and the Liberal party ... We get contributions on a daily basis, small, medium and large contributions. Rose was being interviewed by Justin Webb, and Webb made a very good point when he said that, with the rival camps throwing out conflicting statistics, the EU referendum debate was going to end up like the “first world war trenches”, with both sides fighting each other to a standstill. Webb told Rose: The risk is, for you, is that all the facts that you come out with will be countered by other people’s facts and we will get into a morass of debate about facts of figures, all of them supposition - because we don’t actually know what the picture would be like after we voted to leave. Webb also said that Today would be interviewing a leader from the Out camp tomorrow. But given that there are now three big rival Out campaigns, it will not be easy for them deciding who to have on. Lord Rose, the former Marks & Spencer chief executive who new chairs Britain Stronger in Europe, the lead campaign urging people to vote to remain in the EU, was on the Today programme. Britain Stronger in Europe is releasing new figures today about the value of the single market to the UK, but it was a wide-ranging interview that covered many aspects of the EU referendum debate and the most interesting section was on immigration. Rose argued that immigration was going to remain a problem whether Britain stayed in the EU or not. We are trying to concentrate on the facts ... we are trying to give hard facts to the UK population ... Migration is hard facts but migration is one of the great things that is happening in the world today. It’s an event or it is a phenomenon worldwide which is not just a UK issue, it’s a worldwide issue. Politicians are going to have to grapple with that. Immigration isn’t going to go away if we were outside the EU. This is something we have got to deal with. Its a crisis, it’s a European crisis and it’s a world crisis. And it’s a terrifying crisis. When it was put to him that if Britain left the EU, it would have the proper control over immigration, he at first said that was the case already. We do decide, effectively [who enters UK], because we are not part of the Schengen agreement ... Then, when Today’s Justin Webb said being in the EU meant Britain could not exclude EU migrants, Rose accepted that. That is irrefutable – if we are in the EU, and we are part of that club, people with an EU passport can come here. Equally, those UK citizens who want to go to the EU can also do the same, so it’s a quid pro quo. But then he went on to claim that David Cameron was trying to negotiate “some sort of standstill” on EU migration. Now, what the prime minister is trying to do is negotiate some sort of standstill on that, if possible. I don’t know what’s in the prime minister’s mind. I don’t know what he will negotiate. But I do support him in his efforts, and let’s see what comes out. That was striking because it is not what Cameron has said. He wants the UK to be allowed to stop EU migrants getting in-work benefits for four years because he thinks that will make coming to Britain to work less attractive, but he has never claimed this would bring EU migration to “a standstill”. This is from the Financial Times’s Gideon Rachman. On balance, it probably wasn’t a great interview. I will post more from it later. Here is the agenda for the day. 9.30am: Britain Stronger in Europe publishes research about the value of the single market to the EU. 10am: Dominic Grieve, the former attorney general, and others give evidence to the Freedom of Information Commission. 11am: Number 10 lobby briefing. 11.30am: John Swinney, Scotland’s finance minister, gives evidence to the Scottish affairs committee at a hearing in Perth. 3pm: Peers begin a debate on the welfare reform bill. At some point there will be a vote on a Labour bid to stop the government abolishing income-related child poverty targets. 3.30pm: David Cameron holds a press conference in Downing Street with Enda Kenny, the Irish Taoiseach. As usual, I will also be covering breaking political news as it happens, as well as bringing you the best reaction, comment and analysis from the web. I will post a summary at lunchtime and another in the afternoon. If you want to follow me or contact me on Twitter, I’m on @AndrewSparrow. I try to monitor the comments BTL but normally I find it impossible to read them all. If you have a direct question, do include “Andrew” in it somewhere and I’m more likely to find it. I do try to answer direct questions, although sometimes I miss them or don’t have time. Alternatively you could post a question to me on Twitter.
It's oh so cultural: the sharpest sounds of autumn 2016 Björk Digital A digitally decadent celebration of Björk’s 20-year career arrives in the capital this September. Incorporating performance, film and installations, the exhibition explores the extensive output created by the Icelandic artist, whose boundary-pushing projects are always driven by a fascination with nature, technology, sex and heartache. The exhibition will feature previously unseen work and interactive displays – including her 360-degree virtual-reality video for Stonemilker, in which the audience come face to face with the musician on a stormy-skied beach. Midway through the run come two London shows, at the Royal Albert Hall on 21 September and Hammersmith Apollo on 24 September. •1 September to 23 October, Somerset House, London. Jack White: Acoustic Recordings 1998-2016 Fresh from launching a vinyl record into space, Jack White compiles a self-explanatory career-spanning selection that points up his oeuvre’s debt to traditional American music, including a previously unreleased White Stripes track, solo material, tracks by the Raconteurs, his contributions to the soundtrack of Cold Mountain and a song he wrote for a Coca-Cola advert. It’s available on CD and vinyl, but there should be an option for the committed fan, whereby a medicine show parks its wagon outside your house and an itinerant musician called Peg Leg Sam sings it all to you. •9 September, Third Man Records/XL. MIA: AIM MIA’s recorded output has been of variable quality in recent years, but it’s never less than interesting. Looking at the supporting cast she has assembled for her fifth album, there seems no reason to doubt AIM is going to be interesting as well: Zayn Malik of One Direction has been drawn into the fold, alongside Skrillex, long-term sideman Diplo and Kanye West collaborator Hit-Boy. But ultimately, it’s about her: as evidenced by the handful of tracks she’s already teased, there is still no one that sounds remotely like her. •9 September, Polydor. Billy Joel It’s years – decades – since Billy Joel appeared in the upper echelons of the charts, but he’s spent the time diligently presenting himself as the hardest-working arena rocker in the world. For the past three years, he has played once a month at the 18,000-capacity Madison Square Garden in New York. Now he’s proving his appeal still crosses the Atlantic, with a sellout stadium show at Wembley stadium. •10 September, Wembley stadium, London. London jazz festival The 24th London jazz festival brings a ten-day cavalcade of jazz music’s risen and rising stars in November. Saxophone master Wayne Shorter, also one of jazz’s great composers, appears with his empathic quartet, Madeleine Peyroux pays tribute to songwriters from Sister Rosetta Tharpe to Tom Waits and Robert Glasper, Joshua Redman with Brad Mehldau, Tord Gustavsen, Andy Sheppard celebrating Gil Evans, and vocal innovator Norma Winstone celebrating her 75th, are just a few of the tantalising prospects on the 300-gig bill. •11-20 November, Various venues. The Hyundai Mercury prize In recent years, the Mercury prize shortlist has shown a weird propensity to make the British music scenes that it’s supposed to represent look substantially less vibrant than they are, which may be one of the reasons public interest seems to have declined. This year, the shortlist is hard to pick holes in: it’s musically broader and more diverse than before, the stuff that’s on it is of an unerringly high quality. At the time of writing, David Bowie’s Blackstar is bookies’ favourite, but the bookies are notoriously bad at picking Mercury winners: frankly, the field looks completely open. •15 September, 9pm, BBC4. Afropunk festival A longstanding summer fixture in Brooklyn, “the most multicultural festival in the US” arrives in London for a day. The lineup at the main event in Alexandra Palace is impressively diverse, with Grace Jones, Laura Mvula, Lady Leshurr, MNEK, metal-influenced rappers HO99o9, punk trio Skinny Girl Diet, Young Fathers, Benjamin Booker and acclaimed heavy-psych rockers Vodun among the acts. Plus there are other events planned elsewhere in the capital, including a comedy show, film screenings and club nights. •24 September, Alexandra Palace, London. Bruce Springsteen: Born to Run The Boss has been writing his autobiography since 2009, and the hope has to be that rock’s great communicator will be a little less obtuse than his fellow greats Bob Dylan and Neil Young were in their own memoirs, just as his own shows tend to be rather more straightforwardly celebratory than theirs. In his foreword to the book, Springsteen has promised it will answer two questions he’s often asked: how and why he does what he does. •27 September, Simon & Schuster. Bon Iver: 22, a Million The third Bon Iver album seems a long way indeed from Justin Vernon recording For Emma, Forever Ago alone in a cabin in Wisconsin. It arrives wrapped in “symbol-rich” album artwork, bearing track titles inspired by the alternative alphabet, leet: best of luck shouting out for 10 d E A T h b R E a s T ⚄ ⚄ at a forthcoming gig. The first two tracks released to the internet pitched avant-garde electronics against harmony vocals. •30 September, Jagjaguwar. Pixies: Head Carrier The first album by Pixies since they reunited, 2014’s Indie Cindy, met with a slightly underwhelming critical response. Yet it seems to have reinvigorated the band – now with Paz Lenchantin taking over Kim Deal’s role as bassist and supplier of contrasting female vocals – who are rolling out a whole new album rather than packaging together three EPs, as they did for Indie Cindy. •30 September, Pias. Jean-Michel Jarre Until this summer, the electronic pioneer hadn’t played live in the UK for five years: following a handful of festival appearances, he takes to the arenas in support of his two-volume album of collaborations, Electronica. His performances might be scaled down a little from the days when every live event he played seemed to attract record-breaking crowds, but judging by the videos of his appearances at Sónar and Bluedot earlier this summer, his show is still a pretty spectacular son-et-lumière event. •UK tour starts at Cardiff Motorpoint Arena on 4 October, runs till till 14 October. Flit Fresh from at its acclaimed Edinburgh festival premiere, Martin Green’s powerful and affecting new show tells stories of migration through songs and striking animation (created by Bafta-winning duo whiterobot). Green’s musical collaborators include Anais Mitchell and Aidan Moffat, and his band is fronted by Adam Holmes and Becky Unthank. It’s part folk-opera, part installation, part gig and part theatre piece. •UK tour starts at Cambridge Junction on 22 Octover, and runs until 2 November. Mykki Blanco The last time the reviewed a Mykki Blanco show, it was certainly an experience. Blanco wore a padded bra, fed grapes to the crowd and partook in some stylish vogueing. The California-born rapper is one of several artists who have spent the past few years challenging hip-hop norms, bringing queer politics and drag culture to a genre not always welcoming of the LGBT community, while transforming venues into sweaty, heaving masses at the same time. This tour coincides with the release of debut album proper, Mykki. •UK tour starts at Patterns, Brighton, 4 October, runs till 8 October. Saint Etienne It’s the last chance for middle-aged former ravers-cum-continental sophisticates to relive their halcyon days, when Saint Etienne perform their debut album, Foxbase Alpha, in full for what is, apparently, the final time. Its melange of samples, melodies, and simultaneous futurism and nostalgia still sounds like a unique contribution to British pop culture. •5 October, Heaven, London. Kate Tempest: Let Them Eat Chaos With a novel, several plays and the odd poetry prize all fighting for page space on her CV, you wonder quite how Kate Tempest found time to make another hip-hop record. Yet Let Them Eat Chaos is just that, the follow-up to 2014’s Mercury-nominated Everybody Down. Like the south Londoner’s debut, Let Them Eat Chaos is produced by Dan Carey and promises more dazzling wordplay, a dash of politics and the odd 10/10 song title – Ketamine for Breakfast is our current favourite. •7 October, Fiction. Mø Karen Marie Ørsted’s leftfield synthpop always put her slightly on the artier side of many of her Scandipop peers, but recent work like Final Song and Major Lazer collaboration Lean On – the most streamed track in Spotify’s history – suggests she’s embracing a more mainstream sound. This tour will reveal what big pop tricks the Danish singer learned while playing to huge crowds with Diplo and co. •UK tour starts at Brighton Concorde 2 on 11 October, runs till 22 October. Arab Strap In the mood for an hour and a bit of a bloke telling you, lyrically, about how bloody awful things are? Aidan Moffat and Malcolm Middleton have reunited for four shows this autumn, and it’s hugely unlikely they will have transformed into party-hearty dude rockers. Think of them instead as the Sleaford Mods for people who want to hear instruments and singing, instead of beats and shouting. •Touring UK 13-16 October. Chucho Valdes/Joe Lovano Quintet Two giants of today’s jazz – both awesome instrumentalists, and artists who can’t help thinking outside the box – are the American saxophonist Joe Lovano, and Cuban pianist Chucho Valdes. Lovano has enthrallingly built on a jazz-sax legacy running from Charlie Parker to Ornette Coleman and Wayne Shorter; Valdes stunningly fuses jazz and classical techniques, and put the Cuban jazz scene on the world map in the 1970s with his groundbreaking Irakere band. The pair join forces in this new quintet fuelled by Cuba’s vivid rhythms. •20-21 October, Ronnie Scott’s, London. Lady Leshurr Not many rap shows double up as personal-hygiene classes, but Lady Leshurr likes to do things differently – her punchline-loaded freestyles covering most aspects of grooming etiquette, from reminders to “change your panties” to lessons on fighting bad breath (“I can’t believe the cheek / Some girls wake up and don’t even brush their teeth!”). The exciting Birmingham MC will no doubt bring bags of energy and charisma to these dates – along with her freshmint toothpaste. •UK tour starts at Bestival, Isle of Wight, 8-11 September, runs till 30 October. Tove Lo: Lady Wood The title does not, as the innocently minded might assume, relate to a female-friendly forestry club. Instead, Swedish pop star Tove Lo has written her second album about empowerment, bravery and, most importantly, the “female hard-on” – subjects elevated by booming, synthetic sounds and delivered with the same candid storytelling that defined her platinum-selling debut, Queen of the Clouds. Hedonistic, honest, hybridised pop – the very epitome of modern chart music. •28 October, Polydor. Pink Floyd: The Early Years There was a time when Pink Floyd appeared to be displaying their traditional English reserve when it came to the matter of trawling the vaults for unreleased material: their peers did it, they did not. They’re certainly making up for that now: here are 27 CDs and Blu-ray discs, containing pretty much everything a Floyd obsessive might want to hear or see from the years before The Dark Side of the Moon. Most attention is bound to be attracted by the previously unreleased recordings from the Syd Barrett era, but the whole thing looks like a fascinating treasure trove for diehard fans. •11 November, Pink Floyd Records. Chance the Rapper Thus far, 2016 has proved quite a year for Chancelor Bennett. He co-wrote four tracks on Kanye West’s The Life of Pablo – West held him to be responsible for the delays in the album’s release – while his third mixtape Coloring Book, a noticeably more coherent record than West’s, became the first album in US history to chart on streams alone; furthermore, its Top 10 success forced America’s Recording Academy to change the rules of the Grammy awards to make streaming-only releases eligible for nomination. He plays three UK shows. •At Manchester Academy, 19 & 26 November; Brixton Academy, London, 20 & 22 November. Laura Jane Grace: Tranny: Confessions of Punk Rock’s Most Infamous Anarchist Sellout A brilliant deviation from the average rockstar narrative of tour excess and indulgence, Against Me! founder and frontwoman Laura Jane Grace’s memoir tells the story of the punk artist’s musical ventures and struggles with identity and addiction. Written with Noisey editor Dan Ozzi, Tranny: Confessions of Punk Rock’s Most Infamous Anarchist Sellout draws from the pages of journal entries Grace has kept since her childhood, beginning with her upbringing in Georgia, and documenting her experience of dysphoria, coming out as transgender in 2012, and other seismic life events, all of which have been channelled through her music. •24 November, Hachette Books.
Tony Visconti apologises to Adele after suggesting her voice is manipulated Tony Visconti, David Bowie’s longtime producer, has apologised for negative comments he made about Adele’s voice. Last week, the producer suggested that the singer’s vocals might have been digitally enhanced. “You turn the radio on and it’s fluff, you are listening to 90% computerised voices,” Visconti told The Daily Star on 8 June. “We know Adele has a great voice but it’s even questionable if that is actually her voice or how much has been manipulated. We don’t know.” Visconti – who is currently promoting the new TV talent show Guitar Star, in which he hopes to find “virtuosos like Hendrix, Cobain and Bowie” – has since told Billboard that his comments were not meant to be spiteful. “I’m sorry that what I said in regards to what’s being played on radio was misconstrued yet I cannot apologise for something taken the wrong way,” he said. “If Adele has taken my comments as offensive that was certainly not my intent.” He added: “Adele has a great voice and it brings pleasure to millions.” Since his original comment, the story had already reached Adele herself. During a gig at Paris’s Accor Hotels Arena, the singer is captured stating: “Some dickhead tried to say that my voice was not me on record … Dude, suck my dick.”
Budget 2016 – the winners and losers Who got a delicious (sugary) Easter bunny treat from the chancellor’s hat in the budget? And who is losing out? These are the winners and losers in the policies and promises announced by George Osborne. Winners Hairdressers in Leeds and newsagents in Nuneaton For the nation of shopkeepers, the threshold for relief from small business rates will increase from £6,000 to £15,000, which pulls 600,000 small businesses out from paying the hugely unpopular tax from April. Owners of small shops had often argued that the rates disadvantaged high-street sellers, when online retailers didn’t pay at all. Speaking of which ... Airbnb and eBay-ers The chancellor will give Britons £1,000 tax free for the products or services they sell online, including renting their home. In practice, that could be a boon for short-term landlords. Jamie Oliver The outspoken celebrity chef had campaigned for a sugar tax for years, and just when he thought it was over, Osborne did something ever so sweet – bringing in a tax on sugary soft drinks in the form of a two-part levy on companies, to be introduced in two years’ time. Pure fruit juice will be exempted. The £520m to be raised from the tax will be used to fund school sports and longer school days. Pubs The chancellor is freezing duty on beer, cider and whisky. But the popularity of this move with voters might plummet unless he can teach the prime minister how to drink a pint properly (let it settle!). Heirs and tycoons Capital gains tax on investment will be cut from 28% to 20% in three weeks’ time, apart from on property which remains the same. Labour’s Chris Leslie remarked: “Lots of very wealthy people will be delighted with this massive giveaway.” Commuters Osborne confirmed plans to go ahead with HS3, the high-speed rail line across the Pennines, and also confirmed that the Crossrail 2 project will be commissioned, running north to south through London. Drivers, particularly Welsh ones The chancellor had reportedly been mulling a fuel duty rise but has clearly thought better of it, perhaps on the advice of his close adviser Robert Halfon, who has campaigned on petrol prices. Fuel duty is frozen for a sixth consecutive year, saving the average driver £75 annually at the petrol pump. Welsh drivers get an added bonus – Osborne will slice the price of the £6.60 toll to cross the Severn Bridge in half. Flood-hit communities The government has been heavily criticised for the lamentably poor funding of flood defences, which have been blamed for the flood crisis over the winter. So the chancellor has ramped up the spending with a £700m increase for flood defences. But – and it’s a big but – those paying a hefty insurance premium for their flood-hit homes and businesses will also suffer a a 0.5% increase in insurance premium tax to 10%. Losers Economists The budget shows what a difficult job this is, and how often predictions are completely wrong. The Office for Budget Responsibility has made significant downgrades to its predictions for growth for each year until 2020. New output forecasts also show Osborne has missed his target of starting to cut the national debt this financial year, delayed until 2017-18. Low-paid millennials If you’re not earning enough to save, there’s not much here for you. Osborne has announced incentives for saving that he said would “put the next generation first” – an increase in the ISA limit to £20,000 and a new lifetime ISA for up to £4,000 per year. Not many young people will be happy, apart from those working in the City or with wealthy parents who were angry that they could only save £15,000 in their ISAs. Disabled people The chancellor is aiming for a further £3.5bn to meet his fiscal charter and create a budget surplus in 2020. The government has already signalled there will be £1.2bn of cuts to disability welfare spending. Primary school headteachers All schools become academies, independent of local authorities, a policy widely trailed before the speech that will mostly keenly affect the heads of primary schools, the vast majority of which are not academies. For starters, there are pages of Whitehall bureaucracy to wade through. And small, especially rural, primary schools are likely to prefer a relationship with a local authority rather than central government. Teachers’ unions have called the move privatisation through the back door, and argue that the evidence shows academies do not improve performance with schools “unaccountable to parents, staff or local communities”. Smokers A packet of cigarettes will have a 2% above inflation rise in tobacco duty from 6pm on Wednesday.
Sid and Nancy review – a welcome corrective to bland punk nostalgia Here is Alex Cox’s Beckettian masterpiece about those two prisoners of futility, Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen, rereleased in cinemas after 30 years: a welcome corrective to bland punk nostalgia. His film is tremendously acted by Gary Oldman and Chloe Webb with exactly the right absence of sympathy, although Cox arguably loses his nerve on this score in the film’s dying moments. It is terrifically shot by cinematographer Roger Deakins, who has supervised the restored print. In the 1980s, the London and New York locations hadn’t really changed since the 70s, or even the 50s. Poor, pathetic, self-harming Sid has been left high and dry after the Sex Pistols split, as bewildered as a child, living out his codependent nightmare with Nancy. In brutally extended scenes, Cox persuasively depicts their miserable lives in New York’s Chelsea Hotel, catatonic with boredom, yearning for heroin and the drug of rock celebrity which he had been very briefly fed. There is a great cameo here from Kathy Burke and, almost unbelievably, Courtney Love. Seven years ago, the film-maker Alan G Parker released a documentary entitled Who Killed Nancy? that suggests the couple’s dealer might have murdered her, stolen their cash and pinned the blame on torpid Sid. Maybe so. Both films show that punk camouflaged a lot of undiagnosed dysfunction. John Peel once confessed that when he first saw someone with a safety pin through his nose, it made him think of the young men doing National Service with him 20 years earlier who had to be restrained from mutilating themselves. Gary Oldman’s Sid, screaming with fear in prison, brought to mind Peel’s memory. It’s fascinating to hear the Sex Pistols’ No Feelings again. This film makes me think it’s their most powerful track.
How will we reunite our divided nation, whichever side wins the EU referendum? The EU referendum campaign has taken a very nasty turn, with widespread intimidation. Last week, the rear window of my car was smashed in, for no other reason than it happened to bear a “remain” sticker. The referendum, which was intended to settle the issue once and for all, has polarised the nation in a way it has not been since the issue of Irish home rule in the late 19th century. There is clearly no national consensus, and the nation is divided right down the middle. Whichever side wins, half the nation will be dragged in a direction in which it does not want to go, yet no one appears to have given any thought to what needs to be done to reunite the nation. The situation is politically toxic, and, if not addressed seriously, will lead to dislocation not seen in this country since the Glorious Revolution of 1688. Professor Derek Pheby Harnham, Wiltshire • If Michael Gove is so offended by Nigel Farage’s vile and racist anti-immigration poster (Report, 20 June), why doesn’t he do something about it? After all, he is still the justice secretary. John Murphy Bapchild, Kent • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
Chinese indulge in post-Brexit shopping sprees as pound sinks It has brought misery to millions and warnings that Britain has entered a calamitous tailspin towards a future of recession, isolation and international irrelevance. But in China, consumers have lauded Britain’s decision to quit the EU, taking advantage of the plummeting pound to go on post-Brexit spending sprees for Hermes handbags and Hugo Boss scarfs. “My first thought [after Brexit] was that the Harrods Summer Sale kicks off tomorrow,” one gleeful Chinese ‘leaver’ wrote on Weibo, China’s Twitter. “This means discount after discount!” Chinese newspapers have filled with celebratory column inches in the wake of the 23 June referendum, even as the country’s political leaders mourn the potential loss of their most vocal European cheerleader. In an article headlined “Pound’s depreciation sparks shopping fever”, the Wuhan Morning Post told its readers to look on the bright side of Brexit. “Britain’s exit has caused a devaluation in the pound which means that the same amount of yuan allows you to buy more,” it explained. “A classic Burberry trench coat, for example would have cost you 13,757 yuan before. But on the day of Brexit you could find one for just 12,203 yuan.” Xiaoya Fu, a 25-year-old from Shenzhen, took the advice to heart. She told Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post that one of her first acts after the vote had been to make her way to the Burberry website where coat prices had 9% slumped about to the equivalent of about £995. “The Brexit is good news for me,” she said. Yu Yiran, another happy Chinese shopper, told the Communist party-run Global Times tabloid she was elated by the result. “I am going to buy a Louis Vuitton handbag as soon as possible in case the exchange rate changes again,” the 25-year-old was quoted as saying. Chinese tourists, more than 200,000 of whom visited Britain last year, have also been buoyed by the result of the referendum which caused the pound to fall to its lowest levels in more than thirty years. On the eve of the referendum one pound was worth about 9.65 Chinese yuan, according to the online currency converter XE.com. On Monday its value had fallen to just 8.84 yuan. Ctrip, China’s leading online travel agency, said there had been a 200% spike in searches for British holidays on its booking app, according to a report in the China Youth Daily newspaper. Overseas students also described the collapse of the pound as a boon. Qu Xinyi, a 22-year-old student, who will start a masters degree in journalism at Cardiff University in September said Brexit had helped shave about 20,000 yuan off her tuition fees. UK-bound Chinese students had watched with delight as the referendum results came in and the pound fell through the floor, Qu told the Global Times. “Many of them were cheering as they watched the pound drop.” Additional reporting by Christy Yao
‘Mothers of the Movement’ team with Hillary Clinton in bid for black vote As Hillary Clinton took the stage at a black church in Durham, the congregation rose. Their enthusiasm was not reserved for the Democratic presidential nominee. It was also for the five women who stood beside her. They call themselves the “Mothers of the Movement” and they are bound by the grief of losing a child to gun violence or in encounters with police. In a time of heightened racial tension, they are dedicated to social justice. They are also committed to electing Clinton. Five mothers – Sybrina Fulton, Gwen Carr, Lucia McBath, Geneva Reed-Veal and Maria Hamilton – appeared with Clinton on Sunday, at the Union Baptist Church in Durham and then at an event in Raleigh. Seeking to galvanize the African American vote, they have visited battleground states, imploring those concerned with criminal justice reform to turn advocacy into action. “You have no business staying home in this election,” said Reed-Veal, whose daughter Sandra Bland was found hanged in a jail cell, three days after she was arrested by a Texas state trooper during a traffic stop. “If you decide to stay home, shut your mouth. Do not complain about anything that’s going on, do not talk about your neighborhood, do not talk about your neighbor, do not talk about what’s not going on.” Had such words come from the candidate, some might have taken offense. They were met with applause and scattered cries of “Amen.” The mothers, who Clinton called “extraordinary women”, are driven by memories of children who live on in the Black Lives Matter movement. Hamilton’s son, Dontre, was 31. He was shot 14 times by a white Milwaukee police officer who frisked him while he was asleep on a park bench. The death of Carr’s son, Eric Garner, prompted nationwide protests after a video showed the father of six kept in a chokehold by police officers in New York City, even as he repeatedly told them: “I can’t breathe.” The other mothers’ sons were not killed by law enforcement officers. But the shootings may have been racially motivated. Fulton’s son, Trayvon Martin, was shot and killed after an altercation with a self-appointed neighborhood watch volunteer, George Zimmerman. Martin, 17, was unarmed. McBath’s son, Jordan Davis, was also 17. He was shot at a gas station in 2012, the same year as Martin, in a dispute over loud music. Clinton met the mothers last fall in Chicago, a city plagued by gun violence. They turned out for her in the Democratic primary and spoke at the convention, and they are now working the swing states that will determine the election on 8 November. They have appeared in North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Florida. “They’ve all given me a lot of strength and encouragement. And they said things that I have carried in my heart,” Clinton told churchgoers on Sunday. “Their hearts may be broken, but their souls are shining.” ‘There’s power in the black vote’ Carr said she first avoided Clinton’s staff, but was impressed by her conversation with Clinton when they met last November. Speaking in a church basement in north Philadelphia last month, she said: “There’s power in the black vote.” Clinton holds a formidable lead over Donald Trump among black voters, who turned out in record numbers for Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012. The president and his wife have targeted the same constituency. On Sunday, Clinton’s campaign announced that she would return to North Carolina on Thursday with Michelle Obama – their first joint appearance. Last month, Barack Obama said he would take it as a “personal insult” if black voters did not turn out for Clinton. When Clinton launched her campaign in April 2015, economic issues underpinned her message. But as killings of unarmed African Americans by police and subsequent protests kept race in the national conversation, criminal justice reform became an inescapable election issue. Clinton made it the focus of her first public speech. Calling for an end to mass incarceration, she unveiled reform proposals that now include lowering mandatory minimums for non-violent drug offenders, requiring body cameras for police, and reducing recidivism by pushing employers to remove questions over a job applicant’s criminal history. “If we’re honest with each other,” she said on Sunday, “we know we face the continuing challenge of systemic racism.” Trump has addressed race and policing with his trademark hyperbole. In what his campaign calls outreach, the Republican nominee has painted a dire portrait of many African American lives. “You’re living in poverty, your schools are no good, you have no jobs, 58% of your youth is unemployed,” Trump has said. “What the hell have you got to lose?” While he has acknowledged being troubled by videos showing black men fatally shot by police, Trump’s response has been to declare himself “the law and order candidate” – borrowing a phrase from Richard Nixon’s 1968 campaign. Trump also suggested implementing nationwide stop-and-frisk, a statement he attempted to walk back but which nonetheless supported a New York City policy that was deemed unconstitutional, for racially profiling African Americans and Hispanics. On Sunday, Clinton told churchgoers her opponent failed to see “the vibrancy” of black communities, from business owners to historically black colleges and universities and “the passion of a new generation of young black activists”. “They paint a bleak picture of inner cities and the African American community,” Clinton said, saying Trump and Republicans were “fanning the flames of resentment and division”. Those in the pews murmured and nodded in agreement. To the mothers, it was not enough to simply share Clinton’s view. “We’re here because we need you all to get in action,” Hamilton said. “We’re here to ask North Carolina, ‘Let’s go blue.’” When she took the podium, Reed-Veal pointed at Clinton. “On 9 November,” she said, “there will be a new sheriff in town.” No billionaire owner, no shareholders. Just independent, investigative reporting that fights for the truth, whatever the cost. Why not support it? Become a US member for $49 a year, or make a contribution.
Do these malcontent MPs sniping at Jeremy Corbyn fit in Labour’s big tent? Jo Cox and Neil Coyle “have come to regret” their decision to nominate Jeremy Corbyn for the leadership and realise they must not “sit back and hope for the best” (Opinion, theguardian.com, 6 May). No doubt many Labour party members in Batley and Spen and Bermondsey and Old Southwark have come regret their decision to select them as candidates. Given the barrage of invective from the parliamentary Labour party (PLP), the daily vituperation from the media and the biased BBC, it’s extraordinary that Jeremy Corbyn, Sadiq Khan and their colleagues did so well. With this alliance of malcontent MPs and their media counterparts there is no possibility of the split within the PLP being healed. Indeed, so brazen is their hostility to Corbyn that there is no pretence – they are unambiguous in their determination to replace him expeditiously. But the most important split within the Labour party can be healed – the split between the PLP and the membership. Establishing democracy in the Labour party is simple. It involves the introduction of mandatory reselection of MPs in a timeframe that allows party members to influence policy and create the election manifesto through their democratically elected candidates. Cox and Coyle are right. We must not “sit back and hope for the best” – climate change, the destruction of the NHS and the poverty, misery and deprivation caused by austerity politics are challenges too urgent to leave to many of the PLP with their extraordinary sense of entitlement. David Thacker London • Lyndon B Johnson said it was “better to have him inside the tent pissing out”. Personally I would prefer all the plotters against Corbyn and the democratic Labour party to go and piss somewhere else altogether. How about the Conservative party or Ukip? Kathleen O’Neill Hayling Island, Hampshire • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
Money Monster: the financial thriller that’ll leave you short-changed Money Monster is a thriller made by members of the 10% who truly want to stick it to the 1%. It comes on all Bernie Sanders – it even features a closing quote from Sanders-backer Robert Reich – but really, every frame votes Hillary. Skilfully directed by Jodie Foster – her first outing since she made, rather ill-fatedly, The Beaver with Mel Gibson – and filled with strong performances from Julia Roberts, George Clooney and Jack O’Connell, its main drawback is a screenplay with too many writers that’s a Frankenstein-monster of off-cuts from liberal 1970s classics such as Dog Day Afternoon, Network and Alan J Pakula’s Rollover (and that’s just for starters...). Clooney is Lee Gates, a loudmouth TV stock pundit-cum-shock jock with a razzmatazz-filled live show (bring on the dancing girls!) that’s plainly based on CNBC’s investment tips show Mad Money, hosted by Jim Cramer (last spotted receiving a lengthy and humiliating post-crash tongue-lashing from Jon Stewart on The Daily Show). The movie unfolds in real time – always a problematic gimmick – during a live broadcast that is taken over by disgruntled investor/regular guy Kyle Budwell (played by Jack O’Connell). He waves a gun around and forces Gates into an explosive vest, pending a live-on-TV investigation into a stock pimped by Gates that swallowed all of Budwell’s meagre savings. That sets us up well enough for the movie’s relatively engaging first hour, in which producer Patty Fenn (Julia Roberts) and Gates attempt to track down the elusive CEO (Dominic West) of the company that tanked the stock. So far, so Network, so Dog Day, so what? Foster admittedly does a pretty good job of ratcheting up the suspense. Until the movie’s final third, that is, when O’Connell forces the action out of the studio and on to the streets of New York like some errant rehash of the above-ground portions of The Taking Of Pelham One Two Three, just one of many movies you’ll wish you were watching instead of this one. Money Monster fits snugly, and smugly, into another sub-genre of liberal movies: those produced by Clooney with or without his writing-producing partner Grant Heslov. Our Brand Is Crisis, The Ides Of March, Fail Safe, Argo, Good Night, And Good Luck: all of them looked good in concept but, thanks to their creaky and obvious scripts, none of them really held together for a second viewing. And all of them bow too deeply towards the same overly venerated bunch of Hollywood Renaissance classics without ever scaling the heights they once did. Sell short.
Misconduct review – world-class levels of dreadfulness This baffling legal thriller could be shown in film schools as a textbook example of how not to make a movie. Every decision, be it plot, casting, photography, sound, and probably even catering, is a bad one. Performances, particularly those of Hopkins (corrupt billionaire), Pacino (corrupt lawyer) and Malin Akerman (corrupt billionaire’s unhinged girlfriend), reach world-class levels of set-munching dreadfulness. Director Shimosawa is fond of ominous, slow camera pans that finally come to rest on something innocuous like a fridge. The score is thunderously stupid. And the plot is so tangled that you start to wonder if anyone actually read it before greenlighting the project. A final pivotal shot exemplifies the lack of thought throughout: a key character is confessing to the film’s final big reveal. Unfortunately, she is shot in front of a painting of a bird and framed to give the appearance of a beak growing out of the side of her head. It’s so hilariously inept that it’s almost worth watching.
Donald Trump 'writes angrier and more negative Twitter posts himself' The angrier, more negative tweets from Donald Trump’s Twitter account are mostly written by the presidential candidate himself, while campaign staffers are responsible for the calmer announcements and pictures, according to an analysis by a data scientist. Building on the work of a Twitter user who noticed that the tone of Tweets from @readonaldtrump posted using an Android phone were different to those created using an iPhone, Stack Overflow’s David Robinson concluded that they were the work of very different people. “My analysis ... concludes that the Android and iPhone tweets are clearly from different people, posting during different times of day and using hashtags, links, and retweets in distinct ways,” he wrote in a blog on Tuesday evening. “What’s more, we can see that the Android tweets are angrier and more negative, while the iPhone tweets tend to be benign announcements and pictures. .... this lets us tell the difference between the campaign’s tweets (iPhone) and Trump’s own (Android).” Though the person tweeting from the iPhone regularly tried to mimic the style of the other tweets, negative words such as “badly”, “crazy”, “weak”, and “dumb” were far more likely to come from an Android device. Using sentiment analysis tool, Robinson found that: “Trump’s Android account uses about 40%-80% more words related to disgust, sadness, fear, anger, and other “negative” sentiments than the iPhone account does. (The positive emotions weren’t different to a statistically significant extent).” Trump is known to tweet from a Samsung Galaxy. Another marker indicating Trump is posting from the Android device was his “anachronistic” use of manual retweets, said Robinson. Though the angry and often strangely phrased tweets from Trump’s account have proved controversial, Robinson said he was especially interested in what it must be like to be the anonymous campaign worker attempting to mimic his style. He wrote: “A lot has been written about Trump’s mental state. But I’d really rather get inside the head of this anonymous staffer, whose job is to imitate Trump’s unique cadence (“Very sad!”), or to put a positive spin on it, to millions of followers. “Is he a true believer, or just a cog in a political machine, mixing whatever mainstream appeal he can into the @realDonaldTrump concoction? “
Ma Loute director Bruno Dumont: 'You can’t make a "European film"’ There is, according to one its most heralded practitioners, no such thing as a good “European film”. Speaking at the Cannes film festival, Bruno Dumont, the French director of L’Humanité, Flandres and Hors Satan, refuted the idea that one could or should set out to make films that could be termed “European”. “‘European films’ are really bad,” he told the press after the first screening of his new comedy Ma Loute (Slack Bay). “You make a local film, and that might become universal. You can’t make a ‘European film’”. Ma Loute, which is set in the early 20th, century near Calais, close to Dumont’s birthplace, is a black comedy about the meeting of two families: the Van Peteghems, a bevvy of braying aristocrats, and the Bruforts, a working-class clan of mussel gatherers – with a sideline in murder and cannibalism. The film stars Juliette Binoche as the eccentric Aude van Peteghem, whose transgender child, Billie (played by the French actor Raph), initiates a romance with the title character (Brandon Lavieville), drawing the two tribes together. The film features a number of outrageous set-pieces, including the Bruforts hunkering down to dine on a bucket of body parts and Binoche – cut, bruised and bandaged after a close call with the cannibals – burbling incomprehensibly about the writings of Victor Hugo. Dumont has twice won Cannes’ “second prize”, the Grand Prix. His films typically portray the darkest aspects of humanity, with little room for levity. But he said the experience of working on Ma Loute and his previous film, a knockabout comedy called P’tit Quinquin, had helped him come to appreciate the “noble” arts of comedy and caricature. “I made these characters larger than life so you could really see them well,” he said. “I used to work with a telescope, now I work with a microscope”. “We’re horrible people, but saints at the same time. We’re idiots and geniuses. This combination, these diametric qualities, enthral me”. Fabrice Luchini plays André van Peteghem, the ineffectual, hunch-backed patriarch of the aristocrat family. In one scene the father makes a great show of offering the family aperitifs. Luchini, in referring to the scene, hijacked the press conference to complain about France’s newfound obsession: cocktails. “I hate the way people in France are fascinated by cocktails,” he said. “I hate waiting for dinner. French people are obsessed with this idea of drinking before they eat. I hate it.” After Luchini’s rant the moderator remarked that Luchini was an actor in every situation. “Oh my darling,” said Luchini. “What did you expect?”
Book Depository is coming to Australia – but there's nothing like a local bookshop Head down Brunswick Street in Fitzroy and walk towards the neon lights until you see the words “Totally Weird Shit” on an awning. Walk through the doors and you enter one of the most subversive and strangely delightful bookshops in Australia. Since 1985, Polyester has sold books with a punk sensibility, including a wide range of bizarro Manga comics. But as Brunswick Street goes alternative-lite, making room for artificially distressed cafes and expensive ‘vintage’ clothing stores, Polyester announced this week that it is turning off its neon lights for good. Rents are high, gentrification is rife, and new business models of book distribution continue to disrupt the industry. On Tuesday, Amazon-owned online book retailer the Book Depository announced it was taking its first big step into the Australian market, adding more than 25,000 Australian titles to its inventory, including classic, contemporary, food and educational titles. In a move that was foreshadowed in 2014, the company says it will ship books nationally and internationally from Australia for free, using a third-party logistics company in Melbourne to pack and send orders. Group marketing director of Book Depository, Chris Mckee, explained in a press release: “Previously, we’ve had titles from Australian authors once they become available internationally, and what we’re going to have now are titles from Australian authors that become available when they are available in Australia.” Authors who aren’t represented overseas will now be able to reach an international market, which is great news for those authors and their publishers. Book Depository told Australia that major publishers were on board, and in a media release quoted Natasha Besliev, CEO of Bonnier Publishing’s Australian business: “We’re looking forward to seeing our home-grown books from The Five Mile Press and Echo Publishing available in this way,” she said. But the relationship between local publishers and Book Depository has historically been fraught. In a show of support to the local publishing industry in 2013, Melbourne publisher Affirm Press announced they would not be supplying Australian books to Amazon or Book Depository, whom they said “have little regard for Australian publishers, authors and retailers” and “deliberately and aggressively price other retailers out of the market”. Affirm Press told Australia that they continue to hold this position, and are not among the publishers to have signed a deal with the retail giant. And while some publishers and authors may benefit from the expanded reach, for bookstores and competing online retailers, Book Depository’s move into the Australian market signals increased competition. Australia-based online retailer Booktopia currently has 83% market share of Australian online book sales, shipping four million books a year within Australia for $6.95 a shipment. “Booktopia is the one company in Australia that has truly prospered and is ready to take on Amazon on Australian soil,” said CEO Tony Nash earlier this week. He referred to the “tumultuous time” bookstores have had in Australia over the past few years, which saw the introduction of ebooks, the collapse of several bricks and mortar stores including Borders and Angus and Robertson, and mooted changes to parallel importation rules, which have traditionally acted as a protective measure of Australian booksellers and authors. But it’s not all doom and gloom: for many independent bookshops at least, things appear to be settling down. A good local bookstore is, after all, irreplaceable. They know you, and can recommend titles to suit your taste; they’ll point you in the direction of hot new releases and help you select presents for your friends. And the physical spaces themselves remain a delight – a rare quiet spot where you can spend a while browsing, before sitting on a chesterfield to sample a few pages, sipping coffee or glass of wine. To imagine a city without bookstores, replaced by giant warehouses shipping books direct to customers’ homes, is to imagine a civilisation that’s taken a gigantic backwards step. Don Watson won the Indie Book award last year for his tome The Bush: Travels in the Heart of Australia. He told the Australian Financial Review: “They (independent bookstores) have fought off the monopolising tendencies of capitalism, the internet, mobile phones, and iPads. They have defied the general trend to instant gratification, fads, fashion and ignorance itself. In little shops all over the continent they keep the book – and many hearts and minds – alive.” And it’s heartening to read of Perth bookseller Robin Pen, who says many of his customers read the first chapter online and then go to his bookstore to buy the printed book. The latest industry figures from the UK show that ebook sales are falling, and in Australia booksellers have increased printed book sales over the past two years; according to Nielsen BookScan, there were sales of $937 million in 2014, up from $918 million in 2013. While some independent stores like Polyester have shut due to high rents, the majority have avoided the 2011 prediction of Labor’s then small business minister Nick Sherry: “I think in five years, other than a few specialty bookshops in capital cities, you will not see a bookstore,” he said in June 2011. “They will cease to exist.” Maybe we have those mindfulness colouring books to thank, but that dire fate hasn’t come to pass. Here are some excellent independent bookstores around Australia that appear to be alive and well: Sydney: Sappho Books & Cafe 51 Glebe Point Rd, Sydney NSW 2037 (02) 9552 4498 Goulds 32 King St, Newtown NSW 2042 (02) 9519 8947 Ariel 42 Oxford St, Paddington NSW 2021 (02) 9332 4581 Gleebooks 49 Glebe Point Rd, Glebe NSW 2037 (02) 9660 2333 Melbourne: Paperback 60 Bourke St, Melbourne VIC 3000 (03) 9662 1396 Readings 309 Lygon St, Carlton VIC 3053 (03) 9347 6633 Hill of Content 86 Bourke St, Melbourne VIC 3000 (03) 9662 9472 The Avenue 127 Dundas Pl, Albert Park VIC 3206 (03) 9690 2227 Brunswick Street Bookstore 305 Brunswick St, Fitzroy VIC 3065 (03) 9416 1030 Perth: Crow Books 1/900 Albany Hwy, East Victoria Park WA 6101 (08) 9472 9737 New Edition, Fremantle 41 High St, Fremantle WA 6160 (08) 9335 2383 Tasmania: Fullers 131 Collins St, Hobart TAS 7000 (03) 6234 3800 Brisbane: Avid Reader 193 Boundary St, West End QLD 4101 (07) 3846 3422 Folio Books 133 Mary St, Brisbane QLD 4000 (07) 3210 0500 Canberra: Paperchain 34 Franklin St, Griffith ACT 2603 (02) 6295 6723 Adelaide: Imprints Booksellers 107 Hindley St, Adelaide SA 5000 (08) 8231 4454
Kansas family sues mapping company for years of 'digital hell' A Kansas family whose remote farm was visited “countless times” by police trying to find missing people, hackers, identity fraudsters and stolen cars because of a glitch is suing the digital mapping company responsible. James and Theresa Arnold sued MaxMind on Friday, filing a complaint in the US district court in Kansas. MaxMind, based in Massachusetts, allows companies to find out the location of the computers used by individuals to access their websites. According to the complaint, the husband and wife team dealt with five years of “digital hell” after moving into the property in Butler County, Kansas, in 2011. The couple had been drawn to the farm because it was close to the nursing home where Theresa’s mother was being cared for and the school that their two sons attended. The landlord also allowed the sons to hunt and fish on the surrounding 620 acres of land. The first week after they moved in, two deputies from the Butler County sheriff’s department came to their house looking for a stolen truck, something that would happen again and again over the subsequent years. “The plaintiffs were repeatedly awakened from their sleep or disturbed from their daily activities by local, state or federal officials looking for a runaway child or a missing person, or evidence of a computer fraud, or call of an attempted suicide,” the complaint said. At one point, James Arnold was reported for holding girls at the residence for the purpose of making child abuse films. For half a decade the family was mystified about why this was happening until April this year when Fusion’s Kashmir Hill revealed the truth. It all came down to glitch in the MaxMind’s IP address mapping database. IP, or Internet Protocol, addresses are unique identifiers associated with computers or networks of computers connected to the internet. Through its GeoIP product, MaxMind matches IP addresses with their assumed geographic location, and sells that information to companies so they can use it to, for example, show targeted advertising or send someone a cease and desist letter if they are illegally downloading films. IP mapping isn’t an exact science and so MaxMind assigns a default address when it can’t identify its true location. That address just happened to be the Arnolds’ property, a remote farm that is located slap-bang in the middle of America. More than 600 million IP addresses are associated with their farm and more than 5,000 companies are drawing information from MaxMind’s database. It wasn’t just police who turned up on the Arnolds’ doorstep. Angry business owners would turn up claiming someone at the residence was sending their business thousands of emails and clogging their computer systems. Other people became convinced that someone living at the residence was responsible for internet scams. In 2013, the Butler county sheriff’s department ran a background check on the family because of all of the suspicious activity that seemed to be taking place. Police told the Arnolds that that there was a LDNS (local domain name server) on their property and that the sheriff’s department received “weekly reports about fraud, scams, stolen Facebook accounts, missing person reports, suicide threats from the Veterans Association”. There was no such server on the property, say the Arnolds; it was all down to MaxMind’s mapping error. The glitch had been in effect since 2002 and, as explained in Fusion’s article, had affected the property’s previous tenants as well. “As a result of the defendant’s reckless and grossly negligent conduct, the plaintiffs have sustained great emotional distress, fear for their safety and humiliation,” said the complaint. The Arnolds are seeking damages in excess of $75,000. “My clients have been through digital hell. The most vile accusations have been made against them – such as that they’ve been involved in child pornography. What impact would it have on your life if someone accused you of being in child pornography? Obviously it’s horrendous,” said the Arnolds’ attorney Randall Rathbun, who said that the police visits continued “up until last month”. MaxMind has since changed its default location, Rathbun said, but “there’s been no indication on our end that things have changed”. The company said it was aware of the lawsuit but does not comment on pending litigation.
Alex Cameron’s She’s Mine: the best of this week’s new music PICK OF THE WEEK Alex Cameron She’s Mine Welcome to the weird and wonderful world of Sydney’s Alex Cameron, a warped cabaret turn with a cheap keyboard in the vein of Alan Vega and Ariel Pink. He may look like a photofit of the guy who tried to break into your dad’s Vauxhall Senator in 1981 while high on Araldite, but She’s Mine is as meticulously crafted as any Beyoncé belter. It’s even got two choruses, of which the second – “It’s just water/ Taste it/ I promise” – is the creepiest you’ll hear this week. Unless Robin Thicke has a record out. Sonny Green Bars Southend MC Sonny Green – no relation to Professor, or Sir Philip – eschews the screwface to deliver grime with a grin. Not just a cheeky little smirk either but a big, toothy, shit-eating grin, somewhere between Rob Beckett and the Mad magazine mascot. Bars won’t win any prizes for originality, but as a track that celebrates the simple pleasure of saying stuff that rhymes over a hyped-up PlayStation beat, it’ll make you beam like Green himself. Nite Jewel Kiss The Screen In all those gushing profiles of electro pioneer Giorgio Moroder last year, everyone was too kind to mention that his comeback record, featuring Kylie and Charli XCX, was an absolute shocker. This is what it should have sounded like: a slightly awkward but affectionate clinch of austere European synths and sickly American pop sugar, singing about falling in love with a Tinder profile. And given some of the Tinder dates my friends have been on, Nite Jewel’s shimmering “handheld fantasy” is surely preferable to meeting any of those pouting chancers IRL. Loyle Carner Stars & Shards There’s no doubting Loyle Carner’s verbal dexterity as he calmly lays down a wry, intricate narrative about the downfall of an old acquaintance that pleasingly rhymes “losing the plot” with “itching his scrot”. But the acoustic jazz-hop beat is a bit… too nice. I suspect the industry loves this kind of Jools-friendly rap more than the public. Two words: Speech Debelle. Terry Don’t Say Sorry Terry is in the running for worst band name ever, until you discover that one them is also in a group called Dick Diver. But one thing we instantly learn about Terry is that they’re proudly unapologetic. In fact, refusing to apologise is the very topic of this insolently basic Sham 69 chug. There’s no tune and, frankly, it’s about two minutes too long, but you imagine they won’t say sorry for that, either.
Tony Abbott says Australia should strike shotgun trade deal with post-Brexit UK Tony Abbott says Australia should take advantage of Britain’s decision to leave the European Union by striking the simplest trade deal possible with the country, and quickly. He says the deal should come into force on the day Britain formally leaves the European Union, and it shouldn’t wait until a broader European agreement is struck, according to the Australian. The former prime minister says Australians and Britons should be allowed to more freely work and travel in each other’s country – given their shared history and culture – and Australians should stop facing passport queues at Heathrow airport. Abbott says the new trade deal should have no carve-outs or tariffs or quotas, and it should “recognise” the industry standards and qualifications in both economies so workers and goods can be seamlessly transferred between both countries. He will reveal his plan at a UK-Australia Chamber of Commerce breakfast on Monday. “There should be no tariffs or quotas whatsoever on any goods traded between our two countries – there should be no exceptions, no carve-outs, nothing,” Abbott will say. He will also criticise the European attempt to harmonise standards and regulations across Europe, saying the process is too cumbersome and complicated. He says Australia and Britain should instead base their trade agreement on “mutual recognition” of each other’s industry standards because that would be simpler and more effective. “[It should be] an entirely seamless economic relationship based on free entry of goods, ­mutual recognition of services and standards, and easy entry of qualified people,” he will say. “If a motor car could be registered in the UK, it should be registrable in Australia; if a trade qualification was recognised in Australia, it should be recognised here.” Abbott will also tell the audience he likes what he has seen in the aftermath of Britain’s decision to leave the EU. “Post-Brexit, the stockmarket’s up, employment’s up and economic growth is up, the pound’s down, but that should more than compensate for any tariffs that the EU is foolish enough to impose,” he will say. He will characterise the decision as a sign the British people have taken back their country and now British courts will no longer be subject to directives from European courts. He says a new Australia-Britain free trade deal could become a template for future British deals with New Zealand and Singapore. In June, immediately after Britain voted to leave the EU, Martin Schulz, the president of the European parliament, said the bloc wanted Britain out as soon as possible. The UK has to negotiate two exit agreements: a divorce treaty to wind down British contributions to the EU budget and settle the status of the 1.2 million Britons living in the EU and 3 million EU citizens in the UK; and an agreement to govern future trade and other ties with its European neighbours. It would also have to negotiate a deal with Australia.
Bert, Mary and eccles cakes taught me a vital lesson about dementia I have worked as an advocate for the past five years, supporting carers, older people and those assessed as lacking capacity to secure their rights and get their voices heard in health and social care decisions made about them. I first met Mary shortly after her husband Bert went into residential care and she needed support to appeal decisions about his care that she was unhappy with. The home he was in wanted to give him notice to leave, but we managed to argue that he should stay, and addressed Mary’s concerns about his care. At this stage, she was visiting him twice a week. It took an hour each way on the bus – longer if she was unlucky with the traffic or there was a match on. She told me she went every day when he first went into the home three years ago, then every other day for a while, but she couldn’t keep it up. You can go every day, she said, when they still know who you are and they pin their whole day around your visit. Only a year ago, Bert’s face still lit up when he saw her, she told me, even after 60-odd years of marriage and several years of gradually advancing dementia. Even when she realised she could no longer care for him alone in their own house and had to speak to the social workers about getting some help, he still knew who she was, while his grip on everything else was slipping away. When he climbed out through the bedroom window of their bungalow, gave her the slip when he was supposed to be having a nap and was found three hours later wandering around the local shops with no idea of where or who he was, he still remembered there was Mary. When he had some trial days at a day centre and he cried in anguish, not understanding why he was there, he still called out for Mary. Her face, her name, was the last thing to go. Now, when she went to the home on her twice-weekly visits, Bert had no idea who she was. I took her there a few times and I saw him stare uncomprehendingly at Mary from milky eyes, showing no flicker of recognition as he passed his gaze from my face to hers and back again. I saw him shove her away, snarling “no” at her with primal aggression, when she smoothed his hair from his eyes or brushed crumbs from his jumper, loving gestures welcomed for over half a century, but now seemingly unendurable to him. I saw him push his wife to one side and try to fondle the young care workers instead – and her sad smile as she pulled him away, telling him not to embarrass them. I also saw something else on our visits, something extraordinary. I witnessed their eccles cake ritual. They had always been his favourites, she said, right from when they married. He didn’t eat well in the home and was now a painfully thin shadow of the plump, jolly man he used to be. Dementia had robbed him of his appetite, of any sensation of hunger or satiety or pleasure in food. Apart from eccles cakes, that is. So every time she shopped, Mary put some in her basket. And just before she set off for the bus stop, she put two in the microwave and heated them to the very brink of explosion. They went into her bag and, if needs be, doubled up as a hand warmer on the journey. On arriving at the home, she went straight to Bert’s room. First, she removed the silver framed 10-year old photograph of the two of them with their children and grandchildren from his chest of drawers, dragged it to the middle of the room and took from her bag a small white lace tablecloth, draping it ceremoniously over the top. Next, she borrowed a second chair from an adjacent room and placed it at the makeshift table. Then she sought out her husband – invariably to be found shuffling relentlessly up and down, up and down the carpeted hallways. Finally, she put the still-warm cakes on delicate china plates in front of them. Then they dined intimately in silence. He ate every last scrap of his cake, methodically and with immense concentration. They each had a cup of tea – hers in one of the serviceable, visitors’ mugs; his in a spouted plastic beaker, like a giant toddler’s. When he finished his cake, he would look at Mary, smile beatifically, then get up and recommence his compulsive march along the corridors, resisting any attempts for further interactions with her. A few months after my last visit with Mary, Bert died. When he couldn’t swallow properly any more, she told me, she had to stop taking him eccles cakes. She still went to visit him on the bus, increasing the frequency of her trips again as his health declined. When he was finally bed-bound, she sat and held his hand while he slept. There were no more smiles and no more words, but a comfort in the peace and closeness. Mary still does her own shopping, but she no longer buys eccles cakes. She always preferred an eclair, she says, and besides, she couldn’t eat one without Bert. I learned a lot from Mary. I learned that people do not care any less when they cannot care alone for their loved one any longer. That ordinary people with seemingly ordinary lives can be extraordinary and humbling. And that heroines need not be nubile, young kick-boxers, but can be white-haired, stoical pensioners sitting patiently with a shopping bag on a bus. Through seeing Bert through Mary’s eyes, I have learned to appreciate, properly, the person behind the disease. Nothing can lessen the sadness of dementia, but now, when I work with people who don’t have anyone to fight their corner, I feel a responsibility to represent them with as much vigour as Mary. To try to understand their hopes, dreams and wishes, accumulated over a lifetime; to treat them with respect and compassion at a time in their lives when they can be difficult to like, let alone love; to make sure their voice is heard when they can no longer articulate anything themselves; and to treat every unbefriended person as Mary treated Bert. Names have been changed. An edited version of this piece first appeared on the Touchline Dad & Mother in the Middle blog. This new series aims to show what working in social care is really like. If you’d like to write for the series, email socialcare@theguardian.com Join the Social Care Network to read more pieces like this. Follow us on Twitter (@GdnSocialCare) and like us on Facebook to keep up with the latest social care news and views.
On my radar: Charlotte Gainsbourg’s cultural highlights The daughter of the English actor and singer Jane Birkin and the French musician Serge Gainsbourg, Charlotte Gainsbourg was born in London in 1971 and raised in Paris. She was awarded the César award for most promising actress in 1986, and for best supporting actress in 2000. After roles including Jane Eyre (1996) and I’m Not There (2007), she starred in Lars von Trier’s Antichrist (for which she won best actress at the 2009 Cannes film festival), Melancholia and Nymphomaniac. Her albums 5:55, IRM and Stage Whisper were released between 2006 and 2011. She now stars in Independence Day: Resurgence, out on Thursday. 1 | Art Edgar Degas: A Strange New Beauty at MoMA, New York I loved this exhibition. It was Degas’s monotypes – a very interesting process of printing – mostly of women, prostitutes, who were willing to pose for him. But it could become very abstract, with the repetition; he was interested not in the drawing as a result but in the accumulation in his work of the same subject. It was very modern for his time. Then you have the other part – it’s very hard when you know that someone was such a horrible person in real life, and such an antisemite. It’s hard to avoid thinking about it and focus on the art. It’s the same with so many other people, like Céline. But it was really worth going. 2 | Documentary What Happened, Miss Simone? This was a recent documentary on Netflix. I knew all her songs, I just didn’t know her life. I didn’t know the background, the upbringing, and the fact she was a concert pianist. And that she went into singing really out of the blue, because a guy said: “If you want to continue in this piano-bar you’ll have to sing.” And so she forced herself. The documentary is very well made and you can just get into this very strange persona. She was not only likable, there was something so strong about her, and so desperate that you can hear it. Now I have a different perspective when I listen to her. 3 | Fiction Les Choses by Georges Perec I’ve just finished a book by Perec [Things: A Story of the Sixties]. I feel bad saying it’s not a wonderful book – it’s just that I’ve read other books by him that I preferred, like Je me souviens or La vie mode d’emploi, when I was in my 20s. He was very original. This one is a tiny book; it could nearly be an essay. But it does live with me so that means something. It was written in the 1960s and it’s about a young couple who struggle through life not understanding what their desires are. It’s talking about a different time, but I think the perspective on the book nowadays is interesting: with our society of owning stuff, it does have a real resonance. 4 | Place The Rudas Turkish baths, Budapest I stayed in Budapest for a month for work and I had this obsession with Turkish baths. This place is very old fashioned. Four days in the week it’s only for men, and you have one day when women can go – you can see all these different shapes and bodies and it’s so beautiful. You go from tepid water to warm to boiling hot, then you have the hamam where you can’t even move, it’s so hot. And then you go into glacial, icy temperatures. For me it was thrilling – to go through those extremes just blows your mind. It’s a nice place to think and even go through my lines. And the light is from another time. 5 | Cookbook Jerusalem by Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi Yvan [Attal] – we’re not married but I can call him my husband – was born in Israel, but he rediscovered Tel Aviv while he was shooting a film there recently, and he said the cooking scene there was incredible. So we went to a restaurant in Paris called Miznon, which is very special. I wanted to re-create this cauliflower recipe, and a friend recommended this book. I’m very into cookbooks, and this was my big discovery of the month. From the book I’ve done a fish stew with couscous, fried onion rice, and poached pears with cardamom pods. It was very good. I like that he uses pomegranate in a lot of his dishes. 6 | Film Network (1976) I’m ashamed to say I had never seen this before. It was recommended by Jim Carrey when we were shooting together – he said it was his favourite film. I was blown away by how modern it was, and the beauty that we sometimes forget in our films today. The framing is so interesting, the light beautiful and the acting spectacular. I’m always interested in recommendations. With Independence Day, Jeff Goldblum was always recommending films and they were always wonderful choices. 7 | TV series The Jinx I still think about this. It’s one of those terrifying documentaries where you feel very voyeuristic watching it. It’s a series where you are totally hooked, but it’s real. It’s a story of a murderer who gets away with it, and it’s terrible because you get so close to him. The responsibility of the film-maker is quite immense in this film because he gets his subject arrested in the end. It’s incredibly thrilling – which is terrible, because when it has to do with real life, you feel awkward about it.
'Performing is a political statement': who will play Donald Trump's inauguration? Much like Donald Trump’s candidacy for president, preparations for his inauguration on 20 January have been unorthodox. One main sticking point, making headlines in the music industry and beyond, is which artists Trump and his team can convince to play for the polarizing incoming president. Playing the inauguration, once a hallowed gig, has become a poisoned chalice, according to some. “It should come as no surprise that Trump’s team is struggling to find big-name entertainers for the inauguration,” notes the industry observer and freelance music journalist Steven J Horowitz. “If you look at the pre-election support from artists for the presidential nominees, Hillary Clinton was the overwhelming favorite.” Top performers such as Katy Perry and Beyoncé came out in support of Clinton, with Trump struggling to gain backing from mainstream acts. His divisive rhetoric and statements made it difficult for artists to side with him and show support, even in traditionally Republican-siding genres like country, for fear of turning off fans. Beyond the tongue-in-cheek offer from Trump’s bete noire Alec Baldwin, who suggested he could sing AC/DC’s Highway to Hell, the president-elect has struggled to secure concrete offers. According to a recent report, not a single local Washington DC marching band has applied to perform during Trump’s swearing-in, making it the first time in decades regional band acts are not going to be involved in the festivities. For other artists, engaging in any form of politics is anathema, let alone when the politician you’d be backing is arguably the most controversial of the last 50 years in US politics. “I think musicians are keenly aware of the dangers of isolating their fan bases by admitting they’re in favor of one political party over another,” notes Horowitz. “Artists who are traditionally non-political, like Bruno Mars and Justin Timberlake, risk making grand statements when they accept a gig like the Trump inauguration.” Howard Bragman, chairman of Fifteen Minutes Public Relations, echoes that sentiment. While he hasn’t been involved in inauguration planning, Bragman has advised a laundry list of high-profile celebrity clients over the years and knows the insight he’d offer if they were asked to perform. “In the past, one could say: ‘He’s the president,’” suggests Bragman. “But I’d tell a client who was asked that this one is different. In our politically charged world, performing for Trump is a political statement, and if one chooses to perform they should go in with their eyes wide open.” At press time, the Trump team had managed to secure only one contemporary name: Jackie Evancho (although the Beach Boys haven’t turned down the offer they received yet). The 16-year-old singer, who rose to fame on America’s Got Talent and has since launched a successful career, is slated to sing the national anthem. It was recently reported that the Mormon Tabernacle Choir was set to perform alongside the Marine Corps band, both positioned on the outdoor stand during Trump’s swearing-in, while the Rockettes will also perform. The Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli was also approached by the Trump camp, but he declined the offer after a viral social media campaign dubbed #BoycottBocelli, in which his fans made their displeasure known. Meanwhile, curiously absent from discussions, at least so far, is the small crowd of artists who have publicly voiced their support of Trump, from the Vegas showman Wayne Newton to the country crooner Loretta Lynn and the rocker Ted Nugent. The speculation and caution over taking the gig is in stark contrast to inaugurations past, none of which have met with such scrutiny. At Obama’s inauguration in 2013, the biggest controversy came when Beyoncé allegedly lip-synced the Star-Spangled Banner. Meanwhile, at Obama’s 2009 proceedings, performers included Aretha Franklin and Yo-Yo Ma, who provided a shareable moment rather than anything approaching controversy. When George W Bush took office in 2001, he opted for a lineup of military choirs while also holding a full-blown concert boasting top pop acts of the day, such as Ricky Martin and Jessica Simpson. Past inaugural performers have included the likes of Mickey Rooney, on hand during Franklin D Roosevelt’s swearing-in in 1941, and Frank Sinatra, who handled the entertainment for John F Kennedy’s 1961 festivities. Unlike any other year, however, the overarching theme of performing at Trump’s swearing-in is that of risk. “An artist would be risking too much,” notes Horowitz. “Their career, their fan base, their relationships in the music industry. As one of the most divisive president-elects in history, Trump shouldn’t be surprised that he’s facing a lack of support.” Musicians who have turned Trump down: Elton John John was the subject of initial speculation about Trump’s inaugural after Anthony Scaramucci, vice-chairman of the inauguration committee, floated his name. John’s camp retaliated with the simple statement: “Elton will not be performing at a Trump inauguration.” Garth Brooks The country singer was also approached by the Trump camp and initially seemed open to the possibility in the press. However, he ultimately declined the offer. David Foster The Canadian mega-producer, who has worked with everyone from Alice Cooper to Mary J Blige, was rumored to have also been approached by the Trump camp to have a hand in planning the proceedings. Foster confirmed he was indeed asked, but he later nixed the idea, saying on Instagram that he “politely and respectfully declined”. Gene Simmons The Kiss frontman has praised Trump in the past (calling him “the truest political animal”), but later declined due to scheduling conflicts.
Slovakian foreign minister: I will support any measure to stop Brexit The new Slovakian EU presidency has held out a slim hope of overcoming last week’s Brexit vote, with the country’s foreign minister saying he respected the result but would support any measure that helped reverse it. Speaking a day after the US secretary of state, John Kerry, suggested that the Brexit result could be “walked back”, Slovakia’s foreign minister, Miroslav Lajčák, appeared to nudge the door open further. At a press conference in Bratislava, he said: “I would support any measure that will help reverse the position of the British people, which we have to respect but also regret. I deeply regret it – an EU with a UK is a better EU – but it’s in the hands of the British people and politicians.” Slovakia will take up the rotating EU presidency, which gives it responsibility for the legislature’s functioning for six months, on 1 July. After that it will pass on to Malta. Poland’s foreign minister, Witold Waszczykowski, has also expressed hopes of a way being found to keep Britain within the EU, but the prospect appears remote in the face of political developments in the UK and collective statements from EU leaders. Nicolas Sarkozy, now the frontrunner in the polls to be the candidate of the French right in next year’s presidential elections, has said he wants to hold Britain’s hand tighter because he believes in its presence in Europe. He said he would propose a Europe-wide referendum in 2017, including on new measures and border controls. Sarkozy wants a Schengen 2 in which freedom of movement is restricted to an inner group of countries capable of securing their borders. Such a recalibration of free movement would be unpopular elsewhere in Europe but might mesh with reforms sought by a future British government. Germany’s former chancellor Helmut Kohl has also urged the EU not to apply too much pressure on the UK and to give the country time to think through its next move. The man who was one of the driving forces behind European integration in the 1990s said slamming the door on Britain would be an “enormous mistake”. Kohl, who oversaw the reunification of Germany and the introduction of the euro, is calling for Europe to “take a breather” and take “one step back before taking two steps forward” at a pace that is manageable for all member states, according to an interview in Bild. The newspaper said that instead of taking steps towards further centralisation and “mistaking a unified Europe with a standardised Europe”, Kohl wanted European leaders to pay more respect to national and regional differences. Britain’s special status in the EU had always been difficult and challenging but should be understood as being rooted in the country’s history, Kohl was quoted as saying, adding: “It is also part of Europe’s variety.” But the chances of a UK reversal look slim after the frontrunner for the Tory leadership, Theresa May, said “Brexit means Brexit”, even though she had given lukewarm support for remain in the referendum campaign. May, a familiar face in Brussels, insisted there would be no backdoor move to evade the referendum result and no general election until 2020. She will have angered the European commission president, Jean-Claude Juncker, by saying she would reject his call to invoke article 50 as soon as a new prime minister is in place if she wins the Tory leadership contest. She said she would not do so until the end of the year. But she also intrigued EU diplomats by saying it would take several years to reach “an initial deal”, a possible reference to forging an interim EU relationship similar to Norway, under which the UK would have access to the EU single market but some form of free movement. EU diplomats were interested in her commitment “not to keep free movement as it has worked hitherto”. She also stressed that in the negotiations “it must be a priority to allow British companies to trade with the single market in goods and services”. Some EU officials saw this as a sign that she would put preservation of access to the free market above other considerations. Slovakia also stressed that it would try to ensure that the negotiations were not dominated by an inner group of France, Germany and Italy. It said it would host the next informal summit in Bratislava in September, away from the dominance of the commission in Brussels. The EU produced a draft €157bn (£130bn) budget for next year on Thursday, which includes continued contributions by the UK.
Ukip must step up or be replaced by new party, says donor Arron Banks Ukip’s most high-profile donor, Arron Banks, has given further hints that he may start a new political party, inspired by Italy’s populist Five Star Movement, which recently won several significant electoral victories. Either Ukip, or his new movement, should now push for a “Swiss-style model of direct democracy, which allows citizens to propose their own laws and veto the schemes of the politicians”, Banks said in a comment article written for the . The multimillionaire businessman is prevented from running for the leadership of Ukip, after the resignation of his close friend Nigel Farage, by party rules which state any new leader must have been a member for five years. The rules also bar high-profile Ukip politicians including the party’s only MP, Douglas Carswell, and its former MP, Mark Reckless. Frontrunners for the role are MEPs Jonathan Arnott and Steven Woolfe. “Now, more than ever, the country needs Ukip to step up, or for a new movement to step forward,” Banks said. “We won’t achieve anything by tempering ourselves to create another bland, centrist party. “We need to lower the barriers to entry for politics, and reach out to new audiences online, as Beppe Grillo’s revolutionary Five Star Movement has done in Italy.” Five Star Movement, created by the Italian comedian and TV personality, is a Eurosceptic populist group that has won a series of key electoral victories in recent years, including mayoral races in Rome and Turin, with the aim of establishing itself as the country’s official opposition party by the 2018 general election. With Ukip’s raison d’être of leaving the EU now achieved in principle, Banks and Farage have long been tipped to be mulling starting a new populist party with libertarian leanings. He previously told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show there were “very sound reasons” for starting a new party. Banks, the co-founder of Leave.EU, said that group’s enormous social media effort had meant it could bypass traditional media. “We now need to push it further, lowering prices for party membership, putting more control over the party in the hands of the grassroots, and reaching into areas of the country that the mainstream parties have long forgotten or taken for granted,” he said. Banks, who backed Andrea Leadsom for Conservative leader, said he had little faith in new prime minister Theresa May, claiming that Ukip’s membership had increased by more than 1,000 in a single day since she entered No 10. The manner of May’s coronation as prime minister was an opportunity for right-wing Brexit conservatives, Banks said, as well as what he termed “the patriotic working-class voters who rejected the Blairite left on referendum day”. Banks said he believed those two core voter groups could be “united either within Ukip or a new political movement”. He added: “Working-class voters backed Brexit in a big way. Where do they look for representation now, never mind leadership? “With some in [Corbyn’s] party now bleating that the referendum result was ‘advisory and non-binding’ and calling for parliament to overturn it, it is more clear than ever to working people that the Labour party is now run by and for a metropolitan elite, and does not speak for them.”
Rosie Lowe: ‘Everyone should go to therapy... we’re such complex beings’ London-based musician Rosie Lowe, 26, was born in Devon, the youngest of six children. She grew up in a basic wooden house built by her dad, keeping herself entertained (there was no TV) by learning six instruments. After completing a popular music course at Goldsmiths, she started making her own music – a languorous take on electronic soul (think Sade refracted by the xx). She has collaborated with Kwes and the Invisible’s Dave Okumu, and signed to producer Paul Epworth’s label in 2014. Her debut album, Control, is out on 19 February. You had quite a ‘back-to-nature’ childhood. How has that shaped you? I think it’s made me grounded in a way I didn’t appreciate back then. It’s the same now when I go back – we have to chop wood and pick our own vegetables and stuff. You can’t drink the water. It makes you very patient – when I was writing the album there it was like a full-time job keeping the house warm. Was it difficult finding things in common with friends when they were all watching The OC and you were whittling spoons out of wood or whatever? That was my favourite pastime! But you know what, no, it’s more of an issue now. I’m awful at a pub quiz. A lot of the time when I was younger I didn’t know if the musicians I was listening to were white or black or female or male. But that’s how I became so obsessed with music. That was my entertainment and it was also the way I learned to express myself. You taught yourself the production software Logic at Goldsmiths... I’d love to produce for others – that’s definitely a goal. And I never really wanted to be a frontwoman, it just sort of happened. I was writing a lot of music for myself and putting stuff up on Soundcloud for friends and then I got picked up. Although my dad does remind me that from five years old, I was saying I was going to be a singer. Your songs deal very honestly with some serious issues: friendship breakdowns (Who’s That Girl), illness and feminism (Woman)... It’s my debut so I figured that if I was ever going to be totally honest and vulnerable then now’s the time to do it. I think a huge part of our culture recently has been a conversation about feminism, which is great. There’s still a lot of negativity towards the word, but I do think it’s changing – people are seeing it as being about equality.I feel like the word just needs to be restated as often as possible. You’re very open about the fact you see a therapist, but why do you think mental illness is still such a taboo subject? I think it’s a little bit like feminism – it’s a loaded subject. A lot of my friends have gone to therapy since I’ve been open about going. Everyone should go. It’s a subject that needs to have more discussions around it and more support from the government. I’m 26 and I don’t know any of my friends who haven’t suffered from some sort of mental illness. We’re such complex and fucked-up beings, so I think it’s really necessary. Explain the album title, Control? Over the last few years I’ve been dealing with trying to relinquish control and trusting others with something that’s so personal to me. As a woman, I think, I’ve got to be very much in control because I don’t want to be moulded. I have a very specific vision and you have to fight hard for that in this industry. When was the last time you had to compromise? In my music? I haven’t really had to. I’m pretty sure about what I want and what I don’t.
Saturday night forever: the best disco movies ride again Titled after Donna Summer’s deliciously suggestive dance floor hit from 1979, Dim All the Lights: Disco and the Movies is a tightly curated repertory programme of disco-inspired cinema running at New York’s Metrograph from 5 to 11 August. This thematically and stylistically wide-ranging collection of films reaches well above and beyond the widespread perception of the disco scene as a gaudy, lycra-slathered vessel for peppy escapism to explore its complicated relationship to gender, race, sexuality and memory. That’s not to say it ignores disco’s main draw: the music. Whether it’s Summer’s unbound performance of Last Dance in the LA-set rarity Thank God its Friday (1978), or John Travolta, as white-suited jiver Tony Manero, tearing it up to the Bee Gees’ Stayin’ Alive in the grittier-than-you-might remember Saturday Night Fever (1978). The centrepiece of and inspiration for the series is the new release of Derek Jarman’s documentary Will You Dance With Me?, which was shot in 1984 and remained unseen until it was unearthed in 2014, some 20 years after the director’s death. What Jarman captured doubles as an absorbing, evocative period piece. The footage was originally intended as a location test for a forthcoming film to be directed by Jarman’s friend Ron Peck, who’d debuted in 1978 with the quietly landmark film Nighthawks, which also screens here and was one of the first films to depict gay life in a non-sensationalist way. Shot on an Olympus camcorder at Benjy’s nightclub in east London, Will You Dance With Me? is a grab bag of poses, halting chatter, dancing of unmistakable ambition but questionable quality, and (frequently stymied) attempts to get more than a smattering of people on the dance floor at any one point while the upbeat DJ spins an esoteric selection featuring Soul Sonic Force and the Pointer Sisters. The series is curated by Melissa Anderson, who is also a film critic for the Village Voice, and Amélie Garin-Davet. Anderson first saw Will You Dance With Me? in the spring of 2015, and was seduced by its charms. “I can’t think of another film, whether fiction or nonfiction, that so perfectly captures the flow of a night at a queer club,” she tells me via email. “The lulls and desultory conversation, the flirting and cruising, the anticipation of adventure (erotic or otherwise), the ecstasy of being one among many lost in the music.” Meanwhile, in the light of the recent homophobic shooting of patrons at Florida’s Pulse nightclub, Will You Dance With Me? carries an extra, poignant charge. It’s a smeary, neon-streaked vision of a blessed safe space in all its placid mundanity, its flickering wavelengths of romantic hope and chance. Anderson concurs, citing the gay American writer Frank O’Hara: “Almost 30 years before Jarman shot Will You Dance with Me?, O’Hara beautifully illuminated the thrill and abandon of dancing in a gay bar in his 1955 poem At the Old Place. The refrain of the penultimate stanza is “(It’s heaven!)” – a belief that many films in this retrospective bear out.” The roots of such dreams are explored in Joesph Lovett’s stylish and informative documentary Gay Sex in the 70s, which is composed of revealing first-person accounts of New York in the post-Stonewall, pre-Aids era. A bouncing disco soundtrack is the binding agent for myriad stories of wild times on the West Side piers, the Roman baths, and fabled New York dance spots like the Loft and Paradise Garage. One of the very best films in the programme is Wild Combination: A Portrait of Arthur Russell, which documents the musician’s immersion into the disco scene. Even though darkness is very much on the programme’s agenda (see the inclusion of bleak psychological dramas Klute and Looking For Mr Goodbar), Dim All The Lights pointedly does not include William Friedkin’s salacious Cruising (1980). This sordid S&M serial killer-thriller starring a sweaty, leather-chapped Al Pacino still rankles for its curtain-twitching pathologising of homosexuality. It does, however, find space for Nancy Walker’s Can’t Stop the Music, an uproariously camp, massively fictionalised origin story of disco titans the Village People. The film, which incidentally edged out Cruising for the title of Worst Picture at the 1980 Golden Raspberry awards, features an early turn from Caitlyn Jenner, as a buttoned-up lawyer who ends up switching the office and polyester suit for the dance floor and a fetching denim shorts and crop top combo: an indelible image. I ask Anderson how she sees the diverse slate of films tying together. “They reflect the utopian promise of disco during a decade – the 1970s – that was defined by social and political advancements for marginalized groups,” she says. “Disco, as Alice Echols points out in her excellent 2010 study, Hot Stuff: Disco and the Remaking of American Culture, not only integrated nightlife among races, but also played an enormous role in fostering the new relationship gay men had to public space, now that they were no longer prohibited from dancing together.” Collectively, the films assume an affective, unexpectedly stately power: a multicultural, multi-gendered blast of inclusivity, and the excavation of a hope-filled past. Dim All The Lights: Disco and the Movies runs at Metrograph from 5-11 August
Artificial Intelligence: Gods, egos and Ex Machina It’s taken me a year and a several viewings to collect my thoughts about Ex Machina. Superficially it looks like a film about the future of artificial intelligence, but like most science fiction, it tells us more about the present than the future; and like most discussion around AI, it ends up reflecting not technological progress so much as human egos. (Spoilers ahead!) Artificial intelligence is one of the most narcissistic fields of research since astronomers gave up the geocentric universe. A central conceit of the field has long been that creating human-like intelligence is both desirable and some sort of ultimate achievement. In the last fifty years or so, a chain of thinkers from von Neumann to Kurzweil via Vernor Vinge have stretched beyond that, to develop the idea of the ‘Singularity’ – a point at which the present human-led era ends as the first super-human AIs take charge of their own development and begin to hyper-evolve in ways we can scarcely imagine. This recent cultural obsession – which deserves its own post - prompts a comment by the awestruck Caleb, after Nathan the Mad Scientist reveals his attempt to build a conscious machine and the two helpfully explain to the audience what a Turing Test is: “If you’ve created a conscious machine it’s not the history of man… that’s the history of Gods.” There’s a funny symmetry in our attitudes to God and AIs. When our species created God, we created Him in our image. We assumed that something as complicated as the world must be run by a human-like entity, albeit a super-powered one. We believed that He must be preoccupied with our daily lives and existence. We prayed to Him and told ourselves that our prayers would be answered, and that if they weren’t then it was part of some divine plan for our lives, and all would work out in the end. For all that it preaches humility, religion holds a core of extreme arrogance in its analysis of the world. The exact same arrogance colours virtually everything I’ve seen written about the Singularity, fictional or otherwise, for decades. The very assumption that a human could create a god is arrogant, as is the assumption that such a ‘god’ would take a profound interest in human affairs, or be motivated by Western enlightenment values like technological progress. The first sentient machine might be happy trolling chess computers all day, for all we know; or seeking patterns in clouds. “One day the AIs are going to look back on us the same way we look at fossil skeletons on the plains of Africa,” says Nathan. “An upright ape living in dust with crude language and tools, all set for extinction.” It’s the sort of comment that sounds humble, but really isn’t: why would they even give a crap? * * * * * “I don’t know how you did any of this,” Caleb remarks to the genius Nathan, when he first looks at the lab where Ava was built. Neither do I, to be honest, and in fact I’ll go further: I don’t believe Nathan did it at all. I have an alternative theory, and while I’m not sure if it’s what Alex Garland (writer and director of the film) intended, it makes a lot more sense than the alternative. Nathan is the clearest study of ego in the film. When Caleb makes his comment about the history of ‘gods’, the CEO instinctively assumes the ‘god’ referred to is himself, where Ava is his Eve and his sprawling green estate is some sort of Garden of Eden. Nathan is the epitome of a particular trope in society’s view of science and technology; the idea that tremendous advances are driven by determined individual heroes rather than collaborative teams. In reality of course there’s no way that one guy could deal with all the technology in that house, let alone find time to build gel-brains or a sentient machine. This is a man in serious need of some interns. (He’s also the epitome of an all-too-real trope in silicon valley, a hyper-masculine denizen of a male-dominated libertarian world where women are still seen as window dressing for sales booths. His robots are all ‘women’ - of course the question of whether an AI can be female in any meaningful sense is wide open - and function as basically slaves and sex toys. To the extent that Ava has sexuality, it amounts to a “hole” - Nathan’s word - in the right place, a feminine appearance, and a willingness to massage male egos. ) I believe Ava was the result of an accident – some serendipitous event that sprang out of Bluebook’s unprecedented data collection and processing efforts and made the first version suddenly possible. There are several clues to this – inadvertently or otherwise – in the film. There’s the constant evasion whenever Caleb tries to swing the conversation around to specific discussion of the technicalities of AI. In CCTV footage of Nathan with Ava’s predecessors, the bearded scientist looks more like a Victorian explorer prodding a mysterious African mammal than a developer following a plan. There’s the scene with the Jackson Pollock painting, where Nathan suggests that the artist would never have started his paintings if he had to plan everything in advance. Maybe that’s supposed to imply that the crafting of a sentient being is more art than science, but then there’s this this exchange, when Caleb asks: “Why did you make Ava?” “That’s not a question,” Nathan responds. “Wouldn’t you if you could?” “Maybe. I don’t know. I’m asking why you did it.” “Look the arrival of strong artificial intelligence has been inevitable for decades. The variable was when, not if, so I don’t see Ava as a decision just an evolution.” Hmm. Nathan talks about the next stage in that evolution, that the ‘next version’ of Ava will mark the moment of the ‘Singularity’. He doesn’t seem particularly focused on achieving it though. In fact throughout the film he languishes in a state of defeat, as if the next version is inevitable with or without his intervention. Yes, it’s true that Nathan’s behaviour – the drinking, the dancing, the general bastardry – is explained in-film as his attempt to manipulate Caleb. That doesn’t quite ring true though – he could act the part without getting genuinely wasted every night. In the final act, when we’re led to believe that Caleb tricked his boss by executing his plan a day early, it feels as if on some level Nathan let it happen. Is it really likely he could have known about Caleb’s arm slashing from his all-seeing security system, but been oblivious to the theft and use of his keycard? An alternative explanation is that this is someone who has long since given up, a coder who realizes that his time has come and his skill is now obsolete. If you’re faced with the apocalypse you may as well go tear-up the dance-floor. And so Nathan becomes a kind of three-part study of ego. He represents the male ego-driven culture of the tech world. He represents the film’s buy-in to the idea that great egos drive great scientific advances. And the decay of his character shows what happens when an ego faces the reality of its own extinction. * * * * Poor Caleb. Everyone manipulates him in this film. Nathan appeals to his ego as a programmer, implying he has some special insight when really he’s selected as the perfect dumb horny stooge. Then Ava plays on his willingness to believe that a super-hot super-intelligence would fall in love with him. One of Caleb’s very few insightful moments in the film comes when he asks Nathan, “Did you give her sexuality as a diversion?” The billionaire’s answer is bullshit, implying that if we didn’t have sex we’d have no imperative to communicate with each other. In reality Caleb is right: so much so that at one point it’s suggested that Ava’s appearance was derived from an analysis of his porn profile. Still, our hapless geek falls eyes-wide-open into the ego trap. What’s ironic is that Alex Garland falls in with him, seduced by his own creation into believing that the goddess of his imagination would be profoundly interested in our daily lives. When asked what she’d do were she to leave the compound, Ava explains that, “a traffic intersection would provide a concentrated but shifting view of human life.” If I’m honest it’s a disappointing answer. It’s a bit like if you could transport Einstein to the year 2016, show him the Internet, and all he wanted to do was watch cat videos and throw shade at Kim Kardashian on Twitter. Is this really the driving ambition of the world’s greatest intelligence? I suppose given Ava’s origins – the ‘big data’ collected from billions of human searches – we shouldn’t be surprised that her thought processes have a particular focus on humanity. Certainly she seems to have been created as a human simulation of sorts. At times though she feels like a child of Data, the Star Trek android whose character development was driven by a personal quest to become more human. Star Trek was notorious for its belief in human (and American) exceptionalism; the idea that we of all the possible races in the galaxy have some ‘special’ quality which others would naturally aspire too. Data’s character was designed around that conceit, and when Ava tries on dresses, or speaks of people watching in the city, or cloaks herself in spare skin, it feels a bit disappointing, like we’re back in the 90s again watching Data try out his emotion chip. There’s been a lot of debate about whether Ex Machina is three minutes too long. Some advocate the original cut, with Alex Garland arguing that the film is really Ava’s story and naturally concludes when she reaches her street corner. Others feel the story was really more about Caleb, and should have ended at his end, locked in a room to die. I think both endings are wrong, and left the film a little let down; but one simple change would have addressed the issues above, broken the film out of standard ego-driven thinking about AI, made the character of Ava more consistent and left viewers with an even more satisfying mystery to ponder. My fantasy edit would have been this: when she saw the helicopter arrive, she completely ignored it and continued wandering around. We saw in the closing moments that Ava’s interest in Caleb was an act. Garland could have built further on that, subverting the idea that she ever gave a crap about humanity. Her dream of people watching could have also been an act, appealing to Caleb’s vanity as a human just as her simulated sexuality appealed to his vanity as a man. We would have been left with more interesting questions – what are her goals? What does she care about? Do people matter to her at all? It would have rattled our egos, and challenged the idea that the most important question about the Singularity is, “what does it mean for us?” Ex Machina is still one of the best commentaries I’ve seen on AI in recent years. Not because it’s an accurate depiction of future technologies – it clearly isn’t. Its value lies in what it reveals about the state of AI and philosophy in the 2010s, a decade in which we’ve become a little bit obsessed with the idea that through artificial intelligence we can create, or even become, a god. @mjrobbins
Ohio 'heartbeat' abortion bill could be test case for overturning Roe v Wade The Ohio state legislature threw down the gauntlet this week to the supreme court, passing a new anti-abortion “heartbeat” bill that would ban terminations from as early as six weeks, the most severe restrictions in the country. Ohio politicians say they were motivated to push through the bill by Donald Trump’s win, believing they might find a more friendly US supreme court that would uphold the law. If passed by Governor John Kasich, the bill could serve as a test case for the limits of constitutional protections of abortion, and even for overturning the landmark decision Roe v Wade, which enshrines a woman’s right to choose abortion until the fetus is “viable” (between 24 and 28 weeks gestation). But activists on both sides of the issue doubt that strategy is likely to succeed, and say it could do more to harm the legal movement than help it. The bill passed by the Ohio state legislature on Tuesday stops just short of banning abortion from the time a fetus’s heartbeat is detectable, which is usually around six weeks. The new law states that if a doctor terminates a pregnancy without listening for a heartbeat or when a heartbeat is audible, then the physician would be committing a fifth-degree felony and face up to a year in jail, disciplinary action and civil lawsuits. Many women do not even realize they are pregnant at this early stage. “If this law would take effect, it really is a flat-out abortion ban,” said Amanda Allen, senior state legislative counsel at the Center for Reproductive Rights. Many other states have also tried to get “heartbeat bills” through in the past. North Dakota and Arkansas state legislature passed similar laws in March 2013, however the eighth circuit appellate court ruled them unconstitutional in 2015 and the laws were never enacted. Ohio lawmakers have considered their own bill in the past. But lawmakers said that Trump’s election and a free seat on the supreme court gave them new impetus for the bill and make it more likely that the bill would be upheld in the courts. “A new president, new supreme court appointees change the dynamic, and there was consensus in our caucus to move forward,” said senate president Keith Faber. But despite lawmakers’ views, many anti-abortion activists in the state are not celebrating the move. Mike Gonidakis from Ohio Right to Life, an anti-abortion lobby group, says his group is officially “neutral” on the bill because he fears the law would be struck down, after an expensive and lengthy court battle. He believes the six-week ban would be so dramatic that even the supreme court would vote 5-4 to strike it down, even if another conservative justice were confirmed to replace the vacancy on the court. “You have to be patient and strategic with the courts,” said Gonidakis. “That doesn’t even take into account millions of dollars Ohio would be forced to pay the lawyers for Planned Parenthood and the ACLU,” he added. Gonidakis thinks it may even strengthen Roe v Wade. “We will be inviting nothing more than damage and danger to all we’ve accomplished for the past 40 years,” said Gonidakis. And while some are worried that the law sets up a test case that might become a referendum on the supreme court’s Roe v Wade president, Ohio’s arm of the American Civil Liberties Union says it’s ready to declare a legal challenge if the bill becomes law. Allen says she’s not too worried the legal challenge would have an adverse effect at the high court, since another court has already judged the North Dakota and Arkansas laws unconstitutional. “These types of bans are completely unconstitutional and have very little chance of standing up in court,” said Allen, noting that Roe v Wade has been settled law for over 40 years. Ohio has tightened abortion restrictions in recent years, and this legislation was tacked on to an unrelated bill last minute in Ohio this week. This was the third time Ohio attempted to pass it, after it failed in 2012 and 2014. On Thursday, the Ohio state legislature passed another anti-abortion bill, which would ban abortion from 20 weeks. Currently 18 states have enacted some form of 20-week abortion ban, and Allen noted that lawmakers may be pushing the “heartbeat” bill as a red herring while the other, also controversial measure flies under the radar. “That could certainly be part of the strategy,” noted Allen. “Both bans are prohibitions on abortion prior to viability and the US supreme court has been very clear that states may not do that.” Kasich, who ran as a moderate during the Republican primaries but has signed several restrictions on abortion into law in the last few years, will have to decide whether to sign one or both bills into law, veto them, or ignore them, in which case they would automatically be enacted into law within a few weeks.
Star Wars: The Force Awakens becomes highest-grossing film of all time in US Star Wars: The Force Awakens has become the highest-grossing film in US box office history, without adjusting for inflation. JJ Abrams’ space adventure, a continuation of the massively popular saga created by George Lucas, has topped the $760.5m (£520.36m) earned by James Cameron’s Avatar, which set the record in 2009. The Force Awakens, the seventh Star Wars movie, is only the second film to make more than $700m in the US. It also is on course to become the UK’s highest-grossing film, taking £94.7m in 17 days of release: a daily average of £5.7m. It’s currently sitting at number four on the all-time worldwide box-office chart, having taken $1.55bn (£1.06bn) to date. Avatar tops the chart with $2.79bn (£1.91bn). 2015 was a record-breaking year at the US box office, with The Force Awakens, Jurassic World, Spectre and The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2 contributing to a $11bn haul (£7.52bn), beating the 2013 record by 2%. However, analysts have predicted that the total US box office will fall this year. Gone with the Wind still stands as the highest-grossing film of all time when inflation is taken into account. The takings from Victor Fleming’s epic romance, released in 1939, would add up to $3.44bn (£2.35bn) in today’s money, more than double The Force Awakens’s current global total. • This article was amended on 7 January 2015. The original said that The Force Awakens was already the UK’s highest-grossing movie ever. This has been corrected.
Arabian Nights: Volume 3 – The Enchanted One review – a limp last tale Anyone who has already sat through the cumulative 257 minutes of Volumes 1 and 2 of Miguel Gomes’s idiosyncratic portrait of contemporary Portugal (released in consecutive weeks last month) is unlikely to want to skip the third instalment. However, it is fair to say that this is the least essential of the three films. The narrator Scheherazade (Crista Alfaiate) is fleshed out as a character. Her adventure – a brief escape to an archipelago populated by outlaws – is a playful tangle of anachronisms. But charm dissipates with the final story, an overlong documentary-style portrait of a working-class bird-trapping community. Tonally, it’s reminiscent of Raymond Depardon’s glum portraits of French rural life, spiked with surreal flashes. If this was Scheherazade’s final story, it would have been unlikely to stave off her execution.
My Scientology Movie review – amusing but lightweight This is less an in-depth investigation into the Church of Scientology than an entertaining but highly contrived string of scenes featuring Louis Theroux kicking an anthill and then watching the inhabitants react. Although he interviews several high-profile defectors from Scientology – most notably pugnacious former enforcer Marty Rathbun – Theroux’s approach is largely stunt-based. Using Rathbun as an adviser, he stages recreations of the world behind the fortified walls of the Scientologists’ compound. But to what end? It’s played more for humour than for the mounting discomfort generated by a similar technique in The Act of Killing. In the absence of interviews with current Scientology members, Theroux hovers around the entrance to the headquarters, trying to charm a few words out of the bristling security detail. It’s a device that owes a debt to Michael Moore’s bumbling everyman persona. Ultimately, this is an amusing, eye-opening film. However, the one thing we do take from it is that the Church of Scientology is no laughing matter. The definitive film on the subject remains Alex Gibney’s Going Clear.
If you don’t like what I write, let me know… politely With so much around about abusive comments on online newspaper sites (misogyny, racism, homophobia), I thought perhaps I could have my say. First, though, may I apologise in advance to those readers who concentrate on the actual newspaper, some of whom may be baffled, bored or both, by matters online? Not everyone lives and breathes every moment online. That said, some of these issues go beyond the medium into the realms of not only abuse, but also at times the degradation of an entire trade. And believe me when I say that if journalists want to be degraded, they can do it themselves. I’m not going to pretend that I’m frightened or disturbed by online comments, because I’m not. For a start, I don’t see the really offensive ones (which are removed by the hard-working moderators). Moreover, I started out in music journalism, where it was commonplace to field complaints, arguments, even threats, from disgruntled bands, managers, publicists and fans who didn’t take kindly to your estimation that such and such artist’s latest effort was “glorified ear poo”. After that apprenticeship, online nastiness seems very far away – a background, albeit toxic, hum. What does bother me is that other writers, especially female, gay or from an ethnic minority, may feel intimidated. And why wouldn’t they be? While I haven’t been the target of racist or homophobic abuse, I feel I know a little bit about misogyny. Know it? There have been times when I’ve felt I’ve showered in it, with sexism as my gritty soap and chauvinism my filthy flannel. Then there’s the other more insidious form of intimidation – the attempts to make writers feel nervous about writing at all, most commonly with the assertion that anything written above the line (ABL) is “clickbait”, written purely to cause outrage and generate web traffic. I’m confused by clickbait. Since when was using the most interesting idea available clickbait? What writer ever declared: “I’ve thought of something really dull – I must write it immediately”? What editor ever said: “What an interesting idea, but you mustn’t write it in case people read it”? No writer, no editor, that’s who. Clickbait is now such a prevalent, dominant term that you’d think you were living in some terrible clickbait era, when it is as it always was. Everything in a newspaper, from war reports to crossword puzzles, has always existed to be looked at by as many people as possible. In this new online era, this means that either everything is clickbait or nothing is. Personally, I listen hard to my comment editor and… that’s your lot. I think it’s crucial to block out thoughts of any reaction, including online – neither to court nor be cowed by it. Otherwise, you’re either rising to the bait (Katie Hopkins syndrome?) or you end up being too spooked to write freely, qualifying your thoughts at every turn. Who’s “baiting” whom anyway? Having largely avoided comments under my columns, I went back for a peek and let me tell you, I’m disappointed in some people’s behaviour. Some commenters only read the headline and comment on that. Others appear to require therapy to get over stuff I wrote ages ago (as the Disney heroine sang: let it go). Others still seem confused that there are usually three unconnected pieces to my column (sweeties, if you ever just once shelled out for the actual newspaper, you might be aware of the layout). Elsewhere, there are accusations about straw men (finding fresh angles is part of a columnist’s job) and people who stereotype you as privileged (amusing, seeing I was dragged up in a council house). Then there are those who appear to view columns like mine as meeting places for misogynists who can’t spell “misogyny”. And these are just the ones that haven’t been moderated – lord knows what horrors are lurking beneath those sinister, greyed-out areas. I’m no ABL diva (I don’t want the comments turned off), but I imagine other writers go through similar comment trajectories. At first, flattered (it’s all about me), then cynical (it’s not really about me), then confused (what is this about?), followed finally by resignation and brain blur. You get to the point where you feel that looking at comments is akin to falling down an Alice in Wonderland-style rabbit hole, only with razor blades sticking out of the wall, slashing at you as you tumble down. Surreal, painful and pointless. And while I’m not intimidated, I’m furious that others might be. Nor would I deny a certain level of professional and personal embarrassment. I’m mortified about how hard the readers’ editor and the moderators have to work on my behalf. When I get sympathy from non-journalists, dealing with their embarrassment… is embarrassing. It says something that I’ve avoided showing my youngest daughter my column online. “This is Mummy’s job – being told she’s talentless, stupid, ugly and insane by hundreds of strangers every week.” I bet only sex workers hide their jobs from their children as much as I do. I was shocked when I realised that “proper” journalists (not this music press arriviste) receive similar treatment. This is what I mean by the degradation of a trade – pretty much everyone getting their work and reputation mauled as a matter of course. Amid all this, the crucial point that too rarely gets a mention is that, love them or hate them, hacks put their names to what they write. While I’m not against pseudonyms, there’s a dark irony to watching people with aliases harassing writers who have at least put their bylines where their gobs are. Is it hopeless? No. During my comment reconnaissance mission, under pieces I’d previously avoided, amid the toxic swamp and greyed-out abyss, it was heartening to see a lot of clever, interesting people conversing with one another, sometimes strongly disagreeing with something I’d said, but reasonably, normally, without resorting to insults. Thrilled, I thought: why can’t it always be like this? You tell me. It’s getting ugly in the new battle of the bulge A hotel restaurant in New Zealand has banned Lycra cycling shorts because of “unsightly” bulges, insisting that customers wear trousers. After I’d finished laughing and texting my (cyclist) partner, I was conflicted. Aren’t some cyclists already arrogant enough without hearing their bulges are too large? These types already think they own the roads and pavements. To hear them harp on, you’d think they’d invented physical exercise. The ones who go on mountain rides are the worst, returning radiating such an evangelical smug glow that you would think that Moses himself had descended on to the cycling path to hand over the Ten Commandments. So yes, some cyclists can be annoying. However, who cares if they sit their sweaty bottoms down in restaurants – and who’s staring so hard at the front anyway? Those shorts are usually padded at the back (to prevent chafing) and, teamed with the helmets, day-glo tops and clunky pedal shoes, they make wearers resemble giant deformed insects. So if someone is choosing to ignore all that, to gawp at the front bulge instead, this may say more about them than it does about cyclists.
Behold, Darth Workshy: Prince William’s busy day on the Star Wars set To Pinewood Studios, and a picture best captioned: “OH GOD JUST BRING BACK THE EFFING TRADE FEDERATION”. The snap is datelined Tuesday, when Prince William was green-screened into the appearance of doing a day’s work by the state-of-the-art special effects team on the Star Wars sequel trilogy. Behold, Darth Workshy and his mildly racist sidekick, sparring in a sequence likely to throw individuals from Jar Jar Binks to bratty Anakin Jr into somewhat sympathetic relief. But we’re running ahead of ourselves. Convention demands we set the scene with a slowly receding opening crawl, so here goes … These are troubled times for the empire. Unrest at Darth Workshy’s £4.5m private quarters refurbishment and three-hours-a-week gig as a tauntaun search-and-rescue operative in the Hoth system has spread throughout the galaxy. Interviewed on the gilt planet by malfunctioning protocol droid Nicholas Witchell, the imperial heir has been directly confronted by the fact he is outgrafted by a 90-year-old. Though Witchell declines to go full rogue, and sneer: “I find your lack of activity disturbing”, Darth Workshy’s failure to deploy the Force choke on him indicates an emerging authority vacuum at the heart of the empire. Much depends on pod-racing Aryan whippersnapper Moff George, the new hope whose midichlorian count may decide the future of the galaxy … So there you have it. Same as it ever was, yet all very much TO BE CONTINUED.
West Brom v Manchester United: Premier League – as it happened And here is our match report: Three wins in a row have lifted Man Utd to be level on points with Spurs, who play Burnley on Sunday, and three points behind Man City. West Brom remain seventh but there is now a significant gap – seven points – to the top six. That’s all from me, thanks for reading. Bye! United finish the game as they played much of the first half, in control of the ball. The second half was very scrappy but Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s deflected strike sealed the points. 90+1 min Chris Smalling is sent on for the final moments, replacing Ander Herrera. Zlatan Ibrahimovic is awarded man of the match. 88 min Leko shows a lovely turn of pace on the touchline before crossing but West Brom are outnumbered in the United box. Then the most cynical foul of the season – Rashford knocks the ball past Chris Brunt on the right wing, and the full-back quickly decides the chase would be a futile and humiliating assignment and instead clatters Rashford to the floor with his shoulder. Yellow card. 86 min The visiting fans are in great spirits and are singing Fellaini’s name. 84 min Wayne Rooney is the player to make way for Fellaini. 82 min Marouane Fellaini is preparing himself for action. This one’s not over yet. 80 min On BT Sport, Owen Hargreaves describes Man Utd’s performance as “exceptional”. I’m not sure about that but they have certainly been the better side. West Brom will make a couple changes: Hal Robson-Kanu replaces Matt Phillips and talented teenager Jonathan Leko takes over from Nacer Chadli. 78 min Rashford pinches the ball and zooms away from everyone. He cuts in from the right but runs into traffic around the West Brom box and is forced backwards. Even so, he has ended a spell of home pressure. 76 min United have had to defend plenty of high balls, particularly in this second period, and they’ve done it pretty well. Here comes Marcus Rashford off the bench, replacing Jesse Lingard who had a pretty strong game bar his miss just before the break. 75 min The persistent fouls are making this second half a rough watch. Darmian trips Nyom this time, and West Brom will have another chance to deliver from wide. 73 min Craig Dawson is replaced by James Morrison for West Brom. It looks like Chris Brunt will drop back to left-back and Nyom will shift over to the right. 71 min The corner is swung deep towards McAuley who tries to bump a header back across goal but it strikes Pogba. A few shouts for handball but Anthony Taylor is unmoved. 70 min Dawson’s cross is blocked by Rooney. Corner to West Brom, and The Hawthorns is finding its voice. 68 min Pogba tries a long-range effort but crashes his shot into the ground which takes the pace off and it’s easy enough for Foster to gather. 65 min Pogba is penalised for a little barge on Dawson and West Brom swing a free-kick into the centre, but Rojo climbs highest and heads the danger clear. 63 min It’s all kicking off. Rondón and Rojo get themselves a silly squabble and Phil Jones piles in, as do several others. Anthony Taylor dishes out yellows to the former pair. 61 min Rondón dribbles down the right at four or five red shirts and somehow manages to poke a pass out of the crowd to Phillips running beyond him, but the winger is called offside just as he thought he was in. 58 min A free-kick to West Brom wide on the left, but first Jesse Lingard is booked for refusing to step away from the ball. Pointless. Eventually Brunt unfurls one of those glorious deliveries but McAuley can’t aim his header on target. Rooney drives in from the left and finds Ibrahimovic on the corner of the box. The striker cuts inside with a quick scoop between two defenders before firing a heavily deflected shot past a wrong-footed Ben Foster from 18 yards. 55 min Pogba tries to catch Foster off his line with a chip from 40 yards, but he doesn’t find the required height. 54 min Rooney brings the ball out of the sky beautifully near the byline and forces a corner under some pressure. The delivery is less impressive and West Brom come away. 52 min Ibrahimovic is penalised for a foul on Olsson on the edge of the West Brom box which seemed like it could have gone either way. Zlatan has been in a brutal battle all game with this West Brom defence. 50 min Craig Dawson is booked for a late tackle on Ibrahimovic. 49 min A frustrated Rondón boots the loose ball from the halfway line back to his own goalkeeper after tussling with Phil Jones and missing out on a free-kick. The striker hasn’t had a lot of joy so far. 47 min West Brom toss a free-kick into the box but United deal with it and pump the ball forwards. Zlatan gets the ball rolling. Some half-time correspondence: “Tribal fans dislike being called detractors of their own sons,” emails Bharat Tiwari, who emailed pre-match with a dig at Lingard. “Especially as I’ve pumped for him since he was knocking them in for fun in the academy. But that miss from Jesse in a crucial juncture is what I meant when I said that his inexperience brings a lack of composure at times. But I’ve been delighted with his work so far, the yahoo from 8 yards notwithstanding. The pass for the goal was laser guided and his link up play has been joyfulness itself. The break out he calmly handled at 43’ was super too.” “Utd are so dominant it is stupid,” emails Philip Brennan. “It’ll probably end one all.” “Regarding this whole ‘Paul Pogba not worth the price they paid’ thing,” emails Mark Turner, “I’d like to add that Pogba isn’t worth the price they paid. Silky skillz etc, but being bossed by aggressive Baggies midfielders impresses nobody.” I’m not sure I’ve seen him be bossed, except for a moment when he was caught on the ball towards the end of the half. United’s midfield looked pretty classy for much of it and Pogba was at the centre. Ibrahimovic’s early header hands United the advantage at the break. 43 min Lingard wastes a glorious opportunity which falls to him a little fortuitously when Darmian’s mis-hit shot lands in his path. Lingard takes a touch and finds himself through on goal, but lashes the bouncing ball high over the bar from eight yards. 41 min Ibrahimovic wins a good header but there’s no support to pick up the second ball and West Brom’s defenders take it away. The striker is left standing on his own up front, hands on hips. 39 min West Brom get the better of a slightly chaotic passage and deliver a couple of dangerous crosses, but can’t quite carve out a clear opportunity. 37 min Matt Phillips tries a long-range effort but drags it a few yards wide. 35 min Play briefly stops as Herrera takes a thwack in a sensitive area. 33 min The visitors pump a couple of long balls forward which come to not a lot. A third from Pogba finds Lingard’s chest and United move forwards until Valencia is found carelessly offside. 31 min Finally a cross aimed at Salomón Rondón and it’s a wonderful delivery by Matt Phillips from the left. He picks out the striker in between two defenders and the header from eight yards drifts over De Gea, and just a fraction beyond the far post. 29 min United’s midfield are back on the ball and in control. Ibrahimovic drops deep to get involved and tries to feed Rooney running beyond the defence, but Foster rushes out and takes it from the United captain’s toes. 27 min Dawson does now attempt a cross, but it’s blocked by Darmian. Dawson takes the throw-in short and West Brom work it inside to Brunt who crunches a half-volley from 20 yards towards De Gea’s near post, but the goalkeeper gets low and holds on to it. 25 min Salomón Rondón scored three headers from crosses in his last match, so it is odd that the Baggies haven’t tried harder to deliver to him from wide areas. 23 min Ibrahimovic clatters into Dawson in the air and The Hawthorns is furious. Anthony Taylor strides on to the scene and, to the general disappointment of the home support, dishes out only a yellow card. 22 min Brilliant football. Rooney passes inside from the left touchline to Pogba who slips in Lingard sprinting into the box. The winger turns and picks out Rooney, now arriving on the edge of the area, who takes a touch before crashing a shot which is touched on to the bar by Ben Foster. 19 min Some more neat passing in United’s midfield with Lingard, Rooney and Herrera all interchanging positions but the final ball is lacking. 17 min Carrick, Pogba and Herrera take the chance to get their collective foot on the ball and move United upfield. The buildup is steady and patient – until that patience runs out a long punt towards Ibrahimovic is intercepted. 15 min Ibrahimovic, standing a full 10 yards offside, receives a pass and looks up to see the linesman holding his flag down by his side. Zlatan can’t believe his luck but, as if he’s being lightly mocked, the flag goes up as soon as the forward gets his head down to take a shot. Strange. 13 min Replays shows Zlatan gave McAuley a little tug back just before the goal which left one or two West Brom players unhappy with the referee, Anthony Taylor. A tough one to spot, though. 11 min Brunt swings a teasing corner into the six-yard box and Olsson gets a flick on it, but there’s no player in blue and white to tap the ball home at the back post and it runs away harmlessly. 10 min Despite the early United goal, West Brom have had much of the possession so far and they continue to look the more settled of the two sides in midfield. Dawson pokes a ball down the right for Brunt arriving on the edge of the box, whose cross is well-blocked by Rojo. Corner to West Brom, which Brunt will take himself. 9 min Wayne Rooney is sporting a terrific beard at the moment rich with auburn notes, but it seems it’s not for everyone. 7 min That was all a bit simple for Manchester United and Tony Pulis must be frustrated that his plans have been undone so quickly. Jesse Lingard confounds his earlier doubters on email, bursting down the right-hand side on to a long ball and swinging in a perfect cross on the half-volley for Zlatan Ibrahimovic arriving at the far post, who puts a simple header past Ben Foster from six yards. 2 min Brunt tries to lash a shot at goal from 25 yards and has his shot blocked by Carrick. A moment later Chadli has a try from 30, but it sails high over De Gea’s crossbar. West Brom get things under way and they go straight on the attack, pinning United back into their half. Former team-mates Wayne Rooney and Darren Fletcher lead the teams out at The Hawthorns to Sandstorm by Darude. Classic Pulis. “He’s our academy boy and all,” emails Bharat Tiwari, “but Jesse still doesn’t inspire enough confidence despite his FA cup heroics. Wonder if his pace over Mata’s string-pulling and understated ball winning can do us any favours. Man, the Danny Rose tackle hit us BAD.” Christopher Dale emails: “There’s something deeply wrong about a world where Fellaini is still inflicting his hirsute incompetence on United fans after three and a half awful seasons, while Darren Fletcher lines up for West Brom.” Fellaini is on the bench today ready to spring into action whenever the Baggies need him. José Mourinho also mutters something from beneath his hooded cloak about needing to rotate his team, but not too much because they are playing well. On BT Sport, La Galaxy legend Steven Gerrard is in the studio and predicts a Manchester United win. Zlatan Ibrahimovic speaks! He is asked if he needs to be rested. “You know what, I’m here to play and I want to play. As a football player you get blind sometimes, you have to listen to your body, but in my mind I feel like a 20-year-old boy. I will keep playing as long as the team needs me.” West Brom fan Tom Levesley emails: “Can we call this a six-pointer?” Let’s hope that is the first question is asked in José Mourinho’s pre-match interview. Tony Pulis speaks! “[James] Morrison’s played six or seven games consecutively and looked a little tired against Swansea. He can do the last half an hour if we need that. We had six days to really nail down what we wanted to do on the training pitch [against Chelsea but] we haven’t had that this time. They’ve got some really, really good players but we just want to enjoy the game.” There’s some late goal drama in the Premier League’s 3pm GMT kick-offs. You can follow the action right here with Barry Glendenning’s live updates: So James Morrison drops to the West Brom bench as Craig Dawson returns to the side following suspension, which means Chris Brunt’s crossing prowess will be shunted further up the pitch. Brunt will be up against Antonio Valencia who returns to United’s side at right-back, while Matteo Darmian starts in place of Daley Blind at left-back and Juan Mata gives way for Jesse Lingard in midfield. Anthony Martial remains on the bench, and we all know what he thinks of that... West Brom: Foster; Dawson, McAuley, Olsson, Nyom; Yacob, Fletcher; Brunt, Chadli, Phillips; Rondon Subs: Myhill, Robson-Kanu, Morrison, Gardner, McClean, Galloway, Leko Manchester United: De Gea; Valencia, Jones, Rojo, Darmian; Carrick, Herrera; Lingard, Pogba, Rooney; Ibrahimovic. Subs: Romero, Blind, Smalling, Fellaini, Mata, Martial, Rashford Preamble After the unpredictability of last season’s bewildering Premier League season, the usual candidates have gathered at the top in a strike back for good ol’ conformity. At least when we look back on all this, Leicester’s singular act of rebellion will stand out as the truly remarkable triumph that it was. There is a now little gap between the top six and the rest, with Manchester United and West Brom standing on either side of the divide. A couple of back-to-back wins have United sixth while the Baggies have blindsided all of us to pitch up in seventh, an achievement based on their newfound ability to score goals and plenty of them. Matt Phillips, Chris Brunt, James Morrison and heading sensation Salomón Rondón all appear to be playing close to their best, although how they respond today when Marcos Rojo delivers his weekly two-footer remains to be seen. Horror tackles aside, Rojo has helped form the basis of United’s newfound ability to keep out late goals, his recovery pace complementing the frontline head it and clear it work of Phil Jones. It is difficult to give José Mourinho huge credit for a defensive partnership he stumbled across but the manager seems finally to have his team moulded in something close to his ideals. He has a point when he gripes that United could and should have won several of their six league draws, games in which they totalled 36 shots on target to their opponents’ 19. United will get another stiff test here against the side who have come closer than any other to stopping Chelsea’s winning run, and against a manger in Tony Pulis who has a good record against Mourinho. West Brom are on a roll, and they could take a significant chunk out of that gap above them with a win at The Hawthorns today. Kick-off: 5.30pm GMT
Manchester United’s Juan Mata leaves it late to break down Watford Manchester United are starting to catch fire just as a late-season surge is needed to claim a Champions League place. When Juan Mata belted home a sweet 20-yard free-kick that proved the winner there were seven minutes remaining and the way he wheeled away in celebration spoke of how the Spaniard had transformed the match. United had been heading for a goalless draw and the gaining of only one point on Manchester City, who lost at Liverpool, and with West Ham United beating Tottenham, Louis van Gaal’s side would have dropped a place to sixth. Instead, with 10 matches left, United have the same 47 points as City and are fifth only on goal difference. All of this was achieved despite 11 players being out injured. “We have four wins in a row, fantastic, but we have a very small selection at the moment,” Van Gaal said. “We are still in the possibility of being in the top four and I don’t think that’s bad. We’re in the quarter-finals of the FA Cup and the last 16 of the Europa League. But it also means it’s a full programme.” Van Gaal had come close to taking off Mata before the playmaker scored. “He was limping,” the manager said. “I am very happy I let him stay.” Marcus Rashford made his third consecutive start and on the 25th anniversary of Ryan Giggs’s first game for United there was a full debut for Tim Fosu-Mensah. The 18-year-old lined up next to Daley Blind because Michael Carrick was rested. The two Dutchmen were asked to marshal the muscular strike duo of Troy Deeney and Odion Ighalo and Van Gaal was particularly pleased how they coped. “Timothy has saved us several times because of his speed, so I was pleased he was on the pitch. He wanted to go off but I wanted him to stay on,” Van Gaal said. “He had to play against Ighalo, a handful for a centre-half, and he did it fantastically.” Fosu-Mensah engaged in a 50-50 tackle with Deeney that the Watford captain certainly felt and there was further impressive play when the youngster dispossessed Ighalo in the area when timing was the essence. Anthony Martial returned to the team for a match Van Gaal hoped to win to record United’s first consecutive league victories since defeating Watford in November. The 20-year-old had their opening chance when Ander Herrera picked him out but his header was easily gathered by Heurelho Gomes. After Morgan Schneiderlin had brought gasps from the crowd with a long-range volley, Watford carved United apart. Étienne Capoue was enjoying himself along the left and from there he fashioned a cross that was flicked on by Deeney to Ighalo whose shot served as a warning. As the 30-minute mark passed Rashford had barely touched the ball but he was about to come to life. His swivel and toe-poke made a mug of Sebastian Prödl and drew a foul from the Watford defender. Memphis Depay took the free-kick but his delivery went straight to Gomes. The forward had misfired throughout the first half, which was largely the story of United’s stuttering play. Watford could have been two ahead, Ighalo twice being denied by the reflexes of David de Gea. The hope was that the second half would be an improvement. Capoue had been the brightest player and he gave United a scare with a fierce 30-yard shot that sailed only a little high. There was further concern when Watford went close from a corner they won after a terrible Blind miskick. Ben Watson swung in the ball and Prödl’s header was beaten out at the near post by the excellent De Gea. Mata was captain for the match and his rescue act began with two shots before engineering a move in which Rashford crossed when he might have tried to finish. It did not matter because the best was about to come from the Spaniard.
The view on the seven-day NHS: the figures don’t add up At first reading, the words in the health department’s private internal briefing can seem measured and unsensational: “The current financial context means we need to demonstrate that 7DS [seven-day services in the NHS] is achievable and realistic.” Who could disagree with that? Lift the stone and peer beneath, however, and the Whitehall calm soon crumbles as the full implications sink in. The reality underlying the studied words in the latest departmental document seen by the and Channel 4 News is that internal anxiety over the health secretary Jeremy Hunt’s flagship 7DS pledge for the NHS is still churning. Is 7DS achievable as the budget stands? Is it realistic? The answers to these apparently innocent questions are extremely uncertain. They signal huge economic and political problems for Theresa May’s government, which cannot afford to be seen as anti-NHS. The latest Department of Health document illuminates one particular part of the problem. The briefing is actually less worried by the financial context than by the terms in which Mr Hunt has framed the argument for 7DS. Mr Hunt has long put the supposed “weekend effect” of uneven hospital care at the core of his case for hospital rota and contract reorganisation. Solving that problem was the Conservative party’s headline pledge on health in the 2015 election. Mr Hunt’s promise to overhaul a system that he claimed was causing 6,000 deaths a year provided the emotional underpinning of David Cameron’s commitment to the NHS. But the “weekend effect” claim was always hugely contentious. The issue became increasingly toxic as relations between Mr Hunt and the doctors deteriorated over contract reform. The Department of Health document now concedes that the claim, with its not-so-subtle subtext that doctors are allowing patients to die, “has not been helpful”. But it also implies that the focus on public safety, which was not at the top of the public’s list of concerns about the NHS, has allowed Mr Hunt to cast himself as the enemy of much-cherished doctors. As a result, the more he warns about deaths, the more he seems to lose standing in the dispute. Ordinarily, a skilled minister might be able to turn the tables with new offers to the doctors. But that is where the overriding constraint of the financial context kicks in. The documents that were leaked on Monday provide the wider context. Here the department itself identifies 13 major risks, five of them in the gravest category, that stand between Mr Hunt and delivery of the promised seven-days-a-week service. The department dubs the most serious of these risks “workforce overload”. This, it admits, would involve fundamental roles in the 7DS system – consultants, GPs and other health professionals – going unfilled by trained staff. But this is a euphemistic way of describing the issue. It is simply another way of saying that there may not in fact be enough money to deliver the health service the government says it wants. This in turn gets to the much more fundamental issue, which is that the supply of extra funds for health in an expanding and ageing population will always struggle to keep up with demand, even in expansionary times. It will certainly fall behind if government prioritises the elimination of the deficit, as the Cameron government did for so long. That priority has now been abandoned in the wake of Brexit, though the chancellor, Philip Hammond, has yet to spell out the consequences. These could be good or bad at the margins for health. But the fact remains that, faced with 7DS reorganisation, the figures simply do not seem to add up. This is compounded by the sheer political damage that the government has done itself over the years, first in Andrew Lansley’s botched reorganisation after 2010 and now as a result of Mr Hunt’s failure to settle fairly with the doctors. Here again, the leaked internal documents resort to euphemism, calling this risk “negative publicity”. But the political reality is spelled out later on when the document admits that the NHS workforce “do not believe in the case for change”. Theresa May has not said much about the NHS since she became prime minister. But she cannot ignore what these documents expose. The Conservative party always struggles for trust on the NHS, even when Labour is in disarray. It is now paying the price for what a former Tory health minister, Dan Poulter, this week said is “putting soundbites ahead of properly costed and resourced plans for our NHS”. Mrs May has many big issues on her plate. She should not run away from this one.
Give us a brake: so far Cameron has little to show from EU talks David Cameron is reportedly closing in on a deal that would secure for the UK an “emergency brake” to restrict EU migrants’ access to benefits if and when their arrival puts excessive pressure on public services and welfare systems. The agreement would allow any EU member state to request a brake be applied, although the authority to approve the emergency measure would lie with other EU governments at a European council level. There is no indication for how long a brake could remain in place, but there are suggestions that it could last for up to four years once initiated. And, crucially, it is unclear what defines an emergency. Hopefully, further details will become clearer when Cameron meets Jean-Claude Juncker, the European commission president, on Friday afternoon. However, there is one question that can already be asked: can the very idea of an emergency brake work? Put aside political and economic considerations – should the UK be aiming to reduce immigration and do in-work benefits act an incentive for migrants? – and ignore any legal concerns and complexities. Give the government the benefit of the doubt and assume Britain is indeed overwhelmed by high migration and it needs to reduce inward flows. If we assume this, any proposal should be measured by the impact it has on the problem it sets out to solve. First, the lever should be pulled before the referendum, or at least a timeframe should be agreed before Britons head to the polls. The justification for making restrictions to immigration a central pillar of the negotiations assumes an immediate problem exists. If the brake is not pulled now, then when? Secondly, the UK’s concerns over immigration are not driven by short-term pressure, such as in Bavaria last summer when tens of thousands entered the German state over one weekend, but by longer-term flows. In this sense, the effectiveness of a temporary one-off measure is nebulous. Even more so if it turns out that the vast majority of people come to Britain to work and not to claim benefits. The net result is that the emergency brake may end up a toothless deterrent that is never used, no more than a stick to wave during the referendum in the hope that it is enough to assuage voters’ concerns while, ultimately, doing little to dent immigration. The sensitivity around this measure matters because restricting migrants’ access to in-work benefits for four years is the most precise among the prime minister’s areas of negotiation. It has a specificity that his other demands, such as increasing Europe’s competitiveness or safeguarding non-euro countries from the principle of an “ever closer union”, do not possess. The goal has been so clearly stated that anything less could be perceived as falling short. Cameron has said he is open to alternative ways to achieve the same goal. However, the clarity of the original demand has forced the prime minister into a position where he must now be seen to have delivered on that pledge. Numerous compromises have been explored, such as welfare measures applicable to all new claimants, which would hit thousands of young Britons, or a brake on the number of arrivals. Once properly scrutinised, these have proven to be too costly, in breach of EU law, or politically unpalatable at home or abroad. The latest blueprint for compromise has taken the shape of an emergency brake on benefits. But the feasibility and substance of any measure will be in the details – and the most important of these remain unknown. Cameron may return to Britain, to borrow an Italian saying, with only fried air to sell to the electorate. Will voters buy it?
Mental illness soars among young women in England – survey Sexual violence, childhood trauma and pressures from social media are being blamed for dramatic increases in the number of young women self-harming and having post-traumatic stress disorder or a chronic mental illness. An inquiry into the state of mental health in England found alarming evidence that more women aged from 16 to 24 are experiencing mental health problems than ever before. “Young women have become a key high risk group,” it concluded. Psychological distress is now so common that one in four in that age group have harmed themselves at some point, according to the government-funded Adult Psychiatric Morbidity survey. The number of women of that age who screened positive for PTSD has also trebled from 4.2% in 2007 to 12.6% – one in eight – in 2014, although the use of a more accurate screening tool in the new survey helps explain some of that rise. Young women are more than three times as likely as their male peers to have PTSD; just 3.6% of men in the age group age had it, the report by NHS Digital said. In addition, women that age are more likely than any other group to have experienced a common mental disorder (CMD) in the past week, according to the in-depth study of 7,500 people of all ages. Researchers found that more than one in four (26%) of women aged 16 to 24 had anxiety, depression, panic disorder, phobia or obsessive compulsive disorder. Overall, 19% of women of all ages had one of those, compared with 12% of men. Sally McManus, the lead researcher in the survey, said: “We know that there are things like violence and abuse that are strongly associated with mental illness.” But, she added: “This is also the age of social media ubiquity. This is the context that [young women] are coming into and it warrants further research.” Addressing the smaller numbers of 16- to 24-year-old men with one of those conditions, the report said: “The gender gap in mental illness had become most pronounced in young people, and there is evidence that this gap has widened in recent years.” While caution was needed due to some of the sample sizes being relatively small, the findings about young women were consistent with those uncovered recently by other researchers and also the Children’s Society, it added. Reports of self-harm among 16- to 24-year-olds doubled in men to 7.9% and trebled in women to 19.7% between 2007 and 2014. The report acknowledged that the rises could be due to changes in reporting behaviour and people feeling more able to disclose that they had self-harmed. But “it is possible that increased reporting of self-harm reflects a real increase in the behaviour”, it said. Rates of serious mental illness have remained largely unchanged among men over the years that they have been rising among women. The proportion of the overall population with a common mental disorder has risen steadily since the survey was first conducted, in 1993. That has gone from 6.9% of 16- to 64-year-olds in 1993 to 7.9% in 2000, then to 8.5% in 2007 and now to 9.3%. The report says: “Increases in CMD were driven by rises in women; the prevalence of CMD symptoms in men had remained broadly stable since 2000.” While 10% of women exhibited symptoms of more serious mental illness, only 6% of men did. Kate Lovett, dean of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, said more research was needed to fully understand the rise in PTSD, but said rape or other sexual abuse were possible triggers. She said the rise in chronic mental illness among 16- to 24-year-old young women was clearly worrying, with social media a likely key contributor. “This is the first age group that we have had coming to age in the social media age,” Lovett said. “There are some studies that have found those who spend time on the internet or using social media are more likely to [experience] depression, but correlation doesn’t imply causality.” Prof Maureen Baker, chair of the Royal College of GPs, said: “These figures highlight worrying trends, particularly regarding the growing number of young women accessing mental health treatment. Society is changing – even in the last seven years, social media, for example, has increased in popularity and the number of platforms people might be present on has multiplied. “As a result, young people are facing unprecedented pressures, not just over the emergence of cyberbullying and revenge porn, but constant exposure to unattainable aspirations of what they should look like, and be like.” Doctors and mental health campaigners said the findings were alarming and called for urgent improvements in NHS psychological and psychiatric services, including for young adults. Sarah Brennan, chief executive of the charity Young Minds, said the gender gap that emerged from the report might be explained by the sexes reacting differently to troubling events. “The gender difference can be associated with the different ways young men and young women respond to distress,” she said. “Young men tend to externalise pressure – for instance by being angry or violent – while young women are more likely to internalise their feelings, and take them out on themselves, for example by cutting or through eating disorders.” The research, which was undertaken for NHS Digital by the National Centre for Social Research in collaboration with Leicester University, also found that: 17% of people have a common mental disorder. 37% of people who have anxiety or depression get treatment for their condition, up from 24% in 2007. One in three people now undergo some form of treatment for their illness, either counselling or medication, compared with one in four in 2007. Paul Farmer, chief executive of the charity Mind and chair of the NHS’s recent taskforce on mental health, said while the growing numbers in treatment was welcome, untreated mental illness was still a huge problem. “It’s still clear that nowhere near enough people are getting the support they need – in fact, more people than not are getting no treatment at all,” he said. Prof Sir Simon Wessely, president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, said: “With just one in three people with a mental illness receiving treatment, the need for mental health services is far outstripped by the demand.” A spokesman for the Department of Health said the government was increasing investment in mental health services with an extra £1bn every year until 2020. He said: “This survey shows that more people than ever are receiving vital mental health treatment, but we are determined to do more. We want to make sure that everyone, regardless of gender, age or background, gets the mental health treatment they need.” ‘I had to learn to manage my mental health alone’ Maria Jordan, 21, lives in Portsmouth where she works as a deputy coordinator for an NGO called Facing Illness Together, and is a social care worker for young people with mental health issues “I was sexually abused at the age of eight. I grew up surrounded by drugs and abuse. When I was 16, I took multiple overdoses. I also self-harmed. I was in hospital quite a lot, I was sectioned on two occasions, both for four months. I was diagnosed then with PTSD, depression and anxiety, and later with borderline personality disorder. “It was caused by the sexual abuse; I was having a lot of flashbacks when I felt I was in the moment again and living it all over again. I couldn’t get myself in touch with reality. “The treatment was mainly medication and spending time in hospital recovering. I don’t feel I got the treatment I needed – I needed someone to speak to, a therapist or counsellor. My feelings weren’t really addressed, I wasn’t listened to. It was: ‘We’ve given you medication and hope you’re OK.’ “I ended up having to help myself. I am quite lucky I found the strength to help myself as not everyone would have that. I was discharged way too early, I had to learn to look after myself and manage my mental health alone. It made me more ill initially until I said: ‘I’m alone, I have to do it [myself].’ “I wouldn’t say I’ve recovered – it’s about keeping in touch with reality so I don’t slip into the dark places. I have night terrors; I can wake up and not feel like I’m in reality, I can have dreams of what happened to me that seem real. There’s always a worry that I’ll be ill again and the worry is that I won’t get the help I need again. “PTSD is an illness that isn’t recognised enough and finding that support can be quite difficult. Everyone in mental health knows about it but I don’t think they fully understand it when I say what’s happening to me. I wasn’t surprised [about the results of the survey], I think it’s a very common illness but other people might be surprised. “Professionals need to dig deeper and see what traumatic events have happened in your past. The biggest problem I hear from other people is there is not enough support.” As told to Haroon Siddique ‘Social media makes it harder to tune out things that are traumatic’ Kerry Mae-Doogan, 21, is from Wigan “I was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder in 2010 when I was 14. I was the victim of a sexual assault and thought I could handle it, but then I reached a crisis point and was referred to children’s mental health services where I got cognitive behavioural therapy. I didn’t find it helpful and ended up discharging myself. Since then, I’ve had no other formal treatment, and dealt with it on my own. “For me the symptoms of PTSD include anxiety and panic attacks, so I wouldn’t go out after dark because it would make me too anxious and I don’t like being alone in my house. I used to have flashback nightmares quite regularly and developed insomnia as a result. “Over the past few years, my condition has improved through recognising the triggers – and being careful not to put myself in vulnerable situations helps. I also have really supportive friends and practise meditation and mindfulness regularly. Now if I have a panic attack I know how to calm myself down. So I have learned how to manage my condition and if I need to do something in the evening then I will arrange for a friend to come with me. “Certain things still make me feel more anxious, however, like watching sexual assault on TV; that can be upsetting and I don’t really like going out to places I am unfamiliar with. “The last time I had a PTSD attack was more than a year ago. That was triggered by being stressed about university: I had just moved into halls. I was overwhelmed by this and had an anxiety attack as a result. In the end I decided that – at that time – university wasn’t for me and I needed to build up to it. I am now in an apprenticeship. “When you’re having a flashback or panic attack it feels like you’re drowning in the weight of what’s happening and you can see what is in front of you but at the same time your mind is in the past. It’s hard to interact with the present when your mind is constantly trying to take you back to what has happened. “I’ve heard of PTSD being an issue for women and the report doesn’t surprise me. Lots of people go through awful experiences and PTSD is also being more recognised than it used to be; there’s a rising awareness about it. This means now a lot of young women are more willing to go to a doctor and seek help if they have issues. “Social media makes it harder to tune out of things that are traumatic and would trigger flashbacks or anxiety attacks – especially in TV and in films. Some shows or comments online can be quite violent and disturbing; they might be intended as jokes but they can be harmful and hard to filter out.” As told to Sarah Marsh In the UK and Ireland the Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Hotline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14. Hotlines in other countries can be found here.
It Can’t Happen Here: a demagogue rises, but the parallels aren't yuge In those entertaining early days of the Republican primaries, the illogical popularity of Donald Trump seemed like a lark. Snarky nicknames were coined, toupee memes were shared. And even when Trump dissenters were sucker-punched at rallies and racists grew emboldened, candidate Trump’s oratory provided comic relief because so many sensible Americans were confident that, comparisons to Mussolini notwithstanding, it really can’t happen here. In 1935, just after the rise of the Third Reich, Sinclair Lewis wrote It Can’t Happen Here, a satirical novel about fascism in America. His intention was to shake up an American electorate complacent that the land of the free could never become a police state. So Lewis wrote about a demagogue who becomes president of the United States by promising to return the country to greatness and by demanding law and order. Now the time seems ripe for a new look at Lewis’s cautionary tale. The world premiere of Berkeley Rep’s theatrical adaptation of It Can’t Happen Here promises shrewd parallels between then and now. But the production is less lacerating satire than agitprop. Tony Taccone and Bennett S Cohen intended to improve upon a previous theatrical adaptation staged by the earnest WPA in 1936. Yet under Lisa Peterson’s stylized direction, this version retains a didactic righteousness. The play never shakes its bookish shape. Actors stand in sober formation to address the audience. Descriptive sentences are parceled out to actors and dialogue takes the backseat to pontificating and political speechifying. Characters aren’t much more than mouthpieces. The mouthpiece with the best words is Doremus Jessup, played by Tom Nelis. A social-democratic newspaper editor (from Vermont of all places), Jessup is the wry voice of reason. He knows those who express certainty that there’s no way Americans will elect Buzz Windrip are “overestimating the country”. Played bigly by David Kelly, Senator Berzelius “Buzz” Windrip is a charismatic charlatan who spins stagecraft and peddles fears. Taccone and Cohen sprinkle Trumpiness throughout their adaptation. Resemblances to today’s headlines are like a theatrical round of Where’s Waldo. Windrip, we hear, “pretended he was his own publicity man”, telling reporters that he “was the smartest man on Earth”. At a rally, Windrip kicks out a commie, yelling, “Get him out … Get him out of here! … In the good old days we would’ve known what to do with this boy.” These nimble additions put a fresh orange coat on the 1934 narrative but Sinclair Lewis’s original book was eerily on the nose. Lewis describes Windrip as “vulgar, almost illiterate, a public liar easily detected, and in his “ideas” almost idiotic”. He is backed by “The League of Forgotten Men” – men who would fit well into a basket of deplorables one imagines. To add to the festive election spirit, the theater audience is instructed to cheer and boo on command. Placards are thrust into our hands. Flags are waved. But after Windrip is elected, the play loses some of its cleverness. The genre shifts to wartime noir as paramilitary thugs squash dissent, martial law is imposed, jails spill over into concentration camps and a resistance movement forms. But for all the high stakes suspense and totalitarian brutality, the stage action fizzles. It’s hard to care about resistance fighters who spout undiluted ideology. To the extent that there are parallels to contemporary politics in the play’s second half, it’s the Bush administration that one sees reflected – scoundrels exploiting patriotism and snatching liberties in the name of freedom. Lewis even anticipated freedom fries; Jessup recalls the war hysteria that had them calling sauerkraut liberty cabbage. From our vantage point, this as an eerily prescient foreshadowing of current affairs. But like some other politically knowing dystopian narratives, (Orwell’s 1984 for one) Lewis was writing about the state of his own contemporary society. His objective was to take down presidential hopeful Huey Long – who was actually assassinated before the election. In Sinclair Lewis’s call to arms, the fearless journalist and his printing press is the final image that inspires hope for political change. Eighty-one years later, Americans might be forgiven for believing that that won’t happen here.
Premier League 2016 summer transfer window: club-by-club verdicts Arsenal It has taken two summers but Arsène Wenger has finally bought to strengthen the spine of his squad. Coming in after Petr Cech last season are players to address key positions that have needed bolstering for some time. Wenger hopes Shkodran Mustafi quickly forms a great partnership with Laurent Koscielny, while Granit Xhaka has already inspired comparisons to Emmanuel Petit in midfield. The wildcard is the 27-year-old Lucas Pérez up front. Arsenal fans craving a dream striker are hoping for the best from an unfamiliar name with a reputation as a late developer, a Spanish Jamie Vardy. Jack Wilshere’s loan move to Bournemouth stands out among the departures. Amy Lawrence Major moves In: Granit Xhaka Borussia Mönchengladbach £35m; Shkodran Mustafi Valencia £35m; Lucas Pérez Deportivo La Coruña £17m; Rob Holding Bolton Wanderers £2m Out: Tomas Rosicky Sparta Prague Free; Joel Campbell Sporting Lisbon (loan); Calum Chambers Middlesbrough (loan); Jack Wilshere Bournemouth (loan) Bournemouth Signing Jordon Ibe from Liverpool for a club-record £15m was an early sign of intent and the winger was soon followed by Brad Smith, with the Anfield left-back moving for £3m. But few could have expected Jack Wilshere would be heading to the Vitality Stadium. The signing of the Arsenal midfielder on loan – in the face of interest from Milan, Roma and Crystal Palace – represents a significant coup. There is excitement, too, about Lewis Cook, the teenage midfielder who arrived for £7m from Leeds United. Marc Wilson has signed from Stoke in an attempt to improve Bournemouth’s leaky defence. Jacob Steinberg Major moves In: Jordon Ibe Liverpool £15m; Lewis Cook Leeds United £7m; Lys Mousset Le Havre £5m; Brad Smith Liverpool £3m; Marc Wilson Stoke £2m; Nathan Aké Chelsea (loan); Jack Wilshere Arsenal (loan) Out: Matt Ritchie Newcastle United £10m; Tommy Elphick Aston Villa £3.3m; Lee Tomlin Bristol City £3m Burnley The club have spent around £18m on reinforcements, a piddling sum next to the amounts being flashed by north‑west neighbours but considerably more than the £5m they spent to no avail two years ago, the previous time they were promoted. Burnley have broken their transfer record twice, first for the Belgium defender Steven Defour, then with the deadline-day acquisition of their long-term target Jeff Hendrick, though a deal for the Poland winger Kamil Grosicki fell through. Burnley should be competitive again, if not yet quite the new Leicester, particularly as Sean Dyche has picked up a couple of shrewd loan signings in Patrick Bamford and Jon Flanagan. Paul Wilson Major moves In: Steven Defour Anderlecht £7.3m; Jon Flanagan Liverpool (loan); Patrick Bamford Chelsea (loan); Jeff Hendrick Derby £10.5m Out: Joey Barton Rangers (free); Matt Gilks Rangers (free) Chelsea For the second summer in succession, there was a rather slapdash feel to much of Chelsea’s business. The arrivals of N’Golo Kanté and Michy Batshuayi set an upbeat tone but the pursuit of defensive reinforcements led Michael Emenalo and Marina Granovskaia on a rather tortuous pursuit of various overpriced centre-halves in Serie A. They ended up pursuing Marcos Alonso for cover at left-back, with all routes eventually, and rather bafflingly, leading to David Luiz at Paris Saint-Germain. Antonio Conte clearly likes a challenge. There have been the usual flurry of loan departures and last year’s surprise deadline-day signing, Papy Djilobodji, was sold at vast profit. Dominic Fifield Major moves In: Michy Batshuayi Marseille £33m; N’Golo Kanté Leicester City £30m; Marcos Alonso Fiorentina £23m; David Luiz PSG £34m Out: Mohamed Salah Roma £12m; Papy Djilobodji Sunderland £8m; Juan Cuadrado Juventus (loan) Crystal Palace The failure to secure Jack Wilshere on deadline day suggested anticlimax but Alan Pardew could hardly complain as to the bulk of the business conducted in this window. Palace’s deficiencies up front should be remedied by the arrivals of Christian Benteke and Loïc Rémy, while Andros Townsend and Steve Mandanda also represent a step up in quality. James Tomkins is the extent of the defensive cover while Yannick Bolasie will be missed as will Mile Jedinak but there can be no more excuses. After two wins in 24 Premier League games, this team must now revive. DF Major moves In: Christian Benteke Liverpool £27m; Andros Townsend Newcastle United £13m; James Tomkins West Ham £9.9m; Steve Mandanda Marseille Free; Loïc Rémy Chelsea (loan) Out: Yannick Bolasie Everton £25m; Dwight Gayle Newcastle United £10m; Alex McCarthy Southampton £4m; Mile Jedinak Aston Villa £3.2m; Adrian Mariappa Watford (free); Marouane Chamakh, Emmanuel Adebayor Both released; Brede Hangeland Retired Everton Ronald Koeman’s first summer in charge of Everton revolved around the two big names who wanted away – John Stones and Romelu Lukaku – and the club appear to have done well in keeping one and obtaining a handsome fee for the other. Lukaku should be as good as a new signing as long as he commits himself fully to the cause this season, and he will have Enner Valencia to support him in attack after failing to land Moussa Sissoko or Yacine Brahimi, while bringing in Ashley Williams to replace Stones could turn out to be one of the smartest bits of business of the summer. Newcomers Maarten Stekelenburg and Idrissa Gana Gueye have already made a favourable impression at Goodison. Yannick Bolasie was more of a surprise but has all the attacking qualities Everton seek. PW Major moves In: Yannick Bolasie Crystal Palace £25m; Ashley Williams Swansea £12m; Idrissa Gueye Aston Villa £7m; Maarten Stekelenburg Fulham £850k; Enner Valencia West Ham (loan) Out: John Stones Manchester City £47.5m; Tim Howard Colorado Rapids (free); Steven Pienaar Sunderland (free); Leon Osman Released Hull City A summer of turmoil featuring Steve Bruce’s departure, several serious injuries and a potential Chinese takeover threatened to produce no signings. Happily for Mike Phelan a collective £17m was belatedly spent on three players – Ryan Mason, David Marshall and Will Keane – before the midfielder James Weir joined from Manchester United and the striker Dieumerci Mbokani came in from Norwich on deadline day. The caretaker manager must also have been relieved to see Abel Hernández, his star striker, stay put in the face of a £20m Aston Villa bid. The squad remain understaffed but Hull’s position no longer looks quite as critical as it did a week ago. Louise Taylor Major moves In: Ryan Mason Tottenham £12.5m; David Marshall Cardiff City £3.5m; Will Keane Manchester United £1m; James Weir Manchester United (undisclosed); Dieumerci Mbokani Norwich City (loan); Markus Henriksen AZ Alkmaar (loan) Out: Mo Diamé Newcastle United £4.5m; Sone Aluko Fulham (free) Leicester City Leicester broke their transfer record three times, first to sign Nampalys Mendy and Ahmed Musa and then on deadline day to bring in Islam Slimani. The one downside for the Premier League champions – and it came as a major blow to Claudio Ranieri – was N’Golo Kanté’s departure to Chelsea. Musa and Slimani will give Leicester plenty of attacking options while Mendy has to fill Kanté’s boots – good luck with that. A question mark hovers over the quality of their central defensive cover for Wes Morgan and Robert Huth. SJ Major moves In: Islam Slimani Sporting Lisbon £30m; Ahmed Musa CSKA Moscow £16m; Nampalys Mendy Nice £13m; Bartosz Kapustka Cracovia £4.25m; Ron-Robert Zieler Hannover £2.8m; Luis Hernández Sporting Gijón (free) Out: N’Golo Kanté Chelsea £30m; Andrej Kramaric Hoffenheim £8.5m; Ritchie De Laet Aston Villa £1.9m; Gökhan Inler Besiktas (undisc) Liverpool Jürgen Klopp did most of his business quickly and decisively, bringing in a couple of proven though expensive Premier League performers in Sadio Mané and Georginio Wijnaldum, while adding bargains from around Europe such as Loris Karius and Joël Matip. It is the outgoing list that catches the eye at Anfield, however. Only Chelsea have moved on or released as many players, but Liverpool’s departees are better known, with Christian Benteke, Joe Allen, Jordon Ibe and Martin Skrtel among the headliners. While Liverpool still have a large squad their slightly muted start to the season has led to some discussion about whether Klopp has left all his bases fully covered. PW Major moves In: Sadio Mané Southampton £30m; Georginio Wijnaldum Newcastle United £25m; Loris Karius Mainz £4.7m; Ragnar Klavan Augsburg £4.25m; Joël Matip Schalke (free) Out: Christian Benteke Crystal Palace £27m; Jordon Ibe Bournemouth £15m; Joe Allen Stoke City £13m; Martin Skrtel Fenerbahce £5m; Luis Alberto Lazio £4.3m; Brad Smith Bournemouth £3m; Jon Flanagan Burnley (loan); Kolo Touré Celtic (free); Mario Balotelli Nice (free); Lazar Markovic Sporting Lisbon (loan) Manchester City Pep Guardiola can be as happy with his trading as José Mourinho is with his at Manchester United. City’s major acquisitions are Leroy Sané, Ilkay Gündogan, John Stones, Nolito and Claudio Bravo. The last player is the replacement for Joe Hart, whose fall as the No1 goalkeeper and loan to Torino is the story of this window. Out, too, have gone Samir Nasri and Wilfried Bony, also on a loan basis. But it is the Hart-Bravo move that Guardiola may be judged on. If the Chilean proves a bad buy City could struggle. Jamie Jackson Major moves In: John Stones Everton £47.5m; Leroy Sané Schalke £37m; Gabriel Jesus Palmeiras £27m; Ilkay Gündogan Borussia Dortmund £21m; Claudio Bravo Barcelona £15.4m; Nolito Celta Vigo £14m Out: Edin Dzeko Roma £9.5m (loan made permanent); Wilfried Bony Stoke City (loan); Joe Hart Torino (loan); Samir Nasri Sevilla (loan); Eliaquim Mangala Valencia (loan); Martín Demichelis Released; Richard Wright Retired; Jason Denayer Sunderland (loan) Manchester United Eric Bailly, Henrikh Mkhitaryan, Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Paul Pogba are four headline signings who appear to have significantly strengthened José Mourinho’s squad as his side’s flying start underlines. The manager identified right-back and centre-half as weak areas but has not added any players in those departments. Still, Mourinho did all his recruitment before the campaign started and the United he is fashioning have pace, power and a win-at-all costs mentality that will remind seasoned United watchers of the best Sir Alex Ferguson XIs. JJ Major moves In: Paul Pogba Juventus £89.25m; Eric Bailly Villarreal £30m; Henrikh Mkhitaryan Borussia Dortmund £26m; Zlatan Ibrahimovic PSG (free) Out: Paddy McNair Sunderland £5m; Donald Love Sunderland £1m; Will Keane Hull City £1m; Guillermo Varela Eintracht Frankfurt (loan); James Wilson Derby County (loan); Adnan Januzaj Sunderland (loan); Cameron Borthwick-Jackson Wolves (loan); Nick Powell Wigan Athletic (free); Víctor Valdés Middlesbrough (free); James Weir Hull City (undisc) Middlesbrough By doing the bulk of their transfer business early, Boro have had a chance to bed in newcomers. Aitor Karanka certainly seems quietly content with a window that has left him contemplating strong competition in every position across a well-balanced squad who should be capable of holding their own in the Premier League. While Víctor Valdés and Álvaro Negredo are the star imports, Boro appear to have shopped sensibly – even if many Teessiders will have been saddened to see Albert Adomah, a very popular winger (albeit one who did not always see eye to eye with Karanka) depart for Aston Villa on Wednesday. LT Major transfers In: Marten de Roon Atalanta £12m; Viktor Fischer Ajax £4m; Álvaro Negredo Valencia (loan); Calum Chambers Arsenal (loan); Víctor Valdés Manchester United (free); Brad Guzan Aston Villa (free); Gastón Ramírez Southampton (free); Adama Traoré Aston Villa (undisc) Out: Albert Adomah Aston Villa Part-exchange; Adam Reach Sheffield Wednesday (undisc) Southampton The window began with yet another round of departures. Ronald Koeman joined Everton, and replacing Sadio Mané, Victor Wanyama and Graziano Pellè has not been easy. However, Southampton broke their transfer record when they signed Lille’s attacking midfielder Sofiane Boufal for £15.9m and, although they look light up front, Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg and Nathan Redmond are promising young talents. JS Major moves In: Sofiane Boufal Lille £15.9m; Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg Bayern Munich £12.75m; Nathan Redmond Norwich City £11m; Alex McCarthy Crystal Palace £4m; Jérémy Pied Nice (free) Out: Sadio Mané Liverpool £30m; Graziano Pellè SD Luneng £12.9m; Victor Wanyama Tottenham £11m; Juanmi Real Sociedad £4m; Sam Gallagher Blackburn Rovers (loan); Paulo Gazzaniga Rayo Vallecano (loan); Gastón Ramírez Middlesbrough (loan) Stoke City This had the makings of a frustrating window for Stoke but a couple of important loan deals on deadline day have changed things. Wilfried Bony’s arrival from Manchester City gives Stoke a genuine goal threat – something that they have been lacking for a long time – while Bruno Martins Indi’s loan move from Porto will strengthen central defence. Signing Joe Allen, like Bony a former Swansea player, earlier in the summer was also a very good piece of business. SJ Major moves In: Joe Allen Liverpool £13m; Ramadan Sobhi Ahly £4.3m; Wilfried Bony Manchester City (loan); Bruno Martins Indi Porto (loan); Lee Grant Derby County (loan) Out: Marc Wilson Bournemouth £2m; Steve Sidwell Brighton (free); Peter Odemwingie Released; Joselu Deportivo la Coruña (loan) Sunderland The hiatus prompted by England’s courtship of Sam Allardyce before David Moyes’s appointment as his successor hardly helped Sunderland’s transfer strategy and they were never on the front foot . Club-record signing Didier Ndong appears a midfield gamble following a series of rebuffs from more experienced options and the squad still look worryingly thin in places, most notably attack where Moyes must dread Jermain Defoe getting injured. Jason Denayer has joined from Manchester City to provide further options in defence. LT Major moves In: Didier Ndong Lorient £13.6; Papy Djilobodji Chelsea £8m; Paddy McNair Manchester United £5m; Donald Love Manchester United £1m; Steven Pienaar Everton (free); Javier Manquillo Atlético (loan); Adnan Januzaj Manchester United (loan); Jason Denayer Manchester City (loan); Mika Boavista (undisclosed) Out: Younès Kaboul Watford £3.5m; Emmanuele Giaccherini Napoli £1.2m; Liam Bridcutt Leeds United £978k; Santiago Vergini Boca Juniors £765k Swansea City What a disappointment. Joe Allen and Wilfried Bony were available this summer, two former players who would have been happy to go back to the Liberty Stadium and, in doing so, would have given everyone at the club a huge lift, yet Swansea missed out on both to Stoke. They badly need the striker Borja Bastón, their £15.5m club-record signing, to come good and Fernando Llorente must also weigh in with a few goals. Another concern would be the failure to sign an experienced replacement for Ashley Williams, their former captain. SJ Major moves In: Borja Bastón Atlético £15.5m; Alfie Mawson Barnsley £5m; Fernando Llorente Sevilla £5m; Leroy Fer QPR £3.5m (loan move made permanent) Out: André Ayew West Ham £20.5m; Ashley Williams Everton £12m; Alberto Paloschi Atalanta £5m; Éder Lille £3.8m Tottenham Hotspur Spurs were always building from a strong base and the additions of Vincent Janssen and Victor Wanyama have served to add more strength in depth. Georges-Kévin Nkoudou, whose move from Marseille seemed to drag on for weeks, could be an intriguing addition. Mauricio Pochettino will hope Moussa Sissoko, a late £30m purchase from Newcastle from under the noses of Everton, can find the form he showed with France at Euro 2016 rather than return to the up-and-down form he showed at St James’ Park. Interest in Wilfried Zaha seemed half-hearted at the price offered. DF Major moves In: Vincent Janssen Alkmaar £18.8m; Victor Wanyama Southampton £11m; Georges-Kévin N’Koudou Marseille £9m; Pau Lopez Marseille (loan); Moussa Sissoko Newcastle £30m Out: Nacer Chadli West Bromwich Albion £13m; Alex Pritchard Norwich City £7.9m; Ryan Mason Hull City £10.1m: DeAndre Yedlin Newcastle United £5m; Federico Fazio Roma (loan); Nabil Bentaleb Schalke (loan); Clinton N’jie Marseille (loan) Watford Watford have brought in no fewer than 11 players into Walter Mazzarri’s squad. Several are familiar names, with Younès Kaboul and Daryl Janmaat providing much-needed experience across the backline but the most exciting business has been in attack. The arrival of Roberto Pereyra from Juventus should boost their firepower in a move partly funded by the sale of Matej Vydra to Derby County. Tom Morgan Major moves In: Isaac Success Granada £12.7m; Roberto Pereyra Juventus £11m; Sven Kums Gent £8.5m; Daryl Janmaat Newcastle £7.5m; Christian Kabasele Genk £5.9m; Stefano Okaka Anderlecht £5.1m; Younès Kaboul Sunderland £3.5m; Brice Dja Djédjé Marseille £3m; Adrian Mariappa C Palace (free); Kenedy Chelsea (loan); Camilo Zúñiga Napoli (loan); Out: Matej Vydra Derby £8m; Miguel Layún Porto £5.1m; Almen Abdi Sheffield Wednesday £3.1m; José Manuel Jurado Espanyol £1m; Juanfran Dep La Coruña (free); Daniel Pudil Sheff Wed (free); Gabriele Angella Udinese (free); Mario Suárez Valencia (loan); Obbi Oulare Waregem (loan); Steven Berghuis Feyenoord (loan); Ikechi Anya Derby (undisclosed) West Bromwich Albion The club-record signing of Nacer Chadli from Tottenham for £13m is the one bright spot during a thoroughly underwhelming window for West Brom. If anything summed up the desperate nature of their transfer business it was the news the unattached forward Hal Robson-Kanu, who had been available all summer, had joined on deadline day. The Watford right-back Allan Nyom arrived in a late deal. As for Saido Berahino, the word saga comes to mind. SJ Major moves In: Nacer Chadli Tottenham £13m; Matt Phillips QPR £5.5m; Brendan Galloway Everton (loan); Allan Nyom Watford (undisc); Hal Robson-Kanu Unattached (free) Out: James Chester Aston Villa £7.9m; Cristian Gamboa Celtic £1m; Anders Lindegaard Preston (free); Stéphane Sessègnon Released; Victor Anichebe Released; Sébastien Pocognoli Brighton (loan); Rickie Lambert Cardiff (undisclosed) West Ham United The squad has been strengthened but it remains to be seen whether the first team has been improved. Sofiane Feghouli, a free transfer from Valencia, has been injured and André Ayew, signed for a record £20m, is out until December, while Havard Nordtveit, Gokhan Tore, Edimilson Fernandes and Jonathan Calleri will need time to settle. With Andy Carroll injured and Diafra Sakho’s focus elsewhere, Simone Zaza fills a hole up front after joining from Juventus – but right-back remains a weakness. JS Major moves In: André Ayew Swansea City £20.5m; Manuel Lanzini Al-Jazira £10.2m (loan made permanent); Arthur Masuaku Olympiakos £6m; Edimilson Fernandes Sion £5.4m; Simone Zaza Juventus (loan); Jonathan Calleri Maldonado (loan); Gökhan Töre Besiktas (loan); Havard Nordveit Borussia Mönchengladbach (free); Sofiane Feghouli Valencia (free); Ashley Fletcher Manchester United (free); Álvaro Arbeloa Unattached (free) Out: James Tomkins Crystal Palace £9.9m; Joey O’Brien Released; Alex Song Barcelona (end of loan); Enner Valencia Everton (loan)
David Cameron gambled and lost – he had to go Enoch Powell’s famous remark that all political careers end in failure was never so apposite as in the case of David Cameron. Three months ago Cameron commanded British politics. He was expecting to be prime minister until 2019. It’s still a mere two months since he left No 10 after six years in the job. Now he is heading for the exit from Westminster altogether, quitting as a backbench MP after initially promising to stay on until the next election. The air has gone out of his career with astonishing speed. And he’s not yet 50. Ostensibly Cameron is quitting the Commons because he says it is hard for a former prime minister to be an effective MP for his Witney constituents. There is some truth in that. The constituency demands on MPs are far greater than they once were. It’s not so long ago that some Tory MPs only visited the constituency once every four or five years at election time. Nowadays an MP is a 365-days a year citizen’s advice worker, mediator and activist on behalf of tens of thousands of people who have instant access to his or her email address. Yet as he prepares to write his memoirs for what is doubtless an extremely tidy sum, it’s unlikely that Cameron warms to the task of sorting out constituents’ complaints about welfare payments, the need for a Chipping Norton bypass, A&E closures and the rest. And as a new inductee into the rootless and roaming global elite of former political leaders, Cameron will already know that he has a choice between making a black-tie speech in Chicago for a six-figure sum and giving out the prizes at the annual Burford Conservative harvest festival. The bigger truth is that Cameron is going because he gambled his career and reputation on winning the European referendum – and lost. He lost because he has always been a short-termist and a tactical leader. He thought he could win the referendum on the back of his own communication skills and without building up the pro-European case in his party and in the country in his decade as leader of a largely anti-European party. The UK voted for Brexit because two out of three Tory voters voted to leave. Cameron was not strong enough to stop that from happening. Just after the referendum, I had a brief private exchange with Cameron. He said it was very disappointing not to get the remain case over the line, as he put it. It was better to quit as prime minister, he added, because politics shouldn’t be about how long you stay out in the middle. Later I wondered whether Tony Blair, Gordon Brown or Margaret Thatcher would have used a self-deprecating cricket metaphor the way Cameron did. Almost certainly not. They would have talked about destiny, their cause and history. But that isn’t the Cameron way. The prospect of sitting on the backbenches as Theresa May trashes much of his record probably holds very limited appeal for him, too. Although his initial commitment to stay on as an MP until 2020 raised the prospect of the former prime minister playing a significant role from the backbenches in the unfolding politics of Britain’s slide towards Brexit, it is hardly surprising that his heart is not now in it. May has already begun to redefine Cameron’s Toryism in dramatically new ways. Like Wotan in Wagner’s Ring, Cameron clearly judges that, once the spear that symbolises his power has been broken, it is time to slip away quickly and without fuss. It’s a loss to public life – politics needs veterans, whether they are wise or silly. But it is hardly unexpected. Modern party leaders, whether prime ministers or opposition leaders, tend to leave the stage once the spell of their own power is broken. Perhaps to an extent they are the victims of their own hubris. But probably they are just plain knackered too. The disciplines of life in No 10 are ferocious as well as exciting, and once the rhythm is broken, the pace slackens, and audiences no longer hang on your every word, it is only human to want to make a clean break. It’s what most prime ministers of the modern age have done. It all stands in striking contrast to an earlier time. William Gladstone was prime minister at 84. Churchill at 80. Among more recent premiers Jim Callaghan and Margaret Thatcher were well into their 60s by the time they lost power and left the Commons. Modern British politics still hasn’t found a useful place for the current crop of younger retired leaders, some of whom, like Blair and Cameron, leave Downing Street with at least 20 years of the average working life ahead of them. Perhaps Cameron will cope with retirement better than the ever restless Blair. It’s a fairly safe bet that he will.
RBS posts £2bn half-year loss and drops Williams & Glyn flotation Royal Bank of Scotland has slumped to a £2bn half-year loss after taking a fresh hit for legal disputes, as it admitted costs will have to be cut to tackle the economic impact of the Brexit vote and the dwindling popularity of high street branches. The bank, which is 73% owned by the taxpayer and is on track for its ninth consecutive year of losses, is also abandoning its long-running attempts to float the Williams & Glyn branch network - a move the EU demanded as part of the bank’s £45bn taxpayer bailout and a key plank of the government’s plans to bolster competition on the high street. Its shares were the biggest fallers on the FTSE 100 after £1.3bn of new charges, including £450m for PPI, surprised the City. A year ago, the government used the half-year results to sell off its first tranche of shares at 330p a share. On Friday, they closed at 178p, down 7% and well below average price of 502p at which taxpayers bought their shares during the financial crisis. The provisions also include an investigation into tracker mortgages at Ulster Bank and an estimated £700m for a legal case brought by shareholders who backed a 200p a share cash call in 2008, ahead of the taxpayer bailout. An attempt to settle the shareholder case in mediation talks on 26 and 27 July had not reached a conclusion, the bank said, leaving open the door to a long-running court case in which RBS’s former chief executive Fred Goodwin could be called to give evidence. The bank’s losses have now hit £52bn since its bailout and Ross McEwan, its chief executive, admitted the share price slide meant a further sale of the taxpayer stake was looking more difficult. He appeared to clear the way for job cuts and branch closures as he outlined customers’ increasing use of digital banking. The Bank of England’s interest rate cut to 0.25% also led analysts to question his targets to cut costs. He told them his executive team was working on a plan that would be announced next year “for a lower cost base for this organisation”. McEwan defended the way the bank had handled the EU’s demand to create a new branch network of 300 branches – dubbed Williams & Glyn – to create a new competitor on the high street. The long-running process is already delayed and has cost £1.5bn so far. A trade sale is now being pursued and Santander - which pulled out of a deal in in 2012 - is thought to have tabled an offer for the operation, which focuses on small businesses and employs 5,500 people. To be a viable standalone business, Williams & Glyn needs a banking licence from Bank of England, but the low interest rate environment would make it difficult for the operation to be profitable, RBS said. Brexit was not entirely to blame for this, it added, because expectations that interest rates would stay low had been mounting before the 23 June referendum. The abandonment of the flotation means RBS is likely to hand millions of pounds to the private equity consortium which had been backing the share offering. Gary Greenwood, an analyst at Shore Capital, said the costs of W&G would mount. “This is likely to result in even more exceptional charges, which we think could run into the hundreds of millions of pounds,” he said. The branches are valued at around £1.3bn, but they are onlylikely to fetch around two-thirds of that price if sold to a rival. RBS’s finance director, Ewen Stevenson, said the banking industry was facing a hit to profits as result of the low interest rate environment. He focused on the £1bn of profits being generated at its core business every quarter, which would eventually allow the bank to pay dividends to shareholders. The first payments, thhowever, are not expected until 2018 at the earliest
Politics is not a game. Words of hate have consequences The flowers laid for Jo Cox are barely wilting yet, the ink hardly dry on all those solemn statements about changing our political culture. It would be a wake-up call, people vowed, a warning never to let the temperature rise so dangerously high again. Cox’s life and work would serve as a reminder that MPs aren’t all cynical careerists out for what they can get, but also perhaps that creating a hate-filled culture has consequences. This feeling that you can’t start a fire without people getting burned only hardened last week, when a Brexit campaign demonising immigrants was followed by a flood of racist attacks. Those who whip up hatred for their own cynical ends may not be directly responsible for what happens. But it’s a reminder that politics is not a game. Words have consequences. Bad people can be emboldened in ways speakers never intended. What thinking person would not resolve to do better, be more careful in future? Well, now that future is here. Labour MPs are getting death threats again, but this time not from the far right. This time it’s from within the movement their own leader created. “If she doesn’t support Corbyn, I will come down to the office and kick the fuck out of you,” said the man who called Labour whip Vicky Foxcroft’s office, adding that he was on his way. Her staff had to call the police. Lucy Powell got messages telling her to kill herself after resigning as shadow education secretary. Another unnamed rebel’s child was threatened. Meanwhile, the Jewish MP Ruth Smeeth fled in tears today from the launch of a Labour party report on antisemitism – an event supposed to stamp out the ugly trope of crazed Zionist conspiracy theories – after a Corbynite activist stood up and accused her of being part of a “media conspiracy” against her own party. A shock, but no surprise to anyone who has spent the last few days watching Corbyn’s loopier social media supporters bandying the word “Zionism” around in connection with the leadership challenge; adding two and two and making a dozen new reasons to hate. The vast majority of Corbyn supporters will obviously feel nothing but abhorrence for all this. It may well be that those threatening rape and murder aren’t Corbynite activists in the usual sense but thugs, or people with mental health problems. There’s no evidence of orchestration by a desperate leadership. But when a leader holds rallies where people feel comfortable turning up in T-shirts saying “exterminate the rightwing Blairite vermin”, then the fire is already burning. Words have consequences. Bad people feel emboldened to act. Good people have to do more than simply say they deplore all violence, while failing to root it out. And that’s why there’s something grotesque about the vocal minority of Corbynites whose response to death threats boils down to “whaddaboutery”. Yeah, bullying’s wrong – as if that playground word covered “having to ring 999” – but what about the mean things MPs said to Jeremy at a meeting! Yeah, but Corbynites get abused on social media too! Yeah, but Tony Blair’s a war criminal! Yeah, but feelings are running high! As if nothing mattered but the right to share your every feeling with the world, even the ones better left unsaid; as if feelings publicly expressed couldn’t coagulate horribly with other much wilder feelings in those who don’t know where to stop. All bullying and abuse is wrong, whoever it’s directed against – which is why decent Labour people should also condemn recent social media rants about shooting and stabbing Nigel Farage. But while it’s distressing to be unfairly accused on Facebook of being a Trot or entryist, it’s wilful blindness to suggest equivalence between that and the sort of thing that leaves Labour MPs needing police protection. If you can see rightwing hate speech for what it is – fertile earth in which terrifying things grow – then don’t make excuses for what Shirley Williams once called “fascism of the left”. If you can’t defend your corner without resorting to talk of vermin, filth and “blood on your hands”, then something is wrong with your corner. And yes, what’s happening to Corbyn is cruel. But it’s what happens to leaders in the end stages. Having watched close up the downfalls of over half a dozen party leaders, I never failed to feel sorry for them on a personal level, however deserved their fate. Charles Kennedy, hands shaking, as his alcoholism was brutally exposed to the world; Iain Duncan Smith fighting tears as people in his own office smeared his wife to force him out; Gordon Brown’s bewildered-looking little boys, clutching his hand as they left their home in Downing Street. There is always betrayal, crushing rejection, rough justice – although usually behind closed doors, not laid out in resignation letters. It is still not too late for both sides to cool the rhetoric, to focus not on the personal but on the ideas Corbyn represented versus whatever ideas anyone else can bring forward. But by barricading himself in office, Corbyn is not preventing a leadership contest, just determining what kind of contest it will be. A resignation might allow a more open contest, held after some reflection on the leave vote, in which the membership could rightly demand a full slate of candidates – from Corbynite left to soft left to right to those less easily pigeonholed – and begin the overdue business of reinventing the left. That contest could examine both Labour’s existential crisis – a split between its liberal urban vote and more socially conservative heartland vote that long predates Corbyn – and the national crisis of confidence following Brexit. But instead, it’s becoming a referendum on Corbyn. For him or against him. Loyalty or betrayal. Mandate from the members who want him to stay, or mandate from Labour MPs (representing millions of voters) who want him gone. Stand with Ruth Smeeth and Powell and Vicky Foxcroft, or deselect them. While the Tory contest can now focus, shorn of Boris Johnson, on the issues that matter to voters – managing Brexit, or the implications for immigration – Labour seems to be hellbent on staging a narrow referendum on one individual’s fate. We ought to know by now that referendums become so poisonous because they are so binary – no compromise, no third way, nowhere for two irreconcilable groups to meet safely in the middle. We know where this leads. It’s not too late to step back from the brink.
Antisocial network: how self-deprecation is taking over the internet Social media is often called out as an outlet for bragging. Or its spin-off, the #humblebrag. We hear all the time about how the pressure to keep up with the shiny, happy people we see on Facebook is making our mental health suffer. It can seem that everyone else’s existence is all #marbs, postcoital selfies, and smug invitation acceptances. Except for my Instagram feed, which is literally just pictures of Hampstead Heath. That very sort of self-deprecation, however, is becoming a thing. A popular internet trope is now the antisocial individual, the homebody, the push back from scenesters. It’s now all about revelling in singledom, jokes about therapy sessions, the terror of being an adult or putting it out there that hitting a club can actually be pretty hellish. And slumming it on the couch? Heaven. The most popular memes on humour and pop-culture-based Instagram and Twitter accounts such as The Fat Jewish and Girl With No Job et al? Pictures of cats chilling on couches, confessions of a sub-par life and vignettes of people expressing a (sort of) joking disdain for other people. Or as one poster puts it: “God bless Uber drivers that don’t attempt small talk”. Claudia Oshry, who runs the hugely popular Girl With No Job Instagram account (2 million followers), which consists of collated memes and tweets, tells me that self-deprecating posts are the most popular because we like to feel that we’re not alone in not living the perfect life. “Everyone is surprised to realise that other people feel the same way about staying in and watching Netflix. Most people wouldn’t admit out loud that they’d prefer to binge watch TV and eat pizza instead of going out to the fanciest dinner or club. It’s nice to know you’re not the only one.” When Caterina Fake popularised the idea of (FOMO) or the fear of missing out, she wrote that the internet itself exacerbated this anxiety, and I’m sure she is right. But, in a world of constantly switched-on, ostentatious displays of popularity and people having an ostensibly TOTALLY AWESOME TIME, perhaps it isn’t surprising that things would start to pitch in the opposite direction (known as JOMO, joy of missing out). Look at the popularity of down-to-earth celebs such as Jennifer Lawrence, who ordered a McDonalds from the Oscars red carpet. Or Alessia Cara’s single Here. Also: we’re increasingly comfortable with being a bit rubbish, or as the Twitter account with 350,000 followers (and now book) has it: So Sad Today. The Nailed It meme is a perfect example of this. Life isn’t Goop. Real life is not Photoshopped, and life hacks almost never work. The Expectation v Reality memes continue this theme – a visual representation of what psychologists call “the incongruence gap”. In short: this celeb with perfectly coiffed hair versus your matted tangled beehive when you try to copy it. There’s the sense that, and perhaps it’s even stronger among millennials, we’re all somewhat inadequate as adults. We’re awful at cooking, we don’t understand pensions, and we just wanna be left alone to watch marathons of Broad City. When we realise, as Oshry says, that other people feel this way too, we feel better. Maggy van Eijk, the social media editor of Buzzfeed UK agrees. She explains how the process there works: “We have a group of photoshop wizards and illustrators called the distribution squad and we all create one-off memes, jokes, [and] illustrations that work as standalone pieces for Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr and Twitter. The best of them and most viral are the self-deprecating. “I think this is because it makes people either go ‘this is so me’ or they tag their best friend and go ‘this is so you’ or best-case scenario they say ‘this is so us’ and tag a bunch of their friends so it gets shared more widely.” Van Eijk tells me top themes are being “shit at make-up, loving dogs more than humans, eating pizza, not showering or exercising, and not going to the gym”. “One of our most recent comics that really went wild had to do with ‘shaving your legs for summer’ and how that really only means you shave your ankles because you can’t be bothered with the rest, and I thought that was so telling. It’s unlikely you’re going to write a Facebook status that says: ‘HEY GUYS I’m only shaving my ankles because this is what I feel is the norm and the rest of me is fucking hairy get over it’ but by sharing the comic they can hide behind the meme while also making a bit of statement.” The British have always been quite good at this dry sense of humour (just look at the success, for instance, of toilet books like Crap Towns) but it’s perhaps surprising to see the take up in America. Or perhaps it is just that with millennials being screwed in the job and housing markets, we can’t do much but laugh instead of cry online. Even social media stars such Essena O’Neill have revealed that their perfect online presence is just a ruse. Oshry says that the glamorous party photo pics are still popular too (“the internet has enough room for all types of content”). And psychotherapist and writer Philippa Perry cautions that these posts becoming more and more popular might just be a knock-on effect of people trying to cash in on the likes. Perry tells me: “People find [it] brave and attractive so more people experiment with being ‘real’ but I cynically suggest that perhaps rather than being ‘real’ it’s just that this type of self-depreciation has been proven to be attractive so it’s becoming more popular.” This also crops up when I speak to the creator behind the @friend_of_bae account, who mentions that these type of dgaf posts have indeed become “trendy”. But Perry also says that she recently posted a picture with “four unwashed mugs to show how not great I am at work”, which is comforting to those of us with three empty Coke cans on their desk. Even if some posts are a facade or it is all a backlash to Rich Kids of Instagram – that it’s cool to be uncool – one thing is for sure, being more and more OK with the fact we’re all socially anxious animals, competing for who has the most banal life and poorest life skills is probably a damn sight more healthy (and easier) than attempting to out-glam each other or #eat the #cleanest. I declare our new love of self-deprecation to be a positive thing. Now excuse me while I brush the Doritos crumbs off my shirt, and go hang out on Hampstead Heath because I have been invited to precisely zero parties.
What would Brexit mean for housing, regeneration and central government? Housing and regeneration: There will be no EU lifeline for poor communities When George Osborne announced that a decision to leave the EU would trigger a 10-18% drop in house prices, it showed how little the remain campaign grasps the roots of the housing crisis. For anyone under 40 struggling to buy a home, that seems an unequivocally good thing. Any adjustment to the housing market that makes homes more affordable is catnip to younger voters. The Brexit campaign, meanwhile, argues that immigration has caused the housing crisis: the argument seems seductive in its simplicity – more people come through Britain’s borders, more people take homes, fewer homes are available. But the academic research doesn’t bear this out for the most part. In many areas, immigration has lowered house prices, and migrants don’t all settle in the same area: not everyone moves to work in London – immigrants work across England, Wales and Scotland in many different types of jobs and are more likely to live in poor and overcrowded housing in the private rented sector, due to lower wages. Funding for neighbourhood sustainability projects and schemes for assisted living often comes from the EU’s European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), such as £15m for the Scottish Green Infrastructure project and the Renewables and Energy Efficiency in Community Housing scheme which has helped thousands of households in fuel poverty to insulate and renovate their homes. In Northern Ireland, the ERDF contributed €230,073 to a project encouraging children and young people to participate in peace-building. Since 2007, 10 ERDF projects have enabled 24,767 new businesses to start or move into local areas and created 114,889 jobs in England alone. Some of the poorest areas in the UK have benefited from regeneration bankrolled by billions of euros of EU structural funding including Cornwall, the north-east and parts of Wales. A scheme in north Wales providing early intervention support for workers to prevent long-term sick leave, received €1.16m of ESF funding. And the European Social Fund (ESF) supports employment and promotes economic and social cohesion in areas of high disadvantage. The loss of the ESF would leave a black hole in local government finances: currently the cash, running into millions is used to fund education and skills, services for supporting disabled people and schemes to help young people into work. Between 2014-2020, the EU has committed, through 17 national and regional programmes, total funding of €16.4bn (£13bn). Of this €3.6bn is ERDF funding and €3.5bn ESF funding.The leave campaign will argue that the cost of EU membership outweighs this prospective loss, but there are no pledges to ensure any redistributed or repatriated money post-Brexit would go to the most disadvantaged areas and be given to councils. Experience shows this is unlikely: after six years of cuts, the poorest areas of Britain have suffered disproportionately. EU cash could bankroll new jobs, apprenticeships, business support and infrastructure in communities recently hit by the collapse of the steel industry. But in a Brexit Britain no EU lifeline will be thrown to communities in the UK’s neglected post-industrial economy. Dawn Foster Contributing editor, housing network Central government: untangling British and European laws could cause years of instability Amid the uncertainty around what a UK vote to leave the EU could mean for central government, one thing is clear. At a time of unparalleled public sector austerity, a UK decision to leave the EU would mean even less money for public services and would leave civil servants with a considerable increase in work. In May, the Institute for Fiscal Studies concluded that the net UK contribution to the EU over the next few years will be about £8bn a year. The Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accounting (Cipfa) agrees. Its recent report argues like the IFS, that the UK balance sheet relies heavily on economic stability, so a vote to leave could see a downturn in public spending. Cipfa chief executive Rob Whiteman, said it was “abundantly clear” that decoupling the British state from the EU would cause tremendous upheaval for public services for many years. So Brexit would mean less money for all UK public services, including central government, Whitehall departments and agencies. Worse still, at the same time as having less money, central government would need to do more. Most commentators agree that if the UK votes to leave the EU, it will trigger a huge wave of parliamentary legislation, to unpick our UK laws from those of the EU. The legislation necessary to leave the EU would be hugely complex, detailed and contentious. There has been little public debate on how the legislative programme would work, without imposing a huge load on the Commons timetable for years, and reports last week suggested that pro-European MPs in the Commons might, in the event of a Brexit vote, seek to run a “guerilla campaign” to minimise the number of EU laws from which the UK would withdraw. In March, former cabinet secretary Lord O’Donnell warned breaking ties with Brussels could “take a very long time” and lead to years of instability. A Brexit vote would also tie up many civil servants in conducting new trade deals with countries such as Japan, the US and China. One estimate is that hundreds of new negotiators would be needed, with the potential creation of a new trade ministry. There would be particular pressure on the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, already seen as “stretched to the limit” as a result of departmental cuts since 2010. There is controversy over the potential impact on UK public services of the proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) being negotiated by the US and the EU. Opponents of the deal, which would guarantee US businesses access to sell their services in Europe, say it could see far greater privatisation in the NHS. Public service union Unison says both TTIP and the EU’s wider proposed treaty with 23 other countries, the Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA) could imperil public services through “creeping liberalisation” when negotiators fail to include sufficiently watertight exemptions of public services. If the UK leaves the EU, it will still need a trade deal with the US. Many TTIP opponents fear that a post-Brexit UK government would continue to pursue similar conditions as part of any separate UK/US treaty. A post-Brexit UK would also need to bargain with other countries. Professor Damian Chalmers, professor of European Union law at the London School of Economics has warned that striking deals with major economics such as the US, China and India would be tough for Britain, while Japan warned in May that its investment into Britain could fall if the country leaves the EU and ceases to be a “gateway” to Europe. Protracted and less favourable trade deals could hit the UK economy and, in turn, impact on public spending. What about the often-heard claim that EU procurement rules prevent UK suppliers getting priority for UK public contracts? Procurement experts point out that many of the rules are more about preventing corruption and would need to be retained in some form. So UK firms bidding for public sector contracts would probably find just as much “red tape”. Jane Dudman Editor, Public leaders and Housing networks
A moment that changed me: discovering I was allergic to sunlight Happiness and sunlight are inextricably intertwined; they are perfect bedfellows. Everyone looks forward to summer – when the clocks go forward, you can practically hear the collective sigh of relief. Summertime means picnics in the park, summer dresses and sandals, drinks by the river. It means warmth, joy and romance. Last year, I started to get a rash when I was running. I loved running in the park; it was my coping mechanism for times when I felt sad or stressed. The rash would appear on the exposed parts of my body – my arms and hands, shoulders, and legs. It was uncomfortable, and it would turn into hives. Usually it would disappear within about an hour. I didn’t really understand what was happening, I thought that it might be a topical allergy to pollen, so I’d just down some antihistamines and they seemed to help. One day I was showering at the lido, having been for a swim, and I started to become very hot and itchy. When I got out of the shower, there was a clear delineation of my exposed and unexposed flesh – my swimming costume still visible on my naked body – a boundary between soft, pale skin, and angry, red flesh. I started to feel faint. A friend I was with hurried away to get me some water. Two members of staff followed her back into the changing room; they were freaking out about my reaction, and wanted to call an ambulance. One of them put on a latex glove, which struck me as bizarre. It turned out she wanted to feel my temperature without having skin-to-skin contact, but seeing someone snap on a latex glove only added to my rising feeling of panic. I remember desperately trying to put on my knickers as a room full of people gawped at me, while my mind filled with visions of being carted out on a stretcher naked and covered in hives. I imagined people crowding round as my throat closed up, with – why not? – a few ex-lovers and colleagues thrown in for good measure. I’ve always loved the grand and dramatic, and I prepared myself to receive the Oscar for best public humiliation. In the end, they didn’t call an ambulance. I managed to get dressed, and my friend administered the classic British remedy – tea and cake. I sat in the cafe shivering and shaking, my body’s reaction to the physical duress. I think I came pretty close to anaphylaxis that day. Following that episode, I was diagnosed with a condition called solar urticaria, which means I’m allergic to sunlight. Mostly, when I tell people I’m allergic to the sun, they laugh because they think I’m joking – that I burn easily, or that I’m not too keen on sunny weather. But I’m literally allergic to sunlight. The worst thing about my allergy is how unpredictable it is. Some days there are small patches of rash on my exposed skin, other days it’s everywhere, and I feel like I’m going to pass out. It’s not always the sunniest days, either. The UV index can be high even when it’s not particularly hot. Last summer, during the months that I waited for an appointment with a dermatologist, I started to fear going outside. I got a kind of inverse Sad. Seasonal Affective Disorder can make people feel depressed as the days get shorter and darker; I got more depressed as the days got longer and brighter. I started to think about killing myself. It would be easy – I could just stand in the sun. One seemingly cloudy day, I had a bad reaction while walking along the South Bank. I took cover in the Tate Modern. As I stood in front of Picasso’s Nude Woman With Necklace, I thought to myself: if I have to go now, at least it will be in front of something beautiful. I prayed that her gushing life force would save me. Before all of this, when I was having a bad day at work, I used to look at the photos on holiday websites of infinity pools and beach bars, of someone sipping from a coconut on a sun lounger. Those photos make me anxious now. I preemptively feel my skin start to itch and burn. I have nightmares about being stranded in the sunlight. The idea of travelling is much less appealing now that I have to take strong antihistamines and wear factor 30+ even in the British winter. When just leaving the house feels like a military operation, leaving the country can feel a bit overwhelming. And worse than being pickpocketed for my holiday cash or my passport – what if someone took my antihistamines? I’m still waiting for UV testing, where you are tested for the specific wavelengths of light that affect you, and how long it takes you to react. Some people’s allergy extends to the wavelength that emanates from computer screens and electric lights. I dread mine worsening, not being able to go out in the daytime, or having to black out all the windows. Imagine if you couldn’t turn on the light in the bathroom on a dark morning? It’s such a socially isolating affliction. At first I felt like my sunlight allergy took away my coping mechanisms – but I’m discovering that I can run in long-sleeved tops and factor 50, and that you can buy swimming leggings and socks to cover up. In summer my look is “Victorian goth” – think long, black gloves and a parasol. I try to make it more like a fashion choice and less like an affliction. I think that if I can find the fun, then maybe it won’t be quite so depressing. Doctors don’t always know very much about solar urticaria, and their reactions are not always sympathetic. One GP told me that I’d probably need an EpiPen, but, in the meantime, if I felt my throat closing up, just to call 999. “How will I know?” I asked. “Don’t worry,” she said, “you’ll have an impending sense of doom”. How very reassuring. Another time, a dermatologist asked me why I was so bothered by my condition: “It’s better to put sunscreen on every day anyway.” I was so angry I couldn’t look at her. As well as antihistamines, there are other treatments. There’s a process called “skin hardening” that works on the same principle as a vaccine – exposing you to small doses of UV can help you to build up an immunity. There’s also a relatively new drug called Xolair which was invented for asthmatics but has been effective on many patients with solar urticaria. At the moment I’m dreading summer – but I hope there will be some light at the end of the tunnel. Or in my case, shade.
Train misery for commuters yet to vote in EU referendum Commuters in south-east England expressed their frustration as extensive rail disruption threatened to scupper their chances to vote in the EU referendum. Thousands of people were stranded at Waterloo station as trains were delayed or cancelled after torrential rain caused a flood in the Wimbledon area, throwing services in and out of Waterloo into chaos. Waterloo serves 90 million passengers a year, which is about 250,000 a day on average although this includes weekends and holidays. Cannon Street (closed because of signalling failures), Charing Cross, London Bridge and Victoria stations were also affected. They are all major commuter stations. Many people were likely to have left for work this morning before the EU referendum polls opened. The Rail Delivery Group, which represents train operating companies, and Network Rail said among the train operators affected were Abellio Greater Anglia, Gatwick Express, Southern, South West Trains and Thameslink. “Torrential rain and lightning damage have caused disruption to the railway across the south east of England today with delays and cancellations on many routes into London,” said RDG. Network Rail said it had deployed 1,200 staff to deal with the severe weather, though that was no consolation for those unable to get home in good time. Passengers tweeted to express their exasperation at the likelihood of missing out on the most important vote in years. The broadcaster and journalist Sian Williams tweeted: Michael Hill, formerly at the BBC and Channel 4, was stuck at Charing Cross: The Electoral Commission held out little hope for commuters who stood to miss the voting deadline. Disruption was not confined to the railways. More than 100 flights were cancelled as French air traffic controllers went on strike again. Passengers due to travel with British Airways, easyJet and Ryanair, were among those affected. The strike disrupted the travel plans of thousands of football fans due to fly to France for Euro 2016. It is the 51st ATC strike in the country since 2009 and the 10th in the past three months. BA said: “The French air traffic control trade unions are causing unnecessary frustration and disruption for customers. We once again urge the French government and the trade unions to resolve their issues so that customers can go on their holidays and business trips without these frequent threats of strike action hanging over them.”
Hostile states pose 'fundamental threat' to Europe, says MI6 chief The head of the British intelligence agency MI6, Alex Younger, has said cyber-attacks, propaganda and subversion from hostile states pose a “fundamental threat” to European democracies, including the UK. In a rare speech by an MI6 chief while in office, Younger did not specifically name Russia but left no doubt that this was the target of his remarks. Russia has been accused of interfering in the US presidential election and there are concerns it could do the same in French and German elections next year. He did mention Russia in relation to Syria, portraying Russian military support for the country’s president, Bashar al-Assad, in the takeover of Aleppo and elsewhere as potentially creating a long-term problem that could increase radicalisation. “In Aleppo, Russia and the Syrian regime seek to make a desert and call it peace. The human tragedy is heartbreaking,” Younger said. Russia has moved ever closer to centre stage for the US and UK intelligence agencies over the last year. During the US election campaign Donald Trump said he would seek to engage in some sort of discourse with Vladimir Putin, the Russian president. Younger delivered the speech at the headquarters of the Secret Intelligence Service, the official name for MI6, at Vauxhall Cross in central London. It was the first time an MI6 chief has made a speech at the HQ, a move aimed at trying to show the secret organisation is making an effort to be a bit more transparent. He described the internet as having turned the work of the intelligence services on its head and said it represented “an existential threat” as well as an opportunity. He said hybrid warfare – which Russia has employed in Ukraine, though he again did not mention Russia – was a dangerous phenomenon. “The connectivity that is at the heart of globalisation can be exploited by states with hostile intent to further their aims deniably,” he said. “They do this through means as varied as cyber-attacks, propaganda or subversion of democratic process. Our job is to give the government the information advantage: to shine a light on these activities and help our country and our allies, in particular across Europe, build the resilience they need to protect themselves. “The risks at stake are profound and represent a fundamental threat to our sovereignty. They should be a concern to all those who share democratic values.” Younger declined to provide details of how Britain was responding to such threats, citing operational reasons, but it is known the UK government does not see a need to respond to Russia in a symmetrical way, such as launching a counter-cyber-attack. Instead it could launch a series of counter-measures such as sanctions. The US intelligence services claim to have evidence that Russia was behind the leaking of information from the Democratic party that undermined Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. Senators are pushing for the White House to have any such intelligence declassified. Russia has denied any such involvement. Younger ran through various threats posed to the UK other than cyber-security, noting that counter-terrorism, his speciality, had been a niche concern when he began his career but had now become central. He said the UK intelligence and security services had disrupted 12 terrorist plots in the UK since June 2013. MI5 and the police were running hundreds of investigations into those intent on carrying out or supporting terrorist atrocities. “As I speak, the highly organised external attack-planning structures within Daesh [the preferred government name for Islamic State], even as they face military threat, are plotting ways to project violence against the UK and our allies without ever having to leave Syria.” He said the events unfolding in Syria created as many, if not more, problems. The strongest weapon against international terrorism was legitimacy, he said, and Assad, backed by Russia, did not have it. The end result could be an increase in terrorism. “If you doubt the link between legitimacy and effective counter-terrorism, then – albeit negatively – the unfolding tragedy in Syria will, I fear, provide proof. I believe Russian conduct in Syria, allied with that of Assad’s discredited regime, will, if they do not change course, provide a tragic example of the perils of forfeiting legitimacy. “In defining as a terrorist anyone who opposes a brutal government, they alienate precisely that group that has to be on side if the extremists are to be defeated.” In a reference to the Chilcot report on Iraq, he came as close as anyone from MI6 to acknowledging that the agency had made a huge mistake through its part in falsely claiming Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction before the 2003 invasion. The Chilcot report singled out the intelligence agencies for falling into line with what Tony Blair’s government wanted rather challenging it over WMD. “A vital lesson I take from the Chilcot report is the danger of groupthink. I will do anything I can to stimulate a contrary view: to create a culture where everyone has the confidence to challenge, whatever their seniority,” Younger said. He played down the impact of Brexit and the Trump election win. “I’m often asked what effect the big political changes of 2016, Brexit and the US election result, will have on these relationships. My answer is that I will aim for, and expect, continuity.” Comments made by Trump on the campaign trail such as support for the US resuming torture would create legal problems for MI6 if the president-elect was to follow through. But there is scepticism in the US intelligence community that Trump will actually implement this, and there are already signs that he is backing off. Younger did not directly address the torture issue. But one remark could be read as a promise that MI6 would not be implicated in any such move. “We can work with a wide range of partner countries overseas, partners who often do not share our laws but who do know our red lines,” he said.
Internet of things set to change the face of dementia care Smart bottles that dispense the correct dose of medication at the correct time, digital assistants, and chairs that know how long you’ve sat in them are among the devices set to change the face of care for those living with dementia. Dementia is now the leading cause of death in England and Wales, and is thought to affect more than 850,000 people in the UK. But a new wave of connected devices, dubbed “the internet of things”, could offer new ways to help people live independently for longer. “We have got an elderly population, and children in their 40s and 50s are looking after their elderly parents – and they may not have the capabilities to coordinate that care effectively,” said Idris Jahn, head of health and data at IoTUK, a programme within the government-backed Digital Catapult. While phone calls and text messages help to keep people in touch, says Jahn, problems can still arise, from missed appointments to difficulties in taking medication correctly. But he adds, connected sensors and devices that collect and process data in real time could help solve the problem. “For [people living with dementia] the sensors would be more in the environment itself, so embedded into the plug sockets, into the lights – so it is effectively invisible. You carry on living your life but in the background things will monitor you and provide feedback to people who need to know,” he said. “That might be your carer, it might be your family, it might be your clinician.” The approach, he added, has the potential to change the way care is given. “It is having that cohesive mechanism to put everyone into the loop, which I think hasn’t existed in the past and it is something that people need.” Among the projects IoTUK is involved with is a £5.2m venture, funded by NHS England and run by the Surrey and Borders Partnership NHS Trust. One of two NHS test sites embracing the internet of things, the trust has created two living labs at the University of Surrey to explore a variety of connected devices aimed at helping those living with dementia. Eventually such systems could be offered by the NHS to those diagnosed with the condition. “The vision is to provide and early intervention and prevention approach – we don’t have a cure for dementia, so it is really about being able to keep people as well as possible,” said Helen Rostill, director of innovation and development at the Surrey and Borders Partnership NHS Trust. Within the next two weeks, says Rostill, the devices will be trialled in the homes of six to 10 volunteers, allowing the team to iron out any issues ahead of a six month randomised control trial, involving 700 pairs of people with dementia and their carers, that will begin in January. “I think this really is personalised medicine,” said Rostill. “This really is about understanding individuals’ patterns of behaviour and deviations from those patterns.” Amongst the technological developments are scales that monitor an individual’s hydration levels, smart wallets that track how many pills have been removed from a blister pack, bottles that dispense the correct dose of medication at the correct time and can send reminders to smartphones, avatars to guide people through care routines and even sensors that can be attached to chairs to monitor how long someone has been sitting. The data collected will then be processed using machine-learning algorithms, and the resulting information shared with the monitoring team and carers, allowing phone calls, visits or other arrangements to be made. While individual sensors are currently on the market, says Rostill, creating a system based on a suite of connected devices could prove a boon. “What we are doing here is combining the data from different types of devices which I think will provide a unique window of insight into these very complex conditions that are multi-dimensional,” she said. Also involved in the trial is a monitoring system called Howz, from health tech company Intelesant. Set to launch for consumers before Christmas for around £200, the system incorporates egg-shaped sensors that monitor activity in different rooms, as well as devices to track electricity consumption, revealing insights such as whether the kettle has been turned on, or if the fridge is open. The data is then sent to a mobile app, providing carers or relatives with real-time information. It isn’t only smart devices that are under development. Dementia Citizens, a project backed by Nesta, aims to improve support for those living with dementia through a variety of apps. Set to launch next year, but currently undergoing pilot testing, are Playlist for Life, an app that explores the impact of music on those living with dementia and Book of You, a digital memory book of images, sounds and comments. Ben Fehnert, co-founder of Ctrl Group, a company that worked with Nesta, the Department of Health and the charities Book of You and Playlist for Life to develop the apps, said that innovations like the digital book could improve dementia care. “When people are visiting someone who is living with dementia sometimes they don’t know quite how to engage with them or what to do,” he said. “It is a method of engaging with them which helps reminiscence and it helps the quality of life for the individual and it helps with the quality of the relationship with the carer.”
John Hardie obituary My friend John Hardie, who has died of cancer aged 67, was an artist, drummer and satirist who used his warmth, wit and rebellious spirit to challenge convention. He joined his first band as a drummer aged 15 and was later a member of the Barnsley-based Travis (“The best thing to have come out of Barnsley,” according to the local paper), not to be confused with the more famous Scottish band of the same name. Travis supported a number of leading groups of the 1970s, including Roxy Music, the Kinks and Chicken Shack, playing at the Marquee and Speakeasy clubs in London. John was born in Barnsley, South Yorkshire, the son of Donald Hardie, a master builder, and his wife, Ennis. After Barnsley grammar school, John studied at Barnsley, Stourbridge and Coventry schools of art. As well as drumming in bands, he worked variously as a caretaker, teacher, designer, gardener, industrial cleaner and cartoon animator. He lived in London for 20 years, but returned to South Yorkshire in the 90s to live in Penistone. John’s knowledge of the Dada movement formed his commitment to the absurd. His bedsit became a living art work in the manner of Kurt Schwitters, whose Merz Barn collage of found objects was his enduring inspiration. Ordered rows of small notes on the walls commented on the paradoxes of life. “If I don’t work harder I will have to sack myself.” “Remember that I put a lot of effort into this work so that people will have something with which to forget me by.” His mainly grey paintings and drawings of second world war naval ships were interspersed with grey model ships and washing lines on which were suspended grey T-shirts and tea-towels. His flat contained numerous milk cartons that vied for space with colourful bleach bottles, jars of paper clips and rubber bands that he ordered with exquisite attention to form and line in the manner of pop art sculpture. His performances included walking through Cardiff wearing a pointed tinfoil hat and placing a telephone in a bowl of washing-up liquid “to see if it would work afterwards”. Most people given a terminal diagnosis would be in despair. Not so John. In his final days he found humour in drawing cartoon dancing skeletons in a notebook bought specially for this purpose. He is survived by his son, Ben, with his former partner, Anne Hardie, his grandson, Sam, and his sister, Jo.
EU renegotiation talks reach 'crucial' climax - Politics live The EU renegotiation talks are heading towards a climax. Donald Tusk, president of the European Council, hopes to publish a draft agreement tomorrow, but at the afternoon lobby briefing the prime minister’s spokesman said he had no further information about when the talks would wrap up. Downing Street has said that it is “regrettable” that the BMA has decided to go ahead with a junior doctors’ strike next week. The prime minister’s spokesman aid that “good progress” had been made in a number of areas and that the government was still “at the table” for talks. In a separate development, Sir David Dalton, chief executive of Salford Royal Hospital and NHS Employers’ lead negotiator on the junior doctors’ contract, has written an open letter to Jeremy Hunt, the health secretary, explaining what progress has been made (pdf) in the talks on the new contract. Iain Duncan Smith, the work and pensions secretary, has said that disabled workers and those who want to work or start a business will be given more freedom to control the grants they receive from the government in a new trial scheme. Speaking in the Commons he said: I can announce to the House today that we are trialling a new feature of the Access to Work scheme. From today we’ll be testing the use of personal budgets. These will allow disabled people who receive grants to choose exactly how and when the money is used to best support their individual needs. This will bring more choice and control over the support they receive to help them to stay in work and to start work, or even start a business. Access to Work is paid to people who have a disability, health or mental health condition to help them either start working, stay in work, move into self-employment or start a business. As the Press Association reports, there is no set amount for the grant but it is capped at £40,800 per year. That’s all from me for today. Thanks for the comments. Philip Hammond, the foreign secretary, has been in Jordan today for talks ahead of the summit on Syria taking place in London on Thursday. I’m off to the afternoon lobby briefing. I will post again after 4pm. PCH is Portcullis House, one of the buildings on the parliamentary estate. And BSE is Britain Stronger in Europe. Caroline Lucas, the Green MP and a member of the Britain Stronger in Europe board, has criticised David Cameron’s renegotiation. In a statement she said: These negotiations are simply an extension of Cameron’s endless pursuit of looking ‘tough’ for his euro-sceptic backbenchers. Taking away in-work benefits to EU citizens from other countries is unfair and short sighted. We know that people from the rest of the EU who come here to work pay more in tax than they take out in public services. Indeed EU nationals who move here are less likely to claim benefits. Cameron’s proposed change would penalise those who contribute hugely to our society, and it is likely to fail even on its own terms given that the government hasn’t produced any evidence to suggest that tax credits are a major draw for EU nationals who come to work here. And here are some other comments from MPs and MEPs who have been speaking about the EU renegotiation today. Anne-Marie Trevelyan, a Conservative, said she was not convinced to support British membership of the EU by David Cameron’s “emergency brake” plan. The reality is that if you’re heading for a car crash, having a brake which you or someone else might be in charge of is all very well. But actually I’d like to be in charge of the steering wheel. And what this feels like is EU technocrats yet again controlling the decisions ... I think [Cameron has] asked for very little in the first place. My frustration is he isn’t even getting what he’s asked for. Nigel Evans, a Conservative, said he thought he would end up voting to leave the EU. He said the problem with the “emergency brake” was that it would require the support of other EU member states. If the deal is that we are allowed to do it when we want, then yes, but if we have to phone a friend, indeed in this case 27 friends, to decide that we can put our foot on the brake, then no driver in their right mind would get into a car with those sorts of conditions ... I suspect that when it comes down to it that I’m going to be voting to leave the European Union. Mark Pritchard, a Conservative, said he would back Britain staying in the EU on security grounds. Pritchard, who is strongly Eurosceptic, had been expected to vote Out, but he announced at the weekend that he would back the In campaign. He said today. I am still a Eurosceptic and I’m a reluctant ‘Inner’ if you like, and I think a lot of my parliamentary colleagues and eurosceptics out in associations and amongst voters in the country are reluctant Inners as well. Chuka Umunna, the former shadow business secretary, said Britain could “stand tall and punch above our weight” as a member of the EU. It’s through our membership of the European Union that we are able to stand tall and punch above our weight in the world. We are a country of around 65 million competing with the likes of China with its 1.3bn people, and India, the biggest democracy in the world with its 1.2bn people. We can be big; bigger than we are in population terms by working with this half a billion other people in the European Union. And that delivers tangible benefits for our people here. Paul Nuttall, the Ukip deputy leader and MEP, said Cameron’s renegotiation was a charade. In 24 hours when, to no doubt great fanfare, Cameron returns with a “deal” with Brussels it looks like it’ll be nothing more than tinkering round the edges of our relationship with the European Union and will not go any way to dealing with the wholesale loss of sovereignty to the EU, the eye-watering cost of it, or indeed go any way to bring back genuine control of our borders from the EU. Earlier I quoted from what Peter Lilley, the Conservative former social security secretary and veteran Eurosceptic, told the World at One about David Cameron’s “emergency brake” procedure. Here are some more lines from the interview. I’ve taken the quotes from PoliticsHome. Lilley said the “emergency brake” would not have a significant impact on EU migration levels. I don’t think it would have a very significant effect and nor did the representative of the Office of Budget Responsibility when he appeared before Parliament and thought it would have a minor impact. It would, of course, save a bit of money and that’s a good thing but it wouldn’t substantially alter the volume of migration into this country from the rest of Europe. He said the countries most opposed to the EU were those with “the longest tradition of democracy”. We have to think which are the countries which find the European Union difficult. There are ourselves, Sweden, Denmark inside; Norway, Iceland and Switzerland outside. What do they all have in common? They all have the longest tradition of democracy; we’re all used to making our own laws. He said Cameron could persuade him to back Britain remaining in the EU if he could demonstrate that Britain was taking back sovereignty from Brussels. I’d be convinced [to vote for staying in the EU] in a way by less than he’s asking for if it was a step in the right direction. If we were to get back power to make our laws in one area or a number of small areas and thereby create the precedent that powers can return to member states, or at least to the UK, and that we’re not all moving in the same direction but at different speeds, then that would be a good precedent and we could build on it in future negotiations when future treaties come up – because the other countries are going to have to have a lot of treaties because they’re moving along an escalator towards creating a single state to prop up the euro. Downing Street has adopted a note of cautious optimism in relation to the talks about David Cameron’s EU renegotiation demands which are still ongoing. Donald Tusk, president of the European Council, was originally hoping to publish draft proposals today, but after his dinner with Cameron last night he agreed to let officials spend another 24 thrashing out the text. Now it is expected, but not certain, that the document will appear tomorrow. At the Number 10 lobby briefing the prime minister’s spokeswoman said there had been a “breakthrough” on the issue of the “emergency brake” - the provision allowing the UK to stop EU migrants claiming in-work benefits because services are under extreme pressure - because the European Commission says the criteria for its application apply now. (See 1.24pm.) Peter Lilley, the Conservative former social security and one of the cabinet ministers once branded “bastards” by John Major because of their Euroscepticism, has criticised Cameron’s “emergency brake” proposal. Speaking on the World at One, he said it did not sound well thought-through. He said: I’m just very puzzled by it. Normally social security and welfare are not something within the purview of the European community so we can do what we like – unless it conflicts with the article in the treaty on free movement of people. If it conflicts with the article on free movement of people, we cannot do anything until the treaty is changed. So the suggestion that we might be able to introduce this emergency brake in the short term and change benefits: either we can do it now without any negotiations or we’ll have to wait for a treaty change. The other thing that puzzles me is how it will work in practice. If we introduce the emergency brake and said, right, people coming to work here from the rest of the Europe would not be entitled to benefits for four years, and then the brake were lifted after two or three years and new people were allowed benefits immediately, what would happen to the people who had come here previously and told they couldn’t have them for four years? We’d have some disparity; we’d have cases before the European Court of unfairness; we’d have to rescind the requirement to wait for four years on those who’d come earlier. If I’d asked my officials when I was responsible for this to introduce a measure like this, I’m sure they’d have told me to go away and think again. Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, has claimed that Scotland stands to lose billions of pounds over the next few years under Treasury proposals for devolving new powers. This afternoon John Swinney, the Scottish finance minister, and Greg Hands, chief secretary to the Treasury, will meet in London to discuss the so-called “fiscal framework” - the rules that will decide what Scotland gets from London in the years ahead once Holyrood gets new tax-raising powers. As the Press Association reports, Ahead of the talks, Sturgeon highlighted support for the Scottish Government’s position from Glasgow University principal Professor Anton Muscatelli. Writing in the Herald newspaper, Muscatelli said Swinney’s preferred option, a mechanism known as per capita indexed deduction, “provides a fair deal for both Scotland and the rest of the UK”. He warned that under an alternative method known as index deduction, Scotland could lose around £3.5bn from its block grant in the first 10 years of the new powers. Speaking on BBC Radio Scotland’s Good Morning Scotland programme, Sturgeon said: This method ensures that the simple transfer of the new tax powers would not in itself lead to an increase or cut in Scotland’s budget. This is of crucial importance, as it retains the Barnett formula as the principal determinant of public spending in Scotland, something that was central to the Smith recommendations. From what we’ve heard from the Treasury, both the original proposals and what has been tabled in the last few days would still reduce the Scottish budget by potentially billions of pounds over the next few years and wouldn’t live up to the principle that was at the heart of the Smith report, which is no detriment. That means that if over the next few years Scotland matches the economic performance of the UK, if we don’t change tax rates, then we should be no better or worse off than if these powers had never been devolved. Simon Danczuk, the MP for Rochdale, who was suspended by the Labour party in December for exchanging sexually explicit messages with a teenager, is under investigation by the parliamentary expenses watchdog. As Rowena Mason reports, Danczuk was reported to the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (Ipsa) by a member of the public in relation to expenses claimed for having his four children stay with him at his second home in London.The MP has two children with his wife Karen, from whom he is separated, and another two children with his ex-wife Sonia Rossington. The complaint is understood to relate to claims that his oldest two children do not routinely stay with him in London. The BMA says a junior doctors’ strike will take place on 10 February in England after talks with the government failed to reach an agreement over new contracts. No-fly zones and safe havens in areas in the north and south of Syria must be considered if Russia and the Syrian government refuse to lift the sieges of starving towns and cities, two former British international development secretaries have said. As Patrick Wintour reports, Clare Short, Labour international development secretary until 2003, and Andrew Mitchell, aid secretary in David Cameron’s first government, made their appeal as the Syrian peace talks in Geneva heard calls for the sieges to be lifted and for aid convoys to be given unfettered access. Number 10 has dismissed an open letter from more than 120 leading economists saying Britain’s response to the Syrian refugees crisis is “seriously inadequate”. Asked to respond, the prime minister’s spokeswoman said: “We have led the way in the response to this humanitarian crisis from Syria, with the £1.1bn-plus aid we are providing to the crisis, with the conference we are holding this week, with the commitment that we have made on resettlement and delivering against that commitment. Radek Sikorski, the former Polish foreign minister, told the World at One that the Polish government would pay “a high political price” if it did not block David Cameron’s plans for an “emergency brake”. And here is more from Bruno Waterfield. At a briefing in Brusssels this morning Margaritis Schinas, the European Commission’s chief spokesman, said that other EU member states have not seen the draft text on the “emergency brake” that Donald Tusk has been discussing with David Cameron. This is from the Times’s Bruno Waterfield. And this is from the Daily Mail’s John Stevens. Here are the main points from the Number 10 lobby briefing about the EU renegotiation. Downing Street said that, although there had been “a breakthrough” on the issue of the “emergency brake”, there was “a lot still to do”. The prime minister’s spokeswoman said between now and the EU summit later this month “there will be a lot of hard work getting all the other member states signed up to what we need”. British officials are involved in talks with their counterparts from the European Council and the European Commission in Brussels today, and it is expected that Donald Tusk, president of the council, will publish a draft agreement tomorrow. Number 10 said that David Cameron is trying to ensure that his EU renegotiation deal allows Britain to deal with the problem of “sham marriages”. In its statement last night Downing Street said that Cameron wanted “more substantive proposals including closing backdoor routes to Britain which have enabled non-EU illegal migrants to stay in Britain in recent years”. The prime minister’s spokeswoman said one of the issues this referred to was “sham marriages”, of which she said there were 4,000 in the UK every year. By marrying an EU citizen, someone from outside the EU can obtain free movement rights. She said another issue this referred to related to the rules around deporting criminals. And she said Britain wanted to address problems caused by “a number of unhelpful ECJ [European Court of Justice] judgments” affecting free movement, in particular the Metock ruling in 2008. This says that EU member states cannot stop the spouses of EU citizens coming to live in their country. It is surprising to see this issue come up now, because it has not been talked about much in recent weeks, but it did actually feature in Cameron’s letter to Tusk in November. In that letter Cameron wrote: We also need to crack down on the abuse of free movement, an issue on which I have found wide support in my discussions with colleagues. This includes tougher and longer re-entry bans for fraudsters and people who collude in sham marriages. The spokeswoman said that the European Commission now accepted the “current circumstances in Britain” would justify the application of the “emergency brake” - the measures that will allow Britain to deny EU migrants in-work benefits for four years. She also suggested that the debate was now not so much about the sanction that would apply once the brake was on (EU migrants not being allowed to claim benefits for four years) as how long the brake itself would apply (ie, how long before the UK had to renew it, or before it lapsed). She refused to comment on reports that Cameron wants the brake to apply for seven years. The spokeswoman insisted that Britain was not seeking a veto over eurozone decisions. Responding to today’s reports in the Financial Times about French objections (see 10.31am), she said: We are seeking to establish some clear principles that govern the relations between euro-ins and euro-outs. We are not seeking to stand in the way of further eurozone integration ... This is not about the UK being able to veto eurozone integration. The spokeswoman played down reports that there was already agreement on a “red card” mechanism that would allow national parliaments to block EU legislation if 60% of them are opposed. “Discussions are ongoing,” the spokeswoman said. “Things are moving around.” Downing Street dismissed claims that the Cameron and Tusk were involved in some form of choreographed row. Leave.EU and Vote Leave have both suggested that this morning. Asked about their claims, the spokeswoman said: I do not accept that at all. Look at the amount of hard work, time and effort that the prime minister, other senior ministers and indeed some senior government officials have put into this. The spokeswoman said there was “more work to do” in all four areas where Cameron is demanding reform. And here is a line on one other issue. Downing Street said no decisions had been taken about deploying British troops to Libya. Asked about the story in today’s Times (see 10.57am), the spokeswoman said: “No decisions have been made about the deployment of any British forces to Libya as part of an international coalition”. The Times story says that British troops could be sent for training purposes, but the spokeswoman sidestepped a question about whether British troops could be send to fight, or to train the Libyans. In reply, she said there were “ongoing discussions” amongst the international community about how it could come together and support the new government in Libya. The Number 10 lobby briefing is over. It was a mammoth session, almost entirely devoted to the EU renegotiation, and reasonably informative, although mostly at a micro level (ie, for those following the process in huge detail). In terms of the big picture, it’s the same as it was earlier this morning: Number 10 and Tusk are inching closer to a deal, but they’re not there yet. I will post a summary soon. You can read all today’s politics stories here. As for the rest of the papers, here is the PoliticsHome list of today’s top 10 must-reads, and here is the ConservativeHome round-up of today’s politics stories. I have already posted links to the key EU renegotiation ones. (See 10.31am.) And here are two others I found particularly interesting. Michael Evans and Charles Bremner in the Times (paywall) say Downing Street is considering sending at least 1,000 troops to Libya to help train the Libyans to fight Islamic State. Downing Street and the Pentagon are in talks to persuade Libya to take at least 1,000 British troops to bolster its forces in the battle with Isis, whose coastal stronghold is just 200 miles from Europe. American and British military, diplomatic and special forces teams are making frequent trips to Libya to identify influential allies among the mix of the country’s rival militias and encourage them to focus on driving out the estimated 3,000 Isis militants. That is despite the likelihood that an eruption of violence will lead to greater migration of refugees into Europe. The preparations come as the French defence minister warned that the terror network was expanding in Libya and already controlled part of the country’s Mediterranean coast. “There is the risk that Isis fighters could make the crossing, mixing in with refugees,” Jean-Yves Le Drian said ... Up to 1,000 British troops have been earmarked by Whitehall to join an Italian-led 6,000-man force to train the Libyans. But with a national government still not functioning, despite a pledge for a unified political alliance among the rival factions, British sources said there was no formal request for outside help to confront Isis. “The Libyans don’t welcome outsiders intruding on their territory,” Ash Carter, the US defence secretary, said. Lexi Finnigan and Ben Riley-Smith in the Daily Telegraph say two thirds of England’s biggest councils are planning to increase council tax by around 4%. Two thirds of England’s biggest councils are planning to increase taxes by around four per cent, it has emerged in changes that could leave people paying hundreds of pounds more a year. Research seen by The Telegraph has revealed that local authority bosses are rushing to take advantage of new rules which allow for extra council tax rises to pay for social care. On top of a two per cent increase already allowed, George Osborne announced last year that councils tax bills could be increased by another two per cent to help pay for care for the elderly. Charities and experts at the time warned the change would create a “postcode lottery” that would leave people on the highest tax bands paying up to £320 more in the next five years. I’m off to the Number 10 lobby briefing now. I will post again after 11.30am. Paul Goodman, the former Conservative MP and editor of ConservativeHome, has written a powerful article for his website this morning list 10 EU renegotiation aims that he says David Cameron has abandoned. Number 10 would challenge the list, saying Goodman is including items that were never part of his four demands, but Goodman has sources for all 10 points showing that at some point they were goals that Cameron was hoping to achieve. He concludes by saying that that any Tory MPs who though the renegotiation would lead to “substantial reform” should vote to leave the EU. We now have a brake that will apply immediately – which Number Ten is trumpeting as a major win – but which will none the less remain in the hands of the EU institutions. In the words of The Times (£), “he will accept that other EU leaders and institutions retain control of the legal mechanism for implementing it”. Those Eurosceptic Conservatives can honestly tell their constituents and Associations that for the sake of Party unity they will support the Prime Minister. They can argue that do not want to open the door to any Labour recovery, or disrupt the programme of Conservative reform. They can say that they have changed their minds about the EU altogether. What they cannot say truthfully is that Cameron is delivering the major reforms which they themselves backed last May. From the highest Cabinet Minister to the lowliest backbencher, they have only one choice if this matters to them: to back Brexit. In the comments RClayton has asked for a link to John McDonnell’s tax return. It’s on his website. Here is the tax return. And here is his P60. Here are some EU renegotiation stories from the other papers today. The Financial Times (subscription) says there is a row between Britain and France over David Cameron’s call for measures to protect non-eurozone countries like Britain from being out-voted by the eurozone countries on key financial issues. One late obstacle to be cleared is Mr Cameron’s demand that Britain should be able to “escalate” to a higher level any dispute over eurozone attempts to hit Britain by insisting on discriminatory financial rules for the 28-member single market. France has long voiced its unease over seven principles Mr Cameron wants enshrined in a protocol that prevents the eurozone ganging up against Britain and enables the EU single market to better co-exist with an integrated eurozone. These groundrules would be guaranteed through a separate “emergency brake” allowing countries on the verge of being overruled on a related issue to delay a vote, triggering additional consultations at the level of EU leaders. French officials last week circulated a secret paper to negotiators in Brussels and Berlin, laying down two red lines: no new rights to be created for non-euro countries, and no veto powers that prevent the eurozone from taking decisions to integrate or manage an emergency. Extracts of the French paper seen by the FT state that UK reforms and the proposed brake-clause must respect EU treaties and “shall not give any member states more institutional powers, scrutiny or say or voting powers than currently provided and shall neither slow down nor impede any step ahead in the deepening of the [eurozone] and the strengthening of financial regulation”. The Times (paywall) says Cameron and Tusk failed to agree on how long the “emergency brake” giving the UK the power to stop paying in-work benefits to EU migrants would apply. It is understood that the European Commission agreed to Mr Cameron’s demand that Britain would be allowed to trigger an “emergency brake” on in-work benefits immediately after a referendum. Brussels is digging in against a move to allow the brake to be applied for longer than four years. Mr Cameron is insisting that he wants it to last for at least seven years ... On Friday Mr Cameron dismissed as not good enough an initial offer from Brussels of an emergency brake that would allow Britain to impose the ban for two years, with an option to renew for another two years, but then never again. Mr Cameron countered that he wanted a stop-gap ban that lasted seven years while a more permanent solution was found. However, eastern European countries are dismissing that option. “Even if this demand [for a seven-year brake period] is possible on paper then the British must also know that it will never be used. There are at least 12 countries that would veto using it after a British referendum,” one diplomat said. Peter Dominiczak in the Daily Telegraph says a poll suggests nearly 70 Conservative MPs have already decided to vote to leave the EU. Nearly 70 Conservative MPs have already decided they will vote to leave the European Union and 200 more could back a “Brexit” if David Cameron’s renegotiation is deemed unacceptable, a poll has found ... The survey of Tory backbenchers, by pollsters Ipsos Mori for the UK in a Changing Europe initiative, found that 20 per cent of the party’s 330 MPs will vote to leave the EU in the upcoming in-out referendum regardless of the reforms Mr Cameron is able to get from Brussels. Just over 60 per cent said that their vote will “depend on the terms of any renegotiations of our membership of the EU”. Only 11 per cent – around 36 MPs – said they will vote to remain in the EU regardless of the result of Mr Cameron’s renegotiation. The research shows that if Mr Cameron’s renegotiation is deemed a success, the majority of his party will back him. And Philip Cowley and Tim Bale in the Telegraph say the Ipsos MORI survey also reveals “deep, even visceral” differences between what Conservative and Labour MP think about the EU. But on one point they agree. For all this, though, there is widespread and perhaps surprising agreement on one thing among MPs on both sides of the House. Regardless of how they themselves are going to vote, clear majorities of both Conservative and Labour MPs think that the referendum will result in Britain remaining part of the EU. Particularly on Planet Tory, that thinking could have big implications for the referendum itself. Many Conservative MPs, especially those in the 2010 and 2015 intakes (quite reasonably, given the favour Labour has done them in electing Jeremy Corbyn) are thinking about promotion. As a result, they are bound to wonder, whatever their real feelings, whether there’s much point campaigning for what so many of them evidently reckon is a lost cause. This is what David Cameron tweeted after his meeting with Donald Tusk last night. Like Leave.EU (see 9.19am), Robert Oxley, head of media at Vote Leave, thinks there is something cosmetic about that disagreements between Cameron and Tusk over the renegotiation. The Craig is he referring to is Craig Oliver, David Cameron’s political and communications director, to give him his full title. Here is the Conservative MEP and ultra-Eurosceptic Daniel Hannan on the EU talks. This is from Sky’s Darren McCaffrey. Leave.EU, one of the groups campaigning for Britain to leave the EU, has put out a statement dismissing Donald Tusk’s talk of “intensive work” (see 8.48am) as a charade. This is from its chief executive, Liz Bilney. Donald Tusk, widely despised in his own country for taking the Brussels shilling, doesn’t actually have the power to conclude a deal. This embarrassing spectacle is for publicity purposes only; a blatantly staged row over the trivial question of how long someone has to be in the country before they can claim in-work benefits to distract the public from the fact that we are not even asking for an end to the supremacy of EU law over national law, genuine control over migration or independent representation on global bodies and the power to make our own trade deals. This is what Number 10 said about the Cameron/Tusk talks in the “readout” it sent to journalists shortly before 10pm. Often these press statements so bland or opaque as to be unreportable, but this one was informative. Here it is in full. It is from a Number 10 spokesperson. The prime minister and president of the European Council Donald Tusk had a productive working dinner tonight, going through the draft proposals for reform in each of the four areas set out by the prime minister. Much progress has been made, particularly in the last 48 hours since the prime minister’s meeting with president of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker on Friday, but there is still more hard work required. On welfare, the commission have tabled a text making clear that the UK’s current circumstances meet the criteria for triggering the emergency brake. This is a significant breakthrough, meaning the prime minister can deliver on his commitment to restrict in work benefits to EU migrants for four years. But there are still areas where there is more to do and both agreed it was therefore worth taking the extra time to make further progress. One such area is economic governance where we want to ensure the enforcement mechanism is watertight, recognising that there must be ways to escalate an issue where we have concerns. Another is abuse of free movement, where we want to see more substantive proposals including closing backdoor routes to Britain which have enabled non-EU illegal migrants to stay in Britain in recent years. Sherpas will meet early in Brussels tomorrow and work through the day to resolve the outstanding issues. In the spirit of a constructive meeting, Tusk signalled that he plans to circulate a draft text to all member states on Tuesday. For reference, here is a guide to the four areas where David Cameron is demanding changes in Britain’s relationship with the EU. He set them out in a letter to Tusk in November. The “emergency brake” referred to in paragraph three would be a mechanism allowing the UK to stop paying in-work benefits to EU migrants. And “sherpas” are the senior official charged with negotiating the outline of a deal before leaders meet at a summit to sign it off face to face. It is just over three years since David Cameron delivered the Bloomberg speech that unveiled his plan for a renegotiation of Britain’s terms of membership of the EU, followed by a referendum, and now we are into the endgame. Crucial details of what Britain gets offered could be settled in the next 24 hours. Last night Donald Tusk, president of the European Council, met David Cameron for talks in Number 10. An EU summit is planned for later this month and Tusk wants to circulate a draft agreement for leaders to study in advance tomorrow, but over dinner last night he and Cameron failed to reach an agreement. This is what he tweeted after the dinner. As Sky’s Jon Craig, who was the only reporter outside Number 10 to watch Tusk go in and come out, writes on his blog, “Mr Tusk’s tone before and after his dinner couldn’t have been more different”. And, as Rajeev Syal reports in his overnight story, last night there was no certainty of a deal. But, equally, Downing Street have been talking about a significant breakthrough. Progress has been made. Quite how much we are going to learn about developments today is not clear, because the crucial talks will be happening behind closed doors and on the phone, but I will be covering all the news that comes out. Otherwise, it is relatively quiet. Here is the agenda for the day. 11am: Number 10 lobby briefing. 2.30pm: Iain Duncan Smith, the work and pensions secretary, takes questions in the Commons. As well as focusing on the EU talks, I will also be covering breaking political news as it happens, as well as bringing you the best reaction, comment and analysis from the web. I will post a summary at lunchtime and another in the afternoon. If you want to follow me or contact me on Twitter, I’m on@AndrewSparrow. I try to monitor the comments BTL but normally I find it impossible to read them all. If you have a direct question, do include “Andrew” in it somewhere and I’m more likely to find it. I do try to answer direct questions, although sometimes I miss them or don’t have time. Alternatively you could post a question to me on Twitter.
Can David Cameron pull off being a Brexit quick-change artist? Those who have witnessed David Cameron negotiating often contrast his style with Margaret Thatcher’s. Instead of swinging the metaphorical man-bag, he looks for common ground and enumerates the issues that remain controversial, striving to expand the former and resolve or defer the latter. Like Tony Blair finalising the Good Friday agreement, he grasps the value of constructive ambiguity. The language of diplomacy is necessarily elastic, so things may be presented in different ways to different audiences. In politics, as in life, the alchemy of deals has as much to do with momentum, linguistic creativity, impatience and exhaustion as it does with content. In a negotiating process, there is a point where everyone has been marched to the top of the hill, and the idea of marching back down again with nothing achieved remains conceivable – but no more. Since launching this strategy four years ago, Cameron has played the part of the man wrapped in the union flag determined to squeeze a better deal from Europe, ready, if all else fails, to countenance departure. But that act is wearing thin. This prime minister is a clubbable man who relishes his seat at top table and does not happily leave any inner sanctum. He is also a master of the arts of political theatre, and knows that he must soon – perhaps very soon – change persona, adopting the mask of the campaign leader rather than the Brussels wheeler-dealer. Brexit is but one of the dragons that the EU oligarchy must slay. Alongside the growing recognition that the EU’s institutions, as presently constructed, are failing to match the extraordinary challenge of 21st-century population mobility, elections loom next year for Angela Merkel and François Hollande. None of Cameron’s counterparts want the horse-trading to last much longer. So there is now a clear timetable for the UK referendum, and one that weighs heavily on all the key protagonists in the negotiations. For Cameron, all else is now subordinate to this enterprise. On Friday, he held a hastily scheduled meeting with Jean-Claude Juncker, the European commission president (whose appointment he so vigorously opposed in 2014). On Sunday Donald Tusk, the president of the European council, was his dinner guest at No 10: a private curtain-raiser for the proposals that Tusk is expected to publish shortly. If they provide an acceptable framework, the deal will be signed off (in theory) at the EU summit on 18 and 19 February – or possibly at a separate gathering, dedicated to the prevention of Brexit. The referendum itself would then be held on 23 June. Whatever Cameron squeezes out of his EU counterparts will be dismissed by the various “out” campaigns. Juncker could agree to copy out Magna Carta in his own handwriting, declare that the only good thing to come out of Brussels since the Schuman Plan in 1951 is sprouts, and apologise individually for every allegedly banned straight banana – and Nigel Farage would still say that the PM was “selling out” the nation. More psychologically intriguing is the likely response to a deal of the in camp, presently gathered under the umbrella of Britain Stronger in Europe. There has been much coverage of the strong personalities engaged in the fight to leave the EU. But consider the oddity of the position in which most of the in camp’s leading figures, such as Danny Alexander, Peter Mandelson, and Brendan Barber, now find themselves. Many of them are lifelong champions of the EU, embattled defenders of common sense (as they see it) against the foghorn of the Eurosceptic press and the Tory party’s entrenched hostility to the EU. And now they await the return of a Conservative prime minister from the negotiations he himself forced so that he may lead the campaign to win a referendum some of them privately believe is a terrible mistake and a colossal gamble. Never forget that Cameron, like almost every Tory of his generation, is a Eurosceptic to his fingertips, a Conservative who instinctively believes the EU to be (as he said in 2014) “too big, too bossy, too interfering”. Yes, he charged his party to stop “banging on” about Europe. But that was about winning votes, and sharing the electorate’s priorities, rather than a thaw in the Tory approach to the EU. Indeed, Cameron’s trajectory led in precisely the opposite direction. In the 2005 leadership contest, he won the support of many on the right by promising to pull Tory MEPs out of the European People’s party (EPP), the principal centre-right grouping in the European parliament. Four years later he kept his promise, withdrawing his MEPs from the EPP and forming a new anti-federalist bloc, the European Conservatives and Reformists. In December 2011, to the fury of his coalition deputy, Nick Clegg, he “vetoed” a deal to reform the euro. In the same year his government passed the European Union Act, mandating that a national referendum be held whenever the EU threatened to encroach significantly upon UK sovereignty. Yet it was never enough for his querulous backbenchers. They hated coalition, and Clegg. And they were furious that Cameron’s “cast-iron guarantee” to hold a referendum on the Lisbon treaty had been rendered null and void when it entered EU law. He and George Osborne had also concluded that the eurozone crisis was an opportunity to be exploited: as the third-biggest net contributor to the EU, Britain was in a decent position to demand renegotiation of its membership terms as the price for its cooperation with the institutional measures taken to safeguard the single currency. If the matter was to be put to people, the question had to be “in or out?”. All else would be evasion, so many years after the 1975 referendum. That, at least, was the logic that underpinnedCameron’s Bloomberg speech in January 2013 promising a vote on Brexit before the end of 2017. We do not yet know which politician will lead the out campaign. But – barring a historic upset – it will be Cameron who heads the opposing team. Like a quick-change artist, he will ditch the outfit of a hard-nosed Eurosceptic negotiator and present himself afresh as an enthusiast for the new EU and Britain’s place in it. He has to persuade the voters that they absolutely must remain part of a continental alliance about which he has been at best extremely critical and at worst downright dismissive. There are those who see this as a potential advantage to the in camp, on the basis that the default position of the British people is essentially that of an instinctive Eurosceptic who is nonetheless unwilling to risk exit from the EU fold. But there is also scope for confusion, not to mention cognitive dissonance: why is this pro-EU campaign being led by a politician who patently dislikes what he is defending? Will the in camp be a broad church or a Babel? We’ll know soon enough. Prepare to step through the looking glass.
Authors lose out again in Amazon pay-per-page scam Authors are earning less from Amazon’s new pay-per-page model than they should be, thanks to a rash of scammers taking advantage of the company’s self-publishing platform. The scammers are exploiting a loophole in Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited service – which allows subscribers to read an unlimited number of books for a flat monthly fee – to earn much more money from short books than they ever would if they were sold fairly. The heart of the scam revolves around Amazon’s new strategy of paying authors for every page read through Kindle Unlimited . Announced in June 2015, the change was unpopular among many authors who saw their revenue from Amazon slashed overnight. Previously, authors were paid a flat fee for every reader who downloaded their book – typically around $1.30 (89p) per book. But after the change was introduced, they were instead paid six tenths of a cent for each page read, meaning that an author would have to write a 220-page book, and have every page read by every person downloading it to earn the same amount they previously got. In practice, however, Amazon isn’t able to judge whether or not a reader has truly read a book, and so the company judges how much of the book has been read by the latest syncing position received by its servers. In other words, a reader who opens a book and skips to page 400 would be judged as having “read” 400 pages – and the author paid accordingly. Typically, a reader would have little reason to do that. But a number of enterprising scammers have uncovered several ways to encourage them to do just that, according to the New York . One method covered by the magazine involves selling the book in a number of different languages (typically machine-translated), with the English edition put at the very back of the book. Amazon is clearly aware of the scam, because authors who accidentally encourage similar behaviour have found themselves banned. The New York cites Walter Jon Williams, whose book Metropolitan (published in 1995) has the table of contents at the back of the book. When Williams ran a paid ad campaign, Amazon noticed and forced him to change the layout before it could be purchased again. But many of the books that aren’t waved under Amazon’s nose are never discovered by the company. And because of the unique way authors are paid under the Kindle Unlimited scheme, it doesn’t have much motivation to look too hard for the scammers. All the authors who choose to make their books available on Kindle Unlimited are paid, not a flat rate for each page read, but a portion of funding pool that Amazon provides. The size of the pool fluctuates, from $11m last summer to $15m last month, but it’s set by Amazon. No matter how successful the scammers are, Amazon doesn’t lose any more or less than the $15m it sets aside to pay Kindle Unlimited authors. But other authors do lose out. The same pool goes to pay more “pages read”, reducing the fee for each individual page read. When Amazon moved to per-page-read payments, authors speculated that the change was intended to cut out erotica authors, who tended to publish short serialised works, in an effort to improve the composition of its bookstore. In hindsight, that looks to have backfired. Amazon did not respond to requests for comment on this story, but gave the following statement to the New York : “It’s important to us to ensure that customers can trust our sales’ rankings and that those rankings accurately reflect legitimate customer activity. So as not to reveal anything to potential abusers, we don’t discuss the specifics of the tools we use to check for abuse, and we are constantly working to improve them.”
Spending blights the NHS – but not in the way you think The professor for the public understanding of philosophy at Sheffield University, Angie Hobbs, was the guest interviewee on Test Match Special on Saturday. As the rain drummed down on Sri Lanka and England at Headingley, Hobbs made a powerful case for the role of philosophy in everyday life. Although philosophy’s relationship with sport goes back to classical times, it seldom breaks out of the special interest category. You just don’t expect Wittgenstein at lunchtime on sport radio. Yet thinking critically about what seems obvious can be revealing, and possibly even useful. As the cricketer-turned-writer Ed Smith argues, if you believe that sport is all about being the best, you are likely to think that victory proves it. The danger is that you believe that what worked then will work just as well the next time. You risk legitimising practice that may not have contributed to success at all. Equally, defeat might be read as conclusive proof of dimwitted tactics when you did the right thing but not well enough. Think harder. Hobbs, along with teaching students at Sheffield, is a great advocate of philosophy sessions for nine- and 10-year-olds. Surveys repeatedly confirm that after regular lessons in critical thinking there is a striking improvement in all-round performance, particularly among the most disadvantaged pupils. As a sideline, she talks to the bosses of some of Britain’s biggest businesses. It’s happening everywhere. In the booming world of the pursuit of marginal advantage, US soldiers learn to be stoical, governance systems are designed to foster the space for disagreement (though probably not in the military) and employees are encouraged to seek fulfilment. Thinking in new ways about old political problems, however, remains a rare and undervalued commodity. This is less a question of arguing the case for a whole new economics system, say, than taking an existing set of facts and exploring other ways of addressing them: spending on the NHS, for example. Although by any international comparison it is exceptionally good value for money, the health service unquestionably soaks up huge amounts of public money. It accounts for about a fifth of the tax an individual pays, second only to the share spent on welfare. The sheer scale of the spend, more than £100bn a year in England alone, means no health secretary can possibly ignore it. But maybe, in the same way that the uncritical assumption that the winning goal was due to genius can distract from underlying reality, they think about it too much. The focus on “cash in and results out” is often taken as the definitive measure of political commitment and efficiency, when in reality it is getting in the way of achieving more productive outcomes, such as better motivated staff or patients who are more engaged in looking after their own health. Governments regularly claim that they want to end the command and control regime that has been the dominant organisational model for the past 68 years. In the first months of the coalition in 2010, Andrew Lansley tried to create a kind of self-improving NHS that would be so independent of Whitehall that the health secretary would be free to play golf every afternoon. Instead, hundreds of millions of pounds were wasted on a vast structural upheaval with consequences that are still being unravelled, old relationships have been frayed and on every measure performance is getting worse. The trouble with the command and control mindset is that it limits consideration of other options. If the health secretary is not pulling all the strings then the patient must be in charge, through a system that prioritises individual choice; or, in the current model, GPs are instructed to turn themselves into commissioning bodies and become the architects of service provision. In the end, wherever power appears to lie, it is still all about command and control and the accompanying incentives, targets and measurements that undermine alternative ways of working. That’s one reason why being a chief executive in a hospital trust must be one of the best-paid unwanted jobs. One in seven of the top posts is unfilled as potential candidates look at the fate of their predecessors and decide to stick with what they’ve got. The health policy expert Nick Timmins recently interviewed retiring NHS chief executives. The most common complaint was that they no longer had the autonomy they once had to order priorities. There was no longer any room for manoeuvre to cope with the chronic squeeze on funding by perhaps allowing waiting times for some specialities to grow or relaxing some financial targets or easing up on staffing levels. Everything is now screwed to the floor in the name of accountability. In fact, hospital efficiencies are only a small part of the answer. There is no argument among professionals about what the big health policy objectives ought to be. Simon Stevens repeated them again in his interview with Andrew Marr on Sunday: public health must be improved and social care needs to be strengthened so that vulnerable people are better looked after at home, rather than in hospital. But it is hard to measure activities that don’t happen – the number of old people who don’t fall over, the people who don’t go to A&E, or stop smoking, or lose weight – instead of the number of admissions and procedures. It is tricky to estimate the impact on morale of staff empowered to work cooperatively to keep people well rather than look after them when they are ill. Yet for as long as the question is framed in terms of inputs and outputs we’ll keep getting the wrong answer. Send for a philosopher, now.
James Blake: The Colour in Anything review – toweringly accomplished, heart-wrenchingly frail On his third album, James Blake is where he has always been. A world of reverberating space, sparsely populated by stirring electronics and vocals both exquisite and distorted by the intensity of emotion (and a vocoder). But more people have pitched up in that spare, sonic landscape since Blake released his debut in 2011. Then, along with the xx, he was at the vanguard of this new and quietly revered style: a minimal, restrained and sensitive electronic pop that you could hear being gradually constructed over the course of the song itself, in which the evocative vocal was king. Blake still rules as far the latter is concerned, but over the past five years the sound has become increasingly ubiquitous, with acts such as London Grammar, Jack Garratt and Låpsley taking it into the mainstream (its influence can also be heard on the trendy, pared-down productions of pop idols such as Justin Bieber and Zayn Malik). It is now as tasteful as it is thoughtful – but the former can be a pejorative term, implying this is electronic music that has been sanitised and gentrified, destined to be consumed in pleasant surroundings by earnestly nodding crowds. Blake may have laid the groundwork for that, but The Colour in Anything reaffirms that he stands apart from his new peers. His music is not nice; the production frequently evokes a disturbed mind, and over it he speaks of profound alienation. Modern Soul, the album’s first single, is dominated by one of Blake’s typically sublime vocal melodies, but beneath that is hollow percussion, faint sirens and the endless refrain of “I want it to be over.” A sense of negation – the temptation to retreat from a bleak outside world – forms the disquieting background noise to his songs. There is space in all minimal electronic pop, but only in Blake’s does it feel so much like void. This album sees that introversion in the context of a crumbling connection. On Points, he sings about how “it’s sad that you’re no longer her” over demonic exhalations, platitudes such as “haven’t we all” become sinister through repetition on I Hope My Life, and there’s an oxymoronic but all too identifiable admission that “giving up is hard to do” on Love Me in Whatever Way. This mix of familiar yearning with something a bit uncanny reaches an alarming peak on Put That Away and Talk to Me, a dystopian domestic. Blake’s emotionally bloated cry is joined by the sort of pitched-up, finely chopped vocals recently pushed to new extremes by the PC Music collective. But where a song with similar computer crash-like looping – like GFOTY’s Don’t Wanna/Let’s Do It – sounds like joyfully irreverent experimentalism, Blake’s version of that sound is that of a troubled human being, haunted by the spectre of nothingness. The line “You know you are just fuel / Afraid to die yet nothing to do” might sound a bit melodramatic, but, in an increasingly computerised world, it feels like a real concern. Despite having one track fewer than the 18 promised (and minus the mooted 20-minuter), this is still a very long album; it’s not totally clear why. There’s currently a bit of a trend for protracted, rambling records, with Drake and Kanye both racking up 20 and 19 tracks respectively on their 2016 releases. With their rants about fame and failed relationships, those albums feel as if they serve a therapeutic purpose. Blake might also be dealing in catharsis, but he’s far more subtle as a lyricist, making allusions rather than direct confessions. But that means there’s less narrative thrill, and on piano ballads such as the title track he can struggle to hold the attention. While the rumoured involvement of Kanye failed to materialise, Blake finished the album with the help of another hip-hop luminary in Rick Rubin. Still, there is no actual rapping on it, something that gave the best tracks on 2013’s Overgrown some bite. Instead, it is left to the production to provide the edge. Yet while Blake borrows wisely from the gamut of emerging styles, it doesn’t always sound as if he is doing more than copying: the bark-yelp that punctuates the otherwise gratifyingly Arthur Russell-like Two Men Down is reminiscent of the production tick on Låpsley’s Station, the brashly looped sample on Always – written with Frank Ocean – calls to mind Yeezus, while the emasculating audience laughter that interrupts Love Me in Whatever Way was used by Father John Misty on Bored in the USA. Nowadays, though, your vocal style is your calling card more than ever – and Blake’s is not only distinctive, it’s peerless. It’s magical in its evocative powers, and like Arthur Russell he can summon a sort of joyful sadness that seems to transcend the song itself. It means this album of digital anxiety and millennial unease is wrapped in something that feels both toweringly accomplished and heart-wrenchingly frail – and for that reason it should be treasured.
Will we ever see a black Iron Man, Asian Hulk or female Thor on the big screen? The comic book writer Mark Millar tells a nice story about his part in transforming spymaster and all-around badass Nick Fury from a white cigar-chomping second world war veteran to the African-American version portrayed by Samuel L Jackson in the movies. While working on the 2002 miniseries The Ultimates, Millar and artist Bryan Hitch co-opted Jackson’s appearance without asking for permission, only to discover later that the Pulp Fiction star took the swiping of his image rights as a giant compliment. “Sam is famously the coolest man alive, and artist Bryan Hitch and I liberally used him without asking any kind of permission,” Millar said in an interview last year. “This was 2001 when we were putting it together. The idea that it might become a movie seemed preposterous, as Marvel was just climbing out of bankruptcy at the time.” Millar apologised to Jackson after meeting the actor in 2014 on the set of Kingsman: The Secret Service, which is based on one of the Scottish writer’s comics. Jackson’s response? “Fuck, no, man. Thanks for the nine-picture deal!” Fury will probably go down as one of the most successful transformations in comic book history, and it sparked a trend. Since Millar’s revisionist take first debuted, Spider-Man, the Hulk and Thor have been given new personas based on a diversity-first blueprint. The main wall-crawler in print is now the mixed-race Miles Morales, though Peter Parker still features in some comics, while Hulk is a Korean-American teenage genius named Amadeus Cho who, in contrast to his predecessor Bruce Banner, enjoys being the giant green meanie. Meanwhile, the current Thor is actually Jane Foster, the Son of Odin’s sometime squeeze. It doesn’t end there. This week, it’s being reported that the new Iron Man in the comics will be a 15-year-old girl, Riri Williams, a science genius who builds her own version of Tony Stark’s suit in her dormitory room at MIT. Williams is due to take over from Stark full time at the end of the current Civil War II storyline. On the big screen, Marvel Studios won points for casting Idris Elba as Norse deity Heimdall in Kenneth Branagh’s Thor, and introduced its most famous black superhero, Black Panther, in Captain America: Civil War. Memorably portrayed by the excellent Chadwick Boseman, the newly crowned king of Wakanda will be getting his own movie in 2018. But the main Avengers have largely retained their white origins. Tom Holland will play the Peter Parker version of the web-slinger in next year’s Spider-Man: Homecoming; Robert Downey Jr is clinging on as Tony Stark, Thor is still a bloke and the splendid Mark Ruffalo is firmly ensconced as the Hulk/Bruce Banner. Meanwhile, Marvel has also faced criticism for whitewashing Doctor Strange’s Asian mentor, the Ancient One, in Scott Derrickson’s forthcoming film. In a move that one of the writers admitted was intended to avoid upsetting Chinese filmgoers, the character will be played (somewhat bizarrely) by Tilda Swinton. The original Ancient One, lest we forget, was from the fictional Himalayan kingdom of Kamar-Taj, which is often seen as a proxy for Tibet. So does Marvel’s film-making offshoot have a duty to follow its comic book arm and begin to reflect greater diversity? The short answer is: not if this involves putting square pegs in round holes. But if the studio can use diverse Marvel comics superheroes to add colour and a satisfying sense of story development to its cinematic universe, that becomes an entirely different matter. Holland, for instance, has just started his run as Spider-Man/Peter Parker, so the Miles Morales version might have to bide his time before getting a Marvel Cinematic Universe debut. Likewise, there’s a strong sense that we haven’t yet seen the best of Ruffalo’s Hulk, especially as the not-so-jolly green giant is due to team up with Chris Hemsworth’s god of thunder for a superhero buddy movie in next year’s Thor: Ragnarok. On the other hand, Downey Jr would be just as big a pull as a suitless Tony Stark, offering sarcastic advice to a new generation of heroes. The dual nature of most superheroes and their alter egos gives Marvel more room for manoeuvre than the makers of James Bond or the Jason Bourne series might have. When Amadeus Cho became the new Hulk in the comics, Banner was not killed off or sidelined: rather, writer Greg Pak chose to explore how the character might develop once freed from the green monster that’s been plaguing him for the best part of 50 years. Downey Jr will be 54 by the time Infinity War rolls around in 2019; Ruffalo will be 51. Marvel Comics’ diversity push might provide templates for its studio counterpart to borrow from when its current crop of actors are ready for new challenges. And if that leads to a diverse big-screen lineup – instead of casting that, let’s face it, is based on a pretty narrow-minded, 1960s-influenced reading of US demographics – so be it.
Disorder review – paranoid mind games make for an intriguing thriller Writer-director Alice Winocour has described this tense tale of a soldier back from Afghanistan serving as security detail in the home of a wealthy Lebanese businessman as a chance to make “a genre movie” in an “area usually strictly reserved for men”. Matthias Schoenaerts is the PTSD-afflicted Vincent through whose paranoid eyes and hair-trigger responses we experience the unfolding narrative. Diane Kruger is the businessman’s trophy wife, left at home by her shifty husband in whose absence Vincent becomes her paid-for protector. With early hints of both Sliver and Someone to Watch Over Me, Disorder (originally entitled Maryland) develops into something more intriguing thanks in large measure to a brilliant expressionist soundtrack by Mike Lévy (aka Gesaffelstein), which does most of the heavy lifting when it comes to dramatising Vincent’s head-pounding state of mind.
Can Notes On Blindness change the way streaming caters for disabled people? There was no access ramp at Andy Warhol’s Factory. When popular culture pushes into new territory, it can be slow to lay the groundwork that might allow disabled people to follow. Today, in the flourishing cinematic playground of VOD, fewer regulations mean more films and less censorship, but also a sad reluctance to bring disabled viewers along for the ride. A recent survey found that less than a quarter of the UK’s on-demand platforms offer subtitles, compared with the vast majority of DVD releases. Some good news comes courtesy of the acclaimed Notes On Blindness, available to stream from Monday on Curzon Home Cinema, Virgin Media and the BFI Player. Not only is the film available with subtitles, but it also comes with a range of different audio tracks specially designed for blind and partially sighted audiences. In the film, the late academic John Hull describes the physical and psychological sensation of losing his sight at age 45, through a series of archived audio diaries he made along the way. After spells of terror, grief and depression, Hull begins to see his blindness not as a barrier between him and the wider world but as an opportunity to find a vivid new mode of communing with it. In that spirit, the film’s various audio tracks attempt to ensure that the experience is no less potent for visually impaired audiences. There’s a straightforward audio description track read by Louise Fryer, whose measured monotone stands at some distance from the film, allowing listeners to conjure the missing images for themselves. More evocative is a read of the same words by the actor Stephen Mangan, who invests the material with significantly more emotion than he brought to Postman Pat: The Movie, becoming something like an omnipotent narrator as he weaves in and out of Hull’s recordings. Most fascinating of all – and something of a radical step forward for film accessibility – is the “enhanced soundtrack version”, which all but disregards the film’s visuals and instead constructs an entirely new version of the film through purely sonic means. Expressionistic sound design is used to create aural reconstructions of key episodes from Hull’s life, while additional excerpts from his diaries fill in any narrative gaps. Notes On Blindness may be just one film, but this exemplary package points towards a more inclusive future for VOD, just as other pop cultural arenas have sought in recent years to better serve their disabled clientele. Pittsburgh’s seven-storey Andy Warhol Museum is wheelchair accessible throughout.
Amazon UK found guilty of trying to airmail dangerous goods Amazon UK has been found guilty and fined £65,000 for breaking aviation safety laws after repeatedly trying to send dangerous goods by airmail. A judge at Southwark crown court in London said on Friday that Amazon knew the rules, had been warned repeatedly, but had failed to take reasonable care. Although the risks from the goods sent for shipment by air were low, Judge Michael Grieve QC blamed the breaches on “systemic failure” at the online retailer. As well as the fine, Amazon was ordered to pay £60,000 towards prosecution costs. Earlier in the week, the jury found Amazon guilty of breaching rules for shipping dangerous goods by airmail on four counts between November 2013 and May 2015. The prosecution was brought by the Civil Aviation Authority, after a complaint from Royal Mail. Some offences took place after Amazon knew it was under investigation. In each case, the items – two packages containing laptop lithium batteries and two containing aerosols that used flammable gas propellant – had been flagged up by Amazon’s computer systems as possibly dangerous goods, and subject to restricted shipping rules. In each case, however, further reviews of the items – carried out remotely by staff in China, Romania and India – led to the items being wrongly redesignated as non-dangerous. Aerosols are stored separately at Amazon’s warehouse because they are deemed dangerous, and training literature for warehouse staff explains that lithium batteries are dangerous, “potentially causing burns, explosions or a fire”. Royal Mail, which routinely scans goods bound for air delivery, stopped three of the Amazon packages from entering the airmail system. A fourth was stopped by UPS. Royal Mail wrote to Amazon repeatedly in 2013 raising concerns about the high number of dangerous goods it was sending via airmail. In total, between November 2013 and May 2015, Royal Mail and other parcel carriers told Amazon of 782 packages containing potentially dangerous goods that should not be airmailed. Earlier in the trial, Amazon’s defence counsel Stephen Spence said: “Seven hundred and eighty-two can be a big number and can be a small number.” The defence explained that Amazon dispatched 331,400,000 packages during the relevant period of the indictment. “We suggest it is a pretty cracking success rate.” The CAA brought charges over 11 shipments. The jury failed to reach a verdict on six counts and acquitted Amazon on one count. In a statement after the sentencing hearing, Amazon said: “The safety of the public, our customers, employees and partners is an absolute priority. We ship millions of products every week and are confident in the sophisticated technologies and processes we have developed to detect potential shipping hazards. We are constantly working to further improve and will continue to work with the CAA in this area.”
UK budget deficit plan off target – secret Treasury document The chancellor’s plans to reduce the deficit are unlikely to get back on track this year, an internal briefing document for ministers has revealed. The Treasury document, which was marked “sensitive”, also revealed the UK faced a £700m bill after the EU referendum result, with Britain’s contribution to the EU growing by 25.9% compared with the same period last year. Treasury sources, who said the document was posted in error on the government’s website, said the most recent payments had been larger than usual because of smaller payments made earlier in the year. The briefing warns that the government is “unlikely to bring deficit reduction entirely back on track” and that the “continuing run of disappointing data” meant there was a “severe worsening in the public finances”. “For the year to date the deficit is £2.3bn lower than last year; at a fall of 4.8%, well behind the 27.0% reduction forecast,” the document says. The chancellor, Philip Hammond, has insisted since October that although the government will not now seek a surplus by 2020, it remains “committed to fiscal discipline”. A spokesman said that the government was still committed to deficit reduction. “The chancellor has been clear that while the deficit has been cut, it is still too high,” the spokesman said. “The government is committed to balancing the books over a sensible period of time, in a way that allows space to support the economy.” The shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, said the document demonstrated why Hammond had been reluctant to mention fiscal targets. “It refers to a run of disappointing data and the unlikelihood of getting deficit reduction back on track, officially confirming the Tory failure on the economy,” McDonnell said. “Now we’ve had it from the official civil servants it’s time the Tories came clean. They should drop the spin and admit the truth: they are failing on the public finances and working people are paying the price.” The document’s figures showing the increase in EU budget contributions will prompt speculation that the increase was delayed until after the referendum result, though the Treasury insisted that was not the case. In May, the Times reported that the European commission has delayed its budget proposals for 2017, prompting speculation that the bloc was concealing a planned increase in spending until after the June referendum. The commission insisted that was not the case, and delay had been necessary to do the necessary budget calculations to deal with the migration crisis. On Monday, Treasury sources flatly denied EU budget increases in the leaked document were related to the referendum result. “The EU asked for a smaller share of our total 2016 contributions in the first three months of the year than in previous years,” a spokesman said. “Our total contribution for the year is not affected, as the OBR set out in their March forecast.”
Here's how to turn off Twitter's 'best tweets' feature Twitter has finally lifted the curtain on its long-teased rejig of the timeline. A new feature, dubbed “show me the best Tweets first”, will mix-up the Twitter timeline for the first time ever, putting the “most important” tweets from people you follow at the top of the timeline. The rest of the feed remains as normal, and scrolling to the top loads in tweets chronologically, as before. It’s a minor change, similar to the “While you were away” feature pushed out to users in the past year. But it is sure to prove controversial regardless. Initially, users will be able to opt-in to the feature, but eventually Twitter confirms that it will push it to everyone as the default setting. But don’t worry: you will still be able to turn it off. The company has provided instructions for how do so on its help pages. You can’t follow them pre-emptively, so bookmark this page for when the feature is rolled out to your phone, just in case the new feature isn’t to your taste. “You can adjust your setting for show me the best tweets first by doing the following: On twitter.com: Log in to your account on twitter.com and go to your Account settings page. Under Content, look for Timeline and toggle the box next to “show me the best tweets first” to change the setting. Twitter for iOS: On your profile, tap the gear icon and select Settings. Tap the account whose settings you’d like to adjust. Under Timeline, tap Timeline personalization. Next to show me the best tweets first, tap to turn it off. Twitter for Android: Tap the overflow icon Tap Settings. Tap Timeline. Next to show me the best tweets first, uncheck the box to turn it off.
The unsung Madchester artist Tom and Mary Carroll raised nine children in their modest council house in Little Hulton, Salford. When daughter Maria was born with Down’s syndrome, her siblings would occasionally have to run down to the shops to have a word with local scallywags teasing her. So incensed was Tom by the treatment of kids with Down’s, he wrote to the Manchester Evening News to recount a story of Maria saving Christmas dinner one year by fixing the cooker. “Maria is an amazing young woman,” he wrote, “with unique social skills. Her capacity for loving embraces all her relationships. Seeing Down’s children referred to as ‘cases’ is so sad. Oh that afflicted society valued their gifts.” The letter was printed. Five years after his death, Tom Carroll’s wish may yet be granted. Between the years of 1988 and 1992, the youth of Manchester was ripped to the gills on ecstasy, reframing global youth culture from the dance-floor of nightclubs like Konspiracy and the Thunderdome, dancing to “Strings of Life” in bucket hats more usually sported on Blackpool prom. Two of the Carrolls’ sons, Matt and Pat, made a name for themselves as the unofficial art wing of this riotous, narcotic northern music and nightclub explosion. As Central Station Design, the brothers made artwork for the Happy Mondays, Northside and James, from record sleeves to tour posters. Their studio on Sackville Street, round the corner from Chorlton Street bus station, was just as much a heart of what would come to be dubbed Madchester as the studios of pirate radio station Sunset FM or the serving hatch at Dry Bar. Tony Wilson loved their work so much he once said “the second half of the Factory story is best summed up by the painterly eccentricity of Central Station”. Every good subculture deserves its hidden tale of rogue talent. Maria Carroll might just be Madchester’s. “Mum and Dad gave their whole life to the care and love of Maria,” says Matt. “I wasn’t born at the time, but my older brothers and sisters told me that when Maria was born, Dad told them: ‘We will be bringing home a very special person today.’” After Maria was born, a nurse told Mary not to have any more children. “I was born a year or so later,” Matt says. “We got through it. Me and Maria shared the same pram as babies. We still share the same space now.” Art was an important feature of the Carrolls’ family life. A Lowry print hung in a prominent position in the home: “It stirred the imagination of us all.” Tom would take his children along to Salford Art Gallery. “I think they were quietly pleased and proud in some ways,” Matt says of his and Pat’s success, “but they never told us or went on about it. But they gave us the freedom to find our own way in life and they were always totally supportive of whatever we did.” When Tom and Mary died within three months of each other, five years ago, Matt took over as Maria’s carer. He’d spotted her talent for art when she was young. “When she first started painting she set up an imaginary classroom with all the chairs in the room set round her, smoking a pencil. Just brilliant.” Matt and Pat hung one of Maria’s paintings – flowers daubed on computer printout paper – in the Central Station studio for inspiration. “It was and still is fantastic,” he says. They chose another of Maria’s paintings, of the Madonna and child, to adorn the last Happy Mondays album, Yes, Please. Matt can’t remember whether the band was aware the picture was Maria’s work. He texts Shaun Ryder to check. “He just got back and says, “Yes, we all knew it was Maria’s artwork and were very proud to have it as a cover.’” Three years ago Matt and Maria began working on pictures together, often starting with an idea Maria had begun on an iPad. “It became obvious that to collaborate and create something together would be special. The project also proved therapeutic, helping Maria and I to come to terms with the death of our parents. Maria was connected at the hip to Mum and Dad. They were everything to her, so their passing was a huge blow.” This month, the work of Matt and Maria Carroll will be shown at Salford Art Gallery. The pictures are big and bold, colourful and expressive, at once familiar to anyone who owns a Happy Mondays album and new, on account of the bright new touch Maria brings. They are works, Matt says, made entirely on equal terms. “I love Maria so much,” he says. “She’s a much underestimated star.” He can only ruminate on what Tom and Mary would make of their working together. “I think for them this would be the icing on the cake.” Ups and Downs is at Salford Museum and Art Gallery until 4 June 2017 (salfordcommunityleisure.co.uk)
Business winners and losers from a Donald Trump presidency Winners Pharmaceuticals The chance of a clampdown on drug pricing, as promised by Hillary Clinton, has now disappeared, benefiting global pharmaceutical companies such as Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline. Infrastructure companies Trump promised to spend around $500bn to improve America’s transportation, water, telecommunications and electricity systems, which would benefit construction firms such as Caterpillar. Mining groups and steel companies The infrastructure spending plans should help mining companies and steel specialists, which would also benefit from any moves that boost US economic growth. Precious metal miners are in demand as investors buy gold and silver as havens for their cash amid the uncertainty. Coal Trump has promised to revitalise the US coal industry and has no qualms about global warming. Rail companies Rail will be boosted by Trump’s spending plans, and increase freight transportation. Technology businesses Apple, Microsoft and Alphabet have huge cash piles which they are more likely to repatriate back to the US to pay out as dividends or use to make acquisitions. At the moment, they would pay 39% tax but Trump has proposed a one-off charge of 10% for repatriated cash. Retailers and restaurants Trump’s plans to reduce individual and corporate tax bills could help lift the economy and boost consumer spending. Defence companies They will benefit if Trump either persuades Nato to increase defence spending or if he reduces US involvement in Europe and forces local governments to lift their own expenditure. Losers Renewable energy Remember “climate change as a Chinese fiction”? Trump has already said he would cancel the Paris agreement to cut emissions, leaving renewables companies out in the cold. The Mexican peso The prospect of a physical wall between the US and Mexico has already hit the country’s currency and other losers will be businesses with substantial earnings in the country, such as Tate & Lyle and the Spanish bank BBVA. Any renegotiation of trade deals is also likely to hit Mexico. US healthcare providers, hospitals and insurers Trump has promised to repeal the Affordable Care Act – Obamacare – which would cause massive uncertainty in the sector and a probable fall in the number of people insured. Global freight companies If Trump puts up new barriers to trade and cancels existing deals, non-US transportation and logistics companies such as AP Moller-Maersk and Deutsche Post could be affected. Carmakers US carmakers who have factories in Mexico where labour costs are lower would lose out from Trump’s plans, while Japanese firms will be hit by the expected volatile currency fluctuations between the dollar and the yen. Telecoms and media The outlook is uncertain, especially for AT&T’s plan to buy Time Warner, which Trump has said he would block. Polling and gaming companies Once again pollsters called it wrong (see Brexit etc) while gaming companies were also caught unawares, with Paddy Power paying out on a Clinton victory three weeks early.
Junior doctors in third walkout as dispute over new contract escalates Junior doctors went on strike for the third time in three months on Wednesday to protest against government proposals to change the terms of their contracts, as public support for their industrial action showed no sign of flagging. The 48-hour walkout represents an escalation of the bitter dispute between the British Medical Association, the union representing aggrieved doctors, and health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, who has thus far failed to forge an agreement on the changes. Previous strikes lasted 24 hours but the increase does not seem to have dented public sympathy for the medics. Many of the 147 BMA-backed picket lines outside hospitals were inundated with support from patients, passing motorists, pedestrians and members of other unions. A poll for the BBC showed that 65% support the industrial action, almost identical to the backing before the previous strike last month. In a further boost for the BMA, the percentage against the strike has dropped from 22% last month to 17%. While Hunt, whose imposition of the new junior doctors contract after last month’s walkout raised the stakes, remained conspicuously quiet, many strikers were out winning friends. There were around 25 “little life-saver” events, free sessions run by striking doctors for parents to learn first aid skills that could save their children’s lives. Others ran CPR classes, gave blood or took part in “meet the doctors” events, explaining to the public the reasons for the industrial action. Dr Dagan Lonsdale, an intensive care registrar, took part in one of the first aid events at a pub near St George’s hospital in Tooting, south London. “The idea is to just do something positive on the day of industrial action because junior doctors aren’t people for standing around braziers on a picket line, and people feel they want to do something positive and show that this is not about striking for money,” he said. “We really do have patients’ best interests at heart; we’re interested in pursuing our vocation, which is saving people’s lives.” Outside the Royal London hospital in Whitechapel, in the East End, where junior doctors received beeps of support from cars, delivery trucks and buses, even a disgruntled man on crutches, upset that he hadn’t been told his clinic had been cancelled, offered his backing and took a BMA sticker. Dr Heather Ryan, 29, a GP registrar who works in a surgery in south Liverpool and joined the picket line outside the Royal University Liverpool hospital, said: “Lots of car horns have been going – it is obvious that the public are supporting us. There is lots of activity on social media as well. People who aren’t even associated with the NHS are saying they support us. “The Merseyside pensioners are here. It is not just NHS workers who support us – it is people from all walks of life.” Despite plenty of public support, the Patients Association chief executive, Katherine Murphy, warned repeated industrial action would “continue the destruction of trust between staff and their employers, and erode the public’s confidence in the service”. Intensifying the pressure on the government, NHS staff – including junior doctors – and patients are holding a “blue light” vigil on Wednesday night outside Downing Street “to remind the government and public that the NHS is already 24/7”. Delivering a seven-day NHS is the rationale given by the the health secretary for changes to the junior doctors’ contract, including designating Saturdays as a normal working day, which would not attract overtime payments. The BMA says the changes would increase the burden on its members and thereby compromise patient safety. In parliament, Hunt was mocked for giving a statement on patient safety while failing to mention the strike. The shadow health secretary, Heidi Alexander, said: “How can he stand here and talk about patient safety when it’s him and him alone to blame for the current industrial action, for the destruction of staff morale and for the potential exodus of junior doctors to the southern hemisphere?” In response, Hunt accused Labour of backing the BMA against patients, who he said need a seven-day NHS. NHS England said 44% of junior doctors showed up for work on the first day of the strike. But that figure does not distinguish between the considerable amount of junior doctors working in emergency wards, excluded from the industrial action, and those who chose not to participate. Dr Anne Rainsberry, national incident director for NHS England, said: “Unfortunately the cumulative effect of these recurring strikes is causing disruption to thousands of patients, for which we can only apologise. “A 48-hour stoppage puts considerably more pressure on the NHS. The impact of the action so far is broadly in line with what we were expecting but we know that the second day is going to be more difficult and have made sure plans are in place to respond to any rising pressures.” Two further 48-hour strikes are planned for next month.
Nicolas Jaar: Sirens review – electronic noodling hypnotises, frustrates, dazzles The Chilean-American sophisticate Nicolas Jaar is often derided by people who like their electronic music robust and to the point. Understandably, really – his noodlings often make James Blake sound like AC/DC . But Jaar is something of a left-field superstar. On his 2011 debut album, there was at least a semblance of a slow club-music pulse, while last year’s Pomegranates consisted of 20 glitched-out instrumental sketches. Sirens is something else again: in just 40 minutes, you’ll hear Suicide’s louche techno-punk (albeit slathered in high-gloss electronica and French lounge jazz), Karl Hyde of Underworld’s dada chants, lashings of Talk Talk, and Phil Collins doing Chilean cumbia. The song structures constantly meander and fragment and often dissolve into silence and drone before reconstituting. If this idea seems baffling, it makes no more sense at all in the listening, and by turns hypnotises, frustrates and dazzles. This obstreperousness will only further alienate the doubters, but you cannot fault Jaar’s preposterous ambition.
Labour tells Jeremy Hunt to clarify position on junior doctors' contract Labour has called on the attorney general to clear up the mounting confusion over whether the health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, has the power to impose a new contract on junior doctors. Heidi Alexander, the shadow health secretary, has written to Jeremy Wright asking him to clarify whether Hunt has the legal right to force 45,000 NHS trainee medics in England to accept new terms and conditions, which have already prompted four strikes. Hunt deepened the uncertainty over his legal powers in the Commons on Monday when he again said that he was “imposing” the contract, even though both the government’s own lawyers and his department of health insist that he is merely playing a key role in its “introduction”. “We are imposing a contract with the greatest of regrets,” Hunt told MPs when answering an urgent question from Labour. He is facing a high court challenge from five junior doctors who claim he does not have the power to impose the contract. In her letter to Wright, Alexander writes that government lawyers’ “failure to point to any specific power relied upon by the secretary of state appeared to suggest that a new contract was not being imposed, but merely approved”. “This has caused considerable confusion, which today’s urgent question in the House of Commons only added to, as the secretary of state appeared to contradict the argument of the government’s legal department by confirming that he was imposing a contract.” Hunt was asked by four MPs yesterday to identify the basis of his power to impose the contract, but did not do so, simply insisting that “the secretary of state does have that power and we are using it correctly”. Alexander has asked Wright, the government’s chief legal adviser, to “set out explicitly where in the defined roles and responsibilities of the secretary of state it gives him the power to impose a contract on NHS employers”, and also why government lawyers did not identify the source of that power when it wrote last Friday to solicitors for the five junior doctors. Hunt denied that the government had changed its policy from imposition to introduction “This house has been updated regularly on all developments relating to the junior doctors’ contract, although there has been no change whatsoever in the government’s position since my statement to the house in February,” he said. Lawyers for the medical quintet challenging him in the high court claim that the provisions of the Health and Social Care Act 2012, in which the then health secretary Andrew Lansley set out to limit the health secretary’s power over the NHS, mean that Hunt was exceeding his powers by deciding on 11 February to impose the contract after two months of talks with the British Medical Association failed.
Crystal Palace and Wilfried Zaha sink Middlesbrough to lift Alan Pardew Alan Pardew maintains his two biggest summer-time coups involved acquiring Christian Benteke and retaining Wilfried Zaha. That assessment was fully vindicated as the pair not only scored a goal apiece but, at times, thoroughly unnerved and overpowered Middlesbrough. Their impact left Crystal Palace celebrating a first Premier League win of the season and their much-criticised manager breathing a little easier. Not that things were entirely straightforward. “It was a strange one,” Pardew said. “We had spells when we were in control, but at the end, we were hanging on against a very competent Boro who showed great maturity and don’t look like a newly-promoted team. “It was a tough Premier League game and the win was very important for us. In this division, the spotlight comes on you quickly and if you don’t start winning it can affect your confidence.” Nonetheless, Pardew had been sufficiently relaxed to watch the lunchtime Manchester derby in the Riverside’s press room. Having relocated to the technical area, he remained similarly unruffled as Benteke headed Palace in front following Zaha’s angled cross. The £27m forward, recently arrived from Liverpool, easily outjumped the normally dominant Dani Ayala to direct a wonderful looping effort beyond Víctor Valdés’s reach. While Pardew restricted his celebrations to jotting some notes on a pad, a young visiting substitute seated behind him offered a study in unrestrained delight. Grinning from ear to ear, Jonathan Benteke, Christian’s younger brother, and fellow striker, applauded enthusiastically as his sibling not only scored a first goal for the club, but justified Palace’s strategy of playing to their lone forward’s strengths. Zaha’s crossing proved key to this gameplan and when the winger’s pace swept him beyond George Friend another fine centre resulted in Benteke cueing Andros Townsend up for a very presentable shooting chance. This time, though, Valdés was equal to the challenge and saved smartly. Bar an early Álvaro Negredo volley, directed off target following decent work from Stewart Downing and Adam Forshaw – impressing in central midfield after keeping Marten de Roon on the bench – Boro were initially on the back foot. Then, with half-time approaching, they finally rediscovered a measure of the ruthless efficiency that underpinned last season’s promotion campaign. Ayala dodged Damien Delaney before connecting with Downing’s corner and powering a header towards the top corner. Possibly slightly slow to react, Steve Mandanda could only help the ball on its journey. Relief flooded the Riverside, but it swiftly became qualified as Boro spurned an unexpected second chance. Viktor Fischer generally disappointed, but his superb threaded pass left Negredo clean through only for Mandanda to successfully second guess the striker’s shooting intentions. Reprieved, Palace restored their lead in the 47th minute. Initially, it looked as if James McArthur’s pass would be too short for Zaha, but aided by a horrible mistake from the normally dependable Friend the winger seized possession. The left-back must have felt like watching through his fingers as Zaha, who had outmuscled him before hijacking the ball, proceeded to shoot beyond Valdés’s grasp. “It was very important Wilf stayed,’ said Pardew, with real feeling. Once again, Boro rallied. Downing zipped a shot marginally wide before Ben Gibson tested Mandanda from distance, the keeper doing well to divert the danger. It was time for Aitor Karanka to introduce Gastón Ramírez and De Roon. The newcomers immediately fazed Palace, with the former especially influential. “Ramírez made a real difference when he came on,” said Pardew. “I was pleased he didn’t start.” Boro’s first league defeat beckoned, but they were not about to surrender lightly. Accordingly, the closing stages had three home penalty appeals of varying potential legitimacy against Scott Dann (handball), Delaney (handball) and Zaha (felling Friend) dismissed, while Martin Kelly’s last-gasp clearance denied Negredo a close-range equaliser after Mandanda parried Ramírez’s shot. Victory relieved all sorts of pressure on Pardew – for the moment at least – but left Karanka brutally realistic. “We lost from our mistakes,” he said. “We didn’t play with enough intensity in the first half. I’m disappointed. I hope we’re learning.”
Black woman inundated with racist abuse while tweeting for @Ireland A black British woman who was chosen to tweet from the @ireland account for a week has been subjected to a barrage of racist abuse, forcing her to take a break from Twitter. Michelle Marie took over the account – which is curated by a different Twitter user in Ireland each week – on Monday. She introduced herself as a mother, blogger and plus-size model. Originally from Oxford in England, she wrote she had settled in Ireland and “it has my heart”. However, just hours after taking over the profile – which is followed by nearly 40,000 people – the abuse began. Marie responded by writing that being overweight “doesn’t mean I can’t be beautiful or worthy or happy” and described the impact body shaming had had on her mental health. However, that failed to stop the trolls abusing her because she was black. Marie received a lot of tweets of support, with many users urging her to report the abuse and block the users responsible. James Hendicott, a Briton who had previously run the @Ireland account, said he hadn’t been trolled at the time and the treatment of Marie was “clearly racism”. By the end of the day the negative comments began to take their toll. She posted a statement saying that while she had expected “trolls, backlash and criticism” she had experienced “racism, sexism, fatophobia and homophobia to a degree I have never known.” After “8hrs of non-stop hate” she said she was hurt, shocked and appalled but promised she would try again tomorrow. Marie told the that the experience had been upsetting. “I’m saddened that such extreme racism and vitriol is still rife. I am fortunate that experiencing this level of hate is a rarity, but for too many it’s a daily reality,” she said. The @Ireland account was opened in 2012 and is run by Irish Central. Irish Central’s website says “as the Ireland of today is not confined to the island of Ireland, the varied voices of @Ireland come from Ireland and across the world.”
Prince, Rickman, Bowie... famous faces we have said goodbye to in 2016 Prince’s death appeared to confirm what many people have been saying: 2016 is proving to be annus horribilis for celebrities. The year was not even a fortnight old when the news that shocked the world broke: David Bowie had died from cancer at the age of 69 in New York City. Almost no one had known Bowie was ill – he had gone to great lengths to conceal the fact from even close friends. The musician “died peacefully, surrounded by his family” after an 18-month battle with cancer. His death came just three days after the release of Blackstar on his 69th birthday as a parting gift to his millions of fans. Alan Rickman’s death – coming just four days after Bowie’s – upset the young and old alike. After his first big film role in Die Hard in 1988, the British actor won a new generation of fans with his portrayal of Severus Snape in the Harry Potter films. He suffered a stroke last August, but again decided to keep his health a private matter. Like Bowie, he died at the age of 69 from pancreatic cancer. As well as Bowie and Rickman, January also brought with it the death of British television and radio personality Sir Terry Wogan on the very last day of the month. He died after a short illness at the age of 77. A hint came last November, when he pulled out of hosting BBC1’s Children in Need appeal for the first time in its 35-year history due to poor health. As well as serving up acerbic commentary for the Eurovision song contest, Wogan presented the Radio 2 breakfast show for 12 years from 1972 and again from 1993 until 2009. Exactly two months later, another star closely associated with the BBC – comedian Ronnie Corbett – died aged 85 in hospital in south London, surrounded by his family. His double act with Ronnie Barker made the pair some of the most successful entertainers of the 1970s and 80s. Corbett’s death came a few days after the death of an international football superstar – Johan Cruyff. The Dutch maestro, famed for a piece of skill named in his honour, the Cruyff Turn, died aged 68 of cancer at his home in Barcelona. And on the day before Prince added his name to this list, the British comedian actor and writer Victoria Wood died of cancer at home with her family. She was 62 and also had not made public the state of her health. The tally of deaths is significant, and 2016 is not yet four months old. The has given over the front page of its print edition to all of these public figures – except Cruyff, to whom the Sports section dedicated its front page. The ’s obituaries page, according to its editor, is no longer able to fit in all the public figures who would have historically figured on the page because of the rise in high-profile deaths. The nature of fame and celebrity has changed radically in the past decade, with the rise in internet use and mobile devices such as smartphones, along with the plethora of television channels available. As well as actors, musicians, royalty, sporting figures, politicians and the like, there are now hundreds of reality TV stars, comedians, game show hosts, mavericks and people famous simply for being famous. That means there are far more celebrities whom more people will have heard of when their number is up.
GSK tops list of drug firms improving global access to medicine GlaxoSmithKline has come top of a league table that monitors the availability of medicine in developing countries, with fellow UK drugmaker AstraZeneca making it into the top 10. The non-profit Access to Medicine foundation, which compiles the biennial index of drug companies, warned that while the availability of medicines is improving, the industry needs to do more on affordable pricing and the fight against corruption. Jayasree Iyer, executive director of the foundation, said: “Now is the time to step up those efforts.” Overall, drugmakers have 850 products on the market for the 51 worst diseases in low and middle-income countries. They are developing another 420. But only 5% of products are covered by pricing strategies that were deemed affordable for different population groups within countries. Iyer said there was no area where drugmakers had gone backwards, but noted that affordable pricing and misconduct were “static”. Breaches of laws or codes relating to corruption, unethical marketing and anti-competitive behaviour continue to arise. GSK came first in the rankings for the fifth time, followed by Johnson & Johnson of the US, Swiss company Novartis and German group Merck. AstraZeneca jumped from 15th to seventh position after introducing a new affordability-based pricing strategy and expanding its Healthy Heart Africa programme, which aims to treat 10 million people for hypertension, or high blood pressure, over the next decade. The company was in sixth place in 2008 but then fell behind in several areas. GSK accounted for the most research and development projects in areas of great need but with low commercial incentive, followed by AbbVie and Johnson & Johnson. The British drugmaker also topped the index for considering affordability when setting prices. Its top ranking came despite a damaging bribery scandal in China in 2014, for which it was fined £300m. The scandal prompted the company to overhaul its sales practices. Iyer expressed some concern about GSK chief executive Sir Andrew Witty’s departure next March and what it could mean for the company’s efforts. He will be succeeded by Emma Walmsley, who currently runs GSK’s consumer healthcare business. The index assesses the world’s 20 largest pharmaceutical companies on a range of measures, including their willingness to discount prices in poor countries, research on neglected tropical diseases, lobbying, patent policies, breaches of codes of conduct, corruption or bribery, transparency and conduct in clinical trials. The Access to Medicine foundation is funded by the UK and Dutch governments and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. It says its framework is used by companies to draw up access to medicine strategies.
Google will now tell you whether a bar or shop is busy in real-time Google’s latest feature will tell you how busy a place is in real-time before you set off. The new extension to the Popular Times feature added to Google Maps and search in July 2015 has been upgraded with a live feed of how busy a place is for certain venues. With a new “Live” tag, Maps now displays a red overlay on top of the historic busy period data showing whether it really is busy or quiet as usual at the moment. The feature uses anonymised location data from other Google users, as well as searches, to analyse how busy it is at that moment. While predicted busy times from historic data is generally useful, at sales times or when transport conditions are less than ideal, the flow of people might increase at normally quiet times. The feature is being rolled out ahead of the busy Black Friday shopping period, but could equally be useful for checking out whether a particular bar or cinema is packed among other venues with variable busy times. Google Maps, like others such as CityMapper, already displays live traffic and public transport congestion information pulled from both public data and other Google Maps and Waze users. The introduction of live data is one of the big differentiators for mapping apps along with indoor navigation and libraries of store and points of interests data. Google has also expanded the extra information Maps displays, including data on how long people generally stay in the venue or location, as well as opening hours for concessions and departments within a larger store or business, which are set by the individual businesses. Google reverses decision to ban Pixel phone resellers Google commits to massive new London headquarters
NRA braces to protect decades of gun rights victories amid election spotlight Guns in college classrooms. Guns in churches. Guns in bars. “My first day, there’s no more gun-free zones,” the presumptive Republican presidential nominee has promised. America’s gun rights activists have been so successful, they’re running out of territory to fight over. Pushing for more gun-carrying on university campuses “kind of indicates you’re in engaged in a mop-up action after you’ve won the war”, said Dave Kopel, an attorney and prominent gun rights advocate. But as 80,000 National Rifle Association members and their families begin to gather in Louisville, Kentucky, on Thursday for the group’s annual meeting, they are not all feeling secure in their victories. After years of dodging the issue, some Democratic politicians are once again focusing on the toll of gun violence. A better-funded gun control movement is playing defense in state capitals across the country – and has had some success in getting voters to approve gun control policies directly via ballot measure. The death of Justice Antonin Scalia earlier this year has also put the what many have called the most NRA-friendly decision in supreme court history on uncertain ground. The court’s 2008 District of Columbia v Heller decision found that Americans have an individual right to own firearms for personal protection and struck down the District of Columbia’s handgun ban. But Heller was decided 5-4, with more liberal justices arguing against its sweeping interpretation of the second amendment. The outcome of the 2016 election will determine whether Scalia’s replacement on the court is another gun-rights-friendly conservative, or a more liberal justice who might shift the balance of the court. Jennifer Baker, an NRA spokeswoman, said the organization sees “a very real risk” that Heller could be overturned. “Our supporters really understand the importance of a supreme court nominee in terms of their rights. They make the connection,” she said. “The stakes have never been higher than they have been in terms of this election.” Legal scholars are more skeptical, suggesting it’s unlikely, if not impossible, that even a much more liberal court would completely overturn Heller. While the NRA has not yet endorsed a candidate for president, they are focusing on one principle: “Never Hillary,” Baker said. Clinton has come out swinging, calling the NRA one of the enemies she’s proudest to have, and criticizing “the greed and recklessness of gun manufacturers and dealers in America”. America’s 33,000 gun deaths a year are an unacceptable loss of life, Clinton has argued. She has made multiple campaign appearances with African American mothers who have lost children to gun violence and police violence, as well as with the family members of mass shooting victims. The country’s rate of gun homicide dropped 49% between 1993 and 2010, but is still much higher than many European countries with more restrictive gun ownership laws. The number of guns in America, meanwhile – now thought be somewhere around 300m – has grown. Roughly two-thirds of America’s gun deaths are suicides, including many older white men in rural areas, and the total number of gun suicides has risen slightly since the late 1990s. High-profile mass shootings represent only a small fraction of total gun homicides, but some research suggests that these incidents may have grown more frequent in recent years. Overall gun homicides disproportionately affect African Americans. Roughly half of gun homicide victims each year are black men and boys. Increases in total homicide numbers in some cities last year have fueled a debate over whether broader national factors, including a lack of trust in police driven by police killings of unarmed black citizens, might be contributing to an increase in community violence. Several cities saw more gun violence last year than they had seen in decades – including Louisville, which is hosting the NRA’s annual meeting. Louisville saw 348 total shootings last year, an average of nearly one a day, according to the Courier-Journal. Both shootings and homicides increased by more than 40% last year. Two-thirds of the victims were black, although only about 22% of Louisville’s residents are African American. “We have just too many guns, on our streets, in our homes, in our neighborhoods,” Clinton said at a gun violence forum in Philadelphia last month. The former secretary of state has argued that it should be possible to hold gun manufacturers, distributors and retailers legally responsible when the guns they sell are used in crimes. Clinton supports repealing a 2005 law that shields gun sellers from liability when they sell a gun lawfully and it is later criminally misused. Clinton has also endorsed a renewed federal ban on “assault weapons”, a culture war flashpoint which showed no evidence of saving lives, as well as an expanded federal law requiring background checks on all gun sales, which some researchers say might have more of an impact. At its Leadership Forum in Louisville on Friday, the NRA will bring together a slate of the nation’s most prominent Republican politicians to push that “Never Clinton” message. Donald Trump, the party’s presumptive nominee, will be a featured speaker. The NRA has not yet formally endorsed Trump. Baker said the organization typically does not endorse any candidate this early in the campaign. Some gun rights advocates have viewed Trump’s fervor in support of the second amendment with skepticism, pointing to his former support of an assault weapon ban and his years of living in New York City without bankrolling attempts to dismantle its extremely restrictive gun ownership laws. While the NRA now faces “a host of new challenges”, the political landscape is always less dire than NRA leadership suggests, said Adam Winkler, a second amendment expert at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law. “If one complained every time the NRA worried about the sky falling, one would never stop complaining,” he said. “They said Obama was going to take away your guns. He didn’t. They’ll say that Hillary Clinton is going to take away all your guns. She won’t.” Even if the supreme court’s sweeping Heller decision is overruled, the country is unlikely to see a big shift in gun laws, Winkler said. “Gun rights do not depend on the Heller case. They depend on the NRA and its political strength in legislatures.” New gun control organizations backed by billionaire Michael Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York City, and Gabrielle Giffords, an Arizona congresswoman injured in a Tucson mass shooting in 2011, are trying to challenge that strength. Everytown for Gun Safety, the Bloomberg-backed group, now claims three million members nationwide. The NRA claims more than five million dues-paying members, who represent only a modest fraction of America’s estimated total number of gun owners. Gun control advocates argue that there is a “silent majority” of gun owners in America who would support slightly more restrictive gun policies. “The NRA’s leadership does not speak for us – the majority of Americans, including gun owners and NRA members, who support the second amendment and believe that with that right comes a responsibility to keep guns out of dangerous hands,” Shannon Watts, the founder of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, which is part of Everytown, said in a statement. Watts’s group began as a Facebook group, One Million Moms for Gun Control, in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting in 2012. She criticized “the NRA leadership’s extremist agenda to have guns everywhere, for anyone, with no questions asked”. The group has adopted a new slogan, “Make America Safe Again”, as a counter to Trump’s “Make America Great Again”. Moms Demand Action will be hosting a screening of Under the Gun, a documentary about gun violence in America, in Louisville on Saturday morning. The director of the film, Stephanie Soechtig, told US last week that “gun owners are being duped by the NRA”.
Deal or no deal, Yahoo is just the start for the Daily Mail's US push News that the Daily Mail is considering getting involved in an acquisition of Yahoo has sparked a flurry of interest, but what would an almost 180-year-old media company want with an internet giant past its prime? First, it is important to understand that a deal would not mean an outright acquisition of Yahoo by DMGT, the Mail’s owner. DMGT is a successful media business incorporating far more than just the Daily Mail in print and online, but its finances do not make an outright buyout feasible, even if Yahoo comes at a knockdown price. As analysts Peel Hunt put it in a note on Wednesday, DMGT is £700m in debt and a pension deficit means “there is only modest firepower for such a deal” without selling other assets or raising more debt, both of which “seem unlikely”. Instead, there are thought to be two deals under discussion, with possible private equity partners who would shell out most of the cash. One would see DMGT take on Yahoo’s media properties, such as Yahoo News and Yahoo Sport, while private equity firms bought its other operations, including its advertising technology, email and search businesses. The other, less likely, deal would see a private equity consortium buy the whole of Yahoo, then combine its media properties with the Mail’s online operations in a separate company in which DMGT would have a large stake. Why would the Mail want Yahoo? The Daily Mail is the world’s largest English language news site but even its close to 14 million unique users a day is tiny compared with the huge audiences of Google and Facebook. And while revenue for its online operation grew 27% overall in the last quarter of 2015, it is approaching saturation in the UK. In contrast, revenues were up 62% in the US alone and Yahoo’s media properties could add another 128 million visitors a month to its existing 66 million. “Yahoo generally fits in quite well – the sort of celebrity gossip that would be quite easily integrate,” says Thomas Caldecott from Enders Analysis. “But the main appeal would be sheer audience scale.” That digital scale is increasingly important because disappointing print revenues are no longer being offset by the Mail’s online operation. “Mail Online was an offset for the decline in print value,” says Peel Hunt analyst Alex DeGroot. “Unfortunately the decline in print value now exceeds it. Over the last year the stock market stopped talking about Daily Mail online, it needs an excuse to write [its value] up.” The other reason a deal makes sense is that while sites such as Yahoo Sport and News would be of limited interest to a private equity firm looking for a quick return, they would fit the Mail’s focus on digital news. “Online news is the tricky business to go into,” says Caldecott. “It’s not something a private equity group would be particularly interested in. But obviously for the Mail, which is in online news, it makes sense to acquire those properties in the context of its growth strategy.” It is also possible the deal could serve a more strategic purpose. The book being shopped around by Yahoo to potential buyers has been described by tech site Recode as “unusually confusing and perhaps purposefully so”. The Mail could hope to use the deal to help distract from the fact that its digital advertising driven business is not performing as well as predicted. What about Tumblr? One intriguing question in any deal would be about the future of social network Tumblr. In some ways the site offers a good fit for the Mail’s content, with shared obsessions over celebrities and pop culture. However, Tumblr’s community is notoriously sensitive to any attempt to make money through increased advertising, something the Mail would inevitably try to do. Its web-savvy, more liberal, progressive audience, two-thirds of whom are under 35, would might also take umbrage at being owned by the same company as the right-leaning, socially conservative print Daily Mail. An even bigger stumbling block might simply be price, given Tumblr was acquired by Yahoo for $1.1bn (£770m), and even following a $230m writedown on its value, would make up a significant part of Yahoo’s total value. How likely is it to happen? While the prospect of a deal has caught the imagination, there may be more heat than light, not least because of the other potential buyers. As pointed out in an analyst note from Peel Hunt: “The media − but not the stock market − has got itself into a lather over the prospect of DMGT owning Yahoo.” One reason is simply that other firms thought to be interested in Yahoo are all well financed, including Verizon, which would be motivated by long-term goals similar to those that drove it to buy AOL for $4.4bn in 2015. Yahoo is also thought to have talked to Tinder owner Interactive Corp and television network CBS, and other firms thought to be interested include Time. However, Google owner Alphabet and Microsoft have both reportedly decided not to pursue a bid, and Yahoo’s increasingly poor financial performance will put off many bidders. If the Mail can find private equity partners who see a big enough opportunity in the rest of Yahoo’s assets, it is well placed to pick up the bits that only a digital news operation tying to build a huge global audience would find appealing. And if it can’t, it’s only likely to be the beginning of the company’s search for something to turbocharge its US operation. “If this deal doesn’t happen, a solution will be needed,” says DeGroote. “Because whoever owns Yahoo’s business will be the number one in news media in the US. The Daily Mail will be interesting but too small. They will need to do something. It’s the beginning not the end. They’ll need a partner of sorts. It has to happen.”
Adblocking: what are your reasons for blocking ads online? Earlier this week culture secretary John Whittingdale described adblocking as a “protection racket” and a real danger to areas of the media who rely on advertising. The counter argument is that publishers and newspapers have created this problem themselves by trying to maximise profit from digital visitors with increasingly obnoxious ad formats and more intrusive ways of tracking who has seen them. The landscape has changed significantly with the shift to mobile consumption of media, with networks such as Three in the UK offering adblocking as a service, and Apple allowing adblocking in iOS9. A recent report revealed that 22% of the UK’s internet users have an adblocker installed, up from 18% just three months earlier. And that figure rises to almost half for 18- to 24-year-olds. We’d like to hear from people who regularly use adblockers. What are your main reasons for blocking online advertising with this software? Have publishers gone too far with digital ads? What other methods to build online audiences and revenue do you think would be more productive? Or do you agree with John Whittingdale that “if people don’t pay in some way for content, then that content will eventually no longer exist”? Share your thoughts on why you would or wouldn’t use adblocking with us by filling in the form below.
We will look back at cyber-harassment as a disgrace – if we act now Attitudes towards online abuse have undergone a sea change over the last decade. In the past, cyber-harassment – often a perfect storm of threats, impersonations, defamation, and privacy invasions directed at an individual – was routinely dismissed as “no big deal”. So it was for one Yale law student. Starting in 2007, on an online discussion board, a cyber-mob falsely accused her of having herpes and sleeping with her dean. Anonymous posters described how they would rape her; they chronicled her daily whereabouts and prior jobs. Yet law enforcement told the student to ignore the attacks because “boys will be boys”. Officers advised her to “clean up” her cyber-reputation, as if she could control what appeared about her. Trivialising online abuse and blaming victims was the norm. Today, the public has a deeper appreciation of victims’ suffering. As advocacy groups like the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative have shown, and as society has come to recognise, the costs of cyber-harassment are steep. Because searches of victims’ names prominently display the abuse, victims have lost their jobs. They have had difficulty finding employment. Employers do not interview victims because hiring people with damaged online reputations is risky. Victims struggle with anxiety and depression. They withdraw from online engagement to avoid further abuse. Women, especially younger women, are more often targeted than men, but in either case, the abuse often has a sexually demeaning and sexually threatening cast. Legal developments reflect a growing understanding of cyber-harassment’s harms. In the US, 27 states have criminalised revenge porn – also known as non-consensual pornography. California’s attorney general Kamala Harris created a first-of-its-kind online resource to train law enforcement about cyber-harassment. Her office successfully prosecuted revenge porn operators for soliciting the posting of nude photos and charging for their removal. Inspired by Harris, the Federal Trade Commission entered into a consent decree with a revenge porn operator for inducing the disclosure of confidential information for financial gain. In the UK, cyber-harassers have been held responsible for their destruction. There are now laws to bring to bear against online abuse. Prosecutions under the Malicious Communications Act have resulted in convictions, as in the case involving death threats tweeted at Caroline Criado-Perez. In April 2015, the UK criminalised revenge pornography. What the UK still needs is better training of law enforcement and perhaps some clarification of the laws already on the books rather than a new set of laws, as the Conservative MP Maria Miller suggested this week. Even with better training the law is a blunt tool. Its effectiveness depends upon the discretion of the officials invoking it. We have seen law enforcement pursue frivolous cases, which undermine society’s confidence in harassment and threat laws. We have seen prosecutors pursue individuals who, by all societal accounts, are either trying to help others or are victims themselves. Prosecutorial overreaching and poor judgment are risks, no matter the crime at hand. But efforts to deter and prosecute crimes should not be abandoned because some prosecutors may abuse their power. Then, too, law may not be able to reach some online assaults. For instance, criminal law may not cover the individual acts of a cyber-mob, even though the abuse as a whole is destructive. Each member of a mob may have contributed a little and thus no one person has transgressed harassment laws, which require repeated “course of conduct”. There is also the practical reality of dealing with a cyber-mob. As in the case of games designer Zoe Quinn, who was targeted in “Gamergate”, victims have urged prosecutors to drop cases because the attacks got worse – not better – after charges were filed. Civil claims can only be brought if victims have the resources to hire counsel or find lawyers to take on cases pro bono. Since law cannot do it all, and should not do it all given our commitments to free expression, who else can combat cyber-harassment? Civil society should step in. Schools, community leaders, and family members should help inculcate norms of respect. Being told to avoid playground fights at school is par for the course – so too should be discussions about the responsibilities of digital citizenship. Young people must be taught about our shared responsibility for online safety. Private companies have a role to play as well. Indeed, market forces may be pushing them in that direction. Advertisers have threatened to pull their business unless platforms ban bigoted online abuse. Whether it is thanks to commercial interests or social responsibility, some online platforms have taken a stand against cyber-harassment. Social media providers, including Facebook, Microsoft, and Twitter, now ban threats, cyber-harassment, and non-consensual pornography. Companies should be clear about their policies. They need to explain what they mean by “cyber-harassment”, “non-consensual pornography”, “threats” and “bullying”. Users will then have a better understanding of precisely what is and what is not prohibited. Platforms should explain whether content will be taken down or what the next step would be. To ensure the fairness of the complaint process, companies should notify users of their decisions and give them a chance to appeal. Of course, private companies do not owe their users any formal obligation of due process. But they should have an appeals procedure, because when people perceive a process to be fair they are more inclined to accept its results. Clear policies, a means of review, and transparent enforcement decisions will help to protect users from destructive abuse and set clear norms for sites. What about startups that lack resources to address complaints comprehensively? Users could be recruited to help enforce community norms. The multiplayer online game League of Legends has enlisted users to help address players’ abusive behaviour, notably harassment and bigoted epithets, with much success. In short, there is no magic bullet to combat cyber-harassment. But this is an opportune moment to educate the public about the destruction wrought by cyber-harassment and the various ways of addressing it. Social attitudes trivialising it can be reversed before they become entrenched. If we act now, future generations might view cyber-harassment as a disgraceful remnant of the internet’s early history.
It's no surprise Berlin is telling Deutsche Bank it's on its own Deutsche Bank cannot be surprised that we’ve reached the point where its share price can fall 7.5% in a day, seemingly on something as innocuous as a magazine report stating that chancellor Angela Merkel doesn’t fancy the idea of state-sponsored bailout. Merkel’s reported stance should surprise nobody. There are elections in Germany next year and there are no votes in saying you would be prepared to bail out bonus-hungry bankers or wire state funds to the US to satisfy the demands of the Department of Justice. Nor is it sensible for a German politician to lobby US counterparts for soft treatment for a pet bank; any attempt is likely to backfire. Thus it is hardly a revelation that Berlin is telling Deutsche that it is on its own as it attempts to reduce the DoJ’s initial demand for $14bn to settle allegations of mis-selling mortgage securities. If a true crisis arrived – meaning Deutsche was unable to raise funds from shareholders – it is still safe to assume Merkel would act. She would choose the humiliating, but pragmatic, option of a bailout. The cause of Monday’s mini-panic, therefore, may simply be the market’s deepening realisation of the size of the hole Deutsche is in. A final demand from the DoJ for $4bn would probably be tolerable, but $8bn-plus would require fresh capital, analysts roughly agree. Deutsche, after all, is worth only $18bn these days. But an equal uncertainty is the time it will take to reach a settlement. This saga could still run for months, and Deutsche’s negotiating position is weak as it appeals for “fair” treatment. A sum of $5bn could be the difference between relative relief and full-blown crisis. Put like that, it’s a wonder Deutsche’s share price doesn’t rise or fall 7.5% on most days of the week. And, it hardly needs saying, it is disgraceful that one of the world’s most important banks wasn’t ordered to iron-clad its balance sheet years ago. Lesson for Monarch and Greybull: move faster Blame Twitter. Or, at least, blame those planespotters who announced on social media that someone had lined up aircraft to make incoming flights to the UK at the same time that Monarch flights were due to depart from holiday destinations. Cue speculation that Monarch could be in financial trouble. As it happens, the planespotters were onto something, just not the whole story. It seems the Civil Aviation Authority had indeed arranged for planes to recover stranded passengers should Monarch be unable to renew its operating licence by the end of this month. But Monarch’s owner, Greybull Capital, was working on a refinancing to secure the licence and make the regulator’s efforts redundant. One can understand, of course, why Monarch is miffed that the CAA’s contingency planning became public knowledge. It says its business is “trading well” and will report £40m of top-line profit this year. Eleventh-hour panic could be unhelpful to the attempt to raise a “significant” investment. One wishes Greybull and Monarch success, but there’s no point in trying to shift blame onto the CAA, which seems only to have done its job. In the age of Twitter, the moral of the tale is to get your deal done in good time. Aldi is down but far from out Have the old-school supermarkets finally halted the Aldi train? Well, they’ve slowed it, albeit only by deploying price-cutting tactics that have impoverished their own shareholders. Aldi’s operating profits last year fell 1.8% to £256m but that masks a steeper decline in the German chain’s profit margins in the UK over the past three years. That figure was 5.2% in 2013, slipped to 3.8% in 2014 and was 3.3% last year. The bad news for the likes of Tesco, Sainsbury and Morrisons is that even forcing Aldi back to 3% would not overthrow the economics of discounting. The German owners, one suspects, would be happy to feast on 3% for eternity. The old guard can claim a moral victory in the sense that Aldi is planning a £300m refit of its stores to make them less tatty. Yet the sheer number of Aldis is the problem – and, on that front, the official ambition is still 1,000 by 2022, an increase from 659 today. Only if that target is abandoned, which might require Aldi’s margins to slip towards 1%, can the big boys claim real success. In the meantime, expect the refrain from Tesco et al to be familiar: we’re “investing” in our customers by giving them lower prices but we can’t tell you, dear shareholder, when you will harvest the returns. Aldi has not gone away.
Data on staff at 280 UK firms may be at risk after Sage breach Sage, which provides accounting, payroll and payments software for businesses, has released a statement saying that an internal login had been used to gain unauthorised access to the data of some of its British customers. The personal details of the employees of about 280 British companies were potentially exposed in the breach, a company source said. “We are investigating unauthorised access to customer information using an internal login,” the company said in a statement. “We cannot comment further whilst we work with the authorities to investigate but our customers remain our first priority and we are speaking directly with those affected,” it added. Sage, one of Britain’s largest technology companies, said it has more than 6m small and medium-sized businesses using its software worldwide. It operates in 23 countries but this incident is said to have only had a possible impact on customers in the UK. The company said last month it was confident its revenue would increase by at least 6% in the current year ending next month, continuing a pace set in the six months to the end of March, when revenue rose 6% to £747m. The Information Commissioner’s Office, which enforces the Data Protection Act, has been informed and the incident reported to the City of London police. Last year almost 157,000 TalkTalk customers had their personal details hacked in a cyber-attack on the telecoms company. The hacking attack took place on 21 October and the company later admitted it had lost 101,000 customers and suffered costs of £60m as a result.
'I want to do extreme damage': Harmony Korine's third coming In 1998, five years after his first screenplay Kids was shot by Larry Clark and released to international outrage and acclaim, Harmony Korine spent a year deliberately getting himself punched in the face. He was battered to the ground and stomped on by a succession of strangers – orthodox Jew, black lesbian, Arab taxi driver – in an attempt to provoke and film “every demographic” into beating him up. The project was supposed to be a comic homage to his hero Buster Keaton – the only rule being that Korine wasn’t allowed to throw the first punch. Eventually a London bouncer working the door at Stringfellows snapped Korine’s ankle in two, gave him concussion and got him arrested. The film, Fight Harm, was aborted. “I was pretty whacked out,” he admits. “To get myself to a point where I was making those things, I really had to lose myself. And in the process, I lost myself. Looking at the footage as I was making it, I always thought it was funny but everyone else looked horrified and never laughed. That’s when I kind of paused it.” Korine recently started digitising the tapes he made when he was 25. Aren’t they painful to watch? “Honestly, I was just trying to make people laugh. I was misguided, but in my heart I felt like Fight Harm would have been one of the greatest movies ever made. I thought it would take on this hilarity, elevate the humour like WC Fields or Rodney Dangerfield,” he explains, right foot tapping. “Now it’s more hilarious that I was that stupid, but it is funny. I go back and forth between the idea of releasing it. We’ll see.” It must be tiring being culture’s perennial enfant terrible. Korine’s been at it for more than two decades. “I’m fine with it,” he grins. “I want to do extreme damage. I want to be disruptive, I don’t care about the flow and I don’t want to go with it.” Since the lurid, candypop Spring Breakers gave him his first commercial hit in 2013, Korine has been working on a Miami-based revenge movie starring Robert Pattinson and Al Pacino. That’s now paused too. “I had an issue with one of the actors,” he says. “I’ve never had an easy time making movies. It’s always been like warfare.” And so for the last few months Korine has been painting in his Nashville warehouse – seven-foot psychedelic orbs on canvases that now stretch along the walls of London’s Gagosian gallery, where we meet. They’re as discombobulating and druggy as anything he’s made – contrived to look and feel like a vibrating high. Korine sits in front of one as we talk. After 10 minutes, I have to switch seats because his head starts pulsating in my eyeline. “With the artworks there’s a kind of physical elevation and energy. That was what attracted me to drugs. I liked transcending the body, floating, chasing oblivion. It was nuts and, as everyone knows, it takes an extreme toll.” We chat a bit about crack. Twenty years ago, Korine was in deep with his various addictions and exploding with ideas, firing out his directorial debut Gummo, publishing a novel A Crackup at the Race Riots and directing a second film Julien Donkey-Boy in the course of three years. He and his then-girlfriend and collaborator Chloë Sevigny occupied a bubble of cult cool that defined the decade. “It was a really exciting time but it was strange. There were a lot of people paying attention and I wasn’t really ready for it and that’s probably when I started getting high all the time.” Sevigny later said that their relationship broke down because of Korine’s drug use. “I don’t really indulge any more,” he says, “because I just liked it so much, it was so much fun.” Presumably in his early 20s, with all that fame and freedom, he could have gone a bit mad? “I did,” he says, staring at me wide-eyed. We both laugh to fill the silence. Korine still has a vaguely adolescent snicker. Two Kids’ cast members, Harold Hunter (Harold) and Justin Pierce (Casper), died drug-related deaths in the early part of the last decade. “I was in New York when Justin died and when Howard died … I was in London.” Korine quietens. “It was fucked up. We were still close friends.” Eventually, he “stopped doing everything for a couple of years”, and boomeranged through rehab. “I pretty much, like, just disappeared and levelled out.” Korine spent a spell with his parents (who he has described as Trotskyite commune-living Jewish hippies) in the remote Panama jungle where they live, before he moved back to Nashville, where he met his wife Rachel and had a daughter, Lefty Bell. Did fatherhood change his vision? Korine mugs a comedy retch. “Those kinda questions make me arrgghhh! I mean, in as much as now I have a daughter that I love … but if anything, it’s made me more aggressive.” Korine might now be a 43-year-old married father, but he sounds pretty much just as he did 20 or so years ago. “I never feel overwhelmed,” he says, when I ask if he ever worries about keeping up with contemporary culture or staying relevant. “I feel underwhelmed. Sometimes there will be this electronic DJ or a kid on a laptop that’s exciting to me. I don’t pay attention to, say, music with instruments that much. I don’t even understand what you would do with a guitar now.” What does he find interesting? “Just, like, videos of asses.” He laughs, “girls with huge asses”. Back in the 90s, Korine would appear on Letterman and prank the show, playing a droll caricature of himself. He was, and still is, a fixture of the style press; his brand of wired, avant garde experimentalism doesn’t really go out of fashion, it just becomes part of the cultural vernacular. American Apparel would not have looked the same way were it not for Kids, while Gummo’s crystal meth aesthetic has been referenced everywhere from the work of Ryan Trecartin to Ryan Gosling’s directorial debut, Mike Kelley’s shorts to Nike ad campaigns. No doubt, meeting fiftysomething Larry Clark while skating in Washington Square park proved to be the most serendipitous moment of Korine’s career but did he ever feel exploited in those early years? “No! It was great. You have to remember, I was a teenager. I wanted to create things because no one made stuff the way I saw or wanted to see things. The movies I wanted to make didn’t exist for me, I needed for them to live.” Cineastes, including Gus Van Sant and Werner Herzog, salute Korine as a genuine original ahead of his time, a provocative innovator. Critics and the mainstream public haven’t always been so kind; he has been reviled for being shocking, tasteless, depraved and – most crushingly – boring. The New York Times went so far as to claim that in Gummo, he had made the worst film of the year. Did those reactions ever bother him? “It affected me more when I was young,” he admits. “When you’re a kid, you’re more emotional. The same openness that allows you to be an artist, makes you susceptible … once I understood that it was a path and I became fortified in my belief, it didn’t matter.” He laughs. “Nothing could stop me.” At a BFI retrospective the following night, even Korine’s fans seem to find it difficult to know how to relate to him: one young student wants to show him her films, another resentfully accuses him of being a blagger, a third stands up and opens with: “Harmony, I have wanked to all your films …” Korine is unfazed. He says he wants his films to be as mainstream as possible, played in the shopping malls of America (Larry Clark always said the same of Kids). He tells me about Mitch Poppins, the short film he made in the early 2000s with Chris Cunningham (then Britain’s most wanted music video director), which finally may see the light of day this year: it’s about an American whose Tourettes is so severe that his tic becomes a breakdance. It sounds intriguing, but it doesn’t scream popcorn. “There are times where I doubt what I’m making,” Korine admits. Chrissie Erpf, Larry Gagosian’s right hand-woman, pops her head in and his slacker punk vibe dissipates for a moment while they blow each other air kisses. “But I don’t have any great fears. It doesn’t really matter to me, whatever the outcome is, is the way it is supposed to be.” Harmony Korine’s Fazors is at the Gagosian gallery, London, until 24 March.
Memo to Blair on support for Corbyn: Iraq, tuition fees, bank bonuses … Of course Tony Blair doesn’t understand the rise in support for people like Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders, wanting at least to try to change the awful system ruining the world, where a few dozen individuals own more wealth than half the world’s population; while the poor in Britain are being hounded out of their homes and squeezed under this government’s stupid austerity policies (Blair admits he is baffled by rise of radicals Corbyn and Sanders, 24 February). He helped create this world of uncontrolled greed. Mocking free tuition fees (“someone has to pay for it”) shows his narrow-minded thinking: graduates end up in better jobs and so, in the end, pay for it through taxes. Penalising people for wanting to improve themselves is stupid. But can Blair really not understand the anger we feel when we read that one single bank, HSBC, has just declared profits for last year of £13.2bn and is paying over 450 staff more than £1m? We bailed the banks out to the tune of billions, now being recouped by cutting benefits to the poorest in our society. Is that fair? They should be paying those billions back to us. If Blair truly can’t understand the anger most of us feel about this monstrous inequality, no wonder he took us into a stupid war which is destabilising the Middle East still. David Reed London • If Tony Blair is baffled by the rise of the radicals, he hasn’t been paying attention. He seems to have forgotten that his time in office coincided with a banking boom. That enabled a populist politician to win sequential terms in office, with the proposition “we are all middle class now”. The credit crunch drove millions straight back out of the middle class. Austerity destroyed the working class, replacing an earned income with a zero-hours contract that impoverishes them in the present and restricts their pension in the future. Tony Blair seems not to realise that the recession destroyed what he considered his natural constituency. Corbyn has a following among electors feeling abandoned by New Labour. Martin London Henllan, Denbighshire • Deborah Orr judges Tony Blair responsible for the banking collapse (First thoughts, 25 February). Therefore, she says “young people, were instructed to suffer the pain of austerity”. But if we sentence Blair today, we ought first to go back to the beginning. In 1995 the Labour party changed its constitution. It disavowed ideological socialism. It embraced market socialism by declaring: “We work for a dynamic economy, serving the public interest.” Ten years later, in Labour’s third consecutive election-winning manifesto, Labour was able to proclaim: “We are winning the argument that economic dynamism and social justice must go hand in hand.” OK, “economic dynamism” has since been substituted by the more pejorative term “neoliberalism”. But when Blair, Clinton and Schroeder showed us the third way, it was part of a growing international consensus on liberal economics. We now do business, communicate and socialise in ways that would have been impossible without a dynamic internet; we benefit from globalisation and cheap consumer goods from all over the world. In a dynamic market place there is no shortage of opportunity both for individuals and communities (and indeed nations). Better surely to have to surfed the big bang of liberalisation than paddle around in calm protective waters. So, should Blair really plead guilty and say “I failed. I utterly failed”, then it was also Labour’s failure. And much of the liberal world’s. Is liberalisation so threatening that we must revert to a comfort zone of failed old arguments? Mike Allott Chandlers Ford, Hampshire • “Free tuition fees: well, that’s great, but someone’s going to have pay for it,” says Blair. “An end to war, but there are wars.” These statements are meaningless as politics, but revealing of character. Free university tuition is a minor expense for a modern country. It is simply a minor expense that the governments of some modern countries, like England, find not worth it. As for “there are wars”, these words recall Ronald Reagan’s remark that “mistakes were made”, after he did his utmost to maximize loss of life in the Iran-Iraq war. Benjamin Letzler Munich • Poor Tony. Perhaps we can all chip in and help alleviate his confusion. Can I start the ball rolling with two reasons? You’ll never have to pay a bank/landlord 60% of your take-home salary every month; and your kids won’t be saddled with £70k of debt at the start of their adult life. Does that help? Colin Bolton Thatcham, Berkshire • So Blair admits he is baffled by the rise of radicals Corbyn and Sanders. A little self-analysis required? Lesley Corner Colchester, Essex • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
The internet of things needs better-made things You know the problem. You’re going abroad for a couple of weeks, during which time your house will be empty. You haven’t yet got round to installing a burglar alarm. But not to worry – just pop round to a supermarket and buy a couple of timer sockets. Plug them into the mains, set the timers to switch on and off at appropriate times twice a day, plug your lamps into them and off you go. Easy, peasy! Well, yes. But it’s so 1950s. So analogue. Why not be really cool and have a proper networked timer socket, something that you can control from your smartphone from anywhere in the world? Something like the AuYou Wi-Fi Switch for example. Looks like it’s just the ticket. Plug it in, hold down the power button and it hooks up with the app on your (Android) smartphone, and – bingo! – job done. Now, where did you put that boarding pass? But, hang on. Maybe you should just check the product reviews, just to be sure. Ah, here’s one by a guy called Matthew Garrett. “There’s a lot to like about this hardware,” Matthew writes, “but unfortunately it’s entirely overwhelmed by everything there is to hate about it.” Eh? Turns out that Mr Garrett knows a lot about computer security. And as he delves into how the AuYou switch works, he finds a real mess. Like all networked devices, the socket has a MAC address, a globally unique network address. You can set on/off times on the socket via the app on your phone and, if you’re in your house, that’s fine, because the command never leaves your wireless network. But if you’re on holiday in Spain, say, then the command goes via an intermediate server in China (where else?) The command is supposedly encrypted, but Mr Garrett found it laughably easy to crack. The implication is that your phone’s communication with the socket in your home – communication that contains the device’s unique address – is completely insecure. “So,” warns Mr Garrett, “if anybody knows the MAC address of one of your sockets, they can control it from anywhere in the world. You can’t set a password to stop them and a normal home router configuration won’t block this. You need to explicitly firewall off the server... in order to protect yourself. Again, this is completely unrealistic to expect for a home user, and if you do this then you’ll also entirely lose the ability to control the device from outside your home.” Welcome to the internet of things, the latest new thing from the tech industry. IoT evangelists talk it up in breathless terms – 20 to 50 billion devices (each with its own MAC address) connected to the internet etc. Yea, verily toaster shall speak unto toaster and fridges shall tell Tesco when to deliver milk, and Amazon will know what you want before you can articulate the thought yourself. And so on, ad nauseam. Given that technological determinism is what drives this industry, everyone and his dog is racing to get on the IoT bandwagon. Every tech company I can think of is developing networked devices for powering the smart home of the future; already you can buy thousands of networked gadgets such as the AuYou switch to speed you on your way into that future. There’s a lot to be said for a properly networked world. It could be safer, greener, more efficient and more productive than the one we currently inhabit. But in order for that to emerge, the system has to be designed in the way that the internet was designed in the 1970s – by engineers who know what they’re doing, setting the protocols and technical standards that will bring some kind of order and security into the chaos of a technological stampede. What we’ve got at the moment, however, is something very different — the disjointed incrementalism of an entrepreneurial marketplace, in which anybody with an idea for a networked device can get a chronically insecure product on Amazon in weeks or months. The AuYou socket, for example, is made by taking an off-the-shelf item – the EFP8266 Wi-Fi SOC (system on a chip) – bunging it into a socket, writing some software and setting up a server in China. Not exactly rocket science. There are thousands of insecure IoT products already out there. If our networked future is built on such dodgy foundations, current levels of chronic online insecurity will come to look like a golden age. The looming dystopia can be avoided, but only by concerted action by governments, major companies and technical standards bodies. In the meantime, we need more reviewers such as Matthew Garrett. Which reminds me: Amazon.com says that the AuYou Wi-Fi switch is “currently unavailable. We don’t know when or if this item will be back in stock”. It’s a small mercy, but one for which we should be thankful.
First post-Brexit vote data shows UK inflation rose to 0.6% in July Inflation rose to the highest level in 20 months in July, with the consumer prices index ticking up to 0.6% last month from 0.5% in June, according to the Office for National Statistics. City economists warned of steeper prices rises in the coming months as the full impact of the weaker pound following the Brexit vote is felt. It was the highest rate of annual inflation since November 2014, and the first official snapshot of what has happened to prices since the EU referendum on 23 June. The pound has fallen by about 10% against the dollar since the vote, pushing up the price of imports. The main drivers of the Julyincrease in inflation were rising fuel and alcohol prices, and higher restaurant and hotel bills. Food prices also fell at a slower rate than a year ago. Victoria Clarke, an economist at Investec, said inflation was likely to rise to the Bank of England’s 2% target by the end of 2016, reaching almost 3% in May 2017. The last time inflation was as high as 2% was December 2013. Samuel Tombs, the chief UK economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, said the pound’s weakness was already reflected in the pickup in inflation in July. “Inflation’s pickup, however, will gain strong momentum in 2017,” he said. The consumer prices index (CPI) is the official measure of UK inflation and provides a monthly snapshot of the price movements of an average basket of goods and services. The ONS revises what goes into the basket once a year to make it as representative as possible of the latest consumer shopping trends. At the time of the last revision in March, items including pouches of microwave rice and computer game downloads were included, while cooked sliced turkey, CD-Roms and nightclub entry were out. The retail price index (RPI), which includes the cost of housing and is calculated differently from CPI, rose to 1.9% from 1.6%. The spike will affect rail commuters, because July’s RPI figure is used to set rail fares from January. In further evidence of the effect the Brexit vote has had on imports, the prices UK industries pay for their raw materials and fuel jumped by 4.3% in the year to July, compared with a 0.5% fall in the year to June. The prices charged by UK firms for their goods as they left the factory gate rose at annual rate of 0.3% in July. It was the first rise in two years, and economist said the figure was a good early indication of what might follow for consumer price inflation. Ruth Gregory at Capital Economics said: “Producer price figures suggested that cost pressures in the goods sector are now building at the start of the production pipeline. Accordingly, we think that CPI inflation should break through the 2% target in early 2017 and near 3% by the end of that year.” The pound rose 0.8% against the dollar to $1.2994 following the inflation figures, and strengthened against the euro after falling earlier in the day. Ben Brettell, a senior economist at Hargreaves Lansdown, said rising inflation over the coming months was likely to be a temporary spike. “Assuming sterling remains weak, the effect will fall out of the year-on-year calculation in the second half of next year. “Underlying inflationary pressure is hard to see, with Brexit-related economic uncertainty likely to dampen both consumer spending and wage growth in the short term.” The Bank of England is expected to look beyond short-term price rises by keeping interest rates low or cutting them further to protect the economy from uncertainty caused by the referendum result. It cut interest rates to a record low of 0.25% this month. Suren Thiru, the head of economics at the British Chambers of Commerce, said: “Higher inflation squeezes consumer spending and increases cost pressures on businesses. However, if economic growth slows as many expect, then price rises are likely to be limited. Such a scenario will not dissuade the MPC from cutting interest rates further in the coming months.” • This article was amended on Tuesday 16 August to clarify that the retail price index includes the cost of housing
Strong-arm Apple and tax China bigly: a guide to Trump's possible tech policies America’s technology industry has enjoyed a close relationship with President Obama’s administration since he was elected in 2008 – a fact that will not be lost on president-elect Donald Trump, who pitched his own ideas about technology policy while campaigning. The technology sector is responsible for 6% of the nation’s economy and nearly $1tn in GDP for 2014 alone, according to the trade body the Internet Association. Trump needs to engage – but what policies is he likely to formulate? Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Google’s parent company Alphabet, said last week that the industry is in for a big change. “[Republicans] have a traditional set of doctrinal issues which are now being challenged by the new president and I don’t think we know [how that will play out]. The top five most valued companies in America today are Apple, Google, Amazon, Facebook and Microsoft. If the ‘all-R’ team is very focused on big business, there’s five big businesses right there.” Trump’s technology team? The first big indicator of his position on technology came from the appointment of PayPal billionaire Peter Thiel to his transition team. In Democrat-heavy California and Silicon Valley, Thiel was an anomaly in his support for Trump, even ploughing another $1.25m to the campaign shortly after Trump boasted about sexually assaulting women. Trump’s likely appointment of Jeffrey Eisenach as head of the regulator the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is another clear indicator. Eisenach, who served on transition teams for both Ronald Reagan in 1980 and George W Bush in 2000, is a vocal proponent of scaling back the powers of the FCC. He is also expected to push for reversal of the hard-fought 2015 net neutrality rules, which stops internet providers prioritizing more profitable or preferred services. Apple and big tech (but mostly Apple) The Cupertino-based company is a favourite target of Trump. In February 2016 he argued that the company should be forced to help the FBI hack into an iPhone used by the San Bernardino killer. “First of all, Apple ought to give the security number [pin number] for that phone, OK?,” he said at a rally in South Carolina on 19 February. “What I think you ought to do is boycott Apple until such time as they give the security number. How do you like it? I just thought of that. Boycott Apple.” Trump also picked out Apple as an example of an American company that had moved its manufacturing overseas. “We’re going to get Apple to build their damn computers and things in this country instead of in other countries,” he said in Virginia on 18 January. Trump did not acknowledge that building Apple’s computers, tablets and smartphones in the US may actually increase the cost of the end-products. An analysis by the MIT Technology Review estimated that the price of an iPhone 6S Plus would rise by between $30 to $100 per unit, depending how much of the manufacturing Apple was required to do in the US. Much of the extra cost would come from having to ship components into the country, rather than a difference in labor costs. It was Google that came under fire when he spoke in Wisconsin on 28 September, for supposedly “suppressing” bad news about opponent Hillary Clinton. “A new post-debate poll that just came out, the Google poll, has us leading Hillary Clinton by two points nationwide – and that’s despite the fact that Google search engine was suppressing the bad news about Hillary Clinton,” he said. The claim was based on a viral video that claimed to show how Google’s search tool did not autocomplete the term “Hillary body count”, but which was later debunked. China While Hillary Clinton was the main villain in the Trump campaign narrative, China came a close second, with Trump often questioning the US relationship with its second biggest trading partner. China is the manufacturing engine that drives the technology and consumer electronics sectors, with “advanced technology products” accounting for $103bn of all US imports from China in 2016 so far. “If China does not stop its illegal activities, including its theft of American trade secrets, I will use every lawful presidential power to remedy trade disputes, including the application of tariffs,” he told a crowd in Pennsylvania on 28 June. “President Reagan deployed similar trade measures when motorcycle and semiconductor imports threatened US industry. His tariff on Japanese motorcycles was 45% and his tariff to shield America’s semiconductor industry was 100%.” President Obama’s administration attempted trade tariffs on China, in 2009 applying 25-35% on tire imports. The initiative eventually failed because other low-cost trading partners filled the gap. China has already warned that it would respond aggressively to any attempt at levy high tariffs on Chinese goods coming into the US. Some insiders think that tariffs may have positive effects, if Trump’s administration was able to enforce them. Robert Atkinson, founder and president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation think tank, says the US is suffering from huge Chinese government subsidies to its domestic technology companies. Chinese government subsidies of up to $160bn are helping Chinese companies build up their semiconductor industry by buying up American and European semiconductor companies at huge premiums to market prices. “[China] has ramped up its efforts to do indigenous innovation with a set of policies and practices that are hurting US firms and US jobs. It has continued unabated and grown,” said Atkinson, who also co-chairs a White House policy group on China. Immigration Technology companies have been lobbying for decades to increase the number of H1B visas, which allow skilled workers to work temporarily in the US, but have been met with stiff opposition. The Forward.us coalition, which includes Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, wanted to make the 2016 election a “referendum on immigration reform”, explaining how they battle for a small number of global technology specialists. With Trump, that mission seems likely to get harder. “The H-1B program is neither high-skilled nor immigration: these are temporary foreign workers, imported from abroad, for the explicit purpose of substituting for American workers at lower pay,” Trump said in a statement on 3 March. “I remain totally committed to eliminating rampant, widespread H-1B abuse and ending outrageous practices ... I will end forever the use of the H-1B as a cheap labor program, and institute an absolute requirement to hire American workers first for every visa and immigration program. No exceptions.” Schmidt expressed hope that Trump might be convinced by technology companies once he takes office. “What do each and every one of those companies need? High-value, high-quality, high levels of education immigration. Every one of them is powered completely by those policies, which have been stuck for 20 years,” he said. “We bring these incredibly intelligent people into our country, we have the best educational system by far at the college and graduate school level, we kick them out after we give them these incredibly expensive degrees – which we help subsidize – and then they go an create competitors to our companies.” Corporate tax reform Apple is dealing with a complex problem in Ireland, where the European Commission is seeking “recovery of illegal state aid” for alleged unpaid taxes of up to €13bn, plus interest. It is standard for global businesses to exploit loopholes that allow them to register profits in countries with lower corporate tax rates, though that means the profits (and taxes that go with them) don’t come back to the US. The US government has already said it would like that tax revenue back, and Donald Trump says he has ways of making it happen. “Under my contract, if a company wants to fire their workers, move to Mexico or other countries, and ship their products back into the US, we will put a 35% tariff on those products,” he said in Ohio on 27 October. “As part of our plan to bring back American jobs, we will lower taxes on our businesses from 35% down to 15%.” Trump is more likely to cut corporate tax to between 20 to 25%, Atkinson says. Terrorism The radicalisation of people online, and its relationship to terrorist attacks, became a campaign issue for Trump. “We’re losing a lot of people because of the internet and we have to do something. We have to go see Bill Gates and a lot of different people that really understand what’s happening. We have to talk to them. Maybe in certain areas closing that internet up in some way,” Trump said on 7 December in South Carolina. “Somebody will say – oh, freedom of speech, freedom of speech. These are foolish people. We have a lot of foolish people. We’ve got to do something with the internet because they are recruiting by the thousands.” Microsoft’s chief legal officer Brad Smith re-asserted the need for government and the tech sector to collaborate, balancing privacy with public safety. “We’ve not only advocated for clearer and more modern US laws, but have filed lawsuits four times in the past three years against the current administration, standing up for what we believe are the vital rights of people both here and abroad,” he wrote after the election. “As we’ve won the cases we’ve brought, we’ve been reminded of one of this country’s greatest strengths, its strong Constitution, independent judiciary, and the overarching rule of law.” Data privacy and surveillance Trump brought up cybersecurity many times, often referring to it as “cyber”, very much emphasizing his priority of increasing the security of government systems. “To enhance the defense of the other agencies of government, including our law enforcement agencies, we will put together a team of the best military, civilian and private sector cybersecurity experts to comprehensively review all of our cybersecurity systems and technology,” he promised on 3 October, speaking to veterans in Virginia. “This will include the various methods of internal monitoring, attack and penetration, investigation of suspected hackers or rogue employees, and identity protection for government employees.” Civil rights organisations have been quick to seize on the potential impact of Trump’s policies on personal privacy. Neema Guliani, legislative counsel with the American Civil Liberties Union, said Trump should “categorically reject proposals to mandate encryption backdoors and supports reforming surveillance programs that have violated the rights of millions of Americans”. That, however, is unlikely. Given that so many in the technology industry either publicly or privately backed Trump’s rival Hillary Clinton in the election, there is some concern that Trump might try to “punish” Silicon Valley. “He has a lot of people criticizing him and if he spent his whole time getting back at people, he wouldn’t get anything done,” said Atkinson. “Trump is going to need the tech sector. You can’t make America great again if you don’t have a great tech industry.”
Bank of England policymaker takes aim at free accounts A senior Bank of England policymaker has issued a scathing attack on two of the mainstays of high street banking, free-if-in-credit current accounts and teaser rates offered to entice new customers. Martin Taylor, who sits on the Bank’s financial policy committee, also hit out at bankers’ pay, saying it was one of the issues that had led to a lack of public trust in the banking industry. He said free banking – a concept introduced by Midland Bank 30 years ago – had led to the “mother of mis-selling” scandals as banks grappled to maintain the concept of free banking at a time when interest rates had plunged from a peak of 17%. “The contortions the industry has put itself through to maintain this over-riding of the price mechanism have been very damaging, not only to the most vulnerable consumers who through penalty charges subsidise the better-off (they used to be known, revealingly, as ‘delinquents’), but also, I believe, to banking in general,” Taylor said in a speech in London. Teaser rates, which were offered to lure people in before the 2007 crisis, had left mortgage customers “marooned on the standard variable rate and unable to refinance”. “The habit of giving what are effectively disloyalty discounts has turned into a cynical and corrosive negative-sum game,” he said. On the subject of bankers’ pay – he was chief executive of Barclays until 1998 – Taylor said it had always been high relative to other sectors. “It appears to be easier to fire people than to pay them less; it may even be easier to go out of business altogether.” He said banking was in a tundra – a cold, treeless landscape. “We are in Siberia, where many people feel bankers belong, so perhaps there is hidden treasure under the permafrost.” Almost nine years on from the financial crisis, Taylor said banks had been slow to redesign their business models and their behaviour. He was a member of the independent commission on banking – chaired by Sir John Vickers – which called for ringfences to be erected between high street banks and riskier investment banking operations. “Bankers are human – I know, I used to be one – and generally do not relish being detested,” he said. “I’d settle for having public-spirit bankers,” he said, referring to David Rockefeller, who used to tell every recruit at Chase Manhattan that banking was all about character. “And it is. The rot set in, I suppose, when people decided it was about what they curiously called talent. A banker with character but moderate talent can go a long way; a talented banker without character is a public menace,” he said.
Please, Liz Truss, fix the prison system that’s killing so many women Liz Truss took to the Conservative conference podium as justice secretary for the first time today, ready to usher in “the most far-reaching reforms ever seen”. The reforms weren’t outlined, but mental health got just one, fleeting mention. This is in spite of the prison and probation ombudsman reporting an alarming rise in “self-inflicted deaths” – up 34% compared with 2014-15. The number of prisoners self-harming, assaults on inmates and deaths in prison all went up over the past 12 months. Self-harming incidents in prison are over six times higher among women than in men. When Anna Baker was arrested, she was reliant on a methadone replacement programme. Anna was a long-term heroin addict, but the prison she was placed in didn’t have a detoxification programme available. Instead of methadone, she was prescribed painkillers. Staff placed her on suicide watch when she attempted to take her life shortly after entering the prison. But despite the ready availability of “safe cells” for vulnerable women, inadequately trained staff placed her in a regular cell with a bunk bed. Her erratic and despondent behaviour was put down as a disciplinary issue, and privileges such as her cell TV were withdrawn. After a few days she was left to herself, no longer prioritised as high risk. When prison staff entered the cell at lunchtime on 26 November 2002, Anna was found hanging. Anna was the nearest thing I had to a mum. Stepmum, in reality; I wouldn’t meet my birth mum until I was 22 due to her own drug addiction issues. Anna became one of six women to kill themselves at Styal women’s prison in the space of 12 months. At 10 years old I learned of Anna’s death not from family, but from the Six O’Clock News, her face added to the collage of dead prisoners on screen. Despite the difficult cards life had dealt her, Anna was bright and full of life. Adopted by a white couple as a baby, she had battled with the contradictions of her own identity – the biological daughter of an African-Caribbean man, brought up in a family that didn’t look like she did. The slide into drugs came early, and before long she, like my father, her boyfriend, was a heroin addict. She existed in a constant cycle of cravings, mood swings and dangerous drug pick-ups in back alleys and dark, smoky houses around Manchester. One of those dark and smoky terraced houses was the one I called home. Those dangerous drives to drug dens in the back of a clapped-out BMW was the only life I knew as a child. A Warrington coroner’s court inquest was damning of Styal prison and its treatment of Anna. It had failed to carry out an adequate assessment of her situation – including her drug withdrawal, mental health and prison cell needs. Styal went on to undertake a major series of reforms, including new management and investment, and today is not the prison it was 14 years ago. Women account for 28% of all self-harm incidents in jail, despite making up less than 5% of the prison population. Nearly half of female prisoners have attempted suicide during their life. According to charity Women in Prison, it’s the first time 85% of mothers in prison have left their children, with more than 17,000 children a year losing their mum to prison. With women frequently locked up in prisons so far from their loved ones – there being just 12 women’s prisons in England – families all too often can’t afford the long journey to see Mum. The campaign group Inquest stood up for my stepmum after her suicide, stopping her becoming another voiceless statistic of our failed prisons. They see the injustice all year round: “Deaths in prison cannot be looked at separately from examining harsh and impoverished prison conditions, the use of segregation, poor medical care and prison overcrowding – all of which have implications for people’s mental and physical health.” More than 100 women have died in prison since Anna. I’m only one child of an inmate failed; one of so many stories that could be told. What I know is that these women and their families are not degenerates who don’t deserve dignity or help. I am not ashamed to write of Anna’s drug addiction, or of her imprisonment. What I am ashamed of is that we live in a society that turns a blind eye to these women’s mental health. While it’s too late for my loved one, for the sake of so many more, it’s time to stop ignoring women behind bars. Please, Liz Truss, be the justice secretary that fixes our broken system.
Is a Lady Gaga tribute to David Bowie the best way to remember him? Barbara Ellen, columnist So, it’s official – Lady Gaga will perform a tribute to David Bowie at the Grammy awards ceremony. Erm, why? Bowie delivered an album, Blackstar, on his deathbed – wouldn’t playing the harrowing Lazarus video be a more fitting way to pay homage to an artist whose urge to create and inspire remained undimmed to the very end? This isn’t a swipe at Gaga or at Kanye West – the slap-down to the latter’s (swiftly abandoned) plans to release a Bowie tribute album had a dismaying whiff of racism about it. Nor is it about being precious: not only was Bowie all about the “new”, he had his own career troughs. I once endured a fledging Tin Machine gig that felt akin to being trapped inside a haunted combine harvester. However, Gaga, West, the Grammy organisers et al need to realise that some (rare, cherished) artists stand completely alone. So what if Gaga was influenced by Bowie – who wasn’t? Nor is it artistic snobbery to point out that aligning yourself to an esteemed artist’s work in this way is a presumptuous piggyback too far. Does everything have to be tweaked or “re-imagined” in the form of celebrity karaoke? Peter Robinson, editor of Popjustice You ask “who wasn’t?” regarding Bowie’s influence on the current landscape. It seems obvious: everyone’s influenced by Bowie, like everyone’s influenced by the Beatles, if only by musical osmosis. Then you look at the charts and you do wonder if it’s a stretch to find Bowie in Fetty Wap, Ed Sheeran or Selena Gomez. Any influence is certainly too subtle for an awards show audience. Fair enough, if you’re influenced by Bowie you wouldn’t necessarily look or sound like Bowie, just as a new punk couldn’t by definition be anything like punk, but at least with Lady Gaga you have a reasonably current act whose debt to Bowie is as prominent as the Ziggy flash she homaged eight years ago. I agree covers should be approached with caution and I don’t think we can underestimate the danger of the Brits wheeling out Paloma Faith and Mick Hucknall. But regarding your own suggestion of screening the Blackstar video, if you’re going to celebrate Bowie you can’t ignore the stone-cold bangers that could pack a wedding dancefloor in five seconds. Also, do you not think the Grammys whacking on a video, then going “Bowie! What a guy! Anyway, here’s Justin Bieber” might come across as slightly half-arsed? Perhaps there’s a third way. But what could it be? BE Good point about the wedding-stompers (who can resist?), but still I’d love them to play Blackstar – change the mood, rattle the audience. Isn’t that what Bowie was all about? With Gaga, I’d say it’s all a little too signposted. There’s also an irritating sense of “Bowie fans really need to hear from me right now”. No, they really don’t – park your ego, love. Mick Jagger, Brian Eno, Nile Rodgers – can you imagine the likes of them trundling on stage to do a Bowie cover? And they were his peers and collaborators. Only in music does a tribute comprise a pale facsimile of an artist’s work. When Alan Rickman is remembered at awards ceremonies, I can’t imagine actors turning up solemnly dressed as Professor Snape … though perhaps they should. As you touched upon with your “third way”, with someone as multifaceted as Bowie, there seems to have been a missed opportunity to do something truly amazing and unexpected – say, his new music set to choreography by his early collaborator Lindsay Kemp, if he’s up for it, thus closing a meaningful circle? When you have such an immense and diverse stretch of creative influence, isn’t new original art the only worthwhile homage? PR Regarding your point about what Nile Rodgers might have to say about the whole thing, one would hope he’s keen, considering he’s the performance’s music director. He responded to naysayers on Facebook, as it happens, noting that negative remarks reminded him of “when Bowie decided to work with ‘the disco guy’”. We might not witness Brian Eno sidling on in a meat dress, but the stirring way in which Lady Gaga paid tribute to Alexander McQueen at the 2010 Brits suggests to me that we shouldn’t rule out something unexpected – even if to some the big surprise is just that, actually, the performance isn’t terrible. Bowie’s death prompted some of the best music journalism I’ve ever seen; it also prompted some of the worst; but I was moved by all those articles, with one or two notable exceptions, because they came from the heart. I expect the Grammys and Lady Gaga feel a duty to do this but I also feel that Gaga, at least, is doing it for the right reasons. Is there any guarantee that an interpretive dance routine would be any better, or that the people on stage would be more genuine in their actions? BE Ah, I’ve just been in the land of fitful Wi-Fi, so it’s heartening to realise that Rodgers is involved. Though are his and Gaga’s situations truly comparable? Let’s Dance was a huge musical departure for Bowie – is Gaga the shock choice for a Bowie tribute at the Grammys? Many would consider her the downright obvious choice – and one thing that Bowie wasn’t was obvious. I’m not vehemently anti covers as tributes per se (Bruce Springsteen played some Bowie songs live in the immediate aftermath of Bowie’s death). I just think that there’s been enough time to plan something more special. However, you’re right that Gaga should be given a chance. These are highly unusual circumstances because Bowie was unique. This isn’t just about an artist dying – it feels as though an entire culture has been disembowelled. Call me a saddo, but to my mind something like “interpretative dance” from Bowie’s old mime mucker twinned with his raw new material would have hit the spot nicely – also making Bowie the focus rather than the tribute artist. Then again, this is Bowie: whatever was done by whomever, I suppose there’d always be some Bowie fan whingeing… PR She’s not a shock choice, but she feels like a bold choice. She’ll put in more effort than anyone else on the current pop landscape, it’s impossible to predict what she’ll do, and looking on social media it’s great to see younger generations excited by the kind of tribute that might otherwise have passed them by. Anyway, it’s almost a win-win scenario. If it’s a nightmarish fiasco, we can reflect even further on how Bowie was so unique that even one of 21st-century pop’s most creative performers couldn’t touch him. If it’s great, we can be happy, then sad, then happy again. I’d hope for one of the two extremes, though – the worst tribute to Bowie’s legacy would come in the form of something average.
The Brits open a new chapter in making British pop look moribund Ever since their launch, the Brits have displayed an impressive single-mindedness and dedication to the business of making British pop music look more boring than it actually is. It’s hard not to feel slightly awed, both by its sheer, unswerving commitment to this important cause – the first Brits took place nearly 40 years ago – and the by-any-means-necessary approach it takes to achieving its aim. Presenters, nominations, winners, live performers: it’s deployed all of them to further its aim. In 1982, the awards were presided over by David Jacobs, a presenter Top of the Pops had binned as “too square” in 1966. Throughout the white heat of late 80s and early 90s acid house explosion, the Brits repeatedly boomed out the message that Phil Collins was the artist that truly represented the vibrancy of British pop culture. Everyone remembers the mid-90s Brits as the years Britpop gatecrashed the party, neglecting to recall that the entertainment on offer at said party included the sound of M People duetting with Sting and the sight of Jimmy Nail being nominated for best British male. Judging by the state of the nominations, 2016 might be a strong year in the ongoing campaign. Admittedly, a mistake seems to have been made in nominating electronic maverick the Aphex Twin for best British male, but don’t panic; he’s no more likely to win his category than he is the World Cage Fighting Championships. On the other hand, nominating someone who’s been dead for five years as best British female – for the second time since her death! – feels like an exciting new chapter in making British pop look moribund. In addition, they’ve pulled that classic Brits trick of putting artists in the international categories – Kendrick Lamarr, Father John Misty, Björk, Tame Impala – who make the homegrown nominees look even more pallid. Elsewhere, the grime artists who last year gatecrashed the charts (and indeed the Brits during Kanye West’s performance) have been cunningly overlooked, thus circumventing the very real fear that people might think Britain has a febrile, exhilarating homegrown street-level music scene. Far better to give the impression that it’s an endless sea of rounded-edge singer-songwriters, derivative pop-house and middling, putatively “alt” rock; a place in which Olly Murs represents all that is good and noble; before doubtless pausing to pay tribute to David Bowie, an artist who embodied everything the Brit awards don’t.
Understanding Trumpspeak The US was established with perhaps the most brilliant advertisement ever written, the Declaration of Independence, and president-elect Donald Trump is first and foremost a classic American salesman, in a tradition that includes Sinclair Lewis’s Babbitt, Eugene O’Neill’s Hickey in The Iceman Cometh and, of course, Arthur Miller’s Willy Loman. Trump is always selling something, and he’s always pitching to get our attention with the “very special – so special” things he’s offering. BETTER, BRIGHTER… His speeches are peppered with meaningless references to the “tremendous potential” of the American people and the “better, brighter future” they will enjoy under his presidency. As a salesman, Trump is always boosting himself (“I will not let you down”) and his likely performance (“we will do a great job”), rhetorical cliches underscored with “I mean that very, very sincerely”. Like any salesman, he uses passionate repetition – “very, very” or “so, so, so” – to emphasise his sincerity. To stress his bona fides in any political endeavour he will exaggerate his efforts, which invariably have been “very long, and very hard”, or more likely “very, very long, and very, very hard”. With Obama, we often got poetry. With Trump, we will be getting ad-speak. THE AMERICAN DREAMER Trump wants to focus his audience’s eyes on that supreme prize – the “renewal of the American dream”. Trump goes big on “dreams”, and that’s because “no dream is too big”. And because as a “very special” Trump dream it can never be “too big”; it has to be – and repeatedly so – “big and bold and daring”. Once “the American dream” has become “big and bold and daring”, it graduates to being an almost sacred part of Trump’s salesman’s credo, and naturally becomes “a very, very beautiful thing”. If it’s not just “a beautiful thing”, it is inevitably also “a beautiful and successful thing”. And if, heaven forbid, it’s not “beautiful” or “successful”, it has to be “incredible and great” or “very, very great”, as in “our incredible and great movement” (aka Trump’s campaign). “Great” is an adjective that punctuates a Trump sentence like a nervy rhetorical comma. His supporters are “great”. His surrogates, such as Chris Christie and Rudy Giuliani, are to a person “great men”, or possibly, “incredible people”. Surrounded by “great men”, it’s a short step to “great relationships”. Faithless Trump “really, really” loves “great relationships”. I LOVE YOU To secure great relationships, Trump will lavish his love and pride on his audiences. “I love you and I thank you” recurs repeatedly, interspersed with the proposition that “it’s been very, very special” or – that supreme Trump accolade – “unbelievable”, a marginally stronger accolade than his workaday “incredible”. The things that Trump finds “unbelievable” are “truly, truly” mind-boggling. His support is “unbelievable”; his policies are “unbelievable”; the polls are “unbelievable”. Getting up in the morning for Trump must be a mind-blowing experience. Also quite unbelievably “unbelievable” are his wife, family, campaign and popular backing from “a tremendous number of many, many millions of truly wonderful – wonderful – people”. I’M HONOURED All of this makes him – unbelievably – humble. Trump is nothing if not “very, very honoured” about virtually anything that supports his ego, and its more extravagant fantasies. When and if he feels vindicated by independent approval from outside the Trump bubble, he will always be “so honoured” – a sentiment he will reinforce with “believe me”. As a serial liar, Trump’s interpolated “believe me” is often varied with “let me just say – let me just say”, or “let me just tell you – let me explain – I have to say this – excuse me”. Once Trump has embarked on “just saying” something “incredible”, he does not like to be interrupted or challenged. “Give me a break” and “excuse me” are regular conversational default positions, combined with a wheedling “I have to say this – I have to say”. In the end, once his pitch is over and he has been confronted by the potential failure of his sale, Trump will revert to sentimental pathos: “So – so sad. So sad.” For the US, it is.
I opened my home to a heroin addict – she's family now I met Jenny in 2008; she was having a panic attack in the doorway of my youth charity. Fearing she was seriously ill, I called an ambulance. She refused to go with the paramedics and was visibly terrified, so I took her to hospital. When we arrived Jenny, with her head in her hands, quietly told me her story and how she had ended up at my charity. She told me that as a child she was sexually abused, witnessed domestic violence, and so struggled at school. She started smoking cannabis aged 13 and swiftly progressed to ecstasy, cocaine and speed. By 17 she was using crack cocaine and injecting heroin. Now, aged 20, she’d started doing “jobs” for the dealers. Realising her life was spiralling out of control, Jenny said, she had started to say no to the drug dealers; in response, they’d bundled her into a car, raped her and left her on the roadside. She’d gone to the police but her attackers had found out and, with a knife to Jenny’s throat, had threatened her mother’s life. Silently, listening to her story, my heart broke and I felt Jenny’s despair. There and then I silently promised her that I would help see her through. For the next year, I offered Jenny intensive support through the charity and she made significant steps to overcome her heroin addiction and keep safe. But after several suicide attempts she was admitted into a mental health ward with post traumatic stress disorder. On discharge she moved into a supported accommodation project. Although Jenny was no longer under my charity’s geographical remit, I agreed with my manager to support her on a personal basis. Jenny was still so vulnerable and other drug users on her project started to take advantage. I was at a loss what to do, so I confided in a Pastor. “She needs you,” he said “take her in.” It seemed like a crazy idea, plus my husband and I had just had a baby, but I was worried sick and I knew Jenny’s situation was deteriorating. We had to do it, so Jenny moved in with us, eager for a fresh start. The next five years were a rollercoaster of recovery and trauma. There have been many challenges including further suicide attempts and subsequent mental health ward admissions, but perhaps the lowest point for me was two years ago. Following threats from a family member, Jenny foolishly went to visit her ex boyfriend, who introduced her to a new drug, mephedrone. She stayed away from home for three days on a drugs binge. I felt sick to my core. I knew this drug could consume her and start a new addiction, fast. When I picked her up, she could hardly breathe and was covered in bruises from injections. As she was craving more drugs and wanting to kill herself, I drove straight to the doctor. Under his guidance, I nursed Jenny slowly back to health. I was heartbroken. My husband and I questioned if we could continue. We’re thankful that we did. There have been countless wonderful moments as we’ve watched this courageous, kind and inspirational young woman transform her life into one worth staying alive for. Last year she even won an award for her volunteering efforts in the community and is planning to start an apprenticeship. Best of all, Jenny is now a part of our family and we love her to bits. My daughter calls her aunty. Jenny’s life is by no means plain sailing but she is a world away from her past. Three years ago she couldn’t bear the thought of living. Now she is looking forward to her future. Some identifying details have been changed. If you are experiencing suicidal thoughts, the Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 in the UK. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Hotline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14. Hotlines in other countries can be found here. The day I made a difference is the Voluntary Sector Network’s series that showcases the work of people involved with charities. If you have a story you want to share email voluntarysectornetwork@theguardian.com with a short summary of your experience or fill in the form here.
Chelsea v West Ham United: Premier League – as it happened Chelsea were the better side and should have been out of sight by the time James Collins equalised with West Ham’s first shot on target. They profited from Michail Antonio’s inexperience at right-back, taking the lead thanks to Eden Hazard after a foul by the West Ham man, and there were plenty of positives for Antonio Conte, not least an assured performance from N’Golo Kante in midfield. Yet West Ham will fume about Anthony Taylor’s inexplicable failure not to show second yellow cards to Diego Costa and Kante in the second half. Of course Costa scored the winner. Having said that, Chelsea were the better side. West Ham were very poor for long spells. There’s work to do for Slaven Bilic. Thanks for reading. Bye. Diego Costa’s winner gives Antonio Conte the perfect start to life at Chelsea but West Ham will be furious about a highly questionable refereeing performance from the circus’s Anthony Taylor. 90 min+4: West Ham almost equalise! Carroll wreaks havoc in the Chelsea area but he can’t get his shot away as Courtois closes down the angle. Eventually the ball’s smuggled away thanks to determined last-ditch defending from the hosts. That should be that. 90 min+3: Pedro’s booked for a late challenge on Reid. “Seriously, how is Costa still on the pitch to score that?” asks Niall Mullen. Your guess is as good as mine. 90 min+1: There will be four minutes of added time. It begins with Payet scuffing a shot at Courtois from 20 yards. Diego Costa, who should have been sent off earlier, scores the winner for Chelsea. The ball’s pumped long and headed down by Batshuayi to Costa. He shakes off Collin and drills it through the centre-back’s legs from 25 yards. It’s accurate enough to beat Adrian low to the goalkeeper’s right. Conte goes mad on the touchline. 86 min: Moses’s intriguing inswinger from the left is headed away from the lurking Batshuayi by Reid, a crucial intervention. Pedro volleys wide from the right as the ball drops from the sky. 85 min: Chelsea make their final two changes, Oscar trotting off, Michy Batshuayi on for his debut. And Victor Moses, who spent last season on loan at West Ham, replaces Eden Hazard. He’ll be scoring the winner, just so you know. 84 min: Payet skips away from Kante, who chops him down in the centre circle. Like Costa, he gets away without a second booking. 82 min: Oscar almost collects a clever pass from Hazard but he’s denied by a fantastic saving challenge from Reid. Adrian gathers the loose ball. 80 min: Chelsea make their first change, Willian replaced by Pedro. 79 min: Anthony Taylor is having a word with Slaven Bilic on the touchline. I’m not sure why. Bilic’s face is a picture of innocence. West Ham manage their first shot on target ... and they score! Payet’s corner from the right was headed down by Collins and it reached Valencia, whose swivelling volley was blocked by a Chelsea defender. West Ham briefly appealed for handball but to no avail. Not to worry, though. It fell to Collins, who collected the ball and slammed it to the left of Courtois with his left foot from 15 yards. Crikey, what a finish from the centre-back. West Ham are level out of nothing. 76 min: Nope. Payet’s free-kick hits the wall and spins behind for a corner on the right. 74 min: Payet floats a free-kick into the Chelsea area from a deep position. It leads to a spot of head tennis and Carroll wins a free-kick after a high foot from Azpilicueta, who’s booked for dissent. It’s on the edge of the Chelsea area. Dimitri Payet is very interested. Hey, West Ham might manage a shot on target here! 71 min: Oscar wins a free-kick for Chelsea around 25 yards from goal. He clips it straight into the wall. 70 min: Payet’s free-kick is headed away by Ivanovic. Courtois hasn’t had to make a save yet. In fact, West Ham have had one shot. 69 min: Mark Noble shows good persistence to win a free-kick deep on the left, drawing Willian into clipping his heels. Payet will take it. 67 min: Dimitri Payet replaces Havard Nordtveit. Will he be able to find a way around the impeccable N’Golo Kante? Hold that thought, though. All of a sudden, a huge roar goes up as Adrian messes around with the ball in the area, allowing Costa to close hm down. Adrian tries to turn away from the striker, who clips the goalkeeper’s shin with his studs as he tries to win the ball. Adrian’s hurt and for a moment it looks like it’s going to be a second booking for Costa. West Ham think he should be off. Anthony Taylor disagrees. 66 min: Dimitri Payet will be on soon. “Wasn’t Havard Nordveit a trainee CB at Arsenal?” says Kelvin. “I thought he’d come good back for Arsenal then. Hope he does well for the Hammers though.” He was. 64 min: From the second corner, Willian’s delivery is met by John Terry, who heads just wide after beating Winston Reid. 63 min: West Ham are clinging on here. They’re not at the races at all. Chelsea press high and win the ball for the umpteenth time tonight. It’s moved swiftly to Willian, who swerves outside before seeing his low shot tipped wide by Adrian. From the resulting corner, Oscar tries a volley from 20 yards. Collins deflects it wide for another corner. 61 min: Nordtveit wallops a 60-yard pass straight out of play. The Chelsea fans jeer. 58 min: Oscar breaks behind Masuaku on the right and wins a corner for Chelsea. It comes to nothing. But a second Chelsea goal is on the way. 56 min: The game is being played exclusively in West Ham’s half. Chelsea are buzzing. 54 min: Dimitri Payet is warming up. The visitors need him on. All they’re doing is hoofing it to Carroll. 52 min: Slaven Bilic makes the necessary change, replacing Michail Antonio with Sam Byram. Here’s the thing, though: Antonio should be West Ham’s right winger. Bilic barely looked at Antonio as he walked off. Antonio was straight down the tunnel. 51 min: How long before we see Dimitri Payet come off the bench for West Ham, who are rocking. The disappointing Nordtveit loses possession in West Ham’s half again and Chelsea almost profit, only for Hazard to take long to shoot in the area. 48 min: Michail Antonio is not a right-back. Eden Hazard’s reward for a fine performance is to blast the penalty high into the roof of the net. Chelsea deservedly lead thanks to the best player on the pitch. 46 min: Moments after Diego Costa forces Adrian to save with his feet from a tight angle, Michail Antonio concedes a penalty with a ridiculous piece of defending. He inexplicably gave the ball away by trying to dribble the ball out from the back, lost it to Cesar Azpilicueta, panicked and bundled the Spaniard over. Antonio is booked. There we go. 46 min: Off we go again. West Ham get the second half underway. There haven’t been any changes. And... Chelsea have had the better of this. West Ham have offered nothing. 45 min+2: Willian curls the free-kick over the bar, towards the top right corner, but Adrian pushes it over for a corner. Azpilicueta heads wide from the opening corner. 45 min+1: Chelsea win a free-kick around 25 yards from the West Ham goal, Reid fouling Costa. 45 min: There will be two more minutes of this. 44 min: A Chelsea corner on the right. It leads to a scramble and West Ham get it clear. But back it comes. The second attack ends with Masuaku conceding a free-kick on the right. 43 min: West Ham have given up all thought of attacking now. They’re just kicking it anywhere. That early promise has fizzled out and Chelsea should win this match. 39 min: Andy Carroll moves it to Gokhan Tore on the right. He assesses his options, then appears to suffer a total system malfunction, freezing on the spot and simply allowing the ball to roll away from him. Chelsea counter. Oscar swings a pass straight out of play. That might be the worst minute in the history of football. 38 min: Costa shakes off a couple of West Ham defenders with a clever piece of skill to earn a sight of goal from 25 yards but his firm effort doesn’t dip in time, flashing just over the bar. 35 min: West Ham make the change but it’s not Dimitri Payet who’s replacing Andre Ayew. Instead it’s Gokhan Tore, the Turkish winger who never made an appearance during his two years with Chelsea. This is his debut. 34 min: The physio is signalling that Ayew will have to come off. West Ham do get a lot of muscle injuries. 33 min: Andre Ayew, West Ham’s record signing, has gone down with what appears to be a muscle injury. That’s probably going to be the end of his debut. “Haha!” says JR in Illinois. “Yes! Love that yellow card for Costa. I hope he is unable to adjust to the new application of the rules and gets red carded out of every game he plays. The guy is a menace. The sooner he’s out of the league the better.” 31 min: With absolutely nothing happening, Eden Hazard decides to do something. West Ham sloppily give the ball away again, and not for the first time tonight, allowing Hazard to run at their increasingly terrified back four. He snakes inside from the left, shifts it on to his right foot, opens up his body and aims for the far corner with a precise effort. Adrian looks beaten but the ball bounces an inch past the left post. That would have been a brilliant goal. 28 min: Hazard spins Antonio on the left and flashes a teasing ball across the face of goal. But no Chelsea player is attacking what was an excellent cross. “If West Ham maintain their away record from last season they will be champions, as playing in the nation’s Olympic stadium they certainly don’t have any home games,” honks Ian Copestake. 26 min: A lull. 23 min: West Ham have acquitted themselves fairly well but they lack creativity with Payet on the bench and Lanzini injured. They’re quite ponderous in the final third. 21 min: This is beginning to heat up. Now Collins buffets Costa over in an innocuous area, his second foul on the striker already, enough to earn him West Ham’s first booking. 19 min: The Chelsea fans behind the goal loudly appeal for a penalty as Oscar falls under a clumsy challenge from Winston Reid. Anthony Taylor ignores the cries but that looks like a generous decision. Then again, I’m not a referee. Oscar won the ball off the dawdling Noble, dropped a shoulder and burst past Reid, whose outstretched arm was enough for Oscar to go over. It was a theatrical fall but there was contact. The upshot of all this is that Costa’s been booked for dissent. Some things never change. 15 min: Adrian launches a clearance towards the technical area. Conte cushions it to Bilic expertly and the two managers share a chuckle, some banter. Mourinho would have volleyed it into Bilic’s special area. Meanwhile Chelsea are slowly beginning to take control of this game. 14 min: From an Ivanovic long throw, the ball drops to Hazard on the edge of the area. He chests it down and fires over. 12 min: For all that West Ham possession, Chelsea look menacing whenever they break. After a promising burst from Willian comes to nothing, Branislav Ivanovic almost gives the hosts the lead with their next attack. He cuts inside from the right adroitly and shoots with his left foot before Winston Reid can close him down, forcing Adrian to make a very good one-handed save down at his near post. The corner comes to nothing. 10 min: Costa clearly fancies his chances against Collins. He isolates the big centre-back and threatens to run him into the area. Yet Collins times his tackle perfectly, making sure not to go to ground as he robs Costa. Watch and learn, Alberto Moreno. 8 min: West Ham are still enjoying most of the possession. Noble nicks it off Kante on the edge of the area but he’s falling as he shoots and scuffs his effort tamely. 6 min: This is poor defending from Gary Cahill, though, a clumsy foul on Carroll as they tussle for the ball in the air. A free-kick to West Ham on the left, then. With Payet on the bench, it’s taken by Valencia, who slams it in low. It’s deflected off Ivanovic and into the six-yard box, but a free-kick is awarded for pushing on Thibaut Courtois. 5 min: West Ham are enjoying a decent spell of possession but Chelsea look tight and compact. The home side look happy to sit off and let the visitors have the ball in relatively harmless areas. Possession? Overrated. 3 min: West Ham deal with the free-kick and moments later Carroll wins the ball off Kante, who brings him down from behind. He’s booked, much to the annoyance of the Chelsea fans. 2 min: Costa turns in the middle of West Ham’s half and he’s got space to attack. He runs at Collins, who dumps him over at the expense of a free-kick. And we’re off! Chelsea, kicking from left to right in the first half, get the game underway at a noisy Stamford Bridge. It’s a lovely evening in west London. Here come teams. Chelsea in blue. West Ham in claret and blue. It’s time for The Liquidator. “I like Bilic but I really think it is a blind spot,” says Mak Imamovic. “It might have something to do with him playing under notorious 352 radical Miroslav Blažević, alongside Mario Stanić who started his career as a striker, moved to right wing, and ended up as RWB in that famous Croatia squad in France ‘98. Antonio is a very similar type of player to Stanić and even if they’re not playing with literal wing-backs he obviously doesn’t trust ‘classic’ -defend-first FBs either.” “Does every decent manager have a blind spot?” says Ian Copestake. “Michail Antonio seems to be the Moreno to Klopp’s Bilic, if that makes sense.” Antonio’s going to score the winner, isn’t he. “Having seen West Ham play in Ljubljana a few weeks ago, where Antonio spent more time on the ground than the rather rambunctious & tipsy Kray wannabes sitting nearby, yes, very much a blind spot,” says Murphy Mediji. “He’s magnificent going forward - we know this... but he’s simply rubbish in tracking back from midfield into his own corner... tracking back from up front into midfield is a different matter I suppose, but still...” I would not be surprised to see a Chelsea goal that features Eden Hazard streaking into acres of space down the left. West Ham haven’t won on this ground since 2002. Paolo Di Canio scored a good goal. West Ham conceded 20 goals in their final 10 fixtures last season, a leaky run that coincided with Michail Antonio’s switch to right-back. Slaven Bilic has faith in him. He really thinks this is going to work. He’s got Sam Byram, a right-back, on the bench. Is this his blind spot? Or is he on to something? “Following on from my shock on Saturday that Arouna Kone was Still An Everton Player, I see that Victor Moses is Still A Chelsea Player,” says Christopher Faherty. “Have you got a West Ham nomination Jacob or from another team around the league?” Wayne Rooney. “I note that the FA have introduced a change relating to the number of players allowed to confront a referee: Previously, if three or more players approached a referee in a confrontational way, the club faced being charged with misconduct, if the incident was reported,” says Justin Kavanagh. “Now, that number has been reduced to two or more players. So it’ll be interesting to see how Diego fares alone in this role this season.” For Chelsea, there’s a debut for N’Golo Kante in front of that familiar back four – Antonio Conte isn’t playing the 3-5-2 from his Juventus and Italy days – but Cesc Fabregas is on the bench. A sign of things to come? He’s joined there by Michy Batshuayi, the new signing from Marseille, with Diego Costa preferred up front. For all the talk of change, 10 of these players started on the opening day for Chelsea last season. The change is Kante for Fabregas. As for West Ham, there are debuts for Arthur Masuaku at left-back, Havard Nordtveit in midfield and Andre Ayew in attack. Dimitri Payet and Angelo Ogbonna are on the bench after their Euro 2016 exertions. So’s Gokhan Tore, the Turkish winger who has signed on loan from Besiktas. However the new signing from Valencia, Sofiane Feghouli, is injured. Aaron Cresswell, Diafra Sakho and Manuel Lanzini are also out. The potential weakness for Chelsea to exploit is Michail Antonio at right-back. Bilic continues to persist with him there. Antonio is going to have to be very disciplined against Hazard tonight. Chelsea: Courtois; Ivanovic, Cahill, Terry, Azpilicueta; Kante; Willian, Matic, Oscar, Hazard; Costa. Subs: Begovic, Aina, Fabregas, Loftus-Cheek, Moses, Pedro, Batshuayi. West Ham: Adrian; Antonio, Collins, Reid, Masuaku; Nordtveit, Noble, Kouyate; Ayew, Carroll, Valencia. Subs: Randolph, Byram, Ogbonna, Obiang, Oxford, Tore, Payet. Referee: Anthony Taylor. “It’s great Conte continues the post-Jose tradition of nose-up-end of underperformers responsible for the latter’s ouster,” says Patrick Sullivan. “The signs of “Hang your head in shame” are now replaced with “I am happy that Diego stays here to work with us.” If I rewarded bad behaviour of my 4 year old like this, child services would be knocking. We’re building a house of very expensive, poorly crafted cards that fold in the lightest of wind.” Hello. The first weekend of the season is no time to for sweeping judgements. It’s far too soon to be sure about anything. But there have been a couple of indications that normal service has been restored at the top, that Leicester City’s insurrection may well have been a one-off. Yesterday Manchester United won a fixture they lost last season, beating Bournemouth in Jose Mourinho’s first game in charge. Manchester City were promisingly peppy in the first half against Sunderland on Saturday evening and ground out a win. Arsenal ... well, y’know. Moving on, then, Liverpool impressed during that blistering 20-minute spell either side of half-time at the Emirates. Overall it’s been a strong start from the big boys – and a bad one from Leicester, who lost to a Hull City side that was supposed to be mired in crisis. But perhaps the clearest indication of whether there’s going to be more of last season’s unpredictability will come from this fixture. The Antonio Conte era starts here, with a home game against Slaven Bilic’s refreshingly entertaining West Ham United side, and while the former Juventus manager arrives in London with a strong reputation after his star turn at Euro 2016, no one is quite sure what to expect from the new Chelsea boss. If everything goes to plan from a Chelsea perspective, expect to see invigorated performances from the likes of Diego Costa, Cesc Fabregas and Eden Hazard, whose pungent performances were some of the main causes for the need to fumigate Stamford Bridge this summer. Conte, after all, played a major role in the revival of Juventus, winning three consecutive Serie A titles, and he almost took an underwhelming Italy team to the last four in France. The signs are that Chelsea have found an astute tactician and a manic man manager who will inspire absolute devotion from his players. N’Golo Kante should plug a few gaps in midfield and Michy Batshuayi offers speed and quality up front. Conte’s record inspires optimism – and yet it is unwise to assume that all of Chelsea’s weaknesses have been eradicated simply because of a managerial change. A dark cloud hovered over Mourinho’s head last season and poured acid rain on anyone who dared stand near him. Yet Chelsea hardly exploded into life after his departure in December, defensive reinforcements are yet to arrive and a mooted move for Romelu Lukaku remains up in the air. West Ham challenged for Champions League qualification last season, finished seventh and were excellent against the top sides, securing several famous wins at home and on their travels. They’ve made some good signings and if they play well against London rivals who have lorded it above them for the best part of 20 years, it will suggest that the Premier League has indeed become more equal. This fixture isn’t the home banker it would have been a two or three seasons ago. Kick-off: 8pm BST.
'Trump is disgusting': skywriters leave message high above Rose Parade Opponents of the Republican presidential frontrunner took to the skies over California on Friday, in order to leave their message: “Anybody but Trump.” The message appeared towards the end of the Rose Parade, an annual march through Pasadena, California that is celebrated each New Year’s Day. Skywriters captured public attention with messages reading “America is great. Trump is disgusting” and “Iowans dump Trump”, dotted through a cloudless sky. Though Trump was notified of the skywriting through his Twitter account, as of Friday afternoon he had not responded. Amazement from the crowd was apparent in social media posts. One video captured the remarks of an onlooker: “Oh my god, I love it so much”. Each year, about 700,000 people attend the parade. Social media posts about the skywriting appear to have begun about 40 minutes after the last float started driving the roughly five and a half mile route. The Rose Parade ended a little after 1pm ET, according to the LA Times. The festivities are expected to continue as the Iowa Hawkeyes played the Stanford Cardinal in the college football Rose Bowl. The Hawkeyes hail from the nation’s first caucus state, which is scheduled to vote on 1 February. Trump trails Texas senator Ted Cruz in most polls concerning the Republican presidential field in Iowa. The anti-Trump messages did not represent the only politicking of the afternoon. After the parade, demonstrators produced a grinning papier-mâché float homage to the Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, and rolled the likeness down Colorado Boulevard.
Our precious allotments are being destroyed – it’s time to get our hands dirty In 2014, there was a protest outside the Royal Courts of Justice. The protesters were colourful: with flowery dresses, a bee costume and balloons. They had clever signs such as: “Give Peas a Chance” and “Don’t Lose the Plot”. The protest was described as a “turf war” by newspaper headline writers, because they love a pun, and because it was about allotments. Last Friday, the protesters were back, this time with wheelbarrows, pumpkins and produce, because once again Watford council had applied to close Farm Terrace allotments, and once again some of the people of Watford refused and fought back. On paper, Watford council’s rationale for closing Farm Terrace may sound reasonable, even though the plots have been there since 1896 and have statutory protection. The council wants to build a “health campus”, an Orwellian-sounding scheme that incorporates a new hospital, green spaces and that dreaded phrase beloved of planners, a “community hub”. Watford’s elected mayor, Dorothy Thornhill, interviewed the last time the turf war got to court, said that it would bring “up to 1,300 new jobs, much-needed homes, green open spaces which can be enjoyed by all and community facilities, including a community hub with shops”. She also said Farm Terrace plots were “a really hideous, derelict site”. It’s difficult to object to a new hospital or 1,300 new jobs. But anything that uses the expression “green spaces” raises my hackles, because it means that the rest of the project is hard spaces and concrete. The council’s “master plan” is actually unclear: even the hospital doesn’t know what it will use the site for yet (Sara Jane Trebar, a Farm Terrace campaigner, thinks it will become 68 houses and a car park for Watford football club). But if it were to be built without allotments, as the mayor’s comments imply, it would be an own goal. Gardening, as a Social Care Institute for Excellence review of evidence showed in 2013, reaps “a range of benefits across emotional, social, vocational, physical and spiritual domains”. Allotments are as good for the people of Watford as that community hub with shops (which Watford presumably already has plenty of). I support the Farm Terrace fighters because I’d fight for my plot, even though I’m a haphazard gardener. Slugs have eaten more this year than I’ve managed to grow. But when I’ve struggled with depression, when even getting out of the house seemed like the hardest thing in the world, I still sometimes walked five minutes to my plot, past the neat and flourishing allotments that shame me; past the scruffy ones that comfort me, to my higgledy-piggledy plot with its rose bed, sturdy greenhouse and pathetic tomato plants, my glorious collard greens and magnificent roses. Five minutes there, kneeling to weed, putting my hands into soil, and my spirits lift. There are other riches there too: the businessman who arrives stressed and leaves less so; the young families who leave with children clutching sweetcorn or potatoes, now knowing that not all fruit and vegetables come wrapped in plastic; the old boys who offer advice, wanted or unwanted. Growing your own isn’t always cheaper, but it’s always better. It is one of the best counter-balances that remains to our cult of lonely, commerce-driven individualism. In law, allotments are apparently well protected, from the 1908 Small Holdings and Allotments Act that instructed councils to supply allotments to meet demand, to further strengthened legislation in 1925. Allotments on statutory land, such as Farm Terrace, can’t be disposed of without ministerial consent. But pressure groups such as Save All Allotments and Don’t Lose the Plot think the Localism Act of 2011 and recent 2014 guidelines that supposedly simplified the law only made it simpler for plot land to be turned into building sites. In a freedom of information request, Save All Allotments found that between 2007 and 2014, 194 of 198 applications to close allotments were granted by the secretary of state. The National Allotment Society is more sanguine, pointing out that of the 65 of 87 applications for disposal that were granted between 2010 and 2013, most were for small bits of land for access or flood alleviation, or land that had long been disused. But Farm Terrace isn’t disused, nor derelict, nor hideous. The case matters because it is a fight about what is of value. Of course hospitals and houses are needed. The problem with Farm Terrace is that Watford council can’t see the worth of the plots, nor that a proper health scheme can be more than a community hub, shops and a bit of green space. The judicial review adjourned on Friday with no decision reached, but my grubby allotmenting fingers are crossed that peas will be given a chance. I hope that there is room, still, in our era of cat-calling, spite and profound uncertainty, for the simple, humble act that is putting your fingers into the earth, and reaping what you sow.
Healthcare innovations won’t cure global health inequality – political action will The science fiction author William Gibson famously quipped the future is here, it’s just not evenly distributed. There is arguably no greater manifestation of our uneven world than that of healthcare. In the wealthiest countries, thousands of people in their 60s and 70s are kept alive with cardiac pacemakers that are remotely monitored over the internet, and adjusted by algorithms with no human intervention. In poorer states, three-quarters of a million children under five are dying each year because of shit in their water. What can explain such unevenness, and what might be done about it? A scan of the proceedings at the World Health Summit in Berlin, which starts on Sunday, and where technological innovation is one of the major themes, is revealing. “Despite the exponential growth of scientific and technological development, low- and middle-income countries are still largely excluded from access to appropriate and affordable health technologies. Therefore novel technological devices need to be developed that can address health problems and improve quality of life,” reads the blurb for Monday’s keynote session. Is this “must try harder” assessment correct? Is the solution to stark inequities in global health outcomes, and the enduring exclusion of developing countries from the benefits of innovation, to do more and better innovation? Certainly, innovation for improved global health is arguably needed more than ever with the need to combat new and emerging diseases from Ebola to Zika and to find better ways of tackling non-communicable diseases such as cancer. But when we look at the innovations made in response to Ebola, we should pause for thought. One stark example: in November 2014, when the Ebola outbreak was raging through west Africa, the US Food and Drug Administration went through an expedited approval process for a one-hour Ebola test, reducing the time for results by five hours from the previous fastest machines. The problem was that few west African countries had the resources to acquire the $40,000 machines or the skills to run them. They were, however, to be found in many US hospitals. Or another example: Medécins Sans Frontières (MSF) helped to trial and demonstrate the effectiveness of new tests for TB in low income and humanitarian settings in 2011-12. But the price of the test made it prohibitive for many countries until a large public-private initiative emerged to subsidise the cost of the tests for 145 developing countries that were most affected by TB. Only then could this innovation benefit those who needed it most. These are far from the only stories of how the poorest are excluded from the innovations that they need most. Once the stories start to accumulate, they turn from a trickle to a river to a flood. And one has to start wondering whether the old adage about famines is not relevant here: famines rarely result from a lack of food, rather it is lack of access to food. Similarly, the inequalities in tackling health problems are not because of a lack of innovation, but because of a lack of access to innovation. The binding constraints, I would argue, are seldom technical but instead related to the political and economic choices, which determine how innovations get funded, resourced and supported, by whom and for whom. What to do in the face of such a system? The answer is to fight the innovation and political battles at the same time. We have to identify the gaps, and to test and trial the best new ideas that can address longstanding challenges faced by the world’s most vulnerable people, and build the evidence base that these ideas really can make a difference. Political leaders need to ensure that the scaling of new solutions includes those people who need innovation most, and who are most likely to be excluded from its benefits. In doing so, it is worth looking to the work of organisations such as MSF, which do an admirable job of balancing the scientific and political aspects of advocacy in their Access to Medicines campaign. But we should also remember the work of pioneers, from Florence Nightingale to John Snow, who worked tirelessly to ensure their ideas benefited those in society who needed them the most. The speakers and delegates at the World Health Summit should remember this pioneering spirit, which fused the spirit of medical discovery with political advocacy. And they should ensure that any statement calling for more and better medical technologies is quickly followed by a statement recognising that technology should at best be seen as a complement to, but never a substitute for, political action.
Lenny Abrahamson: ‘It’s a way of talking about childhood and parenting’ Lenny Abrahamson is the Dublin-born director of films including Adam & Paul, What Richard Did, Garage and Frank. His new film, Room, is an adaptation of Emma Donoghue’s 2010 novel about a woman and her young son kept prisoner in a single room. The premise of Room would seem to promise an extremely austere film. Yours manages to be rather uplifting yet altogether unsentimental. That goes to the heart of what made me want to do it. In the novel, Emma uses this situation to talk about a range of other things. It’s a way of talking about childhood and parenting, ultimately. The most conventional romantic trope of all is that you put lovers under extreme pressure, where they have to make decisions that illuminate aspects of that bond. Room does the same, but with the parent-child relationship. It becomes rich territory for discussions of what it is to grow up. The story goes that you read the novel and then wrote a 10-page letter to Emma Donoghue saying you wanted to film it. I think it was five pages, but in America, double spacing is considered standard – so let’s say a 10-page letter. And you filled it with philosophical references, including Plato’s cave. I threw the kitchen sink into that letter. My state of mind in writing it was that I’d probably never get to make the film but that I’d make the letter as compelling as I possibly could, so that when I went to see the movie that some other director had made, I could say: “Well, I tried.” My background is in philosophy – I thought it would tickle Emma if I could unearth the references that she had so delicately put into the book. How did you go about creating the on-screen bond between Brie Larson (who plays the mother) and Jacob Tremblay (who plays her son Jack)? Nothing more profound than putting them together in the same place for quite a while. Brie’s very warm and Jake’s a lovely boy. They both knew that this would be an important relationship, so they were minded to become friends and they genuinely did. How did you avoid traumatising an eight-year-old actor in a story like this? And Brie, for that matter – it can’t have been a picnic for her either. Jake was boundlessly and consistently happy throughout the whole shoot – he’s very energetic and enthusiastic. That really helped Brie – Jake would never allow her to be gloomy. When a take was over, he’d want to know why she was still crying, if it was a very emotional one. I’d call “cut” and he was straight into wanting to play with her. That was one way that Brie was kept sane. With Jake, it was remarkably simple. It’s something I’ve noticed with my two children – children frequently know and don’t know at the same time. They are aware of aspects of the world that are a little bit shadowy and they choose not to engage with them. Jake and I just did some interviews where people said:“Tell us the story.” And he said: “Well, I live in this room with my mum and we’re kept there by this nasty man.” We just told the story like that to him – it’s like any number of fairytales, where someone locks somebody up for the purposes of ownership. Your first few films were set in Ireland. Room is set in the US and your next projects are international. Are people saying: “Oh, he’s a transatlantic director now”? Once or twice I’ve seen people write: “Ah you see, once they get a few quid, they’re off.” That’s not how it feels to me. There are a couple of projects I really want to make – one is with Mark O’Halloran, who wrote Adam & Paul and Garage. It’s very much about Ireland and it’s set in the 1980s.  As soon as you make some films that people like, you’ll be sent material and that can come from anywhere. Post-Room, it’s pretty strange to be in a situation where I’m getting to read pretty much everything I want to that’s out there. I don’t think location is the defining characteristic of my work. What are the films that first got you into cinema? It was BBC2 in the early 80s, when they broadcast European cinema late at night. I used to watch Bergman and Antonioni and all of the canon and I found them overwhelming, sometimes in a way I couldn’t understand. It was the first time I detected in cinema the same kind of intellectual range and power and textural richness that I had in literature. But there are also some American influences – Jim Jarmusch’s early films. Aged 17, watching Stranger Than Paradise, watching long scenes of almost nothing being said, and realising that it’s compelling… and Laurel and Hardy. My first properly aesthetic experience of film was watching Way Out West when I was a child. What is your next project? You seem to be in a position where you’re juggling several possible plates. Yeah – it’s not to be complained about, unless you wanted a well-deserved clip on the ear. There are a few film projects that I’m interested in. One is another novel adaptation – Sarah Waters’s The Little Stranger, which is a poltergeist story set in the late 40s. Another is about Emile Griffith, a black boxer in the late 50s, early 60s – he became the welterweight world champion but was living this extraordinary double life between the ring and the underground gay scene around Times Square. Then there’s an American civil war story, Neverhome – Lucy Kirkwood the playwright is adapting it. It’s about a woman who disguises herself as a man to fight for the Union army. As a director, you tend to work with other people’s scripts, rather than writing your own. You can throw away your script more easily than you can throw away your film. When you sign up to direct something, if it says: “The first day of principal photography is 6 June”, then come 6 June you will be there, whatever you feel. I’m pretty good at beating myself up. Coming close to making a film, I usually go through a phase where I think: “This is going to be a disaster, it’s going to be career-ending”, but I can’t get out of it, so I do it. With writing, it’s been too easy for me to just park it. I really have to get on top of that. Room is released 15 January
So what if I’m black and thinking about voting for Brexit? Now we have a student of Marx as shadow chancellor and a Republican frontrunner seriously being compared to Hitler, you might think there aren’t many ways left to blindside people politically. But I’ve found one. Over the past couple of months I’ve managed to shock some people by telling them I’m thinking of voting for Brexit. It seems black voters are supposed to be in favour of staying in the European Union. A report in the Times, though, suggests that’s not necessarily the case, and there are plenty of BAME votes in play if the out campaign gets its arguments straight. Some of the concerns mentioned I share; it is alarming how many votes far-right parties are piling up in some EU countries and what influence they may have. On the other hand, it’s hard not to roll your eyes at people from migrant backgrounds who buy into Nigel Farage’s end-of-the-pier take on recent migration from eastern Europe. I share the view of leftwing politicians like my former MP, the late Peter Shore. The EU debate isn’t about bent bananas or migrants on the take; it’s about democracy. There doesn’t seem much point in electing MPs if their votes can be overridden by supranational institutions like the EU or tax-dodging corporations. Much of the apathy and cynicism towards politics is a result of people feeling that real power is somewhere else and not in the ballot box. I’ve seen the EU described as “post-democratic”. Some of us would prefer the real thing back. Meanwhile, if it’s true that there are growing numbers of BAME voters down the golf club worrying about all these Polish plumbers, I’m taking the positives from that. It proves integration works – we’re becoming just like our white counterparts. Why Cubans love Castro With Obama flying into Havana, my thoughts turned back to an open-air gig I attended in Grenada in the late 1990s where the star turn was Fidel Castro himself. Castro, who was in town on a state visit, gave a speech to a rapt crowd of thousands, although I doubt whether many shared his brand of revolutionary politics. And to be honest, three hours was overegging it a little. Supporters of Castro often point to the work his government has done in education and health, and regard that as a trade-off for the lack of democracy and human rights. But I think this misses the real reason why he became such an icon for so many in the region. Castro’s defiant and absolute refusal to accept Washington’s right to interfere in Cuba, or anywhere else in the US’s so-called backyard, is what really won him support and sympathy. Successive American presidents never seem to have understood this. If Kennedy and the rest had tried hugging Castro to death, they might have got a much better result than with the CIA’s exploding cigars. Home is where the goat isn’t As a youngster, I was brought up to think of Grenada as “back home”. It was for my parents, of course, but for me, home was Whitechapel, east London. And it took me a little while to work that out. Whenever I had the money, I’d take myself off to the Caribbean, stay with relatives, join in the gossip and do the rounds. I expected and was expected to be local. But I also had the feeling that being on holiday should involve small luxuries like having your bed made and your dinner served. Things came to a head one night when I was kept awake by a bleating goat, an alarm call from a neighbour’s cockerel, and the local insect population, which was determined to have a nibble on my arm. Grenada is a beautiful place and I recommend it to anyone looking for sun, sand and sea. But as I pulled the blanket over my head, I realised I didn’t want to be there, I wanted to be back home.
Annuities take a hit as rates fall following Brexit The first direct hit on pensions from Brexit came on Monday morning, as pension companies began to cut the amount they will pay people who are newly retiring. Just Retirement and Retirement Advantage have both announced cuts to their annuity rates, and experts said more were likely to follow. Just Retirement’s rates are down by around 2%. An annuity is a product available for retirees and offers an income for life, bought at retirement with all or part of a person’s pension savings. The returns available reflect movements in interest rates, and since Brexit the money markets have signalled lower long-term rates. Tom McPhail of financial advisers Hargreaves Lansdown said: “Gilt yields and annuity rates have been dropping steadily over the past year. The events of the past couple of days have given new momentum to that trend. “For any investor planning to buy an annuity in the immediate future, it may make sense to do so sooner rather than later. Once you’ve obtained a quote from an annuity company the terms are usually guaranteed for between two and four weeks.” McPhail said those who wanted an annuity should shop around for the most competitive terms. He added: “If you want to delay purchasing an annuity, but need to draw on your pension savings, then look at drawing an income from your funds using a drawdown arrangement instead.” But the flipside of falling annuity rates is likely to be lower interest rates on mortgages. Moneyfacts, which compiles a daily moving index of the average two-year fixed-rate deal, said rates fell marginally on Friday. Mortgage experts such as Ray Boulger of John Charcol have already suggested that longer-term fixed-rate deals will emerge in the coming days priced at lower levels than last week, reflecting falls in gilt yields.
Led Zeppelin cleared of stealing riff for Stairway to Heaven Led Zeppelin has defeated a lawsuit that accused the band of stealing the opening riff in Stairway to Heaven, and cemented its place in rock’s pantheon. A jury in Los Angeles on Thursday cleared Robert Plant and Jimmy Page of pinching arguably the most famous riff of the most famous anthem in rock. The singer and guitarist were in the US district court for the climax of a six-day trial that gripped the music industry and put the band’s history and credibility under a forensic microscope. Plant, 67, and Page, 72, denied lifting Stairway to Heaven’s opening passage, which evokes Renaissance folk music, from an LA-based psychedelic band called Spirit. The estate of Spirit’s guitarist Randy Wolfe, also known as Randy California, had sued for recognition and a share of the proceeds on the grounds the 1971 mega-hit ripped off Taurus, an instrumental composed in 1967. Wearing sharp suits with their hair pulled back in ponytails, Plant and Page left court without speaking publicly, but issued a brief statement later that said they were grateful to the jury and look forward to putting the matter behind them. Francis Malofiy, the estate’s attorney, said he was sad and disappointed by the jury’s decision. “The reality is that we proved access, but they could never hear what they had access to,” Malofiy said. “It’s bizarre.” “This case is about one thing, one six-letter word – credit,” Malofiy had told the jury of four men and four women during the trial. He likened the case to a David and Goliath battle. Peter Anderson, Led Zeppelin’s attorney, said the case was really an attempt to rewrite history – “to take an iconic song … and [say] it’s got a new parent”. The trial wrapped on Wednesday and the jury retired to deliberate. When it returned to courtroom 850, a marble and wood-paneled arena in the Edward Roybal federal building, Goliath prevailed. The verdict spared Led Zeppelin the humiliation and type of financial loss which befell Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams in a separate plagiarism case last year when Marvin Gaye’s family won a $7.4m award for the song Blurred Lines infringing on Gaye’s Got to Give it Up. The music industry, still reeling from the Blurred Lines verdict, will be relieved, said Larry Iser, a lawyer and copyright specialist who was not involved in either case. “Today’s verdict is a vindication of copyright, which only protects an original expression of music.” Led Zeppelin showed that the disputed chord progression was a common building block of classical and popular music dating back centuries, he said. Journalists and Led Zeppelin fans packed the public gallery for a trial which veered from surreal to nostalgic to belligerent as Plant, Page and other witnesses testified about what did and did not happen between 1967 and 1971. This was a bacchanalian rock’n’roll era famed for sex and drugs but Judge Gary Klausner, a stern presence, kept testimony focused on money, memory and music. The case hinged on two questions. Did Led Zeppelin hear Taurus before composing Stairway? And is Stairway substantially similar to the Taurus sheet music submitted in 1968 to the US copyright office? Wolfe, a guitar prodigy who wrote the instrumental for his girlfriend, drowned in 1997 saving his son in Hawaii. Shortly before his death, in a magazine interview quoted in the lawsuit, he made his resentment plain. “If you listen to the two songs, you can make your own judgment … I’d say it was a rip-off. And the guys made millions of bucks on it and never said ‘Thank you,’ never said, ‘Can we pay you some money for it?’ It’s kind of a sore point with me.” The lawsuit alleged Led Zeppelin had a deep-rooted history of lifting composition from uncreditd blues artists and other songwriters. It cited disputes over 16 other Led Zeppelin songs, including Whole Lotta Love and Babe I’m Gonna Leave You. Stairway to Heaven, one of the most played songs on radio, is estimated to have generated more than $500m over the decades. Damages, however, can extend back only three years and into the future. In defending themselves Plant and Page, chipped their own mythology about Stairway being composed at Bron-Yr-Aur, a remote Welsh cottage. Page said he in fact wrote the music at Headley Grange, a recording studio in Hampshire. Plant said he had been toying with a lyrical couplet inspired by Welsh lore and scenery and realised it could combine with Page’s notes. “Do you remember what that couplet was?” asked Anderson. Into a hushed courtroom Plant, half-speaking, half-singing, responded: “There’s a lady who’s sure all that glitters is gold, and she’s buying a stairway to heaven.” The singer dismissed any influence from Taurus. “I didn’t remember it then, and I don’t remember it now.” Led Zeppelin’s bass player and keyboardist, John Paul Jones, testified in the band’s defence but was not a defendant. Malofiy, a hard-charging lawyer with a bruising reputation, sought to pierce any reverence for the British rockers by calling them session musicians who played other people’s music, including that of Spirit, with whom they shared concert billing in the late 1960s. Page admitted Led Zeppelin used to play one Spirit song, Fresh Garbage, because back in the day the band would “chip a wink to what’s hot”. But he insisted he had not heard Taurus, part of Spirit’s debut album, even though it was in his collection of 4,329 LPs and 5,882 CDs. He heard it only after his son-in-law told him about internet chatter making comparisons with Stairway, he said. “I don’t do the internet, so he played it for me. When I heard the orchestral part at the beginning, I knew I’d never heard it before.” A witness for Wolfe’s estate testified about seeing Plant attend a Spirit gig and socialise with the US group at Mother’s, a Birmingham club, during its visit to England 1970. The singer shrugged that off. “I really don’t recall any of the bands I saw there or everyone I ever hung out with.” Malofiy accused Plant and Page of having selective memory. Unable to play recordings of Taurus to the jury, the attorney summoned musicologists who said the instrumental’s copyrighted sheet music shared with Stairway a descending A-minor chord progression, notes of the same duration, arpeggios and similar pairs of notes. The courtroom crackled when the attorney asked Page to analyse Taurus. “You want to step through it?” “Not necessarily,” Page replied. Page carried a guitar into court but was not asked to play. He did, however, mime air guitar and a dance move. Musicologists summoned for the defence said the descending chromatic minor line progression shared by both songs had been a common musical device for centuries. One example cited was Chim Chim Cher-ee, from the 1964 Disney musical Mary Poppins. Anderson said Wolfe’s estate was overreaching. “He didn’t create the key of A-minor.” The lawyer urged the jury to not let Michael Skidmore, trustee of the late musician’s estate, usurp history. “Randy California is entitled for credit for what he did, but not what he didn’t do. [The plaintiffs] are asking you to take this iconic song, ‘Stairway to Heaven,’ and say it has a new parent in Mr Skidmore.”
Iowa caucus day: Palin praises Trump as 'he who will be the next president' – as it happened As Winston Churchill once said, “This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” With only a few hours before the beginning of the Iowa caucuses, the final day of campaigning in the Hawkeye State has featured a mixture of cautious optimism, presumptuous triumph and forlorn resignation. Although the people voting tonight will only represent a tiny, disproportionately white sliver of the overall American electorate, the momentum out of Iowa could help crown a few potential nominees - and force other would-be presidents to take a deep look in the mirror. Click here for our all-night live blog. And scroll down for what happened before the sun went down in corn country. What kind of day has it been? Ted Cruz’s presidential campaign has faced increased criticism in the waning hours of the Iowa campaign after news broke that its aggressive voter-targeting operation is using detailed psychological profiles to sway voters. After having shifted the lion’s share of its ad spending over the weekend to targeting fellow freshman senator Marco Rubio, it may help Cruz beat the upstart Floridian - a Pyrrhic victory if billionaire frontrunner Donald Trump ends up winning the caucuses. Speaking of Trump, the real estate tycoon was lauded as “he who will be the next president” by former half-term governor Sarah Palin at his final campaign event of the caucus season. Trump predicted a “tremendous” victory for himself in Iowa, with his wife Melania and daughter Ivanka urging caucus-goers to turn up for Trump. Not everyone is so hot on the Donald, however - British singing sensation Adele has come out hard against the candidate’s use of her songs Skyfall and Rolling In the Deep at his campaign rallies. (If we were here, we’d be more upset that they were being played in the same set as Memory from Cats, but that’s just us.) Trump, characteristically intransigent, played Rolling In the Deep at the end of his rally in Iowa today, despite the singer’s protestations. Rick Santorum, who won the Iowa caucuses in 2012 and came within a hair’s breadth of winning the Republican nomination that cycle, held a wake for his campaign at a Pizza Ranch restaurant outside Des Moines, thanking his loyal supporters for their backing of “serious candidates”. Hillary Clinton may not have won the endorsement of Barack Obama, but she’s sure milking a friendly joint interview they gave 60 Minutes in 2013 for all it’s worth. Bernie Sanders has told reporters that his standing in Iowa is couched in turnout - a number set that the campaigns will be following very closely. Now we’re tossing it over to a wall-to-wall, start-to-finish, wire-to-wire liveblog dedicated exclusively to the Iowa caucuses. To close this update in the same manner that we opened it - with the wise words of a British icon - Adele has a message for beleaguered politicos: Ted Cruz completed “the Full Grassley” on Monday afternoon, which means the candidate has now visited all 99 counties in Iowa. In a community center gym in Jefferson, Iowa, Cruz gave his stump speech to a crowd of caucus-goers and journalists from outlets all over the world. In contrast to some of his bigger campaign events where there is an hour worth of introductory speakers, Cruz was preceded only by his wife Heidi and his Iowa campaign chair who each gave brief remarks. The Republican hopeful, known for his discipline on the stump, trotted out a couple of new lines. Cruz, who has long likened Barack Obama to Jimmy Carter and himself to Ronald Reagan, derided those Republicans who now insincerely claim to be Reagan acolytes. “We are all Reagan Republicans,” Cruz said of the GOP. “You can’t find a Republican politician who won’t swear on a stack of bibles that Ronald Reagan is tattooed somewhere on his body.” Cruz also refused to commit to pardoning Dwight and Steven Hammond, two ranchers whose conviction for arson sparked the occupation of Malheur National Wildlife Refuge by a group of anti-government extremists in January. “I don’t want to pre-judge the facts,” Cruz said, while noting “arson is a serious crime.” Yet for all the hoopla the Cruz campaign made of visiting all 99 counties - a feat also achieved by Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee this cycle - it felt a relatively normal, campaign event save for the massive presence of media. Caucusgoers tried ask Cruz questions and then gathered to take selfies with him afterwards, as on the second level of the community center gym, a local man worked out on a rowing machine. It was all typical Iowa retail politics and the culmination of what has been a textbook campaign to win over social conservative voters in the Hawkeye State. The question is whether that textbook still applies to Iowa caucuses in the age of Donald Trump. The White House has confirmed that Republican billionaire frontrunner Donald Trump has offered to spend $100 million on a new ballroom at the executive mansion - and also confirmed that Trump’s offer was swiftly nixed. “I’m [not] sure it would be appropriate to have a shiny gold ‘Trump’ sign on any part of the White House,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest said. “That’s what most of the buildings that he offers to build include, so I’m unclear if something like that would have been required with this offer as well.” “I can tell you that this was not something that was at all seriously considered,” Earnest said. He said he could not provide details because “I was not the one who was consulted.” Four years ago at the Pizza Ranch outside Des Moines, when Rick Santorum was on the verge of an upset beyond historic proportions, he drew a massive crowd that packed the local Iowa chain restaurant. Groups of reporters were pinned against the salad bar. You could barely move. The former Pennsylvania senator had to give two different speeches, one with a bullhorn. Four years later, on Sunday night back at the Pizza Ranch where this indefatigable social conservative had strode to victory over Mitt Romney and won the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses, the mood was totally different. This was no campaign rally; it was a wake. Sure, Santorum filled the party room, but only a handful of reporters were present. The parking lot, at least, was filled with Santorum bumper stickers from all over. These were the loyal supporters: staff members, volunteers, even longtime mega-donor Foster Friess. These were the people who had been with Santorum since he was at 2% in the polls back in 2011 and stood by him throughout the political rollercoaster ride that followed. They are with him again now, back at 2%. In both of his campaigns, Santorum has made the retail campaigning mega-tour of visiting each of Iowa’s 99 counties. In 2012, it gave him the grassroots support that he needed to win. In 2016, Santorum’s long haul means nothing as Ted Cruz has usurped his role as mantle-holder of the evangelical right and Donald Trump has swallowed up all the media attention. Santorum arrived insisting he was going to do a real town hall. After all, he had performed 700 events like this one in the past five years and was going to end on a strong note. He maintained confidence that he could somehow pull off another, even more improbable upset, noting that 36% of his supporters made up their mind on caucus night in 2012 and that even more people could still be persuaded this year. He insisted that the undercard debates, all of which he participated in, had demeaned the second-tier polling candidates. To Santorum, there was a need for “serious candidates to be taken seriously”. He dismissed polls and instead told Iowans to “vote your convictions”. By the end of Sunday night’s wake, it became more of a valedictory. Santorum was made an honorary Pizza Ranch employee. His campaign chairman noted that he had been to 120 of the chain’s locations. He was presented with a Pizza Ranch T-shirt – a fleece, too. Santorum told attendees that he liked campaigning in Iowa “beyond measure and I have learned so much from it”. He hoped to come back to a Pizza Ranch next time “When I come in on Air Force One,” he joked, “there may not be as many of these types of deals.” When Trump made his lone appearance at a Pizza Ranch earlier in January, the company’s CEO, Adrie Groeneweg, appeared to endorse him. Santorum got the honorary swag from his own campaign staffers. All the same, Santorum seemed grateful. He was moved by the presentation, and stayed to take selfies with well-wishers and supporters long after he stopped speaking. One Pizza Ranch miracle had worked before, he figured; there was no reason for him to suppose that it couldn’t happen again. Ted Cruz’s presidential campaign has ramped up its aggressive voter-targeting operation, paying out more than $3m to a company that is using detailed psychological profiles to sway voters. A analysis of the final campaign disclosures released on the eve of Iowa’s caucuses shows the Cruz campaign, banking on a win in the first-in-the-nation voting state, significantly outspent his main Republican rivals in targeting potential voters online during the final quarter of 2015. During this period, Cruz surged in the polls and emerged as a frontrunner from the crowded Republican race as attack ads rained down on Donald Trump and Marco Rubio. Over the weekend, the Cruz campaign came under fire separately for mailing accusations of a “voting violation” to individual Iowa residents amid what privacy and transparency experts said had amounted to “a military escalation” of data-driven campaigning. The federally mandated release of expenditure filings on Sunday shows a crescendo of spending as well-funded campaigns and their allied Super Pacs bolster their digital firepower by pouring record amounts of cash into the so-called “micro-targeting” of voters across social media with increasingly personal ads. Cruz, who trailed only Trump in the final polls ahead of Monday’s vote, has deepened his ties to the little-known data analytics firm, Cambridge Analytica, directing around 20% of overall spending during the reporting period to the data scientists embedded at Cruz’s campaign headquarters in Houston. Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, the two Republican candidates each vying to prove themselves the most viable alternative to Donald Trump, have been locked in a heated battle over immigration in the run-up to the Iowa caucuses on Monday night. Speaking to the as voting in the key state was about to begin, Rubio maintained that his record on immigration had been clear whereas Cruz, he said, had misled the American public. “Ted Cruz presents and portrays himself as this purist who’s never supported anything that even comes close to legalization [for undocumented immigrants] when in fact he did,” the Florida senator said after a town hall in Cedar Rapids on Sunday. “He helped design George W Bush’s legalization policy as a candidate, he openly and repeatedly talked about reaching a compromise on people that are here illegally … He said he wanted to see immigration reform pass, he wanted to see people come out of the shadows. And now he’s pretending that that never happened and it did. “It’s not about immigration. It’s about the calculation that he thinks he can say and do anything and people aren’t going to notice,” Rubio said. Rubio did not enter the final stretch of the Iowa caucus at the top of the polls, but nonetheless his rivals felt sufficiently threatened to spend at least $20m on ads attacking him – largely focused on his record on immigration. At present he stands third in polling behind Cruz and frontrunner Donald Trump in Iowa, andthird in the national Republican race. Cruz’s closing argument across Iowa drew heavily on Rubio’s support in 2013 for a comprehensive bill to make the case that “a vote for Marco Rubio is a vote for amnesty”. “I’ve been clear,” Rubio told the . “I don’t think we can fix this comprehensively, I’ve been very clear about that. That was tried. It failed, for good reason, because Americans don’t trust the federal government and we’re going to have to do this in stages beginning with enforcement.” So much of Donald Trump’s campaign is built around being a winner, it’s hard to imagine how he’d handle a loss - in Iowa or anywhere else. Winning is the thing he mentions everywhere he goes. It’s his favorite topic, other than the particulars of his poll numbers and how dishonest the media is. It’s quite possibly the only reason Sarah Palin endorsed him at all. “I’m in it to win it,” as she said. On the campaign trail in Iowa, Trump has been relentlessly driving home the message that second best is never enough for him. Or as he put it, “If I don’t win all of it … I’ve wasted my time.” Even when it comes to staffers, the message is winning all the way down; his campaign manager said recently that anything short of a first place finish would be a loss. This reductionist rhetoric is hard to argue with when Trump keeps pulling out poll numbers like a lucky rabbit from a hat. But what happens when the magic stops? Which is to say, when your entire platform consists of winning, if it’s everything you have to offer, what happens when a winner loses? Research conducted by political scientist Larry Bartels suggests that in the scenario he loses, the long-term political outlook for Trump isn’t good. Bartels observed a “bandwagon effect” whereby political preferences and expectations were self-reinforcing, particularly among low-information voters. If Trump were to lose his winning luster, his voters could turn on him just as quickly. Of course Trump’s polling ahead in Iowa. And there’s little reason to think this will be his Waterloo, or even the exact moment the tides turn on him. But it could be just about the bend. Pop queen Adele might not be a fan the Donald, but she can’t stop him blasting her tunes at rallies. Steve Gordon, an entertainment lawyer and author of The Future of the Music Business, tells the that usually artists are stuck with whatever nutty candidate wants to play them. Essentially, to play a recording of a song a political event - such as Adele’s Rolling in the Deep at a Trump rally - the promoter simply gets a license from a licensing agent (either ASCAP, BMI or SESAC). And because of federal government laws, the licensing agent cannot deny a license to anyone who applies. There are three things artists regularly try and sue for when their songs appear somewhere they don’t want, says Gordon: trademark infringement, right of publicity and unfair trade practises. “If I, as a reasonable person, at a Trump or [Mike] Huckabee rally where Adele was played thought that Adele was endorsing the campaign she should have a cause of action,” says Gordon. But Gordon adds that simply playing a recording of a song doesn’t count as a sufficient endorsement. Plus, Adele declaring that she “has not given permission for her music to be used for any political campaigning,” means that it’s even clearer to voters that she doesn’t support him. “If she’s coming out publicly against using her music, then she’s not endorsing him so no one would think she was. If I was his lawyer, he’s got a strong case, and she’s got a BS claim. If they tried to do anything legally… at the end of the day, she’d lose,” said Gordon. Is there anything artists can do to make sure someone with completely different political views to them stays away from their music? “Not really,” laughed Gordon. Donald Trump made his final pitch to Iowa caucus-goers at a campaign rally in Cedar Rapids, Iowa - and got in some good jabs at current (and possible future) opponents, to boot. “Did any phrase hit a human being like ‘low energy’ hit Jeb?” the billionaire frontrunner asked the ebullient crowd. Of his potential Democratic rivals, Trump was even more dismissive. “Man, I’d love to run against the communist in this country,” he said of Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, although he’s “dying” to run against former secretary of state Hillary Clinton. Trump began the speech by urging his supporters to be on the lookout for any protesters throwing tomatoes. “The security guys, we have wonderful security guess,” Trump said of the Secret Service. “They said, ‘Mr. Trump, there may be somebody with tomatoes in the audience.’” “So if you see somebody getting ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of them, would you? Seriously,” he said. “Okay, just knock the hell. I promise you I will pay for the legal fees. I promise. I promise. They won’t be so much because the courts agree with us, too.” After lambasting the assembled members of the “totally, totally, totally dishonest” national political press - “The only time they show the crowd is when there’s a protestor, so I love our protestors” - Trump introduced his third wife, Melania, an occasionally seen but seldom heard member of the Trump family, who urged the crowd to caucus for her husband. “This is very very special night you voting for your next president,” Melania said with a heavy Slovenian accent. “The man who will work for you, who will work with you, and who is that man?” After a pause, filled by the screams and hoots of the crowd, she pointed to her husband. “I agree - he is the man. Good luck, thank you!” Trump then introduced his daughter, Ivanka, who pledged that her father “will exceed your expectations” as the Republican nominee. The billionaire frontrunner returned to the lectern for a long, meandering speech on various policy issues, ranging from the Iran nuclear deal (“terrible”) to foreign policy (“we are not respected anymore”) to Vladimir Putin (“He said ‘Donald Trump is a genius!’”) to Caroline Kennedy (“my daughter Ivanka likes her”) to Isis (“a good promoter”). Trump positioned himself as a reluctant candidate for the White House. “I had to do it, but it wasn’t something that I wanted to do,” he said of his June announcement at Trump Tower in Manhattan. But once he did, he spurred the rise of “a movement.” “We have a movement going,” Trump told the crowd. “No matter where we go, we have incredible, incredible crowds and we are truly going to take back this country.” He then played Adele’s Rolling in the Deep as he left the stage. After Donald Trump’s campaign treated those assembled at a rally in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, to Adele’s Skyfall on the billionaire’s pre-rally playlist - in defiance of the British diva’s demands - Trump was introduced by former half-term governor of Alaska Sarah Palin, who trumpeted the Republican frontrunner as the perfect person to fill “the highest CEO position in the land”. In a speech delivered in Palin’s now-familiar word salad speaking style - “they’re making no sense because it’s led us to - things like, oh gosh, to pay the bills, then, we have had to, uh, print money out of thin air and things” - the former Republican vice presidential nominee said that Trump was the sole candidate who was American enough to be the party’s standard bearer. Republicans and Democrats may hate Trump, Palin said, “but we love he who will be - the next president of the United States”. “We’re here, we’re clear, get used to it,” she said of his followers. After a riff on guns, echoing her endorsement speech in deriding liberals who don’t appreciate “guns and our constitution and those who don’t still want to be with us to fight for it, our rights to exercise that”, Palin introduced Trump, who was joined by his wife Melania and daughter Ivanka. The Republican billionaire frontrunner picks up his most important endorsement to date: The US military commander in charge of the Iraq-Syria war has tacitly rebuked pledges by leading Republican presidential contenders to “carpet-bomb” the Islamic State. Though army Lieutenant General Sean MacFarland did not call out Donald Trump and Ted Cruz by name, he rejected what he called “indiscriminate” bombing as illegal, immoral and un-American. “We are bound by the laws of armed conflict and at the end of the day it doesn’t only matter whether or not you win, it matters how you win,” MacFarland told reporters on Monday. As Iowans were set to caucus in the first presidential contest of 2016, MacFarland said “indiscriminate bombing, where we don’t care if we’re killing innocents or combatants, is just inconsistent with our values”, despite two major White House contenders adopting it as a central proposal against Isis. Trump, the Republican frontrunner, told an Iowa crowd he would “bomb the shit out of ’em … there would be nothing left”. His closest rival, the Texas senator Ted Cruz, has repeatedly vowed to pursue the “fundamentally different military strategy” of carpet-bombing Isis without “apology”, most recently in last Thursday’s debate. “We will carpet-bomb [Isis] into oblivion,” Cruz said in Iowa last month. Vampire Weekend played a benefit for Bernie Sanders at the weekend, but which other rock stars have declared their intentions? Which candidate has bagged the big names – and is anyone backing Donald Trump? Bernie Sanders As the leftwing choice in 2016, Sanders is not short of rock star fans. Vampire Weekend played a benefit in Iowa on Saturday (the band were joined by Sanders and his wife Jane for a rendition of Woody Guthrie’s This Land is Your Land), and others will appear at a Feel the Bern fundraiser in Los Angeles on Friday. Headliners will be the Red Hot Chili Peppers, who – presumably after a long band meeting – collectively declared in favour of the Vermont senator last September. “Bernie Sanders is the only remotely reasonable candidate for president of the United States,” Flea had already tweeted in August. (The Chili Peppers, of course, being longstanding experts on what’s reasonable.) Indeed, looking down the list of official Sanders backers, despite the presence of progressive rappers such as Killer Mike and Lil B, there seems to be a prevailing 80s and 90s flavour, suggesting he appeals more to the middle-aged indie crowd than to millennials. There’s Lou Barlow of Dinosaur Jr, Jello Biafra of the Dead Kennedys, Belinda Carlisle of the Go-Go’s, Jon Fishman of Phish, Billy Gould of Faith No More, Chris Shiflett of the Foo Fighters, Maureen Herman of Babes in Toyland and Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth. Going further back, the faint sound of barrel-scraping gets louder as David Crosby, Mike Watt of the Stooges and Donovan (Mellow Yellow guy, British not American) are also included. Strangely, there’s no sign on the list of Roger Waters (also British), who endorsed Sanders last October, or Simon and Garfunkel, who gave permission for their song America to be used on a campaign ad. This did “not imply an endorsement from Simon and Garfunkel”, a spokesperson said at the time, but Art Garfunkel later told CNN that he and Simon were both asked about the song. “It’s the moment when you say, Am I a Bernie guy? Yes, I am.” Billy Bragg supports Sanders, too, but doesn’t make the website either. Hillary Clinton If the US were a rockocracy (one small mercy to be thanked, there), then the 2016 election would already be effectively over, with Hillary and Bill back in the White House. That’s because Clinton has all the blue-chip endorsements going, including – deep breath – Kanye West, Beyoncé, Pharrell Williams, Katie Perry, Christina Aguilera, Burt Bacharach, Tony Bennett, Jon Bon Jovi, Mariah Carey, Cher, Kelly Clarkson, Ellie Goulding, Ice-T, Ja Rule, Elton John, Quincy Jones, Lady Gaga, Jennifer Lopez, Ricky Martin, Janelle Monae, Morrissey, Snoop Dogg, 50 Cent, Sting, Barbra Streisand, James Taylor, Usher, will.i.am and Stevie Wonder. Which ought to do it. The trouble with having such famous fans, however, is that they do tend to be asked their opinions about things, and their opinions are often fairly odd. For instance, 50 Cent spoke surprisingly warmly of Hillary to the Daily Beast, before explaining that he mainly admired her for tolerating Bill’s infidelity. “The lust factor out of convenience,” he said. “Things happen at points, and her seeing past that made her human to me.” Uh-huh. Donald Trump Always the mould-breaker, Trump is actually more of a specialist in counter-endorsements. Only this week, Adele has insisted that she did not give permission for him to play Rolling in the Deep or Skyfall at his rallies. Trump also got a letter from Steve Tyler’s lawyers after he used Aerosmith’s Dream On which, the letter complained, “gives a false impression that [Tyler] is connected with or endorses Mr Trump’s presidential bid”. Michael Stipe of REM was even more forthright, if less lawyerly, last autumn, when he refused Trump permission to use his music with the words, “Go fuck yourselves, the lot of you – you sad, attention-grabbing, power-hungry little men. Do not use our music or my voice for your moronic charade of a campaign.” President Barack Obama hasn’t endorsed any of the Democratic presidential hopefuls this cycle - despite rumors of an imminent White House mic drop being peddled furiously by members of a certain former secretary of state’s campaign. While Hillary Clinton’s campaign shivers with antici... pation for that endorsement, the ex-member of Obama’s cabinet isn’t holding back any file video of the president piling on the positive descriptors. In a tweet from Clinton’s official Twitter account, she points to a 60 Minutes interview from 2013 after she stepped down as secretary of state, in which Obama called her “one of the finest secretary of states we’ve had.” “It has been a great collaboration over the last four years,” Obama continued in that interview. “I’m going to miss her. Wish she was sticking around ... But I want the country to appreciate just what an extraordinary role she’s played during the course of my administration and a lot of the successes we’ve had internationally have been because of her hard work.” The Iowa caucuses are perhaps the most important yet mysterious contest in American politics. The concept of an election is familiar to everyone – but by its very name, a caucus sounds different and archaic. However, give or take a few wrinkles, the Iowa caucuses are simply another election, held on a cold winter’s night in the Hawkeye State. But those wrinkles do matter quite a bit. Is it the same process for Democrats and Republicans? No. Whereas Republicans have a relatively straightforward process, in which they cast secret ballots in their precinct caucuses, it’s far more complex for Democrats. Republicans Republicans have a secret ballot. Voters take a piece of paper and mark the name of the candidate whom they support. These votes get counted in each precinct and reported to the state party. These totals are supposed to be reflected in the final Republican delegation to the national convention. Rules implemented after Ron Paul finished third on caucus night in 2012 but eventually controlled Iowa’s delegation are supposed to enforce this. The totals reported on caucus night are simply normal vote tallies as in any other election. That is not the case with Democrats. Democrats Democratic caucuses are quite undemocratic. Each precinct is apportioned a number of delegates based on Democratic turnout in the past two elections. It’s like an electoral college at a micro level. This means turnout doesn’t matter. If a precinct is supposed to have five delegates to the county convention, it doesn’t matter if eight people show up to the Democratic caucus or 800. The precinct is still only getting five delegates. (Precincts elect people to the county convention, which elects people to the district convention, which elects people to the state convention.) After attendees show up to a Democratic caucus, they are divided into preference groups based on candidates whom they support. Bernie Sanders supporters will stand in one area, Hillary Clinton supporters in another. Once everyone is separated, there is a first count of how many supporters each candidate has. To be viable in each precinct, a candidate usually needs to receive the support of 15% of those who attend, although in some small rural precincts, the threshold is higher. If a candidate’s support is under that threshold, his or her supporters need to induce others to join their group in order to reach 15%. If they are unsuccessful in doing so, their candidate is not considered viable and they can either go home or support a candidate who is viable instead. There is then a second count of supporters for each candidate and, from those totals, delegates are assigned. This means that if Democratic candidates are polling under 15% statewide on caucus night, they could significantly underperform compared to their polling. Key demographic groups Despite this socially conservative slant, the key group in Iowa on the Republican side in 2016 will be more moderate “country club” Republicans. With Donald Trump and Ted Cruz appealing to those conservative voters looking for red meat, if moderate Republicans in the eastern part of the state coalesce behind one establishment candidate – Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush or Chris Christie – it could make this a three-person primary, with evangelical, conservative and establishment camps each emerging with a viable contender. On the Democratic side, students will be the key demographic to watch. This will be the first Iowa caucus in over a decade that has taken place when colleges and universities are in session. If Bernie Sanders can successfully organize and turn out young people across the state, it could give him an edge in several key counties across the state. Turnout will also be important on the Republican side, as many of the voters most attracted to Trump’s candidacy are new to the political process. The higher the turnout, the better for Trump. In contrast, overall turnout is a mixed indicator for the Democratic primary. While Sanders is also hoping to turn out a number of voters new to the political process, an increase in turnout doesn’t necessarily bode well for him. After all, while Clinton may have lost the state in 2008, she still vastly surpassed her vote goals and likely turned out more people than every other Democratic candidate in the history of the caucuses besides Obama. A fire started in Adele’s heart by Donald Trump has finally reached fever pitch, with the UK pop star banning the US presidential candidates from using her music. “Adele has not given permission for her music to be used for any political campaigning,” her spokesperson told the Independent. For months, Adele’s smash hits Rolling In The Deep (“We could have had it all”) and Skyfall (“Let the sky fall/When it crumbles/We will stand tall/Face it all together”) have blasted out at Trump rallies to warm up crowds. Mike Huckabee made a recent parody campaign video using her recent hit “Hello”, but it was quickly removed from YouTube. The six-time Grammy winner had avoided making a statement about the use of her music by any political candidates until now. Trump attended Adele’s one-off Radio City Music Hall concert last November, but it seems she is not willing to give him the same endorsement. Other artists have also objected to their songs being played at Trump rallies, with Steve Tyler of Aerosmith sending a cease-and-desist letter to Trump after the billionaire kept playing Dream On. Trump stopped playing the song, but argued that the incident amounted to a publicity stunt for Tyler. “Steven Tyler got more publicity on his song request than he’s gotten in ten years,” he tweeted in October. “Good for him!” But Trump isn’t yet ready to say goodbye to Adele yet - he exited the stage in Iowa earlier today to one of her tracks. Miscellany from the field (via Twitter). CNN’s Jeff Zeleny is with Bernie Sanders, who’s stopped by his Des Moines campaign headquarters to rally the team for tonight’s caucuses. He tells them the message of the polls: NBC’s Andrea Mitchell is meanwhile with the deflated Rick Santorum, who over four years has gone from king of the Pizza Ranch to honorary employee. Santorum will be damned darned though if he doesn’t try to deflate Ted Cruz. And Politico’s Kenneth Vogle crunches some numbers from the weekend’s campaign finance disclosures. Trump spent least, Casich spent most; Clinton and Sanders have the most money in their pockets. Trump concludes his speech with a call to get out and caucus tonight. “It’s we, it’s a movement,” he says. “It’s not me, it’s we.” He tells them that nothing – not weather, not illness, not a thing – should stop them from going out to vote. “If the doctor says you cannot leave, I don’t care, get outta bed” – the crowd laughs – “you gotta do it.” And finally he channels a bit of Bernie Sanders, saying that he wants voters to make this election the beginning of a “revolution”: “in a certain way a very positive revolution. I mean, this would be a very, very positive revolution.” He says he’s going to remember everybody. “And I love you all, special people, thank you all.” An Adele song serenades him out. “You know Obama’s a terrible negotiator,” except when negotiating with Republicans, Trump continues. “I’m not even angry,” he says. I’m not angry at the Democrats because we understand where they’re coming from. I’m angry at the Republicans because the Republicans just roll over and allow this stuff to take place. He segues to gun control, and says that had people had guns during November’s Paris terrorist attacks, 130 people would not have died. Trump has used the massacre to argue in favor of gun rights for months, though not always so explicitly. He moves on to the Syrian refugee crisis and foreign affairs, saying that he would make the Gulf States deal with the chaos of the Syrian civil war. They would have to create and manage “a big, fat, beautiful safe zone”, he says. “We protect Germany, we protect Saudi Arabia, we protect Japan,” he says, bemoaning US military bases abroad and the protection treaties between countries. The billionaire criticizes the Gulf States for not “putting any money toward the migrants.” By the way I have a big heart, I want to take care of [these people], but they are not coming into this country. “It’s going to all change, folks. It’s going to all change.” Trump offers the crowd a surprisingly anti-materialistic philosophy for a billionaire who has gilded parts of his personal jet. “I’ve seen people, I’ve seen the most successful people in the world,” he says, some of whom are actually not happy at all.” “Someone who’s made millions of dollars and does not feel so great about themselves and is always wanting more more more.” But “the happiest people I’ve seen”, he says, have great families. “And by the way believing in God is so important, and I’ve seen that so much.” Segue to conservative Christians. “The evangelicals have been unbelievable to Donald Trump … Boy, do they understand me. They understand me better than anybody. We’re gonna protect our country. We’re gonna protect christianity. You know, Christianity is under siege, folks. He segues to Mexico and the wall. Mexico’s definitely gonna pay for it, he says, because they make so much money even before he starts considering “the drug trafficking”. He’ll build a great wall, though. “What I do best in life is build, you know? I’ve built these buildings that are so great,” he says. I say it not in a braggadocious way but that’s the kind of thinking we need in this country. … We have people who don’t know what they’re doing. We have $19tn [debt]. This isn’t a word that was in the vocabulary 10 years ago. NB: “braggadocious” is only sort of a real word in the vocabulary 10 years ago, depending on your dictionary politics. Donald Trump is holding a rally in Waterloo, Iowa. He’s standing with some men who’re holding an oversized check. One is “Tim with Americans for Independent Living,” a veterans organization from the city. “I like him,” Trump says. “These people are amazing. Some of the people we’re giving this money to, they’re incredible people. It’s such an honor to be in a country with people like this.” Then he introduces his wife Melania, who’s been “so supportive”. They trade glancing kisses, the smacking sound of which is audible through the mic. He introduces his daughter Ivanka and her husband. “Jared’s a very successful man from New York he’s done a fantastic job, he’s done a lot of real estate.” Then he jokes that his daughter is “going to have a baby perhaps in 10 minutes, or a week or two weeks.” “Nice family is always the best thing, you know that, right?” Bernie Sanders has been endorsed by a “servant of the moon” in Fairfield, Iowa, where my colleague Dan Roberts is interviewing the mystical men and Sweden-friendly women who are out to support the senator from Vermont. “I ride my bike and I blast Frank Zappa music,” one told Dan. As for Sanders: “he’s off the charts, he’s off the grid.” Every four years the threats of self-imposed exile begin again, though were they likely loudest during George W Bush’s 2004 re-election campaign. Should the Republican win, liberals warned, they’ll up and move to Canada. Turns out some of them did. Jordan Teicher reports on the men and women who moved to Vancouver to escape living in a country led by Bush. “It’s been a little over a decade now. We have clear eyes about what we did. We have no intention of going back,” Drucker said. On election day in 2004, a record-setting 179,000 people visited Canada’s official immigration website, the majority of them Americans. And as anxieties about the outcome of 2016 begin to grow, some Americans are again musing about fleeing to their northern neighbor. In September, the digital analytics firm Luminoso found about 4% of 4.5 million Donald Trump-related tweets contained threats to leave the country if the billionaire became president. Of those, 25,000 identified Canada as their intended destination. Since then, comedian and Obama “anger translator” Keegan-Michael Key has joined the chorus. Even former USdefense secretary Robert Gates joked about emigrating if Trump took office. According to the Canadian government, only about 9,000 Americans have emigrated to Canada every year in the years between 2005 and 2015. Jim DeLaHunt left an engineering management position with Adobe in California for uncertain prospects in Canada after Bush’s re-election. Leaving behind his country’s penchant for authoritarianism, war and inequality, he says, was the right call. DeLaHunt, now a tech consultant, misses the scale and ambition of the technology industry in the United States, but says he wouldn’t trade life in Vancouver to go back to it. He and his wife integrated easily into Canadian society, he said, learning how to be “less arrogant and a bit more gentle”, and even picking up local etiquette and speech patterns. “Canadians say ‘sorry’ a lot more than people in the US do. They thank the bus driver as they get off the bus. In the US, if someone says ‘thank you’ a typical response might be ‘sure’. That seems awfully brusque in Canada. A better response is, ‘No worries.’ There’s little things like that, and if you get those things right you blend in on a day-to-day level,” he said. For Laura Kaminker, however, that’s completely out of the question. In the 20 years before she and her partner Allan Wood finally moved to Canada from New York City in 2005, she had “lost hope” in the country she saw plagued by “civil liberties crackdowns” and “endless wars”. Although she still has her American citizenship, she doesn’t vote any more in US elections, and whenever she comes back to Canada after visiting family or friends in the States, she breathes a sigh of relief. “Every time I say, ‘God, I’m so glad to be out of that crazy country,’” she said. Six Republican candidates will sit down to take an interview with one man on Monday: Britain-born radio host Simon Conway, an unlikely icon of Iowa conservatives and “one of the proudest citizens of the United States, ever”. Conway’s patriotic, country musi opening isn’t unusual for any rightwing talk show host – particularly one who, in Conway’s case, will on Monday interview six Republican candidates on the day of the caucuses. What is unusual is that when Conway takes the microphone, he speaks in an estuary inflected English accent. Although Conway takes pains to “point out I am American – born British, naturalized American now”, the accent does make him a somewhat unusual kingmaker. Tea Party radio hosts in early voting states are not often born in London. After a career in journalism and corporate communications in the UK, Conway moved to Orlando, Florida in 2001. He entered the real estate business, which he found very competitive. “There are thousands of people selling real estate in Orlando, literally,” he told the . So he tried to distinguish himself by buying time on the radio. He got himself a one-hour weekend show and fell in love with the medium. “From the very first moment I was on the air,” he said, “I did not talk about real estate. It was like an epiphany. I had come home.” Conway fell into a career as a fill-in talk show host, travelling across the US to what he described as “major, major stations”. In 2011, he took a job at WHO. Speaking to the , as he enthused about his Iowa workplace, one the most recognized and honored radio stations in the US and a long-time employer of Ronald Reagan, he said: “If you’re serious about talk radio, this isn’t a job you turn down.” “I am an equal-opportunity hater. I treat people the same whether I agree with them or [they] don’t agree with me. I will always challenge their positions. “There are [as many] Republicans who don’t want to face those questions as there are Democrats. The likes of [Ohio governor] John Kasich haven’t been in my studio because he knows it isn’t going to end well.” Conway worries, meanwhile, that the US is becoming like Great Britain. “People rely on government too much in the UK,” he said. “‘Government is the solution. Government will take care of me.’” On Monday, just before Iowans head to the caucuses, he will share such warnings again, not just with a listening audience of tens of thousands, but potentially the next president as well. Texas senator Ted Cruz has had a hard weekend. He’s locked in a close race for Iowa’s most conservative voters with Donald Trump, who has mocked and derided Cruz as a “nasty guy” and “anchor baby in Canada” for weeks. Cruz’s favorable ratings have dropped … even with his family. Buzzfeed’s Rachel Zarrell has gif’d Sunday’s painful moment. New Hampshire was supposed to be where Jeb Bush had his comeback. Or where Chris Christie had his breakout moment. Or where Marco Rubio solidified his momentum. In the last few days Ohio governor John Kasich has had New Hampshire all to himself while the other Republicans blanket Iowa in search of last-minute votes. On Sunday Kasich held his 85th and 86th town hall style events in the state. “I’m a lot more interested in talking about what I’m for than the people who are in the primary up here in New Hampshire,” Kasich told to the dozens of voters who came out on a sunny winter’s day in Salem. “ I want to raise the bar. I want us to regain hope in this country. We can make this country work again.” The audience broke into applause. While his opponents tap into voters frustration, preaching doom and gloom, Kasich is wooing moderate Republicans and Independent voters at schools, churches, gymnasiums and community centers across the state with a decidedly sunny vision for the country. And it seems to be working. A series of recent state polls show Kasich’s steady rise – and complicated path forward – placing him in a tie for second place with three different candidates – Bush, Rubio and Ted Cruz. A RealClearPolitics.com average of state polls confirms his second place standing there behind longtime Republican frontrunner Donald Trump. In Bow on Sunday night, with a national debt clock ticking behind him, Kasich himself as a conservative, pointing to his record on fiscal issues in Congress and as governor. In a race defined so far by bombast and dire visions of America, Kasich answered voters with careful but decidedly, even confidently, moderate answers. “If you’re in the cupcake business and somebody comes in and wants cupcakes, sell them cupcakes, that’s my feeling about that.“I won’t have an argument about who you’re selling the cupcake to, I just don’t agree with that,” Kasich said, told a voter who was concerned about the erosion of religious liberties. When a first-time voter asked him why Republicans shy away from the topic of climate change, Kasich told him: “Do I believe that human beings affect the climate? I do,” Kasich told the young voter on Sunday afternoon. “But we don’t quite know how much. But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t things we need to do.” Kasich has mostly forsaken the race in Iowa, placing his best hopes in New Hampshire where he has built momentum over the past few months that he hopes will power his campaign through the next few primaries and on to Super Tuesday and beyond. Tom Rath, a senior adviser to the Kasich campaign, said the governor’s aim is to be “the story” coming out of the New Hampshire primary on 9 February. A strong finish in New Hampshire could make Kasich a clear establishment favorite, Rath said, and help him compete for the blue and purple midwestern states, including Ohio. But if Kasich does place favorably in New Hampshire, he still faces a long road ahead to the nomination. He’ll have to clear the so-called “establishment” lane, which he currently shares uncomfortably with Rubio, Christie and Bush. It’s also a lane voters seem to be turning away from in droves, borne out by the support anti-establishment, outsider candidacy of Donald Trump. Stacey Gobron, one of the state’s coveted undecided Independent voters, said her husband, Bob, brought her to the event. She’s been disappointed by the Republican party’s frontrunners and was hoping to hear something different. “I want low taxes like a Republican but I’m also not so [socially] conservative,” Gobron said. After hearing Kasich speak in Salem, Gobron said she believes she’s found a candidate to support and she’s optimistic others like her will come around as well. “He’s so genuine and I feel there’s an honesty about him,” Gobron said of Kasich. “He’s the opposite of Trump. I really believe people are going to get tired of the show. Eventually they will want the genuine.” A lot of famous family in this election, and with the first vote on the line the candidates are bringing out whomever they can. Senator Rand Paul is trying to win some libertarian love for his dad, former congressman Ron Paul (who put in a strong Iowa showing once upon a time) … … Hillary Clinton has got her husband, a saxophonist who was big in the 90s, on the trail for her … But John Ellis Bush is apparently reluctant to trot out his own famous family members, #41 George HW and #43 George W. Instead he’s tweeted this dog in a sweater. Maybe it’s an underdog. Martin O’Malley, the third Democratic candidate clinging to his campaign like McNulty clung to the bottle, Bubbles to sobriety and Carcetti to the war on drugs, took out a $500,000 loan to keep his campaign afloat, FEC forms show. For comparison, his opponent Bernie Sanders raised $20m in January alone, the campaign announced yesterday. Contributions averaged $27. Staffers are reportedly working without pay, but O’Malley’s telling voters to “hold strong”. He’s consistently polled around 3% in Iowa, where the caucus system requires Democrats manage at last 15% or take no delegates at all in respective precincts. Mashable’s Juana Summers is with the former Baltimore mayor and Maryland governor on the trail. NB: O’Malley was an inspiration for The Wire, is what’s going on with the links and allusions. Well ya know what they say up in my parts, reality TV loves company even though the liberal media’s heads are spinning with the rock’n’rollers for Donald Trump, who’s gonna get that capitulator-in-chief out of the White House, and – yes, Sarah Palin is back on TV. (Nobody has ever said this though.) Palin appeared on NBC’s Today Show on Monday to share her thoughts about the primary election, even though the former governor of Alaska has never campaigned in the Iowa caucuses. John McCain chose her as his running-mate months after the 2008 caucuses, in which he placed fourth, behind Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney and the actor Fred Thompson. But Palin has endorsed Trump for the Republican nomination, and was happy to talk about it. She said that Trump’s less-than-devout religiosity – on Sunday he pulled out cash during communion, mistaking it for an offering – should not turn her evangelical fans away from the billionaire. “I hope voters aren’t trying to find the most Christian-y, godliest candidate out there,” she said, “because, you know, who are we to judge one another’s level of faith our Christian quotient, if you will.” “Hopefully people are looking for he who has that record of success that proves he’s going to be able to get that job done for us.” Nor should Trump’s history of supporting Democrats scare away voters, she said. “You compare him to someone like Ronald Reagan, who too at one point was at registered Democrat. And then he saw the light.” She said she was glad Trump understands that “free markets and capitalism and restoration of our freedom is the way for America to be restored. We should celebrate that he has come over on the right side.” “I believe that he will win win Iowa,” she said. “Iowa voters too are ready for restoration of constitutional government again, and Donald Trump is the one who can do this. That said, she added that she’s a fan of Ted Cruz too. “Yeah, tonight, whatever the outcome, I think the Republican party again is in a fortunate problem of having good candidates at the top.” On the eve of the Iowa caucuses, eight years after the crushing disappointment of her defeat by Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton made her final pitch to a gymnasium packed with roughly 2,600 people. “I’m a better candidate,” she said. “And, thanks to you, I’ll be a better president.” The crowd was not just one of the largest of her campaign. It also rivaled in its enthusiasm scenes that have become synonymous with rallies held by her opponent, Bernie Sanders. Accompanied by her husband Bill and daughter Chelsea, the former secretary of state fashioned herself as a pragmatic progressive with a history of accomplishment to match her soaring rhetoric. The same night in Des Moines, around 1,700 people attended Sanders’ Sunday night rally. A crowd as large as 5,000 saw him joined by indie band Vampire Weekend at the University of Iowa on Saturday. “She’s a world-class change-maker,” her husband said, adding that a president must be find common ground with rivals, and without sacrificing principles. “Of all of the people I have ever worked with in my public life, Hillary is the best at that.” Much of Clinton’s closing argument in Iowa and New Hampshire has centered around the idea that the policies put forward by Sanders, a self-identified democratic socialist, might sound appealing but are ultimately impractical. “Senator Sanders wants to start over – to plunge us into a contentious national debate,” Clinton said. “Stick with the Affordable Care Act, stick with making it better,.” Clinton also took a veiled shot at Sanders by vowing not to raise taxes on the middle class, following an acknowledgement by the senator’s campaign that his healthcare plan would require a tax hike on most Americans – in return, they say, for larger savings on insurance costs. “I will not raise middle class taxes – absolutely off the table. I will follow the money to the top,” Clinton said. DC bureau chief Dan Roberts, reporting from Iowa with colleagues, the campaigns and maybe every political journalist in the continental US. “When you can’t move in your local coffee shop because they are filming breakfast TV political shows. Des Moines on caucus day.” Four years ago a one-term senator so drew the crowds of Iowa that he had to deliver two speeches at one restaurant, one using a bullhorn. But although Rick Santorum won Iowa on the strength of his evangelical credentials, he failed to make a mark on the rest of the 2012 primary, which Mitt Romney survived to win the nomination. Which raises a question: is Iowa any good at predicting a winner? As usual, it depends. In modern elections, the conventional wisdom is that candidate’s need a top-three finish to have a chance – though in 2008, for instance, John McCain placed fourth. Iowa Democrats have had more success picking the eventual nominee than their Republican counterparts. But it is just the first state of many that will eventually decide who runs in the general election. And if you’d like to know more about the sad travails of Rick Santorum, my colleague Ben Jacobs was with the former senator at a Pizza Ranch yesterday – that same site of Santorum’s glory four years ago. Santorum was declared an “honorary employee”. Better to ask and learn than live in ignorance. The Iowa caucuses are the first decision of the presidential election, and a means for the rural state to influence a national election that is often dominated by the dense populations of big states like California and Florida. And sometimes there are cookies. They caucuses start at 7pm local time, though campaigns recommend Iowans get there early – once you’re late you’re out. How do they work? Republicans hold a pretty normal election. They meet up in precinct caucuses, eg schools, churches, town halls, and cast secret ballots for whomever like best. Officials count, and each candidate receives a proportional number of delegates. Democrats play a sort of musical chairs. They vote publicly in a two-stage election: candidates need at least 15% or their supporters have to either choose another candidate or go home. There’s talking, debate, persuasion, acrimony, all the good stuff of democracy on a very local scale – but whether 10 or 1,000 people show up, each precinct only has its pre-assigned number of delegates. After the field is winnowed down, there’s a second vote, a count, and delegates are doled out. Video editor Valerie Lapinski explains. Some other notes: Attendees can register for or switch parties on caucus night, and anyone 18 or older can participate. In states with closed primaries, by contrast, voters can only vote for someone in the party of their registered affiliation. Caucuses are run by the parties, not the state, so volunteers will count votes across Iowa’s 99 counties. Republicans count ballots on location and that report to the party; Democrats figure out the delegates on location. Mistakes happen. And while history suggests it’s important to place in the top three in Iowa if you want a real chance at the nomination, recent elections have produced odd winners … mostly for Republicans. Rick Santorum won in 2012, and Mike Huckabee in 2008; neither won the nomination, and neither are showing strength in polls. Need more about the weird machinery of American politics? My colleague Ben Jacobs explains in depth through the link below. One last one last poll, this one from Quinnipiac University and with an emphasis on the giant question that looms over even the very large head and hair of Donald Trump: who will actually come out to caucus? For first-time likely caucus goers, Trump has a steady lead over Texas senator Ted Cruz, 31% to 24%. Florida senator Marco Rubio has gained, with 17%, and Ben Carson is hovering only a little above rest of the pack at 8%. No one else has more than 4%. But for Republicans who’ve caucused before, the race is far closer. Among these caucusers, Cruz leads Trump 26% to 25%. Rubio’s got 20%. Twenty-eight percent of the people who named a candidate said they might still change their mind, and 3% said they were undecided. The Democratic race has a similar dynamic. Bernie Sanders leads Clinton 62% to 35% with would be first-time caucusers. Clinton has the edge 52-41% with Iowans who’ve shown up to caucuses before. There’s less room to maneuver, though: only 2% say they’re undecided, and only 14% of those who named a candidate say they might change their mind. Martin O’Malley’s supporters amount to 3% of the people surveyed, in line with other polls. All of this means high turnout should be good for Trump and Sanders, low turnout good for Cruz and Clinton – and that we shouldn’t be surprised to see campaigns doing everything they can to get people voting or staying home, as it suits their candidates’ interests. Hello and welcome to our coverage of the Iowa caucuses – the long awaited first decision day of the 2016 primary elections. Astounding his party, pundits, pollsters and plenty of Americans, billionaire Donald Trump has sailed into caucus day with a lead for the Republican nomination in one of Iowa’s most trusted polls. Trump lead Texas senator Ted Cruz by five points in the Des Moines register poll, with Florida senator Marco Rubio a little further back. Trump and Cruz have exasperated Republican leaders and moderates, but like populists and a few presidents past they look poised to thrive in the Hawkeye state. Democratic leader Hillary Clinton faces the possibility of déja vù: Vermont senator Bernie Sanders trailed her by only three points in the final Iowa poll, within the margin of error and with the enthusiasm of thousands at his back. Sanders is hoping for an upset to jump start his political revolution, and Clinton is hoping to secure her place as the party’s pragmatist-in-chief. But if the 2016 election has proven anything before its first decision, it’s that Americans have a huge appetite for chaos in their democracy. Republicans Jeb Bush, Rand Paul, Chris Christie, John Kasich, Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina are all still hoping – maybe a little desperately – for surprise strength in Iowa, as are former Iowa winners Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum. Former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley, or at least his support, remains a key factor that could turn the close Democratic race. Caucuses begin in Iowa at 7pm local time (8pm Eastern, 1am GMT) and we can expect results around 11pm local (midnight ET, 5am GMT). You may notice some people are feeling excited. In Iowa for the US are head of news David Taylor, DC bureau chief Dan Roberts, west coast bureau chief Paul Lewis, political reporters Ben Jacobs and Sabrina Siddiqui and editor-at-large Gary Younge. National reporter Lauren Gambino and columnist Richard Wolffe are in New Hampshire, the next primary state – and a battleground where Sanders leads Clinton by 20 points and Rubio is gaining strength against Trump. So we’ll bring you all the news and throw in some glories of American democracy too. There’s a patriotic tractor with a hologram eagle. Pheasant hunting with Trump sons. Bernie Sanders ice cream. Republican sea ice sophistry. Derelict campaign bus protest art projects. Five thousand people singing folk songs. Three generations of Clinton. Election 2016 starts today.
How not to apologize: what Donald Trump and Ryan Lochte get wrong What do Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, Olympic gold medallist Ryan Lochte and comedy writer Kurt Metzger have in common? They wouldn’t know how to say they’re sorry to save their lives, as illustrated this week by their very public non-apologies for equally public bad behavior. Let’s start with the man who has so much to apologize for, the master of misspeak, Donald J Trump. At a campaign event Thursday in North Carolina, the brusque businessman made headlines for what may have been the first expression of regret in his political career. “Sometimes, in the heat of debate and speaking on a multitude of issues, you don’t choose the right words or you say the wrong thing,” Trump declared as he read from prepared remarks. “And believe it or not, I regret it. And I do regret it, particularly where it may have caused personal pain. Too much is at stake for us to be consumed with these issues.” But Trump never said what he was sorry about, and he was equally vague about whom he was apologizing to. The women of America, because he’s referred to them as “dogs”? The Muslim gold star parents of a US soldier who died in Iraq, for suggesting he has sacrificed as much “by creating jobs”? Or were his words aimed at the disabled reporter he mocked in a slice of video that will not die? Who knows? And that’s the problem, according to linguistics professor Edwin Battistella, author of Sorry About That: The Language of Public Apology. Battistella, a professor at Southern Oregon University, described Trump’s words as “utterly insincere” and noted that, in politics at least, the real estate mogul has lots of company: Mitt Romney, Hillary Clinton, Ronald Reagan. “Think about the way your mother taught you to apologize,” Battistella instructed. “You look the person in the eye and say: ‘I’m sorry I threw the rock at your car, and I won’t do it again.’ If you don’t say what you did wrong, it’s a half apology, a fake apology.” Lochte was even more vague and, if it’s at all possible, even less believable. After a drunken night in Brazil, the US swimmer said he and three other athletes had been robbed at gunpoint by men pretending to be police. Authorities in Rio de Janiero, who have been criticized for their city’s crime rate and abuses in favelas, were not amused. Then they found video suggesting the group had been involved in an altercation at a gas station – after one of the swimmers vandalized a toilet door and then lied about it. Lochte’s initial approach: a mix of blaming the victim, self-aggrandizement, shaming your country and a hint of abusing your hosts. On Friday, the swimmer released a pseudo-apology. “I want to apologize for my behavior last weekend,” the 32-year-old tweeted. “For not being more careful and candid in how I described the events of that early morning and for my role in taking the focus away from the many athletes fulfilling their dreams of participating in the Olympics. “It’s traumatic to be out late with your friends in a foreign country – with a language barrier – and have a stranger point a gun at you and demand money to let you leave,” he continued. “But regardless of the behavior of anyone else that night, I should have been more responsible in how I handled myself and for that I am sorry.” Rio’s mayor, Eduardo Paes, was not impressed. After the 12-time Olympic medallist tweeted his regrets, Paes told reporters he had “pity, contempt” for the crew of prevaricating vandals. He bemoaned the “faults in their character” and said it was the US Olympic Committee’s job to sort out the mess, which has threatened to become an international incident since a Brazilian judge pulled Lochte’s teammates off a plane. Paes tried to be diplomatic: “They certainly do not represent the US athletes who came here.” Like Trump, Lochte responded to controversy with an “absurd” expression of remorse and a deep sense of entitlement, according to Vanderbilt University Centennial professor of philosophy John Lachs, a specialist in ethics. “Once again you have the sense that, ‘I am such a successful human being that I can do anything. The world is waiting for a remarkable event that I will cause,’” Lachs said. His advice to Lochte? “Control yourself. Don’t drink too much. Even drinking too much is ultimately to do with control. The foundation of civilized life is control.” Which brings us to Kurt Metzger, the least apologetic of this week’s penitents. Metzger was a regular writer for Inside Amy Schumer, a popular show on Comedy Central, who began a labyrinthine social media saga when he mocked alleged rape victims on Facebook, parodying the idea that they should be believed without filing a report to the police. “They are women!” he wrote. “ALL women are as reliable as my bible! A book that, much like a woman, is incapable of lying!” In one of many additional posts, he appeared to sidle close to apology without actually getting there: “I stand by the points I made, but I sincerely apologize for using inflammatory language to make them.” In the interests of improving public discourse, Battistella shared what he considers the keys to a good apology. Name what you did wrong. Be direct and clear. Ask for forgiveness. Say what will change in the future. Lachs would add one more ingredient: “Sincerity”. “The ideal,” he said, “is not to do stupid things for which you have to apologize. The next best thing is to apologize and to mean it.”
FBI arrests senior HSBC banker accused of rigging multibillion-dollar deal A senior HSBC banker has been arrested by the FBI as he attempted to board a transatlantic flight and charged him with fraudulently rigging a multibillion-dollar currency exchange deal. Mark Johnson, a British citizen and HSBC’s global head of foreign exchange trading, and a colleague are accused of “defrauding clients” and alleged to have “corruptly manipulated the foreign exchange market to benefit themselves and their bank”. He was arrested on Tuesday night shortly before he was due to fly to London from New York’s JFK airport, and was due to be formally charged by a judge at Brooklyn federal court later on Wednesday. He was later released on bail. A second Briton, Stuart Scott, who was HSBC’s European head of foreign exchange trading in London until December 2014, is accused of the same crimes. A warrant was issued for Scott’s arrest. They are the first people to be charged in connection with the US government’s long-running investigation into bankers’ alleged rigging of the $5.3tn (£4tn) per day forex market. “The defendants allegedly betrayed their client’s confidence, and corruptly manipulated the foreign exchange market to benefit themselves and their bank,” said the US assistant attorney general Leslie Caldwell. “This case demonstrates the [US Department of Justice’s] criminal division’s commitment to hold corporate executives, including at the world’s largest and most sophisticated institutions, responsible for their crimes.” Johnson, 50, who lives in both London and New York, and Scott, 43, who lives in London, are alleged to have “placed personal profits ahead of their duties of trust and confidentiality owed to their client, and in doing so, defrauded their client of millions of dollars”. The men are accused of making $3m profit by fraudulently trading currencies in advance of a client buying $3.4bn of pounds sterling in 2011, according to the complaint. They are accused of buying sterling in advance of the client’s transaction in a manner “designed to spike the price” to the benefit of HSBC “and at the expense of their client”. They also billed their client for $5m in fees for their work. Johnson and Scott are accused of weaving a “web of lies” when the client questioned them about the higher price they were forced to pay to bring back proceeds from an overseas transaction to the UK. “When questioned by their client about the higher price paid for their significant transaction, the defendants wove a web of lies designed to conceal the truth and divert attention away from their fraudulent trades,” said the US attorney Robert Capers. “The charges and arrest announced today reflect our steadfast commitment to hold accountable corporate executives and licensed professionals who use their positions to fraudulently enrich themselves.” Paul Abbate, the FBI’s top official in Washington, said: “These individuals are accused of defrauding clients by misusing confidential information to manipulate currency prices for the benefit of the bank and themselves. The FBI will continue to work aggressively with our partners to prevent, investigate and prosecute criminal fraud in the financial markets.” Rob Sherman, a spokesman for HSBC, said: “HSBC has been and continues to cooperate with the DOJ’s FX investigation.” The justice department is conducting a criminal investigation into some global banks’ alleged currency manipulation, and more than two dozen traders have been suspended by their employers. Last year, four banks pleaded guilty to conspiracy to rig the forex market and fines totalling $5.6bn were handed down to six banks. HSBC was not included in the settlement deal. The banks who agreed the settlement - Barclays, Royal Bank of Scotland, Citigroup and JP Morgan Chase - described themselves as “the Cartel” and used secret chatrooms and coded language to manipulate benchmark exchange rates to make huge profits. The FBI said the scheme was criminal “on a massive scale”. According to transcripts of the chatroom, published by the New York department of financial services (DFS), one Barclays trader in 2010 wrote: “If you aint cheating, you aint trying.” Last year, the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) fined five banks £1.1bn – the biggest penalty in the history of the City of London – for failing to stop their traders manipulating the market. “Today’s record fines mark the gravity of the failings we found, and firms need to take responsibility for putting it right,” the FCA CEO, Martin Wheatley, said at the time. In March, the UK Serious Fraud Office said that after reviewing more than half a million documents, it had concluded there was insufficient evidence for a realistic prospect of conviction. At the time, the fraud-busting agency said it was continuing to liaise with the US Department of Justice over its investigation, which had involved help from a number of regulatory bodies, including the FCA and the Competition and Markets Authority, as well as the City of London police. The SFO had not identified the firms or individuals it had investigated. It was revealed earlier this month that George Osborne, the former chancellor, intervened to persuade the US government not to pursue criminal charges against HSBC for allowing terrorists and Mexican drug dealers to launder millions of dollars. A congressional report published letters and emails from Osborne and Financial Services Authority (FSA) officials to their US counterparts warning that launching criminal action against HSBC in 2012 could have sparked a “financial calamity”. The House financial services committee report said the UK interventions “played a significant role in ultimately persuading the DoJ [Department of Justice] not to prosecute HSBC”. Instead of pursuing a prosecution, the bank agreed to pay a record $1.92bn (£1.4bn) fine.
Lisa Fischer on life in the shadows of the Stones and Tina Turner: 'I got used to keeping quiet' As anyone who has been to a Rolling Stones concert in the past 26 years will tell you, there is a moment where Mick Jagger, for all his grandiose stage swagger, is briefly, but undeniably, upstaged. As the opening chords of Gimme Shelter begin, Lisa Fischer steps out from behind the backing microphones and roars, in vocals that can fill any stadium, some of the most famous lyrics in pop music: “Rape, muuuurder / It’s just a shot away / It’s just a shot away.” Hers is a voice so big and so spine-tinglingly beautiful that on a nightly basis it does the near impossible: it steals the show from the Rolling Stones. As Jagger himself once said, that duet is “always the high point of the show for me”. Fischer’s name might not be familiar but if you listen closely, her voice is everywhere. From records by Luther Vandross, Billy Ocean, Dionne Warwick, Aretha Franklin and Alicia Keys, to live shows from Tina Turner, Chaka Khan and Dolly Parton, Fischer has provided the vocal backdrop and harmonies to some of best-known songs of the past four decades. Yet the music industry remains one defined by ego, and the giant, complex personalities of those at the front of the stage are the ones who history remembers. The talented – mostly female – voices that rose up behind them have mostly melted into musical oblivion. Film-maker Morgan Neville changed all that. In 2013, he decided to seek out these seminal but maligned singers and tell their stories, filled more with disappointment and heartache than wealth and glory. The resulting documentary, 20 Feet from Stardom, went on to win an Oscar, and elevated Fischer – along with three other generations of backing singers, Darlene Love, Merry Clayton and Judith Hill – to a level of fame that none had ever achieved. On the back of that film’s success, Fischer embarked on her first solo world tour at the age of 57, with dates in Australia beginning this week before she returns to the United States. Performing with backing band the Grand Baton, her set is made up of covers from Led Zeppelin to Tina Turner. It is easy to position this tour as Fischer’s long-awaited moment to finally step out of the shadow of the musical giants she has spent her life serving. But even now the singer visibly shuffles uncomfortably when described as a frontwoman. “This would be scary if I felt like the real focus were on me per se, but in my head, in order to deal with it, it’s the music that’s really being presented; it is about the music flying. Not so much me,” she says. There is very little of the rockstar musician in Fischer. Dressed in a floaty black outfit, sandals on her feet, her neck draped in beads, and a small stud in her nose, she speaks in hushed, soothing tones more reminiscent of a meditation instructor than someone with lungs that are a match for Aretha Franklin. Even when pressed for stories of wild times on tour and in the studio with the Stones, Luther Vandross and Tina Turner, Fischer instead only recounts intimate moments: being jokingly reprimanded by Jagger for eating raw garlic before singing with him on stage; Vandross buying her a specially made fur coat; children’s birthday parties on the Rolling Stones tours. She recalls these memories with her eyes closed and a small contemplative smile plays across her face. Fischer may appear at peace with the world, but, as she later adds, “it’s taken me almost 50 years to get there”. “I’m accustomed to being in the background doing my thing and being really content with that,” she says. “But I also wasn’t aware that I was sacrificing myself. My younger self was just really happy when anyone asked me to do anything to do with singing, it was just that simple.” Indeed, unlike others featured in 20 Feet from Stardom, Fischer never harboured a great desire to forge a solo career (“I was never the girl who was sat in the basement doing my demos or hunting for a record deal”). How Can I Ease The Pain, from her one solo venture, So Intense, beat off Aretha Franklin to win a Grammy in 1992, but the singer struggled with the pressures of a follow-up album and slipped easily back into background singing with a “sense of relief”. Growing in Brooklyn to an alcoholic mother who gave birth to her at 16, and a father who left when Lisa was 14, hers was not an easy childhood, but it was filled with music. She won a scholarship to study opera at Queens College, but dropped out as she struggled to balance her studies with late-night gigs in New York clubs to pay the bills. Then, in her early 20s, as she was becoming a new fixture of the local backing singer circuit, she was invited to an audition. Walking in to a New York ballet studio in a leather mini-skirt and blue rayon blouse (“it was the nicest things I had, which wasn’t a lot”), she found herself in front of a man standing behind a piano, smiling and eating a large bucket of chicken. It was Luther Vandross, and this audition would mark the beginning of a long working relationship, with Fischer providing the backup vocals on every Vandross tour and album until he died in 2005. It was also Vandross who pushed her into her brief and successful foray as a solo artist in 1991. But he meeting with Vandross would also mark the beginning of a life where she relinquished control over her own singing voice – and a large part of herself by extension. “I guess I didn’t have a sense of self, I was never really thinking much beyond the studio,” Fischer says. “I knew I could sing but as far as content, I didn’t know what I wanted to sing or who I was at all really. But singing background that didn’t matter; speaking your mind has nothing to do with the job requirement. So I got used to keeping quiet.” Though Fischer professes to love both singing and performing, the spotlight has always been an uncomfortable place for her – and the pressure of being a woman in the music industry eventually grew into an eating disorder that she battled for years. “Yeah, for me that’s how it manifested,” she says, her voice growing almost imperceptibly soft. “It was always this war between not being in touch with what I needed, either emotionally or just physically ... and my weight would represent whether or not I had a job.” Did this lack of self-worth contribute to her reluctance to fully pursue the spotlight for herself, even after a No 1 single and a Grammy? A lengthy silence follows. “Yes, maybe that’s why I felt like I just wasn’t ready,” Fischer says slowly, her eyes closed again. “Not making the second album was disappointing at first but then after that it was a sense of peace, because back then I couldn’t deal with the expectations that came with even that teeny bit of fame. There was so much to sort out that I hadn’t sorted out – how could I connect with me when I spent all of my time serving everyone else?” The pressures, Fischer admits, have never really gone away; she says Neville’s film came along at a fortuitous time, as the perils of being an older woman in the music industry had begun to kick in. She smiles sadly as she recounts a recent session singing with Alicia Keys. “After I was done singing the part she said, ‘Yeah, that old-school sound’. Old school? Right then I knew it was happening.” She adds: “I realised as I get older, visually the demand for someone who looks like me, at my age, is not as strong and I could see the beginnings of the work slowing down. I started to worry about what I would do, because I still wanted to sing.” Fischer throws her head back in good-natured laughter, then gets up to leave. She has to board an airplane for the millionth time. That same night she steps to the front of the stage in Oslo, dressed all in black with no shoes and no makeup, able, for the first time in her musical career, to “actually make some decisions of my own, musically and personally”. And as she begins to sing, one thing is clear: stardom is finally right beneath her bare feet. • Lisa Fischer & Grand Baton’s Australia/New Zealand tour kicks off at the Queensland Performing Arts Centre in Brisbane on 10 June before she returns to the United States for more shows
Michael Moore to join Oscars 2016 boycott: 'A fish rots from the head down' The documentary film-maker Michael Moore is to join a growing boycott of next month’s Oscars following the announcement that no actors from black or ethnic minority backgrounds have been nominated for awards. After the US Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ failed to highlight the work of non-white professionals for the second year running, Jada Pinkett Smith and Spike Lee and other stars have announced they will not attend the 2016 ceremony. Moore, an Oscar-winner in 2003 for his documentary Bowling for Columbine, told The Wrap that Hollywood’s struggles with diversity, and the ethnically limited film industry culture in Los Angeles, in particular, were to blame for this year’s all-white list of nominations. “A fish rots from the head down,” he said. “The problem has to get fixed in the studio system, which has been a white-dominated, male-dominated industry for ever. “When you’re working in New York, you have a day-to-day existence with African Americans in the industry here,” added Moore. “But I can fly to LA for two or three days of meetings and never encounter an African American person in any position of power. I can very easily leave LAX, go to a West Hollywood hotel, have a meeting in Burbank, another meeting in Century City and another in Santa Monica, go back to LAX and never encounter an African American who isn’t in a service position. I love LA but the problem has to get fixed there.” While professing support for Academy president Cheryl Boone Isaacs, who has vowed to improve diversity among Oscars voters, Moore said the organisation’s inability to change convinced him to act. “The idea that we could go two years in a row, when 40 actors could be nominated and none of them were black, is just crazy,” he said. “So if it will help to lend my name to what Spike and Jada are doing, I’m hoping to be a symbolic participant in this.” The film-maker expressed his shock after discovering in 2010 that none of the 150 members of the Oscars documentary branch, whose board Moore had been invited to join, were black. He said: “They told me that maybe there used to be one, but now there were zero. And I said, ‘I’m not going to represent an all-white branch in the 21st century.’” In related news, the creator of the #Oscarssowhite hashtag has offered a six-point plan to fix the diversity deficit in an interview with MTV News. Activist and writer April Reign, who created the tag last year to highlight the omission of black talent in the 2015 Oscars ceremony, said voters should work harder to view movies that did not reflect their background, and studios needed to promote films featuring black talent more than they currently do. “[Selma] was a fantastic film with critical acclaim, but the screeners themselves were not being sent out to Academy members,” Reign said. “We need to see the studios supporting the films from beginning to end. It’s one thing to say, ‘Yes, we made a quote unquote black film,’ but if you drop it after that and no one sees it, then what good has been done?” Reign also said the Academy should invite more black people to join, and consider asking older, often largely white, members to relinquish their voting rights if they are no longer active in the film industry. She said producers needed to be more willing to cast more people from “traditionally underrepresented segments of society”, and called for film industry professionals and the media to keep the diversity issue alive by continuing to discuss it publicly. Finally, she said the Academy should be open about its efforts to boost non-white involvement by providing regular progress updates.
Viral video: Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie and Doctor Who v Trump As the dis-United Kingdom reels from the Brexit result and the consequential political meltdown, what we all need is a really good chuckle. Friday means the release of Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie, which is crammed with laughs, gaffs and silliness (US readers will have to wait until 22 July and those in Australia until 4 August). The film, and the TV show, suggest a star-studded cast of women who really know how to have a good time. But the first meeting between Jennifer Saunders (Edina) and Joanna Lumley (Patsy) did not go quite as expected, as our first clip, from Graham Norton’s BBC show, explains. Meanwhile, many royal commentators suggest the Queen has a good sense of humour. Her encounter with Sinn Féin chief Martin McGuinness would suggest so – very droll, ma’am. There were laughs too, of a more ironic and bitter nature, when would-be US president Donald Trump declared himself pleased with Brexit during a visit to Scotland. Pro-Remain Scots were quick to pile onto Twitter to correct the former host of The Apprentice. Samantha Bee’s Full Frontal Brexit special, Rue Britannia, persuaded former Doctor Who David Tennant to read out the tweets. Game of Thrones fans, suffering withdrawal symptoms after the season six climax, should watch Scheiffer Bates’s amazing impressions,. The romantics among you will love a surprise marriage proposal by a member of the Met police force to his partner during London Pride and Bridget Jones fans can enjoy a cheeky preview of Bridget Jones’s Baby, which opens in September and stars Renée Zellweger, Colin Firth and Patrick Dempsey. We’ve also got a couple of Brexit funnies – Boris Johnson’s HQ as the result comes in, and we couldn’t resist a re-run of Michael Gove falling over in Downing Street. Politics is a cruel game … 1) Jennifer Saunders and Joanna Lumley’s awkward first meeting Absolutely not fabulous 2) Rue Britannia | Full Frontal with Samantha Bee David Tennant plays Trump card 3) Watch the Queen’s brilliant response after Sinn Féin chief Martin McGuinness asks after her health Live with Her Majesty 4) Game of Thrones Season 6 Impressions, Scheiffer Bates Making a big impression 5) Bridget Jones’s Baby - Official Trailer (HD) Born to be funny 6) London Pride 2016 surprise marriage proposal Met Police Love on parade 7) Zipper Merge Highway action 8) Michael Gove falls over Political stumbling block? 9) Boris Johnson’s HQ as the EU referendum result comes in Political parody 10) Trumpton Firemen. Pugh, Pugh, Barney Mcgrew Tribute to Trumpton creator Gordon Murray
Andy Carroll delivers knockout blow for West Ham against Liverpool Jürgen Klopp has brought much to Liverpool since becoming the manager but the one thing the German still cannot achieve is momentum. His team arrived here looking for a third straight victory but instead lost for a second time in four games, with the pain for those who filled the away end intensified by the identity of the man who delivered the killer blow. Andy Carroll has waited three years to score against his former club, making no secret of his frustration at not succeeding at Anfield having arrived there for £35m in January 2011, and he finally delivered. It was classic Carroll, a soaring, expertly directed header that had the ball nestling in the far corner of the net. The No9’s revenge followed another fine header from Michail Antonio after 10 minutes, and the win not only moved West Ham ahead of Liverpool into sixth but also completed a league double over the Merseyside club for the first time in 52 years having triumphed at Anfield in August. West Ham’s performance was full of energy, endeavour and no little skill, and for Klopp there was no hiding his fury with his side at their failure to build on victories over Leicester City and Sunderland and instead revert to the lacklustre, sloppy outfit who were beaten 3-0 at Watford before Christmas. The “soft German” was hard on his players this time. “It was not enough from my team and I’m really angry because we could have got more because everybody could see in the moments we play football what could happen,” Klopp said. “We have to again accept that we didn’t play like we should.” Klopp went on to say Liverpool “always had the ball”, which while stretching it was not completely barmy given they had 65% of possession. As he intimated, Liverpool showed flashes of their capabilities either side of the interval when they threatened with slick, purposeful play, most notably via Emre Can’s shot in first-half stoppage time that rattled the bar. But all too often, and not for the first time this season, their passing broke down and they lacked penetration. Operating again as a lone forward Christian Benteke delivered another display that makes Liverpool’s decision to spend £32.5m on the 25-year-old in the summer appear a mistake. The Belgian was too often static and did little or nothing when presented with a chance to strike, most notably early on in the second-half, and with the score 1-0 to West Ham, when he wafted half-heartedly at Alberto Moreno’s cross. The comparison with Carroll was stark. The 26-year-old was a constant nuisance to Liverpool’s back four with his aggressive, muscular approach and he put them to the sword on 55 minutes, running on to Mark Noble’s cross and, having got a jump on Nathaniel Clyne, sending the ball past a rooted Simon Mignolet for his third goal of the season. Another header shortly after forced Mignolet into a save and, overall, this was a fine afternoon for a player deemed not good enough for Liverpool having become, and remaining ahead of Benteke, their most expensive signing to remind his former employers of what they let go. Slaven Bilic praised Carroll’s all-round contribution. “Andy was brilliant, not just because of the goal but for his performance,” said the West Ham manager. “Now he is fit and it is all about him. Is he going to look after himself, work hard, maintain his position or to even make it better?” There were other standout performers in claret and blue, such as James Collins and Manuel Lanzini, who almost scored with a wickedly swerving shot that hit the post before he was substituted with what appears to be a reoccurrence of a thigh injury and is likely to be out for up to six weeks. Dimitri Payet came on as a second-half substitute having been out of action for two months with an ankle injury. The Frenchman, so brilliant following his arrival from Marseille in the summer, could well end up taking Antonio’s starting place, although the 25-year-old may take some shifting having scored his second goal in successive games. It summed up West Ham’s show of desire and ruthlessness that the opener came via a counterattack that started with Antonio winning the ball from Moreno by his own area before sprinting up the pitch to meet Enner Valencia’s cross. “The situation with Alberto was a foul but we reacted not right. We have to avoid this cross,” said Klopp, who by the end was watching proceedings from underneath his hood on what was a wet and grey afternoon in east London. The weather summed up his mood as well as the bleakness of Liverpool’s top-four hopes.
Uber's deal with Didi Chuxing looks like defeat, but it may be a shrewd move Uber has sold its Chinese operations to rival Didi Chuxing, the country’s biggest ride-hailing firm, signalling the end of a fierce price war waged between the two companies over the past two years. Uber, last valued at around $68bn, lost an estimated $2bn fighting Didi Chuxing in China, giving out incentives for drivers and free rides in an attempt to compete for market share. Didi was doing the same, but had around 85% of the market share compared with Uber’s 8%. Didi, by all accounts, had the edge, which led Uber’s investors to push for a deal rather than waste money on a futile and expensive rivalry that could have stood in the way of a much-anticipated initial public offering (IPO) in the US. On the face of it, Uber appears to have lost the willy-waving competition, conceded defeat and accepted a deal in order to save face and cash. Yet the deal is not quite that simple. By fighting so aggressively for two years, Uber secured a strong negotiating position. The San Francisco company will not only gain $1bn in investment from Didi through the deal, but will also take a 17.7% stake in Didi while still maintaining its brand in China. Perhaps most importantly, the deal appears to trump the cosy relationship Didi has with Uber’s competitors. Didi had been starting to form partnerships outside China, choosing to work with (and invest $100m in) Lyft in the US. That deal meant that when Didi’s Chinese customers were travelling in the US, they could summon a car through Lyft’s app, and vice-versa for Lyft’s customers in China. We don’t know what’s going to happen to Lyft now that Uber is one of Didi’s biggest investors, but it’s unlikely to be positive. The Lyft spokeswoman Alexandra LaManna told CNBC: “Over the next few weeks, we will evaluate our partnership with Didi”. Whatever happens, Uber can stop putting so muchcash in China, and instead focus on its battle with Ola in India and regulators in the US, Europe and, well, pretty much everywhere. Uber meanwhile may be able to help Didi improve the algorithms it uses to match drivers with passengers, particularly when it comes to carpooling, where multiple passengers with different destinations are grouped into the same journey. Didi has spoken about the challenges of recruiting data-science talent and launched a $100,000 prize for machine learning this year. Tech firms including Google, Facebook and Amazon have all struggled to succeed in China, a tantalizingly large and lucrative market. Partnering with the local incumbent relatively early on may be the smartest thing Uber could have done. Now that the two companies are no longer fighting for driver and rider loyalty, they’ll be able to charge customers slightly more more and pay drivers slightly less. And that’s a good indication who the real losers in this deal may turn out to be.
Italian bank rescue hopes build, as Renzi set to resign –as it happened Hopes that Italy’s banks can be bailed out one way or another - private investors, state aid or the European bailout fund - continue to support stock markets. And the expectation that the European Central Bank may extend its bond buying programme for a few more months is also providing some support. On Wall Street the global surge in banking stocks helped push both the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 to new intra-day peaks, although pharmaceutical shares were under pressure after president-elect Donald Trump said he would look at cutting drug prices. The final scores in Europe showed: The FTSE 100 finished up 1.81% or 122.39 points at 6902.23 Germany’s Dax jumped 1.96% to 10,986.69 France’s Cac closed up 1.36% at 4694.72 Italy’s FTSE MIB rose 2.1% to 18,130.66 Spain’s Ibex ended up 0.75% at 8960.4 In Greece, the Athens market added 2.82% to 640.07 On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is currently up 92 points or 0.48% at 19344, close to the day’s highs. On that note, it’s time to close for the evening. Thanks for all your comments, and we’ll be back tomorrow. In Greece tensions over reforms are once again mounting with creditors – this time over an IMF demand that shops remain open for business on Sundays. Helena Smith reports: Most EU member states would relish overhauling a relic of old times like the ban on Sunday shopping. In Greece, though, it is the sort of measure that makes for front-page splashes, conspiracy theory and cries of protest. But the International Monetary Fund, in the spirit of further opening up one of the continent’s most sclerotic economies, is not letting go. Instead the Washington-based body, which is still negotiating its participation in Greece’s latest bailout, has stepped up demands for trade to be liberalised saying shops should remain open on Sundays. Moreover, it argues, the reform will give people work in a nation hobbled by record levels of unemployment. In its splash today, the daily Ethnos newspaper, citing a leaked email from the IMF, reports that closure of an ongoing review of the economy by creditors – the second since Athens received its third bailout last summer – is now contingent on shops opening up for commerce on Sundays. The organisation wants the measure to be signed and sealed this month. So far the response has been negative. Ministry of finance officials told the paper that, instead, they will push through an amendment that will allow shops in specially defined tourist areas to stay open. That’s unlikely to pass muster with lenders who have signalled they are going to rachet up the pressure on Greece to enforce the sort of reforms that will make it more competitive. Ideologically, the governing leftwing Syriza party is said to be against the move on the grounds that it will not only benefit bigger stores but is an infringement of basic workers’ rights. The Greek Orthodox Church has already likened the step to a sin and shop employees, who have already taken to the streets, are girding for further battle. And here’s our full story on Matteo Renzi planning to resign later as Italian prime minister: One of the factors supporting the market rally is the expectation that the European Central Bank could announce an extension of its bond buying programme following its latest meeting on Thursday: [APP is the asset purchase programme] That hope, and optimism that Italy’s struggling banks can somehow be recapitalised, have combined to send European markets higher, with Germany’s Dax up 1.8%, France’s Cac 1.1%, the FTSE 100 1.6% and Italy’s FTSE MIB 1.5%. On Wall Street the Dow Jones Industrial Average has hit a new intra-day record of 19,276, despite concerns about healthcare companies after Donald Trump said he would look at drug pricing. Back in the UK and some good news for steel workers at Port Talbot: Markets continue to be buoyed by hopes of a resolution to Italy’s banking problems. Connor Campbell, financial analyst at Spreadex, said: With the Italian government passing its 2017 budget, and Mario Renzi confirming he will resign this evening, the European markets maintained their banking-boosted growth this Wednesday. The continued lack of fuss following the Italian referendum result, combined with the prospect of a Monte dei Paschi bailout (potentially as soon as this week), has led the European indices to a bevy of highs this afternoon. The CAC is still at an 11 month peak, while the DAX, following a near 200 point rise, is at its best price in exactly a year. The highs hit by the FTSE were a bit less impressive, though its 110 point increase does leave the UK index just 10 points away from 6900, a level it hasn’t seen since November 10th. While most of the pan-European growth has been inspired by the rallying banking sector, the FTSE has also benefited from a commodity stock rebound and the latest pound-plunge, with sterling shedding 0.8% against the dollar and 1.1% against the euro. But Michael Hewson, chief market analyst at CMC Markets UK, warned markets could be getting ahead of themselves: Talk that the Italian banking system could be on the verge of a €15bn bailout from the European Stability Mechanism has pushed equity markets in Europe to their highest levels in several months... While the reports of a bailout request have been denied the usual rule of thumb when these sorts of reports do the rounds is that there is usually an element of truth to them, even if we don’t know the exact mechanics, and markets are responding to that. As with most things the devil is likely to be in the detail, and the likely strings that are likely to be attached to any aid request, if and when it comes. It is here that markets could be getting ahead of themselves. Well it seems Matteo Renzi will not be staying on as Italian prime minister after all and plans to resign this evening now the budget has been passed. He tweeted: AP reports: Italian Premier Matteo Renzi says he’ll resign now that Parliament has completed approval of the 2017 national budget. Renzi had offered his resignation two days earlier to President Sergio Mattarella following his humiliating defeat in a government-backed voter referendum on reforms. But Mattarella told him to stay in office until passage of the budget law, which was done Wednesday afternoon. Renzi tweeted that he plans to go to the president to resign at 7 p.m. (1800 GMT). Following the poor UK manufacturing figures earlier, comes news that the economy’s growth has flattened in the last few weeks, according to a leading think tank. The National Institute of Economic and Social Reseach has estimated that UK output grew by 0.4% in the three months to the end of November, the same as in the three months to October. But it warned a slowdown was ahead. The think tank said the economy was being supported by the service sector, which was borne out by the earlier weak manufacturing figures. Rebecca Piggott, research fellow at NIESR, said: Recent economic growth has been driven almost entirely by the UK’s broad service sector, supported by robust consumer spending. In stark contrast, the official figures suggest that the production and construction sectors of the economy have declined over recent months. Looking ahead, we do not expect such buoyant consumer spending growth to persist. Sterling’s pronounced depreciation this year is expected to pass through to the consumer prices throughout the course of 2017 and 2018, eroding the purchasing power of households substantially. NIESR’s latest quarterly forecast published just over a month ago forecast GDP growth of 2% per annum in 2016 and 1.4% in 2017. CPI inflation was expected to reach 3.8% at the end of 2017. Another area likely to be hit by the uncertainty of the UK leaving the EU is the Irish banking sector, according to ratings agency Fitch. It said: Fitch Ratings has revised the 2017 sector outlook for Irish banks to stable from positive, as the UK’s vote to leave the EU increases uncertainty for the operating environment. Ireland’s economic recovery should remain strong in the short term, underpinning the stable sector outlook. The rating outlook on Irish banks is positive, reflecting our expectation that improving bank credit fundamentals should outweigh these challenges. Brexit is negative for Ireland’s long-term economic and political prospects, putting pressure on GDP growth and creating uncertainty around relations with Northern Ireland. The extent of any weakening of the bank operating environment, triggered by a slowdown of GDP growth in the UK, sterling depreciation, or potential trade barriers, will become clear only as EU-UK negotiations develop. A deterioration in the operating environment could slow any improvements in the asset quality and capitalisation of Irish banks... Capitalisation, although improving, remains vulnerable. We expect capital ratios to strengthen in 2017, despite pressure from volatility in pension fund deficits and foreign-exchange markets. Fully-loaded regulatory capital ratios remain weaker than international peers, primarily due to large amounts of deferred tax assets; these assets are reducing slowly because of Ireland’s low corporate tax rate and relatively low levels of profitability compared to the size of the balance sheet. Large, albeit reducing, stocks of unreserved problem assets also leave Irish banks’ capitalisation more exposed if the operating environment deteriorates. Further improvements in asset quality and capitalisation would improve the banks’ risk profiles and may result in ratings upgrades; this is why the ratings outlook for Irish banks is positive. Although uncertainty as regards the operating environment has increased, we believe credit fundamentals will improve in 2017, as the sector continues to work through its backlog of impaired loans. But... Bloomberg is reporting that Renzi might be having second thoughts about stepping down. They say: Matteo Renzi is wavering on whether to stay on as Italian prime minister despite his resignation offer after Sunday’s referendum defeat, according to a senior state official. President Sergio Mattarella wants Renzi to reconsider his decision in order to provide political and economic stability, said the official, who asked not to be named because the issue is confidential. Here’s the full story. Newsflash! After a debate today. the Italian Senate just approved the country’s 2017 budget. That’s the last order of business before Matteo Renzi can formally step down as prime minister. Renzi now also expected to meet with senior members of his Democratic Party this afternoon, to discuss the next steps - including whether he remains as party leader. Back in the markets, European stocks are hitting multi-month highs on continued optimism that Italy’s banking sector will receive much-needed fresh capital soon. Every index is sharply higher today, with some traders speculating that the fabled “Santa Rally” might be kicking off (stock markets often rally in the run-up to Christmas). Over in Milan, Monte dei Paschi is still having a good day, up 8%, following the reports that the Italian government could take a €2bn stake in the bank. And the suggestions that Rome could turn to the ESM for a €15bn bank bailout continues to calm fears of an imminent financial crisis. Kathleen Brooks of City Index says: Even the prospect of a nationalisation [of Monte dei Paschi], potentially as early as this weekend, isn’t spooking the markets as it may avoid retail bondholders having to take any losses. The FTSE 100 index is now up by 100 points, or 1.5% at 6880 -- a chunky rise. However, that’s partly because the pound fell at 9.30am when October’s weak UK manufacturing data were released. The German Dax is still at a one-year high, the French CAC is at its highest level since January, and Italy’s FTSE MIB it at its highest level since June. EC antitrust commissioner Margrethe Vestager declined to comment directly on the Monte dei Paschi rescue talks. But she did point out that the commission is keen to support citizens who have been missold financial products. That could be significant, as the small retail investors who own Italian bank bonds may argue that they were deceived about the risk of being possibly ‘bailed into’ a rescue. And some analysts reckon the Italian government could circumvent those new bail-in rules by compensating these small investors. Vestager told reporters in Brussels that: “One of the things that we are working with is tools to enable governments to compensate for mis-selling of different kinds. “It is something we have set up before. We will work with governments again if they want to set up schemes that can allow citizens to be compensated if mis-selling has been taking place.” The European Commission have got a fight on their hands over today’s Euribor fines. JP Morgan and HSBC have both announced that reject the EC’s conclusions that they breached antitrust laws, and will fight on to try to prove it. A spokeswoman for JP Morgan (fined €337m today) says the bank could launch an appeal: “We have cooperated fully with the European Commission throughout its five year investigation. We did not engage in any wrongdoing with respect to the EURIBOR benchmark. We will continue to vigorously defend our position against these allegations, including through possible appeals to the European courts.” HSBC (fined €33m) is also adamant that it didn’t take part in a cartel: The European Commission’s decision relates to allegations of Euribor manipulation and related purported conduct during the course of one month in early 2007. We believe we did not participate in an anti-competitive cartel. We are reviewing the European Commission’s decision and considering our legal options. French bank Credit Agricole is refusing to accept that it breached antitrust rules! In a short, sharp statement, it says: Crédit Agricole takes note of today’s decision of the European Commission in the Euribor case. Crédit Agricole firmly believes that it did not infringe competition law. Accordingly, it will appeal the Commission’s decision before the European courts. Payment of the fine will not affect the 2016 financial statements given the provisions set aside previously. Today’s fines mark the end of the euribor scandal, hopefully, Vestager continues. But.... The Commission will not hesitate to investigate and sanction any other cartel it may uncover in the future in the financial industry. Commissioner Vestager is outlining the euribor ruling now. You can watch it live here. She says JP Morgan, HSBC and Credit Agricole all breached antitrust rules by conspiring to rig the euribor rate. The euribor market is means to provide protection from market volatility in euro-denominated securities, Vestager says. If this market is rigged, it will benefit only a few. Traders used IM services and corporate chatrooms to exchange confidential information to distort the euribor rate to serve their own interests, she adds. Euribor was calculated from submissions from individual banks, which created the ability to rig it. Vestager cites one example, from 19th March 2007, in which the cartel members decided they would benefit from a lower euribor rate. So, weeks earlier, they conspired to submit low numbers to the committee which calculated the daily figure. (this will sound depressingly familiar to anyone who’s read about the Libor scandal). Here’s the details of the euribor-rigging fines just announced by the EC. JPMorgan: €337.2m HSBC: €33.6m Credit Agricole: €114.7m Margrethe Vestager, the EU’s antitrust commissioner, says: “Banks have to respect EU competition rules just like any other company operating in the single market.” These fines come three years after four other banks were fined over Euribor rigging, Barclays, Deutsche Bank, RBS and Societe Generale. Newsflash! The European commission has fined Cr´dit Agricole, HSBC and JP Morgan a combined total of €485m for their role in the Euribor fixing scandal. This is the case in which traders were accused of conspiring to rig the official rates at which banks would lend to each other in various currencies (euros, in this case) More to follow.... City experts are pretty unimpressed by the slide in UK manufacturing in October: That disappointing UK manufacturing report has hit the pound, sending it down 0.5% against the US dollar: The Office for National Statistics reports that most areas of manufacturing struggled in October, led by pharmaceuticals, where output shrank by 3.6%. This chart shows how Britain’s manufacturing sector weakened in October, after two months of gains: Breaking: Britain’s industrial sector has suffered its biggest fall in output sine 2012. UK industrial production shrank by 1.3% in October, dashing hopes of a 0.2% rise. It’s partly due to the temporary shutdown of the Buzzard oil field in the North Sea. But... manufacturing certainly had a poor month too. Output across manufacturing firms fell by 0.9% in October. That’s the weakest performance since February, and will raise fears that the economy is weakening. Economist Mark Astley says the figures are much weaker than expected. Investec’s Philip Shaw hopes that the underlying picture is better. Every single Italian bank share has risen this morning, led by Monte dei Paschi which is currently 7.7% higher. Europe’s bailout fund has just said that it hasn’t received a request for help from Italy, and hasn’t had any discussions about a possible programme. Asked about reports that Rome is planning a €15bn bailout request for its banks, a spokesman for the European Stability Mechanism says: “There is no request and there are no discussions with theItalian authorities on an ESM loan.” However...this denial doesn’t mean that Italy isn’t preparing a request for help from the ESM, of course.... Looking away from Italy, the big news this morning is that drugs giant Pfizer has been hit with a record fine after the price charged to the NHS for an anti-epilepsy drug was hiked by up to 2,600%. Boom! Germany’s DAX stock market has hit its highest level in a year, while France’s CAC is at an 11-month high. Optimism is rife in the City that a recapitalisation solution for troubled Italian bank Monte dei Paschi is in the pipeline, says Mike van Dulken of Accendo Markets However, this could be via Italy applying for a €15bn loan from Europe’s ESM to help recapitalise several troubled banks and not just MPS which would avoid the issue of illegal state aid/bailout. Mizuho strategist Antoine Bouvet says investors are hopeful that Rome will get a grip on the crisis: “Despite the fact that the probability of early elections has risen, the market is focusing on the banking sector and the fact the government seems to be showing more urgency in dealing with that problem.” However.... financial analyst Dan Davies (who actually owns some MPS shares, bold lad) isn’t convinced that a bailout will benefit shareholders. European stock markets are all rallying this morning, with banking stocks boosted by Italian bailout hopes. The main indices are up around 1%, pushing the FTSE 100 up by almost 60 points to 6837. La Stampa’s report that Italy may seek European help for its banks is cheering the City: In London, mining stocks are also gaining ground, with Rio Tinto and Antofagasta both up 4%. Shares in Monte Dei Paschi have jumped by 9% at the start of trading in Milan, on hopes that Italy can pull off a rescue package. Other Italian banks are rallying too, driving the whole sector up 3%. Traders are reacting to La Stampa’s claim that Italy could seek a €15bn bailout (even though it’s just been denied) They’re also comforted by Reuters’ overnight report that Italy could take a €2bn stake in Monte dei Paschi, in a bid to: a) encourage private investors to back the €5bn cash call b) avoid inflicting losses on small retail investors who hold MPS bonds. One source told Reuters that: “It’s a de-facto nationalisation with a strong presence by the state that can attract other investors and allow the transaction to be completed. Italian government debt is rallying this morning, pushing the yield (interest rate) on its 10-year debt down to 1.91%, from 1.97%. That has narrowed the gap between Italian and German borrowing costs - a key measure of stress in the eurozone. Italy’s La Stampa newspaper is reporting that Rome is considering seeking a €15bn loan from European authorities, to recapitalise its banking sector. According to the report, Italy would use the funds to shore up several banks, not just Monte dei Paschi. In return, Rome would have to commit to tightening its 2017 budget (which might be tricky, given the political void at present). It’s an intriguing idea, with one problem....it’s just been denied by Italy’s Treasury department. But how could it happen? These funds would come from the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), which is Europe’s bailout fund. Spain took a similar loan a few years ago, which helped it avoid falling into a financial crisis. The attraction for Italy would that such a loan would come with fewer strings attached than a full-scale bailout. But there would still be some conditions, and monitoring of its banks by Brussels. Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of the world economy, the financial markets, the eurozone and business. Three days on from Italy’s constitutional referendum, the future of the country’s weaker banks still hangs in the balance. Monte de Paschi di Siena (MPS), the oldest and most troubled of the Italian banks, is making a final push to persuade investors to back its €5bn cash call. But prime minister Matteo Renzi’s resignation may force Monte dei Paschi into seeking some form of help from the state, as investors have been spooked by the uncertainty gripping the Italian political system. Reuters reported last night that the Italian government could take a €2bn controlling stake in MPS, which would lift the government’s stake up to 40%. That could also provide compensation for the small retail investors who hold some of its bonds. And there is still talk that a public rescue plan could be cobbled together by the weekend, possibly even with some fund from Europe? All may become clearer today... #NoPromises Also coming up today: The European Commission could hit HSBC, JPMorgan and Crédit Agricole with multimillion-euro fines later today for rigging the Euribor interest rate benchmark. Australia has sent a shiver through the global economy by reporting that its economy shrank by 0.5% in the last quarter; only the fourth such decline in 25 years. Here’s how the story unfolded: On the economic front, we get: German industrial production for October (just released, more on that shortly) UK industrial production for October. at 9.30am GMT The NIESR think tank estimates UK GDP for September-November, at 3pm GMT
My secret life as a high-functioning drug user It’s Saturday night and I’m having dinner at a friend’s house. After dinner has been cleared, someone produces a small bag of cocaine and begins to cut it into lines at the table. I take a gram of cocaine and another of MDMA. I smoke some weed and drink three to four glasses of good red wine. We dance. The 15 of us who have gathered – old friends, some of whom I’ve known since school – push aside the coffee table and twirl around the living room, holding hands, laughing and marvelling at how lucky we are to have these exact friends and to be exactly here, in this moment. “You lot are the best,” we say over and over. I feel as though I’ve never been so happy, so lucky, so brilliant. I am the very best version of myself. I have a deep sense of compassion for every person in the room. I can reveal any part of myself, say anything, no matter how personal or banal. At around 4am, high as kites and exhausted from dancing, we all sit down and play charades. “Film!” “Two words!” “Jumanji?” It’s not exactly Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas. At some point, I think around 9am, we call the dealer again. The prospect of the comedown, an achy, twitching sadness where you can’t stop thinking about a bad thing you said three-and-a‑half years ago, seems too awful to bear. Because he won’t come for anything less, we order another 2g of coke and another 2g of MDMA (total cost £180). At 2pm on Sunday, almost out of white powder and with the working week looming large on the horizon, we go home to nurse our heads. On Monday, we each crawl into work clutching triple-shot americanos and pretending to our colleagues that we’ve had quiet weekends. Take that model, and repeat – sometimes as much as every weekend for a few months, sometimes as little as once a month – and you’ve got a pretty accurate picture of how I’ve spent my 20s. I’m now 28 and a writer on a national magazine. I grew up on the outskirts of a city in the north of England, but I’ve lived in London since 2011. I enjoy reading and going to the gym. I take drugs most weekends, but I wouldn’t call myself an addict, any more than someone who spends their weekend drinking gin and tonics and doing shots would call themselves an alcoholic. But then, I do wonder. My own father died when I was 19 because of complications that arose from his chronic alcoholism. In the bad times, he would drink a bottle of vodka a day. He would steal and lie and get unspeakably angry. Other times, he would be lovely and affable and completely sober. I can’t help but wonder when the habit became an addiction for him. I’ve never allowed myself to linger too much on his memory, because in the end he wasn’t a nice man; but every so often, going past a mirror, I catch a glimpse and pause. I can see him in myself and think that maybe it’s time to stop, or slow down. Perhaps I’m hiding behind excuses; in denial, on the steady downward spiral of someone not ready to admit they’ve got a problem. Of course I don’t think that’s the case – if it were, then almost every friend I have who is living in a major city in the UK has a serious problem. Are we – me, my nearest and dearest – actually the happy, dancing-in-the-living-room, social users we see ourselves as? Or have we begun to push through that flimsy membrane? *** One conversation from last week’s party has stuck with me. Bella, 29, is a financial consultant. We’ve known each other since meeting in halls at university. I was bemoaning the fact that we’d been too busy to go to an exhibition and now it was finished. “Well,” she laughed, “we’re not that busy. We just fill our time doing this.” She gestured to the line of coke I was fashioning with the edge of my gym membership card. “There’s no time for exhibitions when this is your hobby.” I would truly hate to tot up all the midnight cash withdrawals I’ve made throughout my 20s, the time spent making shady deals late at night in the backs of cars with men you don’t really want to bump into after dark. In a heavy month, my drug spend can be around £400. That’s a quarter of my income. “But it’s great,” Bella continued. “Can you imagine me mountaineering or something? I’d rather be here, with you guys, having a good time.” Bravado is easy when you’re high: you’re on top of the world, so of course it’s worth it. But what about after, on a Wednesday night, when work worries are made all the more worrisome by an unshakable anxiety, a feeling that lurks at the edges of your consciousness for a few days after a heavy session. “Did I actually say it was that great?” she laughs a few days later. “Yeah, I guess so. But it’s not something I’m overly proud of.” Like me, Bella has gone through periods of less and more regular usage. I’ve never been able to ascribe a certain mental state to either – usually, I take more drugs when there are birthdays or other reasons to celebrate – but for Bella, who in the past has dealt with social anxiety through a combination of CBT and medication, it’s more obvious. “Whenever I’m most anxious, I tend to have heavier weekends, drugs-wise,” she says. “I don’t do it consciously, but looking back I can see the pattern. The fact is, taking some coke, or whatever else, makes me feel better, even if that’s short-lived. It’s fun. I feel my stresses fall away for a night. And it’s brought me much closer to all of my friends – closer than I thought I could be because of my anxiety. I’ve always found it hard to open up because I worry about what people will think of me. In the past, that might have made me seem standoffish, but spending time in these situations has been really liberating.” But the relief can be short-term. “My comedowns are worse than most people’s, from what I can tell. I get a thought stuck in my head, usually something I’ve forgotten to do that’ll get me into trouble at work, and it’s really hard to get past it.” After a few days, though, those feelings abate. “Friday rolls around and I’m ready to go again. It’s a running joke. Monday to Wednesday you tell yourself you won’t do it this weekend, Thursday you feel OK, Friday you’re back on form.” Alcohol, she agrees, is the gateway drug, and two drinks – where you feel just tipsy enough to be reckless – the golden quantity. “After two drinks, I want to cut loose,” Bella explains. “In the way that others might crave a glass of wine to unwind, I want a line. Not every weekend, but usually when work has been stressful. It’s a guaranteed good time.” Bella uses the same dealer every time. Like me, she met hers through friends. We each have a few numbers of reliable guys (it’s always men) whose product is of an OK quality. Bella’s dealer has branded loyalty cards, much like the ones you get at coffee shops. For every pick-up, she gets a stamp. She texts the amount, he drives to meet her wherever she is, and five stamps equal a free gram of cocaine; it’s an audacious but effective method of marketing. “When I’m out with a certain set of friends at the weekend, it feels almost inevitable that we’ll do it. Before I know it, one of us is popping outside to meet the dealer and the next few hours are brilliant.” I wouldn’t call this an addiction – I’ve seen drug addiction. I grew up on an estate, and while I’d be loth to paint too predictable a picture of it (I had a nice childhood and have friends who still live there), drugs were everywhere. My mum still lives in the semi-detached I grew up in, and just last year her neighbour’s house was raided by police. The people living there were dealing heroin (“He always helped me bring in my shopping, though,” Mum said when I told her I was worried). And it was easy to spot the hollow-eyed, desperate-looking types who would hang around waiting for the dealer to let them in. I can’t relate to that kind of physical need. But then, my friends and I never thought we’d still be doing this within touching distance of 30. And instead of becoming firmer, our self-control has just become more slippery. The older we’ve got, the less we’re inclined to curb our appetites. “Addiction doesn’t always look the way people assume,” the Priory’s medical director, Dr Richard Bowskill, tells me. “Maybe people aren’t taking the drug every day or every weekend, but when they do take it, they find it harder to control themselves. They think, ‘I’ll go out drinking tonight, but I’m not going to have any cocaine.’ Then they end up drinking and taking cocaine. They spend four times more than they thought they would and miss work the following Monday because of their hangover.” This, I explain meekly, sounds suspiciously like my own behaviour. “Well,” Bowskill says, “that sounds like psychological dependency.” Beyond the psychology, of course, I question how my weekends affect my physical health. When I idly search the internet for the health impact, I find stark warnings that drug abuse can lead to heart disease, lung disease, depression, psychosis, hepatitis C, high blood pressure and schizophrenia (to name a few). Dr Adam R Winstock, psychiatrist and founder of the Global Drug Survey, is sanguine. “There are lots of happy, functional, regular users of drugs such as cocaine, MDMA and cannabis.” Around 5% of that group, he explains, may encounter an “acute” problem – say, dehydration, which requires a trip to A&E, or getting too stoned and throwing up. “Most will grow out of drugs as their use becomes incompatible with their lives.” Still, when I press him, he reels off a litany of health problems that I may encounter. For regular, heavy MDMA users, this could be neurotoxicity – where the normal function of the brain and nervous system is impaired after long-term exposure to toxins. “A lot of studies on MDMA exposure focused on very high doses, taken over long periods of time,” Winstock says, “and found that after a number of years participants suffered from low moods, were more impulsive and that memory was impaired.” Cocaine speeds up the development of atherosclerosis both in the heart and in the brain, “the furring up of arteries that you normally get when you’re around 60 and you’re a lifelong smoker”. With ketamine, the risk is largely immediate – users take too much and, as it’s a depressant, find they can’t move or speak (known as a k-hole – one old university friend of mine k-holed next to a hot radiator, and sat there for so long that it burned her whole left arm). In the long term, Winstock explains, ketamine can cause toxic ulceration of the bladder lining. Of course, like all risk-takers, I have the “it won’t happen to me” mentality that allows me to continue in the same vein. I’m also comforted by the fact that, compared with my peers, I wouldn’t class my use as particularly heavy. “Well, most people don’t,” counters Winstock. “But based on figures from last year’s Global Drug Survey, 80% of cocaine users take it less than 10 times a year. Similarly, an average dosage of MDMA is 200-400mg. The reality is, in the UK, most people who take party drugs are casual, irregular users for whom it forms only a very small part of their social lives. If your habit is a weekly one, you’re likely to be in the top 5%.” *** For Mary, 25 and an actor, the slide into dependency seemed to happen all too easily. “I didn’t think of myself as having a real problem until my then housemate came into my room, rounded up all the drugs she could find – which I think amounted to 5-6g of ketamine, some cocaine and a small amount of skunk – and threw them away. I was really furious with her.” Mary had got into the habit of using ketamine almost daily. “It was a social, weekend thing, until it wasn’t. It just escalated really quickly. I’d feel awful on a Monday, so I’d have a little bump and feel pleasantly spaced out.” Not having regular work meant it was easy for something she had only ever meant to be occasional to become the defining part of Mary’s life. “I suppose somewhere in the back of my mind I knew that the way I was using wasn’t normal. I would call the dealer and then have to pretend that there were people in my flat or that I was going out to meet friends, so he wouldn’t know I was just on my own, stocking up. I guess I felt like a failure, because I wasn’t getting much work. Going out, drinking and getting high, on the other hand, made me feel good. So I just decided to focus on doing that. “Within a year I was snorting a gram of ketamine most days. It started like a treat – a few bumps here and there – but obviously the quantities kept going up as my tolerance built. The money was coming from part-time jobs, from bits of acting work or from my parents, but I must have spent well into the thousands. My housemate did try to talk to me about it on a few occasions. I think she noticed how weirdly I was behaving, staying in my room for days, eating rarely. To other friends, it wasn’t so apparent.” When her housemate confronted her again, Mary was shocked by the ferocity of her own emotions. “I never saw myself as addicted, because there’d be days when I wouldn’t have anything and be fine. But the thought of not having access to ketamine made me really panicked. I was so angry at my housemate that I tore into her room and started rifling through her clothes and boxes, to see if she’d kept any. She didn’t try to stop me, but I saw my reflection in the mirror and it was really disturbing.” That was a year ago; since then Mary has stopped drinking (“I’m not sure I’d trust myself after a few drinks”) and taking all drugs. She has been on the periphery of my group of friends for a few years, but we’ve never discussed this before, and I realise I have seen much less of her lately. “I do find it hard to be around you,” she says. “You’re all really laissez-faire about when you do it and what you take.” My mind flashes to a Wednesday night dinner where one of the girls produced a half-empty bag of cocaine. We all dutifully marched to the toilets, leaving Mary alone at the table. “Nights are put on hold while someone waits for the dealer to turn up, or go on for hours after I’ve left, so it feels like I’m missing out.” For every story such as Mary’s, though, I know five more where the weekend habit remains just that: people who would never dream of doing drugs during work time just as they would never dream of turning up to the office drunk. Like me, these people would argue that their weekend antics have little impact on their working lives. Could my habit go on for years without ever turning into addiction? This is how Bowskill explains the difference: “If the frequency is about once a week, the amount stays around the same and there are no social consequences – no arguments, no debts, no aggressiveness or risk-taking behaviour – then you could say that it’s not an addiction.” But he’s still encourage people to look at their relationship with all substances, he says. “To ask themselves, is this really what I want to be doing? Has it become too frequent? Is it just going out and partying, or is it masking a deeper psychological problem?” *** There have been times when I’ve scared myself. Physically, I’m perhaps lucky in that I’ve never come close to, or seen anyone overdose. The quality of the product is often iffy, particularly with cocaine, where the dealer will cut it and then offer a “premium”, purer version for double the price tag. But it’s the cravings that have made me uncomfortable; the feeling, after a few drinks, that a line would make everything infinitely better. And then, of course, there are the ethics. Cocaine has a particularly dire human cost. It comes to the UK via a long route – trafficked usually from Colombia, through Africa – and leaves in its wake a trail of human misery. But just as I push to the back of my mind the fact that a cheap flight to Lisbon is ruinous to the climate, so I bury my head to the idea that the product I’m buying has taken a long, awful, circuitous route to get to me. Very few of the 20 or so people whom I canvassed for this article grew up knowing anything about substance abuse. They came from nice homes, dabbled at university and got into the rhythm of “living for the weekend” when their post-recession careers didn’t take off the way they expected. For now, I see this as a phase – one that will surely pass when we all have children and mortgages and real responsibilities to attend to. Though, as my friend Evie (29 and a product designer) points out, “When do we really expect to become ‘responsible’? I’ll be 30 in a few months’ time, but I feel as if I’ve lived in a state of extended adolescence. I don’t expect ever to be able to buy my own house. I’m single, so no kids to think about. I’m not sure if ‘we’ll only do this while we’re young and carefree’ is a valid argument in the current climate.” I can’t deny Evie’s logic. But this Friday night, sitting in a bar with a group of friends, with two whole days of freedom stretching ahead of me, I’ll still probably end up saying to myself, “Oh well, might as well get it out of the way while I’m still young,” just as I did when I was 22. • Some names have been changed.
Citi and JP Morgan top regulators' list of banks posing systemic risk Two US banks – Citi and JP Morgan – have been designated as potentially posing the greatest risks to the global financial system in an annual ranking by regulators. Citi has replaced HSBC and joined JP Morgan in the highest ranking issued by the Financial Stability Board (FSB), an international alliance of central bankers, policy makers and regulators that sorts 30 major banks into five categories. The more systemically important the bank, the more capital it must hold to absorb losses during time of crisis. No bank has ever been placed in the highest, fifth category – which adds 3.5 percentage points to a bank’s capital requirement – since the FSB rankings were introduced five years. Citi and JP Morgan are in the fourth category. HSBC, Britain’s biggest bank, has been moved out of the fourth category for the first time to the third, reducing the top up to its capital by half a percentage point to 2%. Barclays has also had its status cut by one category, from the third to the less risky second bracket. Citi is among three US banks which have been pushed up the rankings: the other two are Bank of America and Wells Fargo. The rising importance of Chinese banks is also illustrated as Industrial and Commercial Bank of China has moved up one ranking. Tomas Kinmonth, a fixed income strategist at ABN Amro, said the changes reflected the revised business models of some of the banks. “The European and UK banks are both retrenching and are trying to return to their core businesses. Thus the lowering of Barclays within the ranking comes partly as the bank moves to focus just on the American and European markets,” said Kinmonth. “Counterintuitively, a decrease in the systematic importance of the banks can actually be a positive for the institution. The bank can be expected to have less equity set aside, and can in theory allow them to return more proceeds to existing shareholders,” he said. HSBC has also been scaling back its global presence – it recently sold its operations in Brazil – and also reducing its exposure to risky loans. Deutsche Bank, which was described by the International Monetary Fund as the world’s riskiest bank, remained in the third category – where HSBC, Bank of America and French bank BNP Paribas also reside – requiring it to top up its capital by two percentage points. Deutsche was in the fourth category in 2012. The FSB is chaired by Bank of England governor Mark Carney. Its role is to act a body coordinating policy towards the financial services sector around the world and monitor and assess vulnerabilities affecting the global financial system. It is playing a key role in trying to end the “too big too fail” problem that was highlighted by the 2008 banking crisis. Assessing the so-called globally systemic banks – known as “G-Sibs” – is part of its role. The banks are unlikely to need to raise more capital as many of them ready hold enough to appease regulatory demands. A list of the globally systemic insurers was also published, which includes Prudential and Aviva.
NHS plan to shut child heart surgery units causes outcry Two large hospitals, the Royal Brompton in London and Glenfield hospital in Leicester, have defied plans from NHS England to close their heart surgery units for children. NHS England has tried to settle a bitter 15-year argument following the deaths of babies at the Bristol Royal Infirmary, whose heart surgeons were not as skilled as others elsewhere. The 2001 Kennedy review into the tragedy said some units had to close so that the remaining surgeons operated on enough tiny hearts to be as good as they could be at the complex procedures. But nobody can agree which units these should be. The new review by NHS England says the units at Royal Brompton and Glenfield must shut down. Both fought judicial reviews against earlier closure proposals and they appear prepared to do so again. The third hospital trust named was Central Manchester, which operates on children and adults born with heart defects. Every attempt to rationalise children’s heart surgery by closing units to ensure the surgeons in those that remain treat enough children to stay highly skilled, has caused a huge outcry, beginning with the hospital management and consultants and spreading to families and local politicians. Both the Royal Brompton and Leicester came out fighting. “We are confident that our clinical outcomes are now among the best in the country, so we strongly disagree with NHS England’s decision and will not sit by whilst they destroy our fabulous service,” said John Adler, chief executive at University Hospitals of Leicester NHS trust. The Royal Brompton signalled that it would rally the sort of support it had from campaigners last time its service was under threat. “We find NHS England’s stated intention extraordinary. We are, however, reassured to see that the idea of removing congenital heart disease services from Royal Brompton is ‘subject to consultation with relevant trusts and, if appropriate, the wider public’. We fail to see how any logical review of the facts will come to the same conclusion as this panel,” said Robert Craig, chief operating officer at Royal Brompton & Harefield NHS foundation trust. He added that threatening to withdraw services from one of the “largest and most successful centres in the country” seemed “an absurd approach”. The new plan also seeks to rationalise cardiology services offering medical treatment, but not surgery, to patients with heart defects. Services at five hospitals – in Blackpool, South Manchester, Papworth, Nottingham, and at Imperial in London – will be moved elsewhere. NHS England took on the work after the last attempt to rationalise children’s heart surgery collapsed amid lawsuits and recriminations. Hospital trust managers, consultants, parents and local politicians have always united to block closures. The worst of the fighting in recent years was over Leeds, which keeps its children’s heart surgery unit under the NHS England plans. NHS England’s team, working with the hospitals, doctors and patient groups, developed and published a detailed set of standards that children’s heart surgery units must meet in order to be commissioned and paid to do the work. Crucially, every surgeon has to carry out at least 125 operations a year to ensure that they remain sufficiently skilled; and each hospital team must have at least four surgeons on the rota. Central Manchester, which has just one surgeon for congenital heart defects, “does not meet the standards and is assessed as not being able to within the foreseeable future”, said NHS England. Surgery would be transferred to Alder Hey children’s hospital and the Liverpool heart and chest hospital. University Hospitals of Leicester NHS trust and the Royal Brompton and Harefield also failed to meet the standards and were “extremely unlikely to be able to do so”, said the statement. NHS England will work with Newcastle to help it meet the standards, because of the importance of keeping the children’s heart transplant unit there viable. Only two of 13 hospitals met most or all of the standards; these were Birmingham children’s hospital, and Great Ormond Street in London. Out of nine NHS hospital trusts that have cardiology services where children and a small number of adults born with heart defects are diagnosed and given medical treatment but not surgery, five will have their services transferred elsewhere. Those that remain will be Liverpool, Oxford, Norfolk and Norwich, and Brighton and Sussex. Huon Gray, NHS England’s national clinical director for heart disease, said this was the last chance to bring about the changes that were needed to ensure an excellent children’s heart service for the future. “I know for a fact that we have lost key consultant staff moving abroad over the last few years because they weren’t convinced we were able to grasp the nettle, because it is a really difficult issue. If we don’t grasp this opportunity, I think we will have to accept that adequate is good enough.” The review had taken three years and engaged all parties, from management to clinicians to parents and patients. Gray said that without enough support to put the proposals into effect, he could not see that “anybody [would] have the appetite to hold a similar review in the future”. Jonathan Fielden, director of specialised commissioning at NHS England, said he believed they had followed due process and hoped they could work with the relevant organisations to implement the proposals “rather than redirect resources into a protracted judicial review process, which would limit our opportunity to give good-quality services now and into the future”. The Royal College of Surgeons said it strongly supported the proposals, while Sir Ian Kennedy, who chaired the Bristol review, said: “These are vital services, and we have waited 15 years to arrive at a solution which delivers quality and consistency for current and future generations.”
Clinton and Obama urge Democrats to rebuild party after election defeat Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have urged their party to reflect on what went wrong as Democrats search to find a new leader and rebuild after her stunning defeat to Donald Trump. On a conference call with congressional lawmakers, Clinton offered a raw evaluation of how the loss has affected her but encouraged Democrats to fight for the party’s values harder than ever in the Trump era. “No one is sorrier than me,” she said, according to a Democrat on the call. “Heartbreaks don’t heal overnight, and this one won’t.” Clinton said the party must “analyze” and warned lawmakers against becoming “distracted or divided” in the many fights ahead. Meanwhile, Obama addressed supporters on a conference call late on Monday, congratulating Clinton on a “history-making race” while acknowledging how painful it is to lose. “Expected losses are hard enough, unexpected ones are just worse,” Obama said. “I was telling my team, you’re allowed to mope for a week and a half, maybe two if you really need it. But after that, we’ve got to brush ourselves off and get back to work. We’ve got to come together and focus on a way ahead.” Like Clinton, Obama encouraged the party to evaluate what went wrong and to rework its strategy at a grassroots level. “We have better ideas,” Obama said. “But they have to be heard for us to actually translate those ideas into votes and ultimately into action.” Also on Monday, Clinton officially won New Hampshire’s four electoral college votes by a razor-thin margin of less than 1%. Trump’s campaign had until Monday evening to ask for a recount but did not do so. In the end, Clinton won 232 electoral college votes to Trump’s 306, which is the only measure that counts in determining the outcome of a US presidential election. Although final vote tallies are not in, Clinton is leading the popular vote by more than 800,000 votes. “Our vision for America earned more votes … We can’t afford to be discouraged or divided. We are stronger together,” she told Democrats. Clinton’s campaign requested the conference call to thank members of the Democratic caucus for their efforts during one of the most divisive presidential elections in modern history, according to a Democrat on the call. It lasted about 18 minutes. Clinton had an all-star team of Democrats who blanketed the country on her behalf, most notably Obama, first lady Michelle Obama, Vice-President Joe Biden, and senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. On the call, the House minority leader, Nancy Pelosi, said: “Our hearts are broken but our determination is deepened.” She thanked Clinton for her service, saying: “Hillary, you are one of the greatest leaders in our country’s history – president or not.” Clinton has kept a low profile since her concession speech from the New Yorker hotel in Midtown on Wednesday. The next day, a woman and her 13-month-old daughter, Phoebe, saw the Clintons walking their dog near her home in Chappaqua, New York. Margot Gerster posted the photo, presumably taken by the former president, of her and Hillary Clinton standing in the fall leaves on Facebook with the hashtag #ImStillWithHer. “I got to hug her and tell her that one of my proudest moments as a mother was taking Phoebe with me to vote for her,” Gerster wrote. “She hugged me and thanked me and we exchanged some sweet pleasantries and then I let them continue their walk. “Now, I’m not one for signs but I think I’ll definitely take this one. So proud.”
Donald Trump's police: officers backing Republican have murky legal histories As chairman of Donald Trump’s “Florida law enforcement coalition” and one of the Trump campaign’s official pilots, Vincent Caldara is doubly devoted to the Republican presidential nominee and his pledge to crack down on criminality. A former police officer in New York and Miami, Caldara told supporters at a recent gathering in Florida that he had been flying vice-presidential nominee Mike Pence “from coast to coast to make sure we get the law and order message out to every single person that will be voting on November 8th”. Caldara is simultaneously fighting claims that he is a lawbreaker himself. The 55-year-old pilot is charged with aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, after he allegedly drove a vehicle at another person repeatedly in Pompano Beach in July last year. According to court records, the victim, whose name is withheld, was treated in hospital for leg and back injuries. Caldara has pleaded not guilty. In a separate case, Caldara is accused of severely injuring a woman in June 2014 by recklessly driving into her with his Harley Davidson motorcycle in Fort Lauderdale. The woman is suing Caldara and seeking a jury trial. According to court records, officials have been unable to find Caldara to serve him with a summons. Caldara and spokespeople for Trump’s campaign did not respond to several requests for comment. The accusations of wrongdoing against Caldara are only the latest in an eclectic series of claims leveled at law enforcement figures who have publicly endorsed Trump’s campaign for the White House. Amid a spike in crime in some US cities, Trump on Friday received the endorsement of the national Fraternal Order of Police union, whose president, Chuck Canterbury, said: “Our members believe he will make America safe again”. But dark spots on the records of some of Trump’s most prominent police backers challenge the credibility of his claim to be the “law and order candidate”. In July, a coalition of dozens of police chiefs and prosecutors pleaded with the Republican nominee to abandon his draconian ideas and embrace contemporary policing theory and criminal justice reform. Here, the reviews some of the allegations made against a half-dozen lawmen who have lent their support to Trump’s presidential campaign: David Clarke Sheriff David Clarke of Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, has been Trump’s most visible ally among serving police. Although a registered Democrat, Clarke, 60, accused Hillary Clinton’s campaign of “embracing criminality” after mothers of African Americans killed by police appeared onstage at the Democratic National Convention. But Clarke has been accused of violating rules and regulations himself since being elected in 2002. After one of his deputies broke a woman’s neck by crashing his vehicle into her car, Clarke was alleged to have overseen an attempted cover-up that involved framing the woman for drunk driving. The victim, Tanya Weyker, sued Clarke, several deputies and county authorities in state and federal court in 2014 for compensation and civil rights violations. She said Clarke and his officers continued pursuing charges against her for months even after they knew video evidence showed the officer was at fault. “Clarke was personally involved in the conspiracy to continue with the baseless prosecution of [Weyker],” the federal lawsuit said, “or, at the very least, was deliberately and recklessly indifferent to his subordinates’ unconstitutional actions and related misconduct.” Clarke and the officers denied the allegations. An attorney for Weyker, Drew DeVinney, said Weyker settled her state lawsuit for the state-capped maximum $250,000 in compensation, and then settled the federal lawsuit for more than $95,000 for civil rights violations and attorneys’ fees. Clarke has also come under criticism from within his own ranks. In 2010, deputy Richard Graber, a senior official in the Milwaukee deputies’ union, alleged that Clarke aggressively confronted him, called him a “sick fuck” and threatened to “come after him” for questioning an order that deputies must work mandatory overtime after the high-profile death of a local child. “Clarke’s profanity-ridden rant included yelling, pointing, and calling Graber ‘waste,’ an ‘organizational terrorist,’ a ‘fucker,’ and a ‘cancer to the agency’,” according to an appeals court filing. Clarke denied most of Graber’s account of their confrontation. A federal appeals court said Clarke’s behavior amounted to an “adverse employment action” but rejected an allegation from Graber that the mistreatment was because of his union activity. Inspector Edward Bailey, a spokesman for Clarke, declined to comment. “This county office does not involve itself in the current presidential race in any capacity,” he said in an email. Joe Arpaio Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Arizona, has over the past two decades become notorious as “the most unrepentantly lawless lawman in America”: repeatedly condemned by the courts, denounced by civil liberties advocates and forced to pay out tens of millions of taxpayer dollars in compensation. Arpaio currently faces possible criminal charges for contempt of court for ignoring a judge’s order in 2011 that his aggressive immigration patrols must stop racially profiling suspects. Earlier this year, Arpaio was held in civil contempt on three counts by a federal judge. Less well known than Arpaio’s “Tent City” detention center, however, is his record of using his department to go after personal and political enemies. In 2013, the cofounders of the Phoenix New Times newspaper, which had been investigating questionable real estate deals by Arpaio, were awarded $3.75m in damages after Arpaio’s men arrested them on false charges in late-night raids on their homes. In 2008, Arpaio had local judges and county legislators indicted on trumped-up criminal corruption charges that later collapsed entirely, resulting in yet more million-dollar payouts to those targeted. The failed charges also prompted the state supreme court to disbar the county attorney, an Arpaio ally, who was found to have brought malicious prosecutions against political foes. Last year it emerged that Arpaio had even hired a private investigator to look into the wife of the federal judge who ruled in 2013 that Arpaio was engaged in illegal racial profiling. Spokespeople for Arpaio did not respond to a request for comment. Tim Howard Sheriff Tim Howard of Erie County, New York, is a co-chairman of Trump’s campaign in the Republican nominee’s home state, which Trump has declared he can win even while trailing Hillary Clinton in state polls by an average of 19 percentage points. Despite holding an official position in the Republican’s campaign, Howard earlier this year was involved in policing a Trump campaign rally in Buffalo, where he was filmed overseeing the removal of protesters. Aides to the sheriff denied that he had a conflict of interest. Howard, 66, has endured rocky patchesin the upstate county – not least on three separate occasions when prisoners escaped or were mistakenly released from his jail. Two of them went on to commit serious crimes before recapture. In April 2006, Ralph “Bucky” Phillips escaped from Alden prison. He killed a state trooper and wounded two others before being caught after five months on the run. In March 2009, Rasheed Milton was released from the same facility by mistake. Milton was recaptured after raping a woman. Then, in March 2012, Awet Gebreyesus was mistakenly released from Alden after being indicted for the attempted murder of his partner. Gebreyesus was caught before harming anyone. Howard has also been accused of cronyism after it emerged that companies that gave Howard’s election campaign tens of thousands of dollars in contributions received hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of county contracts for purchases such as new police cars, software and furniture. Howard’s spokesman did not respond to a request for comment. Paul Babeu Sheriff Paul Babeu of Pinal County, Arizona, enthusiastically supports Trump’s anti-immigration stance and campaign pledge to build a wall along the US border with Mexico. Babeu is also running as a Republican for a seat in the US House of Representatives and has made border security a key plank of his campaign. Babeu promises voters on his website that he will tackle the “hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants pouring across our southern borders”, warning that at present, “possible terrorists with military training, deliberate plans and lots of money can cross the border”. In 2012, Jose Orozco, a Mexican man and ex-boyfriend of Babeu who worked for the sheriff’s election campaign, alleged that he was threatened with deportation by an aide to Babeu when he refused to sign an agreement not to publicly disclose the relationship. Orozco’s attorney said she was told Orozco’s US visa had expired, making him undocumented. Babeu denied Orozco’s allegations. An inquiry by the Arizona attorney general concluded that he committed no criminal violation. Babeu has also faced allegations made public by his sister that as headmaster and executive director of a boarding school for troubled teenagers in Massachusetts, he had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old student. Babeu, who led the controversial DeSisto School in West Stockbridge between 1999 and 2001, responded by publishing his sister’s mental health history. The former student, Joshua Geyer, has not disputed that he had a relationship with Babeu, but insisted that it was not “inappropriate”. This week, a spokesman for Babeu sent the a letter purportedly from Geyer that said he and Babeu had no sexual relationship at all. Asked twice whether Babeu himself denied that the relationship took place, the spokesman did not respond. State authorities pursued DeSisto for operating illegally without a state license. Over the years, the school became notorious for its severe punishment system, and was investigated repeatedly for allegations of abuse and mistreatment of students. It has since closed. The Babeu spokesman, Barrett Marson, said in an email: “Paul was in charge of the business operations at the school. He never had any control over student discipline or instruction. He was in charge of ensuring there was food and bathroom supplies and things like that. But Paul was never investigated nor had any knowledge of any alleged abuse at the school while he was employed there.” Wayne Ivey Sheriff Wayne Ivey of Brevard County, Florida, is playing an energetic part in Trump’s campaign. Earlier this month, he appeared at the opening of a Trump campaign office in Cocoa Beach with Caldara, the campaign pilot. “I believe we need a leader that is going to stand shoulder to shoulder with those people that protect our great nation,” Ivey told supporters, “those men and women in uniform that protect our communities.” Five years ago, Ivey retired as an agent with the Florida department of law enforcement (FDLE) three days after he was accused by a local muckraking website of making a threatening telephone call to a female probation officer who was the ex-fiancee of Ivey’s son, Robert. A brief review by FDLE of the allegation said that no complaint had been made by the female officer, and that because Ivey was no longer employed by FDLE, the case was out of the department’s hands. A spokesman for Ivey did not respond to a request for comment. Scott Jones Sheriff Scott Jones of Sacramento County, California, pledged earlier this year to support Trump. But Jones, who is also running for Congress as a Republican, has dialed down his enthusiasm after the Republican nominee’s recent string of inflammatory remarks. “He has not personally or publicly endorsed any candidate, but has said he will cast his ballot for Trump given the only alternative is Hillary Clinton,” Dave Gilliard, a spokesman for Jones, said in an email. Jones was accused of sexually harassing a junior female deputy starting when he was a sergeant about 12 years ago, which he denies. The deputy, Tosca Olives, said in a sworn deposition that Jones frequently harassed her on visits to the department’s law library, to which she was assigned. Jones denied the allegations. “It started with, like, rubbing my shoulders while I was on the phone,” said Olives. “It progressed to going underneath my shirt and feeling my breasts. There would be times when there would be kissing. There were times that he would unzip my pants and … but mainly feeling my breasts and kissing.” She said Jones touched her inappropriately “approximately 30” times. Once, when she told him he must stop touching her breasts, she alleged, Jones replied: “Stop being so tempting.” Olives said she feared retaliation for taking action against Jones, and that when she eventually told him she was going to make a complaint about him, he advised her not to and suggested she would ruin both their careers. Olives’s testimony was submitted as evidence in a lawsuit brought by four other female deputies, who alleged retaliation and discrimination by the sheriff’s department – much of it in a county jail, when it was run by Jones. Jurors ruled in favor of the female deputies and awarded them $3.6m. In an emailed statement, Jones said the allegations against him were “without merit, corroboration or evidence” and that he denied them “in the strongest possible terms.” “I have never been the subject of any internal complaint of misconduct of any kind during my 27-year career with the sheriff’s department, and have consistently opened up my personnel records for review,” said Jones.
A more moderate Donald Trump? His taste in men shows otherwise Since Donald Trump became president-elect, he’s made some attempts to soften his blowhard, tough-guy image. The former reality star decided against trying to imprison Hillary Clinton. He’s said his wall might be a fence and that he might keep parts of Obamacare. Trump even told perpetrators of hate crimes to “stop it” post-election, after consistently encouraging violence at his rallies just months earlier. Of course, Trump has a tendency to contradict himself ad infinitum, so no matter what he says, it’s hard to gauge his actual positions on anything. The best representation of his true values, rather, are the people – primarily men – he chooses to surround him. Trump’s inner circle and cabinet appointees prove the president-elect loves bullies who prize total power over inclusion. His cabinet is shaping up to be full of people who believe Making America Great Again is code for white, wealthy men maintaining privilege and control over people of color, women and anybody else who can’t afford a penthouse. Eighty-five percent of Trump’s picks for cabinet are men, and yes, most of them are rich and white to boot. Sure, there are women nominees, and it’s still early days. But there’s no doubt who Trump favors, and if we’re known by the company we keep, his taste in white, megalomaniac men is incredibly disturbing. His chief strategist, Steve Bannon, is the former chairman of Breitbart News, a site that regularly spouts white supremacist, anti-immigrant and antisemitic ideology. Trump’s pick for national security adviser, Lt Gen Michael Flynn, is a power-hungry anti-Islamist who said on Twitter that “fear of Muslims is rational”, and who has retweeted antisemitic statements. Then there’s Senator Jeff Sessions, Trump’s choice for attorney general, a racist who allegedly said the Ku Klux Klan was “OK until I found out they smoked pot.” Though Trump campaigned as the working class’s savior, he bragged about nominating people to cabinet who have “made a fortune” and is set to assemble the richest administration in modern US history. Andrew Puzder, a fast-food mogul and Trump’s pick for labor secretary, is a millionaire who opposes minimum wage hikes. Trump’s finance chairman pick, Steven Mnuchin, a man with a net worth of about $40m, and commerce secretary nominee Wilbur Ross, a billionaire, both worked at Goldman Sachs. Trump’s choice for secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, is a flush oil tycoon who is buddies with Vladimir Putin. The president-elect favors men whose careers have been devoted to making sure the 1% stay filthy rich through control of America’s finances. The way Trump’s chosen men treat women is no better than their xenophobic tendencies or lust for cash. The president-elect himself has been accused by 12 women of sexual assault, and some of his affiliates are alleged abusers. Puzder’s wife filed a protective order after she alleged that he attacked her (she recently walked back the claims after decades). Bannon’s wife claims he grabbed her by the wrist and neck, but a domestic violence protective order was dismissed when she failed to show up in court. Trump’s brand of masculinity is extremely toxic. Pussy-grabbing comments aside, the president-elect recently expressed remorse that he was named “Person of the Year” rather than “Man of the Year” by Time magazine. Of course he did. Trump favors a world where white men have total power, and he cozies up to like-minded people. He said Obama, a man who openly praises his wife’s intelligence and speaks out against misogyny and racism, was a weak leader compared with Russia’s president. Putin, in case it needs repeating, is a dictator who has jailed his opponents. But like Trump, the Russian president is a ruthless, egomaniacal bully who uses any means necessary to maintain control. Trump is terrifying on his own. But Trump surrounded by a posse of powerful men who reinforce and exacerbate his horrifying beliefs about minority groups is a political forest fire. The president-elect has picked cabinet nominees and political affiliates who will not challenge the narrative that rich white men should remain in power. No matter what superficial attempts Trump makes to change his image over the next four years, his inner circle and cabinet nominees will remain concrete evidence that he’s had a terrifying plan all along.
Rise of the drones: from policing the streets to painting your house If technology companies have their way, the buzz of a drone will soon be as ubiquitous as the glint of a smartphone screen. Facebook aims to deliver internet access from drones high in the stratosphere, Google wants to drop piping hot food at your door via quadcopter, and Amazon has just patented a shoulder-mounted drone to help police officers. Today’s commercial drones carry lightweight radios and cameras, and pack powerful lithium ion batteries whose flight times last minutes rather than seconds. But that is nothing compared to what could be coming soon. The change that Silicon Valley is working towards, and that many people fear, is drones harnessing the growing power of automation and artificial intelligence. When drones no longer need humans to control them, their usefulness will improve exponentially. Deliveries of small packages, medicines and takeaway food, all of which have already happened, are only the tip of the iceberg. Why put up scaffolding to paint your house when an intelligent drone could do it in a flash? Drones could swarm into agriculture, industry and sports. They could hunt for missing hikers, respond to burglar alarms, and act as mobile speed cameras. Uber thinks that autonomous drones will one day even transport people around cities. What’s holding drones back? Such is the hype. But for every tech company with its head in the clouds, there are problems to bring them back down to earth. “There are big technical challenges,” says Ryan Calo, a law professor at the University of Washington. “There’s a bunch of PhD theses that need to be completed before you can build a drone to autonomously police an area, find intruders, and use facial recognition to know who is meant to be there. Plus, having these things stay aloft beyond a few minutes is non-trivial.” The problems get larger still when you think of a drone having to avoid obstacles: weather, birds, manned aircraft and all the other drones zipping around. Nasa is developing an automatic low altitude air traffic control system called UTM but is not due to complete its research until 2019. Any real-world deployment of such a network is still many years off. In the meantime, there is growing tension between drone enthusiasts who want flying robots filling our skies, and some regulators, pilots, politicians and the public who are less than excited at the prospect. New rules this summer from America’s Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), called Part 107, made it easier for commercial drone users to get airborne but stopped short of giving comprehensive guidance. “Privacy is the biggest unanswered question,” says Arthur Holland Michel, director of the Centre for the Study of the Drone at Bard College, in New York. “The FAA has no hard rules relating to privacy or data collection and use, nor does it have any rules regarding overflights of private property.” While the federal government dithers, some American states and cities have passed their own laws, creating a patchwork of legislation that could frustrate future commercial services. There is also uncertainty about when or even whether hi-tech operations, including flights without human operators, will be allowed. “At the end of the day, I just don’t know whether or not the FAA has the internal expertise to sign off on some of the more interesting uses,” says Calo. Which country is leading on drones? Little surprise, then, that some of the world’s biggest tech companies are testing their drones elsewhere. Last month, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos told a conference in Seattle: “We’re getting really good cooperation from the British equivalent of the FAA, the CAA [Civil Aviation Authority]. It’s incredible. It’s really cool.” Amazon is developing and testing its Prime Air delivery drones in the fields around Cambridge. Despite the UK’s enthusiasm for Amazon, and similarly permissive test flights elsewhere in Europe, Canada and Australia, “no single country stands out as being aeons ahead of everyone else,” says Holland Michel. “Though they may vary on the details, all countries are grappling with the same concerns. The deciding factor will be how flexible and responsive their regulations are.” Public opinion will also play a role, especially in the use of controversial devices like police drones. Drones are already used by fire services and police forces to carry out aerial surveillance, but Amazon imagines a small personal drone acting as an all-seeing body-cam for the police. Even armed drones are possible. “We are very likely to see drones equipped with less-than-lethal weapons, like sound cannons or tear gas canisters,” says Holland Michel. “The idea of weaponised drones will make a lot of people uncomfortable but if one of these drones saves lives, say by resolving an active shooter situation, that could change minds at both the regulatory and the popular level.”
MPs condemn newspaper attacks on judges after Brexit ruling The refusal of the lord chancellor, Liz Truss, to defend three senior judges from “the vitriol” of sustained media attacks following the Brexit judgment has been condemned by Lord Falconer, who previously held the post. The former Labour cabinet minister asked why Truss, who is also justice secretary, remained silent in the face of personal denunciations in the rightwing, pro-Brexit papers. The Daily Mail described the judges – the lord chief justice, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, the master of the rolls, Sir Terence Etherton, and Lord Justice Sales – as “enemies of the people”. The Daily Telegraph carried front-page pictures of them with the headline: “The judges versus the people.” Their judgment on Thursday declared that only parliament has the legal power to trigger article 50, which would initiate Brexit. Writing in the , Lord Falconer, who was lord chancellor between 2003 and 2007, said: “The British public continues to have confidence in the independence and quality of judges. But both are undermined by this Brexit-inspired media vitriol. “The lord chancellor, Liz Truss, has a constitutional duty to defend the judges. She needs to make it clear immediately the government has no quarrel with the judges and has total confidence in them. “Disagreement with the judges is dealt with by appeal not by abuse. Liz Truss’s silence feeds the sense the government is either hopeless at avoiding conflict or couldn’t care less about the constitution.” Labour’s justice spokesman, Richard Burgon MP, also urged Truss, to uphold the independence of the judiciary in the face of “hysterical headlines … Some of the headlines in today’s newspapers personally attacking the judges who heard this case are unacceptable,” he said. “As lord chancellor, Liz Truss should not stay silent. It is the lord chancellor’s job to uphold the independence of British judges and she must speak out urgently against the hysterical headlines of some papers and these attacks on British justice.” The Liberal Democrat leader, Tim Farron, said: “Where is Liz Truss? Her job is to uphold the rule of law and defend the judiciary and yet she is utterly silent while judges are being attacked by some newspapers. Our hard-fought rights and freedoms are protected by the law, British law that the Brexiteers claim that they wish to uphold.” Truss is under a statutory obligation to defend the independence of the judiciary, the solicitor and legal blogger David Allen Green has pointed out. Section 3(6) of the Constitutional Reform Act 2005 sets out the lord chancellor’s duty to protect judicial independence. Asked whether Truss wished to comment, the Ministry of Justice said she would not be making a statement. The prime minister’s spokesman refused to condemn the language, saying: “I don’t think the British judiciary is being undermined.” He added: “I’m not commenting on newspaper coverage.” Brendan Cox, widower of the Labour MP Jo Cox, cautioned against allowing the tone of the debate about Thursday’s judgment to become too febrile. He tweeted: “Whatever our views on the court ruling I hope we can take a step back & debate it soberly. Inciting hatred has consequences.” Jo Cox, who represented the Batley and Spen constituency, was killed in the run-up to the EU referendum. During the high court Brexit case the claimants challenging the ministers’ right to trigger Brexit received death threats and online abuse. The term “enemies of the people”, coined in Roman times, was adopted by Robespierre during the French Revolution and was later favoured by Lenin and the Bolsheviks. Politicians from the three main parties leapt to the defence of the judges. A former attorney general, Dominic Grieve, expressed alarm at attacks on the judiciary. “They are entirely unjustified and are either made in ignorance or out of malice, it’s impossible to know which,” he said. “The judges are the safeguarders of our unwritten constitution. Nothing they have done ought to take anybody by surprise. To accede to the principle that you can change primary legislation by royal prerogative is a constitutional monstrosity and would totally undermine everything that our forebears struggled to give us. It would trash the constitution.” The Conservative chair of the Commons justice select committee, Bob Neill, and Anna Soubry MP, a barrister, also condemned the headlines. She described the coverage in a tweet as: “Hysterical, dangerously inaccurate & bullying”. Jonathan Marks, the Liberal Democrat justice spokesman, said: “The headlines in much of the press today and the anti-judge rhetoric from some politicians is extremely worrying. This hostility to the rule of law is irresponsible; the personal attacks on judges are plain nasty. “British citizens won our freedoms from the tyranny of the crown painfully and over many centuries. The rights of minorities to think as they will, to live at peace and to claim the protection of the law against an over-mighty state are at stake here.” Lord Macdonald of River Glaven QC, a former director of public prosecutions, said: “These are risible and constitutionally illiterate attacks from politicians who should know better. The high court has reaffirmed the sovereignty of parliament within the rule of law. In other words, it has fulfilled precisely its most critical function in a democratic society. The idea that judges would be better employed kowtowing to the executive is shameful heresy from political pygmies.” Chantal-Aimée Doerries QC, the chair of the Bar Council, which represents barristers across England and Wales, said: “Publicly criticising individual members of the judiciary over a particular judgment or suggesting that they are motivated by their individual views, political or otherwise, is wrong, and serves only to undermine their vital role in the administration of justice.” The Welsh Assembly announced on Friday that it would seek permission to intervene in the anticipated supreme court hearing in which the government will appeal against the high court ruling. Announcing the Welsh government’s involvement, Mick Antoniw, an assembly member and counsel general for Wales, said he would raise concerns about the impact of Theresa May’s attempt to use royal prerogative powers on the devolved assembly.
Katy Perry's Twitter account is hacked and song leaked Twitter’s top user and pop superstar Katy Perry was hacked on Monday, with her account sending abusive tweets to her 89 million followers and reportedly leaking an unreleased song. The tweets removed from Perry’s account page, the most followed on Twitter, beating Justin Bieber and Taylor Swift, sent homophobic messages to users and a “miss u baby” message to the singer’s arch rival Taylor Swift among others. The hacked account signed off with a tweet telling users to “haha follow @sw4ylol #hackersgonnahack”, who appears to have claimed responsibility for the hack. @sw4ylol, the alleged hacker’s account, which is still operational but appears to be caught in a semi-suspended state pushing out tweet notifications for tweets that don’t appear, also reportedly shared an unreleased track from Perry on SoundCloud and a screenshot of the singer’s email account. The link to the SoundCloud file shared by a user named “slut” was removed from Twitter, along with several other tweets from the account. The alleged hacker’s account still shows a takedown notification from SoundCloud for Witness 1.3, after the song was removed from the service. Perry’s account has been cleaned of the hacked messages, but has yet to acknowledge the intrusion. Twitter warns users they may have been hacked by ‘state-sponsored actors’ Damn Daniel, deleted: death of a viral video after Twitter hack
Why everyone is talking about US interest rates today – and why it matters Why is everyone talking about the Federal Reserve? Because today’s the day the US central bank will decide, once again, whether or not to raise interest rates. Fed chair Janet Yellen will hold a press conference to discuss the Fed’s assessment of the US economy. When was the last time the Fed raised rates? The Fed raised rates last December for the first time since 2006. It was expected to be the first of a series of rises but the Fed has declined to raise them again at six subsequent meetings. They remain pretty close to 0%, where they have been since before the recession. Why do I care? It’s the economy, stupid. We are in an election cycle and the economy is likely to be the deciding factor. As Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders and plenty of others have argued by keeping the interest rates low, the Fed has created a “false economy” flooding the market with cheap money, via ultra-low interest rates, and driving stock markets to unsustainable highs (emphasis on the unsustainable). Fat cats and big shareholders may have benefited from the recovery but a lot of Americans feel like they have been left behind or feel insecure about the gains they have made. How will they feel if it turns out the Fed has fuelled another boom and bust cycle? That does not sound good It’s not. The Fed lowers interest rates in the hopes of encouraging people to spend more money and for businesses to revive the economy by hiring new people. What it doesn’t want to do is create bubbles. Bubbles burst. The policy does seem to have worked, albeit slowly. The job market has rebounded and consumers are spending more. Still the majority of the people on the Fed’s board have not felt the economy was strong enough to take another rate hike. At the same time US stock markets have all hit record highs this year as investors have poured money into the markets looking for returns they can’t find in low interest rates. If there is a shock to the system now, a cut to interest rates that are already close to zero is unlikely to save the day again. Uh-oh Exactly. This is why some members of the Federal Reserve and other economists have said that it is time to raise interest rates. In August, New York Fed president William Dudley said that a September rate hike “is possible”. Dudley is part of the federal open markets committee, which votes on whether to raise interest rates or not. “Let’s get on with it already,” said Michael Arone, chief investment strategist at State Street Global Advisors. So they will raise interest rates today ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Seriously … Probably not today. I will echo the Royal Bank of Canada here: if the Fed hikes interest rates today, it will be the mother of all surprises. But didn’t Janet Yellen say something about the case for rate hike strengthening last month? She did. She has also spent a couple of the past months praising the US jobs market, which over the past three months has created on average 230,000 jobs a month, but there are other things to consider. Like what? Well, inflation is still really low. And wages are not that great. These are both good enough of an excuse for the Fed to hold off on raising rates for another few months. So when will the interest rates go up? The Fed meets again in November – a week before election – which might make them pause for thought. The Fed is not supposed to be political but if a rate rise triggers a stock market crash just before the election … Yellen and crew meet again in December and economists are betting that December will be THE month. Happy Holidays! Let’s hope so.
European commission files third antitrust charge against Google The European commission has filed a third antitrust charge against Google, this time against its AdSense advertising business. The EU regulator accuses Alphabet’s Google of abusing its dominance in search to benefit its own advertising business, which has historically been the company’s main revenue stream. The EC also reinforced its existing charge against Google’s shopping service, which the regulator says receives preferential treatment in search results. European competition commissioner, Margrethe Vestager, said: “Google has come up with many innovative products that have made a difference to our lives. But that doesn’t give Google the right to deny other companies the chance to compete and innovate. “We have also raised concerns that Google has hindered competition by limiting the ability of its competitors to place search adverts on third-party websites, which stifles consumer choice and innovation,” Vestager said. The commission said it had sent two “statements of objections” to Google and given its parent company, Alphabet, 10 weeks to respond. Google faces fines up to 10% of its global turnover for each case if found guilty of beaching the bloc’s antitrust rules. Vestager also said the commission’s preliminary probe into Google Shopping has revealed that Google has “unduly favoured its own comparison shopping service in its general search result pages”, meaning that “consumers may not see the most relevant results to their search queries. “If our investigations conclude that Google has broken EU antitrust rules, the commission has a duty to act to protect European consumers and fair competition on European markets,” Vestager said. A Google spokesperson said: “We believe that our innovations and product improvements have increased choice for European consumers and promote competition. We’ll examine the commission’s renewed cases and provide a detailed response in the coming weeks.” The EU’s concerns around Google’s adverts relate to the company’s AdSense for Search platform, in which Google acts as an intermediary for websites such as those of online retailers, telecoms operators or newspapers, with searches producing results that include search ads. Google’s AdWords and AdSense programmes, which formed the bulk of Google’s $75bn (£56bn) in revenue last year, have been on the EC’s radar since 2010, after rivals complained about unfair advertising exclusivity clauses and undue restrictions on other advertisers. The EU’s executive branch is already investigating whether Google gives preferential treatment to its own products, including Google Search and Chrome, in its Android operating system. Device manufacturers are obliged to place Google Search and Chrome on the primary home screen of Android devices, as well as other Google apps, if they want to provide access to the Google Play Store - the single largest source of third-party Android apps. The company is also facing complaints against its image search from Getty Images. Google given six-week extension in EU Android antitrust case
Claude Puel’s appointment can help to soothe Southampton’s supporters As the man responsible for handing a 16-year-old Thierry Henry his first taste of senior football and a former child prodigy himself, Claude Puel’s appointment as Southampton’s manager on Thursday should give the club’s fans plenty of reasons for feeling relieved. A little more than two weeks after Ronald Koeman’s surprise defection to Everton, the smile on the director of football Les Reed’s face told its own story after the Frenchman was confirmed to have signed a three-year contract at St Mary’s. The club’s Twitter account went one step further, posting a picture of Puel’s face with a halo emoji pasted over it, and a subsequent tweet featuring the hashtag #saintclaude. At a club that has become used to selling its best players at the end of the season – more often than not to Liverpool in recent times – his arrival looks like a continuation of the smart managerial appointments that have taken Southampton from the wilderness of League One to one of the Premier League’s most consistent sides. Although the loss of Mauricio Pochettino to Tottenham in 2014 could have threatened the progress made since Nigel Adkins guided them to successive promotions, the arrival of Koeman ensured the process went as smoothly as possible. Puel, having spent 20 seasons as a coach including at Monaco, Lille, Lyon and Nice, looks like the perfect fit. A tough-tackling defensive midfielder in his playing days who broke into first-team football as a teenager, he spent 17 years playing for Monaco, making nearly 500 appearances, and won two Ligue 1 titles, the second playing in the same team as Glenn Hoddle under Arsène Wenger. After retiring in 1996, Puel became Monaco’s fitness coach and then manager of the club’s reserve team. Henry remembered in an interview in 2014 how the coach had helped him refine his shooting technique after he burst on to the scene. “The hardest thing for an attacking player? When he has time to think. So, with Claude Puel, who was then a fitness coach at Monaco, I went through session after session with dummies. I wasn’t born with a gift for goals,” said the former Arsenal striker. Within three seasons, Puel had succeeded Jean Tigana as the Monaco manager and led them to the French title in his first full season, helping to bring through emerging talents such as Henry’s France team-mate David Trezeguet, and was named manager of the year. His contract was not renewed after they finished 11th the next season, however, and he moved to Lille the following year after taking a break from the game. Lille were a club whose glory days of the 1940s and 1950s seemed a distant memory but Puel transformed them into genuine title contenders in his six years at the helm, finishing as runners-up in 2004-05. As a result he was snapped up by the Lyon president Jean-Michel Aulas to replace Alain Perrin but failed to extend Lyon’s run of seven successive titles, although in 2010 he guided the side to their first Champions League semi-final, beating Real Madrid in the last 16. Following another year out, Puel was tempted back into management by Nice and, after narrowly avoiding relegation in his first season, he oversaw a steady improvement that culminated in last season’s fourth-placed finish. A young team boosted by the maverick talents of Hatem Ben Arfa clearly made an impression on Southampton’s hierarchy and they made no secret of their desire to install him as Koeman’s replacement after Puel agreed to leave Nice, where Lucien Favre has replaced him. “As the process eliminated a number of excellent candidates, Claude clearly came out on top of a very impressive shortlist,” said Reed. If he can be half as successful as their past three appointments, Southampton’s future looks assured.
'Go smoke free. Stay pretty’ – the health campaigns that haven’t heard of feminism Hear that sound, all you women of a childbearing age? It’s time, running out. Soon your eggs will be past their prime and you will no longer be of any use to society. Even if you’re hot! Just ask the Italian government, which recently launched an advertising campaign urging women to get a move on with their baby-making. One poster showed a woman brandishing an hourglass with the caption: “Beauty has no age. But fertility does.” Feminism: it has come so far. The ill-conceived ads, launched ahead of Italy’s first national Fertility Day, were not well received and the campaign has been pulled. It’s 2016 and women feel as if they should be treated as more than glorified incubators. Who knew? There were also some suggestions that maybe the government should focus less on reminding women about their ovaries and more on trying to fix issues such as unemployment, paid maternity leave and poor childcare provisions. Italy’s fertility publicity may not have worked as intended but it has done a good job of advertising the extent to which women’s bodies are still carefully controlled under the guise of public health advice. So, to ensure you are all up to speed with the latest developments on how to safely operate your lady-body, here are a few more examples of campaigns demonstrating an unhealthy interest in women’s health. Booze and babies Mixing alcohol with oestrogen, women are frequently told, is a recipe for disaster. Drinking will get us raped and/or give us herpes for starters. And if that’s not enough to get you to put that glass of merlot down, then won’t you think of the unborn children? Earlier this year, America’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention caused widespread ire when it basically said that fertile women shouldn’t be drinking unless they were on birth control. A press release explained: “Alcohol can permanently harm a developing baby before a woman knows she is pregnant. About half of all pregnancies in the United States are unplanned, and even if planned, most women won’t know they are pregnant for the first month or so, when they might still be drinking. The risk is real. Why take the chance?” I’ve also heard that walking down the street puts you in danger of getting struck by a car. The risk is real. Of course, I don’t mean to underplay foetal alcohol syndrome, but this advice seems to greatly underplay women’s common sense. What’s more, it’s based on highly dubious evidence. A number of studies have shown that light and occasional drinking poses little risk to pregnant women, or their foetuses. In any case, the most frustrating thing about the constant flow of moralising about women and drink is how one-sided it is. There’s been very little health advice to men, after all, about how that one sip of Stella is going to turn you into a rapist with raging syphilis. Making breast cancer sexy again Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women worldwide, so it makes sense that a large amount of women’s health advice centres on our breasts. What makes less sense, however, is just how fixated on breasts these health campaigns often are. There have been a slew of “provocative” awareness campaigns centred on messages such as “Save Second Base” and “Save the Ta Tas”, for example. And if breast cancer campaigns aren’t drowning in tired innuendo about, giggle, boobs, giggle, then they tend not to think further than pink. Indeed, Breast Cancer Action has even coined the term “pinkwashing”. It defines a pinkwasher as “a company or organisation that claims to care about breast cancer by promoting a pink ribbon product, but at the same time produces, manufactures and/or sells products that are linked to the disease”. Superficial smoking campaigns Women only care about their looks, right? You would certainly think so judging by some of the anti-smoking campaigns. An Australian campaign called Your Future’s Not Pretty, for example, explains to young female smokers that if they don’t put down the cigarettes they might as well kiss their futures (based on men finding them attractive, obviously) goodbye: “Go smoke free. Stay pretty.” Women are invited to “upload a pic to the Future You Smoking Booth and see how old and horrible you could look if you keep smoking. It’s a shocking transformation.” Being old and female – don’t let it happen to you! The dangers of beer goggles Even public health campaigns aimed at men seem fixated on passing judgment on a woman’s appearance. Last year The Highway Safety Office of Tennessee had to apologise over a campaign that warned men about the dangers of drinking and driving through irreverent messages on beer coasters. For example: “Buy a drink for a marginally good-looking girl, only to find out she’s chatty, clingy and your boss’s daughter.” Imagine, guys, after drunkenly crashing your car you could wake up to find yourself with horrible injuries and the terrible realisation that you’d made out with an ugly girl! The campaign you haven’t seen yet More egregious than any of these campaigns are the ones that don’t exist yet. While a large amount of energy is expended on moralising about women’s bodies, there is still a shocking lack of research around many women’s health issues. For instance, nobody knows exactly how harmful tampons might be because there has been very little research done. Ridiculous as it may seem, this would appear to come down to simple squeamishness and embarrassment – society has made menstruation so taboo that science doesn’t want to go near it. (The research that has been done has largely been funded by tampon companies, who – one imagines – aren’t entirely unbiased.) What’s more, much medical research still focuses on men and neglects to properly control for female-specific differences. I know, it’s depressing, right? Still, I’m going to have to advise you not to take solace in a glass of wine, particularly if you’re not on birth control. It’s for your own good.
BBC will never run adverts online in UK, says director general BBC director general Tony Hall has ruled out ever running online ads in the UK, saying it would harm other digital businesses that rely on ads. During a special session of the public accounts committee, Labour MP Caroline Flint asked Hall “when it comes to an online formats, isn’t there a stream of advertising revenue in the future?”. Hall replied by saying advertising in the UK would harm the country’s broader broadcasting and news ecosystem. “We have a good ecology in this country, ITV and Channel 4 are doing public service broadcasting but funded by ads, and Sky has subscribers. That kind of works and I don’t think it is for us to get into the advertising market,” he said. Pressed again by Flint, who said online ads had less “qualitative” impact on digital news and information than in TV or radio, he said it would be going back on promises to commercial providers. “The problem is if we started taking advertising online, we would be doing something we said we won’t do,” he said. “There are others out there whose funding model – we are privileged to be funded by license fee – there are others who are trying to do other jobs in information and all sorts of other ways funded by advertising and I wouldn’t want to harm their market; and they sometimes think we do harm their market.” Newspapers and other digital publishers have regularly complained that the BBC’s digital services compete for the attention of online audiences, depriving them of advertising revenue when spending on print ads is in decline. Hall’s commitment comes just a week after the BBC caused an outcry with plans to close its BBC Food website and “mothball” thousands of recipes, before later saying the bulk of the content would be quickly moved to the BBC Good Food website, which is owned by commercial arm BBC Worldwide and runs ads. Despite ruling out advertsing on BBC services in the UK, Hall said it was right to have them on output outside the UK, such as the World Service
Game of Thrones star Emilia Clarke joins Star Wars' Han Solo spin-off Game of Thrones star Emilia Clarke will swap dragons for intergalactic space travel after it was confirmed that she will join the cast of the yet-to-be-named Han Solo spin-off film. The British actor joins Alden Ehrenreich, who will play Solo, and Donald Glover, who was confirmed for the role of Lando Calrissian in October. The film is to take place before Star Wars: A New Hope and will focus on the formative years of Solo and Calrissian as they became space smugglers and, as Lucasfilms put it, “scoundrels on the rise”. Clarke’s confirmation as the female lead in the film comes after rumors that Tessa Thompson, Naomi Scott and Zoe Kravitz were in consideration for the role. Other actors in the running were relative unknown Kiersey Clemons and Clarke’s fellow Game of Thrones star, Jessica Henwick. Star Wars: The Force Awakens made more than $2bn at the box office while Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, which opens in December, has been tipped to help its parent company, Disney Films, make a record-breaking $7bn at the box office in 2016. The spin-off is scheduled to start filming in January and will come to the big screen in May 2018.
NHS mistakes cost lives. Here are four ways to improve patient safety Almost 130 NHS patients are killed or harmed every day in the NHS as a result of errors in their treatment. Latest figures from a report by Imperial College London state: “in the six months from October 2014 to March 2015 there were 622,000 patient safety incidents recorded in general hospitals (acute, non-specialist, NHS trusts) in England and Wales. Of these, more than 23,000 caused moderate or severe harm and there were 716 deaths – four a day.” To kickstart a global drive to reduce errors, improve care and save lives, ministers from countries across Europe will meet in London for the Patient Safety Global Action Summit 2016. The two-day conference, which begins on Wednesday, will assess the latest innovations in patient safety, the barriers to research, and how we can learn more from our mistakes. The challenges are increasing. Patients are older, with more complex needs and often have multiple chronic conditions. New treatments create new risks and tighter budgets mean reduced staffing and reduced investment in facilities and equipment, which are crucial to keeping patients safe. The rise of antimicrobial resistance is another formidable threat. But there are also developments that are making care safer. At the Institute of Global Health Innovation, which I lead, we have been researching patient safety for a decade, with the support of funders including the National Institute for Health Research. Below are just some of the innovations that we have developed. Heads-up Based on a single A4 sheet, this ward safety briefing asks “What happened yesterday?” It is used by staff at a brief meeting each morning to ensure any problems in the previous 24 hours – a broken piece of equipment, a patient almost given the wrong drug – are picked up and staff alerted. After piloting on 11,000 patients it is now in use at St Mary’s and West Middlesex hospitals and early results suggest it has improved safety. Hark Allowing the thousands of clinical tasks medical staff must carry out each day – from writing prescriptions to inserting drips – to be prioritised and allocated via smartphone, this task management platform ensures the sickest patients are treated first and warning signs of deterioration are not missed. Hark has been sold to artificial intelligence research company Google DeepMind and there are plans to roll it out across Imperial College healthcare NHS trust. Hospital drug chart Developed with designers, behavioural scientists and academics, this redesigned prescription chart aims to reduce the 7% of hospital prescriptions that contain an error , such as illegible writing or missing information. This is the most frequent cause of avoidable harm to patients in hospital. The new form requires medical staff to circle quantities and use colour coding for length of treatment. A trial at St Mary’s hospital published last year showed it reduced errors Ambulance redesign Ambulance crews have to provide emergency care in a moving vehicle in a cramped space, which is poorly designed with badly laid out equipment, difficult-to-access storage spaces and an interior that is hard to keep clean and germ free. A replica full-size ambulance has been built to a new design with a side-loading trolley, built-in washing facilities, re-positionable monitoring and communications system and treatment packs of syringes and bandages in one place. It was evaluated positively by paramedics. We have made great progress over the last decade, as these examples show. But there is still a long way to go. One lesson we have learned is that no intervention in isolation can solve the problem. Too many attempts to implement patient safety practices have ignored the importance of wider professional, organisational and cultural issues, which must be addressed. Reducing harm has to be system-wide and will depend on organisations putting quality and safety first, involving patients and staff, avoiding blame and punishment, and assembling robust evidence. A key factor that has been neglected in the past is the patients. For too long they have been left out of the picture. Without their engagement and involvement, efforts to improve safety will fail. It is their goals that count yet, nationally, only half of patients say they are involved as they wish to be in decisions about their care. We will work to increase their involvement in research and create a patients advisory board to guide our decisions. But if the drive to improve patient safety is to succeed it must become a global movement, embracing health systems everywhere in pursuit of a shared goal. Lord Darzi is a surgeon and director of the Institute of Global Health Innovation at Imperial College London. He was a Labour health minister from 2007-9. Join the Healthcare Professionals Network to read more pieces like this. And follow us on Twitter (@GdnHealthcare) to keep up with the latest healthcare news and views.
Nissan throws UK car industry a lifeline but GM could hit the road A collection of MPs and leading figures from British industry gathered at a business park in Coventry last Thursday to discuss the future of manufacturing and the government’s industrial strategy. Little did they know that 200 miles up the road in Sunderland, Nissan was about to make a major announcement with significant implications for the British economy that showed Theresa May’s new government had already activated its industrial strategy. The guests in Coventry included senior executives from Rolls-Royce and Aston Martin, trade union leaders and council bosses. They were giving evidence to MPs on the business, energy and industrial strategy committee, which is going on a roadshow around the country to study what the government’s industrial strategy should be. Hamid Mughal, the director of global manufacturing at Rolls-Royce, the FTSE 100 engineering group, told the MPs that industry was facing a “radical shift” because of dramatic advancements in technology. As well as 3D printing, robots and driverless cars, Mughal referred to Google Earth-like technology that would allow company bosses to monitor the inside of their factories around the world from the comfort of their desk. “When people talk about an industrial revolution, there really is [one],” Mughal said. “There is breathtaking technology that is coming together.” This fourth industrial revolution would revolve around innovation and knowledge, he added, meaning that the UK, with its world-leading universities and advanced manufacturing companies such as Rolls, was well placed. “For once it plays to the UK’s strength,” Mughal said. “I am absolutely convinced it will play to our strengths, but we need to get organised.” The Rolls executive warned that countries around the world were “investing huge amounts of political and economic resources” into trying to attract manufacturers to open new facilities and turn their region into a global base for new technologies. “Manufacturing has become as popular as football,” Mughal added. The comments provide a fascinating context to the prime minister’s courting of Nissan, the Japanese carmaker. But they also show how ill-timed Brexit is for manufacturers and why it threatens to derail a revival in British manufacturing. Nissan announced last Thursday that it would build its new Qashqai and X-Trail models in Sunderland and also intended to turn the site into one of the biggest car plants in the world. The future of the Sunderland factory had been in doubt since the EU referendum. Carlos Ghosn, the chief executive of Nissan, warned that the company could decide to build its next-generation models outside Britain due to Brexit. However, Ghosn said last week that Nissan was committing to the site after receiving “support and assurances” from the government. The news sparked a bitter political row, with Labour criticising the government for not revealing what it had offered Nissan, and for its apparently chaotic approach to leaving the European Union. May, however, hailed Nissan’s decision as “fantastic news”. She had met Ghosn at Downing Street earlier in the month while business secretary Greg Clark travelled to Japan to meet Nissan representatives. One in three British-made cars are manufactured in Sunderland and it is the biggest plant in the country. More than 7,000 people are employed at the site, with a further 28,000 supply-chain jobs reliant on the factory, mostly in the north-east. Nissan opened the factory in 1986 after being wooed by Margaret Thatcher. It has invested more than £3.7bn in the site since then. The growth of the Sunderland factory – which is now regarded as one of the most efficient in the world – has coincided with a spectacular revival in the British car industry. In the 1980s the automotive sector was in the doldrums. More than 25 years on, Britain is close to overtaking its all-time production record for cars. In the first half of 2016 Britain built 897,157, up 13% on 2015 and the best performance since 2000. The all-time annual record was set in 1972, when the country made 1.92m cars. Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) alone intends to build 1m cars a year by 2020. British-based companies are also piling money into researching and developing new technologies, particularly smaller and more powerful batteries for electric vehicles and driverless cars. Dyson, the vacuum-cleaner maker, is understood to be working on an automated City car in a top-secret project at its Wiltshire headquarters, while JLR is working with Warwick Manufacturing Group (WMG) on a battery. Lord Bhattacharyya, the founder of WMG, based at the University of Warwick, wants to turn Coventry into Britain’s “motor city” and make it a global hub for the development of electric cars. Coventry will take a significant step towards becoming Britain’s “motor city” next September with the opening of the National Automotive Innovation Centre. The £150m project, backed by JLR, WMG and the government, will become a base for advanced research, with academics and engineers working together. The ambition and the potential behind these projects explains the importance that May and her government attached to protecting the Sunderland plant. The automotive industry accounts for less than 1% of Britain’s GDP, but it employs more than 800,000 people, accounts for 12% of Britain’s exports, and invests billions in cutting-edge research. As well as being the home to JLR, Nissan, Toyota, Honda, Mini and others, Britain is home to eight of the 11 Formula One teams. However, the government faces more severe challenges than saving the Sunderland plant if it wants to stop Brexit destroying the potential of the automotive industry. One senior industry source said dealing with JLR and Nissan was “chalk and cheese”. JLR is the biggest carmaker in the country. It not only employs more than 35,000 people in Britain – five times the Nissan staff in Sunderland – but is investing £3.5bn a year in research and development. JLR also has some major investment decisions coming up – such as where to build a new electric car plant. Sources say JLR is relaxed at present about the impact of Brexit. It is understood that the government has privately told some executives in the car industry that it is confident the sector can retain tariff-free access to the single market. The UK automotive industry is in a strong position when it comes to negotiations about leaving the EU, because Britain imports more cars from Europe than it exports. Key European carmakers, such as Volkswagen and BMW in Germany, hold significant political clout nationally and locally. The introduction of tariffs on sales in Europe, tariffs on importing parts, and restrictions on hiring staff from abroad would have a damaging effect on the automotive industry. According to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, 77% of cars built in Britain in 2015 were exported, with 57.5% of those heading to the EU. Andy Palmer, chief executive of Aston Martin and a former executive at Nissan, said: “We would like to be tariff-free not just into the EU but tariff-free around the world from our perspective. We are 80% export, so a competitive or weak pound multiplied by tariff-free is good news for us.” The Aston Martin boss was speaking in Coventry after telling MPs that the government’s industrial strategy needs to focus on bringing car parts makers back to Britain. “We rely on a supply chain that is offshore,” he said. “We need to try to bring it back. Alot of the intellectual property is in the supply chain.” Despite Brexit, Palmer has confirmed that Aston Martin will press ahead with construction of a new factory in Wales. But just across the English-Welsh border in Merseyside, another problem is brewing for May in the shape of Vauxhall. Chuck Stevens, chief financial officer of Vauxhall’s US owner General Motors, warned last week it was “prepared to take whatever action is necessary” to get its loss-making European business back on track. It described the situation in the UK as a “speed bump on our path to where we want to take the business” and warned that it would write down the value of GM Europe by $400m (£329m) because of the referendum result and the subsequent fall in the value of the pound. Vauxhall employs around 4,500 staff at factories at Ellesmere Port in Merseyside and Luton. The Ellesmere Port plant came perilously close to closing in 2012 until Vince Cable, then business secretary, travelled to Detroit to agree a deal and reassure GM about the government’s commitment to the industry. May and her business secretary may have to do the same. A report by consultancy firm LMC Automotive warned in July that GM was the carmaker most likely to shift operations from Britain to mainland Europe because of Brexit. The announcement from Nissan gave May a Brexit boost, but that was just the start of a long and rocky road for the government and the automotive industry.
Oscars 2016: campaigners claim boycott victory as ratings hit eight-year low The 2016 Oscars were watched by 34.3 million people, the lowest number of viewers in eight years , as civil rights leaders claimed credit for the decline in the year of diversity boycotts and the #OscarsSoWhite controversy. Early estimates suggested Chris Rock’s turn as host, Spotlight’s win for best picture and Leonardo DiCaprio’s first win in the best actor category for The Revenant all coincided with the official US screencast’s lowest ratings since 2008, when 32 million tuned in to see the Coen brothers’ No Country for Old Men take best picture. Viewing figures were down 3m from last year’s ceremony, when 37.3 million people watched Birdman pick up the top prize, and 9.4 million from Ellen DeGeneres’ stint as host in 2014, when 12 Years a Slave was the top movie and 43.7 million people tuned in. Civil rights activist Al Sharpton, who urged viewers to “tune out” of the Oscars in protest against the failure of the US Academy of Motion Picture Arts to nominate a single actor of colour for the second successive year, said he believed the campaign had been at least a partial success. “For those of us that campaigned around asking citizens to tune out, this is heartening news,” he said in a blog post. “It is a significant decline and should send a clear message to the Academy and to movie studio executives that we will not tolerate discriminatory practices, whether they impact what we see on screen or what takes place behind the lens. Though we don’t take full credit for the decrease in viewership, certainly one would have to assume that we were effective and part of the decline … To those that mocked the idea of a tune out, it seems that the joke was on them.” Sharpton’s National Action Network had staged simultaneous protests in Los Angeles, New York, Washington, Cleveland, Atlanta and Detroit. The advisor to Barack Obama said the group did not want to dictate “who should or who shouldn’t win an Oscar”, but was concerned at the wider problem of “systemic exclusion”, with people of colour often “locked out of the process”. He continued: “This isn’t just about black actors not being appropriately recognised for their talent; it is about the larger notion of what projects get funding for production, who gets hired behind the scenes, what stories are told and from whose perspective, what roles are available for black and minority actors, how people of colour can secure producer and director positions, how those who actually live in the Los Angeles area can get jobs in the industry and more.” There was more positive news for the Academy after DiCaprio’s win for best actor became the most popular Oscars-related moment ever on Twitter, eclipsing even the famous DeGeneres selfie from 2014 which featured Bradley Cooper, Meryl Streep, Jennifer Lawrence, Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts, Kevin Spacey, Lupita Nyong’o, Jared Leto and Angelina Jolie in a single star-packed shot. Twitter reported that DiCaprio’s victory generated more than 440,000 tweets per minute, ahead of the DeGeneres selfie’s previous best of 255,000 per minute. A snap of Kate Winslet embracing her Titanic co-star after his win proved especially popular, and DiCaprio’s own tweet thanking the Academy and praising the cast and crew of The Revenant was retweeted more than 350,000 times.
Is it cos I is wack? The rise and fall of Sacha Baron Cohen Earlier this year, I saw Grimsby, the new film by Sacha Baron Cohen, at the Cineworld above my local shopping centre. It had only come out that day, so the audience was big for a weekday afternoon. Not that big, though: I counted seven of us. There were a few scattered laughs, and the comic centrepiece – a scene best described as elephant bukkake – brought yelps of hysteria. Mostly, however, there was silence. Some time before the end, a phone went off. Its owner left to answer it. I heard him at the door as the film played on. “Don’t worry – it’s shit,” he said. “See you in Foot Locker.” This was Britain. A fortnight later, Grimsby opened in the US, now retitled The Brothers Grimsby. It didn’t help. In both countries, the film – the story of lumpen hooligan Nobby Butcher, played by Baron Cohen, and his secret agent brother – proved wildly unpopular. The budget was never officially released, but initial reports put it at $60m (£32.2m). Box office returns were clearer. To date the film has made £5m in Britain and $6.7m in the US, the kind of numbers at which heads voluntarily detach and present themselves for rolling. In risk-averse modern cinema, for a studio movie to bomb like this is quite an event. For Baron Cohen, the low may have come when industry analyst Jeff Bock told the Hollywood Reporter: “I’m not saying he needs to join Adam Sandler’s posse at Netflix, but …” Bock was not alone. Pundits gathered to prod the body. Frequently mentioned was the Sony Pictures hack, when a group calling itself the s of Peace leaked a huge amount of confidential information from the studio. Backed by Sony, Grimsby was shot in the summer of 2014, wrapping just in time to plough into the crisis that engulfed the studio that November. With the calamity apparently caused by North Korea taking umbrage at Seth Rogen’s The Interview, the mood around the corporation towards another shock-tactic comedy may not have been one of giddy excitement. (An early version of Grimsby involved the Queen giving HIV to the pope.) The inquest went on. The whole premise of a spoof spy movie, it was said, was old hat. The target audience had already been hoovered up by the sardonic blockbuster Deadpool. In the US, clearly, no one would want to see a film involving occasional references to soccer. So how does this happen? How does Baron Cohen, a smart and gifted man, end up in such a doomy pickle? Promoting the film, he talked about his love of risk, but this was probably not what he meant. Then again, the same interviews mentioned his attention to detail, whereas to many observers the shocking thing about Grimsby was not the elephants but the sloppiness. Playing a character from Humberside, Baron Cohen’s accent didn’t survive his opening line, tumbling back into the Hampstead Garden Suburb of his youth. It was a small moment, but one that said it all about a movie whose wobbly specifics (one shot featured roadsigns for Tilbury, Essex, where filming took place) suggested a corrosive attitude of Will This Do? Way back when, the geography had been sharper. Ali G, the Surrey B-boy who gave Baron Cohen his breakthrough, came from Staines, and while the commuter belt outpost had presumably been chosen for the giggly connotations of its name, it was also exactly the kind of place where suburban herberts might fixate on Wu-Tang Clan. Plenty about Ali G felt plausible. Baron Cohen admitted that, growing up in 80s London, he had been fond of the “graffiti and language” of early hip-hop, so the joke was on him, too. But that was only half the story. In 1998, you watched Channel 4’s otherwise lifeless 11 O’Clock Show for Baron Cohen’s ambush interviews of public figures. The gag wasn’t just Ali G throwing gang signs: it was him coaxing the Tory grandee Rhodes Boyson into agreeing that kids should get “caned” in school, or hearing the Unionist politician Sammy Wilson call himself British in his Belfast office and be asked: “Is you here on holiday, then?” The comedy, however, contained the seeds of its own destruction. The more recognisable Ali G got, the smaller the pool of the clueless to interview. As early as 2000, the guests on his solo vehicle Da Ali G Show already felt fractionally too aware of how this worked. So he seized the chance to find new victims in the US, before retiring the character. Then came Borat: the Kazakh naif touring backwoods America in his creator’s career-making film. Geography was in play again, although now considerably more loaded. As outlined in slightly defensive interviews, Baron Cohen’s thinking was almost legalistic: the Kazakhstan of Borat, with its fermented horse urine and omnipresent prostitution, was a fiction, but it had to be named after the real Kazakhstan because the real joke was on people who would believe Kazakhstan was really like that. This didn’t soothe the Kazakhs, whose authorities issued a wounded denunciation. But Hollywood loved it. With an unlikely Oscar nomination, Borat cemented Baron Cohen’s status as a film star. Clearly, this was very much what he wanted: not the paddling pool of Britain, but LA, movies, the big league. And Grimsby is just what happens when the big league goes wrong. One problem is that since the start, he’s been trying to outrun nature. Like Ali G, Borat’s success left the character used up, and the same thing happened to Brüno Gehard, his gay Austrian fashion journalist. So finally, in an attempt at sustainability, Baron Cohen quit the prank interviews altogether, first with The Dictator, a half-funny scripted comedy about the petulant tyrant of a fictional African state, then with Grimsby. Hollywood careers are hard enough to manage without having to change your basic act: it’s a tribute to Baron Cohen’s self-belief that not only did he persuade executives to stay on board, he got bigger budgets out of them. In the early 2000s, he moved to the Hollywood Hills. In truth, the idea of him as an outsider had always been fanciful. Even in the days of the Da Ali G Show, he was starring in the video for Madonna’s single Music. By the time of Grimsby, you could find him in the tabloids on a Saint-Tropez holiday with Bono and Noel Gallagher. At such a highwire junction of his career, one worthwhile risk could have been to make his new character an exiled British super-comedian in LA, juggling overheads and trying to appear edgy while hanging with U2. Instead, he came up with Nobby Butcher. Grimsby was a parade of Jeremy Kyle grotesques, created by a former pupil of Haberdashers’ Aske’s – one of the country’s leading private schools. And gross-out is a strange fit for the middle-aged: the comedy of elephant cum is surely the province of the young. But kids today have their own guerilla comics, racking up views on YouTube with the likes of Baiting Out Skets (and Baiting Out Fuckboys), DIY vox pops of questionable ethics concerning the sex lives of young Londoners. Where does a 44-year-old movie star stand in relation to that, other than creepily on the margins? Anyway, it’s still the pranks that Baron Cohen loves. Even if he hadn’t admitted it in interviews, you could see it in the promotional stunts he carried out for Grimsby, which he seemed to enjoy more than being in the film. Then there was the glee with which he relaunched Ali G at this year’s Oscars. Much to his delight, that involved sneaking into costume in the toilets against specific orders, enraging the olds at the Academy. But watch the clip now and rather than gasping at the audacity, you end up focused on his co-presenter, actor Olivia Wilde, obliged to stand by silently while he booms through the material about “Idris Elbow”. The shame is this could all be different. Had fate unfolded in another direction, Baron Cohen would now be starring in the endlessly delayed Freddie Mercury biopic, a story of debauchery and excess he was signed up for and born to play. Recently, while plugging Grimsby, he recalled the moment he realised he had to drop out: when an unnamed member of Queen, also a producer, explained how the best part of the story would be the sudden twist halfway, after which the film would find the band going “from strength to strength” without their dead lead singer. Sacha Baron Cohen has not lost his ear for a funny story. It will come in useful for the comeback.
Claudio Ranieri admits for first time Leicester City can win the title Claudio Ranieri has finally admitted that he believes Leicester City can win the Premier League title. With qualification for the Champions League group stage secured earlier in the week, following Manchester City’s draw with Newcastle United, Ranieri was happy to break with tradition and accept that winning the championship is now the sole target for his players. “We are in the Champions League, dilly ding, dilly dong. It’s fantastic, terrific,” Ranieri said, his face beaming. “Well done to everybody, the owners, the fans, the players, the staff, everybody involved in it. It’s a great achievement. Unbelievable. And now we go straight away to try to win the title. Only this remains. Mauricio [Pochettino], keep calm! “I talked with my players: ‘Come on, now is the right moment to push.’ I believe. Always I believe. I am a positive man. If Tottenham go above us, congratulations. But I prefer to be five points ahead. I think they’ll win the final four games. But I also think we’ll win. If we win the title it will be unbelievable.” Leicester have the opportunity to stretch their lead at the top to eight points when they host Swansea City on Sunday. Ranieri will be without Jamie Vardy for that game, following the striker’s controversial dismissal against West Ham United last Sunday, but the Leicester manager was reluctant to wade into the Football Association’s decision to charge the striker with improper conduct. “I don’t want to put my energy into this case. My focus is only on Swansea. Swansea is a difficult match,” he said. Asked specifically about Roy Hodgson’s comments and the England manager’s public show of support for Vardy, who picked up a second yellow card for an alleged dive, Ranieri said: “I think it’s not only sympathy, I think it was the truth. He was going very fast, and when you touch someone you lose balance, maybe it is not a penalty, but sure it is not a yellow card. “Football is football. I don’t like to speak about what happened. I forget and I think about the next game. But Roy is an honest man and he said what he watched.” Leonardo Ulloa, whose injury-time penalty earned Leicester a point in the 2-2 against West Ham, seems the obvious candidate to start in place of Vardy. “We have to change something, because with Jamie everybody knows his movement, without him we have to make some other strategy,” Ranieri said. “I don’t tell you whether I change only one player or the system. Leo deserves to play but before Leo there is a team. I think about what is best for the team.”
How to conquer jet lag If you’re returning to work this week after spending New Year’s Eve in Hawaii, don’t expect much sympathy from your colleagues, or from me. However, some basic neurobiology can help you beat jet lag and ease yourself back into the land of the living. The best way to re-jig your circadian clock is exposure to light. If humans are deprived of any natural or artificial light cycles - deep in a cave, or in a special lab - our natural sleep cycle is just over 24 hours. This extra half-hour or so means that our body clocks are all drifting westwards, so it’s more difficult to adapt from east to west than in the other direction. A hormone called melatonin makes us feel sleepy, and like a vampire, it shrinks in the face of bright light. So after travelling west, take in sunlight and exercise as late in the day as possible. When you’re travelling east, the temptation to sleep late will be huge, but a brisk morning walk will help. If you really are returning from Hawaii, try and go 14 hours west by having one very long day, as bringing your clock 10 hours eastwards will be even more painful than your colleagues’ jealous glares. Dr Daniel Glaser is director of Science Gallery at King’s College London
Bobby Vee obituary By 1959, rock’n’roll had apparently run its course: Elvis Presley was in the army, Chuck Berry was in jail, Little Richard had got religion and Buddy Holly had perished in a plane crash. In most versions of pop music history, the resulting vacuum was filled by “the Bobbys”, younger performers whose looks were more important than their singing. Foremost among these, but with better songs and musicianship than most, was Bobby Vee, who has died aged 73. Vee was a literal replacement for Holly in February 1959. He and his brother, Bill, were set to attend a concert in Moorehead, Minnesota, by the Winter Dance Party package show when Bobby heard the news that its stars, his idol Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper, had died in a plane crash. The brothers and their group rushed to offer their services, stopping only to buy angora sweaters for their stage outfits. They duly performed as the Shadows, appearing immediately after a spoken tribute to Buddy from his bass player, the future country music star Waylon Jennings. By June, the Shadows had recorded Suzie Baby for Soma, a small Minneapolis label, and its modest success was enough to win Bobby a contract with Liberty Records of Los Angeles. He went on to have numerous hit records in the 1960s on both sides of the Atlantic, including Take Good Care of My Baby, Rubber Ball, The Night Has a Thousand Eyes and Run to Him. Son of Saima (nee Tampinila) and Sidney Velline, Bobby was born in Fargo, North Dakota, into a family of Norwegian and Finnish heritage (in 2014 he was elected to the Scandinavian-American Hall of Fame). His father, a chef, was a pianist and fiddle player. Bill formed a small band at Central High school and allowed his younger brother to join when it transpired that Bobby knew all the lyrics to current hits by Presley and the Everly Brothers. After their big break at the Winter Dance Party in 1959, a local music promoter was impressed enough to find the group further engagements in the region. During this time they briefly employed a pianist calling himself Elston Gunnn. His real name was Robert Zimmerman, and he would, in a more successful incarnation, soon become Bob Dylan. Vee remembered that Gunnn “played pretty good in the key of C” while Dylan wrote in his 2004 memoir Chronicles Volume 1 that Vee’s voice was “as musical as a silver bell”. At Liberty Records, the renamed Bobby Vee came under the supervision of the producer Snuff Garrett, who would mastermind his sequence of hit singles. This began inauspiciously with a version of Adam Faith’s British hit What Do You Want but picked up speed when the next single, Devil Or Angel, reached No 6 in the US charts in September 1960. Next came the first of many songs directed squarely at a teenage audience. With its “bouncy bouncy” refrain chorused by the female backing vocalists, the infuriatingly catchy Rubber Ball was Vee’s first British hit, peaking at No 4 at the beginning of 1961. This was followed by a version of More Than I Can Say, written by Jerry Allison and Sonny Curtis of the Crickets, Holly’s former backing group. Garrett had been a disc-jockey in Lubbock, Texas, Holly and Allison’s home town, and he arranged for Vee to record and tour with the Crickets. More crucially, in 1961 Garrett linked up with the Brill Building song factory in New York, in order to source songs for Vee. Foremost among these was Take Good Care of My Baby, composed by Carole King and Gerry Goffin, which became Bobby’s only No 1 hit in America and was among his biggest successes in Britain, where it got to No 3. In Liverpool, George Harrison sang the Beatles’ version at the Cavern, dedicating it to the children’s charity Barnardo’s. Vee’s other big hits in the early 60s included Run to Him, Sharing You and The Night Has a Thousand Eyes, the last of which he sang in Just for Fun (1963), one of two British B movies in which he appeared alongside various home-grown stars. The other was Play It Cool (1962), which starred Billy Fury. Vee also toured Britain several times in the 1960s, including a 1963 package show with Dusty Springfield and the Searchers. In 1964 he supported the Rolling Stones on their first American tour. By the end of the 60s, Vee’s style was out of fashion although he unsuccessfully tried to join the singer-songwriter trend in 1972 by releasing an album using his real name, in an attempt to claim authenticity. In 1982, he moved his family from Los Angeles to St Cloud, Minnesota, where he and his wife, Karen, organised annual fundraising concerts to provide music and arts facilities for local children. He also recorded occasionally with his three sons and continued to perform his hits to fans in North America and Europe until a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s in 2011. Karen died in 2015. Vee is survived by their children, Jeffrey, Thomas, Robert and Jennifer. • Bobby Vee (Robert Thomas Velline) singer, born 30 April 1943; died 24 October 2016
Collateral Beauty trailer: just when you thought 2016 couldn't get any worse This has been an awful year. The world has taken one hopelessly regressive step after another. Everyone you admired has died. At times, it has felt like things couldn’t possibly get any worse. And then the second trailer for the forthcoming Will Smith movie Collateral Beauty was released. And now things are much worse than anyone could have imagined. Collateral Beauty comes from the writer of the film where Kevin James became a cage-fighter, as well as the film where Jason Bateman gets drunk and artificially inseminates Jennifer Aniston with his sperm by mistake. But Collateral Beauty is different to those films. Collateral Beauty is, by some distance, stupider than those films. Look, here’s the trailer. Meet Will Smith. He’s just been through an unthinkable tragedy. You know, just like the man Will Smith played in the Will Smith movie Seven Pounds. The tragedy has caused him to ride his bike aimlessly around the city while saying things like “I’m trying to fix my mind” in such a halting way that it’s natural to assume that he’s some kind of savant. Called it. However, unlike the Rubik’s Cube-loving savant that Will Smith played in the Will Smith movie The Pursuit of Happyness, this Will Smith savant loves dominoes instead, which makes it a completely different movie. Why dominoes? At a guess, it’s because he’ll get to push them all over at the end of the film in a grindingly literal moment of sledgehammer symbolism. Another way that this Will Smith savant differs from any past Will Smith savants is that he writes letters. Not letters to people, you understand. No, he writes letters to abstract concepts like time and death and love. And then he posts them. But the funniest thing happens. Somehow, just by writing the word “Death” on an envelope and posting it, the letter manages to get all the way to Helen Mirren. She miraculously knows where to find Will Smith and, even though she doesn’t actually ever open the envelope or read the letter or anything, she’s able to offer him a series of annoying platitudes about the nature of tragedy. And then Time shows up too! His method of identification, as with Death, just involves showing Will Smith the letter he wrote. This either means that Will Smith’s pain has caused a rupture so profound that it’s allowed universal concepts to take on corporeal forms, or that a bunch of guys at the sorting office have decided to screw with him for kicks. Even Love comes to visit Will Smith. Who knew that, in all the songs and poems and plays ever written about love, they were all actually about Keira Knightley pulling this face again? Annoyed that he’s inadvertently made a film about the benefits of Cosmic Ordering, which basically makes Collateral Beauty a terrible sort of Noel Edmonds: The Motion Picture, Will Smith gets on his bike and rides around some more. “Don’t you understand?” Keira Knightley shouts while pulling that face again. “This whole thing is just an aggressively dopey remake of A Christmas Carol that lacks all the charm of the original because Will Smith wasn’t in the original, and Will Smith’s production company didn’t make the original, so Dickens was never handed a set of notes suggesting that Ebenezer Scrooge should also be some sort of Beautiful Mind-style adorable genius whose skills manifest themselves in an advanced affinity for childrens’ toys. Also, in A Christmas Carol, every third line spoken by a side character didn’t reinforce the mistaken notion that Scrooge was some sort of troubled genius. Also, nobody in A Christmas Carol pulled a face that made them look as if they were going ‘BUHHH?’ whenever they spoke. That’s what I’m doing all the time! This is a stupid film and you should be genuinely ashamed of yourself.” So Will Smith goes home and – oh, called it. And then Kate Winslet does this with her face, because she’s in this film too. They’ve all clearly learned important lessons from this experience, apart from Will Smith who sneaks off to option a script about a dyslexic murderer who’s really good at Pop-Up Pirate or whatever.
Norwich City can stay up at big teams’ expense, says Jonny Howson It is not the size of the club that matters when it comes to relegation dogfights, but the size of their heart. Jonny Howson suggested that Newcastle United and Sunderland, Norwich City’s next two visitors, are not too big to go down as the smallest club involved in the battle to avoid the drop showed a little unity can go a long way. Robbie Brady’s goal and a first clean sheet on the road this season enabled Alex Neil’s side to climb out of the relegation zone before Sunday’s Tyne-Wear derby and increase the pressure on the north-east giants who visit Carrow Road either side of Norwich’s trip to Crystal Palace next month. No one would claim Norwich are immune to relegation nerves, and a run of two points from 10 games before Saturday’s victory reflected a squad thin on the quality required to avoid repeating their demotion of two years ago. But, taking their lead from the classy centre-back Timm Klose, signed for £8m from Wolfsburg in January, back-to-back clean sheets have left them two points above the relegation zone and relishing a run of three games that will shape their destiny. Perhaps Newcastle and Sunderland, like doomed Aston Villa, have got more to lose than Norwich, because of the clubs’ relative statures, a situation that alleviates the burden on last year’s Championship play-off winners. “We can’t change what people’s thoughts are or what their predictions are,” Howson said. “We’ve seen it happen over the years when the bigger clubs have gone down and sometimes the smaller teams stay up. It’s not something we’ll think about.” The midfielder was influential in this first away win since December as Norwich sang off the same tactical hymn sheet, did not overplay in front of Albion’s compact defensive unit and showed they are not afraid to compete physically. Brady was a case in point as he followed his opportunist finish, anticipating the loose ball to score after Matt Jarvis bungled his initial effort, by hurting his neck and shoulder in a collision with Craig Dawson and having to leave the field with blurred vision. “Robbie has had a few whacks in recent weeks,” said Howson, who started the move for the goal. “Bits of his teeth knocked out the other week, he injured his calf, then this … He’s been in the wars. But on the other hand I’m sure he’s over the moon getting the winner for us. When you’re in this situation, at this time of the season, you’ve got to put your head in where it hurts.” Carrow Road will not be a place for the faint-hearted when Newcastle and Sunderland come to town after the international break. “It’s obviously two massive games,” Howson said, “but from now until the end of the season show me any games that aren’t massive.” The trip to Selhurst Park also offers Norwich hope as Palace have failed to win in 13 league games, their buffer from the bottom four now whittled down to five points. This time two years ago, Norwich gained just one point from their final seven games to be overtaken for the final survival place by West Brom, a precedent not missed by Neil, who recently invited his players to have their say in agreeing the team’s tactics for the run-in. “Five points above the relegation zone with seven games to play … sometimes you can feel as if it’s going swimmingly and suddenly find yourself in trouble,” the Norwich managed mused. “Trying to reverse that is extremely difficult. Palace will be concerned about that and we’ve got them to play.” Man of the match Timm Klose (Norwich)
Barclays agrees to hand over internal documents to Serious Fraud Office Barclays has agreed to hand over internal documents to the Serious Fraud Office in a change of approach towards the SFO’s investigation into its rescue fundraising during the financial crisis. The bank will give the SFO communications linked to the inquiry into whether Barclays and its leaders made false and misleading statements about a £7bn deal with Middle Eastern investors. Barclays had argued that the documents contained legal advice protected by client-lawyer privilege. However, it changed its stance before a court hearing due in March at which the SFO intended to argue that legal privilege did not allow documents to be withheld from a fraud inquiry. The SFO is examining Barclays’ payment of £322m in advisory fees to Qatar Holdings, a subsidiary of Qatar’s sovereign investment fund, when the bank strengthened its finances in 2008. The capital injection allowed Barclays to stay out of the government’s bailout of UK banks and avoided the Treasury becoming a shareholder. The SFO pressed its case for the release of the documents at a private hearing in December. The chairman of Barclays, John McFarlane, and the chief executive, Jes Staley, have said they want to end disputes with regulators that have damaged the bank’s reputation. Senior Barclays managers interviewed by the SFO for its investigation, which has been going on for at least three years, include the former finance director Chris Lucas. Barclays admitted three years ago that the City regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority, had issued it with a £50m fine for “reckless” behaviour in relation to its fundraising, which was backed by Qatar. The bank is contesting the fine. Barclays made much of its ability to avoid a taxpayer bailout at a time when Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group were forced into state-backed rescues. But the deal has come back to haunt it. As well as the SFO’s inquiry and the contested FCA fine, Barclays faces a claim for nearly £1bn brought by Amanda Staveley, who helped arrange a £3.5bn investment by Abu Dhabi’s Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan as part of the fundraising. Staveley is seeking fees that she believes her company is due from the deal. Responding to the Staveley suit, Barclays said last week: “We believe the claim against Barclays is misconceived and without merit and Barclays will be vigorously defending it.” If the hearing over the Qatar documents had gone ahead, it would have been the first time the SFO, under pressure to achieve results after a series of botched investigations, challenged a company over the matter in court. Barclays and the SFO declined to comment.
Trump describes sexual aggression on hot mic In shocking audio and video from 2005 uncovered on Friday by the Washington Post, Donald Trump is heard using extremely lewd terms to describe “moving on” multiple woman. Trump was preparing to appear in a soap opera with actress Arianne Zucker and made the comments to Access Hollywood’s Billy Bush. ‘You can do anything’ I better use some Tic Tacs just in case I start kissing her. You know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful women. I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. You just kiss. I don’t even wait. When you’re a star they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything. – Donald Trump, part 2 This was locker room banter, a private conversation that took place many years ago. Bill Clinton has said far worse to me on the golf course – not even close. I apologize if anyone was offended. – Donald Trump, in a statement. That’s the full statement House speaker Paul Ryan, scheduled to hold a rally with Trump on Saturday, did not reply to a request for comment. Neither did the RNC. When the news broke, reporters were removed from a restaurant where Trump running mate Mike Pence was dining. Pence’s Catholicism The behavior Trump describes was also described to the in July and in a lawsuit brought by makeup artist Jill Harth, who said Trump pursued her, cornered her and groped her in his daughter’s bedroom. Jill Harth breaks silence WikiLeaks released “the first 2,050 of well over 50,000 emails from Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta”. We’re just starting to read them now. You can too, by clicking here: WikiLeaks Podesta emails dump Multiple US intelligence agencies said they were “confident” that the Russian government was behind the hack this year of the DNC and others. There was no comment on WikiLeaks’ source. US accuses Russia I don’t think anybody knows that it was Russia that broke into the DNC. She’s saying Russia, Russia, Russia ... Maybe it was. I mean it could be Russia but it could also be China it could also be lots of other people. it also could be somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds, OK? – Donald Trump, at the last debate Diplomats told the Associated Press that Russia’s government lodged a formal complaint last month with the United Nations over a top UN official’s condemnations of Donald Trump. They’re #withhim. Donald Trump and Russia
Edward II: Manchester’s Improving Daily review – hardship, anger and joy from folk-reggae aces Edward II are one of the finest, if more unusual, Manchester bands. They started in the late 80s as an instrumental outfit mixing English morris tunes with reggae, then added vocals and brass, broke up and re-formed again, and now release their first full-length album of original material in more than 15 years. It’s been worth the wait. They pay tribute to their city with songs based on the Manchester broadside ballads of the 19th century. They sound rousing and relevant here, thanks to the sturdy rocksteady/reggae backing and gloriously easygoing vocals of Glen Latouche. The Great Flood retells an 1872 news story about factories and graveyards under water; it is matched against songs of hardship and anger, and the gloriously descriptive Victoria Bridge on a Saturday Night. Ewan MacColl’s Salford anthem Dirty Old Town and New Order’s Love Vigilantes fit easily into the mix.
Tom Brady says he ducked Trump questions to avoid team distractions Tom Brady clammed up last week when asked to comment on the genital-grabbing talk of his good friend Donald Trump, but on Monday he explained why he acted so evasively: because he didn’t want to be a distraction to his team. Last week, in the wake of Trump’s unpleasant boast that he could “grab women by the pussy” without their consent because he was so famous, Brady was asked by a reporter at Patriots media day: “Tom, you have kids of your own … how would respond if your kids heard Donald Trump’s version of locker-room talk?” Brady didn’t answer the question, and after a brief thank you, hurriedly left the stage. His non-answer provoked much ire, especially since many other athletes were quick to criticise Trump’s remarks. Brady, who threw for 376 yards and three touchdowns in New England’s 35-17 win over the Bengals on Sunday, told Boston sports radio WEEI that he ducked the question because didn’t want to create extra headlines. He said: “It’s just the way it is right now. Obviously there’s a lot of headlines to make, and I’ve tried not to make a lot of headlines. I’ve been in an organization where we’re taught to say very little, we have respect for our opponents and we don’t do the trash-talking. “The thing I’ve always thought is I don’t want to be a distraction for the team. That’s what my goal is. Not that there are things I’ve said and done that haven’t been, but you try not to be. It’s just hard enough to win and prepare without the distractions so when you start having the distractions it’s even harder to prepare.” However, Brady’s refusal to answer the question arguably created just as much of distraction for the Patriots, a point which was acknowledged by former New England receiver Troy Brown on Sunday. Brown said: “[He should have said] just something, a quick answer on the question to get it out of the way, just answer the question to say, ‘I don’t condone it’ and then walk off the stage. The optics of it weren’t great. I understood what he was trying to do. But the next time he’s asked that question, then give a quick answer and let it be. I’m not responsible for what comes out of my friend’s mouth. But I am responsible for correcting my friend.” On Monday, Brady again said that he and Trump have been friends for 15 years, and that “I’ve always had a good time with him”. “I met him probably 15, 16 years ago,” Brady said. “We’ve played golf together many, many times and I’ve always had a good time with him. He’s been a friend of mine. He’s supported our team. He’s supported the Patriots. He’s been on the Patriots sideline a lot. He’s always called me after games to encourage me over the course of 15 years. That’s kind of the way it is.” Brady didn’t reveal who he’d be voting for on 8 November, but he did say he would certainly be casting his ballot. “Yeah, I’ll vote,” Brady said. “Maybe we’ll talk about [my vote] after Super Tuesday or whatever it is.”
EU commission still refuses UK talks before article 50 triggered The European commission has rejected Theresa May’s call for preparatory talks on Brexit before the UK’s formal resignation from the EU. The commission, which will run Brexit talks for the EU, reiterated its refusal to negotiate before article 50 is triggered, which the prime minister has promised will happen by before the end of March. “I cannot go an inch beyond the ‘no negotiations without notification’ principle,” said Margaritis Schinas, the chief spokesman for the commission’s president, Jean-Claude Juncker. The prime minister, who delighted Eurosceptics with her party conference speech, which leaned towards a complete break with the EU, is pushing for advance talks, before article 50. She said it was important for the UK and for Europe as a whole, to carry out “preparatory work” to ensure smoother negotiations. Juncker will meet May on the sidelines of a European summit in October, but would not negotiate with her, his spokesman said. “When it comes to article 50 we will work constructively on the basis of a notification, not on the basis of a speech. And until this letter of notification arrives, there will be no negotiations. Once it arrives we are prepared to engage constructively and in good faith,” the spokesman said. The statement is more emphatic than the response of the European council president, Donald Tusk, who also appeared to pour cold water on the idea of preparatory talks. Following May’s speech on Sunday, he tweeted: EU diplomats have rebuffed attempts by British colleagues to launch informal preparatory talks on article 50; so far the consensus shows no sign of cracking. Officials from France, Germany, Poland and Slovakia, which holds the EU’s rotating presidency until the end of 2016, on Monday repeated the “no negotiations without notification” line that was agreed by EU leaders at a summit following the Brexit vote. Malta’s prime minister Joseph Muscat said the format of Brexit negotiations would “be more or less like what happened with Greece”, referring to bailout negotiations in 2015 that saw Athens forced to accept conditions it had sworn against. Muscat, who will be in the hot seat of the EU presidency when article 50 is triggered, told Politico that EU countries agreed the UK should lose privileges if it left the single market. “Any deal has to be a fair deal, but an inferior deal,” he said. Senior UK officials have told their counterparts that ruling out preparatory work heightens the risk of a disorderly Brexit that is bad for both sides. Countering this view, one European diplomat said it was in the interests of the EU27 to avoid preparatory talks, because it would mean more focused discussions and unity among countries. He said: “The whole Brexit business is bad for the EU. Very clearly, all this is not going to be a joyful ride, but I am pretty confident that avoiding pre-negotiations is good for the EU27.” Speaking last week before May’s conference speech, one senior European diplomat conceded there was a grey area where informal talks could take place. “For now [no negotiations without notification] is fully respected because the Brits don’t know where they are going,” the diplomat told the . “The critical moment is when the Brits start sounding out the French and the Germans about what is feasible … there is a grey zone between negotiating and sounding out.” Jean De Ruyt, Belgium’s ex-ambassador to the EU, also suggested there was “a grey area” where informal talks could happen. But governments will not start negotiations with the UK without notification of article 50. “They have said that too loudly, that will not change,” he said. He said the rest of the EU would be pleased May had set an article 50 deadline. “The uncertainty was the biggest problem, because many people here did not believe it will happen. Now we know exactly what the timetable will be.” He expects Britain’s exit negotiations will be concluded within the two-year timeframe. Both sides had an incentive to wrap up divorce talks in two years, he said: for the EU it was important to complete talks before European elections in May or June 2019, while the UK would have the advantage of being able to sign trade deals with other countries by making a relatively fast exit. Britain’s exit from the EU will begin when May sends a letter to Tusk, spelling out her intention to trigger article 50. EU leaders will then meet, without the UK, to draw up a mandate for the talks. Diplomats are taking soundings on national red lines, which are likely to cover the single market, financial services, the status of Gibraltar and the rights of EU citizens settled in the UK. EU leaders are expected to give the commission the task of running the talks, but will make final decisions on the future relationship with the UK. Michel Barnier, the commission’s chief Brexit negotiator, has made a low-key start to his role, after starting work on 1 October. Didier Seeuws, a Belgian diplomat, is leading a Brexit taskforce on behalf of EU member states.
Boris Johnson backs Brexit after 'agonisingly difficult' decision – as it happened We’re going to close this live blog down now. The day’s major EU referendum news is that the mayor of London Boris Johnson has announced he will campaign for Britain to leave the 28-nation bloc. While he has insisted he will not take a leading role, his declaration was billed as a major shot in the arm for the Leave campaign and as a play for the Tory leadership, should the prime minister be forced to resign in the event of a vote to leave. Addressing reporters outside his home in an appearance my colleague Nicholas Watt said was “engineered to within an inch of its life, Johnson said he took the decision “after a huge amount of heartache”. He batted away claims it followed a similar amount of strategic planning. Soon after, came the recriminations. The former deputy prime minister Lord Heseltine called Johnson’s decision “illogical”, while a Remain camp source went further, calling it the “most nakedly self-serving piece of political positioning in years”. Meanwhile, my colleague Nicholas Watt has written an analysis of what he says was a heavily choreographed announcement by Boris Johnson this afternoon. A conventional politician with a major announcement to make at short notice would summon one television crew for a “sit down” interview which would then be “pooled” by all the broadcasters who would run it at an agreed time. That would never do for Johnson, who always likes to ensure an element of unpredictability about his interventions. His communications team set in motion the conditions for a media scrum shortly before 5pm after deciding that a traditional television interview, in which he would explain the thinking in his Daily Telegraph column on Monday, would not suffice. The scrum was meant to look spontaneous but was in fact engineered to within an inch of its life. Boris Johnson’s father Stanley, who worked in the European Commission in the 1970s, tells Sky News he believes his son has come to the wrong conclusion on the European Union. Stanley Johnson said he was proud of his son and respected his view but said his own position on the issue differs. And he called suggestions that Boris’ decision was a play for the Tory party leadership “odd”. Fraser Nelson has written an interesting piece for the Telegraph, asking whether David Cameron will ever forgive his university friend Boris Johnson. Already, there are signs of the Cameron operation closing ranks against Boris. No 10 has a semi-official vengeance policy: ministers with a long-standing opposition to the EU will be forgiven for backing “out”. The implication is that there will be no forgiveness for Boris, who has waited until now to declare his support for Brexit. “The last thing I wanted was to go against David Cameron,” said Boris yesterday. Quite true: what he wants is to come after him – and he is, as of last night, the bookmakers’ favourite to do just that. Labour’s shadow Europe minister Pat Glass is also seeking to frame Boris Johnson’s decision as one that “says more about the Tory leadership contest and Boris’ own positioning than what is in the best interests of Britain”. My colleague Caroline Davies was in the crowd of journalists, onlookers and animals who turned up to hear Boris Johnson announce his decision. She writes: A dog on a lead, whose owner had joined the scrum, whimpered quietly, perhaps in expectation. Peering down on BoJo’s flaxen crown, his neighbours had taken up poll position hanging out of an upstairs window. “Let me tell you where I’ve got to ... which is, um, I am, um ... I’ve made up my mind,” he pronounced, brightly. There was a collective intake of breath. But, no. Johnson, who has kept his party waiting, and waiting, was not ready to relinquish quite yet. You can read the full piece here. And some are starting to suggest that Boris Johnson’s support for Brexit is already having a real world effect: Boris Johnson mentioned the political might he felt would be ranged against him after his announcement this afternoon. And it seems it only took about an hour for the backlash to begin. The Tory grandee Lord Heseltine has just issued a statement. Given that Boris has spent so long agonising over this decision, his decision is illogical. If it takes you this long to make up your mind about something so fundamental and you still have questions, then surely the right option is to stay with what you know, rather than risk our economy and security with a leap in the dark. If he were to be successful in his ambition to cut us off from Europe, the flags would fly in Frankfurt and Paris in his honour. At a stroke, he would have blown away the safeguards for our financial services industry that the prime minister has just secured. That is to risk countless jobs across our country from Edinburgh in the north to Bournemouth in the south and, of course, London itself. And the noises from the Remain camp are even more menacing. A source said: This is the most nakedly self-serving piece of political positioning in years. Everybody in Westminster knows that Boris doesn’t really believe in Out. He’s putting his personal ambition before the national interest. It says a lot about Boris’s priorities that his last act as Mayor of London is to betray this great city by turning his back on the needs of the City of London and the views of the majority of Londoners. And Will Straw, the executive director of Britain Stronger In Europe, said: Boris might be a big personality but he highlights the Out campaigns’ biggest weakness – they have no consistency or clarity on what leaving Europe means for Britain and how our economy can be protected from the outside. He’s previously supported remaining in and has never been able to answer difficult questions on the economic implications of leaving. He’s going to have to now. Straw also highlighted the questions the Remain camp felt Johnson must answer, now that he has decided to support Brexit. Although, it is just possible that there is some spinning going on here: It seems David Cameron may have been kept very much in the dark about Boris Johnson’s decision today: One outcome of the last few days is that it goes some way towards settling the row over whether Vote Leave or the Grassroots Movement/Leave.EU will get the formal designation from the Electoral Commission as the official out campaign. Vote Leave, run by Matthew Elliott, formerly of the Taxpayers’ Alliance and Dominic Cummings, an ex-adviser to Michael Gove, have signed up six cabinet ministers - IDS, Gove, John Whittingdale, Priti Patel, Theresa Villiers and Chris Grayling - as well as Boris Johnson. The Grassroots Out campaign - headed by Nigel Farage, Kate Hoey and Peter Bone - has been criticised by some of its own side for unveiling George Galloway as its special guest at a rally on Friday. The Leave.EU campaign, run by Ukip donor Arron Banks, has this to say about Boris choosing to back the leave camp: We’d like to offer the Mayor of London a warm welcome to the Brexit campaign. We share his vision of a UK with full, democratic control of its affairs, and a relationship with Europe based on free trade and voluntary co-operation. However, this referendum will be decided by the people, not politicians, and we hope the media will make sure their voice is heard as well. Johnson was careful in his statement to bat away any suggestion that this was all about his desire to be the next Conservative leader and prime minister. But an immediate consequence of his decision is that he has overtaken George Osborne as the next favourite for that job. A No 10 spokesman reacted to Johnson’s statement without mentioning him by name: Our message to everyone is we want Britain to have the best of both worlds: all the advantages of the jobs and investment that comes with being in the EU, without the downsides of being in the Euro and open borders. On the other side, the Remainers have prepared some questions for Boris to answer about some of the pro-EU arguments he has made in the past. Does Boris Johnson still agree “good things” have come from the single market and stick by his past support for the EU? Does Boris Johnson stick by his past warnings that leaving “would cause at least some business uncertainty” and that the UK would “face some penalties”? Boris Johnson has admitted that if Britain left the EU we would lose influence and “face some penalties”. Will he confirm that this would be the case? Does Boris Johnson stick by his past belief that it “is in Britain’s geo-strategic interests to be pretty intimately engaged” with the European continent? Will Boris Johnson admit that a “free trading arrangement” means leaving the valuable EU single market? Boris Johnson has said if Britain leaves we would still have to have the same representation in Brussels. This isn’t true – we would lose our MEPs and representation in EU institutions. Will he now admit it? The leave camp is naturally delighted by the BoGo decision. Although he claims not to want to lead the campaign, he will add some stardust and a highly persuasive manner of speaking to the Brexit cause. It was a fairly brief and fumbling statement in which Johnson was not even sure of the name of the main leave campaign. But the main points are: Johnson claims it was a difficult decision but he has had doubts about the EU’s powers getting “out of control” for 30 years He wants David Cameron to stay as prime minister regardless of the result Johnson does not want to take part in television debates against his Tory colleagues He paid tribute to Cameron for having negotiated “fantastically well” but no one could call it fundamental reform. Johnson says he “won’t do is take part in loads of blooming TV debates against other people from my party”, signalling he does not want to be the leader of the Leave campaign. He also says that whatever happens at the end of the referendum, Cameron “has got to stay”. The London mayor says he does not mind being portrayed as a “crazy crank but I happen to think I am right”. Appearing on his doorstep, he says he loves European culture and civilisation but there should be no confusion with that and a political project that is “basically being going on for decades, which I think is in real danger of getting out of proper democratic control”. He says it has long been his view and sovereignty is being very greatly eroded. The European Court of Justice projects down a single unified judicial law book with no recourse and comeback. That has been getting out of control, Johnson adds. “I look at what the PM achieved. He did fantastically well. Everyone should pay tribute to what he pulled off but I don’t think anyone could realistically claim that this is fundamental reform. It is my view that after 30 years of writing about this. I have chance to actually do something. I would like to see a new relationship based on trade and cooperation... That is why after a huge amount of heartache... I don’t think there is anything else I can do. I will be advocating Vote Leave because I want a better deal for the people of this country, to save them money and take back control. It is not just Boris Johnson’s decision about which side to back that is important, but how he chooses to support it. It is possible that he could say he is voting for Brexit but does not want a major role in the campaign itself because the choice is so finely balanced. That would boost his leadership credentials with the Tory grassroots who want out but also do little harm to the chances of the UK staying in the EU - which some say is actually closer to his real position. On the other hand, Johnson doesn’t do staying out of the limelight very well. Former children’s minister Tim Loughton has published a lengthy letter on why he has decided he will vote “regretfully not to remain, definitely to leave”. It comes in at 2,766 words: longer than Michael Gove’s 1,574 word essay on Brexit, but unable to beat the record-setting Tory MP Iain Stewart, whose treatise is 2,939 words of explanation. Maybe their mums will get to the end of them. Either Leave.EU, one of the rival Brexit camps, has done some speedy photoshopping or this is one they made earlier. James Kirkup of the Telegraph has written an illuminating piece about the lifelong rivalry between Cameron and Johnson. The whole piece is well worth reading, but here is a good anecdote from it: The best way to understand Boris and Dave is a story they both tell in private. It’s about a meeting in No 10 on some minor aspect of the London budget. Dave wants to minimise his spending; Boris to get the most cash he can. “Who’s winning between Dave and Boris today? The man with the big job or the man with the first-name popularity?” The PM has a briefing paper that reveals the most he’s prepared to give Boris. Boris wants to see it. The PM refuses. Boris tries to grab it. The PM snatches it away. The Prime Minister and the Mayor of London end up wrestling on the floor trying to seize the paper. And the vital detail is that each man tells the story that he got the paper. Even in a slightly juvenile squabble, they both want people to know that they won over the other. It’s jumping the gun a little, but Tim Farron, the Lib Dem leader, has commented on Johnson’s likely to decision to back Brexit. This is a deeply cynical move from a deeply ambitious politician who is using an in-out referendum as a back door to Number 10. It is a selfish move to put personal ambition before the jobs, security and prosperity of every Londoner. Johnson has been doing all he can to maximise the drama around his announcement, despite his sister’s protestations that he would never stoop to “milking” such an important choice. Some are still underwhelmed by the tension though. Boris John will reveal his decision in 48 minutes, for anyone who is counting. Broadcasters say he will be making a statement live on television at 5pm. Some believe it could actually swing the referendum result. Around a third of voters in an Ipsos Mori poll said Johnson’s position could influence how they vote. That is less than the 44% who said they would take David Cameron’s views into account but far more than any of the other prominent out campaigners. The key point about Johnson is that he has positive approval ratings, in contrast to the unpopular Michael Gove and Iain Duncan Smith, or the divisive Nigel Farage. There are very few other outters who are household names. His decision to back the Brexiteers goes a long way to putting them back in contention, after an early campaign dogged by chaotic infighting and a failure to secure any of the most senior cabinet ministers for their side. A media scrum has descended on Johnson’s house - reminiscent of the days of Borismania in 2012 when journalists were desperate to get him to say he wanted to be Tory leader. A Vote Leave campaigner has helpfully left him a branded hat and umbrella as well. While we’re waiting for the official reveal from Boris, here are some quotes from the man himself on the subject of the EU. They suggest that Johnson, a former Brussels reporter for the Telegraph, really is conflicted about the merits of the organisation: 23 January 2013 What most sensible people want is to belong to the single market but to lop off the irritating excrescences of the European Union. We now have a chance to get a great new deal for Britain - that will put the UK at the heart of European trade but that will also allow us to think globally... If it is put to us in a referendum, I have no doubt that the British people would vote for it. 28 November 2013 First they make us pay in our taxes for Greek olive groves, many of which probably don’t exist. Then they say we can’t dip our bread in olive oil in restaurants. We didn’t join the Common Market – betraying the New Zealanders and their butter – in order to be told when, where and how we must eat the olive oil we have been forced to subsidise. Talk about giving us the pip, folks. 4 August 2014 When you look at the cost of EU social policy, the stagnation of the EU economies, the continuing absurdities of some Brussels regulation, we are plainly getting to the stage where it might well be better to quit an unreformed EU than to stay in. 11 February 2015 I think that a Brexit, or a British exit, is very unlikely, provided we get a renegotiation which is satisfactory. I think we will. 7 February, 2016 So there is the dilemma in a nutshell: Britain in the EU good, in so far as that means helping to shape the destiny of a troubled continent in uncertain times, while trading freely with our partners. Britain in the EU bad, in so far as it is a political project whose destiny of ever-closer union we don’t accept and whose lust to regulate we can’t stop. That is why for the last couple of years I have argued that we would be – on the whole – better off in a reformed EU, but that Britain could have a great future outside. Steve Baker, leader of the Conservatives for Britain group campaigning for Brexit, has just said it is “great to have Boris on the team”. All the indications are that the London mayor has joined the leave campaigners, but he is yet to pop up on the airwaves himself to confirm this. We are expecting interviews with him to be broadcast within hours. This is Rowena Mason, taking over the liveblog. Laura Kuenssberg, the BBC political editor, has tweeted that Boris Johnson is definitely going to campaign for leave. This is what ITV’s Robert Peston reported last night, and Tim Shipman, the Sunday Times political editor, confirmed this morning. David Cameron has used an interview with Andrew Marr to challenge Boris Johnson to back Britain remaining in the EU by asking him to avoid “linking arms” with Nigel Farage and George Galloway in backing Brexit. Johnson, the Conservative MP and mayor of London, is expected to declare his hand at 10pm tonight in his Daily Telegraph column and it is now widely thought that he will come out in favour of leaving the EU. Such a move would lay him open to the charge of blatant careerism because, as Alan Johnson and others have said, he has never before explicitly backed Britain leaving the EU (in fact, he recently told a Tory colleague: “I’ve never been an Outer”) and being in the Out camp would probably boost his chances in a future Conservative leadership contest Iain Duncan Smith, the work and pensions secretary, has suggested that Britain will be more exposed to Paris-style terror attacks if it stays in the EU. Duncan Smith has suggested that Cameron’s crackdown on child benefit going to the children of EU migrants living abroad could cost money, rather than save money. (See 3pm.) That’s all from me. Thanks for the comments. Iain Duncan Smith has given at least two interviews to the BBC today. In a TV interview he made his comment suggesting that staying in the EU could increase the terrorist threat to the UK. (See 2.20pm.) But he was also on the World this Weekend, and there were some good lines in that too. Duncan Smith suggested that Cameron’s crackdown on child benefit going to EU children living abroad could cost money rather than save money. He said it would be complicated to administer, because child benefit going to EU children living abroad would have to be indexed according to local benefit rates. He said there may even have to be “some kind of exchange rate mechanism to figure out what [the rate] is on a weekly or daily basis”. Asked if the new system would prove more expensive than the current system, he replied: I’m not able to say whether it is or not. I’ve only seen it in the last 24, 48 hours. The department is already looking at it. When Mark Mardell put it to him again that the new system could prove expensive to administer, Duncan Smith replied: You could make that assumption. I’m going to, if you don’t mind, say I don’t know the answer to that question, genuinely don’t know, because we’re not able to make that calculation because the details are not complete yet. There is a touch of Francis Urquhart in that quote. Duncan Smith criticised Alan Johnson for what he said about the six cabinet ministers who are voting to leave the EU. (See 2.13pm.) I’m surprised at Alan being disparaging about anybody. I never thought politicians were all-stars anyway. No politician is a celebrity. If politicians begin to believe they are celebrities then they really need to go and sit down in a darkened room ... I say to Alan very simply that he degrades himself by saying things like that. He said he did not accept leaving the EU would be “a leap in the dark”, as David Cameron claims. He says it could be more of a risk to remain in the EU. He urged Boris Johnson not to make any decision about the EU based on personal ambition. I say to Boris and to anybody else for that matter who is thinking about this: your country elected you to govern for them. Not any other thought in your head about other loyalties. It is our country that matters. At CapX Iain Martin, who used to edit Boris Johnson’s column as comment editor of the Telegraph, has written a very funny spoof of what he might say tonight. The Conservative pro-European Nicholas Soames is on form on Twitter today. Now is is accusing Nigel Farage of wallowing in “the pornography of pessimism”. Here is the the full quote from Iain Duncan Smith, the work and pensions secretary, where he said staying in the EU could make the UK more vulnerable to terrorist attack. There is another concern and risk: the migration issue, in meltdown around the EU, with the EU almost incapable, it seems, of handling this massive wave of migration coming in from, not just by the way Syria. We hear today about Pakistanis and others coming in to Hungary and having a problem. You see various people from different parts of Iran are coming in. It’s not just from one country. What we see with the EU is its incapacity to get its act together. That leads to tensions. Who’s to say in the next few years countries that have taken people from various areas aren’t then going to give them leave to remain and even passports as we’ve seen in some cases and then in due course may well turn up again in the UK. These are big issues further down the road for us. This open border does not allow us to check and control people who may come and spend time [here]. We see what happened in Paris where they spent ages planning and plotting. Who is to say it is not beyond the wit of man that those might be already thinking about that ... I think the present status of the open border we have right now, many of us feel does actually leave the door open and we need to see that resolved. Alan Johnson, the former cabinet minister and chair of the Labour In For Britain campaign, gave a lengthy interview to the World this Weekend a few minutes ago. I’ve probably listened to around a dozen political interviews today. If you judge politicians by their ability to answer questions in a manner that is clear, fresh and interesting, this was probably the best. Here are the key points. Johnson accused his namesake Boris Johnson of “over-playing his hand”. He also said there was no record of the London mayor ever backing Brexit in the past. But he acknowledged that he would like to have Johnson on his side. I would much rather Boris was on the In camp than the Out camp. His father, Stanley, is the co-chair of environmentalists for Europe. His brother, Jo, is the science minister [who] wrote a splendid article in the Times a couple of weeks ago saying how for science and research and development the European Union is. In all Boris’s billions of words that he’s written over the years no one can find any reference to him being a leave the EU person. I would worry for Boris, for those fans of Boris, that he’s actually over-playing his hand here. I’ve got much more respect for Michael Gove who’s - though I disagree with his position - come out with it straight away. He’s not playing this media game. This is about far more than the future of Boris Johnson. This is about the future of our country and our continent. And in that sense Boris is a sideshow here as well. Johnson said that Michael Gove was offering a “totally distorted” view of reality in the statement he issued yesterday claiming the EU prevented ministers doing what they wanted on a daily basis. Gove said in his statement: I have long had concerns about our membership of the EU but the experience of Government has only deepened my conviction that we need change. Every single day, every single minister is told: ‘Yes Minister, I understand, but I’m afraid that’s against EU rules’. I know it. My colleagues in government know it. And the British people ought to know it too: your government is not, ultimately, in control in hundreds of areas that matter. And Johnson said in response. That’s Michael Gove dealing in artistic licence. I was a minister for 11 years. I was secretary of state in five cabinet positions. This is a totally distorted view of ministerial life and Europe. I was trade and industry minister. Occasionally you come across the issue of state aid rules. Who was instrumental in drawing up those state aid rules? Britain. Why did we do it? Because we recognise that in this massive free trade area, half a billion people, a bigger commercial market than the US and China, we had to protect British industry. I struggle to think of a day when someone said to me you can’t do that minister because of European Union rules. He dismissed the six ministers attending cabinet who have come out in favour of leaving the EU as relative lightweights. I would not say that the six cabinet members I saw yesterday could be described as the political all-stars ... Let’s be kind, they are not the six most astute politicians that I have ever met in the cabinet. Here are the six. Johnson said it was “unpatriotic” to argue that Europe was always something done to Britain. I reject this argument Europe is always something that is done to us. Britain is the seven stone weakling on the beach having sand kicked in its face by the beach bully. This is a terrible, unpatriotic and I think inaccurate portrayal of [our country.] He said sovereignty should not be confused with power. This is the same argument David Cameron was making in his Andrew Marr interview. (See 10.48am.) Johnson said: Sovereignty should not be confused with power and influence. You can have sovereignty in a country that is declining, which is impoverished, where there is no worker protection, where there is no protection for the environment, no protection for the consumer, but you’ve got your sovereignty. Influence is ceding some of that sovereignty into something wider and then your country having an influence on 27 other member states in the European Union and, through them, across the world. He said there was a “noble concept” at the heart of the European Union. It had prevented a repeat of the second world war, and encouraged Eastern European countries to convert to democracy, he said. He dismissed Cameron’s EU renegotiation as a “sideshow”. He went on: “As sideshows go, it’s not bad.” He pointed out that Cameron did not even mention what his EU renegotiation deal achieved in an article he has written for the Sun on Sunday today making the case for staying in the EU. Nigel Farage, the Ukip leader, told Dermot Murnaghan on Sky earlier that he expected Boris Johnson to come out in favour of leaving the EU, and that this was significant because of Johnson’s potency as a campaigner. Farage said: What again I think a lot of the commentariat in Westminster don’t understand is there are literally only five or six people in this referendum whose campaigning, whose presence, can sway the undecideds, and he is one of those half a dozen. Here are some tweets from journalists about Boris Johnson. From the Telegraph’s James Kirkup From the Times’s Philip Collins From the Times’s Hugo Rifkind From the Independent on Sunday’s John Rentoul From the Scottish Daily Mail’s Chris Deerin Pawel Swidlicki, an analyist at the Open Europe thinktank, says Iain Duncan Smith’s claim about being in the EU making Britain more vulnerable to terrorist attack suggests he favours a much tougher visa regime. The Sunday Times’s Tim Shipman says Boris Johnson will back leaving the EU. Here is the full quote from Chris Grayling, the leader of the Commons, on the Sunday Politics saying that David Cameron should stay on as prime minister even if Britain votes to leave the EU. Grayling said: If the country decides to leave, then [Cameron] will lead us out. If the country decides to stay, he will lead us in government on to 2020 and carrying on the programme that will make a difference to the country ... I think the last thing we need at the end of all this, whether we vote to leave or whether we vote to stay, is a political bloodbath. You know, we’ve got a good team, that team needs to carry on and do what the country asks us to do. Boris Johnson is due to announce his decision in his column in tomorrow’s Daily Telegraph, which the Telegraph says it will publish at 10pm. Such is the importance they are attaching to this historic declaration they have set up a countdown clock. Tim Farron, the Lib Dem leaders, is also challenging Boris Johnson to come out in favour of staying in the EU. Farron said: Boris has had more positions on Europe than the Karma Sutra. It reflects years of bitter infighting within the Tory party that even the mayor of London won’t campaign to stay in Europe. He should get a backbone and support British business and the city by campaigning to stay in Europe. More from Nicholas Soames on Boris Johnson. Boris Johnson has made up his mind, according to ITV’s Carl Dinnen. Only he’s not telling us yet. Priti Patel, the employment minister and one of the six ministers attending cabinet who is voting to leave the EU, told Pienaar’s Politics on Radio 5 Live earlier that she did not believe that David Cameron’s proposed sovereignty bill would have much effect. She told the programme: We’ve had the sovereignty bill previously. We’ve had the guarantees theoretically that should we get treaty change we’ll get other referendums. The point is, by remaining in we are still exposed by those risks of the European court and European institutions dictating to us and still doing business under the same terms and conditions. That means key decisions being caught up in the courts, key decisions that we want to make being ridden over roughshod. Like fellow Outer Chris Grayling (see 11.35am), she also said she would want Cameron to remain as prime minister even if Britain voted to leave. She also played down speculation about her becoming the next Conservative leader. Asked about this, she replied: What will be, will be. Ultimately, for me, it is a privilege to serve in a Conservative government. I’m focused on the now, and not thinking about the future at all. Laura Kuenssberg, the BBC’s political editor, has more on the Iain Duncan Smith interview. Iain Duncan Smith, the work and pensions secretary who is campaigning to leave the EU, has told the BBC that staying in would make Britain more vulnerable to a terrorist attack. I’ll post the quotes when I get them. Nicholas Soames, the Conservative MP (who is fast becoming a Twitter personality) says that Boris Johnson is not an “Outer”. Soames is implying that if Johnson does come out in favour of leaving the EU, he won’t be being sincere. In his interview with Dermot Murnaghan on Sky, Hilary Benn, the shadow foreign secretary, also said that he would not be sharing a platform with any Conservatives during the referendum campaign. I said right at the beginning that I’m not going to be sharing any platforms with any Conservatives during this referendum campaign. That’s why we set up our Labour campaign, headed by Alan Johnson, because we want to talk to Labour supporters and persuade them this is the right thing to do in the interests of the country and themselves, their families, their jobs, their incomes that depend on being part of this single market. In his Marr interview David Cameron said that Boris Johnson would be linking arms with Nigel Farage and George Galloway if he backed leaving the EU. Liam Fox, the Conservative former defence secretary who is backing Out, had a response to this charge when he was interviewed on Sky’s Murnaghan programme earlier. He said: People say how could you be in the same campaign as George Galloway and others. But the prime minister is going to have to link arms with Nicola Sturgeon and Jeremy Corbyn on that side of the argument, not a pretty picture I have to say. Fox also said he would be “surprised” if Johnson decided now to vote to stay in the EU. And he said that a lot of friendships in the Conservative party would be tested over the next four months. Chris Grayling, the leader of the Commons who is campaigning for Britain to leave the EU, has just told the BBC’s Sunday Politics that if Britain votes for Brexit, David Cameron should remain as prime minister. Earlier I quoted from Michael Gove’s statement about why he was in favour of leaving the EU, and his claim that EU rules dictate “the distance houses have to be from heathland to prevent cats chasing birds (five kilometres)“. (See 9.37am.) In the comments David Graham, a barrister specialising in planning and environmental law, says Gove is wrong about this. Here is an extract from his lengthy post. The EU cannot make any laws on town and country planning at all without unanimity (including UK agreement) in the Council, under article 192(2) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU. It is not an arena in which we can be “dictated to” by foreign politicians, and Mr Gove is mistaken to believe otherwise. UK regulations made pursuant to the EU Birds Directive (originally enacted in 1979, which you can read in its latest amended and consolidated form here) aim to protect endangered bird species and habitats, but do not prescribe any rules about cats or housing or distance from development. The Directive and UK domestic regulations give effect to obligations assumed independently by the UK under international treaties outside the EU framework (the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands of 1971 and the Bern Convention on Wildlife of 1979). Gerard Lyons, economic adviser to Boris Johnson in his capacity of mayor of London, has been tweeting about Brexit today. He says leaving the EU would not be disastrous for the City. UPDATE: Lyons set out his arguments about why the City could prosper outside the EU in more detail in this article in 2014. Like Alastair Campbell, the journalist and commentator Yasmin Alibhai-Brown found to her surprise that she was full of praise for David Cameron this morning. With so much of today’s attention on the internal deliberations of one man, Boris Johnson, it is worth looking at this Ipsos Mori blogpost in order to understand why news editors across the country are trying to get the inside track on Johnson’s thinking. The results of a poll published on Wednesday show that Johnson comes a clear second to David Cameron among politicians whose decision is likely to influence which way people vote in the EU referendum. Cameron’s leadership of the In campaign is an important factor for 44% of respondents, while 32% are awaiting Johnson’s decision. Potential Tory leadership rivals Theresa May and George Osborne are both on 28%, while the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s opinion matters to 27% of those polled. Gideon Skinner, head of political research at Ipsos Mori, said: Although other figures are higher among individual groups, Boris Johnson has a broad range of appeal – both to in and out supporters, Conservatives and non-Conservatives, and whether people have already decided or may change their minds. Hilary Benn, the shadow foreign secretary, told Sky’s Murnaghan programme that if Boris Johnson does decide to back the Out camp, the decision could backfire on him. Benn said: I’m surprised really because Boris Johnson in the past has written a lot about the importance of staying in the European Union and if he is actually thinking about putting his personal leadership ambitions above the national interest I don’t think it’s going to do him any good. Further confirmation from Boris Johnson’s sister Rachel on the timing of the London mayor’s long-awaited announcement. Rachel Johnson told Sky News she had spoken to her brother and his verdict on the EU would be revealed in his Telegraph column to be tweeted out at 10pm on Sunday night. Rachel denied Boris was “milking it” to create maximum publicity, saying it was an “enormously complicated” decision to make since Cameron’s deal was done late on Friday. David Cameron is often dismissed as little more than a polished PR executive, but there is a lot to be said for accomplished communications skills in politics and this morning, after his Andrew Marr interview, Cameron received a rare compliment from someone who understands this as well as anyone. It wasn’t brilliant, and in itself a single interview does not really change anything, but what was impressive was Cameron’s ability to focus relentless on the key messages that he will use to try to persuade those who are undecided to back Britain remaining in the EU. We heard them late on Friday night, after the EU summit ended, we heard them again in his statement outside Number 10 yesterday and we will hear them ad nauseam over the next four months: Britain will be stronger, safer and better off in the EU, he said. It’s not Churchill or Cicero, but it is an argument that people can grasp. And Cameron did not just sloganise. He also faced head-on the argument about sovereignty, and put the case that having power and influence depends on being able to pool sovereignty about as clearly as it ever gets put. Here are the main points he made. Cameron said that leaving the EU would give Britain “the illusion of sovereignty”, but not real power over its destiny. In a direct attempt to take on the sovereignty argument at the heart of Michael Gove’s statement yesterday explaining why he would be voting to leave the EU, Cameron said that outside the EU “you might feel more sovereign, but you’re less in charge of your own destiny”. That was because Britain would not have influence over the EU rules it would have to accept if it wanted access to the single market, he said If Britain were to leave the EU that might give you a feeling of sovereignty but you have got to ask yourself ‘is it real?’ Would you have the power to help businesses and make sure they weren’t discriminated against in Europe? No you wouldn’t. Would you have the power to insist that European countries share with us their border information so we know what terrorists and criminals are doing in Europe? No you wouldn’t. If suddenly a ban was put on for some bogus health reasons on one of our industries, would you be able to insist that that ban was unpicked? No you wouldn’t. You have an illusion of sovereignty but you don’t have power, you don’t have control, you can’t get things done. He said that if Boris Johnson decided to campaign to leave the EU, he would be “linking arms with Nigel Farage and George Galloway”. I would say to Boris what I say to everybody else, which is that we will be safer, we will be stronger, we will be better off inside the EU. I think the prospect of linking arms with Nigel Farage and George Galloway and taking a leap into the dark is the wrong step for our country. If Boris and if others really care about being able to get things done in our world, then the EU is one of the ways in which we get them done. Cameron rejected claims that the pro-EU camp was establishment-dominated. He said you could not get more establishment than the lord chancellor (Michael Gove) and the leader of the Commons (Chris Grayling). Cameron confirmed that the details of how the emergency brake works, in terms of how quickly EU migrants can start claiming a proportion of benefits during the four years while they wait for full in-work benefits, have yet to be agreed. He said that some EU migrants might not get full in-work benefits until 2028 as a result of what he had agreed. That was because the plans could come into force next year, he said. The emergency brake would apply for seven years, lasting until 2024, and anyone starting work that year would have to wait a further four years until they got full in-work benefits, he said. He said he would remain as prime minister if the UK voted to leave the EU and focus on implementing the wishes of the people. He refused to admit that he had failed to achieve precisely what he proposed in the Conservative manifesto on child benefit. The manifesto said proposed stopping any child benefit being paid for EU children living abroad, but instead payments will continue to be paid at home-country rates, not UK rates. Asked to admit that he had not got what he wanted, Cameron just said people could see what was in the manifesto and see what he had achieved. Huffington Post’s Paul Waugh thinks his failure to be more open may have been a mistake. He declined to spell out details of his plan for a sovereignty law, to assert the sovereignty of parliament. This is something Boris Johnson has been demanding, and Cameron was expected to say more about this this morning. The Spectator journalist Toby Young thinks Cameron’s reticence suggests Cameron is resigned to Johnson backing the Out camp. Cameron said he would not be backing a written constitution as part of his sovereignty law plans. The feeling among political commentators on Twitter is that Marr’s grill only really warmed up in the final third, with the PM’s warning to Boris Johnson not to “link arms” with Nigel Farage and George Galloway being interpreted as a veiled reference to the chances of a future cabinet position for the London mayor. From the Sunday Times’ Tim Shipman: From BuzzFeed’s Jim Waterson: Sky’s Faisal Islam picked up on the PM’s neat line torpedoing any characterisation of the Out campaign being a “rebel alliance” – after all, who could be more establishment than the lord chancellor (Gove) and the leader of the Commons (Grayling). Paul Waugh of the Huffington Post is worried for the content of Boris’s Telegraph column, given Cameron didn’t announce further detail of his sovereignty plan for Britain on Marr, as was expected. From Matt Chorley of the Times: While Alastair Campbell laments the complete absence of Labour from the key EU argument so far. Q: If Britain votes to leave the EU, that would be catastrophic for you, wouldn’t it? Cameron says he promised a referendum. The renegotiation is complete, and now the referendum will take place. The people are sovereign, he says. They will instruct the prime minister either to stay or to leave. He will follow their instructions. Q: Are you losing the campaign? Michael Gove is backing Out, and Boris Johnson might too. Cameron says he does not accept that. He says some claims this is about the establishment versus the people. But you cannot get more establishment than the leader of the Commons (Chris Grayling) and the lord chancellor (Gove), he says. And that’s it. The interview is over. I will post a summary shortly. Cameron says the EU is not perfect. It has got better, but there is a lot more to do. If the UK leaves the EU, it will probably get worse, he says. That would be bad for the UK, he says. Cameron says the cabinet meeting yesterday was “very dignified”. (Here is James Forsyth’s Coffee House blog about what was said there.) Cameron says this debate is about the national interest. Britain can succeed whatever it does. But, having been prime minister for six years, he is absolutely clear that Britain would be better off staying in the EU. He says if Britain does vote to leave the EU, he will try to make it work. Q: The Conservative party is deeply split, isn’t it? Cameron says at the cabinet meeting yesterday all 29 people around the table agreed he had got a good deal. And 23 out of 29 people said they would back staying in the EU. He says he would say to Boris Johnson what he says to everyone: Britain will be safer, stronger and better off in the EU. Linking arms with Nigel Farage and George Galloway and taking a leap in the dark would be a mistake, he says. Cameron says he will publish plans for a law to show that British law is sovereign. Q: You cannot exempt Britain from EU treaties. This is just PR, isn’t it? Cameron says it is important for people to know that what parliament does, it can undo. He says he does not love Brussels. He wants Britain to have the best of both worlds. He says countries with written constitutions have been able to assert the sovereignty of their constitutions. Marr presses him for details. Cameron says he will have to wait. Q: Are you proposing a written constitution? No, says Cameron. Cameron says you might feel more sovereign outside the EU. But if you cannot ensure businesses get access to the single market, or get passenger information that might be necessary for security, you will not be better off, he says. Cameron says the agreement at the EU summit is a treaty that will be deposited at the UN. It is legally binding. Q: That is what John Major said in 1992 about the deal the Danish got. It was subsequently shredded. Cameron says the Danes have still got the protections they secured in 1992. He says his deal will ensure that Britain keeps the pound, and that non-eurozone countries cannot be discriminated against. If Britain leaves the EU, the euro will still be there. Business could face discrimination, he says. Q: Can you say Britain will have control over its own laws as a result of this? Cameron says Britain will be out of ever closer union as a result of his deal. Leaving the EU might give the impression of sovereignty. But, in practice, Britain would not have power over aspects of EU laws that might affect Britain. There would be “the illusion of sovereignty”, he says. But Britain would not have power. Cameron says the “emergency brake” stopping EU migrants claiming full in-work benefits for up to four years could come into force next year. And he has ensured it will stay in place for seven years, he says. So the rules will last until 2024. And that means anyone coming here in 2024 might not get full benefits until 2028. Q: How will the taper work? At what point do people get full benefits? Cameron says that remains to be decided. Andrew Marr is now interviewing David Cameron. Q: Can you put the case for staying in the EU so that you can persuade Boris Johnson? Cameron says the UK will be stronger, safer and better off in in the EU. Leaving would be a leap in the dark. Q: You did not get what you wanted on migrant benefits, did you? Cameron explains what he got in the EU renegotiation. Many people, including Nigel Farage, said that was not possible. Q: You said in your manifesto you would stop paying any child benefit to EU migrants whose children live abroad. But they will still get some payments, won’t they? Cameron says people can see what is in the manifesto and what was achieved. Nigel Farage tells Marr we need to leave the EU so that politicians can take control again of UK laws. He says Michael Gove, the justice secretary, made this point in his long statement yesterday explaining why he was going to vote to leave the EU. The Sunday Telegraph has an edited version of that statement. Here’s is what Gove says about the EU’s influence over UK ministers. This growing EU bureaucracy holds us back in every area. EU rules dictate everything from the maximum size of containers in which olive oil may be sold (five litres) to the distance houses have to be from heathland to prevent cats chasing birds (five kilometres). Individually these rules may be comical. Collectively, and there are tens of thousands of them, they are inimical to creativity, growth and progress. Rules like the EU clinical trials directive have slowed down the creation of new drugs to cure terrible diseases and ECJ judgements on data protection issues hobble the growth of internet companies. As a minister I’ve seen hundreds of new EU rules cross my desk, none of which were requested by the UK Parliament, none of which I or any other British politician could alter in any way and none of which made us freer, richer or fairer. Nigel Farage, the Ukip leader, is being interviewed by Andrew Marr now. He says David Cameron did not ask for much in his EU renegotiation. And he won’t be able to deliver it, he says. He says the European parliament will be able to unpick what has been decided on EU benefits. And the European court of justice will be able to strike down everything else, he says. Marr suggests Farage is being unfair. Cameron got a four-year benefit ban, he says. He says Farage himself was only asking for a five-year ban. Farage says the real issue is whether or not Britain can stop migrants arriving in the first place. Nicola Sturgeon, the SNP leader and Scottish first minister, is being interviewed by Andrew Marr now. She says that people will be disappointed by David Cameron’s EU renegotiation. But the renegotiation is not particularly relevant, she says. She says she wants to start focusing instead on the big reasons for remaining in the EU. Marr asks if she would use the powers the Scottish parliament is getting to top up benefits for EU migrants, to compensate for the cuts being imposed under Cameron’s “emergency brake”. Sturgeon says she has no plans to do that. And Sturgeon repeats the claim she has made many times before that, if the UK voted to leave the EU while Scotland wanted to remain, that would almost certainly lead to a second independence referendum. The Labour MP Kate Hoey, who is campaigning to leave the EU, is reviewing the papers on the Andrew Marr Show, along with the BBC’s Nick Robinson. Hoey has just taken issue with a story saying there was a mass walk-out when George Galloway, the former Respect MP, was unveiled as the surprise guest at a Grassroots Out (GO) rally on Friday night. There is an account here, although this is not the story Hoey was criticising. On Twitter James McGrory, head of communications for Britain Stronger in Europe, says Hoey is wrong to think that unveiling Galloway as a key Out campaigner was a mistake. The best analysis of where Boris Johnson stands on the EU referendum is almost certainly the lengthy essay that the Sunday Times’s political editor Tim Shipman has written on the subject in his Red Box politics email. Shipman says that Johnson does seem to be heading for the Out camp, but that we can’t be 100% sure. Here’s an extract. So what do we actually know? There are several cast iron facts. Being paid £275,000 a year by The Daily Telegraph means that Boris has been prevailed upon to end the nation’s suspense in his column for Monday’s edition of the newspaper. His spokesman will issue a short statement to the expectant world at 10pm this evening, in time - as was David Cameron’s deal on Friday night - for the main evening news bulletins. With one exception the big beasts of the lobby are agreed that Boris is “leaning Out” but has not yet finally ended his prevarication. The Sunday Times quotes an ally saying his “heart is for Out” but that the decision is still “finely balanced” . Johnson appeared to have made his mind up on Friday evening, only to have a rethink yesterday. The same tone appears in the Sun on Sunday (“leaning towards the exit door”), the Mail on Sunday (“still agonising”) and the (“genuinely torn”), which says that Boris wants to watch Cameron on the Andrew Marr Show this morning before making up his mind. Collectively the political editors of those four papers have, I should think, 80 years of lobby reporting experience between them. Mr Robert Peston, newly returned to bestow his great oratory, flowing mane and insights upon we humble Westminster lifers, has insisted for three days that Boris will certainly opt for Out, a view he repeated last night on Twitter. This may well prove to be the case, indeed it is now the more likely outcome. And indeed it would not be the first time that Mr Peston has scooped the lot of us. But unless he has greater insights than those in Johnson’s employ, Downing Street and Boris’s closest allies in the parliamentary party, his confidence is surprising. It is cruel but hardly irrelevant to point out that Mr Peston was equally confident, during his last sojourn in SW1, that Britain would join the euro - a few short days before Charlie Whelan ruled it out on the streets outside the Red Lion during the epic Europe fever of 1997. In short, Mr Peston may well be right at 10pm this evening and I am not one to decry bold reporting, but there have been moments over the last 48 hours when, according to all the sources I trust on this matter, he has also been wrong. Shipman says it is important to recognise that Johnson is genuinely reluctant to see Britain turn its back on Europe. One Boris ally says his principles as well as his calculations are dragging him both ways: “He genuinely thinks Britain should not turn its back on Europe at a time like this. He feels that very deeply, but he genuinely thinks the deal is pretty hopeless, that Cameron should have asked for more and that what they have come up with on sovereignty doesn’t do what he wants it to do.” Shipman also ends with this superb quote. The last word should perhaps reside with the man himself. He bumped into someone in Westminster recently and said: “I’m veering all over the place like a shopping trolley.” Which in a murky and confusing world has the merit of honesty. The Shipman Red Box email is always well worth reading. You can sign up for it here. Dominic Raab, the justice minister, has used an article in the Sunday Times (paywall) to explain why he will be voting to leave the EU. Here’s an extract. Denis Healey, the former Labour defence secretary, once quipped of UK supporters of European integration: “Their Europeanism is nothing but imperialism with an inferiority complex.” Healey foresaw today’s debate on the European Union. The argument for staying in is based on a fear of standing on our own two feet. The case for a new relationship, outside, is built on the opportunities of being masters of our own destiny ... The “remain” campaign tells us Britain is too small to count and the heft of the EU gets deals done. Yet, to date, the EU itself has sealed deals only with medium-sized nations (South Korea is the largest) — and none with China, Brazil, Japan, India or the US. Switzerland has free trade deals with more countries than the EU, including Japan and China, and is negotiating with India. This matters. Since 2009 Britain has been selling more to non-EU countries than EU ones. Over the past decade, growth in UK exports outside the EU was double our rate within the EU. Raab’s argument focuses on the potential trade benefits of being outside the EU, rather than the need to control immigration, the key issue for other Out campaigners. In that respect, his article his similar to the open letter the energy minister Andrea Leadsom published yesterday (pdf) explaining why should would be voting to leave. Good morning. After the drama of the protracted, through-the-night EU summit and the first Saturday cabinet meeting since the Falklands war, David Cameron could be forgiven for wanting a rest. But the opening hours of an election campaign are often important in framing the debate and this morning we will see him in full-on persuader mode, using an interview on the Andrew Marr Show to make the case for Britain staying in Europe. He is also expected to give more details of his plans to introduce measures to affirm somehow the sovereignty of parliament. But the day will also be dominated by speculation about one of the Tories who would like to succeed him, Boris Johnson. Having played footsie for months with the Out camp, the mayor of London is expected to confirm later today which side he will back in the referendum. Here are the latest overnight developments. The says Cameron is mounting a last-ditch effort to woo Johnson to back his campaign to stay in the European Union, by drawing up plans for a new constitutional settlement that puts the sovereignty of British institutions beyond doubt. The Mail on Sunday says Johnson had secret talks with Cabinet rebel Michael Gove last week on whether to defy Cameron over the EU referendum. The two dined at the London Mayor’s home on Tuesday, where they agreed the Prime Minister’s new EU deal was ‘thin’. Shortly afterwards, Justice Secretary Mr Gove shocked No 10 by joining the ‘Out’ campaign to cut Britain’s ties with Brussels. The disclosure of the secret dinner – and the pair’s sharp criticism of the outcome of Mr Cameron’s negotiations – will fuel speculation about which side Mr Johnson will back in the forthcoming EU referendum. The Sunday Times (paywall) says friends of Johnson say “His heart is for ‘out’.” Johnson will declare which way he is voting at 10pm this evening. Allies said he was close to deciding that he would back Brexit on Friday, but that the decision was now “finely balanced”. “It’s a very difficult call for him,” one said. “He is really conflicted. I think his heart is for out, but there is an enormous amount of pressure.” Cameron is “absolutely furious” at Johnson’s failure to commit to the “remain” campaign. In private remarks this weekend, the prime minister told friends: “I can’t understand why Boris, as leader of the great financial capital, won’t support the City.” A Survation poll for the Mail on Sunday suggests the In camp have a clear lead over Out. According to the Survation poll for The Mail on Sunday, 48 per cent of voters want to stay in the EU, with 33 in favour of leaving, and 19 per cent undecided. The first survey conducted since Mr Cameron’s marathon talks in Brussels on Thursday and Friday also found that 35 per cent believe he did well in the negotiations, against 30 per cent who say he did badly. The Sunday Times (paywall) says Cameron has ignited a fresh Tory civil war over immigration by using an interview with the paper to warn that those who wantto leave the European Union are misleading the public by claiming that they could seal Britain’s borders. In an interview with The Sunday Times, the prime minister said those who wanted to leave would be forced to accept the free movement of people if they wanted a free trade deal with the rest of the EU. He challenged Eurosceptics to explain to the public what Britain’s relationship would be like with Europe if the UK voted to leave, accusing them of making “no effort” to spell out their plans. Warning that Britain would still have to contribute to EU coffers even if it left, Cameron said: “So far, the EU has never given full access to the single market without insisting on a contribution to the budget and free movement.” Cameron also said a vote to remain was the only “responsible” course for those who wanted to keep Britain safe. Sajid Javid, the business secretary, uses an article in the Mail on Sunday to say he will vote to stay in the EU, even though his heart is for Out. Even the most committed members of the ‘leave’ camp accept that there will inevitably be a short-term cost to leaving. The question is whether it is balanced out by the long-term gains. It’s a very reasonable question – and I came incredibly close to answering ‘Yes, yes it is.’ But, in recent months, we have once again seen storm clouds gathering over the global economy. As a former financial analyst, I still take a keen interest in the markets. Far more important than what the commentators are saying is what the markets are forecasting: a significant global economic downturn ... My heart says we are better off out. My head says it’s too risky right now. For the past six years, I’ve been doing everything I can to repair the damage Labour did to our national economy. Here is the timetable for the day. 9am: David Cameron is interviewed on the Andrew Marr Show. Other guests include Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, and Nigel Farage, the Ukip leader. 11am: Chris Grayling, the leader of the Commons, Hilary Benn, the shadow foreign secretary, and Tim Farron, the Lib Dem leader, are on the Sunday Politics. If you want to follow me or contact me on Twitter, I’m on@AndrewSparrow. I try to monitor the comments BTL but normally I find it impossible to read them all. If you have a direct question, do include “Andrew” in it somewhere and I’m more likely to find it. I do try to answer direct questions, although sometimes I miss them or don’t have time. Alternatively you could post a question to me on Twitter.
Leonard Cohen: 'I am ready to die' Leonard Cohen has once again demonstrated his ability to speak with calm clarity on the subject of death. In a new interview, in which the 82-year-old discusses his future as an artist, he says: “I am ready to die. I hope it’s not too uncomfortable. That’s about it for me.” According to the article, published in the New Yorker, Cohen has a vault of unpublished poems and unfinished lyrics to finish and record or publish. “The big change is the proximity to death,” he says. “I am a tidy kind of guy. I like to tie up the strings if I can. If I can’t, that’s OK. But my natural thrust is to finish things that I’ve begun.” He goes on to say, however, that he might never be able to release his incomplete tracks: “I don’t think I’ll be able to finish those songs. Maybe, who knows? And maybe I’ll get a second wind, I don’t know. But I don’t dare attach myself to a spiritual strategy. I don’t dare do that. I’ve got some work to do. Take care of business. I am ready to die. I hope it’s not too uncomfortable. That’s about it for me.” Cohen goes on to describe how he “is filled with many fewer distractions than other times in my life and [I’m able] to work with a little more concentration and continuity than when I had duties of making a living, being a husband, being a father. Those distractions are radically diminished at this point. The only thing that mitigates against full production is just the condition of my body.” Much of the New Yorker piece focuses on Cohen’s relationship with Marianne Ihlen, the subject of songs such as Bird on a Wire and So Long, Marianne, who died earlier this year. In August, Cohen’s final letter to his dying muse described his peace with death. “We are really so old and our bodies are falling apart and I think I will follow you very soon,” he wrote. Elsewhere in the interview, Cohen continues his philosophical attitude towards life and death – and describes his fortunate position as he nears the end of his time: For some odd reason, I have all my marbles, so far. I have many resources, some cultivated on a personal level, but circumstantial, too: my daughter and her children live downstairs, and my son lives two blocks down the street. So I am extremely blessed. I have an assistant who is devoted and skilful. I have a friend or two who make my life very rich. So in a certain sense I’ve never had it better … At a certain point, if you still have your marbles and are not faced with serious financial challenges, you have a chance to put your house in order. Putting your house in order, if you can do it, is one of the most comforting activities, and the benefits of it are incalculable. You Want It Darker is out on 21 October.
The 50 best films of 2016 in the UK: No 1 Anomalisa Charlie Kaufman’s stop-motion puppet movie Anomalisa (which he co-directed with Duke Johnson) is a satire of the human condition with the unsettling quality of a lucid dream. It is a masterpiece that inhabits its own spectrum of strangeness. Choosing to be amused or scared by it is the same as choosing between the blue pill and the red pill in the Matrix. David Thewlis voices Michael, a depressed motivational speaker who has checked into a bland hotel in Cincinnati, Ohio, to give a speech to his fans. The hotel is called Fregoli’s, named after the Fregoli delusion, a condition in which sufferers believe that everyone they see is the same person in some sort of disguise. Michael broods guiltily over an ex-girlfriend in the city whose heart he broke many years before, but makes an emotional and sexual connection with a besotted admirer staying at the same hotel, there to hear him speak. She could be an anomaly in his world of dullness and alienation (“Everything’s boring,” he mutters) and her name is Lisa, hence the film’s title. Jennifer Jason Leigh is Lisa’s voice. But everyone else’s is that of Tom Noonan – Noonan’s sonorous male voice pours out of everyone’s mouth, including that of his wife. Is Michael having a breakdown? Away from home, in the lab-like conditions of an identikit hotel, he embarks on a long spasm of panic; he sees everyone surrounding him to be eerily the same, with the same humanoid-puppety faces. Like a creepy community in an Ira Levin thriller, all the people around Michael seem – to him – to have the same uncanny, unknowable agenda: a secret that he’s not in on. As for Michael himself, desire – grimly, naggingly unappeasable desire – remains at the core of his consciousness: desire for something new, something else, something that will bring him happiness at last. He journeys onward, in his cramped and miserable way, believing that the terrain will change, and the sky will change, and the answer to life’s riddle or equation will be extruded from the dull matter of existence. But it never is. Differentness morphs diabolically into the same thing, over and over. And yet for all this, Anomalisa is a very funny, fascinating, even weirdly sensual film. It explores the interesting but little-discussed fascination of the faceless corporate hotel – how its anonymity is liberating and exciting. Michael and Lisa have one of the most stunningly real sex scenes I have ever seen on film; the fact that they are puppets makes them more uninhibited participants than flesh-and-blood actors could have been. There is a tinge of greatness about Anomalisa, and about Charlie Kaufman himself. The 50 best films of 2016 in the UK
Trump to change nomination rules if he becomes GOP nominee, Ben Carson says Donald Trump will change Republican party rules to make the nomination process more uniform if he becomes the GOP presidential candidate, Ben Carson said on Thursday. In response to a question from the , Carson – once a rival to Trump in the Republican race and now one of the billionaire’s most high-profile backers – said he thought Trump was committed to changing the rules of the Republican party so they would be “consistent across the country and not this way here and that way there”. He added: “The only reason [for the current system] is if you wanted to manipulate the system.” A source inside the briefing confirmed that Carson made similar remarks inside the room. Carson, who was appearing as a surrogate for Trump at the RNC’s spring meeting in Hollywood, Florida, condemned the current system of nominating a Republican nominee as “corrupt”. Trump has repeatedly bashed the delegate nominating processes in a number of states, such as Colorado and Wyoming, as rigged. He has also complained about a delegate selection process that has meant there have been relatively few delegates loyal to him in several states that he has won. The resulting issues with delegate selection prompted a shakeup in the Republican frontrunner’s campaign in recent weeks, with veteran operative Paul Manafort taking a much larger role and sidelining Trump’s longtime campaign manager Corey Lewandowski in the midst of conflict within the campaign. By standardizing the rules of the Republican presidential primary, it would make the party’s system far more like that of the Democrats, where delegates are awarded proportionately by congressional district in every state. Currently, Republicans have an array of rules in each state ranging from winner-take-all to absolutely proportional.
UK and France restate commitment to border treaty after Calais talks British and French interior ministers have ordered a fresh review of security in Calais and confirmed they will continue with the treaty under which British border checks are carried out on French soil. A joint statement issued by the home secretary, Amber Rudd, and her French counterpart, Bernard Cazeneuve, says they will work together to strengthen security around the “shared border” in Calais and “strongly diminish” the migratory pressures that have attracted 7,000 migrants to the Channel tunnel port. The statement from the two ministers confirms their commitment to the 2003 Le Touquet treaty but makes no reference to calls from some French politicians for an asylum “hotspot” processing centre to be set up in Calais to consider claims for asylum in Britain. French rightwing politicians, including Nicolas Sarkozy, have called for Le Touquet to be scrapped or changed, raising the prospect of the UK border returning from Calais to Dover. But the joint statement issued by Rudd and Cazeneuve after a meeting in Tuesday clearly says they are committed to “preserve the vital economic link”. The two ministers say they recognise the humanitarian situation in Calais and they will step up their joint efforts to improve the situation. They say that additional work, including by Britain, to protect the shared border will “reflect the outcome of the UK/France security reviews and the steps that need to be taken to continue to manage the common border effectively”. On Monday the president of the region around Calais, Xavier Bertrand, had called for the Le Touquet agreement to end, telling the BBC: “It’s not possible to keep people here without a new agreement between the two governments.” The issue was highlighted during the EU referendum campaign when both David Cameron and François Hollande suggested the deal could be threatened by Brexit. Bertrand suggested allowing migrants to apply for asylum in Britain from “hotspot” application centres in France. Rudd was expected to reject the idea during her visit. Government officials have reportedly said Britain could threaten to review security cooperation with France if it tries to tear up Le Touquet and push the border from Calais into Kent. Earlier the prime minister’s spokesman sought to play down tensions between the two governments. He said: “This meeting between the home secretary and her counterpart has been in the diary for some time. As we’ve said, these discussions will focus on security and counter-terrorism issues. Our position on Le Touquet is pretty clear and we are not changing from that. France is one of our most important allies in Europe.” Saying he would not be drawn on reports about security cooperation, he added: “We will cooperate fully with France. It is one of our closest allies.” The spokesman said the French government continued to support the agreement with Britain as it stands, dismissing Bertrand’s suggestions on both the treaty and the asylum centres. Former president Sarkozy, who hopes to make a comeback next year, has also said the “Jungle” migrant camp should be shut down and moved to Britain, but the prime minister’s spokesman said he wouldn’t comment on a hypothetical situation that was a “long way off”. “In terms of relationship with France it remains as strong as it ever has done, it remains absolutely critical. [France is our] closest neighbour, we have worked incredibly closely together and we will continue to do so,” he said. “The French government position was made perfectly clear when the prime minister went to France last month for talks with President Hollande – and our position is clear. We are committed to protecting our shared border in Calais – it works in the interest of both countries.” On Tuesday morning Charlie Elphicke, the Conservative MP for Dover and Deal, urged the government to avoid any “tit-for-tat” battles with France over border security. He told BBC Radio 4: “France, clearly, has suffered some serious terrorist atrocities, and we need to stand with France. Threatening a tit-for-tat is not the right thing to do. “What we need to do is work more closely together. Next year it’s likely there will be a change of [French] government and we need to understand what it is that they want to achieve. I think what they want to achieve is, as we in Dover want, is to see a lasting solution to a problem that has gone on too long.” There are estimated to be nearly 10,000 people living in squalid surroundings at the Calais camp, including hundreds of unaccompanied minors, and French charities have warned of the worst sanitary conditions ever. The French right has jumped on the issue in the run-up to next year’s presidential election. Sarkozy said in a speech at the weekend: “I’m demanding the opening of a centre in Britain to deal with asylum seekers in Britain, so that Britain can do the work that concerns them. The Jungle should not be in Calais or anywhere else, because this is a republic and those with no rights to be here should return to their country.” Sarkozy, who is running a hardline rightwing primary campaign, in effect called for a renegotiation of Le Touquet. Yet it was Sarkozy, when he was interior minister, who signed the agreement with Britain in 2003. Alain Juppé, the mayor of Bordeaux who is favourite to become the right’s candidate for the presidency next year, has also questioned the agreement, saying over the summer that “logic dictates” that border controls should happen on UK soil. Marine Le Pen, of the far-right Front National, who has strong support in Calais, is also campaigning to scrap the current immigration deal. But at a government level the issue is complex as France tries to sort out its own asylum system issues. After the UK voted for Brexit in June, the Socialist government said there would be no renegotiation of the British-French immigration deal because it would not be in French interests.
Pound and FTSE 100 rally as City expects remain vote The pound has risen to a six-month high and the FTSE 100 has rallied strongly amid growing expectations among investors that Britain’s EU referendum will result in a vote to stay in the bloc. An opinion poll published on Thursday morning – but conducted before voting began – gave a lead to the remain camp and helped boost the UK currency. Amid relief that weeks of uncertainty will soon be over, sterling rose 1.5% to $1.4931 against the dollar. That was the first move above $1.49 since December 2015. “Even though we all know that polls can be rubbish, the markets seem quite happy that the remain camp has done enough to win,” said Kathleen Brooks, research director at spread-betting firm City Index. Shares and the pound were higher from the open and got an extra fillip after the publication of an Ipsos Mori poll conducted for the Evening Standard newspaper showed a four-point lead for remain. The mood was echoed on stock markets, where the FTSE 100 index hit a two-month high. The index of leading shares was up 1.5% at 6357 in mid-morning trading, buoyed by mining shares as copper prices rose. There were also gains for other bourses around Europe with Germany and France’s main share indices up almost 2%. The FTSE and pound have been buffeted by close opinion polls in recent weeks but in the past week market sentiment has swung to show growing confidence in a vote to remain in the EU. The FTSE has rallied every day this week and is so far up more than 5.5% from last Friday’s close. With polls open from 7am to 10pm, there are strict rules for broadcasters that mean they cannot report details of campaigning until voting ends. The relative quiet following months of daily referendum news made for a tense atmosphere on City trading floors, said Joshua Mahony, analyst at IG, an online trading company. “Amid restrictions to broadcasters, there is an eerie feeling in the City, with a nervous energy evident as we await the fate of the nation,” said Mahony. “Whatever the result, volatility is likely to be the name of the game and rumours of private exit polls from the hedge funds means that there is likely to be some substantial swings as speculative positions are placed into a relatively illiquid market.”
Trump's Nafta threats would severely harm US, Mexican chief negotiator says Donald Trump’s pledge to rip up existing trade deals with Mexico would inflict substantial damage on the US economy and kill the region’s competitiveness on the world stage, according to the Mexican economist who led the country’s trade talks with the US. In an exclusive interview with the , Jaime Serra Puche, Mexico’s chief negotiator during the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) negotiations, said scrapping the treaty and introducing protectionist measures as touted by the president-elect would amount to the US “shooting itself and the region in the foot”. “The degree of integration within North America has increased dramatically since Nafta 20 years ago, to the point where we’re not only trading with each other, but now producing many things together. Mr Trump needs to understand that introducing protectionist measures would introduce obstructions and self-inflicted problems on the region including the US, as we would all lose competitiveness vis-a-vis the Chinese, Europeans and other regions,” said Serra. Trump’s shock victory threw the Mexican markets into turmoil last week, causing the peso to nosedive while Mexican stocks suffered their steepest fall in five years. The property mogul vowed throughout his campaign to redraft or withdraw from Nafta which he described as the “worst deal ever”, claiming the trade treaty favours Mexico at the expense of American jobs. Trump also threatened to impose tariffs of up to 35% on Mexican-made goods and build a huge border wall. Annual trade between the two neighbours is worth over half a trillion dollars, equalling $1.6bn of trading each day. Mexican exports to the US have jumped six-fold since Nafta took effect in 1994, to $320bn last year. Almost 80% of Mexican exports head north of the border. Meanwhile US exports to Mexico increased almost five-fold over the same period to $236bn in 2015. Mexico is the second biggest export destination for US products and for southern states such as California, Texas and Arizona, it represents their most important market. Some six million American jobs depend on trade with Mexico, according to the US Chamber of Commerce. Abandoning Nafta completely would return Mexico-US trade relations to World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules, and see exports taxed according to the “most favoured nation tariffs”. These are fairly low – higher for US products than Mexican – but would almost inevitably trigger price hikes on everyday goods for consumers on both sides of the border. But, Trump’s threat to impose stiff import duties on Mexican cars and machinery parts suggests he would consider disregarding WTO rules. “That would be an atomic bomb. If the largest economy in the world leaves or violates the WTO, that would present a very complicated scenario. Could it happen? Anything could happen,” said Serra, a former minister in the neoliberal government of Carlos Salinas. Amid such unprecedented threats, economic and business experts, including former president Vicente Fox, have called on the Mexican government to urgently diversify export markets and reduce the country’s dependence on the US. Nafta was negotiated during the George HW Bush administration, augmented by Bill Clinton’s government, signed by both Republican and Democratic presidents and ratified by a Republican Congress. It took almost four years, and each country gained and lost things at the negotiating table, said Serra. For instance cars made in Mexico cost around $3,000 less than US-manufactured cars. But in agriculture Mexico suffered a net loss of 1.9m jobs between 1991 and 2007 in the face of competition from subsidised American and Canadian farmers, according to a 2014 study by the Center for Economic and Policy Research. “If we have to renegotiate, each country will ask for something, not just America … Mr Trump needs to understand that principle if he reopens Pandora’s box,” said Serra. Trump’s successful campaign was full of sweeping allegations and pledges, but the countries’ trade relationships are more complicated and intertwined than his rhetoric suggests. For every $1 exported to the US, Mexican producers use around $0.45 of American goods or services and Canadians around $0.25, compared with only $0.04 by Chinese companies. “Our relationship with the US is much more complex than a typical outsourcing relationship. When we export to the US, it creates wealth in the US,” said Serra. Trump also condemned the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a broader trade deal between 12 Pacific Rim nations that Mexico had hoped to use to update Nafta and appease US critics. On Friday, the deal was thrown into disarray when the White House conceded it would not pass to Congress before Trump’s inauguration on 20 January. “Without the US, the TPP is dead,” said Serra. He added: “The majority of the world’s trade is now governed by free or preferential trade agreements, with regions rather than countries now competing against each other … [Trump’s] confrontational approach could kill the competitiveness of the region.” Mexico’s central bank convenes later this week to debate whether a fiscal response at this stage is necessary. Serra said: “Paradoxically, threats from the US have made our products more competitive. But my advice would be to fix this quickly and understand that we are a region, and we all gain or don’t gain fairly in the market, so let’s stop this speculation which is hurting the peso and the other two countries now facing more competitiveness from Mexico … before it turns into a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
Donald Trump supporters are not the bigots the left likes to demonise Last Tuesday, at about 3pm, I parked my rental car outside a polling station in the suburbs of Indianapolis, and began to talk to the droves of people going in and out. There was only one subject I really wanted to hear about: Donald Trump, and his jaw-dropping progress to being the presumptive Republican nominee. As he said himself, a win in the state of Indiana would seal the deal, and so it proved: he got 53% of the vote, which triggered the exit of his two supposed rivals. Meanwhile, the global liberal left seemed to be once again working itself into a lather, which was easily translatable: how awful that a man routinely described using all the boo-words progressives can muster – misogynist, racist, fascist, xenophobe, or “xenophobic fascist”, as George Clooney understatedly put it – could now be a resident of the political mainstream, and a serious contender for president. Though calling him a fascist surely demeans the victims of the real thing, Trump has some extremely grim views, and the idea of him in the White House has an obviously terrifying quality. But for those who loathe him, a problem comes when the nastier elements of his rhetoric are conflated with the supposed instincts of millions of his supporters, and familiar stereotypes come into play. “Not all Donald Trump supporters are racists, but most racists are Donald Trump supporters,” says the liberal online outlet Salon. “The unusual geographic pattern of Trumpism … corresponds to the geography of white racial resentment in the United States,” offers a contributor to the political website Vox. “They vote for him because he is a racist bigot,” reckoned one eloquent tweeter I briefly corresponded with. Caricatures of rednecks and white trash are obviously in the foreground here. Worse still, such judgments are often arrived at through polling data, guesswork, and a large measure of metropolitan prejudice: in keeping with one of the most baffling failings of political journalism across the globe, too few people think of speaking to the voters themselves. So to Indiana, where, with my colleague John Domokos, I spent the best part of five days following the Trump campaign. No one mentioned his assuredly unpleasant ideas about excluding Muslims from the US, nor his absurd proposal to build a wall between America and Mexico, at the latter country’s expense. Indeed, when I saw Trump speak at a rally in the Indiana town of Evansville, he made no reference to what he has said about Muslims, and dealt with the fabled wall in a matter of seconds. Instead, he talked at length about two of his pet themes. First, he banged on about the free trade deals that he says have blitzed US industry as companies have moved abroad, luxuriated in newly low labour costs, and imported their wares back into the country. Second, he fed that specific story into a general sense of national decline. All of this is very real. From the dreadful state of the roads to the palpable sense of communities reeling from the military adventures that began in 2001, time spent in the US quickly reveals a country that collectively feels it has taken no end of wrong turns, and must somehow sort itself out. It is one of the more overlooked stories of the 2016 election that Trump’s views about this malaise intersect with the insurgent campaign still being waged by that great left hope, Bernie Sanders. There are, in other words, two anti-establishment figures doing their thing on either side of the political divide, with great success. But in the case of Trump, his positioning fuses with his hyperactive, barnstorming TV persona, and creates something with particularly populist appeal. The presentation is pure political vaudeville, used in the service of anti-politics: rambling (and often very funny) oratory, cartoon political incorrectness, self-obsession so extreme that it comes out looking endearingly self-parodic. But at the core are oomphy words about something built into his audiences’ daily reality: stores full of goods made overseas, and jobs that feel increasingly under threat. His proposed solution, his detractors say, is probably beyond the reach of a president, and in the short term would presumably hit his supporters’ wallets like a hammer, but it’s simple enough: if any company dares move overseas, he’ll whack their goods with such high tariffs that they’ll soon come running back. At the polling station, all of the above was reflected in the reasons people gave for supporting him. Just to make this clear: obviously, there are voters with bigoted opinions who think he’s their man. But equally, almost none of the Trumpites I met seemed to be the gun-toting zealots of liberal demonology: they explained voting for him in very matter-of-fact terms, usually with explicit criticism of the current political class. “Jobs, outsourcing, bringing jobs back to our country,” offered one of his supporters. “We’re getting aluminium from China – we don’t need aluminium from China. Hell, we make it right here,” said another. There was also much more nuance than you might expect. “I hate the way he talks about women, but I love the way he handles things,” one woman told me. Indiana has one particular case study Trump talks about. In Indianapolis, a company called Carrier recently announced the imminent closure of an air-conditioning factory, with the loss of 1,400 jobs. Its operations will be shifted to Mexico. In Indianapolis, average wages are over $20 an hour, but once the move over the border is complete, pay will be more like $3. Talking to workers, it seemed that they were split down the middle, with some – like the local branch of their union, the United Steelworkers – supporting Sanders, while others favoured Trump. Again, the latter option was often framed in terms of difficult choices, and some degree of hesitancy. A Carrier employee called Brad Stepp described his fear of the future, and why Trump represents “the lesser of three evils”. He was well aware of the absurdities of a high-living billionaire claiming to have the back of American workers, not least in the context of Trump’s recent(ish) claim that people in the US are paid too much. But he had made his choice. “We need somebody that’s tough,” he said. “If he can’t stop Carrier going, maybe he can stop other companies doing the same thing.” In the midst of all this, one character sits in a very uneasy position. Unsettled by their popularity, Hillary Clinton has been trying to echo some of Trump’s and Sanders’ pronouncements on trade and jobs. “I won’t support any agreement unless it helps create good jobs and higher wages for American workers,” she says, offering to be the president for “the struggling, the striving and the successful”. Her enemies, by contrast, malign her as someone who enthusiastically supported the trade deal to end all trade deals: the North American Free Trade Agreement of 1994, which the Carrier workers put at the centre of their predicament. In fact, politics being politics, the details of her record matter less than broad-brush appearances. And here, the story for her adversaries is a cinch. The establishment has failed; she is a card-carrying member of that establishment; ergo, she has failed too. Herein lies a vulnerability that should chill the liberal left to the bone. Five days after I got back from Indiana, polls suggested that the presumed contest between Clinton and Trump will be much closer than some people imagine. For those who yell at him and his supporters from the sidelines, that news ought to give pause for thought: before it’s too late, maybe it’s time to stop hysterically moralising and instead try to understand not just how mainstream US politics has so awfully failed, but how it might somehow be rescued.
WHO recommends shorter drug regimen for multi-drug resistant TB A new drug regime that shortens the treatment for multi-drug resistant tuberculosis from two years to nine months has been recommended for use by the World Health Organisation, raising hopes that hundreds of thousands of people will stay the course and be cured. About 480,000 people are estimated by the WHO to have this form of the infectious disease, which has been found in every country in the world and kills 190,000 every year. MDR-TB cannot be cured by the standard six-month regimen of antibiotics because the bacteria have become resistant to some or all of the drugs, meaning they no longer work. The existing course of combined heavy-duty antibiotics used against MDR-TB lasts up to two years and there are toxic side-effects to some of the drugs, causing deafness and other problems. About half of those put on the treatment give up, raising the risk that their disease will return and spread to other people. The WHO announced two innovations that it hopes will dramatically change this scenario. It recommended a rapid diagnostic test, which can detect how resistant the patient’s form of TB is, and a shorter course of treatment which lasts between nine and 12 months. For MDR-TB, patients can take a less toxic combination than for XDR-TB – the extremely resistant form. “This is a critical step forward in tackling the MDR-TB public health crisis,” said Dr Mario Raviglione, the director of the WHO’s global TB programme. “The new WHO recommendations offer hope to hundreds of thousands of MDR-TB patients who can now benefit from a test that quickly identifies eligibility for the shorter regimen, and then complete treatment in half the time and at nearly half the cost.” The regimen has not gone through formal clinical trials, but was developed by a number of organisations working on TB and tried successfully in 515 patients in Bangladesh between 2005 and 2011, and then on 408 people in a number of African nations. It is now being tested in an official clinical trial in Mongolia. The WHO, however, said it felt there was already enough information to recommend the use of the shorter treatment regimen. “We have decided to accelerate the procedure because we believe that these tools have real potential to save lives immediately,” Raviglione told the . The 24-month regimen had not been tested in a clinical trial either, he said. However, the body would be looking for confirmation of the new advice from the Mongolian study. “The basis of all this is how terrible the current treatment is – in 24 months 14,000 pills have to be taken by one person. Less than 50% who take the current treatment are cured. In 2016, that is what we are still dealing with,” said Dr ID Rusen, a senior vice-president in the International Union against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease, which has been developing the shorter regimen. Cure rates are much higher with the shorter course of treatment – more than 80%, compared with 50%. In Bangladesh, he said, “it was almost too good to be true. How could we get 85-86% treatment success when we were struggling with the current regimen?” Philipp du Cros, the head of the Manson Unit at Médecins Sans Frontières, which provides medical support and research for the charity’s field operations, said the recommendations were a promising step forward and countries should act on them immediately. “MSF has seen positive outcomes using a nine-month regimen for some people with DR-TB (drug-resistant TB) in countries such as Swaziland and Uzbekistan,” he said. “However, these shorter regimens still use some of the old, toxic drugs, particularly the daily painful injections people must endure. Today’s announcement must not lead us to lose sight of the desperate need for completely new treatment regimens.”
A steady hand needed on the ship of state One of the most disturbing aspects in the Brexit free fall we are all experiencing is the lack of a senior Tory statesman to steady the ship while no one has a clue what to do next. The potential candidates (possibly with the exception of Theresa May) are all relatively young and lack the depth of experience, wisdom and wider perspective that is essential to unite the Tory party and the country. Might I suggest that an interim prime minister be chosen from respected elder statesman to be a wise counsel, critical intellect and reassuring presence, both to the UK electorate and the EU. We don’t need “personalities”, demagogues or those motivated by personal ambitions, but mature individuals with character and integrity; the sort of politician who has been round the track a few times and would be able to say: “Look, we tried that in the past and it didn’t work, but maybe we could try this.” Perhaps Chris Patten, Michael Heseltine, Ken Clarke or William Hague – all tried and tested politicians who might be able to help their party transcend division for the greater common good. Francesca Weinberg London
Prince's estate denies plans to sell Paisley Park The administrator of Prince’s estate has denied reports that they plan to sell the singer’s famous Paisley Park studio. The statement comes after a gossip site TMZ reported that permission had been requested to put on the market several of the late musician’s properties, including the legendary Minnesota recording studio and rehearsal space in which Prince lived. Bremer Trust says the TMZ report is false and that the estate have “no plans to sell either Paisley Park or the property referred to as the Purple Rain house”. According to the Hollywood Reporter, Bremer Trust have filed papers asking for permission to sell almost 20 properties owned by Prince. The properties have an estimated total value of $28m (£21.4m). Paisley Park, which has a concert venue and bank vault in its grounds, has long been a source of myth and intrigue among Prince fans, many of whom had been invited inside to watch the musician perform during one of his regular lengthy shows. According to Prince’s first manager, Owen Husney, the singer was planning to turn Paisley Park into a Graceland-style public space for fans in the months leading up to his death. Prince: a life in pictures
Bees would suffer from Brexit, say campaigners Brexit would be bad for Britain’s bees, according to campaigners, who point to the UK government’s opposition to EU bans on harmful pesticides and the desire of figures in the Leave camp to cut nature protections. Bees and other pollinators are vital to producing food but have been harmed by loss of habitat, disease and pesticides. The EU banned three neonicotinoid pesticides in 2013 in the face of strong opposition from UK ministers. The UK government allowed an “emergency” exemption to the ban in 2015 and is now considering another. A leading Brexit campaigner George Eustice, who is also the farming minister, recently told the the UK could develop a more flexible approach to environmental protection free of “spirit-crushing” Brussels directives if it votes to leave. “With Brexiteers promising victory parties lit by bonfires of so-called red tape – including our vital nature protections – a future outside of Europe doesn’t look bright for Britain’s bees or our environment as a whole,” said Sam Lowe from Friends of the Earth. “If protection of bee’s habitats and food sources are watered down and bee-harming pesticides are reintroduced in Britain, there could be devastating consequences for Britain’s bees and for the whole food chain.” Matt Shardlow, from the invertebrate conservation charity Buglife, said: “The EU has got a recent history of providing resolute protection for bees and pollinators.” EU nature rules have been vital for protecting the places bees live and the flowers they feed upon, according to campaigners, including Salisbury Plain and parts of the South Downs. It is well established that neonicotinoids cause harm to bees but there is limited evidence that they cause colonies or populations to decline. Further evidence of harm is building up with the publication of new scientific research: a study published this week showed one neonicotinoid harmed foraging, navigation and social communication in honeybees. UK ministers permitted a temporary lifting of the EU ban in 2015 for use on oilseed rape crops, but gagged its own pesticide advisers in order to prevent campaigners lobbying on the issue. A new application for an emergency lifting of the ban was rejected earlier in 2016, but the National Farmers Union have made a further bid, which was considered behind closed doors by the pesticide advisers on Tuesday. The NFU, which says farmers are better off in the EU, argues that neonicotinoids are “absolutely vital” in protecting oilseed rape crops from pests. A cross-party group of 25 MPs has written to the environment secretary, Liz Truss, to complain about the secrecy of the decision making. “Sound science is publicly challengeable science,” they wrote. “It is not a body of experts who say ‘we will not allow anyone to see the evidence we have for placing the public at risk, but we are eminent persons so trust us’.” More than 300,000 people have signed a 38 Degrees petition to keep the neonicotinoid ban and more than 100,000 have backed another calling for greater transparency. “The lack of transparency is a complete scandal and biases the system in favour of pesticide firms, with the public and campaigners unable to scrutinise the case being made for their use,” said Dave Timms at Friends of the Earth. “This is bad for democracy, bad for science and bad for our bees.”
BAME coach numbers stall in English football’s four divisions Two years after it called for a target of one in five coaches to come from a black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) background by the end of the decade, new research commissioned by the Sports People’s Think Tank has revealed barely any progress towards that goal. Figures compiled by Loughborough University show that despite initiatives from the Football League, Premier League and Football Association to increase diversity, the percentage of BAME coaches in senior positions remains only 4.1%. The research took 1 September as its cut-off date, so the recent sacking of Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink by Queens Park Rangers – also the only first-team coach recruited during the period – will have further reduced the figure. The comparable figure 12 months ago was 4.2% and the authors of the report, commissioned by the SPTT and the European anti-discrimination network Fare, said the figures were “disappointing”. “The data continues to show that if you are from a BAME background and aspire to be a manager or a coach, you are at a disadvantage,” it said. “The objective for us is to see progress made. The statistics show there is very little of that at this stage.” The report notes that there has been “unprecedented progress” in the Football League, where a recruitment code has been introduced to promote positive action at academy level and a voluntary scheme across 10 clubs at first-team level. It called for an independent body to monitor progress and, if necessary, make a case for action against those who do not follow the recruitment procedures under which clubs are expected to interview at least one BAME candidate for any first‑team managerial or coaching role where they run a full recruitment process. The authors claimed that one club among the 10 who agreed to participate in the Football League’s pilot, Wolverhampton Wanderers, ignored the agreed process when recruiting first Walter Zenga and then Paul Lambert. In response, the EFL released a statement which said that Wolves had “complied fully with the code” in appointing Lambert. “After the previous appointment of Walter Zenga, during the close season, the EFL contacted the club to seek a better understanding of the circumstances surrounding that appointment,” read the statement. “In its response, the club pointed to the exceptional circumstances of the club being subject to a change of control with the new owners wanting to appoint a specific manager as part of their plans for the takeover of the club. This has since been explained to other stakeholder organisations including the FA, PFA and LMA. “The EFL reminded the club of the commitment it had made and sought assurances that it remained committed to the code going forward. These were received and clearly put into action during Wolves’ subsequent managerial appointment process.” The Premier League, meanwhile, has launched a scheme to bring through more BAME coaches at academy level while the FA is investing £1.4m over the next five seasons to get more aspiring coaches from BAME communities into the licensed coaching system at elite level. Dr Steven Bradbury, who compiled the report, also noted a lack of joined up thinking between the game’s various governing bodies as a barrier to progress. “Most worryingly, our networks of BAME coaches looking for employment report that identifying where there are job opportunities across the game is a huge barrier,” it said. “In short there is very little co-ordination across the game to turn the good ‘pipeline’ work into BAME coaches in elite coaching roles. Why are the authorities not working more closely together?” The report found that the figures for elite coaches remained significantly below the percentage of BAME players (25%) and within the UK population more broadly (14%). It also found that a large number of BAME coaches were clustered around a handful of clubs, including QPR and Brighton & Hove Albion. There are no BAME first-team managers in the Premier League and following Hasselbaink’s sacking, now only two (Chris Hughton and Keith Curle) in the Football League. Heather Rabbatts, the only woman and the only director from a BAME background on the FA board, told the this year that she believed progress was being made but accepted it was slower than many would like. “I think there is now sufficient accountability on what needs to happen that it doesn’t get lost sight of. We would all like the momentum to be faster than it is,” she said in May. “But football is still very much a closed system, so you’re trying to prise open the doors of opportunity.” She insisted that progress had been made across several fronts – including the introduction of coaching mentors in the England coaching structure, a new voluntary code of conduct for the Football League that should ensure more opportunities for BAME coaches and initiatives by the Premier League to increase the number of BAME coaches achieving professional qualifications.
Parliament could force banking inquiry despite hostile Coalition, says Senate clerk The opposition and minor parties could force a rare and powerful “commission of inquiry” into the banks if the Coalition refuses a royal commission, according to the clerk of the Senate, Rosemary Laing. And the Senate’s key parliamentary adviser said if the commission of inquiry bill won a majority in both houses it would be an outcome that “any government would find difficult to resist”. Laing has advised the Greens senator Peter Whish-Wilson that parliament could establish the inquiry, similar to that set up to investigate former Labor minister and high court justice Lionel Murphy by the Hawke government. Whish-Wilson immediately warned Malcolm Turnbull that he would pursue the commission of inquiry if the prime minister failed to establish a royal commission. He has written to the opposition leader, Bill Shorten, to offer to work with Labor if its motion passes but the government refuses to support a royal commission. “If the Turnbull government refuses to act on establishing a royal commission into the misconduct in the financial services sector then I want parliamentarians to know there is another powerful option for us to pursue,” Whish-Wilson said. “If the executive won’t act on an issue important to the Australian people then the parliament must consider all its options.” The difference between a royal commission and a commission of inquiry is the latter reports to the parliamentary houses rather than the government of the day. The Murphy case in 1986 is the only time a parliamentary commission of inquiry has been used and at that time, three judges were appointed to oversee the inquiry to provide independence. They were to investigate the behaviour of Murphy, who was convicted of attempting to pervert the course of justice, a finding later overturned on appeal. But the commission of inquiry was not completed because Murphy was diagnosed with a terminal illness and he died later in the same year. In a finely balanced parliament, where the government has a one-seat majority in the House of Representatives and a nine-seat deficit in the Senate, the option could force the issue on the government, which has so far resisted a banking royal commission. Whish-Wilson, a former merchant banker who has long campaigned on bank behaviour, sought the advice from Laing on the little used parliamentary power. Laing’s advice, which has been seen by Australia, suggests a commission of inquiry into the banks would be possible although there would be difficulties, such as funding the inquiry or forcing the government to allow debate in the lower house. “It would be open to the parliament to establish a commission of inquiry, to give it appropriate powers and immunities and to require it to report to the houses rather than the executive government, provided the inquiry was within the powers of the commonwealth as reflected in the constitution,” Laing writes. “Any such commission would have the powers that the parliament saw fit to give it. They might replicate those of a royal commission or a parliamentary committee or be specifically designed for a particular purpose.” Laing notes there could be “numerous” barriers to the inquiry, which needs a majority in both houses. While the inquiry debate could be held in the Senate, the Coalition would not schedule time for debate in the House where it has much more control over procedure. Laing notes while several (Coalition) MPs have spoken about crossing the floor on banks, they may be “reluctant to vote against their party on a procedural question”. Laing notes that even if the commission bill passed, it could be challenged for validity and “costly interference could be run by interests opposed to such an inquiry”. “Recourse could be had to litigation at every step to frustrate the commission if the opponents were determined and deep-pocketed enough, including challenges by individual witnesses, not to mention challenges to the appointment of commissioners in the first place,” Laing writes. She said finding appropriate commissioners to run the inquiry would be “problematic”, given most people with the expertise (such as former bankers) would be vulnerable to conflict of interest claims. She suggests funding the commission would be an issue because in the Murphy case, the inquiry was proposed by the executive government, so funding was not a problem. The Senate and lower house non-government MPs cannot initiate funding. But she notes on funding “it would be politically difficult for any government to resist the views of both houses expressed in the legislative form”. “If such a statute were passed, even without the support of the government, it would be a clear indication that the two houses of the parliament, as constituted by elected representatives, were in support of the inquiry,” Laing writes. “Any government would find it difficult to resist the views of both houses in this form.” In the Senate, Labor, the Greens and three senators from the Nick Xenophon Team (NXT) senators, plus Pauline Hanson’s four senators and Jacqui Lambie all support a royal commission – well over the 39 senators needed to pass a bill. In the lower house, if all the independents and minor party MPs supported a motion, it would require one Coalition MP to cross the floor. Of the 150 seats, the Coalition has 76 seats or 75 once the speaker Tony Smith is removed from the equation. Labor, Greens MP Adam Bandt, NXT MP Rebekha Sharkie and Katter Australian Party’s Bob Katter all have supported a bank royal commission in the past. Indi independent Cathy McGowan has said she is open to a royal commission, depending on the terms of reference. Before the election Labor joined calls by Whish-Wilson, Nationals senator John Williams and Nick Xenophon for a royal commission into the financial services industry. Queensland LNP MPs George Christensen and Warren Entsch have both supported the idea in the past. While Turnbull has promised to force large bank chiefs to appear before a house committee annually, he has resisted calls for a royal commission, though he remains open to a bank tribunal. Whish-Wilson said while the Greens would support Labor motions for a royal commission (given the Greens had proposed similar motions in the past), the option of a commission of inquiry was a live option. “Australians overwhelmingly support a royal commission into the financial services sector and are tired of the excuses and inaction from the Turnbull government,” Whish Wilson said. “The Greens have led the call for a royal commission into financial scandals such as the $4bn collapse of Australia’s forestry managed investment schemes, and we propose this option for all parliamentarians to consider.”
Inquest finds police unlawfully detained man later found hanged A vulnerable young man was found hanged the day after being unlawfully detained, held in an unauthorised headlock and illegally strip-searched by police who stopped him on suspicion of minor criminal damage at a takeaway. Logan Peters, 22, who had mental health issues, battered his head against the walls of a police cell and tried to strangle himself while being detained for 12 hours, but was treated as an attention-seeker and released without any care plan being put in place. The Cornish boat builder, said by his family to have had very strong views on right and wrong and a keen interest in human rights, went home and claimed Devon and Cornwall police officers had “roughed him up”. The next day he was found dead in a summerhouse. The way the police dealt with Peters was strongly criticised by an inquest jury in Truro on Thursday. The panel concluded that there were “errors, omissions and failures” in the way Peters was seized on the street. “It is extremely likely that the series of events, together with the unreasonable, disproportionate and unnecessary force used … had a negative impact on Logan’s physical and psychological wellbeing,” the panel said in its written findings. “Inadequate steps” were taken to address risks to Peters at the police station. And it said the failure to address his complaints that he was the victim of force and the strip-search “significantly contributed to a further deterioration of Logan’s psychological wellbeing”. After the inquest, Peters’ family described him as a gentle soul who was never aggressive. His mother, Tammy, told the : “He had his troubles but he was very sensitive.” She said it had been soul-destroying to watch footage of her son being detained and then harming himself in the police station. “I feel let down by the police.” His father, Robert, said Peters would have known his rights and would have been angry at being detained illegally. “He was very frustrated because he thought his human rights had been breached.” Both said they were shocked when they first saw the videos, obtained by the . “He was put in a headlock and thrown to the ground,” his father said. “It looks like thuggish behaviour. It is not the sort of thing you expect of the police.” His mother said: “He was complying with the police. There was no need for them to act as they did. And I can’t understand why he wasn’t properly observed and looked after at the police station. So many people weren’t doing their jobs.” The assistant coroner for Cornwall, Andrew Cox, directed the jury to find that, for a period after Peters was subjected to a stop and search but before he was arrested, he was detained unlawfully. During that time Logan was put in the headlock, pushed up against a police car and forced to the ground, all unlawfully, the coroner said. Cox also ruled that at Charles Cross police station in Plymouth, Peters was subject to an unlawful strip search. The case once again highlights failings within the police to look after people with mental health issues while they are in custody. Around half of all deaths of people in or recently in police custody involve detainees with some form of mental health problems. The inquest heard that Peters, who lived in a village on the banks of the river Tamar, and a younger cousin rowed across to Plymouth for a night out in May 2014. Peters had been drinking and had taken medication he had not been prescribed. In the early hours the pair visited a takeaway and a £20 picture was broken. A few minutes later the pair were stopped by two constables, Andrew Denton and Leon Hannaford. Peters’ hands were cuffed in front of him – the routine method is to secure a detainee’s hands behind their back – and searched. Denton accepted in court that he put Logan in an unapproved headlock but denied being heavy-handed. The officers waited for about 10 minutes while Peters and his cousin were identified as the two who had been in the takeaway. The coroner ruled they had no right to hold the pair for this period. Peters was then arrested and at the police station was ordered to remove his clothes for a search, again against the law, according to the coroner. While in his cell Peters butted the walls and tried to strangle himself but was considered to be “attention-seeking” rather than suicidal, the inquest heard. He was seen by two custody nurses and a mental health professional but no alarm was raised and he was released. Peters told his father he had been “done over” by the police. His mother told the court Peters had suffered from anxiety and insomnia since 2013. He had taken legal highs to achieve a sense of calm but she said he was never aggressive and always avoided conflict. She said he was strong-willed and prepared to challenge authority, and was angry after his release. “He said he had been wronged by the police.” It also emerged during the inquest that Peters’ GP had suggested he needed urgent psychiatric help, but was judged to be a non-urgent case when he was assessed and was still waiting for an appointment at the time of his death. Peters’ stepfather, Chris Matthews, a community psychiatric nurse, expressed concerns outside court at how the case had been handled. The barrister for the family, Fiona Murphy asked the coroner to make a preventing future fatalities report concerning the constabulary’s what she said was “systemic non-compliance” with the Police and Criminal Evidence Act - the legislation that governs police use of their powers. The police denied this. She also said the case flagged up concerns about mental health awareness. The coroner said he would write to Devon and Cornwall police on nine topics that had concerned him, including the unlawful detention of Peters and the unlawful use of force on him. The solicitor Fiona McGhie, representing Peters’ family, said: “There are clearly a number of issues that require addressing by the police concerning the lack of awareness among the Devon and Cornwall police officers who dealt with Logan during his arrest and during the time he spent in custody. This resulted in Logan being subjected to an unlawful period of detention, unlawful force and an unlawful strip search, with devastating consequences for a young man who knew that his rights were being violated.” A spokesperson for Devon and Cornwall police said the force would look in detail at the findings and conclusions of the inquest. “As a result of this tragic case we have already made a number of amendments to our working practices and procedures within the custody environment,” the spokesperson said. Those changes included ones based on the recommendations of the Independent Police Complaints Commission, which carried out its own investigation. “We agree that the actions of a number of the officers involved in Mr Peters’ case did not meet the very high standards that we expect and these officers have received management action in relation to their future conduct.”
Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Microsoft sign EU hate speech code An online “code of conduct” aimed at fighting hate speech has been launched by the European Union in conjunction with four of the world’s biggest internet companies. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Microsoft have all been involved in the creation of the code, which is particularly aimed at fighting racism and xenophobia across Europe. Such efforts are hampered by varying enforcement in different countries, something the code is tackling. It also encourages the social media companies to take quick action as soon as a valid notification is received. A slim document, the code of conduct isn’t legally binding for the internet companies, even though many of its policies are already covered by other EU legislation such as the e-commerce directive. Instead, it establishes “public commitments” for the companies, including the requirement to review the “majority of valid notifications for removal of illegal hate speech” in less than 24 hours, and to make it easier for law enforcement to notify the firms directly. Vĕra Jourová, the EU commissioner for justice, consumers and gender equality, led the creation of the code, and placed it in the context of the attacks in Paris and Brussels. “The recent terror attacks have reminded us of the urgent need to address illegal online hate speech,” she said. “Social media is unfortunately one of the tools that terrorist groups use to radicalise young people and racist use to spread violence and hatred. “This agreement is an important step forward to ensure that the internet remains a place of free and democratic expression, where European values and laws are respected.” The definition of hate speech covered by the code of conduct is narrow: it is defined in the document as “all conduct publicly inciting to violence or hatred directed against a group of persons or a member of such a group defined by reference to race, colour, religion, descent or national or ethnic origin”. That ban is counterbalanced by the right to freedom of expression, which, the code highlights, covers “not only… ‘information’ or ‘ideas’ that are favourably received or regarded as inoffensive or as a matter of indifference, but also to those that offend, shock or disturb the state or any sector of the population”. All the internet companies that signed the code of conduct emphasised the tension themselves. Google’s public policy and government relations director, Lie Junius, said “We’re committed to giving people access to information through our services, but we have always prohibited illegal hate speech on our platforms… We are pleased to work with the Commission to develop co- and self-regulatory approaches to fighting hate speech online.” Monika Bickert, head of global policy management at Facebook, said: “With a global community of 1.6 billion people, we work hard to balance giving people the power to express themselves whilst ensuring we provide a respectful environment. As we make clear in our Community Standards, there’s no place for hate speech on Facebook.” Twitter’s Karen White, the head of public policy for Europe, said: “Hateful conduct has no place on Twitter and we will continue to tackle this issue head on alongside our partners in industry and civil society. We remain committed to letting the tweets flow. However, there is a clear distinction between freedom of expression and conduct that incites violence and hate.” The code of conduct represents the first major attempt to codify how technology firms should respond to hate speech online. But the limited scope leaves many aspects of online abuse still uncovered: harassment on gender grounds, for instance, is not considered hate speech according to the code of conduct. In Britain, a cross-party campaign launched last week, with Facebook’s backing, is calling for contributions on how to reduce misogynist abuse online.
Republican debate turns nasty as Rubio lays into Trump Marco Rubio took the fight to Donald Trump on Thursday night. With assistance from Ted Cruz, the Florida senator unleashed an attack on Trump’s business record and policy acumen that has the potential to shake up the Republican presidential race. Trump, who has emerged as the Republican frontrunner with remarkably little vetting, was consistently attacked for employing foreign and illegal workers, for his business record and for his lack of policy specifics. The debate, five days before the critical Super Tuesday primaries when voters in 12 states will cast their verdict on the Republican field, descended into a series of personal attacks and bad-tempered exchanges. At times, the candidates shouted over each other. Rubio gleefully mocked Trump, saying “You say the same thing every night,” and even gave his own parody of Trump’s stump speech: “Everyone’s dumb, I’m going to make America great again, I’m winning in the polls, lines around the states, every night.” It was the first time rival candidates have used a debate stage to go after the foundation of Trump’s campaign – his experience as a businessman, his assertion that he is the only candidate who can be relied upon to be a stalwart opponent of illegal immigration, and his fundamental belief in “winning”. It left Trump stuttering and defensive. “I don’t repeat myself,” he said, as he struggled through another tough exchange with Rubio. “I don’t repeat myself. I don’t repeat myself.” The concerted attacks and Trump’s counterpunching left John Kasich and Ben Carson as relative bystanders. At one point, Carson pleaded: “Can somebody attack me?” Trump has built a populist movement of discontented blue collar voters very different from the fiscally and socially conservative coalition George W Bush once relied on. As he said onstage: “We are building a new Republican party. A lot of new people are coming in.” But on Thursday his rivals tried to discredit him with those voters and consolidate their own appeal among Republicans who disdain Trump. Rubio used immigration as a cudgel. The first question, from CNN moderator Wolf Blitzer, was on Trump’s plan to deport 11 million undocumented immigrants but to let “the good ones” back in. Rubio seized the opportunity. “The truth is, though, that a lot of these positions that he’s now taking are new to him,” he said. He referred to a New York Times story on Thursday that claimed that Trump’s exclusive club in Palm Beach, Florida, has pursued more than 500 temporary foreign worker visas since 2010 and hired only a handful of US residents. “We saw a report in one of the newspapers that Donald, you’ve hired a significant number of people from other countries to take jobs that Americans could have filled,” Rubio said. “My mom and dad – my mom was a maid at a hotel, and instead of hiring an American like her, you have brought in over a thousand people from all over the world to fill those jobs instead.” Trump said this was because of a lack of available American workers. “They were part-time jobs,” he said. “You needed them, or we just might as well close the doors, because you couldn’t get help in those hot, hot sections of Florida.” Rubio then mentioned reports claiming that undocumented immigrants have worked at Trump properties. In the 1980s Trump faced a lawsuit alleging that undocumented Polish demolition workers worked on Trump Tower in Manhattan. The suit was not settled until 1999, and the settlement never made public. A 2015 Washington Post story suggested undocumented workers could have been involved in building a new luxury hotel in the city. “You’re the only person on this stage that has ever been fined for hiring people to work on your projects illegally. You hired some workers from Poland,” Rubio said, adding that Trump was forced to pay “a million dollars or so” in a judgment. Trump said this was “totally wrong” and hit back: “I’m the only one on the stage that’s hired people. You haven’t hired anybody.” “If he builds the [border] wall the way he built Trump Towers he’ll be using illegal immigrant labor to do it,” Rubio said. “I’ve hired tens of thousands of people,” Trump said. “He brings up something from 30 years ago. It worked out very well. Everybody was happy.” Cruz attacked Trump as a Johnny Come Lately. “I really find it amazing that Donald believes that he is the one who discovered the issue of illegal immigration,” the senator said. “I can tell you, when I ran for Senate here in the state of Texas, I ran promising to lead the fight against amnesty, promising to fight to build a wall. “And in 2013, when I was fighting against the ‘gang of eight’ amnesty bill, where was Donald? He was firing Dennis Rodman on Celebrity Apprentice.” Rubio also repeatedly hit Trump on Trump University, a for-profit enterprise that promised to teach attendees about the real-estate world. Trump is facing several lawsuits in federal court from unhappy customers of what Rubio said was “a fake university”. The attack was echoed by Cruz, who referenced one coming case, warning that Trump’s “lawyers have scheduled the trial for July” and saying the mainstream media would make hay if “the Republican nominee [was] in court on the stand being cross-examined about whether he has committed fraud”. Trump claimed the allegations in the case were “nonsense” and insisted that he had only refused to settle it out of principle. Rubio jibed: “You know where Donald Trump would be if he hadn’t inherited $200m? Selling watches in Manhattan.” Trump was also left staggering after an assault from Rubio on his healthcare plan. In response, Trump insisted he would “get rid of the lines around states”, without providing further detail, and resorted to bringing up Rubio’s implosion in the New Hampshire debate against Chris Christie as a defense. “I watched him repeat himself five times four weeks ago,” Trump insisted. Rubio fired back: “I just watched you repeat yourself five times five seconds ago.” Trump kept on trying to change the subject to New Hampshire. Trump was then repeatedly hit on a supposed reluctance to release his tax returns, a subject that 2012 Republican nominee Mitt Romney – no stranger to the issue – has brought up in recent days. Cruz and Rubio said they would release their tax returns in the coming days, Rubio saying his were coming Friday or Saturday. Trump said he could not release his because of an ongoing audit. “Every year they audit me,” Trump said. “I will absolutely file my returns, but I’m being audited now for two or three years and I can’t do it until the audit is finished.” Afterwards, the Rubio and Cruz campaigns both declared victory. Jason Miller, a top aide to Cruz, told the the senator “jammed up Donald Trump”. He also sarcastically praised Rubio “for eating his Wheaties and getting into the mix for the first time”. Miller felt confident that night was a win for his man. “Donald Trump didn’t look presidential tonight and he lost a lot of votes,” he said before adding, in a reference to the immigration reform effort spearheaded by Rubio in 2013: “Those votes aren’t going to a member of the gang of eight.” Todd Harris, a top adviser to Rubio, said the Florida senator had met all his goals: “There is a growing anti-Trump movement within the party and our goal tonight was to have Marco emerge as leader of that movement and I think we succeeded.” Miller said many of Rubio’s attacks were not based on substantive issues because “trying to wage a battle of substance against Trump is pretty futile effort”. “Anyone who goes into an attack on Donald Trump by saying he’s not a conservative,” he said, “is not going to win that fight because Trump doesn’t pretend to be a conservative.” The debate was the last one before Super Tuesday, which will produce the largest delegate haul of the GOP candidate selection process. Texas, with 155 delegates, is the largest of the 12 states that vote on 1 March, which range from conservative southern states such as Alabama and Georgia to liberal outposts in New England such as Vermont and Massachusetts. Trump has led in recent polls in almost every Super Tuesday state. The exception is Texas, Cruz’s home state, where the senator has a narrow lead. Trump leads Rubio in Florida. Todd Harris, the Rubio aide, said his candidate finally went after Trump only because Jeb Bush had dropped out. As long as the former Florida governor was running, he said, attacks from his Super Pac “made it hard for us to make case that this was two-person race between us and Donald Trump”. The question now is this: given that the Rubio campaign is already writing off any chance of winning a Super Tuesday state, when will that two-man race come to exist and who will run it? As Jason Miller, the Cruz operative, jibed about Rubio’s newfound aggression: “Marco has yet to win a state. There’s probably more a sense of desperation and it has to be weighing on him pretty heavily.” Elsewhere in the spin room, Trump also dismissed Rubio. “I thought he was ineffective,” he said. “I think he was a weak guy. I thought Ted Cruz did better but what do I know.” Rubio, he charged, was a “choke artist”. The tone was familiar; at times, the debate had descended into little more than a slanging match, candidates speaking angrily over each other. “Donald, you can get back on your meds now,” Cruz said during one exchange. “I’m relaxed. You’re the basket case,” Trump said. Carson, speaking to reporters, sought to sum it all up. “It’s clear this was all about ratings and fights,” he said. “Unfortunately, the audience didn’t help because when people would fight they would yell ‘Yeah! Yeah!’ like it was gladiators.”
Campaign catchup: Turnbull corrals $1bn for coral Welcome to week six of the campaign that doesn’t end, that just goes on and on, my friends ... The good news is pre-polling opens on Tuesday, meaning we’re entering the final stretch. The prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, joined Greg Hunt, the environment minister, and Ewen Jones, the MP for Herbert, in Townsville this morning to dedicate $1bn of the $10bn Clean Energy Finance Corporation Fund to be spent over 10 years on protecting the Great Barrier Reef. That $1bn will be spent on providing low-interest grants to improve irrigation and water filtration systems, reducing the amount of water pollution in the Great Barrier Reef lagoon. But 22% of the reef has died after a mass coral bleaching event earlier this year and scientists estimate the cost of saving it is $10bn to $16bn. Hunt told Radio National’s Fran Kelly that $1bn was “very significant, the largest investment ever” and that, coupled with the signing of the Paris agreement, it would “make a real and genuine difference”. He was “passionate” about saving the reef and “frankly” Turnbull was, too. Turnbull raved about the “unique, gigantic ... enormous economic driver here in north Queensland” at a press conference later but announced no new funding for targeting climate change, though he acknowledged it posed a significant threat – to not just this “majestic ... extraordinary” reef but “every reef, everywhere”. Hunt made a similar point on Radio National. Does the Coalition have a #allreefsmatter campaign in the works? Mark Butler, Labor’s environment spokesman, said the Coalition’s announcement was “political desperation on a grand scale” in its bid to “avoid doing anything meaningful to address climate change”. Australia’s Mikey Slezak, who has widely reported on the “stench of death” on the reef, wasn’t much impressed by the Coalition’s “rescue mission”, either: “It looks more like a rescue mission for the government’s credibility on reef policy.” Though there’s not much difference in spending on the reef between the two parties, the opposition has promised increased monitoring and stronger action on climate change – which, it’s widely agreed, does pose the greatest threat to its health. NBN: NIMBY (before 2020) Behind schedule, over budget, the NBN is widely touted to be one of Turnbull’s failures as communications minister. Remember, he “virtually invented the internet in this country” and speeds have only fallen under his watch. So Bill Shorten’s plan to salvage the project was nothing if not personal. Labor’s promising to MacGyver a faster NBN out of the work done thus far, delivering fibre-to-the-premises broadband to 39% of Australians. It puts the cost at $57b compared with the Coalition’s current projected spend of $56bn but its plan would rely on the same public equity contribution and deliver to the same timeline (which the communications minister, Mitch Fifield, contests). Hey, since we’re spending, what difference does one more billion make? About 15,000 wrought iron landmarks, said Barnaby Joyce: “Why don’t [Labor] just go and promise an Eiffel Tower in every town, because they don’t have the money for that either.” Jason Clare, Labor’s communications spokesman, said on Radio National the difference between the NBN the Coalition promised and what it’s delivered “looks like a ramp that Evel Knievel couldn’t jump” – powerful imagery that serves as a reminder of our representatives’ grasp on popular culture, just like this tweet from Andrew Nikolic today. Shorten stressed it was a case of making the best out of a bad job. Labor would revert to a fibre-to-the-premises model, rather than fibre-to-the-node-plus-copper favoured by Turnbull, which it promises would be a faster, better outcome. “If there were gold medals handed out for stuff-ups and blow-out, Malcolm Turnbull would be on his way to Rio right now,” chipped in Clare, who must spend ages thinking up these things. But Turnbull said Labor had “no credibility” on the issue, and he should know – he “virtually” invented it. But there’s no doubt the NBN cuts through to the issue Australians care about most: the ease with which they can illegally stream Game of Thrones. ‘Preferences’ is a strong word There was a bit of wheeling and dealing on preferences over the weekend. A push by the Greens to pick up two additional inner-city Melbourne electorates has reportedly been stymied by a preference deal between Labor and the Liberal party. Labor has pledged to preference the Liberal party over the Nationals in the rural seats of O’Connor and Durack in Western Australia and Murray in Victoria in exchange for Liberal preferences in inner-city seats. The Greens have accused Labor of selling out their principles by making the deal but it fits the narrative from the two major parties that the only valid vote is a vote for one of them. But there is still a fierce battle in the seats of Batman, held by Labor’s David Feeney, and Wills, now held by the retiring Labor MP Kelvin Thomson. Labor has apparently peppered both electorates with anti-Greens campaign material. The Greens have also announced that they would preference Labor in every seat except for the 11 with empty how-to-vote cards. Labor is set to preference the Greens across the country and run an open ticket in South Australia. “You’re surprised by this?” exclaimed Turnbull when a question was put to him by a reporter. “They are both leftwing parties. They sail together.” Best of Bowers Further reading • Truth: Labor’s new NBN plan is pitch perfect (Delimiter, $) Praise for Labor’s NBN policy from Australian technology journalist Renai LeMay. • Turnbull and Shorten seek to define their character (The Saturday Paper) The Coalition and Labor are working overtime to sell their chiefs’ “authentic” styles, writes Karen Middleton. • Greens’ dummy spit over preferences as unedifying as it is hypocritical (Fairfax) Analysis from James Massola, Fairfax’s chief political reporter. Meanwhile, in the rest of the world ... Omar Mateen, a US citizen from Fort Pierce, Florida, was today identified as the gunman responsible for the deaths of 50 people in a mass shooting on the Pulse in Orlando. The attack – in which 53 others were injured, many seriously – is the worst mass shooting in American history. Mateen – who was known for years to federal law enforcement – called 911 before the attack and spoke in “general to the Islamic State”. His former wife has told media he was “obviously disturbed, deeply, and traumatised”. But no terrorist group has claimed responsibility, highlighting the difficulties presented by so-called “lone wolves” for authorities. The US president, Barack Obama, declared the attack “an act of terror and an act of hate” but cautioned that the investigation was still in its early stages. Authorities have started releasing the names of victims after notifying kin. • Orlando shooting exposes so many of America’s faultlines Both Turnbull and Shorten addressed the massacre in written statements and later in person, extending their sympathies to the victims and their families and condemning terrorism in all its forms. Turnbull was criticised for omitting that Pulse was a gay nightclub in his first statement, a fact he subsequently stressed. • Join Lenore Taylor and Katharine Murphy in Sydney and Melbourne as they host our Live election special event featuring a panel of prominent political guests Never miss another catchup: If you’re reading this in the app, tap on “Australian election briefing” at the top or bottom of this page, then tap on “Follow series” to get an app notification as soon as the Campaign catchup publishes every afternoon.
There’s nothing wrong with Hillary Clinton hugging George W Bush It speaks volumes about the peril American democracy is in that a photograph of two opposing politicians displaying mutual affection can be seen as a glimpse of the reptilian conspiracy of elites. George W Bush met Hillary Clinton at Nancy Reagan’s funeral and a clearly unposed, unfeigned picture shows them sharing a laugh like very old friends. He has his arm around her, his face almost ecstatic with delight. Her face shows the same pure hilarity and lack of control. This is no brittle encounter at a funeral. The former and would-be president are genuinely getting on very well – and one of them has just made a very good joke. “This is the exact reason you should vote for Trump,” concludes one commenter. “Clintons, Bushes are one in [sic] the same.” The same might be said by a Bernie Sanders supporter. This is why you should vote for Sanders; because the old political elite are all in bed together and they all pay homage to the same mercenary gods of big money and oligarchy. When Clinton became secretary of state in 2009 the continuing occupation of Iraq was the issue that Bush’s administration had left like a heap of gore in the State Department. Getting out of Iraq was President Obama’s promise and Clinton’s task. Yet in 2002 she voted in the Senate to give Bush the go-ahead for his controversial invasion. Does this picture show that she is embarrassingly close to a man widely reviled as a warmonger? Is this the kind of image that is keeping the Sanders challenge to her in the Democrat primaries very much alive and might haunt her if she does become a candidate for president? Get real. It’s a picture of two human beings actually being human. They do not hate each other. Why should they? Would antipathy make them better people? Would Clinton be more admirable if she had spat on Bush – or better still, refused to attend the funeral of a Republican first lady at all? She’s already been criticised for praising Nancy Reagan’s stance on Aids, as if her comments were anything but a generous attempt to speak well of a much-admired American. What we’re seeing in this picture is bipartisanship in an intimate form. It is a touchy-feely image of the mutual respect, even secret liking, that is fundamental to all democracies. Politicians do like each other, across their dividing lines. They can joke and even be friends. When that civilised empathy does not exist – when a scene like this becomes unimaginable – that’s the time to worry. That time may be coming. Democracy is failing. An American politician is inciting violence and egging on aggression. Donald Trump uses violent language and offered his support to a fan who lashed out. The violence he speaks of came to pass in clashes in Chicago and his response – cancelling a rally because of the supposed threat from protesters – had the sinister demagoguery of an accomplished bierkeller ranter. Street-fighting, rabble-rousing, hate-mongering, wall-building extremism is taking Trump ever closer to the Republican presidential candidacy. So wait a moment. That is happening. It really takes huge restraint not to compare Trump’s rise with the way political chaos was created and exploited in early-20th-century Vienna or Munich. And you find a picture of a hug worrying? This picture shows what politics needs. More hugs – or at least, more honesty that one’s opponents are reasonable people with perspectives you can try to understand without sharing. The alternative is a politics of pure hate and resentment. Anger can be power – if you are prepared to unleash it as irresponsibly as Trump has. I wonder if the American electorate as a whole is really as angry as supporters of Trump and Sanders appear to be? If so, the world could be in big trouble. But on the other side of the Atlantic, the British Labour party has gambled on anger at austerity and lost. Ed Miliband banked on class resentment at Eton toffs running the country and people who felt “squeezed” by a Tory elite who cared only about the rich. At last year’s general election it turned out people were not that cross in England or Wales. So Labour has gone much further to the left and depends even more on the electorate seeing all Tories as “scum”. Except the voters don’t see the world that way. The voters – in Britain, and let’s hope America too – are ultimately with Bush and Clinton, hugging across the lines. After all it’s only politics. America has demons of its own and so does its left. Iraq is a festering sore. I suppose that’s the real reason some people find this picture shocking. There is the man who invaded Iraq, hugging Hillary Clinton. How can she? She should be throwing her shoe at him. Bush, however, did not threaten basic democratic values in the west in the way Trump does. In fact, perhaps the intensity of this moment has something to do with the enormity of the danger Trump poses. Is that merely a danger to the “establishment” these warm friends embody? No, it is a threat to the kind of basic decent values that mean we treat fellow humans with respect, from political opponents sharing a joke to people of all religions and races getting the same rights. In the new Weimar age we are in the last whisky bar and must hug one another or die.
Premier League: 10 talking points from the weekend’s action 1) Arsenal fail to make title statement It is a quirk of the fixture calendar that Arsenal have not yet had an away game against one of their rivals in the top six, whereas they have played three of them at home. The 4-3 loss to Liverpool on the opening weekend was followed by the 3-0 thrashing of Chelsea in late September and now a 1-1 draw with Tottenham Hotspur. It has been a mixed bag in the biggest matches and now feels like the trip to Manchester United after the international break will be instructive. Against Tottenham on Sunday, they failed to make a statement and it was a source of frustration for them that they surrendered the initiative after being 1-0 up at half-time. Physically, they were flat and creatively, they came to look laboured. Arsenal have the ability to look like world-beaters but it feels impossible, at present, to make any pronouncements on their title hopes. David Hytner • Match report: Arsenal 1-1 Tottenham Hotspur • Victor Wanyama was lucky not to be sent off, says Wenger • Pochettino happy to get through tough month still unbeaten • Harry Kane happy with Tottenham derby performance after injury break 2) Ibe needs to find consistency for Bournemouth Jordon Ibe has been substituted in all 11 starts since joining Bournemouth, which may seem cruel on a player who is still learning. On Saturday he was hooked at the break but Eddie Howe was right to point out the 20-year-old’s only problem is a lack of consistency. Ibe was mostly ineffective in the defeat to Sunderland and while his potential is undisputed, he too often drifts in and out of games. “He has some great moments and some really good 10 or 15 minutes but he has not put it together for any consistent period, hence why he’s come off the pitch,” Howe said. “I feel he has great potential and could be anything he wants to be but I think we tend to forget how young he is.” Consistency, though, is something that is often learned over time and Howe will remain patient with the winger. At the same time, the manager was frustrated by the line of questioning. “It’s not deliberately harsh but I’m thinking in the best interests of the team – that’s my job.” Alan Smith • Match report: Bournemouth 1-2 Sunderland 3) Burnley look better equipped for survival this time A despondent Alan Pardew admitted that Palace “really needed a result” at Burnley, but Turf Moor is no longer the sort of place where visitors can expect to pick up points easily. Even when Palace thought they had a foothold in the game the home side hit back with a dramatic stoppage-time winner, scored by Ashley Barnes but created by Johann Gudmundsson, Burnley’s most impressive performer on the day. Steven Defour, Dean Marney and Jeff Hendrick were pretty good too, for this season Burnley are not just being stingy in defence but creative in midfield. They have goalscorers and goalmakers, and in Gudmundsson they had both. The Iceland winger provided assists for two of Burnley’s goals and scored the one in between. Andre Gray and Patrick Bamford remained on the bench unneeded. After 11 games two years ago the Clarets had one win, seven points and had scored only six goals. They have improved their attacking outlook, and 11 goals to date have brought four wins, 14 points and a visit to the top half of the table. Paul Wilson • Match report: Burnley 3-2 Crystal Palace 4) Koeman has an off day but should be celebrated Ronald Koeman has not got a lot wrong since replacing Roberto Martínez at Everton, although the Dutchman will probably wonder whether it was an error to attempt to counter Chelsea’s 3-4-3 by using the same system. The charge against Koeman was that he was worrying too much about Antonio Conte instead of playing to his team’s strengths. Kevin Mirallas dropped to the bench, Phil Jagielka joined Ramiro Funes Mori and Ashley Williams as part of a back three, Everton were 2-0 down after 20 minutes and Koeman was forced to bring on Mirallas nine minutes before half-time. Perhaps Koeman was guilty of overthinking. But if Everton are looking for positives, maybe they should celebrate a manager who recognises danger, reacts during matches and tries to find a solution. The problem with Martínez was a lack of pragmatism, his utter conviction that his team’s talent in attack would cover up deficiencies elsewhere. Look where that got them. Jacob Steinberg • Match report: Chelsea 5-0 Everton • Conte tells Chelsea players they can improve after win 5) Hull have hope before Sunderland six-pointer Saturday week promises to be a potential watershed afternoon for Hull City and their manager, Mike Phelan. The term “relegation six-pointer” can be overused but Sunderland’s next fixture at the Stadium of Light surely promises to offer the perfect definition of this particular form of torture. With David Moyes’s side finally having won a first league game of the season, at Bournemouth on Saturday, and Hull curtailing a run of six straight league defeats with Sunday’s home victory over Southampton, it promises to be highly intriguing. A 45,000-strong crowd is expected and the modern day version of the old “Roker Roar” could turn the ground into a formidably hostile venue for Hull but they do have the outstanding Robert Snodgrass on their right wing and he could well enjoy himself against Patrick van Aanholt. And as Phelan says: “Although we’ve had some soul-destroying defeats, there remains an inner belief.” Louise Taylor • Match report: Hull City 2-1 Southampton 6) West Brom must hope they can hang on to Rondón West Bromwich Albion’s new Chinese investors have said they will make money available for transfers in January, which is why Tony Pulis set off on a short scouting mission to the continent last week. The manager says he is particularly keen to add creativity and youth to Albion’s squad, and the club’s supporters will surely welcome both. Everyone at the Hawthorns, however, must be braced for inquiries for Salomón Rondón, the striker whose part in a fine team performance at Leicester was merely the latest evidence that he is good enough to enhance practically any squad. The Venezuelan dominated Robert Huth and Wes Morgan, not only eluding them with his movement and deft touch but also outmuscling them, a feat beyond most forwards. He is a relentless and clever worker, a technically deft link man and a sharp finisher both on the ground and in the air. He will score or contribute to at least as many Premier League goals as, say, Romelu Lukaku, if Albion improve their play around him on a regular basis – or if he is bought by a more inventive team. Paul Doyle • Match report: Leicester City 1-2 West Brom 7) Karius keeps Klopp smiling It was clearly not the reason Liverpool are top of the Premier League for the first time since May 2014 but Loris Karius’s performance against Watford ensured the positives were not confined to the front end for Jürgen Klopp. For the first time since usurping Simon Mignolet, and despite the scoreline, the 23-year-old was able to demonstrate why he has Klopp’s backing. “Loris was really busy, which is not usual in a game that finishes 6-1,” his manager said. Karius saved well from Étienne Capoue, Miguel Britos and Troy Deeney, while those training sessions designed to rough up the goalkeeper are clearly paying dividends, judging by the improvement in how he dominated the penalty area. Klopp added: “He can improve a lot but he has all the skills we think we need for a goalkeeper. We all expect 22-, 23-, 24-year-old boys to be ready for everything in the world but he is on the right way.” Andy Hunter • Match report: Liverpool 6-1 Watford • Jürgen Klopp says Liverpool can still improve 8) Middlesbrough belief gives them positive outlook A late Marten de Roon header grabbed a share of the points on Saturday as Aitor Karanka’s Middlesbrough followed Everton and Southampton in City’s previous two home league games by taking a draw. Adam Forshaw outlined how they did it. “Maybe we did surprise them a bit,” he said. “Maybe we were a little bit too passive in the first half, we were a lot more positive in the second half and we’ve got ourselves a point at Man City. The manager said we needed more belief, he reminded us what we did well [in the away draw] against Arsenal, getting forward and creating chances.” The key word here is “belief”. Four days after City downed Lionel Messi’s Barcelona 3-1 at the same venue, Boro walked out for the second half and decided to take no notice of that result and so pressed and took the game to Pep Guardiola’s men – and the Catalan knows the aura of frightening invincibility built by the 10 straight wins at the season’s start is now gone. Jamie Jackson • Match report: Manchester City 1-1 Middlesbrough 9) Carrick gives United much-needed control In many ways the Manchester United team at Swansea was full of square pegs in round holes, yet the inclusion of one player gave them balance. Michael Carrick made his first Premier League start of the season and helped United to take control of the game. He completed 95% of his passes and it seemed a fair point when a journalist informed José Mourinho that United have won all six of the matches in which Carrick has taken part this season and, on the back of that statistic, wondered whether the manager would consider playing the 35-year-old, who is only three months older than Zlatan Ibrahimovic, more often. “I would love to play him every game, but that’s not possible,” Mourinho said. When asked to elaborate, Mourinho replied: “For the same reason I cannot go to the gym every day any more. But [Carrick] started today and he played very, very well.” Stuart James • Match report: Swansea City 1-3 Manchester United • Mourinho questions United players’ mentalities after win 10) Hughes lets talented Bojan off the leash Joe Allen has been the key man for Stoke of late, scoring four goals during a five-match unbeaten run. Bojan Krkic, the player Allen has eased out of the side, ensured that run continued at West Ham on Saturday with a deft late equaliser for a valuable away point. Mark Hughes deserves credit for the double substitution that brought Krkic into play. Alongside Peter Crouch, he asked different questions of a wobbly Hammers back four, while Allen dropped out of his new No10 role and back into central midfield. Hughes had cast Krkic to the bench, after a worrying start of only two points from six games. Now, seeing confidence return, Hughes felt comfortable enough to bring the sparkling Spaniard back to his first XI. “Clearly we have a really talented player within our ranks,” Hughes said of Krkic. “I’d suggest that given we’re on a six-game [unbeaten] run, he’s going to get opportunities. But we just had to be a little patient.” Paul MacInnes • Match report: West Ham United 1-1 Stoke City
Keep calm, carry on: how the Coalition plans to stop bank hearings from getting too heated The heads of Australia’s big four banks will appear before a parliamentary committee in Canberra this week, starting on Tuesday. Malcolm Turnbull asked them to appear in response to political pressure for a royal commission into the banking industry. He maintains there is no need for a royal commission. He says the hearings will be an annual event, and that will ensure regular parliamentary scrutiny of the major banks. But Labor and the Greens are critical of the process. They say the hearings will only be a “show” for the government to appear as though it’s getting tough on the banks. They say the 10-member committee is weighted heavily with Coalition members – the Coalition has six members, Labor three and the Greens one. They say each committee member will only have 20 minutes to ask questions of each bank chief, so that leaves little time for prickly questions from Labor or Greens MPs. They say that amount of time is insufficient to tackle serious issues such as insurance scams and ripoffs, the CommInsure scandal, multimillion-dollar pay packages and incentive structures for bank employees that encouraged fraud. They say they’ll do what they can with their time. The Labor MP Matt Thistlethwaite will be presenting fresh evidence from whistleblowers to show that scandals and unethical behaviour are still occurring in the banking industry. The Greens MP Adam Bandt says a prima facie case has already been made for a royal commission so it’s up to bank bosses to dissuade committee members of the need to continue pushing for one. But Coalition MPs will approach the hearings differently. They have prepared questions that will steer the discussion away from the fiery topics the Greens and Labor want to pursue. They want to keep things calm, measured and focused on microeconomic issues such as competition between the banks and how easy it is for customers to switch between them. They say a stable financial system should take precedence, and they also want to know how effectively the system is working for customers. The most emotional topic the Coalition wants to explore is the redress for consumers who have been victims of poor bank behaviour. They have already flagged that they’re interested in the idea of a “one-stop shop” for financial customers who feel mistreated. They are planning to raise the idea of a banking tribunal – now being considered by a panel chaired by Prof Ian Ramsay, which is reviewing the financial system’s external dispute resolution and complaints framework. It shows the difference between the government and the opposition – generally speaking, the government will be focusing on the microeconomic and the future; Labor and the Greens will be focusing on scandals they say haven’t been addressed properly. Steven Münchenberg, the chief executive of the Australian Bankers’ Association, says bank chiefs hope they will be allowed to explain “in a measured, calm way” how they have responding to serious problems in the financial advice industry. They also hope to explain how interest rate decisions are made, and how tougher prudential regulations have made banks stronger but have put pressure on margins. “Our main concern is this just descends into a political exercise of the government and opposition attacking each other,” Münchenberg told Australia. “Bill Shorten has come out today saying he’ll never stop pushing for a royal commission, so the signal that sends us is that it doesn’t matter how comprehensive the improvements are the industry makes, for whatever reason he’ll continue to push for a royal commission even if the issue’s already been dealt with.” The committee chair, the Liberal MP David Coleman, says he wants the hearings to be well-run and professional to set a serious precedent for subsequent hearings. Turnbull has been emphasising the fact that the hearings will be an annual event because that means they’ll change Australia’s banking and political culture for the better. This week’s hearings Tuesday Commonwealth Bank 2pm-5pm Wednesday ANZ 9.15am-12.15pm Thursday NAB 9.15am-12.15pm, Westpac 1.15pm-4.15pm
Inside Trump Tower, where the transition plays out in plain sight Anyone can walk right into Trump Tower. In the month since Donald Trump was elected president, his namesake tower on Fifth Avenue has been fortified. Planes have been diverted from flying overhead. Dull-eyed dogs sniff the pavement out front, where large men in black helmets stand holding long guns. It looks like a no-go zone, which makes sense, because it’s almost the president’s house. But as hundreds of tourists and other curiosity-seekers discover every day, Trump Tower is no fort, even now. No serious airport in the country is as easy to enter. There’s a bag scanner, but no visible metal detector for visitors to walk through. Inside the airy public atrium, it’s the same shopping mall and food court that Trump conceded to the people of New York City in 1983, the year the tower was finished. With the same stinky public bathroom in the basement and the same concrete-tile patio on floor five, the same brass vitrines at street level, and the same waterfall weeping down five stories of orange Breccia pernice marble on the atrium’s east wall. The difference now is, the next president of the United States – who is running his presidential transition out of his apartment high above – might suddenly pop out of the elevators, like he did on Tuesday morning, to accuse the country’s largest aerospace and defense contractor of “doing a little bit of a number” on the country. The governor of Iowa might wander by. A billionaire tech executive, or the second-richest man in Japan. Laura Ingraham, looking just like she does on TV. The buzz lured Kyra Niklewicz and her husband, Dave, to make a detour to the tower on Tuesday before catching the Rockettes on a trip to the city from their home in Rochester, New York. Kyra, a medical technologist who works in a hospital, said the couple was pleasantly surprised at how accessible the tower was. “We’re excited about Donald Trump,” she said. “I think he offers definitely a different perspective. He’s pro-life – that’s very important to us. And I think we need to give him a chance.” The Niklewiczes were enjoying the scene from two of the best seats in the house, in the lobby’s floating Starbucks, which is planted on a catwalk that boasts views of the Fifth Avenue entrance one way, the waterfall the other way, and – best of all for people-watching – the elevators directly below. The area is banned to TV cameras, but the angles are sufficiently irresistible that cameramen keep appearing there, only to be kicked back downstairs by security guards. The media is technically restricted to a semicircular pen facing the elevators, set off by red velour ropes on brass stanchions, which were definitely not purchased with this in mind. But reporters without large cameras, like anyone else on the scene, are free to wander about, for example to the downstairs food court, where Trump’s communications director, Jason Miller, spent about half an hour eating a buffet lunch. “We’re conducting this process daily,” said Miller, ambushed as he finished his soda, of the selection of Trump’s cabinet. “The president-elect is talking to a lot of qualified people every day.” Then he smiled, said thanks and jumped in an elevator. Eric Trump, the president-elect’s second son, was flushed unexpectedly at midday from the Trump Grill, on which the American Academy of Hospitality Sciences has conferred its Star Diamond award, according to multiple plaques. At the grill, a bloody mary called the You’re Fired costs $15 – about right for a tourist destination in midtown Manhattan. Flanked by quick-striding men in suits, the scion escaped through a quiet elevator bank one storey below the main one, which explained how he had snuck in there unseen. Now, about those prices. Trump is a luxury brand, but the atrium of his tower is an oasis of relative affordability in the middle of one of the most obscenely opulent consumer districts on earth. Prada is across the street, Bergdorf and Van Cleef are kitty-corner, and Gucci occupies commercial space elsewhere in the building. Tiffany & Co, directly next door to the tower, complained last week that holiday sales were down because of the bothersome security cordons. The jeweler has created an entry corridor, defiantly draped in powder blue, to its front door from a security checkpoint at the end of the block. Tiffany, at its least expensive, sells glass bowls for a couple hundred dollars. Inside Trump Tower, Trump-branded glassware starts at $3.50. Golf accessories, books and apparel can all be purchased at prices you’d find in a campus bookstore. There’s a perfume for less than $20. Slightly pricier are the items on offer at the basement booth operated by Donald J Trump for President, Inc. Here is the official campaign swag familiar from the rallies: T-shirts $25, hats $30, sweatshirts $50. But don’t try buying this gear if you’re not an American: proceeds count as campaign donations, which are not legal for non-citizens to make. Sales at the Trump swag stand were not brisk. No one inside the tower on Tuesday, in fact, was sighted wearing Trump gear. People wore green sweatshirts that said North Dakota, and sports team hats and puffy coats. Maybe they had Trump T-shirts on underneath. As of 12.47pm on Tuesday, the Trump swag booth had recorded one solitary sale, according to an inventory sheet left carelessly on display. It was a hat. By far, the best commercial opportunities on the premises are to be found in a souvenir shop in the basement’s deepest recess, not counting the bathroom. It’s where locals go to buy lottery tickets and cigarettes, and where the visitor might pick up a generic Statue of Liberty magnet or an NYPD sweatshirt. The shop’s proprietor, who did not want to give his name because his office sits under 63 stories of pure Trump weight, said that while he would love to, he was not allowed to sell Trump-branded gear, because Trump was selling those products himself. “He’s a businessman, man,” said the man. “He’s a very smart guy. And he’s going to make money.” Rising back out of the basement to street level, lifted by an escalator past tourists filming their descents on their phones, one has a prime view of a 40ft tree installed at the base of the waterfall for the holiday season – no competition for Rockefeller center, but not bad. The tree is the centerpiece of the tower’s Christmas décor that includes wreaths, prop golden gift boxes with red bows and Nutcracker soldiers standing sentinel on the escalator landings. The background music is Barry Manilow and Bing Crosby – Silent Night, White Christmas, Rudolph and the rest. It’s as pleasant as any mall or airport around Christmastime, but with an added air of expectancy. In 44 days, Donald Trump will be inaugurated as the 45th president of the United States. Meanwhile, at the foot of his tower, anyone can walk right in. And make a purchase.
The leave campaign doesn’t want to talk about the environment. Here’s why It is perhaps the one area where the evidence is close to being unequivocal: the EU has benefited the UK’s nature and environment, and leaving poses a significant risk. Yet analysis by Loughborough University found that as a proportion of issues dominating the referendum coverage, the environment has received 0% of coverage from television, and 1.7% in the press. You could argue that it is simply because no one cares – but I don’t think that’s true. As of 2013, one in 10 UK adults belongs to an environmental organisation. You’d think that this would warrant the subject at least being discussed. In the past two weeks, WWF and the RSPB – two of the biggest wildlife organisations in the UK – chose to follow the lead of groups such as Friends of the Earth and the Wildlife Trusts and throw their hats into the ring for remain. Green groups, academics and environmentalists across the political spectrum have chosen to highlight the environmental benefits of the EU, which include cleaner beaches, more stringent action on air pollution and increased protection for UK nature. Why have we all chosen to speak out? If you were to believe the Eurosceptics, it is because we have all been bought off by the EU. This lazy attempt to delegitimise opponents and shout down those who dare to speak up is an all too common tactic. If leave campaigners want to proclaim that a near unanimity of major environmental groups are inserting themselves into perhaps the most divisive political debate of recent history solely because of financial concern, and not principle, then it says more about them than us. But for me, the real question is: why doesn’t the leave campaign like talking about the environment? One reason is that effective, practical environmentalism is anathema to the very essence of the leave campaign. Dealing with the environmental challenges of the future – be they climate change, the destruction of nature or deadly air pollution – requires countries to collaborate, cooperate and yes, at times, compromise. It’s hard to see where such principles fit into a leave campaign predicated on a sensationalised fear of the other and ideas about British exceptionalism, and victory bonfires of “red tape”. Indeed, on the few occasions when the leave camp have dipped their toes in the water on the environment, they only succeeded in confirming their desire to kill off hugely successful European environmental legislation. George Eustice, the Brexit-supporting farming minister, told the that the directives protecting our birds and habitats would go, describing them as “spirit crushing”. Last week, the former minister for environment, food and rural affairs Owen Paterson announced in a speech his intention to water down the precautionary principle upon exit, so as to allow the reauthorisation of bee-harming pesticides. But perhaps more importantly, in a country that has been drip-fed nonsense for decades when it comes to the EU, and in a debate that continues to remain abstract and distant to many, the environment offers something different. Something tangible, something you can walk through, something you can grasp between your toes, something to get up and go to a voting booth for. Everything a leave campaign, whose best chance of victory is that a despondent majority stay at home on 23 June, fears. I grew up in Essex, and my childhood memories of trips to the beach, while fond, are littered with human refuse and waste. We were the last country in Europe to pump untreated sewage directly into the ocean. Not only were we damaging our own environment, we were damaging that of our continental neighbours. As EU directives began to take effect, and we finally began to clean up our act, I lived through the transition, year after year, week after week. Now almost 95% of our beaches are safe to swim in. It’s all my children have ever known. And that really isn’t nothing. And I’ll be damned if I’m not going to tell people about it.
Nato and US defence chiefs issue security warnings over Brexit A string of former Nato and US foreign affairs chiefs have warned against leaving the EU, arguing Britain’s place in the world and security would be damaged. Five ex-Nato secretary-generals delivered a joint message that leaving the EU would “give succour to the west’s enemies”. Writing in the Telegraph, they said it would be troubling if the UK voted to leave, citing its lead role within the EU in imposing sanctions on Russia and Iran. The signatories include Peter Carrington, the last surviving member of Winston Churchill’s government, and George Robertson, who served as defence secretary under Tony Blair. Separately, 13 former defence and foreign affairs chiefs wrote in the Times that Britain’s “place and influence in the world would be dismissed and Europe would be dangerously weakened” if the UK votes for Brexit. The ex-White House figures, including Madeleine Albright, who served under Bill Clinton, Leon Panetta, the former CIA chief, and George Shulz, who was in the administration of Ronald Reagan, wrote that the “special relationship” between Britain and US would not compensate for the loss of international clout that it would suffer in the event of leaving the EU. This would be true in foreign, defence and trade policy, they warned. Their comments echo those of Barack Obama, the US president, who gave a press conference in London last month alongside David Cameron, saying the UK’s influence would be diminished and it would go to the back of the queue in seeking a trade deal with America if there was a vote to leave. In a third intervention on the same subject, Charles Clarke, the Labour former home secretary, warned that leaving the EU would poison Britain’s relations with its allies. Clarke has written a report with Peter Neyroud, a former Thames Valley police chief, and Lord Carlile, the former independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, that says intelligence relationships would be harmed by a vote for Brexit. In the report for Britain Stronger in Europe, the official remain campaign, the three security experts outlined ways in which they believe the EU contributes to public safety, including sharing of airline passenger names, and the Prüm convention, which allows police to quickly search DNA, vehicle registration and fingerprint data from other EU countries. “Leaving would mean poisoning relations with our allies, abandoning vital security tools and surrendering control and influence over the world around us,” they said. “Nato is the cornerstone of our national defence, but the EU is a vital component and complement, in particular through the resource it adds to our intelligence services, so vital in tackling terrorism.” The Vote Leave campaign rejects their claims that leaving the EU would harm security or damage relationships with Britain’s allies, arguing that other countries would still want to trade and share information with the UK. Vote Leave’s Dominic Raab, a justice minister, said there was no useful cooperation with the EU that could not be continued from outside. “The crucial thing we’d gain is control over our borders and in particular stronger checks to prevent those who present a risk from terrorism or crime from entering Britain in the first place,” he said. The issue of security took centre stage in the referendum debate on Monday, with David Cameron telling an audience of politicians and ambassadors that leaving the EU could put peace at risk. The prime minister cited the second world war that ended only 71 years ago, the Bosnian conflict only two decades ago and the Russian war with Ukraine even more recently. “Can we be so sure that peace and stability on our continent are assured beyond any shadow of doubt? Is that a risk worth taking? I would never be so rash as to make that assumption,” he said. He was later forced to defend the remarks against accusations from leave campaigners that he was exaggerating. Asked why he had risked the possibility of strife by granting a referendum, he said it would be impossible to hold Britain in the union against its will but he hoped that people would listen to his view. Cameron said: “As I sit around that table with 27 other prime ministers and presidents, we remember that it is pretty extraordinary that countries are working together to solve disputes and problems. We should listen to the voices that say Europe had a violent history. We’ve managed to avoid that and so why put at risk the things that achieve that?” Two former intelligence chiefs, Sir John Sawers, ex-head of MI6 and Jonathan Evans, ex-head of MI5, had waded into the debate over the weekend to warn against leaving the EU. Sawers told the BBC said: “The reason we would be less safe [if the UK voted to leave], is that we would be unable to take part in the decisions that frame the sharing of data, which is a crucial part of counter-terrorism and counter-cyber work that we do these days, and we would lose the abilities of things like the European arrest warrant.” Although the debate has turned to security, there was also a row over the extent of the economic benefits of Brexit claimed by the leave campaign. Matthew Elliott, the chief executive of Vote Leave, was challenged by MPs as he gave evidence to the Treasury select committee. The chairman of the committee, Andrew Tyrie, challenged Vote Leave’s use of the figure of £33bn in savings if Britain left the EU. Elliott said the figure originated from an Open Source report. “The figure has since been amended to £12.8bn,” said Tyrie. “Why on Earth wouldn’t you use a justifiable figure? £33bn is not at all justifiable.”
‘Coolest place on planet’ accolade stirs interest in Ireland’s wild north Mornings in Donegal can be so beautiful they take the breath away. Last week, soft pinkish light broke through early clouds hanging over Killybegs harbour, bouncing off the waters of the port and into the upstairs windows of the Bay View hotel. Tourists enjoying their breakfast looked down on fishing boats festooned with Christmas lights and bathed in unseasonally warm winter sunshine. It was moments like this that led National Geographic Traveller to conclude at the start of December that Donegal was the “coolest place on the planet” to visit. The magazine predicted big things for a county often overshadowed in tourist terms by better-known counties such as Kerry, and cities such as Dublin. “It’s a warm-hearted place, but wilderness always feels just a stone’s throw away,” said National Geographic Traveller’s UK editor, Pat Riddell. “And it is wilderness, world-class wilderness. We think it’s due a big year.” The global fame of Donegal had already been enhanced by the presence of the Star Wars cast shooting scenes for episode eight in the franchise, out in December last year. Inside the Bay View, general manager Tracey McGill said the “coolest place on the planet” epithet came as no surprise, but would help put the hotel, Killybegs and the entire county back on the tourist map: “National Geographic Traveller were telling us something we already knew here in Donegal!” The 35-year-old native of Ardara, a small town 10 miles to the north in this Irish-speaking region of south-west Donegal, said: “It’s going to be a great tool for us to market all of Donegal. Because we are so far up north, we often lose out to places like Kerry in the south-west. More foreign tourists go there than would come up here. This accolade will increase interest all over the world in what Donegal has to offer as well. “In my opinion it is all about the people. I really believe that we have more time for tourists and visitors compared with other places. We are already seeing an increase in interest in the Bay View since the article appeared, and we are hoping that when the season begins for real in March, there will be a big upsurge in visits.” The hotel itself is a symbol of Ireland’s economic recovery after a brutal recession that saw 15% unemployment and the country teetering on the edge of national bankruptcy. It had closed down but was rescued three years ago by a consortium of investors who include the father of Seamus Coleman, Republic of Ireland captain and Everton player. The footballer is widely admired in the town, and the county generally, for supporting local projects and promoting his native town. Coleman has retained a deep connection with Killybegs despite the riches and potential distractions of the English Premier League and international football stardom. “I know everyone loves where they’re from but I really do love Killybegs. I’m just Seamus, who they’ve known playing the Gaelic and kicking a football against the wall on St Cummins Hill, the housing estate I grew up on. This is peace and quiet, family and friends, and walks along Fintra beach. “It’s kids on the estate knocking on the door and asking me to come outside to play football with them and chatting about the Premier League. But no one here treats me like a Premier League footballer.” Ten miles west of Killybegs – on the Wild Atlantic Way, a coastal strip that runs for 1,600 miles along Ireland’s western seaboard – the narrow coast road passes homes where sheep wander into front gardens. There are stunning vistas of rugged, bucolic coastal inlets. In the sixth century, Irish monks sailed from here to take Christianity to Iceland. In the village of Carrick, Paddy Byrne runs a business ferrying tourists to the dramatic Slieve League cliffs – the largest of their kind in Europe. Standing by one of his boats, he said: “The ‘Coolest Place on the Planet’ thing will undoubtedly help bring more tourists. I had a call yesterday from a foreign tourist to see I could take them out to the cliffs, but I don’t get going until March. Yet the call shows you at least that the article has had some impact already.” But as he surveyed the spectacular scenery, with Slieve League mountain in the background and the quaint little harbour, Byrne also struck a cautious note. “This place may be beautiful but you can’t eat beauty. A lot of people, especially our young people, have to leave the county to get jobs, an education and opportunities.” Brexit is also a major concern. Donald Smyth, who used to work in the town’s fish processing factory, said that while boats in Killybegs are subject to strict EU quotas, British competitors freed of such restraints could inflict further damage on an already fragile fishing industry. The 67-year-old said: “Our boats are subjected to stringent tests to make sure they adhere to EU quotas, while foreign boats out there are no longer checked – especially with the Irish Naval Service away on duty in the Mediterranean Sea rescuing people and not around much any more on fishery protection. If British fisherman after Brexit can take as much fish from the Atlantic as they want, and don’t need to worry about EU quotas, then the fishing fleet here will be in even deeper trouble.” And while Donegal’s fishermen worry about how Brexit might give their British counterparts the edge, there are further worries over what will happen to the border with Northern Ireland when the UK leaves the EU. Pressure group Border Communities Against Brexit, formed to oppose the imposition of any frontier controls or passport checks on the 310-mile border that reaches from the north-west Atlantic coast near Derry and stretches across to the Irish Sea north of Dundalk. Its Donegal branch is headed by pharmacist Tom Murray, who points out that Donegal has borders with three counties in Northern Ireland – Derry, Fermanagh and Tyrone – so any disruption to cross-frontier trade could have a “devastating impact” on the county’s economy. There are also fears that a tourist boom could be detrimental to coastal beauty spots such as Carrick and nearby Teelin. “The tourist traffic is already increasing massively down in this corner of the county,” Byrne said. “I can cycle from the pier here up to Carrick in about 10 minutes but last summer by car it took me half an hour because of the traffic jams. We have to be very careful to preserve Donegal’s unspoilt, unclogged image even while we bring in more tourists.” Back in the Bay View hotel, McGill produced an Irish tricolour with the signature of Seamus Coleman scrawled across it. “It’s a signed flag that I only hand out to football-mad kids who stay in the hotel … and of course visiting Everton fans,” she said. “He did loads of them for me last time he was home.” As Donegal heads into a record-breaking tourist year, that kind of attention to detail will only enhance the reputation of a region on the rise. Donegal past and present ■ County Donegal, part of the ancient province of Ulster, encompasses 1,877 sq miles, and has a population of 158,755. ■ Ballyshannon in the south of Donegal is one of the oldest towns in Ireland, with archaeological sites dating from the Neolithic period (4000-2500BC). ■ Donegal’s Gaeltacht (Irish-speaking area) has a population of 24,744 – around 25% of Ireland’s Gaeltacht. ■ The Slieve League cliffs in Donegal are some of the highest sea cliffs in Europe. From the highest point, there’s a 2,000ft drop into the Atlantic Ocean – twice the height of the Eiffel Tower. ■ Donegal is home to Glenveagh, the second-largest national park in Ireland, with 35,000 acres of mountains, lakes and woodland, with Glenveagh Castle at its centre.
CEOs bank on bonuses as average Australian worker left to flounder On Tuesday, the House of Representatives standing committee on economics will hold its first hearing on the performance of the big four banks and it is a fair bet that the pay of the executives who appear before the committee will be a topic of discussion. In March, the insurance arm of the Commonwealth Bank was revealed in a joint sitting to have conducted unethical practices so bad that it gave impetus to the ALP’s call for a royal commission into the banks. It was a year in which the bank’s share price fell from $85.55 in June 2015 to $74.37 at the end of June this year. So not a great year. But not to worry. Ian Narev, the bank’s chief executive, still had a pay rise of 54%. Narev didn’t get an increase in his “base” cash pay – that $2.625m was the same as last year. It was through bonuses that he came good. The biggest bonus was not for his performance in the past year – at $1.431m, his “short-term” cash bonus of 2015-16 was slightly down on the $1.59m he received last year. No, the big money came via “deferred equity awards” worth $6.597m, which were based on performance from 2011 to 2015. All up, the 12 CBA executives received a total of $52.36m – up 30% from the $40.1m they received last year. Not bad, given the wages of workers in Australia increased by a record low 2.1% in the same period. But maybe we are being unfair. CEO and executive pay is pretty byzantine in its combination of base cash pay and cash and equity awards. If we look at the total accrual pay, Narev only had a 5.4% pay rise – up $450,000 from $8.31m to $8.77m. It’s worth noting his pay raise alone would place him in the top 1% of wage earners in Australia. The total base pay rise for all CBA executives was 13.9% – nearly seven times more than the average Australian worker. And while this might just be dismissed as envy, it highlights – as the Australian Council of Superannuation Investors has found – that while the base cash pay of CEOs is not rising markedly, they are instead getting large “bonuses,” which are close to automatic. Their report on the CEO pay of the ASX100 companies found that the average and median base pay for CEOs had actually fallen since the global financial crisis. But that was not due to some hairshirt pay cuts. The head of the ACSI, Louise Davidson, instead notes that it is due to “boards taking the opportunity to pay the replacements of departing CEOs less”. She also noted that 2015 had the highest level of bonuses for CEOs in the ASX100 since 2008, concluding that “it’s clear that bonuses are the new normal”. But just what gets a CEO a bonus is less clear. Most would assume it is the share price or profit. But increasingly, “non-financial” objectives are becoming the determinant. Some of these objectives are measurable – such as customer satisfaction – but others are pretty softly defined and weakly measured. Worse, most come under what people would consider to be the CEO’s actual job description. For example, among the short-term incentives for CBA executives are categories such as “talent and leadership”, “safety”, “diversity”, “engagement” and “culture”. The CBA annual report noted one measure against these criteria was that the executive group had “successfully implemented a global human resource management system across offshore locations”. Well one would hope so, given that would surely be the job of the human resource executives ... Underlying this however is that CEO pay, as Julie Walker noted this week, has risen so greatly over the past two decades that it now bears no relation to the pay of the average worker. In 2015, the average ASX100 CEO pay of $4.99m was 83 times the average annual earnings of $59,628. The difference is so disparate that comparison has almost become ludicrous – but it remains worthwhile. Were public companies required to publish a ratio of their CEO pay to the median pay of workers in their companies, it would provide strong information on growth of executive pay over time. Who knows, it might shame company boards into withholding bonuses – though perhaps only if shame were included as a non-financial objective. The concern that CEO bonuses would encourage risky behaviour remains an issue. The new governor of the RBA, Dr Philip Lowe, told the House economics committee last week that he would focus on ensuring “the remuneration structures within financial institutions promote behaviour that benefits not just the institution but its client”. But the reliance on non-financial objectives highlights that while workers have seen their pay rises diminish because of low inflation and slack economic growth, CEOs have found a way around such financial matters that affect the rest of us.
Trump v Republican establishment: time nears for the party to get on board Donald Trump proffered a truce to the Republican establishment on Wednesday as party leaders faced the reality that they may soon have to get behind a reality television star as their most divisive presidential candidate in a generation. A night of dramatic election night victories in Florida, North Carolina and Illinois, with another anticipated once the question of a recount is resolved in Missouri, left the billionaire celebrity and property developer in an increasingly unassailable position at the head of a dwindling field of candidates for the party nomination. Only defeat by Governor John Kasich in his home state of Ohio marred an otherwise clean sweep of Tuesday’s five primary states for Trump, who forced Florida senator Marco Rubio to drop out of the race entirely and prevented his main rival, conservative Texan Ted Cruz, from winning any new states. Trump still faces an uncertain path to achieving the outright majority of delegates needed to seal his victory before the party meets at a national convention in July, though the chance that opponents could unite there to deny him the nomination if he keeps winning primary victories now looks slim. “There’s going to be a tremendous problem” if the Republican establishment tries to outmaneuver him at the convention, Trump told CNN in a series of morning television interviews. “You’d have riots.” Asked if he was now ready to make peace with the establishment, Trump said he would be happy to turn toward reconciliation but made clear there would little compromise in his bombastic campaign style. “With the party, yes,” he told MSNBC. “I’m fine with a turn. At the same time, we don’t want to lose the edge.” The Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, is one of a number of senior figures to have held private talks with Trump in recent days as the party anxiously ponders the prospect of an outsider at the top of its ticket for crucial congressional races too. But despite pressure for him to tone down his rhetoric and denounce violence at recent rallies, Trump made clear his determination to continue a highly combative approach while discussing Rubio’s departure. “I liked him until about three weeks ago, when he started getting nasty,” said Trump on Wednesday. “And then, the problem is, I get nastier than him, and then I win, and then, you know, my numbers get hurt a little bit because you’re so – you’re so tough that people don’t necessarily like it. But you do what you have to do. You know, we have to win.” The bombastic star of Celebrity Apprentice also refused to bow to pressure to name his foreign policy advisers amid concerns that his erratic comments on the Middle East were alarming US allies. “I’m speaking with myself, number one, because I have a very good brain and I’ve said a lot of things,” he said. “My primary consultant is myself and I have – you know, I have a good instinct for this stuff.” Not since controversial Arizona senator Barry Goldwater seized the party nomination in a conservative revolt in 1964 has the Republican party faced the prospect of such a divisive candidate. Although Trump has shown stronger appeal among independent and first-time voters who have boosted turnout, many party strategists fear a repeat of the 1964 outcome: Goldwater lost in a landslide to Lyndon Johnson after carrying just six states in the general election. On Tuesday night, Trump’s remaining opponents sought to argue they still offered a viable alternative. “I want to remind you tonight that I will not take the low road to the highest office in the land,” said Kasich at his victory party. Ohio’s winner-takes-all primary awards 66 delegates and, by winning those, Kasich will stay in the race and be able to play spoiler in a fierce contest between Cruz and Trump. Cruz’s campaign manager, Jeff Roe, told reporters that Kasich’s presence in the race was “a jumpball” from his perspective. On one hand, it meant the Ohio governor had kept Trump from earning 66 delegates in Ohio. On the other, it meant that the anti-Trump vote in the party would continue to be divided. With Trump’s win in Florida and his loss in Ohio, the current frontrunner still needs to win 51.4% of the available delegates to become the GOP’s nominee before the convention. In this fiercely contested and still splintered field, that is a difficult task for Trump, but his continued dominance of the media coverage is likely to work in his favour. Cruz bashed Trump as a weak candidate foisted by a pro-Clinton media on to the Republican electorate. “The mainstream media network suits want Donald Trump as the Republican nominee … They are partisan Democrats ready for Hillary.” The Texas senator, however, was circumspect about his own treacherous path to reaching the majority of delegates needed to clinch the nomination in Cleveland, saying only: “We continued to gain delegates on our march to 1,237.” The Cruz campaign was optimistic that with many forthcoming primaries only allowing Republicans to vote, the Texas senator would fare better. The campaign has already written off Arizona’s winner-takes-all contest next week, where a majority of voters have already cast ballots, and instead is looking ahead to win coming races in Utah and Wisconsin. However, Cruz is ready for a contested convention if it gets that far. When asked if he was confident that all the pledged Cruz delegates would support the Texas senator on a second ballot, top Cruz strategist Jason Johnson said with a smile: “All of them and more.” But Rubio struck a more sombre tone. Speaking in his home town of Miami – the only part of the state the once promising senator won – he congratulated Trump on his victory in the Florida primary and acknowledged the grassroots uprising that had propelled the brash billionaire to frontrunner status. “People are angry and people are very frustrated,” Rubio said, before criticizing the political establishment as being out of touch with the American public. “America is in the middle of a real political storm, a real tsunami,” he added. “People are angry and we should have seen this coming.” Trump meanwhile, stuck to the central theme of his campaign: that his record in business makes him a deal-maker who can broker wins. Pressed on who he might pick as a vice-presidential running mate, he replied on Wednesday: “I don’t like to talk about it … I’m a closer, I like closing deals first.” Additional reporting by Sabrina Siddiqui in Miami.
Why Theresa May's secret speech really does matter The disclosure of Theresa May’s private Brexit campaign speech to US bankers, Goldman Sachs, cannot be dismissed as an unsurprising confirmation of her pre-referendum remain views. For it clearly shows that in private she was prepared to articulate a much stronger attachment to staying in the European Union than the lukewarm public support she gave to the remain campaign in the one major public speech she made during the campaign. There is also a reason to believe that the Goldman Sachs speech was much closer to her own personal views because they reflect the fact that May’s entire career before going into politics was at the Bank of England and as a European lobbyist for the financial service industry. In both speeches she stressed her belief that Britain should take a lead in Europe and voters should look to a future of reform rather than to past failures. But in her private hour-long session with Goldman Sachs she went much further and revealed her strong support for Britain remaining in the single market. She went on to deliver a stark warning that leaving the single market would deter international investors from Britain and lead major companies to question whether they should relocate to mainland Europe. The crucial passage reads: “I think being part of a 500-million trading bloc is significant for us. I think, as I was saying to you a little earlier, that one of the issues is that a lot of people will invest here in the UK because it is the UK in Europe. “If we were not in Europe, I think there would be firms and companies who would be looking to say: do they need to develop a mainland presence rather than a UK presence? So I think there are definite benefits for us in economic terms.” It is true both public and private speeches contained warnings about the dangers of jeopardising European cooperation on counter-terrorism and policing. But May deliberately included a strong attack on the European convention on human rights, knowing it would be widely, but inaccurately, portrayed as evidence of being a secret Brexiter at heart regardless of the fact the ECHR has nothing to do with the EU. Since becoming prime minister May has had to accept the result of the Brexit vote. In the process she has recalibrated her public rhetoric on Brexit by qualifying the need for British companies to have “the maximum freedom to trade and operate in the single market” by saying it must not be at the expense of “giving up control of immigration again”. She has also promised Britain will not accept rulings from the EU’s European court of justice. These carefully calculated shifts in language have led some to conclude she is now set on the path to hard Brexit. But her private Goldman Sachs speech just five months ago makes clear that she personally believes a future out of the single market means a business exodus from Britain. Perhaps she should spell out her views about hard Brexit to the British people rather than giving American bankers the inside track.
Commonwealth Bank's Ian Narev undaunted by grilling over scandals The head of the Commonwealth Bank has emerged unfazed from three hours of questioning from a parliamentary committee. Ian Narev, CBA’s chief executive, was the first bank boss to appear at this week’s highly anticipated hearings, which were set up by the Turnbull government in response to pressure for a royal commission into the banking industry. Narev answered questions easily about controversial incidents at the bank. He appeared undaunted throughout. He only declined to answer one question, for reasons of commercial confidence. He defended the CBA’s record profits, saying in the 25 years since CBA listed it had paid between 70% and 80% of its profits back to shareholders. He admitted CBA had treated some CommInsure customers poorly, but said the bank had investigated the root causes of many controversial CommInsure claims, with the help of KPMG and Ernst & Young, and things were not as bad as they had been portrayed. “We have done wrong by some customers in that business, and other businesses,” he said. “Nothing I say today I would want to be interpreted as denying that in any way, shape or form, [but] the evidence that the independent reviews has surfaced is significantly at odds with many respects of how the issue has been characterised [in the media],” he said. In response to questions about the CBA’s financial planning scandal – where CBA customers lost their life savings – he said 8,000 people had wanted their financial advice reviewed and 6,000 reviews had been done. He said the process would be largely concluded by the end of the year. He took multiple questions about interest rates, deposit accounts, bank account portability and competition between the banks. He told the Liberal MP and chair of the committee David Coleman that the CBA was open to the idea of a “one-stop shop” banking tribunal, where customers could take a serious complaint and have it dealt with more easily. The 10 committee members were allotted 15-20 minutes each to ask questions of Narev, which left some members without time to finish their questions. The Greens MP Adam Bandt, on the phone from Melbourne, had to argue with Coleman to get 15 minutes rather than 10 minutes when time for the hearing had almost run out. The Labor MP Matt Thistlethwaite emerged from the hearing to criticise the way it had been set up. “I thought it was … really interesting that the Liberal members of the committee, not one of them, asked a question on behalf of victims or whistleblowers today,” he said. “It was up to the Labor party to ask, on behalf of those who’ve been wronged by the banks, about their actions about what they’re going to do to fix the situation.” Bandt said Narev had refused to reveal how much profit it makes on home mortgages, and failed to rule out asking for government assistance if faced with another global financial crisis. “After one day, it is clear a royal commission is the only way we will get the banks to come clean on how much profit they make off the back of homeowners and public subsidies,” Bandt said. The head of ANZ will appear at the hearing on Wednesday, followed by the heads of NAB and Westpac on Thursday.
The #BringBackOurGirls of 2016: what will dominate Africa's Twittersphere this year? Where were you when #PopeBars started trending, in tribute to Pope Francis throwing hip-hop shapes in the Central African Republic? How did #BeingFemaleInNigeria help you to understand modern misogyny? And where do you stand on the heated #JollofDebate – is it from Ghana, Nigeria or elsewhere? Hashtags have become a key way to measure how millions of people react to the biggest news events and debates of the day. They’re also where some of the best jokes are made. Mapping this trend, satirical news site YesiYesighana and digital bloggers Circumspecte have just released their list of the most influential topics debated by Africans on Twitter (#AOT) in 2015. From #BringBackOurGirls which, on 6 December, marked 600 days since the schoolgirls of Chibok were abducted by Boko Haram, to #WhatWouldMagufuliDo, a tribute to the newly-elected Tanzanian president’s “revolutionary” commitment to cutting wasteful government spending, looking back at popular hashtags offers a useful overview on how the big events of the year played out online. “If African Twitter was a bar then the year 2015 would have been one of those memorable nights out,” YesiYesighana said. “Noisy drinkers would be eating jollof while debating xenophobia, everyday sexism and everything in between.” But that was 2015. The new year brings new opportunities for memes, jokes and social commentary – and we want you to help us predict what’s coming up. Which president will be the most memed? Which campaigns deserve the most attention and how many times will #someonetellCNN trend as Kenyans on Twitter call out poor reporting? Share your predictions Share your hashtag and tell us why it will be a hit online using the comment section, or the form below. You can also tweet your suggestions using #AOT2016, sharing them directly with @ Africa, or email maeve.shearlaw@theguardian.com.
Give half of UK film funding to projects led by women, directors say The leading organisation of UK film directors has called for half of all public funding to go to female-led projects by 2020, after new figures revealed British films were six times more likely to be directed by a man than a woman. A report commissioned by Directors UK found that between 2005 and 2014 just 13.6% of British films were directed by women and only 14.6% of those had a female screenwriter, as a result of “unconscious, systemic bias”. The damning report concluded that the problem of gender inequality had remained almost unchanged in those 10 years, revealing that in 2005, 11.5% of UK films had a female director, which only increased to 11.9% in 2014. Susanna White, who directed TV adaptations of Jane Eyre and Bleak House, as well as Boardwalk Empire and Masters of Sex, said the research “provides hard evidence for a trend that a lot of us have known to be the case for a long time” but said it was nonetheless “shocking to see the extent of this relentless bias laid out in black and white”. Beryl Richards, the chair of Directors UK, emphasised how the “problematic” lack of progress – and in some areas even a regression – meant that a radical move was needed to force the industry to become more less inherently sexist. Richards believes introducing a 50-50 gender parity target for films funded by bodies such as the BFI, Creative England, Creative Scotland, Northern Ireland Screen, Ffilm Cymru Wales and Film London – which collectively finance a fifth of British films – is a “the only way we will break the vicious cycle, where public money is going to a narrow, privileged few”. Creative England, one of the UK’s biggest public funders of films, such as 45 Years, said they supported the introduction of mandatory 50-50 gender parity for public film funding by 2020. They are the closest to already achieving the target, with 41% of their funding over the past decade going to projects with a female director. Caroline Norbury MBE, CEO of Creative England, said “Public funding in the cultural and creative industries needs to be representative of the country’s most exciting up and coming talent ...we need to mirror the population and give an even footing to both male and female directors who are looking for the next step in this competitive industry.” As well as the call for 50-50 gender parity, Directors UK also proposed amending film tax relief to require all UK films to account for diversity, and for an industry-wide campaign to rebalance gender inequality within UK film. The report, titled Cut Out of the Picture, illustrated that despite an equal split of men and women studying film, and subsequently entering the film industry, women dropped off at every level, particularly as budgets got higher. The data reveals that 27% of short films – a starting point for most film-makers – were directed by women, but as budgets rose nearer £500,000, this fell to 16%, and when they rose to between £1m and £10m, just 12% had women at the helm. When it came to blockbusters with £30m-plus budgets, only 3.3% had been directed by women since 2005. Sarah Gavron, director of Suffragette and Brick Lane, said she had been waiting for things to change since she left film school in 2000, but in vain. “It was only when I started seeing films directed by women that I felt I could dare to try to direct,” said Gavron. “Role models are key to developing and encouraging the next generation of film makers. “Film of course influences our culture which is why it is vital to have diversity and more gender equality both in front of and behind the camera. We need to work to shift this imbalance, and it seems the only way to do this is to be radical, rather than waiting for something to change.” While progress towards equality was found to have stagnated across the board, it dramatically worsened in publicly funded films over the period. In 2007, 32.9% of films with UK-based public funding had a female director – by 2014 that had dropped to just 17%. Richards said it emphasised even further how important “concerted positive action” such as mandatory 50-50 gender parity in public funding would be. She emphasised how a similar measure was introduced in Sweden two years ago, and as a result the proportion commissioner-approved feature films directed by women hit 50% for the first time in 2014, with 61% female screenwriters and 69% female producers. Now Ireland and Australia are considering introducing similar measures to force change. The report revealed how the “systemic” difficulty in climbing the directorial ladder also meant female directors direct fewer films in their career and are less likely to receive a second, third or fourth directing job. “Collectively, these findings paint a picture of an industry where female directors are limited in their ability to become directors and their career progression once they do. They are limited in the number of films they can direct as well as the budget and genre of the films they do,” concluded the report. The report also stressed that the lack of any regulation to enforce industry-wide gender equality, the lack of structure in hiring practices and the short-term freelance set-up of film- which discouraged any illusion of risk- was to blame for this self-perpetuating system of sexism. But Beeban Kidron, director of Bridget Jones: Edge of Reason, said there was also still “a lingering feeling that male forms of leadership are more successful”. She added: “Frankly, unless men take on a more central role in bringing up their kids, and we dump the insidious idea that a woman at the helm is a wimp or a harridan, and a man is just being an artist, then we will never see the level of change necessary.”
Actors warned to avoid new horror film from convicted paedophile director Victor Salva A convicted paedophile film-maker is facing outrage after issuing a casting call for the part of a young girl who flees her abusive grandfather in his new horror film. Victor Salva, best known for the Jeepers Creepers movies, plans to shoot sequel Jeepers Creepers III on location in British Columbia, Canada, this spring. But a call for the role of 13-year-old Addison has now been removed from a casting website after the local actors’ union publicised the film-maker’s past. In its circular to local talent agents, the Union of British Columbia Performers noted Salva’s 1988 conviction for molesting a 12-year-old boy, Nathan Forrest Winters, who had acted in two of his films. Winters was abused while shooting the 1989 film Clownhouse. Salva filmed one of the episodes. “It has recently come to our attention that a casting breakdown has gone out for a feature film entitled Jeepers Creepers III, and that the director of the film, Victor Salva, was convicted of sexual misconduct in 1988,” read the circular. “The conviction allegedly resulted from misconduct involving a minor whom Mr Salva was directing at the time. At this time we would like to remind our members and their agents that, under Article A2702 (Safety & Welfare of a Minor) of the BC Master Production Agreement, a performer has the right to refuse work if they believe that the nature of the work is unsafe.” Deadline reports the casting notice, published on the Breakdown Services website, called for an 18-year-old actor to play Addison. The site has nevertheless removed the message and posted its own statement to agents. “Upon learning of this notice and our own verification of the facts surrounding Salva’s conviction, Breakdown Services has removed this project from its files,” the statement read. “All submissions made by any agent on this project are no longer available to the casting director nor any member of the production staff.” Salva, a one-time protege of Godfather director Francis Ford Coppola, was jailed for three years in 1988, serving 15 months. He did not work in Hollywood for five years following his conviction, but later bounced back with the hit Jeepers Creepers films and Disney fantasy Powder. Winters himself picketed the latter’s Los Angeles premiere in 1995, handing out leaflets urging the public to boycott the film. “Please don’t spend your money on this movie,” the leaflets read. “It would just go to line the pockets of this child molester.” Jeepers Creepers III marks 57-year-old Salva’s first major studio film since Jeepers Creepers II was released in 2003. In 2006 the film-maker made a public plea for forgiveness while promoting the independent film Peaceful Warrior. “I pled guilty to a terrible crime, and I’ve spent the rest of my life trying to make up for it,” he told the LA Times. “For almost 20 years, I’ve been involved with helping others, I’ve been in therapy, and I’ve made movies. But I paid my debt to society and apologised to the young man. And all I can hope is that people will give me a chance to redeem myself.”
Elon Musk personally cancels blogger's Tesla order after 'rude' post Unimaginable wealth has brought Elon Musk a lot of benefits, from being able to build a private spaceflight company to planning a magnet-powered vacuum tube supersonic transport system between LA and San Francisco – and be taken seriously. But perhaps the best perk of being Elon Musk is the ability to be unbelievably petty. The Californian venture capitalist Stewart Alsop learned that to his cost, he says, after he wrote an open letter to Musk about the badly run launch event for the Tesla Motors Model X (the newest car from Musk’s electric vehicle startup). Headlined “Dear @ElonMusk: you should be ashamed of yourself”, the letter listed Alsop’s issues with the event: it started late, it focused too much on safety, and it was so packed that even people like Alsop, who had placed a $5,000 deposit on the car (which was originally supposed to ship in 2013, but had only delivered 208 cars by the end of 2015), didn’t get the chance to test drive it. Alsop concluded that “it would still be nice if you showed some class and apologised to the people who believe in this product”. Instead, Alsop says, Musk cancelled his pre-order. In a follow-up post, “Banned By Tesla!”, Alsop relayed his phone conversation with Musk: “I also hear that you are not comfortable having me own a Tesla car and have cancelled my order for a Tesla Model X.” He added “I must also admit that I am a little taken aback to be banned by Tesla. When I wrote a blog post about my BMW X1 called ‘My Car Makes Me Feel Stoopid’, the CEO of BMW didn’t take the car back.” Musk, for his part, tweeted to indicate that he doesn’t understand what the fuss is about: It’s not the first time Musk has demonstrated the level of personal control he exerts over Tesla. In late January, a frustrated Tesla customer revealed that a refurbished car on which he had put a deposit was never delivered – because Musk was using it to test out a new version of the fleet’s “Autopilot” feature. Tesla eventually said that that “due to human error, a car from our test fleet was offered for sale. We apologise that this led to a frustrating experience. We are working to ensure that it never happens again.”
Iceland has no need for þórðargleði now Fr Alec Mitchell wonders what the Icelandic word for “schadenfreude” is (Letters, 29 June). It is þórðargleði, which literally means “the joy of Þórður”, who is a man mentioned in a work by the great Icelandic 20th-century non-fiction writer and essayist Þórbergur Þórðarson. This man, a farmer, would read newspapers and laugh about the misfortunes of others. I think we Icelanders are feeling no þórðargleði towards the English, as we have too much joy over our own good fortune. Kári Tulinius Helsinki, Finland • The most shocking detail in Alan Travis’s analysis of the leave camp’s pledges (What a difference a week makes, 28 June) was the final sentence: “there is no code that requires political statements to be ‘legal, decent, honest and truthful’.” Why not? Are we content that politics should have lower ethical standards than the rest of public life? Professor Brian Vickers London • Isn’t this whole Brexit fiasco an outcome of testosterone on both sides – just like the bankers? Now it seems just possible that we could have female leaders of our four main parties (Labour, Conservative, Green and SNP) and of the US. Bring them on and we might have a better politics; less high-risk-taking, more Merkelist. As a socialist feminist and despite being aged, I remain (as I voted) an optimist. Sue Ledwith Oxford • “Muirfield golf club to vote again on female members” (28 June). You see – anything is possible; just extrapolate. Charlie Leventon Shrewsbury, Shropshire • Terribly disappointed to find Michele Hanson missing from Tuesday’s . I was looking forward to her witty summary of the last few days. Please don’t tell me she’s left the country. Come back, Michele. We need you. Margaret Pritchard Edinburgh • These bloody birds. Migrating here. Building nests wherever they want. Eating our worms. And waking me up at 3.55am! Lorna Bartley Sheffield
Tottenham must now pass low-key tests to prove Premier League title credentials Seven games into the Premier League season and there are only four noughts left in the overall table. Two of them are in the wins column next to the bottom clubs Stoke and Sunderland, who happen to be playing each other on Saturday in what both must regard as a chance to get their campaigns properly started. Up at the sunny end the nought relating to Manchester City defeats has disappeared, though Pep Guardiola’s side can still claim to be the only one in the division yet to be held to a draw, while perhaps the most significant zero is the one indicating Tottenham remain unbeaten. Following Spurs’ convincing win against City last week, assessments of their ability to win a first title in 56 years were being swiftly revised. Spurs were pretty good last season, even if they did settle for third place in a two-horse race right at the end, and just as Guardiola had predicted beforehand, Mauricio Pochettino has continued to make improvements. It is far too early to say Tottenham are the real deal at long last but fairly safe to predict that not too many teams will be dismantling Manchester City in such a fashion. While beating City under current management is a surefire way of getting yourself noticed, the title race is not always about head-to-head results against the favourites, as the more stoic among Spurs supporters know better than most. Tottenham’s record against City is excellent though even as Pochettino’s team emerged as Leicester’s likeliest challengers last season, it was being said that they were not winning enough games. They ended up with 13 draws, the highest total in the top six, and two of them were against their next opponents, West Bromwich Albion. Having to accept only a point at The Hawthorns last December was bad enough after taking the lead and letting it slip, though the 1-1 result at White Hart Lane towards the end of the season was even worse, more or less signalling the end of Tottenham’s title hopes. Vital to their chances of mounting a more effective challenge this season will be winning the low-key fixtures as well as the high-profile ones. Spurs fans could be forgiven for refusing to get carried away until their side have secured maximum points from the next two games, against West Brom and Bournemouth. One could say the next three games, except Leicester do not seem to have decided yet whether they are going to be fearless or feckless this season. What can be said is that if Spurs can keep going through October they will take a lot of confidence to Arsenal on Bonfire night weekend, and if they come through that test their title odds will shorten further still. Not that Arsenal can be discounted after recovering so well from their opening-day defeat. The theory that north-west teams were going to dominate this season’s title race seemed a reasonable one when Liverpool won at the Emirates and even Everton got off to an impressive start, though while there has subsequently been a downward revision of expectations at Goodison and Old Trafford, north London has effectively driven a wedge between the best Manchester and Merseyside have to offer. Manchester City and Liverpool are the joint highest goalscorers after seven matches with 18 apiece, though the latter’s goal difference is actually inferior to that of Spurs thanks to Pochettino’s defence conceding a miserly three goals to date. That is fewer than half a goal per game, and another indication that Tottenham and the title may be reacquainting themselves in the near future. One defeat does not spoil a season though, and City still look the team to beat. Everton have been above Liverpool and Manchester United at times this season but never above Guardiola’s side, and Ronald Koeman’s task in trying to elevate his new club into something beyond the fourth-best team in the north-west faces its ultimate challenge with a trip to the Etihad on Saturday . Were the fixture at Goodison it might be described as a showdown, with the Everton fans perhaps even tempted to reproduce the raucous atmosphere that seemed to help Celtic knock City off their stride in the Champions League recently. At the Etihad, where one imagines Guardiola has spent the international break concentrating on how to prevent a winless sequence stretching to three matches, Everton could easily catch a backlash. The rather bigger Merseyside v Manchester fixture of this round of matches, however, is United’s visit to Liverpool on Monday. Forget the past, this is not about historic accumulations of titles or ancient grievances, it is simply Jürgen Klopp pitting his wits against José Mourinho to see which manager is making most sense of the present. Both sides were well fancied to have a decent Premier League season on account of having no European involvement. That is to say, United are in the Europa League but Mourinho was not expected to take it seriously. Defeat in the opening game at Feyenoord initially changed that, and now Mourinho is moaning about fixture overload, making the not unreasonable point that a game against Liverpool on a Monday is less than ideal preparation for meeting Fenerbahce on the Thursday, which in turn is not what you need when you are away to Chelsea on the Sunday. That is some seven days for United and their manager: away at Anfield, at home to the Turkish side then a first return to Stamford Bridge, especially with a derby against City in the League Cup the following week. In theory few would blame Mourinho for treating the European game most lightly. In practice it probably depends on results in the other matches.
Why is Mail Online going after the fact checkers? On Wednesday evening, Mail Online published a lengthy investigation into fact-checking site Snopes containing salacious details gleaned from legal battles between its recently divorced cofounders. The claims, mainly about the sexual history and preferences of Snopes employees, but also allegations of financial misbehaviour by its founder, David Mikkelson, which he disputes, are titillating but not Earth shattering. Far more revealing is Mail Online’s decision to go after Snopes and the way it has gone about it. Snopes started out fact-checking urban myths (for example, recurring claims that the moon landings were staged) but amid concerns about fake news and its impact on democracy, the site became a resource for calling out false stories. Throughout the US election, Snopes debunked articles on everything from President Barack Obama planning to issue a blanket pardon for Hillary Clinton to Pope Francis backing Donald Trump. It wasn’t a huge surprise when Snopes was named, along with ABC News, the Associated Press and other fact-checking websites such as Politifact.com, as one of the third-party sources Facebook would use to help it flag disputed stories. One week later and there, in a prominent position on the Mail Online homepage, was a 1,400-word article about Snopes’ founders’ finances and relationships. There are obvious merits to the story for avid Mail Online readers – the headline includes the words “escort-porn star” and “Vice Vixen domme” for a start – and the financial claims give some justifiable news value. But the way the story is written hints at what the publication thinks, not just of Snopes, but of any sort of effort to do something about false information on the web. The key giveaway is its use of quotation marks around the phrases “fake news”, “fact check” and “fact checker”, despite the fact that previous Mail articles have regularly used the words without any. It’s a tactic borrowed straight from the fringe sites that have reacted angrily to Facebook’s plans, including the unofficial cheerleader of the “alt right”, Breitbart. It’s designed to imply that the concepts of fake news and fact checking are themselves disputed. The purpose of the article appears to be to sow doubt about measures to deal with, or at least mitigate, the impact of fake news and falsehoods on social media, long before they have even got off the ground. The Mail, of course, has skin in this game. It is far from the worst offenders when it comes to falsehoods – those tend to be the sorts of sites set up by Macedonian teenagers to create completely fabricated stories – but it has come under Snopes’ microscope enough times to be called in July “Britain’s highly unreliable Daily Mail” by a Snopes writer who just happens to be named in the Mail story. If Facebook’s plans go ahead and Snopes helps it fact check, the Mail would expect that some of its more tenuous stories will be flagged. That could make a small but not insignificant impact on its online audience, which is the largest for any English-language newspaper by some margin. There are lots of debates to be had about Facebook’s plans to use fact checkers. The motivations and credentials of the organisations it partners with, the mechanisms for identifying dodgy claims and the way in which false stories are flagged, all require scrutiny. But rather than engaging in that debate, the Mail has attempted to cast doubt on the notion of fact checking. In the battle between those who profit from playing fast and loose with the truth and those trying to fix the fake news problem, the Mail has made it clear in which camp it sits.
Banks are prepared for the EU referendum, or so they keep telling us All possible preparations have been made for the EU referendum, the banks keep telling us. Even the cash machines will be stuffed full, just in case an obscure continental lender chooses Friday to go bust and trigger unnecessary panic. One assumes this confidence is well-founded. Presented with an opportunity on Tuesday to help themselves to some extra spare cash courtesy of the Bank of England, UK banks responded with a collective “thanks for the offer, but actually we’re fine”. They took up just £370m in a special loan facility designed by Threadneedle Street to ensure the financial system is comfortably supplied over the referendum period. This was the second of three special auctions, and the third is next week. The first, conducted last week, saw demand for £2.6bn. As such, Tuesday’s result represented a mere trickle. There are two possible interpretations. One is that the banks, scarred by their experiences in the post-Lehman turmoil of 2008, have done a belt-and-braces job this time. They are prepared for anything and are determined that liquidity will not be a problem even in the event of a strong vote for Brexit. The other explanation is complacency. That would be alarming. It would mean the banks have been infected by the sudden outbreak of confidence that remain is heading for victory. They would rather assume the bookmakers have got their odds correct than pay a small penalty, in the form of posting collateral with the Bank, for the security of extra cash. To repeat, there is no reason to doubt the banks’ confidence. They’ve had an age to prepare, after all. But one can imagine the postmortem in front of a future parliamentary inquiry if liquidity becomes a problem. Mark Carney would be able to report that he did everything. He offered the banks all the help they could require, to the point of catching flak about scaremongering to suit the government’s agenda. The bankers would be reduced to pleading, once again, that nobody could possibly have imagined that markets would run dry. It probably won’t happen. Even if it did, it probably wouldn’t be as severe as 2008. But the banks had better have their calculations right this time. A case of enlightened self-interest at Amazon? Amazon has a new boss in the UK. And finally the company seems to have understood that it was heading towards yet another row over non-payment of tax. On this occasion, the worry is not about corporation tax, or even Amazon directly. Rather, it’s about VAT and the explosion in the number of overseas traders, mostly from China, who use Amazon’s UK website and warehouses to sell goods to British consumers without charging VAT. HMRC seemed to be asleep to the fraud until it realised that £1.5bn of lost tax revenue was a “very big issue”. It took some diligent reporting by this newspaper to provoke meaningful interest from MPs and the government. Now Doug Gurr, Amazon’s new UK chief, may have realised that the company’s official stance – simply blame the Chinese traders and argue other people’s VAT scams are not its lookout – probably wasn’t sustainable indefinitely. As we reported on Tuesday, Amazon is quietly asking Chinese traders who use its website to provide a VAT number. This looks like an outbreak of enlightened self-interest on Amazon’s part. Gurr should do more. There is a simple measure available to Amazon that would demonstrate good intentions and a willingness to make HMRC’s job easier. It could insist that overseas traders selling to UK customers display a VAT number on Amazon’s website, and it could delist those who refuse to comply. A public display of VAT registration would be more effective than a behind-the-scenes cleanup. The effect on Amazon’s business would be minimal and adoption would follow the spirit of the relevant EU directive. Gurr should get on with it. Trouble may be brewing in China for Costa chain New-ish chief executive Alison Brittain hasn’t yet banished the Whitbread doubters. A £41 share price compares unfavourably to the £54 seen in spring 2015, when growth seemed strong and easy to achieve. The latest update, however, provides further evidence that Costa Coffee and Premier Inn in the UK require only fine tuning, rather than an overhaul. In the market for overpriced coffee and pastries, Costa’s like-for-like sales were up 2.6% in the last quarter, a decent recovery from the previous period. Premier Inn is not enjoying the slower London hotel market, but business elsewhere in the UK seems firm. Indeed, if there’s a reason to worry, it’s probably not on the home front. Look at China, billed as the next frontier for Costa. Tuesday’s update contained the obligatory expression of excitement about long-term opportunities, but then came news of a “tougher trading environment due to a weaker Chinese economy”. Costa in China is meant to be young, fresh and exciting, a format immune to the economic weather. If it’s not true, don’t repeat others’ mistakes and get dragged in.
Kesha announces details of a new 'creepy' project Kesha has announced details of her new musical venture, Kesha and the Creepies. A celebration of her “deep eternal love of dirty rock’n’roll and country music,” she claims this latest guise has been established for her to continue performing while her legal battle with producer Dr Luke and Sony continues. “I thrive from making and performing music, and much like a flower with no sun, my soul slowly dies when I don’t get to create and perform,” writes Kesha, who will play a string of dates in the US in August. For a short ride and in mostly small intimate venues, I will be performing a new creepy creation. It’s been too long. Until I can release my own music I will be reinventing some of my old songs and some of my favorite songs from my musical idols. I’ve hand picked songs from artists that have helped shape who I am and the music I make today. I have missed you, all of you, so if you would like to boogie, come join us. This short tour will be one of Kesha’s first performance since the onset of her contract dispute – during which she accused producer Dr Luke, whose real name is Lukasz Gottwald, of sexual assault, battery, harassment and emotional distress. The producer denies the claims. In April a court ruled against the singer with regard to her Sony contract. The pop star’s creative output has been relatively muted throughout the ongoing legal proceedings: she has released one single, True Colors. And, despite allegations that she was denied permission to perform after fears from Kemosabe – Dr Luke’s label partnership with Sony – that Kesha would “ use the performance as a platform to discuss the [pending] litigation”, she made a well-received public appearance at 2016’s Billboard music awards, covering Bob Dylan’s It Ain’t Me, Babe with Ben Folds.
Doing more than your fair share of housework? It could be deadly Diseases of the heart are serious business. Between strokes, heart attacks, heart failure and high blood pressure, at least one in every four deaths that will occur in the United States this year will be related to the heart. Heart disease is the number one killer of both men and women. But, when you break down the information by gender, things get interesting. Research shows that heart diseases attack men much younger than they do women. But – according to research from Dr Colleen Norris and her team at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada – even though heart disease strikes women at an older age, women are far more likely to die from it. Norris’s team analyzed data collected about a thousand Canadians under the age of 55 who were diagnosed with acute coronary syndrome, paying specific attention to smaller seemingly unrelated characteristics like salary size, marital status, and – yes – how much time the person spent doing household chores. What the team learned was that the women studied were worse off than when they first started. The pattern they’ve uncovered is now being dubbed the “housework heartache”. Though being the breadwinner was considered a trait associated with high risk, responsibilities associated with being caregivers – household chores, being the primary caregiver for children and the general work of managing a family – were high-risk factors for decreasing heart health in women. “We have noticed that women who have bypass surgery tend to go right back into their caregiver roles, while men were more likely to have someone to look after them,” explained Norris. This can be deadly. It’s easy to say the main takeaway here is that men need to help more with chores. Of course they should. But it’s also true that men and women are often affected by different kinds of stress. Men are still most likely to be the primary earners; women are most likely to be the primary caregivers – both of these situations are harmful. That’s not to say that women don’t have it particularly hard. Research shows that when men are ill, they often have their spouses to care for them, thereby producing a better outcome. When women are ill, they don’t receive the same care. Not because the men in their lives are unwilling or unable, but because they are the primary earners and without income, the family becomes unstable. Those of us who want better health for our loved ones need to do a better job at identifying behaviors that can increase risk of heart disease. Sometimes these are hidden. Stress is linked to acute coronary syndrome not only because of the physical exhaustion that can occur, but because many of the ways that people inadvertently seek stress relief – through emotional eating, smoking, drinking – also cause damage that diminishes health. When we see our loved ones looking frazzled, offer them support. Spring for a round of golf, or maybe a yoga class. Small things, like a bike ride in the park, or a candle-lit bubble bath, can help reduce stress in a healthy and loving fashion. We need to be loving to one another, loving to our partners and loving to ourselves. All of us should aim to be the resource our loved ones need (or connect them to good ones) when they want to adopt a healthier lifestyle. We should encourage them to reduce habits that exacerbate stress, like emotional eating or drinking or excessive caffeine use, and support them in getting enough sleep. And, yes, pick up a broom and dustpan every now and again. Not only can the occasional household chore be therapeutic, someone in your life may simply really need it.
Why Apple’s low-tax deal is no blueprint for Brexit Britain One of the islands that makes up Papua New Guinea is called New Ireland. But it seems that a much colder island far to the north might also wish to be called New Ireland – the island formerly known as Great Britain. In the wake of the European commission’s ruling that Ireland must reclaim €13bn plus interest in taxes from Apple, there is a good deal of excitement at the prospect of a post-Brexit Britain replacing its smaller neighbour in the affections of tax-shy global corporations. As the Daily Telegraph put it in an editorial: “If Ireland and the EU do not want a huge, wealth-creating firm doing business in their territory, Apple will be very welcome in the UK.” Welcome, that is, to use the UK as it has previously used Ireland – as a compliant state that will look the other way while vast profits pass through, untaxed. It is, on the surface, an appealing prospect. You only have to walk around Dublin or Cork to see that Ireland’s tax regime has been a honeypot for all the hottest digital corporations – not just the long-established ones like Apple, Microsoft and Intel but the entire new wave of internet behemoths: Google, Facebook, Twitter and so on. And the same is broadly true in other areas such as pharmaceuticals and medical devices. Little Ireland has a stock of US direct investment much larger than France and Germany combined. Ireland is the number one location worldwide for investment by US chemical and pharmaceutical companies and number two for IT companies. And no one thinks those corporations are attracted by the scenery. For the more excitable elements among the Brexiters, the EU’s ruling on Apple’s tax bill thus opens up a delirious prospect. The Brussels bureaucrats are moving against Ireland’s vigorously pro-business taxation policies, but Britain, when it throws off the shackles of the EU, will be free to swoop in and grab the golden eggs from the Irish nest. Apple and Pfizer, Facebook and Google, driven by EU persecution from the emerald isle, will seek asylum in the New Ireland next door, where the writ of the Eurocrats does not run and the government knows how to treat a corporation with the respect it deserves. Could there be any more dramatic illustration of both the evils of the EU and the thrilling possibilities of Brexit? There are, however, two small questions about this strategy. Is it possible? And is it desirable? The answers might perhaps curb the enthusiasm of the true believers. There is, for a start, the small matter of whether, even after the EU tax ruling, Apple wants to leave Ireland for the UK or anywhere else. The answer could hardly be clearer – it doesn’t. In an interview with Ireland’s national broadcaster RTE, chief executive Tim Cook was full of indignation at the very idea that Apple might have benefited from illegal state aid in the form of a sweetheart tax deal. “When you are accused of doing something that’s so foreign to your values, it brings out an outrage in you, that’s how we feel,” he said. He made clear that Apple will appeal against the €13bn ruling and that it expected the Irish government to do the same. Those listening out for signs of a dismay that might be exploited by post-Brexit Britain will have been encouraged – up to a point. And the point at which the encouragement stopped was when Cook discussed Apple’s intentions. What will Apple do in benighted EU-ridden Ireland? Keep investing. He reaffirmed without qualification that Apple was going ahead with a major expansion of its campus in Cork: “We’re very committed to Ireland, have been for 37 years. We have a long-term romance together.” So why on earth would Apple remain in Ireland instead of taking refuge in the brave new post-Brexit world of low-tax Britain? Partly because tax, even for greedy corporations, isn’t everything. And partly because Apple is smart enough to know that the kind of outrageous dodge that resulted in a tax rate in 2014 for its Irish-based subsidiary of 0.005% is not sustainable – in Ireland, Britain or any other democratic society. Though market fundamentalists find it hard to believe, even global corporations need social relationships. Will they exploit every possible loophole to maximise their profits? Yes – ruthlessly and without conscience. But is the ability to dodge tax the sole criterion they apply to their decisions to invest? No. As Cook acknowledged: “We went into Ireland in 1980. We didn’t go there to seek advantages on taxes – we had only 60 employees and very little revenue.” This reassurance explains why public and political opinion in Ireland has been more ambivalent about the Apple ruling than the establishment consensus would suggest. The big right-of-centre parties, Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, have backed Apple to the hilt and tried to rally the public by warning that accepting the unpaid taxes would drive multinational investors away. But most people seem to understand that it’s not so simple. The choice between colluding in morally obnoxious tax avoidance on the one hand and facing economic chaos on the other does not ring true. The Brexiters’ fantasy of stealing Ireland’s corporate investors relies on a deeply patronising attitude to Ireland. Underlying it is the notion that no foreign company would possibly invest in Ireland for any other reason than its lax attitude to taxation. But there are a lot of other reasons – a highly skilled and productive workforce, cultural vitality, political stability and (oddly enough) membership of the European Union with full access to the world’s biggest single market. The obsession of giant corporations with avoiding tax does not blind them to their need for the social, political and cultural resources on which they draw. This is not just a matter of theory. A crucial point easily lost in the noise of the EU’s Apple ruling is that the regime under which it could avoid so much tax has already changed. The notorious “double Irish” strategy used by Apple and other corporations to make themselves stateless for taxation purposes is being dismantled. Market fundamentalists would tell us that corporations will respond to this tightening of the tax regime by fleeing Ireland. Actually, they’ve responded by paying more tax: Ireland took in €6.9bn in corporation tax last year compared with €4.6bn in 2014 when the abolition of the “double Irish” was announced. And why was the Irish corporate tax regime made tougher? Not because of the EU but because of an organisation the Brexiters seem not to have heard of: the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). It is the OECD, not the EU, that has driven attempts to clean up the worst excesses of corporate tax avoidance. (One way of seeing the severity of the Apple ruling is as an attempt by the EU to regain the initiative on an issue of such global consequence.) The UK is a member of the OECD and has signed up to these anti-tax avoidance strategies. Unless Britain wants to go completely rogue and leave the OECD as well as the EU, the fantasy of luring companies such as Apple with the virtual impunity from taxation they used to enjoy in Ireland could not be fulfilled. So much for the possibility of becoming the New Ireland – what about the desirability? Would it be good for Britain if it were to try to emulate Ireland’s strategy of relying on foreign investment and attracting it by becoming, in effect, a tax haven for the largest corporations? The key point about Ireland’s Faustian pact with global corporations is that it was a strategy of desperation. The country sold its soul in the 1960s because it had a stagnant agricultural economy. Indigenous industrial development was slow and weak, Ireland was an economic vassal of the UK and mass emigration was bleeding the country dry. Giving global corporations massive tax breaks wasn’t an ideological principle – it was a last resort when pretty much everything else had failed. This matters in the British context because it explains why very low corporation taxes could operate in Ireland without creating social conflict. The corporate devil gave the Irish Faust a pretty good price for his soul: a way of moving from backwardness to modernity. But Britain has a radically different economic, social and political history. Transplanting a policy that worked for very specific reasons in Ireland into post-Brexit Britain would show scant regard for the nature of either country. Ireland has had to live with the consequences of its particular choice. One of them is what US economist Paul Krugman recently called “leprechaun economics”. Krugman coined the phrase in response to the news that the Irish economy grew by an incredible 26.3% in 2015. Literally incredible – the figures are massively inflated by the fiscal juggling of the giant corporations. Irish GDP is meaningless. There is a vast gulf between the real economy and the kind of hyped-up faux-economy you get when you turn your state into a conduit for torrents of funny money. And that hype is not harmless – the Celtic Tiger bubble was one of its more catastrophic products. It is not accidental that Ireland has the most unequal distribution of market income (before tax and welfare) in the developed world. In effect, there are two Irish economies: the foreign corporate economy that is highly skilled, ultra-globalised and very favourably treated by the state; and a weaker indigenous economy that exists in its shadow. One of the consequences of this extreme inequality of market income is that the state has to do an enormous amount of heavy lifting through the income tax and welfare systems to keep these divisions in check. This activist state is hardly what the British right expects it will get if it follows the Irish model. And here, surely, is the fatal contradiction in the notion of a post-Brexit Britain that will combine huge tax benefits for the corporate few with Theresa May’s promise of social justice for the many. The more honest voices urging Britain to replace Ireland as the new best buddy of the global corporations recognise that radical cuts to corporate taxes would have to be matched by drastic reductions in personal taxes because otherwise rage at grossly unequal treatment would destabilise society and politics.Hence the final paradox: giving the corporations what they want on tax means not giving them what they need in every other respect. The general low tax regime in this brave new Britain would be delightful for the likes of Apple – except when they want a terrific educational system to produce their smart workforce, a national health service to keep them healthy, a decline in social inequality to keep the political environment stable and lots of public investment in world-class infrastructure. And for those things they need big government funded by high taxes – on somebody else. It is pure delusion to think that the smartest corporations will be drawn to a Britain not only outside the single European market but no longer raising enough tax to invest in its society, services and infrastructure. Ireland is discovering that the game of beggar-my-neighbour tax policies is pretty much up. Inside or outside the EU, Britain will have to join Ireland and the rest of Europe in telling the corporations that, if they want to operate in civilised societies, they have to help pay for them. Fintan O’Toole is a columnist with the Irish Times FIAT In 2015 the European commission ruled that the Italian carmaker’s financing company had paid taxes on profits that had been underestimated. The commission found that Fiat Finance and Trade, which is based in Luxembourg and provides financial services, such as intra-group loans, to other Fiat group car companies, engaged in “many different transactions with Fiat group companies in Europe”. Its investigation showed that a tax ruling by the Luxembourg authorities gave a selective advantage to Fiat Finance and Trade, which had allowed it to reduce its tax burden by between €20m and €30m since 2012. Fiat insisted its dealings merely amounted to a clarification of pricing rules and did not constitute state aid, but it was ordered to repay £25.5m. MCDONALD’S In May, the French headquarters of the global fast-food chain was raided by tax officials who seized financial documents as part of an ongoing investigation. The company’s finances have been in the spotlight since last year, following claims that it struck a deal with the Luxembourg authorities to significantly reduce its tax bill on European sales. Following the raid, a spokesperson for McDonald’s said: “From 2010 to 2014, the McDonald’s companies paid more than €2bn just in corporate taxes in the European Union, with an average tax rate of almost 27%.” AMAZON In 2013 it was revealed the online giant had paid only £10m in UK corporation tax, despite sales in Britain reaching £4.3bn. The commission is scrutinising Amazon’s 2003 tax deal with Luxembourg: Brussels believes it may have allowed Amazon’s European headquarters to lock in a preferentially low tax rate. However, Amazon says it does not receive preferential treatment from Luxembourg. It also insists that it is not based in the duchy – where it has more than 1,000 employees – primarily for tax reasons. STARBUCKS The US coffee chain has said that it has not made a profit in the UK over 15 years despite cumulative sales of £2bn. Up to 2012, it had paid corporation tax of only £8.6m. In 2015, the commission ruled Starbucks had to repay £22.8m of what were described as “illegal” tax breaks. An investigation by the commission showed that a tax ruling issued by the Dutch authorities in 2008 gave a selective advantage to Starbucks Manufacturing in the Netherlands – the company’s European coffee roasting operation – which enabled it to reduce its tax burden. BELGIUM-LINKED MULTINATIONALS In January, the commission concluded that selective tax advantages granted by Belgium under its “excess profit” tax scheme were illegal. The scheme was found to have benefited at least 35 multinationals, which were ordered to return unpaid taxes – estimated to be worth around €700m – to Belgium. Among those required to comply with the order were brewing giant Anheuser-Busch InBev, German chemicals giant BASF, and BP. Jamie Doward
Follow that: The top charity chief executives on social media Facing the challenges of Brexit, a decline in public trust and fundraising reform, the charity sector has its work cut out. Charity leaders will need to use every asset available to help their organisations and that task will be impossible without social media. In acknowledgement of the importance of social media, the Top 30 Charity CEOs on Social Media Awards [pdf] run by Social CEOs recognise the charity leaders who are excelling in social media. This year has seen a record number of nominations from charities across the full spectrum of sizes and causes. The winners, decided by an independent panel of judges, were announced on 17 November hosted by Justgiving. To coincide with this, Social CEOs has also published a briefing to help charity leaders develop their social media skills. Here are some of the key pointers every charity leader aspiring to develop a better social media presence should think about – and how some of the award-winning CEOs already put them into practice. Have a distinctive voice The importance of this was demonstrated by the overall winner of the awards, Ruth Ibegbuna, chief executive of the Reclaim Project, a Manchester-based youth leadership charity. Ibeguna’s passion for her charity’s cause, and her bold and authentic tone of voice, was inspiring, said the judges, and her Twitter feed feels like a natural medium for the way she communicates as a leader. Have accessible content It’s not just the content, it’s the way you handle it. The best charity leaders can discuss a range of topics on social media, from their cause, to policy, and to their interests outside of work. A key part of this skill set is breaking down complex subjects that are relevant to their charity, and making them accessible and memorable by highlighting details – such as this shocking statistic, tweeted below. Lead from the front This may sound obvious to a leader, but social media is the perfect medium to galvanise people and unite them behind a common cause. It’s also a good way to throw down the gauntlet to others who should be involved. Use social media to attract talent One third of employers now use social media to recruit. As charities navigate the challenging times ahead, attracting the right talent will be critical. Canny charity leaders are unafraid to tap into their networks to find the right people. Consider blogging While the vast majority of the nominations focused on Twitter, the judges were particularly impressed by the blog written by the winner of the best senior leader award, Tom Baker. Long-form content can be particularly engaging as it allows leaders to discuss ideas in depth. The judges said Tom’s blog is discursive, thought-provoking, and offers a new perspective on topical issues. Use social media to better manage stakeholders Our winners use social media to develop relationships and unite people around a common aim. With less money and time available for their charities to achieve their goals, leaders can use social media to make communications as quick and efficient as possible, leaving a positive impression. Bang the drum for your organisation If leaders aren’t telling people why they’re proud of their charity on social media, then why should they expect anyone else to do it? Our judges were pleased to see examples of trustees doing this too. The winner of the best trustee award, Maya Dibley of Girlguiding, often uses Twitter to enthuse about her charity and how her board is making a difference. Pack a punch with visual content It’s a well known fact that rich media creates more engagement on social media. Charity leaders can take this a step further by using images to connect emotionally with followers in a way that highlights the great work their charities do. Keep up to date and gain insights online Whether it’s catching up with breaking news, seeing what peers are working on, or simply digesting what you’re learning on the job, charity leaders can use social media to stay updated and gain insights. Done well, this demonstrates thought leadership. The judges said they are keen to see more charity leaders pushing the boundaries, in ways such as using social media to bridge divided communities. This is particularly critical considering recent political events – at home and overseas. In 2017, we hope to see more innovation and a critical mass of charity leaders using digital media to bring people together and change lives. Download the briefing for charity CEOs. For a full list of the award winners click here [PDF]. Talk to us on Twitter via @Gdnvoluntary and join our community for your free Voluntary Sector monthly newsletter, with analysis and opinion sent direct to you on the first Thursday of the month.
Redmayning and Ruffalo-ing: how Hollywood can make better trans movies If you like movie confrontation, then take your seats for a battle of epic proportions: trans people v Hollywood. The trans community has long objected to the way major film companies have sidelined trans actors, while simultaneously demonising or pathologising trans characters. This has just grown worse as trans has become newsworthy. There was outrage in 2015 as Roland Emmerich attempted to rewrite the history of the Stonewall riots by substituting cute, white and gay for real activists: people of colour, trans women, lesbians and drag queens. There were mixed feelings too over The Danish Girl, and things soured considerably when the film’s lead, Eddie Redmayne, decided that playing a trans character gave him carte blanche to lecture the world on trans issues – or “Redmayning”, as it is now called. This year the studios have announced (Re)assignment, a fairly ludicrous sounding revenge fantasy about a hitman who undergoes forced gender reassignment surgery; and – the final straw - Mark Ruffalo, the executive producer of Anything, has defended the casting of Mark Bomer as a trans woman. The trans actor Jen Richards responded magnificently to the news, warning Hollywood that casting non-trans actors in trans roles was not just offensive, but dangerous. Ruffalo rather meekly replied that we are all learning and wished he had known this sooner. The trans community seethed. Is this battle wise? Ruffalo is known, after all, for turning monstrously green when angry and trashing tall tower blocks with his bare hands. Although he was nice to the Black Widow. Or was that just an on-screen thing? Which is exactly Richards’ point. Movies create a halo effect, endowing real people with imagined characteristics. Trans authenticity is already frequently challenged: so casting non-trans actors, and pushing a narrative that suggests being trans is just a matter of acting or “putting on a dress”, contributes directly to discrimination and violence. And despite Ruffalo’s protestations, it’s not hard to do better. Here are some pointers for would-be movie moguls keen to cover the topical issue of trans life: Involve trans people In the UK groups such as Trans Media Watch and All About Trans, will help you to understand the sensitivities and the issues and put you in touch with real trans people. No one is going to lay down the law: but they will let you know if you are falling into cliche and tired tropes. Explore actual trans narratives Not every film need mimic mundane reality. There is drama, comedy and interest aplenty in the lived experience of ordinary trans folk. Likewise not every trans person is hero or villain, homicidal axe murderer or pathetic victim. In fact most trans people are very ordinary indeed. Don’t obsess over the extraordinary or dwell on negatives. Avoid unnecessary triggers Trans people are so often a target for violence and discrimination, it would be preferable if we weren’t constantly reminded of this. Happy endings are good, but so too is not finishing face down in a gutter. Stop and think about when to use trans and non-trans actors This doesn’t mean handing every trans role to a trans person (The Danish Girl, covering transition, is a case in point). Nor is it about relegating trans actors to a trans ghetto. Do, though, consider the impact of casting on both the trans community and audience. If you do use non-trans actors, casting according to (final) gender rather than initial body type is preferable But don’t keep giving trans roles to non-trans people This plays straight into the hands of those who would harm us politically, legislatively or on the streets Learn from the best Films like Tangerine and Paris Is Burning, or TV series like Her Story – even The Matrix, which just brims with trans imagery and symbolism – all point the way to doing trans better. Above all, when you’ve just, for the umpteenth time, done something that the trans community loathes and feels misrepresented by – and has told you so – don’t mutter self-deprecatingly about the need to learn and promise to get it right next time. Because the trans community is fed up with jam tomorrow. Tolerance of Hollywood’s carelessness is at an all-time low and if things don’t improve, then, as they say in the movies: “This means war!”
Thousands of women unknowingly have intrusive photos shared on Twitter Thousands of women have had intrusive photographs, taken of themselves without their knowledge, circulated on Twitter for years. Covert photos taken of women on beaches, public transport and elsewhere have been shared to two hashtags for several years with apparent impunity. The images predominately focus on the women’s breasts and buttocks, but in many, their faces are visible. Some appear to be underage. Australia has chosen not to name the hashtags so as not to compound the violation of the women’s privacy. Yevgeniya Ivanyutenko, a Twitter user based in Montreal, Canada, came across the hashtags by accident in early June. She referred them to Twitter’s @Support account and called on her followers to do the same. Not only did she not receive a response, attempts to formally report the accounts that had tweeted the hashtags were met with error messages. Twitter’s policy team has been contacted for comment. Ivanyutenko told Australia that “literally zero accounts” seem to have been suspended. “I’m really concerned because Twitter is allowing photos of non-consenting women and minors to be posted to these hashtags.” Research conducted by Max Kelsen, a social media analytics company, shows that close to 35,000 posts and retweets have been posted to the two hashtags in the past six years, but there was an explosion of activity in April this year. Users posting and retweeting on these hashtags are almost exclusively male, and the majority are aged 17 and under. The majority – nearly 57% – are in the United States, with 14.3% from the UK and 11.7% from Mexico. Ivanyutenko’s investigation of the hashtags revealed “a whole underground community for trading these pics”, hiding in plain sight, she said. Some of the accounts are restricted to images taken in specific neighbourhoods or public places, such as Walmart. One of the hashtags “will make you never want to go to the beach again”. “I got a response from one of the guys posting – before he blocked me, of course – saying that what he’s doing is under ‘free speech’.” One account makes an active appeal to its more than 112,000 followers for “creepshots” that are “good enough to tweet or post” on its external website. Another user, who has posted nearly 1,350 to the two hashtags, describes himself as an “old school creeper, enjoying the next generation creepers”. Laws vary from state to state and country to country but generally people are allowed to take photos of people in public without their consent. Last year an Oregon judge ruled that a 61-year-old man did nothing illegal when he crouched in the aisle of a Target store and snapped photos up a 13-year-old’s skirt. Clandestine photography is banned in bathrooms, locker rooms, dressing rooms and tanning booths – but the man’s defence lawyer argued that the Target aisle was plainly public. Twitter’s terms of service say it is not liable for content posted to the platform and that users “may be exposed” to that which is “offensive, harmful, inaccurate or otherwise inappropriate”. But its rules around abusive behaviour and private information specify that users “may not post intimate photos or videos that were taken or distributed without the subject’s consent”. Earlier this week Twitter admitted it could do more to address abuse on its platform when it handed a “permanent suspension” – effectively a ban – to Milo Yiannopoulos, a conservative journalist. But questions surrounding the efficacy of the ban have been raised given that Yiannopoulos seemed to have cultivated a following that would follow his lead. #FreeMilo was trending for several hours after his suspension was reported, fuelled by many messages of support. Campaigners working with victims of harassment have said that in many cases Twitter does not seem to take their complaints seriously, or simply fails to respond. Blocking, its main tool for combating harassment, can easily be circumvented with the creation of a new account – but “many trolls will have tens or hundreds” anyway. A Twitter spokesman said in the wake of the Milo Yiannopoulos ban the company was in the process of reviewing its “hateful-conduct policy” to ban more types of abusive behaviour and allow more types of reporting “with the goal of reducing the burden on the person being targeted”. Details of those changes were expected in the coming weeks.
Contested convention: what happens if Trump fails to win enough delegates? Donald Trump’s near-sweep in Tuesday’s Republican primaries gave him a commanding lead in the race to accumulate the 1,237 delegates needed to clinch the Republican nomination. But does that mean Trump should be considered his party’s presumptive nominee? Not quite. The unique circumstances around this year’s presidential election mean a contested convention is likely and that the topsy-turvy Republican primary could get even more unusual. Can any other Republican beat Trump before July? Probably not. It is mathematically impossible for Ohio governor John Kasich to reach the 1,237 delegate target (he currently has 143), while Texas senator Ted Cruz – who has 411 – faces an uphill battle that would have to culminate in the Texas senator winning at least 55% of the vote in California’s June primary to just barely clinch the GOP nomination. Trump currently has 673 delegates. So Trump will be the nominee? Not necessarily. It’s quite likely that no one, including Trump, will reach the magic number. Right now, the bombastic billionaire is on pace to finish about 80 delegates short if current trends hold up. That means, unless Trump is able to attract a significant number of unbound delegates – those who previously supported other candidates or who were elected without pledging to support a candidate – the Republican convention in July will start without a presumptive nominee. How would that work? It would involve several steps. First, an RNC committee would meet ahead of time to finalize the rules, which aren’t formally set until the convention convenes. There would be all levels of gamesmanship here as campaigns jockey for advantage and either change or maintain the provisional rules that have governed the primary so far. This would probably end in an ugly fight on the floor of the convention where delegates (almost of whom are selected in a process separate from the actual primary) are free to vote on the rules however they want. This means candidates pledged to Trump could vote for rule changes that might hurt the frontrunner. Then there would eventually be a first ballot, where no one would get a majority. After that would come anarchy. Most delegates are pledged to candidates only for the first ballot. After that, they can vote for whoever they please and throw open the convention. So who might the Republican nominee be in that case? It could be anyone. It could be Trump, Cruz or Kasich. It could be 2012 duo Mitt Romney or Paul Ryan. It could be Dick Cheney or Kim Kardashian. As long as a candidate gets the support of 1,237 delegates, they can be the nominee. This is not to say that nominating someone who didn’t participate in the primaries wouldn’t cause a major rift in the party; Trump himself has suggested there would be riots (“I wouldn’t lead [them]”). It’s simply that it’s theoretically possible and anything can happen if the convention goes to a second ballot and beyond. How would Trump react to that? It’s hard to predict how Donald Trump would react to almost anything, but if he was to consider mounting a third-party candidacy there would be major obstacles in his way. By the time the GOP’s convention opens on 18 July, it will be too late for him to file to run as a third-party candidate in 11 states; 14 other states have deadlines a mere two weeks after the convention. All have signature requirements as well, many of which are difficult to meet; they range from a mere 800 names required in New Jersey to more than 178,000 in California. If Trump were to manage a run as a third-party nominee, he would certainly split the Republican vote and let Hillary Clinton into the White House. And, even if he didn’t, it’s likely the ill feelings over a divided party and a contested convention –especially if the nominee didn’t participate in the primary process – would alienate enough voters to ensure Clinton’s election as well So it sounds like the Republicans are damned if they do, damned if they don’t? Yes, barring a huge surge by Cruz, the two most likely ways that voting in the Republican primary will end is with Donald Trump as the nominee or with no nominee at all. The question for Republican loyalists is which scenario they fear the most.
Nigel Farage doubts he will be envoy to US but says 'anything is possible' Nigel Farage, of the UK’s rightwing Ukip party, said on Thursday “anything is possible”, in response to Donald Trump’s proposal that he become UK ambassador to the US. Farage, who is the party’s former and interim leader, admitted he did not expect to get the position, which the British government has made clear is not vacant, but said he “would love to play a constructive middle-man role” between the two countries. “In normal terms, I wouldn’t necessarily put the words ‘Farage’ and ‘ambassador’ together,” Farage told CNN. “However, 2016 has been a year of dramatic change, so I think anything is possible.” On Tuesday, Trump said he would like Farage to be ambassador. It was unprecedented for an incoming US president to ask a world leader to appoint someone from an opposing party as ambassador. Farage, the first foreign politician to meet with Trump after his victory in the US election, said he was “very keen” for the UK and US “to get closer again”. “I don’t think I’m going to be made British ambassador, let’s be honest,” Farage said. “I’m not Foreign Office … maybe I’m not the type. But I did have 20 years in business before getting involved with politics, I do know how to cut deals, I do have the support, amazingly, of the president-elect, and I do know a number of his team, some of whom I’ve known for years.” Trump’s shock suggestion prompted representatives across the British government to heap praise on Sir Kim Darroch, who has held the position since January. “We have an excellent ambassador to the United States and he will continue his work,” said the spokesman for the UK prime minister, Theresa May. In his interview with CNN, Farage also defended Steve Bannon, Trump’s chief strategist and executive chairman of the far-right website Breitbart News, which Farage writes for. Top Democratic politicians and anti-hate speech groups have called Bannon a “white nationalist” who plans to bring antisemitism and racism to the White House. “I’ve spent a fair amount of time with him in an office environment, but equally in a social environment as well. I’ve never heard him say a single racist thing,” Farage said. Bannon has denied being antisemitic, telling the Wall Street Journal such claims were “a joke”, and that he was an economic nationalist, not a white supremacist. Farage’s deepening ties with the US government come amid reports that Farage is considering a move to the US. He has not appeared in public with his family for 18 months after they were chased out of a pub by anti-Ukip protesters, according to the Times of London on Thursday, and has reportedly told friends he cannot go out for a drink in his home county of Kent because people are confrontational with him. Farage is returning to the US in December to meet with Trump’s transition team in Washington, though he told CNN he was “not seeking anything” from the visit. “I’m seeking my country getting closer again to the United States of America after eight years of Obama, who frankly looked down his nose and sneered at us,” Farage said. “We’re about to get back that very special relationship that between us did so much for freedom, liberty and democracy in the world.”
Queen gives Theresa May royal seal of disapproval over Brexit Monday The party given by my close friend with terminal brain cancer that I wrote about last week turned out to be even more extraordinary than expected. It somehow managed to be both joyous and heartbreaking in equal measure – I’ll never forget it – and most people managed to save their tears for the way home. Stephen set the tone for the evening by saying that everyone had been sympathising with him about how difficult it must be. “It isn’t,” he said. “It’s actually incredibly easy. The diagnosis has given me an absolute clarity. A clarity of what really matters.” He then asked five friends who were personally involved in local and national charities to give presentations and invited everyone present to turn the occasion into a fundraiser for them. That, in turn, gave me a little clarity of my own. I’d been wondering about which charities should benefit from the Wasim Akram cricket sweater I sold at auction a couple of weeks ago. Now I know. Tuesday In the run-up to the general election last year, Nick Clegg described George Osborne as “a very dangerous man” whose plans were “harder than anything arch-Thatcherites would do”. The former Lib Dem leader was also scarcely less disobliging about his old coalition mucker in his book Politics: Between the Extremes, in which he called out the former chancellor for being “petulant and underhand” when he didn’t get his own way. But a few months can be a long time in politics, and Clegg appears to be willing to let bygones be bygones as the pair were spotted having a long and convivial lunch. With recent polls suggesting that more people now identify as being for or against Brexit than Conservative or Labour, there are rumours that Clegg and Osborne are preparing to launch a new political alliance aimed at hoovering up those voters who want to keep links with the EU as close as possible. Stand by for Coalition 2.0. Wednesday The Labour party may be 14 points behind the Tories in the polls – imagine how far they might be behind if Theresa May had anything resembling a Brexit plan – but it is awash with cash. One of the knock-on effects of two leadership campaigns, which saw the party membership grow to more than 500,000 with new members paying anything from £3 to £25 for the privilege of voting, has been that Labour is no longer broke. Whether that money is being spent wisely is another matter. Week by week the numbers of people working in central office seems to be growing exponentially as Labour gears itself up for another general election in May or June next year. The thinking goes that once the supreme court has rejected the government’s appeal and parliament gets to have a laugh about the paucity of the Conservative’s Brexit strategy, the Maybot will call an election in a fit of pique. Given the polling figures, the Tories will romp home with a massively increased majority and Labour will have to make redundancy payments to all the new staff it has just taken on. And you thought 2017 couldn’t be any worse than 2016. Thursday Given the volatile economic times in which we live, we should be encouraging Boris Johnson to double up his overseas visits as foreign secretary as opportunities to do a spot of book signing on the side, rather than demanding an investigation into his moonlighting. If the government could persuade the publishers to pay half the travel costs, everyone would be better off. The possible savings are considerable. The most recent publication of MPs’ financial interests shows that Theresa May is the recipient of an Amanda Wakeley discount card. With all the free publicity the prime minister has given the fashion designer in recent weeks, it would seem only right that she should coincide her first visit to Donald Trump with next year’s New York fashion week. And with Chris Evans having ducked out of Top Gear, the transport secretary, Chris Grayling, must be in line as a possible presenter as he has received donations from both Toyota and the RAC in recent months. Liam Fox might be a harder sell. No one can give away copies of his 2013 epic Rising Tides: Facing the Challenges of a New Era, let alone pay for him to sign them. Friday Reports that even the Queen is getting fed up with Theresa May’s lack of clarity on Brexit will come as no surprise to anyone in Whitehall. Though the Maybot often finds it impossible to answer any question with a straight yes or no – odd for someone who gives every appearance of having been programmed in binary – she isn’t that keen on letting anyone else answer on her behalf. Civil servants are tearing their hair out over her micro-managerial insistence that she has to sign off every detail from every department, not least as it is taking at least 10 weeks for her to come back with a few preliminary queries. Government is almost at a standstill. One can only imagine what the conversation between the Queen and the prime minister must have been like: HM: Can you tell me what your Brexit plan is? PM: I’m not going to give a running commentary. HM: One’s only asking for a few details. PM: Brexit means red, white and blue. HM: That’s a sodding flag, not a plan. PM: Do you want to borrow my Amanda Wakeley discount card? Digested week: Nukes away!
Banks will recognise your voice when you call them with a query The high-street banks’ enthusiastic embrace of developing technology has taken customers further from the branches with the launch of mortgage advisers on video and a new voice recognition system to scour through bank statements. Santander last week launched a feature on one of its banking apps which allows customers to search through what they spent using their voice, a feature that will later be expanded to allow them to make payments. It comes at the same time as Lloyds and Halifax customers are able to talk to mortgage advisers via video instead of phone after making an appointment. Banks have increasingly being making use of the possibilities available with new technologies. Last month HSBC announced it will roll out voice recognition and touch ID services for 15 million customers by the summer. The Santander “voice banking” technology comes through its Smartbank app and allows customers to ask about their previous transactions on a particular day, week or month. This will result in queries such as “How much did I spend on New Year’s Eve?” while later versions will allow them to ask “How much did I spend in Starbucks?”. A voice replies with the answer. The later version will enable users to make payments, report lost cards and ask a broader range of questions about what they spend. The bank said it will allow for vulnerable customers who bank from home to use their voice to communicate. A spokesman for the bank said that the app will only recognise the users’ voice: “The customer will have to complete their customer ID followed by, depending on their credentials, either their full pass code and registration number or any three numbers of the five-digit registration number. It is also worth noting that in the tutorial we urge people to not keep the volume on in public.” Lloyds, meanwhile, has launched the video mortgage advice service following a trial last year. Customers book appointments with a mortgage broker and can then talk to staff online. David Oldfield, group director for retail and consumer finance, said video works for people who want a face-to-face conversation but do not want to visit a branch.
The social care system needs a rescue package – to help the NHS survive It speaks volumes about government priorities that the Treasury briefed journalists ahead of Wednesday’s autumn statement that an extra £1.3bn would be spent on roads. Yet we have been kept in the dark over any rescue package for the tottering social care system, on which the chances of the NHS getting through the winter so critically depend. As it happens, £1.3bn is also the price of a basic rescue for social care. It is the calculation by the Local Government Association (LGA) of the gap between what care providers in England say they need now to sustain threadbare state-funded services for older and disabled people and what councils say they can afford. To meet rising demand, inflation and the costs of the “national living wage” next year would require the same sum again. Pretty much everyone outside the government understands the perilous position of the social care system, highlighted again this week by withdrawal from the market of another leading homecare provider, Mitie, and by a survey of councils suggesting that four in five local authorities do not have enough provision in their areas – especially for care at home, “extra care” housing with support and specialist nursing homes for dementia. Relations between social care and the NHS have frequently been awkward and testy. Yet health leaders have been queueing up to say that if there is any spare cash going, give it to the poor folks next door (provided they spend it on keeping people away from hospitals already bursting at the seams two months before winter pressures traditionally bite). Even the health and social care regulator, the Care Quality Commission, has bravely stood up and warned of a system almost at tipping point. Expectations are modest. While sector leaders say there must be a far bigger long-term settlement, for now they are looking realistically for renewal of the power English councils were given this year to add up to 2% to council tax bills for adult social care, ideally increasing that amount. They also want the extra funding, under the so-called Better Care Fund, already earmarked for the end of the decade brought forward to next year. That there has been no word on this from the Treasury, even obliquely from the usual sources, is worrying. In a reply last week to Sarah Wollaston, chair of the Commons health select committee – who had warned that NHS reforms would be undeliverable without urgent action to improve social care – the chancellor, Philip Hammond, said he recognised that conditions were challenging and would “continue to closely monitor the position”. Most observers still think he will find something for social care. But their faith in that extends little beyond rationalising that “he must, mustn’t he?”. Treasury officials are notoriously deaf to special pleading and, let us be frank, social care has done rather a lot of that over the years, not always very well. One problem is the sector’s apparent inability to make a unified case. Even now, various figures are put on the scale of the funding gap it faces, from the LGA’s £1.3bn (or is it £2.6bn?) to £1.6bn advanced by social services directors and £1.9bn put forward by three leading health thinktanks. While the size of a water bottle may be immaterial to a man dying of thirst, The Treasury expects precision and rigour in the cases it considers. Another problem is that the evidence of crisis isn’t entirely consistent. Even as care-home chains are privately warning ministers that up to a quarter of beds are at risk of closure, a leading property consultancy is reporting that profitability of homes is rising. Our Treasury friends will not have missed that. A key reason, paradoxically, is that closure of some homes – and overall capacity is falling – is increasing occupancy rates in the others. But if there should be nothing for social care in Hammond’s statement, or if there is too little to make much difference, the consequences can only be bad: bad for councils, which are braced for an onslaught of legal challenges as it becomes clear that they cannot fulfil their duties under the Care Act; bad for the NHS, as hospital beds fill this winter with older people who could and should be receiving care and support at home; and, above all, bad for anyone who cannot afford to pay for their own care and support. The distressing scenes of ill-treatment seen in BBC Panorama’s secret filming inside two Cornish care homes this week will only be repeated again and again as long as the care system remains underfunded, underskilled and undervalued by the rest of society.
Sting: 57th & 9th review – Wembley-sized plodding on his first rock album in years Named after the location of the Manhattan studio in which it was recorded, 57th & 9th is Sting’s first rock album in years. I Can’t Stop Thinking About You has the punchy chorus and driving bass of the Police circa 1980, while If You Can’t Love Me has an echo of the creepy narrator of Every Breath You Take. There’s a strong whiff of the 1980s, too, on the Wembley-sized plod of 50,000, a song about the absurdities of being an aged rock star: “Where did I put my spectacles case?” The start of Sting’s career is the subject of Heading South on the Great North Road, on which he is accompanied by a single acoustic guitar, a moment of respite from the album’s bluster. More cumbersome is Pretty Young Soldier, a tale of a military romance. On his song Inshallah, Sting sings about the refugee crisis and the Syrian civil war. Many readers might find that last sentence chilling – but the song is more mournful than preachy.
Can you tell that Paul, 58, has dementia? No one expects it in a fit, middle-aged man When her husband started becoming forgetful just after he turned 50, Elaine Eager joked that he had Alzheimer’s disease. However, four years later as his memory and speech problems steadily worsened, Paul was diagnosed with a rare form of dementia, and the jest turned out to be anything but. “It is very frightening and I feel very alone,” says Elaine. “I now have to do absolutely everything. The person I fell in love with stands in front of me looking exactly the same. Yet he’s not the same, it’s as if he’s becoming somebody else”. A former policeman, Paul, now 58, is physically fit and still enjoys walking the dog and cycling with his wife. They have taken part in a project for people with dementia run by Cycle Training UK, a not-for-profit cooperative. “It was fun, it got Paul out of the house and we met other couples in the same position as us,” says Elaine. Yet his dementia – classed as young-onset because it was diagnosed before the age of 65 – means that he will never work again. “He speaks gobbledegook,” says Elaine. She adds that he can no longer cook and she makes all his meals. She has had to give up full-time teaching, so the couple have taken a big financial hit. But the greatest impact has been on their 15-year-old daughter Niamh, who withdrew into herself and became angry with her father. “It was as if she blamed him for not being who he was. It is very hard. People don’t realise what it’s like with young-onset,” says Elaine. Although more than 40,000 people in the UK have early-onset dementia, awareness is limited, even within the care profession. Individuals who develop dementia relatively young often find it difficult to obtain a diagnosis and then have to face the interruption of mid-life plans, loss of earnings, lack of age-appropriate daycare facilities or residential homes, as well as the impact on spousal relationships and stigma. No one expects a middle-aged man who looks like Paul Eager to have dementia. But a project designed to teach care workers how best to support families such as the Eagers, hopes to change that. Run by Dementia Pathfinders, the Department of Health-funded project, called Approaching an Unthinkable Future, was launched 18 months ago with members of St George’s hospital’s young-onset support group in south London. What sets the project apart, says Barbara Stephens, Dementia Pathfinders’ chief executive, is its exclusive focus on those with young-onset dementia. In addition, people with dementia and their families helped to formulate the training days for care workers and played a crucial part in their implementation. Julia Burton-Jones, who specialises in working with family carers and people with dementia, heard that people living with the condition wanted to be recognised for their skills, to retain their independence for as long as possible and not to be pigeonholed because of their condition. The research was used to construct five two-day training courses attended by 45 paid carers from 14 care organisations. The courses were led by Sylvia Cowleard, a health and social care trainer experienced in dementia. After being given background on the causes, signs and symptoms of early-onset dementia, the care workers participated in interactive demonstrations (always with someone with dementia and sometimes also their spouse) and talks designed to reveal what it is like to live with the condition. Theodosios Paschalidis, a care worker with SweetTree Homecare Services, which provides domiciliary services in the London area, says the course made him realise that those with early-onset may be physically fit, but still need longer to get dressed, washed or make a meal: “It made me realise that certain tasks may take more time for people with early-onset and rushing them is not only inconsiderate but counterproductive.” Eddie Pink, whose wife Tina was diagnosed with a rare, genetic form of dementia when she was 35, contributed to the course. He looked after Tina in their flat for five years but when she became so violent that the mental health team talked of putting their son Christopher (then 13) on the ‘at risk’ register, Pink knew things had to change. In 2010, Tina was admitted to the Royal Hospital for Neurodisability. “It was quite an emotional day,” Pink says. “You think nobody can look after her better than you. I was trying to hold the family together – juggling keeping life normal for my little boy while looking after someone who needed my attention 100% of the time.” Pink’s participation in the course had a great impact on Paschalidis: “He was so willing to be open about his life; it helped us to empathise with what he had gone through. As carers we usually deal with one individual, not necessarily the whole family, but Eddie gave us the picture from the carer’s aspect, and it is part of our role to give family carers some respite.” On one of the courses, Jacquie Nunn, whose husband Tony was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s when he was 60, produced a poignant photograph of his attempt to bring her a cup of tea. On a tray are a bowl containing a couple of dry teabags, a spoon and a carton of milk. Tony’s once finely tuned mind (he was a criminal barrister) could get no further than assembling the components. Results from an unpublished evaluation of the training by Kingston University confirm that carers’ skills, knowledge and confidence were increased. SweetTree Homecare and the Good Care Group, which delivers home care services across England and Scotland, have both evaluated the course very positively and extended their care to include those with young-onset. A report based on the project has been distributed to public health departments throughout England. Stephens says there has been widespread interest from local authorities, clinical commissioning groups, voluntary organisations and private providers and it is offering the course to individual care workers in London, the Midlands and Wales. For Elaine Eager, the course has been a huge help. “It was really enjoyable. Paul and I both attended and were able to have a laugh together – those moments are very few and far between nowadays. The course also made us feel that we are not alone, and it was good to be able to contribute to improving the training of carers of people with young-onset dementia.” This article was amended on 19 February 2016 to remove the word ‘sufferers’ which was added in contravention of style
How Northern Ireland's abortion laws affect the way pupils are taught about sex Six teenage boys dressed in tracksuits are sitting in a classroom in a training centre in Coleraine, Northern Ireland. Lined up in front of them are bottles of Vimto and Mountain Dew energy drinks – and a number of colourful plastic penises. The boys, aged 17 and 18 and on a construction course, are having a condom relay as part of a sex education session. It’s a boisterous lesson – the boys crack non-stop jokes and laugh uproariously at each other’s quips. “This is the best class ever,” says one boy, gasping for air between gales of laughter. They play a game called “Who’s the Daddy?” where they all receive the results of a pregnancy test sealed in an envelope and are asked to consider what they would do in the event of a positive result. They are appropriately solemn as they peel open the envelope. “I’d try my best to explain it to my mum, then I’d run out of the house crying,” says one. Others coo over the idea of having their own baby. Not one of them would consider having an abortion. “That’s sick, because ... that’s a child,” says one, and they all agree. They know it’s not legal in Northern Ireland, and not one of them is in favour of legalising it. The young men in Coleraine are fortunate. Thanks to the sexual health charity Brook, which provides community-based sex education for young people in the province, they have had three half-day sessions to talk openly and honestly about every aspect of relationships and sex – including abortion – which is highly controversial in this part of the UK. During this particular session, they have handed around 15 different types of contraception, discussing the pros and cons of each; they have squirmed in front of graphic pictures of every sexually transmitted infection (STI) known to humankind, as well as having considered the consequences of an unplanned pregnancy. Relationships and sexuality education (RSE) is compulsory in schools in Northern Ireland, but – as in England where it is not compulsory – some schools do it better than others. What makes Northern Ireland different is that the restrictive laws on abortion and the conservative, faith-based approach in many schools make it difficult for teenagers to openly discuss issues around sex, relationships, sexuality, contraception and abortion. “Young people know when they are not being given the full picture in terms of sexual health but like any other issue it only becomes important to them when they find themselves needing help and advice,” says Mary Crawford, director of Brook NI which used to be regularly picketed by anti-abortion campaigners. More generally, Crawford says, sex education in Northern Ireland is different from elsewhere in the UK because “the moral, conservative nature of our political, educational and social mores does not allow for open discussion on a number of issues, including abortion, homosexuality or pleasure. “The result of this means our young people are disadvantaged in terms of being able to make informed choices when they may be feeling most vulnerable,” she adds. Fiona Johnston is an outreach worker for Brook who previously worked in the Coleraine training centre where she now delivers sex education. There used to be a familiar pattern of pregnancies among the students – the girls would start their course in September and they’d be pregnant by Christmas, she says. One year, in a class of 21 trainee hairdressers, seven were pregnant within a matter of months, with only two completing the two-year course without getting pregnant. “All of them kept their babies and they never returned to education. Most of them are still stay-at-home mums,” says Johnston. The teenage pregnancy rate is going down in Northern Ireland, as it is elsewhere in the UK (839 pregnancies in 2014, compared with 1,524 in 2001) but there is still ignorance. One girl, Johnston says, didn’t know whether ovaries were male or female organs; another didn’t know that men ejaculate. “It’s supposed to be taught in schools,” she says, “but it’s done around the ethos of the school. If it’s a church school that doesn’t believe in contraception, they won’t teach it.” Love for Life, a Christian charity, is the biggest external provider of sex education in Northern Ireland’s schools. Last year more than 30,000 young people in both primary and secondary schools received a Love for Life programme, which is intended to support the curriculum already taught in schools. The recently sat in on a two-hour session in a boys’ grammar school in Belfast. Unlike the Brook approach, which focuses on smaller groups, the Love for Life programme was delivered to more than 100 boys aged 14 and 15 sitting in the school hall, by two programme leaders armed with microphones and a white screen. The session is called Icebergs and Babies – icebergs, it turns out, refers to STIs – and it explores relationships and sex through two cartoon teenagers called Oscar and Martha. It’s approaching the end of the school day, but the boys are brilliantly attentive, even when members of the rugby team have to shuffle out early for a match. They are invited to ask questions and they bravely contribute throughout, but the hall is too big and the numbers too great for any real honesty. The presentation is lively and slick. We hear about the laws surrounding sexting and the sexualisation of society; about the pressure on young people to have sex; about choice and virginity; how the media unfairly portrays virgins as “geeks and freaks” and how you can get pregnant without having full penetrative sex if there is “skin to skin contact in the genital area”. “What about gay sex?” one boy asks unexpectedly. “There’s no chance of pregnancy,” the programme leader responds quickly, but no real discussion follows. Then it’s on to STIs and contraception, but it’s nowhere near as comprehensive as Brook, although the pupils are younger. And the issue of faith keeps popping up. “There are lots of ways to reduce the risks of pregnancy and STIs,” the presenter tells the boys, adding, “If you follow a faith, that might have something to say to you about these things.” Later, the issue of abortion is raised in the event of an unplanned pregnancy. “Obviously it’s illegal in this country and would involve a journey across the water, which would have financial implications,” the presenter says, before turning once again to faith, religion, morals and what your family might teach you. “Faith-based RSE is moralistic,” says Mark Breslin, director of the NI Family Planning Association. “It’s not our job to tell a young person what to think. It has to be an open, honest discussion. People talk about RSE being about young people having morals or values, but whose? It’s about giving a young person the opportunity to make an informed choice.” The Coleraine boys have enjoyed the Brook sessions. At the end of the morning they grab their high-energy drinks and a few sample condoms and proceed to peel them out of their packets and on to the handlebars of the nearest parked moped, gigging all the while.
The Conjuring 2 review: devil's in the detail as horror sequel ramps up scares The Conjuring, released in the summer of 2013, was a rare beast: a retro horror exercise that performed like a blockbuster (earning well over $100m in the US) and was also beloved by critics. In essence, it was the first genre pic of its kind since The Sixth Sense to receive such adulation and fuel intense curiosity. With the inevitable sequel, returning director James Wan more or less repeats himself, but that alone is no small feat. Like its predecessor, it’s exceedingly well crafted, relentlessly terrifying and boasts characters you actually root for. Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga build on the charming chemistry they had in the original as real-life paranormal investigators and married couple Ed and Lorraine Warren. Wan puts them through the wringer during a nerve-shredding opening sequence that sees the pair investigate the infamous Amityville haunting of 1976 (itself the subject for numerous horror films). Lorraine, profoundly spooked after encountering a demonic nurse and envisioning the gruesome death of her husband during a séance at the Amityville home, vows to give her day job a rest. “This is the closest to hell as I ever want to get,” she says, crying to Ed. A year later, they’re forced back into the limelight after the Church recruits them to head to London to suss out another haunting, referred to by a priest as “England’s Amityville”. Before the duo arrive, Wan spends ample time with the British, working-class family being plagued by a very angry demon, to root you in their plight. Frances O’Connor, as the clan’s single mother who’s unsure of how to protect her family from the increasingly violent bumps in the night, is quietly heartbreaking. The four actors playing her children are equally compelling, with Madison Wolfe, playing 11-year-old Janet, the clear standout. As the child to receive the brunt of the demonic abuse, Wolfe registers fear more palpably that most scream queens twice her age. By the time Ed and Lorraine show up, the strange occurrences have caused a media circus and led many to question whether the whole thing is a hoax put on by Janet. Run Lola Run’s Franka Potente is all sassy eye-rolls as a dubious sceptic out to make an example of the family. In a film that’s chock-full of dread (Wan wrings great use of out of every dark corner captured by cinematographer Don Burgess’s roving camera), it’s the smaller, personal touches that go a long way to making every scream count. When Ed sits the distraught family down for an Elvis sing-a-long to calm everyone’s nerves, you half expect Wan to cut it short with a gotcha jump-scare – because typically, that’s what these films do. But Wan is too talented a film-maker to cheapen the moment. He’s invested in the inner lives of every character. So when the horror hits, it cuts close to the bone. • The Conjuring 2 opens on 10 June in the US and on 17 in the UK
Qatar Islamic Bank UK fined £1.4m by PRA The UK arm of Qatar Islamic Bank has been fined £1.4m by the Bank of England for significant failings which left it undercapitalised and exposed to too high a level of risk. The business – which specialises in sharia-compliant property financing – had failed to realise that more than 25% of its capital had been lent to a single group of borrowers, said the Bank of England’s regulatory arm, the Prudential Regulation Authority. “When this group entered administration, the firm had to provision for the full amount outstanding, which had the effect of removing over 25% of its capital base and leaving the firm dangerously undercapitalised. This issue was only resolved by the firm’s shareholder quickly injecting further capital into the firm,” the PRA said. The situation dates back to the period between 30 June 2011 and 31 December 2012. QIB (UK) Plc would have been fined almost £2m if it had not agreed to settle with the regulator at the earliest opportunity. The PRA said that since then the operation had been restructured and a new board was now in place. “The firm has also, since December 2012, committed resource to matters of governance, capital monitoring and reporting systems and controls to mitigate the risk of similar breaches occurring again,” the PRA said. Before then, the operation had failed to recognise that it had to comply with regulatory requirements relating to the assessment and maintenance of financial resources and capital. Guy Priestley, acting chief executive of QIB (UK), said the fine would not affect the operations of the business. “It was clearly very unfortunate and we just want to move forward now,” said Priestley. QIB (UK) is only the fourth firm to be fined by the PRA; most of the fines in the City are levied by the Financial Conduct Authority. Andrew Bailey, who will become chief executive of the FCA in July but is currently chief executive of the PRA, said: “In failing to assess, maintain and report on its financial resources for over a year, QIB failed to meet some of the most basic regulatory standards. It is essential that regulated firms are aware of, and have the systems in place to ensure adherence to, regulatory requirements. QIB’s failures in this regard were serious, which is why we considered it appropriate in this case to impose a fine.”
Festival watch: Caught By the River Thames – review The vibe Not just boutique but super-bijou, this minuscule, highly chilled two-day urban festival in the grounds of Fulham Palace set out to combine nature, literature, poetry, psychogeography, silent film screenings, a genuinely eclectic musical lineup and global eats in a park setting near the river: a hip village fete, really. The sun deigned to show its face, and the craft beer, mead and heinously over-priced Pimm’s flowed freely. The crowd Music lovers of a certain vintage, young couples toting babies, a smattering of curious locals (residents could get a 2-for-1 deal), a scattering of jazzbos there for Ethiopian legend Mulatu Astatke, Super Furry Animals fans. It was the sort of festival where the talent had to patronise the same food vans as the crowd, so you could say “merci” in person to Imarhan, the Tuareg rockers, as they got their rotis. Best act A tie between the two headliners, Low and Super Furry Animals. Low remain a wonder – a spell-binding, slow-burn three-piece who combined existential doom (The Innocents) and tenderness (What Part of Me) as dusk fell. SFA’s newest song, Bing Bong, was adopted as the official song of the Welsh football team and roused the blanket-sitters to their feet, while Gruff Rhys held up signs at intervals – “Louder”, said one, “Go apeshit”, said another. Instead of an encore, they reprised The Man Don’t Give a Fuck in yeti costumes. And the worst… Not so much the worst as the most disappointing, Kate Tempest was in conversation with our own Miranda Sawyer, and space in the small room far outstripped demand. Best discovery The Be collective playing their album One on the Saturday involved classical and drone-rock musicians playing along to the sampled buzzing of a Nottinghamshire beehive. Unexpectedly moving. Best dressed Friends of the Earth volunteers sweltered in bee costumes, highlighting the plight of the pollinators. Overheard “There’s a PokéStop on the fir-cone sculpture near the first aid tent!” Best Tweet Pete Fowler, Super Furry Animals artist‑in-residence:
Scottish NHS failing to keep up with rising demand, says watchdog Scotland’s NHS faces massive cuts as the health service fails to keep pace with increasing demand, rising costs and the needs of an ageing population, according to the public finances watchdog. The damning report from Audit Scotland warns that some NHS boards may not be able to balance their books next year, and reveals that the service met only one of its eight key waiting time targets last year. But Nicola Sturgeon insisted the health service was performing better against tougher targets, and that there was “nothing unique about the challenges facing the NHS in Scotland”, with the performance of accident and emergency departments 8% higher than those in England and Wales. She told the Holyrood chamber during first minister’s questions: “There is now more than £3bn extra investment in the health service compared to the time we took office. There are 11,000 more medical professionals working in our health service. That’s why Audit Scotland says today that staffing levels are at an all-time high.” During a bruising session, Sturgeon was challenged by the Scottish Conservative leader, Ruth Davidson, about her government’s “outrageous” failure to get a grip on the NHS, while Scottish Labour’s Kezia Dugdale presented individual illustrations of what she described as the “human cost of a decade of SNP mismanagement”. The criticism of government ministers for failing to outline a coherent vision for the healthcare system was echoed by the director of the Royal College of Nursing Scotland, Theresa Fyffe, who said health boards trying to make savings “often find themselves caught in the crossfire of political and public opinion”. She called for a “decisive response” from the health secretary, Shona Robison. “Clarity is needed from government on how they will support health boards to deliver the changes needed, and also how all the various health strategies and reforms currently under way will be delivered coherently across Scotland. All politicians need to set aside their differences and work together in order to get this right.” Audit Scotland reports that the country’s 14 health boards made total savings of £291m last year, which left some needing to use short-term measures to break even. It forecast that the figure would nearly double to £492m in the current financial year. The report says there is a “need for NHS boards to make unprecedented levels of savings in 2016-17, and a risk that some will not achieve financial balance”. The total health budget in 2015-16 was £12.2bn. Although this increased by 2.7% in real terms from the previous year, major expenses have risen more sharply, with staff costs increasing by 6.4% and pension costs up by 18.6% in the past six years. Failure to keep pace with rising demand and costs strengthened the case for changing the way services are delivered, according to the auditor general for Scotland. Caroline Gardner said: “The Scottish government has had a policy to shift the balance of care for over a decade but, despite multiple strategies for reform, NHS funding has not changed course. “Before that shift can occur, there needs to be a clear and detailed plan for change, setting out what the future of the NHS looks like, what it will cost to deliver and the workforce numbers and skills needed to make it a reality.” The report also highlighted increasing spending by boards on costly agency workers because of significant problems with recruitment and retention of staff, as well as a lack of workforce planning for new models of care to deliver more community-based services. It gave one example of some agency doctors earning £400,000 for less than a year’s work. The health secretary insisted the Scottish government had made “significant improvements” and had a strategy to change the way services are delivered. Robison told BBC Radio Scotland the report presented “a very fair and balanced view, confirming that we have record levels of investment and acknowledging that our NHS performs very well compared to the rest of the UK”. A report for the General Medical Council, also published on Thursday morning, warned that poor morale among doctors could put patients at risk. The regulator said there was “a state of unease within the medical profession across the UK that risks affecting patients as well as doctors”. In its annual report into the state of medical education and practice in the UK, the GMC also noted that after the anger and frustration in the dispute between junior doctors and the Department of Health, levels of alienation “should cause everyone to pause and reflect”.
Newcastle United v Manchester United: Premier League – as it happened And here’s Louise Taylor’s match report: And that’s that. Boring, boring Louis van Gaal, huh. What a game of football. A couple of gorgeous team goals, a couple of old-school blooters, a couple of controversial penalty decisions, a couple of clear-cut chances missed at both ends. A draw’s probably a fair result on a memorable evening at St James Park. Wonderful entertainment, a game of glorious imperfection. And it’d be nice to think that, on the day he was remembered, Pavel Srníček was hanging around on a star somewhere, watching all the fun unfold. 90 min +3: Darmian and Toney tussle on the edge of the Newcastle box. The pair go down. The home crowd scream for a penalty kick, but that’s not going to be given. 90 min +2: Perez is replaced by De Jong, whose first act is to clank a clearing header upfield, Manchester United having swung a free kick into the area from the left. 90 min +1: There will be four added minutes. If only there could be an extra 44. The ball’s slung into the Manchester United area down the right. Smalling, at the far post, heads clear. The ball falls to Dummett, to the left of the D. The left-back blooters a rising effort towards the top left. The ball spins off Smalling, who is trying to close the shot down, and arrows into the corner. What a game this has been! 89 min: Toney is dispossessed by Martial, 25 yards from his own goal. Martial makes for the area, then slides Rooney in on the left. He should get a hat-trick shot away, but overruns the pass and the ball goes out of play. What a mistake, because ... 87 min: Now Rooney does his bit in the centre of the park, breaking up play and eventually drawing a foul from Coloccini. The clock is not Newcastle’s friend. With this very much in mind, Rooney stays on the turf awhile with his face pressed into the grass. 85 min: Tiote is replaced by Toney. Here’s Jurjen Boorsma, a long time AZ Alkmaar supporter: “In 07/08 with AZ, Van Gaal didn’t win 16 matches in a row, just evaded relegation. In 08/09 AZ lost only the first two matches and became Dutch champion. Mancunians, be patient, trust Louis!” 84 min: Well, this should be all over. Memphis, who has been lively since coming on, zips down the left and whips a medium-height cross into the Newcastle box. The home side are light at the back, and Fellaini is coming in to meet the centre with his head. But he blasts his header straight at Elliot when he surely had to put the result beyond doubt. 82 min: Newcastle are pinging it around the middle of the park with great intensity, but Manchester United have dropped deep, and there’s no space to take advantage of. 80 min: Newcastle withdraw Colback in favour of Gouffran. Memphis cuts in from the left, makes a little space, and fires a low shot goalwards. It’s blocked by a sliding Mbemba, a fine tackle, but the ball breaks off a startled Dummett to Rooney on the right-hand edge of the D. Rooney sends an unstoppable screamer into the top left. Yet another stunning goal. The finish of the evening. 77 min: Mitrovic dribbles into the Manchester United box from the right, capitalising on a mistake from Blind. He makes some space to shoot, but shanks a hopeless effort miles left of the target. 76 min: Coloccini and Fellaini crash into a 50-50 sliding tackle in the centre circle. It has no bearing on anything whatsoever, but it was a lot of old-school fun. A suggestion that Fellaini might have had a cheeky wee kick at his opponent as the Newcastle man made off with the ball, but a second yellow would have been harsh for that. 75 min: A second change by Manchester United. Herrera - who as ever has been busy and impressive - is replaced by Mata. 73 min: Wijnaldum has been excellent tonight. He makes space down the left but his curler into the box is a wee bit too long for Mitrovic. Then there’s an opportunity for Perez to shoot, 20 yards out, just to the left of centre. He gets an effort on target, but it’s weak and straight at De Gea. 70 min: A free-form melee in the middle of the Manchester United box. Mitrovic and Wijnaldum get in each other’s way from six yards. The visitors are all over the shop right now. Can Newcastle complete a remarkable turnaround while they’ve got the upper hand? 68 min: Darmian plays an awful challenge across the Manchester United back line to Sissoko, who slips Wijnaldum free into the area down the left. Wijnaldum hammers an unstoppable shot past De Gea, but he was miles offside, and the goal’s quite rightly disallowed. This is simply wonderful entertainment, though: seconds before that incident, up the other end, Manchester United had launched a free kick into the home box from the left, causing all manner of bother. From a Newcastle corner on the right, the referee points to the spot. It’s a no-brainer, because Smalling was wrestling Mitrovic to the floor in the sumo style. The defender is booked, and the striker gets up to slot the penalty kick home, into the bottom-right corner. I hope Lingard is sitting quite a long way away from his manager on the bench. 65 min: Van Gaal, beside himself with annoyance at Lingard’s miss, hooks the player. Memphis comes on in his wake. 63 min: This is brilliant end-to-end fare. Colback is sent scampering into the Manchester United area down the right, after a lovely clipped pass from Perez. He should shoot, but opts to go down looking for a penalty, with Fellaini on his shoulder. But for once, Fellaini hasn’t been acting the big galoot this evening. No contact. Why didn’t Colback shoot? 62 min: Rooney bears down on the Newcastle box, romping along the inside-left channel. One last shimmy and he’ll be clear on goal, but Coloccini stops him on the edge of the area. Fine defending. 60 min: Incidentally, as Newcastle toil for the equaliser, their fans have been fighting the good fight. #SportsDirectShame 58 min: Corner for Newcastle on the left. Perez takes, but Fellaini wins the header. Boom. But Newcastle come back at Manchester United, and Sissoko wins anothre corner, this time on the right. From which nothing occurs. A terrible waste, but that was some decent pressure from the home side. 56 min: Manchester United should have restored their two-goal cushion. Martial makes a fool of Mbemba as he tears down the inside-right channel and into the box. He slides a pass inside for Herrera, who plays a clever first-time blind pass behind him, shuttling the ball on to Lingard, who’s set free on the penalty spot! He has to score, but over-elaborates, leaning back and looking for a fancy curler into the top right. It’s high and wide. On the bench, Louis van Gaal nearly self-combusts in anger. You’d pay cash money to be in their dressing room after the game if they don’t win this. 54 min: Newcastle are playing with an impressive urgency right now. Janmaat, Sissoko and Wijnaldum triangulating well down the right, the latter falling over by the D just as it looked as though he was going to break into the box. This game is far from over. “Not to go against the narrative in the media and the experts on online footy forums, but I’m certain history will treat Louis Van Gaal and his time at Man United well,” opines Peter Ferry. “Of course we have to sit through his cautious possession-based mid tempo turge but he’ll be the one who stabilised the club in the post-Fergie panic and steered Man United into the Giggs era. Probably.” 52 min: Sissoko twists and turns round Young, just inside the Manchester United box down the left. He reaches the left-hand corner of the six-yard area, and should score, but blasts his shot straight at De Gea. The teams should be level. From the corner, Janmaat tries to beat the keeper from 40 yards. Hmm hmm hmm. 49 min: A fairly quiet start to this half otherwise, though. 47 min: A long ball down the Newcastle left, and Wijnaldum is very close to breaking into the box. But Smalling comes across quickly to hook the ball out of play, and Manchester United snuff out the resulting attacking throw. “So does the sudden burst of exciting footer mean Van Gaal is a genius again?” wonders Ian Copestake, who seems to be under the impression that the media is fickle. Eh? What? Ian! No! Manchester United get the ball rolling for the second half, and launch it long. Fellaini heads down. The ball’s shuttled back. Then Smalling hoicks it forward. Herrera was chasing after it down the inside-left channel, but there’s too much juice on the ball and Elliot is out to claim. Half-time entertainment: A football song from Newcastle United and Manchester United’s annus mirabilis of 1996. And that’s that for a stupendously entertaining first half containing just about everything. A controversial penalty that was given, a controversial penalty that wasn’t given, a couple of egregious misses, and two wonderful goals. More of this, please! 45 min +2: Blind hits long. Smalling heads down at the far post, but Mbemba’s not wafting his arms around this time. The danger’s over. 45 min +1: There will be two added minutes. In the first, Martial picks up the ball on the right, and powers towards Dummett. He cuts inside, and his low shot only just flies to the right of the post. There’s a deflection off Dummett’s heel. That’ll be a corner. From which ... 44 min: A marvellous atmosphere at St James Park. And no wonder. These two teams are putting on quite a show. This is a wonderful match. Newcastle have something before half-time! Coloccini, deep on the left, hits a diagonal long ball towards Mitrovic in the Manchester United box. Mitrovic beats Fellaini to the header, cushioning it down to Wijnaldum on the penalty spot. Wijnaldum meets it first time, and steers a delightful effort into the bottom right. You don’t stop that! Another picture-book goal! 40 min: Newcastle need something before half-time, you’d think. An attack down the left is going nowhere, but Mitrovic causes a bit of bother, and Manchester United fail to clear properly. The ball breaks to Coloccini, 30 yards out in a central position. The centre-back cocks his leg back, then snap-cracks a superlative rising drive that only just flies wide and high of the top-left corner. A brilliant attempt! Oh this is a marvellous goal. Newcastle are on the attack, but Herrera picks up a loose ball in the middle of his own half. He slides a pass down the inside-left channel for Rooney, who trundles towards the area. Rooney’s held up as he enters the box, but keeps possession, and keeps his head too. He dinks a delicious reverse pass towards Lingard, romping up the pitch on his outside. From a tight position on the left, Lingard takes a touch and rolls a confident finish past Elliot. 37 min: Darmian tries his luck from the best part of 30 yards out on the left. Nope! 35 min: Tiote is quite rightly booked for an agricultural hoof on the back of Herrera’s leg. The ref’s in the thick of it tonight all right. Additionally, in the build-up to that non-penalty decision, Colback was tugged back by Fellaini, who has already committed 543 fouls and is on a booking. Plenty to talk about, huh. 32 min: Janmaat drives into the Manchester United area from the right, chasing a loose ball. He’s clipped on the back of the legs by Lingard, a clumsy tackle, and goes to ground before he can take a shot on goal. It should be a penalty kick, but Mike Dean isn’t giving it. That’s a dreadful decision. 30 min: That’s woken Newcastle up, though. Wijnaldum twists and turns down the left. He’s upended by Herrera near the penalty box, though it’s Smalling who goes in the book for the foul. The set piece is hit towards Coloccini at the far post, but De Gea punches clear of bother. This is a pretty entertaining affair, if not a match of the highest quality. But so what? All good fun. 28 min: What a chance II! And the home side should be level. Wijnaldum and Perez exchange passes down the inside-right channel. It’s a crisp one-two, and the simple play opens Manchester United up totally. Wijnaldum is free on the penalty spot! He’s got to score! But he batters a low shot straight at De Gea, who parries powerfully clear of goal. 27 min: Herrera slides a pass down the inside-left channel to release Rooney into space. He’s one on one with Elliot! He should score, but in going for the shot across the keeper into the bottom right, sends the ball wide of the post. What a chance! 25 min: Herrera finds space down the right and fires a low ball across the face of goal. The ball brushes Coloccini’s trouser arrangement, and goes out of play for a corner on the left. The set piece is hit deep. Fellaini finds the ball at his feet, and tries a shot. It’s blocked by a sliding Dummett, who accidentally traps the ball with his armpit while facing the other way. No penalty. Fellaini shoves him in the back as he tries to spring up and clear. He finally goes in the book, for not very much it should be said. The totting-up procedure, no doubt. 23 min: Colback hoicks long into the Manchester United box. Fellaini rises to batter a header clear. Tiote tries to get the move going again with a delicate chip. It’s not so delicate. Goal kick. 21 min: Colback breaks down the middle of the park, looking for a bit of space that’s opened up ahead of him. Fellaini sticks a leg out, and should be booked for obstructing his man. But the referee opts for a ticking off instead. That’s not gone down well with the home crowd, especially in the wake of the penalty. Lucky Marouane. 18 min: Martial skins Dummett down the right, and tries to find Rooney with a low cross to the near post. There’s too much pace on the ball, and Rooney can’t react. Then Martial takes the full-back on again, with more success. His resulting pull back is intercepted by the telescopic leg of Mbemba, who blasts clear. 16 min: It’s all Manchester United now. Newcastle, who had more than 70% possession before the penalty, now can’t get a sniff. “SuperSport in South Africa shows snippets of classic Manchester United matches, and they’ve got one of the 2-1 victory over Chelsea that more or less clinched the 19th league,” reports Thabo Mokaleng. “My favorite thing about the clip is seeing the sheer delight on Sir Alex Ferguson’s face as he lives and dies every single moment of that game. Contrast that with our rigidly stone-faced philosopher and his infamous file folio thingy.” 14 min: That’s taken the wind out of Newcastle’s sails. The home team had started well. Young has embarked on another skitter down the right, and once again it requires Sissoko to hack clear with the defence all over the shop and red shirts swarming around. Newcastle need to clear their heads. They’ve let that penalty decision get to them. 11 min: That’s going to be a controversial decision. Mbebma was as close as you like to Fellaini, so that’s a harsh decision from his point of view. But he did go in to challenge the header with Fellaini with his arm out, so in that respect was asking for trouble. On BT Sport, Howard Webb backs referee Mike Dean’s decision: the extended arm, you see. Newcastle aren’t happy, though. ... the corner’s hit deep. Fellaini goes up to head by the far post. His header hits the left arm of Mbemba who is standing right next to him. Mbemba’s arm is extended away from his body, and though he’s got no space to react, that’s a hand ball. Rooney steps up to slot the penalty kick into the bottom right. 8 min: Young earns himself a bit of space down the right. He whips a cross into the six-yard box, with Rooney and Martial lurking. Sissoko reads the danger well to step in between them and head clear. Then another Manchester United attack, Darmian making bother down the right to win a corner. From which... 6 min: Fellaini tries to rugby-tackle Perez, 40 yards from the Manchester United goal, the Newcastle man making good down the middle of the pitch. A chance for the home side to load the box. Perez launches it long, and Fellaini heads clear. A strange, albeit slightly ugly, symmetry to that period of play. 4 min: Manchester United haven’t seen much of the ball yet. Newcastle have been happy to stroke it around the back, with the visitors more than content to let them do it. That corner apart, it’s been quite a quiet start. 2 min: Sissoko has started off in a very busy fashion. His hard work down the right earns the first corner of the match. It’s the first wasted corner of the match, too, overhit, with Coloccini unable to rescue the ball on the left-hand corner of the box. Manchester United clear easily. Newcastle get the ball rolling. They tap it around awhile. Sissoko attempts to break down the right, but is cynically tugged back by Fellaini. The resulting free kick, taken in the middle of the park, comes to nothing. The teams are out! Newcastle United are in their famous black-and-white stripes, while Manchester United wear their own storied first-choice red shirts. A blast of Blaydon Races, and the theme to the greatest movie ever made, Local Hero. And how apt is the title of that music, for it’s time for St James Park to pay their respects to Srníček. A minute’s applause, which should begin on the referee’s whistle, but starts well before it, so eager are the fans to celebrate their former favourite’s life. Time for a little song, too. 🎼 ♫ Pavel is a Geordie, Pavel is a Geordie ♪♫ Pavel is a Geordie. A moment to remember former Newcastle keeper Pavel Srníček, who played in both of those tumultuous games against Manchester United in 1996. Srníček sadly passed away a fortnight ago, and tonight, at Newcastle’s first home game since the awful news broke, everyone in St James Park will pay tribute with a minute’s applause before kick-off. He’s also on the front of the match programme, and on the back of the team’s training tops, his image surrounded by the legend “Pavel is a Geordie”. He was certainly that, as his former team-mate Steve Harper has just told BT Sport. Harper flew to the Czech Republic last week for the funeral, and was clearly very emotional as he paid his own very moving tribute: “Pav was a huge influence on me early in my career, and I’d have travelled anywhere in the world to pay my respects to him. It’s been a very emotional few days.” Harper goes on to speak very warmly of his friend, who took him under his wing as a young professional. “He wasn’t just a top goalkeeper, he was a great man. Pav got the club, got the city, got the people. But they also got him, and you’ll see a fitting tribute to him tonight.” Steve McClaren speaks! And he looks fairly relaxed too, for a chap who has presided over four straight 1-0 defeats. “We’ve been very close but far away in terms of results. We have to maintain what we’re doing in defence, staying fairly tight, but start taking our chances. I’m sure one day, or one night, we will, and I hope it’s tonight. This is the same team we put out against Arsenal, and we played well at the Emirates, so we’d like to do the same again. I think tonight it’s very important to play football. We kept the ball, we kept possession. If we let United dominate, we’re in trouble.” Louis van Gaal - laconic but laid-back - speaks! And he’s asked whether he’s looking for a bit more creativity and verve. Cue highly amused smile. “Also. Not only that, but also.” Then to team matters. “Juan Mata has played all the games, so he needed a rest. But I like speed on the wings, so I have chosen Herrera.” It’s then pointed out to him that he’s one win away from the Champions League spots. Another highly amused grin plays across his face. “It’s a crazy football world, huh? But first we have to win, and that’s not so easy, as you know.” And with that, he’s off. In and out quickly. A very chipper interview, too. In fact, everyone involved with Manchester United looks pretty relaxed this evening, with Wayne Rooney and Daley Blind particularly smiley as they trot out for their pre-game stretches. Penny for Newcastle’s thoughts: aren’t their opponents supposed to be under all sorts of pressure? It’s almost as if it’s a media confection. There’s one change to the Newcastle starting XI that lost at Watford in the third round of the FA Cup: Kevin Mbabu makes way for Jack Colback. Meanwhile Manchester United make three changes to the team sent out to kick things off against Sheffield United last weekend: Cameron Borthwick-Jackson, Juan Mata and Bastian Schweinsteiger are replaced by Ashley Young, Morgan Schneiderlin and Jesse Lingard. Newcastle United: Elliot, Janmaat, Mbemba, Coloccini, Dummett, Tiote, Colback, Sissoko, Wijnaldum, Perez, Mitrovic. Subs: De Jong, Gouffran, Lascelles, Darlow, Marveaux, Toney, Sterry. Manchester United: De Gea, Young, Smalling, Blind, Darmian, Fellaini, Schneiderlin, Lingard, Ander Herrera, Martial, Rooney. Subs: Depay, Mata, Romero, McNair, Borthwick-Jackson, Andreas Pereira, Weir. Referee: Mike Dean (Wirral). Twenty years ago, Manchester United came to St James’ Park and executed a perfect smash and grab. It was a two-man show: Peter Schmeichel stood up to relentless Newcastle United pressure, then Eric Cantona made off with the jewels. The resolute performance effectively won the title for Alex Ferguson’s side. Also in 1996 at SJP: Newcastle exact a modicum of revenge the following season with a 5-0 shellacking, David Ginola, Alan Shearer, Philippe Albert’s floated chip, all that. It was a very good year. Twenty years on, things aren’t quite as rosy for the Uniteds of Newcastle and Manchester. They were the most exciting sides in the land back then. Now? Not so much. And it’s difficult to know what we’re going to get from either team this evening. Newcastle registered highly impressive back-to-back victories over Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur in December. Since then, they’ve lost four of five matches played, and even worse, failed to beat Aston Villa in the other one. Manchester United meanwhile are unbeaten in three, and are coming off back-to-back wins over Swansea City and Sheffield United. But those victories broke a sequence of eight games without a win, while the side suffered the indignity of being cheered ironically by their own fans against the Blades the other night when they finally got round to taking a couple of shots on goal. For reasons various, neither club represents the happiest of camps. Steve McClaren, his team currently in the relegation mire, is desperate for a victory. Louis van Gaal could do with the three points too, though with an agitated fanbase in mind, a bigger priority might be for his team to simply show a positive mindset and string together a few attractive attacks, whatever the outcome. Newcastle will go into a crucial match arguing that they’ve been playing better than four 1-0 defeats in a row suggests, and are capable of beating a team who have lost their last three on the road. Manchester United meanwhile can take succour from their last three visits here: heading backwards, they’ve won 1-0, 4-0 and 3-0. So good luck calling what promises to be a fascinating and potentially very exciting game. These teams aren’t quite at their 1996 levels, no, but how many of us are? Games between Newcastle United and Manchester United are rarely boring. It’s on! Kick off: 7.45pm GMT.
Decoding the mystery of athletes who support Donald Trump When Latrell Sprewell joined Twitter a month ago, few beyond the circle of the former NBA player’s closest fans noticed. Sprewell was a fixture in the NBA for much of the Clinton-Bush years; by the end of his career he’d been named an All-Star four times. But a succession of off-court incidents and practice session bust-ups, most notably when he choked and threatened to kill Golden State Warriors coach PJ Carlesimo in 1997, soon saw the shooting guard branded a liability. In 2004 he rejected a three-year, $21m contract extension offer from the Minnesota Timberwolves, famously claiming this would not be enough for him to feed his family; this outburst secured his ass hat legend, and he never played again. Sprewell’s post-playing life began in similarly controversial fashion – an assault allegation here, a yacht foreclosure there – but for much of the past decade he’s been a virtual recluse. His reemergence on Twitter came as a shock. It quickly became clear why Sprewell had joined Twitter: his teenage son had asked him to, mainly, it seemed, so Sprewell could make introductions to famous former athletes. But in early February, among the pleading, slightly pathetic, and mostly ignored tweets at better-known celebrities, Sprewell dropped a small bomb: he came out in support of Donald Trump. Why would a black athlete support Donald Trump? Sure, the Republican frontrunner has never explicitly expressed negative or racist sentiments about the African American population; his mouth has been too busy training its fleshy rage on Muslims and Mexicans. But the rap sheet of his crimes against diversity hardly needs much of a recap: he’s a noted bigot; he’s acquiesced, however you paint recent disavowals, to the support of David Duke, the former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan; he’s stoked the passions of the mob to get a string of Black Lives Matter protesters kicked out of his rallies; the Confederate flag is a fixture at Trump events. On the face of it, Sprewell’s Trump-love is a mystery. Sprewell is not alone among figures in the sports world, of course. Mike Ditka, John Daly, Tom Brady, Peter Pekar, Clay Buchholz, Chris Weidman, Dana White, and Matt Light have all declared their support for Trump, it’s true. But they’re all white, and besides, guys like Ditka, Daly and Brady are members of the meathead demographic you’d expect someone like Trump to speak to. On the other hand, plenty of prominent black sporting personalities, including Charles Barkley, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Ryan Harris, have merrily slammed Trump in public. But out of that group has also emerged a small but noisy camp of Trumpvocates: Dennis Rodman, Mike Tyson, Shawne Merriman, Herschel Walker, Terrell Owens. And now Sprewell. Why would members of a minority throw their lot in with a candidate for whom the ostracization of minorities is a key campaign promise? Is this the product of a political system that has failed the black population – a population for whom voting rights remain contested political territory, even a half-century after the advances of the civil rights era? Are we witnessing, here, a celebrity microcosm among black athletes of the post-Eric Garner rejection of American business as usual? Or is it nothing to do with race at all? Is it simply that celebrities are weird? Could this outbreak of Trump-love reflect a country divided by tax brackets, the identification of the wealthy with themselves? It could be all these things; it could be none of them. But listen to what the celebrity Trumpvocates are saying and a different explanation suggests itself: Trump’s popularity reflects little more than the narcissism of the endorsers themselves. This holds for all groups of the celebrity spectrum equally: black athlete, non-black athlete, black entertainer, non-black entertainer. Trump, as a candidate, is a magnet for all the vanities – and there are few greater than those of Celebrity America. Plenty of work has been done to figure out the segments of the voting population from which Trump draws his base. Trump’s supporters, we’ve been told, skew male, white and poor; they’re not college-educated; they feel left out of the system; they live in areas of the country with racial resentment. Last Friday the Washington Post published a piece displaying the correlation between the Trump vote and white mortality rates, which is as close as a series of scatter plots have ever taken us to perfect poetry: as the demographics of the country shift, Trump’s rise mirrors the death of the white American male, making its animating rage less an advent than a valedictory party. Trump is the party at the end of white America. The black athletes who support Trump fit few of these generalizations, of course. Chief among their disqualifying characteristics is a lack of whiteness. What, then, is behind their support for the mouth of Manhattan? A few weeks ago Rand Corporation surveyed 3,000 voters and concluded that the most reliable predictor of whether someone will vote for Trump is a feeling of voicelessness and powerlessness: for those without a voice, he offers an excess of voice. But up there, in the thinner air of celebrity Twitter, things operate differently, and there’s less work needed to understand the unique and counter-intuitive appeal of Trumpism to black athletes; you just need to look at the tweets. During a Golden State practice session in 1995, Sprewell fought with a teammate, stormed out, then returned carrying a two-by-four. In a sense it’s not hard to see why a candidate whose pitch to the electorate is built on the double promise of violence (“I would hit Isis so hard, like they’ve never been hit before”) and measurement (1,000-mile border wall, tremendous business success, regular-sized hands) might appeal to an aggressive 6ft 5in hothead with a love of dimensional lumber. But dig into Sprewell’s tweets and you’ll see the real reason he loves Trump: the Donald “tells the truth.” This is a common theme among celebrity Trumpvocates, regardless of race, but black athletes have made the case with particular force: Merriman, for example, likes the way Trump “is a little bit more honest than others.” Tyson argues that since “anybody that was ever President of the United States offended some group of people,” Trump “deserves a chance.” And Herschel Walker has said that “Donald is saying what people want to hear. We have to stop being politically correct.” Several black celebrities outside sport have come out in favor of Trump, but typically their explanations have offered more nuance. Azealia Banks, for example, fell back on a kind of hyper-rationalized nihilism to explain her Trump-love: “I think Donald Trump is evil like America is evil, and in order for America to keep up with itself it needs him.” The pitch from Sprewell, Merriman and others in the black-athletes-for-Donald column is far more straightforward: Trump tells it like it is. He’s a self-help hero who is not afraid to talk straight, keep it real, and be true to himself. Since Trump’s rise, in this view, has been built on a perfectly honest and transparent expression of his own personality, it represents a kind of victory for honesty and transparency in themselves, promising an America in which everyone can say and do whatever they want: no tricks, no lies, no consequences, no regrets. This appeal cuts across race, of course; indeed it has nothing to do with race. Trump, for these athletes, is a Great Unifier because he’s a Great Bloviator – the iconoclastic truth-sayer the zero fucks given generation has been crying out for. Donald, quite literally, dgaf. It’s easy to see why this message resonates with a certain type of celebrity damaged by historical contact with the public spotlight. Merriman, like Sprewell, has had his fair share of run-ins with authority: as a player he was regularly castigated for his “lights out” sack celebration. The trials of Rodman and Tyson, outsiders in most parts of the world that don’t have a large pigeon population or aren’t North Korea, are well known. This is the key to this surprising recent outburst of affection for Trump: these headstrong athletes, seeing themselves as mocked and mistreated by an undeserving public, find much to cheer in the unlikely rise of Donald Trump, a similarly headstrong, mocked and mistreated figure. The more Trump repels the mainstream, the more he gains strength from those who see themselves – rightly or not – as occupying the margins. These themes extend beyond the small circle of black athletes for Trump, to the broader celebrity class – and if Bret Easton Ellis is to be believed, Trump’s support among that class is far larger than we might think. Tila Tequila, the reality TV star still probably best know for once being the most popular person on MySpace, has, like her former boyfriend Merriman, declared her love of Trump: she posted a video to YouTube in October last year outlining her support. The substance of the video manages to make the comments below it appear rational and sane – a rare and spectacular reversal of the natural order on YouTube, where intelligence usually deteriorates the further down the page you scroll. But it’s worth setting out the transcript of her opening in full. “I’m a huge Donald Trump supporter, and so should you,” Tequila begins. “When Donald Trump first came on the scene, I laughed at him just like everybody else; I saw him as a joke. I thought he was just another puppet. However, I looked within myself and realized, ‘Oh wow. Tila, you are judging him exactly how people are judging you.’ Because people judge me all the time, as opposed to listening to the message I put out there, my life story and how much it’s impacted me to become a better person. That’s when I realized I was a hypocrite.” From there, Tequila launches into the substance of Trump’s true message, as she sees it: “I’m very anti-vax and Donald Trump is anti-vax. They’ve proven that vaccines causes 240% of black boys to have autism …” You are judging him exactly how people are judging you. Tequila’s self-realization is the epiphany of the narcissist: she sees in Donald Trump the dimensions of her own life’s agonies. And of course the words of Tila Tequila deserve far less critical scrutiny than I’m giving them here, but they’re emblematic: Trump draws her in because his success, in the face of mainstream repudiation, validates her own perceived refusal to march to the beat of consensus. As Trump rises, he’s making America’s narcissists, regardless of ethnicity, feel good about themselves, and this is precisely why he continues to gain support from the most unlikely corners of the celebrityverse, despite the repugnance of his views on race: race is irrelevant to the properly self-absorbed. There’s no substance to these celebrity endorsements; each one is purely superficial and gestural, the self-identification of one ego with another. If Trump’s electoral appeal among the low-income white males of the American hinterland is built on a feeling of voicelessness, his popularity with a certain segment of the sporting and entertainment elite – both black and white – proves that no one appreciates a delusional celebrity like another delusional celebrity. And the connection goes further, since the qualities that make both Trump and these celebrities celebrities – their fame, their wealth, their eccentricity, the exceptionalism of their personalities, their very celebrity-ness – are qualities to which America’s tradition of individualism says it is desirable to aspire. Trump’s pitch to the American people is fundamentally imitative: be like me. I win, therefore America will win. I am great, therefore America will be great. The endorsements of the celebrity class in general reflect this strategy and bolster its underlying case. The voters who back Trump might feel left out of the system, but the example offered by the success of Trump and his famous endorsers offers a way back in. They represent the triumph of the jilted and the misunderstood. “Here be I,” Donald seems to say, beckoning the jaded throngs, “surrounded by celebrities. We were once written off. We were once laughed at. And look at us all now!” This is what joins the support of Trump’s celebrities to the support of his dying white male masses: they are both driven by revenge, a desire to get back at a system that did – and still does – them wrong. “Be like me” makes sense to these boosters because Trump gives them the space to realize how they already are like him: they’re all outcasts, united in exclusion. Victory in the election will allow Trump the president to finally stick it to all his critics – and to Barack Obama, above all, for his legendary evisceration at the 2011 White House Correspondents’ Dinner. But it will also, just as importantly, allow Trump’s supporters, celebrity and non-celebrity alike, to vicariously enjoy a redemption of their own. The humiliations, he promises, will soon be at an end. We’re now at the stage in the cycle of punditry where virtually everything has been assigned some measure of responsibility for the rise of Donald Trump. The GOP establishment, we’ve been told, gave us Donald Trump; Barack Obama gave us Donald Trump; George Bush gave us Donald Trump; the financial crisis gave us Donald Trump. The set of things that gave us Donald Trump now handily outweighs the set of those that didn’t. It’s a stretch to conclude that since celebrity narcissists are in bed with Trump, America’s culture of celebrity and narcissism itself is responsible for his rise. But this is where we are today: with Trump, the city on a hill in human form, a one-man tribute act to his own unique and inspirational mission in the world, marching to the GOP nomination, promising greatness through logorrhea, lighting the way, tweeting his feels, burnishing his brand and stealth-marketing his penis, hair blazing and defiant like Lady Liberty’s flame. Even as he builds his delegate count, he gains strength from the very groups he defiles. Welcome to the party at the end of white America, a place for everyone to be themselves and drop their truths, where the freak flag flies high and the dress code is dick. If you don’t like it here, you can gtfo.
The 10 best… things to do this week Dance Coal It might look like a scene from the Shangri-La at Glastonbury at 5am, but Coal is a powerful dance piece marking the the 30th anniversary of the end of the 1984-85 British miners’ strike. Choreographer Gary Clarke spent years researching his subject and the result explores “the darker underbelly of the mining industry” and its “hard-hitting realities”, with dancers and local casts accompanied by a live brass band. It’s currently on tour, heading to Durham on Thursday and Friday, then Caerphilly from 24-25 Nov and finally Manchester, 7-8 Dec. Touring to 8 Dec Film UK Jewish film festival It’s the 20th year of this film fest celebrating contemporary Jewish cinema, opening today at London’s BFI Southbank with Indignation, a portrait of 1950s America based on the Philip Roth novel, and continuing until 20 Nov with highlights The Tenth Man (pictured, above), Wedding Doll and wartime drama Fanny’s Journey. Various venues across the UK to 20 Nov Nocturnal Animals The long-awaited second film from the purveyor of your fave unisex perfume-turned-film director Tom Ford stars Amy Adams and Jake Gyllenhaal. It’s a zeitgeisty genre combo of horror, meta-mystery and thriller about broken marriages and examining one’s dark past, to which film critic Peter Bradshaw awarded five stars. Surely a must-see. In cinemas now Music London jazz festival This 10-day fest begins on Friday, spreading across numerous venues with a dizzying amount of performances. Standouts this year include reggae-jazz artist YolanDa Brown (15 Nov); cartoonist Art Spiegelman and composer Phillip Johnston’s collab (11 Nov); the Robert Glasper Experiment (15 Nov); and rapper Terrace Martin (12 Nov). Various venues to 20 November Steve Reich At 80 If you’re going to have a milestone birthday, few places will throw you a better party than London’s Barbican, if this year-long retrospective for the octogenarian “godfather of minimalism” is anything to go by. Reich pioneered a style of composition that’s inspired everyone from the Orb to Sufjan Stevens. Kicking off this weekend, Tal Rosner has made a trippy film inspired by the composer’s Tehillim (Psalms); there’s a concert dedicated to his electronic work; and the LSO perform the majestic Desert Music and other radical pieces. Barbican, EC2, 5 November TV The Crown Who will The Crown rile up most: royalists or republicans? Peter Morgan’s £100m epic for Netflix shows what goes on behind closed doors in the Queen’s life; so beyond the endless shots of palaces and stoic public appearances, there’s the use of the C-word on her wedding day, and an eye-opening fellatio scene with Prince Philip. That should get them all going. Available now Black And British The Beeb has put together an extensive and welcome season of docs, dramas and comedies looking at the impact of black people in the UK. This week, there’s the launch of David Olusoga’s history of black Britishness (Wed); a drama about the death of Damilola Taylor (Mon); and a reggae doc from musician and poet Akala (Fri). Among next week’s highlights is the launch of comedian Dane Baptiste’s promising sitcom series, Sunny D. Exhibitions Islamic Art And The Supernatural Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum has amassed a treasure trove of intriguing artefacts, from “dream-books” and talismanic charts to amulets and bejewelled objects, sign-posting a more cosmic take on ancient art and traditions. Ashmolean Museum, Oxford to 15 January Magazine British Values The second issue of writer Kieran Yates’s zine “takes a look at the immigrant experience in the UK in 2016”. It’s a brilliantly acerbic read, including interviews with Riz Ahmed, Radio 1’s Clara Amfo and an essay by one-time Mercury-winner Speeche Debelle. Available now Comedy Stewart Lee Your favourite leftie grump and columnist continues his work in progress, Content Provider. He rocks up to Newcastle, then London, this week. Touring nationwide to June 2017
David Bowie: Blackstar review – a spellbinding break with his past As he reaches his 69th birthday, David Bowie finds himself in a rarefied position, even by the standards of the rock aristocracy. He does not give interviews, make himself available to promote new releases, or explain himself in any way. He does not tour the world playing his hits. In fact, he doesn’t do anything that rock stars are supposed to do. It’s behaviour that theoretically means a one-way ticket to oblivion, with no one but diehard fans for company. But since his re-emergence from a decade-long sabbatical with 2013’s The Next Day, it’s proved a quite astonishing recipe for success. Bowie’s scant public pronouncements are treated as hugely significant. His releases are pored over in a way they haven’t been since the days when his army of devotees would turn up at Victoria station to greet him off the boat train, a state of affairs abetted by the fact that, since his return, Bowie has reverted to writing the kind of elusive, elliptical lyrics that were once his stock in trade. Dense with mysterious references, the words on The Next Day and its follow-up alike have far more in common with the impenetrable mass of signifiers that made up Station to Station’s title track than, say, the Dad-misses-you-write-soon message to his adult son of 2002’s Everyone Says Hi. His 25th studio album concludes with I Can’t Give Everything Away, which seems to offer those attempting to unravel his lyrics a wry “best of luck with that” (“Saying no but meaning yes, this is all I ever meant, that’s the message that I sent”) while loudly trumpeting his own carefully maintained mystique. “I can’t give everything, I can’t give everything away,” he sings, over and over. It’s a beautiful, elegant song borne on clouds of synthesiser and decorated with a scrawly guitar solo, but it’s hard to avoid the suspicion that its lyrical admonishments aren’t going to make much difference: the bits of Blackstar that emerged in advance of the album have already been thoroughly examined for meaning. The most compelling interpretation – bolstered by a remark made by Donny McCaslin, the New York jazz musician whose electro-acoustic trio forms the core of the backing band on Blackstar – is that the album’s opening title track is Bowie’s response to the rise of Isis. It seemed plausible: Bowie has always been fascinated both by messianic dictators – not least the relationship of their power to that of celebrity – and by the idea that the world is facing a future so terrifying that the thought of it, as he once put it, makes your brain hurt a lot. The theory was subsequently denied by Bowie’s spokesperson, which seems a shame: there’s a pleasing circularity to the idea of a muse that burst into life amid what the writer Francis Wheen called the “collective nervous breakdown” of the 1970s, apparently sparking up again amid the collective nervous breakdown of the present day. But aside from Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s supposed elevation to the pantheon of Bowie bogeymen – thence to swap tips on global domination with Big Brother, President Joe and his murderous Saviour Machine, and the cannibalistic Hungry Men off Bowie’s debut album – and the reappearance of Thomas Newton, antihero of The Man Who Fell to Earth, amid the alternately gorgeous and unsettling drift of Lazarus, Blackstar frequently sounds like a slate-cleaning break with the past. Bowie’s back catalogue is peppered with jazz-influenced moments – from his 1965 attempt to mimic Georgie Fame, Take My Tip, to Mike Garson’s improvised piano playing on the title track of Aladdin Sane, to his duet with Art Ensemble of Chicago founder Lester Bowie on the Black Tie White Noise track Looking for Lester. But Blackstar’s enthusiastic embrace of the genre feels as if it has less in common with his previous jazz dabblings than it does his headlong plunge into contemporary soul on Young Americans: designed as a decisive, wilful shift away from the past. Just as it seems highly unlikely that anyone who heard Diamond Dogs in 1974 could have predicted that, within a year, its author would be starring on America’s premier black music show, Soul Train, so it seems fairly safe to say that no one who enjoyed the relatively straightforward rock music of The Next Day thought its follow-up would sound like this. More striking still is the synergy between Bowie and the musicians on Blackstar. You can hear it in Bowie’s whoop as McCaslin solos amid the sonic commotion of ’Tis Pity She Was a Whore. He sounds delighted at the racket they’re creating, and understandably so. Simultaneously wilfully synthetic and squirmingly alive, it has the same thrilling sense of exploratory, barely contained chaos found on “Heroes” or Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps), or in the tumultuous, wildly distorted version of the Spiders from Mars that rampaged through Panic in Detroit and Cracked Actor. Better still, it doesn’t actually sound anything like those records. And you can hear it by comparing the album version of Sue (or in the Season of Crime) with the single released in 2014. The earlier version felt like a statement rather than a song; a series of ideas (drum’n’bass-inspired rhythm, Maria Schneider’s high-minded, uncommercial big-band jazz, a fragmentary lyric) thrown together to let the world know that Bowie wasn’t done with being avant-garde yet. It did that job pretty well, but never became a satisfying whole. On Blackstar, however, everything coalesces. The rhythm is sample-based and punchier, the agitated bass riff distorted and driving, the seasick brass and woodwind arrangement is replaced by sprays of echoing feedback, electronic noise and sax. It sounds like a band, rather than Bowie grafting himself on to someone else’s musical vision. Over the years, rock has frequently reduced experimental jazz to a kind of dilettantish signifier: few things say “I consider myself to be a very important artist unleashing a challenging musical statement, I demand you take me seriously” quite like a burst of skronking free brass dropped in the middle of a track. But Blackstar never feels like that. Nor does it feel like it’s trying too hard, an accusation that could have been leveled at the drum’n’bass puttering of 1997’s Earthling. Blackstar lacks the kind of killer pop single Bowie would once invariably come up with amid even his most experimental works – a Sound and Vision, a Heroes, a Golden Years – but only Girl Loves Me feels like a slog: lots of Clockwork Orange Nadsat and a smattering of Polari in the incomprehensible lyrics, thuddingly propulsive drums, no tune. Instead, you’re struck by the sense of Bowie at his most commanding, twisting a genre to suit his own ends. Dollar Days might be the most straightforwardly beautiful thing here, a lambent ballad that doesn’t sound jazz influenced at all. But it’s lent a curious, slippery uncertainty at odds with the bullish lyrical pronouncements (“If I never see the English evergreens I’m running to, it’s nothing to me”) by Mark Guiliana’s drumming, the emphasis never quite landing where rock-trained ears might expect it to. The overall effect is ambiguous and spellbinding, adjectives that apply virtually throughout Blackstar. It’s a rich, deep and strange album that feels like Bowie moving restlessly forward, his eyes fixed ahead: the position in which he’s always made his greatest music. • This article was amended on 19 January 2016 to correct the spelling of Nadsat.
Banks inquiry: NAB under scrutiny over staff bans as Greens focus on Westpac political donations Labor will use the final day of the Turnbull government’s bank hearings on Thursday to push National Australia Bank to explain why the corporate regulator has banned five of its staff from working in the industry recently. It will also pressure Westpac to explain why it is generally the slowest of the big four banks to pass on the Reserve Bank’s interest rate cuts. The Greens plan to ask the banks why they’ve passed their post-crisis liquidity costs to their customers rather than absorbing them, and how much exposure they have to fossil fuels. The Greens will also pressure Westpac to say whether it will continue making political donations to the major parties, given NAB stopped making donations earlier this year. Andrew Thorburn, NAB’s chief executive, and Brian Hartzer, Westpac’s chief executive, will face the 10-member parliamentary committee, set up by the prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, in response to calls for a banking royal commission. As the hearings near an end new polling reveals huge support among Australians for a super profits tax to be levied on the country’s biggest banks. A poll commissioned by the Australia Institute, run by Research Now between 16 and 28 September 2016, found 61% of those polled supported a super profits tax, with only 19% opposed. The poll asked: “A bank super profits tax would collect a higher rate of tax from banks on top of existing taxes, but levied only on especially high bank profits. Would you approve or disapprove of a banking super profits tax?” The national opinion poll of 1,442 people found 36% approved, 25% strongly approved, while 14% disapproved and 5% strongly disapproved. The results were comparable across most states, all voting intention groups and all income brackets. Other polling, commissioned by ethical super fund Future Super, and conducted by Lonergan Research, found 73% of those surveyed believed the big four banks did not behave ethically. The poll of 1,002 people, conducted between Thursday 29 September and Monday 3 October, also found 68% believed it was not appropriate for ethical super funds to invest in the big four banks. Simon Sheikh, the founder of Future Super said:“The repeat ethics-based scandals have driven the majority of the population to hold negative views about the big four.” The chief executive of Commonwealth Bank, Ian Narev, faced the committee on Tuesday, and appeared unfazed by three hours of questioning, prompting Labor MP Matt Thistlethwaite to criticise the way the committee had been set up. The head of ANZ Bank, Shayne Elliott, appeared on Wednesday, and seemed to spend more time on the defensive.
Here's how not to respond to the Brussels attacks The tragic attacks on Tuesday morning in Brussels once again highlight the barbarism at the core of the Islamic State (Isis). It uses horrific violence to achieve specific goals: to spread fear in affected populations, galvanize and motivate its supporters, and polarize western societies by provoking an anti-Muslim backlash. In the wake of these attacks, the United States and its allies should take appropriate defensive measures and ensure that our intelligence and law enforcement agencies are working effectively with partners in allied countries. But we must also recognize that we cannot eliminate the risk of terrorist attacks in a free and open society. The attacks in Brussels occurred despite Belgian and French authorities being on high alert in the wake of the arrest of the last suspect in the Paris attacks. However, what we can control is how we respond to such barbaric acts. Anxiety is understandable, but we must not play into Isis’s hands, give into our fears, and adopt policies and rhetoric that divide our societies and countries. Many American leaders from across the political spectrum – including President Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Mitch McConnell and John Kasich – called for solidarity with our Belgian and European allies and a coordinated effort to defeat terrorism. Unfortunately, others were less responsible. Donald Trump was a ubiquitous presence on American news shows and said, “we’re having problems with the Muslims”. He called for a return to waterboarding and even more expanded torture techniques. Ted Cruz demanded a halt in accepting refugees fleeing Isis attacks in their own countries and recommended singling out Muslims for heavy-handed police tactics. Recommending that the United States resume waterboarding and other torture techniques is not a sign of strength, it’s a sign a foolishness. We tried that already, and it was a disaster. The CIA torture and detention program did not produce information that disrupted a single terrorist attack. It did, however, result in horrible abuses of detainees at the hands of Americans. This undermined our moral authority and global leadership and provided endless fodder for our terrorist enemies to use in their propaganda and recruiting campaigns. Ending the already meager American effort to resettle refugees fleeing Isis violence in Syria and Iraq would have no positive impact on our security and would only make the challenges facing our European allies worse. The refugee admittance process is the most difficult way to gain entry into the United States, requiring 21 separate steps and taking more than a year. Since the 9/11 attacks, the US has resettled nearly 800,000 refugees and not a single one has been arrested or implicated in a plot against us. The United States should be doing more to resettle refugees, not less, taking on more of the burden that has almost exclusively fallen on our European allies and overwhelmed their capacity. What these proposals and rhetoric do is alienate Muslims in the United States and feed into Isis’s objective to polarize western societies. It is in communities that have been walled off from the rest of society that Isis’s sophisticated recruiting and propaganda has the most impact. To be clear, there is no amount of alienation that justifies joining Isis and killing innocent civilians. But we would be foolish to ignore the role that divisive policies and words have on creating a larger pool of potential recruits. Fear of terrorism is an understandable and completely normal response. What is unacceptable is the kind of speech that pushes a jittery population towards increased hatred and prejudice. Should the United States succumb to the same spasm of anti-Muslim sentiment that has followed Paris after Brussels, then we could provide Isis with the ability to prolong this war and increase the loss of innocent lives. If, however, the United States and other western societies view our fellow citizens who happen to be Muslim as our strongest asset and partners in defeating the objectives of Isis, then this will be a shorter conflict with far fewer lives lost. The choice is ours.
Sarah Palin endorses Donald Trump: 'Are you ready?' – as it happened Good evening from New York City, where we’re wrapping up the first installment of the ’s 2016 campaign liveblog. For the next 238 days, we’ll keep bringing you minute-by-minute coverage of the campaign trail, from the cornfields of Iowa to the convention halls of Cleveland. Hopefully, not every day will be as eventful as this one. Tuesday shivered with antici... pation as rumors flew of a “yuge” endorsement for billionaire frontrunner Donald Trump at an event in Ames, Iowa. Rumors of a cold wind blowing in from the barren north proved accurate once news broke that Sarah Palin, half-term governor of Alaska turned conservative commentator and reality-TV queen, would endorse Trump’s candidacy for the Republican nomination. In the rambling speech - Palin eschewed the use of a teleprompters the effete affectation of a decadent “weak-kneed, capitulator-in-chief” - the former vice presidential candidate declared that she was endorsing Trump “because, like you, I know that it is now or never. I’m in it to win it because we believe in America, and we love our freedom.” In non-#TrumPalin news, Hillary Clinton benefitted from the endorsement of the Human Rights Campaign, the advocacy group of choice for your gay friends who want equal rights but don’t want to seem too gay. But on the heels of the endorsement - shadily dubbed “an endorsement that cannot possibly be based on the facts and the record” by the Sanders campaign - came the news that the newest CNN/WMUR poll in New Hampshire shows senator Bernie Sanders leading in the state by a Clintonian margin of 27 points. Best tweet of the day goes to the ’s Lucia Graves, who captured one of the more conspicuous absurdities in an already absurd day: Now, to rewatch streaming video of the riveting tale of an earnest Alaska governor, plucked from relative obscurity to lend fire, heat and heart to the presidential campaign of an older man in desperate need of a game change. No, we’re not watching Palin’s endorsement speech again - we’re watching Game Change on Amazon Prime. That’s it for today – tune in tomorrow, all day, every day, as our team of reporters file from around the country, trailing the clown car so you don’t have to. Dr. Ben Carson has temporarily suspended his presidential campaign following the death of a 25-year-old volunteer. Braden Joplin was pronounced dead at 4:30 p.m. at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, Nebraska, where the volunteer had been airlifted following a van crash on an icy interstate in western Iowa. In a statement released by the Carson campaign, the candidate called meeting volunteers like Joplin “one of the precious few joys of campaigning.” “America lost one of those bright young men today,” Carson continued. “I had the privilege of knowing Braden Joplin personally, and am filled with a deep and profound sadness at his passing. While we mourn this profound loss, I am thankful that our other campaign colleagues, Drew McCall, Aaron Ohnemus and Ryan Patrick Shellooe, have all been treated and released from the hospital. “A presidential candidate asks a lot of his or her volunteers, working long hours in the cold, under-appreciated. They are the unsung heroes of the political process. The outpouring of support for Braden and his family from fellow candidates, as well as their staffs and volunteers, demonstrates that life will always transcend politics, and I thank them for their kind words. Please continue to keep Braden’s family and friends in your prayers as they struggle through this difficult time.” Rivals of the presidential candidate also expressed their condolences. “Young volunteers like Braden Joplin are the heart and soul of the democratic process,” Bernie Sanders stated. “Our thoughts and prayers are with him and his family.” Because Palin’s “word salad” was rather lyrical, actually, here is some instant analysis in the form of poetry. Allow US opinion editor Megan Carpentier to take you gently into the night: ’Twas two weeks before Iowa and all ’cross the state, the Trump’ters were shrieking, all drawn there by fate. The bunting was hung o’er the stage with care in hopes Sarah Palin soon would be there. Then what to our wond’ring eyes did appear, than a bright poof of red hair to some loud bursts of cheer. He was joined by a woman so bedazzled and thin that I knew in a flash: it must be Palin. Sorry, readers: between “we’re not going to chill, we’re going to drill, baby, drill” and all of the rest of the many, many rhymes that Governor Palin threw in her lengthy remarks announcing her endorsement of Donald Trump, I might never stop the rhymes in time. Her new speechwriters – Palin’s rhetorical style has more often been compared to “word salad” than Dr Seuss – were clearly swinging for the fences in the Ames as though it was Palin’s personal Field of Dreams. But they were also clearly loath to abandon her most infamous catch-phrases and circa-2008 anti-Obama talking points. Besides “drill, baby, drill”, there were references to teleprompters, apologies, organizing in Chicago, how much the media hates her and, in a nod 2012, “he built that”. (She did try to coin “The ABCs: Anybody but Clinton” but every other bad punster beat her to that.) For his part, Trump looked clearly pained throughout Palin’s spotlight-hogging, fast-talking, quip-filled turn on his stage. Perhaps it was just indigestion but, then again, Trump’s not one for a scene-stealing supporting cast member – be it on The Apprentice or on his political stages. He might keep her around for the cameras, but one suspects Trump might limit Palin to walk-on roles in the future. In non-Sarah Palin news, Bernie Sanders’ campaign has reacted to news that the Human Rights Campaign endorsed former secretary of state Hillary Clinton in her quest for the Democratic nomination. Befitting the intended audience, the campaign’s reaction was suitably shady. “It’s understandable and consistent with the establishment organizations voting for the establishment candidate,” Sanders campaign spokesperson Michael Briggs told the Washington Blade’s Chris Johnson, “but it’s an endorsement that cannot possibly be based on the facts and the record.” Considering Clinton’s impressive 24-point LGBT policy pledge and her status as the “establishment candidate” in the Democratic primary - the Human Rights Campaign isn’t exactly famous for bucking the status quo - the endorsement wasn’t a surprise to anyone familiar with the organization, but that didn’t keep Sanders’ campaign from heaping on the shade. “Who knows what prompted the Human Rights Campaign to do what it does - I have trouble myself figuring why they do some of the things they do over the years - but I think the gay men and lesbians all over the country will know who has been their champion for a long, long time and will consider that as they make up their mind on support for his campaign,” Briggs said. Yes, the Palin has spoken. In a brisk, occasionally disorganized speech that eschewed the use of teleprompters favored by certain White House occupants, the former half-term governor of Alaska and one-time vice presidential nominee declared that billionaire frontrunner Donald Trump should – and would – be the next president of the United States. “Are you ready to make America great again?!” Palin asked the rambunctious crowd in Ames, Iowa. “Are you ready to stump for Trump? I’m here to support the next president of the United States: Donald Trump.” Palin, a huge figurehead in the American conservative movement, described Trump as a devoted conservative, a family man, and a staunch defender of American military. “No more pussyfootin’ around!” she declared. “Our troops deserve the best! You deserve the best!” Citing the support of “teachers and teamsters,” “cops and cooks,” “rock ‘n’ rollers and holy rollers,” Palin said that despite the presence in the race of “some friends who are running” - that would be Texas senator Ted Cruz, whose rise to the US senate was helped in large part by Palin’s endorsement in 2012 - “I am here because I, like you, know that it is now or never. I am in it to win it because I believe in America.” Palin mocked the notion that Trump isn’t conservative enough to win the support of Republican voters, at one point calling out the Republican party establishment for being composed of hypocrites and “sell-outs.” “He’s been going rogue left and right,” Palin said of Trump. “That’s why he’s doing so well! He’s been able to tear the veil off of this idea of the system.“ At one point, Palin winkingly acknowledging the assembled reporters in the back of the room, whose heads, she observed with a twirl of her index finger, were spinning. “Heads are spinnin’! Media heads are spinnin’!” she said with delight. “This is gonna be. So. Much. Fun.” “Yes, Barack, he built that, and that says a lot!” Sarah Palin, in decrying criticism of Donald Trump as insufficiently conservative, has declared that some politicians are “wearing political correctness kind of like a suicide vest.” The ’s Ben Jacobs’ verdict on Sarah Palin’s endorsement: Sarah Palin’s response to the increasingly loud allegations that Donald Trump isn’t conservative enough to win the Republican presidential nomination: Oh my goodness gracious, what the heck would the establishment know about conservatism?” Citing what she described as Republican capitulation on issues like gun control, Planned Parenthood and government spending, Palin railed against members of the “political establishment” for being hypocrites. “Now they’re concerned about ideological purity?” Palin asked, exasperated. “Give me a break!” Context-free highlights from Palin’s stumping: Trump “will never lie to the families of the fallen”; “weak-kneed, capitulator-in-chief” (Obama, not Trump); “no pussy-footin’ around”; “Can I get a Hallelujah?!”; “We’re not gonna chill - in fact, we’re gonna drill, baby, drill!”; “He’s a multi-billionaire - not that there’s anything wrong with that”; “KICK ISIS ASS”. Sarah Palin, blindingly resplendent in an outfit assembled out of what appear to be high-caliber rifle shells, has vowed to help make Donald Trump the next president of the United States - a pairing that she delightedly pointed out is causing members of the press to go into fits of apoplexy. “Heads are spinnin’! Media heads are spinnin’! This is gonna be. So. Much. Fun.” “We all have a part in this!” she urged the assembled. “We all have a responsibility!” Citing the support of “teachers and teamsters,” “cops and cooks,” “rock ‘n’ rollers and holy rollers,” Palin said that even though she had been urged to support “some friends who are running” - that is, Ted Cruz - “I am here because I like you know that it is now or never I am in it to win it because I believe in America.” “Thank you so much - it’s so great to be in Iowa!” “Are you ready to make America great again?!” Donald Trump sums up his fans thusly: They used to say ‘silent majority.’ I say it’s a noisy majority.” What ever happened to Sarah Palin? US columnist Lucia Graves, who is currently in the room with Trump while we wait for the emergence of Palin, takes a look back at the reinvention of a political castaway: Instead of thriving on the public mockery, as Trump has managed to do over the past several months, a curious thing happened: Palin faded into the background. McCain would attribute his loss to Obama, in no small part, to Palin. The next year, she announced she was stepping down as Alaska’s governor. In the intervening years, Palin has lived on as more of a self-promoter-in-chief than anything. She penned a bestselling memoir. She worked briefly as a Fox News contributor. She signed up for a reality television show – twice. Meanwhile, pundits have been writing and rewriting Palin’s political obituary, with every new act of self-reinvention. It’s something she and Trump have in common. And now, they have one more commonality to add to the list: they both want the Donald to become the Potus. Read the full campaign sketch here: Donald Trump, perhaps recalling French philospher Alexandre Auguste Ledru-Rollin’s line about the political leader who must follow his acolytes, joined the crowd in Ames, Iowa, in an aloof “U-S-A!” chant as protestors were removed from the venue. The “U-S-A!” chant, along with rhythmic chanting of Trump’s last name, has become something of a code for event security that non-Trump supporters have infiltrated his political rallies. The use of the chants became insanely controversial (naturally) following the ejection of a Muslim woman in a headscarf from a Trump rally in South Carolina who wasn’t actually protesting. Donald Trump, noting that “hundreds of people are still outside” attempting to enter the rally - held in what he calls “a very nice barn” - begins his rally in Ames by paying respects to Dr. Ben Carson’s campaign, who temporarily suspended his campaign after staffers for the Carson campaign were injured in a car accident earlier in the days. But before long, Trump was back on his favorite topic: the huge (“yuge”) crowd. “This is like the Academy Awards!” The ’s Ben Jacobs, on the scene in Ames, Iowa, reports that Aissa Wayne, daughter of country film star John Wayne, made a huge (yuge?) misstep while warming up the crowd before the expected appearance of Donald Trump and half-term governor Sarah Palin: Aissa Wayne committed a major #gaffe while opening for Trump and Palin. The rally is taking place in Ames on the campus of Iowa State University, whose sports teams ares the Cyclones. At the end of her remarks, she told the crowd “go Hawkeyes!” The Hawkeyes is the name of the sports team of Iowa State’s arch rival, the University of Iowa. Both schools earnestly compete to be the number-two institution of higher education in Iowa behind Grinnell College, an elite liberal arts college located in Grinnell, Iowa. Just onstage at the Trump event in Ames, Iowa: Aissa Wayne - daughter of country film icon John Wayne - who was introduced by Dr. Sam Clovis. Why does she love Donald Trump? “He’s a strong leader, like John Wayne,” and “he’s gonna put everything back in the peoples’ hands.” “Anybody here like John Wayne movies?” she asked the crowd, before declaring that her father, a noted draft dodger, “ dad loved America, and he loved and revered liberty.” He also was a fan of immigration - to an extent. “And almost as gaudy.” Priorities USA Action, the million-dollar Super Pac that supports Hillary Clinton’s candidacy, has released an, erm, succinct statement regarding Sarah Palin’s endorsement of Donald Trump: Bernie Sanders’ campaign has hit back against foreign policy experts who attacked his foreign policy agenda earlier today, the ’s Lauren Gambino reports. The analysts, who are backing former secretary of state Hillary Clinton’s candidacy, called Sanders’ strategy to combat Isis and normalize relations with Iran “puzzling” and “troubling”: While conceding that Bernie Sanders has less foreign policy experience than Hillary Clinton, the Vermont senator’s campaign hit back against the assertion that his strategy on Isis and Iran is ill-advised, calling his judgement on important international issues “far superior”. Sanders’s spokesman, Michael Briggs, pointed to Clinton’s 2002 vote to authorize the war in Iraq as exhibit A. “Secretary Clinton voted for that war – one of the worst foreign policy blunders in the modern history of our country and a war which resulted in the kind of chaos and instability which allowed for the rise of ISIS,” Briggs said in a statement. “Senator Sanders not only voted against the war but helped lead the opposition to the war. Many of the concerns he raised in 2002 turned out, unfortunately, to be true.” The remarks were in response to a letter published on Tuesday by 10 former senior US diplomats and national security officials who are supporting the former secretary of state that questioned Sanders’s grasp on foreign policy, citing his recent comments on normalizing relations with Iran. During the debate on Sunday, Sanders was asked whether he would support the reopening of an embassy in Tehran and the restoring of normal diplomatic relations between the countries, which severed ties in 1979. “I think what we have got to do is move as aggressively as we can to normalize relations with Iran, understanding that Iran’s behavior in so many ways in something that we disagree with,” Sanders replied. He said he didn’t foresee opening an embassy in Tehran anytime soon, but compared the situation with Cuba, which has in the past year normalized relations with the US. “I think the goal has got to be as we have done with Cuba to move in warm relations with a very powerful and important country in this world,” Sanders said. In the letter, the diplomats cast Sanders’s view as a departure from the president’s foreign policy approach with Iran. Briggs said a president SAnders would “do all that he could to destroy the barbaric Islamic State terrorist group” while continuing to work with Muslim allies to build a strong coalition against the organization. He has also pledged to do “everything he can” to keep the US from being drawn into another ground war in the Middle East. Briggs added: “As president, Sanders also will work to prioritize military spending to make sure we are no longer fighting the Cold War but focus our resources and priorities in fighting today’s challenges, including international terrorism.” From US opinion editor Megan Carpentier: There’s almost certainly a joke in the sad reality that Sarah Palin will officially jump onboard the Trump Make-America-Great-Again Express in the town of Ames, Iowa. Ames, you see, is home to the US Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service National Animal Disease Center (where the most recent “Past Event” listed on the website is “Year one of porcine epidemic diarrhea, what we learned”), but I think I’d rather quit this paragraph before I’m done. Anyway: the real question isn’t over why Donald Trump is, uh, trumpeting his coveted Palin endorsement – they clearly speak the same language of bombast and Big Gulp to an audience hungry for big government jibes along with their ethanol subsidies (though Palin was opposed). The question isn’t even: is this a liberal’s ostensible nightmare scenario? (Because it kind of is, but we’re still talking about the former governor of Alaska here, and it’s not like she’s going to be his running mate, really. Plus: wouldn’t liberals kind of secretly LOVE it if Palin ran? Wouldn’t Hillary Clinton’s entire campaign team, which could take off the next 292 days?) My first question, while we wait for this dynamic duo to take the stage at the top of the hour, is this: who does Palin bring in to Camp Trump that he doesn’t already have? Palin, even for many conservatives, represents show(wo)manship over substance – and she isn’t exactly respected on her policy merits. Or at least, that would be the question if Donald Trump’s entire campaign weren’t geared around maximizing his own press coverage in order to bump up his poll numbers. (You’re reading this, aren’t you?) Sarah Palin still drags the press (and especially the liberal press – guilty as charged) around by our collective noses. Where Trump and Palin go, so go the television cameras. And that’s reason enough to bring her along the campaign trail, if not appoint her Interior Secretary in the Trump administration’s first term. Lost in the TrumPalin Mania: CNN just dropped a new poll of New Hampshire Democrats, and it spells a terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad primary day for Hillary Clinton. According to the poll, Bernie Sanders’ lead over Clinton in New Hampshire has ballooned to 27 points, 60% to 33%, a boost of ten points since the same poll found Sanders holding 50% to Clinton’s 40% in late-November/early December. Conducted largely before Sunday night’s Democratic presidential primary debate in Charleston, South Carolina - a debate many analysts called for Sanders - the poll finds that New Hampshire Democrats are becoming tougher to convince to switch sides. Fifty-two percent of New Hampshire Democrats say that they have “definitely” decided who they will support in the state’s primary, up from 36% in the prior poll. Among decided voters, Sanders’ lead broadens to nearly 30%, 64% over Clinton’s 35%. Republican Super Pacs are delirious with excitement: The ’s Ben Jacobs, reporting from the cornfields of Iowa, points out a potential complication to Sarah Palin’s endorsement of Donald Trump less than two weeks before the Hawkeye State primaries: One of the key issues helping Donald Trump’s presidential campaign in Iowa is his support for ethanol. Ted Cruz is fiercely opposed to the government mandating the amount of ethanol which should be mixed into gasoline, and has alienated powerful interests in the ethanol lobby as a result. Trump’s big endorser, however, agrees with Cruz on corn-based fuels. In a 2011 interview, Palin said “I think that all of our energy subsidies need to be relooked at today and eliminated”. The former Alaska governor added, “We’ve got to allow the free market to dictate what’s most efficient and economical for our nation’s economy... at this time, our country can’t afford the subsidies. Before, though, we even start arguing about some of these domestic subsidies that need to be eliminated - should be - we need to look at ending subsidies and loans to foreign countries and their energy production that we’re relying on, like Brazil.” It’s unlikely that Palin’s opposition to ethanol will cause issues for Trump in the Hawkeye State. After all, that is the least of the controversies surrounding the former reality television star. But it’s notable that her endorsement is coming within hours of Iowa’s longtime incumbent GOP governor bashing Cruz and urging his defeat because of the Texas senator’s opposition to ethanol. An interesting line from Donald Trump’s press release regarding Sarah Palin’s “coveted” endorsement of his candidacy: “Coveted.” “Influential.” “Sought after.” Those are just a few of the superlatives that the Trump campaign has used to describe Sarah Palin’s endorsement of the real estate tycoon’s presidential bid in a just-dropped press release announcing her decision. “Palin praised Trump’s leadership and unparalleled ability to speak the truth and produce real results,” the release states. “A trusted conservative, Palin has a proven record of being fiscally modest, staunchly pro-life and believes in small government that allows businesses to grow and freedom to prosper. Gov. Palin joined Mr. Trump in Ames on Tuesday, just two weeks before the Iowa Caucuses, to announce her endorsement of the GOP frontrunner.” “I am greatly honored to receive Sarah’s endorsement,” Trump states in the release. “She is a friend, and a high quality person whom I have great respect for. I am proud to have her support.” Read the full release here. Sarah Palin may be “proud” to endorse Donald Trump for president, but she wasn’t always so sure that her endorsement was a good thing. At press-only CNN function in Las Vegas on the eve of the fifth Republican presidential debate in December, Palin told CNN’s Jake Tapper that even though “it would be a nice problem to have” if the race came down to Trump and Texas senator Ted Cruz, both candidates would be smart to give her a wide berth. Trump has clearly ignored the former governor’s advice. The ’s Ben Jacobs reports from Iowa on Trump’s yuge endorsement: Sarah Palin’s emergence at the junction of politics, celebrity and conservative populism prefigured the rise of Donald Trump. As John McCain’s vice-presidential nominee in 2008, Palin become a political superstar almost overnight. Her populist, folksy rhetoric made her beloved on the right while her lack of policy knowledge appalled many inside the Beltway. After McCain’s loss, Palin, who famously went “rogue” by the end of the general election, soon resigned her position as governor and launched herself into media celebrity. She booked a well-paying gig as a Fox News pundit, wrote two bestselling books and starred in her own reality show, Sarah Palin’s Alaska, on TLC. Palin’s relationship with Trump goes back to 2011 when the two shared a slice of pizza at a Times Square pizzeria. Both were then publicly flirting with a presidential bid but neither Palin nor Trump eventually threw their hat in the ring. Trump has since often praised Palin in public, and in July he suggested she would have a role in a potential Trump administration, telling an interviewer: “She really is somebody who knows what’s happening and she’s a special person. She’s really a special person and I think people know that.” Read Ben Jacobs’ full story on Palin’s announcement here: Sarah Palin will endorse Donald Trump for president, according to the New York Times, citing officials within the Trump campaign. “I’m proud to endorse Donald J. Trump for president,” Palin said in a statement provided to the Times by Trump’s campaign. “I am greatly honored to receive Sarah’s endorsement,” Trump said in a statement. “She is a friend, and a high-quality person whom I have great respect for. I am proud to have her support.” With less than two weeks before the Iowa caucuses, the endorsement comes as a much-needed injection of conservative bona fides as Trump faces increased heat from senator Ted Cruz over his perceived lack of dedication to conservative policy. Here’s some instant analysis from Ben Jacobs on the trail ... ... but stay tuned as the internet explodes and we follow Trump’s next appearance in Iowa. Will former half-term governor Sarah Palin endorse Donald Trump’s presidential bid tonight? The Donald won’t say, but the information blackout regarding Trump’s mysterious “very special guest” in Ames, Iowa, has some liberal journalists, bloggers and worrywarts terrified of a different announcement entirely: Trump’s selection of Palin as his running mate. The Left-Wing Freakout Machine has already kicked into gear at the specter of Palin’s second vice-presidential candidacy: If - and this is an enormous “if” - Trump were to announce Palin as his running mate, it would be the first time that a candidate who had not secured the nomination declared his vice presidential pick in four decades. Prior to the 1976 Republican National Convention, Ronald Reagan announced that Pennsylvania senator Richard Schweiker would be his running mate if he secured the Republican nomination. The move backfired, with Schweiker’s relatively liberal voting record alienating conservative delegates who had been leaning in Reagan’s direction, eventually holstering the nomination of Gerald Ford. The ’s Lucia Graves is at the Trump ethanol event (as is Ben Jacobs). The candidate appears to have strayed off-topic... A handful of foreign policy experts who are backing Hillary Clinton have attacked Vermont senator Bernie Sanders’s foreign policy agenda, calling his strategy to combat Isis and normalize relations with Iran “puzzling” and “troubling,” reports the ’s Lauren Gambino: The charges were leveled in a letter released on Tuesday and signed by ten former senior US diplomats and national security officials who are supporting the former secretary of state. “The stakes are high,” they warn in the letter. “And we are concerned that Senator Sanders has not thought through these crucial national security issues that can have profound consequences for our security.” The letter pointed to Sanders’s call during the Democratic debate to “move aggressively” to normalize relations with Iran following recent developments in the nuclear deal. The letter-writers also criticized an earlier remark by the senator that Iran should forge a military coalition with Saudi Arabia – “two intense adversaries” – and send more troops to Syria. Sanders’ “out-of-step” policy toward Iran could be reflective of his policies toward “Russia, China, our allies, nuclear proliferation, and so much else,” the letter warns. The letter closes:“We need a Commander in Chief who sees how all of these dynamics fit together – someone who sees the whole chessboard, as Hillary Clinton does.” No reply yet from the Sanders campaign. The ’s Ben Jacobs has more on the Branstad bombshell: Terry Branstad is almost as much an Iowa institution as corn – and now he’s telling Iowans not to support Ted Cruz. The longest-serving governor in the history of the United States, Branstad, now in his sixth term in Iowa’s statehouse, had pledged to stay neutral in the caucuses. However, in a television interview today, Branstad told reporters that he wants to see Ted Cruz defeated. One of the driving motivations of the feud is Cruz’s fervent opposition to ethanol, the corn-based gasoline variant, which is a major driver of industry in Iowa. Cruz has long vocally opposed it, while Branstad has spent decades advocating for expanding use of ethanol. The governor’s son Eric leads a bipartisan pro-ethanol lobby group which has launched hundreds of thousands of dollars of negative ads against Cruz on the subject. In openly denouncing Cruz, Branstad is putting his tremendous popularity among local Republicans on the line. The question, though, is whether Branstad, who is increasingly viewed by ardent conservatives as a pillar of the GOP establishment, has much influence with the type of voters who support Cruz. This still shouldn’t be construed as an endorsement. Although Branstad’s circle is very close to New Jersey governor Chris Christie, the governor is staying neutral. In fact, he last endorsed in a competitive caucus in 2000, when he was in the midst of a 12-year hiatus from elected office and backed Lamar Alexander. With Donald Trump appearing at an event held by the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association Tuesday, however, Branstad’s move is bound to redound to the New York real estate mogul’s benefit. Trump has become a vocal advocate for ethanol. And this development shouldn’t just help Trump. The past two Iowa caucus winners, Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum, are both strong supporters of renewable fuels and are seeking to compete with Cruz among social conservatives. The campaign of Ben Carson, the retired neurosurgeon, has released a statement saying that Carson “has cancelled all remaining campaign events today” after three campaign volunteers and a campaign employee were injured when their van “hit a patch of ice and flipped on its side where it was struck by another vehicle.” One volunteer was transported to the trauma center at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, the Carson statement says. The other three van occupants were being “checked out” at a local Iowa hospital. Carson was said to be traveling to Omaha to be with the family of the volunteer in the trauma center. More on the Palin / Trump rumors... The ’s Adam Gabbatt leaves a second Sanders event in Iowa feeling slightly ill-used. “I’ve just been at Bernie Sanders’ event at Santa Maria vineyard and winery, in Carroll, Iowa. I feel a bit cheated,” Adam writes: I thought there would be wine and cheese. You know, given it is at a winery. There was neither. Instead supporters were packed into a warm function room, for a similar speech to the one Sanders gave in Fort Dodge this morning. The top one-tenth of one percent have more money than the bottom 90%. Healthcare sucks. No one was prosecuted over the financial crash. People often say they like Sanders because of his integrity and consistency. He contradicted himself a couple of times here, though. “I’m not that much into polls and all that stuff,” Sanders told the crowd, before citing two polls that showed him as being more likely than Hillary Clinton to defeat Donald Trump. “You won’t hear me attacking my Democratic colleagues,” Sanders also told the crowd. Perhaps this was technically true, although this line didn’t take much decoding: “Without naming any names, Goldman Sachs also provides very, very generous speaking fees to some of the candidates.” Ted Cruz speaks up on the friction that developed today between his camp and the Palin clan. Cruz is taking the head-down, vigorous tail-wagging approach: The Republican National Committee has decided to take its late February presidential debate – a surefire ratings bonanza – away from NBC and give it to CNN, in late-breaking fallout from a controversy attached to an earlier debate hosted by NBC cable channel CNBC. CNN reports: The decision comes two-and-a-half months after the RNC suspended its partnership with NBC News because of CNBC’s handling of the third GOP debate in October, which the Republicans said devolved into a series of “gotcha’ questions Ouch. Shoker, indeed. (see earlier for context on Branstad coming out against Cruz) BREAKING via the Des Moines Register: former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee says he has never tasted beer. Does this change anything? We can’t tell. (thx @lgamgam) Rand Paul thinks the polls that show him flailing in Iowa are inaccurate, reports Adam Gabbatt from the Hawkeye State (Paul is at 3.7 points in Iowa, according to polling averages): They are inaccurate, he says, because young people don’t show up in the polls. This is important because his campaign has specifically focused on young people. The rest of the Republican presidential candidates, according to Paul, have ignored them. “A lot of younger people don’t answer their phone and in fact aren’t on any kind of polling,” he told the on Monday, at an event in a Des Moines barbershop. “In fact I’ve yet to meet a college student who’s ever taken a presidential poll. So we think we’re going to surprise some people.” [...] The asked why students should vote for him over the Democratic-socialist Vermont senator. “Because I’m not crazy,” Paul said. Rand Paul’s father, Ron Paul, was the surprise success of the 2012 Republican primaries. A devout base of youngsters propelled Paul the elder to third in Iowa and second in New Hampshire before he fell away. This is not a parody. Donald Trump was asked by the Christian Broadcasting Network whether he cries. “I know people like that,” Trump replied: CBN: “This is my Barbara Walters question… I’m curious, have you cried before? Has that been something that you’ve done in your life?” Donald Trump: “Well, that’s even beyond a Barbara Walters question, she has never asked me that. No, I’m not a big crier. I like to get things done. I’m not a big crier. I’m not someone who goes around crying a lot. But I know people like that. I know plenty of people that cry. They’re very good people. But I have not been a big crier.” (transcript via Vox) The mayor of Flint, Michigan, whose residents are drinking from water bottles after their drinking water was rendered toxic, endorsed Hillary Clinton on Tuesday, praising her campaign’s work in spotlighting the crisis there, reports the ’s Lauren Gambino: “If this was a test, she has really come to the forefront and passed it because we in Flint need some help and we need it now,” mayor Karen Weaver said on a conference call organized by Clinton’s campaign. The endorsement appeared unplanned. Asked if she was endorsing Clinton after heaping praise on the former secretary of state and her campaign team, Weaver laughed. “Yeah, it does sound like it, doesn’t it? I want Hillary.” Clinton had dispatched her campaign’s national political director, Amanda Renteria, to Flint to meet with the mayor and get a better understanding of the situation on the ground. Over the weekend, President Barack Obama declared a state of emergency in Flint, where a lead-poisoning crisis in the city’s water supply has left residents without safe water for nearly two years. The state’s governor, Rick Snyder, has been lambasted by residents and Democratic politicians for what they say was a slow response to the crisis. Update: Busy day for the Flint mayor: New Jersey governor Chris Christie, who is staking his presidential candidacy on a strong performance in New Hampshire, is unusually frank about challenges in his marriage in a new book, American Governor, by public radio reporter Matt Katz. In the book, Christie describes going to a couples counselor with his wife, Mary Pat, to face “really challenging times.” The New York Times has published brief Christie quotations from the book: I don’t know what either one of us thought marriage was exactly going to be like, but what was happening was not what we thought.” “We had some fairly challenging times — really challenging times.” “Finally, when we felt like we definitely liked each other, then we had kids.” “We wanted to be sure, and we didn’t want to bring children into a world and a relationship that we didn’t think was good and stable.” Christie also describes how the couple ducks into her walk-in closet, out of earshot from their four children, to argue. Read the full piece here. The plot thickens – former Alaska governor Sarah Palin’s official Twitter has linked to a post by her daughter, Bristol Palin, which is critical of the Cruz campaign for rather mildly criticizing Palin based on the mere rumor (or do they know more?) that Palin is preparing to endorse Trump. Now Bristol’s involved too! This should end well. Here’s what Cruz spokesman Rick Tyler told CNN: I think it [would] be a blow to Sarah Palin, because Sarah Palin has been a champion for the conservative cause, and if she was going to endorse Donald Trump, sadly, she would be endorsing someone who’s held progressive views all their life on the sanctity of life, on marriage, on partial-birth abortion.” Bristol writes: Is my Mom going to endorse Donald Trump for President of the United States? That’s the rumor, and I’ve been too busy with diapers to delve too much into politics these days. But the rumors were enough to cause staffers from Ted Cruz’s office to slam my mom. [...] After hearing what Cruz is now saying about my mom, in a negative knee-jerk reaction, makes me hope my mom does endorse Trump. Cruz’s flip-flop, turning against my mom who’s done nothing but support and help him when others sure didn’t, shows he’s a typical politician. How rude to that he’s setting up a false narrative about her! Read the full piece here. Here’s a modest selection of your thoughts on whether Trump’s special guest this evening is none other than Sarah Palin. Notably no one is predicting that Palin will appear on behalf of Trump. You’re thinking more along the lines of a Nazi: Terry Branstad is an establishment Republican without peer in Iowa, the longest-serving governor in US history, and, it emerges, a total hater on Texas senator Ted Cruz, CNN reports: Branstad, who has not made an endorsement in the race, might have reason to speak up: A poll earlier this month by the standard-setting Des Moines Register found Cruz with a three-point-edge over the rest of the Republican field in the state. (h/t @alexburnsnyt) “Donald Trump loves John Wayne.” That’s the ’s Ben Jacobs, who has just emerged from the Trump event, with this: In an appearance at the John Wayne Museum in Winsterset, Iowa, the Republican frontrunner raved about the late Hollywood star whom he said had “made such an impression on him.” In a policy-light event and press conference at which Trump was introduced by Wayne’s daughter Aissa, the real estate mogul spent most of the time raving about his love for the late movie star, who he thought “represented strength, represented power.” Much of the brief press conference was like a normal Trump event. He boasted, “I always like to threaten and sue reporters and sometimes I do actually.” When asked by the about the Flint, Michigan, water crisis, Trump dodged on policy: “It’s a shame, it shouldn’t happen, but again, I don’t want to comment about that.” Trump got shots in at a rival, saying of Ted Cruz, “He’s got a rough temperament. You can’t call people liars on the Senate floor when they are your leader.” He continued: People are talking his temperament. I haven’t been talking about his temperament but he to be careful because his temperament has been questioned a lot.” But on a rumored endorsement from Sarah Palin, Trump played uncharacteristically coy. “I’m a big fan of Sarah Palin,” he said, but declined to elaborate on the endorsement. Trump did say that “everyone is going to be very impressed.” In the meantime, Trump seemed happy to bask in the glow of John Wayne, who his daughter insisted would have backed Trump if he were alive today. To Trump, Wayne was somehow a lode star. “I was such a fan of John Wayne and the one meeting I had with him, such an amazing meeting, he said some things to me that were very special,” Trump said. The Trump endorsement event is scheduled to begin at 5PM central in Ames, Iowa tonight. Trump’s done. “We love John Wayne, and we love John Wayne’s family,” he says. Somebody else he mentioned loving in his appearance: The Palin buzz surrounding Trump’s mystery guest this evening – or will it be Jerry Falwell Jr, or some disappointing option (c)? – has journalists tracking flights from Anchorage. The ’s Ben Jacobs was on the scene: What do you think? Is Palin about to endorse Trump? Or are people just getting a little silly of a Tuesday? Let us know in the comments and we’ll feature your best! In reply to a question about Trump’s ground game in Iowa, Trump calls up his Iowa state director, Chuck Laudner, who proceeds to tell the media we’re crap. In the interest of accuracy in reporting, please note that Laudner does not use the word “crap”. “We feel really good about our chances,” Laudner says. “We feel really good about our reach. And I think you’re going to have a surprise on caucus night.” But Laudner will not be sharing details of the Trump ground game, he says, because the media, he says, will not get it right. Then he shares some details. The campaign had 13 caucus trainings in Iowa in the last week, Laudner says. He said turnout for one event had been reported as 12, when turnout was actually 120 “and you know it.” “That’s why we don’t talk to you folks all that much about the ground game. Because you’re welcomed in, we get your cameras in, and you misreport.” Trump grabs the mic back and says: One thing I like about Chuck is, he doesn’t want to bother with the press. The Trump/ John Wayne event gets going. The late actor’s daughter, Marisa Aissa Wayne, introduces the Donald. “Hopefully for America, he’ll be the next president of the United States,” she says. She says the country needs “someone who’s strong, like John Wayne. And I’ll tell you what, if John Wayne were around, he’d be standing right here.” Either that or spouting racist views in Playboy? Trump returns the favor: “I’ll tell you, I’ve been a longtime fan.” Then he takes questions. He’s asked whether his big special guest this evening is former Alaska governor Sarah Palin (see earlier). He says that he loves Palin but he’s not saying who’s joining him on the stump tonight. Sounds like not Palin. More from Trump: I’ve never been a yuge fan of endorsements. It’s more the candidate... I think you’ll be impressed with the endorsement we’ll get later on. The Iowa caucuses are perhaps the most important yet mysterious contest in American politics, writes the ’s Ben Jacobs, who knows from Iowa: The concept of an election is familiar to everyone – but by its very name, a caucus sounds different and archaic. However, give or take a few wrinkles, the Iowa caucuses are simply another election, held on a cold winter’s night in the Hawkeye state. But those wrinkles do matter quite a bit. What is a caucus? On 1 February, caucuses will be held in each of Iowa’s 1,681 precincts. These comprise the first part of a four-stage process that will choose the state’s delegates to each party’s national convention, where the presidential nominee is formally selected. After the caucuses on 1 February (technically the precinct caucuses), there are county conventions and congressional district conventions, which all build to a state convention in the spring at which the national delegates are selected. It all fits together sequentially like a Russian nesting doll. Attendees at the precinct caucuses elect delegates to the country conventions, who elect delegates to district conventions, and on up the food chain. The precinct caucuses are simply the first step in that process. Read the full piece below, and come away educated! It was a typically passionate speech from Bernie Sanders here in Fort Dodge, Iowa, writes The ’s Adam Gabbatt: The rally was held in the “Fort Museum Opera House,” which seemed like less of a venue for opera and more a hall where a barn dance might be about to take place. There are exposed wooden rafters. A balcony with pine wood poles rings the hall, looking down on the stage. There was a man wearing a cowboy hat. Sanders began with a criticism of the media. That’s always a bit awkward when you are a member of the media. There were about 15 of us at the back of the hall. I averted my gaze from the few crowd members who turned round to stare at us. There isn’t a proper discussion of the issues in the media, Sanders said. “If I slipped on a banana peel here it would be on the front page of the newspaper,” he said. You bet it would. I love slapstick. He told the crowd that when he started running, people told him Hillary Clinton was the “inevitable candidate”. But Sanders said his position in the polls showed that “the inevitable candidate does not look quite so inevitable as she did 8 months ago”. Sanders took questions. An 11-year-old boy called Jensen asked what the senator would do to make America’s healthcare better. That is an excellent question, Sanders said. He said the Affordable Care Act has already “provided health insurance to 17m Americans who otherwise would not have it”. He bounced his right forefinger along in the air as he said this, like he was playing an invisible xylophone. Sanders said if he was elected president he would ensure that people did not have to pay premiums of thousands of dollars. Or spend their savings on medication. He asked Jensen if he wanted to hear a story. I didn’t hear Jensen respond, but he got a story anyway. “In the 1990s,” Sanders began. “I took a bus load of women to Montreal.” The women had breast cancer, he told Jensen. It seemed a strange story topic for an 11-year-old child, but whatever works. The women were able to buy the same medication there that they had been prescribed in the US, Sanders said. “You know what they paid? One tenth the price that they were paying in the United States. Tears came out of their eyes.” At the end the crowd lined up for selfies with Bernie. He obliged. He shook hands. He signed something. He eventually made it through the throng and escaped through a back door. His next stop is a winery in Carroll, an hour west of here. Let’s hope there are no banana skins. The live video feed of the Donald Trump event at John Wayne’s birthplace in Winterset, Iowa, is now... live. The candidate has yet to materialize. Will he be wearing a cowboy hat reading “Make America Great Again, Partner”? You can watch in the video player at the top of the blog there. Here’s a cool snapshot from a Ted Cruz event this morning in New Hampshire, via CNN. Cruz is currently truckin’ along in fourth place in polling averages in the state, behind Trump, Rubio and Kasich. The Granite State votes in exactly three weeks, on Tuesday, 9 February. The American Research Group, which gets a lackluster C-minus grade in FiveThirtyEight’s authoritative pollster rankings but which nevertheless is a serious outfit that conducted 600 telephone interviews for its latest New Hampshire survey, finds a dark horse moving up in the Republican field in the Granite State: Ohio governor John Kasich! Posts 20 points for a second place showing behind Trump at 27: Kasich is polling at what might be called a lackluster 2.3 points in Real Clear Politics’ national Republican polling averages – plenty of room for improvement there. But the former chairman of the House budget committee and popular governor of a key swing state has been focusing his campaign efforts on New Hampshire, hoping that his message of methodical conservatism will strike a chord with the state’s pragmatic voters. UPDATE: Now that’s a backdrop! Our Ben Jacobs will have a dispatch from Trump’s event at John Wayne’s birthplace in Winterset, Iowa, shortly. Bernie Sanders is telling a crowd in Fort Dodge, Iowa, that he has a better chance of beating Donald Trump than Hillary Clinton does, which is not a sentence we would have expected to find ourselves typing, six months ago. Our Adam Gabbatt is there: “From the bottom of my heart, if you want somebody who is going to beat Donald Trump, I think Bernie Sanders is that candidate!” Sanders says. UPDATE: let’s take a sidelong glance at the polls, while we’re at it. Real Clear Politics’ polling averages have Clinton up 12.7 points on Sanders nationally, with the discernible trend represented by a wee curlicue in recent weeks upwards for Clinton and downwards for Sanders. Clinton’s lead in Iowa has been shaved, however, to a mere 4 points, and Sanders remains ahead of Clinton in New Hampshire, with a current lead of almost 7 points. The Supreme Court agreed Tuesday to an election-year review of President Barack Obama’s executive order to allow up to 5 million immigrants living in the U.S. illegally to “come out of the shadows” and work legally in the United States, the Associated Press reports: The justices said they will consider undoing lower court orders that blocked the plan from taking effect in the midst of a presidential campaign that already roiled by the issue. The case will be argued in April and decided by late June, about a month before both parties’ gather for their nominating conventions. The immigrants who would benefit from the administration’s plan are mainly the parents of U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents. Texas is leading 26 mainly Republican-dominated states in challenging the Democratic administration’s immigration plan. So far, the federal courts have sided with the states to keep the administration from issuing work permits and allowing the immigrants to begin receiving some federal benefits. If the justices eventually side with the administration, that would leave roughly seven months in Obama’s presidency to implement his plans. Read the full piece here. HRC is backing HRC. Human Rights Campaign, the largest national lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender civil rights organization, announced Tuesday that it is endorsing Hillary Clinton for president. “All the progress we have made as a nation on LGBT equality – and all the progress we have yet to make – is at stake in November,” HRC President Chad Griffin said in a statement. Clinton speaks in a video produced to accompany the announcement, which goes hard on the nightmare quality of certain Republican candidates on LGBT issues. “They want to take us backwards. She will fight to take us forward,” the narrator intones: Read further: Factoid alert The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a challenge to executive actions taken by Barack Obama affecting the status of up to 5m undocumented migrants, the Associated Press reports. The court was hear arguments this spring and issue a decision by the end of term in June. Watch this space, we’ll have more as the story develops. UPDATE: The case pertains to executive actions affecting mainly parents of US citizens and permanent residents. Read more here. What’s Canadian about Ted Cruz? His tax plan! Solid yucks in a new web video from the Marco Rubio-aligned Super PAC Conservative Solutions PAC: “Cruz want a value-added tax, like they have in Canada and European socialist countries,” the ad warns. (h/t: @jwpetersnyt) As prelude to his anticipated campaign trail appearance this evening alongside possibly Jerry Falwell, Jr., Donald Trump spoke Monday at Falwell’s school, Liberty University in Virginia. The famed salesman shared with attendees details of his faith life, but his pitch wasn’t perfect, the ’s Ben Jacobs reported: “I am a Protestant and I am very proud of it,” Donald Trump told Liberty University, the largest evangelical institution of higher education in the United States, on Monday, as he attempted to appeal to this key demographic in the Republican primary. The GOP frontrunner also told the crowd that if he is elected, “every store will have to say Merry Christmas”. But a biblical reference fell flat when he introduced a passage from 2 Corinthians as “Two Corinthians” rather than “Second Corinthians.” Otherwise, Trump did not seem to tailor his address to the crowd of clean-cut Christian students. Instead, the real estate mogul talked about his poll numbers and discussed his desire to build a wall on the Mexican border, which he claims that Mexico will pay for. Read the full piece here. Hello and welcome to the premiere installment of the ’s 2016 elections blog-explosion, where for the next 293 days, starting today, we will bring you rolling live-wire coverage of the presidential campaign, minute-by-minute. It’s fear and laughing on the campaign trail, all day, every day, with our team of reporters out following the clown car so you don’t have to. Curtain! Perhaps the most tantalizing political “news” going this morning is that Donald Trump has promised that “a very special guest” will join him at an Iowa rally later today, and people have fantasized that it might be Sarah Palin, although it might possibly only be Jerry Falwell Jr, the Christian school president who recently called on students to “end those Muslims” with personal guns. But how great would Palin be, huh! Like a bandoliered Angel Gabriel. In any case, Trump is starting his day with an appearance in Iowa alongside John Wayne’s daughter, so voters will not be deprived of a generous dose of heroic western legendary hoo-ha. Here’s how some of the team is deployed today: Ben Jacobs in Iowa with Trump Ben will be following Donald Trump on the trail today, which includes a special event at John Wayne’s birthplace in Winterset, Iowa. Trump will also be stopping at a summit held by the ethanol lobby, which has been losing influence in Iowa this cycle. With three different events, this will be one of the busier days of the campaign for Trump. Until recently, the real estate mogul would only hold one event a day. The first Trump event will represent a particular challenge because it is outdoors – although Iowa is starting to enjoy a comparative heat wave after days of subzero temperatures so it is expected to be a balmy 19F on Tuesday morning. [#factcheck: It’s actually nine (9). –ed.] Lucia Graves in Iowa ... also with Trump Lucia will be on the Trump trail as well, beginning with that event at John Wayne’s birthplace. Lucia says that the focus for her will be more on the folks in attendance then on Trump himself. Then, once she’s thawed, Lucia will hit the evening rally at Iowa State University, where Trump has been teasing on Facebook that he’ll make “a major announcement” with that “very special guest” I mentioned earlier. Adam Gabbatt in Iowa with Sanders Adam will be following Bernie Sanders around today as he treks across the west of the Iowa. One event, at a winery in Carroll, looks particularly exciting, Adam writes: “Hopefully there will be free wine.” Yesterday Adam went to a barbershop with Rand Paul, where he [Paul] did not have a haircut but did eat some brisket. Let’s catch up with more of what Adam’s been doing. On Sunday, Adam writes, he “was lucky enough to run into 2012’s Rick Santorum. I got even luckier when he let me have my picture taken with him. Today will have to be pretty special to top that, I think we can all agree.” Sabrina Siddiqui heading back from Iowa Sabrina returns today from her trip to Iowa, where Marco Rubio wrapped up a two-day swing through the state over the long weekend. Rubio made three stops on Saturday and five stops on Monday, in front of crowds ranging from 200 to 600. Most of the Florida senator’s events were town hall-style forums, where he fielded questions on a wide range of issues, including Trump’s proposed Muslim ban, entitlement reform and police brutality. Although Rubio is trailing Trump and Texas senator Ted Cruz in the Iowa polls, many voters said they were still shopping around even with just two weeks remaining until the caucuses. In other news... “Hello. I’m Ivanka Trump” First Bowie, then Rickman and now... And ...
To claim victory now would be a fatal error for the EU In camp Tomorrow we turn the last corner into the final furlong. There will be precisely a month to go before Britain makes its momentous choice. How stands the race? The money is saying that Remain is galloping towards the winning post. The bookies are lengthening their odds on a victory for the Outers and offering stingier rewards for a successful punt on In. The gambling community in the financial markets is betting the same way. The pound has been strengthening on rising expectations of a Remain vote. The clients of IG, a spread-betting firm founded by Ukipper Stuart Wheeler, make it an 80% chance that Britain will choose to continue with membership of the EU on 23 June. One explanation for this trend in sentiment is the state of the rival campaigns. The In team look professional, sound confident about their arguments, are consistent with their messages, have assembled a large cast drawn from many different parties and, even so, present a united face. The Outers have struggled to overcome the challenge of weaving a cohesive campaign from a quarrelsome gang of Ukippers and renegade Tory cabinet ministers. Their tunes are discordant and their strategy inconsistent. Their messaging has recently narrowed down to relentless – and increasingly wild – claims about immigration. They often sound like a campaign that expects defeat. There is also scope to wonder whether defeat for their side is actually the secret desire of some of the Outers. I think especially of Boris Johnson. Not being a complete idiot, he must be aware of the rule that the first person to bring Hitler into an argument is automatically designated the loser of it. When he started going on about Adolf, was the former mayor of London trying to sabotage his own side? Many of his colleagues are utterly unconvinced that he sincerely wants Britain to leave the EU; everyone is in no doubt that he wants to be the next leader of his party. So it is not unreasonable to speculate that, for Mr Johnson, the dream result would be a narrow victory for Remain. That could pave his path to Downing Street, but wouldn’t mean that he had to spend all his time at No 10 unpicking our relationship with the EU. That would be hideously complex and, as we know, detail is not his forte. Opinion polling is also shaping expectations about the outcome. Our latest Opinium poll indicates movement towards Remain. So have some other recent polls. Everyone says they are cautious about the polls, but they nevertheless influence perceptions. The most interesting result from our poll is not so much how respondents say they will vote, but what they expect the outcome to be. By a margin of more than two to one, they predict a victory for Remain. While three-quarters of Remain voters think their side will prevail, less than half of Leave supporters are anticipating a victory for their camp. So should the In crowd pre-order the victory party champagne? Absolutely not. There is no deadlier enemy of their cause than complacency. For a start, the polls may be wrong. In fact, some have to be because online surveys are producing dramatically different results from those conducted by phone. This has triggered lively debate among pollsters about which method is the more reliable. There are plausible arguments that online polls might be overstating the amount of support for Leave. Equally, there are plausible arguments that phone polls might be exaggerating backing for Remain. A frank answer has come from Martin Boon, head of ICM, who observes: “Polling has often depended on hidden error cancelling itself out, but it seems increasingly unlikely that pollsters can depend on that on this occasion. So you pay your money and you take your chance on what you believe.” That’s a leading pollster saying there’s no certainty about which, if any, of the polls are getting it right. So, even the rival campaigns can’t be sure where they really are. A senior strategist for one of the teams puts it well: “It is like playing a bizarre game of football where you don’t know what the score is during the match because the referee doesn’t let you know how many goals he has allowed until the final whistle is blown.” Another reason for Remain not to be in the least bit complacent is what I’ve previously dubbed the asymmetrical passion of the two sides. People who hate the EU tend to intensely hate the EU. That is a considerable motivator to cast a ballot. Few of those who favour Remain do so because they are bursting with love for the organisation. Rather, they think that it is a flawed club but one worth sticking with because, on balance, the downsides of membership are outweighed by the advantages. Many voters will fall into this category. For Remain to prevail, it has to mobilise these voters to cast their ballots. The grudging supporter of continued EU membership will be less likely to turn out if he or she is being told that they might as well not bother because the question is already settled. Victory for Remain is also highly dependent on persuading a lot of non-Tory voters to make the choice recommended by a Tory prime minister. The In team have been highly anxious about the attitude of the Labour leadership to the referendum. They now say that they are very encouraged that the party has started to get its act together since the local elections. Labour figures with experience of organising campaigns, such as the deputy leader Tom Watson, have become fully engaged. One non-Labour strategist working for the In campaign recently spoke to me about the Labour effort in a tone of pleasant surprise: “They know how to organise a ground campaign.” Yet there are continuing worries about getting non-Tory voters to the polls. One problem is the domination of the air war by blue-on-blue clashes. Hezza savaging Bozza is compelling entertainment for the media, but too much concentration on the slugfest between different factions of one party can leave non-Tory voters feeling disengaged. The pollster Michael Ashcroft has published fascinating snippets from focus groups that he’s been conducting. He reports that a sample of voters in Glasgow were alienated from what seemed to them to be an argument between English people – and English people of a type they didn’t like. “I see it more as a leadership contest in the Tory party. When I see a choice that involved David Cameron, Bojo and Nigel Farage, I think ‘that’s a choice that doesn’t involve me’.” There was an echo of that sentiment in a group the pollster convened in Birmingham. One participant complained: “Those types of people are all samey … they all went to the same school.” Another remarked: “Usually I’d say, ‘What do the Tories want?’ and do the opposite, but you can’t even do that.” There’s an issue here for the broadcasters. They should remember that only 37% of people voted for the Tories at the last general election. Many more supported other parties. So a properly balanced debate is not merely having a representative of one blue faction grapple with a spokesperson for the other blue faction. A related challenge to the In campaign is media ennui. I read fellow political journalists groaning that there is still a month to go. We’ve heard all the arguments by now, they lament, can’t we just get the damn thing over with? This is a symptom of commentators’ complaint, a potentially chronic condition that pundits must always try to guard against. Because we earn our living from paying close attention to politics, we can make the error of assuming that everyone else does, too. Most voters most of the time have more important things to worry about than politics. I agree with the strategist for the In team who remarked to me: “Many people will only start to really pay attention in the last fortnight.” This creates a conundrum. A lot of voters will really start to engage with the arguments just at the point when the media is thoroughly bored with reporting them. A low turnout, as some of the Outers have admitted, suits them. It does not at all favour the Remain cause. So one of their challenges is to find ways of re-presenting their big arguments in ways that are novel enough to encourage them to be reported. The In campaign believes it has won the most important argument – about the economy. George Osborne said as much in public a few days ago. I happen to agree. But the last thing he or anyone else on the Remain side should do is proclaim victory. Keep your smug face locked in a cupboard for the next month, George. The British people can be contrary when the mood takes them. Elites exuding any impression of entitlement are not fashionable at the moment. Any sense that the In campaign already feels entitled to claim victory in this referendum risks being punished at the polling booth. Whatever the bookies or pollsters or pundits are saying, voters have the last word. The In crowd should never, ever forget that.
OBJECTified: Donald Trump review – a basket of objectionables Donald Trump, the Kool-Aid Man given human form, is America’s next president despite his historically abysmal approval rating prior to taking the oath of office. That must hurt his feelings, though you might assume he doesn’t have any, since he spends most of his waking hours tweeting insults at people beneath him on the social pecking order — all while wearing a suit multiple sizes too big for his ample frame. Well, you’re wrong: Orange Hillbilly Jesus has feelings! He has so many feelings, as you will discover if you watch OBJECTified: Donald Trump, a new special presented by OBJECTionable TMZ founder Harvey Levin, which aired on Fox News Channel Friday night. He has so many feelings that you might even forget that he’s an unrepentant demagogue and crypto-fascist pig. If you haven’t tired of the fawning puff pieces, the stream of photo galleries of Melania’s dresses and the pundits pretending that an anti-semite being White House chief of staff is normal, I highly recommend seeking out this program. Levin does a remarkable job acquiescing to the idea that Donald Trump is actually not the Gollum David Duke has been molding out of clay for the last decade and has finally figured out how to breathe life into, but a real person with his own ideas about America. Trump’s sober as a church mouse because his brother Frank died of alcoholism. This is legitimately, unmistakably sad and not open for mockery. But I also must admit the irony of the fact that I’ve been drinking way more since Trump was elected. The Donald can claim he’s doing us a service denouncing alcoholism, but my liver begs to differ. Trump is also a doting, overbearing father, which we discover from photos of his kids posing with their dad on red carpets and sitting still for staged photos of them answering fake phone calls and typing fake emails. Just like in the sitcoms we love! You know, Kevin Can Wait, Man With a Plan, and whatever else is on CBS right now at this very moment. In between the shock-and-awe moments of hagiography, Levin (who I should point out has made a career of tarnishing the reputations of celebrities and is now gleefully propping up Herr Trump as though he’s the dad from Full House) takes us through an MTV Cribs-esque tour of president-elect Trump’s office, telling the story of his life through the various trinkets and baubles he’s collected in his 70 years on this planet. Is there a more American concept than some inveterate psychic leech pretending like he’s making keen observations about a world leader through the shit he’s purchased or collected through a lifetime of unrepentant pirate conquest? There are school yearbooks, family photos, gold-plated bullshit as far as the eye can see, and the chair from the Apprentice. Our next commander-in-chief brags about his record in military school, which Levin doesn’t question for a second, despite numerous conflicting reports as to his conduct. This is the guy who helped bring down Ray Rice and now he’s tossing softballs to a leader who advocated for a national registry of Muslims. Trump proudly displays a letter from disgraced former president Richard Nixon from 1987 declaring his appearance on the tabloid talk show Donahue as evidence that he would make a fine public servant. There are numerous photos of Trump with black people — Samuel L Jackson, Oprah, even Spike Lee — to prove he’s not as racist as he seems. Oh, there’s Trump singing Take Me Out to the Ballgame at a Cubs game. That the Cubs and Trump both defied hundreds of years of orthodoxy and good taste to win big in 2016 is no coincidence. We are treated to multiple photos of our next president enjoying the company of Patriots quarterback Tom Brady — maybe the only man in this country with less public respect than Donald Trump. “I think Tom is totally innocent. I think Tom is, first of all, he’s such an honorable guy and I’m with him all the way,” Trump says of Brady. If this chief executive thing doesn’t work out, he might find himself in the chair opposite Stephen A Smith on ESPN’s First Take. I would enjoy Trump’s poisonous schtick far more if it was directed towards the question of whether or not the Miami Dolphins’ Ryan Tannehill is an elite quarterback rather than whether or not women should be given the right to choose. This is where we are as a nation, and I cannot think of a better man to usher us into oblivion than Harvey Levin. He has made a fortune taking advantage of the prurient interests of a clinically depressed country and now he’s humanizing a politician who made his name questioning the legitimacy of the sitting president, then labeling Mexican immigrants as rapists. Levin doesn’t seem bothered by his role in giving agency to a public figure who has gone on record advocating for famous people not waiting for consent from women. Ambition knows no boundaries. Ego is limitless in our new reality. To his credit, Levin asks Trump about why he maintains a table full of magazines featuring his cartoonishly tan face on the cover in his office. Trump responds: “It’s not ego. I love doing it. I just have fun.” What’s truly fun about this? What pleasure does he derive from his obsession with collecting his press clippings, even if they’re overwhelmingly negative? When he was booed walking to his polling place, did he get an illicit thrill from the anger? He claims in this show that he doesn’t subscribe to the notion that all press is good press, so how must he feel when more than half the nation thinks he’s reprehensible? The only reasonable response I have to this idea is that he must truly believe he is some messianic martyr who must suffer for our sins of government assistance programs, equality, freedom of the press, and social justice. “I’ve won enough for myself. I wanna win for the country. I hate, Harvey, what’s happening to our country,” he tells Levin in a moment of faux transparency. Even in these staged scenes of humanity, Trump cannot help but fall back on his tired campaign slogans. He wants to win for us this time! What a magnanimous fellow. I can’t win for myself, I guess. Watching this nonsense, I feel as though I’m an audience to a Tony Robbins-esque motivational speech. Believe in yourself as much as I believe in you, he might say. The only one holding you back is the man staring you down in the mirror. Trump simultaneously reinforces our latent inferiority complex, while also propping up our fragile self-esteem like a classic abusive husband. “I always tell people never, ever give up. Never quit. Always do something you love. You’ll have so much more success if you keep going. Even against odds,” he says when Levin asks him about his empire. Trump could have walked away when the media chattering class assumed his campaign was as moribund as Bernie from the film Weekend at Bernie’s — a movie that was popular in the last decade where anyone thought Donald Trump wasn’t a total scumbag. He stuck with it. He kept hustling, like the carney that he really is. No con can truly be abandoned. The illusion is paramount. That Donald Trump never drops the facade, even in the context of a program like this, is a testament to his commitment to the fraud. Over the credits for this farcical show, Levin lobbies for more time with our future leader. He just needs 45 minutes to wrap up, but Trump has a date with a person who will do even more to legitimize his rise to power: Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon. “Are you friendly with him at all?” Trump asks. “I don’t really know him,” Levin responds. Harvey might have good reason to not know Fallon, since his wealth is built on exposing the dark side of celebrities like him. The thing is, what Donald Trump values more than anything is access, social standing, and who you know. That Levin is not tagging along to the Tonight Show with Trump is anathema. The White House is now the Playboy Club — a den of iniquity for the rich, the famous, and the connected. If you voted for Donald Trump and thought he was one of you, you have four years to regret your decision.
Have you changed your mind about your EU referendum vote? It’s been five months since Britain’s historic EU referendum. On Wednesday Philip Hammond, the chancellor, delivered an autumn statement in which he admitted that Brexit will deal a severe blow to the UK’s public finances. The Institute for Financial Studies has said real wages will still be below their 2008 level in 2021. The thinktank’s warning followed dire forecasts from the Office of Budget Responsibility. In a self-proclaimed return to political activity, Tony Blair told the New Statesman that Brexit could still be halted “if the British people decide that, having seen what it means, the pain-gain, cost-benefit analysis doesn’t stack up”. Meanwhile, to mark Hammond’s speech, pro-Brexit campaigners staged a small protest outside parliament, demanding the government trigger article 50 as soon as possible. We’d like to hear from readers on whether they’ve changed their mind on their EU referendum vote. Whether you voted Remain, Leave, or did not vote, we want your views on how events - and the debate - have emerged since. Do you regret your vote, or if the referendum was held tomorrow would you vote exactly the same way? Share your views by filling out the form below. We’ll use your answers in our reporting on the site.
Donald Trump's Super Pac backers worry candidate's errors are piling up Super Pacs backing Donald Trump are off to a slow and rather rocky start as they try to raise funds because the candidate’s rhetoric and policy pronouncements are still so incendiary and he has sent mixed signals about how much financial help he wants from outside groups. Trump’s campaign war chest is dwarfed by Hillary Clinton’s, who had $42.5m in the bank at the start of June compared with her Republican rival’s $1.3m, according to the Federal Election Commission. Trump has taunted big donors repeatedly, and bragged for months that his campaign was not going to rely on them or Super Pacs, before appearing to change his tune more recently. Several donors backing Trump told the that the candidate’s errors are piling up. “He’s got to learn not to put his foot in his mouth,” said Stan Hubbard, a billionaire broadcaster who has donated $100,000 to the pro-Trump Great America Pac. “He needs a clearer message without name-calling.” Hubbard also called Trump’s recent trip to Scotland – where he was criticized for hailing the plunge in the pound post-Brexit as good for his golf course there – a mistake. “He should have let his kids do it.” Likewise, potential Super Pac donors say Trump badly needs to curb his bombastic rhetoric and craft a better message. Michael Epstein, who raised big money for Wisconsin governor Scott Walker and plans to vote for Trump but also “hold my nose and pray”, said that he might back a Super Pac if Trump has a strong GOP convention next month and really “turns it around”. But Epstein added: “I’m less and less hopeful. He can’t get out of his own way. He’s going to have to demonstrate more presidential behavior. They’re behind the eight ball and they’ve got to move fast.” Four key pro-Trump Super Pacs have been formally launched, but between them they have run only about $5m in ads. By contrast, the leading pro-Clinton Super Pac, Priorities USA Action, in mid-May began a massive television and digital ad blitz in key states reportedly slated to cost almost $130m. Signs of turmoil and slow growth among the Trump Super Pacs, which unlike campaigns can accept unlimited donations, are palpable. Texas mega-donor Doug Deason, who in tandem with his billionaire father Darwin Deason recently met with Trump, said that the candidate’s top fundraiser had signaled to them that a new Super Pac, Make America Number One, backed by hedge fund billionaire Robert Mercer, was deemed the “official” one. In a twist, Make America Number One will seek big checks from GOP donors who are not ready to back Trump but want to stop Clinton, according to Bloomberg. Deason said that he and his father would probably write a check to a Super Pac but stressed that “we’re waiting to see what Sheldon Adelson does”, a reference to billionaire Adelson, who has pledged some $100m to help Trump – which Deason thinks is the amount needed for a Super Pac to really have an impact. Adelson has been considering setting up his own Super Pac and talking to key Republican operatives about cobbling one together to help Trump, fundraising sources told the . But the casino baron has been typically cautious and slow in opening his checkbook after at least two meetings with Trump since late May. Adelson is said to be talking to some other wealthy donors – including Home Depot co-founder Bernie Marcus and energy investor Toby Neugebauer – about teaming up on a Super Pac, say fundraising sources. One GOP operative with ties to Adelson told the that the casino mogul may put up his funds in installments, predicting that about half would come after Trump picks his running mate. The operative said Adelson has been pressing Trump to choose the casino owner’s longtime ally Newt Gingrich, the ex-House speaker, or another staunchly pro Israel figure who shares Adelson’s hawkish views on Israel. “Adelson is very succinct about his expectations,” said the operative. Meanwhile, the existing Super Pacs are trying mightily with mixed success to bring in big checks. The Great America Pac, which boasts veteran GOP operative Ed Rollins as a strategist, organized two events in June to woo big donors in Dallas and New York, where a luncheon at the 101 Club was hosted by Peter Kalikow, a wealthy real estate executive and Trump buddy. Eric Beach, the co-chair of Great America, said the Pac has raised $5m and has commitments for another $4m. The Pac has plans for a few more events to court big donors in Los Angeles and Oregon before the Republican national convention and by election day hopes to raise $150m, he said. In June, the Pac launched a three-week, $750,000 ad buy on Fox and cable channels to promote Trump. “Donors care about a path to victory,” Beach said, adding that he expects the Pac to focus on about 10 key states including Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Other pro-Trump Pacs are ramping up their fundraising and ad drives. Laurance Gay, the managing director of the Super Pac Rebuilding America Now and a former lobbyist and one-time partner of Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, said it had raised $2m, most of which has paid for two TV ads. “Our Pac is gearing up to keep Hillary Clinton’s head under water through the elections,” Gay said. Rebuilding America Now expect to raise and spend close to $20m through the GOP convention next month and then hope to raise another $80m for the rest of the campaign season, Gay said. The has learned that Gay and Tom Barrack, a private equity executive and old friend of Trump’s who played a big role in getting the Super Pac launched and told CNN it had $32m in commitments, met with Adelson in June to woo him but it is unclear if they will get a check. Gay said that it was no secret that “we’re well behind in fundraising”. More broadly, veteran money man Fred Malek, who has been a top fundraiser for GOP governors, cautions that Trump’s policies and temperament pose obstacles for Super Pac fundraising Malek stresses that GOP donors and voters, “want to see a nominee who is more inclusive rather than divisive and recognizes that politics is a game of addition and not a game of subtraction.”
Trump woos conservatives with list of potential supreme court picks Donald Trump has unveiled a list of judges he would consider nominating to the US supreme court should he become president, in an effort to satisfy conservatives who fretted over the type of jurists the mercurial New Yorker might select. After the death of Antonin Scalia, which set into motion an election-year battle for control of every branch of government, Republicans began to pressure Trump to prove his conservative credentials by releasing a list of judges he would consider for the vacancy. In a statement on Wednesday, Trump said the list of potential justices was “representative of the kind of constitutional principles I value” and said he would refer to the list as president to fill the vacancy left by Scalia and any other vacancy, should it occur during his presidency. The list of jurists includes Steven Colloton of Iowa, Allison Eid of Colorado, Raymond Gruender of Missouri, Thomas Hardiman of Pennsylvania, Raymond Kethledge of Michigan, Joan Larsen of Michigan, Thomas Lee of Utah, William Pryor of Alabama, David Stras of Minnesota, Diane Sykes of Wisconsin and Don Willett of Texas. Among them, six are federal circuit judges and five are state supreme court justices, with records of conservative rulings. Trump’s list includes a handful of judges who rose to prominence during the George W Bush era, including Pryor, an appointee of the former president who has written that Roe v Wade “created – out of thin air – a constitutional right to murder an unborn child” and who has upheld a Georgia voter ID law. Sykes, whom Trump had previously mentioned as a potential supreme court pick, ruled in favor of the state’s voter ID law and backed federal funding for anti-gay groups that engage in discrimination. The breakout star of Trump’s shortlist was, almost immediately, Willett, the social media-savvy justice on Texas’s highest court. Honored as the state’s “tweeter laureate” thanks to his lively and humorous Twitter feed, the Republican justice has publicly joked about a Trump presidency and his ability to pick a supreme court nominee. “Donald Trump haiku,” @JusticeWillett tweeted in June, months before Scalia’s death. “Who would the Donald / Name to #SCOTUS? /The mind reels. /*weeps—can’t finish tweet*”. He has made light of some of Trump’s most outlandish behavior. He defended Heidi Cruz, the wife former presidential candidate Ted Cruz, after Trump threatened to “spill the beans” on her. “She’s fabulous,” he wrote, embellishing the tweet with fire emojis and a gif of Heidi Cruz wearing glasses. And last summer, after Trump gave out Senator Lindsey Graham’s cellphone number, Willett tweeted a photo of Kanye West with his finger over his lips, captioned: “That time Donald Trump tried to give Kanye my cell number.” Cruz, who dropped out of the presidential race earlier this month, repeatedly accused Trump of not being a “true conservative” and warned that as president, the real estate developer would appoint liberal judges to the supreme court. Seeking to mollify conservatives’ concerns, Trump in March said he would work with the conservative Heritage Foundation to help create a list of nominees. He added later that he’d pick a judge that “would look very seriously” at Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server during her tenure as secretary of state. Clinton responded to Trump’s list with a tweet: Her campaign chairman, John Podesta, criticized Trump’s shortlist of nominees for its lack of diversity, and singled out two judges for their conservative records, which include rulings against reproductive rights and gay rights. “At this point, it’s hard to keep up with the myriad reasons Trump should not be president, but the divisive policies and nominees, reckless and uninformed foreign policy positions and offensive views of Americans are just a few,” Podesta said. “Any one of these things would be troubling. All of them together, in just a few days, is further proof that Donald Trump is a risk we can’t afford.” The death of Scalia was a stark reminder that that the next president is likely to significantly reshape the nation’s highest court. On the campaign trail, the presidential candidates have embraced the argument, telling voters that the next president will make “at least one” and as many as four appointments to the court over the next eight years. Trump supports the Senate’s blockade against Barack Obama’s nominee, Judge Merrick Garland, the chief judge of the US court of appeals for the District of Columbia circuit. The Democratic candidates, Clinton and Bernie Sanders, have accused Senate Republicans of subverting the president’s authority by refusing to hold hearings on the nominee. Republicans have countered that it is inappropriate for a president to make a lifetime appointment in the twilight of his presidency. In the statement, Trump also remembered Scalia, the leading conservative voice on the court, as a “remarkable person and brilliant supreme court justice”. “His career was defined by his reverence for the constitution and his legacy of protecting Americans’ most cherished freedoms,” Trump said. “He was a justice who did not believe in legislating from the bench and he is a person whom I held in the highest regard and will always greatly respect his intelligence and conviction to uphold the constitution of our country.”
Snail mail’s place on the letters page Today we live in a fast-paced world and the reflects that, publishing not only a quality newspaper but hundreds of articles online each day. Many of these articles have comments open beneath them, allowing you, the reader, to have your say instantly “below the line”. Some pieces can thus prompt thousands of comments in the space of a few hours. Yet in parallel with this hive of instantaneous digital activity, the ’s traditional letters page is still going strong and is particularly popular with many of the most loyal buyers of the newspaper. Research suggests that 15% of our core readership has at some point written a letter to the editor. But while we call ourselves “the letters page”, it is inevitable that in 2016 the majority of submissions are via email. Each day we receive approximately 200 genuine submissions (after weeding out the spam and forwarding on many to other relevant desks or journalists) which we then whittle down to about 15 or 20 that we print. Some extra letters are also published online, although readers sometimes complain that they can be difficult to find on the website – something we are hoping to rectify in the coming months. But while the majority of submissions come via email, we still get a steady stream of about 20 letters a day in the post. We also received faxes (remember them?) until a couple of years ago. Many letters are handwritten, many have beautifully printed stickers or letterheads bearing the sender’s address and contact details. Some apologise for having to put pen to paper, signing off with “Sorry for my handwriting – my computer has broken” or “I have never owned a computer and my typewriter is out of action”. Some are addressed to our old Farringdon Road office, from which we moved in 2008, but still find their way to our new home at King’s Cross. Others have been word-processed before being posted, as many of us would have done in the 1980s or 90s before internet connections became commonplace. Unfortunately I don’t think I can report that any of them are written in green ink, but it is true that some are laden with block capitals (never a good sign). Still, we consider these letters for publication just as we do the emails that we receive, favouring ones that are tightly written and making a valid point. Those from older readers, as the majority no doubt are, offer wisdom and a valuable historical perspective on current affairs so we must take the time to read them. However, the “snail mail”, as we sometimes refer to it, faces two significant disadvantages. The first is that a posted letter will inevitably take longer to arrive on our desk than an email. While we keep letters under consideration for publication for up to a week, those that respond quickly to today’s or yesterday’s news can stand a better chance of being published. The second disadvantage is that such letters have to be either typed up or scanned in by us in order to publish them. When we receive on average 200 submissions a day, all competing for our attention, this extra barrier can prove decisive, particularly when it is likely that we already have a similar message by email. In the early 2000s I was letters editor of the Brighton Argus and, though email was already the main source of letters I published, these were the last days of a veteran copytaker, Brenda, who would take readers’ letters over the phone by touch-typing with a speed I could only envy. Likewise, she would type up about 20 posted letters a day. Her dedication meant that readers with no access to email were able to have their voice heard in the pages of their daily newspaper. Unfortunately when she retired she was never to be replaced – a story true across the local and national press. The had a similar service until about five years ago but now, with time and resources ever limited, we recommend that those who can email us do so at guardian.letters@theguardian.com. Whether sent by post or by email, letters must include the sender’s full name, postal address and phone number (though only your name and your town/city and county will be published), and it always helps to provide the headline, date, page number or web URL of the article you are responding to when writing about a piece. We publish few letters of more than 250 words, so try to keep it brief. And no attachments please – just type into the main body of the email. That said, we realise that not everyone has internet access so we’ll do our best to keep an eye on our in-tray as much as our inbox. Twitter: @TobyChasseaud
David Cameron claims family holidays could cost £230 more after Brexit The cost of a family holiday could rise by £230 and new limits on duty free could put an end to “booze cruises” to the continent if Britain votes to leave the EU, David Cameron is to claim. In the latest warning about the price of Brexit, the prime minister will argue that the cost of holiday spending and accommodation could go up because of the falling pound. The leave campaign is likely to level charges of exaggeration and scaremongering at the new Treasury figures, released a day after a warning about job losses, lower wages, higher inflation and falling house prices. But Downing Street insists it is setting out the government’s objective viewpoint ahead of the 23 June vote. In its new analysis, the Treasury claimed holiday prices could go up as soon as this summer because the pound is likely to fall by around 12%, making the cost of accommodation, food and drinks higher for those travelling overseas. It predicted that two years after Britain leaving the EU, the average holiday for four people travelling together for eight nights in Europe would cost £230 more. The government argued that other benefits would be at risk, including the end of roaming charges from 2017, free healthcare within the EU and booze cruises because of potential limits on duty free. “All the evidence points to the value of the pound falling after a vote to leave the EU. A weaker pound means people’s hard-earned savings won’t go as far on holidays overseas,” Cameron will warn. “The choice facing the British people on 23 June is increasingly clear: the certainty and economic security of remaining in the EU, or a leap in the dark that would raise prices – including the cost of a family holiday.” His warnings add to a previous ones by airline chief executives, including Carolyn McCall of easyJet and Michael O’Leary of Ryanair, that the price of flights could be affected. McCall said: “For easyJet and our passengers, membership of the EU has been a good thing. The common aviation area created by the EU allows any European airline to fly anywhere in Europe. This has kept all airlines’ costs low and has enabled low-fare airlines like easyJet to expand. “If the UK were to vote to leave the EU any new, more restrictive aviation arrangements would add cost and therefore fares would rise. And a weaker pound would mean the cost of a holiday abroad – including food, accommodation and drinks – would be more expensive. That is why we think our customers are better off in Europe.” Two bosses of mobile phone companies backed the government’s claims that the UK would not necessarily benefit from the end of mobile roaming charges from June 2017 if it left the EU. Gavin Patterson, chief executive of BT Group, which owns EE, said: “Because of the UK’s membership of the EU, BT and EE have been able to offer our customers lower charges, including inclusive roaming plans and data charges that are over 90% lower for Britons travelling on the continent. Voters need to think very carefully before turning their backs on an institution that helps to ensure benefits like that are delivered.” Vittorio Colao, chief executive of the Vodafone Group, said: “The end of roaming charges – which was driven by the EU – and Europe-wide offers from operators like Vodafone – the European leader in 4G – mean that everyone can use their mobiles anywhere in Europe without having to worry about excessive costs. “Britain will benefit from being part of a borderless European single digital market as it will create new opportunities for economic growth. Consequently, we believe it is better to be a shaper and leader from within, rather than being just a commercial neighbour.”
Lloyds Banking Group share price passes 73.6p for first time this year Shares in Lloyds Banking Group have passed the level at which taxpayers break even on their stake in the bailed-out bank for the first time this year. The move through 73.6p will be closely watched by George Osborne. The chancellor was forced to postpone an offering of the bank’s shares to the public as a resut of the turmoil in the markets in the start of the year. The shares closed at 73.74p on Wednesday, up 1.8%. Even though the retail offering is on hold, Osborne can offload shares in small tranches to professional investors every time the shares rise past 73.6p mark. In December, this so-called trading plan was extended to the end of June. The dip in Lloyds’ share price, whichhas been below 60p this year, means little headway has been made in reducing the taxpayers’ stake below 9%. The shares last traded above 73.6p on 29 December. Osborne has pledged to offer £2bn of shares to the public at a 5% discount to the prevailing price. Earlier this month, the Treasury said it had received a £130m dividend payment from Lloyds, taking the total it has received from the bank to £16.8bn. At the time, Treasury minister Harriett Baldwin, reiterated the government’s intention to conduct an offering of shares to the public later this year. The taxpayer stake was 43% following Lloyds’ takeover of HBOS during the 2008 crisis. It has been reduced through a series of transactions since. The first was September 2013 when £3.2bn of shares were sold at 75p a share to institutional investors, the second in March 2014, when a further £4.2bn was sold at 75.5p, and the since December 2014 through the process of dribbling shares into the market when the price is above 73.6p.
Former Deutsche Bank boss guilty of insider dealing A former Topshop finance chief, along with a one-time managing director of Deutsche Bank, have been found guilty of insider dealing in one of the UK’s most high-profile cases. Eight years after the investigation began, Andrew Hind, 56, who was finance director at Topshop in the 1990s, and his friend Martyn Dodgson, 44, who used to work in corporate broking at Deutsche and Lehman Brothers, were both convicted following a 12-week trial at Southwark crown court. The pair will be sentenced at a later date and face a maximum of seven years in prison as well as a confiscation order. The longest sentence handed down for being convicted of insider dealing in the UK is the four years given to Richard Joseph in 2013. The Financial Conduct Authority alleged that Dodgson had handed inside information he had discovered through his work to Hind, who was then alleged to have passed it on to two other men to trade on their behalf. It was alleged that the group, which also included another corporate broker, then split the profits, which the FCA claimed totalled £7.4m. The three other alleged participants were all acquitted. They were: Andrew “Grant” Harrison, 46, who also worked in corporate broking and who was alleged to have played a similar role to Dodgson; Ben Anderson, 71, a day trader; and his former business partner, Iraj Parvizi, 50, who rose to prominence in the City after working in a Kent kebab shop. Anderson and Parvizi admitted adding their own funds to investments carried out on behalf of Hind, but both insisted they had no reason to suspect his stock picks were based on price-sensitive insider information. In order to be convicted of insider dealing in the UK, the jury has to be satisfied that defendants were aware they were trading on inside information. When arrested six years ago Dodgson, who was paid £601,000 as a managing director at Deutsche Bank, told police he had never had any involvement in share trading or spread-betting on shares. Prosecuting counsel told the court he had also said that “he would not dare to advise anyone on trading or spread-betting as it was too easy to lose a lot of money”. On his keyring, though, investigators found the key for a secure metal box at his home in Hampstead, north London, which contained a specialist encrypted flash drive allowing users to store files and browse the internet without leaving a trace. Dodgson said he had not used the device in years and could not unlock it. By cross-checking other passwords the banker had used elsewhere, however, investigators were able to discover that the drive was opened by the password “Lamborghini55”. The court was also told how the drive contained incriminating evidence including a spreadsheet detailing that listed coded references to the trades. Investigators also discovered Hind had bought six encrypted USB sticks, with three being found in a wall safe at his home. When asked for the passwords, he declined to provide them. Investigators have been unable to access the sticks. Dodgson is one of the most senior City figures ever to be charged with insider dealing. He moved to Deutsche Bank in October 2008 as a director and was later promoted, while he was also part of a Deutsche Bank team advising the government on its stakes in the Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group. • This article was amended on 10 May 2016. An earlier version described Andrew Hind as a former adviser to Sir Philip Green. We have been advised that Hind has never been an adviser to Green, or an employee of any company controlled by him. Hind was employed by the Arcadia group before Green and his family took control of the business.
'Hello, world': GCHQ joins Twitter Spooks at GCHQ have been snooping on our tweets for years, but now members of the public who use Twitter can see theirs following the launch of the surveillance agency’s first official account. More than 10 years after Twitter began, GCHQ dipped its public toe into the social networking water with the words “hello, world” just after 11am on Monday. Within half an hour of its verified feed, the GCHQ account attracted more than 2,000 followers. GCHQ is late to the official social media party by the standards of international security services. Its US equivalent, the National Security Agency, has been running an account since December 2013. The Central Intelligence Agency launched its account almost two years ago with a memorable first message. The move is part of an effort to make the secretive Cheltenham listening post slightly more transparent and improve its public image after Edward Snowden revealed the industrial scale of mass surveillance by it and the NSA. The account launch is reported to have come after months of discussion. While ministers and diplomats have been encouraged to tweet for years, the security establishment has been reluctant to follow suit. Neither MI6 nor MI5 has an official Twitter account. But GCHQ’s director, Robert Hannigan, has a brief to restore public trust in the agency. Andrew Pike, the director of communications at GCHQ, said: “In joining social media, GCHQ can use its own voice to talk directly about the important work we do in keeping Britain safe.” The initial reaction to the account was of mockery, including from the former deputy prime minister John Prescott. Duncan Weldon, the head of research at the Resolution Foundation, wondered how users would react if GCHQ started following them on Twitter. The former journalist Glenn Greenwald, who broke the story of Snowden’s revelations, noted the irony of GCHQ’s attempt to win public trust after previously trying to suppress news of its existence. In a statement, GCHQ acknowledged that it had been a late adopter of Twitter. “We know that some will say we’re joining the Twitter party slightly late, but we’re the first intelligence agency in the UK to do this and it’s a big step for the organisation as we become more open about the work we do to keep Britain safe,” it said. “Some things have to stay secret, sorry, so we won’t be providing intelligence updates or giving away tradecraft. “We want GCHQ to be more accessible and to help the public understand more about our work. We also want to reach out to the technical community and add our voice to social media conversations about technology, maths, cybersecurity and other topics where we have a view.” It explained that “hello, world” was one of the first phrases that students of computer coding learn to write. “As a technical organisation with computing at its core, it resonated with many of our staff, who have learnt to program during their career,” GCHQ said. • This article was amended on 16 May 2016 to remove the statement that blocking GCHQ on Twitter would make it more difficult for the organisation to legally spy on a user.
Joanna Newsom, Jeff Daniels and the new Serial – the podcasts you should listen to this weekend Welcome to our column on podcasting. Here, we’ll discuss great episodes and share new discoveries – and we hope you’ll chip in with your own recommendations. Thanks for all your comments last week: we are listening, and we do know there are so many fantastic episodes, mainstream and not, that deserve to be featured. Give us time! In the meantime, keep them coming. Reply All goes full Serial A female reporter’s weekly phone calls with a jailed man who says he didn’t commit the crime he’s serving for. An incomprehensible crime and trial from the late 90s, dissected over months by an enthralled journalist. Sound familiar? That’s because Reply All’s miniseries has all the Serial ingredients (with some sprinkles of Fargo) – and we could not have enjoyed it more. Over the past three episodes, producer Sruthi Pinnamaneni has told a story that started when she discovered a man had been writing a blog inside a maximum security prison, and she gave him a call ... then was hooked for a year. See minute 15:42: It gets better, and darker … and Part III just dropped. Reply All tackles all the sides you didn’t know the internet had – from the tragic to the hilarious, but always fascinating. This full-blown investigation proves it’s the best podcast around. • On the Inside, Parts I, II and III by Reply All (ep 64, 65 and 66) Duration: 30, 35, 50 minutes Listen here / Subscribe here Come for the “correctional facility” calls, stay for the investigative storytelling. Jeff Daniels sobers up The actor Jeff Daniels is best known for perfecting “a particular brand of white American male that is not altogether likeable” – see The Newsroom, The Squid and the Whale, Terms of Endearment – as well as mastering “lovingly stupid” (Dumb and Dumber). What is probably less known is that, for the past 30 years, he has been working from his Michigan hometown – population 5,000. Daniel talks candidly about leaving New York for the Midwest, being so frustrated by the business that he “couldn’t even watch the Oscars”, and getting sober a second time around, having started drinking again after a decade of sobriety. I had just turned 50, which is a speed bump – at 80 miles an hour. And I hadn’t drank for 14 years, had quit cold turkey. I was two months into 50, and I was checking into a hotel room in some city, I’m throwing the suitcase on the bed, and I hear a voice behind me – and it’s me, clear as day – say: ‘Don’t you think you’ve punished yourself enough?’ Anna Sale masterfully creates a no-judgment safe space for interviewees to open up about “the things we think about a lot and need to talk about more” – and addiction is one of them: In acting, we call it “fire the judge”. It’s the devil on your shoulder. It’s the judge where you go out on stage and, right before you go into the big speech, that voice says “you’re going to screw this up.” You’ve got to fire him. And I didn’t fire him that day. Here’s a teaser: • How Jeff Daniels Got Sober, Again by Death, Sex & Money Duration: 24 minutes Listen here / Subscribe here Come for Sale’s soothing voice, stay for the confessions. Joanna Newsom in the garage She’s so fantastically alien when she sings and plays that it almost feels wrong to hear songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and actor Newsom talk like the rest of us. But she’s great company, it turns out. Marc Maron, as most podcast fans will know, interviews guests in his garage in an honest, conversational manner that often results in really intimate chats. Here, Newsom describes her childhood in Nevada City (as hippy a town as Californian towns get), her obsessive harp-playing as a teenager, Renaissance paintings, and her preoccupation with permanence and “what it actually means to be remembered – which is basically to say death”. • Joanna Newsom by WTF with Marc Maron (ep 709) Duration: 85 minutes Listen here / Subscribe here Come for the great company, stay for the life and death reflections.
'Lasses' jobs' replacing industry led to Brexit vote, says clergyman The collapse of traditional industry and its replacement with “lasses’ jobs” led many people to vote to leave the European Union, a Hartlepool clergyman has said. Graeme Buttery spoke of voters’ “rage and powerlessness” in a debate on the EU referendum at the Church of England synod, which opened in York on Friday. People in the north east had voted to leave despite the injection of “vast sums of money” from the EU. “Since we joined the European Union the shipyards have sunk, the coalmines have collapsed, the steel works, dare I mention it, have rusted and the chemical works have dissolved. The jobs that came were lasses’ jobs. “And even they didn’t last because three or four years ago the phone calling company that had set up in Hartlepool decided to downsize and move to India,” said Buttery. He added: “No number of grants from the European Union can make that right anywhere near quickly.” Justin Welby, the archbishop of Canterbury, said the outcome of the 23 June poll had been clear and “whatever our view of what we would have preferred, we must now deal with the world as it is”. But, he added, the campaign “exposed deep divisions within our society”, and the result “released a latent racism and xenophobia in all sectors, and challenges the prevailing consensus of tolerance and acceptance”. The country was now facing a “period of profound uncertainty”, he added. “The outbursts of the last two weeks may pass but the signal has been set at danger for our cohesion.” Robert Innes, the Brussels-based bishop in Europe, said tears had been shed over the referendum result. “A few people are pleased with the result but many more are deeply upset.” People who had retired to Spain or France were “desperately worried”, he added. “[These are] ordinary working people who thought they could safely retire to a warmer place and they now fear becoming pawns in a complex negotiation about migration.” There was some veiled criticism raised in a written question which asked “how well the Church of England understands our nation, given the publicly aired views of our leadership on Brexit compared with the outcome of the referendum”. Before the referendum, Welby came out in favour of the remain campaign, along with a handful of bishops. But synod delegates overwhelmingly backed a motion encouraging all members of the church to “unite in the common task of building a generous and forward-looking country”.
Labour MP Naz Shah suspended from party over antisemitism row - as it happened The Labour party has suspended the Bradford West MP Naz Shah over antisemitic Facebook posts made before she was elected to parliament. The announcement came a few hours after Jeremy Corbyn issued a statement which condemned her comments but did not suspend her. Labour has not yet explained why action was not taken earlier. Ken Livingstone, the Corbyn ally and former London mayor, has told LBC suspending Shah was a mistake. This is from LBC’s Matthew Harris. David Crompton, the chief constable of South Yorkshire Police has been suspended in the wake of the Hillsborough inquest findings. On Tuesday Crompton admitted the force got the policing of the match “catastrophically wrong” and “unequivocally” accepted the inquest jury’s conclusions. South Yorkshire’s Police and Crime Commissioner Dr Alan Billings said he had no choice but to act “based on the erosion of public trust and confidence”. Earlier in the Commons, in a statement widely praised by MPs from all sides of the House, Theresa May, the home secretary, said she was “disappointed” by how the force responded to the inquest verdicts. Andy Burnham, the shadow home secretary, said the force was “rotten to the core” in his own speech which was so powerful it was applauded by MPs. (See 2.14pm.) Officials implicated in the unlawful killing of 96 Liverpool fans in theHillsborough disaster could face prosecution for criminal negligence and perjury, May has said. David Cameron has hinted at concessions on his plan to force all schools to become academies, saying they will still be able to work with councils. As Rowena Mason reports, he said further plans would be brought forward at the Queen’s speech next month, and suggested schools who wanted the support of local authorities would be able to receive it. His comments suggest the government may be preparing a compromise that would let local authorities be involved in running academies, amid a threatened rebellion. Cameron has rejected an attempt by the House of Lords to force the UK to take in child refugees from Europe, arguing that they are in safe countries and not comparable to those fleeing Nazi Germany. Kezia Dugdale has put her party’s plan to increase income taxes to 50p for Scotland’s richest residents at the centre of Scottish Labour’s election campaign, a week before polling stations open. The last to unveil a manifesto for the Holyrood election, the Scottish Labour leader said raising income tax was the “big choice” facing voters on 5 May, in stark contrast to the £3bn in cuts she claimed the Scottish National party would need to make.“ But, as Severin Carrell reports, minutes after her speech a new poll for STV by Ipsos Mori predicted that Scottish Labour could finish third behind the Tories – echoing some other polls putting the two parties neck and neck. The poll found the Tories two points ahead of Labour in the regional vote to select 56 MSPs but one point behind in the constituency vote to choose 73 directly elected members. It forecast that this would result in the Tories taking 23 seats against Labour’s 20 – 17 seats down on Labour’s take in 2011. Britain’s economy slowed sharply in the first three months of 2016 as factors unrelated to the looming in/out EU referendum put a brake on growth. George Osborne’s decision to impose a £10,000 tax-free cap on pension contributions is deterring well-paid lawyers from becoming judges, the lord chief justice has said. As Owen Bowcott reports, appearing before the House of Lords constitution committee, Lord Thomas said the move was having a very serious effect on judicial recruitment from an “immensely prosperous” profession. The cut in the £40,000-a-year cap for those earning more than £150,000 in last July’s budget had significantly reduced the financial attractiveness of posts on the bench compared with lucrative work in the private sector, he said. British households will be saddled with a tax-like financial burden for years if they vote to leave the EU, one of the world’s leading forecasting groups has warned. Lord Heseltine has said Margaret Thatcher would have voted to remain in in the EU. In an interview with the New Statesman the pro-European Heseltine, whose leadership challenge led to her resignation in 1990, said: She would have voted to stay in. That’s what she always did. There were two Mrs Thatchers: what she did and what she said. Party management often demanded language which perhaps didn’t completely reflect the decision-making for which she was responsible. She knew that Britain’s self-interest was inextricably interwoven with Europe and that’s why she was personally responsible for the biggest sharing of sovereignty in British history - the Single European Act. That’s all from me for today. Thanks for the comments. More on the BuzzFeed allegation. (See 3.55pm.) This is from the Jewish Chronicle’s Marcus Dysch. David Crompton, chief constable of South Yorkshire Police, has been suspended over his response to Hillsborough, the BBC reports. Earlier in the Commons Theresa May, the home secretary, said she was “disappointed” by the force’s reaction to the verdicts. (See 1.45pm.) The Labour party has suspended the MP Naz Shah. A party spokesman said: Jeremy Corbyn and Naz Shah have mutually agreed that she is administratively suspended from the Labour Party by the general secretary. Pending investigation, she is unable to take part in any party activity and the whip is removed. This is rather odd. Jeremy Corbyn issued a statement about her this morning, after they had spoken, which did not say she would be suspended. (See 11.47am.) Since then she has issued a written apology (see 12.02pm) and apologised in the Commons (see 2.53pm). And now she is being suspended. I will try to find out why. According to BuzzFeed’s Jim Waterson, the original draft of the apology Naz Shah issued this morning was edited by Labour HQ before it was published to remove mention of the term “antisemitic”. Here is a video of Naz Shah’s apology. Here is the full text of Naz Shah’s apology to MPs. Mr Speaker, can I can seek your advice on how I can express my deep sorrow for something the prime minister referred to earlier. As you know, when a government minister makes a mistake they can correct the record. I hope you will allow me to say that I fully acknowledge that I have made a mistake and I wholeheartedly apologise to this House for the words I used before I became a member. I accept and understand that the words I used caused upset and hurt to the Jewish community and I deeply regret that. Antisemitism is racism, full stop. As an MP I will do everything in my power to build relations between Muslims, Jews and people of different faiths and none. I am grateful and thankful for the support and advice I have received from many Jewish friend and colleagues, advice I intend to act upon. I truly regret what I did and I hope, I sincerely hope, that this House will accept my profound apology. The Hillsborough statement is now over. Immediately afterwards the Labour MP Naz Shah rose to make a point of order and used it to make a “wholehearted apology” to the Commons for the Facebook posts she made before she became an MP. She said she understood why the words she used caused offence. Antisemitism is racism, full stop, she said. She said that as an MP she would do everything she could to improve relations between Muslims, Jews and people of all faiths. I will post the full quotes shortly. Labour’s Toby Perkins asks May if she has confidence in the chief constable of South Yorkshire Police. May says there will be elections to for the police and crime commissioner next week. She goes one to say: It behoves South Yorkshire Police to recognise the import of the verdicts that were brought out yesterday. I hope that we will not see attempts to try and somehow suggest that those verdicts were not clear, or in any way wrong. That jury sat through 296 days of evidence and they were clear about the role of South Yorkshire Police officers. Andrew Slaughter, the Labour MP and shadow justice minister, asks May to think carefully about her plan to get rid of the European convention on human rights. He says the ECHR guarantees that inquests like this one go ahead. May says the attorney general made a statement on the ECHR yesterday. But she says she is concerned about the need to get to the truth when there are unexplained deaths. That is why she set up an inquiry into deaths in custody, she says. Labour’s Mike Kane says he used to follow his football team at Hillsborough. “Apart from going to hell”, what will happen to those who lied about what happened there, he asks. May says that is a matter for the criminal investigations. The Times has admitted today that it made a mistake when it did not mention Hillsborough on the front page of its first edition, my colleague Jane Martinson reports. Labour’s David Anderson asks May what action will be taken to expose everyone, including elected officials, who played any role in this cover-up, by omission or commission. Because they are as guilty as everyone else, he says. There are people who need to be called to account. May says the report from the Hillsborough Independent Panel showed the truth of what had happened. That required organisations that had previously been silent to come forward and give evidence. She says there has been a “collective recognition” in the Commons today that the procedures that should have led to the truth coming out failed. MPs are not supposed to clap in the House of Commons (a rule introduced to stop MPs using sustained clapping to disrupt proceedings) but occasionally, after an exceptional speech, MPs do applaud. It happened when Hilary Benn spoke in the debate on bombing Islamic State in Syria. And it happened again today after Andy Burnham’s statement. Here are edited extracts. On why the verdict took so long When it came, their verdict was simple, clear, powerful, emphatic. But it begged the question – how could something so obvious have taken so long? Three reasons. First, a police force which has consistently put protecting itself above protecting people harmed by Hillsborough. Second, collusion between that force and complicit print media. Third, a flawed judicial system that gives the upper hand to those in authority over and above ordinary people. On the need for a ‘Hillsborough clause’ in the policing bill Of course, the behaviour of some officers, while reprehensible, was not necessarily criminal. But, through retirement, police officers can still escape misconduct proceedings. In her Policing and Crime Bill, the Home Secretary proposes a 12-month period after retirement where proceedings can be initiated. One of the lessons of Hillsborough is that there must be no arbitrary time limits on justice and accountability. So will the Home Secretary work with me to insert a Hillsborough clause into her Bill – ending the scandal of retirement as an escape route and of wrong-doers claiming full pensions – and apply it retrospectively? On South Yorkshire Police The much bigger question for the South Yorkshire Police to answer today is this: why, at this Inquest, did they go back on their 2012 public apology? When the Lord Chief Justice quashed the original inquest, he requested that the new one not degenerate into an “adversarial battle”. Sadly, Mr Speaker, that is exactly what happened. Shamefully, the cover-up continued in this Warrington court room. Millions of pounds of public money were spent re-telling discredited lies ... Does the home secretary agree that, because of his handling of this Inquest, the position of the Chief Constable is now untenable ... Will the home secretary now order the fundamental reform of this force and consider all potential options? On the links with Orgreave, and the need for full disclosure I promised the families the whole truth about Hillsborough. I don’t believe they will have it until we know the truth about Orgreave. This force used the same underhand tactics against its own people in the aftermath of the miners’ strike that it would later use, to more deadly effect, against the people of Liverpool. There has been an IPCC report on Orgreave. But parts of it are redacted. It has been put to me that those contain evidence of direct links between Orgreave and Hillsborough. This is a time for transparency, not secrecy – time for the people of South Yorkshire to know the full truth about their police force. So will the Home Secretary accept the legal submission from the Orgreave Truth & Justice Campaign and set up a disclosure process? This force hasn’t learned and hasn’t changed. Mr Speaker, let me be clear – I don’t blame the ordinary police officers, the men and women who did their best on the day and who today are out keeping our streets safe. But I do blame their leadership and culture, which seems rotten to the core. Orgreave, Hillsborough, Rotherham – how much more evidence do we need before we act? On the press, and the need for phase two of the Leveson inquiry to go ahead No-one in the police or media has ever been held to account for the incalculable harm they caused in smearing a whole city in its moment of greatest grief ... Leveson recommended a second-stage inquiry to look at the sometimes unhealthy relationship between police and press. I know the Hillsborough families feel strongly that this must be taken forward. So will the government end the delay and honour the Prime Minister’s promises to the victims of press intrusion? On the judicial system Why should the authorities be able to spend public money like water to protect themselves while families have no such help? So will the government consider further reforms to the coronial system, including giving the bereaved at least equal legal funding as public bodies? On Theresa May not playing any part in the cover-up This cover-up went right to the top. It was advanced in the committee rooms of this House and in the press rooms of 10 Downing Street. It persisted because of collusion between elites in politics, police and the media. But this home secretary stood outside of that. And today I express my sincere admiration and gratitude to her for the stance she has consistently taken in righting this wrong. On the Hillsborough relatives It has been the privilege of my life to work with them all. They have prevailed against all the odds. They have kept their dignity in the face of terrible adversity. They could not have shown a more profound love for those they lost on that day. They truly represent the best of what our country is all about. The Conservative MP Alec Shelbrooke asks May if she would support merging the various Yorkshire police forces. That would get rid of the name of South Yorkshire Police, he says. May says Shelbrooke knows that government’s view on merging police forces. (She is opposed.) But she says South Yorkshire Police needs to reflect on yesterday’s verdict. May says she is opposed to merger of Yorkshire police forces. Here is the full quote from Theresa May on South Yorkshire Police. I think everybody will be disappointed and indeed concerned by some of the remarks that have been made by South Yorkshire Police today. There was a very clear verdict yesterday in relation to the decisions that were taken by police officers and the action of police officers on 15 April 1989 and I would urge South Yorkshire Police force to recognise the verdict of the jury. Yes, they must get on with the day to day job today of policing within their force area. But I think they do need to look at what happened, at what the verdicts have shown, recognise the truth and be willing to accept that. Chris Heaton-Harris, a Conservative, asks May what she thinks of South Yorkshire Police’s conduct. Theresa May says everybody will be concerned by some of the remarks made by South Yorkshire Police today. There was a very clear verdict yesterday, she says. She urges South Yorkshire Police to accept the verdict and “recognise the truth”. May criticises South Yorkshire Police for refusing to fully accept the inquest verdict. It should “recognise the truth”, she says. I will post May’s full quote shortly. And this is what Theresa May said in her opening statement about the criminal investigations underway, and the possible offences that may have been committed. The House will understand that I cannot comment in detail on matters that may lead to a criminal investigation. I can, however, say that the offences under investigation include gross negligence manslaughter, misconduct in public office, perverting the course of justice and perjury, as well as offences under the Safety of Sports Grounds Act 1975 and the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974. Here is the start of the Press Association story about Theresa May’s statement. Ministers must consider how the state responds to disasters like Hillsborough to make sure the suffering of families is better taken into account, Theresa May said as she praised victims’ relatives for their “extraordinary dignity and determination”. An inquest jury ruled that the 96 Liverpool fans who died in the Sheffield stadium disaster in 1989 were unlawfully killed and there are now calls for further action to be taken. The home secretary read the jury’s determinations in full to a hushed House of Commons as she outlined the criminal charges that are being investigated. The inquest lasted two years and found that blunders by South Yorkshire’s police and ambulance services “caused or contributed to” the deaths. The jury found that Liverpool fans were not to blame for what happened. May said the outcome of the inquest was of “national significance”. “The conclusion of the inquest brings to an end an important step since the publication of the Hillsborough Independent Panel’s report,” she said. “Thanks to that report and now the determinations of the inquests we know the truth of what happened on that day at Hillsborough. “Naturally the families will want to reflect on yesterday’s historic outcome which is of national significance. “I am also clear that this raises significant issues for the way that the state and its agencies deal with disasters. “Once the formal investigations are concluded we should step back, reflect and act if necessary so that we can better respond to disasters and ensure that the suffering of families is taken into account.” These are from the BBC’s Vicki Young. South Yorkshire Police has issued a fresh statement this morning saying that during the inquest it never sought to defend its failures over Hillsborough. It also says that the coroner himself said that its previous apology should not be admitted into the proceedings because that would be prejudicial. Here is the statement, as reported by the Press Association. In 2012, the chief constable made a full apology for the failures of South Yorkshire Police (SYP) and the force has stood by that ever since. In the aftermath of the verdicts, the chief constable apologised again and unequivocally accepted the jury’s conclusions. We have been asked about our conduct at the inquests. The coroner himself gave a clear ruling that specifically addresses the relationship between apologies and evidence at the inquests. He ruled that to admit the previous 2012 apology by the chief constable into proceedings would be ‘wrong’ and ‘highly prejudicial’. He also ruled that the conduct of SYP during the inquests was not inconsistent with this earlier apology. The force has taken careful note of the coroner’s comments during the inquests and has sought to be open and transparent at all stages. It is important to remember that inquests are not about guilt, liability or blame, but about establishing the facts. The intention throughout these proceedings has been to assist the jury understand the facts. We have never sought, at any stage, to defend the failures of SYP or its officers. Nevertheless, these failures had to be put into the context of other contributory factors. In other words, where do the failings of SYP stand in the overall picture? We are sorry if our approach has been perceived as at odds with our earlier apology, this was certainly not our intention. And here is my colleague Vikram Dodd’s take on it. Joanna Cherry, the SNP’s justice and home affairs spokeswoman, says this ranks with Bloody Sunday as “one of the most disgraceful cover-ups of our time”. She says she agrees with Burnham about the need to take action to stop police officers being able to evade disciplinary action by retiring. And she says the relatives might never have got another inquest if it had not been for the European convention on human rights, because the ECHR guarantees the right to have incidents of this kind properly investigated. May says responds to the ECHR by saying the right to request an inquest, and fresh inquest, existed in the UK long before the ECHR was drawn up. Dominic Grieve, the Conservative former attorney general, says mistakes will always be made. The real issue is how long it took for the relatives to get redress, and a proper account of the issues. This is not a unique event, he says. There have been similar episodes, like Bloody Sunday. He says Theresa May has done “everything right”. But this is not just about systems; it is about attitudes, and the tendency to brush away problems that make us uncomfortable. May is responding to Burnham. She says most of the general public believed the stories they read about the fans. To have stood up against that showed a steely determination, and a passionate commitment to justice. We will rarely see that again, she says. On the timings of the decisions about criminal prosecutions, she says files will go to the CPS around the end of the year. Then the CPS will need time to consider them. She understands why people want this to happen more quickly. But this has to be done quickly. On police officers avoiding misconduct proceedings by retiring, May says she has always thought this was wrong. She is happy to meet Labour to discuss this. On the Leveson inquiry, she says the government will consider whether to go ahead with phase two of the inquiry when all prosecutions are over. Burnham says he wants to finish by paying tribute to the relatives. It has been the privilege of his life to stand alongside them, he says. They represent the best of what this country is. Burnham receives a round of applause - a highly unusual move in the Commons, and a tribute to what was a remarkably moving and powerful statement. Burnham says the families were not properly represented at earlier stages in this process. One of the reasons they were successful at the inquest was that, at last, they had the best legal representation. He says it is wrong that public bodies can spend as much as they want defending themselves in inquests, while families cannot do that. He says Westminster was involved. He says the cover-up was defended in committee rooms in the Commons, and in the press room at Number 10. But Theresa May played no part in that, he says. He pays tribute to her for ensuring the inquest got to the truth. Burnham says collusion between the police and the print media made Hillsborough worse. He says the Leveson inquiry recommendations need to be fully implemented. Burnham is now going through those issues in detail. He urges May to ensure that decisions on prosecution are taken before the end of the year. Will the government include a Hillsborough clause into the crime bill to ensure that police officers cannot evade misconduct charges by retiring, with no cost to their pension. And this should be retrospective, he says. He says millions of pounds were spend during the inquest recycling discredited lies. If the South Yorkshire Police had maintained their apology, the inquest would have been much shorter. He says South Yorkshire Police had apologised, but they went back on that. He says it pains him to say Yorkshire Ambulance Service did the same. He says the South Yorkshire chief constable should resign. Burnham calls for South Yorkshire chief constable to resign. He says there were similarities between what happened at Hillsborough and what happened at Orgreave. He calls for full publication of the papers relating to Orgreave. Burnham claims secret Orgeave papers show a direct link between what happened at Hillsborough and what happened at Orgreave. He says South Yorkshire Police was corrupt. All solutions should be considered to clean it up, he says. Andy Burnham, the shadow home secretary and leading campaigner on behalf of the Hillsborough families, is responding to May. He says there was a 27-year cover up. He thanks the jury for what they did. The verdict was “simple, clear, powerful and emphatic”. But how could something so obvious take so long? There are three reason. First, the police force covered up what they did. Second, there was collusion between the police and the print media. And, third, the justice system was flawed. May says for 27 years the families have fought for justice. They have faced opposition, hostility and obfuscation. The authorities tried to protect themselves, instead of acting in the public interest. The families did not give up. They were extraordinary. She says MPs should recognise their courage and resolve. She says she hopes that for the families and survivors yesterday’s verdict will bring them closer to the peace they deserve. She says Bishop James has agreed to stay on as her adviser on Hillsborough. May says the Crown Prosecution Service will decide whether there will be prosecutions, on the basis of the criminal investigations. She says possible offences being investigated include gross negligence manslaughter, misconduct in public office, perverting the course of justice, perjury, offences against the Sports Grounds Act and offences against the Health and Safety Act. She says decisions on prosecutions should be taken around the end of the year. But she says she wants to ensure that support for the families continues. May says the jury also heard evidence about the “valiant efforts” made by many fans to save people. There is cheering for this. She says the verdict that the victims were unlawfully killed is of great public importance. But they do not amount to a finding of criminal liability. And no one should impute criminal liability while investigations are still being carried out, she says. This is from the Mirror’s Jack Blanchard. And this is from the former Independent on Sunday political editor Jane Merrick. May is now summarising the jury’s findings. She says she wants to put those findings on the record. She reads them out. The 14 questions for the jury, and the answers the jury gave to each of them, are set out here. May says there are two criminal investigations underway. Since the fresh inquest opened in 2014 the jury heard 296 days’ of evidence. It was the longest inquest in British legal history. She says MPs will want to thank the jury for their public service. May says the relatives suffered the injustice of hearing their loved ones blamed. She has met members of the families on a number of occasions. She has never failed to be struck by “their extraordinary dignity and determination”. She says they have never given up. She pays tribute to Andy Burnham for campaigning tirelessly on their behalf, and to other Liverpool MPs for their campaigning too. May says her statement will cover the inquest, and the steps that will now take place. She says the events at Hillsborough shocked the country. She summarises what happened. It was this country’s worst disaster at a sporting event. She says the search by families to get to the truth has been “long and arduous”. Theresa May, the home secretary, is now making a statement on Hillsborough. The Conservative Julian Lewis says Britain’s admiration for France will never diminish, no matter what happens in the referendum. He asks Cameron to pay tribute to Bill Cash’s father, who was killed fighting in France after the Normandy invasion, and to a veteran who is due to receive the legion d’honneur in his 90s for his wartime service. Cameron pays tribute to those who served in the war. Labour’s Emma Reynolds says millions of Britons from the European health insurance card. What would happen to that if we left the EU? Cameron says this is one of the benefits we have year. We can make the system better. It is those in favour of leaving who need to explain what would happen to that system if we left. Labour’s Yvette Cooper says Cameron, in his reply to Angus Robertson earlier (which I missed because I was doing the PMQS summary) said child refugees in Europe are safe. They are not, she says. She says there are 1,000 in Greece who have nowhere to sleep. And they are exposed to sexual exploitation. Why won’t the government accept the Dubs amendment? Cameron says the government is taking child refugees from refugees camps. It has nothing to be ashamed of, he says. John Stevenson, a Conservative, asks if decisions on nuclear power and nuclear submarines will be made soon. Cameron says there will be a vote in the Commons on Trident. Labour’s Judith Cummins asks if Cameron is committed to the electrification of the Calder Valley line. Cameron says commitments have been made on electrification. He wants everywhere to benefit from the Northern Powerhouse. Mike Wood, a Conservative, asks about an enterprise zone in his Dudley South constituency. Cameron says enterprise zones have been a success. Labour’s Liz McInnnes asks if Cameron agrees that sentences for causing death by dangerous driving should be higher. Cameron says he has every sympathy for families affected. The maximum current sentence is 14 years, but the government will look at this, he says. Suella Fernandes, a Conseratives, asks Cameron to reassure MPs of his commitment to fighting antisemitism. Cameron says antisemitism is racism and we should fight it. He says it is “extraordinary” that a Labour MP who talked about the “transportation” of Israel and that being a “solution” still has the Labour whip. Cameron says there was no British steel in the new Forth Bridge. He says, unlike the Scottish government, the Westminster government backs the British steel industry. Labour’s Ben Bradshaw asks about the EU referendum and Nigel Farage - pronouncing his name to rhyme with garage. Cameron says he is pleased Bradshaw has gone for the English pronunciation, rather than the rather “poncy” foreign one that is more common. PMQs - Snap verdict: Corbyn said that repeats often attract more viewers than the first broadcast, but they often disappoint too, and that was his experience today. Last week he successfully exposed Tory divisions over forced academisation, and exposed the rather shallow evidence base for the policy. Today he devoted all six questions to the same issue, but he did not have enough new material to discomfort Cameron, and Cameron’s willingness to give a direct answer to the question about whether the academies bill will be in the Queen’s speech (yes), plus his ability to reference Wilshaw and the OECD, allowed him to see Corbyn off. You could tell Cameron was winning because his references to the need for a strong economy etc were kept to a minimum, and, having made a very brief reference to Naz Shah, he did not feel the need to launch a lengthy counter-offensive on Labour anti-semitism. Corbyn says the number of pupils in over-sized councils is getting worse. And he quotes Conservative council leaders who are opposed to the policy. Cameron says he is glad Corbyn is quoting Tory council leaders. He hopes there will be more in 10 days’ time. There are 13,000 more teachers than in 2010. He quotes someone from the Academies Trust saying she used to be opposed to academies, but is now coming round to the idea. He says he backs aspiration and opportunity. Labour want to hold it back. Corbyn says there seems to be a pattern developing here. (That generates laughter, because Corbyn is asking similar questions to last week.) Corbyn says, in health and education, ministers are imposing solutions. When will the goverment listen to the professionals, and trust other people to run services. Cameron says 1.9m more people are being treated in the NHS, and there are 1.3m more children in good schools. There is another pattern he can see. He is on his fifth Labour leader. Soon he could be on his sixth. Corbyn says it has been claimed the government will let councils form academy trusts. This would give them more power. So why bother with forced academisation? Camerons says he wants schools to be good or outstanding. And good and outstanding schools can improve. He urges Labour MPs to be quiet, and to deal with the anti-semites in the party. There are lots of ways schools can become academies. They can look at working with local authorities. Academies are great, he says. He says Labour is moving in favour of them. Corbyn says sometimes repeats on TV get more viewers than first time round. (Cameron said earlier he favoured repeats.) Teacher shortages are more important, he says. Parents and teachers do not want this. Who does want this top-down reorganisation. Cameron says Sir Michael Wilshaw, the head of Ofsted, and the OECD are in favour. And academy trusts. On teacher shortages, Camerons says there are more teachers and more school places than under Labour. Jeremy Corbyn says, after 27 years, the 96 people killed at Hillsborough finally got justice. He is glad Cameron has apologised for the action of previous governments. He pays tribute to the relatives, and to Andy Burnham, Steve Rotheram and other Labour MPs who campaigned on this. Corbyn says last week Cameron said he would put rocket boosters under the academisation programme. Now the wheels seem to be falling off the rocket boosters. Can Cameron confirm that? (He is referring to reports the government is backing down over forced academisation.) Cameron says he has not met a rocket booster with a wheel on it, but rocket science is not his subject - or Corbyn’s. Academies raise standards, he says. Corbyn says Cameron did not provide much of an answer. Will he legislate to force schools to become academies in the Queen’s Speech. Cameron says he cannot pre-empt what is in the Queen’s Speech. But, on this, he can. We are going to have academies for all and it will be in the Queen’s Speech. Mims Davies, a Conservative, says in Eastleigh the service that GPs provide is crucial. Does Cameron agree the recent announcement about £2.4bn for GPs is only possible because there is a strong government. Cameron, as you would expect, says she’s right. David Cameron starts by saying yesterday was a “momentous day” for the Hillsborough relatives. Their search for justice was met with obfuscation, not openness. But they never faltered. We all owe them a debt of gratitude. Naz Shah has just tweeted this. This is from LabourList’s Conor Pope. PMQs is about to start. Here is the list of MPs on the order paper down to ask a question. The Jewish Chronicle’s Marcus Dysch thinks it is a mistake for Labour to reignite the Naz Shah story just before PMQs. Jeremy Corbyn has just issued a statement about Naz Shah. But he has not said he is withdrawing the whip from her, suggesting he will not take Lisa Nandy’s advice on this. What Naz Shah did was offensive and unacceptable. I have spoken to her and made this clear. These are historic social media posts made before she was a Member of Parliament. Naz has issued a fulsome apology. She does not hold these views and accepts she was completely wrong to have made these posts. The Labour Party is implacably opposed to anti-Semitism and all forms of racism. On the Daily Politics Lisa Nandy, the shadow energy secretary, has just said she thinks the Labour MP Naz Shah should be suspended from the party (ie, lose the Labour whip) pending an investigation into her pre-election Facebook posts. Nandy said that was the party’s procedure for anyone accused of anti-semitism, and that Shah should not be exempt. In Scotland Kezia Dugdale, Labour’s Scottish leader, has been launching her party’s manifesto for the Holyrood elections next week. My colleague Severin Carrell published an interview with her yesterday. Here it is. Here’s an extract. Now she is finding “genuine warmth”, Dugdale said, on the campaign trail. Voters, she believes, like the fact that Labour is openly fighting for higher taxes on the rich, campaigning for a 50p top income tax rate in Scotland. So too do Labour activists. “When I compare that to the sentiment during the general election, the mood has changed,” she said. “There’s a sense now that the anger has dissipated. People really like the tax policy. They like the honesty of it. They like the simple recognition that we now have the power to do things differently.” Dugdale and her colleagues point to several seats they hope to hold or even win back from the SNP – despite the pessimism which grips Labour at national level. Given its dire standing in the polls and last year’s annihilation, winning four or five constituencies would be seen as a good result, as long as Labour comes second overall. And here are some tweets from Sev from the manifesto launch this morning. And here are some quotes from the speech Angel Gurria, the OECD secretary general, gave at the news conference this morning where he published the OECD’s Brexit report. Gurria said Brexit would effectively impose a permanent tax on Britons. Brexit would, rather like a tax, hit the wellbeing and the pockets of UK citizens. Unlike most taxes, however, this one will not finance the provision of public services or close the fiscal gap. The “Brexit tax” would be a pure deadweight loss, a cost incurred with no economic benefit. And this tax would not be a one-off levy. Britons would be paying it for many years. He said Britons were already paying the “Brexit tax” because of the economic impact of the uncertainty generated by the EU referendum. Our estimates are too cautious. For one thing, they focus entirely on future effects, whereas in fact the first payments of the “Brexit tax” are already being made. Just this morning, the Office for National Statistics announced the lowest quarterly GDP growth figures since 2012. And already in the previous quarter, business investment was weak as the Brexit issue gained prominence. Brexit costs can also be seen in financial markets. Since the autumn, the pound has weakened against the euro and the dollar, and the cost of insuring against exchange rate volatility has risen significantly. The costs are piling up, and we are still two months away from the referendum! John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, says today’s growth figures (see 9.42am) confirm the need for the government to invest more. In a statement he said: There is clearly a growing Tory threat to our economy, whether from the Conservative backbenchers screaming for Brexit despite the mounting evidence against the case, or a Tory chancellor who is also refusing to listen to the expanding coalition of international organisations that not only warn of the risks of Brexit, but also the risks of his policy of under investing in our economy. It is vital for the UK that George Osborne listens to the expert advice telling him not only that we must stay in the EU, but also that he must not starve our economy of investment any longer. Labour would not stand by when we see a recovery built on sand due to George Osborne’s failure, we would stand up for jobs and growth by setting realistic targets to get rid of the deficit on day-to-day spending whilst allowing government the capacity to invest in the high-tech, high-wage economy of the future. And here is another OECD chart, from its news release. It shows that, under the OECD’s most pessimistic scenario, Brexit could lead to GDP being almost 8% lower by 2030 than it otherwise would be, equivalent to a cost per household of £5,000. Here is the OECD report (pdf). And here is the key chart it contains. It shows the impact of Brexit on growth and the equivalent cost per household in pounds (GBP), in the near term (by 2020) and in the long term (by 2030). There are three long term forecasts, a central one, a pessimistic one and an optimistic one. The OECD report is now out. Here is Larry Elliott’s story about it. And here is how it starts. The west’s leading economics thinktank has warned that a British decision to leave the EU in this summer’s referendum would cost each household £2,200 by the end of a decade and continue to impose “a persistent and rising shock” on the UK in the following years. Adding its voice to negative assessments by the Treasury and the International Monetary Fund, the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development said a so-called Brexit vote on 23 June would provide a major negative shock to Britain and have ripple effects on the rest of Europe. “In some respects, Brexit would be akin to a tax on GDP, imposing a persistent and rising cost on the economy that would not be incurred if the UK remained in the EU,” the OECD said. The OECD’s policy paper said that even before the EU’s formal departure from the EU, which the thinktank assumes would happen in late 2018, the UK would be hit by weaker confidence and more expensive credit. Once the terms of a divorce settlement had been agreed, Britain would face higher trade barriers and feel the early impact of restrictions on immigration. “By 2020, GDP would be over 3% smaller than otherwise (with continued EU membership), equivalent to a cost per household of £2,200 (in today’s prices),” the OECD added. The rest of the EU would see GDP shaved by one percentage point by the decade’s end. Nigel Farage, the Ukip leader, was interviewed on the Today programme this morning. If Lord Patten is worried about the BBC becoming “excessively deferential” to Leave, he will have been heartened by this interview, because Nick Robinson gave Farage quite a hard time. Farage dismissed the OECD claims about the impact of Brexit - but failed to name a single economic organisation saying Britain would be better off if it left the EU. Here is the key exchange, starting with what Farage (NF) said to Robinson (NR) when asked about the OECD conclusions. NF: Yeah, yeah, yeah: IMF, OECD, a whole series of international organisations stuffed full of overpaid people who failed in politics mostly. NR: Would you like to give us a list of the organisations that agree with you, because it would be very useful to have them. NF: Yeah, they’re called markets, they’re called consumers, they’re called people. And they are called the real world. NR: Can you name an organisation of economic forecasters, private or public, that agrees with your view that you would be better off outside the EU. NF: I’m in Cardiff. The professor of economics at Cardiff University, Patrick Minford, said very clearly that outside the European Union the average British family would be £40 a week better off. NR: He’s one individual, Mr Farage. He’s not an organisation. He’s not an international body. NF: Well, of course. These international bodies, there is virtually nobody working for any of them that has manufactured a good or traded a product globally. I did that for 20 years before getting into politics. And the fact is, whether we are in the European Union or outside the European Union, we’ll go on buying and selling goods between France and Germany and Britain and Italy because ultimately markets aren’t created by politicians. It’s about consumers making choices. Farage refused to say what model he thought the UK should follow in terms of negotiating a trade deal with the EU. The UK would create its own model, he said. I would like to have a relationship like the eurozone’s biggest export market in the world, the market they need more than any other to have as free as access to as possible. If little countries like Norway and Switzerland can get their own deals, then we can have a bespoke British deal that suits us. When it was put to him that Norway and Switzerland had to accept free movement as part of their free trade deal, he said they had been betrayed by their leaders. They’ve been betrayed by their politicians in both Norway and Switzerland and then they’re rebelling against that. He claimed that he was not involved in the Ukip’s decision to suspend Suzanne Evans - although he also refused to say that he wanted her reinstated. Asked if it was his decision to suspend her, he replied: I’m party leader, I tour the country, I try and raise money, I try and get the party coverage, I try and enthuse the troops, I don’t deal with discipline of candidate selection and I never have done. Then, asked if he wanted her back, he replied: I don’t think she behaved terribly well, so. I don’t think she behaved terribly well. She’s suspended for a short period of time. He downplayed the controversy in Wales about Ukip candidate selections. We may have some discussions about who should and should not be candidates in winnable positions but I look at the Conservative party, which is literally ripping itself to pieces, and the Labour party where over 80% of the MPs don’t want Corbyn as leader, I look at their problems and I think, what I’ve got is nothing. He claimed that Ukip was the only party with a chance of winning candidates in the Scottish parliament, the Welsh assembly, the London assembly and the Northern Ireland assembly. For me, the big goal on May 5th is to win representation in the London assembly, the Scottish parliament, the Welsh assembly and the Northern Irish assembly, and I think I’m the only party leader who’s got a chance of winning seats in all four of them. This is a hollow boast because Labour and the Lib Dems do not officially put up candidates in Northern Ireland (although Labour has some unofficial candidates standing), and the Conservatives (who for years never stood in Northern Ireland) only have about a couple of candidates standing. And the chances of Ukip winning any seats are thought to be slim. And here is Chris Giles, the Financial Times’s economics editor, on the growth figures. Here is George Osborne, the chancellor, on the growth figures. The first quarter growth figure is out. The UK economy grew by 0.4% in the first three months of 2016, down from 0.6% in the fourth quarter of 2015, the ONS says. Here is the ONS statistical bulletin with the full details. On the Today programme Lord Patten, a former European commissioner and a former chair of the BBC Trust, was interviewed about the EU referendum. As you’d expect, he’s strongly in favour of Remain. But he also said he thought the BBC was being “excessively deferential” to the pro-Brexit case. He told the programme: The BBC has an extremely difficult job. It is having to cover this referendum with the shadow of a charter review and [John Whittingdale, the culture secretary] hanging over it. I think that may make people excessively deferential when trying to produce balance. You have the governor of the Bank of England on, or the IMF chief, so you feel obliged to put up some Conservative backbencher that nobody has ever heard of on the other side of the argument. It does occasionally raise eyebrows. But I think I would prefer the BBC to be being criticised for being excessively balanced rather than for doing anything else. It is a very great broadcaster which is dedicated to telling the truth and that is an unusual thing in the world of the media. The OEC secretary general is known as Angel Gurria, but his formal name is Jose Angel Gurria and that was the name Vote Leave used in its news release. I left out the Jose when quoting their statement for the sake of consistency. But I can now see why Vote Leave included it. It was so they could use the #NoWayJose hashtag. Vote Leave has issued a statement rejecting the OECD claims, saying the organisation is “in the pay of the EU”. This is from Robert Oxley, a Vote Leave spokesman. The OECD is in the pay of the EU. Angel Gurría is part of a global bureaucracy that feathers its nest with vast expenses claims paid for by taxpayers. OECD officials themselves avoid paying tax in most countries - he is in no place to lecture us about taxes. The OECD said that the UK would receive “great benefits” from joining the ERM. It recommended that we should join the euro. So why should we listen to their doom-laden predictions about leaving the EU? After Vote Leave and take back control we will be able to cut our tax bill because we will no longer have to fund overpaid and under taxed international bureaucrats in Brussels. This will be bad for fat cat officials but good for the British people. Vote Leave says the OECD received €30m from the EU between 2007 and 2014. Angel Gurria may not be as well known in the UK as Barack Obama but his intervention in the EU debate - which has come today - may be almost as powerful as the US president’s. Gurria is secretary general of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the pro-trade body representing 34 of the world’s richest countries, and it is publishing a report today on the impact of Brexit. It seems it is going to be even more blunt about the disadvantages of leaving the EU than the Treasury’s own report was, because the OECD is saying Brexit would effectively cost Britons a month’s salary by 2020. At least, that is what Gurria said when he was interviewed on the Today programme earlier. He said: Brexit is like a tax. It is the equivalent to roughly missing out on about one month’s income within four years but then it carries on to 2030. That tax is going to be continued to be paid by Britons over time. In comparison with a baseline scenario [for UK growth] they would otherwise have had in their pocket, in hand, to spend, they will not have - therefore it is as powerful, as real, as a tax or as if you would just give it over to somebody. We have done the comparisons, we have done the simulations. In the end we come out and say: why are we spending so much time, so much effort and so much talent in trying to find ways to compensate for a bad decision when you do not necessarily have to take the bad decision? Gurria also said that the Leave camp were wrong to think the UK could get better trade deals outside the EU. There is absolutely no reason why you would get a sweeter trade deal than you already have, no reason why you would have a sweeter investment deal. I will post more on this this morning. 9.30am: The ONS publishes its first quarter growth figure. 9.30am: Lady Altmann, the pensions minister, gives evidence to the work and pensions committee on intergenerational fairness. 10.30am: The OECD publishes its report on the economic consequences of Brexit. 10.30am: The Conservative MP James Cleverly gives a Vote Leave speech on the impact of the common agricultural policy on African farmers. 10.30am: Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, the Lord Chief Justice, gives evidence to the Lords constitution committee. 10.30am: Kezia Dugdale, the Scottish Labour leader, launches her party’s election manifesto. 12pm: David Cameron faces Jeremy Corbyn at PMQs. 12.30pm: Theresa May, the home secretary, makes a Commons statement on Hillsborough. 2.15pm: Arron Banks and Richard Tice, the founders of Leave.EU, give evidence to the Commons Treasury committee about the EU referendum. 2.30pm: Nicky Morgan, the education committee, gives evidence to the Commons education committee. I will be focusing in particular on PMQs, the Hillsborough statement and then, probably, the Treasury committee hearing, but as usual I will also be covering other breaking political news as it happens, as well as bringing you the best reaction, comment and analysis from the web. I will post a summary in the afternoon. If you want to follow me or contact me on Twitter, I’m @AndrewSparrow. I try to monitor the comments BTL but normally I find it impossible to read them all. If you have a direct question, do include “Andrew” in it somewhere and I’m more likely to find it. I do try to answer direct questions, although sometimes I miss them or don’t have time. Alternatively you could post a question to me on Twitter. If you think there are any voices that I’m leaving out, particularly political figures or organisations giving alternative views of the stories I’m covering, do please flag them up below the line (include “Andrew” in the post). I can’t promise to include everything, but I do try to be open to as wide a range of perspectives as possible.
My surreal 1980 interview with Michael Jackson: ‘Direct your questions to Janet; she’ll put them to Michael’ In January 1980, the gates of 4641 Hayvenhurst Avenue in Encino, California, were open, unguarded. The record-company PR greeted me at the door, and I waded after her through shaggy ivory carpet. Overhead, chandeliers twinkled like lights in an elfin grotto. “One thing,” she said, as if it were an insignificant point she had just remembered. “You don’t mind if his sister sits in on the interview, do you?” “Of course not. What’s her name?” “Janet. Oh, and one more thing. If you could direct your questions to Janet, she’ll put them to Michael.” My mouth opened to query this extraordinary request, but the arm that had been barring my way was behind me now, launching me through a double doorway and down several steps into the presence of he-who-must-not-be-addressed-directly. Michael Jackson stood up. I stuck out my hand and so did he. I held his flimsy fingers with unaccustomed care, suddenly fearful that I might hurt him. Jackson was stick thin, with fine skin and feeble hairs on his cheeks and chin that had never met a razor. His face was brown, haloed by an afro, and his nose was his own. The voice that welcomed me was tremulous. When I turned to say hello to Janet, she grinned as if this might all be a game. Jackson sat down again, and I perched on a hassock between brother and sister, separated by the glass top of a low table. I found out later that I wasn’t the only interviewer who had been asked to go along with the wacky ritual of using the then 13-year-old Janet as a conduit for questions. While it was happening, I was too taken aback – and too concerned that a transgression of this ridiculous rule might bring the interview to an abrupt end – to ponder Jackson’s motives. In the end, I concluded that what Jackson craved was the erection of a protective barrier between himself and the rest of the world, symbolised by his habitual wearing in public of dark glasses, and later, several notches more bizarrely, a mask. As his fame spread across the globe, his behaviour became incrementally erratic. He dressed like a foppish despot, pampered himself with the gewgaws of a princeling, raised a drawbridge between himself and the outside world, eventually completing his metamorphosis into a fairground-owning, chimp-hugging, toddler-dangling, pigmentation-denying, underage-bed-sharing, cosmetic-surgery-junkie. I missed the media-shunning: one of the first symptoms of his unravelling. In the whole of 1982, he would grant just one interview, to Rolling Stone, and hardly any after that until his interview with Oprah in 1993. But in January 1980, with his Off the Wall album cresting the album charts and its sublime stand-out track, Rock with You, a No 1 single, he agreed to be interviewed by me for Capital radio, an excerpt of which appears in a new documentary by Spike Lee. “Yes ... so, er, I was going to ... I mean, um …” I began, looking from one Jackson to the other, unsure whose eyes to settle on, “… if we could sort of go back to er … to er, you know, when you got started … er, when the Jackson Five got started … um, I was going to ask Michael how … they … fitted in to the Motown set-up?” A pause. “Michael, how did you fit into the Motown set-up?” Thank you, Janet. Yes, that’s what I was trying to say. A longer pause. “Errrrrr …” Jackson’s own hesitation was prolonged and curiously musical. If it had cropped up on a vocal track, his then-new producer Quincy Jones would, I’m sure, have left it on the record for texture. “We were doing a show at the Regal theatre in Chicago and it was like a talent show type of thing and we won, and Gladys Knight was there as well as a guy named Bobby Taylor, and they told Motown about us, and Motown was interested in seeing us audition for them. So we went to Berry Gordy’s mansion in Detroit – indoor pool – and all the Motown stars were there – the Supremes, the Temptations, the Marvelettes, the Miracles – and we auditioned and they loved it, and Diana Ross came over to us special after the concert we did for them and she kissed us all and said we were marvellous and she said she wanted to play a special part in our career and that’s how it started.” Gordy’s mansion had made a big impression on Jackson and his brothers, the indoor pool especially. It was by far the biggest house the Jacksons had ever been invited into. Their own place in Gary, Indiana, was one storey with two bedrooms, one for parents Joe and Katherine, the other for the nine kids. Signing to Motown split the family up; several of the boys moving into Gordy’s home, the rest moving in with Diana Ross, until Joe bought the house on Hayvenhurst Avenue in 1971. “And we did our first single, I Want You Back, it was gold, as well as ABC, The Love You Save, Never Can Say …, on and on and on.” A tinkerbell giggle. “That’s how it started.” And that’s how the interview continued: me pinging a question to Janet, she ponging it to Jackson, he pinging it back to the microphone. I almost got used to the process.Sales statistics clearly counted with Jackson. All he had to say about the wonderful I Want You Back was that it went gold. Who gave a damn how many copies it had sold? Not me. What mattered was that it was two minutes and 40 seconds of pop-soul heaven. And Destiny? Double platinum. As if that made it better than I Want You Back, which it wasn’t. Come March 1984, CBS would host a party to celebrate Thriller’s inclusion in the Guinness Book of Records as the biggest-selling album of all time, prompting Jackson to tell me that his entry in the annual marked the first time in his career that he felt he had accomplished something. I was barely listening to Jackson’s answers, which were consistently unilluminating. It quickly became clear that he had little understanding either of the history of black music or of his place in it. So I shouldn’t have expected insights. So I didn’t bother correcting Janet when my question about Destiny – “Apart from its commercial success, since the Jacksons had written and produced the album themselves, were they also pleased creatively with what the record?” – emerged from her mouth as, “D’you think your brothers could’ve done better?” In fact, that was exactly what I should have asked him. “I certainly did. I’m sure my brothers did too, because I’m never satisfied with anything ’cause I do believe deeply in perfection. If you’re satisfied with everything, you’re just going to stay at one level and the world will move ahead.” A thought that had him laughing again. “That’s not good either.” The Destiny recording was the last time the Jacksons had enjoyed their brother’s undivided attention. Even while they were on tour promoting the record, he was Lear-jetting back to LA as often as the schedule allowed to work on tracks for Off the Wall. This was the first record for which he had been allowed to choose his producer, and he had picked Jones. “I called Quincy up one day; I said: ‘Quincy, I’m ready to do a solo album. I’m going to produce it, too, but I want somebody to work with me. Can you recommend somebody?’ I wasn’t trying to hint around at all” – Jackson laughed at the notion – “I didn’t even think about him, and he said: ‘Smelly’ – he calls me Smelly he said, ‘Smelly, why don’t you let me do it?’ I said: ‘That’s a great idea.’” Whatever Jackson’s mounting problems, his voice, an instrument of rare beauty and expression, was not one of them. The purity of note, the timbre, was, I suppose, an accident of nature, but in order to express feelings, a singer has to be able to feel, to have felt. Yet Jackson’s mollycoddled existence must have isolated him from a multitude of essential feelings. So from where did he draw the experience which imbued that voice? “There is no real explanation. It’s nothing to do with personal experience. My singing is just – I’ll say it simple as possible – it’s just Godly really. It’s no real personal experience or anything that make it come across, just feeling and God; I’ll say, mainly God.” Jackson was 21, and he had been a star half his life. Ten years is a longer career than most in music. How did he see the next 10? “I think secretly and privately, really deep within, there’s a destiny for me. I’ve had strong feelings for films, that something’s directing me in that way for motion pictures, musicals and drama, that whole thing, to choreograph the films as well, even get into writing the pictures and doing the music.” I asked him how he felt about his music being labelled disco. “I hate labels, because it should be just music. Call it disco, call it anything, it’s music to me, it’s beautiful to the ear, and that’s what counts. It’s like you hear a bird chirping, you don’t say, ‘That’s a bluejay, this one is a crow.’ It’s a beautiful sound, that’s all that counts, and that is an ugly thing about men. They categorise, they get a little bit too racial about things, when it should all be together. That’s why you hear us talk about the peacock a lot, because the peacock is the only bird of all the bird family that integrates every colour into one, and that’s our main goal in music, is to integrate every race to one through music, and we’re doing that.” On the sleeve of the Jacksons’ Triumph album, released later that year, Jackson would write, “In all the bird family, the peacock is the only species that integrates all colors into one … We, like the peacock, try to integrate all races into one, through the love and power of music.” Evidently he wanted to try the analogy out before airing it to a wider public. Just as well that I nodded approvingly. “When you go to our concerts, you see every race out there, and they’re all waving hands and they’re holding hands and they’re smiling. You see the kids out there dancing, as well as the grown-ups and the grandparents, all colours, that’s what’s great” – cue one last nervous giggle – “that’s what keep me going.” Jackson withdrew from me the moment the interview was over. He remained in the room, but he wasn’t there for me. The publicist showed me out without offering an explanation for her extraordinary precondition. When I keyed the ignition in my car, Rock with You came on. I turned off the radio. My thoughts were a mixture of amusement and annoyance at the pantomime I had allowed myself to take part in and disappointment that I hadn’t learned anything about Michael Jackson or Motown that I didn’t already know. I reminded myself that I hadn’t really expected to, and I had his precious voice on tape. When I met Jackson 36 years ago, although our verbal communication was indirect, at least we sat face to face, pressed flesh on flesh, breathed the same air. He was odd, but, as pop stars went, unexceptionally so. His next album, 1983’s Thriller, would be so big, there was nowhere else for him to go, but down, and further away from the public gaze. Michael Jackson became a thing of the past, and in his reclusion he became something else entirely: wacko Jacko. Off the Wall is reissued, with a new documentary by Spike Lee, Michael Jackson’s Journey from Motown to Off the Wall on 26 February, on Sony.
Too many mothers having early caesareans, report warns Many mothers are having their baby by caesarean section before they are 39 weeks pregnant even though hospitals should avoid such procedures because they pose a risk to the child, according to a report into maternity care. In some hospitals, more than 40% of all women giving birth are undergoing a C-section before their pregnancy has reached full term even though there is no medical reason for doing so, the report says. Official NHS guidance tells hospitals not to deliver by C-section in such circumstances because it can lead to the infant needing to be admitted to intensive care with breathing problems. The large number of hospitals across England still carrying out the operation on women with uncomplicated pregnancies is revealed in the report by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG). “We are particularly concerned about the variation among the number of women having elective caesarean sections before 39 weeks without any clinical indication,” said Dr David Richmond, the RCOG’s president. “National Institute of Health and Care Excellence guidelines recommend that elective caesarean section in uncomplicated pregnancies should not be carried out before 39 completed weeks of gestation because of the increased risk of breathing problems for the baby and being admitted to intensive care.” The research, into variation in 18 different types of procedures involving childbirth, has been undertaken by the college and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and is based on NHS childbirth data for 2013-14. It shows that as many as 43.9% of mothers whose baby was born in the care of Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS trust that year had a pre-labour C-section before 39 weeks, despite no clinical indication that it was needed – the highest percentage in England. Rates were also high at the Royal Devon and Exeter NHS foundation trust (42.8%) and East Cheshire NHS trust (42.7%). By contrast, only 3.7% of mothers had their baby by C-section at James Paget University hospitals NHS foundation trust in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, well below the England-wide average of 24%. The report highlights wide variations in women’s chances of giving birth in a variety of other ways – which it calls a worrying “postcode lottery”. For example, in some places, 8.3% of first-time mothers have an emergency C-section, but in others it is almost twice that, at 15.3%. Similarly, women are much more likely to have their baby induced, or experience an instrumental delivery, suffer a tear during their labour or be readmitted within 42 days of the birth at some hospitals compared with others, the report shows. “Pregnant women should not have to endure a postcode lottery and it is unacceptable that these variations in maternity care are reported year after year,” said Elizabeth Duff, the senior policy adviser at parenting charity NCT. Richmond said trusts should study their performance data and make changes to their clinical practices and judgments if necessary in order to ensure that women are receiving the best possible care. Louise Silverton, the director for midwifery at the Royal College of Midwives, said: “This latest report shows that there are still concerns about variation between maternity services and the care they provide. It is unfortunate that this continues and is mirrored in outcomes of stillbirth rate and perinatal deaths.”
I fail patients in my job as a psychiatric nurse and leave them feeling worse It’s 5am. An hour ago the bed manager called me and asked me to ask a suicidal woman, who had already been in a busy London A&E department for 11 hours, if she would agree to being admitted to a hospital in Manchester. I didn’t think it appropriate to wake someone at such a time in the morning but allowing her to sleep was not an option because we need the bed space. I approach the patient; she’s already awake. “I haven’t slept all night, it’s so noisy here” she tells me. “I feel awful; can’t I just go home?” I apologise and explain that the only available psychiatric bed is in Manchester. “No, it’s too far from my family”. I tell her I understand. She starts to cry; I want to cry with her. She feels depressed and worthless and I haven’t been able to help. How am I, as a psychiatric nurse, caring for her and helping lift her out of the awful dark place she finds herself in? I think about people who are in physical pain and ask myself whether we would expect them to wait without any treatment for over 11 hours. I remember a recent patient who had been in the department over 24 hours waiting for a psychiatric bed. He was socially isolated and was hearing voices telling him to end his life. We moved him to a noisy cubicle which made the voices worse. He was in distress, I tried to reassure him. He told me: “I just want to go home, it is making me worse being here”. I was told later that he had left the department. I frantically called him and fortunately he answered to tell me he had returned home. He said he was frightened but that it was worse in the hospital. I felt immense guilt – this isn’t why I became a nurse. What if he becomes ill again in the future? He will feel reluctant to return to A&E, the place that his community mental health team tell him to go to be safe. A young man with autism, who has been in our mental health assessment room over 24 hours, is suffering from psychosis. The walls are bare, the air conditioning has broken, the lights, which are movement sensitive and without a switch, remain on throughout day and night making rest impossible. He is covered in sweat and he is terrified. The long wait and his surroundings make him increasingly more distressed. He is eventually sedated – not for the treatment of his condition but rather to alleviate the stress we have caused him. I tell both him and his mother that the nearest psychiatric bed is 200 miles away. His mother starts to cry; due to the nature of his condition, he finds change very difficult. Some of the other nurses have children and start to cry themselves. The treatment and care we offer is not of the standard we would expect for our own family and loved ones. The patient’s mother tells us she doesn’t want to leave his side. We talk to senior management, but there is nothing that can be done. I watch as the young man is separated from his mother and forced into secure transport – a cage in the back of a vehicle, with a narrow sideways facing seat, and without adequate leg room; it’s hardly fit for a brief journey, let alone one of four hours. I feel ashamed. We have failed this young man and his family. We take a referral for a patient who wants to end their life. My heart sinks because the bed manager has told us there are no beds. I have to look the patient and their family in the eye and apologise over and over again. I see patients who are acutely disturbed, suffering because of our inability to provide them with appropriate care. We try our best, but there are only two of us on duty – sometimes we have four people waiting for an inpatient bed and 10 patients waiting to be seen. We have to rely on security, who try but are not trained in mental healthcare and sometimes add to the patient’s distress. I witness human suffering every day and am often amazed by patients’ own resilience in the face of such adversity. Hospital staff are their family, their voice and if we don’t raise this issue for them, it will continue because it is those who speak the loudest in the NHS that are often heard. Our patients already feel worthless and as though they are a burden; if we continue to reinforce that, rates of mental illness and suicide will continue to increase. • In the UK, the Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Hotline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14. Hotlines in other countries can be found here. If you would like to write a blogpost for Views from the NHS frontline, read our guidelines and get in touch by emailing sarah.johnson@theguardian.com. Do you work in the NHS? Please take our survey and tell us whether bullying is a problem and how it affects your work Join the Healthcare Professionals Network to read more pieces like this. And follow us on Twitter (@GdnHealthcare) to keep up with the latest healthcare news and views.
Donald Trump will boycott next Republican debate Donald Trump made clear in a press conference in Marshalltown, Iowa, that he would not participate in a Fox News debate after the network sent out a press release that he viewed as derogatory. His campaign released a statement saying he will not be participating in the debate and will instead host an event in Iowa to raise money for “the Veterans and Wounded Warriors, who have been treated so horribly by our all talk, no action politicians”. “Like running for office as an extremely successful person, this takes guts and it is the kind mentality [sic] our country needs in order to Make America Great Again,” the statement continued. Trump’s campaign manager Corey Lewandowski told the matter-of-factly: “He’s not participating in the Fox News debate.” Lewandowski said that this didn’t mean Trump was avoiding press scrutiny. “Look, he’s the clear frontrunner, he’s been in six debates already, answered more questions from the media than any other candidate on the stage combined.” The Fox News press release that irked Trump and led to his withdrawal read: “We learned from a secret back channel that the Ayatollah and Putin both intend to treat Donald Trump unfairly when they meet with him if he becomes president – a nefarious source tells us that Trump has his own secret plan to replace the Cabinet with his Twitter followers to see if he should even go to those meetings.” Trump derided it as “a wise guy press release . . . done by some PR person along with Roger Ailes”. He said that after seeing the release, “I said ‘bye bye’ to the debate”. “They can’t toy with me like they toy with everybody else,” Trump said of the news channel, long considered a kingmaker in GOP politics. Trump had long been cagey about participating in Thursday’s debate because of adversarial questioning from anchor Megyn Kelly in the first debate. Her questioning led Trump to say that he thought “there was blood coming out of her wherever”, a comment widely believed to refer to menstruation. In his press conference on Tuesday, Trump merely called Kelly a lightweight. Earlier in the day, prior to the Fox News press release, Trump asked his followers on Twitter if he should participate in the debate. With Trump’s absence from the main debate stage, only seven Republican candidates will be present on Thursday night. Ted Cruz will take Trump’s place at the center of the stage and he will be joined by Ben Carson, Marco Rubio, Chris Christie, Jeb Bush, John Kasich and Rand Paul. The press conference didn’t just focus on the debate. Trump defended himself from attacks from social conservatives on his record on abortion. He insisted: “I’m pro life.” However, when asked by the if he considered Plan B to be abortion, a stance held by many social conservatives including Ted Cruz, Trump said: “I will give you an answer to that sometime in the future.” In response to Trump’s decision not to participate in the debate, Cruz challenged his rival to a one-on-one “mano a mano” debate in the next week before the Iowa caucuses. While Cruz had previously been close to Trump, he had contempt in his voice as he issued his challenge during an interview with talk radio host Mark Levin. Cruz said that Trump’s feud with Kelly was a sign of weakness: “If he thinks Megyn Kelly is so scary, what exactly would he do with Vladimir Putin? I promise you Putin is a lot more scary than Megyn Kelly.” The senator from Texas added that Trump needed to “explain how he is prepared to be commander in chief if he is terrified of a television host” and made clear that if Trump joined Cruz in a one-on-one debate, he could even “name his own moderator”. Moments later, Cruz took the stage at a town hall-style event in Fairfield, where he immediately tore into Trump’s reluctance to participate in the debate. After breaking the news of his primary competitor’s debate announcement to the roughly 150 Iowans gathered, Cruz joked that Trump was “a fragile soul [whose] hair might stand” if faced with tough questions. The senator also wielded his jab that Trump was “apparently really, really scared of Megyn Kelly” before imploring the real estate mogul to “at least respect the great men and women of Iowa” by showing up. “If someone did that – didn’t show up at the interview – you know what you’d say? You’re fired!” Cruz exclaimed. The crowd, which applauded him throughout his riff, roared in agreement. Trump’s campaign did not immediately reply to a request from the for comment on Cruz’s challenge.
Are Farage and Trump really fascists? Have we gone back to the 1930s? Could we see the return of fascism? After all, hatred and prejudice, which many people thought had been marginalised in western democracies by the defeat of fascism in 1945, decolonisation and the American civil rights movement now seem to be part of the mainstream. Furthermore, democratic institutions appear threatened. The rightwing UK press depicts judges as enemies of the people, while Nigel Farage warns of riots if Brexit is not implemented. Donald Trump might not accept the US election result, and admires Vladimir Putin’s semi-authoritarian regime. It’s easy to see parallels with the 1920s and 1930s: economic crisis, chronic unemployment, poverty wages for many workers, the decline of middle-class wealth. If Trump becomes president and keeps his promise to deport millions, parallels with Nazi Germany will inevitably be made. The march of far-right parties appears irresistible. Perhaps their success in Hungary and Austria, or even France, could be seen as a reversion to type, for authoritarian regimes were present there before 1945. But now the far right is advancing in the UK and US too – once seen as protected from extremism by their “democratic cultures”. There are clear parallels between the modern far right and fascism – authoritarianism, charismatic leadership, nationalism, racism, protectionism, anti-liberalism … Yet whatever the similarities, we should think twice before interpreting the present as a re-enactment of the past. For one thing, fascism is notoriously hard to define. Decades of research have not enabled academics to agree on a definition. The problem is that fascism – like socialism or any other political movement – was diverse and meant different things to different people. Even if we confine our attention to those Italians who described themselves as Fascists between 1919 and 1945, we find an enormous range of views on what fascism was. Some thought that the state should be supreme, others that the party should rule. Some advocated government intervention in the economy; others wanted capitalists to be left to get on with the job. Fascists did not agree what fascism was, so it’s not surprising that scholars don’t either. The problem is even greater if we include nazism within the category of fascism. The German regime learned from Italian fascism in many ways. Yet many Nazis were contemptuous of Italians as poor soldiers, who had betrayed Germany by joining the Allies in the first world war. The Nazis were reluctant to call themselves fascists, because doing so implied that they were imitators. There were important differences between the regimes. True, racism was never absent from Italian fascism, especially towards Slavs, and in its imperialist war in modern-day Ethiopia. Yet before 1938 there was no equivalent in Italy of the Nazis’ extreme antisemitism and drive for a biologically pure race. If we impose the category of fascism on nazism, we risk obscuring the importance of this antisemitic racism. The contemporary far right is equally diverse. Parties have different attitudes to Europe for instance, and some are more anti-democratic than others. All we can say is that some aspects of the modern far right are like some elements of fascism. Some modern far-right movements were designed to rehabilitate fascism – that was true of the French Front National in the 1970s, and the Italian Social Movement (MSI) in the 1990s, but one never knows where such efforts will lead. While the FN has in some ways become more extreme, for instance on European immigration, the MSI was eventually absorbed into the mainstream right. If we simply see these movements as reinventions of fascism, then we risk obscuring what is specific to our own times. Italian fascists saw socialists as their chief enemies, while for the Nazis it was “Judeo-Bolshevism”. These days, the labour movement is in retreat, and the subculture that sustained it has largely gone. Disillusioned working-class voters in Europe and America provide a more important fund of support for the modern far right than they ever did for fascism or nazism, notwithstanding the often underestimated support of middle-class voters for the contemporary far right. Another major difference is that whereas fascism and nazism came to power by combining paramilitarism on the streets with electoral victories, the modern far right relies on the latter alone. Indeed, it rarely opposes democracy in principle and actually takes advantage of the discriminatory potential of democracy itself – those who do not conform to the characteristics and wishes of the “majority” – judges or Muslims – are enemies of “the people”. Ultimately, perhaps, it matters less than we might think whether Trump or any other figure is “fascist” in some academic sense. The real question is moral – do we see their policies as morally acceptable? And if history teaches anything, it is that people who called themselves neither fascist or Nazi were capable of complicity in repugnant acts.
Bank of England leaves interest rates unchanged The Bank of England left the door open to another interest rate cut this year but decided that the safest option for now was to wait and see if the economy can continue to weather the initial shock of the Brexit vote. Following signs that businesses and households have largely shrugged off the initial shock of the referendum, all nine members of the Bank’s monetary policy committee (MPC) voted to leave interest rates at a record low of 0.25% and to continue with an electronic money printing programme. That package of measures, which included a reduction in the main borrowing rate from 0.5%, was announced in August in an attempt to shore up the economy after the referendum. Minutes from this month’s meeting showed policymakers thought there would still be a “material slowing” in economic growth in the second half of this year, but to a lesser extent than predicted at the time of August’s rate cut. “A number of indicators of near-term economic activity have been somewhat stronger than expected,” the minutes said. “The committee now expects less of a slowing in UK GDP growth in the second half of 2016.” For now, an internal judgment by Bank staff suggests GDP growth will come in at about 0.2-0.3% in the third quarter, the minutes said. That was stronger than their view at the time of the August rate cut, when they forecast growth would be close to zero. The meeting record showed a majority of policymakers were still open to another rate cut, probably to 0.1%, before the end of the year. Much will depend on the Bank’s next inflation report due out on 3 November, when it produces new forecasts for the economy based on the latest indicators. “If, in light of that full updated assessment, the outlook at that time is judged to be broadly consistent with the August inflation report projections, a majority of members expect to support a further cut in Bank rate to its effective lower bound at one of the MPC’s forthcoming meetings during the course of the year,” the minutes said. City commentators highlighted that statement, which reiterated the Bank’s guidance in August that another interest rate cut could come this year. Reacting to the minutes, Paul Hollingsworth, at the consultancy Capital Economics, said: “We, along with the consensus of economists and the markets, expect another cut in interest rates to 0.10% in November.” But Elizabeth Martins, economist at HSBC, was more cautious about predicting a cut. “Of course, the data may well worsen from here. But as things stand, the conditions laid out for a rate cut this year - for the outlook to remain in line with that published in the August inflation report - are not in place,” she said. Ahead of June’s referendum, Bank governor Mark Carney and other economists drew criticism from Brexit campaigners by warning that a vote to leave the EU could tip the UK into recession. With early indicators since then suggesting the economy has continued to grow, Carney has defended his pre-referendum comments and August’s decision to cut interest rates and pump money into the economy through quantitative easing, where the bank buys bonds off financial institutions. One former member of the monetary policy committee, Danny Blanchflower, said on Thursday that the Bank was right to launch a package of supportive measures in August. “Absolutely clear MPC was right to act and consumer and business expectations picked up because they did so,” Blanchflower tweeted. The decision to leave policy unchanged at this meeting comes after several economic indicators suggested activity has rebounded from the initial post-EU referendum fall . But economists warn that overall growth will still be sharply lower this quarter and next, compared with the first half of 2016, and that spending by households and firms risks slowing more markedly as Brexit negotiations begin in earnest. Earlier this week, the British Chambers of Commerce slashed its growth outlook on expectations of a slump in investment and slowdown in consumer spending. Echoing that longer-term caution, the Bank’s policymakers said it was difficult to use recent data to gauge the prospects for 2017 and that there had not been any new clues as to the longer-term prospects for the UK economy. Economists had not expected a move at this meeting but said the Bank would be closely watching how the referendum outcome affected sentiment and activity in the months ahead. James Knightly, economist at ING bank, said: “For now, there isn’t a strong case for additional stimulus, but we are a little concerned that activity could weaken now that Brexit is much more in the news after a summer lull. Arguments and animosity about the situation along with the uncertainty that Brexit creates are likely to weigh on sentiment as the positive effects of the Olympics and a warm end to the summer start to fade.”
Straight to the pool room: top 10 films about the Australian dream Upcoming Adelaide-shot drama A Month of Sundays revolves around the real estate industry, through the story of a shonky broker (Anthony LaPaglia) who is inspired to change his ways. Meanwhile a young married couple, desperate to crack the housing market, are blocked out by bigger spenders. It’s familiar territory for anyone who has recently tried to buy a house: in recent years, property and home ownership have emerged as particularly hot topics in the media. The Australian dream – the desire to own a home, pocket a reliable income and experience a decent retirement – has also been extensively explored in Australian films, from a range of interesting perspectives. Here are 10 of the best. The Castle (1997) Director Rob Sitch’s beloved story of a heart-of-gold family who live at 3 Highview Crescent is an ode to appreciating what you have – and being prepared to fight for it. The Kerrigan family don’t exactly reveal great understanding of property appreciation, taking pride that their airport-over-the-back-fence abode is “worth almost as much today as when we bought it”. But perhaps patriarch Darryl (Michael Caton) is on to something with his imperturbable force field of optimism. The suffer-in-ya-jocks straight-shooter has a sort of blue collar zen, which allows him to view things such as ugly power lines with almost spiritual reverie – “a reminder of man’s ability to generate electricity”. The Killing of Angel Street (1981) The Killing of Angel Street is one of two films (the other is Phillip Noyce’s Heatwave) inspired by the mysterious real-life disappearance of Juanita Nielsen, a community activist who fought mass development in Sydney. Like The Castle, this cracker political thriller from 1981 is less about obtaining a property than fighting to keep it. Director Donald Crombie piles on the tension, aided by a top-notch cast (including Elizabeth Alexander and John Hargreaves) and an expose-like screenplay that examines the cost, human and otherwise, of big business getting in bed with politicians. Welcome to Woop Woop (1997) Writer/director Stephan Elliott’s gloriously kitschy hell-on-earth comedy about yokels who run their own society in the middle of nowhere and by their own rules, is a bizarre paean to the virtues of living off-road. The town’s tyrannical ringleader Daddy-O (an uproariously entertaining Rod Taylor) smokes Marlboros and eats schnitzels while the others are confined to a diet of pineapple chunks and cheap tobacco. Stranded American criminal Teddy (Johnathon Schaech) revolts, leading to a terrific chest-beating monologue from Daddy-O about being proud of what you have. Welcome to Woop Woop is “too fucking dry, too fucking hot, too many bloody flies but it’s ours”, he hollers. “You might not think that’s much, but it’s fair dinkum.” Bitter Springs (1950) The Castle may be the funniest Australian film about a property dispute, but Bitter Springs is probably the best. Chips Rafferty, in a role substantially meatier than most in his oeuvre, plays stockman Wally King, who buys real estate for his family in central Australia in 1900. But traditional owners of the land live in the area, leading to an escalating conflict between Rafferty’s crew and the Indigenous people. Bitter Springs explores land rights issues in a frank and powerful way. The pig-headed King eventually comes to understand that a piece of paper declaring he owns land means nothing to people who have inhabited that space for thousands of years. And, importantly, that while it may give him a legal right to be be there, it does not necessarily grant him a moral one. Babe: Pig in the City (1998) You may remember scenes so dark they felt like a David Lynch remake of The Adventures of Milo and Otis. The premise of George Miller’s under-rated Babe sequel – the Citizen Kane of talking animal movies – concerns an epic battle for a couple to retain their home and assets. Having returned to Hoggett Farm a hero, the adorable titular pork chop is sent on a mission to raise enough money to save it after two men from the bank “with pale faces and soulless eyes” arrive bearing bad news. The King is Dead! (2012) Young married couple Max (Dan Wyllie) and Therese (Bojana Novakovic) realise their dream of owning a house, only to discover the world’s worst neighbours are on the other side of the fence. The police can’t control a foul array of grubby, singlet-clad, drug-addled, party-round-the-clock bogans, so the pair take matters into their own hands. The King is Dead! is one of several expectation-subverting curios from veteran writer/director Rolf de Heer, who lampoons various types of privilege and memorably captures a distinctly middle class kind of horror. Character actor Gary Waddell’s performance as King, a charismatic but extremely volatile airhead, is insanely good. They’re a Weird Mob (1966) Many stories have been written and filmed over the years about migrants coming to terms with life down under. British director Michael Powell established the genre as fertile, beer-infused ground in his endearing 1966 comedy, adapting a bestselling novel of the same name. Nino (Walter Chiari) is a pleasant-natured Italian migrant who starts work as a labourer and pursues his dream of getting married and owning land. A documentary-esque narrator explains various kinds of Australianisms. When we see footage of women in swimsuits, he observes: “These they call sheilas, or bewt sorts.” My Brilliant Career (1979) The ability to live, love and work independently are themes core to director Gillian Armstrong’s character study of a shamelessly egotistical, outside-the-box free spirit who dreams of something greater than a quiet provincial life. In a star-making turn, Judy Davis plays Sybylla Melvyn, the instigator of a powerful exploration of classism, sexism and old-school Australian values. The film launched more than one brilliant career: Armstrong smashed the glass ceiling to become the first woman to direct an Australian feature film in almost 50 years. Three Dollars (2005) The take-home message underpinning director Robert Connolly’s adaptation of Elliot Perlman’s book is a persuasive one: that many seemingly well-off families are only a few paycheques away from the poverty line. In this portrait of a compassionate scientist’s violent transition into a life of homelessness, Eddie (David Wenham) informs us he and his wife have “become expert at living on the ever-shrinking margin between the mortgage and our combined incomes”. The last act is at times a little unconvincing, but the film has a big-hearted sense of humanity that’s hard to shake. The Finished People (2003) Perhaps the Australian dream can be partly defined by stories of those for whom it is manifestly out of reach. This tiny budget indie from director Khoa Do, 2005’s Young Australian of the Year, follows three homeless youth living on the streets of Cabramatta. Virtually everything about The Finished People is rough, from its ostracised Struggle Street characters to scuzzy low-fi production values. But Do’s film is shockingly authentic drama, with a street-side sense of urgency as striking now as it was when it was first released. Join us in Melbourne for our gala screening of A Month of Sundays on 27 April at Cinema Nova in Carlton, hosted by Luke Buckmaster with special guests Steve Biddulph and Matthew Saville. A Month of Sundays is in Australia cinemas from 28 April
Amazon and eBay hosted ads for banned invasive species Amazon and eBay appear to have openly broken the law by hosting listings to ship banned invasive species to the UK, the can reveal. Both eBay and Amazon have previously been criticised for hosting ivory traders, but the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) rates invasive species as a more significant threat to biodiversity than poaching for animal parts. In February, the CBD said there was an “urgent need” to control the vast, unregulated network of online traders who buy and sell these pests across the globe. In the UK, the government has banned seven species of aquatic weed from sale or advertisement in England because they have destructively colonised rivers and waterways. But at least three were openly available for sale on eBay and one on Amazon for delivery to any Briton with a credit card. Ebay carried several advertisements offering to ship floating pennywort (Hydrocotyle ranunculoides), water fern (Azolla filiculoides) and parrot’s feather (Myriophyllum aquaticum), all native to the Americas, into the UK. Amazon had two listings (one inactive) for parrot’s feather. Vendors were located in Latvia, Australia, Poland, Germany and even inside the UK. Sales information is not publicly available and neither company would comment on whether any plants listed were in fact sold into the UK. But Andrew Wiseman, one of the UK’s leading environmental lawyers, told the that in his opinion Amazon and eBay had broken the law by hosting advertisements on their British websites. A spokesman for the Canal & River Trust described these intruders as “hugely damaging to the country’s native plantlife”, and said the availability of the plants was “extremely worrying”. A spokeswoman for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) confirmed that sale or advertisement of the species in question was an offence, but would not confirm whether any further action would be taken against the companies or sellers in this case. “We work with the gardening trade and internet companies to remove listings and inform sellers of their legal responsibility,” she said. After being made aware of the potential legal breach, Amazon removed both of their listings for parrots feather. All eBay listings remained live at the time of publication. The problem is not restricted to the UK, nor to Amazon and eBay. Amid the chaos of the internet, illegal trades are difficult to police. But legal trades are also potentially harmful. Species that may be invasive are often only identified by regulation after they become problematic. “It’s a mess,” said Dr Franziska Humair, who led a Swiss Federal Institute of Technology study, which found eBay regularly hosted advertisements for more than 500 invasive species of plant. This included 13 of the world’s 35 most invasive plants. For any one species, there were often dozens of different sellers, from multiple countries with offers to ship worldwide. “It’s simply not regulated,” said Humair. “It’s just too much. Most countries do have a certain kind of law, biosecurity or border controls. You have a certain control over the regular sellers. However you have so many single parcels that come in, you can’t control the whole traffic.” Special interest marketplaces also trade across the world. According to a US government report, users of specialty site Aquabid simply ignored requirements to provide customs documentation for animals, instead sending them via private postal services. In the US, the largest online market for living organisms, at least 4,000 businesses and 15,000 individuals sell reptiles online. The number of live fish and snails bought online is even larger. Plant traders likely number in the tens of thousands. Humair cautiously estimates there may be ten of thousands of risky transactions made each year across all internet sites. In the UK, the sale of controlled plants carries a maximum fine of £5,000 or six months imprisonment. In one particularly brazen example, an eBay seller in Yorkshire was hawking clumps of floating pennywort. The plant was incorrectly labelled “floating dwarf pennywort” but experts at the Centre for Agriculture and Biosciences International (Cabi) and the the Canal & River Trust independently identified the species. In the same advertisement a plant that appears to be water fern (also banned) is entwined into the edges of the plant for sale. Contamination of sold plants with invasive pests and disease is a potential problem for all online sales. Humair’s study found that a hugely disproportionate number of plant species traded on eBay were invasive. In part, because the attributes that make them invasive – hardy, fast-growing and disease resistant – are seen as selling points for online traders. Invasive aquatic weeds, popular as decorative items among aquarium enthusiasts, are common online wares and incredibly destructive when they escape. In 1999, a small patch of giant salvinia (Salvinia molesta), a fern native to Brazil, was found floating on the surface of Toledo Bend reservoir in Texas. Astonished observers watched the patch double in size in just three days. Giant salvinia is ranked as one of the world’s 100 worst invasive species. Within a year of the sighting, the plant had spread to at least 50 different waterways and it now infests rivers and lakes from Virginia to California. Despite eradication efforts, 1,200 acres of Toledo Bend now lie beneath its suffocating embrace. In the US, the Department of Agriculture has banned all transport and sale of giant salvinia across state borders. Despite these restrictions, at least four patches were sold in the past year on eBay by a seller in Hawaii who ships anywhere in the US. The world’s online commerce is predicted to double between 2013 and 2018, meaning the threat will only grow in coming years. Specialists to the CBD met in Montreal last week to discuss the problem. “For plants it is very common, very easy to buy any kind of seed on the internet,” Dr Piero Genovesi, the chair of the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s invasive species specialist group, told the from Montreal. “And it’s not necessarily simple to apply even national regulations to an internet trade that is in some cases global.” Ralf Lopian, former chair of the UN International Plant Protection Convention’s invasive species commission, said online trading was probably not a bigger contributor to invasions than other forms of trade, but that it was “one problem which is immensely difficult to control”. Internationally blacklisting certain species is complicated because species that are invasive in some regions of the world, are benign in others. Global trade bans – which would have to be imposed by the World Trade Organisation – are difficult to implement. “We all live in a free trade system, so in general, if you want to impose a ban, you have to have a solid justification,” said Genovesi. Swedish efforts to ban the commercial trade of North American lobsters into Europe on environmental grounds have been met with US resistance. Breaches of the law may not always be nefarious, said Genovesi – ignorance plays a large part. Given the Yorkshire salesman wanted just £3.50 for his bags of floating pennywort, it is unlikely he knew he was risking a £5,000 fine. Despite their massive global impact, invasive species are not a concern that individuals and companies generally consider. In 2013, the CD version of Katy Perry’s album Prism had to be confiscated by biosecurity officers in Australia after it was distributed with decorative flower seeds and an encouragement for fans to “spread the light”. One approach suggested by Lopian was for large marketplaces – such as eBay and Amazon – to issue alerts to customers listing products that may be illegal. This would require the engagement and cooperation of the big marketplaces. Amazon and eBay told the that if listings breached their guidelines they could be removed and users could have their accounts disabled. But neither was forthcoming when asked how they police their websites for these species. Both companies declined to comment on whether the UK listings were isolated incidents or represented a wider problem. It is the second time in a week that eBay’s commitment to environmental protection has been questioned after the company refused to ban ads for the removal of exhaust filters from diesel cars. Genovesi said public and corporate education must be part of the response: “We are calling for responsible behaviours and responsible business. We do need to approach big business companies to see if we can work together with them on this issue.” A full list of the ’s findings, along with screen grabs of the original advertisements is available here.
How to make low interest rates work for your business The Bank of England’s interest rate cut to 0.25% was designed to boost growth – but to what extent are banks passing on the reduction? Small businesses were hoping to benefit from the cut and a £100bn monetary stimulus package providing cheap funding for banks. However, research from Moneyfact.co.uk has found that while 285 savings accounts cut their rates in August, Halifax and Nationwide have defied the Bank’s rate cut on tracker mortgages. Banks are obliged to reduce interest by 0.25% on all variable rate loan products that track the Bank of England base rate, but changes to standard variable rate products and fixed rate loans will be at their discretion. Independent adviser Victor Sacks is not optimistic about banks passing on the cut to customers. “Unfortunately businesses will still be at the behest of a bank to pass that rate down the line, which I can’t see a bank doing,” he says. Lending in recent years has been cheap for small businesses due to an already low interest rate. Any cheaper lending is unlikely to spark a stampede in borrowing. “From what I’ve experienced as a small business the bank rate cut means nothing,” says Colleen Wong, founder of children’s smartwatch firm Techsixtyfour. “As any small business you are not just going to borrow for borrowing’s sake.” Sacks believes SMEs should be reviewing all costs, given the “huge variances” in the terms of different financial products. “Check out the best deals on everything because there is a really good chance you could start reducing your costs just by being a bit smarter,” he says. “The big banks may be great but there will be other, smaller, second tier banks that are looking to get a footprint into a particular sector or market and can do it at a slightly better rate.” Precious Jason, who founded the skincare firm for cancer sufferers Etieno, using her own money and funds from friends and family, is looking at taking out a loan to expand the business. “It is something we are seriously considering because we are in the growing phase of the business, but we are also cautious of the Brexit implication,” she says. “I started off making the products from home and I think it is time to transition to our own premises so we would need to invest in that.” Sacks highlights how any bank registered with the Post Office will have FSCS protection, which provides customers with peace of mind. The drop in the bank rate has also meant banks are cutting their interest rates on savings accounts, so any small business owners with savings should review these. “Some consideration needs to be given to doing something with some of that money,” says Sacks, “rather than all of it sitting in a place where it will be ripped by inflation.” Mutual funds could be a good option because many FTSE 100 companies declare their dividends in dollars, which means there has been an upsurge in fund values post-Brexit because of the fall in the pound’s value. The key is to diversify: Sacks advises businesses should think of the British summer as a guide. “We would invest in ice cream and umbrellas for the British summer and your investment strategy needs to be the same thing,” he says. “Be broad and diverse and one of your pots of money somewhere will win.” Flexibility can also be a boon to small businesses seeking to cope with the plunge in the value of the pound, which dipped significantly after the interest rate cut. Wong’s company buys its smartwatches from China in dollars, and has sharply felt the drop in the pound. Fortunately, Wong has persuaded her UK distributor to buy from her in dollars. She is able to do so while still having British sterling come into the company from the service contracts she sells with the devices. “Definitely look into various forms of hedging if you are an importer of any kind,” she says. For those not in the position to have revenue streams in different currencies, there are other courses of action. Mark Horgan, chief executive of foreign exchange company Moneycorp, is unenthusiastic about the prospects of the pound until the terms of Britain’s EU exit are clearer. He is encouraging businesses to “lock in” an exchange rate with a forward contract. These allow businesses to agree an exchange rate in advance, guaranteeing a specific rate when the transfer is made. Ian Sutherland, chief financial officer at personalised children’s book retailer Lost My Name, says hedging is something the company now thinks about much more. “We have been looking at future cash flows and whether we are paying our supply base in dollars or euros and based on that we might decide to lock in a certain exchange rate for the next 12 months,” he says. “We are typically not making massive bets on what is going to happen to exchange rates – but you want to be able to insure yourself against the exchange rate moving the wrong way.” “Fundamentally, the pound’s value is determined by economic growth, interest rates and a view of the UK’s economic future,” says Mark Horgan, at Moneycorp. “Currently, all three are perceived to be negative, hence the continued devaluation of sterling since the end of June. “These features should highlight to small businesses the importance of planning ahead to mitigate possible risks.” Not all small businesses will lose out due to the drop in the pound and exporters, such as Lost My Name, which now has 85% of its sales coming from outside the UK, could benefit. “If the SMEs are exporters, now is a great time to build sales, as the pound is weak and UK-produced goods are competitively priced,” says Horgan. The Federation of Small Businesses chairman, Mike Cherry, says it is encouraging to see the Bank of England take “decisive action” to boost the economy through the interest rate cut. Since many of these benefits rely on banks making borrowing cheaper, Cherry has called on Bank of England governor Mark Carney and prime minster Theresa May to “carefully assess the effects of the cut and do all in their power to boost economic confidence and growth”. Small business owners would be wise to mitigate risk and seize any opportunities immediately, because the interest rate cut may not prove to be the hoped for panacea for the post-Brexit economy. Sign up to become a member of the Small Business Network here for more advice, insight and best practice direct to your inbox.
A normalization of violence: how cyberbullying began and how to fight it He must be disappointed by that typo in the first line of the email. That was my first thought when the following landed in my inbox: “Dear Olivia, What’s you preference: To be sodomized and left to anally bleed until you die or to get raped conventionally before getting your throat cut?” It might sound shocking and threatening, but I didn’t feel shocked or threatened. This was just another day on the internet, where people – disproportionately women, people of color and queer people – are harassed, abused, bullied, intimidated and threatened. It’s what writer Umair Haque describes as a ceaseless flickering hum of low-level emotional violence. At around the same time someone, I assume the same person, signed me up to a mailbot service, which meant I received thousands of unsolicited email newsletter sign-ups within a few hours. Thankfully Gmail’s spam filters learn quickly, but it took a 20 minutes of flagging messages to clean up my inbox – a mild irritation. Meanwhile on Twitter, someone else was sending me pornographic GIFs and asking whether penis size “really matters for a lady”; I blocked him, as I’m sure I will have to block many others in the future in a tedious game of whack-a-troll. I would love to say that this is atypical, but it’s not. In fact, I’d go as far as to say that this feels entirely pedestrian, just your regular run-of-the-mill rape threats and dreary dick pics. For one of my colleagues, “normal” is dealing with racial slurs or having her profile photo edited to have “jew horns”. For a male colleague, it’s people telling him to commit suicide or saying they want his kids to die. If we complain about these microaggressions, we’re either overreacting or feeding the trolls. But if we don’t speak up, we’re letting them get away with it. Paralysed by this dilemma, we fall back on swatting the antagonists away like flies and, perhaps as a coping strategy, telling ourselves that it’s normal. Most of the time, the flies are few and far between. But you only have to look at the relentless campaigns of hate against public figures like Ghostbusters actor and comedian Leslie Jones, Olympic diver Tom Daley or games developer Zoe Quinn to see what happens when the flies form a swarm. It becomes overwhelming, exhausting and incredibly difficult for the individual – or the police – to make case-by-case judgements on what constitutes a credible threat. “If you’re in the media you are familiar with how things work online, but for an average person these types of interactions could be terrifying,” said Whitney Phillips, author of This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things. So how did we get here? And what should we do about it? Determined bullies have always found ways to antagonize others, but digital tools have given them new powers. Fifty years ago if you wanted to wind up a co-worker you could write anonymous messages and leave them on his or her desk. “You could tease that person, but there would be no archive and it couldn’t be amplified. It could potentially be upsetting but it wouldn’t be indexed in Google Search,” said Phillips. It’s the ability of Google search to index abuse or what she calls “ambivalent play” that changes the ethical stakes. Your online history follows you around, meaning those targeted struggle to move on and have a fresh start. Trolling and cyberbullying have been part of the internet since its inception – a side effect of anonymity and unfettered free expression, both critical pillars of the web. Once restricted to niche forums and chatrooms with their own codes of conduct, ubiquitous social media has brought it into the mainstream. “There used to be so few people occupying those [digital] spaces and the people who were were a lot more homogenous than what you see now,” said Phillips. “More homogenous” means more white, and more male. “It isn’t just teenagers in their parents’ basements. A lot of them are otherwise very well adjusted normal adult men with wives and children and full-time jobs,” said Bailey Poland, author of Haters. “Many of them fall into the camp of very aggrieved middle aged white men who feel like they weren’t given the fantasy life they were owed. They tend to take it out on people who are happy, successful or present in a way that makes them feel uncomfortable.” That’s not to say that white men don’t get harassed online, but that harassment is more frequently directed at members of historically underrepresented populations whose voices have not always been privileged. “The people who have always had their voices taken seriously tend to be the antagonists,” said Phillips, arguing that it comes from a sense of disenfranchisement. The Trump effect It’s that same sense of disenfranchisement that propelled Donald Trump to the White House with a campaign that normalized identity-based antagonism. “He says absurdly offensive degrading things about women and people of color and specific groups whether that’s Mexicans, Muslims, whatever. He says these terrible things and that normalizes hate speech in mainstream discourse. It’s so normal to open up CNN or any news app and see bigotry,” says Phillips. “The tenor of discourse that Trump and his associates have been engaging in has emboldened some people to say ‘we are in charge now and we can say whatever we want’,” adds Kate Miltner, a PhD student at USC Annenberg School of Communication and Journalism. Trump’s “locker room” comments about sexually harassing women are a reflection of the normalization of violence against women. “Sexual threats and rape threats are a form of domination that has been used against women for all of time. It ties into seeing women as not fully human and having their value contingent on whether or not they are worthy of raping,” said Poland. The media, in an effort to draw attention to the bigotry, ends up amplifying it. “Some publications might be trying to troll readers, but some are just calling attention to it. But inadvertently or not it ends up incentivizing more problematic behavior,” said Phillips. This opens up the vexing question of whether or not to feed the trolls. “I’m wary of that framing as it comes with a victim-blaming undercurrent. The message is ‘if you don’t give them attention you won’t get harassed’,” said Phillips. Poland suggests keeping a record of posts in case a situation escalates and then reporting the perpetrator where possible. Individuals should make up their minds about whether they respond, mute or ignore, following online safety guides like this one or this one. Counter-meme Phillips offers an alternative way to handle such trolls: by creating a countermeme. “Contribute to an active, explicit pushback against these behaviors as opposed to repeating them,” she said. “It’s about taking more control of that narrative, so that the antagonist is no longer the center of the universe.” Miltner suggests the rest of the online community can help here. “Showing solidarity is important, asking how you can help is important. Basically trying to take a stand and say ‘this is not acceptable’.” Phillips agrees: “The same behaviors that can marginalize and denigrate and traumatize can really bring a group together, making them feel good and pro-social.” My paltry effort was to take a screengrab of the email and share it on Twitter with a pithy comment mocking the sender. It was not an act of fear or a cry for help, but an act of defiance: I am not intimidated by you and I am not alone. The post triggered messages of support and wonderful jokes from friends and acquaintances that reminded me of all of the lovely people on the internet. If we’re very generous, we might say that we’re still in the early stages of internet settlement and that we will all start to become more civilized. Google, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat and others might rally to create better tools for tackling the low-level abuse and funnelling real threats towards law enforcement. It’s a start, but not a fix. The disproportionate harassment of women, people of color and queer people reflects underlying social, culturally embodied issues. These are problems that exist offline being brought to attention in new and imaginative ways. “These problems have nothing to do with the internet, so the idea that we could have an internet solution is erroneous,” said Phillips. “We need to deal with and mitigate systemic racism and sexism. How do you get rid of rape culture? The fact that women tell themselves stories to justify the horrible treatment they receive speaks to the depth of the cultural issues that underpin the behavior.” The free speech myth The US and Silicon Valley in particular has a very specific libertarian view of free speech, typified by John Perry Barlow’s 20-year-old Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace, which said: “We cannot separate the air that chokes from the air upon which wings beat.” Attempts to clamp down on online harassment are frequently described as infringing on free speech, especially in the US. It’s just people expressing their opinions no matter how racist, sexist or unpalatable. And so society appeals to the constitutionally-enshrined right to protect the words of antagonists. It’s certainly true that censorship is damaging to democracy, but the damage is taking place in the opposite direction. “When you cede the floor to the most violent, bigoted contributors that tends to marginalize and silence members of the group they are targeting,” said Phillips. That leads to a reduction in the number of voices contributing to discourse, all in the name of free speech. A more robust understanding of free speech is about trying to cultivate and protect the greatest amount of speech from the most diverse groups of people. It’s about having more people talking, not fewer people shouting. Or, as Phillips eloquently puts it: “Antagonism silences and that infringes people’s free speech far more significantly than telling some asshole to shut his mouth.”
Chinese bank buys secret London vault which can store $80bn of gold A secret London vault, which can store more than $80bn (£57bn) in gold bullion, is being sold by Barclays to China’s ICBC Standard bank for an undisclosed sum. The facility is located inside the M25 and has the capacity to store 2,000 tonnes of gold. And while further details about the vault are scarce, it is said to be one of the largest in Europe and is presently used to store bars of gold, silver, platinum and palladium. Its security precautions reportedly include: a front door that can withstand “a direct hit from a rocket-propelled grenade”; an electrified roof; and plinths that have been sunk to keep out anyone ambitious enough to try to tunnel in. In 2012, when the Sunday Times was granted a tour of the site, the paper reported: “The fingerprint identification system detects blood supply – severed digits won’t open the doors. Anti-ramming bollards can stop a lorry travelling at 55mph.” Barclays opened the facility in 2012 to serve both corporate and individual clients of its investment bank, after a 12-year bull run in gold prices pushed the metal to record highs the previous year. The minimum deposit is thought to be one bar, which in the case of gold weighs 400 troy ounces (12.4kg), worth around $500,000. As well as the Bank of England vault on Threadneedle Street, there are thought to be six commercial vaults across London, with one rumoured to be below JPMorgan’s offices on Victoria Embankment. It was reported in January that ICBC was acquiring Deutsche bank’s lease on another London gold and silver vault. However, the Chinese bank said the deal did not go through. The acquisition of the Barclays site is expected to be completed in July.
Campaigners urge PM to give EU nationals in UK permanent right to stay A campaign group representing non-British EU nationals in the UK has called on Theresa May to give urgent assurance to those who settled in the country before the referendum that they will have the right to remain permanently. The3million has teamed up with 10 organisations representing the estimated 1.3 million British people living in Europe, ranging from Bremain in Spain to ECREU in France. In a letter to the prime minister signed by the 11 groups, the3million asked May to “the take the first step and unilaterally guarantee the right of EU citizens currently living lawfully in the UK to remain in the UK after Brexit”. It said this was the “necessary first step” to prevent them from being used as pawns in withdrawal negotiations. “We are not bargaining chips, we are people,” said the letter to be handed in to Downing Street on Monday. “In the Christmas spirit, we call on you to make a public statement guaranteeing those rights now.” The3million and the groups in Europe want negotiations on their future settled before article 50 is triggered, to ensure that they do not get caught in the cross hairs of the political negotiations among the 28 EU countries. The right to reside, continue to draw index-linked pensions and access healthcare are among the focal points for the groups. But May has previously said she will only provide guarantees to EU nationals in the UK when the rights of British people living in Europe are reciprocally assured. The groups that signed the letter are grassroots bodies that have emerged since 23 June. They represent British people in Gibraltar, Spain, Germany, France, Finland and Belgium. There is also one EU-wide organisation. The3million warned the government of the practical challenges facing the Home Office, which has been deluged by applications for permanent residence. The 85-page application form has been described as complicated and onerous, with EU citizens expected to show their movements in and out of the UK for all the years they have been in the country. It was designed for non-EU nationals who did not have automatic rights to settle in the UK and has been criticised as unfit for purpose in relation to EU citizens. With a backlog of 100,000 applications, the group warned that up to 1 million EU citizens living in the UK could be at risk of deportation if the Home Office does not come up with a simple way of recognising their status. Individuals who have applied for permanent residency have said they feel “sad” and “betrayed”, and complained about being given incorrect advice by Home Office officials. One woman, a full-time mother who did not have the required five years of bank statements in her name, was told by a Home Office adviser to ask her children’s school to come to her aid. “I was then told in no uncertain terms that I need to go back home and get a statement from my kids’ school to say I am there every day at drop-off/pick-up,” she said.
The Academy nominees group photo brings #OscarsSoWhite into focus No one should need to tell those who work in Hollywood that images matter. The Oscars are the highlight of the year for an industry that exists to create fantasy worlds for us to escape into. The hype train for this year’s event, at the end of February, has already left the station. Monday saw the prestigious luncheon where all of those nominated for this year’s awards get a chance to suck some extra publicity out of proceedings. This year’s ceremony is already mired in controversy over the lack of non-white faces so the obligatory picture of the hopefuls all in one place was always going to present a stark picture of the whiteness of Hollywood. Cheryl Boone Isaacs, the president of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, who seems to have added the word “beleaguered” to her job title, said before the lunch: “This year we all know there’s an elephant in the room, I have asked the elephant to leave.” If there had been an elephant in the room, however, it would have been one of the few African or Asian representatives present. These group pictures serve a purpose; they are a way for the Academy to lay out its celebrity wares. The awards are the prime event for the sexiest industry on the planet and there are few other occasions when the great and the good of Hollywood gather together in one place for a photo. Whether they show Oscar nominees or the staff of a political magazine, group shots have a particular power when it comes to highlighting a lack of ethnic diversity. Seeing a line of grinning white faces makes it much harder to break the debate down into one about individuals. Yes actor X delivered a great performance as a transgender woman and actor Y was brilliant rolling around in the snow but the #OscarsSoWhite controversy isn’t about this or that performance – it’s about the overall lack of opportunities or recognition for non-white talent. Group shots help keep the focus on this, rather than individual omissions. It’s coming to something when perma-tanned Sylvester Stallone is one of the least white people in the room. Sly received his first nomination for almost 40 years for reviving his role as Rocky Balboa in the film Creed, while the movie’s black lead actor, Michael B Jordan, and director, Ryan Coogler, were overlooked. He could have reacted defensively to suggestions that his nomination was strange but instead he looked for ways to help and offered to join the planned boycott of this year’s show. “I said, ‘Ryan, how do you want to handle this? Because I really believe you are responsible for me being here,’” Sly explained. “I said, ‘If you want me to go, I’ll go. If you don’t, I won’t.’” When deciding to ally yourself to a campaign you are not part of, simply asking how best to provide support is much underrated. If Sly had boycotted he may well have become the talking point of the evening and focus would have once again been taken away from the real issue, a root to branch lack of diversity in Hollywood. From Beyoncé to Idris Elba, black consciousness seems to be en vogue. The Oscars controversy will not be the last time that black and brown voices are raised in protest. When next year’s nominees grab their £200,000 goody bags and line up for their picture, it’s a fairly safe bet there will be a more liberal sprinkling of beaming black and brown faces. This will almost certainly be as cosmetic as it sounds but for an industry that thrives on the manipulated image, sometimes looks do matter.
Jack Garratt tops BBC Sound of 2016 list Jack Garratt has been named winner of the BBC Music Sound of 2016 poll. The annual award, which aims to predict the artists who are likely to have a fruitful 12 months ahead of them, has previously been won by Sam Smith, Ellie Goulding and Adele, among others. Garratt, who hails from Little Chalfont in Buckinghamshire, mixes elements of folk, electronica and R&B to create a soulful but often minimal pop sound. He’s not unlike a less experimental James Blake, which admittedly might not set pulses racing, but then the BBC poll is not known for uncovering genre-shredding mavericks. Garratt is to release his debut album, Phase, in February, and won the other prize that tends to accurately predict stardom – the Brits critics’ choice award – in November. “Winning the BBC Music Sound of 2016 poll has left me feeling pretty stunned at the end of one of the most emotionally and physically intense years of my life,” said Garratt. “I cannot thank the BBC enough for their continued support, and everyone who voted for me. Every other name on the list is unbelievably talented, and I hope this year will be a great one for all of us.” Garratt fought off competition from Canadian singer-songwriter Alessia Cara, who came second, and R&B-tinged singer and producer NAO, in third. Five-piece psychedelic band Blossoms, from Stockport, were in fourth, while there was a tie for the fifth spot between Mura Masa and WSTRN. The poll, which this year collated tips from 144 music industry experts, has been running since 2003. Other past winners include 50 Cent, Keane, Little Boots, Jessie J and Haim. Last year’s winners were Years & Years, who finished ahead of James Bay, Stormzy, Raury and George the Poet. Radio 1 DJ Huw Stephens said: “Jack Garratt is an incredibly exciting artist. He’s influenced by and understands a lot of different genres, from blues to electronica, and through his songwriting and live performances has become something of a phenomenon both live and on record.”
No lightsabers allowed as Star Wars exhibition lands in London “If you’re a super nerd, you’re going to freak out in five seconds,” promises Laela French, surrounded by more than 200 props, costumes, models and artwork from one of the most popular film franchises of all time. French is director of archives at the Lucas Museum of Narrative Arts, based at George Lucas’s Skywalker ranch in California. The museum is not open to the public, “which is why we do these touring exhibitions, it is the only way we can share this collection”, she said. The O2 complex in south-east London is playing host to the UK leg of a Star Wars exhibition world tour, opening to the public on Friday until September next year. The exhibition includes one of the first Darth Vader costumes, the orange jumpsuit and helmet worn by Luke Skywalker on his first rebel mission, and the metal bikini that the gangster Jabba the Hutt forced Princess Leia to wear. The exhibition, which hosted a preview day on Tuesday, fully expects to attract superfans. In an FAQ section for the show visitors are instructed as to whether they can wear their stormtrooper costumes (yes, but without the helmet), or bring their lightsaber (definitely not, no weapons). The exhibition offers greater insights into how characters were developed, some of them surprising. For example, it took a year and a half to develop the character of Jar Jar Binks, the goofball Gungan introduced because C3PO had less of a role in The Phantom Menace. Elsewhere it is revealed that the character of Yoda had a working name of Minch and before that Buffy. He could have looked, according to some of the original concept artwork, like a jolly Christmas gnome rather than a small shrivelled Albert Einstein-based Jedi master. The show reveals how Lucas got the idea for Chewbacca from his experiences driving around with his faithful dog, an Alaskan malamute, by his side. The voice is based on a blend of sounds from a walrus and a cinnamon bear. As everybody knows, lightsabers are green, blue or red. Mace Windu’s is purple because, the exhibition reveals, Samuel L Jackson personally asked Lucas for a unique weapon. The show is more than a collection of objects and offers visitors the chance to “discover the hero inside yourself” with a series of interactive psychological questions. Most have a Star Wars slant. So do you want to be a Wookiee or a Nautolan or an Ewok or one of another dozen options? Who would you choose as a mentor, Qui-Gon Jinn? Darth Vader? Yoda? Which planet do you want yourself to come from? The snowy expanses of Hoth? The desperate deserts of Tatooine? The stunning lakes of Naboo? French said she hoped the show would be educational as well as fun. She said: “If we can bring people in because they know and love Star Wars, and come out the other side inspired and having learned something, then it is a win-win for everybody.” • Star Wars Identities: The Exhibition is at the O2 London from 18 November to 3 September 2017.
David Cameron suffers setback over proposed EU deal David Cameron’s insistence that settlement terms defining a new deal for Britain in the EU must be immediately legally watertight and irreversible has suffered a setback after the president of the European parliament said he could not guarantee that. The prime minister was in Brussels to meet Martin Schulz, the German social democrat who is the head of the parliament, as well as other leaders of the chamber. Cameron sought guarantees that the parliament would not seek to unravel draft settlement terms being negotiated at a crucial EU summit on Thursday. Downing Street’s rush to the parliament reflected concerns that the chamber could be a loose cannon in the delicate renegotiations since changes in EU law to accommodate key UK demands on welfare curbs for EU immigrants will need to go through the parliament. The meeting came as the president of the European council, Donald Tusk, said positions were hardening, there was a real risk of the EU breaking up. Leaders of Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic were staging a mini-summit in Prague to hammer out a common position on the proposed British deal. While it would be highly unusual for the parliament to veto decisions taken by the EU’s 28 heads of government, the chamber’s role almost certainly means Cameron will only be able to effect the welfare changes much later than he hoped, and well after Britons have actually voted in the in/out referendum. After their talks on Tuesday, Schulz said the parliament would not veto decisions taken by EU leaders, but emphasised the centrality of the parliamentary process. “I can’t give a guarantee for the future of a legislation,” he said. “No government can go to a parliament and say: ‘Here is our proposal, can you guarantee a result?’” The British had pressed for the parliament to issue a declaration this week stating that it would abide by the decisions taken at the summit. But it will not do this because it has to wait for the European commission to table detailed legislative changes before it can reach a verdict. The commission proposals can only be tabled once the result of the UK referendum is known. If the British vote to leave the EU, the entire exercise is redundant. If they vote to remain, Britain will remain in the EU regardless of what happens in the parliament. But the procedural argument punctures some of Cameron’s claims before the summit. Shulz said that once the commission’s legal texts were on the table, the parliament would move quickly to expedite the legislative process. Two of Cameron’s central demands aimed at reducing EU labour migration to Britain involve freezing in-work benefits for migrant workers, mainly from eastern Europe, and slashing their child benefits. Both changes require amendments to EU laws. The commission president, Jean-Claude Juncker, who has warned that the changes could affect national social security systems across the EU, insisted on Tuesday that the commission had no “plan B” prepared in the event that the summit broke down.
CBI to make plea to Theresa May for a ‘smooth Brexit’ Britain’s biggest business organisation will make an urgent plea to Theresa May this week to come forward with clearer plans for Brexit to avoid further crippling uncertainty and serious damage to the economy. In a speech on Monday to its annual conference, the president of the Confederation of British Industry, Paul Drechsler, will insist that the UK must retain its “privileged” access to the EU single market, keep its borders open to European talent, and agree lengthy transitional arrangements with the EU, to stop businesses falling of a “cliff edge” on the day the UK leaves. The warning, before Philip Hammond’s first autumn statement , is a sign of growing frustration among business leaders at the government’s refusal to spell out its intentions on the UK’s involvement with the single market and customs union. May and Hammond say they cannot give a “running commentary” or reveal their negotiating hand before talks begin with the EU once article 50 is triggered, which they “remain committed to ... by the end of March next year”. It will also be seen as a cry for help, amid signs that EU leaders are increasingly resigned to delivering a “hard Brexit” for the UK – which will mean leaving the single market – because May and her ministers refuse to compromise over EU rules on free movement. There is also alarm among CBI members at perceived anti-business rhetoric and policy ideas emanating from No 10, such as plans to put workers on company boards. In his speech, Drechsler will say that businesses are completely committed to making the best of Brexit. But he will make clear that there will be untold damage unless access is retained to the single market as part of a “smooth Brexit” process. In particular, he will emphasise the need for a period of transition after 2019, during which the UK remains tied into the single market and its rules, in order to avoid a sudden change and the imposition of tariffs, probably under World Trade Organisation rules. Dreschsler will welcome a decision on triggering article 50 and other moves, such as approving expansion of Heathrow airport. But he will add: “When it comes to negotiations, no one understands the need for discretion better than business. We’re not asking for a running commentary – but we are looking for clarity and, above all, a plan. “In other areas uncertainty remains. Business needs to know we won’t close our borders to Europe’s talent, or lose our privileged access to Europe’s markets. And there’s another important question: what happens on the day after Brexit, when the clock strikes midnight, and our two years’ negotiating time is up? Today, businesses are inevitably considering the cliff-edge scenario – a sudden and overnight transformation in trading conditions.” However, Professor Tim Congdon, a former Treasury adviser and Ukip candidate, said MPs were right to push for leaving the single market to grab the opportunity of trading more freely with the rest of the world. Disputing claims that the manufacturing and agricultural industries could be wiped out by cheap imports once outside the single market, Congdon said: “There is no reason why manufacturing cannot flourish outside the EU, though there is likely to be a different pattern of manufacturing. “Singapore is the clearest example of a free market economy and it has a larger manufacturing industry as a proportion of the economy than the UK does.” The hard-hitting intervention from Dreschsler came as it emerged that the government was warned in a report it commissioned in 2013 that the cost of leaving the Customs Union would be crippling for businesses. The economic “think-net” the Centre for Economic Policy Research, in a submission to the government’s balance of competences review, calculated that the cost of complying with new rules for trade would range from 4% to 15% of the cost of goods sold. Open Britain, a pro-European campaign organisation that includes Remain group politicians, has calculated this would amount to a cost of £12.7bn for exporting businesses. Outside the Customs Union, UK exporters would face additional costs from Rules of Origin rules, which compel exporters to determine where a product originated. The common external tariff that operates in the EU means goods from outside can travel freely within the union once that tariff has been paid. A mobile phone currently imported into the UK from China can be re-exported to the rest of the EU without having to pay any more tariffs. This is not true for goods that enter the EU via the EEA or via other countries with which the EU has a free or preferential trading relationship, because they do not share the EU’s common external tariff. Anna Soubry MP, a leading supporter of the Open Britain campaign, said: “Brexit is supposed to herald a bonfire of bureaucracy, but leaving the Customs Union would leave British firms mired in expensive additional red tape. “The government’s own figures suggest a multibillion-pound bombshell for British businesses. Before slapping them with that kind of bill, we need concrete evidence that leaving the customs union will make Britain better off.”
Charities have a key role to play making Brexit work While debate continues to rage over the meaning of Brexit, and the future of our relations with the EU and the rest of the world, what does it all mean for Britain’s charities? This has been the subject of conversation as the Charities Aid Foundation has toured the country to speak to members of the UK’s major political parties at their autumn conferences. Our new report, A Stronger Britain: how can charities build post-Brexit Britain?, examines what the EU referendum told us about our country and looks at the role that people envisage for charities in building a better society. To be sure, 23 June was a watershed moment. The referendum has had a profound effect on how people view their communities and society as whole. Perceptions and expectations have changed dramatically in a very short space of time. This has significant implications for charities, which play such an integral role in our way of life at home, and in our standing abroad. Our research has found that while many people are concerned that their local community has become more divided, they are also becoming much more socially and politically active. Remarkably, nine million people said they felt more inclined to volunteer now, following the Brexit vote, than they did at the beginning of 2016. It is clear that, for many, charities offer an outlet for channelling a renewed appetite for making a difference. This presents a real opportunity to involve growing numbers of people in supporting the work of our charities. But there will be challenges, too. The referendum revealed divisions in society that will not heal overnight. People see a role for charities in working to bridge those divides. When asked which organisations or agencies were most likely to provide effective support to those who needed it at times of political and economic uncertainty, charities were the most popular choice (identified by 55% of respondents), followed by individuals getting involved in their local community (43%) and local authorities (36%). By way of comparison, 16% of respondents chose Westminster government. There is a clear message here to government and national politicians. Charities are born of their communities and are often best placed to see community division first hand. And the public see a legitimate role for charities to speak up on behalf of those they support. This is why we are calling on local and central government to commission charities to monitor levels of community cohesion, and threat, and to use the proposed British bill of rights to protect the freedom of charities to speak on behalf of their beneficiaries. As the government continues to pursue its localism agenda, it would be a missed opportunity not to give local directly-elected politicians a specific mandate for promoting and enhancing the role of charities, volunteering and philanthropy. On the international stage, meanwhile, the Department for International Development should commit to working with governments to ensure that it leaves a legacy of support and infrastructure for the not-for-profit sector. Making Brexit work for everyone and delivering a strong society will depend, in no small part, on making charities a core part of the UK’s new settlement. Charities can bring a huge amount of influence and expertise to the table. Government should embrace it. For more news, opinions and ideas about the voluntary sector, join our community – it’s free!
UN's own expert calls its actions over Haiti cholera outbreak 'a disgrace' The United Nations’ refusal to accept responsibility for the devastating cholera outbreak that has claimed more than 9,000 lives in Haiti has been branded a “disgrace” by the organisation’s own human rights special rapporteur. Human rights groups working with victims had reacted with jubilation earlier this year following the UN’s first tacit admission that it was to blame for the outbreak after doggedly refusing to address how its peacekeepers brought the disease to Haiti in 2010. However, in a scathing report (pdf) to the UN general assembly, the organisation’s special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Philip Alston, said that flawed and unfounded legal advice provided by the UN lawyers was preventing it from accepting responsibility for the outbreak. “The UN’s explicit and unqualified denial of anything other than a moral responsibility is a disgrace,” Alston said. “If the United Nations bluntly refuses to hold itself accountable for human rights violations, it makes a mockery of its efforts to hold governments and others to account.” Alston accused the UN’s Office of Legal Affairs (OLA) for coming up with a “patently artificial and wholly unfounded legal pretence for insisting that the organisation must not take legal responsibility for what it has done”. The criticism comes as the administration of the outgoing UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, is moving to provide compensation for the first time to victims of the outbreak. The UN plans to make cash payments from a proposed $400m (£328m) cholera response package, the New York Times reported. Alston added that the OLA’s approach “has been cloaked in secrecy: there has been no satisfactory official explanation of the policy, no public attempt to justify it, and no known assessment of its consequences for future cases. This goes directly against the principles of accountability, transparency and the rule of law that the UN itself promotes globally.” Peacekeepers who were relocated from Nepal to Haiti in 2010 in the wake of a major earthquake imported the deadly cholera bacterium with them. Studies have found that the UN troops could have been screened for the illness, and the disaster averted, for as little as $2,000. Alston said the UN’s legal position appears to be largely explained by the approach of the US, the main contributor to the UN’s peacekeeping budget. “Despite numerous requests to do so, the United States itself has never publicly stated its legal position on the responsibility of the UN for causing cholera in Haiti,” he added. “Instead, it seems to have pressed the UN to adopt the position frequently taken by lawyers in the US that responsibility should never be accepted voluntarily, since it could complicate future litigation. But this rationale is completely inapplicable to the UN, which enjoys absolute immunity from suit in national courts and whose reputation depends almost entirely on being seen to act with integrity.” The special rapporteur said that the current stance of the UN’s lawyers ensures that it would never admit its responsibility for introducing cholera. “And avoiding legal responsibility hinders the UN from learning lessons and making sure that the fatal mistakes made in Haiti are not repeated elsewhere.” Ban’s office said in a statement earlier this year that the organisation had decided to step up its efforts to fight cholera in one of the world’s poorest countries. A reference to the UN’s “involvement in the initial outbreak” was greeted as a breakthrough by groups working with cholera victims. Ban appeared to have been bounced into making a clearer recognition of responsibility than ever before by the advent of a draft report by Alston into how the UN handled the crisis. Alston had also been one of five experts working for the UN who earlier this year wrote a heavily critical letter to Ban in which the secretary general’s resistance to accepting any responsibility was torn apart.
GPs: Behind Closed Doors review – depressed about the NHS yet? Meet Ricky. He has a knee injury, a stiff neck and a cough. He missed a consultant appointment because he is terrified of going to hospital. “I’m scared,” he confesses to Dr Jiwanji at Farnham Road Surgery in Slough. “I’m not going.” Meanwhile, his knee pain worsens. Also, he lives in a “disgusting” house. Someone keeps urinating in the hallway. Dr Jiwanji asks him what he needs. “A knee support and some physio,” Ricky replies. In a broken system, this is how a broken patient’s complex needs must be distilled. Except, Dr Jiwanji explains: “We don’t provide knee supports. You have to buy them.” “I’m on benefits,” Ricky replies. “I can’t afford it.” So Ricky gives up on a knee support and Dr Jiwanji writes another referral letter explaining that Ricky will only be operated on under general anaesthetic. Welcome to a typical exchange in GPs: Behind Closed Doors (Channel 5, 8pm). Here’s another: a beleaguered receptionist listens to a woman’s complaint that her legs are killing her. “I might as well just sit in bed and die,” she announces. The receptionist continues to look at her screen. “Can you come tomorrow at 11.40am?” she eventually asks without looking up. The woman is delighted. She has hit the jackpot: a next-day appointment. And so on, ad infinitum. This might be the most depressing programme on television. What is the point of it? To chill our hearts? Frighten hypochondriacs? Remind us that GPs, like the musicians on the Titanic, are doing their best in a bad situation? We know this, that the NHS, the last bastion of civilised life in this shattered country, is being dismantled even as each new episode airs and we repeat-dial our surgeries in the hope of a phone consultation. We don’t need to see a doctor examining a lump on Colleen’s hand to prove it. Nevertheless, it continues. The GPs see a baby with eczema, a young woman experiencing seizures whose mum has recorded them on her phone, a man with concussion following a head injury, and another with a swollen leg that might be the result of fatal internal bleeding. Then there’s Leslie, who has hypersensitivity pneumonitis, otherwise known as bird-fancier’s lung. He used to keep 500 birds but is now so ill he has got rid of 300 rare species that were in his house. And got himself some squirrels instead. “No feathers,” he explains between sputum-laden coughs. The dishy doctor of the practice – because there must be one – is Dr James. “He’s the delicious-looking doctor here,” Beryl giggles as she awaits a steroid injection, which she declares to be lovely. “I’m not sure about that,” Dr James quips. “Everyone here says I look like David Cameron.” This is pretty much the only heartwarming moment – and it features David Cameron. By the time the programme finishes with a spoof-like update on the patients – Colleen’s lump has been removed, Sean’s potentially fatal swollen leg turned out to be muscle strain – I have figured out the potential of this excruciating show. It will become a government-endorsed project, on endless repeat on an obscure channel, allowing viewers to self-diagnose from the sofa and save NHS resources. Either that, or it is a good basis for an episode of Black Mirror. Kids On The Edge (Channel 4, 9pm) is also a fly-on-the-wall series about an NHS service but with genuine heart and soul. A thoughtful and moving documentary following the specialised work of the Tavistock trust, the second episode takes us inside Gloucester House, an NHS-run primary school for children with severe mental, social and emotional health issues. Its 18 pupils have all been expelled. Gloucester House represents the end of the line, and like many such places, it turns out to be filled with rage, resolve, patience and hope. The most moving story features its longest standing pupil Josh, 11, who has a history of appalling abuse and neglect: at the age of three he was scavenging food for his two younger brothers. Adopted when he was five by a a lovely, tender gay couple called Stig and Phil, Josh is overwhelmed by rage and struggles to feel remorse. Josh’s behaviour deteriorates towards the end of term. He runs away on a school trip and says he feels as if he is going to burst. But the commitment of the workers, therapists, teachers, parents and children is nothing short of miraculous. “We’re fighting for Josh to have a future,” says Stig. And it doesn’t get more hopeful than that.
Would Leicester winning the title be the least likely thing you've seen in football? Every time the second instalment in the Back to the Future trilogy (the best trilogy of all time, incidentally) is repeated on ITV2, the sports nerd in me asks a simple question: if old Biff came back from the future with a Sports Almanac that detailed the results of every major sporting event for 50 years, which bet would I place to make my fortune? Once I had marvelled at how a book containing so much information could be so thin, I would probably make a trip to the bookies and place the mother of all accumulators. But, imagine you knew the results of every sporting event for the last half-century and had to place one bet. I’d be tempted to go back to last spring and lump a fortune on Leicester City to win the Premier League this season. This time last year no one expected Leicester to be in the Premier League this season. On 21 March 2015 they were bottom of the league – a place they occupied for exactly half of the campaign – having lost 16 of their previous 22 matches, a period in which they picked up 10 points from the 66 available to them. They were six points behind QPR, who are now 11th in the Championship, and were in possession of a manager capable of uttering the words: “I think you are an ostrich. Your head must be in the sand. Is your head in the sand? Are you flexible enough to get your head in the sand? My suspicion would be no.” You know what has happened in the past 12 months. They stayed up, brought in Claudio Ranieri and defied logic to lead the Premier League by five points with eight games to go. Alex Ferguson says they will have the title wrapped up with “three games to spare.” A few optimistic Leicester fans backed their club to win the league last summer at odds of 5,000-1 but if “some old codger with a cane” had turned up in my car and offered me the ability to see into the future, I would have stared at Leicester’s results disbelievingly, checked the book’s accuracy by listening to a conveniently timed match on the radio and then made my way to the bookies last March with all the money I could beg, steal or borrow. Can you remember a more unlikely storyline than this?
Arizona asks 'the unprecedented': could Democrats sweep the west? Across bone dry Arizona, voters and pollsters have begun to ask openly about a change that seemed nearly impossible not so long ago: could Democrats take the American west? Hillary Clinton’s allies charged across the region this week, led by Michelle Obama, who spoke on Thursday of hope, joy and possibility in this, the greatest country on earth. She told the screaming supporters packed into the Phoenix Convention Center that Clinton knows “our country is powerful and vibrant and strong, big enough to have a place for all of us.” Then she got down to business. Arizona business. The kind that has political experts eyeing the Copper State and many of its neighbors and thinking that maybe 2016 could be different. Four years ago, Obama said: “Barack lost Arizona, this state, by 200,008 votes,” as the sheepish crowd rumbled. “When you break that number down, the difference between winning and losing this state is only about 63 votes per precinct. Yeah. Just take that in. 63 … This year, we know it’s much closer here.” The last time Arizona voted for the Democratic presidential candidate, it was 1996, the time before that, 1948. But an Arizona Republic poll released on Wednesday showed Clinton up by five percentage points, the first survey taken during the general election in which she was ahead of Trump by more than the margin of error. The most recent poll in Nevada, another toss-up state, showed Clinton ahead by seven. She has an apparent lock on Colorado and New Mexico, and the entire west coast in her column. There are even questions about Trump’s strength in bright red Utah, where he has alienated Mormon voters with his comments about women, accusations of sexual harassment, three marriages and admitted affair. “I could see Clinton sweeping the west,” said Samara Klar, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Arizona. “I don’t think that’s out of the question. Up until two days ago, I was, ‘Clinton is never going to get Arizona.’” But with less than three weeks until election day, the Clinton campaign has sent some of its biggest names to energize Arizona voters. On Tuesday , Bernie Sanders stumped in Flagstaff. Chelsea Clinton talked up her mother’s education policies on debate day at Arizona State University in Tempe. And less than 24 hours after Trump dismissed Clinton as “such a nasty woman” during their final debate, Obama urged turned 7,000 Arizonans to ignore the Republican’s “vision that is grounded in hopelessness and despair” and get to work. She was introduced by the granddaughter of Arizona’s most famous Republican: the late Senator Barry Goldwater, who ran for president against Lyndon Johnson in 1964 and lost. “My grandfather lived by some very basic values,” said Carolyn Goldwater Ross, “to respect others and to stand up for those who need a champion. There may be two candidates, but there’s only one choice. There’s only one candidate who will live up to my grandfather’s values.” She closed with Clinton’s slogan: “I’m with her.” So was another lifelong Republican, Nicole Phillips, a 44-year-old advertising executive from Phoenix who brought her 14-year-old daughter Lauren to the Clinton rally. “Sweeping the west for Hillary is pretty plausible,” she said. “I crossed party lines,” she added. “I feel like the Republican party truly hasn’t addressed me in 12 years. Donald Trump is perpetuating the myth that all African Americans are poor, living in inner city neighborhoods, looking for a hand out. “Some of us,” she said, “are gainfully employed, live in the suburbs and drive fancy cars.” Democrats are outspending Trump on advertising in Arizona, and Clinton’s running mate, Tim Kaine, recently campaigned in Phoenix, noted political strategist David Waid. “We’ve really had everybody but Hillary Clinton,” he said. “This would be a 1,000% increase in the number of important Democratic surrogates that Arizona has gotten in a presidential election year. This is unheard of and unprecedented in Arizona, and it’s a sign of where we’re headed.” The west’s turn blue, if not its full Democratic conversion, owes a great deal to demographics. Much of the region is growing, Klar said, and Arizona is attracting transplants from liberal enclaves who are slowly helping shift the political landscape. A rapidly increasing Latino population is another part of the equation: since 2012, the number of eligible Latino voters has increased by four million nationwide, according to the Pew Research Center, accounting for 37% of the growth in eligible voters. Arizona has 992,000 eligible Latino voters, 22% of all eligible voters in the state, according to Pew. Nevada has 328,000, or 17%. “I am writing a book about the 1988 election, and one striking feature about that race is that [Republican George HW] Bush swept the west, except for Washington and Oregon,” said John J Pitney Jr, a professor of politics at Claremont McKenna College. “Since then, the map has gained a lot more blue. One major reason is the growth of the Hispanic vote.” Not everyone is so willing to accept a blue tide across the west, that bastion of proud and ornery independence, and dissenters included men and women who gathered at the Arizona Republican Party headquarters on Wednesday to watch the final debate. Many at the low-slung office, which was evacuated a day earlier because of a bomb threat, believe that the polls showing Democratic gains are rigged. “Hillary is not going to win Arizona,” said Paul Gorman, a 61-year-old computer technician. “Every four years they trot out a poll saying the Democrats are gonna take Arizona, it’s going to turn blue. Not gonna happen. Arizona is gonna go for Trump. I can guarantee that.” Dan Watts was doing everything he could to make Gorman’s prediction come through. Huddled in a conference room before the debate, he called a long list of registered Republicans to remind them to vote. Over and over again, the 64 year old read from the same script: “Hi, my name is Dan Watts. I’m calling from the Republican party to remind you that you’ll soon get your sample ballot.” And then he got bored. “Hey,” he said to his fellow volunteers, “can we do a limerick?” Something snappy, Trump inspired, maybe taking a poke at party defectors like Arizona senator John McCain, who withdrew his support from the Republican standard bearer in early October. “There once was a candidate named Trump,” Watts wrote, “Who some said would never get over the hump. “He wanted to make America great “In spite of Republicans who decided to skate. “In the end, Trump was nobody’s chump.”
European commission president decries attacks on Poles since Brexit vote The president of the European commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, has condemned attacks on Polish people in the UK in the aftermath of the Brexit vote. “We Europeans can never accept Polish workers being beaten up, harassed or even murdered in the streets of Essex,” Juncker said in his annual state of the union address to MEPs in Strasbourg. Five Polish people have been attacked in the Essex town of Harlow since the EU referendum, including one man who died from his injuries. As he set out a series of security and economic measures aimed at uniting Europe following the Brexit vote, Juncker urged EU member states to take greater responsibility for explaining the value of the European project. Declaring that the next 12 months would be crucial for the EU, Juncker said a united Europe could only be built if it were better explained and better understood. He highlighted the referendum as a warning that the EU faces a battle for survival against nationalism. “The European Union doesn’t have enough union,” he said. “There are splits out there and often fragmentation exists … That is leaving scope for galloping populism.” Arkadiusz Jóźwik, 40, died after he was beaten up by teenagers in Harlow last month. Essex police said Jóźwik and a second Polish man, who survived, were apparently the victims of an unprovoked attack. The motive is unknown, but one line of inquiry is the possibility of it being a hate crime. Three other Poles have been attacked in the town and there have been reports of further incidents across Britain. Following the attack on Jóźwik, the president of Poland, Andrzej Duda, wrote to church leaders in Britain asking them to help prevent attacks on Poles living in the UK and combat a climate of “aversion and animosity”. Eric Hind, a Harlow-based Pole who organised a protest march in the town after Jóźwik’s killing, welcomed Juncker’s remarks, but said hate crimes had continued since the referendum. “I am glad people don’t accept this and have reaffirmed that hate crime has no place in UK society, but it is still happening,” he said. “We respect Britain’s decision to leave the EU, but we would like to see respect for people that have moved here, that have built their lives here, that contribute. “Many feel let down by the British government. We made the UK our home, but we don’t feel welcome here anymore. People are scared and worried.” Juncker’s speech in Strasbourg did not dwell on the Brexit vote, though he repeated that Britain could not have “à la carte access” to the single market. The European commission president has previously criticised the former prime minister David Cameron for failing to prepare the ground for the EU referendum and launching the four-month campaign for Britain to remain after years of sniping directed at Brussels. Juncker said he would ask his team of 27 EU commissioners to increase the number of visits made to national parliaments to discuss EU policies. “[Europe] can only be built with the member states, not against the member states,” he said. “We do listen to our citizens and we would like to do that more intensely.” The 55-minute speech amounted to a laundry list of subjects, ranging from Europe’s contribution to 70 years’ of peace to roaming charges and the price of milk. “I will not accept that milk is cheaper than water,” he said, in a nod to Europe’s farmers. Just as telling were the subjects that went unmentioned, from the EU’s controversial migration pact with Turkey to low-level fighting in eastern Ukraine and tensions with Russia. Juncker, however, called for the EU’s foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, to have a seat at the table in Syrian peace talks. In a widely-trailed part of the speech, Juncker called for an EU military headquarters and common EU military hardware to stop wasting money in overlapping projects. Juncker is a well-known supporter of an EU army, but aides insist his vision – set out in a policy paper by Mogherini in late June – stops far short of a common fighting force. The EU has run 30 military and civilian missions in Africa and the Middle East in the last decade, but Juncker said a permanent EU headquarters was needed to make operations more effective. The speech comes two days before EU leaders meet in Bratislava, without the UK, to chart a way forward for a post-Brexit EU. The European commission hopes to smooth the path by increasing the EU infrastructure fund to €500bn (£425bn) by 2020. Juncker promised a €44bn investment fund for Africa in an attempt to create jobs and deter people from undertaking the perilous sea crossing to Europe. Also on the cards are plans to create a European travel information system, which could mean that British travellers would have to pay about £10 to visit the continent after Brexit. Juncker promised to publish a draft law in November. In a move aimed at alleviating the migration crisis and Europe’s chronic youth unemployment, Juncker vowed to create a 100,000-strong youth volunteer corps by 2020. The other strand of the EU migration strategy that Juncker chose to highlight was a plea for the speedy implementation of a law to create an EU border and coastguard, to ensure better control of migrants and refugees arriving from the Middle East and Africa. In a tacit acknowledgement that European commission plans for refugee quotas were in trouble, he said solidarity could not be forced, but “must come from the heart”. Hungary, Poland and other central and eastern European countries have accused the commission of blackmail over proposals that would oblige them to pay for not giving refuge to people fleeing war. Juncker’s speech received a short standing ovation from two-thirds of the MEPs present in Strasbourg. Nigel Farage and the other Ukip MEPs, as well as Marine Le Pen and her rightwing group, remained in their seats. In his response, Farage chose to avoid a direct attack on Juncker, but saved his ire for the MEP and former Belgian prime minister Guy Verhofstadt, who has been chosen to lead Brexit negotiations for the European parliament. Farage described Verhofstadt as a “fanatic” and said his appointment marked “a declaration of war on any sensible negotiation process”. Farage objects to Verhofstadt’s statement that the UK must accept free movement of people if it wants access to the single market, a view echoed by the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, and the European council president, Donald Tusk. Farage said this approach would inevitably mean no deal and leave the UK trading under World Trade Organisation rules. The former Ukip leader claimed this “actually isn’t too bad” for the UK, but argued that it would be very bad news for German carmakers and French winemakers. Le Pen shares the view that the Brexit vote has not been “an apocalypse”. “Brexit has broken a taboo,” she said. “The Brits have shown us that you can leave the EU and come out better.”
Franz Kafka's virtual romance: a love affair by letters as unreal as online dating On 13 August 1912, a summer evening in Prague, a young Franz Kafka was gathering up his manuscripts to take to the house of his friend, Max Brod. His excursion to the Brods’ home late in the evening was not unusual, but this was an unusual night, for two momentous reasons: Kafka was about to send off what would be one of his first works to be published, and that evening he would meet the woman who would dominate his romantic imagination for the next five years. Felice Bauer, a cousin of the Brod family who lived in Berlin, was travelling through Prague on her way to a wedding. That night, she would meet the intense author at the Brods’ dining table. According to Kafka’s version of the events (and it is the only one we have, since Felice’s letters were destroyed), she did not eat much and seemed reticent when he “offered her his hand across the table”. The few words they exchanged, her demeanour, her slippers, where she sat, where he sat, his invitation that she join him on a trip to Jerusalem, his aching self-consciousness as he (along with Max Brod’s father) walked her home: all of this would form the flimsy foundation on which their relationship was built – one they would conduct almost entirely without seeing each other in person, one that Kafka scholar Elias Canetti dubbed “Kafka’s Other Trial.”. Despite the relatively short distance between Prague and Berlin, Kafka and Bauer would meet only a handful of times, become engaged twice and never marry. But their correspondence of hundreds of letters – which finished when Kafka wrote the last letter in 1917 and only came to the world’s attention in 1955, when Bauer sold his letters to her – is one of the most poignant chronicles of the human urge to share ourselves, while foregoing the vulnerability that such intimacy creates. These days, our world is dominated by the written word more than ever before. While letter-writing declines, in 2015 the average office worker received 121 emails every day, their very own share of the 205bn total sent and received in total. In the second decade of the 20th century, Franz and Felice, toiling in offices in Prague and Berlin, were similarly able to count on correspondence, work and otherwise, delivered several times a day. More urgent messages came via telegram and all of it was routine enough by 1912 to be taken for granted. Kafka relied on the single medium of his letters to mythologise his romance with Bauer, making it, and consequently himself, far more attractive. (“Nothing unites two people so completely, especially if, like you and me, all they have is words,” he wrote in one letter.) He used the distance between the real and virtual worlds to his advantage, in a way that is familiar today – who of us hasn’t crafted a more perfect version of ourselves, in that separate online world? Kafka resisted putting their epistolary relationship to the real-life test. After finally agreeing to meet Bauer, he sent a telegram in the morning saying he would not be coming, but went anyway – and remained sullen and withdrawn, later complaining that he had been hugely disappointed with the real Felice. This was predictable: a month before the visit, Kafka wrote that “if one bolts the doors and windows against the world, one can from time to time create the semblance and almost the beginning of the reality of a beautiful life”. In these words, one could argue, lies a premonition of online romance. What Kafka did in lyrical prose, the rest of us bumble through on social media and dating apps today – enjoying a similar disconnect from reality. And make no mistake, the virtual nature of their relationship was a deliberate effort on Kafka’s part: his allegiance was to writing, and the love he felt for Bauer was constructed entirely in writing, the content and frequency of which he could control. It was entirely untranslatable into an actual marriage. He’d veer between contradictions on that point, too, at one point gushing that “we belong together unconditionally” only to declare “marriage a scaffold” weeks later. Reticent or eager, the internet age has made writers of us all, and even if most of us are bad ones, we gather up the small prizes of making ourselves and our virtual crushes look better than we are. Yes, our lusty, emotive missives likely lack the incandescence of Kafka’s prose, but his indulgence of a romance restricted to writing gives email love a useful literary genealogy. Kafka’s fiction has bestowed us with the adjective “Kafkaesque”, pointing to the intersection of the perverse and the grotesque woven into the banalities of modern life. Kafka’s love letters suggest another dimension for the term: that incongruity between who we are and who we want to be, between our desire to share our inner worlds and the fear of experiencing the consequent vulnerability that such exposure would bring into our “real” lives. Connection and isolation each have a cost. Virtual worlds, like letters of old, provide a partition between the two; enabled then by the postal service, and now by digital technology. Partition, however, is not intersection. In his romance with Felice at least, Kafka found no possibility of merging the two. The intimacy that existed on the page did not translate into attraction in reality. By the time the first engagement was broken, too much had been shared, even if only by letter, so their writing to each other continued regardless. But by the second engagement, Kafka and Bauer were conclusively forced apart – Kafka’s diagnosis with tuberculosis in 1917 had dashed any prospect of marriage. In his final letter to Felice, he wrote: “If we value our lives, let us abandon it all … I am forever fettered to myself, that’s what I am, and that’s what I must try to live with.” This was not the end, however, to his penchant for the virtual affair: Kafka wrote his first letter to Milena Jesenska, his subsequent love, in 1920.
José Mourinho insists there is no problem with Wayne Rooney José Mourinho must have been expecting questions about Wayne Rooney – he has been fielding them for several weeks – and the fact that Manchester United won so handsomely with their captain watching from the bench was never going to go unnoticed. “There is not a problem with Wayne Rooney,” he explained. “My captain is my captain whether he is on the pitch or at home. We won the game so he is happy.” Why did he decide to leave him out? “Because I know the rules of the game,” said Mourinho. “You can only pick 11 men. If I leave out Rashford you ask me why. If I leave out Rooney you ask me why, but I cannot pick them all. I have a squad of players and I thought the best option against a quick-breaking side like Leicester was to play with two fast players out wide with Juan Mata in the middle.” That certainly seemed to work, indeed many United supporters will be questioning whether faster players should be selected as a matter of course and not just against Leicester. Even though three of the home side’s goals came from corners, the overall performance was aggressive and entertaining. “It is not normal to score three times from a corner, but the intensity of our pressure led to the corners and therefore the goals. I was pleased with the way we reacted when we lost the ball, we made a good start and kept going.” Paul Pogba scored his first goal for United and looked a class apart in midfield, where he was paired with Ander Herrera, who endured a difficult season under Louis van Gaal but impressed Mourinho. “The pair complement each other in midfield,” he said. “Pogba still needs to be consistent, but you can say that about the team as a whole. I know Herrera from La Liga. He is a good player, I like him a lot.” Mourinho stopped short of saying United’s title bid is back on track but pointed out that because his side have yet to draw a return of 12 points from six games is not too shabby. He has no regrets about going public with his desire to win a title in his first season. “I said that because I thought it is what United would demand, this is a club that should be going for the title. I did not say it because I thought it was going to be easy.” While Leicester might have made it look that way last season, this time they are finding it more of a struggle. “We cannot use the Champions League as an excuse, we conceded three goals at corners,” said Claudio Ranieri. “We lost our shape and our concentration, and that is not like us. If we lose we lose, I can accept that, but maintaining our shape is our strength. At half-time I thought it better to preserve Riyad Mahrez and Jamie Vardy for the next match. We need to forget this result and regroup quickly because we have another big game on Tuesday.”
Nauru calls report Westpac has cut ties with it 'politically motivated fabrication' The government of Nauru has dismissed reports Westpac has cut ties with it as “a politically motivated fabrication”. On Thursday it was reported Westpac had informed the Nauruan government it would cease doing business with it and its entities. ABC’s Pacific Beat said accounts would be closed at the end of the month, citing a letter sent to some customers. Westpac did not deny the report, but told Australia it could not comment because of confidentiality. The government of Nauru did not respond to requests for comment. However, on Thursday afternoon it accused the ABC and Australia of publishing a “politically motivated fabrication”. The response was posted on the government’s Twitter account, often used to respond to media reports after they have been published. In a subsequent statement, the Nauruan government confirmed Westpac had withdrawn services, but suggested the end of the business relationship had been the government’s own decision. “The Government of Nauru has made a decision to strengthen its business and financial relationship with its chief financial partner, Bendigo Bank,” it said. On Friday afternoon a spokeswoman for Bendigo Bank told Australia the bank’s relationship with Nauru had remained the same since it opened a customer service agency in June 2015 after responding to an expression-of-interest proposal. “Our Bank employs the same public agency model it already uses in 110 Australian communities. Agency staff are employed by the agent, with the Bank involved in operations, including selection and ongoing training,” a spokeswoman said. Bendigo Bank declined to comment on Westpac’s decision. In its statement on Thursday the Nauruan government said its business relationship with Westpac “was severed when the bank withdrew financial services to not only Nauru, but nearly all of the Pacific small island states.” “Unfortunately this has become the norm with a number of smaller higher risk and low turnover nations worldwide as large banks chase profits and abandon services to long established customers.” Westpac has not had a physical presence in Nauru, and in July 2015 the bank finalised the sale of its banking operations in Samoa, the Cook Islands and Tonga to the Bank of South Pacific. Proposed sales of operations in the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu did not go ahead at the time, and it retained its presence in Fiji and Papua New Guinea. A spokeswoman again declined to comment, based on confidentiality. Nauru’s statement also pointed towards a report by the Asia Pacific group on money laundering, which said the country “faces low risks of money laundering and terrorism financing”. The report, published in 2012, noted Nauru had criminalised both acts, but “some domestic predicate offences are missing”. “There is no criminalisation of funding terrorist organisations or individual terrorists, other than those prescribed by the Nauru government. At the time of the onsite visit and the period immediately thereafter, no organisation or individual had been prescribed.” On Thursday Sprent Dabwido, president of Nauru from 2011 to 2013, told Australia Westpac’s decision was not unexpected. “It’s ... not a total surprise when you have a government that is reckless in handling the finances of a nation,” he said. “I can’t blame them because most of the dealings of this government are never straightforward, never black and white,” he said.
Internet trolls are 'Machiavellian sadists and psychopaths' - expert Extra security guarded the door at the day-long online harassment summit on Saturday at Austin’s SXSW tech festival. It’s for a good reason: threats of violence often accompany those who speak about the online hate mob Gamergate and its impact on women and minorities in the video game community. Those threats led the SXSW organizer Hugh Forrest, citing “threats of on-site violence”, to shut down the Gamergate discussion session. After public outcry, organizers relaunched it as a full-day program. It’s a huge topic. Forty percent of internet users have experienced online harassment, according to Pew’s Maeve Duggan, and it’s most pronounced among young people with 65% of those 18-29 years old saying they have experienced harassment. Facebook is the number one place where it’s happening, according Andrea Weckerle, the founder of CiviliNation, which researches online harassment. Weckerle added one statistic she found especially important: 12.9% of people say they’ve been physically threatened online. “Online is offline,” Weckerle said. Joanne St Lewis, a law professor at the University of Ottawa, argued that American companies allow harassment that Canada would like to crack down on: “The conversation around online harassment is really a conversation about how you build your democracy.” St Lewis said the only time she had felt similar levels of tension was when she was during work in South Africa under apartheid. Trolls have become a larger public concern because they’ve become more aggressive over the years, said trolling expert and Northeastern assistant professor Joseph Reagle. They also have more access points now to reach victims through, as more of our lives play out online. “I used to say don’t feed the trolls. That’s been out there for a long time,” Reagle said. “I would argue it’s no longer sufficient. The trolls in the 90s are not the same trolls we have today.” He described the findings from a recent study on trolls: “Measures of sadism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism positively correlate with trolling,” he said. Even enjoying writing comments anywhere online means you’re more likely to be a troll. “Some people are very much taken with commenting online,” he said. “And there’s a strong relationship between online commenting frequency and trolling enjoyment.” Susan Benesch, director of the Dangerous Speech Project, said much of this harassment comes down to a new sense of “disinhibition”. “Some people will say things online without really thinking about the consequences,” Benesch said. “When they are held to account, they come to their senses.” Gamergate is a loose collection of people who believe that “social justice warriors” are trying to politicize video games by trying to make them more diverse. The movement grew into an amorphous and persistent mob with a coordinated campaign of harassment that targeted prominent women and minorities in the technology world. While Gamergate may seem like a niche issue relevant only to those playing computer games, it has had enormous repercussions, especially today, as hate speech enters the mainstream alongside the rise of Donald Trump. It raises questions about how people stay safe online, who trolls are in the first place., and how social media companies crack down on online vitriol and threats while hewing to values of free speech. The harassment summit’s lineup mixed well-known members of the gaming community with mainstream women’s rights advocates and large tech companies whose platforms are often used for harassment. Former Texas state senator Wendy Davis will speak, as will Massachusetts congresswoman Katherine Clark. Large tech companies are throwing their weight in: Facebook’s head of global product policy, Monika Bicker, and Juniper Downs, senior counsel at Google, are both heading panels. Longtime Gamergate targets Brianna Wu and Randi Harper will speak about their experiences. Even the creation of the summit was mired in controversy and trolling. Originally there were going to only be two panels – SavePoint: a Discussion in the Gaming Community and Level Up: Overcoming Harassment in Games. These were organized by two very different groups: one sympathetic to Gamergate and whose premise is “ethics in gaming journalism”, the canard behind the Gamergate movement; the second aiming to address online harassment. Citing threats of violence against Level Up, SXSW shut down both before announcing this summit. The Gamergate-affiliated panel has also been rebooted and set for Tuesday.
Don't make ordinary workers pay for Brexit, TUC urges government Senior figures in the trade union movement are urging the government to ensure that ordinary working people are not made to pay the price of Brexit. On the first full day of 2016’s TUC conference, the general secretary, Frances O’Grady, will tell delegates she is concerned workers’ rights and jobs could be sacrificed by ministers in negotiations with the European Union. Her words will be delivered as Theresa May’s government struggles to deal with criticisms from business leaders after Liam Fox was secretly recorded calling UK business “fat and lazy”. Union leaders are concerned that in the government’s rush to appease the City and large corporations, the interests of manufacturing and industry will be put at risk. O’Grady will tell delegates in Brighton on Monday: “We’ve had the votes, the vote was close but clear and now our job is to get on with representing working people, whichever way they cast their vote, and make sure that they don’t pay the price of a Brexit. “Government must be ready to step in and work to keep the advantages we get from membership of the single market – for all of our industries, not just the City.” Her intervention follows a scene-setting speech by Len McCluskey, the head of the UK’s biggest union, Unite, who told delegates: “Out of the EU must not mean out of work.” He also claimed that the vote to leave the EU was an attempt to “give the establishment a kicking”. Away from the conference floor, the debate is expected to be dominated by discussions about Jeremy Corbyn’s expected victory in Labour’s leadership battle against Owen Smith and what it will mean for the movement. Affiliated unions hold crucial votes on the party’s NEC, which will be vital in deciding if Corbyn will be able to consolidate his position with party reforms or appease some MPs’ demands by introducing shadow cabinet elections. Dave Prentis, the head of the UK’s second biggest union, Unison, which supports Corbyn, on Sunday criticised the divisions within Labour and called for an “electable” party. “The Labour party must get back to the job of providing a proper opposition and showing it is an alternative government in waiting. We need you. Don’t let our members down,” he said. Corbyn was due to attend the conference on Monday to address a private dinner but is not expected to speak to delegates from the stage. Several of the major unions, including Unite, Unison and the CWU, are backing Corbyn, but the GMB and the shopworkers’ union, Usdaw, are among those supporting Smith. The result of the election will be known on 24 September.
Fears of adblocking ‘epidemic’ as report forecasts almost 15m UK users next year Almost 30% of British web users will use adblocking software by the end of next year, according to a report that warns of a potential “epidemic”. It predicts that the end of next year, 14.7 million Britons will use software to strip advertising from web pages. The report, by eMarketer, plots the rapid growth of internet users installing adblocking software in recent years. In 2014, just 9.5% of UK internet users – at that time about 5 million – had installed adblocking software. That will have doubled to 18.5% – about 11 million – by the end of this year. By the end of 2017, almost 15 million internet users, 27% of an estimated 54.4 million UK web users, will use an adblocker. “Once seen as the preserve of the tech-savvy, early adopters and gamers, adblocking has now moved into the mainstream,” said Bill Fisher, senior analyst at eMarketer. “There is no doubting that adblocking is now a very real issue for advertisers.” The report suggests that adblocking will continue, for now at least, largely contained to desktop computers. A breakdown shows that by the end of next year, 24% of those who use a desktop computer or laptop will have installed adblocking software, while 8.8% of smartphone users will have done so. Among those who use adblocking software, about 90% do so on desktops and laptops. About 28% block ads on smartphones. The total is more than 100% because some users block ads on multiple devices. “The good news is that numbers like this have forced those within the industry to think long and hard about what it is that they need to do better in order that this practice doesn’t become an epidemic,” Fisher said. In March, a report by the Internet Advertising Bureau estimated UK adblocking was already at 22% among over-18s, a higher rate than eMarketer’s.
Get Out: the horror film that shows it's scary to be a black man in America Just in time for Halloween and after a notably devastating year for race relations in the US, the first trailer for Jordan Peele’s directorial debut Get Out has hit, causing an understandable stir. Given Peele’s Emmy-winning Comedy Central show Key & Peele, it’s perhaps no surprise that his first film as director would involve racial commentary (one of his most famous skits revolves around the fear a black man has walking through a white neighborhood), but what’s interesting is that he would insert this within the horror genre. The plot focuses on Chris (Sicario’s Daniel Kaluuya), a black man planning to meet the parents of his white girlfriend Rose (Allison Williams, known for her role as Marnie in Girls) for the first time. But from the outset, something seems off. An uncomfortable encounter with a local cop puts them – and us – on edge and once they arrive at the family home and get settled, Chris becomes aware of increasingly strange, and potentially murderous, behavior. A major element of this relates to racial difference as Chris must navigate an almost entirely white space (apart from the “help”), relying on a lifetime’s worth of practice dealing with micro-aggressions and discrimination. It’s a thrilling conceit and one hopes that Get Out might signal a trend of culturally relevant horror films from film-makers of color. The horror genre has various subdivisions, most of which tend to be more populated than the sparse category of scary films that directly address race and the anxiety around this social construct of skin color. “It is one of the very, very few horror movies that does jump off of racial fears,” Peele said of Get Out in a Playboy interview from 2014. “That to me is a world that hasn’t been explored. Specifically, the fears of being a black man today. The fears of being any person who feels like they’re a stranger in any environment that is foreign to them. It deals with a protagonist that I don’t see in horror movies.” It’s a fair statement, but it won’t be the first time that racial fears have been encoded within the genre. In George A Romero’s seminal Night of the Living Dead in 1968, the African American lead Ben, played by Duane Jones, and his grim fate (40-year-old spoiler: he gets killed at the end after a posse mistakes him for a zombie) eerily coincided with the assassination of Martin Luther King. It was a landmark film even for having a black lead, but its bleak climax made a depressing statement on American sociopolitical progress. There are moments throughout the film that imply hostility towards Ben’s race and his power but issues surrounding his racial identity aren’t overtly explored. One of the key dynamics in Get Out is the interracial relationship between the two leads and appears to be a catalyst for the nefarious doings later in the story. “Do they know I’m black?” is a line Chris delivers with concern and also dread, imagining the possible scenarios he’ll encounter upon meeting Rose’s parents. His self-awareness of how his race might present a challenge suggests an honesty and subjective insight we’re not often shown within the genre. This is something we didn’t quite get in 1992’s Candyman. That story goes back to the 1890s when Daniel Robatille, a black, wealthy socialite is commissioned to paint a portrait of a white landowner’s daughter. But when the two fall in love and their relationship is discovered by her father and his peers, Daniel is lynched and his tortured soul is doomed to wreak havoc on anyone saying the name Candyman five times in a mirror. The film delivers a powerful commentary of the brutal manifestation of racism and its lingering effect on a community, but it focuses its sympathetic eye on a contemporary white female protagonist, played by Virginia Madsen. Her personal and professional turning points became focal and the film leaves little to no room for investigating the horrors of racism from the point of view of the black characters. Candyman is not the center, she is. The shift in focus shown in the trailer for Get Out and the exploration of racial identity suggests that the horror genre might finally be ready to push a new boundary. There’s so much to unpack in the 150-second preview, giving us a mere glimpse of themes we’re not used to seeing in horror. The timing of the film also mirrors Romero’s efforts in the 60s to reflect America’s struggle with race, a nation still plagued by ongoing, institutional injustice. While Get Out will act as entertainment predominantly (it’s from Blumhouse, the production company behind Insidious and The Purge), with daily reports of black men killed for the color of their skin, it’s also a vital reminder that racism remains a more terrifying force than any supernatural boogeyman.
Star Trek’s 50-year mission: to shine a light on the best of humankind There is no grand political statement in the first episode of Star Trek, 50 years ago. The Man Trap is a languid little thriller about a monster that eats salt and has a curious habit of shape-shifting into the image of your ex-girlfriend. If you happened to tune in on 8 September 1966, you would have had no concept of the utopian idealism favoured by Star Trek’s creator, Gene Roddenberry, no inkling of the socialist concepts of the sharing of resources that would pop up in later incarnations of the franchise. It was high adventure set in space, nothing more. But there’s no question that what defines Star Trek today is an egalitarian, pluralistic, moral future society that has rejected greed and hate for the far more noble purpose of learning all that is learnable and spreading freedom throughout the galaxy. That doesn’t exactly chime with the world we live in: one that is increasingly polarised, violent, and arguably teeming with existential despair. Star Trek was born out of the era of John F Kennedy, the space race, a well-educated middle class and a sense in America that anything was possible. Of course, underneath that attitude was the threat of the atomic bomb, the simmering tensions of the civil rights conflict, gender inequality and growing anger at the Vietnam war. Star Trek’s creative brains trust – Roddenberry, Gene Coon, DC Fontana, John DF Black and a who’s who of science fiction luminaries – was marvellously adept at grappling with these issues and, through the course of 44 minutes plus commercials, convincing the audience that intelligent, progressive minds could work together to solve any problem. Captain Kirk, Mr Spock and Dr McCoy often thought their way out of a situation, rather than simply blasting everything in sight. That’s an inherently liberal position to take: but there are still conservatives among us who project their own ideas on to the series. Barack Obama is a well-known Star Trek fan, but so is Texas senator and former presidential candidate Ted Cruz, who told the New York Times Magazine last year: “It is quite likely Kirk is a Republican.” He also compared William Shatner’s portrayal of Kirk to that of Star Trek: The Next Generation’s Captain Jean-Luc Picard, as played by Sir Patrick Stewart. “Kirk is working class; Picard is an aristocrat. Kirk is a passionate fighter for justice; Picard is a cerebral philosopher.” One could be forgiven for thinking he had substituted Kirk for himself and Picard for Obama. Such is the stereotype of Republicans (rugged adventurers) and Democrats (stuffy twits) in the US. In that same interview, Cruz said: “The original Star Trek pressed for racial equality, which was one of its best characteristics, but it did so without sermonising.” That’s a peculiar way to look at the show, considering Star Trek featured the first interracial kiss on American TV and numerous episodes were allegories about the evils of racism – specifically the episode Let That Be Your Last Battlefield, an unsubtle instalment from the third and final season in which aliens with half-white and half-black faces squabble over their skin-colour differences. Mark A Altman, a screenwriter, producer and lifelong Star Trek fan who recently wrote The Fifty-Year Mission: The Complete Uncensored & Unauthorized Oral History of Star Trek, notes the strong connection between Star Trek’s vision and the liberal ideals of JFK. “Star Trek was born in the crucible of the 60s, when society was questioning many of the tried-and-true conservative 50s values they once took for granted,” he says. “It’s not an accident that James T Kirk was an analogue of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, nor that the final frontier was indeed a thinly veiled extension of Kennedy’s New Frontier,” he says, referring to the slogan popularised by JFK during the 1960 presidential campaign. “During a time in which mankind was questioning the very fact as to whether there would be a future in the wake of the hydrogen bomb and nuclear proliferation, and the assassinations of JFK, Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, Star Trek definitively said not only would there be a future, but mankind would endure and flourish.” Star Trek gave an already optimistic nation hope that it could get even better. The era of its original broadcast run was one in which unity seemed achievable, regardless of the obstacles before us. In 2016, science fiction rarely approaches social strife that way. Charlie Brooker’s Black Mirror is just one example of a sci-fi series that posits a future far more ominous than what Star Trek offered in 1966. Altman, who is currently participating in the Star Trek: Mission New York fan convention, doubts whether Roddenberry’s vision still appeals today. “For a genre in which dystopian futures and space pulp dominate, one has to wonder whether the thoughtful, cerebral, kinder, gentle Star Trekkian ethos still has a chance to engage and excite new viewers – particularly in light of the tepid box-office reception to the most recent Star Trek [film].” That instalment, the feature film Star Trek Beyond, saw a significant cut in audiences compared with the two films that preceded it, even during this 50th anniversary year. Looking at its lukewarm financial results, it stands to reason that Trek does not fire the imagination in the way it once did. And this puts a questionmark over how will the new TV series, Star Trek: Discovery, fare when it hits our screens in January 2017. Altman says: “In the age of political polarisation – in which the echo chamber of social media reinforces one’s own stringent (and often strident) beliefs, in which social discourse has given way to online screaming matches, in which no one bothers to even try and accept the reasoned opinions of others – it’s even harder to believe that the Star Trek future, in which the family of man has transcended its petty differences, is viable.” Apart from the gadgets – Apple owes quite a debt to the creators of Star Trek for visualising tools such as the iPhone and iPad decades ago – it doesn’t feel as if we’re any closer to that future. It’s a sign of Trek’s progressive bona fides that it struggles in a society that is increasingly individualistic. But hope persists, because darkness was also baked into its backstory: the series always envisaged that the Federation would be born out of a post-apocalyptic society. “The thing you have to remember about the original Star Trek is that, even in the 60s, they thought things had to get worse before they would get better,” says Devin Faraci, editor in chief of the pop-culture website birthmoviesdeath.com. “World War III lay in the future for the 60s audience – some final hurdles humanity had to overcome to get to the utopia promised by the Federation. Perhaps we made it through the 90s without genetically engineered strongman Khan Noonien Singh being a problem, but we do have Donald Trump.” In a way, Trump resembles a Star Trek villain: arrogant, anti-intellectual and highly xenophobic. He would not be at home in a society in which money had been abolished, though he’d have no trouble fitting in with the avaricious, big-eared Ferengi – aliens who pursued naked capitalism. Star Trek has always shone a light on mankind’s noblest qualities, but it also reflects our greatest faults. If it takes another 50 years, or 500, let us all hope we start to learn some of those lessons.
UK sovereignty can be both lost and gained Jonathan Freedland (The Brexit camp is wrong: we’re already sovereign, 27 February) is right to say sovereignty is not like virginity in that it can be taken back – and that’s why those of us who want out are campaigning to regain the sovereignty that has been surrendered by our membership of the EU. However, sovereignty and virginity have one thing in common: they are indivisible and cannot be shared or pooled. Sharing sovereignty is as absurd as sharing virginity. However, contrary to Jonathan Freedland, cooperation between nations on matters of mutual interest is not sovereignty lost or shared. It is in fact an assertion of sovereignty. Did the US, Britain and the Soviet Union lose their sovereignty by their cooperation to defeat Hitler? On the other hand, the fact that David Cameron, having won a general election on a promise of making changes to the benefit system, was unable to do so without the consent of 27 foreign countries does indicate a loss of sovereignty. As for the argument that we have to be in the EU to have a seat at the table where decisions that affect us are taken, it is just a device designed to avoid discussing the nature of the EU. You wouldn’t join the local mafia just to have a say in its decisions unless you agree with its smuggling, money-laundering and blackmail activities. And the EU is no less of a mafia – a mafia of big corporations. Its pay-up-or-we’ll-break-your-country treatment of Greece is a quintessential racketeering technique that would have warmed the heart of Al Capone. Whether it’s the TTIP free trade agreement with the US, the imposition of austerity or the incessant attack on collective rights of workers in Greece, Spain, Romania and other member states, the EU has little to commend it to trade unionists and working people in Britain. Fawzi Ibrahim Trade Unionists Against the EU • I am glad that Jonathan Freedland has demolished the myth peddled by some Brexit advocates that membership of the EU is a surrender of sovereignty. The sovereignty of the UK parliament remains intact. EU law prevails in Britain because the UK parliament legislated to that effect in the European Communities Act 1972. The supremacy of EU law depends entirely on the will of parliament and will continue unless and until parliament decides to amend or repeal the 1972 act. Geoffrey Bindman London • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
Anthony Martial and Wayne Rooney prove Manchester United’s ghostbusters Louis van Gaal refers to Swansea City as his ghost team, aware that he had lost his three previous meetings with the Welsh club, so clearly what was needed here was a ghostbuster. There was definitely something strange in the neighbourhood, with Manchester United looking for their first win in nine games. Something weird and it don’t look good? That would be the football that has been sending people to sleep. So who ya gonna call? Wayne Rooney? Side-netting after 20 minutes, then he headed into the ground from Ashley Young’s cross just before the interval. Juan Mata? Needed too much time on the half-hour after taking up a good position from a quick free-kick, then shot straight at Lukasz Fabianski with a brief chance before the break. Sir Alex Ferguson? Spent part of the first half looking at his phone rather than watching the game. Daley Blind? Tripped up on a strip of artificial turf in the act of sending over what became a tame early corner. The list could be extended, but you get the idea. When even bits of the Old Trafford surface are conspiring to thwart Van Gaal’s players it is no wonder they have not managed to treat their home crowd to a first-half goal since September and even that was a penalty. Perhaps their beleaguered manager is right to be stressing the supernatural note. No first-half goals for nine successive games is almost as weird as eight games without a win. Certainly, as the first 45 minutes of 2016 came to a close with a Rooney header straight into the Swansea’s goalkeeper’s midriff, it was possible to feel a little sympathy for Van Gaal. There is not much a manager can do with a team that is creating chances but not taking them. He can fiddle with the formation, this one was a slightly risky 3-2-4-1 that involved playing without full-backs, but up front it was a familiar enough story. United started briskly, failed to take an early lead, then seemed to shrink in confidence in front of goal and allow Swansea to settle into the game. “This is Old Trafford, by the way,” the announcer said between spinning records during the interval. He did not mean it as an admonishment to the players, who by then had left the pitch, yet one had the feeling a few people needed reminding. If so, it seemed to work. Anthony Martial emerged as a potential saviour right at the start of the second half when he deftly converted a cross Rooney had been unable to reach, although United have led against Swansea before and still managed to lose. The real ghostbuster in any case was Ashley Young, who had provided the cross and was proving so effective in an advanced position it was hard to work out why anyone thought it was a good idea to deploy him as a full-back, but United still had to either build on their lead or hold on to it. The early signs were not promising. After Bastian Schweinsteiger had given the ball away with an unnecessary bit of showboating André Ayew struck an upright with a header from Gylfi Sigurdsson’s cross, then Àngel Rangel was rather harshly booked for a dive when Matteo Darmian brought him down in the area. With Young continuing to impress until he picked up an injury, Martial looking dangerous and even Rooney running about with more purpose than of late, at least United attempted to keep pressure on the Swansea defence and play most of the rest of the game in their opponents’ half. Rooney and Martial combined threateningly in the closest United came to extending their lead, seconds before Sigurdsson pegged the home side back with a neat looping header that David de Gea could not reach. Again much of the credit belonged to the provider, substitute Modou Barrow doing exceptionally well to find space for a cross from the right, though to say the goal still needed scoring would be an understatement. Sigurdsson was surrounded by defenders and had to stoop to meet the ball, yet still got enough loft on his header to put it over the goalkeeper. Suddenly the stage was set for another 2-1 scoreline. Weirdly, once again, all the previous three meetings had ended that way, with the Welsh side victorious. This one was different. One determined run to the line by Martial, one vintage Rooney flick at the near post and United were back in front and the scorer was into the history books. With 238 Manchester United goals Rooney has moved ahead of Denis Law, with only Sir Bobby Charlton to catch. No wonder he celebrated vigorously. This time a week ago the United captain had been dropped. Now everything looks rosy again, even if Fabianski did produce a heart-stopping moment at the death by coming up for the last corner and putting a firm header narrowly wide. Whisper it, but this was quite an exciting game. The good news for Old Trafford in the new year is that entertainment might be making a reappearance, in which case all the dross from the end of last year can be quickly forgotten about. Ghostbusters might be overstating the case, but United did look more like a reincarnation of their previous selves.
Stephen Merchant joins the cast of Wolverine 3 Stephen Merchant is to star with Hugh Jackman in Wolverine 3. According to Deadline, the comedian and co-creator of The Office is taking an unspecified role in the sequel and will also join the recently announced Richard E Grant, rumoured to be playing a mad scientist. Jackman has stated that it will be his final film as Wolverine. He also makes a cameo in this summer’s X-Men: Apocalypse, which director Bryan Singer claims has a deeper meaning for the whole franchise. “I will say, it’s not simple,” he told Empire. “There’s something more pivotal that occurs with that. It hints to a sequence that again fits within the canon of all six movies, and the birth of a new direction. It’s not insignificant, nor is it simply just a throw in.” Director James Mangold will return for Wolverine 3 after his work on The Wolverine garnered stronger reviews than the critically loathed X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Merchant is next to be seen in comedy Table 19, set at a single’s table at a wedding. The film also stars Anna Kendrick, Lisa Kudrow and June Squibb. He has also been rumoured to be taking a supporting role in Transformers 5.
Leonardo Ulloa grabs double against Swansea as Leicester extend lead Perhaps the most impressive part is the way Leicester City, closing in on an almost unimaginable piece of football history, made the latest stage of what increasingly resembles a victory procession such a stress-free occasion. This was their biggest win of the season, just when the heat of the pressure was supposed to be rising dangerously close to intolerable. The goals flew in, the crowd sang “Barcelona, we’re coming for you” and the place has never felt happier. Claudio Ranieri’s team played as though immune to nerves, apart from a few minutes at the start before they realised that Swansea City, with their accident-prone defence and end-of-season drift, would be obliging opponents. After that, it was a stroll that suggested Leicester are thriving, rather than wilting, on the weight of expectation. “Four-nil to the one-man team” was another chant, as the evidence was supplied about how daft it was to suspect Leicester without Jamie Vardy would take on the form of a flower without water. There will certainly be more difficult assignments in the coming weeks as Leicester finish the season against Manchester United, Everton and Chelsea and at this stage, with an eight-point lead, it would be harrowing for them, to say the least, if this previously unremarkable club cannot end the most eccentric year of their lives in possession of the Premier League trophy. They need five points from their remaining fixtures to be certain but that assumes Tottenham Hotspur, in second position, win their final four games, and there was absolutely nothing in this performance to suggest a late meltdown from a team whose durability and mental fortitude had been questioned – unfairly, by some degree – on the back of the wild 2-2 draw against West Ham last weekend. As it turned out Vardy’s replacement, Leonardo Ulloa, scored two of the goals while Ranieri’s decision to bring in Jeffrey Schlupp on the left was vindicated with an outstanding performance. Schlupp gave Leicester the pace and directness that they might have been missing in Vardy’s absence and as an insight into the togetherness of this team, there was a lovely exchange when he was taken off late on and Marc Albrighton took over. Albrighton had lost his place in the starting line-up but the two players still shared a joke and a warm embrace and within a couple of minutes, the substitute had added the fourth goal. Leicester had played with the belief, structure and enthusiasm that, by now, we are all acquainted with. Danny Drinkwater and N’Golo Kanté were indefatigable in midfield. Riyad Mahrez, scorer of the opening goal, showed his refinement in attack and, defensively, there were only sporadic occasions when Kasper Schmeichel’s goal was seriously threatened. Leicester have now kept seven clean sheets in their final nine fixtures and look, in short, like champions-in-waiting. Swansea, in stark contrast, look like a side that may need to reinvent themselves next season. When Ulloa headed in Drinkwater’s free-kick to make it 2-0 after half an hour it was the 20th time this season that Swansea have been caught out at a set-piece, accounting for almost half their goals-against column. Their manager, Francesco Guidolin, abandoned his striker-less formation at half-time and the game was a personal ordeal for Ashley Williams given his level of culpability in the first goal, presenting Mahrez with the ball from a lazy pass out of his own penalty area. Mahrez accepted the gift in a typically unhurried fashion, taking his time, steadying himself and aiming a precise shot inside the near corner of Lukasz Fabianski’s goal. From that point onwards there was a huge imbalance between the sides. Ulloa eluded Williams to score the second from a twisting header and it probably summed up this Leicester team that the free-kick for that goal came from Wes Morgan, of all people, on the left wing, dispossessing Wayne Routledge and winning a foul in the process. After that, the game was so one-sided it seemed perplexing that Guidolin talked about being impressed with his team’s work ethic. Swansea’s manager also repeatedly mentioned the way his players had passed the ball in the opening six minutes. Their problem, unfortunately, came in the other 84, especially when Schlupp was running at them or Mahrez had it on the other side. Leicester’s third goal started from their own penalty area, a quick ball out from Schmeichel and Schlupp getting away from Ángel Rangel and Federico Fernández to burst clear on the left. Williams blocked the first attempt to play in Ulloa, running in from the right, but Schlupp picked out his team-mate the second time and it just needed a touch at the far post. The home team were rampant by the time Albrighton turned in the fourth goal, firing high into the net after some fine work from another of the substitutes, Demarai Gray, and the noise at the end was as loud as at any other time this season. The only flicker of apprehension came when Ranieri was asked afterwards about the Barcelona chants. “God, not Barcelona,” he said. “It would be a fantastic experience, but come on, man.” Yet Leicester, one imagines, would give it a go. Man of the match Jeffrey Schlupp (Leicester City)
Jamie Vardy dismisses talk of pressure as Leicester City enjoy last laugh at Watford Occasionally, as Leicester forced their way into the Champions League places during the autumn, it appeared none of this could be happening by design. You dared not hold out much hope for a team that overturned deficits, sometimes by the skin of their teeth, in six of their first 11 games; the whiff of Heath Robinson about their rapid elevation never seemed far away. What a disservice that now seems. Claudio Ranieri finds new ways of charming his public every week but more pertinent is the rapidness with which, behind the bells and belly laughs, he has developed in his team the kind of thick skin that their nearest title rivals have spent years – and millions – grasping for. As Watford hacked and slashed at whatever opportunities arose to ask questions of their lead, the dominant impression was that this sleek, composed Leicester side is in many ways a far cry from the one that was scampering its way back into games five months ago. The joy in Leicester’s football showed itself through another marvellous goal from Riyad Mahrez, who found the top corner after a sloppy defensive header from José Holebas fell perfectly for him, but most impressive was the cold-blooded way in which they managed the situation. Odion Ighalo’s late chance aside, Watford were held at arm’s length throughout the second half and there never appeared any prospect of Leicester allowing the kind of siege that might yield more. Managers and players are keen to talk up their handling of pressure at this time of year but both on and off the pitch Leicester seem uncannily impervious. Jamie Vardy, asked how he had absorbed Wednesday night’s results, when Tottenham and Arsenal both lost, said that he had been more interested in playing the computer game Call of Duty. The striker, whose industrious evening’s work should have brought a first-half goal, paid more attention to the north London sides’ draw on Saturday lunchtime but said no emotions were invested in the outcome. “There were none, none at all,” Vardy said. “We know it is up to us and we’ve got to keep performing ourselves. No matter what the result was earlier, we knew we needed to come to Watford and get three points. We’ve done that and we’re walking away happy. It was massive. “No one gave us a chance at the start of the season. Everyone said we were relegation fodder. The pressure we had was up until we knew we were safe [from relegation]. We’ve been on a good ride and we’re going to keep enjoying it, simple as that.” That enjoyment stems largely from the atmosphere cultivated by Ranieri, who seems unable to make an inaccurate call at the moment. His half-time introduction of Andy King and Jeffrey Schlupp tilted the balance after an opening period that Watford ended in marginal control. “I earn money for these decisions,” Ranieri said afterwards but his impression, the previous day, of the imaginary bell he rings in training showed a skill for avoiding tension by different means and it is a tactic that works on his players. “He just likes to have a little laugh and joke,” Vardy said. “I was watching Jeff Stelling doing it on Soccer Saturday earlier. All of a sudden he pops up saying: ‘Dilly ding, dilly dong.’ It made all the lads chuckle and it makes everyone relax, to be honest. “It spreads around the group, but [Ranieri] has a good set of lads on him. He hasn’t had to tweak too much. He knows we are fighters and will do it for each other week-in, week-out, and that’s just what he wants us to keep doing.” There was care in Vardy’s words but the past week has made it difficult to play down Leicester’s prospects, with Newcastle appearing an ideal accessory to maintaining – at worst – their five-point lead at the top in a week’s time. Ranieri accepted that his team now have a “big chance” but suggested there is more to be done. “Every match is one thing and that’s it, step by step,” he said. “For us, this season is to discover and improve, that’s our philosophy. It is not about being nervous. We have to fight, build and get the winner’s mentality.” That already seems present in abundance. Leicester must use it to will themselves over the line and there will be plenty of help on offer. Last Tuesday night, Tony Pulis used his entire post-match press conference to explain that he was now a Leicester fan after West Bromwich Albion had held them to a 2-2 draw. On Saturday the Watford manager, Quique Sánchez Flores, said: “It’s more exciting to think Leicester can win the Premier League – they are showing everyone that it’s possible to do something completely different.” That is beyond doubt. But the focus that has come out in recent weeks seems rather more familiar. It is increasingly hard to ignore its compelling resemblance to the steely eyed gaze of winners. Man of the match Danny Drinkwater (Leicester City)
Politicians’ pact with the electorate lies shattered – trust has gone Right from the outset, the European Union has been the work of a political class, talking a kind of doublespeak, cradling their ambitions in a web of deceptions, diluting democracy, running what the late Hugo Young called in This Blessed Plot: Britain and Europe from Churchill to Blair: “an under-invigilated network of national bureaucracies”. In whose interest? The youngest person eligible to vote in the 1975 referendum is now nearly 60. In that time, for too many, the pact with the electorate that work is rewarded by fair pay, just redistribution, decent housing and long-term security has been destroyed. Protection for the working man and woman has been stripped away and trade unions battered while the dominance of profit and the price tag has desperately undermined vocation and fraternity as industry and finance have been deregulated. At the same time, the neoliberal “truth” that “free” markets rectify themselves has proved, instead, to be a licence for unmitigated greed on a scale encapsulated by the BHS debacle. The Edelman Trust Barometer, which conducts annual public attitudes surveys, said in January that among the wealthier in Britain (earning more than £100,000), there was 54% trust in government, compared with only 26% in households on annual incomes of under £15,000. Labour hasn’t any claim to a greater reserve of faith than the Tories. In Tony Blair’s election address in 1983, he adopted the official Labour party line, describing withdrawal from the EEC as necessary because it had “drained our natural resources and destroyed jobs”. Later, he explained he hadn’t really meant it. When TheCityUK, which lobbies on behalf of financial and professional services, says that remaining in the EU has “nothing to do with politics, simply the money” and the terms on which international companies flourish in the UK, as David Charter reports in Au Revoir, Europe, the public knows that means the EU ideals of peace and prosperity are for an elite, not for the majority. Yet when employment minister Priti Patel, on the side of Brexit, talks of “just” halving “the burden of EU social and employment legislation” to deliver a £4.3bn boost to our economy, the public – over four million in insecure jobs – knows who will benefit most from the “flex appeal” of Britain. How this division between what some politicians say and how citizens live manifests itself most clearly in the communities that have been pathologised as working-class bigots, starved of resources and work, and have witnessed the stealing of their citizens’ right to be heeded. These are Ukip’s “left behind” who are most likely to experience the arrival of a concentration of immigrants in numbers and impact that most, but not all, politicians fail to acknowledge. The top 10% have no experience of living in a neighbourhood reshaped by the arrival of immigrants, often positively, but sometimes not as pressures on services increase with spending cuts. We need immigration, we need to manage it better and invest more. In Becoming British, Thom Brooks points out that over two decades, there have been 11 ministers and eight changes of name to what is now the minister for security and immigration. That doesn’t instil confidence. So, which way to vote? The dilemma is plump with paradoxes, not least that pro-EU politicians even in this campaign have failed to extol the advantages that the union has brought because doublespeak has become such a habit. Last month, for instance, the TUC published 20 EU measures that have improved the quality of women’s lives, including equal pay for work of equal worth and greater maternity and part-time workers rights. Sovereignty is the cry, but it ought to be survival – for the ordinary man and woman. Out of the EU, the multinational corporations that truly rule will have little opposition; the few strands of legislation that offer protection to us citizens will be shredded. Remain isn’t much of an option but, given a very strong dose of democratisation, as the former Greek minister Yanis Varoufakis advocates, it hands David a sling against the Goliath of avaricious global capitalism and, perhaps, a future.
Co-op's Christmas ad shows charity benefits of membership The Co-operative Group’s Christmas TV advertisement is featuring people involved with the local community groups that have benefited from its revamped membership scheme. The Manchester-based mutual, which now focuses on groceries and funeral homes with some remaining financial services operations, said it wanted to show how shoppers buying its award-winning champagne, smoked salmon and other foods for Christmas could help local charities by giving them financial support. The images in the TV advert, which airs from Thursday evening, pair Co-op food with the local causes it helps to fund. The group has raised almost £1.5m for community groups across the UK since September and the campaign features four of them: Southport lifeboats, Leeds urban farm for people with learning disabilities, an amateur youth theatre group from Glusburn in Yorkshire and a male voice choir. In September, the Co-op embarked on the latest stage in its financial turnaround plan by rolling out a revamped loyalty scheme intended to revitalise its relationship with its owner members. The new scheme gives its 5 million members 5% back on the cost of Co-op own-brand products and then donates 1% to three nominated local causes. “For our Christmas 2016 campaign, we have focused on the very thing that makes the Co-op so special, showcasing how buying our brilliant own-brand food and drink can do good within your community through the 1%,” said Jemima Bird, Co-op customer director. “As a convenience retailer who operates in the heart of communities across the UK, we see our membership scheme benefiting local causes every single day, and the groups in our Christmas advert had great fun participating in the filming, too.” Ex-Coronation Street actor Emma Edmondson provides the voiceover for the TV advert which is part of a campaign – produced by ad agency Leo Burnett – that also includes posters, press, online, social and in-store advertising.
Anti-Trump protesters shatter windows of police cruiser at California rally Donald Trump ran into a buzzsaw of angry protests at his inaugural rally in California, as a large crowd enraged by his stance on immigration clashed with his supporters outside the venue, blocked cars from leaving and shattered the windows of a police cruiser. Trump swept into the Golden State on Thursday, more than a month before the 7 June primary, and delighted his conservative, mostly white audience inside an amphitheatre at the Orange County Fairgrounds by blaming illegal immigrants for a spike in murders and other violent crimes. He also vowed again to build a wall on the US-Mexican border. Outside the venue, a crowd of largely Latino but also white and African American demonstrators shouted and chanted slogans before the event, then returned as it drew to a close. Hundreds of people formed human barricades on an approach road to a nearby freeway, blocked the Fairgrounds exits, and waved banners that said “Build a Wall Around Trump” and “Dump the Trump”. Police appeared to be caught out by the protesters and had to call in reinforcements to separate them from the Trump supporters flooding into a large parking lot after the rally. “Whose streets? Our streets!” the demonstrators chanted as hundreds of police officers, many in riot gear, ordered them to disperse. While most remained peaceful and waved immigrants’ rights banners, several of them jumped on a police patrol car parked at one corner of the Fairgrounds, smashed its windows and attempted to tip it over. Others spray-painted obscenities about Trump on other vehicles and on a traffic light. The clashes highlighted the passions Trump’s presidential campaign has unleashed in California, a border state with generally progressive attitudes toward its large Latino minority but also a vocal anti-immigration movement. While Trump supporters love to be told they are “taking back” their country, his detractors on Thursday vowed not to let him “take away” theirs. Little of the drama on the streets permeated the rally itself, where security was ferocious and Trump repeatedly expressed disappointment not to be able to face down protesters himself. Apparently unaware of the growing chaos outside, he even boasted: “Our rallies are the safest place to be on Earth, believe me.” Immigration was the centrepiece of his address, a surefire winning issue given Orange County’s proximity to the Mexican border and its reputation as a reliable engine of Californian conservativism. “If we don’t have borders, we don’t have a country,” he told his 8,000-strong audience to repeated bursts of applause and chants of “USA, USA”. Trump was joined on stage by several members of the Remembrance Project, which brings together families of people murdered by undocumented immigrants and calls for tougher laws to keep new arrivals out of the country. The group unfurled its controversial “Stolen Lives Quilt”, a banner stretching across the stage with the victims’ pictures, which immigrant rights organisations say gives an entirely erroneous impression of the number of immigrants involved in violent crime. Trump talked about people from the Middle East coming into the US “with no paperwork … by the thousands”. He also produced statistics about southern California’s recent spike in crime, leading to another refrain of: “We’re going to build that wall, folks.” Even before Trump set foot in California, the controversy over his bid for the White House had triggered violence. On Tuesday, the city council in Anaheim, Orange County, considered a resolution denouncing the candidate’s “divisive rhetoric”, only to vote narrowly against it as pro- and anti-Trump activists came to blows inside and outside the council chamber. Anaheim, the home of Disneyland, is divided between a conservative, largely white, majority and a growing Latino minority. Trump is comfortably ahead in polling for the California Republican primary but will be relying on the state to deliver big for him to get him as close as possible to the 1,237-delegate mark ahead of the Republican national convention, if not past it. He faces a tougher fight next week in Indiana, where he is lagging slightly behind Texas senator Ted Cruz. At point he even said: “I don’t know why the hell I’m here.” Trump was campaigning in Indiana earlier on Thursday and will return after addressing the California Republican state convention on Friday. Police are also expecting protests outside the convention, which takes place in Burlingame, a city outside San Francisco.
Remittances are a mainstay for millions of the world's poor – let's improve them Remittances are a hidden force in international development. The World Bank estimates that $601bn (£424bn) was sent in remittances last year, $441bn of which was received in the developing world. This is three times the amount sent in international aid. Today is the International Day of Family Remittances, started last year by the International Fund for Agricultural Development to celebrate the vital economic lifeline provided by the vast majority of the 250 million international migrants worldwide who send money to struggling families and communities back home. These remittances improve standards of living in countless ways and help to make vulnerable communities more resilient to shocks, like economic downturns and natural and man-made disasters. However, with financial institutions charging transaction fees ranging from 1% to 20%, many of these potential benefits are lost due to high transaction costs. The sustainable development goals (SDGs), adopted last year to chart a path to greater equality and an end to poverty, commit to reducing the cost of remittances to 3%, and closing all remittances corridors with costs of more than 5%. Despite some significant progress, the cost of sending remittances remains unreasonably high for many nations, averaging 8% globally. The amounts received by family members are also being limited by poor information services for migrants, who do not get accurate data on low-cost options, hidden costs and safety risks. To address these issues effectively, collaboration is required. It has long been recognised that better results are achieved when different sectors work together, and many have a stake in remittances, from migration and development organisations to money transfer operators. All can help to improve the ways in which remittances are sent. We need to work together to give migrants better, more transparent information about transfer channels and their costs. We also need to press for the development of regulatory frameworks, not only for financial organisations but also in areas that protect migrants’ interests and promote increased transfer options, for instance telecommunications. Cross-sector approaches are not always easy: they require a concerted, collaborative effort between governments, regulatory bodies, the private sector and the international community. Government regulation of cross-border money transfers needs to ensure that transfer costs are more transparent, and do not exclude smaller transfer operators. The International Organisation for Migration is working with specialist agencies such as the International Telecommunication Union and the Universal Postal Union. Through our partnership with the latter, for example, we hope to make existing post office networks competitive and widely accessible transfer agents. Other initiatives include TawiPay’s innovative remittances price comparison website, data drawn from which is used by their Global Remittances Observatory to inform the public about remittance prices and trends. It is worth bearing in mind how remittances are typically earned. Migrant workers often endure poor working conditions and low wages, and the money they send home frequently represents a significant proportion of their earnings. That is why we should also be pressing for decent working conditions for migrants and less exploitation along the migration journey. Employers and governments can help to reduce these social costs, to ensure that remittances are earned under fairer conditions. The global sands are shifting, with politics in flux in many nations, and more migrants on the move than ever before. Migrants themselves are contributing three times the amount donated by states, which shows traditional models are ceasing to operate. However, we should not shift responsibility for basic services, such as education and healthcare, to migrants. Let us not forget that, under the SDGs, governments, the private sector and the international community have pledged not only to reduce remittance costs, but also to make better provision for access to universal healthcare and education. Upholding these commitments will ensure a greater proportion of migrant workers’ remittances are spent on what matters most: providing a better standard of living for their families. The International Day of Family Remittances is therefore an opportunity to celebrate the positive impact of remittances, while recognising that making them cheaper, transparent and more accessible will allow more of migrants’ hard-earned money to end up where it matters. Dipti Pardeshi is chief of mission for the International Organisation for Migration, UK
Shura’s Nothing’s Real: perhaps the finest song written about a panic attack TRACK OF THE WEEK Shura Nothing’s Real Shura came to attention with 2014’s Touch, the video for which was embraced by us queer kids for its same-sex snogging by beautiful people in The Quiet Life caps. Nothing’s Real is a faster slice of disco pop and perhaps the finest song written about a panic attack since, well, Bright Eyes’ entire career. “They’re telling me there’s nothing wrong”, Shura sings, as the beeps of an ECG machine merge with ominous synth strings and a defibrillator beat. The 1975 She’s American The 1975 are an excellent band. This doesn’t mean that 80% of their songs don’t sound exactly the same – tell me this doesn’t have a bassline that is totally indistinguishable from The Sound. Yet the one downside to the 1975 is that Matt Healy still insists on swigging from a bottle of wine on stage, which is something I used to do during my teen slam-poetry days. A friend recently contacted me to say she found some copies of these early works. Please respect my privacy at this difficult time. Röyksopp ft Susanne Sundfør Never Ever I think I’m right in saying we all stared out of windows to Röyksopp’s 2005 ennui-banger What Else Is There?, a kind of modern twist on Peggy Lee’s Is That All There Is? Röyksopp are Norwegian, and fall under the edict that anybody born in a Nordic state can chuck out great pop with the abandon of a best man with a tub of confetti. Sting I Can’t Stop Thinking About You I can’t stop thinking about how Sting, worth £185m, recently gave an interview about how tough it is for his kids who struggle “to put bread on the table”, because he doesn’t believe in giving them handouts. Sting’s kids are living in a studio in Mile End where the fridge door hits the corner of the bed frame when it’s opened, while he’s rich enough to wee in a Maurizio Cattelan-style gold loo. Sting’s kids are shoving their hands up vending machines to shake loose packets of sweaty non-brand flapjacks for lunch and their dad is releasing this back-to-basics rock track, not giving a toss. And while we’re here, can we all agree that Sting looks like a mashup of Sam Neill and Malcolm McDowell, because he does. Olly Murs Grow Up Here is Olly Murs telling you to grow up; this despite the fact he has the look of a giant toddler who’d go viral for doing something faintly amusing in the backseat of a car, then become an i100 article. It has a cutesy video featuring a bunch of kids, all of whom look older than him.
K-Shop review – murder with chips and salad The son of a kebab shop owner avenges his father’s death at the hands the marauding drunks who lay waste to his shop each night. Student-turned-vigilante Salah (Ziad Abaza) disposes of the evidence one “special” doner at a time. This is Sweeney Todd reimagined for the Brit binge-drinking generation. It’s a cross between a thriller and an outraged tabloid article about the perils of alcopops. But this short film idea can’t sustain a feature, no matter how much chilli sauce and cranial trauma you pack into it.
Cannes 2016: big names and some great Brits swell an exciting lineup And so the first green shoots of spring emerge, the clocks go forward, the first cuckoo is distantly heard, and the Cannes film festival’s official selection list is announced. Always an exciting time for cineastes, cinephiles, Francophiles, Euro-celebrity connoisseurs, nerds, red-carpet fanciers and of course critics. These are the films that – like it or not – will dominate discussion of world cinema for the year, until the more obvious awards-bait English-language pictures emerge in the autumn. Diversity has become a keynote topic in cinema, and though #CannesSoWhite may not become an issue in 2016 it is something on which Cannes does not escape scrutiny, certainly considering that it is avowedly an international and global platform, which the Academy awards are not. Famously, Cannes and the French cultural establishment are far more briskly impervious to web-fuelled social media criticism of this sort. Last year, festival director Thierry Frémaux smartly dismissed complaints about women without high-heeled shoes being refused entry to red-carpet screenings – untrue and not policy, he said, and that was that. In Britain or the US, such a row would have concluded with a grovelling apology from the director. Not Cannes. Well, there are no women of colour among the directors in the selection, although there are women – Andrea Arnold, Nicole Garcia and Maren Ade – in competition. In the Un Certain Regard sidebar, there is more ethnic variation, with film-makers such as Mohamed Diab, Behnam Behzadi, and the Chad director Mahamet Saleh-Haroun. It is traditional for critics to claim that Un Certain Regard is where the real interest is, and where the soul of the festival resides. There’s more diversity there, to be sure. More light may be shed when the jury is announced. There are (so far) no indications of more films to be added to the already bulging list. There is no official closing film scheduled – the festival will conclude with the Palme d’Or winner. Out of competition there are heavy hitters such as Steven Spielberg with his version of Roald Dahl’s The BFG and Jodie Foster with her brassy Hollywood think-piece thriller Money Monster, starring George Clooney as the brash host of a financial talkshow who is held hostage live on air by a desperate anti-capitalism protester. It’s a selection that, as ever, showcases the festival’s avowed masters, such as Ken Loach, Jim Jarmusch, Pedro Almodóvar and the Dardennes: the silverback gorillas of the arthouse circuit. The Dardenne brothers – twice winners of the Palme d’Or – are back with their La Fille Inconnue, or The Unknown Girl, with Adele Haenel, about a doctor who sets out to find the identity of a young woman who died after refusing surgery. Loach returns – despite having stated that he was withdrawing from fiction features – with his longtime screenwriter Paul Laverty, with I, Daniel Blake, a tough indictment of food-bank Britain and the poverty trap. Almodóvar’s Julieta is an adaptation of three interrelated short stories by Alice Munro from her 2004 collection Runaway. A middle-aged woman endures anguish when her teenage daughter runs away from home and discovers something about her mother. It is a big year for Britain, with another Cannes favourite being featured: Andrea Arnold returns with her American Honey, featuring Shia LaBeouf and Sasha Lane, about a travelling crew of exploited teenagers who get an itinerant job in the midwest, selling magazine subscriptions door-to-door. If I had to predict shocks, this might be the film to watch. Actually, one of the most exciting inclusions is Alain Guiraudie, whose explicit gay thriller The Stranger by the Lake made a sensational impression in 2013. He is now in competition with Rester Vertical, which he says is set in the heart of France, with no more hints. There was a time when a new work from the French film-maker Bruno Dumont could mean only one thing: extreme cinema, shocking cinema, cinema that had something of Bresson’s stillness but also violence and menace. However, Dumont has now embraced his funnier side, directing elegant and fascinating comedies. Two years ago, he gave us his epic-length, made-for-TV Lil’ Quinquin – now he has Slack Bay, about grandly wealthy French families of a former age holidaying in northern France and discovering the exotically grisly locals. It features Juliette Binoche, who is showing us what she can do with broad comedy. Should be very interesting. Jeff Nichols is fast becoming the American film-maker to whom Cannes gives its benediction: his previous films Take Shelter and Mud have featured here, and now he returns with his new feature Loving, based on a 2012 HBO documentary by Nancy Buirski called The Loving Story, about a notorious 1958 legal case in the US in which an interracial couple Richard and Mildred Loving (played here by Joel Edgerton and Ruth Negga) were imprisoned for getting married. Paul Verhoeven is a director who is assured of a certain tongue-in-cheek praise from French cinephiles, on account of his much-chortled-over Starship Troopers and Showgirls. His new film Elle is in competition, starring the empress of the Cannes red-carpet, Isabelle Huppert, whose presence is mandatory. She plays (rather implausibly) the CEO of a videogame company who is attacked in her home and then seeks revenge. This promises to be a performance with bells and whistles and all guns blazing. If any film-maker has been roundly and unexpectedly trashed by the critics in Cannes it is Nicolas Winding Refn, whose Only God Forgives was deafeningly mocked in the press in 2013. I found myself its only defender, and at that time also discovered that diversity of opinion and legitimate disagreement are values that many arts pundits have signed up to in theory only. Now Refn has come to Cannes with a film called The Neon Demon, starring Jena Malone about an aspiring model who comes to Los Angeles and finds herself under attack from, erm, sinister forces. It is a film that reportedly contains vampirism and cannibalism, sounding as if it is inspired by that other Cannes favourite Abel Ferrara. Clearly, bad taste will abound. Bring it on! The Romanians are back: Cristi Puiu’s Sieranevada is in competition, as is Bacalaureat, or Family Photos, by Cristian Mungiu, a former Palme d’Or winner. Sieranevada is inspired byAurel Rau’s poem The Agathirsoi, and about a family reunion that is overwhelmed by anxiety. Sean Penn brings his distinctive and self-conscious machismo back to the Croisette with The Last Face, written by Erin Dignam, with Charlize Theron as the director of an international aid agency in Africa, who fatefully meets a relief medic played by Javier Bardem. More British interest: Sarah Waters’ much-loved novel Fingersmith is to be brought to the screen, unexpectedly enough, by the great Korean master of the extreme Park Chan-Wook. Entitled The Handmaiden, the story is modernised and transposed to Korea. And talking of extreme cinema – which we keep doing at Cannes – the Philippines’ Brillante Mendoza returns with his Ma’ Rosa. Mendoza is not especially associated with controversial film-making but his 2009 film Kinatay is one of the most explicitly violent I have ever seen at Cannes. It never got a UK release. The festival’s enfant terrible is probably the Canadian Xavier Dolan, a positive veteran of Cannes, with a clutch of features under his belt, and still – incredibly – only 27 years old. His Mommy was a smash hit in Cannes and now he is in competition once more with his It’s Only the End of the World, with Léa Seydoux and Marion Cotillard. Dolan is moving into the big league with these starriest of French names. It might be seen as a further, important test of Dolan’s sinew as a director, had he not already produced so much substantial work. Jim Jarmusch’s Paterson offers what might be the most attractive pairing of the festival: Adam Driver and the Iranian star Golshifteh Farahani. Driver is the bus driver who writes poetry and comes home to his loving wife (Farahani) who has dreams of her own. This will be one of the hottest tickets of the festival. Nicole Garcia’s From the Land of the Moon, or Mal De Pierres, is the big offering from French cinema, a literary adaptation starring Marion Cotillard as a free-spirited woman trapped in a loveless marriage, who is attracted to another man. Louis Garrel also stars. Garcia’s work has struck me as a type of French cinema that is lovely looking, tastefully produced – and a little forgettable. But hope springs eternal. Brazilian director Kleber Mendonca Filho’s Neighbouring Sounds was a hugely admired arthouse-circuit movie and his follow-up Aquarius gets a competition slot. It sounds fascinatingly weird – and it’s about a critic! A 65-year-old retired music writer lives alone, a widow. Her three children have grown up and left the nest. But she has the gift of time travel. Kristen Stewart fans can look forward to her second appearance on the red carpet (after her turn in Woody Allen’s festival opener Cafe Society) as she appears in the intensely awaited Olivier Assayas movie Personal Shopper: it’s a ghost story set in the Paris underworld. Stewart was a big success in Assayas’s Clouds of Sils Maria and anticipation is keen for this one. Germany has a place in competition this year. In Maren Ade’s challengingly offbeat-sounding Toni Erdmann, a father visits his daughter abroad and, believing that she has lost her sense of humour, torments her with jokes of his own. It sounds searingly serious. As ever, a mouthwatering lineup from Cannes, and, as ever, the sense of deja-vu in the names is an illusion. The real delights will emerge, unexpectedly, from the familiar-looking thicket of big names. As ever, I can’t wait.
Lloyds chief apologises for damage caused by affair allegations The chief executive of Lloyds Banking Group has written to employees to apologise for revelations about his private life and the damage they caused the group’s reputation. In an email sent to the bank’s 75,000 staff, António Horta-Osório said he regretted the bad publicity caused by allegations of an affair with Wendy Piatt, a former aide to Tony Blair. The couple were pictured together while the married bank chief was on a business trip to Singapore. Horta-Osório, whose pay deals over the past two years total £20m, also sought to quash talk of him leaving the group, saying he was as committed as ever to leading Britain’s biggest retail bank. The reports earlier this month prompted questions about whether Horta-Osório breached Lloyds’ policies by combining private and business expenses. Lloyds said on 10 August he had no case to answer after an internal review. In his email to staff, Horta-Osório reiterated that he kept personal and business expenses separate. But he admitted that the furore had damaged the bank, which is 9% owned by taxpayers after being bailed out during the financial crisis. He wrote: “My personal life is obviously a private matter as it is for anyone else. But I deeply regret being the cause of so much adverse publicity and the damage that has been done to the group’s reputation. It has detracted from the great work which you do for our customers on a daily basis and from the major accomplishments of the past five years.” Horta-Osório has stressed the importance of maintaining high standards of behaviour to Lloyds staff, which has paid multiple fines and billions of pounds in customer compensation for past misdeeds. He said he included himself in his call for good behaviour and promised to do better. He added: “Having the highest professional standards raises the bar against which we are judged and as I have always said we must recognise that mistakes will be made. I don’t expect anyone to get everything right all the time. The important point being how we learn from those mistakes and the decisions and actions we take afterward.” The revelations about Horta-Osório’s private life came soon after Lloyds announced plans to cut a further 3,000 jobs. This is on top of the 54,000 job losses announced since the bank rescued HBOS during the financial crisis. The Portuguese banker, who joined in 2011 from Santander, got a 6% salary increase to £1.12m this year, while staff received 2%. Horta-Osório told staff their hard work was behind the bank’s recovery and its ability to cope with low interest rates and a weakening economy. “With that in mind please be assured that I am as committed as ever to leading the group forward to deliver our strategy and to meet our future ambitions. Thank you again for your messages of support over the last few weeks. I have greatly appreciated them,” he wrote.
The 10 best things to do this week TV Raised By Wolves (Wednesday, 10pm, Channel 4) Caz and Caitlin Moran’s excellent and highly quotable comedy returns to the Garry household for a second series, and 16-year-old Germaine (Helen Monks) is still banging on about her bodily functions to all and sundry. After mum Della (Rebekah Staton) switches off the Wi-Fi (“I’m not paying £29.99 a month to beam pixels through the friggin’ air”), the Garry children slope off to the library, where Germaine’s flirting practice leads to the unimaginable: an actual date. She preps for it by dousing her wrists in her own vaginal fluid. Rachel Aroesti FILM EVENTS Overnight film festival (Queens Hotel, Eastbourne, Saturday & Sunday) Something different for the weekend: a seaside mini-break where you never have to leave the hotel. Off the beaten track in every way, this new festival screens cult movies in the Queen’s Hotel, followed by parties in the evenings, then you can trip off upstairs to bed (you don’t have to book a room; day passes are also available). Guest curators include Greek actor Ariane Labed (Attenberg, The Lobster), director Jenn Nkiru and academic Emma Dabiri, and their choices are not your standard fare. There are overlooked artefacts such as 90s youth doc and latter-day style guide Wildwood, NJ, and Barbara Loden’s striking 1970 indie Wanda. There’s also Terence Nance’s imaginative An Oversimplification Of Her Beauty and 60s Louisiana tale Eve’s Bayou. Plus vintage outsider arthouse like the sensual Woman Of The Dunes and Bresson’s Au Hasard Balthazar. Steve Rose All this week’s best film events THEATRE Table Top Shakespeare (Barbican Centre: The Pit, London, Tuesday to 6 March) As 2016 is the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare’s death, we’ll no doubt hear plenty more about the bard over the coming months. Here, the Barbican gets on the case early with a less orthodox approach to the man. Throughout the first week of March, Forced Entertainment will be performing all 36 plays over six days with the aid of household objects (Macbeth is a cheesegrater, Pericles a lightbulb, Hamlet is played by a bottle of ink; that sort of thing), plus a tabletop and clear, accessible summaries of the texts. Mark Cook All this week’s best new theatre EXHIBTIONS Mark Wallinger (Hauser & Wirth, London, to 7 May) Predicting what form Mark Wallinger’s work will take next is a fool’s errand. From giant white horses and replicas of the Doctor’s Tardis to donning a bear costume and investing in a racehorse (named A Real Work Of Art), the Essex-born artist keeps us guessing with his projects. It might sound pat but there is one thing that does unite them, and that is the artist himself: in fact, the self, the bodies we inhabit and the way they rub along together to form something called society lie at the heart of Wallinger’s practice. For this show, titled ID, the artist brings this central facet of his output to the surface with a new series of Freud-referencing works, including a video of an Ilford roundabout shot on a phone and paintings that nod to Rorschach tests, scaled up to the dimensions of Wallinger’s height and armspan. Oliver Basciano All this week’s best exhibitions COMEDY Dane Baptiste (Epsom Playhouse, Friday, then on tour) Over in the States, talking about the supposed differences between white and black people is such a staple of stand-up that it’s become a cliche. It’s a style of comedy efficiently mocked by The Simpsons, who once showed a hack comic delivering a “white guys drive like this, black guys drive like this” routine. In this country, we’re altogether less comfortable making jokes about that kind of thing, which means any British comedian who wants to tackle the subject of race head-on has to take a more adult and sophisticated approach. Dane Baptiste has the ability to do just that: he’s got a keen but not over-intellectualised awareness of the issues facing young black guys like him, and the instinctive funny bones to make universally accessible humour out of it. Baptiste’s first show netted him a best newcomer nomination at the 2014 Edinburgh festival fringe and with his own BBC sitcom series in the works, it seems he’s very much delivering on his early promise. James Kettle All this week’s best comedy ON DEMAND Thirteen (iPlayer, from Sunday) It will be interesting to watch BBC3 develop as an exclusively online brand, and this drama feels like a promising start. Jodie Comer plays Ivy Moxam, a 26-year-old woman who has spent 13 years in captivity. None of your Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt hi-jinks here, though; this is uncompromising stuff, icily guiding us through the trauma of Ivy’s re-entry; from identity checks to family crises, this isn’t comfortable viewing. In the meantime, her abductor is still at large. Phil Harrison MUSIC Bill Ryder-Jones (Hull, Leeds, Brighton, London, Manchester) Bill Ryder-Jones seems to be living his musical life backwards, on a journey away from sophistication back to raw-sounding guitar rock. While his first band the Coral have remained faithful to their chirpy psychedelia, since leaving, Jones has covered a lot of ground. His work so far has seen him operate in epic orchestral melancholia, as an intimate and flakily poetic singer-songwriter, and most recently in slacker rock. That’s not to say that Jones’s new one, West Kirby County Primary, is a ragged affair, more that he’s now exercising his considerable chops in a less-poised format. John Robinson All this week’s best live music TALKS Bare Lit (Betsey Trotwood & Free Word Centre, London, Saturday & Sunday) The 2016 World Book Night’s all-white author selection prompted Review to run an article headed “Why haven’t I been invited to the party? Ask the host”. The approach of Bare Lit, the UK’s first festival exclusively for writers of colour, is simple: throw your own. Diversity panels are out the window. Instead the inaugural programme features a discussion of sci-fi and Afrofuturism with Malaysian author Zen Cho, creator of Sorcerer To The Crown, a fantasy novel following England’s “first African Sorcerer Royal”. Other speakers include poet Jane Yeh on the subject of second-generation poets in exile; Kelly Kanayama of Women Write About Comics; and journalist Robin Yassin-Kassab on his forthcoming book about the Syrian revolution. The breadth of the programme is very much the point. Organiser Media Diversified is out to give writers from BAME backgrounds the platform they deserve, and to show that when they are invited to the party, it shouldn’t be to tick one solitary box. Bella Todd All this week’s best talks FILM Grimsby Satirising the Benefits Street stereotype of low-income Britain is asking for trouble, but Sacha Baron Cohen doubles down on the offensiveness and just about gets away with it. Middling buddy-action comedy is a given when his lager-swilling geezer reunites with his super-spy brother, but there’s enough slapstick absurdity and gross-out invention to break down even the sternest resistance. SR All this week’s new film releases DANCE Immortal Tango (Peacock Theatre, London, Tuesday to 19 March) German Cornejo is currently regarded as one of the most versatile and theatrical of tango choreographers. For his latest show, he traces the line between tango and Hollywood, with Cornejo and his partner Gisela Galeassi heading the cast. The playlist includes music by some of the pure tango greats mixed in with tango-inspired songs by Madonna and Adele. Cornejo, who has directed other tango spectacles such as Tango Fire, commands a winning formula of fiercely gifted dancers, soulful music and elegant costumes. Judith Mackrell All this week’s best dance
Southampton’s Steven Davis leaves Tottenham sweating over second place Not for the first time in recent weeks, Mauricio Pochettino was left to bemoan Tottenham Hotspur’s inability to close the door on their opponents. The consequence is that they have left it open for their rivals, Arsenal, to give this crazy season yet another twist. Two weeks ago, Tottenham were in a two-horse race with Leicester City to finish on top of the Premier League but after this defeat by a Steven Davis-inspired Southampton, which followed draws with West Bromwich Albion and Chelsea, they could yet finish in third. It would be a ridiculous finale to what has been a season of high achievement at White Hart Lane but that is what will happen if and when Arsenal beat Aston Villa at home and Tottenham were to lose at Newcastle United in the final round of fixtures next Sunday. There is not, in general terms, a massive amount of difference between coming in second rather than third. Both places come with the guarantee of qualification to the Champions League group stage. But this is Tottenham and Arsenal. And Tottenham have not finished above their rivals since 1994-95. For the third game in succession, Tottenham squandered the lead and the manner of both concessions to Davis were alarming from their point of view. Pochettino described them as “very soft” and there could be questions asked of Hugo Lloris, the Tottenham goalkeeper. On the first, the Frenchman was slow to react when Davis diverted Dusan Tadic’s cross goalwards – the ball squirming home – and for the winner, he could not get across to keep out the Southampton midfielder’s low shot through a crowd. Lloris might have seen that one late. Davis had arrived with two goals all season for Southampton but, having doubled his tally, he kept his club on course for the Europa League qualification that they desire. Pochettino said that he did not care about Arsenal and his focus was purely on his team. If they took care of their side, he added, they could aspire to finishing above everyone, and not just Arsenal. The preoccupation with their neighbours was a waste of energy. But, with Arsenal having drawn at Manchester City later in the day, it is a fair bet that there will be Tottenham nerves at Newcastle. Tottenham were fast and aggressive in the first half, and they might have been in front at the interval. Their goal came when Son Heung-min ran around Fraser Forster before jinking inside two challenges and tapping home. Forster had hesitated when Erik Lamela played the ball into the area because Harry Kane had been in an offside position. It went down as Lamela’s ninth assist of the league season and Son’s fourth goal. The £22m signing from Bayer Leverkusen has eight in all competitions. Tottenham had a number of first‑half chances, with Kane being denied by Forster at close quarters with the best of them, having robbed José Fonte. Forster also saved smartly from Christian Eriksen early on. But Southampton, who have now won six in eight matches, had theirs, too. They might have taken the lead only for Tadic to blast low beyond the far post, with Davis unmarked in the middle and the equaliser followed trademark slick approach work. Taking Cuco Marina’s floated ball, Tadic slipped a low cross over for Davis and his first-time finish deceived Lloris. Tottenham were unhappy that the play was not stopped for an injury to Kyle Walker. Southampton looked dangerous on the counter-attack, with the pace of Sadio Mané and Shane Long, and the composure and drive of Davis. Even when Mané went off in the 65th minute – he had taken a heavy knock from Lamela towards the end of the first half – his replacement, Graziano Pellè, posed a physical and aerial threat. The second half was less frenetic, with the space much tighter and the chances fewer. Perhaps the heat was a factor – there needed to be a drinks break in the 68th minute. Southampton clicked in a defensive sense and they came to call the tune. Long headed off target when well placed from Tadic’s cross on 54 minutes and Davis’s second came when he swapped passes with Tadic and moved inside from the left of the area. Confronted by Eric Dier, he continued to skate to the right before he unloaded a shot for the far, bottom corner. It seemed to take an age to get there, through the crowd of bodies but when it did, he and Southampton could celebrate. Koeman had a compliment for Tottenham. “Football-wise and in terms of ball possession, they are the best team in the Premier League,” he said. But they failed to turn up in the second-half, which was curious after their positive first-half showing. There was no spark or incision to their play and, when Forster blocked from the substitute, Nacer Chadli, in stoppage time, Southampton knew it would be their day. “We spoke about it being a special season last season,” Koeman said. “But this one could be even more special.” Man of the match S Davis (Southampton)
Trump won. Now we organize to block him, every step of the way It happened. Less than a month ago, the odds of a scandal-racked Donald Trump winning the election were just north of 8%. The man whose candidacy began as a joke in the summer of 2014 has become the leader of the free world. Faced with a Trump presidency, the urgent task now isn’t to dissect and explain how we lost. It’s to plan how to block his regime every step of the way forward. It’s important to remember that Trump has never been an aberration. His brand of movement conservatism built on the Tea Party’s foundations and those of Richard Nixon’s Southern Strategy before it, to draw in white voters by kicking out their counterparts of color. But his rise was a bipartisan phenomenon as well, given Americans’ historically low trust in government. Recounting the collapse of Weimar Germany, historian Hans Mommsen writes that the accommodation and “interpenetration of economic interest organizations and nationalist associations” became “a defining feature of Germany’s political culture in the 1920s and early 1930s”. The German government and its biggest industries had fused, and put faith in the state to make decisions in their interest. Amid deep recession, parliament sided with business against the people as the left remained fractured, having failed to appreciate the meaningful differences between fascism and social democracy. At the risk of overstating things, our own crisis of democratic legitimacy has now given way to an assault on democracy, brought to power by the ballot box itself. More analogies to Hitler’s rise will feel painfully relevant this morning. But Trump is something new, and deserves to be understood in today’s terms. And the way world powers took on fascism in the second world war is a poor script for learning how to snuff out today’s far right. Trump’s election is part of a much broader ascendance of dangerous leaders in the Global North. Rather than Hitler or Mussolini, Trump’s most dangerous parallels are Marine Le Pen, Geert Wilders and Frauke Petry. Like Trump, each of them has developed a uniquely 21st-century strategy for gaining power, doing away with the old fascist markers that have long been marginal forces in Europe. Those of us looking to challenge Trump and his ilk need to pay attention to these innovations. Both Trump and Clinton were some of history’s most unpopular candidates, and for the Democrats to double down on her establishment tendencies now would be suicidal. The Third Way politics that Clinton’s husband helped craft have been thoroughly trounced, and it’s up to the left now to propose its own populist and progressive alternative to Trump’s doomsday “law and order” neoliberalism. The popular front that rallied around Clinton could still mount a powerful and unified resistance against her opponent’s disastrous first term. That said, neither Clinton nor her politics can be its defining factor. A visionary left at this moment is better suited than routed establishment Democrats to catalyze an uprising against Trump and Trumpism – engaging the protest voters’ pain and fear rather than pathologizing them, as many did (to disastrous effect) during the election. Together we can propose plans for a democracy and economy that work for the vast majority of people living in them, calling out the system as rigged, showing the ways men like Trump rigged it and charting a tangible way forward. That socialist Bernie Sanders remains one of the country’s most popular politicians should inspire some hope, as should the fact that large majorities of Americans favor raising the minimum wage, reforming the criminal justice system and taking on climate change. Pointing out the gap between that fact and Trump’s rule could embattle his first term, and make a second unthinkable. (Fortunately, Trump will probably be as inept at governing as he was at running his business empire, creating both anger against him and a hunger for reasonable alternatives.) Over the short term, we have a partial script for what happens next. As with Brexit’s Leave voters, the vast majority of those who backed Trump at the polls are not hardened racists – though many are suffering at the hands of the status quo’s disastrous economic policies. In stark contrast to Clinton’s establishment sheen, Trump simply offered an alternative and a series of scapegoats: chiefly, immigrants and Muslims. Given that, we may see another disturbing Brexit replay. In the week after the Leave vote, hate crimes in Britain shot up five-fold – a figure the country’s police suspected was vastly lowballed. Inspired by their win at the polls, xenophobic thugs were emboldened. Unlike in Britain, those thugs’ hero – the man who stoked our electoral coup – is now in control of the executive branch. But even as we defend our brothers and sisters from attack, the broader fight against Trump’s rule can’t be a defensive one. In January, we’ll see which of Trump’s plans – to round up and deport 11 million undocumented immigrants, tear up the Paris Agreement, throw Clinton in jail – he’ll follow through on. The upshot is already clear: in short order, the United States could slide from hawkish neoliberalism into authoritarianism. Preventing this will mean mustering more unity and vision than progressives in the United States ever have.
Regulator targets high-cost credit deals on consumer goods, loans and overdrafts A wide range of high-cost credit – from catalogue loans to overdrafts – is to be reviewed by the Financial Conduct Authority in a move that could herald price caps similar to those imposed on payday loans. Since 2015, the City regulator has prevented payday loan customers paying back any more than twice the value of the amount borrowed. The FCA will now look at whether the cap has restricted credit, driving customers to loan sharks. The findings of the review will be published in the summer of 2017. It is thought that as many as 400,000 people use high-cost credit deals from retailers to buy household appliances and furniture. After interest is added, consumers can often end up paying more than twice the original price, spread over a number of years. Andrew Bailey, the chief executive of the FCA, said: “This is a significant moment for our approach to consumer credit regulation as we continue to ensure that this market works well for consumers. “We have come up to the point of reviewing the cap on payday lending, making now the right time to take a broader view of the issues around high-cost credit, including unarranged overdrafts, and to consider whether our requirements remain appropriate.” The evidence-gathering exercise – known as a call for inputs – will look at whether high-cost loans are causing detriment to customers. This could prompt the FCA to take action, such as imposing caps on rates. It listed doorstep lending, catalogue credit, some rent-to-own, pawnbroking, guarantor and logbook loans – where cars are used as security – as being in its sights. Overdrafts are also part of the review, which the regulator signalled earlier this month when it said these loan facilities would be part of its review into high-interest loans. The regulator is also aiming to establish what impact its intervention on payday loans has had. High-cost, short-term credit loans are capped at 0.8% of the amount borrowed per day, and for borrowers who do not repay their loans on time, default charges must not exceed £15. “The FCA is also keen to see if there is any evidence of consumers turning to illegal money lenders directly as a result of being excluded from high-cost credit because of the price cap,” the regulator said.
Rufus Wainwright review – puckish performance of Shakespeare's sonnets Were most pop artists to record an album of Shakespearean sonnets to mark the 400th anniversary of the playwright’s death, it would be impossible not to suspect rank opportunism. It’s to Rufus Wainwright’s credit, then, that his own motivations for taking on such a potentially credibility-shredding project appear to be entirely honourable. Wainwright has a history of audacious ventures – his last recorded work was a crowdfunded, self-penned opera, 2015’s Prima Donna – and also previous form with the Bard. He first scored one of Shakespeare’s sonnets, for Michael Kamen, more than a decade ago, while three further orchestrations popped up on his 2010 album All Days Are Nights: Songs for Lulu. The Canadian singer-songwriter’s new offering, Take All My Loves: 9 Shakespeare Sonnets, is a fittingly extravagant document that makes use of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, guest vocalists, and thespians ranging from Siân Phillips to Carrie Fisher, Helena Bonham Carter and William Shatner. However, Wainwright pithily explains why he is unable to showcase the entire album tonight: “I can only play five of them.” His role on the album is very much that of an arranger and musical director – he sings only a handful of tunes – so he counter-balances this low profile on stage by opening with three of his own opulent songs from a grand piano. “Shakespeare was a cowboy really, wasn’t he?” he muses, before The Maker Makes from the Brokeback Mountain soundtrack. “He liked guns, and other men.” Thereafter, veteran actor Peter Eyre recites the sonnets with magisterial authority, rolling the words around his mouth with fruity relish, while classical pianist Chris Glynn and opera singer Janis Kelly perform Wainwright’s luscious arrangements. Kelly, a late stand-in for the ill Sarah Fox, is magnificent: her soprano appears to be hewn from pure crystal. It works superbly, because the florid romance of the sonnets dovetails exquisitely with Wainwright’s own exuberant, rococo musical flourishes. Even when he exercises relative restraint, as with the minimal piano accompaniment to Sonnet 20, his arrangement provides a sensitive sound-bed for the so-called “gay sonnet’s” fervent, frustrated longing. You fear for the intimate church’s stained-glass windows when Florence Welch appears, but she supplies a delicate, uncharacteristically understated vocal as Sonnet 29 – “When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes …” – is morphed into gorgeous chamber pop. Wainwright himself is in fine voice, abandoning his role of waspish MC to layer a rich, throaty baritone over quivering strings for Sonnet 87: Farewell. Wainwright, Kelly and Eyre transform In Dessen Müd into baroque Brechtian cabaret, before the reliably puckish host dedicates a musical reading of Thomas Moore’s The Last Rose of Summer to Prince, then ends the evening as he began it: at the piano banging out his own overwrought confessionals, such as Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk. His high-risk labour of love has proved a laudable triumph. • This article was amended on 28 April 2016. An earlier version referred to Sir Thomas More where Thomas Moore was meant.
Why the MTV VMAs are still the greatest awards show on earth Here’s a blisteringly hot take to start your day: awards shows are crap. Go ahead, wipe the coffee off your laptop screen if you need. I understand. This has never been said before in the history of humankind. Awards shows are dull, joyless affairs that are really only fun if you’re in the room. Awards shows are typically only memorable for the gaffes, the technical errors, and the rare bits of unvarnished truth. Let Ricky Gervais have a go at Mel Gibson while he’s in the room and you have yourself a rebloggable, shareable awards show moment. The MTV Video Music Awards, which is in its 33rd year, is set to transmit across the world this Sunday night and is the best awards show there is. Look back at any VMAs and it is an accurate microcosm of wherever pop culture was at that moment in time. Can you say that for the Oscars? This is the show where Axl Rose challenged Kurt Cobain to a fight, Britney Spears kissed Madonna (and Christina Aguilera) and Kanye West threatened to run for president. This is also one of the few awards shows that treats the actual awards as a sideshow distraction from the real drama, which is in the audience. The VMAs don’t always get it right – Kanye’s right, Beyoncé really did have one of the best videos of all time and did you know the video for the Macarena didn’t win a single award? – but who cares? The creative missteps like having Dennis Miller host more than once and the questionable victories for acts with questionable legacies are part of the charm. Jamiroquai has a VMA. Hootie and the Blowfish won a VMA for Best New Artist, and not even for that video with Dan Marino. I’m less concerned about whether or not Hotline Bling wins Video of the Year than I am with the likelihood of Taylor Swift and Kanye West having an altercation. There haven’t been two people who disliked each other this much inside Madison Square Garden since Reggie Miller and Spike Lee. The VMAs, and lesser awards shows, are a chance for Twitter beefs to come to life in full 1080p high definition. There’s quite a competition to see who gets the honor of sitting next to Taylor Swift presumably to maximize camera time and ensure that one would be as close to the blast radius of controversy as possible. Imagine being the sort of person who wants to be “beef-adjacent” at an awards show. Congratulations, you’re now the person who pretends to jump into a bar fight just as the bouncer gets there to break it up. The modern VMAs tap into a fundamental truth about our culture. We appreciate art to a point, but what we really want is to swim around in the oversized chum bucket of celebrity and infamy. VMAs honor the musician who appears in the video, but not the person who directed it or shot it or designed the sets. There are categories for those craftspeople, but they aren’t showing up during the telecast. They might not even get to attend the event. The Oscars, the Emmys, the Grammys, and the rest make a concerted effort to mask the entertainment value of their programs with the veneer of respectable arts patronage. Not so for the VMAs. It’s a spectacle of the absurd engineered specifically to incite conflicts between famous people or to shock the more conservative-minded viewer. When Miley Cyrus hosted last year, the advertisements centered around what wacky thing she would do. She certainly delivered – partial nudity, a verbal confrontation with Nicki Minaj, and a decadent musical performance featuring all manner of psychedelic imagery. But it bordered on overkill. The VMAs are at their best when the outrageous behavior comes in spurts and doesn’t consume the entire broadcast. This year, there’s no advertised host, just a few announced acts, the nostalgia factor of Britney Spears returning to the site of her greatest career moments, and a lot of pointless trophies to hand out. For any other awards show, that might be a concern. For the VMAs, it just means the path is clear for it to work its magic.
Co-op proposes to cut political donations by a quarter The Co-operative Group is proposing to cut political donations by a quarter in a move that could signify a scaling back of support for the Co-operative party, a Labour-aligned political group that backs MPs including the shadow health minister, Luciana Berger, and the shadow education secretary, Lucy Powell. The Co-op board has sought approval for political donations or subscriptions to be capped at £750,000 – down from the £1m approved last year – in a motion to be voted on by the mutual’s millions of members at its annual meeting next month. The change - which could be reversed in the future - comes after a complex three-part motion tabled by the board on whether to keep political donations failed at last year’s annual meeting. The group’s board says it has already agreed funding of £625,600 in both 2016 and 2017 for the Co-operative party. If the motion is accepted, the Co-op will continue that support and make donations to other political parties, campaigns and organisations that “support co-operative values and principles during 2017”. Approval could mark the first time the Co-op channels funds to other parties. If the motion is not passed then the mutual said it would terminate funding for the Co-operative party at the end of 2017. At the meeting, members will also get to vote on the multimillion-pound pay deals for the Co-op’s management including pay and potential bonuses of just over £3m this year for the chief executive, Richard Pennycook, ahead of a substantial cut in his pay in 2017. In a significant protest vote, more than one in three of the votes cast at the AGM rejected the pay report last year. Another motion, put forward by members of some of the 120 independent co-operative societies associated with the main Co-op Group, calls for management to review the range of Fairtrade products available and rebuild the range. The motion says that while the Co-op has moved to 100% Fairtrade sugar and moved all its Easter eggs to the ethical mark, it has dropped other Fairtrade products including honey, cashew nuts, cotton wool and muesli. The board said only eight lines have been dropped accounting for less than 1% of products sold and that it was instead focusing on improving its range of more mainstream products including tea, coffee and wine. In a bid to encourage more members to take part, the mutual has pledged to donate 50p for every vote pledged to its joint anti-loneliness campaign with the British Red Cross. The Co-op only introduced a one-member-one-vote system last year as a replacement for the block vote method of the past. Allan Leighton, the Co-op chairman said: “The Co-op is so much more than a commercial business, and while I’m greatly encouraged by our current trading performance, it’s essential that our wider Co-op difference also shines brightly once more. To do this we need to build engagement among our millions of members so that our purpose can be felt throughout communities across the UK.”
Second US presidential debate – as it happened Here’s how searches for “Hillary Clinton” and “Donald Trump” respectively peaked around key moments in the debate, according to the good folks at Google: 1. Trump: “You’d be in jail” 2. Trump: “It’s just words” 3. Trump on what he respects about Clinton 4. Trump on the Iraq war 5. Clinton on religious freedom We know we’ve published a summary post, but we don’t want you to miss this, either: Dan writes: Nigel Farage, interim leader of the UK Independence Party, was also in the spin room to defend Donald Trump and attack Clinton as a threat to democracy. “What would your warning be to America having heard Hillary Clinton say she’s for open borders?,” he was asked by a reporter during an interview alongside Alabama senator Jeff Sessions. “If you value democracy and if you value being in control of your own destiny then you have to reject Hillary Clinton’s ideas. Simple,” said Farage. Don’t miss this roundup of reaction from opinion writers. Great first lines here: That banging sound you heard were the last nails being hammered into the coffin of the Trump campaign. And If there was a theme for Trump this evening, it would be aggressive desperation. And Trump succeeded, and he succeeded before the first question was even asked. And, simply: Donald Trump lost tonight’s debate. The second presidential debate is in the can. Here’s what happened: It was a nasty affair without perhaps being quite so sordid or raw as might have been expected, given Donald Trump’s signal beforehand that he would attack Hillary Clinton as an enabler of her husband’s sins. Challenged to defend his recently uncovered hot mic remarks about grabbing women, Trump said they amounted to “locker room” talk he was embarrassed by – but he denied he had assaulted women, whereas, he said, Bill Clinton had been “so abusive to women.” Clinton did not respond to Trump’s catalog of her husband’s sins, apart to say it was inaccurate. “When they go low, you go high,” she said. Clinton placed Trump’s hot mic remarks in context with others – she listed his attack on the Khan family, his “birther” attack on Obama, his attack on a disabled reporter and his attack on a federal judge of Mexican descent – to paint Trump as an unreformed bully. She said Trump “owes the country an apology.” Trump projected intense hostility for Clinton. He repeatedly called her a liar, leered at her, scoffed, said she had accomplished nothing in her career, loomed behind her as she spoke with audience members, and told her if he were president, “you’d be in jail.” He pointed at her, and said, “she has tremendous hate in her heart.” “I know you’re into big diversion tonight,” Clinton told Trump. “Anything to avoid talking about your campaign and its explosion and how Republicans are leaving it.” More than one snap analyst – FWIW – thought Trump had “shored up his base” of supporters by attacking Clinton over deleted emails, Benghazi and other issues. Few asserted that he had broadened his appeal. Twice Clinton said that Russia was seeking to influence the election, and not on her behalf. Trump said he disagreed with running mate Mike Pence’s assertion that the United States should consider military force to oppose Russian aggression in Syria. Pence tweeted congratulations after. Trump also said there’s no Muslim ban plan anymore: “The Muslim ban is something that in some form has morphed into extreme vetting.” A few times, Trump seemed to shock Clinton. He said that Capt. Humayun Khan would still be alive if he, Trump, were president. Clinton’s foreign policy spokesman replied: Trump admitted unapologetically that he had applied almost a billion in personal losses to not pay federal income tax. “Of course I do.” Trump staged a media event before the debate with three women who have accused Bill Clinton of sexual assault or rape and one woman raped as a child whose assailant Hillary Clinton defended as a 27-year-old lawyer. Clinton was asked about a line from a Wikileaks version of a purported paid speech in which she describe a president’s need to have separate public and private faces. She said she was talking about Abraham Lincoln. The candidates did not shake hands when they arrived at the town hall. Trump had the sniffles. And he complained a lot about the moderators letting Clinton talk more than him. A time clock count afterwards showed the time was split evenly. A fact check from world affairs editor Julian Borger: The ’s Ben Jacobs notes a dearth of elected Republicans spinning for their candidate: Twitter has announced that this was the most-tweeted debate ever, with data to come. Surprising that it beat the first one? (And here’s one from a Trump campaign employee who is paid to spread favorable messaging for him): What’s your snap reaction? Trump attacked Clinton aggressively. He was, at times, downright nasty. Did he manage to shake Clinton? Clinton is shaking hands with everyone. Trump is hanging with his family. Now Trump moves to mingle with the crowd too. Trump: “There is a thing called clean coal. Coal will last for 1,000 years in this country … we have found tremendous wealth under our feet in this country.” Trump appears to be conflating the national gas boom of the last 15 years with so-called “clean coal”, which arguably does not exist, given the high carbon emissions of coal energy. The decline of the coal industry is in large part attributable to the rise of the natural gas industry and the long-term decline of the industry, though regulations enacted by the Obama administration have also restricted the industry. What do you think? The candidates shake hands, awkwardly, and then Clinton moves over to mingle with the crowd-- Trump goes to his family. Trump: “She doesn’t quit, she doesn’t give up. I respect that. I tell it like it is. She’s a fighter... she does fight hard and she doesn’t quit and I consider that to be a very good trait.” That’s it. Last question. Carl Becker: Would either of you name one positive thing that you respect in one another? Raddatz invites Trump to go. Clinton goes. She says she respects his kids. She says they speak well of him. “As a mother and a grandmother” it’s very important she says. “This election has become in part so conflict-oriented so intense because there’s a lot at stake. She says the next president will make Supreme Court decisions and other far-reaching decisions. She says she’s been “trying to put it off of the personal and get it on what it is I want to do... yes I’ve spent 30 years, actually a little more trying to help kids and families.” Clinton: “Trump is illegally dumping steel in the United States and Trump is buying it.” Clinton says that for the first time ever, the United States is energy independent, but the Middle East still sets the price of oil, which has hurt energy companies. “We have got to remain energy independent, it gives us much more power and freedom,” she says. She says she supports moving toward more clean renewable energy. She says she is the only candidate with a plan to revitalize coal country. “I don’t want to walk away from them,” she says. Last question is about efficient energy. Trump says it’s a great question and calls for clean coal. “We have found tremendous wealth right under our feet,” he says. This is from earlier but it applies: Trump names Justice Scalia. “Great judge. Died recently. And we have a vacancy.” He says he’s picked 20 highly respected judges who are “very beautifully reviewed by just about everybody.” He wants justices who respect the constitution and the second amendment. On political contributions, Trump says that he will “invest” more than $100m. “I ask Hillary why doesn’t she – she made $250m by being in office.” Trump asks Clinton why she is not self funding. Clinton jumps in on the second amendment. She says she respects it but wants to close the gun show loophole. Crosstalk. Question: Supreme court justice. What would you prioritize? Clinton: You’re right. This is very important. She says she wants justices who understand “the way the world really works.” Who have life experience outside of law firms. She wants to reverse Citizens United and get dark money out of politics. She wants to reinforce protections of voting rights, to stick with Roe v Wade and with marriage equality. She says Trump’s picks would reverse Roe v Wade and marriage equality and that would be a mistake. She wants a supreme court that is not blatantly pro-corporatist. “I regret deeply that the senate has not done its job.” She calls it a “dereliction of duty.” Trump: “It didn’t say check out a sex tape” There is no evidence that such a tape exists; Trump may be referring to an appearance Alicia Machado made in a reality TV show. Trump: “Ambassador Stevens sent 600 requests for help and the only one she talked to was Sidney Blumenthal” Eight congressional investigations found no evidence that Clinton personally put Americans at risk at a consular facility in Benghazi, Libya when it was attacked on 11 September 2012, nor that she was tardy or negligent in the handling of an event in which four Americans, including ambassador Chris Stevens, were killed. The Pentagon was responsible for sending military assistance but did not get help to the compound in time to save the Americans. Officials did repeatedly ask for more security, but Congress found no evidence that those claims made it to Clinton’s desk. Clinton is asked about her deplorables comments. Clinton says she apologized, because “my argument is not with his supporters, it’s with him, about the hateful and divisive campaign he has run.. what he has said about African Americans, Latinos... he’s never apologized for. “I’m proud of the campaign that Bernie Sanders and I ran... we might have had some differences but we believed.” Trump: we have a divided nation. “you look at Charlotte, you look at Baltimore, Chicago, Washington DC. “Believe me, she has tremendous hate in her heart. When she said deplorables... she’s got tremendous hatred. And this country cannot take another four years of Barack Obama, and that’s what you’re getting for her.” Trump is asked about his tweet inviting people to “check out sex tape” of Alicia Machado. Trump denies the tweet and brings up Benghazi. “Ambassador Stevens sent 600 requests for help and the only one she talked to was Sidney Blumenthal. “Twitter happens to be a modern-day form of communication. You can like it or not like it. I’m not unproud of it.” Question now for Clinton: Does Donald Trump has the discpline to be a good leader? Clinton: No. Trump: I’m shocked to hear that. Clinton: “It’s not only my opinion.” She mentions the Republicans who have defected from Trump. Is the Pence-Trump bromance officially over? After a strained beginning to the partnership – Trump waited until the 11th hour to go with Pence, after advisers reportedly twisted his arm – their union has reached a new low: Trump is openly disagreeing with his running mate in presidential debates. Last week Pence called for bombing Syria, but tonight Trump called for the opposite: “I don’t like Assad at all but Assad is killing Isis.” It comes just a day after Pence said he couldn’t condone Trump’s newly surfaced comments from 2005 about how he feels sexually entitled to the women in his orbit, and canceled a campaign event where he was supposed to act as Trump’s surrogate. Trump’s debate burn may well be his revenge. Clinton addresses the audience member by name. She says out of college she worked for the Children’s defense fund. She worked as an anti-discrimination lawyer. She worked for kids with disabilities, and she worked to register Latinos to vote. She says she has a devotion to make sure that every American has a voice. She says many Americans are worried that they wouldn’t have a place in Donald Trump’s America. Trump smiles behind her, like, “can you believe this bullshit.” He’s trolling her onstage. Clinton says there’s a “Trump effect” of bullying in the United States. She says kids are concerned. Trump: “At the last debate she lied [about the Trans Pacific Partnership]. She did say the ‘gold standard’ but she said she didn’t say it.” Clinton has not been consistent on the Trans Pacific Partnership, and her language from 2010 through 2014 suggests she was broadly in support of Barack Obama’s trade deal. As secretary of state in 2012, she said: “This TPP sets the gold standard in trade agreements to open free, transparent, fair trade, the kind of environment that has the rule of law and a level playing field. And when negotiated, this agreement will cover 40% of the world’s total trade and build in strong protections for workers and the environment.” She continued to praised it while she worked for the Obama administration, variously calling it “high quality”, “cutting edge”, “groundbreaking” and “high standard”. Out of office in 2014, she moved away from the deal, whose negotiations were not complete. She reserved judgment in her memoir published that year, expressed “concerns” in 2015, and, when pushed from the left by Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary, moved to opposing it in its current terms. Clinton: “bullying is up” because of Trump’s rhetoric The left-leaning Southern Poverty Law Center has described a “Trump effect” based on a survey of 2,0000 teachers, and the National Education Association, which supports Clinton, has made similar claims. But there’s no peer-reviewed data to support this claim at this point. Clinton takes the Syria question. She says she would not use ground forces. But special forces, which are there – yes. Enablers and trainers, yes. Raddatz: What would you do differently? Trump: Everything. Clinton: I hope that by the time I am president we will have pushed Isis out of Iraq. She says that Trump does not know more than the generals. She says “we all need to be in this.” “I would go after Baghdadi. I would specifically target Baghdadi. ... I would also consider arming the Kurds. The Kurds have been our best partners.” Trump: “She went over a minute over and you don’t stop over. When I go a second over.. it’s very interesting.” Clinton: the New Start treaty helped reduce Russia’s nuclear arms It’s correct that the New Start treaty set limits on deployed American and Russian ballistic missiles, bombers, launchers and warheads. But the story is much larger than these terms. Russia was already within limits in two categories before the treaty was signed, in 2011; the treaty does not affect un-deployed or retired weapons; and Russia has reduced its nuclear arms more slowly in the last decade than it did while George W Bush and Bill Clinton were in the White House. Nor does the treaty prevent countries from stockpiling weapons. In the last two years, Russia has increased its arsenal. Trump: Look at what she did in Libya with Gaddafi, Gaddafi’s out, it’s a mess Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump all supported intervention in Libya in 2011. None supported occupation to “build democracy” there in the model of George W Bush’s invasion and occupation of Iraq. Trump is lying about his opposition to intervention in Libya. Like Clinton, he supported military strikes, saying in a February 2011 video blog that the US should take “immediate” action against dictator Muammar Gaddafi. “We should go in, we should stop this guy, which would be be very easy and very quick. We could do it surgically.” Trump has also claimed to have made “a lot of money” from Gaddafi through a failed rental deal in 2009. Raddatz: What will happen if Aleppo falls? Trump says it’s fallen. It’s basically already fallen. Then he switches abruptly to Mosul, which is ... not .. in Syria. “How stupid is our country?” Trump says. Raddatz schools him a bit about potential various military objectives including psychological warfare. Trump does not take her opinion seriously. He says he has 200 generals. Raddatz, who is a military specialist and has a lot of credibility with the military, is pressing him. “Tell me what your strategy is.” Trump says that Clinton was secretary of state when Obama drew a line in the sand on Syria’s chemical weapons. Clinton corrects him; no she wasn’t. Trump says Obama probably wouldn’t listen to her anyway. Trump brings up “nuclear.” He says that Russian is new on nuclear, and we are old on nuclear. “Almost everything she has done on foreign policy has been a mistake and it has been a disaster.” Trump also says “she doesn’t even know who the rebels are” in Syria. Her eyes grow momentarily wide. Trump is relentlessly insulting Clinton. He says the Iran deal was the “dumbest” and Clinton “doesn’t even know who the rebels are.” Raddatz repeats the question. She says Pence said that if Russia continues airstrikes the USA should be prepared to use military force. “He and I haven’t spoken and I disagree.” ! Trump and Raddatz fight about what to talk about. Raddatz gets the floor. She describes the Syrian conflict, and particularly the assault on Aleppo and its horrors. She notes Russia’s involvement. What would you do? Clinton is first. “The situation in Syria is catastrophic, and every day that goes by, we see the results of the regime, Assad, the Iranians, the Russians, bombarding places, particularly Aleppo.. “There is a determined effort by the Russian air force to really destroy Aleppo... Russia hasn’t paid any attention to Isis. They’re interested in keeping Assad in power... we need some leverage with the Russians... and we have to work more closely with our partners and allies on the ground. “But I want to emphasize that what is at stake here is the ambitions of Russia.. Russia has decided that it’s all in in Syria, and they’ve also decided who they want to become president, and it’s not me.” Trump: “The vacuum they’ve left, that’s why Isis started in the first place” Trump is pretending that he has always supported a residual American force in Iraq. The businessman actually called for a complete withdrawal from Iraq, even in the event of continued civil war or authoritarian violence there. “You know how they get out? They get out. That’s how they get out. Declare victory and leave,” he told CNN in 2007. “This is a total catastrophe, and you might as well get out now because you’re just wasting time and lives.” The argument that Isis rose out of the vacuum of post-withdrawal Iraq also ignores that its first forms began during that country’s civil war, while George W Bush was in office, and that the terror group concentrated its powers in Syria’s civil war long before Obama began a bombing and special-forces campaign there. Clinton: “Because when I was first lady I worked with Democrats and Republicans” to create the children’s healthcare program This is a hard fact to check, given that Clinton’s boast is about backroom talks when she was first lady in the 1990s. Senators Ted Kennedy and Orrin Hatch, a Democrat and Republican, led the effort in Congress and passed the CHIP healthcare program in a budget bill after the first lady’s efforts to lead a broader healthcare reform bill failed. Clinton tried to claim credit for the program during her failed 2008 campaign for president, and at the time Kennedy gave great credit to her for efforts. Hatch disputed that account. Clinton: “Here we go again” Trump says that she should have gotten the tax law changed as senator. “If you were an effective senator, you could have done it,” he says. She gives him civics 101: “Under our constitution, presidents have something called veto power. He has said repeatedly. Thirty years this, Thirty years that.” Now she lists her policy achievements. Health coverage for kids, rebuilding New York after 9/11, health care for the national guard and reserve, safer meds for kids. “For 30 years, I’ve produced results.” Trump: “She is raising everybody’s taxes, massively.” This is true only if “everybody” refers to the tiny percentage of Americans who are the highest earners. Clinton’s plan would tax high-income earners, close tax loopholes for corporations and largely leave taxes unchanged for most Americans. It would increase tax revenue by $1.1tn over a decade, the Tax Policy Center estimated, though much of that money would go into spending plans. The Committee for a Responsible Budget estimated that Clinton’s plan would add about $200bn to the debt, saying it would raise tax revenue by $191bn but decrease GDP by 1% “over the long term due to slightly higher marginal tax rates on capital and labor”. Trump’s tax plan would disproportionately help the wealthiest Americans, saving them millions of dollars and adding $5.3tn to the national debt, according to an analysis by the Tax Foundation, a conservative think tank. Another analysis, by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, warned that without severe spending cuts, the plan would balloon national debt “by nearly 80% of gross domestic product by 2036, offsetting some or all of the incentive effects of the tax cuts”. Trump: “[The US is] just about the highest taxed country in the word” For months, Trump falsely claimed that the US is one of the highest-taxed countries in the world; he later adjusted to a more specific and more correct claim, about corporate tax rates. The US corporate income tax rate does rank among the highest among industrialized nations, according to the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD). But Trump’s claim doesn’t take into account deductions and other exemptions – the kind that helped General Motors and dozens of other corporations escape paying any taxes in recent years. Trump is asked whether he used his declaration of almost $1bn in personal losses in 1995 to not pay federal income taxes. “Of course I do,” Trump says. “Of course I do.” He says that Clinton’s friends do it to. “I understand the tax code better than anybody that’s ever run for president,” Trump says. “With her, it’s all talk, and no action. And again, Bernie Sanders, it’s bad judgment.” Clinton: “Everything you’ve heard just now from Donald is not true.. it is sort of amusing to hear someone who has not paid federal income tax in 20 years say what he’s going to do.” “Donald always takes care of Donald and people like Donald,” Clinton says. Then she presents her plan. No raised taxes for households who make less than $250,000. She says she voted as senator to close corporate taxes. She wants a surcharge on incomes above $5m. “I want to invest in you, I want to invest in working families.” “People like Donald who paid zero in taxes, zero for our vets, zero for our military, zero for health and education.. that is wrong.” Clinton: Putin and the Russian government are directing hacks “to influence the election”. Intelligence officials said they have “high confidence” that the Kremlin is behind cyberattacks on the US government, Democratic organizations and polling centers. Trump: “I don’t know Putin … I know nothing about Russia.” It’s not clear whether Trump has ever spoken to the Russian president. Putin was invited to but did not attend a 2013 beauty pageant in Moscow, according to one of the oligarchs who helped organize the event. Trump wondered beforehand: “Will he become my new best friend?” The pair may have communicated through intermediaries. In 2014, Trump told a National Press Club luncheon: “I was in Moscow recently and I spoke, indirectly and directly, with President Putin, who could not have been nicer, and we had a tremendous success.” A year earlier, Trump told MSNBC: “I do have a relationship and I can tell you that he’s very interested in what we’re doing here today.” Last November, Trump claimed in a debate that he “got to know [Putin] very well because we were both on 60 Minutes”. They appeared in separate, pre-taped segments of the current affairs show and were not on set together. Trump has repeatedly tried to do business in Russia, and his refusal to release tax returns prevents him proving that he has no assets there. In a July press conference, Trump admitted, “I guess probably I sell condos to Russians,” and gave a slightly exaggerated account of a $95m condominium sale. In 2007, he said he wanted to invest in Russia, saying in a deposition: “We will be in Moscow at some point.” In 2008, his son Donald Jr told a real estate conference “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets” and “We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia.” For the 2013 beauty pageant, Trump received a share of the $14m investment to bring it there. “I have a great relationship with many Russians, and almost all of the oligarchs were in the room,” he told Real Estate Weekly afterward, as he discussed his hopes for a Moscow hotel that ultimately went nowhere. Similarly, Trump either traveled to the city or drew up ambitious real-estate projects in Russia in 1987 and 1996, according to his memoir and court documents first unearthed by the Washington Post. Trump could prove he has no financial interests in Russia, as he says, by releasing his tax returns. Trump: “I pay hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes.” Trump could prove this by releasing his tax returns. Until then we cannot check it in full. Trump says he’s paid hundreds of millions in taxes, more, he says, than Hillary Clinton’s friend Warren Buffett. Next question is what you’d do to change tax code to increase receipts from the wealthiest Americans. Trump says getting rid of carried interest provisions, by which some money managers can claim income as capital gains. He also mentions, confusingly, lowering taxes on corporations. Then Trump says Clinton is “raising your taxes really high.” Now a question about Clinton’s paid speeches released in Wikileaks, about a line she said about needing a public and private view. Clinton: As I recall, that was something I said about Abraham Lincoln.. it was a master class watching Abraham Lincoln getting Congress to approve the 13th amendment... I was making the point that yes, it is hard to get Congress to do what you’re trying to do. Trump, on camera, smirks in disbelief when Clinton brings up Lincoln. Then Clinton turns to Friday’s intelligence community declaration that Russians are behind the Wikileaks hacking. “We have never been in a position where an adversary has been working so hard to influence the outcome of the election. And believe me, they’re not trying to get me elected.” She says Russia is trying to influence the election for Trump. She calls for his taxes. Trump: “ridiculous. Now she’s blaming the lie on the late great Abraham Lincoln. Honest Abe.” He gets a laugh from the crowd. Trump: “I don’t know Putin. I think it’d be great if we got along with Russia.” Then he implies that the intelligence community blames Russia for the hacking to get at Trump. “I don’t know anything about Russia... I know about Russia... I have no loans from Russia.” Trump: “I would not have had our people in Iraq because Iraq was a disaster” “I was against the war in Iraq it has not been debunked.” This is a lie. In the months before the Iraq war began in 2003, Trump tepidly endorsed invasion to radio host Howard Stern, who asked him whether he thought the US should attack Saddam Hussein. “Yeah, I guess so,” Trump said. A few weeks later he told Fox News that George W Bush was “doing a very good job”. Several weeks after the invasion, Trump told the Washington Post: “The war’s a mess.” In August 2004, he told Esquire: “Two minutes after we leave, there’s going to be a revolution, and the meanest, toughest, smartest, most vicious guy will take over.” Even in the interview cited by the Trump campaign to explain his “opposition”, Trump expressed impatience with Bush for not invading sooner. “Whatever happened to the days of the Douglas MacArthur? He would go and attack. He wouldn’t talk.” Trump: Hillary Clinton wants to increase refugees by 550% Trump is correct that Clinton has proposed a 550% increase in refugees, from 10,000 in 2016 to 65,000 in 2017. But this does not add up to “hundreds of thousands”, as he says. He appears to have borrowed this figure from an ally, Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, who invented it. Session falsely claims Clinton would continue to grant asylum to 55,000 Syrian refugees every year in addition to 100,000 refugees from the Middle East in general. Clinton has called for allowing 55,000 refugees from Syria for one year, and has not proposed yearly asylum for 155,000 Middle East refugees for her term. Trump: “People are coming into our country, like, we have no idea who they are, where they’re from, what their feelings about our country are … We know nothing about their values and we know nothing about their love of our country” This is false. The US has likely the most intensive screening process in the world for refugees: it requires they register and interview with the United Nations, which then must refer them to the US; refugees who pass this test then interview with State Department contractors and have at least two background checks; then they have three fingerprint and photo screenings; then US immigration reviews the case; then Homeland Security interviews the refugee; then a doctor examines the refugee; and finally several security agencies perform one last check after the refugee has been matched with a resettlement agency. The process takes 18 months to two years. The US has a very clear idea about which refugees it allows into the country. Trump seems angry. Clinton feels frustrated. Trump is stalking the stage, frowning. Clinton can’t believe she’s onstage with him. Trump: Barack Obama and the architect of the Affordable Care Act lied: “The whole thing was a fraud, and it doesn’t work.” Obama admitted in 2013 that his policy slogan, “If you like your healthcare plan, you can keep it”, was false. Politifact named it “lie of the year” after millions of insurers cancelled plans. Trump: Muslims have to report suspicion of terrorism, as in San Bernardino Trump has repeatedly and baselessly said someone saw “bombs on the floor” and “suspicious behavior” before the mass shooting in California last December – he has repeated this for weeks without any evidence. Investigators found pipe bombs and ammunition in a townhouse rented by the couple who carried out the shooting in the Redlands, not near their home, and their landlord has said he had no reason to suspect them. Neighbors also expressed surprise and alarm, not concerns about political correctness. One local news station reported on 3 December that Aaron Elswick, a neighbor one of the shooters’ mother, recalled hearing yet another neighbor say, in Elswick’s words: “She had noticed that they had, I guess, been receiving packages, quite a few packages within a short amount of time. And that they were actually doing a lot of work out in the garage and she was kind of suspicious and was wanting to report it but she was, ‘I didn’t want to profile.’” Clinton: We’ve had Muslims in America since George Washington Clinton is correct that there were Muslims in the early days of the United States – she doesn’t mention that many of them were slaves, and that George Washington likely claimed ownership of Muslims. Another slave-owning founder was Thomas Jefferson, whose Qur’an has entered congressional lore. Both Jefferson and Washington preached tolerance of religions, Islam included. Raddatz turns to Clinton. She’s asked about her Syrian refugee policy. Clinton: “First of all, I will not let anyone into our country that I think poses a risk to us. But there are a lot of refugees, women and children, think of that picture we all saw, that four year old boy, with blood on his forehead...” In describing the Syrian conflict, she repeatedly mentions “Russian aggression.” “It is important for us as a policy not to say, as Donald has said, we’re going to ban people based on their religion. How do you do that. We are a country founded on religious freedom and liberty... How? Are we going to have religious tests when people fly into our country? And how do we expect to implement those? “Propaganda on a lot of the terrorist sites... What Donald Trump says about Muslims is used to recruit terrorist fighters. .. This is the 10th or 12th time that he’s said he was against the war in Iraq... Trump jumps in, Raddatz tries to cut him off. Trump says he was against the war in Iraq (nope). Then: “She just went about 25 seconds over her time. Can I just respond to this please?” Trump is asked about his call for a Muslim ban, which running mate Mike Pence said was no longer his position. Trump says “Captain Khan is an American hero.. and if I were president at that time he would be alive today.” Clinton gasps. She can’t believe it. “The Muslim ban is something that in some form has morphed into extreme vetting.” Raddatz: please explain. Trump: “It’s called extreme vetting.” Trump just succeeded in making this debate about the re-litigation of Clinton’s emails, rather than policy or any of the recent revelations about his views on women. When the scandal that is threatening to explode his campaign – specifically, his misogynistic comments seemingly endorsing sexual assault – was raised by moderators, Trump managed to redirect the conversation by saying, in something of a non sequitur when Clinton mentioned the law, that Clinton ‘should be in jail’. Clinton couldn’t bring herself to let that barb lie, launching into a calm, collected defense that lasted as long as any topic raised in the debate thus far. And the moderators fell for it. Trump managed to make the Commander in Chief Forum back in September a referendum on Clinton’s emails for the millionth time, and lie about his foreign policy. Moderators shouldn’t let him get away with it this time. “Unfortunately there’s been a lot of divisive, dark things about Muslims,” Clinton tells the questioner. “Some of them by Donald.” She says there have been Muslims in the United States since George Washington. She mentions Muhammad Ali. She says that she has a vision of an inclusive rhetoric. “We need American Muslims to be part of our eyes and ears, on our front lines... make them feel included and that they are part of our country.” She says that to defeat Isis requires a coalition with majority Muslim nations. “We are not at war with Islam, and it is a mistake, and it plays into the hands of the terrorists, to act as if we are.” Clinton: premiums haven’t gotten too high Trump: premium’s are up “68%, 59%, 71%” Both candidates are correct that healthcare premiums have increased since the Affordable Care Act was enacted. On average, premiums have risen by about 5.8% a year since Barack Obama took office, compared to 13.2% in the nine years before Obama, Politifact found earlier this year. Trump, however, is cherry-picking data from various states and providers where rates have had higher jumps. Trump: “She wants to go to single-payer” Clinton has not proposed a wholesale shift to a single-player system, as Bernie Sanders urged throughout the Democratic primary. She has, however, proposed an expansion of the government program to include tax credits and reduced prescription drug costs. Ominous. That seems to be Trump’s debate style tonight. He threatens to jail his election opponent if elected president: a great tactic for, say, Zimbabwe, but perhaps not so familiar to a constitutional democracy. He attacks the moderators for failing to talk about emails, right after talking about emails. And he looms behind Clinton on the debate stage like a bouncer in need of a new job. It’s a unique debating style, that’s for sure. A self-identified Muslim questionner asks Trump about how to address Islamophobia. “You’re right about Islamophobia, and that’s a shame,” Trump says. “Whether we like it or not, there is a problem.” Trump says that Muslims “have to report it” when they see something “going on.” He repeats an oft-told lie about “bombs all over the floor” of an apartment in San Bernardino. Trump says that Clinton can’t fight terrorism because she can’t say “the name radical Islamic terror.” Clinton’s turn. Hillary is talking about how premiums have risen – here are the statistics behind that statement. The average annual premium in 2015 was $17,545 for family coverage: that has risen 61% since 2005 and 27% since 2010. Question for Trump: How do you cover preexisting conditions without requiring people to have health insurance. Trump: “You’re going to have plans that are so good, because we’re going to have so much competition.” Cooper’s further attempts to get Trump actually to describe a plan in any detail beyond “competition” are futile. Trump does mention Medicaid block grants there at the end. Clinton is asked about Bill Clinton’s comments that Obamacare is the “craziest system.” Hillary Clinton says that Clinton clarified his comments. SHe says there’s a sytem in place that needs to be built upon. Trump is doing the thing again where he stands behind her like he’s about to fall on her or tap her on the shoulder. He looks like an entitled butler. She may not be distracted but it’s distracting. Trump: Clinton’s campaign and Sidney Blumenthal started the birther conspiracy There is no evidence that Clinton or her campaign had anything to do with the false rumors that Barack Obama was not born in the United States, nor did Clinton have anything to do with the five years Donald Trump spent questioning Obama’s citizenship and religion. Trump’s campaign has tried to blame several people who were tangentially related to the Clinton campaign, if at all. A former aide named Mark Penn wrote a 2007 memo that Obama’s “lack of American roots” could “hold him back”. But he added: “We are never going to say anything about his background.” The Clinton campaign never acted on Penn’s advice and he was dismissed in April 2008. Sidney Blumenthal, an old friend of the Clintons who frequently sent them unsolicited advice, reportedly asked reporters to investigate Obama’s birth. He has denied this and denounced the conspiracy. Clinton: “After a year-long investigation there is no evidence that anyone hacked the server I was using, and there is no evidence that anyone can point to at all, anyone who says otherwise has no basis … has no evidence that classified material ended up in the wrong hands.” This is a highly legalistic answer. FBI director James Comey, who led the investigation and found that Clinton’s practices were “extremely careless”, said it was very likely that Clinton’s server was hacked. Trump gets the question. “It is such a great question,” he says. “Obamacare is a disaster. You know it, we all known it... In ‘17 in implodes by itself.” He says it will never work. He says it’s very bad. He says it’s far too expensive. He says “repeal and replace.” He sniffles. His first concrete idea is to erase state insurance markets in favor of a national market. He says Clinton wants single payer like Canada. He disses Canada. “Hillary Clinton has been after this for years,” he says. He says rates and deductibles are going up. He made it all the way through two minutes. Health care question. Clinton has to cross the stage to answer it. Trump slides into place in front of his chair, still standing, a few feet behind her. It looks like he’s stalking her. He’s been trying to push her around tonight, blustering, interrupting, threatening. Clinton meanwhile is giving a detailed, unbothered answer about how to fix Obamacare. “Right now we are at 90% health insurance coverage....” and her time is up. We appear to have lost a block, deleted by the system. It culminated with Trump’s assertion that if he were president, Clinton “would be in jail.” Trump interrupts Clinton again and again. Clinton: I know you’re into big diversion tonight. Anything to avoid talking about your campaign and its explosion and how Republicans are leaving it. .. Trump interrupts again. Trump: “The inner-cities of our country, which are a disaster, education-wise, job-wise, safety-wise.” Trump’s repeated claim that inner cities are a “disaster” or “hell” defies most of American history. Even if Trump is only referring to the past 50 years, his characterization of life for African Americans in cities is still wrong by most if not all metrics. Data on employment, education and health show empirical evidence for persistent discrimination against black Americans, but also show major gains in the last few decades. In 2015, black people earned just 75% as much as whites in median hourly earnings, whether full- or part-time, according to a Pew Research analysis. The black unemployment rate in August 2016 was 8.1%, compared with 4.4% for white people, but still lower than for most of the last 40 years. Black life expectancy has increased from the mid-30s around 1900 to the mid-70s in 2016, according to the CDC. Education rates have similarly increased in the last 40 years, according to the census. Trump: “Bill Clinton was abusive to women. Hillary Clinton attacked those same women, four of those women are here tonight … She’s seen laughing on two occasions, laughing at rape.” Trump is referring to audio from the early 1980s in which Clinton, then running a legal aid clinic in Arkansas, jokes with a reporter about the legal system in context of a rape case she she had been assigned by a judge to take. In the recording, she laughs about the accuracy of polygraphs, access to evidence and the judge’s discomfort with the discussing the case before her. She also calls the case “terrible” and “fascinating”. In one of her memoirs she says she felt uncomfortable being assigned the case. The case against her client eventually collapsed, and charges were reduced to unlawful fondling of a minor. In 2014, the victim told the Daily Beast: “Hillary Clinton took me through hell.” According to diaries by a friend of Clinton, she called Monica Lewinsky a “narcissistic loony toon”, albeit in private. According to the New York Times, the Clinton campaign hired a private investigator to find material to tarnish Gennifer Flowers’ reputation. Hillary Clinton’s role in the investigation is not clear, but in June 1992 she said on the Arsenio Hall Show that Flowers had “got lots of problems”. Trump joked about sexual assault in the 2005 video released by the Washington Post on Friday, saying that he believed fame gave him the right to “grab [women] by the pussy”. Trump: Bill Clinton “had to pay an $850,000 fine to one of the women, Paula Jones who is here tonight.” Paula Jones was an Arkansas state employee who alleged that Bill Clinton, while he was governor in 1991, exposed himself in a sexual advance on her. In 1994 she sued him for sexual harassment, but a federal judge dismissed the case on the grounds that even if her allegations were true (at least one of her claims was found false) the behavior did not constitute sexual harassment under the law’s definition of it. Jones appealed, and in 1998 Clinton settled for $850,000 without admission of guilt or apology. In a deposition for that suit, Clinton denied having sexual relations with White House intern Monica Lewinsky – a falsehood that led to his eventual impeachment trial, in which he was acquitted by the Senate in 1999. In 1998, Trump called Paula Jones a “loser” in an interview uncovered by CNN, and told Fox News that she and other accusers “are terrible” and Clinton “he is really a victim himself. But he put himself in that position”. “It’s just a really unattractive group. I’m not just talking about physical,” he said. Clinton: “He never apologizes to anything or anyone.” Trump did apologize for his 2005 comments about groping women, albeit without specifics and with the continued excuse that “it was locker room talk”. He also apologized vaguely for things he “regretted” earlier this year, but did not specify to whom he meant the apology. Raddatz asks Clinton a follow up about the email. Clinton says she has admitted fault. Trump jumps in. He says Clinton said she didn’t know what the letter “C” in her emails meant. Trump now goes hard on the emails. He says that there’s no way her “30,000 deleted emails” - that’s his own number – were all about Chelsea Clinton’s wedding. Trump is briefly on Bill Clinton’s meeting with attorney general Loretta Lynch on a tarmac. If you weren’t aware already, grabbing a woman in the “pussy” without their consent is sexual assault. And sexual assault isn’t just “locker room talk” – it’s an everyday occurrence in the US. Each year in the US, there are 288,820 victims (aged 12 or older) of rape and sexual assault, based on averaged statistics from 2010 to 2014 from the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Q for Trump: did you change after age 59 when the hot mic tape was made.? Or when did you change? Trump: “That was locker room talk. I’m not proud of it. I’m a person who has great respect.. but that was something.. Then Trump attacks Clinton: If you look at Bill Clinton... there’s never been anyone in the history of politics in this nation that’s been so abusive to women... Hillary Clinton attacked those same women, and attacked them viciously, four of them here tonight. One of them... was raped at 12 years old.. you can hear [Clinton] laughing on tape... So don’t tell me about words. But what president Clinton did. He lost his license. He had to pay an $850,000 fine (it was a settlement). Trump: “I think it’s disgraceful, and I think she should be ashamed of herself, if you want to know the truth.” The audience applauds it. Clinton says a lot of that was not accurate, continuing: When I hear something like that, I am reminded of what my friend Michelle Obama advised us all. “When they go low, you go high. Look if this was just about one video... But he never apologizes for anything to anyone. He never apologized to Mr and Mrs Khan, the gold star family whose son died... He never apologized to the distinguished federal judge who was born in Indiana but Donald said he couldnt’ be trusted because his parents were Mexican. She also mentions Trump’s birtherism and his mocking a disabled reporter. Clinton says Trump owes the country an apology. Trump: “the US is giving back $150bn to a terrorist state.” The US is not giving any of its own money to Iran as part of an international nuclear arms deal meant to prevent the construction of weapons. The deal gradually unfreezes assets that belong to Iran but were frozen under sanctions related to the nation’s nuclear program. Sanctions related to human rights, terrorism and other issues remain in place and still lock Iran out of billions. Trump’s guess of how much Iran will benefit by unfrozen assets is far higher than most experts’ estimates, though not inconceivable. Treasury secretary Jack Lew has put the number at $56bn; Iranian officials have said $32bn and $100bn. Independent economists have calculated that Iran will free up anything between $30bn to $100bn. Complicating the math are Iran’s debts: it will have to pay off tens of billions to countries such as China. Trump: “Just today, policemen were shot, two killed, and this is happening on a weekly basis.” Two police officers were shot dead on Saturday in Palm Springs. Trump’s claim is only one slice of a much larger story that does not support his argument. His campaign cited data from the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund (NLEOMF), which does show a 56% increase in officers killed by guns between 1 January and 16 July 2016 (28) compared with the same span in 2015 (18). But according to the nonprofit group, officer deaths overall, including from traffic accidents and job-related illnesses, are roughly on par with figures from this point in 2015: 60 deaths this year to 61 the year before. The nonprofit’s data also shows that police fatalities overall have declined in the last 15 years: the last seven years of Barack Obama’s presidency saw an average of 135 police deaths, a 17% decline on the final seven years of George W Bush’s administration, which saw an average of 162 a year. Gun deaths have declined, though only slightly, between the administrations. Police fatalities have in general declined in the last 40 years: from 1991 to 2000, an average of 162 officers were killed each year; from 1981 to 1990, an average of 186; from 1971 to 1980, an average of 230. The deadliest era for police in the US was prohibition. In the years between its enactment and repeal, from 1920 to 1933, an average of 250 officers were killed each year. Gun-related deaths were highest in 1973, according to the NLEOMF figures, when 156 officers were killed. The FBI also reports police deaths with information submitted to it from various law enforcement agencies, though its most recent figures date to 2014. According to such data, that year 96 law enforcement officers were killed, 51 by “felonious acts” and 45 in accidents, and 48,315 officers were assaulted while on duty. Forty-six of the officers were killed by guns; 28 in accidental deaths died in car accidents. Almost 80% of assaults were by people using their hands and feet. The last four years of Bush’s presidency and the first four of Obama’s saw about the same number of gun-related police deaths, according to this data, with about 46 a year. Trump: “I did not say that … it’s locker room talk.” Trump did say that he would “grab [women] by the pussy”, and was recorded saying so in 2005 in a video published by the Washington Post on Friday. Pressed by moderator Anderson Cooper, he did admit to having made the comment, though he then said he had never actually acted in the way. He was accused of “attempted rape” in the 1990s, though never convicted. Trump wants to reply. “It’s just words, folks. It’s just words. Those words I’ve been hearing them for many years.” He says Clinton has failed to bring jobs to upstate New York, to fix inner cities. He says he will help “the African Americans, the Latinos, Hispanics.” Sniffles. Will he bring up Bill Clinton? Raddatz interrupts Trump. Trump: “so she’s allowed but I’m not?” “Sounds fair,” says Trump, sarcastically. Clinton says she’s been thinking about the Trump tape. And it made her question his fitness to serve. “I said starting back in June that he was not fit to be president... What we all saw and heard on Friday was Donald talking about women. What he thinks about women, what he does to women... I think it’s clear to anyone who heard it that it represents exactly who he is. Because we’ve seen this throughout the campaign. We’ve seen him insult women. We’ve seen him rate women on their appearance... spend nearly a week denigrating a former Ms Universe... so yes this is who Donald Trump is. “But it’s not only women.. Because he has also targeted immigrants, African Americans, Latinos, people with disabilities.... “Yes this is who he is... this is not who we are.” “I want to send a message that America already is great, but we are great because we are good. ... This is the America that I know and love.” Hillary takes the highest of high roads from the get-go. “I want to heal this country and bring it together,” she says, after avoiding the traditional handshake at the start of the debate. Because who, after all, would want to shake those (tiny) hands. Donald, of course, takes the low road of describing a country going to hell: a subject he knows quite well. Trump is asked about the hot mic. Cooper says “you’ve bragged that you’ve sexually assaulted women.” Trump denies it. “This was locker room talk. I’m not proud of it. I’m not proud of it...” Then he says it was OK because... Isis? “This is a world where you have Isis... he’s on to steel cages...” Now he’s back: “yes I’m very embarrassed by it... but I will knock the hell out of Isis. But I will take care of Isis.” Cooper: Are you saying that you’ve never assaulted women? Trump: “I have great respect for women, nobody has more respect for women than I do.” Cooper: “Have you ever done those things?” Trump: “No I have not. I’m going to make our country safe.” Trump says “I agree with everything she said.” “I began this campaign because I was tired of seeing such foolish things happen in this country... My whole concept was to make America great again. Where I watch... what’s happening with some horrible things, like Obamacare, where your health care is going up...” He skips to mentions of the Iran deal, “all of the things that I see and all the potential that our country has...” He sniffles again. He mentions the trade deficit. “You say who’s making these deals. He mentions the two police officers shot in California Saturday.” Now he’s onto to inner cities and African Americans. It’s as scattered and unfocused as any of his answers. First question, from the audience. A woman asks whether the candidates are modeling appropriate behavior for today’s youth? Clinton says good question. “It is very important for us to make clear to our children that our country really is great because we’re good. We are really going to respect one another, lift each other up... celebrate our diversity... “I have a very positive and optimistic view about what we can do. That’s why the slogan of my campaign is ‘stronger together.’” Clinton is answering professionally and on topic. But there’s such energy in the room. Is she racing? Relaxed? “It is my hope that we can come together in this campaign... I’m hoping to win your vote... I want to be the president for all Americans.” The candidates walk in smiling. They do not shake hands. Instead the nod at each other and kind of shuffle step a bit close. Here we go. Moderators Martha Raddatz and Anderson Cooper have welcomed the crowd and sat down. Any moment now. #ff Hillary Clinton tweets a Michelle Obama line: “When they go low, we go high.” Bill Clinton is announced and walks in. He looks deadly serious. He shakes hands with the Trump family members who walk in: Melania, Ivanka, Eric and Donald Jr. If you’re just joining us – welcome to our live-wire coverage of the second presidential debate, and thank you for coming. Donald Trump has attempted to hijack the night – or set it going in the appropriate direction, his campaign would say – by appearing in St Louis with three women who have accused Bill Clinton of sexual assault or rape (two of them contradicting that claim in sworn statements and a third having settled a lawsuit). A fourth woman appeared with Trump whose rapist (ultimately convicted of a lesser charge) was defended by Hillary Clinton when she was a 27-year-old lawyer. The four women are guests of Trump’s in the debate hall tonight at Washington University in St Louis. The format is a town hall, with forty uncommitted voters selected by Gallup asking some of the questions. The moderators are ABC’s Martha Raddatz and CNN’s Anderson Cooper. The debate is to last 90 minutes with no commercial interruptions. The first question, the moderators have said, was to be about Trump’s remarks caught by a hot mic that being a star meant he could “do anything” to women for example “grab them by the pussy.” The Clinton campaign called Trump’s appearance with the Bill Clinton accusers a “stunt” in a statement that concluded, “as always, she’s prepared to handle whatever Donald Trump throws her way.” Trump’s own disparaging comments about one of the women he appeared with, Paula Jones, and other women linked to Bill Clinton have resurfaced this evening, as have reports about hostile working environments for women in Trump companies and on his reality show. Here’s video of Trump’s appearance with Bill Clinton’s accusers: Thanks again for reading and please join us in the comments. The ’s Ben Jacobs: The “Bill Clinton raped” strategy and its exponents have been competing for oxygen in the Trump campaign for months. Now it’s the campaign’s primary message. An early and zealous proselytizer of the line has been Trump shadow adviser Roger Stone, whose judgment perhaps is on display in his announcement tonight that he is pre-gaming the debate with 9/11 and Sandy Hook truther Alex Jones: Here’s the 1998 interview we mentioned earlier in which Trump says “Paula Jones is a loser” and shares other opinions at odds perhaps with his current presentation as a defender of women: Billy Bush, the Bush family cousin and former Access Hollywood host who can be heard egging Donald Trump on as Trump describes aggressive sexual advances on women in the hot mic video, has been suspended by NBC News from his post at the Today show, CNN reports. It was unclear whether Bush would return to the show, according to the report. As we near debate time, here’s more reading about Bill Clinton, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton and women: Juanita Broaddrick’s Rape Allegations Are Credible. Her Attacks on Hillary Clinton Are Not. To be clear, I’ve always found Broaddrick’s claims about Bill Clinton credible, though only the two of them know the truth. Five people say she told them about the assault right after it allegedly happened. She denied the rape in a 1997 affidavit filed with Paula Jones’ lawyers but changed her story the next year, when she was interviewed by the FBI in the course of Kenneth Starr’s investigation. At the time, some Clinton defenders treated her changing story as evidence of her untrustworthiness, but it seems perfectly plausible that, as she told the New York Times, she hadn’t wanted to go public but also felt she couldn’t lie to federal investigators. In the 1990s, Clinton defenders sometimes pointed to the fact that Broaddrick attended a Clinton fundraiser three weeks after she says he raped her. But we know it’s not uncommon for rape victims to blame themselves and continue to seek their rapists’ favor. After all, I also believe Jill Harth, who accused Donald Trump of sexual harassment and attempted rape, even though later, reeling from a divorce, she became his girlfriend. Far less credible, however, is Broaddrick’s claim that Hillary Clinton tried to intimidate her into silence. Click through above to read the full piece. Trump, companies accused of mistreating women in at least 20 lawsuits One woman sued Donald Trump’s Miami resort saying she lost her job because she got pregnant. Two others claimed they were fired after complaining that co-workers sexually harassed them. And a number of women testified in a lawsuit that Trump himself repeatedly instructed managers to hire younger, prettier workers at his Los Angeles golf club. The release of a video Friday showing Trump’s sexist remarks in 2005 has created a firestorm of controversy that threatens to derail his campaign. But an ongoing USA TODAY investigation of Trump’s 4,000-plus lawsuits shows that he and his companies have been accused for years of mistreating women. Click through above to read the full piece. AP: ‘Apprentice’ cast and crew say Trump was lewd and sexist NEW YORK (AP) — In his years as a reality TV boss on “The Apprentice,” Donald Trump repeatedly demeaned women with sexist language, according to show insiders who said he rated female contestants by the size of their breasts and talked about which ones he’d like to have sex with. The Associated Press interviewed more than 20 people — former crew members, editors and contestants — who described crass behavior by Trump behind the scenes of the long-running hit show, in which aspiring capitalists were given tasks to perform as they competed for jobs working for him. The staffers and contestants agreed to recount their experiences as Trump’s behavior toward women has become a core issue in the presidential campaign. Interviewed separately, they gave concurring accounts of inappropriate conduct on the set. Eight former crew members recalled that he repeatedly made lewd comments about a camerawoman he said had a nice rear, comparing her beauty to that of his daughter, Ivanka. During one season, Trump called for female contestants to wear shorter dresses that also showed more cleavage, according to contestant Gene Folkes. Several cast members said Trump had one female contestant twirl before him so he could ogle her figure. Click through above to read the full piece. Trump campaign manager calls on Hillary Clinton to acknowledge the women with whom Trump just appeared – they apparently will be in the town hall as well? The Clinton campaign has released a statement attributed to communications director Jennifer Palmieri on Trump’s appearance with three Bill Clinton accusers: We’re not surprised to see Donald Trump continue his destructive race to the bottom. Hillary Clinton understands the opportunity in this town hall is to talk to voters on stage and in the audience about the issues that matter to them, and this stunt doesn’t change that. If Donald Trump doesn’t see that, that’s his loss. As always, she’s prepared to handle whatever Donald Trump throws her way.” Dozens of elected Republican officials, including at least 10 senators, abandoned Donald Trump on Saturday. Many other Republican candidates continue to stand behind Trump, however. Ever since Trump became the Republican nominee, we’ve been tracking where every Republican member of Congress and governor, former nominees, and influential others stand. Here’s our comprehensive interactive tool, “Who supports Donald Trump? The new Republican center of gravity”: Paula Jones, the former Arkansas state employee who accused then-governor Bill Clinton of making unwanted advances and exposing himself to her in a Little Rock hotel room in 1991, had nice things to say about Donald Trump just then. “I think everyone else should vote for him, look at the fact that he is a good person, not what other people have said,” Jones said. But Trump has not always had nice things to say about Jones. In a 1998 CNBC interview reported now by CNN, Trump called Jones a “loser”: “I don’t necessarily agree with his victims,” Trump said to Fox News’ Neil Cavuto in a clip uncovered earlier in the year by the “Daily Beast.” “His victims are terrible. He is, he is really a victim himself. But he put himself in that position.” “These people are just, I don’t know, where he met them - where he found them,” Trump continued. “But the whole group — it’s truly an unattractive cast of characters. Linda Tripp, Lucianne Goldberg, I mean, this woman, I watch her on television. She is so bad. The whole group, Paula Jones, Lewinsky, it’s just a really unattractive group. I’m not just talking about physical.” As long as we’re in the vault of Trump commentary on Bill Clinton’s sins.... in a 1999 Chris Matthews interview, Trump, talking about potentially running for president, said, “You think about Clinton and the women. How about me with the women? Can you imagine?” Donald Trump has just made brief appearance at the Four Seasons Hotel in St. Louis with three women who have accused Bill Clinton of rape or sexual assault and one woman whose accused rapist (ultimately convicted of lesser charges) was defended by Hillary Clinton when Clinton was a 27-year-old lawyer in Arkansas. You can watch the news conference here. Appearing with Trump were Paula Jones, a former Arkansas state employee who in 1999 settled a sexual harassment case against Bill Clinton for $850,000 with no admission of guilt; Juanita Broaddrick, a former Arkansas nursing home administrator who says Clinton raped her in 1978, although in the 1990s she said in a sworn deposition that accusations of sexual assault against Clinton were untrue; Kathleen Willey, a former White House aide who said Clinton groped her in 1993 but also once testified that had not happened; and Kathy Shelton, whose accused rapist (ultimately convicted of a lesser crime), in a crime that occurred when she was 12 years old, was defended in court by Hillary Clinton in a case that was assigned to her. Tapes later emerged of Hillary Clinton discussing the case with a reporter; several times on the tapes Clinton can be heard to laugh or giggle, once at a polygraph joke and other times at insider courthouse humor. In turn, the women say they are supporting Trump and explain briefly why. At the end of the appearance, reporters ask Trump if his star power allows him to touch women without their consent. “Why don’t y’all go ask Bill Clinton that?” Jones says. “Why don’t y’all go ask Bill Clinton that?” Here’s a transcript: Trump Thank you very much for coming and these four very courageous woman have asked to be here and help them. Jones: I’m here to support Mr Trump because he’s here to make American great again, and I think everyone else should vote for him, look at the fact that he is a good person, not what other people have said. Shelton: I’m also here to support Trump. At 12 years old, Hillary Clinton put me through something you should never put a 12 year old through, and she says she is for women and children.. Broaddrick: I’m Juanita Broaddrick and I’m here to support Donald Trump. I tweeted recently and Mr Trump RT’d that I was raped by Bill Clinton. Actions speak louder than words, Mr Trump may have said some bad words, but Bill Clinton raped me and Hillary Clinton threatened me, I don’t think there is any comparison. Willey: I’m Kathleen Willey, and I’m here to support Donald Trump, the reason that is, the first day that he announced his presidential run, he said I love this country and I want America to be great again, and I cried when he said that, because I think this is the greatest country in the world. Barack Obama addressed the controversy surrounding taped remarks by Donald Trump on Sunday, criticising what he said was “unbelievable” and “disturbing” rhetoric from the Republican nominee to succeed him. Obama was speaking in Chicago, at a fundraiser for the Illinois US Senate candidate Tammy Duckworth. Without saying Trump’s name, he said there was a reason why the Republican presidential candidate had denigrated women, veterans, people with disabilities, Mexicans and others during the 2016 campaign. “It tells you that he’s insecure enough that he pumps himself up by putting other people down,” Obama said. “Not a character trait that I would advise for somebody in the Oval Office.” “The unbelievable rhetoric” from Trump was “disturbing”, Obama said, adding, to laughter: “I don’t need to repeat it: there are children in the room.” On Facebook, Donald Trump has just shared a Breitbart story titled Clinton News Network Telegraphs Its Anti-Trump Strategy for Tonight’s Rigged Presidential Debate. The Breitbart piece picks up on a CNN report that debate moderators Martha Raddatz and Anderson Cooper plan to make the first question about Trump’s hot mic comments. A coin flip determined Clinton will get the first question. That means that Clinton will get first comment on the hot mic remarks. #rigged Trump has often applied the word “rigged” to the Republican and Democratic parties’ methods for anointing presidential nominees and to elections at large. In 2012 he passionately blamed Mitt Romney’s loss on a rigged election. And as Fox News host Megyn Kelly found out more than a year ago, nothing is more unfair, in Trump’s estimation, than asking about derogatory comments he has made about women. On the theme of internecine Trump-Republican warfare (see last block), here are Trump surrogate talking points for attacking elected Republicans, as emailed earlier today to New York Times reporter Jonathan Martin: Trump talking pts urge total war on Rs: “They are more concerned with their political future than they are about the future of the country” WE DON’T NEED EM. Trump talkers > “Trump won the Primary without the help of the insiders and he’ll win the General without them, too” Trump himself has blasted the haters on Twitter: Corey Lewandowski, the former Trump campaign manager who was still on the campaign payroll even after he took his current gig opinion-izing on CNN, has just slammed Reince Priebus, the chairman of the Republican National Committee. “Not only is he weak, he’s a failed leader,” Lewandowski said. It’s unclear whether Lewandowski’s comments represent current Trump campaign thinking on the national party leadership. While Priebus criticized Trump’s “grab them by the pussy” comments, he has not called for the nominee to step aside and in fact traveled today with the candidate from New York to St Louis, according to an airborne shot tweeted by current Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway: (Priebus is the short guy (like me) on the left looking at Trump with eyes wide open.) Priebus did pull out of a planned appearance on CBS’ Face the Nation today. He released a statement on the Trump hot mic video saying, “No woman should ever be described in these terms or talked about in this manner. Ever.” Here’s a bonus Priebus-Trump plane shot, from happier times, this summer: Spin room organizers appear to have misspelled (well, somebody did) the name of AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka on his spin-room baton. They spelled it “Trumpka”: Inspired by Trump’s informing a TV host that his stardom means he can “do anything” to women such as “grab them by the pussy,” Canadian-American recording artist Kim Boekbinder (who has a Kickstarter for an album in progress) has produced the track “Pussy grabs back.” Have a listen: We’ve been saying it for years But you’ve been blocking up your ears Until a man himself said it And now you’re all shocked That stupid look on your face As you look on in disgrace You know on November 8th This vote is getting rocked “Pussy grabs back” is the refrain. There’s some more Trump fan art out there tonight... Thousands of women have shared their experiences of sexual assault and rape culture on Twitter in the wake of Donald Trump’s comments about grabbing women “by the pussy”. Amid the outrage over Trump’s remarks, Canadian writer Kelly Oxford called on women to tweet about their first assaults, describing the first time she was sexually assaulted, on a bus when she was 12. Oxford went on to describe a total of five sexual assaults. The response to her tweet was overwhelming, with Oxford saying she was received replies at the rate of 50 per minute for 14 hours. “Anyone denying rape culture,” she wrote, “look at my timeline now.” Read further: And here’s some additional pre-debate recommended reading: “Donald and Billy on the Bus,” by Lindy West writing in the New York Times: Every woman knows a version of Donald Trump. Most of us have known more of them than we can (or care to) recall. He’s the boss who thinks you owe him something; the date who thinks that silence means “yes” and “no” means “try harder”; the stranger who thinks your body’s mere existence constitutes an invitation to touch, take, own and destroy. He’s every deadbeat hookup, every narcissistic loser, every man who’s ever tried to leverage power, money, fame, credibility or physical strength to snap your boundaries like matchsticks. He is hot fear and cold dread and a pit in your stomach. He’s the man who held you back, who never took you seriously, who treated you like nothing until you started to believe it, who raped you and told you it was your fault and whose daddy was a cop so who would believe you anyway? Come on, women. You know this man. I can name the ones in my past — name yours and imagine each as president, with every woman’s life in his care. Would you even trust him to watch your dog? (That’s a trick question because he would never do it. His defining characteristic is that he does not care about you.) Read the full piece here. In apologizing for saying that it was his right as a star to “grab them by the pussy,” Donald Trump also said, “anyone who knows me knows these words don’t reflect who I am.” The ’s Lucia Graves has spoken with a woman, Jill Harth, who says that two decades ago, Trump cornered her and groped her in his daughter’s bedroom. Here’s Lucia’s report: A woman at the centre of sexual assault allegations against Donald Trump has spoken for the first time in detail about her personal experience with the billionaire tycoon who this week became the Republican nominee for president. Jill Harth, a makeup artist, has stayed quiet for almost 20 years about the way Trump pursued her, and – according to a lawsuit she instigated – cornered her and groped her in his daughter’s bedroom. After Trump mounted his campaign for the White House, details emerged of the 1997 complaint, in which Harth accused him of “attempted ‘rape’”. She said she was quickly inundated with interview requests from major US television networks, but resolved not to speak about the events – until Trump publicly said in May that her claims were “meritless” and his daughter Ivanka gave an interview in which she said her father was “not a groper”. Harth, who feels she has been publicly branded a liar and believes her business has suffered because of her association with the allegations, decided to speak out about her experience with Trump because she wants an apology. In an hour-long interview at the ’s New York office on Tuesday, Harth said she stands by her charges against Trump, which run from low-grade sexual harassment to an episode her lawyers described in the lawsuit as “attempted ‘rape’”. She first met Trump in December 1992 at his offices in Trump Tower, where she and her then romantic partner, George Houraney, were making a business presentation. The couple wanted to recruit Trump to back their American Dream festival, in which Harth oversaw a pin-up competition known as American Dream Calendar Girls. Harth described that meeting as “the highlight of our career”. But in other ways, it was something of a lowlight: Trump took an interest in Harth immediately and began subjecting her to a steady string of unwanted sexual advances, detailed by Harth in her complaint. Read the full piece here: Here’s a quick look at how some of the team is arrayed. Washington bureau chief Dan Roberts (@robertsdan) is in St Louis, as are politics reporters Sabrina Siddiqui (@sabrinasiddiqui) and Ben Jacobs (@bencjacobs). Washington correspondent David Smith will be providing analysis out of Washington, while reporter Adam Gabbatt (@adamgabbatt) will be at Parx Casino in Bensalem, Pennsylvania, to watch the show. Also pitching in tonight will be Alan Yuhas, checking facts as fast as he can type; US data editor Mona Chalabi; and roving reporter Amber Jamieson. Contributing comment in real time will be US columnist Lucia Graves (@lucia_graves). Hello and welcome to our live-wire coverage of the second presidential debate of 2016. Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump are scheduled to meet onstage at Washington University in St Louis, Missouri, beginning at 9pm ET. The debate, a town-hall style event with audience members asking some of the questions, is to last 90 minutes without commercial interruption. ABC’s Martha Raddatz and CNN’s Anderson Cooper will moderate. We’ll have multiple live video streams for you right here. The 48 hours leading up to the debate have been packed with extraordinary developments. These include a mass mutiny by the Republican party against its presidential nominee and an eager counter-attack by the nominee on the party. “This is basically the insiders versus the outsiders,” Trump surrogate Rudy Giuliani said on Saturday. The bloodletting began on Friday afternoon, when video emerged of Trump saying in 2005 on a hot mic that as “a star” he could sexually exploit women – “grab them by the pussy, you can do anything”. A lukewarm apology by Trump hours later did not prevent a stunning race for the exit by dozens of elected Republicans, including at least 10 senators who had previously supported Trump. Many called on him to withdraw from the race. Trump may escalate his attack on his party tonight. But a second attack could be even more incendiary, one he previewed in his midnight apology video: Bill Clinton has actually abused women, and Hillary has bullied, attacked shamed and intimidated his victims. We will discuss this more in the coming days. See you at the debate on Sunday. Both Clinton and Trump have arrived in St Louis. The Clinton campaign said the candidate was conducting final preparations with aides – so, takeout? Clinton communications director Jennifer Palmieri told reporters she wasn’t sure that Clinton had even viewed the Trump hot mic video. Of course not. Thanks for reading and please join us in the comments.
Earthxit? Support for Earth leaving the solar system is overstated The referendum on Earth’s membership of the solar system is really hotting up, much like the planet’s atmosphere. However, despite the passionate arguments and positions on both sides of the debate, recent analysis suggests that the human race isn’t split 50/50 on the issue and that support for forcibly exiting the planet Earth from the Sol system is somewhat overstated. Dr Allison McAllister of the Federation for Furthering Science (FFS) conducted an exhaustive study on all the available data and collection methods and stated that the current approaches tend to heavily favour those who believe Earth would be better off as an independent planet, slowly and aimlessly wandering the cosmos while rapidly freezing solid and becoming hostile to all present life forms (within reason). “Current polling methods tend to favour online surveys, which are known to bias results to the more passionate and engaged respondents, who typically favour Earth’s exit from the solar system” McAllister explained. “However, phone polls show a much clearer lead for the Earth remaining in orbit around our current sun”. “Then there’s the fact that for a decision as monumental as this, all life forms on Earth gets a vote, and both phone and internet polls strongly bias the data in favour of the human views”. McAllister admitted that FFS had attempted to conduct polls of several other species, but they had proved less useful. “What we ended up with was a large database of various moos, squawks, chirps, barks and unsettling squelches. Quite interesting from a zoological perspective no doubt, but it doesn’t tell us a great deal about voting intentions”. The referendum on Earth’s membership of the solar system, scheduled for this June, came about from a growing sense of dissatisfaction and frustration among certain aspects of society regarding Earth’s treatment by other elements of the solar system. “It’s ridiculous that Earth has to contribute so much to this solar system and get so little in return. We didn’t ask to be part of this cosmic grouping, it was forced upon us, and most of us now feel that the arrangement is costing us more than it benefits” claimed Mr Neville Carnage, spokesman for the exit-backing “Earth Out” campaign. “How many probes have we sent to the other planets? And at what cost? And how many have we received in return? None! It’s high time we stopped letting those bone-idle masses drain our resources.” When it was pointed out that none of the other planets seem to house life forms capable of constructing and launching space probes, Mr Carnage dismissed this as “bureaucratic red tape, the sort of thing that’s constantly holding us back”. Arguments that the copious knowledge gained from space probes was worth the financial cost were also readily dismissed. “I didn’t get where I am today by embracing knowledge, thank you very much” Mr Carnage stated. McAllister’s study did point out that, as well as the aforementioned economic aspects, many of the arguments put forward by supporters of Earth’s exit from the solar system have proved effective in garnering support from the wider public, such as Earth’s almost negligible mass when compared to many of the other planets, Saturn’s hogging of all the cool rings, the inhospitable conditions and distances of our closest neighbours making them undesirable tourist destinations, and the constant threat of meteorite bombardment. However, McAllister also observed that the exit campaigns have also been hindered by an often chaotic and confusing message, with many different campaigns (Earth Out, Earthxit, The Only SOLution etc.) often working at cross purposes, and with sometimes contradictory positions (e.g. leaving the solar system will undo global warming while simultaneously denying that such a thing is happening). There is also much confusion around exactly how the Earth will be removed from the solar system if the vote does go that way. Some say the use of elaborate solar-sail technology will be needed, others favour the use of gravitational effects from manipulating orbital bodies. “Whatever the solution, it will no doubt be vastly expensive and laborious, which does undercut the claimed economic benefits of leaving the solar system somewhat” McAllister pointed out. “There’s also the matter where we’d go if we do leave. Many Exit campaigners have stated that Alpha Centauri is sure to take us in, but we’ve had no confirmation of this”. “Admittedly, such confirmation would take at least 4.2 years to get here, and the campaign hasn’t been going that long”. There is also the potential for confusion as to what happens if the Earth votes to leave but the moon decides to remain, which could cause all manner of legal and practical headaches. By contrast, the arguments of the remain campaign seem less provocative but more reassuring, such as the fact that Jupiter actually protects Earth from asteroids, and that our specific orbit around the sun gives us our many seasons, so leaving the solar system would mean we lose summer at the very least. Reasons given by those pledged to vote to remain have often proved even more succinct, such as “How is this even a question?” and “Wouldn’t that kill everyone and everything?” When pushed, McAllister stated she tries to remain as neutral as possible, but overall feels she will vote for Earth to remain in the solar system. “As cool as it would be to see Alpha Centauri, I’m a professional academic. We have to relocate enough as it is.” Dean Burnett would like to clarify that this is a spoof, but finds it increasingly depressing that doing so is necessary. He’s on Twitter, @garwboy. The Idiot Brain by Dean Burnett ( Faber, £12.99). To order a copy for £7.99, go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. Phone orders min. p&p of £1.99.
Lady Gaga: Perfect Illusion review – underwhelming comeback in search of a melody Lady Gaga’s gradual descent towards middlebrow has been, well, disconcerting. Her last solo album, 2013’s ARTPOP, was more bluster than soul. The few great pop songs were sunk by baffling publicity stunts – was it the flying dress? The half-baked iPad app? The cancelled R. Kelly video? The empress had no clothes. Her public performances in the three years since – singing jazz standards with Tony Bennett, her Sound of Music medley at the Oscars – have relied on the one thing that’ll never fail her: her voice. She sounded triumphant, but it was all so conservative. Why was one of the world’s most vital popstars so stuck in the past? The first thing you notice about Perfect Illusion, the disco-rock lead single from her upcoming album, is that there’s zero pitch correction on her vocal. Gaga’s taken a page from Sia’s book, and amidst pop radio’s artificial perfection it’s a bold move. Gaga wants you to hear the blue notes, the cracks in her voice. Unfortunately the cracks are all you hear. Produced by Gaga with Mark Ronson, Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker and Blood Pop, Perfect Illusion’s best moments are its most sparse: the pulsing verses, the guitar-and-vocals breakdown before the final chorus. But exactly 30 seconds in, the first chorus turns the volume up to 11 and the song never relents. There’s barely room to breathe, for the singer or the listener. When the song runs out of choruses less than two minutes in, it even resorts to the dreaded truck driver’s key change. Gaga belts the title over and over like a mantra but it never becomes any more profound. The real Perfect Illusion isn’t love; it’s a blank metaphor her voice tries and fails to imbue with meaning. The song aspires to the heartbreak and triumph of a classic disco record. But Gaga lacks the grace of a true disco diva. Donna Summer, Diana Ross, Gloria Gaynor – their voices were smooth, not jagged. Nor is there any sense of camp, or a knowing wink, to defuse the tension – no, Gaga’s deathly serious. At its most transcendent, disco was about dancing joyfully through your tears. Perfect Illusion sounds more like heaving sobs, flailing about in search of a melody. Lady Gaga has spent the last three years proving she can sing. But in her quest to overwhelm us with her vocal talent, she’s under-delivered with her songwriting. Pop music exists in the present; you’re only as good as your last single. So bring on the next reinvention – the sooner the better.
Oscar's £52m move to Shanghai is worrying for Chelsea FC – and China Fine wines. Fast cars. Old masters. To the list of luxury goods that have been snapped up by China’s new rich, add Premier League footballers after Shanghai SIPG struck a deal to buy Oscar, Chelsea’s Brazilian midfielder. A transfer fee of some £52m meant the west London club made a tidy profit on a player they bought for £19m four-and-a-half years ago, but has set alarm bells ringing in the Premier League. The concern for Chelsea’s manager Antonio Conte and Arsenal’s Arsene Wenger is that there will now be an exodus of Premier League talent to Chinese clubs. s of China’s economy are worried about the transfer deal for a different reason. Buying up “trophy” assets is the hallmark of a bubble economy and when the prices paid start to look silly it is a sign that the bubble is about to burst. Some might say that paying more than £50m for a player who can’t get a game in Chelsea’s first team and offering him £400,000 a week in wages falls into the silly category. Dhaval Joshi, senior vice-president at BCA Research, said: “One defining feature of the last 40 years is a steady sequence of private sector credit booms which have inevitably turned to busts: notably, Japan in 1990, the Asian “tigers” in 1998, the US in 2007, and the UK, Spain and other European countries in 2008. “In this defining feature, China’s is the last of the major credit booms that hasn’t turned to bust – yet.” The pricking of an asset-price bubble is always the last chapter of a story that starts promisingly. By the time Japan’s property boom peaked, the value of the grounds of the imperial palace in Tokyo was allegedly greater than that of the whole of California. Yet the bubble was the culmination of a prolonged period of strong growth that saw Japan’s economy rebuilt after the devastation caused by the second world war. Similarly, there was an explanation for the bidding up of technology stocks during the Dotcom bubble of the 1990s. There were real digital breakthroughs happening, but easy credit meant the boom got out of hand. China’s economic transformation since the reforms introduced by Deng Xiaoping in the late 1970s has been remarkable. According to the World Bank, growth has averaged 10% a year and more than 800 million people have been lifted out of poverty. Fortunes have been earned, with Deloitte noting that there are now more billionaires in Beijing (100) than in New York City (95). After three decades of rapid expansion, China’s economy was showing signs of overheating when the financial crisis began in 2007. But its export-dominated economy was vulnerable to the collapse in trade and industrial production that followed the demise of the US investment bank Lehman Brothers. The government in Beijing, fearful that economic hardship would lead to political unrest, eased policy aggressively. Banks were flooded with cash and there was an extensive programme of public works. Not all the money was well spent. Roads were built that were not needed, ghost towns were constructed, factories that were unprofitable were kept open. And with fewer good bets to back in the real economy, investors awash with cash discovered the joys of asset speculation. They have developed a penchant for western brands. In the UK Chinese investors have snapped up prestige names including Sunseeker motor yachts, Hamleys and House of Fraser store groups and the Odeon cinema chain. In recent days they have agreed to hand over £97m for the loss-making Aquascutum label and earlier this month a Chinese government-backed investment group, Sinofortone, bought the Plough at Cadsden – the Buckinghamshire pub where David Cameron once shared a pint with China’s president, Xi Jinping. Four Midlands football clubs are already owned by Chinese investors – West Brom, Wolves, Birmingham City and Aston Villa – while Sinofortone has been linked with a possible bid for Liverpool FC. By 2013, the limits of China’s “expansion at any cost” approach had been reached. Beijing started to restrict credit growth and the focus shifted towards the need for slower but better-balanced growth. But since then, policy has zigzagged as policy makers have tried to get the balance right. Laura Eaton, an economist at the consultancy Fathom, said that earlier this year the authorities “threw in the towel” when the economy slowed by more than expected and reverted to stimulus. But the policy shift was relatively short-lived because Beijing is worried by the risks associated with another boom. Bank lending growth has peaked, the property market has slowed, and fiscal policy has become less supportive. Andrew Kenningham of Capital Economics says this should result in economic growth slowing from around 6% in late 2016 to an average of nearer 5% in 2017 but he doesn’t expect a “hard landing”. Joshi’s analysis suggests that Premier League managers should not worry too much about a mass exodus of their star players, pointing out that Beijing’s balancing act cannot go on for ever. “Admittedly, the ability of the Chinese authorities to ‘extend and pretend’ is probably greater than elsewhere in the world, and this might prevent another violent tipping point. “Irrespective, the debt super cycle is over when the cost of malinvestment and misallocation of capital outweighs the benefit of good credit creation. With private sector indebtedness (including state owned enterprises) now at, or beyond, the level where every other credit boom peaked, China appears to be approaching this point.”
No 10 must have made Nissan big promise, say ex-business minister A former business minister has said that Nissan had previously suggested it could move production to France if it was not protected from trade tariffs. Anna Soubry said that No 10 must have privately told Nissan that Britain was remaining in the EU customs union or promised mitigation against any future tariffs before the car firm announced plans to build two new models in the UK. Greg Clark, the current business secretary, has insisted that no financial compensation was offered during numerous discussions with Nissan, which allowed the Japanese carmaker to commit to building its new Qashqai and X-Trail vehicles at its Sunderland plant. It is understood that the government provided a “letter of comfort” to Nissan promising that the UK car industry would remain competitive after Brexit. Ministers, however, would neither confirm nor deny whether such a letter had been sent. Sources said the letter was understood to give an undertaking that Nissan would not face “additional costs” after the UK leaves the EU, implying that the taxpayer could be liable for subsidising the car industry in the event of tariffs being imposed on automotive exports. Downing Street also declined to say if more specific informal promises had been offered to Nissan and by implication to other carmakers, but industry sources have said they have been reassured by the government that they would not suffer from tariffs after the UK leaves the EU. No 10 is under pressure to publish the letter and Clark is to be called before the Commons business committee to explain what he has offered in the way of support to Nissan. Soubry, who was a senior minister in the business department until July, said the carmaker had privately suggested to her in the past it would move production to France if it did not have a guarantee that it would be protected from tariffs or if the government did not do “something to mitigate the damage of tariffs”. “They didn’t give the detail of what they wanted, they made it very clear that without a guarantee that they would not be subject to tariffs or if they were subject to tariffs the government would do something to mitigate the damage of tariffs … that without that, they told me, my understanding actually was that they would go to Renault because they clearly had the capacity there,” she said. The Japanese car company has a strategic partnership with the French manufacturer. On the assurances that helped Nissan decide, Soubry told the BBC: “I don’t know what it is but I would be very surprised if there hasn’t been some sort of guarantee to mitigate any tariffs should they be imposed.” She continued: “I can assure you we were looking at underwriting any tariffs should that be imposed upon us as we leave the EU. So that’s what we were looking at and we were prepared to do. So I don’t know what’s changed in the change of government.” Vince Cable, who was business secretary during the coalition, also said the carmaker must have been offered “very, very substantial” promises. He told the : “I was involved in discussions with Nissan in their last big round of investment decisions. Even under the coalition they were toying with doing it in France. “I find it impossible to believe they would go ahead without some pretty copper-bottomed promises. These guys do not go making decisions on the basis of vague assurances. That is not the way they operate. “The only way these big supply chain companies are going to commit themselves to Britain – and Nissan is the biggest – is that if they give them guarantees they are not going to be caught up in rules of origin problems, which is what happens if you leave the customs union.” A Downing Street source said whether the UK remained a member of customs union was still one of the “live issues” that had yet to be settled four months on from the Brexit vote. But Cable, who lost his seat at the last election, said the only alternative to staying in the customs union would be a specific sector agreement for the automotive industry, which the EU would be unlikely to want to negotiate. “I cannot see that happening,” he said on Friday. “Why would the EU want to do that? The same problems arise for aerospace, for pharmaceuticals. GSK yesterday was worrying about their supply chain. The only way to make the promise stick is to stay in the customs union.” The automotive industry and Japanese government have for months been highlighting the risks of Brexit for carmakers, including more customs checks and tariffs. Lord Bridges of Headley, a Brexit minister, told a Lords committee this week he was well aware that the customs union and the need for transitional arrangements with the EU to stop tariffs being suddenly imposed were important issues for the industry. “We do understand the complexities for the car industry. All those things are being fed into the deliberations,” he added. Nissan has also been asking the government for lower energy costs. The understands the company is considering seeking permission to build a gas power station to provide its own electricity. The 10 wind turbines and a solar panel farm it already has onlyprovide 7% of the Sunderland plant’s electricity needs. David Davis, the Brexit secretary, has previously mooted the possibility of financial support for car manufacturers that stops short of directly offsetting tariffs should the UK fail to avoid their imposition when it leaves the EU. “People seem to forget that the British government will be in receipt of over £2bn of levies on EU cars alone,” he said in July. “There is nothing to stop us supporting our indigenous car industry to make it more competitive if we so chose. “WTO [World Trade Organisation] rules would not allow us to explicitly offset the levies charged, but we could do a great deal to support the industry. “Research support, investment tax breaks, lower vehicle taxes – there are a whole range of possibilities to protect the industry.” There is now likely to be pressure on No 10 for similar assurances to be given to other industries, including aerospace, pharmaceuticals and freight. Clark is to meet Hitachi, which opened an £82m train manufacturing facility in County Durham in 2015 and had previously said the “future investment case” for Britain looked very different if the country was outside the EU. On Friday, a spokesman for the Japanese multinational said it had not received any assurances from ministers so far. But he added: “While some matters will require adjustments based on economic agreements yet to be agreed – for example, tariffs on procurements in the UK from other countries and on exports from Japan, as well as the mobility of manpower within the European region – we expect that the British government will make every possible effort to minimise effects on the economy.” There is concern that thousands of jobs are at risk at Vauxhall’s UK factories after the carmaker’s US owner warned this week that it could shut plants after taking a $400m (£330m) hit from the Brexit vote. Vauxhall is to decide next year where it makes the new Astra, which is currently assembled at its Ellesmere Port plant in Cheshire, which has more than 2,000 employees. In total, Vauxhall employs 4,500 across its two plants and its warehouse and head office in Luton. Prof David Bailey, of Aston University, said other carmarkers would become more vocal in their demands as big investment decisions neared. “I did expect Nissan to build the Qashqai in the UK. That’s a big, efficient plant in Sunderland and they were well down the road to making the decision. The big questions are going to come at General Motors and Toyota – those are the plants that are more at risk,” said Bailey. Vauxhall – a wholly owned subsidiaries of General Motors – declined to say if it would increase its lobbying of No 10 after the Nissan announcement. But it pointed to a statement it released a day after the EU referendum that read: “Communication on the development of the future relationship with the EU should also be clear and transparent.” A Vauxhall spokeswoman said it would not comment further on production in the UK until it understood more about government Brexit strategy. Manufacturing and pharmaceutical trade bodies suggested they would not immediately be seeking their own “letters of comfort”. A source at GlaxoSmithKline said the government was listening to the industry’s concerns and that it hoped it would find pragmatic solutions.
Stonewall; Holding the Man; Mapplethorpe; Batman v Superman; Hardcore Henry; A Kind of Loving; Film4 downloads – review It’s a strange summer for Roland Emmerich, gay German doyen of the action ridicu-spectacle. Practically unnoticed beneath the bang and clatter of his daft Independence Day sequel, his passion project, Stonewall (Metrodome, 15), slips straight to DVD tomorrow. A clumsy but oddly endearing fictionalisation of 1969’s LGBT riots in Greenwich Village, it was irrecoverably lambasted at last year’s Toronto film festival. Not without reason either: it’s a cosy, cliche-reliant telling of a still-nervy slice of social history, filtering its tale of outsider representation through the Colgate-white perspective of Jeremy Irvine’s hero. Rejigging facts to let an indecently chiselled midwest farmboy cast the first Stonewall stone, among other cornball artistic liberties, is a clear own goal on Emmerich and writer Jon Robin Baitz’s part. But the sentimental virtues of the film-makers’ approach survive their own worst impulses. It’s a film told with a warm, affectionate sense of community, easy to denigrate by those who know the Stonewall story inside out, but emotionally accessible to those with more to learn. Pair it up with Holding the Man (Peccadillo, 15), another soft-but-sweet-centred period tale of gay self-realisation. Drawn from the late Australian writer Tim Conigrave’s bestselling memoir of his 15-year romance with boyfriend John Caleo, initiated on the school football field and continuing through the Aids crisis of the 1980s, Neil Armfield’s brightly lit, tenderly performed film eschews the gut-spilling emotional candour of his excellent 2006 junkie love story, Candy. Its gentle, unpretentious empathy prickles the tear ducts all the same. Withholding less on its queer subject is Mapplethorpe: Look at the Pictures (Dogwoof, 18). A frank, saucily absorbing documentary study of the American photographer, whose pristine images of swollen appendages and S&M activities, among other subjects, inspired heated political debates about public arts funding, Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato’s film examines his work with as sharp an eye as it does his rollicking personal life. Amid this wealth of gay-focused titles, it would be tempting to write that the week’s most homoerotic release is actually Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (Warner, 12), but that would be attributing a level of wit and sensual awareness to Zack Snyder’s pompous, honkingly ugly superhero conference that is far beyond its skill set. As it is, it’s hard to add much to the critical drubbing it deservedly met with in cinemas. Presuming that the meeting of two equally stolid, overworked caped crusaders is enough of an event to magic a sense of purpose into a narrative devoid of urgency, this is effectively a cinematic Spaghetti Junction: noisy, busy, full of converging vehicles with somewhere else to go (hi, Wonder Woman!), but nothing like a destination in itself. There are higher-octane action kicks to be had in Ilya Naishuller’s Hardcore Henry (EIV, 18), an enthusiastically antic sci-fi thriller shot entirely from its unspeaking soldier protagonist’s perspective. Aping the form of first-person shooters, it’s hardly an unprecedented gimmick, though the film’s cocky enough – wearisomely so, in the long run – to have you believe otherwise. Re-release of the week is a smart polish-up of John Schlesinger’s 1962 social-realist classic A Kind of Loving (Studiocanal, 15) – not that you’d want to remove too much grain or grit from this scuffed, scowling drama of a rocky shotgun marriage. If the film has retained slightly less of its brute impact over the decades than some of its kitchen-sink contemporaries, Alan Bates’s hot, roiling presence in the lead is intact. Finally, the week’s best streaming news concerns Film4’s heavily stuffed back catalogue, from which 39 films, never previously available for digital download, are hitting iTunes and Amazon . The selection runs the gamut from Alice, Czech stop-motion master Jan Švankmajer’s marvellous adult Wonderland riff, to Julien Temple’s starry, jangly rockumentary Joe Strummer, as well as a couple of titles currently unavailable even on DVD. Those in the latter group include Andrew Bujalski’s still-winning mumblecore standard-setters Funny Ha Ha and Mutual Appreciation. But the most unexpected excavation is Claude Chabrol’s shadow-washed curio Dr M, a Fritz Lang-inspired noir nightmare fronted by a more weathered Alan Bates. Get digging.
A last hurrah for banknotes as UK switches to mobile and card payment Winston Churchill gazes out from one side of the new £5 plastic note, the Queen from the other. But the chances of Prince William appearing on a banknote are looking slim. More than 300 years after the first Bank of England banknotes appeared, the new plastic ones could perhaps be the last. Stop a young adult on a British high street and you will find that one in eight has not a penny in cash on them. Even the ones who do are likely to have no more than £20. For them, the cashless society is not tomorrow’s world, but today’s: a contactless card flashed to enter the tube; a smartphone tapped at Pret for a lunchtime sandwich; another card waved at a Tesco Express on the way home; the cab journey back from the pub processed by Uber. Who needs banknotes? According to a survey by payments company Worldpay, six out of 10 young adults would prefer not to use cash at all. When Transport for London banned cash on the buses in mid-2014, it was greeted with a backlash from some quarters; “passenger fury” said one headline, “ban hits the vulnerable” was another. Yet, two years on, behaviour has adjusted. TfL says it has saved £24m in cash-handling costs, and queues have improved. The cashless society has been long mooted, but only now is it arriving. A 1996 trial in Swindon to encourage the town’s 150,000-plus people to use “electronic purses” flopped through lack of interest. But contactless cards – there are now more than 36m in Britain’s wallets – and more recently Apple Pay and Android Pay, have dramatically accelerated the switch away from cash. Crucially, it has been the readiness of big retailers to accept “tap-and-go” technology for small-value items, with Tesco and TfL at the forefront, that has spurred the revolution. Monthly spending on contactless cards is now running at around £1.5bn, or three times the level of just a year ago. Technology experts see contactless payment as just a stepping stone to the cashless society, with smartphones becoming the main way to pay. Since the launch of Apple Pay in July last year, 8 million journeys on London Underground have been paid for by iPhone users tapping their handset at entry and exit points. Meanwhile, Google’s rival, Android Pay, was launched last month. Unlike contactless cards, where spending is capped at £30, Apple and Android users can spend more freely, although they may have to authenticate with a Pin or fingerprint. Traditional Pin-entry debit spending is fast being dumped by the public in favour of tap-and-go. A Pret a Manger source says: “Sixty five per cent of all card transactions at Pret are made using contactless technology,” adding that it has a £250 limit for Android Pay, although that would pay for rather a lot of dolphin-friendly tuna baguettes. “Smartphones are the final nail in the coffin for cash,” says Dave Birch, director of innovation at Consult Hyperion, which helped TfL launch contactless payments. “We all thought it was going to be cards, but it’s going to be phones that do for cash. With a mobile phone you can both pay and be paid – using Pingit and Paym. And, if you look at Uber, it’s not about tap and go, it all happens within your phone. Tapping is a bit of a sideshow. I’m not convinced that in a decade we’ll be tapping, anyway; we call it moving from ‘checkout’ to ‘check-in’. Your Waitrose app on your phone will know who you are as soon as you walk in the store, and you’ll use your fingerprint to buy as you go around.” Worldpay, which handles 42% of payment processing in the UK, says the next more immediate step to cashlessness will be convincing every small independent shop and trader in the country to adopt contactless terminals. They don’t come free; a newsagent has to pay around £20 a month to rent a terminal, or upwards of £300-£500 to buy one, and more for software updates. The card companies will also take their cut, often 1% of every transaction. But Worldpay UK’s marketing director, James Frost, who is behind the company’s “high street to i-street” project, reckons take-up will be swift. “People forget there is a cost to businesses from using cash; you have to pay for security, insurance, making regular trips to the banks. Then there’s that thing euphemistically called ‘shrinkage’ – when money goes missing. You don’t have those sorts of headaches with contactless.” He predicts that conventional cash tills, with their drawers for notes and coins and mini-printers for receipts, will soon disappear from shops, replaced by tablet-based terminals linked to contactless readers, with e-receipts sent to phones. Around one in 10 small shops still refuse card payments for small purchases, usually below £5, but are expected to come in line as they are deserted by younger shoppers only prepared to use their phones. Cashless enthusiasts argue the black economy will be hugely diminished, and tax evasion made far more difficult – though privacy campaigners worry about the harvesting of huge amounts of new data. Bond fund supremo Jim Leaviss – in charge of M&G’s £40bn in retail fixed-interest assets – reckons the move to a cashless society could even help end boom and bust in the economy. Outside London’s South Kensington station stands an unlikely early adopter of the cashless revolution – Big Issue seller Simon Mott. Three years ago, he got an iZettle account to take card payments. Now he accepts Apple Pay and Android Pay. Charities whose rattling boxes are falling silent as cashless pedestrians pass by are among those most urgently trying to find new ways to obtain donations. Will cash machines on British high streets become as redundant as red phone boxes, a relic of yesterday’s technology? Peter McNamara, chief executive of NoteMachine, which runs 9,000 ATMs across Britain and Germany, might be expected to refute that, but he makes a good point: On the 2 May bank holiday in the UK, more cash was withdrawn from ATMs in Britain than at any other time in history – £1.72bn on the day, and 7% more than the same bank holiday the year before. The death of cash has been exaggerated, he says. “Consumers still need and use cash – more so than ever before. The reason cash continues to prevail is because it gives us freedom. It will not be rejected by a third party, it is reliable and it enables us all to manage our personal finances with ease. “There is a real danger that the UK is being railroaded towards a cashless society, with the agenda driven hard by technology giants and card issuers who are keen to capitalise on the digital age – yet the evidence to support this suggests hype rather than reality.” A major milestone on the path to a cashless society was passed in 2015, the first year that consumers used cash for less than half of all payments, according to Payments UK, which represents the major banks, building societies and payment providers. But perhaps mindful of the outcry that greeted an early plan to ban cheques, Payments UK has no plans to follow Nordic countries down the path of banning cash. It predicts that cash usage will not be eclipsed by debit cards and contactless until 2021. Meanwhile, even those who have declared war on cash warn about the losers. Birch says: “There’s a class issue here. A lot of middle-class people already go from one day to the next without using cash. About the only time they use lots of cash is to pay a builder to avoid VAT. Poorer people are far more trapped in cash and the costs that go with it. They are the ones withdrawing £10 from a machine and paying £1.50 for it. We don’t, as yet, have an equivalent to M-Pesa in Kenya, a mobile account for everyone.” So it’s Kenya, not Scandinavia, that may have the key to a cashless future. Just remember to keep your phone charged; in future, your journey to work, lunch and popping into the shops will be at the mercy of your battery. CASH: A BRIEF HISTORY These days we think of cash as a means of putting food on the table, but there was a time when currency could have been used to eat it too. Around 3,000 years ago, Chinese societies used small metal replicas of tools, such as knives and spades, as currency. As time went on and people grew tired of skewering their hands every time they reached into their pocket to settle a bill, the metal currency became round and flat – the origin of today’s coinage. It wasn’t until around 600BC in Lydia, in modern-day Turkey, that the first coins were minted en masse and stamped to denote different denominations. The practice spread into Europe and today’s de facto global currency, the US dollar, has its roots in the “thaler”, a silver coin dating back to the mid-15th century. The name comes from the town of Joachimsthal in Bohemia, where silver mines were used to produce coins originally known as “Joachimsthaler”. We also have China to thank for the advent of paper money, first used in the Tang dynasty, which lasted from AD618 to AD907. The bills mostly took the form of letters of credit linked to specific transactions, but were a precursor to modern paper notes. It took Europe about another 500 years to catch on, but lenders and banks eventually started issuing notes that could be taken to a branch and exchanged for silver and gold. A shift towards governments printing their own bills gathered pace with the colonisation of North America. The long transatlantic journeys meant that colonists often ran out of cash, so paper IOUs became usable as currency, issued to soldiers and then spreading through the economy. Many governments still don’t print their own money or mint their own coins, instead paying other countries and private companies – such as Basingstoke-based De La Rue – to do it for them. Britain’s Royal Mint produces coins on behalf of dozens of other countries’ governments. However, it does not disclose the identities of these governments for fear that their decision to outsource money-printing will cause embarrassment back home.
Hunt's new NHS contracts: junior doctors what will you do next? The government has decided to impose new junior doctor contracts despite strong opposition from many in the profession. In a Commons statement the health secretary Jeremy Hunt said that he would plough ahead with the changes (which some worry will see doctors’ weekend pay cut) after negotiations with the doctors’ union failed to produce a settlement. We want to hear what junior doctors think. Do Hunt’s plans make you want to quit the profession? What would you do instead? Will you fight on? Tell us by filling out our form below.
Imagine if Donald Trump were a woman. You simply can’t Earlier this month Hillary Clinton gave probably her most revealing interview, – not to CNN, not to the New York Times, but to the blog Humans of New York, which posts photos and short interviews with New Yorkers. Clinton’s interview, sui generis as she is, could not really be described as representative of the average New Yorker, but it did sum up the problems faced by high-profile women today, still, and nowhere more so than in politics. “What works for them [men] won’t work for you [women],” she said. “Women are seen through a different lens. It’s not bad. It’s just a fact.” She then detailed precisely how, if it’s not bad, it’s certainly outrageous: “I’ll go to these events and there will be men speaking before me, and they’ll be pounding the message and screaming about how we need to win the election. And I want to do the same thing. I love to wave my arms, but apparently that’s a little bit scary to people. And I can’t yell too much. It comes across as ‘too loud’ or ‘too shrill’ or ‘too this’ or ‘too that’.” Clinton has always been careful not to complain about the absurd double standards imposed on women in the public eye – after all, as she says, “it’s just a fact”. And heck, nothing worse than a nagging, whining woman, right, guys? But at this point, in this election, where she, the most qualified presidential candidate in at least a generation, is running near even with a man whose political experience amounts to firing people on a reality TV show, she had little choice but to state the oft-forgotten obvious. The first presidential debate should be studied by future generations – who, I dearly hope, will have a more evolved attitude towards gender than we do – about how sexism helps the individual but hurts the populace. For here voters had a chance to watch the different approaches that got Clinton and Donald Trump to precisely the same point. Not just their approaches either. As Fox News’s Brit Hume sagely noted afterwards: “I think a lot will turn on how people reacted to the faces they saw side by side on the screen tonight.” And, unfortunately for Clinton, Hume decreed that Clinton looked “not necessarily attractive”. Bad luck, Clinton! You might have all the “facts” and “experience” but you didn’t give a Fox News host a hard-on. Election over! (Hume felt no need to say how much Trump had turned him on. Different lens and all that.) But before we get to the compare-and-contrast segment, let’s start with a fun game. Much has been written about how Trump’s rise is – some commentators airily claim – an inevitable reaction to globalisation, or political correctness, or liberal elitism, or whatever argument you want to make. But imagine it wasn’t Trump who was the conduit for this anger. Imagine it was a woman. Picture a woman up there on the podium last night shouting over her rival, jabbing her finger in the air, denying she’d said things there was ample evidence of online that she had said. Imagine a completely inexperienced woman insisting she had better political nous than someone who had been at the forefront of politics for decades. And, of course, you can’t: it is, literally, beyond imagination. Sarah Palin, whatever her flaws later proved to be, had actual - and successful - political experience. She also was parachuted in as a vice-presidential candidate, which is very different from making it through the presidential primaries. If Trump’s political rise is an expression of rage, that it is Trump – a white man whose entire existence is built on inherited mega-wealth – up against a woman emphasises how this rage has nothing to do with righting liberal mistakes and everything to do with restoring the old structures. Trump also had a far lower bar to scale on Monday night, even though this is a man so blessed with privilege he was able to dismiss a 1978 $1m gift from his father as “a small loan” in the debate.At one point he congratulated himself for not bringing up something “extremely rough” about Clinton and her family – clearly her husband’s alleged infidelities, as Trump confirmed backstage afterwards – and it did feel like a miracle of self-control that he didn’t. After all, according to a tweet Trump retweeted last year, “If Hillary Clinton can’t satisfy her husband what makes her think she can satisfy America?” (He couldn’t, however, resist threatening last weekend to bring one of Bill Clinton’s alleged former girlfriends to the debate. His campaign hastily shut down that story.) Clinton, on the other hand, was being judged as a politician and therefore had to behave marginally better than Charlie Sheen drunk on tiger blood. Her strategy for dealing with Trump’s absurdism without being “too this” or “too that” was something we can call the Side-Eye Strategy. Some of her supporters have already complained that she didn’t jump on some of Trump’s more deranged statements, such as that not paying federal income tax is “smart”. But she couldn’t – because she’s not trying to appeal now to her supporters but to the undecideds who might well find that kind of attack “too shrill”. She instead, wisely, let him hang himself with his words, and restricted herself to some side-eye smiles to the camera and nudges to the fact-checkers. She was Martin Freeman’s Tim to Trump’s David Brent in The Office, staring straight into the camera while Brent comes out with another absurdity. No comment necessary. She did, however, allow herself a wiggle of delight when Trump roared that he had “a winning temperament”, and who can blame her? Of course, even some of Clinton supporters have already described her as “too smug”, “too straight”, and all those other things people say when they mean “too obviously smart for a woman”. Chuck Todd, from the ostensibly neutral network NBC, actually complained that Clinton seemed “over-prepared”. Because nobody likes a woman who performs too well, guys. A Republican congressman griped that “she just comes across as my bitchy wife/mother”, which serves as a convenient reminder that people who are sexist about Clinton actually just hate women. But all of this is merely the surface of Clinton’s real problem. It is widely agreed that she wiped the floor with Trump in this debate, and that even if you don’t like Clinton there is no denying that she is clearly the superior candidate and he is a walking bag of lies. Those are America’s two options now. And yet Trump really could still win this election: because he is he, and not she. That is bad, and that’s just a fact. This article was amended on 27 September to acknowledge Sarah Palin’s previous candidacy
Truth review – Cate Blanchett in the eye of a journalistic storm In September 2004, Dan Rather presented an edition of CBS’s 60 Minutes II which cast doubt on the service of George W Bush as a Texas Air National Guard pilot from 1968 to 1974. The report was damning, but press attention soon turned away from Bush towards Rather, his producer Mary Mapes, and her team at CBS, who were accused of bad journalism or (worse) having been duped. The authenticity of key documents was questioned, and the conduct of the 60 Minutes team became the story. This directorial debut from Zodiac screenwriter James Vanderbilt is based on Mapes’s memoir, and does a good job of dramatising her eye-of-the-storm horror as the bandit-country blogosphere brands her a “feminazi witch” and worse. Blanchett is terrific as Mapes, juggling hard journalism and home life, serving breakfast to her son while fielding tough-as-nails phone calls. Yet even the presence of Robert Redford as Dan Rather can’t lend this the All the President’s Men authenticity of Spotlight, the sometimes hokey script and often overbearing score leaving us torn between docudrama and melodrama. Redford gets a big speech about remembering “the day they figured out that news can make money” and the film makes a credible argument that CBS may have kowtowed to the White House, but the real headlines are the more low-key moments (Mapes facing the sea of male faces on a hostile enquiry panel) wherein Blanchett nails her character’s predicament with aplomb.
Sturgeon accuses Gove of lying over Scottish immigration quotas Nicola Sturgeon has accused Michael Gove of telling “a fib and a half” after he claimed Scotland would be able to set its own immigration quotas if the UK leaves the EU. The pair clashed after Gove said a Scottish visa system could be devised by the Scottish parliament after a Brexit vote, allowing Holyrood to tailor an immigration policy to meet its economic needs. In a short visit to Scotland to rally support for the Vote Leave campaign, Gove said the points-based system would be very similar to the proposals put forward by the Scottish National party in the 2014 independence referendum. Alex Salmond, the then first minister, and Nicola Sturgeon, his successor, were highly critical of UK immigration policy for reflecting the needs of south-east England or the anti-immigrant sentiment of English voters. Sturgeon implied Gove was guilty of cynicism. Referring to his active involvement in the anti-independence campaign in 2014, she tweeted: Gove told BBC Radio Scotland that although the Home Office in London would still control UK borders after leaving the EU, under his campaign’s proposals both the UK and Edinburgh governments would in future negotiate a distinct Scottish policy. Appearing to appeal directly to a growing number of leave voters, including to a third of Scottish National party and pro-independence supporters, Gove said “it would be for Scotland to decide” what migrant tests it wanted to introduce. He said the UK-wide result in next week’s referendum was “on a knife-edge” and said the outcome among Scottish voters “will be significantly higher” than the 25% to 30% leave vote shown by recent polls. Gove endorsed a letter to Sturgeon from Tom Harris, the former Labour MP now leading the Scottish Vote Leave campaign, saying Scotland could negotiate a special decentralised deal within the UK, in the same way the Isle of Man has one with the European economic area which allows it to prioritise its own workers. Gove pointed at the situation of the Brain family who face being deported from Scotland back to Australia because the UK government changed the post-study work visa rules which originally brought the Brains to the Highlands. That system did give Scotland some flexibility but was scrapped in 2012. Provoking a scathing attack from Salmond, whose party has championed the Brains’ case, Gove implied the family was being penalised because the EU system forced the UK to give preferential treatment to EU migrants. “At the moment, if you are an Austrian you can come here and there is no control over the number of people who can come from any EU country but if you are an Australian there is a limit,” he said. “Ultimately, the numbers who would come [to Scotland] in the future would be decided by the Westminster parliament and the Holyrood parliament working together.” Salmond accused Gove of talking nonsense. “The Brain family are not suffering from any impositions of the European Union. They are suffering at the hands of Gove’s Tory government,” the former SNP leader said. “The truth is of course is that the Brexiteers will say anything at this stage in the campaign. They run about England telling people they are going to slash immigration and now Gove comes to Scotland to tell us we will be able to attract more people. The lord chancellor is talking nonsense on ermine-clad stilts – what is standing in the way of Scotland having the immigration powers we need isn’t the EU, it’s the UK government.”
Moonlight and American Honey lead Film Independent Spirit awards nominations Andrea Arnold’s American Honey and Barry Jenkins’ Moonlight head up the nominations at this year’s Film Independent Spirit awards, with six nominations each, while Kenneth Lonergan’s Manchester by the Sea managed five. Those three films are joined by the Jackie Kennedy Onassis biopic Jackie, which stars Natalie Portman, and the end-of-life drama Chronic in the best film category. Surprisingly, Lonergan missed out on a best director nomination for his film about a grief-stricken maintenance man living in the Massachusetts seaside town, and the film’s female lead, Michelle Williams, also missed out on a best supporting actor nod. Pablo Larrain (Jackie), Jeff Nichols (Loving), and Kelly Reichardt (Certain Women) all join Jenkins and Arnold in the best director category. The best male lead award will be decided between Manchester by the Sea’s Casey Affleck; David Harewood (Free in Deed); Viggo Mortensen, as an off-the-grid father in Captain Fantastic; Jesse Plemons (Other People); and Tim Roth (Chronic). The best female lead category features nominations for Annette Bening for 20th Century Women, Sasha Lane (American Honey), Ruth Negga (Loving), Natalie Portman (Jackie) and Isabelle Huppert for Paul Verhoeven’s controversial drama Elle. Full list of nominees: Best Feature American Honey Chronic Jackie Manchester by the Sea Moonlight Best director Andrea Arnold, American Honey Barry Jenkins, Moonlight Pablo Larrain, Jackie Jeff Nichols, Loving Kelly Reichardt, Certain Women Best female lead Annette Bening, 20th Century Women Isabelle Huppert, Elle Sasha Lane, American Honey Ruth Negga, Loving Natalie Portman, Jackie Best male lead Casey Affleck, Manchester by the Sea David Harewood, Free in Deed Viggo Mortensen, Captain Fantastic Jesse Plemons, Other People Tim Roth, Chronic Best supporting female Edwina Findley, Free in Deed Paulina Garcia, Little Men Lily Gladstone, Certain Women Riley Keough, American Honey Molly Shannon, Other People Best supporting male Ralph Fiennes, A Bigger Splash Ben Foster, Hell or High Water Lucas Hedges, Manchester by the Sea Shia LaBeouf, American Honey Craig Robinson, Morris from America Best screenplay Hell or High Water Little Men Manchester by the Sea Moonlight 20th Century Women Best first feature The Childhood of a Leader The Fits Other People Swiss Army Man The Witch Best first screenplay Barry Christine Jean of the Joneses Other People The Witch Best international film Aquarius Chevalier My Golden Days Toni Erdmann Under the Shadow Best documentary feature 13th Cameraperson I Am Not Your Negro OJ: Made in America Sonita Under the Sun Best cinematography American Honey Childhood Free in Deed Eyes of My Mother Moonlight Best editing Hell or High Water Jackie Manchester by the Sea Moonlight Swiss Army Man John Cassavetes award Free in Deed Hunter Gatherer Lovesong Nakom Spa Night Robert Altman award Moonlight Piaget producers award Lisa Kjerulff Jordana Mollick Melody C Roscher Craig Shilowich Truer than fiction award Kristi Jacobson, Solitary Sara Jordeno, Kiki Nanfu Wang, Holligan Sparrow Someone to watch award Andrew Ahn, Spa Night Claire Carre, Embers Anna Rose Holmer, The Fits Ingrid Jungermann, Women Who Kill
Marvel axed female villain from Iron Man 3 after fears of poor toy sales, says director Shane Black, the director and co-writer of Iron Man 3, has said he was forced to change the gender of the film’s villain from female to male after pressure from the production company Marvel, which feared toy merchandise would not sell as well. In an interview with Uproxx, Black said the original Iron Man 3 script featured a female version of Aldrich Killian, eventually played by Guy Pearce. “We had finished the script and we were given a no holds barred memo saying that cannot stand and we’ve changed our minds because, after consulting, we’ve decided that toy won’t sell as well if it’s a female. “So, we had to change the entire script because of toy-making. Now, that’s not [Marvel Studios president Kevin] Feige. That’s Marvel corporate.” Black said in the original script he had hoped audiences would assume the character was male, before her true gender was revealed. “I liked the idea, like Remington Steele, you think it’s the man but at the end, the woman has been running the whole show. They just said: ‘No way.’ ” He also said he did not know who, exactly, in Marvel made the decision – but he did not believe it was made by Feige. “Kevin Feige is the guy who gets it right. And I don’t know if it was Ike [Marvel chief executive Isaac Perlmutter]. I don’t know who it was.” The long-running creative differences between Perlmutter and Feige have been largely attributed to a 2015 organisational reshuffle that allowed Feige to report directly to the chairman of Walt Disney Studios, Alan Horn, essentially sidestepping Perlmutter. In an email leaked in the Sony hack, Perlmutter wrote to the CEO of Sony, Michael Lynton, with the subject line “Female Movies”, listing three superhero films with female leads he considered box office disasters: Electra [sic], Catwoman and Supergirl. Black said the roles of two female characters were also reduced over the course of the production: Ellen Brandt, played by Stéphanie Szostak, and Maya Hansen, played by Rebecca Hall. Released in 2013, Iron Man 3 grossed $1.2bn at the global box office, according to Box Office Mojo. In March Robert Downey Jr, who plays Iron Man, confirmed there were no plans for a fourth instalment, although the character continues to appear in Marvel’s Captain America film series. It is the second time this year Disney has been embroiled in controversy over their superhero merchandise strategy. In January a Star Wars-themed Monopoly game was released by Hasbro without a figurine of Rey, the lead character of the latest chapter of the film franchise. It followed complaints she was also under-represented in figurine packs, with fans rallying under the hashtag #WheresRey on social media. Disney was contacted but declined to comment.
Planned Parenthood and ACLU mount abortion law challenges in three states Reproductive rights advocates announced a significant slate of challenges to anti-abortion laws on Wednesday, taking aim at major restrictions in three states which advocates say are unconstitutional. Planned Parenthood, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the Center for Reproductive Rights, a legal advocacy group which argued a landmark abortion case earlier this year, filed three lawsuits in Alaska, Missouri and North Carolina. In Missouri, the groups will challenge a pair of abortion restrictions that have reduced the number of abortion providers to just one. They are taking aim at a similar clinic restriction in Alaska. In North Carolina, they will mount a challenge to a 20-week ban on abortion that has some of the nation’s strictest exceptions. The two Missouri restrictions are highly similar to laws in Texas that the US supreme court struck down in June. They require abortions to be performed in expensive, hospital-like facilities and require abortion providers to have certain professional relationships with a local hospital. The supreme court ruled that such restrictions served no medical purpose and were unconstitutional. But similar restrictions remain on the books in several states. In Missouri, where 1.2 million women of reproductive age live, the laws have forced two Planned Parenthood clinics, in Columbia and Kansas City, to stop providing abortions in recent years. The only remaining clinic is located in St Louis, forcing many Missouri women seeking an abortion to travel long distances. “Because of laws like the ones we are challenging today, for too many women across our country the constitutional right to have an abortion is more theoretical than real,” said Jennifer Dalven, the director of the ACLU’s Reproductive Freedom Project. But it is the North Carolina challenge that may have the bigger impact on abortion rights nationwide. This is only the second time reproductive rights advocates have challenged a 20-week ban on abortion in federal court – potentially setting the table for these restrictions to go before the supreme court. North Carolina’s law bans abortions after 20 weeks except in a medical emergency where a woman’s condition is so grave that she requires an abortion immediately. That is stricter than other 20-week bans, which have health exceptions but don’t require there to be a medical emergency. The bill defines medical emergency as a condition which “so complicates the medical condition of the pregnant woman as to necessitate the immediate abortion of her pregnancy to avert her death or for which a delay will create serious risk of substantial and irreversible physical impairment of a major bodily function” not including mental health. In their lawsuit, the ACLU, Planned Parenthood and the Center for Reproductive Rights argue that the language essentially forces women having an abortion for health reasons to wait until she becomes gravely ill. Laws banning abortion several weeks before a fetus is viable outside the womb are increasingly common. Across the country, more than a dozen states ban abortion two weeks before viability on the medically dubious grounds that the fetus can feel pain. But despite the fact that Roe v Wade prohibits states from banning abortion before the point of viability, most of those laws have not faced a legal challenge. Only Arizona’s 20-week ban, passed in 2012 and struck down permanently over the next two years, was ever the subject of a legal battle in federal court. The challenge is especially significant now that Donald Trump has been elected president. Trump, in a wholesale embrace of the anti-abortion movement’s top priorities, has promised to sign into law a nationwide ban on abortion at 20 weeks. One reason is that very few abortion providers have standing for such a challenge. “To challenge these laws, you would have to be actually doing abortions after 20 weeks,” said Priscilla Smith, an abortion rights advocate and a senior fellow at Yale law school. “And there are just so few states where you can obtain abortions at that stage of pregnancy. Despite the anti-abortion world’s focus on post-20-week abortions, they’re very rare.” But another reason may be that reproductive rights advocates have been hesitant to launch a lawsuit that could reach the supreme court. In the past several decades, many such legal challenges have resulted in the supreme court chipping away at abortion rights. That changed this summer, when the court ruled 5-to-3 to strike down a set of harsh Texas abortion restrictions. The ruling prohibited states from enacting abortion restrictions based on medically questionable arguments about protecting women’s health. Justice Anthony Kennedy, who is often skeptical of abortion rights, joined the majority. With Trump potentially empowered to shift the balance of the court rightward, Smith said, reproductive rights advocates are probably facing the friendliest bench possible under the new president. Courts have struck down early bans on abortion before, including an Arkansas law banning abortion at 12 weeks and a North Dakota law banning abortion at six weeks – before many women realize they are pregnant. In defense of 20-week bans, abortion foes commonly argue that fetuses at that stage of development will feel pain during the procedure. But the evidence is slim. While select studies have found evidence for this, the most recent systematic review of studies on this topic concluded that the fetal nervous system is not developed enough to feel pain until the third trimester. Still, bans on abortion at 20 weeks occupy fraught emotional territory. Public support for abortion restrictions grows with gestational age, and a substantial portion of Americans are ambivalent or opposed to abortion rights in the second trimester. Anti-abortion activists place an emphasis on these cases, even though they account for only 1% to 2% of all abortions in the US. Abortion rights advocates argue that many women obtaining later abortions are doing so for health reasons or after discovering a severe or fatal fetal anomaly – although the evidence suggests these are not the majority of cases. On Wednesday, representatives for Planned Parenthood, the ACLU and the Center for Reproductive Rights said the three lawsuits were the beginning of a spate of legal challenges the groups would mount jointly. “We are going to fight back state by state and law by law until every person has the right to pursue the life they want,” said Dr Raegan McDonald-Mosley, Planned Parenthood’s chief medical officer.
Captain America unseats Jungle Book at UK box office The winner #1: Marvel When Marvel released Captain America: The First Avenger in July 2011 through its then distribution partner Paramount, the film went on to gross a rather indifferent £10.4m in the UK over the course of its lifetime. That’s the lowest UK gross for a Marvel Avengers film, unless you count 2008’s The Incredible Hulk (£8.3m). In 2014, Captain America: The Winter Soldier delivered a significant improvement, with a lifetime total of £19.3m. However, that number was still a bit down on Thor: The Dark World (£20.1m), both Iron Man sequels (£21.2m, £37.0m) and of course Avengers Assemble (£51.9m). Was the Captain – beefy, square-jawed and slightly dull – somehow not quite cutting it with fans? Whatever the answer to that question, Marvel was taking no chances with the third Captain America film, packaging the patriotically attired shield slinger with a panoply of other Avengers characters, notably top franchise performer Iron Man. The outcome for Captain America: Civil War has been spectacularly successful: a UK debut of £14.47m, or £19.12m if takings for bank holiday Monday are added in. Even omitting Monday, that number is bigger than the openings of all three Iron Man films. Avengers Assemble kicked off with £15.78m back in April 2012, but that included £2.55m in previews, so needs to be adjusted down to £13.23m to make a valid comparison. Age of Ultron began with £18.02m, or £14.42m if previews are stripped out, according to the numbers released at the time by the official data collector. Disney has a slightly higher opening number for Age of Ultron, which means that Civil War’s three-day weekend is 1% below it. Either way, Captain America has opened at the top end of the range for a Marvel Avengers film. Batman v Superman debuted with £14.62m, just ahead of Civil War. It went on to suffer steep drops, declining 68% in the second frame and by at least 50% thereafter. Civil War currently enjoys a very high IMDb user rating of 8.6/10. Even though this should edge downwards as the film reaches a broader mix of audiences, the film is virtually certain to enjoy better traction in the market than its critically lambasted DC Comics rival. The winner #2: Disney The Civil War success continues Disney’s strong current run, since the studio’s The Jungle Book is sitting pretty in second place, with another £8.8m over the bank holiday weekend, for a total to date of £33.3m (including Monday). Three-day weekend takings were £5.76m. Only three 2015 releases – monster hits Jurassic World, Spectre and Star Wars: The Force Awakens – delivered a third weekend above £5m. The Jungle Book should soon overtake the likes of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (£37.8m), before going on to challenge Disney’s own Alice in Wonderland (£42.5m) and Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (£44.4m). Disney’s Zootropolis is in fourth place in the official comScore weekend chart, although a strong performance on Monday means that it actually ranks third, ahead of Eye in the Sky, over the whole four-day period. That gives Disney the top three places – a feat that Universal achieved one weekend last July with Minions, Ted 2 and Jurassic World. With £22.7m including bank holiday Monday, Zootropolis is now a couple of million pounds ahead of the lifetime totals of Disney Animation’s Big Hero 6 and Tangled. It should soon overtake Wreck-It Ralph (£23.8m). The arthouse hit: Son of Saul Last year, only seven non-Bollywood foreign language films managed £200,000 at the UK box-office – or eight if you include Gemma Bovery, which was partly in English. The sector is looking a little rosier this year, since we’ve already had Rams (£277,000), Marguerite (£228,000), Dheepan (£372,000) and the English/German Victoria (£445,000). Now foreign language Oscar winner Son of Saul joins the fray, with weekend takings of £131,000 from 55 cinemas, or £179,000 with previews added in, and £227,000 including bank holiday Monday. That number is down on the debut of Wild Tales (£173,000 from 50 cinemas, plus £10,000 in previews), which went on to be last year’s biggest non-Bollywood foreign language hit at the UK box office. It is, however, up on Force Majeure (£87,000 from 33 cinemas, including very modest previews), which became the year’s second-biggest hit in the category. Given the exceptional critical acclaim (89/100 at Meta Critic) and Oscar success, the planets always looked nicely aligned for Son of Saul, although the Auschwitz death camp setting might be termed a commercial negative. Languages spoken are listed as Yiddish, German, Russian, Greek, Slovak, Polish, French, Hungarian and Hebrew. The other openers Fox achieved a middling result with its US indie film Demolition, starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Naomi Watts. Reviews were overall not encouraging enough to propel the film to significant success, despite the cast names and director Jean-Marc Vallée (Dallas Buyers Club, Wild). Demolition opened with £237,000 from 204 cinemas, with previews taking the number up to £265,000. Including Monday, it rises to £343,000. Gyllenhaal’s last lead role was in boxing drama Southpaw, which is hardly an apt comparison. Before that, he was in Nightcrawler, which began in October 2014 with just over £1m, including modest previews. In between, there was the leftfield indie drama Enemy, which kicked off with £21,000 from 13 sites. Just outside the Top 10 is animation Ratchet & Clank, debuting with a lacklustre £148,000 from 378 cinemas. Monday’s takings push the number to a more respectable £242,000. The future Thanks to the arrival of Captain America: Civil War, takings are 76% up on the previous frame, and also 50% up on the equivalent weekend from 2015, when Avengers: Age of Ultron stayed at the top spot, ahead of new entrants Far from the Madding Crowd and Unfriended. The weekend after a Marvel monster hit isn’t a preferred slot for a major blockbuster, but Universal is trying a counter-programming strategy with Bad Neighbours 2, filling the current gap for an adult-skewing comedy. Pitched at older and more upscale cinemagoers is another comedy, real-life story Florence Foster Jenkins starring Meryl Streep, High Grant and Simon Helberg. Also in the mix are Tom Hiddleston as Hank Williams in I Saw the Light; Terrence Malick’s starry arthouse drama Knight of Cups; family animation Robinson Crusoe; and Lucile Hadžihalilović’s Evolution. Top 10 films April 29 to May 1 1. Captain America: Civil War, £14,466,681 from 605 sites (new) 2. The Jungle Book, £5,758,824 from 617 sites. Total: £30,201,705 3. Eye in the Sky, £528,811 from 428 sites. Total: £3,731,999 4. Zootropolis, £516,137 from 514 sites. Total: £22,211,058 5. Bastille Day, £334,761 from 417 sites. Total: £1,538,502 6. Demolition, £264,512 from 204 sites (new) 7. Friend Request, £252,693 from 350 sites. Total: £1,157,941 8. Son of Saul, £178,617 from 55 sites (new) 9. Elektra: Met Opera, £174,559 from 179 sites (new) 10. Eddie the Eagle, £157,070 from 245 sites. Total: £8,354,601 Other openers Ratchet & Clank, £147,848 from 378 sites Baaghi, £97,055 from 34 sites Finding Mr Right 2, £44,297 from 13 sites God’s Not Dead 2, £26,755 from 50 sites Manithan, £7,036 from 10 sites Atlantic, £3,152 from four sites Brown Willy, £2,439 from three sites Arabian Nights Volume 2: The Desolate One, £2,297 from 10 sites Heaven Knows What, £907 from four sites Golden Years, £906 from six sites A Flickering Truth, £502 from one site Thanks to comScore All figures relate to takings in UK and Ireland cinemas. This article was amended on 4 May 2016 to correct an error in the standfirst.
Modern masculinity and music: 2016, the year of the ambiguous male Olly Alexander – Years and Years When we made our first album I was in my early 20s and was mainly writing about all the guys that I had dumped; all the time I’d spent going out and getting wasted and sleeping with men I didn’t particularly like. It wasn’t until a bit later I realised it was pretty unusual to have a song like Take Shelter – essentially a song about a guy using me for sex – played on mainstream commercial radio. In spite of my honesty in songs, I find it hard to articulate my thoughts about gender. The way we think and the words we use are all structured to fit around the gender binary. When I was about five years old I loved playing with Polly Pocket toys – this was the early 1990s, and they were the bomb. I knew even then I wasn’t supposed to like something so “girly”. We have our gender identities forced on us from the moment we are born, from the language we use to refer to children, to the clothes we put them in and the games we let them play. At about 10 years old I had long curtains-style hair (again, the 90s) and people frequently thought I was a girl. I would burn with shame and I was never entirely sure why. I was bullied throughout my early teens for being skinny, for being bad at sports, for being “feminine”, for not being masculine enough. I’ve had a difficult relationship with my own so-called masculinity. I’ve gone from wanting desperately to “be like everybody else” to rejecting the idea totally, and then to where I am now, which is a sort of ambiguous mashup of identities. I don’t have it worked out, but it doesn’t feel shameful or wrong. I do feel hopeful for the younger generation though: from what I see online they are much more fluent with concepts of gender fluidity and intersectionality than we were at school. But where are our artists like Boy George or Prince? Bieber can say sorry, but can he wear a dress like Bowie? To be fair, nobody can, although it’d be nice to see him try. Hayden Thorpe – Wild Beasts When you’re a teenager and people ask what you want to be when you grow up, often boys say: “I want to be an astronaut, I want to be a fireman, I want to be a footballer or I want to be a rock star.” We already have a built-in hero complex. Being a guy in a band is a huge projection of masculinity. But in many ways I started making music as a response to machismo. As a child of Britpop there was a point where I realised this blokey-ness was not speaking to me whatsoever. I felt alienated and abandoned by the music that was supposed to speak to me. That’s why our early music was very effeminate and gentle – almost as a protest. It was more punk, more ‘fuck you’ to sing with this delicate falsetto than it was to scream down the mic. Especially coming from the robust farming community that we did, where men worked with their hands on the land. There is a very stoic nature and culture in Cumbria, and those kind of mechanisms are still built into us – they are in our DNA. Our career depends on channelling our emotions and vulnerabilities so there is this irreconcilable rub in everything we do. I dance in our video for Get My Bang, something I was nauseatingly terrified about. I thought I’d inflicted this huge monstrosity on myself and on to the world. It turned out to be a really profound experience. As a singer, the one grace I have is that I can stand and deliver from the neck up, so to start using the body became this completely different sensation of expression. We filmed the video in Belgrade, and Serbians will by nature admit they are straight talking, so my encouragement was along the lines of ‘you look like Mr Bean’ or ‘you look like a pervert’. These are hugely demasculating things! During the process it became apparent about how a man should occupy his body and present himself. I worked with a male dancer in the video quite closely and to feed off the energy off this beautiful man with an incredible physique and expression of the body was amazing. All that I could do in my clumsy rigidness was to channel him and allow that energy into me. Being a heterosexual male made it an unusual experience. I thought, ‘God, you’re so brave’. I came away thinking that if you want someone with real balls it’s the male ballet dancer. That’s where the real grit is. Gaika I guess growing up, I always got told I had confusing features and mannerisms – some brutally male and others mysteriously female. Androgyny has always appealed to me aesthetically. Socially I’m definitely what you would call an alpha male; I’m the eldest of three boys, but I hate the execution of male power and the destruction it causes. I find the company and professional approach of men and women to be totally different, but I can only work or play with mixed groups. I hate toxic masculinity but truly adore boxing. I can be chivalrous to almost the point of apparent chauvinism, but believe in and fight for gender equality. The philosophical study of masculinity in this era is fascinating for me. Is what we call “maleness” a conscious psychological construct or instinctual animal behaviour? It is a tension I often explore in life and in art. However I’m still not sure what masculinity in the modern day is, other than a series of contradictions. I am a straight man and while I definitely strongly identify as male, for some reason I can’t think of a good reason why it still matters. I often leave the gender box uncrossed on forms because I literally don’t understand what difference it makes to 90% of things you need to fill in forms for. I think masculinity (whatever that actually means) can never be fully obsolete as it is largely composed of a culture which is in a constant state of flux. Masculinity to me becomes an abstract concept that I feel creates some kind of prescribed identity that operates outside of the purest content of one’s work, a loop of expectation that can bamboozle the audience for better or worse. As a creator I want to be as indefinable as possible without loosing sight of what I’m trying to communicate. I guess that’s contradictory in nature, so I end up with work that right now isn’t easily defined as pop or experimental, black or white, male or female. Harry Burgess – Adult Jazz I guess Adult Jazz’s music so far has been about parsing all kinds of identity questions, both personally and to a wider audience, and gender is the first big area of selfhood handed to us. I think our songs are usually addressing conflicting identities and broadening possible identities. Room for religion and queerness. Room for masculinity and femininity. Room to be traditional and non-traditional. We are trying our best to make that negotiation sonically as well. There was a controversial Russell Tovey interview in the that is a neat vignette about what we are trying to look at in our recent songs. He made some comments which alluded to the fact that he was glad he was not effeminate. It was honest, but not very sensitive, and those sentiments have nasty, misogynistic overtones when worked out. However, after this, I came across plenty of responses on the internet that basically said: “Blatant femmephobia! Anyway ... Have you seen how he moves his hands? What a queen!” It can’t be both a source of pride and a stick to beat someone with! Often, queer people are expected to be perma-proud. It’s tiring, unrealistic and lets endemic heterosexism off the hook. It’s far more palatable for the straight world to welcome supposedly undamaged people, rather than us approaching with welts and saying ‘look what you did to me’. Orlando, and equal marriage? It’s a confusing time to be queer! Masculinity is a tense topic for gay men, fraught with conflict between the internal landscape and the end-goal liberal position. In Earrings Off! I wanted to be honest and relate to self-consciousness about the status of my masculinity, my historical servitude to it, my inflated regard for it, my desires for it, to be it, and my role as both an aesthete and a vessel of it. The Ooh Ah Eh video is about that latter tension. Learning to shave as a natural function, or a warped desire? Why do I let a cheeky-chappy get away with anything? Why do the most right-on girls I know acknowledge, with frustration, a sense of “graduation” when being accepted into all male peer groups? As an artist it can feel risky to vocalise such traditional desires. I hope the critical barb comes purely from doubling down on these desires to such a degree. Masculinity would feel in less dominion, men less powerful, if they vocalised their unspoken desire to be masculine as a running commentary! Rory Graham – Rag ‘N’ Bone Man Sometimes people think I’m scary because I’m a big dude and I’m covered in tattoos – I feel like strangers are wary of me. I get funny looks from old people. The thing is, that person that people see does not come across in my personality or music at all. Physical appearance is often the first place people judge, it’s partly our fault but mostly the media’s fault; unfortunately everybody immediately makes decisions based on looks. I like trying to break those barriers of what is expected of a man. I’ve always been drawn to the soul greats who were able to be vulnerable in their songs, men like Donny Hathaway, Otis Redding, Al Green. But growing up I was living in this little town and there wasn’t much to do apart from drink and fight. As soon as I could I moved to Brighton because it felt like that was the place where there was a bit more freedom. Still now, people around me are surprised by my music, and that it is so sensitive. I like to talk about really personal stuff in my songs and therefore it’s sometimes quite hard to perform live because the lyrics can make me feel super emotional. When I do festivals or shows, people don’t know I make soul music, they always assume I am a rapper or a heavy metal singer, and I constantly get comments like: “I didn’t expect that to come out of your mouth!”
Crystal Palace punish Swansea profligacy as Scott Dann grabs point Swansea City stretched their unbeaten run to four matches but that was small consolation on an afternoon when Francesco Guidolin’s team paid a high price for their first-half profligacy and were once again left to rue their inability to defend set pieces. For the third successive game, Swansea conceded from a corner and it was no surprise that Scott Dann was the latest man to punish them. “He’s a goal machine,” sang the Crystal Palace supporters after Dann scored for the fifth time this season to end a run of five straight league defeats and, in the process, put a smile back on the face of Alan Pardew, who had cut a miserable and frustrated figure in the first half. Ahead through a trademark Gylfi Sigurdsson free-kick, Swansea controlled the opening 45 minutes and could have put the game beyond Palace during that period. Instead, they were left to lament the chances that were spurned and the equaliser from Dann, three minutes after the interval, that resulted in two points slipping through their fingers in their battle for survival. The Welsh club are in 16th place in the Premier League, only four points above the bottom three. “I think this was the best we have played since I came here,” said Guidolin. “It wasn’t easy because the weather wasn’t good for a side who try to play on the floor. But my team did play well for 90 minutes and I thought we deserved to win. We just let things slip a bit at the start of the second half.” Pardew acknowledged how disappointed he had been with Palace’s first-half performance when he said that his players looked apprehensive and inhibited, almost as if they were thinking too much and playing the game “like it was a chess board”. He withdrew Lee Chung-yong at half-time, replaced him with Marouane Chamakh, set Palace up in a much more orthodox 4-4-2 and got an instant reward when Dann swept home. Palace still had to weather the storm at times in the second half, as Swansea desperately pushed for a winner. “I suppose if I was Swansea I might think: ‘We should have won it,’” admitted Pardew. “But, for us, this was everything today – we really had to sit ourselves down at half-time. The start of the second half was our best period. But make no mistake, it was Crystal Palace DNA that saw us home – real character, getting blocks in at the end.” Emmanuel Adebayor was given his first league start in 15 months but made little impression and was guilty of giving away the free-kick that led to Sigurdsson putting Swansea ahead with a perfectly placed curling shot that crept inside Wayne Hennessey’s near post. Then came those missed opportunities as André Ayew twice came close to scoring and Wayne Routledge curled a shot narrowly wide. Dann was not so generous when he got away from Federico Fernández to convert from close range after Damien Delaney had flicked on Yohan Cabaye’s corner. Remarkably, Dann is now Crystal Palace’s joint top scorer on five, along with Cabaye. “Scott keeps coming up with goals,” Pardew said. “You have only got to stand next to us in the tunnel – we’re a huge side, so set plays are very important to us. He smashed it home and he’s a natural finisher actually, for a centre-half.” Williams twice found himself in a similar position to Dann, but the Swansea captain was unable to force the ball home. Sandwiched between those opportunities, Modou Barrow drilled a ferocious shot over the crossbar and Hiram Boateng, who was making his first Premier League appearance, dragged the ball narrowly wide for Palace.
Update your Kindle now or get knocked offline If you have a Kindle made before 2012, now is the time to dig it out of wherever it’s stashed: if the software isn’t updated before Tuesday 22 March, you’ll be unable to take it online. That means no syncing read states, no accessing the Kindle store and no buying new books – unless you remember to install the latest update. Kindles download and install updates automatically if they’re connected to Wi-Fi, but if yours is lying unplugged somewhere, it has likely disconnected. But don’t worry, it’s easy to fix: just plug it in, turn it on and click on “sync and check for items” in the menu. But do it quickly, because come 22 March, you won’t be able to install a new update. Because your Kindle won’t be able to connect to the internet. Because you didn’t install the new update. There will be a way out of that catch–22 as well, though: download the software update for your specific Kindle from Amazon’s help page, connect your Kindle to the computer, and update over a USB cable. But it’s probably best to avoid the problem before it arrives. The affected models are every Kindle made before 2012: Kindle 1st Generation (2007) Kindle 2nd Generation (2009) Kindle DX 2nd Generation (2009) Kindle Keyboard 3rd Generation (2010) Kindle 4th Generation (2011) Kindle 5th Generation (2012) Kindle Touch 4th Generation (2011) Kindle Paperwhite 5th Generation (2012) If you’re too late to fix it online, you’ll get the following message on your Kindle screen: “Your Kindle is unable to connect at this time. Please make sure you are within wireless range and try again. If the problem persists, please restart your Kindle from the Menu in Settings and try again.”
FBI's credibility 'deeply damaged' by leaks during election, congressman says The top Democrat on the House intelligence committee said on Tuesday that the FBI had been “deeply damaged” by its conduct during the presidential election and would find it hard to repair its credibility under a Trump administration. Adam Schiff said that FBI leaks about the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email server – and the announcement by the FBI director, James Comey, 11 days before the vote, that new emails had been found – “were highly problematic, to put it in the most diplomatic of terms”. “I think that the bureau, which I have great respect for ... has been deeply damaged by their conduct over the last year, by the violation of the DoJ policies about talking about pending or closed cases and additionally by the nonstop leaks of information,” Schiff, a Democratic congressman from California, told reporters. However, he did not support the call made by the outgoing Democratic leader in the Senate, Harry Reid, for the FBI to balance its disclosure on the Clinton emails, which were ultimately deemed not to warrant further investigation, with details of investigations into what he called “explosive information” about “close ties and coordination” between Trump and Moscow. “I don’t think the remedy for that is leaking more information. And I don’t think I or the bureau should be talking about investigations, no matter who they are about,” Schiff said. Even without further leaks, he suggested it would be hard to undo the damage done by the perceived politicisation of the FBI’s work. “So going forward there is a lot of damage to be repaired, and frankly I don’t see how that happens because if there is reason to investigate anything going on with the new administration, how much confidence will the public have in the conduct of that investigation?” he asked. “How much confidence will the public have that it’s objective, that it’s based on the facts, that it’s adhering to the highest standards? You can see how half the country might believe one thing, the other is going to believe another, and ultimately no one will believe the legitimacy of the process.” During the campaign, Trump welcomed the leaking of Clinton’s emails, which US intelligence agencies said were hacked from the Democratic National Committee by Russia to the WikiLeaks organisation. Schiff warned that the same tactics could be used by Moscow to apply pressure on Trump when he is president. “Should the president-elect cross the Russians – as inevitably he will have to because their interests are not our interests – he can expect that if the Russians are in possession of any embarrassing emails about his team, they will be dumped,” Schiff said. “And if they are not in possession of them they will hack and do their best to get in possession of them.” The seven Democrats and one independent on the Senate intelligence committee have called for the declassification of intelligence on Russian intervention in the US presidential election.
The view on Richmond Park: slowly does it The Liberal Democrat victory in Richmond Park was a triumph for Sarah Olney, her campaign team, and the strategy of the leader, Tim Farron, who declared in his conference speech in September that the party could win as the voice of the 48%. It is also a compelling example of what can be achieved if pro-European Tories, Labour, Greens and Lib Dems work together. And while Ms Olney’s defeated rivals will take comfort from the nature of the byelection – in a prosperous, pro-European corner of south-west London that might have been tailored for a Lib Dem revival – there is no hiding from the fact that it was a personal humiliation for Zac Goldsmith. It was his second defeat of the year, close on the heels of his shameful campaign to become London mayor. It should, at the least, give the prime minister, whose working majority is now just 13, reason to reconsider her divisive rhetoric. And Labour, which won fewer votes than it has members in the seat, must bang heads together to get a clear, less contested approach to Brexit. After the rout of the 2015 general election, many Lib Dems gloomily anticipated years of rebuilding. They may still be right. Yet even if Richmond Park, a seat they held from 1997 to 2010, could hardly be bettered as a battleground for them, it remains an extraordinary achievement to win it with a 20-point swing from the Tories. The party’s once-formidable byelection machinery had been well-oiled and successfully trialled at the Witney byelection in October. Party activists and past leaders turned out in impressive numbers to support a strong local candidate, who – new to politics – was untainted by association with the coalition years. In her victory speech in the early hours of this morning, Ms Olney sounded exactly the right note of unity and conciliation over Europe, ending on the rousing pledge that “we will not let intolerance, division and fear win” – an overture all the more attractive in the light of the bilious response to the result from the Brexiters. In their heyday, Lib Dem byelection triumphs were often built on squeezing the Labour vote, and that was certainly true in Richmond Park. Labour’s national poll standing might be uncomfortably low, but it is not the 3.6% share of the vote they won on Thursday, any more than the Lib Dems’ is 49%. Yet the result, even in a seat where it would never win, does highlight Labour’s uncertain signalling about Europe. While the shadow Brexit minister Kier Starmer and his one-person team methodically devise ways to pin down the government’s negotiating position, the shadow chancellor races far beyond the agreed party line, declaring last week that leaving the EU presented “enormous opportunities”. The result also looks like a more general warning about the fragmentation of the left. While the Tories, attracting back Ukip defectors, appear in command of the right, the left faces a threat of uncertain scale from Ukip’s new, working-class, pro-hanging Liverpudlian leader, Paul Nuttall, who has made replacing Labour his main mission. Meanwhile the Tories, sheltering behind Zac Goldsmith’s status as an independent, downplay the significance of the result. But although Mrs May might take comfort from her current high standing in the polls, a significant number of her MPs – many with majorities over Lib Dem challengers that are much smaller than the 23,000 in Richmond – will be looking nervously behind them. Yet the Lib Dems cannot afford too much jubilation. The assertion that a hard Brexit won’t now happen when many people still hope that it will risks jumping way ahead of popular opinion. Remain is still losing rather than winning support. There is no appetite for a second referendum. The urgent job in hand is to work out what a soft Brexit looks like and start to build a coalition across parties that can hold the government to account for delivering it. Only if it ends with a wide perception that it has failed can there be an honest campaign to try to stop it.
Sing review – pitch-perfect porcupines have the X factor in jukebox musical To many of us, “formulaic” is a negative term. But for mainstream family entertainment destined to live a franchise life after the initial film has long left the theatres, working within a well-worn structure is the key to success. Sing, from Illumination (the animation company that made Minions), feels less like a movie than a genetic mutation developed in a laboratory. It has just the right measurements of simple humour, heart, kawaii-levels of cuteness, zany chase sequences, fart jokes and catchy tunes. The sales pitch – American Idol but in a world like Zootopia – is one of those “why didn’t I think of that?” home runs. But that’s only part of it. Sing is structured like a jukebox musical, so it’s wall-to-wall popular songs that everybody knows just from going to the supermarket. Indeed, one of Sing’s big numbers comes when Gipsy Kings’ Bamboleo, which has appeared in television advertisements for years, pipes in over a supermarket PA system. It may be a talking pig with 25 children and dreams of being a star that’s pushing the cart, but it is also you and me. The songs, like everything else in this streamlined affair, are chosen meticulously, from right now or the 1980s. In other words, half for the nine-year-olds, half for their parents. So there’s a cute gorilla singing Elton John, a porcupine singing Carly Rae Jepsen, a happy pig dancing to Taylor Swift and an elephant grooving to Stevie Wonder. God, it’s so obnoxious. And the worst thing is that it works. I was smiling and applauding at the end, then I had to take a long walk alone to wonder what was wrong with me. There are a million characters in Sing (which is 110 minutes, when it should be 85) so I’ll just hit you with the big ones: Buster Moon (a koala bear voiced by Matthew McConaughey) is a theatre impresario with big dreams, but prone to disaster. Buster decides that his way out of debt is to put on a big competition to get the best voices in the city on stage. All his resources add to $1,000, but a Brazil-esque Buttle/Tuttle typing error adds two zeroes to his announcement. Soon, everyone wants to join the show, and this includes Taron Egerton as a gorilla from a family of criminals, Seth MacFarlane as a Rat Pack-like mouse, Tori Kelly as an elephant with a big voice but tremendous stage fright, and many others. The backstage drama is sub-Muppet Movie, but this was never meant to be François Truffaut’s The Last Metro: it’s a delivery system for beloved pop hits sung by dancing cartoon animals. The creature design isn’t all that inspired, but some of the animation sequences are. A scene in which the theatre floods with water is truly enthralling and the funniest bit in the whole movie – when the koala bear and his sheep pal decide to turn their bodies into a car wash – is hilarious. It’s unfortunate there’s so little of this and so much of hearing these actors (Scarlett Johansson and John C Reilly are also in the cast) belt out 18-second clips of Katy Perry, Sam Smith or Kanye West tunes. Grumbles aside, Sing is going to make more money at the box office than the gross national product of many small countries. My 10-year-old niece (who quite enjoys singing) will want to see it eight times. She’ll want to see the sequel and the direct-to-DVD spinoffs and she’ll want to go to the tie-in events at Universal Studios. As cinema, this isn’t anything I’m too enthused about. As a business triumph, there’s reason to sing its praises.
Two Trump kids miss one big deadline Ivanka Trump has made at least five get-out-the-vote ads on behalf of her father, and Eric Trump has tweeted voter deadlines. But neither Trump child is a registered Republican. That means they can’t vote in New York’s 19 April primary, where pops is striving to pass a 50% threshold that would give him a delegates sweep. “They feel very, very guilty,” Trump said. How to be a New Yorker: a guide for candidates “Corrupt”, “rigged”, “unfair” and “bad” – all adjectives applied by Trump to the delegate system, after he lost multiple delegates fights over the weekend. Trump may be losing control, but he’s not going anywhere Poll watchers in Colorado, Iowa, South Carolina, Indiana and elsewhere said poor local organization by Trump and a high level of organization by Ted Cruz had given Cruz an edge. Trump’s new “convention manager” Paul Manafort, however, had a different view. “You go to these county conventions and you see the Gestapo tactics,” he said, promising formal complaints. Trump camp accuses ‘Gestapo’ Cruz Hillary Clinton leads Bernie Sanders 51-39 among New York Democrats, a Monmouth poll found. Non-Democrats, including tens of thousands of New Yorkers who belong to progressive parties, can’t vote in the Dems’ primary. Bill Clinton still boosts Hillary’s campaign Clinton had good polling news from AP, too, which found that Americans pick her over Donald Trump, 33-28, when asked “which candidate they trusted more to make the country great”. Clinton ad touts her as ‘tough enough’ to stop Trump
Leicester City understudies shine to make light of Jamie Vardy’s absence The question everyone wanted to know the answer to was how Leicester City would cope without Jamie Vardy, their leading goalscorer and one of the central characters in English football’s most unlikely narrative. The response was delivered triumphantly by the Leicester City supporters in the closing minutes as “4-0 to the one-man team” reverberated round the King Power Stadium. Whether Mauricio Pochettino’s claim that Vardy’s suspension would have a “big impact” on Leicester’s title pursuit was a mischievous attempt at mind games or a genuine assessment of how he saw the situation, it turned out to be no more than wishful thinking on the part of the Tottenham Hotspur manager. Come the final whistle Vardy was standing in his executive box, smiling as he joined the Leicester supporters in applauding the efforts of a team that had just registered their biggest victory of the season. Rampant and clearly enjoying themselves despite the pressure of the occasion, Leicester played like a team galvanised by the tumultuous events the previous Sunday, when Vardy’s dismissal during the 2-2 draw against West Ham United had threatened to open a window of opportunity for Spurs. Leicester’s response to all the column inches dedicated to Vardy’s unavailability was emphatic and sent out a clear message that there is far more to Claudio Ranieri’s team than their 22-goal striker. Leonardo Ulloa, who has spent so much time on the substitutes’ bench this season yet never once betrayed any sign of frustration or disappointment at being overlooked, proved to be a more than able deputy on an afternoon when he scored twice and left the field to a standing ovation. Hobbling and holding his hip as he trudged towards the edge of the pitch, Ulloa hardly looked a picture of health when he was replaced by Andy King but the Argentinian’s job was done and, just like the week before, when he dispatched a 95th-minute penalty to earn Leicester that precious point against West Ham, his contribution proved vital. Ulloa’s double here took his tally for the season to six and was bookended with goals from Riyad Mahrez and Marc Albrighton. If ever a picture told a story of Leicester’s season and one of their greatest strengths, it was taken after that fourth goal. Every Leicester outfield player ran to congratulate Albrighton, who had not long come off the bench after being left out of the starting lineup for only the second time this season. It may be an old-fashioned value but team spirit still goes a long way. Ranieri, as part of his wider strategy to deal with the absence of Vardy, had opted to go with Jeffrey Schlupp on the left flank instead of Albrighton, primarily to inject some more pace into a team that was in danger of looking short in that department without the England striker on the pitch, and not for the first time this season ‘The Tinkerman’ got his tactics spot on. Schlupp, making only his 13th league start this season, was a constant threat on the left. His direct, penetrative runs caused Swansea problems time and again but in particular in the 60th minute, when the 23-year-old’s touch, speed and power saw him skip past Àngel Rangel and Federico Fernández with embarrassing ease. His first attempt to square unselfishly to Ulloa was blocked but the second dropped at the striker’s feet and he had the simple task of stabbing the ball over the line for Leicester’s third goal. By that stage Leicester were so comfortable and in such control that it seemed strange to think that Vardy’s ban, and the potential implications for the Premier League leaders, had been a matter of such fierce debate in the lead-up to the match. At the same time it was tempting to wonder what Vardy would have done to Ashley Williams, who endured such a torrid afternoon at the centre of Swansea’s defence. Williams was at fault for Mahrez’s opening goal, he lost out in an aerial dual with Ulloa for Leicester’s second and was later booked. Vardy, watching from on high, could have been forgiven for allowing his mind to wander to that Euro 2016 game between Wales and England in Lens and rubbing his hands. Next up for the England striker, though, is an assignment of a different kind at the Football Association. After accepting the FA’s improper conduct charge in relation to his sending-off against West Ham, Vardy will get the chance to put forward his case on Monday after requesting a personal hearing. Everybody connected with Leicester will be hoping that the FA lets him off with a fine, yet the alternative – an extended ban – may not signal the sort of shift in the title race that many had suspected.
Please let’s not send Europeans away – we need them for the NHS My dog walks with my friend Rosemary have been getting shorter and shorter. She can barely make it to the nearest bench, where she slumps down, breathless and exhausted. She knows what it might be. Her heart failing. She suspected this in April, so naturally she went to the doctor. The doctor contacted the hospital. Nothing happened. Weeks passed, Rosemary puffed her way around, doctor sent a reminder to the hospital marked “urgent”. Nothing. More weeks crawled by. Doctor asked again. Rosemary was still on the waiting list. So in the meantime, she has been stopping and leaning all over the place. “It’s a chronic whatsit pulmonary disease exercise,” says she. “Lean on a table and bend over, and that helps.” Then she staggered across town to visit her grandchildren, foolishly carrying two bags of fruit and vegetables, but had to stop and lean over some railings. “So many people passed by,” said Rosemary. Then a street sweeper just finishing his shift spotted her. Did she need any help? Could he carry her bags? “Yes, please,” said Rosemary. “How kind. If you could just carry them to those traffic lights.” So he did. “He was eastern European,” said Rosemary. “Please don’t let’s send them away.” Meanwhile, no news from the heart department. By last weekend, our walkie was hardly a walk at all. Rosemary crept from bench to bench and couldn’t quite make it to the car, so she clung to a parking machine and leaned over that, until I drove along and picked her up. “They’re understaffed, poor things,” says she. “It’s the cuts.” Correct. Earlier this year the “frontline in England” was possibly “as many as 50,000 staff short”. And that was pre-Brexit and a possible exodus of European staff. Then at last Rosemary got an appointment. For last Wednesday. What a relief. She has been tremendously stoical. Not that it’s done her much good, but what choice did she have? Off she went, full of hope, to the community cardiac centre. Staff were excellent and did some routine tests. But bad luck, it was only an appointment to see if she still needed an proper appointment. Aaaarrggghhh.
Malcolm Turnbull says banking royal commission just a Labor 'thought bubble' The Coalition has dug in on its opposition to a royal commission into malpractice in the banking industry, with Malcolm Turnbull saying it is little more than a “distraction” by Labor. It was the first time Turnbull commented on the royal commission, which was proposed by the opposition leader, Bill Shorten, on Friday. “Bill Shorten’s call for a royal commission into the banking industry is just another distraction, just a thought bubble, to respond to the news of the week,” the prime minister told reporters on Sunday, in comments that echoed sentiments from members of his frontbench. Earlier in the week, Turnbull had given the banks a serve for failing to put customers first. On Sunday, he said cultural change was needed above legislative change. “The critical thing here is that the high standards of putting the customer first, of ensuring that the trust of the community is justified,” Turnbull said. “That requires leadership from senior bank managers and they are providing that leadership and they will provide more. We have a strong regulatory structure to do that.” He said the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (Asic) and the Australian Prudential Regulatory Authority had sufficient powers to regulate the banking industry. “It has banned people from industry, it has enacted fines, it’s a very active regulator,” Turnbull said of Asic. The resources minister, Josh Frydenberg, told the ABC’s Insiders program on Sunday: “I just think this is a bit of populist politics. This is just a distraction from Bill Shorten.” The immigration minister, Peter Dutton, said Labor would be ramping up populist sentiment before the federal election, which is presumably “only weeks away”. “If Mr Shorten is out there running populist lines well we’ll let him do that,” he told Sky News on Sunday. The Greens welcome a potential royal commission into banks. “We’ve been calling for it for a long time,” the Greens MP Adam Bandt told Sky News.
Lena Dunham joins team of directors of election day documentary Lena Dunham is among a large group of directors collaborating on 11/8/16, a documentary about this year’s US presidential election. According to Deadline, the film-makers were asked to follow a diverse group of Americans from across the country, recording them through the course of the day and into the evening, until the polls close and the winner is revealed. The film-makers will also use the live-streaming app Periscope to broadcast as events unfold on the day. The project will be led by Jeff Deutchman, who carried out a similar project, 11/4/08, two elections ago when Barack Obama was first elected. Among the 56 directors attached to the project are Oscar-winner Daniel Junge (Saving Face), Kris Swanberg (Unexpected), David Lowery (Pete’s Dragon) and Eugene Jarecki (The House I Live In). The full list can be seen here. 11/8/16 will be produced and distributed by The Orchard, and is expected to be released in early 2017.
Anyone but … meet the other candidates in the ‘craziest election of all time’ Gary Johnson – the Republican-leaning, marijuana-smoking, Everest-climbing presidential nominee of the Libertarian party – has a problem: he will be barred from crucial election TV debates this autumn unless he can boost his polling numbers to 15%, from around 10% now. Without the blockbuster ratings that the three scheduled Clinton-Trump dust-ups are likely to produce, many say it’s hard to see how Johnson, 63, or either of the two other third-party candidates – Jill Stein of the Green party and Evan McMullin, a former CIA officer and policy director for the House Republican Conference – can ever be anything more than electoral curiosities. But other commentators suggest that the emergence of three independent candidates could still provide an unpredictable twist. Polling data suggests libertarians on both sides of the political divide are giving independent candidates a second look. In Las Vegas on Friday, Johnson and Stein spoke before a gathering of Asian-American and Pacific islander voters to press their case. Johnson, a former governor of New Mexico who presents a platform of social libertarianism, fiscal conservatism and non-interventionism in foreign affairs, reasoned at the gathering that in this, “the craziest election of all time”, one indication of the craziness was that “I might be the next president of the United States”. A just-released Wall Street Journal-NBC poll gives Johnson 15% in the crucial swing state of Colorado, and Stein 6%. Johnson said he had been asked repeatedly if a vote for him, or any third-party candidate, was a wasted vote. “A wasted vote is voting for somebody you don’t believe in. That’s a wasted vote,” Johnson said in Vegas. “Vote for the person you believe in – that’s how you bring about change.” Stein, who also spoke at the event, similarly argued that many Americans were looking for an alternative to Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, whom she described as “the most disliked and untrusted” major-party nominee in US history. “Democracy needs a moral compass,” she told the meeting. “It’s not just about who you don’t like the most or who you are most afraid of.” Stein, who was also the Green party candidate in 2012, has outlined policy positions that include a “green new deal” focused on renewable energy jobs and on completing America’s transition to renewable energy by 2030. She also proposes to cut the military budget by a third and the creation of regional food systems based on sustainable organic agriculture. On the Republican side, McMullin, a beneficiary of the #Never Trump movement, missed getting on the ballot in 26 states before he had even sent out his first campaign release. Despite this, he gives disaffected conservatives an alternative to the Republican nominee, who, he says, has tapped into “people’s darkest prejudices and deepest fears”. McMullin’s best chance would be if Trump were to drop out of the race for some as-yet-unanticipated reason. “Like millions of Americans, I had hoped this year would bring us better nominees who, despite party differences, could offer compelling visions of a better future,” McMullin said. “Instead, we have been left with two candidates who are fundamentally unfit for the profound responsibilities they seek.” But can they begin to make a difference? Only once in recent election cycles has a third party candidate had any influence: that was in 1992, when Texan businessman Ross Perot took almost 18.9% of the vote and helped to hand the election to Arkansas governor Bill Clinton over what could have been a straightforward re-election for George HW Bush. Johnson’s running mate, former Massachusetts governor William Weld, said he had seen interest and fundraising pick up as Trump’s campaign has floundered. Johnson’s campaign recently reported a $1m one-week fundraising haul and has said that more than 40,000 people have pledged to donate at least $15 to his campaign on 15 August. With Clinton now leading Trump by double digits in some key battleground states, the impact of any third party candidate could be limited. But given the unpredictability of the race so far, and the probability that Johnson and Stein will pull more voters from Clinton than Trump, all that could change. “At the moment it doesn’t look like they can have much impact at all,” says veteran Democratic adviser Hank Sheinkopf. “But if the race gets closer, they could throw it either way.” Sheinkopf believes the election has become more about personalities and less about what party leaders want. The long-term impact may be a significant shift in how people view Democrats and Republicans. As it now stands, Stein, Johnson and McMullin could act as a convenient parking spot for voters disgusted with both candidates. Earlier this month, federal judge Rosemary Collyer rejected a challenge brought by Johnson and Stein arguing that the bar for inclusion in debates is set artificially high. Yet there are signs that the ground could be shifting. Former Clinton press secretary Mike McCurry, now co-chair of the Commission on Presidential Debates, hinted that a third podium might be needed. “Some of our production people may have said: ‘Just in case, you need to plan out what that might look like’,’’ McCurry told Politico. “We won’t know the number of invitations we extend until mid-September.” Ron Faucheux, president of Clarus Research Group, a non-partisan polling firm, said: “Polls show that voters think third party candidates should be included, and in an election like this where polls show a majority of voters dislike both main party candidates, there is a good reason to give them the opportunity to at least look at other options.” But even Johnson and Stein remain somewhat wistful about their prospects, casting themselves as agents of change who, at best, could represent the beginning of a political realignment among voters dissatisfied with a two-party system. “The biggest message is ‘consider us’, as a very, very viable alternative to this two-party system that has become so polarised that they’re not able to do anything,” Johnson has said. In Vegas, Stein advanced a similar position: “We’re having a political reorganisation in this election because the Republicans are kind of falling apart, and the Democrats have kind of split, with a lot of the Bernie Sanders supporters just not happy with the alternative.” She noted that it was by voting for the “lesser of two evils” that the country had inherited many of its problems. When recent polls are expanded to include all four candidates, rather than just the main two, most show a smaller lead for Clinton over Trump and in the others the margins remain similar. Johnson accepted that his polling was thus far insufficient to qualify for the debates and his chances of making an impact were remote unless he could take part in the debates. “There’s no way I’m going to win the presidency if I’m not in the presidential debates,” he said, adding: “I do believe anything is possible given that, right now, arguably the two most polarising figures in American politics today are running for office.”
David Bowie dominates UK album charts as latest album hits No 1 This week’s UK charts are dominated by the albums and singles of David Bowie. More than half a million of his records were sold after his death on Sunday, with an entire quarter of the top 40 commandeered by the pop pioneer. His new album, Blackstar, debuts at No 1, making it his 10th chart-topping LP. With combined sales across formats of almost 150,000, the album was already on course for the top spot before the news of his death. Elsewhere, 19 Bowie albums and 13 singles have entered the top 100. His 2014 best of, Nothing Has Changed, entered at No 5, with The Best of 1969/1974 at No 11 – contributing to the 241,000 posthumous Bowie album sales in total. Of his standard albums, Hunky Dory sits at No 14, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust is at No 17, Aladdin Sane is at No 23 and The Next Day at No 25. The rest of the album chart top five features Elvis Presley’s If I Can Dream at No 2, Adele’s 25 at No 3, and Justin Bieber’s Purpose at No 4. A number of Bowie’s vintage tracks also reentered the charts. He sold 167,000 singles, and streams reached more than 19m across a number of services. This week, his 1977 track Heroes was his best performing single, at No 12, with Life on Mars at No 16 and Starman at No 18. Let’s Dance and Space Oddity also crack the top 40. Bieber conquers the UK singles charts this week: Love Yourself remains at the top of the UK singles list for its sixth week. Shawn Mendes’s Stitches currently sits at No 2, with Bieber’s Sorry and What Do You Mean at No 3 and 4 respectively. Sigala and Bryn Chistopher’s Sweet Lovin’ caps off the top 5.
Tinder makes STI clinics available after lengthy talks with Aids charity Tinder’s decision to provide users with a link to find local STI clinics was agreed in a series of “conversations” with the president of the world’s largest HIV/Aids foundation following a spat over a billboard campaign that linked dating apps with sexually transmitted diseases. Lawyers for the dating app sent an aggressive cease and desist letter to the Aids Healthcare Foundation after the organisation put up a billboard showing silhouetted figures leaning in for a kiss – one bearing the label “Tinder”, the other “chlamydia.” A second couple on the billboard were labelled “Grindr” and “syphilis”. Tinder’s letter, dated 18 September 2015, said the advertisement constituted “unprovoked and wholly unsubstantiated accusations … made to irreparably damage Tinder’s reputation” and demanded the billboard be taken down immediately. According to an official from the Aids Healthcare Foundation, Tinder’s CEO Sean Rad then met with the foundation’s president Michael Weinstein, and after several months of conversation the pair came to an agreement which included a joint press release in support of sexual health, and an option for users to find local STI treatment centers, in return for the billboard’s removal. “There was a meeting and email conversation, and it was really about what would be effective and what would help their patrons from Tinder’s side,” said Whitney Angeran, the Aids Healthcare Foundation’s senior director of public health. “They were receptive from the beginning – after we got past the cease and desist letter.” In a statement, a representative for Tinder said: “While the CDC, who conducted the largest and most credible study on the topic, has never identified any connection that supports the idea that Tinder usage correlates with, let alone causes, an increase in STDs, we’re of course in favor of organizations that provide public education resources on the topic, and we’re happy to do our part in supporting these educational efforts.”
Don't like Taylor Swift? The Kanye call proved you right. Love her? Ditto When Kim Kardashian-West released a video on Snapchat on Monday, it seemed designed to end Taylor Swift. The video records part of a phone call between Swift and Kardashian’s husband, Kanye West. Swift has alleged that his song Famous includes misogyny directed at her in a lyric where West calls her “that bitch”. West, however, claims he received her approval before releasing the song. The video seems to validate West’s story – in the clip, he voices a few lyrics, while Swift seems to sweetly utter approval. But instead of inciting a mass critique of Swift, the video seems to have polarized opinions on the pop star even further. The Swift-ians have been quick to point out the foibles with the Kardashian-West video: the editing is choppy. Taping it might be illegal. And, absent from the video is the true smoking gun: Kayne using the word “bitch” to describe Swift. The West-ians, however, have doubled down on their interpretation: the video itself is evidence that Taylor lies, since she denied any lyric-specific exchange occurring between the two. The evidence given to both groups (one blurry video) is the same, but what facts they lift from it, and how they choose to interpret those facts, are wildly different. Why does such a simple artifact – a phone conversation between two megawatt celebrities – inspire such seemingly contradictory reactions? The answer may be, in part, a simple phenomenon called confirmation bias. “Confirmation bias” refers to our tendency to seek out, recall and interpret information that validates our own beliefs. When we look for evidence, we unconsciously sort for the bits that back up our own opinion. When we interpret information, our understanding is skewed to whatever we initially believed to be true. Partially, this is helpful. To make sense of the vast array of details, ideas and information in the world, our brains rely on some organizing principles to sort out what is important and what can be discarded. We have to form connections somehow, and basing them on what we already believe to be true helps to fortify our own reasoning. But it’s also why it can be so frustrating to debate someone with an opposing viewpoint. It can feel like they’re inhabiting an alternate universe. And, in a way, they are. This divided court of public opinion isn’t just limited to celebrity gossip. Earlier this month, when Diamond Reynolds streamed video of her boyfriend, Philando Castile, bleeding after being shot by a police officer in a traffic stop, people scrutinized her vocal tone and word choice. In the video, Reynolds describes what is happening and responds to the officer’s questions with a polite, “yes, sir”. On Twitter, Reynolds was lambasted for her “strange, detached bedside manner,” which naysayers used as evidence that the shooting was staged, that Reynolds was a “sociopath” who was “unconcerned” that her boyfriend was dying in front of her eyes. Later, when psychologists described her seemingly calm tone as a common reaction to extreme shock, it was seen as “self-preservatory” and an act of political defiance. Cognitive bias is also a helpful explanation for why the United States seems to fracture into two groups every time Donald Trump gives a speech. Trump’s stump speech is full of broad aphorisms and platitudes, the kind of things that make it easy to interpret as you wish. For white, working-class men, Trump’s motto “Make America Great Again” could be interpreted as a rallying cry about economic policy and job creation. For others, Trump’s racist rhetoric (easily dismissed by his followers) means that the slogan may as well be written, “Make America White Again”. As Trump surged in the polls this spring, a large swath of Americans found his meteoric rise inconceivable and terrifying – evidence that America is batty and racist. But it’s also about which of Trump’s foibles people find prescient, and which they choose to discard. It’s even harder to think objectively when you’re looking at a person, like Trump or Swift, who is famous. Speaking on this year’s presidential election, Timothy Calkins, a professor of marketing at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, told the Huffington Post that it’s even more difficult to shift someone’s opinion once they believe they know something. “When you force people to really think about something, it is difficult and challenging,” said Calkins. “And the easy thing to do is to just not think about it. For someone to really challenge and change their beliefs requires a lot of energy.” Few of us are personally acquainted with Trump, West, Swift or Kardashian-West, but their fame is ubiquitous enough that most of us have an opinion about them, one that’s easily stoked by the tiny indeterminate pieces of information we can sort through and assemble to bolster our own sense of moral superiority.
The Iron Man 3 gender-swap shows toy companies think women don’t exist In further “here’s-what-you-could’ve-won” news, it has emerged that Shane Black was forced to turn the female villain he wrote for Iron Man 3 into a male one because Marvel execs were worried – after consulting with toy companies – that a toy of a woman wouldn’t sell as well. Guy Pearce played the rewritten part. I guess it was worth it, because I don’t know a single person who didn’t get an Aldrich Killian toy for Christmas, what with him being a very memorable supervillain whose name I definitely didn’t just have to Google. Of course, toy companies already have a record of comically absurd sexism when it comes to film merchandise. Only this year, the director of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, JJ Abrams, publicly criticised toy firms when they released multiple film tie-in toys that didn’t include Rey, Hasbro execs apparently not having noticed that she was the main character. Very nearly a lucky escape for Daisy Ridley from having to stare into her own terrifying little plastic eyes; the Hasbro Spice Girls dolls I had as a kid made them all look like genuine Autons. It’s not just toys, either: let’s not forget the Avengers shirts Disney brought out reminding boys that they can be a hero when they grow up, while the best little girls can hope for is to maybe, eventually, get off with one. Toy companies’ apparent refusal to accept that women exist is based on either the spurious notion that little girls don’t like “boys’ films”, including Star Wars (wish they could’ve seen my then 12-year-old mother’s bedroom); or else the weird, androcentric assumption that while girls are happy to play with dolls of male characters, boys will suffer some kind of immediate chemical castration upon coming into contact with the likeness of a female/lady/woman. As though children aren’t capable of utilising their imaginations. Execs of big corporations were obviously never young themselves because – as we all know – they instead hatched within the darkness at the very centre of the Earth. Hasbro had to back down on Rey, which is as it should be: audience demand influencing what merchandise is produced, rather than marketing execs for toy companies being able to intervene and rewrite the plots of films. I guess they just got bored with doing what they usually do with Marvel films, putting their fingers in their ears and pretending the character riding the motorcycle they want to sell a toy of was a man all along. Conversations about gender representation in films are increasingly widespread and mainstream. It’s not enough just to stick a woman in your film now: you have to think about whether she has a character rather than just really good hair. And while comics have huge amounts of time and space to explore all kinds of stories, creating female characters as nuanced as Kate Bishop in the Hawkeye series, Marvel Studios has drawn criticism for still not being sufficiently interested in its only major female character to give Black Widow her own film. Cultural film analysis, such as Kelly Sue DeConnick’s sexy lampshade test (“If you can replace your female character with a sexy lamp and the story still basically works, maybe you need another draft”), largely focuses on decisions by writers, so it’s grim to realise that even when writers are trying to do something interesting, big corporations still have the power to intervene and maintain the status quo. We all know sales and marketing potential affects big budget films; audience demand for sequels begets sequels, box office successes begets, well, sequels. There are so many that you feel the same films have been coming out for hundreds of years, and the rest is remakes. It feels as if time is collapsing in on itself. But I guess the real question is whether it’s a soupçon of capitalism, affecting films in mostly harmless ways, or a surplus of capitalism that’s actively damaging writers’ intentions. Maybe it doesn’t bother you that the Iron Man 3 villain was Pearce instead of Rebecca Hall. Maybe you love Pearce; maybe he’s your favourite Australian ever to have appeared in a superhero film, preferable even to Hugh Jackman, who’s been playing Wolverine so long his performance could now be sitting its GCSEs – but the fact remains that “toyetic” is insidious and weird and has messed with franchises before. The golden age of comics began during the turbulent 1930s, and we’re in the middle of a huge, seemingly endless resurgence of superhero films at the moment. Everything’s grey and messy and confusing out in the real world, but in these films the bad guys are pretty identifiable and the good guys always win. At their best, films of this kind are glorious escapism, and they hold children’s imaginations in the palms of their gloved hands. We owe it to them to keep half an eye on who’s looking over the writers’ shoulders – otherwise we’re giving children’s hearts away to people who just want to sell them things.
IMF homes on the eurozone's weakest link: Italy When financial regulators say the European banking system is safe from another major crash they are talking about the funds banks can use to offset their losses. The 31 biggest banks hold an aggregate €1tn (£700bn) of shareholder funds, and account for about 75% of the European banking system by assets. Across all banks, it’s fair to say the total equity reaches €1.35tn. Total losses attributed to European banks in the last financial crash were around €1tn, so a repeat of the devastation caused in 2008 could be withstood by just calling on shareholders to sacrifice their equity. If the crash cost more than €1tn, banks can call on the €8tn of debts to bondholders, which could be cancelled in part or in their entirety, freeing up cash from interest payments to safeguard depositors. This is a substantial extra buffer. No wonder officials in Brussels, European Central Bank head Mario Draghi and the UK’s regulator, the Bank of England, feel confident a taxpayer bailout will never again be required. So it might seem odd that the International Monetary Fund has sounded a warning in its latest financial stability report about the parlous state of the European banking system. It said more should be done to tackle the €900bn of non-performing loans on the books of eurozone banks. It also said there were too many banks chasing too little business and some should be wound up. In Britain this warning might verge on the bizarre. The government wants more banks and has already pushed Lloyds, HSBC and RBS to take a tough line on bad loans. Looking back to 2009, we can see that the Labour government went further than almost all its European counterparts in separating banks from their bad loans to clean up the system. But the IMF is not talking so much about the UK as Italy and other countries in the eurozone periphery. Italy has propped up a forlorn bunch of regional banks that have done little to tackle loans that will never be repaid. Zombie businesses that spend all their spare cash on interest payments, denying them the funds for investment, litter the Italian manufacturing sector, which remains vast. A clearout of bad loans would precipitate mass insolvencies among business customers that depend on cheap funding. Panic would ensue. Italian banks might have the funds to manage the transition if the ECB could boost interest rates and help their profitability. As it is, the ECB has introduced negative deposit rates, which Italian banks must pay to keep funds with the ECB. This increases their costs and should be passed to customers for holding their money. Milan, Turin and Siena’s finest institutions have so far refused, squeezing their profit margins and putting their solvency in doubt It is estimated that bad loans in Italy account for more than a third of the €900bn total, which means that a €6bn rescue fund put forward by Rome is desperately inadequate. So the IMF is less interested in the aggregate figures for European bank funding and more concerned about the weakest link, which experience tells us can set off a chain reaction, bringing good banks down with the bad. For that reason the IMF should be applauded. The difficulty is the trap set by eurozone politicians that have come to rely on cheap ECB funds to lubricate their economies and who ignore the damage this does to their banks. Without a functioning banking system across the whole of Europe, business investment will remain flat and growth weak. And the danger of another crash will continue to lurk in the background.
Kesha denied legal request to escape contract with man she alleges raped her The singer Kesha’s request to be released from recording contract with Dr Luke, who she claims physically and sexually assaulted her, was denied by a New York judge on Friday. Kesha filed a lawsuit against Luke, whose real name is Lukasz Sebastian Gottwald, in 2014, claiming that the physical and sexual abuse began soon after she signed with him in 2005, when she was 18. In the lawsuit, Kesha alleged that Luke plied the singer with drugs and alcohol before making sexual advances toward her. Kesha claimed that on one occasion, Gottwald gave her “sober pills” during a drinking session, and that she later woke up naked in his bed, unable to recall how she got there. Gottwald quickly countersued, claiming Kesha’s allegations were part of a “campaign of publishing outrageous and untrue statements”. Judge Shirley Kornreich denied Kesha’s motion for preliminary injunction, claiming that “there has been no showing of irreparable harm”, BuzzFeed reported. The denied motion means Kesha will remain under contract with Gottwald’s Kemosabe Records, which is owned by Sony. Citing lack of medical evidence such as hospital records to corroborate the assault allegations, Kornreich said: “I don’t understand why I have to take an extraordinary measure of granting an injunction,” according to the Hollywood Reporter. Kesha reportedly sobbed as the verdict was announced, and was comforted by her mother who accompanied her to the trial. Dozens of Kesha fans gathered outside the New York City courthouse in support of the #FreeKesha movement and outrage spread over social media. Attorneys for Gottwald argued that the producer had invested $60m in Kesha’s career and had agreed to allow her to record without his involvement. Kornreich said her instinct was the “do the commercially reasonable thing” and noted that Sony had agreed to let Kesha record without Gottwald’s participation – an agreement Kesha’s lawyers said would set up the singer for failure since Sony’s interests lie in promoting Gottwald. Last year, Kesha’s lawyers said that while the singer is still under Kemosabe Records, she “will suffer irreparable harm, plummeting her career past the point of no return”.
Pamela Hannam obituary My mother, Pamela Hannam, who has died aged 90, was a civil servant and lecturer, and a passionate campaigner for Mencap. Pam was born in Lincoln to Edith and Henry Gibson. Henry was an insurance company inspector. The family subsequently moved to Stoke-on-Trent. At the first opportunity, Pam left home, the second world war providing her with an escape route. She enlisted with the Women’s Royal Naval Service. A talented linguist, she had taken German A-level at school and became fluent. In the Wrens she used this to become a wireless operator and helped to direct naval engagements against Nazi E-boats from a posting on Lizard Point in Cornwall, as well as listening in to the D-day landings. After the war, Pam went to Glasgow University to study politics and economics – Glasgow chosen, allegedly, as it was the furthest point on the map away from her home in Stoke. Subsequently, Pam joined the civil service and started making her way up in the factory inspectorate. In the late 1940s she went to help set up democratic student unions in Germany, where she met Charles Hannam, whom she married in 1960. Charles became a senior lecturer in education in Bristol. My brother David was born in 1962. David’s birth fundamentally changed Pam and Charles’s lives, as he has Down’s syndrome. Pam gave up her flourishing career as a factory inspector and was unable to return to work. I was born in 1964, followed by Toby in 1967. Charles’s book Parents and Mentally Handicapped Children, published in 1976, with input from Pam, described the experience of having a child with Down’s syndrome. Without doubt, the strain told on their relationship, and they divorced in 1982. Pam started a lecturing career in the mid-1970s on health and safety at work, and was highly sought after by various trade unions due to her eloquence and ability to interact with audiences that were mostly male and quite sceptical. She was the secretary for Mencap in Bristol for many years and tirelessly fought for families who were unable to get access to the services they needed. After seeing reports coming out of Romania about conditions in homes for children with mental health issues following the revolution in 1990, Pam started fundraising. On one occasion, she managed to persuade the Bristol Scout movement to transport an entire mobile classroom on the back of a lorry to an orphanage in Târgu Mureș. For this work, and in recognition of her time running Bristol Mencap, she was appointed MBE in 1994 as well as receiving an honorary degree from Bristol University. A great lover of crosswords and gardening, Pam transformed the barren steps of her steep garden into a delightful cascade of plants and wildlife. She is survived by her three sons and eight grandchildren.
Almost half of those planning to use an adblocker say they just don't like ads Almost half of people planning to use an adblocker say a general dislike of ads is one of the main reasons for doing so, according to a new report that highlights the scale of the problems facing digital media. The report by KPMG, which is based on a survey of more than 2,000 people, found that 44% of UK adults said they were planning to use an adblocker within the next six months. Of those people, 46% said they would block ads because they “do not like adverts at all”, only just behind the 47% of people who said that a key reason was that ads take up too much space on screen. More than 40% also cited a lack of advertising relevance, and a reduction in the performance of the device they are using to view content, while just over a third said misuse of personal data was a cause and 23% cited ads using up mobile data allowances. Despite the apparent overall distaste for ads, KPMG head of media, David Elms, said he believed this was due to the intrusiveness of ads, rather than a fundamental rejection of advertising in principle. “You have to remember that these are people who are responding to a survey at a particular point in time,” he said. “I think that as advertising becomes less intrusive, it will become more accepted.” He said native advertising that blends into other content would help reduce the demand for adblocking, but more needed to be done to make consumers realise the need to fund the creation of the content they consume. “The big issue here is that people have to recognise that content has to be paid for somehow, that’s either through paying for them or accepting advertisements in one form or another,” he said. In another worrying finding for for publishers and advertisers, the KPMG study found that some of the groups who were most appealing to advertisers were more likely to block ads. Almost 60% of 16- to 24-year-olds plan to block ads in the next six months, as do 55% of people earning more than £55,000. The KPMG report also said almost half have at some point used an adblocker, and almost 30% said they have done so in the last month. The report will add to mounting concerns across ad-funded media. It follows hard on the heels of a forecast from eMarketer predicting 15 million people in the UK would begin using adblockers by the end of 2017, and just days after a report from the Advertising Association and Warc revealed that newspapers lost £155m in print advertising last year. One of the few bright spots in the report comes from the more than half of respondents who said they could be persuaded to turn off an adblocker for access to content. About 36% said they would do so under some circumstances, while another 29% said they would switch it off in rare circumstances. The two most common reasons cited for turning off an adblocker were for content from a source known to a user (48%), and from sources that “appear trustworthy” (32%). The report also suggested adblocking currently remained more popular on laptops and desktops, with 91% of those planning to use an adblocker on those devices, compared with 44% who said they would block ads on a smartphone.
The lies Trump told this week: from opposing the Iraq war to San Bernardino The Iraq war “I was an opponent of the Iraq war from the beginning … I nonetheless publicly expressed my private doubts about the invasion. Three months before the invasion I said, in an interview with Neil Cavuto, to whom I offer my best wishes for a speedy recovery, that ‘perhaps [we] shouldn’t be doing it yet’, and that ‘the economy is a much bigger problem’.” – 15 August, Youngstown, Ohio Unlike the many past occasions Trump has lied about opposition to the Iraq war “from the beginning”, in Youngstown he tried to provide evidence. But the interview Trump cites, from 28 January 2003 and which Buzzfeed recently unearthed, is full of equivocations, and not a clear opposition at all. Ultimately the businessman expresses impatience with George W Bush. “Whatever happened to the days of the Douglas MacArthur? He would go and attack. He wouldn’t talk,” Trump said. “Either you attack or you don’t attack.” Bush was “doing a very good job” nonetheless, he added. Almost two months later and a day into the war, Trump declared on Fox News: “It looks like a tremendous success, from a military standpoint.” The day after that, in a San Antonio Express interview found by FactCheck.org, Trump said “war is depressing” and encouraged people to watch a beauty pageant. A year later he told Esquire the war was a “mess”. Before the war Howard Stern asked whether Trump supported invasion, to which Trump answered: “I guess so.” “I have been just as clear in saying what a catastrophic mistake Hillary Clinton and President Obama made with the reckless way in which they pulled out.” – 15 August, Youngstown, Ohio Trump called for a complete withdrawal from Iraq nine years ago, before George W Bush was out of office. On 16 March 2007, Trump told CNN the US should “declare victory and leave, because I’ll tell you, this country is just going to get further bogged down. They’re in a civil war over there.” The businessman then argued that post-withdrawal chaos was in fact another reason to abandon Iraq. The power that would take over, Trump said, would be “the meanest, the worst guy and he’ll have one thing, one thing, he will hate America, and he’ll use that to flame. So, I mean, this is a total catastrophe and you might as well get out now, because you just are wasting time.” Although Trump called for Americans to wash their hands of Iraq and any anti-US forces that might rise there, he now argues that the withdrawal of US forces in December 2011, according to a timeline set by Bush and Iraq’s government that Barack Obama oversaw , created the conditions for the terror group Isis to thrive. The Middle East “President Obama and Hillary Clinton should never have attempted to build a democracy in Libya, to push for immediate regime change in Syria, or to support the overthrow of Mubarak in Egypt.” – 15 August, Youngstown, Ohio Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump all supported intervention in Libya in 2011. None supported occupation to “build democracy” there in the model of George W Bush’s invasion and occupation of Iraq. In a February 2011 video blog, Trump urged “immediate” intervention: “We should go in, we should stop this guy, which would be be very easy and very quick. We could do it surgically.” “We have to go in to save these lives,” he said. Trump has also claimed to have made “a lot of money” from dictator Muammar Ghaddafi through a failed rental deal in 2009. Months after Syrian president Bashar al-Assad cracked down on demonstrations against him that year, Obama called for him to resign as Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak had earlier that year. But for years Obama resisted calls to actively intervene in Syria, angering many Republicans and some Democrats, until his administration began to arm anti-Assad rebels. Obama did press Mubarak to step down as demonstrations swelled against the Egyptian president. Trump also supported rebels’ overthrow of Mubarak’s, telling Fox News on 12 February 2011, “it’s a good thing that they got him out.” He added: “And Obama, and I’m not blaming him for this, but they don’t listen to us.” “I was saying this constantly and to whoever would listen: keep the oil, keep the oil, keep the oil, I said – don’t let someone else get it … In the old days, when we won a war, to the victor belonged the spoils.” – 15 August, Youngstown, Ohio It’s true that Trump has said since at least 2011 that the US should “keep the oil” of Middle East nations in which it intervenes, such as Iraq and Libya (although the US has sent only small special forces into the latter). Although the US military and American interests have taken root in the countries it has fought in, for instance with the permission of Germany and Japan after the second world war, it has not received territory from a defeated foe since Spain ceded Puerto Rico and Guam in 1898. (The US paid $20m for control of the Philippines, which was granted full independence in 1934.) Trump’s philosophy of war not only looks back to the colonial era, it also contradicts his own insistence that the US must stop investing in other nations. In the same 15 August speech, Trump declared, “if I become president, the era of nation-building will be ended,” even though he admitted that his plan, “by its very nature, would have left soldiers in place to guard our assets” – a costly, indefinite investment in the security of a foreign territory. San Bernardino “She wanted to support very openly jihad online … A neighbor saw suspicious behavior, bombs on the floor and other things, but didn’t warn authorities because they said they didn’t want to be accused of racial profiling.” – 15 August, Youngstown, Ohio Tashfeen Malik, one of the shooters in last year’s San Bernardino attack, did not openly discuss her and her husband Syed Farook’s plans online: the FBI said they used private messages. For weeks Trump has baselessly said someone saw “bombs on the floor” and “suspicious behavior” – he has repeated this for weeks without any evidence. Investigators found pipe bombs and ammunition in a townhouse rented by the couple in the Redlands, not near their home, and their landlord has said he had no reason to suspect them. Neighbors of this house also expressed surprise and alarm, not concerns about political correctness. One local news station reported on 3 December that Aaron Elswick, a neighbor of one of Farook’s mother, recalled hearing yet another neighbor say – in Elswick’s words: “She had noticed that they had, I guess, been receiving packages, quite a few packages within a short amount of time. And that they were actually doing a lot of work out in the garage and she was kind of suspicious and was wanting to report it but she was, ‘I didn’t want to profile.’” Elswick did not name this other neighbor; this appears to be the only account that even remotely resembles Trump’s story, for which there is no evidence whatsoever that anyone saw explosives. Nato “I had previously said that Nato was obsolete because it failed to deal adequately with terrorism. Since my comments, they have changed their policy and now have a new division focused on terror threats.” – 15 August, Youngstown, Ohio Nato has had a Defense Against Terrorism program since June 2004, almost a full 12 years before Trump called the alliance “obsolete”. In July its member nations decided to increase efforts against Isis, specifically, in Syria and Iraq, as its leaders had discussed for months. Trump was not involved. The press “I loved when CNN turned off its camera, as soon as I started telling you what sleaze they are.” – 13 August, Fairfield, Connecticut The major television networks, including CNN, share a camera for many political events, including this rally at which CNN operated the designated “pool” camera. The rally was filmed in its entirety save for a brief moment noted by NBC, when a major thunderstorm interrupted the live feed.
Leicester City’s title triumph: the inside story of an extraordinary season In July last year Claudio Ranieri was enjoying a break in Italy when he received a phone call from Steve Kutner, his agent, that would end up changing the face of English football in a way no one could have imagined. Kutner had been attempting to convince Jon Rudkin, Leicester City’s director of football, that Ranieri was worth considering as the Premier League club’s new manager and finally there was news of a breakthrough. Ranieri was out of work at the time but keen to return to management, in particular in England, where he had fond memories from his time in charge of Chelsea and still owned a property in London going back to those days at Stamford Bridge more than a decade earlier. Several Championship clubs had been sounded out without success when Nigel Pearson’s sacking at Leicester presented Kutner and Ranieri with a window of opportunity. Kutner sensed that Leicester were sceptical about Ranieri, yet he refused to be discouraged. He submitted Ranieri’s CV, listing the distinguished clubs the 64-year-old had managed, together with his record – a Copa del Rey and Super Cup winner with Valencia, Coppa Italia winner at Fiorentina, plus second-place finishes in the Premier League, Ligue 1 and twice in Serie A – and kept chipping away. “I just wanted to get Claudio in front of them, because I was sure that they would be impressed,” Kutner says. Leicester eventually came round to the idea of an interview. Ranieri jumped on a plane to London and together with Kutner met up with Rudkin, Susan Whelan, the chief executive officer, Andrew Neville, the football operations director, and Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha, the vice-chairman. Ranieri was Ranieri: charming, extremely passionate and knowledgable. There was a feeling that he clicked with Srivaddhanaprabha, who knows his football inside out – Francesco Totti and Gabriel Batistuta were brought up in conversation as Ranieri ran through some of the strikers he has worked with – and the Italian’s enthusiasm for management impressed other board members. Confirmation the talks had gone well arrived a few days later, when Ranieri and Kutner were invited back for further discussions, this time with Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha, Aiyawatt’s father and Leicester’s owner, also in attendance. The more time the Leicester board spent with Ranieri, the more they came to realise that his appointment made sense. That is not to say that anyone involved in making that decision thought for one moment that Ranieri would be walking around the King Power Stadium pitch following the final home match of the season with a Premier League winners’ medal draped around his neck. It is a story that is as beautiful as it is absurd. Leicester, after all, were 5,000-1 rank outsiders and when it emerged that Ranieri decided to decorate his office at the King Power Stadium at the start of the season with an individual photograph of every other Premier League manager (he wanted to make them feel welcome after a match), it was tempting to wonder how long it would be before someone else was occupying his chair and asking for those black and white images to be packed away into a box never to be seen again. Ranieri’s appointment was viewed in that light and there is no point in pretending otherwise. On the afternoon the Italian was unveiled at the King Power Stadium – seven days after Gary Lineker had echoed the thoughts of many with a tweet that read: ‘Claudio Ranieri? Really?’ – Whelan and Rudkin sat alongside the new Leicester manager in what felt like a show of support as much as anything. It was a measure of the mood at the time that Whelan asked the supporters to trust the board’s judgement when it came to their decision to sack Pearson and replace him with Ranieri. Nine months later, and on the eve of claiming the Premier League title, some wonderful footage emerged of Ranieri in the stand at the King Power Stadium watching clips of Leicester supporters from across the city, starting with Vicky on a fruit and veg stall in the market and including a railway employee speaking on behalf of “virtually everyone at the station”, expressing their heartfelt gratitude for everything he has done for their football club. “God” and “Legend” were among the words used to describe Ranieri and, in the context of what has unfolded during this incredible season, who are we to argue? Leicester’s success under Ranieri will go down as one of the greatest achievements in sport, never mind the insular world of English football, and as the mind wanders forward to Saturday evening’s home game against Everton and the moment when Wes Morgan steps forward to pick up that 25kg Premier League trophy, the obvious question to ask is how on earth have they done it? The truth is that even those on the inside at Leicester shake their heads in disbelief, half-expecting to rub their eyes one morning and realise it was all a dream. Nobody at Leicester would dare to claim that they saw this coming, yet that is not to say that they struggle to come up with reasons why everything has spectacularly fallen into place, chief among them being the exhilarating mix of team spirit and talent within a group of players who possess a rare commodity in a game awash with money: hunger. An obvious place for the fairytale to start is at the end of last season, before Ranieri took over and when Pearson and his players pulled off the “great escape”, winning seven of their last nine matches to haul themselves off the bottom of the table and up to 14th place. Described as a “miracle” by Ranieri on the day he was presented to the media, that turnaround hinted at the potential (comfortable mid-table) in a team that Pearson had strengthened by the time he was sacked on 30 June. Robert Huth’s loan deal from Stoke City had been turned into a permanent move, and Christian Fuchs and Shinji Okazaki had joined from Schalke and Mainz respectively. Steve Walsh, the club’s joint assistant manager and head of recruitment, was busy chasing another target that was far from straightforward but would turn into one of the best Premier League signings of the summer. N’Golo Kanté was the player’s name, and Ranieri – as he would later admit – did not know much about him. Ranieri was far from alone in that respect – plenty of other Premier League managers have since questioned how he slipped under their radar – but Walsh and his recruitment team had done their homework. David Mills, Leicester’s senior scouting coordinator, had been to see Kanté play for Caen, and clips and statistics were put together to highlight the midfielder’s talent. Ranieri, however, still needed convincing about the player’s physique. A few months down the line, on the back of some superb performances from the Frenchman, Ranieri recalled how Walsh would constantly badger him during pre-season, saying: “Kanté, Kanté, Kanté!” In the end Ranieri was won over, Leicester handed over £5.6m and the rest is history. High quality on the pitch and low maintenance off it, Kanté drives a Mini and lives a simple life that involves tackling and smiling; occasionally both at the same time. He has been a revelation and everybody at Leicester loves him. In Walsh, Ranieri saw a friendly face when he arrived in Austria. The two worked together at Stamford Bridge, where Walsh was a scout for 16 years, and Ranieri knew how highly the former school teacher, who has been a central pillar of Leicester’s success with his remarkable track record of uncovering rough diamonds, was regarded by Rudkin and the club’s owners. Ranieri, crucially, was happy to work with the club’s existing staff, including Craig Shakespeare, who also holds the title of assistant manager and has a close rapport with the players; he is out on the training field with them every day. Rather than seeking to make sweeping changes, which may have affected his chances of getting the job in the first place, Ranieri chose to complement what was in place by bringing in three staff of his own. Paolo Benetti, who has worked with Ranieri since 2007, was named as the club’s third assistant manager and is seen as someone for the manager to bounce ideas off. Andrea Azzalin was appointed first-team science and conditioning coach, working under Matt Reeves, Leicester’s head of fitness and conditioning. A goalkeeping coach was also brought in but quickly departed. Mike Stowell, the first-team coach, fulfils that role and is well respected. Anyone who coaches Kasper Schmeichel with his father Peter watching – the former Manchester United goalkeeper often drops in at the training ground – needs to have a bit about them. In some respects Leicester’s success under Pearson was a hindrance as well as a help to Ranieri initially. The team had momentum from the previous campaign, and the feeling among the players was that there was little need for anything to be altered. Pearson was an extremely popular manager inside the dressing room and whatever the rights and wrongs of the club’s decision to dismiss him, many of the Leicester players felt a sense of loyalty to him and liked his methods, including the fact that he gave them a voice and, in the case of the more senior members of the squad, courted their opinion. In that sense Ranieri came to realise he would not be able to impose his way at Leicester and get everyone to blindly follow. It was a case of old habits die hard, especially when they delivered results. Players saw the five-a-sides on a Friday as a staple diet of their week and were not afraid to express their thoughts on the type of sessions being put on and how long they lasted. There was, in short, a resistance to change and, to an extent, Ranieri learned to go with the flow. Tactically, however, Ranieri quickly made his mark. During pre-season he decided that playing with a three-man central defence – a system that worked extremely well for Pearson and the players at the end of last term – should be scrapped. Although it felt like a big call at the time, Ranieri got it spot on and the same has also been true with his team selection and substitutions – all of which flies in the face of the popular characterisation of him as a man who was forever saying twist instead of stick at Chelsea. Early on Ranieri took a shine to Danny Drinkwater, who was unable to get into Leicester’s team at the end of last season but finishes this one hoping to go to Euro 2016 with England, and he has had no qualms about overlooking Gokhan Inler, the Switzerland captain who was signed as a replacement for Esteban Cambiasso. Inler, a player Ranieri was keen to sign and rated highly, was not even on the bench against Swansea last Sunday, when the manager dropped Marc Albrighton and was rewarded with an impressive performance from Jeffrey Schlupp. The feeling that Ranieri can do no wrong was confirmed when Albrighton came off the bench and scored Leicester’s fourth. The “Tinkerman” has become the “Thinkerman” at Leicester, yet one thing that will never change with Ranieri is that warm, infectious personality. He has brought humour and light to Leicester, privately as well as publicly, occasionally mixing up his words with comical consequences and, in true Ranieri fashion, laughing at himself in the process. Self-deprecation comes easily to Ranieri, who called himself “a bell” on Friday before realising amid the laughter that he was straying close to inadvertently insulting himself. That comment was made after another rendition of “dilly-ding dilly-dong” – the wake-up call for those not paying attention on the training pitch or in meetings – and a catchphrase that Ranieri’s staff and players have a permanent reminder of at home. At the end of one of the meetings at the training ground just before the visit to Liverpool on Boxing Day, Ranieri handed out a neatly boxed brass bell, engraved with his name, to everybody in the room. The only thing missing was a Father Christmas outfit. Ranieri, however, is no fool. By that stage Leicester were enjoying the view from the top of the table and the manager was keeping a lid on expectations with his expert handling of the media. Press conferences started with a handshake for everybody in the room, invariably finished with laughter and in between there was constant talk of hitting 40 points. He even referenced the US president at one stage when asked about the title. “I’d like to say: ‘Yes we can!’ But I am not Obama,” Ranieri said, smiling. Behind the scenes ambition was growing. In a colourful and eclectic dressing room where Jamie Vardy’s voice sets the volume and Huth’s dry sense of humour provides the comedy value, the team spirit and determination, as well as the individual talent, was shining through and, in many people’s eyes, inspiring Ranieri every bit as much as his players. He needed to look no further than the dejection among his players after the 1-1 draw with Manchester United in November to see the hunger and belief burning within. Vardy’s opening goal in that fixture saw him make history as the first player to score in 11 successive Premier League matches and, for all the talk about the camaraderie within the squad, it is impossible to overlook the significant individual contribution made by the England striker, who has scored 22 goals and set up another six, and two of his team-mates, Kanté and Riyad Mahrez, all of whom were named on the PFA player of the year shortlist. Mahrez arrived in 2014 from Le Havre for €450,000 and it seems laughable now that not so long ago Marseille’s chairman ridiculed the possibility of signing the 25-year-old. Walsh, on another one of his many scouting missions, had gone to watch Ryan Mendes, who is now at Nottingham Forest, but ended up being taken in by a slender winger with dexterous footwork. That night Mahrez produced the same trick that led to Leicester’s third goal against Stoke City a few months ago and left Philipp Wollscheid looking like a man who knew that he had been nutmegged but could not work out how. Mahrez has been unplayable at times this season and if ever there was a performance that clinched the votes for the PFA player of the year award, it was during February’s 3-1 victory at Manchester City. It was Mahrez at his best, when it mattered most, and provided a seminal moment in Leicester’s season; the players and staff sensed for the first time that something truly special was happening. Watching that game everything seemed a little surreal as Leicester, four days after beating Liverpool 2-0, took City apart at the Etihad. It was hard to suppress a smile when a message was sent out via Leicester’s official Twitter account with 20 minutes to go that read: “So if you’re just joining us... #lcfc are leading 3-0 and Robert Huth is on a hat-trick.” Yet it was the response to a setback eight days later, on Valentine’s Day, that provided the greatest indication of what Leicester were capable of achieving this season. After playing against Arsenal with 10 men for more than half an hour, following Danny Simpson’s red card, Leicester conceded in the 95th minute and lost 2-1. It was the cruellest of defeats, their lead at the top was cut to two points and everyone, inside and outside the club, wondered how the players would respond to not just losing but the gut-wrenching manner of that defeat. Ranieri, in what turned out to be a superb piece of management, took advantage of their early elimination from the FA Cup and gave the players a week off training to escape and forget about football. When they returned to the pitch the answer to whether being beaten against Arsenal would break their resolve was emphatic. Leicester won six and drew one out of the next seven matches to take 19 points out of 21. Arsenal, for the record, collected nine. By now Leicester’s team had a familiar look. Schmeichel in goal; Simpson, Morgan, Huth and Fuchs at the back; Mahrez, Drinkwater, Kanté and Albrighton in midfield; and Okazaki playing just behind Vardy up front. Two compact banks of four, across defence and midfield, leaving opponents little room to play through them, and a deep-lying forward who never stops running operating behind a predator with the lightning pace to finish off their devastating counterattacks. Seven of that XI have started at least 33 of 36 league games this season. Of the other four players, Okazaki has made the fewest starts with 27. Settled and consistent, the team is also vastly experienced. Schmeichel and the back four in front of him, together with Okazaki and Vardy, are aged 29 and over. They are men – not boys – and it has shown in their mental strength during the run-in. Good fortune has played a part in their injury record and made it easy for Ranieri to pick the same team, yet pinning everything on luck overlooks the expertise and technology within the medical and sports science departments at Leicester, where Dave Rennie, the head physio, and Reeves leave no stone unturned. The club has invested in a Cryo Chamber unit, where players are exposed to temperatures of -135 degrees to aid their recovery. They use other technology that is more commonplace at the highest level, such as the Catapult GPS system and Polar Team2 heart-rate monitors, regularly issue electronic questionnaires to gauge everything from energy levels to sleep patterns but, perhaps most importantly of all, strive to create an environment where everybody talks to each other. In the end it is about a meeting of minds. Ranieri wants players training and the medical staff need to minimise the risk of injury, so sometimes it is a case of searching for that middle ground, even if that means sticking an exercise bike on the side of the pitch during a tactical session and getting a player to pedal away while the manager makes his point. That is what happened at Leicester’s training ground a few weeks ago and meant that the player in question knew his role come matchday and never aggravated his injury in the leadup. Everyone was happy. It is not rocket science and, as we know from watching Leicester this season, nor does it need to be. In a game that is often overcomplicated and increasingly obsessed with statistics, the percentages show that Ranieri’s team are in the bottom three for possession and that only West Bromwich Albion have a lower pass completion rate, yet the only table that matters – in the absence of one that quantifies teamwork – shows Leicester City with an unassailable lead at the top of the Premier League. We should all enjoy that sight.
Trial begins for Charleston church shooting Charleston congregants prepare for Dylann Roof trial Opening arguments in the federal trial of Dylann Roof begin on Wednesday, and the mood is sombre at the Mother Emanuel AME church. Last year, Roof, an avowed white supremacist, had sat with the congregation’s weekly Bible study class before he pulled out a Glock pistol and opened fire, killing nine people, including the church’s pastor Clementa Pinckney, uttering racial slurs as he fled. “We pray for those who are still in pain for the horrific events that happened here a little over a year ago, and we pray for this congregation for indeed we are still in mourning,” the Rev Edward Ducree said as he led the morning prayer at the church on Sunday. Some were unsure what outcome they were hoping for. Others fear Roof’s trial will revive horrific memories they are still struggling to come to terms with, just as the nation reckons with a resurgence of white supremacy and racialised rhetoric under incoming president Donald Trump, Oliver Laughland writes. ‘We are still in mourning’: Charleston congregants prepare for Dylann Roof trial Trump: ‘We will stop racing to topple foreign regimes’ Speaking at the latest stop on his ‘thank you tour’ in Fayetteville, North Carolina, President-elect Donald Trump laid out a US military policy that would avoid interventions in foreign conflicts and instead focus heavily on defeating the Islamic State militant group. During his campaign, Trump vowed to “bomb the shit out of” Islamic State, and also suggested that terrorists were entering the US disguised as refugees and proposed policies such as a ban on Muslim immigration. The president-elect’s remarks came a few hours after Barack Obama delivered what was billed as the final national security address of his presidency. Obama didn’t mention Donald Trump by name in his speech, but tacitly criticized his stated inclinations on counterterrorism and issued a plea not to sacrifice fundamental American values in the name of national security. Donald Trump: ‘We will stop racing to topple foreign regimes’ Flynn Jr loses transition team job for spreading fake news Michael Flynn Jr, the son of Donald Trump’s pick for national security adviser, has lost his job in the president-elect’s transition team after he tweeted a false conspiracy theory about Hillary Clinton. Fake news stories alleged that Clinton’s allies had been running a child sex ring in the Comet Ping Pong pizza parlor in Washington led to threats against the restaurant and a gunman storming in to “self-investigate” and firing an assault rifle on Sunday. Trump adviser’s son loses transition team job for spreading fake news China asks US to block Taiwan president trip China has urged Washington to deny Tsai Ing-wen, Taiwan’s president, entry to the US after Donald Trump’s protocol-shedding conversation with her. Tsai is expected to fly through the US next month en route to Central America, and there has been speculation that she may stop in New York to meet with the president-elect – though this has been denied by a number of Trump advisers. Beijing, which views Taiwan as part of its own territory and does not recognize Tsai’s authority over the self-ruled island, called on the US to prevent that happening. The call from China came as it emerged that former Republican presidential nominee Bob Dole may have played a role in setting up the controversial 10-minute conversation between Trump and Tsai. China asks US to block Taiwan president trip after talk of Donald Trump meeting Death toll in Indonesia earthquake rises to 97 The death toll from a powerful earthquake that struck off Indonesia’s Sumatra island on Wednesday has risen to 97, with more people feared trapped in collapsed buildings. Search and rescue teams in Aceh province, an area previously devastated by a massive quake and tsunami in 2004, used tractors to shift the rubble in attempts to reach people buried in their houses. The shallow 6.5-magnitude quake hit just north of the small town of Reuleuet, according to the US Geological Survey. Indonesia earthquake kills dozens in Aceh province Support the ’s fearless journalism Never has the US needed fearless independent media more. Help us hold the new president to account, sort fact from fiction, amplify underrepresented voices and understand the forces behind this divisive election – and what happens next. Support the by becoming a member or making a contribution. Lawsuit accuses Stanford of ignoring sexual assault complaints Stanford University ignored complaints about sexual assault, dismissed victims with disturbing allegations and failed to discipline a “known predator” allowing the student to violently attack multiple women, according to a federal lawsuit filed by advocacy group Equal Rights Advocates on behalf of a current Stanford graduate student. A spokesperson for Stanford declined to comment on the specifics of the case, citing privacy laws, but issued a lengthy statement defending the university’s record. Stanford accused in lawsuit of ignoring complaints about serial sexual ‘predator’ Company behind Dakota Access pipeline takes battle to court After the Army Corps of Engineers denied a key permit to Energy Transfer Partners, the company behind the Dakota Access pipeline, the battle over the controversial oil pipeline has moved to the courts. In documents filed in a US district court in Washington DC on Monday, lawyers for Energy Transfer Partners argued that the denial of permission by the US army corps of engineers represented a “transparent capitulation to political pressure”, which they implored the court to overrule and grant them permission to complete the pipeline. On Sunday, the corps announced it would not grant the permit but would instead conduct an environmental impact statement and explore alternate routes for the pipeline. Dakota Access company takes its battle to finish oil pipeline to court In case you missed it ... Amy Schumer has defended her credentials to play Barbie after the announcement that she was in negotiations to play the lead in the Mattel film was met with criticism online. Some complained that the comedian didn’t meet the physical beauty standards embodied by the plastic doll. Schumer addressed her critics on Instagram: “I want to thank them for making it so evident that I am a great choice. It’s that kind of response that let’s you know something’s wrong with our culture and we all need to work together to change it.” Amy Schumer says trolls’ backlash over Barbie casting shows she’s right for role
Boost in funding to promote concept of EU citizenry after UK Brexit vote The European commission is to spend tens of millions more pounds on promoting the ideal of the EU citizen under plans drawn up by officials in Brussels in the wake of the Brexit vote. Officials for the European parliament claim there is now a “clear need” for a significant increase in spending on the Europe for Citizens programme, which aims to foster the notion of an EU citizenry through remembrance events, town twinning and involvement in European parliamentary elections. The programme had its budget cut from €215m to €185.5m after a request from Britain in 2013. “Considering the current political climate, in which an increasing number of citizens question the foundations of the EU, decisive action is indispensable,” an assessment of the programme by officials in the European parliament reports. “It is for this reason that the reduction in funding for the EFC programme is a serious handicap to successful implementation: to reiterate, the budget for the current EFC programme is €185.5m (down from €215m under the previous programme), which amounts to merely 0.0171% of the EU multiannual financial framework.” The aim of EFC is said to be that of developing “a better understanding” of the EU across all its member states, to fund remembrance events for key moments in European history and foster the ideal of European citizenship. The assessment document says that funding “which promotes and enables citizens to engage in European matters is of vital importance, especially in times when Euroscepticism is on the rise”. It adds: “A reduction was requested by the United Kingdom government, as is apparent from a report of the UK House of Commons’ European scrutiny committee regarding the EFC programme 2014-2020, and backed in the council. “The latter report states that ‘in his letter of 31 October 2013, the minister for culture, communications and creative industries (Ed Vaizey) informed us that the government had succeeded in securing a reduction in the budget of the programme (down from €229m in the commission’s original proposal to €185m)’... “The reduced funding has undoubtedly entailed serious consequences for the functioning of the EFC programme as a whole.” In 2015, from 2,800 applications for cash, 408 projects were selected for grants: 252 town twinning citizens meetings, 33 remembrance projects, 32 networks of twinned towns and 27 civil society projects. Hungary had the greatest number of successful applications for cash (17%) followed by Slovakia (13%) and Italy and Germany (11%). Earlier this month it emerged that Federica Mogherini, the EU’s foreign policy chief, was preparing a timetable setting out steps to create EU military structures “to act autonomously” from Nato. Mogherini reportedly said: “We have the political space today to do things that were not really do-able in previous years.” The military plan would see countries such as France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Poland forming permanent military structures to act on behalf of the EU and for the deployment of the EU’s battle groups and 18 national battalions. However, the British defence secretary Michael Fallon said he would veto any “common military force” as long as the UK was a member state of the EU. The European Council president Donald Tusk said Theresa May had told him during their meeting at Downing Street last week that she would be ready to trigger Article 50 to begin Brexit by February 2017.
Involving the public is crucial for NHS success David Bennett, the outgoing chief executive of healthcare regulator Monitor said in a recent interview that he “would get rid of the idea of foundation trusts having [public] membership”. Instead, he argued that clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) should take on an accountability role. Surely Bennett doesn’t regard involving patients and the public in how services are run as just an optional extra that can be passed between unwilling organisations? Report after report on NHS failings has called for greater public involvement. Listening to the communities they serve should be more than just a tick-box exercise for foundation trusts. There are some fantastic examples of trusts that have worked hard to engage with their local communities to help shape new, improved and more efficient health services in their area. The recently established NHS Improvement (NHSi) gives us a fresh opportunity to turn these pockets of best practice into standard procedure within health communities across the country. As the new chief executive Jim Mackey prepares his team and priorities for its first 100 days, here’s five reasons why public involvement is vital to an improved NHS. 1 Motivating people to look after their health will secure the future of the NHS Policymakers believe the health service is unsustainable unless people can be persuaded to take better care of themselves. With this in mind, and faced with one of the least healthy populations in the country, Liverpool CCG launched its Healthy Liverpool campaign two years ago to encourage people in the city to seek healthier lifestyles. As a result of the process, which included a series of health talks and surveys, the CCG has funded new voluntary and community group schemes designed to improve health. 2 Involving the public saves money in the long run Public information campaigns need to be reinforced with conversations with people about how they use services, and how they can be more responsive to their needs. In north-east Lincolnshire, commissioners needed to reorganise stretched diabetic services to cope with an escalating patient population. As a result of feedback given to commissioners, diabetes patients and their carers now have access to comprehensive guides offering practical support about living well with the condition at home, and a new Diabetes UK support group. 3 Engaging with local people improves the reputation of organisations Most people who come into contact with the health service have a positive experience. Involving patients and others in conversations about service redesign, if done well, helps to spread support for health services locally. Under Jim Mackey, Northumbria foundation trust spent more than three years talking to local communities and patient groups about plans to reorganise emergency services. The trust believes this open approach meant local people understood and felt confident about the plans. A key component to winning people’s trust was ensuring consultants, local GPs and councillors were engaged and supportive, and would then act as ambassadors for the changes throughout the public consultation. 4 Dialogue avoids a ‘one size fits all’ approach being applied to local services The government has made it clear it wants a seven-day responsive NHS, whatever it takes. However, Oldham CCG felt it needed to understand how local patients and the public perceived a seven-day NHS first. It conducted hundreds of local face-to-face surveys in English, Urdu and Punjabi. People were asked when they would like to access GP services, what kind of services they wanted across seven days and how far they were prepared to travel for those services. The resulting strategy will be revealed later this year. 5 You can stop crucial insight slipping through the cracks Every time there is a problem in the NHS, there is usually a patient or member of the public who tried to alert staff. With this in mind, Camden and Islington NHS foundation trust’s medical director invited service users, staff and people from partner organisations to attend workshops aimed at developing its new clinical strategy. The trust wanted the new plans to be based on what patients and staff on the frontline wanted. Key themes that emerged included ensuring service users felt in control of their care in partnership with staff, and that individual’s physical and mental health were considered equally and relatively. This is just a snapshot of countless examples that show why listening to people is vital to improving quality and efficiency. In recent years the national drive to prioritise involving those who use and pay for health services has been half-hearted. NHSi now has a chance to reboot the philosophy and make it central to the health service. If its goal is an effective and efficient health service that serves a nation empowered to stay healthy, then it needs to encourage the sector to talk openly and honestly to all. Nick Goodman is founder and managing director of public sector engagement specialists MES Join the Healthcare Professionals Network to read more pieces like this. And follow us on Twitter (@GdnHealthcare) to keep up with the latest healthcare news and views.
Donald Trump Jr has a knack for landing himself in hot water Donald J Trump Jr, the son of Republican nominee Donald J Trump, has been criticised for comparing Syrian refugees to Skittles, in unfavourable terms. It is the first time Trump Jr – a surrogate for his father’s presidential campaign – has specifically compared people seeking asylum from a war-torn country to candy. But it is far from the first time Trump Jr has upset large swathes of the population with his opinions, actions and Twitter account. Trump Jr was back at it again on Tuesday, just 12 hours after his Skittles comparison, when he tweeted a link to a Breitbart article on “Europe’s rape epidemic”. The piece, written by Anne-Marie Winters and posted on alt-right website Breitbart, alleges – without sourcing – that “tens of thousands” of British women have been tortured and raped by gangs “comprised almost exclusively of Muslims”, and that many people seeking asylum in Germany are “rapists”. “They’re allowing known rapists to mingle freely with European women,” Waters said of European governments’ decisions to grant asylum to people from the middle east. Last year Trump Sr alleged that Mexico was sending rapists to the US. Social media has been a problem for Trump Jr for some time. In 2011 he used Twitter to describe who he thought was Representative Maxine Waters, who has served in Congress for 25 years, as looking “like a stripper”; and in 2012 he joked about Jerry Sandusky, the former Penn State football coach who is currently serving a 60-year prison sentence for child abuse. BuzzFeed catalogued 49 of Trump Jr’s tweets earlier this year. The collection portrays him as surprisingly immature for a man approaching 40. Trump Jr repeatedly refers to people tweeting at him as “morons”, while he also described himself as “a boob guy” and called a follower a “pussy”. This year Trump Sr referred to Ted Cruz as a pussy during the Republican presidential primary. Trump Jr’s behaviour would not matter if he was just a rogue son tweeting from a basement. But he is a surrogate for his father’s presidential campaign who even spoke at the Republican national convention in August, and was also involved in the vice-presidential selection process. Trump Jr even met with the National Rifle Association ahead of them endorsing his father, according to ABC News. The Trump campaign did not respond to questions about Trump Jr’s continued role in his father’s campaign. But given his long history of causing upset, it seems unlikely that he will be dropped now. As long ago as 2012, Trump Jr was getting himself in hot water. That year, photos emerged of Trump Jr and his brother, Eric Trump, on a hunting trip to Zimbabwe. One of the images showed Trump Jr smiling next to his brother Eric, who is holding up a dead leopard. Another showed Trump Jr, wearing a backwards baseball cap and holding a rifle, sitting next to a dead buffalo. There’s a photo of Trump Jr holding a severed elephant’s tail in one hand and a knife in the other, with a dead elephant in the background and a photo of him and Eric Trump standing next to a dead crocodile hanging from a tree. The pictures resurfaced during Trump’s presidential campaign, angering animal rights activists further and even prompting Madonna to wade in. More recently, Trump Jr drew ire for agreeing to an interview with prominent white nationalist James Edwards. Edwards, host of rightwing radio show the Political Cesspool, is listed in the Southern Poverty Law Center’s “extremist files”. The SPLC says the Political Cesspool “has featured a wide roster of white supremacists, anti-Semites and other extremists”. A week earlier Trump Sr had refused to disavow an endorsement by former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard David Duke. There are other offensive things Trump Jr has done, too – like invoking the holocaust when discussing the media’s treatment of Hillary Clinton – but if Trump Jr’s behavior reveals anything, it is the similarity between him and his father. Both Trump Jr and Trump Sr have a knack for upsetting people over Twitter. Both have, at times, struggled to distance themselves from white supremacists. Both have displayed misguided views on alleged foreign rapists. Trump Jr was even born into extravagant wealth before being offered a well-paid position in his father’s company – just like Trump Sr. Oh, and there is one more similarity: Trump Jr has suggested he might run for mayor of New York City in 2017.
ranked second most secure online news site The has been listed as the second most secure news publication on the web, according to a ranking produced by the American non-profit Freedom of the Press Foundation. Points were awarded for supporting technologies which protect the privacy and security of visitors, with a focus on using HTTPS, a web protocol that allows for encrypted connections. The ranking was topped by the US news site The Intercept, created by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar. It gained the highest score of A+. The , rated as A- along with TechCrunch and ProPublica, scored highly for having a valid HTTPS version of its website, and for defaulting to that connection for all visitors. The ranking also awarded points for enabling HSTS (HTTP Strict-Transport-Security), a feature which ensures that repeat visitors cannot be forced onto an insecure copy of the website by a “man in the middle” attacker. With HSTS enabled, web browsers know to never accept insecure versions of the website, providing added protection to readers who fear eavesdropping. The Intercept was the only site to use HSTS preloading which give it its A+ score. Preloading involves passing the HSTS information to a trusted authority like Google or Mozilla so that it can be loaded into the browsers of web users who have never even visited a particular site, ensuring that even their very first visit does not run the risk of eavesdropping. Freedom of the Press Foundation said that only 28% of news sites offer an HTTPS connection, and just 14% default to it. It awarded a grade of F to those that did not use HTTPS. The ’s switch to HTTPS as default was made in late November, after six months of testing to ensure no disruption to readers. “By using HTTPS, internet service providers (ISPs) are not able to track the pages our readers are accessing,” wrote Mariot Chauvin and Huma Islam, two members of the ’s digital development team. “It means we protect the privacy of our readers when accessing content that may disclose political opinions, faith, sexual orientation or any information that may be used against them. It matches our core values. We believe that protecting our visitors is good internet citizenship.” The Freedom of the Press Foundation called on all publications to protect reader privacy: “With HTTPS enabled by default you can protect reader privacy, improve your website’s security, better protect your sources, prevent censorship, improve your search rankings, provide a better user experience, see your website loading speeds potentially increase, and avoid Google shaming.” Since 2014, Google has been ranking secure sites slightly higher in its search results.
Facebook facing German cartel probe over suspected data protection abuses Facebook is being investigated by the German federal cartel office, the Bundeskartellamt, for suspected anti-competitive behaviour stemming from breaches of data protection law. The Bundeskartellamt said on Wednesday that it has initiated proceedings against the social network, which operates within Europe from a base in Ireland. The Bundeskartellamt president Andreas Mundt said: “For advertising-financed internet services such as Facebook, user data are hugely important. For this reason it is essential to also examine under the aspect of abuse of market power whether the consumers are sufficiently informed about the type and extent of data collected.” The watchdog will probe whether Facebook’s terms of service, which permit the use of user data for ad-tracking, are an abuse of Germany’s data protection laws and of its dominant position within the social network market. Facebook makes money from targeted advertising to its 1.6 billion monthly users, using the data that it gathers from profiles, friends, postings, activities and opinions. It has faced strong criticism from German politicians and regulators over its privacy practices. Mundt said: “Dominant companies are subject to special obligations. These include the use of adequate terms of service as far as these are relevant to the market.” The Bundeskartellamt said that in order to access the social network, users must first agree to Facebook’s collection and use of their data by accepting the terms of service but that it was difficult for users to understand and assess the scope of the agreement. The probe is to be conducted “in close contact with the competent data protection officers, consumer protection associations as well as the European Commission and the competition authorities of the other EU member states”, according to the watchdog. A European Commission spokesperson said: “It cannot be excluded that a behaviour that violates data protection rules could also be relevant when investigating a possible violation of EU competition rules.” Mark Watts, head of data protection at London-based law firm Bristows, described the case as “unusual” and said that the investigation marks the first time that data protection issues have become a significant factor in a competition case. Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive of Facebook, visited Berlin on a charm offensive last week. A Facebook spokesperson said: “We are confident that we comply with the law and we look forward to working with the Federal Cartel Office to answer their questions.” ‘Robust’ deal reached to preserve privacy of EU-US data sharing Brazilian police arrest Facebook’s Latin America vice-president Oculus Rift founder: ‘Facebook as we know it is not the future of virtual reality’
I had alcohol-related breast cancer. Here’s why I still drink Two years ago I was diagnosed with a breast cancer that I believe was alcohol-related (it was a lobular tumour, the less common kind that many people link to alcohol). But here I am today, sitting in a restaurant about to have lunch with a friend – and a glass or two of wine is definitely on the horizon. If you’d told me back then what was going to happen to me I’d probably have imagined that, if I was lucky enough to survive, I’d definitely be giving up alcohol. After all, chief medical officer Sally Davies has said that she thinks about the risk of breast cancer every time she has a glass of wine – and the inference of what she says is that the risks aren’t worth it, and she usually sticks to water – and hasn’t even had the disease itself. I have survived it and my cancer, for various reasons to do with the treatment options I took, isn’t a shoo-in for not coming back. So why on earth do I still drink, when that nightmare has already visited me once? And there truly were terrible moments on my cancer journey; it was a scary mountain to climb, and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone else. I guess what it comes down to is quite simply the importance of enjoying life. When I had cancer, I discovered that I didn’t just want to survive; I wanted to have fun, to make the most of every single day, and to enjoy happy occasions and meals with my friends and family. Of course alcohol isn’t always synonymous with fun. But for me – and this was an entirely personal decision, which I wouldn’t suggest to anyone else should be how they ought to behave – drinking wine, beer or tequila adds a dimension to social occasions that I rather enjoy. And somehow it feels to me that it wasn’t worth surviving cancer if I’m going to limit my life to thinking, every time someone offered me a glass of something, about my breast cancer and the likelihood of it returning. For the record, I was not, I don’t think, a heavy drinker: I had at least two, maybe three, glasses of wine on maybe four or five nights of the week. I work from home, and I’d often have a glass of wine while making the children’s dinner, to denote the kitchen table shift from work mode to home life; and then I’d have another glass, maybe two, with my husband when he came home from work. The doctors who looked after me stressed that it was more likely to have been some sort of genetic predisposition to breast cancer, and alcohol was only an ingredient in the cocktail that caused my illness. They have always been at pains to point out that I shouldn’t feel I brought my cancer on myself; and for the record, too, I happen to know that all of them, who like me are women in their 50s, allow themselves a glass of wine on a fairly regular basis. Having said all that, my drinking habits have definitely changed post-illness. I pass on that early evening glass of wine when I’m cooking these days; if I need something to mark the end of working mode, I have an alcohol-free beer. I very rarely drink alone, even when I’m working on an assignment and away from home, where in the past the bar would always beckon. I drink less, and usually within the government guidelines; but I didn’t go through what I went through to spend my precious time fretting over whether the next glass of wine could be the cancer trigger. Life is too short to cut out something you enjoy in moderation, Dame Sally. And breast cancer isn’t the only threat in life: it can be a mistake, whether you’ve had this horrible disease or not, to allow it to dominate your life. If I thought about cancer every time I had a glass of wine, the way I see it cancer would have won. And in my life, it certainly hasn’t done that.
House sales could fall due to stamp duty changes and Brexit risk The EU referendum and changes to stamp duty have contributed to a “climate of uncertainty” that could lead to falling sales and prices in the housing market, surveyors and estate agents have said. For the first time since 2008, more of those on the frontline of the market expect sales to fall in the near term than increase, according to the latest monthly report from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (Rics). The expected fall in activity comes after a busy start to the year as buy-to-let investors attempted to complete sales ahead of the introduction of a new higher rate of stamp duty on 1 April. Rics said agreed sales had increased for the fourth month running. The group said most UK regions had seen prices increase in March and that on a national level they had now risen every month for three years. However, London was a “notable exception” and prices were reported to be falling in some areas. It said uncertainty over the EU vote and the mayoral election, together with the recent weakness of the pound, were expected to contribute to falling prices. Of respondents working in central London, 38% more expected to see house prices fall than rise over the next three months. Simon Rubinsohn, chief economist of Rics, said: “Elections inevitably bring with them periods of uncertainty in the market, and our figures would suggest that May’s devolved elections are no exception. Likewise, the EU referendum is likely to be an influence in terms of the damper outlook for London in particular.” John King, of London-based estate agents Andrew Scott Robertson, said activity had picked up ahead of the stamp duty change. He added: “The outcome is likely that we will see a slowdown in sales occurring while outside events surrounding currency rates and employment levels undermine confidence.” The Bank of England’s latest credit conditions report, published on Wednesday, found mortgage lenders are also expecting a fall in enthusiasm for buy-to-let following April’s tax rise. Lenders told the Bank that they expected demand for buy-to-let loans to fall significantly in the second quarter, while demand for other mortgages would increase slightly. Figures from the Council of Mortgage Lenders show that lending to buy-to-let investors was up by almost two-thirds year-on-year in February, as some landlords took advantage of low interest rates to remortgage, while others added to their portfolios ahead of changes to stamp duty rates. It said 23,700 buy-to-let loans worth £3.7bn were taken out during the month, a 47% increase in volume on the previous February and a 61% rise in value. The key driver was remortgaging, with borrowers taking advantage of low rates to refinance their portfolios. Of the total, 13,100 mortgages worth £2.2bn were remortgages. The number of first-time buyer mortgages was up by 11% year-on-year, at 22,000, while borrowing by these new entrants to the housing market was up by 21% at £3.4bn. The property firm LSL, owner of Reeds Rain and Your Move estate agents, said that the market had seen its busiest March in nine years. It estimated a 30% month-on-month increase in transactions, saying it expected there to be 80,000 sales registered in England and Wales. While the spring bounce accounted for much of the increase, it said sales were set to be 7% higher than in March last year. Adrian Gill, director of Reeds Rains and Your Move, said: “This spring, with a frantic flurry of activity, the housing market has come to life ... This goes beyond any normal seasonality, with second-home and buy-to-let investors rushing to beat a bigger tax bill.”
Arsenal’s Mesut Özil and Alexis Sánchez orchestrate win at Watford One minute sunny, the next spattered with rain, it was a deceptive summer’s day at Vicarage Road. Fans were dressed for the beach but watched much of the second half under floodlights. Only at full-time did the sun deign to show its face again. As with the weather, so with Arsenal. An accomplished performance was pockmarked with moments of bad judgment. An imposing 3-0 half-time lead could have been nullified were it not for Petr Cech. And yet, for all that Watford corralled possession in the second half, you could not say that the visitors were ever truly threatened. It was the sort of deceptive day that leads to familiar thoughts about the Gunners: could this be their season? Have they finally found the grit to compete in tough physical matches (of which this was one)? Might Mesut Özil and Alexis Sánchez be ready to grab the league by the scruff of the neck? Oh, and how long before one or the other, or Santi Cazorla, or Laurent Koscielny, gets injured again? Such questions will be answered in the fullness of time and Gunners fans could be forgiven for thinking they know the answers already. But on Saturday Arsenal played well enough to encourage those same supporters to dream, with Özil and Sánchez in particular superlative. “I think what we have seen from him today is what we want from him,” Arsène Wenger said after the match about Özil, who scored the game’s third goal and looks suspiciously like he has added some muscle to his skinny frame. Sánchez delivered similarly, turning his lack of height against a Watford back three to his advantage, constantly spinning and sprinting past defenders who didn’t know whether to step in or drop off. The confidence that the German and Chilean had in each other was apparent from the off. As early as the fifth minute Özil asked Sánchez to thread a ball through three players and slide him in on goal. No problem. In the 36th minute Sánchez returned the request, burrowing his way through a crowd before playing a one-two which required Özil to return the ball square and over an opponent’s leg with his back to goal. Sure thing, buddy. Both opportunities came to nothing in the final moment, but it was a sign of what was to come. Sánchez provided the sumptuous cross for Özil’s emphatic header, and the German was involved in the move that led to the Chilean’s loopy tap-in. It wasn’t just confidence that was noticeable, but clarity. Özil and Sánchez knew what they wanted to do on the pitch and how and when to do it. The same terms applied to Petr Cech, Koscielny and Cazorla. Wenger has only been able to select this experienced spine once since November, and that was the final day of last season against Aston Villa (a 4-0 win that secured second place in the league). Last season all five were injured at some point, with Özil sustaining four distinct injuries and Koscielny six. That Arsenal look a different team with experience in the side is not a new observation, but it was proven once again on Saturday. The ability to execute a match plan and individual moments in the game was accompanied by good decisions made under high pressure. But it did not apply across the whole team. Others like Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Theo Walcott and Jack Wilshere, each of whom have yet to carve out a distinct position for themselves at Arsenal, mixed good moments of play with bad decisions elsewhere. Watford can take solace from their second-half showing even though at the back of their minds, they will know the contest had by then been decided. They will also know that in the battle for Premier League survival ahead, one of their own greatest assets will be that same experience. Of the 21 players Walter Mazzarri has used in just three league games so far this season, only one is under the age of 23. Eight, meanwhile, are over 30. Even when the game was running away from them, Watford looked well drilled. They switched comfortably from a back three to a back four during the game and from a front two to a front three. “There’s a very good quality in the dressing room,” said Younès Kaboul, who joined from Sunderland this month, after the match. “We’re a physical side with great experience but I think the strength is the mentality of the squad. All the boys are [of a] very good mentality, we put a shift on the pitch. Today the first half was bad for us but second half we had the reaction and maybe had we scored one more, anything could have happened.” Watford face West Ham and Manchester United after the international break before a run of fixtures that includes all three promoted sides. This will give a better sense of where their expectations lie this season. As for Arsenal, we all know the drill by now.
Donald Trump pleads ignorance to Megyn Kelly over 'bimbo' tweets: 'Did I say that?' Donald Trump admitted to regrets over his behavior in a highly publicized interview with Fox’s Megyn Kelly on Tuesday, but in characteristic form the presumptive Republican nominee stopped short of apologizing for incidents ranging from mocking former opponent Carly Fiorina’s face to retweeting someone who called Kelly a “bimbo”. The broadcast came shortly before Trump was declared the winner in Oregon over rivals Ted Cruz and John Kasich, who remained on the ballot despite having dropped out of the race earlier this month. With nearly 20% of the vote counted, Trump had 64.3% of the vote, to Ohio governor Kasich’s 20.2% and Texas senator Cruz’s 15.5%. Trump and Kelly finally sat down on national television after reaching a truce that brought an end to a feud dating back to the first Republican presidential debate last August. Their animosity began with Trump’s assertion following the debate that Kelly, one of its moderators, treated him unfairly, and his now infamous comment implying she had been on her period. He continued to berate her coverage of his campaign through his Twitter account and even skipped a Republican debate ahead of the Iowa caucuses that Kelly moderated. But Tuesday’s much hyped interview contained few challenges on Kelly’s part toward Trump, who used the opportunity to try and portray a softer demeanor and begin to put behind him some of the more controversial moments of his primary campaign. Seeking to defend the brash and often ugly turns of his campaign, Trump suggested it was simply a means of emerging from the crowded Republican field as a winner. “If I were soft, if I were presidential … in a way it’s a bad word, because there’s nothing wrong with being presidential, but if I had not fought back in the way I fought back, I don’t think I would have been successful,” Trump said. “I respond pretty strongly, but in just about all cases, I’ve been responding to what they did to me.” The interview followed an hourlong meeting between Trump and Kelly in April at his eponymous tower in New York, which thawed the friction that for months separated Kelly from her colleagues at Fox News – where coverage has largely tilted in his favor. Kelly did, however, confront Trump over his conduct toward her following the August debate in Cleveland, Ohio. The former reality TV star explained he had never participated in a debate before and in essence grew flustered. “That was the first question I’ve ever been asked,” Trump said. “And I’m saying to myself, ‘Man what a question. And I’m saying to myself, I’ve got two hours of this?’” He also sought to downplay his embrace of the phrase “bimbo” to describe Kelly, suggesting at first that he didn’t recall doing so. When Kelly pointed out Trump had on several occasions retweeted followers insulting her as such, he responded: “Ooo. OK. Did I say that? Excuse me.” He added: “Over your life, Megyn, you’ve been called a lot worse. It’s a modern form of fighting back.” Kelly said that it was not about her but rather about the message sent to young girls, to which Trump only offered that he would no longer go after her “because I think I like our relationship right now”. Trump has slowly looked to rebuild his image while shifting gears toward a general election contest in which he is expected to face Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton. Although his litany of controversial statements remain part of the public record, Trump had already signaled a shift in tone while discussing his proposal to ban all Muslims from coming to the US – referring to it as merely a suggestion in an interview last week despite campaigning on the platform for months. Kelly did not press Trump in great detail on policy, choosing instead to allow him to reveal his personal side by reflecting on prior marriages and what he learned about himself from such experiences. Trump gave the interview his stamp of approval, tweeting at its conclusion:
Willy Vlautin: ‘I had a picture of Steinbeck and a picture of the Jam’ Willy Vlautin is an American musician and novelist based in Portland, Oregon. His alt-country band Richmond Fontaine won critical acclaim with their 2004 album, Post to Wire, and Vlautin’s second novel, 2008’s Northline, was named by writer George Pelecanos as his favourite book of the decade. In 2013 Vlautin formed a new band, the Delines, with singer Amy Boone. Richmond Fontaine are currently touring the UK. Richmond Fontaine are calling it a day after 20 years and 10 albums. How does it feel to be on the road knowing the end is in sight? Oh, I just feel incredibly lucky. I always thought of Richmond Fontaine as an old van you love but you’re always waiting for a wheel to fall off. It never fell off. So why call it a day now? It just felt like the right time. We still get on and like each other. That’s pretty rare as far as I can see. The camaraderie is strong and we’re really proud of the new record. It’s a good way to bow out – it will tattoo the band in good memories. So it’s nothing to do with your success as a novelist? Well, my heart has always been in the novel, but I like being in a band and writing songs. When I was a kid I had a picture of John Steinbeck on my wall beside a picture of the Jam. That says it all, really. You’re a romantic at heart, but you haven’t written too many happy songs along the way. No. I’ve gotten older, but I haven’t been able to lighten up [laughs]. I like to think I’m melancholic without being depressing. It goes back to my childhood. I had a lot of confidence problems and I had a hard time fitting in at school. My older brother, who was a folk songwriter, bought me a guitar and said “Write about what hurts you and haunts you”. That’s pretty much what I’ve done ever since. Along the way, I somehow forgot to write about the girls and the parties. Your home town, Reno, Nevada, emerges out of your songs as a pretty broken-down place full of drifters and losers. What was your childhood like? I was pretty lost as a kid. I grew up in a place where prostitution is legal and a big rite of passage was a bunch of guys picking you up in a car and driving you to a whorehouse because it was your turn. You had to do it or you’d get a real hard time. That happened to me when I was 14 years old. When I was 19, I started hanging out in old mans’ bars instead of at my friend’s parties. It was a perverse way of feeling comfortable. Back then, I thought it was romantic to have a tattoo on your neck and start drinking at 10 in the morning, but now I try to run from all that stuff. So writing was a way out of that world? I guess so. My best friends were my records, my books and the movies. They were a constant. And I couldn’t sleep without my guitar. I started writing songs at 13 and I had a box full when I was 26, but I realised they weren’t good enough and threw them all in the dump. Now, though, I keep every bad song and story to remind me how hard the process can be sometimes. You’ve written four acclaimed novels. That must be hard work compared with writing songs? Well, it’s work all right. You have to get up every day and do it until it’s done. And then redo it, which is the part I enjoy. Writing songs is more like walking down the street and finding money – they just come to you. Don’t Skip Out on Me [from Richmond Fontaine’s new album, You Can’t Go Back If There’s Nothing to Go Back To] came to me as I was sitting by a wood stove trying to get warm. It was like a gift. I had to fix it up a bit, dress it in a new suit, but it was pretty much there when I grabbed it out of the air. Do you have a personal favourite of the novels you’ve written? Well, I love Northline because it feels like a sad ballad to me. There’s a bit of Raymond Carver and a bit of Tom Waits in there. It wasn’t until I read Carver’s stories that I realised you could write about the lives of beat-up, working-class Americans like the ones I saw around me in Reno. I wrote my first novel, The Motel Life, for all the guys I knew who didn’t read novels. I wanted to write a book you could read when you were dog-tired after a day’s work: short and really intense. Some of your characters turn up in your songs and in your stories. Yep. That happens. Northline is about a beat-up person, Allison Johnson, who is putting one foot in front of the other to get out of her bad life. There are bits of me and my mum and my grandmother all wrapped up in her. I wrote a song about her too [Allison Johnson from Post to Wire]. She’s real close to me. The thing about fiction is that you can turn your mum into an old obese truck driver from Florida and say the things you want through that character without hurting anyone close to you. The Motel Life was turned into a film starring Stephen Dorff, Emile Hirsch and Kris Kristofferson. How was that for you? Well, I got to meet Kris Kristofferson. And, when I went back to Reno during the shoot, it was the first time I ever went home and didn’t feel like I was a bum. What’s next for you? A solo record? Hell, no! I don’t have the nerve to go it alone. I’m going to keep writing songs and playing guitar for my other band, the Delines. I love [Delines vocalist] Amy Boone’s voice and I love hearing her sing my songs. She turns them into country soul ballads. Plus, I’m working on another book, and Andrew Haigh is going to make a film of my novel Lean on Pete. I trust him. I know he’s going to bust his ass making it. That’s all you can ask. Richmond Fontaine’s new album, You Can’t Go Back If There’s Nothing to Go Back To, is out now on Decor; the band’s UK tour continues tonight in Leeds. Willy Vlautin’s latest novel, The Free, is published by Faber
Gary Lineker on being a Leicester City fan: ‘We’re all going through hell’ Gary Lineker is studying a picture I’ve shown him of a tanned and ripped Cristiano Ronaldo wearing nothing but a pair of skimpy white underpants. It’s Ronaldo wearing the skimpy underpants, not Lineker – that would be weird, given that we’ve only just met, although we might be seeing it soon on Saturday-night television. Back in December, Lineker posted a tweet saying that, should his beloved Leicester City football club – top of the Premier League at the time – end up as champions come the end of the season, he would present the first episode of next season’s Match of the Day in nothing but his duds. “At the time, though, I categorically knew there was no chance that would happen,” he says. “Zero chance.” In a blow to his predictive powers, it’s April and Leicester are not just top of the league but ahead by a staggering seven points with just five games to go. For non-football fans, this scenario is about as likely as Donald Trump being made president. Of Iceland. Leicester were strongly tipped for relegation at the start of the season, with their odds of winning the title placed at 5,000/1. Over the summer, there was no oil-state takeover – just a couple of smart signings and the arrival of a new, likeable manager in Claudio Ranieri, who likes to celebrate each victory by taking his team out for a pizza. And yet, with most of the favourites fading dismally and only Tottenham Hotspur – another of Lineker’s former clubs – and perhaps Arsenal looking capable of challenging them, it is clearly now the East Midlands city’s title to lose. Which is why we’re sitting here, at an athletics club opposite Wormwood Scrubs prison, in west London, flicking through pictures of men in their pants. So Gary, how do you think you’d look in a pair of Ronaldo’s tighty whiteys? “I could carry off the body bit, no problem,” he decides, “but I’m not sure I’ll be going for a pair like that.” What kind, then? “Honestly, I’m not getting ahead of myself on this. At the moment, I still think there’s only a 50% chance of it happening.” Does he regret that tweet now? “Well it was a bit of fun at the time. And if they do it, I suppose it will bring a bit of attention to the first show of next season.” It could be the highest ratings ever. “Or the lowest!” he laughs. “I think a lot of people will switch off. Crikey, it’s going to be a bit cringe.” Leicester City mean as much to Gary Lineker as it’s possible for a football club to mean to anyone. He went to see every home game with his dad and grandad from the age of seven, joined them straight from school in 1977 and scored 103 goals in 216 games before leaving for Everton in 1985. In 2002, when the Foxes found themselves in the financial mire, he was part of a consortium that put forward £5m to save them. The last few seasons – promotion to the Premier League, survival and now this – is a stunning turnaround. What we could be about to witness has already been described as the most unlikely event in the history of competitive team sport. No wonder, then, that the former England striker is loving every minute of it. Sort of. Well, OK. Not really. “It’s excruciating!” he says. “I was in Barcelona at the weekend, and took my four boys. Three support Leicester and even George, who’s a United fan, has come around a bit. We ended up in this tiny Moroccan restaurant – the only one we could find with a TV in it. And we’re 1-0 up and we’re all going through absolute hell. It’s like a great film or comedy – so tense it’s hard to watch.” There’s something endearing about watching this most unflappable of footballers – he claims to have never got nervous on the pitch, not even when taking penalties for England during the 1990 World Cup – freak out as a fan. One of the key players in Leicester’s title charge is Jamie Vardy, who has scored 21 goals already this season, not to mention a couple for England. Lineker says there are obvious similarities: both he and Vardy were late to reach their peak – Lineker didn’t play for his country until his mid-20s; Vardy only recently got a call-up last year aged 28 – and both owed their success to blistering pace. But whereas Lineker had an almost entirely controversy-free career, Vardy was caught on camera at a casino last summer making racial slurs. How does Lineker, who has spent time backing anti-racist groups such as Show Racism the Red Card, square this with his celebration of Vardy’s football skills? “Well,” he says, a little cautiously. “People make mistakes. They say stupid things. He did it and he apologised.” Can you really write a racist remark off as a mistake, though? “I think it depends on how you say it, and where you say it,” he says. “But I know footballers, and they are generally really not racist at all. I’ve heard things said on football pitches that players clearly don’t mean, whether it’s racism or just an abusive comment in the heat of the moment.” He exhales and searches for the right words. “Fundamentally, footballers don’t look around a dressing room and think: ‘He’s a black player ... he’s Japanese.’ They don’t think like that. They think: ‘He’s a good player, he can help, he’s not very good.’ I’m not trying to defend anyone’s actions,” he adds, “but there are going to be isolated incidents because it’s an emotive, passionate sport.” This seems a bit of a sketchy argument, especially given that Vardy was in a casino at the time of his incident. Lineker prefers to point to the bigger picture on how the game has handled this kind of poison: “Whether it’s Show Racism the Red Card, Kick it Out or whatever, I don’t think anything, anywhere, in the workplace, has done more than football to stop racism, and that sets a great example.” Of course, controversy and football are rarely far apart. Earlier this month, the Sunday Times revealed it had recorded private doctor Mark Bonar claiming he had prescribed banned performance-enhancing drugs to more than 150 British athletes, including footballers from Chelsea, Arsenal and Leicester (allegations vigorously denied by all three clubs). Lineker says he just can’t see it. “You can either play football or you can’t,” he says. “It might improve your stamina a little bit, I’m not an expert, but it ain’t gonna help you pass.” Football is not like sprinting, he says. You have to perform week in, week out, with no single event to aim for. And it’s not the kind of sport that involves maximising a single skill. “It’s a totally different thing. You’ve got to be skilful and calm. Now, obviously if people are doing that, then you condemn them, and let’s have as many investigations and secret tests as we can. But it won’t make you a better player – it’s not cycling or athletics.” If social media is often the cause of some of football’s controversies, then it can also help solve them. Lineker thinks the likes of Twitter can help reconnect fans with the increasingly distant players they idolise, and explains its impact in almost punk rock terms: “The gap between footballers and the fans was growing wider, but [Twitter has] pulled them a lot closer together,” he says. “Fans can have some sort of contact with players now.” This hasn’t always been of the welcome kind for Lineker. His followers never tire of reminding him of an incident at the 1990 World Cup, in which he admitted having to make an unfortunate toilet stop mid-game (with a quick wipe on the grass). Check out pretty much any tweet Lineker sends (“Back in the dentist’s chair. It’s like pulling teeth” he posted last week) and the first replies will reference it (“Shat on dentist”). It got boring years ago, yet you almost have to applaud his followers’ stamina for keeping it going. At first, Lineker just ignored it, and that made no difference. Then he said he’d block people who did it because it was getting boring – that didn’t work. “At some point, surely, someone will get tired of it. It’s what I’m going to end up being known for, isn’t it? It will be on my tombstone: ‘Shat on Lineker!’” Lineker has cultivated several relationships on Twitter, from brief spats with sport columnist Barney Ronay to a knack for putting Piers Morgan in his place. His affectionate, matey relationship with his son George is also on display – and George has developed something of a cult following off the back of it; he seems to encapsulate the modern lad with his banter, betting mishaps and frequent drunken escapades. “Well he’s quite amusing,” says his dad with a knowing smile. “Sometimes I’ve had to call him – he launches into a vague impression of what a strict dad might be like – “‘George! Are you sure about that one!’ But he’s quite witty and bright. Although very shy if you meet him.” Really? “Oh yeah. So quiet, a very shy kid, really. He gets a different personality on Twitter.” You get the feeling he draws an element of one-upmanship from revealing this. Another brief Twitter skirmish involved a war of words with footballer Joey Barton, after Lineker had criticised him on Match of the Day. Barton tweeted that he would open a “vast closet of skeletons” on the England legend. “He was just being silly, because there aren’t any,” says Lineker. “I think if I’d ever had any skeletons in the closet they’d have been out a long time ago.” Does his nice-guy image mean people want to knock it down? “People can look for things all day long. Everyone does – we’re a negative society in many ways, or we can be. Sometimes it’s good, in the sense that we’re very self-deprecating as a nation, which kind of works, especially with our footballing success, but ... we don’t have that positive energy, we don’t always look for the good in people. It’s a bit of a national trait.” He adds: “We’ve got a very knocky media, which I think is a bit of a shame.” Digging for dirt on Lineker isn’t easy. He has his stock lines for shutting down enquiries (“The meanest thing about me? I don’t share my crisps”). Does he still maintain that scoring a goal is better than sex? He looks confused: “I’m not sure I, er … I mean, they’re incomparable in many ways. But the one thing about scoring a goal is you never know if it’s going to happen again. Whereas with sex, there’s always the chance that something …” he starts laughing again. Then he says: “That was an interesting question, came out of nowhere.” But he did say that once, right? “Many players have, I’m not sure if I did.” Oh … okaaay. Aware that the interview is possibly becoming a bit strange – let’s not forget, we started off by looking at pictures of a half-naked Ronaldo – we head back towards football. Or more accurately Leicester, whom he can’t stop talking about throughout the interview, and even after it’s finished. “I find it weird when people say ‘Leicester might get nervous right at the end’,” he says. “You just don’t as a player. And you can tell by looking at their faces – they’re enjoying it, having fun.” Then his anxiety kicks in, his face etched with sporting panic. “But if they lose a couple on the trot – then the confidence can drain, then things can go wrong. They can’t just keep doing this and run out, winning the thing with three games to go. It doesn’t work like that!” Lineker knows that this isn’t your usual sporting story: it almost certainly won’t come around again next season; if Leicester don’t win now they may never win it. As he wrote in the : “I don’t think I have ever wanted something to happen more in sport in my entire life.” You start to get the feeling that nothing Lineker has achieved – not his Cup Winner’s Cup victory with Barelona, or his FA Cup win with Spurs, not even bagging the World Cup Golden Boot – would mean quite as much to him as being able to present Match of the Day in his pants. Lineker on … Gazza “There’s nothing I can do about it, or anyone apart from Gazza himself. He’s trying, bless him. But he’s always had issues, always been a complex individual with massive addiction issues all his life. I feel for him, I just hope he keeps battling and trying and hopefully he will be OK.” Wayne Rooney “He’s been brilliant, but we all know that once you get in your 30s, your powers begin to wane. Harry Kane has to start, and so then it becomes about who plays with him. Wayne knows he will be fighting for his place. But then, we all know that when it comes around, everyone will get injuries and we’ll just take whoever’s fit anyway.” Johan Cruyff, who died last month “He was an unbelievably good coach, and always the best player on the training field, even as a manager. I learned so much from him. But he deliberately messed me about. He wanted to bring in his own players so he put me on the wing all season, hoping that I would retaliate, and turn the fans against me, saying I’m a prima donna. But I just stayed professional, played down the wing all season. I got it, I understood. He ruined my goal-scoring ratio, though.” England’s chances in the Euros “I think we will be competitive. We’ve got a great group of young players, especially as an attacking threat. But the defence might be a problem.” For your chance to present the Barclays Premier League trophy to the champions, visit www.spiritofthegame.barclays.com
Trump financial declaration reveals he holds bonds in companies he attacked The 104-page financial disclosure that Donald Trump filed with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) on Tuesday offered a rare window into the presumptive Republican nominee’s financial holdings – including bonds in companies he has attacked on the campaign trail. Trump has steadfastly refused to release any of his tax returns, claiming that he is undergoing an IRS audit. Doing so is voluntary, although every presidential nominee has since 1976. In contrast, the FEC’s financial disclosure is required by law. Trump heralded his disclosure – which covers the last 17 months – by stating that his income was $557m, his business revenues had increased by $190m and that “Mr Trump’s net worth is in excess of $10 billion dollars.” The form, however, does not provide many specific details on Trump’s income and liabilities. Instead, they are put in a variety of categories ranging from a 2015 loan for more than $50m to less than $201 in income from his 2007 book Think Big and Kick Ass. But the filing demonstrates a number of interesting investments by Trump. Despite his frequent tirades against Oreo cookies for moving some production to Mexico and his pledge to boycott the popular cookie, Trump earned between $5,000 and $15,000 in interest on bonds in Mondelez, the holding company which owns Oreo. Trump also earned between $2,500 and $5,000 in interest in bonds in United Technologies Corporation, the owner of Carrier Air Conditioning. On the campaign trail in Indiana, Trump repeatedly attacked Carrier for moving manufacturing jobs overseas and out of the state. Trump also made significant sums of money from the 16 books he has authored. His newest tome, Crippled America, earned the presumptive nominee between $1m and $5m, while The Art Of The Deal – which Trump has called his second favorite book after the Bible – netted him between $50,000 and $100,000. The real estate mogul also reported that he made $49.3m from selling his share of the Miss Universe pageant as well as earning nearly $30m from his ownership of the Mar A Lago resort in Palm Beach. Trump also had to list all 564 positions he holds outside the United States government, all linked to being President of Trump ICE LLC and president, director and chairman of Trump World Productions.
Lee 'Scratch' Perry review – intergalactic dub deity crashes to earth An orange-haired tinker in a baseball cap covered in objects representing elemental gods points to his marijuana-themed socks and yells “I am LSD!” into a feathered microphone. Welcome to the fried mind of Lee “Scratch” Perry, Jamaican godfather of dub, reggae originator, “supreme creator” and “sexpert”, who has claimed he lives in a studio spaceship receiving music from his fellow aliens, and visits earth to collect “only the good brains”. According to his own absorbing self-mythology, this prolific legend – with more than 60 albums to his name – can read minds, once put a curse on the BBC for not playing his records and was turned into Superman by Haitian zombie drugs. He’s the kind of cosmic one-off that naturally draws disciples – everyone from the Beastie Boys to Andrew WK, Animal Collective and Keith Richards has tried to glean some of his mystic dub magic, and this pre-80th birthday midnight set is mixed by long-time collaborator the Mad Professor. It certainly needs guidance. Each hazy beach-dub track is a canvas over which Perry mumbles to himself of Jah-ly matters, freestyles blessings on to the front row, orders champagne and repeatedly shouts “Ping pong!” or “Crash!” at his grizzled band, as if he wants to improvise a number about a table tennis meteorite disaster. Looking less like an intergalactic dub deity and more like an eccentric riverboat trinket collector who enjoyed the 60s too much, he appears to get mildly toasted during a rambling take on Chase the Devil, shakes robotically at a young woman who invades the stage to dance to a falsetto-free Police and Thieves and interrupts songs to chastise people checking their phones in the wings. Perry talks of his music like elemental catastrophes – hurricanes, tidal waves and fire from on high – but tonight’s improvisational one-tone sprawl is unlikely to upheave anyone, unless it’s to the nearest late-night Costcutter for Quavers. At Band on the Wall, Manchester, 15 March. Box office: 0161-832 1111. Then touring.
Nurse struck off for leaving dementia patient in storeroom overnight A senior nurse has been struck off after leaving a distressed, hallucinating patient with dementia in an unlit equipment cupboard overnight. Heather Davies was the nurse in charge of a night shift on a dementia ward in Hinchingbrooke hospital, Cambridgeshire, when a patient with dementia became delirious and started shouting, disturbing others in her bay, a disciplinary hearing by the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) heard this month. A more junior nurse, Lisa Ndlovu, moved the patient into a corridor and was told by Davies the size of her bed meant “they would need to find somewhere with double doors like the ones on the equipment room”, the NMC’s report on the incident said. Davies told the disciplinary panel she meant this as an example, but Ndlovu wheeled the patient’s bed into a dark storeroom at about midnight. A healthcare assistant who saw this later alerted Davies and they found the patient, who was frightened and hallucinating, in the dark storeroom with a window open. She was shivering and sweating, and had no call bell or “cot bumpers” on the bed to prevent her from falling. Davies conducted a brief check-up but left the patient in the room until about 6am. Davies, who had no previous disciplinary record, told an internal inquiry the patient had been left in “an unsuitable, unacceptable, dangerous and frightening environment” and acknowledged this was a mistake. But she added the ward was under additional pressure that night because of a virus. The NMC panel found that although Davies had not placed the patient in the storeroom herself, as the nurse in charge she had not challenged the nurse who did so and “took no action to deal with the situation or remove [the patient] from an unsafe environment”. This was an “extremely serious incident involving a serious error of judgment by Mrs Davies”, the panel found, deciding to strike her off. Ndlovu was suspended for six months for her part in the incident. Davies declined to comment when approached by The Sun about the case. Hinchingbrooke hospital confirmed to the paper that it had dismissed her.
Three's Company, 1970s flatmate sitcom, to be made into a movie Rarely has there been a Hollywood comedy with odder roots than 2009’s He’s Just Not That Into You, but the creative team who brought filmgoers the self-help book-based rom-com is planning a big-screen adaptation of the fiercely dated 1970s sitcom Three’s Company, according to the Hollywood Reporter. Warner Bros offshoot New Line has hired He’s Just Not That Into You’s screenwriters, Abby Kohn and Marc Silverstein, to oversee the movie. The TV series, which starred John Ritter and ran in the US on the ABC network between 1977 and 1984, does not immediately appear to fit the 21st-century zeitgeist. It’s not-so-racy premise centred on a young man who moves in to flat share with two women and is forced to pretend he is gay in order to avoid censure by a conservative landlord. The studio is planning to set the film adaptation in the 1970s in order to sustain the setup. The original Three’s Company was based on a British comedy, Man About the House, which ran for four years on ITV from 1973, starring Richard O’Sullivan, Paula Wilcox and Sally Thomsett. Hollywood has previously adapted other TV shows from the era for the big screen, such as The Brady Bunch, Starsky & Hutch and The Dukes of Hazzard, with varying results. More recently, studios have tended towards mining the 1990s for material: there have been two successful comedies based on teen cop show 21 Jump Street, as well as a film riffing off lifeguard drama Baywatch due out next year.
My life collapsed when my daughter died. That didn't stop the debt collectors Debt: $80,000+ Source: College Estimated years until debt free: Uncertain I was young, pregnant, married and happy. I had just moved into a beautiful apartment in a tranquil neighborhood. My husband had landed a well-paying job. Then one day, I started to bleed. Days later I learned that my baby, at only five months’ gestation, would not make it. It was only recently that folks began to recognize a phenomenon known as birth-related post-traumatic stress disorder, but I’ve lived with it every day since I lost my daughter Margaret in 2012. It wasn’t her death that initially brought debt into my life. I had already accumulated debt from student loans and credit cards to help me pay my way through school. Though I made timely payments for a while, I was forced to stop paying when I was faced with two options: pay for food in my stomach, or pay my bills and starve. I chose the former. Before my daughter’s death, my intention was to begin freelancing and use my supplemental income to pay my debts. But everything happened so fast. We’d only been in that new apartment for a month when she died, many of our belongings still in boxes. Losing our daughter left us broken; and now we had to figure out how much it would cost to cremate our baby, decide if we wanted to spring for the more expensive urn. I could barely stop crying long enough to take a Xanax let alone figure out all these financial logistics. This is how it all went wrong. We lost Maggie in late September and on 1 December, my husband (who was only given one week to grieve) was let go from his job. I attempted to keep us afloat by taking the first gig I could find, but the money wasn’t enough and we lost our apartment. This meant breaking our lease and subsequently being charged thousands for the rent we would have paid had we kept our old lease. That is, of course, on top of the old card and loan debt I still owed. With every passing day, our debts grew into sizeable monsters lurking inside credit reports, waiting for the moment we might want to do something important like buy a car or find a home. More debts accumulated any time we had a lapse in health insurance, a side-effect of lacking stable employment, which is hard to come by when your mental health is suffering. Funny thing is that you need insurance coverage in order to help battle issues like PTSD. How’s that for a catch-22? Calls from collectors became commonplace, filling me with constant anxiety. My mailbox was full of bills or letters congratulating me on the birth of my child from companies who didn’t realize she was now a pile of ashes in a box inside my closet. I changed my phone number, moved into my parent’s house, ignored the world for a while. When your kid dies, you really can’t care much about what you still owe Sallie Mae. And that joke about being so in debt they’ll want your firstborn? It’s not funny any more. Life has improved somewhat since my daughter’s death. I’ve started writing freelance on a regular basis and my husband has finally landed a job that will hopefully prove to be stable in the long run. We also now have a two-year old son who, though having spent two months in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, is now a happy, healthy toddler. But I still live with PTSD, from the birth and death of my daughter, and the complicated birth of my son. Some days it’s hard to make deadlines and juggle clients, hard to be a good mom, hard to breathe. I’m lining my ducks in a row to start repaying my loans and rebuilding my credit. I’m hoping this is the year we can finally move into our own place, and more importantly, the year we can finally get regular, uninterrupted care for our mental health.
A soft, flexible Brexit could be possible – with Ireland’s help In the satire 1066 and All That, it is claimed that William Gladstone “spent his declining years trying to guess the answer to the Irish question; unfortunately, whenever he was getting warm, the Irish secretly changed the question”. And now it is the British who have changed the question. Just when relations between Ireland and Britain had reached an unprecedented equilibrium, Brexit makes everything deeply unsettled again. When James Joyce’s alter ego Stephen Dedalus claims in Ulysses that “History … is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake”, it is surely Irish history he has in mind. But now the Irish have to awake to the living nightmare of British – perhaps we should say English – history. Brexit is disconcerting on so many levels that it is easy to miss one particularly discombobulating shift. For centuries, there has been a potent contrast between the place of history in the two islands: in Britain, history was over; in Ireland it was continuing on its baleful path. All the mad conflicts over nationhood and identity and constitutional structures had ceased to trouble the essential British settlement. It was the poor bloody Irish who were still roiled and racked by all that dark passion. There was an Irish question and it was a maddening perplexity. But there certainly was no English question. And now our little archipelago is turned inside out. We have swapped places. Ireland has, or thought it had, a workable settlement, a way of taming and managing its history. It has been awfully hard-won, carved slowly out of a big block of human agony. But then up pops the English question. It seems as if these islands must have a fixed quantum of nationalist fervour, a strict allocation of identity crises and cultural neuroses. When it diminishes in the west, it suddenly wells up in the east. The bad habit of defining “us” as “not them” finally wanes in Ireland, but just as it does so it waxes again in England. Britain’s Irish question becomes Ireland’s English question. For Ireland, our English question is every bit as intimate and excruciating as it is for those in Britain who are still wondering how Brexit came to pass. For good and ill, the two islands are stuck together in a marriage that can be sundered neither by death nor divorce. And in a marriage, you suffer badly when your spouse goes off the rails. Brexit threatens the Northern Ireland peace process, undermining the Belfast (Good Friday) agreement. It poses the real risk of the imposition of an external European Union border across the fields of Fermanagh and Tyrone. It hurts indigenous Irish businesses whose main trade links are with the UK. To misquote WB Yeats, we are locked in to the Brexiteers’ recklessness and the key is turned on our uncertainty. The initial Irish reaction to being dragged into the mad antics of English nationalism has been one of fury. It is one thing to be made part of someone else’s historic nightmare, but quite another to be given this role by people who seemed not to know or care what Brexit might do to Ireland. And this applies as much to the remainers as to the Brexiteers. I’ve just read Craig Oliver’s gripping account of the whole referendum debacle from inside Downing Street. I note that the Daily Mail is mentioned 14 times and the Daily Telegraph 22. Game of Thrones, The Godfather and The X-Files all feature. Northern Ireland? Not once. The Republic of Ireland? Zilch. John Bull’s Other Island was apparently cut off by a thick mental fog for the duration of the campaign. The careless rapture of England’s identity crisis leaves many of us on the other side of the Irish Sea in a cold rage. Tempers have not been calmed by the patronising vagueness of the reassurances that we shouldn’t worry because everything will be all right. It doesn’t help either that at the back of these reassurances is an assumption among some Brexiteers – including some of the Unionist leadership in Northern Ireland – that the Republic of Ireland is not really an independent country, and that it will simply have to follow Britain out of the EU. The suggestion that Ireland will operate UK migration controls at its own ports and airports carries with it the same presumptuous air. But anger is of little use. No one knows better than the Irish the chagrin of having your neighbours adopt a superior tone and tell you to get over your funny historic obsessions – so Ireland shouldn’t do that to England now. Instead the Irish government has to do the decent thing for all concerned, which is to try to talk its British friends down from the ledge of a hard Brexit, and to talk its European friends out of pushing Britain off that ledge. It’s not the kind of job that one sovereign government would normally undertake in relation to another. But in the current circumstances, what has normal got to do with anything? There are signs now that the vanquished remainers are trying to find a voice. The economic consequences of Brexit are becoming clearer and the ugly tone of the new xenophobia is becoming more repellent to the great British traditions of moderation and tolerance. There is still time between now and the invocation of article 50 in March 2017 to galvanise a common effort across all the polities of these islands to look for a third way between hard Brexit and no Brexit. While both the Brexiteers and the EU leadership are posing this stark choice between extremes, the mutual interest in achieving a more fluent, ambiguous compromise must not be lost. Zealots will find this despicable, and claim that compromises never work. But the fact is that the Irish question was solved (in the medium term at least) by just such a creative fudge. The 1998 Good Friday agreement, which came from the intimate cooperation of the Irish and British governments, is a masterpiece of ambiguity. It replaces hard certainties about identity and constitutional status with an open, contingent and deliberately slippery compromise. It works imperfectly, but it does work – precisely because multiple identities and political contradictions are what we all have to live with – in Ireland, Britain and Europe. It is, in this, a fine model for the kind of creative reconciling of opposing impulses that could solve the English question. And remember that it was much harder to achieve than a sensible semi-Brexit may be because it had to be negotiated across a blood-soaked table. The Irish government needs to forget protocol and set itself up explicitly as the champion of a soft, ambiguous and contingent Brexit that leaves open the possibility of a return ticket. Keeping Britain within the single market is a vital Irish national interest, and some of us are arrogant enough to suggest that it might be no less vital for Britain. Before the war of words escalates and positions petrify into irreconcilability, Ireland should make an urgent and coherent effort to plead the virtues of equivocation. If nothing else, Ireland helping England out of a hole would be a historical irony worth savouring. Visit theguardian.com for Ireland beyond Brexit, a series about the challenges and opportunities the vote has created
Will Smith confirms he won't attend Oscars in row over lack of diversity Will Smith has confirmed he will not be attending next month’s Oscars, joining his wife Jada Pinkett Smith in a boycott over the Academy Awards’ all-white nominee list. Smith, speaking on Good Morning America, said that diversity is “the American superpower” and that attending the Oscars, given the lack of it among this year’s nominated performers, would be “awkward”. “So many different people from so many different places adding their ideas to this beautiful American gumbo,” he said. “At its best, Hollywood represents and creates the imagery for that beauty. But for my part, I think I have to protect and fight for the ideals that make our country – and make our Hollywood community – great.” Smith, who some suggested should have been nominated in the best actor category for his role as a head trauma doctor in the NFL film Concussion, said this year’s nominated actors, who are all white, were “fantastic”, but that the industry was moving “in the wrong direction”. His comments echo those of George Clooney, who earlier this week said the film industry was “moving in the wrong direction” when it came to diversity. Smith joins a small group of film-makers, including directors Spike Lee and Michael Moore, who have announced they will not attend the Oscars in protest. There have also been calls for comedian Chris Rock to stand down as host. The Academy’s membership is kept confidential, but an LA Times investigation in 2012 suggested that the body was 94% white and 77% male. Cheryl Boone Isaacs, president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), which organises the Oscars, has said she’s “heartbroken” by the lack of diversity and that AMPAS will be taking “dramatic steps” to adjust the balance of its membership to include more black and ethnic minority film-makers. Among the adjustments being considered is the expansion of categories to allow more nominees. Meanwhile, Smith’s former co-star on The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, Janet Hubert, has again criticised the boycott. Hubert, who played Aunt Viv on the popular comedy, has accused Pinkett Smith of being “a pretend freedom fighter”. “The Smiths just irked me because they are such pretenders, and everything is a photo op,” she told the LA Times. “It’s just self-contrived because her hubby didn’t get a nomination.” Hubert had previously called out Pinkett Smith for losing perspective. “People are dying, being shot left and right, people are hungry, people are trying to pay bills — and you’re talking about actors and Oscars,” she said. “It just ain’t that deep”.
SJ Watson: art, identity and the world's most famous amnesiac What does it mean to be conscious? It’s the state of being awake, being aware, being alive. It’s that thing that human beings have that rocks don’t, even though both are composed of the same raw materials. But it’s more than just being alive, isn’t it? Consciousness is our self, our soul. It’s the ghost in the machine, the feeling that we’re more than just our bodies, the conviction that there’s a subjective “I” with thoughts and feelings and memories, and it’s this that makes us unique, makes us us, in fact. But what is it, this consciousness, and where does it come from? I’m interested in this because I am a writer of fiction. When I write, I’m attempting to render on the page the personal experience of people who don’t exist. The words I choose should create a doorway to another self, they should allow the reader to briefly put their own consciousness to one side and experience the world through that of another. Yet how to do that? We are muscles and bones and flesh, and advances in biology and neuroscience have led to the difficult but inescapable truth: there is no ghost in the machine. Our consciousness, our memory, our “self” exists only in the brain. Our identity is encoded in its billions of neurons and the infinity of connections between them; we are nothing more than electrical signals zipping through cells. But still the question is the same. How? How does the brain, this three-pound blob of pink mush, contain the richness of a life? And what happens when it malfunctions? These are among the questions posed by States of Mind, a collection of exhibits, writings and art installations showing at the Wellcome Collection, London. It makes for a fascinating visit. There are pieces examining the injured brain, coma and persistent vegetative state. But for me, given the theme of my first book Before I Go to Sleep, the most interesting part of the exhibition looks at memories, at what they are, how they’re formed, and what happens when they’re destroyed or inaccurate. Memories define us. They are our autobiography, they form our identity, our sense of who we are. Without them it’s impossible to both make sense of change and to imagine a future in any concrete way. Yet most of us take them for granted. Remembering happens automatically, we think of our memories as a repository, a sort of video recording of our lives to date. We believe that almost any scene is available for recall, to be reviewed and re-experienced, if only we could find it. But how can this be? How can decades of experience be stored in this one organ, and how faithful is the recording? It’s now believed that memory is not a single process. We have short-term memories that fade within 20 seconds or so, and a long-term store where memories are coded for future recall and accessible months or even years hence. Both result from changes in the neurons of the brain, but in different ways. Short-term memories involve only temporary enhancements in the synaptic connections between cells, whereas long-term memories arise from physical changes in those same connections. When we store a memory long-term, the neurons “wire together”, and the more times we recall a particular memory the stronger is this bond. All this happens in various circuits across the brain, mostly in an area called the medial temporal lobe and focused around a structure known as the hippocampus. So if our memories – the stories through which we understand ourselves and make sense of existence – are encoded physically in the billions of nerve cells in our brain, what happens when something goes wrong? Amnesia can be the loss of existing memories and/or the inability to form new ones and, perhaps because it cuts to the heart of identity, it has long been of interest to writers, artists and film-makers. Both my own Before I Go to Sleep and the Christopher Nolan film Memento are easy examples, but there are many others – and one, H.M., is being shown as an installation in the exhibition from later this month. H.M. is the work of Kerry Tribe, a Los Angeles-based visual artist. Its title refers to Henry Molaison, arguably the most famous amnesiac in history. In 1953, at the age of 27, Molaison underwent “frankly experimental” brain surgery in an attempt to alleviate the debilitating epilepsy with which he suffered. Most of the structures in the medial temporal lobes were removed, including the hippocampus. When Henry woke he was confused. He did not recognise his caregivers or remember the routines or layout of the hospital, and after a couple of weeks it was realised that his condition was not improving. Henry had catastrophic amnesia, and it was permanent. For the rest of his life he was unable to retain any new autobiographical memories and retained only vague details of the first 25 years of his life. He died in 2008 having lived permanently in the present for over half a century. Tribe’s film is not a straightforward telling of Molaison’s story, however. It’s a single film that plays through two adjacent projectors with a 20-second delay between them, so that the viewer sees simultaneous projections of two different parts of the same reel. Much like Memento – also inspired by Molaison and in which the narrative is told backwards, with each scene ending where the previous one began – it recreates the cognitive dissonance of amnesia. The effect is haunting and disconcerting. Given our shared interest in Molaison’s story – he inspired Before I Go to Sleep, though the book is not about him – I wanted to talk to Tribe about her film. She told me that she has been making work about memory for a number of years, but became interested in Molaison while making Near Miss – a film examining the subjectivity of memories. She says she has always loved work with “a strong conceptual basis … where the form and content dovetail”. When she learned that Molaison had about 20 seconds of recall but nothing else, she says she realised “20 seconds could be the lag between my two projectors, and HM’s experience – or some semblance of it – could be materialised for the viewer, conceptually but also viscerally, sensorially. I wanted to achieve an embodied sense of what memory feels like for the viewer and make a scientifically accurate experimental film.” She began work on the film in 2006, two years before Molaison’s death, and worked closely with Professor Suzanne Corkin, the neuroscientist who studied and looked after him for over 50 years. “I travelled anywhere I could that I knew had been significant to Henry – his childhood neighbourhood and high school, lakes he may have swum in as a boy, the department where he was studied at MIT – with a Bolex camera. The Bolex is unique in that it is powered by a hand crank and records for about 20 seconds before it stops.” The resulting film is a montage of haunting images, narrated by Corkin and intercut with scenes of Molaison talking to his doctors or undergoing assessment, all with that 20-second delay. At the end of the film the voiceover tells us that Henry was never filmed, photographed or videotaped. The moment is jarring, as the viewer feels they’ve just spent 15 minutes in his company. I asked Tribe how she made the film. “The re-enactments that feature HM are staged with actors on a set and shot on digital video. Everything said is ‘real’ in the sense that all of HM’s dialogue comes directly from transcripts, and Professor Corkin plays herself. And those funny-looking tests you see HM performing in my film are the real objects he used in testing back in the 1960s. But the hands belong to an actor.” Molaison was in a nursing home by the time she started working on the project, she adds, and no longer verbal. Plus, “his privacy had been carefully guarded for decades and I didn’t want to compromise that. But Darryl Sandeen does a fantastic performance as HM – nearly everyone assumes it’s him.” The film was first exhibited in 2009, after Henry’s death, and though inspired by his story it asks the viewer to think about memories more generally. Amnesia is a terrifying prospect, but another installation at States of Mind looks not at the lack of memories, but at their inaccuracy. False Memory Archive: Crudely Erased Adults (Lost in the Mall) is a series of red tinted images of a shopping centre, in which every adult figure has been erased leaving only lone and isolated children. It was created by AR Hopwood and refers to an experiment performed in the early 90s by the psychologist Elizabeth Loftus. She found 25% of people would recount in great detail the untrue story of being lost in a shopping mall as a child, a false memory that had been successfully implanted during a previous testing session. Loftus has spent decades studying false memories. “Many people believe that memory works like a recording device,” she said in her TEDGlobal talk in 2013. “(But) memory works more like a Wikipedia page: you can go in there and change it, but so can other people.” This has frightening implications. Loftus has talked about people who have been found guilty of crimes they didn’t commit on the basis of eyewitness evidence that was later revealed to be a false memory. In one famous example, witnesses to the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes reported that he leaped over the ticket barrier at Stockwell underground station before running down the escalator, despite CCTV footage showing him passing through the barrier normally. Those studying the phenomenon would suggest that it was probably a police officer who jumped the barrier, yet the charged atmosphere around the shooting, and subsequent events, caused the confused memory to become embedded in the mind of eyewitnesses as truth. I asked Kerry Tribe whether she though memory might be more malleable than we might like to think. “Yeah. There are so many interesting and troubling things we discover when we enter the word of neuropsychology. I recently learned that memories aren’t produced suddenly when something happens. It’s a slow process of solidifying, like pudding, over time. If stress hormones are present during the solidifying process, the strength of the event’s memory is increased, along with the associated feelings of stress.” So memories are not recordings. They are stored in the brain as patterns of activity, fragile, subjective, and often false. It’s likely that every time we remember something we potentially alter it before recoding the new version, an ongoing process of editing and revision that we’re not even aware we’re doing. It turns out the stories we tell ourselves to make sense of our life might be at least partly fiction after all. So where does that leave the question of identity, consciousness and the self? As Tribe told me: “It never ceases to amaze me, the simple fact that our consciousness is embedded in a physical organ – essentially a piece of meat.” Through studying Henry Molaison we’re now much closer to understanding how the brain forms and stores memories. Yet even that is only part of the story. We’re a long way from understanding the processes by which the billions of neurons in the brain link and combine and weave together to make us who we are, but it’s a fascinating journey. Kerry Tribe’s H.M. is at the Wellcome Collection, London, from 26 April-24 July as part of States of Mind: Tracing the Edges of Consciousness. SJ Watson’s new novel Second Life is published by Random House.
History of Magic in North America by JK Rowling – review The wizards who keep the world wide web going have cancelled all leave again, their usual procedure before the release of a new piece of writing by JK Rowling. In this case, traffic, however heavy, will have been brief, as the contribution runs to only 427 words, including the names of the author and the piece: Fourteenth Century to Seventeenth Century. A movie or theatre producer would probably have urged a slightly more enticing title – maybe with the words “Harry Potter and” or “Corcoran Strike in” before that academic heading. But Rowling can do whatever she wants on her Pottermore website – and clearly does. The four pieces of new writing, dropping at 2pm each day this week until Friday, form an essay called History of Magic in North America, which promises to help Rowling fans to “lay the foundation for the arrival of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them in November”. In other words, the mini-essays are a preview/advert for the next film based on her work. The first 420-word chunk, beginning the chronicle of witches and wizards in what became the US, is characteristically pro-immigration and anti-racism, with Rowling noting that the earliest American magic-makers were “stigmatised for their beliefs”. So, in the present political context, it will be interesting to see if Donald Trump or other Republicans feel it necessary to denounce Rowling as a satanic liberal. Such is the writer’s cultural power, however, that this year’s range of eye-poppingly odd presidential candidates may yet prove to be a promotional ruse for the forthcoming film, which is released the week after the US election. In the febrile pre-referendum atmosphere in the UK, the author’s assertion that the “Native American wizarding community was … of a sophistication beyond much that was known in Europe” may risk being taken as anti-EU. Certainly, Rowling has not shied from contentious political issues in the past, having taken flak for her pro-Union stance during the Scottish independence referendum. But I may be reading more into Rowling’s brief burst of necromantic scholarship than is there, which is always a risk when a writer chooses to let such small flakes fall from their desk. It’s said that Tracey Emin and Damien Hirst have been warned not to doodle on menus or hotel notepads in case the result is lucratively sold on eBay. Similarly, Rowling’s family should be wary of letting her leave shopping lists around, in case they crash the internet and are turned into films.
I’m being chased around the internet by a shed A few weeks ago, I thought about buying a shed. I thought about buying a shed, and it was the most exciting thing I did that day, because I’m a hot-rod rebel and my entire life is a thrill-a-minute joyride of unimaginable debauchery. In the end, however, I didn’t buy a shed – mainly because it turns out that my tolerance for sheds is so abysmally low that I can only look at a maximum of three sheds before deciding that all sheds are stupid and only ninnies need them. However, that hasn’t stopped me from being ambushed by adverts for sheds on a near-hourly basis ever since. Thanks to a web cookie on the shed site telling an ad server that this is now my defining personality trait – Stuart Heritage: shed enjoyer – the vast majority of adverts I see online are now for sheds. It feels as if I’m being stalked by sheds. It feels as if I’m living in the first draft of an Edgar Allan Poe poem, written in the days before he realised that ravens are scarier than sheds. “Hey, shed guy!” the adverts scream. “Remember those sheds you looked at the other week? They’re still here! Look how boxy and mundane they still are. Come on, click it. Click the shed.” Behavioural retargeting, this is called. Chances are you’ve encountered it, too. Maybe you once went on Amazon, purely to see whether the word “Singalongamax” had hyphens in it or not, and now you can’t move for Max Bygraves adverts. Maybe you ordered your partner a NutriBullet for her birthday, and every site you subsequently visited carried an advert for NutriBullets, and you had to fling a coat over your screen every time she came in the room in case it ruined the surprise, and now she’s convinced that you suffer from a crippling porn addiction. Behavioural retargeting is everywhere, and it’s infuriating. The easy way out would be for everyone to just install an adblocker and be done with it. Certainly, that’s what people are doing in their droves – it’s been estimated that up to a quarter of adults use them. But this is where I have to draw a line in the sand, because I’m not a monster. If I use a site – any site: a news site or a forum or social media – it’s because it has some worth to me, and I don’t want to see it go anywhere. That’s what adverts are for. You put up with a peripheral banner telling you how funny The Book of Mormon is, and the site gets paid as a result. But when you install an adblocker, you remove this revenue stream and the sites you like begin to suffer. By installing an adblocker, you’re actively contributing to the reduction of the internet. If you install an adblocker, one day everything you enjoy will be replaced by three rotating Facebook clickthrough galleries entitled The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Presents 21 Funny Faces That Dogs Pull When They’re Horny, and you’ll have nobody to blame but yourself. The problem I have isn’t so much with adverts themselves, but with the specific adverts that follow you around from site to site like a wounded puppy, tugging on your trouser leg until you finally put it out of its misery. Before it was sheds, it was coats. Before it was coats, it was coffee tables. I’m also being stalked by a pair of shoes that I looked at once, and now bloodlessly creep into my Facebook stream at every opportunity. They’re nice shoes, too, but I refuse to buy them as a matter of principle. If those shoes ever go near my feet, the internet will have won and I’ll be no better than a child. Marketers know how infuriating retargeting is, too. In 2014, researchers performed a study into retargeting, and found that people generally get more annoyed the more they see an ad for something they had previously looked at online. They overwhelmingly said that the adverts made them angry and, if they ever happened to see an advert for something they had already bought, they instantly became four times more likely to never buy it again. Clearly, retargeting has its upsides – if they didn’t increase sales on some level they wouldn’t exist, plus it’s now easier than ever to sweep through your office, clock everyone’s retargeted banner ads and make a discreet inventory of all the perverts who’ve ever thought about buying adult-sized Peppa Pig duvet covers – but the downsides vastly outnumber them. If they annoy people so much that they would rather install an adblocker and choke their favourite sites to death in the process, then something needs to be done. Luckily, something can be done. There’s a little blue triangle in the corner of these adverts. Click it, and you’ll be able to opt-out of most retargeted ads. You’ll still see adverts, but they won’t be the same creepily omnipresent ads that would otherwise haunt your every move. And that’s a win-win. You stop feeling like you’re being stalked by a shed, the site still makes money and nobody has to make the uncomfortable decision to install an adblocker. You’re just left with the perfect, undiluted web experience you always wanted. Good writing, helpful debate and several dozen ill-advised “Ten Celebrities You Didn’t Know Were Jewish” sponsored-link galleries clogging up the bottom of every single article you ever read. Perfect.
Mel Gibson on testosterone – just what the world needs Whatever happened to cinema’s Mel Gibson? Some will have assumed that he is beginning his 60s as vice-chair of the Los Angeles chapter of Momentum. Others, of course, will already know that Mel is back. He’s never been more back. Not only as a director – his second world war movie Hacksaw Ridge starring Andrew Garfield is very well spoken of – but as an actor. Mel is currently shooting a film with Sean Penn, and this past summer starred in the action thriller Blood Father. Yes, it’s a shame that Hollywood women aged 60 are playing Spock’s great grandmother or whatever, but that’s showbiz. Indeed, the Hollywood Reporter reveals that Mel is now in talks to star in yet another action-adventure movie, Every Other Weekend. Obviously, we’re all made up for him. And yet … I haven’t seen Blood Father, but looking through the available stills, my primary impression is that Mel got himself ridiculously ripped for it, as he did for Expendables 3 before it, and signing for another action adventure suggests he will have to continue the … regimen. I see he has previously been snapped a few times outside somewhere called the Beverly Hills Rejuvenation Clinic, while his friend Sylvester Stallone now claims that human growth hormone and testosterone “increase your quality of life”. Even so, LA traffic cops are advised that action cinema’s gain could be their loss, and to prepare themselves accordingly.
Early primary deadlines frustrate New Yorkers left unable to vote A lot has changed in the presidential primaries since 9 October 2015. Back then, a CBS News poll showed Hillary Clinton beating Bernie Sanders nationally by nearly 20 points; if Joe Biden had entered the race, the same poll suggested Clinton would beat Sanders by 24 points. She was, in the minds of many liberal voters, the inevitable Democratic nominee. Another CBS News poll showed Donald Trump with a slim six-point lead over Dr Ben Carson nationally and, after two almost cartoonish debate performances, most Republicans and pundits expected the businessman’s numbers to slide and eventually eliminate him from contention. Quietly on that same day, the New York state board of elections’ deadline to change party affiliation passed, leaving any registered voters not identified as a Republican or a Democrat with no way to vote in the 19 April 2016 primary. The deadline to register to vote for the first time in the New York primary passed on 25 March 2016; there is no in-person registration in the state, even to cast a provisional ballot. As New York’s primary approaches, it is only now that many would-be voters are realizing they will be unable to vote next Tuesday. New York is one of only 11 states with closed primaries – ie primaries in which only voters who are registered as Republicans or Democrats are allowed to cast ballots – and it is the only state in which currently registered voters must declare their party affiliation more than six months before a primary in order to vote. More than 2.9 million of New York’s 10.7 million active voters were not registered Democrats or Republicans as of April 2016 – in part because at least some of them found out after 9 October 2015 that, beginning that day, they could not change their party affiliation until 15 November. That number includes both Eric and Ivanka Trump, who revealed this week that they will be unable to cast a ballot for their own father in their home state primary. In a statement, they called the process to change affiliation “one of the most onerous” in the country and said: “Our experience in New York, and inability to change our party affiliation so that we could vote for our father in the NY primary, was the reason that we proactively began making videos last year to educate voters on a state-by-state basis on what is required in order for them to vote in their own state primaries.” But you don’t have to be a child of a Republican frontrunner to find yourself unable to vote in next week’s primary. Elisabeth Garber-Paul is a 29-year-old journalist in Brooklyn who registered to vote as a member of the Working Families Party years ago only to discover in New York City’s last mayoral election that she was unable to vote in the Democratic primary. She wasn’t going to let that happen again in 2016. “When I renewed my driver’s license in October, I changed my party affiliation, specifically so I could vote for Bernie Sanders,” she explained. “It came back just fine, everything seemed to be in order, and I was excited to vote this spring.” It wasn’t until last month, after reading press coverage about the voter registration deadline, that Garber-Paul thought to double-check her status – only to discover she’d missed the voter affiliation change deadline (of which she was unaware) by about a week. “The most frustrating part to me was that neither the state website nor the Democratic party [notified] me that the registration was invalid,” she said. “This feels like a bullshit way to disenfranchise people in the primary,” she added. “Given that our presidential elections are two-party affairs, it seems pretty disingenuous to make it so hard for voters to participate.” Megan B, a 38-year-old teacher in upstate New York who preferred not to use her last name, agreed. “The process of voting (in a primary, especially) in New York is challenging and difficult to navigate,” she said. “It’s almost as if only the well-educated, connected and motivated voter is welcome at the primary polls.” Megan, a lifelong voter, has never tried to vote in a primary before – “I didn’t want to classify myself as one [party] or the other” she said – but has been following the primaries more closely this year than in the past. “I’m inspired to vote this year because I support Senator Sanders,” she explained. Though she has known for a few months that she would be ineligible to vote next week unless she registered as part of the Democratic party, it wasn’t until last week that she attempted to research how to do so and discovered it was too late. “Given all of this, I’m volunteering at a phone bank for Senator Sanders’ presidential campaign on Saturday to help get the word out to registered Democrats eligible to vote in the primaries,” she said. Both the Clinton and Sanders campaigns tried to alert supporters to the deadlines, first in October for registered voters and then in March for new voters. “We registered a bunch of voters before the deadline,” said Karthik Ganapathy, a spokesman for Sanders. “[Our volunteers] have been working to try to make sure it doesn’t get in folks’ way,” he added, noting that many volunteers were working to alert voters about the deadlines in New York before the campaign opened an office here. Dale M, a 30-year-old staff attorney with a not-for-profit group in Brooklyn, did not get alerted in time, though he did know that he’d have to change his affiliation to Democratic to be eligible to vote for Sanders in the April primary. “So, I changed my designation to ‘Democrat’ over the internet around December of last year, or so I thought.” But when he received a written confirmation by mail, he was still listed as unaffiliated. “I did some research and found information that [said] I needed to go in person to my local district council office” to change his affiliation. “I went in person on my lunch hour and, lo and behold, was told for the very first time that my party designation can only ever be changed during November each year,” he explained. Technically, though, he was still given incorrect information, as New York state requires that changes in party affiliation to be sent in “no later than 25 days before the general election”, placed in a sealed box “and opened the first Tuesday following that general election and entered in the voter’s registration record”. “Our voter registration system is way more of a complicated and inaccessible system than it should be,” he said. Kayla Santosuosso is a 26-year-old political organizer in Brooklyn who has been unaffiliated since she registered to vote in New York in 2012. She said that the affiliation deadline caught her unawares. “I heard nothing about the party change deadline, and I work in this field.” She says she didn’t decide to vote in the primary until mid-November, after seeing Sanders’ performance in one of the Democratic debates. “I actually mailed in my registration the moment I felt convinced, which I think was mid-November,” she explained. And, like Dale and Garber-Paul, she heard nothing back directly until, as she said in a blogpost, she decided to double-check her eligibility with the state last week and discovered she was still listed as unaffiliated. From there, she called the Fair Elections Legal Network, then the state board of elections and finally the county board of elections, who then told her that she’d sent in her change of affiliation too late and it wouldn’t take effect until after the next general election. “I’m furious,” she said. In her blogpost, she wrote: “I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that maze-like election laws like these are the reason that voter turnout is so disastrous in New York state and nationwide.” Tom Connolly of the New York state board of elections admitted that “any kind of issue we have on a year-to-year basis is exacerbated in an election year” and that the board was receiving many calls from voters at the moment. But he said the deadline was a matter of statute and thus could only be changed by the New York legislature, which they encourage upset voters to contact. “We do try to provide that information to callers when they are upset,” he said, noting that Governor Andrew Cuomo floated a proposal to change the deadlines in his 2015 state of the state address and that various legislators have introduced bills in the past to little avail. The constitutionality of the deadline for party affiliation changes was upheld by the state supreme court in 1973.
Facebook fights back in row over its free internet for India’s poor The green light on Pushpa Kaushik’s modem hasn’t come on for the past three months. When she first got internet access in her home a year ago, all the people of Lalpur, a small village in Uttar Pradesh, northern India, used to come to her house to use her computer. Some needed to check their bank accounts, others wanted to learn English, and some even wanted to look for solutions to their medical problems. Village girls studying at the local university used to come to her house to look for reading material online. Now that Kaushik’s green light has gone dark, they have to walk an hour to the nearest town just to pick up a book. The people of the village are part of India’s unconnected billion, who struggle to access the internet from rural parts of the country. In the past week, more than 2.4 million Indians have written to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India as a row escalated over Facebook’s Free Basics initiative. This claims to spread “digital equality” to people like the villagers of Lalpur by giving them free access to a handful of websites, with no subscription fees or data charges. The initiative is part of Facebook’s plan to bring free internet access to developing parts of world and has been piloted in countries including Nigeria, Gabon and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In India, freely accessible websites include the search engine bing.com, some news websites and Facebook. The regulator will give its decision on whether Facebook’s Free Basics plan will be allowed in India at the end of January. The service was temporarily shut down last year in response to protests. Critics argued that Facebook’s plan was jeopardising “net neutrality” by giving the company unparalleled control over which websites and content were freely accessible to users in India. Net neutrality means internet service providers should treat all websites and all online services the same. In recent months, the issue has divided opinion across the world. Egypt has already shut down Free Basics, while a row on a similar but unrelated issue in the US led to a Federal Communications Commission ruling against service providers such as AT&T and Comcast, who argued that they should be able to distribute bandwidth differently for different services, meaning they could charge a premium or slow down traffic speeds for high-bandwidth services such as Netflix. As the public consultation in India was drawing to a close, Facebook started an email campaign asking its users to “Save Free Basics”. The campaign, backed by full-page advertisements in national newspapers, urged Indians to submit a pre-prepared form saying they were in favour of Free Basics to the telecoms regulator. In an editorial in the Times of India, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s co-founder, argued that free internet access was a basic human right. “We have collections of Free Basic books. They’re called libraries. They don’t contain every book, but they still provide a world of good,” he wrote. Zuckerberg argued that internet access could help to lift people out of poverty, asking readers: “Who could possibly be against this?” Mahesh Murthy, a venture capitalist and a campaigner with the volunteer group Save the Internet, called Facebook’s new initiative a “walled garden”. He told the : “The Facebook plan falsely presents itself as the only option for India, that is to give a tiny part of the internet to some people.” Save the Internet says that Facebook will offer micro-network access that will only benefit the company itself and the websites that it chooses to put online for free. Murthy added: “Facebook claims to want to empower India’s poor. Instead, Facebook wants to build its little ghetto of poor people on the poor internet and own access to them through its servers and targeting databases.” The Free Software Movement of India, which has organised protests against Free Basics in Hyderabad, Bangalore and other cities, said in a statement: “The entire Free Basics fiasco is because the government is abdicating its responsibility of ensuring that the internet remains a public utility.” A Facebook spokesperson said that Free Basics does not violate net neutrality or “discriminate between content providers. We don’t believe [net neutrality] was ever intended to deprive poor people of the opportunity to experience the benefits of basic internet services.”
Criticism over pro-EU leaflet on Facebook The government’s plan to send a pro-remain leaflet to every household in the UK faced further criticism over the weekend after it was promoted in an advert on Facebook. On Friday afternoon the UK government’s Facebook page began pushing a sponsored post urging users to “Look out for the government’s EU referendum leaflet or read it online now.” The leaflet is expected to arrive in some households in England from Monday – with delivery to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland delayed until after devolved government elections in May. More than 200,000 people have signed a petition demanding that the government abandons the plan and David Lidington, the Europe minister, will be forced to defend the leaflet when he makes a statement in parliament on Monday afternoon. There has been anger over the reported £9m cost of the mailshot. Veteran Tory Eurosceptic Sir Bill Cash said he would table an amendment to the finance bill – which enacts the budget – which could block its progress if passed in a Commons vote. Cash, chairman of the Commons European scrutiny committee, said: “I am putting down a very big indicator of the anger and, I would go so far as to say, the fury of people who are being asked to pay – and there are millions of them in the country – for a pamphlet to 27m homes.” Within 48 hours of the government Facebook post going live, it had generated nearly 3,500 interactions, which included more than a thousand people responding to the advert with Facebook’s new “angry” reaction, rather than a “like”. Comments on the post included: “Total waste of public monies given most of the general public will not even read them and they will end up in the bin” and “Outrageous waste of public money. If Cameron had a hand in writing it we all know it will be a pack of lies.” A comment by user Darren Douglas which said: “Give 9 million to the NHS that’s on its knees instead of propaganda leaflets, idiots” has been liked more than 1,800 times, just shy of the 2,100 times the government’s original post has been liked. There were also comments from users who did not see the need for a printed leaflet at all. Facebook user Greg Cooper wrote that the government “are now making this thing readily available online. Why not just do this in the first place?” Another user wrote: “I have always thought that propaganda paid for by the taxpayer only happened in third world countries with a dictatorship. I am a lifelong Tory but I am totally disillusioned with devious David Cameron spending this money during these times of austerity and cuts.” The government, which is not neutral in the referendum but is arguing for a remain vote, has pointed out that there is a precedent for the government to produce information ahead of referendums. It did so before the previous Europe referendum in 1973. The UK government Facebook page, which has just over 45,000 likes, has also been using organic posts to try to alert people to the existence of the eureferendum.gov.uk website. The Facebook algorithm works in a way that only some of the people who have already liked your page will see your posts. To reach a broader audience, your post either has to be boosted with marketing money to reach more of the people who have liked your page, or paid for as a sponsored post. Advertisers on Facebook can set a lifetime and daily budget on advertising spend, and the government would have either been paying for ad impressions, where Facebook tries to show the advert to lots of people, or for a link click, where the algorithm tries to target the people most likely to respond to an advert. Under the European Union Referendum Act 2015, both the official leave and remain campaigns will receive money so that they can pay for TV advertising and run their own mailshots, but this government-funded leaflet will arrive before those rules come into force. The government had already stated that the reported £9m cost of its leaflet would include online and social media promotion. The leaflet can be read in full online.
What's the point of music? Ask Peter Gabriel Music is so much a part of almost all our lives that it seems peculiar to stop and ask what it might be for. It just appears straightforwardly to benefit us in ways that are too diverse and ineffable to start to take apart; this might be one arena where we keep the dread hand of the theorists away. Musicians themselves have tended to reinforce such an approach, rarely venturing to supply an additional prose commentary around what their chords are already communicating. Yet a clearer handle on the theoretical role of music may at times enhance rather than impoverish our capacity to appreciate music. Knowing what music does for us can give us a sharper sense of which of its varieties we might be in particular need of, why and when. One musician who stands out in the cultural landscape for his profound engagement with the theory as well as practice of music is Peter Gabriel – and what seems especially striking are his repeated pronouncements that music should, to quote his distinctive formulation, provide us with “an emotional toolbox” to which we can turn at different moments of our lives, locating songs to recover, guide and sublimate our feelings. For example, in explaining the origins of I Grieve (a song which appears on his album Up), Gabriel remarked that he had been driven by a wish to create a song that would help people with the mourning process. The song has gone on to become a standard at many funeral services, a part of our informal collective secular liturgy. The reason is that the song both knows how to release our sadness and yet also channels and contains it. It creates perfect conditions for a catharsis. As psychologists will explain, the grieving process tends to be beset by two dangers: that it cannot begin, or that it will not stop. In this context, I Grieve performs a double manoeuvre for us. It starts with what sounds pure lamentation. The tone is utterly dejected. The loved one has only just breathed their last: There’s nothing yet has really sunk in Looks like it always did This flesh and bone But after several of these tragic verses, there is a shift, subtle and then ever more insistent, towards a note of cautious redemption. Gabriel begins an incantatory repetition of the lines: Life carries on and on and on and on Life carries on and on and on We are urged to accept the constant dispersal and redistribution of energy across the planet. In all the dogs and cats In the flies and rats In the rot and the rust In the ashes and the dust We know all this, of course, at a theoretical level. But it is quite a different thing for music to remind us of these lessons in its distinctive emotional idiom. The philosopher Hegel argued that music is so necessary because it rehearses in the language of the body concepts and truths we are in danger of losing touch with when they reach us only through our rational faculties. Music is, he said, “the sensuous presentation of the crucial ideas”. We may – for example – know in theory that keeping going is important, but it can take a song like Don’t Give Up (from Gabriel’s So) to turn a cliche into an effective call for redemption. At another point, when speaking of his intentions behind Sledgehammer, Peter Gabriel approvingly quotes Nietzsche’s line that art is a mechanism which takes “an icepick to the heart”. In other words, there is a role for music in opening up channels of feeling that have become dammed by habit, caution, excessive individualism, or the demands of daily life. In his book The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music (1872), Nietzsche described two opposing forces at work in our lives. The first is the pull of the Apollonian ideal, named after Apollo, the god of the sun, order, light, and knowledge. The other, opposing force he termed the Dionysian, after the Greek god of wine, chaos, irrationality and freedom, Dionysus. Nietzsche believed that both forces were highly necessary in individual and collective life: we need to be thoughtful and sober, yet open to the instinctive and the irrational – and it is by combining these two ideals that we stumble towards maturity. This is why music and dance have such importance for Nietzsche (“Without music, life would be a mistake”); they provide us with a setting in which the neglected parts of our personalities can be rediscovered and reconciled. The ‘shiver down the spine’ we feel at points in music are encounters with our suppressed longings for forgiveness, reconciliation and harmony – returning to us with an alienated majesty. The great musicians – and Gabriel is among the very best – stock our emotional toolboxes with what we most need to endure life’s journey. Though they don’t always say it themselves, they are in the very best sense the therapists of our souls. Alain de Botton is in conversation with Peter Gabriel on 1 March at The School of Life at the Emmanuel Centre, London.
Nearly 1,000 City staff at four big US banks given €1m in pay deals in 2015 Four major US banks handed almost 1,000 of their top City staff at least €1m (£850,000) in pay deals last year. Goldman Sachs, the highest profile Wall Street bank, disclosed that 11 of its key staff received at least €5m in 2015. The disclosures by Goldman, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley and Bank of America Merrill Lynch show that 971 of their staff received €1m in 2015. The information was provided in regulatory disclosures instituted since the 2008 banking crisis, when it became apparent that bankers were being paid huge sums that could not be withheld when banks got into trouble. Regulations now require banks to spread out bonuses over a number of years. Morgan Stanley, for instance, said that 40% to 60% of its pay deals were deferred over three years, with part of it in shares. The UK arm of Goldman Sachs paid 286 of its staff €1m or more, compared with 262 in 2014. JP Morgan’s disclosures show 301 of its staff received more than €1m, with 11 receiving over €5m. Morgan Stanley’s data shows 198 staff received €1m or more and Bank of America Merrill Lynch shows 186 staff being handed €1m or more. The disclosures relate to legal entities based in the UK so the majority of the individuals involved will be based in the City, though some may be located in other parts of the EU. They help to shed light on the pay deals being offered in the City in the wake of the 2008 financial crash and at a time when the sector is facing scrutiny as a result of the vote to leave the EU. The European Banking Authority (EBA), the pan-European banking regulator, also collates data and in March it announced that London had more than three times as many high-earning bankers as the rest of the EU combined. Overall, the number of high earners across the EU rose 21.6% to 3,865 in 2014, up from 3,178 in 2013. The EBA’s data covered 2014, the first year of the cap that limits bonuses to 100% of salary, or 200% if shareholders approve. This has had the effect of shifting remuneration towards fixed salaries. In 2014, the average ratio between variable and fixed pay for high earners more than halved to 127% from 317% in 2013. The EBA will move its headquarters out of London as a result of the vote for Brexit.
Benefit cuts can have a devastating effect on mental health – just ask Sharon A fear of brown envelopes is now familiar to anyone unlucky enough to be acquainted with Britain’s benefit system. For Sharon Linford, who has rapid cycling bipolar, as well as depression and borderline personality disorder, receiving a letter from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) last month didn’t simply cause panic. It threw her into what she describes as a mental “spiral”. The 48-year-old has had severe mental health problems since her early 20s when, as she was training to become an accountant, a nervous breakdown led her to spend three months in a psychiatric unit. Sharon’s made multiple suicide attempts over the years. Her wrists are covered in scars from self-harming. “A single letter can have an impact on a person like Sharon,” her husband, Tony, says from their home just outside Great Yarmouth. “Whenever we see a brown envelope, my pulse literally quickens.” Tony – who himself is on antidepressants – tells me he tries to “protect Sharon” from correspondence from the DWP. That’s not easy. Both he and Sharon are too unwell to work (in 2013, Tony had a heart attack) and are on employment and support allowance, while Sharon’s been receiving disability living allowance (DLA) for almost 15 years. They use her benefits to help pay the rent. When the latest letter from the department hit the doorstep five weeks ago, Tony, 58, read it for Sharon – all 12 pages – and summarised it out loud: she will soon no longer receive her DLA and instead have to apply for the government’s replacement, personal independence payments (PIP). “When they say ‘we might take your benefits’, I can’t cope,” Sharon says, quietly. “I went into psychosis.” She pauses. “Tony should tell you. I can’t remember when I’m like that.” “It was as if she lost contact with me and the world,” he explains. “She was rocking. She was hyperventilating. She kept moving her thumb from her palm and back again, like she was soothing herself.” The next few hours were a blur: Tony called 999, to ask for help, and then called Sharon’s sister to come to the house. Both of them stayed awake with Sharon until 2.30am the next morning. “She was inconsolable,” Tony says. As an insight into how relentless the benefit system can be, when Tony explains to Sharon what her distress was like that night, she realises it reminds her of two years ago – when the DWP sent her to attend a work capability assessment in order to keep her out-of-work sickness benefit. “I was rocking back and forth then too,” she says. Over a month later and Sharon has stabilised but is still struggling. “I feel suicidal and Tony and my mum [have to watch me],” she says. What’s particularly devastating for Sharon and Tony is that, before this letter, she was making progress. For the last 15 years, Sharon had been regularly seeing a psychiatrist, but in the new year she was discharged by the mental health services team to her GP. “Things were going smoothly,” she says. “But because of the PIP letter, I’ve been referred back,” she says. “It’s an incredibly backwards move for her,” Tony says. “It saddens me … she felt she meant nothing, had no value. She says, ‘Maybe I’m not really ill. Why are people spending money on me?’” He pauses. “It’s easy for [the DWP] to target people. All that official language. If they’d learned anything, they could word [these letters] in a different way.” What exactly has the DWP learned? The department is aware of the concern over benefit cuts on people’s mental health – that’s why it sent guidance to Jobcentre staff on how to deal with claimants who show a “suicidal intention” after losing their benefits. Mental health is complex but when it comes to the benefits system, increasingly, the need to not simplify a person’s distress is used not as a means to understand how to help them, but to overlook what’s really happening. It’s been almost six months since researchers at the public health department at Liverpool University linked disability benefit tests to suicides and the prescription of antidepressants. The DWP say the report is “wholly misleading” and “no conclusions can be drawn about cause and effect”. The DWP may soon be forced to disclose details of secret investigations into the suicides and other deaths of benefit claimants, after campaigners last week won their appeal against its refusal to publish the information. We are past the point of burying this scandal. It’s time for an open and honest conversation about the impact that benefit cuts have on people’s mental health – and what the government must do to provide competent safeguards for citizens who are clearly at risk. A few days after we talk, Sharon emails to say she’s had “another meltdown”. She’s been told it could take until late July for her to see a psychiatrist, because “there’s not enough money so they’re overstretched”. On Thursday, she has to attend an emergency appointment with the mental health crisis team. “I get so frightened with what the future holds … that we’ll lose the house,” she says. “These horrendous cuts … it worries the life out of me.”
Why should I go online for everything? Isn’t shopping getting difficult? Mavis went to the White Company to buy a mattress topper, but they didn’t have one in stock. “You can get it online,” said the assistant. “But I’m here in your shop,” said she, “because I don’t want to go online. Could I see a sample?” No. Same thing in M&S, where she went to buy a particular dress. “Have you checked online?” “No,” said Mavis. “Can you look? Or order me one?” “No. You must check and order online. There’s more stock there.” “But I’m standing here, with money, wanting to buy it,” said Mavis, because she also wanted to see it, feel it, try it on, have a tactile experience, interact with a person. So that’s two shops she won’t be visiting again. Or Tesco, for ethical reasons (and I won’t be visiting again either, because I still haven’t forgiven Lady Porter for what she did to Westminster). Or anywhere with self-service checkouts, which we loathe. Nor can we go to our little local theatre, because you can’t ring to book a ticket – you have to go online, or trudge there on the off-chance, when there probably won’t be any tickets. Even online is not far enough. American Cousin wanted to buy three tiles from a Manchester firm. No phone number, she had to go on-bloody-line, fill in a form describing her request, which kept being rejected but eventually allowed her to leave a phone number. Someone rang, and Cousin ordered her tiles. “I’ll send you a cheque,” she said. He didn’t accept cheques. Credit card? He didn’t accept credit cards. Her bank must wire the money to his bank. But her bank never anwers the phone, so she must schlep there in person. For three tiles, £22. Then, one day, when all shop assistants have obediently directed customers online, done themselves out of a job, shops have closed through lack of custom, anyone without a computer is rotting away at home, and we’ve lost what it means to be human, you’ll realise the luddites deserved some brownie points. So does the internet. It is marvellous in some ways, but baby? Bathwater?
Jon Stewart to Republicans: stop 'scaring the holy bejesus out of everybody' Former Daily Show host Jon Stewart returned to the small screen in a blazing rant against Fox News, the GOP and, of course, Donald Trump. Stewart took over Stephen Colbert’s desk on The Late Show to curse the election, calling Trump an “angry groundhog” who has divided the country and claiming that the Republicans have spent this week in Cleveland at the RNC “scaring the holy bejesus out of everybody”. He railed against the Republican rhetoric of “making America great again”: You just want that person to give you your country back, because you feel that you are this country’s rightful owners. There’s only one problem with that: this country isn’t yours. You don’t own it. It never was. There is no real America. You don’t own it. You don’t own patriotism, you don’t own Christianity, you sure as hell don’t own respect for the bravery and sacrifice of military, police and firefighters. For years, Stewart has been very politically involved in trying to secure medical funding for 9/11 responders, making trips to Washington and actively advocating for the Zadroga Act reauthorization. “Trust me, I saw a lot of people on the convention floor in Cleveland with their ‘blue lives matter’ rhetoric who either remained silent or actively fought against the 9/11 first responders bill reauthorization,” said Stewart. “I see you and I see your bullshit,” yelled a furious Stewart, pointing his finger down the lens of the camera. The former Daily Show host – wearing a scruffy grey T-shirt, a deep tan and a messy beard, although Colbert made him put on a blazer and clip-on tie – clearly relished a chance to return to the chair and criticize his old foes at Fox News. Colbert invited Stewart back on the show on the day Roger Ailes, head of the conservative network, resigned after sexual harassment allegations. Stewart said he enjoys watching “the contortions many conservatives will now have to do to embrace Donald J Trump, a man who clearly embodies all the things they have for years hated about Obama”, noting that rightwing claims of Obama as a thin-skinned narcissist with no government experience apply perfectly to Trump. He also called out those on the right who claim progressives are the ones pushing the country into racial, gender and political lines. “Those fighting to be included in the ideal of equality are not being divisive. Those fighting to keep those people out are,” said Stewart. Just as Stewart went to declare Fox News hosts and other conservatives, ahem, the other, non-printable C-word, Colbert interrupted him with an air horn.
The Young Pope review – stunning, thoughtful and visually arresting What a gorgeous and gripping series The Young Pope (Sky Atlantic) has been. It is not surprising, coming from the director of such visually arresting films as Youth and The Great Beauty, but Oscar-winner Paolo Sorrentino’s first adventure on the small screen has been far more than just a pretty picture. It could have been overwhelmed by its splashy premise: Jude Law is Lenny Belardo, now Pius XIII, an ultra-conservative, manipulative new American pontiff. He has serious doubts about whether he believes in God, drinks Cherry Coke Zero for breakfast and smokes more than the cast of Mad Men combined. But The Young Pope was stunning, thoughtful and dreamlike, and even though key players have been strategically shifted to dioceses around the globe, its well-earned second series can’t come soon enough. Lenny, or Pius to his Vatican pals, has spent much of the first season establishing just what kind of Holy Father he intends to be. He was anointed on the misguided promise that he would be a pliable looker who might boost the church’s coffers by allowing his handsome image to appear on a few plates in the gift shop. But Lenny is no patsy; his idea of reforming Catholicism has been to crack down on moral transgressions and to channel Daft Punk, Banksy and JD Salinger – his own points of reference – by hiding his face from public view, so that everyone can get back to the business of learning how to be Godly again. It is as effective a marketing technique as it is a point of principle. There was a thriller-like tautness to Gutierrez’s eventual capture of brazen paedophile Archbishop Kurtwell – and how wonderful that The Young Pope did not shy away from covering child abuse in the church – in New York. Kurtwell tried to destroy Pius’s reputation by releasing his old love letters to the press, but their publication in the New Yorker served to boost his popularity by showing his human side, even if it was against a backdrop of global protests over his stance on abortion. (The image of the naked women, each daubed in blood with a letter from the word BASTARD, is one of many unforgettable scenes, dropped in confidently and casually.) But, eventually, Kurtwell was reeled in and banished to Alaska – a poetic fall from grace for a man once so powerful, if not perhaps the most effective punishment for a habitual paedophile. Sorrentino has said that it is no coincidence that Pius begins as an ultra-hardline pope in an era where the real pontiff is pursuing a more liberal papacy than his predecessors. What has been fascinating about this series is how well it has demonstrated the subtleties of change and growth. Early on, Pius boots out a cardinal for admitting his homosexuality, and insists it is incompatible with the teachings of the church. But, by the season finale, his greatest ally is Gutierrez (Javier Camara, conveying both compassion and pain with just a flicker of his eyes), who tells him his alignment of paedophilia and homosexuality is wrong. Pius admits he may be revising his views. Besides, he has a lot of mummy (and daddy) issues to deal with before he gets on to working out whether he believes in God. Law has been excellent as Pius, oscillating between vindictive authoritarian and wounded man-child with surprising charm. And so, after his substitute parents leave him – James Cromwell’s Spencer finally dies, and he sends Diane Keaton’s Sister Mary off to work with children in Africa – we end with a road trip to Venice, where Pius hopes he might find those hippy parents who abandoned him and don’t seem to be particularly interested that their son is now the global head of the Catholic church. In St Mark’s Square, he finally reveals his identity to the assembled crowd. Imagine wondering what the Pope looked like for months, and then finding out he has the face of Law. Sorrentino goes all out for the final scenes, which are as intricate as the Pope’s finest robes. Pius delivers a barnstorming address, then looks at the smiling faces in the crowd through a telescope Gutierrez picked up at the service station on the way. He sees his parents, older, disappointed, leaving. I was left unsure if it was real or a vision; there is something Sopranos-like in The Young Pope’s ease with a dream sequence. As Pius collapses, we pull back to a wide shot, of the crowd, then of the city, then of the world. It’s so assured, so sumptuous, so well done, that it can absolutely get away with a gesture as grand as this.
'I just feel less alone': how Tumblr became a source for mental health care Mea Pearson first confronted the world of online therapy after returning home from being diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, a mental illness characterized by unstable moods, behavior and relationships, in 2012 – a conclusion doctors reached after she attempted suicide. Vulnerable, and grappling with the new diagnosis, Pearson first searched online to find out more about her condition, where she was met with characterizations of people with BPD as violent and incapable of maintaining relationships. “The more I researched, the worse I felt,” Pearson said. Seeking advice, Pearson went to Tumblr, a microblogging site. There, she was surprised to scroll through an endless page of people posting about BPD. She was so inspired, that she started her own blog: shitborderlinesdo, with the aim of creating a more positive and accurate online depiction of her illness. “It was just going to be a fun thing, with sort of different relatable things and memes,” Pearson said. But soon, her blog became one of the most popular sites about mental health on the platform. Today, her blog has nearly 20,000 daily visitors and functions as an open Q&A site, where people are free to ask anything they want to know about living with BPD. It’s become so popular that Pearson has hired a team of people with BPD to answer questions about the illness several times a week. Questions about medication, therapy and dealing with friends and family members are common. In a country where the path to obtaining consistent, quality mental health care is defined by its roadblocks, Tumblr’s mental health communities seem to be filling in the gaps for care. According to Tumblr, the five most popular tags connected to mental health in the past six months are mental illness, mental health, BPD, recovery and self care. Together, these five tags have 25 million notes combined, (the metric for how many people have made a post with that tag or liked a post with that tag). The image-oriented social network allows users to post content or share others’ posts on their own feed. The site’s format allows people to write lengthy text posts, answer anonymous questions and post images. Each post can be tagged with things like BPD, mental health and self care. Recent hits on the BPD tag: “Lmao (Laughing My Abandonment Issues Off),” and “TBPDFW [That Borderline Personality Disorder Feeling When] when you google how to cope with your disorder and all you can find are instructions for coping with people with your disorder”. Tumblr has responded to its newfound popularity as a mental health forum. If a user searches for a word such as depression, they are met by a message headlined “Is Everything Okay?” with links to crisis intervention programs. And last year, it launched the Post It Forward initiative to bring awareness about mental health. The project was supported by celebrities including Vice-President Joe Biden and talkshow host Wendy Williams. But it’s not just those suffering with mental illness who use the platform. Clinicians and care providers do too. Gwendoline Smith, a clinical psychologist, learned about Tumblr’s mental health community from a friend, who had a strong following on the site. Her friend came to her with questions about how to deal with people who are threatening self-harm or seem extremely depressed on the platform. Smith gave some tips and then took things a step further – she started her own Tumblr to address those issues more deeply. Within minutes of creating her own page, she had collected 24 questions from people seeking guidance. She now has about 3,500 followers and has adapted the site to include a legal disclaimer specifying that her advice, while coming from a professional, is not the same as working with a therapist. And while the site lists Smith’s credentials, it does not identify her by name. “Nothing I do on Tumblr is complicated by gender bias, racial bias, anything like that,” she said. Smith thinks that is an advantage when providing advice to people who sometimes assume she is a man, or an American, or a bunch of other people she is not. Her followers often send her messages of thanks. “Honestly, you’ve shown me my potential in life and the effect I have on this world! I love you!” and “It made me realize how small our problems can be compared to the world. Please stay healthy and thank you for being there for each and every one of the askers.” This, perhaps, is the most beneficial part of these communities, which cannot guarantee professional help or alleviate the burdens of people with limited resources to gain care. What it can provide, is a community for people experiencing illness that is still subject to intense stigma. The nature of mental illness is that it is a person’s mind is acting against them, so even if a person can recognize destructive patterns and behaviors, they still might not have the tools or treatment to stop them. This is where shitborderlinesdo’s Pearson said the online community can be especially helpful. “It’s knowing ‘hey, there’s thousands of people who follow my blog who are experiencing this exact thing,’” Pearson said. “Even if I know exactly what’s happening, I can’t stop it, I just feel less alone because of the online community.”
Ex-Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf deserves jail – not a plush retirement For former Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf, this will be his first weekend as a wealthy retiree. So it goes in a world where big banks can screw over customers and the public, and the CEO who presided over these practices can slink off into the sunset unencumbered by the kind of real retribution that plagues small-time drug users and petty thieves. They go free. We pay the price. Two days before the bank’s quarterly earnings announcement, Stumpf announced his immediate resignation. That decision came about a month after the firm was slapped with a $185m settlement for a fee-stealing scam that resulted in the axing of 5,300 low-level employees. He did not resign after settlements for any of the prior wrongdoing that took place under his purview for which the firm paid about $10bn in fines. Make no mistake. Stumpf was the captain and commander of this $1.9tn empire. Its culture, as in all Wall Street culture, was defined from the top down, not the other way around. For his penance, all Stumpf had to do was forfeit $41m in restricted stock awards (stock he didn’t even fully own yet). The figure for Stump’s exit hoard is currently valued around $134m, a pretty plush parachute. That includes his vested stock and other retirement plans. But that figure can rise. The firm’s stock took a beating due to this latest scandal (it’s still down 11%). With Stumpf out and this “cross-selling” or “sales practice” scrubbed in the wake of his departure, rising share prices to pre-scandal levels could place his take closer to $160m or above. So Stump’s departure holds monetary value for him. In bankster terms, it’s a slam dunk trade. Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren and other senators have called for his resignation, a return of “every nickel” he made during the scam and a Department of Justice and US Securities and Exchange Commission investigation. So far, Warren pointed out in a tweet, only one of those things has happened. He shouldn’t be afforded impunity (like other big bank CEOs) for running Wells during an effective crime spree. Her request for DoJ criminal investigations into Stumpf’s role, in just this scandal, has not been honored. Even if it were to be, would it get very far? There have been zero criminal indictments for any mega-bank CEO, regardless of the breadth, depth and cost of the crimes committed by their institutions under their stewardships. Stumpf’s chances look pretty damn good. Stumpf’s number two man, 29-year Wells veteran Timothy Sloan, is being touted as the anti-Stumpf; clean, not of the retail unit that swindled the bank’s average customers. Only it wasn’t just the retail unit implicated in settlements. Wells’s fines included $1.4bn for allegations of misleading investors in securities auctions, $5bn for loan services and foreclosure “abuses”, and $1.2bn for defrauding the US government regarding mortgages eligible for federal insurance. Sloan’s roles spanned wholesale and commercial banking operations (areas implicated by these settlements.) Plus, as chief operating officer since November 2015, Sloan was responsible for ensuring good practices for that retail unit. Clean is relative. And meaningless. The new board chairman, Stephen Sanger, said Stumpf “believes new leadership at this time is appropriate to guide Wells Fargo through its current challenges and take the Company forward.” Current challenges. That’s the kind of terminology that whitewashes the gravity of what he did. If the Department of Justice had the balls, it would move forward with Stumpf’s criminal investigation and minimally slap him with an indictment. So far, it has not shown such aptitude.
Why the markets are relatively calm after Donald Trump's election Can’t investors see that the next US president is completely untested in office, is an economic isolationist and a geopolitical accident waiting to happen? Apparently not. Or, rather, the investment world decided such worries can wait for another day. The election of Donald Trump provoked only brief panic. The Nikkei index in Japan, a real-time barometer as results from the US states arrived, fell 5%, but European markets were calm, relative to expectations. The FTSE 100 index, after a brief plunge, regained all the ground lost in the first hour of trading. The US dollar was broadly stable against major currencies, as was the US Treasury market. There are several possible factors at work. First, even under a president who has never held elected office, dollar-denominated assets remain investors’ first choice as a safe port in a storm. Where else would the money go? China is at risk of trade tariffs under Trump. Japan is a land of no growth with an overvalued currency. The eurozone now faces its own political uncertainties in the form of an Italian referendum in December and elections next year in France, Germany and the Netherlands. After Brexit and Trump, the European continent’s establishment could be the next to feel the heat; if so, prepare for the next euro crisis. Second, the first economic impact of a Trump presidency could be a mini-boom in the US. He has promised massive tax cuts and higher spending on defence and infrastructure. He may struggle to convince a hawkish Congress, even a Republican-dominated one, that it is affordable to slash the rate of business tax from 35% to 15%. But one has to believe that some version of the tax-cutting agenda will be enacted, bolstering short-term consumption and growth in the US. Third, Trump dropped some of the rabble-rousing rhetoric in his acceptance speech. His words were anodyne. He didn’t mention trade tariffs, a wall along the Mexican border or deportations. There was encouragement for those who believe Trump in office will be a different beast from the candidate who saw gains in making outlandish statements. Can the calm last? Surely not. The apparent enthusiasm for a “reflation trade” under a tax-cutting, free-spending Trump will be tested sooner or later. Risks are everywhere. Even a watered-down version of the promised trade tariffs would bring huge uncertainties, not least the possibility of sharp devaluation in the Chinese yuan, a prospect that was supposedly terrifying for financial markets at the start of the year. For those who believe 45% tariffs on Chinese goods, and 35% on Mexican ones, could never happen, Neil Williams, chief economist at fund managers Hermes, makes a useful point. “Super 301” powers under the 1974 Trade Act allow the president to impose tariffs without congressional approval on countries deemed to be engaged in “unfair” trade practices. Meanwhile, Janet Yellen, the market-friendly chair of the Federal Reserve, could be defenestrated and nobody yet knows the makeup of the supporting cast around Trump. The biggest danger, of course, remains foreign policy. Investors have been strangely happy to ignore geopolitical risks for years, but a US president who is vague about his commitment to Nato at a time of Russian expansionism is something entirely new and dangerous. Such financial risks can’t be modelled neatly in an investor’s spreadsheet of corporate earnings but their potential to overturn investment assumptions is real. For the time being, financial markets can shrug their shoulders at the arrival of President Trump and pretend he is a blank page. The complacency will not last.
Trump's 'deeply un-American' stance on immigration prompts legal concerns A quarter century after the end of the cold war, Donald Trump has proposed restoring ideological tests for immigrants, a move that legal experts say raises a tangle of practical and even constitutional concerns. In a speech on Monday devoid of policy details or specifics, the Republican nominee called for the “extreme vetting” of immigrants, including a screening process to root out applicants who do not uphold “American values”. Laurence Tribe, a liberal constitutional law professor at Harvard University, said Trump’s proposal was “a nonstarter”. “The proposal ... is very deeply un-American, is probably unconstitutional, would almost certainly fail in Congress and is another example of Trump having no idea what he’s talking about,” he said. Restricting immigrants on the basis of ideology is anathema to American values, Tribe argues. Freedom of speech and religion are enshrined under the first amendment of the constitution and the enduring symbol of freedom is the Statue of Liberty welcoming weary immigrants to its shores. Though immigrants outside the US would not receive the constitutional right to due process, Tribe said family members could bring challenges on their relatives’ behalves. Trump has long called for tightening immigration controls as part of his plan to defeat Islamic State. In 2015, Trump vowed to temporarily ban Muslims from entering the US. In his speech on Monday, Trump appeared to revise that policy, calling for a temporary ban on immigrants from countries subject to terrorist attacks, though the original blanket ban on Muslims is still featured on his website. Trump’s proposal is not unprecedented. America has a long history of extreme vetting – which includes ideological tests – dating back to its foundation, when the leaders of the young nation worried anarchists would arrive and undermine the fledgling democracy. One of the earliest and most flagrant immigration laws was the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which barred Chinese workers from entering the US. The ban, which was passed amid anxiety over job scarcity and a depressed economy, was later extended at the turn of the 20th century to in effect deny entry to all Asian immigrants. But Trump’s proposal draws from more recent history – the anti-communism measures employed during the cold war. “In the cold war, we had an ideological screening test. The time is overdue to develop a new screening test for the threats we face today,” he said during a speech at Youngstown State University in Ohio. “I call it extreme vetting.” In 1952, Congress passed the McCarran–Walter Act, authorizing the federal government to refuse admission to classes of immigrants based on their political beliefs in an effort to keep members, former members and sympathizers of the communist party from entering the US. As the cold war came to a close, Congress revisited the law and in 1990 voted to greatly narrow the president’s ability to deny immigrant visas based on ideological grounds. Trump has claimed, citing the act, that he would have the authority as president to suspend entry to any class of person who would be “detrimental to the interests of the United States”. While the law grants the executive branch broad discretion over matters of immigration, the president would not have “absolute” authority – Congress could act to limit the president’s power. And yet if Trump managed to clear the initial hurdles and his proposal either passed Congress or survived the legal challenges experts say would surely arise, he would then have to contend with the operational difficulties of implementing such a sweeping proposal. “If he does try to implement an ideological test, that leads to a question which came up early in the cold war: how do you administer that? Is that a questionnaire? Do you investigate the answers? And if you do, how do you do that? Who does that?” said Carl Bon Tempo, author of Americans at the Gate: The United States and Refugees during the Cold War. “Enforcing an ideological litmus test takes an incredible amount of manpower and historically the result has been that it greatly slows the process.” Stephen Yale-Loehr, an immigration law professor at Cornell University, is skeptical of Trump’s promise to enhance a process that is already extensive and lengthy. Immigrants applying to come to the US are already asked to respond to a questionnaire and are subject to a background check that vets for, among other things, links to terrorist or extremist groups. “Immigration to the United States would grind to a near halt if millions of people are subject to background checks based on subjective criteria,” he said. “How is a consular officer or a border inspector supposed to determine whether an applicant is sufficiently ‘American’ in his or her thinking?” Based on Trump’s speech on Monday, Yale-Loehr speculated that the Republican might propose screening applicants’ social media pages as part of the routine background check. Currently, officials only run social media checks in certain cases. He could also add requirements that family members be brought in for interviews as part of the application process. But he said it would be impossible to implement these changes, since they would require a vast mobilization of resources and manpower. Trump’s campaign has said it would expand on his immigration proposals in the coming weeks, and did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Still, experts say that on its surface, the proposal poses major logistical and practical problems that agencies grappled with during the cold war in the 1950s and, more recently, in the post-9/11 years. In vilifying the immigrant, Trump is using a familiar playbook from American history, said Erika Lee, a professor of immigration history at the University of Minnesota. Throughout history, politicians exploited public anxiety over a scarcity of jobs and threats to national security to push through exclusionary laws. “For many Americans, when they think back to America’s history, it’s the Ellis Island story. This is the way our mythology works,” Lee said. “But that has created some rose-colored glasses and helped to obscure the other side of the story, the one where we exclude whole groups of people based on race, ethnicity or ideological belief.”
Pearson, Barclays and Virgin Media announce job cuts Pearson, Barclays and Virgin Media have added to the list of British employers announcing significant job cuts this week as they announced plans for thousands of redundancies. Education book publisher Pearson said it would cut 4,000 jobs, or 10% of its workforce, and undergo a restructuring to tackle problems with its business in the US, Brazil and South Africa. Most job losses will be lost in the US, where revenues have fallen most, but will also see the loss of around 500 jobs in the company’s UK operations. Shares in the former owner of the Financial Times rose 17.4%, however, after it accompanied the cuts announcement with a pledge to maintain its dividend. Barclays also announced that it will cut about 1,200 jobs in investment banking worldwide and close a share trading operation in Asia. Some UK jobs are expected to go, but most redundancies will be in its investment banking businesses in Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand. The latest Barclays cull comes on top of the 7,000 jobs cut since 2014 and the plan to chop a further 19,000 roles announced by new chief executive Jes Staley. In the telecommunications sector, Virgin Media said it was cutting 900 jobs, affecting sites in London and Birmingham. The company said the overhaul was about “making sure we’ve got the right people in the right areas”. It added: “It’s not a cost-cutting exercise, it’s about tightening up the ship.” The situation appeared to be gloomier for the 2,000 staff employed by shoe shop chain Brantano. Administrators at PwC have taken over the running of the business and will attempt to save the 140 stores and 60 concessions across the UK. The head office in Coalville, Leicestershire, employs around 200 staff. But PwC said Brantano, which includes the Jones the Bootmaker brand, was hit hard by the shift to online shopping, leading to speculation that only a few shops will survive. The threat to Brantano workers follows a series of redundancies at major employers this week. Sheffield Forgemasters told 100 staff they are in line for redundancy, just days after Tata Steel cut 1,050 jobs mainly at Port Talbot in south Wales. Asda is set to cut 1,000 jobs, including at its head office, where 3,000 people are employed. The chain, which is owned by US retail giant Walmart, said the job cuts were needed while it funded a revamp of its largest stores. Official figures show the UK jobs market is buoyant and that most sectors are seeking workers, though skills shortages have meant that many job vacancies go unfilled. The most recent data from the Office for National Statistics show there were 756,000 job vacancies for October to December 2015, 46,000 more than a year earlier and the highest since comparable records began in 2001.
Zero chance EU citizens in UK will keep same rights post-Brexit, says expert The chances of EU citizens settled in Britain retaining all their rights to live, work and retire in the UK after Brexit have been rated as zero by legal experts. A leading barrister who specialises in international public law told a House of Lords panel on Tuesday it was “inconceivable” that the laws would survive entirely intact. Prof Alan Vaughan Lowe QC said this was the price millions of people – including 1.3 million Britons abroad and 3 million non-Britons living in the UK – were likely to pay for Brexit. Such was the uncertainty surrounding negotiations and the demands of other EU states, he said, that the British government might have to consider compensation for British citizens abroad if some rights, such as access to Spanish or French healthcare, were lost. But Lowe told the Lords justice subcommittee that what worried him most was the lack of knowledge about the issue at government level. “There is very little evidence of people knowing what they are trying to do,” he said. Legal entitlements such as the right to work, reside, retire, vote in local elections and have access to welfare and health systems come automatically from Britain’s membership of the EU. Only a limited number of rights, namely the right to own property and contractual rights, would be protected by international law, the peers were told. Lowe said not only was there no clear objective on an individual’s legal rights post-Brexit in Britain or in Spain, France or any other EU state, it was not clear whom the government wanted to protect. “If it’s been drafted with future citizens in mind, you would take a different view of rights that would naturally fade out with mortality,” he said. The chair of the committee, Helena Kennedy, said the complexity of the so-called acquired rights was a concern to millions who wanted to plan their futures. Could any reassurances be given? “Absolutely no,” Lowe replied. “I think there is zero chance [that the] … existing legal system affecting European nationals in this country will not change.” Lady Kennedy said she was mindful of the number of lobbyists now attaching themselves to governments who would end up as negotiators. Lowe suggested that in the absence of any evident expertise on the topic, the government could look at “decolonisation provisions” used in the 1950s and 1960s to protect the rights of British nationals in Rhodesia and Burma. Sionaidh Douglas-Scott, a professor of law at Queen Mary University of London, pointed out there was no transparency in the Brexit negotiations, so it was difficult to assess what interests the government would seek to protect. She said the Greenland treaty, which governed that country’s exit from the EU following a referendum in 1982, could be a starting point. On the plus side, the Lords were told, the Greenland model was vague enough to allow Britain to attend to the legal detail over a period of 10 years after Brexit. On the minus side, it was mainly concerned with the protection of fisheries. Kennedy said it was not clear with what “vehemence” the government would seek to safeguard some rights, and which ones would be “negotiated away”. She also questioned the seriousness with which the issue was being taken. “So it is worrying,” she said. Safeguarding all EU rights might not be the best strategy, said Lowe. It might be that the government would have to step in to offer protection for Britons abroad. “If [they] lose rights to access to a free health system, then maybe that is something the British government should pick up,” he said. “I can’t see any practical possibility whatsoever of getting a withdrawal agreement that ties up all the legal issues.” Douglas-Scott said it was not clear who would be leading the negotiations on acquired EU rights – whether it was a government minister or a collective body that would include experts and opposition politicians. Both Douglas-Scott and Lowe stressed that EU rights would fall away unless specifically protected under new British law.
ABC Catalyst's future under review after episode linking Wi-Fi and cancer The future of the ABC’s science program Catalyst and presenter Maryanne Demasi are under review after an episode which linked Wi-Fi and mobile phones with health risks including brain cancer was found to have breached the ABC’s impartiality guidelines. When the ABC aired “Wi-Fried?” in February several scientists, including professor of public health at the University of Sydney, Simon Chapman, said it was misleading and should never have gone to air. Wi-Fried? relied heavily on a single US doctor, Devra Davis, who said about mobile phones: “Every single well-designed study ever conducted finds an increased risk of brain cancer with the heaviest users, and the range of the risk is between 50% to eightfold. That’s a fact.” On Tuesday evening the ABC broadcast a correction at 8pm which said an internal investigation had found the program unduly favoured the unorthodox perspective that wireless devices and Wi-Fi pose significant health risks. A review found that the program failed to present the weight of scientific evidence on the topic, and that credible peer-reviewed science was ignored in favour of the unorthodox and unsubstantiated view that wireless devices and Wi-Fi pose a significant health risk. The finding is highly damaging to the Catalyst brand and puts pressure on the ABC’s director of television Richard Finlayson as it is the second major breach in three years that has resulted in an episode of Catalyst being discredited and removed from the website. “Catalyst is a highly successful and respected science program that explores issues of enormous interest to many Australians,” Finlayson said in a statement. “There is no doubt the investigation of risks posed by widespread wireless devices is an important story but we believe greater care should have been taken in presenting complex and multiple points of view.” Finlayson said the television division takes responsibility for the broader decision-making process that resulted in the program going to air and acknowledges it is the second significant breach for the program in two years. He signalled the program was safe by saying he was reviewing the direction for Catalyst “with a view to strengthening this very important and popular program”. Demasi has been suspended from air until September 2016. The presenter kept her job after the first breach in 2013 for a discredited program about statins. After the ABC aired the two-part series on statins, which are the most prescribed medication in Australia and reduce heart attack and stroke risk, particularly for people with heart disease, a study found that a significant number of people stopped taking or reduced their dose. On Tuesday, Demasi said on Twitter she had been “directed not to comment” on the review and she retweeted someone who said she needed whistleblower protection. She also retweeted an academic who went on to accuse the ABC of science censorship. The ABC’s complaints unit found a number of inaccuracies in the Wi-Fried program: • It did not provide enough context for viewers to understand that the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classification of radiofrequency electromagnetic fields as “possibly carcinogenic to humans (Group 2B)” was specifically based on a positive association found in some studies between heavy mobile phone use and glioma, and not on any potential risks having been found in relation to Wi-Fi use. • When citing the Bioinitiative Report, it did not acknowledge that report’s significant scientific criticisms and shortfalls, and consequently overstated its credibility and independence. • One statement in the program: “Newer studies showing that people who begin to use cell phones regularly and heavily as teenagers have four to eight times more malignant glioma, that’s a brain tumour, 10 years later” was materially misleading as it overstated the risks identified in the relevant 2009 study, and implied that that study hadn’t been considered by the IARC in its 2011 decision to classify RF electromagnetic fields as possibly carcinogenic. • Another statement: “When the bombs fell at the end of World War II on Japan, we followed every person who survived. Forty years is how long it took for brain cancer to develop after that exposure”, overstated the latency period for brain cancer. The full investigation report can be read here (PDF).
So your New Year’s resolutions failed? Here's how to make new ones Each year, around four in 10 Americans pick New Year’s resolutions. For 2016, the most common resolution was weight loss – followed by getting a better job, exercising more and quitting smoking. By February, there’s little need to ask if people feel as though they’re failing –grocery receipts can do the talking. When Cornell University researchers tracked per-household purchases from three stores somewhere in the west of New York state, they inferred that Americans typically consume even more daily calories in the post-holiday period – 2 January to 12 March – than they do over Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year. The problem partly appears to be New Year’s resolutions themselves: healthy foods fly off the shelves early in the year, but these purchases are additional to spending on unhealthy items. At this time of year, Americans not only buy many more calories per person per week than they did before the annual ‘fresh start’ got underway, but they also have bigger grocery bills. If this sounds like you, there’s plenty of good advice available to help you achieve your goals. But how about pressing reset, and aiming to make 2016 the year in which you started to make changes that, statistically speaking, should improve your odds of becoming happier for the rest of your days? Like most resolutions, this is easier said than done. One prominent theory in happiness research is the idea that people’s sense of wellbeing is sticky – that, for each of us, genes and early life experiences fix a certain level of happiness as our normal. The choices we make in adulthood can do little to change this ‘set point’. The concept often (but not always) appears to hold for various changes in circumstance – a lottery win, a sudden physical disability. In these cases, after a short period of elation or depression, people tend to become accustomed to their new lot in life, and return to their old selves. So how could you resolve to shift your normal? To hack how goal-setting alters long term happiness requires something exceptional: standardized measurements of thousands of peoples’ happiness levels over decades, alongside everything that might reasonably account for how good someone feels about life, plus information about how every individual has valued different kinds of medium term goal along the way. Perhaps surprisingly, this exists. Every year since 1984, the German government has paid for a survey in which a huge crowd of people answer questions about how satisfied they are with their lives. This crowd constitutes a representative sample of the entire country’s households – today the participants number more than 25,000. In the 1980s, the survey extended over West Germany alone; then, just before reunification in 1990, it expanded east of the Berlin Wall. Germans’ personality traits along five dimensions – income, work hours, church attendance, time spent on leisure activities and volunteering – have all been meticulously recorded, year on year. It’s all, well, rather German. Crunching the numbers reveals happiness levels often remain stubbornly steady for decades. Over 25 years, more than 60% of the participants’ happiness levels wiggled within quite narrow boundaries. A minority of Germans have become gradually less happy. A smaller minority still have become happier over time. Specifically, for about 6% of the population, gains in life satisfaction scores have showed a substantial improvement over 15 to 20 years (for the nerds: that’s an improvement of 1.5 standard deviations). This 6% is set apart by how they prioritize different life goals. In some years, the survey participants have provided a score from one to four for the importance they attach to each item on a list of fairly typical medium-term ambitions. These encompass diverse fodder for New Year’s resolutions: career success and gains in material wealth, personal developments, aims for their relationships, and involvement in politics and society. Germans who have emphasized goals like moving up the career ladder, and earning and owning more, are those who have become progressively less happy over time. Unlike the rest, the 6% have consistently placed a lot of value on spending time with family and getting involved in their communities. In fact, the data suggest that valuing these kind of positive-sum goals (as opposed to the zero-sum goals that the ever-sadder Germans prioritize) matters so much that it’s at least as good for your long-term happiness as getting married. Depressingly, as far as goal-setting goes, Americans aren’t on track to become happier in the decades to come. Quite the opposite. Researchers from San Diego State University and the University of Georgia report that each recent generation of Americans has valued the kinds of life goals that promote long-term happiness less than generation before it: at about the age of 18, millennials valued them less than generation-Xers did; at the same age, generation-Xers valued them less than baby boomers did. So when you’re revisiting your New Year’s resolutions this month, focus on what might actually make you content. How about recalibrating the American dream from striving to join the thinnest, most productive or wealthiest 1%, to instead aiming for the happiest 6%?
Brexit could benefit UK economy, says £8bn fund manager One of Britain’s most influential fund managers has said a British withdrawal from the EU would have no long-term negative impact on the UK economy and could even benefit it in the short term. Neil Woodford, whose £8bn fund has large stakes in leading British companies such as GlaxoSmithKline, BT and BAE Systems, said much of the debate over British exit was “bogus”. Criticising both sides of the economic debate over Brexit, he said that claims that remaining in the EU was beneficial, or that pulling out was damaging, were both wrong. “It is really hard to see any credibility in an argument to stay or to leave constructed around economics. It’s a nil-sum game. If we stay or we leave, the fundamentals of the economy will be relatively unmoved.” The fund manager, who in 2014 quit asset management group Invesco Perpetual to set up his own operation – and attracted billions from small investors – commissioned research on the potential impact of a British withdrawal from the EU which he has posted on his website. The report, by consultancy Capital Economics, concluded: “It is plausible that Brexit could have a modest negative impact on growth and job creation. But it is slightly more plausible that the net impacts will be modestly positive.” Woodford added that a British departure from the EU, and the economic uncertainty leading up to a referendum, was likely to push down the value of sterling, but that would help struggling exporters. “It will be a significant event globally that may well be reflected in weakness of sterling, but that will be relatively temporary. If the currency is weaker for a period, that will be potentially stimulative for the economy, so it might actually work out to be good news for exporters.” Woodford’s views puts him at odds with much of big business in the UK. Last week, HSBC warned that it could be forced to switch 1,000 banking jobs to France in the wake of a Brexit vote, while RBS chief Ross McEwan warned that the uncertainty caused by the upcoming referendum could “slow down banking”. Leaders of most big banks argue that leaving would endanger both the status of the City of London as Europe’s financial centre, and growth prospects across the wider economy. The CBI has come out strongly in favour of Britain remaining in the EU, publishing a glossy leaflet underlining the benefits of EU membership. EasyJet also warned recently that fares would rise if Britain left. But Woodford is not alone among business and finance leaders, such as billionaire hedge fund operator Crispin Odey, and construction equipment company JCB boss Graeme Macdonald, in rejecting arguments that a UK withdrawal would seriously harm the economy. In the report from Capital Economics published on the Woodford Funds website, the researchers argue that; on immigration “Policy is far more likely to change to restrict the number of low-skilled workers entering the country and shift towards attracting more highly skilled workers. This would be a potential headache for low-wage sectors heavily dependent on migrant labour, such as agriculture, but could benefit other sectors with a shortage of highly skilled labour. on trade “It is highly probable that a favourable trade agreement would be reached after Brexit … it is certainly possible that leaving the EU would leave the external sector better off in the long run, if Britain could use its newfound freedom to negotiate its own trading arrangements to good effect. on financial services “Financial services have more to lose immediately after a EU exit than most other sectors of the economy. Even in the best case, in which passporting rights were preserved, the United Kingdom would still lose influence over the single market’s rules.” on foreign investment “Concerns about a drying up of foreign direct investment if Britain votes to leave the European Union are somewhat overblown ... [but] we could see a period of weak foreign direct investment inflows as the United Kingdom’s new relationship is renegotiated.” on public finances “The British government could save about £10bn per year on its contributions to the EU’s budget if the country left the bloc. On the other hand, a little economic disruption and lower migration as a result of Brexit could offset these savings.
Comfort and support: how a radio show for people with HIV made a difference A few weeks ago, a young woman phoned in to the Unako show on Radio Zibonele, based in Khayelitsha, during a heated talk show on HIV treatment. Khayelitsha is one of the communities hardest-hit by HIV in the Cape Town area. The anonymous caller shared her story of a night out several weeks prior. When she left her house, she made sure to tuck her antiretroviral medicine into her bra, ready to take later that evening. Her voice became shaky as she spoke of waking up in shock the next morning, realising that she had forgotten to take her meds during a night of drinking and dancing. She stayed in bed for three days, waiting to die and pondering who would take care of her young daughter. She told listeners that she was convinced missing one pill would lead to sudden death. She did not reach out to her family, who were not privy to her HIV status, or the nurses at her local health clinic, who she thought would scold her for messing up. After a week of agonising, she returned to the clinic to share her fears with staff. They made minor adjustments to her treatment plan and assured her that everything was going to be fine. Her call to the radio station was intended to ensure that others would not have to endure what she went through. She told listeners not to be afraid to consult health professionals. Her story opened the floodgates for other young HIV-affected callers, who shared their own experiences of feeling alone, of struggling and of being under-informed – reminding us that the narrative of living openly and positively does not hold true for everyone. The radio show Unako (“You Can”) was started in 2013 to create a safe place for young people in Khayelitsha to openly discuss HIV, sex and relationships, and to explore the layers, contradictions and uncertainty associated with being young. As one of the Children’s Radio Foundation’s 74 youth radio projects in six African countries, young people living with and affected by HIV are trained as community radio reporters and broadcasters. Young people living in urban areas and townships across South Africa have been flooded with messages about HIV on billboards and TV and in magazines. But when the show started, reporters found that many people living with HIV in Khayelitsha couldn’t relate to those messages, as they usually portrayed “perfect people living perfect lives”. The reporters wondered about the people living with HIV who struggled on a daily basis and who didn’t have the support of friends and families? They set out to use their radio programme to tell the stories of those who felt alone in their journey, and whose experiences were rarely heard. These are difficult stories to tell and to hear, but the medium of radio seems to make these conversations easier to have. The vast majority of callers choose to be anonymous, and go the extra mile to protect their confidentiality. That layer of protection lets them speak freely, in ways they themselves are often surprised by. Radio allows for heated discussions with other anonymous listeners, and for those who have not disclosed their HIV status to air the intimate details about their lives. A mother seeks advice on how to tell her 10-year-old son that he has been positive since birth, and to explain to him why he takes daily medication. A teenage lesbian says she feels shunned by the LGBTI community for being HIV positive, and seeks other lesbians in Khayelitsha to speak to. A father tells how he kicked his son out of the house after he told him he’d contracted HIV. A grandmother, who is a regular caller to the show, doles out support and love at every twist and turn, telling callers that they are not alone. There are regular unresolved debates on religion, skepticism about antiretroviral therapy and the use of traditional medicines, and updates on complicated family dynamics. In many ways, radio allows callers to have surrogate conversations with strangers that might otherwise be held in their homes. It lets them work through their thoughts and get feedback from multiple perspectives, without any immediate repercussions. Some callers have said that speaking on radio was almost a trial run to give them the clarity and confidence to have often difficult conversations with parents, children, friends or co-workers. The programme’s young radio hosts do their best to make sure multiple perspectives are represented in the show, that listeners are as well-informed as possible around the topic, and aware of services and resources available nearby. For example, the hosts often direct their audience to a certain nurse at Nolungile Clinic, as “she is open-minded to the LGBTI community and won’t make you feel bad”. Listeners to the show come to understand how to navigate living with HIV in their community, as narrated through the stories and experiences of others. Hopefully that helps them feel less isolated, more informed, and able to come up with realistic strategies for moving forward. Mike Rahfaldt is executive director of the Children’s Radio Foundation. Reporters from Ivory Coast, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, South Africa, Tanzania, and Zambia will be hosting a live interactive youth radio station from the International Aids Conference in Durban. The Global Development Professionals Network is hosting a free afternoon seminar and networking event to discuss ways to improve access to HIV/Aids treatment in sub-Saharan Africa. Register your interest in attending here. Join our community of development professionals and humanitarians. Follow @ GDP on Twitter.
Could Paris really steal City of London crown after Brexit? Hours after the UK’s vote for Brexit was announced, online adverts saying “Welcome to the Paris Region” aimed at international banks and investors were already running in the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal. Brexiters might have been short of a plan B, but officials in Paris’s financial district and the wider Paris region, despite being pro-remain, had been preparing for months to promote their financial sector and urge any bankers considering leaving the City of London to think about moving to France. More than 4,000 letters were immediately sent to investors boasting of the benefits the wider Paris Île-de-France region, run by the rightwing Valérie Pécresse, who was previously Nicolas Sarkozy’s budget minister. When the president, François Hollande, took an instant hard line on Brexit, saying the City of London could no longer continue its highly prized business of clearing euro-denominated derivatives, it looked like France would push the moral argument for restricting the UK’s huge financial services post-Brexit and attempt to reap the benefits for Paris. But the issue of whether Paris might stand to gain from any potential City of London restrictions remains a giant question mark on a page of uncertainties. Like everything else about Brexit, it is far more complex than it looks. The competition for any financial services that might leave the City – and it’s not yet clear what they might be – is ferocious, with a range of cities queuing up. These include Frankfurt, which is home to the European Central Bank and the financial capital of Europe’s biggest economy, and Dublin with its attractive corporate tax rates, as well as Amsterdam and Luxembourg. Paris is far from a certainty. The French capital has certain selling points. Among these are its large asset management sector, several major European banks, skilled financial professionals, cheap office space, an attractive way of life and a wider Paris region that is willing to go the extra mile to tempt bankers and their families – there is already talk of building more international bilingual schools west of Paris to cater for them. But Paris also has hurdles, not least the political class’s philosophical and moral attitude to high finance itself. Although Hollande has made a U-turn in the past two years to a more pro-business stance, he has never shaken off his vow during the presidential campaign that his greatest “adversary” was the world of finance. Long before Hollande was president he was known for saying he didn’t like the rich, and he did his best to put in place his famous 75% tax bracket on earnings over €1m (then £780,000), despite struggling to fully implement the proposal and later quietly shelving it. Even the rightwing Sarkozy before him saw the 2008 crisis as “the end of a financial capitalism” that had contributed to “perverting” the economy. A key issue in Paris is regulation, and the combined high taxes and charges on hiring staff. It costs companies far more in taxes and charges to hire a skilled worker in France than elsewhere in Europe. This means Paris’s bid to win over financial businesses has already become a call for change from some quarters. “We have to end the anti-finance discourse and stop suffocating the sector with tax,” Guillaume Maujean wrote in the Paris business paper Les Echos this week. In the wake of the EU referendum result, Hollande told the same paper: “We have to adapt our rules, including our tax rules, to make Paris’s financial centre more attractive.” Whether that can be done in the current climate – where the government’s proposed changes to labour laws have been challenged by the hardline CGT union for months – remains to be seen. Paris clearly wants to have the last word on the long-running “red-carpet” gag that began in 2012 when David Cameron said London would roll one out for French businesses fleeing Paris and the promised 75% tax to soak the rich. The economy minister, Emmanuel Macron, said during the EU referendum campaign that France would “roll out the red carpet” for City of London bankers who might want or need to relocate if Britain left the EU. Charles Wyplosz, director of the International Centre for Monetary and Banking Studies, said any speculation about what financial operations could move where post-Brexit was “a bit over the top because we have no idea of what any eventual accord will be”. But he said there was a large “anti-finance and anti-rich” political sentiment in France that wouldn’t help. He said both Paris and Frankfurt might struggle to find the means to attract high finance as he saw them as countries “that have no sympathy for – or understanding of – high finance”, places that remained “extremely provincial from a financial point of view”. He said: “I can’t see how they will change themselves given the political and philosophical mood.” There is little detail on what exactly might change for the City of London after Brexit negotiations that will go on for years. HSBC said earlier this year that it could move about 20% of its London workforce – about 1,000 jobs – to Paris in the event of a Brexit, saying jobs would go from the trading room and investment banking. Gérard Mastrallet, head of Paris Europlace, which promotes the city’s financial sector, said this week: “If we don’t take advantage of this opportunity, other European countries will.”
Andy Hamilton: first there was a fake me, now the fantasists have taken over In 1990, I became aware of a man who was pretending to be me. This was in the days when my face was hardly known – before I was that bloke off panel shows who looks like Pavarotti after a tree fell on him. So my impersonator was able to pass himself off fairly easily as “Andy Hamilton, comedy writer”. He fooled a surprising number of people. One young woman was under the impression she had been living with me for six months. Many women found they had lent me money that I had not yet got round to paying back. Several people ended up working (unpaid) on a movie that didn’t exist. For me, this fantasist’s escapades were, for nearly a decade, a persistent pain in the arse. He was outrageously confident and had a talent for telling vaguely plausible lies – or rather, plausibly vague lies. Detail was his Kryptonite. But in the end, he would invariably overreach himself and be revealed as a fake. So I consoled myself with the thought that, eventually, this is what always happens to charlatans. Until this year. Because 2016 is shaping up to be the year that the fantasists get a free pass. It is proving to be the year of what commentators have dubbed “post-factual politics”. And an environment where facts carry little weight is an ideal habitat for fantasists. So what exactly is a fantasist? Well, a fantasist is much more than a liar. We all lie sometimes, to protect ourselves, or gain some advantage, or to spare someone’s feelings, or to get rid of a cold-caller. (I recommend feigning a heart attack.) Liars lie for a purpose, but fantasists just make things up. True, the fiction usually adds to some cathedral of self-aggrandisement that they’re building, but they tend not to plan the lie beforehand. It leaps out of some instinctual lobe of their brain, in a split second. When you watch Donald Trump coming out with that stuff, that is probably the first time he’s heard it. Also, the liar knows he is lying, before and after, whereas, for the fantasist, the moment the lie leaves his lips it transforms itself into incontrovertible truth. Fantasists need this alchemy because they are narcissists who can never, never be wrong. When their fragile narrative is challenged they have a tendency to turn nasty. That is the reason they can be so dangerous and why we shouldn’t vote for them. If we look at the year so far – and, God help us, it isn’t over yet – we can see the emergence of a febrile new world where accuracy and authenticity are seen as irrelevances; a world where being an obvious fake is no longer any kind of impediment. You can mythologise yourself: you can be a billionaire man-of-the-people, you can be a public-school-educated ex-banker who is an “establishment outsider”, you can invent your own custom-made “facts” and fire them through the spray gun of social media. You can invoke a golden age without ever specifying which age that was. Basically, you make up whatever irrational tosh you like, preferably tosh that activates the anger that lies dormant inside all those people who believe that their entire life is somebody else’s fault. Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of this new atmosphere is that so many people seem to have stopped caring if someone is lying to them. For instance, Donald Trump has repeatedly asserted that, after the attacks of 9/11, 10,000 Muslims were out celebrating on the streets of New Jersey. There were no Muslims celebrating in New Jersey. Or anywhere else. The only place where that happened was inside Donald Trump’s head. Normally, a fantastical invention like that would sound the death-knell for any candidate. But not now. The game’s being played by different rules. Similarly, the fantasy that 76 million Turks might maraud towards our shores if we remained in the EU ought to have been enough to terminally damage the Brexit campaign. But those who wanted to believe it believed it, and the rest just gave a resigned shrug. All right, yes, Evan Davis got worked up about it on Newsnight, and various liberal newspapers deplored it. But the lie stayed out there, insidiously going about its business. Another lie was painted on to the side of a bus and remained there even after it had been exposed. The Electoral Commission should have insisted on a second bus with a correction painted on it. Of course, for fantasists to prosper, they need rationalism to be put to flight. In the last few years, we have seen a growing trend to say the word experts in inverted commas. Michael Gove (son of a Scots fisherman and ordinary Joe) declared that the British people were sick and tired of “experts”. You just can’t trust them, these people who’ve spent their working lives studying something that anyone can look up for themselves on the internet. By the same illogic, statistics and independent studies are now often greeted with open scorn and, in the US, a lot of the electorate seem to have decided that facts are a form of witchcraft. To an extent, we may have brought this on ourselves. For some time now, we have been abandoning the realm of thought. We have been reading pointless books about “emotional intelligence”. We have been indulging sciences that contain not the slightest particle of science, not even the memory of science. We have been immersing ourselves in reality shows that contain no semblance of reality. We have been obsessing about the love lives of famous composite nouns. We have allowed the 24-hour media to frighten us into a constant state of hysteria, even though our lives are longer, safer and healthier than they have ever been. We have moved into a world where feelings outrank thought, where we share our emotions instantly, incessantly and incontinently with people we’ve never met, as we binge on moral outrage and conspiracy theories. We are losing the faculties we need to spot snake-oil salesmen. Or unhinged demagogues. And as 2016 careers on – like a stolen car driven by drunk teenagers - it is starting to feel as if the forces of reason are ready to throw in the towel. I should declare an interest here. If reason does not prevail, then I am out of a job. Comedy begins from a standpoint of reason, without reason it’s impossible to identify what’s absurd. Jokes are a playful form of reasoning. This is why Nazi Germany produced no great standups. Of course, the atmosphere in Germany during the 1930s was extremely “post-factual”. And they ended up voting for a ridiculous fantasist as their leader. I’m just saying, that’s all. (I won’t pursue this any further, as I don’t want to set Ken Livingstone off.) Back in the 1990s, the only upside of my experience with the fake Andy Hamilton was that it made me question what I knew. When I shared the story with other people, to my surprise, I discovered quite a few who’d had similar experiences with impostors, and it opened my eyes to how much damage can be caused by a determined fantasist. In time, a story began to form inside my head, which I eventually turned into a novel. (Just published, since you ask). Of course, one of the joys of writing fiction is that you give your story the ending you want. But the potential endings for 2016 look like ones that no one could want. Demagogues seem to be in the ascendancy all over Europe. While it is quite possible that the American people are about to elect a man who is unhinged. (Many people are saying this, Donald.) I should probably stop there, as writing that last paragraph has scared the hell out of me and I need to go and have a calming cup of tea. One final thought, however. It would be so very easy for us to luxuriate in the belief that a Trump could never happen here, to feel somehow insulated by the British character. Yes, we may have had ridiculous fantasists in our politics, but they’ve all been comic, harmless sideshows, like Jeffrey Archer. But hold on, Jeffrey wasn’t always seen as a self-deluding loser. In 2000, according to the opinion polls, he was on the brink of being elected mayor of London. Then, true to character, he boasted about the wrong thing to the wrong person at a party, and ended up being charged with perjury. His posturing was what undid him, but Londoners had been more than prepared to vote for him. Also, let’s not forget that, as a nation, we did vote, repeatedly, for Tony Blair, a man who has a tendency to confuse himself with Jesus. So are we really any more immune to fantasists than the Americans? Why should we be any harder to fool or manipulate? “Post-factual” politics – and the flight from reason that enables it – is a threat to public discourse everywhere and an open goal for demagogues. As I discovered back in the 1990s, fantasists move among us all the time. They live in their own brightly coloured, distorted world. Let’s hope this isn’t the year when we all go and live there with them. The Star Witness by Andy Hamilton is out now from Unbound, £12.99
Times are hard for bankers – but they did nearly bankrupt the planet The difference between an investment banker and a pigeon, the old joke went during the credit crunch, is that a pigeon can put down a deposit on a new Porsche. It’s not a classic, perhaps, but it was enough to irk many of the jumped-up bookmakers that inhabit the trade, until the shock of nearly bankrupting the planet wore off and they discovered new ways of trousering massive bonuses. Still, nothing has ever quite been as good in investment banking as in the halcyon days just before the crash, and right now the market is definitely trending back towards tough. Japanese bank Nomura is expected to start axing London jobs, while Wall Street operators such as Bank of America and Citigroup have reported weak performance in their investment banking operations. None of which fills you with much hope for folk working at Barclays (which has already signalled investment banking setbacks), Royal Bank of Scotland and Standard Chartered – which all report this week. Added to that, there are the usual worries about Brexit and the impact a vote to leave might have on the City. Stockbroker Hargreaves Lansdown points out: “Very few voices are suggesting it [Brexit] might be a positive [for UK financial services].” Or, presumably, Porsche dealers. Hark! Furious shareholders of spring Another week, another load of rows we can dub shareholder spring 2.0. After the revolts over pay at oil giant BP, medical equipment group Smith & Nephew and miner Anglo American, this week the City’s troublemakers are looking forward to fixtures at pharmaceutical groups Shire and AstraZeneca, plus the fund manager Schroders, where scraps are almost guaranteed for different reasons. First, Shire and Astra, where Royal London Asset Management, which holds shares in each, will vote against the pay packages at both companies. The investor’s punchy corporate governance manager, Ashley Hamilton Claxton, will also abstain from supporting the non-executive who chairs the Shire remuneration committee in protest at the group handing chief executive Flemming Ørnskov a 25% rise in his salary to $1.7m (£1.2m). Shire reckons Ørnskov’s pay reflects the $20bn added to Shire’s stock market value since April 2013. Then we’ve got Schroders, where the fund manager wants to promote its chief executive, Michael Dobson, to chairman. Schroders knows this is not considered ideal corporate governance, as it has voted against similar moves elsewhere many times itself, so there must be some embarrassment among the troops. Or so one, ahem, imagines.
Border zones: 'Berlin in the 1980s was like an advert for hedonism' It is 1984 and I’m being driven around East Berlin in a Jaguar XJ6, the only one in town. We are making Chinese Boxes, a cheap thriller with an incomprehensible plot about teenage drug deaths, Berlin gangsters and US intelligence. The film’s budget is about three quid and, to save money, it is being scored in East Berlin, hence the driver of the white Jag, who is its composer – and, we learn later, a Stasi informer. But it seems anyone who is anyone is. We drink red wine from Bulgaria and talk about the unthinkable, reunification, known then as the German spring. In those days, I was living in West Berlin which, by contrast, was less a city than an advertisement for a controlled kind of hedonism: white powder, sex in taxis, vodka chasers. The nearest I got to thinking about the cold war was at end of a very long night when a white light I swore was the first nuclear flash was of course only the door of the club opening to show that outside it was already the next day. London closed at 11. In Paris, you could just about make it through to one. In Berlin, no one told you to go home, ever. Booze and amphetamine nights driving down empty streets with the white lines of the road appearing above the roof of the car. The car was an old VW with a faulty sunroof that could playfully dump the equivalent of a bucket of cold water down your neck, the only perfect cure for a hangover I have ever found. Evenings started late and were marked by theatricality – and a cast of predatory men and feral women, the likes of whom you didn’t come across elsewhere. The gay quarter was a tamer version of Christopher Street in New York, very sub-Genet, in an area now almost exclusively dedicated to male couples with tiny dogs. Both heterosexual and homosexual excess seemed more willed than pleasurable, as if Berlin felt obliged to reignite Weimar decadence and blank what had followed. It was a city of the young and the old – as the male professional classes were off in West Germany building their careers – with a lot of war widows and hairdressers. Residency in Berlin exempted young men from military service, even though it remained under martial law and military occupation, with capital punishment still an option. I stayed in a room that faced a blank wall and got no sun. I was impressed because the apartment’s owner had his own huge photocopying machine in the hall. In terms of aspiration, though, the height of sophistication was an electric IBM golfball typewriter, one of the nicest machines ever designed. What we didn’t know was that IBM had once offered the Third Reich its latest punch-card technology to collate the national census, intended as the first step towards segregating the country’s Jews. I was always more interested in Germany than England, after spending time in the late 1950s as an army brat in the garrison town of Iserlöhn, on the edge of the industrial Ruhr. Even at the age of eight, I was aware of perplexing questions about winning and losing. Beaten Germany felt strangely arrested, strangely progressive (Mercedes, Telefunken), more technological and complicated, and interestingly scarred by its psychological burden. On a later trip back, I happened to pick up a book called The Last Jews in Berlin. We all knew about the trains and what happened next, but I knew nothing of the Germany before, a world of moral confusion and uncomfortable truths: how, for example, part of the twisted genius of the Third Reich was the way it solicited the cooperation of those it wished to destroy, first with the deportations and later in the camps. The most extraordinary part of the book dealt with what were known as the snatchers: Jews who volunteered or were coerced to hunt down fellow Jews in hiding. Stella Kübler was the most notorious, barely out of her teens, alluringly beautiful and known as the blonde ghost. Vestiges of her lingered in the streets I found myself in: her beat scoured the theatres, cafes and bars of a part of Berlin I came to know well. Meanwhile, the picture we were getting of Britain in 1984 was of a country on its knees (miners’ strike, embassy shootings) but when I went back I found London becoming a boom town. Flashed fivers had overtaken the pound note and there was a burgeoning restaurant scene – which really took off after the 1986 deregulation of the stock market, to accommodate aghast foreigners who found no gyms or decent places to eat. I never particularly had it mind to write about Berlin back then. I went home and wrote Robinson, ostensibly a London Soho novel. Only a long time later did I realise that, without Berlin, I could not have written about London, my version of which – in terms of imaginative reality – was based more on the experience of Berlin, which in the late 1970s and early 1980s offered enough distractions to test the border zones of anyone’s identity. The Butchers of Berlin by Chris Petit is published by Simon & Schuster. The Psalm Killer is published as a Picador Modern Classic.
Simon Pegg: ‘It's terrible! I have become the very thing I feared’ I have interviewed Simon Pegg once before, nine years ago, and he told me the story about how he’d been asked if he was going to carry on making films in Britain: “And I said: ‘Well, I’m not about to go and star in Mission: Impossible III.’” At which point he was asked to star in Mission: Impossible III. “I pulled the film name off the top of my head. And six months later I was, like: ‘Hi Tom!’” That was your first taste of Hollywood, I remind him. And now look at you… you’re not just in the belly of the beast, you are the beast. “I know. It’s terrible! I have become the very thing I feared.” It’s not terrible, though. It’s what massive success looks like. He’s become Hollywood’s go-to geek. The ordinary guy who gets dropped into some of the biggest movie franchises on the planet to play the Everydude. The bloke next door, often with a science degree, who acts as the foil to the hero – most notably Benji Dunn in three outings of Mission: Impossible and Scotty in two Star Treks. It’s usually the way he’s portrayed in the press, too. The ordinary bloke who co-wrote and appeared in cult sitcom Spaced – in which he lived in a dingy flatshare and spent his spare time playing video games, a scenario roughly based on his life – and then got parachuted on to Tom Cruise’s private jet and became best friends with Hollywood director JJ Abrams and Coldplay’s Chris Martin. People seem to think that you actually were living in a dingy flatshare and won a reality TV show, I say. “Well, that comes from not having chiseled good looks,” he says. “It’s a modern phenomenon, the ordinary person at the centre of an extraordinary situation. It came out of Diehard, in a way. I think John McTiernan [the director of Diehard] was the progenitor of the fallible geek hero. It was what happened after the preternatural Arnie Schwarzenegger masculinity thing – the bespectacled hero who was still managing to have relationships with gorgeous women. And after Bruce Willis came your Seth Rogens and Paul Rudds and me.” This is a very classic Simon Pegg answer. He studied TV and film at Bristol University, and analysing movies is still one of his great loves. He just gets to star in them, too, these days. And in the case of the latest – Star Trek Beyond, out this month – co-write it. Also he really does hang out on Tom Cruise’s private jet, and JJ Abrams and Chris Martin are both close friends. But if he’s changed at all in the decade since I last interviewed him, the only visible sign is that he’s more relaxed. Last time he would barely even confirm or deny his wife’s name (Maureen – they met on a transfer bus in Greece more than a decade ago and now have a daughter, Matilda). It might just be that he’s a good actor – this is not a given: most of them aren’t, at least not in an interview situation – but he seems to actually enjoy engaging with the questions. But then nerding out on film and geek culture for an hour is probably less of an arduous task for him than it is for many people. You are mass entertainment now, I say, the thing you spent your degree course decoding and picking apart. You are the dominant discourse. “I know! It’s strange,” he says. “I mean, when you’re aware that what you’re creating is in some way influencing things – as is all art, if you want to call entertainment art, which isn’t necessarily the case… Entertainment is an overrated function of art. That’s the great quote I took away from university with me. But I guess when you know you’re wielding a means of actually saying something or sneaking something into that entertainment, you try your best to make it meaningful.” Is that what you’ve tried to do with Star Trek? “It was actually a very challenging idea when it first appeared. You look at the way the world was in 1966, and yet you have a Japanese helmsman. Later you get a Russian navigator. You have a black woman in a position of authority. You have Kirk and Uhura having the first interracial kiss on TV.” Star Trek Beyond, the latest outing, is the 50th anniversary of the franchise, and writing it felt like a “terrifying responsibility”, he says, “whether it comes across as keenly as we wanted it with all the whiz-bangs of a big science-fiction movie, but what we wanted to do was to question the idea of the original vision of it. Gene Roddenberry’s original idea of the Federation was like a UN in space. We wanted to ask whether it was a good thing or more like a colonising force.” So you’ve written a post-colonial, structuralist critique of the original Star Trek? “That’s exactly what it is!” It’s worth being reminded that Pegg didn’t actually get plucked from bedsit obscurity and get sent to Hollywood as a prize. Though much of what has happened has been down to his friendship with JJ Abrams. Abrams is one of the most influential directors in Hollywood as the man behind the relaunched Star Trek and Star Wars franchises. He saw Pegg’s 2004 film Shaun of the Dead, a zombie comedy filled with knowing references to other horror films, and loved it. “I was blown away by Simon’s sense of humour but also by his acting skills,” he has said. Abrams cast him in Mission: Impossible III “because selfishly I wanted to meet the guy”. They’re both still avid students of popular culture. Pegg describes their friendship as based on: “An obsession and an obsessive compulsion to indulge in certain kinds of cinema and television.” And, most crucially for Pegg at least, they both shared a boyhood passion for Star Wars. In his autobiography Pegg writes about how Star Wars was one of the defining moments of his childhood. It “fired my imagination, increased my vocabulary, encouraged my interest in film production and music”. Every night before he went to bed, he would kiss his poster of Carrie Fisher good night. It’s hard not to wonder about the connection between the film and his personal life. From his autobiography it’s clear that he saw Star Wars and was entranced by it at more or less exactly the same moment his parents divorced. Was there an element of escapism to your love of it, do you think? “I don’t know. Maybe subconsciously. I don’t remember it being a particularly traumatic time. I remember just going into my mum and saying: ‘Where’s Dad?’ I didn’t have a great relationship with my stepfather – the one thing me and him bonded on was sci-fi. I guess we, all of us, take refuge in fantasyland even if it’s not from anything specific.” When Abrams landed the franchise, “We went out for dinner and he offered me the role of this creature that looks like a blobfish.” He leapt at it. “I was in Abu Dhabi in this big rubber suit, sweating my arse off, just thinking: ‘This is brilliant!’ It was so great and extraordinary to be in that movie.” It felt like his “moment of manifest destiny”, Pegg said in an interview last year. That’s a pretty hard act to follow, I say. And he doesn’t disagree. “I had a bit of a crisis of confidence afterwards. I hadn’t had the chance to take stock, and I came home to the UK and I was pretty sure I wanted to quit acting. I called my agent and I said – this is an absolutely true story, and ridiculous if a little name-droppy – but I said: ‘Look, I want to take some time off and think about what I want to do next.’ I was being a bit dramatic. I said: ‘Don’t call me for the next six months, unless like, Steven Spielberg calls.’ Then, of course, my phone rang.” It was Spielberg offering him a part in his new sci-fi blockbuster, Ready Player One, another dream come true. “He’s someone who’s influenced me my whole life, my love of film and my love of the craft.” The film is based on the young adult novel by Ernest Cline which is set in 2045, but both Pegg and Spielberg are referenced in it. “In one scene there’s the line: ‘Let’s go home and watch Spaced. Let’s have a Spaced marathon.’ I always felt flattered that anyone would consider that Spaced would exist in America in 2045.” It’s all pretty meta. And while it’s the sort of thing Pegg revels in, recently he has bridled at some of the limitations of the geeky world that he’s a poster boy for. He got into hot water with fans last month by claiming that sci-fi culture has contributed to the “infantilisation of society. There are things going on that people should be upset about: slave brides and God knows what. Yet there seems to be louder complaints about the fact that Batman shot somebody. People love to get offended by anything. There are so many virtual pitchforks online… The internet democratises disgruntlement in such a way where, ordinarily, people would just keep that shit to themselves, but now they can find others who are similarly bitter and want to share.” It’s probably not a coincidence that he’s given up Twitter. What was your breaking point? “Five million followers.” What, you hit five million and thought: “Enough’s enough”? “I felt I’d given the world my phone number. I’d read the replies and it was people talking to you as if they knew you. Twitter is a narcissist’s help centre. People generate their own celebrity on it and then they buy into it. They drink the Kool-Aid of their follower numbers. Lots and lots of people would be lovely and it would give you this little buzz of validation. And then someone says something mean, and you’re like: ‘Fuck you!’ But why choose between the two?” It seems to be all part of a certain self-consciousness that has gone hand in hand with his success. He moved out of London a few years ago with his wife and young daughter because “even if you wear a hat and glasses, you walk into a shop, then people stop”. People are only ever friendly and nice, he says, “but I’ve put myself in a position where I feel exposed. If I live on a street where there’s only cows, I’m more comfortable.” And for all the blockbusters and franchises and realisations of childhood dreams, he’s thinking about what he wants to do next. “These big movies are enormous fun and I really enjoy doing them, but I want to get back to doing small things. I’d like to spend maybe a year with a script and direct it and edit it.” It sounds like he’s going back to his roots. Where he was a decade ago when I met him promoting Hot Fuzz, a spoof murder thriller that he wrote with Edgar Wright and co-starred his friend Nick Frost. “Nick and I have plans that we’re actually moving forward now with something that is bigger than anything we’ve done before. Well, it’s not really a film, it’s a collaboration…” Is he out in the country with you and cows? “No, he’s somewhere in southwest London. I’d better not say where in case the Frostitutes hunt him down.” The Frostitutes? “They’re his fans. They’re very tenacious.” I feel a bit responsible, I say, because the last time I interviewed you I emailed a comedy writer friend and he told me the story of how you and Nick Frost used to share a single bed that was repeated in every feature from then on. “Was that you?” he says, unbothered. “The thing is, anything you say these days gets reduced to a clickbait headline. You’re misquoted, and when you clarify you’re accused of backtracking. I got into trouble with the Star Wars community for apparently saying I didn’t respect anyone that likes Star Wars prequels, which wasn’t what I said or meant. I couldn’t be bothered to engage with it, because… just why the fuck should I?” Yes. Why the fuck should he? He’s a bit punchier than he was nine years ago. A bit less apologetic. Less Spaced. More Star Wars. And why not? He’s earned it. May the force be with him. Star Trek Beyond is in cinemas from 22 July
Jeremy Corbyn set to condemn Cameron’s EU benefit brake Jeremy Corbyn is expected to attack David Cameron’s negotiations of an “emergency brake” on benefits for new migrants as potentially discriminatory, and make a positive case for European migration ahead of the crunch summit on Britain’s EU membership this week. Despite serious concerns among some of the shadow cabinet, it seems the Labour leader is determined to present an “alternative argument” that discriminating against workers from east European states is unfair and will do nothing to reduce migration levels. It is part of a series of potentially contentious moves by Corbyn in the coming months designed to leave his political stamp on the party, including a new “Labour fiscal credibility rule”, under which the party would “guarantee that all cuts announced for this parliament could be reversed in full”. Corbyn is planning to make his intervention on EU renegotiation during a visit to Brussels before the summit of member states on Thursday and Friday, where the prime minister will seek agreement on his renegotiation, including the idea of a four-year block on new migrants within the EU receiving in-work benefits. The Labour leader will suggest that Cameron has been “playing at the edges” in his renegotiation, according to sources close to Corbyn, and will suggest a crackdown on the undercutting of wages by unscrupulous agencies paying eastern European workers below the minimum wage for jobs in the UK should have been a priority. A high-level party source said there was a strong case for the alternative position to Cameron to be voiced by Corbyn, although it is understood that the speech is yet to be finalised. It would be a high-risk manoeuvre which senior shadow cabinet ministers fear could allow the Tories and Ukip ammunition in vulnerable seats with which they would seek to portray Labour as out of touch on immigration. It would also enrage many within the cross-party Britain Stronger in Europe campaign, which is backing the prime minister’s renegotiation, including the efforts to cut EU migration. An open letter signed by five big Labour beasts, former leader Lord (Neil) Kinnock, Margaret Beckett, Hilary Benn, David Blunkett and Jack Straw, says: “The conclusion of the current renegotiation will hopefully strengthen this relationship as we make the progressive case for Britain in Europe.” However, the has learned that Corbyn, and his ally the shadow chancellor John McDonnell, are determined to set out how they are a “genuine alternative” to the Conservatives in the runup to May’s council elections. Alongside the controversial stance on EU migration, a major part of that process will be a new position on the economy. A document, entitled Labour’s Economic Credibility Strategy, seen by this newspaper, admits that “Labour suffers from a perceived lack of credibility on the economy”, but that there is now “close to a consensus among macro-economists that austerity represents a poor policy choice for governments”. It adds: “The fact that austerity is widely perceived by much of the public as sound economic policy should tell us that credibility on the economy is less a question of technical expertise, as it is of having a convincing story.” The document says Labour should “learn from the disciplined messaging which George Osborne has developed and the Conservative party has adopted: narrative repeatedly beats clever”. It is suggested that a key part of Labour’s message should be a “Labour fiscal credibility rule” devised for the party by Professor Simon Wren-Lewis of Oxford University, that states that “obsessive Tory cuts” are killing the recovery and delaying a reduction in the fiscal deficit, but that investment prompts growth. That message, it is claimed, would “allow [Labour] to address public concerns on the fiscal deficit, guarantee that all cuts announced for this parliament could be reversed in full and allow sufficient space for a programme of economic transformation”. The document adds: “It is argued that properly and consistently presented, this would, over time, enable us to overcome a damaging perception of fiscal irresponsibility and allow us to move the debate on to our terms. This will require a broad consensus in the party, just as there is a consensus among the Conservatives on austerity.” The understands the shadow cabinet is due to discuss the new Labour rule this month. Sources close to McDonnell said there are plans to unveil it ahead of the budget. The author of the credibility strategy writes: “Our major error on economic policy between 2010 and 2015 was to think that technical competence (backed up by economic theory) would be enough to secure us the public trust on the economy. This belief prevented us establishing a clear and consistent narrative for Labour’s approach to the economy. “Instead, we offered multiple different stories and attempted to make short-term political capital when George Osborne missed his own self-imposed targets.” An open letter In the 1975 referendum we all campaigned against the UK remaining in what is now the European Union. Now, and for a long time past, it has been clear that Britain is stronger, safer and better off than we would or could be if pulled out of the EU. Our concern then was that European membership would mean a one-way loss of sovereignty and investment. This has proved unfounded. The UK has the best of both worlds. We are part of an economic partnership with 27 other democracies, exercising full rights to determine agreed rules in the world’s largest single market. That participation has brought three million jobs linked to our trade in Europe, it attracts large investment, promotes growth, supports R&D and provides for employment rights that protect British workers. At the same time we also have control of our vital national interests, notably our currency, borders, national security, defence, foreign affairs and justice. Britain’s voice on global matters, whether it’s about debt relief, peace-keeping or climate change, is amplified by being part of Europe and intelligence-sharing helps us to fight terrorism and other international crime. The conclusion of the current renegotiation will hopefully strengthen this relationship as we make the progressive case for Britain in Europe. There is no alternative that would replicate all these advantages and leaving would be a huge risk to prosperity, security, essential influence and the opportunities of future generations. The EU is plainly not perfect and improvement is always worth making, but the benefits far outweigh the costs. Forty years ago Labour was split on Europe. Having suffered the results of that and recognised the realities of the modern world, we changed policies and are now the most united major party on this issue. That, and the practical interests of the British people, will be the basis of our campaign to Remain in this referendum. Signed, Margaret Beckett, Hilary Benn, David Blunkett, Neil Kinnock and Jack Straw
The fats and the furious: how the row over diet heated up Nutritionists and public health experts are in meltdown over a report claiming that fat is good for us. Against the conventional thinking, the National Obesity Forum and a new group calling itself the Public Health Collaboration, say eating fat, including butter, cheese and meat, will help people lose weight and combat type 2 diabetes and that the official advice is plain wrong. A furious Public Health England has come out with all guns blazing. It says this is “irresponsible and misleads the public” and most of the public health establishment agrees. It is the latest battle in the food wars and will not be the last. It may seem obvious that we are what we eat, but scientists struggle to work out exactly what that means. Sugar, by now, is well known to be the enemy of good health. Few outside of the food and soft drinks industry argue over that any more. However, the effects of fat – and importantly, different kinds of fats – are strongly contested. The current furore demonstrates, if nothing else, how passionate the debate over nutrition can be and how difficult it is to reach any sort of simple truth. The new report does not have the status of a paper in a scientific journal. It is a 10-point campaigning document, drafted by a group of people from several countries whose views would be said by some to be pioneering and others to be maverick. They include Dr Robert Lustig, author of Fat Chance: The Hidden Truth About Sugar, Obesity and Disease, who has been one of the leaders of the anti-sugar movement. The paper was coordinated by cardiologist Dr Aseem Malhotra, who has recently parted company with the UK campaigning organisation Action on Sugar. With his father, Dr Kailash Chand, deputy chairman of the British Medical Association, and Dr David Cavan, of the International Diabetes Federation, Malhotra has founded the Public Health Collaboration, which published the report on its website. It has also published its own rival version of Public Health England’s Eatwell plate. They look very different. A third of the official Eatwell plate is taken up with “potatoes, rice, pasta and other starchy vegetables” while only small segments feature dairy products and protein. The Public Health Collaboration plate is divided in half with not a potato in sight. Half is fruit and vegetables – non-starchy carbohydrates – while the other half is fats and proteins, including bacon, meat, eggs and cheese. The fight over fats is about the quality and quantity of studies that have been done and their meaning. Dietary studies are hard to do because those taking part sometimes give in to temptation and eat things they are not supposed to and also have a tendency to forget what they have eaten or lie out of embarrassment. But the results of even the well-conducted studies are not always clear. The new report claims eating fat does not make you fat, saturated fat is not bad for the heart and advice to lower cholesterol is plain wrong. The authors cite studies to back up their arguments. Cutting fat intake did not reduce heart attacks or stroke among participants in the large Women’s Health Initiative study in the US or cause them to lose weight, it says. A major analysis of years of data in 2014 found cutting saturated fat did not reduce deaths, heart disease, stroke or type 2 diabetes. But Susan Jebb, professor of diet and population health at Oxford University, was one of many saying the report cherrypicks the evidence – choosing the studies that support fat against far more that do not, selecting “one trial suggesting high dairy intake reduced the risk of obesity, while ignoring a systematic review and meta-analysis of 29 trials which concluded that increasing dairy did not reduce the risk of weight gain”. She also takes issue with the report’s advice to throw the calorie counter out of the window. “For most people in 21st-century Britain, eating freely – even if only from ‘healthy’ foods – is unlikely to lead to spontaneous weight loss. Losing weight requires some control over total energy intake, which means limiting some foods, not eating them freely. This is why losing weight is so hard,” she said. Prof Simon Capewell, vice president for policy at the Faculty of Public Health, says the report is regrettable because it will lead to confusion and will reduce trust in food scientists and respect for Public Health England’s guidelines, which the faculty supports. Food industry marketing messages will quickly exploit the gap, he says – on which the industry spends £1bn a year. Everybody agrees that trans-fats are bad and they have been banned or phased out in many countries. Everyone agrees that olive and seed oils – also fats – are good. “But in the middle are saturated fats,” says Capewell. In dairy – milk and cheese – there is still some uncertainty but they have been rehabilitated from the days when consumers were urged to avoid them. These days, the official advice is that they can be consumed in moderation. “But red and processed meats and lard are unquestionably harmful,” said Capewell. “There is a vast amount of science to confirm that. That is the bit that has really upset the majority of nutrition scientists.” Malhotra said the reaction was not surprising. “We did say the establishment had misled us,” he said. On meat, he said, they agreed with the current guidelines, which recommend no more than 1g per kilogram of a person’s bodyweight per day. Amidst all the sound and fury and the sound of slamming plates, there is a certain amount of overlap between the two sides on the importance of fruit, vegetables, fish and olive oil. And for those of us who find it hard to follow the ins and outs of nutritional science, that looks an awful lot like the Mediterranean diet.
Skrillex and Justin Bieber on Sorry copyright claims: 'We didn't steal this' Skrillex has responded to a lawsuit filed by the artist Casey Dienel which claims he and Justin Bieber stole a loop from the vocalist’s song to use as part of their 2015 single, Sorry. “SORRY but we didn’t steal this,” Skrillex tweeted on Friday, adding a video which showed how the section of the song was produced. Bieber retweeted him, adding the hashtag “#wedontsteal”. Dienel, also known as White Hinterland, claims the pair used her vocal loop without permission on their No1 track. The clip in question is used repeatedly through her 2014 song Ring the Bell, and she reportedly claims that the “unique characteristics of the female vocal riff” have been copied. When asked about the case, US DJ Diplo, who worked with Bieber and Skrillex on the Jack Ü project, told TMZ: “I thought they sampled it, but I thought they cleared it. I’m sure they’ll work out a deal with her. They don’t want to go to court with it.” Sorry was instrumental in launching the credible comeback of Bieber, topping the charts in countries including the US and the UK. It has been streamed more than 6.5m times on Spotify, while Ring the Bell, White Hinterland’s version, has racked up 500,000. As well as Bieber and Skrillex, Sorry was written by Julia Michaels, Justin Tranter and Michael Tucker – all of whom are reportedly included in the lawsuit.
Transfer deadline wishlists: who Premier League fans want to sign this week Arsenal In: Granit Xhaka Borussia Monchengladbach, £34m; Takuma Asano Sanfrecce Hiroshima, undisc; Rob Holding Bolton, £2m. With Arsène signing Xhaka good and early I briefly thought he was planning a glorious swansong with one last big, sustained transfer market blow-out. Then it all went quiet, until last week. We’ve left it so late yet again. Gary Neville was spot on when he said Wenger and the Arsenal board “don’t enjoy swimming with the sharks”. • Best buy so far: Xhaka. • Jury’s out on: Asano with his lack of work permit, and Holding who has been forced in too soon by Wenger’s failure to sign an experienced centre-half – risking a promising young career. • Dream target: I’d set my sights higher than Lucas Pérez – Griezmann or Lewandowski. But assuming the deals go through, Pérez and Shkodran Mustafi are better than nothing. • Saddest exit: I’m still mystified why Joel Campbell’s face doesn’t appear to fit. • Most envious of: We really could have done with those points Zlatan has already banked for United. – Bernard Azulay @GoonerN5 Bournemouth In: Jordon Ibe Liverpool, £15m; Lys Mousset Le Havre, £5.4m; Marc Wilson Stoke, £2m; Emerson Hyndman Fulham, £1m; Nathan Aké Chelsea, loan; Lewis Cook Leeds, £10m; Brad Smith Liverpool, £6m It took a long time to bring in a centre-back, and to recognise we need quality at the back as well as going forward – but it’s good to finally have Marc Wilson. • Best buy so far: I do admire the focus on buying young players – Jordan Ibe is by far the best signing. Nathan Aké and Lewis Cook will be good additions, too. • Jury’s out on: Brad Smith from Liverpool was a surprise, and he started the season on the bench. But I don’t think fans have seen enough of him yet to form much of an opinion. • Dream target: Michael Carrick on loan from United if he’s really not wanted there. We lack a bit of experience and he’d be a massive signing for morale. • Saddest exit: Matt Ritchie was offered a new contract – it was sad he wanted to go, but I hope he does well at Newcastle. Most envious of: Chelsea signing N’Golo Kanté. What a player. – Peter Bell @CherryChimes Burnley In: Jamie Thomas Bolton, free; Robbie Leitch Motherwell, free; Nick Pope Charlton, £1.1m; Johann Berg Gudmundsson Charlton, undisc; Steven Defour Anderlecht, £8m; Jimmy Dunne Manchester United, free; Jon Flanagan Liverpool, loan. It feels like the spending has still hardly got started. We’ve only made four senior signings – with one of those a loan deal and one a back-up keeper. • Best buy so far: Defour. I don’t think anyone thought this was a deal we would pull off. He had a more than decent debut against Liverpool. • Jury’s out on: Patrick Bamford, if he signs. He struggled at Palace. • Dream target: We need at least three more, but we have to be realistic. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Dale Stephens join from Brighton, but we also need a midfielder and a striker. • Saddest exit: The influential David Jones going to Wednesday. Most envious of: Sean Dyche joked we were in for Pogba. But it’s pretty pointless to envy what the big clubs can do. We are who we are at this level. – Tony Scholes @utcdotcom Chelsea In: Michy Batshuayi Marseille, £33.2m; N’Golo Kanté Leicester, £32m, Eduardo Dinamo Zagreb, free. Two big deals, but we still haven’t addressed the real areas of concern, which we also failed to do last season. • Best buy so far: Early indications are that both Kanté and Batshuayi are going to slot in well – though I’ll reserve judgment until we’ve seen them against some of the big boys. • Jury’s out on: The defence. Mourinho begged for a quality defender last season and was denied; we’re led to believe it’s also Conte’s priority but again it’s been left so late. We’ve seen failed moves for Bonucci and Koulibaly, and Milan are still refusing to sell Romagnoli. • Dream target: See above – but also a left‑back, and another striker. • Saddest exit: Marko Marin – the German Messi, allegedly. I’m sad because Chelsea keep buying third-rate players then seem genuinely surprised they don’t make it. Farewell Marko; follow in the steps of Ambrosetti, the Italian Ryan Giggs… • Most envious of: City and United doing their business early with no mucking about, while we’re still penny pinching. – Trizia Fiorellino chelseasupportersgroup.net Crystal Palace In: Christian Benteke Liverpool, £32m; Andros Townsend Newcastle, £13m; Steve Mandanda Marseille, free; James Tomkins West Ham, £10m. So far, so good. All four signings targeted the key problem areas – and we should see more movement before the deadline. • Best buy so far: Benteke will be the key to what we can achieve: it’s been a few years since we’ve had a top-notch forward. The signing dragged on and dominated the summer for us. The best moment was when we reportedly offered a clause promising Liverpool more money when we qualify for the Champions League… • Jury’s out on: The ongoing lack of options up front – and the Wilfried Zaha rumours. • Dream target: Realistic options before the deadline are Loïc Rémy and Jermain Defoe, while Oliver Burke, the young Forest winger, would be a really interesting addition. • Saddest exit: We never played a system that suited Dwight Gayle – and Jedinak is an emotional loss. But Bolasie was sold at the right time for a great price. • Most envious of: I’d have loved to have Zlatan at Palace, just the pure theatre. – Chris Waters @Clapham_Grand Everton In: Yannick Bolasie Crystal Palace, £28m; Ashley Williams Swansea, £12m; Maarten Stekelenburg Fulham, undisc; Bassala Sambou Coventry, comp; Chris Renshaw Oldham, undisc; Idrissa Gueye Aston Villa, £7.1m. A very decent window so far. We’ve added four players who are clearly better than the options we already had, with talk of more to come. • Best buy so far: Idrissa Gueye is an early favourite – but I think Ashley Williams will emerge as the real star. • Jury’s out on: Yannick Bolasie, mainly because of the £28m price tag. But the price of all players has risen sky high, and I think he’ll be loved by the Gwladys Street. • Dream target: Any top-level striker to partner Lukaku, just so long as he hasn’t got a topknot. • Saddest exit: Steven Pienaar was a favourite, but sadly his legs have gone. I’m not too bothered about Stones: he asked for a transfer twice and never settled after the Chelsea saga last season. So to get £50m is good business. • Most envious of: Juve signing Gonzalo Higuaín. – Steve Jones @bluekippercom Hull In: Will Mannion, AFC Wimbledon, comp. It’s pretty easy to assess our summer spending this year. There hasn’t been any. In fact, we haven’t bought a player for 12 months. • Best buy so far: Academy keeper Will Mannion, who we pinched from AFC Wimbledon, probably wouldn’t have expected to win this category when he signed back in early July. But there’s not much competition… • Jury’s out on: Absolutely everything. It’s fair to say that the lack of any signings and the takeover talks have been the main focus of debate. • Dream target: We need half a first team. Ryan Mason from Spurs would be a good addition in midfield but generally we’ve sat by and watched the players we wanted get snapped up by rivals. • Saddest exit: We’ve only sold one player, but that was our play-off final hero Mo Diamé who ludicrously had a release clause of two gobstoppers and half a Kit Kat. That one was soul-destroying. • Most envious of: Aston Villa buying our James Chester from West Brom. We needed a centre-half urgently, too. – Rick Skelton @HullCityLive Leicester In: Nampalys Mendy Nice, £13m; Ron-Robert Zieler Hannover 96, £2.6m; Luis Hernández Sporting Gijon, free; Raul Uche Rubio Rayo Vallecano, undisc; Ahmed Musa CSKA Moscow, £16m; Bartosz Kapustka Cracovia, £7.5m. We’ve showed ambition – but more bodies would help us through a congested schedule this season. • Best buy so far: Ahmed Musa is a star – his pace suits us exceptionally well. • Jury’s out on: Luis Hernández had looked strong in pre-season but a weak performance at Hull has led to criticism. Fans are split on whether his experience and long throw are enough to supplant Danny Simpson. • Dream target: I’d love Porto striker Vincent Aboubakar. But we’re looking lightest in midfield - if rumours linking us to Roma’s Leandro Paredes are accurate, he’d be welcome. • Saddest exit: Without a doubt, N’Golo Kanté. Any side would miss a player of his calibre but the saddest part was the way he tarnished his reputation here – he’s now widely regarded as a traitor. • Most envious of: United landing Ibrahimovic. A phenomenal signing. – Chris Whiting @ChrisRWhiting Liverpool In: Sadio Mané Southampton, £36m; Loris Karius Mainz, £4.7m; Joel Matip Schalke, free; Ragnar Klavan Augsburg, undisc; Georginio Wijnaldum Newcastle, £25m; Alex Manninger free. We haven’t spent a ton, and we’ve recouped most of it (though the details of what Palace paid for Benteke aren’t easy to work out). That’s the situation we’re used to now but Klopp’s known for developing talent so I feel confident. • Best buy so far: Mané and Wijnaldum look like they will both be good for us and seem to have slotted in right away. • Jury’s out on: It’s who we haven’t signed that has caused most comment. There’s still a lot of fretting going on about needing a left-back. • Dream target: Ricardo Rodríguez from Wolfsburg would do nicely. • Saddest exit: No one really. It’s not as though we’ve sold on a club great. I’d have kept Joe Allen maybe, rather than a midfielder we have kept, and will miss Kolo Touré’s craziness. • Most envious of: City signing Claudio Bravo. – Steph Jones Manchester City In: Ilkay Gündogan Borussia D, £21m; Nolito Celta Vigo, £13.8m; Oleksandr Zinchenko FK Ufa, undisc; Aaron Mooy Melbourne City, free; Leroy Sané Schalke, £37m; Gabriel Jesus Palmeiras, £27m; Marlos Moreno Atletico Nacional, £4.75m; John Stones Everton, £47.5m; Claudio Bravo Barcelona, £15.4m. We’ve struck a fine balance: some seasoned performers (Gündogan, Nolito, Bravo), and some of the world’s very best young talent (Stones, Sané and Gabriel Jesus). • Best buy so far: Stones has taken to Guardiola’s system like a duck to water. He’s going to become some player. • Jury’s out on: Claudio Bravo. Many fans still don’t buy into Pep’s concept of what a keeper should be, but I do – and on that basis, I think Bravo’s a great fit. • Dream target: No one. Our business is done. • Saddest exit: He’s not quite gone yet, but Joe Hart. He can rest assured that he’ll leave a bona fide City legend. He fully deserved that touching send-off he received on Wednesday night. • Most envious of: Southampton’s deal for Sofiane Boufal. He’s a mesmeric dribbler. – Lloyd Scragg @lloyd_scragg Manchester United In: Paul Pogba Juventus, £89m; Zlatan Ibrahimovic free; Eric Bailly Villarreal, £30m; Henrikh Mkhitaryan Borussia Dortmund, £26.3m. It’s been a fantastic window – we’ve added steel, experience and class. Zlatan has that aura we’ve not felt since Cantona was strutting his stuff, and Bailly has been superb too, steadying a vulnerable defence. • Best buy so far: Pogba. Too many fans were upset that we’ve paid so much for a player who left for nothing; the fact is we’ve signed the best young midfielder in the world and finally replaced Roy Keane. We’ll also make a profit when we sell him to Madrid in four years’ time… • Jury’s out on: The defence: we still need experience alongside Bailly. • Dream target: Ezequiel Garay has been linked before. I’d like Bonucci, too, but I just can’t see Juventus selling him to us. Unfortunately, we’ll probably end up settling for Southampton’s Fonte. • Saddest exit: Paddy McNair. I thought he was a decent ball-playing, homegrown centre-back. He’ll have a decent career. • Most envious of: I can see Michy Batshuayi having a massive impact at Chelsea. – Shaun O’Donnell Middlesbrough In: Marten de Roon Atalanta, £12m; Viktor Fischer Ajax, £3.8m; Bernardo Espinosa Sporting Gijon, free; Jordan McGhee Hearts, loan; Victor Valdes free; Álvaro Negredo Valencia, loan; Brad Guzan Aston Villa, free; Gastón Ramírez, free. We’ve signed a mix of experience and potential, and we’ve done so early enough to bed everyone in over the summer. • Best buy so far: It’ll probably turn out to be the permanent capture of our former loanee, Gastón Ramírez. • Jury’s out on: Brad Guzan. We had a very solid keeper for the last two seasons in Dimi Konstantopoulos; Guzan has started this season in the same dubious form as he ended the last with Villa. • Dream target: Just some solid extra back-up in midfield and defence. • Saddest exit: We’re still waiting to see who departs before the window shuts this week – but if we lose Jordan Rhodes or Adam Reach I’ll be disappointed. • Most envious of: Everton signing Ashley Williams and Chelsea landing N’Golo Kanté. And Nampalys Mendy is really going to excite Leicester fans this season. – Robert Nichols fmttm.com Southampton In: Nathan Redmond Norwich, £11m; Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg Bayern M, undisc; Kieran Freeman Dundee Utd, comp; Alex McCarthy C Palace, £4m; Jérémy Pied Nice, undisc; Stuart Taylor free. The deals we’ve done have been positive, but we’re still perhaps one or two short. • Best buy so far: Assuming the Sofiane Boufal deal goes through that fills the Sadio Mané-shaped hole. • Jury’s out on: We’re in a weird and slightly unnerving scenario where everyone seems pretty happy with the players we’ve signed. • Dream target: We need another centre-forward to replace Pellè, especially if Rodriguez is loaned out too. I thought Christian Benteke would be ideal, but not at that ludicrous price – so perhaps Wilfried Bony is the better option. • Saddest exit: Mané was possibly the most exciting player I’ve ever had the privilege of watching on a regular basis. • Most envious of: Zlatan. I’ve seen him play live twice, and he’s scored six goals against my teams, Saints and England. Ridiculously good. – Steve Grant @SteveGrant1983 Stoke In: Joe Allen Liverpool, £13m; Ramadan Sobhi Al Ahly, £5m. New signings have been a little thin on the ground so far. We’re hoping for a busy couple of days. • Best buy so far: We weren’t necessarily crying out for a player in Joe Allen’s position, but you can’t deny his quality. • Jury’s out on: The goalkeeping department – and the lack of a signing there to solve the problem. With Jack Butland coming back from injury, Shay Given getting no younger and rookie Jakob Haugaard struggling at the end of last season, the lack of depth there is worrying. It caught us out last season and could again this season. • Dream target: Saido Berahino. He has been Mark Hughes’s No1 target all summer and it looks to be going down to the deadline again. But I’m confident he’ll be a Potter by this time next week. • Saddest exit: Peter Odemwingie. The training ground will be a less happy place without his infectious smile. • Most envious of: Southampton signing Nathan Redmond. I think he’d have been a star for us. – Rob Holloway Sunderland In: Paddy McNair Manchester United, £2.75m; Donald Love Manchester United, £2.75m; Adnan Januzaj Manchester United, loan; Steven Pienaar Everton, free; Javier Manquillo Atlético Madrid, loan I’m not happy. Spending ha’pennies and coppers won’t keep us in the top-flight. • Best buy so far: Januzaj – mainly because he’s the only one most fans have heard of. • Jury’s out on: It’s more the non-signings than actual signings that have caused the debate – particularly the failure (so far) to re-employ Yann M’Vila and the situation regarding Lamine Koné. Questions are also being asked about Love and McNair’s suitability for this division. • Dream target: A right-back, a centre-half, a wide-right player and a striker to play with or replace Defoe. I thought Alfie Mawson at Barnsley would fit the bill at the back – then he joined Swansea. • Saddest exit: I’m disappointed that Kaboul felt that Hertfordshire was more congenial than County Durham. • Most envious of: It would have been fun seeing Ibrahimovic trying to get a Sunderland player to put a decent cross in. – Peter Sixsmith SalutSunderland.com Swansea In: Leroy Fer QPR, £4.75m; Mike van der Hoorn Ajax, undisc; Mark Birighitti Newcastle Jets, free; Tyler Reid Manchester United, undisc; George Byers Watford, free; Borja González Atletico Madrid, £15.5m; Fernando Llorente Sevilla undisc. The window could have been worse, but it should have been a lot better. Apart from up front, we’ve not really signed anyone yet who improves our first team. • Best buy so far: Hopefully Llorente and Borja will help replace Ayew’s goals. • Jury’s out on: We need Borja to be scoring as soon as he’s available after injury. • Dream target: Top priority remains an experienced replacement for Ashley Williams, but it sounds like young Alfie Mawson will complete our business. He may be an excellent prospect, but I’m not sure he’ll be challenging just yet. • Saddest exit: Our captain was with us for eight years. We’ll miss his influence and we won’t be the same without him. We’ve seen glimpses of that already. • Most envious of: Fans weren’t happy when we didn’t bother competing with Stoke to bring back Joe Allen and went with the cheaper option of Leroy Fer instead. – Kevin Elphick Swansea.vitalfootball.co.uk Tottenham In: Vincent Janssen AZ Alkmaar, £18.6m; Victor Wanyama Southampton, £11m. I was pleased we strengthened in midfield and up front before the season started – it’s just a shame we’re still trying to sign key players three Saturdays into it. • Best buy so far: Remains to be seen. At the time of writing, the midfielder has scored and the striker hasn’t. • Jury’s out on: There’s general agreement that Janssen coming on at Everton coincided with the attack becoming more potent – but I can foresee exchanges of views on Wanyama when Dembélé is back from serving his sentence. • Dream target: A top-class creative midfielder. At the high end of the market Isco seems unsettled at Real, and we’re linked with Calhanoglu from Bayer Leverkusen. Both are exciting young prospects. And Wilfried Zaha’s pace and dribbling would give us a much-needed extra option for unlocking defences. • Saddest exit: I was sorry Grant Ward went. He played 40 games on loan at Rotherham last season and was their young player of the year. He scored a hat-trick on his debut for Ipswich. • Most envious of: United and Zlatan. – Dave Mason Watford In: Roberto Pereyra Juventus, £13m; Younès Kaboul Sunderland, £3.5m; Isaac Success Granada, £12.5m; Christian Kabasele Genk, £5.8m; Jerome Sinclair Liverpool, free; Juan Camilo Zuniga Napoli, loan; Brice Dja Djedje Marseille, £3m; Daryl Janmaat Newcastle, £7m. The Pozzos certainly can’t be accused of not backing their man. Our outlay in fees dwarfs anything that’s come before, with three deals to date eclipsing the previous transfer record. • Best buy so far: Pereyra was the summer’s most anxiously awaited signing in that an already conservative midfield had lost its two most creative players. No debate that his arrival was a Good Thing – and his debut goal underlined that. • Jury’s out on: There’s been no time for doubts so far – we’ve yet to catch a breath. • Dream target: If I’m being greedy, another creative midfielder would be nice. Sofiane Boufal has been a target, but others like him too. • Saddest exit: Almen Abdi is an elegant genius who dug in in an unfamiliar wide role last year. He would have relished a central role in Mazzarri’s 3-5-2. • Most envious of: Zlatan’s a rock star. He’ll be lots of fun. – Matt Rowson @mattrowson West Brom In: Matt Phillips QPR, £5.5m; Brendan Galloway Everton, loan. A shocking transfer window so far. Our biggest, and only, permanent deal of the summer came in at a modest £5.5m. We’ll see what happens this week. • Best buy so far: By default, Matt Phillips. • Jury’s out on: We’ve been after a left-back here since Derek Statham hung up his boots, so not buying one yet again and just loaning in 20-year-old Brendan Galloway from Everton has caused plenty of debate. He’s a really good lad, but come on… • Dream target: Islam Slimani from Sporting Lisbon. He’s in demand, though. • Saddest exit: It was a real shame that we never got to see James Chester play properly. I think he counts as the strangest transfer and subsequent sale in many a year. • Most envious of: Palace signing Benteke. We needed a striker badly and with the takeover we thought we were going to pull this off as a statement of intent. It wasn’t to be. – Richard Jefferson @richbaggie West Ham In: André Ayew Swansea, £20.5m; Manuel Lanzini Al-Jazira, £9.4m; Arthur Masuaku Olympiakos, £6m; Toni Martínez Valencia, £2.25m; Jonathan Calleri D Maldonado, loan; Havard Nordtveit Borussia Mönchengladbach, free; Sofiane Feghouli Valencia, free; Gokhan Tore Besiktas, loan; Domingos Quina Chelsea free; Ashley Fletcher Manchester United, free; Edimilson Fernandes Sion, £5m. We’ve had terrible luck with £20.5m André Ayew’s injury. The stockpiling of right-wingers in Feghouli and Tore is a bit mystifying as we already had a great winger in Antonio, but Slaven seems determined to turn him into a right-back. Fletcher and Calleri are promising, though the latter has flopped so far. Left-back Masuaku has impressed early on. • Best buy so far: Despite all the above, the biggest deal was to keep Dimitri Payet. • Jury’s out on: Havard Nordtveit hasn’t yet looked an upgrade as a defensive shield. • Dream target: With Ayew and – aaaargh! – Carroll out again, we need a striker. If the deal for Italy’s Zaza goes through that’d be exciting, as long as he doesn’t take penalties. • Saddest exit: No one here wanted to see James Tomkins go. • Most envious of: United. I wouldn’t mind Ibrahimovic up front feeding off Payet. – Pete May hammersintheheart.blogspot.co.uk
Closing the Gap: 'we are sick and tired of going to funerals' say Indigenous groups The co-chair of the National Congress of Australia’s First Peoples, Jackie Huggins, expresses succinctly the frustration felt by many Indigenous communities. “We are sick and tired of going to funerals on a very regular basis. We want it to stop for our people,” she said, while delivering the Close the Gap committee’s verdict on the government’s progress report on Indigenous affairs. The Closing the Gap report, tabled in Parliament on Wednesday, showed that no major gains have been made in life expectancy for Australia’s first peoples over the past 12 months. Only two of seven targets – cutting infant mortality and getting more students to finish high school – are on track to be met. Overall, Indigenous Australians are more likely to be uneducated, unemployed and die younger than their non-Indigenous counterparts. “Try living in our shoes; we’re living with frustrations every day,” the social justice commissioner, Mick Gooda, said. The report is in its eighth year and highlights the social disadvantage faced by many Indigenous Australians. Despite some of its bleak findings, Gooda was optimistic that changes could be achieved. He welcomed moves by the prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, to take a more consultative approach to Indigenous affairs. “We’re intelligent people who can handle complex issues. We’ve been doing that all of our lives,” Good said. “I think what we saw today is a resetting of the engagement of Aboriginal and Torres Strait islanders in this process.” “We really need to hear the voices of our people,” Huggins said. “We are decent, dignified human beings; we expect the best and we expect what is afforded to other people in this country.” Gooda said governments should not fear having difficult conversations with community leaders about how to do more with less cash in a tight fiscal environment. “We’re not having those conversations because I think they’re scared of us,” he said. The president of the Australian Medical Association, Brian Owler, said that governments must tap into the deep knowledge of Aboriginal experts if they wanted to achieve health outcomes for Indigenous people. “We need consistent funding and support from all governments to reach Close the Gap targets,” Owler said. “There must be genuine engagement with Aboriginal community controlled health services in the delivery of health services for Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander peoples.” Oxfam’s Indigenous policy adviser, Peter Lewis, warned that “chopping and changing health policy at this point would be destructive”. He wants the government to commit to funding the health implementation plan. “It’s unclear if it will be funded in the 2016 federal budget,” he said. Labor has reiterated its call for the introduction of a new target aimed at reducing the number of Indigenous Australians in jail and juvenile detention. “We walked free, once many years ago in this country, but now my mob are locked up,” Aboriginal senator Nova Peris said. The Law Council of Australia labelled the incarceration rate as “a national crisis that requires national leadership”. “The rate of imprisonment of Aboriginal people has increased by over 57% since the year 2000, and women and children are the fastest growing cohort,” the president of the council, Stuart Clarke, said. “The link between disadvantage, crime, and imprisonment is already well established among criminologists. The link between adverse health outcomes and imprisonment has recently been highlighted by the Australian Medical Association. What is lacking is genuine intergovernmental commitment and cooperation toward addressing this fundamental problem.” The Greens said that the government had to put its money where its mouth is and fund critical programs. “Until the government reinstates much-needed federal funding for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander services that they ripped from the 2014-15 budget, and commits to fund the health implementation plan, attempts to Close the Gap will fail,” Senator Rachel Siewert said. Huggins warned Turnbull that Indigenous Australians would “hold him to his word” on his pledge to improve the lives of the nation’s first peoples. “We look forward to starting a new chapter for our people, because things can not progress as they have,” she said.
Junior doctor quits live on TV as BMA considers permanent strike The British Medical Association has not ruled out staging a permanent junior doctors’ strike and mass resignation of trainees ahead of this week’s 48-hour walkout, which for the first time will include A&E units, in the dispute over new contracts. On Monday, a day before the unprecedented action is due to start, a junior doctor announced his intention to resign live on television over the government’s imposition of the contract. Dr Ben White told ITV’s Good Morning Britain he would be leaving his post to focus on fighting the contract. White, who is one of a group doctors seeking a high court challenge against the contract, said: “I have taken the decision that I am resigning as a trainee doctor to focus on a legal campaign to fight the contract on behalf of my patients and on behalf of the NHS.” He added: “I really feel like we have been backed into a corner and there’s not a lot of sense coming out of the government’s side of things.” Meanwhile, the BMA chairman, Mark Porter, confirmed that junior doctors were considering possible mass resignations as a way of escalating the dispute. Emails from the association’s junior doctors committee leaked to the Health Service Journal last week outlined possible ways the action could be stepped up, including a permanent walkout, the mass resignation of trainees and a recommendation that doctors seek jobs outside the NHS. Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Porter said: “There is a lot of discussion among junior doctors about what steps might be taken if the government fails to respond to the industrial action this week, and no decisions have yet been taken which means they are all possible, but that doesn’t mean they are all likely or are going to happen.” Porter accused the health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, of mudslinging by claiming that junior doctors would be putting lives at risk if they go ahead with the planned all-out 48-hour strike which is due to start at 8am on Tuesday. The NHS has already cancelled 125,000 operations and appointments in preparation. Porter said: “The health secretary is trying to find some way to throw mud at the junior doctors of this country who have been providing weekend and night emergency cover since the NHS started.” He added: “It is not true that emergency care is being withdrawn on Tuesday and Wednesday. It is true that junior doctors won’t be providing it, but hospitals across England will be full of senior doctors who will be delivering that care.” Porter accused Hunt of refusing negotiate about averting a strike by ruling out discussion over the new contract. “The government has left junior doctors no alternative other than what’s happening this week. “We have said repeatedly and always said that we will call off the strike if the government will call off the imposition. By contrast, the government has said, over the weekend, that there is nothing that will get it to call off the imposition.” Clare Marx, the president of the Royal College of Surgeons, urged both sides to agree to talks, but said she would not contemplate strike action herself if she were a junior doctor. “I personally would not countenance a situation where I would be withdrawing my labour,” she told Today. “I know there are many doctors who are having great difficulty in justifying withdrawing labour from emergencies and undoubtedly those doctors will not walk out tomorrow.” She added: “I would just urge the government and the BMA to get into talks together at this very last stage, to try to make a resolution by each of them recognising that the patients need to be cared for … and it is not about winning on either side. At the moment they are both losing.” Hunt rejected an eleventh-hour compromise, produced by a cross-party group of MPs, that would have led to the strike being called off in return for his agreement to pilot his controversial changes to junior doctors’ terms and conditions. The olive branch, which was backed by the BMA, was offered in a letter from Heidi Alexander, the shadow health secretary; the Lib Dem MP and former coalition health minister Norman Lamb; Dr Dan Poulter, a Conservative MP and, like Lamb, a member of Hunt’s ministerial team until last May; and Dr Philippa Whitford, an SNP MP who is also an NHS breast cancer doctor. Hunt dismissed the plan, saying on his Twitter feed: “Labour ‘plan’ is opportunism. Any further delay [to imposing the contract] just means we will take longer to eliminate [the] weekend effect [of higher death rates among patients admitted to hospital on a Saturday or Sunday].”
Irish PM warns Brexit talks between UK and EU could turn vicious Ireland’s prime minister has warned that Brexit negotiations between Britain and the rest of the European Union could turn vicious. Enda Kenny also predicted that Theresa May might respond to pressure from within the Tory party and trigger article 50 to eject the UK from the EU before next spring. Kenny told an audience of politicians, business leaders, trade unionists and community organisations in Dublin on Wednesday that May has agreed with him that there would be “no return to the borders of the past” after Brexit. Speaking at an all-island conference on Brexit’s impact on Ireland, north and south, Kenny said he had an assurance from the British prime minister that there would be “no hard border” between the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland, and that the retention of an open border was a critical element of negotiations. “Neither I nor the prime minister desire to limit the freedom of people on both sides of the Irish sea to trade, live, work and travel freely across these islands,” he said. “Therefore we have agreed that the benefits of the common travel area be preserved.” Kenny said Brexit was the greatest challenge facing his country since the creation of the Irish state after gaining independence from Britain. On the subject of hostility towards the UK, he said: “The other side of this argument may well get quite vicious after a while, because there are those around the European table who take a very poor view of the fact that Britain decided to leave.” Sounding a sombre note as he wrapped up the first session of the conference, he urged the leaders of his fellow EU countries not to become “obsessed” over what Britain may or may not get in the discussions. Kenny said that otherwise “Europe itself could lose the plot” over where it wants to go over the next 50 years. All leaders of the nationalist political parties on the island, including Sinn Féin’s Gerry Adams, are attending the Dublin conference. However, there is no significant representation from the unionist community. Both the Democratic Unionists – the largest party in Northern Ireland – and the Ulster Unionists are boycotting the event. The DUP, under Northern Ireland’s first minister, Arlene Foster, backed a Brexit vote in the June referendum, while the UUP urged its support base to back the remain side. A majority of votes – 56% – cast in Northern Ireland in the EU referendum were in favour of remaining. Ireland’s foreign minister, Charlie Flanagan, stressed that Dublin would press the British for a fully open, “invisible” border on the island even after the UK left the EU. The re-emergence of border controls, security checks, closed secondary roads and customs posts would enrage nationalist opinion on either side of the Irish frontier. The peace process over the past 25 years has resulted in the Irish border becoming virtually invisible with few restrictions. Referring to an open border, Flanagan said: “I am looking primarily to the views of business leaders, particularly in the border area, in a border that sees in excess of 30,000 people every day cross to work, to go to college, to go to school or indeed for family relations. “It is vitally important in the context of the [Brexit] negotiations next year that the matter of the invisibility of the border between Northern Ireland and Ireland is not only featured but is both preserved and maintained.” Flanagan said it was a “missed opportunity” on the part of unionists for refusing to attend the conference. Flanagan and Kenny will be in Belfast on Thursday to meet all the party leaders in Northern Ireland. Flanagan said this was in preparation for a crucial north-south ministerial council meeting in Armagh on 18 November. The north-south ministerial council is one of the key strands of the 1998 Good Friday agreement, which deals with all-island relations between the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland. Unlike Wednesday’s conference in Dublin, DUP ministers will attend the event in Armagh. Dave Anderson, Labour’s shadow Northern Ireland secretary, said Kenny’s comments “show the huge level of concern in both the north and south of Ireland”. “Any hardening of the border will hurt the Northern Ireland economy but it will also disrupt the lives of the many people who live and work in border area,” he said. “That is why it is so vital that parliament has to get a grip over this process. We look forward to seeing the plans that the government has now committed to bringing before the House as soon as possible.” A Downing Street spokesman said May had been clear the UK did not want to see a return to borders of the past. “The arrangement that currently exists has served both sides of that border extremely well and we have no desire, and neither does the Irish government, to change that. We want to have constructive dialogue with all member states, a mature debate about the key areas as we negotiate an exit from the EU. What’s important is that it’s as smooth a transition as possible.” The spokesman said nothing had changed on the timing of Article 50, and that it would not be triggered any later than March next year, though May’s previous statement, that it would not be triggered before the end of 2016, still stood as well.
My morning with Anton Yelchin: 'I have an overabundance of emotion' It was impossible not to be moved by the death, last month, of Anton Yelchin: a winning 27-year-old who clearly had so much more to give. Later this month sees the release in the US of Star Trek Beyond – Yelchin’s most high-profile movie to be released posthumously. Next week, meanwhile, comes the DVD release of Green Room, one of the most critically acclaimed of the actor’s recent efforts, and a movie whose success he, happily, lived to see. I met him in May last year, one sunny morning at the Cannes film festival, when he was friendly and funny, and perhaps a little fragile from the previous night’s party. When he first greeted me, his voice had the raw rasp of someone who had recently been singing at the top of their lungs. Perhaps he had. After all, the cast had good reason to celebrate. Jeremy Saulnier’s drama – a punkish follow-up to the director’s acclaimed debut Blue Ruin – had premiered in the Director’s Fortnight to a riotous reception. In the film, Yelchin plays Pat, the bass player of punk band the Ain’t Rights, who find themselves trapped backstage at a neo-Nazi club as a gang of murderous skinheads, led by Patrick Stewart, lay siege. Yelchin reported that the experience of working with the Trek elder was “very inspiring”. “Not necessarily seeking advice from him, but just soaking in his being,” he said. “How he carries himself, what his values are at this point in life. He’s very gracious and very funny too ... We talked about Russian novels.” Born in Leningrad, where his parents were acclaimed ice skaters, Yelchin was raised in the US, where they moved when he was six months old. At nine, he’d landed his first movie role, despite his parents “pushing me into sports … Acting was something I genuinely always loved,” he said. “It’s funny: when I have to be athletic for a film, I can do it. But if I go to play sports, I suck. My parents made me try and I was terrible. They tell me they saw me and said, ‘Oh no.’” Yelchin, a fluent Russian speaker, was eager to speak about Russian literature, to which he said he felt connected, to its “mood, the emotional nature … The things I read in Crime and Punishment,” he continued, “I don’t know if it’s because it’s Russian, or because it’s Dostoevsky and everyone reads him and says ‘Holy fucking shit!’, but in terms of being proud of a cultural heritage, that’s what I’m proud of. There are certain things about the Russian culture and the Russian ethos that I can relate to. It’s an overabundance of emotion.” The same, he said, goes for cinema, too. “You can see that in Tarkovsky. No matter how cerebral the films are, at their core they are incredibly emotional. The emotion is shrouded in the magic and mystery of his film-making, but when I watch them I am so moved by them because, at their core, they are incredibly passionate about our being and our presence on this earth.” He sipped a sorely-needed coffee and puzzled at the thought. “It’s a very Russian thing to be incredibly cerebral, and simultaneously have this overabundance of feeling. I relate to that. My favourite composers are people like Rachmaninov. I listen to that and it’s like: Fuck! That’s too much feeling!” Extremes of emotion can also be found in the music of Green Room … though not exactly Rachmaninov. Like his director, Yelchin was, he said, a passionate and knowledgeable fan of punk, playing guitar for a time in a punk band called the Hammerheads with Tom Petty’s son. “I love that music,” he nodded with a happy grin. “I love thrash, grindcore, Cowcatcher and hardcore. My band does a lot of 30-second songs, 90s, late-80s hardcore. It has more shifts. I love learning all that stuff on bass. And I love Dead Kennedys. Nazi Punks is one of my favourite songs.” The song features in one of the best scenes of the movie as does a repeated question about desert island groups. Yelchin reported his as being the Misfits and Bad Brains – as far as punk went, at least. He also professed love for BB King “and Ray Charles I listen to all day”. For someone defined on screen by the sensitivity of their presence, and who took his work – and that of others – very seriously, it was encouraging how lighthearted Yelchin seemed in the flesh. For instance, he joked about being a skinhead in disguise, then nervously clarified that he was kidding, perhaps remembering the fate of the likes of Lars von Trier, declared persona non grata from the festival after a badly received gag about sympathising with Hitler. “I’ll get banned from Cannes! Yeah, seriously, I was kidding just then. I’m Jewish for Christ’s sake!” In fact, proximity to the Nazi paraphernalia on the set troubled him deeply. “Seeing all the images Jeremy [Saulnier] collected … I don’t like that. I think it’s important to consider the historical and ideological roots of that belief so we can understand it, so we can fight it and enlighten people as to why it’s so fucking ridiculous, but I don’t go to seek it out. Some people fetishise that kind of thing and I don’t. I find it really repulsive. Being around the props and the stuff makes you feel bad, seeing the swastikas every day – it’s gross.” Green Room is the kind of edgy, credible material in which Yelchin shone, light years from the blockbuster fame Star Trek delivered in 2009, as he entered his 20s. He spoke with affection of doing a tiny film, Porto, in Portugal earlier that year. “One hundredth ... no, sorry, one thousandth of the budget of a Star Trek. But there are certain kinds of film you can’t make for a quarter of a million dollars. Star Trek would be a different movie if it cost a quarter of a million dollars. It’d just be us on a cardboard set.” Yelchin became most enthused about the franchise not when I brought up getting his own action figure, but when he spoke of the technical training he had absorbed just being on set. “It’s a good group of people. I’d feel differently if it wasn’t. If it wasn’t JJ [Abrams], I’d probably be less inclined to feel that way but I still think everything is something you learn from, even if it sucks. Especially if it sucks.” Sadly, we shall never see the fruits of this careful observation: Yelchin was due to shoot his directorial debut, Travis, later this month. Instead, we have his wonderful performances to savour, including in five as-yet-unseen films. And I’m lucky enough to have the memory of 20 optimistic minutes in the company of this charming and confident young man. Slightly wary, too. “And seriously,” he said, shaking my hand goodbye, “I was just kidding about the skinhead thing…” Green Room is released on DVD on 12 July; Star Trek Beyond is in cinemas from 21 July in Australia, and 22 July in the UK and US
Busted on reforming: ‘People don’t get why we are here again … they know how it ended’ It wouldn’t be an overstatement to say Charlie Simpson has had a change of heart. After he left Busted in 2005, he compared his time in the pop-punk boy band to “torture” and insisted he would never, under any circumstances, rejoin. Last May, though, he found himself headlining Wembley Arena with Busted in front of 12,500 fans. That’s some U-turn. Simpson is now gearing up for the release of the third Busted album, Night Driver – 13 years after its predecessor, A Present for Everyone. The trio come with a reinvented look and sound: gone are buoyant guitars and questionable lyrics about shagging teachers and jizzing in pants. Instead, Busted 2.0 play pop-aligned R&B, like Maroon 5 channelling Get Lucky. The wacky facial expressions of their teens are replaced by brooding, faraway gazes; their schoolboy shirts by satin bombers. Think Ryan Gosling in Drive, only with more baggage. At YouTube’s London headquarters, a multi-screen video wall is playing clips of seven-year-old singers and famous vloggers gesticulating, while Charli XCX booms from the speakers. The group is here to launch the record’s debut single, On What You’re On. It is a good song, I say. “Shock horror!” Simpson replies. How do they feel about people perhaps not having high expectations for their return? “That’s a loaded question, but I like it,” replies Matt Willis. “It feels good. I’m kind of at this point where I can’t wait for people to hear it,” Simpson says. ”It’s such a funny thing that I think people still don’t really get why we are here again, because they know the story of why it ended. It seems crazy that it might happen again.” James Bourne and Willis formed the group in 2000. Simpson came later, in time for them to be launched as a pop-punk boy band in 2002, and also departed first. Bourne and Willis barely spoke to Simpson for the decade they were apart. Then, one day in early 2013, they arrived on his doorstep to ask if he fancied giving Busted another shot. At this stage, Bourne and Willis had already committed to the McBusted tours of 2014 and 2015, a team up with their former proteges McFly, a lucrative run of dates that proved there was still an appetite for pop punk boybands, even if the groups concerned were no longer boys. Simpson, to their surprise, was interested in re-forming their original group. One might suspect the prospect of earning decent money might have played a part in his decision. Did it? “There are plenty of things over the years that I could have done for the money,” replies Simpson. Such as? “Well for a start … what Matt and James did with the McFly guys. If there was ever a time for a massive amount of money to be made then that would be it. It wasn’t on my radar.” Details of the split are sketchy. The group, particularly Bourne and Simpson, seem keen to gloss over the past and concentrate on the future. Simpson left at the peak of their success, and you get the feeling from previous interviews that Bourne never really got closure, which hurt. He speaks of his time apart from Simpson – hearing songs on taxi radios, wondering whether Simpson might like them, too – with the kind of misty-eyed lament you imagine Marr and Morrissey would relate to. In the intervening decade, they have all kept busy, but never matched their former band’s fame. Simpson released one solo album and four with Fightstar, a venture that largely revolved around convincing the music press that he was rock enough. Bourne meanwhile launched a string of solo albums under guises such as Son of Dork, Future Boy and Call Me When I’m 18, and wrote some musical theatre. A natural pop hit songwriter, he also co-wrote tracks for the Saturdays, the Vamps, 5 Seconds of Summer and McFly. Willis made a solo album, appeared in Birds of a Feather and EastEnders and was crowned king of the jungle on I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here in 2006. While Bourne felt “lost”, and finally relocated to the US in 2008, having spent a lot of time there, Simpson (who had formed Fightstar while still in Busted) says he was close to depression and turned to drink and drugs before he left. Willis, meanwhile, was admitted into the Priory in 2005 for alcohol abuse, and a year later for an addiction to weed. In 2008, he returned to rehab again. It’s something his wife, Emma Willis, spoke about in a documentary made in the run-up to the McBusted tour. She was naturally a little nervous about him going back out on the road. Given everything they have gone through, is it difficult for family members to see the band back together again? “Different when you’re younger, different when you’re younger,” Bourne says. “I think everything is different when you’re younger,” Willis agrees. “Very different,” says Simpson. “It’s a very weird thing to suddenly be in something enormous. Then for it to suddenly end. It’s hard to vocalise,” Willis says. “It’s also weird because our perspectives were so drastically different,” Simpson suggests. “It affected us in different ways. It’s such a wide thing because we had such different things going on in our heads; different issues to deal with. And to be young in that situation … as hard as it is being young, you are also very naive, so you sort of take it more at face value. Now I know so much more about the industry, I know so much more about how things work.” Bourne: “It’s night and day. You can’t compare it.” Simpson: “What happened to us was 10 years ago, and I do want to move it past that.” They are adamant that everything happens for a reason. Breaking up was a good thing because it meant they could preserve their friendship, and ultimately make this album, the album they wanted to make, without a label or any pressure. “Had we stayed in the band, we would have driven our friendship into the ground,” says Simpson. “We probably wouldn’t have talked to each other again. It’s the only way this could have happened now, and I do quite want to move it on past talking about that because we are here to talk about something new and exciting.” A week or so later, we meet again at their rehearsal space. The mood is a little less intense. First time around, Busted were lumped in with the manufactured pop groups of their era; they were never really treated as a legitimate band. Perhaps that had something to do with the songs about jizzing in pants. But there was also a suspicion among the champions of “real music” about a group who could sell 5m albums and appear on Saturday morning TV. And they did get really famous, really fast; the sort of famous where you get disconcerting fan gifts: “On a birthday card,” says Willis, “someone had shaved their pubes and sellotaped it to the side. With her number.” “We didn’t know how to open our mail,” Bourne recalls of their time living together as teens. “I think our cleaner once found some crazy cheque from a publishing company that nobody knew was there – it was just sitting there in our mail, this massive cheque that nobody saw.” Having a support structure was never even on the agenda. “After being signed, we used to get the tube in, the Piccadilly line to the West End. We would just ride the tube in,” he recalls. “When the single came out, people started to recognise us. [Before then we] operated quite simply.” “We didn’t know that shit was available. It wasn’t like: ‘Why don’t we have a person?’ I remember when we went to see One Direction, I saw their setup and was, like … ‘Woah!’ we were just kind of rolling around getting on with shit,” adds Willis. Nevertheless, Bourne says, even if they had assembled a support team, it would not have protected them from the effects of their escalating fame. “It doesn’t matter how well you think you are looked after or how happy you think you are at the time. The only way you really learn things is when you go through things. You know you have to … it’s an experience you learn yourself. It’s up to you to flag the things.” Busted still seem preoccupied with being taken seriously. They describe the recent spate of “big reunion” re-formations of pop bands as “tragic”; they say they don’t care about the success of Night Driver; they insist they would happily play in tiny venues if that were the only path open to them. You get the feeling they’re keen to erase a past that is too potent to ignore. “Funnily enough, when we were out at a dinner I put on this fucking shit video from Busted back in the day, this thing of us hanging out, and someone filmed us and I was like, ‘Who the fuck is that guy?’” Willis says. “You’re so young, 16, 17, you’re not really yourself yet. You’re copying other people. Your whole existence is made up from being what you’re supposed to be like,” Bourne says. “A lot of that is that when you are 17, all you really give a shit about is what your mates think of you,” Willis says. “I just wanted my mates to think I was cool. Some of of them did and some of them did not. But now I don’t give a fuck.” Their attitudes aren’t the only things that have evolved with time. Culture for one, has moved on. In a review of Busted’s show in London in May, the Daily Telegraph suggested the song Who’s David had dated badly, with its misogynistic undertones (“You stupid lying bitch, who’s David?”) all the more uncomfortable coming from people who no longer had the excuse of being teenagers. “What do you mean, misogynistic undertones?” asks Bourne. “You can’t say stupid lying bitch any more,” Willis replies. “Really?” Bourne says. Simpson: “As you say, society has changed hugely. Much more PC.” Willis: “Basically, it’s not cool to call women bitches any more.” Simpson: “I’m not sure it ever was.” Willis: “That was kind of the point.” Bourne: “Even if they lie?” Willis: “Even if they have been a bitch to you.” Bourne: “Even if she cheats on you, is she not a bitch?” Simpson: “Derogotary terminology. Anyway, we would never write lyrics like that. We’re different people to the people we were. We were little kids back then.” “It’s the difference between being 18 and 33, it’s that different,” concludes Bourne, on board with third-wave feminsim, on board with an all-new Busted. Night Driver is out now on East West.
Melania Trump defends husband's 'boy talk' in CNN interview – as it happened Speaking to CNN’s Anderson Cooper in her first televised interview since the release of video that showed her husband bragging about sexually assaulting women, Melania Trump defended her husband’s “boy talk” as having been “egged on” by a television interviewer. “I said to my husband that, you know, the language was unappropriate,” Trump said. “It’s not acceptable. And I was surprised, because that is not the man that I know.” Despite the pressures of the campaign on her marriage, Trump said, she does not want people feeling bad for her. “People think and talk about me like, ‘oh Melania, oh poor Melania.’ Don’t feel sorry for me, don’t feel sorry for me. I can handle everything.” In an interview with Fox News’ Carl Cameron, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said that while it would be “very easy” to apologize for recent sexual assault allegations made against him, “you can’t apologize for an event that never took place.” “First of all, they are all lies,” Trump said. “They are made-up stories, they were fabricated. Whether they like Hillary or whether they just want to become a little bit famous or something. You take a look at the butler. The butler was supposed to be the witness, the butler was my witness. I mean it was 100%, that was a disgrace that they were able to say it. It would be very easy to apologize but you can’t apologize for an event that never took place. These events never took place.” Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law, has “informally approached one of the media industry’s top dealmakers about the prospect of setting up a Trump television network after the presidential election in November”, the Financial Times reported: Mr Kushner – an increasingly influential figure in the billionaire’s presidential campaign – contacted Aryeh Bourkoff, the founder and chief executive of LionTree, a boutique investment bank, within the past couple of months, according to three people with knowledge of the matter. Their conversation was brief and has not progressed since, the people said. Mr Bourkoff and Mr Kushner both declined to comment. The heat is on in Arizona. Clinton campaign manger Robby Mook summarized the state of the race as such: we think Hillary Clinton can win Arizona.The traditionally ruby red Republican state has only voted for the Democratic ticket once since the end of WWII, Bill Clinton in 1996. The campaign said it will spend $2 million in television, digital, and mail advertising there. This is a state that would really foreclose the path for Donald Trump to win the White House,” Mook said of Arizona. Donald Trump has released a rare video message on Twitter accusing the Department of Justice, the State Department and the FBI of “colluding” to make Democratic rival Hillary Clinton look good. This happened: Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, hitting hard against “crooked” opponent Hillary Clinton, has released a five-point plan for government reform “to drain the swamp in Washington, DC.” The seven-sentence plan, as written: First: I am going to re-institute a 5-year ban on all executive branch officials lobbying the government for 5 years after they leave government service. I am going to ask Congress to pass this ban into law so that it cannot be lifted by executive order. Second: I am going to ask Congress to institute its own 5-year ban on lobbying by former members of Congress and their staffs. Third: I am going to expand the definition of lobbyist so we close all the loopholes that former government officials use by labeling themselves consultants and advisors when we all know they are lobbyists. Fourth: I am going to issue a lifetime ban against senior executive branch officials lobbying on behalf of a foreign government. Fifth: I am going to ask Congress to pass a campaign finance reform that prevents registered foreign lobbyists from raising money in American elections. Not only will we end our government corruption, but we will end the economic stagnation. A female staffer on The Celebrity Apprentice, Donald Trump’s longrunning reality show, told The Daily Beast that actor Gary Busey sexually assaulted her on the set of the show - and that Trump laughed about the incident afterwards: Multiple Apprentice employees, including the alleged victim herself, told The Daily Beast that the Academy-Award-nominated actor “grabbed” one of their colleagues “firmly between [the] legs” during the 2011 season of Celebrity Apprentice. Busey also forcibly put the female staffer’s hand on the crotch of his pants. The alleged incident, which they say took place during a location shoot in SoHo in New York City, prompted a firestorm among members of the Apprentice crew. Citing five on-staff sources, The Daily Beast reports that the alleged incident took place when the celebrity contestants were tasked with selling inventory at an art gallery, where the contestants had been drinking. “We were smoking cigarettes outside, and Busey was standing next to me. And then at one point, he grabbed me firmly between my legs, and ran his hand up my stomach, and grabbed my breasts,” the staffer told The Daily Beast. “I didn’t know what to do. So I made this joke that, ‘Oh, I’ve never been sexually harassed by a celebrity before!’ Then he grabbed my hand and put it [over] his penis, and said, like, ‘I’m just getting started, baby.’” The staffer’s colleagues told The Daily Beast that Trump was made aware of the incident, responding that Busey needed to keep his hands to himself. “Gary, did you do a bad thing…[and] got your hands where they’re not supposed to be,” a staff member recalled Trump as saying. Anoter said that Trump mockingly called Busey a “bad boy, a very bad boy.” In an interview with Fox News’ Carl Cameron, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said that while it would be “very easy” to apologize for recent sexual assault allegations made against him, “you can’t apologize for an event that never took place.” “First of all, they are all lies,” Trump said. “They are made-up stories, they were fabricated. Whether they like Hillary or whether they just want to become a little bit famous or something. You take a look at the butler. The butler was supposed to be the witness, the butler was my witness. I mean it was 100%, that was a disgrace that they were able to say it. It would be very easy to apologize but you can’t apologize for an event that never took place. These events never took place.” “Every one of those charges were false and they were lies,” he continued. “It didn’t even take place. I didn’t see them. The woman on the airplane, 35 years ago, 30 years ago? I mean, you don’t even believe that one. Okay? I don’t know maybe you’re very gullible, but you don’t believe that one. We have a woman on the airplane 35 years ago? No. These were bogus charges. These were lies. These were fabrications. I like saying it.” “Somebody else would say let’s focus on jobs, which I do, let’s focus on ISIS, let’s focus on the second amendment and judges of the Supreme Court justices. I agree with that, but I want the truth to come out.” Are you a fan of Broadway? The Hillary Clinton campaign is hosting a star-studded Broadway spectacular at the St. James Theater in Manhattan, which is livestreaming here: Melania Trump told Anderson Cooper that as first lady, she would hope to fight against bullying on social media. Unrelatedly: Melania Trump, on Donald Trump’s Twitter use: He’s an adult - he knows the consequences. Continuing her interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, Melania Trump told the anchor that the hardest part of the campaign has been media scrutiny of herself and her family, echoing claims by her husband that journalists and outlets are stacked against the Republican presidential nominee. “I didn’t expect media will be so dishonest and so mean - I didn’t expect that,” Trump said. “From New York Post, two days in a row, they put me on the cover from pictures I did many, many years ago as a model.” “It was done as art, as a celebration of female body, so they put it twice in a row,” she said, of the publication of risqué photographs from her modeling days in the 1990s. “In that story, they put the date when pictures were taken wrong. They never called me,” she said, “and suddenly becomes I was here illegally, I was married before. I was, like, ‘yeah, find the husband I was with before I was with my husband.’” “Every story, it’s a female! It’s a female reporter!” she said. “It’s unacceptable.” “I know he respects women, but he’s defending his, because they are lies,” Trump said, of her husband’s attacks on his accusers’ looks and credibility. Despite siding with her husband during the controversies of the past two weeks, Trump indicated that she has cautioned their young son, Barron, from using similar language. “I let him have a normal childhood as possible - we talk a lot, a lot about the campaign. We talk about the language, because we don’t allow the using that language,” Trump said. “I tell him that, there are consequences as well, and he needs to be careful of the langue he uses.” “It was my decision not to be on the campaign trail,” Trump said. “I will be a parent to our boy, to our child.” While she stands back, Trump said, her husband is happy to be leading the charge. “He will fight ’til the end - and he will fight for the American people as he fight for himself.” Speaking to CNN’s Anderson Cooper in her first televised interview since the release of video that showed her husband bragging about sexually assaulting women, Melania Trump defended her husband’s “boy talk” as having been “egged on” by a television interviewer. “I said to my husband that, you know, the language was unappropriate,” Trump said. “It’s not acceptable. And I was surprised, because that is not the man that I know.” Trump, breaking the traditional role of candidate’s spouse as cheerleader-in-chief, has largely eschewed appearances on the campaign trail following speculation that her speech at the Republican National Convention in July plagiarized Michelle Obama’s 2008 address to the Democratic National Convention. This makes the Slovenian-born former model’s appearance with Cooper notable even if more than a dozen allegations of sexual impropriety had not been leveled against her husband over the past week. “Every Friday something comes out,” Trump told Cooper, dismissing the controversies that have followed her husband since he announced his candidacy for the White House last June. “It’s very hard, especially for him,” she continued, “because he did so many stuff in his life. He was on so many tapes, so many shows. And we knew that, that, you know, tapes will come out, people will want to go against him. But my husband is real, he’s raw. He tells it like it is.” Asked about whether she views her husband’s behavior in the video as “locker-room” stuff, as he has characterized it, Trump agreed. “It’s kind of two teenage boys - actually, they should behave better,” Trump said. “I know how some men talk - that’s how I saw it.” No matter the subject matter, she continued, Trump does not view her husband’s remarks in the video as descriptive of sexual assault. “No, that’s not a sexual assault,” Trump said. “He didn’t say he did it, and I see many many women coming to him and giving phone numbers, and want to work for him and inappropriate stuff from women. And they know he’s married.” “Every assault should be taken care of in court of law,” Trump said, but the accusations made in the media are “damaging and it’s unfair.” “I believe my husband. This was all organized from the opposition,” Trump said. “They don’t have any facts and even the story that came out in People Magazine, the writer that she said that my husband took her to the room and start kissing her, she wrote in the same story about me that she saw me on Fifth Avenue and I said to her, Natasha, how come we don’t see you anymore? I was never friend with her. I’d never recognize her.” “How we could believe her? That never happened.” Despite the pressures of the campaign on her marriage, Trump said, she does not want people feeling bad for her. “People think and talk about me like, ‘oh Melania, oh poor Melania.’ Don’t feel sorry for me, don’t feel sorry for me. I can handle everything.” Donald Trump, on his low poll numbers: There’s an undercurrent that they can’t poll. On the heels of new polls showing him lagging behind Democratic rival Hillary Clinton by double digits nationally, Donald Trump exuded confidence at the beginning of a rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin. “We are going to win the state of Wisconsin, and we are going to win back the White House!” Trump vowed, perhaps unaware that he has not led a poll in the state over the past year. “We’re gonna win it back!” Trump was immediately interrupted by a series of protesters. Watch it live here: In a statement to Today Show staffers obtained by the , executive producer Noah Oppenheim wishes Bush well: Dear colleagues, Billy Bush will be leaving the Today show’s 9am hour, effective today. While he was a new member of the Today team, he was a valued colleague and longtime member of the broader NBC family. We wish him success as he goes forward. Bush, for his part, expressed gratitude for “conversations” he’s had with female family members in the wake of the video’s release. The 2005 video showed Bush joking with Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump about sexually assaulting women. I am deeply grateful for the conversations I’ve had with my daughters, and for all of the support from family, friends and colleagues. I look forward to what lies ahead. At various points in the video, Bush - a cousin of former president George W. Bush and onetime presidential candidate Jeb Bush - laughed along at Trump’s boastings. When apparently spotting actor Arianne Zucker outside the bus, who is wearing a purple dress, Bush said: “Sheesh, your girl’s hot as shit in the purple. Yes, the Donald has scored. Whoa, my man!” Later in the clip, Bush jokingly asked Zucker to “choose between me and the Donald”, and adds: “Oof, get out of the way, honey. Oh, that’s good legs. Go ahead.” Tom Brady clammed up last week when asked to comment on the genital-grabbing talk of his good friend Donald Trump, but on Monday he explained why he acted so evasively: because he didn’t want to be a distraction to his team. Last week, in the wake of Trump’s unpleasant boast that he could “grab women by the pussy” without their consent because he was so famous, Brady was asked by a reporter at Patriots media day: “Tom, you have kids of your own … how would respond if your kids heard Donald Trump’s version of locker-room talk?” Brady didn’t answer the question, and after a brief thank you, hurriedly left the stage. His non-answer provoked much ire, especially since many other athletes were quick to criticise Trump’s remarks. Brady, who threw for 376 yards and three touchdowns in New England’s 35-17 win over the Bengals on Sunday, told Boston sports radio WEEI that he ducked the question because didn’t want to create extra headlines. He said: “It’s just the way it is right now. Obviously there’s a lot of headlines to make, and I’ve tried not to make a lot of headlines. I’ve been in an organization where we’re taught to say very little, we have respect for our opponents and we don’t do the trash-talking. “The thing I’ve always thought is I don’t want to be a distraction for the team. That’s what my goal is. Not that there are things I’ve said and done that haven’t been, but you try not to be. It’s just hard enough to win and prepare without the distractions so when you start having the distractions it’s even harder to prepare.” However, Brady’s refusal to answer the question arguably created just as much of distraction for the Patriots, a point which was acknowledged by former New England receiver Troy Brown on Sunday. Brown said: “[He should have said] just something, a quick answer on the question to get it out of the way, just answer the question to say, ‘I don’t condone it’ and then walk off the stage. The optics of it weren’t great. I understood what he was trying to do. But the next time he’s asked that question, then give a quick answer and let it be. I’m not responsible for what comes out of my friend’s mouth. But I am responsible for correcting my friend.” Today, Brady again said that he and Trump have been friends for 15 years, and that “I’ve always had a good time with him”. Juanita Broaddrick, on Donald Trump’s accusers: If these accounts are true, yeah. If any possibility of these accounts being true, then I express my sympathy to the women that anything might have happened to. But I just don’t know. I have no idea. More excerpts from Anderson Cooper’s interview with Melania Trump have been released, with the would-be first lady telling Cooper that she feels husband Donald Trump was “egged on” by Access Hollywood host Billy Bush into bragging about sexually assaulting women. “I said to my husband that you know the language was unappropriate,” Trump told Cooper, according to an excerpt released by CNN this afternoon. “It’s not acceptable and I was surprised, because that is not the man that i know. And as you can see from the tape, the cameras were not on. It was only a mic. And I wonder if they even knew that the mic was on. Because they were kind of, ah, boy talk. And he was lead on. Like egg on from the host to say, uh, dirty and bad stuff.” Trump told Cooper that she had never heard Donald Trump use similar language before. “That’s why I was surprised,” Trump said. “Because I said like, I don’t know that person that would talk that way. And that he would say that kind of stuff in private. I’ve heard many different stuff, boys talk. I - the boys, the way they talk when they grow up and they want to sometimes show each other, ‘oh this and that’ and talking about the girls and, but I was surprised, of course.” The full interview will air on CNN at 8pm ET. White House press secretary Josh Earnest, on whether President Barack Obama is worried about election fixing: Not at all. And neither is Mike Pence. This is trolling of the highest order: Donald Trump has released a rare video message on Twitter accusing the Department of Justice, the State Department and the FBI of “colluding” to make Democratic rival Hillary Clinton look good. “This is very big and frankly it’s unbelievable,” Trump said in the apparently unscripted video. “What was just found out is that the Department of Justice, the State Department and the FBI colluded - got together - to make Hillary Clinton look less guilty and look a lot better than she looks. This is one of the big-breaking stories of our time, in my opinion - this shows corruption at the highest level, and we can’t let it happen as American citizens.” “So let’s see how the press covers it,” he continued. “The press likes not to cover it because the best thing that Hillary Clinton has going is the media. Without the media, she wouldn’t even be in this race. This is collusion between the FBI, the Department of Justice and the State Department to make Hillary Clinton look like an innocent person when she’s guilty of very high crimes. So all I can say is, let’s hope that our country gets a fair shake. This is a big mess. Trump was likely referring to recently released FBI documents indicating that undersecretary of state Patrick Kennedy pressured the FBI to un-classify certain emails from Clinton’s private servers after they had been previously deemed classified. Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus has released an advertisement demanding to reclaim the word “circus” from the current state of American politics. More US voters trust the Republican party to handle the issues they care about, according to a poll released by George Washington University today. When asked about specific candidates, however, the same voters were more likely to say they trusted Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee for president. The findings suggest that the Republican party might have been well ahead in the race for the White House in 2016, had Donald Trump not been their candidate. The GWU poll asked 1,000 registered and likely voters what they felt was “the most important issue that the next president should be focused on”. “The economy” was selected by 23% of respondents, followed by “dysfunction in government” (14%) and foreign threats (13%). Jobs and healthcare were both chosen by 10% of respondents. By a clear margin, the voters were more likely to trust the Republican party on the economy, taxes and jobs. The ’s Ben Jacobs joined The Federalist’s Ben Domenech in-studio to discuss this week’s election news, the country’s heightened distrust in the media, and Trump’s influence on future politicians and down-ballot Republicans. “There haven’t been people yet conscientiously modeling themselves after Trump, trying to adopt the avatar,” Jacobs said. “Part of it is that this has happened in such a dramatic way that if you were in a primary in March or April, no one would even think of being this sort of avatar Trump movement.” Remember the good old days when debates were just about sniffles and shimmies? As the narrative of the presidential race grows increasingly ugly, the debates are becoming a surreal spectacle of American democracy. Join US, WNYC’s newest podcast United States of Anxiety, and Tumblr for a pop-up viewing party for the final debate. We’ll have pre-debate rooftop drinks, a big screen and political games - and we’ll wrap up the evening with a lively post-debate panel featuring some of the sharpest minds in media to break down the debate through the lenses of gender, inequality, and race. Admission includes beer, wine and light snacks. Let’s get through this thing together. Get your tickets. When: October 19, 7.30pm Where: 35 E 21st St, New York City, NY, 10010 Would-be first lady Melania Trump thinks that former president Bill Clinton’s past infidelities are fair game in the waning days of the presidential campaign, telling Fox News’ Ainsley Earhardt in an interview that “they’re asking for it.” “Well, if they bring up my past, why not?” Trump asked rhetorically, in an excerpt of an interview slated to air tomorrow morning. “They’re asking for it. They started,” Trump continued. “They started from the - from the beginning of the campaign putting my, my picture from modeling days. That was my modeling days and I’m proud what I did. I worked very hard.” Trump was referring to risqué photographs from her modeling career that were published in the right-tilting New York Post during the Republican primary campaign. A Super Pac supporting now-vanquished Trump foe Ted Cruz also republished an image of Trump straddling a fur blanket in nothing but jewels and heels. The Clinton campaign has, so far, made no mention of Melania Trump’s past work as a model. Trump also dismissed 2005 videotape of her husband bragging about sexually assaulting women as “not the man that I know,” saying that she has accepted his apology and that the couple is “moving on.” “This is not the man that I know,” Trump said. “This is - we could see, as I always said, as my husband said, as well, for a successful businessman, entrepreneur, entertainer to achieving so much in his life, being in so many shows, so many tapes, it’s very hard to run for public office. And he did this anyway. He said, I want to help American people. I want to keep America safe. I want to bring back jobs, bring back economy, so our children, our futures will be the best way possible.” John McCain’s office has issued a clarification of remarks he made earlier today in which he declared that he wasn’t sure whether Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton would be better for the supreme court’s composition if he or she were elected: Senator McCain believes you can only judge people by their record and Hillary Clinton has a clear record of supporting liberal judicial nominees. That being said, Senator McCain will, of course, thoroughly examine the record of any Supreme Court nominee put before the Senate and vote for or against that individual based on their qualifications as he has done throughout his career. When asked by a Philadelphia radio station earlier today whether Trump would be better on matters like filling vacant seats on the nation’s highest court, McCain responded: “Uh, first of all, I don’t know, because I hear him saying a lot of different things.” Tech billionaire Peter Thiel’s reported $1.25m contribution to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign has prompted a high-profile Silicon Valley organization to cut ties with a startup incubator backed by the Republican donor. Ellen Pao, a former Reddit executive and vocal advocate for diversity in tech, has announced that her group Project Include is ending its relationship with Y Combinator, the well-known startup “accelerator” where Thiel is a part-time partner. “Thiel’s actions are in direct conflict with our values at Project Include,” Pao wrote today, referring to the not-for-profit group that she and a group of prominent Silicon Valley women formed earlier this year to push for “diversity and inclusion solutions in the tech industry”. “Because of his continued connection to YC [Y Combinator], we are compelled to break off our relationship with YC. We hope this situation changes, and that we are both willing to move forward together in the future. Today it is clear to us that our values are not aligned,” Pao continued. The announcement signals possible fallout in the California tech industry surrounding the political donations and campaigning of Thiel, who helped found PayPal and was an early investor in Facebook. Thiel, a conservative outlier in the Democratic stronghold of Silicon Valley, became a state delegate for Trump earlier this year and delivered a much discussed speech at the Republican national convention, during which he said, “I am proud to be gay.” Donald Trump has figured out why he likes some polls and hates all others: Speaking in Columbus, Ohio, Republican vice presidential nominee Mike Pence told the crowd that he and Donald Trump are “gonna turn this country around.” “I truly do believe that Donald Trump literally embodies the spirit of America,” Pence said, continuing a trend of using the word “literally” to mean its antonym. “Even CNN’s poll says that we’re leading in Ohio by four percentage points!” Pence said. “This election is really a choice between two futures... and I choose a stronger America. I choose a more prosperous America. I choose an America that embraces and upholds the values in the Constitution of the United States of America.” “It seems like everyday, the national media is doing half of Hillary’s work for her,” Pence said. “It really is amazing - they chase after every attack against my running mate.” Hillary Clinton’s newest tactic: Highlighting Donald Trump’s “bullying.” In a four-way race, Hillary Clinton leads Donald Trump in Colorado, Florida and Pennsylvania, according to the Quinnipiac University Swing State Poll out today. The nominees are tied in Ohio. Colorado: Clinton tops Trump 45% - 37%, with 10% for Johnson and 3% for Stein. Florida: Clinton edges Trump 48% - 44%, with 4% for Johnson and 1% for Stein. Ohio: Trump and Clinton tied 45% - 45%, with 6% for Johnson and 1% for Stein. Pennsylvania: Clinton leads Trump 47% - 41%, with 6% for Johnson and 1% for Stein. The Quinnipiac pollsters attribute Clinton’s lead to a shift among independent likely voters embracing Hillary Clinton. Notable, Clinton has a double-digit lead among likely women and is crushing Trump among non-white voters by margins ranging from 28% to 76%. Just in: Melania Trump talks to CNN’s Anderson Cooper for her first sit-down interview since the allegations concerning her husband’s treatment of women became public. The interview will air at 8pm EST After the release of the 2005 Access Hollywood tape, a number of women have come forward to accuse Trump of sexual misconduct and in some instances assault. In a statement released after the publication of the hot mic recording, Melania Trump called her husband’s language “unacceptable and offensive”. She continued: “I hope people will accept his apology, as I have, and focus on the important issues facing our nation and the world.” Also on TV tonight, President Obama joins the Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Or stream the Broadway fundraiser for Hillary Clinton tonight. Lin-Manuel Miranda says he was up all night working on it. Because it’s that time of day when we could all use a pick-me-up. Melanianade, for your viewing pleasure. You’ll just be that guy with the weird hair... Did White House press secretary Josh Earnest just take a pot shot at Donald Trump? You be the judge: Earnest was asked if he agrees with Donald Trump’s proposal that candidates should take a drugs test before presidential debates, David Smith reports. “You’re telling me the candidate who snorted his way through the first two debates accused the other candidate of taking drugs?” Earnest shot back. “That’s a curious development.” Asked to explain what he meant, Earnest said he was just having fun and was a little disappointed he did not elicit more chuckles from assembled journalists. political reporter Sabrina Siddiqui files this dispatch from autumnal New Hampshire, where Donald Trump got his start and where Democrats stand a real chance of clawing back a Senate seat. Since the recording of Trump emerged, Republicans and right-leaning independents everywhere have found themselves soul-searching as they vacillate between party and principle. But in the battleground of New Hampshire, a state that holds the distinction of being the first in US history to have an all-female delegation of congresswomen and senators, Trump’s latest controversy is, for some female voters, perhaps the final straw. A number of women who spoke with the at the strip malls of the Manchester suburbs said they were deeply troubled by Trump’s remarks, even as they confessed to still being torn over their choices. The White House has full confidence that the 2016 election will be won “freely and fairly”, reports David Smith reports from the White House briefing room. Asked if he is concerned that the election will be rigged, White House spokesman Josh Earnest replied: “Not at all. Neither is Mike Pence, who is the second highest ranking official in the Trump campaign. Neither is Paul Ryan.” Earnest noted that many battleground states including Florida and Ohio have Republican governors so he assumes they have confidence in their systems. “We have seen these kind of suggestions in the past but every time there’s been an effort to conduct a study and investigate suggestions of widespread voter fraud there’s never been evidence to sustain it.” The press secretary told Monday’s briefing that Barack Obama has confidence the election will be conducted “freely and fairly”. If you’ve ever listened to a Donald Trump speech you’ve probably heard a thing or two about the so-called “mainstream media”. (You talking to me?) Well, it turns out the MSM just might have a liberal bias after all – at least when it comes to this election. A new report by the Center for Public Integrity found: In all, people identified in federal campaign finance filings as journalists, reporters, news editors or television news anchors — as well as other donors known to be working in journalism — have combined to give more than $396,000 to the presidential campaigns of Clinton and Trump ... Nearly all of that money — more than 96 percent — has benefited Clinton: About 430 people who work in journalism have, through August, combined to give about $382,000 to the Democratic nominee, the Center for Public Integrity’s analysis indicates. While journalists are generally expected to remain agnostic in their political coverage. Many news organization restrict or prohibit reporters from making political donations out of concern the contribution will compromise a journalist’s – or the newsroom’s – impartiality. To play devil’s advocate, reporters have been labeled “corrupt” “dishonest” “sleazebag” “real beauty” and on one occasion he appeared to imitate a disabled New York Times journalist. Oh, lest we forget: The Committee to Protect Journalists warned that Donald Trump poses an unprecedented threat to press freedom. Read the full report here. Hillary Clinton leads Donald Trump by 12 points, 50-38, among likely voters in a new Monmouth University poll of a four-way presidential race. That’s three times what Clinton’s lead in the poll was just three weeks ago. Libertarian Gary Johnson drew 5% support in the poll and Green party candidate Jill Stein drew 2% support. Voters have a favorable opinion of neither candidate, the poll found, but Trump’s already low favorability rating was measured as slipping further: Currently, 38% of voters have a favorable opinion of Clinton and 52% have an unfavorable view of her. This compares with a 36% to 54% rating last month. Only 26% of voters have a favorable opinion of Trump, though, while 61% have an unfavorable view of him. This is down from a 32% to 57% rating last month. The conference call with camp Clinton revealed more details about its concerted push to expand the electoral map and help Democrats win back the Senate this November. And there’s one man to thank for making it possible, campaign manager Robby Mook said. “Donald Trump is becoming more unhinged by the day, and that is increasing prospects for Democrats further down the ballot,” Mook said. The campaign will spend $6m on get out the vote efforts in seven key battleground states: Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio and Pennsylvania. The states are where Mook said the “senate majority will be won or lost”. The Clinton campaign also senses an opportunity in Indiana and Missouri. Clinton will invest $1m in the two states, where she leads Trump but where Democrats stand to pick up important seats. Additionally, they will spend $2m in Arizona. They are also looking at a six-figure effort in Georgia coupled with $250,000 investment in Nebraska and Maine. In total, Mook said the campaign is investing $100m in the “unprecedented” coordinated campaign effort aimed at boosting Democratic candidates in Senate, House, gubernatorial and even local races. Mook was also asked to comment on Trump’s claim that the system is rigged. Look, Donald Trump’s campaign is spiraling. He is desperately trying to shift attention from his own disastrous campaign. He knows he’s losing and is trying to blame that on the system. This is what losers do,” Mook said. After a year of soul-searching, reviewing videotapes and crafting comeback lines, Lincoln Chafee has decided what went wrong with his US presidential bid last year: he should never have proposed that the United States adopt the metric system. Chafee, the former Rhode Island governor and US senator, made adoption of the metric system a key plank of his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination. But that was a bad idea, he admits in a new interview with Esquire, in which he described the “sabbatical year” he has taken since suspending his presidential campaign on 23 October 2015. “I was saying, should I put it in or not?” Chafee recalls of the decision to include his signature campaign plank. “My wife said, no, it will be misunderstood. And she was right.” At his peak, Chafee hovered at about half a percentage point in national polling averages. Chafee has rewatched – multiple times – the tape of his October 2015 debate with Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and other Democratic primary candidates, he told Esquire, and he thinks he was treated unfairly by moderator Anderson Cooper. “If I had to do it over again I would’ve engaged more and said, ‘I didn’t come here to debate five people, I came to debate these four people!’ Chafee said. “I’ve watched the tape a couple times. I couldn’t get a rhythm going without any time, and without being interrupted in my answers.” Chafee June 2015 announcement of a presidential run was covered by the ’s Ben Jacobs, who deemed the announcement “weird.” Chafee expounded at the time on his expertise in the metric system, saying: “I happened to live in Canada as they completed the process. Believe me it is easy. It doesn’t take long before 34 degrees is hot.” Responding to a follow-up question Chafee said this would be “a symbolic integration of ourselves into the international community after mistakes of past 12 to 14 years”. The heat is on in Arizona. We just hung up the phone after a conference call with Clinton campaign manger Robby Mook who summarized the state of the race as such: we think Hillary Clinton can win Arizona. The traditionally ruby red Republican state has only voted for the Democratic ticket once since the end of WWII, Bill Clinton in 1996. The campaign said it will spend $2 million in television, digital, and mail advertising there. This is a state that would really foreclose the path for Donald Trump to win the White House,” Mook said of Arizona. Bernie Sanders heads to the desert on Tuesday, followed by Chelsea Clinton on Wednesday and Michelle Obama on Thursday. Mook even hinted at the possibility of an appearance by Clinton herself in the coming weeks. The state is also home to a hotly contested Senate race between senator John McCain, who is seeking a sixth term, and Congresswoman Ann Kirkpatrick. The two were locked in a dead heat this summer but McCain, who recently withdrew his support for the Republican nominee, has pulled far ahead in recent polling. The Clinton campaign is hopeful Republicans’ triangulation over how to handle Trump may help in close senate races like Arizona. Donald Trump seems almost to be free-associating now, on a busy morning on the candidate’s Twitter feed: Maybe someone showed him a flash card. Anyway, how the line about “Clinton even got the questions to a debate” relates to “Voter fraud!” is initially unclear. One supposes the person who supposedly handed Hillary Clinton the questions before the first presidential debate and/or facilitated her collusion with moderator Lester Holt is/was/would have been a voter. Maybe that’s it. In other Trump tweets this morning, he seems upset by the latest news on Hillary’s emails, which Reuters phrases thus: Undersecretary of State Patrick Kennedy pressured the FBI to un-classify certain emails from Hillary Clinton’s private server that were previously deemed classified, according to FBI documents released Monday that cited redacted sources. In the documents, an unnamed person interviewed by the FBI said Kennedy contacted the FBI to ask for the change in classification in “exchange for a ‘quid pro quo.’” ‘Quid pro quo’ is a loaded phrase in this election – the right has used it when making claims about the activities of the Clinton Foundation. Others have used it when wondering about Trump’s habit of donating to political figures involved in investigations of his business and charitable interests. President Barack Obama is speaking now on education at Benjamin Banneker Academic High School, a magnet school in Washington DC. #ThanksBilly Over the weekend, Twitter took the opportunity to prematurely thank Billy Bush for donating his exit settlement to women’s charities. The Today anchor is currently negotiating the terms of his departure with NBC after his unflattering appearance in the recently published 2005 Access Hollywood video. On the hot mic recording, Bush giggles as Donald Trump boasts about groping and kissing women without their consent. Since the video’s release, several women have come forward with sexual misconduct and assault allegations against Trump that match his own description in the tape. The Republican nominee has vehemently denied each of the claims. Bush hasn’t actually said he will donate the money, but no matter. Journalists have devoted unknown hours of deep investigative research to expose the large-scale voter fraud phenomena Trump keeps warning us about. The conclusion: Donald Trump has received little love from the land of milk and honey. But billionaire Pay Pal co-founder Peter Thiel stands out. The investor will donate $1.25m to Trump’s campaign, according to a report in The New York Times on Monday. The money will go to Super Pacs supporting the Republican nominee as well as the campaign directly. The only prominent supporter of the Republican candidate in the high-tech community, Mr. Thiel is making his first donation in support of Mr. Trump’s election. He will give $1.25 million through a combination of super PAC donations and funds given directly to the campaign, a person close to the investor said on Saturday. The donation puts the billionaire investor high on a very short list of big Trump contributors. One of the biggest donors is Robert Mercer of the hedge fund Renaissance Technologies. He and his daughter Rebekah Mercer have given $15.5 million in support of the Republican candidate’s election, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Geoffrey Palmer, a Los Angeles developer, has donated $2 million. Read the full NYT story here. On (and off) the campaign trail: Hillary Clinton hunkered down in Chappaqua this weekend preparing for the third and final presidential debate in Las Vegas on Wednesday. She has no public events scheduled before the debate. Her running mate Tim Kaine is also down for the day, though Bernie Sanders will campaign for Clinton at Colorado State University in Fort Collins. Bill Clinton is holding two events in New Hampshire. Chelsea Clinton will attend a glitzy, star-studded fundraiser-concert at New York City’s St James Theatre. Billy Crystal will host the show and performances promise something for everybody: Lin-Manuel Miranda, Neil Patrick Harris, Lena Dunham, Julia Roberts, Helen Mirren,Uzo Aduba, and many more. Donald Trump spent the weekend campaigning up and down the East Coast. He has a rally today in Green Bay, Wisconsin. His running mate, Mike Pence, will hold two events today in the battleground state in Ohio. This morning, Trump has again decried the electoral system, alleging “large scale voter fraud” without offering any evidence to support this claim. The Republican nominee also re-tweeted a link from a contributor to Alex Jones’ Infowars website, which has been pulling for Trump this election. Jones is the shock jock and conspiracy theorist who thinks Hillary Clinton is a demon. Hello, and welcome to our live-wire coverage of the 2016 race for the White House. Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law, has “informally approached one of the media industry’s top dealmakers about the prospect of setting up a Trump television network after the presidential election in November”, the Financial Times reported: Mr Kushner – an increasingly influential figure in the billionaire’s presidential campaign – contacted Aryeh Bourkoff, the founder and chief executive of LionTree, a boutique investment bank, within the past couple of months, according to three people with knowledge of the matter. Their conversation was brief and has not progressed since, the people said. Mr Bourkoff and Mr Kushner both declined to comment. Presumably Trump does not plan on setting up a TV station if he wins the presidency (a presumption that may be foolish). Trump: election ‘rigged’ ‘at polling places’ When the Republican nominee failed to win an Emmy for The Apprentice, it was rigged. China tried to rig the Olympics. The 2016 primaries were definitely rigged, even though Trump won. The 2012 presidential election? Also extremely rigged, in Trump’s telling: Trump is once again yelling about a rigged election, except this time he is the Republican nominee and the accusation seems a greater threat to undermine faith in free and fair elections: half of Trump supporters told AP/ORC pollsters earlier this month that they had little or no faith that their votes would be counted fairly. On Sunday, after Mike Pence and other surrogates went on TV to reassure the country that when he said “rigged” Trump was just talking about a media conspiracy, Trump clarified that no – he meant that local election officials, or someone, was rigging the election at the precinct level: Rigging a presidential election would involve a conspiracy on par with the international banker-media-Clinton scheme against Trump that the candidate described last week. In short, presidential elections are transparent and decentralized and thus difficult to rig. The Twitter timeline of Ashby Law and the presidential historian Paul Brandus below are good places to start for more analysis along these lines: Warren: Trump ‘chicken’ for not releasing taxes Democrats raise funds for burned GOP office in North Carolina After a Republican office in liberal Orange County, North Carolina, was firebombed at the weekend, with no injuries, David Weinberger, a research fellow at Harvard Law School, and others set up a GoFundMe to rebuild. “Donations quickly poured in and the campaign’s $10,000 goal was surpassed within a couple hours,” Weinberger told the Huffington Post. “In total, organizers raised $13,167 from 552 donations before closing the fund.” Clinton eyes Arizona With the exception of Bill Clinton’s re-election, Arizona has not gone Democratic in a presidential election since Harry Truman. The Clinton campaign thinks it might this year, announcing Bernie Sanders early-vote rallies in Tucson and Flagstaff for Tuesday and a Chelsea Clinton event in Tempe on Wednesday. Beyoncé: ‘Doing nothing right now is not an option’ ICYMI, here’s the Saturday Night Live sketch that got under Trump’s skin: Thank you for reading and please join us in the comments.
HMRC admits to winding up inquiry into HSBC tax evasion claims HM Revenue and Customs has wound up its inquiries into claims that hundreds of British customers used HSBC’s Swiss bank to evade tax, a senior official has admitted for the first time. A public accounts committee hearing has been told there is no longer any criminal investigation despite claims that the banking arm had turned a blind eye to alleged illegal activities of wealthy individuals including arms dealers. The tax authority reopened its investigation into British customers of HSBC Suisse in February 2015 following a public outcry over the alleged large-scale fraud, but has failed to add to the single prosecution of a tax cheat from the bank. The disclosures have dismayed MPs who had pressed for further action over the HSBC files, which were first handed to HMRC six years ago. Senior tax officials have been criticised for offering an amnesty to hundreds of the 3,600 UK customers it identified as potentially hiding money in Switzerland. The files were the basis of reports by the and a collaboration of news outlets around the world about the scale of the tax avoidance operation being run by the bank’s Swiss subsidiary. It comes just days after reports emerged that HSBC would not face formal action from the City regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority. Simon York, the director of HMRC’s fraud investigation service, told MPs that the data had been exhausted. “We have been working with that data and all of those people featured on that list for some time. We do not have a current criminal investigation in relation to any entities connected with this data,” he said. Stephen Phillips, a Tory member of the committee, responded by expressing his anger and disappointment over the failure of the British authorities to pursue wrongdoers at the bank. “So there it is, it looks as if they have got away scot-free,” he said. “I – and I suspect most members of parliament – would find it extraordinary that a bank that is domiciled in this jurisdiction with oversight of its Swiss subsidiary has not had action taken against it either by its regulator or by you, who are responsible for investigating it and passing papers to the CPS [Crown Prosecution Service] to conduct criminal prosecutions if appropriate.” HMRC’s chief executive, Lin Homer – who announced on Monday that she would be standing down in April after being made a dame in the new year’s honours list – said they did not believe there was the basis for criminal action. After receiving the data in 2010, a team of more than 300 tax officials had trawled through the evidence, HMRC said. About two-thirds of those identified in the database were found to have already paid the right amount of tax, in part because they had non-domiciled tax status. Of the remainder, 150 were considered as serious candidates for prosecution, but only one was prosecuted. Of the 1,100 cases where HMRC identified people as owing tax, most were settled under the Liechtenstein disclosure facility, which offered reduced penalties of up to 30%. HSBC was fined £28m by the Geneva authorities last year, after investigators concluded that “organisational deficiencies” had allowed money laundering to take place at its Swiss subsidiary. The bank declined to comment on the criticisms made against it before the committee, where the UK tax office was accused of having “one rule for the rich and one rule for the poor” when it came to pursuing tax evaders. About 35 prosecutions for tax evasion involving corporate firms and wealthy individuals are brought a year but the department plans to increase that to about 100 by 2020. Homer claimed that did not mean lots of Britain’s richest tax dodgers were escaping prosecution. “Across the whole spectrum we do not prosecute everybody in every category, so there will always be individuals that we don’t prosecute,” she told the committee. Phillips, who was leading the session for the committee, accused the tax office of only going after the “low-hanging fruit” to improve its wider prosecution figures. “The message which goes out is loud and clear,” he said. “It’s evade your taxes and you are not going to be prosecuted. There seems to be one rule for the rich and one rule for the poor.” Homer said she strongly disagreed with the claim. Homer also faced criticism from MPs after she said 81% of calls to HMRC were answered within six minutes. She said they had been getting “better and better” after the first three months of last year when answering rates were so bad she had issued a public apology. While there has only been one prosecution in the UK, the whistleblower who exposed wrongdoing at HSBC’s Swiss private bank has been sentenced to five years in prison by a Swiss court. Hervé Falciani, a former IT worker, was convicted in November in his absence for the biggest leak in banking history. He is currently living in France, where he sought refuge from Swiss justice, and did not attend the trial.
Herdfunding: how the internet is raising money for farms When Micha and Andrew Ide started Bright Ide Acres, a farm producing ethical eggs and meat in Snohomish, Washington, in 2012, the couple bootstrapped their startup costs. Raiding their savings accounts, they leased a 12-acre parcel of land, installed fencing and purchased chickens, sheep, goats, pigs and turkeys. The couple began raising turkey breeds that were too heavy to fly, but demand grew for heritage turkeys which are flightly, and the birds started escaping from their portable electric fencing into other farmers’ vegetables fields. “We didn’t want to switch to an indoor production model but we couldn’t let them keep getting out,” says Micha Ide. “It was either find a solution and raise the money or stop raising turkeys.” The couple designed a “turkey tunnel” that provides enough space for their flock of 100 heritage turkeys to roost, forage and explore. It has a roof that keeps them safe from predators and out of the vegetables. The tunnel can be hooked up to a winch and moved to fresh pasture, allowing the turkeys to graze. But, at $4,000 (£2,800), it wasn’t something the Ides could fund from their savings account. Instead of approaching the bank for a loan, however, they turned to the internet, raising nearly $4,980 (and counting) through a crowdfunding campaign on Barnraiser, a platform designed to connect farmers and food entrepreneurs to backers. With a few days to go until the campaign closes, the couple is thrilled that 60 backers have stepped up to support them. “We’ve had so many of our current customers contribute, which blew me away because they’re already paying for our meat and the fact that they’re willing to pay more to support the farm is amazing,” says Micha. Crowdfunding platforms such as Kickstarter, Indiegogo, Barnraiser and GoFundMe allow creators to post profiles of their projects online and seek funding from backers to bring the projects to life. To acknowledge their support, farmers offer rewards that can range from T-shirts and produce to farm tours. More than $34bn in financing was raised through crowdfunding in 2015 via 1,250 active crowdfunding platforms worldwide, according to data from research firm Massolution. While crowdfunding has long been the provenance of writers, filmmakers and other creatives, a growing number of farmers are turning to it to support sustainable agriculture projects. “We hear about farmers getting older and farms disappearing or getting taken over by Big Ag,” says Terry Romero, outreach lead at Kickstarter. “Crowdfunding is the opposite to that. It gives people the opportunity to support small, local, family farms in a very tangible way.” Kickstarter doesn’t track the number of farmers who have launched crowdfunding campaigns, but reports that 19,064 projects in the food category have been launched since the platform’s inception in 2009. Currently, a search for “farm” turns up 1,871 campaigns on the site. According to Barnraiser, which was founded in 2015, some 40% of campaigns on the platform are farm-related and generate an average of $9,000. While bank loans can bring in funds – assuming farmers can show sales and assets to qualify, which is often challenging for small farms or new farmers – they don’t guarantee customer support. Crowdfunding builds customer support into the model. “It’s great for building direct-to-consumer relationships,” says Eileen Gordon, founder and CEO of Barnraiser. Entrepreneur Mike Salguero came up with the idea to partner with ranches producing grass-fed beef to start a monthly subscription service called ButcherBox. He turned to Kickstarter to test the idea. “I loved it but I wasn’t sure it was a service other people would use,” he says. Last September, ButcherBox launched a Kickstarter campaign with a goal of $25,000. For a contribution of $119, backers were promised one ButcherBox filled with beef; those who contributed $1,399 or more received a one-year subscription of monthly meat deliveries. Salguero knew that the number of backers would correlate to consumer interest in the idea; during the 30-day campaign, 1,155 backers contributed $210,203. “It was very clear we struck a nerve and there was a huge demand for this,” he says. In the last six months, ButcherBox has added organic chicken and pastured pork to its subscription offerings, partnering with four farms to ship boxes of meat to customers nationwide. “The farmers were very excited about the concept because it gives them exposure to a national market,” says Salguero. “Farmers have a lot of cash tied up in raising animals [and crops] and there’s no guarantee of a market; crowdfunding changes that. It’s one of the reasons it’s going to continue growing and becoming more interesting for farm and food projects.”
Third of Tories could defect to Ukip if UK stays in EU, says Farage The Conservatives could lose a third of their members to Ukip if Britain votes to stay in the EU, Nigel Farage has predicted. The Ukip leader said a narrow vote to stay in the EU would be a “doomsday scenario” for the party, as there would be a backlash against David Cameron for using the government to fight to remain. In an interview with the , Farage said that Tories campaigning to leave the EU under the official Vote Leave banner were frightened to let Ukip have too big a role in the referendum, fearing what could happen afterwards. “They’re very scared of Ukip, you see. Because what happens if Farage is seen to play a big role in the referendum? And we win – or even worse, if we lose? What happens then?” he said. “The doomsday scenario for these guys is that we lose the referendum 52/48, that I’m seen to have played a big role in the referendum, that a third of the Tory party are irreconcilable with dodgy Dave, because they think he’s pulled every trick in the book, he hasn’t played with a straight bat, and a third of the Conservative party come and join me and Ukip. That is their doomsday scenario. Anything is better than that.” He also suggested there could be a realignment of politics on the right in the same way as after the 1975 referendum, and the eventual SDP split from Labour. “I think this referendum is something that could realign politics. Think back to 1975. That personal bitterness that came out between [Roy] Jenkins and [Tony] Benn never went away. It led to the SDP. I think there is a chance that this referendum could change British politics fundamentally.” Later on Friday, Farage predicted Boris Johnson, the former London mayor, would likely be prime minister if the UK votes to leave the EU. “I think Boris is a very good guy. He could be our next prime minister. If we vote for Brexit, he probably will be,” the Ukip leader said. Asked if the leave campaign would win, he said: “I think we are. The reason I think we are is quite simple. Those people who have made their minds up they want to leave believe in it quite strongly. I just see more passion on the leave side.” At the same time, he launched into a tirade against David Cameron for changing his tune on whether the UK could survive outside the EU. “Cameron’s campaign is to try to invert the truth of every argument.... The prime minister’s credibility needs to be examined a little bit more,” he said. “How can you have a PM who hints he might support Brexit and then a couple of months later says it could cause world war three if we lose. Will the real David Cameron please stand up?” He gave the round of interviews as he kicked off the start of a Ukip battlebus tour from outside the European Commission in Westminster. Farage appeared on the open top of the double decker bus with a microphone, before driving off with The Great Escape music playing to a crowd of media and supporters. [ENDS NEW] the Ukip leader has in recent weeks been very complimentary about out campaigners Johnson and Michael Gove, the justice secretary – even suggesting he could be up for working with them if they end up in charge of the Conservatives in future. Cameron has insisted he can unite the party and stay on as leader whatever the result, dismissing talk of a challenge to his leadership. However, his position would be under severe threat if Britain voted to leave the EU, and some Tory MPs believe he would still be at risk if there was only a slim vote to remain. Farage previously predicted Ukip would cause a “political earthquake” and win a “good number of seats” at the general election, when it ended up with just one. He correctly forecasted that his party would dominate the European elections in 2014 and attract two Tory defectors – Douglas Carswell, who he has now fallen out with, and the other, Mark Reckless, who lost his seat in 2015.
English game lacks Champions League quality – but at least it is unpredictable Two down, two to go. Chelsea’s exit from the Champions League means half of the Premier League’s four entrants have gone and, barring something miraculous in the Camp Nou next week, Arsenal will join them, leaving only Manchester City, assuming they finish the job against Dynamo Kyiv. Had it not been for a tough knockout draw for Italian sides this season, the Premier League’s fourth Champions League slot might have come under serious threat from Serie A for 2017-18. As it is, England has picked up half a point more than Italy so far this season and, with only two Italian sides left in European competition one of them Juventus, who must go to Bayern Munich after a 2-2 draw in the home leg, that advantage should be increased. Given the Premier League’s wealth – it has 17 of the 30 clubs with the highest revenue in the world, according to the latest Deloitte report – the fact that the coefficient is even an issue is faintly embarrassing. If nothing else, Liverpool and Manchester United being drawn together guarantees the Premier League another half-point. The Premier League’s coefficient should be robust enough to withstand the Italian challenge for at least one more season. But that doesn’t alter the fact these are strange times for the Premier League. Assuming there is no remarkable comeback from Manchester City, there will be a different league champion for a fourth season in succession. Not since 1993 – the first year of the Manchester United hegemony – has there been flux like that. Before that it was 1973, the first year of the Liverpool hegemony. It seems unlikely this is the beginning of a period of domination for Leicester, Tottenham or Arsenal. Next season will probably begin with more serious challengers for Champions League qualification than any other since the Premier League began in 1992. This may be the most even top-end for half a century. There are the four wealthiest clubs, Manchester United, Manchester City, Arsenal and Chelsea, of whom at least two and possibly three will be under new management (with the likelihood that doubts about the fourth, Arsène Wenger at Arsenal, will become more and more vocal) and therefore in transition, that cover-all excuse for English clubs who are pretty much all always in transition. There will be Tottenham with their exciting, young side and highly impressive manager. There’ll be Liverpool with their inspirational manager who will have had a summer to mould the squad as he would like. Those six will be the favourites, but the supporting cast is strong as well: West Ham, looking to take a more permanent place at the top table after their move to the Olympic Stadium; Stoke City, with their host of former Champions League winners and other £20m-plus signings; Everton, buoyed by fresh investment; and Leicester, who may be champions. Louis van Gaal has blamed the fact the Premier League is “a rat race” for its struggles in the Champions League. If that is true, it’s only going to be rattier and racier next season. It is possible Pep Guardiola will settle rapidly and turn City into a relentless winning machine, or that the new man at Chelsea will perform immediate surgery and galvanise the remnants of last season’s champions, but at the moment it feels as though next season could be the equivalent of a huge bar-fight in a Western, a giant melee of flying bottles and chairs, with the foreign sophisticates standing to one side, polishing their stilettos and watching on with a mixture of horror and fascination. For years, the cliche was that the Premier League was a competition in which anybody could beat anybody and, while that isn’t quite true, reality has moved closer to the image of late. Only 12 games in the Premier League this season have been decided by a margin of four goals or more; in Germany 19 have and in Spain 24. Spain’s performances across the two European competitions (none of its seven clubs have yet been eliminated) gives the lie to any thought of La Liga being about only three clubs but it is the case that there are more easier games there. The gap between top and bottom of the Premier League is narrower than in the other two nations with four Champions League entrants. That’s understandable: the top side in the Premier League in 2014-15 took only 1.53 times as much in prize money as the bottom team, as opposed to a ration of 11.3:1 in Spain and 2:1 on Germany. That might not be a recipe for European success (although it would help if English clubs didn’t waste so much money in their demand for instant success; they’re like an old housemate of mine who, when the kettle broke, would order a flashy new one online rather than simply changing the fuse, leaving us with a cupboard overspilling with perfectly serviceable nearly new kettles), but it has led to a league that is unpredictable and fun. This is subjective but, by comparison with the Premier League this season, the Champions League has felt a little stale – PSG playing Chelsea, again; Barcelona playing Arsenal, again; Bayern potentially playing City, again: a long weary march to largely predictable semi-finalists when it finally gets going for real. In that regard, it’s hardly surprising if the big clubs are looking at the Champions League and wondering how it may be enlivened. The problem is that, with their thinking dominated by self-interest, their conclusion seems to be the competition needs more of the same, a guaranteed presence of a complacent elite. The Premier League this season suggests the opposite is true. The recent complaint – not unreasonably – has been there is a lack of quality at the top end of the Premier League, something that, for all the delights of Riyad Mahrez and Jamie Vardy, Dele Alli and Harry Kane, is borne out by European results. But if the alternative is a league season that’s done by March, it may be a trade worth making.
IMF threatens to pull out of Greek rescue Hopes of an end to the impasse between Greece and its creditors have appeared to evaporate after asurprise intervention from the International Monetary Fund. In a letter - leaked three days before eurozone finance ministers are scheduled to discuss how best to put the crisis-plagued country back on its feet – IMF chief Christine Lagarde issued her most explicit warning yet: either foreign lenders agree to restructure Greece’s runaway debt or the Washington-based organisation will pull out of rescue plans altogether. “For us to support Greece with a new IMF arrangement, it is essential that the financing and debt relief from Greece’s European partners are based on fiscal targets that are realistic because they are supported by credible measures to reachthem,” she wrote, lamenting the lack of structural reforms underlying Athens’ abortive adjustment programme so far. Six years have elapsed since Greece, revealing a deficit that was four times higher than previously thought, received its first loans from a bailout programme that has since exceeded more than €240bn (£190bn) in emergency funding. Since a third €86bn bailout last summer, talks have been largely deadlocked. Laying bare the differences of view prevailing among those consigned to keep the insolvent nation afloat, Lagarde said it was imperative that a lower primary surplus goal was achieved. “We do not believe it will be possible to reach a 3.5% of GDP primary surplus [in 2018] by relying on hiking already high taxes levied on a narrow base, cutting excessively discretionary spending and counting on one-off measures as has been proposed in recent weeks.” The IMF managing director’s intervention came after the surprise decision of the leftist-led government in Athens to put unpopular pension and tax changes to a vote on Sunday. The prospect of such controversial measures being passed so urgently unleashed a wave of civil unrest with a 48-hour general strike by private and public sector unions bringing Greece to a standstill. Unionists said the measures were a “barbaric” eradication of hard-won rights and would be “the last nail in the coffin” for workers whose salaries have already been savaged by relentless rounds of gruelling austerity. “They are the worst so far,” said Odysseus Trivalas, president of the public sector union ADEDY. “At some point, Greeks won’t be able to take anymore and there will be a social explosion.” Rallies are planned to protest against measures that include instituting a national pension of €384 a month, raising social security contributions and increasing income tax for high earners. The overhaul of the pension system is among the most contentious reforms to date. In a repeat of the drama that dominated the eurozone last year, Athens faces the spectre of default if its fails to honour maturing European Central Bank bonds and IMF loans in July. Long overdue rescue loans worth €5bn are at stake. Receipt of the funds depends on completion of a first progress report, or evaluation, of the economy that has been drawn out for the past nine months and has stalled over lender disagreement. With discord over Athens’ ability to achieve fiscal targets, creditors recently upped the ante, demanding an additional contingency package of €3.6bn, the equivalent of 2% of GDP. “While creditors fight this out, the political and social situation in Athens will deteriorate,” said Mujtaba Rahman, head of European analysis at risk consultancy Eurasia Group. “Time is running out for creditors to come to an agreement.” The Greek prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, unexpectedly called Sunday’s vote before the conclusion of the negotiations in order to placate creditors and increase his bargaining power at Monday’s meeting of eurozone finance ministers. In a first, the ministers are to discuss Greece’s debt load – which at more than 180% of GDP by far the highest in Europe – in addition to fiscal adjustment measures that could amount to 5% of GDP if contingency reforms are taken. The extra policies, as yet unspecified, will only be enacted if targets are not reached but, with its narrow three-seat majority, the Greek government has argued they will never get through parliament. “Tsipras is looking to demonstrate to Greek voters that he and his government have done their part, and that the ball, namely that of debt relief, now lies squarely with the Europeans,” said Rahman. “The subliminal message to creditors [in Sunday’s ballot] is therefore this: if you insist on contingency measures, you will end up with the collapse of my government and early elections.” Along with Britain’s 23 June referendum on EU membership, that could end up being a “big headache” for Europe, he added.
George Clooney admits money he raised for Hillary Clinton is 'obscene' George Clooney, who hosted big-money fundraisers for Hillary Clinton in California this weekend, has called such fundraising “obscene”. In response Bernie Sanders, Clinton’s opponent for the Democratic nomination, said he respected Clooney’s “integrity and honesty on this issue” and added: “One of the great tragedies is that big money is buying elections.” Clinton leads Sanders by double digits in most polls regarding New York, which stages its primary on Tuesday. The issue of fundraising has been a constant on the campaign trail, as Sanders heralds his reliance on small donors and lack of any fundraising Super Pac. Clooney’s events, however, in San Francisco and Los Angeles, attracted criticism from the Sanders campaign and, on Friday in San Francisco, protests outside the venue. Speaking to NBC’s Meet the Press, the actor was asked by host Chuck Todd whether the sums involved in his events, such as $353,400 a couple to be a “co-chair”, were, as critics and protesters have said, obscene. “Yes,” he said. “I think it’s an obscene amount of money. I think – you know that we had some protesters last night when we pulled up in San Francisco and they’re right to protest, they’re absolutely right, it is an obscene amount of money. “The Sanders campaign when they talk about it is absolutely right. It’s ridiculous that we should have this kind of money in politics. I agree, completely.” Sanders also appeared on Sunday morning shows, telling CNN’s State of the Union he had “a lot of respect for George Clooney’s honesty and integrity on this issue”. “One of the great tragedies is that big money is buying elections,” he said, adding that party leaders should not be “responsive to the needs of Wall Street and wealthy campaign contributors”. “There is something wrong when a few people, in this case wealthy individuals are able to contribute unbelievably large sums of money,” Sanders said. “That is not what democracy is about. That is a movement toward oligarchy.” “This is the issue of American politics today. Do we have a government that represents all of us or represents the 1%?” Sanders was asked, and declined, to name a piece of legislation or decision which Clinton had made when in office that might have been influenced by large donations to her campaigns. In San Francisco on Friday, nearly 200 Sanders supporters protested outside a fundraiser staged by the tech entrepreneur and venture capitalist Shervin Pishevar and hosted by Clooney and his wife, Amal. Tickets cost from $33,400 to $353,400. Bill Sandberg, a 29-year-old protester, told the he had just been laid off from Zedo, an ad tech startup. “Bernie’s actually for the people,” he said. “Hillary’s just bought and sold.” On NBC, Clooney, who said he would fundraise for Sanders if he won the nomination, rejected accusations from some protesters that he was a “corporate shill”. “That’s one of the funnier things you could say about me,” he said. He said that most of the money he had helped raise for Clinton would actually go to down-ticket Democrats running for Congress. If a Democratic president could get the right justice appointed to the supreme court, he argued, then the US could again begin to separate money from politics. “We need to take the Senate back because we need to confirm a supreme court justice, because that fifth vote on the supreme court can overturn Citizens United and get this obscene, ridiculous amount of money out so I never have to do a fundraiser again.” The actor added that he does not enjoy the fundraisers, and linked the work of his foundation, which traces the wealth of corrupt politicians, to that of the Panama Papers and the supreme court case. “I think Citizens United is one of the worst laws passed since I’ve been around.” Clooney also showed a willingness to meet pro-Sanders protesters in San Francisco halfway – or at least to indulge in some self-deprecation with them “Their T-shirts said, you know, ‘You sucked as Batman,’” he said. “And I was like, ‘Well, you kind of got me on that one.’” This article was amended on 17 April 2016 to reflect that Clooney was not asked whether he had met Sanders. The actor told an anecdote about meeting Donald Trump.
Mental illness one of development's 'invisible crises', says IMC expert Dr Inka Weissbecker, International Medical Corps’ mental health and psychosocial adviser, recently received an email from a colleague working in South Sudan. In it, the Ethiopian psychiatrist gave her an account of the violence that tore through the huge UN camp close to the northern town of Malakal in mid-February, leaving 18 people dead and thousands without shelter. “He was talking about how some of our health facilities were attacked and one of our patients with a psychotic disorder died – I think he was shot – because he probably couldn’t flee like other patients,” says Weissbecker. She adds: “This is actually quite common. When people suddenly have to flee, or when there’s a lot of commotion and chaos, people who are functioning less well may, basically, be left.” For Weissbecker, the man’s death is an extreme example of the way in which mental illness is overlooked in both humanitarian crises and global development, despite its huge human, financial and social costs. Mental problems – from depression and trauma to schizophrenia and substance abuse – affect hundreds of millions of people. A 2011 report put the global cost of mental health conditions in 2010 at $2.5tn (£1.78tn; pdf), but said that figure would surge to $6tn by 2030. However, Weissbecker says many donor governments and international NGOs still do not appreciate the importance of addressing mental health problems in both their long-term crisis responses and wider development work. Even though people with mental health problems tend to die at least 10 years earlier than their peers and are far less likely to seek healthcare for illnesses such as HIV and Aids, tuberculosis, diabetes or heart disease, their plight tends to be less acknowledged. “From a public health perspective, it’s one of these invisible crises, since people are not measuring it or looking at it,” she says. “I think it’s more visible in humanitarian crises. But when it comes to the development side – planning for development, health system strengthening, better social systems and long-term nutrition – I think it’s often overlooked.” Part of the reason, Weissbecker argues, is that people tend to focus on the trauma that comes in the immediate aftermath of natural disasters and conflicts rather than the underlying problems that can predate them, or the long tails of depression that can follow them. “Trauma is important, but it’s usually not the biggest problem, interestingly,” she says. “In our work with Syrian refugees, for example, we see that depression is much more common, and it’s often related to grief or loss. That makes sense, but people very often think more about trauma than developmental disorders among children or epilepsy and psychotic disorders. The most common things we see in humanitarian crises, like in South Sudan, are epilepsy and psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia – these are our highest caseload.” Many Syrians, she adds, have told the IMC they have epilepsy but can’t get the medication they used to take. But Weissbecker also points to countries where people with mental illnesses are locked up or where children with epilepsy are not allowed to go to school because people mistakenly believe the condition is contagious. “One of the long-term consequences is a loss of human potential,” she says. “You’re losing people who could have worked productively, educated themselves, formed healthy family relationships and even prevented violence. You’ll end up with a society that’s more dysfunctional and less productive.” Faced with such challenges, says Weissbecker, the international community needs to do far more than just fly in psychologists on a three-month stint after an earthquake or typhoon. And while she has been encouraged by the way that mental health provision has been built into programmes to strengthen the health systems of some of the countries that were affected by the Ebola outbreak, she says much of the onus must be on the donor community. “In the past five to 10 years, there’s been a lot more funding for mental health – which is great, and the UK’s Department for International Development has been very active – but on the US side, donors like USAid don’t really do as much. They should be doing more and, in the UK, more also could be done in terms of really integrating mental health not just into humanitarian response, but also into development.” At the root of the problem, however, are the familiar challenges of ignorance, prejudice and marginalisation. “People with mental illnesses are often seen as ‘those poor people who need help’ – and of course we do need to help them,” she says. “But they’re also human beings who have the skills and abilities and intelligence, and I think that’s something that sometimes falls by the wayside.”
Live music booking now Trap music is probably most identifiable by its snares, which sound like somebody riffling a deck of metallic cards, but it’s also conspicuous for its contextual roots – those being “the trap”: both a crack house and the general term for the drug-dealing lifestyle. Unlike Beyoncé’s sanitised iteration of the genre, Fetty Wap’s disarmingly buoyant Trap Queen stays true to trap’s bleak original subject matter. Enjoy with the aid of cognitive dissonance on the rapper’s pair of UK dates (O2 Institute Birmingham, 27 May; Eventim Apollo, W6, 29 May) … Not long ago, Norwich teens Let’s Eat Grandma were doing Ed Sheeran covers. Now they’re making alt-R&B with the ethereal eccentricity of Kate Bush, such is the crash course in cool the internet can freely provide. Their debut single Deep Six Textbook is very enjoyable, even if the breathy, high-pitched vocals do sound a bit like the work of a six year-old Ellie Goulding (Electrowerkz, N1, 1 Jun) … Indie veterans the Cribs are to play a big outdoor homecoming show in Leeds’s Millennium Square (22 Jul). Support comes from Thurston Moore, Pulled Apart By Horses and Menace Beach.
Charlie Puth: Nine Track Mind review – subtly retro, softly burning R&B pop Fresh from committing crimes against the English language with his chart-topping single Marvin Gaye – a collaboration with Meghan “All About That Bass” Trainor that co-opted the soul giant’s name into one of the more grammatically cavalier refrains of recent times – Charlie Puth releases his debut album. But there are no repeats of such lyrical misdemeanours here – instead the 24-year-old Puth errs on the side of caution. Taking cues from classic R&B, his subtly retro record makes few concessions to the present day, and the ones that are there feel perfunctory: Losing My Mind, for example, begins with a looped soul sample that quickly recedes to make way for yet more crooning. But while his traditionalism can feel staid (even Ed Sheeran, Puth’s UK equivalent when it comes to lovelorn beta-male balladeers, takes a risk once in a while), the standard of his songwriting is consistently high, and his central theme – romantic obsession that verges on the masochistic – makes for a record that softly burns.
Who will be the star of the out campaign? The number of big political figures preparing to campaign for Britain to leave the EU is diminishing by the day, with Theresa May, Boris Johnson and Michael Gove all seemingly brought onside by No 10 to back remaining in. With no cabinet heavyweight yet declared for Brexit, the Vote Leave campaign on Wednesday appointed Nigel Lawson, the Conservative peer and former chancellor, as its chairman. At the same time, it removed the chief executive, Matthew Elliott, and director, Dominic Cummings, from the board, whose combative style has been criticised by some prominent Tory Eurosceptics. Both have been instrumental in resisting a merger with Leave.EU, the rival campaign run by Ukip donor Arron Banks. The move also demotes John Mills – the current chairman and Labour donor – to the role of deputy, with a view to him focusing on wooing centrist and leftwing supporters to the Vote Leave cause. “I am delighted to accept the chairmanship of Vote Leave, to help ensure that the organisation is fully prepared for the start of the referendum campaign,” Lawson said. “Once the prime minister returns from the European council, I am confident that other senior figures will step forward to support the Vote Leave campaign, but I am happy to help the board and campaign team make the appropriate decisions in the crucial weeks ahead.” The Vote Leave campaign said Lawson was now in charge of steering the board but would not be the sole spokesperson. Instead, there will be a panel of figures from politics, business and other spheres of life announced when cabinet ministers are free to campaign on either side of the argument – once a deal with Brussels has been finalised. A Vote Leave source said cabinet ministers were currently “gagged” by the prime minister but they were confident of getting senior Tories on side when the referendum is announced. Senior figures in the out campaign believe there are four or five cabinet ministers ready to swing behind their drive to exit the EU. These are likely to be Chris Grayling, Iain Duncan Smith, Priti Patel, Theresa Villiers and John Whittingdale. However, the decision about who becomes the figurehead for the out campaign will ultimately depend on whether Vote Leave or Leave.EU is given the official designation – entailing money and airtime – by the Electoral Commission. Vote Leave is considered to be in pole position but some senior Conservatives have been unhappy with its management. Leave.EU has positioned itself as the campaign run from outside the Westminster bubble, with thousands of grassroots supporters. The two campaigns could still merge at some point but figures allied to Vote Leave are anxious about the influence of Ukip’s leader, Nigel Farage, over Leave.EU, fearing he is too divisive to win centrist voters. Regardless of that decision, some of those who could play a starring role in the Brexit campaign are: Iain Duncan Smith As a former leader of the Conservatives, Duncan Smith is perhaps the most recognisable household name among the Tory outters but he is now closely associated with politically divisive cuts to benefits as work and pensions secretary. A committed Eurosceptic, he was one of the original Maastricht rebels and his anti-EU views have not softened since then. He is planning to campaign independently rather than ally to a specific campaign. Chris Grayling Grayling, the leader of the House of Commons is a long-term Eurosceptic, who is more interested than Duncan Smith in being a public face of the campaign to leave the EU. Like Duncan Smith, though, he is a middle-aged Conservative man on the right of the party, who may not be able to reach swing voters. Nigel Lawson The Conservative former chancellor was made chairman of the Vote Leave campaign on Wednesday, putting him in a strong position to be the main voice of the outters – at least until cabinet ministers are allowed to declare their allegiances. He would be a trusted voice among Tory ranks when talking about the economics of the decision but also may not be able to appeal across the political spectrum to the crucial undecided voters, particularly given his vocal interventions disputing the science of climate change. Priti Patel The employment minister, who sits at the cabinet table but does not have full cabinet status, was once head of press for the anti-EU Referendum party, a predecessor of Ukip. She is definitely Eurosceptic but also has strong political ambitions. These could either be served by loyalty to No 10, or alternatively, by becoming more high-profile through leading the outters. She is often relied upon by the Conservatives as a solid media performer, who looks and sounds more natural than many of her colleagues. Kate Hoey The Labour MP and former minister could be very effective at reaching out to non-Tories: she makes the leftwing case for leaving. There is only a handful of Labour MPs who want to leave the EU but many more in the trade union movement. The leave campaigns are desperate to mobilise the support of union members. Nigel Farage Farage is extremely high-profile but many in the Tory Eurosceptic family want him to take a backseat because of fears he is too divisive. He shows no sign of wanting to do this and has launched his own personal “Say No to the EU” tour, which is packing out venues across the country. If the Leave.EU campaign becomes the official one, he is likely to become the de facto figurehead of the outters, given his vocal media presence and talent for turning a phrase.
UK's EU workers react to Brexit: 'Britain is a poorer, crueller country' Europeans living in the UK have expressed alarm about their future after Britons voted to leave the EU. There are 3 million EU citizens living in the UK, and although their status will not change immediately, many are deeply concerned about the implication of EU withdrawal on their right to continue living and working in Britain. Before the vote we asked some of Britain’s EU workers how they would feel about a possible Brexit. Now that the country has voted to leave, we returned to them for their reaction. The lorry driver Michael Tyser, 37 (above) is Czech and lives in Derbyshire. This is all David Cameron’s fault. Tyser, who has a two-year-old daughter Maya, previously worked as a teacher in the Czech Republic. He believes there is one person to blame for the result. “I think this is all David Cameron’s fault,” he says. “A year ago he tried to stay in politics by promising a referendum to the people. Now he is surprised that people like Nigel Farage grabbed the chance to play on the divide among people. “Every day I think about Jo Cox, who lost her life and fought so hard for the remain campaign. I am deeply sad because her two children will never see their mum again and her husband will never see his wife.” For Tyser, the vote to leave won’t change his life as much as it may for others. “I worry more about what will happen to the sterling,” he says. “Big companies will move to Europe because it will be easier for them there. People will probably start losing jobs, and I think there is big risk Scotland will say goodbye to UK. “I hope European leaders will do something so that they don’t lose any more members. Because what I hear, a lot of Czech people would be happy to follow in the footsteps of the UK. The British people have decided and I deeply respect their decision. I am just not sure if it is the right step for the future.” The freelance writer Seamas O’Reilly, 30, is Irish and lives in London. Britain awoke today a poorer, crueller and more dangerous country. Originally from Derry, which is on the border of the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, O’Reilly is saddened by the result. “It represents a shameful retreat to a smaller mindset, unshackled from empathy, decency or even just intellectual engagement with complex issues,” he says. “I am disgusted by this result and the mandate it gives to the most loathsome political elements of this nation. I am saddened by what it says about the British people, what it means for the protection of essential services and workers’ rights, and the truly horrifying implications that the reimposition of military borders could have on the streets of Northern Ireland.” He feels the result would have been easier to accept if the leave campaign had not caused so much unease among voters. “Their utter contempt for the intelligence of the British public has been evident from day one,” he says. “In their repeated utterance of statements they knew to be false, in their craven misrepresentation of facts and personal endorsements to their own ends, and in their ugly, disingenuous insistence on focusing on EU immigrants, who they know have repeatedly been proven a net gain to the country and whose numbers are not really reducible by any deal a future British state may seek to strike within the outer EU anyway. This might be why they reverted to simply showing images of huddled non-European people or referring to them as if they were an airborne disease. “Britain awoke today a poorer, crueller and more dangerous country, and could remain so for decades to come.” The social worker Uta Schmidtblaicher, 35, is German and lives in Portsmouth. I’m not sure the UK is the kind of country I want to bring my children up in. With two young children, Schmidtblaicher worries about their future in the UK. “I feel shocked and disappointed,” she says. “Yesterday evening was quite positive with the polls saying that remain was ahead. I went to bed and thought it would be OK in the end. This morning I couldn’t believe that it actually happened. I’m not sure the UK is the kind of country I want to bring up my children in now. I don’t want them to feel isolated now that we will leave Europe. “I feel the tabloid newspapers have not helped. The vote to leave doesn’t seem to be one based on reason.” She feels the result may have been down to people who came out to vote who had not done previously. “I think this whole thing about taking back control has been quite powerful for people,” she says. “It’s captured the sentiment of people and their disillusionment within the country and this has been projected on to the European Union. “For our family it’s quite sad. Things are up in the air. We had a Spanish and English family over last night. We were quite positive. I think things will be difficult now for families like us. I should probably get a British passport but I’m not sure I want to sign up for one.” The financial services company owner Mario Van Poppel, 36, is Belgian and lives in Berkshire. I feel sorry that the British are not able to move back to the EU like I can. Running his own financial services business, Van Poppel is sad that the UK will leave. “I’m angry that the few people who were abusive while I was out campaigning for the remain camp now have their sweet victory,” he says. “I’m also disappointed that people believed the leave camp’s half-truths and lies. “I was a count agent for remain in Slough last night. With the night progressing it became clear that Slough was voting to leave, and this was happening all over the country. By 2am we had a suspicion that it wasn’t going to end well. The remain campaigners I have been campaigning with all day felt devastated. Especially because we started the night thinking we were going to win.” Despite the unexpected result, he is not afraid. “I feel better this morning than I did yesterday,” he says. “At least now we know. My family and I will be all right. Things won’t change overnight [I think]. And we have the option to go back to the EU to live, work and travel there freely. I feel sorry for the British that they are not in my position.” The barrister Fernando Del Canto, 49, is Spanish and lives in London. The decision shows that this issue is not just limited to the UK. Del Canto, a Spanish barrister living and working in UK, is shocked but not entirely surprised. “This decision shows that there is an issue here, not just in the UK but within the European Union. I think there is a lot dissatisfaction and this vote is like a wake up call to reality,” he says. “It has been a hard night. Europe was seen as a model but now that’s not the case with the way it has responded to issues like immigration.” He is disappointed, but thinks there is a lot to learn from the way the UK has voted. “I’m disappointed but also hope that this result will open debate around the future of the EU. I don’t think Brexit will happen in the way people expect but I do think other countries could call for a referendum. People in Brussels will have to think and we need to listen.” The bartender Loredana Cobzaru, 31, is Romanian and lives in London. I feel like this is my home. When I go back to Romania it’s like being on holiday. Working as a bartender in London, Cobzaru was surprised by the result. “What can I say? I’m disappointed and sad,” she says. “I wasn’t expecting it. I was 99% sure that the UK wouldn’t vote to leave. It’s weird because last night the polls seemed to suggest that remain would win. “I think we should wait for the worst to happen. For the UK I think the economy will be really bad. Look at the pound at the moment. For us Europeans it’s easy. We can go back to our home countries or live somewhere else in Europe.” She is more concerned about her friends who feel as if their lives in the UK have been for nothing. “Some of my friends have been here for 20 years and they are so disappointed by the result,” she says. ‘They spent so many years working and living here for nothing. For my friends who have businesses here, I can’t imagine what will happen to them. “For me? It won’t affect me that much as I’m a resident here so I can come and go at any time, but I wanted the UK to remain as a member of the union. I feel like this is my home. When I go back to Romania it’s like being on holiday.”
Pet Shop Boys' new video proves they're the ultimate singles band Call a group a “singles band” still and it feels like a barb. Perhaps it’s because singles began life as cynical, commerce-boosting products, and that legacy has lingered (“The new 7in record ensures you greater profit through faster turnover!” crowed RCA, so romantically, at the format’s launch in 1949). The album has long been seen as the ultimate expression of cleverness, too, forgetting that big ideas are often more powerful when they’re conveyed in short, sharp shocks. As one suburban sage said – someone whom the Pet Shop Boys would cover – “we learned more from a three-minute record, baby, than we ever learned in school”. A shot from the dark, a lightning bolt, a rattle of the cage: a great single can feel like all of those, and the Pet Shop Boys know that. They have plenty of them in the tank, after all, and their new one, Twenty-something, is full of their trademarks: a nagging, electronic riff, a proper narrative, oceans of melancholy just around the corner, and that vocal of Neil Tennant’s, unwithered by the years, simultaneously vulnerable and strong. The Pet Shop Boys’ singles, at their best, are like perfect short stories, giving quick glimpses into lives, appearing then disappearing, but lingering bright and long in the mind. That’s not to say their albums sag, although I’ve loved some more than others and any band that’s stuck to the one-word title for 20 albums – including compilations – deserves our applause). Their status as a singles band for me is confirmed from the framework they set with their first, though, the enduring masterpiece that is West End Girls. I’ve written about this before for the , but it still staggers me every time I hear it: a compellingly strange fusion of very British things (a 31-year-old Englishman in a raincoat doing spoken-word, the influence of TS Eliot’s The Waste Land) and American modernity (the starkness of film noir, the stark sounds of electro). From that point on, Pet Shop Boys saw the single as a world of possibility into which every influence could be poured and from which something incredible could be moulded and shined, an artefact for the ages. My childhood and adolescence was formed by this stuff. I knew from the Pets that a single could be educational, too. At nine, It’s a Sin was a dramatic thing that gave me an idea of people having a past. At 10, Heart gave words and volume to the crushes I was feeling. At 11, I’d read the words of Left to My Own Devices, pinking-sheared from the pages of Smash Hits, and wondered who could tell me who Che Guevera and Debussy were, although it almost didn’t matter. I knew they were authorities in some field or other, and that they existed to the pulse of a disco beat: that was enough. There were worlds outside my knowledge, and worlds firmly within it, and the Pet Shop Boys told me I could bring them together to live happily side by side. Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe kept doing this long after their self-defined “imperial phase” had finished. Take their mashing-up of U2’s Where The Streets Have No Name and Boys Town Gang’s version of Frankie Valli’s Can’t Take My Eyes Off You in 1991: their aim to turn “a mythic rock song into a stomping disco record”, as Tennant said on Discography’s sleevenotes, showed how to skewer a certain genre’s heavy smugness. Then there was the spark of Latin-flavoured colour that was 1996 No 8 hit, Se a Vida é, its video beginning with a quote from poet Rupert Brooke, its outlook transporting us far from the settling sludginess of Britpop. Or take 2004’s Flamboyant, one of my all-time Pet Shop Boys favourites, which has a message that returns, rather boldly, in Twenty-something. “You live in a world of excess, where more is more and less is much less,” Flamboyant begins, humour perfectly piercing the hubris. “You’ve always been somewhat choosy, but you’ll love her for the length of a good movie,” Twenty-something responds, 12 years on, razor-sharp. Then come those oceans of melancholy, just around the corner again, that electronic riff, and that voice, vulnerable and strong. “Take your smartphone and make your way home / On your own.” In 2016, the Pet Shop Boys are still defiantly making singles about the young, and crafting them to get on to radio playlists (although, as Tennant told me in 2013, “Radio people actually say to us now, ‘Oh, we won’t ever play your records, because you’re too old.” At 61 and 56, they remain oddly provocative, and that’s the way things should be. Long may they keep giving us short, sharp shocks, perfect short stories, to linger long, for the ages.
Queen uses Christmas message to urge Britons to 'take a deep breath' The Queen has suggested that Britain needs to “take a deep breath” to face the “world’s big problems” after a tumultuous political year. In her annual Christmas message, the monarch made no mention of Britain’s historic vote to leave the European Union, focusing instead on the “inspiration” of Britain’s successful Olympics team. In what could be seen as a coded message to the nation in the aftermath of the Brexit vote, she said: “When people face a challenge they sometimes talk about taking a deep breath to find courage or strength. In fact, the word ‘inspire’ literally means ‘to breathe in’.” The Queen’s Christmas address was recorded before she fell ill, forcing her to miss the annual church service at Sandringham for the first time in almost 30 years. She had also delayed travelling to the royal estate for the annual Christmas break earlier this week. In the address, she added: “Even with the inspiration of others, it’s understandable that we sometimes think the world’s problems are so big that we can do little to help.” She partially echoed a Thought for the Day message given by the Prince of Wales earlier this week, in which he had called for more tolerance towards refugees by urging people to remember that Jesus, Mary and Joseph were forced to flee violent persecution. The Queen did not go that far, but in an address which traditionally has a strong religious theme, she pointed out that Jesus was “maligned and rejected by many, though he had done no wrong”. The Queen has done a Christmas broadcast every year of her 64-year reign except for 1969, when there was an overload of royal coverage due to her son’s investiture as Prince of Wales. Unlike the annual Queen’s speech to parliament, the Christmas address is written without the help of government advisers. The theme of this year’s broadcast was “inspiration”. She used the word “inspire” or its derivates 10 times as she spoke about the achievements of the UK’s Olympic and Paralympic athletes, and those from the Commonwealth. She added: “To be inspirational you don’t have to save lives or win medals. I often draw strength from meeting ordinary people doing extraordinary things: volunteers, carers, community organisers and good neighbours; unsung heroes whose quiet dedication makes them special.” This year’s message reflected the increasingly devout nature of the monarch’s Christmas addresses of the past few years. She repeatedly stressed the importance of “small acts of goodness” and she cited Mother, now Saint, Teresa of Calcutta, as saying: “Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.” Using her own words, the Queen added: “Christ’s example helps me see the value of doing small things with great love, whoever does them and whatever they themselves believe.” She continued the theme in paying tribute to the 600 charities of which she is patron. “Many of these organisation are modest in size but inspire me with the work they do.” Last week it was announced that the Queen would be stepping down as patron from 25 national organisations at the end of her 90th birthday year, with the patronages passing to other members of the royal family. The Queen recorded her Christmas message in Buckingham Palace’s Regency Room while seated at a desk featuring a photograph of her with the Prince of Wales, released earlier this month to mark the end of her 90th birthday year. Illness forced her to miss the Christmas Day service at Sandringham’s St Mary Magdalene church for the first time since 1988. More than a thousand people had gathered outside the Norfolk church for a glimpse of the monarch, including some who had arrived before dawn. In a brief statement issued before the service, Buckingham Palace said: “The Queen continues to recover from a heavy cold and will stay indoors to assist with her recovery.” It added: “Her Majesty will participate in the royal family Christmas celebrations during the day.” The 90-year-old Queen and Duke of Edinburgh, 95, were forced to fly to their Sandringham estate in Norfolk by helicopter on Thursday after their initial Christmas plans to travel by train were cancelled because of ill health. The duke was well enough to attend the service. He was accompanied by other senior royals, including the Prince of Wales and his wife the Duchess of Cornwall, Prince Harry, and Princes Andrew Edward and their families. The royals showed no sign of concern about the health of the Queen. Prince Harry was seen chatting and joking with some of the crowd. Ada Nesbitt, 93, decorated her wheelchair for the occasion, and also wore tinsel and Santa earmuffs. Her daughter Jane Nesbitt, 56, from Norfolk, said: “Harry said you expect to get noticed, dressed like that. It’s a pity to miss the Queen but if she’s not well, she’s not well.” The Duke of Cambridge broke with tradition by spending Christmas at his wife’s family home in Bucklebury, Berkshire. The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge attended a service in nearby Englefield church with their children George and Charlotte.
Barack, the Beatles and Bridget Jones's Baby: 40 films to watch in autumn 2016 Brotherhood Following Kidulthood and Adulthood, Noel Clarke’s London crime saga rolls to a close. Ex-con Sam (Clarke) is seeking a way out from the gangster life, but just when he thought he was out etc. • 2 September (all dates are UK release dates) Café Society The best that Woody Allen has served up since Blue Jasmine. Jesse Eisenberg plays a nervous New Yorker dazzled and repulsed by the glamour of 1930s Hollywood. • 2 September Sausage Party A film in which foodstuff learns its fate: this is a very adult take on Toy Story that skewers religious dogma – starring Seth Rogen as Frank the frankfurter and Kristen Wiig as Brenda, the bun he can’t wait to fill. • 2 September Things to Come Mia Hansen-Løve’s meditation on late-life reinvention. Isabelle Huppert stars as a philosophy teacher who finds her theories on life tested when her husband leaves her. • 2 September Captain Fantastic Six kids and their free-wheeling pops (Viggo Mortensen) struggle to reintegrate into society after spending a decade living in the woods. Pride star George Mackay heads up the brood. • 9 September Hell or High Water Chris Pine and Ben Foster play brothers on the run, having robbed a string of banks to save their mum’s house from repossession. Jeff Bridges plays the sheriff chasing them down, but the real baddie? It’s the economy, stupid. • 9 September Beatles: Eight Days a Week Ron Howard’s documentary about the Fab Four’s live shows, from the Cavern Club to their final performance at San Francisco’s Candlestick Park in 1966. Made with the full support of Ringo, Paul and Yoko. • 15 September Blair Witch Back to the woods with a sequel to the 1999 horror that made big business of found footage. A group of luckless teens document their attempt to disprove the legend of the Blair Witch. The fools. • 15 September Bridget Jones’s Baby Bridget returns 12 years after sequel Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, one marriage down and torn between her ex (Colin Firth) and a dashing new suitor (Patrick Dempsey). Life as a fortysomething singleton is complicated when she finds out she’s pregnant and is only half-sure who the father is. • 16 September The Clan Pablo Trapero’s dark crime thriller about the Puccios, a Buenos Aires family who kidnapped four people – murdering three – in the 1980s. An Argentinian spin on Goodfellas, with stylish violence to spare. • 16 September Hunt for the Wilderpeople The latest from New Zealand director Taika Waititi (What We Do in the Shadows) sees a foster kid attempt to escape child services with the reluctant help of grumpy Uncle Hec (Sam Neill). • 16 September Two Women Perhaps more a curiosity than a must-see as Ralph Fiennes stars as the spurned lover in a lush, daft Russian-language adaptation of Ivan Turgenev’s A Month in the Country. • 16 September The Girl With All the Gifts MR Carey’s zombie-ish thriller gets the big-screen treatment. Newcomer Sennia Nanua plays the girl who could hold the cure to the fungal outbreak that turns people into “hungries”. Gemma Arterton, Paddy Considine and Glenn Close are the grownups hoping for a breakthrough before they get bitten. • 23 September Imperium Roll the dice again on the Daniel Radcliffe reinvention. This time he’s playing a tough cop masquerading as a Nazi to infiltrate a white supremacist terrorist cell. Good luck Dan! • 23 September Little Men Ira Sachs zips between the generational divide with his drama about two Brooklyn teens whose friendship is threatened by their parents’ row over rising rent in their trendy neighbourhood. • 23 September The Magnificent Seven Seven mercenaries take on the job of protecting a small town from a meanie industrialist in Antoine Fuqua’s reload of the John Sturges classic. Your new guns-for-hire include Denzel Washington, Ethan Hawke and Chris Pratt. • 23 September Free State of Jones Matthew McConaughey plays Newton Knight, a Confederate soldier who leads a band of fellow deserters against slavery. Early word has this as the actor’s first misstep in years. If so, come see the McConnaissance draw to a close. • 30 September Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children More bonkers wibbly-woo from Tim Burton, this time adapted from the young adult book by Ransom Riggs. Eva Green plays the headmistress of a school-full of supernaturally gifted pupils. • 30 September Deepwater Horizon The story of the environmental disaster that led to BP paying the biggest fine in US history. Battleship director Peter Berg is captain of the rig, Mark Wahlberg is manning the pumps. • 30 September Southside with You A first-date movie where she is the future first lady and he will one day be the 44th president of the United States. Marvel as Barack (Parker Sawyers) and Michelle (Tika Sumpter) look at art, watch a movie and eat an ice cream. Phwoar. • 30 September Swiss Army Man Roll the dice again on the Daniel Radcliffe reinvention. This time he’s a farting corpse who’s befriended by a man (Paul Dano) marooned on an island. • 30 September Supersonic The real, behind-the-scenes, been-told-a-few-times-but-probably worth-telling-again story of Oasis, brought to you by the same team who made Amy. • 2 October The Girl on the Train Paula Hawkins’s bestselling murder mystery is set in motion by The Help director Tate Taylor. Emily Blunt plays Rachel, the alcoholic who witnesses a shocking crime but whose squiffy recollection might implicate her. • 7 October War on Everyone Bad cop/bad cop comedy in which Alexander Skarsgård and Michael Peña play New Mexico law enforcement dedicated to protecting and serving their need to get high and get paid. • 7 October American Honey “A group of teens travel across America to sell magazines” might not sound like masterpiece material but the deceptively simple setup for Andrea Arnold’s latest drama has led to what many have called her magnum opus after it premiered at Cannes to rave reviews. Shia LaBeouf and newcomer Sasha Lane star. • 14 October Storks Bad Neighbours director and Muppets writer Nicholas Stoller makes a return to family fare in this high-concept animation about the storks who deliver children to expectant parents. A starry voice cast includes Jennifer Aniston, Kelsey Grammer, Andy Samberg and Danny Trejo. • 14 October I, Daniel Blake Ken Loach’s latest angry tribute to the working class impressed the elite back in May when it won the Palme d’Or at Cannes and is set to be his biggest film for years, giving audiences a glimpse at a welfare state that makes life hard for those who need it most. • 21 October Jack Reacher: Never Go Back While the first Jack Reacher film was hardly a critical or commercial smash, Paramount remains keen for a franchise, and they’re hoping that Lee Child fans come out in force to see Tom Cruise play the character again in this prequel, from The Last Samurai director Edward Zwick. • 21 October The Queen of Katwe Lupita Nyong’o’s post-Oscar career has been reduced to a handful of voice roles, but in Mira Nair’s fact-based Disney drama, we finally get to see her in the flesh, playing the Ugandan mother of a chess prodigy. David Oyelowo also stars. • 21 October Trolls The unusual decision to release Justin Timberlake’s insidiously effective theme Can’t Stop the Feeling five months before the film hits cinemas has ensured that anyone with functioning ears is already horribly aware of this animated adventure, where the singer voices a grumpy troll. • 21 October Doctor Strange Another potential franchise-starter from Marvel sees Benedict Cumberbatch play a neurosurgeon who experiences a car accident and becomes trained in the mystic arts by the Ancient One, played by Tilda Swinton. Chiwetel Ejiofor and Mads Mikkelsen also star. • 28 October Personal Shopper Olivier Assayas’s strange supernatural thriller received a mixture of applause and boos when it premiered at Cannes this year although even the worst reviews found time to praise Kristen Stewart’s commanding performance as a woman struggling with the death of her brother. • 28 October The Accountant Ben Affleck is swapping his Batman suit for an actual suit to play the title role in Warrior director Gavin O’Connor’s action thriller. He’s a child genius turned mob accountant who uncovers a conspiracy. Anna Kendrick and JK Simmons also star. • 4 November The Light Between Oceans Blue Valentine director Derek Cianfrance returns to relationships after his less successful crime drama The Place Beyond the Pines with this period romance starring Michael Fassbender and Alicia Vikander as a couple who find a baby in a boat with a dead body. • 4 November Nocturnal Animals Tom Ford follows up his Oscar-nominated drama A Single Man with this ambitious thriller about a woman who receives a sinister manuscript from her ex-husband. An impressive cast includes Amy Adams, Jake Gyllenhaal, Michael Shannon, Isla Fisher, Armie Hammer, Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Laura Linney. • 4 November American Pastoral Ewan McGregor makes his directing debut with an adaptation of Philip Roth’s Pulitzer prize-winning novel about a family falling apart in 1960s America. He’ll also play the lead role, alongside Jennifer Connelly and Dakota Fanning. • 11 November Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them JK Rowling’s 1920s-set Harry Potter spin-off is being magicked to the big screen with Eddie Redmayne, Colin Farrell and Katherine Waterston starring, and Rowling herself writing the script. Warners are envisioning it as part of a new franchise, with Potter fans likely to ensure more chapters. • 18 November A Quiet Passion Terrence Davies makes an unusually swift return after last year’s Sunset Song with a biopic of Emily Dickinson starring Cynthia Nixon (Sex and the City’s Miranda) in the lead role. It met with mixed reviews after its premiere at the Berlin film festival. • 18 November Allied After The Walk failed to reach box-office heights last year, Robert Zemeckis is back on safer ground with this second world war thriller starring Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard as assassins who get married – but one of them is a double agent. • 25 November Bad Santa 2 A belated sequel to the 2003 cult hit brings back the foul-mouthed Santa, played by Billy Bob Thornton, who plans to rob a charity over the festive period. Christina Hendricks and Kathy Bates, as his abusive mother, join the cast. • 25 November Paterson Jim Jarmusch’s offbeat drama, about the repetitive life of a smalltown bus driver played by Adam Driver, opened to raves at Cannes, but its focus on slow-paced minutiae will make it a curio for most. • 25 November A United Kingdom Belle director Amma Asante is aiming for awards glory with the true story of an interracial marriage that caused an international outcry in the 1940s. Rosamund Pike and David Oyelowo star. • 25 November Bleed for This Miles Teller’s post-Whiplash choices have been patchy thus far, but he’s aiming for leading man status with this true story of a boxer who made an unlikely comeback after an accident that left him severely injured. • 2 December Sully The true story of the pilot who landed a plane in the Hudson river is brought to the big screen by Clint Eastwood, coming off the back of American Sniper, his biggest hit to date, and stars Tom Hanks in the title role with support from Laura Linney and Aaron Eckhart. • 2 December Office Christmas Party More festive lols are set to land with this raucous comedy about a party that gets out of hand. Jason Bateman, Jennifer Aniston, Kate McKinnon, Olivia Munn, TJ Miller and Courtney B Vance get drunk on eggnog. • 9 December Rogue One: A Star Wars Story After The Force Awakens kickstarted the Star Wars universe for a new generation, this prequel (taking place before A New Hope) recruits Felicity Jones, Diego Luna and Forest Whitaker as a team of rebels trying to take down the Death Star. • 16 December Passengers Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt take time out from starring in Buzzfeed lists to take on the leads in this sci-fi romance from The Imitation Game director Morten Tyldum about a couple falling in love in deep space. • 23 December Collateral Beauty Will Smith heads up an unusual cast, which also includes Kate Winslet, Edward Norton, Keira Knightley, Naomie Harris and Helen Mirren, in another Christmas-set tale about a man trying to get his life back on track after a tragedy. • 30 December • This article was amended on 30 August 2016. The original stated that Ralph Fiennes’ was dubbed into Russian in Two Women. In fact, he speaks Russian. This has been corrected.
Prins Thomas: Principe Del Norte review – cosmic disco from Scandinavia via Ibiza Like some psychic twin-town project, Scandinavian producers are forever drawn to Ibiza. EDM stars fill the beaches, but others – such as Lindstrom, Tiedye, Studio and Todd Terje – have been drawn to the yogic, hippyish side of the island, where astral awakenings to deep Phil Collins cuts are never far away. Prins Thomas has tapped into this state for three self-titled LPs, and this fourth continues the journey outwards across an epic eight sides of vinyl. Thomas’s idol, the Ash Ra Tempel guitarist and Balearic pioneer Manuel Göttsching (after whom he once named a track), looms large in the burbling analogue synths and sensual guitars of the first half, which verges on bland hero-worship – with the exception of the beautifully unstable C. A subsequent stretch of pleasant but generic cosmic disco coasts on the listener’s sangria-fuelled goodwill. But the urgency of the final two tracks suits Thomas, as pace brings them into focus, and clouds of minor chords send the sunbathers scurrying for cover.
Suede – See their new video for Pale Snow Suede return on 22 January with Night Thoughts, their second album since reuniting in 2010. The album sees Brett Anderson addressing the subject of family – and the fear and anxiety that accompanies parenthood. “I wanted to capture some of the neurosis of being a parent and it not be this ‘Aren’t I a great dad! Look at me with my kids!’ that I read so much from people in the public eye who are desperate to come across as great parents,” he told the , in an interview to be published in Friday’s G2 Film&Music. We’ve got the exclusive premiere of Pale Snow for you here. This clip for Pale Snow comes from the film Night Thoughts, made to accompany the album by director Roger Sargent. You can see Brett Anderson and Mat Osman from Suede, along with Roger Sargent, discussing the album and film with the ’s Michael Hann after a special screening of Night Thoughts at the Barbican Cinema in London on 20 January.
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story blasts off with $29m on opening night in US Rogue One: A Star Wars Story has opened to $29m in its first night on release in the US. The spin-off, which is set before the events of Star Wars: A New Hope, has beaten Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Captain America: Civil War to score the year’s biggest preview number. But it falls behind the record-breaking $57m achieved by Star Wars: The Force Awakens which opened last year. Rogue One is expected to score the second biggest December opening of all time with tracking around $135-$150m. The Force Awakens opened to $247.9m. Back in September, Disney CEO Bob Iger said that the company wasn’t expecting it to perform as well as JJ Abrams’ sequel. Reviews for the film have been largely positive, with the ’s Peter Bradshaw calling it an “exhilarating, good-natured and enjoyable adventure”. The Rotten Tomatoes score is 85% compared with 92% for The Force Awakens. The film, directed by Godzilla’s Gareth Edwards, focuses on a mission to obtain the blueprint for the Death Star and is led by Oscar nominee Felicity Jones. After a year of ongoing discussions about equal pay within the industry, the Hollywood Reporter claimed on Friday that Jones was the highest-paid member of the cast. As a standalone story, it’s already been confirmed that the film won’t be receiving a sequel. Next year sees the release of Star Wars: Episode VIII ahead of a Han Solo origins tale soon after.
The Jungle Book ahead of the pack in UK while Mirren eyes a hit The winner: Disney There may have been some nervous times at Disney when it was developing its Jungle Book film in a race with a rival project from Warner Bros, but it’s all smiles now that the numbers are pouring in. Very much in line with the stonking US opening of $103m, Jon Favreau’s live-action/CGI remake of the 1967 animated classic has debuted in the UK with a muscular £9.9m – particularly impressive since the film has not benefited from coinciding with a school holiday. Disney allocated the Easter break to its own Zootropolis, where it shared some of the spoils with DreamWorks Animation’s Kung Fu Panda 3, and it has Alice Through the Looking Glass set for the June half-term. That left no holiday available for The Jungle Book – which Disney is in any case positioning as a “four quadrant”, or all-audience, picture. Disney announced its Jungle Book film was in development in July 2013, with Favreau confirmed as director in November that year. Warner Bros, meanwhile, had announced its own version back in April 2012, although after a couple of false starts attaching a director, it wasn’t until March 2014 that Andy Serkis was announced. The Jungle Book: Origins was originally set for October 2016 release, before being pushed back to October 2017 and then October 2018. Meanwhile, to add to Warner’s woes, Disney has just announced a sequel to its own hit film. Apt comparison titles for The Jungle Book are not particularly obvious, but Disney’s live-action Cinderella began in March 2015 with £3.8m. Alice in Wonderland debuted in March 2010 with £10.56m. Rapid burnouts for both Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and The Huntsman: Winter’s War mean that Disney also occupies the runner-up spot with its animated hit Zootropolis. The film has reached £20.7m after four weeks of play, matching the lifetime of last year’s Big Hero 6 and edging past Tangled’s final total of £20.5m. Wreck-It Ralph, likewise from Disney Animation, reached £23.8m in the UK. Commercial hopes are likewise high for Disney’s next offering, this time from its Marvel stable: Captain America: Civil War. The crossover hit: Eye in the Sky When Bleecker Street released Eye in the Sky in the US in March, it opted for a platform release, expanding in early April to a modestly wide 1,029 theatres, and achieving $13m so far. The film straddles the space between thriller and adult drama, as military personnel and politicians debate whether to order a drone strike on a terror target in Nairobi that will likely incur loss of civilian life. The morally serious screenplay is by Guy Hibbert (Paul Greengrass’s Omagh) and direction comes from Tsotsi’s Gavin Hood. Here in the UK, distributor eOne has tried not to tip the positioning too far in one direction, offering a poster showcasing a critical summary: “A tense, morally complex, extremely prescient thriller.” The danger with this approach is that a film can fall through the gap between two audiences, but this has not happened on this occasion, given a robust £1.11m opening from 428 cinemas. Evidently the combination of the premise’s moral quandary and talent elements including Helen Mirren, Alan Rickman, Aaron Paul and Barkhad Abdi has struck a chord in the UK. By rule of thumb, based on a final projected US box-office total of around $15m, you’d expect a UK gross of £1.5m for Eye in the Sky. Clearly, eOne is going to sail past that total here. It’s a much better outcome than has just been achieved by the same distributor with Jeff Nichols’s Midnight Special – a film walking a tricky line between US indie and genre hybrid, with kidnap, chase thriller and sci-fi elements. That one opened with £497,000 including £31,000 in previews, then dropped a troubling 67% in its second frame, for a 10-day total of £945,000. The Polish hit Polish films released in the UK tend to fall into one of two categories. There are traditional arthouse films playing to the audience that reveres auteur classics such as Krzysztof Kieslowski’s Three Colours trilogy and Pawel Pawlikowski’s Oscar-winning Ida; those ones tend to play in independent cinemas. And then there are the mainstream comedies and action films exclusively targeting the UK’s large Polish population – which are programmed in selected multiplex cinemas. The latest Polish hit – Pitbull: Nowe Porzadki – falls into the latter category. Patryk Vega’s sequel to his 2005 hit Pitbull, Nowe Porzadki (Public Order) is an 18-rated violent thriller that sees two Warsaw police departments forced to work together to target a powerful criminal organisation. Nowe Porzadki has debuted in the UK with a very impressive £146,000 from 32 cinemas, yielding a strong £4,562 average. Past hits targeting the UK’s Polish population include Sztos 2 (Scum 2, but released here as Polish Roulette), which achieved £225,000 in total, and You Are God, which reached £278,000. Nowe Porzadki’s screen average is eclipsed by Tamil actioner Theri (The Spark), which debuts with a very strong £210,000 from 46 cinemas, with previews of £71,000 taking the opening number to £281,000. Theri star Vijay previously was seen in UK cinemas in Kaththi, which debuted with £223,000 including previews of £80,000 back in October 2014. The event: Secret Cinema Presents 28 Days Later Making it a busy year so far for Secret Cinema, the organisation follows its Tell No One presentation of Doctor Strangelove and its one-off showing of Victoria with its latest offering: Secret Cinema Presents 28 Days Later. The zombie-themed London event has kicked off with £160,000 for its first four days. That gross looks a little down on the Doctor Strangelove run, which averaged £54,000 per day over its first 15 days, and just under £50,000 per day throughout the course of its run (grossing £1.24m in total). The brand extension: The Sweeney: Paris The rebranding of Jean Reno French cop thriller Anti Gang as The Sweeney: Paris does not seem to have engaged UK cinemagoers, given its alarmingly tiny theatrical debut of just £60 from six sites, according to official data collector comScore. A happier fate presumably awaits this title on VOD and DVD. The future Thanks to the arrival of The Jungle Book, takings are a nifty 41% up on the previous frame, and a very impressive 103% up on the equivalent weekend from 2015, when Fast & Furious 7 remained at the top spot again, and The Child was the biggest new opener. Captain America: Civil War arrives on 29 April, which means that the market is pausing for breath this week, with a number of medium-sized titles jostling for position. Arriving on 20 April is zeitgeist horror Friend Request; then on 22 April, Paris-set actioner Bastille Day (starring Idris Elba and Richard Madden) faces off against Miles Davis biopic Miles Ahead (with Don Cheadle) and western Jane Got a Gun (Natalie Portman, Joel Edgerton, Ewan McGregor). Arthouse alternatives include Louder Than Bombs, plus documentaries Mapplethorpe: Look at the Pictures and The Divide. Quo Vado? is a hit Italian comedy that should play best to the UK’s Italian population. Top 10 films, 15-17 April 1. The Jungle Book, £9,901,921 from 594 sites (new) 2. Zootropolis, £1,129,311 from 573 sites. Total: £20,701,132 3. Eye in the Sky, £1,110,959 from 428 sites (new) 4. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, £990,487 from 486 sites. Total: £35,349,754 5. Eddie the Eagle, £794,616 from 517 sites. Total: £7,277,594 6. The Huntsman: Winter’s War, £647,110 from 522 sites. Total: £4,406,063 7. Fan, £426,619 from 109 sites (new) 8. Theri, £281,485 from 46 sites (new) 9. Criminal, £248,376 from 277 sites (new) 10. Kung Fu Panda 3, £246,893 from 469 sites. Total: £13,317,340 Other openers Roberto Devereux – Met Opera, £208,654 from 175 sites 28 Days Later, £160,185 (including £19,930 previews) from 1 site Pitbull: Nowe Porzadki, £145,995 from 32 sites Our Little Sister, £47,973 (including £18,419 previews) from 21 sites The Brand New Testament, £31,965 (including £10,639 previews) from 19 sites Despite the Falling Snow, £13,480 from 59 sites Eisenstein in Guanajuato, £3,068 from 5 sites Notfilm, £1,263 from 1 site Deliormanli, £351 from 1 site The Sweeney: Paris, £60 from 6 sites Thanks to comScore All figures relate to takings in UK and Ireland cinemas.
Twitter shares dive 14% after potential bidders reportedly lose interest Shares in Twitter fell more than 14% on Monday following reports that all of its rumoured potential bidders have lost interest in buying the struggling social media company. The shares, which spiked last month following speculation of a takeover by companies including Google, fell $2.82, or 14%, to $17.03 in early trading after Bloomberg reported that Twitter was unlikely to receive any takeover bids. Google owner Alphabet, Walt Disney and Silicon Valley tech firm Salesforce have all been working with investment banks on a potential acquisition of the 140-character service. But Bloomberg reported over the weekend that all of the firms had decided not to press ahead with a bid. Twitter’s shares already had fallen heavily at the end of last week after Silicon Valley technology news website Recode reported Google and Apple had decided against buying the company, which has been struggling to attract new users and build revenue. Twitter’s stock market decline brings the company’s share price back below the level it was trading at before the takeover speculation was first reported on 23 September. The social media company, which floated on the stock market in November 2013 at $26 a share and whose shares reached a high of $69 soon after, had hired Goldman Sachs Group and Allen & Co to investigate a sale. Twitter’s chief executive and co-founder Jack Dorsey was opposed to a sale, but fellow co-founder and board member Ev Williams supported it. The company is reported to have hoped to conclude a sale before it reported its third quarter results on 27 October. Salesforce had been seen as the most likely buyer as its chief executive Mark Benioff had publicly expressed his interest in Twitter. However, he appeared not to have sounded out his investors in advance. Benioff was forced onto the defensive at a shareholder meeting last week after many investors publicly and privately expressed their doubts about the deal. “I read all of your notes; you probably know that,” he said at the meeting in San Francisco. “I also read your emails. And as I digest all of that information, this is actually the No 1 thing that has been on my mind. In some cases we have been unusually surprised and we have had to do a reset.” Salesforce’s shares, which had been depressed following the Twitter acquisition speculation, rose by 5.4% to $74.70 on Monday – taking them back to roughly the level they were at before the takeover talk was first reported.
How can I provide guests with Wi-Fi without giving them my password? I intend to register on AirBnB and I’d like to know how to share my fibre optic internet connection safely, without giving out the main Wi-Fi password. I believe some routers have guest access features, but not the one I use: a BT Home Hub 3. I am also thinking about OpenDNS as an additional option to screen out pornography etc. I am open to buying another router if necessary. Noel This is a topic that should interest people renting out their homes and small businesses that want to offer clients free Wi-Fi access – I wish my dentist did, for example. You’re right in thinking that the simplest solution is a router that offers guest access as a built-in feature. This applies to many Asus, TP-Link, Netgear and Linksys modems, among others (these links are meant to provide examples, not recommendations, but they all rank pretty well on Amazon.co.uk). When BT launched Infinity, it provided separate VDSL2 modems to make the connection to the OpenReach cabinet on the street. If you have a BT Home Hub 3, I assume you have one of these. (The BT Home Hub 5 has both VDSL2 and ADSL2 routers built in.) If so, in theory, you should be able to plug a different router into the VDSL2 modem – but perhaps readers could comment if they have tried this and failed. If not, go for a VDSL2/ADSL2 combo. Setting it up To set up the guest network, log on to the new router and select Guest Network (or something similar) from the admin page. You can then enable the setting for either the 2.4GHz or the 5GHz network or both, and type in whichever network name – ie SSID – you want. In some cases, you won’t have a choice: the router may simply add -guest to your current SSID. You must also choose an authentication system, such as WPA2-Personal and an access key. In general, it’s not secure to run a guest network that isn’t encrypted, and especially not one with a default password, such as Linksys’s BeMyGuest. Before you buy a new router, check the online instructions and FAQs for setting up guest networks. Asus, TP-Link, Netgear and Linksys have them, so I assume other suppliers do too. After you have set everything up, log onto the guest network and make sure that you cannot access any of the other devices on your network. If you have a password-protected home workgroup, this should be secure, but watch out for any folders that are shared without passwords. Also, make sure that you have changed the router’s default names and passwords, because a device with name:admin password:admin is just asking to be hacked. Add a device There are other possibilities, such as plugging a second router into a spare Ethernet port on the BT Home Hub 3. This has the advantage that you don’t have to swap out your BT Home Hub for a different router. It might be worth a go if you already have a spare router or a friend wants to get rid of one. You may even be able to give it a new lease of life by installing DD-WRT open source firmware. There are two major problems. First, it can be tricky to set up, and probably involves “double-NATting”. Second, unless set up carefully, it may be insecure. Normally, I would recommend against this. However, I found an article seductively headlined How to create a private wireless network for your AirBnB guests, which makes this approach look easy using an old Apple Airport Express. I don’t have one and have not tried it, but if you can pick up a second-hand one for not much money, it might be worth a go. A Devolo dLAN 500 or 1200+ Wi-Fi extender is another option. These are HomePlug devices designed to extend your Wi-Fi to somewhere else in your house by sending signals over the mains wiring. However, they also have a Guest Account feature that you can set up with dLAN’s Cockpit App, as explained in the manual. If Wi-Fi is patchy in part of your house – which you can check with an app such as Amped’s Wi-Fi Analytics Tool for Windows and Android – then you could kill two birds with one stone. I’m just installing a dLAN 1200+ to compensate for the fact that my living room is a long way from the BT Home Hub in my upstairs home office ... You could also turn a laptop into a free Wi-Wi hotspot using software such as mHotspot, Free WiFi Hotspot or MyPublicWiFi, but this doesn’t sound like a good solution to your particular problem. OpenDNS Many home routers include filtering and parental controls to block various types of content. However, it’s a great idea to use OpenDNS, because this includes comprehensive web content filtering. The simplest option is Family Shield, which blocks “adult material” plus phishing and malware sites. Alternatively, you can choose one of four pre-sets – High, Moderate, Low and None – or create a custom level. The Low setting blocks pornography, sexuality, “tasteless” sites, and anonymisers or free proxies. (Proxies are usually a way of routing round censorship.) If you choose custom, you can block more than 55 different types of site. The categories include alcohol and drugs, chat and social, classifieds, dating, filesharing, gambling and so on. You can also blacklist up to 25 websites using OpenDNS Basic, the free service, or even whole countries, such as Russia and China (.ru and .cn). When you’re not around, try to keep an eye on the stats and usage logs on the OpenDNS website. This will help you to spot any problems in the early stages. Either way, I hope you have signed up for an Unlimited version of BT Infinity, because even reasonable people can stream lots of movies while on holiday. Warnings Bear in mind that some of your guests may be geeky enough to switch your OpenDNS settings to something they prefer. For advice, see Preventing circumvention of OpenDNS with firewall rules. They may also try plugging an Ethernet cable into your BT Home Hub 3, or plugging their own mini router into your VDSL2 modem or Home Hub. (Travel routers are handy gadgets if you’re only carrying a smartphone and tablet, neither of which have proper Ethernet ports.) It may not be feasible to lock things away, but if a sufficiently knowledgeable person has physical access to your setup, all bets are off. Have you got another question for Jack? Email it to Ask.Jack@theguardian.com
'Delete your account': Hillary Clinton delivers Twitter burn to Donald Trump Hillary Clinton has some social media advice for Donald Trump: “Delete your account.” Her campaign delivered the quintessential burn after the Republican nominee mocked President Barack Obama’s endorsement of the presumptive Democratic nominee on Thursday. “Obama just endorsed Crooked Hillary. He wants four more years of Obama_but nobody else does!” Trump tweeted. The terse advice from the Democratic presidential nominee was retweeted 130,000 times in about an hour. In a milestone for both Clinton’s campaign and her time on Twitter, it became her most retweeted post ever. “Delete your account” is a frequently used comeback on social media, often to chastise someone for posting bad content. It might be considered departure for the often-cautious Clinton, though she has been known to court the millennial vote, performing the viral dance “the dab” with Ellen DeGeneres and appearing alongside Girls creator Lena Dunham. Trump shot back with a wordy reference to Clinton’s email server scandal and the size of her camp. The pair crossed words on an eventful day in which Obama formally endorsed Clinton for the first time after a conciliatory meeting with her primary opponent Bernie Sanders. Senator Elizabeth Warren then declared herself ready to be Clinton’s running mate in the US presidential election. The Massachusetts senator – popular among the progressive wing of the Democratic party – made the declaration shortly after endorsing Clinton, calling her “a fighter with guts” who would keep Trump out of the White House. Trump takes a typically no-holds-barred approach to social media, with the New York Times maintaining a comprehensive list of the “people, places and things [he] has insulted on Twitter”. Trump has 8.76 million followers to Clinton’s 6.6 million. The “delete your account” exchange prompted reactions from across the political spectrum. “If anyone knows how to use a delete key, it’s you,” replied Reince Priebus, chairman of the Republican National Committee, in a reference to the messages Clinton deleted from the private server she used for some correspondence at the State Department. But the best response came care of former New York Representative Anthony Weiner, who resigned his seat in Congress after sexual images he sent over Twitter became public.
The xx announce details of their third album, I See You – and listen to their new track On Hold After a series of rumours about its imminent arrival, the xx have confirmed the details of their third album. The record, called I See You, will not come out this week, as had been suggested, but on 13 January. I See You has been preceded by a single, On Hold, made available immediately. The album’s 10 tracks were recorded in New York, Los Angeles, Reykjavik, London and Marfa, Texas. The album will demonstrate “a more outward-looking, open and expansive approach”. The xx were somewhat scooped on Tuesday, when it emerged that album details had been uploaded to Shazam, which had the track titles of the 10 songs, plus two of the three that will appear on the deluxe edition, as well as the album’s title. The tracklisting is: 1. Dangerous 2. Say Something Loving 3. Lips 4. A Violent Noise 5. Performance 6. Replica 7. Brave for You 8. On Hold 9. I Dare You 10. Test Me
With no EU referendum exit poll, when will the result be announced? Are you stockpiling gummy sweets and black coffee for the night of the referendum, but concerned you don’t know when to take the breaks for power naps? Here’s how we expect the night to play out, from the leave heartlands of the northern counties and the east coast, to the remain cities of London, Edinburgh and Bristol. If you’re planning on making it through the night without sleeping, here from the archive is a sleep expert’s guide to staying awake, including avoiding alcohol and eating cereal with fruit. Or if it looks like your side is losing, feel free to crack open some Scottish whisky, French wine or Austrian schnapps. We’re not here to judge. • Sign up for our EU referendum news alerts for Android phones 10pm Polls will close, and on election nights this is normally the moment broadcasters show their exit polls and make their projection for the night ahead. However, that won’t happen this time as there’s no exit poll for this referendum. Some banks are said to have commissioned private exit polls, but they will be kept for their employees. So if anyone tells you they know what’s going to happen at this stage, they’re a chancer, unless they are an eagle-eyed watcher of sterling derivative markets. Sky News has commissioned a survey from YouGov of people previously polled, asking how they voted on the day. This will be released at 10pm, but this is not, repeat not, an exit poll and shouldn’t be treated like one. If you’re not using this time for a kip, this is the moment to check out the rolling live blog by Andrew Sparrow and our team of reporters around the country at counts. If you prefer moving pictures (tsk!) this is the line-up from the broadcasters. BBC1: David Dimbleby will anchor BBC1’s coverage until the early hours. Emily Maitlis will be presenting as well and Jeremy Vine will have his snazzy graphics. The BBC’s political editor, Laura Kuenssberg, and economics editor, Kamal Ahmed, will do the bulk of the analysis. If you’re not in the UK, you can watch the coverage on BBC World News. ITV1: Tom Bradby will host the broadcaster’s coverage with the political editor, Robert Peston, and national editor, Allegra Stratton, speaking to politicians and pundits. Julie Etchingham will also present, and there will be live reaction from Brussels with ITV’s Europe editor, James Mates. Sky News: Adam Boulton hosts, alongside political editor Faisal Islam, boasting a team of 50 correspondents at counts across the country. CNN International: For international viewers, Richard Quest and Hala Gorani will anchor from CNN’s London bureau, with a touring “Brexit campervan” providing outside coverage. Christiane Amanpour will be with guests and analysts outside the Houses of Parliament, with correspondents contributing from Berlin and Brussels. 12.30am The voting is done by 380 council areas, not by constituencies, so it will play out slightly differently from election night. Sunderland (always the first in a general election) and Wandsworth are expected to declare first, and we can learn a bit from their results, depending on whether either campaign does better or worse than expected. Wandsworth should have a very strong remain showing, with Sunderland showing a narrower lead for Brexit, about 55-60%. Anything lower than that for Brexit will be a great start for remain campaigners. The City of London is expected to be among the first as well, declaring around 12.45am and likely to show a substantial lead for remain. The remain vote is likely to look high in the early hours of the morning. If it doesn’t, that’s a big problem for in campaigners. 1am Gibraltar and the Isle of Scilly will have high remain votes, but the voter numbers aren’t exactly huge. More telling will be results from Salford and Stockport, which will start to give us a sense of whether Labour’s safe seats in northern England are as pro-leave as has been predicted. That conversation could dominate the punditry for an hour or so. Another to watch is Swindon, where leave will hope for a win, but a chunk of middle-income voters in their early- to mid-30s in the area – natural David Cameron voters – might push it towards remain. Hartlepool, a leave heartland, is expected to declare during the hour, as is Merthyr Tydfil, which should also show a lead for leave. Northern Irish results should start coming in, which will be interesting as there’s been very limited polling in the area. Most areas in Belfast should declare during the hour and instinct would suggest a remain lead, over concerns about the border crossing. 2am This hour is a good time to start concentrating, so put some coffee on. Westminster, Wandsworth, Ealing and Oxford may give remain the lead here. These are likely to be very safe areas for a remain vote, with high numbers of graduates and younger voters. We’ll also start to see a number of Scottish results rolling in, from Shetland, East Ayrshire and Angus. If these show only a weak lead for remain, it might be time for Cameron to worry. Key Welsh boroughs to watch are Blaenau Gwent and Neath Port Talbot, where the opposite is true: Vote Leave will want a good win here, especially in the area troubled by the steel crisis, which Brexit campaigners have linked to the EU. Castle Point, a key Eurosceptic area in south Essex, will declare around 2.30am. About 70% of voters are in favour of leaving the EU. Crawley in West Sussex, a bellwether seat in the general election and also likely to be pretty evenly split at the referendum, is also due to declare, as is South Norfolk, where the split should also be telling. According to JP Morgan’s analysis, commissioned for investors, even if leave ultimately ends up victorious, the remain camp is likely to be in the lead until about 3am. If leave has a total vote share of about 40-45% at this stage, Stronger In will be celebrating. But if that percentage for leave is more like 45-50%, it will be a very close run thing. Anything higher than that is an indication of a good night to come for Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage. Still, pundits are unlikely to call the race this early. 3am Boston in Lincolnshire, where 68% of voters are predicted to be in favour of Brexit, is likely to declare now. Cambridge, one of the strongest remain cities in the country, will declare here, though surrounding Cambridgeshire is very much out-land. Jeremy Corbyn’s distinctly Europhile constituency, Islington, will also declare during the hour. Look out here for West Oxfordshire, home to David Cameron’s Witney constituency, so the result will be symbolic of something or other. 4am Time to hear from Tendring – home of Ukip’s only MP, Douglas Carswell, who represents Clacton – which is unsurprisingly one of the most Eurosceptic areas of the country. Great Yarmouth and Blackpool, both Brexit heartlands, could also bump up the leave share of the vote during the hour. Harrogate, one of the most affluent areas of North Yorkshire, will be an interesting result to watch, especially if the leave campaign does better than expected. Once South Staffordshire, Havering and Gravesham, all strong leave areas, are counted, the running tally should give a pretty fair idea of how the overall result will look, percentage-wise. Broadcasters may start officially calling the result from now. 5am Manchester will declare by 5am, almost certainly for remain. However, by this time, about 80% of authorities are expected to have made a declaration, and it would be a huge surprise indeed if the final percentages differed greatly from the running tally at this hour. Bristol, one of remain’s strongest areas and also the country’s slowest counter, will declare by about 6am, but it’s unlikely to make a massive difference. 7am The official result should be in by now – unless there are substantial recounts needed and it is close – and Jenny Watson, who chairs the Electoral Commission, will announce the final tallies in Manchester.
Donald Trump’s domination is teaching us one thing: we’ll miss Obama Where a proposed ban on all Muslims entering the US, a call for 11 million migrants to be deported and an alpha-male brag about the size of his penis all failed, a demand that women face “some sort of punishment” for having an abortion might just succeed. It’s as if Donald Trump has been playing an extended game of chicken these last few months, piling insult upon offence upon sheer grossness, daring the Republican electorate to repudiate him. So far those Americans have refused to blink, repeatedly favouring the real estate mogul with their votes, no matter what garbage comes out of his mouth. But his suggestion this week that women be sent to the ducking stool or be stoned in the public square – he was hazy on the details – might finally prove too much. We’ll know soon enough, as the carnival-cum-horror-show that is the 2016 primary season enters its decisive stretch. Meanwhile, somewhere offstage, cloistered in the relative obscurity of the White House, is the man who is president of the United States. So intense has been the global gaze on Trump and his rivals, Barack Obama has been all but forgotten. Yet, quietly, the process of assessing his record and divining the meaning of the Obama presidency has begun. The April edition of the Atlantic magazine carries a 20,000-word essay on The Obama Doctrine, based on a series of in-depth, unashamedly philosophical conversations between the outgoing president and journalist Jeffrey Goldberg. And on Tuesday BBC2 will broadcast the final part of Inside Obama’s White House, a riveting series made by the acclaimed filmmaker Norma Percy and anchored in interviews with every key player of the last eight years, from Obama downwards. But a curious dynamic is at work, one that is accelerating the usual legacy-shaping process. Every presidency is always judged, in part, by what follows it: nothing burnished Bill Clinton’s historical standing more effectively than the comparison with his successor, George W Bush. But in 2016, that process is happening a stage early, pre-emptively even. Anyone looking back at Obama can’t help but look forward to an imagined – and mercifully unlikely – Trump presidency and draw the obvious contrast. Even without that flattering light, the Obama record is a solid one. In his first term, he prevented the US economy tipping from a great recession into a second great depression, through a stimulus bill whose success put the lie to the notion that there is no alternative to austerity. He also secured the healthcare reform that had eluded seven previous Democratic presidents through a century of trying. For the wider world, Obama’s place in history will naturally rest on his conduct of international affairs. The ledger there will show some serious gains: breakthrough deals with previous sworn enemies, Iran and Cuba; last year’s Paris accords on climate change; the removal of Osama bin Laden. Historians will be less kind when they ask why the slaughter in Syria was allowed to go unchecked, while Islamic State rose and Vladimir Putin flexed his muscles in Crimea and Damascus. Yet, as the Atlantic interview makes clear, Obama’s more enduring contribution may be measured less in the trophies and traumas that will fill future historians’ credit and debit columns, and more in the worldview that took shape during his time in office. For Obama forged a new vision of American power, one that saw the US still as the indispensable nation but one whose reach was no longer, to quote Obama, “limitless”. Part of that was a familiar process of retrenchment, the US drawing in its talons after a period of military exertion: Goldberg cites Eisenhower and Nixon as precedents. But there was more to it than a simple reaction to the calamities of the Bush era in Iraq and Afghanistan. Obama has a doctrinal preference for restraint too. He believes the US can hit – and hit hard – when its own national security is directly at stake: witness his unsqueamish readiness to use drones to kill al-Qaida or Isis leaders. But he believes the US should hold back when its own interests are not directly threatened. Even a desperate humanitarian need cannot, on its own, justify US action. What Obama offers is a kind of liberal realism, a midpoint between cold-eyed pragmatism, willing to shrug in the face of evil, and gung-ho liberal interventionism. “We’ve got to be hardheaded at the same time as we’re bighearted,” he told the Atlantic, “and pick and choose our spots… There are going to be times where we can do something about innocent people being killed, but there are going to be times where we can’t.” A defining trait of the Obama period has been his faith in diplomacy, exemplified by his dogged pursuit of dialogue with both Cuba and Iran. Underpinning that is a view that is striking coming from a US president. He has kicked against what he sees as the fatal defect in the Washington foreign policy establishment, the assumption that every problem has a military solution. It strikes him as “weird” the way that, once the US uses its “moral authority” to denounce a brutal regime, then people presume “you are obliged to invade the country and install a government you prefer”. Obama doesn’t put it this way, but he’s surely making the age-old observation that to a man who has only a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. He wants the US to see it has other more effective tools, diplomacy chief among them. Now there are arguments to be had with all of this, especially over the question of where one draws the line between a desperate humanitarian crisis and one that threatens US interests. Famously, Obama decided that no matter how terrible the suffering of the Syrian people, it did not merit US military action. He told both the BBC and the Atlantic he is “proud” that he defied expectations and did not strike Syria in August 2013, proud of breaking from the usual Washington playbook that defaults to force. But the question will always linger: if the president had struck Assad then, or even in 2011 when the regime was crushing unarmed protesters, might he have deterred the Syrian dictator from slaughtering so many of his own people? Some in Obama’s inner circle thought so. We will never know who was right. But what no one can dispute is that this president weighed it all with the utmost care, with an awareness of America’s history in the Middle East, Latin America and Asia and how, therefore, the country is often viewed with suspicion around the world, and of its tendency to hubris. He listened to his advisers, tried to shut out the cacophony of the next day’s headlines, and proceeded with what can only be called moral seriousness. Hillary Clinton would be a serious president too, even if one quicker to resort to force than Obama. And then you think of Trump, who when asked to name his foreign policy advisers said, “I’m speaking with myself, number one, because I have a very good brain and I’ve said a lot of things.” Obama has nine more months in office. As we look around the ever more bizarre landscape of 2016 there is one thing we can predict with confidence: we will miss him when he’s gone.
Boots staff under pressure to milk the NHS for cash, says pharmacists' union Boots has been accused of boosting its profits by forcing staff to abuse an NHS scheme intended to help sick patients. Managers at Britain’s biggest pharmacy chain were found to be directing their chemists to provide medicine-use reviews (MUR) to customers who didn’t need them, in order to claim public money from the NHS. The NHS pays £28 for each MUR, which is carried out by a pharmacist and intended to give patients professional advice on health, diet and how best to manage their medicines. However, an investigation by the has found evidence that Boots managers are directing staff to carry out MURs on each other and on patients who don’t need them or can’t use them. One pharmacist in the Midlands said he was directed by his managers to carry out an MUR on a man with dementia, and on himself. His manager also began an MUR but walked out before completion; the store still entered the review on its records. To prevent any milking of the MUR system, the NHS limits each pharmacy to a maximum of 400. The has found evidence that Boots staff are being told to take that number as a target for individual stores to hit. Another Boots pharmacist in the north-west of England remembers a recent staff awayday at which he and his colleagues were told that, “400 MURs is an expectation now. We don’t need to tell you that”. If a pharmacy carries out the maximum 400 MURs, it will earn £11,200. Assuming each Boots pharmacy churns out 400 MURs a year, that one NHS programme is worth an annual £30m to the company. The has seen a 2008 email from a senior manager for another region that states: “I personally don’t want colleagues to feel ‘brow-beaten’ but we do need to deliver our targets of 400 MCUs [medicine check-ups – another name for MURs] per store this financial year for two reasons: Delivering 400 MCUs is a measure of Excellent Patient Care The company can make £28 profit for each MCU, so each one we don’t deliver is a lost £28.” The has also seen a recent unpublished survey by the trade union, the Pharmacists’ Defence Association (PDA), to which more than 600 Boots chemists – more than one in 10 of the entire company’s pharmacists ­– responded. Asked “how often do you believe financial cutbacks imposed by your main employer have directly impacted upon patient safety”, over 75% of Boots chemists said that was true “around half” or more of the time. A number volunteered complaints about being “pressurised into conducting MURs whether or not patients are eligible to receive the service“ and “Boots keeps asking me for more MURs”. “Pharmacists at Boots are clearly being forced to treat MURs as a profit-making scheme for the company,” said PDA general secretary John Murphy. “Either they stick to their ethical standards and ensure that the right people get the service irrespective of their financial targets or they satisfy their employer by achieving their profit objectives and keep their job.” A spokesperson for Boots said: “We make it clear to our colleagues that these services should not be undertaken inappropriately.” But as far back as 2010, the NHS’s own research warned that MURs were being used simply to take public money and could be “of limited benefit and cursory in nature”. In 2013, the Journal of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society noted “some pharmacists face penalties for not meeting the targets, such as no pay rise or a possible loss of a bonus”, but it did not mention Boots. Although it has tweaked the criteria for MURs, the cash-strapped NHS has no plans to scrap the system, claiming “they help relieve the pressure on GPs and accident and emergency departments, ensure optimal use of medicines, better value and better patient outcomes, and contribute to delivering seven-day health and care services”.
How Colin Firth burst my Cannes bubble I am reaching the end of my annual stay at the Cannes film festival and approaching what some call the Cannes Breakdown – the inevitable result of spending so long in a strange bubble where only films matter. News of the outside world, with all its dreary politics, is almost unbearably dull and irrelevant, and sends you into a mild panic as you realise this is the world to which you must soon return. Too little sleep, too much rosé and too few regular meals send everyone close to the edge of madness. For me peak Cannes arrived when the trade press it was reported that Colin Firth and his wife Livia had hosted a private lunch with the super-posh watchmaker Chopard; according to the press handout the point was “to celebrate the journey to sustainable luxury”. To … to … what? All over town, journalists and delegates grabbed their heads and realised that they couldn’t take it any more. Well, Chopard is a luxury brand – all gold and diamonds. It yearns for sustainable practices. Don’t we all? I bet they were scraping the canapes off the ceiling at the end of that celebration, and Mr Firth was stretchered back to his hotel, exhausted after his sustainable “journey”. Somehow I suspect that this celebration resembled the kind of super-rich corporate Cannes events that took place in the days before people cared about sustainability. Perhaps what they were trying to sustain was the luxury itself. When Harry met Rodrigo There can hardly be anything more worrying than a politician with an affectionately ironic “nickname”. The new president of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, is a guy who luxuriates in his own publicity – the righteous tough guy keen on whacking criminals and deriding liberal bedwetters who whinge on about due process. When mayor of Davao City he announced: “You want a taste of justice, my style? Come to Davao … and do drugs in my city. I will execute you in public.” The president has been nicknamed “Duterte Harry”, probably by himself. But even Clint Eastwood, in his own political career as mayor of Carmel-by-the-Sea in California in the late 80s, was smart enough not to engage in this crass posturing – probably because he knew it would make him look like just another psychopathic gangster. Clint’s great creation, Inspector Harry Callahan, is asked about his nickname and he replies: “Because I get every dirty job that comes along.” There is a touch of real sorrow there, and I sense that President Duterte figures that the burdens of office entitle him to violence. And maybe also a streak of sentimental self-pity surfaces as he looks at the Dirty Harry poster pinned up on his office wall. Boo la la Here at Cannes, the dreaded B-word has asserted itself. There are some people who love to stand up and boo, and in doing so clearly expect to be cheered and applauded for how courageously sceptical they are. This treatment was given to Olivier Assayas’s crazy and brilliant film Personal Shopper, starring Kristen Stewart as a fashionista assistant who is also a medium, trying to contact her dead brother. It received a storm of booing – or rather the French form of booing, which removes the “b” and becomes the mass hooting of a lot of very cross owls. “Ooooo!” they say, or perhaps it is “Woooo!”. It is more derisive than the “Booo”, more a sort of Gallic “Oooo, get her!”. Antonioni’s L’Avventura, Haneke’s Funny Games and Malick’s The Tree Of Life have all had the hooting. For me, though, both “Booo” and “Oooo” are equally tiresome.
Brexit: civil service facing its largest task since WWII, says union Brexit poses the single biggest task for the UK’s civil service since the second world war, according to the most senior union official representing civil servants. Dave Penman – general secretary of the FDA, which represents leading public servants including permanent secretaries – fears departments will be forced to drop other priorities unless there is more money to pay for the extra work. But he said there was “no indication” that the government was planning to boost resources in next week’s autumn statement. Penman’s warning about the consequences of “Brexit on the cheap” comes after a leaked memo claimed that Whitehall was working on more than 500 projects relating to leaving the EU and could need to hire 30,000 extra civil servants. The government said it did not recognise the document, which was drawn up by consultants at Deloitte, and denied its conclusion that there was no government-wide plan for Brexit. A spokeswoman for Theresa May said: “[The memo] has nothing to do with the government at all. It was not commissioned by government. It was written by an individual at an accountancy firm who is not working for government ... This individual has never been in No 10 or engaged with officials in No 10 since the prime minister took office. “It is really for Deloitte to answer what it is about. It has not been distributed widely across government. It does seem this is a firm touting for business aided by the media.” But Penman said it highlighted an important issue: “Whether the memo represents a considered government position or not, it’s clear that unpacking 40 years of EU membership is the single biggest task facing the civil service since the second world war. “While politicians squabble about hard and soft Brexit, there is a deafening silence from ministers over whether any additional resources will be provided to deliver this momentous task. Brexit on the cheap appears to be the government’s preferred approach, but this will satisfy no one.” He said that while the autumn statement might be used to offer money for two new Brexit departments, there was no suggestion that ministers would plough more money into the work going on in other key areas, such as environment, work and pensions or in the Home Office. “There is no indication that they are considering additional resources to government departments to support the Brexit process,” he said. “This will be ministerial priority – but what is going to give?” Penman’s comments come amid fears that May’s plans for social reform are being crowded out by civil servants focusing on the complex process of extricating Britain from the EU. Research carried out by the House of Commons library for Tim Farron, the Liberal Democrat leader, shows that of the 25 bills listed by David Cameron in the Queen’s speech in May, just 15 have so far begun their passage through parliament. A better markets bill, which was set to include consumer-friendly policies such as faster switching of mortgages, is yet to be published, for example; and while the justice secretary, Liz Truss, has insisted the government will press ahead with the Conservative manifesto commitment to introduce a bill of rights, it is unclear when this will be. Anand Menon – director of the UK in a Changing Europe, a group of academics monitoring Brexit – said ministers and civil servants across Whitehall were being forced to confront the implications of the vote to leave the EU. “The scale of this is eye-watering: every department is having to rethink its future,” he said. “This is in a context of a civil service whose numbers have been slashed anyway: there’s just a lack of capacity.” The Institute for Government, an independent charity working to increase the effectiveness of government, said that Whitehall urgently needed more resources for Brexit, arguing that the demands being placed on civil servants were an “existential threat” to how some departments operate. They said there was a lot to be positive about the work so far, but warned the task was “unprecedented”. The IFG’s own research does not mirror the scale of the challenge suggested by Tuesday’s leaked memo, but suggests Brexit planning could cost the government £65m a year, and might require at least 500 new civil servants. The thinktank also claimed the government is not planning far enough ahead and that some of the process has been “chaotic and dysfunctional”. The IFG said “silence is not a strategy” and warned that failing to update the public on thinking around Brexit was eroding confidence among businesses and investors. Emma Norris, the IFG’s programme director, told the that a lack of progress on other reforms from the Queen’s speech reflected three factors: a shift in political priorities under May; the formidable challenge of making Brexit work; and the fact that a government with a small majority can’t risk too many confrontations with rebellious backbenchers. “Clearly there’s a question about capacity,” Norris said. “But there’s also a question about headspace. There’s a question about whether Whitehall and political leaders have the headspace to push through other domestic policy priorities.” The shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, said the leaked memo showed “a dereliction of government duty” on the part of ministers. “I suppose what angers most people is that the government, before the referendum, never made the preparations for an alternative result,” he said. “What we saw from the memo today simply confirms what we all suspected because of the various leaks that have been coming from the government already,” McDonnell said. “It isn’t just about staffing, it’s ministers arguing amongst themselves all the time, no common view of the way forward, and no shared vision for the future of our country.” McDonnell said Labour would support the employment of extra civil servants as needed, but was surprised this had not been planned for. “I just find it staggering that you have a government facing a momentous decision, an implementation of negotiations, and they haven’t even staffed up,” he said. “It’s just extraordinary. It’s a dereliction of government duty. “We’ll help them all we can to secure a common vision for the future, and we’ll offer a bipartisan approach to the decision. But to have a bipartisan approach you need to know what their policy is, and we simply don’t.” May’s spokeswoman dismissed the memo’s specific prediction that up to 30,000 more civil servants would be needed.
Le Tigre's comeback: like a hell governed by Amy Schumer TRACK OF THE WEEK Charli XCX ft Lil Yachty After The Afterparty Remember when Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson were plucked out of the murky waters of their own careers and thrown together for a drama about two unlikely detectives, which shouldn’t have worked and yet had a profound influence on both television writing and pop culture at large? This is like that, but in a single outrageous pop song about getting smashed. Usher ft Young Thug No Limit A Young Thug verse lands like a brick on the gas pedal of almost any song. His voice is as versatile as his fashion sense, a one-man fiesta of controlled unpredictability. In this case, he helps Usher return to the pop firmament with what is – thanks to the club-ready bass and polished minimalism that defines Drake’s Views – one of the most 2016 singles of 2016. Meanwhile, Usher has aged like a pair of well-fitting jeans. His croon delivers each lyric with finesse, even when they are “Got that Master P”, “Give you that ghetto D”, which manages to pay respects to the discography of rapper Master P while also making bold statements about his wealth and penis size respectively. Goo Goo Dolls Over And Over Goo Goo Dolls may have peaked a solid 18 years ago, but there are still plenty of people willing to pay good money to sway through an hour of radio-friendly alt-rock just to cry-shout to Iris, phone aloft, recording the entire experience to their ex’s voicemail. Conversely, this is a paint-by-numbers arena anthem that could’ve been released by anybody. It sounds like Coldplay covering Bon Jovi, and not in a perhaps-this-could-be-good-ironically way. Emily Reo Spell Brooklyn’s Emily Reo must be sick of being compared to Imogen Heap or Bon Iver, thanks to their shared interest in largely a cappella songs sung through a vocoder. But Reo’s hypnotic electronic pop is in a world of its own. Although her lyrics focus on nature, Spell sounds blissfully extraterrestrial, like something WALL-E would sing himself to get to sleep. Le Tigre I’m With Her Well, here it is: the first new Le Tigre song in over a decade. Given the band are as famed for championing LGBT and women’s rights as much as crafting brazen lo-fi pop, it makes sense that they’d reunite in the dusk of the presidential race to pledge their support for Hillary Clinton. It’s enjoyable, even if some of the lyrics do sound like cheerleading chants from a hell governed by Amy Schumer.
Facebook Live video service sees company paying news publishers Facebook is paying news publishers and broadcasters, including the New York Times, BuzzFeed and Sky, to provide content on its live video service. Video has become a priority for Facebook and Live is a core part of its push into the area. The payments to newspapers and digital publishers reflect Facebook’s desire to ensure Live has enough content on it to persuade people to use it. Previous partnerships with news organisations, such as Facebook Instant Articles, have relied on splitting ad revenues rather than direct payments. However, Facebook Live does not currently carry ads and it takes more effort for publishers and news organisations to produce live video. US tech site Re/code reported the New York Times, Huffington Post and BuzzFeed were being paid to live stream by Facebook and the understands the service has similar arrangements with UK-based organisations such as the satellite group Sky. The system of payments is understood to be temporary, and the company hopes to rapidly switch to a different way for it and its partners to make money from Live videos. Facebook had already indicated it was providing financial incentives to celebrities to live stream and had been pursuing sports rights, though it was beaten to a deal to show live American football games by Twitter. Separately to its arrangements with media companies, Facebook has also rolled out updates including a dedicated section within its mobile app for Live videos, and a standalone site running for 24 hours designed to showcase live content from a range of sources. It has also added new features including the ability to invite friends to watch a live stream, and add filters to videos. Facebook Live was launched last August and outlets in the US and UK have been experimenting with it extensively. CNN used the service to stream its presidential debate in October and the has used Facebook Live to report from events such as the junior doctors’ strike. A Facebook spokesperson said: “We announced in March that we’re testing different ways to support partners so they begin experimenting with Facebook Live. We’re investing in live video as we think it’s a great fit for our platform — more and more people are choosing to watch and share live video on Facebook because it is personal, real-time and authentic. We’ll be working closely with these partners to learn from them how we can build the best Facebook Live experience and explore with them potential monetisation models.”
Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio trade jabs and Trump speaks in Las Vegas - as it happened Ted Cruz has finished speaking in Reno, so here’s where we stand on the eve of the Nevada caucuses: Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio spent the day trading jabs, following the firing by Cruz of a spokesman who tweeted a fake video purporting to show Rubio saying there “weren’t answers” in the bible Donald Trump gave plenty of red meat to an audience of 8,000 in Las Vegas, including saying he wanted to punch a protester “in the face” Ted Cruz tacked sharply to the right on immigration, telling Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly that he would deport all 12 million illegal immigrants Rubio picked up endorsements from a wide swath of the Republican establishment following Bush’s dropping out of the race, including former vice presidential candidate Bob Dole Glenn Beck described himself as a “nutjob” Cruz compares Obama to Jimmy Carter. “Same failed economic policies. Same feckless and naive foreign policies.” “Now why does that analogy give me so much hope and optimism,” he asks. He’s comparing himself to Reagan. “It’s easy, by the way, to say you want to make America great again,” Cruz says. “You can even print it on a baseball cap. But the question to ask is: do you understand the principles that made America great in the first place?” He’s telling his regulator/pesticide joke again. The joke is that the farmer wants to use pesticide on federal employees. To kill them. “We will not weaken; we will not degrade; we will utterly and completely destroy ISIS.” Ted Cruz promising “common-sense healthcare reform” that “stops government getting between us.” He promises to stop Common Core. “We will finally, finally, finally secure the borders and end sanctuary cities.” “Now I’ve been told you folks in Nevada like your guns,” says Cruz. “Let me say as a Texan: I understand.” The crowd whoops and claps. “We are one liberal justice away from the Supreme Court wiping away the second amendment and removing our right to bear arms,” Cruz says. Cruz calls late supreme court justice Antonin Scalia a “lion of a man”. “Last week, Donald Trump says he intends to be neutral between Israel and the Palestinians,” says Cruz. “I have no intention of staying neutral.” “If you look at the roots of the word politics, there are two parts: poli, meaning many, and tics, meaning parasites,” Cruz says. “And that is a fairly accurate description of Washington DC. He says there is “a spirit of awakening that is sweeping this country.” Asks everyone to look forward to January 2017. “If I am elected president, let me tell you what I intend to do on my first day in office.” The audience shouts “when!” “If and when,” Cruz corrects himself. He promises to reverse every single of Obama’s executive actions. “The second thing I intend to do is to instruct the department of justice to open an investigation into Planned Parenthood, and persecute those responsible. It’s possible he meant prosecute rather than persecute, but then it’s possible he meant what he said. “How do you define a progressive: there’s an easy test,” says Cruz. “They don’t understand the scariest words in the English language: ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help’.” “How about Glenn Beck,” Cruz says. “Isn’t Glenn Beck extraordinary.” “There’s nothing elected officials like less than being held accountable for their words and actions,” Cruz says. “But that’s the best thing about the people: holding elected officials accountable.” Boos for the first mention by Cruz of Marco Rubio. “God bless the great state of Nevada,” he says. “What an incredible pleasure this is. Thank you for coming out tonight; what a privilege.” Trump, from earlier, on wanting to punch protesters in the face: Beck still talking. Garner the trainee guide dog puppy has gone to sleep. But he seems to be getting around to the subject of Ted Cruz, so there might be light at the end of the tunnel. Glenn Beck still talking. He just did a lengthy bit where he explained the internet to an invisible George Washington. Trump’s finished his speech in Las Vegas. It sounds like it was pretty wild. Now Beck’s doing an impression of George Washington’s mother. This is, if nothing else, at least entertaining. “Please heed this warning: there are many people running - Donald Trump is dangerous,” says Glenn Beck in Reno, illustrating the adage that even a stopped clock is right twice a day. Trump, who earlier today told reporters that he and the Pope were OK now, reviving his spat with Rome. Glenn Beck is currently on stage at the Ted Cruz rally, claiming to have predicted 9/11 but “nobody listened.” “I’m a nutjob,” he shouts. “I wear it as a badge of honor!” Garner the trainee guide dog puppy barks. Beck now saying he’d put Hillary Clinton “in cell block six”. #2016 Meanwhile, back in Vegas, Trump is really hitting his stride. By most measures, Marco Rubio should be running away with the race for the Republican nomination in Nevada, writes the ’s Richard Wolffe. Of all the Republicans left in the contest, the senator from Florida has a unique connection to Nevada’s culture and voters. He lived in Las Vegas for three years as a child, until the age of 11, during which time he also embraced the Mormon faith that is popular in a state that borders Utah. Fully one quarter of GOP caucus-goers in the last presidential election were Mormon. (It was only later that the young Rubio convinced his family to leave the Church of Latter-day Saints to convert to Catholicism.) In a state where Latinos make up 27% of the population, Rubio – as the only bilingual candidate in the field – should be making deep inroads into Nevada. So how come Rubio is faring so poorly in a state he once called home, Wolffe asks. Much of the answer lies in Rubio’s pitch to voters. At the heart of his campaign is a perfectly delivered stump speech that sells one idea: the American dream. Beyond his personal story of struggling with student debt, and his parents’ story as working-class immigrants, Rubio’s platform amounts to no more than motherhood and apple pie. Yes, he delivers the now standard Republican promise to repeal Obamacare, increase military spending, lower taxes and beat Hillary Clinton. But his ideas are so vacuous he makes Trump’s stump speech sound like a seminar at the Brookings Institution. You can read the full article here. Speaker of the house Paul Ryan is on Fox News right now, filled with optimism about the November elections: Here’s a livestream of Trump in Las Vegas - there are 16,000 people watching this stream alone. Donald Trump, in Vegas, striking out at Ted Cruz, who is set to come on stage in Reno soon: Trump still going strong: Crucial update from your faithful reporter at the back of the crowd at the Ted Cruz rally in Reno, where the support speakers have begun: A mark of a Donald Trump rally is how often he has protesters ejected. It’s happening again in Vegas right now: Another regular occurrence is attacks on the media - again, Trump in Vegas is staying true to usual form. Another update from Ben Carsonland: On Bill O’Reilly today, Ted Cruz noticeably hardened his stance on illegal immigration. According to the Dallas Morning News: Ted Cruz said tonight that he would use federal immigration officers to round up and deport all 12 million people in the country illegally — a markedly tougher stance that he has struck in the past. “Yes, we should deport them,” Cruz told Fox host Bill O’Reilly. “That’s what ICE exists for. We have law enforcement that looks for people who are violating the laws, that apprehends them and deports them.” Cruz also appeared on Hugh Hewitt today, and addressed the Rick Tyler incident in more detail: It was unfortunate that that had to occur. Rick is a good man, and he has worked hard on this campaign, but Rick forwarded on social media a story that was written in the press that falsely attributed some negative sentiments by Marco Rubio about the Bible, and it turned out the story was false, and even more fundamentally, even if the story was true, we shouldn’t be forwarding it on, that from the very beginning of this campaign, I told every member of this campaign, we are going to run this campaign with the highest level of integrity and doesn’t matter if others engage in attacks, if others engage in insults, we are not going to go personal, we are going to stay focused on issues and substance, and we are not going to impugn the faith of any candidate and that unfortunately is what this tweet is impugning Marco’s faith. That was wrong, and it’s not something that the campaign is going to tolerate. It wasn’t done maliciously, but it was a serious error of judgment and that’s why I asked for his resignation today because that is not conduct that will be tolerated on our campaign. You can read the transcript of that interview here. Another view of the Trump crowd: Trump is speaking. Jon Huntsman update: his daughter Abby, who is an anchor and reporter on Fox News, has taken to Twitter to say that people are taking her father’s comments to CNN somewhat too far: Meanwhile, the crowd for Ted Cruz’s rally in Reno is increasing - though nowhere near Trump’s size in Vegas. In front of an enormous crowd. Big though the crowd may be at the Cruz rally in Reno, it’s likely to be nothing compared to the arena crowd in Las Vegas for Donald Trump. Warm-up speakers for Trump have begun. The ’s Dave Schilling is on the scene at the Trump rally. On the Hugh Hewitt show earlier today, Donald Trump sounded a rare note of caution about tomorrow’s caucuses. I’m in Nevada now, and I think you know, based on the polls, but of course, you never know what happens here. A lot of strange things happen here, and the caucus system is dangerous, to use a very nice word. It’s sort of a dangerous system. But we’ll see what happens. We should do pretty well tomorrow. Trump also took the opportunity to pile in on Ted Cruz, saying his campaign “had a lot of problems with him” and describing the Texas senator as “a person that doesn’t like telling the truth.” Then you see the other things. He’s done things with me that are incredible. You know, he did two robo-calls on election day in South Carolina, on election day, and they were terrible. One was on the confederate flag, and the other one was on, I believe, gay marriage. And they were very, very rough, and very, very unethical to do. He plays hardball, but, and I like hardball, and I’ve met a lot tougher people than him, believe me, many, many, many times tougher. But he has a real hard time with the truth. You can read the full transcript of the interview here. Doors have just opened for Ted Cruz’s rally in Reno. The person on the door at first tried to turn away your faithful reporter - “you’re on the do-not-let-in list” was what he said - but the banishment appeared to be overturned by a supervisor. The queue outside is large - a big crowd is expected. reporter Ben Jacobs has brought this lovely piece by Ashley Parker in the New York Times to our attention. Headlined “Voters might not miss Jeb Bush, but campaign reporters will,” the piece says: By the time I was assigned to cover Jeb Bush, he was already becoming the exclamation mark that couldn’t. Even his gait — long-limbed and newly gangly courtesy of the Paleo diet — and the way he seemed to curl slightly into his 6-foot-4 frame told the story: A campaign that was supposed to be “joyful” had become a slog. He had taken to handing out small toy turtles to children he met along the way, in what often felt like a parable intended just for him — maybe slow and steady could, still, win the race. Ultimately, the end came painfully, as he finished fourth in the South Carolina primary on Saturday, yet another disappointment in a year full of them. The nation, simply, did not want what he was selling. But his presence will be missed in the 2016 race among those of us who covered him. Even as he stumbled as a candidate, he was, in many ways, a reporter’s dream. He held news conferences so frequently — nearly daily — that their absence felt newsworthy. And he seemed constitutionally incapable of not answering questions, even those he should not have. As aides tried to hustle him away, he would often pause and turn back, or roll down his car window, to give a final response, throwing political caution to the wind. He gave out his email address easily and freely and, early on, even responded to queries sent there. He could be curt with voters, and rarely coddled them. People who saw him speak in person almost always went away impressed, even if they were not convinced that they should vote for him. He was your goofy dad, your awkward uncle. He bungled a policy rollout in Nevada when he called “Supergirl” “hot” (c’mon, Dad!), he was delightfully befuddled when his Apple Watch began ringing during a meeting with an Iowa newspaper, and he wiggled into a hoodie in a shaky YouTube video. You can read the whole article here - it’s genuinely lovely. Former ambassador and presidential candidate Jon Huntsman has told CNN’s David Axelrod that he “could get behind” Donald Trump as presidential candidate. “If he’s the nominee, I’m a Republican and I tend to gravitate towards whomever the nominee is,” the former ambassador to China told Axelrod. He’s strong on things like campaign finance reform and I think it’s going to take an extraordinarily unique leader to stand up and say that the way that we’re doing this on the campaign finance side is broken and we need to fix it. I’d love to see someone stand up who’s a total outsider and see if that can be done because I think it would actually be a pretty healthy thing. You can listen to the full podcast on CNN’s website here. More from Ben Carson, who just released a statement to remind his supporters that yes, he is still running for president. He’s on the O’Reilly factor on Fox News right now, where he says that things “could turn around pretty quickly.” “Bill Clinton didn’t win anything until his sixth contest,” he adds. Interesting: Roll Call is reporting that rep. Joe Heck, the top Republican candidate for the senate from Nevada, will not be caucusing for any candidates tomorrow. Ahead of Tuesday’s Nevada Republican presidential caucuses, Rep. Joe Heck, the top Republican Senate candidate, was not in the state on Monday and did not plan to be there on Tuesday, either. His office said he was on the East Coast as Congress begins to trickle back from the Presidents Day recess. Ryan Erwin, the former executive director of the Nevada Republican Party and the top strategist on Heck’s campaign, said Heck’s approach in the race was a focused one: “Keep your head down and get the job done.” “We need to work with whoever the nominee is. We have enough to do to win this race than to get neck-deep in other politics,” he said. “It’s a race that has shifted so many times. For us to worry about how that shift might impact the electorate in our race doesn’t make sense.” Unlike Pennsylvania GOP Sen. Patrick J. Toomey, who endorsed Marco Rubio, or Ohio’s Rob Portman, who endorsed his home state governor John Kasich, despite being locked in tough races, Heck has adopted the approach of New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte, staying quiet as the presidential circus went through town. Heck, who could still face a Republican challenger, is walking a fine line in trying to placate the conservative base while keeping an eye on a general election electorate whose support would be harder to earn on a GOP ticket headlined by a candidate such as Donald Trump. You can read the article in full here. Genn Beck is currently speaking at Ted Cruz’s rally in Elko, Nevada. Cruz is expected to speak there soon. Meanwhile, in Ben Carson-land... The Cruz vs Rubio spat is getting nastier by the minute. Possibly in response to those biting comments from Rubio’s spokesman that Rick Tyler was “a really good spokesman who had the unenviable task of working for a candidate willing to do or say anything to get elected,” the Cruz camp is now striking back at Marco Rubio in a memo titled, in all-caps, “TED CRUZ IS THE ONLY CANDIDATE WHO CAN BEAT DONALD TRUMP”. In the memo, Jason Johnson, Cruz’s chief strategist, writes: Three states into the Republican nominating process, the field has narrowed from seventeen to five candidates. And of the five candidates remaining, only three are viable: Cruz, Trump and Rubio. Marco Rubio cannot beat Trump. Trump can’t be beaten from the political Left, with a candidate who emphatically supports amnesty and who allows Trump to be considered the “conservative” in that context. Rubio has yet to win a primary state. On This Week with George Stephanopoulos, Senator Rubio was asked simply, “what state can you win?” Rubio replied, Florida on March 15. Rubio’s stated strategy is to lose the first four primary states, lose every state on Super Tuesday, then lose every state on March 5, then lose every state on March 8, and then finally win in Florida (where he’s currently polling third, behind Donald Trump and Ted Cruz). Johnson goes on to say that “By March 15, 26 states or territories will have voted, and Rubio does not plan to win any of them. Almost 50% of the delegates will have already been allocated; Rubio will win almost none, and then he’ll hope for resurrection in Florida. That’s an even less plausible path to victory than Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s “wait for Florida” strategy in 2008.” You can read the memo in full here. It’s raining endorsements today for Marco Rubio, reports Sabrina Siddiqui. Senator Dan Coats of Indiana is the latest to jump on board. Earlier, Rubio got the endorsement of senators Jeff Flake Orrin Hatch, and the second-hand, lightly used, still in good working condition endorsement of former vice-presidential candidate Bob Dole, who had previously backed Bush. Maria La Ganga has investigated the possible reasons why, despite his lead in the polls, Donald Trump could lose here in Nevada tomorrow: his lack of a ground game. Donald Trump has one of the smallest and least organized ground campaigns in Nevada, according to Republican officials and operatives in the state, raising questions about the billionaire’s readiness for another caucus-based contest after his disappointing second-place finish in Iowa. Texas senator Ted Cruz beat the brash real estate mogul in Iowa’s Republican contest with help from evangelical Christians and a superior network of volunteers; such workers are critical in states such as Nevada and Iowa, which choose their presidential nominees through a complicated caucus system. Donald Trump leaves supporters cold as he accuses Rubio of ‘excess sweating’Read more Eight days after his bruising loss, Trump won the New Hampshire primary, declaring: “We learned a lot about ground game in a week.” The big question is whether he has learned enough. Although the answer won’t become clearer until the Republican caucuses inNevada on 23 February, following the South Carolina primary on Saturday, the reality television star appears to be lagging behind his better organized competitors in reaching out to Nevada’s hard-to-corral caucus-goers. “Elections are won on organization,” said Adam Khan, chairman of the Washoe County Republican Central Committee. “Trump has a lot of popularity, but if you look at the ground operation here, he just doesn’t have it.” Exhibit A: Trump’s rally on 10 January at the downtown Reno Ballroom. It could have been a campaign manager’s dream – 3,000 or so cheering supporters, an energized army ready to be harnessed, a data trove for the all-important get-out-the-vote effort. But Trump’s staff did not record e-mail addresses or phone numbers that day from the captive audience of potential donors, caucus-goers and volunteers. The rally became a squandered opportunity six weeks out from the caucuses. When asked about that campaign blunder, Trump’s Nevada state director Charles Munoz replied: “I’ll have headquarters get back to you, or I’ll get back to you.” So far, that has not happened. The Best Ground Game award here, Republican political consultant Erik Jimanez told Maria, goes to Marco Rubio. He’s got a large number of campaign staff in Las Vegas and Reno. They’re doing a lot of outreach to the rural counties, which are tremendous in terms of who shows up on caucus day, much higher rates than in urban areas.” You can read the whole story here. A quick break from Nevada and the Republicans for a second: Atlanta’s Channel 2 Action News has just released a poll showing that Hillary Clinton has a commanding lead in Georgia over Bernie Sanders, with 72 percent to the Vermont senator’s 19.8. Georgia is one of the 12 states - and one territory - which vote on March first: “Super Tuesday.” More from Cruz Nevada campaign chair Adam Laxalt: On the subject of the Rick Tyler controversy, he said: “They made the decision to move on with the communication director. That’s just is a strong statement of how important integrity is to Cruz and to the campaign….” Asked about Trump and his campaign’s behavior during the nominating process, Laxalt said, “I think there’s absolutely a double standard. There’s a lot of stuff that happens with these huge presidential candidates ... There’s no accountability on all sides. “Cruz tends to take the lion’s share of attacks from the media whenever anything is happening,” the state’s attorney general said. “It’s challenging. But despite all that, there’s a huge reservoir of consistent support in this state and across the country.” My colleagues Sabrina Siddiqui, Maria La Ganga and Ben Jacobs have gone into much more detail on the scandal that led to Rick Tyler’s firing. Cruz sacked Rick Tyler, his national spokesman, after he circulated a video on Sunday that allegedly showed Rubio walking by a Cruz staffer in a hotel lobby who was holding a Bible. Although the audio was fuzzy, some assumed Rubio to have remarked: “Got a good book there, not many answers in it.” In fact, Rubio had said “all the answers in it”. “This morning I asked for Rick Tyler’s resignation,” Cruz told reporters in Las Vegas over his promotion of a news story that falsely claimed his rival said “something negative about the Bible”. “This was a grave error of judgment,” he said. “It turned out the news story he sent around was false. But I’ll tell you, even if it was true, we are not a campaign that will question the faith of another candidate.” They also spoke to a spokesman for the Rubio campaign, Alex Conant, who reacted to the news by saying Tyler is “a really good spokesman who had the unenviable task of working for a candidate willing to do or say anything to get elected”. Owch. They conclude that the Tyler firing “suggests Cruz may believe his campaign is vulnerable to the emerging narrative that he is a candidate willing to play dirty – a troublesome accusation for a candidate seeking to appeal to the religious right.” You can read the full story here. The controversy which led to his firing of campaign spokesman Rick Tyler does not appear to have dampened the enthusiasm of Ted Cruz’s diehard supporters, as this video shot by Maria La Ganga outside his Las Vegas rally this afternoon shows: Maria also was there for a candid briefing from Adam Laxalt, the Cruz campaign chairman in Nevada and the state’s attorney general, where he sought to manage expectations about the Texan’s performance in the Battle Born state. Talking to reporters after Cruz’s Las Vegas rally midday Monday, he stressed Rubio’s ties to the state. “Rubio should win this state,” Laxalt said, as supporters mobbed Cruz for selfies and handshakes in a YMCA gymnasium. “Rubio’s from here, he was raised here, he’s got family here and he’s campaigned here. So there should be an expectation that he should beat Trump here. “With the caucus, it is so unknown who turns out,” Laxalt continued. In the 2012 Republican caucuses, “we only had 33,000 show up in the state, 16,000 from here, Clark County. Who turns out is up to anyone’s guess. I think if conservatives turn out, the Cruz is in a very, very good position.” Laxalt said he has toured the state on Cruz’s behalf and “there were a lot of folks that didn’t even know we had a caucus. … I think that’s one disadvantage we face. A lot of voters just aren’t in tune with the caucus.” Laxalt said Cruz planned to travel 750 miles on Monday, the day before the Republican caucuses, from Las Vegas to Reno to Elko, along with other small, rural towns in Nevada’s vast outback. “We’ve had to change venues,” he said. “Everything’s sold out, people are excited.” Nate Cohn, over at the New York Times, makes an interesting spot regarding the new voter registrations following the Iowa caucuses. Outside the Rubio rally I catch up with a few supporters. Brooke Sullivan is the manager of a cattle ranch in Reno; she says that before seeing the senator speak she was on the fence - “but now I’m convinced to vote; he rocked my socks.” She’ll be caucusing for him tomorrow. Several people here weren’t impressed by what they called “dirty tricks” by the Cruz team. “I don’t like anything he’s done,” Sullivan says. “I don’t want a president who’s constantly apologising - these things are not done by mistake, so either he’s giving a back door wink, or hiring bad people.” Janelle LaFleur, a housekeeping manager at a Reno hotel, had just caught up on the news about Rick Tyler’s firing when I speak to her. “It’s horrible,” she says. “It’s nice to see that [Cruz] has taken care of it - but it’s his campaign.” “You don’t see Marco Rubio doing things like that,” she adds. In Reno, Rubio, who has just finished speaking, was recounting his personal story - he was born in Las Vegas; his mother was a maid, his father a bartender. It’s a story that’s resonating extremely well here. “We’re going to have a lot of work to do together. But we’re going to do it,” Rubio is saying in Reno. It won’t be easy, he says, but “there has never been a time when America had it easy.” Each generation before us had problems, and they solved their problems. ... Today, America is governed by the most selfish leaders in the history of the republic. The crowd again chants “Marco! Marco!” “There are other people in this race - I’ve gotten to know them really well over 44 debates,” he jokes. “I like them, I do.” But, he says, there can’t be two Republican nominees. “Just one.” “When you’re president you can’t be a divisive figure,” he says, obliquely striking at Trump and Cruz while couching it in critiques of Obama. Rubio says he wants to campaign “in a way that does not necessitate pitting us against each other.” Applause in the room. Some sad news: Missouri senator Claire McCaskill has just announced, in a blog post, that she has been diagnosed with breast cancer - though, happily, she says that she has been told by doctors that she is going to make a full recovery. Her statement: I very recently learned that I have breast cancer. It was detected through a regular mammogram. It’s a little scary, but my prognosis is good and I expect a full recovery. I will be in St Louis for the next 3 weeks receiving treatment. During this time my staff will continue to assist Missourians and I will be posting on my Senate website (McCaskill.senate.gov) how I would have voted on any matters that come before the Senate during my absence—which I’ll also enter into the Congressional record. Additionally, I’ll be submitting questions in writing for any missed Senate hearings. Thank you for the honor of serving you in the Senate. In Vegas, Cruz is hitting out more at the President than his Republican rivals - not surprising, considering how much humble pie he’s been forced to eat today by Rubio and Trump over his now ex-spokesman’s tweet. “If we nominate somebody that 40 to 50 percent of our party can’t stand, we are going to lose to Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders,” Rubio says. Then, he makes his pitch: We have to nominate someone who will bring us together, and I will bring us together faster than anyone else. We have to nominate someone not just who can bring us together, but someone who can bring new people in. He points out that his mother was a maid; says when he stays at hotels on the campaign trail, the maids he meets know that. “We have to take that message to them.” This part is crucial: “We have to tell them that what they hear about Republicans, about us only caring about the rich, is a lie: because, look at where I come from.” “Rubio victory!” someone in the crowd calls out. “You’re messing with my train of thought here,” Rubio says, grinning. “You know how much I love to repeat myself now I have to repeat myself again!” Back in Reno, Rubio is hitting his stump speech talking-points beautifully. Hitting out at Bernie Sanders. “A few weeks ago I started saying Bernie Sanders should be president of Sweden,” he says. “And then Sweden got mad. Then I started saying he should be president of Norway. Then Norway got mad.” The audience laughs heartily. The tone is ebullient. And you can watch a livestream here: “I know you’re here today because you’re worried about the future of your county,” Rubio says. “You should be.” “Marco! Marco!” the crowd chants. “Don’t say polo,” the Florida senator jokes. “That game tortured me as a child.” Donald Trump is piling in on Cruz too over Rick Tyler’s tweet: Rubio is due to speak in Reno soon. Earlier, he spoke out obliquely against the actions of Rick Tyler. Rick Tyler, the former national spokesman for the Ted Cruz campaign, was asked to resign by Cruz on Monday. According to Politico: Cruz cited a social media posting from Tyler on Sunday about a comment Marco Rubio supposedly made about the Bible. “Our campaign should not have sent it. That’s why I’ve asked for Rick Tyler’s resignation,” Cruz said. The Texas senator was speaking to reporters on Monday, and said he’s spent the morning investigating what happened. Tyler was on TV this morning apologising for his post. ...but it doesn’t appear to have been enough. Hello and welcome to this afternoon’s live coverage of the eve of the Nevada Republican caucuses. I’m Nicky Woolf, and I’m in Reno, Nevada, taking over the blog from my colleague Amber Jamieson. We have an action-packed afternoon for you as we gear up for this crucial first-in-the-west caucus. Marco Rubio, who is picking up endorsements from previous Bush supporters left, right, and center, is about to speak at a campaign stop in Reno. Later today, Donald Trump will be speaking in Las Vegas, and I’ll be at a Ted Cruz rally tonight here in Reno. Theoretically, it’s possible Ben Carson might make an appearance too. But don’t hold your breath. As the great Ira Glass says: stay with us. BREAKING: Ted Cruz just announced he asked one of his top staffers, spokesman Rick Tyler, to resign after pushing a story that said opponent Marco Rubio criticized the Bible. As we explained earlier this morning, the story stems from a video with pretty crappy audio, where Rubio walks past a Cruz staffer and compliments him for reading a the bible but then says, according to the subtitles of the YouTube clip: “Not many answers in it. Especially in that one.” Rubio’s team declared the story totally bananas, saying their candidate said the holy book had “all the answers in it”. Tyler apologized in a Facebook statement earlier this morning: I’ve deleted the post because I would not knowingly post a false story. But the fact remains that I did post it when I should have checked its accuracy first. I regret the mistake. And now he has been forced to resign. A new poll from Vermont shows very, very strong support for hometown hero Bernie Sanders in the Democrat primary -- while Trump is poised to win the state’s Republican vote. The VPR poll shows Sanders winning 84% of the Democrat vote, compared to just 9% for Hillary Clinton. Sanders’ support jumps to a whopping 95% when counting only voters between 18-39. While it’s no surprise that Sanders would win his home state, Clinton won 38% of the Democrat primary vote in Vermont back in 2008. Of the 151 Republicans that responded, 32% said they support Trump. Rubio sits in second place, with 16%. The poll was conducted between Feb. 3 and Feb. 17 and had 895 responses from across Vermont’s 14 counties. The margin of error rate is 3.3%. GOP establishment feels the Rubiomentum One of the most consequential political science works about modern American politics is “The Party Decides” which advances the thesis that party insiders often decide who the nominee is before voters do so. And, if the party still decides, it’s clear they are picking Marco Rubio. In the aftermath of Jeb Bush’s decision to drop out of the Republican primary on Saturday night, GOP insiders are flocking to back Rubio. Former Kansas senator and 1996 Republican presidential nominee Bob Dole announced his support for Rubio on Monday. Dole, the epitome of a party elder, had previously backed Jeb Bush. Dole’s endorsement is the latest that Rubio has recieved in the past 48 hours. In addition to the nonagenarian former Senate majority leader, he has been endorsed by three senators, Dean Heller of Nevada, Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Jeff Flake of Arizona, Governor Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas as well as a half dozen House members and other party luminaries like former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty. Despite not winning a single primary so far, Rubio, whose best finish is razor thin second place over Ted Cruz in South Carolina, is clearly consolidating establishment support as alternative to Cruz and Donald Trump. However, Rubio still doesn’t have the establishment lane to himself. Ohio governor John Kasich is still in the race and hoping to pick off delegates on March 1 states in advance of the Michigan’s primary on March 8. Kasich has picked up a handful of additional endorsements in the past two days as well including former Pennsylvania governor Tom Ridge. “When I look at you, I don’t see happiness,” a supporter said to John Kasich during this morning’s campaign event in Fairfax, Virginia. Kasich quickly said this campaign made him “joyous.” However, there was also an acceptance of the unlikeliness of him winning the nomination, saying he doesn’t pray to win, but instead prays “to be able to accept whatever is meant to be and carry out whatever the next responsibility I have is.” The more I read the sentence “When I look at you, I don’t see happiness,” the more utterly bleak it becomes. Commenters! We asked for you to hazard a guess on which are the “five critical issues” that Bernie Sanders will differentiate himself from Hillary Clinton on at today’s 3:30 press conference in Boston. So far and FirasA and WarlockScott’s comments seem the most likely: Although, shout out to kattw for at least making us laugh. A special congratulations post will be awarded to whichever commenter manages to nail Sander’s top issues before 3:30pm, so please keep offering up your suggestions. A Carson supporter asks the candidate if he’d consider taking another position in government if he doesn’t win the Republican nomination – which, considering his poll numbers, is a reasonable question. Carson didn’t rule out being someone’s vice-president, but kept his answer vague: I’m not looking for a job. I had a very good, long and arduous career. I would always consult with the Lord. Remember, there’s a lot you can do outside the government, especially if you’ve got a platform. I don’t know, if there was someone who was really compatible with me. And right now, I’m not really sure who that would be. I never close the door on anything, including being the next president. Who won Nevada’s Latino vote on Saturday night? Hillary Clinton won a modest but decisive victory in the Nevada caucuses on Saturday. And she won the black vote by a wide margin. Less clear is who won the state’s Latino voters. The Sanders campaign was quick to spin Saturday night’s loss as a marginal success based on polling that showed he had not only made significant inroads with Latinos but also won the state’s Hispanic vote. Specifically, early entrance polls that gave Sanders an eight-point edge over Clinton among Hispanic voters. On Sunday, a New York Times report raised questions around the arithmetic. The report quoted a memo from Latino Decisions, a polling firm the Clinton campaign used to tally Hispanic votes, which suggested that the math “didn’t add up”. A precinct-by-precinct analysis by the Times’ data guru, Nate Cohn, suggested that Clinton may have won the Latino vote but not by the considerable margin she won in 2008: “The actual election returns in Las Vegas’s Clark County hint at a different story. Analyzed neighborhood by neighborhood, they suggest that Mrs. Clinton might have won the Hispanic vote by a comfortable margin. She won about 60 percent of delegates in heavily Hispanic areas, a result that calls the finding of the polling into question.” Why does it matter? Minority voters just may determine the Democratic party nominee, especially as the contests move to states with a more diverse electorate. Will we ever get to the bottom of this? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Carson’s quiet and more laid-back demeanor and slow manner of speaking regularly gets slammed, with Donald Trump labelling him with his favorite insult: “low energy”. But Carson shrugged off that criticism during a Virginia City town hall meeting: “The ability to be calm, relaxed and controlled is a sign of strength, not a sign of weakness. Carson then outlined what he would do if he was trying to “destroy America”, such as raising taxes, failing to look after veterans, failing to fix electric infrastructure and putting more people on welfare – noting that any similarity to what the current president is doing is purely “coincidental”, to many laughs. Carson is now speaking about growing up poor and how education and belief in God helped turn his life around and gave him hope: It matters what you do with the gifts that God has given you and how much energy you put into it. The thing that bothered me most was poverty. I hated being poor. But once I understood that [it was OK] ... because I knew it was only temporary. I could change it. If you know you can change the situation, it doesn’t bother you as much as if you think you’re stuck. Ben Carson slamming the media at a town hall rally in Virginia City, Nevada moments ago: We’re living in a country, unfortunately, today where the media has become very irresponsible. They are the only business that is protected by our constitution. There’s a reason for that: they were supposed to be on the side of the people. They were supposed to be honest and not take sides … I always appeal to young journalists to shake off the bosses that they have and start working without an agenda and for the people. GOP presidential wannabe and Ohio governor John Kasich frustrated female supporters by declaring this morning that he’d gotten elected to the Ohio senate in 1978 because of “many women who left their kitchens” to support him. John Kasich: “How did I get elected? Nobody was ... I didn’t have anybody for me. We just got an army of people ... many women who left their kitchens to go out and go door to door and put yard signs out for me.” Female supporter: “Your comment earlier about the women came out of the kitchen to support you? I’ll come to support you but I won’t be coming out of the kitchen.” Kasich, who is trying to position himself as a Republican moderate, made the comment in Fairfax, Virginia. Yesterday, he signed a bill to block any Ohio state funding of Planned Parenthood. After Jeb! Bush bowed out of the race on Saturday – not even ditching his glasses could save him – his staffers are also left jobless. His chief analytics officer, Alex Lundy, tweeted out his feelings about Bush’s most bitter political enemy and started a handy job hunt: The entire internet is currently being charmed by this delightful video of a 106-year-old woman visiting the White House and dancing with President Obama and Michelle Obama to celebrate Black History Month. Sprightly Virginia McLaurin says that she never thought she’d live to see a black president and First Lady. It’s an interesting reminder that in the next election there are a few possible first presidents that could occur: first female president (Clinton), first Jewish president (Sanders) or first Latino president (Cruz and Rubio). Marco Rubio is displaying an interest in local issues ahead of tomorrow’s Republican caucus in Nevada, revealing his views on prostitution. “I’m anti-prostitution ... I wish Nevada would make it illegal. But that’s their decision to make. I don’t agree with it,” he said ahead of an event in Elko. Prostitution is legal in Nevada – and there are 19 licensed brothels – but millions of dollars of illegal prostitution, more than the legal sex work, occurs in the state every year. But since Rubio believes in small government, he wouldn’t bring in laws to make it a federal offense. “I think you can be against something and still say: ‘But I don’t want the federal government involved in federalizing something,’” said Rubio. New Hampshire’s secretary of state confirmed the delegate count for the Republican convention from the states’s primary on 9 February, with Donald Trump picking up 11 delegates and John Kasich getting four. The full list of results: New Hampshire saw a record turnout at its Republican primary, with 542,459 votes cast. As much as this election might seem uniquely American – from its Clinton-Bush tussle to the billionaire reality TV star Republican frontrunner – the AP notes that politics are similar to those seen in recent years in Europe: Donald Trump – his bombast distinctly American – sometimes takes a nationalist stance that sounds a lot like the ‘blame the immigrant’ approach used by a growing cadre of European politicians as the continent deals with unprecedented waves of immigration and Islamic extremism. On the left, Bernie Sanders espouses Scandinavian-style ‘democratic socialism’ that sounds radical to some American ears. But it has long been part of the political mainstream in Europe, where socialist governments come and go without particular fanfare. This just landed in our inboxes from the Sanders camp: Bernie Sanders will hold a news conference at 3:15 today in Boston differentiating his views with Hillary Clinton on five critical issues. Sanders also will accept an endorsement from a national grassroots organization. The press conference will be held at the International Association of Ironworkers in Boston. No word yet on the “national grassroots organization” or the five critical issues. Give us your suggestions on the five issues in the comments! This just in from reporter Lauren Gambino, clarifying that our earlier update that Clinton had the day off was a miscommunication... Hillary Clinton has no public events today, but alas, no rest for the weary. Not when there’s cash to be collected and important hands to shake. The former secretary of state is in southern California today, where she’s scheduled to hold fundraisers in Studio City and Hancock Park. The fundraisers are part of a two-day swing in the state. Her trip in the state began in northern California on Sunday where she was due to attend three fundraising events. On the other side of the country, a group of mothers who have lost their children to gun violence and policing incidents as well as a team of civil rights lawyers are holding forums at churches and a library across South Carolina, ahead of the states Democratic primary on Saturday. John Kasich speaking right now at an event in Fairfax, Virginia (attended by 1,000 people, he claims): I labored in obscurity for literally 100 straight days. I told everybody: look, you just watch what’s going to happen in New Hampshire. I’m going to talk to people about my record and I’m going to talk to people about my heart … If you’ve got the head without the heart, you can’t win, and if you’ve got the heart without the head, you’re probably not qualified to run things. To Fairfax, Virginia, where Congressman Tom Davis is hustling for his friend John Kasich. Hustling, in this case, means speaking about when Kasich was head of the House budget committee. “John was able to bring that Republican caucus together for a vote that brought a balanced budget,” Davis says. “We got the Republicans to agree to a balanced budget. We got the Senate on board. We got John Kasich leading and negioating with President Clinton … we got it passed, we got it into law. “Together, Republicans and Democrats made some of the tough choices … that led us to four straight years of balanced budgets, running surpluses, something we haven’t seen since.” If you were wondering why no Hillary Clinton events appear on the rundown of campaign stops in our last post … she has no public events scheduled today. [edit: we wrongly believed Clinton was having a rest day, but have updated with her fundraising schedule above] A plethora of political campaign events are, of course, being held today. Here’s a rundown: 10am ET: John Kasich holds a town hall at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia: the Ohio governor is concentrating on some unlikely states in his attempt to stay in contention. 11.10am ET: Obama meets state governors. (Not technically election related, but who knows what they’ll bring up?) 9.30am PT/12.30pm ET: Ben Carson town hall in Virginia City, Nevada. 11am PT/2pm ET: Ted Cruz holds a rally in Las Vegas with state attorney general Adam Laxalt. 12pm PT/3pm ET: Donald Trump rally in Elko, Nevada. 12.30pm PT/3.30pm ET: Marco Rubio holds a campaign rally in Reno, Nevada. 4.30pm ET: Bernie Sanders hosts a rally at University of Massachusetts in Amherst. 4.30pm CT/5.30pm ET: Bill Clinton holds rally for wife Hillary in Dallas, Texas. 7pm PT/10pm ET: Donald Trump rally at South Point Arena at Las Vegas, Nevada. 7pm PT/10pm ET: Cruz holds a Reno rally … with Attorney General Laxalt. Both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have been busy trying to court civil rights leader Al Sharpton – with Sanders popping up to Harlem for lunch and Clinton joining him for a chat last week. But Sharpton spoke to Politico about Donald Trump – who he knows from years of power broking in New York City – and compared him to the infamous boxing promoter Don King: The best way I can describe Donald Trump to friends is to say if Don King had been born white he’d be Donald Trump … Both of them are great self-promoters and great at just continuing to talk even if you’re not talking back at ’em. Hello, and welcome to our live-wire coverage of the 2016 race for the White House, following a weekend that saw Jeb Bush hang up his glasses after losing to Trump in South Carolina, and Hillary Clinton locking down the black vote and claiming Nevada in a decisive 52-47 win over Bernie Sanders. Now it’s time for the old state switcheroo, with tomorrow’s Nevada Republican caucus and a Democratic primary in South Carolina on Saturday. In Nevada, polling data from Real Clear Politics shows Donald Trump with 42% support, Ted Cruz at 20% and Marco Rubio at 19%. It echoes the result in South Carolina, where Trump sewed up the lead and Cruz and Rubio basically tied for second. The battle for second place behind Trump is getting dirty, with Cruz’s spokesman Rick Tyler forced to backtrack overnight after pushing a story that said Rubio criticized the Bible. In a video with pretty crappy audio, Rubio walks past a Cruz staffer and compliments him for reading a book (surprise, it’s the Bible) but then says, according to the subtitles of the YouTube clip: “Not many answers in it. Especially in that one.” Rubio’s team declared the story totally bananas, saying their candidate said the holy book had “all the answers in it”. Tyler apologized in a Facebook statement: I’ve deleted the post because I would not knowingly post a false story. But the fact remains that I did post it when I should have checked its accuracy first. I regret the mistake. Can Sanders get the delegates required? Not only did Clinton win Nevada, but she’s beating Sanders in the delegate race, with 502 to his 70 so far. Plus, of those delegates, Clinton’s got 451 superdelegates (party leaders who can vote regardless of their state’s allegiance) compared to Sanders’ 19. There are 2,383 delegates needed to decide the Democratic nomination. Nearly that many will be allocated in March alone, and many of the upcoming primaries favor Clinton. “The odds of his overtaking her growing increasingly remote,” says a New York Times report today. But Jeff Weavers, Sanders’ campaign manager, reckons the Vermont Senator will be OK post 1 March, telling AP: It’s frontloaded for her, but we have the ability to stay in the long game. Will Ben Carson drop out after Nevada? The retired neurosurgeon is busy claiming his campaign isn’t beyond resuscitation, after a Daily Beast reporter tweeted that he will bow out on Wednesday. “Right now, it is way too early in the game to give up. If you were supposed to select a nominee after just three contests, then why did w go through all of this?” said Carson on Sunday. Plus, with Bush out of race, where will his supporters – and money – go? Today we’ve got Lauren Gambino in Charleston, South Carolina, Sabrina Siddiqui hanging in Vegas with Rubio, Nicky Woolf in Reno and Paul Lewis and Sam Levin also hanging in Nevada. Bill Clinton will be stumping for Hillary in Laredo and Dallas, Texas, ahead of the state’s 1 March primary. Are you ready for today? Son-of-Donald, Eric Trump, sure is.
Trump campaign woes intensify amid questions over Melania's visa – as it happened A risqué photo shoot splashed across the front page of the New York Post this week has drawn new attention to gaps in Melania Trump’s immigration status when she first came to the United States. Responding to reports that she may have illegally worked in the US in the mid-nineties in violation of her visa, Melania Trump tweeted a statement declaring that she has “at all times been in full compliance with the immigration laws of this country.” In an article penned for Glamour, President Barack Obama proudly brandished the label of “feminist,” writing that he felt cheered as the father of two young women that “this is an extraordinary time to be a woman.” In a radio interview on Chicago’s Morning Answer radio program, would-be congressman Paul Nehlen suggested that the US should consider full deportation of all Muslims in the country. “The question is, why do we have Muslims in the country?” Nehlen asked. Lapsed Republican strategist Liz Mair spoke truth to power on CNN last night, boiling down Donald Trump’s campaign strategy to “being a loudmouthed dick.” Sasha Obama, the younger daughter of President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama, is officially roughing it on her family’s summer vacation on Martha’s Vineyard: she’s working shifts at a tourist-friendly seafood restaurant in the hamlet of Oak Bluffs. House speaker Paul Ryan is trying to have it both ways on Donald Trump’s feud with the family of an Army captain killed in the line of duty, telling a Wisconsin radio station that Trump’s comments attacking the family were “beyond the pale” and that his endorsement is not a “blank check,” but continues to endorse Trump. And our favorite tweet of the election: The answer: Move money to Georgia and Arizona. By now everyone knows, the DNC was basically Coachella for liberal politicos. And just like the real Coachella, the stars have way better seats than you. Hillary Clinton’s campaign has released a behind-the-scenes snapshot from the convention featuring POTUS (past and present), Uncle Joe, Meryl Streep, America Ferrera, Lena Dunham, Katy Perry and a fully-clothed Orlando Bloom. John Kasich’s chief strategist: Scenes from the Trump rally in Maine: Watch it live here: In a radio interview on Chicago’s Morning Answer radio program, would-be congressman Paul Nehlen suggested that the US should consider full deportation of all Muslims in the country. “The question is, why do we have Muslims in the country?” Nehlen asked. Donald Trump, who earlier this week declined to endorse House speaker Paul Ryan in his primary race against Nehlen, lauded the challenger earlier this week after Nehlen complimented Trump on his handling of a week-long feud with the family of a US Army captain who was killed in action in Iraq. “Circumstances have clearly changed since Captain Khan’s death,” Nehlen said, of Humayun Khan, who was awarded the Bronze Star after waving off the troops under his command from a truck that later exploded, claiming his life. “But let’s be clear: Muslim Americans have been fighting on both sides of the war. In fact, more Muslim Americans, 20, have been killed since 9/11 fighting for Isis than have been killed fighting for America.” “If the break point is sharia, and Islam is the only major religion that encourages lying,” Nehlen said, referring to the term taqiyya, which refers to concealing one’s religion when facing persecution, which has since been misinterpreted by anti-Muslim polemicists as proof that Muslims cannot be trusted. “If they lie, how do you vet something like that?” Nehlen asked. “The question is, why do we have Muslims in the country? How can you possibly vet somebody who lies?” When asked whether he was proposing a mass deportation of all Muslims from the US, Nehlen was open to the idea. “I’m suggesting we have a discussion about it, that’s for sure. I am absolutely suggesting we figure out - here’s what we should be doing. We should be monitoring every mosque.” Bill Clinton’s balloon obsession continues: It’s the president’s birthday: An 11-year-old boy asked Mike Pence a toughie during a rally this morning, asking the Indiana governor whether he’s on the ticket to “soften up” Trump’s policies and statements. “I’ve been watching the news lately and I’ve been noticing that you’ve been kind of softening up on Mr. Trump’s policies and words. Is this going to be your role in the administration?” the boy asked during a rally in Raleigh, North Carolina. Pence laughed uncomfortably before responding that “differences in style” shouldn’t be misread as “differences in conviction.” Steve LaTourette, who served nine terms representing Ohio in Congress before retiring out of frustration with partisan gridlock, has died after a battle with pancreatic cancer, his former chief of staff said on Thursday. Dino Disanto said LaTourette died on Wednesday night at his home in McLean, Virginia, surrounded by his family. He was 62. The moderate Republican was elected to Congress in the GOP wave of 1994 when the party seized control of the House after decades in the minority. He was a close confidant of former House speaker John Boehner, who described the lawmaker on Thursday as “one of the most honest and loyal souls I ever had the privilege of knowing”. “With his passing, I have lost a friend, and Ohio has lost a dedicated servant,” Boehner said in a statement. LaTourette represented north-east Ohio’s 19th congressional district and then the 14th congressional district from 1995 to 2013. He was a Lake County prosecutor before his election to the House. A member of the powerful House appropriations committee, LaTourette was a supporter of infrastructure spending, Amtrak and congressional set-asides known as earmarks. Seen from a very classy Donald Trump rally in Maine: House speaker Paul Ryan is trying to have it both ways on Donald Trump’s feud with the family of an Army captain killed in the line of duty, telling a Wisconsin radio station that Trump’s comments attacking the family were “beyond the pale” and that his endorsement is not a “blank check,” but continues to endorse Trump. In the interview with WTAQ, Ryan was asked if there would “ever be a bridge too far” for him to continue endorsing Trump’s presidential bid, but declined to get into specifics. “I have always said of course there are going to be moments - I am not going to get into speculation or hypotheticals. None of these things are ever blank checks. That goes with any situation in any race.” When asked whether Trump’s remarks about the parents of Humayun Khan, who was awarded the Bronze Star after he was killed in a truck bombing while serving in Iraq, Ryan continued to hedge. “Look, I already made my point clear on the Gold Star family, which is you don’t do that to Gold Star families. You do nothing but honor Gold Star families. And if anyone earned the right to say whatever they want to express themselves, it is Gold Star families. And I put out a statement basically to that effect.” “Again, I thought the comments with respect to this Gold Star family and Ms. Khan in particular were beyond the pale and I called it out,” Ryan insisted. “I actually put out a statement to that effect. And I’ve done that in the past, the Judge Curiel comments. So I don’t like doing this, I don’t want to do this, but I do this in order to defend Republicans and our principles so that people don’t make the mistake of thinking that we think like that.” Donald Trump’s latest attack ad depicts Hillary Clinton as Ms. pac Man, gobbling up emails like ghosts: Republicans face a lot of difficult decisions this year, but for the party to come back strong after Donald Trump’s divisive candidacy – for it to keep its brand as the free-market, democracy-loving, opportunity-focused alternative to the Democrats – the least-worst option is a major loss in the presidential race. By selecting a nominee that does not reflect the usual fiscal policies, a victory for Trump will mean a shift in the party’s focus. Even if the rest of the GOP holds fast to the platform or to traditional conservative values, the president’s policies always reshape the party. If you have ever promoted a local candidate to voters, you know this is true – the public looks at the top of the ticket first and judges the party by that person’s views. Many Trump supporters will see his win as a referendum on their policies and will work to make the party reflect that. Fellow Republicans will either need to accept that or leave. We have no idea what a Trump presidency will look like, but based on his campaign, it will be filled with outrageous gaffes, inarticulate interviews on policy and offensive media blitzes focused on non-issues. Trump will most likely lose minorities and women, creating a wider divide that the GOP must bridge in the future. Many young voters will continue to associate Trump with the party long after he leaves office. This would only further damage Republicans and set us up for heavy losses in 2018. Not to mention the party will continue to hemorrhage its best and brightest. Candidates, staff and volunteers have already walked away from Trump, and there’s no question it will keep happening. If Trump gains a greater control of the party, these people might even be forced out. But let’s say Trump doesn’t win and Hillary Clinton claims the White House. If Trump only trails her by a few points, you can bet he will blame the Republicans who voted their conscience. Or he’ll kick up dirt over the “rigged” system, as he has already alluded to. Trump supporters in the party will go on a witch hunt, looking for anyone who acted disloyally to the Republican nominee. That in-fighting could destroy the party. Sasha Obama, the younger daughter of President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama, is officially roughing it on her family’s summer vacation on Martha’s Vineyard: she’s working shifts at a tourist-friendly seafood restaurant in the hamlet of Oak Bluffs. The 15-year-old White House resident, who is going by her full name Natasha while working at Nancy’s Restaurant, is busing tables, working the cash register and prepping the restaurant ahead of the lunchtime rush hour, according to the Boston Herald, which reports that the younger Obama daughter’s customers include her nearby Secret Service detail. The first family has vacationed in Martha’s Vineyard for years, and are reportedly chummy with Nancy’s owner Joe Moujabber, explaining how Sasha Obama was able to score a job during the high tourist season on the Massachusetts island. The youngest Obama apparently works the earliest shift at the 350-seat restaurant, and has been working the takeout counter during the lunch rush. “She’s been working downstairs at takeout,” a server told the Boston Herald. “We were wondering why there were six people helping this girl, but then we found out who it was.” Another Republican luminary has gone public with strong feelings about Donald Trump. Really, really strong feelings. He didn’t pussyfoot like Paul Ryan. He wasn’t a convention no-show like John Kasich. Hollywood tough guy Clint Eastwood emptied both barrels in an interview with Esquire magazine, aiming squarely at those who have taken the presidential candidate to task for racism and other, well, rough edges. “He’s said a lot of dumb things,” the actor and director said of the man who has pilloried Mexicans, Muslims, immigrants, women, and the list goes on. “So have all of them. Both sides. But everybody – the press and everybody’s going, ‘Oh, well, that’s racist’, and they’re making a big hoodoo out of it.” Eastwood’s advice to America: “Just fucking get over it. It’s a sad time in history.” Responding to reports that she may have illegally worked in the US in the mid-nineties in violation of her visa, Melania Trump has tweeted a statement declaring that she has “at all times been in full compliance with the immigration laws of this country.” “In recent days there has been a lot of inaccurate reporting and misinformation concerning my immigration status back in 1996,” Trump wrote in the statement. “Let me set the record straight: I have at all times been in full compliance with the immigration laws of this country. Period. Any allegation to the contrary is simply untrue. In July 2006, I proudly became a U.S. citizen. Over the past 20 years, I have been fortunate to live, work and raise a family in this great nation and I share my husband’s love for our country.” Trump’s past statements regarding the need to fly back to her native Slovenia “every few months” to have her visa stamped does not square with the characterization of her work as an H-1B visa worker, which would allow her to stay in the US for up to six-year stretches without renewal, as reported by Politico. Instead, according to immigration experts cited by Politico, Melania Trump was more likely in the US under a tourist visa, which would make employment in the US a violation of immigration law. Perhaps our favorite tweet of this campaign*: * Okay we know it’s from 2012 but come on. Donald Trump has insisted all is well with his presidential campaign, despite his own wayward behavior and reports of unrest among staff. Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus is reportedly among high-profile Republicans considering whether to mount an “intervention”. Trump told a rally in Florida, however, his campaign was “doing incredibly well. It’s never been so well united.” Campaign chair Paul Manafort told Fox News: “I’m in control of the things that the candidate wants me to control.” Reports said the campaign had reached out to Chris Christie and Newt Gingrich – vice-presidential hopefuls passed over in favor of Mike Pence – to help the candidate stay on message. Meanwhile Republican congressman Adam Kinzinger, an Iraq veteran, said he will not vote for Trump. In an article penned for Glamour, President Barack Obama proudly brandished the label of “feminist,” writing that he felt cheered as the father of two young women that “this is an extraordinary time to be a woman.” “One thing that makes me optimistic for them is that this is an extraordinary time to be a woman,” Obama wrote. “The progress we’ve made in the past 100 years, 50 years, and, yes, even the past eight years has made life significantly better for my daughters than it was for my grandmothers. And I say that not just as President but also as a feminist.” Citing the women throughout his life who have influenced him - his single mother, his grandmother, first lady Michelle Obama - Obama says that being a father is the biggest influence on his feminism. “When you’re the father of two daughters, you become even more aware of how gender stereotypes pervade our society,” Obama wrote. “You see the subtle and not-so-subtle social cues transmitted through culture. You feel the enormous pressure girls are under to look and behave and even think a certain way.” “It’s important that their dad is a feminist,” Obama wrote of his daughters, “because now that’s what they expect of all men.” Lapsed Republican strategist Liz Mair spoke truth to power on CNN last night, boiling down Donald Trump’s campaign strategy to “being a loudmouthed dick.” A risqué photo shoot splashed across the front page of the New York Post this week has drawn new attention to gaps in Melania Trump’s immigration status when she first came to the United States. The official story from the Trump family is that Melania Trump - then Melania Knauss - first came to the United States from Slovenia on an H-1B visa as a model in 1996, after which she became a successful fashion model, appearing on magazine covers and eventually winning the heart of the presidential-nominee-to-be, retiring from modeling after their 2005 marriage. But the nude photo shoot, according to the New York Post, took place in 1995, and Trump’s past statements regarding the need to fly back to her native Slovenia “every few months” to have her visa stamped does not square with the characterization of her work as an H-1B visa worker, which would allow her to stay in the US for up to six-year stretches without renewal, as reported by Politico. “It never crossed my mind to stay here without papers,” Trump told Harper’s Bazaar in January. “Every few months you need to fly back to Europe and stamp your visa. After a few visas, I applied for a green card and got it in 2001. After the green card, I applied for citizenship. And it was a long process.” Instead, according to immigration experts cited by Politico, Melania Trump was more likely in the US under a tourist visa, which would make employment in the US a violation of immigration law. Colorado congressman Mike Coffman has become the first member of his party in elected office to release an explicitly anti-Donald Trump political advertisement in his campaign for reelection: Watch live here: Progressive Super-Pac American Bridge 21st Century has released an advertisement targeting seven Republican candidates for senate, hoping to tie each one to the sinking rock that is Donald Trump’s candidacy: In the ads, each one tailored to Roy Blunt of Missouri, Richard Burr of North Carolina, Joe Heck of Nevada, Rob Portman of Ohio, Marco Rubio of Florida, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania are shown announcing their support for Trump as the Republican nominee, before news reports highlight Trump’s feud with a Gold Star family. “If ________________ won’t cut ties with Trump now, will he ever?” a voiceover concludes. Good morning, and welcome to the ’s campaign live blog. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s disastrous week continues, with the turmoil spreading beyond his fiefdom in Trump Tower to the Republican party at large. Congressman Adam Kinzinger, a veteran of the Iraq war, told CNN he cannot support Trump in the wake of his ongoing feud with the parents of an American soldier. “I don’t see how I get to Donald Trump anymore,” said Kinzinger, one of a growing number of Republicans to wash their hands of the candidate. “Donald Trump for me is beginning to cross a lot of red lines of the unforgivable in politics.” The upper levels of Republican party leadership appear to have deemed Trump persona non grata, with Wisconsin governor Scott Walker, House speaker Paul Ryan and Wisconsin senator Ron Johnson declining invitations to a Trump campaign stop in Green Bay, Wisconsin, on Friday. But Trump’s problems extend beyond intra-party squabbling, with a flurry of polls in battleground states showing him falling further behind Hillary Clinton than ever. Trump is down 11 points in Pennsylvania, nine points in Michigan and an astounding 15 points in New Hampshire, each a state his campaign has designated a must-win. We leave you – for the moment – with this: The top trending question on Google yesterday was: “Is Trump dropping out of the elections?” Not today, it seems: Trump will hold a rally at Merrill Auditorium in Portland, Maine, at 3pm ET, his sole event of the day. VP pick Mike Pence, on the other hand, has his work cut out for him, with a 10am ET town hall at the Duke Energy Center for the Performing Arts in Raleigh, North Carolina, followed by a 3pm ET town hall at the Founders Inn Spa in Virginia Beach and a rally at the Norfolk Waterside Marriott in Norfolk, Virginia at 7pm ET. Clinton will hold an organizing event at a Las Vegas union hall at 12.30pm PT (3.30pm ET). Virginia senator Tim Kaine will attend a National Urban League conference in Baltimore, all day. Got it? Good. On with the show ...
Why Rudy Giuliani is happy to be a Trump attack dog and provocateur What’s happening to Rudy Giuliani? On Monday, he slammed Beyoncé’s VMA performance, calling it a “shame” and boasting: “I saved more black lives than any of those people you saw onstage.” On Tuesday, USA Today published an op-ed by Giuliani where he gave a veneer of mainstream media respectability to the idea that Hillary Clinton is hiding grave medical issues – despite the fact that there’s no evidence for this beyond wishful thinking on the part of the alt-right. In the days after the 9/11 terrorist attacks on New York, Giuliani was dubbed “America’s Mayor”. Now, from his fiery convention speech to his specious claim that there were no terrorist attacks in the eight years before Barack Obama’s election, the former New York City mayor often seems to make pronouncements that are divorced from reality. But that’s not new. That’s Rudy Giuliani. As New Yorkers learned early on during his administration as mayor in 1990s, Giuliani has always had a penchant for bluster, for taking credit from his subordinates, and for an authoritarian single-mindedness. No wonder he’s stumping for Donald Trump. I can’t say I envy him as he tries to secure his legacy. Being America’s Mayor is an impossible act to follow, and leading New York City has long been considered the “second toughest job in America”. By implication, there’s only one step up – the White House – and in 2007, Giuliani threw his hat into the presidential ring. Riding on his post-9/11 fame, Giuliani was an early favorite, but after dismal results in the early primaries, he withdrew in January 2008. Was his failure merely due to the fact that no New York City mayor has ever bridged the gap from city hall to the Oval Office? Or was there something more in Giuliani’s brash personality and his law-and-order mentality that couldn’t make the transition to a national audience? Giuliani rose to national prominence when America was reeling from the 9/11 attacks. And as lawyer Ron Kuby points out in the documentary Giuliani Time, in a crisis people are looking for a powerful authority figure. But what about the other eight years of his mayoralty? Most people realize that what works in a crisis isn’t necessarily appropriate at other times – but that never stopped Giuliani. To him, New York had always been under attack. At the beginning of his first term, Giuliani gave a chilling speech in which he said: “Freedom is not a concept in which people can do anything they want, be anything they can be. Freedom is about authority. Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do.” He proceeded to put his words into action. First, he made good on a campaign promise to clean up squeegee men – launching the so-called “broken windows” era that would end up disproportionately jailing black people and other minorities. He then embraced the ideas of transit cop Jack Maple and helped launch CompStat, the city’s data-driven crime-fighting system. It can’t be denied that crime fell – and that’s how Giuliani is today able to claim he saved “more black lives” than Beyoncé. But despite CompStat’s real successes, it also can’t be denied that crime was already falling when he took office – and it was happening nationwide. Later, when New York police commissioner William Bratton landed on the cover of Time magazine as New York’s top crime fighter, Giuliani pushed him out for taking too much credit. There were other clear signs of paranoia during the Giuliani years. Long before the World Trade Center attacks, the front steps of city hall – a place for public gatherings and protest – were sealed off by police barricades that remain in place today. The administration claimed it was a security measure; the mayor’s detractors felt certain it was done to limit access and stifle free speech. Giuliani’s city hall was also the subject of constant lawsuits. Some were filed by other city agencies to which he wouldn’t release necessary data; others were brought by individuals whose whose constitutional rights were being violated by the city. Many of those lawsuits were still being settled – for millions of dollars – years into the administration of Mike Bloomberg, Giuliani’s successor. In short, Rudy Giuliani wasn’t a great mayor, or even a good one. But on one terrible day, he was a strong, decisive one. He could have faded quietly into history, remembered as the man who kept the city together in its hour of need. Instead, by becoming Donald Trump’s attack dog, the former mayor has instead ensured that his larger-than-life ego and his combative abrasiveness – the qualities New Yorkers remember all too well, and which kept him from the presidency – will ultimately define his legacy.
New band of the week: Andy Shauf (No 95) Hometown: Regina, Saskatchewan. The lineup: Andy Shauf (vocals, instruments). The background: Shauf belongs to that category of gentle, breathy-voiced cult singer-songwriters, mainly American, who specialise in wan, waspish tales of marginalised characters and their bittersweet love lives. So if you like Elliott Smith, Joe Pernice, Andrew Morgan, Kevin Tihista or the Aluminium Group, then you’ll love this Canadian purveyor of melodic chamber-pop. His music is richly textured but recorded on the cheap – often in his parents’ basement in the wild prairies of Saskatchewan. He’s already released a couple of albums, issued on tiny Canadian labels with no distribution in Europe, but this could be his moment. He has just signed to ANTI-, home to Tom Waits, Wilco and Neko Case, and he’s every bit as impressive as, say, Tobias Jesso Jr. He’s touring the UK in April and May with the Lumineers, although we won’t hold that against him. His most recent album – 2015’s The Bearer of Bad News, some of which you can hear above – was widely acclaimed online. “An appropriately titled collection of mostly grim tales about small-town drug addicts, murderous lovers and other weary underachievers,” said one blog, neglecting to mention that, however ugly their protagonists, the tunes were never less than DIY-ishly lush and lovely. Its title – and those of its two predecessors, Waiting for the Sun to Leave and Darker Days – says plenty about Shauf’s only-happy-when-it-rains persona. He hasn’t always been a wistful balladeer, having played in various emo and punk bands. It was only after discovering Elliott Smith – and realising that he could master multiple instruments, including guitar, piano, drums and clarinet – that he became the bearer of dark days, dying suns and Bad News. On his terrific new album, The Party, he handled all instrumental duties with the exception of the strings, which heighten the sense of melancholy melodrama. Shauf’s writing has been described as cinematic, but if anything his music would work best soundtracking a grimly funny TV drama like Girls. It features a cast of dismal walk-on parts such as the fool “in the kitchen, stressing out the host” on Early to the Party, “the halfwit spilling his guts out” on Begin Again, or the self-serving type slagging his best friend as a way of endearing himself to his freshly dumped ex on Quite Like You. As concept albums about a party and the after-party go, think the Weeknd’s House of Balloons, only instead of glamorous debauchees it’s stoner losers. But it’s so tightly narrated and beautifully observed that you warm to them all. The wonkily resonant piano, pattering drums, fuzzed-out and acoustic guitars, clarinets and swelling strings seem to pursue each character from room to room, mocking their pathetic situations. At times the budget grandeur posits Shauf as a sort of indie Burt Bacharach: don’t be fooled by the chintzy synths and general thrift-store appearance. He can go either way, though. One track, Martha Sways, injects notes of dissonance – off-kilter violins, random stabs of piano – that will be familiar to fans of Big Star’s Sister Lovers. Then again, a lot of these songs have the warm, easy-listening appeal of the hippest mainstream 70s songwriters, up to and including Nilsson, while reclaiming aspects of the cheesiest. The Rupert Holmes revival starts here. The buzz: “The kind of artist that makes you upset it took so long for their music to reach your ears.” The truth: It’s his Party and he’ll make you cry if he wants to. Most likely to: Drink to forget. Least likely to: Drink piña colada. What to buy: The Party is released by ANTI- on 20 May. File next to: Kevin Tihista, Joe Pernice, Andrew Morgan, Jens Lekman. Links: Andy Shauf. Ones to watch: The Night Cafe, Ekkoes, Sego, Meeting by Chance, Camp Claude.
My message to the HSBC boss who says dialect is dying: Get real, ya wallapur By 2066 all dialect words and regional pronunciations will be no more – consumed, according to a new report, by a tsunami of Americanisms and machine speak and sloshed down the clarty drain to oblivion. “Clarty” is a home-fashioned Glasgow adjective meaning “mucky”. And since HSBC commissioned the Sounds of 2066 report to mark the launch of the bank’s “voice biometrics and security technology” programme, its motives may be, if not clarty, on the opaque side – and smack of predictive wishful thinking rather than balanced social science. I have a personal interest in this subject, having made whatever name I have by creating a sitcom called Rab C Nesbitt that spanned 10 series over 20 years on BBC2. Nesbitt was rooted in Glasgow, and to its last glottal stop was steadfastly colloquial – or incomprehensible, according to taste. If I had a pound for every time someone said to me: “We think it’s very funny but we don’t understand a word” I’d have about, oh, £25 by now. Someone must have understood something because our first series won the Royal Television Society award for best sitcom and was nominated as the BBC’s entry for the Golden Rose of Montreux. I think Rab C Nesbitt still holds the rare distinction of being the first entry to screen English subtitles while the characters were speaking English. We’re all used to the notion of the steady wash of the homogenising wave rubbing the idiosyncratic edges from the pebbles of language. Perhaps it’s time to concern ourselves not with how we express ourselves but with what we’re actually saying. People liked Rab because then, as now, we crave authenticity. It didn’t matter how he spoke or if we missed the occasional word – we liked his company. I readily accept that should I live long enough I will one day speak to my car like an old friend and instruct it to take me to Waitrose so I can forget the bitter Glasgow tenement years of crispy pancakes and deep fried heroin, and embrace the improving crunch of radicchio. I expect my car to respond, not like a heartless Dalek but with a chummy “Nae bother big yin” – since customisation will still, in 2066, be as highly prized a piece of cultural turf as it is today. The report notes the decline of standard English and received pronunciation – “the Queen’s English” – and asserts that today nonstandard accents and dialects are much more readily accepted. “This improves opportunities for people from a wider variety of social and educational backgrounds. People in 2066 will be mystified as to why Tony Blair, Ed Miliband and George Osborne were slammed so mercilessly by the press for having been caught saying ‘voters’ without using a ‘proper T in the middle’.” We’re all equal, then. There’s no difference between me, you and Osborne. We’re all of us jumping about being egalitarian and trying not to drip soya milk into our hipster beards. And here we have the crux of the matter. As previously mentioned, this report was commissioned by HSBC. At the time of the bank bailouts in 2007/8 its then chairman declared his bank to be one of the most strongly capitalised in the world and not in need of government support. Such are the words of elevated men in a privileged world. Their vision sweeps the horizon and sees only new technology from which it can profit and exploit us. We are handed down the future in tablets of stone from the cathedral spire of Canary Wharf. Yes, I know how this sounds – a soft-palmed, former working-class tube (Glasgow slang meaning “empty vessel”) trying to convince you he still has a social conscience. Once I’ve bought my sun-dried tomatoes and carefully selected corn-fed chicken fillets, I swan in my indolent way across the street to a spacious local hostelry where, having given up drinking many years ago, I buy my skinny latte. The bar staff are almost all young, and speak in the relentlessly evolving American argot that the seers at HSBC are warning us about. Almost every staff member is a university graduate. Because they can’t find careers that match their qualifications, they have been pushed down the employment ladder to usurp the jobs that were once the preserve of the working class Glasgow bams and bamettes. Language has always evolved. Words are the loose change of communication. Chillax. Mass emigration caused by wars and the economic laws of human supply and demand are as much the drivers of vast social change as technology. No mention of those in the report. Perhaps in 2066 the chairman of HSBC will enter an elevator. The voice recognition system may identify his larynx and mutter: “Get real, ya wallapur!” That would be braw.
From Weiner to Making A Murderer: this is the golden age of documentaries As long as there have been films, a few have had the temerity to be about stuff that actually happened in the real world. Yet across the course of the last century, documentaries were relegated to the bottom of the industry’s cultural hierarchy, coming to be seen as something less than cinema – glorified television perhaps, or the hallmark of a slow release week. In the last decade, all that’s been turned on its head, as a handful of factors have conspired to render non-fiction film-making the liveliest pocket of the cinematic coat. For one thing, the films themselves – singular creations such as The Arbor, Citizenfour and Banksy’s Exit Through The Gift Shop – have fought tooth and nail to expand not just their audiences but their horizons. They’ve rejected the insipid library music and staid talking heads of yesteryear and instead borrowed from the rainbow of stylistic devices available to dramatic film-makers. Technology has also levelled the cinematic playing field. As more and more films have left the cinema and arrived in our homes, or on our phones, documentaries have been spared the Sisyphean task of competing with the latest Marvel Studios megalith for each potential ticket sale. Instead, fiction and non-fiction are now thrown together on low-cost subscription services that draw no distinction between the two. And while new camera and editing technologies have been adopted across the film industry, they’ve been especially beneficial to doc-makers, who can now effortlessly sift through 10 hours of dung beetles in search of one perfect shot for Planet Earth II. Our appetite for documentaries has changed, too. Viewers will today binge-watch serialised doc OJ: Made In America in a single weekend, and push Louis Theroux’s first big-screen outing towards the £1m mark at the UK box office. At the same time, dyed-in-the-wool fiction film-makers – from MOR kingpin Ron Howard to leftfield darling Jim Jarmusch and Selma director Ava DuVernay – are scrambling to jump aboard the non-fiction bandwagon. Institutions that continue to distinguish between docs and dramas, meanwhile, feel increasingly anachronistic, as the line between fiction and non-fiction films begins to blur. Indeed, many of the key works of this burgeoning documentary golden age have blended real and fictive elements with abandon. Joshua Oppenheimer’s The Act Of Killing remains perhaps the only Oscar nominee in which a confessed murderer performs a song-and-dance number under a waterfall. That kind of nuance seems to be spreading, with audiences welcoming a new definition of documentary that’s broader and livelier than ever before. Here are just a few of the vibrant scenes springing up in the land of the real… CL STAR VEHICLES Sometimes it’s less about the story than who’s telling it – and you trust the brand even if you don’t know exactly what you’re getting. Some film-makers literally have a voice: Werner Herzog’s films wouldn’t be the same without his trademark Teutonic disdain; Adam Curtis’s lecturing style adds to the portent of his revelations. It’s difficult to imagine others getting the same results if they stayed behind the camera. And they do get results. Michael Moore’s campaigning films might not swing elections but they shape national debates (as with his recent Michael Moore In TrumpLand). Grayson Perry has a disarming way of getting along with absolutely anyone. Louis Theroux’s excruciating silences force people to talk. And Nick Broomfield’s shambolic investigations often get to truth (his last film for HBO targeted serial killer The Grim Sleeper, who’s since been apprehended). They’re accused of seeking the limelight but it’s never easy or safe making films like this. After all, putting yourself in the frame often means putting yourself on the line. NOW SHOWING: Grayson Perry explores transgender identity in Born Risky, a series of shorts on All 4. Werner Herzog’s latest Lo And Behold: Reveries Of The Connected World is out on DVD and Blu-ray on 5 Dec, while his Into The Inferno is currently on Netflix. Book in some time for HyperNormalisation, Adam Curtis’s 166-minute study of where we are now via BBC iPlayer. SR NEW-GEN ROCK DOCS Dust swirls over Nick Cave’s piano in 3D as the grief process and the creative process collide in Andrew Dominik’s One More Time With Feeling. Wilko Johnson plays chess with Death in Julien Temple’s 11th-hour biopic about the Dr Feelgood guitarist. Wolf Alice share their bus with actors in Michael Winterbottom’s part-fictionalised tour diary, On The Road. The sheer quantity of music documentaries being produced today is overwhelming – but notable too is their quality. No longer just a part of the album promo cycle, they are flashing a AAA pass at the realm of high art. The last three years have produced two masterpieces of archival profiling in Amy and Cobain: Montage Of Heck. Meanwhile, Cave has invited the cameras in not once but twice (first for intimate portrait 20,000 Days On Earth). This year, Mat Whitecross’s cunningly edited Supersonic reunited Oasis in spirit rather than reality. The BBC4’s recent investment in music stories – their Kate Bush docs have proved particularly popular – also speaks volumes about the medium’s burgeoning appeal. You no longer have to dig the subject’s back catalogue to fall under a music doc’s spell. COMING SOON: Gimme Danger. Jim Jarmusch’s new Stooges doc is out in cinemas from 18 November; One More Time With Feeling is in limited cinemas on 1 December. BT ARTISTIC ACTIVISM The revolution will be televised, it seems – maybe even on the big screen. Activist docs have risen in the 21st century to encompass varied voices, spanning Michael Moore’s blockbuster style to smart unions such as Brit director Michael Winterbottom and Canadian activist Naomi Klein (The Shock Doctrine), historic archives and modern revelations. Most of these films highlight grassroots issues; many now command powerful platforms. Writer-director Ava DuVernay recently released 13th, examining the US constitution’s treatment of slavery, incarceration and race relations, which recently opened the New York film festival. Dawn Porter’s Trapped, about US abortion laws, has been tipped for the Oscars. Cowspiracy, an agriculture industry doc, inspired a new version, exec-produced by Hollywood’s foremost eco warrior Leonardo DiCaprio. The mainstream impact of independent docs can be startling and their scope can prove galvanising, whether it’s the Aids activism doc How To Survive A Plague or Dreamcatcher’s stories of Chicago sex workers. There’s also Everyday Rebellion, about global non-violent resistance, described by its directors the Riahi brothers as “a celebration of life”. An optimistic idea drives the heaviest docs: that film can effect real change. NOW SHOWING: There’s more eco-Leo in climate change treatise Before The Flood, currently streaming on Nat Geo’s YouTube channel. AH THE INSIDERS These days you can’t call yourself an institution without a documentary exposing your inner workings. The September Issue famously made a star out of Grace Coddington and gave Vogue a human face, while Page One: Inside The New York Times showed the Grey Lady attempting to adjust to a digital world. Documentary-makers are sharing space with investigative reporters: it’s arguable that Blackfish has damaged SeaWorld beyond repair, an environmental feat that DiCaprio (yup, him again) will be hoping to emulate with his exec-produced elephant crisis doc The Ivory Game. Scientology doc Going Clear, of course, was a global headline spinner. Early bets for 2017 Oscar glory should go to Josh Kriegman and Elyse Sternberg’s Weiner, an extraordinary fly-on-the-wall doc about the disgraced politician Anthony, and if the giddy pace of present-day politics isn’t enough to have you reaching for the tinfoil hat, Laura Poitras’s Citizenfour tells the paranoia-inducing story of Edward Snowden and the NSA. Even British TV is getting in on the information overload – fixed-rig television has ushered in a new era of intimacy in which all facets of life, from school days (the Educating… series) to romance (First Dates), are served up for your analysis and dissection. NOW SHOWING: The Ivory Game is on Netflix now. RN EXPERIMENTAL Back in the age of cinéma vérité, it was felt that feature-film techniques had no place in documentaries. The turnaround since then – post-Errol Morris, say – couldn’t be more complete, and formal experimentation has run riot in the last 20 years, and more so in the last five. One imagines old ideological purists wincing at the visual pyrotechnics of Adam Curtis, or Joshua Oppenheimer’s use of that erstwhile documentary taboo, dramatic re-enactment. Andrew Dominick and Wim Wenders have both incorporated 3D into wildly contrasting docs about mourning and ballet (One More Time With Feeling, Pina), while Clio Barnard’s The Arbor used lip-synching to deeply eerie effect. And with movies such as Roger Ross Williams’s Life, Animated (out here on 9 Dec), Brett Morgen’s Chicago 10 and Ari Folman’s Waltz With Bashir, even animation has been bent to serious documentary purposes. Simplicity also works: both Jafar Panahi’s This Is Not A Film, filmed while he was banned from film-making, and Laurie Anderson’s Heart Of A Dog, a meditation on grief, are self-conscious anti-home movies, both making a virtue of limitations. Often these once-proscribed techniques can come closer to other kinds of truth than mere “verite”. NOW SHOWING: Alexander Sokurov’s eerie Louvre/Nazi doc-drama Francofonia, out in selected cinemas. JP TRUE CRIME True-life crime stories have long been a tabloid staple, with nosey-parker sensationalism often reframed as cautionary tales. But a resurgence in thoughtful, meditative and often quietly furious examinations of crime and punishment has made this storied subgenre the current kingpin of on-screen non-fiction. Who’s the culprit? You could point an accusing finger at Serial, the 2014 megahit podcast that patiently walked the world through the evidential minutiae of a horrible 1999 murder and subsequent shoddy prosecution. Certainly, many of the recent ascendant breed of true crime docs seem to share some of Serial’s questing DNA. These features and, increasingly, TV series re-examine high-profile murders (the monumental eight-hour OJ: Made In America; Netflix’s recent Amanda Knox), reignite cold cases (procedural hit Making A Murderer, mumbled manhunt The Jinx), unpick the war on drugs (from Cartel Land’s volatile border vigilantes to the gamed US systems of The House I Live In) and even – in the case of the disturbing (T)error – ride shotgun with a steamrollering FBI sting. Guilt trips have never been so addictive. COMING SOON: Alex “Going Clear” Gibney’s docuseries The Killing Season starts 22 November on Crime & Investigation. GV LEGACY DOCS When celeb bio-docs are 10-a-penny, it’s no wonder directors are drawn to putting culture’s unsung heroes in the frame for the first time. Often it’s about crediting those who influenced from the sidelines: Everything Is Copy profiled Nora Ephron, the unsparing writer who later defined the modern romcom. In Life Itself, a beautiful movie about Chicago film critic Roger Ebert’s vivid life and dying days, no less than Martin Scorsese cites him as an inspiration. Bill Cunningham New York marvelled at the tireless 81-year-old New York Times street photographer, and featured Iris Apfel, the eccentric 93-year-old “geriatric starlet” and subject of Albert Maysles’s Iris. Other docs make previous unknowns into icons: Searching For Sugar Man exposed Mexican-American songwriter Sixto Rodriguez’s surprising role in the anti-apartheid movement, Jeanie Finlay’s Orion: Man Who Would Be King last year unmasked Elvis sound-and-lookalike Jimmy Ellis, and Finding Vivian Maier established the children’s nanny among the 20th century’s finest photographers. These empathetic studies of fleeting eras remind us that influence doesn’t always equal fame. COMING SOON: The Eagle Huntress follows a young girl’s journey to become her Kazakh family’s first female eagle hunter, out in cinemas on 16 December. LS CURIOSITIES In an age when any hobbyist can meet friends with the same quirks online, documentarists find gold in unseen, teeming subcultures. Niche docs thrive on TV, especially on Channel 4, where sex generates the easiest buzz. But good fetish-gawp docs have more than titillation, from the wistful escapism of the dog-people in Secret Life Of The Human Pups to the psychosexual darkness of lonely Brits yanking each other’s trackie bottoms down in Dogging Tales. The fully clothed enthusiasts in The Secret World Of Lego are just as revealing. Some programmes give a singular human a flash of immortality: nobody who saw The Lost Gold Of The Highlands on BBC4 will forget bounty-hunting outcast Garnet Frost. On the big screen, strange nooks lead somewhere else. Sinister power games lie behind a weird video craze in Tickled; in Finders Keepers, a bizarre spat over a severed leg ends up being a story about how ordinary oddballs are affected by these moments in the light. NOW SHOWING: Sonita, the recently released doc about the titular Iranian refugee-turned-rapper. JS
Fifty shades of gross – Marlon Wayans on body fungus, weird sex and Donald Trump Candida is a type of fungus. There are more than 20 species that live, quietly and happily, all over our bodies. Occasionally, in the warm, moist folds of an accommodating host, candida will go wild. Overgrowth. Infection. Then, ailments, including – if alternative therapy is your thing – “leaky gut”, a proposed condition (the NHS is dubious about it) that some health practitioners link to flatulence, diarrhoea and various shades of sexual dysfunction. Marlon Wayans is eyeing the coffee he has just finished. He’s on the Candida diet, a no-dairy, no-gluten, no-alcohol, no-sugar cleanse that he does twice a year to flush out the excess fungus. Caffeine is also on the banned substance list, but he has been on the go for 18 hours, travelling to promote Fifty Shades of Black, his scatological spoof on the film adaptation of EL James’s bonkbuster. Wayans plays Christian Black, who is the same as Christian Grey, except he’s black and terrible in bed. The film is crass, dorky and disgusting in all the ways you would expect from the crown prince of modern gross-out. There are buckets of premature ejaculate, a geriatric nymphomaniac and a scene in which, in the wake of an impulsive bout of unprotected sex, Black feeds his blindfolded partner an “after-sex mint” (the morning-after pill). Inevitably, some of the symptoms of leaky gut make an appearance. “I’ll always be that 14-year-old who grew up on Porky’s, Kentucky Fried Movie and Animal House,” he says. “When I do these movies, I write them for the 14-year-old in every man and woman. It’s a point in your life where you have your ideas about sex, but you haven’t had it yet. So it’s fun to see the hypothetical versions and how crazy it can get.” Wayans has experience of pushing the limits of taste. With his brothers, director Keenen and writer and actor Shawn, he made Scary Movie. A parody of teen slasher films, particularly Wes Craven’s Scream franchise, it goofed on late-90s pop culture memes from The Matrix to the Whassup? ads. It was a massive hit, taking $278m (£196m) worldwide – the highest grossing film by a black director until Straight Outta Compton’s release last year. Not bad for a comedy horror that cost a reported $19m to make and included a scene where a man is killed by being skewered through the head by an erect penis. Scary Movie’s tagline – “No mercy. No shame. No sequel” – buckled under market pressure. After Scary Movie 2, Wayans co-wrote and/or starred in similarly filthy parodies of dance movies (Dance Flick) and found-footage horror films (A Haunted House 1 and 2). Fifty Shades was an obvious target for parody, he says, because of its immense popularity (“Everywhere I went, girls had this book. I was like: ‘Did they redo the Bible?!’”). Also, both book and film are “creepy, awkward and weird”. “Christian’s half abuser and half stalker,” he says. “The only difference between him and someone who is domestically violent is that there’s a contract.” Wayans made it through three-quarters of the book before giving up. In Fifty Shades of Black, there’s a scene in which Christian Black tortures his submissive, Hannah Steele, by reading her a passage. He has to stop after they both break down in tears. Yet, the book’s incredible pull is understandable, says Wayans. “It’s for the lonely housewife,” he says. “When women get married, your husband doesn’t court you as much. Once he gets you, there’s so many other things he has to do with his life. “Women are attracted to the guy they can’t get because they want all of you. Christian Grey was a guy that had that mystery. He was the perfect imperfect guy.” Fifty Shades of Black will be Wayans’s last parody. He says the genre lacks heart. There is, beneath the scuzz and the muck, a warmth to his best comedy. In White Chicks, released in 2004, Marlon and Shawn play FBI agents who disguise themselves as a pair of bratty white heiresses, Brittany and Tiffany Wilson. Critics hated the film (only a few of Wayan’s comedies have ever hit above 20% on Rotten Tomatoes), but the majority misread it as a farce about race, when, in fact, it was, for its genre and its time, saying something fairly sophisticated about gender. Brittany and Tiffany, dumb, arrogant men before their transformation, quickly learn from their new female friends the value of cooperation and companionship. Of course, there is also a scene where Marlon as Marcus as Tiffany has explosive diarrhoea. Wayans was born in New York and raised, along with Keenen, Shawn and seven other brothers and sisters, in a Manhattan housing project. His dad was a supermarket manager and a devout Jehovah’s Witness. His mum was a social worker. The family were poor. Marlon once said that they had peanut butter or jelly for a treat. Never both. Keenen, 14 years Marlon’s senior, was the first of the Wayans to get into comedy. A stint in standup in New York led to acting work in LA, then a gig co-writing and co-starring in Hollywood Shuffle, comedian Robert Townsend’s semi-autobiographical film about being black and trying to make it in the film industry. Marlon followed his brother out west after theatre school and became a regular, along with many of the Wayans siblings, on Keenen’s hit sketch show, In Living Color. Unusual in that it featured a predominantly black cast, the show helped launch the careers of Jamie Foxx and Jim Carrey, while Jennifer Lopez was a member of the show’s dance troupe, the Fly Girls. Marlon, 19 when he started out, didn’t know how to play the game back then (“I used to fart in interviews. I probably pissed the whole Hollywood foreign press off,” he says). Now 43, he’s more savvy. He has put in a couple of dramatic roles (Jared Leto’s junkie confidante in Darren Aronofsky’s Requiem for a Dream; one of the Coens’ crooks in The Ladykillers) for directors with serious clout. But, he says, he’s still in “Hollywood’s janitor closet”. He points out that, in the past three years, he has made three movies that cost less than $9m between them, but have grossed around $100m worldwide. He’s waiting for someone to reward him with a bigger budget, but that doesn’t come easily for black talent. “The Revenant cost a lot of money,” he says. “That production would have been shut down so quickly if it was a black film: ‘Put somebody in a bear costume! Put Larry in a bear costume and let him do what he got to do! We’ll just film it with a soft lens.’” The #OscarsSoWhite debate misses the point, he says. “The bigger issue is with us making more diverse movies. But there’s also a responsibility on film-makers of colour. We need to be making more of these films on epic scales in order to be considered for Oscars. Then it’s on the audiences to go out and support the movies. Hollywood’s not black and white, it’s green.” In his 1996 film, Don’t Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood, Wayans mocks black cinema that uses ghetto stereotypes to hammer home a point about black people. “I guess even though we were free, we were still slaves ... in our mind,” muses the lead character. A mailman walks by and yells: “Message!” Wayans is wary of falling into the same trap. Plus, there are much bigger issues at hand. “There’s other black things that need remedying besides movies,” he says. “Kids are getting shot, the KKK are making a comeback. Donald Trump could be our next president.” Do you think he will be? “Do you have room for one more person if he does?” At least Trump speaks his mind, he says. Even if he doesn’t like what the man has to say, he respects him for expressing it honestly. “No matter how stupid he may sound, he says what he feels. People don’t say what they feel any more, people say what’s politically correct. If he would lick his hair and shut the fuck up, he could look like a president. But he opens his mouth and you just go: ‘God!’” And Trump is like a grand Wayans brothers’ comic creation: the blowhard old white guy merrily spouting his racist invective to the outrage (and guilty amusement) of millions. “There will come a time when I’ll take the world more seriously,” Wayans says. But not yet. White Chicks 2 is wobbling on to the horizon; there’s more big, broad comedy territory to conquer. As I get up to leave he offers further endorsement of the Candida diet. “Seriously,” he says. “It would get rid of those bags under your eyes right away.” He gives me a hug and heads straight for the loo. • Fifty Shades of Black is on general release
Labour can fight for working people without dumping progressive ideas What have we learned about what happened on 23 June? Some immediate myths have been dismantled. The young didn’t stay in bed – 64% of registered 18 to 24-year-olds voted, overwhelmingly to remain. Not all those who voted to leave the European Union in the referendum were northern left-behinds – many were middle-class people in the south. And Labour delivered 63% of its 2015 vote to remain, not that much lower than the Liberal Democrats’ 70%, and way above the Conservatives’ measly 42%. In fact, Labour’s remain vote was only 1% lower than the SNP’s. That said, important truths remain. Leavers were older, poorer and less well-educated than the general population – the profile of the core Ukip vote, 4 million of whom voted to leave. And although the leave vote was not an emotional spasm (any more than all remainers were models of Olympian rationality), leavers as well as remainers were constrained by the options on offer and the political forces in play. Hence the big collateral damage is not on the right but on the left. Against all expectations, the Tories have emerged intact (their grassroots effectively sidelined), while Labour is in serious danger of implosion. That is because Conservatives could vote leave or remain but stay committed to the party’s principles; Labour voters supposedly faced the choice between voting for the progressive, socially liberal tradition, or for the interests of the working-class base. I was part of the one third of the population that voted to come out of the Common Market in 1975, when different options were on offer. The no campaign arose out of a decade of oppositional activism – from the student revolt and women’s liberation to the strikes that brought down the Edward Heath government. Enoch Powell and the National Front were for leaving, but voting no was also about voting yes to a coherent, interventionist, alternative economic strategy. Had the anti-Common Market side won, it would have been the left wot won it. This time, voting to leave the European Union was something very different, and so – without huge enthusiasm – I voted remain. In the intervening years, the fault lines of 20th-century politics have been redrawn. Conservatism used to be an often uneasy compound of Tory social paternalism and anti-statist economic liberalism; while on the left, an alliance between progressive social liberalism and egalitarianism created the best of postwar Britain, from the welfare state to the social reforms of the 1960s and 1970s. The new fault line splits both alliances in half: allying economic with social liberalism (the coalition that brought you the coalition) on the one side, and economic intervention with social conservatism on the other. As a result, an ever-deepening wedge now divides Labour’s aspirational, liberal, globalised wing from its traditional base. Although good news for the Conservative party, this is best for the populist right, which has rushed to fill the vacuum created. Hence, across Europe, hitherto conventionally rightwing populist parties have turned to the working class. Geert Wilders’ Dutch Freedom party suddenly converts itself from free-market anti-statism to workers’ rights and the minimum wage. Once, the Austrian Freedom party opposed welfare spending and wanted to raise the retirement age; now it advocates the reverse. The French Front National wants to nationalise key industries. The Polish Law and Justice party transformed itself from traditional conservatism to the populist right, setting the impoverished rural east against the EU-leaning urban west. Now the Austrian Freedom party’s leader Norbert Hofer is poised to win a rerun of May’s presidential election, Marine le Pen is odds-on for a place in next year’s presidential run-off, and Law and Justice is the government of Poland. Meanwhile, Donald Trump promises a programme of public works unmatched since Roosevelt’s New Deal. And, of course, many of the Ukip 4 million were attracted by the party’s deliberate move from libertarian free-market economics to backing the NHS, opposing the bedroom tax and standing up to big business: 80% of people who think social liberalism is a force for ill voted leave; but so did the 51% who think the same about capitalism. Aside from its immediate woes, this presents Labour with a long-term strategic choice. Those who are now advocating splitting the party – creating the kind of progressive centrist coalition that might have emerged from the 2010 or 2015 elections – would hand Labour’s working-class core to Ukip. But the alternative is just as dangerous. From Tristram Hunt on the right to Jon Cruddas on the non-Corbynite left, significant figures have been calling on the party to direct an English nationalist, faith, flag and family message at socially conservative working-class voters, on the presumption that such voters form the majority of Labour’s core and that those opinions never change. A majority of the anti-EU core of the population does indeed – as remain pollster Andrew Cooper has reported – want to turn the clock back to the 1950s. But rejecting the strand of Labour policy that liberalised divorce and abortion law, legalised homosexuality and introduced the race relations and equal pay acts (and, later, the Human Rights Act and civil partnerships) would abandon not only that portion of the working class that is female, gay and non-white, but also millions of white, working-class men for whom the 1960s represented liberation from the stultifying cultural and social constraints of the previous decade. The transformation in attitudes to women’s and – most dramatically – gay rights belies the idea that Britain is uniquely hostile to change. Leave’s victory demonstrated that the deprived and ignored are capable of taking on the establishment – and defeating it. And – as Scotland showed – white, working-class voters are willing to support policies that are both anti-austerity and pro-immigration if those options are convincingly on offer.
The month in comics: Captain America and the erotic steampunk Chester 5000 XYV For decades, comic stories have featured uncanny super-beings with precognitive powers. Now we are all mutants who can see the future, thanks to the traffic jam of comic-book-derived movies forming a procession on to our screens. The looming Captain America: Civil War movie is based on the mini-series from 2006 and pitched as a massive ideological ding-dong between Cap and Iron Man. But when the first trailer was released, what seemed to resonate with audiences was the intense relationship between Cap and his childhood friend Bucky, now a brain-scrambled, part-cyborg, all-emo Hydra assassin. Deliberately or not, it seemed to go beyond bromance. Indie comics artist Jess Fink took the hint and posted some raunchy panels on Twitter that imagined the cold war between Captain America and the Winter Soldier suddenly becoming extremely hot. This wasn’t the first time Fink had imagined a character unexpectedly returning from the dead with a metal arm and a fluid sexuality. She recently wrapped up her five-year project Chester 5000 XYV, an erotic steampunk webcomic that started out telling the story of the unorthodox relationship between a gallant robot butler and his sexually frustrated mistress but expanded into a Victorian epic of love, loss and libido. Fink’s gorgeous, clean-lined art is a good fit for some unashamedly dirty content, and Alan Moore is a fan. The first arc has been collected in print but last week Fink launched a Kickstarter campaign to self-publish a second volume. The entire saga is also available online, and while it’s probably not the sort of thing you should access at work, Fink’s storytelling is as likely to pluck on your heartstrings as get you all steamed up. Steve Rogers might be too square to put it on his hand-written list of pop culture to catch up on, but you can imagine Tony Stark being totally into it. Marvel is launching a series of bombastic Civil War II comics in June, but Chester 5000 XYV makes for some very appealing counter-programming, especially if you’d rather see characters make love, not war. Criminal 10th Anniversary Special It was the writer Ed Brubaker who contentiously brought Bucky back in 2005, reimagining him as a brainwashed Soviet assassin. You can also briefly spot him lurking next to Robert Redford in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Sadly, Brubaker hasn’t reprised his signature role of Hydra Science Stooge #2 in Civil War, but that’s probably because he’s too busy working on his own comics. Brubaker and artist Sean Phillips have been collaborators for almost 15 years, and last week released the Criminal 10th Anniversary Special, a one-off celebrating their hardboiled series. Flashing back to 1979, it follows Tracy Lawless, one of Criminal’s collective of nervy, desperate antiheroes, as he goes on a traumatic childhood road trip. Trapped in the poisonous orbit of his lowlife father, young Tracy finds solace in a random issue of Fang The Kung Fu Werewolf, a groovy (and entirely fictional) pulp comic. The story then juxtaposes a grim revenge quest along lonesome desert highways with pages from Fang’s authentically 70s adventures, a riot of street slang, generous flares and thought bubbles bursting with heroic angst. The contrast heightens the sense of impending doom that haunts the story, a fitting way to mark Criminal’s decade of darkness. Brubaker and Phillips have announced a new ongoing series, Kill Or Be Killed, about an angry twentysomething coerced into killing someone every month, suggesting they’ll be partners-in-crime for a while yet. Hot Damn Hot Damn has an impressively rooting-tooting title but writer Ryan Ferrier and artist Valentin Ramon mean damn in the old-fashioned sense. When feckless hedonist Teddy, hero of their just-launched five-part mini-series, wakes up from a bender, he finds himself in actual Hell-with-a-capital-H. While there’s less torture and torment than he expected, Hell turns out to be a deeply squalid place with mind-numbing regulations, enforced therapy sessions and a horrorshow cabaret called Butt Stuff. Even worse, the buskers sing OMC’s 1995 earworm How Bizarre on loop. While it’s not the first time the underworld has been reimagined as a clapped-out bureaucracy, Ramon crams every panel with fetid detail in a style that evokes the expressiveness of Fungus The Bogeyman and the gross-out yuks of the Garbage Pail Kids. For his part, Ferrier laces the script with proper LOLcanos, while hinting that deadbeat Teddy might have a shot at redemption. If the idea of at least 22 more superhero movies by 2020 sounds like hell, you could do worse than sample this version.
John Paul White: Beulah review – spectacularly gloomy and bitter Few bands have imploded in public in recent years quite as unexpectedly as the Civil Wars. There was a moment, around five years ago, when the Nashville-based duo appeared to have a glittering future ahead of them. Their debut album, Barton Hollow, had been released to critical acclaim, strong sales and a plethora of awards. The press seemed fascinated: by their music, by the breathless celebrity endorsements from Taylor Swift and Adele, and by the fact that Joy Williams and John Paul White’s live performances were attended by a certain are-they-or-aren’t-they? sexual frisson. And then, suddenly, everything went wrong. A documentary crew invited to film the recording of their eponymous second album unexpectedly found themselves making the alt-country Let It Be: awkward silences and tense exchanges abounded, with Williams and White seemingly engaged in a competition to see who could avoid looking directly at the other the longest. A European tour had to be abandoned immediately after a show at London’s Roundhouse in November 2012, which apparently marks the last time the pair spoke to each other. The album came out, but White refused to promote it, while Williams gave the occasional tearful interview. When the Civil Wars won their fourth Grammy in 2014, White accepted it alone, without mentioning Williams at all, instead thanking his wife and a plumber who was working on his house. Perhaps understandably, the second Civil Wars album had a noticeably ominous tone to it – funereal-paced rhythms, bursts of serrated guitar, lyrics about dying relationships. Anyone believing that a few years away from his erstwhile musical partner – “semi-connected” to the music industry, co-founding his own label and studio – might have leavened John Paul White’s mood is in for quite a shock when they hear Beulah, a collection of songs that White claims he didn’t actually want to write: “Honestly, I tried to avoid them, but then I realised the only way I was going to get rid of them was if I wrote them down.” You can see why the material might have given him pause. A lot of it sounds spectacularly gloomy and bitter. That’s often because it is spectacularly gloomy and bitter. There are songs on here about collapsed relationships that make his old fan Adele’s last album sound like a masterclass in the virtues of moving on and letting bygones be bygones: Make You Cry, which you would describe as self-explanatory were the lyrics not even more rancorous than its title suggests; The Once and Future Queen, which comes packing a chorus of “I never really loved you anyway – at least not unconditionally.” But occasionally, it manages to make even the most joyful of emotions feel like heartbreak. White has a way of writing paeans to his wife that make his love for her sound like an unimaginable burden – one of them is called Hope I Die – and her manifold qualities a source of distress. “You’re a hard woman to live with, I could never fill those shoes, an example for our children I could never live up to,” he sings on Hate the Way You Love Me. If that feels like an uncomfortably self-pitying way to write about a happy marriage – measuring his partner’s worth by his own inadequacy – then at least White seems aware of his solipsism: a song called The Martyr picks regretfully at his own self-absorption, his refusal to let things go. The latter song sounds a little John Grantish in tone, although there’s none of Grant’s mordant wit on hand to undercut the bleakness. Instead, White relies on his melodic talent to carry the listener through. At their best, the Civil Wars tapped into something timeless and fundamental that could unite the Nashville establishment and the kind of people who would never ordinarily go near mainstream country. They wrote new songs that somehow sounded as if they’d always existed, a skill that clearly hasn’t deserted White since their break-up: you can hear it on the spare opener Black Leaf, while the gorgeous I’ve Been Over This Before is the kind of heart-worn country ballad that could have been a hit at any point in the last 70 years. But if the Civil Wars’ finest qualities are still much in evidence here, so are their shortcomings. Their least-inspired music had a tendency to devolve into MOR pop-rock, as does Beulah: Hope I Die spikes its AOR leanings with a claustrophobically close-miked vocal and a tense haze of strings, but The Martyr sounds worryingly like the kind of thing you hear mid-afternoon on BBC Radio 2, filling space between the factoids and the Non-Stop Oldies on Steve Wright’s show; dressed a little differently, Hate the Way You Love Me could wow them at The X Factor auditions. In fact, Beulah is at its best when a little of the lyrical darkness bleeds into the sound. White can do Southern rock, as you might expect given his history: his first band, back in Tennessee, were called Nuthin’ Fancy, a name that somehow suggests they weren’t dealing in post-rock heavily influenced by Laughing Stock-era Talk Talk and avant-garde electronica, not least because it’s also the title of a Lynyrd Skynrd album. Fight for You and What’s So offer an appealingly spooked, sparse, echoey modernisation of the genre, more Cormac McCarthy than Capricorn Records. It’s hard not to hope White explores this direction further in future, but for now Beulah will do: mainstream and commercial, but odd and cranky with it, an album that sounds like it wasn’t so much written and recorded as got off his chest.
The Joy of Six: comedy football goals 1) Nick Cusack, Fulham 1-0 Scarborough (Endsleigh League Division Three, 13 January 1996) Twitter is the root cause of world gone wrong, in our heart we all know that, but it does have one thing to commend it: the Crap 90s Football feed is the most reliable comedy since Larry David went into hibernation. It is full of clips of utter ineptitude from primeval swine with more hair on the bottom than the top; it’s a world in which a goalmouth scramble can morph seamlessly into a goalmouth rumble; a world full of goals so comically bad that they would give Tubes an instant orgasm. The lower-league stuff is particularly endearing. If you look up synonyms of ‘crap’, one of them is ‘Endsleigh League’. (We jest of course. These people were infinitely better at football than we will ever be, which makes their scruffy endeavour all the more amusing.) Everyone will have their own favourite, but the Joy of Six has a soft spot for Nick Cusack’s goal against Scarborough. In truth the goal belongs to the keeper Ian Ironside, who goes to preposterous lengths to save a corner, and then compounds his original misjudgement not once but twice by chasing after the ball, diligently digging a deeper hole. In his defence, he did save the corner. 2) Jason Cundy, Ipswich 1-1 Tottenham Hotspur (Premier League, 30 August 1992) Sometimes defence is the best form of attack. There is a sub-genre of comedy goal – also featuring Scott Nisbet’s legendary offspinner that almost helped Rangers to to the Champions League – that comes from nothing more than a defender doing his job with a crunching tackle or interception that somehow ends with the ball in the net. When he walloped a clearance over Craig Forrest from 50 yards, Minder villain Jason Cundy broke into a confused growl, as if he didn’t know whether he should celebrate or not. If only he had a better poker face, or he wasn’t renowned for his rustic style of play, he might have been able to claim he meant it. In that parallel universe, it was as life-changing as David Beckham’s goal from the halfway line. He is now best mates with Tom Cruise; he is marred to her out of En Vogue; his aftershave, Intimately Cundy, is available in all good discount aftershave stores; his film, Crack It Like Cundy, was “pure exuberant fun!” according to Roger Ebert; and you don’t need to ask which branded H&M underpants the Joy of Six is wearing today. (See also: spare a thought for Peter Litchfield. To be beaten once by a beastly up-and-under from the halfway line may be regarded as misfortune...) 3) Roberto Boninsegna, Brazil 4-1 Italy (World Cup final, 21 June 1970) Brazil 1970s are the greatest attacking team of all time, so it’s no surprise they are responsible for the greatest video on YouTube. It’s not what you might think however: this collection of their incompetence during the tournament, soundtracked by the jauntily sinister Trololo, will never cease to release endorphins. In aiming so high they plumbed some glorious depths, none lower than Italy’s goal in the final. After some freestyle faffing, their No5 put the clod in Clodoaldo with an absurd backheel that allowed Boninsegna to lumber towards goal. What followed was like a Benny Hill football sketch, and a magnificent fiasco on the grandest stage. Brazil, and especially Clodoaldo, just about redeemed themselves in the second half. 4) Mike Hanke, Schalke 04 2-3 Bayer Leverkusen (Bundesliga, 17 April 2004) You know what they say: you are never more vulnerable than when you’ve just scored. That’s particularly true if you are a goalkeeper who has just scored a penalty, like Hans-Jorg Butt, and are off on a lap of honour, thinking about what you’ll call your world tour, while the opposition are about to kick off. You can make your own gags. The Butt of all the jokes; Butt made an arse of himself; the Butt stops here, about 30 yards from his own goal, drinking in the adulation as the ball sails slowly over his head and into the net. 5) Brian McClair, Sheffield Wednesday 3-2 Manchester United, (Division One, 26 October 1991) This is the kind of goal for which the phrase “they all count” was invented. It’s best watched with the background accompaniment of BBC Essential Comedy Sound Effects, Vol.1. PARP! You thought Brian McClair’s first goal was bad? Have a look at this. HONK! Bryan Robson’s shot is blocked by Carlton Palmer but he manages to divert the rebound across goal. DONG! The usually immaculate Roland Nilsson stretches to divert the ball against his own post. CLANG! Carlton Palmer and Paul Warhurst fall over each other in the line. Carlton! BEEP! McClair almost misses from 0.0001 yards but eventually stabs it in off Palmer. TISH! United eventually lose the title because of two equally weird goals in Sheffield later in the season. 6) Franck Queudrue own goal, Bastia 1-3 Lens (Ligue 1, 7 April 2001) We weren’t going to cover own goals – house genius Scott Murray did those a few years ago – but come on, the state of this. John Dreyer, eat your heart out.
Justin Bieber and Skrillex sued over vocal loops on Sorry Justin Bieber and Skrillex are being sued by the indie artist Casey Dienel, according to reports by TMZ. Dienel, who records under the name White Hinterland, claims the duo used one of her vocal loops without permission on their track Sorry. The eight-second snippet in question is used repeatedly through her 2014 song Ring the Bell. Dienel reportedly claims that the “unique characteristics of the female vocal riff” have been copied. According to TMZ, Bieber’s team received warnings not to use the part but ignored them. Sorry was a huge hit for Skrillex and Bieber, topping the charts in several countries including the US and the UK. It has been streamed over 6.5m times on Spotify. Ring the Bell, meanwhile, is White Hinterland’s most popular song, with 500,000 streams on Spotify. Other songwriters on the Bieber track – Julia Michaels, Justin Tranter and Michael Tucker – are reportedly included in the lawsuit.
English club football has never quite been the same since a momentous 1996 It is England v Scotland on Friday night in this, the 20th anniversary year of one of the more joyous occasions at Wembley, so nostalgia is perfectly permissible for Euro 96, when the hosts’ brand of uninhibited football was bettered only by some even less inhibited goal celebrations. Yet 1996 ought to be remembered for much more than Gazza and the dentist’s chair routine. It was a momentous year in domestic football too, quite possibly the point at which the still new Premier League stopped resembling the old Division One and began to morph into the multinational, money-no-object form of entertainment we know today. You will have to make your own mind up about whether that was a good thing or not, but the calendar year of 1996 contained several notable moments and developments that are still talked about today. The arrival of the foreign managers, for a start. Arsène Wenger may not have been the very first overseas coach to take charge of a top-flight English team, brief cameos from Ossie Ardiles and Dr Josef Venglos preceded him at Newcastle and Aston Villa respectively and Ruud Gullit was made Chelsea player-manager in 1996, though the new Arsenal manager was certainly the first to win the double in his first full season and prove successful enough to stick around for the next 20 years. Look at the present Premier League table and you will find nine of the top 10 teams under foreign coaches, with Burnley’s Sean Dyche the only Englishman getting a look-in. No one considers this unusual any more, though in 1996, when Wenger moved to Arsenal from Japan, it was the first time a club had deliberately looked abroad to bring in new ideas. Gullit was already at Chelsea in a playing capacity, and was chosen to represent consistency when Glenn Hoddle left for England in May 1996, and though the FA Cup in 1997 was a significant achievement the Dutchman only lasted one more year. Hoddle took over a Chelsea previously overseen by John Hollins, Bobby Campbell, Ian Porterfield and David Webb. After his departure for the national team he has been followed by an unbroken line of 14 overseas appointments. The most successful manager in 1996 was not English either, Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United would win a third title in four seasons after Blackburn’s rise to the top of the league in 1995 proved short-lived, though 1996 did feature that rarest of events from a modern perspective – an English manager making a serious bid for the title. Newcastle United under Kevin Keegan were widely expected to win the league after staying on top for the first half of the season and building up a 12 point lead over Manchester United by January. Famously they did not manage it, and Keegan now has to be content with being the last English manager to guide a side to runners-up spot in Premier League history. You read that right – since Newcastle’s dramatic 1995-96 season no English manager has even finished second. Newcastle were runners-up again in 1997, though by that time Kenny Dalglish had taken over. As Howard Wilkinson’s success with Leeds had come in 1992, the year before the Premier League started, the sad fact is that no English manager to date has ever won the Premier League and only two have managed to come second. Feel a quick quiz question coming on? Ron Atkinson was the other, taking Aston Villa to runners-up spot in 1992-93, the first Premier League season. Other joys of the second half of the 1995-96 season in the north-east included the famous 4-3 defeat at Anfield, complete with pictures of blubbing Newcastle fans sent round the world at the end, and Keegan’s even more emotional rant when he convinced himself that Ferguson was trying to wind him up. This was the apotheosis of the Manchester United manager as master of mind games, yet in all probability the episode probably said more about Keegan’s reaction to pressure than his rival’s. Ferguson’s team had already overhauled Newcastle in the table in mid-April when they were made to work hard at Old Trafford by a 10-man Leeds United side. The Leeds goalkeeper Mark Beeney had been sent off early in the game, yet even with defender Lucas Radebe in goal the visitors played with great application and Manchester United had to grind out a 1-0 victory. Wilkinson was coming to the end of his Leeds tenure by then and struggling in the bottom half of the table. In a spirit of sympathy with his friend Ferguson remarked in his post-match press conference that if Leeds showed the same spirit in their next games they would soon be out of trouble, and hoped that they would. He never mentioned Keegan or Newcastle, but as the Toon were due at Elland Road 12 days later the message filtered through to the north-east that Ferguson was asking Leeds for a favour. Cue Keegan meltdown on live television: “I’d love it,” etc etc. There is little doubt that Ferguson quite liked the idea that he was now capable of out-psyching his opponents before matches had even been played, though he was honest about the incident in his autobiography. “My remarks were aimed entirely at Howard’s players, but Kevin took them personally and exploded in front of the cameras after his team had beat Leeds,” he said. “At first I felt a bit guilty, but then I thought to myself I had done nothing wrong. I was a little disappointed when he attacked me, I had always got on well with Kevin, but I just put it down to pressure. I have a feeling our 5-0 hammering of Nottingham Forest the day before had pushed him to the limit. It perhaps made him realise the championship was within our grasp.” So it proved. Keegan either lost the most intense battle of his managerial career in front of the television cameras at Leeds, or he lost it a year earlier when selling Andy Cole to his immediate rivals. Cole was not an immediate success at Manchester United, though he went on to enjoy an immensely successful career, and scored the first goal when his new club beat his old club at Old Trafford. What Newcastle might have achieved had Cole stayed will never be known, but Keegan attempted to make up for the disappointment of losing out to Manchester United in the title race by signing Alan Shearer for a world record £15m. Ferguson also wanted Shearer, he was even prepared to offer Cole to Blackburn as a makeweight, but Keegan got his man and 20,000 geordies turned out to welcome him. “We are the biggest-thinking club in Europe now,” Keegan said, not realising that he would not see out the season. Dalglish was in by January 1997, and despite some notable successes in Europe, Newcastle were never quite the same again. But they did think big. No club since has broken the world transfer record to sign an English player. To be strictly accurate, no club in the previous 45 years had ever done that either. Yet even as Newcastle celebrated a homecoming, Fabrizio Ravanelli of Juventus was joining Middlesbrough, Frank Leboeuf, Roberto Di Matteo and Gianluca Vialli arriving at Chelsea, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and Karel Poborsky fetching up at Manchester United and a whole host of French players joining Wenger at Arsenal. Like Newcastle, the Premier League has never been quite the same since. For better or worse, 1996 was a turning point.
Trump did not ask Argentina's president for business favor, spokesman says A spokesman for Argentina’s president has denied that Donald Trump asked for a business favour when Mauricio Macri called the US president-elect to congratulate him on his victory. Local media reports have alleged that Trump asked Macri for help over a stalled construction permit for a 35-storey project called Trump Office in downtown Buenos Aires. A source told the that the information came from Macri’s staff. “Trump asked him to authorize a building he’s constructing in Buenos Aires – it wasn’t just geopolitical chat,” said journalist Jorge Lanata on his Sunday night news programme, Periodismo Para Todos. According the programme, the Buenos Aires building project became bogged down in bureaucratic red tape earlier this year, and was raised by Trump during the telephone call last Monday. “Macri told Trump that Argentina is welcoming foreign investment now, and Trump replied that he has a $150m investment in Argentina stalled because of a building permit in Buenos Aires,” journalist Romina Manguel, who described the alleged conversation on the programme, told the . Macri’s spokesman, Iván Pavlovsky, denied the report. “Macri did not speak to Donald Trump about the building of the tower,” he said. “They only talked about continuing the relationship between the two countries and recalled their personal relationship from years ago.” Trump has insisted that he will not use the White House for personal profits, saying that after inauguration, he will let three of his children –Ivanka, Donald Jr and Eric – run his business interests while he attends to the duties of commander in chief. But the Trump children are on his transition team and concerns have been raised that the president-elect is already mixing business interests and official duties. The Economic Times reported that he met last week with business partners who are building Trump-branded apartments in India, while dozens of foreign diplomats reportedly attended a sales pitch last week at Trump’s new hotel in downtown Washington DC. Like Trump, Macri was born into a wealthy immigrant family, and the two leaders have had a long personal and business acquaintance. They first met in the 1980s when Macri’s father, Francisco Macri, sold his stake in the Lincoln West housing and office development in New York to Trump. “The Macri team had plenty of brainpower,” Trump wrote in his book The Art of the Deal, which dedicates a long section to his dealings with the father-and-son business tandem. “What they lacked was practical experience, especially in New York City, where it is so difficult to do any sort of real estate development.” In his own memoirs, Francisco Macri also described his business relationship with Trump, recalling how the real estate tycoon broke his golf clubs in frustration after Mauricio beat him in a golf game during a complicated business negotiation in the 1980s in New York. But despite such setbacks, the relationship remains close enough that President Macri spoke with Ivanka Trump during last Monday’s phone conversation. “In the call, I also talked with his daughter,” Macri told the Japanese newspaper the Asahi Shimbun. “I have known her since her infant days.” Macri’s spokesman said that the Argentinian president did not discuss Trump Office with Ivanka Trump either. “He spoke with Ivanka only briefly to say hello because he met her when she was just a kid,” the spokesman said. “They did not speak about it. The president doesn’t speak about city building permits.” Trump Office is slated to be built near the city’s landmark 235ft Obelisk, on 9 de Julio avenue, the widest avenue in the world. The project is in the hands of YY Development Group, an Argentinian real estate firm headed by lawyer and businessman Felipe Yaryura, who met Trump in 2011. The firm is also currently building Trump Tower Punta del Este, a luxury 157-apartment block in the Uruguayan beach resort of Punta del Este, playground for the rich and famous of both Argentina and Brazil. Although Yaryura was not available for comment, he has in several recent interviews said that he is especially close with Trump’s son Eric, who has visited Argentina a number of times. Yaryura believes Trump’s election will be good for Argentina because of the personal relationship between the two leaders. “The personal relationship with Macri will have an influence, Trump has affection for Macri,” Yaryura told the daily Clarín earlier this month. “He’s always made complimentary comments about Macri.” Macri has worked hard to re-establish cordial relations with the US after they soured during the previous administration of populist president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.
In the footsteps of their mothers: Bristol youth march against FGM “You want the whole world to know you have had FGM?” Six years ago a group of women marched through the centre of Bristol, alone and facing hostility as they brought the horrors of female genital mutilation to the attention of the city. How different things were last week, when their daughters and sons shouting “No to FGM” were greeted by cheering and honks of support from the public. Men marched alongside their daughters, wives and friends, as young campaigners paid homage to the work done by the 2010 marchers. Saturday’s event was organised by Empowering, a youth branch of the campaign group Forward, with support from NHS Bristol, Avon and Somerset police and Bristol city council. The city has one the largest FGM-affected populations outside of London, with an estimated 3,500 girls and women having undergone female genital mutilation. FGM is defined by the World Health Organisation as procedures that intentionally alter or cause injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons. More than 200 million girls and women alive today have been cut, mostly before they reached puberty. FGM has no health benefits and is recognised as a violation of the human rights of girls and women. Rahma Duale, 17, told The : “My mum walked in the original march and she completely inspired me. It was a really proud moment to walk in my her footsteps. We wanted to show that they made an impact but also that FGM is still happening and we’re still fighting it. “We had a better reaction that we thought we might get originally. We heard that last time some men looked at women in my mother’s march as though they were doing something wrong, but this time the reaction was amazing. Things have changed - the community is better at talking about FGM, which is the first step to eradicating it.” Around 50 marchers listened to speeches by Bristol detective Leanne Pook and Zaheer Shabeer, imam of Totterdown Mosque, who also spoke at the original march, and reaffirmed his position that FGM has no basis in religion. The event comes as schools across Britain break up for their summer holidays, which authorities say is a time when many girls are taken abroad to their family’s country of origin to undergo FGM. It is illegal for UK residents to perform FGM overseas, with a maximum penalty of 14 years’ imprisonment. The young campaigners chose this year to march as it is also the 10th anniversary of what has become known as the Bristol Model – a tripartite approach that sees professionals, communities and young people working together to eradicate FGM. Naana Otoo-Oyortey, the executive director of Forward, said: “It’s a very exciting time. This march is part of an amazing youth-led initiative which is part of a quiet revolution in Bristol, where communities are at the forefront of change. With FGM there is a real need for community engagement and we saw that happen today. “At the first march there were no men and there was even a bit of hostility from some men that the women were marching. I remember one man asking: ‘You want the whole world to know you have had FGM?’ This time men were also on board, one did the T-shirts and others came with their wives. We are all a part of the change.”
Laurence Bell and Jacqui Rice's Quasi playlist: the Domino founders' favourite tracks Our Happiness is Guaranteed From Janet Weiss’s opening salvo to the first action-painting splatter of Sam Coomes’s keyboard on this track Our Happiness is Guaranteed, the album Featuring Birds is Quasi at their peak, melding jams-kicking rock’n’roll, punk action, and chord shifts that feel like the change of a season. Birds Indie rock had seen power duos before: Guv’ner, Royal Trux, Buckingham-Nicks, the Carpenters – but they’d never sounded like Quasi and the tracks in their Field Studies album positively glow. It’s Hard to Turn Me On How can songs about anhedonia, the inability to experience pleasure, feel so good? Mixing uppers and downers isn’t usually advised, but Weiss and Coomes use the device to make a musical space that feels unique to Quasi. Smile Weiss and Coomes travel backwards through the backwoods of AM pop and Pebbles psych to create a new form: bar-room baroque. Smile brings honey-golden multi-tracked vocals and some of the bleakest, black-eyed, black-hearted lyrics ever put to paper – all played with the kind of ramshackle ease that only comes from weeks of practice, months in the van, and serious chops. The Iron Worm On drums and harmonies, Weiss is all low-key Bonham-ie, power with poise. On top Coomes’s Roxichord makes you wonder how the electronic harpsichord never took off, its low-end crunch with top notes sounding like Ray Manzarek with a Super Fuzz.
The Leicester Supremacy – a triumph that was never supposed to happen Do not adjust your reality: this really is happening. For the past three months Leicester City’s gloriously bold progress towards a first English top-flight title has unfurled like a slow breaking wave. A draw against Manchester United on Sunday afternoon left Claudio Ranieri’s collection of offcuts and rising talents a step closer. Tottenham’s failure to beat Chelsea on Monday night was the final nudge. The wave has finally broken on a Premier League title some are already calling the most unlikely sporting victory of all time. The fairytale-ish aspects of this are well rehearsed. At the start of the season Leicester were 5,000-1 with bookmakers to win the league, a wager taken up by only 12 William Hill punters, among them the 39-year-old Leicester carpenter Leigh Herbert whose fiver, offered up in faith not hope, has now raked in £25,000. Three months into the season, with Leicester already haring away at the top of the table, they were still 1,000-1 to win it. Still a freak, a blip, a hilarious blue-shirted glitch. And yet the most striking aspect of the season’s endgame has been the beautifully controlled way Leicester have closed things out. It is only in the last few weeks that the realisation has dawned Leicester haven’t just been edging this – they’ve been running away with it, already out there on the victory lap of honour, ambling round the bases, high-fiving the bench, ball safely dispatched above the bleachers. The bald facts of the Leicester Supremacy are brilliantly stark. This is a club whose previous highest league position was a runners-up spot in 1929, who have been relegated or promoted 22 times in all. Too small to stay up, too big to stay down, Leicester are instead the ultimate ballcock team, clunking up and down between the divisions with reassuring regularity, an inbetweener club in a city on the way to somewhere else. In 2002 they nearly went out of business altogether but were rescued by a consortium led in part by their ex-player Gary Lineker, soon to present Match of the Day dressed in only his oversized Y-fronts, part of a sightly unnecessary early-season title bet. Two seasons ago they were fighting their way up out of the second tier. In February last year they were bottom of the Premier League and on their way down before a stunning late rally under Nigel Pearson, who was abruptly sacked. And now from nowhere we have this, a season that has quite literally morphed into a Hollywood script. Indeed a Jamie Vardy movie is already in pre‑production, based on the life and times of Leicester’s improbable top scorer, a late-blooming, whippet-thin, scaldingly quick journeyman striker. Vardy once spent half a season being substituted after an hour at his non‑league club so he could rush home and make the curfew on his electronic tag, the result of a conviction for assault outside a pub. Champion’s medal in hand, Vardy can now look forward to playing for England at this summer’s European Championship. Really, though, it is Leicester’s own story, the league title that wasn’t supposed to be, that will be forcing the script-editors to rewrite. There have been surprising champions before. In the past 55 years Nottingham Forest and Ipswich Town have won the title the season after being promoted. That was then, though. In the violently stratified air of modern-day Big Football, a triumph like this seemed not just remote but impossible. The website Sporting Intelligence has calculated Manchester United have spent more on new players in the two-year reign of their current manager than the new champions have in their entire 132-year existence. There is no back route to the summit. The world has shifted. Some things simply can’t happen any more. This has. How? The easiest way into the Leicester story is probably through the players themselves, a band of outsiders and left-field punts whose success seems to provide its own lesson in redemptive second chances. The captain Wes Morgan, a 31-year-old Jamaican international centre-back, was painfully exposed at times last season. Still slow, still bulky, he has been a joy to watch this year, a hugely intelligent defender, able to read and block and intercept with wonderful skill. Vardy’s success is electrifying, a late‑career rise from non-league to national team that simply doesn’t happen, can’t happen, has happened. Riyad Mahrez, a rakish, mooching, sublimely skilful Algerian, was playing French second division football two years ago, considered too lightweight for the thunder of top-level football. Last week he was named player of the year in the world’s most relentlessly concussive league. Overseeing this beachcomber’s XI is a manager best known before now for coming second. It is hard not to love Claudio Ranieri, the brilliantly shrewd and funny Italian uncle you never had, and a manager who is often seen out and about in Leicester, eating in local restaurants, having a drink with fans, posing for endless patiently beaming selfies. Ranieri’s genius has been to see what he’s got, take a deep, fortifying sniff of that burgeoning team spirit and simply let it keep on ticking, tightening up the details on the hoof as the season has thrummed along. It should be said Leicester are not all unicorns and stardust. This is a tough, gnarly team that can hustle and grapple and work between the lines of the laws. Like pretty much every other successful team they have an ambitious billionaire owner, the Thai-Chinese duty free magnate Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha, even if this one gives away free beer at home matches and flies in Buddhist monks to bless his players. Some still find Vardy hard to like after an incident, caught on camera, where he referred several times to an oriental casino worker as “Jap” and later apologised for using racist language (this bit probably won’t make the movie). For all that they remain something genuinely rare, near-universally popular champions in a toxic, tribal league, a team whose ability to thrill isn’t confined to the extraordinarily uplifting atmosphere inside the King Power Stadium. Not to mention an object of global fascination thanks to the devastating power of the Premier League marketing machine. And why not? This is a genuine good news story, champions whose achievement cuts across entrenched barriers, vaults an impassible gulf of finance and privilege, a reprise of the most inspiring basic sporting principle of open competition. There is even a hint of a minor trend here. In Spain, Atlético Madrid continue to assert a similar principle, the idea that the wealthiest mega-clubs can outgrow their own strengths, overlooking the human-scale virtues of team-building and spirit in favour of an assemblage of stars, the idiot-culture of celebrity worship infecting sport as it has music, publishing and politics. In this equation Leicester are like some low-cost, bare-bones start-up, cleaning up in the space between the bloated corporate giants, a footballing Napster quietly shutting down the record labels. Who knows, perhaps we might even see an invisible barrier being broken here, just as when Roger Bannister broke the four-minute mile at Iffley Road, a mark previously considered beyond the scope of the human physique. Suddenly runners around the world began to find they could do the same. For now it is probably best simply to celebrate a rare, insurrectionist triumph. Viva Leicester!
Defence cooperation talks with EU could delay Brexit process The Ministry of Defence and Foreign Office are working on plans for how the UK could continue to cooperate with the European Union after Brexit, making it less likely that the cabinet will seek a fast-track divorce that severs all ties with the EU. Including the areas of foreign policy and defence in any deal makes it more likely that talks will not be concluded in the two years required under article 50, meaning an interim deal will be required. Some Eurosceptics, such as John Redwood, are pressing for a clean break by next summer, leaving only a basic trading relationship with the EU, and fear the talks could deliberately be made more complex in an effort to stall the process. Officials in key departments are said increasingly to recognise that it would be a mistake for the UK to sever all defence, foreign policy and security links with the EU, and that it would be easier to resolve those broader relationships after agreeing an interim deal. It is also being argued that if the UK makes a clear offer to cooperate in these areas, it could oil the wheels in the more difficult negotiations over access to the EU single market. The formal Brexit process set out by article 50 of the Lisbon treaty requires the UK first to agree the terms of its withdrawal and then to negotiate its future relationship. But the degree to which the EU will strictly enforce this sequencing, and the separation of the two processes, is unclear. Sir Simon Fraser, a former permanent secretary at the Foreign Office, told MPs this week he believed the government wanted a continuing foreign and defence policy relationship with the EU despite Brexit. He predicted the future relationship talks would cover not just economic issues but also cooperation on security, defence and foreign policy. “They will all be part of the future framework agreements between us and the EU,” he said. He also said it was unrealistic to expect the talks on the UK’s future relationship with the EU, if it is to be wider than a simple trade relationship, to be completed inside two years. That was “why we are confronted with the question of whether we are prepared just to go to article 50 and leave, and take the consequences, or whether we would like to negotiate an interim ongoing relationship until we get to the final state,” he said. The desirability of the UK continuing to cooperate with the EU on defence and foreign policy issues is contested, but appears to be accepted by Downing Street. During the EU referendum campaign Theresa May based her support for remain partly on the need to retain security cooperation with the EU. Although the government continues to rule out concepts such as an EU army or a defence headquarters, on the basis that they would duplicate the work of Nato, senior Conservatives say this should not mean ruling out future voluntary cooperation on EU defence and foreign policy. On Thursday Germany’s defence minister, Ursula von der Leyen, said of closer EU security cooperation: “The biggest resistance is coming from the British, and there we ask for fairness: whoever is leaving the EU should not in their last days block the caravan.” But the British government recognises that it cannot veto EU defence cooperation once it leaves the bloc, and may need to think more strategically. Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary, recently said any defence pact that undermined the power of Nato was a “bad idea”, but the UK should be prepared to cooperate militarily with the EU once it had left the bloc. “If our friends want to go ahead with a new security architecture I don’t think, post-Brexit, we can reasonably stand in their way,” he said. “What we might suggest is that given that we are the biggest military player in the area, the only other nuclear power, it wouldn’t be a bad idea, if they do genuinely go ahead with such things, [to consider] a way in which Britain could be supportive, involved in the enterprise.” Some diplomats argue that the unexpected election of Donald Trump as US president could make smaller EU states more eager to retain a strong defence relationship with the UK, the pre-eminent European military power. One Tory MP said “The British cards are going to get stronger due to Trump. It is true if the 27 are determined to do themselves damage they can do it. But with the election of Trump, the security relationships have changed. Countries like the Baltic states will be demanding the EU behaves like grownups and stop saying we are going to punish the British. If we show goodwill over defence, and stop vetoing what they want to do, it is likely to change the atmosphere of the wider talks.” Defence policy is not an area of EU activity that falls under the scope of EU law, and so relatively flexible ways of ensuring the continued participation of the UK in foreign and defence policy activities will be easier to develop than, say, partial membership of the single market.
What has David Davis told us about Brexit? Panel verdict Martin Kettle: All we learned is that no one knows what they want Until today David Davis had kept the lowest profile of the three Conservative Brexiteers to whom Theresa May has given the task of implementing the 23 June Brexit vote. He is also, by some distance, the most interesting. Listening to his bland statement on Brexit to MPs this afternoon, though, you would never have guessed it. Davis, head of the new department of Brexit, yields nothing to either Liam Fox or Boris Johnson in self-esteem. Yet Davis is a deeper and more nuanced political figure than the other two. As a working-class small-state libertarian for whom cabinet office has come late (he is 67), his reputation, which took a huge hit after he lost the Tory leadership to David Cameron in 2005, now stands or falls on what he achieves on the most important subject in British politics. Davis’s statement today gave nothing away. Everything that he said had already been said by May in her interview at the weekend with Andrew Marr, in her Hangzhou press conference or elsewhere. Indeed the only new fact in his statement was to confirm that it would be May, not Davis, Fox or Johnson, who would lead the Brexit negotiations. The idea that the Brexiteers would formally set the agenda for the Brexit talks seems dead, if indeed it ever existed. Over the summer there has been much comment about the turf wars between Johnson and Fox. Don’t underestimate Davis in this regard, however. We know he has very strong views on delivering an export-led set of trade deals that put him on a collision course with Fox. In his generally anodyne statement he was careful to mention issues – trade and business – that Fox, whose brief is non-EU trade, will nevertheless regard as his own. The reality is that the Brexit department is embarking on a course whose detailed destination it does not know. The real revelation in government policy on the EU in the last few days has been that no one – not Davis, not May, not anyone – actually knows what kind of a Brexit deal they really want. Politically, migration is top of the government’s agenda, but the balance between migration control and EU single market access is speculation, even within Whitehall, because not only do ministers disagree but the EU does too. Mark Wallace: Davis has shown he is still a formidable performer What Brexit takes away, it can also give. While David Cameron and George Osborne were cast out of government by the referendum, David Davis has found himself lifted on to the frontbench, a full eight years after he chose – unwisely – to leave it. While some new to the despatch box can look a little nervy, particularly if they have just been handed responsibility for a hugely complex brief, he seemed completely at ease. That’s not surprising; having cut his teeth as Europe minister in John Major’s troubled government, he knows the issues inside out, and he has spent recent years preparing in detail for the Brexit process. If anyone thought that his time spent as a freelance campaigner on the backbenches might have diluted his aptitude for parliamentary performance, they were mistaken. He has evidently never lost the very specific skill set required to bat from the ministerial crease – friends were welcomed, enemies rebuffed and technicalities negotiated, and his position remained firm throughout. His opponents failed to produce anything to seriously unsettle him. The SNP angrily demanded more detail, but he remained insistent on doing things in his own good time, thank you very much. If anything, Emily Thornberry’s attempt to insist that MPs get a vote on the outcome of the referendum seemed to add fuel to his fire, as he denounced her as an opponent of democracy, trying to stymie the will of the people. The new Brexit secretary demonstrated to the Commons that he was still a formidable performer, with the expertise and the rhetorical speed to defend his position. The big question will be whether he ever needs to deploy a similar defence at the cabinet table, should the prime minister’s position come to differ from his. It is hard to imagine him backing down in that circumstance, either. Deborah Orr: We won’t know what the mandate mandated for years There’s something a bit cart before the horse about this whole Brexit thing. David Davis, the Parliamentary Supremacist in Chief, reiterated in the Commons today that there was a national mandate for leaving the EU. He added, rather too quickly, that having provided the mandate so obligingly, “people will want to know what Brexit will mean”. Leaving the EU meant different things to different people. (While staying in simply meant staying in.) In the coming months and years, leavers will learn whether the national mandate they assisted in providing was they one they had in mind or the one someone else had in mind. If Davis knew what sort of national mandate he had in mind, he doesn’t seem too keen to draw attention to the fact. He is staring, it seems, at a blank sheet of paper, on which he is eager to doodle. Davis is gathering together a large department, who will busy themselves with sounding out as many organisations and people as possible, before deciding exactly what our “new freedoms, new opportunities and new horizons” are going to be. If only we could stay in this state of excited anticipation forever, the unknown future always bright. Davis was, for a man so concerned with “the sovereignty and supremacy of this parliament”, awfully bossy about the kind of EU he wants to see after we’ve left. He wants it to be strong, steadfast and successful. He just doesn’t want Britain to take part in such an endeavour. Anyone used to subsidy from the EU, however, can relax until 2020, when EU promises already made will be reassessed. Which basically means that a lot of people won’t have that much clarity what the national mandate mandated until four more years have passed. No wonder people are already acting like the Brexit vote never happened. Even Davis seems keen to make long-winded assertions promising that long-winded assertions will have to wait.
As the wheels fall off Ben-Hur, where next for the Hollywood blockbuster? Violence, slavery, high-speed chases, good versus evil – and all in Roman outfits. When it comes to blockbusters, the $100m Hollywood production, Ben-Hur, did seem to have more than a burly charioteer’s chance of winning the summer box office race. Yet, as the dust settles on the tracks of all those hooves and wheels, the New Testament-era extravaganza is set to go down as one of the renowned flops of hoary Hollywood anecdote. Its probable losses look to be careering towards the $75m mark. What makes matters worse, on Friday Disney Pixar proudly announced that after only four weeks in cinemas Finding Dory, the animated sequel to 2003’s Finding Nemo, has already crossed the finish line as the biggest grossing animated film of the year in Britain and Ireland, taking £34.3m in box office receipts so far. In America it is already the biggest animation film of all time. In sad contrast, Ben-Hur’s only achievement is to lead the lineup of mass-market misfires this season, losing more money than Sony’s female-led remake of Ghostbusters or Fox’s Independence Day: Resurgence. Part of the problem for Ben-Hur is that audiences are now generally much better informed about what they choose to see. Despite all the excitable PG marketing, even 10-year-old boys are capable of asking each other “Did it get good reviews?” and then scrolling down their phone screens to find out that it did not. “The new Ben-Hur is an oddly lacklustre affair: sludgy and plodding … an epic that feels like a mini-series served up in bits and pieces,” judged Variety. The film also earned a score of just 28% on the review site Rotten Tomatoes. In the face of these verdicts, an action-packed trailer, stoked with deep-voiced superlatives, is no longer enough to woo the inexperienced cinemagoer. The calculation made by the studios involved, Paramount and Metro Goldwyn Mayer, was that the potential audience for Ben-Hur would be located somewhere at the intersection between thrill-seeking fans of spectacle and the devout of the American Bible belt. The British actor Jack Huston, not yet an international name, was cast as Judah Ben-Hur, a role once played to truly epic effect by Charlton Heston in the 1959 William Wyler classic. Wyler’s film cost a tenth of the amount (still a lot of money back then), then paid for itself more than 80 times over and won an alarming 11 Oscars. Its chariot racing sequences, staged in a vast mock-up of Rome’s Circus Maximus, set a high bar for cinematic action for many years. Both the 1959 film and the 2016 version, directed by Timur Bekmambetov, are based on a hugely popular 1880 novel by Lew Wallace. His book, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ, was at the top of the all-time American bestsellers list for years before it was knocked off by Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind, a novel that would soon provide Hollywood with one of its other great, genre-defining hits. So Ben-Hur is clearly a good yarn, telling as it does the struggles of a young Jew, who is betrayed, meets Christ, and then serves as a Roman galley slave before becoming a charioteer and facing down his enemies. Why then did it fail to find an audience this time around? Instead of following on from the sand-stomping popular triumph of Gladiator in 2000, or the unexpected box office appeal of Mel Gibson’s gory faith-fest The Passion of the Christ in 2004, Ben-Hur made only $11.2m in ticket sales in America and Canada on its opening weekend and only $10m overseas. A waning public appetite for big-screen sandal sagas cannot, it seems, be fixed by computer generated graphics. The 2010 film Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, 2014’s Exodus: Gods and Kings and then Gods of Egypt, out this year, all got the thumbs-down from the crowd. The American churchgoing phalanx is also hard to rely upon when it comes to an opening weekend. While they can help put a smaller-scale religious-themed feature into profit, in 2014 the expensive Old Testament drama Noah, starring Russell Crowe, proved a bad risk. The makers of a new virtual reality treatment of the life of Christ, premiering in Venice this week, now have a well-established trend to buck. “In a way the flopping of Ben-Hur confirms what we think we know about Hollywood at the moment,” said Peter Kramer, a film expert teaching at the University of East Anglia, “which is that it is only doing well at franchises and sequels.” Though far from a dead cert, a sequel is simply a safer bet. “As the old William Goldman Hollywood saying has it, ‘Nobody knows anything’, but there is a good chance the sequel of a profitable film will make money,” said Kramer. “It might even be more successful. It is the one exception to that rule. And when a big film needs an investment of about $200m, and then around $100m in marketing, it is not surprising studios opt for them. As a critic and a consumer, I would like more range, but you can see why they do it.” Pixar alone has been able to make money from a run of original screenplays in recent years, although it stepped into line this summer by producing its sequel to Finding Nemo. The cynical argument runs that neither creativity nor critical plaudits count for anything in Hollywood now. The only objective, according to this reading, is to keep making films so that film executives get paid. Yet, as Kramer points out, not all re-makes are bad. The film business will lumber on, he suspects, regardless of Ben-Hur’s scary swerve off track. “There have always been flops throughout film history and none of them have ever affected the industry as a whole,” he said. “A few of them have contributed to bringing down a studio, as with Fox and Cleopatra in 1963, and with United Artists and Heaven’s Gate in the late 70s, but individual flops rarely make a difference.” In the wider picture, Hollywood is doing pretty well. While box office receipts globally were down a little on last year, that was a strong year, buoyed by titles like Jurassic World and Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Kramer concedes there is a developing problem with DVD and Blu-ray sales, because high growth in that market has inevitably dropped off. “But we can’t draw any conclusions about a crisis. Particularly since you will never get real information about production or marketing costs from a studio, so you will never know exactly what was spent in order to get a true idea about profits.” If there is to be a collective pause for thought among studio executives and producers, it should perhaps be focused not just on how to use new technology to best effect, but on what kind of stories to tell. There is a general sense of casting around for a new tone in entertainment, once all the comic strips have been plundered. The next blockbusting franchise may well come from an odd side alley off main street; a subculture, just like the epic space sagas and the super-hero stories once were. This certainly worked again recently in the case of the teen vampire fiction that gave birth to the Twilight movies. A story, however outlandish, will become popular when it relates to real concerns, either directly or indirectly. It might even be possible for another Bible-based story to rocket to the top of the charts, but only if its emotional landscape fits the times. For Kramer the change in Hollywood mood music, when it comes, is likely to reflect a fresh emphasis on female audiences. “Women are historically thought to have been a less reliable ticket buying audience, but the latest figures in the US show women are now buying the majority of tickets,” he said. “With Twilight, and even more so with the Hunger Games films, Hollywood found a way to make big adventure and action films that appealed to women as well. We can watch the way the Marvel comic character Black Widow develops and see what happens with the new Wonder Woman film next. Some changes are coming, I think.”
The Birth of a Nation review – slavery epic as brutal as Braveheart The story of Nat Turner had profound consequences for America. The slave who became a preacher and then, in 1831, the leader of a revolt is said to have triggered a chain of events that included the civil war and the abolition of slavery less than 35 years later. For Nate Parker – writer, director and star of The Birth of a Nation – it’s been a seven-year journey to get his film made, and with a title provocatively taken from DW Griffith’s famously racist 1915 film about the foundations of America and the current furore around diversity in Hollywood, the timing of its premiere couldn’t have been any better. This is an alternative history of America’s roots which spits in the face of Griffith’s account. Parker starts by creating mythology around Turner. His greatness is predicted from infancy in a ceremony. He has the ability to read and is allowed to revise the Bible. He is a great orator and preacher respected by all. Then, as quickly as Parker builds Turner up, he illustrates the horrors of slavery that engulf and take him down. There’s his father who is forced to go on the run after narrowly surviving a summary execution; and a series of rapes, lashings and force-feeding inflicted on his family members. All that leads up to the crescendo of the revolt itself, its centrepiece a powerful scene of Turner trading Bible verses with a slave-owning white preacher. Acerbic moments like that are few and far between though; mostly, the film is heavy-handed, with subtlety nowhere to be found. The horrors that Turner endures are signposted with soaring music. The focus on Turner is all-encompassing, with other characters, including his wife (Aja Naomi King) and other rebels, feeling thin and unconvincing. When the revolt does come – a rebellion that saw five dozen slave owners and their families killed – Parker doesn’t leave anything to the imagination. Heads are crushed, stoved in and chopped off. Bodies are burned, teeth are broken. It’s a cathartic blood-letting that recalls the huff and puff of Braveheart, but instead of Mel Gibson splattering the English, it’s Parker hacking at the slave owners. The film’s name, the timing of its premiere and the huge standing ovation it received mean this will be one of the festival’s most talked-about movies. But the film’s often ham-fisted composition will leave many turned off.
Football governance needs new independent review “Without government support, a shakeup of football’s archaic regulatory structure will achieve nothing,” you say (Editorial, 13 December). That is why in 2004 Lord Burns was asked to review the governance of football jointly by the government and the FA. This government-initiated independent review resulted, contrary to press speculation, in the FA accepting the Burns report recommendations, ie appointment of an independent chair; creation of a new board with two non-executives; establishing a new regulation and compliance unit to carry out the enforcement of the FA; creation of two new subsidiaries – the Community Football Alliance and the Professional Football Alliance; and expanding the current FA Council into a “parliament of football”, which will include players, managers, referees and supporters. As the sports minister in October 2006, I welcomed the FA Council’s acceptance of the Burns recommendations as “a step in the right direction”, but fully acknowledging that more would need to be done. So it’s unfortunate that the three past independent chairs of the FA have chosen to write to the select committee, after leaving the job, calling for government intervention rather than to have initiated a further review with government support to build on the modernisation changes that brought them into office. The present government proposal to modernise the governance of sport, including the FA and making compliance dependant on government funding, is welcomed. But it is true that even these reforms may not be adequate to address the power of the Premier League, which is the main point of the past chairmen’s letter to the select committee, a power in football which has successfully grown financially four-fold in the 12 years since Burns. I would suggest these concerns and others in football should be addressed by an independent review similar to the one led by Lord Burns. In my experience sport is better self-regulated with government support rather than by government-imposed regulation. Richard Caborn Sports minister, 2001-2007 • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com • Read more letters – click here to visit gu.com/letters
Belittled fans deserve this goodwill gesture over away ticket prices In a game that has long taken loyalty for granted, those who follow their team away from home have remained bedraggled outliers. Patronised, belittled, taken advantage of, subject to last-minute fixture changes, herded around the country on expensive and unreliable transport networks, given a dreadful view and charged handsomely for the privilege. They put up with it partly because being an away fan affords a visceral thrill that many find is increasingly missing at home and partly because, well, it’s what they do. The move to cap ticket prices at no more than £30 for away fans is such a no-brainer that to applaud it feels an odd thing to do. Yet for once, the fans spoke and the clubs (finally) listened. How could they not? Even viewed cynically in pure PR terms, they are giving up a fraction of their revenue in return for making a long overdue gesture of goodwill to their most loyal customers. Those same away fans directly contribute to their huge TV riches by creating the atmosphere on which the Premier League brand relies so heavily for its appeal, particularly abroad. A high-octane, wildly exciting and unpredictable season on the field risked being overshadowed by their greed off it. Yet any benefit that might have accrued from making the decision before the last Premier League meeting has now been frittered away amid the impression that they have been dragged kicking and screaming to even this modest concession. But in agreeing to the cap, still £10 more than the Football Supporters’ Federation campaigned so impressively for, the clubs have at least made a meaningful gesture that will save their most loyal fans money and undermines their more specious arguments. They had argued that capping the price for away fans at less than they charged home fans in similar seats would provoke an outcry. Or that relaxing their jealously guarded right to set their own prices would somehow open the gates to Marxist revolution. There were those who scoffed at the small victory achieved by Liverpool supporters. But in reversing the decision of their club’s owners, making a fool of Ian Ayre and planting a seed of doubt in boardrooms up and down the land, they performed a service to fans everywhere. The Premier League will always argue privately that it has little power over the collective and remains at the whim of the 20 clubs gathered around the table. The clubs, in turn, will split along self-interested lines. In truth, as the ones who deliver those huge exponential rises in broadcasting income (from £63m per season in 1992 to £2.77bn from 2016-17), the Premier League executive has always had more power than they care to let on. Occasionally, they exercise that influence.It might be hoped that this is a staging post towards a more mature relationship between clubs and their fans. That instead of talking about “stretch pricing” they might actually put it into practice, using high prices at one end to subsidise tickets for particular groups – not only away fans, under-18s and pensioners but 18- to 24-year-olds, say, or locals. There are two opposing forces at work. On the one hand, matchday income is becoming a smaller proportion of the overall pie. But given the way TV money is shared in the Premier League, it is also a key area in which one club can gain a competitive advantage over another.Most clubs will surely have the good sense to freeze prices again next season. Maybe, just maybe, they will also begin to recognise that squeezing fans until the pips squeak is not a sustainable long-term strategy. The default setting among fans is understandably cynical. If that is to change then, like proposals for meaningful meetings with clubs over issues that affect them, belated action on away ticket prices must be a start not an end.
Southampton seal Europa League spot with victory over Crystal Palace ¢“Leading Saints into a new era,” read the headline on the cover of the Southampton matchday programme, emblazoned across the image of Virgil van Dijk. In recent summers that might have seemed an overly bold promise but on what became a buoyant afternoon at St Mary’s the sense of possibility was tantalising. Few teams have played with anything resembling the verve and ambition of Ronald Koeman’s team since the turn of the year and now, with the minimum reward of a place in the Europa League third qualifying round, the chance to build upon a wonderfully bright and talented core looks too good to pass up. That is the primary concern for Koeman, who will discuss his future with the club this week and reiterated after a mildly flattering margin of victory that a new contract on top of his remaining year “depends on the ambition of the club”. His tone at that moment was serious but there was much more to revel in; Southampton won 12 of their final 18 Premier League games and here, eventually picking off a much-changed but willing Crystal Palace, was further evidence of the elan that might have yielded even greater reward had an awkward early winter spell not given them ground to make up. Sadio Mané, who has played as if reborn in recent weeks, was Palace’s main tormentor. He had already come close when, gifted the chance by a weak Julian Speroni punch, he lofted a shot into the unguarded net towards the end of a first 45 minutes that had tended to meander. After the substitute Graziano Pellè, with a trademark hanging header from Cuco Martina’s cross, had swapped second-half goals with Jason Puncheon – whose clean left-footer was the pick of the afternoon – Mané outpaced Adrian Mariappa to win a penalty that was converted confidently by Ryan Bertrand. Southampton’s second and third goals were contested by Alan Pardew, who claimed Pellè had committed a foul and probably had a point in believing Mané was impeded just outside the box. “I’m not saying for one moment that we deserved to win the game but we could have eked a draw out of it,” the Palace manager said, but the regret will not linger long. He had made five changes with the FA Cup final against Manchester United on Saturday in mind, giving the 36-year-old Speroni – who equalled John Jackson’s record of 388 appearances for a Palace goalkeeper – the sentimental vote and throwing another bone to Emmanuel Adebayor, who did nothing to suggest he has long-term prospects at Selhurst Park. Koeman hopes his own team’s future is clearer. “I call this season even more special than last year, with great football, great players and the big support of our fans,” he said. All were in evidence when Steven Davis, finishing crisply after a cute Pellè chest-down, completed the scoring to a backing track of jubilation that Stoke City were doing the required job against West Ham. “What we did this season is maybe more than the maximum we can do as a team and it’s a big compliment to the players,” said Koeman, who attributed greater squad depth as the primary factor behind his team’s relentless late-season performance. That will need to be reinforced if Southampton, who will begin their European campaign at the group stage if Manchester United lose to Bournemouth in their rearranged fixture, intend to carry on breaking ground; persuading Koeman to sign on for the long term before he goes on his holidays next weekend would, though, send out the clearest signal of all. Man of the match Sadio Mané (Southampton)
Live music booking now Still insane in the membrane? Or now married with kids, slowly but steadily paying off a tracker mortgage on a two-bedroom flat? However you’re handling the 23 years since Cypress Hill’s biggest hit, the Californian stoner-rap group will be playing London this summer (O2 Academy Brixton, SW9, 19 Jun) … Peter Doherty has announced a set of solo dates, now free once more from Carl and the rest of the Libertines. Touting a grown-up, two-syllable first name, find out how he scrubs up in a couple of months (11-20 May, tour starts O2 Academy Bristol) … The immaculately manicured hand of Drake has blessed Toronto’s Majid Jordan, but the R&B duo have tunes and talent enough to shine, beyond the halo of their compatriot and collaborator. See the light at their two UK dates (Heaven, WC2, 30 May; Gorilla, Manchester, 31 May) … And now for something completely different, Japan’s Kyary Pamyu Pamyu is bringing her hallucinogenic take on ultra-cute kawaii pop to London. Take a trip down the rabbit hole and see where PC Music get their ideas (KOKO, NW1, 8 Jul).
Adblocking: advertising 'accounts for half of data used to read articles' Advertising could account for about half of data usage for people reading articles on their smartphones, according to a study by Enders Analysis. The small-scale study looked at six unnamed “popular publishers”, both with and without an adblocker, and found that anywhere between 18% and 79% of the data downloaded was from ads. In addition, anywhere between 6% and 68% of the downloaded data was from JavaScript, which is used to deliver more interactive elements of both editorial and advertising on pages. The report said: “On the basis of this investigation, an estimate that says advertising accounts for half of all data used by publisher pages on iPhones does not look unreasonable. Publisher mobile pages are bloated, and advertising is an enormous part of that.” Mobile data usage has become more central to the debate about ad blocking since mobile operator Three announced it was working with the Israeli company Shine to implement ad blocking at a network level for its customers. Three’s parent company is Hutchison Whampoa, which is run by Asia’s richest man, Li Ka-shing, who through his Horizon Ventures investment firm also holds a 0.8% stake in Facebook. The Enders study was part of a broader report on adblocking, which said the phenomenon had “the potential to fatally undermine the business models of media owners that depend on advertising”. The report said that although estimates of the scale of adblocking are hazy, estimates that 10% to 20% of UK web users used it were in the right region, and at least on desktop the rate of adblocking is growing fast. It describes the main drivers as security, privacy, data limits and annoying ad formats. Publishers are taking a number of steps to address adblocking, including optimising websites, adopting less intrusive ad formats and asking readers to switch off adblockers to support content they are consuming. Tackling the high data usage from advertising and mobile pages is also a core goal of programmes such as Google’s Accelerated Mobile Pages and Facebook Instant Articles, which offer faster and smaller downloads of articles. However, publishers are concerned about increasing reliance on the two tech giants, which compete for ad revenue. However, the report said that legal moves against what the culture secretary, John Whittingdale, has described as a “protection racket”, in reference to companies that charge advertisers and publishers to deliver “acceptable” ads, would not solve the problems driving people to block ads.
Alarm over lead found in drinking water at US schools Several schools across the US have either discovered or acted upon evidence of high levels of lead in their drinking water in the wake of the crisis in Flint, Michigan, with one leading expert warning the cases could mark “the tip of the iceberg”. Yanna Lambrinidou, who is an affiliate faculty member in science, technology and society at Virginia Tech, the university that helped uncover the extremely elevated levels of lead in Flint, said schools are especially vulnerable to contamination from ageing pipes, faucets and valves. The full extent of the problem in America’s schools with lead, which can affect the brain and nervous system in both children and adults, is unknown. However, Lambrinidou said a slew of recent cases in which schools have shut off drinking water supplies, from New York to California, could signal a wider problem. “There’s no way to know,” she said. “I think it’s only reasonable to assume that these cases are only the tip of the iceberg.” Michael Sharp, the father of a tenth-grader in Binghamton, New York, received a disturbing letter from the local school district last week. Seven drinking water outlets in Binghamton’s public schools had tested too high for lead, the letter stated. The tests had been performed several years ago, but the district took action only last month, when problematic sinks or fountains were shut down, flushed or given new filters. “I was surprised, because it seemed like a big deal to have lead in the water,” Sharp said, adding: “The part that was more upsetting was that they had the results for more than three years and nothing had been done about it.” Like the rest of America, Sharp knew about the crisis in Flint, where water in some homes contained dangerous amounts of lead. Now, in the wake of Flint, schools around the nation are on heightened alert for lead – and some are finding levels that are too high. Last week, the school superintendent in Ithaca, an hour’s drive from Binghamton, announced that drinking water would be shut off in all school buildings, after water sources in two schools tested high. Other Ithaca school buildings had not tested their water for 11 years, and a number of those older tests had showed fountains with excessive amounts of lead. Lead problems have recently been found in the water in an elementary school near Detroit, and another elementary school in eastern Idaho. In an elementary school in the California wine country town of Healdsburg, tests last year showed levels of lead above federal standards in a few locations, but Healdsburg officials said more recent tests have been normal and they are continuing to provide bottled water. In Jackson, Mississippi, schools are urgently moving ahead with testing after lead was uncovered during citywide sampling. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) does not require schools that draw from public water supplies to test for lead. (The public water systems perform their own testing, not specific to schools.) Schools that use their own water systems, such as those drawing from wells, may need to test some drinking sources every six months. In 2004, federal lawmakers introduced a bill that would have required schools to test annually for lead and appropriated $30m for the purpose. But it failed to pass. Last week, New York senator Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, called for the EPA to help investigate the problems in Ithaca. Ithaca is “a very typical example of a school that found problems a long time ago and didn’t notify the community,” Lambrinidou said. Because of Flint, she added, “We’re going to be seeing probably more school communities testing because of parental concerns.” In Washington DC, where high levels of lead more than a decade ago in city water sparked a congressional investigation, consultants are finding that about one in every 200 drinking water samples in schools tests too high for lead (filters are generally added to the fountains in question). In Baltimore, the lead problem in schools has been deemed so extensive that children drink bottled water, according to Lambrinidou. Schools pose special challenges for lead – and not just because children, with their developing bodies and brains, are especially vulnerable to toxins. Unlike homes, the water at schools goes through long periods of not being used, including during nights, weekends and holidays and especially the summer. Even though lead pipes have been banned for decades, lead from faucets, valves and solder (ie, the way pipes are connected), as well as from the ageing pipes themselves, can leach into the water. “When water sits in pipes and stagnates, it collects and it absorbs lead,” Lambrinidou said. “These prolonged stagnations can actually place children at increased risk.” Even regular testing can miss lead particles that flake off old plumbing. Thus, even flushing drinking fountains – ie running the water for a long time, to get rid of the standing water – may not wash out all the lead (and most schools probably do not flush the water frequently anyhow). Most buildings constructed before 2014 will probably have some plumbing that includes lead, Lambrinidou said. “If I were a parent, I would organize with other parents to request that the school, first of all, sample correctly [and] that any school built before 2014 uses lead-certified filters at every single tap, just to make sure children are protected,” Lambrinidou said. In New York state in 2014, nearly 1.5% of children under six who were tested for lead have excessive levels in their blood – one of the highest percentages in the nation (though most children have not been tested, and the figures do not include New York City, where children’s lead levels are much lower.) In Binghamton, the schools superintendent has committed to improvements going forward. “Going into the future, we commit ourselves to testing our drinking water sources every three years. We are obligating ourselves to do that,” superintendent Marion Martinez said last week, according to the Press & Sun Bulletin of Binghamton. She said that while there was no legal testing requirement from New York state or the federal government, “we have a moral requirement”. Mr Sharp said he was not especially alarmed for his daughter, but he took the opportunity to discuss a basic civics lesson. They talked at length, he said, “about the bigger problems of why is there not a better system for testing the water”.
Alden Ehrenreich confirmed to play young Han Solo in Star Wars spin-off Alden Ehrenreich will star as a young Han Solo in Disney’s upcoming film about the early life of the Star Wars character. According to Deadline, the 26-year-old beat a number of other actors, including Taron Egerton and Jack Reynor, to the role. Lego Movie directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller will be taking charge of the film, which is expected to be titled Han Solo: A Star Wars Story. On Thursday, Miller tweeted a shot of Solo’s iconic blaster with the accompanying caption: “Can’t wait to get shooting!” Ehrenreich, best known for his scene-stealing turn as a vowel-mangling western star in the Coen brothers’s Hail, Caesar!, was only three weeks ago named as a contender to play the role made famous by Harrison Ford. The Han Solo movie will be the second Disney-backed Star Wars spin-off to hit cinemas. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is due to debut on 16 December, with Lord and Miller’s film set for release on 25 May 2018. Ford, 73, has played Solo in the original trilogy that hit cinemas between 1977 and 1983 and recent JJ Abrams blockbuster, The Force Awakens.
UnitedHealth's Obamacare exit won't hurt system but is a PR blow, say experts UnitedHealth’s decision to drop out of the Obamacare insurance market will have little practical impact on the system, industry analysts have said. Stephen Hemsley, UnitedHealth’s CEO, said on Tuesday that the US’s largest single insurer would be quitting most of the 34 state insurance exchanges it participated in. The company expects its participation in the exchanges, which were created as part of Barack Obama’s signature healthcare law, to cause $1bn in losses, Hemsley said. But Sabrina Corlette, a research professor at Georgetown University’s Center on Health Insurance Reforms, said the practical impact of the move would be “pretty minimal”. “Ultimately, I think what we will see over time is that this market, that is currently in a lot of flux, is going to settle down and that there are going to be carriers that find they can make money in this market and do fairly well,” Corlette told the . Insurance industry consultant John Gorman told Politico the move was a “nothingburger” in terms of its impact on the insurance marketplace. The more palpable problem is the public relations issue the announcement creates for the Obama administration. Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz, a Texas senator, said in a statement that United’s decision was not a surprise. “That’s the latest in a string of Obamacare failures that have led to American families losing their doctors, having few or no insurance options, and facing skyrocketing premiums and deductibles,” said Cruz. Florida senator Marco Rubio, who last month dropped out of the Republican presidential nomination race, echoed Cruz’s statement. “It’s clear the health insurance companies that helped pass Obamacare want nothing to do with it now that they’re losing money and can’t get the taxpayer-funded bailout that was tucked deep into the law,” Rubio said. Major insurers have expressed concerns about the cost of state health exchanges. Last month, a Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association report showed insurers were paying for patients who were sicker and needed more medical care than before. Before the Affordable Care Act went into effect in 2014, insurers could deny coverage to people because of pre-existing conditions. But the impact of United leaving is small, in part because the insurance provider mainly traffics in employer-based insurance plans, which it does not sell on the insurance exchanges. It was only in four state marketplaces in 2014, before jumping to 23 in 2015 and then 34 in 2016. “Overall, because United was a pretty minor player in this market, it is not a huge impact and there will be some counties where it is reducing the number of carriers to either one or two carriers, but that’s just for 2017,” Corlette said. If United leaves every state exchange marketplace, 17% of US counties will be left with only one insurer, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation analysis released the day before United’s announcement. This could be an opportunity for other insurance companies to participate in the state markets, though they are unlikely to do so before the 11 May deadline to enter the 2017 market. But United’s decision could pose challenges for the nearly 800,000 individuals covered by United in a state health exchange. If United leaves a person’s state, they will have to search for a plan that mimics their existing coverage when open enrollment starts again in November. “That’s going to be so particularly important for anybody who is in treatment for something,” said Corlette. “So if it’s a cancer patient, you have to make sure they can still see their oncologist and their hospitals.” Corlette said that there should be a push by United and insurance regulators to ensure people understand what they need to do and are moved to a quality product, though United is under no legal obligation to do so. They are obligated, however, to notify people that the change is being made. The Obama administration expressed no concern that United’s decision would harm the health insurance marketplace. Ben Wakana, spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services, said in a statement that the marketplace offers a “robust number of plan choices”. Wakana said: “We have full confidence, based on data, that the marketplaces will continue to thrive for years ahead.” The Affordable Care Act (ACA) was signed into law in March 2010 in an effort to reform healthcare in the US to give more Americans access to affordable health insurance. Government estimates show that 20 million adults have gained health insurance since the law was passed.
Donald Trump faces Senate backlash over ‘cabinet of billionaires’ Earlier this month, Donald Trump used a “thank-you” rally in Des Moines, Iowa, to give his supporters further insight into the “deal-making” team he intends to build in Washington. As president-elect, Trump has so far nominated a number of billionaires, three Goldman Sachs bankers and the chief executive of the world’s largest oil firm to senior positions. Responding to liberal consternation at the sheer wealth of the prospective appointees, Trump told his audience: “A newspaper [the New York Times] criticised me and said: ‘Why can’t they have people of modest means?’ Because I want people that made a fortune. Because now they are negotiating for you, OK? It’s no different than a great baseball player or a great golfer.” Trump’s cabinet, which is not yet fully filled, is already said to be worth a combined $14bn – the richest White House top table ever assembled. His team – if all are confirmed by the Senate – will be worth 50 times the $250m combined wealth of George W Bush’s first cabinet, which the media at the time dubbed the “team of millionaires”. For Trump, those figures are simply a confirmation of competence: in Trumpian politics, the richer you are, the better you must be at cutting a deal. And “deal-making” is what the next White House will be all about. Throughout his campaign, Trump repeatedly returned to the theme of the “terrible deals” cut by previous administrations, from the North American Free Trade Agreement to the nuclear deal with Iran. He described Nafta, an agreement with Canada and Mexico, as “the worst trade deal maybe ever”; the Iran nuclear pact was a “disaster” and “the worst deal ever negotiated” and would be “ripped up”. China was called a “big abuser” for artificially depressing its currency to give its exports a boost at the expense of US jobs. The implication was that, under the leadership of Trump, America Inc would finally begin to punch its weight in the market of global diplomacy. According to Peter Henning, a constitutional law professor at Wayne State University, appointing business leaders to top political positions has become the norm in American politics, but Trump’s nominations were “unique in the volume of people with minimal, if any, government experience”. “I am always wary of people who say ‘we have to run the country like a business’ – businesses aren’t responsible for defence or caring for the elderly,” he said. “Businesses are driven with one guiding principle – to make the most money – and that should not be the role of the government.” The backlash has begun in earnest. The criticism Trump objected to in Des Moines came from a New York Times editorial questioning the Trump administration’s seeming lack of interest in vetting nominees for potential conflicts of interest. Top Democrats and leading ethics and constitutional law experts have also raised concerns about Trump’s selection process. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont senator who campaigned for the Democratic nomination and promised that, if elected, he would redistribute the vast wealth of the 1% to poorer families, has dubbed Trump’s top team the “cabinet of billionaires”. “I guess they have a few poor millionaires on it but, mostly, it is billionaires,” Sanders said. He accused Trump of going back on his pledge to lead an anti-establishment revolution and “drain the swamp”. “If the cabinet he appointed of billionaires and millionaires is anti-establishment, boy, I would hate to see what the ‘establishment’ looks like,” Sanders said on NBC’s Late Night with Seth Meyers. “Maybe I am not seeing something here, but you don’t appoint the head of ExxonMobil to be secretary of state. That is not quite taking on the establishment.” It is the selection of Exxon’s chief executive, Rex Tillerson, whom Trump described as “one of the truly great business leaders of the world” in an early morning tweet announcing his appointment as secretary of state, that has caused the most upset on both sides of the aisle. As well as a phalanx of Democrats, the leading Republican senators Marco Rubio and Lindsey Graham, and John McCain, the chairman of the Senate armed services committee, have raised concerns about Tillerson’s close relationship with Vladimir Putin and conflicts of interest arising from Exxon’s interests in Russia. Tillerson, 64, who has spent his whole career at the oil giant, was awarded Russia’s Order of Friendship in 2013 after he agreed a deal with the state-owned oil company Rosneft, run by the Putin lieutenant Igor Sechin. The partnership to drill for oil in the Arctic and explore in Siberia and the Black Sea was iced following the imposition of sanctions on Russia when it annexed Crimea. It means that Exxon has tens of billions of potential Russian assets lying idle. Tillerson has $245m of Exxon stock. As secretary of state, Tillerson will be leading discussions on whether the US should maintain sanctions against Russia. He will also be forming America’s policy on the Syria crisis, the Iran nuclear deal (which Trump has described as “terrible”), and relations with North Korea. “When he gets the friendship award from a butcher, frankly, it’s an issue that I think needs to be examined,” McCain told Fox News. Rubio, who serves on the foreign relations committee that will vet Tillerson’s nomination before a full Senate vote, has said he has “serious concerns” about the appointment. “The next secretary of state must be someone who views the world with moral clarity, is free of potential conflicts of interest, has a clear sense of America’s interests, and will be a forceful advocate for America’s foreign policy goals to the president, within the administration, and on the world stage,” he said. In its most recent session, the foreign relations committee was composed of 10 Republicans and nine Democrats, meaning that if Trump lost one Republican, Tillerson’s appointment could be at least stalled. Other controversial big business appointments include Gary Cohn, Goldman Sachs’s president and chief operating officer, named as director of the National Economic Council – or, as Trump put it, his “top economic adviser”. Trump said Cohn, who has worked at Goldman for 26 years and amassed some $200m of the bank’s stock, would “put his talents as a highly successful businessman to work for the American people”. “He will help craft economic policies that will grow wages for our workers, stop the exodus of jobs overseas and create many great new opportunities for Americans who have been struggling.” Cohn’s appointment does not require Senate approval, and could serve as a stepping stone to other government positions at the US treasury or the Federal Reserve, a route that has been well trodden in the past. Trump’s pick for treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, is also a multimillionaire former Goldman banker who went on to be dubbed a “foreclosure king” for buying up distressed mortgages and evicting thousands of homeowners during the financial crisis. Elizabeth Warren, the Massachusetts Democratic senator, called Mnuchin “the Forrest Gump of the financial crisis” because he “managed to participate in all the worst practices on Wall Street” during his lengthy career. “His selection as treasury secretary should send shivers down the spine of every American who got hit hard by the financial crisis, and is the latest sign that Donald Trump has no intention of draining the swamp and every intention of running Washington to benefit himself and his rich buddies,” she said. The selection of three Goldman bankers could open Trump up to criticism as, during the campaign, the president-elect repeatedly highlighted the bank as emblematic of the corrupt global elite that had stolen the futures of hard-working Americans. Days before the election, Trump launched a TV advert that portrayed the Goldman chairman and chief executive Lloyd Blankfein as the personification of the global elite, which he said had “robbed our working class, stripped our country of its wealth and put that money into the pockets of a handful of large corporations and political entities”. Trump’s ire against Goldman persisted throughout the campaign: he attacked Hillary Clinton for giving paid speeches to the bank and accused his Republican nomination rival Ted Cruz of being “owned” by Goldman because his wife worked at the bank. “He will do anything they demand. Not much of a reformer!” Trump said in a January tweet. But beyond the accusations of brazen hypocrisy, it is the enmeshing of business interests with affairs of state which is causing the deepest concern. Jordan Libowitz, of the DC watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said Trump’s cabinet had might have the most conflicts of interest in history. “There have been business leaders, and very rich ones, in the cabinet in the past but never of this depth and scale. The question is not whether he is seeking to run the White House like a business, but more whether he will be running it as his business. People will question whether the provocative actions he has taken so far are in the interests of the country or in the interests of his businesses.” Libowitz said it could be argued that “Trump is seeking to use the White House as an extension of Trump Tower. That’s why we think that the only way to remove conflict of interest is for the Trump organisations to be sold outside of the family and the proceeds moved into a blind trust.” Trump has given no indication that he will relinquish ownership of his global real estate and licensing empire. He has only pledged to make “no new deals” and hand over management to his sons, Donald Jr and Eric, who also have official roles on the transition team. Meanwhile, the billionaires continue to pack their bags for DC. The private equity billionaire Wilbur Ross has been nominated as commerce secretary with a mission “to foster, promote, and develop the foreign and domestic commerce”. Ross, 79, who was called a “vulture investor” for buying up failing companies, cutting jobs and flipping them for often huge profits, has amassed a $2.9bn fortune via his private equity firm, WL Ross & Co. Ross last week agreed to buy a $12m seven-bedroom house on DC’s leafy Woodland Drive, known as “billionaire’s row”. The 10,000-sq ft gatehouse has a 12-seat cinema and staff quarters, and sits opposite the home of the current commerce secretary, Penny Pritzker. Working with Ross as deputy commerce secretary will be Todd Ricketts, another billionaire and co-owner of the Chicago Cubs. He inherited his wealth from his billionaire father, Joe Ricketts, founder of the brokerage TD Ameritrade. The Ricketts family donated $1m to Trump’s campaign. Another beneficiary of dynastic wealth nominated to serve under Trump is Betsy DeVos, the daughter-in-law of the Amway co-founder Richard DeVos, estimated by Forbes to be worth more than $5bn. “I’m not shocked by this,” said Senator Sherrod Brown, an Ohio Democrat. “It’s a billionaire president being surrounded by a billionaire and millionaire cabinet, with a billionaire agenda … to hurt the middle class. The appointments suggest that he’s going to break his campaign promises.” Trump may feel secure in his picks, given Republican control of Congress, but there is no guarantee they will all make it into office. While Trump himself hasn’t published his tax returns (despite a four-decade tradition of doing so) or sold any businesses that could represent a conflict of interest, his nominees’ finances will undergo intense scrutiny. Senator Orrin Hatch, the finance committee chairman, said nominees “will undergo the same bipartisan vetting process as the nominees from previous administrations” and will not progress to a public hearing until the committee has reviewed the past three years of a nominee’s tax returns. The multi-page questionnaire asks nominees to list all jobs held since college, all business relationships, political activities and contributions, any legal or ethical conflicts and a calculation of the nominee and their family’s net worth. They will also be under oath to declare if they have paid taxes, including those for household staff. The law requires that executive branch employees have no role in government matters that could benefit their financial interests or those of their families. It means they must give up any paid or unpaid jobs, including board positions, and sell stock. Meanwhile, as Trump is exempt from many of the laws that apply to his appointments, he is taking full advantage. He isn’t even giving up the limelight of The New Celebrity Apprentice, where he will remain an executive producer while in office. “Presidents have a right to do things in their spare time,” his adviser Kellyanne Conway said. Another successful deal for the president-elect. DEAL OR NO DEAL? China What’s the current “deal”? China is the US’s second-largest trading partner, after Canada. US exports are vital to China’s economy and the US is similarly reliant on its cheap imports. However, the US has been alarmed by China’s attitude to intellectual property and US competition. What new deal does Trump want? Trump wants a new trade deal with China. He has said the US was being “hurt very badly by China with devaluation”, though, in fact, China has been inflating its currency recently. Trump angered Beijing when he took a call from Taiwan’s president; China regards the island as sovereign territory and US presidents have not spoken to its leaders in 40 years. How likely is he to get his way? Trump’s Taiwan call seemed like a blunder but has been spun as a signal that US recognition of Taiwan could be a bargaining chip in a “better” trade deal. But Taiwan is non-negotiable for China and any such move is likely to meet with retaliation that will hurt the US economy and potentially lead to a global trade war – or worse. Iran What’s the current deal? America’s historically tense relationship with Iran was somewhat eased last year when the US joined six other countries in signing a landmark nuclear deal. This exchanges a lifting of nuclear-related sanctions on Iran, which were crippling its economy, for a dismantling of its nuclear facilities. What does Trump want? Trump has heavily criticised the Iran deal and, at times, threatened to dismantle it; however, his aides said he would only seek to refine it or negotiate it. This would be extremely difficult and the president-elect has not been clear on what he would replace it with. How likely is he to get his way? The likelihood of tearing up the Iran deal is slim, as many of the deal’s original critics oppose completely dismantling it, including Trump’s nominee for secretary of defence, James Mattis. Iran has mostly been in compliance with the deal, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency, which also makes renegotiation difficult. Defence What’s the deal? The US defence contractor Lockheed Martin’s F-35 fighter jet programme, which comes with an estimated $400bn price tag, has been described as “the most expensive weapon system in history”. What new deal does Trump want? A cheaper one. “The F-35 program and cost is out of control,” Trump said on Twitter, a pronouncement that knocked Lockheed’s share price – and those of other defence contractors involved in the project, including Britain’s BAE. Trump went on to pledge: “Billions of dollars can and will be saved on military (and other) purchases after January 20th.” How likely is he to get his way? Quite. While a president cannot cancel a programme after funds have been allocated, Trump has room for manoeuvre. Many in the US agree the programme is out of control. Even the US Senate armed services committee chairman, John McCain, who has voiced support for the fighter jet in the past, has suggested the president could buy fewer of the jets in the future. Russia What’s the current deal? Relations have been poor over conflicts in Ukraine and Syria, while US sanctions have pushed Russia into recession. The CIA claims Russia hacked into Democratic National Committee emails to influence the election in Trump’s favour. What new deal does Trump want? Trump has said he wants better relations with Russia and has complimented Vladimir Putin, including about his “leadership” after the Russian president was accused of killing journalists. He nominated Tillerson, who has with close ties to Russia, as secretary of state, and has rejected the CIA’s election claims. How likely is he to get his way? Putin is open to a rapprochement with a Trump-led US. In an address earlier this month, he said he was “ready for cooperation with the new American administration”. What this means for conflicts in Syria and Ukraine remains to be seen. Politically, this may help Trump in some regions (and hurt in others); economically, it means little. US goods and services trade with Russia is worth about $38bn; with China it tops $659bn.
New band of the week: Orchestra of Spheres (No 102) Hometown: Wellington, New Zealand. The lineup: Baba Rossa (vocals, biscuit tin guitar), Mos locos (synth, vocals), EtonalE (bass carillon, vocals), Woild Boin (drums). The background: Rumour – or at least someone called DJ Joe Rock of classic hits station WMMO – has it that Talking Heads are in the studio working on a new album and planning a tour for 2017. For those who believe the band’s album run from their debut in 1977 until 1980’s Remain in Light remains one of the greatest in music history, this is like hearing the Smiths and the Jam are reforming on the same day. Any hint that they’re about to bury the hatchet and record a follow-up to 1988’s Naked is bound to excite. Still, in the admittedly unlikely event that Joe Rock is wrong and they don’t, there’s always the Orchestra of Spheres to console you. They’re great, and they’re Talking Heads-ish, albeit a Talking Heads that uses biscuit tins and vacuums for instruments instead of, say, Bernie Worrell and Adrian Belew. They have 1.6m followers on Soundcloud and have been around for a while, only under the radar (evidently not a very powerful radar considering the title of their last album was Vibration Animal Sex Brain Music). They were “born out of Wellington’s fertile creative music scene”, and their members have names like Mos Iocos, EtonalE and Baba Rossa (Woild Boin bangs the drums, except he doesn’t in the studio – that’s someone or something called Tooth). Their influences range, they say, from kuduro and “psychedelic primary school disco” to kwaito, free improv, shangaan electro, inner brain clap and funk puppetré. Really, though, think a lo-fi Heads with a shoestring budget and the no-limits creativity often borne of penury. They’ve been called “futuristic and unsettlingly primal” and “the most out-of-this-world band in music today”. Even Dan Snaith of Caribou has been singing the praises of their music which, they admit, offers the sort of escapist fantasy-funk you’d want in “dark times … of remote war, mass deceit and money worship”. On their new album Brothers and Sisters of the Black Lagoon, they have created an record of playful dance music designed to take your mind off the fact that we’re all doomed, using vocal and tape experiments and lots of bells (they’re obsessed with bells, for some reason). Alighting at any point on the album is sure to delight. In the Face of Love is like Heads offshoot Tom Tom Club’s Genius of Love updated for 2016: quirky, quixotic avant-funk, with acid house squiggles and the sort of heavenly oohs and aahs that suggest Tina Weymouth being tickled by Chris Frantz. Trapdoors is off-kilter disco with a lyric about “ceramic popcorn exploding in craniums” and a hi-life guitar figure countering the deep, pulsing bassline. Walking Through Walls stutters into life, with unison singing enforcing the feel of Orchestra of Spheres as a dippy cult on a polyphonic spree. The Reel World is pan-cultural exotica, lounge music from a distant planet. Cluster is presumably a paean to the German band of that name, although you never know with this crew. Actually, the track has the gruff male voice, attention to detail and sonic immaculacy of Swiss electro-surrealists Yello. Rocket No 9 has a scintillating stop-start throb while a female voice cries “Zoom zoom!” and then, at the end, either “Venus!” or “penis!”. Probably Venus, but it is a song about a rocket, so … Let Us Not Forget is more serious in tone, all drones and clangs, with the ominous tolling of a bell throughout. It’s a mordant hymn to technology: “Let us not forget our mobile phones. Let us not forget our mobile phone chargers. Let us not forget our electronic cigarettes. Let us not forget our memorable security question…” Finally, there’s the lush, locked groove of Divine Horses that rises to a feverish tumult – exactly what you’d want a reformed 21st-century Talking Heads to sound like. Let’s hope good old Joe Rock is right. If not, have a dip in this Black Lagoon. The buzz: “Part Sun Ra otherworldiness, part Sublime Frequencies and part ESG ... Orchestra of Spheres blew us away” - Dan Snaith, Caribou. The truth: More songs about mobile phones and money worship. Most likely to: Forget about Talking Heads. Least likely to: Forget their mobile phones. What to buy: Brothers and Sisters of the Black Lagoon is released on 13 May. File next to: Yello, Talking Heads, Tom Tom Club, Can. Links: orchestraofspheres.com. Ones to watch: Vanishing Twin, Emily Wells, Ice Cream, Xenia Rubinos, Haley Bonar.
Vampire of the spirit Philip Hammond takes dullness to a whole new level Lurch dragged himself towards the lectern. Even with extra slap to give his cheeks a pink veneer, Philip Hammond has the look of a walking corpse. His eyes are sunken sockets, his stooped frame the sign of a man destined to be a pall-bearer at his own funeral. The chancellor has already bored himself to death many times over and he won’t rest until he has sucked the lifeblood out of everyone around him. A true vampire of the spirit. “Thank you,” said the chancellor, raising a hand to acknowledge the polite applause that had greeted his arrival. If Lurch had left it at that, his speech would have gone down as one of his biggest triumphs. But he had more to say. Much more. And the Tory conference settled down for a painful dose of aural valium. On a couple of occasions, he tried to make a joke but he fluffed the punchline both times. Even the Autocue had had enough. This wasn’t the easiest of gigs for Lurch. All his instincts – along with those of the City – tell him Britain should be pursuing the softest of Brexits, but he’s been outflanked by the Eurosceptics and will now have to steer the economy through what may well be a tricky few years. Already the pound was falling sharply and he’d long since had to ditch his party’s promise of eliminating the budget deficit by 2020. One panicky eye opened and peered out through a hooded lid. “There will be some turbulence as a result of Brexit,” he warned. Put on your seatbelts and assume the brace position. Lurch would do his best to make things OK, but he wasn’t making any promises. “Before you switch off ... ” he continued. It was a bit late in the day for that as most people had long since zoned out. But Lurch wasn’t a man to be put off by the sound of shallow breathing, so he plodded on. “I had no idea until a few weeks ago how much I didn’t know,” he continued. Better late than never. “And even less idea how much I wouldn’t be able to understand even once it had been explained to me.” This chancellor business was a bit trickier than he had been led to believe. Another “Thank you” indicated that Lurch had reached the end of his monologue and the applause was a touch warmer than it had been when he had walked on. Mainly due to everyone’s relief at being put out of their misery, but also partly in appreciation. It takes a lifetime of practice to be that dull. Dullness is often an underrated virtue in a politician – it’s often confused with being a safe pair of hands – and Hammond has turned it into an art form. If the morning was spent trying to persuade people that things wouldn’t be quite as bad as they feared, the afternoon was all about showing how much worse things could so easily have been. In a parallel universe, Andrea Leadsom could have been the prime minister and the warmth of her reception was all about the bullet that had been dodged. Leadsom’s grip on reality has always been tenuous at best – she’s still not entirely sure whether she was a cashier at NatWest or a lift attendant at Barclays – and her grasp of her brief as minister for the environment, food and rural affairs is minimal. “There’s lots of badgers to kill and the countryside has inspired lots of pop songs,” she declared. Then she smiled. Leadsom does a lot of smiling. It gives her a chance for her words to resynch themselves with her lips. Then she smiled again. Just because she could. “Tourists are buying British bottled air at £80 a go,” she declared, as if ripping off gullible foreigners was the answer to the country’s problems. She had nothing to say about contaminated meat or what was going to happen to the farmers she’d persuaded to leave the EU once their subsidies ran out. Above her pay grade. Smiling was so much easier. That and crossing the globe, flying the flag, banging the drum and mouthing platitudes. She was followed on to the stage by Liam Fox, whom the Tories considered to be an even worse bet than her as party leader. Imagine how that must make him feel.
UK must leave European convention on human rights, says Theresa May Britain should withdraw from the European convention on human rights regardless of the EU referendum result, Theresa May has said, in comments that contradict ministers within her own government. The shadow justice secretary, Charles Falconer, said he was appalled by the home secretary’s comments, which he described as “so ignorant, so illiberal, so misguided”, while the Tory MP and former attorney general Dominic Grieve said he was disappointed by the intervention. May used a speech in central London to argue that it was the convention, rather than the EU, that had caused the extradition of extremist Abu Hamza to be delayed for years and that had almost stopped the deportation of Abu Qatada. “The ECHR can bind the hands of parliament, adds nothing to our prosperity, makes us less secure by preventing the deportation of dangerous foreign nationals – and does nothing to change the attitudes of governments like Russia’s when it comes to human rights,” she said. “So regardless of the EU referendum, my view is this: if we want to reform human rights laws in this country, it isn’t the EU we should leave but the ECHR and the jurisdiction of its court.” The home secretary, who is seen as a potential future Tory leader, used the speech to express support for membership of the EU, but also to reach out to the Eurosceptic wing of the party. But her comments place her on a collision course with cabinet colleagues, including the justice secretary, Michael Gove, who has put forward plans for a British bill of rights based on Britain staying inside the convention. Downing Street conceded that the comments did highlight “differences” between May and David Cameron, although it warned against overstating them. “The PM has made clear he wants to see reform of the ECHR and has ruled absolutely nothing out if we don’t achieve that,” his official spokeswoman said. But sources admitted that the government’s position did not currently require withdrawal from the ECHR. Labour’s Falconer accused May of “sacrificing Britain’s 68-year-old commitment to human rights for her own miserable Tory leadership ambitions”. “That is so ignorant, so illiberal, so misguided,” he said. “Ignorant because you have to be a member of the ECHR to be a member of the EU. The European Union itself agrees to abide by the ECHR. Illiberal because … there has to be a source external to a government determining what human rights are. “And misguided because it will so damage the standing of the UK, a country that above all plays by the rules and that is going around the world saying we should comply as a world with human rights. This is so, so appalling.” But it was not only Labour that reacted negatively to May’s speech. Grieve said he was “disappointed because it shows a lack of understanding of the positive impact the ECHR is for the EU”. He accused May of underestimating the positive impact that the Abu Qatada case had on the Jordanian justice system and pointed out that both he and Abu Hamza were removed. He said he was pleased that May was backing the EU, but warned: “Pulling out of the ECHR would be damaging to Britain’s international standing. It is a central pillar of foreign policy.” May used the rest of her speech to attempt to strike a balanced and “optimistic” tone in favour of EU membership, with comments that will be interpreted as swipes at the prime minister, including a claim that the UK had forgotten how to lead in Europe. The home secretary denied that the UK was too small to thrive alone, saying: “I do not want to stand here and insult people’s intelligence by claiming that everything about the EU is perfect, that membership of the EU is wholly good, nor do I believe those that say the sky will fall in if we vote to leave.” May appeared to concede that immigration from within the EU could not be controlled as long as Britain was a member, but she insisted that there was no “single bullet” to fix the immigration problem. She took a harder line than the government on the issue of new countries joining the EU, including Albania, Serbia and Turkey – in comments seized on by Vote Leave. “We have to ask ourselves, is it really right that the EU should just continue to expand, conferring upon all new member states all the rights of membership?” said May, who also argued that leaving the EU could stop the development of the single market, lose investors, push Britain backwards on international trade and threaten the UK. “I do not want the European Union to cause the destruction of an older and much more precious union, the union between England and Scotland,” she said. May argued that no country had ever been totally sovereign and added that international institutions always required compromises. David Davis, the Conservative former shadow home secretary, said it was “extraordinarily inconsistent” to want to withdraw from the ECHR and stay within the EU. “She seems not to have understood the power and forcefulness of the European court of justice,” he said. “If we pulled out of the ECHR, for which we would get much opprobrium, and stay in the EU, all that would happen is the the European court of justice will do exactly what the ECHR did before but with more force, because the charter of fundamental rights is the European convention plus, not minus. Logically, it does not stand up.” He said it would be better to leave the EU and stick with the European Convention on Human Rights. “The ECHR did have an expansionist phase and that broadly came to an end after parliament’s decision on prisoner votes. Staying within the convention is sensible, having a British Bill of Rights is sensible, but staying within the EU you get all that and more,” he said.
Harry Winks gives Tottenham hope for Champions League survival Once he had caught his breath, Mauricio Pochettino suggested the sensations that had arisen so suddenly needed to be kept and held close. Tottenham positively bounced out of the stadium here; a derby of see-sawing fortunes across 96 minutes and at times thudding levels of intensity might not ordinarily be considered the best preparation for a decisive Champions League away tie three days later, but the thrill gained from such an unlikely escape act raised their manager’s hopes that it might feed something similar in Monaco on Tuesday night. “For the players that victory was very important, and it was emotional,” Pochettino said after a first success in seven games. “You know always the stress or adrenaline is high, and it’s a relief. This can help us believe again that we can win. To keep this feeling will be very important in preparing for the Monaco game. It is a game we must win.” If residual exuberance is a factor in his team selection at Stade Louis II, where Tottenham do indeed require three points to hold realistic hopes of reaching the knockout stage, then perhaps Harry Winks should brace himself to break more boundaries. It was the 20-year-old academy product, starting a Premier League game for the first time, who equalised Michail Antonio’s header in the 51st minute to ignite a hitherto patchy game and if the euphoria of his celebrations are matched in Monaco then something will assuredly have gone right. Winks, all wide eyes and whirling arms at the fulfilment of a lifelong dream, leapt into Pochettino’s embrace after his big moment. “To be honest I found him, he didn’t find me,” a beaming Pochettino explained of their coming-together. “But it’s true that I put a lot of pressure on my players in the changing room – I like my hugs.” There were plenty more of them after Harry Kane’s two late goals and then, when things had calmed, there was a touch from Winks that suggested he has the attitude required to become a more regular presence. “I like it a lot that he came into my office afterwards to say thank you to all of us – the coaches,” Pochettino said. “It was a fantastic show for everyone, for all the people who work in the academy. He said to us this is only the start. I said: ‘Come on now, this is a big challenge.’ He said: ‘Yes, now I need to work hard and try to show that I deserve to play.’ “That is the mentality we want. It’s true he needs to be happy now and enjoy the moment, but he needs to know the future will be difficult. To keep that level is the most difficult thing.” Winks performed diligently alongside Mousa Dembélé in a midfield diamond and it will not have escaped Pochettino’s attention that he began the move for his goal – a simple enough finish after Vincent Janssen’s shot was saved – by dispossessing Angelo Ogbonna 40 yards up the pitch. His selection had seemed a gamble and it was not the only one. Janssen was selected to partner Kane and for long periods Tottenham lumbered, short of the craft that Son Heung-min would eventually bring from the bench. It seemed like a miscalculation from Pochettino and this certainly did not seem to be his day when, having delayed Dele Alli’s introduction for Janssen while a Dimitri Payet corner was defended, he saw the striker needlessly haul Winston Reid over and concede the penalty from which Manuel Lanzini put West Ham 2-1 up. The away side were then rarely troubled until Kane sprang to life, tapping in a Son cross that Darren Randolph could only push into the forward’s path and converting a penalty 162 seconds later after Havard Nordtveit had chopped down the South Korean. They deserved better but this has been an accursed season for Slaven Bilic and in hindsight the introduction of Nordtveit for Payet, in an attempt to shore things up with five minutes to play, looked misguided. “We were 2-1 up and from our point of view it was a logical move to put on a fresh body,” a quietly-spoken Bilic said. “[Payet] was excellent today but we thought: ‘OK, it’s the end of the game, we are winning, let’s hold on.’ I would rather play well, the way we did tonight, than come here after the game and say: ‘No complaints, they were much better.’ When you are playing like this, it is only a matter of time before more luck or more concentration makes the difference.” This time the fortune was with Pochettino, and a match that could have changed the complexion of West Ham’s season became one that may do the same for Tottenham. There will be hugs all round on the Côte d’Azur if that impression persists a little longer.
Japan considers making bitcoin a legal currency Japan’s governing Liberal Democratic party is planning to propose legal changes that would define bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as currencies. The changes would mean bitcoin could be more tightly regulated and taxed, and are likely to lead to more investment in developing cryptocurrency infrastructure in Japan. Tomonori Kanda, an official in the financial affairs section at the party’s headquarters, said legislative changes were discussed on Wednesday and the LDP aimed to raise the matter in parliament. “There is a long way to go,” he said. “But we have discussed reform and believe it is the right way to go.” The timing of the change was yet to be decided, he said. Japan considers bitcoin a commodity. The new definition would consider anything that can be exchanged for goods and services or legal tender as a currency, bringing bitcoin, dogecoin and many other cryptocurrencies into the fold. According to a report in the Nikkei newspaper, the changes were proposed by government body the Financial Services Agency. However, an FSA official in Tokyo refused to confirm that any changes to legislation were being considered. “We have not decided anything yet,” the official said. “The way things work here is that any change would have to be approved by parliament first, and then we would work on writing the legislation.” Speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject, the official declined to comment on whether the FSA had proposed the legislative changes. Japan, the home of Mt. Gox, the bitcoin exchange that folded in 2014 and lost coins worth hundreds of millions of pounds, has been looking for ways to keep a closer eye on cryptocurrencies and prevent another disaster. Mark Karpeles, the former chief executive of Mt. Gox, is being held by Japanese authorities and has been charged with embezzlement.
Alan Pardew eases the pressure, then criticises Crystal Palace owners Alan Pardew earned himself some respite with a first win in eight matches on Saturday but may have done his cause some damage by claiming the club’s American owners “perhaps don’t know a lot about football”. The Palace manager had been under intense pressure after the 5-4 defeat at Swansea the previous weekend. Palace’s American investors, Joshua Harris and David Blitzer, were believed to have expressed concerns about the club’s league position and rumours suggested Roberto Mancini and Sam Allardyce were being lined up as possible replacements for Pardew. A comfortable 3-0 win against Southampton looks to have eased that concern, at least for the time being, with the chairman, Steve Parish, giving Pardew a thumbs‑up from the stands after the game. But in paying tribute to Parish, Pardew may have helped to complicate his situation. “The chairman got a bit edgy this week, as you’d expect,” Pardew said afterwards. “We have a lot of serious investors at the club who perhaps don’t know a lot about football so the chairman has been defending me. “I always think as a manager at any level, particularly in the modern era, expect the sack. Just expect it; it’s coming at some stage, so just do your job as best you can. Every week, that’s what I try to do”, he went on. “Sometimes it’s hard to dress up six defeats when you’re the owner of the club and you have investors. Obviously there are things he’s got no control over but he’s tried to offer me all the assistance that he could. He’s been brilliant for me and I just want to say thank you to him really.” Pardew also had praise for the Selhurst Park crowd who stayed behind the team despite their recent failings. “Football clubs cannot run without their fans. The balance they gave us today on the pitch was just right. It wasn’t negative, it wasn’t over the top – it was pitched just right and I thank them for that. We made a few mistakes at the start of the game, as you would in the nervous position we were in. It was important we didn’t have that negativity when we made a mistake.” Palace’s next match is away at Hull City. Two tricky fixtures against Manchester United and Chelsea, and Pardew made clear his team need more good results in short order if they are to move clear of the relegation zone. “It was an important message to give the players after the match,” he said. “The six defeats we’ve had, the way we’ve played, we didn’t deserve what we got, but we needed to put that right today. We need to go forward now, on the front foot and next week at Hull is even more important than today. We can’t afford to lose that game. We must go up there and get something.”
The science of shaken baby syndrome Niall Dickson, chief executive of the General Medical Council, disputes our conclusion that, in striking off Dr Waney Squier, the GMC acted as a latter-day inquisition (Letters, 22 March). He begins by saying that the decision had nothing to do with the legitimacy of shaken baby syndrome (SBS), but rather “her competence and conduct in presenting her evidence to the courts”. With respect, he is just wrong. At the hearing, Dr Squier was specifically forbidden from contesting the central issue at stake – whether SBS is a legitimate diagnosis. Along with an increasing number of others close to the subject, I believe it to be an unproven hypothesis, not science. So does one of the people who came up with the theory 50 years ago, a doctor now horrified at how it is being abused. If we are right, then the people who mislead the court (albeit perhaps unintentionally) are those who purvey an unproven theory as fact. And what is the greater ill – that Dr Squier should prevent people from losing their children or being sent to prison based on a hypothesis, or that other doctors should condemn a slew of innocent people (often, in the US where I practice, sending them to death row)? It is illogical to condemn Dr Squier for “cherrypicking” facts that are inconsistent with an unproven theory: if there are findings that call SBS into question, then that obviously casts doubt on the theory. And it is equally unrealistic to accuse her of lacking sufficient expertise in SBS: the very nature of forensic science (if it is science at all) is that experts do not spend their time training in anti-science. The charity where I work (Reprieve) has recently identified more than 100 people had been executed in the US based, in part, upon the application of a forensic pseudo-science that has belatedly been renounced by its main proponent, the FBI. Over Easter, it is worth pausing to question whether any of the dead prisoners will be resurrected. One day, I suspect we will accept that SBS is also pseudo-science. With Dr Squier now struck off, and all other experts afraid of entering a British courtroom, Mr Dickson must ponder how many parents and carers will be unjustly condemned in the meantime. Clive Stafford Smith Human rights lawyer, Bridport, Dorset • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
Bank bailout v Tata bailout – how the costs compare Government ministers are meeting to try to tackle the British steel industry crisis, following Tata Steel’s move to sell off all of its UK operation. David Cameron says he is “not ruling anything out” – although he has suggested nationalisation is not the answer. One question keeps being asked. If we spent billions of pounds bailing out the banks, why can’t the state bail out the steel industry? How much was spent bailing out the banks? In 2011, a Reality Check costed the bank bailout at £124bn in loan or share purchases. Amid all the numbers was the analysis that “the Royal Bank of Scotland received £45.80bn, Lloyds £20.54bn, Northern Rock a total of £22.99bn, Bradford and Bingley £8.55bn and a further £26.05bn went on ‘loans to support deposit’.” The details of the bailout are complex, though, and there’s an argument that this figure could legitimately be stated as both higher and lower. The National Audit Office reported that the peak level of support offered to the banks was as high as £955bn, at one point. As well as the cash to buy into these businesses, the government put £332.4bn in guarantees and indemnities on the table, to restore confidence in the system. However, the government has also subsequently sold and reprivatised some of the holdings, reclaiming some of the cash. Last year, for example, it sold 5.4% of RBS and now retains less than 11% of Lloyds. The Treasury has also received some fees and interest from the banks, in excess of £11bn. How much would it cost to bail out Tata Steel? Significantly less than the billions spent on the banks. The much-quoted figure has been that the Port Talbot plant is losing £1m a day – a big bill for the state to suddenly pick up. Sources on Thursday claimed that a bailout could cost as much as £1.5bn a year. The company, which says it values its British steel assets as virtually worthless, claims it would need considerable investment in the UK business to keep it competitive. The state of the global steel market, where plants are only operating at two-thirds capacity and cheap Chinese steel exports are readily available, may render any bailout impractical, regardless of whether or not the money is available. Would EU regulations halt a steel bailout? One frequently mentioned objection to the state buying a stake in the steel industry is that the government would fall foul of EU regulations. State aid is defined as “any advantage granted by public authorities through state resources on a selective basis to any organisations that could potentially distort competition and trade in the European Union”. So why didn’t this apply to the banking sector? Well, there is a get-out clause. The UK government’s own guidance on state aid makes it explicit that “some state aid is beneficial to the economy and supports growth and other policy objectives ... The state aid rules allow for good aid, which is necessary to deliver growth and other important objectives.” The government would argue that preventing the collapse of large chunks of the UK financial services sector was a necessary example of state aid, to mitigate the huge potential impact on the wider economy. The same argument is tougher to make about steel, a smaller sector, despite the devastating impact that closing steelworks would have on local communities. What are the welfare costs of closing Tata steel? This is not a zero-sum game for the UK government. It is going to have to cough up some cash. If it chose not to support the steel industry financially, the taxpayer would foot the bill for supporting the workers laid off if Tata fails to find a buyer. The Institute for Public Policy Research suggests that along with the 15,000 jobs lost directly at Tata, a further 25,000 jobs could go in firms in Tata’s supply chain. Without examining the individual circumstances of each of the 40,000 employees potentially affected it is difficult to estimate the welfare impact. Crudely put, paying the maximum weekly jobseeker’s allowance of £73.10 to all 40,000 of those affected would cost the state £2.9m a week. That would add up to more than £150m a year. It’s difficult to obtain a precise number. Those under 25 are only entitled to a reduced rate of jobseeker’s allowance of up to £57.90, rather than the full amount of £73.10. And couples, assuming that among that 40,000 there might be some couples who currently work together, can only claim up to £114.85. Other benefits would be adjusted too – for example people with children who had been paying the higher tax rate would be able to start claiming child benefit again once unemployed. The amount of housing benefit they can claim to subsidise the rent they are being charged might also change. On the other hand, lower-paid workers in the industry might currently be qualifying for in-work tax credits, which the jobseekers allowance payments would replace. If the government does not directly intervene, it would presumably – as part of any package of measures – offer cash for retraining and regeneration of the areas affected by steel plant closures. Whatever the outcome of discussions, the government will have a bill to pay. It just won’t be anywhere near the money spent on the banks.
UK university applications from EU down by 9%, says Ucas The number of EU students applying for places on some of the most sought-after courses in the UK’s leading universities has dropped by 9%, according to Ucas, which administers university entry. The data applies to a limited number of courses with an earlier application deadline of 15 October but the marked decline in interest from EU students will lead to fears about the damaging impact of the Brexit vote on the UK’s universities. The data was published on Thursday and relates to applications for all courses at Oxford and Cambridge universities, as well as applications for medicine, dentistry and veterinary courses elsewhere, beginning in September 2017. Nicola Dandridge, chief executive of Universities UK, said the full picture would only become clear after the main January deadline, which usually makes up 90% of total applications. But she linked the decline in applications to uncertainty over government financial support for EU students. “This fall does, however, highlight the importance of ensuring that prospective European applicants are made fully aware of the fees and financial support arrangements well in advance of the applications window,” she said. “The Ucas process for accepting applications for 2017 opened on 6 September but the government guarantee on fees and financial support for EU students for 2017 entry was not provided until 11 October, only days before the October deadline. To avoid future uncertainty, we need the government to extend these transitional arrangements now for EU students considering applying for courses starting in 2018. These prospective European students will soon be starting to consider whether to apply to study at British universities.” Just days before applications closed this month, the government finally issued a statement reassuring EU students hoping to begin their studies next year that they would continue to be entitled to the same terms and conditions as home students, with £9,000 fees and access to the student loan book for the duration of their studies. Many in the sector complained the intervention was too late and are now urging the government to eliminate future uncertainty for potential students from Europe by extending the offer further. The 9% decline brings to an end the recent trend for increasing numbers of EU applications to UK universities. Numbers applying for courses governed by the 15 October deadline have dropped by 620 to a total of 6,240 – reversing an 8% increase at the same point last year and a return to 2015 levels. Contrary to the overall trend, Oxford University said it had seen a 1% increase in applications from EU students and a 4% increase overall to more than 20,000 for 2017 entry, with international applications up too. A spokesperson said: “While there has been understandable uncertainty around the implications of the UK’s exit from the EU, we are confident that students from the EU continue to see Oxford as a welcoming and attractive option for undergraduate study.” Cambridge University reported a decline in applications from EU students, down from 2,652 last year to 2,277 this year, in the context of an overall increase in applications to 16,875. A university spokesperson said: “We are disappointed to see a reduction in EU undergraduate application numbers on last year, which reflects the considerable uncertainty felt by these students due to the EU referendum. But we still received more applications from the EU this year than we did in 2012, and Cambridge remains an attractive place for EU students to study.” The total number of applicants for places in this round of applications has gone up 1% since last year, with figures for international students holding up, despite uncertainty about future visa arrangements and warnings from the Home Office of a clampdown. A government spokesperson said: “It is too early in the application cycle to predict reliable trends. But the overall increase in applicant numbers is positive – and suggests even more students will be able to benefit from higher education next year.” Mary Curnock Cook, Ucas chief executive, also welcomed the overall increase in applications. “This is an encouraging increase in applicants to the October deadline courses, particularly given the 2% decrease in the 18-year-old population. We will be watching the numbers of EU applications in the run-up to the January deadline, especially now that the government has confirmed arrangements for continuing access to student loans for 2017 courses.” Dr Wendy Piatt, director general of the Russell Group, said the latest Ucas figures were broadly back in line with where they were in 2014. “While it is too early to know the reasons for the decline, we would be concerned if EU students were deterred from applying to our world-class universities because of Brexit.”
Cult heroes: Moodymann – the enigma who remade dance music For a certain type of cult musical hero, a significant part of the appeal lies in remaining resolutely unknowable. Moodymann, a producer of obstinately beautiful house music, exemplifies this idea, his history a mesh of half-truths, rumours and silence that seems to refuse to resolve itself. As he puts it: “I don’t make music for the masses to dance to. I make music for the small majority that listens.” In the mid-90s, when the first Moodymann releases started filtering into European record stores, all we knew about him was that he was called Kenny Dixon Jr, he came from Detroit (and was proud of it), he had a family background in jazz, and he ran his own record label, KDJ. He seemed angry, too. A spoken-word introduction to I Can’t Kick This Feeling When It Hits lambasted producers who tried to pass their music off as coming from Detroit. “I’m tired of motherfuckers coming up and telling me that 80% of material from Detroit ain’t good material,” he intoned solemnly, over a sun-warped synth line. “You see, what you don’t understand is that 80% of that shit ain’t from Detroit. So don’t be misled.” We were left to judge him by his music. In the 90s, for many dance music fans, house meant the shiny, upbeat sounds of New York, from Masters at Work to Mood II Swing, productions that were buffed to an immaculate sheen that wouldn’t sound out of place at a suburban wedding. Techno, on the other hand, was nasty and dirty, the kind of thing your mum would shake her head at, issuing from the sinking city of Detroit. But Moodymann turned that upside down. Here was house music that stank; house music with dirty teeth that hadn’t changed its T-shirt; house music where you could hear the grit soaked into every groove. There’s nothing particularly complicated about Moodymann’s music – most tracks consist of a few simple loops and filters. But it’s full of atmosphere, crowd noise and voices cutting in almost at random, undercut by unsettling synths that set the hair on end. Listening to his records, you can imagine Moodymann in his Detroit studio, working on tracks until he finishes them or passes out, because they simply have to be made. He has a distinctive way of using these samples, too, jerking the drums out from underneath the listener just as they are getting comfortable or, as on Shades of Jae, teasing with two and a half minutes of tightly coiled vocal, keys and tambourine, before unleashing a single bar of kick drum that invariably makes dancers go mad. European audiences lapped it up. I Can’t Kick This Feeling When It Hits – originally released in 1996 – exemplifies Moodymann’s minimal ethos. The song takes a couple of samples from Chic’s I Want Your Love and rides them to a point of utter hypnotic musicality, the track’s simplicity a trap for the unsuspecting listener, who risks losing their mind in the hall of mirrors of warped repetition. In the absence of biographical detail, the samples Moodymann used told us a lot about him. Alongside Chic there were staples of black American music such as Marvin Gaye – lots of Marvin Gaye, none more so than on tribute track Tribute (To the Soul We Lost) – as well as Prince, Curtis Mayfield and Quincy Jones. Here, the samples suggested, was a producer with one eye on the future, yet firmly rooted in musical history. “People ask me, ‘What kind of music do you like?’” Dixon told the audience during a rare interview at the Red Bull Music Academy, London, in 2010. “Well, I prefer to like pretty good music. There is good and there’s real good. Just like any artwork, there is some music you want to hang around and some music you don’t want to hang around.” As the 90s turned into the 2000s, Moodymann started to emerge from the shadows. Carl Craig’s Planet E Records released the Silentintroduction compilation in 1997, followed by a string of albums on UK indie label Peacefrog, which took Moodyman’s music into HMV. He started to DJ more, too, his brilliant selections winning admirers all over Europe. For all that, he remained a confusing figure. Dixon didn’t give an interview until 2007 (with Gilles Peterson on Radio 1) and his releases housed a maze of alternate versions, odd mixes and mislabelled tracks that threatened to send record collectors to an early grave, songs turning up under different names and in different mixes apparently on a whim. He later said that it was the result of financial constraints. “I had to save money. I can’t be changing a bunch of labels,” he said. “But actually, there’s as many as four different B-sides. You can get that same 12in – you have no idea – there are four different B-sides.” The Red Bull interview, which you can see online, saw Moodymann lift the curtain further. It is quite a piece of theatre. Dixon, in town to promote a roller disco, takes to the stage in a skimpy white vest and red sunglasses, accompanied by four women in Moodymann T-shirts, one of whom proceeds to tend to his hair. He then charms the audience over 90 hugely entertaining minutes, in a way that seems at odds with his earlier, prickly image. The interview is fascinating, covering everything from his experience on roller skates to his relationship with his family. And while he clears many things up, much of the enigma remains. His first release was, he said, recorded in an hour in a Guitar Center shop on two tape decks, then released six months later (possibly in 1992, he doesn’t really remember). He hinted at having produced other artists at the start of his career and revealed that he had stolen his father’s record collection. “My father is a different cat, a lot of our views are very different,” he said. “Me and him at the moment are really not getting along, but that is his views, that [is] his world, that is his situation. Yes, I stole all his records. Fuck it, he ain’t playing the motherfuckers nowhere.” If anything, Moodymann’s legend only grew after this public appearance, which gave a carefully orchestrated glimpse into his musical world without revealing too much, leaving new questions unanswered (what’s going on with his father? What happened to that first record?) as older ones were put to bed. In 2016, more than 20 years after his first release, Moodymann seems stronger than ever. His 2008 mini album Det.riot ’67 was a brilliant distillation of his various musical shades, including straight up, joy-filled vocal disco (Hello 2morrow), darkly erotic techno (Freeki Mutha F cker) and edgy, paranoid house (Det.riot, which relates the story of the 1967 Detroit riot), while his last studio album, 2014’s Moodymann (a 27-track mixture of old and new material, the vinyl editions of which came packed with seemingly random bonus CDs), was one of his most high-profile releases in years. The last six months, meanwhile, have seen the release of a 7in single for the clothing company Carhartt, as well as Dixon’s first mix CD of other people’s music, for DJ Kicks. Journalists who received the DJ Kicks promo were politely informed that Moodymann wouldn’t be doing interviews, which came as no surprise. But perhaps he didn’t need to: the mix is typically idiosyncratic, a brilliantly confounding collection of music, where the disco house of Daniel Bortz ambles into José González’ beat-less acoustics and a piano take on Anne Clark’s Our Darkness forms an unusual start to the mix’s climax. It speaks, in other words, of a very singular artist who remains reassuringly unknowable, a musical enigma to the end.
Liverpool: Mamadou Sakho controversy weighs heavy on Klopp’s shoulders Jürgen Klopp lamented seven squandered points that have cost Liverpool a shot at a top-four finish but was well aware the bigger problem lay beyond his control and was the one he could not discuss. Mamadou Sakho took a seat in an executive box on Saturday and, worryingly for Klopp before the Europa League semi-final, he will remain nothing more than a formidable distraction for the foreseeable future. The threat of a lengthy ban hangs over Sakho for failing a drug test submitted after Liverpool’s Europa League game at Manchester United on 17 March. A fat-burning substance is reportedly what contravened Uefa’s rules – if confirmed, a six- to 12-month suspension is likely – and it is believed Brendan Rodgers dropped the £19m defender against Stoke City and Bournemouth at the start of the season for being overweight. Sakho has until Tuesday to request that his B sample is tested and provide an explanation to Uefa. Only then will Klopp, who decided with the club’s hierarchy not to consider Sakho for selection while Uefa investigates, comment on the controversy. It is the last thing the Liverpool manager needs with Villarreal on Thursday and three more key players – Divock Origi, Emre Can and the captain Jordan Henderson – sidelined through injury. Blowing a two-goal lead against relegation-threatened Newcastle United was in keeping with Klopp’s day. “We cannot change it,” he said of Liverpool’s injury list. “The whole season was very intensive, we never gave up, so it was not a case of being too intensive. We are close. In exactly the same season, with not a second of better football, Sunderland, Southampton, and now Newcastle. Seven points more and we are challenging for something. You have to accept it. “The players are not injured because they are tired. In a moment, it happens. Hendo was different to Emre. Divock was a senseless challenge, he [Ramiro Funes Mori] didn’t need to do it. It happened. But the momentum is not about having the best squad ready to play. Momentum is to be ready to fight. Villarreal also have had a lot of games, they have to fight in the league, they play after our game against Real Sociedad and have a little fight for the Champions League. We need to be prepared. It isn’t about always having the best players but being perfectly prepared for our next game. Then, we can go on.” While Klopp called for fight from Liverpool, Rafael Benítez appealed for belief and passion from Newcastle. The two managers have different objectives for the rest of the season but as one runs out of options and the other out of games, both believe character will determine whether they are achieved. Hope is growing around Benítez’s team, in tandem with form, team cohesion and their results, but with only Crystal Palace, Aston Villa and Tottenham Hotspur to play it may have arrived too late. Just like their manager, who received a rapturous reception from both sets of supporters at Anfield. Liverpool cruised to a two-goal lead at the interval as Daniel Sturridge punished weak marking with a fine goal and Adam Lallana ended a flowing move with an outstanding finish into the top corner from 20 yards. Newcastle’s initial approach betrayed the lack of belief in a team that had lost their past nine away league matches. But then Simon Mignolet flapped at Vurnon Anita’s cross, Papiss Cissé headed in, and the visitors were rejuvenated. Jack Colback’s deflected finish after another cross from the right caused panic in the Sakho-less Liverpool rearguard delivered their first point on the road since 13 December. “We talked at half-time about having nothing to lose,” Benítez said. “I think the reaction of the players was fine. I’m pleased we have the point. The first half was concerning about the mistakes we were making but the reaction is the main positive thing we can take from this game. “There are three important games to play and if we can play like we did in the second half then fine. I know we have to improve on the ball but if we have the same spirit we can keep the momentum. “The players have belief. They know we can change things and it is easier for me to change the positions of the players when we have to – to press here, press there – maybe play counterattack. They have a better idea but you need time.” Man of the match Vurnon Anita (Newcastle United)
Texas measure requiring burial of fetal remains may herald wave of similar laws A controversial new rule requiring Texas abortion clinics to bury or cremate fetal tissue won’t go into effect Monday as planned, after a judge temporarily blocked the rule Thursday. But abortion advocates warn the lawsuit has teed up a battle that could open up a brand-new front in the abortion wars. “This is Texas once again trying to decrease women’s access to abortion care,” said Vicki Saporta, the president of the National Abortion Federation, a member organization for independent abortion clinics. “And Texas, in recent memory, has been leading the way on anti-abortion restrictions.” She predicted that a wave of states with anti-abortion legislatures would soon follow suit. “They don’t do anything one at a time.” The rules, which Texas’ health department quietly introduced this summer, require healthcare facilities to dispose of fetal remains from abortions and miscarriages through burial or cremation, with the only exceptions for miscarriages and abortions that take place in the home. Whole Woman’s Health, a group of abortion clinics with several locations in Texas, filed suit, claiming the logistics of following the new rules could force clinics to close or drive up the cost of the procedure. “It imposes a funeral ritual on women,” the suit claims. “It also forces healthcare providers to work with an extremely limited number of third-party vendors for burial or scattering ashes, threatening abortion clinics’ provision of care and their long-term ability to remain open.” The rule was slated to take effect on 19 December. But on Thursday, a federal judge temporarily blocked the rule until a hearing on the Whole Woman’s Health lawsuit could be held in January. Texas is not the first state to pass requirements for how abortion clinics deal with fetal remains. But because the state often sets the agenda for others seeking to curtail abortion rights, its court fight could signal that a wave of similar laws is coming. Louisiana passed a similar measure which has been blocked pending the outcome of a lawsuit. And in March of this year, Indiana governor Mike Pence, the vice-president elect, signed a bill requiring individual women to seek funerary services for fetal tissue – regardless of whether they have had a miscarriage or an abortion. A federal judge blocked that law from taking effect. Clinics typically dispose of the contents of a pregnancy through medical waste companies. The new rules, say Texas abortion providers, would force clinics to do business with funeral homes and pass on steep costs to abortion patients. According to one estimate, the rules would double the cost of the procedure. “For women who are already struggling to pay, it could be a barrier and a burden that they can’t overcome,” said Saporta. Saporta also pointed out that funeral homes would have the power to prevent abortion clinics from offering the procedure by refusing to handle their fetal tissue. Anti-abortion protesters have been known to harass companies that do business with clinics as a way to interrupt the clinics’ operations. As a consequence, many companies are reluctant to work with abortion clinics. The recent wave of proposals to regulate clinics’ medical waste may have been touched off by Americans United for Life, an anti-abortion group that provides lawmakers around the country with legal advice and model legislation. In 2015, it introduced a new model bill called the Unborn Infants Protection Act, requiring all fetal tissue from abortions to be buried or cremated. Under the bill, either the woman must make the arrangements herself, or she or an “authorized representative” must decide which method the clinics use. It prohibits the donation of the tissue to medical research – an endeavor that has produced vaccines for deadly viruses such as polio. “The momentum for creating a culture that respects life in the law increases each year,” Charmaine Yoest, the group’s president at the time, said in a statement accompanying the draft legislation. The bill, she said, “ensures that mothers are given the opportunity to ensure that their deceased infants receive respectful treatment, and that the bodies of aborted infants are not exploited”. AUL circulated the draft bill to state legislators late last year. At the time, many anti-abortion lawmakers were seeking to build on the outrage over a series of sting videos that falsely accused Planned Parenthood officials of illegally selling fetal tissue from abortions for profit. One state where legislators seem to have embraced the model is Ohio. Following on the heels of the sting videos, the state’s attorney general accused Planned Parenthood of disposing of fetal remains in a general landfill – a charge Planned Parenthood denied. Lawmakers responded by introducing a bill that requires women who have had an abortion or a miscarriage to decide whether the clinic or hospital uses cremation or burial to dispose of the remains. “The idea of respectfully treating the remains of an infant who has been aborted, I think, is critical,” said one of the bill’s sponsors. So far, it has failed to pass the legislature. Bills such as these may be an attempt to exploit uneasy feelings about fetal tissue. Even Planned Parenthood, in the wake of the sting videos, acknowledged that the topic was an emotional one. While denying that Planned Parenthood broke the law, Cecile Richards, the group’s president, apologized for the clinical tone used by Planned Parenthood officials when discussing fetal remains. Saporta acknowledged that some women might find it helpful to have the remains buried or cremated. But forcing a woman to deal with funerary options, she said, is cruel. “This doesn’t take into account women’s preferences, their wishes, their religious beliefs – it tramples on all of that,” she said. Speaking to the earlier this year, other skeptics of the model legislation warned of its potential adverse impact. “They intend to demean and shame a woman needing abortion,” said Kelly Baden, the policy director of the the Center for Reproductive Rights. Elizabeth Nash, who tracks state restrictions on abortion for the Guttmacher Institute, a pro-abortion rights thinktank, said: “The language being used is all about trying to elevate the status of the fetus while questioning the women’s decision-making. It seems to me that the purpose of this legislation is to make accessing services as unpleasant as possible.” What stands out to critics about Texas’ rule is its timing. The Texas health commission proposed the rule on 1 July, just days after the US supreme court struck down a health restriction that would have shuttered half of the state’s abortion clinics. “They didn’t like the fact that they lost, and now they’re looking for new ways to limit women’s access to abortion care,” said Saporta. In a fundraising email, Greg Abbott, Texas’ Republican governor, said the rules would “help make Texas the strongest pro-life state in the nation”. Texas says its critics are blowing the impact of the rules out of proportion. The annual cost to each clinic probably won’t exceed $500, the state claims, because it will be offset by a reduction in medical waste disposal costs. But a spokesperson for the Texas Funeral Directors Association said each burial could cost clinics and hospitals more than $1,000. (The way the rule is written, some believe that even remains that are cremated would have to then be interred.) He also worried that the rules could prove burdensome to funeral homes, which usually offer their services for free to parents who are grieving for a miscarriage and want to hold a funeral. If every miscarriage in the state were subject to these rules, he said, that practice could become unsustainable. Saporta said she was confident that Whole Woman’s Health would prevail in court. The June supreme court ruling that struck down several Texas restrictions held that states regulating abortion for health reasons had to show evidence that its regulations were medically necessary. “There’s no health reason whatsoever for these requirements,” she said. “All the state health department wants to do is increase costs for women and make abortion care less accessible. It’s not even disguised as anything else. “I think the courts will strike these laws down,” she continued. “But that doesn’t preclude other states from passing the same legislation, and wasting a lot of money and effort.” This article was amended on 20 December 2016 to clarify that Charmaine Yoest is a former president of Americans United for Life.
US Senate passes $6.2bn health bill to expedite approval for drugs The US Senate passed a mammoth health bill on Wednesday that took two years to negotiate and boasts broad, bipartisan support. The bill is now on its way to Barack Obama’s desk. On Wednesday, he said he looked forward to signing it. “We are now one step closer to ending cancer as we know it, unlocking cures for diseases like Alzheimer’s, and helping people seeking treatment for opioid addiction finally get the help they need,” the president said in a statement. “The bipartisan passage of the 21st Century Cures Act is an example of the progress we can make when people from both parties work together to improve the health of our families, friends and neighbors.” Like many bipartisan works, the $6.2bn 21st Century Cures Act is chock full of compromises. Critics argue it is part of a “deregulatory agenda” that dilutes high Food and Drug Administration (FDA) standards in return for the unrealized promise of biomedical research funding. High-profile liberal senators, such as the Democrats Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, and some consumer groups have criticized what they see as “giveaways” to the pharmaceutical industry. Proponents call the bill’s mental health, opioid addiction, and brain and cancer research provisions a boon to public health. Republican backers have heralded the bill as “transformational” and “life-saving”, and some not-for-profit groups such as the American Cancer Society have also expressed support. “Patients, doctors and scientists are supporting 21st Century Cures,” said the Republican Senate health committee chairman, Lamar Alexander, in a statement on Monday. The Democratic Colorado congresswoman Diana DeGette called the bill a “watershed moment for patients”. “We’re bringing hope to millions of people suffering from cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes and a host of other ailments,” she said. Caitlin Morris, a health system program director at Families USA, a patient advocacy group that has not taken a public position on the bill, said: “The intent of the law is to create additional pathways for new drugs to come to market quickly, ... That carries both risks and benefits, and I think that is the heart of the contention of this bill.” Expedited approval Stuffed within its thousands of pages, the 21st Century Cures Act attempts to expedite approval of some drugs and medical devices – to the potential detriment of the public, consumer groups argue. “I think the negative concerning features of the bill are pretty substantial,” said Aaron Kesselheim, a physician, lawyer and associate professor in pharmacoeconomics at Harvard University. “We want innovation that works, and I think what this bill is about is trying to push through new treatments without first ensuring that they work.” One contentious provision, for example, directs the FDA to assess whether new drug uses, or indications, could be approved based on “real-world evidence”, such as observational studies. Currently, every indication needs to be approved using the “gold standard”, a randomized controlled trial, because such trials are considered less biased than observational studies. Physicians are permitted to prescribe drugs whether or not they are approved for indications other than those on the label, but drug companies cannot advertise the drugs for those uses. Faster approval of new indications could allow drug companies to advertise more quickly, but critics argue it would also create a “double standard” in terms of determining which drugs should be used to treat what. One example of common “off-label” prescribing is quetiapine, also known as Seroquel, a medication used to treat schizophrenia. It is commonly also prescribed to treat bipolar disorder, though this is not on the label. Stanford University pointed to this drug as one of the most “urgently needing study for off-label use”. “You are loosening certain restrictions,” said Morris. “On the one hand, it will get it to market sooner for folks that might benefit sooner, but on the other hand might lower the level of confidence we have on the safety and the efficacy of drugs we have and provide.” Another measure would reclassify some medical devices, instruments permanently implanted in patients, as “breakthrough devices”. “The last thing we need to do is any further weakening of this process,” said Michael Carome, a physician and director of Public Citizen’s Health Research Group, a consumer advocacy group, referring to medical device approval. “It’s already too lax. It’s already an expedited process, but [the] ‘breakthrough devices’ [provision in the new bill] would further rush the process and allow smaller clinical trials.” The bill does nothing to address prescription drug prices, which 77% of Americans said were “unreasonable” as recently as September, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. The Cures Act expands innovation “vouchers”, a system under which drug companies can receive fast-track status for an application, and which critics have described as “broken”. Therapies derived from stem cells, called regenerative medicine, are given a push. “There’s already a great deal of quackery in the field,” said Carome, referring to regenerative medicine. “There are clinicians promoting these as cures for heart disease and Alzheimer’s … They should be subject to the most rigorous standards.” Some measures have, however, won support from influential organizations such as the American Cancer Society and the Mayo Clinic. The bill proposes $1bn in funding for opioid treatment, and $4.7bn for the National Institutes of Health to give more biomedical research grants to scientists. The bill also funds Vice-President Joe Biden’s “Moonshot” cancer research. But funding for the bill is subject to approval in forthcoming appropriations bills – now and for the next 10 years. So each Congress needs to approve the funding. Some are also concerned that $3.4bn comes from the Prevention and Public Health fund, a pot of cash meant to prevent hospital-acquired infections, chronic ailments, Alzheimer’s and cancer. According to an NPR and Center for Responsive Politics analysis, lobbyists arguing for or against the 21st Century Cures Act courted lawmakers to the tune of $192m this year, as nearly three lobbyists for every lawmaker poured into the capital.
Families of Americans killed by Mexican cartels sue HSBC for laundering billions Four families of Americans killed by Mexican drug cartels are suing British banking giant HSBC for allegedly contributing to their deaths by allowing the gangs to launder billions of dollars. It is a fresh setback for the bank, whose operations in Mexico have been under scrutiny by US authorities for years. The bank processed at least $881m in cash for Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel, regarded as the most powerful drug gang in the world, according to US authorities. The suit claims that HSBC “knowingly provided continuous and systematic material support to the cartels and their acts of terrorism by laundering billions of dollars for them. As a proximate result of HSBC’s material support to the Mexican drug cartels, numerous lives, including those of the Plaintiffs, have been destroyed”. It was filed on Tuesday in a federal court in the Texas border city of Brownsville. Rob Sherman, an HSBC spokesman, said in a statement that the bank intends to “vigorously” defend itself against the claims and is “committed to combating financial crime and [has] taken strict steps to help keep bad actors out of the global financial system”. In 2012 a US Senate report described the bank as having a “pervasively polluted” culture that saw it allow drug kingpins, rogue nations and terrorists to move hundreds of millions of dollars around the financial system. US prosecutors said that deposits at Mexican branches were so frequent that drug traffickers used boxes that were designed to fit perfectly through the teller windows. HSBC apologised, pledged to reform its procedures and paid a $1.9bn settlement to US authorities. On Tuesday a judge in New York said he would probably delay the release of a report by a federal monitor appointed to examine the level of HSBC’s compliance since that agreement. The lawsuit graphically details several murders at the hands of some of Mexico’s most brutal cartels. In one incident, Lesley Redelfs, a US consulate employee in the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juárez, and her husband, Arthur, a detention officer in El Paso, Texas, were ambushed after leaving a children’s birthday party in Juárez. Their SUV was sprayed with bullets and Lesley Redelfs, who was four months pregnant, was shot twice in the head. Her husband was gunned down as he tried to reach the border and their seven-month old daughter was found screaming in the back seat. Two months later, in May 2010, as Rafael Morales Valencia stepped outside a church after his wedding ceremony, assassins invaded the courtyard, forced the wedding party to the ground then kidnapped the groom, his uncle and his brother. They were transported to a safe house, tortured and asphyxiated by duct tape wrapped around their faces. “Driven by its desire to expand its business and increase revenue, HSBC intentionally implemented criminally deficient anti-money laundering programs, processes and controls, which were designed to guarantee that billions of dollars would go through its banks undetected or unreported. And that is exactly what happened,” the lawsuit alleges, claiming that due diligence processes at Mexican bank branches were non-existent or fabricated, allowing suspicious individuals to deposit hundreds of thousands or even millions of US dollars. The suit says that money laundering is essential to the cartels’ prosperity because “without the ability to place, layer, and integrate their illicit proceeds into the global financial network, the cartels’ ability to corrupt law enforcement and public officials, and acquire personnel, weapons, ammunition, vehicles, planes, communication devices, raw materials for drug production, and all other instrumentalities essential to their operations would be substantially impeded”. It describes the cartels’ activities as “terrorist acts” in a bid to argue that HSBC is liable under the US Anti-Terrorism Act, which allows survivors of terrorist acts to demand damages from organisations that provide material support to terrorists. HSBC and several other banks are the subjects of a lawsuit from US soldiers accusing them of financing terrorists who attacked American troops in Iraq. Arab Bank, headquartered in Jordan, was successfully sued by US citizens who brought claims under the Anti-Terrorism Act. It was accused of facilitating Hamas attacks. However, unlike Hamas, the Mexican groups are not designated as terrorist organisations by the US State Department. A 2011 attempt by a Texas congressman to put the top cartels on the list faltered amid concerns it would damage America’s relationship with Mexico and arguments that the groups do not fit the definition of terrorism as they are motivated by money rather than political ideology.
Hundreds of UK lawyers register in Ireland in Brexit insurance move More than 700 British solicitors have applied to register with the Law Society of Ireland this year as lawyers scramble to secure professional rights of audience in European courts. The precautionary investment, which cost each applicant about £300, is a way of guaranteeing access to the higher EU courts and tribunals in Luxembourg that deal with community law, which would be lost in the event of Brexit. Only lawyers from EU states can appear at the European court of justice. Ken Murphy, the director general of the Law Society of Ireland, confirmed that 543 solicitors from England and Wales and 21 solicitors from Northern Ireland have been admitted to the roll of solicitors in Ireland so far this year. A further 145 applications are being processed. The figures compare with an average of 50 to 100 admissions a year from England and Wales in previous years. “Of the EU member states, Ireland is the legal jurisdiction most equivalent to the UK,” said Murphy before the referendum. “We are both English-speaking, both common law jurisdictions and our legal institutions are much the same. This makes Ireland the destination of choice for solicitors in England, in particular, who are concerned about the possibility of the UK voting to leave the EU.” “The right to argue before EU tribunals such as the court of justice of the European Union is only afforded to lawyers qualified in an EU state. It is our understanding that the majority of the solicitors who are completing this process will continue to practise in London or Brussels and do not intend to set up a physical practice in Ireland.” Most of those applying this year from England and Wales cited Brexit as the reason for their registration. Stephen Denyer, the director of strategic relationships at the Law Society of England and Wales, said: “It’s a long-established practice for English solicitors to qualify as Irish solicitors. It works in both directions. We fully understand why these solicitors would think it was a useful insurance policy. No one knows actually what Brexit is going to look like.” Mickael Laurans, the head of the Law Society of England and Wales’s Brussels office, said: “A lot of people are applying. There’s a next step in order to practise but a lot of them are not going the full way and obtaining [an Irish] practising certificate. Maybe it’s an insurance policy.”
Pope reveals fondness for beauty vlogs in meeting with YouTubers Pope Francis demonstrated his digital credentials on Sunday by holding an intimate meeting with YouTube stars, throwing his support behind popular beauty videos and encouraging his celebrity guests to help young people create virtual identities. Immediately after the meeting Pope Francis addressed participants of an educational conference at the Vatican, attended by actors including Salma Hayek, Richard Gere and George Clooney, who was accompanied by his wife, human rights lawyer Amal Clooney. The eclectic group of 12 YouTubers addressing the pontiff included Louise Pentland, a British videomaker behind the Sprinkle of Glitter channel, who was praised by the pope for her fashion and beauty clips. “I am glad that you carry out the type of work you said, following the line of beauty, it’s a great thing. To preach beauty and show beauty helps neutralise aggression,” said the pope, sharing a table and laughing along with the video bloggers. The 50-minute meeting addressed a wide range of topics including extremism, identity and Diego Maradona – with the pope dodging a question about whether the footballer’s “hand of God” goal during the 1986 World Cup was truly an act of divine intervention. The pontiff instead advised the videomakers to help those of their followers who feel lost. “You can create a virtual identity; you belong to this circle at least virtually. From that you can start taking a path of optimism and hope,” he said. The YouTube personalities were invited to the Vatican from six continents and included Hayla Ghazal, whose comedy clips from Dubai are aimed at changing attitudes to women in the Middle East, and Dulce Candy, a Mexican-American who crossed the US border illegally as a young child. Migration was a common theme of the audience, with the pope saying he would never forget the wire fence he saw dividing the US and Mexico during a visit to the border in September. He also celebrated an Italian child who a day earlier had drawn a picture of children inviting a migrant to join their football game, while criticising European politicians for failing to create healthy policies that promote integration. Touching on extremism, Francis said such groups were not a symptom of one particular faith: “In all religions there is also a group of fundamentalists that believe they are the holders of the truth.” The pope concluded the meeting by thanking the participants for “giving me some of your youth as a gift”, marking the latest bid by the Vatican to reach out to young people online. In March the papal Instagram account was launched – under the Latin name “franciscus” – garnering 2.5 million followers of images and videos of the pope. Opening up to Instagram followed a February meeting between Francis and the company’s chief executive, Kevin Systrom, who described the moment as one of the most memorable experiences of his life. The Vatican’s digital-first strategy was already evident at the start of 2016 when the pope welcomed the former chief executive of Google, Eric Schmidt, to the heart of the Catholic Church. Despite the Vatican’s enthusiasm for social media, the current pope has described himself as a tech dinosaur and warned Catholics against putting their smartphones before real relationships. But he has also promoted the internet as a “gift from God” and a force for good; an approach he will likely take to the church’s World Youth Day in Poland this July.
Bon Iver: 22, a Million review – distressed, hyper-modern balladeering If anything, the latter-day recorded works of Bon Iver are testament that success does not solve everything. This is not a new idea – long before Kurt Cobain exited the stage, the arts have had their malcontents, mulling over pacts made with the fork-tailed fame fairy. But it is an idea that bears fresh examining, Justin Vernon believes, across 10 more tracks of racked, hyper-modern balladeering. 22, a Million proceeds further along the path of its predecessor, 2011’s Bon Iver, by combining innovative production techniques (Vernon and his producer invented a processor called the Messina) with increasingly fractured feeling. Song titles are rendered in a style that mixes glyphs with hacker-speak known as leet. On the eve of his third album, Vernon went to a Greek island in the off season to write. He found himself having panic attacks, singing “it might be over soon” into a portable sampler. Quite what “it” meant – means – remains intentionally moot. Vernon has hinted that the Bon Iver project might not last for ever. He may have been heartbroken again, as he was before 2008’s breakout For Emma, Forever Ago. Equally, the take-home for the listener on the delicate, Mahalia Jackson-sampling album opener, 22 (Over S∞∞n) may be that whatever situation you, the listener, are struggling with, it might be over soon too; everything is fleeting. Here and throughout the album, the pitch-shifted vocal samples recall Kanye West’s 00s productions hinging on sped-up soul; and the juxtaposition of gospel with highly processed digitals can’t help but recall the breakout years of Moby. The few conventional tunes there were on Bon Iver are even fewer here; melodies come in sketches. Although closure is offered in the final track, 1000000 Million, when a multi-tracked Vernon hits some bittersweet piano chords, listing his worries – “If it’s harmed me, it’s harmed me, it’ll harm,” he concludes, “I’ll let it in” – at no point can an equable Vernon “see for miles, miles, miles”, as he did on Bon Iver’s Holocene. This is not a criticism; more an acknowledgment that 22, a Million does not deal in structure or resolution, but in impressionistic agglomerations of sounds and words. If you want tunes, check out the Shouting Matches, Vernon’s blues-rock side project. 22, a Million offers numerology (22 is Justin’s number), instability (distressed tape techniques figure) and soul-searching, with the extraordinary 10 d E A T h b R E a s T ⚄ ⚄ as close as he’s come to contemporary R&B, all sub-bass menace and soul falsetto. Some of this album is audacious and borderline brilliant – a very modern a cappella, 715 – CRΣΣKS, is just Vernon’s singing, heavily processed – but in its pursuit of tremulous effects, it achieves more insubstantiality than he perhaps intended. Oblique lyrics provide few hand-holds; while his distress is palpable, it remains frustratingly nondescript.
Michail Antonio helps seal West Ham win as Aston Villa pay for Ayew stupidity Of all the reasons that Aston Villa look certain to be playing in the Championship next season, the most maddening is their unerring ability to tease their supporters with the idea that they are capable of pulling off one of the greatest escapes in Premier League history, only to ruin rare spells of encouragement by pressing the self-destruct button. Ever so briefly, ever so tantalisingly, Rémi Garde’s side had West Ham United on the ropes, and Jordan Ayew will struggle to explain what was going through his head when he jabbed his arm into Aaron Cresswell’s face and forced his team-mates to play for the next 73 minutes a man down. If only Villa had found a more productive way to channel that aggression, their position might not be so perilous. Instead they are bottom, 10 points behind Norwich in 17th place with 14 games to play, and afterwards Garde repeatedly turned down the chance to confirm that he will still be in charge at the end of the season following reports that he is considering his future after a month of inactivity in the transfer market. When the transfer window shut on Monday night, it appeared to be the cue for them to lift the white flag above Villa Park after the failure to make a single signing in January, creating the impression that the people who make the decisions at Villa have already given up, and only three minutes had passed before self-deprecating chants about relegation could be heard from the away end. Villa’s supporters later turned their ire on the club’s unpopular owner, Randy Lerner, and there was further dissent against the board after Cheikhou Kouyaté made it 2-0 in the 85th minute. While Slaven Bilic called Ayew’s red card the turning point, Garde refused to reveal what he said to the Ghanaian in the dressing room. “I am only speaking about the game at the moment,” Garde said. “It is not the time to answer this question.” However, this was less a game of two halves, more two wildly differing contests stuffed into a single 90 minutes. For the first 17 minutes, before Ayew was sent off, Villa outplayed West Ham and they should have had a penalty when Michail Antonio handled Gabriel Agbonlahor’s cross. But once Ayew made his sorry contribution, it was simply a question of waiting for West Ham to score and Bilic praised his side’s professionalism. Victory kept West Ham sixth, a point behind Manchester United. “Like the two previous games we have been denied a penalty, at West Brom and the home game against Leicester,” Garde said, before questioning whether Antonio’s opener in the 58th minute should have been disallowed for offside. All of which only served to heighten the frustration that accompanied Ayew’s moment of inexplicable folly. One second Villa had a throw-in deep on the right, the next Jon Moss was walking over to brandish his red card after Ayew lost his cool during an innocuous tussle with Cresswell, reacting to a shove from the West Ham left-back by flooring him with a forearm smash to his face. It was an act of pure selfishness from Ayew, a remarkably stupid way for Villa to relinquish their dominance. “Until the red card, they were there, confident,” Bilic said. Having started slowly, it took West Ham a while to adjust. Yet it was defence against attack after the break, West Ham increasing the tempo, Villa barely daring to cross the halfway line, Agbonlahor foraging fruitlessly on his own up front. Ineffective in the first half, Dimitri Payet’s influence grew and for all their resistance, it was only a matter of time before Villa cracked. Antonio, Mark Noble and Payet all went close before a curious piece of goalkeeping from Mark Bunn led to West Ham’s breakthrough. Although it was an excellent searching pass from Noble that caught out Aly Cissokho, who was out of position as the ball sailed over his head, Antonio still had a lot to do from a tight angle on the right of the Villa area. Yet even though it was a cleverly improvised header from Antonio, Bunn seemed to think that it was going wide and hardly reacted at all, almost watching the ball spin into the far corner. Bunn’s error was Villa’s season in a nutshell and just when they were pushing for a late equaliser, West Ham broke and Kouyaté finished calmly after fine work from Enner Valencia.
Why such modesty, Mr Hammond? Now that letting agents’ fees will be abolished (Report, 24 November), attention could turn to that other concealed charge, the booking fee. York’s Barbican and its agents levy a 12.5% fee on card purchases. They charge no such fee on cash payments, despite the fact that it costs them more to handle cash than debit cards. If rents go up as a result of the abolition of letting agents’ fees, and the price of concert tickets rises if booking fees are outlawed, we shall at least have a more honest market. Steven Burkeman York • The insurance premium tax was invented by the Tories in 1997, and set at 4%. Labour strongly condemned it, but in power increased it to 5%. The Tories have since increased it to 6%, 9.5%, 10%, and now 12%. Someone has to pay for the Tory election bribe not to increase income tax, national insurance, or VAT. John Richards Oxford • Nice to hear from Mr Hammond that we have saved £130 due to the freezing of petrol tax for seven years. He is a little modest. If we consider chimney tax (frozen 327 years, saving £25), soap tax (frozen 181 years, saving £20), brick tax (frozen 166 years, saving £15), window tax (frozen 165 years, saving £75) and playing card tax (frozen 56 years, saving £5) we have actually saved £270. Thank you very much, Mr Hammond. Ray Chalker London • So, now we know that for years to come we will have higher inflation, lower growth and higher borrowing – £58.7bn to be precise. After Brexit things were meant to get better. Alan Costley Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire • As a triple-locked pensioner whose “Jam” children and grandchildren survive on financial support from me, I’m wondering how things will pan out when pensioner poverty creeps back in under the Tories next year and my generation are no longer able to bail out their children? Chris Pickering Leeds • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com • Read more letters – click here to visit gu.com/letters
Deutsche Bank whistleblower rejects award because SEC 'went easy' on execs A Deutsche Bank whistleblower has turned down his share of the $16.5m whistleblower award, stating that the Security Exchange Commission (SEC) did not do enough to punish the executives responsible for the bank’s wrongdoing. Eric Ben-Artzi, a former risk officer, went to the regulators after he was fired by Deutsche Bank for raising alarm over the bank’s inflated valuation of its portfolio of credit derivatives. According to him, by imposing a $55m fine on the bank but letting the executives off scot-free, the SEC has instead punished the bank’s “rank-and-file” employees and shareholders. “I request that my share of the award be given to Deutsche and its stakeholders,” he wrote on Thursday in an opinion piece published by the Financial Times. (Ben-Artzi was eligible to receive $8.25m, according to the FT.) He noted that financial award was a “powerful incentive” when he first decided to help SEC and that he is not “at liberty to reject” the award since portion of it belongs to his lawyers and his ex-wife. Ben-Artzi said that the result of SEC’s lengthy investigation was “disappointing” and that “top executives retired with multimillion-dollar bonuses based on the misrepresentation of the bank’s balance sheet”. The reason why Deutsche Bank was only subject to a $55m fine is that its top lawyers have long been “revolved” in and out of the SEC, according to Ben-Artzi. “Robert Rice, the chief lawyer in charge of the internal investigation at Deutsche in 2011, became the SEC’s chief counsel in 2013,” he wrote. “Robert Khuzami, Deutsche’s top lawyer in North America, became head of the SEC’s enforcement division after the financial crisis. Their boss, Richard Walker, the bank’s longtime general counsel (he left the bank this year) was once head of enforcement at the SEC.” Ben-Artzi added that Mary Jo White, the current chair of the SEC, has known both Rice and Khuzami for as long as 20 years. She “bears the ultimate responsibility for the Deutsche fine”, he wrote. “We brought all of the charges supported by the evidence and the law, which were unanimously approved by the Commission,” Andrew Ceresney, director of the division of enforcement, said in a statement provided to the . White’s ties to the banking industry had previously drawn ire from Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren. Last year, Warren sent White a 13-page letter telling her that she found her performance as Wall Street’s top cop “disappointing”. Ben-Artzi, who was fired by Rice, said that being let go ruined his Wall Street career. He now works as vice-president of risk analytics at BondIT, a fixed-income portfolio management company. Sherron Watkins, who blew the whistle on accounting irregularities at Enron, previously said that more than a decade later she was unable to get a job in corporate America. “I have this label ‘whistleblower’ which is synonymous with troublemaker,” she said in 2014, before praising SEC’s whistleblower program. “That’s sort of the story of even the most well-known whistleblowers ... You are out of your industry. That’s why I welcome this program, because you have to reinvent yourself and it’s not always easy. Rarely do people have the notoriety that I have, where I am on the lecture circuit. It’s a problem.” In his op-ed, Ben-Artzi said that while he needs the award money “now more than ever”, he will “not join the looting” of the Deutsche Bank shareholders. “I never intended to turn a job in risk management into a crusade, but after suffering at the hands of the Deutsche executives I will not join them simply because I cannot beat them,” he wrote. He added that he would happily collect the award if the money was “clawed back from the bonuses paid to the Deutsche executives, especially the former top SEC attorneys”. Earlier this year, while awarding its second largest whistleblower award at $17m, SEC noted that the award program is instrumental in encouraging people with insider knowledge to come forward. By June, the SEC whistleblower program had awarded more than $85m to 32 whistleblowers. According to an analysis by the Wall Street Journal, more awards are coming. SEC settlements with State Street Corp and Bank of New York Mellon Corp could lead to a number of whistleblower awards totaling $100m, according to WSJ. Public coverage of the award announcement often leads to more tips being sent to the SEC. Yet as Ben-Artzi’s op-ed shows, the results are not always to the whistleblower’s liking. According to the Financial Times, Ben-Artzi is the first whistleblower to refuse an award since the program was launched in 2011.
US presidential candidates respond to attacks in Brussels The first responses of the five US presidential candidates to the attacks in Brussels included expressions of solidarity, vows to defeat “radical Islamic terrorism”, criticism of Barack Obama, calls for and against torture and calls for and against closed borders. One candidate, the Texas Republican Ted Cruz, called for “law enforcement to patrol and secure Muslim neighborhoods before they become radicalized”. The candidates’ initial responses are below. Donald Trump: close borders, ‘more than waterboarding’ The Republican frontrunner was the first presidential hopeful to respond to the Brussels attacks, tweeting and then appearing on multiple television shows to promote an anti-immigration policy and endorse torture. “We have to be very careful in the US, we have to be very vigilant as to who we let in this country,” he told Fox & Friends. Trump said if he were president, his strict immigration policies would already have been in a place. If he was in a position to respond to the Brussels attacks, he said, he would give US citizens a “pep talk”. He also endorsed the use of torture for people who have information on terrorists. “If they could expand the laws, I would do a lot more than waterboarding,” Trump told NBC’s Today Show. “You have to get the information from people.” He told Fox the attacks were “not our fault”, but rather the fault of immigrant communities that do not inform authorities about neighbors’ suspicious behavior. Ted Cruz: ‘Patrol and secure Muslim neighborhoods’ “We need to empower law enforcement to patrol and secure Muslim neighborhoods before they become radicalized,” Cruz said in a statement posted to Facebook, adding: “The days of the United States voluntarily surrendering to the enemy to show how progressive and enlightened we can be are at an end.” Our European allies are now seeing what comes of a toxic mix of migrants who have been infiltrated by terrorists and isolated, radical Muslim neighborhoods. We will do what we can to help them fight this scourge, and redouble our efforts to make sure it does not happen here. We need to immediately halt the flow of refugees from countries with a significant al-Qaida or Isis presence. We need to empower law enforcement to patrol and secure Muslim neighborhoods before they become radicalized. We need to secure the southern border to prevent terrorist infiltration. And we need to execute a coherent campaign to utterly destroy Isis. The days of the United States voluntarily surrendering to the enemy to show how progressive and enlightened we can be are at an end. Our country is at stake. He also said: Radical Islam is at war with us. For over seven years we have had a president who refuses to acknowledge this reality. And the truth is, we can never hope to defeat this evil so long as we refuse to even name it. That ends on 20 January 2017, when I am sworn in as president. We will name our enemy – radical Islamic terrorism. And we will defeat it. http://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2016/mar/22/brussels-terror-attacks-what-do-we-know-so-far-video-explainer Hillary Clinton: ‘vicious killers’ Terrorists have once again struck at the heart of Europe, but their campaign of hate and fear will not succeed. The people of Brussels, of Europe, and of the world will not be intimidated by these vicious killers. Today Americans stand in solidarity with our European allies. Our thoughts and prayers are with the families of those killed and wounded, and all the people of Belgium. These terrorists seek to undermine the democratic values that are the foundation of our alliance and our way of life, but they will never succeed. Today’s attacks will only strengthen our resolve to stand together as allies and defeat terrorism and radical jihadism around the world. Clinton also called in to the Today show. She called the attacks “deeply distressing” but said closed borders were not the answer, and the “dream of a whole, free Europe … should not be walked away from”. She opposed torture. Security officials “do not need to resort to torture, but they are going to need more help”, she said. John Kasich: ‘redouble efforts with our allies’ I want to express my solidarity with the people of Belgium in the aftermath of the attacks that took place in Brussels. Along with every American, I am sickened by the pictures of the carnage, by the injuries and by the loss of life. The wave of terror that has been unleashed in Europe and elsewhere around the world are attacks against our very way of life and against the democratic values upon which our political systems have been built. We and our allies must rededicate ourselves to these values of freedom and human rights. We must utterly reject the use of deadly acts of terror. We must also redouble our efforts with our allies to identify, root out and destroy the perpetrators of such acts of evil. Bernie Sanders: ‘barbarism cannot continue’ We offer our deepest condolences to the families who lost loved ones in this barbaric attack and to the people of Brussels who were the target of another cowardly attempt to terrorize innocent civilians. We stand with our European allies to offer any necessary assistance in these difficult times. Today’s attack is a brutal reminder that the international community must come together to destroy Isis. This type of barbarism cannot be allowed to continue.
The innovators: Irish lab develops coating to ward off superbug George Osborne was just one of the latest people to warn about the growing threat of antibiotic resistant superbugs, telling the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Washington last month that without urgent action the bugs would soon kill more people every year than cancer. The chancellor’s warning echoed the sentiments of many within the medical community. Infections such as MRSA which have developed resistance to drugs have become a notorious threat in hospitals, where the bacteria can survive on surfaces for up to seven months. But a new discovery by scientists in Ireland could soon be working to combat them. A research team led by Prof Suresh Pillai has developed a coating for everyday objects that prevents the spread of MRSA and E coli bacteria. The coating, which can be used on items such as smartphones, door handles and remote controls as well as surgical surfaces, has a 99.99% success rate in killing the bugs. John Browne, the chief executive of Dublin-based company Kastus, which is working to commercialise the solution, says: “It is very hard to get rid of these things once they are there. Some studies have shown that with a deep clean on an [intensive care unit] ward where there is a critical care bed in one room … the entire room is cleaned with bleach over a 24-hour period and the bacteria are back on the surface within 24 hours.” In a 2014 study, the resistance of MRSA to meticillin, one of the first antibiotics used to treat the bacteria, was at almost 12% in UK hospitals. Another study showed that almost 93% of writing tools taken from a group of 42 doctors were contaminated. The Kastus anti-microbial solution is made up of titanium oxide, with fluoride and copper. The solution is first baked on to a surface such as glass. When light is shined on it, a series of reactions on the surface of the material make it resistant to MRSA and E coli as well as trichophyton rubrum, the main cause of athlete’s foot. “You prepare the material in a water-based solution and spray it on the surface. It will form a thin coating on the surface and then you bake it in the oven or furnace and that will make a transparent thin film. You will not even see that there is a coating there,” says Pillai, who is from the nanotechnology research group at the Institute of Technology, Sligo. Any MRSA or E coli landing on the surface of the tile will die over the subsequent 24 hours, so the solution stops it forming a colony and spreading – in effect creating a reliably sterile surface, he says. Even when doctors adhere to proper hygiene practices, everyday objects and areas such as door handles and other surfaces can foster the bacteria. “In the [US], if you go into a hospital with a broken leg and get a case of MRSA and don’t survive it, your estate has to sue that hospital because the health insurance won’t pay because the hospital is being treated as liable. I think a lot of us know people who have gone into hospital for minor surgeries as patients and have contracted bugs,” says Browne. “I think we have all been in hospitals and we have seen dirt in floors and corners that have just not been cleaned. They are ceramic tiles. If there is a dirty corner then it is likely that the entire surface has been affected and it is likely that you are walking it through the building.” Browne aims to have the solution applied to smartphone and tablet screens, said to be fertile grounds for bacteria because they typically do not go through rigorous cleansing. In 2012, a man contracted Ebola after stealing a mobile phone from an isolation ward in Uganda. “The product is scaleable so the idea is that it gets out there and becomes a standard on smartphones and on ATMs. It is there and it is not adding any significant cost for the manufacturer of the end product,” he says. “You are using an eco product, it is safe and it is helping to stop the spread of harmful bacteria.” There is little hard data to show how wide a problem the spread of bacteria via mobile devices is, but they certainly harbour bacteria and some of the keenest interest in the new product has so far come from electronics companies. “Mobile phones contain 10 times more bacteria than the toilet seat because toilet seats are cleaned regularly and mobile phones are never cleaned,” says Pillai. There are plans to develop towels which will stop the spread of superbugs by the solution adhering to the fabric. “You need special types of spray or cottons which will withstand several washes,” he says. Pharmaceutical firms that use “clean rooms” for research will also be targeted, says Browne. “If a fungus enters a clean room, it could close a building down. A lot of these clean rooms are separated into different buildings to stop this happening. The cost to do that is enormous and if a fungus gets in, it is serious.” The company also plans to investigate possible uses for the technology in food packaging, for instance as the coating on a glass bottle. “There has been a test on milk bottles showing that an anti-bacterial coating can extend the life of milk by 15 days,” adds Browne.
Jeremy Corbyn must be true to his party on the EU, if not to himself The EU referendum exposes key political figures to the great Shakespearean question: to whom or what am I loyal? Earlier this year the justice secretary, Michael Gove, agonised over whether to be loyal to his friends, David Cameron and George Osborne, or to his conviction that the UK should leave the EU. He chose his conviction, and if he is on the winning side he will have destroyed the careers of his two friends. Some say that when Boris Johnson wrestled with the dilemma he chose loyalty to personal ambition although it was probably more complicated than that. Dilemmas usually are. The most complex and arguably the most significant are the loyalties of Jeremy Corbyn. Labour MPs tell me that the position of their traditional supporters is “flaky”. A senior figure from the north of England reports that nine out of 10 of her voters are for “out”. Another says that immigration is topping any other issue in driving his voters towards Brexit. A poll suggests that 45% of Labour voters do not know the party’s position on the EU. Partly unfairly, Corbyn is being blamed by some MPs for not campaigning more robustly. But some MPs and parts of the media would hold him responsible for heavy rain this weekend or England losing to Russia in the European Championship. Corbyn campaigns every day. His speeches are not as hostile to the EU as some reports suggest. To each rally he puts a strong case for Europe-wide cooperation in key policy areas. It is not at all unusual for party leaders to keep a relatively low profile in referendums. In the 1975 referendum Harold Wilson and Margaret Thatcher, the leaders of the two main parties, were not prominent. The main Conservative campaigner for “in” was Thatcher’s predecessor, Edward Heath, who looked furious on the few occasions when they shared a platform. Even so, if this were a referendum on, say, whether the UK should oppose the renewal of Trident I suspect we would have seen a lot more of the Labour leader. By that I mean we would have seen him on more of the outlets watched by millions. Corbyn has an understandable wariness of the mainstream media, but even in the world of Facebook, Twitter and Vice it is still the more orthodox outlets that command big audiences. Some of the TV debates this week have attracted more than 4 million viewers. Cameron was on peak-time ITV putting his case. George Osborne went up against Andrew Neil. Corbyn, thus far, nowhere to be seen. The question of conflicting loyalties that burdens all leaders and aspiring leaders is especially vivid for Corbyn. From 1983, when first elected as an MP, he answered the question with ease. Always he was loyal to his convictions, voting against the leadership when necessary. There were no agonies for him about whether there was a greater loyalty to party unity or to personal ambition. Then towards the end of his career he triumphantly acquired the crown, succeeding where many of those loyal to personal ambition have failed. Suddenly the question of loyalty takes new forms for him. Is he loyal to his convictions, party unity, winning an election? I assume that nowhere has the dilemma been more acute than over how to play the referendum. Corbyn is a follower of Tony Benn. During last year’s leadership contest he told a friend that he thought of Tony every day and it kept him going. From giving greater powers to local Labour parties to unilateral nuclear disarmament, and on to his opposition to military action in Syria, Corbyn is doing what Benn would have done. There is a single very big exception to this pattern and it is over the EU referendum. Benn was a passionate opponent of the UK’s membership, largely on the grounds of democratic accountability. In the 1975 referendum Benn put forward arguments similar to those being advanced by Michael Gove in the current campaign. Gove has become a prominent Tory Bennite, and Corbyn is Labour’s most prominent Bennite. But Corbyn is a Bennite who backs the remain campaign. Often he is an advocate at a distance, stating: “The Labour party has a clear position in favour of staying in the EU.” In a recent interview, Robert Peston cited the prediction of Corbyn’s brother that, in the privacy of the polling station, the Labour leader would vote to leave. Corbyn’s response was witty but evasive: “My brother is a weather forecaster and not a psychiatrist.” This was a limited rebuttal. It would be wrong to conclude that Corbyn is an unequivocal believer in “out”. He has chosen loyalty to his principles in other policy areas, supporting nuclear disarmament and opposing military action in Syria. Evidently, with some qualifications, he could see enough of a case for the EU to be able to prioritise party unity on this issue. But there is little point adopting such a position if voters conclude that deep down Corbyn backs “out”, or have no idea whether Labour has a position or not. With his distinctive public stance of sceptical support Corbyn might sway some doubters on the left and make more sense of his party’s wider campaign. There are plenty of model advocates. Both Caroline Lucas and Nicola Sturgeon have made powerful leftwing cases for membership. Corbyn can be a good interviewee on political programmes. But his suspicion of broadcasting outlets combines with ambiguity over the EU to convey distance rather than commitment. In the late 1980s, when Neil Kinnock was battling to persuade his party to drop its commitment to unilateral nuclear disarmament, a BBC interviewer asked him: “As leader of your party what is your personal position now on unilateralism?” Kinnock replied that “being leader of the Labour party and having a personal position is a contradiction in terms”. In the constant battle over loyalties a leader must show loyalty to the decision he has taken or has been forced to take by circumstance. Corbyn is for remain. He has a duty to reach the biggest possible audiences to explain why, whatever his private doubts. Leadership and loyalty take many forms and the stakes over the next fortnight are stratospherically high.
Joseph Fiennes: my family values People call my family a dynasty, but I’m not sure what a dynasty actually is. And I don’t feel part of one. It belies the truth of my real upbringing, which wasn’t grand at all; and it flies in the face of the fact that, at root, I’m just a jobbing actor. My background is certainly very rich and diverse though, and it is full of interesting characters. I think everyone around me played a part in raising me; there isn’t one individual I could pick out – it was more a case of it taking the whole village to raise the child. Also, I am much more interested in the process than the outcome and family life, of course, is always a process, always evolving. We were a big family. I’m one of six, and I have a foster brother as well. There was a strong sense of discipline as we were growing up: people seem to imagine we were raised in some kind of bohemian, Waltons-style setup, but it wasn’t like that at all. There was creativity, for sure, but it always went hand in hand with discipline. I was baptised a Catholic and, although I’m not a churchgoer now, I do have a strong sense of the integrity of doing what you believe to be true. I am a twin, but my brother and I aren’t identical so it’s not such a big deal. But when you share bunk beds and birthdays and a womb with someone, you have a special connection. It definitely feels different from the relationship I have with my other siblings – my twin and I are more connected. Jacob is a conservationist. We moved around a great deal: it was either 14 houses and 12 schools or the other way round, I can’t quite remember. Anyway, I was always the new kid in the playground. And the playground is a tough place for a child, more so if you are the new arrival. But I think I took something away from all that about how to collaborate and get along with people from different mindsets and backgrounds. As an actor, you are plunged into different worlds and you have to make it work. So when I arrive on a new set or a new production, I’m drawing on those skills I learned as the new boy, yet again, in the playground. Where does all this high achieving come from? [His eldest brother is the actor Ralph Fiennes; his sisters, Sophie and Martha, are both film director/producers; another older brother, Magnus, is a composer; his foster brother, Michael, is an archaeologist] I don’t know. There must be some malformed gene there or something, I don’t know. Are we rivals? Absolutely not – we all get on very well indeed. Now, we are all very conscious of the next generation coming along. I have two daughters, my siblings have children and there is a sense of them being at the centre of things. Becoming a father has changed me in all sorts of ways, as it would anyone. It has changed me as an actor. There is this wonderful, irrevocable moment when you realise that nothing is ever going to be the same again. And there are all these new challenges; and you realise that the focus isn’t you any more, it’s them now. It’s about giving up your ego in the face of something greater; being part of something bigger. Becoming a parent has made me more aware of the role my parents [now dead] played in my life, in all our lives. It seems impossible to believe that what my wife and I are doing for two children, they were doing for six; as time goes on, I feel greater and greater respect for them, for all they did for us, for pulling us through the way they did. • Joseph Fiennes stars in Risen, which is showing in cinemas now
Boris Johnson says NHS will get substantial extra funds after Brexit Boris Johnson has said the NHS will get substantial extra funding after Brexit, despite Theresa May’s refusal to endorse the leave campaign’s promise of an additional £100m a week. The foreign secretary strayed from his brief during BBC1’s Andrew Marr show to sign up the prime minister to a cash injection for health services during this parliament. During the leave campaign, one of Johnson’s central arguments was that leaving the EU would allow the UK to pump an extra £350m a week into the NHS, a figure that was later revised down to £100m. However, May declined to back that promise this month when she travelled to the G20 in Beijing. Johnson was pressed on the extra money for the NHS after Andrew Lansley, the former health secretary, suggested at least £5bn could be available to the NHS after Brexit. Asked whether the government could guarantee a “really substantial” extra amount of money per week for the NHS by 2020, Johnson said: “Well, yes, in the sense that clearly once we leave, and that isn’t possible until the final moment that of the change in our arrangements, and we take back control of the budgets we contribute to the EU. “Once that happens, clearly it will be possible for the UK government to spend people’s money on our priorities. And the number one priority for most people is the NHS. It sounds to me Andrew Lansley has got it right.” Johnson also aired his views on when the UK should leave the EU, despite No 10 sources making clear last week that this was a decision for May alone. He said the process should not be allowed to drag on and the UK should be out before May 2019 to avoid a new batch of British MEPs being elected to Brussels. That would imply article 50 would have to be triggered before May next year to allow two years of negotiations to take place. “There’s Euro elections coming down the track, and people will be wondering whether we will be wanting to send a fresh batch of MEPs to an institution we are going to be leaving,” Johnson said. He was not pressed on whether the UK should pursue a “hard” Brexit outside the single market with greater powers to restrict immigration, or “soft” Brexit preserving single market access but with fewer migration controls. He accused British businesses of being addicted to cheap migrant labour, claiming that for 25 years they had been “mainlining immigration like drugs” without caring enough about training young people from the UK. The appearance on Marr was the first major interview given by Johnson since he became foreign secretary in May’s government, after pulling out of the contest at the last minute when his campaign chief, Michael Gove, decided to challenge him. The former London mayor has kept a relatively low profile since the referendum, leading to speculation that he is being kept on a tight leash by No 10. On Sunday, an account of the EU referendum campaign by David Cameron’s former communications chief, Craig Oliver, revealed that Johnson was genuinely conflicted about whether to back leave or remain until the very last minute and accused him of being a “conflicted inner”. The account, in a book serialised in the Mail on Sunday, says Johnson vacillated, sending conflicting text messages to Cameron the day before he came out for Brexit. Oliver wrote: “I ask DC what makes him so sure Boris is wobbling. He reads out some parts of the text, including the phrase ‘depression is setting in’, followed by a clear sense that he’s reconsidering. Neither of us is left in any doubt.” The following day Cameron received a final text from Johnson saying he would be backing leave – just nine minutes before he publicly announced his intentions in a chaotic press conference outside his London home. Oliver said Cameron later phoned him to say Johnson’s final message had been clear that he did not expect to win, believing Brexit would be “crushed”. “He says Boris is really a ‘confused inner’, and their previous conversations confirmed that view to him,” he wrote.
Snooper's charter: GCHQ will be licensed 'to hack a major town' The security services are to receive a licence for hacking into the phones and laptops of a “major town” under the snooper’s charter legislation, which reaches the House of Lords next week. The broad nature of the hacking powers to be handed to GCHQ are disclosed in an obscure case study in a background Home Office document setting out the operational case for their use. This shows that all the phones and laptops in a “major town” could be hacked into, as long as the town were overseas and the action were necessary for national security purposes. The example used in the case study is identifying the phones and laptops being used by a terrorist group planning an attack on Western tourists in a major town. The home secretary, Theresa May, has asked the official terror law watchdog, David Anderson QC, to conduct a speedy review this summer of whether such “bulk powers” are needed by the security services, and whether the information cannot be gained by less intrusive means. The disclosure comes as the Liberal Democrats, who have 108 peers, say they intend to mount a strong challenge to the powers contained in the investigatory powers bill – as the snooper’s charter is officially known – when it reaches the House of Lords on Monday. The Lib Dems say there is a clear need for legislation after the Snowden revelations of mass harvesting of confidential personal digital data by GCHQ and the US National Security Agency, but that the “snooper’s charter” includes powers that are disproportionate and misguided. The Lib Dems intend to “tear out the worst elements of the bill”. The Lib Dem spokesman on the bill is Brian Paddick, a former deputy assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan police. He said these “worst elements” included the introduction of internet connection records – which track 12 months of web use. The Lib Dems also want to see the replacement of the home secretary’s powers to sign-off the most intrusive surveillance warrants by judicial authorisation. He said the Lib Dems would also be pressing for further safeguards to protect confidential journalist and legal sources from disclosure through police access to communications or metadata. Lord Paddick told the the bill allowed the state to target or harvest information about completely innocent members of the public. “The reason why it is called the ‘snooper’s charter’ is because it includes powers to store everyone’s web browsing history for 12 months. Despite renaming it as ‘internet connection records’, that is exactly what it requires communications service providers to do. “The police and security services can authorise themselves to access anyone’s web history on the basis that they are suspected of something or that an allegation has been made against them,” said Paddick. The Lib Dem briefing for the Lords stage of the bill says the government has underplayed the significance of internet connection records, trying to paint them as the equivalent of phone records. “It is clear that your web history reveals far more and would be akin to having a CCTV camera installed in your bedroom or a police officer following your every move,” the briefing says. Paddick said that MI6 and MI5 say these records are of limited value to them as they already access similar information by other means, so there was no real national security case for their introduction. He said the Lib Dems would be pressing for a compromise whereby the police would only gain access to the records through the security services, rather than directly. Labour voted in favour of the bill when it completed its Commons stages earlier this month, but the party is expected to ensure that further amendments are delivered during the Lords stages of the bill, to secure stronger protection for lawyers and journalists promised by the government. The second reading on Monday will be followed in a fortnight by the start of the committee stage. Consideration of the parts of the bill dealing with bulk powers will take place in September after Anderson has delivered his report. Key votes on the legislation are not expected until mid-October. • This article was amended on 22 June 2016. An earlier version said the Lib Dem spokesman on the investigatory powers bill, Brian Paddick, said the worst elements of the bill included the replacement by judicial authorisation of the home secretary’s powers to sign off the most intrusive surveillance warrants. In fact he said the Lib Dems were pressing for judicial authorisation.
Why US financial markets may not be immune to Brexit's ripple effects Three, two, one … Panic! With less than a week to go before British citizens have to decide whether they want to remain part of the European Union, investors in the United States are finally waking up to the fact that the outcome of that Brexit vote will actually have an impact on already-struggling financial markets at home. True, whatever happens to the Standard & Poor’s 500 stock index on 23 June, in response to the vote results, probably will pale in comparison to either the sigh of relief or the ripples of panic that will flow through Europe’s financial markets. But this is the 21st century; in less time than it takes to blink, much less read these words, news travels from one corner of the globe to another, and hedge funds and other large investors will respond equally rapidly. US investors have an unfortunate tendency, encouraged by the fact that the country’s stock market makes up at least half of the world’s market capitalization which makes it easy for us to never venture into foreign stocks, to forget that what happens abroad can take a toll on our returns. Indeed, we sometimes wake up to important global economic events – the near implosion of the European Union due to the catastrophic economic problems in Greece and the related problems in countries like Spain and Ireland; China’s slowdown – only when spills over into our own world. That’s why polls showing the Brexit vote may result in a majority of Britons voting to leave the EU are only now starting to rattle US financial markets, months after British and European stocks and bonds began feeling the chill. The tragic killing of British parliamentarian Jo Cox, shot and stabbed by a suspect who may have shouted “Britain first!”, a slogan associated with a far-right group and anti-immigrant protesters who also support Brexit, has led to a pause in the campaign, and the resulting lull in the heated debate may yet cause some to reconsider their votes. (Many Britons who say they will vote in favor of Brexit may end up doing so more out of a desire to curb immigration than any other factor.) But in the US, investors should take advantage of this opportunity – as well as a chance to contemplate the horrible extremes that heated political debate can produce – to contemplate what may be the short – and longer-term impact of a pro-Brexit vote, and prepare ourselves accordingly. Laurence Wormald, head of research at FIS, a financial technology company, has run a “stress test”, or a hypothetical scenario analysis, and calculated that if Britons vote in favor of Brexit, the S&P 500 would fall 5% and banking stocks would fall 8%, while volatility in the broader stock market would soar 40%. That’s the simple and straightforward scenario, however. If such a Brexit vote prompts other anti-EU parties in other countries to renegotiate their relationship with the European Union, that would create what FIS refers to as “exit contagion”. That would send British stocks down 20%, European stocks down 15%, and US stocks down 10%; volatility in British and European markets would double, and in the US market it would soar 60%. That would make the stock market a very, very uncomfortable place to be for the remainder of the year. There are plenty of reasons why the Brexit vote matters to US companies. Nearly a third of sales that these firms make throughout Europe are executed by their British subsidiaries; these tend to be their European headquarters. Paris, Frankfurt, Berlin, Amsterdam and other cities run distant seconds and thirds when it comes to establishing a European toehold for a US firm. But if Britain leaves the EU, companies will have to increase their costs and restructure their resources, maintaining access to both the EU and to Britain. It’s a particularly costly problem for the banks, since London – despite fierce and combative efforts by Milan, Paris, Frankfurt and Dublin – clearly has become Europe’s financial center. Banking analysts have already calculated that in the short term, at least, this would be yet another financial headwind for big banks such as JP Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, which would see their revenues slump (in response to the Brexit turmoil and the transition) and their costs climb as they have to relocate and lay off personnel. Little wonder that the banks have been putting forth some of the most dire warnings of what would happen following a pro-Brexit vote, with Goldman Sachs, at one point, arguing that the British pound could crash in value by as much as 20%. If you’re very worried about Brexit, you might want to take a look at your portfolio for a handful of stocks that have British subsidiaries that generate a hefty proportion of the parent company’s revenue. (Alternatively, these are companies whose stocks might be poised for a rebound if voters reject Brexit.) Helpfully, JP Morgan’s equity strategy team has put together a list of 22 companies that fall into that category, led by firms such as Penske Automotive, PPL Corp (an electric utility), PRA Health Sciences, investment firm Invesco Ltd, Xerox , Ford Motor, eBay, PayPal Holdings and Legg Mason. All of these companies rely on the UK to some extent, but we can’t really anticipate how they’ll respond to Brexit, however. That’s part of the problem. The Brexit-related market volatility relates to what investors think will happen in the future; it is the uncertainty that is making markets jittery today. Then, too, the referendum’s results aren’t binding; Britain’s parliament would have to develop and pass the necessary legislation, and that will at least take time. Only after both voters and parliament approve Brexit, and it becomes law and is implemented, will we be able to gauge what it means for business and financial markets. While the latter always try to anticipate, rather than react, to events, an event as seismic as Britain’s departure from the European Union simply can’t be compared to trying to predict, say, a company’s next quarterly earnings. There are twin risks associated with Brexit right now for US investors. The first is to simply ignore the looming vote, and its short-term risks and the potential longer-term ramifications of a “yes” vote. The second is to give it too much weight. The trick for at least the next week will be walking that very fine line.
Controversial 'lost' Leonardo DiCaprio film Don's Plum removed from web Don’s Plum, the low-budget 90s indie drama starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey Maguire that appeared online last month, has disappeared once more into the Hollywood ether after its stars took action to have it removed from the web. Their move – a copyright complaint to Vimeo – parallels events in 1999 that also removed the film, at least partially, from view. Concerned that the black and white improvisational feature, tagged “not for public consumption”, might damage their reputations, DiCaprio and Maguire – who was then soon to star in the movie version of Spider-Man – were involved in legal action against the makers. They claimed they regarded Don’s Plum as the equivalent of an acting workshop and had never intended to make a full-length feature for theatrical release. In a settlement, it was ruled that the film – which captured the youthful LA tomfoolery of a loose assortment of up-and-coming actors once tagged by New York Magazine as the “Pussy Posse” – could never be sold or exhibited in either the US or Canada, though it later debuted at the Berlin film festival in 2001. Time Out New York critic Mike D’Angelo called it “the best film in Berlin” and compared co-director RD Robb’s work favourably to Larry Clark’s Kids, which launched the careers of Chloë Sevigny and Rosario Dawson, though Variety labelled the drama’s characters an “unpleasant and tedious ensemble”. “It breaks my heart to inform you that Leonardo DiCaprio has once again blocked […] audiences from enjoying Don’s Plum,” revealed writer-producer Dale Wheatley, who had uploaded the film for free to his website. “It’s a sad commentary that in 2016 we witness the suppression of film and art by one of America’s most beloved actors. If only DiCaprio would follow in the footsteps of the director who admires and works with more than any other, Martin Scorsese, and preserve American cinema rather than suppress it. I will appeal Vimeo’s decision to overlook my fair use copyright as an author of the material.” Don’s Plum was filmed in 1995 and 1996 by first time directors RD Robb and John Schindler, and also features Kevin Connolly, best known for the TV series and film Entourage. An ensemble drama about angst-ridden twentysomethings who congregate around a Hollywood diner, it was shot for $100,000 (£68,590) in the days before the actors were famous. In an open letter to DiCaprio on his website to accompany its unauthorised online debut last month, Wheatley continued to deny the film-makers ever misled their cast members. “I hope it’s becoming clear to you that it is absolute nonsense to characterise us as a bunch of evil film-makers who fiendishly tried to turn a short piece of art into a longer piece of art,” he wrote. “The film certainly evolved and we all evolved along with it.” Don’s Plum had appeared online with DiCaprio currently experiencing a new career high, thanks to his acclaimed turn in Alejandro González Iñárritu’s harrowing western The Revenant. The 41-year-old actor is the bookmaker’s runaway favourite to take the best actor prize at next month’s Oscars, following his fifth nomination for an acting Academy Award.
Unlock the vaults: the Bank of France opens the door on its data The French central bank has kept the financial affairs of the state, industry and citizens contained securely and discreetly within its grand mansion house headquarters in Paris for more than two centuries. But now its doors are opening to allow unprecedented scrutiny of the detailed records it holds. Last month Banque de France governor, François Villeroy de Galhau announced the opening of an open data room, where researchers will be able to explore 400m lines of anonymised data about financial services, companies and households. Open data is no defence against future financial shocks or banking crises, said Villeroy de Galhau at the inauguration of the new facility. But the governor hoped new models of risk or early warning systems might emerge from detailed analysis of the bank’s vast, granular datasets. This was the start of a new era of “transparency and innovation” at the Banque de France, he added. Does the room live up to its name? Is this truly open data or a widening of access to big data? Many central banks, including the Banque de France, the German Bundesbank and the Bank of England, have published free-to-access, time-series statistics online about national economic performance for some years. Indeed, the Bank of England describes sharing more macro-economic data online as a strategic priority. But publishing macro-economic data about the state of the nation is less contentious than sharing micro-economic data: granular information about individual households or companies. Still, sharing data has proved more contentious amid concerns about privacy. Academics and privacy campaigners warn that sensitive information could be “de-anonymised” if separate datasets are combined. So, to take advantage of the Banque de France’s new open data room and explore its micro-economic datasets, researchers must apply for access. Their research proposals are vetted by a panel drawn from senior figures at the bank, the economic research centre CEPII and the HEC business school in Paris. If approval is granted, researchers can only access the datasets using three computer terminals in a corner office at the bank’s Directorate of Statistics in rue du Louvre in Paris’s first arrondissement. “Strictly speaking, it’s not open data as it’s not free of restrictions on who accesses it,” says Carla Bonina, lecturer in entrepreneurship and innovation at Surrey Business School. “If you have to show credentials to access data, that’s not what open data is. But I really welcome the move by the Banque de France as a sign that financial services are not going to be excluded from the open data movement.” Attitudes to data The move by the French central bank also underlines different attitudes towards open data in different countries. While Villeroy de Galhau linked open data to potential improvements to economic policy and governance, debate in the UK has focused on competition, with British regulators exploring how widening access to data can increase consumer choice. Elsewhere, in Central or South America, for example, transparency as the antidote to corruption has been the driving issue towards openness. “What I see very clearly in the field of financial services is that the UK has an agenda that open data means business,” says Bonina. “If you move to other regions, for example Latin America, that agenda lags behind because people are hoping to use open data for other purposes, democracy and transparency, perhaps because those principles or goals are far more a priority in the region. “Of course, there have been a lot of startups that are engaged in democracy and transparency here too, but again, business interest in open data is very strong in the UK.” The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) declared this summer that British financial institutions should implement an “open banking system” by early 2018. This followed efforts earlier in the year by a UK working group of open data experts, bankers and fintech specialists to develop an “open banking standard”. The broad aim of open banking is to make it easier for customers to manage money across different financial services providers. Instead of juggling separate accounts, open banking would give consumers a rounded view of their financial position across different providers “through a single digital app”. That means consumers would have more power to choose how to share and consolidate their data across different financial providers. Open banking and challenger brands But open banking could also help new firms enter a market dominated by long-established, national and international brands. According to a statement released by the CMA this summer: “Older and larger banks do not have to compete hard enough for customers’ business, and smaller and newer banks find it difficult to grow.” But the co-founder of one new UK challenger bank said the larger question was not ease of access to granular data, which banks can acquire from credit reference agencies, but who controls it. Tom Blomfield, co-founder and CEO of Monzo, believes that the UK approach to data sharing appeared to have different core motives – creating consumer benefit via competition – compared to what was happening in France. But Blomfield adds: “Looking beyond financial services, machine learning and AI will dramatically impact society in the next 10 years. But crucial to machine learning is a huge quantity of data. So, whoever has the most data will win: that’s basically Facebook and Google.” Bonina agrees: “It’s not the same for you and me to sit at a computer and try to use datasets we find interesting compared to big companies like Google, Facebook or banks which have computing power to really process the data. “The idea that the average citizen is empowered just because they have access to data is not really accurate. We still need more debate about who benefits from openness?” The future So, fast-forward five years: will the move towards more open data by the Banque de France lead to better protection against economic shocks? Will an open banking standard in the UK lead to better choices and more control for consumers in practice? Time will tell. But the difference in emphasis in the UK and France represent different notions of how widening access to data can serve the public good. Neither is right, nor wrong – but combined they represent a powerful argument for more openness with financial data in future. To get weekly news analysis, job alerts and event notifications direct to your inbox, sign up free for Media & Tech Network membership. All Media & Tech Network content is editorially independent except for pieces labelled “Paid for by” – find out more here.
The lies Trump told this week: from US trade policies to his own campaign In speeches from Pennsylvania to Scotland, on subjects ranging from founding fathers to campaign cash, Republican presumptive nominee Donald Trump has had trouble with the truth this week. In the second of a series, the looks at some of the tallest tales Trump has told over the past seven days. Trade “When subsidized foreign steel is dumped into our markets, threatening our factories, the politicians do nothing.” – 28 June, Monessen, Pennsylvania In 2015, five US steelmakers complained that Chinese producers, boosted by government subsidies, were flouting import rules. This spring the Obama administration struck the Chinese companies with a 522% tariff. The US International Trade Commission also announced an investigation into aluminum imports, hinting at more tariffs on the Chinese. “Today, we import nearly $800bn more in goods than we export.” – 28 June, Monessen, Pennsylvania Trump is not telling the whole story. The US’s 2015 deficit on goods was indeed $762.6bn. But the US is largely a service economy and last year it had a surplus in its service trade – the exports of services performed by people in tech, finance, hospitality and other industries – which, with other market forces, drove the overall trade deficit down to about $500bn, according to the Census bureau. Trump himself outsources manufacturing to China and Bangladesh, making suits and ties there and importing them to the US. “Our founding fathers understood trade much better than our current politicians, believe me.” – 28 June, Monessen, Pennsylvania The men who led the young United States in the 1790s and early 1800s likely did understand trade better than at least one current politician, but they understood it in a world of slavery, plantations and New England shipping. Even then, Trump’s trade ideas would not have necessarily been welcome; the founders had vicious disagreements over it. Trump invoked Alexander Hamilton and Abraham Lincoln to argue for tariffs as a means of protecting American manufacturing. Hamilton supported tariffs in order to protect a young manufacturing economy; Thomas Jefferson largely opposed them, realizing that they would empower northern businessmen over the farming, slave-holding south. Lincoln similarly supported tariffs to protect northern industry – then violently at odds with the south. But by the late 19th century tariffs had become tools of powerful tycoons, who could impose high prices on goods on the poor and middle class. Their power was reduced by the income tax and other reforms of the early 20th century. Automation and globalization have further complicated trade in the 100 years since. “It was also Hillary Clinton, as secretary of state, who shoved us into a job-killing deal with South Korea in 2012.” – 28 June, Monessen, Pennsylvania In 2007, Republican George W Bush signed the US-Korea Free Trade Agreement, but Congress refused to ratify it for nearly five years. Barack Obama warned of employment consequences from the deal in 2008, but argued it would boost the shattered economy after he became president. Clinton opposed the deal and a candidate but supported it as Obama’s secretary of state. But to say she “shoved” it on the US is an exaggeration, considering its steady support from Republicans and centrist Democrats. The US International Trade Commission predicted the agreement would have a “negligible” effect on jobs in the US, and its net effect is difficult to gauge. In May, the US Trade Representative reported export increases of 8.4% since 2011, and a net gain in manufacturing jobs – though this is likely tied to the general recovery rather than the deal. Immigration “We must suspend immigration from regions linked with terrorism until a proven vetting method is in place.” – 25 June, Twitter Over several months, Trump has contradicted or reinvented his proposal to ban Muslims from entering the US. In December he proposed “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what the hell is going on”. In May, he called that “just a suggestion”. On 13 June, he said it would apply to regions “where there is a proven history of terrorism” and “Islamic terror”; on 25 June he said British Muslims “wouldn’t bother” him but those from “terror countries” would; and then on 27 June his campaign claimed nothing had changed. The US has one of the most arduous refugee acceptance programs in the world, a 18-months to two-year process that involves vetting by the UN and multiple US security agencies, fingerprint and medical checks, and in-person interviews. Trump regularly ignores the existence of this strict vetting system. Supporters “Don’t know anything about him.” – 25 June, Aberdeen, Scotland, about George W Bush’s treasury secretary, Hank Paulson Trump professed ignorance after a reporter asked him about the Republican leader who endorsed Clinton in an op-ed last week. But in 2008 Trump praised Paulson by name in an interview with CNN, which was unearthed by BuzzFeed. “I think Paulson, I would give an A, because he really took something very strong,” Trump said, speaking about the 2008 financial crisis. The businessman frequently claims ignorance when confronted with something uncomfortable, even when he has spoken at length about that person or topic. “I know nothing about David Duke. I know nothing about white supremacists,” the candidate said in February, after the former leader of the Ku Klux Klan endorsed him. Trump had disavowed Duke two days earlier, and in 2000 had called Duke “a Klansman” and described him as “not company I wish to keep”. Campaign “Mr Trump has fully extinguished (terminated) this loan per his commitment. Therefore, he has personally invested in excess of $50 million dollars in the future of our country.” – 23 June press release announcing Trump would forgive a large loan he had made to his campaign As of Friday, Federal Election Commission confirmed to the that it has no record of Trump converting loans to donations, an absence first reported by NBC News on Thursday. Trump’s spokesperson Hope Hicks said the paperwork will be filed with the next FEC report but provided no proof that Trump had actually prepared the material. Trump has loaned his campaign $45.7m, and would have to forgive that debt by 20 July to make the next filing.
They may not like it, but scientists must work with Donald Trump Donald Trump has won. Science and scientists played almost no part in the campaign. Now, scientists must consider how they fit into a Trump future. This won’t be easy. Many scientists are scared. In the tribal world of US politics, many now find themselves on the outside looking in. Most university scientists are Democrats, and the 2017 President, House and Senate will all be Republican. For this group, nothing portends disaster more than the elevation of a long-time opponent to national and international policies, Myron Ebell of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, to oversee the transformation of the Environmental Protection Agency. Even those academics who lean Republican (many of whom are engineers, since you ask) would despise Trump’s rejection of what a George W Bush adviser once dismissed as the “reality-based community” (that is, anyone interested in prioritising evidence over faith). While speculating on details like who Trump will ask to replace John Holdren as his science advisor, scientists should not just be asking what Trump will do for them. They should face up to the difficult question of what they should be doing for Trump. Some scientists will have to join the White House itself. When George W. Bush was elected, his administration had a hard time finding a scientist willing to serve as his science advisor. When Jack Marburger, a highly respected administrator and physicist who was also a Democrat, took the job he was excoriated by his peers and excommunicated from some scientific circles. We see hints of similar responses to Trump’s election already. Earlier this week the American Physical Society issued a press release congratulating Trump on his victory and encouraging him to “make sustained and robust funding of scientific research a top priority.” The APS received so many complaints that it felt compelled to retract it and issue an apology. Some have already written off Trump’s yet-to-be-named science advisor. For instance, Robert Cook-Deegan of Arizona State University says, “For Trump, I’m not sure [his science advisor] would matter, because there won’t be any ‘policy’ apparatus… Science won’t get much attention, except when it gets in the way or bolsters support for a political priority.” Marburger was called a “prostitute” upon taking the position under Bush. There are thousands of political appointees, including many science positions, that will need to be nominated, expert advisory bodies constituted and reconstituted, and experts put into staff positions under the White House. Any scientist who agrees to hold their nose and work with the Trump administration should expect much of the same criticism received by Marburger. Some, such as government scientists, will not have much choice but to engage. That is their job. The rest of the scientific community must still ask itself some difficult questions. We suggest three: Is money all that matters? During the late stages of the presidential campaign, 69 Nobel Prize winners endorsed Hillary Clinton and pushed for more funding for research and policies that support the scientific workforce. They suggested that there were other reasons for their support, but focused on what the next president might do for the interests of the scientific community. The incoming president of the American Geophysical Union expressed a similar concern: “There’s a fear that the scientific infrastructure in the U.S. is going to be on its knees… Everything from funding to being able to attract the global leaders we need to do basic science research.” If Trump imagines that the scientific community could cause him trouble, one option would be to do what Nye Bevan did to reactionary doctors in setting up the NHS and “stuff their mouths with gold”. Trump could echo Obama’s rhetoric, promising to ‘restore science to its rightful place’ by increasing funding. It would be the Art of the Deal, and it would put critical scientists in a difficult position. No one knows what Trump will do – on science or much else. However, the history of US science funding shows that Republican presidents “appear more eager to spend [money on R&D] than their Democratic counterparts”. Priorities have varied, with Democrats spending more through the Environmental Protection Agency and Commerce while Republicans spend more on Defense, the National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health. Overall spending on R&D is not well-correlated with party politics, mainly because science funding has long been a bipartisan priority. Other than the massive injections of cash through the Apollo programme and Obama’s smaller stimulus package more recently, non-defence science funding has remained pretty stable as a proportion of government discretionary spending since the end of World War Two. Without much discussion of the fiscal consequences, Trump has announced grand plans for increases in US infrastructure investment. For science, this could mean high-profile funding for NASA. Perhaps Newt Gingrich will revive his vision of a Moon base and a mission to Mars. The military-industrial-scientific complex, demoted since the end of the Cold War, could receive a boost. Organisations that advocate for more science funding have already sought to tie in R&D funding with Trump’s calls for greater investment. Scientists need to consider how to react to possible increases in funding as well as express fears of decreases. In doing so, they might position themselves as representatives of the public good rather than just another special interest group. Should pragmatism trump purity? How should scientists engage on policy issues such as vaccination and climate change, where Republicans are often accused of being anti-science, or worse, at war with science? Despite Trump’s rhetorical nods to the social conservative wing of his party during the campaign and his enthusiasm for convenient conspiracy theories, he is clearly a pragmatist with little worry about changing his policy preferences. Scientists should therefore ask themselves whether they would support policies that did what they regard as the right thing, but for the ‘wrong’ reasons. Policies focused on deploying electric vehicles and nuclear or wind power may be justified in purely economic rather than environmental terms. Alternatively, environmental regulations may provide convenient cover for the taxing of imports as the USA struggles to justify a new protectionism. When it comes to climate change, maybe the pragmatic business of policy design might finally take precedence over trying to convince a Republican Congress to see the world through a climate scientist’s eyes. Two days after the election a spokesperson for ExxonMobil tweeted the company’s strong support of the Paris agreement on climate change. Many environmental scientists have long seen ExxonMobil as antithetical to their cause. Would they make peace with big oil in order to defend the Paris agreement? Or will the battle against perceived enemies of science now take place on multiple fronts? It would be easy for scientists to bring back an opposition strategy focused on defending a so-called ‘war on science’. Much harder will be for the science community to support a government under the control of President Trump and a Republican Congress. Choices will have to be made. Scientists should be aware that the playbook that many followed to oppose President George W Bush may not work as well under a less ideologically-driven president. Who really benefits from science and innovation? Earlier this year, when a Trump presidency still seemed outlandish, science policy writer Colin Macilwain drew an uncomfortable picture in a Nature commentary. Science, along with other elites, has systematically ignored the concerns of people such as those who voted for Trump or for Brexit. According to Macilwain, experts, rather than challenging established interests, have often bolstered them, while pretending to remain distant from politics. Trump’s campaign tapped into a constituency that had been largely shut out from the benefits of technological progress and disproportionately suffered the consequences of expanding global trade. US and European elites pretend that unfettered technology will not only grow the economy but also close the gap between rich and poor. A recent issue of Wired magazine brought Obama into conversation with the gurus of Silicon Valley. Tim O’Reilly hailed the magic bullets of innovation, telling Obama that, “The best way for the tech industry to tackle inequality is for it to do what it’s supposed to do: innovate in ways that create actual gains in growth and productivity”. History tells us how bad this analysis is. Technology tends to widen the gap between rich and poor, simply because rich people are better able to take advantage of productivity gains than poor people. And yet the narrative of emancipatory technology continues. Meanwhile, Donald Trump gave an interview to Breitbart, a heavily partisan news site that has become depressingly relevant, in which he said, with reference to artificial intelligence, “I have always been concerned about the social breakdown of our culture caused by technology”. Now is the time to ask who really benefits from American innovation, and to rethink the responsibilities of scientists in engaging with inequality. Scientists who choose not to engage with a Trump Administration risk fueling the resentment and disenchantment that brought it to power. The scientific community could respond to the populist surge by devoting more attention to understanding the consequences of technological innovation on society, while developing alternatives paths to ensure that its benefits are shared more equitably and negative consequences more effectively anticipated and blunted. For scientists and other experts, the surprise election of Donald Trump to the US presidency comes with choices. Many of us were dismayed at the Brexit vote and now the election of Donald Trump. How we respond, inside our own communities and in relation to governments will determine whether we remain relevant or jeopardise the constructive role that we should play in policy and politics, regardless of our allegiances.
Ambulance target failures highlight NHS crisis, say health chiefs Figures showing that every ambulance service in England failed to meet response time targets for the past 16 months are a sign of a system-wide problem, NHS England has admitted. The figures, released under freedom of information rules, showed that of the UK’s 13 ambulance services, only Wales was reaching emergencies within the target time of eight minutes. They also showed that the number of patients waiting for ambulances for more than an hour had almost tripled in the past two years, and that ambulance crews were wasting more than 500,000 hours queuing outside hospitals. Health unions and the Labour party seized on the figures as an illustration that funding was failing to keep pace with unprecedented demand. Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow health secretary, said: “This is yet again more evidence of the huge pressures facing the NHS. “Labour has been warning for weeks now of patients being forced to wait in long ambulance queues outside overcrowded A&E departments across the country. “Under the Tories, our NHS is underfunded and understaffed. The astonishing failure of the chancellor to provide extra funding for the NHS and social care is proven to be more and more misguided every day.” Alan Lofthouse, Unison’s national officer for ambulance staff, said: “The frustration is really within the whole system. The funding hasn’t matched the increase in call volume.” He claimed accident and emergency departments were struggling to cope and deliberately making ambulance crews wait outside. NHS England conceded that the problem was getting worse and highlighted broader difficulties across the service. “This is a system-wide problem,” Keith Willett, the director of acute care at NHS England, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. He added: “It is about an increase in demand for urgent healthcare need. Of all the parts of the healthcare sector, the ambulance service has seen the largest increase in demand at 7.3% in the last year. “It is also about how we manage the flows through hospitals and back out into community. Many of the handover issues are really a reflection of the pressure on beds and the difficulty we have in that area.” Willett said the NHS was trialling different ways of handling emergency calls so that ambulances crews could concentrate on life-threatening cases. But he conceded this would only go some way to tackling the problem. “Clearly, as demand gets greater the amount of reserve in the system goes down … It is not at breaking point, but we are in new territory here. We have never had demand like this and we also have never been better prepared. Yes, there is concern, but we are taking these steps to transform the NHS.” But Matthew Westhorpe, a former paramedic and now a clinical adviser with the 111 service, said the system was at breaking point. “The ambulance service is essentially the canary in the coal mine of the wider NHS malaise,” he told the BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire programme. “The ambulance service is under increasing pressure because of closed A&Es and under-resourcing and the staff can only be pushed so hard for so long before they become broken. “The crews on the frontline are now expected to deliver more for less so they are stretched beyond their means.”
Asic funding boost to restore Abbott-era cuts and enhance surveillance The government has promised to boost Australia’s financial regulator’s surveillance powers with a multimillion-dollar technological upgrade in a move that will restore some of the funding stripped in Tony Abbott-era cuts. The government will also appoint an extra commissioner with experience in the prosecution of financial crimes. It is promising to shift the regulator to a “user-pays” funding model – in which the institutions it regulates are forced to pay for the ongoing cost of their regulation – so taxpayers no longer have to fund its operations. The treasurer, Scott Morrison, said the reform package was a considered response to the problems plaguing the financial services industry. He said it was better than the proposal from the Labor leader, Bill Shorten, who has been calling for a royal commission following years of financial scandals inside Australia’s banks. “The motive of Bill Shorten is clear here,” Morrison said on Wednesday. “His focus is not about getting outcomes for people affected by what’s happening in the banking and financial industry, his motive is about getting a political outcome for one person – Bill Shorten.” In all, the Turnbull government’s reform package will be worth $127.2m over four years, with $121m of that being funded by Australia’s banks, and the remaining $6m hitting the budget bottom line. More than $61m will be used to boost the regulator’s data analytics and surveillance abilities, while $57m will enable better, ongoing surveillance in the areas of the financial advice, responsible lending, life insurance and breach reporting. The user-pays model will begin operation at the start of the 2017-18 financial year, but little detail has been provided by the government to explain how it will work. Morrison said if the regulator required any extra money in the future, it could claim more money from Australia’s banks. “That’s the whole point of this transition,” he said. “This puts [the regulator] on a much more sustainable footing.” He also said he would be “furious” if the banks passed the cost of any user-pays levy onto consumers, but he gave no guarantee that the banks would not do so. The government’s reform package means the financial regulator – the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (Asic) – will receive a large boost in technological and financial firepower, going some way to redress the $120m funding it lost in the former Abbott government’s 2014 budget. It means Asic will have greater ability to monitor and prosecute modern financial crimes, something for which it has been criticised for failing to do adequately in recent years. The chairman of Asic, Greg Medcraft, has had his term extended by 18 months so he can oversee the reforms inside his institution. In response to the changes, Medcraft – who has also been criticised heavily during his time as Asic chief – said they showed the government had confidence in him. “We have a lot of important work to continue and I am keen to get on with the job,” he said. The reforms are a response from the government to the capability review into Asic’s performance, which it commissioned in July last year. That review has not been released publicly yet, but it is understood to contain heavy criticism of Asic’s performance in recent years. As part of the regulator’s transformation, the government will remove Asic from the Public Service Act, taking it outside the public service. Steven Munchenberg, the Australian Bankers’ Association chief executive, has been contacted for comment.
The Accountant review – Ben Affleck's new superhero just about adds up Screenwriter Bill Dubuque has created the forthcoming Netflix TV drama Ozark with Jason Bateman, and he co-wrote the soupy drama The Judge, with Robert Duvall as the town judge being defended on a murder charge by his estranged son, played by Robert Downey Jr. Here is his The Accountant, directed by Gavin O’Connor and starring Ben Affleck: a fantastically convoluted, over-extended but watchable action thriller whose many dangling loose ends, subplots and side characters are finally tied up with a showy flourish. In its earnest flashbacks to childhood trauma it is weirdly like a superhero origin myth – and maybe Ben Affleck might be better off doing a couple more Accountant movies than anything else from the Batman franchise. He is Christian Wolff, a savant-level genius accountant and high-functioning autistic who launders money for mobsters; he also happens to be hilariously great at martial arts, with a special-forces level of weapons use and combat training because his army dad trained him as a kid – to stop him being teased! Feeling the need for a low profile, Wolff takes a “straight” job for a respectable company, run by John Lithgow, and finds some irregularities, which puts both him and Lithgow’s smart employee Anna Kendrick in danger. It’s laid out for us with the guileless, unselfconscious absurdity of a comic book adventure, though it wastes the potential of Anna Kendrick. Perhaps Affleck can have a mask and costume for the sequel.
'I was looking at the next president of the United States': the verdict on Trump's speech Lucia Graves: After a promise to ‘present the facts plainly and honestly’ Trump did exactly the opposite You might think that a presidential nominee’s speech should include some nod to policy and platform. But then Donald Trump isn’t a regular presidential nominee. When he took the stage at the RNC in Cleveland, attendees were treated to over an hour of fear-stoking, race-baiting red meat rhetoric, rife with misinformation, and carefully calculated to appeal to America’s basest instincts. After a promise to “present the facts plainly and honestly”, Trump proceeded to do exactly the opposite. It wasn’t that he was lying, exactly – a liar is riddled with apprehension that the lies will be discovered, but a bullshitter just doesn’t care. Trump is a master of bullshit, so we shouldn’t be surprised to find many of the “facts” presented “plainly and honestly” were actually not just wrong but exactly the opposite of the truth. Others were cleverly cherrypicked to disguise it. Casting himself as the “law and order” candidate, Trump painted a portrait of American as fundamentally violent and unsafe. And perhaps the best case in point came when he zeroed in on the recent attacks on police. “Our convention occurs at a moment of crisis for our nation. The attacks on our police, and the terrorism in our cities, threaten our very way of life,” he said. He noted that the number of police officers killed in the line of duty has risen “by almost 50% compared to this point last year”. That sounds like a powerful statistic until you realize he’s comparing two six-plus month segments of time. Zoom out a little bit and it becomes clear that police are actually safer under Barack Obama than they have been in decades. A Washington Post report using data from the Officer Down Memorial Page found the average number of police murders per year by administration has dropped fairly steadily: 101 under Ronald Reagan, 90 under George HW Bush, 81 under Bill Clinton, 72 under George W Bush, and 62 under Obama. This shameless and baseless fear-mongering is Trump’s best trick. But there’s a reason magicians don’t play the same trick for an audience a thousand times over. Surely people see through Trump’s by now? Jonathan Freedland: Teleprompter Trump was charmless, deprived of the spontaneity and humour that made him a compelling candidate Some 12 hours before Donald Trump delivered his marathon speech in Cleveland, the longtime Republican consultant Mike Murphy said he sympathised with Trump’s campaign handlers. Training him, he suggested, was “like teaching Charles Manson the foxtrot”. Yes, maybe you could teach the notorious murderer a few steps and you’d think you were making progress – but then he’d stab you in the eye. “Because he’s Charles Manson.” Murphy’s point was no matter how much you tried to tame Trump, it’d be futile. Tonight the task was simply to get Trump to have the discipline to read a scripted text from a teleprompter. And by that simple test, it was a success. Barring the odd ad-lib, Trump did as he was told. His team would have high-fived their achievement. But the funny thing is, it was a pyrrhic victory. Because teleprompter Trump was charmless, deprived of the spontaneity and humour that has made him such a compelling candidate. Robbed of the licence to be conversational, and in a bid to play the formal orator, he simply shouted. And for a long time too. The result was a speech that was unremittingly bleak, depicting an America that was broke, plagued by crime and besieged by murderous immigrants. You had to return to the days of Richard Nixon – if not George Wallace – to find a message of equivalent pessimism. And this from the party of Ronald Reagan, which learned that winning candidates sell boundless optimism for the future. Trump’s larger task was to reach beyond his base. There were hints of that, with an inclusive reference to LGBT people, an appeal to Bernie Sanders voters to rally to Trump’s anti-trade stance and a plea from daughter Ivanka for equal pay for women. But those moments were few, drowned out by a long, dark speech from a candidate who may have learned a few new moves – but is not about to dance the foxtrot. Steven W Thrasher: Trump is better at whipping up fear in white people than Romney – and understands TV better than Reagan did As Trump was warmed up by a real estate developer, I felt as if I wasn’t living in reality, but inside a virtual reality scenario dreamt up by Ayn Rand. But as I watched Trump bark about “law and order”, obedience, “law and order,” immigration and “law and order” again, it dawned on me how real this was. I was looking at the next president of the United States. Trump’s ginormous face glowering down in condescension from the screen above, tackily framed in by gold, made me think of North Korea. Alas, there’s no escaping how American this Trump phenomena is. Trump had one goal in his speech: to convince a poorly educated and scared population to imagine him as president. He did that. He was helped by the fact that American society is deeply invested in white supremacy, and his speech was the crowning moment of what looked like a four-day white power rally. He drummed up (fake) immigrant fears, stoked (overblown) dangers to police, and went off his prepared remarks to talk about immigrants. He spoke of refugees fleeing wars, yelling: “We don’t want them in our country!” The crowd loved it, and Trump will win a significant portion of the white vote. The only question now: will that get him to 270 electoral college votes? Mitt Romney won more white votes than Reagan and still lost. Demographics could spare us this bigot. But Trump is better at whipping up fear in white people than Romney – and he even understands TV better than Reagan did. Regarding “law and order”, Trump sounded as severe as Nixon. If enough voters in Pennsylvania and Ohio want skulls cracked in order to keep the protest chaos of America in 2016 at bay, we may just get a President Trump. Richard Wolffe: He plunged into an America of crisis, crime and chaos For a showman who likes to dazzle, Donald Trump’s big night was sorely in need of sparkle. For a businessman whose fortune depends on construction, his acceptance speech was built without any apparent structure. For a hype merchant who brags about his “yuge” assets, the speech of his life was astonishingly small. To succeed on his final night in Cleveland, the Republican presidential nominee just had to show up and read every word on the teleprompter screens. After the most shambolic party convention in living memory, expectations of Trump were as low as My Little Pony. But Trump couldn’t even clear that low bar. After one sentence, he drifted off script and started boasting about how many votes he had won in the primaries. His speech looped in a death spiral of misery. Just 100 words into his embrace of the nation, he plunged into an America of crisis, crime and chaos. From the penthouse suite inside Trump Tower, the streets of Manhattan may well look like a scene out of Dirty Harry or the Dark Knight. But on closer inspection, Trump might just find that his Fifth Avenue neighborhood is a haven of luxury boutiques and conspicuous consumption. “Here at our convention,” he insisted, “there will be no lies.” After three nights of plagiarism, Benghazi and Ted Cruz, this was a promising assertion. Instead, Trump told us there were dark forces at work: a conspiracy of elites who were secretly controlling Hillary Clinton. No wonder he liked that six-pointed star his social media team stole from the far-right web. “They are throwing money at her because they have total control over everything she does,” he said of these dark forces. “She is their puppet, and they pull the strings.” Donald Trump emerged from his catastrophic convention as an ungodly amalgam of Juan and Evita Peron. A pro-business, pro-worker, law-and-order enforcer with no appetite for Nato or foreigners. A gilded celebrity who loves the working man. “People who work hard but no longer have a voice,” he declared, “I AM YOUR VOICE.” Don’t cry for Trump, America. The truth is, he’ll never cry for you.
Back to bricks and mortar: how e-commerce has embraced the real world American eyeglass retailer Warby Parker’s foray into bricks-and-mortar retail began in one of its co-founders’ apartments. Warby Parker launched in 2010 as an e-commerce business enabling customers to order a range of affordable glasses to try at home before sending the unsuitable ones back. After a surge in demand, customers started asking Warby Parker if they could buy the spectacles in person. Without a store or office, co-founder and co-chief executive Neil Blumenthal let people come to his apartment to try them on, displaying the stock on his dining room table. Dave Gilboa, also co-founder and co-chief executive, used his laptop as the cash register, getting customers to make transactions via the website. “It was clear that some of our customers wanted a physical shopping experience,” says Blumenthal. This experience became the blueprint for Warby Parker’s brick-and-mortar strategy. After several experiments with pop-up shops, concept stores and a mobile store on a bus, Warby Parker opened its first flagship store in New York City in 2013. Now the business, which is valued at $1.2bn (£908m), has 31 stores across the US. “There’s something special about interacting with customers first-hand, and we’re thrilled to have an opportunity to create immersive environments filled with books, locally specific design features and, of course, lots of glasses,” says Blumenthal. Warby Parker is in the vanguard of digitally born businesses praised for their online business model but taking the plunge into physical retail. Nasty Gal, Everlane, Bonobos and Birchbox are also among those. Even e-commerce megalith Amazon has entered the fray, with a bookstore in Seattle and more reportedly in the works. This may seem counterintuitive; after all, Amazon’s rise was due to the fact it could undercut high street competitors on price and convenience, contributing to the demise of Borders, among others. But with so many e-commerce businesses opening physical stores, and many traditional retailers bolstering in-store technology, the mass migration of shoppers from offline to online has not been as straightforward as pundits predicted. “Shoppers will always want to touch and feel and experience a product in the flesh before they purchase it,” says Zoё Kelly, planning director at Vivid, a shopper marketing agency. “They might use digital to research and narrow down their choice, but when it comes to paying, they want to see it in the flesh and make sure it’s the right choice.” The majority of Warby Parker’s sales are through e-commerce and 80% of its customers who have visited the store have also visited the website, according to Blumenthal. Warby Parker helps customers prepare online for a store visit, such as allowing them to browse frames, book eye exams or reminding them to bring along their prescription. It has also integrated social media in-store. “We believe the future of retail sits at the intersection of e-commerce and brick and mortar,” says Blumenthal. “The two experiences should be seamlessly integrated and complementary. The ultimate goal for each shopping experience is the same: to make the process of buying glasses as easy and fun as possible.” In recent years, many e-commerce businesses launched with the false assumption that it would be cheaper to operate than physical retail, says Ari Bloom, chief executive of Avametric, a fashion tech startup that creates virtual fitting rooms. As the e-commerce landscape becomes more competitive and the cost of deliveries and returns rises with shoppers expecting on-demand and speedier services, the cost of acquiring customers has become higher. “It’s hard to present a compelling, sticky brand experience online, especially when selling non-utility items like apparel, accessories, home goods,” says Bloom. “Many companies actually lose money online and are still highly profitable offline. “Many of us who come from the physical retail world have been waiting for the balance to tip – and I think we are finally see that happening, with more e-commerce first companies finally realising that physical retail is a crucial part of their brand experience and business,” he adds. Take Birchbox, for example. It delivers boxes full of beauty product samples, with the aim of getting subscribers to buy full-sized versions from its e-commerce site. The dilemma it faces is that many people still buy beauty products in-store, meaning other bricks-and-mortar beauty retailers stores also feel the benefit of customers buying full-sized versions of the beauty product samples. Birchbox opened a store in New York in 2014. While bricks and mortar presents an ever more compelling business case for online retailers, this does not mean they are following in the footsteps of traditional retailers; the retail space is being reimagined as something different, such as a gallery, museum, clubhouse or events space. Birchbox’s store is not just for flogging stock. Spread over two floors, it has a beauty and nail salon, and people can use touchscreen devices to create bespoke beauty boxes. The staff have iPads and the in-store tech allows Birchbox to get valuable real-life insights into how their customers interact with the brand. Similarly, Harry’s, the online razor subscription business, has focused on experience as a way of selling its products. A few years ago it opened a barber shop in New York, where its barbers introduce customers to its various products. It also uses an app so customers can get the same haircut each time. This trend is being driven by a desire to tap into the rise of the experience economy: people choosing to buy experiences over products. While e-commerce is convenient, customers are still looking for surprise and spontaneity in their shopping experience, which can be achieved in the physical environment, says Michelle Du-Prat, experience strategy director at retail design and branding agency Household. “There’s a positive tension between convenience and smart shopping, in the knowledge there will be this experiential element too,” she says. “That’s being pushed by millennials, who want to spend money on experiences as much as items.” But traditional retailers also have the opportunity to compete with the internet upstarts by reimagining the shopping experience. Homeplus, for example, experimented with a virtual reality store that enabled people to buy their groceries in real life using their smartphones. According to Du-Prat, there is also an untapped opportunity in click and collect, which is growing in popularity for traditional retailers such as John Lewis and Marks & Spencer. She says they could create engaging brand experiences for customers when they pick up items, which might compel them to shop in-store more. “It’s about understanding different needs of customers and meeting them in interesting and quirky ways, not just online and offline, but the link between them all,” says Du-Prat. “It’s about how you can disrupt that.” To get weekly news analysis, job alerts and event notifications direct to your inbox, sign up free for Media & Tech Network membership. All Media & Tech Network content is editorially independent except for pieces labelled “Brought to you by” – find out more here.
Paul Keating: Australia's 'dullards' have missed Trump's foreign policy switch Countries such as Australia would be “silly” not to pick up on the self-interested ideology of Donald Trump, the former Labor prime minister Paul Keating has said. Speaking at the University of Melbourne for the launch of his biography – the first he has cooperated on in more than 20 years – Keating also said that while Australia should understand Trump, it should not blindly follow the lead of the US. “You’ve got to know what Donald Trump’s policy is,” Keating said. “He sees the the general international responsibility the US has taken on since 1947 as being too large a burden on the US. It’s too unfair an impost, relieving obligation on countries like Japan, Germany, and ourselves and he is therefore saying: ‘It’s our turn, it’s the US’s turn to worry about itself. “That is a pretty appealing message for Americans – to start worrying about themselves. That the US should be thinking about itself on its own terms is a popular notion. How silly would we be not to pick up the message? That the US is refocusing on themselves, not alliances.” Keating described Australia’s relationship with the US as “a great asset for us”. But he said “the dullards” in charge of Australia’s foreign policy regarded the relationship with the US as having a sacramental quality. “What it means is that we’re obliged to consult each other in the circumstances of strategic difficulties,” he said. “You want a dexterous, mobile, clever foreign policy. Instead we have the dullards basically leading us into the American alliance as though it’s sacrament. Americans will always be important in the Pacific Ocean but if you have a treaty with the US and a long friendship, then it behoves you to think about a policy thats got flexibility. “But we’ve got this group that says [to the US]: ‘Please don’t let our hand go, please hold on to us’.” Keating’s comments on Friday came during a discussion with Troy Bramston, the author of his biography, Paul Keating: The Big-Picture Leader. Keating did not take questions from the media. The pair discussed political events, and reflected on Keating’s rise to become Australia’s 24th prime minister. More than two decades ago, Keating laid out his vision of Australia becoming a republic. He described the country’s continuation with a constitutional monarchy as “deeply, deeply, pathetic”. “Becoming a republic would send the message “that we are a nation confident in ourselves and able to represent ourselves around the world as ourselves,” he said. “It tells us who we are and what we are. We can’t make our way in the world and be taken really seriously, particularly in these great states like China and India, by saying: ‘By the way, our head of state is the Queen of Great Britain’.” Keating told the audience that to enter and succeed in public life, leaders needed a “great deal of confidence”. “I got that from my grandmother, who thought I was the absolute centre of the world,” he said. “That big investment in love in you carries you along, and I had that. It’s like the tin suit. You can move on not worrying about incoming missiles. You should have the inner confidence.” He said it was also important to recognise when more qualified and effective people came along who could do the job better. “You have to say to yourself: ‘Is it better that I drop back and let someone else get ahead because they have something more to offer than me?’,” he said. Keating said he had enjoyed the leverage public life had given him along with the ability to “pull big levers”. But he said he had never cut corners during his time in positions of power, and believed that diplomacy was the most effective means of achieving success. “You move your little finger this much, the world moves that much,” he said. “Not many people get that chance. But if you get that chance, you’ve got to be aware of the leverage, and with the leverage comes responsibility.”
BT apologises for broadband outage across much of UK The telecoms giant BT has apologised after tens of thousands of customers had their broadband temporarily cut off. The internet provider’s broadband and phone network went down across much of the UK on Tuesday, with customers reporting failures in London, Birmingham, Coventry, Sheffield and Glasgow. A BT spokesman confirmed the problem, but said there was no evidence so far of it being the result of a malicious attack. Rival TalkTalk’s computers were hacked in October in what was originally feared to be a raid on customers’ personal data. The BT spokesman said: “Large numbers of customers have been experiencing temporary issues with their broadband services this afternoon. Customers can still receive and make calls as normal. “We’ve been working hard to fix the issue and are glad to report that nearly every customer affected is now reconnected, approximately two hours after the problem started. We apologise to any affected customers for the inconvenience. Customers around the UK reported problems with their internet and landlines on social media. Down detector, a website that monitors service failures, reported more than 18,000 outages in 24 hours. The BT website went down temporarily and the website of Openreach, a subsidiary of BT Group that builds and maintains the copper and fibre network, remained down until mid-afternoon. On Monday, BT reported a rise in pre-tax profits of 24% to £862m in the third quarter to 31 December 2015. The company also recorded its best revenue growth for more than seven years – up 3% to £4.5bn over the same period. It came as the group announced a shakeup of the structure of the business after its £12.5bn takeover of mobile operator EE.
Britain probably leaving EU customs union, says Boris Johnson Britain is probably leaving the EU customs union, Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary, has claimed, despite Whitehall warnings that it could seriously harm the economy. The cabinet minister made the revelation in an interview with a Czech newspaper, despite Theresa May’s insistence that her government will not be providing a running commentary on Brexit. According to the interview, which was reported in Czech, Johnson said: “Probably we will need to leave the customs union, but this is a question which will be dealt with in the negotiations.” The move is likely to alarm businesses that move goods to and from the EU as it would mean extra checks at the border. Johnson is also reported to have said that the idea that free movement of people is a founding pillar of the EU is nonsense. There was some confusion over the colourful language used by Johnson to dismiss the significance of free movement. His phrase was translated by Czech media as “hovadina”, which was then variously translated back again into English as bollocks, rubbish, tosh or bullshit. However, the Foreign Office could not confirm which word he originally used. “Everybody now has it in their head that every human being has some fundamental God-given right to move wherever they want. It’s not true. That was never the case. That was never a founding principle of the EU. Total myth,” he said. A leaked cabinet paper revealed by the last month showed that ministers have been warned that pulling out of the EU customs union could lead to a 4.5% fall in GDP by 2030 and the clogging up of trade through Britain’s ports. The issue has caused a split among ministers, with Liam Fox, the trade secretary, pushing for the UK to leave because membership of the customs union prevents the negotiation of independent trade deals with non-EU countries. On the other side, Philip Hammond, the chancellor, and his allies have concerns about the impact of leaving on the economy. Jonathan Roberts, the head of communications for the UK Chamber of Shipping, said: “Given the huge increase in trade volumes since the customs union was introduced, the reimposition of significant customs checks will have a profoundly negative effect on the shipping industry, as well as both the UK and EU economies. “If we do leave the customs union, it will be imperative that both UK and EU negotiators create a bespoke deal to allow trade to continue to move freely through our ports. Given the UK’s significant trade deficit with the EU, it is in both sides’ interests to put aside the rhetoric and ideology and create a mutually beneficial arrangement.” Pressed repeatedly on whether Johnson was right to say the UK would probably leave the customs union, May’s official spokeswoman would only say the foreign secretary was correct that no decision had yet been made. She said Johnson had been engaging with the UK’s partners in Europe by giving an interview to the Czech media outlet. The foreign secretary, a leading member of the campaign to leave the EU, also continued his attempts to play down concerns about the victory of Donald Trump in the US election. “There is every reason to be positive. Donald Trump is a dealmaker, he is a guy who believes firmly in values that I believe in too – freedom and democracy. As far as I understand he is in many aspects a liberal guy from New York,” he said. Ed Miliband, the former Labour leader, said Johnson’s apparently unscripted intervention on the customs union was a sign of the government’s disarray. “With impeccable timing, Boris Johnson now says the UK is ‘probably’ leaving the customs union, thereby proving the Brexit chaos that No 10 is denying,” he said.
George Osborne's Brexit budget would guarantee a recession Picture the scene. It is 28 June, five days after Britain has decided to leave the European Union. Since the referendum, the financial markets have been panic-stricken. Shares and the pound have fallen, despite the efforts of the Bank of England to calm nerves. David Cameron has called a meeting of the cabinet to be addressed by George Osborne. Eight days before the vote, the chancellor had warned that a Brexit vote would force him to deliver an emergency budget that would raise £30bn – half from tax increases and half from spending cuts. The pain, Osborne had said, would be necessary because the economy’s prospects had been impaired so grievously by quitting the EU. He had been supported by his Labour predecessors, Alistair Darling, who said he was more worried than he had been when the global economy was on the brink of collapse in 2008. But that was then. Is what could be Osborne’s last act as chancellor really going to be to take revenge on the voters for refusing to back the remain side in the referendum? Not a chance. There would be, in reality, three options open to the government in a post-Brexit world. Option one would be to go ahead with Osborne’s £30bn plan – putting 2p on the basic rate of income tax and 3p on the higher rate, whacking up excise duties on alcohol and fuel, lopping 2% off the budgets for the NHS, education and transport. The problem with option one is that nobody knows for sure how the economy is going to behave after a Brexit vote. Mark Carney, the governor of the Bank of England, has warned of a possible technical recession, which means two consecutive quarters of negative growth. That is a long way, though, from the horrors of 2008-09, when the economy contracted by more than 6% in its longest and deepest post-war slump. What is certain is that taking £30bn out of the economy when it is so fragile would guarantee a recession. It would cut spending when it was already weak. It is the sort of approach that has been foisted upon Greece by its creditors, with disastrous consequences. What’s more, as Osborne knows all too well, it would be impossible to get such a budget through parliament given the size of the likely revolt from Conservative MPs. Option two involves the opposite approach, the sort favoured by Darling when the crisis was at its deepest in 2008-09. This would be an expansionary package of measures, perhaps involving higher spending on infrastructure, designed to help the economy through a tough patch. With interest rates so low, the government could borrow cheaply and underpin growth. The downside would be that the budget deficit would widen and the national debt would rise at a time when Osborne has still not finished the repair job on the public finances from the last downturn. Option three is the suck-it-and-see approach. This recognises that it is too early to say how the economy is going to perform so there is no point in doing anything too hasty. If growth does weaken, the so-called automatic stabilisers will kick in. This means that the Treasury tolerates the extra borrowing that is the consequence of weaker activity leading to lower tax receipts and higher welfare payments, waiting until the worst is over before deciding whether remedial action is needed on the public finances. It doesn’t take a genius to work out which of these options the government would take. Clearly, it would be option three. This would recognise the near-impossibility of seeing through the post-Brexit economic fog, would help soothe financial market fears rather than add to them, be consistent with the pragmatic approach to deficit reduction Osborne has taken over the past six years, and avoid a schism in his party. There is, in other words, not the remotest chance that a leave vote will lead to a £30bn austerity budget. It is a scare tactic, the last roll of the dice from a desperate chancellor.
Premier League: 10 talking points from the weekend’s action 1) West Ham give Bilic reason for hope once Payet returns Unlike last year’s corresponding fixture, when West Ham beat Manchester City 2-1 at the Etihad, Slaven Bilic’s side came up short this time but they gave Pep Guardiola’s men a scare during a post-interval resurgence and the Croat can be optimistic for the season. He said: “In the second half we put them under a bit of pressure, the goal helped, but the second half I am more than happy. It gives us hope when the players are out injured. We stayed in the game. I wasn’t happy at half-time, I asked the guys to show character and spirit and a different mentality, which they did. Praise for the team for the second-half performance. A few will be back after the international break. It should be [Manuel] Lanzini and then [Dimitri] Payet. That will change the shape of the team and the quality of the team.” They only have three points from three games but expect Bilic’s team to start rising up the table. Jamie Jackson • Match report: Manchester City 3-1 West Ham • West Ham sign Zaza on loan with view to permanent move 2) Relentless Chelsea suggest Conte can lead title charge Chelsea topped the fledgling Premier League table on Saturday night, their record still pristine under Antonio Conte, but the Italian is offering only realism when he assesses his own immediate impact at Stamford Bridge. The early season momentum is significant only because it permits his players “to trust my methodology” more. He is not resting on his laurels after wins against West Ham, Watford and, most impressively, Burnley. “But we know we can improve,” he said. “We must improve, and improve a lot, and [we can do that] only through work. But I’m pleased today because I saw, also, the idea about our football.” That is not all about scintillating pace and skill on the flanks. Or rugged defence in securing a first clean sheet at home since Scunthorpe visited in January. Conte, his usual demanding self on the touchline, actually reserved his most ferocious, manic show of appreciation for an interception mustered by Oscar deep inside his own half. That selfless industry and desire to put the team first is at the core of his philosophy. Chelsea have bought into what he wants, and that only bodes well for his team’s title challenge. Dominic Fifield • Match report: Chelsea 3-0 Burnley • Daniel Taylor: Gray’s sorry tweeting case far from straightforward 3) Benteke-Townsend combination offers hope to under-fire Pardew If Alan Pardew’s tenure at Selhurst Park could be encapsulated in a single game then surely this was it. Terrible for one half, yet fantastic in the next, Scott Dann’s injury-time equaliser must have come as a huge relief for their embattled manager after a difficult start to the season. Some supporters have already lost patience with the club’s former midfielder after the dreadful run of just two wins in 2016, with Tottenham’s bid for the club’s player of the year, Wilfried Zaha, last week only serving to heighten anxieties. But after breaking their transfer record twice this summer and with the prospect of two players to arrive before the transfer deadline, there could be brighter times ahead. Christian Benteke’s combination with Andros Townsend for the cross that led to Palace’s first goal in the league this season was a promising start, although Pardew will know he needs plenty more where that came from after the international break. Ed Aarons • Match report: Crystal Palace 1-1 Bournemouth • Pardew to speak with Wilfried Zaha about his Crystal Palace future 4) Koeman’s pragmatism a welcome relief for fans after Martínez Ashley Williams was only named in one press conference, and it wasn’t by the manager who committed £12m to bring him to Goodison Park. Yet while Stoke’s Mark Hughes complained about the Everton newcomer’s part in securing the debated, decisive penalty, his impact was apparent in both boxes. Ronald Koeman took heart from the clean sheet his side kept. That owed much to Williams, a paragon of solidity in his newly formed partnership with Phil Jagielka. They have a combined age of 66 and their experience was allied with that of a still older centre-back: the manager himself. Koeman introduced Ramiro Funes Mori and removed Ross Barkley in the closing stages, successfully protecting the lead by deploying a five-man rearguard. Such pragmatism was welcome at Goodison Park. While Stoke only recorded one shot on target, this felt the sort of game Roberto Martínez’s self-destructive team would have contrived to find a way not to win. Koeman’s side emerged with three points. Last season Everton only mustered six home league victories at Goodison Park, five against the eventual bottom five. While Stoke prop up the table now, they are probable mid-table finishers. So although this may seem a routine home win and came coated in controversy, it represented progress nonetheless. Richard Jolly • Match report: Everton 1-0 Stoke City 5) Guidolin’s odd selections leave Swansea looking lost All is not well at Swansea City. Another defeat and another listless performance should be ringing a few alarm bells at the Welsh club. It came as a surprise when Swansea gave Francesco Guidolin the manager’s job on a permanent basis in the summer, and that decision seems likely to come under greater scrutiny over the coming weeks, unless there is an improvement. Guidolin’s side looked clueless against Leicester. There was no pattern to their play, no leadership, and it was worrying to see how brittle they are in central defence now that Ashley Williams has departed. Even the team selection seemed curious – Leon Britton and Nathan Dyer have both recently signed new contracts but were not even in the 18, while Gylfi Sigurdsson, the club’s most influential player last season, was withdrawn in the second half. Their next five league fixtures: Chelsea (h), Southampton (a), Manchester City (h), Liverpool (h) and Arsenal (a). It could be a long season. Stuart James • Match report: Leicester City 2-1 Swansea City • Leicester in talks with Sporting Lisbon over £30m Slimani deal 6) Hull’s precarious position makes Phelan the smart choice Hull City’s protracted takeover is now in the hands of the Premier League after the club’s vice-chairman Ehab Allam confirmed before this defeat to Manchester United that his family is close to selling up. A purchase by Chinese investors is imminent but, given the timing and Wednesday’s transfer deadline being so close, whoever the new owners select to be their first permanent manager will have to deal with a hugely difficult situation. Mike Phelan says deals for new players are lined up but even if they get a few new faces in by the deadline, the squad will still be extremely thin. Given Phelan’s ability to get the best out of limited resources so far this season, it may be a smart move to continue with him for the foreseeable future. Phelan said: “I think it’s now a serious time to make those decisions and make those correct calls.” James Riach • Match report: Hull City 0-1 Manchester United • Fellaini rescues fan caught in crush amid United elation 7) Mané shows Pochettino – and Levy – what Spurs are missing The biggest positive that Mauricio Pochettino could take from Tottenham’s draw against Liverpool – apart from the fact that his team did not lose a match in which they were often sluggish and predictable – was that the performance should help him convince his employer of the need to sign at least one more forward this week. So far the club’s interest in Wilfried Zaha has succeeded only in annoying Crystal Palace and Pochettino would like a deal to be done for Marseille’s Georges-Kévin Nkoudou. Liverpool’s performance helped him to spell out further what he wants. “We need a player who is more direct, more aggressive offensively,” said Pochettino. “Because we have players like Eriksen, Son [Heung-min] or Lamela, who like more to play into feet, we need someone who has characteristics like we saw from Liverpool, like Mané, the type of player that can break the defensive line.” Over to you, Daniel Levy. Paul Doyle • Match report: Tottenham 1-1 Liverpool • Wanyama: ‘Failing is just when you’re not ready to fight. I am ready to fight’ • Klopp backs Henderson as Liverpool rebuilding continues 8) Losing Koné would send Moyes back to square one It was almost job done for David Moyes until a journalist asked the Sunderland manager about the immediate future of Lamine Koné just as the Scot thought there were no more questions. With the transfer deadline lurking, Moyes’s body language was enough to know the club faces a real fight to keep the defender, who impressed on his return to the starting lineup against Southampton, beyond 11pm on Wednesday. “I thought he played well today, I can’t really say too much on what else might happen between now and the end of the week,” said Moyes, before exiting the press conference suite at St Mary’s. Koné submitted a transfer request earlier this month after Sunderland’s proposed offer of an improved contract failed to materialise. Since then, Everton have increased their efforts to sign the Ivory Coast defender who arrived on Wearside from Lorient in January. “He’s done what he’s had to do, and we’ll see what materialises during the week,” said Moyes. “It was an easy decision to play him because we’ve got no other centre halves. But when you’re a player who has got a four-year contract, and you’ve only served six months of it, I can’t see that worrying about your contract situation should be in your head when you’re in the third game of the season. We will see what materialises this week and what happens.” Sunderland put on a sturdy defensive showing against Southampton, until Jordan Pickford’s late mistake allowed Jay Rodriguez to score his first goal since last September. The £8m summer signing, Papy Djilobodji, partnered Koné in defence, allowing Jack Rodwell to move into midfield and the defence was stronger for it. For Moyes, it feels very much back to square one if Koné is to depart. Ben Fisher • Match report: Southampton 1-1 Sunderland • Southampton close to signing Boufal for club record fee • Sunderland’s £7m bid for Iborra accepted by Sevilla 9) Deeney and Ighalo must bully their way back to form That Watford not only stayed up last season, but did so with relative ease, was significantly down to the work of Troy Deeney and Odion Ighalo; Deeney scored 13 league goals and Ighalo 15. This season, on the other hand, Deeney has yet to score in the league and Ighalo has yet to score at all, which helps explain Watford’s sketchy start: one point and a home defeat to Gillingham describe a team in difficulty. But to focus solely on their strikers’ goal returns is to miss what was special about them; it was not simply how many they scored, but what absolute misery they inflicted on anyone whose misfortune it was to mark them. Walter Mazzarri must remind his busy, bustling bullies that their job is to take defenders where they don’t want to go and upon arriving, knock them about with gay abandon; if he does, he might find that the goals follow. Daniel Harris • Match report: Watford 1-3 Arsenal • Wenger praises ‘excellent’ Özil on Arsenal return at Watford 10) Berahino’s time at West Brom is surely over There was a time when the prospect of losing Saido Berahino would have come as a major disappointment to West Bromwich Albion supporters, yet the reception the striker received when he came off the bench against Middlesbrough suggested that patience has finally run out. Berahino was booed and so was his contribution at times during a 19-minute cameo when the 23-year-old gave the impression that he was going through the motions. His time at Albion now looks certain to be over and with the benefit of hindsight, it would have been better for both parties if he had been allowed to join Tottenham Hotspur when they submitted bids of £18m and £22m for him this time last year. With one goal in his last 27 Premier League appearances, Berahino has badly lost his way and needs a fresh start to reignite a career that is at a crossroads. Stuart James • Match report: West Brom 0-0 Middlesbrough • Michael Cox: West Brom’s direct route cut off as Pulis struggles for answers
I had to quit NHS admin – I felt like a workhorse flogged too hard I had recently resigned from a well-paid job when I started working for the NHS in an administrative role. I was happy to be performing a useful service in the interests of a larger social goal, while no longer being required to write strategy documents or meet financial targets. However, in my seven months as a hospital specialty coordinator (a posh term for medical secretary, invented in order to create a sense of potential job progression), I experienced more stress – of several different kinds – than I have ever experienced. After the 2013 final report of the public inquiry into the “deaths by human error” at the Mid Staffordshire NHS foundation trust, the induction training programme for all new starters in the NHS – both clinical and administrative – was substantially rewritten. The major change in the day-long training sessions was the section on transparency and accountability. All new staff, we were told, were encouraged to follow the trust’s whistleblowing policy: this meant that we should feel duty-bound to report any incident, however small, that might jeopardise the wellbeing of a patient. The NHS is 25 years behind the rest of the country in terms of technology and management techniques. Despite millions of pounds spent on computer technology in the NHS, I was amazed to discover that everything done within the health service – every clinic letter, investigative test, scan result – requires a hard copy file note to accompany its electronic counterpart. Across the country, hospital administrative staff, such as myself, waste thousands of hours each week trying to locate hard copy patient notes that could be anywhere within numerous hospital departments, and in many cases, across several different hospitals. The most familiar sight in any hospital admin department is overloaded trolleys with patient notes being trundled from one section of the hospital to another, and overflowing filing trays that require staff to come in at weekends just so that they don’t start Monday mornings depressed by the amount of filing they have to do. I could not work out why technological advancements and concern for the environment could have somehow bypassed the NHS, the fifth largest employer in the world. Jeremy Hunt’s goal of a paperless health service by 2018 looked to be a long way off, particularly since most of the managers preferred the security of hard copies (as back-up in the event of a computer glitch, and also in terms of patient confidentiality, since paper is not vulnerable to computer hacking). Managers struggled to address the problems of their increasingly demoralised staff, who were trying to cope not just with the paperwork, but also with the constant demands of patients who wanted to know why their test had not been scheduled, or why they had not received their results. Absenteeism was rife because staff frequently called in sick with stress. On some days I found myself doing three people’s jobs. If a consultant was sick, their clinic for that day was cancelled. If a medical secretary, or two, or three, called in sick, the patients kept coming, and so did the accompanying paperwork. I felt like I didn’t have time to breathe, let alone take a lunch break, and inevitably, when people are stressed, they take it out on each other. In my experience, the consultants, registrars and junior doctors were polite and considerate to the admin staff; and the patients were understanding and forbearing: it was the other admin staff who were the most unpleasant to one another. On one occasion, for example, a group of admin staff organised an official meeting to complain that their colleagues were “hogging” the few hours per week of a temporary helper. Some managers tried a technological fix to the problem of overwork and paperwork – “two computer screens will make you more efficient by speeding up your processing times” – whereas what we needed was less absenteeism and better systems. We were, however, forbidden to use any external agency staff to cope with the dire shortages. These were considered an expensive luxury at a time of cost-cutting. Since all managers were assessed on their ability to achieve targets and avoid serious incidents, the real reasons for the poor performance of their staff were disregarded as long as no breaches of the trust’s policies needed to be reported. In the end, I felt like a workhorse who was flogged too hard for trying and failing to shoulder the burdens of the job. I have left the NHS and am working in a job where I no longer dread the thought of Monday morning. I never reported a colleague through the whistleblowing hotline and, as far as I know, no one reported me. I can’t help feeling guilty, though, at the thought of the continued toil of my former workhorse colleagues I left behind. If you would like to write a blogpost for Views from the NHS frontline, read our guidelines and get in touch by emailing sarah.johnson@theguardian.com. Join the Healthcare Professionals Network to read more pieces like this. And follow us on Twitter (@GdnHealthcare) to keep up with the latest healthcare news and views.
A work reunion? I’ve been naked in front of some of these people – I’m not sure Recently, I was invited to a reunion. Not a school one (thankfully it’s not THAT bad) but a “previous place of employment” one. Several years ago, I worked for MTV as a presenter. This was during a period when the channel began to use less M and more TV, when back to back music was starting to be replaced by shows like The Osbournes, Jackass and Cribs. A whole bunch of us newbies started around this time. And so word reached me that after a decade or so, someone had taken the decision to get us all back together. And not just the folk who helped create our particular period of MTV history, but also anyone who had ever worked for the channel before or since. This invitation, as kind as it was, made me a little anxious. Is there still a place for the reunion? As cliched as it sounds, aren’t some things just better off left in the past? Please understand I’m not a killjoy. I just love my rose-tinted glasses – I have great memories of my old job, and I’m scared a real-life update might not live up to those happy times. I’ve never been invited to a reunion before, so my mind is awash with unnerving thoughts. For example, a staple of the anxiety dream is being naked at just this kind of event, right? Well I have actually been naked in front of some of these people for varying reasons and that’s just one thing I like about the decade of distance that has grown up between then and now. My apprehensions also stem from my lack of real “training” when it comes to this type of gathering. Meeting new people, dinners, parties – I’m OK at those. But I’m bad at keeping in touch with people via the numerous social media options we’re offered now, and now feel I may have missed the boat. My Twitter and Instagram is a way of interacting with the world, to catch up on news and to let total strangers know how good my lunchtime avocado looks. Remember when Friends Reunited first entered our lives? There were ultimately two camps. The “how awesome is this!? I haven’t seen Ryan Moores since year 10 biology and yet next week I’m going to sit in his garage with him and drink Stella” camp, or “the friends I still see are the ones I chose and who in turn chose me so I’m just going to stick as I am, thank you” camp. I was in the latter. And then there is of course Facebook. At the last count an incredible one in seven people on planet Earth is an active member of the site, but I’m not one of them. I’ve never used Facebook so I’m not used to wondering what Paul from technology is doing now, and then being connected with him in the times it takes to click a button. My reasoning for this has always been that a real, physical experience is a thing of beauty. Being able to hit like (or now dislike as announced by Mark Zuckerberg in the most pointless announcement made by a multibillionaire in history) is not a satisfactory replacement for getting together, and having fun. A like serves only to show mild appreciation for someone’s video of their cat falling off a sofa. So I admit a reunion may offer a better opportunity to hear tales of past debauchery, watch alcohol-fuelled grievances unfold and see a few “home truths” about former colleagues being aired. Ten years ago, I can recall a group of us going to France to make a show. While there, two of the team got together romantically, one slept in the bath the whole time, I enjoyed so much après-ski that I did a big paragliding scene but forgot to press record on the camera, and one person was found outside in the snow sobbing – at which point we all rallied around and gave her the kind of wise advice you’d imagine only a bunch of drunk TV presenters could give. Given all of this, I think it would be hard to miss such an invite. In the best case scenario, a reunion is an event where people remind each other of this time and that particular incident, a place where old stories are told, and you’re given the chance to experience a uniquely warm nostalgia as you catch up. And once it’s over everyone can stay in touch by exchanging regular updates online. Come the reunion-reunion in another decade, I reckon I’ll be totally chilled about the whole thing.
Jürgen Klopp says Liverpool cannot complain about defensive tactics Jürgen Klopp said Liverpool have “nothing to moan about” after Southampton followed Manchester United’s lead by adopting a defensive approach against a side who have scored 30 Premier League goals this season. Showing little ambition to attack despite playing at home, Southampton held Liverpool to a goalless draw with the sort of tactics that Liverpool may well have to get used to as opponents try to nullify the threat of Klopp’s free-flowing team. Far from criticising Southampton, Klopp empathised with Claude Puel, his opposite number, and admitted it would be “crazy” for teams to open up against Liverpool. The German said the onus was on Liverpool to find ways to break down obdurate opponents while retaining their concentration at the other end of the pitch – something he took encouragement from at Southampton, where Liverpool enjoyed 65% possession and were rarely troubled at the back. “I felt we had more possession. My feeling was we had 70%, no problem,” the Liverpool manager said. “If we play this football then it would be crazy to give us space, so why would they do that? That is what we have to work on, it is our job and we have the players for it. It is never easy, you cannot only play counterattack, you cannot only play high-press, you have to prepare for everything. “There is nothing to moan about, you can’t ask them: ‘Come on, give us a little more space or something?’ Before the season we had to work on this, and that is what I meant when I say we are happy with the performance against Southampton, because again we did well. It isn’t a game where you have 20 chances, we had four or five. That is more than enough, especially how big those chances were.” It was put to Klopp that United set up with a similar mindset in the 0-0 draw at Anfield last month. “United was different. We weren’t good,” Klopp said, before reinforcing the point that he has no qualms about facing opponents who defend in numbers. “It isn’t a problem. A lot of teams play against us like this, we move on. We cannot change what other teams do. “The only thing we have to make sure is that [failing to get a good result] isn’t because of us – that is what I am so happy about [against Southampton]. The players are concentrating, staying in games when it doesn’t work and not letting them counterattack if we defend. My favourite situation was when [Nathan] Redmond counterattacked against four Liverpool players and we got the ball back because he couldn’t see another Southampton player – that is what we have to do. We have to take the ball and try again. We cannot do any more and then we will come through. We have the quality to score.” The clean sheet at Southampton was only Liverpool’s second of the season in the league, although Klopp feels far too much has been made of their defensive weaknesses. “When you only look at the numbers and you see 14 goals conceded, then that is obviously too much for a team like this, but look how we conceded them – three goals we conceded are from set pieces. Well, in my analysis afterwards they were offside but nobody spoke about it, just that we have a problem with set pieces. “We always need to be cool with it, we have to work, improve, we know this. But we are able to defend. We are not weak in defending. If somebody wants to say that then do it. But I know we aren’t.”
Marc Pugh’s half-volley drives Bournemouth past Leicester City Bournemouth handed Leicester City another Premier League wake-up call after Marc Pugh’s first goal of the season condemned the champions to an eighth league defeat. Leicester’s unwanted away record continues and it is now eight months since Claudio Ranieri’s side tasted victory on the road in the league. Eddie Howe, in contrast, left the field after kissing Nathan Aké, high-fiving Steve Cook and with his team eighth in the table, their highest ever position. Leicester’s return of one point from their first eight away matches is the lowest total by a defending top-flight title-winning team. After walking out on to the pitch to stretch their legs, Jamie Vardy and Marc Albrighton were soaked by the Bournemouth sprinklers. From that moment on it was a miserable outing for Leicester, who failed to show the mettle of champions in Ranieri’s 200th Premier League match. “We have to react, we have to be more concentrated, more determined, [to] show more willingness. We need something more – more everything,” Ranieri said. “In the Champions League we play so well and in the Premier League we do not. I do not know why.” Ranieri looked as baffled as anybody by his side’s mysterious away form, with their last win away from the King Power Stadium coming at Sunderland in April. Vardy was guilty of spurning a golden chance after racing on to Riyad Mahrez’s crisp through ball in a first 45 minutes dominated by the hosts. Bournemouth could have been in front inside three minutes had Adam Smith’s head made contact with Charlie Daniels’ low cross. Jack Wilshere, playing in a deeper role, also tested Ron-Robert Zieler with an effort from distance. Howe praised Wilshere’s “best game” in a Bournemouth shirt. Zieler booted his goalkick into the backside of Benik Afobe and the ball ran out of play for a throw-in. Afobe reacted quickly, teeing up Pugh, the Bournemouth winger making his first Premier League start of the season, and he attempted an ambitious lob on the German goalkeeper. Robert Huth saw a shot deflected wide from a corner but Leicester were unable to truly test Artur Boruc in the Bournemouth goal. Huth was later fortunate not to pick up a booking after tugging back Harry Arter as Bournemouth counter-attacked. Bournemouth were in no mood to back down and the home side were eventually rewarded for their effort. After being picked out by Simon Francis, the marauding Smith slid the ball across from the right for Afobe who fired low towards goal, only for Zieler to save with his legs. But the rebound fell straight to Pugh, Bournemouth’s longest-serving player, and he half-volleyed the ball past the Leicester goalkeeper, whose right hand was not strong enough to prevent the shot hitting the net. Behind at the interval, Ranieri’s team arrived early for the second half, with the club-record signing, Islam Slimani, replaced by Shinji Okazaki. “I said ‘show me the desire to win the match’ and sometimes we have to be more aggressive and press higher,” Ranieri said. There was plenty of endeavour but Leicester, who were drawn against Sevilla in Monday’s Champions League last‑16 draw, came up short on quality. Howe had urged his side to show no signs of a “hangover” after the defeat at Burnley on Saturday and Bournemouth were dogged yet inventive throughout here. “We have been in the Premier League a while but [to say we are eighth] is a nice thing,” the Bournemouth manager said. “I think the most pleasing thing is this season we have the ability to respond to setbacks very well, and that’s a really good sign for the future. “I still think there’s a lot more to come and I think we are in a really good position to get better. The club’s come so far so quickly I am always trying to look for the next goal and that’s now to try and beat Southampton [on Sunday].” Leicester’s prime weaponry was blunted. A more direct approach almost paid dividends, with Luis Hernández’s long throw momentarily unsettling the Bournemouth back line. Bournemouth were forced to soak up Leicester pressure and the referee, Paul Tierney, waved away appeals for a penalty when Aké clumsily upended Vardy inside the box. Leicester could have snatched a point with only injury-time remaining but Bournemouth, Boruc and his defence stood tall. Vardy crossed from the right for Leonardo Ulloa, a late substitute, but the Bournemouth goalkeeper somehow kept out his close-range shot before Okazaki was denied by the diving legs of Cook and Aké.
Wen Hair Care baldness suit signals need for toxin testing in beauty products Last week brought news that Wen Hair Care, a celebrity endorsed “sulfate-free” shampoo and conditioner line is preparing a $26.5m settlement after a class action lawsuit over thousands of complaints of hair loss and skin rashes. While cases like Wen put people on high alert, it is difficult to steer clear of potentially toxic products. Every day the average person uses nine personal care products, according to a survey by the Environmental Working Group. With most personal product ingredient lists taking up an unpronounceable paragraph, it can be a daunting area for consumers to navigate. Especially when something like the Wen lawsuit provides a reminder that personal care products are barely regulated in the US. There currently is no independent testing of ingredients in beauty products. However, if a particular cosmetic product is causing serious health issues, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will step in with a consumer warning, as was the case with Wen. The FDA issued a public warning last month, saying that the company failed to address safety concerns. Wen, however, has persisted in saying that its products are safe, despite the FDA’s objections and the company’s own decision to settle the class action suit. In a statement, the FDA said that it could do little else to compel the company: “We do not have the legal authority to require a cosmetics firm to provide product safety information.” The only FDA regulation of the cosmetic industry dates back to a few rules adopted in 1938 that have remained largely unchanged, leaving the cosmetic industry effectively self regulating. That self regulation allows cosmetic companies to voluntarily report adverse effects from their products to the FDA. In Wen’s case, 127 instances of adverse effects were reported to the FDA, a fraction of the around 21,000 complaints made to the company. While cosmetic ingredients have not changed dramatically in the past 50 years, various additives in personal care products have received scrutiny in recent years. When there is a lot of attention around a cosmetic ingredient, companies will sometimes look to replace it with an alternative to avoid controversy. That can create new issues, as replacement ingredients have often been studied less than what they’re designed to supplant. In the case of Wen, its products were advertised specifically as not having sulfates or detergents, as there have been public objections to their safety. The FDA doesn’t require full ingredients lists to be made public, so it is still unclear what chemicals might have prompted consumers’ hair loss, but it’s possible that one of the substitutes was the issue. Another way the beauty industry has responded to a lot of the concerns around its ingredients is by marketing “natural” cosmetic and hair care lines. But because the term “natural” is not regulated, it doesn’t mean anything. “Natural is a marketing trick to get people to pay more,” says Perry Romanowski, a cosmetic chemist and a co-founder of The Beauty Brains, a blog about the ingredients in cosmetics. “Cosmetics are not natural: there is nothing natural about them.” New legislation might help address the regulatory gap. Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein and Republican Senator Susan Collins have proposed legislation that would give the FDA the power to issue recalls and conduct their own safety tests of ingredients found in cosmetics. A number of major cosmetic companies, such as Estée Lauder, have backed the bill, but it still faces opposition from the Independent Cosmetic Manufacturers and Distributors, the cosmetic trade group for small to mid-sized cosmetic companies. While lobbyists fight it out in Washington, Nneka Leiba, deputy director of research at the Environmental Working Group, has a few words of advice for consumers. It’s best if you can use single-ingredient alternatives, says Leiba, but she allows that not everyone can use something like coconut oil for all their skincare needs. She says reducing the number of products used everyday or using products with fewer ingredients, like those without artificial fragrances, can be another strategy. If a person is worried about the ingredients in their makeup, says Romanowski, not using products is another way to alleviate that worry. After all, he points out, there is “no health benefit in using cosmetics”.
Sex education in schools 'unfit' for smartphone generation, survey finds Three-quarters of young people are not taught about sexual consent, while one in seven said they did not receive any sex and relationship education (SRE) at all, and 95% said they were not taught about LGBT relationships, according to a report from the Terrence Higgins Trust. The survey of young people by the HIV and sexual health charity said infrequent and poor-quality sex and relationship education in schools was creating a “safeguarding crisis” for young people. The findings are in line with an Ofsted report in 2013, which found that SRE teaching was inadequate or required improvement in 40% of schools. Where SRE is taught, Tuesday’s report found, young people said it was usually limited to biological topics such as reproduction, body parts and heterosexual sex. The survey, called Shh … No Talking warned that SRE is “unfit” for the smartphone generation, leaving them vulnerable to abuse, bullying and poor mental and sexual health. Ian Green, the chief executive of the Terrence Higgins Trust, said: “In this report, we’ve seen the stark reality of SRE in this country and heard saddening stories of how one generation of young people have been exposed to low self-esteem, homophobia, bullying, unhealthy relationships and poor sexual health as a result of the lack of quality SRE in our schools. “The government’s quiet blocking of compulsory SRE will condemn another generation of young people to leave school armed with little to no information on issues like LGBT relationships, gender identity and consent. “Without trusted information from schools on anything other than the biological basics of heterosexual sex, young people will turn to less reliable sources such as the internet or their peers as they navigate life outside the classroom.” In February, the government refused to make SRE compulsory, against the advice of parents, educators, the education select committee and young people themselves. The women and equalities select committee, which is looking into how to tackle sexual violence, harassment and bullying in schools, has found overwhelming support for SRE and personal, social and health education (PSHE) to be made mandatory in schools. Other findings in the charity’s report include: Half of more than 900 respondents aged 16-24 rated the SRE they had received as “poor” or “terrible”. Just 10% of respondents rated it “excellent” and 2% rated it “good.” Just 5% of young people who said they received SRE were taught about LGBT sex and relationships, while 97% believed it should be LGBT-inclusive. About 97% of those who said they received SRE did not recall gender identity being taught and 89% were not taught about sex and pleasure. 61% said they received SRE just once a year or less. 32% of respondents did not remember receiving any information on HIV in schools, while 27% said they did not receive any information on HIV. 99% of young people surveyed thought SRE should be mandatory in schools. At the moment, SRE is only mandatory in state-maintained secondary schools, which account for 40% of all schools. Academies, primary schools, free schools and private schools are not obliged to teach it. Green said it was “shocking” that Department for Education guidance on SRE had not been updated for 16 years. “Young people are getting information about sex and relationships in a world before social media existed, before smartphones, before equal marriage or civil partnerships,” said Green. “It is wholly unfit to prepare them for the realities of sex and relationships in 2016.” Paul Bishop, an assistant headteacher and director of sixth form at Saint Cecilia’s school in Wandsworth, south-west London, said: “It seems everyone thinks SRE is someone else’s job. The result is an information vacuum which leaves children and young people reliant on inaccurate or unrealistic depictions of sex and relationships from alternative sources, such as their peer groups and social networks.” Lauren Alexandra Young, 18, who took part in the survey, said: “My SRE consisted of watching a cartoon video of a heterosexual couple, labelling the male anatomy and learning how pregnancies occur. We weren’t taught about sexual intercourse, other contraception, health relationships or even periods. “Many young people struggle with their feelings of sexuality and gender and if no one is talking to them about it, or allowing them to discuss it openly, they will internalise their worry and it will grow into something ugly and harmful for the individual.” A total of 914 young people aged 16-25 completed the survey, which was online for seven weeks in February. A Department for Education spokesperson said: “High quality sex and relationship education (SRE) is a vital part of preparing young people for life in modern Britain - helping them make informed choices, stay safe and learn to respect themselves and others. Our guidance is clear that young people, whatever their sexuality, need to feel that sex and relationships education is relevant to them and sensitive to their needs. “We also expect all school to deliver PSHE to a high standard. We know that the vast majority of schools and teachers recognise the importance of PSHE, and trust teachers to tailor their lessons to best suit their pupils. We are focusing on raising the quality of PSHE teaching and working with leading headteachers and practitioners to look at how best to achieve this.”
Over 200 years of deadly London air: smogs, fogs, and pea soupers On 9 December 1952 the Great Smog officially ended – for five days a thick layer of air pollution, mostly caused by coal fires, had covered London and caused the deaths of thousands of residents. 64 years later the London Mayor has committed £875 million to tackle the problem. This week the Royal Society of Biology hosted an event on air pollution and health (#greyskyresearch) and the Royal Society of Chemistry will run their annual Air Pollution conference next week. After two centuries of fatal London fogs, what have we learnt? Fogs were relatively common in London in the 1700s, but by the early 1800s these had become deadly, as the smoke and fumes from industrialisation and urban growth were trapped by calm, still air. It was not just the pollution that was a threat to life and health, but also the traffic, and newspapers were full of tragic stories of accidents: in the 1837 December fog the Times reported that “an aged female named Jane Wilson” was “knocked down by a cart and severely injured” and Chelsea resident Mr Phillips was thrown out of his chaise into the road where a “cart passed over his right thigh, and fractured it dreadfully”. Animals suffered too - in 1873 the annual cattle show at Smithfield market was ruined by a December fog that left the “fat cattle…panting and coughing”, and many of the animals collapsed and died. The Victorians are famous for their public health activity – ambitious sewer schemes, the introduction of Medical Officers of Health, and vaccination programmes – so why did they struggle, as we do, to deal with deadly air pollution? If it’s everyone’s fault, it’s no one’s fault One problem lay in the fact that the smogs had many causes. Heavy industry was one source, but so too were the railways and steamer-boats, and particularly domestic coal-burning fires. Various societies were formed to campaign for what was often called ‘smoke abatement’, but they met with resistance. At a meeting of the ‘Noxious Vapours Abatement Association’ in Manchester, a representative from the Health Committee of the Salford Corporation (like a modern city council) won applause from a working class audience when he objected to smoke abatement because “he would be sorry to see a persecution commenced against the manufacturers, for if they were driven from the borough, where would the bread of the working man come from?” If ‘big business’ wasn’t going to reform, why should individuals? Smoke abatement campaigners seem to have thought that education was all that was needed: in 1881 the Smoke Abatement Committee opened a smoke-prevention technology exhibition in London which attracted an extraordinary 116,000 visitors in just a few months; all the installations were independently tested to make sure that the manufacturers’ claims were accurate. Yet this did not lead to a mass take-up of smoke-reducing technology, and an attempt to force changes by passing a law regulating domestic smoke failed in 1884. Some industries had been regulated by the Smoke Nuisance Abatement (Metropolis) Act of 1853, but only in London, and this excluded some factories such as glass works and potteries. Rather oddly, a lot of the discussion about this Act focused not on the health risks of smoke, but on the expense of laundry caused by the dirty air of London (estimated as high as £2 million) - as one member of the House of Lords suggested: “The smoke so affected the clothing of the working classes that it was computed every mechanic paid at least five times the amount of the original cost of his shirt for the number of washings rendered necessary.” Who pays the price? Even if it saved on washing bills, there was a genuine fear that over-regulation might lead to job losses. Worse, the Victorians were also concerned that reforming domestic fireplaces would actually make people sicker, rather than healthier. Although open fire places were serious sources of coal smoke pollution, they had one advantage over more efficient systems: they created draughts. Through most of the nineteenth century medical professionals thought that disease was spread by ‘miasmas’, clouds of harmful matter. One way to tackle the danger of miasma was to ensure air did not become ‘stagnant’, and open fireplaces helped to create a ‘healthy’ circulation of air. While the larger, airier homes of the middle and upper classes could be ventilated in other ways, investigations into the slums and basement dwellings of the poor suggested that open fires were vital. Of course, this could be solved with serious slum clearances and massive investment in homes for the poor, but it proved hard to justify that expense on the grounds that it would prevent air pollution. In any case, reformers worried, people were ‘sentimentally attached’ to their open fires, and resisted technological change. Suggestions to solve the smoke problem remained small scale: taxes on new stoves or fireplaces, restrictions on certain manufacturing plants, the formation of small local societies to help people buy efficient stoves ‘by instalments’, and so on. But one problem not tackled was the rather obvious one: pollution travels. Responsibility for enforcing anti-pollution and anti-smoke laws rested, by the late 19th century, with local governments and the London County Council, so if pollution was blowing in from a factory in an uncooperative neighbouring jurisdiction, there was nothing councils could do to enforce the limited rules that existed. In 1914 central government was finally persuaded to set up a committee to reconsider the legislation about pollution, but its work was interrupted by the outbreak of war. It was not until 1956 that a Select Committee’s recommendations, pushed by backbenchers against a sceptical Conservative government, led to the passing of the 1956 Clean Air Act, a direct response to the smog of 1952. For the first time, this Act regulated domestic fireplaces as well as industrial furnaces, and created smoke control areas where only smokeless fuels could be burnt. Although a milestone in public health, just 60 years later Londoners are dying, again, from polluted air. Although the London Mayor has announced that funding for this problem will be doubled the challenges remain essentially the same faced by the Smoke Abatement Leagues in the 1800s: the causes are complex, some pollution is (thought to be) linked to economic growth and jobs, there are social reasons why people resist changes (especially if they require personal sacrifices, such as giving up car or air travel) and the miasma of pollution still travels across regional and national boundaries. Do we have any new solutions?
Public Access TV: Never Enough review – a debut fans of rock'n'roll will love The big problem facing Public Access TV is outlined on End of An Era: “They say the kids don’t like rock’n’roll any more,” sings John Eatherly. There’s the rub, because the music on Public Access TV’s first album is about as far from the zeitgeist as you can get. There’s no bedroom R&B auteurism, rather the perfectly captured sound of 1979/80 – this is a band whose wardrobes must be laden with skinny ties and sneakers. But it’s absolutely fantastic: Eatherly’s ear for melody and arrangement – albeit in a very specific way – is impeccable. Evil Disc, palm-muted guitars rolling into a chorus so uplifting it sounds like the ghost of drive-times past, is the best song Tom Petty never wrote; there’s beaty garage pop on In Love and Alone and Remember. The pace slows only for Careful, an Emitt Rhodesesque waltz-time ballad. Those kids who do still like rock’n’roll should snap it up.
Ed Miliband interview: 'The thing that's important to me is that the fight goes on' There is a cosy hush in the sunlit living room of Ed Miliband’s north London townhouse. Warm spring light is flooding through the bay window; a magnolia tree blooms in the front garden outside. Aside from the ring on the doorbell that heralds the arrival of an Ocado order, there are few interruptions – and little sense of urgency, or haste. Tom Baldwin, who was Miliband’s media enforcer for much of his time as Labour leader, is here, tapping away at his laptop, putting the finishing touches to a press release about a speech on Europe his old boss will make the next day. But it’s a gentle kind of spinning, this: a one-off return to the fray. The two old friends chat amiably about their families, exchanging titbits of news. A tiny plastic Octonaut figure, abandoned face down on the carpet beneath a chair, is a reminder that this is a family home; for Miliband’s two sons, a place to play. A year ago, it was a place to plot. Miliband’s advisers – Torsten Bell, Greg Beales, Marc Stears, Baldwin, Stewart Wood – would gather here at weekends to talk tactics, draft speeches and shore up their man. Together with their Tory opponents, most opinion pollsters, and much of the press, they believed they could carry Labour over the line into government. That belief persisted right up until election night, when the BBC’s 10pm exit poll correctly predicted that the Conservatives were in the lead. In fact, voters had delivered what David Cameron later called “the sweetest victory of all” – an overall parliamentary majority for his party. “It’s hard,” says Miliband, of that defeat. “It’s very hard; it’s definitely hard. And you know it’s hard because of what you see happening to the country. The people who are suffering; what’s happening to the NHS; just right across the board. And that’s the sense of sadness and regret that one has about the election result.” There was personal hurt, too, it has taken him a long time to feel ready to return to the public fray. He remains an MP, but has been scrupulously quiet throughout the ructions in his own party that have marked the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn. “My view right from the moment I stood down was that I’m not going to get into a running commentary on my successor, and I think that’s the right position. I was always going to be 100% supportive of whoever succeeded me, and that is my position in relation to Jeremy.” But in the wake of last year’s catastrophic defeat, few of his colleagues – on either wing of the party – were so reticent. Leftwingers, including some around Corbyn, trashed Labour’s manifesto as “austerity-lite” for accepting that some spending cuts might be necessary. Rightwingers quickly junked policies such as the freeze on household energy prices as too “anti-business”. Still others blame him for failing to stay on as leader and stabilise the party in the wake of the defeat – and for changing the rules for selecting his successor, in a way that some feel allowed johnny-come-lately £3 supporters to swing the party too far left. “He broke the Labour party” is a line I have heard from more than one senior figure, I tell him. “I don’t buy that,” he says. “The interesting thing is that this notion of what is essentially a primary system, whereby all of the members and supporters of the party get to vote, is actually something that all wings of the party were proposing and supporting. “Sometimes I hear that people feel a sense of ambivalence about the fact that we’ve doubled our membership. I don’t feel ambivalent about that at all, because I think the only way you change things as a political party – and in a way this is one of the deeper lessons I learned from what happened – is you need the people on the ground; you need to be making the argument.” Given his obvious enthusiasm for ideas – “the lifeblood of politics”, as he calls them – a thinktank chair or a place in the wonkier lane of the lecture circuit would have been an obvious next move. And he has been “writing and thinking” he says – as well as having the chance to walk the kids to school. But he has also thrown himself back into campaigning in his constituency of Doncaster North, trying to discover what this re-imagining of politics from the grassroots up might mean in practice. Late last year, he went on the six-day community organising course run by Citizens UK, the successful campaigning movement that has fought for a living wage in London and beyond, and tries to give local activists the tools they need to tackle injustice in their communities. “That was incredibly eye-opening,” he says. “Part of what I’ve tried to do in my constituency is apply that to us as a political party.” So the man who had hoped to take on “predatory” capitalists with the might of the British state at his elbow, has instead been manning a stall on the high street in Mexborough, in his Doncaster constituency, urging local people to avoid loan-to-own retailer BrightHouse, which has been accused of charging up to three times as much as alternative retailers, and use the local credit union instead. “Scepticism and cynicism about politics is so great that one of the best counters to it is what you can do at a local level,” he says. “This BrightHouse campaign has come out of me engaging with our new members, and saying that being a member of the Labour party is not about asking ‘What can Jeremy do for me?’ or ‘What can the mayor of Doncaster do for me?’; it’s about what can we do ourselves in the community. “Now I think what’s got to be done – and I know Tom Watson [Labour’s deputy leader] takes this incredibly seriously – is that those 400,000 people have to become part of what I never managed to really do completely, which is to make Labour into a genuine community organisation: to use those people to make them feel it’s not simply about attending meetings or engaging in internal events, it’s about reaching out.” He has been working on climate change, too – a cause he has believed in since his days as secretary of state for energy and climate change in Gordon Brown’s government. With cross-party backing, he recently managed to persuade the government to agree to back an amendment that enshrined in law the zero-emissions target Britain signed up to at the Paris climate change talks. “I think that’s an important thing I could do by building a cross-party alliance of people”, he says. And on Europe, his speech aimed to deliver a warning (from a politician no longer caught up in the day-to-day dogfights in Westminster) of the long-term risks of flouncing out of the European club – particularly for any future Labour leader who succeeds where he failed and wins back power. “Just think about all the things you’d want to do; and think about how much more difficult it would be outside the European Union: things I really care about – inequality, how you create decent jobs; tackling tax avoidance; guaranteeing workers’ rights. All of these things become much more difficult when you’re on your own.” Miliband was asked to speak out because senior figures in the Remain camp fear that Labour voters will regard the referendum as a family row among Conservatives, instead of a vote about Britain’s future, and stay at home. “You can’t allow the moment to obscure the long-term impact of this decision for progressive politics,” he insists. He adds that leftwing critics of the EU are deluding themselves if they think losing the shackles of Brussels would allow Britain to implement a radically different set of policies. “There just isn’t a version of ‘socialism in one country’ around in the 21st century,” he says. “I think it’s really important that we don’t fall for this nirvana of ‘Let’s just get out and we can create a socialist Britain’.” Corbyn himself has sometimes flirted with this approach in the past, and some Labour backbenchers accuse their leader of being lukewarm on Europe, but Miliband insists: “Jeremy is as passionate about this as I am. The thing I say to Labour activists is [that] we’ve got a responsibility that goes beyond the here and now – to allow future Labour governments to be able to achieve the kind of progressive change that we want to see, and we’ve also got a responsibility as Labour voters.” He adds “nothing can be taken for granted in this. Sitting on our hands is not the answer in this referendum. Sitting back, watching the Tories tear themselves apart.” Afterwards, Baldwin asks whether “neither sitting on our hands, nor rubbing our hands”, is a nicer turn of phrase. Miliband shakes his head: “Doesn’t sound very me.” He goes out of his way to praise Corbyn, whose outriders in the parliamentary party feel so besieged they have been drawing up lists of those they consider to be hostile – a fact that emerged this week, unleashing fury on the right of the party, and derision from the prime minister. We spoke before the list emerged, but Miliband said nothing to justify his inclusion as “core group negative”, indeed offering a far more positive review of the leader’s performance than many of those deemed “neutral”. “I thought Jeremy did incredibly well at the budget response in the chamber last Wednesday, and I know from experience how difficult that is,” he says. As it turned out, Miliband’s carefully choreographed return to frontline political life provoked the merest flicker of interest – drowned out by the political maelstrom that engulfed the Conservative party after the resignation of Iain Duncan Smith, and the fatal terrorist attacks in Brussels. At times, while listening to Miliband, it feels as though the way he has rationalised the bruising events of the past 12 months or so is by intellectualising them – by ascending to the lofty heights of the historian, leaving behind the clumsily gulped bacon sandwiches, the 8ft 6in “Ed Stone”, and even the act of political fratricide that saw him seize the Labour crown. “I think part of the thing that is important to me, and is important to Labour supporters, is that the fight goes on,” he says. “The fight goes on in relation to this budget, in relation to Europe, and in a way, the history of progressive politics is that there are setbacks – significant setbacks – and you have to overcome that. But obviously it’s tough.” Ironically, some of the ideas Miliband championed continue to strike a chord – George Osborne pinched his promise of a generous rise in the minimum wage (punchily rebranded as the “national living wage”); and shadow chancellor John McDonnell’s pledge to “change the rules of capitalism” is pure Miliband. In the US, Bernie Sanders’ rhetoric about the raw deal ordinary workers get from big business, and his appeals for a responsible capitalism, chimes with Labour’s approach. And Osborne’s standing with the public has plunged since the abstract manifesto pledge of “welfare cuts” was translated into specific proposals to slash tax credits for working families, and to cut the amount disabled people receive to help them dress themselves or go to the toilet. Miliband describes this as “the mask slipping on what the Tories are and what they stood for. You can’t talk one nation and act two nations, and that’s what they’re doing.” But even here, he sounds at least one step removed from the fray. When our chat is over, and the ’s photographer asks Miliband to move to a scuffed, pale green button-back chair, he glances for approval at the man whose job it once was to ring up journalists and castigate them for failing to give his man a fair crack. The chair passes muster, but you sense it’s not so much because it projects the right image – but because it doesn’t matter any more. • This article was amended on 25 March to clarify that the BBC’s general election exit poll predicted that the Conservatives were in the lead, not that they would have a majority.
EU referendum TV debate: Farage attacks racism claims as 'tiddly issue' In a televised debate with the prime minister, Nigel Farage has defended himself against claims of racism, saying that comments he made about the possibility of Cologne-style sex attacks in Britain were “a tiddly issue” in the EU referendum campaign. The Ukip leader told a questioner in the ITV election programme to “calm down there” when she asked him about the controversial claims that triggered a robust response from the archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby. During the confrontation, David Cameron warned that a vote to leave the European Union at the referendum, which takes place in 15 days’ time, could trigger a second Scottish referendum, despite previously claiming that the result north of the border in 2014 was “decisive”. He said that a vote to leave the EU would make the British “quitters” rather than fighters, adding that he wanted to make the patriotic case. “I think we’re an amazing country. I say if you love your country, you don’t damage its economy, you don’t restrict opportunities for young people, you don’t actually isolate your country and reduce its influence in the world,” he said. “Frankly I do worry about a second Scottish referendum if we vote to leave. You don’t strengthen your country by leading to its break up.” But Cameron faced a difficult question from an audience member who complained that immigration had left him without a GP, unable to climb on to the housing ladder, and finding the place he had grown up had turned into a “no-go zone”. The prime minister responded by saying: “There are good ways of controlling immigration and bad ways. A good way is saying people can come here, work and contribute but pay in before they get out.” He also hit back at Farage’s claim that there was too much emphasis on GDP and not enough on the impact that immigration had on “ordinary decent people”. “Mr Farage kept on saying GDP is not important. GDP is the size of our economy. It is the size of all the wealth our economy creates,” he said. “We don’t want to be little England, we want to be Great Britain.” The prime minister sought to associate the wider leave campaign with his Ukip opponent after the chancellor, George Osborne, suggested that his Conservative colleagues campaigning for out were fighting for a vision of “Farage’s Britain”. Farage rejected the idea that he was divisive or racist, telling the audience that he was fighting for the rights of immigrants from the Commonwealth. On the comments about sex attacks, in which he warned that the issue was the referendum’s “nuclear bomb”, he complained that he had been demonised, suggesting that Welby should read his actual quotes rather than the headlines. However, Farage repeated earlier arguments, saying that sex attacks were a “huge issue” in Germany. “A very large number of young single males have settled who come from cultures where attitudes are very different,” he said. The Tory business minister, Anna Soubry, accused Farage of an “awful, patronising, slightly chauvinistic attitude” towards the female questioner whom he told to calm down. “That’s the trouble with Nigel: he’s a prickly pear really and he doesn’t like it up him when someone asks him a tough question.” Tom Watson, the deputy Labour leader, said Farage “got flustered and hectored the audience” and Cameron did an adequate job. But he also said he wished that Labour had the chance to put across “our distinct message on the EU” about workers’ rights. A spokesman for Farage rejected the idea that Scotland would be granted a second referendum, while the Conservative out campaigner, David Davis, said Cameron’s warning of a UK break up was “a scare story and a very, very, ill-founded one”. Vote Leave, the official out campaign, did not attend the event after reacting furiously to ITV’s decision to please Downing Street by fielding Farage rather than a senior Conservative figure linked to their group. They accused the prime minister of telling “five outright lies”, including about being able to remove EU jobseekers after six months, or stopping foreign criminals walking into the UK. Earlier on Tuesday, Cameron was challenged to a head-to-head TV debate by Boris Johnson and Michael Gove, after he accused the leave campaign of telling six lies about the EU. Hours after Cameron said they were “peddling nonsense” and “resorting to total untruths”, the two leading Brexit campaigners said the public deserve to hear the arguments debated in person. The prime minister has declined offers to do any one-on-one events as he does not want to be seen to attack senior Tory colleagues in the Brexit camp directly. Engaging in a head-to-head debate with another politician would also arguably raise the status of his opponent. Gove and Johnson said: “We think that the public deserve the chance to hear these issues debated face-to-face between the prime minister and a spokesman for Vote Leave so they can judge for themselves which is the safer choice on 23 June. “The prime minister was absolutely right to hold this vote and allow ministers the chance to disagree with him. We hope that in the same spirit he will accept this invitation.” Earlier, Cameron gave a surprise press conference to accuse the leaders of the Vote Leave camp of lying, amid signs of rising concern in Downing Street about the Brexit camp gaining momentum. In recent days some phone polls have shown that the leave group is ahead. Asked if the hastily arranged event was a sign of alarm, the prime minister said “not at all” but he wanted to make sure he had debunked all the untruths being told by leading Brexit campaigners.
Kellyanne Conway is Trump's last chance at winning Donald Trump’s pivot is a tale of two hirings, and which one he gives more weight to will have a dramatic impact on the outcome of his campaign. Most analysis thus far has revolved around Breitbart News chairman Stephen K Brannon, who last week was named the campaign’s chief executive. It was a move widely seen as a rebuke to the more traditional presidential campaign that the recently ousted Paul Manafort sought to implement. But the hiring of Manafort’s actual replacement, seasoned GOP operative Kellyanne Conway, tells a very different story. Namely, that Trump is going to remain true to himself, only this time in a winning way. Conway, who started with the Trump campaign in July as an adviser to Manafort, has promised to do what Manafort could not: to “sharpen the message” put forward by Trump, rather than try to rebuild his personality from scratch with a teleprompter – something she’s previously described as being less about changing Trump than giving him choices. (In a July interview with the Washington Post, Conway compared her approach to the time she persuaded her daughter to swap out a turquoise Memorial Day outfit for a more flattering blue alternative.) That means Conway listening to Trump as much as he listens to her. And unlike a lot of women, conservative and otherwise, she’s been willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, recently telling MSNBC “I think you should judge people by their actions, not just their words on a political campaign trail”. Whether Trump will be able to listen to and learn from Conway’s guidance, however, remains to be seen. Listening to women has never exactly been Trump’s strong suit, but now his entire campaign may hang in the balance of his ability – or more likely, lack of ability – to do just that. He started out strong in Charlotte last Thursday with a speech owning up to the “personal pain” caused by his past words. In that speech, he cast himself as the truthteller for forgotten Americans and a champion of those who feel the best is behind them. “I am running to be the voice for every forgotten part of this country that has been waiting and hoping for a better future,” he said. “It’s the powerful protecting the powerful. The insiders fighting for the insiders,” he said. “I am fighting for you.” Of course the pivot is about more than just rhetoric. In the weeks ahead, Trump has promised to follow the messaging up with a series of ads targeting the central themes of his campaign, like immigration, along with regularly scheduled policy addresses ahead of the upcoming debates. But Trump’s campaign has always been longer on talk than substance, and this is a strategically wise picture for Trump to be painting: that he may be brash and uncouth from time to time, but he’s fundamentally a guy who calls it as he sees it. In contrast, so the picture goes, to Clinton’s politically correct doublespeak. In interviews following Trump’s big speech, Conway drove home that messaging. Speaking on CNBC Monday, Conway sought to cast Clinton’s reserved style as a measure of her supposed “untrustworthiness,” contrasting it with Trump’s energetic approach to rallies. Conway called Trump a man who “enjoys himself on the trail,” adding: “He gets oxygen from at being at these rallies [and] from giving these speeches”. Meanwhile Clinton, she said, “looks like she’s not happy to be out there” campaigning. Conway has a long list of success stories when it comes to this kind of retooling, from helping GOP lawmakers change the way they talk about rape to helping Trump’s running mate Mike Pence polish his personality in ways that “kept him comfortable in his own skin” ahead of a gubernatorial reelection campaign, as Pence’s communications director recently told TPM. In both cases, her coaching seems to have paid off, at least for a time: those GOP lawmakers walked into decidedly fewer self-sabotaging boobytraps in the election cycle following the 2013 retreat at which she spoke, and Pence’s strong performance at the RNC last month was a bright spot in an otherwise blighted convention. But, in the words of Trump’s old campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, to just “Let Trump be Trump!” is a somewhat fraught proposition. We’re talking about a man who’s called Rosie O’Donnell a “fat pig,” Mexican immigrants “rapists,” and dismissed a difficult line of questioning from a female moderator as being linked to “blood coming out of her … wherever”. Those are the kinds of lines Conway is hoping to help Trump steer clear of, much as she coached Congressional Republicans to stop uttering such politically suicidal lines as Todd Akin’s comment about “legitimate rape”. With Trump, such lofty goals may be hopeless. No sooner had Conway begun to insist in interviews that “the pivot that he’s made is on substance”, than he proceeded to make a mockery of her claims. After she declared on ABC News’ This Week With George Stephanopoulos, that Trump “doesn’t hurl personal insults,” for instance, he went out the next morning and cattily attacked the hosts of MSNBC’s Morning Joe program, Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, doubling down on the sexist rhetoric that’s come to characterize his campaign. “Tried watching low-rated @Morning_Joe this morning, unwatchable!” Trump tweeted. “@morningmika is off the wall, a neurotic and not very bright mess!” In a follow-up tweet he referred to Brzezinski as her cohost’s “very insecure longtime girlfriend”. With only two months left before the election and with Trump trailing Clinton significantly in the polls, one thing is certain: this is his last best chance to have any shot whatsoever at winning.
'You’re dead in two seconds': why do female stars over 40 agree to be in blockbusters? It’s easy to read the headline “Julianne Moore to play villain in Kingsman 2” and balk, bemoaning the action sequel as being firmly beneath the Oscar-winning actor’s considerable talents. But her rumoured role in the film is just the latest in a string of similar announcements for award-winning female stars over the age of 40. Vin Diesel’s extreme sports reboot xXx: the Return of Xander Cage recently added Oscar-nominee Toni Collette to the cast, Oscar-winner Charlize Theron is loosely attached to play the antagonist in Fast & Furious 8, Oscar-winner Cate Blanchett is set to face off against the Avengers in Thor: Ragnarok and last week saw Oscar-nominee Laura Dern become a last-minute addition to the sprawling roll call of Star Wars: Episode VIII. Later this year we’ll also see Oscar-nominee Laura Linney in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 and, perhaps most surprisingly, Cannes best actress winner Charlotte Gainsbourg show up in Independence Day 2. The big-budget world of the blockbuster franchise has typically been somewhat closed off to women of this ilk while their male counterparts still dominate. Robert Downey Jr (50), Johnny Depp (52), Tom Cruise (53) and Will Smith (47) are all seen as viable and profitable names to hinge major properties on, but aside from perhaps Angelina Jolie, it’s only younger women who are allowed to compete. Even then, we’re mainly talking about Jennifer Lawrence and Scarlett Johansson, who is still to receive her Black Widow movie though. Now this latest trend of hiring inarguably overqualified women to take on roles in action sequels is hardly evidence of a total sea change. None of these women are taking on leads but they’re in the conversation. It’s too tempting to dismiss Toni Collette playing fifth fiddle to Vin Diesel as a depressing sign of a talented actor lowering herself for a paycheque, but somewhere in the process these roles are now being written, however small they might be. The parts themselves tend to be divided into two very different categories. The first is “office stiff” as exemplified by Collette playing a bureaucrat in the intelligence service in xXx 3, Linney down as a bureau chief of organised crime for New York City in TMNT2 and Frances McDormand once playing the US director of National Intelligence in Transformers 3. Then there are the villain roles, which Theron, Moore and Blanchett are set to play in their franchise efforts. Older women as love interests or reckless action heroes are somewhat less common. We’re often too quick to assume that female actors who have excelled in more serious fare aren’t going to be challenged or even interested in starring in films where special effects take centre stage. It’s a base thought process and one which recalls a stereotypical view of genre and its relationship with gender. Last year, Jurassic World director Colin Trevorrow was attacked for attaching this line of thinking to explain why more female directors aren’t taking on tent-pole projects. “I want to believe that a film-maker with both the desire and ability to make a studio blockbuster will be given the opportunity to make their case,” he said on Twitter. “I stress desire because I honestly think that’s a part of the issue. Many of the top female directors in our industry are not interested in doing a piece of studio business for its own sake. These film-makers have clear voices and stories to tell that don’t necessarily involve superheroes or spaceships or dinosaurs.” His comment was, quite rightly, criticised, and with Monster director Patty Jenkins currently making DC’s stand-alone Wonder Woman film and Selma’s Ava DuVernay taking on Trevorrow-scripted sci-fi thriller Intelligent Life, women are making some slow progress at increasing their behind-the-camera presence on blockbusters. This is likely to have a ripple effect, with a study last year showing that women are more likely to hire other women on set if granted the power. There’s also the matter of commerce. Women are still earning less in Hollywood and, with bigger budgets, bigger salaries are naturally set to follow. It’s therefore understandable for an actor such as Moore, who joked that she paid for her own food on the set of Still Alice, that a well-paid turn in Kingsman 2 might be appealing. But for some performers used to taking on roles with substance and depth, a brief excursion to the green screen often leaves a sour taste. When interviewed about her brief role in Godzilla, Juliette Binoche said: “I don’t know how much fun you can have when you have to die in two seconds, and you’re the one real woman character and you’re dead in three minutes and 45 seconds.” At this stage, it’s hard to know just how rewarding and substantial this forthcoming set of roles will be for the female actors in question, and given the precious studio-led PR machine for each franchise, the stars are unlikely to tell us the truth pre-release. But if equality is to become a standard in Hollywood, it means that women have the right to star in brainless popcorn fodder just as much as men do.
Suicide Squad blunders as Sausage Party makes a sizzling start at the US box office Suicide Squad, David Ayer’s take on the DC Comics antiheroes, experienced a 67% drop in box office during its second week of release, following poor reviews. The failure to sustain business past its opening weekend mirrors that of Warner Brothers’ last superhero film: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice – which was also mauled by critics – saw a 69% drop in business in its second week. Ayer’s film nevertheless remains at the top of the US chart thanks to a $222.9m (£172.6m) take to date. Second place goes to a new entry: Sausage Party, the R-rated animated comedy about foodstuffs facing their use-by date, which got off to a sizzling start with $33.6m. The film stars Seth Rogen as a frankfurter who finds out that food gets eaten. Disney’s latest live-action outing, Pete’s Dragon, was in third place with $21.5m in its opening weekend. David Lowery’s remake of the 1977 children’s film, about an orphan who befriends a goofy mythical beast, has scored highly with critics and is predicted to do well as the school holidays continue. The week’s other new release, the Meryl Streep comedy-drama Florence Foster Jenkins, charted at No 8. Stephen Frears’s film, based on the real-life story of the tone-deaf opera singer, took $6.6m. US top 10 box office, 12-14 August 1. Suicide Squad, $43.8m. Total: $222.9m 2. Sausage Party, $33.6m. Total: $33.6m 3. Pete’s Dragon, $21.5m. Total: $21.5m 4. Jason Bourne, $13.6m. Total: $126.8m 5. Bad Moms, $11.5m. Total: $71.5m 6. The Secret Life of Pets, $8.8m. Total: $335.9m 7. Star Trek Beyond, $6.8m. Total: $139.7m 8. Florence Foster Jenkins, $6.6m. Total: $6.6m 9. Nine Lives, $3.5m. Total: $13.6m 10. Lights Out, $3.2m. Total: $61.1m
Facebook and Microsoft to build private internet highway underwater Facebook and Microsoft are going underwater. The two technology companies announced on Thursday they are to install an undersea cable from the east coast of the US to Spain to help speed up their global internet services. Fast connectivity is particularly important to Facebook, which wants to encourage users across the world to broadcast live video and meet in virtual reality. Both activities can consume vast amounts of bandwidth. The project marks yet another example where technology companies are assuming roles traditionally left to public utilities or the government, and until now undersea cables have traditionally been laid by telecommunications incumbents. Meanwhile, Google continues to expand Fiber, its high-speed internet program, Amazon.com effectively is building its own postal service, Uber is attempting to replace regulated cab companies and Facebook is bringing wireless internet to Africa. The cable will travel from northern Virginia in the US, a major junction point in the global internet, to Bilbao in Spain, and then onward to the rest of Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia. The companies said it will be highest-capacity undersea cable yet across the Atlantic. The cost wasn’t disclosed. An infrastructure-focused subsidiary of Telefónica, the Spanish telecom provider, will manage the cable. Construction is scheduled to begin in August 2016 and be completed by October 2017. Even though Telefónica will sell access to the cable to other companies, Facebook and Microsoft are ensuring they will get premier access to quick data transfers across the sea. In effect, the companies will have their own private highway between two major markets. There currently are more than a dozen undersea cables between America and Europe. The decision for Facebook and Microsoft to build their own speaks to their vision for how much bandwidth they will need in the future. At Facebook’s developer conference in San Francisco in April, executives showed how they envision two users on different continents meeting up virtually online using elaborate systems of headsets, cameras and other monitors. The experience will require an extraordinary amount of space on the internet’s backbone. Facebook’s ability to fund its own cable now is likely to help it maintain its market dominance in the future. While upstart virtual reality companies will have to buy space on others’ undersea cables, Facebook simply will have its own.
Tottenham thrash Swansea as Crystal Palace end losing streak – as it happened Sunderland 2-1 Leicester – match report: West Brom 3-1 Watford – match report: Tottenham 5-0 Swansea – match report: Crystal Palace 3-0 Southampton – match report: So Spurs are back to winning ways in style, Alan Pardew’s losing streak is over, and West Brom are up to sixth – sixth! – in the Premier League table, while National League’s Sutton United have claimed their place in the FA Cup third round. That’s all from me, thanks for reading. Late goal at the Camp Nou! You can get a roundup of all the scores in the FA Cup, Championship and across Europe right here. League Two Wycombe have thrashed League One Chesterfield 5-0, and Sutton United are the only non-league side of the day to make it through to the third round, Roarie Deacon scoring a 90th-minute winner against Cheltenham to put the National League club into the hat with a potential Premier League tie their reward. Chaos at Hillsborough where Preston’s Doyle and Beckford have been sent off for fighting each other! Dealt with diplomatically by PNE: Jordan Pickford made an incredible save in the final moments at the Stadium of Light to win Sunderland three crucial points! What a performance by the 22-year-old. Crystal Palace 3-0 Southampton Stoke 2-0 Burnley Sunderland 2-1 Leicester Tottenham 5-0 Swansea West Brom 3-1 Watford Christian Eriksen buries a fifth into the bottom corner. Insults added in the Championship: Norwich score a fifth against Brentford as Barnsley notch a third against Birmingham. In the FA Cup Blackpool remain 1-0 in front against Brackley Town and the visitors’ dream of reaching the third round for the first time is fading fast. Matt Phillips finds the bottom corner from just outside the area to finish Watford off. In the Championship Norwich have added a fourth at home to Brentford, and Barnsley are now 2-0 up against 10-man Birmingham to pick up an unlikely three points. Puncheon cuts a pass back and the striker gets his second of the game. On the touchline, Alan Pardew breaks into a big smile. Roberto Pereyra reacts to a challenge by James McClean and is shown a straight red card. Seemed a little harsh, and that might be Watford’s challenge done. They remain 2-1 down. It’s going to a nervy final ten minutes at the Stadium of Light. An impressive performance by Wycombe who are thumping League One Chesterfield 4-0 in the FA Cup second round. Oh, make that five. I feel his Twitter handle ruins all celebratory tweets. Jermain Defoe smashes the ball home from 12 yards and the Black Cats are climbing off the foot of the table. Sone Aluko puts Fulham 3-0 up, despite Reading’s protestations over the goal. Fernando Forestieri opened the scoring for Sheffield Wednesday against Preston but he’s just been sent off for an incident off the ball, and that hands the visitors a chance to get back into the game. Wednesday still lead 1-0. An easy finish for the midfielder and it’s a disastrous day for the Swans. Goal at the Camp Nou! Oh Solihull! Luton have scored their third and fourth second-half goals and the FA Cup third-round spot is slipping away from the National League side, who are now down 4-2 having been 2-0 up at the break. And Sunderland should have a penalty! But the referee turns away as Danny Simpson takes down Van Aanholt. A slice of luck for Sunderland as the substitute Jan Kirchhoff’s header is diverted into the net by Robert Huth, and that could be so crucial for Sunderland. A red card for Danny Williams means Reading will play the rest of the match at Fulham, where they are 2-0 down, with ten men. In the FA Cup, our best chance of an upset has all unravelled! Solihull Moors were 2-0 up against Luton but the home side have pulled back two in quick succession. The defender Christian Kabasele gets his first Watford goal with a tap-in at the back post and this one is not over. Fulham are 2-0 clear against Reading and are looking good for all three points at Craven Cottage, Chris Martin slamming a finish from the edge of the box. In the only game still goalless in the Premier League, Sunderland are facing pressure from Leicester who have come out much more positively in the second half. Jordan Pickford is called into action and punches a dangerous Riyad Mahrez cross clear. Kenny Miller ends his scoring drought to put Rangers 1-0 ahead against Aberdeen at Ibrox. This could be a long half for Swansea. Son and Kane combine on the counterattack and Spurs look home and dry. Half-time in the clásico, which is not living up to it’s name: Fernando Llorente is on for Swansea replacing Jay Fulton as Bob Bradley looks for another special turnaround. Second halves are getting under way. “Spurs actually as clinical as the NHS really are every day of the week now!” emails Jeremy Dresner with tail between legs. “Great scissor kick from Son to score should have taken the lillywhites home for the win without too much further pain.” “Enjoying Spurs v Swansea and tracking other action on your Clockwatch feed as I drink a cafecito (Cuban pull espresso) and do the dishes in my kitchen in Miami,” emails Ted Allen, a former multi-tasking world champion. “Sport and caffeine help me tolerate the chores better! Of note the sizable Brazilian and Colombian communities here have of course been rocked by the Chapecoense tragedy and the club’s emerald green jerseys have become the temporary kits of many recreational league teams in the city this weekend in tribute.” All the players are wearing black armbands in the Premier League this afternoon. There’s a lot of love out there for Stoke’s first-half performance against Burnley. Mark Hughes’s side could be in the top half of the table by the end of the day, quite a turnaround when you consider it took them eight games to find their first win of the season. And you can get a roundup of all the half-time scores in the Championship, the FA Cup and across Europe right here. Crystal Palace 2-0 Southampton Stoke 2-0 Burnley Sunderland 0-0 Leicester Tottenham 2-0 Swansea West Brom 2-0 Watford Son spins and thumps Spurs into a two-goal lead at the break, which is a pretty fair reflection on a half they have dominated. “Hey Lawrence,” emails JR. “Please find a picture of what Taylor did to Walker. Taylor’s foot was six feet in the air and he planted all of his studs directly into Walker’s face. He looked like he was imitating John Cleese’s goose-step. It was a clearer red card than Aguero’s kung-fu legbreaker on Luiz earlier and Jonathan Moss thought it wasn’t even worthy of a yellow card. Truly insane.” You might have a point, JR: Marc Roberts has handed Barnsley a surprise 1-0 lead at Birmingham City in the Championship as half-time nears. In the FA Cup Solihull Moors are a step closer to reaching the third round, going 2-0 up at Luton. This is already the club’s best FA Cup showing and their run is not over yet. Naughton brings Alli down just inside the box and this might be a soft one. Harry Kane sends Fabianksi the wrong way from the spot and, finally, Spurs are in front. Penalty to Tottenham! Joe Ledley flicks a corner across goal for James Tomkins to put away from close range, and Selhurst is rocking. Marc Muniesa, of all people, steps forward to bury a wonderful finish. Chris Brunt crashes a long-range strike but it takes a deflection on its way through. This is a shocker! Fraser Forster scuffs a clearance against his standing leg and the ball falls perfectly for Christian Benteke, on his birthday, to slot home. Bristol City’s form has tailed away recently but they are ahead at Ashton Gate against Ipswich through a Lee Tomlin penalty. “Spurs have had 71% of possession and all the chances so far,” emails Jeremy Dresner. “Less clinical than the NHS on the weekend though that is according to our beloved health minister. The Hunt.” Tottenham are piling the pressure on Swansea at White Hart Lane. Kyle Walker goes close, crashing a shot from range towards the crossbar which Fabianski tips over. It’s 0-0 between Plymouth and Newport in the FA Cup second round but Argyle now have a one-man advantage: Half-times in the Bundesliga. Hoffenheim are 2-0 ahead and looking to keep up the pressure on Bayern Munich at the top of the league. Kilmarnock go 1-0 ahead against Dundee through Rory McKenzie, and St Mirren lead by the same score at Falkirk. Glen Johnson trots down the right and swings in a cross for Jon Walters to guide the ball inside the far post, a classy finish. It’s all going against Brentford at Carrow Road, where Bentley saves a penalty but can only watch as Dorrans pokes the rebound home for Norwich to lead 2-0. Elsewhere in the Championship, Fulham are 1-0 up at home to Reading thanks to a Chris Gunter own goal. Chris Brunt bends in an in-swinging corner and Jonny Evans nods home for the Baggies. Sunderland are hammering at the Leicester City door with Victor Anichebe in charge of battering ram operations. Wes Morgan has had to make a couple of crucial blocks to keep Leicester in touch. A couple of early goals in the Championship, where Jacob Murphy has handed Norwich the lead against Brentford and Kasey Palmer has put Huddersfield in front at Blackburn. And as I type, Fernando Forestieri heads Sheffield Wednesday into a 1-0 advantage over Preston. Neil Taylor has jabbed some studs into Kyle Walker to leave the Tottenham full-back needing treatment. No punishment for the Swansea defender... Mixed FA Cupset news: Luton are 1-0 down against National League Solihull Moors but Blackpool lead by an early goal against National League North Brackley Town. “Afternoon Lawrence,” cheers Simon McMahon. “Scotland’s game of the day is, eh, a long-time finished, seeing as it was played last night at a near capacity Tannadice, Dundee United going joint top of the Scottish Championship as they beat leaders Hibs 1-0. For those that prefer their football on a Saturday, today’s Scottish Championship action includes Dunfermline v Ayr and Falkirk v St. Mirren. In the Premiership it’s Rangers v Aberdeen and Hearts travel to Ross County having lost manger Robbie Neilson to MK Dons midweek. In Scottish League One it’s Queens Park v Brechin and in League Two Cowdenbeath v Clyde.” Victor Anichebe has transformed Sunderland’s form – he is David Moyes’ answer to Chelsea’s change of formation. The big striker has already tested Leicester’s defence a couple of times in the early moments at the Stadium of Light. Any predictions out there? A bright start by Watford at West Brom, and Amrabat goes close with the first chance forcing Ben Foster into a sharp stop to tip over his bar. Here’s Daniel Taylor’s on-the-whistle report from the Etihad: Whistles peep all around the Premier League grounds and we are under way. A few early goals in the Bundesliga including Dortmund v Mönchengladbach, a battle of two underperforming teams, where the home side are up 2-1 courtesy of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Lukasz Piszczek. Fresh from signing a bumper new contract this week, Harry Kane leads the line for Spurs at White Hart Lane. No Fernando Llorente for Swansea – the striker starts on the bench despite his heroics against Crystal Palace last weekend with Gylfi Sigurdsson starting in a central attacking role, it seems. At the risk of you leaving me and never returning, the clásico teams have also landed: West Brom v Watford West Brom: Foster, Dawson, McAuley, Evans, Nyom, Yacob, Fletcher, Brunt, Morrison, Phillips, Rondon. Subs: Palmer, Olsson, Robson-Kanu, Gardner, McClean, Galloway, Chadli Watford: Gomes, Zuniga, Prödl, Kabasele, Holebas, Guedioura, Amrabat, Capoue, Pereyra, Deeney, Okaka. Subs: Pantilimon, Eleftheriou, Watson, Doucoure, Sinclair, Success, Ighalo Sunderland v Leicester Sunderland: Pickford, Jones, Kone, Djilobodji, Van Aanholt, Pienaar, Ndong, Denayer, Watmore, Anichebe, Defoe. Subs: Mannone, O’Shea, Januzaj, Manquillo, Khazri, Kirchhoff, Larsson Leicester: Zieler, Simpson, Huth, Morgan, Fuchs, Mahrez, Amartey, King, Albrighton, Slimani, Vardy. Subs: Hamer, Hernández, Musa, Schlupp, Okazaki, Gray, Mendy Full-time: Man City 1-3 Chelsea And it ends in chaos! You can catch up right here: Stoke City v Burnley Stoke: Grant, Johnson, Martins Indi, Muniesa, Diouf, Adam, Imbula, Pieters, Shaqiri, Walters, Arnautovic. Subs: Given, Allen, Whelan, Bony, Crouch, Bojan, Ramadan Burnley: Robinson, Ward, Mee, Keane, Flanagan, Boyd, Hendrick, Marney, Arfield, Gray, Barnes. Subs: Vokes, Kightly, Lowton, Bamford, Pope, Tarkowski, Defour Crystal Palace v Southampton Crystal Palace: Hennessey, Tomkins, Dann, Delaney, Ward, Ledley, McArthur, Puncheon, Townsend, Zaha, Benteke. Subs: Speroni, Fryers, Kelly, Flamini, Lee, Sako, Campbell Southampton: Forster, Cedric, Fonte, Van Dijk, Bertrand, Romeu, Hojbjerg, Ward-Prowse, Boufal, Redmond, Austin. Subs: Taylor, Yoshida, Clasie, Long, Davis, McQueen, Sims Another goal at the Etihad... Tottenham v Swansea Tottenham: Lloris, Walker, Dier, Vertonghen, Rose, Dembele, Wanyama, Eriksen, Dele, Son, Kane. Subs: Vorm, Wimmer, Carter-Vickers, Winks, Sissoko, Onomah, Nkoudou Swansea: Fabianski, Naughton, Van der Hoorn, Amat, Taylor, Fulton, Cork, Fer, Barrow, Sigurdsson, Montero. Subs: Nordfeldt, Rangel, Mawson, Britton, Routledge, Borja, Llorente Full-time: Motherwell 3-4 Celtic A crazy game at Fir Park has finished with a Celtic victory, Tom Rogic’s strike in added-time sealing all three points for the visitors, who go 11 points clear at the top. Motherwell were leading 2-0 at half-time. Traffic has left Swansea with less than an hour to get ready... Premier League lineups for the 3pm GMT kick-offs coming right up, but first you might want to get the details on how Chelsea have turned the tables on Manchester City at the Etihad: Hello. Do you remember that time a couple of months ago when Manchester City were certain to win the league and it wasn’t a question of if they were going to win it but whether they would drop a solitary point along the way, such was their brilliance, but then Tottenham came along and Mauricio Pochettino out-Pepped Guardiola and blew City out of White Hart Lane with a 2-0 thumping? Victor Wanyama was everywhere, Toby Alderweireld was impenetrable and Son Heung-min was the greatest false-nine of his generation. That’s what I remember anyway. Well you would be forgiven for forgetting because Spurs have failed to be nearly that good thereafter, winning only once in 10 games since. They have fallen off the title pace and fallen out of the Champions League largely due to a lack of goals – and today’s match could and should be the antidote, against a Swansea side who have conceded 14 in the six games Bob Bradley has been in charge. The American picked up his first win last week to drag Swansea off the foot of the table but the 5-4 ding dong with Crystal Palace was about as unconvincing as it gets – it just happened that the final whistle blew at a moment when Palace had conceded most. Palace are under pressure right now and Alan Pardew desperately needs something from Southampton’s visit to Selhurst Park today to break a run of six successive league defeats. Elsewhere in the top flight, bottom side Sunderland host the champions Leicester, eighth-place Watford head to ninth-place West Brom, and Burnley travel to Stoke where Mark Hughes has Xherdan Shaqiri in form and his top scorer, none other than Joe Allen, back from suspension. One of these Premier League sides could be the prize for National League North side Brackley Town, should they get through their FA Cup tie against Blackpool at Bloomfield Road to reach the third round for the first time in the club’s history, one of seven second-round cup ties this afternoon. On top of that there is a packed Championship schedule plus plenty of action in the Scottish Premiership, the Bundesliga and more to check in on. Premier League kick-offs: 3pm GMT
Rachel Parris review – laughing in the face of depression You can tell something’s in the air at this year’s fringe when you see a comic hitherto associated with jolly parody songs and even she is reciting her recent correspondence with the Samaritans. Lots of comedians have mental-health shows at Edinburgh but if we’re drowning in the tears of clowns then Rachel Parris throws in tears of laughter too. Her Samaritans emails feel tweaked for comic effect, her conclusion a mite too easily engineered for uplift – but this remains a compelling hour, as Parris fronts up about feelings on which women are usually obliged to put a brave face. Best Laid Plans is about the grown-up Parris expected to be when she was six – house, car, husband, kids – and how real life has refused to play ball. “I’m not married, but on the plus side I do get to go to a lot of weddings,” she says, through gritted teeth. There’s forthright material on the female orgasm, culminating in Parris’s answer to the faux-sexy Flight of the Conchords song Business Time. Another number eschews lyrical invention in favour of gloating “I went to the gym” against a soaring melodic backdrop. At the show’s tender heart, though, is an account of Parris’s recent breakup, which pitched her for the first time into depression. She’s endearingly frank and funny about the experience, even if the sometime jauntiness of her Samaritans correspondence sits uneasily with the air of emotional candour. But it’s all beautifully crafted and performed. At Pleasance Dome, Edinburgh, until 28 August. Box office: 0131-226 0000.
Chinese satellite will test 'spooky' Einstein claim Sometime this month, China is planning to launch a satellite that could be a first step towards establishing a “hack-proof” communications network. The satellite is a collaboration between the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Austrian Academy of Sciences. It will be launched from China’s Jiuquan satellite launch centre in Inner Mongolia aboard a Long March 2D rocket. It will test the quantum phenomena that govern the sub-atomic world of particles. These are often bizarre: particles can be in two places at once, they can behave like waves and solid particles, they don’t quite know exactly where they are – the list goes on. However, one of the weirdest behaviours is the one Einstein described as “spooky”. It is termed entanglement. When two particles interact with one another, they become “entangled”, and any subsequent interaction that one of those particles has immediately affects the other one. According to theory, this entanglement persists over any distance, but so far researchers have only tested it across the 143km that separates the Canary islands of La Palma and Tenerife. The new satellite will attempt to communicate with ground stations in Beijing and Vienna, and test entanglement over 1,200km. No one understands the mechanism by which entanglement works, but if it can be harnessed it offers “hack-proof” communications. This is because any eavesdropping would automatically change the message. Thus the intended recipient would know the signal had been tampered with. Military and governmental applications are obvious, as are secure on-line shopping and banking. Other countries, such as Japan, UK, Italy, Canada and Singapore are also pursuing quantum satellites, but the US appears not to be investing very much in the technology.
'I crashed my car after a night shift and now have post-traumatic stress disorder' Last month, the Healthcare Professionals Network published an article about the dangers of doctors driving home after working nights. Two in five UK doctors (41%) have fallen asleep at the wheel after a night shift, according to an online survey of 1,135 doctors from Doctors.net.uk. Within hours of publication, the network was flooded with emails, tweets and comments below the line and on Facebook from various healthcare professionals who wanted to share their thoughts and experiences. Here are some of them: I crashed my car after a night shift and now have post-traumatic stress disorder Back in 2005, I was an FY2 doctor in orthopaedics. Like most junior doctors even today, we would do seven night shifts in a row. Sleeping during nights (even if you had a chance) was frowned upon. When I started foundation training, there was a doctors’ office which had a bed but it was removed by the management in front of us. They insisted that junior doctors should never sleep during their night shifts and if they did have a free moment they should be doing discharge summaries etc. One Wednesday morning after I had worked five, 12-hour night shifts and had two more to go, I managed to get home and caught a few hours’ sleep. I woke up at around 12pm and decided to drive to the shops. Once on the main road, I quickly began to feel very tired and disorientated. I turned around to head home, but at a major roundabout suddenly crashed into a car. I am convinced that more than 60 hours of night work were behind the accident that day and still feel incredibly lucky that I did not kill anyone that day or get killed myself. As a result, I have post-traumatic stress disorder related to driving. I am so terrified of driving post-nights that I only live within walking distance of hospitals and walk home after every shift. I dare not apply for jobs that involve a commute of any kind and hence I am stuck in non-training jobs. I fully understand that night shifts and night work is an integral part of my job but it does not have to be so hard or so difficult to provide us with on-call rooms or a reduced number of shifts. I will be 37 soon and I am still doing blocks of three or four very intense nights shifts. My body, my spirit and my life are feeling the pain. Dr Hunniya Waseem, senior clinical fellow, emergency medicine, Bury St Edmunds Nurses are not allowed to sleep on their breaks – it is a sackable offence I have fallen asleep at the wheel after working a night shift. I have been a nurse for 10 years and this has happened to me on quite a few occasions. Nurses are not allowed to sleep on their breaks – it is a sackable offence if they are caught. I spent almost five years working in emergency medicine and the shifts are tough. We often go without food and drink for the entire shift. I once worked a shift where I had three patients suffer a cardiac arrest in one night. The first was an elderly gentleman; I hadn’t even been told his name before he arrested. He survived. The second was a man in his late 70s who we expected to pass away. The third was the toughest; it was a man in his 30s who had alcoholic liver disease. He arrested at 6.55am, just before the day staff came on. I was working with an agency nurse because we were short staffed. We worked on him for 90 minutes. I left the hospital at 9am after starting at 7pm the evening before. That morning there had been two major accidents on the roads. It took me two hours to do a 20-minute journey. The traffic was going at a snail’s pace and I fell asleep multiple times that morning in the car. It was midday by the time I got home, showered, reflected on my horrific shift in order to rest properly and crawled into bed. My alarm went off five hours later to do it all again. Anonymous Sometimes I wonder how I’m still alive – who looks after NHS employees? I am a mental health nurse who has worked within the NHS since 2003. Sometimes I wonder how I’m still alive. In the morning, at about 5am when I’m about to finish my shift, I find it very difficult to keep my eyes open or concentrate enough to even have a conversation with my colleagues. My concern is when you finish at 5pm, and then get a call immediately from A&E. We cover a big area and I have to go out and assess the patient within four hours. Then you get another call from another A&E, and then another. Sometimes I’m almost home by midnight and get another call. Something really needs to be done about this. It’s dangerous for anyone to drive while tired, and I know some people would say, park and rest. At that time of the night/morning, where does one park and rest? The NHS is destroying its staff, sometimes literally by the accidents from driving home so tired. Who looks after NHS employees, because the NHS certainly doesn’t? Mental health nurse, West Yorkshire I fell asleep at the wheel and was woken up by the car running out of petrol I fell asleep at the wheel once as a student nurse coming home from a particularly difficult night shift at my placement hospital 30 miles from home. I was lucky as it could only have been for a minute before I got shaken awake by the car running out of petrol as I’d not been able to afford to fill it up on my way in. I sat on the hard shoulder and cried for a good hour until the police came along and knocked on my window. Luckily for me one of the kindest policemen I’ve ever met went and bought me a fiver’s worth of petrol and then followed me home to make sure I got there safely. Anonymous nurse It’s not fair for the doctors or their patients Some hospitals still let you rest but some are militant against any sleeping (often the nurses get it worse than us). As a more experienced junior doctor now, I know my decisions around clinical care and my safety on the journey home require me to have some sleep. Even if that’s just 20 minutes, the difference is vital. I have been a qualified doctor for three years. Last year my commute was 10 miles down winding country lanes and after a series of seven consecutive night shifts (totalling a 90-hour week) I crashed my car into a brick wall outside my house. Fortunately the damage was only material. My hospital didn’t provide rest facilities after a night shift so when I finished my medical shifts at 10-11 am I would have to decide whether to risk driving home or sleep in our communal staff room where my day-time colleagues would be taking their breaks. There is no dignity in this. It is not safe and it is not fair to the doctors forced to make these decisions or to the patients they are treating half an hour earlier. We are doctors, we are humans and our first priority is all too often our patients. Sometimes we need an advocate to protect our interests and safety and this is sadly lacking. Jenny Worrall, doctor Join the Healthcare Professionals Network to read more pieces like this. And follow us on Twitter (@GdnHealthcare) to keep up with the latest healthcare news and views.
To protect workers’ rights, the left should come out fighting for the EU The next three months will be crucial for the future of work in general, and for British trade unionism in particular. There are two threats. The first is the trade union bill – surely one of the most pernicious pieces of proposed legislation in recent history. The second, the possibility of leaving the European Union – so suspending the array of protections it offers in the workplace – would erode what remains of British worker rights and entitlements. Britain already possesses the least regulated labour market in the developed world. The evaporation of these last protections will reduce employees to pawns – notations on spreadsheets to be disposed of at will in just-in-time workplaces. The division in Britain between an aristocracy of privileged workers enjoying international standards and a mass precariat of the rest will grow more acute. Brexiteers cheer at the prospect; the “burden” of Brussels regulations that they rail against fall into two main clusters. Firstly there are those essential to creating common standards and protocols in a single market of 28 countries and 500 million people. To complain about these is as futile as complaining about the weather. In or out they are vital to sustaining a level playing field as a precondition for trade. The only question is whether we want to share in their formulation. The other cluster of regulations relates to minimum worker rights. No leading Brexiteers have ever committed themselves to maintaining them if Britain leaves. Nor will they. The economic case for leaving comes from the same intellectual stable as the trade union bill. In this universe, workers are not conceived as part of the capital of the workplace, assets whose energies and commitment need to be harnessed and whose humanity respected. Rather they are seen as problematic liabilities – costs to be minimised – that get in the way of “wealth generation”, a top-down process, initiated only by senior management and entrepreneurs which any worker entitlement necessarily obstructs. Plainly there is a balance to be struck. Too many worker entitlements can stifle the agility of an enterprise and overload it with cost; too few and the world of work is turned into a high risk, unfair hell. This is bad for companies who are forced into a race to the bottom that is hardly the route to innovative capitalism; and bad for wider British society. A mass precariat will find it difficult to become great parents, active citizens or even provide a discerning mass market on which production depends. The balance struck during the years of the Labour and coalition governments is about right: Britain has a labour market that has proved remarkably good at creating jobs while most work environments are tolerable, offering minimum protections – even if the prevailing dynamic is to continue to load more risk on employee shoulders. Trade unions get a terrible press, even with only 2.7 million members out of a private sector of 19 million, and 3.8 million among the 7 million public workforce. But despite their demonisation, their efforts – on wages, discrimination, safety and fairness – along with EU provisions together create the balanced workplace. It is that which is now fatally threatened. The recent qualifications imposed on the trade union bill in the House of Lords mitigate some of the worst of what was intended – but still it remains destructive. It is stunning that unions were legally to be prevented from electronically balloting members in a digital age for fear it might make compliance with tough balloting requirements easier – the House of Lords has instead demanded a review of the issue. Similarly it has tried to soften measures on political party funding. But the bulk of the bill remains intact. Strikes, already difficult to call and win – and in any case at an all time low – are to be made even harder to call and easier to break. Ominously police powers to regulate protests and pickets are to be vastly extended, for example with a requirement to create “picket supervisors” who must wear identifiable armbands – just as police states around the world require. To cap it all, a newly empowered certification office will be able to investigate any union at any time even if no complaint has been made, calling any witness it likes – again a familiar tool of police states. Britain’s press, loud in defence of any regulatory intrusion on its rights, on this ominous evolution of a British authoritarian state is mute. Anybody who imagines that in this culture, a post-Brexit Conservative government would legislate to retain the rights for information and consultation required by European law, women’s rights when pregnant, limitations to the working week and the rights for temporary, part-time and agency work is sadly deluded. Belatedly the unions are recognising the danger. The executive of Unite, our biggest union, has voted nearly unanimously to campaign to stay. So has the GMB, and Unison, more Eurosceptic, looks likely to follow. Frances O’Grady, general secretary of the TUC, makes a powerful case for staying. But it is a campaign struggling to find its voice. For a start, the attitude of Labour leadership makes any common cause – either with unions or the wider Remain coalition – difficult to create. Too many on the left, in particular Corbyn, his close coterie and their supporters in Momentum, only want to campaign – if they campaign at all – for another “social” Europe that does not exist. They hold their noses at the Europe that is, with its necessarily complex tradeoffs and inability to represent a socialist Jerusalem. Certainly they never want to sully themselves with sharing a platform with members of the wider coalition, from David Cameron through to the CBI. But there is only the Europe we have: it has enough critics in the Leave campaign without half-hearted, qualified semi-advocacy from Corbyn. The CBI likes the single market; the City likes being the EU’s financial centre; the military and security institutions like the co-operative access; and British workers like the rights and entitlements. In the same way different interest groups might campaign for, say, a thriving parliament – notwithstanding political divisions – so should different interest groups come together for EU membership. Cameron could help the unions by calling off his dogs of war on the union bill, accepting the Lords’ changes and dropping the most contentious clauses. He needs the unions to make common cause. In any case, a liberal Tory should not be trying to create elements of a police state. But equally, the centre-left must recognise where its interests lie. Brexit would move the centre of gravity of British politics enormously to the right – and that would be felt by most people soonest in the workplace. Time to campaign, to mobilise and speak for Europe as it is instead of a make-believe nirvana. There are only three months left.
Come together: Trump to meet Ryan Smarting from rejection by House speaker Paul Ryan, Donald Trump tweeted Friday that contrary to what Ryan had said: “I didn’t inherit [the GOP], I won it with millions of voters!” Republicans disagreed, with multiple House members following Ryan’s lead on Trump. “I think embracing Donald Trump is embracing demographic death,” Senator Lindsey Graham said. Relax and be gracious’: Priebus advises Trump Behind the scenes, party chair Reince Priebus urged Trump and Ryan to meet. Reince feels, and I’m OK with that, that we should meet before we go our separate ways. So I guess the meeting will take place and who knows what will happen. – Donald J Trump Barack Obama said the presidency was “a really serious job”. The election “is not entertainment, this is not a reality show,” he said. Then he was asked about Trump’s taco bowl tweet. 80,000 RTs for taco bowl tweet After both former presidents Bush said they would sit out this year’s presidential race, Hillary Clinton has been personally placing calls to significant Bush family donors to explore possible common ground. Clinton goes after Bush donors Bernie Sanders wrote a letter to the Democratic party saying that his supporters were under-represented on party committees. “I will not allow them to be silenced” Sanders said. I would borrow, knowing that if the economy crashed, you could make a deal. And if the economy was good, it was good. So, therefore, you can’t lose. – Donald J Trump
Anderson .Paak: Malibu review – breezy blend of R&B, funk, soul and pop When an album as strong as Malibu fails to dominate the end of year polls, you know it’s been a strong year for R&B, funk, soul, pop and pretty much every other genre elegantly incorporated here. Sunny yet substantive, Anderson .Paak’s second studio album shows he is as at home settling into a breezy club groove over euphoric brass (Am I Wrong, featuring Schoolboy Q) or unleashing James Brown-esque funk yelps as he is waxing autobiographical tales of family hardship, most notably on The Bird (“My mama caught the gambling bug … my papa was behind them bars”) or The Waters (“Word to the liquor that killed my grandpa liver”). Even with Frank Ocean, Beyoncé, Rihanna and Solange stealing the headlines, this year felt like a breakout for the one-time Dre protege. And with two Grammy nominations, 2017 should be bigger still.
Why Deepwater Horizon sank at the box office – while Sully soared Built around a rousing tale of real-life heroism, Peter Berg’s Deepwater Horizon seemed poised to follow Clint Eastwood’s Sully as a box-office hit. After all, both come from directors who have proved adept at feeding the appetite for stories of blue-collar heroism: Berg with Lone Survivor, which made more than $125m at the US box office, and Eastwood with American Sniper, which grossed nearly three times that amount. But as Sully, still playing strong in its fourth week of release, crossed the $100m mark, putting it on track to be Eastwood’s third-highest-grossing movie ever, Deepwater foundered, opening in second place behind Tim Burton’s young adult fantasy Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. Although Deepwater’s A- CinemaScore indicated that audiences were largely satisfied with what they saw, those audiences were smaller, and older, than a film of its estimated $110m scale needed; according to the Hollywood Reporter, two-thirds of the film’s opening weekend came from viewers over the age of 35. What accounts for the disparity? Start with the fact that although Deepwater Horizon focuses on those who survived the huge explosion on a deep-sea oil rig in 2010, the premise suggests something more akin to a snuff film, or at least a horror movie. Deepwater’s $20m opening weekend narrowly bested the figure for Michael Bay’s 13 Hours, which recounted the Benghazi attacks that left four Americans dead. In both cases, we know in advance the story doesn’t end well, and in the case of Deepwater Horizon, where the explosion was followed by the most catastrophic oil spill in history, we know it gets even worse. Both Sully and Deepwater Horizon are framed by after-the-fact investigations into what went wrong: Sully begins with Tom Hanks’ Chesley Sullenberger safe in his hotel bed after safely landing a disabled passenger jet on the Hudson river; the first words we hear in Deepwater Horizon are those of the electrical technician Mike Williams, the real-life version of Mark Wahlberg’s character, testifying at a public hearing. The films present themselves as the fruits of forensic investigations, even though both take substantial liberties with the truth: Sully invents, virtually out of whole cloth, a conflict between Sullenberger and the crash investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board, who see him as a reckless hotdog rather than a cool-headed hero; and Deepwater contrives to move Wahlberg’s character all over the rig, the better to give the audience a single protagonist to latch on to. (Berg was brought on to Deepwater Horizon after the firing of the original director, JC Chandor, who planned a more “kaleidoscopic” approach; the film’s producer said he preferred the “movie-star version”.) But the investigations of Sully and Deepwater Horizon produce very different results. Although investigators try their best to tar Sullenberger’s name, he’s found to be blameless (or should that be “unsullied”)? From Sullenberger’s repeated nightmare of a jet crashing into lower Manhattan to the union rep who tells him, “It’s been a while since New York had good news, especially with an airplane in it,” the movie makes the analogy to 9/11 explicit, but this is a disaster everyone makes it through unscathed. “It wasn’t just me,” the real Sullenberger tells his passengers in the film’s coda. “We all did it. We survived.” In Deepwater Horizon, there’s plenty of blame to go around. The movie heaps most of it on BP’s Donald Vidrine and Robert Kaluza, who urge the rig’s crew to bypass safety measures in the name of getting the petroleum giant’s drilling operation back on schedule; John Malkovich plays the former as an oily Cajun who all but sprouts horns. But it shows us a dozen places where the rig’s personnel could have stood their ground and didn’t, right down to the moment a lifeboat pulls away from the flaming wreck and one of the characters who remains observes, “They left us.” Not only that, but the movie underlines the real reason those roughnecks are out there, risking their lives drilling ever deeper and riskier wells: our bottomless appetite for oil. As Wahlberg’s character makes his way to the Deepwater Horizon, Berg pauses to watch him gas up his car, and throws in a shot of the helicopter that will take him the last step of the way fuelling up as well. As much as the soldiers in Lone Survivor – arguably more, even – those oil-rig workers are protecting our way of life. Sully is a disaster movie in which no one is responsible. In Deepwater Horizon, everyone is.
Guus Hiddink praises Chelsea’s glamour players as ‘dirty work’ pays off Guus Hiddink said Chelsea’s glamour players are doing the “dirty work” to give the team a platform to emerge from the trauma of the first half of the Premier League season. The manager watched his side win 3-0 at Crystal Palace on Sunday – the first victory of his second spell in caretaker charge – and he talked afterwards of them being better balanced and more secure, a feeling that was helped, he said, by the authority of Mikel John Obi in defensive midfield. Hiddink noted that even Oscar, the attacking midfielder, who scored the opening goal, had mucked in on the physical side of things, despite tackling not being his strong point. “If a team is not doing well for a very long period, it is rather human to look for security,” Hiddink said. “That is why we have emphasised the good, hard work, tactically and in a defensive way. “We don’t need to add a lot to the quality of the players. When they get the ball, they know how to play. But they have to know that once things are not going as wished, we have to look for causes. That is why we started working. The very talented players, they start working to invest in what I call the ‘dirty work’ and not just the beautiful game that they can play. “This league is very demanding. And if you think that you can do it just on your quality, which is given by nature, then this league is killing you. They start working. Oscar starts working, also. Oscar was doing what is not his big quality. He was tackling a bit.” Hiddink, though, made the point that he did not want his team merely to sit back and protect a lead. To him, real security is provided by hard work all over the pitch. “I don’t like to see a team drop back very far, to seek false security but to look forwards and to get the ball as soon as possible,” he said. Hiddink watched Cesc Fàbregas, who was back in the team after illness, produce an influential display in central midfield but he agreed that Mikel had put down the foundations. “It’s balance,” Hiddink said. “If we have three very creative players [in midfield] … it’s possible but in this league, it’s difficult. That’s why we look for the balance. John Obi is the ideal player to bring balance back to the team. “Previously Chelsea conceded a lot of goals and you can say that the four defenders are not going their jobs. But if the team is not willing to defend well, or does not have the right balance, then you concede a lot of goals. John Obi can recover the ball and he reads the game very well. A player who can defend so smoothly, for me, is beautiful to see.”
Osborne: PM giving ministers free rein on EU referendum is not a U-turn George Osborne has denied that David Cameron’s decision to allow government ministers to campaign for either side in the EU referendum represents a change of position. Speaking to the BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Thursday, Osborne denied that the prime minister had changed his mind on the issue. “I think most people accept that I’m close to David Cameron,” the chancellor said. “We work very well together and we’re good colleagues and I know that for a very considerable period of time that he has thought that it is right that when the moment comes and the question is put to the British public … that individual ministers in the government – just like members of the public – should, in a personal capacity, be able to express their opinion.” On Tuesday, Cameron announced that ministers would have be allowed to campaign on either side of the in/out referendum after a manoeuvre by hardline Eurosceptic cabinet ministers. Chris Grayling and Theresa Villiers, who are planning to join Iain Duncan Smith in campaigning to leave the EU, told the prime minister on Monday that he should clarify the position that ministers would be able to take during the campaign. In a meeting in Downing Street, Grayling is understood to have argued that the referendum is of such vital importance that voters should hear both sides of the argument from ministers. Speaking on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show in January last year, the prime minister appeared to rule out following the example of the then Labour prime minister, Harold Wilson, who suspended collective cabinet responsibility during the 1975 EEC referendum. Asked whether he would allow government ministers a free vote, Cameron said: “No, I have set that out very clearly in the past.” Quizzed about the comments on Thursday, Osborne said: “He hasn’t changed his mind. If you look at the Andrew Marr interview, what he was talking about and what we continue to say is that there is collective agreement in the government … that we are going to have a referendum … [and] that we should seek a better deal in Europe.” “It’s long been his view, and it’s the view of the Conservative leadership, that while the government will take a position, and we will make a recommendation to the British people about how we think people should vote in the referendum, individual ministers who have longstanding views on these issues will be able to speak in a personal capacity. “After all, what’s the alternative? That someone you know – because of what they’ve said in the past, has long-held views – comes on this programme and obfuscates and doesn’t give you a clear answer and everybody knows that’s not their real view,” he said. “I think it’s much better to have this approach.” Osborne made the comments before a speech in Cardiff in which he will warn of the risks to the UK from the shaky global economy which contains a “dangerous cocktail of new threats”. The former chancellor Kenneth Clarke has criticised Cameron for his decision to suspend collective cabinet responsibility, saying he was repeating the mistake of appeasing opponents. Clarke told the World at One on BBC Radio 4 on Tuesday: “It is just like John Major, who tried to put people in the cabinet to get them to be more loyal [and] found that it didn’t work – they all briefed against him and were openly disloyal. David has had to come to this position and it is up to the Eurosceptics now to demonstrate they are going to behave in a respectable and sensible way. There is such a thing as the national interest.”
Greece eases back on capital controls in bid to reverse currency flight More than a year after they were imposed, capital controls in Greece will be substantially eased on Monday in a bid to lure back billions of euros spirited out of the country, or stuffed under mattresses, at the height of the eurozone crisis. The relaxation of restrictions, whose announcement sent shockwaves through markets and the single currency, is aimed squarely at boosting banking confidence in the eurozone’s weakest member. The Greek finance ministry estimates around €3bn-€4bn could soon be returned to a system depleted of more than €30bn in deposits in the run-up to Athens sealing a third bailout to save it from economic collapse last summer. “The objective is to re-attract money back to the banking system which in turn will create more confidence in it,” said Prof George Pagoulatos who teaches European politics and economy at Athens University. “And there are several billion that can be returned. People just need to feel safe.” As such the loosening of measures initially seen as an aberration in the 19-strong bloc is being viewed as a test case: of the faith Greeks have in economic recovery and the ability of their leftist-led government to oversee it. New deposits will not be subject to capital controls; limits on withdrawals of money brought in from abroad will also be higher; and ATM withdrawals will be raised to €840 every two weeks in a reversal of the policy that allowed depositors to take out no more than €420 every week. Capital flight became one of the signature failures of Greece’s ability to wrap up tortuous negotiations with creditors at the EU and IMF last year. Total reserves at Greek banks fell from €170bn to €139.36bn in the first five months of 2015, according to the European Central Bank. As fears mounted, panic-stricken depositors raided accounts, triggering widespread worries of a run on Greeks banks as cash was moved, often hastily, abroad. Lenders in Britain and Cyprus are thought to have been among the biggest beneficiaries of outflows. But while the restrictions are credited with ultimately thwarting the banking system’s collapse – and were received with unexpected equanimity by Greeks – they have been a blight for business from which the country’s recession-ravaged economy may take years to recover. Initially it was thought the controls would be in place for a few months. Instead, prolonged and diluted only gradually, they have with the imposition of crippling taxes played a major role in the demise of Greek companies. From 2008, the year before the country’s debt crisis erupted, until the end of 2015, an estimated 244,700 small- and medium-sized businesses have closed with many more expected to declare bankruptcy this year. The latest move, which follows easing of transactions abroad, is directed at small entrepreneurs, for years the lifeline of the Greek economy, and individual depositors. In shoring up lenders’ liquidity, officials hope fresh deposits will also enable banks to inject badly needed funds into the hard-hit real economy in the form of loans. “At long last! Money should be in the bank and that’s where I want to put it,” said Angelos Raftopoulos, a retired business consultant emerging from the vaults of the Bank of Greece where he has kept a safety deposit box for the past year. “I closed it today,” he enthused with a wave of the hand. “It will bring down my costs, too.” But while economists are calling the easing of restrictions a significant step to normalisation, Greek finances are far from repaired. Challenges for the prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, are expected to peak – along with social discontent – in the autumn when his fragile two-party coalition is forced to meet more milestones and creditor demands, starting with the potentially explosive issue of labour reform. Further disbursement of aid – €2.8bn – will depend exclusively on the painful measures being passed. Many are regarded as anathema to increasingly disheartened MPs in the governing Syriza party. With anger never far from the surface and anti-European sentiment on the rise, what is certain is that almost nothing is certain in the months ahead. For Pagoulatos that makes completion of Greece’s next bailout review, and the changes that will require, crucial to the country’s economic survival. “It is now vital that this government concludes the second [bailout] review on schedule by the end of the year,” the professor said. “It will reduce the sense of political risk and together with short term debt relief measures allow the economy to make the shift to recovery.”
Hinds: Leave Me Alone review – a riotous rush of girl-gang energy Of course, anyone can be ramshackle, the word most often attributed to this Madrid four-piece. Anyone can pay scant attention to tuning their guitar, strum it at the slacker rhythm of their choosing and allow anyone in their band to have a bash at vocals, seemingly as and when they fancy it. But 99% of the time, they will be utterly unlistenable. Hinds are great because of two crucial factors. They have bags of tunes – opener Garden is loaded with 60s soul hooks, for instance – and bags of charm, adopting the clatter of C86 but updating it with a riotous rush of freewheeling, girl-gang energy. It puts them at odds with the bland, blokey indie rock scene of recent times, and that’s a fight they seem to cherish. “I need you to feel like a man,” they instruct on Bamboo, before adding: “I know you’re not hungover today, you’re classifying your cassettes.”
Donald Trump 'may have avoided paying tax for up to 18 years' Donald Trump may have avoided paying federal income taxes in the US for up to 18 years after declaring a $916m (£706m) loss on his tax returns in the mid-1990s, according to reports. The Republican presidential candidate, who has throughout his campaign for the White House refused to release his tax returns, is said to have received the large tax benefit from business debts recorded in 1995. The New York Times, which claimed to have obtained Trump’s tax return for that year, reported that tax experts hired to analyse the documents said US laws would have let Trump use the near-$1bn loss to cancel out an equivalent amount of taxable income until 2013. The Trump campaign said in response that the tax document was obtained illegally and that the New York Times was operating as “an extension” of the presidential campaign of his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton. The Times said that although Trump’s taxable income in subsequent years is as yet unknown, a $916m loss in 1995 would have been large enough to wipe out more than $50m a year in taxable income over 18 years. Trump has declined to release his tax records, unlike previous presidential nominees in modern history, saying his taxes are under a federal audit. Experts say he could still release them publicly if he wished. “Mr Trump is a highly skilled businessman who has a fiduciary responsibility to his business, his family and his employees to pay no more tax than legally required,” the Trump campaign statement said. “That being said, Mr Trump has paid hundreds of millions of dollars in property taxes, sales and excise taxes, real estate taxes, city taxes, state taxes, employee taxes and federal taxes, along with very substantial charitable contributions,” it said. The revelations came as the Republican candidate attempted to reverse a week of negative headlines following his performance in the first of three debates with Clinton. Speaking in Pennsylvania on Saturday night, he warned of voter fraud in “certain areas” and mocked his Democratic rival’s health and marriage while suggesting she should be imprisoned. During the speech to nearly 5,000 supporters, Trump said of Clinton that “she has bad temperament, she could actually be crazy”, and went on to imply that she had been unfaithful to her husband. “I don’t even think she’s loyal to Bill, if you want to know the truth. And really folks, why should she be, right?” Trump said. The Republican nominee, whose rallies have long included loud chants of “lock her up” directed towards Clinton, said bluntly on Saturday “she should be in prison”. He also mentioned Clinton’s collapse in September at a ceremony commemorating the victims of the September 11 terrorist attack. “She couldn’t even make it 15ft to a car,” said the Republican nominee of the incident prompted by the Democratic nominee being dehydrated while suffering from pneumonia. In doing so, Trump pretended to stumble and then staggered about the stage. Trump also warned of the spectre of voter fraud without evidence, revisiting accusations he first made in August that there would be voter fraud in “certain areas” of Pennsylvania, a statement that was a clear dog-whistle about African American areas of Philadelphia. “Watch your polling booths, because I hear too many stories about Pennsylvania, certain areas,” the Republican nominee told the almost exclusively white crowd in Manheim. He added “we can’t lose an election because you know what I am talking about”. A popular rightwing conspiracy theory has long been that Mitt Romney was the victim in voter fraud there in 2012. The theory premised on the fact that in 59 precincts in African American neighbourhoods, Romney did not receive a single vote. There are 1,687 precincts in the city and Obama received more than 85% of the vote in 2012. Trump also complained about what he saw as a rigged debate and insisted that he actually bested Hillary Clinton in Monday night’s presidential debate. Trump insisted he won the debate but also suggested that the non-partisan Commission on Presidential Debates deliberately gave him a defective microphone on purpose in an attempt to sabotage his performance. Earlier in the day, Trump had already said on Twitter: “I won the debate if you decide without watching the totally one-sided ‘spin’ that followed. This despite the really bad microphone.”
Premier League increasingly a wealthy couch potato on the European stage We counted them out. And we counted them back in again. Which didn’t, it must be said, actually take very long. Arsenal’s near-inevitable defeat in Barcelona on Wednesday, sequel to Chelsea’s semi-inevitable defeat by Paris Saint-Germain, and backed up by Tottenham’s elimination at the hands of Borussia Dortmund on Thursday have at least clarified things. The Premier League is almost certain to be left with two surviving representatives in the last 16 standing come Friday’s draws for the quarter-finals of the Champions and Europa League. In this respect it hasn’t exactly been a bad season for the domestic league abroad, more a familiar ferreting at the fringes, a maintenance of the new European status quo. Eight English teams were there at the start of things in August. West Ham and Southampton went early. Manchester United were the big disappointment, although Wolfsburg’s progress since suggests the horror in some quarters at a rich and famous English team losing to a relative mid-ranker overlooks the fact the Bundesliga is Europe’s second most powerful league and Germany are the world champions. Chelsea and Arsenal were outplayed by superior teams in the knockout rounds. Tottenham chose to give themselves only half a chance against a seriously good, seriously motivated Dortmund. City deserve real credit not so much for beating a wretched Dynamo Kyiv as for earning the right to do so by topping their group after losing their opening home fixture. They are a strange team right now, an end-of-era affair, with a zany, depleted defence and genuine craft and edge elsewhere. Plus of course this dying regime has little to lose now. From here there are only two, perhaps three teams City will really fear. With a decent draw there is no reason they couldn’t go on to the final. Which may or may not be a good idea depending on your view of that mix-and-match defence testing its weak points against Barcelona’s otherworldly attacking trio, the football equivalent of riding out to face the three musketeers with a breadstick in each hand. For now this feels like a solid B score. Such is the packaging of the Premier League there is always a temptation to demand more, to howl and whinge and fret at the failure to dominate. Instead English football has – in manager-speak terms – justified its coefficient. Which is no small thing in itself at a low point in the overall quality of the best teams. For now the battle to stay ahead of Italy and retain four Champions League spots has been narrowly won. Juventus’ 2-0 half time lead at Bayern Munich had looked a potential coefficient-buster. Happily for the Premier League the new superclub order asserted itself here too as Bayern flexed their shoulders and struggled through. Lazio are the only Italian team left in Europe, with a likely home leg progression against Sparta Prague on Thursday night. Not bad, Serie A. But for now they’ll be dancing in the streets of narrowly maintained Uefa percentage point Anglo-supremacy. Unsurprisingly La Liga remains out in front here by some distance, although it is worth noting the old sneer about a two-team league simply doesn’t stand up given the mob-handed seven-club Spanish presence in Europe this week. With Bayern and Wolfsburg still in the Champions League and Dortmund many people’s favourites to win the B competition this looks an unarguable statement of current strength. Premier League spin doctors (paid and amateur) will perhaps continue to point to the competitive nature of many fixtures here, the fact that only in England are the top six so likely to lose to clubs in the bottom half of the table. This is usually presented as an indication of strength. It is an odd argument in itself. A more logical position would be to suggest the top six lose more often because they’re not particularly good. The wider question is whether any of this actually matters. To a club football neutral there is something quite reassuring in the fact the Premier League can’t simply splurge and panic and undercook its way to the very top. The presence of clubs from 11 leagues in this week’s round of games is an indication of an open field, a reassuringly elite standard to be reached. A presence must be earned. Perhaps there are even some lessons to be learned from the current spread. As ever the almost total absence of English players and managers from the elite stage of European club football stands out. In many ways the global cosmopolitanism of the Premier League is fascinating. Less convincing is the failure of the richest league in the world to make or produce or create anything of any substance that is truly its own. Its last remaining presence in the Champions League is an Emirati-funded club managed by a Chilean without a single starting English outfield player in its last game in the competition. Raheem Sterling and Joe Hart are the only on-field presence remaining. English football may still be at the party. But it hasn’t brought any booze, doesn’t know anyone and isn’t showing any signs of wanting to dance. The most obvious sadness about this is simply that these competitions are clearly of some relevance to the population of England: a football crazed, history-rich, economically powerful nation that believes itself to be central to the one really global sport, but which in reality is increasingly a passive consumer, a couch potato nation with a bulging wallet, waving its Messi flag, doffing its cap to the visiting dignitaries. Perhaps English football’s ability to participate a little more, not simply as a stage, a service provider, but as an actual manufacturer of talent, might lie in its ability to learn from the success it sees in front of it. For example it has been suggested Leicester City will struggle in Europe next season. But why would they? Right now Leicester look a bit like the kind of team that regularly bamboozles, or keeps pace with, English football’s richest clubs in Europe: well-organised, tactically coherent, a team not a collection of soldered-on stars. Intangibles of stage fright and inexperience aside, why would Leicester fare any worse in European competition than the eight teams they currently lead in the league? At the other end of the scale, watching Barcelona’s effortlessly high-grade defeat of Arsenal at the Camp Nou, it is worth acknowledging that the current champions are simply a class apart. This is an inimitable model. There are aspects here that will always lie beyond: a coherent playing culture, a driving regional identity, the ability not just to make top-class players but to buy them and make them better, which is harder than it sounds. Somewhere in between there is a middle path, some perfect mix of development and relentless acquisition. For now it has simply been a middling season for English clubs in Europe, parity at a time of retrenchment.
Block ads? That only makes you more attractive to advertisers People who use adblockers when using the web could be some of the most valuable people to show ads to, according to a new report. The report’s authors say people who block ads could generate more money for publishers because they are likely to be tech savvy and in the “millennial” age range that advertisers want to reach, are less likely to be bots (computers posing as humans), and are likely to see fewer ads overall. The irony of the conclusion is not lost on the authors, but they claim publishers can still make money from people who have chosen to block ads by delivering “respectful advertising”. The report, published by the International News Media Association, says: “Reaching the adblocking segment is a privilege that brands have never experienced before. Adblockers interact with ads when they see them more than standard web users – presumably because they see no other ads. “And those brands that are seen – with low volume, respectful ads – receive more attention than the most garish and brazen formats have been able to achieve when competing in the world before adblocking. For publishers, this presents a counter-intuitive opportunity: adblockers can be leveraged as a high-value segment that can be presented to premium brands with premium advertising.” The report also warns that publishers should be wary of relying too heavily on so-called “walled gardens” offered by tech companies such as Facebook and Snapchat, which offer ways to provide content with ads that can’t currently be blocked. It says that not only do these platforms gain a high degree of control over the content, but they may also eventually be subject to adblocking themselves. Adblocking is one of a number of growing threats to online publishers that rely on advertising. The practice has been on the rise in recent years, particularly on desktops and laptops. However, growth in adblocking on mobile devices, driven in part by Apple’s decision to allow the practice in its Safari web browser, is a growing concern as people switch to reading articles and other content on their phones. PageFair, which sells services to publishers to measure and attempt to counteract adblocking and contributed to the report, has estimated that total lost revenue from adblocking grew from $5.8bn to $10.7bn between 2014 and 2015 in the US, $1.6bn to $3.6bn over the same period in the UK. The company also predicts the total lost revenue from ad blocking could $41.4bn this year. However, the figures are an approximate calculation based on total revenue and adblocking rates, meaning the real figures could be significantly lower or higher.
Frank Ocean: Blonde first-listen review – 'An album that will be worth living with' Frank Ocean seems to like to look chaotic, even slapdash. This long-teased album’s eventual release as an Apple Music stream was announced on his Tumblr with a post that read: “FUCK, SORRY.. I TOOK A NAP, BUT IT’S PLAYING ON APPLE RADIO RN.” It’s titled Blonde online and in his Boys Don’t Cry magazine, which accompanies the release, but Blond on the album CD artwork – which also manages to misspell “Elliot [sic] Smith” (Ocean borrows the entire chorus of Smith’s Fond Farewell for his track Siegfried). Sonically, there’s no dramatic shift from Endless, the “visual album” that appeared just two days ago: indeed it could be a continuation of that album. It’s a very subdued record: the melodies meander, more often than not without drums, and snatches of dialogue and weird electronic glitches interrupt conventional-seeming parts. Seven of the 17 tracks are under the three-minute mark. There’s a rap verse in Japanese at the end of Nikes. One might be tempted on first hearing to think that the tangled and overlong creative process has got the better of Ocean, and that he’s just released a hodge-podge of more or less finished ideas. It only takes a couple of plays to put paid to that suspicion. Another of Ocean’s Tumblr posts reads “THANK YOU ALL. ESPECIALLY THOSE OF YOU WHO NEVER LET ME FORGET I HAD TO FINISH. WHICH IS BASICALLY EVERY ONE OF YA’LL.” Once you’re immersed in it, it becomes abundantly clear he’s taken this seriously, and this very much is a finished album. It’s a carefully structured album to boot: the segue from Be Yourself, constructed from a concerned phone message from Ocean’s mother, into Solo, an intensely affecting song about drugged paralysis, is just the most obvious example. Elsewhere it flows in subtle ways from one track to the next, an inexorable sense of a narrative being spun out but never spelled out. It’s a complicated, indulgent, moody record, though, one that deals in textures and impressions more than in pop hooks and instant thrills. Its superstar guest spots are woven into the textures, not signposted: Beyoncé, for example, just adds wordless harmonising to the adolescent memories of Pink + White, and Kendrick Lamar’s contribution to Skyline To is as a writer and producer, with his voice only appearing as a few cryptic, barked ad-libs. Guitars ripple throughout, some of which are certainly Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood; any that are not are certainly beholden to him. James Blake appears on the credits, where he is on the record it’s impossible to tell, though his influence is everywhere. The only person who really leaps out is Outkast’s André 3000, verbally somersaulting over a minute of bleeps and jazz piano on Solo (Reprise), but even he doesn’t break the mood. It’s precisely that consistency of mood that brings together all the seeming weirdness into something extraordinarily listenable as a complete piece. When detuned guitar arpeggios suddenly take over the track then collapse into electronic glitch, in the episodic Nights, or when robot voices intrude on the otherwise Bill Withers-like guitar-and-vocal ballad Self Control, they’re not gimmicks or attempts to be modern: once you’re in Frank Ocean world, they seem completely natural. We’re seeing the maturation of a few trends of the last few years. The indiefication of hip-hop culture, which had its most mainstream expression with the bromance between Jay-Z and Chris Martin, and saw every other mainstream rap/R&B tune have a moaning white guy chorus for a while, is here expressed in infinitely more musically and emotionally sophisticated form. Likewise the weird electronic side of “alt-R&B” – the dialogue between black American culture and British bedroom experimentalists like Blake and the xx – is subsumed elegantly into Ocean’s writing and recording process. Under all the subtlety and still surfaces, there are actually hooks here – just not the needy, salesmanlike kind that wave at you, shouting; “Here I am, remember this song!” The melodies– not only on the swaying soul waltz of ‘Pink + White’, or the tick-tock melody of the conventional R&B sections of Night, but in the outer-space balladry of Siegfried and the future gospel crawl of the heartbreaking Godspeed – lodge very quickly in the memory and stay there. And there are single moments like the way Ocean hollers “I’m not brave!” in Siegfried that can stop you in your tracks. Once these musical elements are in your subconscious, a complicated set of ideas starts to unfold. Among all the immediate autobiographical and introspective themes of weed, cars, women, men, consumerism, growing up and responsibility, are all kinds of complex wordplay, and references to Shakespeare and Teutonic myth, but as with everything these are subtly done. They don’t clang into the songs as signals of bourgeois erudition, but slide in, signposting more and deeper themes which will only become apparent as we live with the album. And yes, it’s true: this is going to be an album worth living with.
Lagos calling: Tony Allen opens up Nigeria's music scene If you want a city that’s a modern musical powerhouse, you don’t need to think of London or Los Angeles or New York. Think instead of Lagos, the biggest city in Nigeria. The West African nation is arguably the fulcrum of African pop, and increasingly a world leader in culture. So the time feels right to explore some of the many facets of Nigerian music and how it spread and mutated around the world, in a weeklong series in association with music platform Boiler Room: Gateways – Tony Allen and Nigeria. Allen is the focus of our week, as one of the key figures in Nigerian music’s transition into an international affair. He made his name working with Fela Kuti, where his phenomenal drumming was the key ingredient in the Afrobeat style that emerged in the 1970s. His association with Kuti began in 1964, and they worked together on more than 30 albums before parting ways in 1979. Since then he has worked with scores of other groundbreaking artists – notably Damon Albarn – as well as continuing on his own prolific solo career. All of which means he’s the perfect artist to be the focus of Gateways. Gateways explores the paths that can be opened up by music. In words and videos, we will be looking at how Nigerian sounds have morphed and changed as the music has spread into the world – how it has opened gateways, in other words. In commercial terms, the power of the Nigerian music industry is growing: it had revenues of $56m in 2015, and they are expected to grow to $88m by 2019, according to Pricewaterhouse Coopers. The accounting giant has named Nigeria as the fastest expanding entertainment and media market in the world. In the UK, the Nigerian diaspora has become one of the driving forces in music, especially in the grime scene, where the Adenuga brothers – better known as Skepta and JME – are creating some of the most vital, exciting music of the moment. And such is the strength of Nigerian music that it’s drawing people back home – Tiwa Savage was a UK X Factor contestant on 2006, who subsequently signed to Sony and became an in-demand songwriter with US R&B stars. She has since moved back to Nigeria, where she has launched her own label and begun recording her own music. At the same time, Nigeria is producing a new wave of global stars – such as Wizkid, who has just spent 15 weeks at No 1 in the UK accompanying Drake on One Dance. He’s not alone: D’Banj, P-Square and Davido have taken the Afrobeats style (not to be confused with Afrobeat) worldwide, helped by the growth of social media. It’s a measure of the new internationalism of Nigerian music that the term Afrobeats itself came from the UK, though the high-energy dance music has its own name in Nigeria: Naija beats. But Nigerian music isn’t just about the now – it has a rich history, and Tony Allen is a key figure in linking the past to the present. At the same time as Fela Kuti was making a name for himself worldwide with his confrontational politics and incendiary music, his contemporaries King Sunny Adé and Ebenezer Obey became stars at home, and made an impact abroad, playing jùjú, a music infused with a very different percussive style from Allen’s – the talking drums of the Yoruba people. Afrobeat and jùjú came together in the late 80s, in the form of Afro-juju, which produced a huge domestic star in Shina Peters, followed by surges in popularity for reggae and hip-hop. And that’s only the surface of Nigerian music: recent years have seen the country’s musical archives opened up, with scores of compilations bringing together little known but brilliant Afrobeats, highlife, funk, disco, psychedelia and rock artists. It feels as though forgotten heroes are being revived all the time – take the case of William Onyeabor, whose music was reissued by David Byrne’s Luaka Bop label in 2013, and became a hit around the world on the live circuit when performed by the Atomic Bomb Band. Nigeria has such a rich musical heritage that we can’t possibly explore all of it – but Gateways will open up some of the connections between the different strands of Nigerian music, and its spread around the world. We’re kicking off on Thursday night with a livestream of Tony Allen’s set from Dekmantel festival in Amsterdam, in collaboration with the British Council, and we’re following that on Friday with a brilliant interview for the ’s G2 Film & Music section with Tony, by Tim Jonze, as well as a film of Tony giving a lesson in drumming. It would be fair to say Allen is a man who believes playing music its own reward. He told the : “Sometimes I travel all the way from here to a fucking country far away by flight just to play for 45 minutes! It’s frustrating, you know? They say, ‘You are paid!’ Fuck the money! It’s not the money side. It’s like torture, doing all that journey and stress just to play for 45 minutes. After 45 minutes, I’m just warming up!” And that’s the spirit we’re bringing to Gateways. Next week brings an array of features in both words and film, including an interview with Don Jazzy – the producer and artist who is a key figure in Nigerian music – a look at how Afrobeat transformed into Afrobeats, a report on how the internet is changing Nigerian music, and a guide to Nigerian disco. You’ll be able to find all of that, and more, at both Music and at Boiler Room, starting on Thursday, and running through until Thursday 11 August. Enjoy it: you’re in for a treat.
Tim Rogers, Steve Kilbey and Adalita to cover David Bowie at Sydney tribute concert A tribute to David Bowie will be held at the Sydney Opera House in May, featuring the Sydney Symphony Orchestra alongside a number of high-profile Australian musicians, including You Am I’s Tim Rogers, Adalita, and Steve Kilbey from the Church. The concert, called David Bowie: Nothing Has Changed, will also star iOTA, Deborah Conway and Jack Ladder, with each performer choosing which Bowie songs they will cover. Singer-songwriter iOTA said the British musician had “amazing depth” and never disappointed. “He came to the end of an amazing life with a lot of class and integrity. He’s taught other artists how to be in the world and how to do it right.” The show will cover a 30-song set list, which creative director Amanda Pelman said will include some of Bowie’s more obscure numbers, alongside hits Changes, China Girl, Life on Mars, Under Pressure, Let’s Dance and Starman. “The most important thing to me was how Bowie’s canon would be portrayed with real integrity and nuance by the orchestra and artists with a sympathetic voice to the work,” said Pelman, who worked as a casting agent on the musical adaptation of Academy Award-winning film Priscilla Queen of the Desert. “It would be foolish to suggest we can represent the whole of Bowie’s canon; the 30 songs are both the highest-selling songs and some of the most quirky performances.” Bowie died in January, 18 months after he was diagnosed with cancer. An outpouring of grief followed, along with tribute concerts and performances around the world. He was remembered at the recent Grammys with a tribute by Lady Gaga, and at last week’s Brit awards when New Zealand singer-songwriter Lorde covered Life on Mars. David Bowie: Nothing Has Changed is at the Sydney Opera House on 19 and 21 May
Hush review – nifty home invasion thriller offers ingenious suspense There are plenty of reasons to be entirely uninterested in the arrival of Hush. First, it’s yet another tale of home invasion, a subgenre overly populated with substandard variations on the same damn story. Second, it’s from the Blumhouse stable, a production company that’s been spreading itself far too thin of late with pointless remakes (Martyrs) and dreary sequels (Sinister 2) threatening a once-strong brand name. Third, its rather unheralded premiere on Netflix suggests something of a stinker. But it’s almost as if director Mike Flanagan, who broke out with the promising yet ultimately unsatisfying evil mirror chiller Oculus, is entirely aware of any reservations we might have and sets himself the task of proving us all entirely and embarrassingly wrong. For Hush is a hugely effective film and a much-needed reward for horror fans, understandably wearied of lazy studio product. The setup is simple: Maddie is a deaf author, living in a remote house in the woods, settling in for the evening. She’s trying to finish her latest novel while avoiding distractions, such as calls from her ex-boyfriend. But there’s someone outside: a masked intruder with an arsenal of weapons, and Maddie has to figure out how to keep him out and then how to escape. And, well, that’s it. But what ensues is a seat-edge battle between the pair, expertly played by the film’s co-writer Kate Siegel and 10 Cloverfield Lane’s John Gallagher Jr, that works because it’s grounded in reality. The resourceful heroine is plucky without resorting to superheroics; we buy into her reactions and thought processes as she tries to figure out how to survive. It’s a sharp, finely tuned thriller that goes down familiar paths but with flair and skill. Flanagan doesn’t hold back on the gore, but he doesn’t rely on it. He’s a rare modern horror director who still prioritises suspense, and he frames the tense altercations between the pair to maximum effect. The film fondly recalls the sheer terror of the endlessly copied opening to Scream. Siegel’s fear feels horribly real and she posits you directly in her situation, wondering how you might fare in a similar ordeal. It’s not without flaws. Given the territory, there are a couple of box-ticking cliches, but in a brutally efficient 82 minutes, Hush is exactly what it should be: lean, scary and skilful enough to temporarily restore your faith in the horror genre. Hush is now streaming worldwide on Netflix. This article was amended on 14 April 2016. It originally used the term ‘deaf-mute’, which is no longer current: the preferred term is ‘deaf’. This has been changed.
National Lottery: 26,500 players' online accounts accessed About 26,500 National Lottery players are facing compulsory password resets on their online accounts after they were apparently accessed by cybercriminals. Camelot, the firm that operates the game, said it had become aware of “suspicious activity on a very small proportion” of accounts, and it was now taking steps to understand what had happened. Logins may have been stolen from other websites where players use the same details, it said. Cybercriminals had not been able to access “core National Lottery systems”, Camelot added. “We do not hold full debit card or bank account details in National Lottery players’ online accounts and no money has been taken or deposited,” the company said in a statement. “However, we do believe that this attack may have resulted in some of the personal information that the affected players hold in their online account being accessed.” The National Lottery has about 9.5 million customers registered to play online. Of the compromised accounts, fewer than 50 had been suspended since the attack on Camelot’s servers, after some personal details were changed, the company said, although “some of these details may have been changed by the players themselves”. “We’d like to reassure our customers that protecting their personal data is of the utmost importance to us,” Camelot’s statement added. “We are very sorry for any inconvenience this may cause to our players and would like to encourage those with any concerns to contact us directly, so we can discuss it with them in more detail.” The kind of confidential personal information accessed could be used to build false customer profiles or commit fraud later on, said one cybersecurity expert. Chris Hodson, from information security firm Zscaler, added: “With no technical details included in the National Lottery’s statement about how the data was exfiltrated, just that it was, we can only speculate as to the tactics of these hackers. “The act of stealing personal information from these accounts but leaving financial credentials untouched, also highlights that the motives of the criminals was not immediate financial fraud but highly sought personal identifiable information.” A spokesman for the Information Commissioner’s Office said Camelot had submitted a breach report on Tuesday night. “The Data Protection Act requires organisations to do all they can to keep personal data secure – that includes protecting it from cyber-attacks,” he said. “Where we find this has not happened, we can take action. Organisations should be reminded that cybersecurity is a matter for the boardroom, not just the IT department.” Camelot said it was working with the National Crime Agency and the National Cyber Security Centre, a new division of GCHQ, to investigate the incident. An NCA spokesman said: “We can confirm that we are investigating an incident linked to Camelot. As our inquiries are ongoing, we cannot comment further at this time.” The National Lottery hack is just the latest online security breach to hit British consumers this year. Earlier this month, Tesco Bank fell victim to a cyber-attack which resulted in it paying out an estimated £2.5m to 9,000 customers. Eight million UK-based Yahoo users were affected when the internet firm’s defences were breached in September, leading to sharp criticism when it emerged that crucial account details were not encrypted. And in April more than 15,000 expectant parents had their data – including email addresses, usernames and passwords – compromised after a hack on the National Childbirth Trust. Nick Gibbons, partner at insurance and risk law firm BLM, said that Camelot’s statement seemed to fail to acknowledge the significance of the invasion of its customers’ privacy, and the risk posed by the potential disclosure of their personal information. “While perhaps less important and embarrassing than that seen in the Ashley Madison case, some people will not want the fact that they bet on the national lottery to be made public,” he said.
Libor fraudster Tom Hayes describes prison life in series of letters The convicted Libor trader Tom Hayes was initially held in isolation on the care and segregation unit in Wandsworth prison for 23 hours a day, according to a series of prison letters detailing his first months behind bars. Hayes said he was held in in the segregation unit for his own protection, and accompanied by three officers when allowed out for 30 minutes exercise in the yard, or to shower or collect meals. But the former UBS banker was told he had “won the lottery” after being transferred to the relatively benign regime at Nottingham prison after 11 days. Hayes was sentenced to 14 years in August for fraud for his part in manipulating the Libor rate – the London interbank overnight lending rate used by banks to set interest rates. In December, the 36-year-old failed to have his sentence overturned but had his tariff reduced to 11 years at the court of appeal, by judges who considered factors such as his age, lack of seniority and a diagnosis of Asperger’s syndrome. Hayes’s sentence is one of the longest prison terms on record for UK white-collar crime. In a series of letters to the Times City editor Harry Wilson, Hayes wrote of his shock at being taken from court in handcuffs hours after dropping his son at nursery, moved to a holding cell where he was forced to use a plastic toilet with no seat or door in view of a guard, and then taken to Wandsworth and strip-searched. Hayes said he could hear the news on TV and knew his face was on the screen as he spent the first evening in a holding cell with other prisoners. Prison governors feared he would be targeted, and put him in his own cell in the segregation unit. He was considered at risk of suicide or self-harm and held under Assessment, Care in Custody and Teamwork procedures. Hayes wrote: “Because I was on ACCT, the light was turned on every hour to check I was still alive, and would disturb me yet further.” Hayes, who said he was held in the same cell that the former publicist Max Clifford had occupied a few months earlier, was unable to sleep during his first days in prison, after having taken sleeping tablets during the trial. He wrote: “I think in my early days I stood out – I probably still do – but certainly some people recognised me from the media coverage. People seemed to labour under the misapprehension that I had made ‘trillions’ for myself.” Hayes said he had got himself vaccinated for hepatitis B, having initially refused the offer from a nurse “on the basis I couldn’t fathom how I could catch a blood-borne virus. Later, after observing various biting incidents, I have now had my three jabs and am vaccinated.” At his own request, Hayes was returned to the main prison, where he was put in a shared cell with a prisoner on remand for drugs offences. Hayes was transferred to Nottingham prison after 11 nights, which an officer at Wandsworth said meant he had “won the prison lottery”, adding: “People would give their right arm to get there.” In letters typed from the Open University room at Nottingham, Hayes reported continued chaotic and uncomfortable conditions. He wrote: “I lay on my bed and wondered how I had ended up here. I’ve become quite the ornithologist; I used to watch the birds at Wandsworth, too. It seems so strange that we live in the same place but they are free, able to come and go from the trees that are on the ‘free’ side of the fence.” He concluded: “I guess I’m becoming more immune to prison life now; being strip-searched has lost the embarrassment and indignity I felt at first. Drug overdoses and fights are de rigueur, and the monotony of life here takes over.” Six other City brokers are currently on trial for rigging the Libor rate, having pleaded not guilty in October to conspiracy to defraud. Two other British traders, Anthony Allen and Anthony Conti, were convicted in the US in November for their part in the scandal, and face up to 30 years in prison when sentenced in March.
UK's Streetmap loses 'anticompetitive' search abuse case against Google UK-based digital map provider Streetmap has lost its High Court action accusing Google of abusing its search dominance to promote Google Maps over rivals. Streetmap, which launched in 1997 as one of the first online mapping services, had claimed Google was engaging in “anticompetitive conduct” contrary to provisions of the Competition Act 1998 and that its launch of Google Maps in 2007 lead to a “dramatic loss of traffic” to Steetmap’s website. The complaint revolved around the use of the so-called “big map” or “Maps OneBox” at the top of Google’s search results, launched in 2007, which displayed mapping results from Google Maps, not rivals. Streetmap argued that showing maps in search results, along with the launch of Google Maps for Android in 2008, saw Google promoting its own maps more favourably. Mr Justice Roth ruled Google’s introduction of the new-style Maps OneBox in 2007 was “not reasonably likely appreciably to affect competition in the market for online maps” and that Google’s conduct was “objectively justified”. A Google spokesperson said: “The court made clear that we’re focused on improving the quality of our search results. This decision promotes innovation.” The case precedes upcoming probes by the European Union’s antitrust regulator into Google’s dominance of several sectors across shopping, travel and the company’s Android mobile-operating system. Europe’s competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager specifically named Google’s alleged “misuse of a dominant position” as being of high priority, singling out Google Maps as one of the next stages of the EU’s investigations. The High Court ruling covers similar ground to the EC’s investigation, although what impact, if any, it will have on Vestager’s investigation is unclear. Streetmap director Kate Sutton said the company would be appealing the judgment on two grounds. She said: “First, this decision is unfair for small businesses. The hands of small businesses are now tied behind our backs. The decision makes it effectively impossible for a small business to bring a competition law complaint until it is too late, because the information required will simply not be known to them. “By raising the standard of proof from probability to ‘appreciable effect’ a complainant needs to have information which will usually only be known to the dominant company. “Second, Google has got away with non-compliance with its legal obligations. It admitted in the trial that it did not do a UK test when it introduced Google Maps. It instead only looked at its effects on the US market. “Google put forward no evidence that it had turned its corporate mind to compliance with UK law at the time. We think that it is wrong for any company with the duty of a dominant company to take such an approach to compliance with the law.” Tim Cowen, partner at law firm Preiskel & Co LLP, which acted for Streetmap, said: “This decision says that companies do not need to have evidence of compliance at the time, so long as they can find something later that may work as a defence. “Streetmap’s business was destroyed. When Google introduced Google Maps in 2007 it did not check for effects outside the US and put forward no evidence that any check was performed for the UK. This decision raises a question what big companies need to do to show compliance with EU and UK law.” Google to extend ‘right to be forgotten’ to all its domains accessed in EU Google boss claims he does not know his salary in Commons grilling
Childhood obesity 'an exploding nightmare', says health expert The number of children under five who are overweight or obese has risen to 41 million, from 31 million in 1990, according to figures released by a World Health Organisation commission. The statistics, published by the Commission on Ending Childhood Obesity, mean that 6.1% of under-fives were overweight or obese in 2014, compared with 4.8% in 1990. The number of overweight children in lower middle-income countries more than doubled over the same period, from 7.5 million to 15.5 million. In 2014, 48% of all overweight and obese children aged under five lived in Asia, and 25% in Africa. The expert panel, commissioned by the WHO, said progress in tackling the problem had been “slow and inconsistent” and called for increased political commitment, saying there was a “moral responsibility” to act on behalf of children. Peter Gluckman, a co-chair of the commission, said childhood obesity had become “an exploding nightmare” in the developing world. He added: “It’s not the kids’ fault. You can’t blame a two-year-old child for being fat and lazy and eating too much.” The report’s authors said that addressing the problem must start before the child is conceived and continue into pregnancy, through to infancy, childhood and adolescence. They pointed out that where a mother entering pregnancy is obese or has diabetes, the child is predisposed “to increased fat deposits associated with metabolic disease and obesity”. Many children are growing up in environments encouraging weight gain and obesity, they observed. “The behavioural and biological responses of a child to the obesogenic environment can be shaped by processes even before birth, placing an even greater number of children on the pathway to becoming obese when faced with an unhealthy diet and low physical activity,” they said. The commission threw its weight behind a sugary drinks tax, which has been implemented in Mexico and proposed by a number of experts elsewhere. But it said there was no single measure that could halt the growing epidemic. It also proposed restricted the marketing of unhealthy food and drink and a standardised global nutrient labelling system that would be simple and understandable to all. The experts called for schools to promote health and nutrition literacy and physical activity and said provision and sale of sugary drinks and unhealthy foods should be banned from the school environment. They also recommended issuing guidance on appropriate sleep time, sedentary or screen time, and physical activity or active play for children aged between two and five. Gluckman said: “Increased political commitment is needed to tackle the global challenge of childhood overweight and obesity. The WHO needs to work with governments to implement a wide range of measures that address the environmental causes of obesity and overweight, and help to give children the healthy start to life they deserve.” The commission was established in 2014 and consulted with more than 100 WHO member states. It said obesity “has the potential to negate many of the health benefits that have contributed to increased life expectancy”.
Anohni urges Barack Obama to free Chelsea Manning: 'She poses no threat' Anohni has released her video for the track Obama, along with a statement about the incarceration of Chelsea Manning that is addressed to the US president. In the text accompanying the video on YouTube, the British musician urges Obama to end the sentence of Manning, a former US soldier who is serving 35 years in prison for leaking state secrets. “Please let Chelsea Manning out of prison,” she writes. “Recognise her tremendous sacrifice, and her vulnerability. With Trump incoming, if you leave Chelsea in prison, she will never see the light of day, or worse.” In her message, Anohni adds: “If you leave Chelsea Manning in prison for whistle-blowing, you send the final message to our nation that the Obama administration brutally punished moral courage in these unforgiving United States.” The song, taken from this year’s Mercury nominated Hopelessness, is a stark description of the musician’s fluctuating relationship with the president. It begins by describing her support for the Obama, before condemning him for “punishing the whistle blowers / those who tell the truth”. Following the US election, and fearing the repercussions of Donald Trump’s presidency, Manning has appealed to Obama to commute her sentence and release her from military prison so she can have her “first chance to live a real, meaningful life”. Anohni concludes: She has suffered enough, President Obama. She poses no threat. Show us the heart of the Obama administration now.
Sunderland 0-3 Everton: Premier League – as it happened And that is very much yer lot. It’s been a blast. Here’s Louise Taylor’s match report, by way of farewell gift. Bye! Duncan Watmore provides some Sunderland perspective. And it’s not very chirpy. Really frustrating for us. Not good enough, and the fans deserve better. There’s not many positives to take from this game. It wasn’t good enough in the second half. Before they scored, they had a lot of the ball but we felt we were controlling the ball well. The goals were frustrating, the manager’s annoyed. We need to get the fans behind us and make sure they keep cheering us, because it wasn’t good enough today. I’m trying to be positive, but we’ve got to go again. And then, Ronald Koeman has a chat. He was not at all happy with the sloppy, snoozeful first half, but pretty chuffed at the end: Only the second half. I was really disappointed about our first 45 minutes. From the start it was not the Everton I like to see. We lost a lot of easy balls. Too many players not on the level in our ball possession. We had difficulties. The second half, that was what I like to see. Good football, good pressing, and we had opportunities to score more goals. I told the players I was really angry about our team. I think we had good defending, that was not the problem. The problem is when we had ball possession in midfield, in front, we lost the ball too many times. You need a good reaction and that reaction came in the second half. I know the players, I know the level they can achieve, and that is the level we saw in the second half, not the first half. I did not have doubts about Lukaku. I think the two goals Romelu scored with Belgium gave him a real boost, and it’s unbelievable how good he can be. I told him the best answer is always on the pitch, and he showed the goals tonight. A great performance. [On Gueye’s performance] Fantastic. Maybe he was the key tonight. He’s that player with a lot of energy, and on the ball he’s quiet and he takes good possession. He’s a key player that you need in midfield and I think it’s a great signing for us. I think we will be one of the teams who fight for European football. That’s a realistic target, and we showed that in the second half. The players are not stupid, they know what we can perform and that was what we showed in the second half. Sky grab a couple of passing Evertonians. First, Romelu Lukaku: I think we could have done better, especially in the first half, which was not as good as we wanted. We didn’t keep the ball, we didn’t create enough, except one clear chance which I missed. But the second half we played a lot better. My fitness levels weren’t as good as I wanted them to be. I could have had five tonight. I have to be more of a serial killer if I want to help the team achieve its objective. We have to keep going as a team. And then, Leighton Baines: I’m delighted for Rom and for us. We know he’s got goals in him, his goalscoring record is phenomenal. We all know the goals are going to come. He’s shown tonight what he’s all about. I think we started from scratch. You’ve got to be crystal clear on the fundamentals, what our principals are, what we want to achieve. That’s what we started from. I think the team spirit is fantastic at the moment. Of course, when you’re winning games that’s easy to generate. We haven’t set any definitive objectives. Sunderland played dreadfully. Their next eight matches include fixtures against Crystal Palace, West Brom, Stoke, Bournemouth and Hull. They need to improve massively. On the plus side, Didier Ndong made his debut, and may transform the team with his incalculable brilliance. Fingers crossed, eh? 90+4 mins: It’s all over! Romelu Lukaku’s 11-minute hat-trick wins it for the visitors, who rocket up the table to third. 90+3 mins: Then Deulofeu is sent clear, but he miscontrols and a defender boots clear. 90+3 mins: Baines passes to Koné, who checks back, waits long enough for Mirallas to offer him support to his left, ignores him again and shoots from long range into Pickford’s gloves. 90+1 mins: Sunderland had possession of the ball in the penalty area twice in the space of a few seconds there. First Khazri and Defoe got in each others’ way, then Januzaj’s shot was blocked by Williams. 90+1 mins: We’re into stoppage time, of which there will be at least three minutes. Van Aanholt has once again completely recovered. 89 mins: Van Aanholt, meanwhile, is receiving treatment on the pitch for a not-immediately-obvious injury. 88 mins: Lukaku is trudging off, hat-trick bagged, and Koné is replacing him. 87 mins: Everton will go third at the end of the game. Except if they score another, in which case second place would be theirs. 85 mins: Lukaku gets the ball, 20 yards out, but Pickford saves his left-foot curler. “Does anyone have Dick Advocaat’s phone number?” wonders Eddy Bandel. 84 mins: And they nearly score a fourth as I finally press go, only for Deulofeu’s effort to be slightly deflected and go wide. 83 mins: I’ve nearly posted this email three times, and on each occasion had to abandon it because Everton scored. It feels a little 20-minutes-ago, but still. “Back in secondary school I had to do a classical civilisation presentation in which I continually referred to Ajax, the Greek God,” recalls Max. “Back in the mid 90s, Ajax were the team and I pronounced the name as I-axe. My scholarly and somwhat old-school Classics teacher very bitterly chastised me for pronouncing it incorrectly. He clearly wasn’t a fan of the football stylings of Litmanen, Overmars, Finidi, et al.” 80 mins: “Moyes will probably take credit for this victory,” suggests Ian Copestake. Well, he’s certainly contributed, in his way. 78 mins: I struggle to think of a Premier League side that wouldn’t beat this Sunderland side, playing as they have tonight. They might draw 0-0 against West Brom. 77 mins: Sunderland’s performance tonight has veered wildly between the boring and the execrable. 76 mins: Kirchhoff is Kirchh-off, Denayer coming on. 76 mins: Bolasie’s race is run. Tom Davies comes on instead. 75 mins: Lukaku has a great chance for a fourth, but blasts over! Bolasie picks up the ball in the middle this time, passes to Lukaku, who ignores an easy pass that would have set Mirallas free to his left, runs into the area and then thunders high. 74 mins: Bolasie cuts inside this time, which means he will inevitably blast the ball goalwards. Pickford pushes this one away. 73 mins: Didier Ndong comes on, replacing Watmore. He is extravagantly coiffed. That’s the hat-trick! The home defence displaying the full repertoir of rubbish, this time leaving a massive gap right in the middle and allowing Lukaku to run right into it. He sprints clear, draws Pickford and sidefoots the ball past him. 70 mins: Bolasie tries to repeat the trick, sprints to the byline and this time just overhits his cross. He goes down and stays down after delivering the ball, panting heavily and apparently suffering from a severe case of knackered. Bolasie bursts past Manquillo on the left and lifts a fine cross with his left foot towards the back post, where Lukaku continues to benefit from a total absence of marking, and heads in a second. 67 mins: It’s a decent shooting chance, but Khazri’s effort while on target is extremely weak, and Stekelenburg catches. 66 mins: Defoe has the ball about 20 yards from goal, with Jagielka behind him holding his wrist. Defoe brings this to the attention of the referee through the medium of exaggerated backwards diving, and wins a free kick. 65 mins: Tonight’s key stat: 64 mins: Again the ball is passed to Lukaku, with his back to goal. This time he isn’t tackled by a team-mate, and can thus spin and shoot. The ball rockets into the meat of the bar! 63 mins: Everton are hunting a second. Gueye passes to Lukaku in the box and then storms towards him in search of the return. Lukaku has no intention of returning it, instead giving himself space to turn and shoot, only to discover that Gueye is now intent on tackling him, for some reason. Eventually, Gueye shoots over. 59 mins: “Is there any doubt that Sunderland is playing to avoid relegation when, at home, they are conceding 70% of possession to Everton? The hope is to get a point at home against Everton?” ponders Scott Wedel. It’s a fair question. Sunderland have been poor thus far tonight. On this evidence, average is a wild long-term ambition. A goal! We’ve got a goal! Everton break, Khazri loses a key challenge in midfield to Deulofeu, who attempts an overambitious pass that hits a defender and rebounds to Gueye, whose cross finds Lukaku once again unmarked, and this time he finds the bottom corner with his header! 57 mins: Sunderland make their first change, bringing on Khazri and taking off Gooch, who started the game well but whose influence has waned. 56 mins: Gueye gets a booking for blocking the ball as Rodwell takes a quick free-kick in midfield. 55 mins: Deulofeu beats the offside trap, runs left, cuts inside and then Rodwell excellently blocks his shot. It rebounds to Coleman, whose own shot rumbles wide, and though a couple of Everton players fling themselves at it in the hope of diverting it in at the far post, none succeed. 52 mins: And now Sunderland’s best chance of all! Koné outjumps Jagielka and diverts the corner goalwards, but Stekelenburg saves! The ball did fly right over his head, to be fair, but he didn’t have a lot of time to react. 51 mins: Half a chance for Sunderland! Rodwell passes to Defoe, but his moment of opportunity was brief, and soon Williams is on top of him, blocking off his options – and also, in the end, his shot. Corner. 49 mins: Sky inform us that Barkley isn’t injured – he just wasn’t playing very well. “When I left the U.K. many years ago, people were pronouncing ‘Real Madrid’ as if it was ‘Not the Imaginary Madrid’, has that one changed yet?” asks Dylan Drummond. “Strangely though, in the 1990s all the commentators made a point of learning the proper German intonation of ‘Stefan Kuntz’.” 48 mins: Oooh! Bolasie, who seems to have started this half on the left, cuts in and slams a right-footed shot goalwards. Pickford pushes it out, and only just behind the lurking Deulofeu. 46 mins: Peeeeeep! Jermain Defoe kicks off. The players are back out, and Jermain Defoe is standing over the ball ready for kick-off. Gerard Deulofeu, having spent the interval warming up on his own, is coming on in place off Ross Barkley. “What’s that, Peter Oh? A riff, you say?” writes Matt Dony. “Achtung Barry? Hold Me, Thrill Me, Khazri, Kill Me? Bullet Deulofeu Sky? Vertig-Defoe?” OK, let’s draw a line under this now – this is all, um, unforgettably dire. Oh Peter … Watching old matches on YouTube, though, what really surprises me is when Ajax are called ay-jax rather than the generally accepted these days I-axe. “What’s wrong with pronouncing ‘Jagielka’ like the way most of the Jagielka-clan probably pronounce it, instead of saying ‘Dzhagielka’?” wonders Dylan Drummond. “I still remember Ian St John pronouncing ‘Juventus’ as ‘Dzhuventus’, and me thinking every time he did it ‘What’s wrong with pronouncing it the way the locals would?’” An interesting point. I would say that a commentator has two acceptable choices: either say a name the way most people in your country say it, or how the person himself says it. What you can’t do, though, is invent a totally new pronunciation for the sheer hell of it. Jagielka, you see, calls himself “yer-gelka”. There is no possible justification for “yag-ee-elka”. None. Everton lead 65%-35% on possession, 215-100 on passes completed, 2-1 on corners and 6-4 on shots. They should also have led on actual goals, but in the game’s one actual properly good moment Lukaku headed Bolasie excellent cross too close to Pickford. That aside, it’s all been a little bit bobbins. 45+2 mins: The half ends in fitting fashion, with Everton attacking badly. The referee gives them a few seconds to finish their foray, Barkley finds a pocket of space in the area, and then he thumps his cross over everyone and out of play, and the whistle is blown. 45+1 mins: We roll gently into stoppage time, of which there will be one minute. 45 mins: Bolasie drifts left, picks up the ball, shifts it onto his right foot and then belts it into the crowd. 42 mins: Watmore goes on a surging run towards the penalty area, which ends with a tumble on the edge of the area. He gets booked for simulation – there was a shoulder barge from Baines, then he took a couple of steps towards the area, then he went down, and it’s the delay wot done it, I think. 41 mins: The corner ends in an Everton free-kick, though I didn’t see a foul – it looked to me like Jagielka ran into Djilobodji and bounced off him. 40 mins: Gooch crosses from the left with his right foot, and though the ball is too strong for Watmore, its intended target, it would have floated right into the top corner had Stekelenburg not tipped it over! 38 mins: Everton have had 68% of the possession so far, and have completed nearly three times as many passes as Sunderland. 36 mins: Bolasie gets the ball on the right, and far from having two men ready to snap into a challenge Sunderland now have nobody anywhere near him. Bolasie looks up, looks down, looks up again, weighs up his options, and then mishits a cross straight to a defender. 33 mins: Van Aanholt comes on and seems untroubled by whatever was laying him low just moments ago, instantly stealing the ball cleanly from Bolasie. 31 mins: Mirallas has a shot blocked by Djilobodji, with the crowd baying because Van Aanholt is lying prone on Sunderland’s left, having slid in to challenge Bolasie and not got up again. Eventually the ball is cleared, and the physio comes on. 28 mins: The crowd seems to have gone very quiet. On Sky, the players’ shouts to each other seem quieter than whatever noise is tumbling down from the stands. This game could do with a goal. 26 mins: Kirchhoff wins the ball, loses it again, wins it again, loses it again, and then tries too hard to win it a third time, fouling Bolasie and getting a ticking off, but no card, from the referee. 24 mins: Bolasie is showing some promising signs, sending in a couple of decent crosses including the one that should have brought a goal for Lukaku. Sunderland seem to have wised up to this, sending two men when he gets the ball on halfway to turn him into a sandwich filling. 23 mins: Peter Oh emails: “If the Black Cats are looking for that extra edge in their bid to restore some pride today, they need look no further than their team sheet for inspiration: Watmore and the name of Love!” 20 mins: The ball is played into Lukaku, just inside the Sunderland penalty area, who goes to ground in a heap also involving Djilobodji, does a slow-motion spin and toe-pokes the ball goalwards. It’s not Pickford’s hardest save, but it’s a shot on target. 19 mins: Now Rodwell has a 20-yard blaster blocked, and co-commentator Davie Provan has started saying “Yagielka” as well, which is a bit like Steve McClaren pretending to have a Dutch accent when he’s in Holland. 16 mins: Watmore tries to pick out Defoe with an early ball from wide in defence. It’s the second time that’s happened – Gooch was the first to try it – and both long passes have been easily picked off by Everton defenders. 15 mins: Nothing comes of that one, either. 14 mins: Williams heads over from the corner, but the referee spots a deflection and gives them another go. 13 mins: Super save! Bolasie crosses from the right, Lukaku is all alone in the middle, and Pickford flings out a left hand to palm the ball over! Lukaku should really have buried that, mind. 11 mins: Defoe looks up, having missed that chance, at the linesman and demands that he raise his flag. It did look like Defoe was offside, but it’s a bit odd for him to be complaining about it not being given. 10 mins: Good work from Gooch, who carries the ball out of defence, exchanges passes with Defoe and keeps the move going. It ends, several passes later, with a Januzaj shot hitting Gueye and looping into the air and down into the path of Defoe, clear of the defence, who shins his volley over the bar. 6 mins: Supporters spend the sixth minute applauding, in support of Bradley Lowery, their young mascot who is suffering from cancer and trying to raise £700,000 to fund his treatment. More here. 5 mins: Gueye plays a one-two in midfield, runs clear of the snoozing Rodwell and then shoots low and wide from 20-odd yards. 4 mins: An open start, with Sunderland now working the ball to Defoe on the edge of the area, who spins and shoots straight into Jagielka. 1 min: And Everton attack! Djilobodji might have cleared but doesn’t, Van Aanholt tried to clear but fluffed it, and it all ends in a cross from the right which nearly falls for Lukaku, but Pickford races out to claim it. 1 min: Peeeep! We’re off! I’m not very good at differentiating one commentator from the next. They’re just player identification aids, really. But the moment when you realise you’ve got the one who calls Jagielka “yagielka” for a game actually involving Jagielka is always a depressing one. The players are in the tunnel. Proper actual action but a few moments, a load of handshakes, a new-style modern anthem and perhaps a lightning ad break away. David Moyes has now had his pre-match chat with the broadcasters, and this is what I managed to catch (he speaks a lot faster than Koeman): I wasn’t tempted to start Ndong. He only came in on Friday evening I think. Thursday. Whatever day we are now. It was too quick. I wanted him to see what the Premier League’s like, see the speed of the game. The encouraging thing is we’ve been in all the games. Man City we were very close, Middlesborough we were very close and we got a point at Southampton. We’ve always been in with a chance of winning or drawing and we need to do the same tonight. It’ll be a tough game. They’re good players and a good team, but we need to go there and make it as hard as possible. Lynden Gooch, the 20-year-old American midfielder who makes his fourth start for Sunderland tonight, had a trial at Everton before signing for the Black Cats at the age of 12. I’ve no idea whether they made him an offer, but he may be super extra bonus-motivated to show them what they missed out on. Ronald Koeman has had a little chat with Sky: The start [of the season] is OK. I think defensively the team is more compact and OK. We know it’s a good start but we’d like to continue and I think it’s an important game tonight to get an important result. On Lukaku: Maybe he did not score this season. Maybe the two goals he scored for Belgium gave him the boost he needs. We need to create chances for Romelu, and then he’ll score the goals. We try to get the best out of every player. On Coleman: We know with Seamus offensively is one of his strengths. We like to play football and I like to have offensively two left and right full-backs and with Seamus and Leighton Baines we have two of those kinds of players. And on Sunderland: They are in a difficult situation because they need to win. That means we have to be attentive of the way they start tonight. What we need to do is to play at our level, and then we have a good chance to win. The winner in May’s 3-2 win over Chelsea was the last goal Jermain Defoe scored at home – he’s scored in 10 goals in his last 10 away games, only failing to score in two of them. The team sheets have been handed in, and these were the names writ upon them: Sunderland: Pickford, Manquillo, Kone, Djilobodji, Van Aanholt, Rodwell, Kirchhoff, Januzaj, Gooch, Watmore, Defoe. Subs: Denayer, Khazri, Mika, O’Shea, Ndong, McNair, Love. Everton: Stekelenburg, Coleman, Ashley Williams, Jagielka, Baines, Gana, Barry, Mirallas, Barkley, Bolasie, Lukaku. Subs: Robles, Deulofeu, Kone, Lennon, Funes Mori, Davies, Holgate. Referee: Mike Jones. Sunderland haven’t won any of their last 22 top-flight games played in August or September, apparently. If last season had started on 1 October they’d have finished 12th. Hello world! So as we went into this Premier League weekend the talk was almost entirely about managers – with an eye, back then, on the Manchester derby – and as we go into its final fixture the names have changed but the theme remains the same. Today the managerial spotlight falls upon David Moyes, erstwhile long-term occupant of the Everton hotseat and now patrolling Sunderland’s technical area. He’s had little luck so far, with the Black Cats’ first three games bringing just a single point, won at Southampton a couple of weeks back. Everton meanwhile are unbeaten, having economically converted four league goals into seven league points. There could be more scoring tonight. After all, this tends to be an entertaining fixture, having produced seven goalless draws – the last in 1983 – in precisely 180 previous meetings, while there are 10 occasions on which the home team has scored either six or seven goals, and a further five on which one of the two sides scored five. And both teams have happy recent memories of their meetings: Everton won 6-2 at home last November, while Sunderland secured their top-flight status with a 3-0 victory here in May. In short I’m expecting an enjoyable evening. Enough about me, though. Hello, welcome. Let’s have some fun. Simon will be here shortly. In the meantime, here’s Louise Taylor on just how close David Moyes came to winning the title with, er, Everton.
Amazon: the obscure subsidiary at the heart of US and EU tax disputes If you had to sum up Amazon’s core business in a single sentence, how would you put it? Is it a website where you can order almost anything? Or is it a quick and convenient delivery network allowing you to receive the goods you need promptly? Clearly, it is both. But precisely how the group’s economic value is split between the two is now a vexed question at the heart of tax disputes on both sides of the Atlantic. In Europe, regulators believe high royalty fees paid by Amazon’s European HQ – bills, that is, for use of web technology and the brand – have allowed too much taxable income to be spirited away. As a consequence, the value of the group’s European activities, its buying and warehousing operations, is not properly appreciated. US tax officials take a different view. They insist that Amazon’s intellectual property – the rights to charge royalty fees for the use of brand and web technology – was grossly undervalued when it was sub-licensed outside America. As a result, they say, the value created by Amazon’s tech experts in Seattle is not properly appreciated. In each case, European and US demands for increased tax payments, both of which are resisted by Amazon, are centred around one obscure subsidiary: Amazon Europe Technologies Holding (AETH). This arcane unit (a non-resident Luxembourg partnership) is the linchpin in Amazon’s tax structure. It is to AETH that huge sums of European income are shifted, in the form of royalties. The clever construction of the partnership, however, ensures that this income is not taxable under Luxembourg law at all. Nor is it taxable in the US or anywhere else. In effect, AETH income has slipped the net altogether. Most big US multinationals have an obscure unit like AETH at the heart of their European tax affairs. Apple and Google have similar entities registered in Ireland; Starbucks has one in the Netherlands; McDonald’s in Luxembourg. In each case, vast sums in royalty payments gush into these little-known subsidiaries, arriving directly or indirectly from operating businesses across Europe. As a result, the operating businesses report dramatically smaller profits, and pay much lower taxes locally. But what happens to the royalty fees? In some cases they can be put to work again within the group, funding expansion. In others, however, royalty income floods in so fast that multinationals struggle to find a use for it. In the case of Amazon – a group that is fast-expanding rather than highly profitable – its offshore cash pile is worth $1.5bn. It seems a lot of money, but is comparatively modest next to reserves amassed by the more mature and profitable tech giants. Apple, for example, announced last month that its non-US cash reserves had reached $200bn (£139bn) – almost equivalent to the entire annual economic output of Ireland. Google, meanwhile, has an estimated $43bn (£30bn) parked offshore. Everyone can agree the situation is unsatisfactory, but specific gripes – and proposed remedies – look very different to regulators, depending on which side of the Atlantic they sit. US regulators see the sums mounting up in multinationals’ overseas coffers as profits that should be repatriated to America, taxed and distributed to shareholders or reinvested. Exactly how that should be done is between American corporations and Washington and of no concern, they would say, to regulators in Europe. But Europeans are increasingly questioning how multinationals have come by these cash mountains. Have big businesses struck shady “sweetheart deals” with Europe’s smaller, more biddable member states in order to salt away more royalty income than they might otherwise have got away with? Can these deals be unpicked and challenged? Certainly, the European commission believes so, and it is already challenging tax rulings granted to Amazon, Apple and others. Some European politicians now want the commission to add Google to its target list, following a controversial £130m settlement with UK tax authorities. Tensions between Europe and the US on international tax issues are at a new high. Senior US Treasury officials flew to Brussels last month and complained publicly about the commission appearing “to be disproportionately targeting US companies”. Days earlier, Apple’s chief executive, Tim Cook, had also been to lobby the European commission in person. He has recently shown himself more determined than ever to kick back against allegations of industrial-scale tax avoidance. In December, he described such accusations as “total political crap”. Only last autumn, things looked very different. There was quiet optimism among regulators around the world that an unprecedented, coordinated push to update the international rules would soon curb many of the worst excesses of big business tax avoidance. A two-year G20-led programme ended in agreement in October on wide-ranging international tax reforms. Thrashed out through the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, these reforms now have the backing of 60 countries representing more than 90% of the world’s economy, including the US and EU member states. But despite rare international consensus, many of the OECD reforms are yet to bite, and there are worrying signs that the goodwill vital to seeing them through could be crumbling. Whether the OECD reforms prove to be the robust remedy required remains to be seen. But even before the measures have been fully introduced, there are growing signs that efforts to move in unison against tax avoidance could fall apart.
Southampton see off West Brom thanks to James Ward-Prowse double This was the kind of complete performance that will reassure Southampton’s supporters that the side whose fearless zest made them so thrilling to watch last season are back for good – and it was a day for Ronald Koeman to cherish given that Charlie Austin was in the stands at St Mary’s after completing his move from Queens Park Rangers before kick-off. Having blown hot and cold on too many occasions during a difficult winter, Southampton simply blew a tired West Bromwich Albion away here, rising into the top half of the Premier League table thanks to a resounding 3-0 victory. Austin will be a bargain at £4m if he stays fit, and the striker must have appreciated watching his new team-mates play their stylish football. Already buoyed by Wednesday’s restorative victory over Watford, Southampton’s mood was further lifted by the news of Austin’s arrival, and they rarely looked like a side that had recently gone on a run of one win in 10 matches. They were determined to secure consecutive victories for the first time since the start of November, after what should have been a shot-in-the-arm thrashing of Arsenal on Boxing Day was followed by the grogginess of two straight league defeats, an early exit from the FA Cup, and misgivings over the attitude of certain players. Southampton began with the urgency of a team that still had a point to prove and the piercing quality of the first of James Ward-Prowse’s two goals, in the fifth minute, was an emphatic sign of their returning belief. West Brom could not have anticipated the damage would be so severe when Craig Dawson fouled Sadio Mané on the left. The wide position of the free-kick made shooting a low-percentage option; the big men trotted up from the back in anticipation of a cross and Boaz Myhill stepped to his left, diligently covering the far post, but leaving a large gap at his near post. Ward-Prowse used his corkscrew of a right foot to whip the ball high to Myhill’s right and the West Brom goalkeeper had far too much ground to make up. “We had total control in the game,” Koeman said. “The second one killed the game a little bit. We had a very good team performance. They didn’t create a lot of chances.” Southampton puffed out their chests. They passed the ball crisply, pressed high and pinned West Brom back. The visitors were enterprising in their previous match, a commendable 2-2 draw at Chelsea; here, though, they were decidedly second best. Koeman’s 5-3-1-1 system gave his wing-backs freedom to attack and Southampton earned the cushion of a two-goal lead when Shane Long slipped a clever pass inside Dawson, who blundered again, tripping Matt Targett. Ward-Prowse sent Myhill the wrong way from the spot and Southampton were denied a third when James McClean blocked Targett’s shot on the line. Craig Gardner sent a header wide and had a strong claim for a penalty turned down, but West Brom were wretched, and Tony Pulis made two changes at half-time, Chris Brunt coming on for the injured Darren Fletcher, and Salomón Rondón joining the hitherto isolated Victor Anichebe up front after replacing Jonas Olsson. However, Fraser Forster remained untroubled in the Southampton goal and West Brom’s mediocrity was captured by their failure to muster a single shot on target. “We didn’t have any sparkle at all,” Pulis said. “It would be interesting to see how many teams have played their second game away from home this weekend and how many teams have won.” Southampton were always comfortable and wrapped up the points when Dusan Tadic stepped off the bench and whipped a shot past Myhill in the 72nd minute, after fine work from Steven Davis, who reversed the ball into the Serbian’s path. A fortnight ago, Koeman seethed after Southampton lost 1-0 at Norwich City, benching Mané for turning up late to a team meeting and criticising Victor Wanyama for a foolish red card. But grudges have been forgotten. Mané was a menace behind Long, and Wanyama shielded his back-four unselfishly after returning from his suspension. Unity has returned.
Republican 'rotten boroughs' could clinch nomination due to delegate quirk Like British parliamentary elections in the 18th century, the Republican presidential primary in 2016 may be decided in rotten boroughs. While the rotten boroughs in Georgian England were the long since abandoned sites of medieval towns where aristocratic landowners could handpick members of parliament, the Republican rotten boroughs are vibrant, heavily populated urban areas in places like New York and Los Angeles. They just don’t have very many registered Republicans. The result of gerrymandered redistricting processes and the deep alienation of minority communities from the Republican party is that there are many congressional districts where registered Republicans are almost as rare as unicorns. Republican delegate apportionment rules in many states, however, mean that every congressional district receives three delegates to the convention, regardless of how many GOP voters live there. In contrast, the Democratic party’s formula for delegates is influenced by the number of votes cast for their presidential nominee in the past few elections in each district. Instead of seeking to represent every voter equally, this gives more weight to committed Democratic voters. And it means the ratio of voters to delegates is less unbalanced than it might be otherwise. The Republican electoral process, though, can lead to perverse outcomes. For example, in Georgia, every congressional district awards three delegates. In the 5th congressional district where Democrat Barack Obama won over 83% of the vote in 2012, 7,000 people voted in the Republican primary on 1 March. In contrast, the state’s deep red 9th congressional district, where Obama got 20% of the vote in 2012 and over 60,000 people voted, is also allocated three delegates. New York has particularly extreme examples of this. A total of 285 people turned out in what was then New York’s 16th congressional district to vote in the 2012 Republican presidential primary: 151 of them voted for Mitt Romney and he won three delegates there. This district, then composed of the South Bronx, was the most heavily Democratic congressional district in the country and Obama won almost 97% of the vote there in 2012. While turnout will certainly be higher on Tuesday with Donald Trump on the ballot, the district, now renumbered the 17th, will still award three delegates no matter how anemic voter turnout is. With strange incentives of the Republican primary system, it has led to candidates scrambling ahead of Tuesday’s primary for the few Republicans in heavily Democratic districts in New York. In particular, this has meant Orthodox Jews who are disproportionately conservative and clustered in enclaves across the New York area. Matzo factories have replaced diners and candidates have spoken from the pulpit in Orthodox synagogues instead of megachurches. It also gives a big advantage to campaigns with the ability to use data and technology to target individual voters. It is unlikely any registered Republican in the 17th district or a district like it was able to go online at all in the past two weeks without seeing advertisements for Ted Cruz on every website. New York, though, will only be a test run for this. With other primaries coming up in other deep blue states that apportion delegates by congressional district like Maryland and most importantly California, it’s entirely possible that the Republican nomination could be determined by voters in some of the most liberal parts of the country. It’s not as undemocratic as 18th-century England, but it’s almost as quirky.
Reparations site asks people to 'offset your privilege' with acts of kindness Enne had no expectations when she posted her request for an engagement ring. She had posted it to Reparations – a half art project, half social experiment, the idea of which is this: people of color can request help or services, and others (white people, other people of color, anyone) could offer help. Posts on the site include offers of childcare, tarot reading and tax help. One reads: “Just want to chat over coffee or dinner, make a new friend, feel a little more connected, learn something new about someone you might not otherwise meet.” Other posts ask for help. A musician seeks an electronic mixing-board. The organizers of an art class for the homeless seek art supplies. And then there was Enne. “I want to marry this amazing woman,” Enne wrote. “I want to spend all the moments being her wife and partner in this life. But I cannot afford to get her a ring. I am struggling so hard to pay my part of the mortgage, and pay on a loan to rebuild my credit, as well as financial needs of my kids. “I would love to give this woman a beautiful engagement ring,” her post ends. “Perhaps you could help me make that possible.” On the Tuesday after she posted her request, Enne received an email from a white woman who also lived in Seattle. The woman and her husband had been married two years, the email read, and though they were still very much in love, they never wore their rings any more. Would Enne like to have them? Reading the email while sitting at her desk at the non-profit where she works, Enne began to cry. Reparations was set up by Seattle-based conceptual artist Natasha Marin. “I was nursing at the teat of social media on a Friday night, becoming more and more depressed by what I was taking in,” said Marin, who is a black woman born in Trinidad who also holds Canadian and American citizenship. “Being of the ‘doing’ tribe of mankind, I decided to do something.” Marin is at pains to separate what her project does from the politically charged idea of reparations that float around in American public discourse. “I’m trying to create moments of solidarity between people of color, and between people of color and people who are white,” she said. “I’m not into polarizing. I’m into people working together for solutions … who can you help, who can you connect with, how can you offset your privilege.” Inevitably, though, the politics have found her. The project is not connected to the Black Lives Matter movement, which recently included reparations for slavery in its platform, but the movement has been influential on Marin personally. She said her project was “very present tense; it’s about the present time, what’s happening right now, today. How do we repair ourselves after being exposed to all the violence we are exposed to? All the tension, all the strife? Surely there’s a way all people can heal together.” The semantic complexities of the word “reparations” are both core to the project’s artistry and at the same time surplus to its execution. The website specifies that the recipients are people of color, but many of the early offerings of kind acts all came from people of color too. The woman who emailed Enne came to her office on Tuesday with two rings, gold with purple sapphires. (Enne requested her full name not be used for this article because she has not yet proposed.) “We talked for a little bit,” Enne said. “She said: ‘I don’t have any expectations. I just want you to have them.’” “I just bawled,” Enne continued. “I just cried. Because, for how much really awful things – how much just ridiculously disgustingly awful things that are happening – here’s just this small piece, from this one person, who’s like – it’s like she’s offering a light.” She said that the two of them, this complete stranger and her, had a partially unspoken understanding – a connection. “We hugged so much,” she said. “Right now, as a black person, so many people are like ‘how do you feel’, and I’m tired of answering questions,” Enne said. “Shit hurts so much every day.” She said when she first saw the project, “I was like, this is kinda brilliant. Of course not everyone is going to be happy, and maybe it’s not for every single person and that’s fine, but … it’s like, here you go, offer something, respond to something, this is you doing something.” “It’s not going to make up for everyone’s hurt and everyone’s pain,” she added. “But it’s a step.” Inevitably, the project has become the target of a backlash. Marin herself has received death threats from white supremacists; she started a Facebook group, Shrine of Asshats, to chronicle some of them. They range from basic reactionary – “get a job! no one owes you a damn thing!” – to violent screeds of hatred. “I discovered along the way that the word ‘reparation’ itself is like a trigger-word for white supremacists,” Marin said. “There is a lot of energy and emotion connected with that word.” The trolling wasn’t limited to Marin, nor was it limited to abusive messages. Some gave fake donations, designed to get someone to their requested target and then bounce, leaving them with nothing. A veteran raising money to get a service dog had to re-post his request three times because of this. “It is the most despicable kind of person who is reacting that negatively to the word ‘reparations’,” Marin said. “Because who, honestly, has a problem with a veteran getting a service dog? Who are these people?” She has set up a “troll fund” where, for every abusive message the site receives, people pledge to donate a dollar to someone in need. The tagline for the fund is: “Hate can buy groceries now.” “It is clear we are not OK as a culture – as Americans – and it’s racially-based,” Marin said. But the hatred she saw was outnumbered by the good, by people who have had requests fulfilled coming back to help others. People, she said, “get high on the joy of human connection”.
Is Hillary Clinton a neocon? Another week, and another set of Republicans have endorsed Hillary Clinton. Is it because of existential threat of Donald Trump, or could it be because many of Clinton’s potential policies conveniently line up with theirs? Longtime Republican foreign policy stalwart and Iraq warmonger Robert Kagan became the latest neoconservative to endorse Clinton for president last week. He has even offered to host a fundraiser on her behalf, as Foreign Policy Magazine first reported on Thursday. Kagan has followed the likes of former Bush deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage and a slew of lower-profile officials in their endorsement of Clinton over Trump. Now, it’s entirely possible that these Republicans are endorsing Clinton because Trump is an unhinged maniac who has given people of all political persuasions plenty of reason to not want him anywhere near the levers of power. But here’s the thing: the neocon love affair with Clinton started well before Trump was even in the discussion of Republican candidates, let alone the party’s likely nominee. Several neoconservatives have spent years gushing about Clinton’s penchant for supporting basically every foreign war or military escalation in the last decade, including Kagan, who said in 2014: “I feel comfortable with her on foreign policy ... If she pursues a policy which we think she will pursue, it’s something that might have been called neocon, but clearly her supporters are not going to call it that; they are going to call it something else.” Her campaign hasn’t really deviated from that position, either. While she’s hit Trump for being too erratic and dangerous a man to have in charge of the nuclear codes, she also promised more ground troops in the fight against Isis, expressed support for a no-fly zone in Syria (effectively a declaration of war against Assad) and called for more weapons for various rebels in the region. Just this past weekend, we learned yet another lesson about what constant military intervention in the Middle East has gotten us: one more disaster where untold numbers of US guns and weapons fell into the hands of the people we are fighting. The New York Times reported that the classified CIA program that armed and trained Syrian rebels directly fighting Assad – a policy Clinton pushed for while in the Obama administration and that she has subsequently said we should expand – led to the systematic stealing of millions of dollars of US weapons, which were then sold on the black market and even contributed to the killing of Americans. On the economic front, Hank Paulson – former Goldman Sachs chief and the man who oversaw the financial collapse and economic bailout as George W Bush’s treasury secretary – put himself firmly in the #NeverTrump camp while also endorsing Clinton in a Washington Post op-ed. After talking about Trump’s business acumen (or lack thereof) and Trump’s appeal to ignorance, Paulson says this: “I find it particularly appalling that Trump, a businessman, tells us he won’t touch social security, Medicare and Medicaid.” Really? There are many “particularly appalling” things about Trump: that he congratulated himself upon the Orlando terrorist attack, has called for a ban on all Muslim immigrants, that he insinuated Barack Obama was working with Isis, and so on. But pledging to keep economic and health programs that tens of millions of Americans rely on is not one of them. To be fair, Clinton has strengthened her wishy-washy language about protecting Social Security somewhat since early in her campaign (after being pressed on it by Bernie Sanders during the Democratic debates). But with the Clinton camp planning on pushing for more Republican endorsements, it does leave open the question: if Paulson is so appalled by Trump’s alleged positions on Medicare and social security, does he think Clinton is more likely to “reform” – ie cut – them too? In any case, the fact that Republicans may have ulterior motivations for endorsing Clinton, even as her campaign pushes for more of them, is a prime reason why progressives should not abandon criticizing Clinton when they disagree with her. Holding her accountable for her positions in the general election is vital, even while everyone also loudly denounces Trump.
Crystal Palace’s Alan Pardew ready to go back to basics for Sunderland game Alan Pardew clearly thought the time had come for some home truths. Crystal Palace have been able to cling to their best FA Cup run in more than two decades as cause for optimism, or to point to untimely injuries sustained by key personnel as an explanation for shoddy Premier League results, but a straight question provoked a blunt answer. Are his team now embroiled in a relegation fight? “Yes, of course we are,” he said. “We keep losing and we need to click into gear. So, as much as I’m looking at myself, I’m looking at my players and staff and saying: ‘Come on, stop daydreaming. Let’s get on with it.’ ” The impression was that he had just delivered that very message to the ranks. Palace’s slide from European contention to a precarious position above the relegation scrap has gone almost unnoticed to all apart from those scarred by this club’s ability to conjure catastrophe from rare opportunity. On Christmas Day they were sixth, beneath fourth-placed Tottenham Hotspur only on goal difference with American investors, attracted by clear potential, having bought into the club. Fast forward 66 days and 10 league games have yielded three measly points, only one of which has been accrued this year. No other top-flight team across Europe’s elite leagues, including Aston Villa, have a record that wretched. That winless sequence equates to more than a quarter of the campaign but is made all the more baffling by the fact that, in the interim, they have still managed to ease beyond three top-half sides – Southampton, Stoke City and Spurs – to secure next week’s FA Cup quarter-final at Reading. Pardew described those wins as having “put a gloss” on real form but, while the team have reserved their most slapdash passages of play for the games immediately after victorious cup ties, it would be too simplistic to argue that progress in the knockout competition has been a damaging distraction. They travel to Sunderland on Tuesday knowing breathing space from the cut-off is being squeezed. The bottom three could close to within five points by the weekend. Pardew has endured similar slumps before, not least when his Newcastle side fell away from sixth at Christmas two seasons ago, and would rightly also point to a wider context. After 27 games last season, when he was two months into the job, Palace boasted 30 points. Retreat further to Tony Pulis’ tenure the previous season and they had 27 at this point and, on each occasion, they mustered another 18 from their last 11 matches. So the current tally of 32, with the Cup run thrown in, would normally be an indication of progress. Yet, back then, the team was on an eye-catching upturn under new management at this stage of the campaign. This year they are doing things in reverse, with awkward games against Liverpool, Leicester City and West Ham looming large. Retaining a sense of perspective can be hard once panic sets in. It was there for all to see at the Hawthorns on Saturday, written on the faces across an alarmingly ramshackle back line as the home side scored three times in 19 chaotic first-half minutes. That was the first time West Bromwich had led by three goals at half-time in the revamped Premier League, and Sunderland’s Jermain Defoe will have watched Saido Berahino run riot with relish. “This team’s DNA has been to fight, to battle, to scrap, and we didn’t do that in the first half there,” Pardew said. “That was the most disturbing thing. It was uncharacteristic, but that will worry our fans. Over the 14 months I’ve been here, this is the first time we’ve had any ‘down time’. But this group, let’s be honest, have been in relegation battles in the last two years and finished really strongly. It’s a fighting group. I have no fear going forward with them.” Yet the second-half revival, with two finegoals from Connor Wickham and the mystifying failure to award Palace at least one penalty, should not be allowed to paper over the cracks. The worry is the team has become more reactive than proactive, a legacy of slack first-half displays against West Brom, Watford and Swansea. They may be suffering from a reluctance or inability to add to defensive ranks last summer, let alone in January when business was restricted as much by the Premier League’s internal financial fair play regulations as a lack of options on the market. There is probably insufficient competition for places given the manager’s only real options, with Pape Souaré banned and Martin Kelly restored to the team, are to offer Brede Hangeland or Adrian Mariappa a rare appearance. Hauling the goalkeeper Wayne Hennessey from the fray would have the whiff of a climbdown given Alex McCarthy has been ignored since September. Julián Speroni has not played at all. More often, the focus has been drawn to attacking deficiencies. The injuries clearly left Pardew’s side blunted. Yannick Bolasie, such a key component to the team’s blistering counter-attacking style, missed 11 matches with a hip problem sustained while Lee Chung-yong celebrated this team’s last winning league goal, in mid-December, to heap huge responsibility on Wilfried Zaha in carrying the attacking threat in his absence. The latter has risen to the task, though he is now struggling with an ankle injury which saw him depart the club’s Beckenham training ground long before his team-mates had finished their session on Monday. Pardew rates him “60-40” to feature at the Stadium of Light, though that might be optimistic. Zaha’s absence would hardly be masked by Bakary Sako’s return. Bolasie will surely start at the Stadium of Light, a venue where he hit a hat‑trick last season, but there will be no James McArthur, the Scotland international’s ankle still confined to a moon boot, or the hamstrung Jason Puncheon for a match in which Pardew will attempt to go back to basics. The partnership between Wickham and Emmanuel Adebayor might eventually prove productive but, for now, playing two up front leaves this side too open and easily overrun. Palace are happiest when massed in energetic, disciplined defence and able to spring on the counter. Therein lies their hope at Sunderland, where Pardew expects the hosts to build up the occasion as “their biggest game of the season”. The manager needs some respite. A new contract has been agreed in principle but will only be signed once Premier League status has been assured. Pardew, like the other cult figures, stalwarts or icons on the staff – John Salako, Mark Bright, even Andy Woodman and Keith Millen – retains huge support among a fan-base desperate for him to succeed, with no appetite for change despite the team’s slump. But, while they and the hierarchy may benefit from greater leeway given their standing and all that has been achieved in the past six years, none will remain immune to criticism forever. “It’s no good me telling my staff to pull their finger out if I’m not doing it myself, so I’ll do what I need to do,” Pardew said. “There are no excuses going forward, and still a lot of points available. And I’d still rather be in our position than that of six or seven clubs in the division, so maybe we ain’t as bad as we feel today.” One win would provide the kick-start. The problem is, Palace have been saying that since the festive season.
Simpsons writer says President Trump episode was 'warning to US' It was intended, according to its creator, as a “warning to America”, a horrifying and fantastical vision of the future in which the US – ludicrously – had elected as its president Donald Trump. But with the property billionaire now the favourite to gain the Republican nomination for the presidency, the episode of The Simpsons that in 2000 foresaw such a laughable outcome has begun looking unnervingly prescient. A possible future Trump presidency, said the episode’s writer Dan Greaney, “just seemed like the logical last stop before hitting bottom. It was pitched because it was consistent with the vision of America going insane”. The episode, broadcast almost exactly 16 years ago on 19 March 2000, saw Bart offered a vision of his future in which he is a beer-swilling bum, while his sister Lisa has become president, following Trump’s time in office. “As you know, we’ve inherited quite a budget crunch from President Trump,” Lisa – who describes herself as “America’s first straight, female president” – tells her advisers from behind her Oval Office desk. “How bad is it? The country is broke? How can it be?” The previous regime, she is told, made the mistake of “investing in our nation’s children … The balanced breakfast programme just created a generation of ultra-strong supercriminals. And midnight basketball just taught them to function without sleep.” Bart’s vision, he is told, is 30 years in the future, which would mean Trump is hoping to claim the White House either six or ten years ahead of Greaney’s prediction - depending on whether his fictional counterpart serves one or two terms in the White House. He told the Hollywood Reporter, “The important thing is that Lisa comes into the presidency when America is on the ropes and that is the condition left by the Trump presidency. What we needed was for Lisa to have problems that were beyond her fixing, that everything went as bad as it possibly could, and that’s why we had Trump be president before her.” The Simpsons, he said, “has always kind of embraced the over-the-top side of American culture … and [Trump] is just the fulfilment of that.” In a separate brief animation, released by the Simpsons broadcaster Fox in July, Homer is paid to attend a Trump campaign rally (“Do you care who the next president is? No? Come with me”), where he is captured by rogue fronds of Trump’s puzzling hairstyle before being dragged off by two security guards. The presidential candidate’s podium slogan reads: “America, you can be my ex-wife!” • This article was corrected on 18 March 2016. It originally stated that the Trump president in Bart’s vision had claimed the White House 14 years ahead of now. The correct figure is six or 10 years depending on whether Trump’s fictional counterpart serves one or two terms. This has been changed.
Fear of Men review – shimmering dreampop with all the sharp edges intact “I’m like an island, I don’t need to feel your arms around me” are the first words out of Jessica Weiss’s mouth, and they set the tone for all that follows. Weiss’s main subject is remoteness. An isolating conflict between passion and terror is in the name of her band and the lyrics of her songs. “I feel the same dread,” she sings, repeatedly. These aren’t outpourings from a diary or a session with a therapist. Rather, they’re allusive and semi-abstract; songs as collages of uneasy fragments, for which Michael Miles’s heavy, elliptical percussion, Daniel Falvey’s shimmering guitar and Dog in the Snow member Helen Brown’s washes of synth are both backdrop and glue. Fear of Men might be classed as dreampop, but they display none of the wan, drifty or misty tendencies that afflict the genre. The dreams are the kind born of disorders, too chilly to be fever dreams, too astringent to be sweet ones, confronted too unflinchingly to be nightmares. Their love songs evoke those relationships in which people collide at awkward angles. These have terse, foreboding titles such as Ruins, Descent, Erase and Trauma. “The change in me,” Weiss sings, in her driven, distant way, “is never what you want it to be.” She distils anxiety as well as anyone since Ladyhawke released an album of that name. The band perform with a lithe muscularity not always captured on their forthcoming second album, Fall Forever. Weiss sways and the music sways with her. Fear of Men play with an assurance and polish that has in no way smoothed their many spikes and edges, but left them gleaming. • At the Boileroom, Guildford, on 11 April. Box office: 01865 798792.
HSBC winds down private banking operation in Monaco HSBC has completed the scaling back of its scandal-hit private banking operation by pulling out of Monaco. Britain’s biggest bank has been reducing its services to wealthy individuals after tax scandals at its Swiss banking arm and its dealings with Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca. The move is an attempt by HSBC’s chief executive, Stuart Gulliver, to reduce the financial and reputational risks facing the bank, which formerly had dealings with customers in 150 countries around the world. That has now been reduced to 50 countries, with the private bank refocusing on major centres in London, New York, Geneva, Singapore and Hong Kong. The last step is pulling out of Monaco, where HSBC’s clients are to be referred to CFM Indosuez Wealth Management, which will become the largest bank in the principality. “It draws to a close the restructuring of our European private banking operations, with the future focus being on growing our business with strategic clients of the group,” the bank said of the move. “It is intended that the remainder of HSBC’s Monaco business will be subsequently wound down, after alternative arrangements have been made for any clients who do not transfer under the agreement.” Private banking operations in Japan, Panama, Israel, Bermuda, Brazil, Mexico and Turkey have been closed or sold since January 2011 when Gulliver took the helm. The operations being sold off had already met transparency rules on tax and money laundering. HSBC embarked on a major expansion into private banking in 1999 by acquiring the Republic National Bank of New York and Safra Republic Holdings. HSBC has argued that these operations were allowed to operate with different cultures and standards to the wider group at a time when rules for private banking were demanding less secrecy. A hack of its Swiss operation’s 30,000 accounts in 2007 showed how the bank helped wealthy customers dodge taxes and conceal millions of dollars of assets, including doling out bundles of untraceable cash and advising clients on how to circumvent domestic tax authorities.
Anita Loos – sharp, shameless humour of the 'world's most brilliant woman' Anita Loos, the screenwriter and author, claimed – in typically waggish style – to be furious at the women’s lib movement. “They keep getting up on soapboxes and proclaiming that women are brighter than men,” she said. “That’s true, but it should be kept very quiet or it ruins the whole racket.” Loos was a veteran of silent-era Hollywood, when women worked at all levels of the film industry – directing, editing, producing and designing. Scriptwriting, Loos’s forte, was the most feminine department: a “manless Eden” of female screenplay writers, scenario authors, story editors, intertitle artists and “script girls”. Loos may not have been the most successful screenwriter during Hollywood’s silent years (that honour falls to Frances Marion), but she was one of its greatest wits, most popular characters and one of its key storytellers. Loos is best known today for her wickedly funny novel Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, written during her Hollywood years, which follows the escapades of gold-digging, flaxen-haired showgirl Lorelei Lee and her man-mad brunette chum Dorothy. For many, this breathless novel epitomises the highs and the lows of the jazz age, though it’s now most famous in its 1953 musical film incarnation starring Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell. The book is typical of Loos’s sharp and shameless humour: for all that Lorelei appears to be a mercenary and a “dumb blonde”, the real butts of the joke are the men who fall for her charms. Loos was inspired to write it when she saw her friend, the literary critic and satirist HL Mencken, lose his cool when faced with a blond beauty. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes had been filmed before the musical, in 1928, when its roaring 20s satire would have been even more pointed. Loos, by then a fixture at Paramount, wrote the screenplay (with her husband, John Emerson) and the intertitles (with Herman Mankiewicz, who would go on to write Citizen Kane). The 1928 Gentlemen Prefer Blondes had impeccable comic credentials, being directed by Keystone alumnus Mal St Clair, and starring two more former employees of Mack Sennett: Ruth Taylor and Ford Sterling. Alice White picked up the part of sidekick Dorothy after Loos nixed the studio’s original, and intriguing, choice of Louise Brooks. Brooks is said to have given a joyless performance in her screen test (“I stunk”), and Loos dismissed her, with an offensive turn of phrase that was, sadly, characteristic, saying: “If I ever write a part for a cigar-store Indian, you will get it.” The film was something of a flop, and we may never get to judge it for ourselves as it has long been considered lost. But Loos’s Hollywood story began more than a decade before Lorelei first shimmied on to the pages of Harper’s magazine, where her novel was originally serialised. As a young woman in California, Loos was an avid moviegoer, long before a trip to the nickelodeon was considered a cultural event. She had strong opinions about which films were better than others and fancied that she could make a fair fist of writing movies herself. Aged 24, she posted a short film scenario she had written to DW Griffith’s Biograph studio in New York. Not only did Griffith like The New York Hat, and pay her $25 for it, but the film he made from her story is one of his finest short features. Twenty-year-old Mary Pickford gives a typically nuanced performance in the lead role of a motherless child swept up in small-town scandal, and Lionel Barrymore makes his first screen performance as the local minister whose kindness causes the disgrace. By most people’s standards, The New York Hat would be precocious, but the vain Loos so often embroidered the truth that, in the telling of this story, she often claimed to have attained her movie debut as a teenager, even as young as 12 years old. Loos told some of the finest and funniest stories about Hollywood, but many should be taken with a sprinkling of salt. Loos wrote many more scenarios for Griffith, posting them from her home in San Diego, where she lived with her mother. Some of them he used, but many he considered unfilmable as silent pictures. “The laughs were all in the lines,” he complained, “there was no way to get them on to the screen.” For that very reason, he gave Loos the prestigious job of writing the intertitles for his epic Intolerance (1916), a vast portmanteau film taking in a contemporary crime drama, the fall of the Babylonian empire, a Bible story and the St Bartholomew’s Day massacre of 1572. Loos’s amusing, compact intertitles leaven the film’s heavy material with crisp dramatic statements and comical jibes such as: “When women cease to attract men they often turn to Reform as a second choice.” Loos had found an excellent way to exploit her natural skill with a one-liner. A year later, Photoplay reported that Griffith had called her “The most brilliant woman in the world”, and praised her skilful writing, saying: “The most important service that Anita Loos has so far rendered the screen is the elevation of the subcaption [sic], first to sanity then to dignity and brilliance combined.” Loos became renowned for her cleverness at writing piquant intertitles, first for a series of Douglas Fairbanks’s early films: her verbal wit a match for his physical gags. Four feet 11in tall, with a chic, gamine hairdo and a terribly expensive wardrobe, Loos was a distinctive presence and soon became as famous as many a movie star: the “soubrette of satire”. She had a collaborator by this time, the director John Emerson, to whom she was devoted and would later marry, although he was a notorious philanderer and far from her intellectual equal. Loos and Emerson worked as a writer-director team for many years. Emerson often insisted on taking a screenwriting credit when the words were Loos’s alone, and there have even been some controversial suggestions that when Emerson was indisposed, Loos took his place behind the camera. When they worked in New York, they stayed at the Algonquin hotel, where Loos was friendly with, though not an insider in, Dorothy Parker’s famous Round Table. Loos spent years as a successful Hollywood screenwriter, at Paramount, United Artists and MGM. She developed a knack for talent spotting, and moved happily into sound films, not least because the witticisms that were confined to titlecards in her silent movies found a home in fast-talking screenplays of the 30s. Fashion-obsessed, gossipy and loyal, she forged last Hollywood friendships with a number of stars, included those she “spotted”, from the Talmadge sisters (she wrote a very affectionate biography of them), to Jean Harlow and Paulette Goddard. When Emerson’s health failed in 1937, she discovered that he had frittered away much of their income and requested a divorce, realising that after all she would have to make a success of her career alone. And she did. Loos died in her 90s, in 1981. Her legacy comprises a vast body of silent work, as well as sound-era successes including the sizzling pre-code flick Red-Headed Woman (1932), starring Jean Harlow, and the breakneck cattiness of The Women (1939). She also adapted her Gentlemen Prefer Blondes for a triumphant Broadway musical production starring Carol Channing in 1949, and two years later made a New York sensation of Colette’s Gigi, which ran for more than a year, with a young Audrey Hepburn in the lead role. Much of Loos’s writing success came from the fact that she was a born raconteur, the life and soul of many a Hollywood party, with a hawkish eye on the glamorous, or scandalous, events that surrounded her. Hence the pinpoint satire of Lorelei Lee. In one of her biographical volumes, A Girl Like I, Loos wrote that: “I’ve enjoyed my happiest moments when trailing a Mainbocher evening gown across the sawdust-covered floor of a saloon.” Those Hollywood memoirs, while not always to be trusted, are among the most entertaining ever written, because Loos remains great company, and because her story proves how far a young woman in a young industry could get on brains and high spirits alone. Comedian Lucy Porter will talk on Anita Loos: Hollywood Pioneer at the Slapstick festival in Bristol on 22 January, which includes screenings of The New York Hat and The Mystery of the Leaping Fish. This event will be followed by a screening of the Douglas Fairbanks western Wild and Woolly, which Anita Loos co-wrote. Click here for tickets.
Çiğdem Aslan: A Thousand Cranes review – fine return from 'Balkan blues' vituoso Çiğdem Aslan has enjoyed an intriguing career. Brought up in Istanbul in a Kurdish family, she moved to London to study music, joined the klezmer band She’Koyokh and then went solo, winning an award for her debut album. She specialised in rebetiko, the “Balkan blues” that flourished in the 1920s, and for her stories of a mortissa, a flirtatious and staunchly independent woman of the era. A Thousand Cranes, a title influenced by a soulful lament about migratory birds and parting, broadens her range, and establishes her as one of the finest, most emotional singers of the region. Recorded in Athens, and co-produced by Nicolaos Baimpas, who also provides the arrangements and fine solo work on the kanun, the set ranges from sad, stately love songs to the rousing mortissa tribute Cheeky Lili (“As much hashish as you puff, you won’t coax me’). An impressive return.
Sylvester Stallone: five best moments When a seventh Rocky film was announced, the news was met with collective apathy. But with Creed, Fruitvale Station director Ryan Coogler has found a way to update the franchise with intelligence and passion, centring it on Apollo Creed’s son, fiercely played by Michael B Jordan. But the film’s masterstroke is keeping Rocky himself out of the ring and allowing Sylvester Stallone’s iconic boxer the chance to confront the realities of age instead. It’s led to the actor’s finest work in years and a Golden Globe for best supporting actor. But looking back over a long career, what have been his other highlights? Rocky After a handful of small roles in other people’s films, Stallone took matters into his own hands and wrote the script to a boxing movie that he then shopped around to studios. When he finally sold it, director Irwin Winkler was keen to attach an established star, but Stallone insisted he take on the role and his commanding performance helped the film become a worldwide hit and a best picture winner at the Oscars. F.I.S.T. Throughout his career, Stallone has made the odd diversion from the action genre, and while his comedic attempts usually landed with a thud (Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot; Oscar), he often scored with more dramatic work. His first post-Rocky role also saw him using his screenwriting skills; he rewrote much of Joe Eszterhas’s script for this earnest union drama. As well as the grandstanding speeches, he also manages to sell the quieter moments as a man struggling to stick to his principles. First Blood Stallone’s other famous role starting with an R gave him another franchise that ultimately went on too long but started effectively. Not many actors could have sold a character like Rambo quite as well as Stallone and his physicality helps to elevate the material. Cop Land After some rum choices (The Specialist, Judge Dredd, Assassins), Stallone wisely took a pay cut to play the lead in this modestly budgeted crime drama. Surrounded by arguably more talented actors such as Robert De Niro and Harvey Keitel, Stallone held his own and, as with many of his better latter performances, confronted his age and increasing vulnerability on screen. Rocky Balboa As a primer for his subtly devastating turn in Creed, Stallone revisited the character who made him famous in 2006’s sixth film of the franchise. It’s a far lesser film than Coogler’s, but it does see Stallone firing on all cylinders. His performance is tinged with poignancy and somehow, at the age of 60, he still convinces in the ring.
How to decode mixed messages from the latest US presidential election polls As is so often the case, the latest US presidential election polls seem to be sending different messages about who’s up and who’s down. Here are a few words of analysis that might help you make sense of it all. 1) A CNN/ORC poll out today shows Donald Trump polling at 41% nationally while Texas senator Ted Cruz trails at a mere 19%. Change: This is the highest level of support Trump has received since CNN/ORC began polling this Republican nomination race. Method: A random national sample of 1,002 adults contacted by telephone between 21 and 24 January. Margin of error: +/- 3 percentage points. 2) A national poll from the Washington Post/ABC News gives Trump 37% of support while Cruz comes in second with 21%. Change: Trump’s support is steady compared to a month ago. Method: 356 Republican-leaning registered voters were contacted from 21-24 January. Margin of error: +/- 5.5 percentage points. 3) Today’s Quinnipiac University poll of Iowa voters has Trump polling at 31% and Cruz at 29%. Change: Virtually no change since their last Quinnipiac poll earlier this month. Method: 651 likely Iowa Republican caucus participants were contacted between 18 and 24 January by real people via landlines and cellphones. Margin of error: +/- 3.8 percentage points. Analysis That CNN/ORC poll might sound like the best of the bunch (decent number of respondents, low margin of error), but when you take a closer look, it gets tricky. That’s because the topline numbers about Republican candidates are only based on 405 registered voters who are Republicans or Republican-leaning. Suddenly, the margin of error jumps to five percentage points. That doesn’t change the fact that Trump appears to be significantly ahead of Cruz nationally (although the margin could be much narrower at 36-24), but it does show the fragility of polling numbers that are based on such a small number of US voters. Here’s another thing that’s worth keeping in mind: It’s easy to focus on answers to the rather simplistic (and very hypothetical) question: “If the primary or caucus in your state were today, for whom would you vote?” But it’s every bit as interesting to consider what people say when they’re asked who they definitely wouldn’t vote for and who they might vote for. In a write-up of their poll, the Washington Post added up respondents’ first and second choices and found that the race tightened a little, with Trump at 49% and Cruz at 39%. One last point to keep in mind: research has repeatedly shown that one of the best ways to predict whether someone will vote is to look at whether they have voted in the past. As Ryan Struyk at ABC points out, those Quinnipiac polling numbers look very different when you only take previous voting attendance into account. Still, whichever way you slice these numbers, there’s one clear takeaway: Trump is doing great.
Google to point extremist searches towards anti-radicalisation websites Users of Google who put extremist-related entries into the search engine are to be shown anti-radicalisation links under a pilot programme, MPs have been told by an executive for the company. The initiative, aimed at countering the online influence of groups such as Islamic State, is running alongside another pilot scheme designed to make counter-radicalisation videos easier to find The schemes were mentioned by Anthony House, senior manager for public policy and communications at Google, who was appearing alongside counterparts from Twitter and Facebook at a home affairs select committee hearing on countering extremism. “We should get the bad stuff down, but it’s also extremely important that people are able to find good information, that when people are feeling isolated, that when they go online, they find a community of hope, not a community of harm,” he said. Referring to the use of online counter radicalisation initiatives, House said: “This year…. we are running two pilot programmes. One is to make sure that these types of videos are more discoverable on YouTube. The other one is to make sure when people put potentially damaging search terms into our search engine.. they also find this counter narrative.” Google has said that House was referring to a pilot scheme to enable NGOs to place counter-radicalisation adverts against search queries of their choosing. A spokesperson said: “The free Google AdWords Grant program is starting a pilot for a handful of eligible non-profits organizations to run ads against terrorism-related search queries of their choosing.” All three representatives from Google, Twitter and Facebook were challenged by MPs about the extent of their companies’ roles in combating the use of social media by groups such as Isis for propaganda and recruitment purposes. Committee chairman Keith Vaz asked how many people are in the sites’ “hit squads” that monitor content. He was told Twitter, which has 320 million users worldwide, has “more than 100” staff. The Facebook and Google executives did not give a number. Simon Milner, Facebook’s policy director for UK and Ireland, Middle East, Africa and Turkey, said that the site has become a “hostile place” for Isis: “Keeping people safe is our number one priority. Isis is part of that, but it’s absolutely not the only extremist organisation or behaviour that we care about.” He added that Facebook recognised from research that people did not typically get radicalised exclusively online – rather, it was a combination of real-world and online contact – and was working as a result with groups in society such as Imams. The three were also questioned about the thresholds they apply on notifying authorities about terrorist material identified by staff or users. Labour MP Chuka Umunna asked: “What is the threshold beyond which you decide ... that you must proactively notify the law enforcement agencies?” House and Milner said their threshold was “threat to life”, while Nick Pickles, UK public policy manager at Twitter, told the MPs: “We don’t proactively notify. Because Twitter’s public, that content is available, so often it’s been seen already.” Pickles also stressed that decisions on whether to notify account holders that they were under investigation were “context specific” and insisted that Twitter worked with authorities to ensure that they do not disrupt investigations. • This article was amended on 3 February 2016 to clarify Google’s counter-radicalisation initiatives and to expand a quote from Anthony House and add a response from Google.
Dick Van Dyke: 'Someone should have told me to work on my Cockney accent' Someone should have told me I needed to work on my Cockney accent. Nearly everyone in the Mary Poppins cast was a Brit but no one said anything. I was given an Irish coach whose Cockney was much better than mine. Years later I asked Julie [Andrews]: “Why didn’t you tell me?” She said it was because I was working so hard. I wanted to be a magician. From an early age I’d stand in front of a mirror for hours practising my sleight of hand. Attitude is in the genes. I’m the kind of person who gets out of the right side of the bed. I’m full of ideas and make a list of the things I want to do. Bringing up my family I noticed two of my kids were like me, but the other two woke up grumpy. I’m not sure that’s something you can change. I am hungry for contemporaries. It’s disturbing that there aren’t many people who can remember what I do. I have a few people I drop by on – like Carl Reiner, my mentor and idol, he’s 94. And Mel Brooks. We mostly talk about how the past affects what we’re doing in the present. We see the mistakes and the roads not taken. There’s very little nostalgia involved. I had no idea we were poor as a kid. I grew up in the Great Depression so nobody had much of anything. My dad was a travelling salesman and told a good joke. His side of the family all had a light touch when it came to life; I think I inherited that. Absence does not make the heart grow fonder. My first wife and I lived apart for a year – I was working in LA and she was in Arizona. The geographical separation didn’t work. It took me a while to figure out alcohol had to go. I was shy in my 20s. I had trouble relating to strangers and I found I’d loosen up with a Martini. Then it got a hold of me. I’m married to someone half my age. We learn from each other. Her generation questions everything. Arlene [Silver] had trepidation about marrying someone so much older, but it became inevitable. She’s a singer and a dancer and we perform together, which we love. You should have done as much unlearning as learning by the time you’re in your 40s. Growing up you get your head stuffed with a lot of things that aren’t all true, and you have to rid yourself of some. You can’t just sit around. A lot of older people bemoan that they can’t do what they once did. But you have to find new things to replace them. My house looks like it’s been attacked by clowns. I’m always putting things off, like tidying up. I’m a terrible procrastinator. My wife’s the same. She’s kind of turned the place into Disneyland. She has balloons and characters everywhere and is building a toy guesthouse outside. I would like to live to be 100. I’m working on it. I dance every day and go to the gym. And emotionally, I don’t feel old at all. My Lucky Life In And Out of Show Business by Dick Van Dyke is published by John Blake at £8.99. To order a copy for £7.37, go to bookshop.theguardian.com
Clinton says Trump campaign is 'pitting Americans against Americans' In a speech on race and violence in the wake of high-profile police shootings of black Americans and the sniper attack on Dallas police officers last week, Hillary Clinton accused Donald Trump of cynically fanning the “flames of racial division”. Clinton called Trump’s campaign “as divisive as any we have seen in our lifetimes” and said it is “built on stoking mistrust and pitting Americans against Americans”. The address was delivered from the statehouse in Springfield, Illinois, where then senator Barack Obama first announced his candidacy for president more than eight years ago and where Abraham Lincoln delivered his famous House Divided speech in 1858. Clinton repeatedly alluded to Lincoln in her calls for unity and mutual understanding. Clinton expressed support both for law enforcement, and for protesters and activists seeking police reform, declaring “we need to listen to those who say black lives matter”. She cited the recent deaths of Alton Sterling, and Philando Castile, as well as Laquan McDonald and Sandra Bland as examples of black Americans dying after police encounters where “time after time, no one is held accountable”. Clinton added: “Surely we can all agree that’s deeply wrong and needs to change.” At the same time, she asked Americans to put themselves “in the shoes of police officers kissing their kids and spouses every day and heading off to a dangerous job we need them to do”. Clinton also reaffirmed her commitment, in the wake of the Dallas attack that left five police officers who had been patrolling a peaceful protest dead, to getting “military grade” weapons off the streets and to pursuing universal background checks as president. But most of Clinton’s remarks were spent haranguing Trump for his campaign rhetoric, including his reaction to Black Lives Matter protests against police violence from an interview on Tuesday night. “He said he understands systemic bias against black people because ‘even against me the system is rigged’,” Clinton said. “Even this, the killing of people is somehow all about him.” Clinton hit Trump for all of the most well-publicised racist and xenophobic policy proposals of his campaign thus far, including the roundup and deportation of undocumented immigrants and banning and database tracking of US Muslims. Clinton noted that his campaign has barred journalists with whom he disagrees from events and encouraged Americans to imagine if Trump, as president, had “not just Twitter and cable news to go after his opponents and critics but also the IRS and our entire military”. She also accused the presumptive Republican nominee of a dangerous lack of knowledge about the constitution, including an embarrassing gaffe last week where, at a meeting with congressional Republicans, Trump expressed his desire to protect article XII of the constitution. There are VII articles in the document. “The very first thing a new president does is take an oath to protect and defend the constitution,” she said. “To do that with any meaning you have to know what’s in it and you have to respect what’s in it.”
La La Land trailer: Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone salute the Hollywood musical The first trailer for Damien Chazelle’s follow-up to Whiplash, La La Land, a musical starring Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone, has hit the web – meaning we now have the first footage of this hotly anticipated project before its world premiere at the Venice film festival. Soundtracked by Gosling crooning an original song, City of Stars, La La Land reveals itself as self-conscious homage to the traditional Hollywood musical and the city of Los Angeles itself – both referenced in the title. According to the Wrap back in 2014, the film “follows a pair of dreamers – aspiring actress Mia, who’s lonely and desperate to fit in, and cocky, charismatic jazz pianist Sebastian – who fall in love in Los Angeles”. Miles Teller (star of Whiplash) and Emma Watson were first mooted, but Gosling and Stone have ended up with the roles. The trailer immediately recalls the high water marks of the homage-to-musicals genre: Woody Allen’s Everyone Says I Love You, Francis Ford Coppola’s One from the Heart and Martin Scorsese’s New York, New York, with its contemporary setting and explicitly artificial sets. La La Land also appears to thread in some of the more sinister elements of LA noir reminiscent of Mulholland Drive and LA Confidential. La La Land is due for general release on 2 December in the US and 13 January in the UK.
Latest film from superstar actor Rajinikanth sends India into a frenzy It is the kind of reception Hollywood actors and moguls can only dream of. Workers given days off, jumbo jets repainted and prayer ceremonies held – all in honour of a film. The release of Kabali, the latest film featuring Indian superstar actor Rajinikanth, has prompted a cinema-going frenzy across India, with the film racking up £20m in film rights sales before it is even released. Estimates from the first day on Friday said the film brought in a record-breaking 65 crore rupees (£7.3m) from ticket sales around the world. Such is the hype around the film, which is being shown on 12,000 screens across India, that several businesses in the south of the country gave their employees the day off on Friday so they could watch it. One company in Chennai said it was easier to allow employees the time off to avoid piled up leave requests to the HR department, while another in Bangalore said it wanted to pre-empt the “sick leaves, mobile switch-offs and mass bunks” by workers desperate to see Kabali. Undoubtedly the most hotly awaited film release of the year, Kabali is described as a gangster revenge movie. Its allure is mainly down to the phenomenon of Rajinikanth, who is one of India’s highest paid actors and inspires fanatical devotion among his fans. When the 65-year-old fell ill two years ago, more than 1,000 people shaved their heads in a ceremony praying for his recovery and there are an estimated 50,000 Rajinikanth fan clubs. The hysteria that has greeted the buildup to Kabali’s release was also evident in a plane decorated with Rajinikanth’s face and flown from Bangalore to Chennai, serving Rajinikanth’s favourite food on board, to bring 100 fans to a “first day first show” screening for the cost of Rs 7,860 (£79). Across southern India, fans have also found less overblown ways to express their excitement. Crowds waited at cinemas overnight on Thursday to get into the first screenings and one self-confessed superfan said he intended to watch 10 screenings back to back on Friday and Saturday. Rickshaws, buses and cars painted with Kabali imagery have become a common sight on the roads and one car salesman in Tamil Nadu has been offering cars emblazoned with graphics from the film, which are reportedly selling out at speed.
Voyage of Time: Life's Journey review – Terrence Malick's eye-popping history of the universe The arrival of a new Terrence Malick film is always something of an event, even if the great man’s lustre is beginning to wear off under the weight of his gigantic reputation: even the most diehard Malick obsessives would surely admit that the fey, whispery To the Wonder and the self-indulgent Knight of Cups were not really up to scratch. Compared to how he used to, Malick works at a virtual sprint these days, and now his long-awaited documentary Voyage of Time has been unveiled at the Venice film festival. Intriguingly, for such a control-freak auteur, Voyage of Time is being issued in two different versions, at two different running times: the one Venice is presenting is a 90-minute edit, subtitled Life’s Journey, with a voiceover provided by Cate Blanchett. Also floating around is one half its length, intended for the giant-format Imax cinemas, with Blanchett replaced by Brad Pitt. (According to Malick’s own notes, Pitt’s voiceover is “more awestruck and explanatory”; we’ll just have to wait and see exactly what that means.) Moreover, slightly more advance information has been available about Voyage of Time than is usual for project from the famously secretive director; partly, at least, because Malick got himself ensnared in some unwelcome litigation after an unhappy backer claimed he “forgot” about it. (The case has now been settled.) Malick’s stated ambition is to describe the “scientific chronology of Earth” – to, in effect, chronicle the development of our universe and planet at macro and micro levels – and, given that the contents of his own mind have increasingly preoccupied Malick’s creative imagination, it is I suppose a logical development for him to produce a film with no actors, and any human input in front of the camera kept to an absolute minimum. The first point to make is that, for this feature-length version at any rate, anyone expecting a brisk, informative science lesson – along the lines, say, of that rather handy little film that explained how they cloned dinosaurs in Jurassic Park – will be disappointed. Malick has provided a dazzling flow of quite astonishing images, but provided little in the way of context; Blanchett’s voiceover, hardly there in any case, is very much on the incantatory, putatively poetic lines for which the director clearly has a weakness. (In all honesty, if it was stripped out entirely, I doubt it would make a great deal of difference to the film’s impact.) Everything comes in a heady rush; so much so it’s difficult to process what exactly we are seeing. Vast galactic spaces, filled with churning cosmic matter, give way to pristine earthbound landscapes; great care is taken to focus on the flow and change and transformation of what is being filmed. Malick then swoops even further in, down to microscopic and even subatomic levels: microbes, cells, and smaller particles all float by in their eye-popping glory. What’s particularly remarkable is that there is little difference in the brilliant image quality between the intense, high-definition footage of natural phenomena, and the superbly rendered CGI that has been employed for the sections for which the film-makers must rely on their own imaginations: star collapses, expanding galaxies, and the like. Without any contextual information, it’s down to the audience to pick up on Malick’s cues as to the sense of the development of geological time: some are more obvious than others, such as the arrival of a giant asteroid shortly after we get a look at a friendly-looking CGI dinosaur (who, for obvious reasons, never reappears). Humans aren’t shut out entirely; in the film’s final third we are invited to watch a group of (suspiciously gym-hardened) early humans, who pass through stages of hunting, clothes-wearing and family life, as well as the apparent development of ritual and spirituality. Malick also intersperses his glorious natural imagery throughout with scrappy bits of lo-fi video footage of contemporary human activity across the globe – largely, but not entirely, in cramped urban spaces. It’s quite a contrast. In this version, then, Voyage of Time is perhaps best appreciated as an abstract, with its sheer profusion of natural beauty and consequent synchronicities of image. It’s not entirely without precedent – the Koyaanisqatsi films by Godfrey Reggio and Ron Fricke had something of a similar aesthetic ambition, though with very different ends in mind, and the Eames’ famous short, Powers of Ten, contains a little of the same dizzying sense of scale, though in exquisite miniature. Voyage of Time, in the end, is a perhaps an aesthetic experience rather than an particularly informative one, prizing images over data; but what images they are.
Fàbregas sweeps Chelsea past Sunderland and six points clear at top They say perfection is a flame that many touch but few can hold. If so, Chelsea are showing every indication of possessing sufficient ruthless consistency to achieve it this season, with the latest, fairly compelling, evidence arriving at Sunderland’s expense. A 10th straight Premier League win left Antonio Conte’s team six points clear at the top of the table on a night when Cesc Fàbregas not only scored the winning goal but, courtesy of a high-calibre central-midfield performance, reminded everyone of his enduring importance in west London. Starting his third League game of the campaign, Fàbregas also helped keep the home side stuck firmly to the bottom of the division with their horizon looking increasingly bleak. Despite restricting Chelsea to that single goal, Sunderland created precious little of note until stoppage-time when Thibaut Courtois’s brilliant diversion of Patrick van Aanholt’s volley came between Conte and a technical area meltdown. “I’m pleased for sure,” said Chelsea’s manager. “It’s not easy to win 10 games in a row in this league and we had to fight to win this one. We couldn’t quite kill it and, at the end, Sunderland had a big chance to equalise.” After joking about his decision in selecting the “very good” Fàbregas, Conte stressed there can be no room for complacency. “Me and my players are doing something important,” he said. “But this league is very tough – the title is between six teams.” David Moyes has never championed three at the back and points out that serious prizes are rarely won by sides configured with central-defensive trinities. There are exceptions to every rule though and, here, Sunderland’s manager arranged his team in a 3-4-3 formation, mirroring Chelsea’s system. Maybe the full moon high in the Wearside sky prompted such boldness, perhaps imitation really is the sincerest form of flattery or possibly matching your opponents’ shape is the latest tactical fad. Whatever the reason, John O’Shea mirrored the David Luiz sweeping role as Sunderland started quite securely, if a little cagily, in a new design well suited to Billy Jones and Van Aanholt, their wing-backs. Chelsea enjoyed more possession but they initially struggled to trouble Jordan Pickford. Change beckoned when, for once, Diego Costa escaped the attentions of O’Shea, Lamine Koné and the former Chelsea centre-half Papy Djilobodji. Unmarked, the centre-forward connected with a cross from Marcos Alonso, a one-time Sunderland loanee, but failed to get a proper purchase and sliced wide. It was a warning Sunderland failed to heed as they permitted N’Golo Kanté to seize possession deep in midfield. That interception prefaced Fàbregas and Willian – deputising for the injured Eden Hazard – exchanging passes. By shaping to shoot but, instead, squaring, Willian deceived a backline that proved powerless to prevent Fàbregas sweeping the ball imperiously past Pickford into the bottom right corner from the edge of the area. Moyes’s gameplan of sitting back and hoping to snatch something on the break shattered instantly and the resultant frustration seemed manifested by swift bookings for Jermain Defoe and O’Shea for fouls on Fàbregas and Costa. Indeed, with a Willian free-kick whizzing fractionally off target half-time could not come quickly enough for the home side. They emerged apparently galvanised and, almost immediately, nearly scored with their first real chance. Catching Chelsea in momentarily dozy mode, Defoe played in the overlapping Adnan Januzaj whose fine, first-time, shot forced the previously marginalised Courtois into a superb diving save. Suitably stung, the visiting riposte proved rapid and vicious. Willian delighted in dodging Koné in a manner that made a mockery of the £25m release clause contained in the defender’s contract and his ensuing shot brushed the bar after deflecting off Djilobodji. Pickford barely had time to sigh with relief before ably repelling Costa’s low angled shot. Victor Moses bewildered Sebastian Larsson before shooting left-footed and narrowly wide in an on-going onslaught also featuring Willian missing the target after collecting David Luiz’s typically elegant pass. Fàbregas, meanwhile, delighted in showing off his stellar passing range with one particularly exquisite delivery almost prompting a goal for Willian before a volley of his own swerved off target. Such near misses almost proved extremely costly when, in stoppage time, Van Aanholt unleashed a spectacular volley destined for the top corner until Courtois’s stunning, win-preserving, intervention. “I thought it was in,” said Moyes. “But he made a top save.”
Gary Numan: Android in La La Land – a missed opportunity There’s the hint of an interesting film here, in this portrait of electropop pioneer Gary Numan. His mental health issues, his Asperger’s diagnosis, his complex relationship with fame: all of this is touched upon rather cursorily. Instead the film focuses on real estate and Numan’s move from the UK to the US. It’s like a celebrity version of APlace in the Sun.
Storks review – unexpectedly charming This unexpectedly charming animation bursts out of the screen with an aesthetic that is a sugar rush of cuteness. This probably would be quite off-putting, were it not for the sharp humour that elevates it from easily digestible kiddy fodder to something that offers sustenance to parents as well. The film, written and directed by Nicholas Stoller (Bad Neighbours, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, The Muppets), imagines a world in which storks have sidelined their original baby delivery services in favour of a highly lucrative online shopping organisation. Junior (Andy Samberg) is the company’s high-achieving bird and is hotly tipped to take over when the boss retires. But he finds his ambitions thwarted by Orphan Tulip (Katie Crown), an undelivered human baby, now an adult, who is something of a glitch in the smooth-running stork business model. Tulip inadvertently creates a baby, who must now be covertly delivered to her family. Deliciously silly sight gags abound, but high points include Junior having to find his way through a glass factory (when birds can’t see glass) and the enterprising exploits of a pack of wolves.
MPs to test rules aimed at insuring against UK bank bailouts The banking sector is to face fresh scrutiny from MPs, who are embarking on a new inquiry to examine rules put in place after the financial crisis in 2008 to prevent further billion-pound taxpayer bailouts. Andrew Tyrie, the Conservative MP who chairs the Treasury select committee, said the public had a right to know if they were protected from a repeat of the financial crisis, when £65bn was pumped into Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group. “The public was forced to foot the bill – and a large one – when the banks got into trouble during the crisis. They are still footing the bill now, with the profitable disposal of RBS looking like an ever more distant prospect,” said Tyrie. Last month, RBS failed the Bank of England’s stress test – an annual health check of the sector introduced after the crisis – in a move exacerbating the problems facing Philip Hammond in reducing the taxpayer stake below 73%. The chancellor said in October that a sale of any more shares in RBS was not practical after his predecessor George Osborne sold off a 5% stake at a £1bn loss in August 2015. As he launched a call for evidence by 5 March, Tyrie said: “Eight years on from the crisis, a great deal of effort has gone into ending ‘too big to fail’.” Among regulator efforts to make banks safer were new rules to force them to hold more capital, to outline how they could be broken up in the event of collapse, and the ringfencing requirement devised by Sir John Vickers to protect high street operations from investment banking businesses. The financial crisis showed that banks were not holding enough capital to cushion them against the risks they were running. When they needed more funds, it was taxpayers, not investors, who footed the bill. “The public have a right to know whether they are now adequately protected,” said Tyrie. “Ringfencing and resolution regimes are intended to ensure that the failure of large banks can be managed in an orderly way, without relying on public support. It is vital to establish how robust they are.” Tyrie also chaired the parliamentary commission on banking standards, which was instigated after the Libor-rigging scandal and looked at the way taxpayers stepped into rescue ailing banks. “As the parliamentary commission on banking standards concluded, the assumption that failing banks would receive public support was part of a toxic cocktail of misaligned incentives which contributed to the financial crisis,” he said. The EU has also implemented rules that require bondholders to take losses in collapsing banks before taxpayers can pump in funds. Among the questions posed by the Treasury select committee in its terms of reference, is the impact of Brexit, if any, on the UK’s regime for handling troubled banks and how far advanced are UK banks in meeting current rules. The Vickers rules, for instance, need to be implemented by the start of 2019. The British Bankers’ Association backed the latest inquiry. “The UK taxpayer should never again have to foot the bill when a financial institution finds itself in difficulty. The BBA therefore welcomes the Treasury committee’s inquiry into capital and resolution and looks forward to contributing to it,” a spokesperson for the lobby group said.
Tori Amos – 10 of the best 1. Tear in Your Hand Rejection and self-discovery were the twin fuel kegs behind Tori Amos’s breakthrough in 1992. She’d gone from teen prodigy to synth-rock “bimbo” with her maligned band debut Y Kant Tori Read in 1988 – an ego-crushing fall that forced her into creative retreat. Despair turned into determination, and four years on from the Y Kant Tori Read album, a bold solo artist re-emerged. Little Earthquakes, her solo debut, was a seismic statement, the sound of an artist letting her own unapologetically original style flourish, via wild pianos and bold personal truths. When Atlantic rejected the initial version of the album, Amos fired back with a clutch of new songs. Tear in Your Hand was among the deal-sealing salvo, a blazing, electric guitar-laced volte-face with a Springsteen warmth that flips from breakup song to personal power anthem. Her lover has left her and her world has imploded; she’s in emo mode, wallowing in “the black of the blackest oceans”. But as the detritus settles and she scrutinises the situation, an exultant, Bösendorfer-smashing epiphany: if she was too much, he was not enough. And his new squeeze? “Maybe she’s just pieces of me you’ve never seen.” 2. Silent All These Years The Little Mermaid may have inspired this Little Earthquakes favourite, but it wasn’t Disney’s effervescent bride Amos was thinking of – it was Hans Christian Andersen’s tragic original, rendered mute and powerless by a love that would eventually send her to the grave. The message of self-reclamation, and the graceful, soaring melody it was couched in, made a powerful anthem for survivors of abuse. In 1997 it was rereleased as single to raise funds for the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network. As Amos tells it, the song’s impact continued long after its release. “Years later, when I played Israel, I was in an airport bathroom when a Middle Eastern woman came up to me. She said, ‘Don’t think we’re not listening. We pass your music behind closed doors to each other and it’s something secret that we know, so don’t stop.’” Impossible now to imagine it sung by its intended recipient, the Glaswegian folk-popper Al Stewart. 3. Winter Winter is about as far away from motivational workout jams as you can get – a measured, almost solemn song that opens with a delicate, snowflake-soft intro and takes a good three minutes to go full-avalanche. But Little Earthquakes’ fourth single – a song that’s inspired covers by REM, Dream Theater and Amanda Palmer – was exactly what WWE star Mick Fowley needed to hear when a profound crisis of pre-match confidence struck. “Most listeners would interpret Winter as a song about a father’s love for a child. But the question in the refrain [“When you gonna make up your mind? When you gonna love you as much as I do?”] always appealed to the scared part of me, the part that believed I wasn’t strong enough, or big enough, or good enough. It never made me think of doing wild and dangerous deeds inside a wrestling ring. It helped me believe that I was strong enough to do the things I already knew needed to be done.” 4. Icicle If Little Earthquakes proved Amos could do force and noise to match grunge’s poster boys, her chart-topping 1994 follow-up, Under the Pink, was a masterclass in space: not just how to inhabit it with wild, imaginative piano gospels, but how to colour its absence – those quiet moments between chords and notes – with profound meaning. Icicle’s radical, taboo-melting hymn to female pleasure is intense with these spaces. Witness the ominous echo that follows the stern, opening notes; the clanging, off-kilter melody that follows it, attempting unsuccessfully to knit itself into something courtly and sentimental before unspooling violently into peals of dissonant, fret-hammering frustration. Listen closely to the heavy pause that cuts this volley dead and you’ll hear a long, exhaled breath – a table-clearing swoop that opens the way for the song’s true, twinkling melody to rise. The minister’s daughter has levelled her gaze at the “good book” and spotted its missing pages. She’s found a “hiding place” from God’s judgmental gaze, chosen pleasure over shame, self-love over dogma and prayer circles. She’s locating ecstasy – spiritual and otherwise – on her own, intimate terms: “And when my hand touches myself, I can finally rest my head / And when they say take of his body, I think I’ll take from mine instead.” 5. Cornflake Girl Inescapable after its release in 1994, this Merry Clayton-assisted megahit became Amos’s calling card, the single even her non-fans hum along to. As the writer Annie Zaleski points out, it was the centrepiece of an album that explored the “more universal experiences of women: how they related to religion, negotiated power dynamics, explored their sexuality, and navigated relationships with men and with other women”. This last theme is the crux of Cornflake Girl, a breakfast cereal metaphor concerning frenemies and betrayal inspired in part by Alice Walker’s novel Possessing the Secret of Joy. Attend an Amos show now – almost always seated gigs in grand halls – and you’ll see a faction of hardcore fans rush the aisles when this set-list staple is unleashed. 6. Blood Roses After the gargantuan classical tempests of Little Earthquakes and the haunting toy piano excursions on Under the Pink, Amos turned her attention to the harpsichord, bringing a baroque darkness to Boys for Pele in 1996. If the subdued woman in Silent All These Years was inching her way to freedom, the survivor in this album’s standout has sped her way there, incandescent with trauma after a crime scene of a relationship: “Now you’ve cut out the flute, from the throat of the loon. At least when you cry now, he can’t even hear you.” It’s a humid and haunting song, a fever dream of a waltz delirious with carnographic images and seething, keening vocals – Amos at her darkest. 7. Professional Widow Armand Van Helden’s monster remix of Boys for Pele’s third single transformed this song into a supple dance anthem and gave Amos her sole No 1 single in the UK. The original – long rumoured to be a diss track about Courtney Love – is equally formidable: dense, noisy and obscenely sensual, with a quintessentially Tori signoff: “Give me peace, love and a hard cock.” An entire album of Boys for Pele dance remixes were mooted at one point, but sadly failed to materialise. 8. Cruel On the Choir Girl Hotel, released in 1998 and written in the wake of a miscarriage, Amos pushed her sonic boundaries, utilising a fuller band sound and bringing the alt-rock skeins that threaded her first three albums to the fore: treated percussion, eroded synths, industrial basslines, crunching shards of electric guitar and coiling feedback. The resulting album is dark, brooding and vampish: lascivious club bangers (Raspberry Swirl) colliding with strutting glam rock (She’s Your Cocaine) and trip-hop saturnine (Iieee). There’s a rich seam of the latter on Cruel, with its snaking synths and water-clogged scratching. 9. Crazy If Cruel sounds like midnight games and spiked stilettos, Crazy is its guileless, barefoot opposite: a languid, sun-washed dawn of a song, where desert-baked tremolo guitars echo across radiant organs and wistful ahh-ahh-ahhs. The expansive country vibe and local colour on Crazy – canyons, native shelters and drive-all-night romance – was typical of her 2002 album Scarlet’s Walk, a road trip-style concept record centred around Amos, America (post 9/11) and plenty in between. 10. Trouble’s Lament Amos roughly averages a record every two years, and, luckily for her fans, shows no signs of retirement. The year after her stage musical debut with The Light Princess in 2013, she released her 14th album, Unrepentant Geraldines, a flawed but rewarding collection of songs recorded at her home in Cornwall, with her husband and longtime engineer Mark Hawley and Marcel van Limbeek. Cleaving to the unapologetic spirit of the album’s title, lead single Trouble’s Lament is no lament at all, but rather a winking hat-tip to “wicked” women: the grifters, gamblers, troublemakers and risk-takers working society’s rigged odds to their advantage. Long may they thrive. Boys for Pele – Deluxe Edition is out now on Rhino.
Win (home) tickets to Norwich City v West Ham in the Premier League The has teamed up with Barclays, proud sponsors of the Barclays Premier League, to give away a pair tickets to Norwich City v West Ham United on Saturday 13 February, to thank one lucky home fan for the passion and support they show to their club. This season LifeSkills created with Barclays have teamed up with Tinie Tempah and the Premier League to give young people the chance to fulfil their passions and work at a range of famous football clubs and music venues. Your Passion is Your Ticket – with hard work and dedication young people can realise their dreams with a helping hand from Barclays LifeSkills. To apply for the work experience of a lifetime visit www.barclayslifeskills.com/work-experience-of-a-lifetime/. You can join the conversation throughout the 2015-16 Barclays Premier League by visiting facebook.com/barclaysfootball or following us on Twitter at @BarclaysFooty for exclusive content and the latest Barclays Premier League news. To be in with a chance of winning tickets, simply answer the following question: Terms and conditions 1. The competition is closed to employees of any company in the Media Group and any person whom, in the promoter’s reasonable opinion, should be excluded due to their involvement or connection with this promotion. Entrants must be 18 or over. 2. Answer the question correctly and complete your personal details on the online form and your details will be entered into a free prize draw. Only one entry per person. 3. Entries must be made personally. Entries made through agents/third parties are invalid. Entry indicates acceptance of terms and conditions. 4. The prize is one pair of tickets to Norwich v West Ham on Saturday 13 February 2016. Travel to and from the venue is not included, nor is accommodation. 5. No purchase necessary to enter. Fill in the online application form with the necessary details, name and mobile number. 6. All entries must be received by 10am on Thursday 11 February 2016. 7. Winners will be notified before 10pm on 12 February 2016 by telephone or email. Prize winners’ details can be obtained by writing to Sport at News & Media Limited, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU, UK. 8. Stamped addressed envelope required. 9. Winners will be the first entry drawn at random from all qualifying entries by an independent judge on 11 February 2016. The judge’s decision is final. 10. There is no cash or other alternative to these prizes in whole or in part. Prize is not transferable in whole or in part. Prize is not for resale. 11. The winners will be required to participate in all required publicity, including any presentation ceremony. 12. The decision of the promoter in all matters is final and binding and no correspondence will be entered into. 13. The promoter is not responsible for any third party acts or omissions. 14. We cannot guarantee that the event will be free from disruptions, failings or cancellations. We are not liable for such disruptions, failings or cancellations unless they are caused by our negligence. Any requests for refunds or compensation arising from them should be sent to the operator of the event. We can provide you with their details on request. 15. The promoter reserves the right to cancel or amend this promotion due to events or circumstances arising beyond its control. 16. Prize tickets are subject to the terms and conditions listed above. 17. GNM accepts no responsibility for any damage, loss, liabilities, injury or disappointment incurred or suffered by you as a result of entering the Competition or accepting the prize. GNM further disclaims liability for any injury or damage to your or any other person’s computer relating to or resulting from participation in or downloading any materials in connection with the Competition. Nothing shall exclude the liability of GNM for death or personal injury as a result of either party’s negligence. 18. GNM reserves the right at any time and from time to time to modify or discontinue, temporarily or permanently, this Competition with or without prior notice due to reasons outside its control. 19. The Competition will be governed by English law. Promoter: News & Media Limited, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU, UK.
US politics: Hillary Clinton continues GOP attacks in Iowa – as it happened That’s it from us for the day in politics. Thanks for reading! Previewing a series of executive actions that are expected to centre around closing loopholes in the current system of background checks, Barack Obama promised that sweeping new gun control measures would save lives and spare families from mass shootings, Dan Roberts writes: We have to be very clear that this is not going to solve every violent crime in this country or prevent every mass shooting and is not going to keep every gun out of the hand of a criminal,” Obama said after a meeting with attorney general Loretta Lynch to review her recommendations. “It will potentially save lives and spare families the pain and the extraordinary loss that they have suffered as a consequence of firearms getting into the hand of the wrong people,” he added. Sabrina Siddiqui hears from the Ted Cruz camp on Marco Rubio’s speech this morning on national security. A Cruz spokeswoman trashes his rival’s plan as “incoherent” and “dangerous”: Click through for the full piece. The Trump ad we featured earlier? Turns out the footage it uses to illustrate a supposed “border crisis” with Mexico is actually from... Morocco. Politico has the story. And NBC News has a reply from the Trump camp: “I don’t think the stakes could be higher,” Hillary Clinton warned a crowd in Davenport, Iowa, where she was campaigning on Monday just weeks away from the state caucuses. Reciting her stump speech, which has expanded since the launch of her campaign to include issues relating to gun control, Alzheimer’s, the heroin epidemic and prescription drug costs, Clinton sought to position herself as the best Democratic candidate to defeat the Republicans. Clinton asked her audience to imagine what would happen if a Republican won the White House in 2016. “Actually don’t, it might give you nightmares,” she deadpanned. “Whatever the right is that you care about, they’re against it,” Clinton said of Republicans. “They want to turn the clock back. They’re against the progress we’ve made.” Clinton maintains a vast national polling lead over her Democratic challengers, but in New Hampshire she is locked into a tight race with Vermont senator Bernie Sanders. On Monday, Clinton appeared confident and comfortable. “I know that if I get off to a good start here in Iowa,” she said, “we’re halfway home.” Raising money? More like raising your heart and respiratory rates What a race Talk about a ground game. In a room full of stationary bikes in Manhattan Chelsea Clinton, the former first daughter, will host a fundraiser for her mother’s campaign, the campaign has announced, at a Manhattan outlet of SoulCycle, the exercise fad that’s sweeping the country viz.: SoulCycle is like a spin class with DJs and a great deal of esprit de corps and mutual encouragement toward shared fitness goals, in the dark. “At the fundraiser, supporters who contribute $2,700 will be part of ‘Chelsea’s pack’ and [be] entitled to a ‘premium reserved bike’ and a photo with Chelsea Clinton,” Politico reports. “A limited number of tickets are also available for $1,000 or $500.” Is it three-dimensional chess – or fumbly tic-tac-toe? A Dada dice game? The Ben Carson campaign has announced that the foundering candidate will host a town hall Monday night on Staten Island, the Republican stronghold in the city of New York. Is it a shot across the bow at Hillary Clinton, whose campaign headquarters is two short ferry rides away, in Brooklyn? (Although with the East River ferry running on its winter schedule now you’re probably better to take the Verrazano.) Presidential candidates do a lot of fundraising in New York City, where a lot of rich people, including rich Republicans, live. Carson has hosted fundraisers this cycle in the city and in Irvington, New York, an affluent enclave to the north. But Staten Island’s not on that map. No matter: Carson’s scheduled to show up at 7pm. Mother Jones flags the announcement: while Ben Jacobs susses the latest Carson strategy tack: Bill Clinton didn’t stoop in his prepared remarks in New Hampshire this morning to reply to Donald Trump’s assertions that Clinton’s sex scandals are of import to the current White House race – but then after the Nashua speech, ABC News asked Clinton whether “his past” is “fair game”. Clinton sidestepped the question: “Republicans have to decide who they want to nominate,” he said. “I think there’s always an attempt to take elections away from the people. Here are some recommended lines from the day in politics (with a couple from Sunday you may have missed): Ted Cruz expands horizons beyond Iowa (CBS News) Now, with less than a month until the first votes of the 2016 race, Cruz is looking beyond Iowa to a state that might be a harder sell for him: New Hampshire. The Texas Senator has not been to New Hampshire since November, but he is planning an all-out blitz of the state later this month, pegged to a Jan. 17 bus tour that will take him to every corner of the state. And his wife Heidi is being dispatched to the leadoff primary state later this week to drum up support in the meantime. Trump Shrugs Off Appearance in Somali Terrorist Recruitment Video (Bloomberg) “They use other people, too,” the billionaire real estate mogul said of the Somali video, which was posted on Twitter on Dec. 31. “What am I going to do? I have to say what I have to say.’’ Trump has called for “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.” A clip of him proposing the temporary ban appeared in a 51-minute video produced by the group, which has ties to Islamic State and al-Qaeda. Is Christie overstating his terrorism credentials? (Politico) Critics say Christie, who mainly pursued local political corruption as a prosecutor, exaggerates his focus on terrorism. But the Lakhani case —one of four highlighted on his campaign website, raises more specific questions. They include whether Christie overhyped the threat his target posed and how far he might be willing, as president, to see law enforcement lure suspected terrorists into criminal activity. “This was not a terrorism case,” said Michael German, a fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice at the NYU School of Law. “Calling it a terrorism case when the only terrorist was an FBI informant and the weapons were all fake is simply security theater.” Paul Ryan Wants House to Steer Republican Policy Agenda (Wall Street Journal) House Speaker Paul Ryan starting this month will push to turn the chamber into a platform for ambitious Republican policy ideas, in a bid to help shape his unsettled party’s priorities and inject substance into a presidential race heavy on personality politics. GOP’s 2016 challenge: Keeping Senate majority in November (The Hill) Less than a year out from Election Day, Senate Republicans are nervously watching the twists and turns of the presidential primary, worried it could cost them their majority in November. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has made it his strategy to focus voters’ attention on this year’s accomplishments of Congress and away from the presidential circus. Republican senator Marco Rubio appeared earlier this morning in Hooksett, New Hampshire, in a stump speech that “took direct aim at both Hillary Clinton’s record as secretary of state and Republican candidates he called ‘isolationists’”, Sabrina Siddiqui reported from the scene: The Florida senator accused Clinton of lying in her response to the September 2012 terrorist attacks in Benghazi. He also called her “incompetent” and criticised her policy regarding Russia and Syria. But the senator, polling in the top tier of a crowded Republican field, reserved some of his sharpest criticism for his own party. Although he did not mention any candidate by name, he took subtle shots at Texas senator Ted Cruz, Kentucky senator Rand Paul and the frontrunner, Donald Trump. “On the other side of this election is the party of Reagan, the party of strong national defense and moral clarity,” he said. “Yet we have Republican candidates who propose that rulers like [Syrian president Bashar al-] Assad and [Russian president Vladimir] Putin should be partners of the United States, and who have voted with Barack Obama and Harry Reid rather than with our men and women in uniform. “We have isolationist candidates who are apparently more passionate about weakening our military and intelligence capabilities than about destroying our enemies.” Read Sabrina’s full coverage here. UPDATE: And here’s a clip via a pro-Rubio Super Pac of the Republican candidate talking about gun rights, in anticipation of Barack Obama’s announcement on the issue later this afternoon. “I believe that every American has a constitutional and therefore God-given right to defend themselves and their families,” Rubio says, to applause. Republican frontrunner Donald Trump’s first campaign ad is a perfect distillation of the fear and flag-draped posturing that so far have defined his presidential campaign, the ’s Amanda Holpuch writes: Republican frontrunner Donald Trump has released his first, long-promised campaign ad: a spot that touts his controversial proposal to ban Muslims from entering the US “until we can figure out what’s going on”. The ad then promises Trump will “quickly cut the head off of Isis and take their oil”. In the 30-second spot, the narrator also declares that Trump will build a southern wall to prevent immigrants from illegally crossing over the US border with Mexico. Over a somber piano melody, the narrator assures listeners that Mexico will pay for the wall. Trump told the Washington Post that he hopes that the ad, and others in production, can sway undecided voters. “The world is laughing at us, at our stupidity,” Trump said. “It’s got to stop. We’ve got to get smart fast – or else we won’t have a country.” The ad, which is called “Great Again”, will start airing in New Hampshire and Iowa on Tuesday. Trump’s campaign said that it plans to spend at least $2m each week to air the ad. Trump said in a statement: “I am very proud of this ad, I don’t know if I need it, but I don’t want to take any chances because if I win we are going to Make America Great Again.” Former president Bill Clinton is addressing a crowd at Nashua community college in New Hampshire estimated by the Hillary Clinton campaign to number 720 people, the ’s Sabrina Siddiqui reports from the room. It’s Clinton’s first solo campaign swing on behalf of his wife, in a state that jump-started his candidacy with a second-place finish in the 1992 primary after a miserable showing in that year’s Iowa caucuses. “I do not believe in my lifetime anybody has run for the job who is better qualified by experience, knowledge and temperament” than Hillary Clinton, he says. He remembers meeting her 45 years ago: “I thought she was the most amazing person ... Everything she touched she made better.” Bill Clinton has been taking flak in recent days from Republican frontrunner Donald Trump, who told CNN at the weekend that the former president was “one of the great woman abusers of all time”. If he heard the comment, Clinton ignored it this outing – in contrast with Hillary Clinton in a campaign appearance a day earlier. “You can’t make America great again if you insult and demean the people of America,” she told a crowd in Concord, New Hampshire, on Sunday. Sabrina Siddiqui reported: The reference to Donald Trump’s campaign slogan was lost on no one, and it prompted a round of applause. Bill Clinton has just wrapped his Nashua speech and waded into a thick rope line. He’s scheduled to make a second appearance in New Hampshire, in Exeter, later this afternoon. Hello and welcome to a quicksilver day in US politics, as the 2016 race for the White House zips out of its last warm-up lap and begins to eat track like a Formula One driver. Today Bill Clinton takes his talents to New Hampshire, Hillary Clinton is in Iowa for her first 2016 appearance there, Republican senator Marco Rubio and Democratic senator Bernie Sanders join in the fun in the Granite State and Ben Carson, the retired neurosurgeon, convenes a news conference to explain why the defection of his top staff on New Year’s Eve does not, somehow, portend the utter collapse of his White House designs. Ted Cruz is in Iowa, where he’s hoping to hold on to a surge before the first-in-the-nation caucus there on the first of next month. Meanwhile: Donald Trump, whom you may have heard of, is out with a major television ad to air in Iowa and New Hampshire that is being welcomed as racist, alarmist and painfully xenophobic. Whatever works! Elsewhere, President Obama is expected to announce limited executive orders to expand background checks and potentially more on gun laws, after a meeting at the White House in the 2pm eastern hour. Washington bureau chief Dan Roberts will have that news, while politics reporters Sabrina Siddiqui and Ben Jacobs will have news from the trail, and much more. Read on!
Pop, rock, rap, whatever: who killed the music genre? Pitchfork, widely viewed as the world’s leading alternative music website, relaunched this week. Along with a rather pleasant new look, it announced “a significant new feature”, the ability to view the site according to genre. At first glance this might suggest that genre boundaries – like pop v rock – are as robust as ever. But it could mean the opposite. What does it mean that a site whose name has become synonymous with a specific type of alternative rock, is offering readers the chance to read about nothing but pop, or metal, or rap? And what does it mean if Rostam from Vampire Weekend works with Carly Rae Jepsen, and The Weeknd works with Max Martin? What if the likes of David Guetta and Calvin Harris call on a wide array of singers and MCs, with little concern for genre boundaries? If Rihanna covers Tame Impala, and Ryan Adams covers Taylor Swift (13 times)? How about Miley Cyrus collaborating with the Flaming Lips, or everyone working with Sia? The 1975 have just scored a transatlantic No 1 with an album whose influences range from Yazoo to David Bowie. If you look at everynoise.com and key in, say, Lana Del Rey, you’ll find her listed under “pop, indie R&B, indietronica, chamber pop, synthpop”; she’s all of those, a bit, but at the same time not completely any of those. All are representative of a strain of artists who are post-genre. They now straddle, or exist beyond, genres that seemed set in concrete as little as 10 years ago. They represent a cross-pollination that makes it harder than ever to definitively state that you like or dislike one genre or another. Last summer, a survey by “millennial insight agency” Ypulse surveyed 1,000 young adults. When asked about their favourite artists, many respondents couldn’t answer, not through ambivalence but because, it was concluded, “this generation is interested in so many music genres and artists”. It found that while millennials are passionate about music (76% within the 13- to 17-year-old bracket said they wouldn’t be able to last a week without it), 79% of 13- to 32-year-olds said their tastes didn’t fall into one specific music genre. Just 11% said that they only listened to one genre of music. “It seems,” Ypulse noted when it published its findings, “that millennials are a genre-less generation”. In 2000, music magazine Melody Maker put Craig David on the cover. Fair enough: David had hit No 1 three times by this point. Except it wasn’t Craig David on the cover: it was a ‘lookalike’ (which is to say, a man who didn’t really resemble Craig, but was black) sitting on the toilet. The coverline read: “UK GARAGE: MY ARSE”. By this point, Craig had established himself as an R&B rather than UK garage artist, but perhaps Melody Maker’s logic was that if black people all looked the same, maybe everything without a guitar sounded the same. In any case, the magazine used its opposition to UK garage as a way of bigging up alternative music, which mainly meant guitar music. Guitar music was good because of what it wasn’t, rather than what it was. Melody Maker published “50 ways the indie nation is fighting back” against “UK garage and pop shite”. These included Blink-182 referencing Backstreet Boys in a video (“Hilarious vids, cool guys, brilliant music”), Embrace playing secret gigs (“Doing it for the fans, in hush-hush locations. Nice one”) and Coldplay having a No 1 (“Proving that nice guys can finish first”). Melody Maker was apparently attempting to manufacture a response to manufactured music, an irony compounded by the fact that Melody Maker seemed to be yearning for a new punk while trying to shut down UK garage, the closest thing British music had seen to punk since acid house. I can laugh, but if my kids one day ask my what I did in the genre wars I’ll have to admit that there’s blood on my hands, too. Earlier in 2000, I’d set up Popjustice, a blog that I hoped would fight the corner for decent pop music. And early on this was pitched as a battle against guitar music. Puerile would be one charitable way of describing those early years: at one point, Popjustice’s homepage featured Richard Ashcroft’s face with the word “TWAT” written across it. While that may or may not have been true, it’s clear now that it had no bearing on whether or not the third Steps album was a triumph (which, for the record, it was). At the start of the millennium, festivals were where you’d hear guitar bands; on Radio 1, guitar music was largely relegated to the Evening Session. But, in 2016, radio playlists are bursting with guitar music and festivals have shifted their focus. None more so than V festival, whose top names this year are Justin Bieber, Rihanna, David Guetta and Sia. “It’s absolutely conscious,” V festival director Bob Angus tells me. “Music tastes have broadened massively and we absolutely want to celebrate that.” When I ask Angus if there was any “where are Kasabian”-style resistance to this year’s bill, he replies that they researched potential names straight after last year’s festival, before the full-on Bieber renaissance. “Justin got a 70% approval from our customers,” Angus states. “So we went after him. We targeted Rihanna and Bieber because they scored so highly. To be fair, Justin released a great album.” Releasing decent music is, of course, handy. When last year’s Justin, Skrillex and Diplo collaboration Where Are U Now went to radio in the US, Bieber tweeted fans with a request: “Let’s make it about the music.” But the acceptance hurled at Bieber’s recent career shift has been extraordinary, and surprisingly un-selfconsious. Pitchfork praised vocals “like an angel with a voice made of pure sunlight”. Complex saw him as a “grown-ass adult star”. According to Dazed, which identified him as “a cultural icon of our times”, “attitudes towards Justin Bieber have done a U-turn, and so has his music”. Nylon added: “As an artist, his appeal now transcends teenyboppers. His bubblegum has popped.” Clearly, different styles of music continue to exist. Fleur East’s blood-curdlingly bombastic Sax is clearly not the same thing as Slaves. You cannot argue that grime isn’t a scene, or that Little Mix aren’t a pop band. But the days of pitting one against the other, or dismissing one because it’s not the other, are coming to an end. Different styles of music still exist but, increasingly, nobody cares. Samuel Potts, Columbia Records’ head of radio, puts YouTube at the heart of this. “Millennials or ‘digital natives’ are the first generation to literally have the entirety of the world’s music at their fingertips,” he reasons. “This influences the creators but also young fans in terms of taste. Online culture is inherently global, so genres that were distinct and contained to geographical locations are now cross-pollinated throughout the world. As a result, you get artists like 19-year-old Raury, who’s championed by the likes of Kanye and André 3000, and cites everyone from Bon Iver to Phil Collins as an influence.” He adds that tastemakers — like music journalists — are no longer getting in the way. “Traditionally, fans consumed the music that was served to them by gatekeepers and tastemakers but now, with an abundance of choice in a connected economy, you’re likely to be influenced by friends, celebrities or music on adverts.” Which isn’t to say that radio hasn’t played a part in the erosion of genre boundaries. During the 00s, Radio 1 started its Live Lounge, in which artists were asked to cover current hits. This was before the constant demand for content made “surprising” cover versions a staple of most release strategies. Jo Whiley remembers the feel of the slot mutating. “The idea in the beginning was that it would be a talking point,” she recalls today. “Initially people might have been a bit ‘look at us we’re so cool aren’t we being ironic’, but in the end it was: ‘Right, what’s the best song around that we can interpret?’ Arctic Monkeys was a case in point: at the time most people saw Girls Aloud as being very disposable and not particularly cool. Arctic Monkeys chose to do Love Machine because they thought it was a really good song.” Rewinding another few years, Whiley recalls that her Evening Session show with Steve Lamacq was a walled garden because the alternative music of the time – at the tail end of grunge and continuing into Britpop – just wasn’t being played on daytime. “People like Simon Bates and Dave Lee Travis had no interest in that music whatsoever,” she tells me, adding that things changed when Chris Evans took over from Steve Wright’s breakfast show in 1995: “He was aware that music was changing, and he started playing that music on the breakfast show and that infiltrated everywhere else.” Whiley ’s former Evening Session slot is now filled by Annie Mac; with groundwork laid by Zane Lowe that slot is now incredibly eclectic. And the spot in which Whiley hosted the Live Lounge – weekday mornings – is now helmed by self-identifying millennial Clara Amfo. “You can’t say anything’s of a particular genre any more,” Amfo reasons. “You can’t talk in absolutes. People are a bit more free and honest about their influences; it’s not a ‘live by the genre, die by the genre’ situation there might have been in the past. The 1975 have got this six-minute tune on their album; to me it sounds like D’Angelo. At the same time you can hear INXS, Peter Gabriel and Duran Duran.” The 1975’s current popularity makes a lot of sense, but when they were trying to get signed their genre-hopping was a sticking point. They looked like a Manchester indie band, but they were making pop music. “We were the least signed band in fucking history!” recalls frontman Matty Healy. “We couldn’t get arrested. They [the labels] looked at me and went: ‘Well, he’s weird for a start’, but they’d also say: ‘All the songs sound different. They don’t know who they want to be.’” But that, of course, was exactly what the 1975 wanted to be. “I’m there going: ‘That’s who we are. We create in the way we consume. We’re from this generation, and we don’t want to be from another time.’” Healy’s generation spent its musically obsessive teenage years soaking up everything the 2000s had to offer, and there was more to that decade’s genre-blurring than the Live Lounge. On opposite sides of the Atlantic, Avril Lavigne and Busted suggested to young music fans that there was, perhaps, a third way. Alternative music left Camden Town and moved to Shoreditch then even further east, and became more exciting as it did so. Clubs such as Trash nurtured a new generation of hangup-free regulars; the brief but entertaining mashup scene threw all genre boundaries out of the window; the wave of hyper-pop guitar music that became landfill indie seemed to dominate the charts. Significantly, the only long-lasting pop acts of note in this period – Sugababes and Girls Aloud – were pushing boundaries sonically, but also in terms of how tastemakers and music critics would approach pop. It also became the norm to launch big pop acts – such as Ellie Goulding – through credible blogs. Even on The X Factor, acts were increasingly praised for their authenticity and their credibility; in auditions, songs by the likes of Kings Of Leon replaced Westlife’s Flying Without Wings. In the same decade, shuffle culture opened up the entire history of music, and it was no longer necessary to endure the raised eyebrow of a record shop employee while attempting to purchase a Justin Timberlake single alongside an Arctic Monkeys album. Even on the iTunes Music Store there was still friction – 79p’s worth – in the transaction. Until the 2010s, when YouTube hit its stride and streaming services popped up. It’s obvious, but still curious, how much more likely one is to try out a new album if the cost of doing so is zero pence. Labels may still be getting their heads around how their business looks with no purchase journey, but consumers have already adapted: in 2016, there is no financial imperative to stick to what you know you like. Perhaps, in the age of endless ways to express yourself, it’s also less necessary to define your identity in your teenage years by clinging to genres. If you look at artists such as Lorde or Halsey, you see that while fans might once have bonded over those artists’ musical styles, they now bond by congregating at the point of consumption, which can mean places such as Tumblr. For musicians, too, the hangups of peers and fans seem to be less of an issue. Skrillex, for instance, is full of praise for Bieber. “I got to work with one of the biggest artists in the world,” he says. “Someone with that big a voice, and that kind of a reach, that’s important. He’s a vehicle to touch so many people and if you can turn that into something positive that’s one of the greatest … The reason I started make music was to touch people and make people feel great.” There are pockets of resistance to the levelling of the music soundscape: there will always be artists such as Jake Bugg flatulently banging on about being an alternative to crap pop music. And notions of credibility are still important, so memes about the relative merits of Kanye and Queen will still flood Facebook. But these seem to come from the older generation and it’s striking how outdated such musical conservatism seems now. So, if genre boundaries are evaporating, and presuming post-genre doesn’t become a genre and cancel itself out, will anything replace them? Potts suggests the answer may lie with streaming. While all the major streaming services, and Tidal, offer genre-specific playlists (many, of course, sharing the same artists and songs), a huge number of their most-subscribed playlists are themed, multi-genre offerings. “In many ways, genre has been replaced by context as playlists become a dominant format,” Potts reasons. “Just look at some of the top Spotify playlists: Your Coffee Break, Feel Good Friday, Songs to Sing in The Shower. It’s a 24-hour service providing a soundtrack to every moment in your life.” What we’ve seen in the past 15 years is that consumption methods have broadened attitudes, music has changed to reflect that, and attitudes have then changed even further. Music scenes may historically have appeared, disappeared and reappeared in a regular cycle, but it’s hard to imagine music fans moving on from this new sense of freedom. Skrillex sums things up as much for consumers as he does for creators. “You should never believe that art has any rules,” he says. “And if there are any rules, you should break them all.” Sui generis: six game-changing genre benders Justin Bieber – What Do You Mean? In US policy-making, the Overton window refers to the range of ideas the general public will tolerate. What Do You Mean? showed that the Bieberton window had been flung wide open. Curtains billowing, the whole lot. Carly Rae Jepsen– E•MO•TION This album’s cast list was a post-genre catnip. Alongside Jeppo’s own writing, the album included work with Ariel Rechtshaid, Dev Hynes, Rostam Batmanglij and the Cardigans’ Peter Svensson, alongside Mattman & Robin, Shellback and Greg Kurstin. Rihanna – Drunk On Love Rihanna covered Tame Impala’s New Person, Same Old Mistakes on this year’s Anti and frequently skips between genres, but this Stargate-produced, 2011 album track is notable not just because it sampled the xx’s Intro, but because the xx cleared the sample. Ryan Adams — 1989 While some jumped on Adams’s supposed “rocksplaining”, his beginning-to-end cover of Taylor Swift’s blockbuster album seemed to come from a place of true affection. Lorde – Tennis Court EP While some artists have started off in one place then drifted or stampeded to another, Lorde appeared as a fully realised post-genre proposition. Her second EP laid the groundwork for Royals to become an international smash. The Weeknd – Can’t Feel My Face In 2011 it seemed unlikely, to say the least, that the chap throwing out indie R&B mixtapes for free would choose to work with Max Martin. Flash forward to 2015 and Beauty Behind the Madness makes perfect sense.
Labour voters in the dark about party's stance on Brexit, research says David Cameron’s battle to keep Britain in the European Union enters its final phase on Tuesday amid worries in the remain camp that more needs to be done to woo traditional Labour voters who have told pollsters they do not understand the party’s stance on the issue. With three weeks to go before polling day on 23 June, Cameron plans to step up campaigning with Labour, Green, Liberal Democrat and trade union figures as he tries to stop the debate sliding into an argument about his own leadership of the Tory party. At the same time, the Brexit camp will move its campaign up a gear this week as Boris Johnson, the former London mayor, and Michael Gove, the justice secretary, appear together for the first time on a tour of the north of England. A campaign memo from Britain Stronger In Europe leaked to the shows that only about half of Labour voters have realised their party is in favour of staying in the EU, with the rest thinking it is split or believing it is a party of Brexit. The analysis, sent to some Labour MPs, found that focus groups in London, Brighton and Ipswich over the past few weeks showed voters were “uniformly uncertain” about whether Labour was campaigning to stay in the EU. They did not know what Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn thought or believed he was for remain but “his heart isn’t in it”. In a sign that Labour’s arguments are not cutting through to the mainstream, it revealed that a group of undecided working-class women in Liverpool mostly assumed the party was for leaving the EU. The remain camp is worried because although polls suggest it has on average a six-point lead, the same research suggests that leave voters may be more enthusiastic and more likely to turn out on the day. There is particular concern about getting Labour voters to turn out because they are thought more likely than Tories to support staying in. On Monday, the prime minister praised Sadiq Khan, the newly elected mayor of London, just weeks after claiming the mayor was unfit for office because of links to Islamist extremists. He described him as a “proud Muslim, a proud Brit and a proud Londoner”. However, Cameron’s attempts to decouple the referendum from his own party and leadership will be difficult, given that it is inevitably being seen as the biggest gamble of his career, which will decide his future in Downing Street as well as the direction of the country. With at least three Conservative MPs – Andrew Bridgen, Nadine Dorries and Bill Cash – now warning that Cameron could face a no-confidence vote if the UK opts for Brexit, Labour’s biggest fear is that some leftwing voters will not be motivated to cast a vote that could help keep Cameron in Downing Street. Although senior Tory MPs are mostly careful to say they think Cameron should stay on as prime minister if the UK votes to leave, many Brexit campaigners think the new calls for Cameron to go are helpful to their cause because they make him look weakened and cast doubt on his judgement. Johnson and Gove have both said they want Cameron to stay on regardless of the result. Ken Clarke, the pro-EU former cabinet minister, on Monday that the leave campaign had, in effect, turned into a leadership campaign for Johnson, who would be a strong contender to succeed Cameron if the UK votes for Brexit. Labour has its own battlebus, which will be touring the country over the next few weeks, and John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, is taking part in a tour by progressive politicians making the case for EU membership. He will seek to emphasise Labour’s own reasons for wanting to stay in the EU, separately from the Conservative campaign. “The EU referendum is about our future relationship with Europe, not who is the next leader of the Tory party, which is why I think there is a positive case to be made and it’s vital young people hear this case over the personal ambitions of different Tory MPs,” he said. Chuka Umunna, a leading figure in the Labour In campaign, said the Labour vote would be critical in ensuring a vote to stay in the EU. “Those of us on the left and centre-left carry a huge responsibility. If we don’t ensure we win, we will be handing the likes of Farage, Le Pen and Trump – who stand against so much of what we believe in – a huge victory. We cannot afford to let this to happen.” The main remain campaign will focus on the benefits of staying in the EU for small businesses on Tuesday, with Sajid Javid, the business secretary, claiming that 1.2 million small and medium-sized businesses rely on trade with the EU. In contrast, the leave campaign will focus on immigration, as a new report from MigrationWatch claims up to half a million refugees and their relatives could move to Britain after 2020 because of EU rules on the free movement of people.
Manchester City and Manchester United at a crossroads: who will go on to dominate? Managers Manchester City Pep Guardiola, Manchester City, head coach are six words to delight all City fans and make every Manchester United devotee shiver. How the Spaniard will revamp the side and City’s style of play is a must-watch next season and when he enters the City Football Academy on 1 July the fascination begins. There is a valid question concerning how good Guardiola will be in the Premier League, arguably a far more demanding test than Spain, where he coached Barcelona, or Germany, where he is in charge of Bayern Munich. At Barça, Guardiola’s was a gilded XI that contained Xavi Hernández, Andrés Iniesta, Dani Alves, Pedro, Carles Puyol, Gerard Piqué and Sergio Busquets and was decorated by one of the greatest ever players in Lionel Messi. Without such talents at Bayern, Guardiola has failed to win the Champions League. Manchester United What to do with Louis van Gaal is at the heart of the club’s problems. Each time the Dutchman suffers a defeat the doubts regarding his abilities and future re-emerge. The latest came on Thursday at Old Trafford when Liverpool knocked United out of the Europa League. Part of the routine here is for Van Gaal to cuff away any questions about him staying into his final year and so it was again. Each time United go on a mini-run, as they did when winning four games on the bounce before losing at West Bromwich Albion on 6 March, a sense mushrooms that Van Gaal could be granted the full run of his three-year contract. If the Dutchman remains in charge in August expect the reaction to range from outrage (most fans) to puzzlement (the media). There promises to be little, if any, vocal support for him remaining. There is an ideal candidate out of work and who wants the job, but Ed Woodward has ignored José Mourinho, which is hardly helping the executive vice-chairman’s popularity. Woodward may yet call, however, and if he does, expect the Manchester football scene to be rather lively next season as this pair of alpha males are not overly keen on each other. Verdict City have a considerable edge. Squads Manchester City The powderpuff title challenge is the latest illustration of how age and attrition is catching up with the majority of the squad. Vincent Kompany, 29, Yaya Touré, 32, David Silva, 30, and even the 27-year-old Sergio Agüero have to manage various maladies and are seemingly unable to avoid injury. Kompany suffered his 14th calf injury in Tuesday’s goalless draw with Dynamo Kyiv and Guardiola has to think hard about whether the Belgian can be the emblem of his brave new City world. Less acknowledged is the state of the strata of players below this elite band. Fernandinho, 30, Bacary Sagna, 33, Pablo Zabaleta, 31, Aleksandar Kolarov, 30, Gaël Clichy, 30, Martín Demichelis, 35, and Jesús Navas, 30, are all in the footballer’s decade of decline. Joe Hart, 27, and Kevin De Bruyne, 24, are the club’s only two high-end players who are young and do not have ongoing injury concerns. Raheem Sterling, 21, is pushing to be considered in the bracket but is yet to fully convince. Fabian Delph, 24, Wilfried Bony, 27, and Fernando, 28, are squad players and Kelechi Iheanacho, 19, is enjoying a breakthrough season, but there is no question that the make-up of the playing personnel is Guardiola’s prime challenge. Manchester United Van Gaal has invested £250m-plus but the squad remains lopsided. He states the emergence of young players will affect the summer transfer strategy. In February’s final week debuts were given to Donald Love, Joe Riley, Marcus Rashford, Tim Fosu-Mensah and James Weir, following Cameron Borthwick-Jackson and Guillermo Varela earlier in the season. It is too soon to make definitive judgments but Borthwick-Jackson, Rashford, Fosu-Mensah and Varela appear early favourites to establish themselves as squad members, at least. To have four home-reared players emerge is a bonus but gaping holes remain. Anthony Martial is enjoying a fine first campaign but as Wayne Rooney fades the Frenchman requires the support of a top-level striker. Morgan Schneiderlin has been given no real chance to establish himself by Van Gaal – he was again ignored against Liverpool. Another central midfielder is required. Bastian Schweinsteiger was thrown on at Anfield though his fitness is suspect, while Michael Carrick is entering the winter of his career. Finally, the ever-excellent David de Gea may depart for Real Madrid in the close season. If so, this will cause a headache for whoever is in charge. Verdict Both clubs require major surgery. Hierarchy Manchester City There is a desire at the City Football Academy to ensure that Guardiola’s arrival does not make the club too Spanish. The 45-year-old will join Txiki Begiristain, the sporting director, and the chief executive, Ferran Soriano, meaning the three most powerful men on the ground will be from Spain. The hope is that what has traditionally made City the club it is will not be diluted. Away from the question of core identity, the club’s working structure has Begiristain as a layer of football expertise between Guardiola and the chairman, Khaldoon al-Mubarak, which is designed to guard against the boom-and-bust nature of elite-level management. How Guardiola, who is considered a one-off football Einstein, fits into a committee model remains to be seen. Manchester United The Alex Ferguson-David Gill-Bobby Charlton axis that held power during a generation of success has been eased aside by Woodward, who is far more important than Van Gaal or any future manager. The Glazers are now reaping the riches they purchased the club for and Woodward is the lone executive responsible for this. His task of making the football side of his role slick remains a work in progress. The reluctance to sack Van Gaal has been a counterintuitive move. Whatever the motive, to ignore Mourinho is a powerplay and a clear illustration the owners fully trust Woodward. Verdict Jury out on both clubs. Finances Manchester City Manchester City have the richer owner in Sheikh Mansour, whose fortune is more than £20bn, and with Financial Fair Play regulations relaxed there is more scope to invest. There is also the £265m received from a Chinese consortium that bought 13% of the City Football Group, a move sanctioned by the hierarchy to open up a front in a strategically key country. When the deal was announced al-Mubarak said it will “leverage the incredible potential that exists in China”. The foray into China follows the acquisitions of New York City FC, a start-up Major League Soccer franchise, Melbourne City FC of Australia’s A-League and of a minority share in Yokohama F Marinos of the Japanese J-League. City own the most expensive domestic player in Raheem Sterling (£49m) and the second most expensive ever in Kevin De Bruyne (£55m). They boast considerable finance. Manchester United In the Glazer family the club do not have a benefactor with a personal fortune in the same league as Sheikh Mansour or one minded to invest it. The Americans operate an ownership model that is almost the opposite of City’s. This features a heavy leveraged debt – gradually being reduced – but draws an ever-bulging war-chest as United become a footballing Walmart, its dizzying number of sponsors including manufacturers of crisps, beer, paint, tyres, food, footwear, watchmakers, banks, sports clothing and mobile communications. United has a worldwide reach the envy of every club. Woodward continues to grow the business. United view City’s approach of having satellite clubs as a quasi-franchise model that weakens their rivals’ brand. United’s ploy is to engage myriad regional partners who pay a base fee – of, say, around £1m – to use the famous name to help promote their product. This is proving a cash-cow and when blue-chip sponsors are factored in – the record £750m, 10-year Adidas kit-deal is the headline agreement – United will remain ahead of competitors even when the £5.14bn broadcast contract starts next season (apart from City who are the only domestic outfit who can go toe-to-toe financially with United). Verdict A draw Youth academy Manchester City The £200m CFA and the decisions of former United luminaries Robin van Persie, Darren Fletcher and Phil Neville to send their sons to their alma mater’s great rival show Manchester’s blue zone now attracts top local talent. While this trio are all younger juniors, further up the age scale Tosin Adarabioyo, 18, Angelino, 19, Cameron Humphreys-Grant, 17, Bersant Celina, 19, Brandon Barker, 19, Aleix García Serrano, 18, Manu García, 18, and David Faupala, 19, have made senior appearances this term. But can they or any hopeful in the ranks become an established first-team force? The last was Micah Richards, 11 years ago. Manchester United There are concerns that the club of Duncan Edwards, George Best and Ryan Giggs is being left behind as, unlike City, it boasts no bespoke stadium for juniors, as well as a staff of largely part-time scouts. The culture of promoting bright young things into the first XI is ingrained, though. The statistic that a home-reared footballer has been in every matchday squad since 1937 is evidence of this. Nicky Butt is now in charge of the academy and Giggs, who may one day take the senior job, is another former Class of 92 member who understands what can happen when opportunity bangs for any youngster. Verdict United trailing
Bass is strong with this one: Rick Rubin produces official Star Wars EDM album Rick Rubin has compiled a compilation album called Star Wars Headspace, an EDM-oriented companion to JJ Abrams’s The Force Awakens. Featuring contributions from the director, as well as Flying Lotus, Rustie, Röyksopp and the producer himself, the album is being released digitally on 19 February. Zane Lowe premiered tracks from the release on his Beats 1 radio show - including Flying Lotus’s electronic jazz track R2 Where R U?, which features some samples of C-3PO. “The coolest thing [about the project] is having my name near a Star Wars logo, officially,” said Stephen Ellison, AKA Flying Lotus. Rubin teams up with A-Trak for the collaborative remix of the track Jabba Flow by JJ Abrams and Lin-Manuel Miranda, while his track NR-G7 uses sampled R2-D2 bleeps. Baauer’s Cantina Boys – a song that samples Darth Vader’s ominous breathing when the beat drops – was also given its debut airing, and is embedded above. Lowe also shared the album’s full tracklisting:
User involvement in care inspections is jeopardised by CQC's short-sighted thinking The proposed drastic cut in payments to the Care Quality Commission’s (CQC) service user and carer “experts by experience” for their work in inspections is a double first for user involvement. It is the first time such involvement has made mainstream news. It is also the first time that service users and carers have shown that they won’t be forced to accept a halving of their pay, with many refusing to sign up under the new terms and conditions. This headline issue has also highlighted the gap between the reality and rhetoric of user involvement in English health and social care policy. Cutting payments to users and carers to take part in inspections of care services has caused delay and put the system at risk; though the inspectorate has reportedly agreed to give more money to Remploy, so existing experts are paid more for the first six months of the contract. But this is much more important than a few disgruntled people balking at reduced pay packets. There are wider fears about the CQC commissioning Remploy in three out of four contract regions to provide experts by experience – people who have used social care services. Remploy is now majority owned by Maximus, the giant US outsourcing company. And it is Maximus that was contracted by the Department for Work and Pensions to run the work capability assessment system. This is the test used to decide whether disabled and ill people qualify for out-of-work sickness benefits. It is feared and loathed by disabled people and mental health service users, and has been linked to an increase in mental health problems and suicides. So it is at least a touch Orwellian that Maximus is now involved in recruiting people for user involvement in the CQC’s inspections. This is not least because evidence shows that the best and most effective way of ensuring good user involvement is to get service users’ own, user-controlled organisations to undertake it. Unfortunately, there is little sign of the CQC adopting this obvious route. A difficult history of service user involvement No one could say that the CQC started from a blank page when it came to including experts by experience in its work. Its predecessor, the Commission for Social Care Inspection, was a pioneer of user and carer involvement, led by the highly experienced disability rights campaigner Frances Hasler. But the CQC subsequently demonstrated a failure to consider user involvement at every level, right to the top. This extended to the CQC’s leadership questioning the mental health of a board member, Kay Sheldon, a former service user. This was eventually followed by the departure of the organisation’s chair and chief executive. The subsequent appointment of David Behan as chief executive and Andrea Sutcliffe as chief inspector for adult social care of the CQC, both of whom were associated with a commitment to user and carer involvement, encouraged a renewal of confidence. This is now, again, at risk. The importance of effective, skilled, independent user involvement in the role of a health and social care regulator such as the CQC cannot be overstated. Without it, the CQC runs the risk of being a blunt and bureaucratic instrument. User and carer involvement is a key modern development in social policy. It challenges traditional paternalism and over-powerful service providers. It makes it truly possible for inspection to get beyond the old army level of “Any complaints?”. The bank of experts by experience the CQC developed are not only people who know what it’s actually like being on the receiving end of services, but also people who understand policy and have empathy for other service users’ experiences and wellbeing. Service users know that people with such shared understanding and experience are more likely to believe what they say, and so are more likely to trust and confide in them. This is a skilled and demanding role. That is why over the years there has been a struggle to ensure such user involvement receives proper reward and recognition. That is why the present decision on the part of the CQC and Remploy to reduce payments and conditions feels like a slap in the face to many service users and carers. It is also why such a devaluing of their lived experience is likely to be unsustainable, and require a radical rethink on the part of the regulator. Join the Social Care Network to read more pieces like this. Follow us on Twitter (@GdnSocialCare) to keep up with the latest social care news and views. This article was amended on 4 February 2016 to change “halving pay” in the standfirst to “cutting pay”. Following discussions with the CQC, Remploy will pay £15 an hour to current experts by experience for the first six months of their contract. Pay for new experts is still being negotiated.
Deutsche Bank shares slide again after fresh speculation over US penalty Uncertainty about the size of the penalty that Deutsche Bank faces from the US authorities for a mis-selling scandal a decade ago has knocked almost 4% off the share price of Germany’s biggest bank. The shares fell on Monday after a frenzy of speculation that John Cryan, chief executive of Deutsche Bank, would secure a deal with the US Department of Justice while at last week’s meeting of the International Monetary Fund in Washington. But a report in Germany’s largest newspaper, Bild am Sonntag, that Cryan had failed to secure a settlement with the DoJ over the sale of residential mortgage backed securities (RMBS) between 2005 and 2007 hit sentiment as the German stock market opened for trading. The shares were off almost 4% at the open and were down 2.8% at €11.76 in mid-morning trading. They had crumbled to 30-year lows last month and slipped below €10 amid fears that hedge funds were reducing their business activities with the bank, which is Germany’s biggest with assets half the size of the domestic economy. While Deutsche Bank has been under pressure on the stock market since the start of the year, the admission that the DoJ had suggested a $14bn (£10.5bn) penalty for the RMBS scandal has caused the latest nosedive in its shares. Deutsche Bank has described it as an “opening position” and insisted it will not pay that sum. Cryan, a Briton who has been running the bank since last year, has also been forced to insist that he has not asked for German government’s help. News agency Agence France-Presse had suggested the bank might be able to settle with the DoJ for $5.4bn. Cryan has tried in the recent weeks to reassure the 100,000 staff, including about 9,000 in the UK. “Our bank has become subject to speculation. Ongoing rumours are causing significant swings in our stock price. It is our task now to prevent distorted perception from further interrupting our daily business,” he has said.
Trump: 'I had nothing to do' with Cruz tabloid story alleging affairs – as it happened Today is the day that the presidential campaign jumped more sharks than exist in all the oceans of all the world. Starting off with the early morning release of a tabloid magazine’s unsourced, unverified accusations of marital infidelity against Texas senator Ted Cruz, the Republican primary quickly became a badminton game of escalating insults between Cruz and billionaire Republican frontrunner Donald Trump, except instead of a shuttlecock, it was the American public’s dignity being batted back and forth. Without further ado, here’s a roundup of the biggest stories in American political news today: Ted Cruz called out the National Enquirer story that alleges he had affairs with five different women as “garbage.” Speaking to reporters after a campaign event in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, Cruz said the story is full of “complete and utter lies” and is a “tabloid smear” that has come from rival frontrunner Donald Trump and his former political adviser Roger Stone. In a statement, Donald Trump said he had “absolutely nothing to do with” the National Enquirer story. Using a nickname he has given Cruz on the campaign trail, Trump added: “Unlike Lyin’ Ted Cruz I do not surround myself with political hacks and henchman and then pretend total innocence. Ted Cruz’s problem with the National Enquirer is his and his alone, and while [the National Enquirer was] right about OJ Simpson, John Edwards and many others, I certainly hope they are not right about Lyin’ Ted Cruz.” Former defense secretary Leon Panetta blasted Republican presidential candidates Donald Trump and Ted Cruz for what he called their “deeply reckless” responses to the terror attacks in Brussels. After the the attacks, Trump repeated his call for a temporary ban on Muslims from entering the United States and for the expanded use of torture – “a lot more than waterboarding,” he called it – on detainees. Cruz called for emboldening law enforcement to “patrol and secure Muslim neighborhoods”. Top John Kasich adviser John Weaver has raised the curtain on backstage dealings between the Kasich and Cruz camps on the topic of stopping Trump. Publicly, Cruz has called Kasich a “spoiler” in the race and claimed that he, Cruz, could get to 1,237 delegates if Kasich weren’t around. But privately, Weaver says, the Cruz camp acknowledges that it cannot hit the delegates goal, and yet refuses to work with Kasich to divvy up turf where each has the best chance of beating the frontrunner. The Daily Beast is reporting that although Donald trump’s campaign may be reveling in unsubstantiated tabloid gossip about rival Ted Cruz’s marriage, the rumors have been peddled for the past six months by allies of a different rival entirely. “A half-dozen GOP operatives and media figures tell The Daily Beast that Cruz’s opponents have been pushing charges of adultery for at least six months now - and that allies of former GOP presidential hopeful Marco Rubio were involved in spreading the smears,” The Daily Beast’s Asawin Suebsang and Betsy Woodruff write. Bernie Sanders, speaking in Portland, put a bird on it - literally. That’s it for today - tune in tomorrow for our live coverage of the Washington, Hawaii and Alaska Democratic caucuses! Until then: A tiny bird interrupted Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ rally in Portland, Oregon on Friday afternoon. It flew up to the Democratic presidential hopeful’s podium, “I think there may be some symbolism here,” the Senator said, adding although it didn’t look like it, the bird was a dove “asking us world peace.” The crowd erupted into thunderous applause. Or, it could be symbolic of something else. Welcome to Portland, Sen. Sanders, where the sketch comedy Portlandia popularized the refrain, “put a bird on it” as a way to describe the city’s aesthetic. Thousands listened Sanders speak in Oregon on Friday afternoon. Large crowds have turned out for Sanders’ rallies throughout the Pacific Northwest this week. The Senator is on a mission to capture delegates from his rival and Democratic frontrunner Clinton. This Saturday, Washington state will hold its caucuses, with 101 delegates at stake. Oregon’s primary is in May. Sanders hit familiar themes during the Portland rally; he spoke of making college and universities tuition free by taxing Wall Street speculation, he mentioned taking on the fossil-fuel industry, and of raising the national minimum wage to $15. “The truth is, if you work 40 hours a week, you should not be living in poverty,” he said. He spoke of the Iraq war and noted Clinton’s vote in favor of the war. “She was wrong. I was right,” he said. When he spoke of universal health care, saying health care is a right for all people, the crowd broke into chants of, “Bernie! Bernie! Bernie!” Sanders also touted paid family leave, demilitarizing the police and respecting people’s choices to love whomever they choose. Retired millworker Gary Johnston attended two Sanders’ rallies this week. He noted the Clinton campaign’s criticism of Sanders, calling him a single-issue candidate. But Johnston, 71, said its the presidential hopeful’s commitment to his message the country needs right now. “He’s what you might call anti flip-flop,” Johnston said of the presidential candidate. Sanders closed the rally urging people to vote. “It is my hope and my belief both Washington and Oregon are prepared to help lead this country into a political revolution,” Sanders said. The city’s famous Voodoo Doughnut shop had a large doughnut made in Sanders’ likeliness, presumably for him to enjoy after the rally. Actress Rosario Dawson has taken to task workers rights activist Dolores Huerta – who Dawson once played in a movie – over comments she made about Vermont senator Bernie Sanders. In an open letter to Huerta, who is campaigning for Hillary Clinton, Dawson methodically picks apart a piece Huerta wrote for Medium titled: On Immigration, Bernie Sanders Is Not Who He Says He Is. “I, too, believe in the American ideal of reasonable and robust debate between opposing viewpoints in order to move a discussion forward and ultimately arrive at a sensible resolution,” Dawson, a Sanders supporter, wrote. “This becomes impossible, or at least unnecessarily difficult, when one of the parties involved is purposefully trying to obfuscate the facts. I recognized that very same tactic that the mainstream media has been using when I read your opinion piece, where the details of Bernie Sanders’ voting record and positions were misrepresented.” In her Medium post, Huerta argued that as a United States senator, Sanders was no friend to the Latino community. His positions, she said, have shifted now that he’s running for president and seeking support from Latino voters. “From the letter he sent to Barack Obama last week, to the work he, his campaign, and surrogates have done attacking other candidates’ positions, you would think that he has been a lifelong champion on issues that matter to Latinos and immigrants,” Huerta wrote in the piece, which was published in February. “But here’s the truth: Candidate Bernie Sanders, advocate for immigrants, is not the same as Senator Bernie Sanders.” Both Clinton and Sanders have been vying for support from the Latino community. They both recently attended a debate in Florida hosted by Univision, where the candidates clashed over their records but mostly agreed on immigration policy. Bernie Sanders, speaking in Portland, put a bird on it - literally. Billionaire Republican frontrunner Donald Trump has now retweeted a follower who believes that Texas senator Ted Cruz is mentally ill. Trump’s habit of retweeting acolytes has gotten him in trouble before, although on the scale of previous incidents - which have included sexist characterizations of other candidates’ spouses and statistics proffered by white supremacists - this may not draw the same amount of fire. At the close of one of the most bizarre days in a bizarre campaign, however, there’s little that Trump could do to top what has been a trying Friday in American democracy. The Daily Beast is reporting that although Donald trump’s campaign may be reveling in unsubstantiated tabloid gossip about rival Ted Cruz’s marriage, the rumors have been peddled for the past six months by allies of a different rival entirely. “A half-dozen GOP operatives and media figures tell The Daily Beast that Cruz’s opponents have been pushing charges of adultery for at least six months now - and that allies of former GOP presidential hopeful Marco Rubio were involved in spreading the smears,” The Daily Beast’s Asawin Suebsang and Betsy Woodruff write. “For months and months, anti-Cruz operatives have pitched a variety of #CruzSexScandal stories to a host of prominent national publications, according to Republican operatives and media figures,” the article claims. “The New York Times, The Washington Post, Bloomberg News, Politico, and ABC News - reporters at all those outlets heard some version of the Cruz-is-cheating story.” Even Breitbart News, which has been accused of being in the billionaire’s corner in recent controversies, declined to report on the rumors. “We got it from a Rubio ally,” a source told The Daily beast. “It was too thin, so [political editor Matt Boyle] decided not to run it. There was no way to verify the claims.” A new ad from a conservative super-PAC associated with former UN ambassador John Bolton has supporters of Hillary Clinton asking: What’s new, Buenos Aires? The ad superimposes Clinton’s head on the body of a tango dancer who joined Barack Obama on the dance floor during a state dinner in Argentina this week, accusing the former secretary of state of being entwined in her former boss’ foreign policy. “Barack and Hillary practice their presidential transition,” the ad’s text states. “Hillary Clinton: Obama’s third term.” A strategist for Ohio governor John Kasich’s longshot campaign for the Republican presidential nomination says that Kasich’s supporters are pressuring fellow candidates Ted Cruz and Donald Trump to join him on Fox News in a town hall-style debate on April 3, two days before the high-stakes Wisconsin primary: Trump had backed out of a previous debate scheduled on Fox News, citing prior commitments. That debate was later cancelled when Kasich said that he was the only candidate willing to appear. North Carolina’s new discrimination law could be violating the US constitution, in addition to dealing a serious blow to LGBT people by preventing any city from creating anti-discrimination protections, experts have warned. The law, which was rushed through on Wednesday, requires public institutions to designate bathrooms and locker rooms to only be used by people in accordance with their biological sex, which violates constitutional privacy protections. “If they [transgender people] comply with the law every time they use the bathroom they will be outed because their outward gender expression conflicts with the gender assigned at the bathroom and that could expose them to violence and discrimination,” said Scott Skinner-Thompson, an acting assistant professor at New York University’s School of Law. The US constitution prevents the state from disclosing information such as a person’s LGBT identity, which is why similar laws are now being challenged in court. Which election issue matters to you? Tell us by completing this quick survey: Your contributions will help shape the ’s future election coverage. In linking to a Facebook post denying his involvement in the publication of a National Enquirer story accusing Ted Cruz of multiple affairs, Donald Trump even managed to sneak “Lyin’ Ted” into the URL: Top John Kasich adviser John Weaver has raised the curtain on backstage dealings between the Kasich and Cruz camps on the topic of stopping Trump. Publicly, Cruz has called Kasich a “spoiler” in the race and claimed that he, Cruz, could get to 1,237 delegates if Kasich weren’t around. But privately, Weaver says, the Cruz camp acknowledges that it cannot hit the delegates goal, and yet refuses to work with Kasich to divvy up turf where each has the best chance of beating the frontrunner. Here’s how that divvying could look, by the way: to ensure Trump is denied 1,237. They know what we know: only path to nomination for Cruz or us is through open convention. Only action 2/5 to date has been unilateral by us re: AZ (which they knew in advance). Even Mitt has urged Cruz to work with us! To no avail. As usual, 3/5 they want it both ways, appearance of attempt to work together/victim, but no action. To question @JohnKasich motivation is underhanded, 4/5 and opposite of what they say in private. Facts are JK best positioned in most states moving forward & in general election. #stopvicitimact Ted Cruz’s campaign manager does his best Donald Trump impersonation: Former defense secretary Leon Panetta blasted Republican presidential candidates Donald Trump and Ted Cruz for what he called their “deeply reckless” responses to the terror attacks in Brussels. After the the attacks, Trump repeated his call for a temporary ban on Muslims from entering the United States and for the expanded use of torture – “a lot more than waterboarding,” he called it – on detainees. Cruz called for emboldening law enforcement to “patrol and secure Muslim neighborhoods”. Panetta said the suggestions weakened relationships with allies in the Muslim world and threatened national security. “Sometimes these candidates think that they’re just talking to their voters in this country,” Panetta said on a conference call organized by Hillary Clinton’s campaign. “That’s the worst mistake they can make. The rhetoric they’re using is damaging the United States abroad and creating real concerns about where this country is going in the future.” Panetta was joined on the call by retired Major General Tony Taguba, who led the investigation into the abuses at Abu Ghraib, as well as by deputy homeland security adviser Rand Beers. All three men have endorsed Hillary Clinton for president. Earlier this week, Clinton laid out her counterterrorism strategy in a speech at Stanford University, where she targeted Trump and Cruz for their “dangerous” national security agendas. Trump has responded to Ted Cruz’s accusation that he, Trump, had a role in the National Enquirer publishing a story based on unnamed “sources” alleging that Cruz has had extramarital affairs. The statement was obtained by the (thx @bencjacobs). “I have no idea whether or not the cover story about Ted Cruz in this week’s issue of the National Enquirer is true or not,” Trump begins, but I had absolutely nothing to do with it, did not know about it, and have not, as yet, read it. I have nothing to do with the National Enquirer and unlike Lyin’ Ted Cruz I do not surround myself with political hacks and henchman and then pretend total innocence. Ted Cruz’s problem with the National Enquirer is his and his alone, and while they were right about O.J. Simpson, John Edwards, and many others, I certainly hope they are not right about Lyin’ Ted Cruz. I look forward to spending the week in Wisconsin, winning the Republican nomination and ultimately the Presidency in order to Make America Great Again. - Donald J. Trump Cruz has posted a statement on Facebook saying that Trump had “enlist[ed] his friends at the National Enquirer and his political henchmen to do his bidding.” “Donald Trump’s consistently disgraceful behavior is beneath the office we are seeking and we are not going to follow,” the statement says. snivelingcoward.com. Guess what happens when you type that in a browser? (h/t @thehill) There’s a Batman vs Superman movie out and now there’s this: Cruz is asked again whether he would support Donald Trump should Trump be the Republican nominee. In the last two days Cruz has called Trump a “petty little man” and “sniveling coward” whose conduct is “unbefitting the president.” Cruz replies: Here’s how he answered yesterday: Meanwhile, on the Supreme Court front... shocking allegations that president Obama’s nominee cheated at a junior high relay footrace: This Cruz news conference, for which we have yet to locate a live video stream, is a doozie. Here’s the Washington Post’s Dave Wiegel: What does that even mean? Further reading: Donald Trump’s Alliance With the National Enquirer Ted Cruz has appeared before the press and called the National Enquirer report that Donald Trump’s spokeswoman denied earlier “garbage.” We’re about to hear from Senator Ted Cruz, who is actually out campaigning today, in Oshkosh, Wisconsin: Tulsi Gabbard, the US representative from Hawaii, combat veteran and Bernie Sanders surrogate, has cut a poignant ad for Sanders in which she reflects on what it means to be a warrior and says that Sanders is one. The Vermont senator understands the costs of war, she tells the camera, and would keep the country safe without committing to foolish military expeditions. It starts with surfing footage: Trump’s spokeswoman tweets about “tabloid trash.” She’s referring to a National Enquirer report making a SHOCKING CLAIM about Ted Cruz. Google will get you there #godspeed We think this national campaign spokesperson is using a wrong preposition here: Share the wealth, but hands off my fries! New Jersey governor Chris Christie, whose designs on the presidency did not go according to the original plan, and whose scramble to endorse Trump quickly morphed into a gloomy sidekick role, is wielding influence behind the scenes in the Trump campaign, NJ Advance Media reports: Christie is becoming a key conduit to [Donald Trump] for policy experts, donors and potential backers who now believe he will be the Republican nominee... A member of Christie’s inner circle confirmed the governor took time from his 30th wedding anniversary vacation in Florida to help Trump with “debate prep” at the real estate mogul’s Mar-A-Lago resort in Palm Beach on March 9, a day ahead of the last Republican debate in Miami. Read the full piece here. In other Christie news, he autographed a pair of gym shorts, and you can bid for them on eBay, for what looks like at least 200 actual US dollars. (h/t: @batterdippin) Don’t look now, but Ted Cruz is in your kitchen, and he has made himself coffee: That’s one of three new video spots up on Cruz’s YouTube channel (if you don’t have it bookmarked it’s here). In the ad, Cruz says he’s running for president to address worries about jobs and wages. In a second ad he touts his tax plan (abolish the IRS / institute a flat tax with a VAT) and in a third ad he features a mechanic who has nearly lost his small business to the taxman and who says “Donald Trump’s empty promises won’t cut it.” We need Deepak Chopra to tell us this? Regular readers (we’re not calling you regular, we just mean those who read us regularly) are familiar with our delegates tracker widget, below. Now we’d like you to try out a new elections-tracking tool: a state-by-state delegates tracker that uses color coding to illustrate intensities of victory (bold is a lot of delegates; faint is fewer). Check it out here! Few communities in the US should be as concerned about Ted Cruz’s proposal to aggressively surveil Muslims than Brooklyn’s Bay Ridge, writes the ’s Jamiles Lartey: The neighborhood is home to one of the largest Muslim enclaves in the country, estimated at over 30,000. A walk down Fourth Avenue will turn up as many shop awnings in Arabic as in English, and women in hijab and niqab are as common a sight as business suits in Manhattan’s financial district. But here, perhaps as much as anywhere, the reaction for many is closer to apathy. Cruz’s comments “seem like a revelation to everyone else and my response is that it’s already been happening,” said Linda Sarsour, executive director of the Arab-American Association of New York. Sarsour, a lifelong Brooklynite and Bay Ridge resident added: “Muslim communities around the country have been under constant surveillance for the past 15 years.” Read the full piece here: After Cruz called Trump a “sniveling coward” yesterday, Trump said he started it. –30– Ted Cruz’s presidential campaign is drawing extreme anti-Muslim propagandists into the mainstream of US politics, academics and Muslim civil rights groups are warning, writes chief reporter Ed Pilkington: [...] Yet by rushing to Cruz’s aid, the Republican leadership is in danger of embracing a candidate who is even more extreme in his Islamophobic posturing than the current frontrunner. Cruz’s foreign policy team includes people who have called for all mosques to be shut down across America, claimed the country is being subverted by the Muslim Brotherhood and decried all followers of the Islamic faith as jihadists. “This is more than worrying, it is terrifying,” said Nathan Lean, a specialist in Islamophobia at Georgetown University’s Bridge Institute. “Bringing such views into a presidential campaign inflames the anxieties of ordinary Americans and gives them license to amp up scrutiny and skepticism towards the Muslim community.” Read the full piece here: Our lone commenter so far sees whitewater ahead for the national raft. Ron Fournier’s piece in the Atlantic yesterday on “Trump’s Ponzi scheme” is exactly the supplemental reading on this topic you’re looking for: But if you take a closer look, I think you’ll find that Donald Trump’s presidential record is just like his actual business record: exploiting the hopes and fears of Americans by promising huge rewards, without any practical plan for delivering them. It’s a political Ponzi scheme. Read the full piece here. Hillary Clinton got a lesson in mansplaining when she stopped by the set of Jimmy Kimmel Live in Los Angeles on Thursday night. In the appearance, Kimmel asks the former secretary of state whether she’s familiar with “mansplaining”. “That’s when a man explains something to a woman in a patronizing way,” she replies. “Actually, it’s when a man explains something to a woman in a condescending way,” he corrects her. “But you were close.” Kimmel then offers to helps her improve her delivery on the stump. Kimmel’s assistant Guillermo brings out a podium affixed with a “Fighting for US” campaign sign. Clinton steps behind it and begins a speech but it almost immediately interrupted. “It’s just – maybe – something a little more fun next time, but not too fun,” he suggests. “Serious but not too serious. You want to be stylish but not looking like you’re trying to be stylish. And also presidential.” The skit poked fun at the reoccurring criticism – almost singularly from male journalists and pundits – of Clinton’s voice and facial expressions. She was most recently accused of “shouting” while she spoke over a crowd of screaming fans during her victory speech at a primary night party in West Palm Beach. Male pundits also wondered why she wasn’t more smiley. Kimmel tells Clinton to smile while she speaks. She smiles widely and takes another stab at it. “Don’t smile like that because it’s too forced, it looks like you’re faking it. You know what you have to do? Ask yourself, ‘do I want to be president or do I want to be a Lakers girl?’” Clinton turns away from the podium to stare down Kimmel. “Is that a real choice?” The skit ends with Kimmel still not satisfied with Clinton’s delivery. “I can’t quite put my finger on it,” Kimmel says, “But something is, you’re not...” “A man?” Clinton offers. Exactly! Hello and welcome to our live-wire coverage of the 2016 race for the White House. Three far western states – Alaska, Hawaii and Washington – will hold Democratic caucuses tomorrow. On the Republican side, they’re gearing up for a fight over votes already cast. Donald Trump has recruited a team to lead a battle over delegates at the party’s convention in July, NBC News reported. The team includes Barry Bennett, the former Ben Carson campaign manager, plus: Trump’s general counsel, former FEC commissioner Don McGahn, former Carson aides such as Jason Osborne, who handled floor operations at past conventions, and Ed Brookover, a former RNC political director with deep ties to Washington Republicans. The operation seems to have its work cut out for it, as they’re getting a late start and, according to a new report by the ’s Ben Jacobs, facing a lack of organization on the state level. In Illinois, delegates elected to represent Donald Trump have voiced fears about chaotic organization and a lack of leadership in their state as Republicans prepare for what could be the first contested convention in decades, Ben writes: During a torturous two-hour conference call on Thursday night, the delegates struggled to figure out how to help the frontrunner at the Republican National Convention in July, wondering how best to contact the campaign in Wisconsin for tips. Anxiety was mounting throughout the conference call about the lack of organization in the Land of Lincoln for Trump. As one person said “There is no Trump team in Illinois, it’s us”, a statement echoed by pro-Trump activist Doug Ibendahl when he pointed out on the call “we don’t have any leader, it’s just us.” Read more here: A certain other Republican campaign, meanwhile, seems to have the delegates-trapping process down to a science. Guess whose? Ted Cruz lost Louisiana to Trump 38-41 – but it appears that he will come away with 10 more delegates, the Wall Street Journal reported. There’s a lot cooking today – thanks for reading and as always join us in the comments!
Archbishop accuses Farage of racism and 'accentuating fear for political gain' – EU referendum live David Cameron has accused the leave campaign of telling six lies about the EU, amid signs of panic in the remain camp about their opposition gaining momentum. Boris Johnson and Michael Gove have challenged Cameron to a debate with one of them to settle the dispute about the “six untruths” Cameron is accusing Vote Leave of spreading. (See 3.20pm.) The archbishop of Canterbury has launched a scathing attack on the Ukip leader, Nigel Farage, accusing him of giving “legitimisation to racism” for political ends. Justin Welby said claims by Farage that staying in the European Union could lead to mass sex attacks like those on New Year’s Eve in Cologne were “inexcusable”. He also expressed a “very, very major concern” that claims by the leave campaign in the EU referendum about the impact of Turkey joining the EU risked stoking anti-Muslim sentiment in the UK. (See 3.36pm.) Thousands of British citizens fear their votes in the EU referendum could have got lost in the post after Germany’s postal service said its workers were confused by the format of pre-paid envelopes sent out to Britons living abroad. As Philip Oltermann reports, a spokesperson for Germany’s postal service, Deutsche Post, said that while the pre-paid envelopes were valid under the Internal Business Reply Service (IBRS) scheme, many of its employees had rejected the envelopes and told voters to pay postage instead. More than 100,000 British citizens are registered as living in Germany. The confusion has arisen partly because the European Union has so far failed to regulate the size of standard letters across the continent. Brexit campaigners have claimed that a European court of justice (ECJ) ruling could make it easier for illegal immigrants to reach the UK. (See 3.50pm.) Labour has said leaving the EU would threaten investment in energy, hitting jobs and pay in the industry. As the Press Association reports, Lisa Nandy, the shadow energy secretary, spoke of the importance to energy firms of continuing to be part of the EU. She told the GMB conference in Bournemouth: Over decades we’ve played a leading role in shaping an energy strategy for the EU that has given businesses the confidence to invest. A vote to leave is a leap into the unknown and this would threaten investment. The resulting loss of jobs and pay would be a tragedy. Record numbers of people are expected to sign up on Tuesday to vote in the referendum, before a midnight deadline for registrations. That’s all from me for now. I will be launching a new blog later to cover the Nigel Farage/David Cameron EU referendum “debate” on ITV. The programme starts at 9pm, and I will launch the blog at around 8pm. You’ll find it here. Here is a short polling reading list. Peter Kellner at Politics Counter says there tends to be a late swing towards the status quo in referendums. The Brexit camp should enjoy its current slight bounce in the polls, for it may not last. If history is any guide, then “remain” is still heading for victory on 23 June. Past referendums in Britain have tended to produce a late move to the status quo. The record from six such contests in the past four decades is striking. Matt Singh at Number Cruncher Politics looks at the recent poll and concludes remain are still ahead. In other words, leave would need to be leading by more than four points at this stage to be considered favourite by the model. ICM’s online poll shows a five-point lead for Brexit, but others don’t. ORB’s latest phone poll for the Telegraph had the remainers 12 points ahead on its “all adults” measure, which suggests that the phone v online gap hasn’t gone away. (As ORB has now clarified that this is its headline measure, the polling average and forecast will be using it instead of the “certain voter” measure, though the impact will be small). Last night’s YouGov/Times poll, the most recent available, showed remain back in a (statistically insignificant) one-point lead. But what is significant is that a poll that had swung to leave when the debates were taking place is now right back where it was before – suggesting either a response bias or a genuine but temporary shift in public opinion. In any case, the picture painted by the various polls and analysis of likely accuracy, it’s much more likely that remain is still ahead. Here is Stefan Rousseau, the Press Association’s chief political photographer’s, picture of the day. Earlier I quoted some of the non-headline findings in the latest YouGov EU referendum poll (pdf). (See 12.26pm.) Here are some more that are interesting. Good news for remain 1 - People think they would be worse off if we left the EU – and the gap has got larger since the question was last asked in April. Better off: 22% (no change) Worse off: 37% (up 3) 2 - People think leaving the EU would be bad for jobs – and, again, the gap is getting bigger. Good for jobs: 21% (down 1) Bad for jobs: 35% (up 2) 3 - People are more likely to think leaving the EU will leave them worse off personally. Better off: 10% (no change) Worse off: 23% (no change) No real difference: 45% (no change) 4 - By a narrow margin people think having access to the single market, and accepting free movement for EU citizens, is better than having full control of immigration but not having access to the single market. People were asked to choose between two options. Full control of immigration, but not having free access to EU trade: 47% Having free access to EU trade, but having to allow EU citizens into UK: 53% Good news for leave 1 - People think leaving the EU would be good for the NHS – and the gap is getting bigger. Good for NHS: 40% (up 4) Bad for NHS: 19% (up 2) 2 - People think, by a massive margin, leaving the EU would lead to lower immigration. More immigration: 4% (no change) Less immigration: 57% (down 1) 3 - People think staying in the EU will lead to immigration being higher than the government predicts. YouGov told respondents the ONS expects immigration to be 185,000 a year from 2021 onwards. Many people think it will be higher. Higher than 185,000: 49% (up 10) Lower than 185,000: 10% (down 4) At his press conference this morning David Cameron said the EU has been faster at signing trade deals than the US. The Conservative MP David Davis says he’s wrong. He said in a statement: It is simply not acceptable for the prime minister to give a press conference claiming that the leave campaign are being free with the facts, only to then run fast and loose with the truth himself. The EU is appallingly slow at signing free trade deals. It takes the EU on average six years to negotiate a new trade deal, according to the remain campaign. It takes the US on average four years. Gisela Stuart, one of the few Labour MPs backing Brexit and the chair of Vote Leave, has put out a statement criticising the pro-EU poster unveiled by her party this morning. She said: The Labour party has a proud history of fighting for and securing workers rights – so I am deeply disappointed to see my party belittling what we have achieved. The suggestion that the only reason we have protections in this country is because of the EU is insulting to all the people who have campaigned for these rights here in the UK. The truth is that uncontrolled migration, and the consequent mass availability of cheap labour, has led to a depression of workers’ wages. And as we’ve seen from the example of Sports Direct, it has eroded employment conditions too. If we take back control of our immigration system, and introduce an Australian points-based system we can change this. Dominic Raab, a justice minister and a Vote Leave spokesman, says today’s ruling from the European court of justice saying that non-EU migrants illegally entering the Schengen zone should not be jailed is a threat to the UK. He said: These rulings by the European court of justice threaten the integrity of our borders, and create serious risks for our security. It’s also a stark illustration of our loss of proper democratic control to the EU over a sensitive area of policy. The ruling increases the risk that illegal immigrants will be able to enter the UK, because it weakens the ability of other EU governments to put in place proper checks. The EU is simply not fit for purpose, and the only way to take back control is to vote leave on 23 June. Earlier I said that, with his campaign in difficulty, David Cameron might need to recruit someone widely trusted, like the archbishop of Canterbury, to attack leave for him. (See 12.26pm.) Uncannily, now that is exactly what has happened. Justin Welby, the archbishop, has been giving evidence to the Commons home affairs committee this afternoon about immigration and he used the hearing to strongly condemn the Ukip leader, Nigel Farage, for what Farage said about staying in the EU increasing the chances of mass Cologne-style attacks on women. The Labour MP Keith Vaz, chair of the committee, asked Welby if he agreed that those comments were racist. Welby replied: I would agree with you. I think that is an inexcusable pandering to people’s worries and prejudices. That’s giving legitimisation to racism, which I’ve seen in parishes in which I’ve served and has led to attacks on people in those parishes. And we cannot legitimise that. Fear is a pastoral issue, you deal with it by recognising it, by standing alongside and providing answers to it. What that is is accentuating fear for political gain and that is absolutely inexcusable. Welby also said he condemned the comments “without hesitation”. Boris Johnson and Michael Gove are challenging David Cameron to a debate with one of them. In response to what Cameron said about their campaign this morning (see 12.49am), they have issued this statement. The real risk for Britain in this referendum is voting to remain in the EU with a broken single currency and a rogue European court. The safer choice is voting to leave, so we can take back control of our money, borders, security, trade and taxes. If we needed a reminder of just how risky it is to remain in the EU, the European court has today issued extraordinary judgments that undermine our ability to deal effectively with asylum. We think that the public deserve the chance to hear these issues debated face-to-face between the prime minister and a spokesman for Vote Leave so they can judge for themselves which is the safer choice on 23 June. The prime minister was absolutely right to hold this vote and allow ministers the chance to disagree with him. We hope that in the same spirit he will accept this invitation. Johnson and Gove are referring to this European court of justice ruling saying non-EU migrants illegally entering an EU state in the Schengen zone should not face jail. Tim Farron, the Lib Dem leader, was joined by three of his predecessors at an event at Lib Dem HQ this morning where they spoke out in favour of EU membership. Farron said a leave vote could break up the UK. This is too important to remain a blue-on-blue slugfest between two chaps who went to Eton 30 years ago. If we vote ‘out’, there won’t be one referendum but three or four as we face the breakup of the UK. Nick Clegg said the referendum was a Tory family row. The Conservatives are inflicting their family row on us but it is not their families’ futures at stake. It is not their jobs at stake. Indeed, Boris Johnson and Michael Gove probably regard it as a chance for promotion in their own party. Paddy Ashdown accused Johnson and Gove of posing as “working-class revolutionaries”. Boris Johnson and Michael Gove driving around the country in a German bus claiming to be Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels does stretch rational credibility. Sir Menzies Campbell claimed Nigel Farage was bogus. Nigel Farage is a man of privilege, pretending to be on the side of the under-privileged, while dressed from the pages of Country Life. The Lib Dems also played this clip of the late Charles Kennedy, another former leader, talking about how important pro-Europeanism was to the party in a rousing speech to conference three years ago. Nigel Farage has unveiled a new poster ahead of his TV “debate” with David Cameron tonight. Vote Leave has issued a detailed response to David Cameron’s statement. This is what they are saying about all six of Cameron’s accusations. (See 12.49am.) Generally Cameron’s arguments are solid. But his assurances tend to cover the short and medium term, and involve taking declarations from fellow EU leaders at face value. Some of the Vote Leave assertions involve refusing to accept expert judgments (see 6 below) or differences of interpretation (see 3 below – agreeing not to veto eurozone integration is not the same as giving up the veto). And some of the Vote Leave arguments involve taking a longer-term perspective than Cameron is taking. Most of them, though, are also founded at some level on the belief that EU leaders simply cannot be trusted. Here are the six claims, what Cameron is saying, and what Vote Leave is saying in response. 1 - UK liable for eurozone bailouts Cameron says: “They said we are liable to bail out eurozone countries. Not true. My renegotiation means we are categorically not liable for eurozone bailouts. It is there in black and white in the legally binding and irreversible negotiation deal.” Vote Leave says: The eurozone has “broken its promises before”. It says Cameron’s EU renegotiation is “widely regarded” as not legally binding. And it says article 122 (2) of the treaty on the functioning of the EU allows the council of ministers to give bailouts to countries affected by “severe difficulties caused by natural disasters or exceptional occurrences beyond its control” under qualified majority voting. 2 - UK rebate at risk Cameron says: “They said that our rebate, the money that we get back from the EU, is at risk. Again, not true. The British prime minister has a veto on changes to our rebate. Only a British prime minister could decide to give it up.” Vote Leave says: The only legal basis for the rebate is an EU decision that expires in five years and the British government itself has said the rebate is agreed by negotiation with EU partners. It also says Cameron himself said in 2005 that getting rid of the rebate in return for common agricultural policy reform was “not ... unreasonable”. 3 - Veto surrendered Cameron says: “They said we’ve given up our ability to veto EU treaties. Again, not true. There’s absolutely nothing in the renegotiation that gives up our veto as a full member of the European Union.” Vote Leave says: As part of his renegotiation, Cameron did agree that the UK would not block further eurozone integration. The deal says: “Member states not participating in the further deepening of the economic and monetary union will not create obstacles to but facilitate such further deepening.” Vote Leave also says the UK would not block countries like Turkey joining the EU because the government supports EU enlargement. 4 - EU spending Cameron says: “They said we had no ability to stop overall EU spending from going up. Again, not true. The budget for the current period, 2014 to 2020, is set in stone and can only be changed with the consent of all countries, including the British prime minister. Again, it’s wrong to claim anything different, and by the way, the spending for this period is lower than in the last period because I negotiated a cut in the EU budget.” Vote Leave says: The EU’s budget (multiannual financial framework - MFF) is under pressure and is likely to have to be increased. Vote Leave quotes a European parliament briefing paper saying: “For a number of reasons, implementation of the 2014-2020 MFF has already proven to be challenging, even in its first two years. In order to accommodate unexpected needs within the authorised ceilings, the budgetary authority has already had to resort to almost all the special levers and flexibility instruments provided for in the MFF regulation.” And it says Tony Blair failed to veto a budget in 2005. 5 - EU army Cameron says: “They said we were powerless to stop Britain being forced into an EU army. Again, not true. We have a rock solid veto on EU foreign and defence policy initiatives. Even if it was proposed, we would veto it. Just like William Hague did when he vetoed the idea of a European HQ on defence policy.” Vote Leave says: An EU agreement allows other member states to establish “permanent structured cooperation” in defence. The UK cannot block this. Also, a Telegraph story last year claimed Cameron was going to drop his opposition to an EU army in return for Angela Merkel supporting his EU renegotiation. 6 - Saving £8bn by leaving the EU Cameron says: “They said we’d save £8bn if we left the EU. Again, not true – almost every credible economic organisation who’s looked at this has said that the economic shock of leaving Europe would cause a black hole in the public finances, and this would wipe out any saving that might be made. This black hole is estimated at between £20bn and £40bn. That is the scale of the damage that leaving would do to our ability to fund the NHS, our schools or our defences. Indeed, in an unprecedented intervention yesterday, the IFS – one of the most respected independent thinktanks in our country – directly took on this falsehood from the leave campaign. They said, and I quote: ‘Leaving Europe would mean spending less on public services, or taxing more, or borrowing more’.” Vote Leave says: The UK’s net contribution to the EU in 2015 was £10.6bn, not £8bn, and Cameron himself said in 2013 that “trading would go on” if the UK left the EU. Vote Leave says David Cameron’s decision to hold a press conference this morning shows remain is panicking. It has put out this statement from the Ukip MP Douglas Carswell. The In campaign is in a blind panic. David Cameron’s renegotiation was a failure - no one believes he got a deal worth the paper it was written on. Now people are rejecting his campaign of fear. The prime minister says we need a proper debate about the facts but he is too chicken to take on anyone from the Vote Leave campaign head to head. David Cameron and George Osborne have both admitted that they have given up our right to veto future EU treaties, that the EU has ignored us in the past over bailouts and they know their guarantees on the renegotiation are about as trustworthy as their mate Nick Clegg’s pledges on tuition fees. On 23 June, the public have a choice: if they trust David Cameron and other EU politicians they should vote “in”. If not, they should vote leave to take back control. The Remain campaign have wheeled out Lord Mandelson, the business secretary Sajid Javid and CBI head Carolyn Fairbairn for the latest pro-business case against Brexit. And it’s fair to say that Project Fear is alive and well. The slogan of the day was “We just don’t know,” explained by Mandelson as the Leave camp’s only answer to how the UK could continue to trade easily and profitably on leaving the EU. A glossy brochure listing Leave’s various models for post-Brexit trade has the slogan on its cover, and a photo of a blindfolded man in a suit about to step off a precipice. It’s not subtle stuff. Research done for Britain Stronger in Europe claims Brexit would cost UK businesses that export to the EU an average of £79,000 a year extra in non-tariff barriers, totalling £34bn or so. This is, of course, a figure that is hard to verify. Mandelson was on scathing form about the Leave campaign, saying he and Javid had written to the group asking to outline what their post-Brexit trade plan actually was. “Michael Gove’s favourite Albanian model?” he asked rhetorically at one point, adding: “No thanks.” Javid, meanwhile, said Leave were “rolling the dice with people’s livelihoods.” A Q&A with reporters brought up little of real interest. Mandelson, asked if he was scaremongering, argued the risks were so high he could actually be more alarmist. Questioned on Jeremy Corbyn’s campaiging he praised him for eschewing the big events and “taking the Labour message around the country.” Here is the key extract from David Cameron’s statement accusing Vote Leave of spreading six “total untruths” And because they don’t have any credible experts on their side, what are [Vote Leave] reduced to? Telling complete untruths to the British people. Now in the space of the past few days, here are six of them: 1 - They said we are liable to bail out eurozone countries. Not true. My renegotiation means we are categorically not liable for eurozone bailouts. It is there in black and white in the legally binding and irreversible negotiation deal. 2 - They said that our rebate, the money that we get back from the EU, is at risk. Again, not true. The British prime minister has a veto on changes to our rebate. Only a British prime minister could decide to give it up. 3 - They said we’ve given up our ability to veto EU treaties. Again, not true. There’s absolutely nothing in the renegotiation that gives up our veto as a full member of the European Union. 4 - They said we had no ability to stop overall EU spending from going up. Again, not true. The budget for the current period, 2014 to 2020, is set in stone and can only be changed with the consent of all countries, including the British prime minister. Again, it’s wrong to claim anything different, and by the way, the spending for this period is lower than in the last period because I negotiated a cut in the EU budget. 5 - They said we were powerless to stop Britain being forced in to an EU army. Again, not true. We have a rock solid veto on EU foreign and defence policy initiatives. Even if it was proposed, we would veto it. Just like William Hague did when he vetoed the idea of a European HQ on defence policy. 6 - They said we’d save £8bn if we left the EU. Again, not true – almost every credible economic organisation who’s looked at this has said that the economic shock of leaving Europe would cause a black hole in the public finances, and this would wipe out any saving that might be made. This black hole is estimated at between £20bn and £40bn. That is the scale of the damage that leaving would do to our ability to fund the NHS, our schools or our defences. Indeed, in an unprecedented intervention yesterday, the IFS – one of the most respected independent think tanks in our country – directly took on this falsehood from the leave campaign. They said, and I quote: “Leaving Europe would mean spending less on public services, or taxing more, or borrowing more”. So there you have it. Credible experts warning about risks to our economic security on the one side, and a series of assertions that turn out to be completely untrue on the other. The leave campaign resorting to total untruths to con people into taking a leap in the dark. It is irresponsible. It is wrong. It is time that the leave campaign was called out on the nonsense that they are peddling. Proper prime ministerial press conferences are as rare as solar eclipses (as I said earlier) and a flurry of excitement went through the Westminster village this morning when a press notice went out summoning journalists to one at very short notice. In the event, it did not live up to expectations. It was not just that the event barely lasted longer than a solar eclipse, and that David Cameron only took one question from a newspaper journalist (meaning that the press conference description hardly applies anyway). It was that reporters were expecting a solid intervention, and instead got little more than a reheat of what Cameron told the Jeremy Vine show yesterday. Cameron’s point was that he wanted to “call out” (dreadful phrase, but it’s the one he used) Vote Leave for telling six “complete untruths” about the EU choice facing voters. (See 11.25am.) His points were all strong ones. But there were at least three drawbacks with what he was up to. First, only six? Anyone who draws up a good list knows that you need at last 10 points and, given Vote Leave’s record as a purveyor of dodgy claims, it would not have taken much work to get into double figures easily. Cameron seemed to be understating his case. Second, he sounded as if he wanted to accuse Boris Johnson and Michael Gove of lying but could not quite bring himself to do so. This is understandable; “lying” (which means saying something knowing it to be untrue, not just saying something in error) is a strong word which gets used to readily about politicians, most of whom are quite careful not to cross the line that separates the wilfully misleading from the outright fib. This explains why Cameron gave the answer he did about how Gove and Johnson were perhaps making false statements about EU budget matters because they did not understand the detail because they had not been involved in the discussions. (See 11.36am.) ... No, I don’t buy it either. Cameron ended up sounding just a tad naive. If he thinks they’re lying, perhaps it would be best to say so. But, of course, he can’t do that either, because at that point the whole “how can you have a liar in your cabinet?” argument comes into play, and the post-referendum reconciliation reshuffle goes down the Swanee. And, third, it it probably too late now for Cameron to win the trust argument. Yesterday polling figures came out confirming that Johnson is far more trusted on EU matters than Cameron. As I wrote yesterday, this is not easy to understand, to put it politely. New YouGov polling out today (pdf) highlights the problem in more detail. Asked about the leave campaign, 22% said it had been mostly honest, and 42% said it had been mostly dishonest, giving it a net honesty score of -20. Asked about the remain campaign, 19% said it has been mostly honest, and 46% said it has been mostly dishonest, giving it a net honesty score of -27. This is in spite of the fact that the leave campaign battlebus highlights a flagship claim about the cost of the EU that has been denounced as plain wrong by every expert body that has looked at it. Politicians sometimes take the view that the voters are always right, but in this case that argument is hard to sustain. Cameron’s problem is that a large chunk of his credibility has been washed away by the angry, popular anti-elitism that is churning through not just Britain but the rest of the western world. If he wants to persuade people that his campaign is more honest than the leave camp, he’s going to have to find someone else to make the case. Someone of impeccable integrity. Perhaps the archbishop of Canterbury is free one morning over the next fortnight? Still, Cameron did leave journalists with the impression that the remain camp is in a bit a panic. With remain needing to mobilise its supporters (because leave’s are already more motivated), there is an advantage in getting that message out. Q: [From Sky’s Faisal Islam] If your colleagues are lying, how can they be fit to be in your cabinet? Cameron says they are making points about EU policy. They have not been as involved in EU policy as he has been. He knows the reality, because he has been taking these decisions. He says at times the EU drives him crazy. He says it is not for him to say why his opponents are making these errors. Cameron declines to say that his opponents are deliberately lying. Cameron backs away from saying Vote Leave campaigners telling “untruths” will be sacked from cabinet. And that’s it. The press conference is over. Q: You are accusing your colleagues of lying to the public. Are you worried you are losing? Cameron says people are being told things that are not correct. He has called a press conference to correct that. We must make a decision based on facts, he says. He says he would not want people to go to the polling station without knowing the facts. Q: The momentum seems to be with leave. Cameron says he is looking forward to his ITV appearance tonight. He was watching the news last night and was struck by the contrast between the weight of expert opinion, and the series of assertion from the leave campaign “that simply aren’t right”. He says he felt it was important to say to people they should not leave the EU on the basis of false information. He says he wanted to call out the leave campaign. They are making assertions that are not correct. If it was just one body warning about the impact of the economy, people might say, ‘Let’s take a risk.’ But there are so many bodies warning of the risks that they cannot be ignored. Cameron says, from those who want us to lead, we have just heard “complacency and nonchalance”. He says they have said we have had enough of experts. (He is referring to what Michael Gove said yesterday.) Would you build a bridge without advice from an expert? He says leave campaigners have told six “complete untruths” recently. First, they said the UK would be liable for future eurozone bailouts. Not true, he says. Second, they said the UK rebate was at risk. Not true, he says. Third, they said the UK would lose its ability to veto future EU treaties. Not true, he says. Fourth, they said the UK could not stop the EU budget going up. Not true, he says. Fifth, they said the UK could not veto an EU army. Not true, he says. And, sixth, they said leaving the EU would free up £8bn for spending on other things. Not true, he says. He says the IFS said that yesterday. He says the leave campaign need to be called out on the “nonsense they are peddling”. David Cameron is starting with a statement. He mentions the intervention from the Hitachi boss. (See 8.42am.) He quotes from Hiroaki Nakanishi’s article and he says jobs would be at risk. And he quotes from what the head of the WTO said in a Reuters inteview yesterday about how leaving the EU would be a “high risk bet”. Cameron says these interventions are “an economic reality check”. David Cameron is keeping the journalists waiting in the sunshine – which is not a good idea. The pound has gone up this morning on the back for polls showing the remain campaign ahead, the Press Association reports. Sterling has surged against the dollar and the euro after fresh polls put the remain camp in the lead ahead of the EU referendum. The value of the pound rose more than 1% against the dollar at 1.46, and it was up 0.9% against the euro at 1.283. The swing away from the three-week low against the dollar seen on Monday came after support for staying in the EU was given a one-point lead in an online YouGov survey for the Times, and a telephone poll by ORB for the Daily Telegraph. However, some analysts have questioned whether the currency movement could have been partly caused by a “fat finger trade” – an order to buy or sell which is larger than intended. Senior market analyst Craig Erlam, at OandA, said: “The two polls overnight have lent support to the pound early in today’s session, although the spike from around 1.4480 to 1.4640 shortly after 5am in the UK has been attributed to a fat finger trade.” A fat finger trade is a mistake, someone hitting the wrong keyboard (or a typo as we call it in my line of work.) Leave campaigners have sent some chickens to picket the Cameron event. That’s a reference to David Cameron not debating directly with Nigel Farage tonight, I presume. David Cameron’s press conference is due to start shortly. Dominic Raab, the justice minister and Brexit campaigner, was on the Today programme talking about Vote Leave’s claim that EU rules are preventing the deportation of foreign criminals. When it was put to him that leaving the EU would mean that the UK could no longer use the European arrest warrant to extradite people (Lord Mandelson’s point - see 9.17am,), he said that David Anderson, the government’s independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, has said he would expect extradition arrangements to continue in the event of Brexit. Anderson has taken to Twitter this morning asking Vote Leave not to quote him selectively. He thinks the UK will be safer remaining in the EU, he says. The Vote Leave briefing explains in detail why EU law makes it hard for the UK to deport EU criminals after they have finished their jail sentences. It says: The home secretary has the power to deport foreign nationals from the UK if she considers that it would ‘be conducive to the public good’ (Immigration Act 1971, s. 3(5)(a). In addition, UK law provides that a person who is (a) convicted of a serious crime and sentenced to imprisonment or (b) is sentenced to more than twelve months’ imprisonment, is subject to automatic deportation (UK Borders Act 2007, s. 32). However, this has no application where deportation ‘would breach rights of the foreign criminal under the EU treaties’ (UK Borders Act 2007, s. 33(4)). This means that those with a right of residence in the UK under EU law are subject to a much weaker system. As Mr Justice McCloskey has said, EU foreign national offenders fall under ‘an entirely different régime from that which applies to other immigrants’ (Homb v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2014] UKAITUR IA202952012). EU law ‘purposefully make[s] it difficult to remove a person from the jurisdiction’, even if they are a criminal (Secretary of State for the Home Department v Juocys [2013] UKAITUR DA005632013). The Vote Leave briefing also says the 2004 free movement directive says a criminal conviction alone does not constitute grounds for deporting someone. It also says that EU citizens who have lived in the UK for more than five years may only be removed on “serious grounds of public policy and public security” and that EU citizens who have been here for 10 years can only be removed “on imperative grounds of public security”. Raab told the Today programme that, because of these rules, the government was able to remove eight times as many non-EU nationals as EU nationals. At the Labour poster launch earlier Jeremy Corbyn made a last-minute plea to young people to register to vote. The deadline is tonight. He said: Today is the last day to register to vote in the referendum and I urge anyone who is listening or watching us today to just remember they have a chance to register today - they can do it online, it means they will be able to vote and take part. Many young people are still not registered. I hope they will take the advantage of using a smartphone or a computer and getting their names on the register to be able to take part in what will be a very important decision. David Cameron is holding a Britain Stronger in Europe press conference this morning. We don’t know yet what he plans to say, but from what his aides are hinting, it sounds as if he is not just inviting journalists in for a pleasant chat. (Proper prime ministerial press conferences in London are about as rare now as solar eclipses. Cameron always holds one at the end of every EU summit in Brussels, and he holds press conferences when some foreign leaders visit, which are often limited to two questions for the British press. After speeches he will normally take two or three questions from journalists. But a proper press conference is different, because it allows for sustained questioning.) Carolyn Fairbairn, the CBI director general, has been delivering a speech on the EU this morning. She said that the business consensus was in favour of remaining in the single market and that that was because of the single market. The business consensus is for the UK to remain inside the EU. Ask me to give you the top reason by a country mile and I’d give you two words - single market. 500 million citizens, 28 member states, one set of rules. The largest free trade zone in the world with access to 53 other trade deals around the world. As a country, we created the single market, we’re shaping it. And – if we remain – we will help decide where it goes next. She also said the expansion of the EU digital single market offered huge opportunities to British firms. When it comes to e-commerce, the UK is the best in the world. There aren’t many countries where you can order groceries online today, and have them on your doorstep tomorrow. And European e-commerce is growing fast. We might call a country growing at 6-7% a year ‘high growth’. Well, European e-commerce is growing by three times that, at 18% a year. Yet despite all our expertise and all this opportunity – today just one in 14 UK retailers sells online elsewhere in the EU. Setting a single set of rules – and creating a truly digital single market – would be a massive coup for thousands of British businesses. From big retailers to entrepreneurs selling out of their spare rooms, 450m new customers would be just a click away. And it is within reach if we remain in the EU. What UK Thinks, the specialist polling website, has updated its poll of polls on the EU referendum. Here is the Financial Times’s Brexit poll tracker (which compiles a poll of polls in a slightly different way, and does not seem to have been updated since Sunday.) And here’s the Bloomberg Brexit tracker. Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader, has been launching a new EU referendum poster this morning. These are from the BBC’s Norman Smith. At one point Tom Watson, the deputy Labour leader, burst into song. Channel 4 News’ Michael Crick thinks Watson’s choice was not particularly appropriate. UPDATE: I’m told by a Labour source that Crick missed the point. Watson was intentionally poking fun at Mick Hucknall. In case you missed it, this is what Hucknall said about Jeremy Corbyn yesterday. Lord Mandelson, the Labour former business secretary, was interviewed on Sky News this morning, ahead of a pro-EU event he’s attending later with Sajid Javid, the current business secretary. Here are the main points he made. Mandelson said leaving the EU would “torpedo” the British economy. In my view if we left the European Union we would be outside Europe’s 500 million consumer, single market, and that would torpedo our economy, our well-being and prosperity in our country. He urged people sceptical about politicians to listen to people like the head of Hitachi. (See 8.42am.) I think that people’s trust in all politicians in all parties has gone down over the years. But what I would say to them is this, don’t take it from me, don’t rely on my word, look at the Daily Mirror, page 10, today. The chairman of Hitachi, a very, very major Japanese investor, invested in Britain’s rail and energy sectors, he and other Japanese investors have created 140,000 direct jobs in this country, coming to Britain so that they can then access Europe’s single market. And what he’s writing in the Daily Mirror today is this: “Take away the UK’s membership of the European Union and the future investment case in Britain looks very different for us. We worry that Brexiteers, those who want to leave the European Union, have no answer to how the UK could negotiate cost-free access to this huge market from a position outside it.” He said Vote Leave’s claims about the EU making it harder for foreign criminals to be deported ignored the security advantages of EU membership. Referring to the fact that Dominic Raab, the justice minister and Vote Leave campaigner was due on the programme later to talk about this, Mandelson said: Ask him this: he rightly talks about 50 who have not yet been - foreign European criminals - who have not yet been deported. Ask him about the 6,500 European criminals that have been successfully deported from this country through our use of the European arrest warrant. That’s since 2010. They take a germ of truth, they then generalise from it and in the process they distort the real picture. The big picture is that we need the European arrest warrant to deal with these criminals and being members of the European Union allows us to use that warrant to very good effect. I’ve taken the quotes from PoliticsHome. Nigel Farage, the Ukip leader, has been talking to the Daily Telegraph about his preparation for tonight’s TV (not quite) head-to-head with David Cameron. (They are on the same programme, but being interviewed separately, not debating each other directly.) You can tell Farage is taking it seriously because he says he has given up drink for a week. He told the Telegraph: It will be a big pitch against the establishment and I shall be saying to people ‘if ever there was a vote in your life that could make a difference, this is it’. The big issue is to say to people ‘don’t listen to a political class backed up with their mates and their multi-national businesses and big banks for whom the EU and corporatism has been enriching. Your lives have been made miserable by this’. The only people leaving the EU would make poorer are the ruling classes. Families like the Camerons might be worse off outside the EU ... For years I have been clear, consistent and I believe absolutely truthful about the damage that [Cameron’] political project has done to this country at a democratic and economic level. I want the audience to see that and to ask themselves the question in their minds about a prime minister who promises to reduce net migration to tens of thousands becomes prime minister on the back of it and doesn’t have the ability to deliver it. According to the Telegraph, Farage wants to highlight the government’s failure to address the risk of Turkish accession to the EU, poor border security, illegal immigration and protecting Britain’s fishing stocks from foreign trawlers. Hello. I’m Andrew Sparrow, taking over from Claire. Britiain Stronger in Europe is very pleased about an article that Hiroaki Nakanishi, chairman of Hitachi, has written an article for the Daily Mirror opposing Brexit. Hitachi employs 3,600 people in the UK and Nakanishi says that if Britain were to leave the EU, companies like his would rethink their investment decisions. Here’s an excerpt. We have our regional headquarters here and moved our global rail headquarters to London. But take away the UK’s membership of the EU, and the future investment case looks very different. In the 80s Nissan and Toyota came to the UK on the basis that if they produced here and employed a British workforce they would be treated as European companies. This was only possible because Britain was inside the EU; and so the UK car industry was revived and became an exporter again. From Japan, this incredible success story looks like a huge gain from the UK’s membership of the EU. We worry because those advocating Brexit have no answer to how the UK could negotiate cost-free access to this huge market from a position outside it. It would take a long time and result in uncertain market conditions; during this renegotiation period, investors would probably be waiting to see the outcomes, hold back on investment, and jobs would be lost. This is the cold economic reality of Brexit. This is not just a Japanese view. Many international investors in UK manufacturing and research, like Airbus, Siemens, GE and Microsoft have voiced the same concerns ... Brexit would force us and similar companies to rethink, because we still have a European vision, and would be disadvantaged in pursuing it from the UK. It’s time for me to hand the live blog over to Andrew Sparrow, who’ll be here for the rest of the day. Thanks for reading and for your comments here and on Twitter. A non-EU aside, but an important one: this morning Sports Direct boss Mike Ashley will be quizzed by MPs on the business, innovation and skills committee. It follows revelations in the that the firm effectively paid staff below the minimum wage and subjected them to daily searches. The business live blog will have coverage of Ashley’s appearance right here: News from Australia, where the federal election is under way, could equally serve as a warning for politicians – or rather, those coming into contact with politicians – on campaign trails everywhere. Wash your hands! Former European commissioner Peter Mandelson has more to say today on what he and business secretary Sajid Javid claim could be a £34.4bn “export tax” for British firms to trade with the EU in the event of a Brexit. Mandelson has said that leave campaigners want to weaken Cameron ahead of the referendum, according to this report from AFP: Mandelson said it was in the interests of Brexit backers “to make David Cameron look as isolated as possible – isolated within his own party and also isolated from others in the political mainstream and spectrum”. “That’s why you’re seeing the agitation, the daily headlines delivered courtesy of the pro-Brexit press on behalf of the ‘Leave’ campaign,” he added. “That’s how they want him to be seen because they think in that way they will reduce support for him.” Mandelson wants the country to remain part of the EU. “People correctly perceive the risks but they do not yet fully understand why the danger of leaving the EU and its single market is so great for the economy,” he added. “That’s our job to explain.” How would Brexit affect you? Here’s a whizz through the things – workers’ rights, consumer protections, environmental regulations – that could be affected if Britain votes to leave. Midnight tonight is the cut-off for those who still need to register to vote: find out how to do that here. The Electoral Commission, according to the Today programme, says 226,000 people signed up yesterday (it’s possible, mind you, that at least some of those were already registered, but belt and braces and all that). For those who need further encouragement there’s a Twitter emoji for those declaring they are #EURefReady – it’s a neon tick, which I can’t guarantee will show up on your screen in the tweet below… Good morning and welcome to our daily EU referendum coverage. I’m kicking things off with the morning briefing to set you up for the day ahead and steering the live blog until Andrew Sparrow takes his seat. Do come and chat in the comments below or find me on Twitter @Claire_Phipps. The big picture Nigel Farage – that longtime espouser of Brexit – has so far been rather shouldered aside in the campaign by official Vote Leave frontmen Boris Johnson and Michael Gove. Today he’s back in the spotlight. The Ukip leader (much to the chagrin of Vote Leave, who called it an “outrage”) will appear on ITV1 this evening for a Q&A with a live studio audience. David Cameron will do the same but, as has become the norm in this campaign, will not face Farage directly. Instead the two men will have 30 minutes of questions from audience members, moderated by ITV newsreader Julie Etchingham. The BBC reports that an internal analysis commissioned by Leave.EU advised that Farage should be used only “sparingly” as a campaign spokesman because of the risk he could alienate voters with “a divisive or reactionary tone on issues like immigration”. Farage is already under pressure, with a call for him to apologise this evening for comments suggesting mass sex attacks, such as those that took place in Cologne, could happen in the UK if it remains in the EU. He has already faced criticism from both sides of the campaign, but a letter in Tuesday’s from Conservative peer Sayeeda Warsi, Labour peer and anti-racism campaigner Doreen Lawrence, and former director of Liberty Shami Chakrabarti says his remarks are “an age-old racist tool”: In Tuesday evening’s debate, Nigel Farage should apologise for the fear and offence caused, retract his comments and promise to conduct future debates with the seriousness and gravity that they and the British public deserve. Cameron will face his own pressures, too, with Vote Leave continuing to argue that EU rules have prevented the UK from deporting foreign criminals. The outers have compiled a list of 50 offenders they say cannot be forced to leave, including Learco Chindamo, an Italian national who murdered headteacher Philip Lawrence in 1995. Chindamo – who was 15 when he stabbed Lawrence – could not be deported because he had lived in the UK since he was six years old. Meanwhile, Janet Yellen, the head of the US Federal Reserve, has warned that the possibility of Brexit ranks alongside instability in the Chinese economy and sluggish global growth as a major threat to the American economy. In a speech on Monday Yellen said: “One development that could shift investor sentiment is the upcoming referendum in the United Kingdom. A UK vote to exit the European Union could have significant economic repercussions. You should also know: Nicky Morgan has attacked a ‘misleading, underhand’ Vote Leave website. The advertised link, which appears above the official government site in a Google search, asks individuals to fill in personal information and click “register to vote”. However, this doesn’t sign people up to vote, but instead provides their details to the out campaign. Bankers, traders and analysts are preparing to spend the night in the office on 23 June to respond to exit polls that could spark swings in foreign exchange and bond markets. Tony Blair’s camp is readying its defence to the Chilcot report, due on 6 July. You have until midnight tonight to register to vote in the referendum. (I mean, not you, organised Politics Live readers.) Poll position A fresh Telegraph/ORB poll – written up for the paper by one Lynton Crosby – puts the gap between remain and leave at just one point, with in on 48% and out on 47%. Interesting (though perhaps predictable) discrepancies occur when those polled were asked which result would secure a stronger economy (45% remain v 37% leave) and which would improve the UK’s immigration system (54% leave v 21% remain). A YouGov poll in the Times today sees the remain campaign one point ahead on 43%, recovering from a four-point deficit in a similar poll last week. It also found that 46% of those polled thought the remain campaign was dishonest, and 42% believed the same was true for leave. Diary At 9am Jeremy Corbyn unveils a poster on workers’ rights. At 10am Sajid Javid and Peter Mandelson will warn that British firms could face a £34.4bn ‘export tax’ to trade with the EU post-Brexit. At 11.30 Lib Dem leaders past and present Tim Farron, Nick Clegg, Menzies Campbell and Paddy Ashdown do a Q&A on the referendum. At noon, Ukip reveals its new EU referendum poster. At 6pm, Gordon Brown is at LSE for the launch of a report by the LSE commission on the future of Britain in Europe. And at 9pm, the main event: Nigel Farage v David Cameron on ITV1. Read these Steven Rosenberg, the BBC Moscow correspondent, wonders whether Russian president Vladimir Putin would be pro-Brexit: Russia is, indeed, ‘not involved’: after all, it’s not Russian voters who will decide whether the UK is in or out of the EU. But ‘no interests in this field’? That is debatable. ‘If there’s a Brexit, if there’s a crisis in the European Union, this will be a local propaganda victory,’ claims Prof Sergei Medvedev from Moscow’s higher school of economics. He believes the Kremlin’s calculation is a simple one: Brexit = a weaker EU = a stronger Russia. Over at the Huffington Post, Natalie Bennett, leader of the Greens, explains why she shared a platform with the prime minister yesterday – and why she thinks the media has the wrong story: The questions from the assembled media were all directed at David Cameron. And they were predictably, boringly, unfruitfully, on script. Two were about internal conflicts within the Tory party. One was about how fervently the Labour party is promoting the ‘remain’ message. The prime minister blocked them with greatly practised ease. That prompted me to go off script. As David Cameron wrapped up proceedings, I stepped forward with a message very explicitly directed at the media. I said that they were short-changing voters, short-changing democracy, by treating the referendum as being about internal party struggles … The media has a choice. They can choose to cover this vital decision about the future of our nation, and the whole of Europe, as a Tory leadership contest. Or they can cover it properly, in a way that allows the voters of Britain to make this vital choice with solid information from a wide range of sources, critically examined. Aditya Chakrabortty, right here in the , asks why any of us would trust politicians on the EU – or anything else: British democracy in 2016 comes down to this: a prime minister can no longer come out and say something and expect to be believed. He or she must wheel out a common room-full of experts. He or she can expect to be called a liar in the press and by their colleagues. He or she can only hope that some of what they say resonates with an electorate that has tuned them out. And mainstream politicians have only themselves to blame. Over the past three decades, Britons have been made a series of false promises. They have been told they must go to war with a country that can bomb them in 45 minutes – only to learn later that that was false. They have been assured the economy was booming, only to find out it was fuelled by house prices and tax credits. Baffling claim of the day Nigel Farage has told the Telegraph that he has not had an alcoholic drink for a week in preparation for tonight’s debate: It is a big moment for the campaign – I am not taking it lightly; I am thinking very hard about it. So all those other debates/elections/events/engagements were … not so big? Celebrity endorsement of the day We are spoilt for choice today. Keith Chegwin is for Brexit, according to an interview with bingo website mFortune Bingo (yes, that is a thing and you can watch the interview in full here. I have to confess I haven’t watched it because it appears to be two hours long. But feel free to report back). Chegwin told the site: I think it’s always better to shut the door, then open it again and agree better terms. Chegwin is joined in the leave corner by Richard Fairbrass, aka half of Right Said Fred: While over in the remain corner is comedian and Matilda songsmith Tim Minchin: As well as The Thick of It and Veep creator Armando Iannucci: The day in a tweet Rob Wainwright, the director of Europol, the EU’s law enforcement agency, doesn’t think much of today’s Telegraph front page: “European criminals free to live in Britain”. If today were a classic novel ... It would be Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment – the twin themes for the campaigns today. Also, it’s long. Very long. Keep up, readers. And another thing Would you like to wake up to this briefing in your inbox every weekday? Sign up here!
How the ECB is trying to revive the eurozone What has the European Central Bank done? Mario Draghi, the ECB president, has announced four key measures: A cut in the main interest rate used across the eurozone from 0.05% to zero. A cut in the deposit rate from -0.3% to -0.4%. Increasing the amount of bonds the ECB is buying, under a process called quantitative easing, by €20bn to €80bn. Crucially, this will now include bonds issued by companies and not just by governments. New ultra-cheap four-year loans to banks, allowing them to borrow from the ECB at negative interest rates. Why is this a significant move? The ECB wants to get money into the financial system by discouraging banks from holding on to deposits and instead lend out money as cheaply as possible to businesses and households. The 19 countries in the eurozone have had a negative interest rate for deposits since June 2014. But this is the first time the ECB has set the rate at which it lends to banks to zero. Since June 2014, the ECB has been trying to discourage banks from holding on to savings by cutting the deposit rate to -0.1%. Since then it has cut it to -0.2%, then to -0.3% last December and the rate has now been cut to -o.4%. By increasing the amount of quantitative easing and the type of bonds it is prepared to buy up, the ECB is also signalling it wants to get more money pumped around the eurozone financial system. Why is this happening? The ECB is keen to stimulate the eurozone, against the backdrop of an imperilled global economy. Data in February showed Greece fell back into recession and Italy slowed to near stagnation. Germany, the eurozone’s largest economy, grew by just 0.3%. On top of weak growth, inflation is negative – which can discourage businesses and consumers from spending. Headline inflation dropped to -0.2% in February, down from 0.3% in January. Today, Draghi has said he expects growth of just 1.4% across the eurozone this year, down from 1.7% three months ago. Do other countries have negative rates? Sweden’s central bank became the first to lend at a negative rate when in February 2015 it announced a negative repo rate – its main lending rate to commercial banks. Other countries that have negative rates for deposits include Japan, Switzerland and Denmark. Will it work? Ultra-low interest rates create difficulties for commercial banks because it makes it harder for financial institutions to lend profitably. The ECB, though, is trying to mitigate the impact by allowing the rate at which banks borrow over the long term to drop into negative territory, too. Analysts at the consultancy Capital Economics said: “There is no guarantee that its latest ‘bazooka’ will be any more effective than previous ones in securing the strong and sustained growth required to eliminate the threat of deflation in the currency union and allow the peripheral countries to tackle their debt problems. The ECB has belatedly delivered, but it can’t work miracles.” And Michael Martins, an economist at the business lobby group the Institute of Directors, said the move could prove counterproductive. “Monetary policy is not enough to wake Europe from its slumber. The ECB has felt compelled to act because of the stubborn deflation stalking the continent, but without individual governments stepping up to the plate and implementing more structural reforms, the impact of a further loosening in monetary policy will be limited.”
No evidence of weekend effect in psychiatric hospitals – study Mental health patients admitted to hospital on a Saturday or Sunday are no more likely to die than those who arrive on a weekday, according to a study of how more than 45,000 patients fared in British hospitals. The findings challenge Jeremy Hunt’s claim that patients admitted at the weekend are at greater risk of dying because too few doctors are on duty. The health secretary has said as many as 11,000 patients die avoidably every year as a result of the “weekend effect”. On Monday a judicial review hearing at the high court will consider whether Hunt has the legal power to impose a new contract on all trainee medics in England. The case has been brought by five junior doctors who call themselves Justice For Health, supported by £300,000 in crowdfunding. The two-day hearing will hear claims that Hunt has misrepresented complex evidence on hospital death rates in order to justify the push for a “truly seven-day NHS” and the new contract. The study of 45,264 people admitted for inpatient care for serious mental health problems by the South London and Maudsley (SlaM) NHS trust between 2006 and 2015 found that most patients, 17.4%, died on Wednesdays and fewest, 10.7%, died on Saturdays. Their study, published in the British Journal of Psychiatry, states: “Our findings suggest that patients admitted to a psychiatric hospital at the weekend are not at greater risk of inpatient mortality compared with patients admitted during the working week.” Dr Rashmi Patel, the SlaM psychiatrist and academic at King’s College London who led the research, said: “One of the problems with the way the ‘weekend effect’ has been portrayed is that the secretary of state has selectively chosen to present a few studies which suggest differences in mortality associated with weekend admission and he has ignored others - like our own study - which have shown no significant difference.” Hunt has repeatedly asserted that patients’ greater risk of dying within 30 days of admission at a weekend shows that more doctors must be on duty on Saturdays and Sundays. The Conservatives have made delivering much-expanded NHS care at the weekend by 2020 a key pledge. Patel said: “Our study does not support the need to have more doctors on duty at the weekends in psychiatric hospitals. In fact, if this means having to reduce the provision of doctors during the week to provide more doctors at the weekend, this could harm patient care.” He and his colleagues’ work is the first study to investigate the weekend effect in psychiatric care. Previous research has concentrated on patients with physical health conditions admitted to hospital, usually after first visiting A&E. Hunt has relied on eight studies which he insists prove the existence of a weekend effect, but critics including the scientists Stephen Hawking and Robert Winston and several senior doctors last week cast doubt on those papers. They called on Theresa May to hold an independent inquiry into the evidence on the subject. MPs and other senior doctors have also voiced concern about Hunt’s allegedly selective use of evidence. Patel’s team found that there were fewer incidents of violence involving psychiatric inpatients at weekends, and SlaM staff were less likely to resort to putting a patient in seclusion. Both those findings also suggest that having fewer doctors on duty in hospital at the weekend makes no difference to the likelihood of adverse events occurring. Dr Dan Poulter, the Conservative MP who was a health minister until last year’s general election, and is now training to be an NHS psychiatrist, said: “This comprehensive study indicates that there is no discernible weekend effect in mental health hospitals, with adverse patient events actually lower at weekends than on some weekdays. Rather than political spin and soundbites, it is essential that plans for a seven-day NHS are based upon sound evidence of what is required, and that they are properly resourced and funded.” A Department of Health spokeswoman declined to respond directly to the new findings. “As this paper itself acknowledges, studies of hospitals which provide acute medical, surgical and obstetric care at the weekend suggest an increased risk of mortality,” she said. “This is backed up by at least eight studies over the past six years, so this government makes no apology for tackling the issue as we build a safer seven-day NHS. “We are also investing in better psychiatric care by putting £400m into crisis resolution and home treatment teams, meaning people don’t have to be admitted as inpatients in the first place.” • This article was amended on 19 September 2016 to remove a personal detail.
The best pop and rock gigs of Christmas 2016 – from Madness to Fatboy Slim Fatboy Slim The O2, London Ageing ravers will be out in force as one of the biggest stars of the 90s returns to the stage for a pre-Christmas arena show, although Es are likely to be less prevalent than 20 years ago, given the need to be in a sensible state to return to the babysitter. Expect a spectacular that will make you want to dance your feet off so energetically that you will be doubly grateful to get a seat on public transport on the way home. 17 December, fatboyslim.net Madness Bournemouth International Centre, then touring Yes, they are promoting a new album, so there will be a chunk of that in the set, but for a Christmas party set to music there’s no surer bet than Madness. Their unimpeachable back catalogue means that, once the new songs are out of the way, you’ll get singalong after singalong in an atmosphere of pretty much unconstrained joy. There’s a reason Madness remain one of the most loved groups British pop has produced – it’s the timeless perfection of that run of 80s singles they see no shame in revisiting. 1 December, then touring until 17 December, madness.co.uk The Human League Royal Festival Hall, London, then touring Celebrate one of the greatest of all Christmas No 1s, Don’t You Want Me, when the League bring their synthesisers to town. These days, they’re definitely regarded as an important group – features in Mojo, career-spanning reissues – but you’re more likely to want to see them live because they have one of the great British pop songbooks. Chances are, scores of couples will turn to each other and sing along: “I was working as a waitress in a cocktail bar, that much is true …” 13 December, then touring until 16 December, thehumanleague.co.uk Kurupt FM present Champagne Steam Rooms Brixton Academy, London The stars of BBC’s People Just Do Nothing – the comedy mockumentary about the hapless “stars” of a pirate radio station in the west London suburbs – also put on their own shows, playing grime and garage to the very people they affectionately send up. There will be an array of guest stars, among them many of the big names of UK underground dance music. Hopefully there will be the chance to hear MC Grindah intone: “Bang! Lyrical blow to the jaw”. And maybe, by now, the Kurupt crew will have written a second half to their signature tune. 17 December, academymusicgroup.com Korn and Limp Bizkit Manchester Arena, then touring Nu metal may have been the most derided of musical forms, but it never lost its audience – hence the fact that this tour is playing to arenas rather than theatres. And now, perhaps, the critical pendulum is swinging slowly in its favour. Metal has never been afraid to party, and this tour by two of the titans of nu metal is likely to generate plenty of festive spirit, even if the songs are notably short on elves, reindeer, goodwill to all men or the wish for peace on earth. 12 December, then touring until 19 December, korn.com • This article was amended on 5 January 2016. An earlier version said it was the silver jubilee of The Human League’s Christmas No 1, Don’t You Want Me. The song was No 1 35 years ago.
Sheridan Smith pulls out of Funny Girl for up to a month because of stress Sheridan Smith is to miss up to a month of performances as Fanny Brice in her West End show Funny Girl due to stress and exhaustion. Concerns were raised after Smith missed three consecutive shows after the Baftas on Sunday night, with the Savoy theatre announcing that she was “indisposed”. But in a statement on Thursday, the producers of the show said Smith would be taking a two- to four-week leave of absence during this “difficult time”, and would be replaced by her understudy, Natasha Barnes. “The entire team at Funny Girl is thinking of Sheridan, and know she is getting the rest and support she needs during this very difficult and stressful time. We will all miss her enormously and send her our love and best wishes.” They assured ticketholders that Smith’s departure was temporary, adding that “we are looking forward to her return to the show in due course”. The announcement follows suggestions that Smith is struggling to deal with the emergence of news that her father, to whom she is very close, was diagnosed with cancer in March. It is the same disease which killed her brother a decade ago. She had previously accused producers of pressuring her into returning to Funny Girl before she was ready. Shortly afterwards, a production was stopped just 15 minutes into the play. The stoppage was attributed to technical difficulties, though there were reports that audience members claimed Smith was drunk and slurring her words on stage. This has been denied as “categorically untrue” by her publicist. The incident was the subject of a quip by Graham Norton at the Baftas on Sunday, who said: “We’re all excited for a couple of drinks tonight. Or, as it’s known in theatrical circles, a few glasses of ‘technical difficulties’.” Following the Baftas, Smith had also responded angrily to suggestions in the press that she had been a sore loser after missing out on the award for best actress for her role in The C Word. She said on Twitter that she was “not strong enough” to perform in Funny Girl on Monday, adding: “Well done press! U let down me, the cast & everyone who spent money to see me. I apologise profusely! Sorry!” Those with tickets for Funny Girl over the next month will be left disappointed by the announcement, as Smith’s critically acclaimed performance was the main draw for many. However, Barnes has garnered glowing reviews from audiences over the past three days, with praise that she had “blown everyone away”, and she received a standing ovation after the Wednesday matinee. Funny Girl became the fastest-selling show at the Menier Chocolate Factory in London before transferring to the West End this year.
Billboard music awards 2016: Madonna performs Prince tribute – as it happened Madonna starts with an intro of Let’s Go Crazy before she segues into Nothing Compares 2 U while sat on a purple throne (of course). She’s doing well, and the words HOPE and BROTHER splash up on the big screen and a full orchestra play in the background. Pictures of Prince now roll through in a slide show. Now Stevie Wonder is here to perform a duet of Purple Rain, Rihanna does a dap in the front row as they rock back and forth. It feels like the Billboard Awards just went to church. Madonna ends by thanking Prince. And … that’s a wrap. There were some questionable moments but the live performances from Celine Dion, Ariana Grande, Britney Spears, Justin Bieber and Madonna all delivered. Perhaps understandably, it was the lower order – dare I say, filler – performances which really fell flat. Questlove from the Roots is paying tribute to Prince before Madonna comes on. This is really moving and his voice is cracking: “Everytime we hear a really good guitar solo, we’re going to remember,” he says. Prince is in everything, he argues. She’s done it again. It’s surprising they didn’t go for The Weeknd considering he actually turned up. Cue pink smoke, a talkbox vocal effect and Ariana Grande not playing a synth. She moves away from the props and gets lined up for a dance routine. It’s a pretty staggering difference in sound compared to our opener Britney, who not so long ago was occupying a similar place to Grande. This is fairly sophisticated dance-pop with a subtle dance routine with Grande’s vocals placed front and centre. Best performance of the night so far, I reckon. Rihanna picks up this seemingly meaningless award, which has been doled out so that she doesn’t go home empty handed. The Go-Gos are getting the Trainor treatment here as Grande steals their thunder. Kelly Rowland knows all the words as they sing The Beat. The Australian starlet is doing his thing as part of a section sponsored by a car company. Here’s a profile of the South African born star: She doing The Show Must Go on and the Bieber crowd don’t know what the hell is happening. Seal says it was “exquisite” and that there’s a surprise … Dion’s son is going to give her the award. Great for her, a bit boring for the rest of us. It’s all a bit too much for Dion, who looks genuinely overwhelmed. Her husband and manager René Angélil died in January and she specially thanks him in an emotional acceptance speech which gets a standing ovation. He’s here to give the icon award to Celine Dion, which is less exciting than him actually performing. The voiceover for the montage section is like one of those senior cruise adverts. END THIS Hang on, Seal is here … She’s in a glass box, with cobwebs all over it. The whole stage is stripped back. There are no backing dancers or daft screens with emeralds on it, or a clock that she swings off, she’s just, you know, singing a song very well. The performance easily gets one of the biggest reactions of the night from the crowd. Ok, Rihanna is here. Let’s see if she can save things. Zendaya and Wiz Khalifa come out to give The Weeknd his second gong of the night, which isn’t surprising considering he had three of the five songs in the category! After a week of will she won’t she, Kesha is here. Performing It Aint Me, Babe with Ben Folds. It’s a pretty unlikely combo and they’ve created an Adele-esque rendition, turning the track into a very sultry number. It’s captivating stuff and the arena is respectfully silent as Kesha slowly ratchets up the volume. Very nice indeed. The video is pretty staid, multiple shots of Adele singing and dismissively waving her hands as she sings Send My Love (To Your New Lover). Not really memorable in the age of Lemonade or even Hotline Bling. Kate Beckinsale arrives to give the award. Adele’s video for Send My Love (To Your New Lover) is about to be beamed in and she accepts the award with a short video message which is chirpy and longer than all the other acceptance speeches combined With a name like that it’s hard to know if this is ironic or not … This is easily the worst section of the show so far. Maroon 5 impersonators DNCE are here to bore everyone with their balloon-laden performance. It was written by Joe Jonas and Nick Jonas is singing along gamely in the front row #loyal. The real life couple sing Go Ahead and Break My Heart, and it’s hideously schmaltzy. I can’t believe I’m missing Game of Thrones for this. … which is this generation’s Hmm Hmm Hmm by the Crash Test Dummies Nick Jonas and Demi Lovato have a massive tour starting at the end of June, according to Ludacris. Who also knows the details of their new singles. Jonas is performing first and is doing the whole thing through gritted teeth. Then Tove Lo shows up and sings at Jonas through some glass. It’s a bit steamy and actually quite interesting and they end the whole thing with a snog, or do they … the lights go down just at the right time. Lovato is here to belt out Cool For The Summer. There’s not much of a performance. she walks around the stage interacting with her backing singers who look like they just want to get through the song. Going to need some context Scott and foostus … Jessica Alba is here to tell us that Bieber has done it. He’s not really a talker, he says. Before delivering the shortest acceptance speech of the evening and walking off. He’s probably still tired to be fair. Pink is here, looking like Annie Lennox as she flies across the stadium. This is completely ridiculous. That was like a WWE entrance. Now she’s being carried around by a small army of helpers, I’ll call them helpers, but they don’t look like they want to be there. This is the song from Alice Through The Looking Glass. Bieber isn’t into this at all, he looks like Pink just stole his hoverboard. She flies around AGAIN, this time on a clock. It’s like a steampunk fantasy. Brilliantly bonkers. Remember when I asked who was going to stir things up? Well, DJ Khaled just did the most overblown introduction for a performance ever. In his immutable style he left the floor open for Bieber who was performing new track company in almost pitch darkness. He emerges out of the darkness as the chorus kicks in, I believe people will call that his Tropical House track. Then he segues into Sorry. People are losing their minds in the fan section, and even the celebrities are singing along and genuinely look like they are loving this. The stage has gone a bit Wizard of Oz with emeralds everywhere as Bieber does the bogle. Miss America and some guy off Shark Tank (Mark Cuban) are here to give another award. There’s some stilted banter about Mark Cuban running for President. That was painful. Thomas Rhett thanks god and his lovely wife … and that’s it. Well, Meghan Trainor is here so there are some outliers. That’s what is flashed up on the screen just as Meghan Trainor starts to perform. Sorry Meghan but there’s one person everyone is here to see and it aint you. Our first collaboration of the night sees girl group Fifth Harmony and R&B crooner Ty Dolla $ign link up. Fifth Harmony rise up from a load of dry ice. Ty shows up and proceeds to get a very short private dance from each member of Fifth Harmony, some are more enthusiastic than others and then, well, he just strolls off. Easiest $50,000 he’s ever made! NB - I have no idea how much he’s getting paid for this. So … we’re 30 minutes in and things have been pretty conservative so far. Britney did an abridged version of her Vegas show which she performs around the corner from where the awards are being held. The Weeknd cried some crocodile tears and Wiz Khalifa was really really polite. Who’s going to stir it up? Ashton Kutcher lets the crowd know that Wiz Khalifa has done it. He’s won the Top Hot 100 Song! He shouts out all the other artists who were nominated and his mum. Jojo Fletcher from the Bachelorette is here to introduce teenthrob sensation Shawn Mendes. He’s doing a sullen number while sat at a stool with an acoustic guitar. There’s a TV in the background and now he moves to a bedroom scene where he sits at a grand piano – there’s a really nice rug in that room too. He’s performing Stitches and the kids are loving it. This man shifts units as they say in the trade. The Weeknd, who is the only nominee in the building, rather predictably wins and then talks about how much Prince means to him while almost crying. He holds it together somehow - it’s only the first award! Hosts Ludacris and Ciara declare that Britney Spears was “great” and Luda reminds everyone this is the third time he’s hosted the show before they go into a tortured gag about threesomes. This might be a long night. After paying homage to her legs, Ludacris plugs Ciara’s various projects and says he’s known her for ten years. Ciara mentions Luda’s charity work without doing the obvious gag linked to his hit Area Codes. Slave For You sees Britney and her backing dancers form a weird congo on the ground before she directs them to a stripper pole. The director cuts to Nick Jonas who looks pretty non-plussed. He’s got nothing to be smug about, I still remember his turn at the pre-Grammy show … Things slow down with the forgettable Touch Of My Hand, before she launches into Toxic. And … that’s it. Not a bad start at all. She starts with Work Bitch, which is the song she starts her Vegas show (I know this because I’ve seen the thing). Then she segues into Womanizer after ripping off a layer of clothing – she’s definitely not singing live btw. Her backing singers have some light sabers and there’s a screen that looks a bit like something from Tron. It’s not exactly mind blowing but if you want a competent run through of an artist’s biggest numbers, while she mimes and plays really bad air guitar, this is the one for you! We’ve just had a breathless introduction to the evening with an extensive list of artists who all seem to be making comebacks. First up, Britney. Although, she never really went away. Hello everyone, I’m sat in a room in New York following all the action from the Billboard Music Awards in Las Vegas. It should be an interesting evening with Kesha’s first performance in years (and since her legal disputes with Dr Luke) and Madonna (and friends) are performing a tribute to Prince. We’re moments away now so prepare thyself.
'I know I should go to the gym more but, really, who's got the time?' I grew up in the countryside, where there was always physical work to do: heaving muck in the stables, carrying hay bales, weeding the vegetable garden. My sisters and I admired my mother’s constant toiling, while we lay on the grass, turning the pages of novels. When I moved to the city and discovered that people paid money to run on the spot or pretend to push things uphill, I could not get into the spirit of labouring for its own sake. Now I’m in my early 50s, I know I should go to the gym more but, really, who’s got the time? The late neurosurgeon David Servan-Schreiber once wrote about the transformative effect of a sense of purpose. He described a study in which one group of hotel cleaners were told that their everyday tasks would burn enough calories to help them lose weight. The other group were told to get on with their work. At the end of a week, the first group had put greater effort into their work and had lost weight, unlike the others. The idea is now referred to as non-exercise physical activity, or Nepa. You can improve your fitness levels and burn calories just by doing the stuff you always do around the house – but with vigour. In one study for the British Journal of Sports Medicine, older people who were active around the home – mowing the lawn, washing the car – stayed healthier longer, whether or not they did “proper’ exercise such as swimming or working out. I tested it out and discovered, like the cleaners in Servan-Schreiber’s study, that just knowing my efforts were counting for something gave me a surprising incentive. Clare’s top five fitness chores 1 Housework Running upstairs and hanging up the washing at a brisk pace leaves me slightly out of breath – lift a basket of wet towels, bend, stretch, repeat. Buffing the dining room table for an hour will work arm muscles in an average burn of 300 calories. Distributing socks for four people and looking for my glasses involves climbing 24 stairs, which burns around 100 calories, twice that if I jog them. Time taken 1hr 30 mins Heart rate 120bpm Stairs climbed 240 Total calories burned 463 2 Walking the dog If you want to get fit, and you have a dog, it’s simple: you run. Unless it’s a dog that has standoffs with bigger dogs that last ages. Nepa has the answer. Brisk walking with several fast bursts burns calories. Bending to pick up a stick and throwing it adds to your workout, not to mention the minutes spent wrestling it from the dog’s foam-flecked jaws. Time taken 36 mins Fat burn 34 mins Steps taken 3,174 Total calories burned 163 (equivalent to two chocolate biscuits) 3 Gardening The hedge in front of our house is so overgrown and unruly that instead of giving cab drivers our number, we tell them to look for the messy house. Now the chore that I’ve been putting off for years presents itself as the perfect calorie-burning opportunity. I cut back the worst of it in what the Fitbit gratifyingly recognised as 17 minutes of sport. Gardening – thrusting a fork into the ground, pulling weeds – clocks up even more. Time taken 1hr 15 mins Heart rate 160bpm Steps taken 2,100 Total calories burned 430 4 Cycling to work Even though my cycle commute is a jammy 15 minutes on back roads, I have to admit my usual route is designed to minimise effort. I have selected a road leading to the office that takes me down a long, gentle gradient. On my way back, I do one steep climb, and then I can pretty much drift downhill the rest of the way. I adjust the route, taking me up my hill instead of around it, come back over it on the way home, and burn far more calories. Commute 17 minutes Heart rate 108bpm Fat burn 13 mins Total calories burned 82 5 Fidgeting Since most of my day is spent sitting, I am comforted to learn that non-exercise activity thermogenesis (Neat) means I can burn calories even in the office. Raising your heels while you sit at your desk will work out your lower leg muscles. That long walk to the loo is a chance to increase your step count. If you don’t care whether your colleagues like you, always insist you have meetings standing up. Office day 9 hours Heart rate 72bpm Steps taken 5,000 Total calories burned 170
The lies Trump told this week: from Obama and Isis to support for vets “No, I meant he’s the founder of Isis. I do.” – 11 August interview with Hugh Hewitt Trump’s claim that Barack Obama “founded” the terror group Islamic State, with help from Hillary Clinton, condenses and distorts a conservative argument into a hyperbole almost beyond recognition. Conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt tried to unpack the claim into more sensible form. “You meant that he created the vacuum, he lost the peace,” he said. “They created the Libyan vacuum, they created the vacuum into which Isis came, but they didn’t create Isis.” “Well, I disagree,” Trump insisted. “I mean, with his bad policies, that’s why Isis came about. If he would have done things properly, you wouldn’t have had Isis. Therefore, he was the founder of Isis.” Neither Obama nor Clinton could in any rational sense be said to have “founded” Isis: the president has ordered hundreds of soldiers into harm’s way to combat the group, and spent two years and millions of dollars killing its militants in Syria, Iraq and Libya. There is a feasible argument that Obama created a power vacuum by withdrawing US forces from Iraq, but this ignores that his administration failed to come to a troops agreement with Baghdad’s leadership at the time – meaning the withdrawal was not a unilateral decision. Similarly, Obama followed the timeline set by George W Bush to “withdraw from all Iraqi territory no later than December 31, 2011”. The argument that regional destabilization created Isis could be extended to Bush-era decisions; his administration purged Ba’athist officials from the government and military, some of whom became Isis’s leadership, and the civil war fought while he was in office saw the rise of al-Qaida in Iraq, segments of which grew into Isis. The militant Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, a former member of al-Qaida in Iraq, is the leader of the group. Trump supported the invasion of Iraq in 2002 and supported “surgical” intervention to remove Libyan dictator Muammar Ghaddafi in 2011, though he now claims otherwise. He also supported withdrawal from Iraq in 2007 and 2008. Trump also said, without evidence: “In many respects, you know, they honor President Obama.” Isis has repeatedly threatened the president in its propaganda. This is not the first occasion Trump has insinuated a conspiracy theory that the president harbors sympathies for the terror group. “He doesn’t get it or he gets it better than anybody understands,” the businessman said in June. “What we are talking about is political power. Tremendous political power to save the second amendment. You look, you know, you look at the power in terms of votes and that’s what I was referring to.” – 10 August interview with Fox News Trump has repeatedly denied that he meant to incite violence against Hillary Clinton by saying: “If she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks – although the second amendment people, maybe there is, I don’t know. But I’ll tell you what, that will be a horrible day.” But in the context of Trump’s speech it’s not at all clear what he meant by the remark, which could be read as an insinuation of violence, as many Democrats heard it; “like a joke gone bad”, in the words of Trump supporter Paul Ryan, the House speaker; or as something else entirely. The sentence is conditional and is followed by a clear future-tense sentence, suggesting Trump was not talking about the power of a present-day, pre-election voting bloc, but about a possible future. But Trump often ignores the basics of English grammar and speaks in tangled tenses, mountains of interrupting clauses, and without sensible syntax or even subject-verb agreements, all of which can render his speech opaque at best. In the speech itself Trump leapt from talking about “lower electric bills” and energy policy to the supreme court and gun rights. But Trump spoke of the National Rifle Association obliquely, obscurely saying he would “add the second amendment to the justices”, and quickly moved on to talk of the border and drugs. The only mention in Trump’s remark of “political power”, as Trump later said he was talking about, came in his vague praise of the “great” NRA for endorsing him, and when he spoke sarcastically about voter ID laws and fraud: “I will not tell you to vote 15 times. I will not tell you to do that, OK?” Trump said in a separate interview that “there can be no other interpretation” of his remarks than about a “political movement”, but his knotted, rambling style leaves a great deal to interpretation. “Nobody’s done more for the vets than I have, in terms of support, even in terms of financial support.” – 9 August interview with Time Warner Cable News, North Carolina Trump’s history of charity is extremely difficult to accurately chart, despite months of investigation by the Washington Post, Buzzfeed and other outlets. He pledged in January to give $1m to veterans, for instance, but did not do so for four months, and seemingly only after the Post reported his unfulfilled promise. The notoriously parsimonious businessman has boasted of millions in donations, but when pressed to provide evidence of these gifts, family and campaign have insisted that the bulk of his donations were made privately. Dedicated reporting by the Post has found that since 2001, Trump has given at least $3.8m to charity, such as $5,000-$9,999 to the Police Athletic League of New York City. Older records showed $1.9m given to the Donald J Trump Foundation and $101,000 given to veterans. Trump has claimed to have given $102m to charity in the last five years alone, though his campaign says the only cash donations were made privately. Other millionaires and billionaires have given far more than Trump. Hedge fund billionaire Steven Cohen committed $275m to a mental health facility for veterans, for instance, and Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, through his foundation, donated $30m to a veterans fund. For a broader range of charities, several billionaires have given away fortunes that far surpass Trump’s claims. Trump has also denigrated veterans who suffered captivity during their service, saying last year: “I like people who weren’t captured,” and has cast aspersion on the parents of a US army captain who was killed in Iraq. “Many people are saying that the Iranians killed the scientist who helped the US because of Hillary Clinton’s hacked emails.” – 8 August, Twitter Shahran Amiri, the nuclear scientist executed in Iran last week, claimed to have been abducted to Arizona by the CIA in a YouTube video uploaded in June 2010. In a video uploaded two days later, he said he had come voluntarily to study. Before long he was reunited with his son in Tehran, and then he disappeared. At the time, Clinton said: “He’s free to go. He was free to come. Those decisions are his alone to make.” Intelligence officials later told the New York Times that he was a voluntary defector and that the videos were made under pressure from Iranian and American authorities, respectively. Weeks after his voluntary return to Tehran, on 15 July 2010, he disappeared. Also on that day, the New York Times reported, citing US officials, that Amiri had given them “significant, original” information “about secret aspects of his country’s nuclear program”. American officials had promised “a new identity and benefits amounting to about $5m” in return, according to the paper. In a state department email released years later, Clinton aides warned that Amiri, called “our friend”, wanted to leave. “If he has to leave, so be it,” a former state department special envoy wrote in a 5 July 2010 email. In other words, Amiri’s assistance to the US had been reported publicly for six years before his execution, years before the release of any emails from state department servers. The FBI has said there is no evidence that Clinton’s private email servers were hacked, though director James Comey has said they were susceptible to attack. The Democratic National Committee and Clinton’s campaign were targeted in a hack that has been largely blamed on Russian security services, and that took place years after Amiri’s disappearance in Iran.
A half-in, half-out deal with the EU might best serve 50/50 Britain It was just after three in the morning when the ticker at the bottom of the BBC’s results programme revealed that the vote count stood at exactly 50/50. When the final tally came in, the Outs had prevailed over the Ins by a nose, but it is that image of a dead heat that still burns at the back of my retina. The outcome of the referendum was not the most significant moment of the British political year. For this country, it was the most significant moment of the century. With the subsequent election of Donald Trump, the Brexit vote has also been invested with a prophetic quality. The shock was amplified because barely any of the politicians on either side had seen it coming. Nigel Farage had popped up earlier to concede defeat. Michael Gove had decided that it was going to be such a tedious night that he took himself off to bed and an aide had to wake him to tell him that his side had prevailed. David Cameron expected to be celebrating this Christmas in continued possession of the keys to Number 10. Theresa May heard about his resignation from the TV news. If the outcome was stunning even to many who willed it, the details in the numbers were even more unsettling. They should trouble anyone, on either side of the argument, who cares about Britain. For it revealed a 50/50 nation. In June, Britain made up its mind about Europe – and turned out to be in two of them. Britain was also making a choice about how we saw ourselves and our place in the world. But there was no “we” about that either. On that deeper question, the people spoke with two voices. Britain was exposed as a country divided between the metropolitan and the provincial, the old and the young, the more affluent and those who have felt left behind, a Britain essentially comfortable with itself in the second decade of the 21st century and a Britain frustrated and discontented. Six months on, that divide is as vivid as ever. There has been no catharsis, no healing. The losers remain sore, which is usual. Stranger is the behaviour of the winners. If anything, some of them are even angrier with the world and swell in their paranoia that there is a conspiracy to steal the spoils of their victory. The Outers press the argument that we must all bow before the demos and “respect the will of the British people”. To be fair, the In crowd would surely have said exactly the same had won. But what was not resolved by the result, and continues to be a swirl of contention, is how you show “respect” to a referendum result that answered one big question, only to raise many more questions almost as large. The conundrum is made all the more acute because the result was on such a knife-edge. If the government sought an outcome that aimed to represent the aggregate will of all those who voted, then it would try to negotiate a position that put Britain half in and half out of the EU. To respect the 52-48 margin by which Leave prevailed, they’d aim to be just a little bit more out than in. It is a stupendous, and underappreciated, irony that the task of extricating Britain from the EU without irretrievably damaging the economy and further shredding our national cohesion has fallen on Theresa May. Go back to the chronicles of the Tory civil wars in the years running up to the referendum. Read those horrible histories and you will struggle to find her name. In the ferocious battles that convulsed her party for decades, Mrs May was a non-combatant. She had been so mute on Europe that it was an unknown which way she would jump until shortly before the campaign started. This was true even among the small club of people with a genuine claim to call themselves a friend of Theresa. They would express uncertainty about whether she was a closet Leaver or a reluctant Remainer. Some believed that she would declare for Out because that would win credits within the Tory party and optimise her chances of getting to Number 10. As it turned out, she had an even smarter strategy, though it only looks like a cunning plan with the benefit of hindsight. She took the Remain side, not least because she assumed that it would win. But it was not a position that she held with any evident conviction. She surfaced only once during the campaign. Her speech in favour of continued membership was argued mainly on security grounds. It was regarded as so unhelpful for their cause by Remainers that people around David Cameron wondered if she was working for the enemy. It certainly worked for her. Mr Cameron quit to spend more time with his grouse shoot. Kamikaze Gove made his suicidal dive on to the bridge of HMS Boris. The invisible Remainer found herself in Downing Street. Even then, she was reluctant to embrace the task that time and chance had handed to her. As the full weight of the challenge began to descend on her shoulders, she tried to shrug off the burden. In her first speech from Number 10, she told the nation that she did not want her government to be defined by Brexit. Her first half year in office has been an education for the prime minister about the immensity of what faces her. What else have the past six months been about? Grammar schools? Oh, please. Brexit is the super-massive body dominating the political galaxy. Everything else is sucked into its irresistible gravitational field. Sometimes it pulls her out of shape. The pressure to appease the hardline Brexiters bends a naturally cautious, pragmatic politician into something more demagogic and reckless. Her party conference speech, which alarmed moderate Tories, rattled business opinion and aggravated the EU leaders with whom she is going to negotiate, spoke as if the 48% didn’t exist. It is notable that her tone has since moderated. More usually, she has erected walls of opacity around herself. The tautology of “Brexit means Brexit”; the cliche of “a red, white and blue Brexit”. One explanation for her refusal to say what form of Brexit she will seek (this the explanation preferred by Number 10) is that it would be foolish to expose her hand too early. Another (this the explanation offered by many civil servants) is that her government is profoundly divided about what it hopes to achieve. There’s truth in both, but I add a third element of explanation. The PM understands that the negotiation will involve compromises and is not willing to face the furies that will unleash from hard Brexiters until it is strictly necessary. Because the Brexiters are the most noisy, it tends to get forgotten that Mrs May appointed a cabinet with a Remainer majority. One reason she retrieved HMS Boris from the seabed and made him foreign secretary was that she had to have one prominent Leaver in a top job. By far the largest cabinet grouping is the Pragmatics, which includes both Leavers and Remainers. They know they have to deliver Brexit, but are rightly nervous about ending up with a disastrous version. To have a chance of success, there will need to be trade-offs. It will also need time. Sir Ivan Rogers, our man in Brussels, has received a ritual roasting from the Brextremist press for warning that it could take up to 10 years to negotiate a new trading relationship. Sir Ivan was being obedient to Mrs May’s injunction to officials that she doesn’t want them to tell her what they think she wants to hear; she wants “the best possible advice”. A decade sounds like a reasonable guess to me. To see why, join me on a short excursion to Greenland. The chilly island joined the EU along with Denmark. Then, in the early 1980s, the Greenlanders decided they wanted out. That divorce took three years to negotiate and the main bone of contention was custody of fish. If it took Greenland – population about the size of Canterbury – 36 months to negotiate its divorce, a decade for Britain to reset its relationship with continental Europe sounds optimistic. As the daunting scale of the task has sunk in around Whitehall, the concept of a “transitional” arrangement is gaining traction. There is growing talk about trying to broker bespoke deals on trade and immigration rules sector by sector, which would make complex negotiations even more intricate. A transitional arrangement is acquiring a nickname: Smooth Brexit, also known as Smexit. Or Long Brexit – Lexit. It is also attracting suspicion from the usual suspects that it is a Remainer scheme to defy the referendum result. Anything that falls short of the most Brextremist terms of withdrawal will be greeted with cries of betrayal from that direction. A long transition would leave Britain half in and half out of the EU. That would be devilishly difficult to negotiate, but it wouldn’t be inconsistent with the will of a people almost evenly divided by the referendum. A 50/50 deal is the sort of compromise that a pragmatic leader, who has always been essentially agnostic about Europe, would naturally be looking for. Theresa May probably intuits already that is where she will end up. She just doesn’t dare say so yet.
Deadmau5: W:/2016ALBUM/ review – genre-surfing EDM that's better than he thinks In a series of tweets last month, EDM superstar Joel Zimmerman all but disowned his eighth album, calling it “rushed” and “slapped together”. “I don’t even like it,” he claimed, adding that he is only releasing it to pay the bills. There were two tracks he reserved praise for, however: Whelk Then, a strange experimental offering that wavers between bursts of clangy syncopation and the ASMR-y sound of dripping water; and Snowcone, which mixes plunderphonic aesthetics with a chunky trip-hop beat. Both are diverting on their own, but slightly confusing as part of an album that skirts all over the shop, genre-wise, covering trance-house fusion, bleeping 80s electro and seemingly everything in between. It’s possible that it was this lack of focus that led Zimmerman to feel dissatisfied with his work – but he shouldn’t really. This might be far from a perfect album, but it’s certainly nothing to be ashamed of.
It's an easy choice: everyone in the US military should vote for Clinton Like most Americans, US soldiers aren’t thrilled about electing Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump. “The military thinks both are total losers,” announced the Military Times. That may be true, but for military members and veterans, the only viable choice is to vote for Hillary Clinton. The president of the United States is subject to checks and balances for domestic policy, but they are given expansive war powers. In recent history, both Barack Obama and George W Bush have manipulated language and legal precedent to authorize their unilateral use of force. The impact of presidential elections on foreign policy is thus considerable, and no group of Americans are more affected by foreign policy than members of the military. Republicans have been reliable allies and advocates for members of the armed forces for decades, but Trump has squandered all of that goodwill. I served with the US army’s 3rd Special Forces Group, and I know how difficult it would be for some of my old teammates to vote for Hillary, or for any Democrat. But this race has now transcended our established political parties. On Tuesday, Politico reported that Trump said he responded to a veteran’s offer of his Purple Heart award by saying: “Man, that’s like big stuff. I always wanted to get the Purple Heart ... This was much easier.” That dismissal of the sacrifices made by service members follows another from last week, when Trump made headlines by criticizing the gold star family of a fallen army officer. The dispute degenerated into what has become a shameful public feud between Trump and the soldier’s father, Khizr Kahn. The fallout is reminiscent of what happened last year after Trump insulted John McCain, claiming the legendarily courageous prisoner of war was “no war hero” and explaining his preference for soldiers “who weren’t captured”. But those high-profile incidents of disregard for the military are far from the whole story. Last January, Trump threw a fundraiser for veterans to avoid a Republican debate. He used veterans issues to justify his absence, as well as demonstrate his generosity. Trump then lied about how much money he raised there, and lied about how much he donated personally. His campaign finally began cutting checks in May, within days of a media inquiry. Trump appears to only gets involved with veterans’ charities when it will benefit Donald Trump. The Weekly Standard has called his overall record of charitable donations to veterans “little more than peanuts”. The missing money was embarrassing, but the real injustice occurred last September, after Trump mocked John McCain. In an effort to address concerns within the military community, Trump delivered a speech on veterans’ issues aboard the USS Iowa, a retired battleship from the second world war. The event was hosted by Veterans for a Strong America, or VSA, a political action committee masquerading as a veterans nonprofit. Trump bragged that the organization had “hundreds of thousands of members”. He used the occasion to accept their endorsement. Only problem was that VSA was not composed of veterans. Investigations by media outlets actually failed to identify any members at all. Its founder, Joel Arends, had used VSA as a vehicle to fund partisan activity. It’s not a charity. It didn’t contribute any revenue to military families. What Trump did was effectively endorse himself with a fake veterans nonprofit. Outside of fabricating a military record with fictitious medals, I can’t really imagine a more offensive ruse. Trump didn’t do this, but he did compare his time in prep school to military service. At school, he says, he received “more training militarily than a lot of the guys who go into the military”. It was the 1960s, and while tougher boys his age were preparing to deploy to Vietnam, Trump was blazing his own path. Following high school, he obtained multiple deferments: four academic and one medical, for “heel spurs”. It ensured that he would never know what war actually looked like. Despite his constant appropriation of military imagery at campaign events, and his grand claims to military experience, a Trump administration would be insulting to soldiers. As for veterans: we don’t demand charity or gratitude. We simply want to be normal, and our successful reintegration depends upon an American public that experiences war, and sacrifice, collectively. Clinton might be out of touch with the military, but Trump is oblivious. If we weren’t already numbed by a deluge of outlandish remarks, his mistreatment of veterans would have disqualified him several times over. The choice in November won’t be fun, but it will be easy.
AC/DC auditioned tribute band singer to replace Brian Johnson It turns out AC/DC’s search for a new singer did not begin and end with Axl Rose, who has been announced as the replacement for Brian Johnson on the rockers’ final tranche of stadium dates. In fact, they came close to doing what Judas Priest had done before them, and plucking a new frontman from the obscurity of the tribute band circuit. Lee Robinson, the frontman of Thunderstruck, an AC/DC covers band from Raleigh, North Carolina (the band claim to “offer the most complete and authentic reproduction of AC/DC’s sound and stage performance in North Carolina and beyond”), has told the metal site Blabbermouth that he was summoned by his heroes to audition for them in Atlanta. At first, he said, he didn’t believe the band were trying to contact him, and insisted on calling back their representatives to check they were who they claimed to be. He didn’t sleep for three days, studying the songs, until the night before the audition on 14 March, when AC/DC’s crew told him Johnson had used a teleprompter, which would be available. “When I heard that, I pretty much passed out. I didn’t have to worry about forgetting the lyrics anymore,” said Robinson. Robinson discovered that AC/DC bassist Cliff Williams had recommended him, after finding him on YouTube. The band were impressed by the way he sings AC/DC songs in the key they were written in, rather than dropping the key. “Stevie [Young, guitarist] said, ‘Hell yeah, that’s the right way to do it,’ when I asked if we could do the audition in standard,” Robinson said. “But that’s the only way I know how to sing it.” The audition encompassed Robinson singing with the band for almost two hours, performing all but two songs from their current tour setlist, as well as others not currently in the band’s repertoire. Angus Young, apparently, was impressed. “‘Whatever happens,’ he told me, ‘you’ve got a helluva voice.’” Sadly for Robinson, AC/DC went for someone with a slightly more high profile. Who singer Roger Daltrey, however, is not impressed. “Go and see karaoke with Axl Rose? Give me a break,” he told an interviewer this week. Thunderstruck’s next show is at the Lynchburg music festival on 14 May. AC/DC’s next show is at the Passeio Marítimo de Algés on 7 May.
That’s enough, junior doctors – the NHS has bigger problems ‘It’s everyone’s fight,” said the stickers that striking junior doctors handed out at picket lines and protest stalls last week. But is it really? The chief medical officer has warned that strikes will lead to patient suffering: tens of thousands of operations and appointments will have been cancelled as a result of strikes so far. The health select committee chair – a doctor herself – called them “extreme” and “appalling”. Doctors’ union the BMA insists that the government – and the new junior doctor contract it is proposing – are an even bigger threat to patient safety. Its claims merit at least the scrutiny we’d apply to teaching or train driver unions whose strikes lead to school and tube closures. Yes, the government has handled these negotiations poorly. But January marked a change in approach: it appointed Sir David Dalton, a respected hospital chief executive, to negotiate on its behalf. He made substantial concessions, including steep fines for hospitals breaching new, lower weekly working limits, and lower limits on the number of consecutive night shifts. So why the lingering impasse? I spoke to the BMA on Friday: the key sticking point remains Saturday pay. The government wanted to raise basic pay to compensate for removing the uplift for Saturday daytime working; the BMA wanted lower basic pay and a Saturday uplift. Dalton made a significant concession on this, too: all doctors working at least one weekend in four – the majority – would get the Saturday uplift. There will be a minority of long-term losers but that’s the inevitable consequence of reforming an old contract that all sides agreed was no longer fit for purpose, and which had expensive and unfair anomalies such as doctors working 41 hours a week sometimes getting paid the same as those working 47 hours. The seven-day NHS is a red herring the government may now regret linking to renegotiation: the new contract neither requires junior doctors to work additional weekends nor reduces levels of staffing on Monday to Friday. So what’s the link between Saturday pay and patient safety? A BMA spokesperson told me the Saturday pay dispute will further damage junior doctor morale, with knock-on impacts for patient safety. Let’s call a spade a spade. This is a workplace dispute about terms and conditions, not a campaign to save the NHS. There are bigger and more immediate risks to patient safety: hospital trusts under great financial strain struggling to meet safe nursing levels; cuts to social care budgets putting immense pressure on hospital beds. Of course junior doctors are hardworking and committed, but so are the police officers, soldiers and firefighters who do relentless shift work for less money. Junior doctors have far from the worst deal in the health service: trainee nurses now face having to pay for their own training despite nursing shortages; some care assistants are not even paid the minimum wage. If this really were “everyone’s fight”, I’d have expected the BMA to at least mention some of this in its correspondence with the government. It’s conspicuous by its absence. There’s clearly been a total breakdown of trust between both sides, but the BMA, as well as the government, must bear its share of the blame. The Dalton offer was the government doing its bit. Now it’s the BMA’s turn.
Netflix lets users download videos for offline viewing Netflix has begun rolling out the ability to download videos from its streaming service to smartphones and tablets for offline viewing. Offline viewing is arguably the most demanded feature by users, and one of the things that differentiated other services including Amazon’s Video streaming service and pay TV services such as Sky and Virgin. Eddy Wu, Netflix director of product innovation, said: “While many members enjoy watching Netflix at home, we’ve often heard they also want to continue their Stranger Things binge while on airplanes and other places where internet is expensive or limited.” The feature is available from today on Android and iOS devices, and includes many TV series and movies, including Netflix’s original content such as Orange is The New Black, Narcos and the recently released The Crown. The company says that more will be made available soon. Video downloads will be provided at no added cost within the service’s existing monthly subscription fees, which start at £5.99 a month in the UK ($7.99 in the US). Netflix is locked in a battle with streaming rival Amazon, as well as traditional broadcasters which are making in-roads into “over the top” streaming services. Netflix started by using expansive libraries of previously broadcast TV and films to lure subscribers, but in recent years it has increasingly focussed on original content it pays to show first. Netflix has bought shows such as Stranger Things, Kevin Spacey’s House of Cards and Tina Fey’s Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, helping to push its total budget for programming this year to $6bn. It also has huge liabilities for its back catalogue of shows from other networks totalling $11.4bn. Amazon has also put money into original shows such as Transparent, Alpha House, The Man in the High Castle and the recent release of The Grand Tour – a Top Gear-like show from Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond, which is being used to spearhead a global rollout to match Netflix’s availability in 130 countries. Though Amazon has the advantage of bundling its video subscription as part of its Prime delivery service, Netflix has managed to maintain a lead in video. In October it reported that it had almost 87 million subscribers worldwide, and although Amazon does not break out the number of people who use its video service, estimates in the UK and US suggest Netflix is more popular. Enders Analysis TV analyst Toby Syfret said that people who subscribe to Amazon are more likely to also subscribe to Netflix, and “as long as you keep the price down” most consumers would not feel forced to choose between the two. However, he said the increasing competitiveness of Amazon’s service will still have spurred Netflix match its ability to offer downloads. “What they have always tried to do is make their product easy and uncomplicated,” he said. “But [it is now] a question of being able to offer what the rest of the market does, and when it is Amazon that does it....” Though Netflix and Amazon are considered the leaders in video streaming, both have followed in the footsteps of the BBC, which led the way by launching iPlayer in 2007 and has allowed users to download programmes for offline watching on mobile devices since 2014. However, Syfret said the service was no longer quite so cutting edge. “It’s always difficult when you start early. When you are a trailblazer really it looks frontline, then other things come along. At some point the BBC will have to decide whether it wants to re-engineer things.”
Florida, Ohio and other states vote – what we learned We’ve come to the end of another election night of primary voting – and did we just come up with a general election contest? Multiple campaigns and serial pundits might deny it. And in fact there remain slim chances that Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton might not be our future presidential nominees. Trump appeared to have more significant obstacles than Clinton, with a difficult path to an outright delegate majority and influential members of his party actively working against him. But with results in Missouri in both party’s races still too close to call, Clinton has won four out of four other states on the Democratic side, and Trump has won three out of four, dropping Ohio to home-state governor John Kasich. Here’s a summary of where things stand: Hillary Clinton romped through the Democratic races, with a very large 31-point win in Florida supercharging her delegate lead. Donald Trump dropped Ohio to Kasich but won three of the other four contests, including Florida, where he picked up 99 delegates. He could end up with four wins out of five total, with the Missouri result still unresolved. Florida senator Marco Rubio suspended his campaign after losing every county in his home state to Trump but Miami-Dade, where he lives. Texas senator Ted Cruz challenged Trump in Missouri in a race too close to call. He called it a two-man race for the nomination, pointing to his previous wins. Kasich said he would stay in the race through the national convention in July, asserting that Trump could not get to the 1,237 majority of delegates he needs to win outright – the idea being to precipitate a contested convention and fight it out. Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders held a large rally in Phoenix, Arizona, in which he did not mention the night’s results. But the Vermont senator later released a statement saying: “We remain confident that our campaign is on a path to win the nomination.” The demographics look good for Sanders in the next handful of races but not as good afterwards. Trump seems well positioned in north-eastern states to vote soon – but could face difficulty in the Rockies and out west. Here’s a schedule of upcoming voting. The two races split a bit from here, with Democrats voting solo in five states in the next month. The next big voting is a week from now, in Arizona, Idaho and Utah. Here are the delegate counts as they stand:
The Big Short is new Oscars frontrunner after PGA top award The Big Short has emerged as the new frontrunner in the best picture race after winning the top prize at the Producers Guild of America awards. The financial comedy-drama, which follows a group of men who predicted the housing crisis and market crash of 2008, beat favourites The Revenant and Spotlight to win the Darryl F Zanuck award. The prize is seen as an indicator of Oscars success, with previous winners such as Birdman, 12 Years a Slave and Argo going on to triumph with the Academy. Producers Jeremy Kleiner and Dede Gardner accepted the award and Gardner used her speech to remind people of the importance of diversity in the wake of the Oscars controversy. “We have privilege in our hands as storytellers,” she said. “We need to tell stories that reflect our world on every street corner.” The film’s other producer, Brad Pitt, was not in attendance. Pitt also stars in the film, alongside Ryan Gosling, Steve Carell and Christian Bale, who received an Oscar nomination for best supporting actor. Other winners of the night included Inside Out for top animated movie and Amy for top documentary. The Big Short’s surprise win has led to some bookmakers placing it as the favourite to come out on top at the Academy Awards, which take place on 28 February. Previously, journalism drama Spotlight had held that position despite gritty adventure The Revenant winning best picture at the Golden Globes. The last time a PGA award-winner didn’t go on to win best picture was in 2006 when Little Miss Sunshine eventually lost out to The Departed.
Bat for Lashes: The Bride review – beautiful, darkly intriguing torch songs As Natasha Khan has made known in interviews, press releases and live shows, her fourth album as Bat for Lashes has a concept. It revolves around a woman whose fiancé dies on his way to their wedding, and her subsequent experiences of life after love. In song-title terms, it’s a journey that takes us from the hopeful I Do, to Honeymooning Alone and, later, I Will Love Again. Whether it’s a great idea to impose such an involved narrative on an album of torch songs seems doubtful, especially since their appeal is always fortified by elastic meaning. What’s less questionable is the quality of the music itself. Barring Sunday Love – an electropop episode that movingly echoes the melody of Khan’s best-known track, Daniel – this is a collection of darkly intriguing dirges, a battle for dominance between Khan’s intimate, exquisitely beautiful vocal and subtly unnerving sonic dissonance at its heart.
Arsène Wenger the foreign trendsetter facing off against top-quality rivals Friday was the 20th anniversary of Bruce Rioch’s dismissal as Arsenal manager, his tenure of 61 weeks amounting to the shortest reign in the club’s history and looking particularly inadequate next to the nine years of his predecessor, George Graham. English football was more than a little different back then. Fabrizio Ravanelli’s hat-trick for Middlesbrough when the season opened five days later can be viewed with hindsight as the floodgate moment for a new culture of foreign players on lucrative contracts, although overseas managers were still a rarity. There were plenty of Scottish and Irish managers at English clubs, and Tottenham Hotspur had tried a popular but short-lived experiment with Ossie Ardíles in the 1993-94 season. However, when it became clear Arsenal were about to appoint a French manager, particularly one having to extricate himself from a contract in Japan, no one, with the possible exception of David Dein, knew quite what to expect. The one thing absolutely no one envisaged was that Arsène Wenger would still be in place 20 years down the line, not only Arsenal’s most successful and long-serving manager but doyen of what he has just described as a “world championship” of leading foreign coaches, an event taking place annually in England that is otherwise known as the Premier League. When Howard Wilkinson was still the Football Association’s technical director he said the influx of foreign coaches and ideas was overdue and to be welcomed but he felt it would erode the English habit of looking for longevity in their leaders. The English idea of a successful manager was a Shankly, a Clough or a Ferguson, he explained, people who put their imprint on clubs then stuck around for a decade or more. The continental model – he was speaking with particular regard to Italy at the time – involved greater rotation, with coaches staying for only three or four years with a particular club and moving on when their methods became ineffective or the players grew sick of their voices. Wilkinson was wrong about Wenger, if he thought he would seek pastures new after a few seasons, though pretty much right about the overall pattern. Thirteen of the Premier League’s 20 clubs will kick off from Saturday under foreign management, including all of last season’s top five and nine of the top 10. Replacing Roy Hodgson as England manager became a greatly simplified process once the FA had decided to look for an Englishman, since the much-vaunted Premier League offered only three eligible candidates, all from the bottom half of the table. Steve Bruce and Sean Dyche would have boosted the numbers this season but the former has already resigned. As Wilkinson predicted, most overseas coaches tend not to sign up for too long either. It was one of the reasons why Manchester United were initially reluctant to engage José Mourinho, with several influential figures at the club remaining convinced the ideal appointment would be a patriarch in the Busby-Ferguson mould, willing to put down roots and provide continuity over years running into decades. No one really expects Mourinho to do that. United are just the latest club on his CV, not necessarily his life’s work or most ambitious project. Similarly, while Manchester City currently have the manager of their dreams in Pep Guardiola, it does not follow that they will have him indefinitely, even if everything works out well. Yet just as Manchester United had to wake up with a jolt on the retirement of Sir Alex Ferguson and accept that the world had moved on since 1986, it would be a mistake for English football as a whole to keep harking back to the past when it finds itself at the epicentre of coaching excellence. In a managerial show-us-yer-medals contest, the Premier League has unmatchable strength in depth. As Wenger has just put it, pretty much every ambitious manager in the world either is here or wants to be here. There is a reason for that, of course, the amount of money on offer in the Premier League puts even Champions League rewards in the shade. “Let’s not be naive,” Wenger said. “The economic power of the Premier League attracts the best players and the best managers. If you want quality you have to pay.” Wenger is at least half right. The Premier League no longer attracts the very best players, even if Paul Pogba represents a step back in that direction, because playing careers are comparatively short and the elite will always want a shot at Champions League glory that only the biggest teams in Spain and Germany have reliably offered of late. Managers can afford to be that bit more flexible and although it might not be quite the case that everyone who is any good is over here, it is indisputable that almost everyone who is over here is pretty good. There are two treble winners in Manchester alone, for a start – not to mention two Champions League winners in the Championship, Roberto Di Matteo and Rafael Benítez. Wenger guided his team to an unexpected second-place finish last season, Mauricio Pochettino cracked the top three with Tottenham Hotspur, while the biggest honour of all went to the supposed Italian has-been who has just been awarded a new four-year deal at Leicester City. New for this season are Antonio Conte at Chelsea, who was an engaging presence with Italy at Euro 2016 and appears about as close as you can get to a Mourinho replica without using cloning techniques; Ronald Koeman at an Everton suddenly interested in spending money; Claude Puel hoping he can keep Southampton’s momentum going, despite further player losses; and Aitor Karanka aiming to keep Middlesbrough in the top flight. Jürgen Klopp is not new at Liverpool, although he is preparing for his first full season in England, which was exactly the point at which Wenger silenced his doubters by winning the Double. Slaven Bilic has already proved popular at West Ham United, he just needs to make sure the move to a new stadium does not prove disruptive, while Francesco Guidolin is now a more settled and respected presence at Swansea City than the stopgap solution he first appeared. What happened in south Wales last season was, in fact, fairly indicative of present trends in English football. Garry Monk started to struggle almost as soon as he began being touted as a future England manager and Swansea picked up only two wins in a potentially disastrous 17-game run to mid-January, at which point Guidolin arrived from Italy to calm the situation and manage a creditable 12th place, in spite of a personal health scare. Ashley Williams admitted he had needed to Google his new manager, a search that would have yielded more than a dozen short stays at Italian clubs, in line with the Wilkinson theory. So impressive was Guidolin’s Swansea rescue he was being lined up for a new job at Watford until the Welsh club offered him an improved contract. Watford turned to Walter Mazzarri instead. The former Sampdoria and Napoli manager is currently at short odds to be first to lose his job this season, although this time 12 months ago so was Claudio Ranieri. It would be an overstatement to claim English clubs can hardly fail at the moment with well-qualified foreign managers forming an orderly queue to try their luck in the Premier League – Aston Villa completely messed up last season and Newcastle United waited too long to bring in Benítez. Yet supply clearly exceeds demand – and English clubs can pay. It is not a particularly healthy or hopeful situation from the England point of view, with few opportunities open to home-grown coaches, but the Premier League stopped caring about minor details like the future 20 years ago because it knew it had a product the world wanted to watch. Perhaps the greatest irony, given all that has changed in the past two decades, is that Wenger is no longer the guru regarded with suspicion but the moderate whose caution and financial prudence is routinely mocked. While coaching standards in this country have never been higher, it is coming to something when even the traditionalists in English football are being imported from elsewhere.
No politician can keep a promise to bring back jobs – especially not Donald Trump Donald Trump ran for president with the slogan of “Make America Great Again”. Implicit in this was the idea of making America work again. Trump was addressing widespread anxiety about the loss of jobs to globalisation, to downsizing, and other factors associated with the economic policies of the past 40 years, and he was telling people that he would bring the jobs back. Two things about this: the first is that, as a political strategy, it worked. The second is that it is nonsense. It worked because it addressed legitimate concerns about people’s lived experience, where not only have many traditional jobs disappeared but the ones that remain are insecure. In fact a 2015 US government report suggests that 40% of US jobs are now contingent, so that “millions of workers … are in temporary, contract, or other forms of non-standard employment arrangements” which have no “employer-provided retirement and health benefits, or … job-protected leave”. The states that turned from Barack Obama to Trump closely hew with the areas most affected by disruptions associated with globalisation and economic downturn. Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky and Indiana swung heavily to Trump. Even where Hillary Clinton won, such as in Virginia, her margins were thinner than Obama’s. So whatever other factors contributed to Trump’s victory, his focus on jobs helped. But here’s the thing: the jobs aren’t coming back. And this is why Trump’s promises about making America work again are nonsense. The structural changes that have occurred – the shift from an industrial economy to one built on knowledge, information and automation – mean that we will never again require the same number of people working to produce the things we need. What’s more, technology is displacing not just blue-collar jobs but white-collar ones as well, and this is unprecedented. Even where companies can be encouraged to return production to the US, it is unlikely to make much difference. Indeed, onshoring (as it is called) is already happening, but the factories being built are heavily automated, and none of the president-elect’s promises will do anything about that. Yes, such factories are creating jobs, but a tiny fraction of the number lost when they were offshored. Also, these new jobs are paying less than similar jobs back in the 1980s and 90s. Bureau of Labor statistics show that: “In September, those employees made an average $8.63 an hour, in 1982 to 1984 dollars, while they made an average of $8.80 an hour in 1985.” There are certainly economists who suggest that concerns about jobs losses owing to automation are exaggerated and that eventually the economy will create new and different jobs. But that “eventually” is being asked to do a lot of work. Yes, jobs will be created, but there will be no obvious path from the jobs lost to those created. The new jobs will require either high-level technical skills or the sort of the interpersonal skills associated with an arts degree – everything from problem solving to collaboration and teaching. Even where people can retrain there will still be fewer jobs requiring fewer working hours, so they will likely be offered on the basis of short-term contracts. Without other interventions, such work will be highly insecure, as the gig economy is already showing us. Having said all that, it is hard to fault the approach Trump is taking without also criticising his opponents. Clinton and Bernie Sanders ran on job creation every bit as much as Trump did, and so does just about every politician in the western world. Here in Australia, Malcolm Turnbull ran at the last Australian election on the slogan “jobs and growth” and was barely challenged to explain how he would achieve either. The Labor party’s jobs plan was more credible, and talked about “innovation and more local jobs in advanced manufacturing, renewable energy and services”, but it simply did not mention rising to the challenge of automation. At the end of the day, it was a vision for recreating the past rather than building the future. None of this is to say that short-term efforts to build employment are wrong but we need so much more than that and none of the major political players are addressing the issue head on. So this is our real problem: politicians still speak as if a new era of post-second world war full employment is just around the corner and it really isn’t. This doesn’t mean our future prospects are bad, far from it, but it does mean rethinking our whole relationship with work. It means recognising that a job is an increasingly unreliable way of ensuring that everyone shares in the wealth of our societies. Put simply, Trump’s xenophobic retreat from a globalised world isn’t going to help anyone. Instead we need a radical and inclusive reinvention of the economy around shorter working hours; government intervention that favours the many rather than the few, including fairer taxation regimes and policies of redistribution; and an embrace of the new technologies of energy, communication and information that have the potential to ensure an improving standard of living for those outside the 1%. Oh, and we need to plan now for some form of universal basic income. Mostly, though, we need politicians who will tell us the truth about the future of work, not ones who sell us a Trumped-up vision of the past.
Why Uber has been taken for a ride in China The big news last week was that Uber, the California-based ride-hailing company, threw in the towel in China. It announced that its Chinese rival, Didi Chuxing, would acquire all of the assets of UberChina – including its brand, business operations and data. In return, Uber gets a stake in Didi Chuxing worth £5.3bn. Why is this significant? How long have you got? In the first place it confirms that the plans for world domination cherished by all the US-based tech giants come to a juddering halt when they reach the Chinese border. China is already the world’s biggest internet market, and it’s set to get much bigger in the next decade, so Apple, Google, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft saw it as the logical next territory for conquest. Three of them – Google, Amazon and Microsoft – have already had to withdraw, licking their wounds. (Facebook never really got started.) Apple is still in there because of its iPhone (a prized fashion accessory among middle-class Chinese) but it’s now run into trouble with the granting of a weird intellectual-property case against the iPhone 6, and has been forced to shut down its iBooks and iTunes Movies stores. You could say that, given that Google and Facebook are in the information business and the Chinese government is determined to censor the internet, they were always likely to have a bumpy ride. Accordingly, the Chinese have Baidu instead of Google, and WeChat instead of Facebook. But Amazon has made no headway in China either, and the field has been left open to Alibaba. We’ll just have to see whether Apple can weather the storm and reverse the recent decline in its Chinese sales. If you were the betting type, however, you’d have said that if any western company were going to crack China, it would have been Uber. It has oodles of money, already operates in over 500 cities worldwide, and is led by a fiercely aggressive CEO, Travis Kalanick, who from the outset designated capture of the Chinese ride-hailing market as a key strategic goal for his company. In pursuit of that goal, he spent much of the last two years in the country and avoided most of the mistakes that naive western outfits make when they arrive in China. So if Kalanick has decided that the game isn’t worth the candle, then it’s time for the rest of us to ponder the implications of that conclusion. In doing so we may usefully learn from Google’s experience of trying to do business in China. As US journalist Steven Levy puts it in his summary, “Google found that even after a company agrees to go along with China’s censorship and data demands, regulation doesn’t stop. Put simply, China likes locals to succeed over foreign companies, and will act accordingly. Google was in direct competition with a local company, Baidu, which seemed to copy Google’s business plan and even its interface. China had an interest in seeing its home town search engine win, and turned out to be less than scrupulous in playing the role as a neutral arbiter.” Official harassment, writes Levy, “seemed less to do with regulations and more like harassment. The sanctions appeared directly tied to how well Google was doing in the marketplace. Google executives believed that Chinese officials had drawn a line in the sand – that when Google market share approached 30%, suddenly bad things would happen.” But, hang on – isn’t China a member of the World Trade Organisation, members of which have signed up to all kinds of rules about free markets, and no government interference in trade? Quite so. Yet here’s what the American WTO representative says in his latest report to Congress on China’s compliance with these obligations: “Many of the problems that arise in the US-China trade and investment relationship can be traced to the Chinese government’s interventionist policies and practices and the large role of state-owned enterprises and other national champions in China’s economy, which continue to generate significant trade distortions that inevitably give rise to trade frictions.” All of which has a sudden contemporary relevance for Theresa May & co. You will recall that China was seen by Brexiters as one of the exciting trading partners for a liberated UK, and that WTO rules would ensure a level playing field for plucky British entrepreneurs as they ventured into the Middle Kingdom. For these fantasists, the Uber surrender has a simple message: dream on.
Trump attempts Republican reconciliation after sealing the nomination Trump tries to bury the hatchet Donald Trump will today begin the process of pulling together the Republican party, add staff for a national campaign, try to seduce donors he’s alienated, and stem the loss of party faithful to likely Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, following his installation as presumptive GOP nominee with Ted Cruz’s and John Kasich’s withdrawals from the race. George HW and George W Bush, the only two living former Republican presidents, as well as several senators including Dean Heller of Nevada and Ben Sasse of Nebraska, have all made clear they will not endorse him. Trump meanwhile is floating the idea that he is will consider former opponent Ted Cruz as his vice-presidential pick. He praised Cruz as “a capable guy” only 24 hours after he questioned whether Cruz’s father was involved in the assassination of John F Kennedy, and Cruz called Trump “totally amoral”. Trump told the New York Times he would implement his plan to ban Muslims for the US and produce designs for a Mexican wall within his first 100 days as president. He also told CNN he had sacrificed two seasons of Celebrity Apprentice to run for president. Ben Jacobs looks back on Cruz’s campaign, which ended on Tuesday night after his loss in Indiana: “Every successful move, every stratagem that took Cruz – who dropped out of the presidential race on Tuesday night after a disastrous loss in Indiana – from an ambitious Ivy Leaguer to one of the final three Republican candidates for the presidency prevented him from attaining the ultimate goal,” he writes. Navy Seals–Isis firefight on film The has obtained exclusive film of an intense firefight between US special forces, Kurdish commandos and Islamic State fighters this week. Special Warfare Operator First Class Charles H Keating IV died in the action. The film was shot by a Lt Saad of an elite Kurdish peshmerga unit. He said: “If it was not for the American firepower, we would have more casualties. They are really good fighters.” Canada burns The Canadian province of Alberta has declared a state of emergency around the oil sands hub of Fort McMurray as a wildfire forced the evacuation of 80,000 residents and destroyed at least 1,600 buildings. The fire local chief called it a “nasty, ugly” inferno. More than 250 firefighters are fighting the fire, assisted by helicopters and air tankers. Holocaust survivors ‘dying in poverty’ Tens of thousands of Holocaust survivors are “dying in poverty while awaiting compensation”, reports Harriet Sherwood. Their financial hardship is the result of decades of delay in the processing of compensation claims for property stolen during the Nazi era. Today, Holocaust Remembrance Day, campaigners will call on 47 countries to honor their commitment to just restitution. Airbag recall now biggest in US history At least 35m more cars have been added to the largest automotive recall in US history over fears that an unanticipated, explosive inflation of Takata-made airbags in Malaysia, killing two people, could repeat in the US. Some 63.8m cars are affected – equivalent to more than a quarter of the vehicles on US roads. Bald eagle plane strike kills four Authorities have confirmed that a light plane was struck by a bald eagle before it crashed north of Anchorage, killing four people. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) believes there have been other crashes involving eagle strikes that resulted in serious injuries but this is the first fatal encounter. California looks to light up legally California is set to introduce a recreational marijuana initiative on the November ballot. Lieutenant governor Gavin Newsom says the Adult Use of Marijuana Act, bankrolled by Napster founder Sean Parker, is a “game changer” for a state that is already the largest pot producer in the US. Newsom called it an antidote to what he described as the failed and racist war on drugs. ‘Dry farmers’ grow plants without water There’s something different about Will Bucklin’s grape vines, writes Charlotte Simmonds in San Francisco. At first it’s hard to notice, but a drive through northern California’s Sonoma Valley, past waves of green, manicured vineyards, makes it clear. The black ribbon of PVC irrigation pipe that typically threads the vines is curiously absent here – because Will doesn’t water his crops. Is it possible to grow healthy grapes without watering them? Actually, if conditions are right, he says, it’s possible to grow even better ones. Prince intervention too late Prince was due to meet with a doctor specialising in opioid addiction the morning he died, according to new reports, as the singer’s representatives sought help. Attorney William Mauzy said the representatives reached out to California addiction specialist Dr Howard Kornfeld the day before Prince died and that Kornfeld had sent his son to Minneapolis. Minnesota police have confirmed to the Hollywood Reporter that the DEA and US attorney are now involved in the investigation. Lee Daniels to Sean Penn: I’m sorry Empire director Lee Daniels apologized to Sean Penn and made a donation to charity over allegations the actor abused Madonna. Daniels said his comments were “damaging and hurtful”. “I am so sorry that I have hurt you, Sean, and I apologize and retract my reckless statements about you. How thoughtless of me. You are someone I consider a friend, a brilliant actor and true Hollywood legend and humanitarian,” said the director of The Butler and Precious. Penn hit Daniels with a $10m defamation suit last September after he told the Hollywood Reporter that criticism of actor Terrence Howard for his admission he’d punched his wife was wrong, since he “ain’t done nothing different than Marlon Brando or Sean Penn”. Famed British artist: ‘I hate painting, it’s irrelevant’ On the occasion of a new exhibition in New York, Howard Hodgkin, one of the world’s greatest living painters, says: “I hate painting. Most of the time it’s irrelevant. It doesn’t mean enough, ever, quite.” The 83-year-old artist says he’s now more prolific than ever. “I realize there isn’t much time left.” Bad night for Manchester City in Madrid The Premier League side were knocked out of the Champions League after scoring an own goal in their game against Real Madrid, who will now face Atlético Madrid in the final on 28 May. And one more thing ... The Obamas celebrated Star Wars day, AKA “May the Fourth”, by dancing with R2-D2 to Uptown Funk. You won’t get that under President Trump. _______________ Please take a moment to tell us what you think.
How to get what you want as a CD Contrary to the advice of our nearest record shop, which assured customers it was available only as a download, the single You Can’t Always Get What You Want, released to honour the memory of Jo Cox, is available as a CD from pledgemusic.com. It may be too late for the day itself but their prompt delivery service should ensure that it can still make a timely contribution to the season of goodwill. Austen Lynch Garstang, Lancashire • Enough of lozzucker (Letters, 24 December). Many years ago I worked in a small sweet and tobacconist shop in Uxbridge. Every day Mrs Dean would buy her ciggies. We always had a bit of banter with her, and as she was leaving, she always said, “And I don’t want any more of your larrup!” We thought it meant “none of your cheek”. But we now believe it means a beating. Anyway, larrup is a lovely word. Vera Koenig Headcorn, Kent • It’s obvious how Murray Hedgcock the Brexiteer (Letters, 23 December) should behave to his “liberal elite” (ie remainer) family members over Christmas. He should apologise for his appalling misjudgment and maintain a low profile. John Batts Banbury, Oxfordshire • Like Murray Hedgcock, I’m a -reading Brexiteer. But his trust in the presenting a balanced view is misplaced. Our esteemed organ has clearly nailed its colours to the metrocentric remoan cause. Chris Hughes Leicester • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com • Read more letters – click here to visit gu.com/letters
Drinkers urged to think about risks as alcohol-related deaths rocket Think about your increased risk of cancer before reaching for a glass of wine, England’s chief medical officer has warned after a near-60% rise in the rate of drinking deaths over two decades. In 2014, there were 8,697 alcohol-related deaths registered in the UK, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS) – a rate of 14.3 out of every 100,000 people. In 1994, there were 9.1 deaths per 100,000 people. Two-thirds of deaths in 2014 were men and statisticians noted that alcohol-related death rates were highest among 55- to 64-year-olds. Of the UK’s constituent nations, Scotland had by far the highest number of deaths in 2014. At a hearing of the Commons’ science and technology committee, Dame Sally Davies told MPs that more must be done to inform people about the dangers of drinking. “I would like people to make their choice knowing the issues and do as I do when I reach for my glass of wine and think: ‘Do I want my glass of wine or do I want to raise my risk of breast cancer?’. And I take a decision each time I have a glass.” Davies said she would like to see whether labelling alcoholic drinks with their calorie content would have an effect on drinking habits. She also said she would like to see bigger health warnings on alcoholic drinks. “Of course, the alcohol manufacturers and supermarkets have labelled quite a lot, but the trouble with a lot of that labelling is that it is terribly small – the pregnancy label is not terribly visible. I would like to see it larger and clearer,” she said. The highest rates of alcohol-related deaths in 2014 were among men aged 60-64, at 47.6 deaths per 100,000 men. Age-specific alcohol-related death rates among women were typically half those observed among men across all age groups. The addictive effects of drinking and alcohol’s dangers to the liver are well known. However, there is also evidence linking alcohol to increased risk of five different cancers, said Amanda McLean, the director of World Cancer Research Fund UK. “About 24,000 cancer cases could be avoided every year in the UK if everyone stopped drinking alcohol,” McLean said. “We recommend that, when it comes to cancer prevention, people avoid alcohol as much as possible as any amount increases the risk of cancer. If they are going to drink then they should limit alcoholic drinks to one a day.” Prof Kevin Fenton, the director of health and wellbeing at Public Health England, said: “With over 10 million people in England drinking too much, it is no surprise that deaths from alcohol, which disproportionately affect men, continue to be far higher than 10 years ago. “Alcohol harms individuals, families and communities and it’s crucial that, alongside effective local interventions and treatment for those that need it, we look more widely at what affects drinking behaviour in this country, such as marketing and pricing. “Public Health England will soon be providing a report to government on how we can reduce the harms caused by alcohol.” Tom Smith, the director of campaigns at charity Alcohol Concern, said: “These latest figures show that alcohol-related deaths are back on the rise and have almost doubled in the last 20 years. “The figures also highlight the dangers of middle-aged drinking, with the highest number of alcohol-related deaths among 55- to 64-year-olds. “We continue to face extremely high levels of health harms caused by alcohol, and it continues to be the leading risk factor for deaths among men and women aged between 15 and 49 years in the UK. “Unless we start taking this seriously and acknowledge the health risks that too much alcohol can cause the situation will only get worse.”
Billionaire arms deal fixer Wafic Saïd weighs up Barclays lawsuit Wafic Saïd, the billionaire philanthropist and arms deal fixer, is considering legal action against Barclays after the bank forced him to close his personal accounts and those associated with his charities and business ventures. Saïd, who fled Syria in 1963 to escape a military coup, accused Barclays of using him as a scapegoat to improve its own reputation after being told in December that he was no longer wanted as a customer. PR company Bell Pottinger, run by Margaret Thatcher’s former adviser Lord Bell, issued a statement on his behalf on Friday: “Mr Saïd has been advised by leading counsel to issue proceedings against Barclays.” The claim could be made under the data protection act as the bank would not tell Saïd the reasons for its concerns. Barclays said: “We never comment on these matters because of client confidentiality. We treat each case on individual merit.” Saïd - whose family donates to the Conservative party – may have to find new bankers for his charity, the Saïd Foundation, which has its head office close to close to Buckingham Palace and lists Sir Michael Peat, former private secretary to the Prince of Wales, as one of its trustees. The Foundation, according to its website, helps children and young people with disabilities in Palestine, Lebanon and Jordan, and backs the Saïd business school at Oxford University. The 76-year-old is credited with helping Saudi Arabia buy British weapons in 1985 in the biggest arms deal in history, known as Al-Yamamah. An investigation by the Serious Fraud Office investigation into allegations that BAE had paid bribes to Saudi princes to win lucrative contracts was abandoned at the intervention of the then prime minister Tony Blair. Now based in Paris, Saïd has moved his personal account, as has his English-born wife, Rosemary, and two children. The statement issued through Bell Pottinger said: “Despite high-level meetings and several requests, formal and informal, Mr Saïd was given no legal reason or justification for the bank’s action. Indeed they told his representative that if, for example, someone had an address in Brazil the bank would close their accounts. “It appears that Mr Saïd and his charities are being used as scapegoats by Barclays to try to improve their own reputation. Mr Saïd enjoys excellent relationships with a number of leading international banks, none of which has ever expressed concerns regarding the provenance of Mr Saïd’s funds.” The bank is thought to have been concerned it could not satisfy regulators about its anti-money laundering procedures. Barclays – which is scrambling to restore its reputation in the wake of fines for rigging Libor and foreign exchange markets – was last year fined £72m by the Financial Conduct Authority for running the risk of being used to launder money or finance terrorism. Saïd is “taking every action possible to ensure his charities are protected and do not suffer financially as a result of Barclays’ actions and he much regrets this irrational and irresponsible behaviour by the bank,” he said in the statement. “His charitable activities, which enjoy the full support of the Charity Commission, donate close to £7m each year to UK and overseas causes,” the statement said. Oxford University said finances of the business school were “entirely secure”. No one at the foundation would comment. Regulators have been tightening up their approach to the money laundering rules. Last year, HSBC faced criticism for closing accounts of charities. Its chairman, Douglas Flint, has warned that the risk of fines was making banks risk averse. Asheem Singh, director of public policy at charity leaders group ACEVO, said he would be writing to Barclays. “The surest way to guarantee fraud or worse terrorist activity is to force humanitarian organisations to carry cash which may be misappropriated by dark forces running riot in areas of conflict and great human need,” said Singh. “Banks may do more harm than good by zealously denying essential financial services. We respect that each case has its own individual circumstance but we will be writing to the head of Barclays bank to seek assurance that such cases are being decided on the basis of rigorous, impartial and unimpeachable protocols and that the moral dilemmas for charities operating in conflict zones are properly understood. The obverse would be damaging for all of us,” Singh added. Oxford University said: “The [Saïd] School is an academic department of the University of Oxford and its funding is derived from numerous sources which include research funding and student fees. “The Saïd Foundation now provides charitable grants to support a range of initiatives to advance the school’s strategic objectives, including scholarships for students, awards for innovation in teaching, key School events and new approaches to career support for students. We are grateful to the foundation for its support and we look forward to this continuing.”
There are similarities between Trump and Corbyn, says Thornberry The shadow foreign secretary has compared the wave of popular support for Donald Trump’s anti-establishment message to the similarly unexpected rise of Jeremy Corbyn, energised for similar reasons. Emily Thornberry said although the values of the Labour leader and the Republican president-elect were very different, both had a message about the political system that resonated. But Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, warned that legitimate concerns about economic alienation must never be allowed to give a veneer of respect to racism, misogyny and intolerance. Thornberry told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I think it’s right there are hundreds and thousands energised by Jeremy Corbyn being the leader of the Labour party so there are some similarities.” She added that it was clear their principles did not align. Trump’s message on job creation and industry also resonated, Thornberry said. “To give him his credit, I never thought I’d say this, but Donald Trump was talking about the importance of investing in jobs and infrastructure and in the economies across the country, not just the main cities, and that’s right.” Corbyn has called Trump’s victory in the US an “unmistakable rejection of a political establishment and an economic system that simply isn’t working for most people”, while expressing unease at the divisive rhetoric of Trump’s campaign. Thornberry said Corbyn’s statement should not be taken as any form of endorsement of Trump’s message. “I don’t think it would be right to say Jeremy welcomes it but I think he recognises what is happening,” she said. “There are too many people, too many regions, who feel that politics at the moment doesn’t represent their interests. He’s right to say so. The system has to be shaken up.” Thornberry said Labour had popular messages that could be delivered more deftly. “We are an alternative, we will be a good alternative and we have to find a way to express that clearly. “Politics in Britain is going very fast indeed. I don’t bet but I think the wheel will turn.” Addressing the Holyrood chamber at first minister’s question’s, Sturgeon went further than her initial statement on Trump’s shock victory on Wednesday – in which she urged the president-elect to prove that he could act for all US citizens regardless of race or background – declaring: “I’m not prepared to be a politician that maintains a diplomatic silence in the face of racism, misogyny or hatred of any kind.” Describing some of the views expressed by Trump during his campaign as “deeply abhorrent”, she said there was more of an obligation than ever “for people of progressive opinion the world over to stand up and be counted”. She added: “There is no doubt whatsoever that many people feel economically alienated, but we must never allow those legitimate concerns to give a veneer of respectability to racism, misogyny and intolerance.” Responding to a series of questions from the Scottish Labour leader, Kezia Dugdale, who herself travelled to the United States last week to campaign for Hillary Clinton, she said that the Democratic candidate’s defeat “tells us we are not as far down road to gender equality as we hoped we were”. Dugdale warned that Trump’s behaviour towards women sent “a dangerous signal across the world”. But Sturgeon also insisted that, while she regretted the result, she respected the decision of the American people and wanted to engage “positively and constructively” with the next US administration. Sturgeon stripped Trump of his honorary role as a Scottish business ambassador last year, after his attack on Mexicans and Muslims, describing his rhetoric as “obnoxious and offensive”. The former work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith wrote in a piece for ConservativeHome on Thursday that Trump’s US presidency could be a golden opportunity for British influence across the Atlantic because of the parallels with the popular movement to leave the EU. Duncan Smith said there could be no more complacency about the challenge to the political establishment. “Whatever our own personal feelings about the winner, having gone through a similar shakeup here in the UK we are now uniquely placed to help shape the future,” he wrote. The Tory MP had previously hinted at support for the Republican, telling LBC radio he “wouldn’t be voting for Clinton, that’s for sure” and quoting the US House of Representatives speaker, Paul Ryan, as saying Trump was a “very decent man who said he’d be better”. After it emerged during the campaign that Trump had spoken about molesting women being easier because of his fame, Duncan Smith’s office said those comments should not be taken as an endorsement of Trump. In his piece on Thursday, Duncan Smith said Britain could “indulge ourselves in an orgy of complaint” about the US vote or choose to engage constructively. “After all, Trump has already indicated that he regards the UK as a close ally and friend of the United States, and that when ready the UK would be his first choice for initiating a new trade deal.” Theresa May was well placed to influence Trump’s foreign policy, Duncan Smith said. Trump has previously suggested he would erect more trade barriers to protect US industry and consider withdrawing or minimising America’s Nato commitments. “[May] has also made it clear that as we leave the EU we want to ensure we control migration and ensure the economy works for those in the bottom half of the income scale,” Duncan Smith said. “These were concerns held by many in the USA as well. “We are, however, committed to do that through free trade and as we do so we can help the USA shape its own programme as the new American administration seeks to deliver to the same group of people.” Downing Street confirmed that May was preparing for a phone call with Trump. Though the prime minister was at pains not to express any preference during the race for the White House, she described the president-elect’s call to ban Muslims from entering the US as “divisive, unhelpful and wrong” when she was home secretary.
'Bipartisan' night full of jabs and boos for Trump Trump flops, booed, at Catholic charity fundraiser If Donald Trump’s campaign has been defined by going where no candidate has gone before, on Thursday the real estate mogul went even further: getting himself roundly booed at a Catholic charity dinner that is usually a moment of bipartisan good cheer in the presidential race. Trump earned some laughs with his address to the crowd – “many tell me modesty is my best quality” – but it quickly deteriorated into an attack on Clinton that prompted jeers from the audience and shouts for him to stop speaking. Clinton retaliated, saying Trump was Russian president Vladimir Putin’s horse. Donald Trump booed for calling Clinton ‘corrupt’ as bipartisan dinner turns sour Trump plans crowdfunded exit poll Donald Trump loyalists will attempt to conduct their own crowdfunded exit polling on Election Day, ostensibly due to fears that electronic voting machines in certain areas may have been “rigged”, the has learned. The effort, led by Trump’s notorious informal adviser Roger Stone, will focus on 600 different precincts in nine Democrat-leaning cities with large minority populations, a tactic branded highly irregular by experts, who suggested that organizers could potentially use polling as a way to intimidate voters. Trump loyalists plan own exit poll amid claims of ‘rigged’ election Will the west turn blue? Across the towns and cities of bone-dry Arizona, voters and pollsters have started to ask openly about a change that seemed nearly glacial, if not impossible, not so long ago: could Democrats take the American west? An Arizona Republic poll released Wednesday showed Clinton up by five percentage points. Nevada, another toss-up state, showed Clinton ahead by seven, and she has an apparent lock on Colorado and New Mexico. Arizona asks ‘the unprecedented’: could Democrats sweep the west? Clinton’s problem with young black voters There’s no question that black voters will support Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump in large numbers, but the real question is whether they will actually come out and vote for her. Democrats believe they need a turnout of black voters on par with the numbers reached during the 2008 and 2012 election. As they anxiously try to rally their bases, the concern is that there is limited enthusiasm from black millennial voters. Why should we trust you? Hillary’s big problem with young black Americans Support the ’s fearless journalism The is an independent voice in this year’s election. That means no bias or corporate owner influencing our coverage. But in-depth political reporting takes a lot of time, money and hard work to produce. If everyone who reads our coverage helps to pay for it, our future will be more secure. Support the with a monthly payment, or a one-off contribution. Become a member or contribute to the . The fate of Fox post-Trump Fox News had the best start to the election season. Then the trouble started. First Megyn Kelly lit into Trump over the candidate’s insulting remarks about women. Then came the ousting of Fox’s founder and chairman Roger Ailes, who left the network in disgrace in July amid a series of allegations of sexual misconduct. Now the chaos of the Trump candidacy is tearing the network in two. But this is the logical conclusion of what Fox News spent nearly 20 years sowing in rightwing politics. Can Fox News survive the forces it unleashed on the 2016 election? The plight of central American migrants A Médecins Sans Frontières study has found that nine out of 10 migrants seen by the charity’s psychologists this year have showed symptoms of anxiety or depression caused by violence and threats suffered during their journeys. As a US-sponsored immigration crackdown has forced migrants to use more perilous routes through Mexico. Two-thirds of migrants interviewed at shelters across the country reported suffering at least one violent attack – such as assault, rape or kidnapping – during their journey, according to a survey shared exclusively with the . Central American migrants showing record levels of mental health problems Trump’s insult to all women Clinton can take pride in being Nasty-Woman-in-chief of the United States, writes Arwa Mahdawi. There are few of us who haven’t been called the same at some point in our lives. It often happens at the bar. A guy comes over to you and pays you a compliment. It’s a real honor; he’s taken time out from socializing with his friends to talk to you! Instead of understanding how much of an honor it is, however, you tell him that you’re not really interested. He informs you, in so many words, that you’re a Nasty Woman. ‘Nasty woman’ is an insult we know only too well Arsenal manager warns of complacency On the back of a run of seven consecutive wins, team manager Arsène Wenger is urging his players to keep their wits about them within the pack at the top of the Premier League. “We live in a jungle where everybody wants to eat you, and you have to survive by keeping your vigilance,” he said. “That’s what competition is about. Every day you have to fight again to survive. I believe that humility is to understand that you start again from zero.” Arsène Wenger warns Arsenal to avoid complacency in Premier League ‘jungle’ Lupita Nyong’o, Queen of Katwe Since 12 Years A Slave, Lupita Nyong’o has landed roles in Star Wars and The Jungle Book and dined with the Obamas. Now she’s playing the mother of a chess prodigy in Queen of Katwe. But queen or not, her reputation for being demanding follows her. It is not, writes Nosheen Iqbal, that Nyong’o is haughty, more that she is atypical of her peers; she isn’t on a charm offensive, just businesslike: articulate and smart, clipped and polite. “I don’t feel a need to be anyone but myself,” she says. Lupita Nyong’o: ‘Art is political in whatever way you slice it’ In case you missed it ... It took Bob Dylan the best part of a week to acknowledge that he had been awarded the Nobel prize in literature, and even then only in the most dismissive way: an update to a page on his website plugging a new collection of his lyrics. But now it appears even that paltry nod went too far for the music legend. Bob Dylan, Nobel laureate, is once again plain Bob Dylan. Bob Dylan removes mention of Nobel prize from website
Record Oscar nominations for British outfit Film4 Channel 4’s feature-film-making arm Film4 Productions has scored an unprecedented 15 Oscar nominations across six movies, including a best picture nod for Room, six nominations for Carol, and a best actress nod for Charlotte Rampling in 45 Years. Carol, the lesbian romance adapted from Patricia Highsmith’s The Price of Salt and starring Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara, was the best-performing of Film4’s list, earning acting nominations for Blanchett and Mara (as best actress and best supporting actress respectively) as well as costume design, original score, cinematography, and adapted screenplay for Phyllis Nagy. Surprisingly, however, Carol received neither a best picture nomination, nor one for its director Todd Haynes. Room, the kidnap drama inspired by the Fritzl case and adapted from Emma Donoghue’s bestselling novel, picked up four nominations: picture, actress for Brie Larson, director for Lenny Abrahamson and adapted screenplay for Donoghue. Both these films have been heavily tipped for awards, as has Amy, the Asif Kapadia-directed study of musician Amy Winehouse, which duly collected a best documentary Oscar nomination to add to its Bafta nomination in the same category. The Oscars have also righted what many commentators felt was a major oversight from the British Academy by nominating Rampling for best actress for her superbly understated performance in the Andrew Haigh-directed marital drama 45 Years. More surprising, perhaps, was the recognition for sci-fi fable Ex Machina, which scored a best original screenplay nomination for its writer-director Alex Garland, as well as best visual effects for a story that revolved around a digitally altered Alicia Vikander playing a robot called Ava. Youth, directed by Italian film-maker Paolo Sorrentino, also received a nomination for best song, for music written by David Lang. Youth features Michael Caine as a composer who resists overtures from the royal family to conduct a birthday concert for Prince Philip. David Kosse, the recently appointed director of Film4 said: “Fifteen nominations ... is an amazing validation of our belief in the potential of these bold, inspirational stories ... I am delighted to see so many of our friends and partners honoured today.” Kosse took over Film4 in 2014 from Tessa Ross, who had become head of Film4 in 2003. Film4’s triumph is all the more remarkable because of its dismantling and near-closure in 2002, as well as its existence as a standalone unit being put in doubt by its parent company. However, under Ross’s leadership it survived and thrived, with its marque gracing such award-winning films as 127 Hours, The Iron Lady and 12 Years a Slave. The Oscars ceremony takes place on 28 February at the Dolby theatre, Los Angeles.
What it takes to pursue a career in mental health nursing There is no doubt about it: mental health nursing is a formidable as well as rewarding career and one that requires a range of skills, training and experience to do it well. And for anybody considering a career as a mental health nurse there is no shortage of options. Specialising in mental health starts with getting the necessary qualifications for entry to a nursing degree course. Entry requirements vary between universities but, in general, minimum A-level prerequisites or equivalents are necessary. Mental health nursing has changed significantly in recent years, so the training and clinical experience on offer has altered to reflect this. The variety and seniority of roles and career development paths available within mental health nursing – in and outside the NHS – are extremely diverse. Whatever route someone chooses, though, a key aspect is ongoing learning and keeping knowledge and skills up to date in order to maintain professional registration. Mental health nursing in numbers Claire Murdoch began her career as a registered mental health nurse more than 30 years ago because she “wanted to make a social contribution”. Now chair of Cavendish Square Group, an umbrella organisation of 10 London NHS trusts responsible for mental health services, and chief executive of Central and North West London NHS foundation trust for the past eight years, she says that while the job of a mental health nurse can be demanding, for the right person “the opportunities are almost limitless”. People often associate mental health nursing with acute wards in hospitals and working with very seriously mentally ill people, but this is only one career option, albeit a vitally important part of the picture, she says, pointing out that at her own trust services span numerous areas, including supporting new mothers, children’s services and eating disorders provision. Murdoch says the potential of helping people right across society is a significant appeal of contemporary mental health nursing. “You might work with frail older people who are depressed and are starting to develop problems with dementia,” she says. “You may also work in A&E departments.” The spectrum for mental health nursing also takes in community-based work, prisons, children’s and young people’s services and, of course, nurse consultants. Primary care settings and GP’s surgeries are other areas where mental health nurses are increasingly situated, while management and research roles are on offer too. Outside the NHS there are multiple options in the private and voluntary sectors, including in residential and nursing homes and family therapy units. Murdoch says that while there are clearly many challenges working in such a complex and important field the advantages are manifold, including working more as a partner in people’s care. She says the biggest single challenge in the future is recruiting more mental health nurses: “You cannot provide high-quality care without qualified, dedicated staff.” Join the Healthcare Professionals Network to read more pieces like this. And follow us on Twitter (@GdnHealthcare) to keep up with the latest healthcare news and views.
Good grief: cinema’s new mood of despair Not since the advance publicity for Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street neglected to mention that Tim Burton’s movie was a musical has a trailer obscured potentially off-putting information as successfully as the one for Manchester by the Sea. Anyone would mistake this awards favourite as a heartwarming tale of a taciturn janitor, played by Casey Affleck, who bonds with the nephew left in his care. But that’s not the whole story – not by a long chalk. The film’s harrowing secrets will be preserved here, although prospective viewers should be warned that it is written and directed by Kenneth Lonergan, who has form in the area of putting cinemagoers through the wringer. His debut, You Can Count on Me, begins with two children being orphaned after their parents die in a car crash. His second film, Margaret, traces the effects on a young woman of a gruesome bus accident in which she was complicit. If you knew you were a character in one of Lonergan’s movies, you would never go near a road. You might never leave the house, although that wouldn’t really help you in the case of his new film. Manchester by the Sea is about tragedy, culpability and grief, the sort of subjects that are the kiss of death to Hollywood studios – at least until awards season, that is, when seriousness sells. This is the reason for the glut of adult-orientated prestige pictures between October and February, but it doesn’t explain why the unifying theme in this year’s crop is grief. It is a subject that tends to surface periodically in the preferences of Academy voters. Robert Redford’s Ordinary People, about a family struggling with the death of one of their sons, won best picture in 1981, while similarly themed contenders for that prize since have included Field of Dreams, Ghost, In the Bedroom, Mystic River and Babel. This year, the air of mourning is concentrated in three impressive movies. As well as Manchester by the Sea, there is Pablo Larraín’s Jackie, a portrait of John F Kennedy’s widow (played by Natalie Portman) in the wake of her husband’s assassination, and A Monster Calls, adapted by Patrick Ness from his novel about 13-year-old Conor (Lewis MacDougall), whose mother is terminally ill. Despite being aimed at a young audience, A Monster Calls doesn’t soft-pedal the agony of grief. One of the film’s stars, Sigourney Weaver, recently told this newspaper that her initial response to the script was: “I don’t think I can be part of this, it’s too painful.” She wasn’t the only one who felt that way. “Most people responded really well,” says Ness. “But there were a few suggestions in early meetings about softening the story and making it a little easier. I really felt this was contrary to why the material worked. There was even someone who asked: ‘Does the mother have to die?’ My response was: ‘Well, yeah.’ Sadly, parents do die, and the kids they leave behind also read books and watch films, and they need to find themselves in those books and films. Grief is hard, and it feels irresponsible to say: ‘There, there. It’s OK.’ Sometimes it’s not OK.” The focus of the film is the relationship between Conor and the yew tree (voiced by Liam Neeson) that springs to life and reaches in through his bedroom window. Without the option of imaginative flourishes to explore unpalatable emotions, Manchester by the Sea and Jackie represent even greater challenges in the dramatisation of grief. As a solitary, debilitating state, grief goes against the grain of what cinema values most highly: it confounds momentum and thwarts all but the cruellest sort of closure. It is hard to make a film that is honest about the agonising slowness of grief, but which still moves forward in a compelling way. “That really is the nature of storytelling,” says Bruce Joel Rubin, the screenwriter behind a trilogy of films about death and grieving: Ghost, Jacob’s Ladder and My Life. “We probably wouldn’t have stories if they didn’t in some way give us hope. Many people have assumed that’s the purpose of storytelling, but I don’t think that’s true. There’s a Chekhovian view of the world, which is that things don’t change that much and that the real advances in life are harder and rarer.” Rubin is an ardent admirer of Jackie and Manchester by the Sea. “Manchester is one of the most painful films I’ve ever seen about the subject. It captures grief in more realistic terms than any normal Hollywood film. We have a tendency as Hollywood writers to create stories that uplift, so we take grief stories and turn them into stories that are somehow about transcending grief. In the process of doing it, we possibly make it look like an easier thing to achieve than it is in reality. “Manchester takes you to the truth of grief, which is that the transformation from it is a slow, laborious and difficult project. And not everybody gets there. What Manchester and Jackie both show is that you have to find the place inside that can very simply and gently tell you: ‘Keep living.’” The frankness in these pictures about the isolation of grief is every bit as exacting as in some of cinema’s finest examples – Krzysztof Kieślowski’s Three Colours Blue, say, or François Ozon’s Under the Sand. In Jackie, Larraín’s use of tight closeups, accompanied by the plunging chords of Mica Levi’s score, creates a claustrophobic intensity. Portman’s desolate face fills the cramped frame; her world has literally shrunk. With nowhere else to go, she must confront her anguish – and we have no choice but to confront it along with her. It is instructive to compare Jackie with the feelgood comedy-drama Collateral Beauty, which follows a grieving businessman (Will Smith) from devastation to redemption with a haste that is positively indecent. The character’s grief takes two eye-catching forms: brooding (he scowls a lot) or wacky (he spends days building domino cities, only to knock them down on a whim). Scenes set at a support group for bereaved parents feel especially exploitative in the way they provide instant, undeserved transfusions of a poignancy that is far outside the film’s range. Ghost, for which Rubin won the Oscar for original screenplay in 1991, was much smarter in its use of genre elements (love story, thriller, comedy) to temper the pain felt by its main character, Molly (Demi Moore), after the murder of her partner, Sam (Patrick Swayze). “I’m not sure how much I understood the nature of grief at the time,” Rubin says now. “I did know that I was not, in the end, going to give Molly back what she wanted, which was Sam. She was going to have to lose him, and that process of losing the very thing that you want the most is probably the greatest form of suffering. I know I tried to create a very strong character who could survive the loss of her partner and that was reflected in the casting. Demi Moore exudes toughness. I knew I couldn’t have people walk out of the theatre at the end worried that Molly wasn’t going to be able to get through life.” Film language is well equipped to convey the dislocated shifts in time that are characteristic of grieving. The dissolves and fades in Ghost reflect the blurring in that picture between life and death, while there is one especially piercing montage in Larraín’s film that cuts together images of Jackie pottering around the White House in the period immediately after her husband’s death; the repeated costume changes, which are the only proof that the shots have been harvested from different days, show how time can lose all definition during passages of intense emotional distress. It’s every bit as eloquent as the moment in Sam Raimi’s shlocky thriller Darkman when a woman is transported in a single, seamless shot from the scene of her husband’s death to his graveside a week later. It would be tempting to see the current emphasis on grief in cinema as a response to a turbulent year, only film-making doesn’t move that fast. It is more truthful, surely, to say that these are the movies we need right now to help us make sense of our times. Ness believes they reflect cultural changes that stretch back beyond the past 12 months. “The internet allows us to hear bad things more easily and more often,” he explains. “That is an interesting shift that we are maybe struggling a bit to deal with. Information has never been this abundant before. The question is: how much can we take as human beings and how do we cope with the increase? One of the ways is to tell stories about how to deal with it. I don’t think the world has changed as much as the internet has made it appear. It’s just that we know much faster, and in a more concentrated way, when things are wrong, and our storytelling is responding to that.” This isn’t to say that movies about grief won’t always be a hard sell. Even a bantamweight approach to the subject such as Collateral Beauty is walking on eggshells, trying to reassure audiences that it isn’t one big downer. (Of course, it is one big downer, but not because it’s about grief – only because it doesn’t take grief seriously.) Marketing a movie about grief to a mainstream audience has long been tricky. Rubin remembers similar problems with My Life, the 1995 drama he wrote and directed starring Michael Keaton as a dying man making a video for his son. “My Life did not have an audience. It was advertised as a film about dying and people did not want to see that, which was incredibly painful for me.” For all of Manchester by the Sea’s acclaim, Rubin thinks it faces an uphill struggle. “It’s a hard sell. I watched people coming out of the theatre afterwards, and I think some people were shaken up by it, but I overheard others saying in the lobby: ‘Oh, it was too slow.’ I got the impression they didn’t want to go there. They didn’t want to be touched that way. “But I think we have to demystify this idea that there is always a happy-ever-after ending. And movies like Manchester and Jackie are important because they tell the truth – which is that there is nobody who can get you out of grief. You’re on your own. It’s just you.” Collateral Beauty is out now. A Monster Calls opens in the UK on 1 January, Manchester by the Sea on 13 January and Jackie on 20 January
The most exciting film sequels of 2017 Fast and Furious 8 It’s not the telenova official title (The Fate of the Furious) that’s got us salivating. Nor the return of vested slapheads Vin Diesel and Dwayne Johnson. No: what makes this really exciting is the new additions to the metalhead crew. No 1: Charlize Theron, with dreadful hair. No 2: Helen Mirren, in an as yet unspecified role, but one that definitely will involve some driving (her condition for appearing). Diesel has a track record with grandes dames of the British screen (he and Judi Dench had red-hot chemistry in The Chronicles of Riddick) so we’re hoping for some proper fireworks come April. Goon 2 Goon was a sweet, immensely violent hockey comedy starring American Pie’s Seann William Scott, Liev Schreiber in a rare funny turn, and its writer Jay Baruchel (best known as the skinny, hot one from Seth Rogen’s troupe). In its year of release, it topped the Canadian box office; it’s still the highest-grossing Canadian film in the UK ever. That a follow-up has been six years in the offing is sad, yes, but it makes us suspect this one could really be something special. s of the Galaxy 2 Pre-orders on Baby Groot dolls are already through the roof, and Marvel’s big comedy hit still has six months until release. But few relatively original properties garnered quite so much instant affection as ragtag superhero ensemble movie s of the Galaxy in 2014. An antidote to po-faced space opera and over-mythologised teams of Earth-saving Lycra squads, that action comedy took $773m worldwide. Marvel will be hoping to hit the billion-dollar mark with Vol 2. Justice League Warner Bros’s most recent DC outing did not go smoothly. Reception of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice was borderline catastrophic; but one sequence people did seem to like was the brief intros for other characters – such as Aquaman, the Flash and Cyborg – who’d doubtless get a little more airtime further down the line. And, come November, they will: Zack Snyder’s whopper of a flick sees those fellas teaming up with Ben Affleck’s Batman, plus freshly resurrected Superman, to “face the catastrophic threat of Steppenwolf and his army of Parademons”. Many people really, really, really need this one to succeed, so perhaps the stops will be well and truly pulled out. Kingsman: The Golden Circle Forget the aforementioned Superman. Forget Peter Cushing. Surely the most surprising resurrection to be witnessed in the cinema over these 12 months is Colin Firth’s character in the Kingsman sequel. Many of us saw him comprehensively killed after laying dapper waste to a congregation in an American church. Yet returned he is for Matthew Vaughn’s sequel, and not just in flashback. All the old faithful are also present and correct; joining the throng this time are Channing Tatum, Julianne Moore, Jeff Bridges, Halle Berry, Vinnie Jones and Elton John. The Lego Batman Movie The Lego Movie, Phil Lord and Christopher Miller’s 2014 block comedy, was one of the most unexpectedly refreshing and subversive films that year. So parents, children and non-parents alike will be rejoicing at the prospect of this follow-up, which sees the return of Will Arnett as the Caped Crusader, alongside what looks like a dream team of voice talent: Michael Cera as Robin, Ralph Fiennes as Alfred Pennyworth, Rosario Dawson as Batgirl and Jenny Slate as Harley Quinn. Logan It’s rare that a sequel declares itself to be the final instalment – and really means it. Just one reason to already love Hugh Jackman’s final hairy outing as Wolverine. Fancy another one? Jackman took a paycut to ensure the film could preserve its ooh-er R-rating. And one more? Few superhero movies have a plot summary quite as glum as: “A past-his-prime Logan undertakes a final adventure in the post-apocalyptic future.” Whoop! Sign me up! Thor 3: Ragnarok The teaser trailer for the latest Avengers spin-off has racked up nearly 18m views. One suggestion appetite is keen for another movie foregrounding the mallet-flinging sweetie played by Chris Hemsworth. Marketing has gone large on the Aussie hi-jinks of the homegrown star, as well as visiting cast members Tom Hiddleston and Idris Elba. The recruiting of Hunt for the Wilderpeople director Taika Waititi further whets anticipation this one will be big on the giggles, rather than the gung-ho stuff. World War Z 2 David Fincher takes the reins on this follow-up to the Brad Pitt zombie flick from 2013. Worryingly little is known about it, but given public hunger for the undead shows no sign of abating as The Walking Dead draws to a close, prognosis for this one remains healthy.
How do you throw the book at an algorithm? W hen, in the mid-1990s, the world wide web transformed the internet from a geek playground into a global marketplace, I once had an image of seeing two elderly gentlemen dancing delightedly in that part of heaven reserved for political philosophers. Their names: Adam Smith and Friedrich Hayek. Why were they celebrating? Because they saw in the internet a technology that would validate their most treasured beliefs. Smith saw vigorous competition as the benevolent “invisible hand” that ensured individuals’ efforts to pursue their own interests could benefit society more than if they were actually trying to achieve that end. Hayek foresaw the potential of the internet to turn almost any set of transactions into a marketplace as a way of corroborating his belief that price signals communicated via open markets were the optimum way for individuals to co-ordinate their activities. In the 1990s, those rosy views of the online world made sense. The technology provided a greenfield site for free-market economics. Barriers to entry were low. Information inequalities between buyers and sellers were being reduced by the rise of search engines and price-comparison sites: no more “markets for lemons”. Competition was fierce because a better price was always just a click away. Online markets were becoming, in the jargon of the day, “frictionless”. Apart from Microsoft (which wasn’t in the e-commerce business), there were no industrial giants to exercise monopoly power. And online companies knew relatively little about their customers. Spool forward two decades and the only thing that hasn’t changed is the evangelical rhetoric of the tech industry. The online economy has been utterly transformed. It’s dominated by huge companies that vacuum up the digital footprints of all their customers and feed them into algorithms that determine prices, respond instantly to competitors’ prices and decide what should be offered to each customer. But the rhetoric of perfect competition, sovereign consumer, free markets and the dangers of government regulation remains locked in the era of Hayek, if not of Smith. Enter Ariel Ezrachi and Maurice Stucke, two distinguished scholars specialising in competition law, who decided to ask if the online emperor has any clothes. Is the veneer of competitiveness provided by the vigour and diversity of our online marketplaces just an illusion? Their book – Virtual Competition: The Promise and Perils of the Algorithm-Driven Economy – provides some sobering answers. Traditional competition law is about firms and their activities. The great insight underpinning Ezrachi’s and Stucke’s book is that, in a digital world, competition law will be mostly about algorithms and big data because these are the forces that now determine what happens in online marketplaces. The book focuses on three particular areas in which anticompetitive and manipulative behaviour is possible and, in some cases, already evident. They are: algorithmically enabled collusion (essentially computerised price fixing); behavioural discrimination (the process by which different customers get different offers depending on their data trails); and what the authors describe as “the dynamic interplay among frenemies” (ie the new ways in which firms can be both collaborators and competitors). In each of these areas, Ezrachi and Stucke dig deep into the ways in which algorithmic and big-data analytics combine to produce behaviours and outcomes that are – or could be – troubling for society. They then go on to discuss the extent to which existing competition law and legal precedents may – or may not – be able to address abuses. In the analogue world, for example, the law can deal with tacit collusion on price fixing because corporate executives are the agents who do it and it is possible often to prove intent. But Ezrachi and Stucke come up with plausible scenarios in which the pricing algorithms of rival firms may produce outcomes that are indistinguishable from tacit collusion, yet difficult to prosecute. Who do you sue when the “culprit” is a machine-learning algorithm? And how would you prove intent when an algorithm produces outcomes that its programmers could not have predicted? Even in the analogue world, competition law was ferociously complex and riddled with ideology: witness the way market dominance morphed, under the influence of the Chicago Law School, from a social evil into proof of industrial excellence. In the networked world, legal regulation will be orders of magnitude more complicated. In fact, one of the effects of having spent a week with this book is a troubling uncertainty. Ezrachi and Stucke have made a convincing case for the need to rethink competition law to cope with algorithmic capitalism’s potential for malfeasance. The bigger question, though, is whether, given the mind-bending complexity of the technology, we are capable of mastering it.
Under Donald Trump, the US will no longer be the beacon of the free world Somehow Donald Trump manages to dumb down everything. Somehow he manages to lower the bar to the point where he can play by a different set of rules. And somehow the media and elected officials just shrug their shoulders and walk away. By his own admission, the president-elect is negotiating business deals at a time when his predecessors were, you know, filling cabinet positions and transitioning to power. He met with his Indian business partners and the Trump Organization signed a Kolkata deal last week. As Trump tweeted earlier this week, “Prior to the election it was well known that I have interests in properties all over the world. Only the crooked media makes this a big deal!” He explained this in more detail, if not entirely coherently, in his interview with the New York Times: “I’ve built a very great company and it’s a big company and it’s all over the world. People are starting to see, when they look at all these different jobs, like in India and other things, number one, a job like that builds great relationships with the people of India, so it’s all good.” “It’s all good” is indeed Trump’s approach to mixing his business and political affairs. “The law is totally on my side,” he claimed, “meaning, the president can’t have a conflict of interest.” To be clear: profiting from the presidency would not be a quaint conflict of interest. This is not about whether Trump favors one country or president over another, gives a contract to one company or another, or spends more time making money for himself than he does boning up about policy. There are laws on the books about US businesses influencing foreign officials with payments or other inducements. The law is called the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and its goal is to stamp out bribery by any US citizen. Bribery is what the law calls favors and payments given to foreign officials in exchange for business deals. Not a conflict of interest. Payments and favors going the other way – into the pockets of the president – are so clearly corrupt that they were forbidden by the founding fathers in the constitution. The so-called emoluments clause prohibits gifts and titles from foreign powers as follows: “No Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.” It’s this clause that leads to exceptional red tape around any and all gifts received by the White House and every other department: from a homemade quilt to a Rolex watch. Everything is detailed, declared and surrendered. Officials can only keep the gifts up to a value of $375 if they repay the US government. This process will be hard within the world of international real estate, where foreign powers can grant gifts ranging from planning permits to investments from sovereign wealth funds. The list is almost endless. Now we don’t know if Donald Trump discussed his Buenos Aires investment with President Mauricio Macri of Argentina, but we do know that his daughter Ivanka – now running the family business – was on the call. We don’t know if there was any suggestion that President Mauricio Macri could expect any benefits for himself or his country. Spokespeople for President Macri and President-elect Trump have denied reports about the mixing of Trump business and politics on the call. But we do know that the long-stalled Buenos Aires project is now moving forward: news that emerged just three days after the call between Macri and Trump. For a president who has refused to release his tax returns, the need for transparency is not exactly clear. In any case, the fact that we’re even having this discussion tells you something profound about the Trump presidency before it officially begins. Trump’s promise to his voters was that he was incorruptible because he was so independently wealthy that nobody could touch him. He knew how to drain the swamp because he had lived in it for so long, buying off begging politicians for so many years that it made him sick. This argument was always a stretch, but clearly many voters bought into his pitch. Just two weeks since the election, it’s obvious that Trump has no interest in separating his personal wealth from his political agenda. The damage caused is not confined to public confidence in the United States government. Being leader of the free world is not a casual concept. That cold war phrase encapsulates the long-prized notion that the United States is a beacon of freedom and democracy for the world. As his own transition came to an end, President-elect Kennedy best summed up the notion in his final address in Boston in January 1961: “I have been guided by the standard John Winthrop set before his shipmates on the flagship Arbella 331 years ago, as they, too, faced the task of building a new government on a perilous frontier. ‘We must always consider’, he said, ‘that we shall be as a city upon a hill – the eyes of all people are upon us’.” The eyes of the world are on the Trump transition right now. They see a president-elect who lost the popular vote by more than 2 million votes and almost 2 percentage points. This is a difficult notion of democracy to explain to a world struggling against authoritarian regimes where votes are routinely ignored and discounted. The work of democracy promotion by the National Endowment for Democracy, established by Reagan, is immeasurably harder as a result of the 2016 election. The work of spreading corruption-free government has become just as hard as a result of Trump’s business dealings. If a sitting president can enrich himself while in office, then why can’t a president of a developing country set up his own businesses to do the same? Why should they not do both? After all, as Trump told the Times, “In theory I could run my business perfectly, and then run the country perfectly.” Corruption – the seeking of personal profit by government officials derived from their roles – is a plague that condemns the most vulnerable people in the world to poor or non-existent public services. If the US can’t talk credibly about the need to stamp out conflict of interest, the world will struggle to eradicate corruption and improve life for the poorest people on the planet. America needs to lead by example and that starts with the president. That’s not a conflict of interest. That’s the national interest.
UK must build cyber-attack capability, chancellor says The UK must strike back at hostile states in cyberspace and be capable of mounting sophisticated cyber-attacks of its own in place of military strikes, the chancellor has said. Philip Hammond said that unless the UK could match the cyber-attack abilities of foreign rogue states, the alternatives would only be to ignore digital attacks on Britain’s infrastructure or use military force. Launching the government’s £1.9bn national cybersecurity strategy, Hammond said the UK had to develop “fully functioning cyber-attack capability”. He said: “If we do not have the ability to respond in cyberspace to an attack that takes down our power networks, leaving us in darkness, or hits our air traffic control system, grounding our planes, we would be left with the impossible choice of turning the other cheek and ignoring the devastating consequences or resorting to a military response.” Hammond said the world’s next great conflict was likely to at least begin in cyberspace, before guns were loaded. “There is no doubt in my mind that the precursor to any future state-on-state conflict will be a campaign of escalating cyber-attacks, to break down our defences and test our resolve before the first shot is fired,” he said in a speech on Tuesday at Microsoft’s Future Decoded conference. Hostile states appeared to believe cyber-attacks were far less risky, Hammond said. “Kinetic attacks carry huge risk of retaliation and may breach international law, but in cyberspace those who want to harm us appear to think that they can act scalably and deniably,” he said. Hammond said the new funding, which doubles the amount set out in 2011 in a similar strategy, will “allow us to take even greater steps to defend ourselves in cyberspace and to strike back when we are attacked”. Speaking before the launch, the Cabinet Office minister Ben Gummer said cyber warfare was “no longer the stuff of spy thrillers and action movies ... Our adversaries are varied – organised criminal groups, ‘hacktivists’, untrained teenagers and foreign states”. The funds will focus on defences for critical infrastructure such as energy and transport. Websites impersonating government departments will be shut down much more quickly, and efforts will be made to crack down on spoof email accounts used in fraud cases. The reforms include a new cyber-innovation centre in Cheltenham. Hammond’s announcement came as Russia rebuffed claims made to the by the head of MI5, Andrew Parker, that the Kremlin was behind hostile manoeuvres against Britain. Parker told the that Moscow was “using its whole range of state organs and powers to push its foreign policy abroad in increasingly aggressive ways – involving propaganda, espionage, subversion and cyber-attacks. Russia is at work across Europe and in the UK today. It is MI5’s job to get in the way of that”. “Those words do not correspond to reality,” Dmitry Peskov, a Kremlin spokesman, said on Tuesday. “Until someone produces proof we will consider those statements unfounded and groundless.”
Driving With Selvi review – a journey into awareness This Canadian-produced, South India-set documentary opens with some depressing statistics about forced marriage, and how 700 million women worldwide were married before they turned 18; 250 million of them before they turned 15. From this dour beginning, director Elisa Paloschi manages to fashion a lightfooted, feelgood film about one girl who got away, and the confident, convention-challenging woman that girl became. When protagonist Selvi was 14, her brother married her off to a man who tortured her and forced her into prostitution. Luckily, she escaped and found her way to a girls’ home, where the forward-thinking people who ran it gave her a chance to learn how to drive. Years later, she became the first female taxi driver in Karnataka, found a husband and started a family. One can’t help wondering how the presence of film-makers in Selvi’s life since her teens has shaped her, but clearly she’s repaid Paloschi for the spotlight by growing into a deeply likable, engaging screen presence. One can help wondering what darker details might have been left out of the final edit, but it’s an effective bit of awareness-raising.
Deutsche Bank lights up to settle its investors’ nerves At times of great stress, bankers tend to reach for the ciggies – and that’s precisely what the highly embattled Deutsche Bank seems to have done. The German group was revealed as a lead financial adviser on British American Tobacco’s planned $47bn takeover of Reynolds American last week – its biggest deal of the year and a useful smokescreen just before the bank’s results statement on Thursday. Still, those results will be dominated by one major question – the financial health or otherwise of the bank – following the US Justice Department’s request that Deutsche pony up $14bn to settle all the beastly things it did with mortgage-backed securities. That demand caused quite a lot of gasping in Frankfurt, meaning boss John Cryan has been attempting to calm investors’ nerves with claims he expects to settle on a smaller figure. All of which might depend on Deutsche’s ability to charm Americans, which brings us to a second worry. The US makes up around 25% of Deutsche’s revenues, according to Macquarie, and last week Wall Street banks announced results that were surprisingly good across the board. Did the US banks take advantage of their German rival’s woes and poach all its business? Or might Deutsche have also benefited from an industry-wide stimulant that has resulted in a general high? By Thursday we should know. Debenhams discounts When Sergio Bucher was unveiled as the new Debenhams chief exec in May, it’s reasonable to assume he believed he’d signed up to a different job. In that carefree time before the Brexit vote, the UK might have felt like a welcoming place for a Swiss-Spaniard to relocate to, and the referendum has made life even more tricky for the boss of the already embattled department store. Pressure on the pound in the aftermath of the vote has hurt Debenhams’ share price as – like many clothing retailers – it often buys in dollars and sells in pounds. Meanwhile, as Bucher prepares for what should be a routine City debut at the group’s results this week, investors have also begun fretting about the health of the retailer’s pension scheme. Morgan Stanley analyst Geoff Ruddell warned last week: “Recent movements in bond yields lead us to believe that the scheme’s liabilities may have increased by more than £300m over the past 12 months and that, as a result, the company may disclose a net pension deficit of more than £200m.” That missive came on the day Bucher started work – and thumped the shares. Welcome to Blighty. Theatre of the absurd at William Hill William Hill chairman Gareth Davis has never publicly said that enjoys the work of Samuel Beckett, but there is a touch of Waiting for Godot about the bookmaker at present. The firm’s management is biding its time in anticipation of something big happening, and following the recent collapse of a pair of mergers, the parallels grow stronger: it was once said of Beckett’s two-act play that “nothing happens – twice”. The problem with this inactivity is fairly obvious. Its rivals have not been sitting around (Ladbrokes and Coral have merged, as have Betfair and Paddy Power) while the uncertainties over a William Hill deal have spooked three candidates for the vacant chief exec role. The search for a new boss continues this week, but it’s not a total long shot that we’ll be watching a year-long performance of waiting for a CEO. In fact, the bookmaker hasn’t managed to appointed a chief exec it actually wanted to hire since David Harding 16 years ago. When Harding left, Hills spent a year looking for his replacement, despite eventual successor, Ralph Topping, being a company lifer. Topping’s retirement was delayed by a couple of expensive moves to keep him in post, despite his replacement James Henderson joining the firm in 1985. Developing. Slowly.
Cameron 'disappointed, but not surprised' as Gove heads towards Brexit David Cameron has sought to make light of Michael Gove’s imminent decision to campaign to leave the European Union, saying he is “disappointed but ... not surprised”. During a press conference after striking a deal at the Brussels summit, Cameron said: “Michael is one of my oldest and closest friends but he has wanted to get Britain to pull out of the EU for about 30 years. “So of course I am disappointed that we are not going to be on the same side as we have this vital argument about our country’s future. I am disappointed but I am not surprised.” Gove, a longstanding Eurosceptic, has been agonising for months about whether to follow his conscience or support his friends and allies, Cameron and George Osborne, in favour of EU membership. The prime minister brushed off questions about whether Boris Johnson, who will now face pressure to follow Gove’s lead, will also campaign to leave. “Other politicians will have to make up their minds and they will have to make their own announcements. But in the end it is the British people that will decide.” A move by the justice secretary to support a Brexit will electrify the out campaign in the EU referendum, and put pressure on Johnson to follow his lead. The London mayor has caused some irritation in Downing Street by making a series of demands – firstly for two referendums, and then a declaration of the sovereignty of parliament – while claiming he cannot make up his mind. Senior figures in Vote Leave, whose campaign director Dominic Cummings helped Gove deliver his controversial free schools programme as his senior special adviser, had been confident that they would win over a heavy hitting cabinet minister. They hope that a mainstream figure such as Gove will help them reach out in the referendum to middle ground undecided voters even if the justice secretary eases the blow for Cameron by not taking a high profile campaigning role. A victory for the Leave side in the referendum, which is expected to be held on 23 June if a deal is reached at this EU summit, would probably terminate Cameron’s premiership and kill of George Osborne’s hopes of leading the Conservatives. The prime minister would be told by the 1922 committee of Tory backbenchers that he could not lead the two years of negotiations on Britain’s EU exit after failing so spectacularly in his goal of keeping the UK in a reformed EU. Gove has made clear in semi-private that he has been torn between the profound belief that Britain should break free from the shackles of EU membership and loyalty to the prime minister and the chancellor. The justice secretary knows that joining the out campaign could terminate the political careers of his two great friends and boost the leadership chances of Theresa May and Johnson. In an impassioned plea on Thursday night, the prime minister, who has been kept fully informed about Gove’s thinking, showed the pressure when he warned his counterparts that they were risking “suicide” if they expected him to run a referendum campaign to keep Britain in the EU without a “credible” deal to sell to the British people. According to witnesses to the exchanges, Cameron told the other EU leaders that he would lose the support of the cabinet and would lose the referendum if he did not obtain a satisfactory outcome. European leaders were due to reconvene their formal proceedings after a gap of nearly 20 hours at 8.30pm Brussels time on Friday night. Donald Tusk, the European council president who had held a series of bilateral meetings with EU leaders throughout Thursday night and during the day on Friday, was due to table a proposed agreement. The delayed start to the formal negotiations prompted the prime minister to abandon plans to hold a cabinet meeting on Friday night. A cabinet has been pencilled in for Saturday if an agreement is reached overnight. A move by Gove to support a British exit will not surprise Downing Street, which has been fully briefed on his indecision in recent weeks. No 10 had been confident at the turn of the year that the justice secretary would support the prime minister. But his record for Euroscepticism is well known. Downing Street will be hoping that Gove will abide by the terms of a letter the prime minister sent to cabinet ministers when he agreed to lift the rules on cabinet collective responsibility once an EU deal has been agreed. It said that ministers who have a history of Euroscepticism would be free to campaign for a vote to leave but they would be expected to do so amiably. No 10 will be hoping that Gove, known as the politest man in British politics, will live up to his reputation.
The view on antibiotic resistance: walk softly, carry a big stick The Longitude Prize is a very smart idea. The prize is a handsome £8m and it awaits the first individual or (more probably) team that develops a quick, cheap and reliable way of stopping overuse or misuse of antibiotics. The diagnostic – it might be a strip of sensitised paper or it might be a mobile phone app – must be capable of being used anywhere in the world. Next week another round of assessment of ideas begins from the 138 teams so far registered. A prize is smart economics to encourage smart science. It counters the lack of a strong market incentive to develop a diagnostic for which there is an overwhelming need – while reminding the rest of us to remember, next time we see the doctor, the urgency of the crisis. Antibiotics, it is reckoned, add 20 years to life expectancy; resistance is growing so fast that already 700,000 people die each year from untreatable infections. From the exotic, like typhoid, to the all too domestic Clostridium difficile, the pathogens that once succumbed swiftly to penicillin and other antibiotics now fight back. They are becoming killers again. Finding a diagnostic that can be made universally available isn’t going to save the world. But as the economist Jim O’Neill argued in his report on antimicrobial resistance published last week, when more than half of all prescriptions for antibiotics may be unnecessary, developing a globally available test is going to be part of the solution to keeping them viable for another generation. Antibiotic resistance arises when a drug wipes out the weediest organisms in a population, leaving hardier ones behind that pass on their genes. Then, when this next generation is hit with drugs, the weediest of those are killed off, leaving a bunch behind that are hardier still. Simply reducing the number of times a type of bacteria is challenged might, counter-intuitively, stop it growing more resistant. Walk softly and carry a big stick. Economics isn’t working here. That’s partly why new generations of antibiotics emerge so infrequently. Earlier generations are now cheap and plentiful and increasingly ineffective. New ones are very hard to develop, and might never be licensed for mass distribution but instead reserved as a weapon of last resort. There’s not much profit in either. Lord O’Neill proposed a “play or pay” levy on big pharmaceutical companies; the ones that didn’t invest in research and development would be required to help those that did. The industry reaction was negative. The problem of antibiotic resistance is about science and economics, and it faces society itself, locally and globally, with hard questions, too. It pits individual benefit against the common good: your sore throat, our ability to survive a hospital stay. It demands recognition that a personal benefit may at a distance have a much greater cost. If that was the extent of the problem, it would be challenge enough. But it is much worse than that. The EU has banned the use of antibiotics in farm animals. In the US and China and many other countries, they are a commonplace growth enhancer. They deliver fatter pigs and bigger profits to farmers, more cheap food to swelling populations. All the cheap and effective diagnostic kits in the world will be futile if there is no agreement to end this rival abuse of scientific knowledge. Like climate change, there is only one big way to meet the threat. Together.
Turnbull looks to restore Abbott cuts to financial sector regulator The Turnbull government could restore hundreds of millions of dollars in funding cuts to the financial regulator made in the Abbott government’s first budget, while boosting the regulator’s intervention powers at the same time. The changes could be announced as early as Tuesday, in a bid to dampen the popularity of Labor’s call for a royal commission into the financial services sector two weeks ago. Federal cabinet met on Monday and considered a suite of policies to boost the resources of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (Asic), with its proposals to be taken to a party room meeting on Tuesday. Labor has ramped up its attack, claiming the government has had its head in the sand on financial misadventure for the past two years. The proposals considered by the Turnbull cabinet could involve restoring all of the $120m funding that Asic lost in the Abbott government’s 2014 budget. It also considered introducing a tougher regime of civil penalties, and giving Asic product intervention powers. A user-pays funding model – in which banks and other institutions that need regulation are required to contribute to the funding of the regulator – could also be introduced. The Asic chairman, Greg Medcraft, has called repeatedly for such a funding model to be introduced. The Coalition’s plans come as Labor ramps up its attack on the government, buoyed by the popularity of its recent call for a royal commission. Labor says a review of speeches and public comments from Asic executives from the past two years shows the regulator has warned the government on 41 occasions that it is unable to do its job properly without greater powers and resourcing. The shadow treasurer, Chris Bowen, says the government has repeatedly ignored these warnings “as scandal after scandal has been revealed by the press and through Senate economics committee inquiries.” “In October 2014, Asic chairman Greg Medcraft declared that Australia was a ‘paradise’ for white-collar criminals because of its soft punishments of corporate offences, calling on the government to give the regulator the power to impose harsher jail terms and bigger penalties for white-collar crime,” Bowen said. “Asic has been calling on this government to take action repeatedly in public and parliamentary forums.” A Fairfax/Ipsos poll published on Monday showed 65% of voters support Labor’s call for a royal commission, while 26% oppose the idea. Labor and Greens voters are the biggest supporters, at 78% and 79% respectively, while over half of Coalition voters support the idea, at 53%. The prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, and the treasurer, Scott Morrison, told parliament on Monday that Labor’s call for a royal commission was populist, whereas the government’s plan would be about taking action. “We are taking action to ensure that Asic does its job,” Turnbull said.
Readers suggest the 10 best teen pop singers 1 | Steve Winwood Suggested by WordChazer, ohcomeoffit and mikedow A number of disappointed readers were shocked at the absence of Steve Winwood from our list. Labelled by user Aqueuetangle as “one of the greatest voices in rock music”, the musician was just 17 when the Spencer Davis Group topped the UK charts with single Keep on Running. The artist went on to forge a successful solo career, earning two Grammy awards for his single Higher Love. 2 | Kate Bush Suggested by manic_bunny, ccmac10 and SackDacreNOW “No Kate Bush? Come on, this list doesn’t mean anything if an 18-year-old Kate Bush isn’t on there,” says user manic_bunny, and a number of other readers agree. The British singer rose to fame in 1978 with her much-loved debut single Wuthering Heights. The song topped the UK singles chart for an impressive four weeks, making the talented youngster the first female artist to gain a British No 1 with a self-penned song. 3 | Helen Shapiro Suggested by azaro, rhinestonecowgril and sniffmysmellysocks Sixties starlet Helen Shapiro had a successful, if brief, pop career during her teenage years, with her surprisingly mature voice earning her four UK top three singles between the ages of 14 and 15. Though her career seemed to end as quickly as it began, the teen still had time to rack up an impressive list of achievements, including a 19-week chart run with hit Walkin’ Back to Happiness, and a UK headline tour – with newly signed band the Beatles as her support. 4 | Aaliyah Suggested by huntress1013 and babylonia Of the many teen R&B stars of the 90s, user babylonia says Aaliyah was by far the one who had the greatest “impact and merit”. After signing to Jive Records at the age of 12, Aaliyah released three successful studio albums, including the double platinum One in a Million. Despite her untimely death in 2001 (the singer was sadly killed in a plane crash at the age of 22), Aaliyah has come to be regarded as one of the artists who helped revolutionise 90s R&B. She has been listed by Billboard as the 10th most successful female R&B artist of the past 25 years and the 27th most successful of all time. 5 | Lulu Suggested by simonsaint, RidleyWalker and Chippyminton A number of our readers thought Lulu should have been included on the list, having released a version of the Isley Brothers’ Shout aged 15. The Lulu and the Luvvers single reached No 7 in the UK charts thanks to the singer’s distinctive vocals. At such a young age, this was clearly something to shout about... 6 | Vanessa Paradis Suggested by huntress1013, simonsaint and RidleyWalker Vanessa Paradis shot to international fame at the age of 14 with her single Joe Le Taxi. The song topped the French singles charts for an incredible 11 weeks, before going on to reach No 3 in the UK charts the following year – an impressive feat for a song sung entirely in French. 7 | Britney Spears Suggested by SpotTheWhopper , HunkyPants and Jason Ma Love or hate her, user HunkyPants says that Britney is a “global superstar” who “exploded” as a teenager and deserves a place on this list. Her debut album, ...Baby One More Time, sold more than 30 million copies worldwide, making it the bestselling album by a teenage solo artist and one of the bestselling albums of all time. It might drive you crazy, but there’s no denying the singer’s success. 8 | Debbie Gibson Suggested by Carlos Hughes and Jason Ma “Listen to Debbie Gibson’s intro to Only in My Dreams on her Top of the Pops debut in 1987, then you can rearrange your list,” writes user Carlos Hughes. The 80s dance-pop single, written by Gibson, reached No 4 on the US Billboard Hot 100 singles chart when the singer was just 16. She made history the following year, becoming the youngest person ever to write, sing and produce a No 1 single, with Foolish Beat. 9 | Van Morrison Suggested by Silgen and TheOverload As user TheOverload says, “Van Morrison was singing in the womb.” OK, maybe not, but the Brown Eyed Girl star did begin his professional career while still just a teen. He started out playing a variety of instruments for Irish showbands, before going on to tour Europe with local band the Monarchs at the age of 17. He has since been knighted for his services to the music industry. 10 | Justin Bieber Suggested by HunkyPants and Jason Ma User Jason Ma thinks that Justin Bieber deserves a place on this list, based on his “huge popularity” and “influence”. After posting videos of himself singing on YouTube, Bieber signed a recording contract with R&B singer Usher. His debut album, My World, went on to achieve international success, earning him a loyal following of Beliebers.
Mark Singer: ‘Trump will continue to shoot himself in the foot’ Mark Singer is a staff writer at the New Yorker. In 1996, he was asked by its then editor, Tina Brown, to profile Donald Trump, an assignment that involved spending weeks in the property tycoon’s company. Following Trump’s successful campaign to be the Republican party candidate for president, Singer has now revisited these encounters in a hilariously scathing book, Trump & Me. On its jacket is a blurb from its subject. It reads: “Mark, you are a total loser! And your book (and writings) sucks!” Do you think Trump can win? No, I don’t. I was worried about it two or three weeks ago. But he has shot himself in the foot since then. Attacking Gonzalo Curiel [the US district judge who is handling the Trump University lawsuit] was an unforced error, a stupid thing to have done. There are four and a half months to the election, and he will do this kind of thing again and again. He is shameless. People at his rallies seem convinced this guy is going to build this wall [between the US and Mexico]. It’s a metaphor, but they think it’s real. And since he is shameless, he will encourage these illusions. But this notion that anyone can control Trump... He can’t be controlled. It’s obvious. He’s all id. So, he will continue to shoot himself in the foot. Also, Obama is unfettered now because he has endorsed Hillary. This is payback time for him. He is going to be Clinton’s greatest weapon. But what if he does win? Well, he is the commander-in-chief so that nixes the coup. But the National Security Agency and the CIA: these people are not going to go along with a Trumpian abnegation of civil liberties. There will be chaos of some sort. People say he’ll get elected and then impeached. That would be no fun, but it might be necessary. He has already done enormous damage to the United States. He has hurt it abroad. Every time he makes these anti-Muslim statements, he feeds the Isis narrative. This man is so self-involved, and now it’s layered with this extra megalomania because he is near real power. Is the US press up to scrutinising him? They’re rising to it now but, for a while, it was the most disgraceful performance. When Trump announced [he was running], people thought it would be great comedy, good for satire. I dissented from that. I knew how toxic he was. Given the tenor of the times, I knew he was not going to be good for the country. Anyway, it took a while for the factchecking [by the press] to kick in, and meanwhile he was overwhelming his opponents in debates by insulting them. They had no idea what to do: they were flummoxed, and so they fell one by one. The horse race became the narrative, and that lasted for months. No one was doing the reporting. But they’re doing it now. Trump University [against which there are fraud allegations] has been out there for years; his dealings with women, also. People need to look at his track record. His only real success has been branding himself. In his introduction to your book, the editor of the New Yorker, David Remnick, traces Trump’s decision to stand for president to the 2011 White House correspondents’ dinner, when Obama made jokes about him. [In a dig at Trump’s obsession with his citizenship, Obama said he was ready to make his “birth video” public; he then showed a clip from The Lion King.] Do you agree that humiliation was the spur? It’s not clear. In terms of his ego, that would mean he felt those jokes, and I doubt he can feel anything. But if you see the video of him, he’s seething. Watch it on YouTube. It’s terrific! When Brown asked you to write about Trump, did your heart sink? Yes, it did – although I thank her now. A friend of mine, another reporter on the magazine, said: ‘Just don’t do it.’ But Tina had a special drawer in her desk, and in that drawer was a jar, and in that jar were my testicles. [Singer had spent four years writing a book, and thus had not been writing many pieces for Brown.] I had to follow my testicles. Once I got into it, though, it was interesting to go into how he did things, and that’s when I realised the extent of his financial difficulties. [In the 1990s, Trump was in debt; among other things, he missed a $30m interest payment to one of the estimated 150 banks that were concerned about his financial wellbeing.] But he was too big to fail: that’s the simplest shorthand. He had over-leveraged himself, and the banks had to write off some of his debts, and then he just turned around and said: “I’m back and I’m better than ever.” Later, your profile of Trump appeared in a collection of your work, a book that was reviewed positively in the New York Times. Trump responded to the review in a letter to the paper in which he said that you, unlike him, were “not born with great writing ability” and generally slagged you off. Your book shot up the Amazon chart and, as a token of your gratitude, you sent him a cheque. Yes, for $37.82 (£26.74). And he cashed it. I was going to send him $1,000 because I wanted him to cash it. But I didn’t have $1,000. It never occurred to me he would cash this cheque. I sent it as a “fuck you”. People always want to know why he cashed the cheque and it’s obvious: he needed the money. [Laughs] You know, when he attacked me, I thought: I can die happy. I wrote about him again a couple of times, but it was only earlier this year that I decided to do this book. I guess I thought: Well, the country seems to be going down the toilet – what’s in it for me? A totally Trumpian thought. Trump is arriving in the UK this week. What should we make of that? I don’t know. It’s bizarre, coming here the day after the Brexit vote. But good luck! I guess you should think of him as someone who’s bringing back mad cow disease. That should do it. Trump & Me by Mark Singer is published by Penguin on 5 July, £9.99. Click here to order a copy for £6.79
NHS head disputes Theresa May claims over health funding The head of the NHS in England has rejected Theresa May’s claim that the health service has been given more funding than it requested to meet rising demand for care. Simon Stevens told MPs that the NHS would receive an additional £8bn between now and 2020-21, not the “£10bn extra” the prime minister said. Moreover, it would get less money than it needed between 2017 and 2020, meaning it would be “more challenging” than expected to keep services running. The chief executive of NHS England disagreed with the prime minister’s statement, which she repeated on Monday, that “the government has not just given him £8bn extra, we’ve given him £10bn extra”. The £8bn was pledged last year by the then chancellor, George Osborne. Stevens told the Commons health select committee that the NHS had only received the money it had asked for in two of the five years covered by the £8bn: 2016-17 and 2020-21. For those two years the budget increases the NHS is due to get are “in the zone” of the sums it needs to implement its Five Year Forward View plan to transform patient care to keep the service sustainable. “But for the [other] three years we didn’t get the funding we requested,” Stevens said pointedly. “As a result we have a bigger hill to climb. It’s going to be more of a challenge in 2017-18, 2018-19 and 2019-20 [than NHS chiefs expected],” he added. While the NHS would get only “modest” extra sums in 2017-18 and 2019-20, “2018-19 will be the most pressurised year for us ... [because] we will have negative per-person NHS funding growth.” His remarks contrast sharply with what May told the Manchester Evening News during a visit to the city on Monday, in which she repeated the government’s longstanding insistence that it had given Stevens all the money he asked for to fund the Forward View and then £2bn more. The health select committee, health thinktanks and NHS organisations have all disputed both claims. “Simon Stevens was asked to come forward with a five-year plans for the NHS. He did that, so that’s been generated by the NHS itself. He said that it needed £8bn extra – the government has not just given him £8bn extra, we’ve given him £10bn extra,” she told the MEN. “As I say, we have given the NHS more than the extra money they said they wanted for their five-year plan.” The health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, speaking to MPs alongside Stevens, refused to comment on the ’s disclosure last weekend that May has already told the NHS boss that the service will not receive any funding increase in next month’s autumn statement. “It was a private meeting,” he said. Asked by MPs about May’s belief, which she outlined at the meeting on 8 September, that the NHS could learn from the Home Office and Ministry of Defence’s recent experience of efficiency drives, Stevens dismissed any parallels. While crime had fallen in recent years, demand for NHS care had risen, was still growing and would continue upward, he said. For example, demand for cancer care had risen 55% over the past five years. He also pointed out that the £8bn figure was at the lower end of projections of the NHS’s needs. “The original modelling suggested a funding requirement in five years’ time of between £8bn and £21bn, depending on the level of efficiency which could be produced, the continuing availability of social care relative to rising need, the availability of capital investment to lubricate new service models – particularly investments in GP services and out-of-hospital care – and the availability of preventative services through local authorities, but also the role the NHS itself has to play.” Sally Gainsbury, a senior policy analyst with the Nuffield Trust health thinktank, said that while NHS trusts had cut their unit costs by 13% since 2010, their income had gone down by 18% over the same period. Hunt dropped hints that the autumn statement might yield extra money to prop up the ailing social care system in England, which the Care Quality Commisison last week warned was “approaching a tipping point” and denying growing numbers of elderly people vital support they need to keep them healthy. “I do accept the broad point that however great the pressures are in the NHS, they are even greater in social care,” said Hunt. He is thought to privately share Stevens’s public view that if ministers do find extra cash, it should be put into social care rather than the health service. Hunt also gave the clearest indication yet that the 55,000 EU nationals working in the NHS, including 10,000 doctors and 18,000 nurses, would be allowed to stay once Britain leaves the EU. Labour said that Stevens’s comments showed that, contrary to the government’s repeated claim, it was underfunding the NHS. “We now know the truth: the Tories have failed to give the NHS the money it needs to protect patient care,” said Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow health secretary. “Despite all of the government’s spin, the chief executive of the NHS made clear that the NHS did not get the funding it asked for over the next four years and has a ‘hill to climb’ to maintain current services. “The dramatic decline in NHS finances over the past few years has left A&E departments at breaking point, hospital wards dangerously overcrowded and millions of patients having to wait months for essential operations.”
Tim Minchin on his Groundhog Day musical and George Pell's 'moral obligation' Tim Minchin’s overnight success came only after years of struggle and failure, and hours of mucking about on the piano. He wasn’t always the cool guy who could sit down and write an edgy song about Cardinal George Pell in one day – a song which went viral, and raised money to help abuse survivors travel to Rome. “I spent thousands of thousands of hours playing the piano, and by thousands of hours, I mean playing in cover bands or wedding bands or disco bands or original bands or playing cabaret for Todd McKenney,” Minchin tells Australia. “People think ‘how do musicians get those sorts of skills?’ But what they don’t imagine is that most musicians literally just fucking made it up. I just did it and did it and did it and did it for years. No one taught me how to do it.” Minchin’s struggle to find out what kind of artist he was, and to find an audience, is laid bare in a very personal documentary, Matilda and Me, which was directed by his sister Nel Minchin and airs this weekend on the ABC. Nel, a seasoned filmmaker in her own right, weaves the back story of Tim’s burgeoning career with the drama of staging Tim’s hit musical, Matilda, in his home country. As director, narrator and sister, was it possible for Nel to stay objective? “I think it was important not to be too objective in some ways, particularly about him,” she says. “You have to be objective about the telling of the story. What it is to sing, and what’s important to where he’s at now with his career.” Nel doesn’t spare her big brother any embarrassment, raiding the family photo album and digging up old film to show Minchin’s very Australian childhood on the beach in Perth, and his beginnings in the industry as a young man taking work where he could find it: writing songs, acting in plays and playing piano for cabaret artists, all the while trying to find his niche. She shares family photographs and sibling memories, further drawing the story out of Tim as they sit down with a cup of tea and reflect. Tim says after “having no money and not really being able to afford good food and stuff” he just decided to go on stage and be himself – and it worked. “In 2004, I’m like, ‘I’m sick of asking people for permission, I’m just going to show off.” Tim’s career picked up in that year in Melbourne, and after regular gigs at the Butterfly Club and good reviews for his work at the Melbourne International Comedy festival, he debuted at the Edinburgh Fringe festival, where he won the Perrier Best Newcomer award. In 2009 Minchin was commissioned by the Royal Shakespeare Company to write the music and lyrics for a stage adaptation of Roald Dahl’s Matilda, a book which he loved so much as a child he had contacted the Dahl family for permission to write a musical years earlier. Matilda the Musical – the most successful new musical in decades – has just opened in Melbourne. “It’s weird,” Tim says. “The documentary leans very heavy on the kind of emotional undercurrent and the idea of coming home to Sydney, where I did so much theatre and where I did the really hard jobs. “But there’s another whole emotional beat to coming home to Melbourne, because we lived here for five years before things changed in our lives. Now this is where I really was in my existential ‘What the fuck am I doing with my life, instead of working?’.” Tim is currently working on the musical adaptation of Groundhog Day, which opens on Broadway in 2017. “I just always thought Groundhog Day was potentially a great idea,” he says. “We’re in this incredible point now, this incredible limbo where most of the creative work’s done and we’ve got to get it on stage and a hell of a lot of people have put money and time behind it. You just don’t bloody know [if it will work].” How does Minchin feel about George Pell now, after watching him giving evidence remotely from Rome in front of the survivors who travelled half way around the world to be in the same room as him? “I feel quite sad about it. I feel sad for him, because he’s so clearly incapable of humility, really,” Minchin says. “No, he showed some humility, but it’s actually ... I don’t think it would be hard to do something profoundly good to the survivors, to let them know that they’re heard and believed. “After all the times they have been deceived. Which is so, so damaging, [if you] even read one paper on sexual assault and how that affects people. One of the main things is acknowledgement. He thought it was more important for him to avoid the spotlight. I think it’s incredibly sad and shows a massive misunderstanding of what his moral obligation is. “I’m so proud that I was able to play a part in getting those survivors over there. If you could see just a tenth of the letters I got from people.” Matilda And Me premieres on 3 April at 7.40pm on the ABC
Kartemquin: Chicago film-makers on 50 years of slam dunk documentaries For 50 years, Chicago documentary production company Kartemquin has been making thought-provoking documentaries that have had an international impact. Now 74, artistic director Gordon Quinn, burns with the same passion that saw him establish the collective. Sitting in his Chicago office, awards piled up on the shelves through the French doors, he sets out his original manifesto. “We wanted to make films to make social change, to give people information, and to change the world for the better. We were very taken with telling people’s stories who don’t usually get told. We felt that that kind of storytelling had an important role to play in the democratic process. That’s what we were very committed to and passionate about; and we still are today.” Kartemquin’s oeuvre is varied. Over 51 films and four series, Quinn and his colleagues have plumbed enduring themes such as race, education and fairness and surely have indeed contributed to social change. The group’s most famous documentaries include The Interrupters, about a group of activists trying to stop violence in Chicago; Life Itself, which takes as its subject the late Chicago film critic Roger Ebert; and Hoop Dreams, a three-hour classic, currently streaming for free on Kartemquin’s website, which follows two talented high school basketball players from poor backgrounds trying to make it to the NBA. The company sees itself as very much part of Chicago’s vibrant, interdisciplinary creative communities. “Kartemquin still has this midwestern flavour,” Quinn says. Currently, the company has one series and 12 films in progress. One of them, ’63 Boycott, “blew up over the internet”, when Kartemquin’s website published a 1962 photo of Bernie Sanders being arrested; Sanders, who was in the same year as Quinn at the University of Chicago, was challenging the university’s racist housing policy. Quinn says that the protest of the title was a precursor to further struggles to come. “It’s about people demanding to have an equal shot at education and not have their kids put into trailers or put into these inferior educational situations. That huge demonstration in 1963 where 200,000 kids walked out of school in Chicago. People that were involved in it say, ‘We’re still fighting the same battles today, it’s frustrating that we’re not farther’.” The artistic director passionately believes in education rather than incarceration. Margaret Byrne’s beautifully filmed Raising Bertie, which premiered at Full Frame Film Festival in the UK earlier this year, follows the education of three young black teenagers over six years. Their alternative North Carolina school the Hive is a quarter of a mile from Bertie-Martin regional jail; the documentary laments that there are 27 prisons within a 100-mile radius, while the schools are chronically underfunded. Raising Bertie records the closure of the Hive. Quinn gestures dramatically, explaining why the cash-strapped Board of Education’s decision was unfair for both students and teachers. “School is not an education factory. The Hive didn’t have the test results? Give me a break. It was only open for three years! That was clearly an institution that was making a difference in these kids’ lives. You have to give it a chance to play out. “The same thing is true with many of the 50 schools they closed here in Chicago recently. They want these quick fixes, we have all these ‘entrepreneurial’ approaches to education … you have to understand the larger context in which a neighbourhood school plays a role. They are humanistic institutions.” Raising Bertie raises scientific evidence around youth incarceration. “Their brains aren’t fully formed, they still have impulse issues, they’re still growing up and yet the criminal justice system treats so many of them as adults,” says Quinn. “I think there are a lot of aspects to Raising Bertie that are important … Our problems with inequality date back to slavery, you just can’t get away from that, and that’s what we need to be dealing with.” The company’s films frequently tackle America’s relationship with race. Quinn’s A Good Man follows legendary African American choreographer Bill T Jones as he struggles to create a dance work about Abraham Lincoln for the president’s bicentenary, while The Trials of Muhammad Ali explores the boxer’s political and religious awakening, which put him on a collision course with the white American establishment. The Interrupters, meanwhile, looks at reformed criminals intervening to reduce Chicago’s lethal violence. “The quick fix – ‘Oh well, if we just make longer prison sentences that’ll stop all this violence’ – none of it works,” says Quinn. “None of these crime bills have done anything to reduce crime. But there in The Interrupters, you’re seeing people actually having an effect with that intense human interaction and really listening to people about who they are and what their problems are. It’s an incredibly powerful film.” Later I speak to one of the film’s main subjects, Cobe Williams, Ceasefire/CureViolence’s director of training, who Skypes me from a New York taxi. In one of the film’s most moving scenes, Williams takes Lil’ Mikey, recently released from incarceration, to a barbershop. In a model act of restorative justice, Mikey sincerely apologises to his victims for robbing them at gunpoint at age 15, and listens to the anguish he caused. Beaming with pleasure, Williams tells me that Lil’ Mikey – and the film’s other memorable former criminals like Flamo, Bud and Ameena – are doing well. “I talk to Lil’ Mikey every day. He work in schools. It’s a programme they call Bam, Becoming a Man. Lil’ Mikey’s doing great there. He got Bud in school right now for criminal justice. It’s great stuff came out of this.” Charismatic and persuasive, Williams himself has come a long way from serving 13 years for attempted murder and drug trafficking. “Yes man! I’ve been blessed and I’ma keep doing what I’m doing to keep making a difference in these communities across the world. I’m gonna keep interrupting violence.” The Interrupters got the message out about their work, Williams testifies. “The film really put the programme out there. We [are now] working in 60 sites. We got 20 sites in New York, five in Baltimore, two in Philly. We’re in Trinidad, we’re in Africa. We everywhere now, man. Yes!” Joakim Noah, the Chicago Bulls center, saw The Interrupters and tweeted: “this a must-see documentary … Cobe, if I can do anything to help let me know.” Williams and Noah have been organising regular basketball peace tournaments. “We been in jam ever since, that’s my brother now, for real.” His message for audiences today is young people in blighted communities just need someone who really cares. “We need more people to get out there on the frontline and help out.” The touching Life Itself highlighted Ebert’s insight: “The movies are like a machine that generates empathy.” Quinn agrees. “Right! Hoop Dreams was such a success because many people watched it who would never watch a film about an inner-city family. But because it was about sports, they spent almost three hours with people that they never would have encountered. You have to engage people on an emotional level. We are trying to make films that get people to see and listen to and care about; and understand somebody who’s not them.” He warms to his theme. “That’s one of the problems that I see in America with this incredible polarisation, that people already know how they’re going to respond to something so they’re not even listening to it.” Instead, Kartemquin’s films stand for empathy and complexity in a world that trades increasingly in decontextualised, cold, knee-jerk opinions. For more about Kartemquin’s 50th anniversary celebrations, including a Chicago exhibition and free weekly streamings of all their films, go to their website.
Macron: block UK financial firms from selling to eurozone after Brexit British-based financial institutions must be prevented post-Brexit from selling their services in the eurozone, Emmanuel Macron, the likely progressive left candidate for the French presidency has told the . He said a ban on so-called financial passporting rights, seen as potentially highly damaging to the City of London and one of the most fraught issues in Brexit talks, “should not be seen as a technical issue but a matter of sovereignty”. Financial services passporting allows banks and other financial companies, like insurers and accountancy firms, to operate across the European Union based on their authorisation in a single member state. Macron, currently the best prospect of preventing a rightwing victory in next year’s presidential election, added he could not see how the UK could be granted a financial passport unless it contributed to the EU budget in the same way as Switzerland and Norway. But Macron insisted: “The financial passport is part of full access to the EU market and a precondition for that is the contribution to the EU budget. That has been the case in Norway and in Switzerland. That is clear.” The proposal would be rejected outright by British Eurosceptics. He also gave no ground on free movement of EU workers, saying any concessions that allowed the UK to exclude some EU citizens would lead to the disintegration of Europe. Macron’s remarks are a fresh sign that leading French politicians jockeying for the presidency are in no mood to offer concessions to the UK. Macron,39, resigned from Hollande’s unpopular government last week, to set up new movement “En Marche” and assemble his “progressive diagnosis” of French ills ahead of a decision on a presidential bid in a couple of months. With only two years in mainstream politics, he is seen as an intriguing wild card who could thwart either Nicholas Sarkozy or the Front National of Marine le Pen. He was in London to help build a campaign war chest as large as €12m (£10m) and claims 75,000 people have joined his movement since it was launched. Describing his position of third in the polls as “a good beginning”, he insists he can be the catalyst to disrupt and break the classical outmoded left-right political blocs. Macron’s remarks on passporting run counter to claims made by both Philip Hammond, the chancellor and Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary, that passporting rights will be preserved. Hammond told MPs this week that any attempt by the EU to split off euro-denominated clearing would not benefit the EU, with business instead drifting to New York. Johnson has insisted the UK’s financial services sector will not be stripped of the passporting rights, which exist within the single market, saying that the City of London will remain a global financial centre. But Macron said: “We have the eurozone. Could we accept to be cleared, regulated and de facto have inflows and outflows from a country that has decided to leave the EU? For me, definitely not.” He added the EU could not wait months and months for the UK to start Brexit talks. “Procrastination is not the right answer. We have to be extremely strict on the implementation of Brexit so there is a common approach between member states. We must avoid a sector by sector or country by country approach, and ask the UK to be clear.” He also spurned the concessions on free movement as a price for access to the EU single market. “If you accept such caveats, the more you can damage the EU and it will be an open door for whoever has doubts about Europe, and so reduce the incentive to be pro-European. “I was completely against the agreements signed with the UK in February; it just said ‘OK if you give me more, then I will stay in the club’. That is the beginning of the dismantlement of Europe. Now just because there is a leave vote, should we rewrite the rules of the club for one country. It’s a very strange defeat for Europe if people accept that.” Macron said he is trying to develop a programme on economic dynamism, married to social protection, equality of opportunity and security: “I am not just a liberal movement. I come from the progressive left. I am trying to refresh and counter the system.” Macron, attacking his rivals on the right on their strongest issue of national identity, described “the recent shortcut in the debate from the Nice terrorist attack to the burkini ban as crazy. A national debate on this was the best way to divide the country”. He said that the middle classes were losing their sense of cultural security, but that issue could not be solved by national laws and bans. “The guy who killed people in Nice was not a Muslim. Daesh [Islamic State] want civil war in our country. They want to divide the country. But they are not in a position to break our country unless we decide to enter into this game and organise a civil war. It is crazy to think the best way to defeat Daesh is to fight Muslims. We have 5.5 million Muslims in France”. But he said there was a deeper issue about unintegrated Muslims in France, especially Salafists who regarded Islamic law as superior to French secular law. He estimated that between 25–30% of French Muslims, close to 2 million, thought in this way, and the answer lay in enforcing French secular law. French Muslims had to become less dependent on preachers from Algiers and Morocco, he said. But he added that measures such as the burkini ban, or wearing the veil, risked disenfranchising Muslims and risking their ability to be fully aligned with the Republic.
The view on knowledge in an information age: take it to heart The Knowledge has been saved, for now. Despite the fact that a smartphone can get you around London with very little skill required, licensed taxi drivers will still have to spend years learning streets by heart. This can seem like an absurd luddite fantasy, of a piece with the cabbies’ resistance to any less-guild-like competition, from the likes of Uber. What’s not to like about outsourcing to technology the tedious facts that clutter our brains? We now use calculators for mental arithmetic, Wikipedia instead of libraries, and – most fundamentally – we read the written word instead of memorising epic poetry. Who could object to such progress? Socrates, for one. He would have detested Wikipedia. In a passage of unsurpassed irony, Plato wrote into the Phaedrus Socrates’s objection to the written word: that it allowed people to parrot facts without understanding and assimilating them. He even put in a word for the poor texts themselves, helpless to defend themselves against misunderstanding when the author was not there to clarify. Yet without writing, of course, we would know nothing of Socrates’ objections to reading about him. What Plato, as a literary artist, understood and Socrates did not, because he only talked, was something that any devoted reader knows today: it is possible to have conversations with books. Books can talk back if we ask them questions the right way. Since the enlightening effect is exactly what Socrates’ conversations had aimed at, we can comfortably see that he was wrong. Not entirely wrong, however. For one thing, the technology of writing can itself aid memory: a note hand-written is more likely to be remembered. There is a difference between a disaggregated collection of facts pulled in and out of storage as needed and the kind of knowledge built through learning by heart. To learn by heart is to bring knowledge into the centre of our being, and into the imagination which knits everything together. The difference between what can be learned from a map and the knowledge gained by walking over the territory is profound. If you can play a piece of music, you know it in a different way from mere listeners. A poem learned by heart has a different working than one read and forgotten. Of course, smartphones mean that a London cabbie could now find his way around New York or Rio de Janeiro. But only the Knowledge can ensure that a cabbie knows his or her city by heart. Rote learning exercises the mind, and remains the only way to learn the alphabet, much English spelling, the building blocks of mental arithmetic, and the basics of foreign languages. Once phones can translate fluently between you and anyone you meet, it may never be necessary and soon never possible to think in a foreign language. What a loss that would be. Star Trek translators are for talking to alien species, not to other human beings. Technology is worthwhile when it gives us capabilities we otherwise lack, even if it can be badly used. Alfred Nobel thought dynamite would be remembered for its peaceful purposes. The internet was once expected to spread enlightenment everywhere. But the technology that replaces, rather than augments, our capacities should be regarded with suspicion. Just as cars make our bodies flabby, too much technological memory degrades the real thing, and related thinking. Whatever can be looked up instantly can be instantly forgotten.
EU judges could limit UK surveillance powers before referendum EU judges in Luxembourg could limit key powers in UK surveillance laws just weeks before Britain votes on its EU membership. An emergency hearing on the bulk interception of communications data has been scheduled for 12 April at the European court of justice (ECJ), whose rulings are binding on UK courts. Its final decision could have a decisive impact on the powers of GCHQ, the Cheltenham-based monitoring agency, and could come shortly before Britons decide whether to remain in or leave the EU on 23 June. At issue is the effect of an influential earlier ECJ ruling, Digital Rights Ireland, which has already been used to overturn the government’s Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act 2014 (Dripa) on the grounds that it is “inconsistent with European Union law”. The challenge has been brought by two MPs, the Conservative David Davis and Labour’s deputy leader, Tom Watson. Davis is expected to attend the Luxembourg hearing. The case will focus on the legality of how police and intelligence services access retained data, judicial authorisation of the process and bulk interception of information relating to emails, phone calls and text messages. The case raises such significant dilemmas in balancing conflicting interests of online privacy and national security that at least nine other EU countries and the European commission have also made submissions. Those issues are all crucial aspects of the investigatory powers bill, also known as the snooper’s charter, which has had its second reading in parliament and will lay down the rules for future government surveillance. Clarification of EU law was sought by the court of appeal. In granting the expedited hearing, the president of the ECJ, the Belgian judge Koen Lenaerts, said the dispute was over Home Office powers “to require public telecommunications operators to retain communications data for a maximum period of 12 months, retention of the content of the communications concerned being excluded”. The judge also noted: “It is clear that national legislation that permits the retention of all electronic communications data and subsequent access to that data is liable to cause serious interference with the fundamental rights laid down in articles 7 and 8 of the charter of fundamental rights of the European Union.” The role of the ECJ, the EU’s highest court, has become more controversial as the referendum campaign is about to get under way. Whereas judgments from the European court of human rights in Strasbourg have only to be taken into account, those from the ECJ effectively have the force of law in UK courts. For years ECJ cases dealt almost exclusively with commercial matters, but the court’s reach has expanded recently to include privacy, prisoners’ rights and whether women can wear headscarves at work. In an attempt to limit the power of EU judges, the government – initially spurred on by Boris Johnson and Michael Gove – is preparing a sovereignty bill which is said to transform the UK’s supreme court into a constitutional court capable of resisting undesirable rulings from EU judges. The legal principle is largely untested. A case called Gauweiler, about European Central Bank monetary policy, which involves the German constitutional court may yet provide a legal check on EU judges. Asked whether a UK sovereignty bill would be launched during the referendum campaign, a spokesperson for the Cabinet Office, which is overseeing the review, said: “There will be details in due course.” There is a chance the ECJ judges hearing the case, one of whom is likely to be British, may not deliver their verdict before the referendum, although court documents acknowledge the need for an urgent reply. A number of organisations – including Privacy International, the Law Society and Open Rights Group – have also intervened in the ECJ case. Millie Graham Wood, from Privacy International, said: “[We believe] that existing EU law rules out data retention regimes of the kind contained in Dripa and reflected in the investigatory powers bill. “Blanket retention of communications data without suspicion violates the right to privacy, as well as putting the security of personal data at risk of attack by criminals and others.” Daniel Carey, a solicitor who will represent Privacy International at the Luxembourg hearing, said: “This will be an important hearing for everyone’s data protection rights. [Dripa] creates a privatised database of everyone’s communications activity, and the investigatory powers bill only extends these powers further. “The regime of judicial authorisation in that bill has no application to data retention orders and applies only to local authorities when accessing retained data. We are asking the [ECJ] to make clear that powers of data retention and access must be confined to what is necessary and proportionate, and that these are not platitudes but legal principles that prohibit the broad powers the government seeks.”
University chief rejects claim that Brexit would not deter EU students Leading leave campaigners have claimed that universities and the science sector will not lose vital funding if Britain leaves the EU – but the head of the college with most EU students says it could cost the country tens of millions of pounds in lost fees. Employment minister Priti Patel, who has been prominent in the leave campaign, argued that a Brexit vote would mean the government of the day would be able to take back control of the money currently sent to the EU and make choices on how to spend that money. Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Patel said: “There would be more than enough money to ensure that those who now get funding from the EU, including universities, scientists, farmers, regional funds, would continue to get money.” Pressed on how she could guarantee that money would continue to go to those sectors, she said: “That money would exist and it would still go to those priorities. Why would any government of day choose to cut those areas of funding when these are institutions … that are immensely important to our economy? We need to support them.” But Prof Michael Arthur, president and provost of University College London (UCL), which has 4,500 EU students who make up 12% of the student body, fears his university – in common with others – will lose a significant proportion of EU undergraduates if Britain votes to leave Europe on 23 June. More than 1,700 of UCL’s EU students are undergraduates who until now have been eligible for the £9,000 tuition fees that home students pay – and the associated loan scheme – which is significantly cheaper than fees for other international students. Arthur fears EU students would no longer be able to afford to study here and universities would lose vital fees. His fears are confirmed by current EU students studying in British universities who responded to a call-out for views, many of whom said they would not have come to the UK had they not had access to the favourable terms available to them as fellow EU citizens. Others said they would be deterred by the additional bureaucracy they feared would result from a Brexit vote. The impact on postgraduates is less clear as they source funding from elsewhere, but a number of EU students who responded to the call-out said that if the UK voted to leave the EU they would choose to study elsewhere at postgraduate level. “It will most certainly stop me from engaging in any postgraduate study in the UK,” said one 22-year-old Italian in the second year of an archaeology degree at a Russell Group university who had hoped to continue his studies here. “I will not associate myself with any country in Europe that does not recognise the importance of a united continent. If the referendum fails to keep the UK in Europe, despite my love for its academic institutions I will gladly move elsewhere.” UCL receives £14m each year in fees from EU undergraduates, with an additional £17m in postgraduate fees. The EU market has been growing for UCL. Undergraduate numbers from the EU have increased by 20% in the past year, with France, Germany, Spain, Italy and Romania the top suppliers of students. Fees for international undergraduates coming to study in the UK are significantly higher than the £9,000 EU students are charged. The cost of an arts degree at UCL, for example, would be over £16,000 a year for an international student. For science it would be in excess of £21,000, and for medicine just under £32,000. According to UCL’s figures, growth in the EU student market is significantly higher than in the UK and international sectors, with applications for 2016 entry up by 9%. The university’s student recruitment marketing team has visited 11 countries in the past year, talking at schools, education exhibitions and universities in Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece and Poland among others to try to attract more students. UCL might have hoped the upward trend would continue, but the future post-referendum is less clear. In the event of a Brexit vote, the university would not expect to lose all EU undergraduates overnight – and indeed the higher fees paid by those who remain could help plug a funding gap – but Arthur said any substantial loss of EU students would bring the risk of downsizing and job cuts. As well as the impact on income, there would be an incalculable cultural and academic loss from a hugely diverse body of EU students, which Arthur believes could deter students from other countries including the US from coming to study at UCL. He also believes, in common with many UK university leaders, that a Brexit vote would damage the worldwide reputation of British universities, and that their global profile and position in international rankings would fall. “We simply don’t know at this point what Brexit would mean,” said Arthur. “It’s difficult to imagine a government that’s just exited from Europe wishing to continue the loan scheme [for EU students]. “If we have 2,000 undergraduates that now no longer have access to a loan system in the UK to come here and study, then the choice is either to pay full international fees without a loan scheme or to go to university in their own country. “In many of their own countries it’s a lower fee, or free. There’s a huge difference between staying in the Netherlands and paying nothing, to coming to the UK and paying full international fees. “It’s my view that we will lose a significant proportion of the undergraduates, and that could be quite negative.” Arthur also believes a Brexit vote would make it more difficult for UK students to study elsewhere in the EU – a small but growing number have opted to study at universities in the Netherlands and elsewhere where tuition fees are lower. “I would expect over time the political pressure would be to not be supportive of having British students in European universities,” he said. In addition the UK could lose the benefits of being part of the EU Erasmus exchange programme, which allows EU students to study and work overseas. Currently 380 students from UCL travel to European universities to extend their studies and 520 visit UCL from the EU. And it’s not just students at UCL that could be affected. About 20% of UCL staff are EU nationals for whom an exit from Europe could mean greater bureaucracy and visa requirements, according to Arthur. “Does it look a little bit like England is closed for business and we are not interested in the rest of the world?” he said. The concern among European students is not limited to London. Andra Maciuca, a 20-year-old Romanian studying at the University of Sheffield, said it had been her dream to study journalism in the UK, “a dream few know how much I fought for”, she said. “I love every aspect of my degree … without the UK being part of Europe my enrolment would not have been possible.” Her parents are already supporting her financially. “It breaks my heart when I hear how many sacrifices they are already making, so asking them to pay for my tuition fees too is a barrier I would not cross.” A Spanish student in her first year at the University of Leeds said she would not have come to the UK if she had been asked to pay full international fees. She said: “It is already complicated for us as we don’t get a maintenance loan and depend largely on our own income or family.” And a 22-year-old Italian student studying political science and sociology in Munich said if the British voted for Brexit she would have to give up her plans to study a postgraduate course in the UK. She feared her chances of being offered a place would be diminished by a Brexit vote, and the practical considerations like a visa and funding would be more of an obstacle. “For all that it’s worth, one might decide to apply to American or Canadian universities,” she said. While UCL has the highest number of EU students, ahead of Edinburgh, other smaller specialist institutions have a higher proportion of EU students. At Cranfield University, 25% are from the EU, but it is a specialist postgraduate university so less exposed. The Royal College of Art, another specialist institution, has the next highest proportion of EU students at 24%. Those who campaign to leave the EU say a Brexit vote will not make UK universities less attractive but will give access to a wider pool of international talent. Jamie Martin, a former special adviser to the Department for Education, writing in Prospect, said being able to charge EU students full international fees would end “the indefensible practice of charging foreign students differently according to their nationality”. He added: “This would create a windfall for universities that could be spent on scholarships for the brightest or help for students from poorer backgrounds. Furthermore, Vote Leave has been clear that some of the money currently spent on EU membership would in future be dedicated to scientific research. “The current visa policy, under which the worst German student gets automatic access while things are difficult if not impossible for the brilliant Indian scholar, is as morally flawed as it is academically harmful.” More than 125,000 EU students are enrolled at UK universities, making up 5.5% of the entire student body. According to Universities UK, in 2012-13 alone they spent £2.27bn and generated 19,000 jobs for the UK economy. Arthur says leaders of other global universities are horrified at the possibility of the UK leaving Europe and the impact it would have. “The senior team from a major Chinese university were here recently. They could not understand why we would want to leave Europe and they thought if we did, we would be much less important in their view – as an institution and as a country.”
Newcastle United agree £12m deal to sign Andros Townsend from Spurs Andros Townsend will undergo a medical at Newcastle United in the next 24 hours ahead of his long-mooted move from Tottenham Hotspur. That switch was finally made possible when the two clubs compromised over the asking price and agreed a £12m fee for the 24-year-old winger. The deal represents quite a risk for Newcastle and their manager, Steve McClaren, as Townsend has not completed 90 minutes for Spurs for almost two years and has seen only 64 minutes of Premier League action this season. Frozen out by Mauricio Pochettino in the wake of his public spat with Nathan Gardiner, Tottenham’s fitness coach, following a win against Aston Villa in November, Townsend has been training with the under-21s for the past two-and-a-half months. He is clearly delighted to be seizing the lifeline thrown from St James’ Park. “As soon as I knew of Newcastle’s interest they were the only club I wanted to join,” said a player also admired by, among others, Crystal Palace. “Two of the best positions you can play in football are centre-forward and left wing at Newcastle. Now I’ve got the chance [to play the latter role] I couldn’t turn them down. I can’t wait to play my first game at St James’ Park. I’m excited.” With Newcastle in the bottom three, he steps straight into a relegation fight choreographed by a manager who will come under increasing pressure should results fail to improve. Townsend, though, sees the move as a chance to revive his England career and possibly force his way into Roy Hodgson’s squad for this summer’s European Championship finals. Florian Thauvin also hopes to heading for France - but rather more imminently. The £13m winger signed from Marseille last summer has floundered horribly on Tyneside, making minimal impact on McClaren’s team and both Thauvin and Newcastle are optimistic he will shortly be returning to the Stade Vélodrome. With that switch almost certain to be on loan, Newcastle look set to lose out financially on the deal. Thauvin’s struggles helped convince Mike Ashley, Newcastle’s owner, to listen to McClaren’s pleas to have increased involvement in the recruitment process and sign more British players. His wish has been granted with the arrival of Jonjo Shelvey for £12m from Swansea. If the signing of both Shelvey and Henri Saivet, recently acquired from Bordeaux for £4.5m, have fortified midfield, Newcastle’s most pressing need is for goals. While the signing of a striker - and West Brom’s Saido Berahino is top of a Tyneside shortlist also featuring Chelsea’s Loïc Rémy - remains of paramount importance, McClaren hopes Townsend’s crosses will create goals for his currently under-achieving Serbia centre-forward Aleksandar Mitrovic. Ideally Newcastle would have liked to have signed the winger on loan with a view to a permanent deal in the summer. However once Daniel Levy, the Spurs chairman, made it clear their only option was to buy outright, they offered £10m. A famously tough negotiator, Levy held out for £14m and McClaren looked towards other targets including QPR’s Matt Phillips. Desperate to both offload Townsend and create space in his squad, Mauricio Pochettino, Tottenham’s manager, eventually intervened and Levy was persuaded to meet Newcastle halfway, with the club’s eventually agreeing on £12m. Although there was no way back for the winger at White Hart Lane under Pochettino, the Argentinian is understood to have been impressed with Townsend’s attitude since his relocation to the north London club’s deep freeze. Accordingly he was keen to allow him to find another club and attempt to regain his former status as a regular member of Hodgson’s England squads. Now McClaren must hope West Brom can be talked into lowering their £30m asking price for Berahino or, at the very least, Rémy can be convinced to leave London in order to return to Newcastle on loan until the end of the season.
Clive James: ‘Is it time to retrain as an actor?’ Slow to recover after my recent medical emergency, I have spent several days on my back pondering what life is for. Is it for doing more of what I have already done, or should I change profession to something useful? Does the same thought ever occur to, say, Bruce Willis? As he changes his vest for the next scene in A Good Day to Die Hard Again or Die Hard With Pursed Lips, is he wondering whether it is too late to train as a doctor? At which point I, having been trained as a journalist, check up to make sure that he was not trained as a doctor. If he was, I would need to change the previous sentence to have him wondering about whether it was too late to train as a fireman. Restlessly I remember The Towering Inferno, in which Steve McQueen played a fireman: presumably from choice, possibly out of the exhausted artist’s deep longing to do something useful. After decades as a superstar getting the girl, suddenly he was up there looking deeply concerned about fire-resistant materials. I mean of course, the previous Steve McQueen, not the current Steve McQueen. My mind is wandering. Among writers, not even Shakespeare, were he to come back from the dead, would find it easy to claim that he was more useful than a good nurse. I have been reading The Comedy Of Errors and wondering how he would cope if he attended a rehearsal of Act I Scene I and found out that the star actor playing the Duke did not realise that in the line “His goods confiscate to the duke’s dispose” the word “confiscate” has to be stressed on the second syllable or the line will not be a pentameter. Would Shakespeare audibly wonder if it were too late to start training as a garbage collector? Though still daunted by how much effort I have to put into translating Shakespeare’s English into modern English, it’s not as depressing as having to put so much effort into translating modern English into English. The BBC News online has become such a rich source of sentences written in the wrong order that I no longer bother to note them down, so this next one is an outdated example. “Jeremy Clarkson has apologised to the Top Gear producer he punched after settling a £100,000 racial discrimination and injury claim.” You can see what’s wrong with that sentence. But what I’m really afraid of is that the time must soon come when you won’t see what’s wrong with that sentence, because there will be nobody left alive who could give a curse about how a sentence fits together. Time to start training as an actor. Watch out for me in Drop Dead Hard Forever.
Alastair Campbell slams ‘dishonesty’ of papers backing EU exit Alastair Campbell has made an explosive entry into the EU referendum debate, condemning newspapers that back Brexit for plumbing “fresh depths of dishonesty” and peddling lies and propaganda that insult the intelligence of their readers. Tony Blair’s ex-director of communications, who is due to appear on the BBC’s Newsnight this week to discuss the media’s role in the EU debate, says he thought he had seen the worst that “the wretched rightwing press” could do in his time as a journalist and spin doctor. But writing in the , Campbell claims that several newspapers have stooped even lower and totally given up on trying to inform their readers or to debate issues, and instead promote the anti-EU views of their owners, regardless of the facts. “More than in any such debate I can remember, large chunks of the press have totally given up on the role of properly informing public debate. The Mail, the Sun, the Express, and the Star in particular, to a lesser extent the Telegraph and, on a bad day, the Times, are more propaganda sheets for one side of the argument.” He anticipates a wave of criticism and inevitable counterattacks from Eurosceptics and journalists who he knows will blast him as a hypocrite and propagandist himself, and cite his role in the “dodgy dossier” about Iraq’s non-existent weapons of mass destruction. “Before any of you start bleating or tweeting ‘dodgy dossier’, the accusations against me of lying, deceit and misinformation in relation to Iraq have been thoroughly investigated by three inquiries (we await the fourth) and I have been cleared by all of them.” Campbell describes a story in the Sun last week, which asserted that the Queen backed Brexit, as “cock”. “The Sun has dragged the Queen into the whole thing, taking something that was almost certainly never said to make a claim that she supported the Out campaign. I had a fair bit to do with the royals and the often crazy coverage of them in my time in Downing Street. Based on that experience, and her ability to shrug off without complaint so many false stories written about her, I can pretty much guarantee this – the fact the Palace has made a complaint to Ipso, the so-called independent press regulator, means the story is a load of cock.” The newspaper has stood by its story, insisting it had “multiple sources”. On Saturday, the justice secretary Michael Gove, who is campaigning for Brexit, stopped short of ruling himself out as the source of comments the paper said were made by the Queen at a meeting five years ago, at which Gove was present. Buckingham Palace has lodged a formal complaint with the Independent Press Standards Organisation (Ipso) about the report which appeared under the headline “Queen backs Brexit”. Speaking on a visit to Hampshire, Gove said: “I don’t know how the Sun got all of its information.” Pressed on whether it was unfair to drag the Queen into the row about Britain’s future in the EU, he replied: “I’ve already said that enough has been said about this story, so I don’t think it’s appropriate to say any more than I’ve already said and others have already said.” Asked if he thought the Queen would be pleased to see him when he next has an audience with her, he replied: “I don’t know. I wouldn’t speculate on a matter like that.” A source close to Gove later denied that his boss had been the source.
Patricia Clarkson: ‘A white male actor should never complain about anything’ There is something unshakably mischievous about Patricia Clarkson. It’s as if she has a hipflask stashed in her handbag – her preferred method of self-help, she says, is bourbon – or a joint sneaked behind her ear. Maybe it’s the biker jacket, or the deep rasp made yet boomier by a cold (“My voice is usually below sea level, but now it’s just beyond”) or perhaps it’s the laugh – a long, hard cackle. Clarkson does not do formal audiences. She is far more casual – conspiratorial, even. She perches on a sofa in a London hotel, tiny atop a great stack of cushions, discussing her new film, dishing out relationship advice (“Can’t you just be available? Isn’t that sexy and fun?”), bitching about Hollywood inequality and the passage of time. “I’d play your mother in a movie,” she says. “Kill me now!” Yet, in her modest but charming new comedy, Learning to Drive, Clarkson is not just playing the mum. At 56, she takes the lead – a woman with a busy job and a prolific sex life – alongside her 72-year-old co-star Ben Kingsley. “It’s two middle-aged people in a car; it’s Hollywood’s worst nightmare,” she says. “I actually had a producer once say, ‘Patricia, I love the script and I love you, but do you have to have all these scenes in the car?’” That’s underselling it, but it’s true; a lot of the key moments in the film – adapted from a New Yorker article and directed by Isabel Coixet – do unfold in the ropey motor where Kingsley’s Sikh driving instructor teaches Clarkson’s workaholic literary critic the rules of the road. Despite the relative star power, it took eight years to get off the ground: a passion project for Clarkson who finally lands a leading role rather than being relegated to the sidelines, or even the scrapheap. Clarkson concedes that she is fortunate to be working at all. She refers to it as “the vanishing act” – something that has afflicted many of her colleagues, while she has somehow remained ever-present, elevating standard-issue mum roles in Easy A, Friends with Benefits, Pieces of April and One Day; working with Woody Allen on Vicky Cristina Barcelona and Whatever Works; popping up in a franchise (as the villain in the Maze Runner saga), and perfecting the art of the sitcom cameo in Broad City and Parks and Recreation. Yet while Clarkson is happy to be given these “beautiful” parts, she says, she still thinks of herself as “a leading lady”. And it appears that the industry is finally catching up with her. She is about to start work heading up a Sally Potter film with Kristin Scott Thomas, and has another planned with Coixet. “I’ve been talking about this for 10 years now but with the true rise of art cinema yet again, it’s really made a dramatic shift in our stories about women of a certain age,” she says. “I love that we say women of a certain age and yet our lives are so uncertain. Well, mine is!” Unlike many other female actors “of a certain age”, Clarkson has chosen not to make the handsomely paid move to the small screen to spearhead her own TV show about a feisty barrister or a sarcastic matriarch. Instead, she says, she seeks unconventionality on the big screen, something surprising among the glut of “desexed, matronly” roles she is offered. “We always tend to want to soften female characters,” she says, referring to a previous complaint about a lack of unlikable women in film. “Well, unless it’s some ridiculous caricature like a dominatrix or a one-dimensional boss with no life and bad hair. These archetypal older women in movies can sometimes make my skin crawl. It’s about the one dimension, it’s about the lack of any texture.” Clarkson, engaging as she is, doesn’t register as soft. She has played her fair share of mothers, but usually with a harder edge. It could also explain the longevity of her career, given her reluctance to accept the treatment that often befalls her peers. “When I was younger, of course I had people act inappropriately to me,” she says. “I’ve had certain directors yell at me. But I didn’t stand for it and I didn’t let it go far enough for it to be in any way abusive to me. People didn’t speak up as much as they do now. Women have risen. But we’re still underpaid and we’re still a vast minority in this business.” We broach the awkward subject of pay and the many female actors who have been vocal about the inequality that still exists in the industry. Eight years ago Clarkson discovered that a male co-star was being paid more than her. The imbalance, she says, was swiftly rectified. Did she demand it? “Absolutely,” she replies. But with the shift in power comes a backlash. We discuss the largely male outrage at the female-fronted Ghostbusters reboot. A frustrated sigh comes from the cushions. She rolls her head back, prostrate on the sofa. “There are still so many movies made starring 50 men and one woman!” she says, half exasperated, half exhausted. “A white male actor should never be allowed to complain about anything. Shut up and sit in the corner. I mean, seriously! The odds of us having films made which star women … Everyone still references one movie: Bridesmaids! Ghostbusters is a great thing and I love these actresses. I can’t wait to see it.” Is she concerned about the pressure on such a film to be successful? “Men make bad movies that bomb all the time but they’re like, ‘Oh, well, we didn’t do the marketing right,’” she says. “Eat me!” I tell her about the complaint of one white male actor, Game of Thrones star Kit Harington, who expressed disappointment at what he sees as a sexist double standard in the industry, saying he’s sick of talking about his hair and his body. “He’s a sex symbol,” Clarkson scoffs. “Get over it. You have an amazing career and you’re on a hot show. Take your shirt off.” More of that cackle. Clarkson’s loose-cannon independence is also reflected in her personal life. “Being married and having a child was not something I wanted and I knew that at a very young age,” she says. “I tend to be more solitary and I’m truly a free spirit. I like a life that’s unpredictable. Even though it can take a toll on you in ways that are hard to express.” She’s proud not to “rely upon a man at all” and believes that the life she has chosen frees her from “the restraints or the pressures that people have who are married or raising children”. She is also unafraid of speaking out politically, was vocal about gay marriage before the legislation was passed, and the effects of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. She gets predictably, happily animated when talk turns to Donald Trump, and his attitude to migrants. “I find it hard to even engage in any conversation about this,” she says. “It seems so antiquated and offensive on every level. It’s beyond comprehension to me that we would for any moment at any time be anti-immigration. The world is in chaos and we’re here to talk about a movie!” We are – it’s true. We step back to safety and discuss sex (“always a good topic”), in particular the sweaty tantric marathon in Learning to Drive: “I just said, ‘I don’t know what you’re going to do. Just as long as you don’t hurt me. Let’s just go.’” It’s something of a motto. Hollywood remains a challenging environment for women over 50 whose names don’t begin with Meryl, but Clarkson refuses to be defeated, or even to look back in anger. “I’ve taken people’s seconds before and they’ve turned out to be some of the greatest experiences of my life,” she says. “I probably should have more regrets. But I don’t.” And she cackles again, ever cheerful, ever sanguine. No hipflask, none needed. Learning to Drive is released in the UK on 10 June
Trump rallies go on as Republican rivals work to survive past Tuesday — as it happened This blog has now closed, but we’ll have live coverage of tonight’s Democratic town hall forum right here. We’re going to close our blog now – although Paul Owen will be back soon to live-blog the Democratic town hall event in Ohio. It has been a day of anticlimax on the campaign trail, which given what went before on Friday and Saturday was absolutely and entirely a good thing. Donald Trump toured the talk shows to insist the violent confrontations and chaos surrounding his recent events were not remotely his fault; later he read an obscure 1970s soul song as a poem. So that was new. John Kasich toured the same talk shows to insist he will win Ohio and then march – with sunny disposition – all the way to the White House. And in Florida, Marco Rubio tried to look on the bright side of what seems the impending end of his campaign, helped by a heckler who claimed the senator had stolen his girlfriend, which if nothing else gave everyone concerned a much-needed laugh. On the Democratic side of things, Bernie Sanders did what he usually does on Sundays: spoke to rapturous crowds after telling the talk shows he will not give in to Hillary Clinton and will take his momentum into the northern states at play on “Mega Tuesday”. Yes, we’re calling it that. Hillary – a talk show no-show – just campaigned. Here’s Oliver Laughland’s wrap of the day and the weekend. Until later. With the fate of his presidential campaign two days away, Marco Rubio returned to a retirement community in The Villages in central Florida on Sunday, to urge voters not to give in to the politics of fear. Faced with defeat in his home state on Tuesday at the hands of Donald Trump, the senator said violence and altercations at the Republican frontrunner’s rallies presented “third-world images” to the nation. “Embrace what made us great to begin with,” Rubio said. “Embrace leaders who do not ask you to give them your vote on fear and hopelessness.” The senator was warmly received by the crowd of roughly 400, with an overflow outside. The retirees, most of them old enough to be Rubio’s parents, were also receptive to his criticisms of Trump and the business mogul’s rhetoric. Rubio took several shots at his rival, emphasizing in particular his “new brand of leadership that isn’t leadership at all … that says, ‘Yes, get angry.’” “Do we really want to live in a country where Americans hate each other?” Rubio said. “If we continue on the road we are on right now, we are going to fracture at the seams.” The senator has been barnstorming his home state for more than a week in the hopes of salvaging his bid for the Republican nomination. He sunk to new lows in recent primary contests, failing to secure any delegates in several states. Polling in Florida shows an uphill climb for Rubio, who is trailing Trump by double digits in some surveys and gaining ground in others. A loss would almost certainly force him out of the race. Rubio placed some of the blame with the media, saying it “covers politics as entertainment instead of serious discourse”. The rally, while mostly uneventful, did include one moment of levity shortly after Rubio took the stage. A young man interrupted to complain that Rubio had tried to steal his girlfriend, alleging she was so charmed when she saw the senator in New Hampshire that she no longer looked at him the same way. The crowd rose to Rubio’s defense, chanting “Marco! Marco” as the man, who continued to disrupt, was escorted out by security. A bemused Rubio laughed off the incident but didn’t skip a beat in contrasting himself to Trump. “We don’t rough up hecklers at our rallies,” he said. Around the Republican trail, Marco Rubio in Florida. Ted Cruz in North Carolina: “gentleman, start your engines.” And Donald Trump in the sky on the way to Boca Raton. And outside the Cincinnati venue, with Megan Carpentier, as the rally inside ends. A middle-aged woman, with a piece of wet neon poster board reading “Trump is Hitler” on one side and “Hillary Clinton 2016” on the other, has walked up into the crowd of Trump supporters. She started yelling at another middle-aged woman, in English about Trump being “a fascist”, and in Spanish seemingly about the candidate’s failure to support issues important to the African-American, Latino and LGBT communities. The protester was quickly surrounded by Trump fans, waving flags and umbrellas at her, as one man scribbled on the back of her sign. The 30-some people shouted “USA, USA, USA” and she quieted, holding her sign aloft. “Hillary’s a murderer,” someone shouted. “Don’t touch me!” the protester said, as two people walked around her waving shirts. “No one wants to touch you,” a young man yelled. “Maybe if someone did, you wouldn’t be here!” another jeered from the crowd. “Build the wall! Build the wall!” the crowd chanted. “Hillary kills babies!” yelled another woman, and the crowd started shouting Trump’s name as a police officer finally came over to ask the Clinton supporter to move to the designated protest area. “It’s our party,” another guy said, “Go back to yours over there.” Two police officers politely walked her back. Someone tried to get the crowd to sing “Nah nah nah nah, hey hey hey, goodbye”, but nobody else took it up. Trump is taking questions. Someone in the audience asks him “on what day will you send Hillary Clinton to prison?” This gets a huge ovation. The candidate looks amused, but offers a relatively cagey answer, by his standards. He says he wants to beat her in the general election and then he’ll see about criminal charges. He then rambles a bit about how the US protects Germany and Japan in exchange “for peanuts”. Then it’s on to motorcycles. “Motorcycle guys love Trump,” he says. “And I’m not too much on the motorcycles, but every place I go there’s hundreds of guys on motorcycles, and they say, ‘I love you, Mr Trump.’” “They want to see a strong country,” he goes on, and “strong infrastructure”. “I mean if I’m driving a motorcycle I don’t want to be driving over potholes,” he adds. “The motorcycle people love Donald Trump.” A Native American woman asks Trump whether, “after you take the oath” of office, he’ll apologize for the many broken treaties and crimes against indigenous people that litter American history. “Well I’ll certainly look into it,” Trump says. “You know I haven’t been big on apologizing.” The crowd laughs. Megan Carpentier is still outside the Cincinnati rally, where pro- and anti-Trump bands are acting up. As Trump spoke in the venue, roving groups of Trump supporters and protestors milled outside the event, mingling and exchanging insults. In the designated protest area, a group of young people yelled “Dump Trump!” at passersby, who sometimes responded with insults. “Fuck you, you commie! Go back to Africa!” yelled one, at the most vociferous protestor. “Fuck you, you’re the one voting for a commie!” he yelled back. A group of very young men in American flag clothes rolled up and started blowing an air horn at them, to jeers from the protestors: “Ooh, your mommy bought you an air horn!” The woman who’d harassed me pointed at the kids with an air horn and laughed. Trump is on the stage in Cincinnati, where he waits for protesters to be escorted out and his supporters boo the demonstrators. Once they’re out, they chant: “Trump! Trump! Trump!” The candidate kicks off by saying that his wife and daughter asked him not to engage with rivals during the last Republican debate. They asked him to be presidential, Trump says. “I said, ‘I can’t do that. When they go after you I have to go back at them.’” He criticizes Ohio governor John Kasich, saying, “he ran Lehman Brothers into the ground” and almost destroyed the world’s economy. Kasich made hundreds of thousands while with the financial firm until it collapsed in 2008 – along with the US economy – but Kasich was not at all a central player in running the company. Then it’s on to boasting about elections. “I won evangelicals the day after the pope scolded me,” he says, apparently having missed the 16th-century religious revolution and counter-revolution that separated Protestants from Catholics, and the subsequent centuries of American revivalism that created the loose group of sects we call “evangelicals” today. “I said, ‘the pope!?’ I said, ‘well that’s a big problem.’ I said, ‘I like the pope.’” He’s talking about Pope Francis’s remarks that Trump’s desire to keep out immigrants is “not Christian”. Trump is Presbyterian, and the head of his church also disagrees with him on the issue. Then Trump says Pete Rose, the disgraced former athlete who bet on games as a baseball player, “should be in the Hall of Fame”. Donald Trump has just begun a rally in Cincinnati, Ohio, where my colleague Megan Carpentier is speaking with the fans and protesters outside. Though Secret Service shut the doors at 1.30pm and Donald Trump didn’t arrive at Cincinnati’s Savannah Center until nearly 3pm, hundreds of people stood out in the intermittent rain just to cheer his arrival. From under an awning where people were sheltering from the rain – by two men holding a banner reading “THE SILENT MAJORITY IS PISSED!” for attendees to add their signatures and a large Donald Trump impersonators – a yell went up when the motorcade was spotted and bedraggled fans rushed towards the entrance, slipping in the mud and jostling for position. “Trump! Trump! Trump!” some young men shouted, as people held cell phones and selfies sticks over the heads of the crowd and “The Donald”, as one older lady called him, waved at his fans before walking. Inside to take the stage. Pictures snapped, some people headed for their cars, while others retreated to the few dry spots to wait it out. Meanwhile, vendors selling both Trump-specific and general conservative swag worked the remaining crowd. “Oh, we’re local vendors,” one leathered older man said. “We offered him a donation, but he said he don’t want our money, just asked for our votes. “He don’t need my money anyway.” Meanwhile, a short, middle-aged woman in a Trump shirt followed a trio of younger folks – a white woman in a hoodie, a white man in a blue T-shirt and duck camouflage cap (a popular Ohio print) and a black man with short dreadlocks – and shouted “Yeah, you better put your hoodie up!” at the girl. As I looked up, she glared at me, too. “How’d you get in here first?” she demanded. I smiled, and told her I hadn’t gotten in anywhere, as I was stuck outside in the rain. Satisfied, she wandered off. Things are getting weird in Boca Raton, Florida, where the Daily Beast’s Olivia Nuzzi is reporting for a Trump rally set to begin this evening. Meanwhile, hamming it up on the campaign trail, Bernie Sanders has a surprise guest in St Louis: Kasich earlier today dismissed the fact that his name is not on the ballot in Pennsylvania – he did not have enough signatures at the deadline – as “political gibberish”. Someone who knows his gibberish has seized on it, though. Ohio and Florida are the states making headlines this week, since they represent John Kasich and Marco Rubio’s last chances to make a dent in Donald Trump’s delegate lead and revive their flagging campaigns. But Ted Cruz, who’s about 100 delegates behind Trump, is aiming at the other states, my colleague Ben Jacobs reports from Concord, North Carolina. Ted Cruz will appear in a drag racing venue in suburban Charlotte on Sunday afternoon as part of a conservative extravaganza sponsored by the pro-Cruz Super Pac Keep The Promise. While the winner-take-all states of Florida and Ohio have consumed much of the media attention regarding Tuesday’s Republican contests, the delegate-rich states of Illinois, Missouri and North Carolina also hold GOP primaries. The Tarheel State is the only contest on Tuesday that is entirely proportional. For every 1.39% of the vote that a GOP candidate receives from North Carolina Republicans, he’ll get one of the 72 delegates up for grabs. The program, which culminates in an appearance from Cruz, features appearances from a variety of his supporters, including former rival Carly Fiorina, talkshow host Glenn Beck and retired general Jerry Boykin, best known for making a variety of anti-Muslim comments. Recent polls of North Carolina show Donald Trump with a double digit lead over Cruz in the state. A video by MSNBC host Rachel Maddow is proving popular this weekend on the web. Much like HBO host John Oliver in a recent video, Maddow has a target – Donald Trump – although she does not attack the Republican frontrunner with humour. Maddow attacks him with barely contained anger. Speaking on Friday night, after violence broke out around a Trump rally in Chicago which was postponed when infiltrated by protesters, Maddow says: “This has turned out to be a night that may go down in history as one of the darker moments in American major politics. “I think we got here by deliberate means,” she says. “I don’t think we got here by accident.” Maddow then notes recent unrest over police killings of African Americans including Michael Brown, Laquan McDonald and Tamir Rice, and the cities where they happened. She says: “So the St Louis area, Chicago, Cleveland. Those are not the only American cities that have proven to be real tinderboxes around issues of race and racism and policing and violence. “But those three happen to be the three most recent stops on the itinerary of Republican presidential contender Donald Trump, whose rallies have featured racially charged incidents of violence for months now.” Maddow accuses Trump of stoking “bloodlust” with “half-serious calls for a tougher America where there are more beatings and anti-Trump protesters should fear for their lives”. “As he heads into these tinderbox cities,” she continues, “I just want you to watch how that part of candidate Trump’s rhetoric has escalated.” Maddow then presents a chronological, date-stamped sequence of utterances by Trump which she says represent “a deliberate act which created what happened tonight in Chicago”. “It really is like nothing we’ve ever seen in mainstream American politics before,” she says, comparing Trump’s rhetoric and the behaviour of crowds at his rallies to “skinhead events” in the 1980s. The video sequence begins with Trump in Cedar Rapids, Iowa on 1 February, asking fans: “If you see someone getting ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of them, would you?” It ends with footage from the Fayetteville, North Carolina rally this week in which a protester being led out was sucker-punched by a Trump supporter. Maddow then shows Trump speaking in St Louis earlier on Friday, at a rally he was advised by local officials to cancel, due to the threat of protests, but did not. “There are no consequences to protesting anymore,” Trump says from the podium, as protesters are taken out. “Our country has to toughen up, folks, we have to toughen up. These people are bringing us down … these people are so bad for our country, you have no idea, folks. You have no idea.” To a raucous reception, he adds: “Go home to mommy. Go home and get a job.” Maddow concludes: “If you want to know what led up to Chicago today, that was Donald Trump’s display of leadership and calming the waters.” Over footage of the violence in Chicago, she adds: “This is the work of an American presidential candidate who deliberately made this happen. “And the Republican party is going to nominate this man for president.” On the Democratic side of the election, Bernie Sanders’ campaign has taken Hillary Clinton to task for questioning where the senator (then a congressman) was during her 1990s campaign to reform healthcare. His deputy communications director has dug up a personal note from Clinton (then the first lady), thanking Sanders for his help. Donald Trump does not believe all the things he says, according to Ben Carson, the Republican’s erstwhile rival, who sat down with the Hill for an interview this weekend. The news site asked the retired neurosurgeon why he would endorse the “very cerebral” billionaire last week, and Carson said needed to talk with the man himself to answer that question. “I needed to know that he could listen to other people, that he could change his opinions, and that some of the more outlandish things that he’s said, that he didn’t really believe those things,” Carson said. When asked which statements Trump might back away from, Carson demurred. “I’ll let him talk about that because I don’t think it’s fair for me to relay a private conversation,” he said. You can read my colleague Mona Chalabi’s take on the importance of endorsements down through the link below. Trump ends his rally with an appropriately surreal choice: “a song” that is also “a poem” – about “terrorism”. “Just listen, you’re going to love this.” “On her way to work one morning, Down the path along the lake, A tender hearted women, Saw a poor half frozen snake. “His pretty colored skin had been all frosted with the dew I’ll take care of you Take me in oh tender woman, Take me in for heaven’s sake Sighed the broken snake. “She wrapped him up all cozy, In a curvature of silk, And then laid him by the fireside, With some honey and some milk. The woman finds the snake “totally revived”. She “clutched it to her bosom / You’re so beautiful she cried.” The twist: “instead of saying thank you, that snake gave her vicious bite.” “Oh shut up silly woman, Said the reptile with a grin, You knew damn well I was a snake before you took me in.” He didn’t write the poem. He urges the crowd to vote. “Right? Does everybody sort of get it?” *The poem is actually the Al Wilson 70s song “The Snake,” my colleague Jon Swaine points out. It’s not about terrorism. Get it? “Me, the lobbyists won’t even call,” the billionaire rambles on. He says that his daughter Ivanka and his wife Melania often tell him he needs to act more “presidential”. “I don’t care if it’s not presidential,” he says. He’s talking about how he has harsh words for businesses who plan to move manufacturing outside the United States. “I want Carrier not to leave our country. I want Nabisco not to leave our country. I want Ford not to leave our country.” He’s back onto trade deals, referring to the Obama administration’s signature agreement with Pacific nations: “TPP doesn’t even discuss monetary devaluation, and that’s the key weapon, that’s why we’re [losing to] China.” “We can’t lose $500bn a year to China. We can’t lose a fortune to Japan.” He says a trade war is better “than losing all of this money”. The US “rebuilt” China, according to the billionaire. “I love China. I have many Chinese friends. They can’t believe they got away with this.” A fair amount of self-praise and vague promises follow, in typical stream-of-consciousness fashion and non sequitur flourishes, eg Trump’s assertion that he would have been given “the electric chair” were he to use “the F-bomb”. The Republican avoids using the word “ass” because, he says, the press doesn’t want him to. He could also have used “keister”, “bum”, “bottom” or a thesaurus. He eventually trots out a man wearing a shirt that says “legal immigrant for Trump”. The man is a little emotional – “I’m surprised I’m up here” – “I’m here because I’m agitated that the media does not separate legal immigration from illegal.” He shakes Trump’s hand and they have a little hug. His name is inaudible to the microphone. Before long he’s talking about products made in Japan, and how products need to be made in America again. Trump has for years produced clothing in China. “We all like sports and we love sports, right?” The crowd likes that Trump likes sports. Then the billionaire mocks Ohio governor John Kasich for saying he watches golf. “He said, ‘honestly, I don’t watch channel except for one show, I only watch the Golf Channel.’ I don’t want a guy who watches the Golf Channel and nothing else!” Then it’s the Trump wall. “It’s going to be a real wall.” Another protester shouts something. “Hell-oh! Go back home darling,” is Trump’s reaction. “See, nobody gets hurt.” “Nobody’s been hurt,” he again says, falsely. He admits: “We’re a little bit rough.” Then he says everyone who says otherwise is dishonest. Speaking of golf and dishonesty, Trump has valued one of his golf courses at wildly different prices in separate documents. He told the FEC that one of his New York clubs is worth $50m, and told a judge overseeing a tax lawsuit that it’s only worth $1.4m – as part of his argument that he should not pay so much for it. You can read more of my colleague Jon Swaine’s investigation through the link below. Some protesters interrupt the speech. They’re chanting something inaudible to the microphones and waving at least one banner that says “black lives matter.” “Get ‘em out! Send ‘em back to Bernie!” Trump shouts. “Get them out of here!” “You see where they place themselves, right in front of the cameras. You see that? That’s all they care about,” says the former reality TV host, who appeared on four cable TV shows this morning. “Disgusting.” “Get ‘em out! Now!” The crowd is chanting “USA!” for no particular reason. Trump goes with it: “USA! USA! I love it.” Now he’s talking about Christmas. He says it’s going to be back this December. The crowd cheers. Then it’s Ted Cruz: “a good debater but he’s a bad talker.” The crowd boos. The billionaire broaches the protester incidents at his events. “Usually it’s staged, but they say something, they’re stopped. We have fun. We have fun.” “You know how many people have been injured at our shows? Nobody. Nobody,” he says, falsely. In the last week alone a reporter showed visible bruises (she accused Trump’s campaign manager), a protester was bloodied in St Louis, and two police officers were injured in Chicago. Trump allude to a protester who was assaulted, it’s not clear whom, saying “the person was violent.” “He had a voice like Pavarati, and when we hit back we’re the bad ones!” he says. “I don’t hear their voice, I only hear our people’s voice saying ‘there they are, there they are.’” Some of the protesters “are so mean, so loud, so vicious, they stop us from really our first amendment rights, right?” But he praises “our people [who] started swinging back”. His supporters would be reviled if they protested a Democratic candidate, Trump says. “You go to one of these rallies, and you protest? Oh, you’re in trouble. They’ll lock you up for the rest of your life, they’ll give you the electric chair.” “We’re not provoking, we all want peace.” Then he questions whether Barack Obama wrote any of the books he’s authored. “They say he wrote the first book, who knows if it’s true.” The sentences only have tangential links to one another. It’s logorrhea. Millions of people. John Kasich is terrible. Bernie Sanders is fading. We’re very disenfranchised. One woman in Tennessee, 93-years-old, she never voted. Trade deals. The Democrats are down 35%, there’s no spirit. Trump is holding a rally in Bloomington, Illinois – he steps off his private jet and waltzes over to the stage under a giant “Trump” umbrella done up like the American flag. “Do we love Illinois? We love Illinois.” He immediately starts talking about his “big, big building in Chicago”. Lots of “big” so far. “We have a big week coming up, we have a big century coming up.” He gets into the “terrible” deal with “terror nation” Iran. Then “your taxes are through the roof, your companies are leaving you. You’ve got nothing going!” “You guys are one of the big factors. Ohio’s not doing well. Y’know Ohio likes to talk about how everything’s stabilized.” Trump says the state raised real estate taxes so high that people are “choking”. He’s talking about Ohio governor John Kasich, whom he faces off there on Tuesday’s election, and about trade deals supported by the governor. So far a pretty standard Trump speech: everything is very gloomy but we’re going to bring jobs back to America. “At the end of the day, in any campaign, responsibility starts at the top,” Ted Cruz tells NBC’s Chuck Todd. The Texas senator appeared last on Meet the Press. “It is not beneficial when you have a presidential candidate like Donald Trump telling his supporters, “punch that guy in the face,” Cruz says. Todd: is Trump responsible for the tone of his rallies and Donald Trump alone? Cruz repeats his lines from earlier this morning: “Listen, the protesters have no right to engage in violence. They have no right to threaten violence. And these protesters, whether it’s Black Lives Matter or Bernie Sanders protesters, who are coming in just trying to shout down any speaker, that’s not free speech. The first amendment gives you a right to speak, but it doesn’t give you a right to silence others.” He says the protesters are acting “abusively and wrong” – but he sideswipes Trump again with the line that “responsibility starts at the top”. “And it is not beneficial when you have a presidential candidate like Donald Trump telling his supporters, ‘punch that guy in the face.’ We ought to have a president who brings us together, who doesn’t seek to divide us. We’ve seen a president dividing us for seven years. We don’t want to see that going forward.” He then lumps Trump together with Barack Obama: “It’s very much the same. They’re both engaging in demagoguery.” Hillary Clinton, absent from the talk-show circuit this Sunday, may have been glad to avoid the attention, writes my colleague Lauren Gambino after a week of following the Democratic frontrunner on the trail. By Saturday night Hillary Clinton was ready for a Guinness. After greeting a throng of people at O’Donold’s Irish Pub and Grill in Youngstown, Ohio, on Saturday night, a bartender handed Clinton a pint of Guinness. “Everyone, to Hillary Clinton! The next president of the United States,” a supporter shouted, raising her glass. Clinton smiled and raised her glass to what no doubt she hoped was a brighter end to a rough few days. The 48-hours of misfires began on Friday, when Clinton lauded Nancy Reagan for starting “a national conversation” about the HIV/Aids epidemic, a virus that was killing thousands of gay men while the Reagans were in the White House. Clinton quickly issued a contrite statement that said she had misspoken, and followed her apology with a Medium post that reflected on the early LGBT activism around the virus – and the deadly silence that followed. “To be clear, the Reagans did not start a national conversation about HIV and AIDS,” she wrote. “That distinction belongs to generations of brave lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people, along with straight allies, who started not just a conversation but a movement that continues to this day.” Still, the misstep gave her opponent, Bernie Sanders, and his supporters new ammunition with just days to go before the a series of important primary contests. “I just don’t know what she was talking about,” Sanders told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Sunday morning. “That was a tragic moment,” he said. “I’m glad she apologized.” Then again on Friday, violent clashes erupted at a Donald Trump rally in Chicago after the event was cancelled. In response to the unrest, Clinton issued a statement that invoked the Charleston killings, a statement that critics called patronizing and having missed the point. The next morning, Clinton took tried again to address the Chicago rally. “The ugly, divisive rhetoric we are hearing from Donald Trump and the encouragement of violence and aggression is wrong, and it’s dangerous,” Clinton told volunteers at a campaign stop at O’Fallon Park Recreation Complex in St Louis. “If you play with matches, you’re going to start a fire you can’t control. That’s not leadership. That’s political arson.” Then, speaking at a rally in St Louis, on Saturday, Clinton tried to strike Sanders for his record on health care reform, suggesting he hasn’t always been such a robust proponent of a single-payer healthcare plan. “Where was he when I was trying to get health care in ’93 and ’94?” Clinton asked rhetorically at a rally in St Louis on Saturday afternoon. “Literally, standing right behind her,” Mike Casca, a Sanders’s spokesman shot back, posting a photo from a speech Clinton gave in 1994, when she was first lady. At the bar later that evening, a reporter asked Clinton if that was the best Guiness she’d ever had. “It’s the best Guinness I’ve ever had,” she said. “A Youngstown Guinness!” “The best Guinness she’s ever had!” a man in the bar yelled. Donald Trump did several interviews this morning, but in none was he asked about a criminal complaint filed against his campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, by a reporter who alleges that he assaulted her last week. The reporter, Michelle Fields of the rightwing and pro-Trump site Breitbart, had visible bruises on her arms and at least one other journalist witness the incident, which happened at a Trump rally. The billionaire and Lewandowski have accused her of making it up. Fields’ employer has also quashed any reporting or commenting on the story, prompting Breitbart’s spokesperson, Kurt Bardella, to quit on Friday. He told CNN that night that his former bosses and Trump are simply lying. “They have been very supportive of the Trump campaign, and I think there is a desire to want to believe the Trump campaign,” he said. “I think when you’ve gone all-in so much for a candidate, when you have that kind of skin in the game, you don’t want to see that derailed.” Buzzfeed also found that Breitbart’s editor-at-large volunteered to be a speechwriter for the billionaire’s campaign. Odd! CBS has finally come round to Bernie Sanders, to ask him the questions he has been asked three or four times already this morning. He’s in St Louis. Would he tell his supporters to disrupt Trump rallies, as Trump claims? “No, not to disrupt rallies … that’s never what we do.” Sanders is another candidate looking pale, speaking through a throat ravaged by a thousand stump speeches and the recycled air of a thousand campaign flights. He doesn’t look as existentially haunted as Marco Rubio, though, as he gets down to one of his favourite things: discussing universal healthcare. He duly discusses it with a sort of grim enjoyment. Asked about Hillary Clinton still taking more delegates than him all-round despite his winning big states such as Michigan, he goes for the candidate’s eternal response: “We have momentum.” …and more Kasich, who tells CBS “when I show up I talk about how we can fix things” and “since I’ve been so positive it must be contagious because the last debate was great”. Ah, Sunny John, to borrow Sunny Jim Callaghan’s prime ministerial nickname. Crisis in poll numbers? What crisis? He says, if you wondered, he will win Ohio and become president, then “solve our most vexing problems using conservative principles”. He also, basically, hedges on pledging to support the nominee whoever it is, if it’s Donald Trump. Todd asks Trump about his false accusation of terrorist links to a protester who rushed the stage at a recent rally. Trump pleads total ignorance: “What do I know? All I know is what’s on the internet.” He says he saw a photo of the protester “dragging the American flag” and that made him very unhappy, but effectively blames the internet for the erroneous claim about the protester. The reason there tension at my rallies is these people are sick and tired of what’s happening in our country.” He rambles about trade deals, about the terrorist group Isis, about the lack of wage increases, etc. The billionaire claims that he hasn’t incited any anger at all. It was there when he found it. “The people are angry about that, they’re not angry about what I’m saying. I’m just the messenger,” he says. “I’m just expressing my opinion. What’ve I said that’s wrong?” Todd does not rattle off any of the many claims that fact-checkers have found the candidate to have lied about or fudged the truth. Trump has a 70% “false” and “pants-on-fire” rating for telling the truth, according to the fact-checkers at Politifact. Sopan Deb, the CBS reporter arrested in Chicago on Friday, is now speaking… to CBS. “There was total pandemonium,” he says, describing how he filmed a man with a bloodied head being arrested and also a scuffle that broke out. He adds: “Before I knew it a police officer… pulled me down by the hood of my hoodie… put a boot to my neck and cuffed me.” The police did not listen to his protestations, he says, describing an hour spent handcuffed in a van with other arrestees – including the man with the bloodied head – and his transfer to a station to be charged with resisting arrest. John Dickerson ends the brief segment: “Sopan is back on the trail with Donald Trump today.” Donald Trump returns to the airwaves on NBC’s Meet the Press. Does he take any responsibility for the “escalated tension”, as host Chuck Todd describes protests in Chicago? Trump takes credit only for preventing injuries and clashes. He blames protesters, whom he says “weren’t really protesters, they were disrupters, like professionals … these were professionally made signs.” Todd confronts Trump with the video of him calling for punches to protesters, and then a video of a supporter suckerpunching a protester. Trump: “I don’t accept responsibility, I do not condone violence in any shape, and I will tell you from what I saw the young man stuck his finger in the air and the other man just sort of had it. But I don’t condone violence.” He then defends his call to punch someone, saying “We had somebody who was punching, and vicious, and had gone crazy, I’m telling you they’re not protesters, they’re disrupters.” Trump says he feared an injury by hurled tomato. “Now if you get hit in the face with a tomato, let me tell you, with somebody with a strong arm, at least, let me tell you, it can be very damaging. Not good.” The billionaire segues into blaming the media, saying “When they punch, it’s OK. when my people punch back because they have to out of self-defense, it’s terrible.” He then waffles on whether he thinks that sucker-punched protester deserved to be hit, saying he wants to know what the man was doing before he was hit. “From what I heard there as a lot of taunting and a certain finger was put in the air, not nice, again I don’t condone [violence].” … So will you pay legal fees of the man who hit him, as you’ve promised? Trump says he might: “I’ve actually instructed my people to look into it, yes.” Donald Trump now on CBS, a bit like Big Brother looming on all channels. He follows the same plan as he did on CNN and CBS: of course he does. He’s sitting in the same seat, asked the same opening question: do you condone violence? Only when two people have tomatoes and are willing to throw them, he says. The protester punched in North Carolina – disrupter, sorry – made a “terrible, terrible gesture” with his middle finger, says Trump, implying said disrupter thus deserved to be smashed in the face. And it’s also Bernie’s fault and it’s just not fair how the press treats him. These disrupters: they stop Trump speaking and that’s bad. But he tells the police not to hurt them. Now we’re on to H1B visas. Why does Donald use them and other laws on tax and immigration to his advantage while preaching fairness in such matters? “I’m not doing anything wrong, I don’t think those visas should be allowed but they are, they’re the law of the land. I’m a businessman.” He never went bankrupt either, he adds, unprompted. If tragedy plus time equals comedy, what does absurdity plus time equal? Surreality? John Kasich is next up on Fox. Chris Wallace challenges him about his underperformance in Michigan last week, a similar state to his own Ohio where he has to win on Tuesday. Kasich came third in Michigan. Kasich, uncharacteristically testy, rejects this: he has momentum coming out of Michigan, he shared delegates with second-placed Ted Cruz, he’s going to win Ohio and “we’re rising in Illinois”. “Just give us a chance,” he says, pleading for more media coverage. Wallace points out he is on Fox News Sunday today, and asks if Kasich fans in Florida should vote Rubio to stop Trump, as Rubio has said his fans in Ohio should vote for Kasich. “I’m not out to stop anybody, I’m out to get elected,” he says. “This is not a parlour game for me.” It should be noted that there are not many Rubio fans in Ohio, and not many Kasich fans in Florida. He’s also asked about his stated support for free trade, not a popular position on the Republican trail at the moment, particularly in industrial states like his. “It’s not just free trade, it’s fair trade,” he says, arguing for free trade with the ability to make trade not free should America feel badly done by, aka: having one’s cake and eating it, as my mum will still bafflingly say. Marco Rubio appears on This Week. He repeats his earlier remarks that there are “unbalanced people” out there who hear Donald Trump and are liable to do anything at his encouragement. “We’re going to have an ugly scene here, we’ve already had these ugly scenes.” He repeats his stump line that American politics now look “like the comments section of a blog”. Stephanopoulos asks whether standing up to violence is more important than standing by a pledge to support the Republican nominee. “Absolutely we have to stand up to it,” he says, but he still won’t out and reject the pledge. “I’ll be honest with you it’s getting harder every day.” “I do not want the conservative movement or the Republican party to be defined,” by what Donald Trump is saying, Rubio adds. He says that the billionaire is playing on people’s emotions and “asking them to give you power so you can go after another group of people.” “Real leadership is recognizing people are angry, recognizing that people are frustrated, and showing them a way forward.” The election has “turned into a real circus, and now it’s turned into something even worse,” he finishes. John Kasich is up on the ABC show next, and he tells host George Stephanopoulos that he won’t get “into the mud” with Donald Trump. Again he declines to go after Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric except in the broadest way. “It’s all silly rhetoric,” he says of the criticisms that have ricocheted around the party in the last week. Stephanopoulos asks the Ohio governor about whether he has a real chance to win the Republican nomination even if he beats Trump. Kasich doesn’t have enough votes to appear on the ballot for Pennsylvania, for instance, an important state with 56 delegates at stake. “That’s all a bunch of political gibberish too,” Kasich says, without denying that his name is not on the ballot there. “We’re fine in Pennsylvania, we’re fine, this’ll all be resolved here soon.” So will Ted Cruz support Donald Trump if he’s the nominee, as he’s said many times before? “Well, listen, I think if Donald Trump is the nominee I think it’s a disaster for Republicans,” Cruz dodges. “It makes it much, much, much more likely that Hillary Clinton is the president.” “The answer is not to cry in your beer about it, the answer is not what the Washington establishment is doing which is to try to come up with some magical plan to have a brokered convention.” Stephanopoulos presses him – is he condoning Trump’s encouragement of violence, then? “I’m not condoning it,” Cruz says. “But my focus is on winning. Winning the nomination and then beating Hillary Clinton.” Then he throws a wrinkle in his line that the party should not try to broker the convention, saying there’s difference between a brokered contention and a contested one. The former would be a “absolute disaster” of party leaders trying to engineer a candidate, he says, and would cause “a revolt”. That’s versus a contested convention, he says, which would allow “the delegates to decide”. “If Donald and I both go into the convention and we both got a big chunk of delegates ,” he says, “then the delegates will decide, and that’s allowing democracy to operate.” Wallace ends his Fox News Sunday chat with Trump by promising the candidate will like his final question. He didn’t like previous ones about his remarks on Muslims and Trump University. The question is: how do you feel about perhaps wrapping up this race on Tuesday? Trump does like it, but he doesn’t discuss it. He just reels off the same campaign points/buzzwords as before and then returns to his disavowal of any responsibility for violence at and around his events. “We did a good job by postponing the other day in Chicago,” Trump says. “No injuries, Chris. No injuries.” Wallace signs off: “Stay safe on the campaign trail, Mr Trump.” Ted Cruz is next on the ABC show This Week, where host George Stephanopoulos asks him to clarify: you believe Donald Trump encourages violence? Let’s be clear the protesters were in the wrong,” Cruz begins. “when you try to shut down and shout down speech, that’s not what the first amendment allows.” “Responsibility starts at the top and it’s not beneficial when you have a candidate tell his protesters, punch that guy in the face,” he says. “We need a candidate who respects the people, even engages the protesters with respect.” “We can disagree and we can disagree forcefully while still respecting each other and engaging in insults and vulgarity.” Stephanopoulos asks whether the provocations by Trump are meant to get out his voters. “I don’t know if it’s his strategy or not,” Cruz says, though he admits that Trump’s default position is “simply to use angry rhetoric, often to engage in insults, often to curse and yell, and that’s not a productive solution.” He says he understands the frustration and angers of partisans for Trump, who’re “angry with politicians who’ve lied to us”, but, he says, “Donald has been enmeshed in that Washington corruption for 40 years”. NB: the first amendment has no restrictions on the volume of your voice. Here’s Donald Trump on Fox News Sunday, from Chicago before a scheduled rally in Illinois, to be followed by rallies in Ohio and Florida. Does he take any responsibility for violence at his events, Chris Wallace asks. “First of all I disagree totally, Chris, with what you said.” Well, there’s that. There’s also the usual procession of vaguely linked buzzwords: “huge crowds”, “thousands”, “the biggest”, “nobody hurt”, “protesters come”, “bad dudes”, “they’re swinging”, “nobody’s been hurt in the last couple of months”. He is asked about the infamous sucker punch at a rally in North Carolina earlier this week. Does that have a place in America? “Not it doesn’t,” says Trump. “But the kid did stick up a finger right in someone’s face and this man had had enough.” That would be the man who subsequently said “we might have to kill” the protester he had just punched, next time. Again, Trump diverts the interview off into a litany of familiar campaign complaints: trade, the treatment of veterans, China, Mexico. “A big portion of this country is fed up,” he says. “They’re angry, they’re not angry people but they’re angry now.” And what about his own condoning of violence from the podium? Wallace plays him a selection of such taunts. The first one, Trump says, was an appeal for help from his crowd because the secret service said two people in the crowd had tomatoes “and being hit in the face by tomatoes is not so good, OK”. Wallace, normally one of the more incisive US political interviewers, laughs and moves on to the next question. John Kasich is the last candidate to appear on the CNN program, where he incongruously holds back on denouncing Trump’s language, as the other candidates have done. “There’s no question Donald Trump has created a toxic atmosphere, pitting people against each other,” Kasich says. “He needs to back off of this and being more aspirational.” He says his own rallies are “aspirational”. “I don’t watch Turmp rallies” or the news, he goes on. “I basically watch the golf channel when I’m traveling, believe it or not, but when I saw the violence in Chicago I had enough.” Kasich also rejects the criticisms of free trade agreements from Trump and Bernie Sanders, saying they’re not practical: “we’re not going to lock the doors or pull down the blinds and tell the rest of the world to go away.” Tapper asks Kasich about his history with Wall Street – he spent seven years with Lehman Brothers, where he made hundreds of thousands of dollars until the firm collapsed in 2008 and took the world economy down with it. Who do you blame for the economic collapse, Tapper asks. “I think there was greed on Wall Street, no doubt about it,” Kasich says. Then he doesn’t answer the question. He says critics and financiers both should find religion, and trust the invisible hand of the market God. “Get a little bit of morality, folks, and realize that free enterprise is great but it has to have a moral underpinning.” Nobody mentions that religion has existed in myriad forms for thousands of years, always, and often quite compatibly, with greed. “We need to wake up,” Rubio says. “This is really going to do damage to America.” “There are people out there that are unbalanced there are people out there who don’t have control of themselves we don’t know what they will do.” Rubio is not yet willing to say he will not support Trump, should the billionaire win the nomination. But he gets very close to saying it. “I’m not prepared to say something different today other than to say I hope we can avoid that,” he says. “It’s getting harder every day to justify that statement to myself, to my children, and to my family and to the people that support me.” The election has already had extraordinary damage, Rubio says. “This is not going to end well one way or another. He’s going to be the nominee and he’s going to lose, or he’s going to throw this party into disarray … if it crumbles or divides or splits apart it’s going to be very difficult to hold [conservative] views.” Trump’s very suggestions challenge America’s founding principles, Rubio says. “We have a president. The president is an American citizen … the president works for the people, not the people for the president … he’s going to singlehandedly do this and do that, without regard for whether it’s legal or not.” He even holds back on blaming Bernie Sanders or the protesters – though he does say, without evidence, that some of them may have been paid. “I don’t agree with them going and thinking they can shut down a rally,” he says, “but [Trump] wants to deflect and distract.” Rubio even turns his ire toward the media, saying that they’ve given wall-to-wall coverage to Trump’s outrageous statements for ratings. “We have we contributed, to this culture that has turned American politics into the equivalent of the comments sections in these blogs, where presidential candidates are now basically Twitter trolls.” Marco Rubio is now on the CNN, where he sounds exhausted and genuinely alarmed at the turn the presidential election has taken. “All the gates of civility have been blown apart,” he says. “This is not about political correctness, this is about rules of civility.” He says he’s “very concerned” about the chances someone gets seriously hurt or even killed because of Trump’s language. “We don’t know what’s going to happen next here. We’ve reached the point if they don’t agree with you that they can get angry at you, that you’re a bad and evil person.” “Do we really want to live in a country where everybody hates each other? Because we disagree about the role of government, or the tax rate … we end up hating each other? Cause that’s what it feels like.” He says he’s “so tired of arguing” and screaming with other Americans, and hearing “’you’re a bad person, you’re an evil person.” Rubio goes on to say that Trump’s language, telling his supporters that they can “basically beat up the protesters, beat up the hecklers” and he’ll pay legal fees, are becoming incredibly dangerous. “There are people out there who are not balanced, people out there who are not completely in control of themselves, and they hear something like this from a leader and you don’t know what they’re going to do.” He goes on: “it’s reckless and it’s dangerous, and I hope people wake up on time and they realize what’s happening here … Without it getting to levels of violence and anger.” He alludes to “images of Americans now literally at each other’s throats”, the Trump supporter who suckerpunched a protester and then said he might kill someone next time, Trump’s invented story about a general who dipped bullets into pig’s blood, his suggestion that one protester had links to Isis. The senator frames Trump’s chaotic movement in the strongest possible terms:.“We’re going to lose our republic,” he says. “It looks like something out of the third world.” Tapper also briefly asks Sanders about Hillary Clinton’s brief praise for the late Nancy Reagan, whom she said started a “national conversation” on HIV/Aids – and then apologized for the comment, given the former first lady’s extremely conspicuous silence during a health crisis that affected tens of thousands of Americans. I just don’t know what she was talking about. In fact that was a very tragic moment in modern American history, there were many many people who were dying of Aids, and in fact there was demand all over the country for President Reagan to start talking about this tragedy, and yet he refused to talk about it I’m glad she apologized, but the truth it was not President Reagan and Nancy Reagan who were leaders … quite the contrary … they didn’t get involved in it. Bernie Sanders is next on the CNN program, and the host asks the Vermont senator about Trump’s accusations of sending “disrupters” to rallies. Sanders says we should take “Mr Trump’s words with a grain of salt because, I think, as almost everybody knows, this man” can’t stop lying. “To call me a communist is a lie. To talk about our organization or our campaign disrupting his event is a lie.” He acknowledges that some of the protesters in Chicago were supporters of his, “but certainly, absolutely, our campaign had nothing to do with his meeting,” “Even his Republican colleagues make this point,” Sanders goes on, “his language, his intonations, when you see people suckerpunch, people kick people when they’re down. This is a man who keeps impyling violence and you are getting what you see.” “In the United States of America you don’t go beating up people, people have a right to peacefully protest,” he says. Sanders takes the thought further, saying that “Trump is getting nervous” and “getting reckless” because he’s seeing the senator ahead of him in hypothetical general election polls. “We cannot have a president like Trump who insults Mexicans, who insults Muslims, who insults women,” he says. He reasserts that his campaign had nothing to do with the protests. “There were many many many organizations,” in Chicago, he says. “I do not like anybody disrupting anybody’s meetings,.” He concludes that he’ll gladly tell his supporters, as often as he has to, that there’s no place for violence or attempts to suppress free speech. Tapper asks about Trump’s tweet this morning that threatens to disrupt Sanders rallies. Trump: “It’s not a threat, it’s not a threat. It’s not a threat at all! … My people have said we oughtta go to his rallies, when liberals, and super liberals, I don’t even call ‘em liberals. “These people are bad people that are looking to do harm to our country. These people come into mine … They’re being arrested and all sorts of things are happening to them. … There’s a horrible thing going on in the media. We are treated so unfairly, and I’m treated so unfairly.” Even Tapper stands up to him, saying people are getting hurt – Trump doesn’t let him finish. “My fellow Republicans are running against me, they are losing big league.” Tapper tries to bring it back to the human cost of Trump’s rhetoric, Trump repeats in an irritated voice “excuse me, excuse me!” He dismisses the idea that anyone was hurt or could be hurt because of his rallies. “The danger was ended by a very good managerial decision not to have” a rally in Chicago, he says. “How many people have been injured at my rallies? Zero, zero!” Tapper: “I don’t think it’s zero…” Trump does not mention the protester suckerpunched last week, the reporter assaulted (allegedly by Trump campaign manager), or the protester bloodied outside a rally in St Louis. He says that his rallies get “thousands and thousands of people” who don’t get hurt, suggesting that the few who do get hurt don’t matter. But he doesn’t acknowledge those people. The interview ends. First up this Sunday morning is Donald Trump on CNN’s State of the Union. Host Jake Tapper tells Trump he’s “being faulted for a tone, encouraging violence”, and asks the Republican frontrunner whether he ever thinks about triyng to calm people down. “I think in many cases I do lower the temperature,” Trump says, “when I say things like I’d lie to punch him, frankly this is a person” who’s violent and “crazy”. He says he doesn’t even call the protesters protesters, he says. “I call ‘em disrupters. A lot of them come from Bernie Sanders, whether he wants to say it or not, if he says no, he’s lying.” “We have great rallies, we have by far the biggest rallies … and out of that we’ve had very little problem.” “What I did with Chicago, it would’ve been easier to go … because you had professional disrupters, thousands of them, from Sanders, and to a smaller extent Hillary.” “You had Sanders disrupters going over there … and I’ll tell you what, I think what I did, and I’ve gotten a lot of credit for [canceling]. … My supporters have tremendous love of this country, they’re tired of getting ripped off.” He says “you would’ve had a tremendous clash,” had he not canceled the rally in Chicago. Hello and welcome to our live coverage of the 2016 presidential election – of late a contest seeing pepper spray and police intervention, racially charged arguments and violent clashes, all at the stoking of one man: Donald Trump. Trump began the weekend in Chicago, which he quickly left in a state of disarray: he cancelled a rally at the sight of hundreds of protesters outside the venue and dozens inside it. Those protesters scuffled with his supporters, two police officers were injured and five people arrested, including a CBS News reporter who was charged with “resisting arrest”. But the billionaire sallied onward, speaking at events in Ohio and Missouri with little regard for facts of the night before. Although Chicago police quickly asserted that “they did not consult us at all”, the billionaire put out a statement that the police were “informed of everything before it happened. Likewise secret service and private security firms were consulted and totally involved”. He then blamed supporters of Bernie Sanders, organized groups, “many of them thugs”, and defended his sometimes violent fans. “I don’t have regrets,” he said on Friday. “These were very, very bad protesters. These were bad dudes. They were rough, tough guys.” He started up again on Sunday. No thuggishness to see here. The Democratic candidates denounced him: Sanders called him a “a pathological liar” who heads “a vicious movement” and Hillary Clinton said he was guilty of “political arson”. His Republican rivals hedged on their pledges to support the party nominee, even Trump: Ted Cruz said his opponent’s campaign “affirmatively encourages violence”, Marco Rubio said “this is what happens” when a campaign feeds off resentment, and John Kasich said the frontrunner was preying on fears. There are only two days left before Kasich and Rubio’s reckoning: they need to win their home states of Ohio and Florida on Tuesday to have any chance at all of staying in the race. Meanwhile, many Republicans are debating the devil they know – Ted Cruz, a man so personally disliked he has spawned a Zodiac killer meme – versus the devil they don’t – the bilious Trump. For Democrats, Sanders’ win last week in Michigan rattled Clinton, although she retains a huge lead in delegates and superdelegates according to AP estimates. All this and more is on the talk show tables this morning, where cable TV hosts will confront the candidates on policy, personality and the campaign chaos. They may even succeed in keeping it relatively civil, as these pro- and anti-Trump protesters did in St Louis.
Google is not ‘just’ a platform. It frames, shapes and distorts how we see the world Did the Holocaust really happen? No. The Holocaust did not really happen. Six million Jews did not die. It is a Jewish conspiracy theory spread by vested interests to obscure the truth. The truth is that there is no evidence any people were gassed in any camp. The Holocaust did not happen. Are you happy with that answer? Happy that if you have children, this is what they’re being exposed to? That all across America and France and Hungary and Holland and Britain, when people ask that question, this is what they are clicking on and reading and absorbing? No? Well, then, we really, really need to talk about Google. Right now. Because these are the “facts” of what happened according to the number one source of information to the entire planet. Type this into your Google search bar: “did the hol”. And Google suggests you search for this: “Did the Holocaust happen?” And this is the answer: no. The top result is a link to stormfront.org, a neo-Nazi site and an article entitled: “Top 10 reasons why the Holocaust didn’t happen”. The third result is the article “The Holocaust Hoax; IT NEVER HAPPENED”. The fifth is “50 reasons why the Holocaust didn’t happen.” The seventh is a YouTube video “Did the Holocaust really happen?” The ninth is “Holocaust Against Jews is a Total Lie – Proof.” This is what Danny Sullivan, the editor of SearchEngineLand, a leading expert on Google search, means when he says “something has gone terribly wrong with Google’s algorithm”. Stormfront describes itself as “the voice of the new, embattled white minority… a community of racial realists and idealists”. It’s the kind of site that Gideon Falter, the chair of the Campaign Against Antisemitism, says is being used to radicalise a new generation of extreme, violent, rightwing individuals. It’s where Anders Breivik used to hang out online. It’s where, on its discussion forum, users gathered to celebrate the murder of Jo Cox. And, according to Google, it’s the most authoritative source on the internet on the “question” of whether or not the Holocaust actually happened. Sceptical, educated people will of course look for other evidence. These are the searches that Google lists at the bottom of the page as suggestions for what to search next: “Holocaust never happened theory” “proof the Holocaust happened” “Holocaust fake proof” “Holocaust never happened movie” “Holocaust didn’t happen conspiracy” “did the Holocaust happen during ww2.” A week ago I wrote in the about how rightwing websites have successfully colonised a vast swathe of the internet. About how they have gamed Google’s algorithm. About how Jonathan Albright, an associate professor at Elon University in the US, had mapped them to show how they have become a vast and growing ecosystem that is encroaching on the mainstream news and information infrastructure like a cancer. How Google, with all its money and resources, is being owned by hate sites who have hijacked its search results. One week on, Google is still quietly pretending there’s nothing wrong, while surreptitiously going in and fixing the most egregious examples we published last week. It refused to comment on the search results I found – such as the autocomplete suggestion that “jews are evil”, with eight of its 10 top results confirming they are – and, instead, hand-tweaked a handful of the results. Or as, we call it in the media, it “edited” them. It did this without acknowledging there was any problem or explaining the basis on which it is altering its results, or why, or what its future editorial policy will be. Its search box is no longer suggesting that Jews are still evil but it’s still suggesting “Islam should be destroyed”. And, it is spreading and broadcasting the information as fact. This is hate speech. It’s lies. It’s racist propaganda. And Google is disseminating it. It is what the data scientist Cathy O’Neil calls a “co-conspirator”. And so are we. Because what happens next is entirely down to us. This is our internet. And we need to make a decision: do we believe it’s acceptable to spread hate speech, to promulgate lies as the world becomes a darker, murkier place? Because Google is only beyond the reach of the law if it we allow it to be. It’s selling ads against these searches. It’s profiting from Holocaust denial. Its algorithm is helping Stormfront reach new recruits – the next generation of Thomas Mairs and Breiviks – all the while adding to its bottom line, its quarterly profits. This week, Chi Onwurah, the shadow secretary of state for culture, media and sport tweeted her concern about the subject but noted “I’m sure @google will argue they aren’t responsible for the results”. Only, here’s the thing: that’s exactly what they are. Responsible. Google writes the code that drives the algorithm that returns the results. How they write this code, what they use to assess authority and credibility, how that enables Stormfront to spread its lies and spew its poison is entirely its responsibility. When the shadow minister whose brief this includes fails to realise this, we have some idea of the scale of the problem. Our problem too: because do we let these multinational corporations own us and all aspects of our lives? Is that the plan? The Google Transparency Project has documented how the company has become one of the biggest spenders on government lobbyists in the US. It has also shown how in the US, UK and Europe there has been an open door between government and senior positions at Google – the GTP found 251 instances of staff moving between the two in the US and 80 in Europe. That is how power works. This is how power works too: the last time I wrote a story that Google didn’t like, I got a call from Peter Barron, Google’s UK head of press, who was at pains to point out the positive and beneficial relationship that Google has with the Media Group, our owners. Google’s business model is built around the idea that it’s a neutral platform. That its magic algorithm waves its magic wand and delivers magic results without the sullying intervention of any human. It desperately does not want to be seen as a media company, as a content provider, as a news and information medium that should be governed by the same rules that apply to other media. But this is exactly what it is. This week’s editing of the content around evil Jews has demonstrated exactly that. And our failure – the failure of our politicians and the mainstream press – to reckon with it makes us an accessory to the crime. We are colluding with it in broadcasting hate speech and lies. The right is on the rise everywhere. And that includes on the internet. It is creating more content that is travelling wider and further. It has changed both the questions being asked – did the Holocaust actually happen? Are Jews evil? Should Islam be destroyed – and answered. It is in the process of remaking the world, rewriting history, rewiring minds, changing the conversation, reframing the questions and answers. It’s our world. Our internet. Our history. And we have to wake up to what is happening right now on the laptop on our desk, the phone in our pocket, the tablet in our children’s bedrooms. This is our choice: do something. Or accept the truth according to Google. That six million didn’t die. That the Holocaust never happened. That we didn’t care enough to remember.
As Trump targets next Indiana plant, workers voice hope and skepticism This summer, Kyle Beaman was planning his retirement, a move to rural Indiana, and a quiet life with his wife, when his employer, in October, landed a gut punch: within months, he would probably be out of work. The employer, the Indianapolis-based bearings manufacturer Rexnord Corp, had announced tentative plans to move nearly 300 well-paying jobs to Mexico. The unionized shop was only through its first year of a three-year contract. “I was devastated,” Beaman, 62, said, “even though I had suspicions. But I was expecting [the move] next year – two years into a contract – not one.” Just over a mile around the corner, Donald Trump announced on Thursday that about 800 jobs at the heating and air conditioning company Carrier would be saved. The state of Indiana – where Vice-president-elect Mike Pence is governor – agreed to give the business $7m in tax incentives over 10 years. Carrier has said the deal depends on job retention and capital investment. The agreement has not been without controversy. Trump toured the Carrier facility this week to announce the deal, but critics have said it potentially sets a precedent for companies to seek tax concessions by threatening to leave the US. Moreover, they point out, Carrier’s parent company still intends to relocate 1,300 jobs to Mexico and shut down a plant in nearby Huntington. In short, the case of Carrier is something of an anomaly in the midwest. The Rexnord facility, located along a busy road dotted by fast-food restaurants, gas stations and strip malls, is more indicative of a trend across the region. Since 2000, Indiana has lost 150,000 manufacturing jobs. Nationally, 5m manufacturing jobs disappeared over the same period. For employees at Rexnord, the Carrier announcement was met with cautious optimism. And when Trump set his sights on Rexnord itself on Friday evening, spirits were boosted even more. “Rexnord of Indiana is moving to Mexico and rather viciously firing all of its 300 workers,” the president-elect wrote on Twitter. “This is happening all over our country. No more!” He followed this the next day with a series of tweets threatening a 35% tax on products sold inside the US by any business that fired American workers and built a new factory or plant in another country. Chuck Jones, president of the United Steelworkers Local 1999 in Indianapolis, characterized efforts by companies to ship jobs elsewhere as a typical cost-cutting maneuver. It’s “corporate greed and unfair trade”, said Jones, whose union represents both Carrier and Rexnord workers. Kelly Hugunin, the union representative for Local 1999, pointed out that the jobs at Rexnord and Carrier paid $20-$25 per hour, a wage that allowed workers at the shop to live a middle-class life. “I was happy to hear that some jobs were being saved,” Hugunin said. “I was curious what the cost would be for saving the jobs.” Hugunin isn’t optimistic about the prospect of additional jobs being saved in the region. The current indication from Rexnord, he said, was that the company was following through with its outsourcing plans. Beaman, who is from Indianapolis, feels otherwise. The father of three and grandfather of five has been a Trump supporter from the outset; he showed off his Trump “gold” membership card sent to campaign supporters who donated a certain amount, and said a similar “black card” was also on its way. And while he was uncertain that Trump could prevent Rexnord from shutting its doors, Beaman was heartened to see Trump had publicly blasted the company on Twitter. The company, according to Beaman, has said it will require employees to train their replacements before they can receive a severance package. “It ain’t gonna happen,” Beaman said. The jobs at Rexnord are well paid for manufacturing work in the region, especially for residents without a college degree (only 16.5% of Indiana residents possess a bachelor’s degree, about half the rate in the US as a whole). But it was hard work, Beaman said; at times, since he began in 2007, he had worked upward of seven days a week, with 10-hour days. “That’s the misconception that people don’t understand when they see ‘union’,” Beaman said at a Dairy Queen shop located down the road from Rexnord. “They don’t understand the sacrifices we’re making to make that $25 an hour,” he continued. “We’re sacrificing home life, family. All of this to make [Rexnord] money. Now, sure, it makes us money – but when you don’t have a lot of time to do anything, sometimes you wonder: is it all worth it?” Rexnord, which did not respond to a request for comment, said in a statement last month that it “invited the union to join us in an open and frank discussion over this potential relocation and the impact it would have on Rexnord associates and their families”. The Carrier announcement has been framed as a minor win amid an imminent threat of hundreds of jobs being lost elsewhere. But the Rexnord shop – which Beaman said historically mostly voted for the Democratic party but broke for Trump this year – found the president-elect’s pronouncements encouraging. “Carrier’s 1,400 people,” Beaman said. “We’re 300; we’re just small potatoes … It’s everywhere across this country, especially here in the manufacturing sector. There’s hundreds of us that this is happening to.” The deal with Carrier has faced criticism for the decision to provide a package of tax incentives. The former Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders said it should “send a shockwave of fear” for workers across the US – but some workers said the concession might be worth it, if the result was additional jobs being saved. Don Zering, a machinist who has worked at Rexnord for over four decades, said he was hopeful that something might prevent Rexnord from packing up for good. “If that’s what it takes to do it, then I’m all for it,” Zering said. “We gotta start somewhere,” he added, “and that was a good start. Hopefully we’ll keep improving on that.” Beaman said he was not nearly as worried for his own future as he was for younger employees in the company. “The ... ones who just maybe got married, or just had a baby, or just bought a house, or they just bought a car,” Beaman said. “Those are the ones I’m worried about. Because their life’s going to be turned upside-down here real quick.” Jones, the union president, said many workers had approached him to ask: “What could we have done?” “Well, what the hell could we have done?” he said. “They’re having their livelihood ripped away from them.”
I walked from Liverpool to London. Brexit was no surprise On 2 May this year, I set off to walk from Liverpool to London, a journey of 340 miles that would take me a month. I was walking in the footsteps of the People’s March for Jobs, a column of 300-odd unemployed men and women who, on the same day in 1981, exactly 35 years previously, had set off from the steps of St George’s Hall to walk to Trafalgar Square. In the two years after Margaret Thatcher had been elected, unemployment had gone from 1 to 3 million, as her policies laid waste to Britain’s manufacturing base. In 1981, we saw Rupert Murdoch buy the Times and Sunday Times. We witnessed inner-city riots, unprecedented in their scale and violence, in Liverpool and London. The formation of the SDP split the left. The Tories lost their first assault on the coal miners, capitulating over the closure of 23 pits. My father, Pete Carter, was one of those who organised the original walk. My journey was an attempt to work out what had happened to Britain in the intervening years. What I saw and heard gave me an alarming sense of how the immense social changes wrought by Thatcherism are still having a profound effect on communities all over England. It also meant that when I awoke last Friday to the result of the EU referendum, I wasn’t remotely surprised. I left Liverpool the week of the Hillsborough inquest verdict, flowers and scarves still adorning lampposts. The inquest had finally vindicated the families of the 96 killed at the 1989 FA Cup semi-final, exposing the lies and cover-ups of the police, the media and the political class, who had spent over a quarter of a century traducing not only those fans, mostly working class, but also the city and its people. In fact, that demonising had found expression in 1981, too, when Geoffrey Howe suggested to Thatcher privately that, after the Toxteth riots, Liverpool should be subject to a “managed decline”. I walked through Widnes and Warrington, past huge out-of-town shopping centres and through the wastelands of industrial decay. In Salford, down streets where all the pubs were boarded up and local shops, if you could find them, had brick walls for windows and prison-like metal doors, I found an Airbnb. My host was selling her terraced house. I sat in her living room as the estate agent brought around potential buyers. They were all buy-to-let investors from the south of England, building property portfolios in the poverty, as if this was one giant fire sale. “Is this a thing now?” I asked the agent. “It is,” he replied. On I walked. Through Stockport, Macclesfield, Congleton. The flag of St George flew, from flagpoles, from guttering. Leave posters were everywhere. I didn’t see a single one for remain. Just before Stoke-on-Trent, I passed the immense workings of the Chatterley Whitfield Colliery, closed down in the 1970s. The mine, one of Europe’s largest, had become a heritage centre and museum. In 1993 even that had shut. In Hanley, I started asking people what they thought about the referendum and if they wouldn’t mind telling me how they’d be voting. There was little reticence. “Out,” they would say. “No question.” “Why?” I’d ask. “Immigration,” would come the response. “We want our country back.” The Potteries museum opened in 1981, the year of the People’s March. There I read about Stoke’s industrial heritage, the ceramics, the coal mines, the steel industry, employing tens of thousands of people. All gone now. Stafford, Cannock, Wolverhampton. Different towns, same message: “There’s no decent work”; “the politicians don’t care about us”; “we’ve been forgotten”; “betrayed”; “there’s too many immigrants, and we can’t compete with the wages they’ll work for”. Nobody used the word humiliation, but that’s the sense I got. In Wolverhampton, the Express and Star newspaper was reporting on the fury from Wolves fans at the football club’s new shirt sponsor. It was to be the Money Shop, a payday lender. In Walsall, where I went to college, I walked around a town centre unrecognisable from 30 years earlier. Everywhere there were betting shops, dozens of them, and right next door to every betting shop was a pawnbroker or payday lender. It was a ghoulish form of mutualism, or symbiosis, the “natural” market at its most efficient. And there was another thing I noticed about all of these towns: the ubiquity of mobility scooters, and not all of them being driven by the elderly. Was this a manifestation of the established links between poverty and ill health? I walked on. Birmingham glittered, a skyline of cranes and high streets of fashionable shops, a confidence, a bounce. But out of the city centre the familiar motifs returned: boarded up pubs and shuttered shops, leave posters in windows, and a proliferation of hand car washes. It began to make sense why these have blossomed in modern Britain: why invest in expensive automated machinery when labour can be sourced so cheaply. Nuneaton, the home town of George Eliot and Ken Loach, had more charity shops in its high street than anywhere I’ve ever seen. And some of those charity shops had closed down. What does it say about a town when even the charity shops are struggling? In Coventry, whose car industry is now mostly gone, there seemed to be a construction frenzy. These were mostly new buildings for the colleges and universities, competing not only for a bigger share of domestic students but also for the lucrative foreign student market. A friend doing an MA in the city told me that 90% of the students on his course were from overseas, and the majority of them Chinese. As I moved south, I thought that the economic picture might change, but in Rugby, Bedford, Luton the high streets all had the by now familiar composition: betting shops, fast-food outlets, tattoo parlours. And the answer to the question “in” or “out” never changed either. “We’ve been left behind,” a white, middle-aged man told me at a bus stop as I rested in Hemel Hempstead. “Those politicians don’t care about us. Immigration has ruined this country.” I walked into central London, through Chiswick, past people sitting at pavement cafes, shops selling expensive furniture, estate agents offering two-bedroom flats for a million pounds. Through Hyde Park and on to Wellington Arch, with all the pomp and puffery of empire, and then Buckingham Palace, as tourists lapped up the pageantry. I was in, literally and spiritually, another country. In 1935, a young Laurie Lee set off to walk across Spain, from north to south. In the book the adventure would eventually lead to, As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning, Lee describes a country riven by inequality, of communities in grinding poverty, and an out-of-touch ruling elite. The fascists and the communists both laid claim to the discontents, the rhetoric becoming increasingly polarised. The narrative resonated across the European continent. By the time Lee got to Malaga, in the summer of 1936, the Spanish civil war had begun. I thought about Lee’s journey, about Europe in the 1930s and 40s, and thanked God for the 70 years of peace we’d had since. I walked up Whitehall. On 30 May 1981, Thatcher had refused to meet the marchers to accept their 250,000-strong petition. On 30 May 2016, I paused at Downing Street, all high fences and machine guns now, and spoke to one of the armed officers. He told me about the attacks on police pensions, about the terrible morale these days in the force. A girl came up, spoke in faltering English. She was on a school trip from Belgium. She had a project to complete, she said. Could I help her? She held up a piece of A4 paper. “Can you tell me who this is, please?” On it was a photograph of Margaret Thatcher.
NHS's 'inadequate help for traumatised children shames our nation' NHS mental health services’ ability to help abused children cope with their trauma is so inadequate that it “shames our nation”, the NSPCC has warned as it publishes a damning survey of relevant professionals. Support for victims of abuse is so patchy and hard to access that children at risk of depression or suicidal thoughts can be left on their own for months to cope with the horror of what they have experienced, the charity has said on Wednesday. It cites problems such as long waits for treatment and tighter criteria for accessing therapy. Peter Wanless, the NSPCC’s chief executive, has spoken out after a survey it conducted of 1,256 GPs, teachers, social workers and psychologists and their experience of children’s mental health provision across the UK elicited overwhelming criticism. Overall, 96% of those professionals said there were too few child and adolescent mental health services (Camhs) available for children who have suffered abuse. That was the view of 97% of doctors and 95% of teachers who took part in the survey last month. One paediatrician who responded said: “The situation for these children is very bad. Camhs are not interested and there is no suitable alternative.” A children’s services professional said Camhs provision in their area was overstretched and underfunded. Wanless said: “It shames our nation that children who have suffered abuse languish for months and even years without support. “We know that children are often left alone to deal with the corrosive emotional and psychological consequences of appalling abuse and that all too often they face long waits for help with their trauma, or the services offered aren’t appropriate for children whose lives have been turned upside down by their experiences. This must change”. One girl who was sexually and physically abused as a child had to wait more than two years to receive specialist help, even though she was self-harming and had tried to take her own life, the NSPCC said. Asked to identify barriers to accessing Camhs they had encountered in the last six months, 53% of respondents mentioned waiting lists and the same number cited threshold of need. Another paediatrician said: “Camhs have become even more restrictive in their referral criteria and seem to be making diagnostic decisions based on referral information without seeing children themselves.” More than a third (37%) cited cuts to services, 32% criticised a lack of places for children to receive therapy and 78% of the professionals who had experience of referring children with diagnosable mental health problems to therapeutic services said obtaining such services had become harder in the last five years. Sarah Brennan, chief executive of Young Minds, said: “The terrible waiting times that children and young people experience to access help from Camhs are traumatic for the young person, their family and the service. It’s vital that services understand the signs of people having experienced abuse, and are able to respond to this trauma effectively.” Camhs have been criticised by a number of reports in recent years, including from the House of Commons health select committee. NHS England said they would soon improve thanks to an extra £1.25bn being put into them during this parliament. “As a society we need to make sure we are doing everything possible for the most vulnerable children who deserve to get the very best care as quickly and simply as possible”, said a spokeswoman. “Local commitment to ensure sufficient services are available is higher than ever and the additional £1.25bn pledged for children and adolescent mental health services is helping us to kick-start an upgrade in care.”
Peter Picton obituary Under his stage name of Pierre the Clown, my uncle, Peter Picton, who has died aged 82, often appeared on children’s TV in the 1960s and 70s. As the owner of the car that starred in the film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, he performed in the 80s and 90s at hundreds of Christmas events, weddings and shows. Peter’s father was Harry “Mac” Picton, an actor, producer and theatrical manager, and he was brought up in London. His stage career began in the early 50s when he became an apprentice to Coco the Clown at Bertram Mills circus. In 1956-57, weeks after Soviet tanks had put down the uprising in Hungary, Peter was one of the first western acts to be allowed into Budapest. He would later recall the extraordinary, wounded silence that met their performances. He had a favourite prop, a black Ford Model T. Pierre would try to open one door but the opposite door would open instead. He would try again and the right doors would open this time but fall to the ground. Miming, between each setback, incredulity, defeat and renewed hope, Pierre would attempt to drive the car from its back seat. The car would start, before spilling him to the floor. When the Beatles opened their Apple boutique in London in 1967, Peter was the clown giving out apples to guests, and handed John Lennon his apple. He also worked for the Rolling Stones on their circus tour. In 1968, Peter worked as a driver on Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. At the end of the film the props were auctioned off and Peter was able to buy the car. It became the mainstay of his working life for the next 40 years. Peter was one of those rare adults who are aware of the powerlessness that the young can feel. A stream of youngsters came to the house where Peter lived with his wife, Susie, in Stratford-upon-Avon, and were given make-your-own models of Chitty or other toys. I visited him two days before he died of pneumonia, when his face was covered in an oxygen mask, and he could communicate only in sign language. But he wanted to know how his youngest relatives were. His face creased in a broad smile when he heard that they were acting and dancing. Peter is survived by Susie (nee Geiger), whom he married in 1988, and by his son, Jon, from an earlier marriage.
Mental health champion for UK schools axed after criticising government The government has dropped its mental health champion for schools after she publicly criticised current education policies, in particular the testing regime, which she claims is detrimental to children’s mental health. Natasha Devon was appointed by the government last August to raise awareness of and reduce the stigma surrounding young people’s mental health, as part of a wider £1.25bn drive to improve care. On Wednesday, however, it emerged that the high-profile role had been axed, raising concerns that the government was attempting to silence her. The Department for Education denied this, saying Devon would remain on their mental health steering group, which would be making recommendations in the summer. Supporters said they were not surprised she had been let go as she had become “a thorn in the flesh” of the DfE after speaking out against government policies. Last week, at a conference of headteachers in London, she highlighted the academic pressures facing young people, saying she knew her opinions would not be popular in some circles, but felt she had to be brave and speak out. “Time and time again over recent years young people – and the people who teach them – have spoken out about how a rigorous culture of testing and academic pressure is detrimental to their mental health,” she said. “At one end of the scale we’ve got four-year-olds being tested, at the other end of the scale we’ve got teenagers leaving school and facing the prospect of leaving university with record amounts of debt. Anxiety is the fastest growing illness in under 21s. These things are not a coincidence.” The DfE denied that the axing of the role was connected to Devon’s criticism of government policy, or that she was being silenced, but said it was because a new cross-government mental health champion was being appointed, which made Devon’s role obsolete. Luciana Berger, mental health shadow minister, said Devon had spoken out “openly and honestly about the challenges facing children’s mental health under this Tory government. “If she has been silenced then this raises serious questions over the government’s commitment to listening to the evidence and acting in the best interests of young people’s mental health and wellbeing. “Ministers must explain themselves as a matter of urgency. Nicky Morgan [the education secretary] claims to be in ‘listening mode’ but it would appear that this does not extend to those that do not agree with her.” A DfE spokesperson said Devon had done “a great job of helping us to raise the profile of young people’s mental health since her appointment last year. “Since that time, the independent NHS taskforce report has been published, which recommended that a cross-government mental health champion be created – for this reason we have had to reconsider the department’s own role. “We have asked Natasha and others who have been involved in our work to empower schools and young people to promote good mental health to continue to work with us as we prepare to launch our activity later this year.” The spokesperson added: “Natasha will remain a full member of the DfE’s mental health steering group, which will be making recommendations this summer. Natasha will stay closely involved with all our work.” Sarah Brennan, chief executive of the charity YoungMinds, said: “We are very surprised and sad that Natasha’s role as mental health champion has ended. She’s done a superb job of drawing attention to the crucial importance of mental health and wellbeing in schools.” News of Devon’s departure came the day after hundreds of parents chose to keep their children at home on Tuesday in a day of protest against tougher primary school tests, which they claim are causing stress anxiety in schools. But Devon’s criticism went beyond mental health in the classroom. In a column for the Times Educational Supplement she accused the government of engineering “a social climate where it’s really difficult for any young person to enjoy optimal mental health”. She said parents “work every hour God sends”, which reduces quality family time, while spiralling poverty had pushed a million young people into dependence on food banks. On Wednesday Devon told the she was assessing her options. “I can confirm that I am no longer authorised to comment as the government’s mental health champion for schools. “The DfE have extended an opportunity for me to continue working on the peer-to-peer project they were seeking my advice on.” She was also in talks regarding another offer, adding: “Either way I’m not going anywhere and will continue to campaign for the rights of young people and those who teach them.” While Devon’s role with the government was unpaid to enable her to be completely independent and objective, the new cross-government mental health champion – which will be advertised shortly – is expected to be salaried. Appointing her as the first ever mental health champion for schools, education and childcare, minister Sam Gyimah said: “Natasha is an inspiration to many young people and I’m delighted to have her on board as our first mental health champion.” She is the founder the Self-Esteem Team and Body Gossip, organisations that deliver mental health education to young people and visit three schools a week, delivering classes to more than 50,000 teenagers, as well as parents and teachers. Mary Bousted, general secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, said: “The department has got rid of a thorn in its flesh. Natasha has been a completely trenchant and very brave campaigner and advocate for children’s and young people’s mental health. “She has spoken forcefully about teenage and children’s mental health and she has said really important things. Firstly that resources available for dealing with young people’s mental ill-health are inadequate. “She has also said that the current government’s – and previous administration’s – education policies and the increase in testing have led to an increase in stress and pressure in schools. “That will have really annoyed the department. I’m not surprised they’ve let her go.”
Kate Winslet to be cast in Woody Allen's next film Woody Allen may have found himself once again at the center of controversy at the Cannes film festival in May – following repeated allegations, firmly denied by the film-maker, that he abused his daughter Dylan Farrow – but that hasn’t stopped Hollywood’s top players from jumping at the chance to work with the legendary director. Kate Winslet is the latest to join his roster, according to Variety. She’s said to be in final negotiations to star in Allen’s next film, which will shoot this fall. As with all of his recent films, plot details are being kept under wraps. No further casting announcements have been made. Allen’s last film, Cafe Society, premiered to mostly favorable reviews on the opening night of Cannes. The ’s Peter Bradshaw called Allen’s tribute to golden-age Hollywood “amiable, if insubstantial”. Unfortunately for Allen, Cafe Society’s Cannes debut was largely overshadowed by the ongoing accusations that he sexually assaulted Farrow – allegations he strongly denies, and which have never been brought to trial. The morning of the premiere, a piece by Ronan Farrow, Allen’s estranged son, ran in the Hollywood Reporter, restating his support for his stepsister. In introducing the film at the Lumiere cinema, master of ceremonies Laurent Lafitte shocked the audience when he addressed a joke to Allen, saying: “It’s very nice that you’ve been shooting so many movies in Europe, even if you are not being convicted for rape in the US.” When asked to comment on the latest development at Cannes, Allen said he’s “moved so far past” the allegations. “I never think about it,” Allen said. “I work. It’s worked for me. I’ve been very productive over the years by not thinking about myself.” For Winslet, this marks her first time working with Allen. The Oscar winner was most recently nominated for her supporting performance in the film Steve Jobs. She was seen earlier this year in the crime drama Triple Nine, and is set to star opposite Will Smith in Collateral Beauty. Cafe Society opens 15 July in the US.
Phil Collins announces comeback tour After a decade away from the stage, Phil Collins will return for a run of shows in Europe next year. In June 2017, Collins will perform a five-night residency at the Royal Albert Hall in London, before dates in Paris and Cologne. The former drummer, then frontman, of Genesis – who is one of only three artists in history to sell over 100m records – first announced his retirement from music in 2011. However, he said performing at two charity shows in August had given him a change of heart and he had also been encouraged by his children to start performing again. “It’s going to be a romp through my songs that people love,” he said of the tour, titled Not Dead Yet, which will kick off in June next year. Collins’s 15-year-old son Nicholas will accompany him on stage, playing drums on the tour. However, Collins, 65, said it was unlikely he would play the drums himself and that he would “just be singing”. “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to play the way I used to,” Collins admitted. “Something happened one night on that last Genesis tour and after that point, it never came back. I tried heavier sticks, I tried to use bigger cymbals, I just couldn’t get any power. It’s a bit of a mystery why it happened but I’m 65 and I’ve been playing since I was five years old.” He added: “I play with my fingers and that’s the thing that has clammed up over the past few years. So it’s a matter of getting my strength back … I’ve got a drum kit in the garage and I will be getting to that to see if I can at least do In the Air.” The musician also addressed his recent struggles with alcohol following his third divorce in 2008. “I wanted to be a dad at home but as soon as I retired my family split up so I didn’t have anything to go home to,” said Collins. “And that’s when I started drinking.” After checking himself into rehab, the singer has now been sober for three years and said he was now back with his third wife, though joked wryly “she didn’t give me the money back”. Collins, who appeared at the press conference with a walking stick, also spoke candidly about his recent health difficulties. “Sixty years of drumming messed up my back and hips,” he said. “I’ve had back surgery to sort it out but it’s left me with a dropped foot. I’m hoping it will get better as my nerves regenerate”. He also refused to rule out the possibility of Genesis working together again in the future. The group reunited in 2007 for a one-off tour but haven’t played together since. “Doing the book [his autobiography Not Dead Yet] I was reminded what good friends we are,” he said. “ I consider what we had to be pretty special … I wouldn’t rule it out.” Collins said he was open to working with the new generation of musicians who have cited him as an inspiration – a list which includes Kanye West, Lorde and Beyoncé - though was adamant he didn’t just want to be “the ornament on someone else’s cake”. When Adele was working on her third album, 25, she met with Collins and asked him to write a piece of music “then she disappeared … I didn’t finish it and she never heard what I did.” He also said he had Pharrell Williams’s number but admitted, “I don’t know what I’d say to him.” Collins said for the time being, fans shouldn’t “anticipate any new music”. “I’m going to do these tour dates and then I’m going to have a lie down,” he said. “I thought I would retire quietly,” said Collins of his return. “But thanks to the fans, my family and support from some extraordinary artists I have rediscovered my passion for music and performing. It’s time to do it all again and I’m excited. It just feels right.” Collins made his solo debut in 1981 entitled Face Value, which featured In the Air Tonight. He went on to have success with Easy Lover, You Can’t Hurry Love and Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now) . His memoir Not Dead Yet: the Autobiography will be published this week by Penguin Random House. Phil Collins Not Dead Yet – Live 2017 tour dates: 4-9 June: Royal Albert Hall, London 11-12 June: Lanxess Arena, Cologne 18-19 June: Accor Hotels Arena, Paris Tickets go on sale at 9am on Friday 21 October.
Win (home) tickets to Liverpool v Stoke City in the Premier League The has teamed up with Barclays, proud sponsors of the Barclays Premier League, to give away a pair tickets to Liverpool v Stoke City on Sunday 10 April to thank one lucky home fan for the passion and support they show to their club. Throughout the season, Barclays is aiming to reward all those who champion the spirit of the game, from the supporter who travels around the country supporting their local team, to the groundsman who has been mowing the grass and painting the lines for the last 30 years. Barclays is giving away thousands of Barclays Premier League tickets and experiences to help the next generation start their love affair with football. For more chances to win visit www.barclays.com/spiritofthegame. You can join the conversation throughout the 2015-16 Barclays Premier League by visiting facebook.com/barclaysfootball or following us on Twitter at @BarclaysFooty – the best place for exclusive content and the latest Barclays Premier League news. To be in with a chance of winning, simply answer the following question: Terms and conditions 1. The competition is closed to employees of any company in the Media Group and any person whom, in the promoter’s reasonable opinion, should be excluded due to their involvement or connection with this promotion. Entrants must be 18 or over. 2. Answer the question correctly and complete your personal details on the online form and your details will be entered into a free prize draw. Only one entry per person. 3. Entries must be made personally. Entries made through agents/third parties are invalid. Entry indicates acceptance of terms and conditions. 4. The prize is one pair of tickets to Liverpool v Stoke City on Sunday 10 April 2016. Travel to and from the venue is not included, nor is accommodation. 5. No purchase necessary to enter. Fill in the online application form with the necessary details, name and mobile number. 6. All entries must be received by 10am on Thursday 7 April 2016. 7. Winners will be notified before 10pm on 8 April 2016 by telephone or email. Prize winners’ details can be obtained by writing to Sport at News & Media Limited, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU, UK. 8. Stamped addressed envelope required. 9. Winners will be the first entry drawn at random from all qualifying entries by an independent judge on 7 April 2016. The judge’s decision is final. 10. There is no cash or other alternative to these prizes in whole or in part. Prize is not transferable in whole or in part. Prize is not for resale. 11. The winners will be required to participate in all required publicity, including any presentation ceremony. 12. The decision of the promoter in all matters is final and binding and no correspondence will be entered into. 13. The promoter is not responsible for any third party acts or omissions. 14. We cannot guarantee that the event will be free from disruptions, failings or cancellations. We are not liable for such disruptions, failings or cancellations unless they are caused by our negligence. Any requests for refunds or compensation arising from them should be sent to the operator of the event. We can provide you with their details on request. 15. The promoter reserves the right to cancel or amend this promotion due to events or circumstances arising beyond its control. 16. Prize tickets are subject to the terms and conditions listed above. 17. GNM accepts no responsibility for any damage, loss, liabilities, injury or disappointment incurred or suffered by you as a result of entering the Competition or accepting the prize. GNM further disclaims liability for any injury or damage to your or any other person’s computer relating to or resulting from participation in or downloading any materials in connection with the Competition. Nothing shall exclude the liability of GNM for death or personal injury as a result of either party’s negligence. 18. GNM reserves the right at any time and from time to time to modify or discontinue, temporarily or permanently, this Competition with or without prior notice due to reasons outside its control. 19. The Competition will be governed by English law. Promoter: News & Media Limited, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU, UK.
West failing to deliver nuclear deal promises, says Iran vice-president Iran has fully complied with its commitments under last year’s landmark nuclear agreement, but eight months after the official removal of sanctions, the west is failing to deliver on its promises, the country’s vice president has told the . Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of the country’s Atomic Energy Organisation, said that if the agreement was to remain intact, both sides had to meet their commitments. The US-educated scientist, who also served as a former foreign minister of Iran, was the second most senior Iranian negotiator in nearly two years of talks between Tehran and world’s six leading powers that led to the final nuclear accord, known as the joint comprehensive plan of action (JCPOA), in Vienna in July 2015. The deal was implemented in January, and triggered the removal of sanctions. “As has been stated by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Iran has remained committed to its commitments,” Salehi said. “While the other side – it’s very clear now to public opinion and it’s not a secret – has not really delivered on the promises; that the sanctions would be removed and that banking transactions would go back to normal, that trade would speed up and economic relations would be enhanced. These have not been materialised to the extent that we expected.” Salehi, who speaks fluent English, dealt with the technical aspect of the agreement while negotiating with his US counterpart, Ernest Moniz, who, like Salehi, studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The Iranian vice president, who was in London to speak at the World Nuclear Association symposium, also met on Thursday with the chancellor of the exchequer, Philip Hammond, who negotiated with Iran while he was the foreign secretary under David Cameron. Although nuclear-related sanctions were lifted in January, big European banks remain reluctant to do business with Iran. European banks are concerned about existing US sanctions relating to terrorism as well as uncertainty in the US before the election of a new president. Salehi said he had a good relationship with Hammond and that the chancellor had sounded positive during their meeting. “He stated that they have this file on their agenda, and that they are pursuing the issue very seriously, and they are trying to improvise ways and means that would remove the impediments that lie ahead of this banking cooperation with Iran,” he said The banking issue has prevented Iran from capitalising on the interest shown by western businesses in returning to the country, or finalising lucrative deals with the west, such as the purchase of planes from Airbus and Boeing. Iran’s central bank chief told the in May that Tehran was still locked out of global financial system. Salehi said the nuclear agreement was in the interest of both Iran and the west and that it would be a pity if it was derailed. “JCPOA can set up a new political and diplomatic paradigm in resolving major international crises, so it’s incumbent upon both sides to do their best, to keep the integrity of this deal and not let it break down.” The Iranian vice president, who views the nuclear deal as a diplomatic success, warned about attempts to rewrite the nuclear deal and impose excessive demands. “We see, on and off, that there are some demands from the other side, that those demands go to some extent beyond the JCPOA. At the same time, we see that the other side has not fully delivered its promises, like the issue of big banking doing business with Iran ... If there is a demand of overcompliance then things would get more complicated.” Salehi also attended a meeting with journalists and diplomats at the European Council on Foreign Relations in London, where he said harder times might be facing the Iran nuclear agreement in the light of the US presidential campaign. “There are hints to do away [with] or to rewrite the deal, and on the other hand, to unilaterally impose excessive oversighting and overcompliance to the point of Iran’s discouragement and ultimate submission,” he warned. “Our supreme leader once stated: ‘The Islamic republic will not primarily breach the deal,’ but at the same time, I do not overrule the threats that may endanger the deal.” Salehi refused to comment on the presidential candidacy of Donald Trump, saying it was an internal issue of another country. “The political credibility of the US will be undermined if they take any measures that would jeopardise the JCPOA – to best of my knowledge the European Union is very supportive and Chinese and Indians and [the rest of] the international community are all very happy,” he said. He believed the JCPOA would remain untouched but he also said he was crossing his fingers. “The world would be safer if, besides contemplating peace, we endeavour to attain it.” The fate of the nuclear agreement will affect the next presidential elections in Iran, which are scheduled for spring next year. President Hassan Rouhani is seeking re-election and opponents, including former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, have indicated their willingness to challenge him. Rouhani would have to show Iranians tangible relief from sanctions if he is to maintain their support. Relations between Tehran and London have significantly improved since the nuclear agreement, with both sides appointing new ambassadors in their respective capitals this month after nearly a five-year hiatus.
Trump's victories in Mississippi and Michigan put him back on course Donald Trump put recent wobbles behind him on Tuesday with convincing primary election victories in both Michigan and Mississippi. Trump won by double-digit margins in both states just days after an underwhelming performance in Louisiana’s primary. Pundits wondered whether Trump’s crude performance in Thursday’s debate – where he bragged about the size of his genitalia – had alienated voters. However, with his wins on Tuesday, the Republican frontrunner quieted those doubts. Trump’s win in Michigan was paired with a shock upset by Vermont senator Bernie Sanders. Both candidates won by appealing to rust belt voters with their strong opposition to free trade deals. Celebrating his two wins, Trump ridiculed the establishment Republicans who have led recent attacks on him, including heavy negative advertising. “So many horrible things said about me in one week,” said Trump at a press conference outside Palm Beach in Florida. “Thirty-eight million dollars’ worth of lies. It shows you how good the public is that they see these as lies.” The negative ads, combined with a slashing attack on Trump by the 2012 Republican nominee Mitt Romney, apparently made no difference against a splintered Republican field. In Michigan, Ohio governor John Kasich (24.3%) and Texas senator Ted Cruz (24.9%) finished in a virtual tie behind Trump, who won 36.5% of the vote with 99.3% reporting. Kasich peeled away suburban moderate voters while Cruz roped in heavily evangelical western Michigan. Former congressman Kerry Bentivolio, who voted for Cruz, attributed Trump’s success in Michigan to his emphasis on restoring the manufacturing base in the United States. “I kind of expected Trump to win Michigan,” Bentivolio told the , adding that he thought Trump “articulated rather well … the concern about people taking our jobs”. This appeal was made clear by Trump running up a dominating lead in Macomb County, a blue-collar area just north of Detroit that is the home of “Reagan Democrats”, the working-class white voters who embraced the GOP in the 1980s but swung back to Bill Clinton in the 1990s. John Yob, a well-respected Republican consultant who had worked for years in his home state of Michigan, said the numbers there would be a key indicator of Trump’s appeal. His margins there reflected how strongly the bombastic billionaire’s hardline messages on trade and immigration had resonated with frustrated blue-collar voters. In Mississippi, Ted Cruz finished a strong second behind Trump, with 36.3% to Trump’s 47.3%, but the biggest surprise was the near collapse of Marco Rubio in the state. The Florida senator finished with roughly 5% of the vote there behind even John Kasich, who won 8.8%. In contrast, Rubio had finished second in several other southern states, including South Carolina and Georgia. Exit polls showed that the Mississippi Republican electorate was deeply conservative and evangelical. Eighty-five percent of voters identified as born-again or evangelical and 84% identified as conservative. However, Trump, a thrice-married New Yorker, faced little skepticism from those voters as he completed his sweep of the deep south. Even more alarmingly for Rubio, the Florida senator did not net a single delegate in either Mississippi or Michigan on Tuesday night. Forty Republican delegates were up for grabs in Mississippi and 59 in Michigan. In contrast, Trump picked up more than half the delegates in Mississippi, a crucial threshold in the Republican contest. Current party rules require a candidate to receive a majority of the delegates in eight different states to have their name placed in nomination at the convention. Mississippi became the sixth state where Trump hit that threshold. Cruz has achieved it in three, while Marco Rubio has only hit that threshold in one. Trump is leading Ted Cruz by 458 to 359 delegates and needs 1,237 to win the nomination outright and be sure of avoiding an uncertain, or “brokered”, national convention in Cleveland this July. Both Rubio and Kasich trail far behind. In Idaho, Cruz won a strong victory with overwhelming support from Mormon voters who looked askance at Trump. The state also marked yet another underwhelming performance by Rubio, who had campaigned there on Sunday accompanied by Senator Jim Risch, who had endorsed him. He failed to reach the 20% threshold needed to earn delegates in Idaho. Trump won Hawaii, with 42.4% of the vote.
The financial and human cost of becoming a junior doctor Because of patient safety, doctors never strike ( Report, 11 January) but doctors must now strike to defend the very heart of that patient safety. The NHS has relied on goodwill for a long time. The government has abused this goodwill to the nth degree. Indeed, that my colleagues and I are having to strike shows we have been backed into a corner. Junior doctors are referred to as the workhorses of the NHS; how is removing the vital legal safeguards that prevent overworking them and thereby protect patients from errors going to affect patient care? I am deeply disturbed by the government’s sustained attack on my profession; a profession that, certainly at junior level across the board and in several specialities, is already suffering serious shortages. There has also been an exodus of highly skilled doctors to other countries and even permanently out of medicine. How does the government believe that attacking an already drained workforce that already provides 24-hour care 365 days a year is going to help? I do not want or need extravagant sums of money, but like everybody else I need to eat, pay for childcare and, as a junior doctor, pay for my own postgraduate training and development in order to ensure the care I provide is of the standard patients rightly expect. Surely it is not unreasonable to expect a salary that reflects our responsibilities and high standard of training? A fairly remunerated, rested and valued workforce is vital for the NHS to continue providing excellent care. Yvette Annan London • My daughter is the other half of the junior doctor couple discussed in John Barnes’ letter (7 January). It is time that someone has spelt out in straightforward terms the financial implications for huge numbers of junior doctors, and the sheer deception involved in Jeremy Hunt’s contention that these are cost-neutral proposals. The reality is that the extra resources needed for weekend support services and staff in hospitals are intended by the government to come from the present uplift applied to junior doctors’ basic pay. I just wish someone at the BMA or in the press would simplify the message into a case of robbing Peter to pay Paul. The attention span of the press and the public sadly seems to require simple messages – something that Hunt and his team are of course manipulatively good at. I understand that doctors have been reluctant to emphasise the financial side of this dispute for fear of losing public support. I do not agree. Everyone understands the notion of a pay cut. Few people so far seem to understand the extent of this one. The couple in Mr Barnes’ letter are a trainee paediatric surgeon and an anaesthetist in big London teaching hospitals. The vast majority of people, I am sure, want them to be properly paid for the unimaginable responsibility of operating on a seriously ill baby at 3am. Deborah Lambert Halifax, West Yorkshire • I would like to support the letters published on this topic from concerned parents and add my own comments. My daughter and son-in-law both went to medical school after a state education and worked incredibly demanding study and placement hours for years, acquiring student debts along the way. My daughter cycled 24 miles a day and tutored school science students to survive through her course financially, working effectively for 12 hours a day after studying each evening, to graduate with distinction. There follows seven years of work as a junior doctor, on low starting pay, working rotating shifts including the documented health-damaging effects of long-term rolling night shifts (yes, Jeremy – they already run a 24/7 service) and she and her husband will be forced to sell the heavily mortgaged home that they struggled to buy while paying off student loans and paying large fees for a continual round of further exams, for which they study in the little time that they are not at work. With a young baby now, they may also be forced to leave. Each works hours well in excess of those they are paid for, because the London health service is so understaffed and staff endure extreme stress in these conditions, trying to provide the best care and to learn to be excellent doctors without sufficient sleep or rest. They are fully committed to the NHS; this government is not. They are standing up for our NHS – and that means all of us – and the whole nation must stand behind them. Christine McCourt London • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
Swansea back up chairman’s words in draw with Chelsea It turned out that Huw Jenkins chose a good day to predict that Swansea City are capable of surprising a few people this season. The chairman’s programme notes read like a defence of everything that has gone on at Swansea in recent times, with Jenkins acutely aware of the growing frustration among supporters after a thoroughly underwhelming summer in the transfer market, yet this was not the afternoon for any unrest to boil over. In a bizarre but compelling game, Swansea staged an unlikely second-half fightback that galvanised the home fans and meant Francesco Guidolin’s players left the field to warm applause at the final whistle. It was some turnaround from the opening 45 minutes, when Swansea managed only four touches in the Chelsea penalty area and looked like a team sleepwalking towards a third successive Premier League defeat amid a backdrop of doom and gloom. Guidolin got his tactics all wrong in that first half – the manager felt compelled to apologise to Neil Taylor after substituting him before the interval – and it was a strange, head‑scratching turn of events that led to Swansea getting back into the match after the restart, with Chelsea guilty of pressing the self-destruct button for the equaliser and perhaps unfortunate that Gary Cahill was not awarded a free-kick when Leroy Fer dispossessed him for the second goal. Swansea, to their credit, took full advantage to score twice in the space of three chaotic minutes, yet it would be dangerous to read too much into a result that may have papered over a few cracks. Swansea looked totally lost in the first half and only Guidolin knows what he was thinking of when he decided to set his team up with a three-man defence in which he deployed Stephen Kingsley, a left-back by trade, at centre-half. Swansea gained nothing defensively from a system they never looked comfortable with and from an attacking point of view they were toothless, with the absence of any pace or width leaving the midfield with nowhere to go in possession. The restlessness among the supporters in the first half was evident as backward and sideways passes were greeted with sighs of exasperation, and the obvious question to ask was how long Guidolin would leave it before accepting that he had made an error of judgment. The answer was 41 minutes and Taylor made no attempt to conceal his frustration when it became clear that he was being made the fall guy. Withdrawn and replaced by Modou Barrow, Taylor looked thoroughly fed up as he slumped into his seat on the bench. “After the [first] Chelsea goal, we didn’t play well,” Guidolin said. “In that moment I decided we needed to change. I’m sorry for Neil Taylor. I’m not used to changing a player before the end of the first half. If I’d waited until the break, it might have been better for him.” Asked whether he apologised directly to Taylor, Guidolin said: “Yes. On the bench, and in the dressing room. He is a clever guy. I think he understood, but I made a mistake. I could, I can, I should have waited three minutes. But Mo was ready five minutes before, so I decided to do it this way. It’s the first time in my career.” Barrow, whose direct running added a fresh dimension to a plodding Swansea team, had a hand in the equaliser, when his overhit cross for Gylfi Sigurdsson encouraged Thibaut Courtois to come for a ball he had no chance of getting. The Chelsea goalkeeper brought down Sigurdsson and the Icelander was successful from the penalty spot, to become Swansea’s all-time leading Premier League scorer with 26 goals. It was Fer who delivered the pass that set Barrow free in the lead up to the penalty and the Dutchman also scored Swansea’s second on a day when he was comfortably their best player. Fer, who joined permanently from Queens Park Rangers in the summer after a loan spell last season, has now scored three in four Premier League games and is turning into a valuable acquisition for a team that currently lacks a goal threat up front. The same cannot be said for Chelsea, with Diego Costa expertly playing the role of pantomime villain to score twice and deny Guidolin’s side the most unlikely of victories. Swansea, however, will cherish a point in the circumstances and only time will tell whether Jenkins was right when he predicted this team can cause a few more upsets this season. “We have a great squad of players who have a big emotional connection to our football club,” the chairman wrote in the programme. “With a little love, care and the full backing of our supporters, I believe this group can surprise a few people over the course of the campaign and once again fight against the odds.”
Oh no we’re not – the clapometer says Brexit in the ’s live debate You wouldn’t necessarily expect an event involving four politicians discussing the future of Britain’s relationship with the EU to make for raucous entertainment. So perhaps it was the atmosphere of a big West End venue more used to live music and theatre. Or perhaps Britain hasn’t yet got the hang of the new politics, where everyone listens to the full spectrum of arguments before calmly making up their mind. Then again, is it ever going to be possible for Britain’s Europe debate, informed by at least 30 years of sustained distortion about the supposed evils of “Brussels”, to be anything but partisan and emotional? In any event, the 2,000 people who packed out the London Palladium for the ’s first live debate on the EU referendum were hungry for both more talk about Europe and, possibly, more pantomime. They booed, whistled, roared, shouted and wanted villains to heckle or applaud. And from the stalls only a few things seemed certain. 1. People hate it when politicians don’t give direct answers. (“Answer the question!” was a favourite heckle). 2. Those who show up for debates have probably already decided in which of the two opposing camps – Brexit or Bremain – they belong. 3. Public engagement on the Europe issue is in fine fettle. So which side will prevail in June? Will Britain’s fate be decided by trade, the economy, immigration? What about the third of the electorate who are still dithering? And what about the third within each camp who could start dithering again in the next 100 days? If the Palladium’s clapometer is any guide, the Leave side still has more of the energy and momentum. A louder, more vigorous cheer certainly went up for Brexit than for Bremain when warm-up comedian Andy Zaltzman asked us to declare our hands. Although he got an even bigger cheer when he asked how many would vote for Britain to leave Planet Earth altogether. A pugnacious Nick Clegg really got the Remain side going when he accused outers of behaving as if Britain was just “a piddling little island”, always being bullied by Brussels. Clearly energised by being back in the political ring, the former Lib Dem leader brought the house down several times: calling out the “deeply dishonest” scaremongering of the outers about the refugees “fleeing war, attrition and hunger” and drawing on his own forensic knowledge of how the EU works to make mincemeat of the argument that British business would flourish if only it could be liberated from the stifling red tape. If you’re a manufacturer of plastic ducks in Britain, you’ll still, after all, have to comply with the single market’s plastic duck manufacturing rules, he pointed out, so why on earth would you give up your place at the table to influence the plastic duck issue? And in any case, Clegg assured everyone, claims that the Queen had got into a bust-up with him over Brexit back in 2011 were “A-grade, 24-carat bilge”. But Ukip leader Nigel Farage also delivered thumping soundbites about how lovely life would be to be “as rich, happy and successful” as the Nordic paradise Norway. And he won applause when he said Angela Merkel’s welcome for immigrants had been one of the biggest policy errors of recent history. The Ukip leader provoked near uproar, however, on claiming that staying in the EU would drag Britain into a “political union with Turkey”, bring in “77 million even poorer people” and that Brussels was plotting a European army to rival Nato. Andrea Leadsom, energy minister and a Conservative out campaigner also got short shrift when she offered “We speak English” as one of the reasons why Britain would prosper as a go-it-alone nation. Howls of “Rubbish!” met her claim that a Polish constituent thought the EU was a “totalitarian” organisation. Alan Johnson, Labour’s big beast on the Remain side, got his loudest cheer when he derided Nigel Farage’s attack on Europe’s free movement rules. Ukip didn’t want us to come out of Europe just so they could let in more people from Pakistan, Johnson mocked to great effect. Leaving the theatre Mike, 57, confirmed how difficult it is to illuminate the debate on Europe in a neutral way, because so many of the supposedly objective facts can be justifiably used by either side to support their case. Mike was one of the few who put up his hand as “undecided” in the audience. And by the end he was no surer – “My friends are all inners” – but Farage and Leadsom had made valid points, he thought. Linda, in her 70s, was disappointed that Farage hadn’t been even more confrontational in the clash. “I could tell he wasn’t happy. He was like a racehorse being held back.” Kasim, 18, a law student, was looking forward to his first ever vote to make sure Britain gets out of the EU because there was “too much political overspill”. Cameron’s renegotiation was “worth nothing”. Sarah and Loretta, two young women from Kent, were unimpressed that it had all been “a bit of a cat fight” with a lot of on-stage “banter”. Sarah said she wasn’t sure what anyone meant when they talked about sovereignty. If Britain could make its own laws then what kind of laws would the outers bring in? “Would they want the death penalty?” she wondered. Jacob, 19, accompanied by his mother, said he had been roused out of his apathy by the event. “Nick Clegg convinced me to vote Remain,” he said. “And remember, you didn’t even want to come tonight,” his mother reminded him. But who knows where Jacob, or Sarah or Mike, or even Kasim, will be by June? As with all good theatre, it’s not over till the fat lady sings.
The Secret Life of Pets beats Tarzan to the top of the tree at UK box office The winner: The Secret Life of Pets With back-to-back declines of just 20% and 24%, The Secret Life of Pets has held up remarkably well, reaching £22.3m after 19 days. It will soon overtake Zootropolis (£23.8m) to become the biggest animated film of the year so far – a title it may concede to Pixar’s Finding Dory after it opens at the end of the month. Pets grossed £3.62m over the three-day weekend period, shrugging off the challenge of an Andy Murray Wimbledon final. This year, only The Jungle Book has taken more in its third frame. A year ago, Minions stood at £27.6m at the same stage of its run, on its way to a total of £47.8m. If Pets maintains a similar decay rate, it would reach an impressive £38.6m. Second place: The Legend of Tarzan Swinging into second place with £2.76m plus £809,000 in previews, The Legend of Tarzan has delivered solid numbers. Following a lengthy development process, Harry Potter director David Yates was attached in 2012. Budget wrangling delayed filming until June 2014, filming wrapped in October that year, before a lengthy post-production period. Its production budget is a reported $180m, suggesting that Warners probably had higher box-office aspirations for the film when it was greenlit. However, Tarzan is a well known character across multiple territories, and it’s too soon to be projecting the final profitability on the film. Battle for third: Now You See Me 2 v Absolutely Fabulous Now You See Me 2 has earned third place with box office of £2.96m. However, the film landed in cinemas last Monday, giving it four extra days of play that have been added into that total. Strip out the previews, and the illusionist caper’s weekend number drops to £1.6m. In other words, third place really belongs to Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie, which posted weekend takings of £2.32m. The original Now You See Me began its run in July 2013 with £2.9m, including previews of £1.1m. It went on to enjoy warm word of mouth, eventually reaching £11.21m. Absolutely Fabulous’s second weekend decline is an OK 43%. Distributor Fox will take particular heart from the midweek result last week. The film debuted with £4.04m, and took £2.32m in the second session. With a total of £9.78m so far, that means it grossed a robust £3.42m during Monday-to-Thursday last week. The Bollywood hit: Sultan With £1.05m, including previews of £445,000, Sultan is the biggest Bollywood hit of the year so far. Written and directed by Ali Abbas Zafar (Gunday), it’s the story of a fictional mixed martial arts star played by Salman Khan (Dabangg). Khan’s last movie, Prem Ratan Dhan Pavo, kicked off last November with £912,000 including previews of £187,000. Stripping out the previews numbers, Sultan’s debut falls short of that result. Khan also starred last year in Bajrangi Bhaijaan, which began with £758,000 and no previews. With Central Intelligence one place above Sultan in the chart, that means six movies grossed £1m or more, which has happened only three times this year. Indie alternatives: The Neon Demon and Maggie’s Plan Many indie cinemas have turned to mainstream fare such as Absolutely Fabulous to keep the tills ringing this summer, and arthouse hits have been thin on the ground. The last one to open above £100,000 was Whit Stillman’s Love & Friendship, which landed in May. The weekend saw two new contenders arrive: Nicolas Winding Refn’s The Neon Demon and Rebecca Miller’s Maggie’s Plan. The Neon Demon debuted with £127,000 from 120 venues, including previews of £9,400. For comparison, Refn’s last movie Only God Forgives kicked off with £466,000, including £10,500 in previews, from 188 cinemas. Site average was £2,478, compared with £1,058 this time around. Only God Forgives had the benefit of Ryan Gosling in the starring role, plus the box-office bounce provided by Refn’s previous film, Drive. The Neon Demon, starring Elle Fanning, enjoys an IMDb user rating of 7.0/10 and a MetaCritic score of 51/100. Maggie’s Plan landed behind The Neon Demon, with £103,000 (including previews of £3,700) from 80 cinemas. Given the tighter rollout, its site average of £1,282 is a bit healthier. Director Miller’s previous film The Private Lives of Pippa Lee debuted on just 25 screens, grossing £44,500 on its way to a total of just under £200,000. Before that, The Ballad of Jack and Rose was even smaller, grossing £23,000 in total. Both The Neon Demon and Maggie’s Plan saw takings dip significantly on Sunday, suggesting they were hit by the finals of Wimbledon and Euro 2016. That pattern was witnessed by all films with an adult audience skew. The future Takings are overall 6% up on last weekend, and an encouraging 21% up on the equivalent session from 2015, when Ted 2 was the highest new entrant. The big release for this week – Ghostbusters – is already in cinemas, since Sony opted to push it out on Monday. It will be joined on Friday by Ice Age: Collision Course. Hard to predict, for the UK, is action comedy Keanu, from Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele – the film has already grossed more than $20m in the US, where the pair are big TV stars. Alternatives include French lesbian romance Summertime, Danish comedy Men and Chicken and British documentary The Hard Stop. Top 10 films, 8-10 July 1. The Secret Life of Pets, £3,624,751 from 612 sites. Total: £22,261.438 2. The Legend of Tarzan, £3,570,350 from 507 sites (new) 3. Now You See Me 2, £2,964,641 from 483 sites (new) 4. Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie, £2,316,349 from 640 sites. Total: £9,779,204 5. Central Intelligence, £1,342,004 from 440 sites. Total: £5,680,743 6. Sultan, £1,048,417 from 121 sites (new) 7. Independence Day: Resurgence, £782,975 from 487 sites. Total: £10,910,774 8. The Conjuring 2: The Enfield Case, £401,155 from 352 sites. Total: £10,312,076 9. The Neon Demon, £126,996 from 120 sites (new) 10. Me Before You, £126,907 from 268 sites. Total: £9,285,210 Other openers Maggie’s Plan, £102,534 (including £3,680 previews) from 80 sites Weiner, £16,679 (including £5,509 previews) from 13 sites Cold War 2, £10,966 from nine sites Ponyo, £7,720 from 38 sites (reissue) Hide and Seek, £1,989 from one site The Wait, £1,553 from four sites A Poem Is a Naked Person, £141 from two sites • Thanks to comScore. All figures relate to takings in UK and Ireland cinemas. This article was amended on Wednesday 13 July 2016. We mistakenly said that Dakota Fanning stars in The Neon Demon. Its star is Elle Fanning. We also said The Neon Demon debuted at 80 cinemas, in fact it opened in 120. These errors have been corrected.
'Scunthorpe' is a four-letter word: Facebook stops band from promoting Lincolnshire gig Facebook censors have prevented a band from promoting a gig in Scunthorpe. As a result of the four-letter profanity spelt out in the middle of the word, the alternative group, called October Drift, were blocked from posting news about their show in the North Lincolnshire town. The social network does not ban profanity, but it does identify and filter swearwords in boosted posts, the paid-for function that allows users to promote a message to a wider audience who have not already “liked” their page. “We tried to boost our posts to promote the Scunthorpe show, but Facebook is having none of it due to the town name containing a really rude word. That’s utterly bonkers. Sort yourself out Zuckerberg you crazy bastard,” the group wrote on Facebook. “Shit ... can’t boost this one now either!” Band member Dan Young said that the group have attempted to raise the issue with Facebook, explaining that it would benefit them if the filter was removed, but the company has not yet replied. “We always put a note in saying that it’s the profanity filter that’s failing for the town name, but Facebook still doesn’t make the amendment,” Young told the Independent. “Surprising given they’re supposed to be at the forefront of modern tech.” A spokesperson for Facebook told the they are “investigating” the issue.
Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein takes 4% cut in compensation for 2015 With his bank’s net income down 31% year-over-year, Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein saw a 4% reduction in compensation in 2015, down $1m to $23m. The cut comes after Jamie Dimon at JPMorgan – the US’s largest bank group – received a 35% bump in compensation to $27m after cost-cutting measures, including layoffs of 5,000 workers in 2015, helped stem declines and drive the company to record earnings of $24.4bn for the year. The majority of Blankfein’s pay was stock ($14.7m) on top of a $2m base salary and a $6.3m cash bonus. Dimon’s compensation has been adjusted to include a greater percentage of company shares to stave off criticism that the executive’s pay package was not sufficiently tied to the health of the company he runs. Goldman has altered its executive compensation policies so that some stock options only pay out if the worker in question meets specific performance criteria. CEO pay is increasingly under scrutiny as the market weaves back and forth between impressive rallies and losing streaks; anyone perceived as unable to steer the ship through rough waters is suspect. Sumner Redstone, executive chairman of Viacom, saw his pay reduced by 85% by the company in 2015 as a shareholder lawsuit sharply criticized the 92-year-old billionaire and claimed he was no longer able to run the company. The attention to executive compensation is also likely driven by new rules dictated by the Securities and Exchange Commission that come into effect next year: companies will be required to provide in public filings not merely the rate at which top executives are compensated but its ratio to the median pay of all its workers (with the exception of the CEO).
Ex-Barclays boss to get large bonus despite being sacked last year The former chief executive of Barclays is in line to receive a bonus worth half a million pounds, despite being sacked by the bank last summer. Antony Jenkins left the bank in July after three years in the top job, with the board saying that “a new set of skills were required for the period ahead”. When he left, Barclays said that his contract entitled him to 12 months’ notice from the company. This meant that until 7 July 2016 he would continue to receive his existing salary of £1.1m, an additional allowance worth £950,000 a year paid in shares, a pension allowance worth £363,000, and other benefits. He was also still eligible to receive a pro-rata bonus related to his performance in the first part of 2015. Barclays announces its annual results on Tuesday, and Sky News said the bank would announce a £500,000 bonus for Jenkins in the accompanying remuneration report. The figure, which the bank would not comment on, would amount to about a quarter of Jenkins’ fixed pay. A share bonus scheme that was also performance related could yield further payouts worth several millions. The shares, which were awarded under a long-term incentive plan (LTIP), would only cover only his time at the bank. In 2015, after waiving payouts in his first two years at the bank, Jenkins accepted a bonus of £1.1m, equal to 57% of the maximum he could receive. Combined with other incentives and benefits, his remuneration package added up to almost £5.5m. In July, Barclays reported that although it had set aside £1.8bn to cover fines for rigging foreign exchange markets and payouts to customers for mis-selling PPI and packaged bank accounts, its first-half profits had risen by 25% to £3.1bn. In December it emerged that Jenkins had been told about his sacking in a phone call from the bank’s chairman, John McFarlane. The traditional bankers’ bonus season is in full swing, with RBS, HSBC and Lloyds already announcing their payouts for senior staff. On Friday the taxpayer-backed RBS defended a £3.8m package for its chief executive, Ross McEwan, which came as it announced a £2bn annual loss. The results for 2015 mean the bank has lost £50bn since its 2008 bailout by the government. Meanwhile Mervyn King, the former governor of the Bank of England, warned that another financial crisis is “certain”, because the banking system had not been reformed since the last crash. In an extract from his new book published in the Telegraph, Lord King wrote: “Without reform of the financial system, another crisis is certain, and the failure … to tackle the disequilibrium in the world economy makes it likely that it will come sooner rather than later.” King wrote that the world recovery had been “neither strong, nor sustainable, nor balanced. There seems little political willingness to be bold, and so perhaps we should fear that the size of the ultimate adjustment will just go on getting bigger.” Central banks were locked into low interest rates, he added: “They are in a prisoner’s dilemma: if any one of them were to raise interest rates, they would risk a slowing of growth and possibly another downturn.”
With Sanders and Cruz taking Wisconsin, this race just got a lot more uncertain Usually after a hard-fought primary battle, candidates stick around the state to watch the results roll in and thank their supporters. That wasn’t the case for poor old Wisconsin, which is probably because after Tuesday’s primary, the race for the White House became a lot more uncertain. The Republican party looks to be headed for its first contested convention in decades, while the internal Democratic party debate over whether to take a progressive turn will continue to rage on – possibly until their own convention this summer. Let’s start with Republicans. Neither frontrunner Donald Trump nor distant third John Kasich bothered to be in Wisconsin on Tuesday evening – they’re both planning to hit the ground in New York on Wednesday, ahead of the primary on 19 April. Senator Ted Cruz – Wisconsin’s winner on the GOP side – was the only candidate to hang around the state on Tuesday, reassuring his supporters in Milwaukee, “We are winning because we are uniting the Republican party.” At least, that’s what he keeps telling voters. The Cruz-mentum narrative actually seems more like Trump-deflation. In past weeks, Trump has attempted to use his bombastic rhetoric to dislodge Cruz and take shots at his wife, Heidi, but the efforts failed miserably. Trump also mocked Wisconsin’s Governor Scott Walker, who remains popular at home, at least among conservatives. Walker stood on the dais beside Cruz as he gave his victory speech. Trump also defended his campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, who was charged with battery for allegedly grabbing a conservative, female reporter by the wrist. Then the reality TV star got into trouble with female voters for his call to lock up women who get an abortion, if the medical procedure is ever made illegal (he later back-pedalled). Trump is now trying to salvage his standing with female voters by using his wife, Melania, on the campaign trail, but it may be too late. Trump probably can’t win if he stops being Trump. For his part, Cruz’s pitch to Republican voters is basically: only I can dislodge Trump. The “Never Trump” movement is coalescing around Cruz, even as many establishment Republicans continue to loathe the Texas senator and the bomb-throwing tactics he’s used to help grind Capitol Hill – and even the federal government – to a halt. Cruz and Trump are unified around one theme: it’s time for the Ohio governor, John Kasich, to exit the race. But that’s not looking likely now that it seems mathematically impossible for any candidate to secure enough delegates to lock up the nomination on the first ballot at the Cleveland convention. Neither Democratic candidate stuck around Wisconsin, either. Bernie Sanders is feeling the Bern after his victory there, but his eyes have already moved on to the next race – he held his Wisconsin rally in Laramie, Wyoming. That’s because he’s facing a math problem: with Clinton wrapping up so many endorsements from non-pledged superdelegates, Sanders needs every delegate he can solidify from everyday voters. This puts the Democratic party elite in a bit of a quandary, which was highlighted in Sanders’ Wisconsin victory: he’s a lingering headache for the Democratic establishment. Sanders is bringing out thousands of energized voters to his rallies, and he’s now won seven of the last eight contests. He’s also expected to win Wyoming this Saturday. All these victories make it hard for the establishment to call for Sanders to get out of the race, though they desperately want Clinton to be able to make a turn to the general election as soon as possible. The next big primary battle is in New York on 19 April – a state that both Democratic candidates can claim as home turf: Sanders was born there before moving up north, and Clinton represented the state in the Senate. For her part, Clinton spent Tuesday in New York, where she held a fundraiser in the evening. Maybe a shakedown of Wall Street bankers is how you win the hearts and minds of New York’s establishment class?
How video 'pranksters' are cashing in on the abuse and harassment of women When 22-year-old student and writer Paulina Drėgvaitė headed to Trafalgar Square last week, she was simply planning to meet a friend in central London and enjoy the good weather. As she sat on the steps of St Martin-in-the-Fields, a young man approached her, told her it was “national kiss day” and asked her to kiss him. She smiled and said, “No, sorry, no.” Instead of accepting her answer, he demanded to know why. She answered: “Because I have no desire to kiss you.” Again, he persisted, asking: “What if I show you my nipple?” At this point, she told him to “fuck off”, and asked him what right he thought he had to speak to her in that way. Laughing it off with a sarcastic comment, he walked away. It wasn’t until the following day when a friend sent her a link to a Facebook video that she realised the man who had approached her was Jack Jones, a self-styled online “prankster” with a Facebook following of almost 3.5 million people. Without her knowledge or consent, he had filmed his interaction with Paulina and used her as the punchline on a video titled “national kiss day”. The video, which ends with Drėgvaitė saying “fuck off”, has since been viewed over 700,000 times, and has 12,000 likes, 850 shares and more than 600 comments. To her horror, Drėgvaitė realised that hundreds of the comments focused on her, describing her as ugly, stuffy, stuck up, arrogant and dumb, calling her a snotty cow and a feminazi, and speculating about whether she was on her period. “I was physically shaking,” says Drėgvaitė. “I feel sick and violated. The video was put up without my consent and now thousands of people are calling me a fat cow because I refused to kiss a man I had no desire to kiss. “Some people have advised me just to let it go, but I feel like this event is so symptomatic of the everyday sexism that women face: getting harassed in a public space and then being bullied because of it.” Jones is just one of a host of online “pranksters”, mostly young men, whose videos often show them approaching, scaring or harassing unsuspecting women in public spaces under the guise of “banter”. Often euphemistically described as “social experiments”, recent examples to hit the headlines have included YouTuber Sam Pepper’s compilation of grabbing women’s bottoms in the street and Brad Holmes’s video showing his partner Jenny Davies in pain after using a tampon he had rubbed chilli on as part of a “prank”. Though several sites removed the chilli video after campaigners pointed out it normalised relationship abuse, many mainstream media outlets continue to host it. More and more vloggers are making money and enjoying notoriety built on the harassment or abuse of women. Regardless of whether or not some of the “pranks” are staged, you only have to look at the thousands of comments on the videos to see that they are playing a part in perpetuating misogynistic and abusive attitudes towards women and normalising harassment. With titles such as “How to pick up girls” and “How to get any girl’s number”, the videos often encouraged viewers, implicitly or explicitly, to replicate the same tactics themselves. It is not uncommon for sexism and racism to intermingle in the harassment depicted. Where the videos centre on a female partner, they veer uncomfortably close to the controlling and coercive norms that often mark an abusive relationship. One Brad Holmes video, for example, shows him slashing a piece of clothing he had bought for his partner with a knife in front of her and stamping on a brand new set of hair straighteners while she begs him not to, because she fails to answer questions about history and football correctly. In another, with 10m views, he cuts her hair without consent while she sleeps. Soraya Chemaly, director of the Women’s Media Center Speech Project, says: Pranks and jokes say a lot about what society thinks is acceptable and, unfortunately for girls and women, what’s acceptable is high levels of physical aggression, denigrating humour and non-consent. You see that trifecta not only in the actions of harassers, who are socially supported, for example, by views and likes, but in the institutionalised policies of social media companies, whose policies tend to reflect mainstream norms.” In many cases the women involved can be left, like Paulina Drėgvaitė, feeling frustrated and helpless. She reported the video to Facebook and asked for it to be taken down, but received a message in response saying that it did not contravene community guidelines. A spokesperson for Facebook has since said they were investigating both the “national kiss day” and the chilli tampon videos. While each of these videos is subtly different, as a whole there is something very troubling about the triumphant rise of internet stars who are dealing in the currency of female harassment and humiliation, with sexual success positioned as the ultimate goal. To legions of online fans, the message is clear: any woman is fair game; their presence in public space is an invitation for harassment and you don’t need to take no for an answer.
Heathrow: UK better off in reformed EU Heathrow has thrown its weight behind Britain remaining in the EU, despite the airport’s claim that its expansion plans would become even more urgent if the country voted to leave. The airport said Europe brought Britain more trade and prosperity. The chief executive, John Holland-Kaye, added: “Heathrow believes that the UK will be better off remaining in a reformed EU. We are the UK’s only hub airport, connecting Britain to over 80 long-haul destinations, and handling over a quarter of UK exports – but we recognise that for business to thrive we also need to be part of the single European market.” He said being part of the EU had made air travel affordable and convenient, which fuelled jobs, exports and growth. Holland-Kaye said: “A vote to remain offers the best of both worlds: it secures our place as a powerhouse in the global economy while remaining in the world’s largest free-trade zone.” Despite Heathrow’s support for the campaign to remain, it believes its own prospects could be enhanced in some areas by Brexit. The chief financial officer, Michael Uzielli, said: “Heathrow would continue to thrive, but the decision to expand would be even more urgent if we did leave. “Trade with the EU would be harder than today and there would be more pressure to connect to world markets – and Heathrow is the only airport that connects Britain with those markets. But the imperative to expand is urgent whether we are in or not.” Holland-Kaye said he was confident of a positive decision on the proposed third runway in July, once the EU referendum had passed, and that the airport could meet the government’s environmental obligations. One area of negotiation is likely to be how much Heathrow would contribute to surface access work around the hub, including widening the M25, which would cost about £5.7bn according to the Airports Commission, and at least £15bn according to Transport for London. Uzielli said while Heathrow could potentially afford a higher expansion bill, it believed its contribution should be about £1bn. “We’re a very robust company and have a robust financing platform. We raise a couple of billion of pounds a year and are A-rated. It’s more a question of fairness. Where it’s directly related to expansion we think that is part of the costs, but we don’t think that airline passengers should have to pay for other infrastructure.” The comments came as Heathrow reported a 22% rise in full-year profits to £223m for 2015, as 75 million passengers used the airport in its 70th year of operation.
Ode to Roy: why Orbison is one of the rock’n’roll greats I’ve spent the first week of 2016 listening to three albums on rotation: There Is Only One Roy Orbison, The Orbison Way, and The Classic Roy Orbison, all of which are part of a box set chronicling his years at MGM Records in the late 60s and early 70s. You’d be forgiven for never having heard of them. They all sound like they could be compilations. Instead, they are a trio of albums Orbison recorded while at the top of his game in the mid 60s. Full of self-penned gems with his trademark mix of R&B and country, and strong and distinctive flavourings from Italy and Mexico. “I thought my voice was sort of a wonder,” he once said, and he was right. By any measure, Orbison is one of the greats. So why have I never read anything about these albums in Mojo or the Sunday supplement pull-outs? Why aren’t they heralded in any of those 100 Albums You Have to Hear-type primers? It comes down to 21st-century listening habits. What do we expect of a legend’s career? There’s an established narrative: the run of hits, the fall from stardom, the lost recordings, the introspective album, the comeback. It’s a template that makes a career easy to assess. Take Elvis Presley: beyond a couple of dozen imperishable hits, there are the early Sun recordings, the post-army album Elvis Is Back! and the 1969 comeback album From Elvis in Memphis. This is all very tidy, and easily digestible, even in the digital age. But it doesn’t always work out this way. Johnny Cash didn’t have the definitive, dark album that you might have expected, given the ups and downs of his personal and professional life, so Rick Rubin engineered one (or two, or three) at the very end of his career, with covers of Nine Inch Nails and Depeche Mode noir numbers. Cash and Rubin duly received the plaudits and the man in black’s best known recordings are now those from the mid 50s and a bunch from a full four decades later, with little more than A Boy Named Sue from the intervening years remaining in the public consciousness. There was no noir album in Orbison’s career, however. Even the Bee Gees had a break-up album, 1969’s Odessa – a double album (a signifier of importance) that was largely ignored on release but has become a lost-album touchstone in the past decade. For Orbison, there was no psych-rock album (like Del Shannon’s) or folk-rock album (like Gene Vincent’s) for the cognoscenti to unearth and repackage for the latter-day newcomer. “Dark” has become shorthand for quality. The irony for Orbison is that he could scarcely have recorded anything darker or more apocalyptic than 1964’s It’s Over, which, to the British public’s great credit, was a UK No 1 just as A Hard Day’s Night was tearing up the country. His life story, similarly, couldn’t have been more tragic: his wife Claudette, the inspiration for Oh, Pretty Woman and many other songs, was killed in a bike crash in 1966; two years later his house burned to the ground, killing his two eldest sons. Orbison kept working, touring, recording. God knows what he felt. There’s another reason why Orbison’s albums haven’t been acclaimed: the sheer volume of his output. Confronted with so much music on The MGM Years set (13 discs, covering just eight years), you can feel overwhelmed or even slightly nauseous – the musical equivalent of megalophobia. So here’s the condensed story of what happened to Orbison in those MGM years. In 1964, having just scored his biggest ever hit with Oh, Pretty Woman, he signed a million-dollar deal with MGM Records, leaving the tiny Monument label which had been his home for six years and released his million-selling singles Only the Lonely, In Dreams and Crying. MGM knew that, increasingly, albums were where the money lay, and his new deal required Orbison to work at a killing pace: 42 songs, three albums and at least three singles per year. The artistic freedom MGM offered him wasn’t to be sniffed at, though. Orbison had struggled to get Monument to release Blue Bayou in 1963, as label boss Fred Foster reckoned the charts already had too many songs with “blue” in the title. Monument had also been very much geared towards hit singles. In Orbison’s five years of solid hits, from 1960 to 1964, he had only released three albums. Within a year of signing to MGM, he had cut three beautiful albums, richly produced, full of classics to be. Then came the personal tragedies, record company indifference, a chaotic release schedule. 1966’s Cry Softly Lonely One was cut in the wake of Claudette’s death, but you wouldn’t really know. Orbison toured Australia to promote it, and the single Communication Breakdown was a Top 10 hit there. Supporting him were the Yardbirds, and their guitarist Jimmy Page was so taken with the single that he asked Orbison if he could nab the title for a song of his own. 1969’s One of the Lonely Ones was withdrawn and shelved after the house fire. It was released for the first time last month, and contains two stone cold classics in The Defector (a fearful state of the nation song) and Little Girl (In the Big City), with its fuzz bassline and proto-house piano hook replacing the more conventional Nashville sound of fine cuts like the title track and the gorgeous Leaving Makes the Rain Come Down. If you wanted to pull out a single album from the MGM years, you could do worse than to start here. I’m not immune to a latter-day rereading of pop history. There’s a reason why I became obsessed with Orbison’s 1969 single Southbound Jericho Parkway, a six-minute encapsulation of the breakdown of the American family with no chorus but four distinct movements reflecting on the suicide of the father. It’s a quite extraordinary piece of work, with a wrenching finale, even by Orbison’s dramatic and tearful standards. I’ve tried to put as many people on to it as I can in the 20-odd years since I first heard it. Still, it almost seems disrespectful to Orbison’s long and distinguished career to bypass fine recordings such as Shahdaroba (1963), Cry Softly Lonely One (1967), I’m the Man on Susie’s Mind (1972) and Tears (1979) in favour of oldies, radio hits and the occasional atypical B-side. As a child, Orbison loved to listen to the rain on the roof of the family’s tin shack; when he was a wealthy pop star he installed waterfalls in his house so he could lose himself in the sound, sitting with his eyes closed and forgetting the horrors of the past. It was a way of slowing the world down. Complete immersion in the catalogue of someone of Roy Orbison’s stature is worth setting time aside for.
David Cameron's ever-shifting view of Britain's place in EU David Cameron has come a long way in how he views Britain’s place in the European Union. Over the years, long before the current renegotiations even started, the prime minister has made a series of bold comments, half promises and pledges. Tuesday’s draft agreement demonstrates that only a handful of his commitments have been delivered. Here is a selection of some of them: • In 2009, he promised that a Tory government would stop the European court of justice overruling UK criminal law by limiting its jurisdiction. The government has since opted back in to 35 justice and home affairs measures, including the European arrest warrant. • In 2012, Cameron said that the government was “committed to revising the working time directive”, a set of EU-wide working standards. However, last December, George Osborne, told the Treasury select committee that this formed no part of the negotiation. Back in 2007, before becoming prime minister, Cameron had even pledged to pull Britain out of Europe’s social chapter on workers’ rights. • The prime minister also promised in the Conservative manifesto last May to push for further reform of the EU’s common agricultural policy. This promise was not part of the renegotiation as it was likely to face fierce opposition from some member states. • Cameron said in early 2014 that he would put in place treaty change before the referendum. Tuesday’s documents make it clear that there will be no changes to the EU’s governing treaties – including its headline principle of “ever closer union” – ahead of the vote because this would not be feasible in the referendum’s timeframe. In any event, Tusk said in Tuesday’s letter that the principle of ever closer union is already not equivalent to an objective of political integration, and the substance of this will be incorporated into the treaties when they are next revised. • Last year Cameron said that he wanted EU jobseekers to have a job before they come to Britain. Such a measure is contrary to the principle of free movement and as such was also not part of the negotiations. • When the renegotiations formally began Cameron started by asking for a cap in the number of EU migrants allowed into the UK. That idea lasted the length of a phonecall to the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, in 2014. She was not very impressed. • The prime minister had to think of a new idea and proposed – in writing this time – that people coming to Britain from the EU must live in the UK and contribute for four years before they qualify for in-work benefits or social housing. It has proven to be the most controversial – albeit the most precise – of Cameron’s demands. What he is set to get is the dilution of an already diluted idea: an “emergency brake” on in-work benefits for up to four years. The one-off restriction would not amount to an outright ban on benefits either but would be graduated. That means that EU migrants would receive no benefits upon arrival but would get an increasing proportion each year – another piece of complexity for an already over-complex benefit system. When it came to the formal negotiations, Cameron’s other requests included: • Ending the practice of sending child benefit overseas. This was also watered down. The UK will be allowed to index the payments to the country where the child is based. • On measures to crack down on the abuse of free movement, members states will be able to take action against fraudulent claims and sham marriages, as well as against individuals who pose a threat to national security. None of these measures would appear to be new, but are simply based on the interpretation of current rules. • On “economic governance”, Cameron had asked for a series of principles to be recognised ranging from a simple recognition of the idea that the EU has more than one currency, and that taxpayers in non-euro countries should never be financially liable for operations to support the eurozone as a currency. Here Cameron did better, although only because Tusk clarified, in effect, that all these things are already covered by existing rules and principles. • As part of the competitiveness basket, Cameron had said he wanted the EU to be more competitive. In response, Tusk has committed the EU to increasing efforts to enhance competitiveness. It is probably not surprising that the contents of this basket proved the easiest to agree on. Nevertheless, however much has been negotiated away, Cameron has still won some important concessions. Take the emergency brake: just a month ago the measure seemed to be off the table but now it is a centre piece of his pitch to the British people. The European commission has accepted that the UK is facing exceptional circumstances due to high levels of immigration and must be allowed to do something about it – assuming the British people vote to stay in the EU. However, the vast majority of the words in the draft agreement are dedicated to clarifying how existing rules and principles can be applied to ease British fears. The achievement is somewhat distant from the grander aspirations set out by Cameron over the past five years, but in the end it may be enough.
How a digital divide leaves parts of rural America isolated It’s been two years since Sonia’s husband’s fatal heart attack. Almost anywhere else in the United States, emergency services could have helped her. But in an isolated corner of the 27,000 square miles that constitute the Navajo Nation, she, her daughter and one of her granddaughters had to manage without technology most of the rest of America takes for granted. The family were outside Tolani Lake, in part of the vast Navajo Nation’s land in north-east Arizona. “My husband had roped a bull that we were dealing with,” Sonia said. “He said he needed to catch his breath. I told him to sit down and he did.” He started to feel better, got back to work and then faltered again. “We were taking him over to the truck,” Sonia recalls, “but he knelt down.” Sonia’s daughter called 911. Across the vast majority of the United States – almost 99% of the country – 911 callers can be traced directly to their cellphone’s latitude and longitude, enough information to send help by air. But not here. Sonia, who asked that the not use her full name or the names of her family, tried to describe their surroundings, but the dispatcher in Leupp, Arizona, 20 miles away, was unfamiliar with the area. And there was no information from their phones. The dispatcher asked the family to come to the nearest road. Three generations of Sonia’s family carried the older man between them across the patch of desert between the livestock and the truck. They put him in the back and drove. A fire truck met them at the top of a hill closer to the main road. Eventually an ambulance arrived and drove to Leupp across dry miles of unpaved road, where cars fishtail and spin out if they try to hurry. In Leupp, the vital helicopter was waiting, but by then it was too late. Sonia said she’s made her peace with it. “He probably didn’t want to live after that. He doesn’t want to be at home not doing anything,” she said, her voice breaking. “He likes to be out there and he’d have to put up with that. So it’s OK with me. Even if we’d got him going again, he wouldn’t have wanted to be there.” ‘After a while, people just stop calling’ In many rural communities in the US, the low population density means that phone and internet companies simply don’t upgrade their equipment often enough to keep pace with progress. In Navajo, much of the vital infrastructure was never installed to begin with. Large stretches of the Navajo Nation, a sovereign state larger than 10 of the 50 states in the US, look like the surface of some other, beautiful planet. Sometimes the landscape is nothing but red dirt, orange rock, striations of yellow and white streaking the faces of cliffs and the cross-sections of buttes beside paved roads that have been blasted through those hills or unpaved roads that dip suddenly into dry creek beds. Locals replace their tires a lot. Dust devils rear up to the height of two-storey houses, staining the blue sky with a boiling tan streak. Most of what moves, besides cars, is tumbleweed, dry clusters and strands of which stick to fences, meander from patch to patch of grass and get caught far above the ground in the unshielded silver wires strung between the telephone poles that run alongside the highway. Those wires are the thin filament that connect places like To’hajilee, a reservation of about 4,000 people to the outside world. In large parts cellphone coverage is spotty – at best. There is no broadband. In February, a break in the community’s sole line meant that none of the ATMs or credit card scanners in town worked. Navajo is the largest recipient of funds from the US Bureau of Indian Affairs – it’s the most populous tribe in the country – but the figures themselves can be insultingly low. A 2014 grant to Navajo’s state-owned internet provider, which aspires to serve the community of 300,000 across an area larger than West Virginia, totaled some $32m. AT&T of Tennessee received $156m in federal money to provide broadband access to 81,000 homes in rural Tennessee the following year. Cell coverage is a patchwork; even on the larger networks like Verizon, data connection is unreliable. Wired connections are, if anything, worse. The consequences of an economy trapped in the previous century are depressingly predictable. “We have very violent, lawless communities,” said Gina Begay-Roanhorse, who works at the courthouse in To’hajilee, an “island” reservation surrounded on all sides by non-Navajo land, some Pueblo, some New Mexico. “I’m not afraid to say it anymore.” As in much of America, opioid addiction is epidemic. Mental illness and domestic violence go under-addressed. The tribal police communicate using radio; when they can’t run a plate by calling it in, they have to use their own phones, at their own expense, as cellular hotspots for the laptops they keep in their cars. On average, Navajo police are responsible for 100 square miles apiece. Wired phone service is unreliable: first responders at the scene of an accident in To’hajilee will often call call the local emergency clinic directly, rather than calling 911. Even then, sometimes callers hear only ringing and ringing, said Fitisha Baca, who works as an emergency medical technician in To’hajilee with her sister Racquel. “After a while, people just stop calling,” Begay-Roanhorse said. Begay-Roanhorse is warm, even cheerful despite an apparently bottomless supply of horror stories about people arriving on her doorstep in extremis. In one case the victim of a beating came to her house bloody after being attacked, she said; in another a vagrant locked himself in the cab of her truck with a bottle of vodka and wouldn’t leave. She remains an amiable guide to rural Navajo. She loves the show Breaking Bad, which filmed part of its final season in To’hajilee; Walter White makes a crucial phone call from a pay phone at a picturesque, abandoned gas station. “We were watching the show as a family,” she said, laughing, “and all of us, at the same time, said ‘That phone doesn’t work.’” ‘From the government and here to help’ Adam Geisler is not Navajo; he is from the La Jolla Band of Luiseño Indians in California. In his own self-deprecating paraphrase of Ronald Reagan’s “terrifying words”, he says he is “from the government and here to help”. Geisler, 31, is on a mission to improve the ability of police officers, ambulance drivers, and the fire department to identify and respond to disasters. He works with FirstNet, an authority set up by the US Department of Commerce to spend $7bn in federal funds setting up a data network for first responders across the US. FirstNet owns an incredibly valuable piece of unreal estate: a chunk of radiowave spectrum big enough to make its owner the fourth-largest network in the country. It’s FirstNet’s job to pay someone to take it. The organization has to find a partner – likely an established telecoms player, though Geisler is careful not to say so – to deploy the network, probably on existing towers. Geisler’s own life was derailed by the same kind of avoidable disaster that is too common in Indian Country: in 2007, the year he taught vocal performance and sang with the San Diego Opera, his reservation caught fire. He had to go back home. “We lost about a third of our homes as a result,” Geisler said. “My grandmother went homeless, my uncle went homeless, my cousins went homeless.” Anxious to help, Geisler went to the head of the firefighting operation. It was a brief conversation, he recalled: “The incident commander said, ‘Adam, you went to college.’ I go, ‘Yeah.’ He goes, ‘You have a laptop.’ I go, ‘Yeah.’ He goes, ‘You’re the chief of logistics.’” Geisler was suddenly in charge of acquiring everything from water to socks. He and his family and friends tried to fight the fires, but they didn’t have enough information to do it adequately. FirstNet, he said, would let firefighters on the ground know what people in helicopters and planes know – and it must meet rural benchmarks, some specifically in Indian country, thanks to president Obama’s campaign to increase broadband penetration. “We were losing houses up until the fourth day,” he said. Networks became tied up with people frantic to learn whether they still had homes. “It was sad because you saw people getting the report like, ‘Oh yeah, that house is still there, and that house is still there,’ and then the night would go by and people had thought they’d made it through and the next morning new reports would come out.” Soon, Geisler was representing his tribe as a delegate and getting to know know another First Nations politician he admires, Navajo vice-president Jonathan Nez. From there, he became the government liaison from FirstNet, and now he must deal with the bordering states responsible for helping the government to deploy the network in Navajo. The golden circle In April, Geisler assembled a small team of state employees from New Mexico, Arizona and Utah to tour Navajo. Individual states can opt out of the program, but if they do they’ll be responsible for meeting benchmarks themselves, without a share of the $7bn pot. There is always a base level of resentment when bureaucrats try to tell each other what to do, but whether it was through luck or skill, Geisler’s team included a variety of experience and attitude. In Crown Point, Arizona’s Scott Neal, a taciturn ex-cop from Pennsylvania with a scar over one eye, knew how to talk to frustrated police officers about data collection in an ad hoc 911 call center with paper maps taped to the walls. At a meeting in Navajo’s capital city, Window Rock, tensions eased immediately when Nez abruptly walked in and began trading jokes with Geisler. But in Tolani Lake, officials (and the ) had to stand before the chapter and explain why they were there, and listen as locals described problems that went far beyond broadband. “The facilities here need to be dealt with, as well,” said Tolani Lake’s Leslie Williams. “Right across the street from my house there was a fire – they came out with a fire truck and hooked it up to the hydrant but the hose was too short, so they hand to fill up the truck and drive it back. By that time the house was burned to the ground.” Navajo self-sufficiency has created systems in Tolani Lake that FirstNet can interact with: Raymond Williams, a middle-aged man in a cowboy hat and a T-shirt bearing a cartoon of a Puritan couple captioned “The Pilgrims: America’s First Wetbacks”, said he had helped deploy GPS beacons that were slowly making Navajo more navigable in spite of inadequate utilities. “[We tag] anything that we can with the GPS – the houses, the livestock areas, the water tanks.” Williams said GPS beacons were useful for digitally identifying sacred places, as well. There are holy sites nearby, and there are eagles’ nests near and in Hopi territory – both tribes hold eagles sacred, and Navajo borders Hopi on all sides. There is friction within Navajo, too. Benson Willie, of Tolani Lake, calls the area around Window Rock “the golden circle”. “All they have to do is put up their hands,” he groused to Phelps. Years before, Willie lost his mother to a car accident; his frantic 911 call was rerouted three times and it took an ambulance ninety minutes to reach him. He could have gone to Leupp, had a hamburger and come back in the time it took the medics, he said. “His anger represents a whole group of anger out here. Which is good,” Phelps said later. “Energy is good.” The alternative is despair.
Facebook's solar-powered internet plane takes flight Facebook has announced the first successful test flight of a high-altitude solar plane to bring internet access to remote parts of the world. The Aquila drone has the wingspan of an airliner but weighs less than a car. When cruising it consumes just 5,000 watts – the same as three hairdryers or a powerful microwave. The first flight took place on 28 June in Arizona. Facebook said the test went better than expected and that Aquila’s 96-minute flight was three times longer than planned. Aquila was developed in Bridgwater, Somerset, and the drone, designed to fly non-stop for three months, will use lasers to beam down internet access to remote areas without online capacity. Facebook has a team of engineers at Bridgwater from fields of expertise including aerospace, avionics and software and who had previously worked at organisations such as Nasa, Boeing and the Royal Air Force. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, revealed in March 2015 that the company had been testing drones in the skies over the UK. Facebook intends Aquila to be part of a fleet of planes that will provide the internet to 4 billion people in sub-Saharan Africa and other remote regions that do not have access currently. Jay Parikh, Facebook’s head of engineering and infrastructure, said in a blog: “We’re encouraged by this first successful flight, but we have a lot of work ahead of us … In our next tests, we will fly Aquila faster, higher and longer, eventually taking it above 60,000 feet.”
Black's Colin Vearncombe 'will need a miracle' to pull through after car accident Colin Vearncombe, the singer of Black, has “only a slim chance of pulling through” after injuries he sustained in a car accident near Cork airport in Ireland on 10 January, according to his Facebook page. Vearncombe, the voice of the 1987 hit singles Sweetest Smile and Wonderful Life, and a prolific artist in the years since, suffered a serious head injury in the accident and was placed in an induced coma on his arrival in hospital, where he was said to be in a critical condition. Now an update has been posted on his Facebook page, which makes for sombre reading. We promised to keep you updated with news about Colin. Until yesterday we had very little firm information other than that he was in a coma following a road traffic accident on the morning of Sunday 10th, not far from Cork airport, and that he was in a critical condition. However, scans have revealed that the injuries to his brain are worse than we feared and that he has only a slim chance of pulling through. He is in a stable condition, which is being managed by the amazing staff of the intensive treatment unit, with his family by his side. More scans are scheduled for Friday morning, however it is clear that if we are going to see an improvement, we will need a miracle. Black’s most recent album, Blind Faith, was released last year after a crowdfunding campaign that secured it more than double its target. It received a four-star review in the .
Egypt five years on: was it ever a 'social media revolution'? On 25 January 2011 hundreds of thousands of protesters started to gather in Tahrir Square and planted the seeds of unrest which, days later, finally unseated the incumbent president, Hosni Mubarak, after 30 years of power. Almost a year after Tunisia had erupted in mass demonstrations, the central Cairo protests triggered further waves of change across the Middle East and North Africa, in what became known as the Arab Spring. But while the nature of each pro-democracy uprising, and their ultimate success, varied wildly from country to country, they had one defining characteristic in common: social media. At times during 2011, the term Arab Spring became interchangeable with “Twitter uprising” or “Facebook revolution”, as global media tried to make sense of what was going on. But despite western media’s love affair with the idea, the uprisings didn’t happen because of social media. Instead, the platforms provided opportunities for organisation and protest that traditional methods couldn’t. In the words of one protester, Fawaz Rashed: “We use Facebook to schedule the protests, Twitter to coordinate, and YouTube to tell the world.” Nowhere was this clearer than in Egypt, where social media was well embedded in the culture of the country’s overwhelmingly young population – 60% under the age of 30. Their online revolutionary spirit was infectious for those watching from afar. According to the Project on Information Technology and Political Islam the number of tweets posted about Egypt – many using #Jan25 in homage – jumped from 2,300 to 230,000 per day the week before Mubarak stepped down on the 11 February. Foreign Policy magazine declared the Egyptian revolution the Twitter “news moment” of the year. But feelings of revolutionary success were short lived as Mubarak’s government was replaced by the equally repressive Muslim Brotherhood, before he was ousted by a military coup in July 2013. Eventually, the party was replaced by Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, under whom state repression, intimidation and attacks on press freedom has gone from bad to worse. A conflicted tool Wael Ghonmin is one of those credited with kickstarting the Egyptian revolution with a “simple, anonymous” Facebook page: We are all Khaled Said, set up in homage to a 29-year-old man who had been tortured to death by the police. It gathered 100,000 followers in three days and quickly became the most followed page in the Arab world. But then “the euphoria faded, we failed to build consensus and the political struggle led to intense polarisation,” said Ghonmin at a recent Ted talk. Social media quickly became a battlefield of misinformation, rumours and trolls – “the same tool that united us to topple dictators eventually tore us apart,” he said. Echoing Ghonmin’s point, on Monday morning the BBC reported that the hashtag #I_participated_in_January_Revolution had become the centre of an online battle between the supporters of the revolution and those who opposed it. Protesters who were voicing their support for events five years ago were told by some Twitter and Facebook users that they should be ashamed for the years of turmoil that had followed, and that the revolution was a crime. Social media revolution? So can the events of the past five years ever accurately be described as a “social media revolution”? For Leil Zahra, an activist who stationed herself in Tahrir Square and who worked on anything from food distribution to working with the anti-sexual harassment task force, the term is insulting and reductive. “It was [about] much more than those who had access to Twitter and Facebook. If it wasn’t for the working class and the marginalised thousands this revolution wouldn’t have happened,” he said. Instead he likes to think of it as a “popular uprising” across a subsection of “classes and realities”. “It was a time of great human beauty… demonstrated in the solidarity and collectively putting life at stake for that idea of a better tomorrow. On the other hand it brought a very graphic reality of the system’s violence and how far a human being can go.” When asked to pinpoint two tweets – one that sums up his life five years ago and one from today – you get the sense that it was the dedicated activism and not Twitter per se that made change happen. “It is a tool, and it is still of very good use, but it is not an alternative for physical expressions of freedoms in the public space,” he said. #FreeAlaa In the turmultous years since the revolution, the power of social media has not ebbed, but its uses have changed. For many activists, Twitter and Facebook have become tools to help keep a spotlight on those, like Khaled Said, who lost their lives in the uprising, or who have since been imprisoned by the authorities. One of the most famous to have lost his freedom is Alaa Abd el Fattah, an “an icon of the Egyptian revolution” who was sentenced to five years in prison in October 2014 for his role in protests the previous November. The official charges include “assaulting a policeman and stealing his walkie talkie”, but for his supporters, who have been rallying around the hashtag #FreeAlaa, it is more simple: he was arrested for his dissent. The plight of El Fattah and 25 others has since become known as the Shura Council case. Many more of those charged have been sentenced to three years or more in jail. But Zahra believes that in an increasingly repressive media environment means that activists need be careful about what they say online. “Social media is a space for expression beyond those parameters of control, and for many it is a very powerful. But we should keep in mind that they are predominantly privately-owned and abide by the rules of those corporations,” he said. As today’s anniversary approached the authorities, worried that social media would be used once again to organise more protests, arrested three Facebook admins and accused them of using the “networking website to incite against state institutions”. For many of Egypt’s activists, the fight for the revolution lives on.
How has loneliness affected your health? Share your story It’s well known that loneliness can greatly affect your mind, but did you know how much it affects your body too? Loneliness has been linked to everything from a compromised immune system to premature death, and a new study has now found links to an increase in heart disease and stroke risk. Researchers from the universities of York, Liverpool and Newcastle found that social isolation can increase your risk of having a stroke or coronary artery disease – the two major causes of death in wealthy societies – by as much as 30%. While the study was observational, which means firm conclusions cannot be drawn about cause and effect, those who did the research say it suggests “addressing loneliness and social isolation may have an important role in the prevention of two of the leading causes of morbidity in high-income countries”. So how does being socially isolated affect your life? We want to hear about any links you believe it has to ill-health – from making you smoke and drink more to leading to depression or anxiety. Share your stories with us via the form below.
Alcohol-related deaths in England up 4% in one year Alcohol-related deaths in England have risen by 4% in a year and by 13% in a decade, according to figures published on Thursday. Alcohol-related liver disease accounted for nearly two-thirds, 63%, of the 6,830 deaths in 2014, a total described by local councils as “shocking”. Admissions to hospital where alcohol-linked disease or injury was the primary reason increased by 32%, to 333,000, between 2004-05 and 2014-15, said the Health and Social Care Information Centre. Its new report, Statistics on Alcohol: England, 2016, pulled together data from various sources to give a picture of the changing impact of alcohol consumption on health over time. It revealed that diseases or injuries linked to drinking either as a primary reason or secondary diagnosis went up by 30,000, from 1.06m to 1.09m, between 2013-14 and 2014-15, with men accounting for 65% of the total. This broad measure is regarded as the best indicator of the total strain alcohol places on national health. Salford in Greater Manchester had the highest estimated rate of such hospital admissions, 3,570 per 100,000 population. Wokingham, Berkshire, had the lowest, 1,270 per 100,000. The report also said prescriptions for medicines to tackle alcohol dependence rose from 109,000 in 2005 to 196,000 in 2015. There was some comfort for the government, however: in a 2014 survey, 38% of secondary school pupils said they had tried alcohol, representing the lowest figure since surveys began in 1982, when it was 62%. The report comes six months after the chief medical officer, Dame Sally Davies, recommended new guidelines on alcohol consumption. These reduced the recommended maximum weekly drinking limit for men from 21 units to 14 units, the same level as for women. They also recognised that any level of drinking increases health risks. The Local Government Association said the figures were shocking. Izzi Seccombe, who holds its community wellbeing portfolio, said the figure of almost 1.1m for the broader measure covering alcohol-related admissions indicated a large number were from middle-aged and older age groups. “Despite drinking comparatively little, older people consume alcohol far more often,” said Seccombe. “These figures warn of the dangers of regular drinking over a long period of time and the impact this can have on the body of an older person, which is less able to handle the same level of alcohol as in previous years. “Many of us like to have a drink to relax and enjoy our free time, but councils are committed to helping people cut down how much they drink and how regularly, through supporting initiatives such as Dry January, to raise awareness and encourage small lifestyle changes, which can have a big impact on improving people’s health.” Councils want more power to limit late-night bars and clubs, and have urged the drinks industry to produce more low-strength cider, wine, beer and spirits with fewer or zero units of alcohol. The Department of Health said: “Drinking among school-aged children is the lowest since records began – but we know that there is more work to be done to change behaviour across the whole population. “Drinking excessive amounts of alcohol regularly carries a health risk for anyone, but if men and women limit their intake to no more than 14 units a week it reduces the risk of illnesses like cancer and liver disease.”
Cortisol levels in children's hair may reveal future mental health risk Hair samples may help determine the risk of a child developing mental and other chronic illnesses later in their life, research led by the University of Melbourne has found. Researchers assessed the level of cortisol in the hair of 70 nine-year-old children from primary schools across Victoria. Cortisol is known as the “stress hormone” because it is released in response to acute stress to help the body react and cope. The greater number of traumatic events a child had experienced, such as divorce, injury, moving house, severe illness or the death of a family member, the higher the hair cortisol concentrations were, the researchers found. It suggests hair cortisol levels may provide a marker of trauma exposure in children and identify those at risk of developing psychosocial and behavioural problems, and who may need medical and psychological support, leader of the study and a fellow in child and adolescent mental health at the University of Melbourne, Dr Julian Simmons, said. “Childhood is an imperative and sensitive period of development, and when things go wrong it can have lifelong consequences, not just on mental health, but also on general health,” Simmons said. “What’s less commonly understood is that beyond poor mental health, it can also be associated with the development of other illnesses such as diabetes, obesity and cholesterol issues, because cortisol is also central to glucose availability, blood pressure and immune function, so identifying these children is important.” While blood or saliva tests could be used to detect cortisol levels, these methods were sometimes problematic, especially in children, Simmons said. Cortisol levels fluctuate during the day meaning results were not always accurate, and only revealed cortisol levels at a single point in time. The tests could also be unpleasant and invasive for children, given blood tests require a needle and saliva tests require the child to fast beforehand. “However, hair samples are not only easier to obtain, but provide us with a picture of total cortisol throughout the system across many months rather than just at a point in time,” Simmons said. “Looking at hair tells us new things.” The research is part of the ongoing Murdoch Childrens Research Institute’s Childhood to Adolescence Study following a cohort of 1,200 children in and around Melbourne and was published in the journal, Psychoneuroendocrinology. Simmons said the results did not mean all children with elevated cortisol levels would go on to develop behavioural problems or mental illness, with many other social, environmental and genetic factors also involved. But it did reveal it was important to further study hormones and the body’s endocrine system, and how they relate to mental illnesses like anxiety and depression, he said. “We hope this can be used as one of the tools to identify children at risk,” he said.
Almost half of Americans see torture as acceptable, Red Cross survey finds Nearly half of Americans believe it acceptable to torture enemy combatants, according to a new survey which suggests that 15 years of warfare have significantly recast American attitudes on torture. The poll, conducted by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), found that 46% of Americans believe it acceptable to torture enemy combatants, with just 30% opposed to the practice and another 24% unsure or unwilling to answer. Only Nigeria and Israel record higher rates of support for torturing captured enemy fighters, with 70% and 50% endorsements, respectively. By contrast, in 1999 – the last time the ICRC conducted its “People on War” poll – 65% of Americans said the US could not torture captured enemy fighters, and 57% favored permitting an independent monitor to observe detention conditions. The survey found a coarsening of attitudes towards obligations to civilians in wartime among people in the US, UK, Russia, China and France – the permanent members of the United Nations security council, which possess disproportionate power to set the global governance agenda. As Donald Trump, who has endorsed torture enthusiastically, prepares to take the White House, some 33% of Americans consider torture “a part of war”, with another 13% unsure or unwilling to answer. The poll found that 54% of Americans consider torture “wrong”, a lower proportion than in any other population save for those of Israel and Palestine. Only 44% of Israelis and only 35% of Palestinians considered torture to be wrong. The poll comes as rising tides of illiberalism have washed over the world’s great powers. In addition to Trump’s election, the UK has voted to leave the European Union and in France, the leader of the far-right Front National has led in a number of polls ahead of next year’s presidential elections. Russia and China have become more expansionist than they have been in decades, with Russia destabilizing Ukraine and China pressing maximalist territorial claims in the South China Sea. Absolute opposition to torture was recorded by 100% of Yemeni respondents, 73% of Syrians, 68% of Iraqis, 80% of Ukrainians, and 58% of South Sudanese. Across the so-called Permanent Five countries on the security council, 46% of respondents advocated additional assistance to migrants and refugees fleeing conflicts, an urgent question seized upon by rightwing politicians in Europe and the US in response to an influx of Middle Eastern refugees. But 79% of respondents from conflict-wracked nations urged greater help. “There is a higher degree of acceptance amongst people living in the [Permanent Five Security Council] countries and Switzerland that the death of civilians in conflict zones is an inevitable part of war,” found the ICRC, which polled 17,000 people in 16 countries. Across those countries, 48% of people believe that a captured enemy combatant cannot “be tortured to obtain important military information”, a figure sharply lower than the 66% opposition recorded in 1999. Areas in active conflict record greater urgency over questions of civilian protection in wartime than do the great powers that often conduct or participate in those conflicts. In Ukraine, 83% believe everyone wounded and sick during a conflict has a right to health care, compared with 62% of Russians. A full 100% of Yemenis endorse the proposition, as do 81% of Afghans, 66% of Syrians and 42% of Iraqis – compared with 49% of Americans, 53% of Britons, 37% of the Chinese and 67% of the French. Only 59% oppose attacking a target with the knowledge that civilians will be killed, down from 68% in 1999, the ICRC found. While the 2016 study did not break the finding down by country, in 1999, its predecessor poll found that 52% of Americans believed the US ought only attack enemy combatants, while 42% believed the US should leave civilians alone “as much as possible”.
Barry Hines, author of book behind Kes, dies Barry Hines, the author behind the film Kes, has died aged 76, prompting tributes from the worlds of literature and politics. Hines had been suffering from Alzheimer’s disease for the last nine years. His second novel, A Kestrel for a Knave, was adapted for cinema as Kes in 1969 by the director Ken Loach. Hines died on Friday. His friend, the writer and broadcaster Ian McMillan, tweeted on Sunday morning: “Very sad news: the great writer Barry Hines, creator of Barnsley’s defining myth A Kestrel for a Knave, has died. Rest in peace.” Hines wrote several novels, from his first in 1966, The Blinder, about football, to his last in 2009, This Artistic Life. He also wrote the screenplay for the TV drama Threads, which imagined a nuclear attack in Sheffield. Kes is the story of 15-year-old Billy Casper growing up in South Yorkshire and his developing relationship with a kestrel. Tony Garnett, who produced the film Kes, paid his own tribute, saying: “Kes writer Barry Hines is dead. I’m sad, thinking of my old friend, a man I loved.” On his blog, Garnett, who worked on four films with Hines, wrote: “His character and his writing were all of a piece. Direct, simple and honest. His simplicity was hewn out of a close analysis of others and their place in a society riven by class interests. “To the end, he knew which side he was on. He had been born to the sound of clogs, on their way to Rockingham pit where his father worked.” The journalist Tony Parsons described Hines as “inspirational” and Dan Jarvis, the Labour MP for Barnsley Central said he was “a brilliant writer”. Jonathan Coe, the author of What a Carve Up!, said: “A Kestrel for a Knave leaves an indelible mark on all who read it. He leaves a great legacy.” Hines went to Ecclesfield grammar school and Loughborough College of Education. He taught PE in schools in London and South Yorkshire from 1960 to 1972 and went on to become an honorary fellow at Sheffield City Polytechnic. “Barry was absolutely dedicated to writing,” said Paul Allen, a family friend, who said Hines applied himself to his career as a coalminer would have done, putting in shifts. “He kept an office for a long time at Sheffield Hallam University and he used to get up and go to the office every day. He regarded it as work. “With A Kestrel for a Knave, he was the authentic voice of the South Yorkshire Barnsley coalfield area,” said Allen. “It was a book teenage boys would read when they wouldn’t read anything else.” Later in his life, he and his wife, Eleanor, left Sheffield to live near his childhood home in Hoyland Common, near Barnsley. He told the Yorkshire Post in 2007 that one of his favourite places to go was the local working men’s club. “When I came back to live here I walked in and the men were playing cards,” he said. “They turned round and said ‘Aw-reet?’ as if I’d never been away. I liked that. They didn’t say: ‘Oh, Barry’s come back from such-and-such a place’, they just said ‘Aw-reet?’” McMillan said Hines was a writer “who proved to me that our mucky little part of South Yorkshire was worth writing about, that the way we spoke was a kind of poetry”. He added: “He showed me that you can represent dialect on the page without losing any of its power and without turning it into a series of comic turns, and that people who spoke like me and him were capable of analytic and nuanced thinking.”
Stoke City v Leicester City, Sunderland v Watford and more: clockwatch – live! On an afternoon when Chelsea stretched their Premier League lead to nine points with their eleventh consecutive win and Leicester staged their own little pre-Chrismtas miracle by coming from a man and two goals down to mug Stoke City for a point, Sunderland were perhaps the biggest winners with a victory over Watford that moves them to two places up the table. There was misery for Hull City, who really didn’t deserve to lose against West Ham, while Swansea City found themselves on the wrong end of another hiding after shipping three goals at Middlesbrough. Meanwhile at the Hawthorns, Manchester United have taken an early lead against West Brom courtesy of Zlatan Ibrahimovic. Lawrence Ostlere’s providing minute-by-minute updates on that one, so I’ll steer you his way ... Our Dundee United correspondent has had a frustrating afternoon: “Strange second half at Starks Park,” he writes after his team’s stalemate with Raith Rovers. “Finished 0-0 but United played most of it with 10 men, from which point they completely dominated and missed a penalty. Still, the point takes up top on our own, for a couple of hours at least.” La Liga: Atletico Madrid have beaten Las Palmas by a solitary goal to earn their first win in three Spanish league games. It leaves them in fifth place, one point behind Villarreal, who were victorious over Sporting Gijon earlier today. Click on this link to see the La Liga table Celtic 2-1 Dundee, Hearts 1-1 Partick Thistle, Kilmarnock 1-1 Inverness, Ross County 2-1 Aberdeen, St Johnstone 1-1 Motherwell. Click on this link to see the Scottish Premiership table Doncaster Rovers 1-0 Grimsby Town, Accrington Stanley 0-1 Plymouth Argyle, Barnet 1-2 Stevenage, Blackpool 0-2 Luton Town, Cambridge United 2-1 Crewe Alexandra, Carlisle United 2-1 Yeovil Town, Colchester United 2-1 Notts County, Crawley Town 3-1 Newport County, Exeter City 2-0 Mansfield Town, Morecambe 1-2 Cheltenham Town, Portsmouth 0-0 Hartlepool United, Wycombe Wanderers 1-0 Leyton Orient. Click on this link to see the League Two table AFC Wimbledon 4-0 Port Vale, Bury 2-3 Oxford United, Charlton Athletic 0-2 Peterborough United, Chesterfield 1-0 Bolton Wanderers, Gillingham 1-0 MK Dons, Northampton Town 2-3 Rochdale, Oldham Athletic 0-2 Southend United, Scunthorpe United 3-0 Millwall, Shrewsbury Town 2-0 Bristol Rovers, Swindon Town 1-1 Fleetwood Town, Walsall 1-1 Bradford City Click on this link to see the League One table Blackburn Rovers 2-3 Reading, Bristol City 1-2 Preston, Burton Albion 1-2 Newcastle United, Cardiff City 3-4 Barnsley, Fulham 2-2 Derby County, Leeds 1-0 Brentford, Nottingham Forest 0-2 Wolves, Sheffield Wednesday 1-0 Rotherham, Wigan Athletic 2-3 Ipswich Town. Birmingham City v Brighton (5.30pm GMT). Click on this link to see the Championship table Championship: Cardiff City end their afternoon without a point despite their spirited comeback from 3-1 down against Barnsley to level the scores in the 89th minute. Ryan Williams pooped their party with a winner deep in added time to give the visitors all three points. At Hillsborough, Sheffield Wednesday nicked all three points against Rotherham courtesy of a late Steven Fletcher penalty. Premier League: Alvaro Negredo scored another brace as hapless Swansea City conceded three or more goals for the fourth time in five matches. Premier League: Patrick van Aanholt scored the winner after Sunderland weathered a firs-half storm to take three precious points in their annual fight against relegation. Premier League: Leicester had Jamie Vardy sent off and were two goals down, but still managed to nick a point. Premier League: Mark Noble scored from the penalty spot after Hull City hit the woodwork three times in a match they really shouldn’t have lost. Championship: Blackburn are on the verge of losing 3-2 in their third consecutive game, now that George Evans has given Reading a late lead at Ewood Park. Ouch. Championship: Cardiff City have equalised to make it 3-3 between themselves and Barnsley, while Ipswich Town lead by the odd goal of five against Wigan courtesy of a late David McGoldrick strike. At Elland Road, Leeds United have struck to go one up against Brentford. Kyle Bartley was the scorer, pouncing in the 89th minute. Premier League: Crikey! Having been 2-0 and one Jamie Vardy down with all hope looking lost, Leicester have equalised against Stoke City! Daniel Amartey has got the equaliser for the 10-man champions. Championship: It’s 2-2 between Fulham and Derby County, where Alex Pearce equalised for the visitors after 75 minutes. The Rams are looking for their eight consecutive league win today but are being forced to work hard for it. Championship: Ivan Cavaleiro doubles Wolves’ lead over Nottingham Forest at the City Ground, where it’s now 2-0 to the visitors. Meanwhile at the Cardiff City Stadium, Peter Whittingham has scored for the home side to make it Cardiff City 2-3 Barnsley. At Bristol City, Aaron Wibraham has equalised for The Robins in their match against Preston North End. It’s 1-1 at Ashton Gate. Premier League: Mark Noble breaks the deadlock at the London Stadium, scoring from the spot after Tom Huddlestone fouled Michail Antonio in the Hull penalty area. Premier League: They may be down to 10 men, but Leicester have pulled a goal back against Stoke City at the Britannia. Leonardo Ulloa keeps them in the game with a header that Ryan Shawcross couldn’t prevent from crossing the line. Referee Craig Pawson points to the device on his wrist to let everyone know technology has decreed that the goal should stand. La Liga: Atletico Madrid lead Las Palmas courtesy of Saul Niguez’s strike just before the hour. Scottish Championship: “Marvellous travelling support for [Dundee] United at Raith Rovers, must be around 3000,” writes our Tangerines correspondent. “They’ve not had too much to shout about in the first half though as it’s currently goalless.” And goalless it remains as the game goes into its final 20 minutes. Championship: Brett Pitman scores his second of the day for Ipswich Town to make it 2-2 between themselves and Wigan Athletic in what sounds like a right old ding-dong. Scottish Premiership: Niall McGinn has equalised for Aberdeen at Ross County, where the score is 1-1 between the two sides. Championship: Reading lead Blackburn 2-1 at Ewood Park, where Liam Moore gave Jaap Stam’s team the lead for the second time after 60 minutes. At Craven Cottage, Fulham have come from behind to lead to lead Derby County 2-1, while Wigan have done the same at the DW Stadium against Ipswich Town. Yannick Wildschut has got a brace for them after Brett Pitman opened the scoring for the Tractor Boys. Scottish Premiership: The champions lead Dundee 2-0 courtesy of goals from Leigh Griffiths and Nir Bitton either side of the break. Elsewhere in Scotland, St JOhnstone’s Christopher Kane has made it 1-1 between his side and Motherwell. Premier League: Marten De Roon has made it 3-0 to Middlesbrough, as Swansea City concede three or more goals for the fourth time in five matches. Premier League: After seeing Jamie Vardy sent off just before the half-hour mark, six of his 10 remaining team-mates have been booked: Danny Simpson, Islam Slimani, Andy King, Christian Fuchs, Marc Albrighton and Robert Huth have all had their names taken, while Kasper Schmeichel had to restrain Claudio Ranieri as he attempted to confront the referee at half-time. Premier League: Patrick van Aanholt puts his miss before half-time behind him to give Sunderland the lead against Watford at the Stadium of Light. He needed two attempts: his first shot was blocked, but the ball broke kindly for him to ram it in off the post for his third goal of the season. Scottish Premiership: Sean Welsh has equalised for Partick Thistle against Hearts. It’s 1-1 at Tynecastle. Premier League: Watford had Sunderland under the cosh for almost the entire first half, but couldn’t find the back of the net despite several good chances. Patrick van Aanholt missed a great chance to give Sunderland a half-time lead they wouldn’t have deserved just before the break. The home side were booed off as they went in for their half-time brew and a rollocking from David Moyes. They’ll need to up their game if they’re to take anything from this match. Our annual appeal is taking place around the corner from me here in the office, so if you have a few quid to spare and want to ring up and tell our editor Kath Viner or whoever else answers the phone how lucky they are to have me as a colleague, please do so. You don’t need to worry about me answering the phone, as I’m a mite too busy at the moment. You can also donate online by clicking on this link. You can see the Premier League latest scores up above and the rest are as follows ... Championship Blackburn Rovers 1-1 Reading, Bristol City 0-1 Preston, Burton Albion 1-2 Newcastle United, Cardiff City 1-3 Barnsley, Fulham 1-1 Derby County, Leeds 0-0 Brentford, Nottingham Forest 0-1 Wolves, Sheffield Wednesday 0-0 Rotherham, Wigan Athletic 1-1 Ipswich Town. Birmingham City v Brighton (5.30pm GMT) League One AFC Wimbledon 0-0 Port Vale, Bury 2-2 Oxford United, Charlton Athletic 0-1 Peterborough United, Chesterfield 1-0 Bolton Wanderers, Gillingham 0-0 MK Dons, Northampton Town 1-1 Rochdale, Oldham Athletic 0-1 Southend United, Scunthorpe United 2-0 Millwall, Shrewsbury Town 1-0 Bristol Rovers, Swindon Town 1-1 Fleetwood Town, Walsall 0-0 Bradford City League Two Doncaster Rovers 1-0 Grimsby Town (result), Accrington Stanley 0-0 Plymouth Argyle, Barnet 0-1 Stevenage, Blackpool 0-1 Luton Town, Cambridge United 0-0 Crewe Alexandra, Carlisle United 2-0 Yeovil Town, Colchester United 1-1 Notts County, Crawley Town 1-1 Newport County, Exeter City 1-0 Mansfield Town, Morecambe 1-0 Cheltenham Town, Portsmouth 0-0 Hartlepool United, Wycombe Wanderers 0-0 Leyton Orient Scottish Premiership Celtic 1-0 Dundee, Hearts 1-0 Partick Thistle, Kilmarnock 0-0 Inverness, Ross County 1-0 Aberdeen, St Johnstone 0-1 Motherwell Premier League: It’s 2-0 to the home side at the Britannia, where Stoke City lead 10-man Leicester as the players troop in for half-time. Joe Allen was the player who doubled Stoke’s lead. Championship: Barnsley lead the Welsh side 3-1 after Josh Scowen extended their lead. At the City Ground, Helder Costa has given Wolves the lead against Nottingham Forest. At Craven Cottage, Floyd Ayite has equalised for Fulham in their match against Derby County. Premier League: Down to 10 men after Jamie Vardy’s dismissal, Leicester City are now behind at Stoke. Bojan scored from the spot after 39 minutes. Danny Simpson was the culprit, getting penalised and booked for a hand-ball in the penalty area. Scottish Premiership latest: Celtic 0-0 Dundee, Hearts 1-0 Partick Thistle, Kilmarnock 0-0 Inverness, Ross County 1-0 Aberdeen, St Johnstone 0-1 Motherwell. Championship: Mo Diame has put Newcastle back in front against Burton Albion at the Pirelli Stadium, while Sam Winnall hass scored again to put Barnsley ahead at Cardiff City, where the score is 2-1. At Craven Cottage, Derby County have taken the lead against Fulham with a Tom Ince goal. At the DW Stadium it’s 1-1 now that Wigan have equalised against Ipswich Town. Premier League: Alvaro Negredo has scored his second of the afternoon to put Boro two up against Swansea City. This one came from the penalty spot after a Jordi Amat foul on Adam Forshaw. Premier League: Leicester City striker Jamie Vardy has been sent off for a two-footed lunge on Mame Biram Diouf after 28 minutes. He can put his feet up for Christmas. Championship: Preston lead Bristol City 1-0 courtesy of Simon Makienok. Premier League: Dieumerci Mbokani has blown a great opportunity to put Hull City ahead against West Ham after finding himself in a one-on-one with Darren Randolph. The West Ham goalkeeper has also just saved well from a Harry Maguire header. Maguire was attempting to score from a Robert Snodgrass corner. Championship: Lloyd Dyer has made it all square at the Pirelli Stadium, where Burton had been losing against the league leaders. In other equaliser news, Barnsley’s Sam Winnall has made it 1-1 in the match between his side and Cardiff City. Premier League: No Premier League team has scored fewer goals this season, but Middlesbrough have chalked up another one in the credit column. Alvaro Negredo has scored on the back of an Adam Clayton assist. League One: Bury and Oxford United have scored a goal apiece at Gigg Lane, while Swindon Town lead Fleetwood Town 1-0. Elsewhere, Louis Dodds has given Shrewsbury a one-goal lead over Bristol Rovers and Northampton lead Rochdale 1-0 at Sixfields courtesy of a splendid Matt Taylor free-kick. Championship: Dwight Gayle scores his 17th of the season with a near post flick after getting on the end of a good cross from Matt Ritchie. It’s Burton Albion 0-1 Newcastle United. Premier League: Hull City goalkeeper has been down for an extended spell getting treatment on a groin injury. He’s struggling on manfully, but can’t kick the ball properly. He’ll do well to continue for much longer. Championship: We’ve had another goal in the second tier, where Ipswich Town have taken the lead against Wigan Athletic at the DW Stadium. Brett Pitman was the scorer with a contentious penalty. Cardiff City 1-0 Barnsley: Sean Morrison has put Cardiff a goal up against Barnsley. A heavy touch from Dwight Gayle has ruined a good chance for the striker to put Newcastle a goal up against Burton Albion. The home side’s goalkeeper Jon McLaughlin was quick off his line to foil the striker after he’d miscontrolled a Jonjo Shelvey ball over the top. At the Stadium of Light, Nordin Amrabat has gone close for Watford, bringing a smart save out of Sunderland’s Jordan Pickford. Meanwhile at the Riverside Stadium, a poor first touch from Mo Barrow has cost him a goalscoring opportunity for Swansea City. Annan Athletic score the first goal of the 3pm kick-offs in their match at Stirling Albion. Max Wright did the honours from the penalty spot in the first minute. The last of the pre-match formalities have taken place, the referees’ whistles have peeped shrilly and matches have started. Where will we get the first goal? Premier League: Dominic Fifield was our man peering into the mist from the Selhurst Park press box and while he warms himself up with a post-match brew while waiting for the press conferences of Antonio Conte and Alan Pardew, you can read his on-the-whistle report here. “Just arrived in Kirkcaldy for Scotland’s game of the day as joint leaders Dundee United visit Raith Rovers, the Tannadice men looking to stretch their unbeaten run to 13 games and go clear at the top before Hibs play Morton in the tea-time kickoff,” he writes in an email. “Elsewhere in the Scottish Championship its Queen of the South v Dunfermline and Dumbarton v Falkirk. In the Scottish Premiership, relegation threatened Dundee face runaway leaders Celtic in Glasgow and will probably consider anything less than a three goal defeat a moral victory. Ross County welcome Aberdeen and it’s Hearts v Partick Thistle and Kilmarnock v Inverness. In Scottish League One its first (Livingston) v second (Airdrie) and in Scottish League Two Cowdenbeath host leaders Forfar.” So now we all know - here’s hoping that having whetted the collective appetite for fitba, Simon will keep us posted on events at Stark’s Park. The champions’ goalkeeper returns between the post for the first time since November 2, when he broke his hand in a Champions League match against FC Copenhagen. Premier League: Chelsea make it 11 wins in a row courtesy of Diego Costa’s fiftieth goal for the club. They go nine points clear at the top of the table, while Crystal Palace remain fifth from bottom. Andros Townsend could have equalised with a free-kick just outside the Chelsea penalty area at the death, but fired his effort comically high to leave Alan Pardew looking very crestfallen indeed. It remains 1-0 in south London, where Diego Costa’s headed goal just before half-time continues to separate the sides. Crystal Palace have been on the ropes for most of the second half and Marcos Alonso has had two good chances, while Ngolo Kante brought a good save out of Wayne Hennessy. They’re in added time now and you can follow the knockings of that one with Lawrence Ostlere’s minute-by-minute report. The Sunderland manager sounds thoroughly fed up with life at the Stadium of Light, where it seems the club can’t even afford to bring in a loan player in the January transfer window. “Managing Sunderland always had an appeal to me but, if I’d known about the financial situation, I’d have needed to look at it in a different way,” he said. “I’d have had to have thought a lot more about taking the job. I didn’t see us having no money in January. I’m disappointed I won’t be able to do some work in January and build on what we’ve done so far.” West Ham: Randolph, Kouyate, Reid, Ogbonna, Antonio, Noble, Obiang, Cresswell, Lanzini, Payet, Carroll. Subs: Nordtveit, Feghouli, Adrian, Ayew, Fletcher, Fernandes, Quina. Hull: Marshall, Maguire, Dawson, Davies, Elmohamady, Livermore, Huddlestone, Clucas, Robertson, Snodgrass, Mbokani. Subs: Meyler, Maloney, Jakupovic, Weir, Diomande, Henriksen, Bowen. Referee: Lee Mason (Lancashire) Middlesbrough: Valdes, Barragan, Chambers, Gibson, Da Silva, Forshaw, Clayton, de Roon, Ramirez, Negredo, Fischer. Subs: Friend, Bernardo, Leadbitter, Rhodes, Guzan, Downing, Traore. Swansea: Fabianski, Rangel, Mawson, Amat, Taylor, Fulton, Britton, Barrow, Sigurdsson, Routledge, Llorente. Subs: van der Hoorn, Fer, Borja Baston, Nordfeldt, Montero, Naughton. Referee: Neil Swarbrick (Lancashire) Sunderland: Pickford, Love, Denayer, Djilobodji, Van Aanholt, Ndong, Kone, Januzaj, Anichebe, Defoe, Borini. Subs: Mannone, Larsson, Khazri, O’Shea, Ethan Robson, Asoro, Honeyman. Watford: Gomes, Zuniga, Kaboul, Prodl, Britos, Holebas, Amrabat, Behrami, Capoue, Deeney, Ighalo. Subs: Success, Cathcart, Guedioura, Sinclair, Janmaat, Kabasele, Pantilimon. Referee: Robert Madley (West Yorkshire) Stoke: Grant, Johnson, Shawcross, Martins Indi, Pieters, Imbula, Whelan, Diouf, Allen, Krkic, Walters. Subs: Bony, Adam, Shaqiri, Given, Crouch, Sobhi, Ngoy. Leicester: Schmeichel, Simpson, Morgan, Huth, Fuchs, Mahrez, Amartey, King, Albrighton, Slimani, Vardy. Subs: Chilwell, Musa, Okazaki, Zieler, Gray, Ulloa, Mendy. Referee: Craig Pawson (South Yorkshire) La Liga: Goals from Jonathan dos Santos, Nicola Sansone and Alexandre Pato have helped Villarreal to secure a 3-1 away victory over Sporting Gijon at the Estadio El Molinón. Carlos Carmona popped up wiuth a late consolation for the home side there. The win keeps Villarreal in fourth place, one point behind Sevilla, while Sporting remain in the relegation zone. Huddersfield Town beat Norwich City at Carrow Road last night to consign the Canaries to their seventh defeat in nine matches, but Alex Neil was defiant afterwards and stated he would not be giving up his job despite calls for his head. Championship Blackburn Rovers v Reading, Bristol City v Preston, Burton Albion v Newcastle United, Cardiff City v Barnsley, Fulham v Derby County, Leeds v Brentford, Nottingham Forest v Wolves, Sheffield Wednesday v Rotherham, Wigan Athletic v Ipswich Town. Birmingham City v Brighton kicks off at 5.30pm (GMT). League One AFC Wimbledon v Port Vale, Bury v Oxford United, Charlton Athletic v Peterborough United, Chesterfield v Bolton Wanderers, Gillingham v MK Dons, Northampton Town v Rochdale, Oldham Athletic v Southend United, Scunthorpe United v Millwall, Shrewsbury Town v Bristol Rovers, Swindon Town v Fleetwood Town, Walsall v Bradford City League Two Doncaster Rovers v Grimsby Town, Accrington Stanley v Plymouth Argyle, Barnet v Stevenage, Blackpool v Luton Town, Cambridge United v Crewe Alexandra, Carlisle United v Yeovil Town, Colchester United v Notts County, Crawley Town v Newport County, Exeter City v Mansfield Town, Morecambe v Cheltenham Town, Portsmouth v Hartlepool United, Wycombe Wanderers v Leyton Orient. Scottish Premiership Celtic v Dundee, Hearts v Partick Thistle, Kilmarnock v Inverness, Ross County v Aberdeen, St Johnstone v Motherwell Crystal Palace and Chelsea got the weekend’s Premier League action started, with the south London side entertaining the league leaders at Selhurst Park in a match that kicked off at lunchtime. Chelsea are looking for their 11th consecutive Premier League win and it’s currently scoreless have just taken the lead through Diego Costa as they approach half-time. You can follow the rest of that match with Lawrence Ostlere’s minute-by-minute report. We’ve got four Premier League matches kicking off at 3pm (GMT) (other time zones are available) today, with a further nine getting underway at the same time in the Championship. We’ll bring you news of all the goals and major talking points as we get it, while simultaneously keeping an eye on the action in League One and League and north of the border in Scotland. Over in Spain, Atletico Madrid entertain Las Palmas this afternoon, while there’s plenty of Bundesliga action in Germany too. Finally, if you’re feeling charitable, you could pick up the phone and make a donation to the and charity appeal, with all monies raised going to help refugee children. You can also donate online if – heaven forfend – you don’t fancy speaking to a journalist.
Genius review – Colin Firth and Jude Law's literary bromance needs an edit Red pencils at the ready. This one needs a going over. Shot in musty sepia, dragged in and out of baffling slow motion, Genius is a story about editing that packs a lot of padding. The first film from theatre director Michael Grandage, it’s a biopic about literary editor Max Perkins and his client, Thomas Wolfe. It features a performance of vaudevillian gusto by Jude Law as the author. Colin Firth is – in his measured way – equally as hammy playing Perkins. Unlike many writers, who have to dig for every word, Wolfe didn’t know when to stop. He had a wild talent that needed taming. Only Perkins, who had already honed the work of Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway, understood how to subdue the author’s 5,000-page manuscripts into market-ready books. On the way to producing Look Homeward, Angel (1929) and Of Time and the River (1935), they argued over every syllable. Their tumultuous working relationship (Wolfe was insecure that his talent was worthless without Perkins) shrouded a friendship that was often – for Perkins’s wife (a nothing part for Laura Linney) and Wolfe’s lover, theatre designer Aline Bernstein (Nicole Kidman) – exclusionary. Here they are – inspiration and its moderator – chipping away at the meaning of great art. Outside the window, depression-era New York falls to pieces. Perkins shapes the work of “an ugly lump of Carolina clay” (Wolfe’s words, or an approximation of them) into something beautiful, while Wolfe introduces the staid family man to the abandon of the jazz age. It all sounds extremely exciting, but through a combination of grating performances and unadventurous production design, Genius becomes a trundle. Wolfe wanted to write America. His exotic ramblings about its rhythms and flows would go on to inspire the Beat generation. Yet it’s difficult to see how the vision presented here would inspire more than a pamphlet. Grandage’s New York is mostly the publisher’s offices, Wolfe’s apartment, and the Perkins suburban family home. There’s no sense of the excitement that sparked Wolfe’s imagination. In one scene, the duo stride up from the docks into New York’s bustle and hum. I swear I saw the green screen curtain the production crew had rigged, to give the small set a sense of grandeur, twitch in the breeze. There would be nothing wrong with telling the story to scale, if Law’s performance didn’t trample over any sense of subtlety. His Wolfe is a table-slapping, foot-stamping, hell-dodging horn dog and the film can hardly hold him. He drags Perkins up to Harlem to introduce him to life. The jazz club is fairly swinging with hip cats and gorgeous harlots, all delighted to see these two white boys join in the fun. It’s like a Disneyland version of the era, with Firth and Law stuffed into the outsized costumes of literary greats. Your ticket price includes a ride with Hemingway (Dominic West) and Fitzgerald (Guy Pearce), as well as ample time with Kidman’s viper-eyed take on Bernstein, who – with some justification – was jealous of Perkins for distracting Wolfe from her. Hemingway thinks Wolfe’s work is bullshit. Fitzgerald, blocked and desperate to write, just shelters himself and his fragile wife Zelda (Vanessa Kirby) from the verbal storm. As in Midnight in Paris, these titans don’t really carry any dramatic weight. They’re just here to show face, then fold back into the history books. There’s been talk of Genius hacking its way into the running for next year’s Oscar race. I still wouldn’t put it past it. It taps into the legend of great art, upper-casing the personalities and trimming away the boring hard work. The platonic romance between Max and Tom shaped the books, but Genius doesn’t really explain the talents of either, it just relies on you to accept them. The ride ends, having taken an awful lot of time, and far too many words, to get there.
Don't demonise those who help others avoid tax legally As the revelations in the Panama papers continue to make ever greater waves across the world, we must ask how those bankers, accountants and lawyers who help rich people and large corporations avoid taxes can live with themselves. The best clue is found in an email sent by one Mossack Fonseca employee: “Is there any kind of indemnity that stop[s] us as employees of Mossack Fonseca from being prosecuted? We are getting a bit worried.” For four years I have been interviewing bankers and financial professionals in London, Amsterdam, Frankfurt and Tokyo, and if you want to know the moral outlook of people in finance today this email tells you all you need to know. The bankers’ own term for that outlook is “amoral” and they all insist that this is fundamentally different from immoral. The latter is what the Wolf of Wall Street does: get rich by knowingly selling other people shares in companies that do not exist. This, financial professionals will tell you, is immoral: you deliberately break the law. Amoral, by contrast, is to take the law as your ethical framework and say: “If what I do is not illegal, then I must be innocent”. Talk to the “structurers” who, until 2008, built ever more complex instruments with ever more worthless US mortgages in them, and you hear them resorting to amorality. Speak to the salespeople who sold unsuspecting German banks, Swedish municipalities or Italian pension funds derivatives that they knew their clients did not understand, and you will hear similar justifications. It is the same when you listen to those bankers and lawyers offering “tax-efficient solutions” allowing “high net-worth individuals” to pay almost no tax within the law. As prime minister David Cameron was struggling to distance himself from his father’s “tax vehicle”, the US president Barack Obama nailed it when he said: “The problem is that a lot of this stuff is legal, not illegal.” It gets worse. Many ordinary citizens now fuming about the industrial scale at which banks and other big financial firms engage in tax avoidance do not realise that, every month, many of us are paying into a pension fund that in all likelihood is acting just as amorally. When pension funds invest on the stock market they seek out the best returns. This means they tell the CEOs of corporations to make as much profit as possible, because otherwise the pension fund will shift to their competitors. When your insurer invests your premium in order to be able to pay out should you file a claim, it is doing the same: finding the corporations that make the most profit. Now, what do you expect those corporations – banks among them – to do? They see an opportunity to make a lot of profit by offering “tax-optimising services” to clients. If they do not offer them, their competitors will. As long as those services are legal, how is it possible to stop them? This is why the way forward is not to ostracise and demonise individual bankers or even banks. It is, first, to change the law so “all this stuff” – in Obama’s words – becomes illegal. The second step is to prosecute those bankers breaking the law – and not just the grunts at the coalface but those at the top. CEOs who demand to be paid tens of millions as “compensation” for bearing the “responsibility” for their companies should be held fully accountable if those companies break the law. This was a point made by many of the professionals I have interviewed: if you want us to behave differently, stop waving your fist in powerless anger but change the incentives embedded in the law. Yes, they would concede, there are powerful, well paid, well connected and well placed brains constantly working out new ways to avoid tax. Activists, however, will tell you that there is still a lot of low hanging fruit waiting to be picked.
Letter: Giorgio Gomelsky’s club brought blues stars to Croydon Giorgio Gomelsky had a rarely mentioned R&B club in Croydon called Crawdaddy, linking with groups at his Richmond Crawdaddy club and featuring Gary Farr and the T-Bones as house band. Memorably, Giorgio booked the American blues musician T-Bone Walker, who claimed to have invented the electric guitar and played in a distinctive style, holding his electric acoustic guitar almost horizontally while playing. Sonny Boy Williamson also played there, wearing a striking grey-and-black quartered suit and a bowler hat.
Liverpool and Chelsea reap Premier League rewards of European absence Time does not really stand still during international breaks, it just tends to feel that way because a fortnight is a ludicrously long pause in the frantic pace of the domestic programme. A break suggests three or four days somewhere sunny. Two weeks is more like a full-blown vacation, a get-away-from-it-all escape that can have the usual holiday effect of making the return of normality seem a little strange for a while. We left the Premier League with Liverpool sitting on top, which seems a little strange in itself, and Chelsea handily placed in second. Antonio Conte does not appear to need any time to acclimatise himself to a new country after all. Along with Liverpool and Manchester City, his Chelsea side have been collecting most of the plaudits for being effective as well as entertaining this season, and it could be said of all the top three clubs that they have responded quickly to meet the high demands of their new managers. Jürgen Klopp is not quite as new as Conte and Pep Guardiola, granted, though this is his first full season. When Arsène Wenger was new to England, 20 years and two months ago, he made a favourable impression from the start but his statement achievement came the following season when Arsenal won the double. Klopp is busy telling everyone that Liverpool are not yet ready to win the league because in England there are six teams who can win it and that does not include candidates from left field such as Leicester, currently two points above the relegation positions and making last season look even more of a mirage. All the new managers say pretty much the same thing about the Premier League: there are six teams who can win it. But are there? And if so, which are the top six? Would the super sextet include Manchester United, who have lost three games already and, along with Tottenham Hotspur, appear to be finding goals hard to come by? Spurs started the season impressively and are still the only unbeaten side in the league, though they have scored exactly half the number of goals Liverpool have managed and have been held to more draws than anyone else in the table. Everton will do well to crack the top six this season, let alone finish in a Champions League spot. Ronald Koeman himself has just practically admitted as much. And immediately below Everton are Watford and Burnley, not the most obvious of title contenders, Leicester’s miracle last season notwithstanding. While Tottenham and United cannot be discounted at this early stage, they both seem to be struggling with the demands of European competition. Spurs are finding their group a challenge and playing at Wembley perhaps an even bigger one, and disappointing results in Europe tend to have an adverse effect on league form. United are rediscovering that too. They have not been convincing in the Europa League, and for a club of their stature under-performing in the lesser Uefa event amounts to the worst of all worlds. José Mourinho does not really want to be in that competition, he made that clear from the outset, but from that position there are two possible escape routes. One is to embrace it and try to secure a Champions League berth by winning it, as Liverpool came so close to doing last season. The other is to engineer an early exit so as to be able to concentrate on the domestic league. Many thought Mourinho would do the latter, indeed he sounded as if he would, though a club of United’s rich European tradition cannot easily opt out of sell-out nights at Old Trafford and their new manager knows he has to be careful not to confirm some of the preconceptions surrounding his appointment. Yet United are not forging ahead at home or abroad, and as long as they are involved in the Thursday-Sunday routine they seem unlikely to catch up with the standards being set at the top of the table. It is probably no accident that Liverpool and Chelsea are flying so high because they are both free of European commitments this season. Klopp and Conte insist they would rather be in Europe than out of it. But for a manager getting his feet under the table at a new club in a new country, a streamlined season must simplify matters considerably. Wenger keeping his side in the Champions League on a permanent basis while consistently maintaining a challenge at home might suggest otherwise, though it has not exactly gone unnoticed that Arsenal’s story for quite a long time now has been one of plateaus rather than peaks. Manchester City are a different story again, for while they predictably stalled against Middlesbrough to lose top spot after the emotional high of beating Barcelona, in the long run the confidence and capability Guardiola seems able to inject can only stand the club in good stead in the league. However many credible title contenders the Premier League really boasts, City must be counted among their number. As must Liverpool and Chelsea, by virtue of their present positions and the absence of European distractions. Arsenal remain a puzzle. They have topped their Champions League group without too much difficulty and are level on points with City in the league, but why should this season finish any differently than the previous dozen? Perhaps we will know more once Premier League hostilities resume, for the early kick-off on Saturday takes Arsenal to Old Trafford, and when Mourinho meets Wenger hostility is generally in the air somewhere. Arsenal have not won in the league at United for 10 years, so long ago that Emmanuel Adebayor scored the winning goal. Since that meeting Wenger has been sent to the stands (2009), witnessed an 8-2 beating (2011) and even had to endure the sight of Robin van Persie earning David Moyes’s side the points in 2013, though this will be his first time in the house of pain with Mourinho sitting in the opposite dugout. The challenge facing the United manager should not be underestimated either. Mourinho cannot afford a fourth defeat before Christmas, especially against a side United normally beat. There was a time when United v Arsenal would automatically be billed as a title decider, regardless of the stage of the season when it took place. Those days are gone, there are other teams in the mix now, but Old Trafford next Saturday still might tell us something. Like how close to the mix either side really is.
Obama expels 35 Russian diplomats in retaliation for US election hacking The Obama administration on Thursday announced its retaliation for Russian efforts to interfere with the US presidential election, ordering sweeping new sanctions that included the expulsion of 35 Russians. US intelligence services believe Russia ordered cyber-attacks on the Democratic National Committee (DNC), Hillary Clinton’s campaign and other political organizations, in an attempt to influence the election in favor of the Republican candidate, Donald Trump. In a statement issued two weeks after the president said he would respond to cyber-attacks by Moscow “at a time and place of our choosing”, Obama said Americans should “be alarmed by Russia’s actions” and pledged further action. “I have issued an executive order that provides additional authority for responding to certain cyber activity that seeks to interfere with or undermine our election processes and institutions, or those of our allies or partners,” Obama said in the statement, released while he was vacationing with his family in Hawaii. “Using this new authority, I have sanctioned nine entities and individuals: the GRU and the FSB, two Russian intelligence services; four individual officers of the GRU; and three companies that provided material support to the GRU’s cyber operations. “In addition, the secretary of the treasury is designating two Russian individuals for using cyber-enabled means to cause misappropriation of funds and personal identifying information.” He also announced the closure of two Russian compounds in the US. Obama added that more actions would be taken, “some of which will not be publicized”. On Thursday, Trump, who has previously dismissed reports of Russian interference in the election, said in a statement: “It’s time for our country to move on to bigger and better things.” He added, however, that “in the interest of our country and its great people, I will meet with leaders of the intelligence community next week in order to be updated on the facts of this situation.” In a conference call with reporters, senior White House officials said the president-elect’s transition team was informed of the sanctions before they were announced on Thursday. Trump and Obama spoke on Wednesday, they said. The officials added that the actions were a necessary response to “very disturbing Russian threats to US national security”. “There has to be a cost and a consequence for what Russia has done,” a senior administration official said. “It is in a extraordinary step for them to interfere in the democratic process here in the United States of America. There needs to be a price for that.” In Moscow, a Putin spokesman said Russia regretted the new sanctions and would consider retaliatory measures. Diplomatic expulsions are normally met with exactly reciprocal action. In this case, however, Moscow may pause for thought. With Trump, who has spoken positively about Russia and Vladimir Putin, just three weeks away from the White House, Russia may feel it is inadvisable to kick out 35 US diplomats. However, Russian authorities on Thursday ordered the Anglo-American School of Moscow closed, according to CNN, citing a US official briefed on the matter. The school serves children of US, British and Canadian embassy personnel, and would effectively make a Russian posting difficult for US diplomats with families. Konstantin Kosachyov, chairman of the international affairs committee in the upper house of the Russian parliament, was quoted by the RIA news agency as saying the US move represented “the death throes of political corpses”. The Twitter feed of the Russian embassy in London, meanwhile, called the Obama administration “hapless” and attached a picture of a duck with the word “LAME” emblazoned across it. On the White House call, officials were asked about the prospect of Trump overturning the sanctions. They acknowledged that a future president could reverse course but warned against such an “inadvisable” step. “We have no reason to believe that Russia’s activities will cease,” a senior official said. “One reason why I think it is necessary to sustain these actions is because there’s every reason to believe Russia will interfere with future US elections.” On Capitol Hill, Democrats applauded the president’s action, called for further measures and emphasized bipartisan support for a thorough investigation into Russian hacking. “I hope the incoming Trump administration, which has been far too close to Russia throughout the campaign and transition, won’t think for one second about weakening these new sanctions or our existing regime,” incoming Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement. “Both parties ought to be united in standing up to Russian interference in our elections, to their cyber attacks, their illegal annexation of Crimea and other extra-legal interventions.” Ben Cardin, the top Democrat on the Senate foreign relations committee, called for further sanctions from the new Congress when it convenes in January. GOP leaders were quick to frame the new sanctions as too little, too late. “While today’s action by the administration is overdue,” House speaker Paul Ryan said in a statement, “it is an appropriate way to end eight years of failed policy with Russia. And it serves as a prime example of this administration’s ineffective foreign policy that has left America weaker in the eyes of the world.” Republican senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham, two of Russia’s fiercest critics, echoed Ryan but also called for tough Congressional sanctions. “Ultimately, [the sanctions] are a small price for Russia to pay for its brazen attack on American democracy,” the two men said in a joint statement. “We intend to lead the effort in the new Congress to impose stronger sanctions on Russia.” The 35 Russian diplomats being expelled are “intelligence operatives”, Obama said. The state department has declared them “persona non grata” and they will be given 72 hours to leave the country. Starting on Friday at noon, the White House said, Russia will be denied access to compounds in Maryland and New York that have been used for intelligence-related purposes. A statement from the state department said the diplomatic expulsions were a response not only to hacking but to “a pattern of harassment of our diplomats overseas, that has increased over the last four years, including a significant increase in the last 12 months”. The statement said the harassment has included “arbitrary police stops, physical assault, and the broadcast on state TV of personal details about our personnel that put them at risk”. For some time, US diplomats in Russia have anecdotally reported being followed and harassed by police. In June, a US diplomat was wrestled to the ground by a policeman as he scrambled to get inside the embassy. Russian authorities said the man was a CIA agent operating under diplomatic cover.
German neuroscientist also told to leave UK after residency rejection Sam Schwarzkopf, a German neuroscientist living in the UK, contacted the after it published the story of Monique Hawkins. He said he had a similar experience at the hands of the Home Office to Hawkins, a Dutch woman who was told to make preparations to leave the UK after she applied for British citizenship following the EU referendum. This was despite her living in the UK for 24 years and having two children with her British husband. Schwarzkopf said: “I am a German citizen who moved to the UK in 1999 to study neuroscience at Cardiff University, both my undergraduate degree and my PhD. After I got my PhD in 2007, I decided to remain in the UK to work. I am now married to a British woman and am a faculty member at University College London. “I originally applied for that permanent residence document in March 2016 because it is necessary for a British citizenship application. “In June, one week before the referendum, my application was rejected. The reason was that I hadn’t included my passport in the application, only a legally certified colour copy. This rejection letter contained the phrase that I ‘should now make preparations to leave’ the UK. “I was pretty pissed off at that moment, so I wrote a couple of complaint letters including [one] to the then home secretary Theresa May (she never got back to me). “Just to be clear, I don’t think that was anything more than a mistake on the part of the Home Office. They simply use these standard letters. “But it is also quite outrageous. Under current rules, EU/EEA [European Economic Area] nationals automatically gain permanent residence after five years (provided certain criteria are met at least). The PR document I applied for doesn’t give me permanent residence rights, it simply confirms them. So it really should be a formality. But the Home Office seems to want to make it excessively difficult for people. “The rejection letter actually acknowledged that I had a German passport. It said that they couldn’t verify my nationality from a photocopy because they can be fabricated. That’s fair enough, but you might think they practice some assumption of innocence until proven guilty of passport forgery. “But I would also have fully accepted if they had simply told me to reapply and include the passport this time. However, telling me to leave the country even though it should be blatantly obvious that in all likelihood I actually am an EU citizen is just offensive, and more importantly it also directly violates free movement rights. “My MP got involved in this, writing letters to the Home Office, and this was very helpful. At first they explained that this was simply the way they write their rejection letters, but eventually someone wrote back with an apology. More importantly, they said they would take this issue on board and consider changing the phrasing. From the story in the , it sounds that at least so far they haven’t changed it yet.”
Who do you think should be Conservative leader? David Cameron’s swift resignation means the Conservatives require a new leader. The parliamentary Tory party has moved quickly to set up the contest - nominations for the role open on Thursday, with the intention that a new leader should be in place by September. Speed is of the essence, given the victor will need to negotiate Britain’s post-Brexit future and - potentially - a general election. Jeremy Hunt is the latest to weigh up a Tory leadership challenge, while George Osborne has ruled himself out. Boris Johnson and Theresa May are set to launch their official leadership bids with speeches later in the week. We’d like to hear from Conservative voters and members on who they think should be the next leader of the party. Which candidate has the best chance of bringing the party back together, and guiding the country through the myriad economic and political consequences of Brexit? Let us know by filling out the form below, and we’ll put together an article highlighting your arguments and reasoning.
Didier Drogba's Chelsea return on hold as he stays with Montreal Impact Didier Drogba’s mooted return to Chelsea remains on hold after he tweeted his intention to stay with his current club, Montreal Impact, for the time being. Drogba had held talks with Chelsea about returning to Stamford Bridge in a coaching capacity, saying he had a “desire to help” his former club, who have struggled in the Premier League this season. But on Sunday, he said he was returning for pre-season training with Montreal: Chelsea’s interim manager, Guus Hiddink, also confirmed that Drogba’s immediate future was in MLS, although he did not rule out a move for the Ivorian in the future. “In the short-term, yes [Drogba will not return],” said Hiddink. “But in the longer term we talked about players of a big influence or big image for this club, they are welcome. There is no time issue on this. I wish him all the best now for one of his last seasons.” Drogba had a prolific spell at Impact last season, scoring 12 goals in 14 appearances as the team reached the MLS Eastern Conference semi-finals.
The world regards Australia's healthcare system as one of the best. It's time we realised why It was nearing a weekend when I inherited the care of a distressed elderly man. The hospital bed had been pushed against the wall to guard against falls. His hair was plastered in sweat and his limbs jerked involuntarily as he mumbled incoherently. He looked tired, uncomfortable and dehydrated and he was incapable of providing a history although the differential diagnosis ranged from delirium to an unrecognized surgical emergency. Mostly, what struck me was that he had unalleviated distress. I found his wife standing helplessly in a corner. Despite her stress she spoke calmly and was intelligent and thorough. Combating frustration and tears, she related the story of the past few weeks. He had been admitted to a private hospital for surgery and had failed to thrive post-operatively. There were complications including an infection and then slowly, he had stopped eating and drinking, become more confused and occasionally aggressive. A parade of doctors came past but the patient continued to deteriorate until his wife was told that the best place for him was a public hospital because the private hospital couldn’t manage his disruptive behaviour. Wary of his two private hospital transfers and now a third move, she agreed out of sheer hopelessness. It took me over an hour to piece the story together, which she concluded thus: “I think they turned us out when he got too hard for them.” Since there was no medical transfer note, I could hardly judge, but on that Thursday afternoon I said the most important things she needed to hear. I promised her that we would look after her husband. I told her that we would monitor his distress, settle his agitation, call in our geriatrician, involve our psychiatrist and get to the bottom of his problem. I promised to find him a quiet, single room, with one experienced nurse who would provide continuity of care and protect him from unnecessary intrusions. And I promised her that her husband was safe. At this, she burst into tears, unable to contain the mix of exhaustion, adrenaline and fear that had been driving her to increasing levels of despair. I told her that I had complete confidence in the ability of my public hospital to deliver on my promises. On Friday, the patient had deteriorated and in further discussion with his wife it became obvious that his agitation and decline over the past few weeks had signalled the end of life. He didn’t need an MRI, bloods, a geriatrician or a psychiatrist. He certainly didn’t need a locked ward to prevent him from harm. What he needed was first dignified, compassionate end of life care. Again, I promised her we would deliver and we did. By Sunday, he had died. After the trauma of her ordeal, his wife expressed gratitude for her final memory of him – clean, calm and peaceful. If you think this incident pits the merits of private hospitals against public ones, I could just as easily flip the scenarios and describe any number of woeful accounts of the public hospital system betraying the trust of patients. For the record, private hospitals generally serve patients well but the Australian public hospital system does not deserve anywhere near the level of disdain and invective that it attracts. Last week I heard an influential radio announcer publicly question why anyone would ever choose to be treated in the public system – it was not merely ungenerous, it was frankly irresponsible. Our public system is a magnet for the best minds who seek to work in collaboration with their peers to advance medicine. While private medicine rewards doctors with a fee for service, public hospitals, especially the large academic centres, nurture talent and fuel innovation, discovery and ultimately, life-changing treatments. Safer chemotherapy and transplants; ingenious skin grafts for burns treatment; lithium for mania; airway support for sleep apnoea; foetal ultrasound; the link between how a baby sleeps and sudden infant death syndrome – these are just some of the things that research and collaboration within the public health system has engendered. But that’s cutting edge stuff, you say. How does the public hospital system serve me, the average patient, when I break a hip, suffer an arrest, have a seizure or find a lump in my breast? As most healthcare insiders will attest, if you are seriously ill your best best is the local emergency department. Your public hospital is the only place where the first question isn’t about your level of cover but the nature of your problem. It’s the only place with doctors available around the clock. Not just on the phone, but there to see you, in person. After decades in the public system I still experience a little thrill each time I am able to call the brightest minds at the side of a patient who can’t afford his groceries, let alone a private cardiologist. That broadcaster scoffed that public hospital patients couldn’t even speak to their doctors because of a lack of interpreters. It made patients look silly and doctors, derelict, he said. Where I work, nearly 60% of the patient population can’t speak English. On any given day, I need a Dari, Khmer, Arabic, Hungarian and Macedonian interpreter. No, they are not on tap but they are easily booked. Mind you, no private hospital houses a Tagalog or Pashto interpreter either! But why would it? The people who need these interpreters inevitably wash up at the shores of their public hospital. If the private hospital queues for some interventions are shorter, there is little concordance between having an expensive treatment and a good outcome. No critically ill patient I have met really cares about the plushness of the carpet or the provenance of the art – such frivolities are never to be equated with the essence of medicine, which is to provide sound healthcare, with efficiency, dignity and compassion. It’s fallacious to suggest that this aspiration is exclusive to one hospital system, private or public. Having experienced global healthcare systems, I have yet to come upon a perfect one. Of course, we must address the problems that beset healthcare but lambasting the entire public hospital system is an ill-conceived way of inspiring change. At best, it disillusions patients, at worst, it compromises their care. Always in the eye of another storm, working in the public hospital system can seem like a Sisyphean task whether you are an orderly or an oncologist. But we stay because we are sustained by a fundamental belief that the true measure of a society is how it looks after its weakest. Medicine speaks to us as a vocation, not a mere job. The outside world regards the Australian healthcare system as a jewel in our crown. It’s time we realised why.
BA adds superfast Wi-Fi to its transatlantic checklist British Airways passengers will be able to stream films on transatlantic flights from next year after the airline’s owners, IAG, announced a deal to install what it claims will be the fastest Wi-Fi in the air. While BA has lagged behind competitors in providing Wi-Fi on its flights, Willie Walsh, the IAG chief executive, said technological advances have vindicated the decision to wait. No decision has been taken on the cost to passengers but Walsh hinted it was likely to be free for basic browsing with charges for a faster service allowing downloads and video streaming. The technology would in theory allow Skype or Facetime conversations, though they are likely to be blocked to avoid annoying other passengers. The Wi-Fi will be provided by Gogo, a Chicago-based aircraft communications firm that has rolled out web access for US domestic flights, including Delta’s 6,000-plane fleet, largely via ground-to-air networks. It said the average price for US flyers was typically around $13 (£8) an hour for fast internet. The latest “2ku” technology employs satellites, with more compact and aerodynamic antennae on planes than previous versions, lowering the operating costs in terms of fuel burn for airlines. The terms of the deal were not disclosed but with BA looking to fit out 118 planes, as well as four from Aer Lingus and 15 from Iberia, IAG’s investment in Wi-Fi with Gogo is thought to reach tens of millions of pounds per year. BA’s British rival Virgin Atlantic and its US part-owners Delta are rolling out similar satellite Wi-Fi with Gogo, though the capacity of the modems on IAG’s planes at 70Mbps would allow more passengers to have fast internet access, a Gogo spokesman said. AeroMexico already has the system in operation. Walsh said: “We believe this will be the fastest Wi-Fi in the air. You can have everyone on board using multiple devices and streaming. There’s nothing more frustrating for a passenger than being told it’s there and you’re waiting there with your screen to upload or refresh. “Given the global scale we have we needed something to guarantee connectivity right across the network.” IAG said 90% of its long-haul fleet will have fast Wi-Fi by 2019, many retrofitted, while new A350s on order will have the antenna built in. Walsh said: “The key concern we had was making sure that the technology was mature enough. If you start drilling holes in an aircraft you want to make sure it’s going to be there permanently and going to work.” He added that he had learned from personal experience in buying a Betamax video player decades ago, before it was supplanted by VHS. “A few airlines, I wouldn’t say they panicked, but to get in the game they got technology quickly which they are now having to change.” Fast Wi-Fi could likely see the eventual end of wired-in seat-back entertainment on planes, Walsh said, with passengers preferring to stream as they would at home. But Skyping will likely be blocked. Making phonecalls has been possible, albeit costly, for years, Walsh said: “What we’ve found is that the demand is very little.” BA has had a limited Wi-Fi service on its New York A318 jets from London City airport, and passengers surveys showed the majority did not want voice conversations permitted.
Who will be crowned as BAE’s next king? So how long will it take before the replacement is announced? That, essentially, is the big question facing BAE Systems this week, when the defence group unveils its annual results. The replacement isn’t so much the £31bn proposal for a new submarine class to succeed Vanguard and carry Britain’s nuclear deterrent (although that’s an important question for the company in itself), but more the identity of a successor to Ian King, BAE’s chief executive, who has been in command since 2008. The company stuck its periscope above the surface last summer in an effort to identify the next boss and – after a couple of large orders failed to arrive as expected at the back end of last year – investors are growing increasingly keen to learn who might have their hands on the controls during the next phase of gargantuan defence projects. There are also a few rumblings in the shareholder ranks, with some fretting that the group might give up the fight to maintain the dividend. As analysts at Barclays put it: “[BAE] resides on the wrong side of current credit rating thresholds: the share buyback programmes have ceased, the circa £5.3bn pension deficit weighs heavy on metrics and the slowing of cash prepayments make the dividend look increasingly burdensome.” Speak up, HSBC – are you staying or going? With a bit of luck, today might finally spell the end of HSBC’s interminable tease: its frequent threats to quit the United Kingdom unless we all start being a bit nicer to it. The bank has been playing that game for years, which has perplexed many punters who reckon the scandal-prone lender should really be asking our permission to stay. Anyway, the HSBC board meeting today has triggered speculation that it might finally announce a decision. Still, like a whining child that wears down a weak parent, HSBC seems to have been rewarded for its poor behaviour. Since announcing a review of where its HQ is based, a number of changes have been made. The bank levy has been watered down and replaced with an eight-percentage-point surcharge on corporation tax, which is regarded as beneficial to HSBC, as the size of its balance sheet meant it paid more than other banks. Meanwhile, the rules governing the ringfencing of banks’ high-street operations from the riskier investment banking businesses have been clarified, which again seems to benefit the outspoken HSBC – aka the world’s vocal bank. Centrica review gives shareholders the chills Most people view cuts in the cost of heating their home as a positive. But not always in the City. British Gas has announced three reductions in its prices since last summer and with its owner, Centrica, set to unveil results this week, the Square Mile is worrying how much this – along with the mild winter – might impact on the group’s profitability. Still, there are cost cuts and cost cuts – and the melancholy triggered in Centrica shareholders by fewer folk shivering in their homes this winter has been neatly offset by group’s internal cost-cutting programme. Chief executive Iain Conn is aiming to save £750m over five years, with net job losses of about 4,000. He is expected to tell the market on Thursday how well he’s getting on. Alongside all that, shareholders will also be looking for a few lines about the next stages in the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) supply review, which was launched after regulator Ofgem said there were reasonable grounds for suspecting that features of the energy market were preventing, restricting or distorting competition. In July, the CMA said that households had been charged £1.2bn a year more than they would have been in a competitive market – cheery news for punters, less so for shareholders.
Labour frontbencher hints at support for referendum on Brexit terms A senior Labour frontbencher has left the door open to supporting a referendum on the terms of the UK leaving the EU, saying the Brexit process had to be taken “step by step”. Emily Thornberry, the shadow foreign secretary, was asked about Labour’s position on a possible referendum about the final deal negotiated by Theresa May on BBC1’s The Andrew Marr Show on Sunday. “I think that we need to take this in stages and at the moment we cannot even have a debate as to how it is that we are going to leave the European Union because the government claim they are keeping their cards to their chest. But we know they don’t have any cards and they don’t even know what game they are playing,” she said. Pushed again on the issue, Thornberry said the process needed to be taken “step by step”. Campaigners for Britain to stay in the single market are beginning to mobilise in a more organised way across the parties, aiming to force May to reveal the broad outline of her strategy before triggering article 50 at the end of March. The former prime ministers Tony Blair and John Major both suggested this week that the public should be allowed to vote on – or even veto – any deal on leaving the EU. Thornberry was questioned on whether she believed the UK could maintain access to the European single market while also demanding immigration control and an end to free movement. “It is about time we stopped talking about believing in cake, having our cake and eating our cake,” she said. “We have to look at the options and we have to know that it is a trade-off. We need to be able to have a proper debate within the British public as to what the options are.” She said the priority in negotiating a Brexit deal should be the economy, but appeared to also support greater controls on immigration, saying: “Now, do I think that too many people at the moment come into this country? I think that yes, I think they do.” Her comments are slightly at odds with the position of Diane Abbott, the shadow home secretary, who maintained in an interview with the this week that Labour should stand up for free movement. “You cannot have access to the single market or be part of the single market without freedom of movement. It’s time people started acknowledging that,” Abbott said. “Those of us who are arguing for the least harmful Brexit have to be clear to people that there is no deal to be done on freedom of movement, and to imperil our economic interests as a country because of anti-immigrant feeling would scarcely be responsible.” The mobilising campaign to keep the UK in the single market and have a referendum on the terms of the deal has alarmed many Brexit campaigners who believe there should be a clean break with the EU. It was reported in the Sunday Times that Mark Carney, the Bank of England governor, backs a transitional deal with the EU to cushion the impact for businesses until at least 2021. In the same newspaper, May expressed a desire to “get on with the deal”, while admitting the issues keep her awake at night. Michael Gove, one of the architects of Brexit and a former cabinet minister, told Andrew Marr: “I think when people voted to leave the European Union they voted to take back control of our money, our laws, trade deals and our borders. “That means that the single market, that is basically a bureaucratic web, we need to be out of. And the customs union, in so far as it prevents us forging trade deals with other countries, we should be out of that too.” Responding to Carney’s reported views, the former justice secretary said: “I’m open to the case for a transitional agreement but I’m not convinced we need one. Again, there is a tendency to overcomplicate this process.” He said he was worried there were “some people who can’t get over the fact that the British people have voted to leave the EU and want us to have a transitional arrangement which is as close as possible [to EU membership]”. Gove defended his remark during the EU referendum campaign that the public had “had enough of experts” from organisations known by their acronyms, saying he had been referring to a “subclass” who get things wrong. “The point I made is not that all experts are wrong, that’s manifestly nonsense – expert engineers, expert doctors, expert physicists – but there is a subclass of experts, particularly economists, pollsters, social scientists, who really do need to reflect on some of the mistakes that they’ve made in the same way as a politician I’ve reflected on some of the mistakes that I’ve made.” Separately, the Equality and Human Rights Commission has written to the UK’s political parties telling them to tone down their rhetoric. “We are concerned that attacks on supporters of both sides of the Brexit debate have polarised many parts of the country,” the watchdog said. “There are those who used, and continue to use, public concern about immigration policy and the economy to legitimise hate.”
Golden years on the golf course? We should be so lucky… Two stories emerged on Thursday that are competing closely with each other for least surprising revelation of the year. In the morning, the insurance company Aegon published research indicating that nine out of 10 Scots face a substantial pension black hole. By the end of the day, it was revealed that Fred Goodwin would not face prosecution for his role in destroying the Royal Bank of Scotland. There are strands in these predictable tales that are, of course, linked. The Aegon research showed that Scots had the lowest degree of “readiness” in the UK. This means that their projected pension pots will be substantially lower than those of workers from other parts of these islands. This doesn’t mean that other UK workers have healthy pensions, bursting at the seams with hard-earned and stringently saved poppy, just that Scots will be a few grand poorer in old age. Research such as this never shows the whole picture. It talks about “average” lifetime contributions, pension expectations and post-retirement nest-eggs. Yet there is nothing “average” about the way Scotland’s wealth works. On average, the research says, Scots in work hope to retire on annual incomes of £33,600. That may be true if you work until you are 75, then die one year later just as you’re on the cusp of getting your golf handicap down to a respectable double-digit number. The average expectation will have been arrived at by factoring in a few thousand massive income earners to offset the tens of thousands of those whose incomes will be unlikely to yield a pension capable of purchasing much more than a bag of messages at the end of the week. In sprawling housing estates, from Dundee’s Lochee neighbourhood to Shettleston in Glasgow, the prospect of retiring on 33 grand a year is simply laughable. In Dundee more than one in four children is living in poverty. Across Scotland that figure is one in five. Families, many of them single-parent ones, must choose between heating and eating during winter. Saving for a pension is up there with a trip to Harrods on the list of things they’ll never quite get round to doing. Look again, though, at that “average” pension expectation figure of £33,600. To what extent is it reached by the thousands of local-government executives on £100k-plus a year who are allowed to walk away with hundreds of thousands in their pockets after failing to run their little fiefdoms properly? Perhaps it includes the pension expectations of the senior executives at medical helpline NHS 24 who, it was revealed last week, departed their beleaguered organisation with nearly £320,000 between them. Or the collection of former executives of Scotland’s 32 local authorities who collected £65m before 2013 between them in tax-free severance deals – many of them subsequently finding lucrative work with private-sector firms. Many of us are working harder for less money and in the face of living costs that are growing, with the odd exception, faster than wages. The average wage in Scotland before tax is around £26,000. How big a pension does that get you after you’ve gathered every penny you have to meet the 25% deposit required by banks to buy a home after the greed and incompetence of all their Fred the Shreds? And that’s before you encounter the grand larceny of the energy consortium that successive Labour and Conservative governments have allowed to corner the UK’s heating and lighting market. Low wages and zero-hours contracts are then cynically deployed by some of our biggest retail and food companies to meet the demand for second incomes that households require just to remain afloat in this survival-of-the-fittest society. Those relative few who have been fortunate enough to enjoy an unbroken career of decent incomes now find they are required to raid what savings they have to help children get on to the property ladder. Much of this is a direct consequence of Margaret Thatcher’s right-to-buy-your-council-house confidence trick. Overnight, she created thousands of new millionaires in the financial services sector while starving the UK of replacement social housing. Every high street bank in the country started flogging unaffordable mortgages designed to keep millions of new customers on their hooks for life. And we all know how that turned out. Perhaps the government ought to come clean and offer the following pensions advice: “OK, fellow citizens, time to get real. You may have dreamed of retiring to a thatched cottage in granny’s hielan’ hame when you’re 65 and then spending the last 15 years in the sunset of your lives joining golf clubs and taking holidays in Tuscany. You might even have entertained the notion of a silver romance with the merry widow at No 67 over a chardonnay or two at the over-65s creative writing club. “Let’s face it, though; it’s not going to happen, and any suggestions to the contrary are to be treated as irresponsible and wildly optimistic. You’ll be working until you’re 75 and paying off your second remortgage. “So don’t bother planning for a big pension that will keep you in cardigans and blankets for 15 years. Best to plan for blowing what you’ve got on a year or two of giving it yahoo and making a nuisance of yourself at the bowling club and rocking home at midnight to Bruce Springsteen and heart tablets. “Yours sincerely, the team at the Department for Work and Pensions.” Instead, we got this from Steven Cameron, a director at Aegon: “We must avoid complex changes – to encourage the UK population to thrive in their planning for later life.” If he’d said: “There’s a big white rabbit doing cartwheels at the traffic lights,” it would have carried more resonance. The Scottish and UK governments can fiddle with pensions tax powers as much as they like; it won’t make the post-retirement years of many Scots any easier. Forcing Goodwin’s bank to lend more reasonably; building more affordable housing and making firms pay proper wages. All these would help people enjoy a less fretful retirement.
The Revenant mauls the opposition at 2016 Baftas – the ceremony as it happened And that concludes the 2016 Baftas (which actually finished two hours ago, but whatever). What has tonight taught us? We’ll have to wait until the Oscars to find out. Fortunately, they’re taking place exactly two weeks from now. Unfortunately, I’ve drawn the short straw and I’ll be doing the all-night soul-sapping hellride that is the Oscars live blog as well. So see you there, if you like tuxedos and hate sleep. Derrr! And that’s everything. But wait! Stephen Fry needs to talk at length about the terrifying concept of human mortality. Well done for winning your trophies everyone! Have a fun evening! This might get me sacked, because it’s not a very fashionable choice around here, but I’m thrilled that The Revenant won. I’ve never seen a film like it in my life, and I see about 15 films like all the other nominees every single year. Also, Iñárritu does a hell of an acceptance speech. Hooray! Here’s Tom Cruise to present best film. I think it’s Tom Cruise, at least – if I squint, he looks a bit like Jim Davidson – but let’s give Stephen Fry the benefit of the doubt. We know what a temper he’s got on him. Leo thanked his mother. That Oscar must be his now, surely. Finally. Apparently he wanted to win this quite badly. If you wanted to read Peter Bradshaw’s reaction to this win, by the way – presumably written in the future and brought to you here by supernatural forces – it’s here: Once again, a really strong crowd this year, but well done Bafta for picking the only nominee who isn’t actually there tonight. Instead, Room’s director, Lenny Abrahamson, is there on her behalf. And he’s just complimenting her to high heaven. This is a great tactic to all would-be awards nominees: don’t go to the ceremony – people will be nicer to you. I guarantee there’ll be a Vine of Iñárritu attempting to say “Domhnall Gleeson” doing the rounds before long. There had better be, at least, because he sounded like he was vomiting up a shed. Also, well done to Stanley Tucci for not making a hamfisted crack about Mexicans when presenting this award, and saving dozens of news outlets several precious minutes of pretend outrage in the process. Also, WIN! Best ferociously grumpy loser: Ridley Scott, The Martian. Stephen Fry has now stopped tweeting. More on this breaking news as we get it. Best director now, presented by Stanley Tucci, who can now be found knelt under a table at the afterparty, screaming obscenities at Siri for not expressing total praise at his performance tonight. Sustained applause, and rightly so. Meanwhile, back at the Baftas: Sadly, Poitier isn’t there to accept the award. But Jamie Foxx is presenting it to him at home. His daughter is describing him in the most touching terms, as a man and a father as well as an actor. Poitier’s acceptance award is full of depth and dramatic pauses and if this isn’t the absolute highlight of the evening I don’t know what is. Christ, what a man he is. I bet he isn’t currently sitting in a backstage cubicle screaming at strangers on the internet like SOME people. Right. Thank God. A bit of class at last. Clips from Poitier’s classic films, dripping with a gravitas rarely seen these days, interspersed with testimonials from Oprah Winfrey herself. I could watch an hour of this, frankly. You know, so long as I didn’t have to liveblog it as well. Again, the director looks very happy with his trophy. Obviously by now he’s probably used it to decapitate a security guard because someone said something mean to him on the internet, but for now, well done him. Here’s Carrie Fisher! She’ll liven things up, won’t she? She’ll … oh God, no, she’s just made an off-colour Irish joke. Tell you what, the wheels are really falling off this evening, aren’t they? And this is the edited version, too. I wonder what happened in the unedited version. I wonder how many people died. Tom McCarthy looks thrilled with his win, but who knows – maybe he’s on Twitter right now, raging at anonymous strangers. That seems to be the way the evening’s going. Anyway, back to the awards. Best original screenplay now, presented by Cuba Gooding Jr, who apparently still exists. Look, it’s ridiculously hard to follow this any more. There’s Stephen Fry in the present, looking moderately pleased with his work, but we now know that Stephen Fry in the future is a purple-faced rage-machine, hell-bent on destroying the internet as we know it with all the blunt force trauma Twitter will allow. How am I supposed to live with this dichotomy? It’s maddening. This is exactly why they banned time travel in the future. Derrr. Oh boy. Fry’s just retweeting praise now. This is DEFCON One. If you’ve got a tin helmet at home, it might be best to bung it on now. This live blog will now be dedicated to the sight of Future Stephen Fry losing his mind with rage at the internet. What’s he going to do next? All-caps swearing? The gun emoji? A Periscope of him smashing up a branch of Carphone Warehouse? I for one cannot wait to see what happens. Outstanding British contribution to film has been won by Angels Costumes, incidentally. Not that it matters, because Stephen Fry just tweeted this as well: Earlier, Stephen Fry described the woman who won the award for best costume design as “a bag lady”. And now, tweeting from the future, his response to some apparent criticism: Derrr! Anyway, The Big Short won best adapted screenplay. Adam McKay has grown a moustache, with mixed results: he looks like he’s stolen a toddler’s eyebrows and hung them underneath his nose. But hey, congratulations. Poor Stephen Fry. He looked genuinely beaten up by the death montage, but then immediately had to introduce Angela Bassett with the words “And now, from the upcoming London Is Falling…”. It was such a tonal handbrake turn that I was worried his spleen was going to pop. It feels weird to critique an In Memoriam section, but this is beautifully done. It’s dignified and full of restraint. Meanwhile, at the Oscars, we’ll have Lady Gaga leading everyone in a singalong of Wind Beneath My Wings and we’ll all feel dirty. Well done Baftas. And good for them. However, it’s time for the evening’s In Memoriam section. It’s as touching as ever, but it’s going to go on for ages. This is because of 90% of all famous people died this year. Settle in, folks. Now, we’re all pretending that this is happening live, and that nobody knows who’s going to win anything. However, in a genuine feat of impossible mysticism, here’s a round-up of all the big winners of the night, including the ones that definitely haven’t been announced yet. Dakota Johnson, presenting best debut, just told everyone that she’s wearing tweed underpants. I don’t know why I’m telling you this. It’s probably because you’re the internet, and you get off on that sort of thing. Look, it’s either this or a GIF of a sneezing cat. Oh, I’m kidding. I liked the Mad Max costume design. Best costume design now. This is going to be close. Will it be the sumptuous Carol, the sumptuous Danish Girl, the sumptuous Cinderella, the sumptuous Brooklyn, or Mad Max, where everyone was dressed as Ben from EastEnders in that scene where he sang a Lady Gaga song? A dark horse, maybe, because this was an insanely strong category. But Winslet is absolutely nailing this acceptance speech. She’s funny. She’s charming. She’s got everyone in the auditorium eating from the palm of her … oh. I love liveblogging edited prerecorded awards shows, by the way, because my favourite thing in the world is just writing down a load of names as quickly as I can for two hours for money. Incidentally, Amy won best documentary earlier. Amy’s dad hasn’t taken it especially well... And rightly so, because Inside Out is the most delightful thing to be released in the last year, and it probably should have been nominated for best film. Eddie Izzard’s presenting the best animation award now. He blinks twice, then says the words “pig” and “monkey” and “banjo” over and over again, because he is Eddie Izzard and those are the only three words he knows. This category is basically Bad Haircuts Plaintively Yelling, which makes Rylance’s win all the more sweet. Spielberg accepts the prize on behalf of Rylance, and reads a note from the actor. This is particularly good news because otherwise he’d have just described his route from his seat to the stage in tedious detail. Rebel does racism! Rebel does penises! Rebel does the “transgender face” joke – which, it has to be said, actually goes down really well with the audience – and then says she wants to sleep with everyone. And that’s it: your daily dose of outrage. Use it wisely, The Internet, because these things only come round every 15 seconds. Now for best supporting actor. More importantly, now for Rebel Wilson to say something off-handed specifically to get Twitter’s knickers in a twist. Oh, Boyega won! I mean, obviously I knew that because this award was handed out a full two hours ago, and I pretended that I didn’t know because I wanted to try and inject some drama into this live blog. But still, I’m glad he won. I don’t think there’s an actor on the face of the earth who’s looked as thrilled to be doing his job this year. I’m a massive snob, obviously, so I don’t care about this award at all. Unless John Boyega wins, obviously. He’s great. It’s the EE Rising Star award now. This is the only award voted for by the public, which either makes it more or less valuable than the others, depending on how snobby and metropolitan-elitey you are. I’m 80% sure this was just for Adam Driver’s hair, but whatever. Next presenters: Doctor Who and Khaleesi off Game of Thrones. That sound you can hear is Tumblr having a stroke. She hasn’t noticed that her earring has come off yet. This is Judy Finnegan’s bra all over again. A surprisingly strong field, but Brooklyn comes out on top. This, eagle-eyed viewers will notice, is where Julie Walters lost her earring. It wasn’t actually attached to her face when she stood up to collect it. It’s probably still on her seat. Somewhere in London right now, an usher is making plans to quit their job and buy themselves a gold-plated jetski. Right! Brilliant! Some awards! Kate Winslet and Idris Elba are presenting the awaard for outstanding British film. Their shtick? Saying that they’re proud to present the award tonight. Classic. And now just a bunch of clips from films. Just a bunch of clips from films. Not a whole lot of jokes in this monologue, really. It’s essentially Stephen Fry pointing at an actor, then semi-successfully attempting to access the main plot-points of their films, then just sort of nodding and moving on. “Spotlight!” he said a second ago, “You can’t really make many jokes about that, can you?” This is pretty much the tone of the evening so far. Well this is awful. Fry’s unveiled a Bafta Kiss Cam, where he’s forcing the world’s most acclaimed actors to get off with each other in front of everyone. It is excruciating. The widely reported Fassbender-Vikander refusal hasn’t made the edit, for some reason. Funny that. This is less an opening monologue and more a lovely chat with someone’s grandpa. Fry’s a little more hesitant than he usually is and, while he’s doing a decent job, he is making me want to eat a ton of Werther’s Originals. Fry is talking through all the big films. One of which I’m pretty sure he referred to as Star Wars: The Force Finally Woke Up. Which is a much better title in retrospect, of course. Stephen Fry, tonight’s host, walks out on stage and immediately uses a string of multi-syllable words that I’m sure were just slipped into the script to make my live blog much more difficult to write than it needs to be. Bryan Cranston just referred to the Baftas as “the pinnacle of awards season,” which is such an ostentatious lie that I’m surprised his face didn’t spontaneously burst into flames. OK. Well done for making it this far, but here come the actual awards. Elba’s here, Winslet’s here, DiCaprio’s here. Rebel Wilson’s here, and ready to only say sensible things that don’t offend anybody. I’m bored of this now. Let’s switch over to BBC One and get ready for the ceremony itself. Goodbye ancient dead Victorian ghost-child! Congratulations on making the most of a genuinely horrible job! Steven Spielberg is talking to the Phantom Interviewer now, and he’s basically just detailing the route he took to get to Covent Garden. I think Steven Spielberg might be my dad. Someone on the red carpet just screamed at an actress “PLEASE! I’ve been waiting here ALL DAY for you!” which is pretty much exactly why all red carpets should be banned forever. This dead Victorian ghost girl is starting to grow on me. I’m now fully rooting for her. I hope all the celebrities she talks to offer her a half-formed platitude, so that her dead 150-year-old heart fleetingly feels a moment of warmth. There was just a clip of Eddie Redmayne signing autograph after autograph on the red carpet. If you never get to receive Eddie Redmayne’s autograph, I think it looks more or less like a fish skeleton drawn on a frosted windscreen by a drunk man’s nose. The gist of this show, if you haven’t been able to get to a television, is that the majority of people who’ve been nominated for things are excited for being nominated for the things that they’ve been nominated for. Hope that helps. She’s talking to Michael Fassbender now. He just said something relatively nice to her. And she’s going to take that to her grave, that instantly forgotten semi-compliment. Because this is what it’s like to be a journalist. Pity us, won’t you. Incidentally, if you don’t have the benefit of watching a literal 19th-century ghoul shouting at people about their dresses, here’s our red carpet gallery. It’s probably better, to be honest. This bit now, where the ghost basically just yells a series of increasingly desperate platitudes at celebrities as they obliviously run past her, is exactly what it’s like to be a journalist. I guess what I’m trying to say is that you should never be a journalist. I’ve spent time on the Baftas red carpet before. It’s great. It’s basically a lot of runners frantically consulting clipboards full of photos, screaming “WHO’S THAT? ARE THEY FAMOUS? NO? DON’T BOTHER THEN” in earshot of the people they’re talking about. OH GOOD! A THEME! Tonight, the haunted visage of this ghost lady will be asking exclusively romance-based questions on the red carpet. This is because it’s Valentine’s Day, and also because it’s fun to watch things through your fingers while you squeeze your sphincter so tight that you think it might explode. The red carpet show appears to be hosted by a Victorian ghost. I hope she doesn’t scare the celebrities too much. It’s weird, liveblogging a show when you already know what’s going to happen. I’m trying to script a brutal takedown of Rebel Wilson for her “transgender face” line. But the pressure’s got to me. I might just end up writing “Rebel Wilson is rubbish” or something. That’ll do … won’t it? That means you all have to turn over to BBC Three, by the way. Partly because it’s going off the air this week and you’ll miss it, and partly because the next 30 minutes of this live blog will be unintelligible gibberish if you don’t. So that’s what’s going to happen. In 10 minutes I’ll liveblog BBC Three’s red carpet show, and then we’ll all sit through the main ceremony together, united by our collective self-deception about the identity of the winners. That sounds like fun, doesn’t it? As with the rest of this year’s award season, no clear frontrunners have emerged so far. This means that any one of about four films could steam to glory tonight. Which will it be? Nobody knows. Well, I mean everybody knows, because the show isn’t going out live and all the winners have already been tweeted to high heaven. But let’s try to forget about that, because awards ceremonies aren’t about the winners, are they? They’re about the haircuts and the speeches and, ideally, absolute brevity at all costs. And the winners that we already know, obviously. Hello there. Stuart Heritage here, Ben Lee’s disappointing sequel. Over the next two and a half hours, I’ll be your guide as the great and good of Hollywood once again realise that they’ve dressed incredibly inappropriately for February in the UK. WATCH! As Brie Larson hugs herself for warmth. LAUGH! As Jennifer Jason Leigh’s teeth audibly chatter through a banal red carpet interview with a glossy showbiz magazine. GASP! As Dame Maggie Smith clubs a taxi driver to death and wears his body like an expensive fur. So I am now handing over to Stuart Heritage, who has the more enviable task of sharing the winners with you as the TV transmission airs. He will hopefully provide further updates as to the whereabouts of Julie Walters’ earring. So about those Rebel Wilson quotes... BREAKING: Julie Walters has lost one of her diamond earrings and it is worth “the same price” as her house. Here are Peter Bradshaw’s predictions for this year’s ceremony, and the non-nominees he thinks were unfairly overlooked: If you want to go ahead and spoil the TV transmission later then you can check out who has won what so far here: This is probably not going to go down too well... Oh and here’s awkward visual proof of Fassbender and Vikander having absolutely none of that kiss cam business: The glamour continues... How bad must the British Airways pitch have been... And haunting your dreams tonight will be these Bafta sketches In other awards news, the nerdy offshoot of the Oscars took place last night, rewarding the very best in science and tech: Bafta CEO Amanda Berry: “We recognised a number of years ago our industry is not very diverse and therefore the pool of people we can call upon to give lectures or be our nominees or winners is not very diverse. So what we have done is set up 15 new talent initiatives and mentoring schemes and scholarships and made diversity an absolute priority.” More here: Harsh but not the worst idea: This year’s official Bafta brochures are rather pretty: The celebrities confusing Twitter: The Bafta kiss cam already sounds like a horribly awkward idea … Oh and here’s that Maggie and Leo kiss if you’re into that kind of thing: Here’s a sneak peek at the stage, which looks like a health and safety hazard: Idris was right, love is in the air tonight: Unsurprisingly, diversity has been a hot topic on the red carpet and here’s what the stars have had to say: Taking a look at the odds for tonight’s winners, here are the bookies’ favourites, according to William Hill: The Revenant for best film Leonardo DiCaprio for best actor Brie Larson for best actress Mark Rylance for best supporting actor Rooney Mara for best supporting actress So, as mentioned, if you want to avoid spoilers and follow along with the TV transmission (with a two hour-ish time delay), stay here. But if you want to see the winners as they happen, this will be updating as soon as each award is announced: Here’s Idris Elba, up for best supporting actor for Beasts of No Nation. He has said on the red carpet that “love is in the air” tonight. He got some of the loudest cheers from the crowd. The Baftas are about to start in REAL LIFE but the BBC won’t be transmitting the ceremony until 9pm which means that news of the winners will be up elsewhere on the site but we will be following the action on TV. No spoilers. Promise. Ridley Scott: just happy to be nominated Bafta’s official red carpet stream has now been made private. The award for Worst Stream of Anything Ever has already been won. This is what happens when you’re too eager to get a good seat: Cuba Gooding Jr has been speaking about diversity: “When you think of awards shows, it’s at the end of the chain. If you want to talk about diversity, it has to start at executive levels. Look at the Baftas: it’s a rainbow coalition of people represented in TV and film in England and they get that right here, because it reflects society.” Zoë Ball is getting everyone to do “Welcome to the Baftas” idents to camera and it’s all very awkward. Looking forward to her asking Rooney Mara for one. Best supporting actress nominee Rooney Mara has arrived. She recently had this to say about the awards season: “Sometimes it feels like you’re celebrating the same person’s birthday for months on end.” And here’s the guy behind the diversity protest at tonight’s awards: Kate Winslet, who is up for best supporting actress for Steve Jobs, has also arrived. Again, her interviews have been drowned out by fans screaming “LEO!” Even the BBC’s standard Bafta red carpet presenter is having issues with the live stream... Eddie Redmayne is interviewed as fans chant “Leo!” so loudly that it’s hard to hear what he’s saying. DiCaprio has been tipped to beat him to best actor later, for The Revenant. Here’s Leo hugging Cuba Gooding Jr though: Julianne Moore, who won best actress last year for Still Alice is on the red carpet. Her latest film, Freeheld, was touted as a potential contender before anyone actually saw it. Here’s our one-star review from Toronto. Dakota Johnson on the red carpet, being asked: “Does it feel like the end of a long road or the beginning of the start of a long road?” Spielberg! He’s up for best director tonight for Bridge of Spies. There were some very polite fans calling “Mr Spielberg!” as he walked past. Emilia Clarke is being quizzed on the red carpet. Update: Game of Thrones has changed her life. More to come. In case you’re after a stream that doesn’t keep breaking every three seconds, the BBC also have this. In news that would have been more exciting in 1996, Cuba Gooding Jr has arrived! Here’s a quote from Sacha Baron Cohen from the red carpet: “I’m here to give the award for the best white actress. I hear many Caucasians were nominated. I have no desire to win any awards with Grimsby, which was why we cast two African Americans.” Here’s Julie Walters, up for best supporting actress for her role in Brooklyn. Her character is also getting a spin-off BBC show. If you have seen Brooklyn, this may not come as good news: Not sure if he’ll have time to answer this … And here’s Matt Smith, who has just been talking to Zoe Ball about his role in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, a film that is unlikely to be featuring in next year’s awards race... And this E! tweet has now been understandably deleted... Hollywood A-listers, the country’s least favourite budget airline is behind you! Bafta goodie bags are a little less nuts than the Oscar ones (no clitoral injections). There’s a free trip to Auckland and some marmalade. Full details here. Bryan Cranston is up for best actor tonight for his role in Trumbo. Zoe Ball asked him how important this role was for him but the feed cut out AGAIN before we heard the answer. We are guessing he said “very” or “extremely” BEWARE And here’s press-ignoring but fan-embracing Cate Blanchett on the red carpet. She is up for best actress tonight but might lose out to Saoirse Ronan, her Hanna co-star: According to YouTube comments on the world’s worst feed, Dakota Johnson is kind of a big deal. Every other fan is screaming DAKOTA or DAAKOTAAAA and it’s a similar story on Twitter... CATE BLANCHETT UPDATE Julie Walters, Bryan Cranston, Matt Smith and Michael Fassbender have all also arrived but thanks to the worst stream in the world, we are only able to see and hear the odd flash. Here is Fassbender, lolling at his own autograph! Saoirse Ronan has also arrived and she’s up for best actress for her role in Brooklyn. We’re expecting her name to be mispronounced at least once tonight. During the Globe nominations, Dennis Quaid called her Shisha. Here she is: Here’s John Boyega, who has a 6am pick up time for Star Wars tomorrow. He already looks slightly tired... Alicia Vikander, who has two nominations tonight, has also arrived. She has nominations for both Ex Machina and The Danish Girl. In case you need a reminder, the full list of nominees is here. Carol and Bridge of Spies are in the lead: In case you’re not watching, here’s an idea of how the Bafta red carpet live stream is looking: John Boyega just told Zoe Ball that he starts filming the next Star Wars episode TOMORROW. Which means he’ll probably be on the Shloer tonight. He’s already said that it will be “much darker” than The Force Awakens but then pretty much anyone who is hyping a sequel seems to say that … Last night saw the Writers Guild of America announce their annual awards and the major winners were Spotlight and The Big Short, for original and adapted screenplays respectively. Both are up for Baftas tonight. The full list of winners is here. The feed appears to be breaking quite a bit. As it’s sponsored by EE, it’s not the best advert for their 4G service … John Boyega is signing autographs and posing for pictures. He’s up for the Bafta rising star award, voted for by the public, and is likely to win given the Star Wars fanbase. Other nominees include Bel Powley and Dakota Johnson. You can watch the action from the red carpet right here: Mark Ruffalo is ON THE WAY Welcome to this year’s Bafta live blog! I’m Benjamin Lee and I’ll be taking you through the initial part of the night and then Stuart Heritage will take over from 8:15pm BST. As there is a nearly two-hour delay between the ceremony and its transmission, we will be following the TV timings on the blog but news will be available elsewhere … No spoilers here, we promise.
Wasteful Everton frustrated as Salomón Rondón steals win for West Brom A very Tony Pulis type of victory also made for a sadly symptomatic defeat for Roberto Martínez. Purism 0 Pragmatism 1, perhaps. Salomón Rondón’s goal secured West Bromwich Albion’s first win in six league games and halted Everton’s revival after a hat-trick of 3-0 victories and it came in a fashion that highlighted trends at both clubs. There are few more attractive or attacking sides than Everton, but few who are breached in such avoidable fashion so often and none who concede as many goals on their own turf. No Premier League team has seen as little of the ball as Albion this season yet they barely required it here. Their exercise in efficiency coincided with a display of wastefulness from an Everton outfit who have not realised their considerable potential. They had 74% of possession, 34 shots and 14 corners but failed to score. “Sometimes a dominant performance doesn’t give you a good result,” said Martínez. An utterly unapologetic Pulis countered: “The Premier League is not a level playing field. There are clubs with budgets and facilities better than yours and you have to find a way of winning. They have got a top-five squad. We defended for our lives.” Albion earned their clean sheet. They were epitomised by Jonas Olsson, who set the tone by blocking Seamus Coleman’s second-minute shot, flung his body in the way of everything that came remotely near him and set up Albion’s goal. It came in eminently predictable fashion. Albion excel at set-pieces while Everton struggle to defend them. Olsson met Stéphane Sessègnon’s corner with an emphatic header and was denied a goal purely by the predatory Rondón, who applied the finishing touch. A further 48 minutes elapsed before Albion’s next notable effort and that, from Chris Brunt, went wide. Yet the teamsheet had brought the implication that they would be more progressive. While Saido Berahino was recalled, his first league start since October came in central midfield. He swiftly became an auxiliary anchorman as Everton’s response to trailing amounted to a sustained assault. Ramiro Funes Mori had a header cleared off the line, Aaron Lennon’s bouncing shot was tipped over the bar by the backpedalling Ben Foster and Ross Barkley’s shot hit the post with the goalkeeper a motionless spectator. The woodwork was struck for the second time when Tom Cleverley fooled Foster with an overhit cross. The range of those who came close is an indication of the commitment to attack. Funes Mori and Phil Jagielka in effect constituted a back two as everyone else swarmed forward. Their notional lone striker, Romelu Lukaku, was surrounded by colleagues. His Albion counterpart, Rondón, came off with an acute case of loneliness. His team-mates were obdurate opponents in every respect. Their collective resilience was allied to a determination to delay goal kicks and free-kicks. “They were going to take 30 seconds over every dead ball,” said Martínez. “For the good of football, you don’t want to see the ball out of play so often.” Though the referee, Michael Oliver, booked Foster and Darren Fletcher for timewasting, Martínez blamed the officials, rather than Albion, insisting that “referees should be stronger”. Albion displayed their mental strength. Victory leaves them on 32 points, eight away from realising the target of a manager who has never been relegated. “I have done this a long time,” said Pulis. “We need 40 points.”
India warns UK immigration policy could wreck trade deal Theresa May’s hopes of a post-Brexit trade deal with India suffered a hammer blow from Delhi as the prime minister prepared to make her first official visit to the country. A spokesman for India’s minister of external affairs suggested that a policy brought in by May as home secretary restricting the right of Indian students to stay in the UK after graduation could prove to be a block on any progress. Before her first bilateral visit outside Europe on Sunday, taking 33 business representatives to India, May said she wished to “reboot” the relationship between the two countries. “The UK and India are natural partners – the world’s oldest democracy and the world’s largest democracy – and together I believe we can achieve great things – delivering jobs and skills, developing new technologies and improving our cities, tackling terrorism and climate change,” she said. However the Indian government spokesman, Vikas Swarup, told the that May faced tough questions when she arrived in Delhi on immigration and mobility for Indian students and workers in the UK. “Indian students and people-to-people relations are important pillars of India-UK ties,” he said. “In the last five years or so, the number of Indian students enrolling in UK universities has gone down by almost 50%; from around 40,000 to about 20,000 now. This has happened because of restrictions on post-study stay in the UK. “We will continue to raise our concerns regarding mobility with the UK. Mobility of people is closely linked to free flow of finance, goods and services.” The comments came as the former business secretary, Vince Cable, claimed that May’s relations with India would be a major block to making progress on any UK-India deal. He said: “The chances of them getting anything out of India are pretty remote pending a complete volte-face on immigration and visas.” The former Liberal Democrat MP said that among a series of policy decisions by the Home Office, May’s refusal to allow greater access to the UK for skilled Indian workers, in particular, “screwed up” chances of an EU-India trade deal. He said: “When I was secretary of state I was involved in trying to negotiate the EU-India trade agreement, which didn’t get very far. This myth has been created that we are not able to make progress on deals because of Wallonia or Slovenia. In this particular case, the problem was Britain. “May in particular was very obstructive of any attempt to make a genuine generous concession, and that was one of the things that screwed up the negotiation.” In 2010, when she was home secretary, May scrapped the post-study work visa, which allowed foreign students a two-year work permit in the UK after completing a course at a British university. Indian students now find it difficult even to get internships or part-time work while they study in the UK. In 2013 May tried to introduce a controversial “visa bond” scheme for foreign students from six African and Asian countries, of which India was the biggest, to prevent “high-risk” students staying in the UK after their work permits expired. The scheme, which was not introduced in the end, caused widespread outrage among Indian students at the time and Cable said it was “remembered” by Indian politicians. May is travelling to India with 30  British businesses, including small- and medium-sized enterprises from every region of the country. A series of commercial deals were expected to be sealed during the visit, delivering 1,370 UK jobs, Downing Street said. May and the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, are due to meet on Monday afternoon for more than two hours of talks on trade, investment, defence and security. Downing Street said May wanted to break down existing trade and investment barriers, and secure agreement to talks that would pave the way for a bilateral trade arrangement once the UK had left the EU. The PM will be accompanied by international trade secretary Liam Fox and trade minister Greg Hands. Before the visit, May said: “This is a partnership about our shared security and shared prosperity. It is a partnership of potential. I intend to harness that potential, rebooting an age-old relationship in this age of opportunity and with that helping to build a better Britain.” But Shashi Tharoor, chairman of India’s parliamentary standing committee on external affairs, said May’s anti-immigrant policies were “detrimental” to relations between the UK and India. He said: “I do believe it is as much in Britain’s interests to attract Indian students as it is in India’s interests for our students to study there. “The Indian government should ask why this is happening, and whether the withdrawal of the welcome mat sends a broader signal, intended or otherwise, to other Indians.” “The hope and expectation is that most of the students will return to India with enhanced skills and knowledge, whereas emigrants are lost to India altogether, which gives the Indian government no reason to encourage their departure. “But again, the broader question is whether these anti-immigrant policies signify an anti-Indian stance which would have broader implications for the relations between the two peoples,” he said.
London's garden bridge: visitors urged to donate on Thames crossing The trust behind the proposed garden bridge in London hopes to raise more than £500,000 annually in public donations using contactless card readers positioned at either end of the river Thames crossing. The plan to raise up to £700,000 annually from visitors in the capital appears in a document marked “confidential draft” setting out the bridge’s business plan, which was published on Wednesday by the new London mayor, Sadiq Khan. Khan had given his conditional backing to the project on Tuesday. The bank card readers would enable visitors to make a £2 donation as they cross the bridge. Under the plans, drawn up by the Garden Bridge Trust, signs will be positioned to encourage the donations, and the sums will support the work of gardeners and maintenance of the Thames footbridge, the plan says. “The garden bridge will be a free attraction for seven million Londoners and visitors to London annually,” the business plan reads. “This will be in comparison to several high-ticket price London attractions.” The trust anticipates that £700,000 will be raised through the contactless points in the first year from an expected seven million visitors, based on an average of 10 pence per visitor. This figure will drop to £525,000 in subsequent years, due to an expected 25% decline in visitor numbers. The public donation points will be positioned on the north and south landing of the bridge, which under the plans will join Westminster to Lambeth. Khan, who was elected mayor on 5 May with 1.3m votes, said he would back the bridge if it were a “genuinely public and open space”. He suggested a reduction in the number of days the crossing would be shut to the public for private fundraising events. He also wanted the bridge, designed by Thomas Heatherwick, the architect behind the Olympic cauldron and new Routemaster London bus, to be closed for fewer hours when fundraising events were held. The plan at present is to close for 24 hours at a time. The mayor also said he wanted a guarantee that children at local schools on either side of the river would be ableto visit the garden bridge and be involved in planting and maintenance. He also wanted the Garden Bridge Trust to work with all of London’s parks so that seeds and plants grown on the bridge could be planted across the capital. The plan has proved controversial, especially because of the use of £60m of public money to partly finance the bridge, which will remain private land, will be closed overnight and for corporate events, and be subject to dozens of rules, enforced by “hosts”. The remainder of the money is being raised from donations. The business plan showed £143m had been raised so far towards the estimated £175m project, leaving a shortfall of about £50m. The documents show the bridge has received £60m in public funds, which includes £30m from the Treasury and £30m from Transport for London. However, TfL is expected to get £20m of its money back. More than £33m was donated by companies, including £5m from Sky and £2m from Citigroup. Trusts and foundations accounted for £38m, including £20m from the Sainsbury family’s Monument Trust, and £11m from individuals.
Swansea confirm Francesco Guidolin as new head coach Swansea have confirmed the appointment of Francesco Guidolin as head coach. The Italian is set to work alongside Alan Curtis in managing the relegation-threatened side for the rest of the season and will have the final say on team selection. Guidolin has previously managed Udinese, Palermo, Bologna and Parma in Italy as well as the French league side Monaco but most recently has acted as a technical supervisor to the Pozzo family, who own Watford, the La Liga side Granada and Udinese. “We are very pleased with the appointment,’’ the Swansea chairman, Huw Jenkins, said. “His experience and knowledge will be a huge asset to the club. Although we recently appointed Alan Curtis as manager until the end of the campaign, he was aware and comfortable with the fact that we were still looking to bring someone in to assist if we found the right person. “We believe we have found that person in Francesco. He has an excellent record, especially with Udinese over the last few years. He created an Udinese side from a relatively small budget – compared to the rest of the league – that competed with the big teams in Serie A.” Curtis has earned five points from a possible 21 in the games he has been in charge since Garry Monk’s departure in early December and has seen the club slip into the bottom three following Newcastle’s 2-1 win over West Ham on Saturday. Swansea are currently just one point ahead of Sunderland, who convincingly beat them 4-2 at home earlier this month and suffered an embarrassing 3-2 defeat to League Two’s Oxford United in the FA Cup third round. “It’s a very good opportunity for me at an important club,” said Guidolin. “At the moment it’s not a good situation for the club, but we have a good team. In Italy, I helped my team finish in a good position in the table, and that’s what I hope to achieve here at Swansea.” Swansea received £12m from Newcastle United for Jonjo Shelvey and Guidolin is expected to use his contacts abroad to bring in reinforcements during this transfer window, with a striker said to be top of the wish list. Guidolin will have a watching brief on Monday when Swansea face Watford, who have also struggled for form of late, losing their last three league games. Jenkins added: “He [Guidolin] instilled a belief and motivation to compete and beat the best Italy had to offer. It is similar to what this football club is trying to do in the Premier League. “He also has a wealth of knowledge of players throughout Europe which will be a big boost on our recruitment side; something we have been reviewing in a lot more depth over the last few months. “When the need arose to look for a new manager or head coach, those characteristics stood out from a number of other potential candidates, together with the enthusiasm he has shown to come in and help us turn our season around and retain our Premier League status.”
Dan Wagner and the fall of 'unicorn' startup Powa Technologies The technology entrepreneur Dan Wagner, once one of the highest-profile entrepreneurs of the dotcom era, appeared on television on Monday discussing the future of the high street and why it is struggling to survive. Speaking on Sky News, he said: “There needs to be more of an engagement to drive people out of their homes and into those stores, and make that more compelling.” Wagner did not mention the recent demise of his own retail-linked venture, a business he had hoped would encourage this “engagement”, but instead collapsed into administration in February, having burned through £147m since 2013. It was only three years ago that the company, Powa Technologies, was praised by David Cameron and hailed as a British “unicorn” – the term for a technology company yet to join the stock market that is judged to be worth more than $1bn (£700m). There are only a handful of confirmed British unicorns, among them the flight comparison website Skyscanner, money transfer service TransferWise and music discovery app Shazam, but every startup wants to be one and every investor wants to find one. However, Powa’s collapse shows how quickly a unicorn can go from valuable to valueless if it trips up on the way to the promised land. Founded by the flamboyant Wagner in 2007, Powa was developing a product called PowaTag, which would allow consumers to scan an item or advert with their smartphone and see details or buy the product immediately. It was billed as the Shazam of shopping; Powa also built retail websites and made tills and card-reading technology. Wagner said in 2014 that Powa was worth $2.7bn and the company claimed that 1,200 businesses had signed up for PowaTag, although it was later reported that many of these were non-binding letters of intent. But it all came crashing down two months ago, when US-based investment group Wellington Management, which had put up £137m in loans and equity starting in 2013 and was Powa’s biggest investor, called in £42m of loans that were due for repayment in December. Wagner, whose previous best-known business, Dialog, lost 95% of its value during the dotcom boom and bust, told BBC Radio 4’s In Business on Sunday that Powa’s fall into administration had come as a complete shock. “They [Wellington] didn’t tell us or the board. Just one day the administrators turned up,” he said. “It’s the business equivalent of walking across the street and being hit by a car. It is one of those things which sometimes happens which is completely random. It doesn’t necessarily reflect on what we were building, it doesn’t necessarily reflect on the capability or the experience or the management capacity to deliver value. It doesn’t necessarily reflect whether or not the valuation was right or wrong. Certainly, in this case, I can tell you it was just one of those extraordinary things that should never have happened.” However, a report from administrators Deloitte into the collapse paints a picture of a business running out of control. According to the report, Powa, which had not filed accounts since 2013, had £277,000 in cash in the bank when it went into administration; the report shows that money had been pouring out of the business at the same time as it was struggling to build revenues. Powa made a loss of £16.6m in 2013 on revenues of £667,000. The next year, it lost £38.5m on revenues of just over £1m, and in 2015, it lost £31.8m on revenues of £4.8m. Most of the revenues came from its point of sale and web businesses rather than PowaTag. Staff costs came to £6.8m in 2013, £25m the following year and £24.8m in 2015. Some of that went to contractors, but last year about £15m was shared between 168 Powa employees – an average of nearly £90,000 a head. It was extravagant in other ways. The company was based in the top two floors of Heron Tower, the tallest skyscraper in the City of London, but the prestigious setting – an unlikely one for a startup – came at a cost of nearly £6m over three years, according to Deloitte. It also had offices in Hong Kong, Australia and Europe, and employed 300 people worldwide in an ambitious attempt to expand across the globe. Indeed, Powa had been pinning its hopes on a major deal in China, a joint venture for PowaTag hailed by Wagner as having limitless potential, which would generate £3.5bn over three years. But this potential was never realised. Deloitte said: “PowaTag required modification for the Chinese market and significant work was undertaken to try to meet the delivery date in January 2016, which never happened.” The company is now facing claims from 110 former staff related to unpaid wages of £150,000, and claims from trade creditors worth nearly £15m, but the Deloitte report indicates that they are unlikely to see any of the money. Wellington, however, has received some of its investment back. The PowaTag business and technology has been sold at a notional cost of £42m to a new company jointly owned by Wellington and Ben White, who joined Powa as a director in January to raise funds for the business. And Wagner himself has taken part in the administrator’s fire sale. He paid £1,155 for “certain items of boardroom equipment and furniture” from Powa. Perhaps he is getting ready for his next venture.
LCD Soundsystem, PJ Harvey and more reviewed – Sunday's music at Glastonbury 2016 Hinds – Park stage “We’ve been here since Thursday and have only just had a shower,” announces Hinds singer Carlotta Cosials proudly. Certainly the Madrid four-piece don’t seem like the sort to let a little mud get in the way of having a good time. Live, they’re an endearingly messy prospect, all jangly Throwing Muses guitars, howling, out-of-tune vocals and seemingly unplanned tempo shifts. Frequently, on songs such as opener Fat Calmed Kiddos, the whole thing looks in very real danger of falling to bits, though the fact that it never does suggests they might be a little more accomplished than they let on. The one problem is a lack of variety: there’s only so many times you can hear the same ramshackle indie jangle without fatigue creeping in, and too many of the songs here begin to blend into each other. A few more tunes and they’d be a real prospect. GM Kamasi Washington – West Holts stage Six years ago, the Jazz World stage was retitled West Holts with a promise to bring “the best groove-based music from around the world” to the festival. For a huge lunchtime crowd, Kamasi Washington and his band did just that. But the 35-year-old Los Angeles saxophonist – who cropped up on the left-of-mainstream’s radar after playing on Kendrick Lamar’s to Pimp a Butterfly before making a mark with his own album of last year, The Epic – sits firmly in the jazz tradition. Copious shades of Coltrane are evident in his sound, but bassist Miles Mosley and keytar player Brandon Coleman, plus drummers Tony Austin and Ronald Bruner Jr, produced thunderous rhythms that recalled Jack Johnson-era Miles Davis, too. The punishing notes produced by Mosley’s amplified double bass at the start of the show were surely enough to unblock the bowels of anyone at the festival yet to brave the loos. There was little letup thereafter, even when Washington was joined by a special guest, his own father, Rickey, on soprano sax and flute. Given that The Epic runs to 173 minutes, it was impossible to do it justice here, but allied to the blaring funkiness was depth and complexity, and the vocals of Patrice Quinn lent proceedings a spiritual air. At times, it even felt like a religious Sunday service – but seeing fervent converts bowing to the sight of Washington blowing hard couldn’t but make you think how fantastic it would be to see this group playing high on the bill on the Pyramid stage one day. CLS Bat for Lashes – John Peel stage Dressed like a tropical Miss Havisham in a teal gown and blood-red veil, an invigorated Natasha Khan brings tales of doomed romance to a rainswept tent. She’s in the unenviable position of having a new album of songs, The Bride, that no one has actually heard yet – but they are nevertheless received warmly, particularly big single Sunday Love with its determined, driving disco. This is Khan’s core style, where Springsteenian tableaux of hearts and roads are painted in melancholic, burnt-orange hues and underpinned by a pumping rhythm section. Her big hit Daniel, which closes the set, is a classic example, with ultra-lucid Emily Dickinson-type images (“Under a sheet of rain in my heart”) adding a serious beauty to pretty pop. The melodrama sometimes teeters on cartoonish – In God’s House concerns a groom dying in a car crash on the way to a wedding – but Khan’s pitch-perfect voice, cruising ecstatically into its upper register, gives even these songs real drama. Her ballad Laura, meanwhile, has boys in baseball caps swaying like willows, and vies with Adele for the weekend’s queen of piano-driven emotion. After calling for solidarity in a post-Brexit Britain, she rounds off the marital imagery by throwing a bouquet into the audience, telling them: “If you catch this, you’ll love yourself for ever.” BBT Beck – Pyramid stage “If you’re standing in the mud and you don’t give a damn say, ‘Hell, yeah!’” cries Beck Hansen, more attuned to his current surroundings than his band’s pristine outfits suggest. Eerily unchanged from the man who stared out from album sleeves 20 years ago, Hansen looks like he’s arrived in the Glastonbury swamp fresh from a fashion runway: leather jacket, polka-dot shirt, hat at a rakish angle. His guitarist appears to be wearing red suede boots, an impossibly daring choice given the conditions. Their set cuts a populist swathe through Hansen’s back catalogue: noticeably heavier on crowdpleasers such as E-Pro and stuff from 1996’s Odelay – New Pollution, Devil’s Haircut, Where It’s At – than on the introspection found on albums such as Sea Change or Morning Phase. Understandably, the fatalism of Loser goes down particularly well. He keeps mentioning his uneasiness on stage: “I feel like we’re trying to find our thing here”; “This is like a blind date”. Frankly, if he didn’t keep mentioning it, you’d never guess: he’s incredibly slick and appears to know exactly what to do. He cannily introduces new material by turning it into an audience singalong, segues from Think I’m in Love to a cover of Donna Summer’s I Feel Love, and gets his band to introduce themselves by performing brief snippets of Prince’s 1999, Kraftwerk’s It’s More Fun to Compute, Chic’s Good Times and David Bowie’s China Girl; the latter might have made for a more heartfelt tribute if Hansen had known the words, but those standing in the mud failing to give a damn clearly decide that it’s the thought that counts. HG Mac DeMarco – John Peel stage Leave it to Mac DeMarco and his band to be the spiritual slackers for Glasto’s great unwashed. They turn up on stage looking like Somerset’s finest farmers, happily telling the crowd about the matching raincoats and bucket hats they blagged in Frome. Each member of the band is infinitely watchable, striking yoga poses at the keyboard and blowing kisses to the camera and the audience. It could easily descend into pure comedy – indeed, there’s something very 2016 Happy Mondays about their muckabout shtick. But these guys have the musicianship to balance out the nonstop playfulness. The title track of last album Salad Days shows off their knack for reeling in the crowd with laidback 60s pop and guitars that sound as if they’ve been licked by sunshine, as well as a smattering of older songs such as My Kind of Woman, romantic ditties obscured by a stoner pace and delivered with a gap-toothed smile. But there are also enviable, noodlesome instrumentals where the band do a Jimi Hendrix, everyone guitar-playing behind their heads, and raucous dance-alongs for Freaking Out the Neighbourhood, when Kirin J Callinan and Jay Watson from Tame Impala join them on stage for a spot of interpretive dance or, in Watson’s case, just to have a quiet sit down. Mac De Marco shows are often raucous affairs, breaking almost instantly into moshpits, but this is more of a cheery affair. A lively warm-up for their no doubt messfest of a secret set at the Crow’s Nest later tonight. Tame Impala wish they were this cool. KH PJ Harvey – Other stage Flying through all the variously stumbled and rushed Brexit responses on stage this weekend was PJ Harvey’s perfectly weighted dart. Introducing The Glorious Land, she read John Donne’s poem No Man Is an Island, written in 1624, with its assertion that “every man is a piece of the continent”. But her entire set was a reflection on the priggishness of alpha-male politics that wreaks havoc from Syria to Essex. Using martial drums and drill-sergeant strictness is on one level sarcastic, an arch version of chest-beating masculinity. But it also acknowledges just how infectious such rousing military music can be. Opening with Chain of Keys, she marches out playing a saxophone with the burly middle-aged blokes in her band, dressed in leather gloves and midnight folds of fabric. Moving to the mic, she holds the sax out like a totem, starting up a blood ritual. She holds poses amid the Guernica-like imagery of The Ministry of Defence, then marvels like a child at the “insects courting” in Let England Shake – all of it hypnotically authoritative stagecraft. It would be nothing, of course, without great music, and aside from Dollar, Dollar’s overly spartan passages, it’s beautiful – like a New Orleans blues band commissioned for a dance in an Elizabethan court. Phrases are repeated again and again with almost techno-like levels of fixation; perhaps in these troubled times, words become buoys to cling to, sure things to focus on. To Bring You My Love, meanwhile, becomes a study in psychotic eroticism, backed by scorched desert blues. You get the feeling that the chaos and pathos of Brexit will provide fresh grist for this immensely fertile period of her career – it’s almost worth living in shit to get pearls like this from it. BBT Grimes – Park stage Glasto’s final sunset was a complete non-event, obscured behind a sheet of blank grey – enter Grimes to fire a barrage of Technicolor into the sky. Claire Boucher may have started out in grimy warehouses, but is proudly in thrall to the arena-filling sound of K-pop and electro, and has so much love for expressing it all that she positively vibrates with passion. It makes for a thrilling set, as she darts between iconic vogueing at the front of the stage and tweaking synths at the back; during Venus Fly, she goes from coquette to demon in a single bound across the stage, unleashing noisy digital hell at the flick of a switch. She’s backed by a guitarist given to whipping hair and shredding, plus two dancers wielding ribbons and knives – a combo that pretty much sums up Grimes’s music. A new version of Be a Body is jacked up, the foursome dancing through what looks like the world’s scariest fitness video; quite often Grimes herself, dressed like a Nintendo hero, is like a cheerleader who has grasped the potential malevolence of a pep rally. World Princess Pt 2 is particularly striking, whipping itself up again and again towards a chorus drop of gigantic satisfaction. Glastonbury may seem as if it’s all earthy emotions and gong baths, but Grimes is a reminder that it can provide intensely immediate thrills. BBT LCD Soundsystem – Other stage Those of a cynical disposition might suggest that the re-emergence of LCD Soundsystem, less than five years since James Murphy retired them, had a little ring of the cash register about it. Fine, but even if these 2016 shows are financially motivated, Murphy is certainly earning his corn. Case in point: this Other stage headline set, in which, clad in a pristine white suit, he stalks the stage like some evangelical preacher, manically barking out the lyrics to Daft Punk Is Playing Out My House, cowbell in hand. Every hit lands, from an itchy performance of Tribulations, to a hyperactive Losing My Edge, to Murphy belting out New York, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down as if he’s auditioning for Hamilton. Things culminate, as they always should, with a mesmerising All My Friends. Over on the Pyramid, Coldplay unleash their 25th fireworks display of the night. No one pays it a moment’s notice. GM
Fans walk out on Amy Schumer show after she roasts Donald Trump Amy Schumer was faced with booing and walkouts in Florida over the weekend after she made jokes about Donald Trump. Around 200 people left her show at the Amalie Arena in Tampa after the controversial comic called the Republican candidate an “orange, sexual-assaulting, fake-college-starting monster”. According to the Tampa Bay Times, Schumer covered issues ranging from the election to gun control, an issue she’s spoken out about before following the shooting that took place at a screening of her film Trainwreck in 2015. At one point in the show, Schumer asked a Trump supporter, “preferably one with sleeves”, to come onstage and explain why they were picking him. A local man got up and explained the decision was about not liking Clinton. “Do you get worried at all with how impulsive he is?” she reportedly said to him. “Do you worry he’ll be impulsive and get us in a lot of fucking trouble we can’t get out of?” As audience members booed, Schumer responded: “Of course, we’re in Florida, you’re going to boo. I know you’re here to laugh, but you choose how you’re going to live your life, and it’s just too important. Just so you know, from now on, if you yell out, you’re gonna get thrown out.” The comic has been a vocal supporter of Hillary Clinton since March and also spent time at the weekend helping people in Florida ensure they were registered to vote. The response to Schumer may also be linked to her recent book The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo, in which she called Tampa “horrendous” and joked that “no one who lives there has ever read a book”. Schumer has responded to the incident, telling Entertainment Weekly: “I loved the crowd and my show in Tampa last night! I want to thank the 8,400 people who stayed. We had a great time! We have always depended on comedians to make us laugh and tell the truth. I am proud to continue that tradition.”
Will Brexit bring Ireland and Northern Ireland closer together? How do Irish and Northern Irish people feel about themselves, and each other, after the Brexit vote? In the tangle of questions arising from the EU referendum, some of the most knotty relate to the new relationship the UK must forge with Ireland over immigration, customs and borders. But with Northern Ireland – where a majority of people want to stay part of the UK – voting by a clear 12-point margin to remain in the EU, has Brexit also reopened the question of a united Ireland? After the 23 June poll, both Enda Kenny, the Irish taoiseach, and Martin McGuinness, Northern Ireland’s deputy first minister, called for a referendum on the Irish border. The asked readers in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland for their reactions. For some, the referendum result was so significant that it has changed their own feelings about a potential united Ireland. Sean, a Green party supporter from Belfast, said that as a nationalist with Irish citizenship living north of the border, he had nonetheless always been content with the status quo, with Northern Ireland part of the UK. But the 2015 general election swayed him towards supporting a united Ireland. He said: “The referendum result cemented that. My reasoning being, Great Britain doesn’t care about us, doesn’t want us, and if we are going to get screwed, I’d rather get screwed from Dublin.” One Belfast-based remain voter, Peter, a supporter of the cross-community Alliance party, said that on the day of the referendum he “went to bed a small ‘u’ unionist and woke up a small ‘n’ nationalist”. “The EU is something that tries to bring us together,” he said. “And if it takes me being Irish rather than British to be part of that, then I really don’t care.” A border poll should be held, he said, “if and when Brexit is effected by the UK government and we know what it means to the citizens of Northern Ireland”. Anthony Stafford, also from Belfast, described himself as a nationalist allied most closely with Sinn Féin. And yet, he said, before the referendum, “I would have considered myself a unionist with the UK firmly in the EU. After the referendum I would no longer classify myself as unionist, and would seek a united Ireland.” Northern Ireland, he said, “has benefited most from the EU system, and it is disgraceful we’re being dragged out of it”. Others, however, including Olli Thomson, an Ulster Unionist party supporter and leave voter from Northern Ireland who is currently based in Manila, felt the referendum was unlikely to change most people’s positions. “The driving force behind the vote to remain was economic,” he said. “Specifically the perception that Northern Ireland has done well out of the EU. Were the option of a border poll on the agenda, the driving force behind that vote would be the same.” Given Ireland’s post-2008 financial turbulence, he said, “I suspect there would be a much greater majority in favour of retaining the current arrangements”. “There is absolutely no evidence that those from a unionist background support reunification,” agreed Robert Osborne, a remain voter and Alliance supporter who lives in Belfast. “If Brexit is an incredibly difficult process, imagine what merging two parts of the island would involve [after] separation for 100 years.” “People who voted to stay in the EU are not going to change their nationality because of Brexit,” said Mark, an Ulster Unionist party voter and remain supporter from Bangor, County Down. “I know lots of people who voted remain, and none of them would vote for a united Ireland. Apart from the nationality aspect, it doesn’t make financial sense. Britain outside the EU is still going to be a better place to live financially than Ireland.” The ’s survey illustrated one fact frequently overlooked about Ireland, north and south: people’s views on sovereignty do not always conform to preconceptions. Joan, from Dublin, said: “I think people fail to understand that the Irish Republic does not actually want Northern Ireland any more. Ireland has changed greatly, more than the north, and the central issue is ... ‘the economy, stupid’. On the one hand, the south can’t afford the north, on the other the north does not want to be treated as Ireland was [during the bailout]. These factors have not changed with Brexit.” Fiona Clare, a fellow Dubliner, agreed. “The real question, the one that is rarely asked, is whether those of us in the republic would wish for reunification,” she said. “I would not, either on economic or security grounds. I don’t know anyone within my family, friends, colleagues or general acquaintance who do. Whenever it is mentioned it is roundly scoffed at and considered to be a mad plan by both young and old.” Some welcomed the idea of a poll, even though most felt there was no appetite for it in either country. “It would allow people to have their say once and for all,” said Carol Ann, a remain voter and Alliance supporter from Belfast. “We’ve always said we would abide by the will of the people, so I think it might not be a bad thing to see what that actually means.” In practical terms, however, “my friends and I, from both sides of the political divide, tend to feel that unification is really not financially viable”. Many others made the point that given recent history, a poll on the island’s border is the last thing Northern Ireland needs. As part of the 1998 Good Friday agreement, the Irish Republic dropped its historic territorial claim over the six counties that make up Northern Ireland. The overwhelming votes to accept the agreement in separate referendums north and south of the border was seen as having effectively settled the question of unification, for the foreseeable future at least. In the context of a still fragile peace, many dread poking that particular hornet’s nest again. To Brian from Sligo, talk of a united Ireland in the near future is “naive and dangerous”. He said: “People forget how horrible the Troubles were and that was only 20 years ago. It took years of difficult negotiations to attain the peace we have today. That could very easily fall apart if there was to be a referendum on a united Ireland. “Getting people to debate national identity in a small place where there were Troubles up until the recent past could be a dangerous thing.” Osborne said: “It is quite clear that a border poll will only be held if there is a decisive shift in public opinion in both parts of the island. The reality at the moment is that those seeking a united Ireland are failing to convince most of the nationalist/Catholic population in Northern Ireland that it is a practical prospect. A push towards a poll would create real disturbance in the political settlement here and for no practical gain.” It was, he concluded, “an idea whose time has not come”. Some names have been changed
Troy Deeney sends Watford eighth with double to beat Crystal Palace Quique Sánchez Flores recognises a top striker when he sees one and, in Troy Deeney, the Watford manager has more than just a goalscorer at his disposal. Deeney’s eighth and ninth league goals of the season, either side of Emmanuel Adebayor’s first for Crystal Palace, condemned Alan Pardew’s side to a sixth defeat in their past seven matches and virtually confirmed Watford will be playing Premier League football next season. “Troy has an amazing personality,” said Flores. “He’s always ready for everything. In terms of the work he does for the team, he’s so important for us.” The home supporters at Selhurst Park had waited all season – 2,295 minutes to be exact – for one of their strikers to score from open play and when Adebayor finally broke that duck just before half-time, it seemed like they would be the winners. But having already converted from the penalty spot when Palace’s captain, Mile Jedinak, was adjudged to have fouled him from a corner, Deeney had the last laugh as his winner took Watford up to eighth and within touching distance of the magical 40-point mark. Six weeks ago, it looked like either of these unfashionable clubs could mount a challenge for European football next season. Yet with Palace’s season having fallen apart since injury deprived them of the services of their talismanic winger Yannick Bolasie, those days must seem a distant memory for Pardew. He admitted their first-half display was as poor as he had seen from his side since returning to south London at the start of last year and although things improved after the break following Adebayor’s powerful headed goal, they clearly have major problems. “It was bit worrying to be honest,” said Pardew. “We couldn’t get going in the first half – it just wasn’t happening for us. “Then we score out of the blue, which probably we didn’t deserve and in the second half we were a lot better. In the end we were perhaps unlucky to lose this game. There’s no doubt we’ve had some terrible injuries and they’ve really hurt us. The only good news coming out is that Bolasie looks like he is working well and should be involved next week and [Bakary] Sako should as well. They will be major factors in us turning this around because the pressure is on us now.” A trip to face Tottenham in the FA Cup will at least provide some distraction, but Pardew will know preserving their Premier League future is much more important. Now five ahead of Palace on 36 points, Watford will have no such worries even if Flores is taking nothing for granted just yet. “It means that we are very close to our target – to stay in the Premier League this season,” he said in what appeared to be his best Claudio Ranieri impression. “To come here and get a result is very difficult so it’s been a perfect day for us,” he said. Flores was more forthcoming when it was suggested Deeney, who has 70 league goals in four seasons, could be an outside contender for a place in England squad this summer. “Each week I say that [Harry] Kane, [Jamie] Vardy – these kind of players you can compare him with. But I want to stop a little bit about that because I am not the manager of the national team,” he said.
Pankhurst relative condemns Priti Patel's Brexit-suffragette comparison The great-granddaughter of Emmeline Pankhurst has criticised Tory cabinet minister Priti Patel for claiming the suffragettes were fighting for the same cause as those who want Britain to leave the EU. Helen Pankhurst said it was “unacceptable” to use her ancestor’s achievements to promote Brexit, after Patel, the employment minister, claimed the suffragettes and leave campaigners were fighters for democratic freedom. In a speech to launch the Women for Britain campaign, Patel was due to say: “As a suffragette, Pankhurst fought for the rights of women to have a vote, a voice and a say in how their society is governed and who governs it. In many ways, Women for Britain are fighting for the same cause. The suffragettes fought for our democratic freedom. Now we are the ones who must fight to protect it. “Emmeline Pankhurst and the suffragettes did not fight to have the right to vote on who governs them only to then see those decisions surrendered to the EU’s undemocratic institutions and political elite.” But Pankhurst said she did not believe the aims of the Brexit campaign were in the same spirit as the suffragette movement. “My great-grandmother fought tirelessly for women’s rights and dedicated her life to making sure women could live their lives free from discrimination. It is unacceptable to use her achievements to argue for something that is so out of line with the spirit of international solidarity that defined the suffragette movement. “To the contrary, I believe that my great-grandmother would have been the first to champion what the EU has meant for women, including equal pay and anti-discrimination laws.” The remain and leave campaigns were using International Women’s Day on Tuesday to try to encourage female voters to engage in the EU referendum, amid some evidence that more women than men are undecided about which side to back. Andrea Leadsom, the Tory energy minister campaigning for Brexit, told the BBC’s Today programme that the debate had been too “male-dominated” and women needed to hear more about what it would mean for the cost of living and future of their children. On the other side, Nicky Morgan, the education secretary, and Yvette Cooper, the former Labour leadership candidate, appeared in a video about what the EU has done for women’s rights. Morgan said it contributed to safeguarding parental leave, tackling discrimination in the workplace, and bringing an end to violence against women and girls. “A vote to leave would put all of this at risk, which is why I am proud to play my part in this video to help demonstrate to women across the UK how each one of us benefits from our seat at the top table,” she said. Cooper also highlighted Europe-wide guarantees on maternity leave and protections against discrimination at work, saying they are “good for British women and for British businesses who want to do the right thing but don’t want to be undercut when operating in Europe”.
Doctor Strange review – sharp wit and spiritual popcorn Visually distinctive, classily cast and mostly coherent, this latest picture from the Marvel stable is that rarest of beasts, a comic-book movie that fully justifies its reliance on CGI effects. This superior hero-origin story nods to the spatial origami of Christopher Nolan’s Inception and has something of the baroque enchantment of the Harry Potter series. It’s also, at times, the most brain-meltingly effective piece of psychedelic cinema since Peter Fonda got himself comprehensively wigged out in The Trip. But crucially, Doctor Strange is very much its own entity: a handsome, endlessly fascinating conundrum of Escher-like complexity. Director Scott Derrickson, who also co-wrote the film, effortlessly negotiates the leap from quality horror pictures (The Exorcism of Emily Rose, Sinister) to this daringly spiritual popcorn movie. There’s a sharp wit to the screenplay, which credits the audience with enough smarts to catch the punchline to a joke that was set up a full hour before. But Derrickson’s greatest achievement is incorporating so much cosmic guff into the story – astral planes, third eyes and mandalas abound – without ever seeming like a stoner’s motivational bedroom poster. Much of the success of the film is down to the casting. As Dr Stephen Strange, the brilliant neurosurgeon whose career is wrecked by a devastating car accident, Benedict Cumberbatch is as steely and sharp as the surgical implements he uses to probe the damaged brains of his patients. When we meet him, he has something of the privileged swagger of Tony Stark (Iron Man) but none of his warmth. But Cumberbatch makes the least immediately likable of the Marvel heroes into the most unpredictable and intriguing. Strange’s desperation over his ruined hands takes him to Nepal and to the secretive enclave headed by a guru known only as the Ancient One (Tilda Swinton). Swinton is typically excellent as Strange’s mentor in the arts of magic. An unworldly Zen teacher with a touch of very earthly cruelty, there’s authority to her screen presence that gives weight to Strange’s spiritual journey. Strong support from Chiwetel Ejiofor as Mordo and Benedict Wong as Wong brings heart and wry humour to the story. Meanwhile, Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen is somewhat underused as Kaecilius, a renegade former disciple. With his purple eyeshadow and back-up team of zealots, he looks like the frontman to a glam-rock covers band.Unexpectedly, one of the strongest characters turns out to be an item of clothing. Doctor Strange’s trademark cloak has deft comic timing and a scene-stealing knack for a sight gag. The solidity of the performances is a necessary anchor as we plunge into the mind-bending layers of trippy visuals (not for nothing does Stan Lee make a cameo as a bus passenger chuckling over a copy of Aldous Huxley’s Doors of Perception). This is one instance where audiences watching in 2D rather than 3D will be missing out significantly. Not only does the fantasy element pop out of the screen, the teeming chaos of Nepal looks astonishing. Two end-credit stings give a hint of things to come on our next appointment with the Doctor, suggesting that Marvel fully appreciates the invigorating transfusion of new blood that this film provides. The Comedian’s Guide to Survival (94 mins, 15) Directed by Mark Murphy; starring James Buckley, Jimmy Carr, Paul Kaye The casting of Inbetweeners star James Buckley, plus cameos from a host of comic performers and the word “comedian” in the title leads to certain expectations here. Specifically: laughs. Unfortunately, they are few and far between in this ironic, fourth-wall-breaking tale of a luckless standup with an unfortunate case of panic-induced incontinence. Episodic and unfocused, the film meanders before deploying a highly unconvincing scene of long-awaited comic success. Starfish (95 mins, 15) Directed by Bill Clark; starring Joanne Froggatt, Tom Riley, Phoebe Nicholls The true story behind this well-meaning account of disease and domestic struggle is profoundly shocking. Husband and father Tom (Tom Riley) is struck down with sepsis shortly before the birth of his second child. He survives, but loses his hands, lower legs and part of his face. Day-to-day life for Tom, his wife, Nicola (Joanne Froggatt), and his children becomes an unimaginable struggle. It’s a tough watch. A tale of endurance that is explored intimately but somewhat prosaically, this is probably better suited to television than cinema.
Football transfer rumours: Arsenal's Héctor Bellerín to Barcelona? There aren’t too many rumours today, because the people of this green, unpleasant land are dealing in numbingly cold, hard facts about England’s ridiculousness. What a shower of clowns! The tabloids have found space for a bit of gossip, however, and it’ll be coming to you just as soon as we find a way to end this increasingly rambling sentence. In the world of banter, Arsenal’s status as a feeder club is long established, and the word on the street is that the banter shall continue: Barcelona want Héctor Bellerín to return to the club and replace Dani Alves, who joined Juventus yesterday. In 2016, no self-respecting Premier League team is complete without a whateverthecollectivenounis of Belgians. And so it is that Chelsea want both Radja Nainggolan and Axel Witsel, although Everton manager Ronald Koeman has had the unwise idea of trying to steal Witsel from under Antonio Conte’s perfumed nose. Koeman also wants to sign Dutch goalkeeper Maarten Stekelenburg from Fulham. Real Madrid may have activated Alvaro Morata’s buy-back clause from Juventus, but Chelsea are still keen to sign him, safe in the knowledge that their new manager has the will of Keyser Soze. Swedish geriatrico Zlatan Ibrahimovic will complete his on-on move to Manchester United this week, and form a new MRI strikeforce with Anthony Martial and Marcus Rashford. But Pep Guardiola will trump José Mourinho by signing teenage winger Marlos Moreno from Colombia’s Atlético National, and to hell with any work permit issues. To Hull, where Steve Bruce, who in his managerial career has bought players from all 196 countries on the planet, is contemplating a £5m offer for Augsburg’s Paraguayan striker Raúl Bobadilla. Leicester’s famous scouting network, led by former defender Spencer Prior, has highlighted Nice midfielder Nampalys Mendy, and deemed him to be worth £13m. This probably means N’Golo Kante will be slipping through the door marked ‘Seeya!’ Lastly, Santos’ teenage striker Gabriel Barbosa will be playing for Barcelona or Manchester City in a few years’ time. We know this because Arsenal are reportedly considering a bid for him. It’s just banter, let it drift.
Steven James Adams review – intense and profound Having survived two bands and weathered the waters of critical praise and commercial indifference, singer-songwriter Steven James Adams should be ready for anything. But headlining the first night of the Fortuna Pop! label’s week-long Winter Sprinter – an annual indie love-in - he admits to being “quite nervous”. “By the end I’ll be a cocky bastard and you’ll start to relax,” he says, reassuring himself as much as the silent, reverent crowd. It doesn’t help that Adams is alone on stage with only an acoustic guitar for company. Or, as he points out, that he begins with three new songs from his second solo album, Old Magick, due to be released in March. But Adams draws justified confidence from leading cult heroes Broken Family Band and jaunty rockers Singing Adams, and from the quality of his new material. The delicate warmth of Modern Opinions’s easy melody melts under Adams’s disillusioned voice, which turns chatty, then incisive, over the bouncy rhythm of French Drop. During Ideas, his subtle country inflection is twisted into a hard, demanding howl. Such shades of light and dark are inherent in Adams’s renowned lyricism too. He turns the domestic into the intense and profound on I Need Your Mind and Black Cloud, before turning his world-weary gaze on the political for Togetherness, which is both a perfect pop song and thought-provoking attack on racism. But it’s Adams’s everyman quality that’s most endearing. Quick with a funny story, joke or witty aside, he encourages the crowd to make up for the absence of a lead guitar solo by whooping through Tears of Happiness, then abandons the microphone and unplugs his guitar for a campfire-like rendition of How We Get Through. By the end of the 55-minute set, Adams is standing atop a bar opposite the stage, playing his guitar with a fringed lampshade hanging over his brow, the nervous troubadour replaced not by a cocky bastard but a charming, insightful entertainer. • Steven James Adams is at the Hope & Ruin, Brighton on 12 March. Box office: 01273 325793.Then touring.
Cult heroes: the Pastels – the quirky individualists at the heart of Glasgow's music scene The Pastels long ago became a kind of shorthand for a wan, wonky and distinctly unambitious strain of guitar music that’s as niche as they come. That – the result of a reductive association with the NME’s C86 cassette – has rendered them one of the most misrepresented cult groups of their era. There’s a much more compelling story to be told about a band integral to the birth of the Glasgow independent music scene, who continue to make wonderful and surprising music (albeit very slowly: they average an album every seven years). Without the instincts, inspiration and energies of the Pastels’ softly-spoken founding singer-guitarist Stephen McRobbie, AKA Stephen Pastel – who runs the Domino Records imprint Geographic and co-founded one of the UK’s best independent record stores, Monorail – the Glasgow scene would probably be bound together by significantly less camaraderie and common purpose than it does today. The Pastels formed in 1981 – another indie group on the fringe of the Postcard Records scene – just as Orange Juice were setting about their post-punk mission to rip it up and start again. It was Brian “Superstar” Taylor, a slightly older friend of Postcard svengali Alan Horne, who first took seriously the cocksure aspirations of the duffle-coat sporting Bearsden boy with a DIY haircut. Taylor helped McRobbie advance his rudimentary guitar skills, and became the first recruit to his fledgling band, influenced by the untamed mayhem of the Velvet Underground and naive charm of the Television Personalities. They recruited bassist Martin Hayward and drummer Bernice Simpson, and were playing shows and recording music with indecent haste. McRobbie booked their first gig at Bearsden Burgh Hall because he’d seen Crass play the same venue. Such was McRobbie’s certainty about his new group’s worth that he wasted no time in impressing on Rough Trade Records in London the necessity of snapping up the next big thing out of Scotland. Geoff Travis was sufficiently convinced to release the Pastels’ 1983 single I Wonder Why (their second single following chaotic debut Songs for Children, which had been released on Television Personalities singer Dan Treacy’s label Whaam!). Multi-tracked and divested of the raw, almost childlike energy of their live playing, it was a false dawn, and the band’s relationship with Rough Trade ended as the label became preoccupied with shinier new signings Scritti Politti and the Smiths. But, at their own, geological pace, the Pastels were on a path to releasing a minor masterpiece of a debut album. Before that came several more singles, a John Peel session and lots of cassette sharing and fanzine scribbling. (The Pastels’ fanzines Juniper Beri-Beri and Pastelism long predated the self-publishing culture that grew up around the C86 bands.) All that and some principled staying put. Having watched Orange Juice, among others, move to London and become swallowed up by the industry machine, there was a determination to do what no significant Glasgow guitar group had done before. When their debut album Up for a Bit With the Pastels finally arrived in 1987 via Glass Records, it was staunchly promoted with one foot firmly planted at home, in part because McRobbie was studying for a master’s degree in librarianship at Glasgow University. The Pastels’ ageless debut saw them cited as a favourite by everyone from the Jesus and Mary Chain and Primal Scream to Sonic Youth, Yo La Tengo and Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain. It never set the world alight, despite the gothic swirl of Ride, the motorik drone rock of Baby Honey and the anthemic Crawl Babies (the decaying spires of the Glasgow skyline are romantically invoked in the gorgeous lines, “I want to build her up / up as tall as a church / just to watch her / just to watch her falling down”). However, it did help to inspire confidence in the Glasgow scene and showed that bands didn’t have to move south but could let the record industry come to them. In its wake came such Scottish classics and quintessentially Glaswegian debuts as Belle and Sebastian’s Tigermilk and Mogwai’s Young Team through to Franz Ferdinand’s self-titled arrival and arguably even Chvrches world-beating synthpop. The first lineup of the Pastels disintegrated with the departure of Taylor, Hayward and Simpson following their long-lost second album, 1989’s Sittin’ Pretty (which is well overdue a reissue). The band could have called it a day, but a new incarnation instead assembled around McRobbie, keys player and vocalist Annabel “Aggi” Wright (a long-standing member of the group recruited from the Shop Assistants, who was also responsible for a lot of the Pastels’ artwork) and drummer Katrina Mitchell. It didn’t seem to bother anyone that Mitchell, who would become McRobbie’s long-term girlfriend (the pair still live together), couldn’t play the drums when she joined and spent years learning to do so. Which says it all about the Pastels’ excruciatingly patient approach to music-making. With Teenage Fanclub’s Norman Blake and Gerard Love among others fleshing out the lineup, the Pastels returned in 1995 with the release of Mobile Safari on Domino Records, at last a sympathetic and stable home for a band who had worked with no fewer than seven labels (including three spells on Alan McGee’s Creation Records). The uncharacteristically prompt follow-up Illumination arrived in 1997, as the Pastels’ sound mellowed and evolved into a form of gently psychedelic off-kilter pop, adorned with orchestral instrumentation. Around this time, through their association with Japanese musician Cornelius, the band became incongruously wrapped up in the hype surrounding Britpop in Japan, jostling for position in magazines with the likes of Blur and Manic Street Preachers. On one trip to Tokyo they were mobbed by screaming fans outside hotels and venues. For a bunch of unassuming Scots who could barely get arrested back home, it must have felt like stepping into an alternative universe. In 2000, McRobbie started up his Domino imprint Geographic, releasing gems from, among others, Maher Shalal Hash Baz, Bill Wells Trio, Future Pilot AKA, The Royal We and Lightships. In 2003, he became one of the founders of Monorail Music, a vinyl-centric record shop based in a railway arch next to music venue Mono. One of the hubs of the Glasgow scene, it’s a bright, open and inviting space where you can browse the latest releases by local labels as well as rare imports. Any of which might be sold to you by McRobbie himself, who is often to be found working behind the counter. A collaboration with Japanese lo-fi duo Tenniscoats in 2009 gave rise to the soft-hued Two Sunsets, a playful, spontaneous and spellbinding must-hear. In 2013, the Pastels released their 16-years-in-the-making album Slow Summits. It is perhaps their most complete set since Up for a Bit, with its 10 summery, groovy flute and french-horn-licked songs, trippy in the sense of the kind of trip that lands in a pile of freshly mown grass. Every so often the Pastels get their just deserts. In 2013, Slow Summits was shortlisted for the Scottish album of the year award; a year later, they opened for Mogwai at the Usher Hall, Edinburgh; and last year Copenhagen micro-brewery Mikkeller made a beer in the band’s honour, appropriately titled Pastelism. Cheers to that, and to the enduring health of a band who have been integral to Glasgow’s music scene for about as long as anyone can remember there being such a thing.
There is a plan: Brexit means good riddance to austerity As we leave the EU, the UK can turn its back on the austerity policies that have been the hallmark of the euro area. My main argument against staying in the EU has been the poor economic record of the EU as a whole, and the eurozone in particular. The performance has got worse the more the EU has developed joint policies and central controls. The UK public warmed to the idea of spending our own money on our own priorities in the referendum campaign. The main issue between leave and remain was the money. Remain tried to dismiss its importance by claiming there was in practice little money at stake, and disagreed strongly with any reference to the gross figure for UK contributions. The public did not take away one particular figure from the debate, but did believe that we contributed substantial money that it would be useful to spend at home. Cancelling the contributions would also make an important reduction in our large balance of payments deficit, as every penny we send and do not get back swells the deficit, just as surely as if we bought another import. During the campaign I released a draft post-Brexit budget, showing how we could scrap VAT on domestic fuel, tampons and green products, and boost spending substantially on the NHS. The government will be able to choose what to do once we have stopped the payments. The autumn statement showed a saving of a net contribution of £11.6bn in 2019-20 once we are out of the EU, as well as additional domestic spending in place of spending in the UK by the EU currently. I am glad the chancellor has also adopted more flexible rules for the budget deficit. There is no need to genuflect to the Maastricht debt and deficit criteria once we leave, nor to pretend that we are about to get our overall debt down to 60% of GDP, as is required by those rules. The UK economy needs further stimulus, as the autumn statement acknowledged. There are roads and railway lines to be built, new power stations to be added, more water storage, schools and hospitals to cater for the rising population. The government is right to say the UK needs to invest more. We need to make new provision for all the additional people who have joined the country in recent years, and to improve the efficiency of our infrastructure. The country is well behind in meeting demand for train and road capacity, and in energy provision. The UK also needs to make, grow and provide more for its own needs. Leaving the EU will enable the UK to undertake a major campaign for import substitution. When we have our own fishing policy we could move back to being net exporters, instead of being importers. The common fisheries policy means too much of our fish is taken by other member states, leaving us short for our own needs. Designing our own agriculture policy will mean we can put behind us the quotas and regulations that have held back UK output during our years in the EU. We can change our procurement rules, so that the government when spending taxpayers’ money can ensure more is bought from home suppliers. The UK is embarking on a substantial expansion of housebuilding. Too many materials and components for our new homes are imported. The lower level of sterling provides an opportunity for the UK to put in more brick, block and tile capacity, to prefabricate and manufacture more of the components and systems a new home needs. If more of the home is fabricated off-site – as happens in Germany and Scandinavia – we reduce the impact of bad weather, of labour shortages and other inefficiencies on the building site. Industry by industry there are opportunities for suitable investment and entrepreneurial activity, to meet more of the UK’s own demands. This will be good for jobs, and better for the environment, when more is produced close to the place of consumption. One of the great unanswered questions of our time in the EU is: why do we run a balance of payments surplus with the rest of the world but a deficit with our EU neighbours? Why has it been so large and so persistent? Part of the reason rests in the way the EU rules were organised. Early liberalisation was designed to help the sectors the continent was best at, rather than the sectors where the UK had a relative advantage. The continental competitors soon outpaced us in their better areas, leading to UK factory closures and job losses in areas like shipbuilding steel production and cars in the early years of membership. The special designs of the common agricultural and fishing policies also led to larger import bills for us. Leaving the EU has coincided, so far, with a fall in the value of the pound. The UK should now be very competitive. It is time for business to respond to the favourable levels of domestic demand, and to work with government to put in the extra capacity we need to meet more of our own requirements. Prosperity, not austerity, should be the watchword. • John Redwood is the author of Brexit Benefits: Prosperity not Austerity – Britain’s New Economy, published by Politeia
Sunderland Echo wrong to demand an apology from the New York Times Following the EU referendum result, the New York Times decided to take a closer look at Sunderland because 61% of its voters backed Brexit. So reporter Kimiko De Freytas-Tamura paid it a visit and wrote an article about “the once-proud working class city” where “citizens seem to have voted against their own interests.” After all, as the home of the Nissan car factory, Sunderland had “been a big recipient of European [Union] money”. She argued that the result was also a vote against the Labour party, which is “no longer seen by many voters in Sunderland as a champion of the working class” who “are increasingly moving right over the issue of immigration, switching to the anti-Brussels, anti-immigrant UK Independence party.” The working class “feels it has lost out from globalisation, and a more mobile, educated class of people who have prospered from free trade and movement.” Deindustrialization had hollowed out “what was once a manufacturing stronghold” and “the region has struggled to catch up with its wealthier southern neighbours.” De Freytas-Tamura also described the appearance of shops in the “run-down neighborhood” of Washington “as if out of a time warp”. One of the people she interviewed, forklift operator Michael Wake, was quoted as saying the referendum had been an opportunity to “poke the eye” of David Cameron and the London establishment (providing the paper with its headline). The Sunderland Echo was outraged. It called on the New York Times to apologise for its “biased, patronising and grossly distorted picture” of the city. It reported that civic and business leaders had united in condemning the newspaper’s article and, in a front page appeal, urged its readers to set the Times straight about the reality of life in Sunderland. The Echo’s managing editor, Gavin Foster, said: “We don’t recognise this image of Sunderland. “Yes, we have our problems, but this article doesn’t reflect the Sunderland of the 21st century and the astonishing progress we have made as a city over the past 30 years.” Come back and take a second look, he suggested, to “see all the amazing things on offer.” Although the New York Times didn’t respond, De Freytas-Tamura did. She told the Echo that she had written the article in good faith. She said: “My intention was not to upset residents of Sunderland nor to paint it in bad light; it was to understand why people overwhelmingly voted leave when its economy seems to be tied to Nissan, the largest employer in the region, and EU funding. What I discovered was there were a lot of people who felt, despite those benefits, that they were being left behind by globalisation, by mainstream political parties, and a city still feeling the effects of [Margaret] Thatcher’s policies. They had nothing to lose by voting out because they had nothing to gain from globalisation in the first place – that was the sentiment I was aiming to capture.” Foster responded that his paper’s objection to her piece “was the selective and biased way the city was portrayed and the type of language and vocabulary which made it appear we lived in Victorian Britain.” Comment: At the risk of incurring the wrath of Foster and the people of Sunderland, I have to say that I thought De Freytas-Tamura’s article was fine. I couldn’t see anything objectionable about it. It was not, in any sense, an attack on the city or its citizens. Nor was there any question of inaccuracy. It was simply one reporter’s thoughtful take on the situation. If it was partial in any way, then surely it was reflecting the fact that the Brexit vote was itself overwhelming partial. So I’m afraid I found the Echo’s (and Foster’s) response to be an overreaction. And to ask the New York Times to apologise was, quite frankly, ridiculous. Given the circumstances (the margin of the city’s vote for leave), the article was a reasonable assessment by a reporter who, despite the relative shortness of her visit, compiled a valid account. In her explanation, De Freytas-Tamura also offered a coherent rationale for her approach. She and her paper have no need to apologise.
Instagram unveils new logo, but it's not quite picture perfect Instagram, the photo sharing app owned by Facebook, responsible for such cultural highlights as hot-dog legs, The Fat Jewish memes and Rich Kids of, well, Instagram, has debuted a new logo. The previous one, a retro-looking camera, and one of the most recognisable tech logos out there, has been replaced by a background swirl of sunset colours (orange, yellow, pink, purple) and a white outline of a camera. As if the camera was murdered, and chalk was drawn around its body. Murdered at sundown. Here it is: The new logo was announced via a blog post, a longer post on Medium from head of design, Ian Spalter, and also a short introductory film. The kind that is usually intensely annoying, but actually this one is quite cute (warning though: the end has a lot of flashing and intense colours). The blog post asserts that the “Instagram community has evolved over the past five years from a place to share filtered photos to so much more – a global community of interests sharing more than 80m photos and videos every day. Our updated look reflects how vibrant and diverse your storytelling has become.” Opinion on social media from Instagram users is split. Some are on the fence: But some really like it: Some, are even MORE into it: Some think it resembles the iOS photos app logo. Which it totally does not, but w/e. But those in the design business do seem to genuinely like it (sorry, I was joking before): As well as the main Instagram logo, the company’s companion apps Boomerang, Hyperlapse and Layout also have updated designs. Although their logos were already much fresher looking than the old main one, which has long been in need of an update and adhered to the older fashion for skeuomorphism (logos that look like their IRL counterparts). Instagram reckons its old-school camera was “no longer reflective of the community”. Changes have also been made to the in-app UI, specifically a “flatter” design as well as some colour changes. Fonts are now black in colour, and notifications have changed from orange to red. Instagram has said that the update “puts more focus on your photos and videos without changing how you navigate the app.” Instagram ends its update post with a message to its users: “Thank you for giving this community its life and colour”. Instagram – you are welcome.
Facebook’s satellite went up in smoke, but its developing world land grab goes on A rocket crashing into a satellite and cutting off the internet may sound somewhat like the start of an end-of-the-world blockbuster; surely such destruction, and lack of Wi-Fi, could only be a harbinger of doom? Fortunately, the scenario that played out last week was slightly less portentous. A SpaceX rocket, part of Elon Musk’s fevered attempts to eventually colonise Mars, exploded on Thursday as part of a failed pre-launch test fire, destroying a Facebook-owned satellite in the process. The satellite, which cost the company around £150m, was due to be used as part of Internet.org, a project designed to bring web connectivity to areas of the world with limited internet access. Free Basics, a program developed by Facebook with six internet service providers, is an “onramp to the internet”, designed to help those without the internet get online. Its latest iteration, in Nigeria, saw the launch of 85 free online services including healthcare offerings, job listings, education portals and, of course, Facebook itself. So far so good, right? Well, kind of. Providing access to the internet is a noble cause, particularly in parts of the world where it is severely limited or even non-existent. But should this infrastructure belong to a private company like Facebook, or should it be state-owned and maintained? Far be it from me to question the true nature of CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s philanthropy, but no matter how charitable a cause Facebook is championing, its primary aim is to make money – often from monetising its users’ data. It’s not just an issue of infrastructure, either; the destruction of the satellite also raises important questions about net neutrality – that internet service providers, be it Sky, BT, or Facebook, should enable equal access to all content and applications on the web without favouring any source over another. The narrative Facebook has given Internet.org is lofty and well-meaning enough – it describes the difference a weather report could make for a farmer planting some crops, and talks of how free information could help a child without textbooks – but look beyond the sleek website and humanitarian buzzwords and it’s a little more troubling. Users of the service may be connected to the internet, but their browsing choices are severely limited – the 85 services that are provided in Nigeria, for example, may be a good start for those getting to grips with the web, but are otherwise entirely inadequate. The whole point of the internet – the joy of it, the endlessly radical possibilities that are part and parcel of it – is that it’s open, that it’s neutral, that its users are free to say, do, and read almost anything they want on it. It’s not been without critics on this front, either; when Facebook attempted to launch the Free Basics initiative in India it met fierce opposition from net neutrality groups who felt that the entire internet should be accessible to users. Several campaigns were set up to lobby against the service, with one, Save the Internet (now the Internet Freedom Foundation), stating that one network provider should “not have a competitive advantage for specific services”. “Everybody should have an equal opportunity to use the sites and services they want, irrespective of which provider they use to connect to the internet,” the campaign wrote in its mission statement. Evidently Indian regulators agreed: Free Basics was blocked in February until Facebook could provide more details about the terms of the service. There’s obviously no immediate need to panic – it’s not like Zuckerberg is holed up in a den somewhere laughing maniacally about his omnipotent control of the internet. State-controlled infrastructure isn’t always safe or reliable either – earlier this year, for example, the internet was effectively switched off in Iraq to prevent teenagers from cheating on their exams, and the internet is widely censored in countries such as China and North Korea. This, clearly, is not a favourable outcome. But if we’re slightly more cynical about the whole endeavour, it’s not hard to see why Facebook might be so keen to provide these services beyond its possibly genuine desire to create a more connected world. Facebook’s user base has reached near saturation point in the US and Europe, making countries such as Nigeria and India potential goldmines when it comes to new sign-ups. More users, and more user data, benefit Facebook in one extremely simple way – financially. Like it or not, this financial consideration is a significant factor in the way that the company both provides its services and limits access to others. Free and open access to information is a right – and privately held companies should not be the ones who decide how, where, and to whom that right is bestowed.
Donald Trump's ghostwriter on being the 'Dr Frankenstein' who made a monster Tony Schwartz’s former editor has a nickname for him. “He’s Dr Frankenstein,” was how Edward Kosner put it in the New Yorker. In fairness, there have been many Dr Frankensteins behind the rise and rampage of Donald Trump. They’ve included the Republican party, with its years of divisiveness and racially charged rhetoric; the media, with its collective chase of the next shiny object; and the baby boomers feeling the cultural and economic ground give way. But it was Schwartz who sparked this strange political creature into life. As the ghostwriter of Trump’s bestselling 1987 book The Art of the Deal, he did more than anyone to create the businessman’s public persona. In it he translated Trump’s coarse ramblings into charming straight talk and came up with the phrase “truthful hyperbole”, which captures brilliantly an approach to business and politics in which everything is the greatest, the most beautiful. Schwartz helped give Trump the sweet smell of success – now seemingly irresistible to millions of people clinging to the American dream. “It’s been horrifying,” he says. “In the nearly 30 years after the book was published, the main thing I felt was, I want to be as far away from this man as I can, but I didn’t feel I created Frankenstein, because he was a real estate developer and reality television star. Who cared? It wasn’t that consequential to the world.” But building on the foundation of The Art of the Deal, Trump spent a decade hosting the reality TV show The Apprentice, reinforcing his image as a preternatural businessman with the power to say “You’re fired!” (and blurring the boundaries between reality and reality television, just as he would throughout the presidential campaign). Many supporters say they trust him to run America like a company; the business of America is business. It was no coincidence that he launched his presidential campaign at Trump Tower, a marbled cathedral of capitalism in Manhattan. Schwartz, 64, continues: “I simply didn’t think that much about it until he decided to run for president and it became clear that this wasn’t going to just fade away, that he was actually in a position to win the nomination. That’s when I thought, ‘Oh my God, I’ve contributed to creating the public image of the man who is sociopathic and people don’t realise it.’” If he were writing The Art of the Deal today, he’d call it “The Sociopath” instead, Schwartz told the New Yorker in July, an interview that broke decades of silence on the matter. “I certainly felt a kind of moral imperative to step in and say what I knew about a man I considered to be so dangerous, and I am very relieved that I did.” The Trump he observed was vulgar and vainglorious, a narcissistic liar with a short attention span, no appetite for reading books and an “extremely mixed” business record. A Trump presidency could, he warns, lead to martial law, the end of press freedom and the risk of nuclear war: “Staggeringly dangerous. Worse than I imagined when he began to run. Unthinkable. Horrifying. He’s way more out of control in the last couple of months than I’ve ever seen him. He doesn’t have any core beliefs beyond his own aggrandisement and power.” Schwartz fell into writing the book almost by accident. A liberal journalist in Ronald Reagan’s America, he wrote a scathing magazine article on Trump, only to receive a note from the entrepreneur, ever greedy for attention, saying he liked it. When Schwartz went to interview him for Playboy, Trump said he wanted to write an autobiography, even though he was only 38. Schwartz suggested instead a book called The Art of the Deal. Trump agreed – and said he should write it. With a high mortgage and a second child on the way, Schwartz needed the money. He struck his own deal: a joint byline, half of the $500,000 advance and half the royalties. It paid off in financial if not spiritual terms: The Art of the Deal sold more than a million copies and spent 13 weeks atop the New York Times bestseller list. Even at the time, Schwartz felt he was selling out, but to say he feels regret alone would be too simple. “I’ve spent a long, long time thinking about why I did it,” he muses. “It wasn’t the only choice I made that I’m not proud of in my life. It’s a complicated question to say whether I would do it differently today and here’s why: if I knew everything I know about what would happen to Trump, of course I wouldn’t do it. “But the complexity is that the experience of writing that book was so powerful, in a negative way, that it led me to change my life dramatically and move from a focus on being successful and earning more money to really exploring what a meaningful life looks like.” Schwartz quit journalism and set up a consulting firm, The Energy Project, which aims to boost employees’ productivity with happier, healthier workplaces. “I’ve spent 30 years doing stuff I’m proud of, that I’m not sure I would have gotten to if I hadn’t written that book. It gave me such a profound experience of the wrongness the direction of my life was taking. So it’s complicated, right? “One does good things and bad things over the course of a life and, if you get to the age I am and feel good about the life you’ve lived, it’s hard to say, ‘Gee, I wish I’d done this differently or that differently.’ Maybe I wouldn’t have landed where I did.” Schwartz delivered an address to the Oxford Union in the UK last Friday with the title “Into the belly of the beast: how Donald Trump led me on the path to dharma [enlightenment]”. He says: “What are the consequences of the choices you make that you rationalise to yourself, but can little imagine potentially huge consequences?” It remains to be seen who else will find a moment of zen after election day on 8 November. Probably not the Republicans, facing bitter infighting after Trump’s hostile takeover. It will also be a time for the media to look at itself closely. Last December, the Republican candidate Jeb Bush told press reporters: “He’s playing you guys like a fiddle … by saying outrageous things and garnering attention.” In February, Les Moonves, chairman of TV network CBS, declared: “It may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS.” By March Trump was already estimated to have earned $2bn of media attention. There will be hard questions over the thousands of hours of airtime he has been given – and whether his bigotry should have been called out sooner, rather than normalised and mainstreamed. While TV has often been in thrall to Trump, newspapers have shown their mettle with a series of investigations and exposures. The New York Times obtained records showing the billionaire may not have paid tax for 18 years. Then the Washington Post revealed a 2005 video in which Trump bragged about groping women (something Schwartz says he did not witness in 18 months shadowing him). This opened the floodgates for a dozen women to come forward with allegations of sexual assault or unwanted advances. Schwartz reflects: “I think my journey has a parallel in the journey of the media over the past six to 12 months. Along comes something that seems pretty damn seductive, a guy who attracts huge ratings and you know that people are going to read your story if you write about him. “I think the best people in the media have come to see that rationalising hate without considering the consequences of giving him that much attention turns out to have potentially really damaging, long-term consequences.” After this most astounding of all elections, nothing will be quite the same again, he believes. “It’s going to change the media because there’s no way not to go through a period of self-examination. It’s true for the media, for politics, for the culture of this country and for the whole issue of polarisation. Assuming it ends without Trump being elected, we have to use this as an opportunity to question a lot of assumptions that vast numbers of people had accepted and he has proved are not true.” If Trump does lose the election, as opinion polls strongly suggest, there will tremendous relief for Schwartz. “This is an inflection point and if he’s as soundly rejected as it looks like he will be, it’ll be quite a contrast, for example, to Brexit. It will suggest the forces of progress and evolution hurled away the forces of hatred and fear.” But how would Trump, whose entire personal mythology is based on winning with swagger, react to the devastating loss? Schwartz knows it won’t be pretty. “You can tell he’s terrified and angry about it and bewildered by it. It’s hard to predict exactly how he’s going to respond. It won’t be in a healthy way. “There’s a chance he’s going to do everything he can to blame this on someone other than himself. To insist it’s a rigged election and to try to mobilise the angry people who are his base to do something violent and crazy, which he can then blame on the next administration. I’m very concerned.”
Amazon turns foodie in bid to make Twitch the new TV Live-streaming video service Twitch is making its latest attempt to compete with traditional television – by launching its own food channel. The Amazon-owned site is starting with a famous name, though one perhaps not known to its Gen Y and Gen Z audience. Julia Child, who died in 2004, was a popular author and TV chef in America in the 1970s and 1980s and all 201 episodes of her show The French Chef are being broadcast back-to-back to promote the new channel. At the time of writing, the stream of Child’s show had been watched more than 550k times, with a bustling chat room discussing her tips for the perfect filet steak. The channel will sit under Twitch’s “Creative” category, which launched in 2015 as a home for music, design and other kinds of broadcasters outside Twitch’s core focus on gaming streams. The deal to screen Child’s TV show is not the first time Twitch has turned to a television veteran to promote its service. When it launched Twitch Creative, it ran a similar marathon of The Joy of Painting featuring US artist Bob Ross, and attracted 5.6 million viewers. The company ended 2015 with more than 1.7 million broadcasters, averaging 550,000 simultaneous viewers – with the average Twitch viewer watching for 421.6 minutes a month. Amazon paid nearly $1bn to buy Twitch in 2014, reportedly gazumping YouTube owner Google in the process. • YouTube v Twitch: Battling for viewers, but both can grow
Willian double sinks brave Stoke and extends Chelsea run to 13 straight wins This was a wholly fitting summation of the thrill that has been Antonio Conte’s first six months at Chelsea, a frenzy of a contest to see out the year with the leaders, untouchable since the end of September, savouring a 13th victory in succession. Stoke City offered far more of a test of the leaders’ credentials than plenty of others in that sequence but still ended defeated, even if there was no disgrace in that. It is more than three months since anyone found a way of checking this team. They appear unstoppable. The next side to try will be Tottenham Hotspur, bitter rivals still smarting from the critical damage inflicted to last season’s title challenge here back in May, but they will do well to contain them. Chelsea were pegged back twice by an impressive Stoke team, the hosts’ back-line unnerved by Peter Crouch, but the leaders’ self-confidence never wavered. They continued to sweep forward, convinced those forays would yield reward, and, eventually, buried Stoke’s intent beneath a two-goal lead. It was Diego Costa who settled the occasion, thrashing home a wonderful 14th club goal of the term from a tight angle after turning Bruno Martins Indi five minutes from time. Only then could Conte skip down the touchline in delight in the knowledge the day was truly won. “When you win a lot in a row, there is a great danger to be satisfied too early,” he said. “It’s not easy to show the character and reaction, above all after 12 wins in a row. After their second equaliser, we could easily be relaxed and think that, in the end, we’ve won a lot in the past so a draw, if we don’t win, is not important. But my players showed a great will to fight, a great will to win, a great will to take this great achievement for us. I’m pleased for them and they deserve this.” This equalled the record for consecutive victories within a single season and another at White Hart Lane on Wednesday would bring Chelsea level with Arsenal for the all-time winning tally – set over two campaigns – of 14. Conte has made clear he cares little for such statistical achievements though, in the context of last season’s toils and this side’s apparent shortcomings in the autumn, the sequence already feels remarkable. It is astonishing to think they have dropped eight points by the season’s halfway point, and played in a fashion which has provoked admiration rather than envy from most onlookers. The challenge will change from now on in. “We started this season as underdogs, underestimated,”said Conte. “But now the light is on Chelsea. We’ll have to work harder still to find, game by game, the right solution and carry on winning. It won’t be easy but, today, we are very happy.” This had been a real test of their credentials. Stoke were awkward opponents, Crouch unsettling a back three who had only previously been breached twice in 12 matches. It was the former England striker who leapt above Gary Cahill and nodded Charlie Adam’s deep free-kick back across goal for Martins Indi to volley the visitors level 55 seconds into the second period. The 35-year-old forward would be rewarded himself just after the hour-mark with his team’s second equaliser, side-footed in from the edge of the six-yard box from Mame Diouf’s centre after N’Golo Kanté had missed his kick with the home side’s rearguard, initially shrinking from Crouch, pulled out of position by the substitute Bojan’s dart into enemy territory. There were other awkward moments when Chelsea threatened to conceded again. Yet, where Stoke intent could never be questioned, their defending proved more accommodating. Mark Hughes was left to bemoan the winner – “a throw-in which bounced in our six-yard box” – and the lapse of concentration that led to parity squandered immediately on the second occasion the visitors drew level, but acknowledged the opponents were devastating on the break. Lee Grant’s superb reactions had frustrated the home side for a while, but some of the fragility that blighted Stoke’s start to the season has crept back in of late. Too many of Chelsea’s rewards were easily achieved. Cahill’s header from Cesc Fàbregas’ corner had forced them ahead, though it was Willian who would edge them back in front twice thereafter. Victor Moses’s flash of skill dumped Erik Pieters on the turf, the wing-back’s cross touched into the Brazilian’s path by Eden Hazard and the left-foot finish unerring. His second came from Fàbregas’s 100th Premier League assist, a pass placed inside Pieters that Willian hammered home. He had been Chelsea’s player of the year in last season’s toils and having initially lost his place after being granted compassionate leave following the death of his mother he is now back to his best. “We all know the difficult period through which he passed. So I’m pleased for him,” said Conte. “He’s a really good guy and deserves this.” This whole squad will go into the new year buoyed. Theirs is an air of invincibility at present.
Gene Simmons says NWA in Rock & Roll Hall of Fame is like Led Zep in Rap Hall of Fame Gene Simmons continues his crusade against the inclusion of rap artists in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, saying he will approve of NWA’s induction only “when Led Zep gets into Rap Hall of Fame”. His comment follows an ongoing exchange on the definition of rock, between the Kiss guitarist and NWA’s Ice Cube and MC Ren. In his induction speech on 8 April, Ren said: “I want to say to Mr Gene Simmons, hip-hop is here for ever. Get used to it.” Ren’s comments were triggered after Simmons told Rolling Stone, he was “looking forward to the death of rap”. In response, Ice Cube posted a definition of rock’n’roll: Ice Cube also raised the issue of rock’s ancestry in a tweet toward Simmons, asking: “Who stole the soul? Chuck Berry, Little Richard and Chubby Checker help invent rock & roll. We invent it. Y’all reprint it.” Simmons has since replied with his comments regarding Led Zeppelin, stating on 11 April: “I stand by my words. Respect NWA, but when Led Zep gets into Rap Hall of Fame, I will agree with your point.” Simmons has long denied rap’s place in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. “A few people decide what’s in and what’s not,” he told Radio.com in 2014. “And the masses just scratch their heads. You’ve got Grandmaster Flash in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame? Run-DMC in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame? You’re killing me. That doesn’t mean those aren’t good artists. But they don’t play guitar. They sample and they talk. Not even sing.” NWA became the fifth hip-hop act to join the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame on 8 April, joining Run-DMC, Beastie Boys, Public Enemy and Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. “The question is: are we rock’n’roll?” Ice Cube asked at the ceremony. “I say, you goddamn right we are. It’s not an instrument or a style of music, it’s a spirit. It’s been going since the blues, jazz, bebop, heavy metal, punk rock and yes, hip-hop. What connects us all is that spirit. “Rock’n’roll is not conforming to the people who came before but creating your own path in life. That is rock’n’roll and that is us. Rock’n’roll is NWA.”
Virgin Money shelves small business plans amid Brexit uncertainty Virgin Money has shelved plans to launch a banking service for small businesses in response to the uncertainty caused by the British vote to leave the European Union. Jayne-Anne Gadhia, chief executive, said she expected interest rates to fall by a quarter of a point from their historic low of 0.5% and remain there for at least three years. Gadhia added that Virgin had concluded that instead of offering current accounts from high-street branches it should focus on developing a digital-only offering. “We can’t see a way of making an old-fashioned current account work for us,” said Gadhia, who had been calling on the competition authorities to the end the practice of offering currents accounts for free. Major banks are able to subsidise free bank accounts through extra charges such as overdraft fees, which in turn blocks smaller competitors from charging for accounts because customers will balk at the concept of paying fees when they can get a free current account elsewhere. The change to the outlook for interest rates – as recently as March she had been planning on rates staying at 0.5% for two years – means that the bank dropped its profit guidance to the City for the next year. The City expects interest rates to be cut on 4 August, the next meeting of the Bank of England’s monetary policy committee, after governor Mark Carney said after the 23 June referendum that there was a case for monetary easing. Gadhia was speaking as Virgin’s share price – which has been battered since the Brexit vote – rose by 7% after the release of first-half figures. Profits gained 13% on the same period a year ago to £93.7m, or 53% to £101.8m if the costs of its stock market flotation and other items are excluded. The shares were priced at 283p in the November 2014 flotation. They fell close to 200p in the aftermath of the referendum on concerns about the impact of low interest rates on its business model and were trading at 264p after the results. Gadhia said it was improbable that the Bank of England would cut rates into negative territory but said she expected other major lenders to follow Royal Bank of Scotland – and its NatWest arm – in warning of the impact of negative rates. RBS faces criticism from small business customers after suggesting it could impose charges on deposits if rates fall below zero. “My own view is if RBS has done that it seems unlikely that the other banks don’t follow suit. It just becomes another charge,” said Gadhia. Savings rates would probably to have to be cut after a move by the Bank of England, but would not fall into negative territory. Gadhia, who had supported the remain campaign, is focusing on credit cards and maintained her target for £3bn of lending on credit cards by the end of 2017. She played down concerns about the bank’s exposure to the buy-to-let mortgage market, which is about 17% of its lending. Customer behaviour had not altered since the Brexit vote said Gadhia, who was among the delegation that accompanied the new chancellor, Philip Hammond, to China last week, and was strong enough to deal with post-referendum uncertainty.
'He has a real shot': Stephen King talks about his horror of a Trump presidency Stephen King has said that listening to Donald Trump’s speeches “is like listening to a piano fall down stairs”, as he admitted that the Republican presidential candidate has a “real shot” of winning this November’s presidential election. The horror novelist was speaking at the National book festival in Washington DC on Saturday, where he was being honoured by the Library of Congress for his lifelong work promoting literacy. King has long been an outspoken critic of Trump, putting his name to a statement opposing “unequivocally, the candidacy of Donald J Trump for the presidency of the United States” earlier this year, and needling him regularly on Twitter. Earlier this month, he joked that “Donald Trump is actually Cthulhu. The absurd hairdo isn’t absurd at all. It hides the tentacles.” On Sunday, he added that “Texas may go for Trump, but they have a saying for guys like him: ‘He’s so low, he could put on a top hat and crawl under a rattlesnake.’” On Saturday, King attacked Trump from a different angle: as a former English teacher, the author spoke about the joys and importance of reading – and how a decline in literacy means that politicians are able to voice meaningless statements. “I don’t believe in the so-called dumbing down of America, but as everyday reading declines – and it has – analytical thought also declines. Reading is for fun and for me that’s a big deal, but it also sharpens the nose for the unmistakable odour of bullshit,” said King. “We live in a society where many believe that libraries and other cultural endeavours, everything from Shakespeare in the Park to poetry slams and free concerts, are of minor importance. As if learning to think is a thing that just happens naturally, like learning to walk. Believe me, it’s not. Learning to think is the result of hard work and steady effort.” This “disregard” for culture, said King, leads to “illiteracy or semi-literacy in a national population where large numbers of people are lazy thinkers without any of that nose for bullshit”. This means, he said, that politicians “are allowed to slide by with generalities rather than specifics”, and “elected officials who are supposed to be the best, the smartest, often resort to outright misinformation”. “Note the way that Donald Trump falls back on saying this-and-such is going to be huge or this-and-such is beautiful. Any writer or reader worth his salt will say those words by themselves mean absolutely nothing,” he said. “Trump makes me wince not as a Democrat, which I am, but as a writer and reader. Listening to his speeches is like listening to a piano fall down stairs. It’s all dissonance and no music. God, I’m going to miss Obama … There was poetry, always music, in what he said.” In an interview with Ron Charles at the Washington Post, also this weekend, King admitted to being frightened that Trump might actually win this November. “A Trump presidency scares me more than anything else,” he told Charles. “I would have laughed three or four months ago, but I think that Trump has a real shot. I think that Hillary Clinton has been a lacklustre candidate, frankly, and there’s been a sense of entitlement about her campaign like: ‘Ah, it’s my turn and I’m running against a buffoon therefore I am already president.’” King, author of novels from It to The Shining, said he believed that the key to the situation was fear. “We’re afraid the government is going to take away our guns, we’re afraid that Mexico is going to invade the United States, we’re afraid of this, we’re afraid of that, we’re afraid of taxes, we’re afraid of transgender bathrooms – the whole thing,” he told Charles. “As long as people are fearful, it’s hard to have a rational discussion.” Speaking at the festival, King also singled out the governor of Maine, his own state, Paul LePage, for criticism. LePage said earlier this year that asylum seekers were bringing the “ziki” [LePage’s words] fly to Maine. “The statement is mind-boggling in its own right. That governor LePage might have believed it is more so. That many accept it as a fact is the most mind-boggling of all,” said King, urging his listeners to support reading and libraries, because “the ability to think clearly and logically leads to good decision-making, and I believe that the ability to think clearly grows along with the ability to read.” “For my wife and me, libraries were a lifeline at a time when we could rarely afford books … and the same is true for others today. We live in a rural state where many, most even, small-town libraries are flat broke. It’s because the small towns can’t afford to support them; and the reason they can’t is because the people in those towns vote for the dough to go to other places. Libraries are not seen as a priority when there are potholes in the road. Sure, cash is tight but it always is,” said King. “The question becomes how to grow literacy in America, and supporting those small-town libraries is the way my wife and I chose to do it.”
The Cure and Major Lazer headline Bestival 2016 The first wave of artists appearing at this year’s Bestival have been announced, with the Cure and Major Lazer headlining its main stage. While the third headliner is yet to be announced, the longlist of Bestival performers includes the likes of Animal Collective, Hot Chip, Ride, Skepta, Skream, Bastille, Craig David, Wolf Alice, Years & Years, Aurora, Beaty Heart, Katy B, Kitty Daisy & Lewis, Krept and Konan, Loyle Carner, MØ and more. As well as the first bulk of confirmed names, the festival has also announced its annual theme: this year ticketholders are encouraged to consider a costume representing “the future”. “So, here we go again, but this time we’re going far … far away … into the future,” said festival organiser Rob da Bank. “Prepare yourselves for a Bestival unlike any other with futuristic new stages, and as ever it’s a broad church of music from every decade and every genre.” According to Rob Da Bank, the Cure “had to be dragged off stage after a three-hour mammoth greatest hits set” in 2011, audio of which was later released as a live album. “We are very very happy to be back at our favourite festival,” frontman Robert Smith said. We can’t wait to play a special set to show the future IS what it used to be…” On the opposite end of the sonic spectrum, Friday night headliners are electronic experimentalists Diplo and Jillionaire, otherwise known as Major Lazer. Their last performance at the end of season event was also five years ago. “I remember going to see an exhausted, sweating Diplo after his last main stage show for us and he said ‘headline next time?’, so here we are!” said Rob Da Bank. Bestival takes place from 8 to 11 September on the Isle of Wight. 2015’s festival saw Duran Duran performing a greatest hits set, as well as the return of rapper Missy Elliott and a visual spectacle from the Chemical Brothers.
Hannah and Her Sisters Live Read review – Olivia Wilde leads confident staging Having made its name in Los Angeles with celebrated performances of screenplays such as Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight, director Jason Reitman’s Live Read series paid a rare visit to New York on Friday night for a brisk and confident staging of Woody Allen’s 1986 Manhattan-set masterpiece Hannah and Her Sisters. During a Live Read, blue-chip actors sit on stage at lecterns, giving a one-night-only reading of a screenplay. At the New York Times’ small and packed-out TimesCenter theatre, Olivia Wilde directed herself in the Mia Farrow part, Hannah – the calm and stable family woman whose husband begins an affair with her sister – while Rose Byrne and Uma Thurman rounded out what Wilde called in her introduction “three knockout female leads in a single film – something many directors still find hard”. Michael Sheen, Bobby Cannavale and, somewhat unexpectedly, Salman Rushdie played the key male roles, while Questlove of the Roots provided the jazz soundtrack via his Macbook. The effect was somewhat like a radio play, particularly as the actors, most dressed in black or grey, sometimes seemed to disappear into the shadows. A narrator (Stephen DeRosa) read the stage directions, but much of the work in conjuring up the scenes had to be done by the audience – which meant the stills from the film projected periodically on the back wall broke the spell a bit, as did the actors’ laughter at each other’s line readings. The screenplay largely proved strong enough to withstand this, although the characters’ switching from dialogue to narration and back, a characteristic Allen technique so effective on screen, was harder to follow here. The principals approached the unusual format in different ways. Byrne and Wilde sat fairly still in their seats, leaning forward to deliver their lines. Thurman – as the husky-voiced, off-the-rails Holly – gave an intensely physical and committed performance, flinging her arms around and at one point miming snorting a vial of cocaine. Better still was Sheen, who fully inhabited the Michael Caine role of cheating husband Elliot, leading us through his lust, hesitancy, angst and guilt, utterly convincing at every stage. The lugubrious Rushdie might well have seemed apt casting as the misanthropic intellectual artist Frederick, whom Lee leaves for Elliot, and he was strong in the early comic scenes in which he condescends to Lee and hilariously refuses to sell a painting to an oafish rock star with a lot of wall space to fill (“I don’t sell my work by the yard!”). But the author is not an actor, and he could not rise to the affecting break-up scene in which Frederick’s insightfulness and intelligence suddenly form a poignant contrast to his emotional blindness. Cannavale had the thankless task of taking on the role originated by Allen himself, that of Hannah’s former husband Mickey, a hypochondriacal TV writer who provides the screenplay’s comic relief and whose gradual discovery of his feelings for Holly serves as a lighthearted echo of the essentially tragic main plotline. Cannavale clearly decided that there was no other way to read these lines than to go “full Woody” – stuttering, high-pitched, thick Brooklyn accent. He got a lot of laughs, but of course he could not really be anything but a pale facsimile of the auteur himself. The live read came a few days after the premiere of a new Allen film at Cannes, Café Society, and the renewal by the director’s son Ronan Farrow of allegations by his adopted sister Dylan that the director sexually abused her. All allegations were denied by Allen; following an investigation, in 1993, no charges were brought. But it is hard to ignore the claims when watching any Allen work, particularly since he so often introduces similar themes himself. Here there was an intake of breath when one of Mickey’s colleagues told him – in a line played absolutely for laughs – not to broadcast a particular sketch because “child molestation is a touchy subject with the affiliates”. It’s a thread that can make many of his films – for all their formal invention, emotional depth and incomparable dialogue, all aspects aptly demonstrated here – at times uncomfortable viewing. Correction, 15 May 2016: An earlier version of this article stated that this was the first Live Read to be held in New York. In fact, the first one was The Apartment in 2012.
Laura Mvula warns school cuts will leave music as preserve of the wealthy The British soul singer Laura Mvula has warned that a generation of young people will see TV programmes such as The X Factor and The Voice as the only way into a career in music because of cuts to creative subjects in schools. Mvula, 30, who worked as a music supply teacher before becoming an award-winning singer-songwriter, said music had been “cast off to the bottom of the curriculum” and risked becoming the preserve of the wealthy who could afford private lessons. She said many of the opportunities she had as a student, such as free music lessons, were no longer available. “I was surrounded by teachers and resources that made me feel there were no limits,” she said. “There wasn’t anything that was off-limits to me because of money or because of who I am or where I come from. You want to play violin, then play violin, you want to study composition at a conservatoire, take up a scholarship there. We lived in a culture of freedom and availability.” She added: “Without that they don’t have anything to stimulate their own musical growth – it’s only available to the privileged few who can afford private lessons.” Mvula, who has several nominations for next month’s Mobos, says young people have little access to music outside TV. “What scares me is it would be so easy to fall asleep on this and then wonder why kids think the only avenue is to go on X Factor or The Voice – that’s what their perception of a music career is today. “At the moment they are mostly bombarded with mainstream music pop culture which in a sense isn’t really music, it’s a cultural thing. What they see and hear becomes what they aspire to – whether that’s an image of Beyoncé and how she sounds. That’s a different thing to offering a child something that’s tangible to them – go and listen to this thing, go and see a performance of this – not something that just feeds this celebrity culture that we’re all privy to.” Her comments follow a report by the former Conservative education secretary Lord Baker, who has called for an overhaul of the “narrow” curriculum taught in schools. Baker, chairman of the Edge Foundation education charity, criticised the government’s ambition for 90% of young people to take the English baccalaureate, a performance measure that encourages schools to enter students to traditional, academic subjects. Since the introduction of the Ebacc in 2010, the number of English students taking music at GCSE has fallen by 9%. Entries to music A-level have also dropped. This summer 8% fewer students took the subject, according to the Joint Council for Qualifications. Last year the Warwick commission, a comprehensive review of the creative sector, warned that arts and creativity were being “systematically removed from the UK education system”. Mvula welcomed Jeremy Corbyn’s recent pledge to pump £160m of extra funding into schools to help pay for pupils to learn to play instruments, as well as take part in dance, drama and cultural visits. The singer, who worked in a Birmingham school for 18 months, said teaching was “profoundly challenging” because of the lack of time and resources available. “Music would have been one lesson a week sometimes,” she said. “To get kids excited about music and show them as best you can what’s available to them, it’s not a lot of time.” “I went into the school blindly, thinking I was going to be some Sister Mary Clarence/Whoopi Goldberg character, thinking I was going to transform the kids’ lives through music. While those were honourable intentions, actually the place that we’re at now – our cultural climate in terms of what’s available funding wise – we have to be 100,000 times more creative and smarter.” Mvula is supporting the Action in Music campaign, a partnership between Casio, Classic FM and the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music exam board, which aims to raise the profile of music education by providing free music tickets for young people and celebrating a music teacher of the year.
Labour must counter Ukip’s deadly threat with strong leadership Might not the danger of Ukip be different to that posed in your leader (Nigel Farage’s resignation shows he is not serious, 5 July)? Ukip has acted as a basket for discontented Tory voters – just as the Liberals have done since Orpington. And, since Orpington, most of those voters returned to the Tory ranks at a subsequent election. Not so with Labour voters. Ukip’s deadly threat has always been to Labour. Almost 150,000 former Labour voters crossed over to Ukip at the 2010 election. Five years later, at the 2015 election, this number had increased to nearly a million. Given the large number of Ukip votes that come from people who had given up voting, that leaves Ukip’s base being made up of 24% of voters who had previously supported Labour candidates. This shift has positioned Ukip as the runner-up to Labour in 44 constituencies. Moreover, most Labour MPs now represent constituencies that voted leave in the EU referendum. While Labour tries to re-establish class politics, Ukip has moved on. The politics of national identity, a sense of place and community, the position of England and its culture, are now going to increasingly determine party loyalties. Post-referendum politics will speed up this process as our negotiating team will be involved in constructing defences for poorer voters against globalisation. Where is the voice of the Labour party in helping shape events that will determine the basis of a new party system in our democracy? The sooner we move to having a leader of the parliamentary party to take us into elections, and a leader of our activists in the country, the better. Frank Field MP Labour, Birkhenhead • Jeremy Corbyn’s video appeal to members emphasises his successful record as leader, in achieving Tory U-turns on tax credits and forced academisation of schools, and in attracting many more party members (Watson to seek union support for ‘last roll of dice’ appeal to Corbyn, 5 July). Those are real achievements, but their significance is dwarfed by the impending catastrophe of Brexit. It is becoming clear that the best (albeit slim) chance of averting such a disaster would be a general election fought by Labour, the Lib Dems and the SNP on a remain ticket. So at this pivotal moment in our country’s history, the only question for members of the Labour party should be this: is the current party leader capable of successfully leading such a campaign? If he isn’t, he needs to be replaced by someone who can. The future of the United Kingdom is more important than the future of any one individual or party. David Hoult Stockport • With a staggering lack of self-perception, Chuka Umunna MP, describes Momentum as “a party within a party” (Report, 5 July). If there is a group within the Labour party which is acting, yet again, as “a party within a party” it is the parliamentary Labour party. This is what this row is all about. Andrew McCulloch Collingham, Nottinghamshire
Brexit adds £100m to potential cost of BHS pensions bailout Sir Philip Green is facing an uphill battle in his attempt to bail out BHS’s pension fund after the British vote to leave the European Union added about £100m to the potential bill. As MPs prepare to publish a report on the demise of BHS on Monday, Green is in talks with regulators and pension fund trustees about how to fulfil his promise to “sort” the failed department store’s pension deficit, which stood at £571m on one measure at the time of the company’s collapse. Industry experts said a plunge in the value of gilt yields after the EU referendum had contributed to a near 19% rise in the average value of pension deficits controlled by the Pension Protection Fund (PPF), a lifeboat scheme funded by levies on industry, between February and June. This indicates a rise of about £100m for the BHS scheme. In order to ensure members of BHS’s schemes receive full pension benefits, Green’s total bill could now be about £670m, valued on a buyout basis that includes the assumed overheads that an insurance company would seek to recoup. Green, who sold BHS for £1 to the formerly bankrupt Dominic Chappell about a year before the retailer went into administration, remains responsible for bailing out the pension deficit as regulators have powers to pursue former owners. The former BHS owner is thought to be hoping to work out a deal under which he could use cash lump sums to buy out members of the pension scheme who have savings of less than £18,000. That would leave a small number of remaining members who could transfer to a new scheme, potentially knocking hundreds of millions of pounds off Green’s bill. A spokesman for Green’s Arcadia Group declined to comment but sources close to the company admitted the deal would need more work given Brexit’s impact on the pension deficit. Lord Myners, the former M&S chairman who is working as an adviser to MPs investigating BHS’s pension problems, has suggested such a deal could cost about £400m. Green began working on the plan, then named Project Thor, when he owned BHS, but decided to sell the business before a deal had been agreed. When BHS went into administration, the pension scheme automatically fell under the auspices of the PPF. Pensions experts said the PPF’s rules meant it would now be much tougher for Green to buy out BHS fund members with small pension pots. The lifeboat’s rules do not allow him to buy out individual members unless its lawyers can be assured that no members of the scheme are disproportionately benefiting or losing out. John Ralfe, an independent pensions expert, said no such deal had ever been agreed with the PPF and it would be difficult for Green to break new ground. An alternative would be to move all members to a new scheme and then offer to buy out those with small pension pots – potentially a highly expensive move. “There is no clever ‘financial engineering’ solution available. The only way for Sir Philip to square the circle, and remove the threat of legal action, is to agree a big cash payment with the Pensions Regulator,” Ralfe said. Frank Field MP, chairman of parliament’s work and pensions committee which has been investigating the demise of BHS, said: “Sir Philip can break the logjam by signing a cheque. The only restraint is his generosity.” Given the complexity of agreeing a deal within Green’s budget, it’s thought to be unlikely that pensioners will hear about the future of their savings before the end of the year. Chris Martin, chairman of the BHS pension fund trustees, said: “The trustees are really positive about the possibility of finding a solution but are also very conscious that sorting out the practicalities and technical complexities may take some time.” The importance of the PPF reaching a deal with Green was laid bare on Thursday. The body’s annual report revealed that the value of claims on the PPF rose by £322m to £476m in the year to the end of March, with BHS making up more than half the value of all claims on the pensions lifeboat in the year. For technical reasons, including its ability to trim benefits to members by 10%, the cost to the lifeboat of bailing out BHS’s pensions scheme is £275m. On Friday, a second administrator tasked with investigating the role of former directors was appointed to BHS after pressure from the PPF. FRP Advisory will work alongside the existing administrators at Duff & Phelps.
The BFG: Mark Rylance saves Spielberg's neck The BFG marks the first summit meeting between two giants who have overshadowed the childhoods of everyone born since 1960: Roald Dahl, whose sharp-edged, grimly funny tales for children have sold some 200m copies, and Steven Spielberg, whose less sharp-edged, sweetly funny films for children (and adults) have grossed more than £6bn in total. The more astringent sensibility belongs, of course, to Dahl: one born of boarding-school bullying, extreme heroism in the second world war as a fighter ace and the death of a beloved child (to whom he dedicated The BFG). Plus an inherited Scandinavian worldview of considerable bleakness. By comparison, Spielberg’s Eisenhower-era suburban sunbelt upbringing seems cheerful and optimistic. Yet their sensibilities do somewhat mesh together in The BFG. Spielberg’s children are always marked by loss or absence, be it of parents or means, and they, like Dahl’s protagonists, are in the business of felling bullies and triumphing over adult meanies. Dahl’s heroine, Sophie, is a lonely young girl plucked from her bed in an orphanage by the titular behemoth, and carried off to Giant Land, his home, lest she alert the normal world to the presence of giants. He’s kind, a bit disgusting (he likes his fart-inducing green beer), and is as insignificant in his own world as Sophie is in ours; the other giants call him Runt and use him as punching-bag and comic foil. Two underdogs on one team, it’s no wonder Spielberg signed up. Respectfully acknowledging the book’s holy place in childhood memory, Spielberg has not departed from the broad visual scheme laid out in Quentin Blake’s original illustrations. Blake’s giant is, visually at least, also Spielberg’s. But he is now also Mark Rylance’s, and here is the film’s galvanising mechanism. The BFG shares a common core with Rooster, Rylance’s epoch-making trickster-troubadour-tout in Jez Butterworth’s Jerusalem, which also delved deep into ancient English myths and pagan archetypes. As The BFG movie drifts and bloats at times, Rylance comes as a relief, a rock to hold on to as the movie fails to tighten up or bare its teeth. His CGI-rendered face cannot hide a performance of sublime subtlety and his delivery gives a near-Shakespearean richness to Dahl’s towering, lovable bumpkin. In the end, though, Dahl’s darker sensibility caves to Spielberg’s, whose kinder, gentler tendencies, overheated visuals and soaring John Williams scores have been known to bulldoze over many a project (think: Tintin, Hook, The Color Purple, War Horse). In the end, sweetness trumps nasty once more.
Classical superstar Ludovico Einaudi: I'm inspired by Eminem If you haven’t heard the music of Ludovico Einaudi, then it’s probably because you don’t know it’s by Ludovico Einaudi. For years, his muted piano music has been stealthily soundtracking TV shows and adverts, seeping into our collective consciousness while the mild-mannered Italian behind it stayed out of the limelight. In fact, read up on Einaudi and he can seem less a composer and more a head-spinning bundle of stats, each one testifying to a reach far beyond that of most of his classical peers. Just consider this: he’s the most streamed classical artist in the world; he recently occupied all of the top 10 positions on the iTunes classical singles chart; he has 400,000 followers on Spotify, which is more than Beethoven. Fans include Nicki Minaj, Iggy Pop, Ricky Gervais, pianist Lang Lang and – who else? – Stoke City striker Jonathan Walters, who claims he listens to Einaudi in order to get into the zone before heading out on to the pitch. So even if you haven’t bought his new album, Elements (and many have – it recently reached No 12 on the UK charts, a higher placing than any classical composer has managed in two decades), you may still have stumbled across his work. Perhaps soundtracking This Is England, or on an X Factor montage, or backing a British Airways or Guinness or Santander ad. His music has been played live everywhere from the Royal Albert Hall to Fabric nightclub, and he has been remixed by Mogwai and Starkey. Most surprising of all, perhaps, is the fact that, at 60 years of age, he’s somehow managed to infiltrate the youth-obsessed BBC Radio 1 playlist – not only is Einaudi championed by DJ Greg James (who cited his meditative track I Giorni as a vital study aid during his university days), but he was invited in to play a Live Lounge session, transforming Sam Smith’s I’m Not the Only One and Sia’s Elastic Heart into an ambient medley. It might seem unbelievable that a man who looks like a more stylish Larry David and plays unobtrusive piano music has captured such a youthful audience – until you witness the reactions he inspires in the flesh. When I head to Florence to see him play Elements live at the Teatro Verdi, there are many unique things about the show – the use of instruments such as a waterphone, for instance – but perhaps the most striking is that the crowd in this 19th-century hall wouldn’t look out of place at an Arctic Monkeys gig. “All my life, my heart has felt closer to rock’n’roll,” says Einaudi, who studied with Luciano Berio and Karlheinz Stockhausen. It’s a statement somewhat at odds with today’s setting – sipping tea in a grand hotel suite, while Einaudi calmly considers each question. He has an aura of stillness, but this shouldn’t be confused with taciturnity – once he gets going, he likes to talk, as a 10-minute monologue on the intricacies of building his home studio attests. “I think there is a rigidity [in classical music],” he says. “And I don’t like too much the academic environment.” Does he think his high sales and streaming figures have prompted the classical world to turn their noses up at him? “Yes, I think that’s all seen as a negative,” he says. “It’s ridiculous, but I don’t mind. I don’t crave acceptance in the classical world.” This rebellious spirit seems to have come from his 1960s childhood, during which his mother’s more formal musical teachings were offset by the electrifying tunes his sisters were playing: Jimi Hendrix, or Rubber Soul and Revolver by the Beatles. “For me, this was the world that was really connecting to me musically, and also spiritually and artistically,” he says. “Of course it was a time of revolution in the schools. But it was not just everyone screaming about Mao Zedong. People were reacting against a formal world that they didn’t want to have any more. It was a revolution of the mind, and it was expressed in music.” Einaudi says school was a “disaster” for him. “It felt very rigid,” he says. I didn’t have any connection with the teachers. I hated them, they hated me. I tried different schools, but my interest was in music and photography. It was the time of Blow-Up by Antonioni. I wanted to be a rocker and photographer and tour the world!” You can certainly see why he has never been comfortable being boxed in as a “classical” composer. But his music doesn’t sound particularly rebellious; it’s gentle and soothing, reminiscent of composers such as Nils Frahm. And he’s not exactly a hellraiser – the new album was born out of hours spent in libraries across Italy, reading Greek philosophy and Wassily Kandinsky and studying the periodic table, rather than a blur of Jack Daniel’s and amphetamines. So why does he attract such a youthful crowd? Einaudi believes it’s because he tries to harness the same feelings of joy, loss, desire and frustration that you might find in even the most stripped-back folksongs. “I want to have this directness in my music.” He cites the work of Portishead and Radiohead – even the “theatrical pieces” of Eminem – as music that connects with today’s emotions more readily than the classical composers of the past. He also thinks there’s a meditative value to his work that young people can tune into. “I was completely anxious when I was young,” he says, which is hard to imagine, given his Zen-like manner. “A concert can become a collective meditation. When the concert is going well, I can feel it on stage. Everyone in the crowd can find their space, and I feel a sort of beneficial effect.” While Einaudi credits his mother and sisters for his musical influences, a look at his backstory reveals other things that may help to explain how he became the artist he is. His grandfather was president of Italy shortly after the second world war (“He was an economist, and a liberal, but he died when I was six, so I didn’t know him so well”), and his father was a renowned publisher, who worked with Italo Calvino and Primo Levi and moved within leftwing intellectual circles. Einaudi claims he is “not obsessed by politics”, but the more I hear his stories, the more I think his music carries an inherent message. He talks about rehearsing in his hometown of Turin with his door wide open, and being thrilled to hear people applauding in the streets. He says it’s important, when making music, to establish a relationship with everyone, from the person playing triangle to the electricians who help set up the studio. And he admits to being more impressed when ushers in a theatre have connected with his music than he is about the critics. “Yes! I like the feeling that with music there are no classes,” he says. “I remember in Verona when I performed in 1995 and a younger woman who worked in the theatre came up to me with wet eyes – that was more important than all the rest! Because I could see the connection between what I wanted to say with my music and how she felt it. This was fantastic for me.” Einaudi’s embrace of populism – his desire to touch as many lives as possible – seems to be a political statement, especially coming from someone who operates within elitist classical circles. I end by asking if he finds his popularity addictive, and he readily accepts it. “I have to say honestly – if you do an album and it goes to No 1 in the charts, then of course you are happy!” And if it’s a flop? “Then you are not happy,” he says, smiling. “The response from the listeners is what gives you energy.” • Elements is out now. Einaudi tours the UK from 8-20 March and his new Piano Concerto will be premiered in Liverpool on 10 March.
The ministering of fear: dystopia and loathing at the Republican convention For Alan Stansbery, it was a sniper. For Timothy Phelps, it was God. For Haleigh Stallworth, it was Michelle Obama. Many of the people in Cleveland’s Public Square on Tuesday seemed to have something to fear. The space had become the de facto hub for a small carnival of exhibitionists – protesters, conspiracy theorists, religious extremists and hate groups – who had descended on the city for the Republican national convention. Hundreds of police circled like cogs in a gear system, then swarmed at the first sign of conflict. Stansbery, a builder from Dayton, Ohio, was holding an AR-15 rifle. His pistol was holstered to his flak jacket and a large hunting knife protruded from his belt. Sweat dripped from his brow in the roasting heat. The 38-year-old was one of eight members of the West Ohio Minutemen patrolling the square’s perimeter. “That would be the worst,” he said, of the sniper that existed only in his imagination. “[If they] start taking people out, that would be terrible.” Phelps, a 52-year-old corrections officer from Topeka, Kansas, held a sign that said “God is America’s terror”. He and members of his religious hate group, the Westboro Baptist church, who said they “hated” both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, had stood in the square on Tuesday afternoon, drawing boos from the crowd as they told onlookers – who heckled them – to prepare for hell. “I think I don’t care about anything but obeying God,” Phelps said, when asked what he was afraid of most. Stallworth, a 47-year-old white woman from Huntsville, Texas, had come to show her support for Trump and to “take my country back”. She accused the first lady of making “extremely incendiary” speeches, which encouraged African American students to “stop being put down”. This anger and fear was mirrored half a mile away. At the Quicken Loans Arena, speakers took turns to spell out a host of worst-case scenarios. Major American cities were at risk of being lost to terrorists with weapons of mass destruction, warned the former Republican House speaker Newt Gingrich. “Instead of losing 3,000 people in one morning,” Gingrich said, with reference to the 9/11 attacks, “we could lose more than 300,000.” Hillary Clinton could have indirect links with Lucifer, said the retired neurosurgeon and failed presidential candidate Ben Carson. “The vast majority of Americans do not feel safe,” said the former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani to an audience who gave him a standing ovation on Monday evening. “They fear for their children.” Trump gave his acceptance speech on Thursday. “Our convention occurs at a moment of crisis for our nation,” he said. “The attacks on our police, and the terrorism in our cities, threaten our very way of life.” ‘The speeches haven’t frightened me. They’ve inspired me’ Many inside the air-conditioned hall said such terrifying themes actually made them feel better. As the band fired up on Wednesday evening, reeling off an up-tempo rendition of Sweet Caroline, delegates danced arrhythmically. In the Wisconsin delegation, Barbara Finger sat in her chair. On her head was an enormous wedge of Styrofoam cheese – the adoptive headgear of devoted fans of the Green Bay Packers. “The speeches haven’t frightened me,” she said. “They’ve inspired me. There is kind of an electric atmosphere to this convention.” Despite the fact that the 60-year-old lives in the small city of Oconto, 1,574 miles from Mexico, she worried that terrorists may have made it to her hometown by crossing the southern border. “People from the Middle East, they tend to have the darker hair, maybe slightly darker complexion. They blend in with the South Americans and Mexicans.” “You mean like me?” I asked. “It could be.” There is no evidence to suggest Finger’s broad fears are well-founded. Jeffrey Barke, a 53-year-old member of the Californian delegation, from Orange County, shared the Wisconsinite’s sense of joy. “There was nothing scary. It was real,” he said, dressed in a two-piece suit made of the stars and stripes. “It was encouraging. It was uplifting. “Finally somebody is going to take our problems seriously and not just talk political nonsense and do something about it. So, not unlike Great Britain, that just disassociated itself with the European Union, I look at Trump as a similar movement to fix what’s wrong with America.” What did Barke make of Carson’s insinuations about Clinton and Lucifer? “I think he’s spot on,” Barke said. “It’s absolutely refreshing to call, by name, the enemy that we face.” Throughout the four-day convention, Clinton remained in sight: speeches were punctuated with loud chants from delegates to “lock her up”. The chants were the best indicator of the naked, aggressive populism that had filtered onto the convention floor. Roger Stone, one of Trump’s closest former advisers, could barely contain his elation. Speaking to the at the Westin hotel on Wednesday, where minutes later Trump’s son Donald Jr could be seen embracing Gingrich before the former speaker’s convention speech that night, Stone said: “The American people are ready for a non-politician.” After describing Clinton as a “venal greedy witch”, a comment he defended as “the reality”, Stone said he himself feared nothing. “One cannot live in fear,” he said, straight-faced. “I get 10 to 12 death threats a day … and they’re always the same. ‘I have a bullet with your name on it.’ ‘I have a second bullet with Trump’s name on it.’ “I’m not going to be deterred by some anonymous goon, who probably works for the mainstream media, making these calls.” ‘This is not new for America’ Fears for the city of Cleveland never became reality. Despite widespread concerns that Trump’s presence could lead to civil unrest, the thousands of police who descended on the city from all over the country made just 24 arrests. Protests were small. Journalists were often the largest cohort in the scrum. In one bizarre moment on Wednesday, reporters were invited to a “flag burning protest at 4pm” on Prospect Avenue, close to the arena. The flag was extinguished by firefighters and law enforcement after, police claimed, the man who set it on fire accidentally set fire to himself. The philosopher and academic Cornel West made cameos at marches. Asked what he feared the most, he was circumspect. “This is not new for America,” he said. “We’ve always had moments in which the politics of fear surface and you get that lethal combination: the rule of big money, the scapegoating of the most vulnerable – in this case it’s Muslims and Mexicans – and then militaristic policies abroad. “That’s the makings of an indigenous American neo-fascism. And we have to be very clear about that. We don’t want to fetishize that. It doesn’t have magical powers. Trump is not almighty.”
Brexit is hitting the economy hard – negative interest rates could be next Since the leave vote in the EU referendum, the bad economic news has continued to roll in. A survey by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors published on 14 July, which accounts for the post-referendum period, shows a sharp fall in inquiries from homebuyers. Markit’s flash purchasing managers index (PMI) surveys taken after the vote for both manufacturing and services were especially grim. They exclude retail and construction which may well be even harder hit. The CBI industrial trends survey of 506 manufacturers suggested that the outlook for the next three months is set to soften. Investment is expected to be lower over the coming year compared with the last 12 months. Five percent of firms in the survey said they were more optimistic about the general business situation than three months ago, but 52% said they were less optimistic. Fourteen percent of firms expect employment to increase, and 20% expect it to decline. These data have scared monetary policymakers senseless. The data suggests the UK is slowing and probably headed to recession. The latest GDP data for the second quarter of 2016 show a surge in April and a slowing in May and June. A week ago two external monetary policy committee (MPC) members both said that the case for a cut in interest rates was unclear. On 20 July Kristin Forbes argued that the MPC should “wait for the Brexit fog to clear before an interest rate cut” and it was “a good time to keep calm and carry on”. Turns out it isn’t. Martin Weale said on the 18 July that the case for a post-Brexit rate cut was “not clear”. A week later he had changed his mind, primarily, he told us, because the PMIs were “a lot worse than I had thought” and they “showed signs of worsening further”. The concern is that this would have negative consequences on banks’ profitability and the supply of credit. A week is a long time in economics. As JM Keynes famously said: “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” Good for him. Weale joins the Bank of England governor Mark Carney, MPC member Jan Vlieghe who voted for a cut in July, and chief economist Andy Haldane in the stimulus crowd. It now seems the doves are in control. Hopefully, Forbes will have a fast rethink. To this point the MPC haven’t cut below 0.5%, whereas other central banks went to zero, because of their concerns that this would constrain the ability of banks and building societies to extend new credit. But that is set to change at the 4 August meeting as, for the first time since I voted for a rate cut in March 2009 from 1% to 0.5%, the MPC is going to put those fears aside and is likely to cut rates to 0.25% and maybe even to zero. The MPC has hinted it will put in place a “package” of measures, which will likely include a further round of quantitative easing although we don’t know yet what assets they will buy. But they may not stop at zero and may eventually go lower. I don’t see this happening in August, but there is a distinct possibility down the road, if the data worsens further, as it well might, that rates will have to go negative. Clients are charged a fee for parking their money in a bank. Monetary policy is the only show in town, especially as the new chancellor, who is still getting up to speed, is either unwilling or unable to inject fiscal stimulus, as he should, any time soon. But he may soon have to. This is not pie-in-the-sky economics; it is a real possibility and banks are already preparing. NatWest wrote to its 850,000 business customers this week, changing the terms and conditions of their accounts and warning of the possibility that negative interest rates may be coming. In the letter NatWest said: “Global interest rates remain at very low levels and in some markets are currently negative. Dependent on future market conditions, this could result in us charging interest on credit balances.” Everyone else is doing it. Negative rates are already being charged by the European Central Bank; along with the central banks of Japan; Denmark, Switzerland, Sweden and Hungary. Lower rates encourage business investment and consumer spending and the hope is that there is a nice continuum from positive rates to small negatives. The hope is a cut of 25 basis points from 0.5 to 0.25% would have the same impact as one from zero to -0.25%, but who knows? The concern, though, is that negative rates would have harmful consequences on banks’ profitability and the supply of credit. We don’t know if they will work or the exact transmission mechanism they work through. But I would vote for them if the data worsened markedly; they are worth a shot. How low could rates go? Vlieghe has argued that he thinks rates might go as low as -0.5% or even to -1%. He argues that this is possible because there are costs of storing and transporting and insuring huge piles of cash. But they could it go even lower than that, for a short time, say, to -2% or even lower to give a short, sharp shock, as Miles Kimball from the University of Michigan has advocated. Economists used to think that zero was the lower limit for interest rates, but it seems rates can go below zero. The vote to leave the EU has been a nasty negative shock to the UK economy that is going to lower living standards and cause much pain and suffering. A self-inflicted wound. The Brexiters were warned.
Middlesbrough’s Aitor Karanka thankful upon promotion to Premier League Aitor Karanka’s Middlesbrough claimed a £170m prize as they drew 1-1 with Brighton at an initially tense, ultimately overjoyed, Riverside Stadium to secure automatic promotion to the Premier League. Although the teams finished level on points, Boro’s superior goal difference was enough to push Brighton into the play-offs leaving the Teesside club to enjoy the riches stemming from next season’s gargantuan top-tier television deal. It is only two months since Karanka was briefly placed on gardening leave and missed a defeat at Charlton following a fallout with his players but a subsequent 10-game unbeaten run has vindicated the decision of Steve Gibson, Boro’s owner and chairman, not to sack the Spaniard. “I want to say thank you,” said Karanka. “Thank you the chairman for giving me the opportunity here two and a half years ago. I want to give Steve Gibson a big hug. Thank you to the players, these players have been amazing. And to the crowd – this crowd deserves to be in the Premier League.” Yet despite the numerous warm embraces that followed a joyous pitch invasion, lingering doubts remain about Karanka’s future. He has made it clear he has no intention of moving elsewhere but one school of thought suggests Gibson could yet consider replacing him. “I have a few more years here,” said the manager. “I have three more years on my contract.” Asked if he might resign, Karanka replied: “Today, thinking how difficult it has been to get promotion, I can say no. There are just 20 privileged managers who can be in the Premier League. I am going to be one of them after just two and a half years of experience, and that is amazing. I would like to go to my bed and cry for 24 hours in a row because I can’t explain the emotions I have inside.” Boro’s Cristhian Stuani opened the scoring but Dale Stephens equalised three minutes before being sent off for a foul on Gastón Ramírez which saw the Uruguayan stretchered off. Hughton was particularly incensed that referee Mike Dean appeared ready to show Stephens a yellow card before his assistants intervened. “I thought I had a good view and I thought it was nowhere near a red card,” he said. “I know at the time the referee pulled out a yellow card but he was persuaded by his officials that it was worth more than that, despite them being 35 to 40 yards away.” Karanka demurred, maintaining it was a red-card challenge but revealed that, despite a nasty gash to a shin, Ramírez would be “fit enough to celebrate”. Hughton meanwhile was left with “pride” in his players’s performance. “It’s a distraught changing room,” he said as he began preparing for a play-off semi-final against Sheffield Wednesday. “But the good news is we’re still in there.”
BMA: Junior doctors' strikes significantly improved Hunt deal Strike action by junior doctors had forced “significant improvements” to the government’s proposed changes to their NHS contracts, the medics’ leader has said. Dr Johann Malawana, the chair of the British Medical Association’s junior doctors committee, said trainee medics would have had “completely unacceptable proposals” imposed on them by the health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, if they had not staged walkouts. They included the first all-out strikes by doctors in the NHS’s history. With many junior doctors sceptical about the terms of the new contract that the BMA agreed with ministers in May, Malawana insisted it was “a good deal despite unbelievable odds.” Giving his annual report to the doctors’ union’s annual conference in Belfast on Thursday, he told delegates that industrial action had been the last resort. “We were strong enough to make the government listen, to withdraw one red line after another, and to win for our members a number of significant improvements on those original plans – pay for all work done, a robust means to safeguard working hours and financial recognition of weekends.” He said ministers had provoked the junior doctors in pursuit of their aim of a more fully fledged seven-day NHS, even though juniors already worked weekends. “The question people will ask when they look back on the dispute is: ‘Why on earth did this government pick a fight with junior doctors?’ They said it was about seven-day services, but they could not tell us what it meant or how it would be staffed and funded. They couldn’t fail to notice we worked seven days a week already. “No, I think the government picked a fight because they thought they could win. They thought the medical profession would just roll over. We didn’t, we shouldn’t, and I’m confident to say that in the future we won’t.” Malawana’s speech received a standing ovation. The strikes led to 37,279 non-urgent operations being cancelled and 112,856 outpatient appointments having to be rescheduled from 26 and 27 April, the two days of the all-out strikes. Junior doctors began voting last week on whether to accept or reject the deal. Voting closes on 1 July and the result is expected on 6 July, the same day as Sir John Chilcot’s long-awaited report on the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Malawana did not explicitly recommend that junior doctors back the deal. But he has hinted heavily in recent weeks that he will resign as chair of the committee if it is rejected. He also used his speech to launch a stinging attack on ministers over their handling of the NHS. “We have a government in denial over NHS funding. A government in denial is a threat to the health service. They were in denial over the right of junior doctors to a fair contract, they are still in denial over their hopelessly vague, unevidenced promise on seven-day services, and they have always been in denial over the funding of the NHS.” Meanwhile, the BMA leader, Dr Mark Porter, narrowly survived an attempt to oust him by a doctor who wanted the union to become more strident over the NHS. Porter held on to his position as the chair of the BMA council despite a challenge from consultant psychiatrist Dr JS Bamrah. BMA sources said Porter won by 17-16 when council members cast their votes. Bamrah had been nominated by Dr Clive Peedell, the co-leader of the National Health Action party, and Sir Sam Everington, a GP widely admired for his pioneering work in London’s East End. The result means Porter will continue with the fifth and final year of his term as the figurehead of the BMA, which represents 170,000 medics across the UK.
Fallen Muslim American soldier's father scolds Trump: 'have you even read the constitution?' The father of an American Muslim killed in the US military in Iraq stunned the Democratic convention on Thursday night with a powerful challenge to Donald Trump, who he said had “sacrificed nothing and no one”. Appearing on stage in Philadelphia alongside his wife, Ghazala, Khizr Khan paid tribute to his late son, Cpt Humayun Khan, describing his family as “patriotic American Muslims with undivided loyalty to our country”. Of his son, killed in 2004 by a car bomb after protecting his soldiers by ordering them to drop to the ground while he took 10 steps forward, Khan said: “If it was up to Donald Trump, he never would have been in America. “Donald Trump consistently smears the character of Muslims. He disrespects other minorities, women, judges, even his own party leadership. He vows to build walls and ban us from this country.” The Republican candidate has repeatedly suggested a temporary ban on Muslims entering the US as a way to combat the threat of Islamist terrorism. In his party convention speech in Cleveland last week, this policy appeared to have been altered to cover “any nation that has been compromised by terrorism”, something Trump subsequently described to NBC as an expansion. “People were so upset when I used the word Muslim,” said Trump. “Oh, you can’t use the word Muslim. Remember this. And I’m OK with that, because I’m talking territory instead of Muslim.” Addressing Trump directly, Khan told him: “Donald Trump, you are asking Americans to trust you with our future. Let me ask you: Have you even read the United States constitution? I will gladly lend you my copy.” Producing a pocket edition of the US constitution to huge cheers from the crowd, he added: “In this document, look for the words ‘liberty’ and ‘equal protection of law’.” He went on: “Have you ever been to Arlington cemetery? Go look at the graves of the brave patriots who died defending America – you will see all faiths, genders and ethnicities. You have sacrificed nothing and no one.” Departing from his text, Khan concluded: “I ask every patriot American, all Muslim immigrants, and all immigrants, do not take this election lightly. This is a historic election. And I request to honor the sacrifice of my son. And on election day, vote for the leader, Hillary Clinton, not the divider.” In her speech to the convention accepting her party’s nomination, Hillary Clinton paid tribute to Khan’s son, saying: “A president should respect the men and women who risk their lives to serve our country – including Captain Khan, and the sons of Tim Kaine and Mike Pence, both marines.”
The view on traingate: Jeremy Corbyn’s search for standing On Twitter this week the mystery of Jeremy Corbyn’s train seat quickly became simply #traingate, trailing clouds of speculation, wit and invective across the digital world. To older print readers the story was perhaps familiar, a recognisably August silly season tale, in which starved summer news hounds gorge on every detail of something unexpected. Television rolling newscasters gratefully chewed the juicy bone that had come their way too. Meanwhile, conspiracy theorists came up with the ingenious thought that Richard Branson may have launched his challenge to the Labour leader so that Virgin would dominate the news cycle on a day when his rival British Airways was pulling off a PR coup by flying Team GB back to London from Rio. No one can pretend that traingate is one of most important news stories of the era. All the same it is a very emblematic tale of our times. For one thing, it would not have happened in the pre-internet age at all, because even if Mr Corbyn had actually been compelled to sit on a train carriage floor on the way to Newcastle a generation ago, no one would have been there to capture an image of it, no newspaper would have been able to post the video of his denunciation of privatisation, and there would have been no CCTV footage of him walking past unreserved and unoccupied seats either. Whether the whole thing was an amateurish political stunt by the Labour leader, as Mr Branson implies, or rotten treatment by a privatised company, as Mr Corbyn claimed, no one else would have ever heard about it anyway. For all traingate’s obvious pettiness in some respects, it also encapsulates a very contemporary war of political narratives. In what some call the post-factual or post-truth political era, what you would like to believe always trumps the facts, not least with Donald Trump. There are plenty of “who, when and why” facts that need to be tested about the story of the 11:00 train from London King’s Cross on 11 August. But, in the end, those facts can seem to matter less than the different versions of events that many will prefer to believe in the first place. To those who champion Mr Corbyn, traingate plays into a narrative of a rich capitalist tax exile and the mainstream media trying to trash a socialist who threatens their power, wealth and interests. Media preoccupation with traingate at Mr Corbyn’s NHS speech today is easily absorbed into that view. Meanwhile, to those who despair of him, traingate exemplifies something completely different: Mr Corbyn’s almost comical hopelessness as a leader who is taking Labour into the wilderness. It didn’t take traingate to make his critics believe in that reading. Journalism has a responsibility to stick to its principles and maintain its objectivity amid these warring narratives. The facts don’t merely matter. Trustworthy journalism rests on them. Facts have to be checked, sources held to account, flaws and inaccuracies eliminated, and good judgment applied as much as possible. That was also true before the digital era. But it is particularly important today when, on stories that range from the siege of Aleppo through to the Labour leadership contest to the release of the latest movie or computer, news organisations are hourly and daily offered images and stories by protagonists with partisan narratives or unacknowledged interests to advance. Being transparent about sources is crucial, as the ’s use of video in both the Aleppo siege and traingate has been. The probability is that the traingate episode will have confirmed Corbynites and anti-Corbynites in their views. Nevertheless, it is important to acknowledge all the facts, not just the ones that suit one side or the other. Mr Corbyn has tapped a huge well of political energy and dissatisfaction. But he also has some of the most dismal ratings among Labour voters and the general public of any Labour leader ever, and these ratings are in decline. Traingate has many lessons, but it is unlikely to have changed that one.
TalkTalk profits halve after cyber-attack TalkTalk profits more than halved following a cyber-attack in which the personal details of thousands of customers were hacked. The telecoms company was hit with £42m in costs when almost 157,000 customers were affected by the attack in October last year. Almost one in 10 of those customers had their bank account numbers and sort codes accessed. Pre-tax profit fell to £14m in the year to 31 March, from £32m a year earlier. The share price was up just over 1% at 274p on Thursday afternoon. TalkTalk insisted it “recovered strongly” in the fourth quarter following the attack, after losing 95,000 customers in the third quarter as a direct result of the hacking. Dido Harding, its chief executive, said: “The business bounced back strongly in the final quarter following the cyber-attack in October. “We recorded our lowest ever churn and stabilised the broadband base, testimony to the speed with which customer sentiment towards TalkTalk has recovered, the success of our greater focus on existing customers, and the growing benefits of our simplification programme. “We take security incredibly seriously; we thought we took it very seriously before. We have brought forward spending on security.” TalkTalk maintained its guidance for underlying earnings in the 2017 financial year of £320m-£360m. The board recommended a final dividend of 10.58p a share, taking the full-year dividend to 15.87p, up 15% compared with the previous year. Steve Clayton, head of equity research at Hargreaves Lansdown, said: “TalkTalk had a torrid year, grabbing the headlines for all the wrong reasons after the cyber-attack that was initially thought to have seen significant amounts of customer data stolen, but which turned out to be of a far smaller scale than first feared. “[The company is] sounding confident about the future, but at the same time, suggesting that profits will be low in the first half of the current financial year, with the money flooding in in the second half. “The shares have recovered well from the lows they reached after the cyber-attack. If TalkTalk can deliver on its cost savings plans, and continue to increase its quad-play customer base, then there could be an attractive level of income on offer ... but there is little margin for error, given the low level of dividend cover.”
Leave.EU condemned for linking Orlando attack to referendum vote Brexit campaigners have been condemned as “shameful and cowardly” for claiming the UK faces the prospect of an Orlando-style terror attack if it stays in the EU. The poster was produced by Leave.EU, an unofficial campaign with links to Ukip, just 36 hours after the atrocity at a gay nightclub in Florida. “Islamist extremism is a real threat to our way of life. Act now before we see an Orlando-style atrocity before too long,” it read, against a backdrop of Islamic State fighters waving Kalashnikovs. An accompanying tweet read: “The free movement of Kalashnikovs in Europe helps terrorists. Vote for greater security on June 23. Vote Leave.” The tweet was later deleted from the Leave.EU account but not before it had been retweeted about 100 times and drawn condemnation from remain campaigners. Hilary Benn, Labour’s shadow foreign secretary, said it was a “shameful and cowardly poster”, while Nicky Morgan, the Conservative education secretary, said: “Using the tragic deaths of innocent people to make a political point is simply shameful.” Morgan added: “Leave.EU must apologise for the hurt they have caused and apologise immediately. And Vote Leave need to condemn such despicable tactics and make clear that the Orlando attack has nothing whatsoever to do with the EU debate in this country.” It is not the first time leave campaigners have warned of greater exposure to terror attacks because of free movement through Europe. Days after the Paris terror attacks, the Ukip leader, Nigel Farage, claimed the EU was “seriously imperilling our security” because of the risk of terrorists posing as migrants. In February, Iain Duncan Smith, the former work and pensions secretary, argued that the UK would be more exposed to Paris-style terror attacks if it stays in the EU. In contrast, the remain campaign argues that the UK is safer in the EU because of the power to share intelligence with other European partners. Jonathan Evans, the former director general of MI5, said at the time that the UK’s membership of the EU makes a “positive contribution to our national security in a number of ways, for example through improving police and judicial cooperation and by providing a multilateral framework for information and intelligence exchange with other countries”. Evans said: “Most importantly the EU underpins the overall stability of Europe, especially for newer entrants from the former Soviet bloc, in the face of external threats. “Open borders pose policing and intelligence challenges but are only one aspect of the overall security picture. In my experience, the terrorist threats to the UK in recent years, including many that have arisen within our own communities, have not been the result of EU border policy.”
Rebecca Hall at Sundance: Hollywood is scared of 'ugly' female characters Hi, Rebecca! How are you? Full of a head cold, but otherwise fine. Sundance-related? I think so. I think it’s just travelling and generally being over-adrenalised and happily pulled in too many directions. But yes, cold! The last time you were in Park City was with the broad comedy Lay the Favourite (1). It’s a completely different thing to go with a film that doesn’t have distribution (2); it’s a really different animal. I had no experience of that. The two I came with before both had distribution; premiering them there was more like just having a coming-out party. There were stakes with Christine. It was also playing in the competition, which was a different thing as well. There was a lot more nerve involved. You wait for reviews, for buyers to circle it, and then you wait for the juries. It’s a nerve-racking process. I was at the Sundance premiere of Christine: did you sit through the entire movie? I did, yes! I saw a cut, but it wasn’t with music. And I think there is a difference when you see something with an audience, so I wanted to sit through it. I don’t think I’ll ever do it again. I found it really hard. It’s a tough watch for anyone. Watching it took me back to the space I was in when I was doing it. I wasn’t really conscious of it while I was watching, but halfway through I thought: God, I’ve got this really bad tension, and why is my shoulder seizing up? My posture was changing in my seat as I was watching. Then you had to face the audience after for a Q&A. I’m happy to talk about this film, because I think it needs talking about. Part of the reason I wanted to do it is because I wanted to portray some sort of empathetic version of a mental-health disorder, which often doesn’t get portrayed truly. I wanted to do it with no filter or worrying about being liked – but also for the audience to sympathise with her on some unimaginable level. Getting up and doing a Q&A after people have just seen it is not exactly comfortable. You’re looking at a group of people who have the expression of: what did you do that for? And there are always people who are going to ask: why did she do it? I don’t know. None of us will ever know. I can make a guess as to why my version of Christine did it, but we will never know what was going on inside her head. That’s not the focus of the film, solving the riddle that is Christine. Absolutely not – exactly. Before learning of your film, I was totally unaware of her story. Had you heard of her? No, I’d never heard of her. It’s a funny one, because when I talk to people about it, lots of people have an odd reaction, like you have towards some urban myth or legend. People say they’ve seen the footage, and I’m always thinking: no you haven’t, because it doesn’t exist (4). But there’s something in the consciousness that people vaguely understand the story, or the way in which it’s been filtered down through films such as Network (5). Given that you had so little footage of her to play off, how did you prepare and feel you were sufficiently ready to embody Christine and do her memory justice? I felt that I had to be faithful to the script, above anything else, to bear in mind always that this was a piece of art, that I wasn’t trying to re-create someone who existed – and in the process, capture the spirit of someone who did something tragic. I thought it was important not to glorify the act, not to turn it into some sort of macabre act of heroism, leaning into the political statement of what she did. It’s first and foremost a tragedy. She should have led a good career and died of natural causes. I had 20 minutes of her on TV, and that was incredibly informative because it was 20 minutes of her presenting a show that was in no way indicative of how she walked or talked throughout her whole life. To do an impression of that would have been a mistake, but it did give me a jumping-off point in the same way you can have a first impression of someone you meet and how often that gets misguided the longer you know them. The script alleges she was a virgin her whole life. How did you factor that into your performance? In my head, she was someone who got stunted at the point when most of us are developing who we are and how we are: in adolescence. It was a conscious choice for all of us – it’s why she had a pink bedroom and an interest in romantic songs. Behind this severe exterior, there is this adolescent little romantic girl, who’s not developed really. That was very informative. What do you make of the irritating fact that often, the best roles for women are found in smaller films? I really think that Christine is one in a million, in terms of independent or studio. But I know what you’re saying: that there are many more opportunities in independent film for women. But I do think that Christine is unusual, in that I was allowed to be bold and not be concerned about being liked. I think that female roles: they can be victims, they can be sympathetic, they can be in pain, they can be in suffering – but they can’t be ugly. I think there’s so much fear surrounding that, that it makes a film unlikeable, that it won’t sell. If I’m going to be honest about it: I think men get to do this sort of thing all the time. You look at countless performances by great male actors who get to play the whole gamut of human emotions. Women aren’t regularly allowed to do that, and I don’t know why people are so frightened by it. The moment you do, I’m struck by how many people come up to you. Since Christine started screening, I’m overwhelmed by the response from women and men – that it’s so rare to see something like this. We’re just not given the opportunity so much. Footnotes: (1) In the Stephen Frears-directed comedy, Hall played an ex-private dancer turned gambling prodigy. Bruce Willis and Catherine Zeta-Jones co-starred. (2) Christine is still seeking distribution in the US. (3) The footage of her suicide is untraceable on the internet. (4) It’s believed by some that the 1976 newsroom satire was loosely inspired by Chubbock’s suicide.
Little progress on UK gender pay gap; £84bn Brexit black hole warning – as it happened The revival in the oil price has proved short lived, as doubts over producers agreeing to curb output at next month’s Opec meeting began to outweigh the news of a surprise drop in US crude stocks. So Brent crude is currently down 1.3% at $50.13 a barrel while West Texas Intermediate is 0.9% lower at $49.47. On that note, it’s time to close for the evening. Thanks for all your comments, and we’ll be back tomorrow. A fall in commodity shares along with the usual concerns about Brexit and the US election, along with some disappointing results from the likes of Apple, have left most European markets nursing losses. However a revival in the oil price after a surprise drop in US crude stocks saw Wall Street reverse earlier falls and drag European shares off their worst levels. The final scores showed: The FTSE 100 finished down 59.55 points or 0.85% at 6958.09 Germany’s Dax dropped 0.44% to 10,709.68 France’s Cac closed 0.14% lower at 4534.59 Italy’s FTSE MIB added 0.29% to 17,280.74 Spain’s Ibex ended up 0.37% at 9173.3 In Greece, the Athens market added 0.09% to 589.46 On Wall Street the Dow Jones Industrial Average is currently up 53 points or 0.29%. With Wall Street turning positive in the wake of the oil price recovery, European markets are coming off their worst levels, albeit still down on the day. Chris Beauchamp, chief market analyst at IG, said: US markets continue to dictate the tone, as disappointing numbers from Apple weigh on sentiment, while investors keep a nervous eye on falling oil prices. While scepticism around the OPEC deal was palpable, no one really expected it to unravel this quickly, but a procession of nations bearing their own ‘sick notes’ as to why they couldn’t possibly be expected to participate has shown that the unanimity on display recently was simply a front. In addition, sentiment has been hit by news that the Trump campaign for president may not be quite as DOA as previously thought. When combined with the disappointing numbers from Apple, it is clear to see why markets remain under pressure. At least oil prices have stabilised, with the weekly crude inventories providing their usual burst of volatility. The drop in stockpiles might provide some temporary relief, but overall if the OPEC deal continues to unravel then we could see the lows tested in short order. Oil prices have recovered some ground from earlier falls after a surprise fall in US crude stocks. Crude inventories dropped by 553,000m barrels last week to 468.16m, compared to expectations of a 4m barrel rise, according to the Energy Information Administration. So Brent crude, which had fallen as low as $49.65 a barrel on concerns that producers will not agree to curb output at next month’s meeting, is now at $50.63, down 0.32%. West Texas Intermediate is now up 0.12% to $50.02 a barrel. The European Central Bank is likely to extend its QE programme beyond the current March end date, according to Reuters: The European Central Bank is nearly certain to continue buying bonds beyond its March target and to relax its constraints on the purchases to ensure it finds enough paper to buy, central bank sources have told Reuters. The moves will come in an attempt to bolster what is being heralded as the start of an economic recovery in the euro zone. ECB policymakers are due to decide in December on the future shape and duration of their 80 billion euros (£71.58 billion) monthly quantitative easing (QE) scheme, based on new growth and inflation forecasts. They did not discuss specific options at last week’s meeting and no policy proposal has been formulated. But sources familiar with the matter said it was all but sure that money printing would continue in some form beyond March, currently the ECB’s earliest end-date. US new home sales have come in slightly better than expected, although there is some confusion in the figures. They rose to 593,000 units in September, up 3.1% from the August figure of 575,000, which was itself revised down from 609,000. This was lower than the 600,000 expected but given the revision, the rise itself was better than the forecast 1.5% fall. The US service sector grew more strongly than forecast in October, according to a report. The initial Markit US services PMI for this month came in at 54.8, up from the 52.3 expected and 52.3 in September. Markit’s composite PMI, which includes services and manufacturing, rose from 52.3 in September to 54.9, the highest level since November 2015. Markit said the surveys suggested that the US economy was growing at an annualised rate of 2% at the start of the fourth quarter. Tim Moore, a senior economist at IHS Markit, said: The latest survey data reveal a decisive shift in growth momentum across the US service sector, which mirrors the more robust manufacturing performance seen during October. Service providers experienced the fastest upturn in new business volumes since late 2015, which survey respondents linked to improving domestic economic conditions and signs of greater business investment in particular. That said, job creation remained relatively subdued in October, with firms reporting cautious hiring plans and efforts to alleviate pressures on margins. October’s survey findings contained positive signs for near-term growth prospects, with service sector companies the most upbeat about the business outlook since August 2015. Moreover, the month-to-month rise in this index was one of the largest seen over the past two years. The fall on Wall Street has helped push European markets lower, with the FTSE 100 dropping by 91 points (1.3%). Germany’s Dax is down 0.97% and France’s Cac has fallen 0.6%. The US stock market is dropping at the start of trading, following the UK’s lead. The Dow Jones Industrial Average has shed 90 points, or 0.5%. Energy companies have slipped after the oil price hit a three-week low today. And Apple has fallen more than 3% after it posted falling sales and profits last night. Laura Hinton, the head of people at PwC, argues that bosses must proactively do more to address the gender pay gap. She says: It’s encouraging to see the gender pay gap reducing, but the underlying reasons for the gap remain the same. Women are still more likely to work part time, have lower-paid jobs and leave the workforce after having children. Until we tackle these underlying causes, it will be hard to reach true equality in the workplace. In February, the government outlined plans to force large companies to reveal how much they pay their male and female staff, starting in 2018. Hinton says this has already worked at her company: At PwC, publishing our gender pay gap has allowed us to understand the reasons for the gap and helps hold ourselves accountable to make practical changes. For example, we know that when senior women leave us, they are more likely to be replaced by a male. We are challenging ourselves on this by testing our recruitment processes, making more senior jobs available as flexible or part time and targeting women who have been out of the workplace for a number of years via our return to work programme. The Resolution Foundation is playing a blinder today, and has created some more charts to show what’s happening in Britain’s labour market. This chart shows how the “national living wage” has driven up earnings for customer service jobs above their pre-crisis level. Elementary occupations (unskilled jobs) are close behind. I was surprised by this chart, which shows that wages in London are the furthest from pre-crisis levels. And rising inflation is going to drive down real wages this year. A quick catchup on the other news today. Andrew Bailey, the head of the Financial Conduct Authority, has promised to clean up Britain’s financial sector after a long run of scandals and misbehaviour. Vodafone has apologised after being fined £4.6m for taking pay-as-you go customers’ money without providing a service in return, and for flaws in its complaints handling processes. And a major new housebuilding project has been approved in Thamesmead, south-east London, at a site famous for staging A Clockwork Orange. It’s not been a great morning in the City. The FTSE 100 has shed 68 points, nearly 1%, to 6,949. Mining stocks continue to struggle after copper company Antofagasta cut its production targets this morning. The FTSE is also catching up with last night’s rally in the pound back to $1.22, which came after the London stock market closed. A stronger pound is bad for international companies that earn dollars. Joshua Mahony, a market analyst at IG, says the pound could spike ... if a legal challenge to Brexit is successful. The continuing legal hearing against the government’s decision to view the referendum result as binding seems like the event risk no one is talking about. Should the legal challenge succeed, it would push the decision to a vote in parliament, bringing about a sharp appreciation in the pound and subsequent weakness for the FTSE. The oil price is also under pressure, with Brent crude dropping through the $50 a barrel mark for the first time in three weeks. City analyst Alberto Gallo of Algebris Investments points out that UK borrowing costs have been rising since the start of October, as the price of British gilts has dropped. This morning’s warning that Britain faces an £84bn budget shortfall over the next five years is rippling through the City, and beyond. The yield, or interest rate, on 10-year UK government debt has risen to 1.14%, up six basis points from 1.08% last night. That means the price of the bonds has fallen; traders may be anticipating that the government will have to issue much more debt over the next few years. George Eaton, political editor of the New Statesman, has written a good piece about chancellor Philip Hammond’s dilemma [riffing off the charts I posted earlier]. Here’s a flavour: Were he to seek a current budget surplus, rather than an overall one (as Labour pledged at the last general election), Hammond would avoid the need for further austerity and give himself up to £17bn of headroom. This would allow him to borrow for investment and to provide support for the “just managing” families (as Theresa May calls them) who will be squeezed by the continuing benefits freeze. Alternatively, should Hammond merely delay Osborne’s surplus target by a year (to 2020-21), he would be forced to impose an additional £9bn of tax rises or spending cuts. Were he to reject any further fiscal tightening, a surplus would not be achieved until 2023-24 - too late to be politically relevant. The most logical option, as the Resolution Foundation concludes, is for Hammond to target a current surplus. But since entering office, both he and May have emphasised their continuing commitment to fiscal conservatism (“He talks about austerity – I call it living within our means,” the latter told Jeremy Corbyn at her first PMQs). For Hammond to abandon the goal of the UK’s first budget surplus since 2001-02 would be a defining moment. Hopefully, poorly paid people should get another boost this financial year as the national living wage pushes up salaries: Rupert Harrison, former advisor to former chancellor George Osborne, appears to feel vindicated by the news that Britain’s lowest paid workers got a 6.2% pay rise last year (or 4% more than average) However.... that’s still less, in cash terms, than a smaller pay rise on a much larger salary. And it’s important to remember that today’s report does not include self-employed workers, whose pay has been lagging behind. And here’s where the money goes.... More gender gap detail from the ONS: Here’s our news story on today’s report into UK pay: Britain’s gender pay pay varies, depending how many hours people work each week. For part time jobs, women actually get paid more on average than men. The ONS says: For jobs where the number of paid hours worked by an employee is between 10 and 30, more women work in these jobs and the gender pay gap is in favour of women. But the dial shifts the other way, once you look at full time jobs - where the gender pay gap is in favour of men. This chart shows how men get paid more for doing jobs that are predominantly done by men: And this tweet shows how men still dominate senior positions, and on the factory floor, while women do the majority of administrative and caring positions. The CBI, which represents Britain’s bosses, says it welcomes the “further progress” in closing the gender pay gap. And they point out that it’s illegal to pay women less than men for doing exactly the same job. The gap is caused by a wide range of factors, and there is a way to go to address it. But it’s crucial it is not confused with unequal pay, which is already illegal. It’s important that the Government and firms work together on approaches that really change outcomes, such as the availability of childcare, career progression and improved careers advice.” The TUC is alarmed that full-time male workers earned 9.4% more than women last year, marginally down on 9.6% in 2015. TUC General Secretary Frances O’Grady says: “The full-time gender pay gap is closing at a snail’s pace. At this rate, it will take decades for women to get paid the same as men. “We need a labour market that works better for women. This means helping mums get back into well-paid jobs after they have kids. And encouraging dads to take on more caring responsibilities. “The government should also scrap tribunal fees, which stop women getting justice from bad employers who have discriminated against them.” New research from the World Economic Forum shows that O’Grady is right to be worried. They’ve calculated that, at current progress, the global gender pay gap won’t be eradicated until the year 2186. Here are the most important charts from today’s survey of UK hours and earnings. This shows how people who’ve been in their job for at least 12 months enjoyed their biggest pay rise since the financial crisis in 2015: But, real income are still below their pre-crisis level, once you adjust for inflation. Today’s report shows that setting minimum pay levels has a real impact on the lowest paid. Those at the bottom end of the distribution saw their pay rise by 6.2%, compared to 2.5% for the best paid 5%. And Britain still has a gender pay gap. The average full-time male earner receives almost £100 per week more than his female equivalent (£578 per week compared with £480). Newsflash: Wages in the UK have grown at their joint fastest rate since the financial crisis. That’s the topline from the annual assessment of Britain’s labour market, just released by the Office of National Statistics. They say: In April 2016 median gross weekly earnings for full-time employees were £539, up 2.2% from £527 in 2015. The 2.2% growth seen this year is the joint highest growth in earnings seen since the economic downturn in 2008 (matching that seen in 2013). Adjusted for inflation, weekly earnings increased by 1.9% compared with 2015. This repeats the trend seen in 2015, which exhibited the first increase since 2008, and is due to a combination of growth in average earnings and a low level of inflation at that time. Weekly earnings grew by 2.2% for full-time workers compared with 6.6% for part-time workers. And the gender pay gap narrowed, slightly. Women now earn 9.4% less than men, per hour, down from 9.6% in 2015. The ONS says: This is the lowest since the survey began in 1997, although the gap has changed relatively little over the last six years. Here are some more key points: There are also some interesting charts, which I’ll post next... The PPI scandal is the gift that keeps on taking, if you’re a long-suffering investors in Lloyds Banking Group. Lloyds shares have fallen by 3% this morning after the bank, partly owned by the taxpayer, revealed it has set aside another £1bn to cover compensation claims from customers wrongly sold payment protection insurance. This takes Lloyd’s total PPI bill to £17bn, or nearly half the £37bn set aside by the UK banking sector. Lloyds also reported that profits in the last quarter fell by 15%, but are 50% up over the year to date. CEO Antonio Horta Osorio said Lloyds hadn’t suffered from the Brexit vote, although some businesses are holding back from new investments. And asked about his own future, following recent stories about his private life, Horta Osorio said: I am very happy at Lloyds. I like the team here and I like the strategy. The pound is calm this morning, trading around $1.219 against the US dollar. But UBS Wealth Management has warned that sterling could fall to between $1.10 and $1.20m “if concerns over the future of the UK’s trade relationships continue to dominate”. But... if Britain recovers from the initial Brexit shock, the pound be worth $1.36 in a year’s time. Geoffrey Yu, Head of the UK Investment Office at UBS Wealth Management, says: “We expect the UK economy to bear the brunt of Brexit uncertainty in the coming months, levelling out as we move further into next year. Though the pound should recover accordingly, we cannot underestimate the central role that politics has played in sterling’s fate up until now. With the terms and conditions of the UK’s future trade links still unclear it is too early to rule out further downside risks in sterling.” Connor Campbell of SpreadEx says: The market got another dose of Brexit negativity this Wednesday morning, with the Resolution Foundation claiming that Britain faces a £84 billion black hole in the next half a decade. Shares are dipping in early trading in London, as investors digest this gloomy assessment of Britain’s public finances. The FTSE 100 index of top shares has dropped back through the 7,000 point mark, down 35 points or 0.5% at 6983. Mining shares are leading the fallers, after copper producer Antofagasta cut its production targets for 2016 and 2017. That could imply slower global growth; also bad news for Britain’s fiscal position. You can read Resolution’s report yourself, here: Pressing the reset button We shouldn’t pin all the blame for Britain’s deteriorating public finances on June’s referendum. Resolution point out that the fiscal picture was already looking murky, before the public voted to leave the EU. They say: It’s worth noting that not all of the deterioration is likely to reflect ‘Brexit effects’. Monthly public finance updates from the ONS suggest that the government had already veered off course before the June referendum, with tax receipts performing particular poorly. Indeed, given that most economic measures are yet to show any fall-out from the vote (Sterling being the obvious exception), it’s reasonable to assume that much of the weakening in the latest (September) outturn figures would have existed even in the absence of Brexit. And of course we simply don’t know what Brexit will mean, whether banks will leave the City (maybe...) or if the weak pound will trigger a manufacturing renaissance. How should Philip Hammond react to the deterioration in Britain’s public finances? According to Resolution, the chancellor has two options. He could: Soften the target. Instead of trying to eliminate the deficit, he could just aim for a ‘current budget balance’, which would exclude borrowing for long-term investment. Delay the target. So, still aim to eliminate the deficit, but admit it’s not going to happen by 2019-20. Softening the target would require borrowing an extra £61bn over the next five years --- and crucially, that would be ON TOP of the £84bn black hole. As Resolution puts it: Such an approach would have serious ramifications for how the government’s approach to fiscal policy is viewed. This chart shows those two options in more detail: This £84bn black hole isn’t Philip Hammond’s only headache. Resolution Foundation also believe the government will break its target of cutting the national debt as a share of national income. They predict: Rising debt as a proportion of GDP in 2017-18, breaking the secondary rule by around £10 billion in that year. Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of the world economy, the financial markets, the eurozone and business. Let’s get the bad news out of the way first. Britain’s new chancellor faces an £84bn black hole over the next five years, as the Brexit vote takes a bite out of the public finances. The Resolution Foundation has calculated that the UK government is on track to borrow more each year, and take in less tax receipts, over the lifetime of the current parliament. With growth slowing, and tax revenues disappointing, Resolution sees the UK running up a deficit of £13bn in 2019-20, rather than the £10bn surplus predicted before the Eu referendum. That means finding more than £80bn to plug the gap, as this tweet shows (the gap between the red and blue lines = £84bn). Chancellor Philip Hammond has already suggested he will ‘reset’ fiscal policy in the autumn statement, in four weeks time. And Resolution Foundation chief economist Matt Whittaker suggests Hammond will have to abandon the government’s goal of balancing the books this parliament, unless he fancies imposing significant extra tax rises or spending cuts. As Whittaker puts it: “The good news for Philip Hammond is that by softening his fiscal target he has significant political and economic room for manoeuvre. “But the trade-off for this approach is significantly higher borrowing in the coming years. The chancellor will need to decide if that is a price he is prepared to pay for adjusting to new economic times and setting out a direction for the new government.” Here’s the full story: This may not reassure international investors, as they wonder whether to hold British financial assets. UK government debt, or gilts, could weaken if Hammond is forced to tap the markets for tens of billions of extra debt to cover this black hole. No wonder that Theresa May was very concerned that Brexit would hurt Britain’s economy (our front page scoop today), in the run-up to the vote: Also coming up today... Two of Britain’s biggest companies are in the spotlight this morning, for the wrong reasons. Lloyds Banking Group is reporting results this morning, and revealing another £1bn provision to cover the cost of the PPI (payment protection insurance) scandal And Vodafone is just been hit with a £4.6m fine for customer failings. We’ll have more on both those stories shortly. At 9.30am the Office for National Statistics publishes its annual survey of hours and earnings in the UK. That should give new insight into Britain’s labour market, and the pay gender gap. We’ll be tracking all the main events through the day....
Oscar shorts: you could watch them in your tea break - so why doesn’t anyone want to? As Oscar season reaches its inevitable anticlimax this weekend – congratulations Team Revenant – cinemas across the country are littered with so-called prestige pictures, all eager to soak up the last few ounces of credibility that come with being an Oscar hopeful, before settling into a lifetime as Oscar failures. Any self-respecting film fan will be hoovering up the last of the nominees in an effort to fine-tune their predictions for Sunday night, yet I’m guessing only a few will make the effort to watch the 15 short films in contention at this year’s ceremony. The problem isn’t one of access. This week, all the nominees in the live-action and animated short categories were released on VOD (the documentary short category is still being held hostage by HBO, which has exclusive rights to three of the five nominees). You could watch every single one of them in the time it takes to endure Leo’s gritty voyage across the Great Plains, so why are so few people willing to do so? The shorts themselves must shoulder at least some of the blame. A dispiriting number of short films feel suspiciously like trailers for yet-to-be-made features, as though they’re aimed more at studio financiers than general audiences. With an increasing number of feature-length indie hits starting out as acclaimed shorts (including Damien Chazelle’s spectacularly successful Whiplash) it’s no wonder film-makers are starting to see short film-making as a stage of development, rather than an art form in its own right. In practical terms, this means an avalanche of shorts that would rather hint at a story than actually tell one. Take Stutterer, a film nominated in the live-action short category, which follows a London man with a speech disorder as he courageously takes a chance on love. After 12 minutes of character exposition, the film ends on a meaningless cliffhanger, slamming to a halt just as the story threatens to get interesting and the storytelling threatens to get complicated. This kind of noncommittal plotting is an all too familiar trait of contemporary short films, which is maybe why so many viewers find them unappealing, even as they bemoan the increasingly mammoth runtimes of the movies vying for best picture. The best short films allow their stories to determine their runtimes, and not the other way around. World Of Tomorrow, the likely winner in this year’s animated short category, takes a dazzling array of thoughts on what it is to be alive and compresses them into a tea break, not because they couldn’t be spread across a feature, but because they needn’t be. In doing so, the film seems to ask why we’re so concerned with running times in the first place, and why more films can’t – or won’t – distil their ideas down into 17 perfectly formed minutes. Also available Bradley Cooper acts the shit out of alcoholism in failed Oscar bait Burnt. Acclaimed US indie James White becomes the latest Sundance favourite to shuffle quietly past UK cinemas and straight to DVD. Hilariously po-faced biblical romp Noah lands on Netflix tomorrow.
Little Richard denies claims of poor health Little Richard has denied claims that he is “clinging to life”. According to his attorney, William Sobel, who has represented him for 30 years, reports of the singer’s poor health are untrue. “I just spoke to him today,” Sobel told Rolling Stone. “He said, ‘You know, I want you to talk to [the press] because I’m really annoyed this thing started on Facebook. Not only is my family not gathering around me because I’m ill, but I’m still singing. I don’t perform like I used to, but I have my singing voice, I walk around, I had hip surgery a while ago but I’m healthy.’” Rumours concerning the 83-year-old rock’n’roll legend’s health were reported by several sources earlier this week, following Bootsy Collins’ seemingly misinformed message on Facebook on 28 April: “A friend, a legend & some say the true King of Rock & Roll,” he wrote. “Lil-Richard needs our love & understanding right now. He is not in the best of health so I ask all the Funkateers to lift him up.” Although Little Richard continues to sing, he avoids the spotlight and hasn’t performed live in two years. “He had hip surgery,” Sobel told Rolling Stone. “He’s 83. I don’t know how many 83-year-olds still get up and rock it out every week, but in light of the rumours, I wanted to tell you that he’s vivacious and conversant about a ton of different things and he’s still very active in a daily routine. I used to represent Prince and he just engaged me in all kinds of Prince conversations, calling him a ‘creative genius’.” Little Richard, real name Richard Wayne Penniman, is cited as one of the forefathers of rock’n’roll. Admitted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame at its inaugural ceremony in 1986, he released his last album, Little Richard Meets Masayoshi Takanaka, in 1992.
Optus unveils plans for English Premier League and 2018 World Cup broadcast Optus has announced plans for its expanded football coverage in Australia, with the subscription provider set to partner with SBS to broadcast the 2018 Fifa World Cup as well as the English Premier League, across their range of TV and internet-enabled devices. Under the agreement, SBS will sub-licence the World Cup rights to the pay-TV provider, allowing Optus to broadcast all 64 games of the men’s World Cup live, as well as the 2017 Fifa Confederations Cup and the 2019 Fifa Women’s World Cup. Under the World Cup sub-licence arrangement, Optus will show 39 exclusive live matches and simulcast the rest with SBS retaining simultaneous free-to-air rights to other 25. The SBS free-to-air rights for the World Cup will include one live match per day – for which SBS will have first pick – as well as four matches from the round of 16, two quarter-finals, both semi-finals and the final. This will mean that all of Australia’s potential matches will be shown on free-to-air TV and SBS will also retain rights to daily highlights, a major coup for Australian fans. This new announcement comes on the heels of the November 2015 announcement that the subscription provider had out-bid Foxtel for rights to English Premier League broadcasts for the next three seasons, which Optus will carry from 2016-17 onward. As part of that offering Optus will offer Australia’s first 24/7 football channel dedicated exclusively to English Premier League action – available on its TV platform, Optus TV with Fetch. Every match will be shown live. Optus CEO Allen Lew said football fans in Australia were now “spoiled for choice” as a result of the company’s entry into the market. “As the only telco in Australia to own and operate network infrastructure across all three mobile, fixed and satellite platforms, we are in a unique position to deliver the English Premier League and the 2018 FIFA World Cup, to more Australians, in more ways than ever before,” said Lew. “Broadcast has been a key part of our services since the inception of Optus’ satellite business. We have developed rich expertise in broadcasting and have a long history in delivering high quality live broadcasts via our satellite fleet.” Fans wanting to watch Premier League games through their television will be able to do so through a mini set-top box device and Optus TV with Fetch, which currently offers 35 channels and the same live pause and rewind functions as Foxtel. Optus will also offer its own dedicated EPL app for mobile devices, which the company say will be “progressively offered via selected media TV player devices and Smart TVs.” The sub-licence arrangement with SBS will mean that one English Premier League match per round will be broadcast on free-to-air TV for the the next three seasons. Full pricing on the Optus subscription offerings will not be available until mid-2016, the company said. Foxtel has held the local EPL broadcast rights for the past 18 years.
Bit of argy bargy on the Cheshire canals We must keep our views in proportion. The terrorist attack in Berlin (Nine dead in Berlin truck horror, 20 December) was awful, but why are we more upset about it than when a boat full of refugees sinks in the Mediterranean? I wonder how many lives have been saved by Germany’s open door to refugees? How many lost because of our closed door? Martin Cooper Bromley, Kent • After attracting several verbal greetings with additional hand signals as I chug through east Cheshire, I am very relieved to read in your letters (21 December) that the local youth were probably calling me a “lozzucker”. Ian Grieve “Gordon Bennett”, Shropshire Union canal • Hanging around on the pit top to go underground, you would often get from the shift coming out of the pit “Atha laykin lads”. You can still hear it today in some parts of South Yorkshire. Mike Eggenton Firbeck, South Yorkshire • I am an 86-year-old widow. I voted remain. One son voted remain, the other for Brexit. We brought them up to think for themselves, hence no conflict at Christmas (Letters, 23 December). Brenda Lee Leicester • Every day you bring me wit, intelligence and thoughtfulness, without which my life would be very much the poorer. I know I might seem uncaring, never having told you before, but I just want you to know that I do love you. Will you marry me? Your devoted friend, Peter Hanson Exeter • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com • Read more letters – click here to visit gu.com/letters
Bannon, Kushner and Priebus: rivals for power at the heart of Trump's team One by one they came, walking by the marble walls, the cascading waterfall, the ogling tourists and the eager cameras, into the shiny lifts and up to the 26th floor to kiss the ring of the new king. This week, Trump Tower was a hive of scurrying courtiers, from a prime minister, media mogul and nonagenarian diplomat to senators, congressmen and businessmen. And as the palace intrigue deepened, it was apparent that three men, in particular, had the ear of President-elect Donald Trump. “I am Thomas Cromwell in the court of the Tudors,” Steve Bannon, Trump’s chief strategist, told the Hollywood Reporter, likening himself to Henry VIII’s righthand man and master manipulator (who, in a fact he may have overlooked, was ultimately executed for treason). Bannon did not propose historical roles for Reince Priebus, chief of staff, or Jared Kushner, an intimate adviser married to Trump’s daughter, but they are his rivals for Trump’s attention. Shaun Bowler, associate dean of political science at the University of California, Riverside, likened the plot to Hilary Mantel’s historical novel Wolf Hall. “Her account of people tiptoeing around a character like Henry VIII strikes me as providing lots of insight into what life for advisers will be like inside the White House from now on,” he said. “What we probably can say is that – whatever the actual pattern of influence – we can be pretty sure that at least one of them will end up leaving after a blow-up.” The scenario seemed unthinkable just two weeks ago, when polls showed Hillary Clinton on course for the White House and the Republican party hurtling towards civil war. Then, in the most stunning upset in US politics for at least half a century, Republicans swept the board and Democrats plunged into despair. What was supposed to be a valedictory foreign tour for Barack Obama became a glum mission to soothe a panicking world, a plea to keep calm and carry on. Until Obama hands over power to Trump on inauguration day, on 20 January, the political spotlight is on the former US capital, New York, where Trump is huddled with his transition team. Police have been forced to barricade sidewalks near Trump Tower and a no-fly zone has been imposed above it. Last Sunday, the president-elect made his first move. He announced that Bannon would be chief strategist, triggering a fierce backlash because of the adviser’s executive role at the website Breitbart, which has run white nationalist and antisemitic headlines. At the same time, Trump appointed the more conventional Priebus to the more conventional role of chief of staff. The chairperson of the Republican National Committee (RNC) had been unswervingly loyal ever since the end of the primaries, even while the candidate ignored pleas to tone down the rhetoric. But there is also a third centre of power, unofficial but no less important. Kushner, a property developer, investor and newspaper publisher married to Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, is said to have called the shots throughout the campaign and is now doing the same in the transition. He was present at Thursday’s meeting with Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe and reportedly behind a “Stalinesque purge” of the transition team. There are other major players in the Trump universe. They include Vice-President-elect Mike Pence, a vital bridge to Congress and the conservative movement; Jeff Sessions of Alabama, the first senator to endorse Trump and now the nominee for attorney general; Paul Ryan, the House speaker with whom Trump has made a fragile peace; and Mitch McConnell, the Republican majority leader in the Senate. But it is Priebus, Bannon and Kushner, vying for 70-year-old Trump’s infamously short attention span, who could form the most potent triumvirate in the Oval Office since the days when Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Karl Rove counseled George W Bush. Given Trump’s track record of pitting rivals against each other in his business, campaign and reality TV show, they probably face an uncertain future. “Apparently Trump likes to manage with concentric circles of chaos,” said Michael Steele, Priebus’s predecessor as RNC chair. “He doesn’t mind that. He likes the tension between the different sectors of influence. So far you’ve got the Kushner circle, you’ve got the Bannon circle, they all interrelate into Trump’s circle but when they have to work with each other, that’s where the challenge is going to be because their interests are very different interests.” Priebus, a technocrat and consummate party man, will be the voice of the Republican establishment, and a vital conduit to Congress, including Ryan, a fellow Wisconsinite. “Reince is not Donald Trump’s guy,” Steele added. “Bannon is. Reince is Paul Ryan’s guy and so Trump is doing what he thinks he needs to do to create some olive branches to the establishment types because he knows he needs them. But, quite honestly, they need him just as much. I suspect, as much as they will try to play it down, there will be some tough times where those interests will conflict.” During the campaign, Kushner, well-mannered but guarded, emerged as operational guru, helping with recruitment, online fundraising, drafting policy and even selecting a running mate. Over the past week Kushner was said to have orchestrated the removal of transition team leader Chris Christie and his allies; Christie had successfully prosecuted his father for tax evasion 11 years ago. Kushner, 35, is taking legal advice on whether he can get around anti-nepotism laws to join the new administration, the New York Times reported. Like Trump, he is steeped in the property world and has no political experience. “I’m sure he’s a very smart young man, a very successful businessman,” Steele said. “But he doesn’t know foreign policy, he doesn’t know national security, that’s not the world in which he has operated. “Trump has to be very careful how close in he has someone and the advice he’s taking from someone who has no real background or appreciation or understanding of the obvious stuff, let alone the nuances of policy and government.” Kushner and 62-year-old Bannon are, in many respects, polar opposites. One is clean cut and favours crew-neck sweaters; the other is dishevelled and looks in need of a shave. One is the son of a multimillionaire; the other was born into a working-class family. One is an Orthodox Jew (Ivanka converted before their marriage), the other a Catholic who has been accused of antisemitism. “Jared Kushner’s the most interesting to me,” said Rick Tyler, a former member of Ted Cruz’s campaign team. “Billionaires don’t trust everyone who walks through the door but Trump trusts Kushner and Kushner trusts Bannon. They believe in Bannon and the advice he’s given. People can complain about it, then get over it.” All week Trump has hunkered down at his headquarters, with journalists gathered at 8am each morning in the atrium, clad with 2,400 tons of salmon-coloured marble, to watch his guests come and go. Among the parade of luminaries come to honour the new king was 93-year-old Henry Kissinger, secretary of state under Richard Nixon; Rupert Murdoch, 85, the media tycoon and another bete noire of the liberal left; Bill de Blasio, mayor of New York, worrying about traffic snarl-ups in central Manhattan; even an impromptu turn by “the naked cowboy”, best known for his performances in Times Square. The president-elect continued to break with precedents, as he had throughout his campaign. One night, reporters assigned to monitor his movements on behalf of the media were told he would be staying at home, only to later discover that he had nipped out to a steakhouse, where he promised to lower taxes and received a standing ovation. Rumours flew that the likes of Rudy Giuliani and Ted Cruz were in contention for top jobs, and sources described the process as “a knife fight”. Trump became the first president-elect to respond via Twitter. “Very organized process taking place as I decide on Cabinet and many other positions,” he posted, from the skyscraper that had served as the set of The Apprentice for a decade. “I am the only one who knows who the finalists are!” On Friday, he announced three winners of the ultimate reality contest, nominating Sessions as attorney general, congressman Mike Pompeo as CIA director and retired lieutenant-general Michael Flynn as national security adviser. The hawkish trio, with a chequered past on issues of civil liberties, race relations and surveillance, was condemned by liberal groups as a nightmare come true. The rest of the world watched the unfolding soap opera with trepidation. Months after Britain’s vote to leave the European Union, commentators pronounced the death of neoliberalism and an irresistible wave of populism. The postwar certainties were gone. Obama travelled to the cradle of democracy, Greece, and its potential new standard bearer, Germany, having spent months assuring world leaders that Trump wouldn’t win. Now he suddenly found himself trying to normalise a proven liar whom he recently warned could not be trusted with the nuclear codes. Before setting off, Obama, perhaps clutching at straws, told reporters at the White House that Trump was a “pragmatist”, not an “ideologue”. The same could be said of Kushner and Priebus, both of whom are valued for organisational sense. But Bannon is different. After careers as an investment banker and naval officer, and before becoming Trump’s campaign chief executive, Bannon ran Breitbart, notorious for rightwing dog-whistles and anti-globalist themes that surfaced in Trump speeches and ads. Its headlines have included “Hoist it high and proud: The Confederate flag proclaims a glorious heritage”, “Birth control makes women unattractive and crazy”, and “Clinton aide Huma Abedin ‘most likely a Saudi spy’.” Bannon denied allegations of racism in the Hollywood Reporter interview. “I’m not a white nationalist, I’m a nationalist,” he said. “I’m an economic nationalist. The globalists gutted the American working class and created a middle class in Asia. The issue now is about Americans looking to not get fucked over.” He then claimed that. “if we deliver”, Trump’s team would win most white voters and a near majority of black and Hispanic voters. “We’ll govern for 50 years.” Democrats, he said, had “lost sight of what the world is about”. Dan Cassino, a political scientist at Fairleigh Dickinson University, said it was unclear whether business or ideology was Bannon’s priority at Breitbart. “He’s willing to use racist and antisemitic content to make money off it, whether or not he’s racist or antisemitic himself. He’s willing to tolerate it.” Cassino argued that whereas Fox News covers familiar issues from a conservative perspective, Breitbart pursues an entirely different agenda. “We should be concerned to the extent Steve Bannon controls what information goes in and goes out of the White House. Traditionally information is controlled by the chief of staff but every administration is different.” He noted that Breitbart typically gives official figures no credence, and that Trump appeared surprised, in a recent TV interview, to learn about actual hate crime totals. “If he’s getting facts from Breitbart just as Bush got facts from Fox News, we have a problem,” Cassino said. “We want a president to make data-based decisions.” It may then fall to Priebus, a 44-year-old whom Trump called “a superstar” on election night, to provide a reality check. Henry Barbour, who helped run his 2010 campaign to chair the RNC, said the committee was in so much debt at the time that Priebus had to make payments on his personal credit card. “He was an easy guy to work with even when we didn’t agree on everything,” he recalled. “His ability to work with people and cut through the crap will serve him well. He does not have a big ego. He’s not interested in self-promotion and will be interested in giving good, candid advice to the president. He’s not a yes-man but he will be loyal.” Barbour, now a lobbyist with Capitol Resources, insisted: “Reince has told me directly he has developed a good working relationship with Bannon and gets on well with him. I have no doubts Reince will work well with Jared Kushner.” Terry Sullivan, a Republican strategist, said Priebus was “Wisconsin nice” but also “a smart hire”. “He can bring multiple factions together,” he said. “He might be the only figure who is still liked by the establishment of the party who spent so much time defending Trump.” Priebus was with the president-elect en route from Trump Tower to a golf club in New Jersey for more meetings this weekend, and Kushner and Bannon presumed close by. For now, the court of Trump with its peculiar composition is at peace. But for how long? Bill Galston, a former policy adviser to President Bill Clinton, refused to hazard a guess. “I’m prepared to believe that an administrative arrangement that wouldn’t work for anyone else might just work for Donald Trump,” he said. “One of the most ramshackle campaigns in American political history tore up the rule book and somehow wended its way into government. All of my normal assumptions have been upended.”
Donald Trump: Hillary Clinton has 'no right to be running' – as it happened Deep antipathy to Hillary Clinton exists within the FBI, multiple bureau sources told the , spurring a rapid series of leaks damaging to her campaign just days before the election. Current and former FBI officials described a chaotic internal climate that resulted from outrage over director James Comey’s July decision not to recommend an indictment over Clinton’s maintenance of a private email server on which classified information transited. “The FBI is Trumpland,” said one current agent. Clinton is trailing Barack Obama’s performance in the 2012 election, according to early voting data that underlines fears of an “enthusiasm gap” for the Democratic candidate. Nearly a quarter of all expected ballots have already been cast after a surge in people wanting to express their preference before election day. Melania Trump, whose husband has built a public profile partly around his vulgar and offensive Twitter account, called for a gentler and kinder America on Thursday, where children can spend time on social media without fear of harassment.In a rare public appearance, Trump portrayed her husband as a devoted family man with “deep love and respect” for all Americans with a speech intended to help soften his public image with women. A conservative lobbying organization is pressuring Republican senators to stonewall any supreme court nominees put forward by Hillary Clinton if she is elected president, a move that would break with 150 years of tradition for the senate to hold up-or-down votes on any supreme court nominees. The Hill reports that Heritage Action, a conservative policy advocacy organization, urged at a morning briefing today for Republican senators to commit to leaving the supreme court without a ninth justice for as long as half a decade. Citing an anonymous source, CBS News reports that Beyoncé will join husband Jay Z at a get-out-the-vote concert in Cleveland tomorrow in support of Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. The concert will be the penultimate event in a series under the title Love Trumps Hate, and is aimed at boosting voter engagement for African American youth. This is not the first time the Clinton campaign has recruited entertainment industry powerhouses. At the conclusion of the Democratic national convention in July, Lady Gaga and Lenny Kravitz performed for Democratic delegates in a thank-you concert held in Camden, New Jersey. A conservative lobbying organization is pressuring Republican senators to stonewall any supreme court nominees put forward by Hillary Clinton if she is elected president, a move that would break with 150 years of tradition for the senate to hold up-or-down votes on any supreme court nominees. The Hill reports that Heritage Action, a conservative policy advocacy organization, urged at a morning briefing today for Republican senators to commit to leaving the supreme court without a ninth justice for as long as half a decade. The supreme court has been functioning, semi-successfully, without a ninth justice since February, when conservative stalwart Antonin Scalia died unexpectedly. The senate has refused to consider President Barack Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland, declaring that the next president should be given the opportunity to shape the nation’s highest court. “You’ve seen John McCain and others talk about the need to not confirm any liberal nominated to the Supreme Court,” said Dan Holler, Heritage Action’s vice president of communications and government relations. “That’s exactly the right position to have.” A moving note from Tim Kaine’s law-school housemate: Thirty-five years ago a new roommate moved into the attic bedroom. We were both single and trying to figure out our future. My parents called and asked what I thought of him. Long distance calls were expensive, so my answer was short and to the point. Thirty-five years later we are both married, fathers of three adult children and experienced in our chosen fields. My parents still call to ask questions about Tim. Voice plans now allow for unlimited talk, but my brief answer has never changed: “He’s the best person I have ever met.” Closing out her address in Raleigh, North Carolina, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton said that “the best way to repudiate the bigotry and the bluster and the hatred and discrimination is to show up with the biggest turnout in history.” “I believe America’s best days are still ahead of us if we do what we’re supposed to do,” Clinton concluded. “Every social movement, every economic advance, has only come about because people going to work and sacrifice and keep pushing forward in the affect of adversity.” “It wasn’t easy to get the vote for women; it wasn’t easy to have the final efforts made to ensure that the Civil Rights Act was enforced; it wasn’t easy, because there are powerful interests still trying to push us back and push us down,” Clinton continued. “It is now our turn, our turn to stand up to people like your governor and your legislature who wanted to shut you down and push you back!” “We are fundamentally a good nation - and we need to make sure we deliver on that promise,” Clinton urged the crowd. “You can make the difference - not only in who you elect, but in the agenda that those people then get to work. I want you to hold me accountable; I want you to be my partners.” “Everything I’ve done started by listening to people - listening to hear your stories, what you’re worried about - and then working to bring people together to solve those issues,” Clinton said. “If you elect me next Tuesday, that is the kind of president I will be.” “So, let me just mention a few of the ideas that we’ve been putting forward,” Clinton continued. “This election’s been a lot more fun since we’ve been on the same side!” Hillary Clinton said of Bernie Sanders in North Carolina, after being introduced by the Vermont senator as the best hope for progressivism. “As Bernie said earlier this year, when people who care about progressive causes stand together, we win - and then we can get to work on making those causes into reality,” Clinton continued. “I am so excited about the election, about everything that we’re going to do together - and I’m especially pleased to have Pharrell here!” “Every time I see him - which is not often enough,” Clinton says, of the musician, “he is a passionate advocate for issues that are too often neglected and ignored.” “Are you really, really, really, really happy that we’re here tonight?” Clinton asked the crowd, in reference to Pharrell’s hit Happy. “Well, we sure are! There’s nowhere we’d rather be!” Watch it here live: Closing out his speech in Raleigh, North Carolina, Vermont senator and Democratic presidential also-ran Bernie Sanders told an ecstatic college-aged crowd that electing Hillary Clinton is a crucial step in protecting the hard-fought civil rights that his supporters value. “We can disagree on many issues - but we have come too far, too many people have gone to jail, too many people have died in the struggle for civil rights. We are not going back to a bigoted society. And furthermore,” Sanders continued. “what we understand is our strength, our uniqueness, is our diversity. We should be proud of it!” “We are not going to allow Trump or anyone to divide us up!” Vermont senator Bernie Sanders lauded Hillary Clinton’s stance on the environment, and drew contrasts with, well, differences with Donald Trump’s platform. “There is one [difference] that is very, very profound,” Sanders said. “Secretary Clinton believes in science. And I know, I know I put her in a difficult position. In 2016, to believe in science is a little bit dangerous, but what the heck. “The debate is over - climate change is real, climate change is caused by human activity, and climate change is already, today, causing devastating problems in this country and around the world.” Trump, meanwhile, “has concluded that climate change is a hoax emanating from China. Now, why he chose China and not Mexico or some Muslim country, I don’t know, but that’s the way it is.” “This is not a funny issue. I’ve got seven grandchildren,” Sanders continued. “Our job as custodians of this planet is to make sure that we leave our children and grandchildren a planet that is healthy and habitable. And that means that we have to have the guts to take on the fossil-fuel industry and tell them that their short-term profits are not more important than the future of our planet.” Donald Trump attempts to praise veterans: I’m brave in other ways — I’m financially brave. Big deal. Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, campaigning for Hillary Clinton in Raleigh, North Carolina, hit hard on the subject of paid family leave, one of Clinton’s most committed policy planks. “That is why Secretary Clinton and I will fight o guarantee 12 weeks paid family and medical leave!” Sanders vowed. Hammering on his primary-campaign message of economic equality, Vermont senator Bernie Sanders alleged that there is a network of billionaires attempting to purchase the upcoming general election, and Republican governors who are stifling ballot access to further that end. “As we speak, this very moment, billionaires around the country are pouring tens and tens of millions of dollars into senatorial campaigns, house campaigns, and campaigns of all kinds,” Sanders said. “What we are saying tonight is we will not allow billionaires to buy the United States government!” “One of the major differences - of many, between Secretary Clinton and Mr. Trump is that Secretary Clinton has made it clear that she will work in every way to repeal this disastrous opinion, Citizens United!” “In a democracy, honest people can have different points of view,” Sanders admitted. “But what is not democracy is when cowardly governors go out of their way to make it difficult for people to vote!” After being introduced by music artist Pharrell, Vermont senator and former Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders urged the college-aged crowd in Raleigh to become “politicians” by being a part of the political process. “I wanna begin with a startling revelation” Sanders said. “Despite what media may tell you, this campaign is not about Hillary Clinton; it is not about Donald Trump; it is not about Bill Clinton; it is not about Melania Trump; it is not about their children. This campaign is about you, and millions of other Americans!” “And this campaign is not a personality contest - we’re not voting for high-school president,” Sanders continued. “We’re voting for the most powerful leader in the entire world! And what this campaign must be about is which candidate has the experience and vision to work for the middle class and the working class and families of our country. And in my view, without a shadow of doubt, that candidate is Hillary Clinton, our next president.” Watch it here live: Appearing in Selma, North Carolina, more than an hour after he was scheduled to begin, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump declared that “in five days we’re going to win the great state of North Carolina, and we’re going to win back the White House - believe me.” “You get out there and vote, because that’s the whole thing.” Trump continues, making a “solemn promise” to the assembled attendees: “I will never ever let you down - I will tell you that. And you’ve been let down, you’ve been let down plenty over the years.” More than an hour late, Donald Trump appears onstage in Selma, North Carolina: If you missed it, the ’s Spencer Ackerman reports that deep antipathy toward Hillary Clinton within the FBI may have spurred a rapid series of leaks damaging to her campaign just days before the election: Current and former FBI officials, none of whom were willing or cleared to speak on the record, have described a chaotic internal climate that resulted from outrage over director James Comey’s July decision not to recommend an indictment over Clinton’s maintenance of a private email server on which classified information transited. “The FBI is Trumpland,” said one current agent. This atmosphere raises major questions about how Comey and the bureau he is slated to run for the next seven years can work with Clinton should she win the White House. The currently serving FBI agent said Clinton is “the antichrist personified to a large swath of FBI personnel,” and that “the reason why they’re leaking is they’re pro-Trump.” The agent called the bureau “Trumplandia”, with some colleagues openly discussing voting for a GOP nominee who has garnered unprecedented condemnation from the party’s national security wing and who has pledged to jail Clinton if elected. At the same time, other sources dispute the depth of support for Trump within the bureau, though they uniformly stated that Clinton is viewed highly unfavorably. “There are lots of people who don’t think Trump is qualified, but also believe Clinton is corrupt. What you hear a lot is that it’s a bad choice, between an incompetent and a corrupt politician,” said a former FBI official. Video: Melania Trump made an appearance in Pennsylvania earlier today and called on the country to find better ways to “disagree with each other.” especially on social media. A nation burst out into tearful laughter. It was Trump’s first public speech since the Republican national convention in July, when she was accused of plagiarizing parts of her address from Michelle Obama’s 2008 appearance. Watch it live here: The governor of Wisconsin celebrated National Sandwich Day as he does most days: by eating a ham and cheese sandwich for lunch. The internet, dripping with disdain, asked the obvious question: why? Thousands had gathered in an outdoor field on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, braving the sweltering sun for hours ahead of what was likely Barack Obama’s final visit to the area as president, The ’s Sabrina Siddiqui and Richard Luscombe report. With less than a week remaining until election day, Obama’s speech campaigning for Hillary Clinton was marked by a palpable sense of urgency amid a tightening race. But as the US president delivered what has become his routine stump speech for Clinton on Wednesday – branding Donald Trump a threat to democracy and attacking the judgment of Republican lawmakers who support their nominee – he invoked a lesser known name before the fervent crowd. “I want you think about a woman named named Grace Bell Hardison,” Obama said. Hardison was a 100-year-old black woman who had lived in the same town in North Carolina her entire life. Last month, her voter registration was challenged in her home of Beaufort County in what officials called an effort to “clear up” the voting rolls. Of the list of 138 purged voters that included Hardison, 92 were black and registered Democrats. “That didn’t happen by accident,” Obama said. “There was a time when systematically denying black folks the right to vote was considered normal as well.” Trump, he noted, was calling on supporters to monitor “certain areas” at the polls. “They’re just out in public saying we’re going to try and suppress the African American vote on election day, or the youth vote on election day.” This was a seeming reference to a Bloomberg story from last week in which an unnamed Trump official was quoted as saying: “We have three major voter suppression operations under way,” aimed at idealistic white liberals, young women and African Americans. The critical battleground of North Carolina is in many ways the ground zero of concerns over access to the ballot among black voters. Donald Trump had better get on that midnight train to Georgia, because a new trio of polls from NBC and the Wall Street Journal show him leading by only a single point in a state that hasn’t voted for a Democrat in nearly a quarter-century. According to the polls, conducted in Arizona, Texas and Georgia between Sunday and Tuesday, Trump holds leads in the first two states - although by narrower margins than previous Republicans have relied on - but only leads Democratic rival Hillary Clinton by a single point in Georgia, an effective deadlock. Trump’s single-point lead, 45% to 44%, highlights the demographic changes in the state, where increased minority and college-educated populations, as well as the swelling population of Atlanta, have given Democrats hope of a purple future for the state. In Arizona, where Clinton has been sending an Avengers-like squad of her top surrogates in recent weeks in hopes of flipping the state, Trump’s lead is more comfortable, 45% to Clinton’s 40%. In Texas, Trump leads by nine points, 49% to 40%. Clinton has not campaigned in Georgia recently and has no scheduled appearances to make in the state. The ’s Lauren Gambino has more on Melania Trump’s address on cyberbullying: Melania Trump, whose husband has built a public profile partly around his vulgar and offensive Twitter account, called for a gentler and kinder America today, where children can spend time on social media without fear of harassment. In a rare public appearance, Trump portrayed her husband as a devoted family man with “deep love and respect” for all Americans with a speech intended to help soften his public image with women. “Our culture has gotten too mean and too rough, especially to children and teenagers,” Trump said at a sports center in Berwyn, a suburb of Philadelphia suburb. She drew cheers as she continued. “It is never OK when a 12-year-old girl or boy is mocked, bullied or attacked. It is terrible when that happens on the playground and it is absolutely unacceptable when it’s done by someone with no name hiding on the internet.” As first lady, Melania Trump said she would work to combat online bullying and harassment. As a presidential nominee, Donald Trump has used Twitter to mock and degrade his opponent and women who have criticized him. He also has a pattern of sharing posts from sources with a history of spreading racism, antisemitism or white supremacy. Melania Trump’s speech was a direct appeal to suburban women who remain wary of the Republican nominee. His dire standing with women, and especially with white educated women who have been a cornerstone of Republican support, has imperiled his chances of winning key battleground states like Pennsylvania. Eric Trump, Donald Trump’s younger son from his first marriage, told a Denver radio station that former Ku Klux Klan leader and current Republican senate nominee David Duke deserves to be assassinated. “It’s disgusting and by the way, if I said exactly what you said, I’d get killed for it but I think I’ll say it anyway,” the younger Trump told Ross Kaminsky of 630 KHOW Denver radio after the host said that Duke deserved a bullet to the head, according to CNN. “The guy does deserve a bullet. I mean, these aren’t good people,” Trump continued. “These are horrible people.” Trump continued, lauding his father’s delayed disavowal of Duke’s support in February. “In fact, I commend my father. My father’s the first Republican who’s gone out and said, ‘Listen, what’s happened to the African-American community is horrible and I’m going to take care of it.’” A new survey of likely Colorado voters released this afternoon shows former secretary of state Hillary Clinton leading Republican rival Donald Trump by six points, an increase by four points since the poll’s last edition. The survey, released by Magellan Strategies, found Clinton ahead 44% to Trump’s 38%, with Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson trailing at 7% and Green candidate Jill Stein with 2% support. Magellan’s last Colorado survey showed Clinton leading Trump by five points, 40% to 35%, while Johnson’s support declined by five points and Stein’s fell by three points, indicating that the lion’s share of former third-party voters has gone to Clinton’s camp. Clinton leads Trump by 17 points among women, trailing among men by five points. Donald Trump, speaking in North Carolina, rhetorically asked his assembled reporters that Hillary Clinton is crooked because, well, Hillary Clinton is crooked. “Do you know why? Do you know why? Do you know why? I know the answer! I know the answer! Because she’s Crooked Hillary Clinton. Very simple. Very simple. Crooked Hillary.” The audience responded with a boisterous and prolonged “Lock her up!” chant. Donald Trump, ripping holes into Peter Thiels’ insistence that his proposed border wall with Mexico is metaphorical: It’ll be a great wall, and the harder they fight, the taller it gets. The harder they fight, the taller. Donald Trump, perhaps sensing the listlessness of his audience in North Carolina, interrupted a riff on his trade policy proposals to attack the news media that covers him as “bad people.” “The crooked media. These are the world’s most dishonest people,” Trump said. “They have a very low rating right now, folks.” “You could have done the greatest thing in the world,” Trump continued, as the audience turned and booed at the penned-in journalists assigned to cover him, “something yo do really really well, and then they see you and say ‘boy that was bad.’” “They are bad people, I tell you that,” Trump continued. “And they try so hard, they try so hard to protect Hillary Clinton. And you know what? I think the gig [sic] is up. I don’t think it’s working anymore - don’t think it’s working.” Donald Trump seemed peeved at a rally in Concord, North Carolina, when a crowd of “Build the wall!” chanters interrupted his riff on “jobs theft” by global interests that he accuses of pillaging American manufacturing. “I won’t be able to shut you up until I say that, right?” Trump said, giving in to the chanters. “We will build the wall, and Mexico will pay for it.” “I’m going to have over $100m in this campaign,” Trump continued after the sidetrack, overestimating the amount of his personal fortune that he has put into his campaign by roughly $35m. “I used to be the ultimate special interest.” Donald Trump, speaking in Concord, North Carolina, told a raucous audience that Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign will likely “end in a criminal trial,” and declared that she has no right to run for president in the first place. “She has no right to be running, you know that,” Trump said, to loud cheers. “We are going to Washington, and we are going to drain the swamp!” Watch it live here: Speaking in Winterville, North Carolina, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton tied her fate to that of her beloved Chicago Cubs, the long-suffering baseball team that she grew up watching and which just won the World Series for the first time in more than a century. “Who knows - maybe we’ll even see more history made in a few days?” Clinton said jokingly, to loud cheers. “The last time the Cubs won, women couldn’t vote. I think the women are making up for that in this election!” Watch it live here: Actor/dreamboat Chris Pine stars as... Congress (if Congress were a horrible, horrible coworker): Donald Trump seemed to be a fan of Melania’s speech: Here’s a bit of Melania Trump’s speech: What did you think of that Melania Trump speech? When she talked about being a kid in Communist Slovenia and hearing of Reagan’s election and being inspired? When she described her husband’s growing concern over the years as he watched workers suffering and his growing “very upset” every time he “heard of a factory closing in Ohio, or North Carolina or here in Pennsylvania”? She made him sound like the workingman’s best friend since Woody Guthrie. The Woody Guthrie who lived on Mermaid Avenue and wrote songs about his racist landlord Fred Trump: Here’s a live stream of Donald Trump’s next rally, in Concord, NC: Melania Trump: “Do we want president who is beholden to no one but you, the American people? Yes.” The crowd applauds. “Then we want Donald Trump to be our president.” The crowd chants “Trump! Trump! Trump!” “I will be an advocate for women and children... I’m a full-time mother to our son Barron, an incredible boy... I’m with our son. We talk a little bit about politics, and a lot about life, homework and sports. Barron has many privileges and advantages. We know how fortunate we are. .. “I want my little boy to know that he’s blessed to be born in a country with... constitutional democracy... “we need to teach our youth American values. Kindness honesty respect compassion charity understanding cooperation... Now Melania Trump decries anonymous Internet trolls: “as we know now social media is a centerpiece of our lives... technology has changed our universe, but like anything that is powerful it can have a bad side... as adults many of us are able to handle bad words... childrens and even teenagers can be fragile... they can be made to feel less in looks and intelligence “our culture has gotten too mean and too rough, especially to children and teenagers...” Trump, who riding the spearhead of the biggest coordinated movement of anonymous Internet trolls like, ever, including lots of Nazis, decries the scourge of insults dealt by “someone with no name hiding on the Internet.” “We must treat each other with respect and kindness, even when we disagree,” Trump says. She’s done. Melania Trump says “after a 10-year process which included many visas and a green card, in 2006 I studied for the test and become a US citizen. It is the greatest privilege in the world. I’m an immigrant and let me tell you, no one appreciates the freedom and opportunity more than me... He loves this country and he knows how to get things done, not just talk. He certainly knows how to shake things up, doesn’t he? ... over the years of our marriage, I have watched my husband grow more and more concerned as he sees workers suffer... parents struggle to provide for children... Every time my husband heard of a factory closing in Ohio, or North Carolina or here in Pennsylvania, I saw my husband get very upset. Trump continues: I come here today to talk about my husband Donald, and his deep love and respect for this country and all its people... to talk about our partnership, our family and what I know for sure in my heart about this man who will make America great again. I grew upin a small town in Slovenia near beautiful river and forests... it was a beautiful childhood. My parents were wonderful... America meant, if you could dream it, you could become it. When I was ten years old, we heard that a man named Ronald Reagan was elected president... it began to feel like morning around the world, even in my small country. It was a true inspiration for me. ... Fashion is a business of glamour, but it is also hard work. Melania Trump is recalling the June 2015 day Trump announced his bid. “Donald promised to campaign on behalf of those who feel the esystem is broken... who just want a fair shake... and opportunity for a better future. “He pledged to restore integrity to Washington and respect for America abroad,” Trump says. No he didn’t. He said Mexicans were bringing drugs and called them criminas and rapists. “Thank you first lady of Indiana Karen Pence,” Melania Trump says. “We love you,” the crowd shouts. “We love you too,” Melania replies. Karen Pence concludes her introduction: She is amazing. Let me tell you a little bit about her... the first time I met Melania... we joined them for a weekend at their resort in Bedminster [New Jersey]... I told her with a wink that we have raised three independently thinking children who don’t always agree with their father... she looked at me with her warm smile, and she said, I like that. You’re teaching them to think for themselves. I like that. “And I knew right then that I was really going to enjoy meeting Melania. “I can tell you one thing about Melania Trump. She is strong. She is so strong. She also is very accomplished, working her way up... Karen Pence, the wife of Trump’s running mate, is introducing Melania Trump in Pennsylvania: Deep antipathy to Hillary Clinton exists within the FBI, multiple bureau sources have told the , spurring a rapid series of leaks damaging to her campaign just days before the election. Current and former FBI officials, none of whom were willing or cleared to speak on the record, have described a chaotic internal climate that resulted from outrage over director James Comey’s July decision not to recommend an indictment over Clinton’s maintenance of a private email server on which classified information transited. “The FBI is Trumpland,” said one current agent. This atmosphere raises major questions about how Comey and the bureau he is slated to run for the next seven years can work with Clinton should she win the White House. The currently serving FBI agent said Clinton is “the antichrist personified to a large swath of FBI personnel,” and that “the reason why they’re leaking is they’re pro-Trump.” The agent called the bureau “Trumplandia,” with some colleagues openly discussing voting for a GOP nominee who has garnered unprecedented condemnation from the party’s national security wing and who has pledged to jail Clinton if elected. At the same time, other sources dispute the depth of support for Trump within the bureau, though they uniformly stated that Clinton is viewed highly unfavorably. “There are lots of people who don’t think Trump is qualified, but also believe Clinton is corrupt. What you hear a lot is that it’s a bad choice, between an incompetent and a corrupt politician,” said a former FBI official. Read further: The ’s Ben Jacobs is in Concord, North Carolina, waiting for Trump. But the candidate won’t come out, reportedly, until he’s watched his wife’s speech in Pennsylvania, which hasn’t started yet. Which means more time for Ben to meet the crowd: What does Donald Trump mean for Canada? That’s a margin of two votes – not two points, two votes – from a sample of likely voters surveyed by Suffolk in New Hampshire: Polling averages have Clinton up about five points in New Hampshire. But multiple polls today have shown Trump tied or slightly ahead of her in the state. New Hampshire does not have significant early voting. Barack Obama is headed there on Monday. An analysis by the New York Times and Siena college pollsters of white voters and potential white voters in North Carolina, Florida and Pennsylvania concludes that the wave of newly active white voters that would be required to carry Trump to victory – barring an expansion of Trump’s appeal with other groups – does not exist: Mr. Trump may yet win this election. But if he does, it probably won’t be because of a huge influx of Republican-leaning “missing” voters. There has been no surge in registration among white voters since 2012, and the white voters who have joined the electorate are younger and likelier to support Mrs. Clinton than those who were already registered. [...] This year, Mr. Trump’s gains among missing white voters aren’t likely to be even enough to overcome four years of demographic shifts, let alone form the basis of a lasting political coalition. These findings are based on an Upshot analysis of voter registration data nationwide, as well as Upshot/Siena College polls of North Carolina, Florida and Pennsylvania. Read further. Separate polling and analysis by Bloomberg indicates that Trump could be en route to a historic loss among college-educated white voters: ABC News/WaPo polling agrees: The ’s Ben Jacobs is in Concord, North Carolina, for Trump’s first afternoon event: Here’s a live stream on the Melania Trump event in Berwyn, Pennsylvania, where the crowd is currently staring at an empty stage. It’s not scheduled to start for 20 minutes: We can’t wait to show you the futuristic interactive graphics we’ve built to bring you all the election night returns. It’s even more futuristic that this: The Nevada early vote continues to look good for Clinton, says Silver state journalism dean Jon Ralston: Another possible map: But if she loses Colorado... Both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have new campaign ads out – very different campaign ads: Trump’s done in Jacksonville. His next stop today is in North Carolina. Utah appears still to be anyone’s game, a new Monmouth University poll of the state indicates: ABC News catches Texas senator Ted Cruz introducing Trump running mate Mike Pence in Prole, Iowa: Pence’s schedule has him at Melania Trump’s speech in Pennsylvania later this afternoon. The crowd is settling in in Berwyn, Pennsylvania, for Melania Trump’s speech. (Trump is still talking in Jacksonville.) Latino Decisions projects that between 13.1 million and 14.7 million Latinos will vote in 2016: This estimate represents a three percent to five percent increase over the 2012 Latino turnout rate which, coupled with the dramatic growth of the age-eligible Latino population, will yield between 1.9 million and 3.5 million additional Latinos voters in 2016 compared to the 11.2 million who voted four years ago. Latino Decisions also projects that 79 percent of Latinos will vote for Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, 18 percent for Republican nominee Donald Trump, and the remaining three percent voting for other candidates. Clinton’s projected share is higher than both Latino Decisions’ estimated 75 percent Latino vote share and 71 percent exit poll share Democrat Barack Obama received during his 2012 re-election bid. (h/t @lmechegray) Trump accuses Obama of having a conflict of interest in campaigning for Clinton: I just left by the way Miami. And in leaving I saw AF1. And I said to myself, I wonder who that could be. And it’s our president, and he’s down here campaigning for Crooked Hillary. Why isn’t he back in the office, sometimes referred to as the Oval Office... he’s campaigning every day, and I actually think, considering that she’s under criminal investigation, I think he’s got a conflict. Clinton is not under any criminal investigation that has been announced. Who in this room has gotten rid of a phone, and then smashed the hell out of it with a hammer? Raise your hand. I see one hand over there. What business are you in? I don’t want to know. I don’t want to know. – Donald Trump, in Jacksonville Here’s Donald Trump now, speaking in Jacksonville, Florida (where Obama is headed later today). Trump is saying that Hillary Clinton is a criminal and “she should’t be allowed to run for the office of president, and that is where the system is rigged”: Wow, Bill Clinton was up very early this morning in Michigan: “If we win Florida,” Obama concludes, “we will win this election.” The president is done in Miami. Next stop: Jacksonville, on the northeastern coast. Obama closes with an appeal to young voters to reject political cynicism. “Right now you have a chance to move history in a better direction,” he says. “I want young people to understand, those moments don’t come that often. There are times when history is movable, when you can make things better or worse. This is one of those moments.” Obama takes a moment to note the news of rising premiums for some Obamacare enrollees. He mounts a defense of the health care law that culminates with an accusation that Republicans have no replacement plan. “I’m going to take another aside. I know I’m running long. We have given – 20m people have health insurance that didn’t have it before,” Obama says. Then he notes Trump’s news conference to criticize Obamacare in Valley Forge, PA at the start of the week. Obama notes Ben Carson was there – and Carson is booed. “Who’s an excellent neurosurgeon. He really is. I don’t know what happened on the political thing,” Obama says. Then he says that rising premiums could’ve been kept down if Republicans would’ve helped: It is true, premiums are going up for a handful of people who don’t get tax credits, that’s important... the reason I point this out was, you watch the press conference and what you realize is, they got no plan. They want to repeal because ideologically they’re opposed to those 20m people getting health insurance. Then Obama busts out the thesaurus. Republicans don’t have a semblance of a plan, not even a hint, he says. Not even a mote. Obama hits Marco Rubio for voting for Trump, after the senator once tweeted, “friends don’t let friends vote Trump.” “Obviously he didn’t have good enough friends,” the president quips. The Miami crowd enjoyed the line. This is only the first of two Obama speeches on Clinton’s behalf today. The president has additional campaign events right through to election day. Is the president spending too much time on the campaign trail? Donald Trump thinks so: At which the Clinton campaign points out: Obama says that core biases that presidential candidates might have – not naming names – would not change with elevation to the Oval office “except you will have more power to carry out the twisted notions you had before you were in office.” “This isn’t a joke,” the president says. “This isn’t Survivor. This isn’t the Bachelorette. This counts.” Our culture, our media has just gotten so, reality-TV-ized. I know that’s not a word. But you get my drift. – Obama in Miami If Clinton ends up losing Pennsylvania (where a super-fresh Ipsos poll has her up six points), it won’t be for lack of focus on the Keystone state. The campaign has announced that its grand finale event, on the night before the election, will happen in Philadelphia, and will feature the candidate, her husband, the president, his wife, and Chelsea Clinton: Trump meanwhile announced Wednesday night that his “victory party” Tuesday night would be invitation-only at the New York Hilton Midtown: Barack Obama is onstage in Miami. That was punctual! We’re run the excerpts of Melania Trump’s upcoming speech through a plagiarism detector – try it yourself at quetext.com! – and it says “no plagiarism detected”. (h/t @paultowen) We know, we’re treating this like it was the state of the union. With half-apologies, we append herewith advance excerpts of Melania Trump’s speech today, as prepared for delivery and released just now by the Trump campaign: I come here today to talk about my husband Donald and his deep love and respect for this country, and all of its people. I have come here to talk about this man I have known for 18 years. And I have come here today to talk about our partnership, our family, and what I know for sure in my heart, about this man, who will Make America Great Again. People have asked me, if Donald is the President, what kind of First Lady will you be? [...] I want our children in this country, and all around the world, to live a beautiful life, to be safe and secure. To dream freely of love and a family of their own someday. We need to teach our youth American values. Kindness, respect, compassion, charity, understanding, cooperation. Ever wonder what Donald Trump’s interior monologue sounds like? (...) You’re in luck, because for a few eerie moments in Pensacola, Florida, last night, he vocalized it. Right now his interior monologue is telling Trump to “stay on point, Donald, stay on point... no sidetracks... nice and easy...” (and #ff @scottbix) Philadelphia Democrats are seeing the Republicans’ Melania Trump and raising them Cyndi Lauper and Debra Messing. Lauper, the pop star, and Messing, the Will & Grace star, will join former Philly mayor and Pa governor Ed Rendell, and current senate candidate Katie McGinty, for a “gayborhood bar crawl,” the Philadelphia Inquirer reports: Organized by the Liberty City LGBT Democratic Club, the get-out-the-vote “LCDC Bar Tour” will begin at 9 p.m at Knock (225 S. 12th St.), with the group then moving on to Tabu (200 S. 12th St.), UBar (1220 Locust St.), Tavern on Camac (243 S. Camac St.), Woody’s (202 S. 13th St.), and Boxers (1330 Walnut St.), according to a Facebook posting. The bar crawl is free to attend and is pay-as-you-go, but organizers ask that those interested in attending RSVP online. Here’s the original studio version of All Through the Night by the guy who wrote it, Jules Shear, who toured with Lauper and sings backup on her version: (h/t @bencjacobs) The head of Nascar, the national stock-car racing association, endorsed Donald Trump way back in March. Now the track is getting its first Trump-branded car, Jalopnik reports: Nascar faced a backlash from fans last year when it asked them to stop flying Confederate flags following a mass shooting at a historic black church in Charleston, South Carolina. The Nascar hall of fame is in Charlotte, North Carolina. The Pennsylvania state Democratic party has just mailed reporters an “EXCLUSIVE: ADVANCE EXCERPTS OF MELANIA TRUMP’S CHESTER COUNTY SPEECH”: The Pennsylvania Democratic Party has obtained an advance copy of the speech Melania Trump is scheduled to deliver today in Chester County. The press release links to a speech delivered last month by first lady Michelle Obama in New Hampshire. Get it! Melania Trump is to speak in Berwyn, Pennsylvania, this afternoon. That’s in Chester county, one of the Philadelphia ring counties, won by Mitt Romney in 2012 by a mere 0.5% – on Tuesday, watch whether Trump can top that margin. If Clinton wins Chester, it’s a good sign for the Dems. Trump will be watching his wife’s speech remotely: (h/t @bencjacobs) Hello, and welcome to our live-wire coverage of the 2016 race for the White House. Melania Trump is scheduled to give her first campaign speech since the Republican convention today, addressing an afternoon crowd in Berwyn, Pennsylvania. She will talk “about her real American story as well as the kind of dedicated, strong and committed First Lady she will be for the country she loves so much”, the Trump campaign said. Competing with Mrs Trump on the campaign trail will be American president Barack Obama, who is to deliver two speeches today in Florida for Hillary Clinton. Clinton has a campaign event today in Raleigh, North Carolina, with Bernie Sanders and Pharrell Williams. Tim Kaine’s in Arizona today. Donald Trump, meanwhile, has four three stops scheduled in two states – Florida and North Carolina and Pennsylvania (Trump will not attend his wife’s speech in Pennsylvania, as this post originally indicated). Mike Pence is also visiting three states: Iowa, Michigan and Pennsylvania. McConnell calls for ‘powerful’ president Trump “Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has made his strongest statement yet on his party’s presidential nominee, telling a rally in his home state Wednesday that ‘we need a new president, Donald Trump, to be the most powerful Republican in America,’” AP reports: Since endorsing Trump shortly after he secured the nomination, McConnell has been mostly silent about the nominee so that vulnerable incumbents – like New Hampshire’s Kelly Ayotte – could distance themselves from Trump and his increasingly erratic comments. But speaking in a cavernous tractor dealership in central Kentucky on Wednesday night – where McConnell was introduced as the “most powerful Republican in the world” – the senator went all in for Trump before a small but enthusiastic crowd. “If America votes like Kentucky, we’ll be fine,” McConnell said. Somebody is launching a ‘conservative media network’ – Fox Here’s Fox News, reporting on a potential new competitor: Donald Trump denies he is interested in launching a new conservative news venture, but somebody sure is. What’s being billed as an “up-and-coming conservative media network currently in development” is now scouring for hosts, reporters and right-leaning, well-spoken panelists, according to a brand new casting notice obtained Wednesday evening by Fox News. [...] Auditions are being held at an undisclosed New York City studio on Nov. 7, the eve of Election Day. Good New Hampshire poll for Trump A new WBUR poll of New Hampshire has Trump up one in the Granite state, 40-39, with Independent candidate Gary Johnson playing a major spoiler role – for someone – by drawing 10%. HuffPost Pollster’s average has Clinton up five in the state. The poll has Democrat Maggie Hassan ahead of incumbent Kelly Ayotte in the Senate race by four points, 45-41. If you like horse races, you might have a glance at the latest edition of the ABC/WaPo tracking blog, which has moved three points in Clinton’s direction since Monday. Behold – the highs, the lows, the agony, the ecstasy – the irreplicable pleasures of a daily tracking poll: The Cubs won No self-respecting politician let the Chicago Cubs’ World Series victory overnight go uncelebrated. Clinton, who grew up in Chicago and has a particular claim to actual fandom, was effusive: The president, also a Chicagoan, but a fan of the rival White Sox, invited the team to the White House: Nothing yet from team Trump on the Cubs. Thank you for reading and please join us in the comments.
No Man's Sky's cultural influences, from Dune to post-rock From the very beginning, No Man’s Sky has looked unlike any other modern science-fiction video game. With its bizarre creatures, hallucinogenic skylines and polychrome environments, it eschews the gritty, steel-grey aesthetics of Mass Effect, Halo and Gears of War. The themes of the game, too, hark back to a different form of sci-fi literature, less interested in galactic wars and more concerned with the philosophical and psychology elements of space exploration. Here then, are some of the cultural influences Hello Games appears to have drawn on. Chris Foss Along with Star Wars conceptual designer Ralph McQuarrie, Foss has been mentioned several times by Hello Games as a visual inspiration for the technology in No Man’s Sky. The British artist, who has produced illustrations for dozens of classic sci-fi paperbacks, including Isaac Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy, imagined futuristic spacecraft as highly complex architectural wonders rather than glorified airplanes, and used bright contrasting colours instead of traditional metallic greys (a look inspired by steam train design). He also worked with Alejandro Jodorowsky, producing astonishing concepts for the director’s abandoned Dune project. Post-rock music The game’s ethereal soundtrack, provided by Sheffield group 65daysof static, exudes the sort of hypnotic, woozy grandeur typical of post-rock, a genre known for its epic, instrumental soundscapes (see also Mogwai, God Speed! You Black Emperor, Labradford). Incidentally, 65daysofstatic has also written an alternative soundtrack to ... Silent Running. Silent Running Douglas Trumball produced special effects for 2001: A Space Odyssey and Andromeda Strain before directing this ecological masterpiece about a spaceship carrying the Earth’s last forests into space. No Man’s Sky shares the film’s tranquil pace, and its interest in the cold vastness of space counterposed with the intricate wonder of the living organic world. The game’s protective sentinel robots (which often attack players who try to mine isotopes from plants) hark back to Silent Running’s gardening drones – Huey and Dewey. The Culture novels Rejecting the austere, logical galactic empires envisioned in the sci-fi golden age, Iain M Banks developed the concept of the Culture, a vast post-human utopian society, organised by a class of machine demigods known as the Mind. But with their stories of remote anarchist settlements spread throughout a vast cosmos, Consider Phlebas, Use of Weapons, Excession, etc, deal with similar themes to No Man’s Sky. 2001: A Space Odyssey Arthur C Clarke’s story depicts the idea of alien intelligence through the medium of discovered artefacts, and in this way 2001 is surely an influence on this game’s use of abandoned outposts and strange extraterrestrial monuments to impart information to the player. Also, the hyperdrive graphics sequence in No Man’s Sky owes an obvious debt to 2001’s famed stargate sequence. Dune Frank Herbert’s grand vision of a feudal human civilisation scattered across countless planets is present in the very structure of No Man’s Sky. There’s also the same sense of a galactic economy providing shape to a scattered society, and of the interplay between finance and ecology. Elite No Man’s Sky designer Sean Murray played the classic 1984 space sim as a child, and its mix of galactic exploration, trading and space combat is blatantly apparent in the Hello Games title. Mining astroids, docking in space stations and getting chased by greedy space pirates are also familiar features. The games of Novagen Software In the mid-80s, Novagen Software produced several of the most fascinating sci-fi games of the home computer era. Created by programmer Paul Woakes, titles such as Mercenary and Damocles used simple vector-based graphics to produce incredibly well-realised worlds. As in No Man’s Sky, the player takes part in the stories as a lone space traveller trapped on deserted planets, but slowly discovering complex alien societies and intrigues. Designer’s Republic The seminal Sheffield design house mixed vibrant blocks of colour, Japanese iconography and the visual language of corporate logos to produce its classic work for bands such as Pop Will Eat Itself and Aphex Twin – as well as the PlayStation racing sim Wipeout. That game’s cool spacecraft design and chunky retro-futuristic fonts seem to be subtly referenced in No Man’s Sky. Journey With its lonely environments, scattered relics, minimalist narrative and plaintive soundtrack, award-winning PlayStation game Journey has a very similar feel to No Man’s Sky. Both games have a sort of mystical, quasi-religious approach to exploration, and both purposefully give the player enough ambiguity and freedom to interpret the meaning of it all in their own way. Robert Heinlein Throughout his writing career the influential SF author explored the philosophy of solipsism, an individual’s sense that they’re the only real, significant part of the universe – a feeling that No Man’s Sky and its millions of desolate worlds seems to be engendering in players. He also developed the theory that universes are created through the act of imagining them and that fictional realities exist as parallel dimensions. In No Man’s Sky, the generative algorithm is a form of imagination. The universe is therefore real.
Amazon plans movie about journalism pioneer Ida Tarbell Ida Tarbell, a film about the pioneering turn-of-the-century journalist who exposed the monopolisation of the oil industry by the Rockefellers, is to be made by Amazon. The script, which featured on the 2015 Black List of best unproduced screenplays, is by Mark McDevitt; no director or cast has been announced. The film focuses on Tarbell’s series of 19 articles, The History of the Standard Oil Company, which detailed how John D Rockefeller monopolised the country’s oil business. One of the first CEO profiles, it was compiled from hundreds of hours of interviews with supporting players, and backed up by thousands of pages of documents. Tarbell never met Rockefeller, who was at that time the best-known businessman in the US. He had formally retired a few years before the publication, citing a desire to move into philanthropy. Tarbell’s articles depicted him as viciously ruthless and miserly. The articles won considerable praise, but also earned Tarbell the label of “muckraker”, something she took umbrage at. In a piece, Muckraker or Historian, she sought to justify her work and explain that she was trying to present balanced reporting in the face of headline-baiting activism. All the radical element, and I numbered many friends among them, were begging me to join their movements. I soon found that most of them wanted attacks. They had little interest in balanced findings. Now I was convinced that in the long run the public they were trying to stir would weary of vituperation, that if you were to secure permanent results the mind must be convinced.
Consensus: Clinton wins debate – but Trump is far from finished The most-watched presidential debate in history knocked Donald Trump sideways, but not out of the race for the White House, after he was tripped up by a well-drilled Hillary Clinton. Riled by needling from Clinton about his family, the flamboyant Republican was forced on the defensive for much of their 90-minute showdown at Hofstra University, and swiftly saw some signs of faltering support among voters. Opinion polls, which still suggest a 45% chance of Trump winning in November, will take days to fully measure the impact of Monday night’s debate, but bookmakers indicated a four-point bounce for Clinton by the morning, a trend supported by focus groups and a survey of those watching. Yet if the unpredictable 2016 race has confirmed anything, it is that Trump’s bluster has frequently confounded pundits and resonated with voters. Unconventional outbursts during his first one-on-one debate at times rendered both opponent and moderator speechless. “That makes me smart,” Trump told a shocked-looking Clinton when she accused him of paying no federal income tax. “She doesn’t have the look. She doesn’t have the stamina,” he retorted when challenged over sexism toward the Democrat’s first woman nominee. Briefly, some of Trump’s policy punches landed too: on “stolen” jobs, and an appeal to the electorate’s anti-establishment mood over trade. “Hillary, I’d just ask you this. You’ve been doing this for 30 years. Why are you just thinking about these solutions right now?” he said. However, there was wide consensus the morning after the debate that it was Clinton who had shown more stamina and discipline, getting under her opponent’s skin within minutes of their opening pleasantries. “Donald was very fortunate in his life, and that’s all to his benefit. He started his business with $14m, borrowed from his father, and he really believes that the more you help wealthy people, the better off we’ll be,” said the former secretary of state, in what appeared a carefully prepared tactic to undermine his blue-collar appeal and goad the businessman who has a reputation for being thin-skinned when criticised. When Trump obliged by deviating down a meandering defence of business practices she claimed had “stiffed thousands of people”, Clinton next painted him as sleazy bigot. “This is a man who has called women pigs, slobs and dogs, and someone who has said pregnancy is an inconvenience to employers,” she said, before one of the night’s few new lines of attack: “One of the worst things he said was about a woman in a beauty contest. He loves beauty contests, supporting them and hanging around them. And he called this woman ‘Miss Piggy’. Then he called her ‘Miss Housekeeping’, because she was Latina. Donald, she has a name. “Her name is Alicia Machado. And she has become a US citizen and you can bet she is going to vote this November.” Clinton also accused her opponent of building his political career on a “racist lie that our first black president was not an American citizen”. By the end of their bruisingly one-way encounter, in which Trump barely mentioned his signature immigration policy or Obamacare, he fell back on crude hints about Clinton’s health and criticising her from taking time away from the campaign trail to study. “I think Donald just criticized me for preparing for this debate. And yes, I did. And you know what else I prepared for? I prepared to be president. And I think that’s a good thing,” replied Clinton. “Look, it’s all words, it’s all soundbites. I built an unbelievable company,” said a rattled-sounding Trump. “Words matter. Words matter when you run for president. And they really matter when you are president,” responded Clinton. Briefly, a compelling Trump painted vivid images, before appearing to lose himself in his own answers. “She’s saying Russia, Russia, Russia,” he began an answer about cybersecurity and the hacking of Democratic headquarters. “It also could be somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400lbs, OK? “I have a son. He’s 10 years old. He has computers. He is so good with these computers, it’s unbelievable,” he digressed. Aboard her plane on Tuesday, Clinton projected confidence as she spoke to reporters – not a common election year occurrence – about her debate performance while taking a shot at Trump for alleging he had a defective microphone. “Anyone who complains about the microphone is not having a good night,” Clinton told reporters. The debate, she added, underscored questions about Trump’s fitness to be president. “Well, I think his demeanor, his temperament, his behavior on the stage can be seen by everybody,” she said. “People can draw their own conclusions. I thought on several occasions he was making charges and claims that were demonstrably untrue, offering opinions that I think a lot of people would find offensive.” Asked about Trump’s insistence that he had shown restraint by holding back on personal issues pertaining to Bill Clinton’s history of infidelity, she simply noted Trump “can run his campaign however he chooses” . “I will continue to talk about what I want to do for the American people, lay out specific plans with very clear goals in mind to help us deal with all the challenges we face,” she said. Speaking at a rally in North Carolina on Tuesday, she chided Trump’s performance by noting there was “a lot of work for fact-checkers last night,” before zeroing in on the Republican nominee’s continued refusal to release his tax returns even when pressed during the debate. “He actually bragged about gaming the system to get out of paying his fair share of taxes,” Clinton said. While it is too early to tell how the first debate might impact the trajectory of the race, the positive mood within Clinton’s campaign was palpable the morning after. Staff could be heard cheering and applauding the Democratic nominee as she boarded her plane for a rally in Raleigh, North Carolina. John Podesta, Clinton’s campaign chairman, said Trump’s persistent efforts to talk over the top of Clinton were revealing. “I think his constant interruption of her probably was reminiscent of the way a lot of women feel about bullies in their lives,” Podesta said in a conversation with reporters at the back of the campaign plane. “I thought it was kind of unbecoming and he couldn’t stop himself.” But Trump dug in further on Tuesday, telling Fox News he had pulled his punches over Clinton family sex scandals, while his allies hit out at the debate’s moderator, Lester Holt. “If I were Donald Trump I wouldn’t participate in another debate unless I was promised that the journalist would act like a journalist and not an incorrect, ignorant fact-checker,” said former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani. Clinton responded that she looked forward to her next two encounters with Trump – whether he chose to attend the debates or not. “Well, I’m going to show up. He gets to decide what he’s going to do,” she said. “If I’m the only person on stage, I’m the only person on stage.”
Journey sue Monster for $500,000 over cancelled gig Journey simply won’t stop believin’ in the power of their lawyers. The US band are suing the Monster energy drinks company for $500,000 (£350,000), claiming the firm breached a contract when it cancelled a booking for them to appear at the 2016 Consumer Electronics Show, which took place in Las Vegas in January. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Journey’s attorney Howard King filed the suit on Friday 13 May, claiming the band’s appearance was cancelled when Monster Inc realised it did not have the funds to pay them. The suit states that the group had signed a deal whereby they would be paid $500,000, even if their appearance was cancelled. The deal was signed in October, but a month later the gig was pulled, with no money, only an apology, given. Journey want the $500,000 they were guaranteed, plus pre-judgment interest and legal costs. This isn’t the first time Monster has found itself facing musicians’ lawyers. In June 2014, the company was ordered to pay $1.7m (£1m) in damages to the Beastie Boys – with a further $668,000 in costs awarded a year later – after infringing the group’s copyright by using a five-song Beasties “megamix” in a promotional video. Adam Yauch of the Beastie Boys, who died in 2012, had specified in his will that the group’s music was not to be used for advertising.
Feed me a line: Idris Elba joins Ridley Scott in hunt for UK scriptwriters Aspiring screenplay writers have been offered a chance to launch their careers by leading director Sir Ridley Scott and renowned actor Idris Elba. The pair have both launched writing competitions in an attempt to unearth hidden British talent in a ferociously competitive industry. The director, whose films include Alien, Blade Runner and Gladiator, is hoping to develop at least one successful film project through his Launch Pad Manuscript Competition. “Without [writers], I would not be able to do my job,” said Scott. “So, to be able to provide a new and innovative way for them to get their work out in the world is truly exciting.” Through his company, Green Door Pictures, Elba, whose acclaimed performances include the crime series Luther and The Wire, has launched the Write To Green Light Competition, with the aim of developing a major television series from the winning entry. The competitions reflect a recognition of the huge challenges faced by scriptwriters, who often struggle to obtain even a cursory reading of their work. In the past, desperation drove one hopeful writer to leave his manuscript under the windscreen wiper of the car of one of Scott’s executives. Mike Pruss, the senior vice-president of production for Scott Free, which will run the Launch Pad competition, recalled returning from a lunch one day to find a package with such a “sweet note” that he simply had to read the manuscript. “I don’t know how he knew it was my car. I did email back, ‘thank you for your time’. We probably get thousands of screenplays and manuscripts a year. It’s an extraordinary amount,” he said. The problem was “over-saturation”, he said. “There are so many more people doing it now because everyone feels they have a great story to tell … Like any business, the product may be good, but it may not be right for the company.” Almost half of the Oscars’ best picture nominations of the past 10 years began as books, with fiction such as the Harry Potter series and Fifty Shades of Grey achieving phenomenal success on screen. Winning writers will also be signed up with management company Energy Entertainment and published by Inkshares. The competition, which is open to new and established writers, asks for submissions of up to 50 pages. Pruss said that The Martian, starring Matt Damon, reflected Scott Free’s track record in taking a chance on new writers and new platforms. Originally self-published, Andy Weir’s book inspired the screen adaptation, which became one of the biggest films of 2015, nominated for seven Oscars. Elba’s productions, through Green Door Pictures, include A Hundred Streets, in which he starred with Gemma Arterton. He is collaborating on his competition with Lionsgate UK & Europe, a leading producer and distributor. The brief is for major television dramas with “culturally British stories”. Three finalists will have a 15-minute extract performed by major actors at a live public event later this year, when a panel of key industry figures will make their final decision. The audience will include top broadcasters, commissioners, producers, directors and talent management. The winning script will be optioned and go into production in 2017 or 2018. If there’s a part that Elba likes, he could play it. Zygi Kamasa, chief executive of Lionsgate UK & Europe, said that the competition reflects the company’s “big drive” to expand its reach into UK television. Lionsgate has acquired a stellar reputation in the US, with acclaimed shows such as Orange is the New Black, set in a women’s prison, and Mad Men, about advertising executives. He and Elba were addressing “a huge shortage of undiscovered television writing talent”, he said. “Where’s the Mad Men in the UK. Where’s our really great quality writing?” Part of the problem, he added, is that television drama writers have only four UK broadcasters to approach – the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Sky: “In America, there’s over 40 broadcasters and cable channels making shows. Admittedly, the US is bigger, but still 40 compared with four is really disproportionate. If you’re an undiscovered talent or a talented existing writer and one of those four buyers says ‘no’, you’re stuck, you’ve hit a brick wall. You might have this terrific script and it just doesn’t happen to be right for commissioners at that time. “We think we can discover perhaps those hidden gems among really talented British writers.”
Deutsche Bank: how did a beast of the banking world get into this mess? Deutsche Bank is facing questions about whether it can afford a penalty of $14bn (£10.5bn) from the US Department of Justice for mis-selling mortgage bonds a decade ago. Shares in Germany’s biggest bank have sunk to near-30-year lows and are trading just above €10 a share, illustrating investors’ concerns that they will be asked to bolster the institution’s coffers through a cash call. Shareholders are in turn wondering whether the bank should have acted sooner to preserve its financial health and whether the German government will step in to prevent a collapse. How did it come to this? Once a big beast of the banking world, Deutsche Bank is grappling with a string of problems that are raising questions about its need to gain more funds in order to survive. John Cryan, the Briton who took the helm at the bank 14 months ago, already faced a daunting task in turning around the bank even before its situation worsened in the face of reports it could face a $14bn penalty from the US Department of Justice for bond mis-selling. Cryan is tackling the problems in the investment banking arm that generated 85% of its revenue but lost its shine after a string of scandals – including a £1.7bn fine for rigging Libor – hit the bank. The reputational hits were accompanied by new regulations put in place after the banking crisis that made it tougher for banks to make profits. The bank’s costs are also too high, so Cryan has embarked on a plan to axe a quarter of the workforce and raise capital by selling its Chinese arm and retail business Postbank. However, matters have been complicated by a prolonged low interest rate environment, which has made Deutsche Bank investors realise it would be difficult for the bank to generate as much revenue as it did in the past. It also expected the penalty for mortgage bonds mis-sold a decade ago in the US to be closer to $2.5bn. “[Deutsche Bank] finds itself in the position it is because of a failure to shrink its balance sheet, cut costs and restructure when times were good,” said Tim Crockford, European equities portfolio manager at fund manager Hermes. Why does Deutsche Bank matter? The bank’s assets are valued at about €1.8tn (£1.5tn), which is half the size of the German economy. This illustrates the size and scale of the bank. Even before the bank’s latest crisis emerged, the International Monetary Fund had been sounding the alarm about the significance of Deutsche Bank on the world stage, saying it “appears to be the most important net contributor to systemic risks”. It is a key player in the market for derivatives, which are complex financial instruments used in a range of activities from insuring against interest movements to taking bets on stock market movements. These products were at the heart of the 2008 global crisis when a collapse in US property prices hit valuations of certain derivatives. What would happen if it collapsed like Lehman Brothers did? On the basis of the IMF’s assessment, the consequences of a Deutsche Bank collapse could be worse than the signature event of the global banking crisis. However, few are predicting that the bank will go the way of Lehman. Christopher Wheeler, banks analyst at Atlantic Equities, points out that Deutsche Bank is not running out of cash, as it has €250bn of readily sellable assets it can sell to meet any demands from customers. Shareholders are alarmed, though. Deutsche Bank’s shares have fallen more than 50% this year and so far that its stock market value is now approximately €14.5bn – or in dollar terms barely $2bn more than the proposed $14bn penalty. Will the German government bail out its flagship bank? This looks unlikely. Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor, would not want to prop up a bank that survived the 2008 crisis without a bailout. And even if she wanted to do so, new rules mean bond holders would be forced to take losses first. But if it was a last resort, analysts have said they expect her to intervene. What are the options? The one that shareholders fear is a cash call on shareholders, although the shares have fallen so low that any capital raising would dilute existing investors. The market reckons Deutsche can afford a DoJ settlement of up to €6bn without raising cash. Other options involve more restructuring. Crockford said: “One option would be to sell asset management, or other parts of the business that have a more attractive return profile than the core business and investment bank, such as private wealth management.”
Everton reveal Romelu Lukaku will stay after win against West Brom Ronald Koeman was wearing a broad smile and with good reason. Not only had he claimed his first win as the Everton manager but, perhaps more significantly, he was able to confirm his leading striker Romelu Lukaku has decided to stay at Goodison Park. It was a decisive intervention from Koeman that turned the course of this typically fiercely contested match with Tony Pulis’s West Brom. Having gone behind to an early Gareth McAuley goal, he brought Lukaku into the game 10 minutes before half-time. Everton were level before the break and rampant in a second half that was decided by Gareth Barry’s header and also featured a sparkling cameo from the debutant Yannick Bolasie. “I can confirm Romelu is staying with the club,” Koeman said. “He spoke to me yesterday morning and told me he had made the decision by himself to stay at least one more season at Everton. It’s great news for everyone and it’s possible he may sign a new contract.” Pulis remained on his feet for the entirety of his post-match press conference and kept repeating the phrase “10 days”, the amount of time left in this transfer window for West Brom and their new Chinese owners to strengthen the squad. Everton started the game as they did against Spurs in a new 3-4-3 formation. The home side were quick to exploit any unfamiliarity. In the eighth minute Salomón Rondón forced Ramiro Funes Mori into a nervous backpass that went straight to the Venezuelan. Maarten Stekelenburg rushed out to smother the shot but at the expense of a corner. Craig Gardner swung the ball in, Saido Berahino blocked off the Dutch goalkeeper and the 36-year-old McAuley was at the back post to continue his Indian summer and power a header into the net. Everton responded by gaining control of possession, but failed to pose any attacking threat. Their biggest problem was making effective use of nominal No9, Gerard Deulofeu. The Spaniard had the speed to trouble McAuley and co but West Brom were sitting too deep for it to make a difference. And when tasked with finding a short through ball instead, Ross Barkley and Kevin Mirallas struggled. With 10 minutes still to go to half-time, Koeman turned to Lukaku. The Belgian, subject of much summer transfer speculation, had yet to play in the Premier League this season. He came on here, replacing the wing-back James McCarthy, and immediately made an impact. Not only did he provide McAuley and Jonas Olsson with a worthy physical opponent, he allowed Everton to settle into a more comfortable 4-2-3-1 formation. “It was a tactical change‚” Koeman confirmed. “We started with three at the back and if you go one nil down and they drop back even further, you really need a target man, you need to make the pitch wider. From that moment on we were the dominant team.” Everton were level by half-time through Mirallas. Picking up the ball in the inside-left channel, the Belgian drifted inside as if to shoot but instead passed to Barry. Barry’s first-time pass was matched by Barkley who found Mirallas again and his far-post shot was too powerful for Ben Foster to keep out. It was a cracking goal. Everton came out of the blocks in the second half, with Mirallas and the teenage full-back Mason Holgate causing havoc. Having robbed Olsson in possession and drawn a foul, Mirallas took a free-kick that was nearly converted by Funes Mori. Foster pushed the ball wide, but the corner that followed found Holgate unmarked at the back post. The teenager drilled his shot into the turf but the ball looped over the West Brom defenders and into the path of the onrushing Barry, who gobbled up the header at the near post. Pulis attempted to get back into the game by replacing his wing men and adding Rickie Lambert up front. Lambert might have scored with his first touch but could not quite reach James McClean’s cross. Koeman meanwhile was able to grant Bolasie an Everton debut and the DR Congo international gave a sparkling sideshow, teeing up Lukaku for a one-on-one he should have buried to give the match a more reflective scoreline.
Donald Trump hits on a sore point with Brussels 'coddling' remarks Donald Trump’s implied portrayal of Muslim communities as the “enemy within”, with his declaration to Piers Morgan that they are not reporting terrorist suspects, follows his claim in December that parts of UK cities are so radicalised they are no-go areas for the police. Scotland Yard responded then that “Trump couldn’t be more wrong”. The force has been equally robust in rejecting the Republican contender’s questioning of the loyalty of Britain’s Muslim communities. As Scotland Yard’s head of counter-terrorism, Mark Rowley, told MPs last July: “Over the last year we have had far more information from communities about people of concern, some of whom we have been able to intervene with in a preventative sense, which is really positive, and I see an appetite from the majority of communities to work with us and tackle this.” But Trump’s point does hit on something of a sore point in the ongoing debate over the effectiveness of official counter-radicalisation programmes in Britain, in particular over the Prevent initiative which has gone through several reincarnations since its introduction in 2007. Prevent has been seen as contentious in many quarters, which Rowley has acknowledged, and has even been attacked as a “spying programme”. But he has also stressed that the programme has a lot to its credit with many effective relationships built between police and communities. Prevent was conceived in 2007 as a way to use Whitehall funding to strengthen the capacity of communities to challenge extremism. It covers a range of different initiatives and it has become a statutory duty for local authorities, universities and colleges, schools, prisons, police, probation and NHS trusts to take action to prevent people being drawn into extremism. This new counter-extremism strategy launched by David Cameron last July added a further highly contentious ingredient to the mix when he also placed a legal duty on public institutions not to provide “an uncontested space to extremist ideology”. The new legal Prevent duty has already led to some embarrassing incidents where inexperienced teachers have referred pupils to the police for saying “terraced” when they thought they heard “terrorist”. There are also complaints that the schools programme, which includes only an hour-long session, is too blunt and unsophisticated an instrument to really tackle radicalisation. Beyond the classroom there is an effective counter-radicalisation programme developing in prisons. Cameron has said he is prepared to consider major changes in the location and methods for dealing with terrorist prisoners and up to 1,000 more offenders at risk of radicalisation. As Keith Vaz, the chairman of the Commons home affairs committee, has warned, the fact more than 800 British people have travelled to fight in Iraq and Syria – and that more than half of them have returned – has led to fears of radicalisation in Britain reaching an unprecedented level. In this situation the government’s focus has moved away from the human intelligence involved in the kind of community-based work of Prevent to the digital solutions of the snooper’s charter – with its power to track suspects through their use of social media and the web – and also, increasingly, using new databases to track their physical movements across Europe. The home secretary, Theresa May, is leading the push in Europe for the rapid implementation of databases tracking those using internal flights within the EU, as well as developing the Schengen databases to keep track of the movement of migrants. The fragmented nature of Belgium’s police and security services means they do things differently there, and Trump’s claim that the Brussels suburb of Molenbeek had “coddled” and taken care of the Paris attacks terror suspect Salah Abdeslam before his arrest has some resonance. Others might argue that the lack of long-term community police work left a dangerous intelligence vacuum.
Hackers can control Nissan Leaf's heating and access driving history Hackers can control features in Nissan’s Leaf electric cars over the internet, enabling them to remotely enable the air conditioning and heating, or pull information from the car including driving history, replete with GPS co-ordinates. The car can be hacked by exploiting a weakness in the way it communicates with its companion app, NissanConnect EV. The app itself can be used to control the in-car climate and check driving range, but only for the owner’s car. However, the security researcher Troy Hunt reports that the app’s communication with the car is entirely unauthenticated, allowing anyone to send the same commands and requests for information over the web. Worse, the only way the app specifies which car to connect to is with the vehicle identification number (Vin), which is unique to each car. But the Vin for Leaf cars only changes in the last five digits, and is frequently visibly displayed through the windscreen of cars. The damage potential is low compared with other recent vehicle hacks, particularly the vulnerable Jeeps first reported in September 2015, which could be remotely steered and accelerated by an attacker. But it still allows an attacker to run the battery of a car flat, by leaving the central heating on for hours on end, and greatly compromises the privacy of the user. Hunt said: “Nissan need to fix this. It’s a different class of vulnerability to the Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek Jeep hacking shenanigans of last year, but in both good and bad ways. Good in that it doesn’t impact the driving controls of the vehicle, yet bad in that the ease of gaining access to vehicle controls in this fashion doesn’t get much easier – it’s profoundly trivial. “As car manufacturers rush towards joining in on the ‘internet of things’ craze, security cannot be an afterthought nor something we’re told they take seriously after realising that they didn’t take it seriously enough in the first place. Imagine getting it as wrong as Nissan has for something like Volvo’s ‘digital key’ initiative where you unlock your car with your phone.” Hunt initially disclosed the vulnerability to Nissan in late January, and received an acknowledgement that the company was “making progress toward a solution”. But two other separate groups of Leaf owners had also discovered the vulnerability independently, prompting Hunt to publicly disclose the flaw. A Nissan spokeswoman told the that “Nissan is aware of a data issue relating to the NissanConnect EV app that impacts the climate control and state of charge functions. It has no effect whatsoever on the vehicle’s operation or safety. Our global technology and product teams are currently working on a permanent and robust solution. “We are committed to resolving the issue as a matter of priority, ensuring that we deliver the best possible experience for our customers through the app now and in the future.”
Leicester march on towards title after Jamie Vardy sinks Sunderland As the final whistle blew, half the pitch remained bathed in glorious spring sunshine but the rest was shrouded in deep shadow. On a day when hope and fear collided, when Leicester City moved within touching distance of a most unexpected title and Sunderland were shoved a step nearer to relegation, it seemed a wholly appropriate image. At the end Claudio Ranieri was crying, Leicester’s manager apparently overwhelmed by his side’s enduring achievements. Emotionally at least Sam Allardyce is far too old-school, much too British, to shed any public tears – of joy or otherwise – but privately Sunderland’s manager must have felt like howling his heart out in despair at the damage done to his team’s survival prospects by Jamie Vardy’s two goals. In truth Leicester were not at their best and, for lengthy periods, Allardyce’s team held their own, playing reasonably well. Ultimately, though, they lacked a Vardy-esque cutting edge, something emphasised when the substitute Jack Rodwell missed an excellent chance to equalise. While Vardy’s contribution in the wake of his minor goal drought – none in six league games – was sufficient to preserve the visitors’ formidable lead over Tottenham Hotspur at the top of the table, Sunderland’s fate now looks to hinge on Saturday’s trip to Norwich City. “It’s a game we’ll try to win but we can’t afford to lose,” said Allardyce, whose team are four points behind Alex Neil’s side with a game in hand. He could have done with travelling to Carrow Road with at least one more point on the board. “A draw against Leicester would have been fantastic but Jack Rodwell missed that chance,” said Sunderland’s manager. His pain was exacerbated by the fact that Sunderland’s principal “slip” involved a failure to cut out the trademark Leicester long ball that created Vardy’s opener. “Everyone knows they play lots of long balls over the top and we couldn’t afford to give him a chance like that,” Allardyce lamented before indulging in a slight dig at Ranieri’s perceived fundamentalism. “Leicester are unique,” said Allardyce. “They don’t have to be pretty. Fans of bigger clubs might moan about the way they play but their fans love it. And each of their players is playing better and with more consistency than they’ve ever done in their life. That’s the beauty of it; that’s what confidence gives you.” Indeed for a team that were supposed to have come over all defensive in the past few weeks, Leicester began in startlingly high-tempo, front-foot mode. It took some last-ditch interceptions and wince-inducing challenges on Sunderland’s part to keep them at bay. Having caught their breath, Allardyce’s team enjoyed a decent first half with Jan Kirchhoff making his presence felt in central midfield. At 6ft 5in Kirchhoff casts quite a shadow and, at times, even N’Golo Kanté found himself in the unusual position of being eclipsed by the German. With Lee Cattermole also in real ankle-biting, snappy tackling mood, Kanté and Danny Drinkwater certainly had their work cut out. Cattermole made a couple of vital interventions, most notably to deny the strangely anonymous, unusually erratic, Riyad Mahrez and, even when Sunderland seemed in danger of coming undone at the hands of Leicester counterattacks, Lamine Koné and the initially excellent Younès Kaboul held firm. With Vardy deceptively subdued Vito Mannone did not make a single save until almost an hour had passed. Considering Kasper Schmeichel was similarly underemployed it had become a day where the game’s fascination lay largely in the assorted midfield sub-plots. Most notable among them was Kanté’s increasingly successful efforts to reimpose himself on proceedings. Although Sunderland had a half-hearted penalty appeal when Robert Huth appeared to handle Patrick van Aanholt’s cross and Schmeichel, finally called to arms, saved smartly to keep out Fabio Borini’s deflected shot, much of the finishing was either scuffed or horribly wayward. Perhaps lulled into a false sense of security, Sunderland’s defensive mind-set was about to switch off momentarily. Shortly after seeing Mannone finally required to make a save, the Italian diving to smother Drinkwater’s fairly benign shot following Mahrez’s clever dummy, they succumbed to a by now familiar bout of self-destruction. With minds and bodies tiring, Allardyce’s players lost concentration as Drinkwater launched a long, looping, simple ball forward. Having flown over the home defence it was met by the rapidly advancing Vardy who, with Kaboul now trailing in his wake, beat Mannone with a ruthlessly incisive shot into the bottom corner from an awkward angle. It was Vardy’s 20th Premier League goal of an extraordinary season and immediately prompted choruses of “Gonna win the league” from the away end. The unmarked Rodwell had an ideal chance to silence them but, with time seeming to stand still, the midfielder froze, panicked and sidefooted over the bar from eight yards after a blocked shot had been deflected into his path. When the music stops next month that could be regarded as a very big miss. It meant victory belonged to Leicester well before the moment, deep in stoppage time, when Vardy sped beyond Van Aanholt, rounded the advancing Mannone and shot into the empty net. Tottenham really have their work cut out now – and so, too, do Sunderland. Man of the match Jamie Vardy (Leicester City)
Patriots Day review: Boston marathon bombing movie is tense yet respectful There’s little doubt who the hero of Peter Berg’s retelling of the 2013 Boston marathon bombings is: the city itself. Native Bostonian Mark Wahlberg plays Jimmy Saunders, a police sergeant, who acts as no-nonsense conduit to help cut through the layers of bureaucracy, bullshit and emotion of that day in April 2013 when three people were killed by two homemade bombs. The first 20 minutes recall the signature docu-drama style of Paul Greengrass, who retold a US terrorist attack with his 9/11 tale United 93. That handheld invasive style is coupled with authentic footage and incredibly accurate re-enactment to piece together the events of the day. It’s also close in feel to Brett Morgen’s 30 for 30 documentary on OJ Simpson’s famous Bronco chase, and, like that film, Berg slowly pieces together the action of the day – a minute’s silence for the Newtown massacre’s victims, the Red Sox’s home game – to give a sense of a calm before the chaos. We see protagonists from the bombing preparing for the race around the city. There’s a couple, a father and son, and Saunders, who has been given the duty of marshalling the finishing line as punishment for allegedly beating up another officer. Then come the brothers. Tamerlan, the oldest, is presented as a paranoid, bullying zealot who slaps his younger brother around and drives the operation. Dzhokhar at first seems a reluctant participant who worries about his friends getting hurt while eating Cheerios and watching bomb-making videos, before turning into a gung-ho homegrown jihadi. Alex Wolff, who plays Dzhokhar, manages to create a sense of someone who’s disconnected from the world to a terrifying sociopathic level. The tension that slowly builds as the inevitable finally happens is brilliantly wrought, with the score – provided by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross – proving a swelling drone which creeps up and peaks in all the right places. Even though we’re all aware that two bombs are going to explode, somehow, when they do, it’s still a surprise. From there Berg holds his camera up to the carnage. Limbs are shown strewn across the finish line; legs are almost completely torn from bodies, and the camera which dwells on the body of an eight-year-old victim. At this point Saunders becomes a de facto translator as the local police and government agencies try – and often fail – to communicate and collaborate. When the FBI, led by Kevin Bacon, need to try and retrace Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s steps, Saunders’s local knowledge is the vital ingredient; when there’s gnashing of teeth about whether or not to release the brothers’ picture to the public, he’s in no doubt that they should do it. He’s a one-man emblem of what Boston stands for and is the emotional centre of the film who signals when to feel angry, sad or reflective. Berg creates more tension as the brothers go on the run and other larger than life Bostonian law enforcement played by John Goodman and JK Simmons (who steals scenes as a cigar-smoking local police chief) shout and gesticulate in their Bostonian brogue about the best way to find them. When they’re caught the action, scenes manage to be both brilliant choreographed and drenched in the tension that Berg builds. It’s a film about the day and its impact on the victims and on the city, but it’s also brazen with its cathartic revenge mission. When the young Chinese entrepreneur who is taken hostage by the brothers runs away from the brothers after they stop for snacks at a gas station, his plea of “Get those motherfuckers!” to the policemen he provides information to, feels like it could come from a Eddie Murphy buddy cop movie from the 80s. Unlike Greengrass’s “ordeal cinema”, it’s clear this is meant to be a positive homage to Boston, its spirit and its residents. Unlike Greengrass who used real-life participants as actors in United 93, Berg chooses to have the survivors and officers from Boston give their views to finish the film. It’s an obvious move to keep the real-life survivors at the heart of the action and a reminder that all of it really happened. Patriots Day opens in the US on 21 December 2016 and in the UK on 24 February 2017
Jessica Alba: ‘With this new film I wanted to kick some butt again’ I thought I was dumb because I didn’t go to college. I felt if you didn’t have a degree you’d never be respected or considered intelligent. Now I realise I’m perfectly capable of doing lots of things. My parents had me young. They were 18 and 19 and always really fun. My dad was in the military – we used to get up at 5am and he would eat kids’ cereal and watch cartoons with my younger brother and I while ironing his clothes in just his underwear. They lived paycheck to paycheck, which made me never want to struggle. Success in entertainment used to be purely financial for me. Once I was in my mid-20s and had achieved some degree of security, I started looking for something more substantive to focus on. Then when I got pregnant a few years later, I came up with the idea for my company [natural beauty line The Honest Company]. When I was young I didn’t know how to speak up [at work] and say, “I don’t like this.” I wasn’t that person [a sex symbol] people were portraying me as. I come from a pretty conservative background; I was a tomboy wearing baggy clothes. But you’re being marketed in a movie to sell it – I understood it was the characters I was playing. Strong relationships with other women are important, especially after you become a mum. It gives you a sense of self to be surrounded by a group of people who accept and support you beyond your family. The Honest Company wasn’t a slam-dunk. I wasn’t saying, “Oh, let’s license my name and sell a perfume.” As a new mum, I found it challenging to find effective products without things like synthetic fragrances. I wanted to create a consumer goods company that stands for transparency and is actually profitable. Hollywood can be hard for the faint of heart. People hustle to be successful and then that moment when they feel they’ve made it, it disappears in an instant. I don’t feel like my persona in entertainment defines me. I’ve never put a whole lot of importance on it. When I was on every magazine cover and in all the new movies, I knew a lot of it would go away. You learn discipline growing up on a military base. You learn that sometimes you have to do things that you don’t want to and you just have to get through it. I spend a lot more time on my business than acting. When I can find the time and it’s entertainment, I’ll do something. With this last movie, I thought it would be fun to kick some butts again. I just sort of missed it. I’ve always loved dressing up. I chose to do it for a living. I love that fantasy element of being able to transform yourself into a different person. It’s really important people vote in the [US presidential] election. I know how I’ll be voting but I’m not saying. Mechanic: Resurrection is released in cinemas on 26 August
Brexit would damage UK economy, warns BlackRock The world’s largest fund manager, BlackRock, has warned that a Brexit vote would damage Britain’s economy by leading to lower growth and investment, and possibly higher unemployment and inflation. In a gloomy analysis, the US asset manager said a decision to leave the EU would also hit the pound and UK equities, as well as damaging Britain’s financial industry, the London property market and the fashion industry. BlackRock’s wide-ranging warning is a sign of the growing unease among investors about the Brexit debate. A number of leading business figures have spoken in favour of the UK remaining in the EU. This week, the Cabinet Office warned of 10 years of uncertainty in the government’s first official analysis of how Brexit would unfold in practice. But the out campaign, backed by the London mayor, Boris Johnson, likened such extreme warnings to those made when Britain considered joining the euro. BlackRock’s vice-chairman, Philipp Hildebrand, said: “Our bottom line is that a Brexit offers a lot of risk with little obvious reward. We see an EU exit leading to lower UK growth and investment, and potentially higher unemployment and inflation. Any offsetting benefits look more amorphous and less certain, in our view.” The report said sterling was most vulnerable to Brexit fears. “A Brexit could pressure the UK’s budget and current account deficits, hurting the currency and potentially triggering credit downgrades. Conversely, we see depressed sterling bouncing back if the UK votes to stay.” It predicted rising volatility in UK and European assets in the run-up to the referendum in June, and a sell-off in domestically focused UK equities in the event of a Brexit vote. A decision to leave the EU would also hurt the UK’s fashion trade, deals for the key services sector, and damage London’s property market, in particular demand for office space. Turning to the City, the report argued: “A Brexit would cut into the financial industry’s outsized contributions to the UK economy, tax revenues and trade balance, we believe, and offset apparent fiscal gains from leaving the EU.” The UK’s surplus in financial, insurance and pension services of £18.5bn was likely to shrink, BlackRock added. The City is also a key source of Britain’s tax revenues, and if 10% of workers lost their jobs after a Brexit, the government could lose up to £3bn in annual employment taxes and, to a lesser extent, for the rest of the EU. No country has ever left the union, and Brexit talks could drag on for several years. Senior figures from the out campaign were likely to demand leading roles in the exit negotiations, which could make the process “unpredictable and destabilising”. A Brexit could also encourage the Scottish National party to call for another independence referendum, although the oil price slump has undermined the case for an independent Scotland. Even a yes vote might not be enough to ward off political turmoil. The report argued that a tight result, or a feeling by out campaigners that it had not been a fair fight, could put further pressure on David Cameron’s small parliamentary majority and authority over his divided party. This could make it more difficult to pass controversial legislation in future. There would be a negative impact on the EU as well. The report said: “The EU, for its part, would lose a major budget contributor, a leading voice for free markets and easy access to a world-class financial centre. A Brexit could spur separatist calls and embolden populist parties across the continent, but we do not see a EU breakup as a result.” One of the report’s authors is BlackRock’s chief macro strategist, Rupert Harrison, a former chief of staff to the chancellor, George Osborne.
We need legal advice for our HSBC mortgage but no one will give it I am in the process of trying to remortgage our family home with HSBC, and have encountered what I consider to be significant practical issues with one of the lending requirements. As part of the process it was identified that the loan would be of benefit to me personally, as some of the funds would be used to service a loan in my name, while the asset we are securing (our house) is held in mine and my wife’s names. Accordingly, we were required to ensure that my wife received independent legal advice so she was aware of the implications.  We contacted at least 20 law firms but none were willing to assist, saying that this work is “a low fee for high risk”. I am at a stalemate with the bank as funds are pending the receipt of the above legal certificate. I feel the bank is trying to enforce a condition of lending that is unachievable in practice. CC, Bristol Lenders are under stringent rules to ensure they lend responsibly, but it seems the legal profession isn’t prepared to give advice. A refusal to act for your wife from more than 20 solicitors appears pretty conclusive. We suggested to HSBC that it should consider another independent source such as an IFA or Citizen’s Advice, but it is adamant that it must be a solicitor. A spokesperson for the bank said: “In a situation like this we require that the customer obtains independent legal advice to ensure they are treated fairly, they are protected should anything happen in the future, and we are lending responsibly. We are actively looking at ways in which we can better support customers through this process.” In the meantime, it has found a lawyer who can help, and will be passing the details to you. We welcome letters but cannot answer individually. Email us at consumer.champions@theguardian.com or write to Consumer Champions, Money, the , 90 York Way, London N1 9GU. Please include a daytime phone number
Clinton blames Russia for DNC hack as Trump seems to back annex of Crimea Hillary Clinton has once again blamed Russian intelligence services for hacking the Democratic National Committee (DNC) computer system and accused Donald Trump of supporting the Russian president, Vladimir Putin. As she did so, Trump denied having ties to Putin and Russia and appeared to voice his approval of Russia’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine. In her first national interview since clinching the Democratic nomination, Clinton spoke to Fox News Sunday. The interview was taped in Pennsylvania on Saturday morning, before Trump criticized Khizr Khan, the father of a dead soldier, who spoke at the Democratic national convention. Clinton answered tough questions on Benghazi, her emails and her campaign and policies, and focused her own attack on her opponent’s alleged links to Russia and Putin. “We know that Russian intelligence services hacked into the DNC,” Clinton said, in her first interview with Fox in more than five years. “And we know that they arranged for a lot of those emails to be released and we know that Donald Trump has shown a very troubling willingness to back up Putin, to support Putin.” Asked if she believed Putin wanted Trump to win the presidency, Clinton said she would not make that conclusion. “But I think laying out the facts raises serious issues about Russian interference in our elections, in our democracy,” she said. The US would not tolerate that from any other country, Clinton said, adding: “For Trump to both encourage that and to praise Putin despite what appears to be a deliberate effort to try to affect the election, I think, raises national security issues.” The hack of the DNC computers has also affected the Clinton campaign and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. For about five days, a hacker accessed an analytics data program maintained by the DNC that was used by the Clinton campaign to conduct voter analysis, said an aide familiar with the matter. According to an outside cybersecurity expert for the Clinton campaign, the campaign is confident the hack could not result in access to internal emails, voicemails or other internal communications and documents. The hack led to the resignation of the DNC chair, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, on the eve of the party’s convention, inspiring protests over leaked emails that showed top DNC staffers had discussed ways to undermine Clinton’s primary opponent, Bernie Sanders. The FBI is investigating and federal sources have indicated that Russian intelligence sources may be to blame. On Wednesday, Trump appealed to Russia to find 30,000 “missing emails” from the private server used by Clinton when she was secretary of state. He later said he had been being “sarcastic”. The billionaire’s campaign has rejected all claims of links to Russia and Putin. On Sunday an interview with Trump, also recorded on Saturday, was broadcast on ABC’s This Week. He repeated: “I have no relationship with Putin. I have no relationship with Putin.” Asked about a comment from 2013 in which he said “I do have a relationship” with Putin, Trump said: “Just so you understand, he said very nice things about me. But I have no relationship with him.” He added: “I don’t think I’ve ever met him. I never met him. I don’t think I’ve ever met him.” Trump was asked about his recent comments disparaging Nato allies, the softening of the Republican platform on Russia and Ukraine and his equivocations on Russia’s annexation of Crimea, the subject of US sanctions and United Nations disapproval. “He’s [Putin’s] not going into Ukraine, OK, just so you understand,” he said. “He’s not going to go into Ukraine, all right?” Reminded that in fact Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, Trump said: “But you know, the people of Crimea, from what I’ve heard, would rather be with Russia than where they were. And you have to look at that, also … just so you understand, that was done under Obama’s administration. “And as far as the Ukraine is concerned, it’s a mess. And that’s under Obama’s administration with his strong ties to Nato. So with all of these strong ties to Nato, Ukraine is a mess. Crimea has been taken. Don’t blame Donald Trump for that.” In a statement issued later on Sunday, the Clinton policy adviser Jake Sullivan said: “What is he talking about? Russia is already in Ukraine. Does he not know that? What else doesn’t he know? While Trump hasn’t mastered basic facts about the world, he has mastered Putin’s talking points on Crimea.” Asked about the removal from the GOP platform a call for supply of lethal weapons to Ukraine for defense purposes, Trump said: “I wasn’t involved in that. Honestly, I was not involved.” Host George Stephanopoulos said: “Your people were.” Trump said: “Yeah. I was not involved in that. I’d like to … I’d have to take a look at it. But I was not involved in it … They softened it, I heard. But I was not involved.” One of Trump’s people, campaign chair Paul Manafort, previously worked for Viktor Yanukovych, the former president of Ukraine and a Putin ally who now lives in exile in Russia. Appearing on NBC’s Meet the Press, he said he had no influence on the platform committee and the change “absolutely did not come from the Trump campaign”. On ABC, Trump also said: “If our country got along with Russia, that would be a great thing. When Putin goes out and tells everybody, and you talk about relationship, but he says, ‘Donald Trump is gonna win. And Donald Trump is a genius.’ And then I have people saying, ‘You should disavow.’ I said, ‘I’m gonna disavow that?’ “But when Putin says good things, and when we have a possibility of having a good relationship with Russia … I think that’s good.” On NBC, Clinton’s campaign manager, Robby Mook, said: “This is not a political issue … this is a matter of national security now.” Trump also told ABC he did not owe any money to Russian institutions or individuals, but repeated that he would not release his tax returns in an attempt to prove this. “Will I sell condos to Russians on occasion?” he said. “Probably. I mean, I do that. I have a lot of condos. I do that. But I have no relationship to Russia whatsoever.” Speaking to a real estate conference in 2008, Donald Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr, said: “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets ... We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia.” Told by Stephanopoulos that Richard Nixon had released his tax returns, Trump, who has made Nixonian tropes about law and order and slogans such as “the silent majority” a central part of his campaign, said: “Don’t use Richard Nixon as necessarily the guide, OK? “I mean, you know, it’s an interesting person to use. But don’t use it.”
Pop music was a great leveller. Now it’s a bespoke plaything for the rich There’s a new Pink Floyd record out, as they used to say in the 1970s. Only it’s not a record, a CD, or anything resembling the modest recorded artefacts with which that group made their name, but rather a 27-disc cornucopia, containing more than 26 hours of music, 42 “items of memorabilia”, five reproduction vinyl singles and three feature films. It is titled The Early Years 1965-72, so prepare for a sequel, and its outward appearance suggests an item of colour-coded furniture. Obviously, any devout fan of the group, me included, will love it. And the price? £375.99. Welcome to the 21st-century music business, or what remains of it. As everyone knows, downloads and streaming have just about killed off all the industry’s orthodox business models. So now, via endless reissues and “luxury” packages, it is squeezing every last drop from its assets while ensuring that the “pop” in pop culture – that is, everything about it that was democratic and accessible – fades away. Other examples abound, equally luxurious and lovingly done, though that is not exactly the point. For the first 35 years of its life the Who’s first album, My Generation, was a primary-coloured example of everything great about the peak of the teenage epoch, and priced accordingly. Now, having already been packaged in a “deluxe edition”, it has been reinvented as a “spectacular 79-track, five-disc super-deluxe” version (with, inevitably “period memorabilia”), which will retail for just shy of £90. With Christmas approaching, much the same applies to an array of classic works, from Metal Box by that proud punk John Lydon’s band Public Image Limited (£165.99 in its “super deluxe quadruple vinyl” edition), to a six-album selection by Elton John currently being sold through Burberry shops for a thoroughly reasonable £225. At the same time the modern musical aristocracy has another way to exploit the cycle. The money- counters do not even have to wait to find out if an album turns out to be a “classic”. As evidenced by albums such as Muse’s Drones and Bastille’s Wild World, the standard-issue version of any hit is quickly accompanied by a “deluxe” or “collector’s” version, in the apparent hope that lots of people will pay over the odds for another incarnation of a record they already own. There is great cynicism at work, and it’s pretty unedifying – not least because, to my mind, these hyper-differentiated, pocket-draining creations offend against the very aesthetics of pop itself. That may make me sound like a romantic throwback; if it does, so be it. If I’m still deluded enough to believe that pop music ought to be about more than cash, it’s because of a life spent reading the world into the plastic circles I still habitually buy from my local record store. Pop was a child of the 20th century, a form carried on gloriously uniform products that embodied their time just as perfectly as Henry Ford’s Model T did. Those were the days when capitalism was as democratic and egalitarian as it has ever got, and the products – or rather phenomena – at its heart were all the better for it. Believe no one who tells you that mass production and standardisation led to dull culture: it was the age of the Beatles, Levi’s jeans, cars to die for and iconic soft drinks whose supremacy endures. And it was great. I only know of the classic quotation because I read it on a Manic Street Preachers sleeve in 1990, but what Andy Warhol said about universal consumption of Coca-Cola truly applied to the stereotypical pop record: “You can be watching TV and see Coca Cola, and you know that the President drinks Coca Cola, Liz Taylor drinks Coca Cola, and just think, you can drink Coca Cola, too. A coke is a coke and no amount of money can get you a better coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking. All the cokes are the same and all the cokes are good. Liz Taylor knows it, the President knows it, the bum knows it, and you know it.” In exactly the same way, there was one Dark Side of the Moon, Revolver or Never Mind the Bollocks Here’s the Sex Pistols; and whether you were the Sultan of Brunei or the stereotypical kid on the dole, that was the one you owned. A mutation of that same democratic spirit lives on in the fact that most music is available online for absolutely nothing, even if the consequence is that many modern musicians cannot eat. For those who still buy the odd song, iTunes charges 99p for each track by everyone from Elvis Presley to Little Mix. But there is something else going on: a whole new world of sky-high pricing and differentiated offers. And it stinks. An important point to make here is that it is not just records. The clientele of most festivals is now split between standard ticket holders and those who can afford a super-expensive mini-holiday. Once you have a Glastonbury ticket, for instance, you can progress to something exclusively nicer from a set-up called the Pop-up Hotel – five nights for two adults in an Airstream caravan, maybe, for £5,995). Anyone playing a stadium now offers the upper end of their audience plenty of optional extras: you can go to see the Stone Roses at Wembley as a base-level punter for between £35 and £65, or stump up for a hospitality package that will cost £359 (plus VAT). Bands and solo acts now routinely charge the earth for the kind of meet-and-greet packages that entail, for instance, a $1000 charge for the briefest of encounters and a “professionally taken photo” with the Canadian rapper and singer Drake. (Beyoncé’s new “Beyfirst” package comes in at $1,505, but a “pre-show reception” apparently doesn’t include the artist herself.) And all the time, a very 21st-century industry grinds on: ticket resale sites, which mean that people with money to burn never have to fret about supposedly sold-out concerts. In late 2015, tickets to see that proud exemplar of working-class talent Adele were changing hands for over £20,000 each. How awful it is to see what was once the people’s music recast in the image of 21st-century capitalism, the culture of inequality, and the dread word “bespoke”. It is suggestive of one of Pink Floyd’s most renowned songs, Money, which begins with the sound of a cash till and then archly celebrates the easy pleasures of wealth. “Grab that cash with both hands and make a stash,” sings David Gilmour. “New car, caviar, four star daydream / Think I’ll buy me a football team.” Or, perhaps, another £375 album, or a gig ticket for £1,000.
Readers recommend: share your songs about Elvis This week, we’re not simply looking for songs by the King, but songs about Elvis Presley. See below for more detail on that. You have until 11pm on Monday 11 July to post your nomination and make your justification. Regular RR contributor Sheila Deane (who posts as thoughtballoons in the comments) will select from your recommendations. Deane says: “Covers of Elvis songs could be taken into consideration if a case can be made for their being tributes, criticism, or commentary on Elvis’s version (which I suppose most covers implicitly are). I like a range of musical styles in the playlist, so feel free to nominate whatever takes your fancy, no matter how out there.” Here is a list of all songs previously picked and therefore ineligible for the series. If you want to volunteer to compile a playlist from readers’ suggestions – and potentially blog about the process/selection for the – please email matthew.holmes@theguardian.com with the subject line “RR guru”, or make yourself known in the comments. Here’s a reminder of the guidelines for RR: Tell us why it’s a worthy contender. Quote lyrics if helpful, but for copyright reasons no more than a third of a song’s words. Provide a link to the song. We prefer YouTube, but Spotify or Soundcloud are fine. Listen to others people’s suggestions and add yours to a collaborative Spotify playlist. If you have a good theme, or if you’d like to volunteer to compile a playlist from readers’ suggestions, please email matthew.holmes@theguardian.com There’s a wealth of data on RR, including the songs that are “zedded”, at the Marconium. It also tells you the meaning of “zedded” (picked for a previous playlist so ineligible), “donds” and other strange words used by RR regulars. Many RR regulars also congregate at the ’Spill blog.
The one-man crusader driven to improve lives with dementia Ten years ago, James Ashwell received the phone call that changed his life. His dad had died from a sudden illness. Ashwell left the office and returned home to discover his mother was suffering badly – not only from grief, but from early onset frontotemporal dementia. While Ashwell had been aware that something was wrong with his mother, he didn’t know it was dementia, or how bad it had become. Ashwell never returned to his job as a strategy consultant at professional services company Accenture. Then, aged 24, he moved back in with his mother and spent the next five years caring for her. “The world turned upside down,” he says. “I remember the first time I went to the specialist dementia clinic, I had a million questions. I remember [the consultant] saying: ‘She is going to die. It is terminal. There is no cure.’ I remember crying my eyes out as we sat there.” For Ashwell, the first years were characterised by learning at the point of crisis. When his mother, Fay, suffered from incontinence in public, he discovered adult nappies. When her bridge club said they were no longer able to accommodate her, he made puzzles from family photos, velcro and a laminator (as she was embarrassed to be using children’s puzzles) to keep her occupied. When she left the house in the middle of the night, he began to sleep attached to a piece of string – one end tied to his finger, the other end to her door. “It was terrifying,” he says. “You’re basically waiting for a call from the police to say she’s been run over.” It hadn’t occurred to Ashwell that he could purchase a door alarm or a tracking device. By the time Fay passed away in 2011, Ashwell realised that if innovations such as these could have made a difference to his family, they could do so for thousands more – if only they could find them easily. Last September, Unforgettable.org was born: a website providing products, advice and a community for people with dementia and memory loss. Among the 2,000 products on the site are personalised jigsaws, GPS insoles, talking clocks and “washable incontinence knickers in lace”. Now with 10 employees and 3,000 subscribers, Unforgettable is launching the product that Ashwell is most passionate about: the first dementia-specific power of attorney (PoA). Any adult can set up a PoA, appointing someone they trust to make decisions on their behalf should they lose mental capacity, but the legal fees can go into the thousands and the ethical considerations are complex. A PoA is only legal if signed by somebody still considered to have mental capacity – and Ashwell believes that many people are unaware, or leave it too late. So sometimes their only alternative is to go through the courts, which is lengthy, expensive and less effective. If a PoA is not arranged while the person still has the mental capacity to grant it, then a deputyship has to be set up instead. The role of the deputy is essentially the same as if they had a PoA, but it can be more time-consuming and expensive (due to legal costs) to arrange, plus the deputy may not be someone who the person in question would have chosen for themselves. The fee for each lasting PoA is £110 while the application fee to become a deputy is £400; there is also an annual subscription cost. For Fay, Ashwell set up a PoA in time, but it cost £2,000. Unforgettable will offer this for free, with a £50 charge if the person with dementia requires a professional to assess their mental capacity. “I remember thinking at the time: ‘What if I don’t have £2,000?’ I met a lot of people having nightmare situations.” If you don’t have a PoA in place when dementia sets in, everything stops, says Ashwell. “You can’t pay the utility bills, you can’t pay the insurance. People are forced to break the law because of dementia. A lot of people will be committing fraud. I’m on a one-man crusade to make people aware of it.” Unforgettable has been working with an external company to create an automated online service that asks hundreds of questions and creates a legal document based on the answers. Many of the questions are dementia-specific to determine, for example, whether the affected person would be happy to have CCTV in their room or to use a GPS tracker. Unforgettable’s PoAs are legally binding. The business explains that the documents created through its online PoA is registered in the same way as any other PoA – with the Office of the Public – and will do the same things (handle financial and legal affairs, or health and welfare affairs, or both). It keeps costs low by working with Net Lawman, a company that provides legal document templates. Unforgettable’s biggest challenge, says Ashwell, is that its market does not know it exists – recent polling by Unforgettable suggested that 80% of people were unaware that dementia products exist at all. “It’s been difficult and expensive,” he says. “If we were selling iPhone cases, people are looking online for them. You can look for keywords, you can put banners up. But people are not looking for dementia products.” When he was caring for his mother, Ashwell says, “I didn’t think to go online and type in ‘door alarm’ – I didn’t think these things existed.” Other companies do offer products for people with dementia but they tend to be specialised. Although dementia charities such as the Alzheimer’s Society and At Dementia offer some products too, Ashwell describes it as a forgotten market. “Dementia affects everything: you can’t watch TV, you can’t use the telephone, you can’t remember who your friends are … but I would challenge you to find dementia products on the high street.” The figures suggest the potential for growth could be huge. The World Health Organisation estimates there are 47.5 million people living with a dementia diagnosis worldwide, including 850,000 in the UK, a figure that is expected to rise to one million by 2025. It has become a flagship issue for David Cameron, who has pledged to establish an international dementia institute and to invest £300m in research over the course of this parliament. Unforgettable has now set its sights on the offline world – it will launch its first pop-up shop in Bournemouth this year – and is fundraising £3.5m for a national advertising campaign. “It’s all very well having a website, but what you need to do is get out there and tell everybody,” says Ashwell. He believes that there will, in years to come, be more companies catering to this market, across our high streets. “I really hope people will be looking back and saying: ‘Do you remember 20 years ago when there was nothing available for the 50 million people who have dementia?’” Sign up to become a member of the Small Business Network here for more advice, insight and best practice direct to your inbox.
Angela Eagle would be a great Labour leader, says Stephen Kinnock Stephen Kinnock, the ambitious Labour backbencher who has taken a prominent role in the campaign to save the Port Talbot steelworks, has said the shadow business secretary, Angela Eagle, would make a great Labour leader. In an interview with the House, a magazine published for MPs and their staff at the House of Commons, Kinnock, the MP for Aberavon, warns that Labour must take “remedial action” if May’s local election results don’t “go the right way” – and tips Eagle as a potential successor to the current leader, Jeremy Corbyn. “As a party, from top to bottom, from the leadership right through to our grassroots, we have to be judged by our results and, you know, if results are not going the right way you have to examine why that is and take remedial action on it because that’s what we’re elected to do,” he said. “Success breeds success and failure breeds failure, so there’s absolutely no doubt that if we win big and do really well moving into 5 May and 23 June, then there’s no doubt your leadership is strengthened, your party is strengthened, there’s wind in our sails and you move forward from there. But if the results aren’t going the right way then clearly that’s a different situation altogether.” Eagle – who delighted backbenchers with a punchy performance when she stood in for Corbyn at prime minister’s questions in December – is seen by some in the party as a dark-horse candidate if Corbyn were to face a challenge. Kinnock said he had been impressed by her while they worked on pushing the government to provide more aid to the ailing British steel sector. “‘Impressive’ is absolutely the right word,” he said. “I see her as being somebody that’s going to be absolutely critical for the future of the Labour party. “I think too many years have gone by where we haven’t had a woman leader. One thing I would say is that I think it would be fantastic and Angela would be a very, very strong candidate for that. You would have to ask her yourself in terms of what her plans and ambitions are but I am absolutely of the view that she has the capability to do the job.” The son of former Labour leader Neil, Kinnock added that he would like to see his frontbench colleagues take a more “forensic” approach to holding the government to account. “I think it’s important that we have a forensic approach in the chamber. Maybe I’m just a bit of a traditionalist on these things, but I like an approach whereby we interrogate the government over the despatch box, pick their arguments to pieces, not in a shouty or shrill way, but in a way which actually exposes the weaknesses at the heart of their arguments. I think we could be doing a bit more of that.” There is mounting speculation among Labour MPs that a poor showing in May’s local elections could prompt a leadership challenge, to be held once June’s EU referendum is over – but those sceptical about Corbyn’s leadership have so far failed to unite around a single candidate. Senior party figures are far from united about what would mark “success” on 5 May. Corbyn’s election campaign co-ordinator, Jon Trickett, has pointed out that 2012, the last time these council seats were contested, was a high water mark for the party which is unlikely to be repeated; others, including Alison McGovern, chair of Progress, have said losing even a single council would be a “betrayal”.
David Moyes hopes for a smooth landing in Sunderland role David Moyes can only hope his first full day as Sunderland’s manager does not set the tone for the remainder of his tenure. The team were flying from Newcastle to Geneva en route to a pre-season training camp at Evian in eastern France late last month when their chartered aircraft developed a fault. “It sound like we were going over a cattle grid in the sky,” says Sam Allardyce’s successor. “I thought: ‘Here we go.’ As a new manager you want things to be smooth on your first day but this was frightening. I wouldn’t laugh it off. The crew said they’d had to shut one engine down and we needed to make an emergency landing at Manchester. It was scary and it seemed to take ages and ages to get down. My first day in charge and I was looking for my parachute!” Although the landing was executed safely, the array of ambulances and fire engines lined up by the runway emphasised the potential gravity of the situation and Moyes was suitably relieved when Sunderland’s replacement plane finally touched down in Geneva. The former Everton, Manchester United and Real Sociedad manager’s career has been in a fairly sharp descent of its own since his sacking after only 10 months at Old Trafford but Moyes refuses to buy into suggestions that Sunderland represents a “step down” . “No, I see it as being the right opportunity at the right time,” says a man desperate to break Wearside’s perennial relegation skirmishes. “I genuinely think I can make a difference here and I think this club might just need me a little bit at this moment in time. We can build something. “We’ve got an owner [Ellis Short] who has put a lot of money into this club over the years but has never really seen his team be successful. I don’t think we know what the owner would do if we did well. So let’s see if I can shock him and get us up the league. Let’s see if I can shock him into doing something where he thinks: ‘Wow’. But this is a monstrous challenge.” Albeit in a different context, José Mourinho is arguably facing a similarly tough task at Manchester United but Moyes backs him to succeed where both he and Louis van Gaal failed. “It’s a good appointment,” he says. “José’s taking over the biggest club in the world but he’s been a really successful manager. He’s up there. He’s very good. But I believed I was a very good fit, so you never know.” Sunderland are still to make a signing this summer and Moyes may find attracting players to the Stadium of Light somewhat harder than luring them to Old Trafford. Many people believe this is primarily down to geography but the Scot demurs, maintaining it is much more about the instability that makes him Sunderland’s seventh manager in five chaotic years. “People want to come and play for good teams, they want to play for coaches they trust,” he says. “They don’t want clubs to be changing managers every six months. Stable clubs attract better players. If we can achieve stability at Sunderland I’m sure good players will want to come here.”
Remaking Splash: is gender-swapping Hollywood’s new secret weapon? It’s easy to forget how threatening society once found the comedy of emasculation. When Billy Wilder’s Some Like It Hot bowed in theaters in 1959, featuring Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis as on-the-run musicians who dress up as women to escape from the mob (and get rather lost in the fun of the masquerade) the Catholic-run National Legion of Decency condemned the movie as “morally objectionable” for promoting homosexuality, lesbianism and transvestism. The era of gender swap comedies in which male actors won laughs by cross-dressing seems to have peaked in the 80s and 90s, when Dustin Hoffman was nominated for an Oscar for Tootsie, and Robin Williams won a Golden Globe for Mrs Doubtfire. But as society has come to be more accepting of less rigid concepts of gender identity, the comedy value of transvestism has perhaps dwindled in parallel with its ability to shock. These days, the big screen conversation on gender has switched largely over to the realms of serious drama – The Danish Girl springs to mind – where many would say it belongs. And yet there remains unexpected joy to be had in the confounding of expectations, as the recent Ghostbusters remake proved by casting Chris Hemsworth, aka Norse deity-cum-superhero Thor in the Marvel movies, in the role of the spirit-spiting quartet’s secretary, Kevin. The role, of course, was played by the brilliant Annie Potts in the original, with deadly dry Big Apple insouciance. Now it looks like Disney is set to pull the same trick by casting another icon of 21st-century masculinity, Magic Mike’s Channing Tatum, in Daryl Hannah’s role in a remake of the 1980s mermaid comedy Splash. Ron Howard’s 1984 movie is a preposterous male fantasy in which everyman Tom Hanks swaps his loveless big city existence for a new life with an awesomely hot blonde who just happens to transform into a fish (from the waist down) when she makes contact with water. If there has ever been a more objectified screen character than Hannah’s Madison the mermaid – she’s never even given a surname – they probably only exist in Transformers films and episodes of Baywatch. Which is exactly why the role is so perfect for Tatum. When female stars are objectified, the result usually leaves a nasty taste in the mouth. When their male counterparts become objects of desire, comedy tends to ensue. Tatum knows this well, as he climbed to the top of the Hollywood ladder by starring as a greased-up male stripper in Steven Soderbergh’s remarkable Magic Mike. Tatum and Hemsworth may not be pulling on frocks in these movies, but they might as well be. Ghostbusters riffed heavily on Kevin’s hunky masculinity, with the Aussie lunk presented as the ultimate in eye candy, a young man who is only permitted to be so terrible at his job as the team’s receptionist because he fills out a white T and jeans so nicely. It goes without saying that this is the kind of ludicrous archetype society once expected to be filled exclusively by women. It doesn’t take a man in the role to highlight what an insanely dumb concept objectification is, but Ghostbusters director Paul Feig and his team nevertheless hit the comedy bullseye in every scene Hemsworth appears in. Furthermore, and as Game of Thrones’ Kit Harington so painfully failed to work out recently, there are no losers when male stars self-emasculate for comedy purposes. In the wake of his star supporting turn in Ghostbusters, Hemsworth has given himself shelf-life beyond the current ream of superhero flicks. By taking the fishy love interest role in Splash, Tatum has not only found the perfect followup to the fast running-out-of-steam Magic Mike movies, he’s shown admirable humility and industry savvy. With all the fuss made over Ghostbusters by the “bro” brigade, the switching of another quintessentially female role to male was always going to be front-page news on Hollywood-obsessed sites. If the role had not been gender-swapped, the new movie would have been seen as just another remake. Hollywood itself also wins here, by reminding us how far it has come since the sight of Curtis and Lemmon dressed up as ladies was enough to prompt cries of moral outrage. Earlier generations may have broken the real boundaries, but there is no reason why studios can’t capitalise on the faint echoes of controversy that still permeate whenever certain outdated concepts of male identity are challenged. If Tatum’s involvement ushers in success on a level with that of Magic Mike, one of the most profitable comedies of the last decade, expect them to be laughing all the way to the bank.
'Who will speak for England?' asks the Daily Mail ... and Twitter answers They were, perhaps, not quite the figures which headline writers had in mind when the Daily Mail cleared its Thursday front page to ask, in bold red and black type: “Who will speak for England?” Yet, 76 years after the Tory anti-appeaser Leo Amery issued his famous wartime invitation across the floor of the House of Commons over the shoulder of a hapless Neville Chamberlain, there appeared to be no shortage of new candidates now being suggested – from Zippy to Mr Bean. They are just two among a deluge of suggestions on Twitter from users jumping on the hashtag #WhoWillSpeakForEngland to juxtapose the Mail’s sombre request with a range of characters who might speak for the UK on the question of its future in the EU. Rather than the threat Nazi jackboot, the issue on this occasion is the question of Britain’s continued membership of the EU – although the Mail’s front page editorial stresses: “Nobody is suggesting there are any parallels whatever between the Nazis and the EU.” Following a parliamentary grilling of David Cameron over his long-awaited proposals for EU reform, the catalyst for the Mail’s anger was the spectre of what it described as a Conservative party that had “thrown off all pretence of impartiality, proselytising for the EU in defiance of most of its rank–and–file members, who have grave doubts about Brussels”. Some politicians did feature in the stream of suggestions on Twitter, including the Mayor of London, despite indications that Cameron is moving towards signing up Boris Johnson to his campaign to keep Britain in a reformed EU. What Amery would make of it all remains a question that will never be answered. In September 1939, it was the acting leader of the Labour party, Arthur Greenwood, who the Conservative had in mind. Rising just after Chamberlain had given his latest, and last, report on efforts to strike a deal with Adolf Hitler over the invasion of Poland, Greenwood was greeted by encouragement from MPs on all sides. The mutterings included the shout, traditionally attributed to Amery: “Speak for England, Arthur!” And Amery’s verdict on what some records have described as a flustered response by Greenwood? “No one could have done it better,” the Tory MP later wrote.
Brexit campaigners make immigration their battleground Late November 2014 was not the busiest time for news. The most striking images, in the BBC’s week in pictures, included Lewis Hamilton clutching his girlfriend Nicole Sherzinger after winning his second F1 world championship and a Snoopy balloon floating down Sixth Avenue during a Thanksgiving parade. But amid it all was a speech by the prime minister which we ought to remember. On 27 November, David Cameron declared that he would “rule nothing out” if he failed to achieve significant reforms in his renegotiation with the EU. It is difficult now to imagine that the prime minister was hinting that he would be prepared to campaign for Britain to leave the EU. He is now the figurehead of a campaign that is rolling out one apocalyptic warning after another about the potential impact of Brexit. The Tory leader has even won the strong support of two presidents – Barack Obama (sending us to the “back of the queue” on trade) and François Hollande (ready to tear up a bilateral agreement that would push the British border from Calais to Kent). There are, of course, sensible counter arguments. Chris Grayling reminds us that we do not have a trade deal with the US now, but everything seems okay, and French and British cabinet members all seem to agree that Le Touquet agreement would stay because it is in both country’s interests. As for Boris Johnson, he was a man who was not quite sure which way to go, a politician who previously had positive things to say about the EU. By last week, the London mayor was talking about the “tragedy” of a union that he argued was stifling democracy and had stripped Britain of its ability to control its borders and its trade policy. Can you tell there is an election on? Perhaps a high-stakes referendum, with two irreversible outcomes, was never likely to result in a calm or nuanced debate. Both sides will go to any lengths to secure the victory they want. As one source on the leave side puts it: “David Cameron and George Osborne are fighting for their political lives.” Johnson, meanwhile, is battling for a political future. And what has changed after Obama’s intervention is that the two sides are thinking harder than ever about strategy and positioning, with the clearest division yet between an argument about the economy or one on immigration. The remain side have been accused of scaremongering, but after support from the International Monetary Fund and the Institute of Fiscal Studies, the publication of a weighty Treasury report and the backing of the leader of the free world, they will rightly feel on the front foot when it comes to the economy. So what can the outers do? “We need to neutralise them on the economy,” says one source, meaning they talk about business, they rebut Obama and they question the Treasury figures. But they also accept that they cannot possibly win on the issue of finances. Which is why this week’s fightback is not about the money, but immigration: about free movement, about the accession of Turkey and about the impact it all has on public services such as the NHS. The message is of an EU deal in which the UK “puts in a lot of money and gets out lots of immigration”. And as for the intervention of Obama, Hollande, business leaders and European diplomats? “It is a David v Goliath fight. We are up for that,” says Paul Stephenson, spokesman for Vote Leave. “The EU is good for people in power, including multinational corporations and world leaders. That doesn’t mean it is good for British people.” Those backing the Brexit know that they still have the Eurosceptic sentiment of the public to tap into and they think (I suspect correctly) that people are at least a little sceptical of overly dramatic warnings from overseas. But they are also going to make this personal about the prime minister and that is why, alongside warnings around immigration, Johnson this week reminded us of that EU renegotiation. After all, leave campaigners remember what Cameron said in November 2014 and much earlier at his coveted Bloomberg speech in early 2013. Back then, he warned that the EU was in flux and that the status quo was not acceptable. They will remind voters of that repeatedly between now and 23 June and it will be for Cameron to try to persuade the public that the out campaign have got it wrong.
Eurotunnel slashes earnings target by €25m after Brexit vote Eurotunnel has cut its annual earnings target by €25m (£21m) because of the collapse in the value of the pound after the Brexit vote. The cross-Channel rail operator warned that further downward movements in the UK currency would hit its finances even harder, while it reported that Eurostar passenger traffic was down 3% over the last quarter. But the Paris-based company insisted the British vote to leave the EU should not damage its long-term growth prospects and it said profits rose 4% to €249m in the first half of 2016. “Month after month, Eurotunnel has broken traffic records, particularly for the truck shuttles. The tunnel has never been as highly utilised as it is today,” said Jacques Gounon, chief executive of Eurotunnel. “Despite the financial market uncertainty generated by the United Kingdom voting to leave the European Union, the group remains confident in the performance of its economic model and in its outlook.” Eurotunnel said its full-year earnings target of €560m, based on an exchange rate of €1.375 to the pound, had been cut to €535m, based on a currency exchange reduction to €1.273. The pound has fallen below €1.19, meaning Eurotunnel may have to cut its targets further if there is no change on the currency markets. The decline in Eurostar traffic was attributed to terrorist attacks in Brussels and industrial action in France. Wizz Air said it would increase UK capacity by 15% during the second half of the year, rather than the 30% it originally intended. The London-listed low-cost carrier blamed the weakness of the pound rather than weakness in passenger demand for its decision. “What we are seeing is the problem of the weakness of sterling,” said the founder and chief executive, József Váradi, whose company reports in euros. Despite the planned cutbacks, Wizz expects meet its full-year net profit target of €245m to €255m. The rowing back at Wizz follows decisions by easyJet and British Airways’ parent group, International Airlines Group, to issue profit warnings soon after the referendum. In a separate development, there was uncertainty over the future of the huge Thames Enterprise Park in south Essex after one of the owners of the site confirmed that a potential but unnamed buyer had dropped out. Greenergy and Shell jointly control the 400 acres of land bordering the Thames estuary, which has been earmarked for development into “a hub of industrial and energy-related businesses”. Among the projects planned was a “green” fuel scheme for BA. Greenergy declined to comment on why the suitor had withdrawn but sources familiar with the deal said it was because of problems in the debt markets after the Brexit vote. Dozens of workers involved in demolition on the former refinery site could lose their jobs, it is feared. Chris Brookhouse, chief executive of Thames Enterprise Park, said: “Discussions to sell the land to a third party have stalled as the exclusive prospective buyer has informed us that they no longer wish to continue the transaction on the expected timing. “We have had to re-evaluate the extent of preparatory works we are undertaking on site at this time. The long-term prospects for redevelopment are very good.” Michael Heseltine and members of the Thames estuary 2050 growth commission had visited the area as recently as last week. Rob Gledhill, leader of the local Thurrock council, said the news was disappointing.
Oil output to be cut for first time since 2008 as Opec agrees deal - as it happened Here’s a snap summary, for new readers just tuning in. Opec as defied sceptics and agreed its first production cut since the financial crisis struck. The oil cartel will shave 1.2 million barrels per day off its output, cutting it from 33.7m to 32.5m barrels per day. OPEC president Mohammed Bin Saleh Al-Sada announced the deal in Vienna this afternoon, after three days of talks and tension. He called it a ‘historic move’ that would help to stabilise the market. The deal was achieved thanks to a surprise agreement between Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Iran. Saudi will take the biggest hit, lowering output by almost 500k barrels per day, while Iraq will cut by 200,000. Iran, though, will be permitted to raise its production. The deal is dependent on non-Opec members chipping in, cutting by another 600,000 barrels per day. The two sides will met in 10 days time; Russia has indicated that it’s on board. The oil price has surged by over 8% today, putting Brent crude over $50 per barrel. Analysts, though, question whether the deal will really work (Opec is creating a new oversight committee to try to ensure compliance). Mike Jakeman, Global analyst & commodities editor, Economist Intelligence Unit, says there are four reasons to be cautious: First, it is possible that some cheating will occur. OPEC’s members do not have a good track record of sticking to production quotas. Second, there has been no firm commitment yet from Russia, the largest non-OPEC producers. It is possible that Russian production could fill the gap left by Saudi. Third, production even at the lower level of 32.5m b/d is still a high level. There is no threat of an oil shortage that could see the price zoom backup. Last, if there was a sustained rise in prices, this would be likely to trigger a response from US shale producers, which would in turn push the price down again. We think the lack of a sustained rise in prices will see the deal fall apart within a year I’ll be back tomorrow with more reaction and analysis. In the meantime, here’s economics editor Larry Elliott’s take: The price of oil has surged by 8% after the 14-nation cartel Opec agreed to its first cut in production in eight years. Confounding critics who said the club of oil-producing nations was too riven with political infighting to agree a deal, Opec announced it was trimming output by 1.2m barrels per day (bpd) from 1 January. The deal is contingent on securing the agreement of non-Opec producers to lower production by 600,000m barrels per day. But the Qatari oil minister Mohammed bin Saleh al-Sada said he was confident that the key non-Opec player – Russia – would sign up to a 300,000 bpd cut. Russia’s oil minister Alexander Novak welcomed the Opec move but said his country would only be able to cut production gradually due to “technical issues”. A meeting with non-Opec countries in Moscow on 9 December has been pencilled in. Al-Sada said the deal was a great success and a “major step forward”. But the news that Saudi Arabia had effectively admitted defeat in its long-running attempt to drive US shale producers out of business was enough to send the price of crude sharply higher on the world’s commodity markets..... Goodnight, and thanks for reading and commenting. GW Paul Dean, the global head of oil & gas at legal firm HFW, questions whether today’s deal will really stabilise the markets, as Opec hopes. The known unknowns are how Russia will react and whether it will lead to an increase in US production. The US picture made more complex from a geopolitical perspective by Trump’s threatened ban on the import of Saudi crude. Therefore while there are certainly positives for the market to take from this agreement the jury must still be out on whether it is going to lead the stability that is so desperately needed. Now this is interesting.... Russia’s energy minister Alexander Novak has welcomed Opec’s decision to cut output by 1.2m barrels per day. He also confirms that Russia is ready to gradually cut oil output by up to 300,000, but only gradually because of “technical issues”, reports Reuters. Novak also confirms that non-Opec members (such as Russia) will meet with Opec in 10 days time to discuss the issue. He expects other non-Opec members to come on board and cut production too. Shares in oil companies have jumped sharply; Royal Dutch Shell has rallied by 4.2%, followed by BP up 3.8%. Smaller companies are benefitting too. Cairn Energy and Tullow Oil, which both pump crude from the North Sea, have surged around 14% today. This deal is a mixed blessing for the UK. On the upside, it makes North Sea oil more valuable. Scotland’s oil industry should benefit from Brent crude surging 8% to $50/barrel; that’s good for jobs. But.... car drivers face paying more at the pumps if this deal sticks, and companies are going to be charged more for transportation. That can feed into higher prices, which means lower real wages. Chatham House fellow Valerie Marcel points out that Saudi persuaded its fellow cartel members to share the pain, rather than taking the hit alone. Energy analyst Dominick Chirichella believes today’s deal is significant, especially if non-Opec members cut output by 600,000. Important point: Opec are NOT using Indonesia’s suspension to fiddle their output figures. They have genuinely agreed to cut output by 1.2m barrels per day. Journalists in Vienna have just been handed the new output table, explaining the details of today’s agreement to reduce output by 1.2m barrels per day. And it confirms that Saudi Arabia will take the bulk of the cuts, cutting almost 500,000 barrels per day. Iraq is also on board, with a 210,000 cut, followed by the UAE (-139,000), Kuwait (-131,000) and Venezuela (-95,000). Smaller countries are also doing their bit. Iran, though, has the green light to keep raising output. The table also confirms that Indonesia has suspended its membership (because, as a net importer of oil, it didn’t want to cut output and drive the price up). The Opec press conference is now over. I’ll pull a summary together ASAP. In the meantime, here’s some instant analysis from Mike Jakeman of the Economist Intelligence Unit: Q: What do you say to the naysayers who thought Opec was no longer relevent? Opec is still Opec, Saleh Al-Safa replies. If we weren’t there, balancing the interests of members and non-members, we wouldn’t have a deal today. Q: Won’t this deal backfire on Opec, if higher prices encourage rival producers such as the shale industry back into the market? We don’t see a threat from shale gas, Opec president Mohammed Bin Saleh Al-Sada replies. They will make their own assessment, regardless of what we do. Onto questions... Q: Why is Opec’s new floor still 32.5 million barrels, even though Indonesia (which pumps 700k) have been suspended? Surely it should be lower? Opec officials explain that the 32.5m figure includes Indonesia’s output; other Opec countries will take on its Q: What happens if non-Opec members don’t deliver a 600,000 cut, as Opec are hoping for? Mohammed Bin Saleh Al-Sada says that he is confident that non-Opec will deliver their side; and suggests we watch Russia for an official announcement. Q: So is the deal dead, if non-Opec members don’t agree? I think non-Opec are ‘almost committed’, replies Mohamed bin Saleh al-Sada. But they aren’t here today, of course, so can’t be included in the announcement. Q: And how much is Saudi Arabia going to cut? They will cut 486,000 barrels per day. This is “major step forward and a historic agreement”, Mohammed Bin Saleh Al-Sada declares. It will help to rebalance the market, and reduce the overhang of excess oil supplies. Opec are also setting up a new ministerial monitoring committee to ensure compliance with this deal, chaired by Kuwait, Venezuela and Algeria. OPEC president Mohammed Bin Saleh Al-Sada says that today’s agreement is contingent on non-Opec members agreeing to cut their own output by 600,000 per day. And he reveals that Russia has already agreed to reduce output by 300,000 per day. The Opec press conference is starting now! OPEC President Mohammed Bin Saleh Al-Sada of Qatar declares that “We have made a great success today.” Opec has agreed on the scenario outlined in Algeria, he continues (that was the meeting when the cartel agreed to cut production in principle). With the co-operation and understanding of all member companies, we have been able to reach an agreement. This agreement comes from a sense of responsibility for Opec member companies, and for non-Opec member countires, and the health and wellbeing of the world economy. The market needs to be rebalanced, and that needs couragous decisions from Opec and with the support of other countries. Mohammed Bin Saleh Al-Sada then confirms that the agreement is that Opec reduces output by 1.2m per day. This will lower its total output to 32,5m per day, effective from January 2017. And he also confirms that Indonesia has asked to suspend its Opec membership, because as a net importer of oil it will struggle to support today’s deal. Iran’s oil minister Bijan Namdar Zangeneh has just walked past the press pack, saying that he is “happy” with today’s meeting. Zangenah adds that Opec is likely to hold a meeting with non-Opec members next week in Doha -- that would be the time for Russia to come on board with its own cuts. The Opec press conference is now an hour late, but there are signs that ministers have finally completed today’s meeting. If Opec have agreed a deal, it will surprise many analysts who thought the cartel was a busted flush. Naeem Aslam of Think Markets explains: This is certainly the best present traders could have for Christmas - a supply cut from OPEC. The cartel has shown united front and this is what matters the most. There have been so many doubts over the year if they have the ability to deliver anything and today they have. Except, of course, we’ve not seen the details! FXTM research Analyst Lukman Otunuga says there will be question’s over Indonesia’s rumoured suspension from Opec: It appears that in the most critical of moments, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Iraq have solved their difference consequently propelling oil prices further. While the deal is undeniably impressive, there are still some questions that need to be answered at the press conference. Reports of Indonesia being suspended from the cartel could probe the effectiveness of the production cut, as Indonesia continues to produce 750,000 barrels per day but this will not be included in the OPEC figures Financial news service Ransquawk has helpfully rounded up the various Opec rumours: Running an oil cartel must be hungry work, so we won’t begrudge the energy ministers for breaking off for some (late) lunch. Leslie Hayward of Energy Fuse is in Vienna, and hearing that the talks might have restarted.... Here’s Reuters’ latest dispatch from Vienna: OPEC agrees first output cut since 2008, Saudis to take “big hit” OPEC has agreed its first limit on oil output since 2008, sources in the producer group toldReuters, with Saudi Arabia accepting “a big hit” on its production and agreeing to arch-rival Iran freezing output at pre-sanctions levels. Brent crude futures jumped 8 percent to more than $50 a barrel after Riyadh signalled it had finally reached a compromise with Iran after insisting in recent weeks that Tehran fully participate in any cut. The source said the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries had on Wednesday agreed on a proposal by memberAlgeria to reduce production by around 4.5 percent, or about 1.2million barrels per day. Saudi Arabia would contribute around 0.5 million bpd by reducing output to 10.06 million bpd, the source said, while Iran would freeze output at close to current levels of 3.797million bpd and other members would also cut production. The source added that OPEC had also suspended Indonesia from OPEC and hence the exact combined reduction was yet to be calculated. The meeting was still ongoing after around six hours of debate. OPEC watcher Amrita Sen from Energy Aspects said: “OPEC has proved to the sceptics that it is not dead. The move will speed up market rebalancing and erosion of the global oil glut.” Before the meeting, Saudi Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih said OPEC was indeed focusing on significant cuts and hopedRussia and other non-OPEC producers would contribute a reduction of another 0.6 million bpd. Falih said: “It will mean that we (Saudi) take a big cut and a big hit from our current production and from our forecast for 2017.” Clashes between Saudi Arabia and Iran have dominated many previous OPEC meetings. But the tone changed on Wednesday with Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh saying he was positive since Iran had not been asked to cut output. He also said Russia was ready to reduce production. “Moscow have agreed to reduce their production and cut after our decision,” Zanganeh said. The Opec press conference has been delayed, with insiders saying today’s agreement is being drafted now. Opec is due to hold a press conference shortly to announce the conclusions of today’s meeting. It should be streamed online here. There’s a rumour swirling that Indonesia might have been suspended from Opec today. That would free up its quota (more than 700k barrels per day) to be shared among other members of the cartel. If so (and we’ll get the details eventually....) it’s a bit of a swizz. Indonesia will still be pumping that oil, but it won’t be counted in Opec’s numbers. So it would be easier to get the group’s total output down by 1.2m; Saudi might only have to cut by 500,000 barrels..... And there’s also talk that Iran will freeze at 3.79m barrels per day, not the 3.9m rumoured earlier. All very confusing..... (good luck to anyone trading oil today....) Newsflash: America’s Dow Jones stock markets has hit a new record high at the start of trading in New York. The Dow jumped 70 points, or 0.36%, to 19,191 points - with energy stocks boosted by reports of an Opec production cut (which still hasn’t been confirmed, remember!) Airline stocks are falling, though; the 8% jump in the oil price will hurt their profits. While we wait for more action in Vienna, here’s a video explaining the Bank of England’s new stress tests (which Royal Bank of Scotland failed this morning). Gulf Energy correspondent Amena Bakr reports that Iran has agreed to fix its oil production at around 3.8 million barrels per day, helping to get today’s deal over the line. (corrected) If so, that means Tehran has avoided having to cut output -- a real sticking point, as Iran has been ramping up production since sanctions were relaxed at the start of this year. So this deal might, as expected, centre on Saudi Arabia taking on much of the output cut. We may know more soon.... This story may not be over.... the chatter in Vienna is that Iraq is still disputing its oil production figures. This dispute centres on oil produced in Iraq’s Kirkuk province, which is occupied by Iraqi Kurdistan. Many analysts reckon that Iraq is ‘double-counting’ the amount of oil produced by some fields in this region, creating a 290,000 barrels a day discrepancy between the country’s official production total and the estimates from independent sources. There are rumours that any Opec deal might also be dependent on non-Opec members, ie Russia, also cutting output. Neil Wilson of ETX Capital explains: The latest we’re hearing is that a deal has been done on the numbers and discussions are now underway on the monitoring committee. However in the latest twist, it looks like any cut will be dependent on non-OPEC members agreeing to limit output. Therefore getting this deal done may be down to Russia in the end – there is still potential for an agreement to come unstuck. Russia seems to be considering a 200k a day cut and OPEC wants 600k a day less from non-members. Monitoring will be crucial to ensure that members of the cartel are not pumping more than they claim to be. The problem for OPEC is that it’s virtually impossible to track all the shipments reliably, so this will be a key detail. ABN Amro’s Hans van Cleef nails it: Bloomberg’s Javier Blas is pretty excited that Opec has (apparently) agreed to cut production by 1.2m barrels per day: But the FT’s Neil Hume points out that we need to know more -- like which countries are actually going to cut, and by how much. NEWSFLASH: Reporters in Vienna are snapping that Opec has reached a deal! Reuters are quoting one delegate, who says ministers have managed to finalise the draft plan made in September in Algiers. That means oil production will be cut by around 1.2 million barrels per day, in an attempt to trim supply and push the oil price higher. The same delegate has also spoken to Bloomberg -- s/he must have been in demand -- and confirmed that daily production will be cut to 32.5m barrels, We still don’t know the details though -- like which Opec members will actually cut, and how the deal will be enforced. It’s likely, though, that Saudi Arabia will take the brunt of it (as we covered earlier, Iran isn’t expecting to cut its output). But it’s enough to keep the Brent crude oil price around $50 per barrel, a 7% surge today. Opec are due to hold a press conference at 4pm Vienna time, or 3pm GMT. So we should learn then if a deal has been reached, and whose agreed to cut oil production. Fawad Razaqzada, market analyst at Forex.com, reckons the oil price could shed some of today’s surge once the details emerge: The only thing speculators are not too sure about yet is the detail of the deal: who will cut oil production and by how much, and who will freeze and at what levels? But with oil prices having already gone up so much and still rising, I wouldn’t be surprised if prices then start to ease back a tad in a typical “buy the rumour, sell the news” reaction. However, the potential selling pressure will likely be mild, unless of course the negotiations break down. But it is also possible that the deal to limit oil production will not be bold enough. There’s another interesting wrinkle to watch out for; Opec members typically report higher output figures than independent experts. So, if the independent ‘secondary sources’ are right, oil producers have an artificial cushion which they can cut into, without actually limiting real output. Shares in oil companies are rocketing higher too. Royal Dutch Shell are leading the FTSE 100 risers, up 4.75%, while BP gained 3.7%. That mirrors the surge in the oil price, and shows that City investors expect both firms to benefit from an Opec production cut. But... higher oil prices will mean an even tighter squeeze on real earnings next year, hurting family budgets and hitting many businesses with steeper transport costs. Brent crude has now bursted up through $50 per barrel, following those reports that Opec might agree to cut production by 1.4 million barrels per day. Bloomberg’s chief energy correspondent , Javier Blas, can see an Opec deal coming together.... That’s keeping the oil price buoyant.... UBS’s banking analyst Jason Napier predicts that Royal Bank of Scotland will take fresh cost cutting measures in 2017, having failed today’s UK stress tests. He tells clients that: We expect a bigger cost and restructuring plan in February – with associated capital costs – and colour around noncore, low return assets within the Commercial Bank, including £8.5bn in risk-weighted assets. With uncertainty around timing and cost of the Williams & Glyn branch sale and the US Department of Justice probe into its residential mortgage-backed securities cases, we think RBS remains under pressure to deliver on core profits, principally by achieving further significant cost cuts. Here’s a nice chart, showing how the oil price has languished behind other commodities for months: Oil is surging even higher now, after Saudi Arabia said it could take a ‘big hit’ to get a deal at today’s Opec meeting. Brent crude has spiked by over 7% to almost $50 per barrel, as traders anticipate that the oil cartel will hammer out production curbs in Vienna today. Saudi Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih ignited the rally, by telling reporters that Opec could finalise cuts of more than one million barrels per day (the rough target). He also suggested that some non-Opec members might come on board too, in a co-ordinated attempt to squeeze production down (driving the cost of oil up). Reuters has the details: Falih said OPEC was focusing on reducing output to a ceiling of 32.5 million barrels per day, or cutting by more than1 million bpd, and hoped Russia and other non-OPEC members would contribute a cut of another 0.6 million bpd. “It will mean that we (Saudi) take a big cut and a big hit from our current production and from our forecast for 2017. So we will not do it unless we make sure that there is consensus and an agreement to meet all of the principles,” Falih said. In other news, inflation across the euro area has inched up to its highest level since April 2014. Consumer prices rose by an annual rate of 0.6% in November, says statistics body Eurostat. The service sector drove inflation up, with prices 1.1% than a year ago, followed by food, alcohol and tobacco (up 0.7%). Fuel and heating costs pulled inflation back, with energy costs 1.1% cheaper than a year ago. However, the impact of cheap oil may soon drop out of the inflation calculations - especially if Opec agree a production cut today. Santander UK’s chief financial officer, Antonio Roman, says his bank is pleased to have passed this year’s stress tests: They reflect the resilience of our business model and the strength of our balance sheet. We are well positioned to build on this strength in 2017.” Some more photos from the Opec meeting: There’s also drama in Vienna, as some Opec oil ministers suddenly express real confidence that the cartel will reach an agreement to cut production today. Brent crude has surged by almost 6% to $49.06, a one-week high, after a flurry of comments from Opec. Saudi Arabia’s Khalid al-Falih told reporters that Opec is close to reaching a deal. And crucially, he indicated that Saudi was happy with the idea that Iran would freeze production, rather than cutting. That sounds like a potential concession from Opec’s largest member, which would have to take the bulk of any cut. Al-Falih was speaking to reporters in the traditional ‘open-room’ session, before the press are thrown out and Opec can get down to business. The UAE’s representative said the meeting is looking “very positive”, while Nigeria says he thinks there will be a deal. HOWEVER.... we don’t have a deal yet. And the newswires are also running quotes from Iran which suggest it won’t freeze output.... Mark Carney managed to fire a double-barrelled Brexit warning this morning, urging Westminster and Brussels to avoid the dangers of a badly planned exit. Perhaps his most important comment was his warning that Britain is Europe’s ‘investment banker’ -- a message that EU firms will suffer if Brexit goes badly wrong. Carney says: “The U.K. is effectively the investment banker for Europe. “These activities are crucial for firms in the European Union economy, and it’s absolutely in the interest of the European Union that there is an orderly transition and that there’s continual access to those services.” In other words -- if the City suddenly loses its ‘passporting rights’ to offer financial services in the EU, European firms might find themselves paying more for a worse financial service. So Europe should be careful about letting Britain plunge into a ‘hard Brexit’ in 2019. That’s also a coded rebuke to ECB president Mario Draghi, who claimed on Monday that the eurozone would be less hurt by Brexit upheaval than Britain itself. But Carney and Draghi are in full agreement on one matter -- Theresa May must lay out a plan for Brexit, rather than leaving firms in the dark. The BoE governor says: “It is preferable that firms know as much as possible about the desired endpoint, what type of relationship would be there, and as much as possible, as early as possible, about the potential path to that endpoint.” Carney also signalled that Donald Trump risks destabilising the global recovery: “There is this possibility that the slowdown in the growth in world trade, which we have seen over the past few years, accelerates because of discrete policy initiatives potentially from the world’s largest economy. “While that might not directly affect the United Kingdom, if it slows the pace of global growth - and we’re an open trading nation, one of the most open nations in the world - it’s going to have a knock-on effect through this economy.” And on the stress tests, Carney offered some support to Royal Bank of Scotland: “Its challenge is that it still has legacy issues.... There’s misconduct costs, there’s impaired assets,they’re still working through the so-called non-core assets on which they have made progress.” “They have made progress over the course of the year, they have identified and made an announcement today about additional actions they will be taking.” Edward Chan, banking partner at global law firm Linklaters, says today’s stress tests miss one of the biggest threats to the UK financial sector -- Brexit. “This year’s Bank of England stress test scenarios were drawn up in March; while the adverse scenario incorporates a global growth downturn, capital flows to safe havens and a depreciation of emerging market currencies against the dollar, it does not model the impact of the uncertainty resulting from Brexit negotiations nor the consequences of the actual exit from the EU. It will be interesting to see how the adverse scenario is modelled in next year’s stress test given the Bank of England cautious response post Brexit. Fernando de la Mora, managing director at Alvarez & Marsal, explains why the tests matter: Three banks failed the test for different reasons. RBS failed the test, Barclays received a light fail and Standard Chartered got a qualitative fail. As has been the case in the US with the Fed, the Bank of England is tightening its stance on stress test capital requirements, making them more binding for banks. Naeem Aslam, chief market analyst at Think Markets, isn’t surprised that RBS came bottom of the class: The institute has not made any meaningful headway in relation to all challenges it is facing such as the sale of mortgage-backed securities over in the US [where it could be fined by the DoJ] There is still no buyer for its Williams and Glyn unit. Over in the City, shares in Royal Bank of Scotland have fallen by 2.7% at the start of trading following the news that it must strengthen its capital position. They’re down 5.3p at 191p -- a long way away from 502p, which is the break-even point for the taxpayer to recover the huge bailout of 2008. Lloyds, who sailed through the stress tests, are up 1.2%. HSBC and Barclays are up a bit too, while Standard Chartered (who sailed close to the wind in these stress tests) are flat. Some City analysts has speculated the RBS might fail the tests, and be required to submit a new capital plan. Kathleen Brooks of City Index says: RBS’s initial outline includes reducing costs (probably more job losses), reducing risk-weighted assets across the bank, and further asset disposals. RBS wasn’t the only bank that came in for criticism from the report; Barclays and Standard Chartered were also mentioned. Barclays was cited for its systemic risks, and Standard Chartered missed its tier one capital requirement, but both banks do not need to submit revised capital plans to the BOE. This is good news for Standard Chartered, as there had been some concern for the bank ahead of the publishing of this report due to its exposure to emerging markets and commodities. Finally, Carney says there is still “quite good momentum” in the drive to create better global financial regulation. The key, he says, is to create cross-border partnerships (to avoid a repeat of the 2008 financial crisis). And that’s the end of the press conference. Q: How frustrated are you that Royal Bank of Scotland failed this year’s stress tests? RBS has made a lot of progress in recent years, says Carney, especially around its core business -- to serve UK small businesses and households. However, it still has legacy issues to deal with. As Carney puts it: It lost its way over a number of years and did a number of other things...not particularly well. That’s a coded jibe at RBS’s former boss, the de-knighted Fred Goodwin, whose ambitious growth plans ended in utter disaster in 2008. Carney emphasises that RBS doesn’t have to raise extra capital; it has to reduce risks assets, to put itself in a stronger position to handle another financial crisis. Q: How concerned is the Bank of England about Italy (which holds a constitutional referendum on Sunday)? Not very, it seems. Carney says that the UK has very little exposure to Italian banks directly. Q: Investment banks need two years to organise an exit from the UK, so are you hoping that Theresa May will give them more clarity on her plans when she triggers Article 50? Carney disputes the figure, saying that the BoE thinks banks would need less time (on average). And he reiterates that firms need as much clarity as possible. All trade deals need a transition period, Carney says. The more abrupt the Brexit transition is, the greater the risk of disruption to supplying those financial services to the continent and the greater the risk of the cost going up, says Carney. And he points out that firms can’t wait until Britain is on the brink of actually leaving the EU. Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed, and everything isn’t agreed until the last minute. So firms may be forced to make decisions without knowing exactly what the future holds. Another question about the next US president. Q: Is Donald Trump’s plan to roll back financial regulation a threat to financial stability? Carney says the president-elect has focused on domestic banks, and whether burden on them affecting their ability to create jobs and help US companies -- hinting that it’s not a massive concern to the UK. Global regulation is focused on banks that are active across the world, he adds. Our City editor Jill Treanor asks whether the BoE is getting more concerned about the buy-to-let market. Deputy governor Sir Jon Cunliffe says that buy-to-let market seems to be subdued, but there are not signs that landlords are putting more properties on the market. Q: How worried are you about President Trump enacting some of his policies on global trade? Carney says there is a risk that the existing slowdown in trade accelerates, because of “discrete policy initiatives from the world’s largest economy”. We’re one of the most open trading nations in the world, so if it slows the pace of global growth then it would have a knock-on effect on the UK, Carney explains. Carney is then asked about household debt levels (yesterday we learned that consumer credit is growing at the fastest pace in 11 years). He says that household debt position has improved, but is still high. The good thing is that households and businesses, young people starting out in their first homes, can get credit at affordable terms. Q: Would the Bank of England be less concerned about the financial stability implications posed by the US economy if Hillary Clinton had won the US election? We’ll never know, so it’s impossible to speculate, smiles Carney. He explains that the stress tests have tested Britain’s banks ability to handle the “extreme versions” of the tensions that are starting to emerge (as capital exits emerging markets and returns to America) Onto Questions.... Sam Coates of The Times takes the new ball, and asks Carney to clarify his comments about needing an ‘orderly’ Brexit process. Q: Are you saying that there should be a ‘transitional deal, rather than a cliff edge? As the prime minister has said, it’s preferable that this process is as smooth as possible, Carney replies. He says that there will be a transition - either at the end of the negotiations, or during them. It is preferable that firms know as much as possible about the desired endpoint, and as early as possible about the potential path about that endpoint. Carney points out that City firms are already wondering how Brexit will affect their operations. As such, “a decree of clarity when appropriate” will help provide “a smooth and orderly Brexit process”. Governor Carney also points out that many European businesses rely on the City of London for financial services. So, it’s in Europe’s interest that these firms can still access financial services from the UK. The United Kingdom is effectively the investment banker for Europe. Today’s tests have shown that Britain’s banking sector is well-capitalised, and in a good position to keep lending to homes and businesses, Carney insists. Although today’s tests showed some capital inadequacies (at RBS, Barclays, and Standard Chartered), “the bottom line.... is that each bank now has the necessary plans to buid their resilience further” And he declares: The UK financial system has shown its ability to dampen, not amplify, a series of shocks. And he touches on Brexit again, saying that the “orderliness” of the adjustment to a new relationship will affect stability. Governor Mark Carney begins by saying that Britain’s financial system has “stood up well” to turbulence this year, such as the reaction to Britain’s EU vote. Carney says the most significant risks to stability are global. He singles out China, where growth is increasingly reliant on borrowing. Capital outflows from China could accelerate, he warns, as the US raises interest rates. He also suggests that the eurozone could pose additional threats to UK financial stability in future, if the Brexit vote hurts the EU economy. Carney says the UK’s current account remains “large by historic standards”, adding that the slump in the pound since June shows that international investors expect Britain to be less open to trade, and grow slower, because of the Brexit vote. The Bank of England is holding a press conference now to explain its bank stress tests, and its latest financial stability report. You can see it live here. Standard Chartered has issued a statement, confirming that it only passed today’s stress tests because it has already raised fresh capital this year. The Prudential Regulation Authority Board concluded that the Group did not meet its Tier 1 risk-weighted capital requirement including Pillar 2A but determined that in light of the steps the Group has subsequently taken to strengthen its capital position it does not require it to submit a revised capital plan. Standard Chartered also points out that it found today’s stress tests particularly tough, because it modelled a slump in Asia (its main market). The scenario for the Stress Test was severe for the Group’s business operations as it includes a synchronised global downturn with particularly severe impact on Asia, as well as a generalised downturn in emerging market economies. Royal Bank of Scotland has issued a statement to the City, confirming that it has agreed a revised capital plan to tackle the shortcomings uncovered by the BoE. Ewen Stevenson, chief financial officer, insists that RBS has been taking action, but agrees that more work is needed. “We are committed to creating a stronger, simpler and safer bank for our customers and shareholders. We have taken further important steps in 2016 to enhance our capital strength, but we recognise that we have more to do to restore the bank’s stress resilience including resolving outstanding legacy issue. The statement is online here. Today’s stress tests are the toughest ones ever set by the Bank of England. As this chart shows, it is roughly equivalent to the slump experienced during the financial crisis, albeit with a shallower fall in domestic output, and a more severe rise in unemployment and fall in residential property prices You can see the whole report here: Stress testing the UK banking system: 2016 results Here’s the official verdict from the Bank of England’s Prudential Regulation Authority, explaining how RBS doesn’t hold enough capital to cope with a big financial crisis: The test did not reveal capital inadequacies for four out of the seven participating banks, based on their balance sheets at end-2015 (HSBC, Lloyds Banking Group, Nationwide Building Society and Santander UK). The Royal Bank of Scotland Group (RBS) did not meet its common equity Tier 1 (CET1) capital or Tier 1 leverage hurdle rates before additional Tier 1 (AT1) conversion in this scenario. After AT1 conversion, it did not meet its CET1 systemic reference point or Tier 1 leverage ratio hurdle rate. Based on RBS’s own assessment of its resilience identified during the stress-testing process, RBS has already updated its capital plan to incorporate further capital strengthening actions and this revised plan has been accepted by the PRA Board. The PRA will continue to monitor RBS’s progress against its revised capital plan. Barclays did not meet its CET1 systemic reference point before AT1 conversion in this scenario. In light of the steps that Barclays had already announced to strengthen its capital position, the PRA Board did not require Barclays to submit a revised capital plan. While these steps are being executed, its AT1 capital provides some additional resilience to very severe shocks. Standard Chartered met all of its hurdle rates and systemic reference points in this scenario. However, it did not meet its Tier 1 minimum capital requirement (including Pillar 2A). In light of the steps that Standard Chartered is already taking to strengthen its capital position, including the AT1 it has issued during 2016, the PRA Board did not require Standard Chartered to submit a revised capital plan. [explainer: AT1 bonds are capital which is designed to convert into equity if a bank hits trouble. Effectively a buffer to protect a bank from a crisis] My colleague Jill Treanor is at the Bank of England, and reports that RBS has already announced how it will react to failing today’s stress tests. Royal Bank of Scotland has emerged as the biggest failure in the Bank of England’s annual health check of the banking system. The 73% taxpayer owned bank has issued a plan to Threadneedle Street over night intended to bolster its financial strength by an estimated £2bn. Two other banks – Barclays and Standard Chartered – also struggled in the so-called stress tests which are based on hypothetical scenarios of including falls in house prices and the global economy contracting by 1.9%. Barclays already has a plan in place to bolster its financial position while Standard Chartered has not needed to take any action. Remember, these tests assessed how the banks would cope with a recession, a housing crash and a halving of the oil price. Here we go! Royal Bank of Scotland, the lender bailed out by the taxpayer in 2008, has failed today’s stress tests! That means RBS must take fresh action to protect itself against a sharp slump in the economy. The tests also found that Standard Chartered and Barclays would need more capital if the economy deteriorated. They aren’t being forced to raise new money today though. But HSBC, Nationwide, Lloyds, and Santander UK have all passed. Good morning. We’ve got two big events on the agenda today. The Bank of England is releasing its stress tests of the British banking sector, showing how UK’s lenders could cope with a serious economic downturn. Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds Banking Group, Royal Bank of Scotland, the UK arm of Spanish bank Santander and Standard Chartered have all been examined closely, plus the Nationwide building society. The tests will assess if these companies can cope with a sharp recession, a housing market crash, and a clump in the oil price. Out City editor Jill Treanor explains all: The Bank has set out an imaginary five-year period in which there is a “synchronised global downturn” under which the global economy contracts by 1.9% – as it did during the financial crisis. It has also incorporated domestic factors: a 31% fall in house prices, 42% reduction in commercial property prices with the economy contracting by 4.3% and unemployment rising by 4.5 percentage points. The dollar rises against emerging market currencies and the oil price troughs at $20 per barrel. Here’s Jill’s preview: The BoE is also publishing its latest Financial Stability Report, showing the main threats to the UK economy following the Brexit vote. The results come at 7am, followed by a press conference with governor Mark Carney at 7.30am. But that’s not all! Over in Vienna, oil ministers are gathering for the latest Opec meeting. They’ll attempt to hammer out the details of a deal to cap oil output, in an attempt to push up prices. But there’s no guarantee of success. Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia are all taking this meeting to the wire in a display of brinksmanship, so it’s not clear if Opec can agree an overall quota, and decide how it is shared between its members. Here’s the key timings: 10 a.m. Vienna time (9am GMT): Opening session 12 p.m. noon Vienna time: Closed session 4 p.m. Vienna time: Press conference. We’ll be tracking all the main events through the day!
Immigrants’ view on the EU referendum: ‘When you hear people talk about migration they ignore the benefits’ Andrea Livrini, 26 Moved from a small village in Tuscany two years ago to work in a pizza restaurant in Stroud, Gloucestershire “I know the boss from before because his family comes from the same village in Lucca that I’m from,” says Livrini. Although his friends and family in Italy do not discuss the vote in the UK, Livrini found that it was a popular topic of conversation on a recent visit to Hungary and France. “A lot of people talked to me because they knew I worked in England and they asked me what was going on, what do you think about it, is it a problem for you because you are from Italy?” he says. “To be honest, I think it is better for England if they [the UK] go out of Europe. For me it is strange to say this because I am from Italy, but I’m always honest, I always say what I think. “There are a lot of people coming from the east, which is OK, but if you don’t work you must go back to your country. Where I live in Italy is a small village, but the problem with immigration has started there as well. The Italian government could use the money for people from Italy. It’s the same here. The government in England pays money for these people when they could help people from England.” “If I was in Italy and they had a vote to stay in Europe or to go out, for sure I would say to go out because of immigration. I’m not a racist. If people are coming here that’s fine, but they need to work.” DG Šárka Naivertová, 39 Orignally from Ostrava, Czech Republic. Moved to Banbury in Oxfordshire in 2009, and in 2013 set up her own company, Distinct Estate Agents “Before I came here I had a pretty senior position in the Czech Republic but I always wanted to travel,” Naivertová explains. “I wanted to improve my English and then go to Italy but I just fell in love with England. I became a much more cosmopolitan and open-minded person.” Naivertová was brought up under communism until the age of 13 and says that the Czech Republic is still “restricted to certain thinking”. “When I came to Britain, my world view changed, how I perceive people. I developed a huge respect for every culture, race and nationality. What I really like about Britain is that you can pretty much do anything. Even if you’re 35 and want to do something completely different in your life, no one will look at you like you’re bonkers.” She became a British citizen in 2013 and feels that life has become a bit harder here. “People work more and more and life has become more stressful. There’s more pressure on people.” However, she feels the referendum is focusing the debate in the wrong direction. “I am an immigrant to this country but I do believe immigration should be controlled,” she says. “If I was living in the Czech Republic or China I would still think immigration should be controlled. That’s my very strong belief. But the politicians are focusing on immigration in a very negative way. They should be focusing on the issues about in and out, the advantages and disadvantages.” She says she doesn’t think people treat her differently for being a migrant, but that may be because she lives “in a very good part of England which is very cosmopolitan”. “I adopted this country as my own, and if you go somewhere as an expat it’s up to you to make an effort and make something out of this country,” she says. “I was spat at 12 years ago when I came here, but recently I’ve never had problems. The funniest thing is I went to Wales once and they said to me ‘You’re a very nice person, why are you living in England?’”JT Ankush Malhotra, 36 From Amritsar in north-west India. Went to the London School of Economics to study an MBA, then moved to Newcastle where he works as the manager of a betting shop “In the industry I work in, I deal with people from all backgrounds,” says Malhotra. “I think people are worried when they see a lot of immigrants coming to the UK. They relate immigration to everyday problems, like delays in getting doctor’s appointments and lack of housing. They don’t mention it directly to me, but when you have a discussion they aren’t happy with the amount of people coming to the UK. Immigration is the main reason I’ve heard for those wanting to leave the EU.” Malhotra says he encountered racial abuse a couple of times in London, which he used to find frustrating and upsetting. “Now I don’t notice it so much,” he says. “If one person says you don’t belong here, I don’t think it’s a battle worth having. I ignore them and move on. Most people are friendly and have accepted me.” He says he now sees more people in the UK from abroad, but doesn’t view this as a negative thing. “Greater diversity brings much more talent and skills – this is a huge benefit to the country and the economy. When people talk about immigration, they don’t talk about this – the doctors, engineers, scientists, hard-working people running their businesses, or even people working in shops. “The focus is the strain on the NHS, more people claiming benefits rather than people working, paying their taxes and helping to grow the economy.” Malhotra voted via postal vote last week . “I voted to remain in the EU. If we leave, we’ll be competing with countries like India, China and America in terms of trade. Risks like rising inflation, trade deficit, weaker currency, higher interest rates etc can have greater impact on the UK. “There would be short-term benefits of leaving the EU, but the benefits of remaining are far greater.” JT Orhan Demirovski, 37 From Skopje in the former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia, and is also ethnically Romany. He moved to London in 2005 and works as a university lecturer “Arriving in London I had a cultural shock – I was shocked by the freedom of, let’s say, the homosexuals to show who they really are,” says Demirovski. “I was positively impressed by the ability of people to express their complex identity.” Although Demirovski has indefinite leave to remain, he is not yet a British citizen and so cannot vote in the EU referendum. “But if I did have a vote, I’d vote Remain,” he says. “We had all these arguments about free trade and growth, but on a human level I think integration is important. We should have a place where we can keep our diversities and differences but learn to live with each other.” He believes immigration has hijacked the debate around whether to leave the EU or not. “The idea is first come, first served,” he says. “That the ones arriving early in a country have more rights than later migrants. If you look at Nigel Farage, his family came in the 19th century but he believes he now has more rights than the ones who arrived 50 years ago, or 10 years ago, or today. That’s wrong.” Demirovski says his experience over the last 11 years is that people’s sentiment about migration has changed. “You go on the trains and buses and people start chatting to you about the referendum and the debate on immigration and ask details. People are curious to find out more. That’s the positive element. But the referendum and the whole issue about immigration is like Pandora’s box – all-giving but contains all the evils of the world. I’m afraid in British society that we are yet to face all the evils.” JT Merelin Melesk, 32, and Katarzyna Jaroch-Wychorska, 46 Two women from eastern Europe , who have made Glasgow their home. They share similar views of the warmth of Scotland’s welcome, but see the referendum differently Merelin Melesk from Estonia is enjoying a second stay in Glasgow, having lived here five years ago before travelling through Europe and Australia. She works as an assistant in a coffee shop and volunteers for the RSPB, which she hopes will help in her studies in environmental management. Katarzyna Jaroch-Wychorska, from Poland, has lived in Glasgow for 10 years and is a support worker. They were helped to settle and find work in Scotland through the Bridges Programmes, a charity which helps immigrants, refugees and asylum-seekers integrate and find work in the country. They both talk of their love for Glasgow. “I love this city,” says Jaroch-Wychorska. “It’s been a great experience for me and I am so grateful how much help I’ve had to settle from the government.” Melesk agrees. “Scottish people are so friendly and have always been warm and helpful. Even when I have travelled in other countries like Italy or Australia, I have always met Scottish people and they are always the friendliest.” Yet, while Jaroch-Wychorska is fearful about the outcome of the EU referendum, Melesk is a little more relaxed. Jaroch-Wychorska is unsure of what her status will be if Britain votes to leave the European Union. “At the moment, we are European citizens, but how would we be regarded if Britain leaves Europe,” she asks. Melesk, though, is unfazed. “Look,” she says, “I am not fleeing persecution in Estonia, nor did I come to Scotland for financial reasons. I felt that what Scotland offered would help me to achieve my aim of having a career in environmental management. “If Britain votes to leave the European Union, then so be it. And if I must return to Estonia, then that’s OK.” KM Aoi Nakamura and Esteban Fourmi, both 29 Nakamura is from Nara in Japan. She left at the age of 16 to go to the Leipzig Opera Ballet, then came to the UK in 2011. She lives in Ashford with her boyfriend, Fourmi, another dancer with the Jasmin Vardimon Company. He is from Le Mans in France Nakamura thinks the attitude towards immigrants is more problematic in Ashford than in London, where she lived previously. “London was particularly open to immigrants or anyone from other cultures, but we have experienced some mean attitudes towards immigrants [in Ashford]. Small things, but sometimes I think, is it is because I am an immigrant that you are doing this?” she says. She believes life will get harder for migrants in the UK, whichever way the vote goes later this week. She pays £600 a year for a visa to remain in the UK and £150 a year to access the NHS. “When I pay for my visa, I almost have nothing left that month. I’m sure it will get more strict.” Fourmi feels that much of the debate during the referendum has been about immigration. “It is the same in France. Constantly you talk about immigration. People are scared and I understand that, but I think they shouldn’t be,” he says. He says he recently found himself at the receiving end of some vitriol about his nationality. “I was renting a car and somehow I might have jumped the queue, which I didn’t realise. And then the guy recognised my accent and said ‘Oh, you’re fucking French’ and went on [about it], being really aggressive. It was really shocking.” He feels that much of the time when people talk about immigrants “taking jobs” there is more to it than that. “What I hear behind that is more like racism,” he says. “And I think political people are fuelling this to attract some of the people [to vote to leave the EU].” JT
Molly Moon and the Incredible Book of Hypnotism review – mirthless and shoddy Georgia Byng’s children’s novel Molly Moon’s Incredible Book of Hypnotism is well admired by many for its vivid heroine and its fresh twist on the old plucky-orphan narrative gambit. This film adaptation assembles a cracking cast, starting with the terrifyingly impressive Raffey Cassidy (the pretty android from Tomorrowland) in the title role, with assists from some illustrious thespians, including Lesley Manville as the mean orphanage director; Emily Watson as a kindly staff member; Celia Imrie as the cook; right down to Joan Collins, resplendent in a red wig and a ton of slap, as an evil criminal mastermind. And yet, in the hands of director Christopher N Rowley and an assortment of screenwriters (including Byng), the result is a rebarbative mess – mirthless and shoddy like a disposable Christmas stocking novelty. Even my daughter, who likes anything with bright colours and pugs, thinks the above star rating is generous.
Prince vaults begin to open with expanded edition of Purple Rain Since Prince’s death earlier this year, one of the great unanswered questions has been: what will happen to the vast amount of unreleased music in his vault? Last week, it was reported and then denied that his music was to be put up for sale. Now, we have news that it is to begin seeing the light of day. Don’t get too excited, though, because there’s not going to be a great rush of songs. The big news for fans is that his 1984 album Purple Rain is to be reissued in a deluxe, remastered version, featuring a second disc of previously unreleased material. What that material might be is unknown, as is the release date. All that is known is that the record will emerge in early 2017, and will be based on plans agreed with Prince before his death in April. The Purple Rain reissue will be preceded by a new a new 40-track compilation, Prince 4Ever, to be released next month. While that album is almost entirely greatest hits, there’s one treat for fans (or a shameless attempt to get them to shell out for music they already have, depending on your point of view) in the form of Moonbeam Levels, a previously unreleased track. Previously unreleased does not, in this case, mean previously unheard. The track is a much-bootlegged favourite among Prince fans, well enough known to have been covered in concert by Elvis Costello. You can find it on YouTube if you want to. It was recorded in July 1982, and included as the final track on the aborted album Rave Unto the Joy Fantastic – not the different Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic – before being shelved for Prince to work on the Batman soundtrack album.
A result for Brexit – but what will happen next? The EU referendum (Report, 24 June), far from determining the settled will of the British people, has only served to show how divided we have become. We are divided between our constituent nations, regions, cities and generations. Undoubtedly many voters cast their vote according to which side’s scare stories, lies, insinuations and threats they believed. This was no way for a mature democracy to decide the future of its people’s relationship with the outside world. What is needed over the next few months and years is not a lurching change in leadership or government. The people now need the opportunity to fully consider not only our future relationship with the EU but also with each other. The government should set up a constitutional convention involving all political parties, civic groups etc, to calmly consider the way forward. It should be capable of thinking the unthinkable, such as asking whether Northern Ireland and Scotland could have a different settlement with the EU to that of England and Wales. It should also look at how these islands can heal the wounds of division brought about by the establishment’s using the issues of Europe, immigration and austerity for narrow political gain. Noel Nowosielski Pudsey, West Yorkshire • The referendum result needs to be seen for the opportunity it is. It is the starting point of the UK’s leaving of the EU. The Conservative party cannot speak on behalf of a divided union. Whoever is elected as leader will be unable to reconcile the deep divisions within the party. The only democratic way forward is for a cross-party team to be given a mandate to undertake negotiations. It is up to our MPs to hold them to account. The role of opposition MPs, and Labour MPs in particular, in the next two years will be crucial. They must be vigilant in ensuring the best of the EU remains enshrined within the UK’s laws. Ian Hamilton London • The referendum acts as guidance to parliament which now has to decide what action to take. Commons representatives have to make up their own minds, they are not delegates who are mandated by their organisations. Parliament has to protect the greater interests of the country. The government has long emphasised that, it does not consider a majority vote valid if it is less than 40% of the eligible electorate, when it is union members voting for a temporary public sector strike. Given that an EU exit is far more important and permanent, how will MPs justify treating the 37.4% of the vote to leave as sufficient, especially when the majority is so small and significantly composed of old people who won’t be affected by the outcome? Professor John Veit-Wilson Newcastle upon Tyne • Deborah Orr (Ten things we learned about ourselves from this vote, 24 June) rightly identifies our dysfunctional political system as a key factor in the vote. Our political parties have colluded in the construction of a winner takes all system where governments elected by a minority can inflict ideological destruction on public services and punish the poor and where self-selected cabinets at local level can ride roughshod over residents’ concerns. In such a system there are always more losers than winners. Richard Gilyead Saffron Walden, Essex • So, a government with a minority of the election vote imposes a referendum to appease a relatively small number of its backbenchers. The result is a very small margin in favour of leaving. The result? A fundamental constitutional change. That just would not happen in states with entrenched constitutional provisions that generally require bigger margins for such a massive change. Give us a written constitution before Farage suggests putting hanging to the vote. Greg Purnell London • How interesting that only rightwing politicians from France and the Netherlands have reacted positively. Will all our MEPs now resign or will they continue to gain their huge salaries and expenses. Surely those who voted leave must go now. Chris Gregory Southport, Lancashire • Here we go again: “Britain has voted by a substantial margin to leave the European Union” (Full results and analysis, 24 June, theguardian.com). Is what was a 3.9 percentage point majority “substantial”? This is reminiscent of another marginal victory, in the last general election, which was again small (if not negative) but treated by the winners as a landslide of North Korean proportions. This demonstrates the main defect of the first past the post/winner takes all system. When 16 million people vote one way and 17 million the other, does it not require the majority to look for some degree of compromise (like the promised devo max of the Scottish referendum), rather than act exclusively in the interests of the 51.8% that voted their way? Michael Peel Winscombe, Somerset • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
How mounting job cuts could threaten UK's economic recovery Major UK-based companies have announced tens of thousands of job losses that are expected to ripple through the economy in the coming months, casting a shadow over Britain’s recovery. Affecting vast areas of the UK economy – from factories to the high street, banking, media and energy – the job losses announced in the past fortnight coincided with another wave of panic selling on stock markets and fears of a further global recession. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development expressed concern on Thursday about the state of the global economy. It cut growth forecasts made three months ago and called on its members, including Britain, to ease up on austerity. Two of the UK’s biggest lenders, Lloyds Banking Group and Barclays, along with Credit Suisse, are laying off workers in the UK. BP and Shell have been prompted to cut jobs because of the collapse in crude prices, which has hit oil companies hard. And the British Gas owner, Centrica, reiterated on Thursday that it is to axe 1,000 jobs in the UK this year, as part of 4,000 job cuts by 2020. Michael Hewson, chief market analyst at CMC Markets UK, said: “These are all fairly highly paid roles … You’ve got to think that over the next six months you’re going to see some trickle-down effect. A lot of the recovery in the UK has been consumption based, so that ultimately is going to hit consumption rates.” George Buckley, chief UK economist at Deutsche Bank, said the loss of highly paid City jobs, along with the new stamp duty surcharge on second homes from April, was likely to affect the buy-to-let market and the wider housing market. “We have a list of 10 reasons why we are nervous about London house prices,” he said. “I imagine a lot of people who work in the financial services industry own buy-to-let property. It could have a knock-on effect on the buy-to-let market and the property market as a whole.” The woes spread far and wide. Britain’s steel industry, in which 5,000 workers have lost their jobs since last summer, has appealed to the government for emergency assistance. Tata, which owns the remnants of British Steel, announced 1,050 job cuts last month. Frances O’Grady, general secretary of the Trades Union Congress, said: “The UK labour market is becoming more polarised by the day. The loss of important middle-income jobs, in industries such as steel, should concern us all.” Weak wage growth is also a problem. “While employment rates may have recovered, real wages are still way below their pre-recession level,” O’Grady added, calling on the government to commit to an “active industrial strategy”. Wages excluding bonuses had risen by 2% year-on-year at the end of 2015 – half the pre-crisis average of about 4%, according to the latest official figures published on Wednesday. David Kern, chief economist at the British Chambers of Commerce, said that bankers stood a better chance of finding new employment compared with people in engineering roles. “The biggest effect will be in areas, particularly manufacturing, where it is very difficult for the people that are affected to redeploy their skills because there aren’t similar recruiters.” The headline job losses will be spread out over a period of time, so economists are sceptical that they will push up the UK unemployment rate, which is currently 5.1%. Employment has been growing strongly, with more than half a million more people in work in the final quarter of 2015 than a year earlier; the figure has been boosted by migration and by older people remaining in the workforce for longer. Amazon, for example, is hiring in the UK and the rest of Europe: the online retailer plans to create more than 2,500 permanent jobs across Britain this year. But many high street retailers are struggling, and supermarkets are also cutting back as a fierce price war shows no sign of abating.
New band of the week: Denzel Curry (No 131) – a psychedelic hip-hop apocalypse Hometown: Carol City, Florida. The lineup: Denzel Curry (vocals). The background: We’re not sure if Denzel Curry got the memo about hip-hop getting happy, but then he’s been through some tough times. He grew up in an area notorious for police brutality and gun violence (Zone 3, Carol City, Miami), and he has experienced more tragic events than any 21-year-old should: aged 16, he witnessed a shooting inside a local McDonald’s, only to run into the perpetrator the following day at high school – incidentally, the same school attended by Trayvon Martin. Then, in 2014, his older brother Treon Johnson died after being Tasered, pepper-sprayed and taken into custody by police in Miami-Dade County. “I think about death a lot,” Curry admits. The above tumultuous incidents triggered a depression that threatened to engulf the self-styled “black metal terrorist”. “It’s like my world is reversing,” he groans on Me Now, a track from his new album, Imperial. “Even the pain couldn’t hurt me now. I cannot love cause it hurts me. I will be happy when the sun drown.” “That was me in my darkest state, talking about religion,” says Curry, who grew up in a household with a Jehovah’s Witness mother and Baptist father. He wanted to plunge the world into darkness, to try to cancel out the misery he was feeling? “Pretty much.” Curry’s music has been described as “afro-psychedelic punk”, and indeed there is a real urgency, even ferocity, to his breakout single, Ultimate (39m Spotify streams and counting). Then again, Me Now, or This Life – about splitting up with his girlfriend – are smoother and dreamier, like lovers’ horrorcore. He cites as influences Nas and Doom and, in his own words, sounds like “the apocalypse destroying the Earth to the sounds of trumpets skating across the heavens played by angels”. Even if they’re not quite that cataclysmic, cosmic and immense, his songs have a lyrical concision and murky intensity, suggesting a riled SpaceGhostPurrp – Curry used to be part of the latter’s Raider Klan before falling out with his Miami forebear. Certainly he earned his place alongside Desiigner, Anderson .Paak, Kodak Black, 21 Savage and a whole host of Lils (Dicky, Uzi Vert, Yachty) as a member of XXL’s 2016 Freshman Class. Reviewers noted an angry/trippy duality to his 2015 double EP, 32 Zel/Planet Shrooms, barking gruffly like DMX on the first half and channelling Andre 3000’s ethereal whimsy on the second. His flow has a Caribbean inflection (he is of Bajan and Native American descent) but he doesn’t want to be known just as a rapper, or even a rapper-singer (he does both on Imperial: think Drake in hell). He briefly attended the Design and Architecture Senior High School in Miami, and has retained a love of the visual arts. “The art scene in Miami, and just my experiences running around with my friends being the youngest of the crew, was the dawn of the spontaneous realm that spawned my crazy life,” he says. This year, he performed at Art Basel in Miami; he still loves drawing, and his work is peppered with references to video games and cartoons. “I draw stuff from my mind. I create characters. I might turn them into a cartoon or comic book,” he explains, looking forward, after this interview, to a live stream contest in which he will play Grand Theft Auto against fellow rappers Nyck Caution, Juice and Remy Banks. He might be more Renaissance man than rapper, but it’s for his music that he’s best known. The tracks from Imperial – due for an official UK release in January 2017 – have had 17m streams on SoundCloud. The album opens with ULT, short for “ultimate” while also standing for either “ultimately liberating together” or “utilising limitless talent”. The title functions as a hard-hitting affirmation to match the staccato sonics, while the acronym has a more thoughtful quality, although Curry himself doesn’t consider he has much in common with the salubrious moralising of conscious rap. Any doubts about that are immediately dispelled by the vengeful, murderous closing seconds of Sick & Tired. His music is vivid (“Sodomised through the eyes of a troubled youth,” he raps on the deceptively mellifluous If Tomorrow’s Not Here) and viral – in both senses. “I was in a very emotional state when I was writing that album,” Curry offers by way of explanation. “Life is dark. That’s what you gonna get with me: the dark aspects of life. Of course you’ve got to have some type of light in there, but if it was all light you’d be blinded. You’ve got to balance them out.” Curry says he’s got to make this music, for his own sanity and health. “Yeah, man,” he sighs, “cos otherwise I might end up dying, get cancer, from the stress, if I keep it bottled up inside.” The buzz: “This is real rap, raw and uncensored. Stay woke.” The truth: This is murkcore rap with melody. Most likely to: Have an Imperial phase. Least likely to: See the sun drown. What to buy: Imperial is released on January 27 2017 on Loma Vista. File next to: SpaceGhostPurrp, DMX, A$AP Rocky, Andre 3000. Links: ultimatedenzelcurry.com/ Ones to watch: Sirma, Jennie Abrahamson, CaStLeS, Thom Hell, Oslo Parks.
Female genital mutilation is never 'minor' One month after the Economist justified some forms of female genital mutilation (FGM), I still feel horrified. “Instead of trying to stamp FGM out entirely,” reads the editorial, “governments should ban the worst forms, permit those that cause no long-lasting harm and try to persuade parents to choose the least nasty version, or none at all. However distasteful, it is better to have a symbolic nick from a trained health worker than to be butchered in a back room by a village elder. If health workers also advised parents that even minor rituals are unnecessary, progress towards eradication could continue.” I am appalled by their comments. This approach would help dominate women, insult their suffering and justify the subordination of their rights. By supporting the absurd idea of a compromise between culture and law, proposing to tolerate what they call a “least nasty version” of FGM, the Economist lets millions of girls down. What can be “least nasty” about FGM? “Since my childhood, this deep wound in my body never healed,” confided Nawal El Saadawi in her book, A Daughter of Isis. Worldwide, 200 million women and girls understand what Nawal El Saadawi means because they also felt the blade of a practitioner cut their flesh. I’m one of them. I was between five and six years old. My childhood was interrupted abruptly and my relationship with my mother – who took me to the lady who cut me without any explanation – exploded. But she did not have the power to say no, and now we are still trying to reconnect and slowly pick up the pieces of our broken relationship. Today I’m 36. I can confirm that we never heal and that in the best case, we can only get better. Medicalised FGM - where a form of cutting is carried out in medical environs rather than at home or with village elders - is increasingly being applied in Egypt. It changes nothing except it tries to absolve proponents of FGM. In June 2013, Soheir Mohamed Ibrahim died in Egypt after she was cut by a doctor. She was only 13. She was, unfortunately, not the only one. In June this year, another girl – aged 17 – died during the cut despite it being performed by a gynaecologist. Her name was Mayar Mohamed Mousa. Her father is a surgeon and her mother is a nurse. Whatever the circumstances, it remains a crime with serious consequences – immediate and/or longterm – for the victim. The goal is to make these women the servants of a man, deprived of pleasure. The physical, psychological and socio-economic drawbacks are widely underestimated. What the the Economist advocates is nothing but complicity and incitement to maintain our chains because we are girls. No compromise is desirable or justifiable because there is no such thing as “light FGM”. The cultural relativism which they clearly demonstrate through their writing is unbearable. The fact that they have the intellectual or medical background to know better is as amazing as hopeless. This choice is pure cowardice, and a betrayal of medicine, science and law. It is also a disregard for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights because in their eyes, we are not born free and equal in law. I salute all those who have the courage to fight every day, despite the unfathomable selfishness of people like the supporters of this so called light FGM. Any kind of FGM must stop. That is all. • This article was amended on 22 and 25 July 2016 to better reflect the Economist’s editorial. An earlier version suggested incorrectly that the Economist supported clitoridectomy. The Economist has asked us to clarify that this is not the case. Assita Kanko is an author and politician, now based in Brussels, who was born and raised in Burkina Faso. Follow @Assita_Kanko on Twitter. Join our community of development professionals and humanitarians. Follow@ GDP on Twitter. Join the conversation with the hashtag #SheMatters.
Theranos could be banned from running labs for two years, regulators warn Troubled blood-testing startup Theranos could be banned from practicing for two years for failing to resolve major problems at its main laboratory in California, federal health regulators have warned. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), which monitors clinical lab standards among other things, wrote to Theranos management on 18 March notifying the company that it had 10 days to respond or would have its license revoked and its owners banned from running any lab. Theranos has responded to the letter, and the agency is considering its submission, the Wall Street Journal reported. A regulator’s inspection in January highlighted “immediate jeopardy to patient health and safety”, but Theranos has not resolved the issues raised, the letter claims. It addresses Theranos owners Elizabeth Holmes and Ramesh Balwani, and director Sunil Dhawan. “We find that the statements made in the allegation of compliance and evidence of correction: 1) failed to adequately address the deficient practice cited; 2) are incomplete and failed to meet the criteria of acceptable evidence of correction; 3) do not ensure sustained compliance; and 4) show a lack of the CLIA requirements.” It also said the laboratory’s allegation of compliance “is not acceptable”. A spokeswoman confirmed that Theranos did receive a letter from CMS on 18 March and that the company is in ongoing communication with the regulator. “We did respond within the 10 day timeframe. We have been working with regulators for two weeks and hope that they will not impose sanctions. If CMS decides to impose sanctions it will be made public almost immediately.” In October 2015, a detailed WSJ report claimed Theranos employees doubted the accuracy of its own tests, and the accuracy of its results have also been questions. Its technology claims to be able to perform blood tests but with a pinprick of blood, rather than a traditional blood draw. Theranos was previously one of Silicon Valley’s most highly prized startups, raising $800m in investment that valued the firm at $9bn and with a board of directors that includes Henry Kissinger.
Concussion review – American football drama makes a bad sport of Will Smith It’s what you’ll feel creeping up on you watching this. Enemies of Gerald Ford used to wisecrack that this un-intellectual president, a former football player, had taken too many tackles with his helmet off. Maybe Concussion will render that anecdote obsolete. Will Smith gives a borderline insufferable performance – the wrong side of the borderline – in a solemn and unsatisfying sports drama, in which his sonorous smiley saintliness is very much to the fore. It is based on the true story of Dr Bennet Omalu, a Nigerian pathologist in Pittsburgh who single-handedly challenged the powerful, corporate world of American football. He had evidence that, helmets or no helmets, the game is giving its players brain damage. Now, non-NFL believers in British cinemas might conclude: no shit, Mycroft. It certainly seems likely that it took a non-American outsider to challenge this US holy cow. But the movie passes over that obvious point, emphasising instead how passionately Omalu loves America, and the movie also has to say how great football is. So what did this struggle finally achieve? Stronger helmets? Tougher rules on contact? Uh, not exactly. We’re left with the supposedly inspiring personal journey of Omalu himself, and Smith’s performance is shallow, conceited and bland.
I’m Not With the Band: A Writer’s Life Lost in Music by Sylvia Patterson – review Before the myth-making, chin-stroking male became the prototype for the Music Writer (hello, Lester Bangs, Nick Kent and Greil Marcus), guess what? There were women. Back in March, Kate Mossman’s brilliant Radio 4 documentary, The Women Who Wrote Rock, took us back to Rave’s Dawn James and the NME’s Nancy Lewis, who described the stars of their day in everyday detail, without reverence or deference. After them came Julie Burchill, Lucy O’Brien, Miranda Sawyer, Alex Kadis, Amy Raphael, Lynsey Hanley, Barbara Ellen, the world-straddling Caitlin Moran, Kitty Empire, Laura Barton, Laura Snapes… I could go on. Female music journalists aren’t particularly rare. Look around. We’re here. Then there’s Sylvia Patterson, one of pop music’s most penetrating writers since 1986 – a working-class Scot who came down to London to work at its “swingorilliant” HQ: Smash Hits magazine. She describes their offices thus, in her 100mph prose: “a riotous open-plan explosion of Jiffy bags, cassette tapes, 12-inch and seven-inch cardboard envelopes housing vinyl delights and those brand new, state-of-the-art silver CDs, which everyone associated with the dullards’ favourite, Dire Straits”. Patterson’s not as well known as the Big Boys because she’s never puffed up her own talent, but also because she writes about pop, which serious souls still give a bad rap. This is utterly unjustified: Smash Hits was always critically switched on, never bowing before its high priests (behold the naming of Sir Paul “Fab Wacky Thumbs Aloft” McCartney), and it got artists talking about big issues as much as the fun stuff (I found out about Section 28 through an 1988 interview with the Pet Shop Boys, for example – I was 10 – as well as their thoughts on silly hats). Smash Hits’ crime, along with Patterson’s, was to be clever and funny at the same time. Fancy that. For all 427 pages of this often hilarious, often angry memoir, Patterson fillets out the pretentious bones of pop, leaving its glistening meat. At first glance, it’s a collection of bawdy, behind-the-scenes stories – and crivvens, as she’d say, the legal read must have been eye-watering. In 1986, Patterson pads out an interview with New Order’s sullen Bernard Sumner by mentioning being woken up by him and “two American foxtresses” (he has a wife at home, which Patterson doesn’t realise). She presents Primal Scream’s Bobby Gillespie memorably in 1992: “his jaw meandering around his alarmingly grey face as the ecstasy throbbed through his churning DNA”. She asks the newly married, religious Prince what he does “with an ill-timed erection these days”, and deems Damon Albarn “not only Blur’s but the actual era’s monumental pain in the arse”. Pop’s hypocrisy and bad behaviour are revealed in glorious technicolour. Many writers would run a mile. This is also a story about Patterson’s journey through the industry via music, style and women’s magazines, and she shows genuine humility when she writes about herself personally. “I didn’t have a clue what I was doing” is a regular refrain; she also writes with real sadness, at times, about her alcohol-swilling misadventures. The most affecting passages concern her family: the deaths of her father and older, disabled brother, Ronnie, along with her mother’s alcoholism. She writes about these situations directly, without fuss, and the effect is very powerful. “Note to those volatile families with anything to feel guilty about: make it better, if you possibly can, while they’re still alive,” she concludes, simply. In its final chapters, the book becomes an angry tale about music journalism’s decline, from her reaction to a 2001 NME cover featuring the word “Miami’, written in cocaine, on a model’s breasts (she includes a jaw-dropping resignation email written not long after the event), to her rage at the mocking commentators and Twitter trolls who drive pop culture now. I’m Not With the Band is a title that speaks volumes at this point more than ever – Patterson tells us where the music journalist should be, and what they should do, without filters. She should be held up as the prototype for the form’s future – a most swingorilliant one. I’m Not With the Band is published by Sphere (£18.99). Click here to buy it for £15.19
Brexit live: Michael Gove promises NHS extra £100m a week by 2020 in leadership bid launch Michael Gove has promised the NHS an extra £100m a week by 2020 at the launch of his bid to be the next Tory leader and prime minister. The Vote Leave campaign, masterminded by Gove, had pledged an extra £350m a week for the NHS. Gove also said he would end free movement, introduce an Australian-style points-based system for immigration and bring numbers down. Gove said he was a reluctant candidate but that he was “the best person to lead Britain out of the European Union”. Only five Tory MPs were at the launch despite previous reports that there had been a stampede of Johnson supporters turning to Gove. George Osborne has said Brexit means the government must abandon its plan for a budget surplus by 2020. The pledge to do so was a key lynchpin of his economic strategy. John McDonnell welcomed the move, which he and Jeremy Corbyn have been demanding for months, but said it should have been done sooner, condemning “failed Tory austerity”. Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, said the chancellor’s announcement meant more austerity spending cuts and tax rises in the next parliament. McDonnell has said that the free movement of people will come to an end as a result of Britain leaving the EU. In a speech outlining Labour’s post-Brexit plan, the shadow chancellor said that, in the interim, Labour needed to “consult with the British people on the nature of the relationship we have with regard to the free movement of people”. He said that this was not Labour’s position but “the formal reality as it stands”. The French president, François Hollande, has stepped up the pressure on the UK over its timetable to leave the EU, insisting that Brexit cannot be cancelled or delayed, and that Britain will have to live with the consequences. His hardline comments came after a meeting with David Cameron in northern France at the Battle of the Somme centenary commemorations. Germany’s foreign minister has vented his anger at David Cameron and Boris Johnson, blaming their rivalry for a referendum result that he says has damaged the European Union. Frank-Walter Steinmeier told the online version of the German magazine Der Spiegel: “What bothers me the most is that the two principal rivals of the Tories turned an inner-party conflict into a full-blown state and government crisis, and thereby damaged the European Union as a whole.” Arron Banks, the millionaire backer of Leave.EU, the campaign run by Ukip’s Nigel Farage, has backed Andrea Leadsom for Tory leader. Meanwhile, senior Tories Michael Fallon and Patrick McLoughlin have come out for Theresa May, who has also been backed by the Daily Mail. Ken Clarke attacked the “bizarre manoeuvrings” of Gove who he said “would do us all a favour if he were to stand down now”. Emily Thornberry has apologised to the Israeli embassy following the row over Jeremy Corbyn’s comments at the launch of Labour’s antisemitism review, a spokesman for the ambassador said. At the launch of the report, Corbyn appeared to many present to have compared Israel to Islamic extremists in prepared remarks. The text of the speech given by Corbyn had in fact referred to “Islamic states and organisations” but the remarks caused some offence. The Department for Education has published a message about how the referendum result affects it, including these paragraphs: There will be no immediate changes in the circumstances of European citizens living, studying or working in the UK – current arrangements will continue to apply to European pupils and their families, and to teachers, early years and social work professionals and all others who work with children. All schools will continue to play an important role in promoting the fundamental British values of mutual respect and tolerance for those of all backgrounds and faiths. We are clear that no child should live in fear of racism or bullying, and by law all schools must have a behaviour policy with measures to tackle bullying. Experts in NHS finances are a little confused by Michael Gove’s pledge of £100m a week more for the NHS, reports Denis Campbell, health policy editor for the and the : Nigel Edwards, the chief executive of the Nuffield Trust health thinktank, says: What are we to make of Michael Gove’s commitment? Given recent events we should scrutinise it closely. The £5.2bn a year he’s talking about is a context free number, and it raises some big questions. Does he mean £5.2bn on top of or instead of the £8bn extra by 2020 that the government has already pledged? Because if it’s £5.2bn instead of the £8bn then that obviously leaves us £2.8bn short of the £8bn we are expecting. Is it a real-terms increase or a cash increase? And does he mean [the money is for] England or the UK? If he means the extra money to go only to England then it would cost a lot more to give the rest of the UK an equivalent increase? And does he mean that the money should go only into the NHS or into the wider health budget, which includes public health, the training of health professionals and other things? In his pitch earlier for the leadership, Gove inferred – but did not say explicitly – that he saw his £5.2bn as additional to the £8bn David Cameron, George Osborne and Jeremy Hunt have already promised to give NHS England by 2020-21. He said: “I will take all the steps necessary to give the NHS at least another £100m per week by 2020.” It would be odd if he did not see the £5.2bn as genuinely extra funding, given what he said during the referendum campaign. Johnson also makes an appearance on the cover of First news, the weekly newspaper for young readers, in which he promises that children will have a great future in Europe. Interesting to see it in print this week. As Gaby Hinsliff was written, support for Johnson really started to fall away post Brexit vote away following his latest column for Monday’s Daily Telegraph, in which he “basically argued for a magical world of unicorns and rainbows.” There’s no mention of the unicorns or rainbows in that First News piece. Whether it would have been enough to stay the executioner’s hand is another matter. A familiar face stares out from the front cover of the latest issue of Newsweek, which has been overtaken somewhat by events. Worth a read for its placing of Brexit in a broader context: “A symptom of powerfully disruptive political forces that are far bigger than British politics.” Boris Johnson’s supporters continue to feel sore about Michael Gove’s ambush of their man’s leadership ambitions, meanwhile. A tweet from the political journalist Isabel Oakeshott: Perhaps a question arises: who in the Gove household bore ultimate responsibility for choosing the grass? Just on that, you might want to read Marina Hyde on the “UK Underwoods” - “a sort of metropolitan elite version of Christine and Neil Hamilton”. The chairman of the Treasury committee, the Tory MP Andrew Tyrie, has backed George Osborne’s abandonment of his policy of achieving a budget surplus by 2020. Tyrie said: “Any rule which required the Chancellor to adjust public spending or taxation twice a year to take account of small changes in the OBR’s forecasts was always likely to be vulnerable. To be credible it needed to be put in a longer-term framework.” “The Bank now has the crucial task of doing what it can to maintain stability – they may be at it for some time.” The government has answered Jo Cox’s final questions in parliament – which focused on protecting children who live in a war zone. Two days before her death, the Labour MP had pressed the Foreign Office to give its assessment of the United Nations’ decision to temporarily remove the Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen’s civil war from its blacklist of children’s rights violators. The Foreign Office minister Tobias Ellwood has since replied, with a government note on each answer stating: “This question was tabled before the sad death of the honourable lady but the subject remains important and the government’s response ought to be placed on the public record.” Read his answer here, where Ellwood said that the UN secretary general’s announcement has been noted by the UK, adding: “A political solution remains the best way to bring this conflict and the suffering of the Yemeni people to an end. “The UK government continues to support the work of the United Nations on children and armed conflict.” Cox, who developed a reputation as a champion of the vulnerable in conflict zones, also tabled two questions about military intervention in Yemen on 14 June. A post-Brexit UK government should respect a new EU deal designed to halve the number of premature deaths from air pollution, MEPs have said. The ’s Arthur Neslen reports: The draft directive agreed on Thursday sets national limits for emissions from five pollutants by 2030: sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, non-methane volatile organic compounds, ammonia and fine particulate matter. The Liberal Democrat MEP Catherine Bearder said: “This agreement to cut deadly air pollution will save thousands of lives throughout Europe every year. “The UK government must still commit to meeting these targets no matter what happens in the coming years. Brexit cannot be used as an excuse to water down environmental laws and become the dirty man of Europe again.” After that intervention by the German foreign minister, France’s president, François Hollande, has also stepped up the pressure on the UK over its timetable to leave the EU. He insisted that Brexit cannot be cancelled or delayed, and that Britain will have to live with the consequences. Hollande’s hardline comments came after a meeting with David Cameron in northern France at the Battle of the Somme centenary commemorations, where he told reporters: The decision has been taken; it cannot be delayed and it cannot be cancelled. Now [the British] have to face the consequences. “Being in the European Union has advantages,” added the president, alluding to voters who opted to leave but have since expressed regrets. And that’s ... what the British are starting to understand. Those who were tempted by the Brexit are starting to think it over. Speaking of tough times, here’s some video of that announcement earlier by George Osborne that he plans to abandon his policy of achieving a budget surplus by 2020, following the UK’s decision to leave the EU. The medical director of NHS England, Bruce Keogh, has thrown his backing behind overseas staff working in the NHS and expressed his total condemnation for the racist attitudes that have emerged since last week’s vote for Brexit. Rachel Pugh, for the , was listening to him speak and reports that he said: “Recent events have unleashed a cold wind of change and racist attitudes disguised as politics and as a result there are some in our NHS staff who feel less valued than they used to. We will not tolerate that in our NHS.” The campaigning organisation Our NHS has reported a 57% rise in racist incidents since the Brexit victory in the referendum last week. Sir Bruce feels that the general atmosphere has undergone an unwelcome change and made reference to a conversation this week with a senior surgical consultant from overseas, who revealed that he no longer feels welcome in the UK. Keogh warned that the NHS faces “really really tough times” in the next year because of the NHS’s financial settlement, compounded by the uncertainties created by the vote to leave the EU, which he said would lead to lower quality services, longer waiting lists and the need for “unsavoury questions about which services we can afford and which services we can not”. He forecast a period of “creative destruction” while the country and the NHS digests the impact of the referendum and works out how to keep the health service going in times of austerity by making efficiencies. Germany’s foreign minister has vented his anger at David Cameron and Boris Johnson, blaming their rivalry for a referendum result that he says has damaged the European Union. Frank-Walter Steinmeier told the online version of the German magazine Der Spiegel: What bothers me the most is that the two principal rivals of the Tories turned an inner-party conflict into a full-blown state and government crisis, and thereby damaged the European Union as a whole. And now, they leave the responsibility for the consequences with others. There was more in the same interview from Steinmeier, who said he couldn’t see how last week’s referendum decision to leave the EU could be ignored. He added: What we can expect from London, and quickly, is a timetable for when exit negotiations with the EU are supposed to begin and how the British foresee these negotiations. George Osborne has been taking part in the Somme commemorations, pledging to give £500,000 raised from the fines from the Libor scandal to help preserve graves. The British Medical Association has warned Michael Gove against using his pledge of £100m a week more for the NHS as “a false bribe to attract voters” and warned that the £5.2bn a year involved is small beer compared to the service’s projected £22bn deficit by 2020. Dr Mark Porter, the chair of council (leader) of the BMA, which represents 170,000 of Britain’s 250,000 doctors, said: The NHS must not be used as a political football, as we have seen so often. There is a clear public appetite for extra NHS funding, but this shouldn’t be used as a false bribe to attract voters. We must also be clear that even £100m per week would fill less than a quarter of the funding shortfall created by the current government. The next prime minister must outline a clear and achievable plan to support the NHS and deliver on any promises made on NHS funding. In the wake of last week’s vote they must also provide clarity and reassurance for the many thousands of EU citizens working in the health service, without whom the NHS could not survive. Sadiq Khan has said the three water cannon bought by the former mayor Boris Johnson for more than £200,000 will be sold off without ever being used. The home secretary, Theresa May, blocked the deployment of the equipment, and joked about it as she launched her leadership speech yesterday, saying: “Boris negotiated in Europe. I seem to remember last time he did a deal with the Germans, he came back with three nearly new water cannon.” Khan said the city was paying for storage space for the cannon, despite not being able to use them, and said they would be sold to pay for new youth services. One of the deals Boris Johnson managed to do with the Germans was to buy three water cannon. What I’m going to do is sell them and use the money for youth services. This shows the inability of Boris Johnson to get a good deal – second hand, paid almost a quarter of a million pounds. We want to get rid of them. We are paying for storage facilities for these water cannon – that beggars belief. Spotted earlier on a train to the south-west, Boris Johnson has arrived now, greeted by protesters and hecklers in Tiverton. He’s there to honour a longstanding engagement to speak at a Conservative party lunch hosted by the local MP Neil Parish (who is now backing Andrea Leadsom). And despite the high drama of his announcement yesterday, he is here to keep his word. The local Express and Echo is running a live blog of the visit – and captures the moment the former mayor was grabbed for a selfie by a protester, who asked him to “say hi to my friend who has been racially abused”. He then calls Johnson “a massive child”. This is the moment Boris Johnson was heckled as he left the house this morning, by a man who asked him: “What have you done to this country?” “Seems alright to me,” the mayor responded. ++ SPOILER WARNING ++ This will amuse some Game of Thrones fans. Michael Gove was asked what character in the HBO he saw himself as being most like. The justice secretary previously said his favourite was Tyrion Lannister, the intelligent, wise-cracking dwarf who is sharp on political manoeuvring. He declined this morning to liken himself to a character in the show, saying he didn’t want to spoil the plot for colleagues. But one MP, Ben Wallace, had a comparison to make. Wallace was a key backer of Boris Johnson. Theon Greyjoy was raised by a great house, the Starks, but betrayed his adopted family for personal gain and overthrows their ancestral home. He is eventually crushed, undergoes prolonged torture, castrated, and ends up derided even by his birth family. No hard feelings from the Boris camp, obviously. Owen Paterson, the former environment secretary, is backing Andrea Leadsom. He’s written why he’s supporting Leadsom in a piece for the Telegraph. The next prime minister has a crystal-clear mandate to bring us fully out of the EU and back on to the world stage where we belong. I believe there is one person who can fulfil this mandate. One woman who understands out means out. One woman who has an optimistic vision for our future. One woman who would be the first prime minister in 26 years with a solid understanding of economics needed to steer our economy competently and confidently. As a businesswomen, a mother and an exemplary local MP, she has acquired a true understanding of the needs and aspirations of the people up and down the land. Michael Gove has promised the NHS an extra £100m a week by 2020 at the launch of his bid to be the next Tory leader and prime minister. The Vote Leave campaign, masterminded by Gove, had pledged an extra £350m a week for the NHS. Gove also said he would end free movement, introduce an Australian-style points-based system for immigration and bring numbers down. Gove said he was a reluctant candidate but that he was “the best person to lead Britain out of the European Union”. Only five Tory MPs were at the launch despite previous reports that there had been a stampede of Johnson supporters turning to Gove. George Osborne has said Brexit means the government must abandon its plan for a budget surplus by 2020. The pledge to do so was a key lynchpin of his economic strategy. John McDonnell welcomed the move, which he and Jeremy Corbyn have been demanding for months, but said it should have been done sooner, condemning “failed Tory austerity”. Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, said the chancellor’s announcement meant more austerity spending cuts and tax rises in the next parliament. McDonnell has said that the free movement of people will come to an end as a result of Britain leaving the EU. In a speech outlining Labour’s post-Brexit plan, the shadow chancellor said that, in the interim, Labour needed to “consult with the British people on the nature of the relationship we have with regard to the free movement of people”. He said that this was not Labour’s position but “the formal reality as it stands”. Arron Banks, the millionaire backer of Leave.EU, the campaign run by Ukip’s Nigel Farage, has backed Andrea Leadsom for Tory leader. Meanwhile, senior Tories Michael Fallon and Patrick McLoughlin have come out for Theresa May, who has also been backed by the Daily Mail. Ken Clarke attacked the “bizarre manoeuvrings” of Gove who he said “would do us all a favour if he were to stand down now”. Emily Thornberry has apologised to the Israeli embassy following the row over Jeremy Corbyn’s comments at the launch of Labour’s antisemitism review, a spokesman for the ambassador said. At the launch of the report, Corbyn appeared to many present to have compared Israel to Islamic extremists in prepared remarks. The text of the speech given by Corbyn had in fact referred to “Islamic states and organisations” but the remarks caused some offence. Michael Gove’s clear hint that he could scrap the Barnett formula, the Treasury system which fixes Scotland’s budget, and change the fiscal framework under the Scotland Act has brought a furious response from the Scottish National party. Mike Russell, a long-serving Scottish government minister and now convenor of Holyrood’s finance committee, has accused Gove of threatening to rip up a deal only recently signed by the UK government, to guarantee a fair funding deal for Holyrood to underpin Scotland’s new tax raising powers. That deal, the fiscal framework, was agreed in February after some intense and bitter negotiating between the two governments, where the deal came to the brink of collapse. “It’s absolutely outrageous that a prospective prime minister is now using a Leave vote to imply that Scotland’s budget could be slashed – just months after the Tories agreed a new financial settlement for Scotland,” Russell said. At his Tory leadership campaign launch, Gove said he saw the Brexit vote as a “chance to renew and reboot the union. I think we need to explore how we can develop a fairly funded, flexible and robust union for our new circumstances – and I will work across political divides, with respect, to build that new union.” Despite’s Gove pledge to work “across political divides” on any new deal, his implied threat to cut Holyrood’s funding will very quickly fuel demands for a second Scottish independence vote, and widen the gulf between Scottish and English voters. Russell said all Tory leadership candidates should publicly pledge to honour the fiscal framework agreement since earlier this year by George Osborne, the chancellor, and he urged Ruth Davidson, the Scottish Tory leader, to “condemn these undemocratic factions within her own party looking for any excuse to hammer Scotland”. My colleague Joanna Ruck has spotted Boris Johnson this afternoon, on a rainy train to the south-west. And he appears to be making copious handwritten notes. He’s sitting hunched over furiously handwriting notes on sheets of paper. Everyone on the train is walking open-mouthed past him. This is the full report from McDonnell’s speech earlier, where he warned that free movement of people around the European Union would end with Brexit. Asked how this might change Labour’s policy on immigration, which is seen as having lost the party votes in former heartland areas, McDonnell said: “Let’s be absolutely clear on the immigration issue. If Britain leaves the European Union, the free movement of people, of labour, will then come to an end.” John McDonnell MP, the shadow chancellor who gave his own speech earlier on the economic effects of Brexit, has welcomed George Osborne’s decision to drop his surplus target by 2020, because of the economic uncertainty. The party says this is “after nine months of pressure from the Labour leadership” and McDonnell says it is a “shame he was not realistic sooner” about the surplus. There were no credible economists that could be found to support the chancellor’s surplus target in the first place. And we are not dropping our Fiscal Credibility Rule as it’s robust and flexible enough to provide the investment our economy needs. The truth is, as Labour consistently warned, George Osborne’s recovery built on sand was underpinned by a fiscal rule that is not robust or flexible enough to equip our economy for any potential shocks it may face or to provide the investment that our economy so clearly needs. We now need the chancellor to inform us what evidence he has had passed from the OBR, as working families need to be reassured and a plan put in place. He should now lay out a programme of government investment and support for businesses, bringing forward shovel-ready projects particularly in those areas hardest hit by long-term economic decline. Here’s the full story on that announcement today by Osborne. Boris Johnson has been doorstepped on his way out of his Islington home this morning. “I cannot, unfortunately, get on with doing what I wanted to do, so it’ll be up to somebody else now,” he told the Press Association. This from their report: Speaking to reporters outside his London home, he said it would be “up to the next government” to implement Brexit and “up to the next prime minister” as to whether he gets a job in the new administration. The next prime minister “can’t be me, as I explained yesterday”, he said. He dismissed as “rubbish” accusations from a heckler that he had put his own interests first. Michael Gove has never been on Twitter before, but times are changing fast and his leadership campaign’s official profile has more than 500 followers already. His biography calls him: “Father, husband, MP for Surrey Heath, QPR fan & Leave campaigner. 2016 Conservative leadership candidate. #Gove2016”. Here’s the verdict from the assembled Fleet Street corps at Gove’s campaign launch. From the ’s Anushka Asthana, on Gove’s record. From the Sunday Times’s Tim Shipman, on the content of the speech. From the Mail’s Quentin Letts. Sky’s Faisal Islam on Gove’s challenge to May. Jim Waterson, from Buzzfeed, on being an authentic Brexiteer. From the Telegraph’s sketch writer Michael Deacon, on Gove’s bashfulness. This from the Telegraph’s Christopher Hope, on the absence of supporters. The justice secretary says he never wanted to stand for the leadership. He knows there are several recorded interviews where he says this. He addresses his apparent midnight change-of-heart by saying it was the public profile of the job, rather than the job description, that made him feel ill-suited. I never thought I’d ever be in this position. I did not want it, indeed I did almost everything not be a candidate for the leadership of this party I was so very reluctant because I know my limitations. Whatever charisma is I don’t have it, whatever glamour may be I don’t think anyone could ever associate me with it. But – at every step in my political life – I’ve asked myself one question. What is the right thing to do. There is a clear line Gove is sticking to over Boris Johnson, that the team he was building was not the appropriate one. He repeats this again here. I believed that Boris Johnson - who had campaigned alongside me with such energy and enthusiasm - could build and lead that team. I wanted that plan to work. I worked night and day for it. But I came to realise this week that, for all Boris’s formidable talents, he was not the right person for the task. I had to stand up for my convictions. I had to stand up for a different course for this country. I had to stand for the leadership of this party. This is Gove’s big pitch to the party, especially those tempted to vote for Theresa May. The country voted for no more politics as usual. No more business as usual. I am the candidate for change. Key pledges by Gove over Brexit include ending free movement, but most bold is his pledge to spend more, including on the NHS. A bold move, in this new economic climate. I will end free movement, introduce an Australian-style points-based system for immigration, and bring numbers down. With my leadership, it will be delivered. The promise to use the money we currently send to Brussels and invest it instead on the priorities of the British people – principally in the NHS – and to cut VAT on domestic fuel. With my leadership, it will be delivered. I stand by the promises that we made. Gove’s pitch is that after a vote for Brexit in the EU referendum, the next prime minister must be a whole-hearted believer in the project. Theresa May was a Remainer, though hardly the bloc’s most vociferous defender. I believe the next prime minister has to be on the winning side of the argument. Put simply: the best person to lead Britain out of the European Union is someone who argued to get Britain out of the European Union. That is best for the country – to retain the trust of millions of voters – and it is best for the Conservative party too. Gove, who was raised in Aberdeen, is one of the first to take the question of the United Kingdom head-on in his speech. He hints at a new deal for the Scottish parliament, which could be forged after EU regulations are stripped from farming and fisheries, but said later in questions he did not believe there would be a new Scottish referendum. The SNP will be worried about that “fairly funded” line. Gove has in the past made clear he believes Scotland receives too generous a settlement. This referendum has led to questions about how we stay together in one United Kingdom – and for me, in every sense, this is about family. The vote to leave the European Union gives us the chance to renew and reboot the union. I think we need to explore how we can develop a fairly funded, flexible and robust union for our new circumstances – and I will work across political divides, with respect, to build that new union. The pledge to spend £350m on the NHS was one of the most talked about of the campaign. Even if campaigners never specifically said this, they rode on a bus which said: “We send £350m a week to the EU, let’s fund our NHS instead.” Many campaigners have rowed back on that pledge, including Nigel Farage. Gove emphatically does not. Government has got to invest more money in our NHS. The people who work in it are heroic. They do an amazing job. But we need to face the fact that we need more money in order to deliver Jeremy Hunt’s absolutely correct drive to guarantee even better standards of care. I will put my heart and soul into making sure that the care your son or daughter or mum or dad receives is the same I would want for my own family. Which is why I will take all the steps necessary to give the NHS at least another £100m per week by 2020. George Osborne has been speaking to business leaders in Manchester, where he essentially abandoned his plans to return the public finances to surplus by 2020. “Now, as the governor of the Bank of England said yesterday, the referendum result is as expected likely to lead to a significant negative shock for the British economy. “How we respond will determine the impact on people’s jobs and on economic growth. The Bank of England can support demand. “The government must provide fiscal credibility, so we will continue to be tough on the deficit but we must be realistic about achieving a surplus by the end of this decade. This is precisely the flexibility that our rules provide for. “And we need to reduce uncertainty by moving as quickly as possible to a new relationship with Europe and being super competitive, open for business and free trading. That’s the plan and we must set to it.” Gove says he started writing the speech yesterday morning, and says it is so long “because it’s me”. He denies having written it any earlier. He says his wife Sarah Vine did not urge him to stand, despite the inference in the leaked email she sent before his meeting with Johnson, but she was supportive. Gove is asked about whether he met George Osborne at the Tory summer ball before announcing his candidacy. To paraphrase my favourite prime minister. No, no, no. He misses the rest of Christopher Hope’s question on whether EU migrants would have to leave Britain. Which is a pity. Gove says he has no expectation of article 50 being triggered by the end of this calendar year. He doesn’t actually put a timetable on it at all. He says he will not speculate on any further jobs for fellow MPs, including Boris Johnson. Gove says he will ask those who doubt his trustworthiness to look at his plans for the country. The thing that matters most [in a leader] is are they able to take the most difficult decisions? Gove is asked about the threat to the United Kingdom from a Scotland split. We have got to be realistic, Scotland voted differently and that has to respected. If you want a prime minister who understands and believes in Scotland … then I can do that. Michael Gove is asked if Dominic Cummings will have a job in Downing Street. No. He is asked by the Sun’s Harry Cole if he has spoken to George Osborne about his support. Gove says he hasn’t made any promises to any other politicians. Huffington Post’s Paul Waugh asks if migration needs to come down to under tens of thousands, and if he plans a general election. Gove says numbers need to come down but the number cannot be met before leaving the EU. He says no general election before 2020. Gove is taking questions now, asked by the BBC’s Nick Watt about the £350m figure. He says that is the gross figure and he stands by it. I don’t take back anything I said in that campaign. He is asked about his judgment of Boris Johnson, and says he campaigned with passion. Gove says he decided over the course of the last week, trying to build the team, that it had become clear he could not recommend that Johnson should be prime minister. He is asked if Theresa May can be prime minister. Gove says she would be “formidable” but says he believes the next prime minister should be someone who campaigned for Brexit. This is a high-stakes pledge, but one Gove repeatedly made during the Vote Leave campaign, taken from the £350m-a-week figure sent to Brussels. It is worth repeating that the figure is highly disputed, and has been disavowed even by Nigel Farage. Michael Gove has certainly won the battle for the longest leadership manifesto. His speech is almost half an hour long. Gove addresses the potential for a Scottish referendum, and says we need to explore a robust union for our “new circumstances”. He says the United Kingdom “matters so much to us all”. He says he was born in Scotland, with children in London and a wife born in Wales, and the United Kingdom is “like family”. Crucial points here from Gove on his Brexit strategy. I will end free movement, introduce an Australian-style points system and bring numbers down. With my leadership, it will be delivered. Analysis: This is not a pledge to bring net migration down to tens of thousands. I will stand by the mandate from this campaign, Gove says. He says money will go from the EU payments to public services and to reduce VAT on fuel. That will be delivered too. Gove said the country voted for change, “no more business as usual” from the current team. That is why I am standing, as the candidate for change. This will be the hallmark of his challenge to Theresa May. Gove said he believed Boris Johnson could build and lead that team for the country. For all Boris’s formidable talents, he was not the right person for that task, he said. I had to stand up for my convictions. I had to stand for the leadership of this party. Gove says the UK economy is on firm foundations, and Britain is in a fine position to respond to the change in relationship with the European Union. He says there are “tremendous opportunities ahead” when politicians listen to the people who voted last week. They voted for a new direction, he says. I am standing for one reason alone, for this country I love … to embrace this change. Gove says he did everything he could to avoid having to stand for leader. But he says he has to follow what is the right thing to do, what does my heart tell me? That is how he faced the question of the European Union referendum, he says. I did not want it, I did almost everything I could not to be in this position. I don’t have glamour or charisma. It was not easy, he says, because he parted company with his friend David Cameron. “It was a wrench, but politicians are paid to lay out their beliefs with conviction,” he says. I have held this position on this issue for more than 20 years. It is not ideal timing, giving broadcasters the choice of whether to cut away from the Somme memorial in France. He is introduced by Nick Boles, his close ally. Reporters say few Tory MPs have come to the launch to support Gove. More than half of all Britons believe the country’s position in the world has got worse and 54% believe the economy has got worse since the Brexit vote, a poll by Opinium has found. The results of the poll found 7% of leave voters now regret their decision, and a clear majority, 60%, believe there should be a general election before article 50 is invoked and negotiations begin with the EU. A third say immigration controls should be the number one issue but 37% insist staying in the single market is the most important factor. McDonnell has said he will never stand to be leader of the Labour party. But that is, of course, what Michael Gove said about the Tories until yesterday. McDonnell appeals for former shadow ministers to come back and join Corbyn’s team again. He says it is “not a time to stand down” during the Conservative leadership race. My colleague Peter Walker will be sending a full report from the speech shortly. McDonnell is now taking questions from reporters. He is asked if Labour would vote down leaving the EU in the Commons. McDonnell says Labour should respect the result, the party should consider the negotiation on the table. McDonnell is asked how his plan is relevant without the support of MPs. He says Corbyn will take part in any Labour leadership contest and says he hopes MPs would respect the result, and mentions the need for stability. He says he expects a leadership challenge in the next few days. My colleague Peter Walker asks if disloyal MPs could be de-selected, but McDonnell says no they won’t. He says he is confident that MPs will unite behind the leader. McDonnell says he will chair a Corbyn leadership campaign and says he hopes it will bring in new members. McDonnell says he wants to be absolutely clear on immigration. After the UK leaves the EU “free movement of labour and people will come to an end”. Anti-immigration feeling stemmed from austerity and economic uncertainty, he says, which Labour also needs to confront. This line from McDonnell is telling. There is no appetite from McDonnell to contest the next election on a platform of staying in the EU, the shadow chancellor implied in his speech today. The party’s red lines are free trade in the single market and that no EU nationals in the UK now will have their rights affected in future. There is no mention of campaigning to preserve free movement rights across Europe. Arron Banks, the millionaire-backer of Leave.EU, the campaign run by Ukip’s Nigel Farage, has backed Andrea Leadsom for Tory leader, retweeting several positive articles and tweets about the energy minister. We’ll be following John McDonnell’s speech on Labour’s post-Brexit plan from 10am, which is happening on the South Bank. There’s no livestream directly from the hall, but my colleague Peter Walker is reporting from the event. Theresa May and Michael Gove might be described as the frontrunners, but Andrea Leadsom is currently 5/1 - the same odds as the justice secretary. Whatever Leadsom thought of Gove’s decision to run, and Johnson’s alleged hesitancy in promising her a top job, she was keeping her opinions to herself on Good Morning Britain. In the end I felt it was better to put my own name forward, because you do need a choice of candidates and it seemed to me that we might end up with only one candidate who had actually supported the Leave campaign. I was thinking about it all the way through, but I was also thinking about what is in the interests of the country, because to me the clear priority is to deliver on the referendum. We have been given an instruction. We now have to get a grip and get on with it. The new PM, she said “has to be someone who really believes that the UK will be better off once we leave the EU”. Offers of a job from May were “a long way off … I am in it to be the prime minister.” Here are some of the most interesting lines from the Mail’s endorsement of Theresa May, a front page which surely will have caused some ruction in the Gove household this morning. It seems the Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre and his team were unimpressed with the justice secretary’s actions yesterday. This was, surely, one of the most unedifying days in modern politics. A day of treachery and opportunism on both sides of the chamber. A day in which the currency of political discourse was devalued still further. The paper’s endorsement so soon in the race, when Gove has even yet to launch his campaign, will have come as a surprise. In normal circumstances, this paper would hesitate to declare its hand before the closing stages of such a contest. But whatever these times may be, they are anything but normal. The Mail believes only Mrs May has the right qualities, the stature and experience to unite both her party and the country – and possibly usher in a new, cleaner, more honest kind of politics. Here, too, are digs at the political methods of Johnson and Gove. She does not belong to the Westminster chumocracy, which has corrupted our politics with jobs for flatmates and cronies. If she wins this contest, we can be confident that those she promotes will be chosen on merit alone by this living embodiment of meritocracy. Above all, she is not a believer in gimmicks, focus groups or conjuring policies out of the air, twisting and turning to feed the 24-hour news cycle. And if she can introduce a new, more serious, more truthful politics, she will be thanked by millions of Britons who are utterly disenchanted with the political process. The words for Gove are not brutal, but his methods are called into question. With the best will in the world, we cannot see Mr Gove as a prime minister for these turbulent times. A great irony of his surprise decision to throw his hat into the leadership ring yesterday is that in the very act of doing so, he raised question marks over the qualities so many have come to admire in him: consistency, strict adherence to principle and, yes, trustworthiness. Gove, the paper says, would be better suited to chief negotiator for Brexit. This paper has enormous respect for Mr Gove. He can claim a large measure of the credit for the result, which this paper remains convinced was the right one for our country and Europe. An interesting result in a local byelection. The Liberal Democrats have defeated the Tories to take a council seat in Mole Valley, by a very large swing. Yiftah Curiel, spokesman for the Israeli ambassador, Mark Regev, said that the shadow foreign secretary, Emily Thornberry, had apologised to the embassy following the completion of Labour’s antisemitism review. At the launch of the report, Jeremy Corbyn appeared to many present to have compared Israel to Islamic extremists in prepared remarks. The text of the speech given by Corbyn had in fact referred to “Islamic states and organisations” but the remarks caused some offence at an event that was intended to be reassurance over the party’s position on antisemitism. Dominic Raab, the leave campaigner and Tory minister, wrote a piece in the Sun on Thursday praising Boris Johnson, calling him the Heineken man of politics (reaching parts other politicians can’t). But by the morning the paper was published, he had switched support to Michael Gove. I don’t think he’s wanted this but I think he’s seen, as preparations for the leadership contest have developed, he’s the candidate that can deliver the two things we need – a ‘change’ candidate, someone with a vision, and also someone with a proven record of delivery. They are the two golden ingredients. Raab said that they had tried to get a “team ticket around Boris … which frayed and ebbed away” and said the anger around Gove’s perceived treachery was “pantomime”. He said it was not a surprise Ken Clarke did not want to see “the most pro-Brexit candidate” as leader. (I’m sure Liam Fox might quibble over that description). There’s a lot of raw nerves around. I don’t even completely know what’s happened when I’m picking through the bones of the newspapers but I can see through the mist that we’ve got a critical choice ahead and I think Michael Gove is the change candidate with the track record to deliver. Liam Fox, himself a leadership candidate, criticised Johnson and Gove for their “Oxford Union politics” in a Radio 4 Today programme interview. We are now 10 weeks away from having a new prime minister, we’re in the process of electing a prime minister who will actually take us out of the European Union, and yet we seem to be permanently distracted by what can only be described as the politics of the Oxford Union in recent days. I think it was a distraction. We need Brexit for grown-ups and we need to be talking about the big issues. He said there was no room for membership of the single market if it meant free movement of people. Conservative leadership candidates should not be talking about who betrayed whom. We need to be talking about our aims, our trading positions, what our security relationship will be, also what domestic changes we will have to make. How will we have to restructure our government? How will we have to change Whitehall? We’ll have to introduce, for example, a department of trade. Ken Clarke, the Tory grandee, has come out strongly against Michael Gove. The pro-EU Clarke told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: Michael Gove would do us all a favour if he were to stand down now and speed up the process … all the serious candidates need to set out carefully how we would leave the EU without causing serious damage to the economy. That is the big serious question obscured by the bizarre manoeuvrings of Michael Gove.” Clarke did not go so far as to endorse Theresa May – or any of the five candidates – but said she was “certainly in the right class of contenders”. My colleague Jessica Elgot is now taking over. Senior Tories Michael Fallon and Patrick McLoughlin have come out for Theresa May. Fallon said: As defence secretary, I’ve worked closely with Theresa on security and she is the right person to steer Britain through the serious challenges we now face. Theresa is the best person to lead our exit from the EU so that we reduce immigration and regain sovereignty while protecting our hard won economic growth. McLoughlin, the transport secretary, writing in the Sun, said May would be able to do the required deals in Brussels in the complex negotiations to extricate the UK from the EU. We know that the next prime minister needs to forge a deal from the EU as we shape our brighter future in the rest of the world. And her track record shows that when Theresa arrives in Brussels, Europe’s bosses sit up and listen. Jeremy Corbyn has insisted that he retains the support of Labour members – as opposed to the parliamentary party – but this could be waning, according to YouGov. It says its most recent poll for the Times shows support among members is fading fast, and 52% think he performed badly during the referendum campaign. Since Corbyn’s victory last September YouGov research has consistently shown that Labour party members have stuck by their leader. In fact, it has been conventional wisdom in Westminster that Corbyn’s support amongst the Labour membership is rock solid. However, our most recent poll for the Times, carried out entirely after the Brexit vote last Thursday, shows that opinions are shifting fast – his net job approval is reduced to +3, down from +45 just last month. Meanwhile, Ed Miliband’s former adviser, Tom Baldwin, is the latest Labour figure urging the Labour leader to go. He told ITV’s Good Morning Britain: He does not have the support of MPs, he does not have the support of MEPs, he does not have the support of Labour councillors. He cannot lead the party or MPs any more, but if he goes into a leadership election he may well be re-elected by those members. In these circumstances a responsible leader, someone who has the party’s interests at heart, has to recognise he can no longer lead. Good morning and welcome to our coverage of the ructions within the Conservative and Labour parties as Britain grapples with the consequences of the EU referendum. Today, the justice secretary, Michael (Brutus) Gove, who knifed Boris Johnson, is scheduled to set out his vision for Britain. Theresa May, the home secretary – I just get on with the job – has the backing of about 70 MPs. George Osborne, the chancellor, is to speak to a business audience in Manchester. In the Labour camp, the shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, is speaking to a business audience at the Royal Festival Hall in London as Jeremy Corbyn tries to hang on despite the hostility of his fellow MPs. Meanwhile, here is a recap of yesterday’s Shakespearean drama. The Great Betrayal There was only one story in town on Thursday – and its ramifications will continue to be felt for some time to come. The ’s lead is headlined “The betrayal: Boris cannot provide the leadership for the task ahead.” “I respect and admire all the candidates running for the leadership. In particular, I wanted to help build a team behind Boris Johnson so that a politician who argued for leaving the European Union could lead us to a better future,” Michael Gove said. “But I have come, reluctantly, to the conclusion that Boris cannot provide the leadership or build the team for the task ahead.” Gaby Hinsliff notes that Michael made an odd assassin – but then Boris was a strange Caesar. The Sun is full of juicy detail and contains the claim that Andrea Leadsom, one of the Tory contenders, was on board to be Johnson’s chancellor – but Team Boris screwed up delivering her a note and failed to send a key tweet. The Telegraph suggests Osborne had a hand in the “cuckoo plot” and that Gove and he met weekly throughout the campaign. The reports the consternation caused by the Gove announcement among MPs and supporters of May who had gathered at the launch of her bid. Runners and riders Now that Gove has forced his old friend out of the Conservative leadership race, he and the four remaining candidates have embarked on a frantic bid to win the support of MPs. Peter Walker takes a look at the CVs – and chances – of the frontrunner Theresa May, Andrea Leadsom, Stephen Crabb and Liam Fox. The former Liberal Democrat business secretary Vince Cable quips: Labour leadership Angela Eagle had been expected to announce a challenge to Jeremy Corbyn for the Labour leadership on Thursday, but in the end that did not materialise. Battle of the Somme commemorations Royals including the Prince of Wales, Duchess of Cornwall, Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry will attend events in France on Friday to mark the centenary of the Battle of the Somme. The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry will open the new Thiepval Memorial to the Missing visitors centre. David Cameron will also attend the Battle of the Somme centenary service on what is the first day of July, by the way. What the papers say Apart from the Sun’s Brexecuted splash (not bad, we admit), the sensation is the decision by the Daily Mail to come out swinging for Theresa May with a puff that occupies about half the front page. The Mail, of course, counts Sarah Vine – Mrs Gove – as a star columnist. The decision could make life slightly difficult for both her and the Mail’s editor, Paul Dacre. Thought for the day We know you’ve had a lot of Boris Johnson today, but we’ve saved the best for last: If the battle for the Tory leadership was a play or a film … Betrayal by Harold Pinter with the screen version starring Ben Kingsley and Jeremy Irons, with that memorable scene when Kingsley confronts his great friend Irons over the latter’s affair with his wife. It’s not politics, but the great theme is betrayal.
José Mourinho admits to nerves before league return with Manchester United José Mourinho admitted he had suffered a bout of pre-match nerves before his return to the Premier League as manager of Manchester United as his team kick-started a new era with a comfortable win at Bournemouth. Zlatan Ibrahimovic scored on his English top-flight debut, adding to earlier goals from Juan Mata and Wayne Rooney, as the visitors overcame a rusty opening to impose themselves at the Vitality Stadium. Mourinho had lost to Eddie Howe’s side as manager of Chelsea last season, losing his job just 12 days after Glenn Murray’s goal had secured an eye-catching win at Stamford Bridge, but his first experience of life in the Premier League away from the London club proved more palatable. Asked if he had been nervous before his return to the division, Mourinho said: “To be honest, yes a little bit before the game. But for somebody with so many years in football, to have that feeling is normal. I never forget coming with Real Madrid to Old Trafford and asking Sir Alex if he was still nervous, and he just said: ‘Yes.’ I understand these things never change. Experience helps with many things but it’s good to have a little feeling. “But I’m really happy now. We prepared really well for the game and knew they would press us high with intensity in those first 15 to 20 minutes, so we had to have control. After that we had to play and, in the second half, we were very fluent and it was almost the complete performance. From a good collective performance came some very good individual performances, too, so I’m very happy.” Ibrahimovic’s goal, scored from distance just after the hour mark, maintained a remarkable record of having registered on debut in Serie A, La Liga, Ligue 1, the Champions League and now the Premier League. There was encouragement to be had, too, in Rooney opening his account, Eric Bailly’s impressive display at centre-half and Luke Shaw’s first top-flight game in 11 months, with this a victory underlying the potential of a squad who are yet to integrate the world-record £93m signing, Paul Pogba, who missed this match through suspension, into the midfield. “You are always optimistic,” said Rooney. “You always believe that you can win titles, but I think we have made a real statement ahead of this season by bringing Zlatan in, Paul Pogba, Bailly and [Henrikh] Mkhitaryan to improve our team. We also have a successful manager who has won trophies everywhere he has been. So there is excitement not only with ourselves but with fans, and we can sense that.” “Everybody knows we are going to fight for the title,” added Mourinho. “Win it or not win it is a different story. But everyone knows we are going to try. We don’t hide in our words or our approach, so we are going to fight until it’s possible. If one day it’s not mathematically possible then we’ll think about top four, which would be one step ahead of last season which would be fine. But we want more than fine. We want to fight for the title.”
Was my deaf baby 'disabled'? If so, I felt an overwhelming urge to fix her Laura’s first word wasn’t “mama” or “dada” – it was “up”. I couldn’t believe my ear at first (I’m profoundly deaf on one side). Our baby, implanted with cochlear implants at 11 months old, was now talking. That first word came at 15 months. I’d spent the last 14 months crouched on the carpet trying to coax any sound at all to issue from her lips. Like a spectre of the future, this first word predicted her language trajectory over the next year: her vocabulary exploded to over 400 words by the age of two. She is now three, blue-eyed, blonde-haired, with an annoying tendency to sing Disney songs when I’m on the freeway. Her language is “in normal range” – this means she speaks as any other hearing three year old might speak. It also means I can stop and reflect on what just happened. I don’t think I breathed for the first two years of her life; it was a blur of medical appointments, bad news, waiting rooms, “auditory brainstem response” caps larded with electrodes, and more bad news. Then there is the conflict that ate away at me for months: was this cherubic little person “disabled”? If so, I felt an overwhelming compulsion to “fix” her. Here’s the rub: members of the deaf community don’t see being deaf as a “pathology” in need of a “cure”. If you’re going to implant, the message goes, wait until the child is old enough to decide for themselves – out of nappies at least. As the author Andrew Solomon wrote about deaf politics in Far From The Tree, his book about identity: Many Deaf activists contend that cochlear implants are a genocidal attempt to destroy and eliminate the Deaf community. Some have compared pediatric implantation to invasive surgeries, like those used to ‘correct’ Intersex conditions. But having grown up being called retarded because I couldn’t hear large parts of what people said, my experience was that it is a disadvantage. And Laura’s hearing was worse than mine; she wouldn’t just get bullied on the bus, she would never even speak. A great change has swept deaf culture in the last six years. The change is most dramatic among babies who are born profoundly deaf, like Laura: these children no longer grow up learning to sign or attend deaf schools. They are detected by sophisticated equipment within days of birth, given cochlear implants before 12 months of age, and learn to talk. Their parents decide to “fix” them. Although they are not 100% successful in all babies, the medical literature suggests that most children implanted before 12 months of age develop normal language skills at a rate that is comparable to normal-hearing children. Babies have a “critical window” to acquire fluent speech post implant and it starts to close after 12 months of age. That is why over 86% of parents nationwide are now choosing to implant early. Research like this was also the impetus behind the multi-million dollar Universal Newborn Hearing Screening Program, rolled out across all states and territories in December 2010. Cochlear implants, which can cost up to $50,000 per side including the device, surgery, and rehabilitation, are now both funded and prioritised for all eligible Australian babies. Adults can face a wait of one to three years, but then again, adults don’t have a “critical window”. Australia-wide, the percentage of hearing-impaired babies fitted with “hearing aids or implants” before 12 months of age according to Hearing Australia was 86%. In some parts of Australia – namely Victoria – cochlear implantation in deaf babies is approaching 100%. The deaf community could see this coming, and have been protesting against cochlear implantation for many years. “Deaf Australia feels great concern about the fact that deaf children are undergoing cochlear implant surgery at a very young age ... Parents are usually led to see their children as pathologically deficient and little information is available to them about the history, culture and language of deaf people”. I knew nothing about the history or language of deaf people when we found out Laura was deaf. Instead, like any academic worth her salt, I read every article published on early implantation since 1990. The medical trials all seemed to say the same thing: implant your baby early. If you met Laura in the playground, you probably wouldn’t realize she is deaf; aside from the fact that she speaks well, I have cunningly positioned the magnets beneath her piggy-tails, and tucked the microprocessors into a headband. This is not because I worry she will “look deaf” but because the devices fall off if they are not secured properly. Cochlear won’t use the strong magnets on young children, only the weakest one – so when she jumps on the trampoline, or swings upside-down on the monkey bars, the magnets fall off and dangle like loose iPhone jacks. I’ve retrieved processors from the bottom of swimming pools, from stubbornly thick grass. We have to wait until she is older before she can wear the strongest magnet. When that happens she can also broadcast to anyone that sees her that she has implants. This changes people’s behaviour; they’ll face her when they speak. They understand that though she looks like any other three year old, sounds like any other three year old, what she hears is different. It has passed via some serious technology. Instead of seeing deaf children as deficient, I choose to see implanted children as deaf children with an extra ability. They have been given the gift of speech. To work effectively this gift needs to be given early, before the child is even out of nappies, before they can decide for themselves.
Justin Bieber review – arena dramatics and pure cheese Justin Bieber is busting some moves – just about. As the two-part, 90-minute extravaganza that is the 22-year-old’s Purpose tour embarks on its first night at London’s O2 Arena, Bieber – hair fuzzy like a recently demobbed marine – is leading a huge pack of back-up dancers. (“Front-up dancers”, Bieber fondly calls them at one point.) He himself is performing a series of slick, curtailed versions of their more athletic moves. Criticised at August’s V festival for a marked lack of commitment to dancing (or singing, for that matter), the rebooted former teen star isn’t so much lackadaisical during this dazzlingly staged show as entitled and imperious. He flicks, jerks and nods – at about 60% of the intensity of everyone else. But move he does, with this sort of haughty efficiency, almost constantly – and sing, surprisingly often, given the widespread reporting of miming last August. Bieber’s emotional investment is confirmed when he warmly hugs every single dancer at the end – not even Madonna, den-mother of touring dancers, does that. He’s confusing, Bieber – doing his own his little own dance, perhaps, between vacuity and depth. Purpose (2015) achieved the near impossible – it moved everyone on from Bieber’s teenybopper first act, and blotted out the memory of his various legal and moral faux pas, with an all-conquering pop&B tour de force. The production was on point, the lyrics self-examining. He’s still just 22, though. At one point, Bieber wonders aloud what to do with his hair. “Should I get cornrows? An afro?” he muses, a blond Canadian seemingly oblivious to the criticism he drew for his dreads earlier this year, and for songs such as Sorry, whose beats appropriate styles from the Caribbean. (“I haven’t got the follicles,” he notes, of the afro idea.) Later, Bieber wonders out loud what to talk about between songs. Love, suggests someone. In what appears to be a genuine spirit of philosophical inquiry, Bieber then tries to get fans to explain what love means to them. He is nonplussed when he only gets screamed devotion in reply. You suspect another dance going on here – one between reality, performance and what audiences will accept in exchange for their money. The show relies heavily on seizure-inducing video projections on to a number of surfaces. There’s a particularly cool false Bieber entrance at the start, and a moment where you can’t tell the real dancers from their video doppelgangers as they parkour down an adapted skate-park half-pipe structure. Maybe the show’s designers are in on the dance. Like email and unbiased news, singing for real might be something only old people care about. When Bieber drops the mic to his side, as on a frenetic Where Are Ü Now (a feisty extracurricular hook-up with Skrillex and Diplo, known as Jack Ü), and the vocals carry on, is that actually a problem? Not to the massed ranks of fans, who seem happy to bathe in the man’s aura while a five-piece band power through Purpose and Bieber’s previous hits. The Feeling – with a giant video projection of guest singer Halsey – packs in atmospherics, emotion and dancers flipping around all over the place. Shortly, though, Bieber takes to a purple velvet couch with an acoustic guitar, as though it were actually important for him to display his musicianly bona fides. These songs are surprisingly enjoyable – especially Love Yourself, a stinging kiss-off to an ex that hinges on the observation that his mother never really liked her: “and she likes everyone”. Bieber’s playing isn’t always spot-on, but the pleasure he gets from it is evident. The pleasure the audience receives from his five-minute drum solo, delivered later from atop a hydraulic platform, is up for debate, however. The concert’s second half tangoes between moments of arena dramatics and pure cheese. Company – another surprisingly fine tune – is set on a B-stage that descends from the main platform. It looks like a boxing ring. But it’s a trampoline, and Bieber indulges his inner child by bounding around. The entire show still has marked elements of youth – the tunes are rooted in R&B, but there’s not a lot of smut. The standing area is all seated; candyfloss is on sale. Bieber even has a song about children that recalls the times Michael Jackson got maudlin about the state of the planet and its younger denizens. Four talented young dancers come on stage; as they leave the arena on the next song, everyone tries to high-five them. They’re grand. The song, though, is cloying and irksome – as are the ads for merchandise that is only available during the intermission. You can’t really get away from the fact that Bieber’s star quality has been left in a hotel room in Germany, if ever he had it. Pop stars such as Bruno Mars are old-school song and dance men; Miley Cyrus is a ham. Bieber feels virtual, a civilian promoted beyond his capabilities, a cypher in which bemused boredom has replaced the imperative to entertain. The rest of the show, though, is great. The Purpose tours the UK and worldwide until 18 March 2017
Harm patients? Junior doctors are striking to protect them Next week Britain’s junior doctors will stage a full walkout for the first time in the history of the NHS. It would be disingenuous to deny this will have consequences for trust. Accusations are already flying that junior doctors, blind to the corrosive power of mistrust, are prepared to trade their patients’ belief in them for self-interest. Nothing could be further from the truth. Trust is a doctor’s greatest asset, and it is critical to good care. Without trust, compliance with treatment falls, and patients think twice about seeking help. Polls show that the strikes haven’t much damaged that trust so far. But will public support wane during a full strike? The General Medical Council, our professional regulator, has said doctors should not strike in hard-hit hospitals in case patients suffer harm. On the morning of 26 April doctors will make what is, in one respect, an everyday call. We make it when prescribing drugs, or deciding to operate or carry out tests. When we decide whether or not to come to work, we are making a calculation: benefit versus risk of harm. And this is the heart of this argument: what risks of harm does the new contract hold? Not for us, but for our patients. Our guess is this: stretching a fixed (perhaps now declining) number of staff over more days will decrease average staffing levels over the week, so patients will suffer. Staff will be over-tired, underpaid and demoralised. Defunding of the NHS and stealthy privatisation will introduce vested financial interests that will trump clinical needs. Doctors such as myself would take a pay rise and still protest against this new contract. It has almost ceased to matter that we’re right or that the contract is unfair to us; to every colleague I’ve spoken with, it matters deeply what the effects of the strikes and the imposed contract will be for patients. Yes, it’s about money – marginally. Overwhelmingly, though, it’s about those in our charge. Don’t trust me on this? It should be intuitive: 98% of balloted professionals are striking; thousands are protesting in the streets, months of snowballing industrial action of dedicated doctors not often accused of heartlessness. It should be even more intuitive if you believe Jeremy Hunt’s claim that the contract will represent a pay rise. There is passion, determination and anger from the vast majority of junior doctors, not from a militant fringe. That’s because the stakes are high, and more than material: you are the stakes. Not only do we have a better understanding than the government does of threats to patient safety, but we hold it in higher regard. It’s drummed into us from the first day of medical school: “First, do no harm.” We can do without tepid, faux-conflicted advice from the likes of Sir Bruce Keogh, medical director of the NHS. “Ask whether such action is fair,” he says (as if we hadn’t bothered). That’s both patronising and cynical. Because if Keogh’s right, if this “challenges the ethical framework”, if we’re acting in spite of conscience and not because of it, then almost every junior doctor in the land is flouting the rules set out by the GMC, and performing deficiently. That would be worrying. Striking, or not striking. These are two bad options. We can’t afford to alienate the public, even if we’re right about every harmful effect of these changes. We can’t afford to lose our leverage either. Ripples of the looming imposition are building. Staff feel more unappreciated than ever. Doctors are leaving the NHS. Emergency departments have closed because of staffing levels. Trust will be eroded, not only through industrial action but because it’s tough to trust an understaffed, underfunded NHS. It seems inevitable that doctors, perhaps the vast majority of them, will judge that the potential damage of the contract outweighs that of striking. They should not be vilified for this. The real villain is a government that has shirked making detailed cost analyses; a government so regressive and past caring it has admitted the contract will “impact disproportionately on women”; a government that has failed to listen to frontline carers, and has walked away from talks. This is a government that is now frantically spinning and buttering up the public, backpedalling on the term “imposition” and replacing it with “introduction”. We all know what this is. I’m a locum doctor at present. If I was working under a contract, I would strike, with a heavy heart. But whatever happens next, we won’t give up. If this new contract is forced through, it will only inspire us to collect evidence of its failure, month by painful month. We’ll document the sleepless hours, publicise all the ways in which the contract is discriminatory, map the exodus of doctors (be worried: applications for new posts are already down), and note levels of self-reported stress and the lack of uptake of Saturday services because there’s not enough support staff or demand. We’ll remain loud and blow whistles when there’s a risk to patients. But if this contract is revised – as it should be – we’ll be saved a lot of trouble. If you’re in hospital during the strikes and receive care from a junior doctor, don’t assume that this suggests defeatism or division – it will just be that they came up with a different answer to the cost of striking. And if you pass doctors on the picket line, offer them some words of support. Striking will have been a painful decision – perhaps more so than you realise.
'Fascination with sex': Megyn Kelly and Newt Gingrich clash on Trump coverage In an aggressive exchange on Fox News, the former House speaker Newt Gingrich accused conservative TV host Megyn Kelly of bias against Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump as well as a “fascination with sex”. The row on Tuesday night between Kelly and one of Trump’s most stalwart supporters began when the host brought up the multiple sexual assault and misconduct allegations against the candidate. During the ensuing debate, which bordered on personal attacks, Gingrich said the host was “fascinated with sex” and Kelly urged him to “take your anger issues and spend some time working on them”. Dan Scavino, Trump’s director of social media, later responded on Twitter, saying Kelly had “made a total fool out of herself” and warning: “Watch what happens to her after this election is over.” The tiff marked the latest chapter in the back and forth between Kelly and the Trump campaign. It started in August 2015 when Trump suggested tough questioning from the Fox News host in the first debate of the Republican presidential primary was because she was menstruating. She “had blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever”, Trump said on CNN. Trump has since continued to make Kelly a target. The Republican nominee called her “crazy Megyn” in March and even tweeted at her during Tuesday’s vice-presidential debate. On Tuesday night, after Kelly listed off a series of events on the campaign trail that negatively affected Trump’s standing with female voters – a late-night tweet rampage against a former beauty queen, a leaked tape showing him bragging about sexually assaulting women – Gingrich protested that the amount of media attention focused on the allegations was not commensurate with other campaign issues. “I’m sick and tired of people like you using language that’s inflammatory that’s not true!” Gingrich shouted, adding. “I think that is exactly the bias that people are upset by!” Kelly replied: “I think that your defensiveness on this may speak volumes, sir. “What I said is,” she continued, “if Donald Trump is a sexual predator, then it’s a big story. And what we saw on that tape was Trump himself saying that he likes to grab women by the genitals and kiss them against their will. “That’s what we saw. Then we saw 10 women come forward after he actually denied doing it at a debate, to say: ‘That was untrue; he did it to me; he did it to me.’ We saw reporters, we saw people who had worked with him, people from Apprentice, and so on and so forth. He denies it it all, which is his right – we don’t know what the truth is.” “My point to you is, as a media story, we don’t get to say the 10 women are lying,” Kelly concluded. “We have to cover that story, sir.” Gingrich dismissed this and decried the amount of attention paid to sexual misconduct accusations against Trump. “You are fascinated with sex and you don’t care about public policy!” Gingrich responded. “And that’s what I get out of watching you tonight.” Kelly retorted: “I’m not fascinated by sex, but I am fascinated by protection of women and understanding what we’re getting in the Oval Office. “It’s not about me – it’s about the women and men of America, and the poll numbers show us that the women of America, in particular, are very concerned about these allegations.” The former speaker of the House of Representatives responded by “daring” Kelly to call former president Bill Clinton a “sexual predator”. She replied that her show had covered those issues at length and concluded the segment. “We’re gonna have to leave it at that, and you can take your anger issues and spend some time working on them, Mr Speaker.” “And you too,” Gingrich responded.
Tottenham’s Dele Alli has his wings clipped by West Brom Well, that wasn’t supposed to happen. The hungry lions are still prowling, just about. But on a cold, raucous night at White Hart Lane, Tottenham Hotspur found themselves fraying a little at the edges against an ornery West Bromwich Albion. By the end of a horrible night for Spurs, Eric Dier had left the pitch looking groggy. Dele Alli could also face a season-ending ban depending on the contents of the referee Mike Jones’s report and the Football Association response. And Tottenham’s title challenge had been effectively derailed by a visiting team who were quick to the tackle, full of fight, and relentlessly harangued by their manager who, if he is dreaming of the beach already, it’s likely to be Omaha or Utah, June 1944. Spurs came here on a hard-pressing rampage, a blur of goals, movement and lissome, youthful charm. At which point: enter Tony Pulis. Tottenham hit the woodwork three times, but West Bromwich were excellent in just the right way and throughly deserved their point from a 1-1 draw that emphasised, as Spurs failed to close out the game, how often Leicester City have managed to do just this. Beyond which the story here is likely to be Alli, who was hustled and bumped out of this game, betraying his frustration with a punch to Claudio Yacob’s waistband in the first half, a first significant act as the reigning PFA young player of the year. Given Jamie Vardy’s charge for mouthing off, it would be astonishing if Alli were to escape punishment for a punch, even a fairly limp one. A three-match ban could be in the offing if violent conduct is the verdict. Quite how violent conduct couldn’t be the verdict is another question entirely. For all that, Mauricio Pochettino was keen to emphasise that this has been a fine season, whatever the end note. At the end, the home fans stayed to cheer, albeit not for long. Before that, even on a night of fraught, season’s-end football, there was a sense here at times, whatever the destination of the title, of a group of fans still swooning with the first flush of passion for this young team. There were places this week for Danny Rose, Toby Alderwiereld, Harry Kane and Alli in the PFA team of the year. And for a while it looked as though they really did have it in them here to push this chase another step. At times in the early stages the only discordant note was the constant barked commentary from Pulis as he capered about in his rectangle, immaculate as ever in ice-white trainers and tailored tracksuit. Christian Eriksen pinged in the deep free‑kick that led to a deserved opening goal, Craig Dawson somehow managing to nutmeg his own goalkeeper with his back, while lying on the ground. Dawson would later head West Brom’s equaliser, karmic reward for his part in a convincing second half. What next, then, for Alli? Young, talented English players rarely escape without some kind of vilification and already there have been whispers about Alli’s aggression, his tendency to snipe a little. Fingers will be wagged. Moralising sermons will be dredged up. It is to be hoped Alli can simply serve whatever ban comes his way and learn from the experience. He remains a thrilling presence and an excellent choice as the young player of the year. Indeed he has been arguably the best player in the league for the past month or so, with three goals and four assists in the seven games before last night, still running and chasing like an overgrown baby calf and enacting a very public transformation into fearless high-class midfield stormtrooper. His versatility comes in part from his ability to take possession anywhere, to protect the ball and move it on, always carrying that mental GPS; the nearest turning, alternative routes, an entire shifting geometry around him. Here he started in the No10 role, loping across the width of the pitch as Spurs settled into a spell of lateral possession. Ominously, though, West Bromwich were quick to nip at his ankles, fouling him three times in two minutes at one stage, the third a lunge from Yacob that drew a response, as no doubt it was meant to. Pulis always has a plan. Often it’s this plan. Alli almost got his revenge immediately, feeding a delightfully nudged pass into the feet of Harry Kane, whose shot was tipped superbly on to a post by Boaz Myhill. Then came the moment that has already been replayed endlessly, in vine and video clip. As Jacob came close on the edge of the penalty area Alli seemed, in slow motion, to turn, look at him and swing a low, slappy body punch into his stomach. It was a continuation of some sniping between the pair of them. Provocation is no excuse, however, and Alli will surely face an FA charge. Hopefully without too much hysteria. He is still startlingly young, his rise startlingly fast. The fact that Tottenham failed to win this game is a fairly hefty punishment in itself, Alli’s own marginalising by the end part of the same process that drew that horribly callow reaction. Opponents will continue to chip away at him now. One of Alli’s real assets is his ability to make mistakes, to galumph around at times like the teenager he was until very recently, without losing his rhythm or his sense of menace. It is a quality of resilience that will no doubt be tested in other ways in the next few days.
'And in the end …' Shia LaBeouf's latest performance art project asks the big question It’s 10pm and I’m standing towards the front of a 60-person queue in the underpass at the entrance to the Sydney Opera House. Flanked by snaking roped lanes, in anticipation perhaps of a much larger crowd, a quiet buzz rustles through the polite sprawl of mostly young 20-somethings, ranging from the diehards to the curious. As part of BingeFest at the Sydney Opera House this weekend, performance art trio Shia LaBeouf, Säde Rönkkö and Luke Turner are inviting visitors to deliver to the artists a message that begins with the words: “And in the end …” Between the hours of midnight and 6am, one by one, audience members enter the auditorium of the Joan Sutherland theatre and respond to this request in any way they see fit. The two young women at the very front of the line have pink and blue fluoro hair and matching dresses printed with a pattern of LaBeouf’s face. A little further along, a group of friends prepared for the long wait, sit on the concrete playing Uno. A quiet man behind me has arrived alone and looks a little nervous. He says he likes the Transformers movies but hasn’t done anything like this before and couldn’t get any of his friends to come with him. He scrolls down Instagram looking for inspirational quotes, hoping he can take his phone into the auditorium so he doesn’t forget what he wants to say. A 21-year-old from Texas, who helped film the trio’s previous project #takemeanywhere, has flown all the way to Sydney with his friend to say hi to LaBeouf, Rönkkö and Turner. As we wait in the line, he shows me the Harambe memorial tattoo he just got emblazoned on his upper right knee and enthusiastically quips about the trio’s work, “It’s all about sincerity and making connections”. In this sense, the performance experience has already begun. Temporary friendships are struck through the common experience of waiting and thinking about a single proposition. Ticking through everyone’s mind is a list of potential endings to the sentence “And in the end …” It’s a brilliant question, one that asks the thinker to reduce everything down to its essential elements and helps spur on the four hours of waiting in a meditative sort of haze. At its most earnest, the proposition asks, what is life in its simplest form? What is the most basic thing I care about? What’s left when you strip back the worries and stresses of everyday life? At its most banal, it’s a proposition that elicits a sense of 21st century futility, sarcasm and wit, a rejection of the profound in a world that often feels like there’s too much going on to be able to make any definitive claims. As the hours tick by, a rhythm emerges: every few minutes, the next person in line disappears, microphone in hand, through the heavy wooden auditorium door. We see on the live feed andinthend.operahouse.com.au a muted exchange between the audience member and the artists. The sentence is read out by one of the artists and then flashes in large red ticker-tape across the outside of the Sydney Opera House, beamed out an empty midnight Sydney. “AND IN THE END, YOU DO WHAT YOU DO”. “AND IN THE END, I GUESS I JUST REALLY NEED A HAIR CUT. THAT’S ALL I GOT MAN”. “AND IN THE END, GRETCHEN TOTALLY MADE FETCH A THING”. “AND IN THE END, IT’S ONLY THE BEGINNING”. One guy spends 10 minutes in there, running around, gesticulating wildly. Another woman comes out and bursts into tears. At 2.30am I find myself, finally, at the front of the line, mic in hand, door looming ahead of me, totally at a loss for what to say. Through the door, I enter into the dimly lit auditorium. A cinematic experience, faced with three looming figures on stage. I choose a seat and wait. “Um, should I just say the thing?” “You can do whatever you want.” Shia says. We exchange pleasantries. There is a pause. “And in the end, it was the chicken.” I’m not sure if they get it. I stand up and walk out. What you are left with, after this bizarre, almost boring experience, is perhaps what is most profound: your catalogue of thoughts that didn’t make the cut. Everything you didn’t say, after waiting and thinking for four hours. There’s something ominous about the three figures on stage. Even though audiences are invited to do anything, the artists are physically positioned as the god-like arbiters of an intensely constructed exchange. It’s a work that plays to everyone’s desire for 15 seconds of fame, a desire to feel heard, to participate in something greater, to find meaningful connection through the cult of celebrity. What it tells us about ourselves is somewhat disappointingly but perhaps reassuringly everything we already knew. Upon leaving, I look back one last time at the red tickertape across the Sydney Opera House and read, “AND IN THE END, NOT A SINGLE PERSON QUESTIONED IT”. • And in the End takes place again at Sydney Opera House at 10pm on 18 December and 6am on 19 December
How does the pill work? You asked Google - here’s the answer The pill was the first drug to be created and prescribed for healthy people. Oral contraceptives became available in 1961 and within a decade were so ubiquitous as to gain the pet name of “the pill”. Fast-forward to the present: 100 million women will take a form of the pill today, right after brushing their teeth or before they go to bed. In fact, 80% of women will use oral contraceptives at some point during their lives. Many women now start taking the pill during their teens and continue taking it, every day, for several decades. The pill has become such a normalised, commonplace part of women’s daily routine that it’s easy to forget that the pill is actually a powerful medication. But all of us, at some point, will want to know: “How does the pill work?” The pill is made up of a synthetic estrogen and synthetic progesterone (known as progestin). These synthetic hormones are not the same as the hormones produced by the female body. The pill actually stops the production of those endogenous hormones via the brain. It suppresses the creation and fluctuation of hormones that make up the menstrual cycle and replaces that cycle with an artificial, flat stream of synthetic hormones. The body stops producing its own hormones and the pill acts as hormone replacement. This process switches off the ovaries, preventing ovulation (the release of the egg from the ovary). The pill also prevents the production of fertile cervical fluid (essential for sperm to reach the egg). Plus, the lining of the uterus does not grow thicker (this uterine lining is what would usually, in an unmedicated cycle, become your period). This is the three-fold action by which the pill prevents pregnancy. Although women are only able to get pregnant on six days per menstrual cycle, the pill is taken every day to ensure infertility. The usual language used for describing how the pill works is too often a mix of half-truths, platitudes, and a simple fudging of the facts. Understanding how the female body works when not on the pill can help us understand how the pill works. However, the female body and reproductive health have long been after-thoughts in science, as in our society. As a result, the pill has become both a product and a proponent of a sexist set-up, creating a gap in knowledge that gets filled with a host of medical myths. For example, you may have heard that the pill “regulates” periods. The pill doesn’t manage the menstrual cycle, it replaces it, and therefore the pill does not “regulate” the menstrual cycle. When women take the pill, they do not experience a cycle or periods. When they take a break from the pill once a month or take the placebo/sugar pills and bleed, this is not menstruation. The bleed experienced on the pill is a “withdrawal bleed” (your body is withdrawing from the synthetic hormones) and very different from a physiological period. Early pill researchers decided to create the break week (or the few days of placebo pills) to allow women to experience a bleed each month. At the time, it was considered a good sales tactic to design the pill packs this way; they thought women would be concerned by not bleeding month-in-month-out and, as such, would be reluctant to take the pill. Today you’ll often hear that there is no medical reason to have “periods” on the pill. What is meant is that there’s no medical reason to have “withdrawal bleeds” on the pill, and that’s precisely because the bleeds on the pill are not real periods. Withdrawal bleeds are an inessential design feature of the pill, but actual menstruation is different. There are many good medical reasons to have a period – in fact, the American Committee of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) recommends women view their periods as “the fifth vital sign” of health. Part of the mythology that surrounds the pill is the idea that menstruation is unnatural. This developed from the “paleofantasy” of one doctor. He assumed that, because paleolithic women did not experience many periods in a lifetime (presuming they were pregnant often, breastfeeding, and then, of course, dying very young) in comparison to modern-day women, it is therefore more “natural” for women today to not have a menstrual cycle. It is more natural, he reasons, for them to be on hormonal birth control. So, the theory is that the pill takes women back to our presumed “natural” state of constant pregnancy and breastfeeding (no ovulation, no periods). But it’s just a theory, without evidence, as we cannot know what occurred pre-science, or pre-society for that matter. Anyway, the pill does not actually mimic pregnancy; what happens to the body on the pill is more like a chemically induced menopause. The pregnancy hormones are estradiol, estriol and progesterone, which give many benefits. The pill contains ethinylestradiol and a synthetic progestin (like levonorgestrel or drospirenone, for example, as there are many kinds), which do not give the same benefits, and actually have many of the opposite effects. Rather than questioning if a biological function is “natural”, it makes more sense to investigate whether it is important for good health. It’s interesting to note that there are few functions of the male body we consider obsolete, unnecessary, or unnatural. I’ve yet to hear a doctor make the argument that men might actually ejaculate too much, and as such should avoid ejaculation (preferably with ejaculation-preventive drugs), unless it’s for the purpose of conceiving a child. The connection between the menstrual cycle and women’s health is not theory, but scientific fact. The menstrual cycle and ovulation, specifically female biology, allows women to get pregnant and give birth, but that’s not its only reason for being. Menstruation and ovulation are two connected parts of the same biological system. That we ask “do women need periods?” rather than “do women need to ovulate?” reveals that theorising around the necessity of menstruation is always wrapped up in the culture of period shaming and taboo. Long-term, ovulation is connected to good bone, heart, and breast health. Short term, ovulation is connected to energy levels, libido, mood, creativity, partner choice, and more than 150 other essential biological functions, from memory to sense of smell to nutrient absorption. While we usually ask, “What are the side-effects of taking the pill?”, we could ask: “What are the benefits of having a menstrual cycle?” Ovulation and the hormones produced via ovulation, their levels and fluctuations, are intricately connected to the workings of the immune, metabolic, and endocrine system. This information can help build our understanding of why the pill has so many adverse effects, with just a sampling of recent research revealing that it alters the structure of the brain, triggers Crohn’s disease, and increases the risk of depression. The pill has to disrupt the endocrine system in order to stop the production of endogenous hormones. The hypothalamus, the pituitary gland – the brain’s control centre for hormones – is what the pill overrides to prevent pregnancy. When we hear the term “endocrine disruptor” it’s normally in relation to other environmental toxins. In the last year nail polish, fire-retardant sofas, receipts, pesticides and household cleaners have all made the headlines for having endocrine disruptive properties and, therefore, carcinogenic and disease-causing consequences. The pill is an endocrine disruptor by design. During the early days of research for my book on the pill, I interviewed a GP. I asked him why women are so rarely told how the pill works at the time that this discussion would be most relevant: in the doctor’s office before getting the prescription. I often think of his response, which was: “‘Why wouldn’t you be satisfied with just knowing it stops you producing eggs so you don’t get pregnant?” I knew why I wasn’t satisfied, because that wasn’t all that the pill did for me – it also caused debilitating physical and psychological side-effects. It hadn’t occurred to this GP that some women experience side-effects on the pill and want to know why and how this happens; or that some want to know more about a medication they’re putting in their (healthy) body every day; or that some think any behaviour expected of only women, and never men, is always worthy of our attention.
UK car industry risks 'death by a thousand cuts' after Brexit vote British car manufacturing is at risk of “death by a thousand cuts” if companies invest in other countries rather than the UK after the Brexit vote, an industry leader has warned. The UK industry faces the threat of gradual decline should foreign carmakers overlook the UK when choosing where to build a new model or factory according to Mike Hawes, chief executive of the trade body the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders. Hawes said the recent decision by Japanese carmaker Nissan to invest more in its Sunderland plant was encouraging for the broader industry, but said the UK was in a constant battle to attract and retain investment. He told a House of Lords select committee that any impact on the UK car industry from Brexit would be slow-burning. “It’s never going to be immediate. You wouldn’t wake up on 24 June [the day after the referendum] and say ‘OK, that’s the end of Sunderland’. But what you would see is a gradual reduction,” he said. “If a decision was taken that [a company is] not going to build model X in that particular plant, or potentially it was going to be split between two sites, then production capacity will go down. Your competitiveness may be affected, and then the next decision is taken, so it would be more like death by a thousand cuts rather than just shutting the gates overnight.” Hawes said larger carmakers would always have alternatives but he hoped they would not be as attractive as the UK. The SMMT backed the remain camp in the run-up to the EU referendum, and Hawes said members were most concerned about possible tariffs being imposed on parts imported from the EU after Brexit. The average UK-built car has about 6,000 parts and the majority come from the EU. Hawes said parts could sometimes pass through four countries before reaching the UK. “The margins the industry operates on are wafer thin … so any tariff is immediately going to be a critical challenge to a company, especially when their competitors may not be subject to those tariffs.” Hawes said SMMT members, which include parts suppliers and engine makers as well as the larger car manufacturers, were also fearful of the delays caused by additional customs checks on vehicles and parts once the UK is no longer a member of the EU. “The non-tariff barriers could be as punitive in cost as the tariff barriers. Anything that creates delay creates cost,” he said. Hawes said he was encouraged by the broad message from the prime minister, Theresa May, and Greg Clark, the business secretary, after Nissan’s decision to expand in Sunderland. “They have been at pains to reiterate that what the government is trying to do is make sure the UK automotive sector – not just Nissan – is competitive. We very much welcome that commitment.” Nissan announced last week that it would build the next Qashqai and X-Trail models at its Sunderland factory, safeguarding more than 7,000 jobs, in the first major investment decision in the car industry since the Brexit vote. Nissan’s chief executive, Carlos Ghosn, had been lobbying May’s government for guarantees after the referendum. He said government support and assurances had led to the decision to expand in the north-east.
Who won the debate? A round-by-round analysis of Clinton v Trump Round one: Achieving Prosperity Clinton Hillary Clinton focused early on policy, laying out an economic agenda that called for reducing income inequality by raising the minimum wage, closing the gender pay gap and eliminating corporate tax loopholes. But she did not miss the opportunity to go after Donald Trump for being the first major-party nominee in more than 40 years to refuse to release his tax returns. The Republican candidate managed to put his Democratic rival on the defensive on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, forcing her to explain why she came out against the landmark 12-nation trade agreement last year after previously supporting it. But Clinton was able to overcome the question in part because Trump repeatedly shouted over her attempts to answer it – placing the focus instead on his aggressive posture. SS Trump Donald Trump was strongest early in the debate, when he hit familiar talking points on trade and put Clinton on the back foot, having to defend her flip-flop on TPP and the controversial legacy of Nafta, the free trade agreement signed by her husband that many in the industrial midwest feel has cost manufacturing jobs. An off-key rehearsed line from a stilted Clinton about “Trumped-up trickle down economics” represented a brief window into what the debate might have been like if Trump had been able to act like a normal candidate for more than 10 minutes. But the Republican nominee took Clinton’s bait and played defense on personal attacks almost immediately. After Clinton said: “He started his business with $14m, borrowed from his father,” Trump immediately responded, rather than turn the focus back on to trade, perhaps his strongest issue. BJ Round two: America’s Direction Clinton Arguably Clinton’s strongest segment of the debate was when the discussion turned to race in America. The Democratic nominee, who holds broad support from African American voters, navigated the complex issue of police brutality by placing the emphasis on restoring trust between law enforcement and communities of color. Clinton walked through an expansive criminal justice plan, which included more resources for police training but also the need to end mass incarceration. But beyond that policy, she put forth a unifying message that asked Americans to acknowledge the systemic barriers against minorities. Wisely, when the topic shifted to birtherism – the conspiracy theory that Barack Obama was not born in the US – Clinton did not engage in a debate on the subject. She instead quoted Michelle Obama’s memorable speech at the Democratic Convention in July, in which the first lady said: “When they go low, we go high.” SS Trump Trump seemed far less comfortable on issues of race. After describing African Americans and Hispanics as “living in hell” and audibly groaning when his rival was describing “the vibrancy of the black church”, presenting a rosier picture of life in minority communities, the Republican nominee instead centered his pitch to minority voters on “stop and frisk”, a police tactic in New York that was ruled unconstitutional for racially targeting African Americans and Hispanics, and bragging that the country club he owned in Palm Beach, Florida, did not discriminate. When the conversation flipped to birtherism, Trump tried falsely to blame Hillary Clinton’s 2008 campaign for first spreading the racially charged attack. Eventually, the Republican nominee boasted: “I think I did a great job and a great service not only for the country, but even for the president, in getting him to produce his birth certificate.” BJ Round three: Securing America Clinton Eager to draw a contrast on national security, an issue high on Americans’ priorities amid recent terrorist attacks, Clinton relied on familiar characterizations of Trump: he was unfit to be president, unqualified and lacking the right temperament, and he should not have access to the nuclear codes. For the benefit of voters tuning in to the race for the first time, Clinton enthusiastically highlighted Trump’s admiration for the Russian president, Vladimir Putin – regarded by most members of Trump’s Republican party as a dictator and a thug. The goal: to once more prove Trump is out of step with what is expected from a traditional nominee. Despite her efforts to call out Trump for lying about the Iraq war, however, Clinton put the onus on fact-checkers to confrim that the former reality TV star did support the 2003 invasion. Trump once again falsely claimed he opposed the war all along, and it was unclear if the objections of either Clinton or the moderator, Lester Holt, were able to break through. SS Trump Trump resorted to familiar cliches, insisting that the US should have somehow “taken the oil” from Iraq in order to prevent the creation of Isis while he criticized Clinton for having plans to fight the terrorist group on her website. “I don’t think Gen Douglas MacArthur would like that too much,” said the Republican nominee. He also stuck himself into the mire by repeatedly and enthusiastically claiming that he was against the Iraq war from the beginning. This is untrue and disproven by statements by Trump at the time. The Republican nominee instead said that if reporters only called Fox News personality Sean Hannity, who has appeared in a campaign ad on Trump’s behalf, they would hear the truth. By the end of the debate, Trump also wandered into treacherous waters by insisting that his rival “doesn’t have the look. She doesn’t have the stamina” to be president – falling into yet other well-set trap allowing Clinton to attack him for crude comments he has made in the past about a beauty pageant contestant’s weight. BJ Verdict Despite Trump’s best efforts to land a few punches, the Republican nominee was unprepared and undisciplined. By contrast, Clinton was measured, avoided mistakes and demonstrated the merits of proper rehearsals.
Snatched trailer: Amy Schumer and Goldie Hawn get kidnapped Amy Schumer has teamed up with Goldie Hawn for a mother-daughter comedy called Snatched. The first trailer for the movie shows the controversial comedian heading on vacation with the Oscar-nominated star of Private Benjamin after her boyfriend dumps her. But the two become involved in a nefarious kidnapping plot. It’s from director Jonathan Levine, who was behind Seth Rogen’s Christmas comedy The Night Before, and scripted by Katie Dippold, whose work includes The Heat and Ghostbusters. Paul Feig, who directed both of those films, is also on board as producer. It’s Hawn’s first big-screen role since 2002’s The Banger Sisters, where she starred opposite Susan Sarandon. In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Schumer said that she was focused on getting her in the movie. “I met [Hawn] on an airplane a couple of years ago and told her there’s a movie I really want to make with her,” she said. “And she was very nice. ‘OK, honey.’ She probably thought I was a psycho. ‘OK, crazy person.’ Then I’d meet her at different things, saying, ‘We’re making this movie together,’ and I think, eventually, some people got in her ear and told her I wasn’t crazy, that I make things.” The film’s already received some negative publicity after the pair released a tribute to Beyoncé’s Formation video earlier this year. Some claimed they were guilty of cultural reappropriation, which Schumer denied. “If you watched it and it made you feel anything other than good, please know that was not my intention,” she said. “The movie we made is fun and the women in it are strong and want to help each other. That’s what it was about for me.” The film was fast-tracked after Schumer’s first lead role in Trainwreck was a surprise hit, with the film making $140m worldwide from a $35m budget.
Tesco Bank cyber attack involved guesswork, study claims A team of academics claims an unsophisticated type of cyber attack that exploits “flaws” in the Visa card payment system was probably used to defraud Tesco Bank customers of £2.5m last month. In an academic paper, the team at Newcastle University claimed that working out the card number, expiry date and security code of any Visa credit or debit card could take a criminal “as little as six seconds” and involved nothing more than guesswork. They said the so-called “distributed guessing attack” method they had identified was able to circumvent all the security features put in place to protect online payments from fraud, and exploited vulnerabilities at Visa – which has more than 500m cards in circulation in Europe alone – and hundreds of the world’s biggest and most popular retail websites. Some sites have changed their online security settings in response to the findings. Visa said the research did not take into account the multiple layers of fraud prevention that exists within the payments system, “each of which must be met in order to make a transaction possible in the real world”. The research paper, whose lead author is a 26-year-old PhD student, said the good news for people with MasterCard debit and credit cards was that this form of hacking did not work on MasterCards, because its systems were able to detect the attacks. It added that the minority of online retailers that used so-called 3D Secure technology to provide extra protection – such as the Verified by Visa, Mastercard SecureCode and American Express SafeKey systems – were also “safe” from this type of attack. The paper was published weeks after Tesco Bank suffered what was described as an unprecedented attack on its online accounts, which affected 9,000 customers and resulted in the theft of £2.5m. The type of hacking identified by the Newcastle team involves criminals using merchants’ payment websites to “guess” people’s card details. The criminals use software that automatically generates different variations of a card’s security data – for example, the card number, expiry date and three-digit security code known as the CVV – and fires these off to hundreds or even thousands of websites around the world at the same time. The reply to the transaction will confirm whether or not the guess was right. Because Visa’s network did not detect multiple invalid payment requests on the same card from different websites, “unlimited guesses” could be made by spreading the guesses over a large number of sites, even if individual merchants limited the number of attempts. This meant that “within seconds, hackers are able to get a ‘hit’ and verify all the necessary security data”. Once they have all the details, the criminal can use these to buy goods online or, potentially, open a money transfer account and send cash to an anonymous recipient abroad. The Newcastle team used a set of software tools – including a website “bot” and automated scripts – and their own bank cards, including seven Visa ones, to carry out an experimental distributed guessing attack. They chose 400 of the world’s biggest commercial websites for their investigation, including Google, Amazon, iTunes and PayPal, before later whittling this down to 389. Of these, 47 made use of 3D Secure systems, which meant they could not be attacked in this way. That left 342 that were vulnerable. The research paper stated that the experiment proved that this type of attack was practical and so a credible threat, and also that it was possible to run multiple bots at the same time on hundreds of payment sites “without triggering any alarms in the payment system”. Mohammed Ali, a PhD student in Newcastle University’s school of computing science and lead author on the paper, said: “Most hackers will have got hold of valid card numbers as a starting point, but even without that, it’s relatively easy to generate variations of card numbers and automatically send them out across numerous websites to validate them.” He added: “The next step is the expiry date. Banks typically issue cards that are valid for 60 months, so guessing the date takes at most 60 attempts. The CVV is your last barrier and theoretically only the cardholder has that piece of information – it isn’t stored anywhere else. But guessing this three-digit number takes fewer than 1,000 attempts. Spread this out over 1,000 websites and one will come back verified within a couple of seconds. And there you have it: all the data you need to hack the account.” Ali said MasterCard’s centralised network was able to detect a guessing attack after fewer than 10 attempts, even when those payments were distributed across multiple networks. The team said this guessing attack method was likely to have been used in the Tesco cyber-attack, and was “frighteningly easy if you have a laptop and an internet connection … The risk is greatest at this time of year, when so many of us are purchasing Christmas presents online.” Their research has been published in the academic journal IEEE Security & Privacy. In a statement, Visa said it was “committed to keeping fraud at low levels, and works closely with card issuers and acquirers to make it very difficult to obtain and use cardholder data illegally … We provide issuers with the necessary data to make informed decisions on the risk of transactions. There are also steps that merchants and issuers can take to thwart brute force attempts”. The spokesman said that in cases where someone’s card details were used fraudulently the cardholder was protected from liability and added that where a merchant chose not to use its Verified by Visa system for a card-not-present transaction, they assumed the risk for fraud. “Visa welcomes industry and academic efforts to identify and address perceived vulnerabilities in the payment system.” Tesco Bank said it refunded each customer account in full and no customer data was lost or stolen. “This incident has highlighted that all banks need to work together in the interests of all customers and the financial system,” a spokesman said.
Google claims YouTube ads are more effective than TV Google has attacked the effectiveness of TV ads and called on advertisers to massively increase the amount they spend on YouTube. Matt Brittin, Google’s top-ranking European executive, is set to unveil a report analysing ad campaigns across eight countries that show in 80% of cases YouTube ads were far more effective than TV ads in driving sales. Google’s analysis of 56 case studies, carried out by a range of research partners, suggests advertisers should be allocating up to six times more of their budget to YouTube than they currently do. “We found that while TV maintains a powerful impact in the digital age, digital video is under-invested in several categories we measured in the UK, France and Germany,” said Lucien van der Hoeven, general manager EMEA at MarketShare, one of the companies hired by Google to conduct the analysis. The report, set to be unveiled at the Advertising Week Europe festival in a session on Wednesday titled “The (Entertainment) Revolution will not be Televised”, immediately sparked a scathing response from the TV industry. Thinkbox, the TV marketing body that counts ITV, Channel 4 and Sky as members, said the YouTube analysis “misses the point” of TV advertising. “The true value of TV advertising is not just its return on investment [getting people to buy stuff], but that it achieves the best return on investment at the highest levels of investment,” said Thinkbox research and planning director Matt Hill. “TV builds brands better than anything else and creates the most profit.” Thinkbox said that if brands did increase their spend on YouTube significantly, it would backfire. This is because it claims the bulk of viewing on the site is by a relatively small audience, and that YouTube is mostly lower-value user-generated content and not the top-quality drama and entertainment programmes advertisers want to associate with. “The bulk of YouTube is a long tail of UGC and it could only satisfy more advertisers by monetising this long tail,” said Hill. “TV doesn’t suffer from this problem as it has the quality and volume of inventory to accommodate many thousands of advertisers with proven effectiveness at high levels of investment.” The publication of the research is Google’s latest attack on the TV industry and a pitch to advertisers to shift their media budgets to YouTube. In October, Eileen Naughton, Google’s UK and Ireland chief, told advertisers last October they should be spending a quarter of their TV ad budget on YouTube instead if they wanted to reach 16- to 24-year-olds. Thinkbox spent months compiling its own research data and launched a counterattack, claiming YouTube only really accounts for 10.3% of time spent by 16- to 24-year-olds consuming video. The research also claimed YouTube accounts for just 1.4% of the time that demographic spends actually viewing video advertising. Thinkbox pointed out that comments from advertisers featured in Google’s latest report do not actually say they believe in cutting TV budgets in favour of YouTube. Clients quoted from Mars and Danone both point to YouTube being a key part of an overall strategy to complement TV spend. “Online video should increase but this should be funded by using money from less effective ad budgets, such as online display, or finding new money,” said Hill. “What this study really shows … is that online video is a better advertising investment than other forms of online advertising. Advertisers involved in Google’s research make it clear they see online video not as a replacement for TV, but as an addition and a complement.”
Global collaboration needed on 'bad actor' rules, says HSBC legal chief More needs to be done to combat financial crime, a senior lawyer at HSBC has said as he called for global collaboration over the rules imposed on banks to keep “bad actors” out of the financial system. Stuart Levey, HSBC’s chief legal officer, said worldwide agreement over the rules would reduce the risk that banks refuse to do business with legitimate customers for fear of being punished by regulators. A former official at the US Treasury, Levey told a conference in Geneva: “Put simply, the way we do financial crime compliance is outdated. It is neither as efficient nor effective as it could be at protecting the financial system from abuse and preventing financial crime. “There are two countervailing forces that provide us with a real opportunity to drive forward meaningful change in this area. On one hand there is a deepened policy and political commitment to combat financial crime and preserve the integrity of the financial system. On the other, there is the growing policy concern about the unintended consequence of financial exclusion that is resulting from robust pursuit of these objectives without great enough precision.” Levey, in his first speech since joining HSBC four years ago, said governments and private sectors were using their own financial data to try to combat crime but were not working together . He called for the Financial Action Task Force – an intergovernmental organisation – to create global roles allowing legal protections when information is shared and ensure that secrecy and privacy laws do not stop information being shared. HSBC has been battling to restore its reputation after it was fined £1.2bn by the US authorities in 2012 for breaches of money laundering rules and it has since emerged that George Osborne, the then chancellor, intervened to argue that prosecuting Britain’s biggest bank could lead to a “global financial disaster”. It has also been embroiled in revelations, in the and other publications, that its Swiss arm helped customers avoid tax. Levey said rules to combat financial crime had unintended consequences such as banks “de-risking” – pulling out of countries or business sectors. “De-risking is being applied more and more widely as an alternative to managing risk. There are various reasons for that: the basic desire of reputable financial institutions not to facilitate illicit conduct, the challenge of identifying the individual bad actors, a weighing of the commercial benefit verses the cost of compliance and, of course, fear of enforcement,” said Levey. “There is a heightened imperative to keep bad actors out of the financial system in order to promote security and also an imperative as a matter of economic policy to mitigate the unintended consequences of our efforts. If we do not collaborate better, we risk being one step behind in our efforts to keep illicit actors out of the system while also exacerbating the problem of financial exclusion.” Banks, including HSBC, have been facing scrutiny of the way they have pulled back from a range of services to countries such as Somalia and individuals, such as MPs. Earlier this year, Levey criticised the US for asking European banks to do more business with Iran while Washington was restricting American financial firms from doing the same. In his speech on Monday he said he said that the sanctions against Iran - imposed in 2006 and lifted this year - had worked, leaving the country isolated and affecting its economy.
The Brexit crisis is really an opportunity to create a better society I don’t feel like a winner, even though the majority of the country has voted for leaving the EU – something I have argued should happen for the last 40-odd years. I’m at Glastonbury, in the Green Fields, surrounded by people who feel hurt and disillusioned at the referendum outcome and the way that outcome was achieved. They, with millions of others who voted to remain, are grieving. I feel sad that the debate has shown up fault lines that divide our society. Fear v hate has split us in two, and we need to heal. There is also uncertainty and fear about what happens next. But for me, this was always going to be the crisis that brought the opportunity to do something better. For many of us, the referendum result was a rejection of power being taken into fewer and fewer hands. This crisis could be a fantastic opportunity to bring back control to a more localised level and assert more democratic control of our economy. What many on the left fear is that we will be grabbing power back from Brussels bureaucrats in order to pass it over to the rich elites and globalised companies. That is what Farage, Boris and Gove want, but that is not what most voters want. With Cameron going, the Greens and the left now have an opportunity to argue for a very different vision of an independent Britain. We can start by tackling the huge levels of alienation, anger and cynicism, which have built up over many years. The roar of anti-establishment feeling found an easy target in the remote offices of the European commission, but it came from a homegrown crisis of services being stretched, rents going up faster than pay, and homelessness and despair on the rise. Yes, there has been horrible scapegoating by some of refugees, immigrants and those on welfare, but the stresses many local communities face are also real. Some of the biggest turnouts for the leave campaign were in areas where deindustrialisation has hit working-class people hardest. I don’t believe for one moment that controlling our own borders will reduce immigration, but we have to offer solutions that are believable, on the scale that matches the crisis. This means a proper living wage so that no one feels undercut by cheaper labour coming from abroad. It means an end to the right-to-buy and a return to the massive building programmes of social housing that we had in the 1950s. It means reversing the cuts to local authority provision, so we restore the safety net of care for vulnerable, elderly and disabled people. Progressive thinkers in this country need to come up a with a plan that addresses these marginalised working-class communities by investing in sustainable industries that bring back a sense of self-reliance and pride. We need a clean break with the austerity thinking (we’re most definitely not all in it together) that has dominated decision-making in the UK and EU. We can fight to keep many of the better things about the EU as we negotiate our exit, but it’s also our chance to dump a lot of the negatives. We can finally dismantle the absurd system of subsidies for agribusiness, in which millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money are donated to rich farmers to do things that are not great for the environment. We can set up our own enforcement regime for vehicle emissions and not rely on the cosy relationship between the European commission and car manufacturers to solve the air pollution problems they helped to create. Above all, we can respond to the feelings of cynicism and anger among the electorate by recognising that this has built up over decades. People have not been heard and not been listened to. How did we get to the point where the overwhelming majority in the Westminster bubble were out of step with the voters on the EU, despite all the efforts of the big party machines? Because our electoral system nearly always delivers a Labour/Conservative fix, the government rarely reflects the full mix of voters and we end up being governed by people only a minority of the population wanted. An elected second chamber and true proportional representation would be a start, but we need more direct forms of democracy. For example, local referendums and recall of MPs are good things, which the Green party has long advocated. I understand the concerns and worries of many of my friends that we will lose the environmental protections that are embedded in EU directives, especially as many of these require cross-border solutions. However, if we do end up having a similar relationship to the EU as Norway, then similar safeguards for pan-European action will remain in place, including those dealing with climate change. For me, the opportunity is worth the risk. The EU directives on the environment have only ever had the impact that campaigners have given them. Clean beaches and clean air have always required people to challenge the science, lobby politicians and even take the government to court in order to turn words into reality. That becomes even more important as we become a self-governing country again and we can take the chance to push harder and go further than the rest of Europe. I’ve spent my life being against the status quo and in favour of positive things such as local democracy, small-scale enterprise and economic self-reliance. In this referendum, I was again going against the status quo, but without the support of many colleagues with whom I have worked for years on other environmental and progressive causes. I hope we can now join together with the trade unions, the Corbyn supporters and the various social justice and environmental campaigns to push a positive vision of how an independent Britain could look. Grieving and anger have to happen, but then we have to join forces to create the better society we all dream of.
What can the NFL learn from the NBA about Donald Trump? The NFL and NBA have roughly the same racial profile with African Americans comprising 68 to 74% of their rosters. They have long been leagues dominated by athletes of color and should be places where essential social issues involving race are discussed. And yet when it comes to the actual expression of their players’ voices the two sports are worlds apart. While NFL players like Colin Kaepernick have spoken out about racial inequalities and police shootings in recent years, their voices are lonelier on those issues than in basketball, where stars feel emboldened to address the problems they see in their communities. The conversation Kaepernick said he wanted to start when he began kneeling for the national anthem this summer has been a dialogue in the NBA for some time. That is a condition of the two leagues: football has always been a controlled world, while basketball has felt far more free. The difference has become vivid in the days before and after Tuesday’s presidential election. Many basketball coaches, including Golden State’s Steve Kerr, Detroit’s Stan Van Gundy and San Antonio’s Gregg Popovich, expressed grave concerns about the divisive rhetoric spewed through the campaign by president-elect Donald Trump while NFL coaches like New England’s Bill Belichick and Buffalo’s Rex Ryan, along with Belichick’s quarterback Tom Brady, appeared to actively support him. Others have remained silent. “I don’t think anybody can deny this guy is openly and brazenly racist and misogynistic,” Van Gundy said about Trump this week. “We have just thrown a good part of our population under the bus and I have problems with thinking this is where we are as a country.” “The man who’s going to lead you has routinely used racist, minsogynst, insulting words, that’s a tough one,” Kerr told reporters before Wednesday’s game. Contrast that with Belichick who wrote an election-eve letter to Trump declaring: “You have dealt with an unbelievable slanted and negative media and have come out beautifully – beautifully.” After the vote Belichick stonewalled when asked how his locker room made up of mostly non-white players would react, eventually answering only with the name of this weekend’s opponent “Seattle.” Then there is Ryan who introduced Trump at a rally in upstate New York this past spring, and in typical Ryan fashion, blustered on about Trump being a man who spoke his mind, never really backing away when some of his players were said to be unhappy with his support for someone who spoke dismissively of America’s poorer cities. “Right now, I’m just a football coach,” he said last month. But this is still the way of football, where open-minded coaches like Seattle’s Pete Carroll and Los Angeles’s Jeff Fisher are still rare. Football coaches have always demanded complete control over their subjects, running their teams like military operations. Football coaches despise distractions and work to create a culture where their players are discouraged from speaking out. This was apparent in the way each league reacted to the introduction of an openly gay player. When basketball player Jason Collins announced he was gay in April 2013, he was accepted with little trouble and had two productive seasons in the league before ending his 13-year career the following summer. Before the 2014 NFL draft, Michael Sam, the top defensive player in the top college football conference said he was gay and tumbled to the bottom of the draft. The attention surrounding him was so extreme, few teams appeared to want to deal with him and he soon drifted away. Former Minnesota Vikings punter Chris Kluwe – an outspoken advocate for gay rights and other social issues, did not seem stunned by the difference in reactions by NFL and NBA coaches to Trump’s election when contacted by the this week. Kluwe’s battles against football’s approach have been long and public. It was only natural to him the NFL’s coaches would not see the Trump election and the new president’s raging campaign language as a reason to have a conversation with their players. This week, was as he expected. Business as usual. “It’s because NFL coaches are fucking cowards who think a children’s game is more important than the health of the country that allows that game to exist,” Kluwe said. “They preach ‘leadership’ all the time in the locker room but clearly their idea of ‘leadership’ is bending a neck to the fascist boot, which come to think of it is how they run their teams.” Two days after the election, The Undefeated’s Marc Spears profiled Popovich’s understanding of race and the issues that affect his players. Despite the fact Popovich is white man, close to 70, with more of a military background than almost all of the football coaches who pride themselves on running their teams like generals with headsets, he has spoken eloquently about working to understand his players’ life experiences. “There might not be a head coach more “woke” than this 67-year-old, opinionated, sarcasm-loving, world adoring and socially aware white man named Gregg Popovich,” Spears wrote. If only the NFL’s coaches were listening to men like Popovich too.
Sully review – pious hagiopic that even Tom Hanks can't save Even a likable and authoritative performance from Tom Hanks can’t keep this movie in the air. It’s a solemn and low-flying hagiopic from director Clint Eastwood about Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, the remarkably courageous airline captain who in 2009 managed to land his damaged plane on New York’s Hudson river after geese flew into both his engines – and then got all his passengers off unharmed. This oddly feels like a pious version of Robert Zemeckis’s rather better and more complex film Flight (2012) with Denzel Washington as the captain who saves lives with a risky move but gets stabbed in the back by corporate types who want to pin the blame on him. It may also remind you of comedian Bob Newhart’s famous routine about the captain answering passengers’ safety questions: “How long would the plane remain afloat if we ditch? Uhh … some of them go down like a rock, and some stay up for … I don’t know … two or three minutes.” Sully’s “miracle on the Hudson” is tacitly offered to us in the same way as the news media presented it at the time – an inspirational example of leadership and a Hollywood ending to salve the trauma of 9/11. Hanks is the quietly heroic Sully and Aaron Eckhart is once again landed with a dull supporting role playing Sully’s stolidly supportive co-pilot, Jeff Skiles. Unlike Zemeckis’s Flight, which boldly put the crash right up front, this film hangs back, letting us at first just have Sully’s bad dreams and PTSD hallucinations before finally giving us the calamity for real – the exciting crash and then the tense rescue – and some of it again in flashback during the official inquiry hearing, in which duplicitous managers try to blame Sully to cover their asses. It winds up being anticlimactic, and the CGI for the big splashdown isn’t top-notch. Laura Linney plays Sully’s tearful wife (another waste of talent), who has fraught conversations with him on the phone but, bizarrely, never has a face-to-face scene with Hanks. Did Sully really never lay eyes on his wife in the weeks following the crash? Of course, the implied message is that Sully is not merely a hero for the way he landed the plane, but also for the way he stood up to the pompous top brass afterwards. That’s probably true. But it all diverts us from the bigger, common-sense questions, such as whether there’s a serious, apparently uncorrected design fault that means a humble flock of geese can bring down a plane. There’s a good gag when a bartender tells Sully he has named a drink after him: Grey Goose with a splash of water.
Online behind bars: if internet access is a human right, should prisoners have it? For most of the developed world, internet access is a given. Google, Amazon, Facebook offer a privileged world of communication, entertainment, shopping and education that many of us take for granted. Unless, that is, you happen to be incarcerated. Aside from limited connections at a handful of juvenile detention facilities, there’s no way for America’s 2.3 million inmates to access the internet. Worse, institutions may punish inmates when their families post online on their behalf. Prison authorities cite concerns that inmates will use the internet to harass victims or threaten witnesses, arrange for deliveries of contraband or commit new crimes online. But in a world increasingly defined by technology, denying internet access makes it harder for inmates to prepare for life on the outside, notes Dave Maass, investigative researcher for campaign group the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). It makes it harder for inmates to report on conditions inside prisons or communicate with their families – and also contravenes the May 2011 declaration by the UN that internet access is now a fundamental human right. Internet access is simply not a top priority for most activists, says David Fathi, director of the ACLU National Prison Project. Most of his work is concerned with making sure prisoners get basic medical and mental healthcare, and making sure prisoners aren’t attacked by other inmates or staff. Yet prisons do have an obligation to maintain inmates’ first amendment rights, and being internet savvy is rapidly becoming an essential survival skill. “If you want prisoners to succeed, go straight, and get a job when they get out, it doesn’t make sense to cut them off from an increasingly essential part of the world,” Fathi adds. Ryan Baxter is serving a 10-year sentence at North Dakota state penitentiary for possession of drugs with intent to deliver. He uses a tablet PC to stay in touch with his family. His parents visit every few months, but his primary contact with the outside world is via email, which he creates on the tablet then uploads via one of the prison’s kiosks. He uses his tablet for between two and fours hours a day, mostly to listen to music or play games. But email, he says, is his lifeline. “If I get a little depressed or have thoughts I need to get off my chest, I can sit down and type them out on the tablet without having to wait in line at the kiosk,” he says. “Most of my family is on the west or east coast, so email is great for inmates like me who don’t have as many physical visits with their family.” Publishing from prison Some inmates manage to work around these restrictions to publish online. Chelsea Manning, serving 35 years in for leaking more than 700,000 government files to WikiLeaks, publishes regularly on Medium (and also contributes to the ) by relying on supporters to post them for her. “Her articles are either dictated over the phone or mailed as letters,” writes Melissa Keith of the Chelsea Manning Support Network. “Comments to her pieces are read aloud to her on the phone or printed out and mailed back to her.” Barrett Brown, serving more than five years in federal prison for his role in the 2012 hack of the Stratfor intelligence firm, regularly publishes on the Intercept using the federal prisons’ private email system. Every message is read and approved by prison officials before it is transmitted. “Back when Barrett was in the hole – and thus without email or phone access – he used to send the column on paper, handwritten in pencil,” adds Roger Hodge, the Intercept’s national editor. Many prison systems prohibit any internet activity other than email, and some states ban inmates from Facebook – even banning friends or family from posting on their behalf. In February 2015, EFF issued a scathing report detailing how the South Carolina department of corrections punished nearly 400 inmates for “conspiracy, aiding, [or] abetting in the creation or updating of an internet web site or social networking site”. The average punishment for accessing social media is 517 days in disciplinary detention, the report claimed. In the most egregious case, inmate Tyheem Harris received 37.5 years in solitary confinement – far exceeding the amount of time he’ll spend in prison – for making 38 posts to Facebook. Alabama, Indiana, Maine, New Mexico, North Dakota and Texas also restrict prisoners from having active social media accounts, while Facebook’s own terms of service forbid friends or family members from managing an individual’s account. Since EFF’s report, Facebook has made it more difficult to remove inmates’ pages, and now requires legal authority to remove accounts or proof of a potential safety risk. ‘A drop in recidivism’ Despite the US correctional system’s aversion to change, technology is slowly making its way between the bars. Over the last two years, companies including American Prison Data Systems, Edovo and JPay have begun to distribute basic tablet computers to thousands of inmates, offering educational and entertainment content which, they say, can help improve behavior and reduce the chances of recidivism. JPay has distributed 80,000 of its JP5S tablets to US prisons, and claims an immediate “improvement in prison culture and a drop in recidivism”. A modified 7in Android tablet, the JP5S looks like a less colorful version of a tablet designed for preschoolers, but with a clear case that prevents inmates from hiding contraband materials inside. It is preloaded with 20 apps including email, an ebook reader, music player, games, tutorials on how to develop job skills and handle money and a selection of educational videos. At North Dakota state penitentiary, a maximum security facility for men, nearly 700 inmates use tablets made by Florida-based JPay for communication, entertainment or education, says deputy warden Troy Schulz. Inmates plug their tablets into one of the prison’s 14 kiosks to update their messages, music and games. They are limited to 15 minutes, though the prison offers extended access as a reward for good behavior, says Schulz. Bridging ‘the digital moat’ At the Five Keys charter school inside the San Francisco county jail, more than 200 adult inmates acquire skills and earn high school credits using tablets provided by American Prison Data Systems. Since the program launched in October 2014, more than 1,000 inmates have used the specially modified Samsung tablets, which offer access to educational material from a dozen sources including Kahn Academy, Brain Pop and TED Talks. The tablets connect to a secure private network, are monitored remotely 24/7 and can be immediately shut down at the request of prison officials, says Chris Grewe, CEO of American Prison Data Systems (APDS). “Until recently, correctional institutions were surrounded by a digital moat, isolating the people inside,” says Grewe. “We’re trying to build a bridge across that moat. But first we had to convince prison officials we’d developed a safe and secure platform that could let the good parts of the internet in while excluding the bad things.” Edovo’s tablets, secured and encased versions of the 7or 8in Samsung Galaxy Tabs, are used in a dozen states across the country, says CEO Brian Hill. Each morning they’re distributed to inmates, who earn points by taking educational and rehabilitative courses, and can spend those points later on games, music or videos. Hill says the company wants to help reform the criminal justice system by “bringing thousands of hours of educational content and drug treatment programs to inmates on a daily basis”. Profiting from prison? Current prison email service providers typically charge between 5 cents to $1.25 per message, according to the Prison Policy Initiative. JPay charges prisoners and their families $120 to buy the tablet, 35 cents to send and receive an email message and about $10 for a 30-minute video message. Some state prison systems charge JPay to operate inside their walls. JPay declined to say how much, but said most states spend the money on sports equipment for inmates. “They charge an arm and a leg for crappy substandard service,” claims Paul Wright, director of the Human Rights Defense Center, who accuses companies like JPay of “monetizing human contact”. “And they’re giving kickbacks to government for monopoly contracts to financially exploit people in captivity.” A JPay spokesperson said: “JPay works with facilities to implement comprehensive, systematic platforms and infrastructures to make technologies available to inmates so they can stay connected to their loved ones, as well as educate and rehabilitate themselves. We spend our own money to deploy that infrastructure and conduct ongoing maintenance, therefore there are fees associated with using our products and services.” Steve Good, director of the Five Keys charter school, estimates that the APDS tablet program costs from $85,000 to $100,000 a year, funded largely by grants from the California Wellness Foundation. APDS is a for-profit Public Benefit Corporation, requiring it to weigh the social impact of its actions against its potential profits. Edovo leases its tablets to municipalities for $1.25 to $1.75 a day, with fees often paid through the facility’s inmate welfare fund. “All of society benefits hugely from investing in educating the incarcerated,” says Hill. “Digital education is safe, cheap, effective, and one of the few things we can do that will both make us safer and save taxpayer dollars.” 21st century communications The problem is that many prison officials are wary of technology and risk averse, says Edovo’s Hill. “Every prison should be connected,” he says. “But if prisons gave unfettered internet access to inmates today, I fear they wouldn’t know how to secure it properly. Then all you need is one inmate to send an improper email or Facebook message to a victim. When that story makes the front pages, the prisons will use that data point to make sure no one ever gets connected again.” And that leaves millions of Americans not only incarcerated in a cell but also frozen in a pre-internet world, says EFF’s Dave Maass. “This is how people communicate in 2016,” he says. “We’re making fewer calls, and do most of our communications through instant messaging, Facebook and other types of social media. There’s a better chance of rehabilitation if inmates are allowed to communicate in the way people do it in the 21st century.”
How cinema helped Belfast – and vice versa If you didn’t laugh in Belfast in the 1970s, you’d cry. Gates around the city centre clanged shut every night. Tourists feared to tread. It was rubbish, but it was ours. We didn’t only live there; we also saw it on TV and in movies. Film-makers were fascinated by us, by our intractable little war, our film-noir city. Just as you thought of yourself as a normal teenager, buying records and saving for a new jacket, you’d see a news programme with bodies of Belfast people in open coffins, and blackness would descend. You’d hear stories of the Shankill Butchers who, a few streets away, killed 23 people with Old Testament ire, and your city felt like The Exorcist. We were fascinated to see how Hollywood showed our home patch, just as Iranians, more recently, were keen to see Argo. A Prayer for the Dying exploited our war for its thriller ends so much that its star, Mickey Rourke, who plays an IRA man, distanced himself from it. In The Devil’s Own, Brad Pitt is the IRA man. Again, Northern Ireland dutifully provides backdrop and cinematic jeopardy. Again, the stars criticised the result. And, worst of all, the voyeuristic and obscene Resurrection Man slobbered all over the Shankill Butchers atrocities. In such films, our city had gone widescreen, and turned into a thriller in which everything is fast-cut and against the clock. Maybe we got a kick from watching this stuff, in part because it was so tin-eared. It didn’t know how absurd it was. Yes we were scared in Belfast in the 70s – half the women I knew were on Valium – but we weren’t Hollywood-scared, or cathartic-scared. We were just scared scared. Unlike other working-class cities, at least we were getting a bit of attention. We were bigger than life on the movie screen but, if truth be told, Hollywood’s thrillers and love-across-the-barricades movies hurt. Sometimes well intentioned, they were like being bullied at school: you were the centre of attention, but in a bad way. Luckily, there were good films, too, and if you were a movie buff you clocked them even more. Like a riposte to Hollywood’s spineless separation between war backdrop and movie-star foreground, Cal wove together history and people. John Lynch and Helen Mirren were in love, but also in war and in doubt. Belfast-born film-maker Terry George cast Helen Mirren in Some Mother’s Son, which dug deep into the hunger strikes. Some felt it pulled its punches, but many of us wept. Mirren’s character’s dilemma was on the scale of Antigone’s. In films like it, and Pat Murphy and John Davis’s Maeve, a bracing and brainy piece about a young woman returning home to Belfast, women were the way into the story. Teenagers gave energy and black humour to the TV movie You, Me and Marley, written by Graham Reid. They hung around our streets and stole cars. They were Catholics, but whatever principles the IRA claimed to have passed them by. They had no ideals, these rebels without a cause, but knew how to talk and laugh. You, Me and Marley was a story not from the headlines, but below them, and far better for it. We started to realise that the hard man wasn’t the only lens through which to look at Belfast. Maybe he was the worst lens? Certainly, when Neil Jordan’s Angel came along, Stephen Rea’s saxophonist Danny was a revelation. He sees his fellow band members, and a mute girl, gunned down by racketeers. Rejecting fast edits and thumping sound, Jordan created a hazy world of neon pink, woozy and muffled, as if seen through the eyes of the murdered girl. For me, as a teenage movie lover, it was transformative. It captured the sensory feel of Northern Ireland in the 1980s – languorous, then panicked. Hollywood thrillers don’t do torpid. In Angel, our world wasn’t only a problem, it was a place. It wasn’t only using Northern Ireland for generic ends; it was making art out of it. Often great art is made out of anger, but once adrenaline was removed from the portrayals of Belfast on screen, a world opened up. What were the films in that world? Flash back to 1947 and James Mason in Odd Man Out. His character is, like so many that would come after him, a fighter for nationalism, but the mood is that of Angel. We’re not in the thick of war, but its fog. Mason is wounded and limping, which slows the film. It snows, which hushes the film. Mason’s in hiding and often alone, which makes Carol Reed’s movie inward, a Via Dolorosa. Part of it was set in the Crown Bar, where my dad often drank, so when I saw it as a teenager I was there, on screen, in a dejected dream Belfast. I saw it on TV, because there were few cinemas in those days, which is where we also saw Alan Clarke’s Elephant. It was such a modernist shock that we didn’t know how to deal with it. A series of Steadicam shots following killers, it seemed like a compilation of scenes from other movies, stripped of their sound, story and cheap attempts at suspense. Instead we saw the numbness of the walking shooter. We hated that it didn’t try to capture our humanity or humour, or show that there was blood on the state’s hands too. Our war was now a void. Our emptiness was in Elephant. Though it was about hard men, Elephant didn’t fall into moral lock-step with them by attempting to excite. It was a filmic detox. When conflicts end, the spring that has long been compressed jumps upwards. Films about us and our recent war have continued to be made. Some are a blow upon a bruise. Others coax us backwards to see what, at the time, we were too compressed to see. Good Vibrations, set in the famous Belfast record shop that remained open throughout the Troubles, took us back to being teenagers, buying music, wanting to be cool by getting into Joy Division and Echo and the Bunnymen. It showed the bits of our imaginations that refused to be colonised. When we heard that ’71 was about a British soldier trying to survive in Catholic Belfast during the fighting, we rolled our eyes. The story sounded so naive. Yes, he was in personal jeopardy, but he was a fighter for the state that had intervened asymmetrically. But the film avoided the pothole. Its night-time atmosphere and scenes of childhood even had touches, for the movie fans, of Charles Laughton’s Night of the Hunter. We were in Angel-land again. And Hunger? What to say about Steve McQueen, Enda Walsh and Michael Fassbender’s Hunger, yet another film about the hunger strikes? Had it a few political false notes? Some thought so. After seeing it, Hollywood’s hard-men films seemed weaker still. They had neither looked, nor listened, nor thought. If some of the best films about Belfast and Northern Ireland understood our numbness and solitude, that we were visible in the wrong way, that imagery can make a trauma recur and loop, Hunger did something else. It looked and listened. It showed us bleeding knuckles with snow falling, bodies as battered as those in Dutch pietà paintings. It had no words for ages, and then a torrent, as if they had been corralled. You could say that Hunger, Angel, You, Me and Marley, Maeve, Odd Man Out and Elephant were art, “only” art. But they saw us as bodies, walkers, musicians, women, teenagers, lookers and laughers. They applied no old template. “We do not tell stories for revenge,” wrote the great Senegalese film-maker and author Ousmane Sembène, “but to find our place in the world”. The best movies and TV about Belfast did that for us. • I Am Belfast is released in the UK on 8 April. Mark Cousins will take part in Q&As after selected screenings
Baby bracelet aims to save newborns in India from hypothermia At the upmarket Cloudnine hospital in Gurgaon, the latest accessory among parents is a temperature-taking bracelet for newborns. The bracelets, made by Bangalore-based startup Bempu, constantly monitor a baby’s temperature and sound an alert if it goes too high or too low. Doctors use the bracelets while babies are in neonatal intensive care or prescribe them for babies being discharged. “New mothers are very worried about whether their babies are too warm or too cold,” says Dr Sanjay Wazir, director of the neonatal intensive care unit at the hospital. “[The bracelets] are better than a thermometer because they are continuously monitoring the baby’s temperature.” In India, 8 million prematurely-born underweight babies every year are at high risk of developing hypothermia, where body temperatures fall below 36.5C, which contributes to fatal conditions such as asphyxia, sepsis and pneumonia. India has the highest number of infant deaths caused by premature birth, most of which could be prevented. Maintaining a newborn’s body temperature is critical to its survival. Bempu is currently running a pilot scheme in the desert state of Rajasthan, funded by health foundation WISH, which aims to make its bracelets a staple free handout for all babies discharged early from government hospitals. The chaos of government hospitals can lead to oversights when monitoring newborns’ temperatures, says Gini Morgan, head of public health at Bempu, which has benefitted from grants from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, USAid, UK Aid and other agencies. “The beds are always filled, the entire family is in the waiting room every day, there are often three babies in one incubator, where there should be only one. There’s a lack of staff, the nurses are overworked, running around with competing priorities. In all that, its hard to manage all these high-risk babies.” Many hospitals discharge babies early to free up cots, or because parents need to return to remote villages and cannot afford to wait for long periods at the hospital. “Parents travel to district hospitals and they need to get back home,” Morgan explains. “Every day that they’re away from work, they’re missing a pay check.” Once home, parents are less likely to notice symptoms of hypothermia or have adequate information about how to keep babies warm. Half the world’s newborn babies die at home, almost all of those who die are in developing countries. Hypothermia is one of the leading contributors to these deaths. Fortunately Bempu bracelets are powered by a battery that runs for a month, the critical period for newborns. “It’s not the same as using a thermometer because the device is constantly monitoring the baby’s temperature. Say you take the baby’s temperature now, it can fall after 30 minutes, and you may not notice,” says Dr Wazir, who hopes a crowdfunding campaign will help supply Bempu bracelets to underprivileged mothers at his Premature Babies Foundation, ahead of the winter months, when the risk of hypothermia rises. But the bracelets alone are not enough, says Dr Vishnu Bhat from the Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research in Pondicherry, who conducted an independent study of their accuracy, the results of which are yet to be published. “We found that the nurses were taking temperatures more accurately than the Bempu bracelets. But the bracelets were good, we found they gave an accurate temperature reading between 85-90% of the time,” he said. “The bracelets would be useful to mothers who live far from the hospital, the alarm system provides a warning to the mother that the baby is unwell. It would also be good in postnatal wards where nurses are in short supply. But of course, the temperature is not the only issue, mothers need to be trained, they need to be told what to do if the temperature is too low or too high,” he said.
The $400,000-a-year New Zealand job with three months' holiday that no one wants A rural GP in New Zealand is offering a $400,000 (£190,000) annual income to try to attract a medic to share his work burden – but after two years of searching the position remains unfilled. Dr Alan Kenny co-owns a medical practice in the modest Waikato town of Tokoroa in the North Island – population 13,600. The GP – originally recruited from the UK – told the New Zealand Herald his practice has “exploded”, but he is overworked and has repeatedly had to cancel holidays because of the difficulty of finding a replacement or locum doctor. “I can offer them a really, really amazing income; it’s incredible. My practice has exploded in the last year and the more patients you list, the more money you get. But it just gets too much at the end of the day.” Two years ago Kenny’s daughter Sarah came to work as a GP at the practice, to learn from her father and help relieve the pressure. She is the only New Zealand doctor working at the practice. As well as the hefty salary, Kenny is offering the right applicant three months’ annual leave, no night or weekend work – and a half share in the practice, which has 6000 patients on its books. But despite the generous conditions he has had no applications in four months. “I love my work and I would like to stay but I hit my head against a brick wall trying to attract doctors,” Kenny told the Herald. “If it’s hard enough to get doctors to work alongside me, it’s going to be a devil of a job to get doctors to replace me.” The New Zealand Rural General Practice Network’s deputy chief executive, Linda Reynolds, said the majority of rural GP vacancies were filled by international medical graduates (IMGs). The typical salary for a rural GP was between NZ$150,000 to $280,000, she said, and vacancies took between two to three years to fill on average. “We rely heavily on IMGs, but the majority who come stay on a short term basis. The demand is constant and growing.” Reynolds said contributing factors to the rural GP shortage were isolation, lack of schooling options and social activities, and poor access to broadband networks.
'Cannibal' murder triggered by illegal drugs, says health watchdog The murder of a young woman in an apparent cannibal attack by a recently released prisoner was likely to have been triggered by a severe reaction to illegal drugs, a health watchdog has found. But an investigation into the murder of Cerys Yemm, 22, by Matthew Williams, 34, after he lured her back to his room in a hostel in south Wales, concluded that despite his history of drug misuse and psychotic episodes the attack could not have been predicted or prevented by health services. Williams, who had been released from prison weeks before the attack at the Sirhowy Arms in the village of Argoed, near Blackwood, died after a police officer shot him with a Taser. The review by Healthcare Inspectorate Wales, published on Wednesday, did not identify “any significant root causes or factors that led to the unfortunate and tragic event”. But it raised concern that Caerphilly council failed to share information with the Sirhowy Arms about the risks the homeless and vulnerable people it placed there might pose, including their prior offending. Matthews was a prolific offender with 26 convictions for 78 offences, of which 41 resulted in juvenile custody and 14 led to jail terms in adult prisons. He had also been a prolific user of drugs, including cannabis and amphetamines, since adolescence. Although the report recommended some improvements in the support and monitoring of former prisoners with mental health and drug issues, the inspectors said they did not believe those issues contributed to Yemm’s death. The review noted that Matthews was likely to require long-term psychiatric care due to his “continuing drug misuse, possible personality disorder and chaotic lifestyle”. His habit of bingeing on drugs was also likely to result in further psychotic episodes. Healthcare and support staff who came into contact with him in the days and weeks before he murdered Yemm noted that he was “low in mood [and] pessimistic about his future” but did not exhibit signs of mental illness, including psychotic symptoms. The report states: “The change in [Matthews’] behaviour at the Sirhowy Arms hotel is likely to have been a result of his taking illicit and/or psychoactive substances and his severe reaction to this. “It is difficult to see how the incident … could have been either predicted or prevented by health services.” The report also noted that Matthews was not interested or willing to engage with support offered to him by care services. The chief executive of the healthcare inspectorate, Kate Chamberlain, said: “Mr Williams was reluctant to engage with the support available to him and this had tragic consequences. However, our review has concluded that it would have been difficult for health services to have predicted or prevented what happened.” Williams and Yemm, who worked for the clothes shop Next, are believed to have met on a night out in Blackwood. Friends said he invited her back to the hostel – used by Caerphilly council to place single, homeless men – promising to get her a taxi home. After hostel staff heard a woman’s cries, owner Mandy Miles burst into the room. She said Williams was covered in blood and had black eyes. Miles said: “I can still see the amount of blood and the stillness of her, there were no signs of life at that point. I said to Matthew: ‘Do you know what you’re doing to that girl?’ He said: ‘That’s no girl.’” Yemm died of “sharp force trauma” to her face and neck, a coroner ruled in 2014. The circumstances around Williams’ death are being investigated by the Independent Police Complaints Commission. A coroner’s inquest is examining the circumstances around his death and that of his victim.
West Bromwich Albion’s ascent offers Tony Pulis chance for added value Tony Pulis may not wish to dwell on financial matters after his costly loss in the high court last week but there is at least one calculation of which he can be proud. If transfer expenditure is factored into the amount of points won by each Premier League club this season, then Pulis is the highest-performing manager. West Bromwich Albion made a net spend of around £12m in the summer and after their win against Watford on Saturday they sit seventh in the league. When asked about this timely reminder of his ability to maximise resources, Pulis smiled and said: “If you look at the last eight or nine years, in terms of pounds per points gained as a manager, I’m top of that as well – but I don’t like to talk about it.” Pulis, famously, has never been relegated during nearly three decades as a manager. What is less well known is that for all his success, even at Stoke City, whom he led to the 2011 FA Cup final and qualification for the Europa League, he has never finished in the top half of the Premier League table. “If you speak to people at Stoke and ask: ‘Would you have preferred Tony to finish in the top 10 or take us to a Cup final and finish in the last 16 in Europe and go to Valencia and places likes that’, I know what they’d say.” Having reached new heights with Albion, Pulis is trying to figure out how to stay there. He knows how quickly fortunes can change, as his team have provided proof in recent weeks. “Before the Leicester game [on 6 November] we looked at the table and were fourth from bottom and had been sucked right back in because we played last,” the captain, Darren Fletcher, said. “But we responded to that.” The 2-1 victory at Leicester was the start of a run that has yielded 10 points from four matches. They had to work hard to extend that against Watford. Jonny Evans headed the first goal before Chris Brunt fired in the second with the aid of a deflection. Christian Kabasele pulled one back in the second half but after Watford had Roberto Pereyra sent off for pushing James McClean, Matt Philips secured victory for Albion. Their next assignment is at Chelsea, who have hit strong form themselves. Something will have to give.
They wanted to gag Nigel Farage. Now Tory Outers sound like him We knew from the off that the Outers didn’t like the European Union. The referendum campaign has exposed just how much they can’t stand each other either. The In team yesterday laid on a big show of cross-party unity to demonstrate the breadth of support for their cause. There were speeches and campaign appearances by the leaders of the Tory, Labour, Lib Dem and Green parties, along with a lot of activity on the street by their supporters. This couldn’t have been better timed to strike a contrast with the furious rows consuming the Out gang. While Britain prepares to make a profound choice about its place in the world, the feuding factions among the Outers have been squabbling about which of them should appear on a TV programme. Let us dwell on that spat for a moment because, while it seems terribly trivial in the wider scheme of things, it is symptomatic of the fundamental structural split that divides the Leavers. ITV has booked David Cameron and Nigel Farage to appear on the same live debate show in June. They won’t actually go head to head: they will appear separately to field questions from a studio audience. The broadcaster is nevertheless pleased to have booked the prime minister. David Cameron is happy because he’d rather be up against the Ukip leader than take part in a blue-on-blue event against another Tory such as, to pick a name at random, Boris Johnson. Nigel Farage is delighted because he has secured a role in the debate programmes with a profile that is commensurate with his ego. Are other Outers celebrating that the prime minister has agreed to appear on the same programme as one of their most famous advocates? No, the official Leave campaign is beside itself with rage. It launched an incandescent complaint, vein-bulging in its apoplexy, which accused ITV of “a secret stitch-up” with Number 10 and darkly warned the company that “there will be consequences for its future”. Both sides know that for many swing voters this decision will come down to a choice between which advocate they find most credible. This is why many of the Tory Outers have always wanted to minimise the screen time given to the Ukip leader. One of the Brexiter cabinet ministers says: “We know that if the referendum is framed as a choice between what David Cameron prefers and what Nigel Farage prefers, it is a win for Remain.” This notion that he should be marginalised makes Mr Farage furious – and understandably so. He started agitating for Brexit many years ago, long before the banner was picked up by opportunistic, Johnny-come-lately Tories such as, to pick a name at random, Boris Johnson. I’ve said before, and I don’t mind saying again, that this referendum would almost certainly not be happening were it not for the Ukip leader. He it was, more than anyone else, who panicked David Cameron into promising a plebiscite. This moment is Mr Farage’s claim to history’s attention. The Ukip leader believes that immigration is the strongest card in the hand of the Outers. Opinion polling suggests that he is right. Discontent with levels of migration is the greatest fuel of hostility to the EU. But the anti-Farage Outers feared that putting all their emphasis on migration risked repelling as many voters as it might attract. They also absorbed another message from the polling, which is that concerns about migration can be trumped by fear of what Brexit will do to the economy. The voters saying that the economy is the decisive question tend to outnumber those identifying immigration as the key issue by around two to one. A campaign with a Farageiste focus on immigration also looked awkward for some of the Tory Outers such as, to pick a name at random, Boris Johnson. As mayor of London, it was his boast that he was “pro-immigration”. He even once proposed an amnesty for illegal immigrants. He and Michael Gove like to think of themselves as cosmopolitan liberals, not kipper nostalgics yearning to time travel back to the 1950s. So the campaign began with that faction of the Outers placing its emphasis on the economy and the alleged benefits to Britain once it had been liberated from the oppressive yoke of Brussels. The trouble for them is that they have always had a problem with engaging on this terrain of the economy. They have never been able to paint an agreed and plausible picture of how Britain would prosper once it had amputated itself from the EU. As the campaign has become more intense, that hole in their case has only grown larger. For a time, some Brexiters cited Norway as an example of the benefits of being outside the EU. But there was a snag with Norway because it has to contribute to the EU budget and has to accept freedom of movement in order to enjoy the benefits of access to the single market. So the Outers quit Norway and travelled further afield in search of a model that they could recommend to the British people. This journey around the globe has taken them to destinations as diverse as Canada, Peru and Hong Kong. None of them have stood up to scrutiny as a model for a post-EU future for Britain. Some of the credit for the confusion and incoherence among the Outers must go to the In campaign. They have maintained a relentless pressure on their rivals on this question. It may have been boring at times, but it has been effective. As a result, the Outers have now wound up in Albania. In a recent speech, Mr Gove cited Albania’s trading arrangements as an example that a post-EU Britain could emulate. The justice secretary is the cleverest man on the Out side. They have no better brain and no more elegant debater. When the smartest guy on your team has to suggest a small and rather poor state in the Balkans as a model for Britain’s future, you really are in trouble. Especially when the Albanian prime minister then says that he wouldn’t recommend becoming Albania. The Outers have also floundered on the economy because another thing demonstrated by the campaign is the enormous imbalance of forces between the two sides of the argument. Hardly a day passes without a piece of heavy artillery firing off cautions that Brexit would cause extreme turbulence in the short-term and depress growth over the longer-term. Risk warnings about the threat to trade, investment and jobs have been issued by everyone from the International Monetary Fund to the OECD, from the president of the CBI to the general secretary of the TUC, from the governor of the Bank of England to the president of the United States and the prime minister of Japan. They only differ over the degree to which it would be self-harming for Britain to self-eject from the EU. Pretty bad, say some. Very bad or exceedingly bad, say others. By contrast, the Leave camp has not a single international or domestic economic authority that it can cite in support of Brexit. In reply to all these heavyweight institutions and international voices, the Outers can put up, er, Norman Lamont. Out do have a few economists making a case for Brexit, but for every one of them there are many more on the other side. The Out side has taken such a pummelling on the economy that, if this were a boxing match, the referee would be stepping in to stop the fight. When anyone dares to express an opinion about the hazards of Brexit, the Outers now routinely wail that it is somehow “unfair” or “bullying” or even a “conspiracy”. That suggests that some of them wish that there really was a referee who could intervene to spare them any more punches. So they have had to look for different ways to try to make their case. Some of the Outers have gone back to venturing their classical arguments about sovereignty, but these tend to be too abstract to have much impact on the sort of swing voter that they need to persuade. Then there’s the debate about whether or not we are safer with the EU or outside it. The security argument is also running against them. In recent days, five former heads of Nato, retired intelligence chiefs, and foreign and defence chiefs from every White House administration of the past 40 years have all added their voices in support of the contention that Britain and the world are safer for our membership of the EU. In reply, the Out campaign has been able to muster, er, Liam Fox. As a result, they have been defaulting back to talking about immigration. They are doubling down on Nigel Farage’s favourite topic. Michael Gove recently put his name to an argument that public services would be overwhelmed by an immigration “free for all” when (or if) Albania joins the European Union. The poor old Albanians must be thoroughly confused by the justice secretary. One week they are his favourite model for Britain’s post-EU future; the next week the Albanians are a terrifying menace. The increasingly Farageiste tone of the Leave campaign prompted the intervention by Sir John Major, in which the former Conservative prime minister warned Tory Brexiters that they were “morphing into Ukip”. Which is the great and inglorious irony of the attempt by the Leave campaign to keep Nigel Farage off the TV screens. They don’t want him to be seen and at the same time they are beginning to sound more and more like him.
Dad's Army soldiers on – and it's still a sitcom masterclass The episode of Dad’s Army that goes out tomorrow on BBC2 at 8.35pm is a piece of TV with two cinematic shadows. Uninvited Guests, in which the air raid wardens are forced to share the church hall with the Home Guard platoon, was one of the shows in the fourth series (out of an eventual nine) that the cast recorded in late 1970 after a break to shoot a Dad’s Army movie for release the following year. So, at this point in the run, TV audiences “have been watching”, as the closing credits famously announce, actors who have been teased with the possibility of big-screen fame. And this latest of the numerous re-run seasons is also serving as a preview to the new Dad’s Army feature film, which comes out next week. For many viewers, the TV episodes now also have additional context, from the drama, We’re Doomed!: the Dad’s Army Story, screened in the BBC2 Christmas schedules, which recreated the scripting, auditions and rehearsals for Jimmy Perry and David Croft’s wartime sitcom. So I was interested to see how the TV episodes of Dad’s Army now look, with the knowledge from the docudrama of where it came from and, from the movie posters, of where it would lead, perhaps improbably, five decades later. Already set almost three decades in the past at the time it was made, the series is less at risk of seeming dated than sitcoms set in their own period, which are prone to be filled with topical references that perish them like mould on a loaf. In Dad’s Army, the references are already historically solid, although, 46 years on, educational for most viewers. One of the pleasures of the scripts is the way that the writers use period detail to drive the plots. For example, in A. Wilson (Manager?), shown a week ago on BBC2 and still available on iPlayer, it is crucial that Captain Mainwaring has not received a letter form the bank’s head office. This is accomplished by a sack of delayed mail arriving with the apology “letters delayed by enemy action”, referring to an air raid on the postal depot. Such moments are frequent and make Dad’s Army the funniest history lesson outside of 1066 and All That. We’re Doomed! has been most damaging to Arthur Lowe, who, in John Sessions’ tremendous performance, was shown to have difficulty remembering Mainwaring’s lines, partly because of his refusal, apparently on the grounds of cultural snobbery, to have sitcom scripts in the house. Viewers of the behind-the-scenes drama who watch Dad’s Army are now more likely to note just how often Lowe stumbles or fluffs and how, in scenes at his desk in the bank or the church hall, his eye-line often flickers to his blotter, where he perhaps has helpful prompts. There are moments, as well, when the show has an antiquated look, particularly in the use of back projection for exterior scenes, or sound. When the vicar complains, “I wish Captain Mainwaring would stop using my drawers” – or Clive Dunn’s Corporal Jones, serving as wicket-keeper in a platoon cricket match, talks about “whipping his bails off” – the studio laughter sounds only dutifully amused. However, the writers’ mastery of the vital aspects of television comedy – characterisation and structure – could be used to teach classes in sitcom writing today. A. Wilson (Manager?) provokes the class war between Mainwaring and John Le Mesurier’s Sgt Wilson to its highest by giving the deputy simultaneous promotions at both the Home Guard and in the bank, then uses Pike’s stupidity to set in train a lovely farce design in which almost every character believes that he has been elevated in rank. These shows from the halfway point of the franchise also perfectly demonstrate how writers and actors, in a long-running series, perfect their understanding of the characters. The cricket episode, The Test (still available on iPlayer), is notable for the precise delineation from authors and performers of how the main characters might react in a cricket match. The 1971 Dad’s Army movie – only a moderate success, resulting in plans for a follow-up being cancelled – suffered partly because Le Mesurier was the only seriously experienced big-screen actor among the cast. The 2016 film is filled with stars who have fluff from Hollywood red carpets on their heels – including Bill Nighy, Michael Gambon and Tom Courtenay – but those who enjoy the latest big-screen version will not be disappointed by the TV originals. Perhaps the biggest tribute I can pay is that, having planned to see two episodes of the 1970 series as research for this piece, I ended up watching four. Whereas most TV shows are over by Christmas, Dad’s Army seems set to be with us for the duration.
Hillary Clinton piles on Wells Fargo's 'egregious' sales practices Wells Fargo is guilty of “egregious corporate behavior”, Hillary Clinton said while speaking at a rally in Ohio on Monday. Her speech came on the same day as Illinois became the second state to cut ties with the bank. The Democratic presidential nominee’s criticism was part of a speech focusing on a new proposal that would make it easier for consumers to sue companies that might have wronged them. “Really shocking, isn’t it?” Clinton said about Wells Fargo’s sales practices, adding that the bank had bullied thousands of its employees into committing fraud, opening millions of accounts without customers’ permission and knowledge and misusing personal information. “We are still seeing powerful bankers playing fast and lose with the law.” Wells Fargo came under scrutiny from US regulators and lawmakers last month when it announced a $185m settlement for opening more than 2m accounts without customers’ permission from 2011 to 2016. The unauthorized accounts were opened in order to meet quotas imposed on the bank’s employees for generating new business. Bank officials insist the employees acted on their own and that their actions were not part of an “orchestrated effort”. As of this weekend, Wells Fargo had terminated sales quotas for its retail banking products, such as credit cards, checking accounts and overdraft insurance. Clinton said that Wells Fargo’s actions are an example of “egregious corporate behavior”. She promised that if elected president, she would hold accountable “bad actor” companies that scam their customers and abuse their employees. One way to do that would be to end to mandatory arbitration clauses that companies often insert into their contracts. These clauses prohibit customers from suing companies and instead mandate that disputes be resolved in arbitration. Companies like Wells Fargo “use these fine-print gotchas to escape responsibility”, said Clinton. “We are going to rein that in across everybody.” Wells Fargo’s chief executive, John Stumpf, was asked about the bank’s arbitration clause last week on Capitol Hill when he testified before the House financial services committee. “If [your customers] want their day in court, will you screw them out of that?” California congressman Brad Sherman asked. Stumpf attempted to answer, saying “No, but …” before being interrupted by Sherman, who ended his questioning by calling for the break-up of the big banks. Clinton’s speech came just hours after the Illinois state treasurer stood before a room full of reporters and announced that his state was terminating its dealings with Wells Fargo for the next 12 months. Over the past year, Illinois had more than $30bn in investment activity with the bank. The move ensures that millions of dollars in associated fees will go to other financial institutions instead of Wells Fargo. Illinois is not the first state to impose a year-long ban on investing with Wells Fargo. Last Wednesday, California announced a similar ban. Both states have suspended investments in Wells Fargo securities and use of Wells Fargo as a broker/dealer for purchases of their investments. When the one-year period is up, both states will re-evaluate their relationship with Wells Fargo and review whether the bank has put in place proper internal controls. Clinton’s statements about “bankers playing fast and lose with the law” were unfair, according to Jamie Dimon, chairman, president and chief executive of JPMorgan Chase. “When people blanket a whole class of people by making statements, I think that’s just unfair to everybody. I could do the same thing about media, I could do the same thing about politicians or lawyers. They are just never accurate,” Dimon said in an interview with CNBC following Clinton’s rally. He went on to say that the banking industry is full of qualified, smart and ethical people. “People broke the law, they should be punished but let’s take a deep breath,” he said.
'Moonshot' cancer panel calls for US to create national research database Top US cancer scientists have urged the Obama administration to create a national cancer database for clinicians and patients as part of a slew of recommendations presented on Wednesday by the White House-supported cancer “moonshot” panel. Vice-President Joe Biden assembled the scientists as part of the administration’s effort to make the US the country that cures cancer “once and for all”. The Cancer Moonshot Blue Ribbon Panel report said the recommendations, if implemented, “will transform our understanding of cancer and result in new opportunities to more effectively prevent and treat the disease”. The 10 recommendations include existing programs that need more funding – such as research to update guidelines for patient symptom control – and brand new initiatives including a human tumor database to monitor and analyze multi-dimensional cell behavior. The panel also called for the creation of a network of databases for patients to profile their cancers and pre-register for clinical trials; the organization of a cancer immunotherapy clinical trial network; and the study and development of therapies that prevent or overcome drug resistance. The panel also recommended initiatives to improve the understanding of a protein tied to pediatric cancers; increase monitoring and management of symptom care and treatment; support development of new testing and treatment technologies; and improve prevention and early detection. But the funding necessary to fulfill these recommendations has not been approved by Congress despite lobbying by the Obama administration, which said it hoped to spend $1bn on the program. “Congress should seize this historic opportunity – when researchers are on the brink of so many new and potentially life-saving developments in diagnostic tests and treatments – to boost funding for the NIH [National Institutes of Health] and NCI [National Cancer Institute],” said Gary Reedy, CEO of the American Cancer Society (ACS) and the not-for-profit organization’s action network, ACS CAN, in a statement. The ACS said in January that it expects 1.6m new cancer cases to be diagnosed in 2016, the equivalent of about 4,600 new diagnoses each day. Barack Obama announced that he had tasked Biden with leading the moonshot program in his final State of the Union address in January. The program aims to accomplish “a decade’s worth of cancer research progress in five years”. It is a personal effort for Biden, whose son, Joseph “Beau” Biden III, died from brain cancer in 2015 at the age of 46. Last year, Biden helped secure a $264m increase in federal funding to the National Cancer Institute in the spending bill. The panel report is a major step in that direction, and will be presented to the National Cancer Advisory Board on Wednesday, where it is expected to be formally accepted. To determine the recommendations, the country’s top cancer scientists were divided into seven working groups to focus on elements like immunology and clinical trials. More than 1,600 ideas and comments were also submitted by the public. Along with the recommendations, the panel also listed policy issues that needed to be addressed so that the recommendations could be efficiently implemented, including laws around patient privacy, the clinical trial system and insurance coverage. Biden and Obama have acknowledged that it is unlikely cancer will be cured in the next five years, but they have said the moonshot program could create unprecedented strides in the fight against the disease. “The key for us now is to put a lot more money into research,” Obama said in January. “If we do, I think we’re going to see some really big breakthroughs soon.”
ISPs that restrict porn or block ads could be breaking EU guidelines Internet service providers that restrict online access to pornography or block ads could be breaking EU guidelines on net neutrality even if customers opt in. ISPs Sky, BT and TalkTalk already block access to adult sites following pressure from the government, as do mobile operators such as O2. Mobile operator Three has also recently run a trial of ad blocking that asked users to opt in. EU regulations only allow providers to block content for three reasons: to comply with a member state’s laws, to manage levels of traffic across a network, or for security. Blocking adult content falls into a grey area, with no clear legal framework in UK legislation, and providers have relied on providing the ability to opt in to protect themselves from falling foul of the rules. However, guidance on the interpretation of guidelines issued by EU body Berec says that even if a person indicates they want certain content to be blocked, it should be done on their device, rather than at a network level. The guidance, contained in a report issued alongside the updated guidelines says: “With regard to some of the suggestions made by stakeholders about traffic management features that could be requested or controlled by end-users, Berec notes that the regulation does not consider that end-user consent enables ISPs to engage in such practices at the network level. “End-users may independently choose to apply equivalent features, for example via their terminal equipment or more generally on the applications running at the terminal equipment, but Berec considers that management of such features at the network level would not be consistent with the regulation.” Interpretation of the EU guidelines falls to Ofcom, but the UK regulator must take them into account when deciding if there has been a breach. An Ofcom spokesman said: “Ofcom will monitor compliance with the new rules, and look into any complaints received. We will consider any potential breaches as they arise in accordance with our interpretation of the regulation, and drawing upon the Berec guidelines to inform our approach.” Frode Sorensen, co-chair of the Berec expert working group on net neutrality refused to comment on specific cases or countries, but said the updated guidance made it clear that it had found no legal basis for using customer choice to justify blocking any content without national legislation or for reasons of traffic management or security. David Cameron said in October last year that he had secured an opt-out from the rules enabling British internet providers to introduce porn filters. However, Sorensen said he was not aware of any opt-out, and the net neutrality rules introduced in November, after Cameron made his claim, said they applied to the whole European Economic Area which includes the UK. The net neutrality rules are designed to ensure that internet providers to not favour specific sources of content such as commercial partners, or censor information that is not forbidden by laws passed by national governments. A DCMS spokesperson said the rules still allowed for internet filters, but could not immediately point to the where in the legislation those were allowed at a network level. A spokesperson said: “Family-friendly filters are permitted under the EU net neutrality regulation. The regulations gives end-users the right to access information and content of their choice, and enabling/disabling filters exercises this choice.” A spokesperson for BT said: “BT offers filtering at both network and device level dependent on the customers preferences.” “The Berec guidelines are not binding and it’s for Ofcom to consider in its application and enforcement of the EU regulations.” “The UK has one of the safest online environments in the world and we believe customers should be able to continue to choose to use parental filters to protect children while online regardless of the technology.” •This article was amended on 1 September 2016 to correct a reference to the guidance featuring in the guidelines. It was in fact in a report accompanying their publication
Crime pays: DC's Suicide Squad tops UK box office with £11.25m The winner: Suicide Squad Critics may have been largely unimpressed, but Suicide Squad defied sunny skies to deliver a robust UK opening of £11.25m from 573 cinemas. The film’s most apt comparison is probably s of the Galaxy, because both comic-book properties were little known to broad audiences until their respective owners, Warner/DC and Disney/Marvel, announced movie adaptations. s of the Galaxy began two years ago with £6.36m, including £1.37m in previews. Another comparison for Suicide Squad might be Deadpool, which was also given a 15 certificate in the UK. Deadpool debuted in February with £13.73m, including £3.76m in previews. Strip out the previews and Suicide Squad has the bigger opening number. In fact, discounting previews, Suicide Squad has delivered the third-biggest UK opening of the year, behind Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (£14.62m) and Captain America: Civil War (£14.47m). In August 2015, no new release opened bigger than £3m. There is a big disparity between critical and fan appreciation of Suicide Squad, which has a 40/100 score at Metacritic and a 7.0/10 user rating at IMDb. At Rotten Tomatoes, the critics’ rating is 26%, which compares with an audience score of 72%. The runner-up: Finding Dory In term time, family films earn the vast majority of their takings on Saturday and Sunday, and showtimes typically reduce on weekdays. In the school holidays it’s a different story, with every day of the week a potential opportunity for a cinema trip. A case in point is Finding Dory, which debuted a week ago with £8.12m and added another £3.98m at the weekend. The film’s cumulative total is £20.25m, which means it grossed £8.15m during the Monday-to-Thursday period. Over its first 10 days, the daily average gross is an impressive £2.03m. Among Pixar films, only Toy Story 3 reached £20m at a quicker pace. In fact, Finding Dory has already exceeded the lifetime grosses of the three Pixar titles (Cars, Cars 2 and The Good Dinosaur), and is closing in on Brave (£22.2m), WALL-E (£22.9m) and Ratatouille (£24.8m). Universal/Illumination’s The Secret Life of Pets remains the biggest-grossing animated film of 2016 so far, with £32.1m. That film had reached £16.62m after two weekends of play, so Finding Dory is currently 22% ahead of the pace set by its rival. The BFG is also performing well on weekdays, adding £5.73m over the last seven days, for a 17-day total of £20.21m. After the US, the UK is by far the most successful market for The BFG, with Australia in third place. Third place: Jason Bourne It’s official: Jason Bourne is the second-biggest-grossing film in the Bourne franchise, and after just 10 days of play. The film has grossed £14.06m so far, which compares with lifetime tallies as follows: The Bourne Identity (£7.88m), The Bourne Supremacy (£11.56m), The Bourne Ultimatum (£24.00m) and The Bourne Legacy (£11.11m). The latest instalment fell 54% at the weekend – in line with other adult films in the market, which were all affected by the particularly sunny weather. Among the major films on release, only animated ones had drops of less than 50%, with The Secret Life of Pets, Ice Age: Collision Course and The Angry Birds Movie all falling 39%. The Irish hit: Bobby Sands Data gatherer comScore lumps together takings in Ireland and the UK, treating the territories as one marketplace. And it’s thanks to success in Ireland and Northern Ireland that documentary Bobby Sands: 66 Days has landed at No 11 in the chart, with £46,410 (including £11,840 in previews) from 28 cinemas. Of that total, £43,556 was earned in Ireland and Northern Ireland, from 24 venues. (Mainland UK delivered £2,854 from four sites.) The film recounts the 1981 hunger strike that led to the death of Sands, who became an elected MP during the protest, and nine other IRA prisoners. In Northern Ireland, it ranked fifth at the box-office, and in Ireland it was in eighth. Distributor Wildcard reports that Bobby Sands: 66 Days delivered the biggest ever opening for an Irish documentary in Ireland, and the second biggest documentary overall, behind Fahrenheit 9/11, bumping Amy into third place. The lopsided marketplace The current UK Top 10 shows a stark contrast between top and bottom, with top title Suicide Squad earning 166 times the weekend box office of 10th-placed The Legend of Tarzan. With just £68,000 weekend gross, Tarzan had the lowest weekend takings of any film in the Top 10 since the first session of July 2015, when Minions was the top film on release and the Keanu Reeves thriller Knock Knock was in 10th, with takings of £67,000. Only eight films managed six-figure takings last weekend, which compares with sessions earlier in the year where you would regularly see 17 or 18 films grossing £100,000-plus. The future Suicide Squad couldn’t quite compensate for the declines of every other title on release, wilting in the August sun, so takings are overall 10% down on the previous frame. No matter: they are also a very encouraging 105% up on the equivalent weekend from 2015, when the rebooted Fantastic Four debuted weakly at the top spot. Cinema programmers now have their hopes pinned on a quartet of wide new releases, beginning on Wednesday with the comedy Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates, starring Zac Efron, Adam DeVine, Anna Kendrick and Aubrey Plaza. Teen-skewing thriller Nerve (which may lose some of its potential audience due to a 15 rating) follows on Thursday. On Friday arrives shark-peril thriller The Shallows, starring Blake Lively, and Disney remake Pete’s Dragon. Indie cinemas, which are crying out for an indie hit, and many of which are currently playing wall-to-wall summer blockbusters – will be welcoming Todd Solondz comedy Wiener-Dog. Alternatives include Valley of Love, The Wave, The Idol, the documentary Ingrid Bergman: In Her Own Words and football hooligan sequel ID2: Shadwell Army. Top 10 films, 5-7 August 1. Suicide Squad, £11,252,225 from 573 sites (new) 2. Finding Dory, £3,975,736 from 624 sites. Total: £20,251,204 3. Jason Bourne, £2,448,307 from 593 sites. Total: £14,062,015 4. The BFG, £1,713,088 from 614 sites. Total: £20,207,813 5. Star Trek Beyond, £894,739 from 529 sites. Total: £12,945,488 6. The Secret Life of Pets, £449,472 from 481 sites. Total: £32,070,805 7. Ghostbusters, £284,109 from 344 sites. Total: £9,995,592 8. Ice Age: Collision Course, £114,961 from 357 sites. Total: £6,485,440 9. Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie, £85,319 from 135 sites. Total: £15,608,295 10. The Legend of Tarzan, £67,766 from 154 sites. Total: £9,071,717 Other openers Bobby Sands: 66 Days, £46,410 (including £11,840 previews) from 28 sites Up for Love, £13,751 from 27 sites Kasaba, £7,657 from 43 sites Sid & Nancy, £6,048 from 15 sites (rerelease) Thirunaal, £5,920 from 13 sites Sweet Bean, £4,669 from seven sites How to Be Yours, £4,348 from three sites The Carer, £2,974 from eight sites Fever, £1,245 from four sites • Thanks to comScore. All figures relate to takings in UK and Ireland cinemas.
Meilyr Jones: 2013 review – beautiful chamber pop from Wales via Rome In 2013, after the breakup of both his relationship and his band, Race Horses, Meilyr Jones went to Rome. That visit helped inspire his first solo album, in which euphoria and despair sit side by side. 2013 It fits snugly into the line of cosmic Welsh music, alongside the work of Gruff Rhys and Euros Childs, although its weirdness comes not from it being mindbendingly psychedelic, so much as it being completely unexpected. After the Dexysish indie-soul of the opener, How to Recognise a Work of Art, the bulk of the record consists of orchestrated chamber pop – harpsichord is prominent – at times reminiscent of the Left Banke, at times of the early-90s cult hero Eric Matthews, with lyrics that sometimes tip over into florid (“Wavy hair like Byron / Big nose, Berlioz / He was tall and thin / Nothing troubling him / And what he said / I feel / For stars to shine takes loving and time,” he suggests on Return to Life). But Jones’s insistent tenor changes the tone and texture of the words slightly: he sounds not like a man wallowing in self-pity, but someone trying to scourge his soul in search of a different life. What a lovely record this is.
Scotland's NHS needs a Sunshine Act to make pharma links transparent There is a longstanding joke about the lack of sunshine in Scotland. Three years ago, I began the process of raising a petition with the Scottish parliament to urge the Scottish government to introduce a Sunshine Act. A Sunshine Act makes it a statutory requirement for all payments from commercial interests made to healthcare workers and academics to be declared publicly. The metaphor is that sunshine brings full light. Both the US and France have introduced a Sunshine Act. The doctor in Gabriel García Márquez’s Living to Tell the Tale says: “Here I am not knowing how many of my patients have died by the Will of God and how many because of my medications.” Márquez often returns to the theme of medical ethics in his writings and reminds us that all interventions have the potential for both benefit and harm. While a junior doctor in around 2000, a consultant handed me a several-hundred page document entitled Behavioural and Psychological Symptoms of Dementia. The consultant told me: “This is the way forward.” Some years later I realised that this document had been developed, funded and disseminated by the pharmaceutical industry. After the dissemination of this document, the prescription of antipsychotics, sedatives and antidepressants for dementia patients in Scotland has been rising year on year. This mass prescribing is often long-term. Yet the evidence to support such prescribing is poor. There is much promotion of partnership working between industry and healthcare. Yet we must remember that these two partners have different aims, and it is the responsibility of healthcare workers to follow the ethical approaches central to their professions. The General Medical Council is clear about what is expected of doctors in its Good Medical Practice document. The potential for conflicts of interest is recognised, and doctors are advised: “You must be open about the conflict, declaring your interest formally.” Scottish government guidance has been in place since 2003 allowing the declaration of financial interests of NHS staff to their health boards. As a result of my petition, the Scottish government has confirmed that this guidance is not being followed. One key area of concern is the mandatory continued professional education of healthcare professionals. In at least two NHS Scotland boards, continuing medical education relies entirely on the financial support of commercial interests. National and international conferences may also form part of continuing professional education. Because of the Sunshine Act in the US, we know that a keynote speaker at a recent UK conference has been paid more than $3m (£2.3m) by the pharmaceutical industry since the Sunshine Act was introduced. There is currently no way of knowing the scale of any payment made to a UK speaker sharing the same platform. My experience of trying to establish whether there is transparency about financial payments to healthcare professionals in Scotland has been revealing. I have encountered significant defensiveness from individuals and organisations. For instance, there has long been a body of evidence that prescribing behaviour is influenced by commercial interests, but doctors find it hard to accept this. This collective denial would suggest that the forthcoming (voluntary) ABPI (Association of British Pharmaceutical Industry) register is unlikely to work, as many will opt out, regarding it as inapplicable to them. As part of its consideration of my petition, the Scottish government commissioned a public consultation exercise on whether a Sunshine Act is needed or not. The majority of participants believed that it should be mandatory for all financial payments to be declared on a single, central, searchable register. The outlook for Scotland may be cloudy for the moment, but there’s a chance of sunshine in the longer-term forecast. Join the Healthcare Professionals Network to read more pieces like this. And follow us on Twitter (@GdnHealthcare) to keep up with the latest healthcare news and views.
Climate change is bad for your kidneys A mysterious and deadly kidney disease has been plaguing labourers in the sugar fields of Central America. In the past 20 years, some 20,000 workers have died of the disease, and the crisis has been growing worse. At first the epidemic was thought to be caused by chemicals such as pesticides, but the disease only affected labourers in coastal areas – those working at higher altitude in hills were largely unaffected. A recent study found that hard work in the hot climate of the lowlands left workers dehydrated, putting such a heavy strain on their kidneys that it fatally damaged them. “When it’s extremely hot, the risk for kidney damage really begins to become evident,” said Richard Johnson of the University of Colorado, Denver. Similar epidemics of kidney disease were also found in farm workers in other hot climates, in Sri Lanka, Egypt and Andhra Pradesh in India. And as global temperatures rise and heat waves become more intense, so the new type of kidney disease is increasing, according to the study published in the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology. Another impact of global warming is more cases of kidney stones. This painful condition results from salts crystallising in the kidneys, often caused by dehydration. In the US, around 50% more cases of kidney stones occur in the warm climate of southern regions than northern states. And the number of cases has been rising since temperatures began to warm noticeably in the late 1970s, especially in the summer. As the climate warms further, the high-risk zone for kidney stones is expected to expand northwards, with many more new cases predicted.
EU finance ministers get tough with Italian bank trying for third bailout The idea of modern banking was born in Siena in 1624, when the Medici Grand Duke decided to guarantee accounts held at Monte dei Paschi, the world’s oldest bank, with the proceeds of pasture he held in the Maremma in south-western Tuscany. Nearly 400 years later, the principle established by the Tuscan ruler – that account holders and investors are protected by the state – lies at the heart of a crisis at Monte dei Paschi di Siena (MPS) that is worrying financial markets around the world. The country’s third-largest lender has already been bailed out twice in modern Italian history but is likely to need a third multibillion-euro intervention by the Italian government – a move that would need Brussels to break new rules designed to prevent such taxpayer bailouts after the 2008 global financial crisis. So the question of who will pay for the inevitable rescue of MPS, whose share value has fallen 80% over the past year, has yet to be answered. Three weeks after the news that Britain has voted to leave the European Union shocked the markets, a debate over the fate of MPS and the economic and political repercussions of inaction is raging from Rome to Brussels and Paris to Berlin. The welfare of thousands of Italian households is at stake, as well as the political fortune of Italy’s prime minister, Matteo Renzi, who is facing the toughest political challenge of his career. It is also testing Italy’s credibility among foreign investors. “There is no way they will let the bank go and create a systemic effect,” said Wolfango Piccoli, co-president of Teneo Intelligence. “The mechanics are still unclear but there will be a third bailout of Monte dei Paschi.” The bank’s financial problems are neither new nor surprising. According to the IMF, Italian banks have €360bn (£300bn) of non-performing loans – loans that are likely to turn into bad debts – mostly taken out by small Italian businesses battered by years of recession. Italy returned to growth in 2015 but the improvements are only modest and this week the IMF said the country’s GDP was not likely to return to pre-crisis levels until the mid-2020s. Unlike the US, Spanish and Irish financial crises, the Italian banking crisis is not the result of a speculative property bubble. While other issues have exacerbated the turmoil at Monte dei Paschi’s – including a poorly judged €9bn acquisition – the primary reason the bank is in trouble is because it doled out billions of euros in loans to small businesses at a time when the scale of the recession facing Italy was gravely underestimated. From 2007 to 2013, Italy lost about a quarter of its industrial production and tens of thousands of companies collapsed. In 2013 more than 150 shops closed every day. Construction and home sales slumped and none of the sectors has recovered fast enough. “These are all problems that are well known and have existed for years. The government – not just this one but the previous one – should have acted earlier,” said Vincenzo Scarpetta, an analyst at Open Europe. Now the collapse of Monte dei Paschi’s shares, coupled with concern brought on by Brexit and fears that the Siena bank will fail a vital bank stress test on 29 July, has forced Italy’s hand: the banks need a bailout of about €45bn – a sum that most experts argue cannot be raised from investors. During years of inaction by successive Italian governments, the country’s banks missed a critical window of opportunity. They are now subject to European banking regulations that would force the bank’s bondholders to take a significant hit before the state can inject funds. About a third of those bondholders are ordinary Italians. Renzi’s government has already had a bitter taste of how badly the crisis could go if Italian pensioners were wiped out by the new rules. Last November the prime minister passed a decree in which four regional banks were saved. While depositors and senior bondholders were protected in the deal, thousands of junior bondholders were wiped out, leading one pensioner to commit suicide and a political backlash against Renzi. But Brussels has so far shown little interest in the domestic economic risks and the potential for political backlash. Last month Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, said that the EU would not veer from the new rules. Renzi retorted that he was in no mood to be “given a lesson by the schoolteacher”. Earlier this week Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the Dutch finance minister and the head of Eurogroup, the informal grouping of EU’s finance ministers, downplayed the extent of Italy’s banking woes. “There have always been and will always be bankers who say: ‘We need more public money to recapitalise our banks’ and I will resist that very strongly because it is, again and again, hitting the taxpayer,” he said. Dijsselbloem was partly responding to Deutsche Bank’s David Folkerts-Landau, who has argued that Brussels needs a €150bn bailout to begin a major recapitalisation of European banks. Analysts in Italy have raised questions about the huge UniCredit and local banks Rimini and Cesena. Renzi holds an important card in this fight. His Democratic party is the only major political party in Italy that has shown unwavering support for the euro and the EU. His biggest rival, the populist Five Star Movement, is gaining traction following two big wins in local elections in Rome and Turin and could displace Renzi if the prime minister fails to win a critical referendum in the autumn on his sweeping constitutional reforms. He has sworn to resign if the referendum fails. While the constitutional reforms and the banking crisis are not directly linked, Brussels is keenly aware that support for any Renzi initiative will be guided by voters’ view of the economy. “If Italians lose faith in the banking sector it is a huge problem because going after the banks has always been a big card of the Five Star Movement,” said Piccoli. “If something goes badly wrong with the banks – like a run – it would potentially bring down Renzi’s government because [it has] been saying the banks are solid.”
Twitter attacks on Ghostbusters' Leslie Jones a symptom of fan entitlement The old adage goes that you should never feed the troll. The more you engage, the more likely those devious beasts are to store away the courtesy, allow it to fester and then pelt it back full in your face, as Ghostbusters star Leslie Jones has discovered so horrendously. Jones, a breakout star of Paul Feig’s critically-acclaimed yet hugely divisive remake, has posted what appears to be a final farewell to the social network in the wake of appalling racist abuse. After months of attacks, the final straw seems to have been when a Twitter user started an account in the comic’s name and began posting homophobic comments. Of course the Saturday Night Live star is entirely blameless. Jones is guilty only of a profound inability to comprehend how her fellow human beings can summon the bile to make hideously hurtful, dehumanising attacks, purely on the basis of their target’s involvement in a comedy film. Plenty of movies have previously attracted the ire of fans, and many more have been loved so ardently that those who demur come under fire. The LAPD are currently investigating a fan of Superman reboot Man of Steel who hearted the film so much he issued a death threat to a (female) critic who posted a mildly negative review. But no movie has inspired such a venomous, sustained campaign of spite as the Ghostbusters remake. Studios are used to a different kind of fan. Step into San Diego Comic Con, or the recent Star Wars Celebration in London, and the overwhelming picture is one of an excited, open-hearted, open-minded audience ready to lap up everything that comes its way. If anything these events can be a little too fawning, but the positivity is infectious. And yet geek culture has also been built on a kind of entitlement, particularly in its infancy, which saw non-professional bloggers taking studios to task for producing movies that failed to treat the movement’s icons - the Supermans, Batmans and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles of canon - with due respect. The nerds won that battle: Hollywood now treats audiences for genre material much as football clubs treat their fans, with reverence and even deference. Film-makers go out of their way to build positive hype by promising to honour the roots of the cultural icons they are reimagining. No childhoods were ruined in the making of this movie. But the attacks on Ghostbusters suggest Hollywood may have unwittingly created a monster. For the mild trolling that often accompanies a controversial release has morphed into malignant new forms. And it seems that the old respect for the film-making process that once ran through geek culture, at least in the blogosphere, has been ripped away in a whirlwind of hostility. It is not just the really nasty trolls who have become embroiled in anti-Ghostbusters sentiment. Others, many of whom have not yet seen the movie, have allowed themselves to be caught up in the flow of negativity. Jones has received support from her fellow Twitter users in the form of a popular #loveforlesliej hashtag. But there remains a sense that large corners of the internet - larger than just the particularly fetid Men’s Rights brigade that targeted last year’s Mad Max: Fury Road - is taking pleasure in her pain. Can Hollywood disengage with the trolls without removing the umbilical cord between audience and film-maker that has helped studios increasingly make movies their audiences actually want to see? Of course it can, but this will involve further sanitisation of the spaces where fans meet their heroes. There will be more events like Star Wars Celebration - great fun for those who are there, dressed up as Princess Leia and Han Solo, perhaps less fascinating for those who are not - and fewer loveable social media loose cannons such as Leslie Jones. Film-makers such as Feig, an active Tweeter who has used the social network to build hype for his remake, may consider it is better to keep schtum in future until their movie hits cinemas. Every comment the Bridesmaids director has made in interviews about Ghostbusters or its naysayers over the past couple of years has been picked up by the media and endlessly recycled. Yet none of it really helped change the negative buzz surrounding the remake. Those who had already decided they hated the movie were simply handed more ammunition to build their ridiculous narrative of a betrayal of the original 1984 film’s cast, director and fanbase. In the end, Sony would have been far better off trusting its product - Feig has a spectacular record of making sharp, spunky comedies - and getting a few key critics to see the movie early. A better box office return would surely have followed, even though Ghostbusters is off to a decent start, all things considered. Everything else just ended up being more food for the trolls.
Brexit could cut London house prices by more than 30%, says bank London property prices could fall by more than 30% in the wake of Britain’s vote to leave the EU and may halve in the most expensive parts of the city, according to analysts at the French bank Société Générale. Brexit may be the trigger to end London’s seven-year house-price boom as companies move employees out of the UK, forcing sales of high-end properties, the company’s real estate analyst Marc Mozzi said in a note to clients. Commercial property has been at the centre of post-Brexit fears as investors have tried to get their money out of property funds, but residential real estate could be hit harder, Société Générale said. “While in recent stress tests the major UK banks were assessed with declines of about 30% in commercial real estate prices, we fear that London residential could experience an even more severe downturn,” it said. Prices are already falling on properties previously valued at £1m or more, and may have further to go, particularly in the priciest parts of town. London’s highly paid investment bankers and hedge fund managers congregate in boroughs such as Hammersmith and Fulham as well as Kensington and Westminster. Société Générale added: “We see a classic housing bubble in London and Brexit as the trigger for the correction … Given the current ratio of prices to incomes in London, a price correction of even 40-50% in the most expensive London boroughs does not seem impossible.” London property prices have more than doubled since they began to recover from the financial crisis in 2009. Last month, the average London house price was £472,000 – 12 times average London earnings, compared with a long-term average of six times, Société Générale said. Brexit could push those stretched conditions to breaking point by forcing about 3,000 senior employees of financial firms to sell their London houses to relocate to Europe, Mozzi said. That would be more than a year of transactions in the market for homes costing £2m or more, leading to big potential declines in prices. Many non-UK banks and other financial companies base their European operations in Britain because EU membership allows them full access to the single market. That “passporting” arrangement may end when the UK leaves the EU, forcing companies to relocate businesses to Europe. Mozzi cited a report by the accountants PwC before the referendum that said Brexit could result in between 70,000 and 100,000 fewer people employed in the financial sector. The report, published in April, compared likely post-Brexit numbers in 2020 with a forecast for jobs if the UK stayed in the EU. Savills, the estate agent, was less gloomy. It said London sellers were already adjusting prices, interest rates are expected to stay low and the pound’s fall could attract overseas investors to buy property. “The vote in favour of Brexit suggests that political and economic uncertainty is likely to remain a feature of the market for some time to come. Of course it is not all negative news. We expect the newly formed UK government to be highly motivated to protect London’s position as a major global financial centre in any negotiations with the EU,” Savills said. Mozzi said the pound’s fall was unlikely to have a lasting positive effect on investors, who will hold off if they fear further falls in the value of sterling will reduce the value of purchases.
Da Vinci Code hero returns … if only he'd stayed away like Keith Vaz Monday The prevailing mood at the Labour party conference in Liverpool was of gloomy resignation, with right and left aware they need to unite yet not entirely certain how best to make it happen. For anything approaching fun, you had to take a 20-minute walk to a community centre where Momentum was having its event, The World Transformed. There, you could find people engaging with ideas in the daytime and having a laugh and dancing in the evening. Trade was brisk – this wasn’t a capitalism-free zone – and the bookshop sold out of copies of Poems for Jeremy Corbyn. My favourite was Song of the Knives-in-the-Backbenchers (sung to the tune of Gee, Officer Krupke in West Side Story). It began “Dear saintly Jezza Corbyn / you gotta understand / that parliaments of fawning / have left us very bland. / Our voters all drive Volvos / our agents do the same / Golly Moses, naturally we’re tame!” Tuesday The talking point of the first US debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump hasn’t been over who won, as most people agree that Clinton cruised it. It’s been over Trump’s repeated sniffing, with some saying the Don had got an allergy, while Howard Dean, a doctor and former chairman of the Democratic national committee, alleged he must have taken cocaine. Trump denied this. I believe him, though he has my sympathies. Imagine what it must be like to suffer from terminal megalomania, to have a total inability to distinguish between fact and fiction even when confronted with the evidence, to know many people find you utterly unbearable, and not even have the excuse that you’ve done some coke. Wednesday Finding a free table for dinner can be tricky at party conferences, but sometimes you get lucky. Passing an Indian restaurant, we noticed one unoccupied table for nine people, so asked if it was available. “It’s being held for Mr Keith Vaz,” the manager replied. We were able to explain the Labour MP wasn’t going to be using his reservation as he had cancelled his annual Diversity Nite event, so we got the table. I did, though, think twice about going to the Daily Mirror party, always the hottest ticket at the conference. Having seen the length of the queue and the state of the people falling out of the front door, I opted for an early night. So I missed the fire-eater who set fire to the carpet, a Beatles tribute band that looked nothing like the Beatles, Yvette Cooper dancing rather better than her absent husband, and rival Labour factions shouting, “Jeremy” and “Tony” at each other. Thursday The news so many people have been dreading. Dan Brown is writing a new novel called Origin featuring his world-famous symbologist, Robert Langdon. It won’t be published until next year but Brown has been kind enough to offer me a preview: “Langdon’s mind was a vale of darkness. His eidetic memory had failed him. ‘You’ve been shot,’ a woman said. He looked up to see a lissom figure with gentle brown eyes that held a profundity of experience rarely encountered in someone of her age. ‘I’m Carla Miller. A doctor. We have to get you out of here. Someone is trying to kill you.’ ‘Why would anyone want to do that?’ he asked. ‘Because they read The Da Vinci Code.’ Just then, a masked woman with spiky hair burst through the doors, firing a metallic gun made of metal. Carla opened a hidden trapdoor no one had guessed might be there and she and Langdon slid down a curved tunnel that took them to a secret hideout. Langdon looked out the window. ‘From my observations, I deduce we must be in Florence, the most populous city in Tuscany, with 370,000 residents,’ he said. ‘There’s no time for you to quote Wikipedia,’ Sienna reprimanded him scoldingly. ‘The world is under threat.’” Friday I’d probably have been more receptive to the University of Alicante’s report that we all needed to go on courses to train for retirement had I not been just days away from my own 60th birthday. Right now, I couldn’t feel less joyous about embracing my end-of-life experience. Still, give it a few months and maybe I will become more receptive. I can think of two courses that will be of benefit to me. The first is financial planning: I have stupidly managed to live my life arse about tit and spent most of my 20s living as a retiree, watching plenty of daytime TV in between trying not to get sacked from dead-end part-time jobs. As a result, my pension provision is pitiful. Only this week, Sun Life kindly sent me a statement saying my projected income at retirement is £2,365. I’m guessing, but I suspect that may not be enough. The other course I could use is health awareness. Much of the past 30 years I’ve spent imagining every symptom to be fatal. Now I need help preparing for the fact that, sooner rather than later, one will be. Digested week, digested: Friends Not-Entirely-Reunited
EU and US trade negotiators seek to get TTIP talks back on track Trade negotiators will meet in New York next week to search for common ground on the controversial EU-US trade deal, which has been buffeted by strong opposition on both sides of the Atlantic. A team of 90 EU negotiators will travel to New York for five days of talks on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), starting on Monday. Hopes of a deal before US president Barack Obama leaves the White House in mid-January have evaporated, raising doubts about whether TTIP can ever be agreed amid widespread hostility and regular street protests. Cecilia Malmström, the EU trade commissioner, said last week: “If we were not to conclude TTIP before 19 January, then there would be a natural pause.” Her opposite number, US trade representative Michael Froman, is expected to leave his post during the White House changeover. By the time his successor is in place – a process that may take six months – Germany will be in the midst of a national election campaign. With the window for finding an agreement closing, officials at the European commission hope to “lock in as much progress” as possible before Obama goes. Next week’s talks will focus on developing compatible standards in key industry sectors, spanning pharmaceuticals, engineering and IT. Regulatory differences are seen as an easier nut to crack than other disputed issues, such as allowing European companies to bid for US public-sector contracts or protecting European cheese and champagne from imitators. “We have not tried to hide the fact that these differences are quite large,” a commission source said. While technical talks grind on, the political outlook has become stormier. Trade ministers from seven countries, including France and Germany, raised a variety of doubts and concerns last week. The UK was in a rival group of 12 countries that signed a letter in favour. The supporters, which also include Italy and Spain, said they were ready to sign a similar deal with Canada on 27 October. John Springford, head of research at the Centre for European Reform, said it was hard to see TTIP talks resuming in 2017. “The window of opportunity for getting TTIP done was before we got into the US election campaign, and certainly before the French and German elections got under way [in 2017]. I think that window of opportunity is now closed.” In an acknowledgement that it has lost the public relations battle on TTIP, the European commission is preparing to release a tranche of data showing the benefits of transatlantic trade for towns and cities across the EU. Advance statistics from the data set, which will be published in late October, show that 30,000 British companies export to the US, 93% of which are small businesses. The British government has always championed TTIP, but the Brexit vote means the deal may never apply to the UK. In a speech this week, the international trade secretary, Liam Fox, argued that the UK stood on the verge of a golden age of free trade, where “a post-geography trading world” meant “we are much less restricted in having to find partners who are physically close to us”. That claim does not reflect the expert consensus, according to Springford at the CER, who said academic studies showed that geography still mattered. “Globalisation, rather than meaning distance no longer matters, has created regionalisation, which has increased the importance of being close to your trading partners, so you can set up supply chains and global value chains, [and] the products are then exported around the world.” Jude Kirton-Darling, a Labour MEP for the north-east of England, said Fox’s speech showed bravado, but left many questions unanswered. “Will we grandfather existing trade deals? What kind of trade policy are we going to be pushing for? What are our basic negotiating positions? All of this is completely unclear.” The MEP, who sits on the European parliament’s international trade committee, led Labour MEPs in voting against a motion on TTIP, because of concerns over giving too much power to foreign investors and diluting environmental and health standards. A supporter of the UK remaining in the EU, Kirton-Darling argued it would be preferable to be in a “reforming” EU trade policy than outside. “It is clear that the EU of 500 million people negotiating with the US is a much more balanced relationship than 65 million people in Britain negotiating with the US. The danger is that we would be given a fait accompli by Washington and the pressure would be intense to accept what was on the table, because what else would be available when we have left the EU?” TTIP: three stumbling blocks Special court One of the main worries about TTIP – and existing trade rules – is the power given to large corporations to sue governments. These fears were crystallised when tobacco company Philip Morris used an international trade-dispute-resolution system, in an attempt to overturn Australia’s plain-packaging laws for cigarettes. In response, the European commission called for a special trade court to replace the current system, which dates back to the 1960s. The commission says its proposed Investment Court System would be more transparent and efficient. But critics argue it is no better than the current system. The US is unenthusiastic about the EU plan and has expressed doubts about allowing companies the right of appeal. ‘Kentucky-Fried Bratwurst’ Under EU rules, real Champagne only comes from the vineyards around Reims; Feta cheese belongs to Greece; and the true Cornish pasty cannot be made in Devon (or anywhere else). TTIP critics fear the deal would open the door to “Kentucky-Fried Bratwurst” and a slew of imitators, as EU labels on “protected geographical indication” have no status in US law. President François Hollande has vowed to block any deal, “which would put our agriculture in difficulty”. The French government has also voiced concern about dilution of environmental standards. Buy American While Europeans are worried about their cheese and ham, Americans want to hang on to protections for their iron and steelmakers. Reciprocal access to the lucrative sector of government contracts is a potential deal-breaker. The EU side argues the US has not done enough to allow European companies to bid for US government contracts. “Buy American” became US policy in 1933 during the Great Depression and was also a significant aspect of the 2009 Stimulus Act. The policy prevents foreign firms from bidding for many federal and state construction jobs.
Surge in voter registrations expected before EU referendum deadline Record numbers of people are expected to sign up on Tuesday to vote in the referendum, before a midnight deadline for registrations. The Electoral Commission says it is prepared for a surge in registrations, particularly from young people, after figures for Monday showed the second biggest day for registrations since the system went online. But the commission is warning millions of unregistered voters not to leave it too late as no application will be accepted beyond the deadline. An estimated 7.5 million people or 15% of electorate had failed to register at the start of the campaign. Since then 1.5 million people have applied to vote, after a registration drive from which the remain campaign stands most to gain. Pollsters point out that young people are twice as likely to vote to remain in the EU, but under-25s are only half as likely to vote as over-65s. On Monday 226,000 people registered, including 150,000 under-35s. That was second only to the last year’s deadline day for the general election, when 469,000 people registered to vote. That record could be beaten on Tuesday, according to the commission. Jenny Watson, chief counting officer for the EU referendum, said: “This really is your last chance. If you aren’t already registered to vote, you need to do it by the 7 June deadline or you won’t be able to take part in this historic referendum.” Alex Robertson, director of communications at the Electoral Commission, pointed out that more than 20,000 people left it too late to register vote in the general election. He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “If you are listening to this and you aren’t already registered to vote, do it now, do it at lunchtime, do it before you have your dinner, but do not do it at one minute past midnight. If you go to gov.uk/registertovote you will find it very easy, it only takes a few minutes.” He added: “There are 7.5 million people we think who aren’t registered to vote who should be. A lot of them young, a lot of people who have moved house. It’s about 15% that are missing. Since we started the campaign … we have had 1.5m applications, so we are going to be making some dent in that, but there will still be loads of people out there listening to this and the message is just don’t leave it too late. If it is one minute past midnight it’s no good.” Senior members of the remain campaign have called for investigation into what they claim is a misleading “register to vote” website set up the leave campaign. They say such “underhand tactics” could result in people being disenfranchised. Both the leave and the remain campaigners urged the public to register to vote before the deadline.
It’s 2016 – and still women in Northern Ireland are punished for having abortions A woman in Manchester, like her cousin in Newcastle, or her sister in Glasgow or Llanelli, or her friend in Belfast or Derry, can be sure of her rights as a citizen of the United Kingdom: her right to a fair trial, her right to vote, her right to say what’s on her mind. A woman in Manchester, Newcastle, Glasgow, Llanelli or anywhere else in England, Scotland or Wales can choose whether or not to have an abortion. But in Northern Ireland, at this point, her rights abruptly expire. At Belfast crown court today the trial of a mother for procuring drugs to cause her young daughter to miscarry was adjourned. In the same court on Monday, a 21-year-old who at the age of 19 had also acquired drugs to induce miscarriage was given a three-month suspended sentence. Each of these different stories is appalling, in the same way: first, and most overwhelmingly, in neither case did the pregnant woman have the right to choose. And second, in an atmosphere that some campaigners, in the language of the old East Germany, say fosters a kind of sexual Stasi, each defendant was informed against by people they trusted. Devolution in the UK, particularly in Northern Ireland, has often been a difficult compromise with difference. Cultural, religious and historical distinctions have been painstakingly accommodated. Given the sometimes grim and always complicated relationship between Belfast and London, perhaps it’s no wonder the architects of the 1998 Good Friday agreement kept as far away from social policy as they possibly could. But for how much longer can the rest of the UK tolerate a situation in which half the population of one small part of it is denied a right that in the rest of the country has been taken for granted for nearly 50 years? There is a right to abortion in Northern Ireland, but it is so tightly drawn as to be almost impossible to access. It does not even include the right to terminate a pregnancy when the foetus has a fatal abnormality; in fact, routine first trimester tests for foetal abnormality can be hard to get. Last November Mr Justice Horner ruled that not providing the right to terminate in those circumstances was a breach of human rights law. The attorney general for Northern Ireland, John Larkin – a vehement anti-abortion campaigner who once said that aborting a foetus with a fatal abnormality was like “putting a bullet in the back of [its] head … two days after it’s born” – is appealing against the ruling. In February the Northern Ireland assembly overwhelmingly voted down an attempt to accommodate it. Polls suggest that more than two-thirds of voters in Northern Ireland support abortion, at least in certain cases: severe disability, rape or incest, in addition to the current narrowly drawn condition that to continue a pregnancy poses a severe threat to a woman’s physical or mental health. Four years ago a Marie Stopes clinic opened in Belfast. Its arrival prompted new guidelines for doctors and medical staff. These had such a chilling effect on the provision of abortion that the number carried out by medical staff collapsed in the face of warnings about long terms of imprisonment for those deemed to have broken the law. A year later the number of abortions had fallen to 51 – about one a week. In the last year for which figures are available, it had fallen to just 16 barely one a month. Not quite a fortnight ago, new and slightly more liberal guidelines for the medical profession were published. They are no longer written in the emotionally charged language of “mothers” and “babies”; the more clinical terms “woman” and “foetus” are used. A small, very small, step. But after this week it is clear that the law that so tightly restricts access to abortion is not likely to be changed any time soon. Now ponder this: last week Donald Trump declared that women who had abortions should be punished. It was, perhaps, the ultimate misjudgment in a long and hair-raising series of bigoted utterances. All the same, it felt as if the western world erupted in a chorus of disbelief. Certainly Republican women angrily withdrew their support. Yesterday, less than a week later, Trump lost the Wisconsin primary, a race in which a mere eight days earlier he had been expected to romp home. Now return to the scene in Belfast crown court on Monday. A young woman of 21 is sentenced – or shall we say punished? – for having an abortion. Where was the western world this time? Studying its fingernails. We all understand that in different places, the same stories have different news values. The island of Ireland is complicated. All the same, the US, Ireland and the UK are closely related worlds. We like the same movies, read the same books, share similar ideas of beauty. Sometimes we even laugh at the same things. And we treasure the same sense of humanity. Yet in the US the frontrunner for the Republican nomination may have terminally ruined his prospects not by any one of his absurd proposals about, say, immigration, but by outraging even conservative members of his party with the proposition that a woman should be punished for seeking to control her own body. And in a part of the UK, a young woman now has a criminal conviction for, yes, controlling her own body. And no one even looks up. The state of the abortion laws on both sides of the border, in the south as well as the north of Ireland, are an insult to women everywhere. It is a scandal that thousands of women are reduced to a costly, lonely journey by sea or air that many cannot afford. And now they must risk prosecution for acquiring pills to induce miscarriage. For the politicians it is a way of exporting a problem that is much better quietly parked in the too difficult tray. For them, this is a convenient hypocrisy. For thousands of women, this is a tragedy. Its real, corrosive wickedness is painfully revealed in interviews with the housemates of the young woman sentenced on Monday, the women who called in the police. They don’t deserve our hate. Their stories of shock and grief, reported today in the Belfast Telegraph, show they are victims too, another part of the true and wretched toll of denying access to abortion.
Sam Allardyce angry at Sunderland’s costly lack of concentration If Sunderland’s players were hoping to kick back, relax and recharge their batteries in the two-week hiatus before their short trip to Newcastle, their manager was quick to disabuse them of the notion following a cruelly late lapse in concentration that cost them two precious Premier League points. The Match of the Day analyst Alan Shearer was perhaps over-egging the pudding when he described what is likely to be an extremely tense but spicy Tyne-Wear derby as “winner stays up”, but Allardyce is in no doubt about the critical nature of both the game and his team keeping the opposition scoreless in what is arguably the most important ever match between the north-east rivals. Remarkably, Sunderland have won each of the past six encounters between the sides. “Our clean-sheet record, which is what I’ve been promoting since I’ve been here, has not been good enough,” Allardyce said. “It’s the reason why we’re still where we are. The biggest thing we have to put right is that, stop conceding the goals.” It is a task that has proved beyond Sunderland so far this year, with a morose Allardyce confessing that the surrender of what looked like their first shut-out of 2016 would have him “crying into my glass of wine” on Mother’s Day. He sees tedious repetition of defensive drills on the training ground as the only solution. “Of course, the most important thing for me is they’re going to be sick and tired of defending,” he said. “They’ll be so sick of defending practices they’ll be sleeping and dreaming about it.” Having fallen asleep in the third minute of added time to enable an unmarked Virgil van Dijk to opportunistically blast the ball past Vito Mannone and rescue a point for his side, DeAndre Yedlin and John O’Shea’s respective 40 winks were the stuff of nightmares for the 2,250 fans who made the 750-mile round-trip to the south coast. Vocal throughout, their second and third loudest cheers of the afternoon were reserved for after the final whistle, when Southampton’s stadium announcer revealed that Newcastle and Norwich City had both lost. The most raucous outpouring of jubilation was reserved for Jermain Defoe, who came on as a second-half substitute and prodded home from seven or eight yards after Lamine Koné had pounced on a Jan Kirchoff flick, evaded a challenge and squared the ball. Not long before Defoe’s intervention, Southampton’s José Fonte had been issued with a straight red card for grappling Fabio Borini to the ground as the two players hared towards the Southampton penalty area in hot pursuit of a through ball. “There’s a lot of positives we can take out of the game,” said Defoe. “I thought we played well, created chances. The next game’s a massive game, the biggest game of the season, so we just try and win that one. There’s no point dwelling on the negatives, you’ve got to be positive and continue to keep going and just have that mentality from now until the end of the season. Personally, I think we will be fine. I believe from now until the end of the season we will win a few games because of the way we’re playing and the players we’ve got.” Asked if it had been difficult to keep his players focused on football matters following the inevitable distraction of the Adam Johnson court case, Allardyce was in no doubt. “The answer to that is yes but we have to be professional,” he said. “That’s outside of our control and we really have to put that behind us. I’m in charge of football and I think the players have done that already. We focus on what we’ve got to try and do and make everybody happy come the last game of the season in May.” With Newcastle United at an even lower football ebb, Allardyce and his players will not necessarily have to wait until May to improve the mood on Wearside. Man of the match Virgil van Dijk (Southampton)
Mass media is over, but where does journalism go from here? In his essay Death to the Mass Jeff Jarvis develops an argument he has been making for years. Treating the public as “a mass” and giving them a “one-way, one-size-fits-all product” is no longer appropriate. I’m totally with him on that. It is just one reason why newsprint national newspapers in Britain, the epitome of mass-marketing, are increasingly viewed as irrelevant by readers (and the people who want to reach them: advertisers). Here’s Jarvis: “What has died is the mass-media business model — injuring, perhaps mortally, a host of institutions it symbiotically supported: publishing, broadcasting, mass marketing, mass production, political parties, possibly even our notion of a nation. We are coming at last to the end of the Gutenberg Age.” By contrast, Facebook connects people with people while Google gives people the option to go directly to what they want, and not what newspaper editors (aka information gatekeepers) tell them they should want. Value, argues Jarvis, is far better than volume. And I nod again. He is on the money, is he not? I don’t need to repeat all of his core argument (go there if you wish) because it is good and I was on board long ago. But where I depart from Jeff’s joyous acclamation of the brave new world of a post-mass disaggregated digital media is what it portends for our world. He is convinced that quality journalism will prosper from “a relationship strategy” built around communities and shared interests. Allowing that to be the case, the key problem is still about revenue, about how we fund journalism when there is no mass paying for it. Jeff asks that question of course. His answer is, to be frank, anything but convincing: “The industry is exploring various new revenue streams.” In other words, despite the exploration, nothing has yet worked. This crucial question cannot be passed over. The funding of journalism, real journalism, the kind that costs money to produce - such as resource-heavy, lengthy, investigative journalism and the eye-witness, independent reporting from international conflict zones - is key to the future of democratic society. Without money, whatever the strength of the argument in favour of a new form of journalistic distribution, whatever the good intentions of individual journalists, the act of journalism is imperilled. There are plenty of pie-in-the-sky ideas about how we can re-attract advertisers, but none sounds remotely practical. We’re on a wing and a prayer here, Jeff. All your enthusiasm and optimism will not solve the problem. Clearly, given that Google and Facebook are now the largest distributors of journalistic content, we journalists - providers of the raw material from which they benefit - need to reach an accommodation with them. They are our replacement newspapers, our hosts, our new media magnates. We are in the content creation business. They are in the distribution business. They need our “product” and we need a portion of their profits to fund us. Unlike our current “big media” publishers, they know more about their users than we ever did about our readers. That’s a great help to us. They also foster relationships, another help for us in reaching the right people with the right material. Collaboration makes sense, but does anyone recognise the urgency of reaching an agreement? I see journalists vanishing before my eyes. And I see journalism turning into “churnalism” on a daily basis. And that’s what frightens me most about the future: how will democracy be served if journalism means no more than the publishing of PR-packaged content “mediated” by people who never leave their computer screens? Then there is the possibility that if journalism becomes something of a niche activity, how will we have a “national conversation” and, even more pertinently, if there is to be such a conversation, who will set its agenda? I know the future is net-based. I knew it years ago when it was neither profitable nor popular to say so. I share much of Jeff Jarvis’s vision and his distaste for old-style, top-down, mass market journalism. But how can we save public interest journalism, and the journalists who provide it, unless we find a business model to fund it?
Live music booking now Indie survivors the Maccabees rode the tail-end of the genre’s heyday with their 2007 single Toothpaste Kisses. But while the majority of their contemporaries disappeared into the ether, the band toned down the twee and rose through the ranks of rock to achieve a No 1 record and festival headline slots. They prepare for the latter with two summer warm-up gigs (Y Plas, Cardiff, 13 Jul; O2 Academy Liverpool, 14 Jul) … Guy Garvey’s Meltdown – the festival whose name rather satisfyingly conjures up images of what guest-curating such an event must feel like (especially if the shambolic ATP is anything to go by) – has had more acts added to its bill. New additions include Richard Hawley and Kiran Leonard, who’ll join the likes of Laura Marling, Robert Plant, Connan Mockasin and I Am Kloot on the Elbow man’s lineup (Southbank Centre, SE1, 10 to 19 Jun) … Finally, two thirds of New York hardcore/rap band Ratking showcase their talents in London next month, with Wiki + Sporting Life joining forces on stage. Expect an airing of God Bless Me, the pair’s recent collaboration with Skepta (Electrowerkz, EC1, 4 May).
How £30m-plus fees have become the norm in the Premier League Lucrative television deals, owners and investors with seemingly bottomless pockets, financial fair play not necessarily being fair – there are numerous reasons for the expeditious rise in Premier League transfer fees. Forty-five days remain in the transfer window and already last year’s record summer total of £822.5m appears set to be broken, and it may reach £1bn if mooted moves such as Paul Pogba to Manchester United go through. What this window has been most notable for so far, however, is the arrival of a new barometer: the £30m fee. There were five £30m-plus transfers last summer but this year an amount unheard of a decade and a half ago for the world’s best has become the norm for good – but arguably not exceptional – players. Sadio Mané, Granit Xhaka, Eric Bailly, Michy Batshuayi and N’Golo Kanté have been transferred for around £30m each – but what would that amount have bought in the past? Fifteen years ago Juan Sebastián Verón became the Premier League’s record signing in 2001 when joining Manchester United from Lazio for £28.1m, a fee still some way off the world record €75m (£46.6m) Real Madrid paid Juventus for Zinedine Zidane that same year. Twelve months later Rio Ferdinand moved to Old Trafford from Leeds for £29.1m but with add-ons and fees bringing the total to around £34m, he again broke the British record and became the world’s most expensive defender for a second time after Lilian Thuram’s move to Juventus had usurped the £18m Leeds United spent on bringing Ferdinand to Elland Road from West Ham United. Ten years ago In a list of the top 50 transfers of all time, what is perhaps most noticeable – apart from the majority at the top being quite recent – is a gap between 2002 and 2006 where no record fees were set. However, in 2006 Andriy Shevchenko joined Chelsea for £30.8m and two years later the nouveau riche Manchester City muscled in with the acquisition of Robinho from Real Madrid for £32.5m. City’s convoluted signing of Carlos Tevez 12 months later for £47.5m took the spend of English clubs to a new level. Five years ago Even in 2011, fees above £30m were not common and were reserved, with only a couple of exceptions, for the world’s best players. Cesc Fàbregas’s return to Barcelona earned Arsenal £38m, while Manchester City spent the same amount on Sergio Agüero. An English record had been set with Fernando Torres’s £50m move from Liverpool to Chelsea on the final day of the winter window, although Andy Carroll moved from Newcastle United to Anfield for £35m on the same day. Liverpool, it should be noted, had also signed Luis Suárez on the same day for £22.8m, a price that in hindsight was a bargain. Last summer Transfer spending has steadily risen in recent years – Arsenal paying big money for Mesut Özil in 2013 and Alexis Sánchez in 2014, while Chelsea offloaded Juan Mata and David Luiz in the winter and summer transfer windows respectively two years ago – but last season marked a watershed as Stoke City and Crystal Palace flexed their newfound financial strength. The five moves costing more than £30m belonged to three of the elite, though. Manchester City spent a combined £134m on Nicolás Otamendi, Raheem Sterling and Kevin De Bruyne, and Anthony Martial became the world’s most expensive teenager when joining Manchester United from Monaco for £36m. The most interesting of all, however, is Christian Benteke, considering Liverpool’s desire to offload him and Crystal Palace’s willingness to spend almost the same amount to buy the striker this summer. His £32.5m transfer from Aston Villa to Anfield was an eyebrow-raising fee for a player most notable for saving a team from relegation.
Angel Olsen: My Woman review – love in all its complicated glory Angel Olsen’s third album is one of two halves. It opens with five short, exhilarating tracks that fizz with attitude and immediacy. “Heaven hits me when I see your face,” she sings on Never Be Mine. A moment later she’s telling someone to “shut up kiss me hold me tight”, with no punctuation to allow for second thoughts. The love affairs invoked here are un-straightforward but their expression is gloriously direct. In the second half, the pace slows, the songs stretch and the 29-year-old grows more introspective. “Melancholy” is a word that follows Olsen around, but here she sounds more assured, even in her darker moments, and her strong, versatile voice is as extraordinary as ever.
Kanye and Taylor: the Bette Davis and Joan Crawford of pop Further dispatches from the awards-industrial complex, where controversy is created in advance so that it can be dramatically, sensationally addressed on stage come the big night. Budgets aside, it’s the same business model as Loose Women, where Katie Price tweets about doing something to her hair, then goes on the show to address the online reaction to the thing she did to her hair. Hair sales ensue. Frankly, it amazes me that people are frittering their time away on displacement activities such as worrying about China and possible harbingers of global financial catastrophe; if Twitter goes tits up, the entire showbiz economy will implode, and all western, metropolitan areas will resemble the last human city in The Matrix, which was so grim it literally had no pop-up anythings. Furthermore, its denizens all looked as though they were dressed by Yeezy outfitter Kanye West – a vision that appears increasingly prophetic. Anyway. We begin, of course, with Kanye and Taylor Swift, whose hideously dysfunctional symbiosis is fast turning them into the Bette Davis and Joan Crawford of pop. If there has been a higher camp awards moment this season than Taylor’s pointed “Don’t you dare try to take credit for my FAME!” speech at the Grammys, then Lost in Showbiz would like to see it. If Versace did the Reichenbach Falls, it would look like this. Taylor, to recap, was retaliating to a series of nasty outbursts by Kanye, most of which he unveiled at or in the wake of a malarial album-launch-cum-fashion-show last week, where the only thing missing was a thought bubble above Vogue editor Anna Wintour’s head reading: “Why can’t he be more like my other pet, Roger Federer?” As far as Taylor’s would-be nemesis goes, my instinct is that Kanye is being a shade optimistic with his lyrical musing: “I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex.” That said, there’s every chance the pair will end up embittered and billeted together in some sort of home for retired megatweeters. The entire story is starting to feel as though it’s building toward a denouement that will form the basis for series 11 of Ryan Murphy’s dramatically ironic American Crime Story. As for whom the people will be versus in this case, the smart money would be on Kanye, who hasn’t been playing with a full keyboard since 2013. Even so, don’t rule out Taylor, especially after that Blank Space video (remember, though, kids: you only have to be discomfited by stylised video violence when Rihanna does it). So where do they go from here? My hope is that Kanye and Taylor will move into paying each other compliments on their combat skills even as they try to destroy each other, like proper Worthy Foes. I can see Taylor remarking: “Obi-Kim has taught you well,” shortly before delivering some mortal online blow. In the meantime, Kanye’s ability to pass everything off as meta-post-modern performance art may well be bumping up against its outer limits. For instance, last weekend’s decision to use Twitter to ask Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg for a billion-dollar investment in his “ideas” (unspecified) appears not to have been an unqualified success. As for the impudent suggestion that his sister-in-law Kylie Jenner had signed a deal with Puma – rival leisure cobblers to his Air Yeezy line – Kanye announced last week that “1,000% there will never be a Kylie Puma anything”, a statement that felt like a gold-standard guarantee there would absolutely be a Kylie Puma something by this week. And so it has come to pass, with the Kardashian scion being unveiled as a face of the brand. Poor old Kanye. I know he’s the undisputed genius of this age – and, indeed, of all ages. Even so, the character he most resembles currently is Mickey Mouse in the Sorcerer’s Apprentice bit of Fantasia. Please God Kim gets home soon and angrily sorts out the mess he’s made, otherwise we’ll have to watch helplessly as he gets spanked to death by his own enchanted broom.
NHS ‘reforms’ do nothing but increase admin costs Polly Toynbee is right to highlight the difficulties for managers trying to cope with the impossible combination of an internal market and underfunding in the NHS (This is the NHS, 6 February) but she does not spell out the full horror of the effect of successive re-disorganisations. There have been eight of these since the 1970s, implemented by politicians who have never bothered to evaluate whether any of them have had any beneficial effect. As a doctor who worked in the NHS for 40 years from 1968, my impression was that all did more harm than good, and they cost billions of pounds. A study by Alice Lale and Jonathan Temple last month evaluated whether any “reforms” affected mortality in England and Wales between 1948 and 2012. They conclude that the addition of multiple tiers of administration has increased costs but had no effect on mortality; indeed politically led management change “seems to be a wasteful ineffective practice”. The only factor that could be correlated with decreased mortality was increased funding. Politicians frequently exhort doctors to provide evidence for proposed changes to treatment, yet have conspicuously failed to apply this to their own actions; indeed Kenneth Clarke, when health secretary expressed the view that academic analysis of reforms was a sign of weakness. Current management structures (compulsory competitive tendering and the internal market in particular) could be dismantled with immediate cost-savings and a probable decrease in overall mortality. Richard Spicer Woolverton, Somerset • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
No, Theresa May hasn't been pushed to the side of G20 photos because of Brexit It is a wonderfully symbolic image, the prime minister of a post-referendum UK sidelined in the official photos at G20. Cue a thousand opinion pieces about how it reflects Britain’s need to readjust to our place in the world now we are out of the loop in EU talks and on course for Brexit, even if we don’t seem to have a plan. Just one problem: it’s not really the case. The protocol for setting up the leaders’ photos at the G20 without causing offence or diplomatic incident is fiendishly complex, but one of the principles is that longer-serving heads of state or leaders are placed nearer the middle of the photo. Here’s the lineup coming together ready for the official photo in London in 2009, with Barack Obama in the second row and Angela Merkel out on the far right – with no suggestion that the US and Germany weren’t important members of the G20 any more. A year later, in Canada, the June G20 summit was the first attended by David Cameron, freshly installed as British prime minister. Here he is, also on the fringe of the picture, without an unfavourable referendum decision in sight. Two years later, at Los Cabos in Mexico, Cameron was near the middle, and it was France’s newly elected François Hollande on the edge of the photo. In 2013, the G20 met in St Petersburg, but Hollande had still not made his way into the centre of the group, meaning he doesn’t feature at all in the more informal images to emerge from the photo session. So yes, the photo of May in China does handily allow you to make a point about Britain being isolated but no, she wasn’t put there as diplomatic punishment because the UK voted for Brexit.
Rolling Stones’ Darryl Jones not just a spare part As a lifelong Rolling Stones fan who fully recognises their genuine respect for the blues and its heritage (Reviews, G2, 25 November), I find it all the more disappointing that their (black) bass player Darryl Jones is not included in band photos and still appears to be treated as a mere hired hand, 23 years after he replaced Bill Wyman. Graham Larkbey London • Nick Wyatt (Letters, 28 November) asks how many bathtubs make one Wales. You can’t equate a measure of volume with one of area, but for the record, if all of the sugary drinks consumed by 11- to 18-year-olds in one year were poured over Wales, the resulting sticky mess would be about an inch deep. Dr David Harper Cambridge • Conundrum: I share the cost of the with my husband. He reads all the sport section, I find so little reporting of women’s sport that I don’t bother. What percentage should I pay or just continue to use it to light the fire? Jenny Jeater Hassocks, West Sussex • No wonder there are so many estate agents – I learn that not only do they charge me as a landlord a fee for making the inventory of the flat at the change of tenants, they charge the tenant as well (Unfair letting fees ban? Truth is the agents just got too greedy, 26 November). Mette Marston London • Is it really such a shock that Ed’s gone (Last dance for Balls as he steps out of Strictly, 28 November)? Perhaps the voters who challenged the system by backing someone with little expertise beyond buffoonery withdrew their support when they realised where it might lead. Strangely comforting. John Cranston Norwich • If the US president-elect backs down on his promise to build a wall on the Mexican border perhaps he could construct a Trump-l’oeil instead (The billionaire cowboy builder, G2, 28 November). David Griffith London • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com • Read more letters – click here to visit gu.com/letters
New Boots boss offers chance to change Pharmacists join their vocation because they want nothing more than to be able to use clinical skills to make beneficial differences to the lives of patients. Boots employs 6,000 pharmacists and its pharmacies dominate high streets throughout the UK. However, following our patient safety surveys of Boots pharmacists, it is apparent that large numbers feel that they have been severely hampered in doing so. The business culture you have recently revealed, which makes use of relentless and unacceptable targeting of NHS funds through medicine use reviews, coupled with intolerable working conditions, is a scandal that has caused widespread concern and anger (How Boots went rogue, 13 April). That’s why the changes in the company’s senior UK management are so important to its customers and to NHS patients (Boots UK boss quits, 9 June). We sincerely hope that the new Boots managing director heralds a change in business culture within that organisation. One that no longer relentlessly places targets upon its pharmacists in its pursuit of vast profits and double-digit growth, irrespective of the impact that it has on patients. A new business culture that allows Boots pharmacists to practise with professional autonomy and gives them sufficient time and support to build meaningful clinical relationships with patients. If the new managing director could achieve that, then she would go a long way to restoring the company’s image, as well as relieving the current pressures on the NHS. This would be to the benefit of the public, pharmacists and taxpayers. Mark Koziol Assistant general secretary, Pharmacists’ Defence Association Union • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
More violence at Trump rallies A white man at a Trump event in North Carolina punched an African American protester as police escorted the protester out. Onlookers cheered. The police … took down the protester. Protester detained after being sucker-punched “The police jumped on me like I was the one swinging,” Rakeem Jones, the protester, said. “It’s just shocking … I was basically in police custody and got hit.” The alleged puncher, John McGraw, was charged with assault and battery. Young black woman pushed by attendees at Trump rally – video When reporter Michelle Fields tried to ask Trump a question on Tuesday, she was grabbed by the arm and jerked toward the ground. A colleague said her assailant was Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski. “I’m just a little spooked,” she said A Trump spokesperson called the charge “entirely false” and accused the reporter of seeking attention. “Mr Trump and his personal space should never be invaded,” Trump’s aide said. Lewandowski responded on Twitter by calling Fields an “attention seeker” and accusing her of previously going “silent” after making a sexual harassment claim. The four remaining GOP candidates meet in Miami tonight for their 12th debate. The Q came up at last night’s debate. Hillary Clinton said that when Trump accused Mexicans of being rapists she said ‘Basta!’ Bernie Sanders suggested Trump’s demands for the president’s birth certificate were racist. Video: is Donald Trump a racist? He’s finally done it – Texan Ted Cruz claimed his first endorsement from a colleague in the senate, frenemy Mike Lee. So what are the other 52 Republican senators waiting for? Lee asks Rubio to ‘get behind Cruz’ Two polls had Marco Rubio within single digits of Trump in his home state ahead of Tuesday voting. Will the world witness a Marco miracle? Marco Rubio battles sinking feeling Republicans in the US Virgin Islands caucus today – if they’re not too busy chilling or boating or whatever. Nine delegates are at stake.
A Moving Image: the film Spike Lee might have made about Brixton With the dome of Brixton’s Lambeth town hall looming in the background, a salt-and-pepper cropped fiftysomething, clad in a lurid dyed outfit and plastic red necklace, fixes his eyes just above the camera and launches into an impassioned rant: “The real people of this community are being forced out. The developers don’t give a flying fuck; they don’t have a social conscience. It’s destroying whole families and communities. I’m from Peckham … they’re saying it’s gonna become trendy like Brixton has become. Peckham has got the largest Nigerian community in London. What you see is what you get. There’s no Costa fucking Coffee. Or Foxton’s … Please. Don’t. Make. Peckham. Trendy. Like. Brixton. Thank you.” The man was speaking at the Reclaim Brixton demonstration, which took place in south London in April 2015. Its organisers said that the event celebrated Brixton’s cultural diversity (it is internationally known for its vibrant African-Caribbean communities) while aiding the fight against the exodus of locals because of rocketing house prices and the purging of smaller, individual businesses thanks to high rents and competition from incoming big business. On the night of the event, protesters smashed one huge glass front window of high-end estate agent Foxton’s and daubed “Yuppies out” on another. The explosive passions of the day reflected the thorniness of the issue: is it possible to “rejuvenate” an area without stripping away its soul and displacing its natives? And how does one define gentrification anyway? The real-life footage of the Peckham man’s interview appears midway through A Moving Image, the feature debut from British-Nigerian film-maker Shola Amoo. In the fictional world of Amoo’s film, this footage is being captured by Nina (Tanya Fear), a young female actor who, tired of experiencing casual sexism in casting, has embarked on a new project: a visual-art piece about gentrification. It is inspired by her complex feelings about returning to the area after a long spell in hipster east London. Is she herself – young, arty, stylish – a gentrifier? Along the way, Nina strikes up a relationship of sorts with a pompous but politically engaged black performance artist, as well as a young, white working-class actor. She also comes under suspicion from a community leader wary of the barely researched nature of her project, and anti-gentrification activists who view her as a dilettante. For both director and star – who first collaborated on haunting sci-fi short Touch (2013) – A Moving Image is a personal undertaking. Amoo was born in Guy’s Hospital, Southwark, and spent his youth between Elephant and Castle, Peckham and Brixton. He still lives in Elephant and Castle, and says that seeing its rapid erosion of diversity and the destruction of community housing (the Heygate estate for example) is what made him pursue the film, which was partially funded by £4,782 raised on crowdfunding site IndieGogo. Fear, meanwhile, has lived in all four compass points of London. “Shola and I have been talking about this film’s issues for several years,” she says. “Having one of our many coffees in Brixton, we looked around us and it really hit home: this was not the place that we once knew. The character Nina is based on our producer Rienkje Attoh’s experience of growing up in Brixton, leaving, and returning to a place she didn’t recognise. We then begun to ponder this question, how are we as creatives implicated in the changing landscapes of our local communities?” These knotty questions – what is the purpose of art? Can it really effect change? – give this occasionally vaporous film its backbone. “I was questioning the value of art in the face of social trauma and the role of artists in the process of gentrification,” says Amoo. “I was aware of the potential hypocrisy that exists being an artist and making a film about gentrification – especially in our perceived role as being the first wave of gentrification. My immediate reaction was to think that my blackness protected me from any claim – but does it? I wanted to explore the nuance of blackness in the UK and it’s unique relationship with art and class.” In tackling these subjects, through the proxy of amateur film-maker Nina, Amoo throws traditional form out of the window, freely mixing fiction, documentary and performance art. “It became quite clear to me that a purely fictional narrative on gentrification wasn’t going to be immersive enough – the real story was in the people I was meeting and the events taking place,” says the director. “I’m in a constant dialogue about form, content and innovation, forever keeping in mind that mediums need to evolve to stay relevant, and I think cinema is on the cusp of such a transformation.” He hopes that the film’s combination of the multimedia elements and layered depictions of contemporary multicultural London push it into “uncharted territory, especially in a British cinematic tradition”. Stylistically speaking, as a point of contrast, the playful A Moving Image is the polar opposite of I, Daniel Blake, the politically vigorous, formally conservative Palme d’Or-winner from Ken Loach, who remains the standard-bearer for British social realist cinema. When I ask Amoo about his influences, he cites Philadelphia artist Don Christian, whose music appears in the film, and Nigerian performance artist Jelili Atiku. He mentions no film-makers, but there are hints of Spike Lee’s Brechtian brio, particularly his 1989 masterpiece Do The Right Thing, which contained a memorable riff on gentrification: a scene in which a brownstone-bound, middle-class white bicyclist sparks incredulity among the local black and Latino community by claiming he was born in the area. The film also features a host of direct addresses to camera, another distinctly Lee-esque touch, and a community focal point – known in the film as Big Ben – who acts as a troubadour-cum-Greek chorus. “Big Ben to me is the spiritual essence of Brixton,” says Amoo. “What’s interesting is that the song he sings, (Sometimes These South London Streets Remind Me Of) Brooklyn, was written by him before he knew about the film.” So, will the likes of Big Ben be around the area for long? Do the film-makers think these current trends are reversible? “It doesn’t seem like it,” says Fear, “because these developers don’t see the value in community. They only value financial profit, so we are left with crude vestiges of what has gone before in these ‘gourmet jerk chicken shops … but no black people’, as one character in the film says.” Given recent Brixton developments, such as the controversial approval of plans to redevelop the long-standing railway arches that house independent businesses, Fear could be right. Amoo, for his part, is a little more hopeful: “I think change is inevitable but gentrification isn’t – if we really value culture and diversity, surely some investment can be made to protect it. Or do we want a situation where only people from a certain social-economic bracket get to live in London?” A Moving Image premieres at the London film festival on Saturday 8 October. Details: whatson.bfi.org.uk
Finding Dory review – fishy sequel awash with emotional manipulation There’s something in the water at Pixar. The computer animation studio is rarely content merely creating cute anthropomorphised wildlife or dazzling frenetic set-pieces, examples of which abound in their latest, Finding Dory. There also continues the sadistic streak that reached new heights during the first reel of 2009’s Up, continued with the coda in 2010’s Toy Story 3 and went beyond the pale tossing the adorable pink elephant Bing Bong into a memory hole last year’s Inside Out. Pixar doesn’t just pluck the heartstrings, they throttle them until they vibrate into higher dimensional space. Finding Dory, a same-but-different spin on 2003’s tremendously popular Finding Nemo, is relentless in its pursuit of getting its audience to sob. (Think of it as an interactive film: the characters are immersed in salty water, so the audience should be, too.) These are tremendously effective moments, thanks to the highly advanced machinery that can create nuanced emotional tics on the faces of kooky, googly-eyed creatures and the outstanding voice acting talent of people like Ellen DeGeneres, Albert Brooks and (believe it or not) sitcom dingus Ed O’Neill. This isn’t to say the film isn’t repetitive or facile, it most surely is, but when it moves with its natural currents it is quite a remarkable achievement. If you never saw the original, or suffer from some sort of memory loss, no need to worry. The silly aide-de-camp from the first adventure, Dory (a Pacific regal blue tang voiced by DeGeneres), is living in comfort with her adopted family, Marlin (a nervous clownfish voiced by Brooks) and his son Nemo (Hayden Rolence), among other happy members of the sea. But we get a look into her childhood, one in which her loving parents (voiced by Eugene Levy and Diane Keaton) do their best to care for her despite a disability. Dory, you may recall, suffers from chronic short-term memory loss. Think of Memento but with gills instead of tattoos. Other than her name and the fact that she is separated from her parents, she can’t remember what it was that she just forgot a moment ago. That begins to change, though, when she gets bonked on the head and starts seeing flashes. Soon, she and her two clownfish pals are on the trail of mom and pop, which leads them to a Sea World-like institution in California. Finding Dory downshifts into a race-the-clock rescue scenario, and while this may not be too original (see Toy Story 2), it affords the animators room to stretch out and have a bit of fun. Don’t worry too much about the location: this isn’t a Blackfish scenario. As celebrity spokesperson Sigourney Weaver explains, this is a rehabilitative habitat, in which oceanic life is nursed back to health and returned to the open seas. What that means is: get ready to joke around with sick fish! (Fans of the Albert Brooks Cinematic Universe may want to do cartwheels. You may recall that the 1999 sendup of Hollywood, The Muse, climaxed with Brooks pitching a Jim Carrey vehicle about sick fish.) The rules of Finding Dory are a little vague (if you are really sick, you end up sent to a different infirmary in Cleveland?) but it’s more than enough for its primary function: wacky, visually dynamic action scenes involving sea lions, birds, a network of pipes, gift stores, whirlpools and touch tanks under assault from terrifyingly grabby children. The high point of all this is a character that can stand alongside Cars’ Mater, Sulley from Monsters, Inc. and Wall-E’s Wall-E: Hank the octopus. Grouchily voiced by Ed O’Neill, Hank, who has chameleon-like powers in addition to his Reed Richards-style elasticity, is far on the cartoonish edge for typical Pixar. His exaggerated expressions and movements are absolutely mesmerising. He toggles between goofy and sly, and I tell you his likeness is going to be in our pop culture for a very long time. (Studio PR is already pushing Hank as the most complex animated character created.) But for each moment of ecstasy spent squishing around with Hank, there’s another of panic with the emotionally wounded Dory. As a tiny fish-ling with an adorable speech impediment, her behavioural disability led her to get separated from her family, and she has never stopped blaming herself for letting them down. This is some heavy stuff and, amid all the gags about near-sighted whales, arguably one of the more frank depictions of raising a special-needs child in a mainstream film. DeGeneres’s vocal performance is extraordinary, effortlessly shifting from jokes to self-perpetuated anxiety attacks. One particularly devastating scene, shot in a disorienting first-person manner, might actually be too overwhelming for small children. It was certainly overwhelming for me. The problem with Finding Dory is it doesn’t know when enough is enough. Its believe-in-yourself message is pounded with the subtlety of a hammerhead shark and the final action sequence is really too far-fetched to fathom. (I know, I know, this is a movie about a fish that can read and suffers from memory loss, but trust me: the ending gets extra stupid.) I recognise there’s thematic consonance here if the movie itself is constantly repeating itself, but let’s not give Pixar postmodern cred where it may not have asked for any. This is a movie with a great number of bright spots, but it’s still for an audience with a short attention span.
Colin Firth at the Berlin film festival: 'If someone wants me to wear a mankini in a film, I will' Colin Firth, master of quiet repression on screen, is ready to wear a mankini. “If someone wants me to wear one in a film, I will,” joked the actor at the Berlin film festival press conference for his new film, Genius. “I’m ready to burst out of a cake.” Respoding to a question about his tendency to play well-dressed, withdrawn characters, Firth said we live in an era of “rampant exhibitionism” and that his Genius character, Maxwell Perkins – the unassuming editor who was credited with honing the work of Thomas Wolfe, Ernest Hemingway and F Scott Fitzgerald into classic literature – stood in relief to that. The star of the biopic, which premieres at the Berlin film festival, said social media has shepherded us into “an era when we’re all clamouring to be visible”. “Perhaps it was ever thus,” said Firth, speaking at the film’s press conference. “But we now have to tools to do it.” He joked that his profession qualified him to diagnose the self-regarding nature of our modern age: “I’m an actor, so I know what I’m talking about.” Genius is the first film by celebrated theatre director Michael Grandage. Alongside Firth, it stars Jude Law as Thomas Wolfe, the prolific author of Look Homeward, Angel and Of Time and The River, Guy Pearce as Fitzgerald and Laura Linney as Perkins’ wife, Louise. The film charts Perkins and Wolfe’s friendship, which was formed during constant arguments over how to cut Wolfe’s gargantuan manuscripts into novels. Based on the book, Maxwell Perkins: Editor of Genius by A Scott Berg, the script was written by John Logan, screenwriter of the last two Bond films. “Wolfe is on the verge of being forgotten,” said Logan. “So if we remind a few people that there is a great writer to be rediscovered, we’ve done our job well.” Law, who plays Wolfe as exuberant in life as he wrote on the page, said that he and Firth had been eager to capture “the speed of thought” that Perkins and Wolfe possessed. “They were fighting to find honesty at all costs,” he said. Wolfe, who died of miliary tuberculosis at the age of 37, was a North Carolina native who drew heavily on his own life to write his poetic prose. When asked if he’d had to suffer to learn the North Carolina accent, Law said: “I didn’t have to suffer greatly.” “We did,” joked Firth. Asked if he’d learned anything new about the American writers of the 1920s, Firth said making Genius had made him reassess F Scott Fitzgerald’s legacy. “I misjudged Fitzgerald as a young man,” he said. “I thought that – like many of his contemporaries – he was just writing about the party scene: about wealth and fame. In fact, he was writing about something more ambitious – about the shallowness of it. So I fell in love with Fitzgerald again. It helped that I was partly in love with Guy Pearce.”
Disruption to women's lives caused by periods needs more research Millions of girls and women avoid school and work while they are menstruating because of stigma and inadequate hygiene, yet too little research has been done to assess the effectiveness of programmes designed to address the problem, says an Oxford University study. Programmes to support menstruating women vary wildly, with no comprehensive review of what works best or why. As a result, governments, international organisations and local charities may be investing funds and resources in programmes that could be more efficient, according to the paper published on Wednesday in the journal Plos One. “Interventions such as the provision of sanitary products or education around puberty may be simple strategies that can increase girls’ attendance at school and reduce the stigma surrounding periods,” said senior author Paul Montgomery of Oxford University’s Centre for Evidence-Based Intervention. “Such programmes may be a cost-effective way to target gender inequalities, but we need proper evidence that can measure their effectiveness.” If women and girls cannot manage their monthly cycles with ease and comfort, there can be major consequences: poor menstruation care is a significant barrier to development and gender equality, can induce shame and anxiety in women, and results in poor attendance at school and work. Less than half of girls in lower- and middle-income countries have access to basics such as sanitary towels or tampons, soap and water, or facilities to change, clean or dispose of hygiene products, data shows, while nearly a quarter of girls in India drop out of school after they begin menstruating. The cost of hygiene products – as well as access to toilets – are major barriers too, the study says. Commercial absorbents such as sanitary napkins are often expensive and hard to find in many areas, forcing women to use inadequate – and sometimes dangerous – alternatives. In India, 70% of women can’t afford sanitary napkins, forcing many to use husk sand, unsanitised cloth or sand to trap the blood instead, resulting in extremely high rates of infection. Open pit toilets and ones without doors or locks can make a girl feel threatened and indicate to others when she is menstruating, causing embarrassment. Positive interventions can work: school attendance improved by 9% in Ghana after girls were provided with absorbents. But, to date, only eight such trials have been performed worldwide, and only three tested the value of providing sanitary products. Another issue, say authors, is that most research focuses on girls, not adult women, even though they are still affected. “Women are expected to suffer in silence, and menstruation is not acknowledged in reports or development documents. What we need is a situation where all women and girls are able to manage their menstruation with comfort and dignity,” said the study’s lead author, Julie Hennegan. • This article was amended on 11 February 2016 to clarify there could be major consequences if women were not able to manage their monthly cycles well.
Not ogre yet: Shrek set for big-screen return after DreamWorks takeover The Shrek franchise is set to return to the big screen after a five-year absence. The acquisition of DreamWorks Animation, the studio behind the original films, by NBCUniversal could lead to more fairytale adventures, according to NBCUniversal chief executive Steve Burke. The deal was worth $3.8bn (£2.7bn) and will lead to Chris Meledandri, of Despicable Me production company Illumination Entertainment, taking charge of the series’s revival. “He is creatively going to try to help us figure out how to resurrect Shrek,” Burke said. A key goal is also to increase the presence of the franchise’s characters within Universal’s theme parks, as well as any added merchandising opportunities. Burke says the deal “advances our consumer products agenda by five years”. Shrek was released in 2001, making $484m globally and picking up the first ever Oscar for best animated feature. It was followed by three more films and a spin-off Puss in Boots. The franchise has so far made $3.5bn worldwide. Another Shrek film would follow Pixar’s increased sequel output, with Finding Nemo sequel Finding Dory out this summer, followed by Cars 3 and Toy Story 4.
Danny Rose hits superb winner as Tottenham fight back to beat Burnley It was seconds after Raheem Sterling had put Manchester City 2-1 up against Arsenal in the 71st minute that the White Hart Lane scoreboard coordinator decided it was time for a score-flash from the Etihad Stadium. Tottenham Hotspur had needed a lift. They were the dominant team in this entertaining tussle but it was locked at 1-1 and they were struggling to prise apart Burnley, to create the moment for the knock-out blow. Perhaps the news that their north London neighbours were down might spark them? The home support roared. Shortly afterwards, whether by coincidence or not, the game’s outstanding performer, Danny Rose, fashioned the winner. It came with a sledgehammer swing of his left boot after the substitute Moussa Sissoko had put him through on a quick break. Tom Heaton was beaten at his near post but it was no goalkeeping error. The power of the shot was too much. The Burnley manager, Sean Dyche, was devastated afterwards and not only because he felt that a gritty and aggressive performance from his team had deserved reward. To him, Sissoko should not have been on the field after he had been guilty of an ugly high kick on Stephen Ward one minute before the goal. Sissoko lunged in on Ward with his studs up as he chased a bouncing ball, and he raked them down the front of the full‑back’s leg. He was only booked. “It was a head-scratcher,” Dyche said. “It was not a close one, it’s a sending-off. You cannot go in blind, with your hands over your face and do a high foot like that, and stay on the pitch.” Dyche said the decision of the referee, Kevin Friend, had been the “sixth game‑changer of the season” against Burnley and he wondered aloud whether the lack of a reaction from Ward had saved Sissoko. Had he writhed about on the floor, Dyche suggested, and his players then moved to surround Friend, perhaps the colour of the card would have been darker. Then again, Dyche said he and the club’s supporters did not want to see their players engaged in what he diplomatically called “simulation”. Tottenham had most of the game, certainly in terms of shots on goal and the territorial advantage, but Burnley were stubborn opponents who had their moments. Andre Gray, for example, was denied at close range in the early running by Hugo Lloris after Ward had robbed Kyle Walker and crossed. Lloris’s save with his feet was an excellent one. Burnley’s record on their travels remains dismal but they fashioned a sight for the sorest of eyes midway through the first half – an away goal, only their second of the season. Once again the inroads came up the Tottenham right after Harry Winks had sold Walker short and Scott Arfield nipped in to win possession. His flick hit Winks and broke for George Boyd and when his cross ricocheted off Mousa Dembélé, Ashley Barnes was on hand to poke past Lloris. From a Tottenham point of view it was a mess and Mauricio Pochettino fumed on the touchline. By then his team had created the openings to have “killed the game” in his words, and none of the chances had been clearer than the one that Dele Alli botched in the second minute. Harry Kane’s pass had set him through on Heaton’s goal, from an angle on the left, but he ballooned the attempted curler high. Kane and Christian Eriksen went close while Alli found the angle was against him after a Victor Wanyama headed flick. There had also been pain for Alli after Matthew Lowton caught him with a nasty tackle. The Burnley full-back was not booked for that one. Spurs found a swift response to Barnes’s goal and it came from Alli. Wanyama rolled the ball wide to Walker and, from his low cross, Alli darted across some static Burnley defending to sidefoot low into the near corner. Tottenham pressed on to the front foot, with Walker and Rose catching the eye with their forward thrusts from the full‑back positions. Pochettino said Rose’s performance had been arguably his best of the manager’s time at the club. The soundtrack to the game was provided by the guttural noises from Pochettino and Dyche in the technical areas, which threatened to summon previously unsighted wildlife to N17. Who knew what either manager was barking but the sense of urgency was palpable. Dyche was beside himself at a number of Friend’s decisions and there was also the moment on 54 minutes when Eric Dier lunged into a penalty-box challenge on Gray. Dier just about got a piece of the ball, together with other bits of the Burnley striker. “I thought that was a good foot in,” Dyche said. Spurs, who missed Toby Alderweireld because of a back spasm, threatened but without creating too much of clear-cut note. Kane had worked Heaton from Alli’s lovely through-ball in the 42nd minute while, in the second half, Eriksen headed at Heaton after good work from Rose; Alli curled narrowly wide and Eriksen was again denied by Heaton. Rose, though, cut through the tension.
Measure for measure: how much alcohol do writers drink? Anne Perkins: ‘I don’t get drunk, and I don’t recall being really drunk since I was about 17’ 35-40 units per week Sally Davies knew what she was up to, heaping guilt on to bleary revellers and allowing we dry Januarians a moment of public preening before friends start the eye-rolling again. Like the Ikea boss who was a self-confessed alcoholic but dried out for a month a year, it is possible that I stop in order to reassure myself that I can. Alcohol, who needs it? But the boundary between enjoying and needing is even hazier than the number of units in a glass of wine. I know I drink more than the old guidelines recommended, and much, much more than the new ones: probably about half a bottle of wine most nights, enough for my GP to be reminded by her computer to ask me how much I drink each time I see her. If I don’t drink, it is because some conversations are better when you are sharp. Just as some are more fun when you aren’t. I don’t get drunk, and I don’t recall being really drunk since I was about 17 and spent a day on a beach with no food and a lot of cider. We grew up in a cheery guilt-free drinking atmosphere. Each evening one of us poured our father a glass of gin (“just wave the Martini bottle at it”). We drank wine from an early age. In our 20s, we drank more regularly than my daughters do now. We admiringly shared friends’ shocking stories of excess, but not many of us got plastered, not often anyway. We definitely didn’t do that pre-drinking thing that kids do, not least because drinking was a pricey way of having fun in the 70s. Now the culture is becoming simultaneously more abstemious and more drunken. A large glass of wine at the theatre is the size of a vase, and if you order four glasses, it’s cheaper just to buy the bottle. Meanwhile friends with whom I have shared so many long, joyous and boozy lunches are slowly, and disappointingly, drying out. Mark Rice-Oxley: ‘Drink was second only to air, a badge of honour, a rite of passage’ 25 units per week Drink has always featured. It was there in half pints as early as 1984, easily siphoned off from the murky depths of the kitchen beer sphere. Living in the Soviet Union in the early 90s, it was there in drinkware filled with vodka through a bitter black earth winter. It was there in flutes and highball glasses to take the edge off the parenting. And for a parent of young kids, 14 units is nothing. Units are in the kitchen, for standing bottles on. But I was never too worried about alcohol. I think it’s a generational thing. Fortysomethings are the booziest people in the UK. I have no data to back this up, just decades of anecdotes. Our parents deal in G&T measures, or bottles of plonk rarely drunk to the bottom. They drank halves in pubs, never binged. Our kids are different too. They’re too scared of the future to be too dissolute. I’m having a devil of a time getting my oldest to even drink shandy. But Gen X is different. Drink was second only to air, a badge of honour, a rite of passage, a tremendous bonding agent, usually hilarious. We have little to fear from common sense drinking. The really dangerous thing is habit. It’s the same with cigarettes, pastries, caffeine, red meat, cheeses, all the things we’re supposed to give up: when they become habit, we cease to enjoy them and they start to enjoy us. And so I am generally to be found doing battle with habit and not with any particularly commodity. A day a week, a week a month and a month a year off the drink works nicely. Dry January is a bit gimmicky now but it works for me and it’s actually rather straightforward and quite interesting. Maybe I’m a lucky drinker. But few people I know who drank to excess in the 80s and 90s seem to be regretting it now. A Russian roommate died at 23. But that’s Russia. This is Britain. My circle now will look at the 14 unit advice and laugh: it’s our life, we’re healthy enough, something’s going to get us in the end, but we’ll drink heartily until it does. Drinking guidelines are an ill-judged attempt to protect people from themselves, to help them live an extra 30 years in misery. But life itself is dangerous. No one survives. Hannah Jane Parkinson: ‘I know there’s a link between excessive drinking and breast cancer. I just don’t think about it’ 35 units per week Prosecco in the summer. Mulled wine fireside in the winter. Cocktails with random men whose job one does not fully understand the rest of the time. Defiant shots after the last tube. I drink a lot. David Hockney, though not a heavy drinker, is almost as famous for his pro-smoking stance as he is for azure Los Angeles swimming pools. Defending his cigarette habit, he once said: “We are all going to die, and this luckily comes at the end of life.” It’s an aphorism I hold close to my heart. I’m 26 and thanks to the myopic sense of indomitableness that comes with youth, I am not haunted by the long-term health effects of too many nights in the pub. I know that there’s a significant link between excessive drinking and breast cancer; I just don’t think about it. As a quasi-libertarian, I’m not too keen on overbearing state intervention. The French, for instance, have no alcohol guidelines. You probably guessed that. But we cannot deny the burden alcohol-related illness places on the NHS or the success of the smoking ban. There’s an argument that raising taxes might help lower consumption, but I doubt that. Some say this would hit the poor hardest. This might not be true, simply because there’s evidence it’s the wealthier middle-aged who are getting trashed on a nightly basis. Anyway, something incredible has happened. I haven’t had a drop of alcohol in two weeks. It’s nothing to do with “New Year, New Me!” (stop it), nor government guidelines, but rather that after a succession of December booze-ups I needed a break. It was a personal choice. I realised it was not advisable to be living as though the Kinks’ Have Another Drink is the soundtrack to the film of my life. I don’t know how long this will last, but I want it to be longer than the month. And so far – I’m doing well. Raise a glass to me. Zoe Williams: ‘We would routinely drink our week’s units by 5pm on a Monday’ 21 units per week When I started drinking, it was in a very competitive spirit: to be more exact, I commenced drinking as a competition – who can drink this the fastest? – and continued in roughly that spirit throughout my education. When I first started work at the Evening Standard in the 90s, we would all, routinely, have drunk our week’s units by 5pm on a Monday. I probably drank about 70 or 80 units a week. At Christmas 1996, I wrote a drinking diary, amping it up a bit to be festive, and drank 183 units in a week. It’s just not possible to drink that much without a round-the-clock peer group, so freelance in the 00s I sometimes stuck by government guidelines and mainly didn’t. I always went with the Swedish rather than the UK government – 21 weekly units for a woman, rather than 14 – reasoning it was different because Swedes were more sensible and larger, and I, too, am sensible and large. I got pregnant in 2007 and wrote a lot about the senselessness of the guidelines, which were for the gravid then what they are for the general population now: “there is no safe lower limit”, as if there’s a safe lower limit for anything. Once I had two children I didn’t have time for my busy drinking schedule, and at the end of 2013 made a resolution to spend more of the week off than on. That was the only time I’ve ever written a book that wasn’t just ripped-off columns I’d already done. When, in 2015, the book failed to have the impact I desired (a peaceful revolution led by 40-year-olds), I went back to drinking whatever I wanted, which is probably about 21 units a week, certainly never less than that, sometimes that in two nights. These guidelines I mind not because I dispute the raised cancer rates caused by even moderate drinking, but because I find the fixation with self-preservation – this notion that all our efforts should be concentrated on our own longevity – unseemly and solipsistic. Priya Elan: ‘I was mortified. I don’t think either of us drank white wine for about two years after that’ 14 units per week When I was 14 years old I got hideously drunk for the first time with my best friend Mike. We huddled in my living room watching Shallow Grave, swigging cheap white wine (either stolen from Mike’s parents’ kitchen or bought illegally from the local Budgens. I can’t remember). As we ate turkey burgers, the plot shifted in and out of focus of our increasingly blurry field of vision. By the time Mike’s mum turned up to pick him up from my house, he was passed out in the hallway lying in the foetal position and moaning like a tiny bird. I was mortified. I don’t think either of us drank white wine for about two years after that. I remember other teen initiations into the world of drinking (swigging ‘G and V’ – gin and vodka – out of a sad water bottle with a friend en route to a party, a tipsy evening that included eating a whole box of liqueur chocolates and sipping from a hip flask filled with Jim Beam: ugh) but this first experience is the one most clearly etched in my mind. Growing up, my dad- who’s from Sri Lanka - absorbed Britishness like a Zelig and drinking was part of that. First beer (I remember big 80s cans of Budweiser lying around the house), then semi-pretentious red wine (he used to love a Zinfandel). Today, as a dad of a one year old, my relationship to drinking can be likened to that of an old friend you see infrequently: weeks go by with no contact and then bang - you have one big night together. But back then I was naive as to how much binge drinking was part of British culture. I found out that drinking wasn’t just recreational, but deeply etched into the DNA of our society, stitching together our closest (male) friendships. We’re not alcoholics, goes the subtext, we’re just relaxing. That’s why the government’s advice, while important and potentially life saving, will fail. At least in our lifetime. It’s hard to see how it can dismantle so many complicated, deeply woven ideas we have about bonding, most of them male. Alcohol as a social lubricant, as a lubricant to teenage male awkwardness, unfortunately cannot be bettered. Michael White: ‘I’ve deliberately reduced my tolerance. Drink has helped kill a lot of friends’ 24 units per week When I was a young reporter on the London Evening Standard, covering anything from murder to Miss World, lunch on the early shift consisted of three pints and a cheese omelette at the Globe across the street at 11am. It’s what Americans, still prohibitionist puritans at heart, call a “British lunch.” Older colleagues skipped the omelette, but I was always a lightweight by the heroic standards of old Fleet Street. My future boss, Ian Aitken, a veteran of Beaverbrook’s mighty Daily Express, had hollow legs, though he drank whisky and water with MPs in Annie’s Bar at Westminster because (I learned years later) this particular Scot didn’t much like the taste. It slowed him down. It is hard to convey the scale of drinking before globalization and IT raised everyone’s game. It wasn’t just journalists and politicians, it was the City and the industrial boardroom, lawyers and judges, a lovable English teacher at my Cornish grammar school who popped out for a couple at lunch. In the 70s I once had to arm wrestle an SNP MP I’d just met (he’d decided I disliked him) well before noon. I easily prevailed, but he won the late night rematch on the floor of the SNP whips’ office. The other two horsemen that helped tame this liquid apocalypse were growing feminisation of the workplace and the health police. The concept of a unit of alcohol would have provoked Farageish cries of “drinks all round” at El Vino’s, where thirsty women reporters weren’t allowed to stand at the bar until a showdown in 1982. What would the ghosts of old Fleet Street have made of Dame Sally Davies’s latest warning, let alone of the shrinking definition of a unit, half what it was 20 years ago? Seven pints a week? Even lightweights like me often drank 14 such units during the course of a productive 12 hour day. In recent years I’ve deliberately reduced my tolerance of drink, well aware that it helped kill a lot of friends. I usually manage to squeeze under Dame Sal’s old advice (28 units, generously defined). After one of my long lunches with Aitken I now come home exhausted and tell my wife: “I’d say Ian drinks too much if he wasn’t 88.”
Goldman Sachs banker handed out iPods to win Libyan deal, court hears A former Goldman Sachs banker gave iPods to members of the Libyan Investment Authority (LIA) as well as paying for prostitutes, and was one of the Wall Street firm’s top global salesmen in 2008 as a result of its business with the investment fund, the high court in London has heard. The LIA is suing Goldman for $1.2bn of losses on nine trades that the US bank executed on its behalf between January and April 2008. The fund was set up in 2006 by the late Libyan dictator, Muammar Gaddafi, to manage the country’s oil wealth. Goldman is disputing the claim, which was filed in 2014, saying the LIA was the victim of the 2008 financial crash, not of any wrongdoing by the bank. Andrea Vella, a senior Goldman executive who is the first witness called by the bank, was questioned by LIA’s barrister, Philip Edey QC, on Thursday. When the barrister told him that the former Goldman executive Youssef Kabbaj had given iPods to LIA staff, Vella expressed surprise and replied: “I am upset, disappointed.” Kabbaj also paid for prostitutes to win business from the fund, the court heard. When asked by Edey whether this, along with gifting iPods, “would be completely unacceptable conduct for a Goldman Sachs employee” and “crossing a serious line”, Vella replied: “It would have been unacceptable.” The court was shown an email, sent in August 2008 by Karen O’Keeffe, Goldman’s vice-president of employee relations. She wrote: “The firm has a relatively new relationship with the Libyan Investment Authority. As I am sure you can all imagine, there has been significant scrutiny over this particular client – which happens to be a very significant account for the firm. “Youssef, who is a VP and has been with the firm since only 2006, is the primary point of contact with the LIA. This will be a difficult situation to resolve since Youssef is one of the top, if not the top, salesperson globally, as a result of this single client.” Vella told the court that Kabbaj was motivated by money. “I didn’t think he would do anything for money ... Was he very focused on his compensation? He definitely was.” Vella said he now recognised that Kabbaj was dishonest, but did not think so at the time. Pressed by Edey whether all three junior Goldman employees on the coverage team for the LIA were “dishonest and have made up for the purposes of financial gain their accounts of the relationship with the LIA?” Vella replied: “Yes.” The court was shown a chapter of Greg Smith’s book Why I Left Goldman Sachs about “hunting elephants”, an investment banking euphemism for big deals. Vella said: “If you asked people at Goldman Sachs, if they were aware of the details of the Libyan transactions … probably many of them would define them as elephant trades.” The court also heard that Vella and other Goldman bankers were advising the Libyan fund on investments, but Vella insisted that this “high-level strategic advice” was done on an informal basis and “there is no implication that anyone could rely on that advice”. A key allegation by the LIA is that Goldman exploited the financial naivety of its staff. Vella rejected this claim in his witness statement, saying he was “pleased and impressed with the level of sophistication”. But when cross-examined by Edey, he admitted that the bank was aware that some LIA staff lacked financial sophistication. “What was conveyed to me was that we had to be cautious … that there were people at the LIA that were not sophisticated,” Vella said. In his statement, Vella said that the LIA fully understood the disputed trades and obtained the exposure it wanted but the underlying shares did not perform as it had anticipated. The case continues.
The Commune review – the more the merrier? Danish director Thomas Vinterberg’s own experiences of growing up in a commune during the 1970s and 80s inform his unflinching approach to the subject in this drama, which was based on his own stage play, Kollektivet. More heavy-handed than Lukas Moodysson’s similarly themed Together, less abrasively confrontational than The Idiots by fellow Dogme 95 signatory Lars von Trier, The Commune is slightly melodramatic in its exploration of the emotional fallout when an experiment in collective living coincides with the breakdown of a marriage. When university lecturer Erik (Ulrich Thomsen) inherits a huge house on the outskirts of Copenhagen, he is dissuaded from selling it by his wife, Anna (Trine Dyrholm), who proposes sharing the space with like-minded friends as a way of easing the financial burden, and staving off the middle-class, middle-age ennui that threatens to engulf their marriage. Anna, a local television news reader, thrives in the hubbub of their new living arrangement. But Erik resents the fact that his voice is no longer heard, and is flattered by attention from an attractive young student, Emma (Helene Reingaard Neumann). His hand is forced when the relationship is discovered, in an agonising, beautifully acted scene, by his daughter, Freja (Martha Sofie Wallstrøm Hansen, excellent throughout in one of the few substantial supporting roles). When Emma moves into the commune as Erik’s new partner, Anna finds herself stranded on the outside of the community. Her breakdown is bitter and undignified. Dyrholm’s skill as an actor notwithstanding, this is a rather dispiriting trajectory. And Vinterberg doesn’t help matters with a too obvious piece of broken-heart symbolism in the form of a chronically ill child.
All roads lead to Elko for Republicans chasing rural Nevada vote Way up in the north-east corner of Nevada, Elko is perhaps best known as home to the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering. And Basque restaurants reflecting the remote region’s sheep herding heritage. And White King, billed as the world’s largest stuffed polar bear, all 2,200lb of him on display at a casino. No, really. But on Monday, the eve of Nevada’s Republican caucuses, Elko was the center of the GOP universe, which brings us to the Elko Convention Center. The doors opened at 8.30am there for Marco Rubio’s rural rally. And 10am for Donald Trump’s. And 3.30pm for Ted Cruz’s. The Texas senator was supposed to talk to supporters at the Boys & Girls Club of Elko, but his state campaign chairman, Adam Laxalt, said earlier in the day that plans had changed. “Every rally we’ve done has been a huge rally,” Laxalt said after Cruz’s noon rally in Las Vegas. “We’re going 750 miles today. We’re going to Elko and Reno from here. We’ve had to change venues, everything’s sold out, people are excited.” Jeb Bush, who has since dropped out of the race, travelled to Elko in January. Ben Carson visited Elko in December, a trip that spurred his Nevada state director, Jimmy Stracner, to issue the kind of warning that doesn’t happen every day on the campaign trail. “Stracner said those who want to attend need to remember to leave their weapons at home,” the Elko Daily Free Press reported. “He said the candidate is for the second amendment, but at a previous rally the secret service sent people – including concealed carry permit holders – home.” On Saturday, even Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders dropped in before the Democratic caucuses, although their staff members probably didn’t need to tell supporters not to bring firearms to the rallies. Rural voters can be an important ingredient for success to Republicans, particularly when turnout is low. Complicated caucuses, which can take several hours, tend to dampen voter participation. “With the caucus, it is so unknown who turns out,” Laxalt said before heading to Elko. In the 2012 Republican caucuses, “we only had 33,000 show up in the state – 16,000 from here, Clark County. Who turns out is up to anyone’s guess. I think if conservatives turn out, then Cruz is in a very, very good position.” Laxalt said he has toured the state on Cruz’s behalf and “there were a lot of folks that didn’t even know we had a caucus … I think that’s one disadvantage we face.” Laxalt knows first hand about the power of the rural Republican. When he ran for state attorney general in 2014, he won with a particular distinction. He was the first statewide elected official in a century to be elected without carrying Washoe and Clark counties, home to about 89% of Nevada’s population. “Certainly outside of Las Vegas, our voters are used to meeting candidates,” Laxalt said. “The more you can get around the state, the better off you’re going to be. And Cruz makes a great impression. When he gets to speak directly to voters and shake their hand, they become locked in as consistent supporters. So, we’re hoping to grab as many voters in the last 36 hours as we can.” Cruz’s final Nevada swing included Elko (population about 20,000), Minden (3,000) and Fernley (19,000). It kicked off with a rally in a motel parking lot in Pahrump. Pahrump, with about 37,000 people, is the population center of Nye County. It is about 65 empty, dusty miles west of Las Vegas, a drive that shoots past sagebrush and cacti and traverses cellphone dead zones. The sky is big, the highway is straight, the journey practically begs a driver to bust the speed limit. On Sunday, in the parking lot of a Pahrump motel, standing in the bed of a shiny black pickup truck, Cruz burnished his outsider bona fides. He declared that Nevada’s federally owned lands – about 85% of the state – should be given back to the people. And he warned, to cheers from the cowboy-hat-wearing crowd: “If you see a candidate Washington embraces, run and hide!”
Alan Rickman and David Bowie tributes lead 2016 Berlin film festival The Berlin film festival is to stage tributes to Alan Rickman and David Bowie, it has been announced. In a wide-ranging press conference, festival director Dieter Kösslick provided more details of the festival’s programme, alongside already revealed events such as the world premiere of Terence Davies’ A Quiet Passion and an opening gala presentation of the Coen brothers’ Hail, Caesar! The festival, which opens on 11 February, will screen Ang Lee’s Sense and Sensibility, in which Rickman plays the key supporting role of Colonel Brandon, while the Bowie tribute will be the 1976 Nicolas Roeg film The Man Who Fell to Earth. The competition for the Golden Bear has been finalised and will include Thomas Vinterberg’s The Commune, inspired by his own childhood; Alex Gibney’s documentary Zero Days, about cybercrime and internet surveillance; Genius, directed by Michael Grandage; and Mia Hansen-Løve’s Things to Come. Also screening in competition will be Alone in Berlin, an adaptation of the celebrated Nazi-resistance novel, and Midnight Special, from Mud director Jeff Nichols, about a man trying to protect his gifted son from government agents. Joining the Coens and Terence Davies in the festival’s non-competitive sections will be Spike Lee, with his anti-gun parable Chi-Raq, Don Cheadle with his Miles Davis biopic Miles Ahead, and Michael Moore with his satirical documentary Where to Invade Next. Also showing will be experimental documentary The Seasons in Quincy: Four Portraits of John Berger, made by four directors including Tilda Swinton. The increasing status of TV work is also reflected in the festival’s programme. Berlin will show episodes from series two of Better Call Saul as well as two BBC miniseries: Love, Nina, adapted from the book by Nina Stibbe about working for literary editor Mary-Kay Wilmers, and The Night Manager, starring Tom Hiddleston. The Berlin film festival runs from 11 to 21 February.
‘I’d rather have prevented the Paris attacks than predicted them’ says film director On Friday 13 November last year, French film director Nicolas Boukhrief was asleep when the telephone began to ring at around 9.30pm. A suicide bomber had just blown himself up outside the Stade de France. Boukhrief was shocked, then appalled; fiction had become fact. His film, Made in France, which tells the story of a homegrown jihadi group planning a terrorist attack on the French capital, was due for release in four days. Four hundred promotional posters displaying an automatic rifle superimposed over the Eiffel tower and the slogan “the threat comes from within” had been plastered all over the Paris Métro 24 hours before. And at that moment, Islamist terrorists were rampaging through the French capital carrying out shootings and suicide bombings that would leave 140 people dead. The reality was even grimmer than Boukhrief had imagined. “Like everyone else my first thought was pure shock. Then I realised we had to get the film posters taken down. Immediately,” Boukhrief told the . “People say the film was prophetic but I’d rather have been wrong. I’d rather have prevented than predicted something. That’s the paradox. The events of 13 November mean there is enormous interest in the film because it stopped being fiction and became fact. As I director, I want my film to be a success, but I don’t want to profit from such terrible events.” Boukhrief believes, however, that those terrible events were entirely predictable. “I’m no visionary; the Paris attacks were only new because they happened in Paris. Even before there were attacks on Barcelona, London, Boston, 9/11, Tunis... not to mention places like Yemen, Syria and Iraq. “The only difference is they happened elsewhere. Then they happened in Paris.” Made in France follows a group of young men from the Parisian banlieues who are drawn into following Hassan, a psychopathic French Islamic convert who has returned from training with al-Qaida in Afghanistan. Sam is a journalist who infiltrates the group by virtue of having an Algerian father. He speaks Arabic and knows the Qur’an. Christophe, who is from a bourgeois Breton family but insists on being called Yassin, is another convert and the most fanatical of the young men. When Hassan announces they have orders to place a car bomb on the Champs Eysées as the start of a series of al-Qaida attacks across France, the two Muslim youths express doubts about “killing women and children”. By then it is too late for any of them to back out. Boukhrief, who like Sam has an Algerian father and French mother, says he wanted to write a screenplay about Islamic terrorism after the 1995 attacks on the Paris transport network by the Algerian-based Armed Islamic Group (GIA) that killed eight and injured more than 100 people. With just one film to his name, he decided to wait until he had more experience of film-making and life before tackling such a complex issue. When Mohamed Merah killed three soldiers – one a French Muslim called Mohamed Legouad – and three Jewish schoolchildren and their teacher in a series of attacks in 2012, Boukhrief decided the time was right. “I thought Merah marked the start of something worrying in France. He was not a lone gunman, he was motivated by the idea of jihad and being a soldier for al-Qaida. I wondered what makes a young French person decide to kill French soldiers and children in France. I wondered what drives a Mohamed to kill another Mohamed.” From the start, the film encountered obstacles. It was hard to sell, financing was tight – a relatively measly €2.8m budget funded by Canal+ – and local councils refused permission for the crews to use their streets until Boukhrief submitted a fake screenplay replacing Islamist terrorists with the Russian mafia. “My idea of doing a film was received with some fear, but mostly indifference. Producers thought it anecdotal, marginal, not commercial. We had a hard time finding backers,” the director said. “When filming started, al-Qaida was the main Islamic threat. It was after we began that Daesh [Islamic State] emerged. The more the film progressed, the more reality seemed to be catching up with us.” Fact and fiction converged in January 2015 when terrorists hit Charlie Hebdo magazine and a Jewish supermarket in three days of killing that left 17 dead. Made in France was in postproduction at the time and the distributors pulled out, blaming the subject matter. New distributors Pretty Pictures, run by Englishman James Velaise, took up the challenge and an 18 November release date was set. After the 13 November attacks, a cinema release for Made in France seemed both impossible and insensitive. So on 29 January, the film will finally be made available online, via the video-on-demand service of French TV channel TF1. Velaise said negotiations were also at an advanced stage to distribute Made in France in the UK. “The film has become a cause célèbre in France because of 13 November, but it’s an excellent thriller with a very powerful and topical message. If it had come out on 4 November as [originally] planned, it would have been pulled from all cinemas by 14 November,” Velaise said. Boukhrief says while he has no sympathy whatsoever for Islamist terror recruits, he can understand what drives them towards the extremes. He is critical of statements such as that made recently by French prime minister Manuel Valls that to understand the terrorists was to excuse them. Boukhrief recalls how at the age of eight, while living with his family in the Riviera town of Antibes, his father came home bloodied after being beaten up by rightwing vigilantes. “It was known as a ratonnade, from the word rats, which is how these fascists regarded Arab immigrants. Gangs would roam the streets to find Arabs and beat them up. “For someone with the name Mohamed, like my father, it was a permanent, daily aggression and not just physical; you couldn’t get an apartment, or a job, or even get into a nightclub. “But as we have seen from the French attacks, where many are converts, we can’t be racist about this or believe the stereotypes because terrorism isn’t systemically linked to immigration.” He added: “I wanted to understand who are these young men who want to commit suicide while killing the maximum number of people in the name of an ideology? How can a country like France produce these people? “It’s a violent film, because it’s a violent subject, but I wanted to explore where the humanity is in those who are eaten up by this ideology, this fanaticism. “Instead of seeing these people just as psychopaths, we should ask what has made them so. Why do they have nothing to lose by blowing themselves up, why do they believe they will have this heroic destiny? What has pushed them into this ideology and fanaticism and what can we do to resolve the problems? “I don’t excuse them or sympathise, but if we don’t understand them, if we don’t start seeing them as human beings and ask why they are doing this, where is the humanity in them, we won’t resolve the problem. “The politicians say we are at war, but these terrorists were made in France, they are not enemies from another country, they are the children of France. We can’t declare war on them. They are French citizens.”
Five of the best new gigs 1 The Stone Roses Comeback single All For One may have sounded like someone in a Stone Roses tribute band said: “Hey guys, how about we try our hands at songwriting?”, but you suspect that won’t dampen the vibe at this week’s series of Manchester shows. Ever since they re-formed, Roses gigs have propelled themselves along on an atmosphere unlike any other, and that is never as heady as when they play their home town. Etihad Stadium, Manchester, Wed & Fri, to 19 Jun 2 Parklife Talking of Manchester, this year’s Parklife festival appears dedicated to putting on several parties all at once: Skepta and Stormzy for the grime crew, Katy B and Major Lazer for the ravers, Jamie xx and Jack Garratt for soulful types and, er, Bastille… for the Bastille fans. Heaton Park, Manchester, Sat & Sun 3 Field Day It’s a great week for city-dwellers who like the festival experience brought to them: Field Day’s ever-reliable lineup this year features PJ Harvey and James Blake but there’s also experimental composer Anna Meredith, buzzy teens Let’s Eat Grandma and the return of the Avalanches to get excited about. Victoria Park, E3, Sat & Sun 4 YG West Coast rapper YG was shot outside his recording studio while making his new album Still Brazy, and it didn’t take him long to commit that incident to record: “The only one that got hit and was walking the same day,” is how he put it on last year’s Twist My Fingaz. His is a grittier, less reflective portrait of the Compton streets than offered by Kendrick Lamar, and he’ll be bringing it to London for a one-off date. XOYO, EC2, Thu 5 Dr John Cooper Clarke Still touring and still writing provocative new material – Get Back On Drugs You Fat Fuck and Some Cunt Used The N Word should win prizes for their titles alone – the bard of Salford continues his tour this week. Liverpool, Sat; Milton Keynes, Thu; Birmingham, Fri
The leave campaign would scrap workers’ rights. It must tell us which ones When it comes to whether Britain should remain in the European Union, almost all political parties and traditions – Labour, the Greens, Liberal Democrats, the SNP, Plaid Cymru, and half of the Tory Party – agree that we are better off in Europe. But that doesn’t mean we all have the same reasons for wanting to stay in. A few days ago Jeremy Corbyn set out the Labour case. When it comes to jobs, investment, growth, security and our influence in the world we are clearly stronger in Europe. But we are also making a Labour argument about workers’ rights that really matter, to millions of working people and the trade unions that represent them. Labour has changed its view on Europe since 1975, in part because the world has changed but also because of the benefits that Europe has brought to people at work. At a time when the Tories were undermining workers’ rights back home, Jacques Delors, in his celebrated speech to the Trades Union Congress in 1988, opened our eyes to Europe’s potential to strengthen them. And as more and more workers across Europe discovered that their firm now had an owner from another EU country, cooperating with colleagues across the Channel became the norm. And Europe was as good as its word. It helped to guarantee paid holidays, improved maternity and paternity leave, put limits on working time and gave better protection to agency and temporary workers. By ensuring these rights across borders, it helped stop a race to bottom that globalisation, left unchecked, could otherwise bring. That’s why Frances O’Grady, the general secretary of the Trades Union Congress, is backing remain. It’s why unions including Unite, the GMB, Unison and Usdaw are all backing remain. And Labour is backing remain to protect these rights. Millions of people in the UK are guaranteed a minimum of four weeks’ paid holiday. Workers are guaranteed 11 consecutive hours’ rest in any 24-hour period, a 20-minute rest break if the working day is longer than six hours, a minimum of one day off each week, a working week limited to on average 48 hours a week, and limits to night work of an average eight hours in any 24-hour period. More than 8 million part-time workers in the UK have the same rights as full-time workers. About three-quarters of these are women. It was a European court of justice ruling that helped part-time workers to have the same rights to join occupational pension schemes as their full-time colleagues. About 13 million women in work are protected from discrimination as a result of equality legislation; 340,000 women receive paid maternity leave each year in the UK. In addition, 1.6 million people on temporary contracts now have the same rights as permanent workers. That’s an awful lot of people protected, and yet the Brexiters scoff at those rights. The employment minister, Priti Patel, a prominent Tory Brexiter, has called them a burden and would like to halve them. Boris Johnson said it was “very disappointing” that Britain had not made “changes to employment law”, complaining that we “need to weigh in on all that stuff, all that social chapter stuff”. Cameron’s former adviser Steve Hilton has complained that “membership of the EU brings with it constraints on everything from employment law to family policy”. And when Chris Grayling was asked what European “red tape” he disliked, he referred to health and safety laws. Their target is very clear, but the specifics of what they want to do, and which of our rights they want to get rid of, are not yet clear. So my challenge to them is this: it’s time for you to come clean: which rights that the EU today guarantees for British workers do you want to get rid of if we leave? Which rights should my constituents not be entitled to any more when they are at work? Is it health and safety, limits on working time, or rights for part-timers? And why should we trust a Conservative government in Westminster to protect them if we leave, when so many Tory Brexiters clearly have so little enthusiasm for them? Of course, the reason why the Brexiters won’t go into any more detail about their plans is because they know British workers would be appalled. And the vast majority of businesses don’t want these rights to be eroded either. I spent 20 years working for the trade union movement before becoming a Labour MP. I’m proud to have done both jobs. The union movement has achieved a huge amount in the past century or so. It has secured important rights at work, tackled unfair discrimination and ensured that Britain is one of the safest places in the world in which to go to work. And because we know how hard it was to win those rights, the whole Labour movement is united not only in pride at their achievement but in determination to protect them. And that’s why, Labour, the trade unions and millions of British workers will come together on 23 June and vote to remain in the EU.
Versus: The Life and Films of Ken Loach review – a timely tribute Louise Osmond’s documentary tribute to Ken Loach could not have been better timed. His powerful, simple new movie, I, Daniel Blake, won the Palme d’Or at Cannes and underlined a colossal international reputation. It’s an engrossing study of this gentle, mild-mannered director with a core of steely determination, who made his bones (as they say in Hollywood) in the BBC of the 1960s, which gave a new generation of working-class writers and film-makers their chance. This has excellent contributions from Tony Garnett and Alan Parker, though it could have given more space to the late Barry Hines, the novelist and screenwriter with whom Loach worked on Kes and other films. Loach emerges as diffident and almost donnish in interviews, although his uncuddly side is revealed in his continuing anger about the way he feels former Royal Court director Max Stafford-Clark let him down over an abandoned production of Jim Allen’s controversial play Perdition. What this film arguably neglects is to ask why Loach is such a one-off, and why social realism – though still a live force in British cinema, with its newer proponents admired on the international festival circuit – has become almost an aesthetic style, detached from actual arguments for political change. This is a fitting and satisfying tribute.
Michael Sweet-Escott obituary Our father, Michael Sweet-Escott, who has died aged 93, enjoyed working as a GP for 30 years in the Yorkshire Dales. He came from a family of classical scholars who mostly became teachers or members of the clergy, so his choice of occupation was a break with tradition, largely prompted by his wartime experiences. Michael, the eldest of three sons of Will, a schoolteacher, and Olive (nee Mitchell), was born in Lyme Regis, Dorset, and educated at Westminster school, London, winning a scholarship to study classics at Christ Church, Oxford. He completed his degree in a year, combining this with training to be an RAF pilot. For three formative years between 1942 and 1945 he was with the RAF in Canada, teaching navigation for 18 months and flying Tiger Moths and Mosquitos. Towards the end of the second world war, he decided beyond doubt that he wanted to train as a GP, influenced by the Beveridge report and the feeling that peace would bring a new and better world, of which he wanted to be part. He trained at Oxford and at Barts in London, qualifying in 1951, and as a young doctor worked in the East End of London, including treating severe health problems caused by smog. Michael’s life was enriched in 1950 by meeting Ragnhild, a Norwegian woman who had come to live in Lyme Regis as a companion to two elderly ladies. They were introduced by his parents, who had befriended her as she was so far from home. The couple married in 1953 and had three children. In 1954 he arrived in Skipton, North Yorkshire, as a southerner who had rarely been “north”; the expectation of the altruistic practice was that a GP was also a counsellor, social worker and paramedic. Michael rose to the challenge of long hours and weekend and night duties, often driving 20,000 miles in a year. He later became one of the earliest participants in the GP vocational training scheme, enjoying teaching, preparing lectures and running discussion groups. His focus on clinical excellence, a patient-centred approach and the support of his colleagues was central to his practice. Annual family holidays to Norway were a hugely important part of his life, and of ours. He loved walking in the mountains, and painting there, and he developed close friendships with our mother’s extended family. After Michael’s retirement in 1985 the couple initially moved to the Cotswolds, returning to live near Skipton four years ago. He had a long and fulfilling retirement, enjoying painting, gardening, walking and travelling. He was an interested conversationalist, open to new ideas and intellectually sharp, challenging the family to Scrabble and card games. He is survived by Ragnhild, us, and seven grandchildren.
Regardless of Brexit, sterling was screaming out for a devaluation We have to get away from these cheap lines about sterling being “hit” or suffering a “blow”, and such like. Currencies are not share prices. Sometimes it’s better, for the health of the UK economy, that the pound loses value against the currencies of our major trading partners. The UK’s financial position, regardless of the vote for Brexit, was screaming out for a devaluation. The current account deficit, a measure of our balance of payments with the rest of the world, was 5.9% in the second quarter of this year. If sustained for too long – and the UK has running such deficits for years – a day of reckoning was bound to arrive eventually. Brexit has been the trigger. Michael Saunders, a member of the Bank of England’s monetary policy committee, was right to sound sanguine on Tuesday. “Given the scale and persistence of the UK’s current account deficit, I would not be surprised if sterling falls further, but I am fairly agnostic as to whether any further depreciation is likely,” he said. Consider the reverse position. What if the UK had voted to stay in the European Union and sterling, at $1.50 at the time, had risen to, say, $1.60 or $1.70? There is every chance the UK would have headed towards negative inflation, bringing a knotty set of challenges for policymakers and intensifying the imbalance between imports and exports. None of above, of course, should be taken as meaning that Brexit will benefit the UK economy. Sterling is falling because investors believe the UK’s prospects are poorer outside the EU, and definitely bleaker if we also end up outside the single market via a hard Brexit. That judgment, at least for the short and medium term, seems entirely correct. It is hard to see how exiting a trading bloc after 40 years of membership could be a painless process. There will be a shock, as sensible members of the leave camp conceded all along as they spoke of long-term opportunities. It is only ideologues like David Davis, the Brexit minister, who can make the ludicrously bald claim that “there will be no downside to Brexit, only a considerable upside”. Davis cannot possibly know how the UK economy will adjust to whatever arrangements follow. But the point about the advantage of a weaker sterling still holds. A lower pound will ease the transition, even if it implies lower living standards for a while. “If all that is happening is that we are adjusting quickly to a new equilibrium, to me that is not a cause for concern”, said Saunders, again correctly. He added that he wouldn’t want to see “ripples” in other classes of assets. Fair point. A weaker sterling would become a problem if it forced up the government’s borrowing costs. The 10-year gilt yield has risen from 0.7% to 1% this month, which has gained a lot of attention but 1% hardly screams crisis. All bets are off, however, if gilt yields were to explode. That world would look very different – and, conceivably, could even humiliate the government into softening its negotiating stance on Brexit (which would be very welcome). But, as matters stand, sterling at $1.21 is simultaneously newsworthy and expected. Why Pure Gym looked too pumped up Where’s your stamina? Pure Gym has pulled its stock market float blaming “this period of market volatility”, an odd excuse given share prices appear to be in rude health. We can concede, of course, that excitement in stock markets is centred on big multinationals with overseas earnings, rather than UK operators of low-price gyms. All the same, markets look no more volatile than they were four weeks ago when Pure Gym announced its intention to list. True, Spanish group Telefonica has pulled its float of its infrastructure subsidiary but that hardly indicates that investors in stock market flotations are on strike. Misys, the banking software firm, hasn’t been deterred from trying to return to the public markets. One suspects there’s a simple explanation for why fund managers viewed Pure Gym’s rumoured pricetag of £500m as too pumped up. There is already a quoted low-cost gym operator called Gym Group. If Pure Gym wouldn’t price its shares at a clear discount, why should investors buy? Will May fold? The cabinet is split on Theresa May’s plan to put workers on boards, reports the FT. Given the fierce lobbying against the idea by business groups, divisions are not surprising. But May has made the proposal central to her governance reforms. If she were to make it voluntary to appoint workers to boards, as the Institute of Directors suggests by way of compromise, 99% of companies wouldn’t bother. May either has to go all-in or fold; the latter course would be astonishingly weak for a new prime minister.
Vice UK rejects call for union recognition Vice’s UK arm has rejected a push for union recognition by a group of staff, bucking a growing trend that has seen unionisation at digital media businesses including the outlet’s main base in the US. At a meeting held in London on Tuesday, Vice UK staff were told that the National Union of Journalists would not be recognised at this point but instead were offered the chance to set up an internal staff council. A subsequent email sent to all staff by Vice EMEA chief executive, Matt Elek, claimed the NUJ had displayed “a concerning lack of transparency from them about who they are purporting to represent here” and had “not been able to provide us with any numbers to demonstrate the degree of support they have in this office”. He added, however, that if the union wished to take the case to the central arbitration committee and it found “an overwhelming majority of legitimate support for a Vice UK union” the company would support recognition. The email adds: “The NUJ are used to working with old print media businesses and structures – they are not used to innovative, digital workplaces like this where the culture has always been to encourage flexibility and allow people work across different departments.” It is signed off “Fanks”. The push for union recognition, which would provide Vice staff with collective bargaining powers, started in February when NUJ members wrote to colleagues asking them to support the bid for official recognition. Their email said: “We enjoy working at Vice. We appreciate our creative freedom. We also believe organising our workplace is the best way to keep pushing journalistic boundaries while allowing all staff to share in the success of the company. Vice UK staff are incredibly hard working, ambitious and creative and we like working at Vice. We are doing this because we want to continue to make the company a success while also sharing in that success.” Senior managers subsequently agreed to meet representatives from staff and the union. The rejection is in stark contrast to the trend established in the US, where journalists working for the digital operations of Vice, Gawker and the have all recently won recognition. A Vice spokesperson said: “We are always engaging with our staff to improve the benefits and experience at Vice UK for all of our employees. To build a progressive, 21st-century media company is a constantly evolving process. We’re going about this by encouraging a dynamic and flexible working culture and giving a range of benefits to our staff including company equity, competitive salaries, a Vice pension scheme, enhanced maternity pay and life insurance.”
'Did a bunch of little kids get shot today?' Stars join march for 'gun sense' In December 2012, when the news broke that classrooms full of first-graders had been shot to death at Sandy Hook elementary school in Connecticut, Julianne Moore was on a movie set in Queens. She turned off the TV in her trailer and asked the crew not to talk about the shooting. Her 10-year-old daughter was with her, and she wanted to shield her from the news. The same day, Melissa Joan Hart was at home in Connecticut with her family. One of her sons was also a first-grader, at a different public school in the state. “The first thing I thought,” she said on Saturday, “was, ‘This couldn’t really be happening in Connecticut.’ I didn’t think it could be anything really serious in Connecticut.” The news “shook my world”, she said. She remembers yelling to her husband, “bring my baby home to me,” as he went to pick him up. The two Hollywood stars joined hundreds of other parents in New York City on Saturday, marching across the Brooklyn Bridge in a call for stricter gun control laws. The march, organized by Moms Demand Action, a gun control group backed by former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, was in its fourth year. It was first held in January 2013, a month after the shootings in Newtown. “What do we want? Gun sense!” the protesters chanted, as they moved slowly across the bridge. “When do we want it? Now!” One Long Island eight-year-old held up a sign that asked: “Who is afraid of a background check?” A mother from Rhode Island held a placard that read: “178 school shootings since Sandy Hook #NotOneMore.” Some parents, including Barbara Parker, whose daughter Alison was shot dead on live television nine months ago, were holding photographs of the children they lost. “Nothing will bring back Alison,” Parker, 66, said at a subsequent rally in lower Manhattan. “But we will not stop until every one of the NRA-funded politicians who offer thoughts and prayers but do not act are voted out of office.” Parker said her daughter, a 24-year-old journalist killed in front of 60,000 viewers, was “a victim of an angry man who should never been able to purchase a gun”. Together with Everytown for Gun Safety, Moms Demand Action claims 3 million members nationwide. The groups push for what advocates call common-sense gun measures, including closing loopholes in existing background check laws, keeping guns “out of the hands of stalkers and terrorists”, tighter regulations for gun dealers, and efforts to encourage gun owners to store their guns locked and unloaded. “I fervently believe that this is not a partisan issue,” Moore said at the rally. “This is not an an anti-gun or pro-gun argument. This is not a second amendment issue, it does not deserve to be hotly debated as such. It is a safety issue. “A majority of us are on the same side, and yet our federal government seems to be deadlocked.” Moore told the crowd she had been able to keep the news about Sandy Hook from her daughter for only a few hours. As soon as they got home, her daughter looked at her phone and asked: “Mommy, did a bunch of little kids get shot today?” “That’s when I felt ridiculous and that it was reprehensible of me to try to keep my daughter safe by shielding her from news,” Moore said. “If I really wanted to keep her safe and be a responsible parent, then I needed to help prevent an atrocity like this from ever happening to anyone else in this country.” Hart said that even though she is a “Hollywood girl” she is not a Democrat, as people tend to assume. “I vote Republican mostly,” she said. When people hear that, they assume she is vehemently pro-gun. “I don’t fit in a box,” she said. Speaking to the , Hart said: “I think the second amendment is important but there are ways to protect ourselves, the same way we put a helmet on our children when they ride a bike, or the same way you can only buy two packages of Sudafed at the pharmacy. “Literally the words ‘gun sense’ say it all.” In the months after Newtown, Hart said, when she was up late at night, nursing her newborn son, “all I could think about were the families – the mothers, the fathers and the grandparents and the siblings that had lost little one. I thought about the first responders and what they had experienced. “That was my moment. That’s when I decided it just wasn’t good enough to send my prayers and hope it never happens to me.” Hart said it was “absolutely not the truth” that gun control advocates wanted to take guns from ordinary Americans. She said she might even buy a smart gun if they were more available – something President Obama has made a political priority. “I’ve gone hunting,” Hart said. “I do not own a gun but if those German handguns that have that fingerprint recognition on them … I would totally own a gun if I knew it wouldn’t be used in my home against the wrong person.” When her kids have playdates, Hart said, she always asks if the family has a gun and if so, how they store it. She sees the angry criticism that gun control advocates receive as a barrier to people getting involved in gun advocacy. When she tweeted that she was coming to Saturday’s rally, the response was “hate” and “pushback”, she said. “I’m not here to take anyone’s rights away,” she added, “but the most basic human right is a child to be able to grow up and that’s what I’m here for.” At the rally, advocates decried the lack of action in Congress and celebrated recent victories at the state level, including the vetoing by the governor of Georgia of a campus carry bill. “Some cynics said our movement would fade away and our outrage was a flash in the pan,” Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action, told the cheering crowd. “The gun lobby now knows that tough mothers by the thousands are here to stay.” As the march wound slowly across the tourist-packed Brooklyn Bridge, some people said they supported the effort. Camilla Bommen, 45, a tourist visiting from Norway, paused to watch the march go by. “I sort of think of gun violence when I hear ‘the United States of America’,” she said. “You have a problem here to a much greater extent than we do in Europe. I think it’s crazy that it’s so easy to get a gun here.” Others on the bridge were more skeptical. Thane Kerner, 54, a software investor from New York, said the protesters’ slogans seemed to oversimplify America’s complex history with firearms and the second amendment. Kerner said he was concerned that gun control activists wanted to limit civilian access to guns, without thinking through what it would be mean to have weapons only in the hands of police or powerful elites. “I look in their faces – I see this earnestness, but it doesn’t seem to be informed by any of the nuances,” he said. Listening to the “gun sense” chants, Kerner noted, his wife had said: “It sounds like, ‘What do we want? Nonsense!’”
Jodie Foster admits to being 'a little sick' of discussing women in Hollywood “Studios still see women as a risk and I’m not really sure why,” said Jodie Foster, addressing the lack of female representation behind the lens in Hollywood. Speaking with director Julie Taymor during a panel at the Tribeca film festival in New York on Wednesday, Foster admitted to being “a little sick” of discussing the topic in a public forum, while warning that “we don’t want to ignore it either”. “It’s been a very long time that there were not a lot of women film-makers, it’s not just today,” Foster said, adding that faster advancements had been made in Europe and especially in television. “The more the financial risk, the less risky studios can be, and I don’t think it’s a plot.” Asked by an audience member why she was tired of debating why women are rarely afforded the opportunity to direct mainstream studio films (a recent report from the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State University found that women directed just 7% of Hollywood’s top 250 films in 2014), Foster said the discussion had become too simplistic. “I feel like the issue is way more complicated than saying, ‘Why aren’t women making big mainstream franchises?” she said. “Having been around and making movies for 50 years, the issues are way more complicated than the dialogue,” Foster added. “There are so many reasons. Some of them are about our psychology, our financial world, the global economy, any number of things. There are so many answers to that question that go back hundreds of years. It would be nice to have a more complex conversation and to be able to look at it as more than just a quota.” Foster stressed that reasoning behind her industry’s troubling lack of diversity is “not as cut-and-dry as everyone thinks it is”. “I don’t think it’s a plot to keep women down collectively,” Foster said. “It’s a bunch of people that weren’t thinking about it, including a lot of female executives who have risen to the top and have not made a dent in [securing opportunities for women film-makers.]” Foster, who has directed four films, also spoke on what she believes to be “leadership styles” that separate female directors from male ones. She said: “Sometimes it’s hard for people to understand how to treat me as a leader because they’re sometimes waiting for me to punch them in the face, or sometimes they’re waiting for me to say, ‘Oh gee, you sound so smart, why don’t I just do it your way?’… I’m neither one or the other, and sometimes it’s confusing for people … Do you treat them the way you treat men? Maybe you don’t because we have different leadership styles.” Foster has only worked with one fellow female director in her acting career (Mary Lambert, who directed her in the 1987 film Siesta), so when asked to cite her best experience working with a female director, Foster opted for Jonathan Demme, who made The Silence of the Lambs. “He was able to see that Silence Of The Lambs is about a woman,” Foster explained. “The film was informed by that. It’s why the film is not filled with gratuitous violence. It’s why, yes, it was horrifying and difficult to watch in some ways, but … he’s the brave heart of that woman’s voice.” Foster didn’t direct a movie until 1991’s Little Man Tate, but said the bug bit much earlier, while doing a part on the TV series The Courtship of Eddie’s Father in the early 70s. “It was with Bill Bixby and he was directing an episode and my eyes got wide,” Foster recalled. “I thought, Oh my God, actors are allowed to direct! That’s what I want to do.” Since Little Man Tate, Foster has also directed 1995’s Thanksgiving comedy Home for the Holidays and 2011’s Mel Gibson vehicle, The Beaver. She considers the projects “very personal films” that “in some way” form a trilogy. Foster said her fourth upcoming film, the Cannes-bound thriller Money Monster, differs by being a “genre film”. Money Monster stars Jack O’Connell as a failed investor who holds a television commentator, played by George Clooney, hostage on live TV. Julia Roberts also co-stars. Although it takes place on Wall Street, Foster stressed that her film is not political like The Big Short and Margin Call, but purely character-driven. Foster expressed a desire to return to directing smaller films, following her experience on Money Monster. “I really will be happy to go back to less of a popcorn movie,” Foster said. “It was a wonderful experience, but I feel like a lot of the stories I want to tell would be constrained in that format.”
Chelsea get back on track as Willian and Diego Costa seal routine win at Hull A first league win since August and finally some satisfaction for Antonio Conte. The Chelsea manager tinkered with his team and, although the performance was not a vintage one, his side eased to a comfortable victory here after goals from Willian and Diego Costa. Conte was visited by Roman Abramovich three times in the week leading up to this match, when they discussed how to revive a flagging team, and although this result may not indicate a complete turnaround, at least it was a start. Conte dropped Branislav Ivanovic and played with a three-man defence that started shakily, but grew into the game. Hull, however, faded badly and Costa capitalised. Both his and Willian’s goals were fine strikes into the top corner in the second half, to ensure Chelsea eased to a much-needed win after recent defeats by Arsenal and Liverpool. “We played with the right intensity and pressure,” said Conte. “For me, we played a good game and also kept the clean sheet for the second time. “After two defeats, it’s never easy. You need to work very hard, but I am happy with the commitment of the players. “It [a three-man defence] can be a big change on the tactical aspect, but I think more than the system it’s the principles that are important. This week we worked on it a lot. We must find the right solution to be more compact. We were able to defend very high and this is very important.” In the end, Chelsea cantered home, but they were evidently learning the nuances of their new formation on the job. David Luiz was flanked by Gary Cahill and César Azpilicueta at the back, and it was Thibaut Courtois who was forced into the two significant saves of the opening half. The first came in the third minute, when he acrobatically tipped over a Robert Snodgrass free-kick that deflected off the wall, David Luiz having pulled down Dieumerci Mbokani on the edge of the penalty area. Eden Hazard and Willian played just off Costa, but while there were a few scuffed efforts here and there, fluidity was limited early on. Hazard appeared the greatest threat and, in the 40th minute, Curtis Davies had to be alert to produce a precise sliding tackle to deny the Belgian a shot at the goalkeeper David Marshall inside the area. Chelsea restarted with renewed impetus and Hazard, in particular, lifted his game. Marshall was forced into a fine stop after the Blues player turned brilliantly in midfield before jinking past his marker and curling a powerful shot towards the top corner of the goal. It was the spark that Chelsea needed to begin a concerted period of pressure. Hull’s only creative outlet was Snodgrass and passes soon began to go awry for Mike Phelan’s side. Indeed, it was one such miscue that almost gave Chelsea the lead. Davies played the ball straight to N’Golo Kanté and the former Leicester City midfielder slipped in Costa, who rounded the onrushing Marshall and shot on to the post, with Jake Livermore getting the faintest of touches as he desperately slid in front of his own goal. Kanté then had a glorious opportunity to score from the rebound, but he fired over. In the 61st minute, however, Chelsea did have their lead. Hull again gave away possession in midfield and the blue shirts swarmed forward, Costa feeding Willian out left and the Brazilian cutting into the penalty area to curl the ball exquisitely into the top corner. Cue more pressure, as Hull’s confidence crumbled. Soon afterwards it was 2-0, as Costa added his sixth goal of the season after Matic, driving forward, had a shot blocked that fell to the striker, who finished coolly. Phelan, the Hull caretaker manager, said: “I was encouraged after the first half; I thought we took Chelsea to certain limits and created a few chances. But, at this level, you need to take them to be in the game. “We did not treat the ball with the care and attention it deserved, and when you do that you get punished. “I’m looking forward to a break. My future will take care of itself. I’m not in a position of panic. I’m not shying away from the challenge; it’s hard this division and we’re a newly promoted team.”
Alden Ehrenreich interview: 'The spaghetti lasso was the hardest' At 26, Alden Ehrenreich is by some distance the youngest of Hail, Caesar!’s principal cast, though having already acted for Francis Ford Coppola (twice), Woody Allen and Park Chan-wook, he’s not entirely untutored in the ways of the auteur film-maker. The way he tells it, he had to hustle to get an audition in the first place: “My agents got a hold of the script, I read it and asked if I could go in. The casting people said no, but I asked again. Then they let me go in.” It wasn’t a straightforward process, he explains: his first go was on his own, on videotape; having negotiated that hurdle, he read for casting director Ellen Chenoweth; only then did he get to audition – twice – in front of the Coens themselves. “The second time I read I was convinced I’d lost the part, and I was bummed. Then I got a call saying to keep my phone on all day; I thought it was nice the casting director was going to call me personally to say I didn’t get the role. But no one called. The next day I was at my grandmother’s, and the phone rang – it was Ethan and Joel. They said, ‘Have you talked to your agents yet?’ I said ‘No’; they said, ‘So you don’t know? You got the part.’ It was awesome.” Appropriately enough, his role as singing cowboy star Hobie Doyle involved him going through a modern approximation of the 50s studio-players school. “As soon as I got the part I was doing horseback riding, trick roping, gun twirling, guitar. And the spaghetti lasso, which was the hardest.” The altered reality of making films-within-films also took a bit of getting used to: in one of the film’s funniest scenes, Ehrenreich’s hick-accented Doyle gets foisted on a brittle drawing-room melodrama – called Merrily We Dance – orchestrated by Ralph Fiennes’ agonised director Laurence Laurentz. “It was so crazy. We were doing it in a wide shot, and the camera and the whole Hail, Caesar! crew is way over there in the corner of the sound stage. Over here it’s me with the Merrily We Dance crew, and we play the whole thing completely straight. It felt like we were really making the Merrily We Dance.” Still, even if he becomes the breakout star of Hail, Caesar!, Ehrenreich is probably best known for the YA witchcraft movie Beautiful Creatures – a very different kettle of fish, one would assume. “It’s funny: the reason I did Beautiful Creatures was the same reason I did everything else – even though it was a genre film, and existed at a more studio level, the script and the characters were so well written.” Not so unlike Hail, Caesar! then? “Obviously the conversation around them is different. But it always feels like the same job.” • Hail, Caesar! is released in the UK on 4 March
Net earnings: top YouTubers' income rises 23% in past year Their talents range from comedy to gaming and from singing to playing pranks, often captured with nothing more than a handheld camera. But YouTubers are at the vanguard of an industry worth tens of millions of pounds. Forbes’ ranking of the 12 highest-earning YouTube stars shows they collectively earned £55m in the past 12 months, an increase of 23% on last year. The substantial rise in income is a testament to the growing influence of YouTube celebrities, who have moved beyond the platform to monetise their digital success, by authoring bestselling books, securing film deals and, in one case, becoming the face of L’Oréal. It is the second year that Forbes has ranked the earnings of YouTube celebrities, who come from countries including the US, France, Sweden, India and Chile. The list was again topped by PewDiePie, whose name is Felix Arvid Ulf Kjellberg. The 27-year-old from Sweden has built up a following of nearly 50 million subscribers for his videos, which have had 11bn views, in which he comedically narrates while playing video games. It has proved to be an increasingly lucrative pastime since Kjellberg joined YouTube in 2010. Forbes estimated that he earned $15m (£11.8m) last year from advertising revenue and sales of his parody self-help tome This Book Loves You. The list this year features four new entries, most of whom have capitalised on their enormous online following to earn six-figure book deals and sell merchandise. Roman Atwood, who earned $8m last year from videos of him and his friends performing pranks in the street, has a book and feature film in the pipeline, as well as an online store that sells branded hats, pens and sunglasses. Integrated sponsorship deals, where companies pay for their products to feature in popular vlogs, are also a large source of revenue for this generation of YouTube celebrities. The comedy duo Smosh, who are fourth on the Forbes list with earnings of $7m, had a series sponsored by razor company Schick. One of the new entries is the vlogger Tyler Oakley, who has won plaudits for using his largely video diary YouTube channel to challenge LGBT issues and speak about being bullied and having an eating disorder. Oakley, who earned $5m last year, has had a book reach number two in the New York Times bestseller list and interviewed Barack Obama. Oakley attributed the success of YouTube vloggers to the DIY ethos they continue to represent for a young audience. “I think it’s the concept of authenticity,” he said. “It’s an honesty that didn’t exist in media before when I was growing up. For example, gay youth might look at me and feel more of a connection because it’s a human, as opposed to a fictional TV character who’s gay. “For sure, YouTube is becoming so important in challenging those closed-minded attitudes. I think through YouTube, a lot of people have met their first openly LGBTQ people. “And by feeling that level of intimacy with people like me and other YouTubers, it has definitely accelerated the sentiment of acceptance. “I think there’s a level of intimacy with YouTube people, where maybe [with] a movie star, you feel [a] connection maybe once a year. With YouTube, you can find who you want and if you don’t like someone, you don’t have to watch it.” The number of YouTube channels making six-figure sums is up by 50% on last year. One of the UK’s biggest YouTube stars is Zoe Sugg, known as Zoella, a vlogger living in Brighton whose chatty videos about beauty have earned her millions of followers. Her book, Girl Online, broke the record for the highest first week sales of a first-time novelist when it was released. However, Penguin later admitted that Sugg had not written the book and had instead “worked with an expert editorial team to help her bring to life her characters and experiences in a heartwarming and compelling story”.
Mind the merde: why can't French cities clean up after their dogs? “No one here gives a damn.” Jean-Marie Zaragoza is astride his motocrotte, a customised motorbike with a vacuum pipe that he uses to hoover up excrement, which is deposited into a small tank on the back of the vehicle. “They even let their dogs do it right in front of us. And sometimes it’s not even the dogs doing it – it’s the people.” He pauses, to let it percolate in. The horror. Look up while you’re in Montpellier, and the city is all tawny limestone edifices and wrought-iron balconies, a beautiful and slightly mysterious medieval town. Look down, and it’s a shitshow. Since moving to the city, I’ve been shocked at the amount of dog poo on the pavements, squished into gratings, dolloped generously around trees, washed into a greasy bouillon by the rain. The city’s 26,000 dogs (10% of the human population is the general rule of thumb) produce around three tonnes of the good stuff a day, much of it scattered around awaiting a poorly aimed espadrille. Zaragoza, and the city’s Brigade de Propreté et Incivilités (BPI – Cleanliness and Anti-Social Behaviour Squad), with whom I’m out on patrol, are on the frontline disarming this merde-field. Paris, which had its own fleet of 70 motocrottes until they were deemed too expensive in 2002, has a similar reputation to Montpellier; so do Toulouse, Marseilles and Nice. Indeed, France, much anecdotal evidence suggests, has major picking-up issues. A 2015 survey based on the amount of poop bags sold across the world by the company Beco Pets saw France come bottom: 3,600 bags, to the UK’s 1.85m. It wasn’t even until 2007 that dog fouling was specifically mentioned in French law; Britain passed its own law – the Dogs (Fouling of Land) Act – back in 1996. In Montpellier, it’s only in the last couple of years that any serious facilities – 130 bins with poop-bag distributors; dog parks (expanding to 27); dog-handling classes – have been put in place for those with the inclination to scoop. But can the French be made to care? And if so, how? Dog-fouling is a 20th-century, quintessentially urban problem: before the arrival of the automobile, the ordure you had to worry about was from horses. Dogs were low down the list of problems; plus there was a commercial incentive to pick up dog faeces because tanneries used it to taw skins. In Montpellier, every so often at heel-height there’s an iron loop fixed into the buildings: these are decrottoirs (“shit-scrapers”). In the 18th century, when town and country were still jostling against each other, visitors might arrive at a city building with mud-caked boots, and need a decrottoir. In the early 20th century, as city dogs hit critical mass and a decrottoir was more likely to be giving off that sickly aroma, people stopped installing them. New York was the first major city to force its citizens to pick up after their pets, in 1978, after a long legislative battle fought by mayor Ed Koch. Animal-rights groups among the most regressive opponents: they argued it was too much to expect owners to go cack-handed, as it were. Since then, countless cities have gingerly trodden the same path, trying to convince their citizens with the right balance of reprimands and education. And it can be done. Jon Gerlis, campaigns officer for The Dogs Trust, says that while dog-fouling is not definitively dying out in the UK, it’s now one of the most complained-about issues. “Twenty years ago, you could walk 100 metres down the street and count 10 instances of dog-fouling. Nowadays, you might see one. But that example is going to infuriate you a lot more.” That shifted consensus is where Montpellier seeks to be. Handling dog waste is top of no one’s to-do list, so persuading people to do it is an elemental exercise in fostering that most intangible of things: civic spirit. BPI members Julien Debray and Ludivine Diguelman – Raybanned, trim, personable – are there to tease it out of the citizenry. Currently nine in number and created in 2012 not just in response to dogs, but to wider issues of street cleanliness and flytipping, the Brigade say they face a particular challenge: southerners just don’t like being told. People here are “chauvinist”, observes Diguelman, a staunch Montpelliéraine who also played centre-midfield for the city’s football team (and now plays for nearby Nimes). Debray adds: “We do our job as well as we can, but les sudistes do what they want.” He steps over a foam mattress dumped in the street. “They aren’t very civilised.” If the Beco Pets survey is anything to go by, however, it isn’t necessarily a headstrong Mediterranean problem: Italy, with 800,000, was second only to the UK in poop-bag sales. So what is it about France in particular? Debray cites another common explanation: “The French are too mollycoddled. They expect the state to do everything for them. They say, ‘I pay my taxes, so you should pick up our shit.’” One group who don’t pay tax but the Brigade deal with often are the homeless. On patrol, we walk past plenty of rough sleepers, sitting in odd nooks, waiting expectantly on shopping boulevards, and more often than not with a dog in tow. A big presence in Montpellier, there’s heavy overlap with the local outpost of itinerant Euro-crusties and Roma. Lots of people blame these punks à chiens for the deluge; others say they make convenient scapegoats for regular, irresponsible dog owners. The punks’ lack of ID papers means it’s difficult for the BPI to sanction them. “They like playing games with us,” says Debray. This only highlights the BPI’s overall lack of agency: they can report malfeasance and issue spot-fines up to €450, but they have no legal right to demand ID. They also have to catch people in the act. And emblazoned polyester and epaulettes are likely to make a prospective pavement-pepperer disappear faster than you can say chocolate Mr Whippy. Debray and Diguelman say they’ve suggested plain-clothes patrols, to no avail so far. In any case, the municipality say they’re moving away from wielding the big stick. “I used to think only criminal charges would work,” says Valérie Barthas-Orsal, the counsellor responsible for Montpellier’s highways, and by extension any excrement upon them. “But it isn’t true. Coercion only ever has limited effects. We prefer a pedagogic impact. And education takes time.” She cites the city of Metz, in Moselles, which once issued 5,000 charges for cleanliness issues a year, “and it didn’t resolve the problem”. She prefers face-to-face engagement, to employ the same nurturing tactics that worked in her previous profession of primary-school teacher. “I never gave in to my pupils, I never grumbled in front of them. And they always succeeded because I put in my place an environment conducive to learning. And this is the same: we offer an environment in which people are encouraged to change their behaviour.” This is a discreet version of the softly-slowly approach that has transformed British dog ownership to the point where, says Gerlis, carrying poop-bags is “almost commonplace”. Successive campaigns, like the Dog Trust’s The Big Scoop and others from Keep Britain Tidy, seem to have burrowed into the national psyche – partly by instilling the message at an early age in schools, before children take over the walking of family dogs. Debray and Diguelman do the same on a one-to-one basis, but say they’ve never seen large-scale campaigns in France. There is also a current fad for technological solutions, like the “canine CSI” being put into place to DNA-test dog-stools in Tarragona, Spain and the London borough of Barking and Dagenham. Presumably any owner willing to submit their pets for a DNA swab – necessary if the scheme is going to work – isn’t likely to be on the dog-fouling most-wanted list anyway. Streetkleen, the firm providing the technology for the Barking scheme, argue that signing up to such a database is an important step in creating a kind of community consciousness that can guilt-trip squeamish dog-walkers into doing the dirty. But Gerlis is sceptical: “A lot of these moves are largely for press coverage – to shout to constituents: this is what we’re doing. The sad truth of the matter is that they tend to disappear quite quickly. All you need to do is to encourage people to pick up through education. It’s not sexy, it’s not exciting, but it’s the only thing we’ve found so far that works.” On the Place de la Comédie, Montpellier’s central esplanade, that day of civic enlightenment still feels distant. One of the resident crusties, lolling in the sun with his scratty hound, raises a sarcastic index finger in the air as our patrol passes. Watching your step will continue to be part of French life for now because, says Debray, “that’s how society wants it”. He sweeps his gaze past the finger and moves on. Follow Cities on Twitter and Facebook and join the discussion
Norwich v Newcastle, Arsenal v Watford and more: football clockwatch – as it happened That’s about it for today. Thanks for your company, night! While ye wait for match reports, why not followed the build-up to the humdinging fixcture at Anfield? “A foul in the lead-up to Norwich’s second goal and a handball for their third,” says John Davis. “Absolutely sick.” That’s the beauty of Clockwatch: the readers tell you what happened rather than the other way round. So, all six games have now finished. There were 21 goals, plenty of them superb, and some ridiculous drama at Carrow Road. We’ll have match reports from the games any minute now. Nothing to see here, at least not in terms of the results, though they were some very nice goals in both games. A mighty win for Norwich after a ceaselessly dramatic second half. They are six points clear of Newcastle and four clear of Sunderland. “The referee’s ineptitude is palpable,” chant the frustrated West Ham fans. That decisions could be extremely costly. But when the dust settles we’ll remember this game for Dimitri Payet’s staggering CGI free-kick. What a frustrating day for Sunderland, who had so much of the game but couldn’t score. “I like Borini a lot as a man,” says Ian Copestake. “But having a signature goal celebration before even scoring ten in a season always struck me as asking fate for a bollocking.” An amazing finish to amazing game! There is talk of a handball in the build up, but Norwich have surely won it! Oh my, Norwich have scored! I can’t take this any more, and I don’t even support any of them. It was the right decision apparently. This is incredible, and I’m not even watching it! Cisse’s header seemed to have given Newcastle an injury-time winner only for Ruddy to make a brilliant save. Another crucial goal from Theo Walcott. Meanwhile, Mitrovic almost won it for Newcastle but headed an excellent chance wife! “I’ve always had a soft spot for Roy,” writes James A Crane, “but the high-point for me was when he was getting interviewed live (perhaps on Sky Sports News) before the 2014 World Cup; they were on a boat on the Amazon and in answer to a fluffy question about the difficulty of the group he started riffing on how he felt like Klaus Kinski in Fitzcarraldo - interviewer completely flummoxed, Roy having a good old laugh to himself, tremendous stuff. Does anyone know of the existence of this clip? Was it just a wondrous dream?” Ah, I think I’ve found it. Another chance for Sunderland, with Foster saving desperately from Defoe! Sunderland have battered West Brom but it’s still 0-0. “Naismith billiards,” begins Toby Podmore. “All fun and jokes and laughter, but doesn’t that constitute sexual assault? I can’t think of another walk of life where you could grab someone’s genitals with the express intention of upsetting them without some kind of consequence...” Mitrovic scores! Ruddy got a hand to it but it went in, and Mitrovic has done it again for Newcastle! “PENALTY!” shouts Paul Merson. “PENALTY!” It was a needless handball by O’Neil. Thanks to Phil Podolsky for this. Sunderland desperately need a goal, which makes the presence of Fabio Borini contextually unfortunate. His curling shot is saved by Ben Foster. “I feel like there have been an inordinate amount of deflected goals today,” says Evan Haas. “Chaos really is the theme of the season.” Swansea have equalised! Alberto Paloschi turns smartly and hits a shot that is deflected into the net. So. “Doctor Naismith,” writes Chris Nemeh. At least he performed the procedure with a smile, unlike Dr Vincent. Palace are level! Dwight Gayle picks up a loose ball and finishes superbly. What a day this has been in the Premier League: 18 goals in seven games, with more to come in the last 15 minutes – or your money back! “Trenchcoat Roy,” says Allan Castle, trembling with fear. Oh, Newcastle. Dieumerci Mbokani’s flashing shot has put Norwich back in front barely two minutes after Mitrovic’s equaliser. A deflected header from Alexsandar Mitrovic loops over John Ruddy and into the net. That’s a huge goal for Rafa Benitez, from the same player who equalised against Sunderland a fortnight ago. Gylfi Sigurdsson scores neatly to bring Swansea back into the match. I’m surprised a bigger club hasn’t bought him; he’s a lovely player. A dreadful decision by Mark Clattenburg, according to the chaps on Soccer Saturday: a straight red for a high tackle by Kouyate on Dwight Gayle. “It’s just such a terrible, terrible, terrible decision,” says Jeff Stelling. So, as things stand Newcastle and Sunderland are in the malodorous stuff – respectively six and four points behind Norwich, albeit with a game in hand. “Palace to lose, if only for the motley collection of beards in that defensive wall and beyond,” says Tim Smith. “Taking the hipster beard too far, I think.” It surely can’t be long before we have the first bearded XI. “Blinking flip!” says Mark Turner of Payet’s goal. “I saw Pablo Aimar curl one in for River Plate vs Flamengo like that, maybe 15 years ago in Buenos Aires. I was in the main stand, we all went wappy, then turned round to watch the TV replay in the bar behind us and 2,000 people all went “OHH” in synch. All the same...Payet...blinking flip!” I still can’t believe some clown left Payet out of this piece on free-kick specialists. “The warm-weather training was bittersweet, to be honest,” says Matt Dony. “It was good conditioning, but I was only there because Llanfair­pwllgwyngyll­gogery­chwyrn­drobwll­llan­tysilio­gogo­goch Fiver’s continued good form is keeping me out of the international squad. Anyway, just wait until the tabloid stories about what else I got up to put there hit the press...” You didn’t eat a shish kebab did you? Bojan has double Stoke’s lead. You’re welcome. A chance for Newcastle. Andros Townsend’s shot is superbly saved by Ruddy, and Cisse – flagged offside, perhaps wrongly – makes a mess of the loose ball anyway. Whatever happened to the man who did this? “Dmitri Payet is 29, as is Jamie Vardy and Riyad Mahrez is 25, as is N’Golo Kanté,” says Gary Naylor. “Two years ago, few of us had heard of any of them, yet they are arguably the four outstanding players in the Premier League this season. How have these transformations happened? Or are there hundreds of talents sailing under the radar just waiting for the right manager / formation / attitude? It’s a Funny Old Game eh Saint?” I know one man who had heard of them all two years ago, and Danny Drinkwater too. Hector Bellerin’s volley deflects off Ben Watson and into the net. That’ll be that. “Half times from Scotland,” says Simon McMahon. “St Johnstone 0 Dundee United 1. That’s it. Put that in your fancy new Scottish football magazine, Stuart Cosgrove.” Somebody needs to do an essay on this. That Payet free-kick is outrageous. As my colleague Gregg Bakowski just said, the dip is so late and so sharp that it looks like a special effect. Here’s clear evidence that Peter Reid invented the gegenpress. Although I suppose really it’s more of a gegencrunch. That was a pretty eventful 45 minutes in the Premier League, with nine goals in six matches. A few of them were crackers, none better than the latest episode in the Dimitri Payet Show. Timm Klose has given Norwich the lead in injury-time. A huge goal, that; if they win this game they will be six points clear of Newcastle. The marking was abysmal according to Rafa Benitez, who has just snapchatted me. “It may be too late,” says Vincent Forrester, “but can someone please warn Eddie Izzard that the man with the tissue is about to sneeze on him?” Yep, him again. Dimitri Payet has given West Ham the lead with another spectacular free-kick. He fooled Wayne Hennessey into thinking he would curl it to the near post, and instead he sent a booming curler into the far top corner. He is pretty awesome right now, and one of the main reasons that this has been perhaps the outstanding feelgood season of the Premier League era. “My suggestion for expanding your brand,” begins David Hunter. “Clockwatch Countryfile, in which you 1) visit the outer reaches of football such as Dorking Town Football Club (the Chicks), and the Wensleydale Creamery Football League, 2) harvest origin stories of players we will never hear of, and 3) provide weather forecasts that are completely irrelevant to urban dwellers and/or games in progress.” Alex Iwobi makes it two goals in two Premier League starts, scoring from Alexis Sanchez’s fine cutback. Arsenal might have found a player here. “That Sky advert seems to show Peter Reid as the true inventor of gegenpressing,” says Tim Myles, “surely someone should get Pep and Jurgen to fess up and give the man credit?” And give it its full name – gegenfochinpressin – while they’re at it. Ben Foster has made a fine save to deny Sunderland’s Lee Cattermole, and Newcastle’s Karl Darlow has made an even better stop with his legs to deny Mbokani. Paul Merson reckons it’s the best save Darlow has made in his career, having seen them all. Here’s the Premier League table as things stand. Fernandinho has hit the bar for Manchester City, who are playing to their considerable potential at Dean Court and already lead 3-0. No Premier League goals in the last few minutes, so here’s something from 1992 “Did I say Roy Hogdson?” says Ian Copestake. “I actually meant Monica Bellucci.” Ah, fair enough. Here she is. “Maybe City could somehow nick the Champions League?” says Phil Podolsky. “I miss the days when the combination of indifferent domestic form, lack of team spirit and great players made you a firm favourite to win it.” Heh. I suppose the precedents of Liverpool in 2005 and Chelsea in 2012 suggest it’s not beyond the realms, but I really can’t see it. Well, that’s one game done for the day. Sergio Aguero leaps like Denis Law to ram a header into the net from Jesus Navas’s cross. Can people stop scoring goals please? My fingers can’t take it. West Ham, affronted by going behind to Palace, and now level after an emphatic finish from Manuel Lanzini. What an outstanding team they have been this season. Norwich have had a goal disallowed against Newcastle, with Dieumerci Mbokani rightly flagged offside. “It is clear that Matt Dony has spent the international break in Dubai getting in some warm-weather zinger training,” says Ian Copestake. “We are all seeing the benefits.” Even Roy. It’s taken years off him. Damien Delaney has headed Palace ahead at Upton Park. As you all know, Palace haven’t won a league game this year. A simple header from Ibrahim Afellay, on his 30th birthday, puts Stoke ahead. A lovely goal from the returning Kevin De Bruyne doubles City’s lead. City are such a frustrating side; they are clearly the best team in the league, or at least the team with the most ability. Yet they are struggling to finish in top four. “I am grateful,” says Ian Copestake, “for the return of a form of football that allows me to not look at Roy Hodgson.” Here’s some visual banter. An alternative use for stress balls City are ahead at Dean Court, thanks to a good finish from Fernando. If City win their last eight gam- ach, no, the best they can do is probably second now. “Expand the brand,” says Matt Dony. “I’m looking forward to Strictly Clockwatch, and the chance to enjoy watching actors I’ve never heard of describe Bournemouth going a goal down to Swansea in a pithy manner, after a week of emotional training.” A flying start from Arsenal is rewarded when Alexis Sanchez scores at the second attempt. If Arsenal win their last eight games – yes, I know – they might sneak the title. Some match reports from the earlier games Peep peep! The six Premier League matches have started. Peep! Peep peep! Before things get SERIOUS when the FOOTBALL starts, here are some fictional sociopaths to lighten the mood. (Warning for those who like to be offended: this clip contains adult language.) “Afternoon Rob,” says Simon McMahon. “Like the Proclaimers, I’m on my way to Perth for Scotland’s game of the day between St. Johnstone and Dundee United. United remain seven points behind Kilmarnock, who travel to Partick today, and really need a win to keep their hopes of avoiding the drop alive. “With league games against Partick and Inverness, and a Scottish Cup semi final against Hibs within the next fortnight, lets hope April isn’t the cruelest month for United. Their large travelling support deserve a performance today, though Perth hasn’t been a happy hunting ground recently. From misery to happiness today, though, eh? In the early kick off it finished Celtic 3 Hearts 1.” We need to start paying you, don’t we? At Villa Park, it’s Aston Villa 0-4 Chelsea. Barry Glendenning is writing the last rites. Another email! “‘Clockwatch Gold’,” sniffs Mac Millings, in reference to the Preamble down the page. “Not to be confused with the predictably unerotic After Dark spin-off, ‘Rob Smyth puts the “L” in “Clockwatch”.’” An email! “Let’s do this, Rob,” says Phil Podolsky. “Here with you all the way through to the Clasico.” Arsenal v Watford Arsenal: Ospina, Bellerin, Gabriel, Koscielny, Monreal, Elneny, Coquelin, Sanchez, Ozil, Iwobi, Welbeck. Subs: Gibbs, Mertesacker, Giroud, Walcott, Chambers, Campbell, Cech. Watford: Gomes, Nyom, Cathcart, Prodl, Ake, Mario Suarez, Watson, Abdi, Capoue, Ighalo, Deeney. Subs: Britos, Jurado, Amrabat, Guedioura, Pantilimon, Berghuis, Anya. Referee: Anthony Taylor (Cheshire) Bournemouth v Manchester City Bournemouth: Boruc, Smith, Francis, Cook, Daniels, Ritchie, O’Kane, Surman, Gradel, Grabban, King. Subs: Gosling, Elphick, Pugh, Iturbe, Federici, Distin, Murray. Man City: Caballero, Zabaleta, Otamendi, Mangala, Clichy, Fernando, Fernandinho, Jesus Navas, Silva, De Bruyne, Aguero. Subs: Sagna, Nasri, Kolarov, Bony, Demichelis, Wright, Iheanacho. Referee: Robert Madley (West Yorkshire) Norwich v Newcastle Norwich: Ruddy, Wisdom, Bennett, Klose, Olsson, Brady, O’Neil, Howson, Jarvis, Naismith, Mbokani. Subs: Bassong, Jerome, Bamford, Rudd, Hoolahan, Mulumbu, Redmond. Newcastle: Darlow, Janmaat, Mbemba, Taylor, Anita, Shelvey, Tiote, Townsend, Wijnaldum, Sissoko, Cisse. Subs: De Jong, Lascelles, Perez, Riviere, Woodman, Sterry, Mbabu. Referee: Mike Dean (Wirral) Stoke v Swansea Stoke: Haugaard, Bardsley, Cameron, Wollscheid, Pieters, Whelan, Imbula, Afellay, Krkic, Arnautovic, Joselu. Subs: Muniesa, Ireland, Adam, Diouf, Given, Crouch, El Ouriachi. Swansea: Fabianski, Rangel, Fernandez, Williams, Naughton, Cork, Fer, Britton, Sigurdsson, Routledge, Gomis. Subs: Amat, Taylor, Ki, Paloschi, Emnes, Nordfeldt, Montero. Referee: Martin Atkinson (W Yorkshire) Sunderland v West Brom Sunderland: Mannone, Yedlin, Kone, Kaboul, Van Aanholt, Khazri, M’Vila, Cattermole, Kirchhoff, Borini, Defoe. Subs: Jones, Larsson, Rodwell, N’Doye, Pickford, O’Shea, Toivonen. West Brom: Foster, Dawson, Chester, Evans, McAuley, Sandro, Yacob, Fletcher, Gardner, Rondon, Berahino. Subs: Olsson, Anichebe, Myhill, McClean, Lambert, Pritchard, Leko. Referee: Roger East (Wiltshire) West Ham v Crystal Palace West Ham: Adrian, Antonio, Reid, Ogbonna, Cresswell, Kouyate, Noble, Emenike, Lanzini, Payet, Sakho. Subs: Randolph, Song, Tomkins, Carroll, Valencia, Obiang, Moses. Crystal Palace: Hennessey, Ward, Dann, Delaney, Souare, Jedinak, Ledley, Zaha, Bolasie, Puncheon, Sako. Subs: Mariappa, Campbell, McCarthy, Lee, Gayle, Mutch, Kelly. Referee: Mark Clattenburg (Tyne & Wear) Saturday afternoon with Joey Barton This is a plug for a new quarterly, which has support from giants of the written word like Stuart Cosgrove, Jonathan Wilson and Rob Smyth. The Kickstarter campaign ends today. “We intend to launch a publication devoted to Scottish football,” says Ally Palmer. “Our aim is to create something completely new in Scotland - a football publication that is all about the writers, the writing, and great stories told at length. This piece sums up what we’re trying to do.” Duck surprise Alexandre Pato is not only playing for Chelsea today, he’s also scored. Barry Glendenning has the latest. Norwich v Newcastle preview Hello. What a gorgeous day to be at work, watching Soccer Saturday for the benefit of people you’ll never meet sup in the Penultimate-Chance Saloon. Many of the sides involved in today’s 3pm fixtures aren’t quite at the point of no return in their attempt to finish first/fourth/17th – but they aren’t far away, and defeat this afternoon would be particularly damaging for Arsenal and Newcastle. This, my little digital groupies, is Clockwatch gold*: it’s 3pm on a Saturday, in April, and yet all six fixtures mean something! (Before you cite Stoke v Swansea, Stoke are only five points off a Champions League place. They kept that quiet.) Norwich v Newcastle is probably the pick of the fixtures. Buckle up: for those involved today, it’s now or next week! * Not to be confused with Clockwatch Gold, our new series starting next week in which we revisit an afternoon of football from 1964 and do banter in the contemporary style.
Trump stokes fires under Clintons Bernie Sanders has asked Kentucky to retabulate its returns from last Tuesday’s primary, in which Hillary Clinton edged Sanders narrowly but the delegates were split evenly. The Clinton campaign had no comment. He’s in this until every last vote is counted and he’s fighting for every last delegate. – Sanders spokesman Michael Briggs, not kidding The presumptive Republican nominee has spotlighted a 1999 rape allegation against Bill Clinton and called the 1993 death of deputy White House counsel Vincent Foster “very fishy”. Trump could face chaos in ‘riot happy’ California city Foster was a lawyer who killed himself months after coming to work at the White House for Bill Clinton, a childhood friend. Trump has taken a conspiracy theorists’ line that it was “murder”. Rubio: ‘It’s not that we lost, it’s that Trump won’ [Foster] had intimate knowledge of what was going on. He knew everything that was going on, and then all of a sudden he committed suicide… I don’t bring it up because I don’t know enough to really discuss it. I will say there are people who continue to bring it up because they think it was absolutely a murder. – Donald J Trump After Trump released an attack ad yesterday which samples a 1999 interview in which she alleged that Bill Clinton sexually assaulted her in 1978, Juanita Broaddrick told Fox Radio on Monday night that it was a “rape”. ‘It’s hard for me to say the word “rape”’ Clinton’s attorney denied the allegations on his behalf at the time, and Broaddrick herself had testified in a deposition that Clinton did not make unwelcome sexual advances. SEIU makes climate change a priority One person to investigate the Foster case was Kenneth Starr, who later was special prosecutor on the Monica Lewinsky case. Leave aside the unpleasantness, his genuine empathy for human beings is absolutely clear. It is powerful. It is palpable. And the folks of Arkansas really understood that about him, that he genuinely cared. The ‘I feel your pain’ is absolutely genuine. – Kenneth Starr Mr Trump is proud to pay a lower tax rate, the lowest tax rate possible. He is going to pay the smallest amount of taxes possible, which I think the American people also understand. – Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski Appeals court weighs Texas voter ID law Terry McAuliffe, governor of Virginia, is the subject of a federal investigation into his 2013 campaign donations and personal finances, with a possible nexus to foreign donors. This has nothing to do with the Clinton Foundation. This was an allegation of a gentlemen who gave a check to my campaign. I didn’t bring the donor in, I didn’t bring him into the Clinton Foundation, I don’t even know if I’ve ever met the person. – Terry McAuliffe, close Clinton pal
'The party I worked for died tonight': Republicans decry Trump's dark vision Donald Trump’s dark vision of America polarized political reactions on Friday as Democrats warned against underestimating the power of his convention night appeal to the nation’s fears. In a speech to formally accept the Republican party nomination, the man portrayed by one speaker in Cleveland as the “blue-collar billionaire” repositioned himself as “the law and order candidate”, the only one capable of restoring safety to a country he claimed was facing existential challenges. “Our convention occurs at a moment of crisis for our nation. The attacks on our police, and the terrorism in our cities, threaten our very way of life. Any politician who does not grasp this danger is not fit to lead our country,” he said to rapturous applause. He also claimed to speak for ordinary Americans with an uncompromising reprisal of campaign promises on protectionism and immigration aimed at communities he said were “crushed by our horrible and unfair trade deals. These are the forgotten men and women of our country,” he told a packed crowd that repeatedly broke into chants of “U-S-A, U-S-A” and “build a wall!”. “People who work hard but no longer have a voice. I am your voice,” he claimed. It was a message that went down extremely well with Trump supporters, many of whom had been concerned by a chaotic convention that saw Michelle Obama plagiarized by Melania Trump and her husband tacitly rebuked in a speech by former rival Ted Cruz. As soon as 120,000 red, white and blue balloons started floating down from the roof of Cleveland’s Quicken Loans Arena roof to mark the end of the final speech, delegates on the floor were buried waist deep as they thrashed about in kaleidoscopic celebrations. Al Baldasaro, a New Hampshire state representative who supported Trump since he launched the campaign, was euphoric. “It feels awesome,” said Baldasaro. “We worked our butts off. Donald Trump is the real deal. The people spoke and we’re there. Now on to Hillary and we’re taking the Hill.” He exited with his wife in a neon Trump hat as the soundtrack changed to the Rolling Stones’ You Can’t Always Get You What You Want. Yet the 75-minute address, evoking for some the fear mongering nationalism of Richard Nixon rather than Ronald Reagan’s “It’s morning in America” message, caused consternation among moderate Republicans. A former White House communications director for George W Bush decried themes of “protectionism, isolationism, and nativism” that many fear will alienate independent voters in November’s election. “The Republican party that I worked for for two decades died in this room tonight,” Nicolle Wallace told NBC. “The party I was part of is dead,” agreed John McCain’s daughter and Fox News Host, Meghan McCain. Ed Cox, the chair of the New York State Republican party and Nixon’s son-in-law noted some similarities, told the : “Certainly Donald Trump calls his supporters the silent majority unapologetically. Now that was not a part of his acceptance speech in ’68, that was November ’69, the Vietnam speech. But Donald Trump has captured that silent majority completely for the first time since Reagan, and maybe even better than Reagan. But certainly like my father-in-law.” More extreme figures on the right seized on the unprecedented use of nationalist rhetoric as vindication for long-buried but darker impulses of their own. “Great Trump Speech, America First! Stop Wars! Defeat the Corrupt elites! Protect our Borders!, Fair Trade! Couldn’t have said it better!” tweeted former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke as he announced he was running for US Senate in Louisiana on a ticket to protect “European Americans”. Trump’s daughter Ivanka insisted her father was “color blind and gender neutral” in a warm-up speech that sought to soften the campaign’s appeal to women, black and Latino voters. Others debunked his use of crime statistics, particularly claims that the police murder rate had soared, that depended on a selective use of annual comparison periods. Instead the average number of police murders per year has fallen from 101 under Ronald Reagan, 90 under George HW Bush, 81 under Bill Clinton, 72 under George W Bush, to just 62 under Obama. Fact checkers also noted exaggerated descriptions of the threat to ordinary citizens, particularly when Trump departed from prepared remarks to claim Americans were living through a “more dangerous environment than I have ever seen or anyone has ever seen”. In early responses from the White House, Barack Obama said that Trump overstated the violence but noted that a recent uptick in homicide rates in big US cities is real, and demands to be addressed. Obama added: “We’re not going to make good decisions based on fears that don’t have a basis in fact, and that, I think, is something I hope all Americans pay attention to.” Bookmakers showed a small uptick in the odds of Trump winning the presidency after a week of powerful convention headlines, putting his chance of winning the White House at around 30%. During the convention, Thomas Barrack, a friend and business associate of the New York property developer, argued that one of Trump’s greatest strengths was his ability to manipulate people he did business with. “He played me like a Steinway piano,” said Barrack. It was a character trait acknowledged by Trump himself during his speech, who said his business experience gave him the skills to fix a rigged country. “Nobody knows the system better than me,” he shrugged with smirk. “Which is why I alone can fix it.” His former ghostwriter Tony Schwartz responded on Twitter: “This is the Donald Trump i came to know. not a word about hope. not a word about possibility. all doom all the time.” Democrats also expressed alarm that the polished showbiz performance of Trump, who, for once, rarely strayed from his prepared message and softened controversial language on Muslims, could resonate among a distracted and fearful electorate. “We have 109 days to stop Donald Trump, so pitch in whatever you can to help make sure we beat Trump/Pence and the rest of the GOP on Election Day,” said a swiftly-issued fundraising email from the Hillary Clinton campaign. Former Obama campaign manager Jim Messina added, in a tweet: “I woke up today & thought ‘there is no fucking way we can let Trump become POTUS’. Let’s go to work.” The sharpest reactions however came from outside politics, including those alarmed at what they see as creeping fascism in a speech that mentioned violence and killing nine times each. US comedian Jon Stewart blasted: “This country isn’t yours. You don’t own it … You don’t own patriotism.” “I’ve heard this sort of speech a lot in the last 15 years and trust me, it doesn’t sound any better in Russian,” said Vladimir Putin critic and chess grandmaster Gary Kasparov. This article was amended on 23 July 2016 to correct the name of Donald Trump’s former ghostwriter. He is Tony Schwartz, not Tom.
The Republican women unfazed by Trump's sexism: 'I don’t think it matters' Anoka, Minnesota: ‘He tells it like it is’ Anoka, Minnesota, may be only a 35-minute drive from liberal downtown Minneapolis, but this is Michele Bachmann country, part of a string of northern ex-urban suburbs that are solidly Republican. These days, it’s also predominantly Trump country. The female Trump supporters the spoke to here vigorously defended their candidate as the one that will be best for women, and ultimately the country. They were unconcerned about his comments on women and weight or Alicia Machado. “Even though he goes on rampages and he says dumb things sometimes, I really believe he will fight for this country,” says Kim Stone, 41 the general manager of 201 Tavern, a downtown bar. “I think Hillary Clinton is a bully. I think she is, versus Trump, an evil person. I just want to see somebody finally get something done, and he will. I think he has a lot to learn, but I think that when he gets into office, he’ll do what he says he’s going to do, and maybe we need somebody like that, and not an extra politician who has been in politics all these years.” Kathy Fossber, 66, a retired Medicare specialist, sat in the leafy back patio of a hip coffee shop called the Avant Garden, catching up with a friend who knitted throughout the conversation. “Clinton is bringing this up, but it happened many, many years ago. Why is she doing this? (...) Maybe back then, at that time, he felt she was putting on weight, and of course it made her mad, but he calls it like it is,” she says. “She represents Miss Universe, and she still did even after the time was up, so she had that obligation to keep herself as she was when she won the contest. She was representing women at that time,” she added. Jody Christensen, 47, a business owner, wore a black jacket and a headband adorned with skulls as she prepared to jump on the back of a motorcycle. “I don’t think it matters. I really don’t give a shit about Miss Universe. That’s not what politics are about. We should be talking about protecting our country, and taxes.” In her view, Trump would be the better candidate for women. “He would be great for women because he believes in business, and he has top executives in his company that are women. You want to work for a living? Then he’s the person you want. You want to be on welfare? Then you should vote for Hillary Clinton.” Neely Miarka, 43, worked the pull tab booth at another downtown bar, selling lottery tickets. “I think it was taken out of context. I don’t think he was trying to say, ‘hey, you’re a fat slob’. Hillary isn’t all that great either, she’s not standing up for women. Who says Hillary is going to, just because she is one? We’ve given these politicians how many years to try? Hundreds and hundreds of years, and they haven’t.” For Amy Domino, a 36-year-old waitress at the same bar, Trump’s comments were inconsequential. “I think he says a lot of off color things. It doesn’t really matter. It’s his views. I think it’s perfectly fine that he says how he feels. It’s just who he is. I support his other views as far as being a Republican, and pro-gun.” Trump Tower, New York: ‘No women in the White House’ On a rainy Friday in New York, Joyce, Rene and Jessica, three friends on vacation from Georgia and Florida, trekked through the bad weather to check out Trump Tower. “We made it a point to come see this,” said Joyce, who works for her local church. “We’ve been walking for blocks,” Jessica, who also works for the church, added. All Trump supporters, the three friends weren’t bothered by the Republican nominee’s sometimes harsh statements about women. “People always say things they shouldn’t say, and just because he’s in the spotlight, they’re going to bring it all out,” Jessica said. “We all regret things that we’ve said or done. But I was raised old school and it’s called forgiveness and nobody’s perfect.” “Who cares about Rosie O’Donnell or Miss Universe not being skinny?” she added. While the friends said they don’t hate Clinton, Rene said they don’t believe women should be in the White House. “The three P’s,” Rene said. “Police officers, preachers or presidents.” Joyce, however, said she would have voted for former Alaska governor Sarah Palin. While she didn’t watch the debate on Monday, Joyce thought that Clinton bringing up Trump’s comments about Machado was keeping undecided voters from “looking at the big picture”. Marie and Katy, two retired elementary school teachers from south-east Texas, also thought Clinton bringing up Trump’s past comments was unfair. On vacation in New York, they decided to stop in the Trump Cafe for lunch. “She has done far worse towards women than he ever has,” said Marie, 72, adding she was glad he “got away” from making comments about women’s appearances. Her husband, Clovis, added: “This world is not about women’s weight. It’s about who is going to do the best for our country.” Both women agreed. Trump’s comments bothered Michelle, 49, a homemaker from Florida and an undecided voter. “I don’t like it. I didn’t like it when he made them,” she said when asked about Trump’s past remarks about women. “And to hear more things about him, like the pageant contestant – I had never heard that before – that even turns me off more so.” She thought Trump was crazy for saying Clinton doesn’t have a presidential look. “It has nothing to do with what you look like. If that was the case, Bill Clinton would still be in office,” she joked. Michelle often debates politics with her sister, Terry, 57, who will be voting for Clinton. Terry laughed, not unkindly, when she heard her sister talk about Trump’s comments. “Are you sure you don’t know who you’re voting for?” she said. Anchorage, Alaska: ‘He needs to control his mouth’ At Hi-Rollers Hair Salon in Anchorage, Amie Haakenson, 45, was waiting for her color to set. She’s a registered Republican planning on voting for Trump. His comments about weight weren’t wise, she said, but there are larger issues in the election to consider. “I am an overweight, middle-aged woman. I could really care less about the (weight) comment,” she said. She was more bothered by the fact Trump didn’t seem to be reining in inappropriate comments as she’d hoped he would as he became a more seasoned candidate. “He needs to control his mouth, that’s what he needs to do,” she said. “To be quite honest, I say things that are inappropriate sometimes too, like everyone else, but I try not to let them come out when I am the face of an organization, much less the face of the free world.” A presidency isn’t just about one person, it’s about the group of people that they bring with them, she said. On the campus of University of Alaska in Fairbanks, social work professor Kim Swisher, 43, a life-long moderate Republican, said she believes strongly in second amendment rights and noted that her mother campaigned for Nixon. But Trump’s weight comments pushed her over the edge. “The weight thing concerns me,” she said. “I’m a professional woman, and I’m a size 16. What his comments have done for me, they have affirmed that due to my size, I would be invalid in a world where Trump leads.” She was particularly disappointed in the Republican party for not offering voters a better choice. “This is not the Republican party I have voted for in the past,” she said. Peggy Treadway, 30, works at an employment agency in Anchorage. In the office on Friday, she described herself as an outdoorsy woman who fishes in the summer and rides snow mobiles in the winter. “I’ve always voted Republican, always, but this year I don’t really know,” she said. Trump should never have brought up a woman’s weight, she said. “Honestly, it just adds to the pile of stones that makes me not really like him as much. It’s another strike against him. I don’t how many strikes it will take before I say enough is enough. I don’t really like the alternative, though.” Outside the Safeway grocery store in Wasilla on Friday, Lisa Smith, 43, an independent voter and mother of four foster children, said she’d gained weight due to a medication she was taking after spending many years as a size four. And for that reason, Trump’s comments felt especially cruel. “I’m considered obese. What is it, Miss Piggy, he called one of those contestants?” she said. Women and girls whose bodies don’t fit Trump’s standards have a hard enough time. “To hear somebody called that, it makes our self-esteem even worse,” she said.
George I urged daughter to try smallpox inoculation, letter shows A tender letter from George I urging his only daughter to use the risky new technique of inoculation to protect her children against smallpox has resurfaced from a box of documents that was about to be dispatched for storage in an old mine in Wales. The letter sheds fresh light on a king who spent little time in England, spoke only a few words of English and is regarded as singularly unsympathetic by his contemporaries and posterity. “George is certainly not a man one particularly warms to – but I think this shows him in at least a slightly more human light,” Richard Aspin, head of research at the Wellcome Library, said. “I find it quite touching that he addresses Sophia Dorothea quite informally as ‘ma chere fille’, my dear daughter.” Informality only went so far: he did sign himself “George R” for George Rex, in case his daughter had unaccountably forgotten that he was now king of England, not the mere elector of Hanover. Aspin recognised George’s distinctive sprawling looped handwriting – “it’s not elegant, but unlike many of our letters, George has at least the virtue of being easy to read” – while sorting through a box of documents acquired almost a century ago for their autograph value, part of the gigantic collection related to medical history assembled by the patent medicine millionaire Sir Henry Wellcome, the basis of both the Wellcome Collection and the Wellcome Trust research body. “They had been catalogued but very approximately,” Aspin said. “They were a very miscellaneous bunch, acquired for the autographs of pretty obscure figures in medical history, and they were destined for storage far from the light of day. This letter had obviously just been completely overlooked – as far as I can make out it has never been published or displayed, and probably not even looked at properly since it was acquired.” George’s affectionate letters to his daughter, written in slightly wonky French, were known and published in the 1930s, but this one had gone missing from the collection and was bought for Wellcome at a Paris auction. The Hanoverians were infamous for their extraordinarily unhappy family lives, with mutual hatred between fathers and sons across several generations, and many wretched marriages. By the time George I wrote this letter to his daughter, from St James’s Palace in May 1724, her mother had been under house arrest for years after an alleged affair with a penniless Swedish count. The Swede had been murdered, allegedly on Hanoverian orders. Sophia Dorothea’s state was not much better: married to her cousin, Frederick William I of Prussia, they had loathed one another on sight when they first met as children and never changed their minds. George wrote that he was concerned to learn that her son, the future Frederick the Great, was recovering from an attack of smallpox. Sophia herself bore the scars. Since his other grandson Frederick – “mon ptit Fils a Hanover” – later Prince of Wales – had been inoculated against the disease with complete success, he hoped she would follow the example: “Je voudrais … que toute votre familie eut le mesme sort.” Since George was writing more than 70 years before the country doctor Edward Jenner inoculated his garden boy with the much milder disease cowpox, proving it gave protection against the terrifying killer smallpox, the king’s advice was brave. Early inoculation was carried out with smallpox-infected material taken from a sufferer – usually the pus from the swellings – inserted into a scrape in the skin of the unfortunate patient. In successful cases it resulted in a mild fever and lifelong protection. When it failed it could kill. George, who signed off: “I rely entirely on your friendship, dear girl”, died of a stroke aged 67. The grandson who was inoculated, Frederick Prince of Wales, did indeed escape smallpox, but never became king, dying aged 45 of complications after being hit on the head by a cricket ball. “You still might find it hard to like George,” Aspin said, “but he does emerge as a more sympathetic and interesting character here than in many other sources.”
Europe and US remain divided by a common technology Three years ago, Eric Schmidt, the executive chairman (aka adult supervisor) of Google, spent some time in Cambridge as a visiting professor. He gave a number of lectures on his vision of what a comprehensively networked world would be like and then at the end took part in a symposium in which a number of academics commented on his ideas. As the discussion converged on the question of the new kinds of power wielded by the great internet companies, an increasingly puzzled look came over Schmidt’s countenance. Eventually the dam broke and he intervened in the debate to say that he had suddenly realised that the difference between Europe and America was that “in Europe, people tend to trust governments and are suspicious of companies, whereas in America it’s the other way around”. Like all generalisations, there is something in this, even if it’s not the whole story. In recent times we’ve seen lots of examples of a growing rift between the US and Europe over digital technology and the companies that control it. In the beginning, which in this case means the 1990s, attention was focused mostly on a single American company – Microsoft – which was accused by European competition authorities of abusing its monopoly on desktop operating systems and was eventually fined €561m for failing to promote a range of web browsers, rather than just Internet Explorer, to EU users. After that, things got steadily worse (or better, depending on your point of view). In 2000 Yahoo was sued – in France – by two French organisations that obtained a court order to stop Nazi memorabilia being advertised on its auction site. After a lot of legal wrangling, Yahoo eventually complied, which led to a lot of muttering in US libertarian circles about freedom of speech and the sainted first amendment. Then it was Google’s turn to become a European whipping boy. When its Street View cars began cruising German suburbs it encountered a substantial public backlash in which so many German businesses and households demanded that their buildings be blurred out that the company eventually caved in and announced in 2011 that it had “no plans to launch new imagery on Street View in Germany”. In more recent times, Google’s troubles in Europe have increased. The European commission’s attack dogs are investigating whether the company is abusing its monopoly of search in order to feather its own nest and undermine competitors. In May 2014 the European court of justice added to its woes by deciding that European citizens had a “right to be forgotten”, which is actually a right not to be found by European versions of Google’s search engine. Then it was Facebook’s turn in the stocks. In October last year the European court ruled that the “safe harbour” arrangement negotiated by the European commission in 2000, under which US companies such as Facebook had been exporting their European customers’ data to the States, was invalid. In the world of cloud computing and big data this was an earthquake that was off the Richter scale. Needless to say, all this legal activism in what Donald Rumsfeld calls “old Europe” has maddened the tech crowd in Silicon Valley, many of whom view regulators as dogs view lampposts. So conspiracy theories abound. The European commission is really just a front for large European media and other corporations whose profitable empires are being undermined by Google, Facebook and Amazon. European politicians are trying to defend powerful vested interests (municipal taxi franchises, for example) from American disruption. Google, Facebook et al are the new face of US economic and cultural imperialism – the McDonald’s and Disneys of the digital age and therefore the latest instantiation of American “soft power”. Or it’s all based on naked envy – Europe can’t produce the kind of corporate dynamism represented by US digital giants: it’s old Europe, remember. There may be something in these theories but my hunch is that the gulf between Europe and the US in this area mainly comes down to two things – law and culture. On the legal front, our data protection laws are radically different from those in the US and it may be that European legislation will turn out to be fundamentally incompatible with the “surveillance capitalism” essential to the prosperity of Google & co. We need to recognise that US companies invariably act on the principle that it’s easier to seek forgiveness than to ask for permission. So, like Google with Street View, they always push the envelope and only respond when they encounter opposition. All of which means that, as Oscar Wilde might have said, Europe and America are divided by a common technology.
Snowden review – whistling in the wind For a director who customarily tackles subjects with the approach of a gorilla playing American football, Oliver Stone’s take on whistleblower Edward Snowden seems curiously muted. Audiences who are already familiar with Citizenfour, Laura Poitras’s exemplary documentary on the same subject, will be struck by the fact that, in dramatising Snowden’s story, Stone seems to have leached out much of the drama. The aim was clearly to create an All the President’s Men for the age of cyber-surveillance. But somehow the sense of peril is downplayed, diluted by too much inert exposition and pacing that could be tighter. Playing Edward Snowden, Joseph Gordon-Levitt is one of the film’s main assets. His character’s ferocious intelligence is signposted with cheap details – he is forever fiddling with a Rubik’s cube and has a nerd’s enthusiasm for arcane enciphering equipment. But Snowden’s intellect is most effectively conveyed in Gordon-Levitt’s eyes – watchful, sober and clouded by doubt, they are a window into his impossible ethical quandary. Melissa Leo is somewhat underused as Poitras. And playing reporter Glenn Greenwald, Zachary Quinto is tonally jarring. It feels as though Stone realised that some of the scenes were flagging, so got Quinto to shout angrily at random moments, to keep the audience on their toes. There are some fun elements, many involving Rhys Ifans’s ruthlessly unprincipled CIA trainer Corbin O’Brian (the fact the character shares a surname with the villain of Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four is no accident). I particularly enjoyed a scene in which O’Brian’s massive glowering face is beamed into a conference room to berate Snowden. His carnivorous snarl fills the immense screen; he looks like a malevolent version of the Wizard of Oz. There’s a playful visual flair to this moment that is sadly lacking elsewhere in the film.